Welcome all, hope you all  haven’t drowned or been  hit by lightning this weekend,  it would be a terrible thing to have to announce to the minions that you had died, clutching vigorously to your toilet seat in a rictus from being hit by the wrath of Thor! Anyhow, as you may have guessed, no points to be awarded this week but plenty to read and discuss and an amusing contribution from Liz, which I hope you will all enjoy!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Nadine Gordimer, 90, South African writer (The Conservationist, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People) and anti-apartheid activist, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature (1991).
• Jack Tocco, 87, American mafioso, head of the Detroit Partnership, suspect in the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance, natural causes.
• Alice Coachman, 90, American Olympic champion high jumper (1948), first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
• Elaine Stritch, 89, American actress, Tony Award (Elaine Stritch at Liberty) and Emmy Award winner (Law & Order [1993], Elaine Stritch at Liberty [2004], 30 Rock [2007]).
• Henry Hartsfield, 80, American NASA astronaut and test pilot (Columbia), commander for Discovery and Challenger missions, complications from back surgery.
• James Garner, 86, American Hall of Fame actor (Maverick, The Great Escape, The Rockford Files).
• Skye McCole Bartusiak, 21, American actress (The Patriot).

In Other News

Former US secretary of state and Nobel peace prize winner Henry Kissinger underwent heart surgery at a New York City hospital on Tuesday and was resting comfortably, hospital officials said. Kissinger, 91, underwent an aortic valve replacement procedure, according to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. There are no reports as to how it went, but being 91, it’s not going to end well one would expect. Watch this space! 

You may have been especially observant this week and noticed that the Assisted Dying Bill has been in the news, with notables such as Patrick Stewart and Desmond Tutu backing the bill, for obvious reasons… But what you might have missed was the admission by Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, who said that he considered starving and dehydrating himself to death after he was diagnosed with cancer and kidney stones in addition to the motor neurone disease he has had since 2006. The former schools inspector has said previously that he would rather spend his final hours with family enjoying good food and wine and listening to Beethoven than travelling to the Dignitas centre in Switzerland. Let’s hope it gets passed, surely we’ll be able to score a few more points then, also great doctors like Harold Shipman wouldn’t be arrested for doing their jobs…  

DJ Casey Kasem has still not been laid to rest a month after his death due to a legal wrangle amongst his family. A Washington state judge granted a temporary court order to Kasem’s daughter, preventing his second wife from removing his remains from a funeral home in Tacoma. His daughter Kerri Kasem has expressed concerns that his body could be cremated or taken to Canada by his widow Jean, negating the possibility of a post-mortem, even though she herself authorised the retention of food, liquids and medication from him against the wishes of his wife of 34 years, so finding the cause of death isn’t going to be hard. The children from the 82-year-old’s first marriage are hoping to bury him in California in accordance with his final wishes, let’s see what occurs. 

*NEWS FLASH* My super secret intrepid reporter says that Kasem’s body is now officially missing!!! 

On This Day

• 1903 – The Ford Motor Company ships its first car.
• 1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
• 1968 – The first International Special Olympics Summer Games are held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Ill, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities.
• 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon almost 7 hours later.
• 1976 – The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.

Deaths

• 1923 – Pancho Villa, Mexican general (b. 1878)
• 1973 – Bruce Lee, American actor and martial artist (b. 1940)
• 2005 – James Doohan, Canadian actor (b. 1920)
• 2011 – Lucian Freud, German-English painter (b. 1922)
• 2012 – Alastair Burnet, English journalist (b. 1928)
• 2012 – Simon Ward, English actor (b. 1941)

A Cheerful Rhyme…. by LizzyWelshCake

Death can be slow
Death can be quick
An evil disease
Or a whack with a stick
Choke on a bone
Skid in the rain
Bleed to death from
An exploding vein
Alcoholic poisoning
From too much rum
Red hot pokers
Shoved up your bum
Hung drawn and quartered
Burnt alive
No water in the pool
When you took a dive
Bitten by a snake
Stood on a rake
Not enough water
Or too much cake
Stayed in the sun
A bit too long
An ambitious sex game
That just went wrong
Only one thing
Left to be said
One day we’ll all
Be fucking dead

