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, first tenure), The Man in Black (2010-17), Spade Cooley (2018-19), msc (2020-21), Grim Up North (2020-22), Reptile (2020-23), and Death Impends (2022-2025). Now the Committee of Banana (2023), time (2024), the returning Octopus of Odstock (2026) and the deadpooling equivalent of a gap year temp Marlfox (2026) oversee the biggest deadpool going...
CRUMBLE GETS A CLWYD 2023 has been a lean year at Crumble headquarters. Their ability to bring eclectic unique obits to the forefront is second-to-none in the DDP, but most Crumble deaths this year have been yesteryear 2021/22 picks he didn’t reup for this go around. Thus, fascinating as they are, I couldn’t write about […]
DEADELWEISS Crooner Vince Hill has died aged 89. He was a minor soldier in the traditional pop army who managed to find footing on the UK charts well into the 60s. His repertoire mostly included Tin Pan Alley standards and Eurovision, and made his biggest chart impact with “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music. It […]
YAKKY DOODLE DEADDY Ventriloquist and voice actor Jimmy Weldon’s main claim to fame was voicing Yakky Doodle, a motherless Donald Duck soundalike on The Yogi Bear Show who outsmarted a fox that parodied Shelley Berman and an alligator that parodied Alfred Hitchcock (both voiced by Daws Butler). Indeed, Weldon’s career largely existed because he could […]
ROMPEVIDAS Prolific Spanish cartoonist Francisco Ibáñez Talavera has died aged 87. His comic books were a bedrock of Spanish culture, especially the bumbling spy duo of Mortadelo y Filemón. Other creations included the eclectic ensemble of apartment inhabitants 13, Rue del Percebe and the Mr. Magoo-esque Rompetechos. He was still inking strips until shortly before […]
INTERN MILAN Spanish football great Luis Suárez has died aged 88. “El Arquitecto” (“The Architect”) became the first Spanish player to win the Ballon d’Or in 1960, and was noted for an elegant playstyle that helped take his country to their first European Championship in 1964. On the club level he first gained notice playing […]
LITTLE MR. SUNSET Actor Alan Arkin has died aged 89. He began his career as a folk singer with the Tarriers (they had a 50s hit with a retooling of “The Banana Boat Song”) and indeed made his film debut as part of the group in a musical showcase for calypso acts. Acting took the […]
ON THE BRINK Activist and Tupac’s stepfather Mutulu Shakur has died aged 72. The elder Shakur was active in the Black Liberation Army and helped recovering heroin addicts through acupuncture. In the late 80s he was convicted and imprisoned for the 1981 armed robbery of a Brink’s car that resulted in the deaths of a […]
CLOUDY FORECAST It’s the ultimate sign that Labour contrarian Frank Field is taking the piss out of us deadpoolers when he outlives his namesake. Though that does give a glimmer of hope to music fans everywhere WRT the Simon Cowells. The dead Frank Field was a weatherman and the first professional meteorologist in New York […]
PEARLS BEFORE SLAIN Soaps actress Meg Johnson has died aged 86. Her showbiz backdrop was in musical theatre, with a repertoire including Oliver!, Follies, and Chicago. After acting in Corrie as Eunice Gee and Brookside as Brigid McKenna, she channeled this West End flair into her best-known role, boisterous receptionist Pearl Ladderbanks in Emmerdale. Pearl’s […]
PAGE TURNER IN HER GRAVE In recent years, Yahoo has taken up most of the oxygen among resurrected QO sources, but let’s not undervalue the local BBC pages as a vessel for canny differentials. Case in point: Caroline Page. Lib Dem Page represented Woodbridge on the Suffolk City Council, where she campaigned for causes such […]
