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...
SCONE COLD Scottish nationalist, lawyer and Stone of Destiny tug-of-warrer Ian Hamilton has died aged 97. Centuries after the stone was moved from its native Scotland to Westminster Abbey, Hamilton and three other students concocted the plan in 1950 to return the cultural relic to its homeland in an effort to rekindle Scottish identity. It […]
TARRED AND FEATHERED Nowadays, you have to slap someone to generate headlines at the Oscars, but back in the day legitimate causes could gain attention. Sacheen Littlefeather will forever be remembered as the Native American girl who stood in for Marlon Brando’s Godfather gong to draw attention to both the Wounded Knee Occupation and Native […]
LAST LAP Grand Prix motorcyclist Phil Read has zipped past the finish line aged 83. A seven-time world champion, he was the first to win world titles in the 125, 250, and 500cc classes. He was also noted for his on-track rivalries with Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostini, and his outspoken views on the Isle […]
INOKI BOMBED-BA-YE The DDP was four years of nirvana for wrestling fans, with Spade and msc both knowing WWE like the back of their hand. That joyride has come to an end, with my base of knowledge roughly ending at knowing who Lou Albano was because of Mario and Cyndi Lauper. And that means sod […]
RATCH UP ANOTHER HIT Bates, Lecter, Cheney… some individuals are so terrifying that mere mention of their name can chill the bones. Louise Fletcher, who has died aged 88, contributed “Ratched” to that pantheon. The child of deaf parents, Fletcher was a regular on TV Westerns in the late 50s before taking a long sabbatical […]
QUEASAR Astronomer Maarten Schmidt, the first to identify quasars, has vanished into the black hole aged 92. One obituary called him “the father of quasars”, which seems a bit misleading for a phenomena that predated him by billions of years. A protége of Jan Oort, Schmidt entered the space scene while radio astronomers were perplexed […]
HASSLE IN THE CASTLE Good morrow. Many of the elderly personnel in the DDP belonged to a different era, but it’s exceptionally rare for one to carry the spirit of half a millennium ago. Castle-restoring Scottish medievalist Raymond Stanley Morris, AKA the Laird of Balgonie, has fallen in the moat aged 92. Looking something like […]
UNE FIN EST UNE FIN It just wouldn’t be a Queen Libby death without someone who would otherwise claim the month as their own dying right after… French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard has exited the world as he made his career, jump cutting to his end via assisted suicide aged 91 rather than gradually […]
PAPAS IN A BRAND NEW BAG! The Greek flavour of Monica Vitti is no more. Irene Papas dipped her toes in the acting world through Shakespeare plays and ancient Greek tragedies before turning to film in 1951. Critics noted that she epitomised “the quintessential idea of Greek beauty”, and more importantly, that she was a […]
HI HO, SILVA, AWAY! Hollywood tough guy Henry Silva has died aged 95. Raised in Spanish Harlem, which hardened his skin and fast, his sharp and chilly face beckoned for villainous roles. With dozens of gangster, thug, and all-around baddie roles to his name, he made early impressions in Frank Sinatra films – first as […]
