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!

Welcome once again to the Dead Pool Newsletter, alas the list of notable deaths is a vastly shorter one than last weeks. As you can imagine, no points to be awarded so placements on the league table remain the same.

With these quiet weeks it’s even more important for our little community to pull together, so if any of you fancy  guest writing an

article, like a few of you already have, feel free to submit a little something.

This week we have a new feature written by Sophie, who will be submitting a suitably morbid rendition every now and then. I hope you enjoy it, I did! 😀

So without further ado…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Dennis Frederiksen, 62, American rock singer (Angel, Le Roux, Toto), liver cancer.
• Sir Christopher Chataway, 82, British athlete, broadcaster, politician and businessman, MP for Lewisham North (1959–1966) and Chichester (1969–1974), cancer.
• James Jacks, 66, American film producer (The Mummy franchise), heart attack.

In Other News

Former basketball star Dennis Rodman has checked into an alcohol rehabilitation centre, days after returning from a controversial trip to North Korea. Rodman’s agent, Daniel Prince said Rodman was in “pretty rough shape emotionally”. He had suffered from pressure to be a “super-human political figure” during his visit. I would argue that he brought all of it upon himself by visiting North Korea in the first place. One thing is for sure, he’s fully in the crosshairs of the Dead Pool now!

Ossie Ardiles says he is “fine and doing well” after a car crash left the ex-Tottenham midfielder needing more than 20 stitches in his head. Ardiles, 61, was believed to have been driving on the Falkland Islands with fellow ex-Argentinean midfielder Ricky Villa as a passenger. Reports suggest he swerved to avoid hitting a sheep, which makes sense as it was the Falklands after all…

Moors Murderer Ian Brady has broken two bones in a fall at the Merseyside psychiatric hospital where he is being held. A spokesman for Mersey Care NHS Trust, which runs Ashworth Hospital, said Brady, 76, was admitted to a “general hospital” on Tuesday. Brady has been on hunger strike in recent years, being force-fed daily to keep him alive, which is a very good use of tax payers money in my opinion, let the cunt suffer some more. You may have also heard that his appeal to be moved from the hospital to general prison population has also been refused on the grounds that his a fucking loony! Looks like the justice system is working somewhat.

Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández, has spoken publicly for the first time in 42 days, ending a long silence that has led to speculation about her health following head surgery. She is known for her constant tweets on various topics but Fernández made her last comments on Twitter on 13th December. The uncharacteristic silence fed speculation in Argentina that she’d died. Some opponents even questioned who was really running the country! Alas, she is still alive.

The press offices of the Queen and the Prince of Wales are expected to merge in what is being described in media reports as the latest step in Prince Charles’ preparations for the day he becomes king. Or what they are really telling us is, Betty is on her way out and Charlie needs to get his arse into gear.

And finally, researchers say that the poorest people in society cannot afford to pay the costs of funerals. Apparently the average cost of dying – including funeral, burial or cremation and state administration – stands at £7,622, having risen by 7.1% in the past year. They estimate that more than 100,000 people will struggle to pay for a funeral this year. Now, personally, if anyone spends seven grand on my funeral, you are going to need your head examined. Bung me in a bin liner and let the bin men take me to landfill, or if you have concerns over that, save some money and use my body as a Guy on November 5th. Shit the bed, you could even process me as Soylent Green, just don’t pay those cunts a penny!

On This Day

• 1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent. Commemorated as Australia Day.
• 1808 – Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.
• 1841 – The United Kingdom formally occupies Hong Kong.
• 1905 – The world’s largest diamond ever, the Cullinan weighing 3,106.75 carats (0.621350 kg), is found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria in South Africa.
• 1915 – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.
• 1998 – Lewinsky scandal: On American television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denies having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Deaths

• 1823 – Edward Jenner, English physician (b. 1749)
• 1885 – Edward Davy, English physician and inventor (b. 1806)
• 1891 – Nikolaus Otto, German engineer, invented the Internal combustion engine (b. 1833)
• 1932 – William Wrigley, Jr., American businessman, founded the Wrigley Company (b. 1861)
• 1973 – Edward G. Robinson, American actor (b. 1893)
• 1992 – José Ferrer, Puerto Rican actor (b. 1912)

Horrible Ways To Die #1 – Scurvy – by Sophie

Scurvy, as any fule kno, is a disease caused by lack of Vitamin C. In ye olden times, it was particularly prevalent on ships, where the diet mostly consisted of rum, beer, ‘hard tack’ biscuits (dried out biscuits full of protein-giving weevils – as tasty as they sound) and salted meat. Fresh vegetables and fruit were hard to come by. A wise soul called James Lind worked out it was a dietary deficiency causing the illness, and started getting sailors to consume lemons and limes. Scurvy as a deadly disease was all but eradicated. But what does scurvy actually DO?

First of all, it turns you bloaty, pale and lethargic, but otherwise well. Not too bad… Then your legs stiffen, movement becomes painful and you turn yellow. Your gums swell and bleed, before becoming putrid. Your skin dries out and develops spots, of varying colours. Your legs swell, along with your genitals. Finally, your skin becomes dark and bruised in colour. And this is only the first stage, quickly reversible on administration of some lemon juice.