Bizarre Victorian Deaths, Part 3 by KoA

6. Torn to pieces by cats

You know how it is. You get a cat, seeking companionship and amusement, and are rewarded with the occasional tea-time display of self-serving affection. It’s charming, so you get another. And one more. Pretty soon, your home makes visitors’ eyes sting. People stop calling by. You let your hair grow wild. You enthusiastically take up muttering. In 1870, in Iran, a rich eccentric lady had cheerfully embarked on much this kind of path, breeding and buying cats to her heart’s content and passing her days in an agreeable if malodorous blur of purrs. Then disaster struck. A fire broke out, and as it swept through the house, the cats were trapped behind a door. Two maids were sent to free them, but the blaze had driven the beasts berserk. The instant the door was opened, they flew at the unfortunate young women, tearing, scratching and biting them in a frenzy. Their injuries were so severe, they both died.

7. Drowned by decorum

The late Victorians and the Edwardians lived through a domestic revolution. Theirs was a bold and exciting age of innovation, groundbreaking discoveries and dramatic scientific changes, many of which altered life at home in profound ways – including some that were terrible and unforeseen. We all know the cliches. The Victorians were a bunch of hidebound, thin-lipped, punctilious, moralising, etiquette-obsessed fun-sponges who would reach for the smelling salts at the mere glimpse of a table leg. It’s a wild generalisation, of course. But sometimes – to revert to another cliche – cliches are true. There’s proof. In 1892, in Bermuda, a party of sailors were returning to their ship by steamboat, having been on shore leave in the capital. Sailors being sailors, there was an argument. The row turned into a fight. One man went overboard. A marine began to strip off to save him, but was ordered immediately to stop by an officer who had spotted a boat with ladies on it nearby. “The ladies in the boat manifested every description of sympathy with the unfortunate man,” reported the Western Daily Press, “but seemed altogether opposed to the idea of an ordinary man springing into the sea unless duly and sufficiently attired in the garments which fashion rather than common sense has decided to be proper.” The increasingly frantic efforts of the sailor to keep afloat suddenly concentrated minds. The officer asked for volunteers. Five men at once leapt to the rescue, but the sailor had drowned.

8. Killed by a drunken bear 

A quick quiz. You are offered a bear to keep as a pet. Do you:

1. Turn it down. It’s cruel to keep a bear as a pet
2. Accept it. Perhaps you might teach it to drink booze too

In Vilna (now Vilnius), then in Russia, in 1891, there was a man who would have answered B). The bear was large but tame, but it had a taste for vodka. One day it bustled into a village tavern and grabbed a keg of vodka. The owner of the inn, Isaack Rabbanovitch, objected, and tried to snatch it back. It would be an understatement to say this was an error. In the chaotic scenes that ensued the infuriated animal hugged to death the tavern keeper, then did the same to his two sons and daughter. The villagers found the drunken animal asleep on the floor in a pool of blood and alcohol, surrounded by its victims. The bear was immediately shot.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Patrick Stewart (74), Harrison Ford (72), Cheech Marin (68), Linda Ronstadt (68), Diane Kruger (38), Will Ferrell (47), Corey Feldman (43), Donald Sutherland (79), David Hasselhof (62), Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (67), James Brolin (74), Elizabeth McGovern (53), Vin Diesel (47), Kristen Bell (34), Richard Branson (64), John Glenn (93), Jared Padalecki (32), Benedict Cumberbatch (38), Bill Cosby (77), Anna Friel (38), Jackie Earle Haley (53), Harry Dean Stanton (88), Kyle Gass (54), David Mitchell (40), Forest Whitaker (53), Brigitte Nelson (51), Jan-Michael Vincent (70), Celia Imrie (62) and Paul Verhoeven (76).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

