Music
Lena Martell was a singer who enjoyed some moderate chart success in the 1970’s, although whoever wrote her Wikipedia profile seemed very keen to mention her in sentences with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand. I don’t think 1979’s cover of “One Day At a Time” making it to number one makes her quite as notable as them, though it was the first time a solo female Scottish artist managed it. #1 Hits get their fifth hit for nine points and reach the top ten of the Theme Board as a result.
Our other musician to go from composing to decomposing was the film and television maestro George Fenton. He won a glut of awards over his career for the soundtracks to films and documentaries such as Gandhi, Groundhog Day and Planet Earth, and worked with the likes of both Attenboroughs, Ken Loach and Terry Gilliam among many others. His death at 76 scores eleven points for Time’s-2 Team.
Politics
Illinois congressman Dennis Hastert was first elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1981 following an earlier career as a high school teacher and wrestling “coach”. Yes, that will come up again later. He would serve five years at the state level before being elected to congress, serving from 1986 to 2007 and acting as the Speaker of the House for the final six of those years, the longest tenure of a Republican to do so. Not all that interesting politically, being typically anti-abortion, pro-death penalty and a big hater of taxes. He was also on record as believing that repeat child molesters should be put in jail for the rest of their lives.
He presumably changed his tune later once it became clear he was himself a repeat child molester, having been a bit too fond of wrestling the teenage boys he used to coach. His downfall came about due to not being as clever as he thought he was in withdrawing hush money from his bank accounts. Hastert agreed to plead guilty on a structuring felony charge in exchange for the charges of making false statements being dropped. Sexual abuse charges? Don’t be silly, that happened decades ago, the statute of limitations were up. Don’t worry though, the multi-millionaire had to pay a $250,000 fine (that was three and a half years of his government pension you know!) and serve a whole thirteen months in prison. What does the lifetime of trauma his victims had compare to that? It’s a very deserved nine points for the most aptly themed “Morally Questionable People” Space Wasters.
Worry not though readers, we have not just one naughty politician to report this week, but two! Granted Lord Jeffrey Archer should probably be under literature if his 34 million sales of shit books is anything to go by, but he started out with an entirely unremarkable stint for the Conservatives as a councilor in London and then as the MP for Louth. He had to duck out of politics for a time in 1974 due to almost going bankrupt but the novels saved him from such a fate.
Archer very much took after his con-man father when it came to telling the truth and was notoriously litigious with any newspapers that came sniffing around in his personal life. He successfully sued the Daily Star for libel in 1987 after they accused him of paying off a sex worker but it came back to bite him in 1999 once it became clear he’d lied through his teeth the whole time. He was done for perjury and spent four years in prison for it, managing to write another shit book during his incarceration. He got to keep his life peerage though and only retired from the House of Lords a couple of years ago. Other random trivia, he’s the third of 2007’s awful Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway panel to pass away, and the second this year after Kanya King. Duncan Bannatyne and Simon Jordan no doubt frantically going for health check-ups. Two theme teams get the six points; author enthusiasts Foreword by The Grim Reaper and the criminally inclined Come on Karma, Where’s the F@@king Justice.
Religion
Jim Bakker was a televangelist with a mission from God. He set up the PTL ministry and satellite network in the 1970’s and managed to raise well over a hundred million dollars from donations. The only problem was that God’s mission turned out to be making Bakker richer than him, building a huge theme park, and paying hush money to a woman if she kept quiet about the time she was raped. My favorite description of him comes from the Rev. Jerry Falwell: “The greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history”. So the consensus seems to be that Bakker’s not in for much luck at the pearly gates.
He went on to spend some time in prison after all that and later confessed to it being the first time he’d read the bible the whole way through. Bakker went straight back to mass media preaching on release though, morphing into a bit of a pound shop Alex Jones in the process. He survived a stroke in 2020 but was thankfully forced into a much lower profile after it, now finally scoring six points for both Bladerunner and Space Wasters, who notch two deplorable hits in just one week!
Science
Margaret Hamilton was a key figure in the development of computer sciences and software engineering, and one of the many people involved in the development of NASA’s Apollo program that you’ve probably never heard of. She joined the program in 1965 working on guidance software for the Command Module, eventually becoming the director of the Software Engineering Team. If you’ve seen First Man, she’s the reason NASA knew it was ok to “Go on that alarm” to sum it up in pop culture terms. After departing to the stars at the age of 90, she bags nine points for the space-themed Decaying Orbit-uaries.
Sport
We sign off with the biggest hit of the week in the form of NFL’s Mike Ditka. Look, American sports ever remains my nemesis, and I could copy paste a bunch of legendary statistics I don’t understand about his time with the Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys if you like. Or I could just say he was really big, really good, had a dodgy heart and said heart now scores for eight teams, including a week high 12 points as the joker for Traded to the Saints. Followed by a witty pun like *insert-witty-pun-here*. He got the masthead, what more do you need?
Scores
| Name | Age | Date of Death | Teams and Scores |
| Margaret Hamilton | 90 | September 30 | Decaying Orbit-uaries 💀💀💀💀💀+👻= 9 Points |
| Dennis Hastert | 93 | October 3 | Space Wasters 💀💀💀💀💀+👻 = 9 Points |
| Jeffrey Archer | 86 | October 5 | 2 Teams 💀💀💀💀💀💀 = 6 Points |
| Jim Bakker | 86 | October 5 | 2 Teams 💀💀💀💀💀💀 = 6 Points |
| Lena Martell | 86 | October 5 | #1 Hits💀💀💀💀💀+👻 = 9 Points |
| George Fenton | 76 | October 5 | Time’s-2 Team 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀+👻 = 11 Points |
| Mike Ditka | 86 | October 9 | 7 Teams 💀💀💀💀💀💀 = 6 Points Traded to the Saints 🃏 = 12 Points |