Second stage scurvy attacks the muscles and tendons of the legs, causing them to contract and, on the slightest movement, to cause you to faint with the pain, and sometimes die of it.

If you’re unlucky enough to progress to the final stage, ulcers and blisters break out and burst all over your body, and you haemorrhage from everywhere. You defecate and vomit blood, your veins spontaneously burst, your nervous system goes into rigor and breathing becomes increasingly difficult. And then, mercifully, you die.

It was not uncommon to lose half the crew to scurvy on a standard, long distance voyage, before the good Dr Lind discovered the cure in around 1750. Who knows how many thousands died, in bloody agony, before that?  Now, eat your five a day.

NEXT TIME: Ebola

(Description of scurvy adapted from A Treatise on Scurvy by James Lind, 1753)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Alecia Keys (33), Dolly Parton (68), Rainn Wilson (48), Neil Diamond (73), Mischa Barton (28), Geena Davis (58), Emma Bunton (38), Katey Segal (60), Bill Maher (58), Skeet Ulrich (44), Buzz Aldrin (84), Billy Ocean (64), Placido Domingo (73), Jack Nicklaus (84), John Hurt (74), Piper Laurie (82), DJ Jazzy Jeff (49), Linda Blair (55), Rutger Hauer (70) and Aaron Neville (73).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

What’s all this Dave, you’ve got points to give out? Yes, Stu correctly guessed that Mae Young would depart for the spectral wrestling ring in the sky at the age of 90, thus garnering himself 60 points. Well done that bloke, only just missing out on the first death of the year.

We’ve also said goodbye to the longest list of notables for a while, there must have been something in the air last week but they’ve been dropping like flies! Poor old Trigger fell foul of the reaper and that litigious bastard, Lord McAlpine also departed us, which now makes Twitter a safer place to cast aspersions. We also lost the last female Munchkin, but I thought that happened last year, so maybe we will find another one soon enough.

Also I’d like to share this little story that Nickie found about John Button, Jenson’s father, one of the true characters left in F1.  Jenson was away for a few days and left his luxury home in the care of his father. He came back to find his dad asleep on the sofa. On waking him Jenson asks if he’s borrowed his watches as they weren’t in his bedroom. Or the car, as it wasn’t in the garage. And what happened to the TV that was on the wall? It seemed that John had been on such an epic drinking session that he didn’t notice the house being cleaned out as he slept on the sofa….

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Sam Berns, 17, American high school student, progeria sufferer and documentary subject, progeria.
• Alexandra Bastedo, 67, British actress (The Champions) and animal welfare advocate, cancer.
• John Button, 70, British racing driver, suspected heart attack.
• John Horsley, 93, British actor (The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The Box of Delights, ’).
• Frank Marth, 91, American actor (The Honeymooners, Hogan’s Heroes, Gunsmoke), heart failure and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Mae Young, 90, American professional wrestler, WWE Hall of Fame inductee (2008).
• John Dobson, 98, American astronomer.
• Roger Lloyd-Pack, 69, English actor (Only Fools and Horses, The Vicar of Dibley), pancreatic cancer.
• Cassandra Lynn, 34, American model, Playmate Miss February 2006, apparent drug overdose.
• Ruth Duccini, 95, American actress (The Wizard of Oz), natural causes.
• Russell Johnson, 89, American actor (Gilligan’s Island), kidney failure.
• Dave Madden, 82, Canadian-born American actor (The Partridge Family, Alice), heart and kidney failure.
• Hiroo Onoda, 91, Japanese Imperial Army WWII intelligence officer, did not surrender until 1974.
• Lord McAlpine of West Green, 71, British businessman, politician and author, Treasurer of the Conservative Party (1975–1990).
• Komla Dumor, 41, Ghanaian journalist and news presenter (BBC World News, Focus on Africa).

In Other News

France’s First Lady, Valerie Trierweiler, has left the Paris hospital where she was admitted a week ago after reports emerged of an affair between President Francois Hollande and an actress. Ms Trierweiler had been admitted to hospital on 10 January, in a reported state of shock at the allegations. Apparently she suffered an anxiety attack according to the French media and needed to be hospitalised for a week. Now I don’t know about you, but finding out a Frenchman is cheating on you is hardly a shock-worthy event. I’m going out on a limb here and I’m going to suggest a suicide attempt.

Do I need to mention the ongoing cases of celebrity kiddie-fiddling? At this present time we have William Roache, Rolf Harris and Dave Lee Travis in court trying to defend themselves from allegations of fucking little children. True or not, those of us who have been following the stories as they unfold have certainly seen some devastating testimonies. Time will tell if they survive the mauling that the British Justice System is putting them through. You might need to keep an eye on Freddie Starr too, he’s been re-arrested as well. Dirty bastards!

