Well done Paul C for correctly guessing Robert Marchand, only 41 points though, but every point counts in this game! Lots to read today, so let’s get on with it! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Paul Mooney, 79, American actor (The Buddy Holly Story, Bamboozled), comedian (Chappelle’s Show) and writer, heart attack.  
• Charles Grodin, 86, American actor (The Heartbreak Kid, Midnight Run, Beethoven), bone marrow cancer. 
• Joe Mercer, 86, English jockey.  
• Lee Evans, 74, American sprinter, double Olympic champion (1968). 
• Quintin Jones, 41, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.  
• Roy Scammell, 88, British stuntman and actor (Alien, Willow, Flash Gordon).  
• Robert Marchand, 109, French racing cyclist.   

In Other News

Broadcaster Jeremy Paxman has revealed he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The former Newsnight presenter said he was receiving “excellent” treatment and that his symptoms are “currently mild”. “I plan to continue broadcasting and writing for as long as they’ll have me,” he said. The 71-year-old has hosted University Challenge since 1994 and is renowned for his fiercely inquisitorial interviewing style. Born in Leeds in 1950, the presenter joined Newsnight in 1989 and remained with BBC Two’s nightly bulletin until June 2014. Paxman said he would be making no further comment and had written about his diagnosis for the June edition of Saga magazine. Last month, Paxman was seen recovering from a fall, as he was spotted walking with a cane. The presenter had previously written in his Saga column, as per Express, that he’d ‘blacked out beforehand or did so when my nose hit the ground’ as he detailed his fall while out with his Spaniel-Dalmation cross, cheekily putting the blame squarely on his dog and suggesting he ‘must have seen a squirrel and jerked on his lead’. Writing there is a ‘world of difference’ between falling over – which happens to children – and ‘having a fall’ – something the older generation does – he said: ‘To my mind, a life well-lived involves minimum contact with the emergency services. But it’s inescapable when you get older.’ 

Edward Grimes, one half of the Irish music act Jedward, revealed he was admitted to hospital after facing a “life threatening situation”. The singer wrote to fans from his hospital bed last night, stating that he had undergone emergency surgery to remove his appendix. “Just had immediate surgery to remove my appendix,” wrote Grimes. “It was a life threatening and scary situation but I’m grateful the emergency team have operated on me and stopped the agony. I’m healing and on the road to recovery!” In a follow-up post, he wrote: “I’m urging everyone to please take severe pain in the abdominal area serious as I’ve ever experienced excruciating pain like this and knew something wasn’t right. Blood tests and CT scans indicated I needed surgery. I’m grateful it was caught in time.” The musician, who represented Ireland at the 2011 and 2012 Eurovision Song Contests, also revealed he had been watching last night’s Eurovision ceremony from hospital. “Of all times of the year it had to be Eurovision night here alone not watching it with John and my family and dogs,” he added. Last night’s Eurovision saw Italy crowned champions, with the UK finishing in last place with an unsurprising zero points due to entering the shittest song ever.  

The Queen was reportedly left “devastated” after one of her two new Dorgi puppies died over the weekend. Five-month-old Fergus, a mix of Dachshund and Welsh Corgi breeds, was one of the Queen’s newest dogs given to her by Prince Andrew in an effort to boost her spirits while Prince Philip was in hospital. And we all know what happens when a beloved dog dies from watching John Wick! The dog was named in honour of the Queen’s maternal uncle Fergus Bowes-Lyon who died in France during the First World War. Prince Andrew also gifted the Queen a corgi named Muick after Loch Muick, a lake in Scotland. A palace source told us: “The Queen is absolutely devastated. The puppies were brought in to cheer her up during a very difficult period,” they said. “Everyone concerned is upset as this comes so soon after she lost her husband,” the source concluded. The death of Fergus came a little over a month after the Queen lost the Duke of Edinburgh, her husband of 70 years. Fergus and Muick were the first dogs owned by the sovereign that are not direct descendants of Susan, the dog she received for her 18th birthday in 1944. The Queen has owned 30 corgis during her reign.   

