As India continues to dominate in the world of notable deaths, this weeks newsletter contains loads to read but nil points to our brethren. Last week also saw the passing of Bo, the 12 year old dog of the Obama family of cancer. Sad times indeed! 

The new Telegram group has settled down and is proving to be quite a hit, I do urge members to join as the community feel and alerts are well worth it. Plus you can control your notifications, giving you more power as to who and what you want to see. Those of you who have not joined have missed out on quite a few alerts already! If we reach a 75% uptake, I intend to discontinue the old email alerts and maybe just rely on the website for the newsletter and the Telegram group for alerts and community. Let me know what you think!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Marcel Stellman, 96, Belgian record producer and lyricist, creator of Countdown.
• Dannie Druehyld, 73, Danish witch.  
• Nick Kamen, 59, English model, singer (“Each Time You Break My Heart“). 
• Ray Teret, 79, English disc jockey and convicted rapist.  
• Paul Van Doren, 90, American entrepreneur, co-founder of Vans.  
• Tawny Kitaen, 59, American actress (The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak, Bachelor Party, Witchboard).

In Other News

A brother and sister who caused a drunk football fan to choke to death when they “force-fed” him a chicken kebab as he slept have been found guilty of manslaughter. Nicole Cavin, 24, and David Noble, 34, caused the death of David Clark, 56, by forcing chunks of meat in his mouth while travelling on a train in March 2019. A court previously heard Mr Clark collapsed on the train after watching a football match between Lancaster FC and Farsley Celtic. Medics attended and recovered kebab meat the “size of a golf ball” from Mr Clark’s airway, jurors were told. The married father boarded a Northern service train with his friend Jon Waite and had enjoyed around ten pints throughout the day, according to prosecutors. Cavin and Noble, who had known Mr Clark for about five years, boarded the service earlier at Preston after going to Blackpool for the day with Cavin’s boyfriend, Daniel Shepherd. The men sat with them and, when Mr Clark fell asleep, the siblings pushed food into his mouth despite Noble having witnessed him starting to choke in a pub a month earlier. Police and paramedics were called to Silverdale railway station shortly before 9.30pm after Mr Clark collapsed onboard. He died at 10.10am the next day, with a post mortem examination finding he had choked to death. Following a two-week trial at Preston’s Nightingale Court at Preston North End football club both Cavin and Noble were found guilty of manslaughter. They will be sentenced at a later date.  

The head of the royal medical household, Sir Huw Thomas, has confirmed Prince Philip’s cause of death, unsurprisingly, as “old age.” On his death certificate, the Duke’s occupation was listed as the Queen’s consort, as concubine would have fluffed too many feathers. His full name is listed as “His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh formerly known as Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark formerly known as Philip Mountbatten”; two occupations are listed, his first being Naval Officer, while his second is “husband of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, The Sovereign.” The Duke of Edinburgh was the longest-serving consort in British history after marrying Queen Elizabeth II in July 1947.  

Nick Kamen’s partner of 15 years has paid tribute to the model and singer, who died on Wednesday. Kamen, who was 59, famously appeared in a 1985 Levis 501 commercial that saw him strip in a launderette to Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”. Following the success of the advert, he collaborated with Madonna on the song “Each Time You Break My Heart”. Now, Kamen’s partner Lucinda Cary has spoken out following his death, telling us: “Nick was an amazing man and he died with a lot of dignity and respect.” Cary revealed that Kamen died after being diagnosed with incurable cancer three years ago. “Nick was an incredible person, and it was really inspiring to be around him during his illness,” she continued. She said that he “appreciated everything the NHS did for him” and was thankful to the doctors and nurses at Hammersmith Hospital in West London for the treatment he received. “He’s known for the past three years that he was going to die but he never felt sorry for himself and lived his life with incredible charm and courage,” Cary said. “It was very inspiring to be around him. He was very accepting of his situation and never got stressed about it at all.’ Cary said that Kamen had stepped away from his career as a singer as “he was at his unhappiest… when he was famous”. She said: “He was happy living a private life and didn’t like being the centre of attention.” 

An unemployed Spanish waiter has been convicted of murdering his mother who he cut into thousands of pieces, stored them in lunch boxes and fed parts to his pet dog. Alberto Sanchez Gomez, 28, was nicknamed ‘The Cannibal of Las Ventas’, after the Madrid area where he lived with his mother Maria Soledad Gomez. A jury in Madrid found Sanchez guilty of strangling the 68-year-old after a row. He cut up her body, put some pieces in Tupperware boxes and spent the next two weeks eating parts of his victim or feeding parts to his pet dog. Sanchez cooked some parts or ate others raw, the court heard. Sanchez will be sentenced in the next few days but prosecutors have asked for the former waiter to be jailed for 15 years and five months for homicide and the desecration of a human corpse. When he was arrested in February 2019, Sanchez told police that he had been eating his mum “bit by bit” with his pet dog, the court heard. “Yes, myself and my dog have been eating her bit by bit,” he was reported to have told officers. Police found Mrs Soledad’s remains in Tupperware containers in their fridge and bones in drawers around the family home. Her head, hands and heart were found on her bed. Spanish media reports said her body had been cut up into more than 1,000 pieces. A worried friend of Mrs Soledad raised the alarm, telling authorities she had not been for over a month. During the trial at Madrid’s Audiencia Provincial, prosecutors said Sanchez used a carpenter’s saw and two kitchen knives to cut up his mother’s body. Sanchez told the court that he heard ‘hidden messages’ when he watched television and voices telling to kill his mother. He said the voices were those of neighbours, acquaintances and celebrities. However, he insisted he could not remember cutting up his mother or eating her remains. During his address to the court, Sanchez said: “ ‘I’m very repentant. I suffer anxiety from the moment I wake up. I think of my mother and I’m absolutely heartbroken.” Jurors heard that Sanchez, who started consuming drugs and alcohol from age 13, had been arrested 12 times for mistreating his mum before he finally killed her. Personally, the only thing that horrifies me most about this tragic tale is that he was eating a 68-year-old, imagine how stringy and tough she was! Like a dried out piece of old mutton!! 

