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...

Sheldon Harnick

THE ROOF FALLS IN Not long after Topol left us, so follows the man who helped supply the milk. Together with composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick was half of one of musical theatre’s dominant duos of the 50s and 60s. Successes included Fiorello! and The Apple Tree, but none proved more enduring than the […]

Esteban Volkov

VOLKOV AND DIE A nice pick, an ice pick… Mexican chemist Esteban Volkov, despite helping develop the birth control pill, would’ve struggled to QO in most circumstances. However, a historical connection boosted his odds. He was returning home from a seemingly ordinary school day in 1940 when coming home to witness his grandfather lying bloodied […]

Gordon McQueen

GRIEVE MCQUEEN Scottish footballer Gordon McQueen has died aged 70. Brought onto Leeds as Jack Charlton was retiring and the team needed a player of a similar mould, the hulking McQueen delivered with his stubborn heading. He was also noted for his playing with Manchester United and the Scottish national team, and perhaps his finest […]

Michael Hopkins

PORTCULLED Architect Michael Hopkins has died aged 88. A leading figure of the “High-Tech” movement, he pioneered the usage of lightweight materials in architecture. Which sounds unsafe when I word it like that. Among his best known structures are the Portcullis House at the Palace of Westminster and the Mound Stand at Lord’s Cricket Ground, […]

The Iron Sheik

SAINT PETER THE IRON SHEIK CLASS! FACKIN BOOLSHEEEEET! GREEM REAPER GO FACK YOURSELF YOU NO GOOD JABRONI YOU DISREPECT THA LEGEND. I PUT YOU IN THE CAMEL CLUTCH AND FACK YOUR BONY ASS WITH MY TEN INCH IRANIAN COCK YOU NO GOOD MATHERFACKER. In a day bubbas everywhere were dreading, premier wrestling heel and foul-mouthed […]

Astrud Gilberto

THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA STOPS TALKING The voice of “The Girl from Ipanema” is on the elevator to Heaven. Brazilian Astrud Gilberto married “father of bossa nova” João Gilberto in 1959, and became a defining voice of the genre through happenstance. The Portuguese-language “Garota de Ipanema” had already been a regional hit when the joint […]

Françoise Gilot

BLUE PERIOD So often was Françoise Gilot discussed in the context of her decade as Picasso’s muse that her accomplishments as a painter in her own right can get lost in the mix. But accomplished she was. She was already on the rise in art circles when the 21-year-old Gilot met a forty-years-older Picasso. Picasso’s […]

Cynthia Weil

SHE’S GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE! Husband-and-wife duos were some of the biggest powerhouses of the Brill Building, and the pairing of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann were more than worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Goffin-King and Barry-Greenwich. Weil was initially an aspiring Broadway singer, but her music talents shone […]

Pat Robertson

THE 700 (YEARS OLD) CLUB Cryptkeeper televangelist Pat Robertson has finally faced his judgment aged 93. One of the leading voices of the religious right, longstanding television programme The 700 Club was the pulpit from which he preached his fire-and-brimstone bigotry. Ideologically he was essentially a more politically savvy Fred Phelps – he still blamed […]

Tony McPhee

GROUNDHOG NOW A SHADOW Bluesman Tony McPhee has died aged 79. McPhee was inspired to take up guitar by Chuck Berry, and started off as frontman of local group the Seneschals before joining pop group the Dollar Bills in the early 60s. He steered the band into a more bluesy direction and renamed them “The […]