Afternoon all, whether you like it or not, welcome once again to the weekly round-up of celebrity demises. As you will see below, lots of what I would call very minor celebrities have actually died, alas, due to their mediocrity nobody has scored a single point! Maybe we’ll have better luck over the next week. So without further ado…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Elenor Gordon, 80, Scottish Hall of Fame swimmer, first Scottish Commonwealth Games gold medalist.
• Dave Legeno, 50, British actor (Harry Potter film series), heat stroke.
• Dave Bickers, 76, British motorcross racer and movie stuntman (Octopussy, Escape to Athena), stroke.
• Dick Jones, 87, American actor (Pinocchio, Buffalo Bill, Jr.).
• Alfredo Di Stéfano, 88, Argentine-born Spanish football player and coach (Real Madrid), complications from a heart attack.
• Ken Thorne, 90, British television and film score composer (Superman II, Help!), Academy Award winner (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum).
• Eileen Ford, 92, American model agency executive, co-founder of Ford Models, complications from meningioma and osteoperosis.
• Zohra Sehgal, 102, Indian actress (Bend It Like Beckham, The Mistress of Spices) and choreographer, heart failure.
• Charlie Haden, 76, American jazz bassist and bandleader, three-time Grammy Award winner (Nocturne, Land of the Sun, The Shape of Jazz to Come), post-polio syndrome.
• Ray Lonnen, 74, British actor (Harry’s Game, The Sandbaggers), cancer.
• Tommy Ramone, 62, Hungarian-born American Hall of Fame record producer and drummer (The Ramones), bile duct cancer.

In Other News

The wife of Michael Schumacher claims the seven-times Formula One world champion is slowly improving after spending six months in a  coma following head injuries sustained in a skiing accident. Corinna Schumacher made her first public appearance this week since her husband was involved in the accident in the French Alpine resort of Méribel. Speaking to German women’s magazine, Neue Post, Corinna was quoted as saying: “He’s getting better, slowly certainly, but in any case he’s improving.” The 45-year-old driver is currently undergoing what is described as “a long phase of rehabilitation”, should we read that as dribbling into his baby food?

Tracy Morgan is suing Walmart over the crash that seriously injured him and killed a fellow comedian. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in a US district court in New Jersey, claims Walmart was negligent when a driver of one of its tractor-trailers rammed into Morgan’s limousine van. The complaint claims the retail giant should have known the driver had been awake for more than 24 hours, and that his commute of 700 miles from his home in Georgia to work in Delaware was “unreasonable. It also alleges the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Nothing like making money out of your friend’s death Tracy, well done that man!

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, says he will support legislation that would make it legal for terminally ill people in England and Wales to receive help to end their lives. Lord Carey said that he has dropped his opposition to the Assisted Dying Bill “in the face of the reality of needless suffering”. But the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has called the bill “mistaken and dangerous”. Insisting it would not be “anti-Christian” to change the law, Lord Carey said the current situation risked “undermining the principle of human concern which should lie at the heart of our society”. He added: “Today we face a central paradox. In strictly observing the sanctity of life, the Church could now actually be promoting anguish and pain, the very opposite of a Christian message of hope.” Who’d have thought that a religious leader would actually talk sense for once?!?!

And finally, we’re putting Robin Thicke on suicide watch. Whether due to bad reviews or a feminist backlash, the Blurred Lines singer’s album has sold  fewer copies than ‘worst record of 2013’ and is well on its way to becoming the biggest musical flop of the decade. With 530 copies sold in the UK, 550 sold in Canada and fewer than 54 sold in Australia, Thicke’s latest album Paula has become the laughing stock of the music industry in just one week. Paula’s failure to chart was directly related to Thicke’s use of the album as a plea to get back his recently separated wife, after whom the album is named. She hates it, we hate it, bye Robin, wasn’t all that nice knowing you…

On This Day

• 1919 – The British airship R34 lands in Norfolk, England, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in 182 hours of flight.
• 1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It originally reads “Hollywoodland ” but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
• 1985 – The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London, England, United Kingdom and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as other venues such as Sydney, Australia and Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.

Deaths

• 1955 – Ruth Ellis, Welsh murderer (b. 1926)
• 2012 – Sage Stallone, American actor (b. 1976)

Serial Killers That Have Never Been Caught by KoA

In a new series suggested by Nickie, we’ll be having a look at those seriously deranged murderers out there who are still at large, still very capable of finding and doing nasty things to you. If that isn’t enough to fuck you over, please read  on!

The Connecticut River Valley killer was/still is an unidentified killer believed responsible for a series of similar knife murders mostly in and around Claremont, New Hampshire in the 1980’s.

