The 2019 Deathlist Cup

[The Mad Hatter 1,092]

1 hour ago, Joey Russ said:

She’s currently in hospice care.

Thank you! Seriously though we should stop discussing names. You guys are after giving away two very good picks now in this thread. From now on let's keep things hush and let those who have done their due diligence triumphant rather than handing people names.

[Sir Creep 7,070]

2 hours ago, The Mad Hatter said:

Thank you! Seriously though we should stop discussing names. You guys are after giving away two very good picks now in this thread. From now on let's keep things hush and let those who have done their due diligence triumphant rather than handing people names.

Tell that to 5-4-3-2-1 DP, I was astonished.  That's where you put B listers once Cup begins.  But nooooooo.  I posted my bitchiness in there.  Should NEVER expose good A-list Cup names in a mid-tier DP (no offense, but it isn't the Cup).  Some of these folks need to put themselves in the other partie's shoes. 
SC

[Master Tech 11]

I seriously dont know how you guys are so  knowledgeable on nearly dead celebs. Google does fuck all for me. I am not worthy, and I think I’m going out in round one, almost like January’s cadavers 

[Sir Creep 7,070]

3 minutes ago, Master Tech said:

I seriously dont know how you guys are so  knowledgeable on nearly dead celebs. Google does fuck all for me. I am not worthy, and I think I’m going out in round one, almost like January’s cadavers 

Well I promise you, I am a degreed librarian (so one would think I can type a query), and it's all about what your query is and how far you are willing to drill down.  But let me tell you, there are PLENTY of names I've never seen that pop up (I spent all day today going over Round 1 names), which tells me each person has their own secret entries they are searching and that's that.  I am always impressed with many of the DPers here.  Always.  Best I can do is read the article and try to pick out the keywords they were using to find it, and develop a search using those for future DPs.

Also -- I will never twitter so I'm way behind the 8-ball and accept there will be names I'll never know that are discovered there and only there.   

And after all that, you may have 5 names who are all similar and only 1 will die, and you need to be lucky to pick the right person and leave the chaff.  That is an art that no degree will help me with.  I'm learning every day.
SC

[msc 18,434]

Ideas can come from pretty much anywhere. Carmen Callil for example when she casually mentioned having lung cancer during a BBC4 doc. Other options include Google keyword searches (Dr Reid), random "and X has been unwell" TV/radio/news story references, blogs ( Kate Figes), Twitter (Billy Clayton), wrestling and/or Gallifrey Base posts (Howard Finkel/Nick Courtney), news on here and my personal favourite people posting their teams early on Deathlist Forum...

[Banana 859]

3 hours ago, The Mad Hatter said:

Thank you! Seriously though we should stop discussing names. You guys are after giving away two very good picks now in this thread. From now on let's keep things hush and let those who have done their due diligence triumphant rather than handing people names.

 

She’s my pick and I couldn’t care less. I don’t know why we don’t just all acknowledge that anybody taking this seriously is just going to look up all the names picked that they’ve never heard. 

[Squonk 24]

9 hours ago, Master Tech said:

I seriously dont know how you guys are so  knowledgeable on nearly dead celebs. Google does fuck all for me. I am not worthy, and I think I’m going out in round one, almost like January’s cadavers 

 

Seconded!  And thanks to @Sir Creep and @msc for their replies.  I have, as I'm sure many here also have, known friends and family with cancer.  Some of them live with it for ages and then suddenly deterioriate and expire, which is why Clive James and Leah Bracknell feature in my own shadow list for 2019; the one thing I always think about cancer is that it's unpredictable.  Johnny Clegg diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015?  My mum lasted 34 days between her diagnosis from pancreatic cancer and death, although admittedly she was around fifteen years older than him.

 

This is the first year I've had time to put together a list and I've been doing a bit of research, expanding my list since considerably even I put my shadow list together.  I've now got over 250 names on a list, ranging from the 'they're old so statistically can't last much longer', surely' to the 'got something nasty' (James, Bracknell), to the 'well you never know' (Schumacher, Minelli).   For a shadow list of 50 I'm happy to put a couple in the latter category on the list, but I wouldn't enter them into a monthly competition unless there was a specific and suitably downbeat update on their health.  In which case they'll feature on lots of lists.

