Contender, ready! Gladiator, ready!!! No winners today though! Might as well sit down and  have a Tiramisu. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• John Anderson, 92, Scottish athletics coach and television personality (Gladiators). 
• Erica Ash, 46, American actress (Mad TV, The Big Gay Sketch Show, Survivor’s Remorse), breast cancer. 
• Roberto Linguanotto, 81, Italian chef, disputed inventor of tiramisu. 
• Robert Banas, 90, American dancer and actor (West Side Story). 
• DJ Randall, 54, British DJ and record producer. 

In Other News

Miriam Margolyes has shared a health update as she experiences difficulty walking, due to problems with problems her spine. The 83-year-old Harry Potter actor has opened up about dealing with spinal stenosis – the narrowing of the spinal canal – which can cause compression on the spinal nerves. As the condition progresses, it can cause back and leg pain. Margolyes said that she is now registered as disabled and has started using a mobility scooter. “I can’t walk very well, and I’m registered disabled,” she told the Flying Monkeys. “I use all kinds of assistance. I’ve got two sticks and a walker and they’re such a bore, but I’ve just got a mobility scooter, which is a lot of fun.” Last year, the Australian actor underwent major heart surgery to replace her aortic valve, and has since shared concerns that she won’t have enough money to cover her health and medical support costs as she gets older. “I’m worried that I won’t have enough money for carers when I finally get paralysed or whatever it is that’s going to happen to me, I’m saving up cash so that I can pay people to look after me and my partner. We don’t have children, so I need to make sure I’m going to be looked after in the way that I’ve become accustomed. When I started kind of failing physically, I remember saying to directors and producers, please don’t show me clambering out of a car or climbing upstairs on my hands and knees. I didn’t want people to see that because I was embarrassed to see myself looking so pathetic. But, subsequently, I’ve met loads of people who have said I gave them the courage to do things that they never thought they could. So I’m very pleased about that.”  

Following on from last weeks story of the 23-year-old Australian surfer who survived having his leg bitten off by a suspected great white shark, he has vowed to be back in the water “in no time”. Kai McKenzie was attacked off the mid-north coast of New South Wales last week, and his severed leg later washed up on the beach. The limb was placed on ice and taken to a hospital about 200km away from the place where the attack took place, with the hope that it could be reattached. It’s not clear if doctors attempted surgery to reattach the leg, but an Instagram post by Mr McKenzie on Monday confirmed that he had lost the limb. “Spot something missing? Hahah,” Mr McKenzie quipped in a caption alongside an image showing him standing arm-in-arm with a group of friends. Mr McKenzie was taken to Port Macquarie Base Hospital and later flown to John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle after last Tuesday’s attack. He was riding the waves off the shore of New South Wales when a 10ft shark attacked and nearly killed him. In an earlier post on Instagram on Saturday he detailed the incident and thanked people for the support he received. “To be here right now just to fucking be able to hold my beautiful Eve and my family is everything to me,” he wrote. “A few days ago I went through a crazy shark attack, biggest shark I’ve ever seen, which was a very crazy scene and scared the living fuck out of me. But to all you fucking kind-hearted people, all you legends, to anyone and everyone all your support has meant the absolute world to me. I can tell you now if you know my personality this means fuck all. I’ll be back in that water in no time, big fuck off to that shark and big thanks to Steve for saving my life.” In a statement on Thursday, the McKenzie family also thanked all of the “medical staff … bystanders and first responders” who had worked to save the surfer’s life. 

Good Morning Britain contributor Iain Dale has shared an update on his health following the news earlier this week that he had been admitted to hospital with “acute pain”. The broadcaster, 62 – who’s made numerous appearances as a panelist on the ITV show over the years – announced just days ago that he had ended up in A&E over a suspected “gall bladder issue”. He however later told fans that he was in intensive care awaiting an operation to remove the organ. The LBC radio host took to Twitter, on Wednesday afternoon to share an update. He stated that his gallbladder is “infected and inflamed,” with Iain adding that his operation had been postponed amid other treatment. Addressing his followers, he wrote in the post: “FURTHER UPDATE: No sign of gallstones but gallbladder infected and inflamed. Decision on op put off until we see if antibiotics work.” He continued: “Hope to be discharged tomorrow, but won’t be at full capacity for some time, I’m told.” Iain also expressed gratitude to his followers for their well wishes and support. He concluded the recent tweet by writing: “Renewed thanks for all the kind comments and to the wonderful people who have been caring for me.” It comes just days after Iain shared that he was “suffering” due to his health recently. He initially took to the platform on Sunday to apologise to his followers for his “lack of interaction,” attributing it to a “bout of food poisoning”. 

