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The Pie and Bovril Dead Pool 2020


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Week 7 update

One death this week. Caroline Flack: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51517973

This is a bit of a strange one for me. The circumstances of her death make me feel like I should post something profound either from myself or someone online who's already done it, but I don't really know what to say. I don't know anything about her or any of the television programmes she's been on, of which she can count several of the most popular British shows of the past decade. I don't really know anything about her domestic assault charge besides what's in that BBC article, which mentions her boyfriend not wanting the trial to go ahead. The Guardian reports that there are calls from barristers to change the way such trials are handled, but you wonder why it would take a high profile case and incident like this to make this sort of argument public. There also obviously has to be an extremely delicate degree of balance, given how absurd the opening paragraph to that article is.

With the vehicles for her success in mind, I think it's pertinent to discuss the role the media plays in this country. As a Scottish, mostly left-leaning politically based website, there are broad consensuses reached on topics like politics, the media, and what you call a square sausage. It's not a stretch to say there's a distrust of print media for being biased and provocative in the name of self-interest. Newspapers are a dying medium, and they exist to sell themselves. That's it. That's why there's so many adverts in them. That's why they tell the people who still buy them what they want to hear. That doesn't excuse why news broadcasters like the BBC have regular features on their programmes where journalists and news media figures report on other peoples' reporting of the news, but they're all part of the same dwindling yet self-perpetuating cycle.

The Sun was already criticised last night for pulling articles about her after news of her death came out (the Twitter and Things You Want to Share threads are where the discussion was on here), and reading that archived page you see the sort of language used by these outlets: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214205241/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10963166/caroline-flack-valentines-day-card-assault/

Here's a report of someone making a living through shock value at the expense of the mentally and physically disabled, yet look at who the critical language is aimed at. She flipped. The card is brutal. If you look at their website you could see countless other articles from various years offering barely veiled abuse at her, and it's not as if she's the only person ever targeted by the media in this way. I read on here that Piers Morgan - former editor of the Mirror when journalists there hacked peoples' phones to get stories, and who subsequently joked about it when denying it at the government inquiry - was posting about being sad at her death and the hounding of her. This is a man who's spent years offering god knows what abuse at Meghan Markle for marrying a guy. 

There's almost definitely more to come out surrounding Flack's death and the role the media played in it. She's not the only person in the public eye who's ever suffered from this, and she won't be the last. While you can't excuse the apparent beating of someone around the head with a lamp, the way these stories and these people are presented to us in the media is one sided. Personally, I don't think there's anything positive to be found in the suicide of someone at that age, someone who's been universally praised and fondly discussed by people who knew her. I'd say I hope this sort of thing won't happen again, but I doubt it. 

She died aged 40, so she's worth 85 Base Points. She gets an extra 30 for the Unnatural Causes bonus (not suicide bonus, Jacksgranda will be glad to hear) and 25 for the Deadly Duo pick of @pub car king and @weejack, with the former getting a Vice Captain bonus of 43 too. The scores then are 183 for pub car king, with 140 for weejack.

As a result, the standings look like this:

1. Bishop Briggs 242
2. pub car king 223

3. JustOneCornetto 173
4. weejack 140

5. alta-pete, sparky88 124
7. Musketeer Gripweed 96
8. thistledo 94
9. Ned Nederlander 72
10. choirbairn, ICTJohnboy 51
12. chomp my root, Fuctifano, Ludo*1, mathematics, Speckled Tangerine, The_Craig, weirdcal 48
19. Ben Twilly, CountyFan, doulikefish, statts1976uk sureiknow 44
24. 50/50 Winner, Blootoon87, cambozpar, cdisaaccie, HI HAT, LondonHMFC, LoonsYouthTeam, Mark Connolly, Meden89, microdave, psv_killie, Scotty Tunbridge, Sergeant Wilson, shuggz 22
38. Everyone else 0

The spreadsheet has also been updated with these scores: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V64rLXKhrmZf-6K4D3RyN3cR5Z_i2rh-ztODUB_dQyI/edit?usp=sharing

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1 hour ago, chomp my root said:

If I read you right Miguel, you have no knowledge of Caroline Flack's 'body of work' but you know what Piers Morgan has been getting excited about. Got it. 

 

 

Go easy on him. 

Poor guy hasn't got any points yet - in the competition he presides over.

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6 minutes ago, ICTJohnboy said:

 

Go easy on him. 

Poor guy hasn't got any points yet - in the competition he presides over.

If I'm reading his pick list properly, he's abusing his power to make sure he overwhelmingly picks solo shots from the world of literature that nobody else has thought of, so he'll pick fewer folks but they'll be worth more points when they do die. It's a reasonable strategy but you have to be patient. I'm still convinced that Kirk Douglas will turn out to have been a waste of a pick meself...

Edited by Aim Here
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2 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Week 7 update

One death this week. Caroline Flack: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51517973

This is a bit of a strange one for me. The circumstances of her death make me feel like I should post something profound either from myself or someone online who's already done it, but I don't really know what to say. I don't know anything about her or any of the television programmes she's been on, of which she can count several of the most popular British shows of the past decade. I don't really know anything about her domestic assault charge besides what's in that BBC article, which mentions her boyfriend not wanting the trial to go ahead. The Guardian reports that there are calls from barristers to change the way such trials are handled, but you wonder why it would take a high profile case and incident like this to make this sort of argument public. There also obviously has to be an extremely delicate degree of balance, given how absurd the opening paragraph to that article is.

