msc

I was thinking about this a few nights ago, and came up with the idea of banning certain picks from being jokers. Not your Joey Feek (award nominated musician) or dr Granger (OBE) but your "in a coma" or Shameless-fodder. With the caveat being that if you did pick them as your joker, they were removed and you played without a joker and only 19 names. But, if there is a 2018 DDP, this is stuff we can discuss at great depth in a few months...

She's a unique on the DDP. Saw the news last year and didn't register it as a deadpool potential thing at all for some reason.

Oh it almost certainly is, but then, on the off chance it's not... Never mind your Stan Lees and Javier de Thingy, this one's too big to miss. Besides, JP2 clogged up a spot for 700 years...

Good luck to Biblio Snr.

Well if Deathray keeps posting Libby photos, we can look back on some of The Globes royal correspondent's greatest hits... (and not the ones I tend to bring up) (from 2013) (They really don't like poor Camilla...) (This one is a favourite - its from early 2013, and predicts months to live for both Queenie and Valerie Harper...)

On this day (using only the final contenders per year...) 2016 Spade Cooley 52 Sir Creep 52 Death Impends 37 Heading Nowhere 33 Gcreptile 32 Pan Breed 29 Golden slumbers 24 DDT 22 Key moments so far: Spade nabbing Grizzly due to a hunting lodge newsletter, DDT’s slow start (it wasn’t slow for much longer though), Sir Creep’s dazzling start, and some Glaswegian chap blowing the DDP by not picking Monty Brinsom and Geoffrey Hudgens, and not even realising it at the time... 2015 Death Impends 20 Spade Cooley 15 DDT 12 Key moments so far: DDT nabbed 12 points on a unique dying terrorist (that wouldn’t happen nowadays!), and DI took an early lead with a pair of really old picks. Age, jokers and timing was to prove crucial in 2015. 2014 Spade Cooley 35 DDT 12 Drunkasaskunk 12 Key moments so far: This was the year Spade put everyone's research to blame, with an early insurmountable lead (as it turned out) based on a conductor, a famous for dying case that no one else twigged, some chap off the radio and an American poet – one unique and three people picked by less than five people each. 2013 OoO 37 Crossing the Styx 26 This Mortail Coil 22 DDT 21 Death Impends 14 Key moments so far: Odstock had exploded into an early lead, and looked unstoppable in the early going. Crossing the Styx, previously a theme team, were his nearest challengers, and This Mortal Coil had made an early start. In fact, TMC had nabbed OoO’s joker, preventing it being a unique – those 6 points and one somewhat crucial mistake in summer were to prove unexpectedly game changing at this point in time. As for Spade? He had 7 points. Probably needed to wait till next year... 2012 DDT 24 Norfolk and Good 7 2011 DDT 38 I think his nearest challengers (in the loosest sense of the word, him finishing 31 points ahead of the rest) were asking TMIB if it was time to start yet... 2010 Canadian Paul 23 DDT 16 OoO 14 Banshees 14 Tonight Matthew 14 Rot in Hell John 7 If I’m Spared Myself, Of Course 7 Impaled on the Antlers 7 We finally had a title race of sorts! DDT only got 6 picks all year, but such is 2010 he’s ahead of all the final contenders at this point. OoO was the only one of that years top 7 not to pick Zelda Rubinstein, whose death brought some life into the game. But then OoO nabbed 14 points on Dr Willie Stanton – remember that case? In a very slow moving DDP, jokers proved crucial. Canadian Paul with the early lead among the contenders, and a big beast of the Deathlist forum at that time, though soon to leave deadpooling due to real life commitments. Can’t help but feel the sedate and leisurely 2010 DDP was a right rotten outlier for a new host. Bit like taking your kid to see your no hopers during a promotion season, and they become fans thinking it’s always like this... 2009 Heaven Knows They’re Miserable Now – 53 DDT – 21 No Noose is Good Noose – 21 Banshees – 21 Tonight Matthew 11 Impaled on the Antlers – 11 Shame about the lack of a title race here, HKTMN must have the whole thing sewn up... 2008 The Man in Black 35 DDT 26 Godot’s Waiting List 26 Wormer 20 Canadian Paul 18 Banshees 18 TMIB nabbed 6 hits by this point, including 2 uniques, and was 48 hours off one of the great scoops – a terminally ill Hollywood A-lister which had managed to go under the radar of the Deathlist forum, the Deathlist itself, and all but one random other DDP team. Roy Scheider if you were wondering... DDT being so close with only 3 picks dead and a whole host of toppling terminals left was ominous enough... Might continue on this at the start of each month this year if I find the time, some of it is unexpectedly fascinating. Poor HKTMN though, that's going to be an incredible collapse...

