Evening all! Let me start by apologising for the late email and blog post, I have been very busy. Yes, I do have a life outside of writing this newsletter, I know you don’t believe me, but I do! Actually, because nothing much was happening death-wise, I decided to gather all of the worlds celebrities to explain that we needed some points action, so Micky Rooney and Peaches Geldof decided to ‘take one for the team’, thus giving us something to talk about.

Thanks to Rooney; Julie, Jim and Paul G. have scored 57 points each, which gives us a new points leader! Alas, nobody had Peaches, sad although her death is, she would have made an excellent Maverick for someone. Best keep an eye on the rest of the relatives now, suicide runs in that family after all…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Frankie Knuckles, 59, American disc jockey and record producer, complications from diabetes.
• Bob Larbey, 79, British comedy scriptwriter (Please Sir!, The Good Life, As Time Goes By).
• Phantog, 75, Chinese Tibetan mountaineer, first female to climb Mount Everest from Tibetan (North) side.
• Arthur Smith, 93, American musician and songwriter (“Guitar Boogie“, “Dueling Banjos”).
• Alan Davie, 93, Scottish painter and musician.
• Peter Matthiessen, 86, American author (At Play in the Fields of the Lord, The Snow Leopard), leukemia.
• John Pinette, 50, American comedian and actor (The Punisher, Junior), pulmonary embolism.
• Mickey Rooney, 93, American actor (The Black Stallion, Babes in Arms, Night at the Museum), won Emmy Award (Bill).
• Peaches Geldof, 25, English television presenter, writer and model.

In Other News 

For those of you who thought Michael Jackson was dead and gone, well, you may have been mistaken. The former King of Pop hasn’t let a mere formality as being dead keep him away from entertaining the masses, he’s bringing out a new album  in May, with no less than eight new tracks! Obviously Michael is hiding away with Elvis somewhere, producing posthumous No.1’s, which will annoy every living musician, as we honest consumers of shit, will buy up each album and make sure some undeserving music executive gets rich on the bleaching bones in Jacksons grave.

Everyones favourite Russian, Vladimir Putin, has finally had his divorce finalised. I’m sure that his ex-wife Lyudmila is now shitting in her pants wondering if she’ll end up in a gulag or just strapped to a nuclear warhead which will soon be raining down upon the Ukraine. Best keep an eye on her welfare, you never know with these megalomaniac types. Putin himself has made the transition quite easily though, rumours have it that he’s shagging the Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, so it’s no surprise he’s given the old bag the push.

Good news to all television lovers, that old prancing twat, Sir Bruce Forsyth, has finally admitted defeat and decided to retire after what seems like 800 years in the business. Brucie announced that he will still carry out a few pre-recorded Strictly specials for us to endure, lets hope the 86 year old croaks before that happens, and he even has plans to tread the boards of the theatre, hopefully the old doddering cunt will fall off the stage so we all score some much needed points.

Michael Schumacher is looking like he might pull through the ‘lettuce’ to enter the ‘dribbling turnip’ stage of his recovery. The former F1 champion is now showing ‘moments of consciousness and awakening’, much like I do most days at work, so I’d assume he’s in perfect health and just needs to get off his arse and work, much like Iain Duncan Smith would want him to.

The final Monty Python reunion show will be “the last time we’ll be working together”, Michael Palin has said, which sort of  suggests he thinks one of them is about to die. Seeing they’re all in their 70’s, it’s now a good bet to start listing them. My money is on Cleese although Idle is looking a bit mummified recently.

On This Day

• 1199 – King Richard I of England dies from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder.
• 1830 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the original church of the Latter Day Saint movement, is organised by Joseph Smith, Jr. and others at Fayette or Manchester, New York.
• 1869 – Celluloid is patented.
• 1895 – Oscar Wilde is arrested in the Cadogan Hotel, London after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
• 1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I.
• 1924 – First round-the-world flight commences.
• 1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire,” beginning the Salt Satyagraha.
• 1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.
• 1974 – The Swedish pop band ABBA wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 with the song “Waterloo“, launching their international career.

