The Friday Irregular
Volume 9, Number 2 (TFIr #209)  --  9th January 2004

Edited by and copyright ©2004 Simon Lamont

tfir@simonlamont.co.uk

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 9 January -  Announcement of the daguerreotype process at the French Academy of Science, 1839. Lady Jennie Churchill born, 1854. Napoleon III died, 1873. Singer Dame Gracie Fields born, 1898. Richard M. Nixon born, 1913. Happy birthday to: actress Joely Richardson (39), musician Crystal Gayle (53), actress Susannah York (62), musician Joan Baez (63), actor Clive Dunn (84).
 
Saturday 10 January -  Botanist Carolus Linnaeus died, 1778. World's first underground railway opened in London, 1863. Sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth born, 1903. Fashion designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel died, 1971. Sir Clive Sinclair launched the C5 electric vehicle, 1985. Happy birthday to: actresses Marnie Reece-Wilmore (30) & Trini Alvarado (37), musicians Pat Benatar (51) & musician Rod Stewart (59), actor Anton Rodgers (71).
 
Sunday 11 January -  First lottery drawn in England, 1569. Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the US Treasury, born, 1755. Ezra Cornell, founder of Western Union Telegraph & Cornell University born, 1807. Novelist & poet Thomas Hardy died, 1928. Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the Labour Party 1955-63, died, 1963. Happy birthday to: actress Amanda Peet (32), musician Mary J. Blige (33), soccer manager Bryan Robson (47), actor John Session (51), Socialist Labour Party founder Arthur Scargill (66). Today is: Proclamation of the Republic Day in Albania. National Unity Day in Nepal. De Hostos' Birthday in Puerto Rico.
 
Monday 12 January -  Secretary of the Continental Congress John Hancock born, 1737. Artist John Singer Sargent born, 1856. Novelist Jack London born, 1876. "Batman" TV series premiered, 1966. Novelist Dame Agatha Christie died, 1976. Happy birthday to: actress Kirstie Alley (49), athlete Brendan Foster & actor Anthony Andrews (both 56), boxer Joe Frazier (59), entertainer Des O'Connor (72).
 
Tuesday 13 January -  Poet Edmund Spenser died, 1599. Anthony Faas granted patent for the accordion, 1854. An editorial in the New York Times said that rockets could never fly, 1920. TV comedian Ernie Kovacs died, 1962. The Y.M.C.A. sued pop group The Village People over their song of the same title, 1979. Happy birthday to: actress Nicole Eggert (32), snooker player Stephen Hendry (35), actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus & musician Graham 'Suggs' McPherson (both 43), Paddington Bear creator Michael Bond (78). Today is: Tyvendedagen in Norway. Knut's Day in Sweden. National Liberation Day in Togo.
 
Wednesday 14 January -  Edmund Halley, Astronomer Royal 1721-42, died, 1742. Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone to Queen Victoria, 1878. Writer Lewis Carroll died, 1898. Photographer Sir Cecil Beaton born, 1904. "The Simpsons" premiered on US TV, 1990. Happy birthday to: musician L.L. Cool J (36), actresses Jemma Redgrave (39) & Faye Dunaway (63), theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn (64), actor Richard Briers (70).
 
Thursday 15 January -  Elisha Otis granted patent for the steam elevator, 1861. 40 killed when the ice broke on Regent's Park Lake in London, 1867. Martin Luther King born, 1929. Building work completed on The Pentagon, Arlington, VA, 1948. Actor Ray Bolger died, 1987. Happy birthday to: TV presenter Edith Bowman (29), actor James Nesbitt (39), musician Captain Beefheart (63), TV presenter Frank Bough (71), actor Frank Thornton (83). Today is: Feast of Christ of Esquipulas in Guatemala. Seijin no Hi (Coming of Age, or Adults' Day) in Japan. Last Quarter Moon.

THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Erica Olsen:
We've all got our little preconceived notions about what librarians are and what they do. Many people think of them as diminutive civil servants, scuttling about "Sssh-ing" people and stamping things. Well, think again, buster. Librarians have degrees. They go to graduate school for Information Science and become masters of data systems and human/computer interaction. Librarians can catalogue anything from an onion to a dog's ear... Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old Field and Stream magazines. They can find data for your term paper that you never knew existed... People become librarians because they know too much. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They cannot be confined to disciplines... They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge.

TOTALLY TRIVIAL...

The first movie to depict Jesse James was "Under a Black Flag" made in 1921. The role of the outlaw was taken by James's own son, Jesse James Jr.


FILM QUIZ

A mixed bag of quotations this week. Answers next week or from the regular address.

Last issue's lines were:


WEIRD WORLD NEWS

Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...

