Afternoon all, another busy week, including the shocking death of Lisa Marie Presley! Although she did have a family history of early deaths, nobody could have predicted her passing. 

On another note, the donations page is still open, we’re still slightly short of breaking even, so if anyone could spare a couple of quid before the end of the month, it would be appreciated. And of course, thank you to everyone who has donated so far, you’re all legends!  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Adam Rich, 54, American actor (Eight Is Enough, Dungeons & Dragons, The Devil and Max Devlin). 
• Dorothy Tristan, 88, American actress (Klute, Scarecrow) and screenwriter (Weeds). 
• Jorge Ballesteros, 39, Spanish sports shooter, shot. 
• George Pell, 81, Australian Roman Catholic cardinal, archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001) and Sydney (2001–2014), complications from hip surgery.
• Jeff Beck, 78, British Hall of Fame guitarist (The Yardbirds, The Jeff Beck Group), six-time Grammy winner, bacterial meningitis.  
• Donald Blom, 73, American murderer.  
• Constantine II, 82, Greek monarch and sailor, king (1964–1973) and Olympic champion (1960), stroke.  
• Carole Cook, 98, American actress (The Lucy Show, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Sixteen Candles), heart failure.  
• Waffler69, 33, American TikTok personality, heart attack.  
• Robbie Bachman, 69, Canadian drummer (Bachman-Turner Overdrive). 
• Lisa Marie Presley, 54, American singer-songwriter (“Lights Out“, “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet“), cardiac arrest.    
• Robbie Knievel, 60, American daredevil and stuntman, pancreatic cancer. 

In Other News

Adele Roberts has updated fans on her recovery from bowel cancer. Posting a selfie to Instagram on Monday, the radio host posed with a thumbs up from a hospital bed. The 43-year-old announced that she was undergoing treatment for stage two bowel cancer in October 2021. Eight months later, in June 2022, she revealed she was cancer free. In her most recent update, Roberts shared her reasons for undergoing “post bowel cancer surgery”. “Today was the first step in hopefully getting my colon working again (post bowel cancer surgery),” she wrote in the caption. “I may be down a rectum but I think there’s enough left to blag it and get things moving again.” The former Big Brother contestant  went on to praise the NHS and the team who looked after her during her surgery. “Yet again, the level of care I’ve received from the @nhs angels is awesome. Dr Bhan and team I love you,” she said. “The fabulous Bola along with the nurses and porters who looked after me post surgery thank you for helping me and I hope my anaesthetic chat wasn’t too random”. She continued by thanking those who are making advances in medical sciences in the UK. “Thank you to everyone who helps make that happen,” she said. “You do us proud.” “The fact I can recover from bowel cancer, have a stoma, start getting my life back on track and today a balloon up my bum to sort out my stricture is just marvellous. What a time to be alive?!” The BBC Radio 1 DJ gave a special mention to her stoma – who she has nicknamed “Audrey” – for keeping her ”happy, healthy, alive and kicking”. A stoma allows urine and faeces to be diverted out of the body through an opening in the abdomen into a collection bag. “I think there’ll be a few more surgeries for me this year… but do you know what, I’m just so happy they can help me and there’s hope,” continued Roberts. “I might be able to go to the toilet the ‘old fashioned way’ one day in the future. Might even get inspired by all the balloons and have a grand re-opening party.”

Dancer and choreographer Michael Flatley, famous for his Irish production Riverdance, has had surgery for an “aggressive form of cancer”. A post on his Instagram page said he was “in the care of an excellent team of doctors”, adding no further comments would be made. Flatley, 64, shot to fame with Riverdance, which first appeared during the 1994 Eurovision interval in Dublin, lasting seven minutes. Its success at Eurovision, where it teamed Irish dancers with music by Bill Whelan, saw it extended into a full-length show which opened at Dublin’s Point Theatre the following year. The Riverdance 25th anniversary website suggests that since its debut, more than three billion people worldwide have seen the show on television. Flatley, born to an Irish-American family in Chicago, has also created, produced and directed productions including Feet Of Flames and Celtic Tiger. He has previously had a diagnosis of facial skin cancer which he was treated for in 2003. He also directed and starred in the spy thriller film Blackbird, which did not receive many positive reviews. The film also stars Eric Roberts, Patrick Bergin and Ian Beattie, Flatley plays former MI6 operative Victor Blackley, who returns to the world of espionage, having left it behind. Last year Flatley also launched a Lord Of The Dance tour, which helped raise money for the humanitarian effort in Ukraine. 

Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Florida with intestinal discomfort due to a stabbing he suffered during the 2018 election campaign, his wife Michelle Bolsonaro said on Monday on Instagram. In Brazil, Dr. Antonio Luiz Macedo, who has been treating Bolsonaro since the stabbing, said he has an intestinal subocclusion, or blockage, but was unlikely to need surgery. “It is not a serious case,” he told the Flying Monkeys. Earlier, a source close to his family said Bolsonaro’s condition was “not worrying.” Brazilian newspaper O Globo had reported earlier in the day that Bolsonaro had been suffering from abdominal pain. Bolsonaro has undergone six surgeries since his stabbing, four of them directly linked to the attack. He also has had cases of bowel adhesions and obstructions in the last few years. On Sunday, Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil’s capital launched the worst attack on state institutions since the country’s return to democracy in the 1980s. His successor as president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office on Jan.1st, blamed Bolsonaro for inflaming his supporters with a campaign of baseless allegations about election fraud. Bolsonaro flew to Florida 48 hours before his term ended.  

Only Fools and Horses star Patrick Murray has revealed that he has had part of his liver and a tumour removed following his second cancer diagnosis. The 66-year-old actor, best known for playing Mickey Pearce in the hit BBC comedy, previously opened up about how his lung cancer had been cured in May last year. However, he took to Twitter to share the news that he had another form of cancer and that he had half of his liver and a tumour removed. He tweeted: “I am going home today. Minus half a liver and a tumour that the wonderful Prof Heaton removed last week. I kept this under my hat that they’d discovered another primary cancer last year. I am a two person, that’s for sure. High fives to all at Kings College Hospital.” It comes after Patrick revealed last year that he had discovered a cancerous lung tumour in its early stages and underwent surgery to remove it, as well as undergoing chemotherapy. More scans found another tumour in his liver that was treatable. He received transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (Tace), a minimally invasive procedure performed in interventional radiology to restrict a tumour’s blood supply. Sharing a health update on Twitter, Patrick explained at the time: “Thanks again for all your lovely messages. As you may know, I was diagnosed with lung cancer last July. After an op in Oct to remove the tumour I had chemo to help prevent the cancer returning. During this chemo, another tumour was discovered in my liver. Luckily for me this cancer was unconnected to the lung cancer and was also treatable. I had a procedure called Tace to deal with this. Last Friday l saw my oncologist. She told me the lung cancer was cured and that the tumour in my liver was shrinking. It’s not over yet, but as you can imagine I am over the moon with this latest news.” He went on to thank the ‘brilliant’ doctors and nurses of the NHS for all that they have done. “I will hopefully be there at next years convention,” he said of the annual Only Fools And Horses convention.    

