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Dead Pool 13th October 2024

Another pointless week, and apologies for the long read, but you might find it all very  fascinating! Thanks as always to everyone who sends stories in, much appreciated. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Terminally ill BBC DJ Johnnie Walker has shared “a very sad announcement” with his listeners. Walker, who has worked at the BBC since 1969, began his career at Radio 1 before moving to Radio 2 in 1998, where he currently hosts Sounds of the 70s and The Radio 2 Rock Show. However, the DJ, who was previously told he should “prepare to die at any moment”, is officially retiring at the end of October due to his declining health. Walker, 79, shared a message live on air on Sunday during the latest episode of Sounds of the 70s, in which he told his listeners: “The struggles I’ve had with doing the show and trying to sort of keep up a professional standard suitable for Radio 2 has been getting more and more difficult. “So I’ve had to make the decision that I need to bring my career to an end after 58 years. And so I’ll be doing my last Sounds of the 70s on 27th October.” Walker said he will “make the last three shows as good as I possibly can”. Back in June, the DJ suggested his popular radio show was keeping him alive, stating: “As long as I can keep doing the show I will. It gives me a purpose. If I stopped doing it I’d probably die a lot sooner. Since Walker was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an inflation of the lungs, he has been presenting his radio shows from his home in Dorset. Walker needs round-the-clock care and is being looked after, full-time, by his wife, Tiggy. The couple opened up about Walker’s terminal illness on BBC Sounds podcast, Walker and Walker: Johnnie and Tiggy, in honour of Carers Week back in June. In the special, the DJ opened up about having “only a finite amount of time left here in the physical before I pass over”, calling it “a very reflective time for us”. Walker, who was previously cared for by Tiggy when he was diagnosed with cancer shortly after their marriage in 2006, told his wife: “Here we are at the end of my life when you’re having to care for me all over again.”  

Celebrity hairdresser Trevor Sorbie MBE has bravely announced he has terminal bowel cancer and that he ‘might not make it to Christmas’. The 75-year-old shared his heartbreaking news on This Morning last week, joined by his wife Carole in the studio. Trevor, who found out about his devastating diagnosis in June, revealed to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard that he had been given six months to live. The businessman said, “I lost a lot of blood one night and was unusually disturbed about that. I went to the hospital, and they told me I had bowel cancer.” Trevor shared the emotional turmoil that followed the diagnosis, including a panic attack that left him and Carole speechless. He explained, “I had a little panic attack and Carole and I looked at each other and we were just both speechless walking down the road… I didn’t know what to say.” Despite the initial shock, Trevor found temporary relief in a gin and tonic, confessing, “I went and had a big gin and tonic and that helped!” However, his challenges were far from over as the cancer soon spread to his liver. He said, “I had a six-hour operation, but it came back to my liver, had another operation, and now the major growth they won’t cut it out because it’s too close to a major blood vessel.” Despite the severity of his condition, Trevor’s resolve remains unshaken. He remarked, “The thing is with me, I never wake up thinking, ‘Oh poor me, I’ve got cancer,’ or feel sorry for myself.” Pointing to his stomach, Trevor continued: “I know I’ve got it here but I haven’t got it here,” and to his head, adding, “I’ve been going to work two days a week, up until two weeks ago. “I go there because that’s my medicine, that is my life. Sixty years I’ve worked passionately to achieve beyond my wildest dreams and when I go in, it’s my staff. I’ve had them for up to 30 years, they are like family, I’m just one of the team.”

On This Day

  • 54 – Roman emperor Claudius dies from poisoning under mysterious circumstances. He is succeeded by his adoptive son Nero.  
  • 1792 – In Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid.
  • 1908 – Margaret Travers Symons bursts into the UK parliament and becomes the first woman to speak there.

Deaths

The Best Way to Go

After languishing on Death Row for almost 25 years, convicted murderer Richard Moore now faces an agonising decision – choosing how he will be executed.

The 59-year-old American has less than a week to pick his fate for fatally shooting a shop assistant in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, during a botched robbery in September 1999.

Jail officials have told him he has three options: death by firing squad, electric chair or lethal injection. If he can’t make up his mind, he will be electrocuted by default on November 1st.

And as Moore mulls over how he will ultimately end his life, his Death Row dilemma has once again thrust the debate over state-sanctioned executions back into the spotlight.

Although deemed ‘humane’ methods of death, each of his options come with their own nightmarish risks, which could see Moore facing a tortuous and excruciatingly painful end.

Prisoners strapped to the electric chair have previously burst into flames, as their flesh melted away, blood ‘boiled’ and eyes ‘exploded in their skulls’. While those put to death by lethal injection were seen writhing in agony, taking an hour or more to die as the chemicals ravaged their insides.

And although death by firing squad is touted as perhaps one of the quickest ways of the three to die, with hearts stopping in some in around 15 seconds, it is messy – and poor shooting can lead to inmates slowly bleeding to death.

Now we delve into the brutal world of capital punishments – and which methods of execution are still being used today.  

Lethal injection – First developed in the US in 1977, but now used in China and parts of Africa and Asia, the lethal injection is one of the most common methods of execution used today.

Condemned people are restrained before being injected with a series of drugs which will put them to sleep, stop their breathing and cause a fatal heart attack

First, the inmate is secured, strip-searched and monitored in the execution room. They are then usually plied with Midazolam, an anaesthetic intended to render them unconscious. Another has saline to flush it back out of the IV line. A dose is expected to take up to two minutes to kick in.

After five, officials check the patient is unconscious before applying bromide or equivalent. An anaesthesiologist told the Flying Monkeys if the inmate is not unconscious at this stage, the injection will ‘feel like they’re drowning’.

The condemned then receives a shot intended to paralyse them, followed by more saline. This stops them from moving – but also means they cannot communicate distress. Bromide would likely stop breathing. 

After another couple of minutes, potassium chloride is usually injected to stop the heart. Conscious, an inmate might feel like their arm is on fire, an expert told us. Within a minute, this causes cardiac arrest and death.

The method is supposed to be a more ‘humane’ means of execution but has flaws. Miscalculations can leave patients conscious for an excruciating death. It took Joseph Lewis Clark nearly 90 minutes to die in 2006, and Joseph Wood required a two-hour procedure and as many as 15 shots before he died.

The nature of the procedure has caused some difficulty, requiring medical professionals, who are sworn to protect human life, to administer the drugs, creating a conflict of interest. Nonetheless, firms have looked to get around the issues of a three-part injection with a simplified single shot.

Between 1976 and 2023, 1,392 executions in the US were carried out by lethal injection. This makes it by far the most common means of capital punishment, with 163 electrocutions, 11 killed in gas chambers, three hanged and three executed by firing squad. 

Electrocution – It was a method of death dreamt up by a drunken dentist more than 140 years ago as a more humane alternative to other forms of capital punishment, such as hanging.

The electric chair has been used in America for more than century but has garnered a reputation as one of the most gruesome execution methods.

