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INVERSE DEAD POOL 2023   Welcome to the 12th edition of the Inverse Dead Pool, the nice dead pool where you don't want your picks to die. How to play The game starts when I post a list of this year's 50 most popular Derby Dead Pool picks. From this list of 50, you must pick 25 people who you think will SURVIVE the year. The premise is to AVOID picking people who will die. Rank your picks – from least likely to die to most likely to die. You receive points according to their position on your team – 25 points if your #1 pick dies, 24 points if your #2 pick dies, and so on, down to 1 point if your #25 pick dies, and 0 points if anyone you haven't picked dies. You do NOT want points. The winner is the player with the fewest points at the end of the year (Dec 31, 23.59 GMT). You may also appoint a substitute, or substitutes, in case any picks die before the submission deadline (or in case you accidentally include a name twice). If that happens, everyone in a lower position on your team moves up a place, and your top substitute is drafted in at #25. Once you have a team ready, post it in this thread. If an eligible pick dies during the submission period, then the 51st top DDP pick becomes eligible; if another dies, then the 52nd becomes eligible, etc. You may amend your team after posting it, as long as it's before the submission deadline (you might want to do this if, for example, the 51st name becomes eligible and you want to include them). If you do, make sure to post again in this thread to clarify what you've changed. Tie break details If two or more players are tied for victory at the end of the year, the winner is whoever had the fewest points most recently (i.e. whoever had the most recent pick to die, or whoever ranked that pick higher if all tied players picked them, or whoever had the second most recent pick to die if those are the same, etc). If all tied players have the exact same hits in the exact same positions (or if they achieve a heretofore-unachieved perfect score of 0), the tie is not broken – all tied players share victory. Congratulations to our previous winners... 2022 YorkshireBanker 27 points 2021 BabyBlue 25 points 2020 The Quim Reaper 34 points 2019 drol 10 points 2018 machotrouts 17 points 2017 drol 25 points 2016 Pedro67 21 points 2015 Death Impends 15 points 2014 Bibliogryphon 10 points 2013 N/A 2012 Esturian Float 4 points 2011 Garn2 15 points Thank you to our previous hosts... 2018-2021 Death Impends 2014-2017 The Dead Cow 2011-2012 Spade_Cooley Links to previous Inverse Dead Pools... 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2012-2016, 2011

If I had to guess if it was Modern Love that was near the top rather than Let’s Dance less people would be trying to downvote it.

FTFY

Enric Marco (wiki) died on 21 May 2022, aged 101. Obituary here, though it's only just been spotted and added to his Wiki page. Marco was a Catalonian man who wrote books about his treatment as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. He made a lot of money in the process, headed up associations representing survivors and even received awards and honours. Only problem was he was an imposter – he made everything up. Widely covered by international media, including the BBC on occasions, but disappeared into obscurity thereafter.

I'm beginning to think they are married but just haven't told anyone. They are both Abba fans and in the absence of the Nordic fab four, some form of deeply heartfelt slush gets top billing. Not my thing at all, but as you say, whatever floats ones boat. They've both voted exactly the same today for instance.

Speaking personally, no, I just don't like it very much, it's a pretty boring down to mid tempo disco song. Some of his early to mid-70s songs, (e.g John I'm only Dancing, Drive on Saturday, Life on Mars, Rebel Rebel) I think are really good but I just don't care much for anything of his thereafter (see also Elton John, Rod Stewart). It's just that some people have different tastes to you - as they do to me. Book and TheOldLady have been consistently downvoting my favourites - currently the Jam - since we started with the early 1970s but they're perfectly entitled to their opinions, as I am to mine, we just have different tastes.

Looks just the same to me. A smile makes a lot of difference, and people usually look better in posed shots than in pap shots.

Tippi Hedren is 93. Known for being a progenitor of nepo babies.

Stefan Edberg, Swedish former professional tennis player, one of only two men to have held the number one rank in both singles and doubles, who won 6 Grand Slam singles titles and 3 Grand Slam doubles titles in the 1980s and 1990s, and remembered for his excellent serve and volley game, is 57 today. Katey Sagal, the magnificent American actress, singer and voice artist, who began her fantastic career as a back-up singer, and best known for her roles as Peggy Bundy on the long-running television series "Married... with Children", and the tremendous Gemma Teller on the FX television series "Sons of Anarchy", is 69 today.