On This Day

• 1662 – The figure who later became Mr. Punch makes his first recorded appearance in England.  
• 1726 – Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap‘s molly house in London are executed at Tyburn.
• 1980 – In Florida, Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 1,400-ft. section of the southbound span collapse. Thirty-five people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 150 ft. into the water and die.

Deaths

• 1986 – Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese mountaineer (b. 1914). 
• 2012 – Vidal Sassoon, English-American hairdresser and businessman (b. 1928). 
• 2017 – Robert Miles, a Swiss-born Italian record producer, composer, and DJ (b. 1969). 
• 2019 – Freddie Starr, English comedian, impressionist, singer and actor (1943). 
• 2020 – Little Richard, American singer, songwriter, and pianist (b. 1932). 

Children Who Kill

Mary Bell is an English woman who, in 1968, aged 11, strangled two young boys to death in Scotswood, a district in the West End of Newcastle upon Tyne. She was convicted in December 1968 of the manslaughter of Martin Brown (aged four) and Brian Howe (aged three). 

Bell’s mother Betty was a prostitute who was often absent from the family home, travelling to Glasgow to work. Mary was her second child, born when Betty was 16 years old. Her older sister once had to travel alone across Newcastle to reclaim Mary from the house of a mentally unstable woman, unable to have children of her own, to whom Betty had sold Mary. It is not known who Mary’s biological father was. For most of her life, she believed it to be Billy Bell, a habitual criminal who later was arrested for armed robbery, but she was a baby when Bill married her mother. 

On 25th May 1968, the day before her 11th birthday, Mary Bell strangled four-year-old Martin Brown in a derelict house. She was believed to have committed this crime alone. Between then and a second killing, she and a friend, Norma Joyce Bell (no relation), aged 13, broke into and vandalised a nursery in Scotswood, leaving notes that claimed responsibility for the killing. The police dismissed this incident as a prank. 

On 31st July 1968, the two girls took part in the strangulation of three-year-old Brian Howe on wasteland in the same Scotswood area. Police reports concluded that both girls later returned to his body with Norma carving her initial “N” into the boy’s abdomen. This was subsequently amended by Mary from “N” to a “M” as she used scissors to cut off some of his hair, scratch his legs, and mutilate his genitals. The scissors proved to be Mary’s downfall as during police questioning she made claims of seeing Brian in the area on the day with a known local boy carrying scissors. This local boy was at the airport on the day of the killing and the police had not shared information about the mutilation with the public. 

On 17th December 1968, at Newcastle Assizes, Norma Bell was acquitted but Mary Bell was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The jury took their lead from her diagnosis by court-appointed psychiatrists who described her as displaying “classic symptoms of psychopathy”. The judge, Justice Cusack, described her as dangerous and said she posed a “very grave risk to other children”. She was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, effectively an indefinite sentence of imprisonment. She was initially sent to Red Bank secure unit in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire – the same facility that would house Jon Venables, one of James Bulger’s killers, 25 years later. 

After her conviction, Bell was the focus of a great deal of attention from the British press. Her mother repeatedly sold stories about her and often gave reporters writings she claimed to be by her daughter. Bell made headlines in September 1977 when she briefly escaped from Moor Court open prison, where she had been held since her transfer from a young offenders institution to an adult prison a year earlier. Her penalty for this was a loss of prison privileges for 28 days.  

In 1980, 23-year-old Bell was released from HM Prison Askham Grange after serving 12 years and was granted anonymity, allowing her to start a new life. Bell allegedly came back to Tyneside on several occasions and had lived there for some time after her release. Four years after finishing her sentence, she had given birth to a daughter on 25th May 1984. She knew nothing of her mother’s past until reporters discovered Bell’s location in 1998 and the pair left their home with bedsheets over their heads. 

Bell’s daughter’s anonymity was originally protected only until she reached the age of 18. However, on 21st May 2003, Bell won a High Court battle to have her own anonymity and that of her daughter extended for life. Consequently, any court order permanently protecting the identity of a convict in Britain is sometimes known as a “Mary Bell order”. The order was later updated in 2009 to include Bell’s granddaughter, who was referred to as “Z”. Bell’s current whereabouts are unknown. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Rosario Dawson (42), Grace Gummer (35), Glenda Jackson (85), Billy Joel (72), Vicky McClure (38), David Attenborough (95), Stephen Amell (40), Adrianne Palicki (38), George Clooney (60), Naomi Scott (28), Alan Dale (74), Pippa Haywood (60), Henry Cavill (38), Zach McGowan (41), John Rhys-Davies (77), Lance Henriksen (81), Richard E. Grant (64), Michael Palin (78), Adele (32), Will Arnett (51), Pom Klementieff (35), Christina Hendricks (46), Bobby Cannavale (51), Rob Brydon (56), and Sandi Toksvig (63).

