Wonder of wonders! We have a point scorer ladies and gentlemen! Lee correctly predicted the death of Alice Herz-Sommer, but not only this, he listed her as his Woman, thus garnering himself a lovely 140 points, propelling himself unto the giddy heights of first place on the leader board! Well done that man!  Also I have to mention Harold Ramis. It’s without doubt that the man was a genius of comedy and it’s not too much to say that a small part of everyones past died with him. Imagine a world without Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day, its not even worth contemplating!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Alice Herz-Sommer, 110, Czech-British supercentenarian, world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, subject of The Lady in Number 6.
• Mike Parker, 84, British-born American typographer and software executive, helped popularise use of Helvetica.
• Harold Ramis, 69, American writer, director and actor (Groundhog Day, Vacation, Ghostbusters), vasculitis.
• Aaron Allston, 53, American game designer (Dungeons & Dragons) and sci-fi author (X-Wing), heart failure.

In Other News

Nearly two months after Michael Schumacher suffered a serious head injury in a skiing accident, neurologists say the seven-time Formula One champion seems unlikely to make a full recovery.  The 45-year-old fell while skiing in France and hit the right side of his head on a rock, cracking his helmet. Doctors operated to remove blood clots from his brain but some were left because they were too deeply embedded. Due to the length of time he’s been in a coma he’s very likely to awaken as a vegetable!

The Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench has spoken of how her failing eyesight has left her unable to read scripts and struggling to watch films. Dench suffers from macular degeneration, an age-related condition that leads to a gradual loss of vision, which her mother also had. But the actress, 79, who has notched up 95 award nominations during her illustrious career, balked at suggestions her career would slow down because of failing health.

If you think you’re having a bad day, think about this poor sperm whale! The whale died when it became stranded on the Kent coast near Seasalter more than a week ago. Its decomposing body was left there for five days until it was removed and loaded on to the back of a lorry to be taken to a landfill site. The huge carcass was covered by a tarpaulin and strapped onto the rear of a flat-bed truck with part of it overhanging the back. But the sight and smell of it travelling along the A2 towards Canterbury on a weekday afternoon left some drivers choking at the wheel.   A witness said: “There was a Land Rover in front and behind, flashing orange lights and this massive whale with its head and tail chopped off. There was blood and guts dropping off the back and everything. The smell was unbelievable! I’ve worked near an abattoir and that smelled bad, but this was something else.”   They should count their lucky stars that the whale didn’t pop open like the one pictured on the left! Apparently it took 50 Taiwanese workers 13 hours to clean up after this whale exploded in 2004 whilst being transported.

But as bad days go, maybe this bloke had a worse one… Poor old Walter Williams, an inhabitant of Mississippi was found literally ‘alive and kicking’ in a body bag at a funeral home after being declared dead. Workers at Porter and Sons Funeral Home were preparing to embalm Walter when he moved. I bet there were a few loose sphincters abound when the poor old sod managed to stir.

On This Day

• 1657 – Great Fire of Meireki: A fire in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, caused more than 100,000 deaths; it lasted three days.
• 1797 – The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.
• 1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.
• 1933 – The film King Kong opens at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
• 1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
• 1969 – In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted.
• 1983 – Compact Discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.

Deaths

• 1791 – John Wesley, English cleric and theologian (b. 1703)
• 1930 – D. H. Lawrence, English author, poet, and playwright (b. 1885)
• 1939 – Howard Carter, English archaeologist (b. 1874)
• 1982 – Philip K. Dick, American author (b. 1928)
• 1999 – Dusty Springfield, English singer (The Lana Sisters and The Springfields) (b. 1939)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Peter Fonda (74), Howard Jones (59), Kelly MacDonald (38), Emily Blunt (31), Dakota Fanning (20), Abe Vigoda (93), Edward James Olmos (67), George Thorogood (64), Billy Zane (48), Tea Leoni (48), Sean Astin (43), Fats Domino (86), Michael Bolton (61), Joanne Woodward (84), Adam Baldwin (52), Mercedes Ruehl (66), John Turturro (57), Harry Belafonte (87), Robert Conrad (79), Roger Daltrey (70), Ron Howard (60), Javier Bardem (45) and Justin Bieber (20).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

