Death happens. Why not make it interesting?
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. Other hosts: Siegfried Baboon and Rude Kid (2003-7), Octopus of Odstock (2008-9), The Man in Black (2010-17), Spade Cooley (2018-19), msc (2020-21), Grim Up North (2020-22), and Reptile (2020-23). Now the Committee of DI (2022), time (2024), and Banana (2023) oversee the biggest deadpool going...
SLAYED OF HAND TV magic pioneer David Berglas has vanished aged 97. After fleeing Nazi Germany for England as a prepubescent, he helped the US Army with denazification espionage missions. Once that winded down, he planned to join his family’s textile business before being wooed by a chance encounter with magician Ken Brooke and recharting […]
HOOSIER DEADDY The tempestuous volcano of college basketball has gone dormant. The sport revolved around Bobby Knight for many years, such was the longtime Hoosiers coach’s influence on basketball strategy. “The General” was a buster on the court, with a motion offense tactic that led him to a 902–371 coaching record, multiple awards/championships, and Olympic […]
RUFF AND READY Home and Away, the Australian version of that John Wayne film shot near a nuclear testing site, strikes again… Johnny Ruffo first broke to fame as a singer, making the finals of the Australian The X Factor with a music style influenced by Michael Jackson. He followed suit with hit single “On […]
ADY CARKIN’ Despite local advocacy, there wasn’t a lot to say about progressive activist Ady Barkan before his 2016 ALS diagnosis. But what he did since elevated him above most other terminally ill activists. He experienced firsthand the clusterfuck labyrinth that is the US health care system, only able to pay for treatment after successfully […]
APOLLING WAY TO GO Astronaut Ken Mattingly has returned to the stars aged 87. He orbited the Moon on penultimate lunar mission Apollo 16, where he took photos of the Moon and spacewalked to retrieve the film cannisters. His most memorable moment in space history came while he was on this small blue marble. He […]
ON ICE Oleg Protopopov, together with his wife Ludmila Belousova, were among the best-recognised figure skaters during the 60s. The Soviet pair won Olympic gold in both 1964 and 1968, on top of further gongs at the World Championships and European Championships. They were particularly innovative with death spirals, introducing three new variants to the […]
WELCH’S JELLY Have we really been nearing a decade since Ronnie Biggs died? Now the last of the Great Train Robbery lags has departed the station. Bobby Welch was aligned with the South Coast Raiders and part of the muscle in the £2.61 million heist. Though thrown a hefty jail sentence like the rest of […]
A WYLLIE PICK Scottish Presbyterian minister Hugh Wyllie has died aged 89. He served in various posts throughout the Church of Scotland, most prominently Moderator of the General Assembly in the early 90s. Decades before that, he served in the RAF under conscription, and two days after his demobbing, the plane he was assigned to […]
LAST IN THE SUMMER WINE CELLAR BBC director Alan J. W. Bell has died aged 85. He was best known for his three decades helming Last of the Summer Wine, where he took the series in a slapstick-oriented direction and pioneered fully on-location shoots. Other feathers in his cap included the TV adaptation of The […]
GONNIE REES For a while, it was looking like time’s Ronnies would replicate their 2022 trajectory of two January hits and crickets since. Now Welsh footballer Ronnie Rees has come to the rescue. A winger for Coventry City and the Welsh national team, he died aged 79, which is no bad going given he suffered […]
