Spade_Cooley

High-end dead pools are not won by picks who get their cancer reported on TMZ. That might work when you're playing in your work pool and your competitors' lists are "Lindsay Lohan, Keith Richards, is Leslie Nielsen still alive?", but these are the big leagues.

Can't believe I missed that death earlier this month, Ed Reardon's Week truly is one of only 10 or so truly great comedies of the 20th century and, like many, I find myself turning into Reardon more with every passing year.

And there goes my "haha, found someone with weeks left to live that nobody else on the forum will pick" gambit.

Vialli was a better player than Pele tbh, the latter only ever succeeded playing against teams of anaemic part-timers in the Brazilian regional leagues.

I think the list I adapted from was patchy at best... watching the video, Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton, Madonna and Grace Jones are definitely among the faux Band Aid bit.

Great catch. All the more reason for the Committee to keep Tina in the mix and perhaps draft Phil Collins this year?

Lot of words here when you didn't mention what he is most famous: the sample in "Resurrection" by PPK.

The music video for Genesis' "Land of Confusion" (1986): Ronald Reagan - dead 2004 Nancy Reagan - dead 2016 Jimmy Carter - alive Margaret Thatcher - dead 2013 Leonid Brezhnev - dead at song's release Henry Kissinger - alive Tony Banks - alive Mike Rutherford - alive Phil Collins - alive for now Benito Mussolini - dead at song's release Ayatollah Khomeini - dead 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev - dead 2022 Muammar Gaddafi - dead 2011 Helmut Kohl - dead 2017 Erich Honecker - dead 1994 Walter Cronkite - dead 2009 Richard Nixon - dead 1994 Leonard Nimoy - dead 2015 Bob Hope - dead 2003 Sylvester Stallone - alive Prince - dead 2016 Pete Townshend - alive David Bowie - dead 2016 Bob Dylan - alive Mick Jagger - alive Tina Turner - alive Sting - alive Jim Bakker - alive Tammy Faye Bakker - dead 2007 Michael Jackson - dead 2009 Madonna - alive Bill Cosby - alive Queen Elizabeth II - dead 2022 Princess Diana - dead 1997 Hulk Hogan - alive Pope John Paul II - dead 2005

Good catch. Ali Saeed has been claiming to have been an Olympic hockey champion for over a decade, and is interviewed as such here. Claims to have been the first Muslim to play for the Indian national team, and also says he played on the left-wing. However, the official Olympic records show India's left-winger in the 1964 final was Darshan Singh. A fantasist in the shape of when people used to claim they were ex-child stars and their lies were only discovered after death?

James Fairweather, a "social investment pioneer" who may have come across your 2023 radars from being diagnosed with glioblastoma earlier this year, died at the end of November. No QOs as far as I can see.

Quick prediction time: who's topping the Drop 40? Pele, Carter or Alagiah?

Probably no point sitting on this pick so let's push it towards the 2020 Drop 40. One of the best footballers of the 1990s and one of the best managers in the current game, Sinisa Mihajlovic, has stepped down from his job as Bologna boss with immediate effect after being diagnosed with a "serious illness". Italian news suggests it's a severe form of leukaemia. Igor Stimac has not yet issued a statement.

As stated elsewhere, Quentin Blake turns 90 today.... does he feel DeathList-y? Maybe not, but he definitely feels "worthy of their own thread in about 12 months or so".

I hate these December deteriorations where it's obvious they're not making it to the starting line but you have to put them as your provisional #1 draft pick in case you forget it.

Discovered from an off-hand reference in Mark Kermode's review of Clerks 3 that the film critic Bob McCabe is "dearly missed". Checked and he died last year, without any reference in any of the numerous places he wrote for. Indeed, outside of that JustGiving page, which doesn't mention his name at all, there's nothing out there - odd for a man who wrote for Empire for something like 30 years, as well as Sight & Sound and The Times and also edited the official Monty Python history.

Don't have a silver bullet on Von Gotha, but he's often referred to by his real name, Robin Ray. He drew the poster for Barbarella and seems to have some actual fame in the world of comics, this Facebook thread from last year contains lots of glowing appraisals of the man, and someone says "Robin is a real gent" - present tense. Not a silver bullet like I said, but I'd definitely put him in the probables not possibles.

Not for me, Jeff. You know how Mobb Deep said "there ain't no such thing as half-way crooks"? There also ain't no such thing as half-way edgelords. If you're going to be offensive for the sake of being offensive, put it up to 11. VLS wanted the private schoolboy "ain't I being naughty" thrill of edginess but his targets were always so fucking milquetoast and obvious.

SUGAR CRUSH

He was never funny.

Definite DL-friendly quiz here: the 33 2x RIAA-certified solo artists who died before the age of 50. I got 21/33...

Can't spell "inshallah" without "HH".

Bad luck if you were planning on capitalising on Scottish drill rapper Triple01s' recent admission that he had months to live: dead at 21.