In 1985 and 1986, the skeletal remains of two women were recovered within about a thousand feet of each other in a wooded area in Kelleyville, New Hampshire. The condition of the remains made the cause of death difficult to determine, but certain factors pointed to multiple stab wounds. Between the recovery of the first and second bodies, a 36-year old woman was stabbed to death in a frenzied attack inside her home in Saxtons River, Vermont. Ten days later, the remains of the third missing woman were found; postmortem examination revealed evidence of multiple stab wounds.

At this point, investigators began examining prior homicides in the area and found two previous cases, in 1978 and 1981, that further reinforced the presence of a burgeoning serial killer. At the peak of the investigation, and after additional homicides and one non-fatal attack, investigators noted similarities in modus operandi, oft-used dump sites, and specific wound patterns that linked many of the murders, suggesting a common perpetrator.

Seven homicides are commonly cited as being conclusively linked to the Connecticut River Valley killer, all women, all stabbed multiple times.

The killings remained unsolved and had apparently stopped when, late in the evening on August 6, 1988, 22-year old Jane Boroski, seven months pregnant, was returning from a county fair in Keene, New Hampshire, when she stopped at a closed convenience store in West Swanzey to purchase cola from a vending machine. Boroski returned to her car and began drinking the beverage when she took notice of a Jeep Wagoneer parked next to her. Via her rear-view mirror, Boroski then saw the driver of the vehicle walking around the back of her vehicle. He then approached her open window and asked her if the pay phone was working, at which time he immediately grabbed her and pulled her from the vehicle. Boroski struggled, and the man accused her of beating up his girlfriend and asked if she had Massachusetts plates on her car. Boroski responded that she had New Hampshire plates, but this did not deter her attacker, who proceeded to stab her 27 times before driving away and leaving her to die.

Boroski managed to return to her car and drive on Route 32 toward a friend’s house for help. As she neared the house, she noticed a vehicle driving in front of her and realised that it was her attacker. Boroski finally reached her friend’s home at which the occupants immediately came to her aid. Her attacker apparently performed a U-turn and slowly passed by the house as Boroski was tended to before speeding away into the night.

Boroski was treated at the hospital, where it was determined that the attack had resulted in a severed jugular vein, two collapsed lungs, a kidney laceration, and severed tendons in her knees and thumb. Fortunately, Boroski’s baby survived, although not without complications; Boroski’s daughter would later be diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy.

Boroski was able to provide authorities with a composite sketch and the first three characters of the attacker’s license plate. What a woman!

Despite two composite sketches, the formation of a task force, assistance from criminal profiler John Philpin and a handful of local suspects, no arrests were made in the Connecticut River Valley killings and the case grew cold as the killings ceased after the attack on Boroski.

Is he still out there?

Last Week’s Birthdays 

Ned Beatty (77), Sylvester Stallone (68), George W. Bush (67), Nancy Reagan (92), Ringo Starr (74), Angelica Huston (63), Kevin Bacon (56), Brian Dennehy (76), Richard Roundtree (72), Tom Hanks (58), Sofia Vergara (42), Jessica Simpson (34),  Bill Cosby (77), Cheryl Ladd (63), Anna Friel (38), John Simm (44), Chiwetel Ejiofor (37), Richard Wilson (78), Courtney Love (50), Kelly McGillis (57), Eve Myles (36), Jack Whitehall (26), Shelley Duvall (65), Geoffrey Rush (63), Jennifer Saunders (56) and Burt Ward (69)

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

Welcome all to this week’s attempt at deadly humour. Some of you may have noticed that the media picked up on the fact that Eli Wallach has died, but the loss to the Wallach family has given Barry, Liz and Dave 52 points each!! All finally breaking their death duck and shooting them unto the giddy heights of joint last but one place. Well done all three! Now lets see what else has happened in the world of pain that we live in…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Steve Rossi, 82, American comedian (Allen & Rossi), cancer.
• Shogo Kubo, 54, American skateboarder (Z-boys), suspected drowning.
• Eli Wallach, 98, American actor (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, Baby Doll).
• Mary Rodgers, 83, American composer (Once Upon a Mattress) and children’s author (Freaky Friday).
• Bobby Womack, 70, American Hall of Fame R&B singer (“Lookin’ for a Love“, “Woman’s Gotta Have It“) and songwriter (“It’s All Over Now“, “I Can Understand It”).
• Terry Richards, 81, British movie actor and stuntman (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tomorrow Never Dies)

In Other News

Sting has revealed his children will not inherit his £180m fortune, fearing that his riches are “albatrosses round their necks”. The former frontman of The Police grew up in a working-class family in Wallsend, North Tyneside, and has gone on to become one of Britain’s wealthiest musicians. He said he has told his six children not to expect to inherit much money because he doesn’t believe in trust funds. The 62 year old singer believes his kids should go out and work and not ask for a penny from him. Let’s rename him Stingy eh?

