The Derby Dead Pool

The online competition to guess which famous people won't make it to the end of the current year. If they're elderly, ill, or just live a high-risk lifestyle, stick 'em in your team, and for each one whose death you correctly predict, you'll score points. DDP was dreamt up in Derby, England (hence the name...) by Big Iain back in 1996, then was run from 2003 to 2007 by Siegfried Baboon and Rude Kid From 2008 to 2009, it was run by Octopus of Odstock , and since from 2010 to 2017 by The Man In Black...

Latest Stiffs: 10th October 2017 by The Man in Black

Thanks for the mammaries...

september roundup: hefner, hall and all that malarkey

The Man In Black tears himself away from the SNES Mini long enough to deliver the latest news in deadpool land...
Publisher Hugh Hefner has died. Hefner's Playboy magazine and its mix of nudity, cultural commentary and more nudity was to make him a millionaire and scourge of prudes and feminists the World over. First hitting the stands in 1953, Playboy made stars of the likes of Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy and probably made a few bob for Kleenex too! Hefner played up the image of the rakish gentlemen with his numerous "bunnies" by his side to the point of self-parody. Hefner was 91 and a hit for 33 teams with TOETAG4U bagging joker points, but no Playmates I'm afraid...
Monty Hall was a Canadian-born US game show host, most famous for presenting 'Let's Make a Deal' for NBC between 1963-86. Strangely, Hall inspired a mathematical paradox 'The Monty Hall Problem'. Well there's certainly a few mathematical calculations going on at the moment as to who might win this year's DDP! Hall was 96 and is another hit for TOETAG4U along with 9 others, but not enough to topple Here's Who You Could Have Won as September's Player of the Month in what's becoming something of a motif this year: alternative or theme teams doing rather better than expected compared to the competitor's main team!
Donald Malarkey was a member of the World War Two infantry regiment, so-called "Easy Company" and who was portrayed by actor Scott Grimes in the acclaimed TV series 'Band of Brothers', which now seems as long ago as World War Two itself! He was 96 and a unique hit for Szaboss!!

(Hefner) (33 teams)= 5pts (1 team) = 10pts

(Hall) (10 teams) = 5pts

(Malarkey) + = 8pts

Latest Stiffs: 27th September 2017 by The Man in Black

Jack and Vera united once more...

hIt's a stitch up for vera!

Actress Liz Dawn has died after a long illness. Dawn played the motormouthed machinist-turned Rovers Return landlady Vera Duckworth for over 30 years in the "Nation's Favoutite" soap opera 'Coronation Street'. Her on-screen marriage with idle but well-meaning Jack, played by Bill Tarmey alongside strife with their trouble-making son Terry made Dawn a firm favourite with the fans. Dawn retired from the show in 2008, although she later popped up as Vera's ghost (although ironically her on-screen husband Tarmey pre-deceased her in 2012 and was also a DDP hit). Dawn was 77 and a hit for 31 teams with "Corrie" theme team The Cobbles To A Coffin picking up joker points. Well, Vera was always good for a laugh or two...

(31 teams)= 7pts (1 team) = 14pts

There are a couple of more additions to The Obituary Vault with the similar-named teams Finding Chemo and Chemo Sabee each getting unique hits.

Confessions of the Randy Hearse Git

There's another Corrie connection with our next hit...
Tony Booth found fame in the 1960s as Alf Garnett's left-wing nemesis son-in-law Mike Rawlins the BBC's hugely popular but controversial sitcom 'Till Death Us Do Part'. There was more than a little bit of Mike the "Scouse Git" in Liverpool-born Booth, with many of his boozy womanizing escapdes making headlines. Booth never quite had the wide-ranging career as his co-stars Warren Mitchell and Una Stubbs, cropping up as Robin Askwith's wingman in many a "Confessions of..." comedy skin-flick. Booth was briefly married to soap icon Pat Phoenix before her death in 1986 and the family tables were turned when the distinctly Old Labour Booth's son-in-law, Tony Blair went on to become New Labour's war-mongering PM.
Booth died aged 85 after a long battle with Alzheimer's and was at =23rd in the Drop 40, making him hit number 13 in that and 200 overall for the year. The recent spike in hits over the past two months means that the overall record from 2016 is within reach...
Not just in overall hits is the 2017 DDP matching last year...
Charles Bradley was a soul singer who was to find recognition relatively late in his career. After years struggling with odd jobs and gigs as a James Brown impersonator, Bradley got his break from the Soul-revivalist label Daptone Records, releasing his first album in 2002. In 2016, Bradley released the album 'Changes' which featured the title track, a cover of the old Black Sabbath favourite. Later that year he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and that finally claimed him aged 68. Bradley was a hit for 11 teams and yet another inspired choice from defending champion David Quantick's Showbiz Pals. That's his 14th hit of the year and puts the 4-time champion equal 1st with Golden Slumbers. Should there be no more hits (which seems unlikely) then DQSP will nick it by virtue of a younger average of hits. But there's still time for more twist and turns in what has been a fascinating competition...

