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...
MILLENNIUM TOMB Billionaire tycoon S. P. Hinduja has died aged 87. He co-chaired multivenue enterprise Hinduja Group with younger brother Gopichand, and the brothers were the UK’s joint-richest people. Hinduja was largely unknown to the public until the Peter Mandelson-toppling “cash-for-passports” scandal in which he donated to the Millennium Dome in an angling for British […]
TEXAS MOLD ‘IM Poker sensation Doyle Brunson has folded aged 89. The grinning Southern gent nicknamed “Texas Dolly” was one of the game’s definitive figures, with his greatest feat being back-to-back wins in the World Series of Poker in 1976 and 77. He crossed the million dollar winnings Rubicon in that same time period, and […]
UNHINGED I’ve already exhausted my reservoir of drag references FFS. Paging Dr. Reptile for the best RuPaul jokes? George Logan was the Hinge in Bracket and Hinge, a drag duo of old bird classical musical aficionados. His piano-playing, acerbic Hinge served as a foil to Patrick Fyffe’s childish Bracket, and the act was a stage […]
LOWER LIFE Columnist Jeremy Clarke, who did not host Top Gear, has died aged 66. He had worked for Prospect and The Independent but became best known for taking over Jeffrey Bernard’s longstanding “Low Life” column in The Spectator in 2001. His column was noted for its wit and sympathetic portraits of troubled lives, and […]
DEMON HEADMASTER EXORCISED Look into my eyes… though they’re too rolled over to threaten anyone now. Yep, school’s out for The Demon Headmaster star Terrence Hardiman, aged 86. His headmaster was perhaps the children’s TV villain of the 90s, as an imposing megalomaniac hellbent on controlling both his school and the world. He only removed […]
IF YOU COULD READ MY OBIT… Sundown has come for Canuck folkie Gordon Lightfoot, aged 84. Lightfoot first saw headwinds as a songwriter in the 60s, with recordings of his songs by Peter, Paul and Mary and Marty Robbins bolstering his industry credibility, as well as the glowing praise of Bob Dylan, who remarked “Every […]
TOTA TOTALLED 50s/60s World Cup everpresent Antonio Carbajal has died aged 93. The Mexican goalkeeper was a long-standing player with Club León, but it was as “El Cinco Copas” (“The Five Cups”) he became best remembered. He made his Cup debut in 1950, of which he was the last surviving player, and followed suit with […]
CRUMBLED College basketball coach Denny Crum has died aged 86. First a player under the tutelage of basketball behemoth John Wooden, Crum’s turn to coaching saw him rebuild the struggling Louisville Cardinals into a Final Four perennial with two NCAA victories to his name. He notched his 500th win in 1993, and the next year […]
BLIGHT OF THE BUMBRYBEE Opera star Grace Bumbry has died aged 86. The mezzo-soprano idolised Marian Anderson, and as a teen won a radio talent contest where first prize was a scholarship to a college that she couldn’t actually attend due to segregation. Undeterred, she performed on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts as a successful launchpad […]
JANUARY WINTERED Golfer Don January has died aged 93. He had 10 PGA Tour wins to his name, won the 1967 PGA Championship, and prompted a quirky change in the golf rulebook when he waited seven minutes for his ball to drop in the hole as it stood still on the edge (the time limit […]