DUMB CRIMS... It's one thing to be heavily drunk before attempting to rob a bank, it's another to wear a disguise of woolly cap, sunglasses and fake vampire teeth, plus toy gun, but it's a real achievement in the annals of dumb crimdom to be arrested before you even get into the bank, but that's what a 45-year-old German managed to do, as he pointed his toy gun at a police patrol car in the bank's car park. Officers overpowered him, confiscated his disguise and gun, and took a blood sample to test for alcohol levels. A Columbian burglar may have recalled the American man who tried to have himself mailed to his parents' house last year, to save paying a full travel fare, when he hid inside a big box and had it posted to a wealthy household, with the intention of robbing the joint once inside. The plan failed when the owners of the house, suspicious at such a large and unsolicited parcel, called the bomb squad. This week's Dumb Crim of the Week though is the Albany, New York, man, who hired a taxi as his getaway car for a bank heist. The aptly-named Robert Pratt allegedly had the taxi drive him from his home to a Charter One Bank branch, and asked the driver to keep the engine running while he went inside, told a teller that he had a bomb, was given an undisclosed sum of money, and then took the taxi to a shopping precinct, where he gave the cabbie about US$180, five times the expected fare. The cabbie saw police cars speeding towards the bank, became suspicious and flagged one down to tell them about Pratt, who was arrested in the mall half-an-hour later. Other dumb crims this week include: the Swedish burglar who used his victim's toilet but forgot to flush, leaving easily-recoverable DNA evidence; the American doughnut manufacturer jailed for labelling his high-fat produce as low-fat; the female nudist arrested for breaking her hometown's no-public-nudity laws after posting pictures of herself in a local bar on the Internet; and this week's Dumb Cop - the Belgian traffic officer who accidentally wrote the time-of-incident in the speed box on a ticket and subsequently gave a Citroën Xara Picasso (top speed 110mph) driver a speeding ticket for doing 1,154mph - about Mach 1.5!

WE DIG ARCHAEOLOGY... When 50-year-old Marion Garry found flat stones in an unusual arrangement buried beneath her Fife, Scotland, garden, she thought she was on to something historical, so she called in archaeologist Douglas Speirs. "We thought we'd hit the jackpot," he told reporters, as he initially thought that the stones were the first evidence of a ninth-century Viking settlement in Scotland. His team spent days excavating the site, but the discovery of things like a 1940s baby's pacifier began to raise doubts, although it's not impossible for modern objects to turn up in dig sites. However, once the site was completely revealed and the stones scientifically analysed, the truth was revealed - it was a 1940s sunken patio. "After all our efforts, you can imagine how silly we feel," Speirs said. Ms Garry now plans to turn the patio into a garden feature.

IT AIN'T OVER... If you've ever wondered, as we have, just what the soprano's singing about (whatever the language), you're probably not alone. A study at the University of New South Wales and published in Nature, has found that the vocal techniques sopranos employ to boost their singing volume in the higher registers comes at the expense of clarity, with some phonemes sounding like others. [Our last encounter with opera was a production of Otello in Italian that some corporate sponsor had paid big bucks for a translation to be included with the programme - unfortunately nobody could read it in the darkened auditorium...]

SPORTS ROUND-UP... China's national table tennis coach has banned his squad from "falling in love" ahead of the Athens Olympics. Marva Ged, a 56-year-old amateur golfer with a 15 handicap had never scored a hole in one in 40 years of playing the game, until she took to her local course in Boynton Beach, Florida, last week. She achieved the ultimate shot at the 123-yard sixth, then at the 113-yard thirteenth told her three playing partners it would be special if someone else also got a hole in one. Well someone did - she aced that hole as well, at odds of 67 million to 1 for a player to achieve a hole in one twice in the same round. Ukranian balloonist claim lowest altitude record after flying up a 300-metre mine shaft.

ANIMAL ROUND-UP... Reticulated python claimed by Kendal, Indonesia, recreation park to be a world-record 49-feet long, and which made the news around the world, is really only 21-feet. Australian man-eating crocodile "probably dead." A birdwatcher in Northern England who sighted a rare Norwegian Robin in her garden called the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to report it, as only 30 had been sighted in Britain since 1919. Unfortunately she also had to confess that the bird was dead - her cat had killed it.

WEIRD WAR NEWS... Madame Tussaud's annual poll of its visitors' opinions has placed George Bush as the Most Feared Person in the world, followed by Tony Blair. Osama Bin Laden placed third. Part of San Antonio International Airport, Texas, shut down after cleaning solution on baggage tested false-positive as TNT. A Florida man has invented a mailbox that will sterilise mail.

