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...
MCALPINE PEAKS Oldest living F1 racer Kenneth McAlpine has gone naught aged 102. Racing for the short-lived Connaught team that once boasted Stirling Moss, he had no racing wins to his name but his personal wealth (thanks to being the grandson of construction magnate “Concrete Bob” McAlpine) allowed him to bankroll the team and fueled […]
MORE ANGELS Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan has died aged 92. The moderate Republican came to power on a “tough guy” message as the Rodney King riots shook the city. His tenure saw an upswing in the economy and a downtick in crime, though also many a spat with bureaucracies and various police scandals. […]
SMELLING P FUNKY Parliament-Funkadelic singer Fuzzy Haskins has died aged 81. He was everpresent from the group’s humble doo-wop beginnings to its transformation into funk titans, co-writing Funkadelic songs like “I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody’s Got a Thing” and “I Wanna Know If It’s Good to You”. He quit the collective […]
PIRATE WALKS THE PLANK Baseball and basketball player Dick Groat has died aged 92, probably of dick groat, whatever that is. He had the more stellar career with baseball, winning two World Series with both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals, though held basketball as his biggest passion. He was unique for Roasting […]
COLQUHOUN COCOONED Sheffield United footballer Eddie Colquhoun has died aged 78. The hardy tackler made north of 400 appearances for the Blades, and was part of a popular fan chant at the peak of his career. They think it’s all over continues their run of good form. Eddie Colquhoun29 March 1945 – 16 April 2023, […]
FORBIDDEN COLOURS: ALL EXCEPT BLUE Innovative Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has died aged 71. From a young age, he devoured all kinds of media from conventional to experimental, and cited Debussy and John Cage as key influences. In the late 70s, he co-founded Yellow Magic Orchestra with Yukihiro Takahashi (died January 2023) and Haruomi Hosono […]
SOD’S LAWSON Nigella Lawson’s dad has been duly cooked. The creatively-named Nigel Lawson apparently had claims to fame in his own right. He was the financial brains of the Thatcher administration, first as Financial Secretary to the Treasury and most prominently as Chancellor of the Exchequer. From there, he propagated tax cuts to help give […]
JAFFEE FOLDS IN Is this an obituary for longstanding Mad magazine wiz Al Jaffee we’re reading here? “Not if you turn your head around.” “No, you’re reading Scott Thorson’s.” “It’s his life story, only with a death date added.” This isn’t working. We’ll have to defer to his trusty Fold-In to figure out […]
MURDERER. SHE WROTE. A crime novelist with true grisly bona fides, Anne Perry has died aged 84. Perry worked her way through various mundane jobs before hitting it big with her series of Victorian detective novels. Her two most popular protagonists were Thomas Pitt and amnesiac William Monk, who had a combined 50+ novels between […]
QUANT TICKED Fashion icon Mary Quant has been shorted aged 93. The bobbed designer came of age through years of stodgy WWII-era women’s outfits and rebelled against this with a chic-yet-fun style. Her miniskirts and hot pants, among many other short garments, helped define the freewheeling spirit of the Swinging Sixties. She later primarily focused […]