On the other hand, since his death five years ago, Michael  Jackson seems to be raking it in. The Michael Jackson Estate – which runs his affairs on behalf of Jackson’s mother and three children – has earned over £411million!! Not bad since the King of Pop was struggling to avoid bankruptcy when he died on June 25, 2009. Looks like Prince, Paris and Blanket are laughing it all the way to the bank, wonder if they will take the piss out of Stingy’s kids??

Maybe they should use a few pennies of that fortune to buy Michael Schumacher’s medical records. Yup, someone has nicked his paperwork. Schumacher’s representatives say they will press charges and sue for damages against any publication of the content of the notes, so they seem a bit pissed off about it. Not to worry though, Michael’s wife has gone out and spent £10 million on a private medical suite at their home on the shore of Lake Geneva. So by the sound of it, he’s not going to be driving anything anytime soon, unless its a mobility scooter…

On This Day

• 1613 – The Globe Theatre in London, England burns to the ground.
• 1644 – Charles I of England defeats a Parliamentarian detachment at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge, the last battle won by an English King on English soil.
• 1888 – George Edward Gouraud records Handel‘s Israel in Egypt onto a phonograph cylinder, thought for many years to be the oldest known recording of music.
• 1914 – Jina Guseva attempts to assassinate Grigori Rasputin at his home town in Siberia.
• 1975 – Steve Wozniak tested his first prototype of Apple I computer.
• 1995 – Space Shuttle program: STS-71 Mission (Atlantis) docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.
• 2007 – Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone.

Deaths

• 1933 – Roscoe Arbuckle, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1887)
• 1967 – Jayne Mansfield, American actress and singer (b. 1933)
• 1995 – Lana Turner, American actress and singer (b. 1921)
• 2003 – Katharine Hepburn, American actress and singer (b. 1907)

Horrible Ways to Die #8 –  The Electric Chair by Dexychik

The electric chair had been used in the USA since its invention in the 1880s. It is still offered in five states, as an alternative to lethal injection. It was considered a relatively painless death, and some employees of Thomas Edison utilised alternating current to make a chair o’death. It replaced hanging as the execution method of choice (possibly because hanging was associated with lynching) until the 1980s, when lethal injection slowly superseded it.

The first man to die in the chair was William Kemmler, in 1890. He’d killed his partner with a hatchet. The most recent is Robert Gleason, who first shot a man in a drug-gang related incident, then murdered two cell mates to ensure he’d get the death penalty, which he did last year. Ted Bundy, charming serial killer, was electrocuted, as was Bruno Hauptmann, responsible for the Lindbergh baby murder and Anna Marie Hahn, poisoner extraordinaire.

The first electric chair had two electrodes, attached to the head and base of the spine. Alas, when William Kemmler was initially shocked for 17 seconds with 1000 volts, he didn’t die. He was shocked again a few minutes later, with 2000 volts for EIGHT minutes, with the current only switched off when blood pooling around the electrodes began to burn. Thankfully by then, he really was dead, and a post-mortem showed his brain had burned into his skull. There was a lot of debate before his execution over whether this method could be classed as cruel and unusual punishment. Oddly, they surmised it didn’t.

The technique has had a good 140 years to be perfected, and should you opt for electrocution on death row, you should expect to have your head and legs shaved. You will have your jaws bound shut. You wear a metal electrode on the head, buffered by sponge moistened with saline. You’ll be strapped into a sturdy wooden chair, and another electrode will be attached to each of your legs, with conductive jelly on it. The executioner will apply a 12 amp current to you, for a few seconds, and then another. You’ll probably be dead after the first jolt, but some people survive it. You will piss and shit yourself, your brain tissue will actually boil, smoke rises, and it doesn’t smell good. You die from the damage to your medulla, which controls your heart and lung activity. There is no conclusive proof that you will feel nothing. At least anything you do feel won’t last long. In Florida, your executioner will be paid $150, a relatively small price to kill someone. Oh, and your final meal has to cost less than $40. No Wagu Beef for you.