Deaths

• 1199 – Richard I of England (b. 1157)
• 1528 – Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, and mathematician (b. 1471)
• 1992 – Isaac Asimov, Russian-American author and educator (b. 1920)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals by KoA

This week we have Teresa Lewis’ last meal. You might remember her as the only female on Death Row prior to her execution by lethal injection in 2010. She was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband and her stepson which she thought she could get away with and profit from a $250,000 insurance policy her stepson had taken out before he was deployed as an Army reservist in Iraq.

Shortly before she was to become the 12th woman executed in the US, Teresa dined on the following:

• Fried Chicken
• Sweet peas with butter
• Apple Pie
• Dr Pepper

Rather dull if you ask me, no custard on her apple pie either, she was truly a mentalist!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Warren Beatty (77), Eric Clapton (69), Robbie Coltrane (64), MC Hammer (51), Piers Morgan (49), Celine Dion (46), Norah Jones (35), Richard Chamberlain (80), Shirley Jones (80), Christopher Walken (71), Rhea Perlman (66), Ewan McGregor (43), Debbie Reynolds (82), Ali MacGraw (75), Linda Hunt (69), Emmylou Harris (67), Michael Fassbender (37), Alec Baldwin (56), Eddie Murphy (53), Leona Lewis (29), Amanda Bynes (28), Hugo Weaving (54), Robert Downey Jr. (49), David Blaine (41), Jane Asher (68), Agnetha Faltskog (64), Mitch Pileggi (62) and Pharrell Williams (41).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

Welcome all, on this auspicious day where we see Batman turning 75 and the terrible news that gardeners are facing a national shortage of fencing. Oh, also gay people are now legally allowed to get married. As you see, the world is ending. I’m sure God will soon cause Gran Canaria to tumble in the sea thus sending a tsunami of gay destruction towards Brighton, or maybe life will just carry on as usual. Congratulations to anyone who actually got married this weekend, even an old cynic like me likes to see a romantic event from time to time, although I’m just there for the free food and booze…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• James Rebhorn, 65, American actor (Scent of a Woman, Independence Day, Homeland), melanoma.
• Mickey Duff, 84, Polish-born British boxing manager and promoter, International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee (1999).
• Adolfo Suárez, 81, Spanish politician and lawyer, Prime Minister (1976–1981), Duke of Suárez (since 1981), respiratory infection.
• Jerry Roberts, 93, British wartime codebreaker, member of the Testery unit.
• Jeffery Dench, 86, British actor (First Knight).
• Derek Martinus, 82, British television director (Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Z-Cars), Alzheimer’s disease.
• Kate O’Mara, 74, English actress (Dynasty, Triangle).

In Other News

Coronation Street actress Barbara Knox, 80, has been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving. In what we can only call a total fuck up on her part, Knox drove to the police station to see her daughter whom had earlier been arrested for the same offence. Respect to the old codger though, still motoring at 80, but driving to a police station whilst pissed wasn’t the best of ideas.  She’s now on police bail pending further inquiries, fuck knows what they will be.

Good news for all, clowns are faced with extinction!! There are only around 100 registered clowns in the whole of the UK nowadays, which we can all be thankful for. Blame is being thrown towards their depiction in horror films, I say they were bloody creepy anyway. Also their chosen habitat is under threat, the travelling circus, which is also in dramatic decline as nobody wants to see grown men covered in make-up throw glitter over each other whilst they drop their trousers in front of children. Lets hope that mimes are also included in this terminal collapse of clownkind!

The media are trying to frighten the bejesus out of everyone by saying ebola is about to spread around the world. The initial outbreak in Guinea spread to the capital, killing around 60 people, but apparently it wasn’t even ebola, just some other terrible disease. But luckily people were actually dying in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, thus giving the media a lifeline.  However, a Canadian man was reported to have the virus after returning from West Africa. After the initial alarm, it was found he just had some malaria. So panic everyone, we’re all going to die! Let’s blame those gay marriages!