Strapped down to a chair, with high-voltage electrodes attached to the head and legs, prisoners are blasted with up to three jolts of electricity, starting at 2,000 volts for 4.5 seconds, then – if death hasn’t occurred – 1,000 volts for eight seconds and 120 volts for two minutes.

But the procedure has led to hellish scenes of inmates bursting into flames as their skin melts and eyes exploding.

The first person executed by electric chair was William Kemmler, on August 6, 1890, in New York state. Afterwards, a reporter witnessing the death said: ‘Probably no convicted murderer of modern times has been made to suffer as Kemmler suffered.’  

Firing squad – ‘It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest “botch” rate,’ declared Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

But death by firing squad has only recently come back into use in America after falling out of favour for being too grisly and messy.

Earlier this year South Carolina revealed plans to restart executions by firing squad after state prosecutors said deaths don’t need to be quick and painless. The push shocked many – but the state is not alone in using firing squads to execute its prisoners. 

The last firing squad execution in the US was surprisingly recent, with Ronnie Lee Gardner executed at Utah State Prison on June 18, 2010 for killing an attorney during a dramatic courthouse escape attempt. Five prison staff shot Gardner from 25ft with .30 calibre rifles. He was pronounced dead two minutes later.

While the practice was meant to have been discontinued in China in 2010, the use of firing squads have been recorded since.

In one case, a man who stabbed nine school children – Zhao Zewei – was shot dead by a firing squad in 2018 in front of a crowd of villagers.

In Somalia, too, the practice is still used to punish criminals. In 2015, Hassan Hanafi, a former media officer for the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab, was tied up at a police academy square in the capital Mogadishu before being shot following a conviction for murdering five journalists. 

And in Yemen, still, Houthi authorities reserve the punishment of death by firing squad for serious crimes. In 2021, nine men found guilty of spying for the opposing Saudi-led coalition forces were put to death, executed publicly in Tahrir Square in the rebel-held capital of Sanaa.

South Carolina’s ­firing squad consists of three ­volunteers from the prison guards who, after meeting ‘certain qualifications’ that officials haven’t specified, have been trained to fire a single round at a target placed on the heart from 15 feet (4.6 metres) away. Unlike in other states which put a blank round in one of the guns, each of the three is issued with live ammunition. 

The state has spent more than £40,000 adapting its death ­chamber at a prison in its capital city of Columbia to cater for death by bullet. A metal chair has been installed in a corner of the chamber which sits within a large metal tray – to catch the blood. A rectangular box directly behind the chair is designed to absorb the bullets.

After being allowed to make a final statement, the prisoner is strapped into the chair and a hood placed over their head.

The firing squad point their rifles through a hole cut in a brick wall, allowing them to remain out of view of official witnesses, who are behind bulletproof glass.

An execution team member will place a ‘small aim point’ over the inmate’s heart, and after the prison warden reads the ­execution order, they will open fire. A doctor will then examine the body to confirm death. Two years ago, a court hearing revealed the state wanted to use ‘fragmentation’ bullets which break up inside their target, causing greater damage but providing a more ‘instantaneous’ death than conventional solid rounds.  

Beheading – The majority of state executions in Saudi Arabia are still carried out by sword decapitation. It is a particularly bloody and violent means of capital punishment only carried out by Saudi Arabia – and can be used for a variety of crimes including murder, apostasy (abandoning Islam), homosexuality, witchcraft or sorcery, and ‘waging war on God’.

On March 12, 2022, 81 people were beheaded – the largest mass execution in recent years, despite promises to limit use of such measures.

Human Rights Watch slammed the Saudi authorities for a ‘brutal show of autocratic rule’, noting many families found out about the deaths of their loved ones ‘just like the rest of us, after the fact and through the media’. They also questioned the ‘fairness of their trials and sentencing’.

Reprieve has said the tenure of Mohammed bin Salman since 2015 saw a 82 per cent rise in the number of yearly beheadings over the period 2015 – 2021.

In 2003, state executioner Muhammad Saad al-Beshi detailed exactly how these brutal killings take place, sometimes with a gun, others a sword. He said of his first execution in 1998: ‘The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled metres away. There are many people who faint when they witness an execution. I don’t know why they come and watch if they don’t have the stomach for it,’ said the father of seven, who has been known to let his children clean the sword after a killing.

‘No one is afraid of me. I have a lot of relatives, and many friends at the mosque, and I live a normal life like everyone else. There are no drawbacks for my social life.’  

Gas chambers – In Europe, gas chambers invoke the horrific memory of the Holocaust, which saw some six million Jewish men, women and children systematically killed by the Nazis between 1941 and 1945. The programme began with trials on people with physical and intellectual disabilities deemed ‘unworthy of life’ – and was extended to the Roma people and other victims of the Holocaust.

Since then, the practice has almost completely died out as a means of capital punishment. But the United States remains a notable exception. ‘Lethal gas’ remains a legal means of execution in seven states – Alabama, Arizona, California, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wyoming – though all have lethal injection listed as their primary method.

The means of execution is not quick. The 1999 execution of German national Walter LaGrand in Arizona was described as ‘barbaric’ by German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, lasting 18 minutes. It was the last time the means was used.

The 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris in California was likewise described as a ‘macabre and surreal scene’, dying 14 minutes after the execution order was given.

Harris died after requesting a mammoth order for his last meals: 21 pieces of KFC, two large Domino’s pizzas, a bag of jelly beans, a six-pack of Pepsi and a packet of cigarettes.

In 1994, David Lawson was put to death by gas chamber in North Carolina for the murder of Wayne Shinn during a burglary. Cyanide pellets were dropped into a bowl of sulfuric acid in the chamber, splashing Lawson with acid. He struggled so hard as to break the restraints around his leg and screamed ‘I am human’ several times as mucus poured out of his nose onto his blindfold. Lawson took about ten minutes to die, left alone screaming in the chamber.

In 2021, The Flying Monkeys revealed that Arizona had ‘refurbished’ its gas chamber to prepare for executions, according to documents seen by the outlet. They reported the state was ‘preparing to kill death row inmates using hydrogen cyanide, the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz’. 

Mobile death vans – While China does not release its official figures, rights groups believe many thousands of people are executed each year by the state with horrifying means including mobile death vans, firing squads and lethal injections.

Death sentences are frequently handed down for crimes ranging from drug trafficking to murder, but also white collar crimes such as corruption. 

According to a report published in 2021, China’s Penal Code of 1997 – which is still in force today – has 46 crimes punishable by death, including 24 violent crimes  and 22 non-violent crimes. The country’s justice system is also notorious for favouring prosecutors, with Chinese courts having a 99.9 percent conviction rate.

To expedite killings, China is claimed to use mobile death vans in some cases, allowing roaming death squads to carry out the state-sanctioned killings of civilians without the need to move the prisoner to an execution ground.

On the outside, they appear as normal police vehicles, with no external markings to indicate what it is used for. On the inside, however, is an execution chamber. According to reports, the rear of the vehicle houses a windowless chamber where the execution itself takes place.

Several CCTV cameras are also present in the van, meaning the execution can be recorded or watched if officials desire to monitor it.