The weeks fly by don’t they! Here we are again, mulling over celebrity deaths only to find that nobody has scored any points this week. It almost feels like a Star Wars themed week with the deaths of two bit-part actors, but it also highlights that the main cast are getting on and perhaps it’s time to add their names to your prospective lists for next year! It’s hard to believe that Han Solo is 71 and young Luke Skywalker is 62, but Leia, his twin sister is only 57, go figure…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Cliff Bole, 76, American television director (MacGyver, The Six Million Dollar Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation).
• Jamie Coots, 41, American snake-handling pastor, snakebite.
• Christopher Malcolm, 67, Scottish actor (The Empire Strikes Back, Highlander, The Rocky Horror Show).
• Jimmy Murakami, 80, American animator and film director (When the Wind Blows).
• Nelson Frazier, Jr., 43, American professional wrestler (World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment 1993–2008), heart attack.
• Malcolm Tierney, 75, British actor (Doctor Who, Star Wars, Braveheart).
• Maria Franziska von Trapp, 99, Austrian-born American singer, portrayed in The Sound of Music.
• Dale Gardner, 65, American astronaut (STS-8, STS-51-A), brain aneurysm.
• Valeri Kubasov, 79, Russian cosmonaut (Soyuz 6, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project/Soyuz 19, Soyuz 36).

In Other News

The former French president, Jacques Chirac, who has been in poor health for several years, was taken to hospital on Monday night. An ambulance with an escort of police motorcycles carried the 81-year-old from his home to the American Hospital of Paris in the suburb of Neuilly. He was reportedly suffering from “an acute episode of gout”, which no doubt necessitated a police escort, after all, a sore big toe is of huge national concern. Following a stroke in 2005 he’s also had surgery to remove kidney stones in December.

Rock veteran David Crosby is postponing the remainder of his solo tour after undergoing heart surgery. The Crosby, Stills and Nash star was due to perform in San Francisco and Los Angeles later this month but he has revealed that he underwent a cardiac catheterisation and angiogram on 14th February. Crosby is “expected to have a full recovery. He did not have a heart attack, though it is certain that had he chosen to ignore his doctor’s urgent recommendation, it would have led to one… the left anterior coronary artery was found to be 90% blocked, and two stents have been placed to provide blood flow to his heart muscle.”

The BBC has announced that David Dimbleby is to host his final general election programme next year. It will be the ninth edition fronted by the 75-year-old, who first hosted the results programme in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. Is this an admission by Dimbleby that he’s getting old and ready to retire? Will he also give up on Question Time? Is he about to die?

Three-time golf Major winner, Padraig Harrington, has revealed that he has undergone treatment for skin cancer. Harrington, whose father Patrick died from cancer, underwent surgery for “sun spots” and spoke out in a bid to raise awareness. Let’s keep an eye on his game shall we…

Plans for a lavish $1m celebration of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s 90th birthday have been condemned as the country lurches towards another financial crisis. The costly celebration, criticised as cultism and hero worship, comes at a time of heavy job losses and slowing economic growth. Mugabe, who continues to defy the march of time and constant health speculation, also travelled to Singapore this week for cataract surgery on his left eye. Looks like the old cunt is here to stay.

On This Day

• 532 – Byzantine Emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.
• 1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.
• 1739 – Richard Palmer is identified at York Castle, by his former schoolteacher, as the outlaw Dick Turpin.
• 1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister Julia Brainerd Hall.
• 1927 – German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time.
• 1941 – Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
• 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is founded.

