paddyfool

And the scores are up. YoungWillz is currently spot on for number of deaths, and unsurprisingly in the lead... but that lead is now looking pretty precarious, as each additional death should bring rivals' totals closer to the mark, and his further off. Speaking of rivals, Banana has had an amazing round, shooting up into 2nd place as he scores his 6th death and gets within 5 of the total score, as well as being tied with En Passant and now ebless for total hits. Overall, though, there isn't that much movement in the table, as only 6 punters picked Chirac to fall. Player Score Hits Change in score YoungWillz 5 5 2 Banana 1 6 5 The Quim Reaper 0 5 0 Grim Up North 0 4 0 John Key -1 2 0 Sir Creep -2 5 0 Phantom of the Midway -2 4 0 drol -2 3 0 gcreptile -3 5 0 Torva Messor -3 5 0 alt obits guy -3 4 0 Bibliogryphon -3 4 2 Joey Russ -4 5 2 En Passant -5 6 0 Book -5 5 0 SuperSowder -5 4 2 BlackLivio -5 3 0 Master Tech -5 3 0 Sean -5 3 0 ebless -6 6 3 Zefph -6 3 0 Great Uncle Bulgaria -7 5 0 The Cosgroves -7 3 0 msc -8 5 0 Dr_T -8 4 0 theoldlady -9 1 0 The Old Crem -10 5 0 nantonian2013 -10 3 0 Squonk -10 3 0 Gooseberry Crumble -13 4 2

And Jacques makes it neuf. Scores to update later. 9 deaths so far in September would seem to put those predicting a total of about 12 in a good position...

Le roi dean1991 est mort. Bonne chance, Roi Arsewipe I!

That degree of spinal malformation can really impede an individual's ability to breathe, cough, swallow safely et cetera. Given her age, I would expect she probably won't see another Spring.

A potentially fatal point for me, indeed.

Gone back to Kirk Douglas

Apologies for missing that update. With Harper's demise, so too ended the reign of MirandaGurl, and the boy king YoungWillz took the throne. This however, was missed by chroniclers at the time, causing some historians at a much later date to speculate that King YoungWillz was a mythical figure, after the manner of King Arthur. The facts remain that YoungWillz did have a short reign however, before being succeeded by King dean1991 with the demise of Mugabe. It seems doubtful that dean1991's reign will be nearly as long as that strongman's, however...

I'll go with Mustafa Ben Halim please

And as Robert Mugabe slips away in Singapore taking the total deaths to 8, many of our punters score points. In addition to those predicting his death, quite a few predicting 13 hits cease to suffer a -2 penalty; Bibliogryphon has a particularly good round as he also hits his 3 hit bonus; and En Passant goes into the lead for total hits and scores a 6 hit bonus. Meanwhile the only player to pick Bobby Mugs as their joker, theoldlady, makes their first hit with his demise and now looks less in danger of falling to bottom on the board. While at the top of the board, YoungWillz gains a point for getting close to his estimated total of 9 deaths and remains in the lead, but Grim Up North and The Quim Reaper are gaining on him as they pull out of the negatives. Player Score Hits Change in score YoungWillz 3 5 1 Grim Up North 0 4 2 The Quim Reaper 0 5 4 John Key -1 2 2 drol -2 3 0 Phantom of the Midway -2 4 2 Sir Creep -2 5 4 alt obits guy -3 4 2 gcreptile -3 5 2 Torva Messor -3 5 2 Banana -4 5 2 Bibliogryphon -5 3 5 BlackLivio -5 3 2 Book -5 5 2 En Passant -5 6 3 Master Tech -5 3 0 Sean -5 3 0 Joey Russ -6 4 2 Zefph -6 3 2 Great Uncle Bulgaria -7 5 2 SuperSowder -7 4 2 The Cosgroves -7 3 2 Dr_T -8 4 2 msc -8 5 2 ebless -9 5 0 theoldlady -9 1 4 nantonian2013 -10 3 0 Squonk -10 3 0 The Old Crem -10 5 2 Gooseberry Crumble -15 3 0

Incidental factoid: this is the first time on record that there has been at least one Cat 5 hurricane each year for four years in a row. Which makes Trump's recurring ignorance of the existence of Cat 5s even more remarkable.

Unlucky hit number 7 for Valerie Harper. Only 5 punters predicted it, but one of them was YoungWillz, reinforcing his lead, as he goes a mighty 2 points into the positives; incidentally, I now reckon that it's theoretically impossible for his figures to go negative again in this year's game. The Cosgroves and Gooseberry Crumble both score their 3rd hit bonus. A number of players who guessed a target total of 12 have increased their score by 2, as the number of deaths have got within 5 of that figure now; among them is Grim Up North, who moves into equal 2nd place in the scoreboard, catching up to drol. Currently YoungWillz, En Passant and ebless are tied for most total hits at 5 apiece. NB: Where scores are tied, I have not, at present, bothered to apply any tiebreaker rules in terms of the order by which names appear. That faff can wait until the end of the year.

I've given up trying to predict British political outcomes. Recent events have been just too ludicrous. What I do wonder, though: If BoJo goes ahead with the threatened purge of Ken Clarke and other rebels, how much will he split the Tory vote if these then run as independents etc?

Looks like Bobby Mugs is my number 10. I didn't really re-research my list at all this time.

Returning to list number 1: Paddyfool's Perimortum Powerful People Queen Elizabeth II Jimmy Carter Yasuhiro Nakasone Prince Philip Javier Perez de Cuellar Henry Kissenger Luis Escheverria Pope Benedict XVI Roberta McCain John Paul Stevens Reserves: Robert Mugabe Bob Dole

Away for the weekend; scores will update on Monday. I think it's safe to say who'll be in the lead, though.

I may have had a very narrow escape indeed. How much longer can I keep posting the same 3 theme teams with only minor variations?

Same again, I guess.

It's almost impressive how quickly senior Tories in cabinet have spun from saying that proroguing would be mad, bad and dangerous to democracy to backing it all the way to the hilt: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/29/then-and-now-what-senior-tories-say-about-proroguing-parliament Hypocrisy at its most shameless.

Probably spells the death knell for Tory ambitions in Scotland all over again.

Incidentally, this casual prediction has been vindicated. Not sure whether 2019 will continue the trend yet - the start of this year didn't see quite as many deaths as the trend would predict. I think my casual prediction for 2019 would be that it ends the year with a similar total tally to 2018, one way or another; probably within 2% of the total.

England and Wales saw another rise in total mortality in 2018, to a total of 541,589, the highest since 1999. In more detail, what's happened is rhat age standardised mortality rates have stayed fairly static, but the population has got older, driving up total mortality. There are many more details to be found in the ONS report, if you want them: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregistrationsummarytables/2018

My team of actors are mostly set to knock me out if they go... and they have cap'n chorizo very well protected.

The thing about the mental health issue is that the whole world has an issue with mental health. But the rest of the world does not have anything like the same issue with mass shootings that the USA does. In Britain, yesterday, we had a horrific episode where a teenager threw a 6 year old he did not know from a 10th floor balcony at an art gallery to land on a 5th floor concrete roof below. (The child is now in critical care). Unimaginably awful for the family. But if the same teenager had been able to get hold of an AR15, or even a handgun, he could have inflicted many more horrific injuries on many more people, rather than being immediately physically restrained by bystanders.

So we've just had the hottest month on record, apparently. Average July temperatures worldwide were marginally higjher than at the time of the previous record in 2016: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49165476?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cmj34zmwm1zt/climate-change&link_location=live-reporting-story

Likewise to all the above.