On This Day

• 1559 – Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England and Ireland in Westminster Abbey, London.
• 1867 – Forty people die when ice covering the boating lake at Regent’s Park, London, collapses.
• 1919 – Great Molasses Flood: A wave of molasses released from an exploding storage tank sweeps through Boston, Massachusetts, killing 21 and injuring 150.
• 1947 – The Black Dahlia murder: The dismembered corpse of Elizabeth Short was found in Los Angeles.
• 1976 – Gerald Ford‘s would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.
• 2001 – Wikipedia, a free wiki content encyclopaedia, goes online.
• 2009 – US Airways Flight 1549 ditches safely in the Hudson River after the plane collides with birds less than two minutes after take-off. This becomes known as “The Miracle on the Hudson” as all 155 people on board were rescued.
• 2019 – Theresa May‘s UK government suffers the biggest government defeat in modern times, when 432 MPs voting against the proposed European Union withdrawal agreement, giving her opponents a majority of 230. It doesn’t get any better…

Deaths

• 1987 – Ray Bolger, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1904).
• 1990 – Gordon Jackson, Scottish-English actor (b. 1923).
• 2011 – Susannah York, English actress and activist (b. 1939).
• 2014 – Roger Lloyd-Pack, English actor (b. 1944).
• 2018 – Dolores O’Riordan, Irish pop singer (b. 1971).

The Gruesome Story of The Black Dahlia 

The 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, also known as the “Black Dahlia,” is one of the oldest cold cases in Los Angeles. Not only was it a horrific crime, but it’s also proven notoriously difficult to solve.

In the decades since the Black Dahlia murder, police, the press, and amateur sleuths alike have all delved deep into this unsolved crime and developed several convincing theories. 

Though we may never know who killed the Black Dahlia, poring over the evidence of this case is just as darkly fascinating today as it was in 1947. 

On January 15th, 1947, Elizabeth Short’s dead body was found in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Leimert Park. The first person who reported the grisly sight was a mother out for a morning walk with her child. 

According to the woman, the way Short’s body had been posed made her think that the corpse was a mannequin at first. But a closer look revealed the true horror of the Black Dahlia crime scene.

The 22-year-old Short had been sliced in two at the waist and completely drained of blood. Some of her organs — such as her intestines — had been removed and neatly placed underneath her buttocks. Pieces of flesh had been cut away from her thighs and breasts. And her stomach was full of faeces, leading some to believe that she’d been forced to eat shit before she was killed. 

The most chilling mutilations, however, were the lacerations on her face. The killer had sliced each side of her face from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating what’s known as a “Glasgow smile.” 

Since the body had already been washed clean, Los Angeles Police Department detectives concluded that she must have been killed elsewhere before being dumped in Leimert Park.

Near her body, detectives noted a heel print and a cement sack with traces of blood that had presumably been used to transport her body to the vacant lot.

The LAPD reached out to the FBI to help identify the body by searching their fingerprint database. Short’s fingerprints turned up rather quickly because she had applied for a job as a clerk at the commissary of the U.S. Army’s Camp Cooke in California back in 1943. And then her prints turned up a second time since she had been arrested by the Santa Barbara Police Department for underage drinking — just seven months after she’d applied to the job.

The FBI also had her mugshot from her arrest, which they provided to the press. Before long, the media began reporting every salacious detail they could find about Short.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Short’s mother Phoebe Short didn’t learn of her daughter’s death until reporters from The Los Angeles Examiner telephoned her pretending that Elizabeth had won a beauty contest.

They pumped her for all the details they could get on Elizabeth before revealing the terrible truth. Her daughter had been murdered, and her corpse had been dismembered in unspeakable ways. 

As the media learned more about Elizabeth Short’s history, they began to brand her as a sexual deviant. One police report read, “This victim knew at least fifty men at the time of her death and at least twenty-five men had been seen with her in the sixty days preceding her death… She was known as a teaser of men.”

They gave Short the nickname, “The Black Dahlia,” due to her reported preference for wearing a lot of sheer black clothing. This was a reference to the movie The Blue Dahlia, which was out at the time. Some people spread the false rumour that Short was a prostitute, while others baselessly claimed that she liked to tease men because she was a lesbian.

Adding to her mystique, Short was reportedly a Hollywood hopeful. She had moved to Los Angeles just six months before her death and worked as a waitress. Sadly, she had no known acting jobs and her death became her one claim to fame.

But as famous as the case was, authorities had tremendous difficulty figuring out who was behind it. However, members of the media did receive a few clues.

On January 21st, about a week after the body was found, the Examiner received a call from a person claiming to be the murderer, who said he would be sending Short’s belongings in the mail as proof of his claim.

Shortly thereafter on the 24th, the Examiner received a package with Short’s birth certificate, photos, business cards, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen on the cover. Also included was a letter pasted together from newspaper and magazine letter clippings that read, “Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles papers here is Dahlia’s belongings letter to follow.”

All of these items had been wiped down with gasoline, leaving no fingerprints behind. Though a partial fingerprint was found on the envelope, it was damaged in transport and never analysed.

On January 26th, another letter arrived. This handwritten note read, “Here it is. Turning in Wed. January 29th, 10 a.m. Had my fun at police. Black Dahlia Avenger.” The letter included a location. Police waited at the appointed time and place, but the author never showed.

Afterward, the alleged killer sent a note made of letters cut and pasted from magazines to the Examiner that said, “Have changed my mind. You would not give me a square deal. Dahlia killing was justified.”

Yet again, everything sent by the person had been wiped clean with gasoline, so investigators couldn’t lift any fingerprints from the evidence.

At one point, the LAPD had 750 investigators on the case and interviewed more than 150 potential suspects linked to the Black Dahlia killing. Officers heard more than 60 confessions during the initial investigation, but none of them were considered legitimate. Since then, there have been more than 500 confessions, none of which led to anyone being charged.

As time went on and the case went cold, many people assumed that the Black Dahlia murder was a date gone wrong, or that Short had run into a sinister stranger late at night while walking alone.

After over 70 years, the Black Dahlia murder case remains open. But in recent years, a couple of intriguing — and chilling — theories have emerged.  

Shortly after his father’s death in 1999, now-retired LAPD detective Steve Hodel was going through his dad’s belongings when he noticed two photos of a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Short.

After discovering these haunting images, Hodel began using the skills he had gained as a policeman to investigate his own deceased father.

Hodel went through newspaper archives and witness interviews from the case, and even filed a Freedom of Information Act to obtain FBI files on the Black Dahlia murder.

He also had a handwriting expert compare samples of his father’s writing to the writing on some of the notes sent to the press from the alleged killer. The analysis found a strong possibility that his father’s handwriting matched, but the results were not conclusive.

On the grislier side, the Black Dahlia crime scene photos showed that Short’s body had been cut in a manner consistent with a hemicorporectomy, a medical procedure that slices the body beneath the lumbar spine. Hodel’s father had been a doctor — who attended medical school when this procedure was being taught in the 1930s.

Additionally, Hodel searched his father’s archives at UCLA, finding a folder full of receipts for contracting work on his childhood home.

In that folder, there was a receipt dated a few days before the murder for a large bag of concrete, the same size, and brand as a concrete bag found near Elizabeth Short’s body.

By the time Hodel began his investigation, many of the police officers who originally worked on the case were already dead. However, he carefully reconstructed conversations these officers had about the case.

Eventually, Hodel compiled all of his evidence into a 2003 bestseller called Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story. 

While fact-checking the book, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez requested official police files from the case and made an important discovery. Shortly after the murder, the LAPD had six main suspects, and George Hodel was on their list.

In fact, he was such a serious suspect that his home was bugged in 1950 so the police could monitor his activities. Much of the audio was innocuous, but one chilling exchange stuck out:

“8:25pm. ‘Woman screamed. Woman screamed again. (It should be noted, the woman not heard before the scream.)’”

Later that day, George Hodel was overheard telling someone, “Realise there was nothing I could do, put a pillow over her head and cover her with a blanket. Get a taxi. Expired 12:59. They thought there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her.”

He continued, “Supposin’ I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn’t prove it now. They can’t talk to my secretary anymore because she’s dead.”

Even after this shocking revelation, which seems to support that George Hodel killed Short — and possibly also his secretary — the Black Dahlia case still hasn’t been officially closed. However, this hasn’t stopped Steve Hodel from investigating his father.