Love Island’s Demi Jones has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The 22-year-old confirmed on social media that after undergoing surgery to have a potentially cancerous lump removed from her neck, she has been  diagnosed with cancer. Demi shared a Macmillan pamphlet on her Instagram stories, which was titled: ‘Understanding thyroid cancer.’ She wrote: ‘Hi guys, I got my results today and unfortunately I have thyroid cancer. The tumour has been removed but I’m now due to have more surgery to remove the rest of my thyroid. I’m staying very positive and I’m a strong girl so I’ll be fine, thank you for your love and support always. I’ll bounce back stronger.’ She added: ‘Check your lumps.’ Demi underwent surgery remove the lump in April, but first noticed it in January 2019. Speaking to us earlier this month, she said: ‘I actually noticed the lump in January 2019. It was my third year at uni and it was while I was writing my dissertation and exams so that just engulfed my life. Then six months later once I’d finished and had my degree, I mentioned it to my mum and she went into panic mode and was like, “What the hell? Why haven’t you said anything?” Went straight to the doctors and apparently it’s very common – 1 in 3 women have a thyroid nodule but they said it looks good, we’re sure it’ll be fine.’ In January 2020, Demi entered the Love Island villa for the winter edition, and after shooting to fame on the show, she began working with brands like Missguided. However, later in the year, she noticed that the lump had grown. Her father’s own cancer battle pushed her to get the lump checked again. She said: ‘When you’re a young girl you’re more worried about boys and going out with your friends than checking for lumps and bumps, but it’s only because it’s something prominent on my neck that I knew it was an issue and unfortunately my dad had a lump and he developed cancer so I knew you need to keep a check on these things.’ When Demi had the tumour removed, she said it was the ‘size of a golf ball’, and would have to wait to learn if it was cancerous. For those of you who don’t know, Love Island is a reality program that dumps a bunch of bed hopping idiots in a luxury villa in Mallorca for viewers to watch the fallout from jealousy and STD’s. The show has produced a considerable amount of controversy, with four people linked to the show having died by suicide. But you know, it’s ‘entertainment’! 

On This Day

• 1934 – Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. 
• 1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel, commits suicide while in Allied custody.  
• 1998 – The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with roughly 75% voting yes.  

Deaths 

• 1934 – Clyde Barrow, American criminal (b. 1909). 
• 1934 – Bonnie Parker, American criminal (b. 1910). 
• 1937 – John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1839). 
• 1945 – Heinrich Himmler, German commander and politician (b. 1900). 
• 2015 – John Forbes Nash, Jr., American mathematician and academic (b. 1928). 
• 2017 – Roger Moore, English actor (b. 1927). 

Don’t Mention The Bear – Aarrr! 

Allen Minish was alone and surveying land for a real estate agent in a wooded, remote part of Alaska, putting some numbers into his GPS unit when he looked up and saw a large brown bear walking about 30 feet away. 

“I saw him and he saw me at the same time, and it’s scary,” Minish said by phone Wednesday from his hospital bed in Anchorage, a day after being mauled by the bear in a chance encounter.  

The mauling left Minish with a crushed jaw, a puncture wound in his scalp so deep that the doctor said he could see bone, lacerations and many stitches after a 4½-hour surgery. He also is wearing a patch over his right eye and says the doctors are worried about it.  

All that happened during an encounter he estimates lasted less than 10 seconds after Minish startled the bear Tuesday morning just off the Richardson Highway, near the small community of Gulkana, about 190 miles northeast of Anchorage.  

The bear, which Minish said was larger than 300-pound black bears he has seen before, charged and closed the ground between them in a few seconds.  

Minish tried to dodge behind small spruce trees. That didn’t stop the bear. He went through them. As the bear neared, Minish held up the pointed end of his surveying pole and pushed it toward the bear to keep it away from him. The bear simply knocked it to the side and the force of the blow knocked Minish to the ground. 

“As he lunged up on top of me, I grabbed his lower jaw to pull him away,” he said, saying that’s how he got a puncture wound in his hand. “But he tossed me aside there, grabbed a quarter of my face. He took a small bite and then he took a second bite, and the second bite is the one that broke the bones … and crushed my right cheek basically,” he said.  

When the bear let go, Minish turned his face to the ground and put his hands over his head. And then the bear just walked away.  