On This Day

• 1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon’s invention of champagne. 
• 1783 – Mount Asama erupts in Japan, killing about 1,400 people. The eruption causes a famine, which results in an additional 20,000 deaths.
• 1892 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home. She will be tried and acquitted for the crimes a year later. 
• 2020 – Beirut Port explosion: At least 220 people are killed and over 5,000 are wounded when 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate explodes in Beirut, Lebanon.

Deaths

• 1875 – Hans Christian Andersen, Danish novelist, short story writer, and poet (b. 1805).
• 1962 – Marilyn Monroe, American model and actress (b. 1926).
• 1999 – Victor Mature, American actor (b. 1913).

How Lizzie Borden Got Away With Murder

The Lizzie Borden murder case is one of the most famous in American criminal history. New England’s major crime of the Gilded Age, its barbarity captivated the national press. And the suspected killer was immortalised by an eerie rhyme passed down through generations:

Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

While the public largely believed that Borden committed the murders, the rhyme is not quite correct: the female victim was Borden’s stepmother, and the weapon wasn’t an ax, but rather a hatchet, a smaller, lighter tool. Also, the killer struck the victims around half as many times as stated in the rhyme, 19 blows rained down on 64-year-old Abby Borden, and 10 or 11 rendered the face of Lizzie Borden’s 69-year-old father, Andrew Borden, unrecognisable. Still, the rhyme does accurately record the sequence of the murders, which took place about an hour and a half apart on the morning of August 4th, 1892. 

In the early hours, after the discovery of the bodies, the public only knew that the assassin had struck the victims in broad daylight at their home on a busy street, one block from the town’s business district. There was no evident motive like robbery or sexual assault. Neighbours and passers-by heard nothing. No one saw a suspect enter or leave the Borden property.

Moreover, Andrew Borden was no ordinary citizen. Like other Fall River Bordens, he possessed wealth and standing. He had invested in mills, banks and real estate. But Andrew had never made a show of his good fortune. He lived on the unfashionable Second Street, in a modest house, now a spooky bed and breakfast, instead of on “The Hill,” Fall River’s lofty, leafy, silk-stocking enclave.

Lizzie Borden, then a 32-year-old who lived at home, longed to reside on The Hill. She knew her father could afford to move away from a neighbourhood increasingly dominated by Catholic immigrants. 

Police initially considered the killings the work of a man, probably a “foreigner.” Within a few hours of the murders, they arrested a suspect: an innocent Portuguese immigrant from the town’s new diaspora of European workers. 

On the day of the murders, Lizzie claimed that she’d come into the house from the barn and discovered her father’s body. She yelled for the Bordens’ 26-year-old Irish servant, Maggie Sullivan, who was resting in her third-floor room. She told Sullivan she needed a doctor and sent the servant across the street to the family physician’s house. He was not at home. 

Initially, this helped keep Lizzie off the suspect list. She was, after all, a Sunday school teacher at her wealthy Central Congregational Church. Members of her social class didn’t think a person like her would slaughter her parents. 

But during the interrogation, Lizzie’s answers to different police officers shifted. And her inability to summon a single tear aroused police suspicion. Then an officer discovered that Borden had tried to purchase deadly prussic acid from a nearby drugstore a day before the murders. 

Five days after the murders, authorities convened an inquest. Lizzie took the stand on each of its three days; the inquest was the only time she testified in court under oath.

Even more than the heap of inconsistencies that the police compiled, Lizzie’s testimony led her into a briar patch of seeming self-incrimination. She did not have a defence lawyer during what was a closed inquiry. But she was not without defenders. The family doctor, who staunchly believed in her innocence, testified that after the murders, he prescribed a double dose of morphine to help her sleep. Its side effects, he claimed, could account for her confusion. Her 41-year-old sister, Emma Borden, who also lived at home, claimed that the sisters harboured no anger toward their stepmother. 

However, authorities arrested Lizzie on August 11th, one week after the murders. The judge sent her to the county jail. This privileged suspect found herself confined to a cheerless 9.5-by-7.5-foot cell for the next nine months. 

Lizzie’s arrest provoked an uproar that quickly became national. Women’s groups rallied to her side, especially the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and suffragists. Borden’s supporters protested that at trial, she would not be judged by a jury of her peers, as women did not have the right to serve on juries.

Lizzie’s upper-class status benefited her throughout her ordeal. During the preliminary hearing, one of Boston’s most prominent defence lawyers joined the family attorney to advocate for her innocence. 

Her attorneys stressed that the prosecution offered no murder weapon and possessed no bloody clothes. As to the prussic acid, Lizzie was a victim of misidentification, they claimed. In addition, throughout the saga, her legion of supporters remained steadfast that Lizzie’s guilt was culturally inconceivable: A well-bred, virtuous Victorian woman, a “Protestant nun,” to use the words of the national president of the temperance union, could never commit patricide. 