Welcome to a Nickie edition of The Dead Pool Newsletter, as she found most of this weeks stories, well done that woman! Not many notable deaths this week, but reading the listings confirmed that India is in a slight bit of bother with the old Coronavirus, the youngest Indian star I noticed was a 34 year old Bodybuilder. If you knew your Indian celebrities you could have already won the pool this week! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Michael Collins, 90, American astronaut (Apollo 11), cancer.  
• Anne Buydens, 102, German-born American philanthropist, widow of Kirk Douglas.  
• Olympia Dukakis, 89, American actress (Moonstruck, Steel Magnolias, Tales of the City), Oscar winner (1988). 

In Other News

Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has revealed he was recently diagnosed with cancer for a second time, but has been given the all-clear. Wood said: “I’ve had cancer two different ways now. I had lung cancer in 2017 and I had small-cell more recently that I fought in the last lockdown … I came through with the all-clear.” Small-cell carcinoma is a type of cancer most commonly found in the lungs. In 2017, he was found to have lung cancer during a routine health check, and underwent a five-hour surgery to have it removed. He turned down chemotherapy: “I wasn’t going to lose my hair. This hair wasn’t going anywhere,” he said later that year. “I said, ‘No way.’ And I just kept the faith it would be all right … I was bloody lucky but then I’ve always had a very strong guardian angel looking out for me. By rights I shouldn’t be here.” He continued touring with the Rolling Stones later that year. “I’m going through a lot of problems now, but throughout my recovery, you have to let it go. And when you hand the outcome over to your higher power, that is a magic thing … What will be will be, it’s nothing to do with me. All I can do is stay positive in my attitude, be strong and fight it, and the rest is up to my higher power.” 

I hope you are all feeling very lucky, if not privileged, to live in Britain, as authorities in Delhi have been forced to build makeshift funeral pyres in public parks as India’s  capital city runs out of space for coronavirus victims. Social media is flooded with pictures of people burning the bodies of their loved ones who died from Covid-19 alongside many other bodies. As most of the capital’s crematoriums are working beyond their capacity, local news reports show pictures of bodies lined up in a queue at cremation centres and people being forced to wait for more than 20 hours to get space for cremation. As a result, the authorities are forced to create more funeral pyres so people do not have to wait for hours and risk exposure to the virus. 

They are building dozens of new pyres at the existing crematoriums including their parking spaces or nearby parks. Reports said officials are also exploring if there is additional space for new pyres near the river bed of the Yamuna river. Staff are also overworked at many of the crematoriums with the cremation taking places from early morning till midnight. As a result family members have been seen helping them pre1pare the pyres – without being able to follow social distancing. Due to the sudden increase in number of deaths, there has been an increase in demand of wood required for the pyres as well. There have also been unconfirmed reports of trees being cut in the city for wood for the funeral pyres. Over the past several weeks, India has seen a massive daily rise in the number of Covid-19 cases. In the last 24 hours, India recorded over 360,000 cases, a global record, and nearly 3,300 deaths. Since the start of the pandemic, India has recorded about 18 million cases including 200,000 deaths – second only to the US. Truly biblical!   

A YouTuber whose girlfriend was killed in a sickening live stream has been jailed for causing her death. Trash vlogger ReeFlay – who used the name Stanislav Reshetnikov, 30 was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm resulting in death sentenced to six years in a strict penal colony by a Russian court. Valentina ‘Valya’ Grigoryeva, 28, was subjected to live online ‘abuse’ and died of ‘head injuries’. Bullying Reshetnikov was paid by watchers to inflict verbal and physical violence on her in the streaming session in which she died. When he emerged flanked by armed officers to start his sentence, he appeared in tears. In the live stream which led to headlines around the world, he had labelled Grigoryeva a ‘prostitute’ and ‘smelly’. First reports say she died from being locked outside near naked in subzero temperatures – seen live by punters on YouTube and other platforms, but later forensic experts concluded a head injury was the cause of death. When Reshetnikov, 30, allowed her back in, it was clear to viewers that she appeared dead, and one called the emergency services. Her corpse had ‘craniocerebral trauma’ and ‘multiple bruising on the face and haemorrhaging of soft tissues’. ReeFlay ‘testified that on the day in question he hit the deceased several times on the head,’ said a law enforcement source. Psychological and psychiatric examinations of the streamer found him to be ‘sane’ and fit to face trial. He was convicted of ‘intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm, dangerous to human life, committed with the use of an object used as a weapon, resulting in the death of the victim by negligence’. His mother, a sales manager, had said earlier that her son ‘wouldn’t hurt a kitten’ and was ‘very kind’, despite the video evidence showing otherwise! 