Guardian obit for Nicholas Herbert, 3rd Baron Hemingford (wiki), aged 88. Journalist for The Times and the Cambridge Evening News. He sat as a Crossbench peer in the House of Lords between 1982 and 1999. His second wife was novelist and children's writer Jill Paton Walsh (wiki, 1937–2020)

The one and only Dolly Parton celebrates her 77th birthday today.

Yeah, God - in 1944

It may not be as innovative and groundbreaking as Space Oddity or Ziggy Stardust, but my absolute favorite David Bowie song is China Girl It is like it is! Pure pop in perfection!

https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/19/davos-volodymyr-zelensky-questions-if-vladimir-putin-is-still-alive-18127830/ Ukranian President Zelensky believes that Putin has died…..

It's a simple game. Random draw, teams of eleven and, at the end of the day, reptile beats msc.

Marc Overmars’ ‘mild stroke’ last month was actually a heart attack https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/marc-overmars-heart-attack-arsenal-28995129.amp

I was intruiged by the guy who's usually sitting next to Nicholson at the Lakers games (the old guy with hat and glasses, not Ray Nicholson). It's record and film producer Lou Adler (89). He is still seen at the games, sometimes next to Ray.

What's the connection to the Beatles apart from the name? I don't think anyone said he was the inspiration for the album name. Macca recalls the story: “I was coming back from a trip abroad with our roadie, Mal Evans, just the two of us together on the plane,” he said. “We were eating and he mumbled to me, asked me to pass the salt and pepper. And I misheard him. He said [mumbles] ‘saltandpepper’.” Macca continued the story: “So we had a laugh about it, then I started thinking about Sergeant Pepper as a character. I thought it would be a very interesting idea for us to assume alter egos for this album we were about to make. It was quite liberating.”

Death Notice for Sir Samuel Whitbread, former Chair of Whitbread plc and Whitbread Farms and also a former Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire: http://announcements.telegraph.co.uk/deaths/261972/whitbread

On the 18th January 14 years ago in 2009 british artist and television presenter Tony Hart died aged 83. Best known for his work in educating and teaching children art skills through his television show Hartbeat .

Austrian actress Ilse Peternell (Wiki) died on April 30 2011 in Klagenfurt according to the historians, not living at 94 So weird cause her last role was in 2011, I hoped for an obit!