He says he has found details from dozens of other murders that could possibly be connected to his father, implicating him not only as the Black Dahlia murderer but also as a deranged serial killer.

Hodel’s research has even garnered some attention from law enforcement. In 2004, Stephen R. Kay, the head deputy for L.A. County’s district attorney office, said that if George Hodel was still alive he would have enough to indict him for the Elizabeth Short murder. 

Though we still don’t know for certain who killed the Black Dahlia, recent theories present compelling cases. And it’s possible that the truth is still out there, just waiting for the right investigation to finally bring it to light.

Last Week’s Birthdays

James Nesbitt (58), Claudia Winkleman (51), Eddie Hall (35), DJ Jazzy Jeff (58), Jason Bateman (54), Kevin Durand (49), Faye Dunaway (82), Carl Weathers (75), Mark Addy (59), Grant Gustin (33), Dave Grohl (54), Ruth Wilson (41), Liam Hemsworth (33), Orlando Bloom (46), Michael Peña (47), Bill Bailey (58), Rob Zombie (58), Howard Stern (69), Melanie C (49), Pixie Lott (32), Jemaine Clement (49), Evan Handler (62), J.K. Simmons (68), Joely Richardson (58), Imelda Staunton (67), James Acaster (38), Catherine Princess of Wales (41), Michelle Forbes (58), and Amber Benson (46).

Buggeration! With the deaths of almost all celebrities known to mankind last week, nobody has scored a bean. I’m also kicking myself for de-listing Gianluca Vialli at the last minute, he’d have scored me 142 points as the first death of the season! Anyhow, let’s crack on…. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Anita Pointer, 74, American singer (The Pointer Sisters), cancer. 
• Tom Karen, 96, Austrian-born British industrial designer. 
• Joan Sydney, 83, British-born Australian actress (A Country Practice, E Street, Neighbours). 
• Fred White, 67, American drummer (Earth, Wind & Fire). 
• Kelly Monteith, 80, American comedian. 
• Sebastian Marino, 57, American guitarist (Overkill, Anvil).  
• Ken Block, 55, American rally driver (Rally America, Global Rallycross), co-founder of DC Shoes, snowmobile rollover. 
• Frank Galati, 79, American theatre director (The Grapes of Wrath, Ragtime) and screenwriter (The Accidental Tourist), Tony winner (1990). 
• Alan Rankine, 64, Scottish musician (The Associates)
• Bessie Hendricks, 115, American supercentenarian. 
• Walter Cunningham, 90, American astronaut (Apollo 7), complications from a fall.  
• Fay Weldon, 91, British author (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Puffball, The Cloning of Joanna May), essayist and playwright.  
• David Gold, 86, British retailer, pornographer (Gold Star Publications), and football executive, chairman of West Ham United (since 2010). 
• Earl Boen, 81, American actor (Terminator, The Dentist, Warcraft), lung cancer. 
• Gianluca Vialli, 58, Italian football player (Juventus, national team) and manager (Chelsea), pancreatic cancer. 

In Other News

Shane MacGowan of the Pogues has given fans an update on his health after he was rushed to hospital in December. In early December, MacGowan, 65, was admitted to hospital due to an infection. His wife Victoria Mary Clarke later announced that the singer had been diagnosed with encephalitis, an uncommon condition that causes the brain to swell and can be life-threatening. Those with serious cases can be left with problems such as seizures, hearing loss, and blindness. Hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve, the “Fairytale of New York” musician gave fans an update on his condition. “Hi friends, I’m sitting here suffering from encephalitis,”said MacGowan in a video. He was wearing sunglasses and a cross necklace in the clip. The light is killing me,” he said, explaining his choice of eyewear. “But I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year and Happy Christmas and many more. All the luck in the world and all the love. Happy Christmas and Happy New Year, love Shane.” He captioned the clip: “Happy New Year. Have as much fun as you can when you can!!! Thank you.” Reflecting on when MacGowan became ill in early December, Clarke told the flying monkeys: “I noticed it on his face. His eye was getting red and began to close over. I called the doctor and the doctor said it was very dangerous so we had to get him to the hospital straight away. The hospital explained to me that shingles can go into your brain and that’s what happened to Shane so now they want to keep him on a drip for two weeks.” Clarke, 56, said that MacGowan appears “perfectly normal now” but “pissed he can’t drink in the hospital”.  

Jeremy Renner has thanked staff at his intensive care unit for “beginning this journey”, as he continues to recover from a serious snowplough accident. The Marvel actor, who celebrated his 52nd birthday on Saturday, shared a picture from hospital of himself with staff and members of his family on his Instagram story. “Thank you Renowned Medical ICU team for beginning this journey,” he wrote. The actor, who plays the bow and arrow-wielding Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), was admitted to hospital after the incident last weekend. Local police said the actor was helping a family member free a car from heavy snow when he was accidentally run over by his own six-tonne ploughing machine. He was airlifted to hospital on Sunday after suffering “blunt chest trauma and orthopaedic injuries” in the accident, a statement provided to the Flying Monkeys from his publicist said. The incident took place near the Mount Rose highway, which links Lake Tahoe and south Reno, straddling the Nevada-California border. The post is the latest in a series of updates that Renner has shared on his progress while being in hospital. On Thursday, he shared that his mother and sister had treated him to a “spa day”. “A ‘not no great’ ICU DAY, turned to amazing spa day with my sis and mama. Thank you sooooo much,” he wrote. One of his family members was seen in the clip massaging his head. Immediately after the incident, Renner posted a picture of himself from his hospital bed, thanking fans for their support, but saying he was “too messed up to type”.Scores of famous faces, including his Marvel co stars, praised the actor for his bravery and sent well wishes in the aftermath.  

Former 18-time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova has announced that she has been diagnosed with throat and breast cancer. Many from the tennis world expressed their support to one of the greatest players in tennis history. “Needless to say my phone and twitter are both blowing up so I will say again- thank you all for your support and I am not done yet,” Navratilova tweeted. In her statement, Navratilova revealed that she caught the disease in the early stages. Also, Navratilova vowed to fight with everything she has got. “The double whammy is serious, but fixable, and I’m hoping for a favourable outcome. It’s going to stink for a while, but I’ll fight with all I have got,” Navratilova said. Following the diagnosis, it has also been confirmed that Navratilova won’t be at the Australian Open. Since retiring, Navratilova has been working as a tennis analyst and commentator during Grand Slams. The prognosis is good and Martina will start her treatment this month. The cancer type is HPV and this particular type responds really well to treatment,” a statement read. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Navratilova was diagnosed with cancer as she was also diagnosed with breast cancer 13 years ago. “I was so shocked that there was anything going on with my body. But you can be the healthiest person on the planet and still get cancer. You are definitely improving the odds by being healthy, but you’re not totally eliminating the possibility,” Navratilova said of her first diagnosis. Fortunately, Navratilova was able to beat the disease over a decade ago. Now, Navratilova is again fighting the same battle and hoping for the same outcome.  

Jackass’s Bam Margera revealed he had a close brush with death after experiencing five seizures while suffering from Covid and pneumonia. Last month, it was reported that the stunt performer and skateboarder had been rushed to hospital with a “very serious” case of pneumonia. Appearing on fellow Jackass star Steve-O’s Wild Ride podcast last Thursday, Margera told his friend that “basically, I was pronounced dead on 8th December”. “I did not know that I had gnarly Covid and my body was shutting down,” he said. “I went into four seizures, each one lasting 10 to 20 minutes. On the fourth one, I bit my tongue so hard it was nearly fallen off. It got so swollen and puffy it wouldn’t fit in my mouth. I was drinking the infected blood, which gave me pneumonia as well.” Margera continued: “I went to the hospital and had my fifth seizure and then couldn’t breathe without a tube down my throat. I woke up five days later thinking I was there for just a couple hours. I spent eight days in there. When they took that tube out I felt like I sucked on Darth Vader’s dick.” Alongside Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and Margera were two of the original members of the Jackass crew-members, performing stunts in the MTV series and subsequent film adaptations. However, Margera did not feature in the recent sequel, Jackass Forever, claiming that he had been fired partway through production after failing a drugs test. He initiated a lawsuit against Knoxville, as well as the film’s director Jeff Tremaine and producer Spike Jonze, and the film companies Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks. The lawsuit was eventually settled, with Margera telling the Flying Monkeys that he was “happy with the outcome and feels vindicated”.