As with all executions, things can go awry. Spare a  thought for Willie Francis, who in 1946 was electrocuted for the murder of his former employer who’d probably been sexually abusing him. Willie, who was only 17, screamed for help as the first jolt was applied. The guard who had set up the chair had been drunk and done it wrong. He appealed against being electrocuted again, citing that it wasn’t his fault the machine hadn’t worked. This didn’t work (possibly because he was a black man in 40s Louisiana), and he was re-electrocuted, successfully, a year later.

John Evans, executed for armed robbery and murder in 1983, needed three jolts of electricity to finish him off after one of his leg straps came loose. He was checked and found to be alive after the first jolt. The strap was adjusted, but John survived the second jolt as well. The officials present asked the governor for clemency at this point. The governor said no, and the third time was the charm.

So, should you commit a capital crime in one of the states still carrying the electric chair, you should probably opt for lethal injection. Which, coincidentally, I’ll be covering next time.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Minka Kelly (34), Kris Kristofferson (78), Meryl Streep (65), Cindi Lauper (61), Ricky Gervais (53), Carly Simon (69), George Michael (50), Toby Maguire (39), Mel Brooks (88), Kathy Bates (66), John Cusack (48), Frances McDormand (57), Zinedine Zidane (42), Solange Knowles (28), Jason Schwartzman (34), Chris O’Donnell (44), Selma Blair (42), JJ Abrams (48), Chris Isaak (58), Mick Fleetwood (67), Jeff Beck (70), Felicia Day (35), Aileen Quinn (43), Amanda Donohoe (52), Gary Busey (70), Al Molinaro (95), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (25), Bruce Campbell (56), KT Tunstall (39), Selma Blair (42) and Joss Whedon (50).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

Another week flashes by and the flying monkeys have kept busy, bringing home  another handful of celebrities to be cremated or interred. As you may have heard from the emails, Casey Kasem sadly died, but luckily for Ashley, he managed to guess that his expiration would occur this year, thus garnering 62 points!! Well done Ash!

Also Patsy Byrne, who played Bernard Nurse in Blackadder II passed away, she died on the 17th and her family put a small obituary in the Telegraph, which is only now being picked up by the newspapers. Seems so be a bad month for Blackadder fans 🙁

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Francis Matthews, 86, English film and television actor (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Dracula: Prince of Darkness).
• Casey Kasem, 82, American radio personality (American Top 40) and voice actor (Shaggy Rogers), Lewy body dementia.
• Patsy Byrne, 80, English actress (Blackadder II).
• Stephanie Kwolek, 90, American chemist, inventor of Kevlar.
• Johnny Mann, 85, American composer, Grammy Award-winning arranger (“Up, Up and Away“) and singer (Alvin and the Chipmunks).
• Vladimir Popovkin, 56, Russian military officer, head of the Federal Space Agency (2011–2013).
• Jeffry Wickham, 80, British actor (Ransom, The Remains of the Day, Vera Drake), President of Equity (1992–1994).
• Gerry Goffin, 75, American Hall of Fame lyricist (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow“, “The Loco-Motion“, “Go Away Little Girl“, “Take Good Care of My Baby”).
• Gerry Conlon, 60, Northern Irish author and human rights activist, Guildford Four member wrongfully convicted of the Guildford pub bombings.

In Other News 

As you may have heard, our current cabbage of the pool, Michael Schumacher, is no longer in a coma and has left the hospital in Grenoble that has been his home for the past six months. Reports say that the 45 year old has been moved to Switzerland, hopefully not to the Dignitas Clinic, to continue his recovery. News is very scarce as the family want his rehabilitation to take place away from the public eye, so lets start some rumours shall we?

Tracy Morgan has also been moved out of hospital to a rehab centre where he is expected to remain for a few weeks whilst recovering from a six-car pile-up. Morgan, 45, suffered a broken femur, squished ribs and a broken nose in the accident, which is considered critical in America, over here it’s just a slight inconvenience and you’d be expected back at work on Monday, bringing the cake to the office as an apology for letting your workmates down.

