The Pie & Bovril Dead Pool 2019

[peasy23]

Jags fan lottery winner and huge benefactor to the club Colin Weir dies. 

Thistle fans had a minute's applause today in the 3rd, 12th, 24th, 29th, 34th and 43rd minutes.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

21 hours ago, BillyAnchor said:

Jags fan lottery winner and huge benefactor to the club Colin Weir dies. 

How early is too early to go calling on his estranged widow?

[supermik]

^^^Chubby Chaser.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

1 minute ago, supermik said:

^^^Chubby Chaser.

It is clear as day that there will be no chase partaken given the nick of her.

[BillyAnchor]

36 minutes ago, Zen Archer Esq. said:

How early is too early to go calling on his estranged widow?

Unconventional birds you want to pummel thread for this pish

[chomp my root]

13 hours ago, peasy23 said:

On 28/12/2019 at 00:00, BillyAnchor said:

Jags fan lottery winner and huge benefactor to the club Colin Weir dies. 

Thistle fans had a minute's applause today in the 3rd, 12th, 24th, 29th, 34th and 43rd minutes.

I genuinely 'LOL'd' at that. Bravo Sir.

[Sergeant Wilson]

12 hours ago, Zen Archer Esq. said:

How early is too early to go calling on his estranged widow?

Me yesterday.

[The DA]

Alasdair Gray, he of Lanark and Janine.  85.   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50938892

[Mark Connolly]

Poor Thing

[Aim Here]

46 minutes ago, The DA said:

Alasdair Gray, he of Lanark and Janine.  85.   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50938892

85 and one day exactly. Miguel missed out on  57 bonus  points because the inconsiderate sod hung on a day too long.

[Miguel Sanchez]

6 hours ago, The DA said:

Alasdair Gray, he of Lanark and Janine.  85.   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50938892

 

5 hours ago, Aim Here said:

85 and one day exactly. Miguel missed out on  57 bonus  points because the inconsiderate sod hung on a day too long.

Lousy old basta-

 

Week 52 update

Sorry, lousy old b*****d. One death this week, Scottish writer Alasdair Gray: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50938892

A copy of Lanark has been in my to-read pile since I bought it in October 2015. For a similar amount of time I've been looking at the mural in Hillhead Subway station when I go to work:

While looking for a picture of that I discovered that there's a convicted sex offender included on it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43071841

The point I'm attempting to make here is that I've had the opportunity to read an iconic novel by someone integral to the cultural history of my home, and I haven't. Since I started participating in the Dead Pool my team has always been a majority of writers. Some of them I've read, some I haven't. I'd love to be able to give you my own thoughts on Gray's work, or share a profound quotation from them, but I can't. With similar sentiment, I'll let someone smarter than me sum him up instead: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/oct/12/fiction.alasdairgray

 

Quote

As though whispering aloud what I had always assumed a local secret, Gray spoke using the words, syntax and places of home, yet he did it without the tang of apology or rude-mechanical humour, the Brigadoon tartanry or long-dead warrior chieftain stuff I had grown used to thinking were the options for how my nation appeared in print. Neither had he chosen the heather-strewn hills, the dank glens, the isles or the fishing communities as his location. With its Royal Infirmary cupolas and Victorian Great Western road, its Blackhill kids and the Clyde widening out to the sea, the place in which this epic would reveal itself was Glasgow, a breathing, many-layered Glasgow that was not just an industrial warehouse for ships, but a resonant and fully-claimed city that could stand for the nation entire.

"Glasgow is a magnificent city," said McAlpin. "Why do we hardly ever notice that?" "Because nobody imagines living here," said Thaw... "Think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he's already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn't been used by an artist, not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively."

A city imagined at length into being itself. I had fleetingly encountered so-called "magic realism" in translated Spanish, swallowed whole some oddball 19th-century Russians, a few American books that contained depictions of very "ordinary" lives told with grandeur and depth, but nothing of the kind about, well, home. I had barely encountered any of my country's writers at all, let alone one this engaged with the present tense, this bravely alive. Scotland, my schooling had at times implied, at times openly professed, was a small, cold, bitter place that had no political clout, not much cultural heritage, joyless people and writers who were all male and all dead. As modern Scots, we were unfit to offer Art, politics or philosophy to the world, we were fit only for losing at football games. Not so, this book said: on a number of levels, not so.

Not that the voice was naive. It too had been subjected to the unspoken Scottish catechism, but the familiar panoply of self-hatreds and jealously internalised repressions were present in the text, outed, as it were, that they might be moved beyond. "I do not love Glasgow much," Thaw admits gloomily. "I sometimes actively hate it. But I am at home there." And who can blame him? His city is sick and repressive, lacking light, hope and love. It breeds asthmas and illness. dependencies and unhealthy sexual stupors, threatens dragon-hide and twittering rigor - all versions of emotional and intellectual hopelessness. Yet how he strives.