At the preliminary hearing, Lizzie’s defence attorney  delivered a rousing closing argument. Her partisans erupted into loud applause. It was to no avail. The judge determined she was ‘probably guilty’ and should remain jailed until a state Superior Court trial. 

Neither the attorney general, who typically prosecuted capital crimes, nor the district attorney was eager to haul Lizzie into Superior Court, though both believed in her guilt. There were holes in the police’s evidence. And while Lizzie’s place in the local order was unassailable, her arrest had also provoked a groundswell of support.

Though he did not have to, the district attorney brought the case before a grand jury in November. He was not sure he would secure an indictment. Twenty-three jurors convened to hear the case on the charges of murder. They adjourned with no action. Then the grand jury reconvened on December 1st and heard dramatic testimony. 

Alice Russell, a single, pious, 40-year-old member of Central Congregational, was Lizzie’s close friend. Shortly after Andrew Borden was killed, Lizzie sent Sullivan to summon Alice. She slept in the Borden house for several nights after the murders, with the brutalised victims stretched out on mortician boards in the dining room. Russell had testified at the inquest, the preliminary hearing and earlier before the grand jury. But she had never disclosed one important detail. Distressed over her omission, Russell returned to the grand jury. She testified that on the morning after the murders, Lizzie had pulled a dress from a shelf in the pantry closet and proceeded to burn it in the cast iron coal stove. The grand jury indicted Lizzie the next day. 

The district attorney perhaps underestimated the legal and cultural impediments he faced. With her father’s money in hand, Lizzie could afford the best legal team to defend her, including a former Massachusetts governor who had appointed one of the three justices who would preside over the case. That justice delivered a slanted charge to the jury, which one major newspaper described as “a plea for the innocent.” The justices took other actions that stymied the prosecution, excluding testimony about prussic acid because the prosecution had not refuted that the deadly poison could be used for innocent purposes. 

Not surprisingly, the jury quickly decided to acquit Lizzie. They waited for an hour so it would not appear they’d made a hasty decision. 

The courtroom audience, the bulk of the press and women’s groups cheered Lizzie’s acquittal. But her life was altered forever. Two months after the innocent verdict, the Borden sisters moved to a large Victorian house on The Hill. Yet many people there and in the Central Congregational Church shunned her. Lizzie became Fall River’s curio, followed by street urchins and stared down whenever she appeared in public. She withdrew to her home, but even there, neighbourhood kids pestered Lizzie with pranks. 

Lizzie enjoyed traveling to Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., dining in style and attending the theatre. She and her sister Emma had a falling out in 1904, and Emma left the house in 1905. The sisters never saw each other again. Both died in 1927, Lizzie first and Emma nine days later. Both were buried in the same plot as their father and stepmother.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Meghan Markle (43), Billy Bob Thornton (69), Barack Obama (63), Lee Mack (56), Evangeline Lilly (45), Stephen Graham (51), Martin Sheen (84), Steven Berkoff (87), John C. McGinley (65), Mamie Gummer (41), Sam Worthington (48), Edward Furlong (47), Kevin Smith (54), Jason Momoa (45), Daisy May Cooper (38), Wesley Snipes (62), Michael Biehn (68), Emilia Fox (50), Dean Cain (58), J.K. Rowling (59), Christopher Nolan (54), Arnold Schwarzenegger (77), Lisa Kudrow (61), Hilary Swank (50), Laurence Fishburne (63), Frances de la Tour (80), Terry Crews (56), Jean Reno (76), Carel Struycken (76), and Wil Wheaton (52).

Alas no points scored this week, however we have plenty to read, especially the story of a Great White Shark Attack, which we in the UK might have to deal with soon enough. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Evelyn Thomas, 70, American singer (“High Energy“). 
• Lucía Chacón Hechavarría, 112, Cuban supercentenarian. 
• Duke Fakir, 88, American singer (Four Tops), heart failure. 
• John Mayall, 90, English musician (John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers) and songwriter (“I’m Your Witchdoctor“, “Crawling Up a Hill“). 
• Louis van Schoor, 72, South African serial killer, complications from sepsis. 
• Roberta Taylor, 76, English actress (EastEnders, The Bill) and author, pneumonia. 
• Ysanne Churchman, 99, English actress (The Archers). 
• Janet Andrewartha, 72, Australian actress (Neighbours, Prisoner, Fake). 