A bed slides out from the wall of the van, to which the convicted criminal is strapped. A syringe is then put into their arm by a technician, before a police official administers a lethal injection by pressing a button.

The concept of the vans, which reports suggest were first used in the late 1990s, have drawn comparisons to larger models developed by the Nazis in the Second World War to gas Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust.

Minghui, a volunteer operation reporting on the Falun Gong community, said the buses had been in use in China since 2004 for their expediency in killing political dissidents.

‘In the eyes of CCP officials, the biggest advantage of the execution vehicle is the convenience of taking organs from criminals for profit: their eyes, kidneys, livers, pancreas, lung and all other useful body parts, are harvested,’ they concluded, referencing China’s alleged organ harvesting trade. 

Nitrogen gas – Kenneth Eugene Smith stopped breathing at eight minutes past eight in the evening of January 25, 2024. He had spent more than 35 years serving a jury-decided life sentence for the paid assassination of Elizabeth Sennett in Alabama in 1988, but it was his dramatic last moments that would immortalise his name. 

It took Smith 22 minutes to die under the effects of nitrogen hypoxia, an American first that state officials had assured the public would be a quick and painless death after a judge overrode the ruling and imposed the death penalty. Smith writhed around in pain for nearly ten minutes before his breathing appeared to stop.

Strapped to a gurney, he struggled as his lungs filled with nitrogen. His final words were recorded as: ‘Tonight, Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards. I’m leaving with love, peace, and light. Thank you for supporting me. Love all of you.’

The state execution and its harshness immediately prompted outcry from rights groups, condemning the state for going ahead with the experimental means of execution a year after failing to end his life with a botched lethal injection.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said at the time the method could ‘amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law.’ The Alabama Attorney General dismissed the complaints, judging it ‘textbook’.

The means of execution has proven controversial, dividing voters on whether it is an effective and humane means of capital punishment. But on February 22, not even a month since Smith’s horrifying death in Alabama, the state said it was looking to execute a second inmate using nitrogen gas.

Alan Eugene Miller, 59, could become the second person to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia in the US if the plan goes ahead.  Miller has been on death row since 2000 after he was convicted of killing three people in two 1999 workplace shootings. Miller pleaded innocent, citing mental disease or defect. His attorneys said he was ‘at best, very slow’ and should be in a mental health facility rather than a prison.  

Stoning – The brutal execution method of stoning a person to death is documented in the Torah, written centuries before the common era – and remains in use in several countries including Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and the UAE. 

Earlier this month, Houthi rebels in Yemen sentenced 13 people to be stoned to death for homosexuality – a charge typical in the region, according to human rights groups. A 2022 report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said the Houthis have sentenced 350 people to death since seizing the capital in 2014, and have executed 11 of them.

In 2020, horrifying footage showed an Afghan woman being stoned to death by an angry mob as she cowered and screamed in a hole. The Afghan president blamed the Taliban, who claimed the footage was from 2015. Activists were unconvinced ‘The intensity of their violence and what they can do against women in the absence of law and order is clearly visible,’ said prominent activist Laila Haidari at the time. In the video, the woman can be heard crying and screaming while the crowd shouts ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘hit her’. The victim, named only as Rokhshana, was accused of adultery because she was engaged to a man she did not want to marry, Afghan authorities said at the time.

ISIS (and Al-Qaeda) also used sickening stoning practices at the height of its claim to parts of Iraq and Syria. Footage from 2015 in the stronghold of Mosul showed crowds gathering to watch jihadis murder a defenceless couple accused of having sex before marriage.

Young boys clamber onto their fathers’ shoulders to get a better view of the man and woman being charged with ‘fornication’, before Mosul-based executioner-in-chief Abu Ansar al-Ansari orders their stoning to death.

A militant with a yellow scarf covering his face is then seen using a microphone and PA system to read out the charge of ‘fornication’ against the couple, suggesting they had not been charged of adultery.

In a sudden act of brutality, militants are then seen taking large stones from a pile heaped in the middle of the road and throwing them at the blindfolded couple, who have their hands bound to prevent them from getting away. Large pools of blood appear in the road before the couple succumb to their injuries.

Even today, stoning remains a fairly common punishment in Iran. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last year the government was executing people at ‘an alarming rate.’ He said at least 419 people received capital punishment in the first seven months of 2023, an increase of 30% from the same period last year. Crimes punishable by the death penalty in Iran include adultery, sodomy, murder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking. 

Anti-aircraft guns – North Korea has deliberately separated itself from the norms and customs of its neighbours. While South Korea retains the death penalty for the most violent crimes, it has avoided using it since 1997. North Korean despot Kim Jong Un has proven less apprehensive, according to civilians fleeing his murky regime. 

In 2015, reports surfaced from South Korean intelligence that its neighbour had publicly executed its Defence Minister Hyong Yong Chol with an anti-aircraft gun for falling asleep during an event and not carrying out instructions.

A rights group in North Korea later shared shocking satellite footage appearing to show a group of people lined up in a military training area opposite six ZPU-4 AA-guns near a viewing area.

A year later, a former agriculture minister and a senior education official were reportedly killed in a similar manner, ‘executed by anti-aircraft gun at a military academy in Pyongyang’ – the latter also alleged to have dozed off during a meeting.

In another case, defector Hee Yeon Lim reportedly claimed she was one of 10,000 made to watch the AA-gun execution of 11 musicians accused of making a pornographic film.

‘What I saw that day made me sick in my stomach,’ she said. ‘They were lashed to the end of anti-aircraft guns,’ she said. ‘A gun was fired, the noise was deafening, absolutely terrifying. And the guns were fired one after the other. The musicians just disappeared each time the guns were fired into them. Their bodies were blown to bits, totally destroyed, blood and bits flying everywhere… and then, after that, military tanks moved in and they ran over the bits on the ground where the remains lay.’

A year prior, it was reported Kim Jong Un had purged a number of senior officials including deputy public security minister, who was ‘executed by flamethrower’. Others were allegedly executed there or sent to a North Korean concentration camp.  

Hanging – Hanging as a means of capital punishment was mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey, but became a common method of execution by the Middle Ages. In the US, it remained the primary means until the 1890s – and still today the practice is mostly unchanged where it is legal in countries including Japan and Singapore.

Prisoners sentenced to be hanged are often weighed before the execution and rehearsals performed to work out how much ‘drop’ will be needed to kill them quickly. Too much rope can lead to decapitation after the condemned person falls through the air, and too little can result in strangulation lasting as long as 45 minutes.

The most recent recorded example of this was the execution of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, one of three half-brothers of Saddam Hussein. He was hanged on January 15, 2007 for crimes against humanity (along with Hussein) – but was decapitated by the rope due to a mistaken calculation about his weight and the length of the drop.

Before an execution by hanging, a prisoner’s limbs are secured, they are blindfolded and a noose is placed around the neck. In traditional executions, a trap door falls open for the prisoner to drop through. Their weight should cause a rapid fracture-dislocation of the neck – but it is rare the prisoner dies immediately.