The celebrity paedophiles are slowly being sorted out. Jimmy Tarbuck has been released without charge. The veteran comic, 74, was released after a year on police bail after being accused of rogering a small boy. So along with Michael Le Vell, Bill Roache, Jim Davidson, Dave Lee Travis and a few other slightly less known ‘stars’, the list is dwindling very quickly. All we have now is the Hairy Cornflakes retrial and the upcoming trials of Rolf Harris and Paul Gambaccini and the potential downfall of the celebrity publicist, Max Clifford. Could this have been a witch hunt? Who cares…

And finally, if you’re feeling a bit tired after a shag, think about poor Jonathan, a giant tortoise on the island of St Helena. At 182 he still has to service three females even though he’s half blind from cataracts and relies on his hearing to find his mates. Jonathan loves to have his neck stroked and its said that he can extend his head from his shell to a surprising length. He loves his vegetables and can belch like a trooper. ‘Tortoises may be slow, but they are also very noisy, especially when they mate’, said his handler. ‘A noise like a loud harsh escape of steam from a giant battered old kettle, often rounded off with a deep oboe-like grunt.’ Unfortunately, Jonathan’s trysts have not produced young – thus far.

On This Day

• 1867 – Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2-cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.
• 1981 – President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr. Another two people are wounded at the same time.

Deaths

• 1986 – James Cagney, American actor and dancer (b. 1899)
• 2002 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother of the United Kingdom (b. 1900)
• 2003 – Michael Jeter, American actor (b. 1952)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals

This weeks last meal belongs to Ted Bundy! You’ll remember Ted as the charming and handsome American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper and necrophile with around 35 homicides to his name. Ted died in the electric chair at Raiford Prison in Starke, Florida in 1989, but not before he dined on the following:

Steak (medium rare)
Eggs (over easy)
Hash Browns
Toast
Butter
Jam
Milk
Orange Juice

Alas, this meal wasn’t of his choosing, he actually declined a ‘special’ meal, so what you see here is the traditional last meal given to inmates who don’t feel the need to stuff their faces before they fry.

Horrible Ways to Die #5 – Boiled to Death by Dexychik

Boiled to death can only be described as a cruel and unusual punishment. In Britain, it was only legal for a few years in the sixteenth century. Introduced specifically for the death of a cook who was poisoning the food served to the poor by the Bishop of Rochester, only a handful of people were executed in this manner. One of these occasions was the death of a woman who poisoned her husband in King’s Lynn, where it was said her heart burst from her body and landed in a building. There is still a heart shaped stone to mark this grisly occurrence.

You can be boiled to death in water, oil or tallow (sheep flab). The body doesn’t do well under extreme temperature, either from within or without, and the pain of suffering extensive deep burns would knock you out pretty quickly. Death occurs due to hypovolaemic shock – or blood loss – as the exposed arteries rupture.

Although being boiled to death was, at one point, quite a popular execution method in Europe and Asia, it’s now limited to occasional torture murders in the Middle East. Yum.

Next time! Rabies!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Chaka Khan (61), Amanda Plummer (57), Damon Albarn (46), Perez Hilton (36), Kelly LeBrock (54), Lara Flynn Boyle (44), Alyson Hannigan (40), Aretha Franklin (72), Paul Michael Glaser (71), Elton John (67), Sarah Jessica Parker (49), Leonard Nimoy (83), Alan Arkin (80), James Caan (74), Diana Ross (70), Steven Tyler (66), Martin Short (64), Keira Knightley (29), Julian Glover (79), Michael York (72), Quentin Tarantino (51), Mariah Carey (44), Fergie (39), Dianne Wiest (66), Vince Vaughn (44), Lady GaGa (28), Eric Idle (71), Brendan Gleeson (59), Christopher Lambert (57), Elle Macpherson (51) and Lucy Lawless (46).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