He surmises the bear left because he no longer perceived Minish as a threat. The bear’s exit gave him time assess damage. “I realised I was in pretty bad shape because I had all this blood everywhere,” he said. He called 911 on his cellphone. While he was talking to a dispatcher, he pulled off his surveyor’s vest and his T-shirt and wrapped them around his head in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Then he waited 59 minutes for help to arrive. He knows that’s how long it took because he later checked his cellphone record for the length of the time he was told to stay on the line with the dispatcher until rescue arrived. 

At one point, Minish managed to give the dispatcher his exact coordinates from his GPS unit, but even that was a struggle. “It took awhile to give them that because I had so much blood flowing into my eyes and on to the GPS, I kept having to wipe it all off,” he said. He said one of the rescuers called him a hero after seeing how much blood was on the ground. 

Rescuers tried to carry him through the woods to a road that parallels the nearby trans-Alaska pipeline to meet an ambulance. That didn’t work, and he said they had to help walk him a quarter mile through swamps, brush and trees. From there, he was taken to a nearby airport and flown to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage by a medical helicopter. He is listed in good condition. 

Before help arrived, Minish said he worried about the bear  returning to finish him off. “I kept hearing stuff,” he said. But every time Minish tried to lean up to look around, he got dizzy from his blood loss. “He didn’t come back, and so I just lay there and worried about it,” he said. 

Minish, 61, has had his share of bear encounters over the 40 years he’s lived in Alaska, but nothing like this. He owns his own surveying and engineering business, which takes him into the wild often. “That’s the one lesson learned,” he said. “I should have had somebody with me.” He had left his gun in the vehicle on this job but said it wouldn’t have mattered because the bear moved on him too fast for it to have been any use. Minish can now add his name to the list of six people he knows who have been mauled by bears in Alaska. “I guess I feel lucky,” Minish said, adding that someone told him he’s better off hurt than dead. “In all honesty, it wouldn’t have mattered either way. You know, if it killed me, it killed me. I had a good life; I’m moving on. It didn’t kill me, so now let’s move on to the other direction of trying to stay alive,” he said. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Richard Ayoade (44), Joan Collins (88), Melissa McBride (56), Bob Mortimer (62), Ginnifer Goodwin (43), Graham Linehan (53), Naomi Campbell (51), Judge Reinhold (64), Mr. T (69), Noel Fielding (48), Cher (75), Owen Teale (60), John Billingsley (61), Louis Theroux (51), Grace Jones (73), James Fox (82), Tina Fey (51), Miriam Margolyes (80), Chow Yun-Fat (66), Toyah Willcox (63), and Paul Whitehouse (63).

With the passing of Norman Lloyd, I’d better hand out some points! Well done Paul C for listing him as a Cert, 144 points!!! Also congratulations to Gwenan for also listing him, 44 points! 

The new Telegram group has half of us on there now and seems to have settled down nicely. We have split the group into two chats, one for klaxons and deathly chat and another for general chats, so you can be assured that you won’t be disturbed by Leicester scoring a goal once you join. It would be lovely to see you there! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Michel Fourniret, 79, French serial killer, respiratory failure.  
• John Kay, 77, British journalist (The Sun), wife killer. 
• Tony Armatrading, 59, British actor (The Saint, Notting Hill, Alone with Her), cancer. 
• Mark Evans, 57, Welsh nobody, fathered Adele then fucked off, cancer. 
• Colt Brennan, 37, American football player (Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, Washington Redskins).  
• Norman Lloyd, 106, American actor (St. Elsewhere, Dead Poets Society, Limelight).  

