Good afternoon all, no points to award this week with only 18 days left to go! So no change in the league table and Paul C looks very strong there in the lead, which shows how important it is to pick successful Cert’s and Women. So far, four of us have handed in lists for 2016, so we will be continuing with the whole escaped again.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Nicholas Smith, 81, British actor (Are You Being Served?, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Doctor Who), complications from a fall.
• Holly Woodlawn, 69, Puerto Rican-born American actress and Warhol superstar, brain and liver cancer.
• Shirley Stelfox, 74, British actress (Emmerdale, Keeping Up Appearances, Coronation Street), cancer.
• Martin E. Brooks, 90, American actor (The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Dallas).
• Douglas Tompkins, 72, American conservationist and businessman, co-founder of The North Face and Esprit, hypothermia following kayak accident.

In Other News

Former US president Jimmy Carter announced that he was cancer-free on Sunday, just four months after revealing that doctors had found four spots of melanoma on his brain. “My most recent MRI brain scan did not reveal any signs of the original cancer spots nor any new ones,” Carter said in a statement on Sunday. “I will continue to receive regular three-week immunotherapy treatments of pembrolizumab,” he added, referring to a common cancer drug. Carter, 91, shared the news on Sunday with worshippers at the Baptist church in Georgia where he teaches Bible study. The news was confirmed by two grandsons. When he announced the diagnosis in August, the former president’s outlook did not appear so rosy. His entire nuclear family from childhood – two sisters, a brother and both parents – died from cancer. Carter said he had been diagnosed with melanoma on his liver and that he had told his wife of 69 years, Rosalynn, 88, months earlier. An operation to remove growths on his liver had discovered the additional growths on his brain. In November, Carter told the AP he had reacted well to treatment. “I haven’t been uncomfortable or ill after the treatments were over. So that part of it has been a relief to me and I think to the doctors. But the final result of how well the treatments are combatting or controlling the cancer, we don’t know yet.” Carter has lived 34 years post-presidency, longer than any of his peers. Both presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan lived to be 93 while former president George HW Bush turned 91 in June.

An attempt by Lord Lucan’s son to obtain a death certificate for the peer who disappeared more than 40 years ago reached the high court in London, on Tuesday. The legal move by his only son, George Bingham, is at an early stage and senior official Master Teverson is expected to deal with preliminary issues about how it should proceed. Lucan vanished after Sandra Rivett, nanny to his three children, was found murdered at the family home, 46 Lower Belgrave Street, central London, on 7 November 1974. Even though he was officially declared dead by the high court in 1999, there have been reported sightings in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand, and even claims that he fled to India and lived life as a hippy called “Jungly Barry”. Lord Bingham has applied under the Presumption of Death Act, which came into effect a year ago, so he can inherit the title as eighth earl. Bingham said the 1999 declaration had not proved death “for all purposes” and the new law allowed for a more complete process. But his application in London faces an objection from Rivett’s son, Neil Berriman. Berriman, 47, has told the Daily Mail: “I don’t know if Lord Lucan is alive or not – but I want justice. “There have been too many coverups already and he should not be declared dead. If Lord Lucan is still alive, he should be prosecuted.” On the night of Lucan’s disappearance, the nanny’s attacker also turned on Bingham’s mother, Lady Lucan, beating her severely before she managed to escape and raise the alarm at a nearby pub. Lucan’s car was found abandoned and soaked in blood in Newhaven, East Sussex, and an inquest jury declared the wealthy peer the killer a year later.

Late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son Hannibal has been freed after being briefly kidnapped by an armed group in Lebanon,  security sources say. In a video shown on Lebanese TV, the captive businessman was seen appealing for more information concerning the 1978 disappearance of the prominent Lebanese Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr. He was freed in the city of Baalbek and dispatched to Beirut, police said. The 40-year-old former playboy was given sanctuary in Oman in 2012.