On This Day

• 1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. It didn’t end well for her… 
• 1982 – Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano. 
• 1986 – Chernobyl disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster!  
• 2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.  
• 2011 – Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11th attacks and the FBI’s most wanted man, is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Deaths

• 1519 – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect (b. 1452). 
• 1964 – Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, American-English politician (b. 1879). 
• 1972 – J. Edgar Hoover, American 1st director of the FBI (b. 1895). 
• 1990 – David Rappaport, English-American actor (b. 1951). 
• 1998 – Justin Fashanu, English footballer (b. 1961). 
• 1999 – Oliver Reed, English actor (b. 1938). 
• 2011 – Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabian terrorist, founder of Al-Qaeda (b. 1957). 
• 2015 – Ruth Rendell, English author (b. 1930). 

Auto-iconism or the Literal Meaning of ‘Get Stuffed!’

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. 

On his death in 1832, Bentham left instructions for his body to be first dissected, and then to be permanently preserved as an “auto-icon” (or self-image), which would be his memorial. This was done, and the auto-icon is now on public display in the entrance of the Student Centre at University College London. Because of his arguments in favour of the general availability of education, he has been described as the “spiritual founder” of UCL. However, he played only a limited direct part in its foundation.  

Bentham died on 6th June 1832 aged 84 at his residence in Queen Square Place in Westminster, London. He had continued to write up to a month before his death, and had made careful preparations for the dissection of his body after death and its preservation as an auto-icon. As early as 1769, when Bentham was 21 years old, he made a will leaving his body for dissection to a family friend, the physician and chemist George Fordyce, whose daughter, Maria Sophia, married Jeremy’s brother Samuel Bentham. A paper written in 1830, instructing Thomas Southwood Smith to create the auto-icon, was attached to his last will, dated 30th May 1832. 

Bentham’s wish to preserve his dead body was consistent with his philosophy of utilitarianism. Following the dissection, the skeleton and head were preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet called the “Auto-icon”, with the skeleton padded out with hay and dressed in Bentham’s clothes. From 1833 it stood in Southwood Smith’s Finsbury Square consulting rooms until he abandoned private practice in the winter of 1849-50 when it was moved to 36 Percy Street, the studio of his unofficial partner, the painter Margaret Gillies, who made studies of it. In March 1850 Southwood Smith offered the auto-icon to Henry Brougham who readily accepted it for UCL. 

It is kept on public display at the main entrance of the UCL Student Centre. Upon the retirement of Sir Malcolm Grant as provost of the College in 2013, the body was present at Grant’s final council meeting. As of 2021, this was the only time that the body of Bentham has been taken to a UCL council meeting. There is a persistent myth that the body of Bentham is present at all council meetings.  

Bentham had intended the auto-icon to incorporate his actual head, mummified to resemble its appearance in life. Southwood Smith’s experimental efforts at mummification, based on practices of the indigenous people of New Zealand and involving placing the head under an air pump over sulphuric acid and drawing off the fluids, although technically successful, left the head looking distastefully macabre, with dried and darkened skin stretched tautly over the skull. 

The auto-icon was therefore given a wax head, fitted with some of Bentham’s own hair. The real head was displayed in the same case as the auto-icon for many years, but became the target of repeated student pranks. However, the rumour that the head was used as a football is untrue. The head is very fragile and should someone have kicked it, it would have disintegrated. It was later locked away. 

In 2020, the auto-icon was put into a new glass display case and moved to the entrance of UCL’s new Student Centre on Gordon Square. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Dwayne Johnson (49), Ellie Kemper (41), David Suchet (75), Matt Berry (47), David Beckham (46), Lily Allen (36), Jamie Dornan (39), Julie Benz (49), Joanna Lumley (75), Una Stubbs (84), Gal Gadot (36), Sam Heughan (41), Kirsten Dunst (39), Burt Young (81), Michelle Pfeiffer (63), Daniel Day-Lewis (64), Uma Thurman (51), Kate Mulgrew (66), Jerry Seinfeld (67), Willie Nelson (88), Mary McDonnell (69), Jessica Alba (40), Penélope Cruz (47), Ann-Margret (80), Jay Leno (71), Jenna Coleman (35), Russell T. Davies (58), Sheena Easton (62), Channing Tatum (41), Pablo Schreiber (43), Giancarlo Esposito (63), Kevin James (56), Jet Li (58), Joan Chen (60), and Melania Trump (51).

Another week full of people you’ve never heard of dying. Unsurprisingly, no points to award this week. I think we could do with a little evil monkey action, but I don’t think they are needed just yet as the Wiki list seems to be filling up with more Covid deaths recently, so maybe we’ll finally see the promised deaths from this little bug.  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Walter Mondale, 93, American politician, vice president (1977–1981), member of the U.S. Senate (1964–1976). 
• Sunday Burquest, 50, American reality TV contestant (Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X), oesophageal and ovarian cancer.  
• Jim Steinman, 73, American musician, composer and lyricist (“Total Eclipse of the Heart“, “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)“, “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now“).  
• Tempest Storm, 93, American burlesque star and actress.  
• Les McKeown, 65, Scottish singer (Bay City Rollers). 
• Joe Long, 88, American bassist (The Four Seasons), COVID-19.  