Deaths

• 1821 – John Keats, English poet (b. 1795)
• 1848 – John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States (b. 1767)
• 1931 – Nellie Melba, Australian soprano (b. 1861)
• 1934 – Edward Elgar, English composer (b. 1857)
• 1965 – Stan Laurel, English actor and director (b. 1890)
• 1976 – L. S. Lowry, English painter (b. 1887)
• 1995 – James Herriot, English surgeon and author (b. 1916)
• 2000 – Stanley Matthews, English footballer (b. 1915)

Male, Poor, Lonely & Fat? by KoA

In a blow to my self-confidence, scientists have found that the loneliest are nearly twice as likely to die during their six-year study than the least lonely.

Loneliness can be twice as unhealthy as obesity, according to researchers who found that feelings of isolation can have a devastating impact on people. The scientists tracked more than 2,000 people aged 50 and over and found that the loneliest were nearly twice as likely to die.

Compared with the average person in the study, those who reported being lonely had a 14% greater risk of dying. The figure means that loneliness has around twice the impact on an early death as obesity. Poverty increased the risk of an early death by 19%.

Previous studies have linked loneliness to a range of health problems, from high blood pressure and a weakened immune system to a greater risk of depression, heart attack and strokes.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, The Samaritans say that the male suicide rate in the UK was 3½ times that of women in 2012, the highest ratio between the sexes in more than 30 years. Men between the 40-44 age bracket seem to be the best at killing themselves if you want to know.

There were 4,590 male suicides registered in 2012, compared with 1,391 female, equating to 18.2 per 100,000 men and 5.2 per 100,000 women, according to the Office for National Statistics.

So adding all of those statistics up means that I have a 238% chance of being dead and most likely I died by my own hand. I hate to break it to the ONS, but I’m still here…

Last Week’s Birthdays

LeVar Burton (57), Ice T (56), Hal Holbrook (89), Barry Humphries (80), Brenda Fricker (69), Rene Russo (60), Lou Diamond Phillips (52), Dominic Purcell (44), Denise Richards (43), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (33), George Kennedy (89), Milos Forman (82), Yoko Ono (81), Cybill Shepherd (64), Randy Crawford (62), John Travolta (60), Matt Dillon (50), Dr Dre (49), Molly Ringwald (46), Smokey Robinson (74), Tony Iommi (66), Jeff Daniels (59), Seal (51), Benicio Del Toro (47),  Sidney Poitier (87), Brenda Blethyn (68), Anthony Stewart Head (60), Cindy Crawford (48), Rihanna (26), Peter McEnery (74), Tyne Daly (68), Anthony Daniels (68), Alan Rickman (68), Kelsey Grammer (59), William Baldwin (51), Jennifer Love Hewitt (35), Charlotte Church (28), Ellen Page (27), Jonathan Demme (70), Julie Walters (64), Kyle MacLachlan (55), Jeri Ryan (46), Thomas Jane (45), Drew Barrymore (39) and finally, James Blunt (37).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

Welcome one and all to a special Valentine’s edition of the Dead Pool!  Undoubtedly one of the busiest weeks we’ve had in a while, the league table has changed somewhat with three scoring famous faces biting the bullet during the last week. So 68 points go to Jim for guessing Stuart Hall, not the paedo Hall, the other one, and no complaining from the rest of you who had the paedo Hall on your list, I know the difference! Julie totals 65 points for Shirley Temple, astounding that nobody else had her, maybe you all thought she was dead already. Last but not least, Trish scored 59 points for the footballer, Sir Tom Finney. Well done you lot.