And finally, A burglary suspect has been attacked and killed by an 11-foot alligator while trying to escape from police officers. The remains of 22-year-old Matthew Riggins, a resident of Palm Bay, Florida, were found in a lake in Barefoot Bay on November 23rd, ten days after he was reported missing. On the evening of November 10th local residents in Barefoot Bay had called the police to report two men dressed in black who’d been acting suspiciously behind their homes. Police launched a search with a helicopter and a dog unit and, according to deputies, Riggins called his girlfriend on the phone to tell her he and an accomplice were being chased by authorities. Police believe Riggins then jumped over a fence to hide in a lake – at which point he encountered the alligator. “He probably went into the lake to hide from the officers and the dog, and came across that gator,” said Major Tod Goodyear of Brevard County Sheriff’s Office. “To hide somewhere to try and get away, and then meeting up with an animal like that, no, I’ve never had that happen before.” Riggins’ body was found by police dive teams searching the area. While they were recovering the remains, a spokesman said, they were ‘aggressively approached’ by an 11-foot alligator near the body. The animal was caught and put down by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. According to reports, forensic examination of the alligator “located remains consistent with the injuries to Riggins inside the alligator’s stomach.” Barefoot Bay resident Chuck Stotes told reporters: “I would say it’s poetic justice, you want to sit there and steal from people.”

On This Day

• 1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.
• 1642 – Abel Tasman reaches New Zealand.
• 1972 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or “Moonwalk” of Apollo 17. To date they are the last humans to set foot on the Moon.

Deaths

• 1466 – Donatello, Italian painter and sculptor (b. 1386)
• 1784 – Samuel Johnson, English poet and lexicographer (b. 1709)
• 2007 – Floyd Red Crow Westerman, American actor, singer, and activist (b. 1936)
• 2008 – Kathy Staff, English actress (b. 1928)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Nicki Minaj (33), Kim Basinger (62), Teri Hatcher (51), Sinead O’Connor (49), Judi Dench (81), Kirk Douglas (99), Beau Bridges (74), Bob Barker (92), Jennifer Connelly (45), Dionne Warwick (75), Dominic Monaghan (39), Ann Coulter (54), Donny Osmond (58), John Malkovich (62), Kenneth Branagh (55) and John Kerry (72).

Next week peeps!

With little over three weeks left, it looks like a two horse race at the top of the league table, but with this game, you never know. One well placed plane crash is all we need. Now, onto next year. Same rules and your lists need to be in by 31st December. I’ll try not to hassle you too much, I bet you hate it as much as I hate doing it. I’ve added a PDF of 2015’s lists in with the email to remind you all of who was listed, and please refer to the website if you need some more juicy names.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Wayne Bickerton, 74, British songwriter (“Nothing but a Heartache“, “Sugar Baby Love“), record producer, and music executive.
• Anthony Valentine, 76, British actor (Colditz, Coronation Street, Escape to Athena).
• Scott Weiland, 48, American musician (Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver, The Wondergirls).
• Robert Loggia, 85, American actor (Jagged Edge, Scarface, Big), Alzheimer’s disease.

In Other News

Sir Bruce Forsyth has pulled out of hosting the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special for health reasons. The veteran presenter underwent a procedure on an abdominal aortic aneurysm last month. The Christmas Day show is set to be recorded next week, but a BBC statement said it was too soon for Sir Bruce “to have made a full recovery”. “Due to the long studio hours, he is unable to host the show, but will still play a part in the production.” The presenter underwent extensive medical tests after suffering a fall at his home in October. He had keyhole surgery in November and was expected to make “a speedy recovery”. At the time, the BBC released a statement saying the 87-year-old “will still very much be a part of the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special”. Sir Bruce, who stepped down from the role in April 2014, was last seen taking the helm of the dancing competition for a Children In Need special on 13th November, recorded ahead of his operation.

British Sailing has announced that Elliot Willis has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. The 32-year-old partner of Luke Patience in the 470 class had already qualified for the Rio Olympics but is now set to have some time off the water. “Clearly it’s pretty shocking news to receive, as I’m sure anyone who’s been affected by a similar thing would understand,” Willis said. “It’s still my dream to win Olympic gold but right now my focus and energy needs to be on getting better. “My health is my No1 concern and I will take advice and recommendations of the medical professionals as they establish the right course of treatment for me.”  British Sailing has said it will find a new partner for Patience in the interim but hopes Willis will recover in time for Rio.