In Other News

Alexei Navalny has said he is ending his hunger strike after getting medical attention and being warned by his doctors that continuing it would be life-threatening. The jailed Russian opposition leader was transferred to hospital amid concerns he has become critically ill. Mr Navalny was nearly three weeks into a hunger strike he declared in protest at not being allowed access to doctors he trusted. Over the weekend, Mr Navalny’s press secretary claimed he was a “matter of days away” from death. On Sunday, Daria Navalnaya, Mr Navalny’s daughter, made a plea to prison authorities via social media. “Allow a doctor to see my dad,” in a post on Twitter and Instagram. The state prison service insisted that the Kremlin critic’s health has been and remains “satisfactory”. “He is seen daily by a doctor,” a statement read. “With his agreement he has been prescribed vitamin therapy.” But Navalny said he would stop refusing food after getting examined by non-prison doctors, which has now happened. Another reason he was ending the hunger strike he began on 31st March, other than being really really hungry, was that some of his supporters were refusing to eat in a show of solidarity with him, Navalny said. Navalny was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin – accusations Russian officials reject. 

In a fabulous twist of fate, 72 year old dickhead rocker Ted Nugent has revealed that he was in agony after testing positive for coronavirus – months after he said the virus was “not a real.” “So I was officially tested positive for COVID-19 today. I thought I was dying,” Nugent said in a Fb video posted on Monday. He described that he had a stuffed up head, body aches and that he literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few days.. He also used racist language to refer to the virus, calling it the “Chinese shit,” and reiterated his previous stance that he wouldn’t be getting the vaccine because he claimed — falsely — that “nobody knows what’s in it.” Nugent also addressed the fact that he previously blasted lockdowns on social media, publicly wondering why “weren’t we shut down for COVID-1 through -18.” (The number refers to 2019 — the year in which the disease was discovered. There is no COVID 1-18.) The outspoken pro-gun conservative, a staunch supporter of former U.S. president Donald Trump, previously referred to the virus as a “leftist scam to destroy” America’s 45th president. “It’s not a real pandemic and that’s not a real vaccine” he argued in a video posted in December.   

Jacquie Beltrao, 56, has shared a poignant message on Twitter as she celebrated her birthday. The Sky News host reflected on how much her situation had changed in the past year, after her breast cancer returned. Jacquie said in view of her 80,500 followers: “It’s my birthday today and I can’t help think what a difference a year makes. A year ago I was celebrating without a care in the world. Cancer-free, so I thought, obviously I wasn’t because I found a lump a month later and it doesn’t really work like that. “But what a year, I mean, a lot of joy has been sucked out of my life in a year, but I’m trying to live in the moment.  “Trying to make the best of it, I’m going to try and have a lovely day today,” she added. Since her diagnosis, Jacquie has completely removed sugar from her diet but felt tempted to enjoy a slice of cake her daughter, Amelia, had made for her. She continued: “I’ve been very disciplined with my diet in the last 12 months. I’ve given up sugar, I’ve lost nearly a stone in weight! So I’m just wondering today if I have a piece of cake that my daughter’s made, I’m thinking yes, but then will I feel guilty when I’ve eaten it? Maybe, I don’t know, it’s so difficult for us with stage four cancer. What to do for the best.” The Sky News host said she felt “grateful” for her birthday and hopes she has “got some more” ahead.  

For those of you vaguely interested in The Only Way is Essex, Harry  Derbidge’s ex Rhys Alan Smith has died. Rhys was found dead in Tenerife last week, where he is said to have lived. His cause of death is unknown. Gemma Collins led the heartbreaking tributes to Rhys as she commented on the reality star’s last shared picture to Instagram on 3rd April, while Harry is said to be ‘absolutely devastated’ over the news. Rhys dated TOWIE star Harry in 2013 with the former couple regularly appearing at events together before Harry dated Bobby Norris. In 2014, Harry, who is now engaged to beau Dean Rowland, split from Bobby after he told the reality star he had slept with his ex at the beginning of their romance. I’m fairly sure there’s more to say about this story, but frankly I can’t be arsed to look into it. 

On This Day

• 1644 – The last Emperor of Ming dynasty China, commits suicide during a peasant rebellion.  
• 1792 – Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine.  1953 – Francis Crick and James Watson publish “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid” describing the double helix structure of DNA.  
• 1954 – The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories.  
• 1961 – Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.  

Deaths

• 1878 – Anna Sewell, English author (b. 1820). 
• 1995 – Ginger Rogers, American actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1911). 
• 1996 – Saul Bass, American graphic designer and director (b. 1920). 
• 2002 – Lisa Lopes, American rapper and dancer (b. 1971). 
• 2009 – Bea Arthur, American actress and singer (b. 1922). 

 The First Man to Face The Chop!

Nicolas Jacques Pelletier was a French highwayman who became the first person to be executed by guillotine. 

Pelletier routinely associated with a group of known criminals. But on the night of 14th October 1791, with several unknown accomplices, he attacked a passerby in the rue Bourbon-Villeneuve in Paris and stole his wallet and several securities. During the robbery he also killed the man, though this is disputed in later literature as possibly just having been an assault and robbery or also a rape. He was apprehended and accused that same night, for the cries for help alerted some in the city, and a nearby guard arrested Pelletier. Judge Jacob Augustin Moreau, the District Judge of Sens, was to hear the case. 