Welcome once again my morbid minions to the weekly edition of the Dead Pool Newsletter. This week we have a dirge of deaths but no points to award, a new feature for your perusal, and of course, the usual hilarity that ensues from the demises of the famous.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Clarissa Dickson Wright, 66, English celebrity chef and television personality (Two Fat Ladies).
• Oswald Morris, 98, British cinematographer (Fiddler on the Roof, The Guns of Navarone, Oliver!).
• L’Wren Scott, 49, American fashion designer and model, suicide by hanging.
• Fred Phelps, 84, American pastor and anti-gay activist, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church.
• Mickey Duff, 84, Polish-born British boxing promoter and manager.

In Other News

Dame Vera Lynn is to celebrate her 97th birthday and 90 years in show business by releasing a new album. The ‘Forces Sweetheart’ will release her new opus in June and it will contain some previously unreleased material and a few old favourites. I’m sure you’re all itching to hear “We’ll Meet Again” in a digital Dolby Surround 5.1 THX remastered version. I know I am!!

Another Dame who is causing a few surprises this week is Dame Angela Lansbury! Yes, I thought she was dead already too. The 88 year old actress has been lavished with praise by critics upon her return to the West End stage as Madame Arcati in The Blythe Spirit. In her first stage role in over 40 years, Lansbury is said to be in ‘sparkling form’ and her depiction of the dance and trance scene is a ‘wonder to behold’.  Almost makes me want to go the theatre…

In one of those amazing and accurate studies, its been found that one in ten people will die during their time in hospital and that death is the ‘core business’ of hospitals. Well, I’m not one to punch holes in an official study, but isn’t the reason that people go to hospitals a huge factor in these results? Guess what, they found that older patients were more likely to die, especially those in the over-85 age bracket! They even based their study in Glasgow, last time I checked only 3 people reached the age of 45 up there due to the copious amount of deep fried pizza they consume on top of the Tennent’s Super and intravenous nicotine patches.

Not to be outdone, another bunch of scientists have discovered that saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease while so-called ‘healthy’ polyunsaturated fats don’t prevent cardiovascular problems. So, in contrast with decades old nutritional advice, researchers at Cambridge University have found that giving up fatty meat, cream or butter is unlikely to improve your health. They even found that supplements had no benefits whatsoever. So, I have to retract my statement about deep fried pizza in the previous article! I’m off to stuff a pound of butter in my face…

On This Day

• 1801 – Tsar Paul I of Russia is struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death inside his bedroom at St. Michael’s Castle.
• 1857 – Elisha Otis‘s first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.
• 1888 – In England, The Football League, the world’s oldest professional Association Football league, meets for the first time.
• 1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
• 1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
• 1956 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. (Republic Day in Pakistan).
• 1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States‘ first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
• 1989 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce their discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah.
• 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashes in Siberia when the pilot‘s fifteen-year old son accidentally disengages the autopilot, killing all 75 people on board.
• 2001 – The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

Deaths

• 1964 – Peter Lorre, Slovak-American actor (b. 1904)
• 2011 – Elizabeth Taylor, English-American actress (b. 1932)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals

Ever wondered what inmates about to fry in the chair ask to eat for their last meal? No, I didn’t either. However, I’m going to share a meal or two with you from time to time as I always find it hard to come up with new meal ideas.

Remember old John Wayne Gacy? He was an American serial killer and rapist, also known as the Killer Clown, who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of a minimum of 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980 but spent a further 14 years on Death Row before he was executed by lethal injection at Statesville Correctional Centre in 1994.

Gacy’s last meal consisted of the following:

• 12 Fried Shrimp
• A bucket of original recipe KFC
• French Fries
• 1 lbs of Strawberries

Prior to being convicted, Gacy had managed three KFC restaurants, which sort of shows some professional pride in his work.

