Gary Burgess

INDIVIDUAL’S TAPERED VITALITY

And so my streak of only writing obits for people born on 22 July comes to an end… and the US Jersey girl’s first obit as co-host is a UK Jersey boy!

It illustrates the variance in deadpooling seasons that after a year where most contenders missed their joker thanks to the endurance of Toms Parker and Smith, virtually every contender has hit their joker on day 1 with the death of Jersey-based ITV News journalist Gary Burgess at the age of 46. The Manchester-born Burgess spent most of his childhood in South Africa, with many of his friends believing witnessing apartheid firsthand spurred him to want to make a difference. Journalism and broadcasting would prove his calling, with a 30-year career during which he worked for a number of radio and TV stations, once spent 76 hours on air as part of a charity drive, and received a number of awards. A testicular cancer diagnosis in 1999 was treated successfully, but it later recurred multiple times, terminally in 2020. This left him a cult DDP pick in 2021, and his entry into hospice late last year secured him as a canon cert for 2022, which he made by mere hours. A welcome relief for GUN, who we hear can no longer watch Golden Girls reruns without war flashbacks.

As the most stars-aligned joker pick since Joey Feek, Burgess was always going to be a very popular DDP pick. Nearly half of his 62 pickers nominated him as joker, many of them regulars of the upper echelons of the scoreboard – Heading Nowhere, Banana’s Peel Slippers, Day in the Death, Pan Breed – along with former champions David Quantick’s Showbiz Pals, Salmon Mousse, The Love Boat, and my own side Thomas Jefferson Survives. Fellow co-host GUN Fishing also scores with non-joker points, and Pity da Foolz and Octopus of Odstock are on the board a day into their DDP comebacks.

Gary Burgess
13 November 1975 – 1 January 2022, aged 46
62 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 + 40 = 13 POINTS, 🃏 (x29) 26 POINTS)