Michel Roux, the Michelin star rated chef has revealed that he’s been secretly battling bowel cancer since 2008. The 72-year-old Frenchman is revered, alongside his brother, Albert, as one of the godfathers of modern restaurant cuisine in the UK, luckily for him his six year battle has ended with him being given the all clear. However, these things have a habit of rearing their ugly heads again from time to time. Best keep an eye on him.

Everyones favourite ‘musician’, Justin Bieber, is in trouble once again. This time he’s been accused of egging a neighbours house. Bit immature, but nothing you wouldn’t put past the little cunt. He almost injured a 13 year old girl as he was doing it! Almost, as in he didn’t.  His big mistake though was to forget to hide the cocaine at his house, obviously he feels that he’s bigger than the Los Angeles Police Department, whom I’m sure enjoyed every second of trashing his shitty little mansion. Let’s hope he goes down for his insolent behaviour and is made into a cock-sucking jail bitch and thus increasing the enjoyment of music for mankind.

Do you remember Hiroo Onoda? I do, he was the idiot who didn’t believe that WWII was over and continued to fight the war for a further 30 years! He was sent with some other units to the underpopulated Philippine island of Lubang in 1944. One year later, the Japanese Army dropped flyers to tell the soldiers that the war was over. Onoda believed that those papers were dropped by Allied planes and lived in the jungle for the next 29 years, the twat! When a backpacker named Norio Suzuki found him in 1974, Onoda refused to believe that WWII had ended in 1945. Suzuki returned to the island with the soldier’s ex-commander to tell him the truth. I bet he felt like a right cunt then. Anyhow, he’s dead now, so who cares…

Lastly, I’d just like to mention former Tory, now a UKIP councillor, David Silvester. He seems to believe that Britain’s recent storms and floods are “divine retribution for the government’s decision to legalise gay marriage”. He even warned David Cameron of this very likely outcome should the bill come to pass.  Now, I’m not one to bullshit anyone’s beliefs, but this cunt takes the biscuit. He’s an elected official in our government, yet he still believes that passing a law that he disagrees with has such cosmic ramifications that the Winter weather will change for the worse! People, before you sign your cross in the next election, please make sure you vote for someone who understands there’s no connection between two people who are in love and the weather. Being a bigoted cunt who doesn’t understand the causality of the seasons on this planet should be enough for you not to vote for him anyway.

On This Day

• 1840 – Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
• 1883 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.
• 1915 – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
• 1915 – World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in the United Kingdom killing more than 20, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.
• 1935 – Coopers Inc. sells the world’s first briefs.
• 1937 – Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles, California to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.
• 1953 – 71.7% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
• 1977 – Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snow has fallen. It also fell in the Bahamas.
• 1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW’s plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.
• 1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
• 1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.
• 1986 – The first IBM PC computer virus is released into the wild. A boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, it was created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter piracy of the software they had written.
• 2012 – The Hong Kong-based file-sharing website Megaupload is shut down by the FBI.

Deaths

• 2000 – Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-American actress and mathematician (b. 1913)
• 2006 – Wilson Pickett, American singer-songwriter (The Falcons) (b. 1941)
• 2008 – John Stewart, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Kingston Trio) (b. 1939)

Only in America by KoA

In a story I’d normally sympathise with, a retired Florida policeman has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting a man who texted during a film. Authorities said Curtis Reeves, 71, and Chad Oulson, 43, got into an argument before the screening of the film Lone Survivor when Reeves asked Oulson to stop texting.

“Somebody throws popcorn. I’m not sure who threw the popcorn,” said witness Charles Cummings. “And then bang, he was shot.” Oulson told Reeves he was texting his three-year-old daughter and then they started arguing. Popcorn mind, nobody throws the popcorn!

Cummings, who had blood on his clothes, said the trailers before the film were still showing when the men started raising their voices and popcorn was thrown. The fucking film hadn’t even started yet! 

Authorities said Reeves took out a gun, Oulson’s wife put her hand over her husband and Reeves fired his weapon, striking Nichole Oulson in the hand and her husband in the chest.

“I can’t believe people would bring a pistol, a gun, to a movie,” Cummings said. I can, it’s fucking America!  “I can’t believe they would argue and fight and shoot one another over popcorn. Over a cellphone.” Again, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest! 

Cummings said Oulson fell on to him and his son. Another man grabbed the gun, and the suspect did not attempt to get away. I’d have liked to see a 71 year old doing a runner though…

Chad Oulson died in hospital. His wife’s injuries were not life-threatening.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Michelle Obama (50), Kevin Costner (59), Kate Moss (40), Betty White (92), Orlando Bloom (37), Zooey Deschanel (34), Faye Dunaway (73), Jason Bateman (45), LL Cool J (46), Howard Stern (60), Rush Limbaugh (63), Melanie Chisholm (40), Dave Grohl (45), Kirstie Alley (63), Muhammad Ali (72), James Earl Jones (83), Kid Rock (43), Susanna Hoffs (55), Jim Carrey (52), Jason Segal (34), Pixie Lott (23), Carl Weathers (66), Skrillex (26) and Sade Adu (55).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!