On This Day

• 1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing. Highly likely to be implemented in 2023.
• 1989 – Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashes into the M1 motorway, killing 47 of the 126 people on board.
• 1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
• 2011 – Sitting US Congresswoman Gabby Giffords is shot in the head along with 18 others in a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Giffords survived the assassination attempt, but six others died.
• 2020 – Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashes immediately after take-off at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport; all 176 on board are killed. The plane was shot down by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile!

Deaths

• 1642 – Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, astronomer, & philosopher (b. 1564).
• 1990 – Terry-Thomas, English actor and comedian (b. 1911).
• 1996 – François Mitterrand, French politician, 21st President of France (b. 1916).

Last Week’s Birthdays

Michelle Forbes (58), Nicolas Cage (59), Jeremy Renner (52), Erin Gray (73), Linda Kozlowski (65), Eddie Redmayne (41), Norman Reedus (54), Rowan Atkinson (68), Angus Deayton (67), Bradley Cooper (48), Diane Keaton (77), January Jones (45), Robert Duvall (92), Clancy Brown (64), Hayao Miyazaki (82), Vinnie Jones (58), Marilyn Manson (54), Julia Ormond (58), Graham McTavish (62), Lenora Crichlow (38), Matt Frewer (65), Julian Sands (65), Florence Pugh (27), Mel Gibson (67), Victoria Principal (73), Sarah Alexander (52), Greta Thunberg (20), Tia Carrere (56), Kate Bosworth (40), Cuba Gooding Jr. (55), and Frank Langella (85).

The past year saw a number of unexpected deaths of much-loved celebrities, along with the loss of veterans from the entertainment industry.

Here are some of those who were mourned during the past 12 months.

January

Sidney Poitier: The Bahamian-American Hollywood star, known for films including In the Heat of the Night, Blackboard Jungle and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, died aged 94. He was the first Black man to win the Oscar for best actor and US president Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey were among those who paid tribute to the “trailblazing” actor.

Meat Loaf: The American singer, known for hits such as “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” died at the age of 74. Meat Loaf, who was born Marvin Lee Aday but was also known as Michael, sold more than 100 million albums worldwide and starred in more than 65 movies during his career which spanned six decades. 

Barry Cryer: The veteran comedy writer and performer died aged 86 following a seven-decade career which saw him appear on stage, screen and radio. He penned jokes for legends of British comedy including Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Sir Billy Connolly and Tommy Cooper and had a long-running partnership with Sir David Frost, with their collaborations including BBC’s The Frost Report. 

February

Ivan Reitman: The influential filmmaker and producer behind beloved comedies from Animal House to Ghostbusters died aged 75. He also directed the 1979 summer camp flick Meatballs and a number of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger including Twins, Kindergarten Cop and Junior.  

William Hurt: The actor, who starred as General Thaddeus Ross in several instalments of the Marvel Comic Universe, died aged 71. He also won the best actor Oscar and Bafta for Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1985 and was nominated for the Oscar for his roles in 1986’s Children of a Lesser God and 1987’s Broadcast News.

Anna Karen: Actor best known for playing the put-upon wife, Olive, in the 1970s sitcom On the Buses and its three spin-off feature films. Sadly she died in a house fire aged 85. 

Bamber Gascoigne: Writer, documentary-maker and broadcaster who was the popular quizmaster of University Challenge for 25 years. The polymath was ever irked by the fact that he was best known to the British public for the phrase: “Fingers on buzzers … your starter for 10,” although he never showed it. 

March

Taylor Hawkins: Hawkins, who had played in Foo Fighters, the band fronted by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, for more than two decades, died aged 50. Musical stars from around the world paid tribute and a special concert featuring a star-studded line-up was held at Wembley Stadium and the Kia Forum in Los Angeles in his memory.  

Tom Parker: The Wanted star died at the age of 33 after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. The singer died surrounded by his family and bandmates – 17 months after being diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma.

Shane Warne: The legendary Australian spin bowler, considered one of the greatest cricketers of all time, died aged 52 of a suspected heart attack while in Thailand. England Cricket paid tribute to Warne on Twitter, writing: “One of the greatest of all-time. A legend. A genius. You changed Cricket. RIP Shane Warne.” 

Peter Bowles: Veteran stage and screen actor who starred in the popular BBC TV sitcom To the Manor Born. Bowles died aged 85 of cancer, ruefully admitted that he wasn’t a “star” until, aged 43, he played Richard DeVere in the hit series. 

Dai Jones: Welsh broadcasting legend Dai Jones ‘Llanilar’ died at the age of 78. Jones was a TV favourite on S4C and hosted popular farming show Cefn Gwlad for more than 35 years, as well as other Welsh language shows including Noson Lwen, Rasus, and Sion a Sian.  Despite being one of the faces of Welsh television for a generation, Jones was actually born in London in 1943. 

April

June Brown: The EastEnders star, best known for her role as chain-smoking Dot Cotton, died at the age of 95. A spokeswoman for the soap said: “There are not enough words to describe how much June was loved and adored by everyone at EastEnders, her loving warmth, wit and great humour will never be forgotten.”

Cynthia Plaster Caster: Cynthia Albritton was a pop artist known for her casts of rock stars’ penises. She was a young art student at the University of Illinois Chicago when she got the idea for her lifelong art project. Her dream was to meet rock musicians and hoped to lose her virginity to one. Jimi Hendrix agreed to be her first celebrity client! 

May

Dennis Waterman: The actor, who starred in TV shows Minder, The Sweeney and New Tricks, died at the age of 74. Waterman starred as bodyguard Terry McCann in Minder and he first found fame as tough nut cop George Carter in The Sweeney opposite John Thaw. 

Ray Liotta: The actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas opposite Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, died at the age of 67. He found fame playing ex-con Ray Sinclair in 1986 black comedy Something Wild and also starred as Shoeless Joe Jackson in the 1989 film Field of Dreams. 

Anne Heche: The Hollywood actor was “peacefully taken off life support” nine days after suffering a “severe anoxic brain injury” in a car crash in which her vehicle hit a building and burst into flames. Heche, 53, was among the biggest film stars of the late 1990s, starring opposite actors including Johnny Depp and Harrison Ford, and was also the former partner of US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.

Lester Pigott: died aged 86, was regarded by many as the finest jockey ever to ride on British turf. His record in major races is unlikely to be surpassed. In all, he rode 4,493 winners in Britain and more than 850 elsewhere during a career that spanned 47 years. 

Vangelis: The Greek composer died aged 79, and always avoided becoming a trained, academic musician. His work ranged from pop, jazz and classical to the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire soundtrack. Equally significant was his score for Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner.

June

Hilary Devey: The former Dragons’ Den star died aged 65 after a long illness. She joined the BBC Two programme in 2011 and left in 2012, going on to present Channel 4’s The Intern. 

Julee Cruise: Singer, songwriter and actor acclaimed for her work with the film director David Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti, took her own life at the age of 65 after a long period of illness and depression. 