Iran still uses cranes to hang its prisoners, tying them to a noose and then lifting them high in the air to be seen for miles. In 2022, protestor Majidreza Rahnavard made headlines when he was charged with ‘waging war against God’, ran through a ‘sham trial’ and put to death.

Executions conducted in public with a crane have been more rare in recent years, though Iran used the same manner of hanging to put down unrest following the disputed 2009 presidential election and the Green Movement protests that followed.

Typically, those condemned are alive as the crane lifts them off their feet, hanging by a rope and struggling to breathe before they asphyxiate or their neck breaks.

Public hangings are nothing new. In England in the 1800s, events could attract thousands, or tens of thousands, of viewers with a perverse fascination in watching the brutal death. In a scathing criticism of capital punishment, French philosopher Albert Camus noted that the spectacle of brutal killings did not seem to deter criminals; hangings often attracted many pickpockets, drawn to the large crowds of people. Of 167 condemned inmates at Bristol prison in 1886, 164 had themselves watched the horrific means of execution already.

Still, it took more horror stories before Britain abolished the penalty formally in 1998. In 1953, British man Derek Bentley was hanged for the murder of a policeman during a burglary attempt. Aged 19, the man was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. The case provoked debates, and Bentley was later pardoned and proven innocent. The complexities of the case, including views on Bentley’s learning difficulties, created public outrage at the time.

Even today, with advances in forensic evidence gathering and justice, for every eight people executed, one person has been exonerated – leaving countless potentially wrongfully sent to their deaths.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Hugh Jackman (56), Hiroyuki Sanada (64), Josh Hutcherson (32), Robin Askwith (74), Michelle Trachtenberg (39), Emily Deschanel (48), Claudia Black (52), Joan Cusack (62), Jane Krakowski (56), Stephen Moyer (55), John Nettles (81), Dawn French (67), Dan Stevens (42), Manu Bennett (55), Rose McIver (36), Charles Dance (78), Sarah Lancashire (60), Guillermo del Toro (60), Tony Shalhoub (71), Scott Bakula (70), Brandon Routh (45), Chris O’Dowd (45), Brian Blessed (88), Matt Damon (54), Bella Thorne (27), Sigourney Weaver (75), Chevy Chase (81), Paul Hogan (85), Ardal O’Hanlon (59), Bruno Mars (39), Shawn Ashmore (45), and Simon Cowell (65).

Posted by  |  13th October 2024 | Categories: 2024 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 6th October 2024

No points this week, but some good news regarding the website. I will be migrating to a new host in the next couple of weeks, so the problems some of you are experiencing will all hopefully go away. So there might be some disruption for a couple of weeks whilst it all gets sorted out. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Frankie Valli has addressed a series of viral TikToks that sparked concern among fans over his recent live performances. The Four Seasons crooner, 90, has been the subject of a number of clips doing the rounds on social media. In one, he is seemingly a few beats behind the choreography of his classic single “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)”. Another shows the band performing “Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby, Goodbye)”, where Valli appears to miss some of the lyrics. Some fans claimed that he appeared to be lip-syncing. “He needs to rest,” one viewer commented, while another said he looked “exhausted”. In a statement to the Flying Monkeys on Monday, Valli dismissed the concern as he insisted he still loves performing live shows. “I know there has been a lot of stuff on the internet about me lately so I wanted to clear the air. I am blessed to be 90 years old and still be doing what I love to do and as long as I am able, and audiences want to come see me, I am going to be out there performing as I always have,” he said. “I absolutely love what I do. And I know we put on a great show because our fans are still coming out in force and the show still rocks.” Valli said he’d had a “chuckle” reading the comments from those wondering if he was being “forced” to go on stage. “Nobody has ever made me do anything I didn’t want to do,” he said. “How do we do the show?! The Four Seasons sound was always about layering vocals and instruments. We use our 60 years of experience so we sound like the records. I sing, I have singers who sing, great arrangements… everything.” Valli’s statement concluded: “I plan to be doing shows as long as I can, delivering that great Four Seasons sound. Like that line in Jersey Boys, I’m like that bunny on TV, that just keeps going and going and going. Chasing the music.”  

Popular Cuban reggaeton artist El Taiger is said to be in “very critical condition” after he was shot in the head. The 37-year-old Latin American singer, whose real name is Jose Manuel Carbajal, was found Thursday morning in a black Mercedes SUV with a gunshot wound, Miami Police Department officials said in a press conference on Friday. After first responders rendered first aid, he was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where he underwent surgery and remains in “very critical condition,” according to Miami Chief of Police Manuel Morales. An investigation is ongoing. “We’re confident that we’ll get to the bottom of this and solve this incident,” Morales said. “It is a tragic incident that has shaken our local South Florida community.” Carbajal suffered significant brain damage and was put on life support, according to the Flying Monkeys. Miami police spokesperson Mike Vega told us that it is not yet known whether the gunshot wound was self-inflicted. Officials do not believe that the incident happened in the same place Carbajal was found. “Our officers are investigating because we think this didn’t happen in the city of Miami,” Vega said. “We’re sure that it didn’t happen in that corner where the vehicle was found. This happened in another place; someone brought him here, left him, and left on foot.” Carbajal’s manager, Macel Reinosa, told the Flying Monkeys that “nobody on the team believes that he tried to commit suicide, based on what they are saying on the bullet.” “It was in the front of his head, so I would really doubt someone would shoot himself and then get on the back of the trunk by himself,” Reinosa said. Carbajal is well-known within the Latin music community for his contributions to reggaeton, a music genre characterised by its blend of Caribbean rhythms and urban beats. Some of his most listened-to tracks include “La Historia” and “La Guariconfianza.” 

Janey Godley has revealed the “worst thing” about dying as she receives end-of-life care. In September, the Scottish comedian confirmed that her cancer had spread and she is now getting palliative care in a hospice. “The chemo ran out of options and I just couldn’t take any more of it and the cancer has spread,” the 63-year-old said in a video at the time. “So it looks like this will be getting to near the end of it and it’s really difficult to speak about this and say to people.” In an interview with the Flying Monkeys, conducted together with her 38-year-old daughter, Ashley Storrie, Godley revealed what she believes to be the “worst thing” about approaching the end of her life. Godley said that she  dreads to think of the day she is unable to see Ashley, a comedian and actor, who she called “the best thing to come out of my vagina”. “She’s my big success in life and I’m dead proud of her,” Godley added. “The worst thing about me dying is not being able to see her. I can’t imagine being a spirit and not having her in my orbit.” Similarly, Godley said the “worst” part of her cancer diagnosis was having to tell her daughter. “The worst part of it was having to tell Ashley,” Godley told the publication. “She has always been a catastrophiser; telling her was like throwing a hand grenade.” Godley was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021, and has undergone treatment since then, which she called “dreadful”. “I had been on chemo, which kept pushing it back, but have run out of options and the cancer has spread,” she told us. “So it looks like this will be getting to near the end of it. I’m now in palliative care and at end-of-life care in the hospital. It is devastating news to know that I’m facing end-of-life, but we all come to an end sometimes.”