In Other News

The severed leg of a 23-year-old Australian surfer who was attacked by a great white shark off the mid-north coast of New South Wales has washed up on the beach, police said. Kai McKenzie was attacked by a shark at North Shore Beach at Port Macquarie on Tuesday morning around 11am local time and remained in critical condition. The surfer managed to catch a wave to the shore where bystanders helped treat him after the attack. An off-duty police officer, who was walking his dog on the beach, used his dog’s leash as a tourniquet around his wound in an attempt to stem the bleeding before paramedics arrived at the scene. Mr McKenzie was taken to Macquarie base hospital and later flown to John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle where he remained in a stable but critical condition. The severed leg that washed up on the beach was placed on ice and taken to the hospital about 200km away from the place where the attack occurred. However, doctors will assess whether the leg can be reattached. Shark biologists from the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development reviewed photographs of the incident and identified the shark as a great white approximately 3m in length. “He saw the shark,” Kirran Mowbray, a NSW ambulance worker said. “He was able to fight it off. He was very courageous. He turned around and caught a wave into shore. The only person that saw the shark was the young man himself. He was quite calm. He was able to talk with us. He was completely with it,” he added. Images from the scene showed Mr McKenzie’s surfboard with a chunk bitten off by the shark from its tail.  

Disgraced movie mogul and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein has been hospitalised with Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs just days after he appeared at a court hearing in New York over his retrial on rape and sexual assault charges. The Hollywood movie producer was transferred from the notorious Rikers Island jail complex in New York to a secure ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan on Wednesday. “Mr Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs,” his publicist Juda Engelmayer said in a statement on Thursday. Weinstein was first transferred to the hospital’s prison ward late on Wednesday night before being sent to the Manhattan hospital. There, Weinstein is also being treated for a “myriad of health conditions” including diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, and fluid on his heart and lungs, his publicist said. “We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses in the city’s corrections and public hospital systems who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward,” he added. This marks Weinstein’s second stint at the hospital since he was returned to Rikers Island in April for legal proceedings related to his rape case.  

Three members of gospel group The Nelons have been killed in tragic plane crash. The group is formed of Kelly Nelon Clark, her husband Jason Clark, and Kelly’s daughters Amber Nelon Kistler and Autumn Nelon Streetman. Kelly, Jason and Amber were amongst those killed in the accident, with Amber’s husband Nathan Kistler, and three friends also dead.  They were travelling to the Gaither Homecoming Cruise when the plane crashed over a remote area of northeastern Wyoming. There were no survivors. Autumn, who wasn’t on the plane released a statement on Saturday to announce the sad news. She wrote: ‘As many of you have heard by now, my father and mother, Jason and Kelly Nelon Clark, along with my sister, Amber, and brother-in-law, Nathan, as well as our dear friends Melodi Hodges, Larry, and Melissa Haynie, were involved in a tragic plane crash on Friday.  ‘Thank you for the prayers that have been extended already to me, my husband, Jamie, and our soon-to-be-born baby boy, as well as Jason’s parents, Dan and Linda Clark. We appreciate your continued prayers, love, and support as we navigate the coming days.’ 

Earlier this month, Stevie Nicks canceled a solo concert in  Glasgow, Scotland. At the time, she blamed it on a leg injury that required surgery. Now, Nicks is revealing her condition was much more serious, requiring hospitalisation for the 76-year-old singer. Nicks’ health crisis forced her to abruptly postpone her July 6th Glasgow show and her July 9th Manchester show. The initial announcement downplayed things. “Due to a recent leg injury requiring a minor surgical procedure that will need a few days of recovery time, Stevie Nicks’ scheduled performances in Glasgow Saturday 6th July and Manchester Tuesday 9th July have been postponed,” Glasgow venue OVO Hydro posted Twitter. During the rescheduled Glasgow show on July 24th, Nicks told the crowd what actually occurred. “I don’t know what happened. I just got this weird infection, and it just went crazy,” she told the crowd at the concert. The musician said that she was staying in a “fabulous castle” in Glasgow for her concert. “We get here days early because we want to be here for a few days,” she said. “I finally just looked at my assistant – it was like two in the morning – and I said, ‘I think we need to go to emergency’. She looked at me and I said, ‘I’m not kidding! I think we need to go to the hospital. And so our butler – this wonderful man – throws us in his BMW Sedan, which is so great, and off we sped through the night to a hospital.” The singer said she spent two days in the hospital, before she returned to the castle and decided to cancel the Glasgow show. “I’ve been fighting this for this whole thing,” she told her fans. “This whole tour I’ve been fighting what started here. And I would be damned if I wasn’t coming back here,” she said.  

Sir Geoffrey Boycott has been rushed to hospital with pneumonia after suffering a setback in his recovery from cancer surgery. The national cricket icon, 83, went under the knife this week after revealing he had been diagnosed with throat cancer for a second time. His family issued an update on social media, telling fans that Boycott had successfully undergone a three-hour operation. However, a new statement on Sunday afternoon revealed that Boycott’s health has now “taken a turn for the worse.” After returning home from his cancer surgery, the former batsman was struck down with pneumonia. He is “unable to eat or drink” as a result of the illness. Boycott is now back in hospital “on oxygen and a feeding tube.” The full statement from daughter Emma read: “Thank you all for the well wishes, we’ve been blown away by the sheer number of them! Unfortunately things have taken a turn for the worse and my Father has developed pneumonia and is unable to eat or drink so is back in hospital on oxygen and a feeding tube for the foreseeable.” The update on Boycott’s health comes after he revealed his second cancer diagnosis at the start of July. He said at the time: “In the last few weeks I have had an MRI Scan, CT Scan, a PET Scan and two biopsies and it has now been confirmed I have throat cancer and will require an operation. From past experience I realise that to overcome cancer a second time I will need excellent medical treatment and quite a bit of luck and even if the operation is successful every cancer patient knows they have to live with the possibility of it returning. So I will just get on with it and hope for the best.” 

