Dead Pool 2008

If you are easily offended then look away now!!

Inspired a few summers ago by a dreadful days cricket at the SCG v South Africa I have just submitted my entry into Dead Pool 2008!!
Some readers will be horrified at a competition to list 15 well known people worldwide that you predict/hope/fear might die in the next 12 months and in so doing hope to win the pool. We contribute $5 each and this years rules have been altered to spice up the competition!!

Points are awarded on a '100- the age of the deceased' basis... meaning that young and accidental or sudden illness deaths are worth a lot more points!!

Suffice to say that means not just looking up IMDb's oldest actor list or TMZ gossip website but actually choosing a few potential and youthful candidates. The competition should run to the wire as well as a youngster meeting their demise could 'snooker' someone with 3 or 4 correct octogenarians!!

I have modified my list to accommodate a few roughies and as such risk losing out where if nobody young kicks off there will be value in some of those age-ing movie stars!!

At the risk of giving hints to competitors yet to submit their lists [deadline is end of Day 5 of the Sydney Cricket Ground Test Australia v India which started today!!] here is my 2008 list!!

1. Lindesay Lohan: too stupid to do the job properly I reckon
2. Nelson Mandela: this would be very sad but Nelson has been unwell
3. Billy Graham: getting on and lost his partner
4. Steve Fossett: yet to be declared legally dead
5. Derryn Hinch: mystery recovery?
6. Juan Antonio Samaranch: recently unwell
7. Edmund Hilary: the age-ing mountaineer
8. Ariel Sharon: kept on a machine while a peace deal is possible
9. Nathan Ablett: sad case of hoping not
10. Fidel Castro: who really knows?
11. Ronnie Biggs: unwell in prison hospital
12. Mischa Barton: again too silly to pull it off?
13. Phyllis Diller: how old?
14. Farah Fawcett: not at all well
15. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari: 19, going back to Oxford but major points

I know, I know you're horrified and so was Adam Spencer [Sleek Geek and ABC Radio DJ] that first year along the row from us at the cricket!! See an earlier post!!
So no room for Dick Cheney, Les Paul, Van Johnson, Kirk Douglas, Amy Whinehouse or a few others who made my shortlist!!
I keep track through the year by having signed up for an e-thing called the 'celebrity death beeper' and I get an email letting me know who has kicked off. Oh yeah and in 2007 I had Pavarotti and Stan Zemanek but lost out when I forgot about Saddam's cousin and a second prisoner who were all executed as well!!