In Other News

As you may have seen, good old Fred & Rose West are back in the news as police are searching for a body at a cafe linked to a girl feared to have been murdered by the serial killers. Mary Bastholm, 15, went missing in Gloucester on 6th January 1968. She has never been found. Although if you live in Gloucestershire, it was just a few years ago and people still do take offence when you crack a Fred West joke! It seems that Trevor McDonald has single handedly figured it out with the aid of a dog, which casts a dim light on the Gloucestershire Constabulary, especially since Mary worked as a waitress there and Fred laid a concrete floor in the basement around the time she went missing. Trevor’s documentary-makers called officers to The Clean Plate last Friday where Fred West was a regular customer in the 1960s. City journalist John Hawkins said the disappearance was “one of the biggest stories Gloucester’s ever had”, forgetting about the numerous other murders and disappearances that have happened locally. Mr Hawkins started working in the city as a 16-year-old “cub reporter” a few months before Ms Bastholm disappeared. He said he was “absolutely amazed” to hear that police were searching the cafe after being asked to previously and refusing each time, knowing full well what a pain in the arse it would be to dig up a tiny cellar. The film crew told police last week they had found evidence that a body could be buried within the property. Gloucestershire Police have said officers could be at the site “for a number of weeks” and excavation work is yet to begin, but luckily bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea are literally a stones throw away. Miss Bastholm’s family are aware of recent developments and have asked for privacy, because after 53 years they are still amazingly close to their dead relative. In 1994, Fred West admitted murdering his daughter, Heather, as police started to search 25 Cromwell Street, where the bodies of nine girls and young women were found. West and his wife, Rose, were jointly charged with nine murders and he was charged with a further three.  

Frontbench Labour MP Wes Streeting has been diagnosed with kidney cancer. The 38-year-old Ilford North MP – who was promoted last week to shadow child poverty secretary – said the news came as “an enormous shock”. But he said the cancer had been “caught early” and his prognosis was “very good”, adding he would take time off work until he made “a full recovery”. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the “thoughts of the entire Labour Party” were with Mr Streeting and his family. Posting a video on his Twitter feed, Mr Streeting said he discovered the diagnosis after going into hospital for a kidney stone in March. “At the time, a scan identified a lump on the same kidney,” he said. “Around a month later, in April, unfortunately that lump was diagnosed as kidney cancer.” The former head of the National Union of Students added: “While receiving a cancer diagnosis at the age of 38 has come as an enormous shock, the good news is because of that kidney stone the cancer has been caught early, my prognosis is very good, and I should make a full recovery. “But it does mean I have to take time off work for treatment.” Mr Streeting thanked his family, friends and colleagues for their support, as well as Labour candidates and activists who he joined during last week’s election campaign. The MP’s team will carry out his constituency work while he “follows doctors’ orders”. He added: “My family have made it very clear – and actually so has Keir – that I will not be coming back until I’ve made a full recovery. “Hopefully that won’t be too long, but in the meantime, bear with me and thank you very much in advance for your support.”  

Tiger King star Joe Exotic has revealed he has prostate cancer. Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, shot to fame after appearing as the main subject in Netflix’s Tiger King docu-series. He is currently in prison after being convicted on a number of charges, including a murder-for-hire plot against his rival, Big Cat Rescue boss Carole Baskin. Posting on Twitter on Friday, he told his followers: “John Phillips has received my medical records from FMC Fort Worth and my PSA count came back very high for prostate cancer. The prison has approved testing to verify what stage it is in. My body is tired, I have lost a tremendous amount of weight, the mouth sores are out of control.” In a string of follow-up tweets, he said he is continually vomiting and begged to be let out of prison. He urged US president Joe Biden to “sign that pardon that Trump left behind so I can go home and get proper medical care and proper food”. While Exotic is currently due for release in 2037, he previously sought clemency from former president Donald Trump, but his appeals were ignored. Last month, Exotic issued another plea to be let out of prison, claiming that he is the victim of “conspiracy”.

On This Day

• 1770 – The 14-year-old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste, who later becomes king of France.   
• 1929 – In Hollywood, the first Academy Awards ceremony takes place. 
• 1988 – A report by the Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.  

Deaths

• 1938 – Joseph Strauss, American engineer, co designed The Golden Gate Bridge (b. 1870). 
• 1957 – Eliot Ness, American federal agent (b. 1903).   
• 1985 – Margaret Hamilton, American actress (b. 1902). 
• 1990 – Sammy Davis Jr., American singer, dancer, and actor (b. 1925). 
• 1990 – Jim Henson, American puppeteer, director, created The Muppets (b. 1936). 

Children who kill

Following on from last week, we have another kid who kills for you to read about. 