On This Day

• 1540 – Henry VIII of England marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.
• 1883 – A moderate earthquake measuring magnitude 4.3–5.2 strikes the Italian island of Ischia, killing over 2,300 people. 
• 1976 – The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 moment magnitude flattens Tangshan in the People’s Republic of China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.

Deaths

• 1655 – Cyrano de Bergerac, French poet and playwright (b. 1619).
• 1750 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German organist and composer (b. 1685).
• 2021 – Dusty Hill, American musician (b. 1949).
• 2022 – Bernard Cribbins, British actor (b. 1928)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Hannah Waddingham (50), Anya Chalotra (29), Elizabeth Berkley (52), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (54), Taylor Schilling (40), Donnie Yen (61), Jason Statham (57), Kate Beckinsale (51), Sandra Bullock (60), Kevin Spacey (65), Helen Mirren (79), Nana Visitor (67), Eve Myles (46), Mick Jagger (81), Matt LeBlanc (57), D.B. Woodside (55), Iman (69), Jennifer Lopez (55), Anna Paquin (42), Elisabeth Moss (42), Summer Glau (43), Lynda Carter (73), Danny Dyer (47), Kathryn Hahn (51), Ronny Cox (86), Daniel Radcliffe (35), Woody Harrelson (63), Charisma Carpenter (54), Rhys Ifans (57), Willem Dafoe (70), Selena Gomez (32), Terence Stamp (86), Danny Glover (78), and Bonnie Langford (60).

Let’s dole out the points! With the passing of Bob Newhart I can award 56 points to Iwan!  Well done that bloke! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Tomcraft, 49, German DJ and producer. 
• Whitney Rydbeck, 79, American actor (Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, 1941, Battle Beyond the Stars). 
• Cheng Pei-pei, 78, Hong Kong actress (Come Drink with Me, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Mulan), complications from corticobasal degeneration. 
• Bob Newhart, 94, American comedian and actor (The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, Elf). 
• Ray Reardon, 91, Welsh snooker player, six-time world champion, cancer. 

In Other News

For all of you enjoying festival season, beware what you grab hold of! Brazilian rock singer Ayres Sasaki was electrocuted last week during a live performance in Brazil. The musician died instantly after reportedly hugging a soaking-wet fan during a concert on July 13th at the Solar Hotel in Salinopolis. The contact allegedly triggered a nearby cable to jolt, causing a fatal electric shock, according to The Flying Monkeys. Salinópolis Police are investing the incident. The Pará Civil Police say that witnesses have given statements and they have requested expert reports. The Solar Hotel shared a statement on social media about the tragic incident. “We are fully dedicated to providing support to his family and taking the necessary measures. We reaffirm our commitment to fully cooperating with the competent authorities for the proper clarification of the events,” the hotel wrote in a translated message. “Our thoughts and condolences are with Ayres Sasaki’s family and friends at this difficult time.” Sasaki is survived by his wife of 11 months, Mariana. On her Instagram Story, Sasaki’s wife thanked fans. “I would like to thank you for every message of affection and comfort, for every prayer during this difficult time that we are going through, I haven’t been able to read all the messages yet, but as I feel better, I will respond to each one. Thank you.” 

There are rumours that Bret Michaels, the reality TV star and frontman of the glam-metal band Poison, has been hospitalised and is in critical condition after suffering a brain haemorrhage. An article on his website seemed to confirm his condition but has since been removed. “There are several incorrect reports on Bret’s condition,” read the Saturday posting on bretmichaels.com. “Bret remains in critical condition at an undisclosed location. Further tests are being ran and information will be updated in the coming days.” Michaels, 47, former star of VH1’s “Rock of Love With Bret Michaels” and current “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant, initially was hospitalised at an undisclosed facility Thursday after suffering a massive subarachnoid haemorrhage, or bleeding at the base of his brain stem, his publicist confirmed to the Flying Monkeys on Friday. Michaels was in critical condition and under “intense observation” by doctors while they ran tests to determine the cause of his bleeding. The new medical woes came on the heels of an emergency appendectomy Michaels received after falling ill before a concert in April. Last weekend, Michaels revealed details of how he was rushed to a hospital in April before a show in San Antonio, Texas. “They told me that if I had gone onstage like I wanted to, my appendix likely would have ruptured and I could have died,” he wrote on his blog. “I’m feeling pretty bad … to tell you the truth,” Michaels wrote after the appendectomy. “When you’re not planning on having a body part ripped out of you, it can be a shock to the system. While the doctors are amazing in San Antonio, there is just no way around the fact that getting your appendix out HURTS. I have a pretty good threshold for pain, but this one hurts.” The rocker added that because he’s been a diabetic since age 6, his recovery could take longer than usual. However, it’s unlikely that Michaels’ diabetes spurred his current condition. “This type of haemorrhage is usually from an aneurysm,” Dr. Wendy Wright, an assistant professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, told the Flying Monkeys. “The risk of an aneurysm rupturing is probably related to size – the larger the aneurysm, the more likely to rupture – and also may be more likely in people who smoke or on blood thinning medications.”  *Editors note: So, this happened in 2011, FML. 