Psychiatrists believe Peter Sutcliffe, the man known as the Yorkshire Ripper, is no longer mentally ill and should be returned to jail, prison chiefs have confirmed. Michael Spurr, chief executive of the national offender management service, told MPs on Tuesday: “Clinicians outside make a determination about whether an individual still requires detention in a hospital. They have determined that this individual [Sutcliffe] does not. We will consider that and the decision will be made by the secretary of state on whether he should be moved back to prison.” Doctors have recommended that Sutcliffe, 69, is taken out of Broadmoor hospital, the high-security psychiatric unit, and moved into a specialist prison. Sutcliffe, who was given 20 life sentences for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven others, was moved to Broadmoor from Parkhurst jail in 1984 after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Sutcliffe’s attacks provoked panic in the north of England between 1975 and 1980, and the police operation to catch him was the most extensive and controversial investigation of the 20th century. Let’s see how long he survives in general population…

Emma Morano, Europe’s oldest person and the second-oldest in the world, marked her 116th birthday by offering to sing her favourite song for visiting well-wishers, Italian media reported. Morano, one of only two women alive certified to have been born in the 19th century, reached the milestone on Sunday in her one-bedroom flat in Verbania, a small town in the Piedmont region of north-west Italy. Morano attributed her longevity to having left a violent husband in 1938, shortly after the death of her only child at seven months, and to eating three eggs a day – two of them raw. Susannah Mushatt Jones, the American who is the only other member of the 116 club, also attributes her longevity to many decades of living on her own, having been married for only five years between 1928-33. The Brooklyn resident is also a regular egg eater – although she prefers hers scrambled and served with four rashers of bacon.

On This Day

• 1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.
• 1865 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, banning slavery.
• 1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.
• 1953 – Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita.
• 1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the United States.
• 1969 – Meredith Hunter is killed by Hells Angels during a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in California.

Deaths

• 1972 – Janet Munro, English actress and singer (b. 1934)
• 1988 – Roy Orbison, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1936)
• 1993 – Don Ameche, American actor and singer (b. 1908)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Amanda Seyfried (30), Jay-Z (46), Jeff Bridges (66), Julianne Moore (55), Ozzy Osbourne (67), Britney Spears (34), Woody Allen (80), Bette Midler (70), Ben Stiller (50), Billy Idol (60), Don Cheadle (51), Sarah Silverman (45), Daryl Hannah (55), Lucy Liu (47), Frankie Muniz (30), Tyra Banks (42), Brendan Fraser (47), Nelly Furtado (37), Tom Sizemore (54), Diane Ladd (80), Joel Cohen (61), Geena Lee Nolin (44), Ridley Scott (78), Mandy Patinkin (63), John Densmore (71) and Nick Stahl (36).

Next week peeps!

Who? Yes, that’s how it is this week. A lack of celebrity deaths has brought us down to a German voice actor and a civil servant! Let’s hope this cold weather gives us a good pool next week!    

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Chris Martin, 42, British civil servant, Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister (since 2012), cancer.
• Norbert Gastell, 86, German actor and voice actor (Homer Simpson).
• Gerry Byrne, 77, English footballer (Liverpool and national team), Alzheimer’s disease.

In Other News

The ongoing saga of Casey Kasem’s life and death is still in the news. Three of  Kasem’s children and his brother have sued the late star’s widow for wrongful death in the latest move in a bitter family feud. The lawsuit accuses Jean Kasem of elder abuse and inflicting emotional distress on Kasem’s children by restricting their access to him before his death. They claim she abused him before he died, moved him from Santa Monica to Washington without telling them and, after his death, had him buried in an unmarked grave in Norway despite his wishes to be laid to rest in Los Angeles. “What she did to my father is reprehensible,” daughter Kerri Kasem said. “It’s disgusting. It’s horrific.” She added that the family members were taking legal action after US prosecutors decided not to bring criminal charges against her. Kerri has taken out the lawsuit with siblings Julie and Michael Kasem and their uncle Mouner. They are seeking damages of $250,000 (£166,000). But Kerri said: “We would rather see her in jail than receive one dime. We don’t care about the money. We care about justice.” Casey Kasem began his career in the 1950s and found fame with the chart programme in the 1970s. He was also the voice of Shaggy in the TV animation Scooby Doo.

St Louis Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey is in  critical but stable condition after being shot in the head on Tuesday night, according to multiple reports in the media. The Rams said in a statement they were “aware Stedman Bailey was involved in an incident” in Miami Gardens late on Tuesday and that they had spoken with him. Police did not describe the nature of Bailey’s injuries, but a source confirmed that he was shot twice in the head while travelling in a car. Bailey, 25, was scheduled to undergo surgery Wednesday at the Aventura Hospital Trauma Center. A Rams source said the team believes Bailey’s injuries are not life-threatening.