 

As i'm sure you've found, googling 'celebrities with cancer' throws up unhelpful lists dated 2013, or 'celebrities who have survived cancer'.  Googling 'who will die soon' helpfully often points you back to this very forum.  One promising website of 'celebrities with serious diseases' gives you Cher with ME, or a chef with agoraphobia.  And, god help me for mentioning her name, Kim Kardashian with psoriasis.  Did psoriasis ever feature as cause of death on the death certificate?

 

In short (thank fuck for that, I hear you say) to some extent I think it's a bit of luck as to who will go in the short term, and hats off to those who do find the cancer-ridden Australian novelists in their trawls of the internet.  

 

Either that, or despite what people say about their occupations, the successful deathlisters are all oncologists. 

[Grim Up North 3,725]

11 hours ago, Master Tech said:

I seriously dont know how you guys are so  knowledgeable on nearly dead celebs. Google does fuck all for me. I am not worthy, and I think I’m going out in round one, almost like January’s cadavers 

 

Sir Creep's answer pretty much sums up my techniques too (except I don't have a library degree) and I only play at that bit and add a massive dollop of msc's personal favourite technique.

 

However before you spend your whole life googling key words for finding people who are dying imminently you should consider if making it to Round 2 of the 2020 Death List Cup is one of your life goals. These short term pools are pretty labour intensive to do well at and some of the folks on here are so good at it already that you might have to spend 20 hours a month googling hospice care etc to even just be on the same playing field - there is enough info hereabouts to be able to have the fun of taking part and an outside chance of victory against the lesser lights without dedicating your whole life to the pursuit of dying people.

 

Also the 12 month pools are much easier to build a team for - a little bit of dedication each week and accumulation over the year plus carry forwards from previous years and hey presto you can have a pretty good team. Last year's DDP winner Dr T by his own admission built his team by mining information from this very website.

[John Key 747]

15 hours ago, Joey Russ said:

She’s currently in hospice care.

Oh, right on. I didn't dig very deep on my search obviously  Interesting discussion that followed, to share information or not to share? That is the question. 

 

In the past I've occasionally just posted any list I make to the competition thread, but because this one is 1v1 you might be catching me not doing that  

[Spade_Cooley 9,514]

1 hour ago, Squonk said:

 

Seconded!  And thanks to @Sir Creep and @msc for their replies.  I have, as I'm sure many here also have, known friends and family with cancer.  Some of them live with it for ages and then suddenly deterioriate and expire, which is why Clive James and Leah Bracknell feature in my own shadow list for 2019; the one thing I always think about cancer is that it's unpredictable.  Johnny Clegg diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015?  My mum lasted 34 days between her diagnosis from pancreatic cancer and death, although admittedly she was around fifteen years older than him.

 

This is the first year I've had time to put together a list and I've been doing a bit of research, expanding my list since considerably even I put my shadow list together.  I've now got over 250 names on a list, ranging from the 'they're old so statistically can't last much longer', surely' to the 'got something nasty' (James, Bracknell), to the 'well you never know' (Schumacher, Minelli).   For a shadow list of 50 I'm happy to put a couple in the latter category on the list, but I wouldn't enter them into a monthly competition unless there was a specific and suitably downbeat update on their health.  In which case they'll feature on lots of lists.

 

As i'm sure you've found, googling 'celebrities with cancer' throws up unhelpful lists dated 2013, or 'celebrities who have survived cancer'.  Googling 'who will die soon' helpfully often points you back to this very forum.  One promising website of 'celebrities with serious diseases' gives you Cher with ME, or a chef with agoraphobia.  And, god help me for mentioning her name, Kim Kardashian with psoriasis.  Did psoriasis ever feature as cause of death on the death certificate?

 

In short (thank fuck for that, I hear you say) to some extent I think it's a bit of luck as to who will go in the short term, and hats off to those who do find the cancer-ridden Australian novelists in their trawls of the internet.  

 

Either that, or despite what people say about their occupations, the successful deathlisters are all oncologists. 

 

This post on the evolution of deadpooling is always worthwhile reading on how research has adapted over the years:

 

On 30/12/2017 at 15:54, msc said:

It's an evolution of sorts.

 

There was a deadpool.

It got won with 20 points once.

Then there was Ali, who used early number crunching, but couldn't upset the "pick all the old dying dudes" people under the standardised 5 points per hit system.