July

James Caan: US actor and star of The Godfather, Stephen King adaptation Misery and Christmas film Elf died aged 82. While the actor was initially cast as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, he had his heart set on Sonny and successfully suggested that Al Pacino play the role of Michael instead. He eventually faced his co-star alongside another Godfather actor, Robert Duvall, in the Best Supporting Actor category at the 1973 Oscars; all three lost to Joel Grey, who won for Cabaret.

Bernard Cribbins: The children’s TV star and entertainer died aged 93. The veteran actor starred in the Carry On films, Doctor Who and the 1970 film The Railway Children.

David Warner: Stage and screen actor hailed for his 1965 Hamlet at the RSC who went on to have a distinguished film and TV career. A highly divers actor who starred in The Omen and the Star Trek franchise. 

August

Dame Olivia Newton-John: Dame Olivia was best known for her starring role as Sandy in the 1978 film Grease, in which she acted opposite John Travolta as Danny. The British-born singer died “peacefully” at her ranch in Southern California aged 73, surrounded by family and friends. 

Raymond Briggs: The author and illustrator, best known for the 1978 classic The Snowman, died aged 88. The Snowman has sold more than 5.5 million copies around the world, and Briggs also created the beloved children’s books Father Christmas, Fungus the Bogeyman, The Man and When the Wind Blows.

Darius Danesh: The singer and actor who rose to fame on Popstars and Pop Idol died at the age of 41. He was found dead in his US apartment, in Rochester, Minnesota. The death was ruled an accident by the medical examiner.

Nichelle Nichols: The actor who blazed a trail for black women on American TV in the 1960s in the role of Lt Uhura in Star Trek. She was also involved in the US’s first small-screen kiss between a black woman and a white man, Uhura and Captain Kirk (played by William Shatner), in 1968. 

September

Queen Elizabeth II: Britain’s longest-serving monarch died aged 96, with her son Charles succeeding her as the nation’s new king. The Queen died “peacefully” at Balmoral, having spent 70 years as head of state, outlasting her predecessors and overseeing monumental changes in social and political life. 

Bill Turnbull: The TV presenter and journalist died at the age of 66. The BBC Breakfast presenter died “peacefully” at home in Suffolk after a “challenging and committed fight against prostate cancer” which had been diagnosed in November 2017. 

Dame Hilary Mantel: The author, best known for the Wolf Hall trilogy, died aged 70. The British writer won the Booker Prize twice, first for her 2009 novel Wolf Hall and again for its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, in 2012.  

Coolio: The famed Nineties rapper died aged 59. Real name Artis Leon Ivey Jr, he was best known for his 1995 Grammy Award-winning hit single “Gangsta’s Paradise”, which was released as the soundtrack for the Michelle Pfeiffer film, Dangerous Minds. The song spent three weeks at the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 list.

Jean-Luc Godard: The revered filmmaker, regarded as a giant of the French New Wave movement, died at the age of 91. He was known for directing a run of radical, medium-changing films throughout the 1960s, including Breathless and Alphaville.

Mikhail Gorbachev:  The last leader of the Soviet Union, he was ousted as his reforms pointing to the end of the USSR spiralled out of control. Almost singlehandedly he brought an end to 40 years of east-west confrontation in Europe and liberated the world from the danger of nuclear conflagration. 

Louise Fletcher: American actor who won an Oscar for her role as Nurse Ratched in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. As Nurse Ratched, who instils fear into the patients in a mental institution without ever raising her voice, she was calmly terrifying. 

October

Dame Angela Lansbury: The Irish-British and American actor was best known for her portrayal of Jessica Fletcher in the drama series Murder, She Wrote. A Broadway icon who excelled as Mrs Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, she died “peacefully” in her sleep five days before her 97th birthday. 

Robbie Coltrane: The Harry Potter and Cracker actor died aged 72. The Scottish star, whose real name was Anthony Robert McMillan, was best known for playing both McGlone brothers in John Byrne’s Tutti Frutti (1987), beloved Hogwarts gamekeeper Hagrid and for starring as criminal psychologist Dr Eddie “Fitz” Fitzgerald in ITV’s crime drama Cracker. 

Jerry Lee Lewis: Founding father of rock’n’roll who took the world by storm with Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On. His career was blighted after the press found out he’d married his 13 year old cousin. 

Kitten Natividad: Francesca “Kitten” Natividad, the go-go dancer who became a cult pop culture figure when she was cast by sexploitation film director Russ Meyer in Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. 

November

Leslie Phillips: The veteran actor, famed for starring in the Carry On films, died at the age of 98. He spent eight decades in the spotlight and became well known for his suggestive catchphrases, which included “Ding dong”, “Well, hellooo” and “I say!” 

Christine McVie: The Fleetwood Mac star died following a short illness at the age of 79. The British-American rock band, founded in London in 1967, sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the most successful groups ever. 

Wilko Johnson: Musician with Dr Feelgood whose stark chords and pin-sharp riffs made him one of the most distinctive of British rock guitarists.

Irene Cara: American actor and singer best known for her role in the film Fame and co-writing the 1983 hit Flashdance … What a Feeling. Cara died unexpectedly aged 63, topped the British singles chart with Fame, which also went to No 4 in the US. 

December

Kirstie Alley: The US actor died from cancer at the age of 71. She was best known for her breakout role as Rebecca Howe in the NBC sitcom Cheers from 1987 to 1993 and received both an Emmy award and a Golden Globe for the role in 1991. 

Terry Hall: The lead singer of The Specials and Fun Boy Three died aged 63. The singer-songwriter rose to fame as part of the band, who were pioneers of the ska scene in the UK. 

Pele: The legendary Brazilian footballer passed away aged 82. Widely considered one of the greatest players of all time, Pele is the only man to have won the World Cup on three occasions, as he helped Brazil to success at the 1958, 1962 and 1970 tournaments, also winning the Golden Ball for best player at the latter. During a 21-year playing career, he is said to have scored 1,283 goals in 1,363 senior matches for clubs and country. 

Dame Vivienne Westwood: The iconic British fashion designer died aged 81. Dame Vivienne emerged from the British punk scene of the late 1970s and quickly became known for her androgynous designs, slogan T-shirts and irreverent attitude towards the Establishment, later making waves as an activist on causes close to her heart. The Victoria and Albert Museum described her as a “true revolutionary and rebellious force in fashion”.

Maxi Jazz: Frontman of Faithless whose thoughtful, life-affirming lyrics were in contrast to the usual hedonistic banalities of dance music. Sold an estimated 15 million albums and score a string of Top Five singles including such guaranteed dance floor fillers as Insomnia, God Is a DJ and We Come 1. 

Ruth Madoc: The stage and screen actor died after a fall aged 79. She cemented herself in the memories of TV sitcom viewers as Gladys Pugh, chief yellowcoat and Radio Maplin announcer in Hi-de-Hi! 

Pope Benedict XVI: In the annals of papal history, Joseph Ratzinger, who has died aged 95, will be remembered principally as the first pope in 600 years to retire, rather than to die in office. 

Jeez! What a final week! So many late in the year deaths and changes to peoples 2023 lists. Obviously a few points do dispense, so… With the passing of the football great Pele, Neil and myself get 68 points; however Debbie gets 168 points as she had him down as her Cert. A further 57 points awarded to Laura for the passing of Barbara Walters. Surprisingly, only one of us had Pope Benedict, and that was Sarai, finally breaking her duck on the last possible day, 55 points. Which does mean everyone scored this year! Yay! 

So, if nobody else decides to rock the boat between now and midnight, I think we can hopefully pronounce Lee as our winner of 2022! An astounding 740 points in total with seven deaths to his name. Well done that man, the trophy will be with you at some point in the New Year. Commiserations to Paul C, for coming in second with 674 points and an unbelievable nine deaths!!! The rest of us weren’t even close to the top two, but well done everyone for scoring this year, even I did quite well, finally made it into the top ten this year.