Eric M. Smith is an American incarcerated for the murder of four-year-old Derrick Robie in 1993 in Steuben County, New York. Smith was convicted of second-degree murder at the age of thirteen in 1994 and sentenced to the maximum term then available for juvenile murderers: a minimum of nine years to life in prison.     

During his early life Smith enjoyed spending time with his grandparents, Red and Edie Wilson; Red said “He would always come in and give us hugs and kisses. He liked being a clown.” However, Eric Smith was diagnosed by a defence psychiatrist with intermittent explosive disorder, a mental disorder causing individuals to be violent and unpredictable, but the prosecution’s expert said it was a rare disorder that was rarely seen at Smith’s age. Smith was subjected to extensive medical testing from specialists on both sides. They examined brain function, hormone levels and found nothing to explain his violent behaviour. According to court documents, Smith was a loner who was often tormented by bullies for his protruding low-set ears, thick glasses, red hair and freckles.  

On August 2nd, 1993, when Smith was thirteen years old, he was riding his bike home from summer camp in a local park day camp after being told to leave due to “bad behaviour” and 4-year-old Derrick Robie was walking alone to that same camp. Smith saw Robie and lured him into a nearby wooded area. There, Smith strangled him and dropped a large rock on the boy’s head. The cause of death was determined to be blunt trauma to the head with contributing asphyxia. Around 11:00 a.m., Robie’s mother, Doreen, went to the park to pick up her son, only to find that Robie had not arrived. After four  hours of investigation, Robie’s body was found. The murder case made national headlines, largely due to the age of the killer and of the victim. On August 8th, 1993, Eric Smith confessed to his mother that he killed Derrick. The Smith family informed law enforcement later that night. In his 2014 parole hearing, Smith said that he had been bullied by older children at school, and also by his father and older sister. He confessed that he took his rage out on Robie, so he killed him. Smith said that he sodomised Robie with a stick in order to ensure his death.      

On August 16th, 1994, Smith was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to the maximum term then available for juvenile murderers: a minimum of nine years to life in prison. While in jail, Smith wrote an apology letter to Robie’s family; he read it on public television: “I know my actions have caused a terrible loss in the Robie family, and for that, I am truly sorry. I’ve tried to think as much as possible about what Derrick will never experience: his 16th birthday, Christmas, anytime, owning his own house, graduating, going to college, getting married, his first child. If I could go back in time, I would switch places with Derrick and endure all the pain I’ve caused him. If it meant that he would go on living, I’d switch places, but I can’t.” At the end of this statement, Smith states that he cannot bear the thought of “walls, razor wire, and steel metal bars” for the rest of his life. He has also apologised to Derrick Robie in interviews.

Smith has been denied parole ten times since 2002, most recently in January 2020. He will next be eligible for parole in October 2021. After the failed 2012 hearing, the parole board cited a concern for public safety in its decision, and Robie’s parents opposed his release. At that hearing, he told a parole board he would not return to Savona if released, and would go to a shelter or halfway house instead.

Smith was held in a juvenile facility for three years and was then transferred to an open prison for young adults. In 2001, he was transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, a maximum security prison. As of November 30th, 2019, he was listed as incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Megan Fox (35), Thomas Brodie-Sangster (31), Danny Trejo (77), Pierce Brosnan (68), David Boreanaz (52), Debra Winger (66), Stephen Mangan (53), Janet Jackson (55), Cate Blanchett (52), Tim Roth (60), George Lucas (77), Francesca Annis (76), Danny Huston (59), Siân Phillips (89), Greg Davies (53), Martine McCutcheon (45), Zoë Wanamaker (72), Robert Pattinson (35), Samantha Morton (44), Iwan Rheon (36), Harvey Keitel (82), Mark Heap (64), Stephen Colbert (57), Rhea Seehorn (49), Malin Akerman (43), Rami Malek (40), Emilio Estevez (59), Gabriel Byrne (71), Ving Rhames (62), Jason Biggs (43), Catherine Tate (53), Jeffrey Donovan (53), Pam Ferris (73), Tim Blake Nelson (57), Holly Valance (38), Coby Bell (46), and Bono (61). 

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).