Then the rules changed to what we know today.

Then DDT showed up, with his ability to sniff out those about to snuff. (Is it good research skills, or is he actually the Reaper? I prefer the latter explanation, his off years in the DDP are meant to put us off the trail..)

Then Spade came along: equally good research game, but with more specialist know how (ie what papers obit what types of celeb, how to look for folk off the radar entirely) and blew away the rest of the field.

So the rest of the field decide to learn from Spade...

 

Now we're waiting for someone to take the next step and outperform all the Spade clones.

 

Which is a bit of a nuisance for those of us who just twigged how to get to 90 points when that's no longer enough!

[Squonk 24]

Thanks @Spade_Cooley; the bit about which papers obit which types of celeb is a point I'd already considered, although not that successfully!  It does seem to me that the BBC and newspapers in general do give undue prominence to 'one of their own'; journalists, and newsreaders who did two shifts in 1967 may well get a write up even though they've mostly been forgotten except by their nearest and dearest.  Of course, it's not enough predicting who will get an obit, you have to also work out who's going to die....!  (Ayub Ogada, a Kenyan actor and musician who had played with Peter Gabriel, died on Feb 1st but it doesn't look like he's scored a UK obituary...yet).

 

Perusing the Graun today (Guardian website for those not in the UK, a newspaper famed for its lack of proofreading and spelling errors which get published) I noticed an obituary published yesterday evening for Oliver Mtukudzi, the Zimbabwean musician.  I'd never heard of him, but I thought 'ah yes, world musician, precisely the sort of character the Guardian would obit'.

 

Then I cross referenced to the BBC website and found he'd died two weeks ago and I missed the obit at the time.  That'll be why no-one entered him in the February deathlist cup.  

 

Must. Try. Harder.

[Sir Creep 7,070]

11 hours ago, Banana said:

 

She’s my pick and I couldn’t care less. I don’t know why we don’t just all acknowledge that anybody taking this seriously is just going to look up all the names picked that they’ve never heard. 

Well cuz it took me 4+ hours to review the plethora of names I didn't or only vaguely knew.  And out of all that I think I found maybe 8 that I will keep an eye on (though they'll likely perish).  Even those 'taking it seriously' aren't going to spend that time.  I'm so very fortunate I have a job that pays me to deathpool once in a while lol.  Like yesterday (and today, if @Spade_Cooley sends me a couple letters of the alphabet to get photos for).  But maybe by the phrase 'taking it seriously' you meant ONLY those who are willing to drop 4 hours going over that massive list, in which case I simply say 'yes' lol.   But when you say 'just' it implies a flippant few minutes of research and I promise that isn't the case.  

SC

[Sir Creep 7,070]

12 hours ago, msc said:

Ideas can come from pretty much anywhere. Carmen Callil for example when she casually mentioned having lung cancer during a BBC4 doc. Other options include Google keyword searches (Dr Reid), random "and X has been unwell" TV/radio/news story references, blogs ( Kate Figes), Twitter (Billy Clayton), wrestling and/or Gallifrey Base posts (Howard Finkel/Nick Courtney), news on here and my personal favourite people posting their teams early on Deathlist Forum...

I was watching 'Globe Trekker' and some bicycle riding guy was in Seattle and stopped by some place called Gas Works Park and talked to the designer who they said was 92.  I very VERY seriously took that as a sign from the DP Gods that I was to include his name next year.  I did in fact use Richard Haag and he in fact died, as the Gods promised, he just didn't QO.  But he wasn't ill or anything, I simply took it as an offering of manna and thanked and promised the Gods I would do their bidding.  Like @msc said you just get names from anywhere.

(** thanks msc I've never searched the word 'unwell' before, very British, will help me with QO people )

[YoungWillz 21,023]

Emily Levine dead: https://blog.ted.com/remembering-emily-levine/

 

DDP Pick too.

[msc 18,434]

18 minutes ago, YoungWillz said:

Emily Levine dead: https://blog.ted.com/remembering-emily-levine/

 

DDP Pick too.

 

Tempted to count that under my very broad definition of "magazine or thing the host views as acceptable" but will give it a day or two for another QO to show up less likely to trouble the blood pressure of some on here!

[Joey Russ 7,220]

Does anyone know of her age? I could never find it, though I assumed she was most likely in her 60s/70s...