Yeah, those of us scoreless are simply enjoying the artistry of the other players Ah, there's still three weeks left, and many of those teams are filled to the brims with potential topplers who could shuffle at any moment. Wouldn't surprise me if a team in the lead now winds up losing. Aye Morano, Ducat and Downie (my strong midfield) are still fancied to get a grip on the proceedings Ducat (unique) and Morano aren't moonlighting for the other side either, so that's a five point swing if they snuff out during this match.

And one of them is for my reserves team! Which, to be fair, backs up him being a reserve: no obit and even if he gets an obit, not unique!

Best avoid the wrestling thread, its full of stage names.

I'd have swapped him out for Snuka had I foreseen the Drop 40 thing, but, having made that bed...

I'm ahead on 2016 Pan Breed by 3 days. My 5th hit last year was Valentines Day (Lord Avebury).

Always knew I could trust in the Mail, as Mosley might have once said.

Yeah, those of us scoreless are simply enjoying the artistry of the other players Ah, there's still three weeks left, and many of those teams are filled to the brims with potential topplers who could shuffle at any moment. Wouldn't surprise me if a team in the lead now winds up losing.

Aye, and to think I thought it was going to wind up a whole bunch of 0-0s leading into the latter stages of the month!

Steve Sumner update Young Willz Thistle Do Nicely v Captain Chorizo 0-2 Maryportfuncity FC v Morbid Kid 0-4 The GUN’11 (Grim Up North) v JoeyRuss 4-2 Deathray v Heef 0-6 Chopped Liver v Death Comes to Wembley (Garn2) 2-2 Shaun of the Dead v Rad Guy 2-2 Charon v The Dead Cow 2-5 The Cooler Name (Switch) v I Might Have to Pull You Off at Half-Time (Rockhopperpenguin) 2-0 Pedro67 v Jiroemon Kimura 2-0 Msc v Gcreptile 2-5 Shaun equalises the Rad Guy, whereas Heef has had a remarkable start against Deathray. The Dead Cow keeps his break on the go against Charon, and Morbid Kid goes up a break (of sorts) on Maryport.

29 teams await a QO.

Using my own method - counting by points - I had him finish 4th last night, which backs that up. Although, it had Spade finishing 7th, so naturally I am rather skeptical about those particular findings.

He looks.... like William Hague wearing a surgical mask, actually.

Don't Panic! Actually, The Joy of Stats was quite good in a late night BBC4 way. Have the feeling he was mentioned last year - some discussion about TED talk QO likelihood?

The news of Irwin Corey's death confirmed, it's an official update of the scores! Young Willz Thistle Do Nicely v Captain Chorizo 0-2 Maryportfuncity FC v Morbid Kid 0-2 The GUN’11 (Grim Up North) v JoeyRuss 4-2 Deathray v Heef 0-4 Chopped Liver v Death Comes to Wembley (Garn2) 2-2 Shaun of the Dead v Rad Guy 0-2 Charon v The Dead Cow 0-3 The Cooler Name (Switch) v I Might Have to Pull You Off at Half-Time (Rockhopperpenguin) 2-0 Pedro67 v Jiroemon Kimura 2-0 Msc v Gcreptile 2-5

Joey's pick is this guy, who is certainly only famous for dying in my book, and might even not be dying after all. Who knows? Word on the tweet (from journalist types too so I assume it's true but unofficial) is that Irwin Corey has died, which would bring Chorizo into the lead - bad luck YW - and bring "Choppy" level in his tie, but we're reliant on any obit, any English obit. Which I'll assume will come before long, as from my very limited skimming of twitter there, I'm gathering he's sort of an American Ken Dodd?

I've been reading Paul Van Zandvliet's Facebook page to see how one of the cult picks for 2017 is doing. That was last month, and since then he had an op to reduce brain swelling, and claims the consultants are confident. Though, with a glioblastoma and secondary cancers in the liver, kidneys and pancreas, confident isn't exactly the phrase I'd be using.

Literally on the team right to the moment I was going to press "send", then swapped out on a gut feeling whim for Al-Baghdadi. Still, these things happen, and it might yet prove a good decision...

Aye, and he married his partner. But he's Deathlist Cup material at best. MMDP seems ambitious in the current situation He's on a whole bunch of the DDP contenders teams. Thank goodness a Scottish team didn't think "he sounds optimistic, on the list of immunotherapy, 2018 here we come" and not pick him this yea...oh.

I'll go for a random one next and say Wouk.