Tasty eh? I sure wouldn’t mind chowing down on this last meal given the chance, but I think I would have been a bit pissed that my strawberries weren’t in a separate bowl. Plus, where are the sauces and dips??

Following his last meal, Gacy was taken to be executed by lethal injection, however due to the inexperience of the Death Row officials the chemicals used solidified in the IV tube, so his death took 18 minutes. His final spoken words were ‘Kiss my ass”. To add insult to injury, they even took out his brain for investigation, finding no abnormalities.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jerry Lewis (88), Bernado Bertolucci (73), Erik Estrada (65), Patrick Duffy (65), Kurt Russell (63), Gary Sinise (59), Rob Lowe (50), Brad Dourif (64), Irene Cara (55), Vanessa Williams (51), Queen Latifah (44), Ursula Andress (78), Gelnn Close (67), Bruce Willis (59), William Hurt (64), Spike Lee (57), Theresa Russell (57), Holly Hunter (56), Michael Rapaport (44), Timothy Dalton (68), Gary Oldman (56), Matthew Broderick (52), Rosie O’Donnell (52), William Shatner (83), M. Emmet Walsh (79), Andrew Lloyd Webber (66), Matthew Modine (55) and Reese Witherspoon (38).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

With the death of the great Tony Benn, we have a few points to award. Congratulations to Julie and Chrissy, both scoring 62 points. To be honest I though more of us had him, including me, sadly this wasn’t so. Maybe old Tony should have been more aware of the Ides of March, I know I was and I’m still here! Anyhow, onwards to the frivolity.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Hal Douglas, 89, American voice actor and announcer, pancreatic cancer.
• William Clay Ford, Sr., 88, American businessman (Ford Motor Company, Detroit Lions), pneumonia.
• Eileen Colgan, 80, Irish actress (Far and Away, My Left Foot, Angela’s Ashes).
• Bob Crow, 52, British trade unionist, General Secretary of the RMT (since 2002), aneurysm and heart attack.
• Raymond Leslie Morris, 84, British child murderer (Cannock Chase murders), natural causes.
• Tony Benn, 88, British politician, Minister of Technology (1966–70), Secretary of State (1974–79), MP for Bristol South East (1950–60, 1963–83) and Chesterfield (1984–2001).

In Other News

Sadly I have to report the death of Wesley Warren, the man with the biggest testicles in the known universe! You might remember poor Warren from the Channel 4 documentary covering his life before and during his operation to remove his 10 stone balls. Tragically, even though he recovered from his testicular problem, he died of a heart attack related to his diabetes last week. Rest in peace old titan bollocks!

Chris Tarrant is recovering in hospital after suffering a mini-stroke. His manager, Paul Vaughan, said he had been taken ill on a flight to London from Bangkok in Thailand on Saturday and was taken to Charing Cross hospital. The 67-year-old broadcaster had been filming in Asia and South America before falling ill and Vaughan said he would not be going straight back to work after he is discharged,  much to the delight of everyone I’m sure.

After reporting last week that Michael Schumacher was turning into a cabbage, the German seems to be showing signs of improvement. One assumes he’s now a parsnip! Doctors treating the former F1 champion seem to think he’s going to pull through, maybe even reaching the complex state of lettuce by next week! If anyone can, I’m sure Michael can!

Angelina Jolie has confirmed that she is to undergo further preventative cancer surgery after she was subjected to a double mastectomy last year. The 38-year-old actress had the procedure after discovering she was at high risk of developing breast cancer. Jennifer Aniston is said to be punching the air and shouting something about ‘take that Brad…’

And finally a Pakistani martial arts expert has found notoriety after headbutting his way through 155 walnuts in one minute. His record-breaking attempt literally smashed the previous record of 44 walnuts. Surrounded by a crowd of onlookers and officials, Mohammad Rashid proceeded to crack a long line of walnuts laid out on a table using only his forehead. After his minute was up, a breathless Rashid looked pleased with his efforts. However a few of the walnuts clearly got the better of him, as he could be seen wiping away a few spots of blood from his head. One question though.. Why?