Now onto the frivolity…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Christopher Barry, 88, British television director (Doctor Who).
• Marius, 1, Danish giraffe, shot.
• Gabriel Axel, 95, Danish film director (Babette’s Feast) and actor.
• Shirley Temple, 85, American actress and diplomat, recipient of the Academy Juvenile Award (1935), Ambassador to Ghana (1974–1976) and Czechoslovakia (1989–1992), natural causes.
• Stuart Hall, 82, Jamaican-born British cultural theorist.
• Els Borst, 81, Dutch politician, Deputy Prime Minister (1998–2002), suspected homicide.
• Sid Caesar, 91, American Emmy Award-winning comedian and actor (Your Show of Shows, Grease, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World).
• Ralph Waite, 85, American actor (The Waltons, Roots, Cliffhanger).
• Ken Jones, 83, British actor (Porridge, The Squirrels), bowel cancer.
• John Henson, 48, American puppeteer (Sweetums), heart attack.
• Sir Tom Finney, 91, English footballer (Preston North End).

In Other News

In a story befitting of our Valentine’s edition, the dead bodies of a woman of 94 and a man of 55 have been found locked in an embrace in the flat they shared in the south-west French city of Bordeaux. Emergency services entered the flat after being alerted by a caretaker, whose suspicions were aroused by the smell on the stairs. They had lived together for five years or more, since the woman took the man in from a life on the streets. When a fall two years ago largely confined her to the flat, he stayed on. Forensics experts believe the man, Didier Delavigne, died first and the woman, Elisabeth Devidas, died shortly afterwards. She was found on Monday afternoon with her arm wrapped around her companion in their bed in the flat, close to Bordeaux railway station. Awwww…

The veteran leftwinger and former Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn was admitted to hospital on Saturday. Benn, 88, who suffered a stroke in 2012, is understood to be seriously ill. A family spokesman said: “Tony was taken to hospital on Saturday evening after feeling unwell. He is currently receiving treatment.” Let’s hope he gets better, we need more men like him in this country otherwise we’ll end up being Cameron’s anal bitches.

Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher, who is still lying in a semi-coma in a French hospital, has contracted a lung infection. The effects on the fragile state of health of the 45-year-old are unknown, but by the sound of it, they don’t sound promising. With little information being given to media, the hospital has been left to fend off rumours. Last Thursday, it had to deny speculation flaring on social networks that Schumacher had died. Let’s see how this plays out.

Lastly, I suppose we should apologise to the Hairy Cornflake, Dave Lee Travis and Ken Barlow actor, William Roache. Both have been found innocent of fucking little children and thus are unlikely to die horrible deaths at the hands of fellow inmates. This must give Rolf Harris some comfort in his upcoming trial.  I’ll not spark a debate on the justification of publishing their names before they were given a fair trial, but innocent is innocent, even though they will be carrying the stink of the accusation until the end of time.  We’ve also heard they are starting a new business together, so if you feel comfortable allowing these two men babysit your kids, please feel free to use their services. www.DLTKB-babysittingservices.com

On This Day

• 1874 – Silver Dollar becomes legal US tender.
• 1923 – Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
• 1957 – The “Toddlers’ Truce“, a controversial television close down between 6.00 pm and 7.00 pm is abolished in the United Kingdom.
• 1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.
• 1968 – In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.
• 1978 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago, Illinois).
• 2006 – The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

Deaths

• 1924 – John William Kendrick, American railroad executive (b. 1853)
• 1924 – Wilhelm Schmidt, German pioneer of superheated steam for use in locomotives (b. 1858)
• 1992 – Angela Carter, English author and journalist (b. 1940)
• 2001 – Howard W. Koch, American director and producer (b. 1916)

The Dark Origins of Valentine’s Day by KoA

Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love, unless you observe SAD, Single Awareness Day. But the origins of this festival of kissy-face fealty and cupids are actually dark, bloody and a bit muddled.

Although nobody knows for sure the exact origin, one good place to start is Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.  Usually the wild and crazy Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia from February 13th to 15th by sacrificing a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. Obviously everyone was drunk and naked and the women lined up to be flogged by the bloody skins as they believed this would make them fertile.  The fete included a matchmaking lottery in which young men drew the names of the women from a jar. The lucky pair would then be coupled for the duration of the festival. Sounds bloody amazing doesn’t it, much better than chocolate and roses.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day marketing success. Emperor Claudius II  executed two men called Valentine, both of February 14th but on different years. Their apparent martyrdom was honoured by the Christians, hence St. Valentine.  One of them, a holy priest, defied Claudius by performing banned marriages due to the over attachment of his soldiers to their wives. He was found out and ordered to be put to death. Condemned, he was beaten with clubs and beheaded, as you do, but legend has it he left a letter for the jailers daughter, who became his ‘friend’ and signed it, ‘from your Valentine’.