Idris Elba has revealed how he almost died while shooting a film in Ghana, when he slipped behind a waterfall over a 30-metre drop. The 43-year-old actor admitted he had a lucky escape when his foot slipped off a rock and the branch he held on to snapped. Recalling the incident while filming the Netflix film Beasts of No Nation, in which he plays the warlord Commandant, Elba told The Jonathan Ross Show: “I nearly died … We decided to do this waterfall scene where all these child soldiers were walking behind this massive waterfall. “Cary Fukunaga, the director, decided to shoot it for real. We went to this waterfall and in this scene my character is standing there watching all the child soldiers go past. Now in the setup of that, the stunt co-ordinator says, ‘Listen everyone, this is a waterfall, that’s a 90, 100ft drop down there and the ground is very slippery, just be careful!’ “I put my foot on this rock just to hang out and chill out while they were setting up and as I’m doing that it’s slippery, obviously. I slip … I put my hand on this tree – it’s not a tree, it’s a branch. It snaps and I go literally about six feet before I go bang over and I got caught by the security guy.” So, he slipped next to a waterfall, talk about being overdramatic!

On This Day

• 1781 – The crew of the British slave ship Zong murders 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea to claim insurance.
• 1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.
• 1972 – Atari announces the release of Pong, the first commercially successful video game.

Deaths

• 1530 – Thomas Wolsey, English cardinal (b. 1470)
• 1924 – Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (b. 1858)
• 1975 – Graham Hill, English race car driver (b. 1929)
• 1981 – Natalie Wood, American actress and singer (b. 1938)
• 1986 – Cary Grant, English-American actor and singer (b. 1904)
• 1991 – Ralph Bellamy, American actor and singer (b. 1904)
• 1998 – Giant Haystacks, English wrestler (b. 1947)
• 2001 – George Harrison, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (The Beatles) (b. 1943)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Scarlett Johannson (31), Jon Stewart (53), Christina Applegate (44), Ed Harris (65), Tina Turner (76), Randy Newman (72), Miley Cyrus (23), Mark Ruffalo (48), Jamie Lee Curtis (57), Judd Nelson (56), Sarah Hyland (25), Rita Ora (25), Robin Givens (51), Billie Jean King (72), Bill Nye (60), Natasha Bedingfield (34), Peter Facinelli (42), Bruno Tonioli (60), Zoe Ball (45), Kelly Brook (36), Boris Becker (48) and Terry Gilliam (75).

Next week peeps!

Afternoon all, welcome to this weeks Dead Pool roundup in which we sadly report the shocking death of Jonah Lomu at the too young age of 40!! Although this week in history seemed unbelievably busy for deaths, none of us managed to score a point, and yet the looming end of year results are fast coming upon us! It’s almost time for me to start badgering you to begin researching your lists for 2016, as some of you newcomers have noticed, scratching the surface of celebrity does not cut the mustard. Anyhow, less procrastination, we have a busy newsletter for you!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Saeed Jaffrey, 86, Indian-born British actor (The Man Who Would Be King, Shatranj Ke Khilari, My Beautiful Laundrette).
• Vincent Margera, 59, American reality television personality (Viva La Bam, Jackass, CKY), kidney and liver failure.
• Cynthia Payne, 82, British brothel keeper.
• Michael C. Gross, 70, American graphic designer and producer (Ghostbusters, Heavy Metal, Beethoven), cancer.
• Jonah Lomu, 40, New Zealand rugby union player (All Blacks).
• Peter Dimmock, 94, British broadcaster (Sportsview).

In Other News

Former Liverpool and Rangers manager Graeme Souness has been taken to hospital in Bournemouth, but no details of the 62-year-old’s condition have been made available as of yet. Since leaving his last job in football as manager of Newcastle in 2006, Souness has worked in the media, most notably as a pundit for Sky Sports. His colleague Jeff Stelling opened the station’s Soccer Saturday broadcast by saying: “Souey, if you’re watching, get well very quickly.” He had a triple heart bypass operation in 1992, when he was 38, so one can assume that his Scottish hereditary love for deep fried pizza might have caught up with him.