A legal advisor was given to Pelletier, but despite his efforts and calls for a fairer court hearing, the judge ordered a death sentence for 31st December 1791. On 24th December 1791, the Second Criminal Court confirmed Judge Moreau’s sentence. The execution was stayed, however, after the National Assembly made decapitation the only legal method of capital punishment. Pelletier waited in jail for more than three months as the guillotine was built in Strasbourg under the direction of the surgeon Antoine Louis, at a cost of thirty-eight livres. Meanwhile, the public executioner Charles Henri Sanson tested the machine on corpses in the Bicêtre Hospital. Sanson preferred the guillotine over the former decapitation by sword, as the latter reminded him of the nobility’s former privileges that the revolutionaries had worked to eliminate. On 24th January 1792, a third criminal court confirmed the sentence. 

The execution was delayed due to the ongoing debate on the legal method of execution. Finally, the National Assembly decreed on 23rd March 1792 in favour of the guillotine. 

The guillotine was placed on top of a scaffold outside the Hôtel de Ville in the Place de Grève, where public executions had been held during the reign of King Louis XV. Pierre Louis Roederer, thinking that a large number of people would come to see the first-ever public execution-by-guillotine, thought that there might be difficulty in preserving order. He wrote to General Lafayette to ask for National Guardsmen to make sure the event went smoothly.

The execution took place at 3:30 pm. Pelletier was led to the scaffold wearing a red shirt. The large crowd predicted by Roederer was already waiting there, eager to see the novel invention at work. The guillotine, which was also red in colour, had been previously fully prepared, and Sanson moved quickly. Within seconds, the guillotine and Pelletier were positioned correctly, and Pelletier was decapitated.

The crowd, however, was dissatisfied with the guillotine. They felt it was too swift and “clinically effective” to provide proper entertainment, as compared to previous execution methods, such as hanging, death-by-sword, or breaking at the wheel. The public even called out “Bring back our wooden gallows!”  

Out of interest, the last person to be executed by guillotine in France was Hamida Djandoubi in 1977!!!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Renée Zellweger (52), Al Pacino (81), Gina Torres (52), Talia Shire (75), Hank Azaria (57), William Roache (89), Rory McCann (52), Aidan Gillen (53), Djimon Hounsou (57), Shirley MacLaine (87), Barbra Streisand (79), John Cena (44), Lee Majors (82), Gemma Whelan (40), John Hannah (59), John Oliver (43), Amber Heard (35), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (55), Jack Nicholson (84), Sheryl Lee (54), John Waters (75), James McAvoy (42), Toby Stephens (52), Andie MacDowell (63), Tony Danza (70), Iggy Pop (74), Queen Elizabeth II (95), Andy Serkis (57), Jessica Lange (72), Clint Howard (62), Veronica Cartwright (72), Ryan O’Neal (80), Carmen Electra (49), Ruth Connell (42), George Takei (85), Leslie Phillips (97), Nicholas Lyndhurst (60), Michael Brandon (76), Hayden Christensen (40), James Franco (43), Ashley Judd (53), Kate Hudson (42), Tim Curry (75), and Maria Sharapova (34).

Alas no points to award this week, even though we have a clutch of decent celebrities who have passed away. In case you missed it, Prince Philip’s funeral took place, everyone was sobbing as the Queen sat by herself and Harry and William argued through clenched teeth about The Markle Incident. All in all, a great advertising campaign by Land Rover.  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Joseph Siravo, 66, American actor (The Sopranos, American Crime Story, Oslo), colon cancer.  
• Shirley Williams, 90, British politician and peer and co-founder of the SDP. 
• Peter Warner, 90, Australian sailor, drowned.  
• Bernie Madoff, 82, American market maker, investment advisor, financier and convicted fraudster.  
• Helen McCrory, 52, English actress (Peaky Blinders, Harry Potter, The Queen), cancer.  
• Barry Mason, 85, English songwriter (Delilah, The Last Waltz).   
• Felix Silla, 84, Italian-born American actor (The Addams Family, The Black Bird, Return of the Jedi) and stuntman, pancreatic cancer.

In Other News

Everyones favourite sex pest, Harvey Weinstein is reportedly going blind and has lost several teeth in prison, according to his lawyer. The disgraced movie mogul appeared virtually in an upstate New York court to fight extradition to Los Angeles, where he has been indicted on 11 counts of sexual assault. According to the media, he faces four counts of forcible rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery and one count of sexual penetration by force connected to the alleged assaults of five women from 2004 to 2013. Weinstein’s lawyer Norman Effman said his client did not want to be extradited yet due to his health issues needing medical attention. He is “scheduled for some dental procedures to save his teeth – he’s lost, I believe four at this point,” Effman said. He didn’t mention if the teeth fell out on their own or were helped along by a fellow inmate. Weinstein was found guilty in February 2020 of third-degree rape and of a criminal sexual act. He was sentenced the following month to 23 years in prison. 

Yet another social media ‘celebrity’ has died. If you know of the TikTok star Adam Perkins, well, he’s dead, and at the very young age of 24. The Boston-born internet sensation’s twin brother Patrick confirmed the news on Instagram, as he revealed the ‘star’ had died on April 11th but did not disclose any cause of death, but by the look of him I suspect a healthy dose of crack. As well as having thousands of TikTok followers, Adam was most well known for a clip on the the now-defunct social media site Vine which saw him parody an advert for the American restaurant chain Chili’s in which we saw him walk into a bathroom and say ‘Welcome to Chili’s’, yup, that’s all it takes nowadays folks! They say he released an album called Latch Relay in 2018 under the name Plas Teg, I’m fucked if I’ve ever heard of it. I reckon his twin brother has missed a trick here though, obviously the lesser talented, he should have declared himself dead and reaped the cash his brother could have made, or not, as we’ve never heard of him!  