The daughter of Dame Esther Rantzen, Rebecca Wilcox, shared an update about her mother’s health whilst appearing on Good Morning Britain. Rebecca appeared on the programme in a bid to share a plea with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Rebecca is urging Sir Keir to change the law in favour of assisted dying. It was here that she shared heartbreaking information about her TV star mum’s lung cancer battle. Rebecca appeared emotional as she discussed her plea to the Prime Minister, she also admitted how difficult it is to discuss the topic, stating that she “can’t talk about it” without being upset. The devoted daughter’s appearance follows Esther’s decision to join the assisted dying clinic Dignitas in Switzerland, due to assisted dying being illegal in the UK. Rebecca shared her disappointment that Sir Keir’s promise to reverse the law was not mentioned in the King’s speech this week. She confessed that due to the severity of her mother’s illness, she is currently “living from scan to scan”. A tearful Rebecca detailed: “We feel like we’re living in an hourglass and the sand is pouring on us. There will come a point where our heads are no longer above it, and I really want politicians, MPs, people of this country to realise that we all have a choice in how we live, and I want us to have a choice in how we die. This is not about shortening anyone’s life, it’s about shortening their death and making it dignified.” Rebecca spoke of her mother, stating: “I don’t want her to go through a painful death. I don’t want my memories of her to completely be dissolved by pain and agony in those last few days.” 

On This Day

• 1865 – In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what is regarded as the first western showdown.
• 1969 – Apollo program: At 02:56 UTC, astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the Moon, followed 19 minutes later by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin.
• 1983 – The world’s lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C!

Deaths

• 1796 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet and songwriter (b. 1759).
• 1967 – Basil Rathbone, South African-American actor and singer (b. 1892).
• 1998 – Alan Shepard, American admiral, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1923).
• 2004 – Jerry Goldsmith, American composer and conductor (b. 1929).
• 2023 – Tony Bennett, American singer (b. 1926).

Last Week’s Birthdays

Josh Hartnett (46), Juno Temple (35), Paloma Faith (43), John Woodvine (95), John Francis Daley (39), Sandra Oh (53), Gisele Bündchen (44), Benedict Cumberbatch (48), Jared Padalecki (42), Vin Diesel (57), Kristen Bell (44), Priyanka Chopra Jonas (42), Eric Winter (48), Brett Goldstein (44), David Hasselhoff (72), Alex Winter (59), Rosa Salazar (39), Will Ferrell (57), Phoebe Cates (61), Corey Feldman (53), Travis Fimmel (45), Brigitte Nielsen (61), Diane Kruger (48), Forest Whitaker (63), Celia Imrie (72), and Jesse Ventura (73).

Inches matter! What could have been, oh well, maybe next time! So, lets dole out the points!

Following the sad passing of Shannen Doherty at the young age of 53, I can award 97 points to the following: Mark W, me, Julia, Paula, Abi, Mark K, and 197 to Ian who had her down as his Woman. Well done everyone!!! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Joe Engle, 91, American astronaut (STS-2, STS-51-I). 
• Pat Colbert, 77, American actress (Dallas, Leonard Part 6). 
• Benji Gregory, 46, American actor (ALF, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Once Upon a Forest), heat stroke.
• Shelley Duvall, 75, American actress (The Shining, Nashville, 3 Women), complications from diabetes. 
• Ruth Westheimer, 96, German-American sex therapist and Holocaust survivor. 
• Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, American gunman (attempted assassination of Donald Trump), shot. 
• Shannen Doherty, 53, American actress (90210), cancer. 
• Richard Simmons, 76, American fitness personality. 