On This Day

  • 1927 – Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent “talkie” movie.
  • 1981 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is murdered by Islamic extremists.
  • 1985 – Police constable Keith Blakelock is murdered as riots erupt in the Broadwater Farm suburb of London.
  • 1995 – The first planet orbiting another sun, 51 Pegasi b, is discovered.
  • 2010 – Instagram, a mainstream photo-sharing application, is founded.

Deaths

Dead Space

Have you ever wondered what would happen to your body if you were to die out in space? Researchers have put their brains together to answer the difficult questions regarding the unusual scenario.

NASA are planning another space mission to send humans to the moon within the next seven years, with wilder plans to send people to Mars in the 2030s. The journey to the red planet will require a long-distance mission and many months in space. Because of this, there’s a need to consider how humans will survive such a long time out in the ether. 

Since the beginning of human spaceflight over 60 years ago, 20 people have died. However, none of these deaths were actually in space and were due to failed launches before leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.

Though NASA hasn’t illustrated set protocols for dealing with a death that happens in space (because they haven’t had to deal with it yet), some of the world’s space researchers have come up with their own hypothesis.

One of the ways someone could die in space is by being exposed to its vacuum without having a suitably pressurised suit to protect them.

Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut and former commander of the International Space Station, shares his thoughts on what could be the worst possible outcome.

He said: “In the worst case scenario, something happens during a spacewalk. You could suddenly be struck by a micro-meteorite, and there’s nothing you can do about that. It could puncture a hole in your suit, and within a few seconds you’re incapacitated.”

Here comes the gruesome part. You probably thought it was just a dramatic effect for films, but nope. 

Emmanuel Urquieta, professor of space medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, described the horrific death experienced by an astronaut who was exposed to the vacuum, saying that it would become impossible for them to breathe and their blood and other bodily fluids would effectively boil. According to Popular Science, the unfortunate astronaut’s blood would vaporise, along with the water in their body, in just 10 seconds. They would lose consciousness in 15 seconds as their body horrifically expanded and their lungs collapsed. They’d be paralysed or more likely dead in 30 seconds, most likely of asphyxiation or decompression.

Then there’s the issue of burial – or lack thereof. If someone died on Mars, Urquieta explained burial or cremation wouldn’t be possible as they ‘could contaminate the Martian surface’. He said ‘the crew would likely preserve the body in a specialised body bag until it could be returned to Earth’. If the astronaut was unlucky enough to die out in space, their body would eventually enter a frozen or mummified state and float through the ether – potentially for millions of years, since there’s no oxygen to prompt decomposition – until it was destroyed by a planet or star, or perhaps heat or radiation.

A cheery thought for a Sunday.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Elisabeth Shue (61), Emily Mortimer (53), Ioan Gruffudd (51), Britt Ekland (82), Kate Winslet (49), Guy Pearce (57), Jesse Eisenberg (41), Karen Allen (73), Diane Morgan (49), Clive Barker (72), Neil deGrasse Tyson (66), Liev Schreiber (57), Dakota Johnson (35), Alicia Silverstone (48), Christoph Waltz (68), Susan Sarandon (78), Melissa Benoist (36), Nick Mohammed (44), Alicia Vikander (36), Lena Headey (51), Denis Villeneuve (57), Neve Campbell (51), Clive Owen (60), Seann William Scott (48), Noah Schnapp  (20), Gwen Stefani (55), Lorraine Bracco (70), Avery Brooks (76), Sting (73), Brie Larson (35), Charles Edwards (55), Julie Andrews (89), Zach Galifianakis (55), and Monica Bellucci (60).

Posted by  |  6th October 2024 | Categories: 2024 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 29th September 2024

A sad week as Dame Maggie Smith passes away. But we do have points to award to Gryffindor, er no, to Vic and Iwan, who both had her listed as their Woman, so 161 points each! Ceri had her listed too, so another 61 points to her tally. Well done all three of you!  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Police in Switzerland say several people have been detained over the suspected death of an American woman, 64, inside a “suicide capsule”. A criminal investigation has been opened after prosecutors in Schaffhausen were informed by a law firm that an assisted suicide involving the Sarco capsule had taken place near a forest cabin in Merishausen. They said several people had been taken into custody with investigators looking at possible incitement and accessory to suicide. The pod, which had never been used before, is a 3D-printed device that cost more than $1m to develop. Exit International, the group behind the device, said in a statement that a 64-year-old woman from the US had died using it at approximately 4:01pm on Monday. It added that the woman “had been suffering for many years from a number of serious problems associated with severe immune compromise”. The group said the co-president of The Last Resort Association, a Swiss affiliate of Exit International, Dr Florian Willet, was the was the only person present. “The death took place in open air, under a canopy of trees, at a private forest retreat in the Canton of Schaffhausen close to the Swiss-German border,” the statement read. The group said it had followed legal advice from lawyers which, it said, showed the use of the capsule was lawful in Switzerland. Swiss law allows assisted suicide so long as the person takes his or her life with no “external assistance” and those who help the person die do not do so for “any self-serving motive”, according to a government website. Switzerland is among the only countries in the world where foreigners can travel to legally end their lives, and is home to a number of organisations that are dedicated to helping people kill themselves.  

A mother-of-five has become the first person to die from a Brazilian Bum Lift procedure in the UK. Alice Webb, 33, passed away on Monday just hours after having the surgery, which is believed to have been performed in the West Country. Gloucestershire Police confirmed it is investigating the death and has arrested two people on suspicion of manslaughter. The practitioner alleged to have carried out the surgery is one of those who has been arrested. Alice was an advanced aesthetic practitioner at Crystal Clear in Wotton-under-Edge, a market town in Gloucestershire. A GoFundMe page set up by her pal Abigail Irwin revealed the tragedy. It said: ‘I am hoping to raise as many funds as we can to support Dane, the partner of Alice and their five beautiful children at this very difficult sad time. According to a report from Save Face published in July there has been an ‘alarming increase in the number of patient reported complaints relating to non-surgical breast augmentation and BBLs’. The report said that more than half have resulted in severe and life-threatening complications, including sepsis, abscesses and infections.   

The world’s longest-serving death row prisoner was acquitted by a Japanese court on Thursday, more than half a century after his 1968 murder conviction. The Shizuoka District Court ruled that 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial obtained by the former boxer and his supporters a decade ago. ‘The court finds the defendant innocent,’ judge Koshi Kunii said. Hakamada’s health is delicate and he was not present in court, but his 91-year-old sister Hideko, who often speaks for him, bowed deeply to Kunii several times. Until he was freed in 2014 pending retrial, Hakamada had been on death row for 46 years after being convicted of killing his boss, the man’s wife and their two teenage children. But over the years, questions arose over fabricated evidence and coerced confessions, sparking scrutiny of Japan’s justice system, which critics say holds suspects ‘hostage’. Hundreds of people had queued in the morning at the Shizuoka District Court, trying to secure a seat for the verdict in the murder saga that has gripped the nation. ‘For so long, we have fought a battle that has felt endless,’ Hideko had told reporters in July. ‘But this time, I believe it will be settled.’ Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the United States to retain capital punishment, a policy that has broad public support. Hakamada is the fifth death row inmate granted a retrial in Japan’s post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exoneration. After decades of detention, mostly in solitary confinement, Hakamada sometimes seems like he ‘lives in a world of fantasy’, according to his lead lawyer Hideyo Ogawa.