[alt obits guy 3,371]

13 minutes ago, Joey Russ said:

Does anyone know of her age? I could never find it, though I assumed she was most likely in her 60s/70s...

She was 73, as of September 2018, as noted in the story at the following link.

 

https://www.wuwm.com/post/emily-levine-how-do-we-make-peace-death-when-its-imminent#stream/0

 

(Not an obit.  Also keeping an eye out for one, given she was my pick.  I expect one will be forthcoming from NPR, the New York Times or somewhere.)

[Banana 859]

Anyway so about Heather McLean, she died on the 31st of January so didn't really matter in the long run. No obit either.

[msc 18,434]

3 minutes ago, Banana said:

Anyway so about Heather McLean, she died on the 31st of January so didn't really matter in the long run. No obit either.

 

10.    Here is what happens in the case of a team member dying prematurely (ie on 28th Feb for the March game). If you discover this before the 3rd of the month, your top sub will automatically go into place. If it is discovered on the 3rd or after, sorry about your luck. If it turns out the person was dead and known to be (this is determined via a reference in a newspaper or magazine, not social media) then subs don’t come into play.

 

 

 

[Banana 859]

*sad trombone*

[Heef 166]

John Cocks gone, so Torva bags some points: https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/110440777/popular-tv-show-builder-john-cocksy-cocks-has-died

[maryportfuncity 10,639]

2 hours ago, Heef said:

John Cocks gone, so Torva bags some points: https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/110440777/popular-tv-show-builder-john-cocksy-cocks-has-died

 

 

He's a stiff, then

 

Arf!

[msc 18,434]

John Cocks was apparently a notable reality TV star in New Zealand but I'm afraid I'll always remember his name for causing me to giggle childishly anytime Joey brought up his DDP team last year. Anyhow, 4 points to Torva, who opens up a commanding lead on The Old Crem.

 

 

1.       JoeMoneyPenny Vs. Pedro 3-3

2.       Nantonian 2013 Vs. Maryportfuncity 0-3

3.       Gooseberry Crumble Vs. John Key 0-3

4.       Spade Cooley Vs. Squonk 3-0

5. Markb4 vs Dr T 0-6

6.       Banana Vs. Great Uncle Bulgaria 3-0

7.       Yorkshire Banker Vs. Skinny Kiltrunner 3-3

8.       Alt Obits Guy Vs. Time 3-0

 

9.       Clorox Vs. Fixed Business 3-3

10.   The Mad Hatter Vs. Exu 3-0

11.   Master Tech Vs. Bibliogryphon 0-0

12.   The Unknown Man Vs. Boudicca 0-0

13.   Torva Messor Vs. The Old Crem 10-0

14.   The Quim Reaper Vs. BuffaloPhil  3-3

15.   Wormfarmer Vs. The Old Lady 3-0

[maryportfuncity 10,639]

1 hour ago, msc said:

John Cocks was apparently a notable reality TV star in New Zealand but I'm afraid I'll always remember his name for causing me to giggle childishly anytime Joey brought up his DDP team last year. Anyhow, 4 points to Torva, who opens up a commanding lead on The Old Crem.

 

 

1.       JoeMoneyPenny Vs. Pedro 3-3

2.       Nantonian 2013 Vs. Maryportfuncity 0-3

3.       Gooseberry Crumble Vs. John Key 0-3

4.       Spade Cooley Vs. Squonk 3-0

5. Markb4 vs Dr T 0-6

6.       Banana Vs. Great Uncle Bulgaria 3-0

7.       Yorkshire Banker Vs. Skinny Kiltrunner 3-3

8.       Alt Obits Guy Vs. Time 3-0

 

9.       Clorox Vs. Fixed Business 3-3

10.   The Mad Hatter Vs. Exu 3-0

11.   Master Tech Vs. Bibliogryphon 0-0

12.   The Unknown Man Vs. Boudicca 0-0

13.   Torva Messor Vs. The Old Crem 10-0

14.   The Quim Reaper Vs. BuffaloPhil  3-3

15.   Wormfarmer Vs. The Old Lady 3-0

 

 

Seriously, 7th day of the month

 

Awesome tactical masterclass here from Torva!

[John Key 747]

Maybe I should be knowing some of these NZers, but I don't know either of these nobodies  Good job Torva on leading the month!