On This Day

• 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines.
• 1912 – Lawrence Oates, an ill member of Robert Falcon Scott‘s South Pole expedition, left his tent to die, saying: “I am just going outside and may be some time.”
• 1926 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
• 1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company’s founding.
• 1968 – General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.
• 1976 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigns, citing personal reasons.
• 1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.

Deaths

• 37 – Tiberius, Roman emperor (b. 46 BC)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Juliette Binoche (50), Chuck Norris (74), Shannon Tweed (57), Sharon Stone (56), Robin Thicke (37), Olivia Wilde (30), Emeli Sande (27), Johnny Knoxville (43), Thora Birch (32), Liza Minnelli (68), Neil Sedaka (75), William H. Macy (64), Michael Caine (81), Quincy Jones (81), Billy Crystal (66), Eva Longoria (39), and Will.I.Am (39).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

Not a good week to be a French director it seems, but nobody guessed their demises, so no harm done. I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed quite a few Star Trek actors and astronauts passing away recently, then I thought about it and realised that a lot of these people are ‘really’ old now. How did that happen?? Perhaps next year a list of spacemen is in order, actors and actual real ones!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Alain Resnais, 91, French film director (Night and Fog, Hiroshima mon amour).
• Stanley Rubin, 96, American film and television producer (Revenge, Bracken’s World, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir).
• Curtis McClarin, 44, American actor (The Happening, Law & Order), brain aneurysm.
• William R. Pogue, 84, American astronaut (Skylab) and Air Force pilot (Thunderbirds).
• Jean-Louis Bertucelli, 71, French film director (Ramparts of Clay, Docteur Françoise Gailland).
• Sheila MacRae, 93, English-born American actress (The Honeymooners).
• James Ellis, 82, Northern Irish actor (Z-Cars), stroke.
• Wendy Hughes, 61, Australian actress, cancer.

In Other News

Former British tennis number one Elena Baltacha has been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. Baltacha, 30, who retired last year, won 11 singles titles, made the third round of Wimbledon in 2002 and was part of Great Britain’s Fed Cup team for 11 years. At the age of 19, Baltacha was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a chronic liver condition which compromises the immune system. Let’s wish her well, but also keep an eye on her progress.

Actor Timothy West has told how his wife, Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales, has been suffering from “a sort of mild Alzheimer’s”. The actress, now 81, is best known for her role as Basil Fawlty’s wife Sybil in the comedy Fawlty Towers. Scales says that she was determined not to let the condition keep her from the stage. “I always say I want to die on the eighth curtain call,” she says. “Eight will mean the show’s been rather a success. I just hope I’m somewhere near the middle and have been reasonably good in the part.” Can’t keep a good woman down they say!

Pope Francis inadvertently demonstrated his own fallibility during an address in St Peter’s Square when he mistakenly said the Italian word for “fuck”. The 77-year-old Jesuit Pope corrected himself almost immediately after making the gaffe during the audience at the Vatican on Sunday, but it was posted by Italians on YouTube and other social media and has since spread round the world.

This is the bizarre moment world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking joined fancy-dress revellers on a stag do. Chris Hallam, 29, and ten friends had gone out all dressed as Bananaman for a night on the town in Cambridge. The group turned a corner and bumped into Stephen Hawking getting out of his car. And they were stunned when the Brief History of Time author agreed to pose with them for a souvenir photo.