However, all this bloody goodness was put to an end by the Christians, who put everyones clothes back on and stopped everyone drinking and having amazing drunken orgies.  As the years went on, Chaucer and Shakespeare managed to romanticise the day through their works and, lo and behold, by the 19th century the Hallmark company capitalised upon peoples idiocy by mass producing sick-inducing cards for the less imaginative amongst us.

Hands up who wants to return to the Roman version!!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Joe Pesci (71), Mia Farrow (69), Robert Wagner (84), Laura Dern (47), Elizabeth Banks (40), Chloe Grace Moretz (17), Burt Reynolds (78), Sheryl Crow (52), Jennifer Aniston (45), Franco Ziffirelli (91), Michael Ironside (64), Arsenio Hall (58), Josh Brolin (46), Sarah Lancaster (34), Christina Ricci (34), Kim Novak (81), George Segal (80), Peter Tork (72), Stockard Channing (70), Jerry Springer (70), Peter Gabriel (64), Mena Suvari (35), Teller (66), Meg Tilly (54), Jane Seymour (63), Matt Groenig (60) and Ali Campbell (55).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

I think it goes without saying that this weeks big news is the unexpected death of Philip Seymour Hoffman from what appears to be a heroin overdose, I think the hypodermic needle poking out of his arm may have given that away… A sad loss to his family and the thespian community, plus a bit of an embuggerance for the producers of the current film he was acting in, The Hunger Games: Mokingjay – Part 2, where he still had one major scene to complete. But thanks to todays CGI they will be able to finish the film. Much to everyones horror, the film will be released in 2015.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Luis Aragonés, 75, Spanish football player and manager
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, 46, American actor (Capote, The Master, Doubt) and producer, winner of Academy Award for Best Actor (2005), suspected heroin overdose.
• Richard Bull, 89, American actor (Little House on the Prairie), natural causes.
• Gloria Leonard, 73, American pornographic actress and magazine publisher (High Society), complications from a stroke.
• Samantha Juste, 69, British television personality (Top of the Pops), stroke.
• Hazel Sampson, 103, American linguist, last native speaker of the Klallam language.

In Other News

Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy aka Spock, has revealed that he is suffering from a potentially fatal lung disease. The revelation comes after the 82-year-old was seen in a wheelchair in New York last month. In a post on Twitter he said: ‘I quit smoking 30 years ago. Not soon enough. I have COPD. Grandpa says, quit now!! LLAP (Long Live and Prosper)’. As you all know, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which makes it increasingly difficult to breathe is a progressive condition, which does not bode well for Nimoy.

A 102-year-old Frenchman, Robert Marchand, broke his own world record in the over-100s category by riding a bicycle 16.7 miles in one hour.  Mr Marchand improved on the record breaking distance he achieved two years ago, by more than 1.5 miles. The cyclist is a retired firefighter and also holds the record for someone over the age of 100 riding 62 miles, which he did in four hours, 17 minutes and 27 seconds in 2012. Fair play to the old codger, I don’t think I could manage a mile in a year! Best keep an eye on him though, prime contender for a heart attack.

The president of the UAE is in a “stable and reassuring” condition after surgery following a stroke late last month. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan had “passed through a difficult crisis” but has “overcome it”. The 66-year-old ruler of Abu Dhabi suffered the stroke on the 24th January. He’s not made a public appearance since then.

