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...
Remember Hurricane Katrina? George Bush Don’t Care About Black People, lots of blues musicians losing their homes, FEMA camps, Dubbya playing guitar and a whole heap of conscious southern rap tracks that still contained hooks about cocaine dealing. One of the key figures in the whole affair was Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana at the […]
The traditional DDP mid-summer quiet period is interrupted by the death of someone who was very much the Dave Rowntree of Dutch royalty. One of four children born to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, who ruled the nation from 1948 to 1980, she suffered from blindness from a young age and as a result received […]
Pol Pot’s “Brother No 2”, and the architect of Cambodia’s communist movement for nearly 50 years, Nuon Chea has died. Of muddle heritage (some researchers claim both his parents were Chinese, an idea he himself denied), Chea turned to politics while studying at university in Thailand. Whereas the majority of Khmer Rouge leaders had been […]
Brian Lochore was the captain of what is widely regarded as the greatest All Blacks side ever, and one of the finest every rugby union XVs. Alongside players like Waka Nathan, Kel Tremain and fellow DDP alum Colin Meads, Lochore guided his charges to 17 consecutive test victories between 1965 and 1969. After retiring, Lochore […]
A name that actually died in February finally climbs down off the List of the Lost, with the wider media finally reporting on their passing. 2004 was a very, very different world to the one we live in today. Frankee and Eamon’s fake lovers’ tiff spawned two #1 singles, Match of the Day 2 started and […]
Sometimes in deadpooling, playing the long game pays off… Joe Longthorne was first diagnosed with a terminal illness in 1989, around the time of his first Royal Variety Performance gig. He repeatedly popped up on deadpoolers’ radars again over the years: leukemia in 2005 and throat cancer in 2016, but it was 2019 that finally […]
Time for a generic “really old person” death. Alf Smith was the joint holder of the “oldest man in the UK” title, and the oldest man in Scotland, up until him deciding to die at the age of 111 and 128 days. He credited his longevity to “porridge and a sense of humour”, and upon […]
Harley Race got his break in professional wrestling as a teenager, working as the chauffeur for the 800lb “world’s largest wrestler” Happy Humphrey. Within two decades he would be regarded as the best worker and arguable the biggest draw in the industry, defending the NWA World Heavyweight title across the globe and drawing in every […]
Blame it all on the nights on Broadway, as king of the Great White Way Harold Prince is no longer on the throne. Modern musical theatre was effectively created by the man known colloquially as “Hal”, with stagings of shows like “The Phantom of the Opera”, “Company” and “Sweeney Todd” all down to him. He […]
The great-grandson of a Sardinian nobleman who converted to Islam after being kidnapped by Barbary corsairs, Beji Caid Essebsi was one of the major figures in Tunisia’s political history. He moved to France to practice law in his mid-20s, where he found regular work defending Tunisian nationalist politicians against their colonial masters. Upon Tunisia’s independence, […]
