Derby Dead Pool

Standing 6’7 in his prime, few men did more to shape world finance in the latter 20th century than Paul Volcker. From a banking background, he was a relative unknown when appointed by Jimmy Carter to the post of Federal Reserve chairman in 1979. With the backing of Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, a year later, […]

During his playing career, Ron Saunders was a bustling, old-fashioned centre-forward who made up for a lack of height with pure workrate. He was Portsmouth’s top-scorer for six consecutive seasons at the turn of the 1960s, but it is his contributions as a manager that he’ll be best remembered for. In an era of “jobs […]

DDP royalty The Living End’s run of nine consecutive years with a unique hit came to an end in 2018 with the lack of a QO for Indian arthouse director Kalpana Lajmi. However, the start of a new attempt at ten consecutive years begins right now with the passing of Kate Figes. The daughter of […]

One of the leftover names from 2018 that some of the more “resourceful” DDP players recycled this time out, Stuart Fraser was an Australian rock guitarist who played with a number of bands. He was perhaps most noted for his spell with hard rock outfit Noiseworks, who had three top 5 albums around the turn […]

Often when the “oldest living state leader” dies it’s just some guy who was in charge of Guyana for two months in 1968, but this time out we’ve got a cadaver with a legit claim to historical importance. Yasuhiro Nakasone was prime minister of Japan between 1982 and 1987, a period where it finally threw […]

Another death that slipped through the cracks (hey, we’re preparing for the big handover and entries for the 2020 Derby Dead Pool are now open if you look over there), allow us to correct that. Lucette Destouches was a dancer and the wife of modernist writer/fascist Louis-Ferdinand Celine. When he wasn’t busy moaning about Jews […]

On the same day that fellow Oxbridge smart-arse Clive James checked out, we waved goodbye to Jonathan Miller. Born into an agnostic Jewish family of writers, Miller went to Cambridge to study natural sciences. While there he got involved in the Footlights, the university’s amateur theatrical club, and went on to direct their landmark musical […]

The so-called “Saturday Night Massacre” took place on October 20, 1973. It ended with three “deaths” on the night, but led inexorably to a significantly bigger casualty down the line, eventually claiming the scalp of President Richard Nixon. Nixon had urged Attorney General Elliot Richardson (died 1999) to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox (died 2004) […]

An estimated 400 workers were employed between 1927 and 1941 at Mount Rushmore, carving the faces of four American presidents into one of the country’s most-famous landmarks. And until last week, Don “Nick” Clifford was the final surviving carver. His speciality was drilling holes for dynamite positioning, helping to shift large chunks of cliff-face in […]

On a busy day for the Grim Reaper in the UK, Clive James claimed top billing – and was the 12th name to go on this year’s Drop 40. James was the last of his kind – an intellectual who traded in his literary aspirations for the glamour of the cheapest kind of television. Part […]