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...
TAPS Tap dancing trailblazer Arthur Duncan has hung up his shoes aged 97. Duncan’s career prospects faced long odds – one, he was a tap dancer in the 50s and 60s, when the art form was going out of vogue, and two, he was African American in the 50s and 60s. But there was a […]
DEATH VIALLI We’re finally up and running – if with kinks still in need of ironing out – and about to chop on into the first wave of 2023 cadavers. Before doing so, let’s give kudos to those who assisted the 2023 committee of DI, Reptile, and Banana with getting things up and running – […]
COME TOMORROW, WILL I BE COLDER? Pioneering guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck has died aged 78, a rare celebrity death from bacterial meningitis. Inspired by Les Paul’s “How High the Moon” to take up electric guitar, bluesmen like Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters further influenced his playing approach. He rotated through various bands in the early […]
CONSTANTINOPULSE The Greek monarchy has fully faded to history with the death of its last king, Constantine II, at the age of 82. A gold-winning Olympic sailor before donning the crown, he ascended to the throne in 1964 upon the death of his father, King Paul. His reign began inconspicuously, but his popularity soon plummeted […]
THE INCREDIBLE MRS. LIMP Actress Carole Cook has died on the cusp of her 99th birthday. Recognisable by her fiery red hair, Cook was trained by another carrot-top funnylady – none other than Lucille Ball. Lucy repaid in kind, with Cook a regular on latter-day Ball sitcoms The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy, rarely playing […]
BLYTHE NOT SO LITHE Writer Ronald Blythe has died aged 100. Deemed too docile to fight in World War II, he instead spent the 40s and 50s weaving his way into literary circles. His own author career began writing novels, but his specialty would be profiling the English countryside. His 1969 work Akenfield, which covers […]
AIN’T THAT A SHIMON Leading Sephardi rabbi Shimon Baadani has died aged 94. Long involved in Israeli politics, he was involved in the creation of the right-wing Shas political party, a frequent fixture of Bibi coalitions in recent years. His tart tongue often got him in hot water, including claims that anyone who didn’t vote […]
CORPSE ON THE KALB Journalist Bernard Kalb has died aged 100. A longtime international affairs reporter for CBS News, NBC News, and The New York Times, he extensively covered Kissinger alongside his younger brother Marvin, and is hopefully giving the Reaper pointers as we speak. In the 1980s he was a spokesman for the Reagan […]
BOOM GOES THE DINAMITE And so the explosive start to the DDP continues… 108 of us scored with a colon cancer-addled Brazilian football star at the tailend of 2022, now two teams repeat the feat on this side of the year. Roberto Dinamite might’ve not had Pelé’s level of superstardom, but was a solid player […]
THE DEATH OF A SHE-ANGEL Author Fay Weldon has died aged 91. Her early advertising work saw her popularise the phrase “Go to work on an egg”, and she wrote the pilot episode of Upstairs, Downstairs. She was best known for her novels featuring, in her words, “overweight, plain women”, including Booker-shortlisted Praxis, Puffball, and […]
