Jim Thornton, bless his heart, did not like Eric Hobsbawm, but at least he gave him a fair shake. And a poem. My hit. (Duh.) I, Amelia, get 7 points.

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Eric Hobsbawm
The World's Worst Historian

Eric Hobsbawm became a communist at the very start of the century in which communism killed millions and impoverished its followers, while the capitalist democracies lifted unprecedented numbers out of poverty for the first time in human history. He is remembered today as the last Party apologist standing. For an ignorant peasant without access to books, this might be forgivable. For a professional historian it was a tour de force of pigheadedness.

Hobsbawm's support for the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, which set in train the Second World War (on the grounds that it was "an anti-capitalist war") made him a slow learner. But when he called the Russian invasion of Hungary a "revolt of workers and intellectuals against the pseudo-Communist bureaucracies and police systems of Poland and Hungary," he was clearly wilfully blind. By the time he labelled the Prague Spring suppression by 50,000 Soviet tanks "only a limited, even nominal, use of armed coercion" he was to all intents mad. If he hadn't lived so long, no one would have taken much notice.

But he refused to die, and never changed his views. Most notoriously, in 1994 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when asked by Michael Ignatieff if the 15 to 20 million dead at Stalin's hands would have been justified if communism had achieved its aims, he answered with the single word: Yes.

Even in his later books he omitted inconvenient facts, such as the Russian massacre of Polish officers at Katyn, and tried to exonerate Stalin from blame for the suppression of the Warsaw uprising. There were few communist dictators he couldn't find a good word to say about. He called Honecker and Ceaucescu "far from unimpressive."

The general public ignored him — his books never sold outside academia, and to the working class he was an irrelevance. In 1978, after he had criticised the Labour leadership for failing to progress socialism, the left-wing MP Dennis Skinner said "the writings of bloody 'Obsbum were as relevant to the Labour party as Sporting Life."

His views had become a joke, but not his hypocrisy. He never made any effort to live in the countries he so admired — in later life he did the opposite and took up university posts in the United States. Despite arguing for redistribution of wealth, he failed to redistribute that bit which he had control over; he lived in a nice house in Hampstead and maintained a second holiday home in Wales.

But at least he was a left winger, so the chattering classes never disowned him. Tony Blair made him a Companion of Honour, and obituaries in the Guardian and New York Times praised him as a historian, although they couldn't spell his name. And ugly as he was, he still got laid occasionally — he had two wives, two children by the second one and a third, illegitimate son.

Buford, bless his heart, wrote this update. Thank you thank you thank you.

* * *

Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot): Brother Number 1

Long Reth (aka Nuon Chea): Brother Number 2

Kim Trang (aka Ieng Sary): Brother Number 3

Norodom Sihanouk: Brother Can You Spare A Dime

Prince, King, Head of State, Stooge, Puppet, Cold War Sponge. Dead at 89. It's about frickin' time.

Between the heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, house arrest, priapism, nipple rash and heartbreak of psoriasis, it's surprising Sihanouk made it to 50.

Sihanouk wanted to keep Cambodia out of World War II — so, when the Japanese got rid of the French colonial administration, they kept him around to dazzle the rubes into thinking that things were looking up. After the war, the French again kept him around, pretty much for the same reason the U.S. kept Hirohito around: Governing a populace is much easier when you've got the local boss in your hip pocket.

Sihanouk wanted to keep Cambodia out of the Vietnam war — so he let the North Vietnamese set up bases and supply routes in his country. (Of course, China buying his rice at way-above-market prices didn't hurt.)

Sihanouk wanted to get back at the generals that deposed him — so he sided with the Khmer Rouge. That worked out real well. Just ask the three to five million of his countrymen who were worked to death, starved, shot, flogged, hanged and/or imprisoned by his friends, the aforementioned "Brothers."

When Sihanouk was out of favor back home, he could always find a cozy couch to curl up on in Beijing or Pyongyang. Of course, it had to be a pretty big couch, what with all of the wives, mistresses and concubines in Sihanouk's retinue. He should've just saved himself a lot of grief, cozied up to Hugh Hefner, and made himself at home on the front couch with Hef on movie night. (Sihanouk was quite the film buff, you know.)

Norodom Sihanouk cashed out his Netflix account on October 15th in Beijing. Some AO Deadpoolers had him. Big whoop. This guy was the geriatric equivalent of Amy Winehouse. How hard was it gonna be predicting his death?!? Ask Allen Kirshner, Another Lurker, Buford, Grim McGraw, johnnyb and Kathi. Five points each.

Sihanouk was an ex-king. In honor of his state funeral, I'd offer this alternative: Award everyone in the pool a kill and a point. Think of it as a general amnesty for our assembled miscreants.

We can raise a toast to Sihanouk, to his family, and to his legacy as a shrewd survivor. I'd like to lift my tankard and pronounce my toast with the same sentiment once voiced by Dean Wormer: "He [was] a sneaky little shit." Amen.

— Buford

WEP, our only player from Germany, just sends these along without any fanfare. They're very clever, too. Oh, what the hell, I'll go all the way to hilarious. What more can a deadpool hostess ask for? Hint, hint, the rest of you.

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Let's play a game. I think of a person and give you ten hints. You guess who it is. That sounds funny.

First hint: He is a composer.
Tschaikowski?

No. A German composer.
Mozart?

No. Born in Germany.
Beethoven?

No. He also died in Germany.
Bach?

No. Later.
Bach jr.?

No. He was a composer in the 20th century.
Hans Pfitzner?

No. More successful.
Richard Strauss?

No. More dodecaphonic.
Arnold Schönberg?

No, I mean the most influential composer of the 20th century.
Hans Zimmer?

No. He died in October 2012.
Hans Zimmer is dead?

As we can see, we need more than ten hints to get the name of Hans Werner Henze. This does not mean that he had bad management; it only shows the popularity of twelve-tone technique.

His compositions are influenced by Arnold Schönberg, which means that he accepted nearly every noise as "music." He later called Igor Strawinsky his role model, which meant a complete turnaround in some way. He often changed his mind about his work, as well as about his political positions.

Despite calling himself "nonpolitical," Henze started his work in the 1940s, the same time his career as Wehrmacht soldier started. There may be a connection between his NSDAP membership and his reputation. But maybe not. In the 1960s, he joined the Communist Party of Italy. Which is not only a contrast to his Nazi career, but also to his religious motivated works in the 1990s ("Requiem," 1992) and his anti-war opera "We Come to the River."

Henze composed sinfonies, operas and chambermusik. His opera "Prince of Homburg" was written by Ingeborg Bachmann, who was his life partner at the same time. Also a very interesting connection. And now, Mr. Henze ended his connection between body and soul and came to the river himself.

But let's be honest: Even if he was called "Germany's most influential composer of the 20th century," we would have to do much research to get his name. Except one person: Garrett, who picked him for his AODP team, scoring ten points. Henze was 86, 5 points for the age, five for the solo, leaving him now at least as the "most popular German composer on AO Deadpool 2012."

— WEP