You might have rightly skimmed over this weeks deaths and totally ignored the name Barry Mason, I’ll forgive you. However the songwriter who died at the age of 85 on Friday has a string of well known hits and is also behind Leeds United’s anthem Marching on Together. Mason co-wrote the sporting anthem with Les Reed in 1972, which has also become the song of city rugby league club Leeds Rhinos. Other hits penned by Mason include Tom Jones’ mega hit Delilah and The Last Waltz by Engelbert Humperdinck. Taking to Twitter, a Leeds United spokesperson said: “LUFC are saddened to learn of the passing of Barry Mason, co-writer of the club’s anthem Marching On Together.” Spandau Ballet songwriter Gary Kemp said: “Shocked to hear that my friend and lovely human Barry Mason died yesterday. All my love to his wife Vanessa and his children.”  He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to music. In a glittering career he won five Ivor Novello Awards and penned an extraordinary 11,000 songs. Working in the golden age of British popular music in the 1960’s, his songs were performed by the likes of Rod Stewart, Engelbert Humperdinck, Elvis Presley ,The Drifters and of course, Tom Jones. 

Not to sound monotonous, but yet another YouTube influencer you’ve never heard of, Jeffree Star has said he is in “excruciating pain” after he and his friend Daniel Lucas were involved in a “severe” car accident in Wyoming. The controversial YouTube ‘star’ was driving in Natrona County when the Rolls Royce they were in hit black ice and flipped over three times. A representative posted a picture of Star in a hospital gown, laying in a bed with a neck brace on, from his official Twitter account. “A few hours ago Jeffree and Daniel were in a severe car accident and the car flipped 3 times after hitting black ice,” the tweet stated. “We will update you all when the doctor gives us more info. So thankful they are both alive.” Star has now posted an update from his social media accounts, calling the incident “one of the scariest moments” of his life. “This morning was one of the scariest moments of our entire lives. I’m so grateful to be here still. I’m in excruciating pain because part of my back is broken and I have vertebrae fractures on my spine. My doctor said it will take a few months but I should make a full recovery,” he wrote. “My best friend Daniel has internal injuries and because he has survived colon cancer three times, he’s having complications with his organs and they’re monitoring him 24/7. We’ll know more soon. Thank you to every single person checking on us.” Star, whose real name is Jeffrey Lynn Steininger, is originally from Orange County, California, but last year bought a 70-acre ranch near Casper, Wyoming. The 35-year-old has run Jeffree Star Cosmetics since 2014, and has 16.5 million subscribers on YouTube, 13.6 million on Instagram and 6.9 million on Twitter.

Charles Geschke, the co-founder of the software company Adobe who helped develop the Portable Document Format, or PDF, has died at the age of 81. Geschke set up Adobe in 1982, giving the world the ubiquitous PDF software, among many other audio-visual innovations. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said Geschke, widely known as Chuck, “sparked the desktop publishing revolution”. “This is a huge loss for the entire Adobe community and the technology industry, for whom he has been a guide and hero for decades,” he wrote in an email to the company’s employees. “As co-founders of Adobe, Chuck and John Warnock developed ground-breaking software that has revolutionised how people create and communicate,” he said. Geschke and Warnock were responsible for transformative software inventions, including PDF, Acrobat, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Photoshop, Mr Narayen said. In 1992, Geschke was kidnapped in an incident that made national headlines. He was held at gunpoint in his office and taken to Hollister, California, for four days. Geschke was freed after a suspect, found with $650,000 in ransom money, took police to the location where he was being held. In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded Geschke and Warnock the National Medal of Technology. 

On This Day

• 1912 – The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.   
• 1930 – The British Broadcasting Corporation announced that “there is no news” in their evening report.  
• 2007 – A series of bombings, two of them being suicides, occur in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.  

Deaths

• 1763 – Marie-Josephte Corriveau, Canadian murderer (b. 1733)
• 1955 – Albert Einstein, German-American physicist, engineer, and academic (b. 1879). 
• 2018 – Dale Winton, British television presenter (b. 1955). 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Vanessa Kirby (33), David Tennant (50), James Woods (74), Hayley Mills (75), Eli Roth (49), Rick Moranis (68), Jennifer Garner (49), Rooney Mara (36), Sean Bean (62), David Bradley (79), Anya Taylor-Joy (25), Claire Foy (36), Gina Carano (39), Ellen Barkin (67), Sadie Sink (19), Martin Lawrence (56), Emma Watson (31), Luke Evans (42), Seth Rogen (39), Emma Thompson (62), Maisie Williams (24), Adrien Brody (48), Sarah Michelle Gellar (44), Anthony Michael Hall (53), Robert Carlyle (60), Peter Capaldi (63), Julie Christie (81), Ron Perlman (71), William Sadler (71), Erick Avari (69), Edward Fox (84), Peter Davison (70), Jennifer Morrison (42), Saoirse Ronan (27), Claire Danes (42), Ed O’Neill (75), Andy Garcia (65), Shannen Doherty (50), and Nicholas Brendon (50).

