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Pope Francis has informed that 72-year-old Spanish Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot is in critical health condition: "The head of the Dicastery, Cardinal Ayuso, is in very poor health and in the final stages of life."

Also, can we call it Advent Avalanche? I don't know why it changed to Advent Game, but Avalanche just sounds more whimsical and over-the-top and that's the energy we need.

Barbara Taylor Bradford has died aged 91. Obituaries: BBC

As no-one objected, I will try to run this this year. If I fuck up big time, feel free to execute me or summat. Same rules as always, copypasted from the previous year's thread. Joey's bit copied: Wait a second, it's that time of year already? Man, time does fly by fast. So here we are, another year of the annual Advent Avalanche, with the following objective and rules:  25 entrants (24 quickest off the mark plus your host). Competition opens on 1 December with the aim of getting a winner by Christmas Day.  And those Rules in Full: 1 - The object of the AVALDP is to WIN.  2 - To enter the AVALDP a contestant must have: A candidate not selected by another other entrant. A candidate in this context means a living person aged 18 or over not being executed within that month who remains alive at midnight on November 30th and is considered likely to cease living soon after and also be capable of gaining a qualifying obit see rule 9 below upon death. 3 - Entries open at 7:00am EST (that's 12:00 PM GMT for the brits) on 30th November and close at midnight (GMT) on 30 November. Entry can only be made by posting the name of a candidate on the AVALDP thread on the Deathlist. 4 The competition is deemed to be open at 00-01 GMT hrs on 1 December 2024. 5 Competition ceases on the death of the first nominated pick on the list of candidates and the winner is the dead pooler who has selected said candidate. 6 Entry is limited to 25 players (24 who are obliged to post entries on the AvalancheDP thread and the host who reserves a right of entry as the master of ceremonies for this endeavor). Presumably the artistic intent is obvious but in case you missed it the idea is to get 25 players to compete for a death within 25 days thereby giving us a victory by Christmas Day at the latest. If you're snoozin you're losing.  6a Because he has forced his own entry arghton guarantees to respect the first 24 qualifying picks and only enter a candidate unselected by the others. Thereby ensuring the really hot selections go to others. 6b - hot selections? No idea why people are picking Karen Gillan tbh... 7 - In the event that two players select the same candidate the allocation of the pick will go to the player who first posted an entry for that candidate even if the entry times are within the same minute. 8 In the event that two players tie for victory on the basis of picks expiring on the same day all efforts will be made to ascertain a winner on the basis of the actual time of death. For these purposes local time of death will be translated to GMT if required. 9 - An "obit" in the context of the AVALDP is any news report in English from a reliable source. Such sources include - but are not limited to - UK national press, UK national broadcast organizations, foreign press and broadcast organizations with an English language thread to their communication, trade press in English, local news organizations reporting in English and coverage in specialist online sites, such as those monitoring the well-being of super-centenarians. Where dispute arises over the qualifying nature of a news source for obit purposes arghtons decision is final. But he wants fast and furious competition and is generally very amenable to low hanging dead pool fruit of all varieties. 10 The Raymond Hewlett Memorial Award applies to the AVALDP. In honor of everybody's favourite Maddie-implicated paedo scum a candidate widely believed to be alive when the winner is declared and subsequently proven to have died previously will be awarded victory in the event that a AVALDP qualifying obit subsequently appears for said candidate. In the event that a AVALDP qualifying obit for the candidate is subsequently proven to have existed prior to commencement of the AVALDP all points will be voided. RHME points are only available during competitionand in the event that a winner has been declared before discovery of a qualifying RHME candidate no revision of the final result will occur. Similarly, if some lucky candidate is awarded RHME victory and this victory once declared is proven to be spurious by late discovery of a qualifying obit; the lucky winner will be allowed to keep his/her lucky win. 10a To ensure smooth operation of rule 10 the period for discovery of result altering obits is deemed to be 48 hours plus the remainder of the calendar day in which victory is first claimed. In other words two days and a part of another day. 11 - If an obited death occurs during play of the AVALDP and is missed despite Arghtons half assed efforts to stay in touch and/or the spirited efforts of AVALDP participants and said death is missed in totting up points, after which a winner is declared, then this death will not count for competition purposes. The same is true in the case of a known death gathering a late obit and therefore allowing some other competitor to be declared a winner. All disputes relating to rule 11 will be resolved by the astute judgement of mss and there is no appeals procedure (though all sides of opinion are warmly invited to liven up the AVALDP thread by venting their fury). 12 - In the event that Deathlist editing options or other online trickery is discovered to have been employed in the editing of entries, those duly fingered for such cheating will be removed from the AVALDP and banned for life from subsequent entry into AVALDPs. 13 In the unlikely event that a pick selected on 30 November fails to mark the start line the entrant selecting said pick will still be deemed to have entered the competition and will have until midnight 1 December to select a new pick (unselected by other entrants). Should the entrant fail to do so no other entrant will be allowed in as a replacement. AND FINALLY... On completion of AVALDP activities the thread will get lively for a short while as losing contestants and spectators offer well-deserved congratulations to the skillful and highly talented new champion, after which time it is expected that the cooling corpse of the thread will be allowed to gently sink into oblivion. Now you know the rules, here is the list of competitors and their choice of candidates: 1. YoungWillz - Billy Connolly 2. drol - Jimmy Carter 3. theoldlady - Jean-Marie Le Pen 4. Steve - Chuwit Kamolvisit 5. Captain Hemlock - James Butts 6. Book - Steve McMichael 7. polar duck - Manouchehr Bakhtiari 8. Commtech Sio Bibble - Marilyn Hagerty 9. livingbygrace - Kaiti Grey 10. Ali - Raul Castro 11. CaptainChorizo - James Clayton Flowers 12. Funeralopolis - Barry Urban 13. The Immortal - José Mujica 14. Summer in Transylvania - Donald P. Bellisario 15. Bibliogryphon - Noam Chomsky 16. Lafaucheuse - Álvaro Noboa 17. Death Impends - Cindy Birdsong 18. Toast - Jean Marsh 19. maryportfuncity - Ethel Caterham 20. MariNisia - George Chuvalo 21. gcreptile - Mary Schmucker 22. chilean way - Eva Marie Saint 23. time - Dick Van Dyke 24. Yvonne - Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat 25. arghton - Jayapataka Swami Let's look at the past and current winners of this dead pool now 2016 - Death Impends  2017 - Sean 2018 - Banana 2019 - gcreptile 2020 - Spade_Cooley 2021 - Bibliogryphon 2022 - drol 2023 - gcreptile  Good luck everyone. 