(Booth) (55 teams) + = 9ts (2 teams) = 18pts

(Bradley) (11 teams) = 8pts

Lamotta finally down on the deck

Boxer Jake Lamotta has died. LaMotta was a gutsy fighter in the Middleweight division, his prowling style earning the nickname "The Bronx Bull". He had a legendary duel with Sugar Ray Robinson, winning only one fight out of their six encounters between 1942 and 1951 but was never knocked down. LaMotta won the World championship in 1949. He had an equally turbulent life out of the ring, documented in his memoir 'The Raging Bull' which was famously adapted for film by Martin Scorsese in 1980, with Robert De Niro earning a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of LaMotta. He was 95 and a hit for 34 teams with Dr Shipman's Waiting Room earning the joker bonus.
William G. Stewart was a British TV producer and later presenter. In the 1960s and 70s he produced TV sitcoms 'Bless this House', 'The Rag Trade' and 'Father Dear Father'. His speciality though was in game show formats, introducing the consumer-crazy greedfest 'The Price is Right' at the height of Thatcherism in the 1980s. In 1988 he decided to present Channel 4 quiz show 'Fifteen to One' himself after finding no one else suitable for the role. He was to present the show in his customary starchy style for fifteen years. Stewart was 84 and a unique hit for @JonesEuro.
French heiress Liliane Bettencourt was one of the World's richest people, inheriting the L'Oréal cosmetics company upon the death of her father in 1957. In keeping with the very wealthy and powerful, Bettencourt kept a low profile, rarely granting interviews, but she was not without causing controversy, either with her close relationship with photographer François-Marie Banier, or her tax affairs, political donations and battles with her daughter Francoise. Bettencourt was 94, a hit for two teams.

(LaMotta) (34 teams)= 5pts (1 team) = 10pts

(Stewart) + = 9pts

(Bettencourt) (2 teams) = 5pts

Latest Stiffs: 18th September 2017 by The Man in Black

You should have used your nut and picked Bobby!

Bobby brained

Death never sleeps with yet another wave of hits on the way...
Bobby Heenan illuminated the world of wrestling from the 1970s through to the 00s as a wrestler, color commentator but most notably as a manager. Nicknamed "The Brain", Heenan's roster of fighters included Ric Flair, King Kong Bundy, André the Giant and many more and had a combative style equal to his charges. In later years, Heenan struggled with cancer and he died aged 72, a hit for 4 teams.
Horse racing trainer Penny Chenery struck gold in 1973 when she saddled Secretariat to Triple Crown victories in the US, which included the World famous Kentucky Derby. These achievements were later depicted in a Hollywood movie in 2010. Cheney became one of the first women to join The Jockey Club and was later president of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. Chenery died aged 95 and was a unique hit for Captain Hemlock's Twenty.