STORIES WHICH ALSO CAUGHT OUR EYE THIS WEEK: Man dressed as chicken robs convenience store. Oklahoma prisoners go on hunger strike in protest at introduction of 'heart-healthy' menu in their cafeteria. US M&Ms only available in black-and-white for the next few months. 44-year-old nun qualifies as karate black belt. Croatian man tries to thaw out his car's frozen engine by lighting a fire underneath it, with all-too-predictable results. Brazilian preacher fines bride after she was three hours late for her wedding. UK Office of National Statistics research finds that DIY and car maintenance are the only household chores men spend more time on than women - but women live around five years longer. McCain Foods poll names David Blaine the biggest loser of 2003, ahead of former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, Eurovision flops Jemini, the entire Australian nation, Victoria Beckham and game show cheat Charles Ingram.


ENTERTAINMENT BRIEFS

Film: Peter Jackson keep to make The Hobbit if rights can be cleared. Rumours that Rowan Atkinson is to play Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire denied by his agent. Natalie Portman described Obi-Wan/Anakin fight in Star Wars: Episode III as 'amazing' and 'pretty sick'. Nicole Kidman close to inking for Bewitched movie lead. Natalie Portman considering Leon sequel. Robert De Niro voted greatest film star of all time by Choices Video customers. Around 50 continuity mistakes spotted in Return of the King. UK DVD sales rose by 75% last year; VHS sales fell 19%. Global DVD sales also passed VHS, for the first time, in 2002.

TV: Elle McPerson rumoured to be joining Matt LeBlanc's Friends spin-off, reviving the character of Joey's one-time roommate Janine. Channel 4 forced to defend sleep-deprivation reality game show Shattered [As far as we can tell, it's Touch the Truck but without the truck, and less interesting]. Billie Piper to play care home teen in BBC drama. BBC1 gained 34.8% (45.5% peak) audience share for Christmas Day, against ITV1's 24% (29.9% peak). BBC to produce twice-weekly soap version of Dicken's Bleak House. Buffy's Alyson Hannigan to take West End stage lead in When Harry Met Sally.

Music & Radio: Mel C to release on her own label after being dropped by Virgin. Live REM DVD to be released. Gibson launch programmable digital guitars. Vines to play single London gig next month. Peter Gabriel to play six UK dates this summer. Beyonce to sing US national anthem at Houston Super Bowl. David Byrne to play two concerts at Royal Festival Hall, London in April. Gary Jules' Mad World cover retains UK #1 single spot from Christmas. BBC drops all references to Coca-Cola as chart sponsors. US media ask judge to unseal documents relating to police search of Michael Jackson's Neverland home. Prosecution seek media gag order on Jackson and his lawyers.

Books: Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time wins Whitbread Novel award. DBC Pierre's 2003 Booker Prize winner Vernon God Little takes Whitbread First Novel prize. Commemorative 10-euro coin to feature Belgian comic book reporter Tintin.

Obits: actor Terry Lester (53), actor Earl Hindman (61), actor Alan Bates (69), actor Dinsdale Landen (71), jazz trumpeter Webster Young (71), actor Alfred Lynch (72), comedian Bob Monkhouse (75), novelist Joan Aiken (79), actor Norman Burton (79), children's writer Betty Carter Brock (80), actor/director Forrest Carter (81), jazz saxophonist Hans Koller (82), actress Patricia Roc (88), actress Rose Hill (89).

TECH BRIEFS

MPAA do not file appeal against Norwegian court acquittal of DeCSS author Jon Johansen - Norwegian police also decide not to take the case to Norway's Supreme Court. Apple unveils Mini iPod. Sony unveils 40-hour mini disc. World-Wide-Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee knighted in New Year's Honours list. Tech sector still in decline four years after dotcom bubble burst. Bank of England latest to be hit by email hoaxers. Xbox live on target to have a million subscribers by July. 111 million text messages sent in the UK on New Year's Day. BT to install WiFi access in McDonald's outlets across Britain. Belgian-based European consumer group suing four major record labels over copy-protected music CDs. AOL to launch cheap net access in America under netscape.com banner. Computer manufacturer Evesham Technology slapped by Advertising Standards Authority for spamming, undergoes major restructuring, dumps 20-30 employees. eBay launches PayPal UK, hikes big ticket auction fees. BT trialling mobile SMS to voiceline speech system. Microsoft releases tool to clean XP/Win2000 systems of Blaster/Nachi worms, announces plans for home device networking.

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

This week, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/

THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Madame Jennifer, our in-house psychic predicts the following numbers will be lucky:
5, 7, 21, 29, 33 & 39.
You can consult Madame Jennifer online at the Daily Irregular:
http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/

AND FINALLY...

This week, dedicated to Britney Spears...

Wedding Preparation Guidelines


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