And a contribution form Nickie 😀

As a confirmed planner and stationery addict, I was saddened to hear of the sudden death of Charles Letts this week – the last remaining member of the diary dynasty. He was aged 49.  He and his business partner, Gordon Presley had been involved in various stationery buyouts over the past 15 years or so, acquiring Filofax in 2001. The only worrying aspect of this is that “some form of seizure” is becoming a common form of killer these days. Letts (see what I did there) hope they find a cure for this soon…

On This Day

• 1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe in the form he presented it in, after heated controversy.
• 1906 – The flag of Sweden is adopted.
• 1911 – George V and Mary of Teck are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 1978 – Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto, is discovered by American astronomer James W. Christy.
• 1984 – Virgin Atlantic Airways launches with its first flight from London Heathrow Airport.
• 1986 The controversial Hand of God goal by Diego Maradona in the quarter-finals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup match between Argentina and England. This was later followed by the Goal of the Century also by Maradona. Argentina would win 2-1 and go on to win the world cup.
• 1990 – Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin.
• 2009 – Eastman Kodak Company announces that it will discontinue sales of the Kodachrome Colour Film, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon.

Deaths

• 1965 – David O. Selznick, American film producer (b. 1902)
• 1969 – Judy Garland, American actress and singer (b. 1922)
• 1987 – Fred Astaire, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1899)
• 1993 – Pat Nixon, American economist and educator, 44th First Lady of the United States (b. 1912)
• 1997 – Don Henderson, English actor (b. 1932)
• 2008 – George Carlin, American comedian, actor, and author (b. 1937)

Bizarre Victorian Deaths, Part 1 by KoA

In a new series we shall take a look at life, or in our case, death in Victorian times, which was considerably more dangerous than now, if the newspaper reports of the time are anything to go by.

 1. Killed by a Mouse!

This uneasy tale begins in England, 1875, when a mouse dashed suddenly onto a work table in a south London factory. In the general commotion which followed, a gallant young man stepped forward and seized the rodent. For a glorious moment, he was the saviour of the women who’d scattered. It didn’t last. The mouse slipped out of his grasp, ran up his sleeve and scurried out again at the open neck of his shirt. In his surprise, his mouth was agape. In its surprise, the mouse dashed in. In his continued surprise, the man swallowed. “That a mouse can exist for a considerable time without much air has long been a popular belief and was unfortunately proved to be a fact in the present instance,” noted the Manchester Evening News, “for the mouse began to tear and bite inside the man’s throat and chest, and the result was that the unfortunate fellow died after a little time in horrible agony.”

2. Crushed by His Own Invention 

Sam Wardell couldn’t afford to oversleep. He was the lamplighter in the New York town of Flatbush in the mid-1880s. He lit the streetlights in the evening, and needed to be up early to put them out again at dawn. It wasn’t a job for slobs. And so, with the boundless ingenuity of the age, he hit on a neat failsafe. He took a standard alarm clock and supercharged it, adding a Wallace and Gromit-style embellishment to ensure he woke in time. First he connected the clock by a wire to a catch he fitted to a shelf in his room. Then he placed a 10lb stone on the shelf. When the alarm struck, the shelf fell and the stone crashed to the floor. Ta-da! It worked perfectly, and perhaps would have carried on doing so, if Wardell hadn’t toyed with the configuration. One Christmas Eve he invited some friends round for a party and cleared his room of furniture to make space. When they left, he dragged his bed back into the room. He was tired, and didn’t pay much attention to where he put it. At 05:00 the next morning, the alarm sounded. The shelf fell. The stone dropped straight onto the sleeping Wardell’s head. Ouch!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Paula Abdul (52), Prince William (32), Courtney Cox (50), Kathleen Turner (60), Paul McCartney (72), Neil Patrick Harris (41), Isabella Rossellini (62), Barry Manilow (71), Nicole Kidman (47), Lionel Richie (65), Helen Hunt (51), Juliette Lewis (41), Zoe Saldana (36), Ice Cube (50), Mia Sara (47), Jim Belushi (60), Newt Gingrich (71), John Goodman (62), Lana Del Ray (28), Brian Wilson (72), Martin Landau (86) and Olympia Dukakis (83).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!