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...
SAINT PETER THE IRON SHEIK CLASS! FACKIN BOOLSHEEEEET! GREEM REAPER GO FACK YOURSELF YOU NO GOOD JABRONI YOU DISREPECT THA LEGEND. I PUT YOU IN THE CAMEL CLUTCH AND FACK YOUR BONY ASS WITH MY TEN INCH IRANIAN COCK YOU NO GOOD MATHERFACKER. In a day bubbas everywhere were dreading, premier wrestling heel and foul-mouthed […]
THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA STOPS TALKING The voice of “The Girl from Ipanema” is on the elevator to Heaven. Brazilian Astrud Gilberto married “father of bossa nova” João Gilberto in 1959, and became a defining voice of the genre through happenstance. The Portuguese-language “Garota de Ipanema” had already been a regional hit when the joint […]
BLUE PERIOD So often was Françoise Gilot discussed in the context of her decade as Picasso’s muse that her accomplishments as a painter in her own right can get lost in the mix. But accomplished she was. She was already on the rise in art circles when the 21-year-old Gilot met a forty-years-older Picasso. Picasso’s […]
SHE’S GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE! Husband-and-wife duos were some of the biggest powerhouses of the Brill Building, and the pairing of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann were more than worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Goffin-King and Barry-Greenwich. Weil was initially an aspiring Broadway singer, but her music talents shone […]
THE 700 (YEARS OLD) CLUB Cryptkeeper televangelist Pat Robertson has finally faced his judgment aged 93. One of the leading voices of the religious right, longstanding television programme The 700 Club was the pulpit from which he preached his fire-and-brimstone bigotry. Ideologically he was essentially a more politically savvy Fred Phelps – he still blamed […]
GROUNDHOG NOW A SHADOW Bluesman Tony McPhee has died aged 79. McPhee was inspired to take up guitar by Chuck Berry, and started off as frontman of local group the Seneschals before joining pop group the Dollar Bills in the early 60s. He steered the band into a more bluesy direction and renamed them “The […]
MORRIS DEVOLVES Former Labour minister John Morris has died aged 91. Elected to represent the Welsh seat of Aberavon in the 1959 election, he was one of the few ministers to bridge the Wilson/Callaghan and Blair governments. As Welsh secretary under Wilson and Callaghan, he unsuccessfully pushed for Welsh devolution but sowed the seeds for […]
LOW WATTAGE Ex US Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt is out of steam aged 85. The Reagan appointee was not a fan of the environment, clean air/water, and endangered species, but very much liked big business, oil, and coal. He also hated the Beach Boys and tried to ban them from performing at […]
MAVETH Another year, another Methuselah-aged rabbi is off to ‘olam ha-ba. Gershon Edelstein was one of the pillars of Israel’s Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, co-leading with Chaim Kanievsky after the 2017 death of Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman. The two men butted heads over how to handle COVID within their community, with Edelstein favouring a cautious lockdown […]
BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT Actor Barry Newman has died aged 92. Newman kickstarted his career with a role in a Herman Wouk play, and would crisscross between film, TV, and Broadway. He zoomed to his biggest fame in 1971 action flick Vanishing Point, a cult classic that depicts his jaded ex-cop on an adrenaline-rushing car […]