Long-time US television host Jay Leno has taped his final episode of The Tonight Show, and we all know what happens to men when they retire… Leno, 63, appeared emotional as he thanked viewers for their loyalty after his 22 years as host. He was joined by high-profile guests including Billy Crystal, Oprah Winfrey and Garth Brooks, who all looked like they were about to croak themselves. The show is being taken over by the young Jimmy Fallon, not that anybody cares.

On This Day

• 1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.
• 1959 – The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.
• 1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a “record-busting” audience of 73 million viewers.
• 1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.
• 1969 – First test flight of the Boeing 747.

Deaths

• 1981 – Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bill Haley & His Comets) (b. 1925)
• 1984 – Yuri Andropov, Soviet politician (b. 1914)
• 1999 – Bryan Mosley, English actor (b. 1931)
• 2002 – Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (b. 1930)
• 2005 – Robert Kearns, American engineer, invented the windscreen wiper (b. 1927)
• 2010 – Walter Frederick Morrison, American toymaker, invented the Frisbee (b. 1920)

Horrible Ways To Die #2 – Ebola by Sophie

Ebola, I’m not gonna lie, scares the bejeesus out of me. It is almost exclusive to central Africa, and is contracted from handling the bodies of primates, and possibly also bat shit, in places of poor sanitation. It can be airborne, but that hasn’t been demonstrated in humans yet.

It is hideously contagious between humans, and infective. It doesn’t tend to spread around much, both because the areas affected are isolated, and because its contagious period coincides with the onset of horrible, awful symptoms. Let me illuminate you…

It starts, relatively innocently, like the flu with added hiccups. But then, the brain gets affected and you become agitated, get violent headaches and sometimes seizures. You may fall into a coma ,if you’re lucky.

But this is nothing compared to what’s going on with your skin. Ebola is a hemorrhagic disease. This means that your blood loses its ability to clot, and everything bleeds. Your nose, your gums, your tongue, your oesophagus and stomach, your eyes, any open wounds, even if they’re pinpricks, even your vagina. The skin develops a spotty rash, with bruises and haematomas (blood filled lumps) all over the place. But you don’t bleed to death, no.

Instead, you develop multiple organ failure, due to tiny blood clots all over your system, and from tissue death. There’s no treatment, although attempts at creating a vaccine are in progress. Survival rates are understandably low (around 30%) but some people make a complete recovery.

Wouldn’t want to try my luck though…

NEXT TIME: Back to the history books with Hung, Drawn and Quartered.

What Kind of Meat is Human? by KoA

If beef is red and chicken is white, what kind of meat do we humans carry about on our bones? Of course you want to know.

If you were to base your answer on taste alone, you might be tempted to conclude that human flesh most closely resembles that of pork. For example, it’s been said that cannibals on the Marquesas Islands of Columbia referred to human meat as “long pig,” on account of its likeness to pork and the infamous German cannibal Armin Meiwes once described human flesh as tasting like pork, only “a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good.

But taste isn’t everything. Another way of approaching this question might be to ask what human meat looks like. For instance, is human meat red or white?

New York Times reporter William Buehler Seabrook, in his 1931 book Jungle Ways, describes a hunk of raw human flesh, as closely resembling beef. Arguably more surprising, however, is that Seabrook later roasted the meat and ate it himself, resulting in one of the most detailed culinary descriptions of human flesh ever penned. When cooked, he wrote, the meat turned greyish in a manner not unlike lamb, and while it smelled like cooked beef, the taste, contrary to popular opinion, was not like pork, but “good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef.” It was a similarity he described colourfully and repeatedly:

“It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in colour, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable.”