On This Day

  • 1940 – Two Avro Ansons collide in mid-air over New South Wales, Australia, remain locked together, then land safely.
  • 1957 – The Kyshtym disaster is the third-worst nuclear accident ever recorded.
  • 1988 – NASA launches STS-26, the first Space Shuttle mission since the Challenger disaster.

Deaths

  • 1902 – Émile Zola, French journalist, author, and playwright (b. 1840).
  • 1981 – Bill Shankly, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1913).
  • 1997 – Roy Lichtenstein, American painter and sculptor (b. 1923).
  • 2010 – Tony Curtis, American actor (b. 1925).

Last Meals

An Alabama death row inmate gave a chilling two sentence final statement in the moments before his execution by nitrogen hypoxia.

Alan Eugene Miller, 59, became the second person to die from the controversial method on Thursday night. He had been on death row for decades for killing three people in back-to-back workplace shootings in 1999.

Protesting his innocence until the end, his final words were: ‘I didn’t do anything to be in here. I didn’t do anything to be on death row.’

Alabama corrections officials then pumped nitrogen gas into a mask that covered Miller’s face from his forehead to his chin, forcing him to shake and tremble on the gurney for about two minutes. His left hand shook and clenched into a fist several times, and he was forced to lift his head from the gurney. That was followed by about six minutes of periodic gasping breaths before he finally went still.

Miller was finally pronounced dead at around 6.38pm, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said at an ensuing news conference, noting the two minutes of shaking was to be expected.

‘There’s going to be involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen, so that is nothing we did not expect,’ Hamm said. ‘Everything went according to plan and according to our protocol, so it went just as we had planned.’

But Hamm later admitted that a corrections officer had to adjust the inmate’s mask before the gas started to flow.  ‘That’s just making sure the mask is fitted,’ he said.

The execution was the second to use the new method Alabama first employed in January, when Kenneth Smith was put to death. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmate’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen. 

Miller had selected the option to die by asphyxiation in a 2018 form distributed to Alabama death row inmates. But the state was still not prepared to use nitrogen hypoxia as a form of execution when officials received a warrant for Miller’s execution in September 22nd, and opted to instead try to execute him by lethal injection. That attempt was then called off when state officials said they could not access Miller’s veins before the execution warrant expired at midnight. The inmate later filed a lawsuit against the prison, claiming that prison workers poked him for ninety minutes while trying to start an IV and left him hanging vertically as he laid strapped into a gurney.  State prosecutors ultimately settled the suit, and agreed not to execute Miller using any method other than nitrogen hypoxia. 

Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted of capital murder in 2000 for the August 5th 1999 shootings that claimed three lives and shocked the city of Pelham, a suburban city just south of Birmingham.

He had worked with each of the three victims – Lee Holdbrooks, 32, Scott Yancy, 28, and Terry Lee Jarvis, 39 – and had accused them of spreading rumours about him.

Police say he entered Ferguson Enterprises and fatally shot Yancy three times, leaving him unable to move after the first shot ‘traveled through his  groin and into his spine, paralysing him.’ Holdbrooks was also shot about six times and tried to crawl down a hallway to escape before Miller shot him in the head ‘causing him to die in a pool of blood,’ according to court documents. Miller then headed to his previous employer Post Airgas, where Jarvis worked. He walked in and said, ‘Hey I hear you’ve been spreading rumours about me.’ Jarvis replied that he had not been spreading any rumours, a witness said, but just moments later Miller shot Jarvis ‘a number of times.’ He was later captured on the highway with a Glock pistol with one round in the chamber and 11 rounds in an ammunition magazine, police said.

Miller had initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but later withdrew the plea. A psychiatrist hired by the defence said that Miller was mentally ill but his condition wasn’t severe enough to use as a basis for an insanity defence, according to court documents. Jurors convicted Miller after 20 minutes of deliberation and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive the death penalty. 

‘Just as Alan Miller cowardly fled after he maliciously committed three calculated murders in 1999, he has attempted to escape justice for two decades,’ Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement Thursday. ‘Tonight, justice was finally served for these three victims through the execution method elected by the inmate. His acts were not that of insanity, but pure evil,’ the governor said. ‘Three families were forever changed by his heinous crimes and I pray that they can find comfort all these years later.’

Family members of the three victims did not witness the execution and did not issue a statement to be read to reporters, state officials said. Miller’ last meal was of a hamburger steak, baked potato and French fries. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Zachary Levi (44), Erika Eleniak (55), Ian McShane (82), Luke Goss (56), Mackenzie Crook (53), Halsey (30), James Lance (49), Jeffrey Jones (78), Naomi Watts (56), Mira Sorvino (57), Hilary Duff (37), Brigitte Bardot (90), Dita Von Teese (52), Jenna Ortega (22), Indira Varma (51), Gwyneth Paltrow (52), Avril Lavigne (40), Linda Hamilton (68), Bella Ramsey (21), Will Smith (56), Catherine Zeta-Jones (55), Michael Madsen (67), Michael Douglas (80), Mark Hamill (73), Donald Glover (41), Heather Locklear (63), Beth Toussaint (62), Felicity Kendal (78), Kevin Sorbo (66), Kimberley Nixon (39), Sven-Ole Thorsen (80), Jack Dee (63), Rosalind Chao (67), Bruce Springsteen (75), and Karl Pilkington (52).

Posted by  |  29th September 2024 | Categories: 2024 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 22nd September 2024

Alas no points this week, but plenty to read! Let’s crack on!  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Former NBA star Michael Jordan has sparked health concerns among fans after he was spotted at a Champions League game on Thursday. During the match the 61-year-old basketball legend was pictured with glassy, orange-coloured eyes. On Twitter, Bleacher Report Football posted a photo of Jordan in the stands, amassing over 17.6 million views and hundreds of comments. The photo, which has now been reposted over 3,600 times, the six-time NBA champion is smiling in a black Air Jordan Jumpman hat and a matching shirt. His eyes appear to be bloodshot in an orange-yellow pigment. Immediately, fans flocked to the comments section, questioning whether they should be worried about Jordan’s health. Some Twitter users thought his eyes were a sign of liver failure. “That boy’s liver is cooked,” one blunt individual wrote, while another questioned: “Does he have Jaundice?” Though jaundice can occur at any age, the condition poses serious health risks in older individuals. Jaundice can be a sign of problems with the liver, pancreas, or gall bladder, which could signal liver disease or a severe infection. Jordan has not spoken publicly about the colour of his eyes nor any recent health issues. 