In Other News

Souvenir T-shirts picturing the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former US president Donald Trump have already gone on sale. The T-shirts use an image of a defiant Trump raising his fist into the air as Secret Service officers try to safely move him off the stage. The former president narrowly escaped being killed after a bullet hit his ear at the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. The assassination attempt took place at around 6.15pm local time, with photos of Trump’s recovery being published minutes later. Mere hours later, T-shirts with variations of the historic image have gone on sale from outlets based in the US and China. By around 8pm on Saturday some Chinese manufacturers had already put the iconic photo onto T-shirts, according to the South China Morning Post. The first batch reportedly went on sale on Taobao, a Chinese e-commerce platform, at 8.40pm. One of the Taobao sellers, Li Jinwei, told the Hong-Kong based newspaper: “We put the T-shirts on Taobao as soon as we saw the news about the shooting, though we hadn’t even printed them, and within three hours we saw more than 2,000 orders from both China and the US.” Potoshirt, an online store for trending T-shirts which is based in the US, was also advertising defiant Trump assassination T-shirts on social media on Sunday morning. One product, which was on sale for $22.95, had a shot of a bloodied Trump raising his fist in defiance with the words “you can’t kill Trump” above the image. Another T-shirt, on sale for the same price, used the full image of the former president surrounded by security personnel, with the line “if you come at the king you best not miss” underneath the photo.  

The family of an 82-year-old woman who was pronounced dead at a New York nursing home are demanding answers after after she was later found to be breathing two hours later at the funeral home. Janet Balducci was thought to have died mid-morning on February 4th, 2023 at the Water’s Edge Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Jefferson on New York’s Long Island. Balducci’s body was then driven from the nursing home to Casimir Funeral Home in nearby Miller Place, some six miles away, to be embalmed. Just as funeral parlour workers were ready to tend to Balducci’s body they noticed the cadaver that lay before them still had a pulse. Now the family, Balducci’s two sons, Robert and Joseph, are looking for an explanation as to how the mix-up occurred in what has been termed as ‘extreme and outrageous conduct’ in a lawsuit filed by the family which is taking on a two-pronged approach. The sons are suing for what they allege is the premature and wrongful death of their mother. The family believe that staff at the care home both declared Balducci prematurely deceased but then also contributed to her actual death by failing to diagnose a deep vein thrombosis, which they allege occurred as nursing home workers stood by and did nothing to help treat her. The family’s lawyer say the woman’s sons are ‘horrified’ by what happened and have to live with the sickening reality their mother ‘was placed in a body bag alive.’ ‘I think the case is more emblematic of what happens when elderly people go into these homes,’ DeNoto said. ‘They don’t have an advocate to keep track of what’s happening,’ lawyer Peter DeNoto, told the Flying Monkeys. A criminal investigation into the entire episode is also still ongoing.   

Strictly professional Amy Dowden has revealed she made an unexpected dash to hospital last week amid her ongoing battle with breast cancer. The star, 33, was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer last year. Caerphilly-born Dowden has since undergone a mastectomy, chemotherapy and fertility treatment, and missed out on being a competitor on Strictly during the 2023 series. On Monday, she took to social media to update her fans about how she spent time at a respiratory unit last week. She wrote under pictures of herself on a hospital bed: “So last week didn’t exactly go to plan. Feeling much better now and still taking it easy. “But can’t thank the NHS and the care I received on the respiratory unit enough. Also to my family and Ben of course. Always dropping everything and spending endless hours next to my bed while I mainly slept. Feeling much better and thanks for the many messages after going quiet. Off to oncology unit today for my monthly injection, (missed it last week due to being poorly).” 

On This Day

• 1881 – American outlaw Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the Maxwell House at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
• 1983 – Mario Bros. is released in Japan, beginning the popular Super Mario Bros franchise.
• 2002 – French president Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt from Maxime Brunerie during a Bastille Day parade at Champs-Élysées.
• 2016 – A man ploughs a truck into a Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France, killing 86 people and injuring another 434 before being shot by police.

Deaths

• 1827 – Augustin-Jean Fresnel, French physicist and engineer, reviver of wave theory of light, inventor of catadioptric lighthouse lens (b. 1788). 
• 1881 – William H. Bonney aka Billy the Kid, American gunfighter and outlaw (b. 1859). 
• 1998 – Richard McDonald, American businessman, co-founded McDonald’s (b. 1909).
• 2022 – Ivana Trump, Czech-American socialite and model (b. 1949).

Last Week’s Birthdays

Phoebe Waller-Bridge (39), Jackie Earle Haley (63), Matthew Fox (58), Conor McGregor (36), David Mitchell (50), Kyle Gass (64), Harrison Ford (82), Patrick Stewart (84), Ken Jeong (55), Melissa O’Neil (36), Michelle Rodriguez (46), Cheryl Ladd (73), Tamsin Greig (58), Bill Cosby (87), Michelle Fairley (61), Stephen Lang (72), Sofía Vergara (52), Fiona Shaw (66), Peter Serafinowicz (52), Chiwetel Ejiofor (47), Tom Hanks (68), Pamela Adlon (58), Kelly McGillis (67), Scott Grimes (53), Jimmy Smits (69), Courtney Love (60), Richard Wilson (88), Kevin Bacon (66), Maya Hawke (26), Anjelica Huston (73), and Jaden Smith (26).