A bit niche, but Kari Wahlroos, one of the main perpetrators of the OneCoin crypto scam, Finnish businessman and alleged billionaire has died at 56. Started off as a local colostrum salesman inspired by fraudsters Trevor Lock and Petteri Jussila, made atleast an estimated four billion euros with OneCoin and bought hundreds of apartments in Dubai. This year there'd been some media investigation on his wealth and businesses, and for the first time he'd started claiming he was "not an OneCoin insider". He never regretted anything, kept being involved in other crypto scams and never kept a very low profile. Anyways, he died in a Malaysian hospital from a combination of streptococcus, diabetes, heart problems and stomach cancer after having an amputation earlier and spending two months in coma. Sometimes karma does catch up to you.

Just bringing this to the fore again. See the highlighted bit and life becomes so much easier.

Kim Dotcom did not have a heart attack, but a heavy stroke: https://m.bild.de/news/ausland/kim-dotcom-soll-schlaganfall-erlitten-haben-beten-sie-fuer-mich-67444f23e1200d5df3ac8f8b

Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn FBA, FSA (Wiki), Former Member of the House of Lords dead at 87 Also a archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, neuroarchaeology, and the prevention of looting at archaeological sites.

Sorry to hear this @drol. We've had our differences but I wish you and your family all the very best.

So who is next in line for the title of Token Honorary South African?

And previously banned @diego...it's Christmas, the time of goodwill, so everyone should be welcome. Please feel free to join in with this game if you want. Please don't make me regret it though!

A hit for me in the DDP, Windy City and Hare's Deadpools

Sorry for your loss, may she rest In peace.

I can run it if nobody else wants to.

Never resurrected a nice South African.

Wrong thread. He was a life peer, not a hereditary peer, so not an aristocrat. Not really a politician either though (despite being a member of the Conservative Party) so academics thread would’ve been best suited.

25/11/24 70 No Doubt - Just a Girl 64 The Source ft. Candi Staton - You Got The Love (Now Voyager Mix) 48 Faithless - Insomnia 42 Suede - Trash 41 Radiohead - Paranoid Android 27 Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity +2 27 The Seahorses - Love Is The Law +2 18 Backstreet Boys - As Long As You Love Me 00 Eternal - Don’t You Love Me -6

My condolences. She is at peace now.

25th November 49 George Ezra — Paradise 36 Mark Ronson ft. Miley Cyrus — Nothing Breaks Like A Heart 28 Regard — Ride It  27 Dua Lipa — Don’t Start Now 22 Marshmello ft. Bastille — Happier  20 Calvin Harris & Rag’n’Bone Man — Giant 17 Ariana Grande — No Tears Left To Cry +4 15 Meduza ft. Goodboys — Piece Of Your Heart 11 Ramz — Barking  03 Billie Eilish - Bad Guy -6

My condolences to you and yours. Take care.

Don't worry, we've all been there. I found out in one of my pools the guy i'd listed for 9 months had died a month before the game started, lol.

TD Jakes, American pastor, suffers medical emergency. n.b. he was the spiritual mentor to P. Diddy and was accused in court papers of attending parties with Diddy.

So tired of the sniping at the original Band Aid, mostly coming from people who were not around at the time. This guy was, though, and he seems to have completely missed the point. "To say: 'Do they know it’s Christmas?’ is funny, it is insulting," says Dawit Giorgis, who in 1984 was the Ethiopian official responsible for getting the message out about what was happening in his country. His incredulity decades on is obvious in his voice and he remembers how he and his colleagues responded to the song. "It was so untrue and so distorted. Ethiopia was a Christian country before England… we knew Christmas before your ancestors," he tells the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dl22gz3vlo FFS! It wasn't about whether they were Christians. It was saying that the people were in such dire straits, starving and dying, that they probably wouldn't be aware of it being Christmas (or any other celebration). They had more important things to deal with. .... the chorus of disapproval about the track, its stereotypical representation of an entire continent - describing it as a place "where nothing ever grows; no rain nor rivers flow" - and the way that recipients of the aid have been viewed as emaciated, helpless figures, has become louder over time. It was also specifically about Ethiopia, where the famine was, and not Africa in general. And "emaciated, helpless figures" was what we were seeing on the news. Yes, it says "there won't be snow in Africa" but that's because "Ethiopia" doesn't scan. It's called poetic licence.

And of course Jimmy Carter won.

Let it go, @Youth in Asia, you're never going to meet him.