TV's John McCririck, pictured here doing fuck knows what.   Story by: Diamond Hard.

Celebrity deathwave will hit in 2002.

Fame. We all fancy a bit of that thanks very much for asking - the glamour, the money, the chauffeur driven sex. But all too often we forget that fame comes with a price tag stuck on it: the price tag of fear. How much? Loads. The constant fear of an ever-present threat - the threat that it could be your number that comes up in the next celebrity deathwave.

Many of us remember the great big tidal wave of 1997 (when Kurt Cobain, Princess Diana, Buster Merrifield, Rod Hull and Emu all popped their clogs), when all year national newspapers consisted of only one or two pages of news - the rest being taken up by obituaries of the newly and famously dead.

Desperate to find an explanation for the madness, analysts drew up all over their charts and graphs, and before long a pattern was emerging - a pattern that spelt DEATH in the shape of a WAVE.

Showbiz experts (like The Sun's Dominic Mohan) have pinpointed 2002 for the next big wave to hit, and the wise among the great and good of celebrity bay are already packing up their volleyball sets and burying their famous heads in the sand.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Idiotica - in collaboration with the launch of Hello magazine's new sister publication Goodbye - has teamed up with Channel 4 Racing's John McCririck to offer you fantastic odds on our predictions for the 2002 celebrity deathwave.

John McCririck's odds on favourites to go all dead in 2002:

Queen Mum - 2:1 - favourite to go by Jan 31; sunk off Cornish coast - dial 761

The other fat lady - 2:1 - butter - dial 190

Michael Jackson - 3:1 - fell off bicycle - dial 762

Spike Milligan - 2:1 - trips over a rake - dial 323

Bruce Forsyth - 4:1 -nice to see you, to see you dead. Wasp sting - dial 903

Stevie Wonder - 17:1 - run over at pedestrian crossing. Ice-cream van - dial 751

George Harrison - 21:3 - falls off roof, fixing TV aerial - dial 978

Trevor McDonald - 7:1 - discovered in sitting room, auto-erotic asphyxiation - dial 222

Heather Mills - 31:2 - cancer - dial 293

Michael Stipe -run over by U2- dial 385

Clive James - 7:2 - electrocution, faulty kettle blamed - dial 475

Henry Kelly - 7:1 - house fire, fondue set (never learns) - dial 149

Princess Margaret - 3:2 - bath too hot - dial 822

Ken Russell - 16:3 - snowball in face, Julian Sands caught cold handed - dial 910

Nick Ross - 100:1 - assassination, shot on own doorstep - dial 592

John Thaw - 20:3 - murdered - several likely suspects among Oxford academia - investigation ongoing - dial 219

Atomic Kitten - 7:3 - asphyxiation, all three choke on same cock (now 2002's biggest killer) - dial 671

Charlotte Church - 100:1 - cut off in prime, crash in Paris tunnel, candle in wind etc. - dial 891

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LINES ARE NOW CLOSED.
No more bets please. At the end of December 2001 John offered the follwing odds on your last-minute predictions...

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celebrity: Ricky Gervaise
death: Throat Cancer after excessive voiceover work

celebrity: Cat Stevens
death: Shot:Mistaken for Bin Laden

celebrity: John McCririck
death: by having his stupid fucking 'eccentric' face smashed in with a brick - police question 2.5 million suspects

celebrity: Liza Minelli
death: Bulimia

celebrity: David Beckham
death: Choking on posh shit in scat sex play

celebrity: Pope John Paul II
death: Popemobile crash

celebrity: Les Dennis
death: cockfight

celebrity: Osama Bin Laden
death: peanut butter allergy

celebrity: J.K.Rowling
death: Sheer bastard exhaustion

celebrity: Judy Finnegan
death: Fucked to death by Cool and the Gang

celebrity: Cool and the Gang
death: Cock syphilis

celebrity: Stuart Lubbock
death: Barrymore up bum