Thank you all for taking part, especially those of you who have already donated towards the running costs, even more so as technically I’ve not yet begged for contributions. For full transparency there is a list of paid invoices in the members area and the budget will be uploaded when all donations are in by the end of January. To date we’ve never reached the goal and the remainder always comes from my own pocket, including all the time and effort I put in to keep the pool running. 

Here’s to a successful 2023, may the flying monkeys swoop upon your choices. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Stephen Greif, 78, British actor (Blake’s 7, Casanova, Nicholas and Alexandra).  
• John Bird, 86, English actor (Red, White and Zero, A Dandy in Aspic) and comedian (Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life), stroke complications. 
• Jo Mersa Marley, 31, Jamaican-American musician, asthma attack.   
• Dame Vivienne Westwood, 81, British fashion designer. 
• Pelé, 82, Brazilian footballer (Santos, national team), world champion (1958, 1962, 1970), colon cancer. 
• Ruggero Deodato, 83, Italian film director (Cannibal Holocaust, Ultimo mondo cannibale, Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man), screenwriter and actor. 
• Barbara Walters, 93, American television journalist (Today, 20/20) and talk show host (The View).  
• Benedict XVI, 95, German Roman Catholic theologian, Pope (2005–2013) and archbishop of Munich and Freising (1977–1982). 

In Other News

Yet another Russian tycoon has been found dead in mysterious circumstances. Sausage tycoon Pavel Antov was found dead at at an Indian hotel, two days after a friend died during the same trip. They were visiting the eastern state of Odisha and the millionaire, who was also a local politician, had just celebrated his birthday at the hotel. Antov was a well known figure in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow. Last summer he denied criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine after a message appeared on his WhatsApp account. The millionaire’s death is the latest in a series of unexplained deaths involving Russian tycoons since the start of the Russian invasion, many of whom have openly criticised the war. Reports in Russian media said Mr Antov, 65, had fallen from a window at the hotel in the city of Rayagada on Sunday. Another member of his four-strong Russian group, Vladimir Budanov, died at the hotel on Friday. Superintendent Vivekananda Sharma of Odisha police said Mr Budanov was found to have suffered a stroke while his friend “was depressed after his death and he too died”. The Russian consul in Kolkata, Alexei Idamkin, told the Tass news agency that police did not see a “criminal element in these tragic events”. Tourist guide Jitendra Singh told reporters that Mr Budanov may have “consumed a lot of alcohol as he had liquor bottles”. Pavel Antov founded the Vladimir Standard meat processing plant and in 2019 Forbes estimated his fortune at some $140m (£118m) at the top of Russia’s rich list of lawmakers and civil servants. He played an important role at the legislative assembly in Vladimir, heading a committee on agrarian policy and ecology. The assembly’s deputy chairman Vyacheslav Kartukhin said he had died in “tragic circumstances”. Late last June he appeared to react to a Russian missile attack on a residential block in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv that left a man dead and his seven-year-old daughter and her mother wounded. A WhatsApp message on Antov’s account described how the family were pulled out of the rubble: “It’s extremely difficult to call all this anything but terror.” The message was deleted and Antov then posted on social media that he was a supporter of the president, a “patriot of my country” and backed the war. The WhatsApp message had come from someone whose opinion on the “special military operation in Ukraine” he strongly disagreed with, he insisted. It had been posted accidentally on his messenger and was a highly annoying misunderstanding, he said. Several high-profile Russian tycoons have died in mysterious circumstances since the war began. In September the head of Russia’s oil giant Lukoil, Ravil Maganov, apparently fell from a hospital window in Moscow.  

Bob Marley’s grandson has died at the age of 31. Jamaican-American reggae artist Joseph Mersa Marley was found unresponsive in a vehicle in the United States on Tuesday, according to the Flying Monkeys. The initial announcement did not specify a location. The artist – who went by his stage name Jo Mersa – had reportedly suffered from asthma his entire life, and the Flying Monkeys claimed he died of an asthma attack. Bob  Marley tragically died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 36, and is widely considered one of the pioneers of reggae music. The late star had 11 children with seven different partners. Joseph Mersa Marley spent his early years in Jamaica, where he attended Saints Peter and Paul Preparatory School. He then moved to Florida where he was a student at Palmetto High School. When at Miami Dade College he studied studio engineering. In 2014 he released the EP called Comfortable and in 2021 he came out with Eternal.  

The owner of an internet-famous dog who inspired the “doge” meme says she has received a global outpouring of love since revealing her popular pooch was suffering from leukaemia. Kabosu, a 17-year-old Shiba Inu, shot to internet stardom in 2010 after social media users began sharing a photo of her posing with a quizzical expression and crossed paws. The meme was typically overlaid with scattered comic sans text depicting what could be Kabosu’s inner monologue, and internet users started referring to the image as “doge”. It later inspired the creation of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency in 2013. Kabosu’s owner Atsuko Sato, a kindergarten teacher from Sakura, Japan, revealed she was in “a very dangerous condition” after being diagnosed with a form of blood cancer in a series of Instagram posts this week. Ms Sato said Kabosu had stopped eating and drinking just before Christmas and was on antibiotics after vets determined she was suffering from acute cholangiohepatitis, a type of inflammation in the digestive system. She posted an update on 27th December to say Kabosu’s appetite had returned and she was drinking water again. “It’s going to be alright. Because we get our power from all over the world!” Ms Sato wrote on her Instagram page. The doge meme initially found popularity on sites such as Reddit and Tumblr, with internet users photoshopping Kabosu’s face onto famous landmarks and pastries. Her image was later used in marketing by Oreo and on Stockholm subway stations adverts. Kabosu’s face later appeared on the sleeves of players from English Premier League team Watford under a Dogecoin sponsorship deal. An NFT featuring Kabosu’s famous furry face sold for $4m in 2021.  

On This Day

• 1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness. 
• 1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey. 
• 1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.  
• 1999 – The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor. 
• 2000 – The last day of the 20th Century and 2nd Millennium. 
• 2019 – The World Health Organisation is informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan. This later turned out to be COVID-19, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Deaths

• 192 – Commodus, Roman emperor (b. 161).   
• 1691 – Robert Boyle, Anglo-Irish chemist and physicist (b. 1627). 
• 2013 – James Avery, American actor (b. 1945). 
• 2015 – Natalie Cole, American singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1950). 
• 2015 – Wayne Rogers, American actor (b. 1933). 
• 2016 – William Christopher, American actor (b. 1932). 
• 2021 – Betty White, American actress, comedian and producer (b. 1922). 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Val Kilmer (63), Anthony Hopkins (85), Ben Kingsley (79), Jane Badler (69), Faye Marsay (36), Eliza Dushku (42), Caity Lotz (36), Tracey Ullman (63), Jude Law (50), Jon Voight (84), Ted Danson (75), Danny McBride (46), Michael Cudlitz (58), Patrick Fischler (53), Lilly Wachowski (55), Denzel Washington (68), Noomi Rapace (43), Maggie Smith (88), Sienna Miller (41), Joe Manganiello (46), John Legend (44), Timothée Chalamet (27), Olivia Cooke (29), Gérard Depardieu (74), John Amos (83), Wilson Cruz (49), Jared Leto (51), Kit Harington (36), and Temuera Morrison (62).

Welcome to the not very Christmassy edition. Make  sure you’re not flying today, from collating ‘things that happened on this day’ it seems like a very deadly plane day. 