Actress Kim Cattrall has pulled out of a play at London’s  Royal Court Theatre, less than a week before opening night on doctors’ orders. The Sex and the City star was due to play the lead role in a new play called Linda, by Penelope Skinner. n a statement, Cattrall said “with great sadness and at the advice of my doctors” she would not be able to continue with the production. The star, 59, thanked the theatre “for allowing me to put my health first”. Royal Court artistic director, Vicky Featherstone, said the theatre was “deeply sorry that Kim is unable to continue with the production”. Again, no real details on what is occurring, so we’ll just have to make up a story next week.

Sir Bruce Forsyth is back at home after undergoing successful keyhole surgery. The former Strictly Come Dancing host underwent a procedure on an abdominal aortic aneurysm last Thursday. “It is anticipated, given the minimally invasive nature of this operation, he will make a speedy recovery,” his manager said. The 87-year-old’s condition was discovered after he had extensive medical checks following a recent fall. “It is not connected in any way with the fall itself from which Sir Bruce has made a full recovery – indeed, he recorded Strictly Come Dancing’s Children In Need Special with Tess Daly, which aired last Friday,” his manager added. Sadly, the surgery is not expected to prevent the veteran entertainer from fronting the show’s upcoming festive edition.

Charlie Sheen has disclosed that he is HIV positive, in a television interview that followed weeks of speculation about his condition. “I am here to admit that I am in fact HIV positive and I have to put a stop to this onslaught, this barrage of attacks, of sub-truths – very harmful … stories that are threatening the health of so many others,” the actor told NBC’s Today show on Tuesday. He said he had learned about the diagnosis “roughly four years ago”, adding: “It’s a hard three letters to absorb.” Asked whether he had transmitted HIV to anyone since his diagnosis, Sheen said: “Impossible.” He also said he was “not entirely” aware of how he contracted the virus. Sheen’s doctor, Robert Huizenga, told the program the actor did not have Aids, yet. Sheen claimed that people who knew his HIV-positive status had extorted money from him to keep it a secret. And the Hollywood star said he would stop paying them now that his HIV status was public, adding: “I release myself from this prison today.”

Tony McCoy, who retired from race-riding earlier this year after 20 consecutive seasons as National Hunt’s champion jockey, escaped unhurt on Wednesday morning after the car he was driving was involved in a pile-up that closed the M4 motorway. McCoy was travelling east between junctions 14 and 15 of the M4 when a van and a car collided immediately in front of him. The van overturned, and all three lanes of the eastbound carriageway and one lane westbound were then closed as emergency services attended the scene and police cleared wreckage. “I’m fine and so is the other person in the car,” McCoy told the Racing Post on Wednesday evening. “We were involved in an accident on the M4 between junctions 14 and 15. A van and a car collided in front of us and I ended up with nowhere to go as a result. Fortunately, nobody was injured but all the vehicles were badly damaged.” However, the crash resulted in your Dead Pool Master being 10 minutes late for work, the bastard!

And finally, Argentina football legend Diego Maradona has had a second gastric bypass operation after his doctor warned that the 55-year-old fat bastard is 75kgs (11st 11lbs) over his ideal weight. Maradona had his first gastric bypass 10 years ago but has since gained weight and developed complications. “He told me he was feeling fine, that he wasn’t in any pain,” said Dr Carlos Felipe Chaux after the procedure. Maradona had surgery in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo. He will stay in the city for at least eight days before travelling to capital Caracas to complete his recovery.

On This Day

• 1718 – Off the coast of North Carolina, British pirate Edward Teach (best known as “Blackbeard“) is killed in battle with a boarding party led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard.
• 1869 – In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched and is one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving today.
• 1963 – In Dallas, Texas, US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded.
• 1977 – British Airways inaugurates a regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.
• 1986 – Mike Tyson defeats Trevor Berbick to become youngest Heavyweight champion in boxing history.
• 1990 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher withdraws from the Conservative Party leadership election, confirming the end of her premiership.
• 1995 – Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.
• 2005 – Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany.