So, the next time you’re in a plane crash and having to make that decision of noshing down on the tasty looking lass in that 1st class window seat, now you know what to expect.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Shakira (37), Nick Nolte (73), Isla Fisher (38), Ashton Kutcher (36), Christie Brinkley (60), Chris Rock (49), Morgan Fairchild (64), Garth Brooks (52), James Spader (54), Barbara Hershey (66), Axl Rose (52), Rebel Wilson (28), Alice Cooper (66), Bobby Brown (45), Jennifer Jason Leigh (52), Michael Sheen (45), Natalie Imbruglia (39), Seth Green (40), John Grisham (59), Zsa Zsa Gabor (97), Cristiano Ronaldo (29), Charlotte Rampling (68) and Rip Torn (83).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

I’d like to finish with an awesome tweet from the horror writer Stephen King.

Next week peeps!

Another quiet week for celebrity deaths which means no points awarded. However, plenty to share in the news section. Animal deaths were mentioned in the emails this week and the stance has always been that animals are not to be listed but only mentioned in the newsletter for jovial purposes. But if all of you agree, we could have a fourth ‘biggie’ to join the Cert, Woman and Maverick for next year. The community shall decide, either email or leave a comment on the website.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Arthur Doyle, 69, American jazz musician.
• Karl Slym, 51, British business executive, Managing Director of Tata Motors (since 2012), self-defenestration.
• Pete Seeger, 94, American folk singer and songwriter (“Turn! Turn! Turn!“, “If I Had a Hammer“, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”).
• Tom Sherak, 68, American film producer and studio executive, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2009–2012), prostate cancer.
• Colonel Meow, 2, American online celebrity cat,[32] holder of the Guinness world record for the longest fur.
• Maximilian Schell, 83, Austrian-Swiss actor (Judgment at Nuremberg), winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor (1961).

In Other News

You have to feel for the two white doves released by children on behalf of the Pope this week. The gesture of peace was soon brought to an end when a crow and a seagull attacked both doves in front of the horrified crowds. Now, I’m not one to laugh at cruelty to animals, but you have to hand it to the satanic avians, if you are going to embarrass the pontiff, be Hitchcockian about it. Nobody is sure what happened to the birds, lets hope they managed to reconcile their religious differences.

In a move that certainly shows that he’s a prize cunt, Ian Watkins, the former Lost Prophets singer, is making moves to apply for an appeal against his conviction for fucking a baby. Obviously he feels his 35 year sentence is too long or perhaps he thinks that sexually abusing a helpless child isn’t such a terrible crime. Lets hope that he gets shanked sooner rather than later.

Formula 1 legend, Michael Schumacher is slowly being revived from his induced month-long coma. In a statement, his manager said “Michael’s sedation is being reduced in order to allow the start of the waking up process which may take long time.” Schumacher has been at a specialist clinic in Grenoble since hitting his head during a skiing accident at the Meribel resort in the French Alps more than a month ago. He was put into an artificial coma after two emergency operations to reduce the swelling caused by severe brain trauma.

Justin Bieber has been in the news quite a few times lately, he’s been arrested for drunk driving, resisting arrest and driving with an expired license. He’s also returned to Toronto to face the music after his attack on a limo driver. It seems that officials in the US have grown tired of his antics as they searched his private jet after it landed in New Jersey, they also towed away his custom-built car for further checks. An online petition to deport Bieber from the US has gained over 100k signatures, alas the White House is powerless to act upon individual cases so nothing will become of it. I wonder if we can get Theresa May to ban him from UK shores, on the basis that he’s a cunt…

You may have noticed that there has been a few plunges from high buildings recently. One such plunge occurred at the HQ of JP Morgan at Canary Wharf, sad as it may be, one can only hope he was a banker. Another jumper was the managing director of Tata Motors. So it looks like the big and powerful are finally feeling the pinch of their actions but taking the cowards way out. I suspect we will be seeing a lot more plunges, maybe you should look at prominent bankers and managing directors for next year.

The worlds oldest known flamingo has died. The bird – who went by the name  “Greater,” passed away Friday at Adelaide Zoo. The bird was eighty-three years old. Greater, who managed to live his/her entire life without anyone ever determining his/her sex, arrived at the zoo in 1933. In April of last year, it became clear the bird was struggling with arthritis. After nine months of anti-inflammatory treatment, Greater took a turn for the worst last week. “The difficult decision was made to humanely put the flamingo to sleep this morning,” officials said.