You now have six days to hand in your lists, and as you will be bored shitless over the coming days, you will have no excuse but to research and get them in! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Mike Hodges, 90, British screenwriter and director (Get Carter, Pulp, Flash Gordon). 
• Martin Duffy, 55, English keyboardist (Felt, Primal Scream), complications from a fall. 
• Terry Hall, 63, English singer (The Specials, Fun Boy Three) and songwriter (“Our Lips Are Sealed“), pancreatic cancer.  
• Tony Barry, 81, Australian actor (Australia, Goodbye Pork Pie, The Time of Our Lives), melanoma. 
• George Cohen, 83, English footballer (Fulham, national team), world champion (1966). 
• Maxi Jazz, 65, English musician (Faithless).   

In Other News

A Glaswegian chef credited with inventing the chicken tikka masala has died, aged 77. Ali Ahmed Aslam is said to have come up with the dish in the 1970s when a customer asked if there was a way of making his chicken tikka less dry. His solution was to add a creamy tomato sauce, in some versions of the story a can of tomato soup. His death was announced by his Shish Mahal restaurant which closed for 48 hours as a mark of respect. Known to friends and customers as “Mr Ali” he was born in Pakistan but moved with his family to Glasgow as a young boy before opening Shish Mahal in Glasgow’s west end in 1964. In an interview with the Flying Monkeys, he would later describe the moment he came up with one of Britain’s favourite dishes. “Chicken tikka masala was invented in this restaurant, we used to make chicken tikka, and one day a customer said, ‘I’d take some sauce with that, this is a bit dry’,” he recalled. “We thought we’d better cook the chicken with some sauce. So from here we cooked chicken tikka with the sauce that contains yogurt, cream, spices. It’s a dish prepared according to our customer’s taste, usually they don’t take hot curry, that’s why we cook it with yogurt and cream.” While it cannot be proved with certainty that this is the origin of the dish, chicken tikka masala is widely regarded as a curry that has been adapted to suit Western tastes. Former Glasgow MP Mohammad Sarwar once tabled a motion in the House of Commons calling for it to be recognised as a Glaswegian delicacy. Hundreds of customers paid tribute to Mr Ali on social media, many recalling visits to his restaurant and describing him as a true gentleman. Surveys have often found chicken tikka masala to be Britain’s favourite curry, although chicken korma has also tried to claim that mantle.   

Brazilian football icon Pele will remain in hospital over Christmas after a medical report showed that his cancer has advanced. Doctors say he now needs care for cardiac and renal dysfunction. Pele, 82, has been battling colon cancer since September 2021 and was admitted to the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paul hospital on 29th November for doctors to re-evaluate his treatment. His daughter said in an Instagram post that the support of his fans was a “huge comfort” to him. Kely Nascimento wrote: “Your love for him, your stories and your prayers are a HUGE comfort because we know we are not alone’. Relatives said at the beginning of December that Pele was in hospital for treatment for a respiratory infection aggravated by COVID-19. Pele, whose name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, had a tumour removed from his colon in September 2021 and has since been in and out of hospital for treatment on a regular basis. The football legend has been undergoing chemotherapy in his fight against cancer. Pele is considered by many to be the greatest footballer of all time. He burst on to the global scene as a 17-year-old at the 1958 World Cup, helping Brazil to the first of their record five successes. He also won the 1962 and 1970 World Cups with the national side.  

Jonnie Irwin has said his cancer has come back “so violently” that even doctors are surprised, in a new interview about spending what could be his last Christmas with his family. The A Place in the Sun presenter, 48, disclosed in November that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2020. He initially kept his illness private, but said he decided to make the news public after learning it had spread from his lungs to his brain. “I don’t know how long I have,” he said at the time, adding that doctors gave him “six months to live” a week after he flew back from filming when he experienced blurry vision while driving. “We try to carry on as normal,” Irwin said in a new interview with a Flying Monkey. “We made a decision not to mourn and to make the most of every day. I’m still working… I try to manufacture positive thoughts. People say, ‘How do you stay so upbeat?’ It’s a bit of an act, really.’” The presenter explained that he had been given a “wonder drug” after initially being told he had six months to live: “They hoped it would keep it at bay for a bit longer, but it’s come back so violently, it’s even surprised the doctors. I’ve been told I’ve got months to live,” he said. “We’re hurtling towards where we don’t want to be.” Irwin’s wife, Jess, said the sadness she feels approaching “scares her”. “Everyone says, ‘You’ll manage. You’ll be surprised.’ I’ve never had dark thoughts for myself but I wonder now: ‘How will I cope with the sadness?’” she said. “I know I’ll have to, for the boys. I’ll have to put a smile on my face. But it worries me, the great grief that will hit me.” The couple share a three-year-old son, Rex, and two-year-old twins, Rafa and Cormac.

On This Day

• 336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome. 
• 1758 – Halley’s Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley‘s prediction of its passage. This was the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time. 
• 1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas. 
• 1962 – The Soviet Union conducts its final above-ground nuclear weapon test, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.  
• 1989 – Romanian Revolution: Deposed President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, are condemned to death and executed after a summary trial. 
• 1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine’s referendum is finalised and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union. 

Deaths

• 1946 – W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian, juggler, and screenwriter (b. 1880). 
• 1957 – Charles Pathé, French record producer, founded Pathé Records (b. 1863). 
• 1977 – Charlie Chaplin, English actor and director (b. 1889). 
• 1995 – Dean Martin, American singer and actor (b. 1917). 
• 2006 – James Brown, American singer-songwriter (b. 1933). 
• 2008 – Eartha Kitt, American singer and actress (b. 1927). 
• 2016 – George Michael, British singer and songwriter (b. 1963). 

The 12 Murders of Christmas

Sorry, but there’s no partridge in a pear tree to be found here. In fact, this Christmas countdown might not leave you with too much festive spirit at all.

This time of year should be all about fun and laughter, shouldn’t it? About friends and family… Roaring fires, roast potatoes and red-nosed reindeer. And for most of us it is. But, as regular visitors to this site will know only too well, Death doesn’t take a holiday. Ho ho ho! 

Christmas isn’t immune to crime. Murder doesn’t take a fortnight off at the end of December. In fact, some of the most shocking killings have happened over the Yuletide period down the years.

As we bring you our 12 Murders of Christmas, listen carefully. That noise you can hear in the background? It’s slay bells… 

1. A grim ‘gift’ left under the Christmas tree

When 37 year-old Patty White offered down-on-her-luck Michele O’Dowd a place to stay over the festive period, Michele was delighted at the Christmas spirit being shown to her. But White had an ulterior motive. One involving stealing all of her new housemate’s credit cards, killing her and leaving her among a trashed Christmas tree to look like a bungled burglary.

The scene was discovered by Michele’s twin brother Phil who went to check in on her after she failed to show for work. There, amongst a pile of wrapped Christmas presents, he saw his sister’s foot. Patty White had beaten and strangled the 67 year-old and left her among the gifts. She would receive a 45 year sentence from a South Carolina judge for her troubles. 

2. Couple stab man in face, bash in his skull and set light to him on Christmas Day in ‘Kill Bill’ plot

Victoria, Australia. It’s Christmas Day 2013. But instead of spending the day with his loved ones, William ‘Bill’ Stevenson pays the ultimate price for keeping poor company as his ‘friends’ – meth addicts Danielle Kerr and Darren Lewis – kill him in one of the most violent ways conceivable.

Their motives not entirely clear, the pair drove Stevenson out to bushland and began beating him about the head with a large rock. Kerr then stabbed the man to death while cackling about their ‘Kill Bill’ plans. The couple then set the car alight and casually walked home. Thankfully they would both be arrested, charged and convicted soon afterwards. 