Deaths

• 1718 – Blackbeard, English pirate (b. 1680)
• 1963 – Aldous Huxley, English-American author and screenwriter (b. 1894)
• 1963 – John F. Kennedy, American lieutenant and politician, 35th President of the United States (b. 1917)
• 1963 – C. S. Lewis, Irish-English author, poet, and critic (b. 1898)
• 1980 – Mae West, American actress, singer, and screenwriter (b. 1893)
• 1986 – Scatman Crothers, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1910)
• 1992 – Sterling Holloway, American actor and singer (b. 1905)
• 1993 – Anthony Burgess, English author, playwright, and composer (b. 1917)
• 1996 – Mark Lenard, American actor (b. 1924)
• 1997 – Michael Hutchence, Australian singer-songwriter and actor (INXS and Max Q) (b. 1960)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Anni-Frid Lyngstad (70), Chad Kroeger (41), Beverley D’Angelo (64), Martha Plimpton (45), Maggie Gyllenhaal (38), Missi Pyle (43), Martin Scorcese (73), Lorne Michaels (71), Danny DeVito (71), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (57), RuPaul (55), Sophie Marceau (49), Rachel McAdams (37), Linda Evans (73), Kim Wilde (55), Owen Wilson (47), Larry King (82), Meg Ryan (54), Jodie Foster (53), Bo Derek (59), Sean Young (56), Ming-Na Wen (52), Goldie Hawn (70), Bjork (50), and Carly Rae Jepsen (30).

Next week peeps!

What a week! The flying monkeys have certainly been busy. Lets begin by dishing out the points! With the demise of Helmut Schmidt, 54 points to Paul G, Ashley and Barry, well done all of you! And with Warren Mitchell kicking the bucket, 61 points go to me!!! I scored at last!!! Woo! With little over six weeks left to go, there’s still hope for all of us!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Yitzhak Navon, 94, Israeli politician, President (1978–1983).
• Carol Doda, 78, American stripper, kidney failure.
• Andy White, 85, British drummer (The Beatles), stroke.
• Pat Eddery, 63, Irish jockey, eleven-time Champion Jockey, four-time Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner, three-time Lester Award and Epsom Derby winner.
• Helmut Schmidt, 96, German politician, Chancellor of West Germany (1974–1982), complications from surgery.
• Allen Toussaint, 77, American musician, producer, songwriter (“Fortune Teller“, “Working in the Coal Mine“, “Southern Nights“) and arranger, heart attack.
• Phil Taylor, 61, English drummer (Motörhead).
• Jihadi John, 27, Kuwaiti-born British Islamic State propagandist, drone strike.
• Warren Mitchell, 89, British actor (Till Death Us Do Part, Death of a Salesman).

In Other News

Convicted paedophile Rolf Harris has been taken to hospital amid fears about his health. The 85-year-old former children’s entertainer, who is diabetic, is feared to have fallen ill after gorging on chocolate and sweets in jail. Harris was taken from Stafford prison, where he is serving nearly six years for carrying out a string of sex attacks, to Stafford hospital, and we all know how shit that hospital is! Singer Vince Hill, 81, told the newspaper that he had heard from one of Harris’s friends that he had “sort of overdosed on chocolate”. He added: “According to him, that was the scale of the problem … he didn’t know he was eating too much chocolate.” Yeah, a diabetic not knowing that too much sugar is bad for him!

Sir Terry Wogan did not host BBC1’s Children in Need appeal for the first time in its 35-year history due to poor health. The 77-year-old presenter said he missed presenting the “wonderful, inspiring evening” on Friday night. A BBC spokesman said that Wogan was having a procedure on his back and, under doctor’s orders, cannot host a six-and-a-half hour show, adding: “We are so sorry that Terry won’t be able to host the show as we know how passionate he is about Children in Need. We wish him a very speedy recovery.” The veteran presenter recently admitted that he “probably drinks too much”, but walked for 30 minutes a day and ate a lot of fruit and vegetables. Wogan told the Daily Record he had no plans to retire: “They’ll have to carry me off stage. I do seven hours on my feet of live television for Children in Need every year, so the day that I can’t stand up is when I will stop doing it. So is this it?

Former US President Jimmy Carter is responding well to cancer treatment, according to his spokeswoman. Doctors in Atlanta have told the 91-year-old the tumours in his brain are being treated successfully and there are no signs of further cancer growth. However, the spokeswoman said that doctors will continue tests. Mr Carter, who served as president of the US from 1977 to 1981 and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, announced his illness in August. He said then he would receive radiation and chemotherapy for four tumours that had formed in his brain. Media reports have suggested that Mr Carter was not experiencing any pain or discomfort during the treatments, and that his work with The Carter Centre had not been scaled back. The former president had been planning to travel to Nepal this month for volunteer work, but the trip was cancelled due to “civil unrest” in the country, so he can’t be all that bad.