A couple of strange deaths to report this week. A woman on the Montreal Metro was killed when her scarf got caught in an escalator. The unidentified 48-year-old woman was found dead at the bottom of the moving staircase at Fabre station in the north of the Canadian city. Her hair was also apparently caught in the escalator in Thursday morning’s incident.

We also saw the death of Gemma Moss, who was found dead in bed after smoking cannabis to ‘help her get to sleep’. The regular churchgoers blood levels contained a high amount of toxicity from the weed which brought on a cardiac arrest. She was said to be using around £60 worth of cannabis a week! Let that be a warning to you!

On This Day

• 1653 – New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
• 1848 – California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese immigrants arrives in San Francisco.
• 1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.
• 1901 – Funeral of Queen Victoria.
• 1913 – Grand Central Terminal is opened in New York City.
• 1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
• 1971 – Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda.
• 1990 – Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
• 2004 – Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men’s singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.

Deaths

• 1461 – Owen Tudor, Welsh soldier (b. 1400)
• 1969 – Boris Karloff, English actor (b. 1887)
• 1970 – Bertrand Russell, English mathematician and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1872)
• 1979 – Sid Vicious, English singer and bass player (Sex Pistols, Vicious White Kids, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Flowers of Romance) (b. 1957)
• 1995 – Fred Perry, English tennis player (b. 1909)
• 1995 – Donald Pleasence, English actor (b. 1919)
• 1996 – Gene Kelly, American actor, singer, dancer, and director (b. 1912)
• 2011 – Margaret John, Welsh actress (b. 1926)

Fuck! He’s Not Dead Yet by KoA

Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos, aka “La Bestia” (The Beast) is a Colombian rapist and serial killer. In 1999, he admitted to the rape and murder of 147 young boys.The number of his victims, based on the locations of skeletons listed on maps that Garavito drew in prison, could eventually exceed 300. He has been described by local media as “the world’s worst serial killer” because of the high number of victims.

Garavito was born on 25 January 1957 in Génova, Quindío, Colombia. He is the oldest of seven brothers and apparently suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his father, like most of these serial killers are.

Garavito’s victims were poor children, peasant children, or street children, between the ages of 8 and 16. Garavito approached them on the street or countryside and offered them gifts or small amounts of money. After gaining their trust, he took the children for a walk and when they got tired, he would take advantage of them. He then raped them, cut their throats, and usually dismembered their corpses. Most corpses showed signs of torture.

Once captured, Garavito was subject to the maximum penalty available in Colombia, which was 30 years. However, as he confessed the crimes and helped authorities locate bodies, Colombian law allowed him to apply for special benefits, including a reduction of his sentence to 22 years and possibly an even earlier release for further cooperation and good behaviour.

As Garavito served his reduced sentence, many Colombians began to gradually criticise the possibility of his early release, some arguing that he deserved either life in prison or the death penalty, neither of which are applicable in Colombia.

A judicial review of the cases against Garavito in different local jurisdictions found that his sentence could potentially be extended and his release delayed, because he would have to answer for unconfessed crimes separately, however, it does look like he will be free soon enough. Lock up your urchins!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Oprah Winfrey (60), Christian Bale (40), Ellen DeGeneres (56), Justin Timberlake (33), Michael C. Hall (43), Heather Graham (44), Lisa Marie Presley (46), Elijah Wood (33), Minnie Driver (44), John Lydon (58), Vanessa Redgrave (77), Kelly Lynch (55), Gene Hackman (84), Phil Collins (63), Alan Alda (78), Eddie Van Halen (59), James Cromwell (74), Scott Glenn (73), Alan Cumming (49), Ariel Winter (16), Tom Selleck (69), Dick Cheney (73) and Peter Sallis (93).

2013 League Table

[Confidential]

Next week peeps!