Musician Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen’s wife and E  Street bandmate, has revealed that she was diagnosed in 2018 with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. The singer-songwriter addresses her diagnosis in the new documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which premiered last Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival. Scialfa disclosed that her illness has made it difficult to perform, leading to her decision to take a step back from touring. “This affects my immune system, so I have to be careful what I choose to do and where I choose to go. Every once in a while, I come to a show or two and I can sing a few songs on stage, and that’s been a treat. That’s the new normal for me right now, and I’m OK with that.” Scialfa explained that she received her diagnosis while she and Springsteen were on the rock singer’s Broadway run in 2018. Multiple myeloma, also known as myeloma, is a form of bone marrow cancer, and can affect several areas of the body including the spine, skull, pelvis and ribs. Over time, it can cause issues including persistent bone pain, fatigue, weakness and shortness of breath, and blurred vision, headaches or dizziness. Scialfa, 71, has been a member of the E Street Band since 1984; she was inducted with the rest of the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. She and Springsteen married in 1991. They have three children together.  

Heart Radio presenter Jamie Theakston has revealed that he has been diagnosed with cancer. In a statement shared online, the radio host told followers he recently underwent an operation to remove a lesion from his vocal cords, but the biopsy identified Stage one laryngeal cancer. “So…I have cancer… but cancer doesn’t have me!” he told fans. “The prognosis is very positive and I’m hoping to be back with you in October.” The radio host, who presents the station’s breakfast show on weekdays with Amanda Holden, explained that he has been advised to undergo vocal rest until he is fully recovered. “Until then, I leave you in the mostly capable hands of JK [Jason King] and Amanda Holden. Huge thanks to them and all the Global Family who have been unbelievably supportive.” He continued: “Be thankful for this day, and when I see you next, I’ll have a great story to tell.” The 53-year-old was prompted to get his throat examined after listeners noticed his voice sounded different on air. In a health update shared on 1st September, Theakston thanked his listeners for urging him to get it checked. “Got it checked – Doctors found a lesion on my vocal cords which I’ve had removed this weekend – thanks for all the kind messages – should be back on my feet soon,” he wrote at the time. After announcing that his condition had been identified as cancerous, Theakston has been met with well-wishes from his celebrity colleagues and fans. Carol Vorderman wrote: “Sending best Jamie. thank goodness your listeners spotted the change in your voice, all found early and you’ll be back keeping everyone happy very soon.” Theakston’s former presenting colleague Lisa Snowdon wrote: “Sending lots of love Jamie,” as Emma Bunton, his co-presenter from 2013 to 2018, simply added, “Love you to bits.” 

Janey Godley has cancelled her forthcoming tour as she deals with ongoing treatment for incurable ovarian cancer. Godley, 63, who was due to begin her UK tour Why Is She  Still Here? this autumn, was advised to stop working “for the foreseeable future” because her cancer is spreading. In a video shared online, the comedian told fans that she has been in hospital for eight days to be treated for sepsis, and told by cancer specialists that she should not return to work. “The sepsis is under control but the cancer is spreading so they’ve told me not to work,” she said. “I’m really sorry. We sold thousands and thousands of tickets and there’s so many people employed and my poor bloody agent Chris has been magnificent.” A statement to the Flying Monkeys said: “It is with huge sadness that we must announce the cancellation of Janey Godley’s autumn 2024 tour. Janey has been living with stage four ovarian cancer for the past few years and the treatment from the wonderful Scottish NHS has kept the disease at bay, but sadly in the last few weeks the cancer has returned and there have been a few added complications. Her doctors have now advised her that she must stop work for the foreseeable future. Janey is devastated to let down her thousands of loyal fans, and the wonderful venues, she has played many times over the years. She would like to thank everyone for their love and support at this difficult time.” Godley, who became a viral hit with her voiceover videos dubbing then-first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s daily Covid briefings during the pandemic, revealed she had ovarian cancer in November 2021. She was given the all-clear in 2022 but announced the following year that the disease had been found in her abdomen. Despite this news, she continued with her tour in February and March 2023. 

On This Day

  • 1934 – The Gresford disaster in Wales kills 266 miners and rescuers.
  • 1975 – Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by the Secret Service. 
  • 1993 – A barge strikes a railroad bridge near Mobile, Alabama, causing the deadliest train wreck in Amtrak history. Forty-seven passengers are killed.

Deaths

Last Meals

A man who killed two people in cold blood uttered just  one word before he was executed in a South Carolina prison on Friday – the state’s first in 13 years.

Freddie Owens said ‘bye’ to his attorney and was then strapped into a gurney where he awaited the lethal injection that led to his ultimate demise. Owens remained conscious for a minute before his eyes closed, his breaths shortened and his face twitched for five minutes before he died.

The 46-year-old killed convenience store clerk Irene Graves during a botched robbery in Greenville in 1997. During his trial, he murdered fellow inmate Christopher Lee at a county jail which earned him the death penalty. 

Owens’ execution was the first carried out in South Carolina in 13 years amid a struggle to source the required drugs for lethal injections. After he said his farewell, his attorney responded ‘bye’ and the injection was administered. A doctor came in and declared him dead a little more than 10 minutes later at 6.55pm.

His last meal was two cheeseburgers, French fries, well-done ribeye steak, six chicken wings, two strawberry sodas and a slice of apple pie.

Owens’ last-ditch appeals were repeatedly denied, including by a federal court on Friday morning. His execution was thrown into last minute chaos after a key witness said in a sworn statement that he lied in order to have him convicted. On Wednesday, his lawyers filed a statement from his co-defendant Steven Golden saying that Owens wasn’t at the store at the time when Graves was killed. Golden said that he had blamed Owens, who was 19 at the time, because he was high on cocaine and facing pressure from police. He wrote: ‘I thought the real shooter or his associates might kill me if I named him to police. I am still afraid of that. But Freddie was not there.’ But despite Golden’s recantation, the South Carolina Supreme Court  ruled on Thursday it wasn’t enough to halt prison officials from executing Owens. Prosecutors said that several other witnesses testified that Owens had been the one that pulled the trigger. Those witnesses had been friends of Owens who said he had bragged to them about killing Graves. His former girlfriend also testified that he confessed to the killing.

Since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned people in early 2011. It now has 31 after Owens’ death on Friday. About 20 people have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Billie Piper (42), Tom Felton (37), Ruth Jones (58), Nick Cave (67), Bill Murray (74), Luke Wilson (53), Stephen King (77), David Wenham (59), Ricki Lake (56), Alfonso Ribeiro (53), Liam Gallagher (52), Jon Bernthal (48), Moon Bloodgood (49), Asia Argento (49), George R.R. Martin (76), Danielle Panabaker (37), Jeremy Irons (76), Jimmy Fallon (50), Twiggy (75), James Marsden (51), Jason Sudeikis (49), Tim McInnerny (68), Keeley Hazell (38), Ella Purnell (28), Cassandra Peterson (73), Bruce Spence (79), Ed Begley Jr. (75), Madeline Zima (39), Jennifer Tilly (66), Mickey Rourke (72), and Amy Poehler (53).

