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...
DICKER’S TICKER FLICKERS OUT Basketball player and coach Henry Dickerson has died aged 71. His time as a player was fairly unremarkable, while as a college-level coach he had decent success working with Chattanooga and North Carolina Central. Above all else his hometown newspaper is picked up by Yahoo, and that’s why Banana’s Bruisers rebounds […]
RUNAWAY HEARSE German author Martin Walser had little name recognition outside of his homeland, but in Deutschland he was considered one of the preeminent postwar writers. Perhaps his most influential work was Runaway Horse, which depicted a class contrast between old friends who reconnect at a summer retreat. In recent years he got into hot […]
AL-QURASHI QUASHED I used the exact same pun the last time an ISIS guy was a DDP hit, but really, they’re asking for it with how little variance there is in their names (not to mention their litany of war crimes). Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi is the third ISIS leader to die since 2022, and […]
TROUBLE’S A BREWIN’ David Brewer was a marine insurance broker and former Lord Mayor of London. He had the honourific alphabet soup you’d expect of this type of guy (the Queen liked him so much even became a rare Garter Knight), but perhaps the two tidbits about him most relevant to DDP headquarters are that […]
BBC NEWS DEEP SIXED Well-respected BBC newsreader George Alagiah has died aged 67. Born in Sri Lanka, his family fled for Ghana then England to escape the persecution their Tamil minority was facing. He revisited his Ghanese upbringing as an Africa correspondent for South Magazine and later the Beeb, where he covered horrors of war, […]
ALL TORN UP Singer Sinead O’Connor has died aged 56. After an abusive upbringing that left long-lasting mental scars, she found her solace in music. Her debut album The Lion and the Cobra made her an artist to watch, and her pained rendition of the Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U” delivered international stardom and one […]
PEE-WEE’S SLAUGHTERHOUSE Today’s secret word is “cancer”. A certain rad chap who is far more rap-savvy than I has brought to my attention that Lil Wayne’s “Ball Hard” is a poisoned chalice for its namedrops, with references to Tina Turner, Sinead O’Connor… and Pee-wee Herman. Paul Reubens had been active as a comedian since the […]
SOUTH STREET If you thought Sinead O’Connor’s stance against the Catholic Church was ahead of the curve, pro wrestler Adrian Street beat up Jimmy Savile decades before the cigar-chomping paedo’s true colours were household knowledge. A series of gimmick matches were set up where Savile was to win or draw against pro wrestlers to furnish […]
MEISNER TAKEN TO HIS LIMIT The Eagles will be takin’ it easy with the death of founding member Randy Meisner, aged 77. Meisner was a journeyman throughout the 60s music scene, circulating through minor bands such as the Poor, Poco, and Ricky Nelson’s backing group. Touring with Linda Ronstadt crossed his paths with Don Henley, […]
MINCO DINCO DOOM At first glance, when I see “103-year old Dutch writer dies” I assume it’s some WEP List of the Lost filler who only got a Wikipedia page five months ago. Marga Minco, one of the last surviving firsthand Holocaust writers and something of an Anne Frank who survived, was a little more […]