Suspended Fifa president Sepp Blatter is in hospital after what has been described as a “small emotional breakdown”. Blatter, 79, who has led world football’s governing body for 18 years, was provisionally suspended for 90 days last month amid a corruption scandal. He was admitted last week, initially for a check-up, said his former publicist Klaus Stoelhker. “He is very happy and he is relaxing a few days,” he said. Last Friday, Blatter’s lawyer Richard Cullen confirmed that the Swiss had undergone stress-related health checks in hospital.

Michael Phelps, the American swimmer whose 22 Olympic medals make him the most decorated Olympian of all time, has revealed that he was “in a really dark place” after he was arrested last year for drunk-driving – and admitted to feelings of “not wanting to be alive anymore.” Shortly after his arrest, he entered a treatment facility in Arizona. He says his 45-day stint rejuvenated him, but at the time he felt frightened. “Hug-hug, kiss-kiss, turn in my phone and go to my room. It’s probably the most afraid I’ve ever felt in my life.” Phelps was pulled over in September 2014 after being clocked doing 84mph in a 45mph zone in Baltimore. He failed two sobriety tests and was charged with DUI, excessive speed and crossing double lane lines. Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, said “I had been living in fear that I was going to get a call that something had happened. Honestly, I thought, the way he was going, he was going to kill himself. Not take his own life, but something like the DUI, but worse.” However, Phelps has not drunk alcohol since his arrest, and has vowed not to drink until the Rio Olympics are finished next August. After years of enduring workouts with a hangover, Phelps is training clean. So, let’s see what happens next August…

And finally, a daughter grieved over the body of a stranger after hospital nurses mistakenly told her her mother was dead. Bernadette Walsh spent almost half-an-hour stroking and holding the hand of the dead woman – until medics revealed her mother was alive on another ward. She had not been told her mother had been moved out of the room on an orthopaedics ward, where she had been for the previous week and had been replaced by a patient who later died. The dead woman was said to bear a striking resemblance to her mother. It was only when nurses told Ms Walsh that “Roy’s on his way” that the mistake began to unravel. The 53-year-old told the staff she did not know anyone called Roy and nursing staff realised the mistake, apologised and took her to another ward where her mother Elizabeth, a 82-year-old widow from Whitefield, was recovering from a hip operation. Mother of four Ms Walsh, from Droylsden, Greater Manchester, said: “No one told me she’d been moved so I went into the room to visit her, the same room she’d been in all week. “Mum’s duffle coat was on the chair. The woman in the bed had grey hair and had thin bones like my mum. She had a pink nightie like my mum. I had no reason to think it wasn’t mum. “She didn’t look right and I didn’t think she was breathing. I went out of the room to ask one of the nurses what was wrong and they said ‘don’t you know? She died half-an-hour ago’. “Well, I just lost it then. I’d only spoken to her the previous night. I was in shock and completely hysterical. They were trying to calm me down. The nurses were saying I should stroke her hand and show her some love. So I was holding her hand and stroking her. I called my sister and told her she was dead. “Then one of them said ‘Roy’s on his way’ and I said ‘who’s Roy?’. They took me into another room and said ‘that’s not your mum’. They took me to my mum on another ward and she was sitting in a chair looking at me, saying ‘what’s up?’ I told her I’d had a shock. I couldn’t really tell her ‘they just told me you’re dead’.” Oh my days!

On This Day

• 1859 – The first modern revival of the Olympic Games takes place in Athens, Greece.
• 1971 – Intel releases the world’s first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.
• 2007 – Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying parts of the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.

Deaths

• 1630 – Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician (b. 1571)
• 1983 – John Le Mesurier, English actor (b. 1912)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Neil Young (70), Tracy Morgan (47), Whoopi Goldberg (60), Leonardo DiCaprio (41), Demi Moore (53), Ryan Gosling (35), Anne Hathaway (33), Jimmy Kimmel (48), Prince Charles (67), Calista Flockhart (51), Gerard Butler (46), Tara Reid (40), Stanley Tucci (55), Gordon Ramsay (49), Jack Osbourne (30), Gretchen Mol (43), Lou Ferrigno (64), Wallace Shawn (72) and Condoleezza Rice (61).

Next week peeps!