Posted by  |  22nd September 2024 | Categories: 2024 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 15th September 2024

A sad week indeed as the voice of Darth Vader dies. However we will not lose him forever, as prior to his death Jones sold the rights to his voice to an AI company, so that future Star Wars films and series can include his iconic voice. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

The disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was rushed from prison to a New York City hospital for emergency heart surgery after he experienced chest pains, his representatives told the Flying Monkeys. “Mr Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital last night due to several medical conditions,” Weinstein representatives Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer said in a statement. “We can confirm that Mr Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today, however we cannot comment any further than that. As we have extensively stated before, Mr Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment.” Weinstein was out of surgery as of Monday afternoon and is in recovery, they said. Weinstein, 72, was transferred to Bellevue from New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, where he is awaiting retrial on rape and sexual assault charges. It is the second time in two months he had been taken to hospital. Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said they requested jail officials immediately move Weinstein to Bellevue “based on his complaints to us regarding chest pains”. In one email, Aidala said, he told them: “This guy is going to die on your watch if you don’t do something.” He was admitted in July for treatment for a variety of health problems including Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs. Representatives at the time said the former director and producer also suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid on his heart and lungs.  

The Cure’s Roger O’Donnell has revealed a “devastating” Lymphoma diagnosis. The keyboardist revealed his diagnosis in a post for Blood Cancer Awareness Month on Sunday after he was diagnosed with the “very rare and aggressive” cancer in September 2023 and subsequently underwent treatment. “September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month so it’s a good opportunity to have a dialogue about these diseases,” O’Donnell started in a series of posts on Twitter. “In September last year I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of lymphoma. I had ignored the symptoms for a few months but finally went and after surgery the result of the biopsy was devastating.” He explained that he’s now “fine” and has an “amazing” prognosis after undergoing several rounds of treatment over the past year. “I’ve now completed 11 months of treatment under some of the finest specialists in the world and with second opinions and advice from the teams that had developed the drugs I was being given. I had the benefit of the latest sci-fi immunotherapy and some drugs that were first used 100 years ago. The last phase of treatment was radiotherapy which also was one of the first treatments developed against cancer. I’m fine and the prognosis is amazing,” added O’Donnell. O’Donnell went on to urge others to get tested for cancer so they can catch and better treat it early. “The mad axe murderer knocked on the door and we didn’t answer,” he wrote. “Cancer CAN be beaten but if you are diagnosed early enough you stand a way better chance, so all I have to say is go GET TESTED, if you have the faintest thought you may have symptoms go and get checked out. If you know someone who is ill or suffering talk to them, every single word helps, believe me I know. I would also like to thank my Drs, rockstars everyone of them, all the nurses and technicians, my friends, family and Mimi, sometimes its harder to be on the other side of this…” added O’Donnell.  

A teenager who appeared in Freddie Flintoff’s BBC documentary has tragically died in a horrific double death crash after the high performance car he was driving smashed into trees. Umar Mahmood, 18, died in hospital last week after being seriously injured while at the wheel of an Audi A3 Sport which veered off the road in Preston, Lancashire on Tuesday. Back seat passenger 16-year-old Adam Bodi also suffered fatal injuries while a 17-year-old who was also in the car remains in hospital, with police investigating the cause of the double tragedy. Umar had been filmed being coached by the England cricket legend in ‘Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams’. He had been a pupil at Penwortham Priory Academy, finishing his studies two years ago, as was Adam who left after his GCSEs this summer. The show saw England all-rounder turned TV presenter Flintoff recruit teenagers from under privileged parts of Lancashire in a bid to change people’s perspective of the sport. Umar’s school paid tribute to the ‘bright’ and ‘studious’ youngster. Principal Matt Eastham said: ‘We are again saddened as a school to hear the news that Umar, who was in the same accident as Adam, and who left Priory two years ago, has also passed away. Umar was a bright, studious and well-loved member of our school community. He had a passion for geography as well as his cricket, playing for Priory’s school team and appearing in the BBC One documentary Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams. It was a privilege for us here at Priory to know Umar. He was a young man who was always considerate to those around him and who showed ambition and kindness in all that he did. It is of course with great sadness that we hear this news. We give our sincere condolences to all of Umar’s family and friends on behalf of the school, at what will be a very difficult time. They too, are in our thoughts and prayers today.’

On This Day

  • 1830 – The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens; British MP William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported railway passenger fatality when he is struck and killed by the locomotive Rocket.
  • 1916 – World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.
  • 1954 – Marilyn Monroe’s iconic skirt scene is shot during filming for The Seven Year Itch.

Deaths

Our Final Thoughts?

The first ever recording of the very moment someone dies has revealed what our final thoughts could be.

Probably since the beginning of time, what happens to us after we die is the question we have always wanted to know the answer to.

Even though we will probably have to wait until we’re dead to know for sure, scientists reckon they’ve been able to look into our last ever thoughts before we pass away.

This comes after researchers in Vancouver, Canada, took a look at the brain of a 87-year-old patient suffering from epilepsy, but he unexpectedly died of a heart attack while they were observing him. 

By using the results from an electroencephalogram (EEG) test, they were able to determine what was happening in his brain during his last moments – specifically the 30 seconds before and after his heart stopped beating.

And that age old idea that one’s life ‘flashes before their eyes’ might just be a real thing after an increase in ‘gamma oscillations’ was detected.

‘Gamma oscillations’ are linked to the retrieval of memories and dreaming, which might suggest the patient was reliving past experiences before he died.

Lead author of the study – published in the journal Frontiers in Ageing Neuroscience – Dr Ajmal Zemmar said: “Through generating oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences.

“These findings challenge our understanding of when exactly life ends and generate important subsequent questions, such as those related to the timing of organ donation.” 

The study showed similar changes in brainwaves between rats at the time of death – but it’s the first time it was detected in humans.

However, as with most studies, the team say that further research is needed in order to provide more conclusive results.

It’s also important to note that the data focuses on just a single case study and the patient’s brain had already been damaged from epilepsy.

Therefore, professionals aren’t able to truly say if the same thing would happened with a different person, near the time of their death.

“Something we may learn from this research is: although our loved ones have their eyes closed and are ready to leave us to rest, their brains may be replaying some of the nicest moments they experienced in their lives,” Dr. Zemmar added.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tom Hardy (47), Tommy Lee Jones (78), Ben Schwartz (43), John Bradley (36), Brendan O’Carroll (69), Jimmy Carr (52), Sam Neill (77), Andrew Lincoln (51), Lolly Adefope (34), Walter Koenig (88), Amanda Barrie (89), Alfie Allen (38), Linda Gray (84), Virginia Madsen (63), Tyler Hoechlin (37), Roxann Dawson (66), Johnny Vegas (53), Guy Ritchie (56), Colin Firth (64), Adam Sandler (58), Hugh Grant (64), Jeffrey Combs (70), Eric Stonestreet (53), and Julia Sawalha (56).

Posted by  |  15th September 2024 | Categories: 2024 | Leave A Comment »