Lastly, I have to share this little story from The Telegraph last week. They’re implying that people aged between 55 and 65 that binge-drink at the weekend are twice as likely to die within 20 years than moderate drinkers. Well, no shit Sherlock! If I even reach 85 I’ll be quite happy, hopefully I’ll be drinking like a teenager too!  You also may have seen that being angry will increase your risk of dying early as well. Apparently being an angry cunt increases your chance of a heart attack by fivefold. Good I say, who needs a misery guts. Fuck giving them statins, let Darwinism make the world a nicer place.  If you are wondering if you are about to die, why not take the test! Luckily I live a quiet peaceful life in which I rarely talk to anyone and eat well and don’t smoke, so I’ll be here for a long time to annoy you with the Dead Pool. Luckily they don’t ask about how much you drink…

On This Day

• 1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
• 1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
• 1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
• 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
• 2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.

Deaths

• 1996 – George Burns, American actor and singer (b. 1896).
• 1997 – The Notorious B.I.G., American rapper (Junior M.A.F.I.A.) (b. 1972).

Horrible Ways to Die #4 – Hanged, Drawn & Quartered by Dexychik

High treason, meaning to plot against the crown, only stopped being a capital, offence in 1998. And from the mid-14th century until 1817, the punishment for most men who committed high treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered. If you were very noble, you might get your sentence commuted to a straightforward beheading.

Everyone who’s seen Braveheart has a vague idea of what being hanged, drawn and quartered (or HDQ’d, for brevity) means. The man would be hanged until nearly unconscious, then have his innards removed, and then be chopped into four pieces, which were sent to be displayed around the kingdom as a deterrent. People came in their droves to watch this happen: it was considered a legitimate family entertainment. Imagine that nowadays: “What’s happening Saturday?” “Oh, X Factor’s back on, but someone’s being killed on Channel Xecution!”

So, what does it really mean to be HDQ’d? The captive was usually taken to their execution site on a hurdle, meaning pulled along behind a horse, tied to some wood. This would chafe…

The first thing to know about old style execution is that hanging in ye olden times was not the ‘long drop’. That came much later, when a clever man worked out how long a drop was necessary to break a criminal’s neck and reduce suffering. When talking about HDQ’ing, the hanging element meant being strung up by the neck and being choked. This could take bloody hours, and in straightforward executions, the family were allowed to pull the convict’s legs to end his or her suffering. This wouldn’t happen in a HDQ, consciousness was considered necessary.

The drawing wouldn’t be terribly pleasant to watch, or smell. The abdomen was opened up, and the bowel pulled out for all to see. There is a report that, in 1660, General Thomas Harrison smacked his executioner on the head after being disembowelled. That’s some spirit, and proof that being disembowelled isn’t necessarily painful enough to render a man unconscious or incapable. The guts were usually burned in front of the man’s eyes.

The quartering wouldn’t be fun to watch, but the convict was beheaded first, then hacked up. Back in ye olden days, this sort of posthumous disfigurement was considered a Bad Thing, as the body was needed whole for the afterlife. This is one of the reasons corpses of criminals were the only ones used for anatomy lessons, and why being HDQ’d stopped – the bodies were too mutilated to use in surgical lectures.

The moral here is, don’t plot against the monarch, if a horrible punishment is on the statute books. Thankfully, it’s now punishable by life imprisonment, so plot at will.

Next time: syphilis (pre-modern-therapy) OR boiled to death. You choose!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tom Wolfe (84), John Irving (72), Jon Bon Jovi (52), Daniel Craig (46), Chris Martin (37), Jennifer Warnes (67), Miranda Richardson (56), Jessica Biel (32), Bobby Womack (70), Shakin’ Stevens (66), Chris Rea (63), Patsy Kensit (46), Dean Stockwell (78), Eddy Grant (66), Penn Jillette (59), Craig & Charlie Reed of The Proclaimers (52), Eva Mendes (39), David Gilmour (68), Rob Reiner (67), Kiki Dee (67), Tom Arnold (55), Bryan Cranston (58), Rachel Weisz (43), TJ Thyne (39), Micky Dolenz (69), Gary Numan (56) and Tom Chaplin (35).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!