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Betty Ford has to be a good bet. She's already a high profile deadpool pick and I'm guessing she'll get more popular in 2008. I'll cop for having sent her name with 19 others for the DDP yesterday. Missed her off the HPDP simply because I think she's an easy death to call but a hard one to call in a likely sequence with others.

Perhaps its me...but I watched this yesterday (via a free months subscription to "LOVEFiLM " ) . Possibly the worst film ever-made . Apart from a few fart and knob gags , there weren't any laughs . Maybe it was supposed to be some sort of Aboriginal historical record with a hidden meaning I didn't get it anyway.....I gave it 60 mins or so...so I dont know how it ended.... You mean, you popped the disc before the spaceship landed!? Incidentally re worst film; don't get me started. Okay there's stuff like Santa Clause Conquers the Martians or Plan 9 From Outer Space that are so blisteringly bad they're brilliant. But have you, or anyone else suffered the shite that is The Legend of Boggy Creek? Put it this way, it's a 1970s documentary about a bigfoot type creature seen near Boggy Creek. Not a single frame of the creature and most of the witnesses interviewed at length are hicks from the sticks not particularly well disposed to talking on film.

I'm in OoO and since I've become somewhat accustomed to my role as the whipping boy who selects nonentities on the very fringe of acceptable entry I've sent you a separate message leading to information and pictures for those of my picks not currently on your database. Let the games commence, or summat.

Overheard conversation relating to the health of Ivor Broadis this weekend. Supposedly some of the frailty is down to 'the football' catching up with the oldsters knees and hips; 'otherwise sharp as a pin' being one comment overheard. Given the plethora of possible picks available he's deffo crossed off my final long lists. Plenty more to go at, eh?

This wiki page should tell you you're thinking about Frank Buckles and Harry Landis, there's also one Canadian vet living in the USA. Makes a pleasant change from the tide of draft dodgers heading in the other direction eh?

dead Bugger, I was thinking of including him on my 2008 HDP list. Might be a let off there FF, let's see if any national paper sees fit to print it. I'm guessing the most coverage he'll get is summat in the likes of Classic Rock magazine. He'll probably be a 'they also served' listing in the other rock mags and - I'm guessing - no proper obit or fleeting mention in the nationals.

Phil O'Donnell You Tube tribute. According to the CUFC message board, a post from someone who was there, it was awful. His nephew was one of the first on the scene and by the time they'd started taking him away his wife had also arrived on the pitch. Dad of four, I think.

Years are indeed possible, but years in double figures are highly unlikely if the degree of his stroke was accurately reported at the time. His life is being 'supported' but there are limits to what the best doctors can achieve. Since there is so little to go on it's hard to say exactly what will tip him over the edge but - for example - a vital organ like his liver being gradually compromised by the medication keeping his blood flowing would be the end. Politically and medically he'd be a non-starter if he needed a transplant to stay alive.

Unlikely to be everyone's favourite film but - effete intellectual that I am - I would like to recommend Ten Canoes, which you may well find in your local Blockbuster, funny and affectionate film set in the past when there were no whites in Australia and mainly about day to day goings on in a tribe but - sort of - resonant with the way all small communities behave.

Highly doubtful IMHO, the months he's spent prone and mentally inactive are bound to have impacted on his lungs (where congestion and gradual depletion of the performance of said lungs will be a problem), his heart similarly is pumping blood round a body that gets no exercise meaning potential clots and congestive failure can only be held at bay by drug treatments. Assuming he's lost weight his heart will have a slightly easier time but it's still a small gain in a situation of major loss. Other vital organs can survive more easily than heart and lungs in this state but the tonnage of medication he'll need to stabilise him could gradually build up to the point that his liver and/or kidneys are also suffering. Yeah, keep him in the top 50.

Latest on how she died includes the Pakistan government claiming a primary cause of death was a knock to the head as she tried to avoid bullets and shrapnel. In other words when she was attacked she got so mad she hit the roof Such blather is likely to have an inflammatory impact on her already seething supporters. This ain't over.....probably.

Jonathan Witchell BBC journalist. I heard some of his - very good - reports from Sri Lanka on the World Service. Been dead a fortnight and we've all missed it.

HIGJFY So, you're saying, this is Stalin's tomb, with a pulse? Might have to reconsider him on my list(s) for 08. He was first reserve on the DDP, bumped up to the first team after an explosion in Pakistan yesterday.

Blimey, I wouldn't like to be the one who has to carve his gravestone. Nay problem, they'll just chisel: Well bred Ped's dead. Top gag!!!

I'd wager that Benazir Bhutto is equally at risk and we're always down on numbers re females. Just got back from your flight from Rawalpindi, MP? Aye, tell me about it. Y'know that morning after tinnitus you get from a rock gig.....trust me, it's got nowt on suicide bombings!

Indeed, and also he'll be protected really well for the next few days, but he can't hide away forever. Early January might be the right time to go amongst his people again!

I'm not packin' a Mac. Should make it easier, eh?

We discussed her too not a week ago and came to the conclusion that, rather like al-Qaeda hierachy and Middle East politicians, any of them could go and you might as well pick a name at random. But yes, out of Pakistani politicians, she was the most likely target. Indeed VT, and it's gutting so close to the new deadpooling season, a pain lessened by the shorter odds all round on leading Pakistani politicos. Their elections put the lacklustre farce of Strictly Come Dancing to shame, eh?

Sure as hell looks terminal. I posted just before Christmas in response to OoO's speculative 50 picks for next year suggesting she was a liklier assassination hit than their current PM. I had a hunch from the day she went back about this one, hence starting the thread. I'd gone so far as to back the hunch with her picked on my DDP team. Might consider Pervez himself now, since there'll be a shitload of people out there baying for revenge.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

His plans now include a chain of football themed pubs. Doubtful if he'll see any of this through, but still a useful indicator of where his head remains.

Doesn't mean anything - Gene Pitney was on midway through a tour when something got a hold of his heart, and Les Rita Mitsouko cancelled dates just days before mainman Fred Chinchin died. But yeah, Nelson seems in pretty good nick. Take yer point VT but the post above suggested some advance warning of Nelson's demise and it - kind of - got my juices flowing. What strikes me is that insuring a big tour is impossible if the star is already known to be in serious health danger. Willie's dates are still on as far as I can see.

Yeah, but will Phil Hill die in 2008? At present I've got him 19th on my provisional DDP team and not on my HPDP line up.

Great list OoO but regarding: I'd wager that Benazir Bhutto is equally at risk and we're always down on numbers re females.

Tough indeed, if you'd got some inkling of the scale of gaff he was capable of making you could've cleaned up with a unique pick and joker for a young death on DDP.