As Prince Philip dies just two months shy of receiving a telegram from his wife; for us he  instigates a points avalanche! Some of you scored 51 points, but most of you had him down as a Cert, so 151 points. I’ll not list you all, but well done everyone! Commiserations to Martin, myself and Sarai as the only ones neglecting to put the lizard overseer on our lists this year. Interestingly, the old duke scores a grand total of 2930 points. In comparison, Maggie Thatcher scored 1882 points, Nelson Mandela 1315 points, and Bruce Forsyth 2486 points, so the old fella has punched out at the top. I suspect the only person to beat his score could be The Queen herself! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Paul Ritter, 54, English actor (Friday Night Dinner, Chernobyl, No Offence), brain cancer.  
• James Hampton, 84, American actor (F Troop, The Longest Yard, Teen Wolf) and director, complications from Parkinson’s disease. 
• Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, 99, Greek-born British royal, consort of the British monarch (since 1952). 
• DMX, 50, American rapper and actor.  
• Nikki Grahame, 38, English television personality (Big Brother, Princess Nikki, Big Brother Canada), anorexia nervosa.  

In Other News

Tracey Emin has declared she’s passed a “big milestone” in her battle with bladder cancer as her last scans gave her the “all clear”. She went public with her health battle back in October, revealing she’d undergone treatment and the disease was in remission. The artist, 57, has now opened up about her condition in a new interview on BBC Newsnight, explaining her last three-monthly scan last week showed she was “all clear”. She added: “I’m not painting because I’m using my willpower to stay alive. That’s what I’m doing. I never realised how much I wanted to live until I thought I was going to die.” Tracey – famed for her messy bed art installation – also revealed she’s undergone life-saving surgeries in a bid to beat the cancer including a full hysterectomy. She also had her bladder and urethra, lymph nodes, part of her vagina and intestine removed. In the Newsnight interview, she explained she now has a urostomy bag to take the place of the bladder and urinary system, calling it a “major disability”. She had been undergoing scans every three months to keep a check on the cancer, but after being given the all clear she will now only have to be checked once a year.  

Sarah Harding has revealed her joy at being told her brain and lung tumours had reduced in size following her cancer treatment at the back end of last year. The Girls Aloud singer was first diagnosed with breast cancer earlier in the year but received the devastating news that it had quickly spread to other parts of her body.The 39-year-old has since been undergoing chemotherapy treatment and ahead of this week’s release of her debut autobiography called Hear Me Out, it has been revealed that some of the tumours have reduced in size. She shared “MRI scans at the end of December revealed that the tumours in my brain and in my lung have shrunk a bit with the treatment.” While she admitted that she didn’t know “exactly what this means” she was happy to announce that it’s moving in the right direction. She continued: “Right now, every little victory feels momentous”.    

Max George has revealed his pal Tom Parker has “shocked” doctors with how well he’ been response to brain cancer treatment. The Wanted star, 32, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and has been undergoing rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in a bid to prolong his life. Speaking on the Dangerous Dinners podcast, Max, also 32, gave the good news that the cancer has been “suppressed”. He explained: “Tom’s got something called glioblastoma, which is quite an aggressive form of brain tumour, but he’s had his first bout of chemo and radio therapy, which he has responded to unbelievably. “Doctors were actually shocked by how well he’s responded – all of his tumours have been suppressed, so he’s in the best hands.” Max went on to insist dad-of-two Tom is being his usual cheerful self and just wants to keep his life as normal as possible. He added: “In himself, Tom… Nothing puts Tom down, nothing. When you talk to him it’s like everything’s normal, and he just wants that – he wants normality. “He’s just had his second child, so he’s got so much to focus on – he’s doing great, he’s doing really well.” 

On This Day

• 1951 – The Stone of Scone, the stone upon which Scottish monarchs were traditionally crowned, is found on the site of the altar of Arbroath Abbey. It had been taken by Scottish nationalist students from its place in Westminster Abbey.   
• 1965 – The Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965: Fifty-one tornadoes hit in six Midwestern states, killing 256 people.  
• 1976 – The Apple I is created.   

Deaths

• 1240 – Llywelyn the Great, Welsh prince (b. 1172). 
• 1890 – Joseph Merrick, English man with severe deformities, The Elephant Man (b. 1862).    
• 1985 – John Gilroy, English artist and illustrator (b. 1898). 
• 2001 – Harry Secombe, Welsh-English actor (b. 1921). 
• 2007 – Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (b. 1922). 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tricia Helfer (47), Matt Ryan (40), Jeremy Clarkson (61), Charlie Hunnam (41), Daisy Ridley (29), Haley Joel Osment (33), David Harbour (46), Brad William Henke (55), Steven Seagal (69), Peter MacNicol (67), Kristen Stewart (31), Elle Fanning (23), Dennis Quaid (67), Mark Pellegrino (56), Cynthia Nixon (55), Valerie Singleton (84), Katee Sackhoff (41), Robin Wright (55), Emma Caulfield Ford (48), Patricia Arquette (53), Dean Norris (58), Russell Crowe (57), Jackie Chan (67), Francis Ford Coppola (82), Michael Rooker (66), Paul Rudd (52), Zach Braff (46), John Ratzenberger (74), Billy Dee Williams (84), Lily James (32), Mitch Pileggi (69), Jane Asher (75), and Pharrell Williams (48).