With the vehicles for her success in mind, I think it's pertinent to discuss the role the media plays in this country. As a Scottish, mostly left-leaning politically based website, there are broad consensuses reached on topics like politics, the media, and what you call a square sausage. It's not a stretch to say there's a distrust of print media for being biased and provocative in the name of self-interest. Newspapers are a dying medium, and they exist to sell themselves. That's it. That's why there's so many adverts in them. That's why they tell the people who still buy them what they want to hear. That doesn't excuse why news broadcasters like the BBC have regular features on their programmes where journalists and news media figures report on other peoples' reporting of the news, but they're all part of the same dwindling yet self-perpetuating cycle.

The Sun was already criticised last night for pulling articles about her after news of her death came out (the Twitter and Things You Want to Share threads are where the discussion was on here), and reading that archived page you see the sort of language used by these outlets: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214205241/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10963166/caroline-flack-valentines-day-card-assault/

Here's a report of someone making a living through shock value at the expense of the mentally and physically disabled, yet look at who the critical language is aimed at. She flipped. The card is brutal. If you look at their website you could see countless other articles from various years offering barely veiled abuse at her, and it's not as if she's the only person ever targeted by the media in this way. I read on here that Piers Morgan - former editor of the Mirror when journalists there hacked peoples' phones to get stories, and who subsequently joked about it when denying it at the government inquiry - was posting about being sad at her death and the hounding of her. This is a man who's spent years offering god knows what abuse at Meghan Markle for marrying a guy. 

There's almost definitely more to come out surrounding Flack's death and the role the media played in it. She's not the only person in the public eye who's ever suffered from this, and she won't be the last. While you can't excuse the apparent beating of someone around the head with a lamp, the way these stories and these people are presented to us in the media is one sided. Personally, I don't think there's anything positive to be found in the suicide of someone at that age, someone who's been universally praised and fondly discussed by people who knew her. I'd say I hope this sort of thing won't happen again, but I doubt it. 

She died aged 40, so she's worth 85 Base Points. She gets an extra 30 for the Unnatural Causes bonus (not suicide bonus, Jacksgranda will be glad to hear) and 25 for the Deadly Duo pick of @pub car king and @weejack, with the former getting a Vice Captain bonus of 43 too. The scores then are 183 for pub car king, with 140 for weejack.

As a result, the standings look like this:

1. Bishop Briggs 242
2. pub car king 223

3. JustOneCornetto 173
4. weejack 140

5. alta-pete, sparky88 124
7. Musketeer Gripweed 96
8. thistledo 94
9. Ned Nederlander 72
10. choirbairn, ICTJohnboy 51
12. chomp my root, Fuctifano, Ludo*1, mathematics, Speckled Tangerine, The_Craig, weirdcal 48
19. Ben Twilly, CountyFan, doulikefish, statts1976uk sureiknow 44
24. 50/50 Winner, Blootoon87, cambozpar, cdisaaccie, HI HAT, LondonHMFC, LoonsYouthTeam, Mark Connolly, Meden89, microdave, psv_killie, Scotty Tunbridge, Sergeant Wilson, shuggz 22
38. Everyone else 0

The spreadsheet has also been updated with these scores: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V64rLXKhrmZf-6K4D3RyN3cR5Z_i2rh-ztODUB_dQyI/edit?usp=sharing

The seamless switch from sombre moralising to administering the Dead Pool league points here is absolutely immense.

It's Chris Morris level satire only for real.

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1 hour ago, chomp my root said:

If I read you right Miguel, you have no knowledge of Caroline Flack's 'body of work' but you know what Piers Morgan has been getting excited about. Got it. 

 

Is there a connection between the two my ten minutes of googling missed, besides them both achieving fame through vacuous entertainment formats?

9 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

If I'm reading his pick list properly, he's abusing his power to make sure he overwhelmingly picks solo shots from the world of literature that nobody else has thought of, so he'll pick fewer folks but they'll be worth more points when they do die. It's a reasonable strategy but you have to be patient. I'm still convinced that Kirk Douglas will turn out to have been a waste of a pick meself...

You'd be on to something if I hadn't been submitting the same names since 2015

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If James Kelman, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, Don Delilo and Michael Ondaatje all die in the same year i'll greet. So nul points for you again hopefully.

Obviously we don't know about Pynchon but the rest of them seem in good health. I'm expecting more books from Delilo, Ondaatje and Kelman. I think McCarthy is finished writing but I would still be shocked if he kicked the bucket any time soon.

 

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TBF I'll fucking lamp you is not a bad saying for that card before she went and killed herself.  I can remember in 2016 being gutted one morning when David Bowie died.  I was working with some girl who was a bit of an airhead and had no clue who he was.  I mentioned that day I was totally scunnered because I had listened to Bowie all my days and I was in a mood because he died.  "Oh he wisnae yer best pal so get on with it".  Now that was a great put down. Truth be told I was quite impressed and I vowed to say the same if someone like Kardashian died.  Well guess who was all greeting and tears today at work about this and guess what I said.

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35 minutes ago, Lofarl said:

TBF I'll fucking lamp you is not a bad saying for that card before she went and killed herself.  I can remember in 2016 being gutted one morning when David Bowie died.  I was working with some girl who was a bit of an airhead and had no clue who he was.  I mentioned that day I was totally scunnered because I had listened to Bowie all my days and I was in a mood because he died.  "Oh he wisnae yer best pal so get on with it".  Now that was a great put down. Truth be told I was quite impressed and I vowed to say the same if someone like Kardashian died.  Well guess who was all greeting and tears today at work about this and guess what I said.

tumblr_mckqhm8BNB1ruyz4so1_r1_500.gifv

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