Finally, we are in business. The list of players and pick masterlist is up on page 1, and the list of teams will follow later today. Apologies for the slight delay in getting everything organised. Like a teenager who invites a few friends over for a party and is then surprised when 200 drunken strangers invade his house, I was a little overwhelmed by the number of teams, and picks that needed checking. But now we are ready to play, so sit back and have fun. Just don’t break the furniture, snort Granny’s ashes, or shag someone in my parents’ bed! In total, we have 56 57 players on board, and increase of 10 11 on last year’s record total. 12 13 new players, who are warmly welcomed, although I seem to have frightened off Clarence with my rudeness before the start . Two welcome returnees to the game after a year’s absence in @Etushispushingupdaisiesand @Grim Up North. And we had an excellent retention rate, with only 4 non-returners: @Doulton who I know nothing about, Predictor who retired from deadpooling after a personal loss, Deathray who was sadly forced into retirement, and @Kenny who was incapacitated by a couple of viruses he managed to pick up somewhere. The filthy bugger. In total, there were 717 different valid picks, and the need to check up on the status of all of them was a large contributory factor to the delay in the game. Of those, 534 were unique picks showing yet again that this pool is a dumping ground for those weird and wonderful picks that deadpoolers cannot find anywhere else for. Happy to have them here, but please, please, please keep a watch on them yourself and let me know if any of them go toes up. I generally do a full google search of the picks every quarter – after that it is up to yourselves. In common with most other pools, it was absolute carnage before the start with pre-game deaths wreaking havoc on teams. The following selections did not manage to make the starting line: Alexander Ponomarenko (Comedian) Anita Pointer Barbara Walters Don West Gordon Lee Jeremiah Green Kaikala Satyanarayana Pele Pope Benedict XVI Sandra Weir (who would have been disqualified) Subroto All teams had enough subs to move up, so no team was left short on account of premature deaths. One player who will start with 24 picks is @Charles De Gaulle who selected James Earl Jones twice, and had no subs. They had been warned about the lack of subs in a PM before the game, so they get no leniency. The “Who the fuck are they” award should be renamed “The CHEL Award” this year. @chel team was top heavy (and indeed middle and bottom heavy) with Russian scientists and “Academicians”, and if anyone has a suggestion as to how to judge the fame of those, then I am all ears. My initial thought was to disqualify them all, as all seemed to be just scientists writing scientific papers. However, I had two issues with that. Firstly, other scientists have been allowed into pools, largely based on their scientific careers. Mark Stokes is a case in point – allowed in the DDP, despite being “just” a scientist. In this pool, I have allowed scientists Brenda Millner and David J. Linden. Are those Russian scientists as “famous” in Russia as Millner and Linden are in the UK and US? Who the fuck knows! Secondly, if I disbarred all of Chel's Academicians, they would end up with a team of about 18 picks! So in the end, I moved up any of the subs who had “normal” fame like actors and writers, and filled the remaining spaces on the team with who I judged to be the slightly more prominent of his scientists. As a result, THE CHEL (WTFAT?) AWARD, is given jointly to: Dosmukhamed Kshibekov – Kazakh Geologist Vladamir (VV) Boldyrev – Siberian Chemist Yuri Kirilliovich Tolstoy – Russian Law Professor And if you think those guys are obscure, remember they are the most famous ones- look down for a list of those I rejected! The list of rejected picks (also known as the WEP File) has grown from 3 last year to a whopping 11 this year, boosted by the “No Criminals” rule, and the aforementioned Chel. They were as following: Carolyn Bryant-Donham (GCREPTILE/HELL/DEATHBECOMESTHEM) – A victim of the “No Criminals” rule, even though she is not actually a criminal. However her “fame” is down to a criminal act, so that’s good enough for me. John Cannon (ETUSH/BUFFALO PHIL) – Famous for being a criminal. A relatively famous criminal admittedly, but my wife never heard of him, so he is out. Gloria Deukmejian (WHEN THE) – Family of the Famous. Widow of former California governor George Deukmejian. We do generally accept First Ladys of countries (e.g.Naina Yeltsin), but I have drawn the line at anything below nation level. Admittedly California is a pretty big place, bigger than most countries, but the line had to be drawn somewhere, and that’s where it is. Nadia Seipel (WEP) – Cancer sufferer with a book. Olivier Vandecasteele (WEP) – Victim of dodgy arrest in Iran. Like that is an achievement Eric Coulam (WEP) – Canadian nobody planning assisted suicide. To be fair, @WEP sheepishly tried to withdraw this pick, so I feel slightly bad about highlighting it. But only very slightly. - you all know the rule - DON’T PICK THEM. And then there is Chels list. If anyone wants to google these guys and tell me I was harsh, then go ahead. Just don’t try and persuade me that the soil scientists should have been allowed. As far as I am concerned, they are just gardeners with ideas above their station. Alexander Protasov (CHEL) - Russian Hydrobiologist Dmitriy Kharkevich (CHEL) - Scientist ?Genetics Farit Garifulin (CHEL) – Russian(?) Soil Scientist Iya Zaboeva (CHEL) – Russian Soil Scientist Radim Gorecki (Garetsky) (CHEL) Belarussian Geologist-Tectonist. The one name that I allowed against my better judgement was Natalie Fornasier, who is essentially famous for her cancer. However, she is generally referred to as a writer, and seems to have written some articles and blogs on beauty matters. Admittedly the subject of the articles may have been “How to look beautiful while dying of cancer”, but I think she has just about done enough to sneak in here. I mainly accepted her in the hope of seeing @Salmon Mousse's head explode if she pegs it, and in Diane Berberian fashion, not even her friends care enough to post an obit about her. So, on with the game, and best of luck to everyone, not least the poor buggers who are among the 717 names picked!

Thank you Phil Collins and Tony Bennett for not dying everyone