3. ‘Marvallous’ Teen gang indulge in sickening festive killing spree

There were four of them and they called themselves ‘The Downtown Posse’. To the police and courts, though? They were simply Laura Taylor (16 years old), DeMarcus Smith (17), Heather Matthews (20) and Marvallous Keene (19). Between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day 1992, the gang went on a murder spree in Dayton, Ohio that would see five innocent people die and four seriously injured. Murdered for not liking a gift enough…

Led by Keene, the gang’s primary motive was robbery, but things soon got out of hand as Marvallous Keene grew paranoid about ‘snitches’ and effectively turned the holiday season into hunting season. For his central role in ‘The Christmas Killings’, Keene would go on to become the 10,000th American convict to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated back in 1976, while his cohorts would receive life sentences. 

4. Search for missing Bristol woman turns to hunt for her killer

Joanna Yeates’ disappearance a week before Christmas in 2010 made local news in Bristol almost immediately. Soon, the search and appeal broadened and her whereabouts were of national interest. On Christmas Day her body was found in the snow, three miles from her home.

The case achieved notoriety for the media’s handling of the first suspect, Joanna’s eccentric landlord, Christopher Jefferies. Hounded and effectively labelled the murderer without proof, UK tabloids The Mirror and The Sun were later found guilty of contempt of court for their poor coverage. Jefferies was later vindicated when Ms. Yeates’ Dutch neighbour Vincent Tabak was arrested and charged with her murder.  

5. The infamous ‘child beauty queen’ murder

JonBenét Ramsey’s Christmas Day/Boxing Day 1996 murder (police could never officially ascertain the precise date) caused an enormous storm across America and the wider world. Years on and the six year-old’s callous killer or killers have still not been identified. True crime buffs the world over have studied and obsessed over the case of the young girl killed apparently during a botched kidnapping. Countless documentaries, movies, books and articles point fingers, but the mystery’s never been solved.

Many people accuse JonBenét’s parents. Some look to her older brother. Accusations of a stalker are rife and local child molestors have – somewhat understandably – been treated with suspicion. In fact, few people in Boulder, Colorado have evaded suspicion. Perhaps the eeriest suspect though is Bill McReynolds, a local man hired by the Ramseys to play Santa Claus at a large party held at the rich family’s house that year. McReynolds died in 2002, swearing innocence. It’s a case that will, perhaps, never be solved. 

6. Edinburgh woman stabs neighbour 29 times over ‘Christmas present’ dispute

Murdered for not liking a gift enough…? Well, that was the excuse that 37-year-old Melissa Young gave police when she was arrested for the brutal killing of her next-door neighbour Alan Williamson on Christmas Day 2013. Young later claimed diminished responsibility and that mental health issues were behind the sustained attack. At the time, though? Her motive was given as rage due to Williamson dismissively rejecting her Christmas present of a pair of unisex trainers and a copy of The Sun newspaper’s slightly raunchy 2014 calendar.

Young pleaded guilty to culpable homicide in 2014 and was sentenced to a minimum twenty-year sentence. Since being jailed at the women’s prison HMP Cornton Vale in Stirling, she has seriously assaulted two female prison officers. 

7. A Christmas rampage

December 28th, 1987. Ronald Gene Simmons walked into a law firm in Russellville, Arkansas and shot dead a receptionist who he was infatuated with but who had spurned his advances. Then he went into the office of an oil company and shot two executives, killing one and injuring the other. He then drove to a convenience store and former place of work and shot two more people, who would both survive. Finally, he would do the same in at the Woodline Motor Freight Company, shooting and wounding a woman. He then sat down and waited for police to arrest him.

The spree killing rocked the state. But the murders were merely a bookend to Simmons’ evil festive period. Six days previously he had shot and strangled his wife, two sons and four daughters. It doesn’t end there, either. Simmons then sat in the house, among the bodies, for FOUR DAYS – leaving only to visit a local bar. On Boxing Day, NINE more relatives turned up to visit the Simmons family, including Ronald Simmons’ grandchildren. All were killed. In total, he took 16 people’s lives that Christmas.

On the 25th of June 1990, then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton signed Simmons’ execution warrant and he was killed by lethal injection. 

8. ‘Twas the night before Christmas and fire tore through the house

On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder residence in Fayetteville, West Virginia, United States. At the time, it was occupied by George Sodder, his wife Jennie, and nine of their ten children. During the fire, George, Jennie, and four of the nine children escaped. The bodies of the other five children have never been found. The surviving Sodder family believed for the rest of their lives that the five missing children survived. 

The Sodders dedicated their lives to trying to find out what happened that Christmas, but died in later life without finding out. 

9. The first and last family photograph the Lawsons would ever have taken…

North Carolina tobacco farmer Charles Davis Lawson made his wife Fannie and their seven children put on their Sunday best for Christmas Day morning, 1929. For they were to go into town and have a professional family photograph taken, a rare treat for such a poor family. Later that day, after settling back home, Charles would set about methodically beating and shooting his wife – along with six of the seven children – until they were dead. The child spared? The Lawsons’ eldest, 16-year-old Arthur, who Charles had sent on a needless errand before his vicious massacre. Charles Lawson’s motive was never determined. 

10. A murder so sick and twisted

Kristy Bamu was just 15 when he was tortured and drowned in a bath by his own sister Magalie and her twisted boyfriend Eric Bikubi. It was Christmas Day 2010 when the couple finally killed poor Kristy, after a sustained and brutal four-day torture session at their flat in Newham, London. When his body was found, more than 130 separate injuries were counted. The twentysomething Congolese couple’s excuse? They believed Magalie’s younger brother was ‘a witch’. Eric was ordered to serve at least 30 years in prison, while Magalie received a minimum of 25 years for the unimaginably horrific killing. 

11. ‘Stagger Lee’ and the seasonal showdown

Lee Shelton was a known criminal and pimp who went by the nickname ‘Stagger Lee’. Famous now because of the folk song he would inspire, Shelton wasn’t a man to be trifled with. As William “Billy” Lyons would discover to his cost. This murder took place on Christmas night 1895, in St. Louis, Missouri. Stagger and Billy were drinking and playing cards together in the Bill Curtis Saloon when, wouldn’t you know it, they got into ‘a dispute’. Lyons snatched Stagger’s Stetson hat and, well, you’ve seen westerns… Stagger Lee drew his gun, shot Lyons dead and the rest is history. History and song. 

12. The Santa suit slaughter

It was Christmas Eve of 2004 in the small city of Covina, just outside of LA. Parties dominated the neighbourhood. 1129 East Knollcrest Drive had around 25 close friends and family enjoying each other’s company. At around 11.30pm, a knock at the door came. Standing on the other side of the door? Santa Claus. At least that’s what the eight-year-old girl who answered the door thought. But it wasn’t Saint Nick, it was a man called Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, the unstable and violent ex-husband of one of the women at the party. He was holding a 9mm pistol in one hand and a flamethrower in the other. He had a further three handguns in his possession. Cruelly and methodically he went about shooting everyone in his sight, before setting alight to the house. Nine people would die and three would be badly injured. Pardo left, driving to his brother’s house some thirty miles away. He had planned to detonate a series of handmade explosives and then make his escape to Canada, but the fire had caused his Santa suit to melt onto him, causing severe third degree burns. Instead, Pardo decided to put a bullet in his head. 

I hope I didn’t put you off your mince pies too much… Merry Christmas everyone.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Sissy Spacek (73), Shane MacGowan (65), Helena Christensen (54), Annie Lennox (68), Finn Wolfhard (20), Harry Shearer (79), Ralph Fiennes (60), Vanessa Paradis (50), Hugh Quarshie (68), Samuel L. Jackson (74), Tom Sturridge (37), Jane Fonda (85), Kiefer Sutherland (56), Michelle Hurd (56), Phil Donahue (87), Jonah Hill (39), Jenny Agutter (70), Nicole de Boer (52), Jake Gyllenhaal (42), Jennifer Beals (59), Kristy Swanson (53), Alyssa Milano (50), and Richard Hammond (53).