(Heenan) (4 teams) = 7pts

(Chenery) + = 8pts

Curtain falls for hall

One of the big figures of British theatre, Sir Peter Hall has died. Hall forged his reputation as a forward looking theatre director by bringing Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' to the UK stage in 1955. In 1960, Hall co-founded the Royal Shakespeare Company, based at Stratford-upon-Avon and London. In 1973, Hall replaced Lawrence Olivier as director of the National Theatre and as well as mananging the company's move to the purpose built theatre on the South Bank, Hall commissioned the likes of Alan Ayckborne, Howard Brenton and David Hare. Hall directed several films (including Pinter's 'The Homecoming') and also was artisitc director at Glyndebourne.
Hall died aged 86 and a hit for six teams.
Harry Dean Stanton was a highly respected and charismatic character actor who had an impressive resume of film credits, spanning from big budget box office hits, 'Alien', 'Kelly's Heroes' and 'The Godfather Part II' to cult classics such as 'The Repo Man' and 'Paris, Texas'. Stanton had a long creative relationship with David Lynch, and recently appeared in Lynch's revivial of 'Twin Peaks'. Stanton was 91, a hit for four teams including the DDP's founder, Big Iain...
Violet Brown was for exactly five months the Oldest Person in the World, following the death of Emma Morano in April. Brown waa the last British subject born during the reign of Queen Victoria to have lived and there remains just one more person born in the 19th Century, Japan's Nabi Tajima. Brown was 117 and a hit for three teams.
Jessi Zazu Wariner was singer-guitarist with Nashville-based rock band Those Darlins who died of cancer aged 28. Surprisingly, a mainstream UK obit arrived via The Telegraph and ensured a points bonanza for 7 teams.
J. P. Donleavy was an Irish-American author whose debut novel 'The Ginger Man' was banned in both the US and Ireland for obscenity and even when it was printed in France, it was under a pornographic imprint. Despite this, the book sold over 40 million copies and was named as one of the 100 best novels of the 20th Century. A later novel, 'A Fairy Tale of New York' provided inspiration for the Pogues famous Xmas hit. He died aged 91, with theme team Bibliogryphon's Bookworm Food picking up a unique hit.

(Hall) (6 teams) = 6pts

(Stanton) (4 teams) = 5pts

(Brown) (3 teams) = 3pts

(Wariner) (7 teams) = 12pts

(Donleavy) + = 8pts

Sing a Swan Song for Holger

Of the latest blur of hits, one is deemed suitable for the The Obituary Vault with a few top teams getting a timely boost with Autumn approaching. Overall, Golden Slumbers still holding the lead , with little changed at the top...
Holger Czukay was bass player and sound editor for influential German progressive rock band Can. Can were at the spearhead of what became known as 'Krautrock', with a series of experimental albums from 1969-79, barring a brief reunion in the mid-80s. Sadly, Czukay was found dead at his home aged 79 on September 5th. He is the second original member of the band to pass away, following drummer Jaki Liebezeit earlier this year. Two teams pick up the points.
John Ashbery was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, whose postmodernist style is not to everyone's tastes but he was feted as one of the best living poets in the English language and won every award going. Ashbery was 90 and a unique hit for Pedro's Catacomb Caskets.
Shelley Berman started off as a straight actor before finding success as a comedian, winning the inaugural Grammy for best spoken word comedy recording in 1959. Berman appeared in several films and TV shows and late in life found acclaim as Larry David's father in 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'. Berman was 92 and a unique hit for old favourites Naked Florida Gravediggers.
And a now a hit to strike from the List of the Lost. Sister Cecilia Gaudette was an American nun, based in Italy who made headlines in 2008 when she voted in the US Presidential election. Gaudette died in July aged 115 and despite being the oldest living American, didn't immediately get an obit. But I was directed to a piece in Daily Mail and the brief mention of Sister Cecilia is enough to guarantee points for three teams. Thank the Lord!

(Czukay) (2 teams) = 7pts

(Ashbery) + = 8pts

(Bermann) + = 8pts

(Gaudette) (3 teams) = 3pts

List of the Lost - Latest Entrants

Abdul Halim of Kedah, Rene Laurentin, Nicolaas Bloembergen, Ato Kando, Nabeel Qureshi, Mike Watson-Challis, Gisele Casadesus

List of the Missed - Latest Entrants

Mike Neville, Don Williams, Hasse Alfredson, Frank Aarebrot, Michelle Rounds, Pete Domenici, Albert Speer Jr, Jack Good, Freddy Shepherd, Anne Jeffreys, Connie Hawkins

Player of the Month - August

Eejit - 46 points

Latest News

Veteran news anchor Barbara Walters is reportedly in her "sad last days", according to the National Enquirer, so she's probably as fit as a fiddle!
The Theme Team League is updated for October.

Further Information

Rules & Scoring

E-mail The Man In Black with any questions/comments about the DDP: ddp2017@derbydeadpool.co.uk

Links

Derby Dead Pool is hosted by The Man In Black with contributions from Big-Iain, Rude Kid, Siegfried Baboon, Octopus of Odstock, WEP 2.0 - World's Eternity Prophet Reloaded, The Grey Horde, Thomas Jefferson Survives, Bibliogryphon, David Quantick's Showbiz Pals, Dickie's Gone the Way of the Dinosaurs & The End Of The World As We Know It

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