My condolences to any Embronians, east coasters or teuchters with an inferiority complex. Gray was 85 (just) when he died, so he's worth 40 Base Points. He was a Solo Shot for me for an extra 50, plus the Deadly December bonus of 40 more Base Points, with the potential for the Last Gasp bonus. For now though he's 130 points. As a result, the standings now look like this:

1. alta-pete 760
2. Oooooft 728
3. chomp my root 601
4. sparky88 550
5. Ned Nederlander 545
6. Bishop Briggs 539
7. DBA 514
8. Once A Rover always a Rover 502
9. Indale Winton 456
10. The Naitch 455
11. JustOneCornetto 445
12. Miguel Sanchez 424
13. peasy23 417
14. Mark Connolly 399
15. cdisaaccie 378
16. Arabdownunder 375
=17. The DA, weirdcal 373
19. Savage Henry 371
20. Fuctifano 369
21. RadgerTheBadger 361
22. gingette 339
23. lichtgilphead 335
24. JamieStevenson 329
25. lolls 323
26. psv_killie 313
27. sleazy 312
28. Lex 309
29. Karpaty 307
30. Melanius Mullarkey 295
31. 10menwent2mow 276
32. Sweaty Morph 274
33. Meden89 264
34. qos_75 254
35. HI HAT 240
36. nessies long lost ghost 239
37. Ross. 233
38. Ziggy, gkneil 217
=39. Blootoon87, ICTJohnboy 213
41. Microdave 209
42. Bert Raccoon 206
=43. LoonsYouthTeam, choirbairn  201
45. statts1976uk 190
46. atfccfc 179
47. Willie adie 173
48. Arbroathlegend36-0 165
=49. Musketeer Gripweed, Sloop John B 152
51. Billy Jean King 145
52. Gareth_Glasgow 140
53. cambozpar 139
54. Ben Twilly 138
55. weejack 123
56. thisal 111
57. mathematics 109
=58. wellinwigan, BWAClyde 92
60. Lofarl 84
61. AyrTroopMajor 82
62. The Master 70
63. Bold Rover 69
64. Sergeant Wilson 49
=65.  killiefan27, Henderson to Deliver..., Kilbowie's Finest 46
68. expatowner, Aim Here 45
=69. Eednud, ToBeSomeone 36
71.  pub car king 30
72. MixuFixit 27
=======================
ZERO POINTERS: @50/50 Winner, Consolidate, @dee_62, @doulikefish, @D.V.T., @Flybhoy, @JTS98, @pawpar, @RussellAnderson, @Salvo Montalbano, @Shotgun, @shuggz, @speckled tangerine, @weemac

The spreadsheet has been updated with these scores: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NlaNlT-7ZGlQGqszGFfBb49tVzFpWITUAR7BUjApJUc/edit?usp=sharing

==============================

A few bits of admin:

- The Week 52.5 update will come on Wednesday, with a final list of the standings. The Last Gasp bonus will be added and every pick will be checked just in case I missed anyone. It's pretty much impossible to keep track of some of the more obscure picks, so if anyone knows of a way to conveniently check for news on a list of people, please, let me know. 

- I've tagged the Zero Pointers for this final update (except Consolidate, who doesn't seem to exist). Sorry boys, better luck next year. I hope you'll give it another try (I know some of you already have).

- Don't forget, only three days to sign up for 2020:

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Miguel Sanchez

[JustOneCornetto]

@Miguel Sanchez you've missed your Deadly December bonus for Alasdair Gray, I'll have the 25 points if you don't want them!!!

Edit - yes 40 points for him, you're breathing down my neck now, wish I hadn't told you !

Edited December 29, 2019 by JustOneCornetto

[Miguel Sanchez]

Oh ho, Deadly December is an extra 40 points. Fucking kaching. 

[LoonsYouthTeam]

I'm an idiot and only just realised when checking for 2020 that one of my picks died in January! Kaye Ballard has been deid nearly a year:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-kaye-ballard-actress-comedian-and-nightclub-singer-who-was-a-us-tv-regular-1-4861728

If I knew anything about her I'd make a pun.

[Mark Connolly]

That's not Oh Kaye.

[cdhafc1874]

Call Kaye...

...can't she's deid.

[peasy23]

Neil Innes, Rutle and Occasional Python, makes his bid for the Last Gasp bonus. Hate these folk that die without giving us any warning that they were ill first.

https://news.sky.com/story/neil-innes-monty-python-actor-and-rutles-musician-dies-aged-75-11898171

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

He's a Sub-Urban Spaceman. 

[tamthebam]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50945411

Sue Lyon, star of Kubrick's  "Lolita".

Although she's deid she's lyon still.

 

[Dan Steele]

Neil Outness.