Other than the death of the Tory party; you’d be forgiven for not knowing anyone on the list this week, its been a very quiet week indeed! So, this has given me a chance to run through the lists to see who I’ve missed. 

49 points to Trish as I missed the passing of Janis Page on 2nd June. Paul C got lucky when Zhang Lixiong died in early April, 40 points! Well done both of you, and well done me for not missing too many 🙂 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Robert Towne, 89, American screenwriter (Chinatown, Shampoo, The Last Detail) & director. 
• Smriti Biswas, 100, Indian actress (Baap Re Baap, Maryada, Chandni Chowk). 
• Jeff Whitefoot, 90, English footballer (Nottingham Forest, Manchester United, Grimsby Town). 
• Kimurayama Mamoru, 42, Japanese sumo wrestler. 
• Tony Knight, 54, English comedian, hit by falling branch. 
• Jon Landau, 63, American film producer (Titanic, Avatar, Solaris), cancer.

In Other News

Eamonn Holmes was forced to bow out of his GB News programme early due to ill health. The presenter prompted concern among viewers on Tuesday when he was suddenly absent halfway through an interview segment. Holmes, 64, and his co-host Isabel Webster interviewed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health Maria Caulfield at 7.45am. Halfway through the chat, however, during which Holmes was completely silent, he exited the studio and left Webster to present the breakfast show solo for the remaining 90 minutes. An explanation for his absence was not given at the time. A spokesperson for GB News has since told the Flying Monkeys: “Eamonn had to finish a little earlier today as he was feeling unwell. He hopes to be back tomorrow.” His swift exit follows just days after the broadcaster told us that he felt as though he was living on “borrowed time” because his father had died at the age of 65 from a heart attack in 1991. Holmes made the comments at the TRIC (Television and Radio Industries Club) Awards, which took place in London on 25th June. The veteran broadcaster is currently suffering from chronic back pain, and required a walker with a seat at the ceremony, stating that he considered pulling out of the event due to the severe pain. “I wasn’t going to come, but I’ve got this new chair with all these gadgets,” explained Holmes, who previously said in January that he was facing the “harsh reality” that he may never be able to walk again unaided.  

Christina Applegate has opened up about what she would like to do with the time she has left, including some fun-sounding things! The celebrity has long been open about her ongoing health struggle with MS, and revealed she has a bucket list. And let’s just say the bucket list is not lacking in ambition in the slightest, containing several very exciting activities. It comes as Applegate made a concerning comment during a podcast where she claimed that she no longer ‘enjoys living’. She told her podcast MeSsy: “This is being really honest. I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.” Applegate later clarified that she did not mean to alarm people with the remark. And in a marked change of tone, the star of Married… with Children didn’t hold back on what she wants to do with the time she has, covering work and and play in her list. In a post to her 1.5 million followers on Twitter, she hinted at some of the things she wants to do with her time: “There are things I want to do with the days I have left in life. I want to work with Shirley MacLaine and do shots with Cher! And yes my days are so big. Just saying.” Both of those things sound like they would be brilliant! Many fans of the actor piled into the comments to share their thoughts on the heartwarming post. Some fans even tagged Cher in their tweets in an attempt to draw the star’s attention to the post on social media. 

On This Day

• 1928 – Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor’s 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.
• 1985 – Boris Becker becomes the youngest male player ever to win Wimbledon at age 17.
• 1992 – The New York Court of Appeals rules that women have the same right as men to go topless in public. 
• 2005 – A series of four explosions occurs on London’s transport system, killing 56 people, including four suicide bombers, and injuring over 700 others.

Deaths

• 1307 – Edward I, king of England (b. 1239). 
• 1890 – Henri Nestlé, German businessman, founded Nestlé (b. 1814). 
• 1930 – Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer (b. 1859).

Last Week’s Birthdays

Shelley Duvall (75), Jack Whitehall (36), Ringo Starr (84), Sylvester Stallone (78), Eva Green (44), Kevin Hart (45), Geoffrey Rush (73), Jennifer Saunders (66), Burt Ward (79), Huey Lewis (74), Post Malone (29), Neil Morrissey (62), Tom Cruise (62), Patrick Wilson (51), Kurtwood Smith (81), Yeardley Smith (60), Bolo Yeung (78), Margot Robbie (34), Lindsay Lohan (38), Saul Rubinek (76), Larry David (77), Jerry Hall (68), Peter Kay (51), Liv Tyler (47), Pamela Anderson (57), Dan Aykroyd (72), and Geneviève Bujold (82).