ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 20 August		-		Composer Jacopo Peri born, 1561. Poet Edward Herbert died, 1648. Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, 1858. Premiere of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, 1882. Writer H.P. Lovecraft born, 1890. Actress Sophie Aldred born, 1962. Launch of the Voyager 2 space probe, 1977. Actress Kim Stanley and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle died, 2001.
Saturday 21 August		-		Antiquarian Roger Twysden born, 1597. "Countess Dracula" Elizabeth Báthory died, 1614. The Battle of Dunkeld, 1689. Illustrator Aubrey Beardsley born, 1872. A Louvre employee stole the Mona Lisa, 1911. Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky died, 1940. Actress Hayden Panettiere born, 1989. Collapse of the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, 1991. Electronic music pioneer Robert Moog died, 2005.
Sunday 22 August		-		St Columba reportedly saw a monster in Loch Ness, 565. Richard III of England died, 1485. Start of the English Civil War, 1642. Inventor Henry Maudsley born, 1771. Writer Dorothy Parker born, 1893. Irish revolutionary Michael Collins died, 1922. The BBC began experimenting with television broadcasting, 1932. Actress Jennifer Finnigan born, 1979. Actress Colleen Dewhurst died, 1991.
Monday 23 August		-		Scottish revolutionary William Wallace executed, 1305. Louis XVI of France born, 1754. George III declared the American colonies to be in open and avowed rebellion, 1775. Radio pioneer William Eccles born, 1875. The airship R-38 crashed in the Humber estuary, 1921. Actor Rudolph Valentino died, 1926. Illustrator Dick Bruna born, 1927. Actor Brock Peters died, 2005. 18-year-old Natascha Kampusch escaped after 8 years of captivity at the hands of Wolfgang Priklopil, 2006.
Tuesday 24 August		-		Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, 79. St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 1572. Thomas Blood, stealer of the British crown jewels, died, 1680. Antarctic explorer James Weddell born, 1787. Caricaturist Max Beerbohm born, 1872. Poet Nikolay Gumilyov died, 1921. Musician Jean-Michel Jarre born, 1948. Actress Yootha Joyce died, 1980. Pluto was reclassified as a Dwarf Planet by the International Astronomical Union, 2006.
Wednesday 25 August		-		Privateer Henry Morgan died, 1688. Ludwig I of Bavaria born, 1786. British forces burned Washington D.C., 1814. Astronomer William Herschel died, 1822. The Great Moon Hoax, 1835. Ludwig II of Bavaria born, 1845. The Liberation of Paris by Allied forces, 1944. Model Claudia Schiffer born, 1970. Senator Edward Kennedy died, 2009.
Thursday 26 August		-		The Battle of Crécy, 1346. Scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek died, 1723. Chemist Antoine Lavoisier born, 1743. Novelist John Buchan born, 1875. Krakatoa began its final, paroxysmal, stage of eruption, 1883. Aviator Charles Lindbergh died, 1974. Actor Macaulay Culkin born, 1980. The official reports on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster were released, 2003. Singer Laura Branigan died, 2004.

THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Audrey Hepburn:

Nothing is impossible. The word itself says "I'm possible."

FILM QUIZ

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

• Bein' crazy about a woman like that is always the right thing to do!
• Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man... June 8th. My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there is a change.
• - Are you sure you can do this?
  - Yeah. I once removed a guy's appendix with a grapefruit spoon.
• Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!
• Be forewarned. If you download any essay off of the internet, you will be downloaded into detention.

Last issue's quotations were:

• There's a moment of orderly silence before a football play begins. Players are in position, linemen are frozen, and anything is possible. Then, like a traffic accident, stuff begins to randomly collide. From the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bones, closer to 4 seconds than 5.
  -- The Blind Side [2009]
• I'm now poor. When I say I'm poor, I mean we may have to share a helicopter with another family.
  -- Two Weeks Notice [2002]
• In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him. Fat seems to have been a word people most connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells. So very fat and very rude seems to have been a stranger's viewpoint.
  -- Four Weddings and a Funeral [1994]
• It's just not fair. Other daughters get to plan weddings, bake cakes, go shopping with their mothers. What do I do? Dispose of dead bodies.
  -- Keeping Mum [2005]
• Oh God, I haven't felt leather like this on my thighs since the Third Reich.
  -- The Life and Death of Peter Sellers [2004]

WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

YOU KNOW WHAT THEY CALL A QUARTER POUNDER WITH CHEESE IN FRANCE? The French are up in arms. Why? because Asterix the Gaul and his chum Obelix are featuring in a new advert enjoying a Big Mac and fries. One reporter asked "After resisting the Romans, have the Americans finally scalped the invincible little Gaul?" Despite the cooperation of Albert Uderzo, co-founder of Asterix, the commercial is being accused of selling out to consumerism. Sadly though, it's nothing new. Asterix had already briefly featured in Macdonalds' ads back in 2001.

VERBIAGE! The latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English (which reflects contemporary usage better than the more academical Oxford English Dictionary) includes 'vuvuzela' (the African horns heard during the soccer World Cup), 'geo-engineering' (attempting to combat climate change by manipulting the environment), 'quantative easing' (increasing the amount of money in a national economy to combat economic downturns), 'microblogging' (brief online updates, such as used at Twitter) and 'staycation' (a holiday in ones home country).

BANGERS AND TAX! Participating butchers in the English county of Lincolnshire are asking their customers to pay an additional 5p (about US$0.07) when they buy Lincolnshire sausages. The money raised will go towards an attempt to get the sausages Protected Geographical Indication status, which will mean that no sausages produced outside Lincolnshire will be able to be called Lincolnshire sausages. British products which already have PGI status include Melton Mowbray pork pies and Cornish clotted cream.

BUM RAP! A 36-year-old London burglar came a-cropper when he got stuck in a window because his backside was too big to squeeze through. The homeowner found him half-in, half-out of the window, unable to move, and called the police. Firefighters had to remove the window frame to rescue the would-be burglar, and he appeared in court this week.

ENTERTAINMENT BRIEFS

Playstation Move due in shops 15 September; Xbox Kinect due 10 November. Former BBC presenter Ray Gosling to be charged with wasting police time over claim he mercy-killed his dying lover. A.S. Byatt, John Carey receive James Taite Black Memorial Prizes for The Children's Book and William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies respectively. US judge dismisses breach of contract claim against Michael Jackson and family over reunion concert (claim was filed two weeks before Jackson died). Wycliffe Jean may or may not be standing in Haiti presidential election. Billy Connolly receives the Freedom of the City of Glasgow. Pamela Anderson doing panto in Liverpool this year. Michael Douglas has throat cancer, Wall Street sequel producers insist it's still going ahead. Courtney Love, management company reach agreement in dispute over publishing rights to Nirvana's music. Florence Welch to use pots and pans as instruments on next album. Madonna apparently hates being called the "Material Girl". Hayden Christensen in talks for Jumper II. Martin Shaw collapses on stage. UK Big Brother house hit by flooding. Kings of Leon turn down guest shots on Glee and Ugly Betty. Eminem to host detroit rap contest. David Bowie denies collaboration with Lady Gaga. BBC in human rights fight with mysterious Top Gear driver The Stig over wish to reveal his identity. Obits: musician Robert Wilson (53), actor/musician Michael been (60), accordionist Esteban Jordan (71), singer Abbey Lincoln (80), artist Rallis Kopsidis (81), literary critic Sir Frank Kermode (90), poet Edwin Morgan (90).

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

The oceans are a strange - and noisy - environment, and not all the sounds recorded can be explained as yet. America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has put a selection of recordings online, from earthquakes to ships, whales and the mysterious 'Bloop' and 'Slow Down' sounds.

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/sound01/background/seasounds/seasounds.html

THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Madame Jennifer, our in-house psychic predicts the following numbers will be lucky:

1, 9, 17, 31, 33, 42

AND FINALLY...

    A man goes to an ice cream van and asks for a double scoop chocolate cone. The seller apologises, telling him that the delivery didn't arrive that morning and she's out of chocolate.

    "In that case I'll have chocolate," the man says.

    "Sir, I have no chocolate ice cream."

    "Then just give me a chocolate cone."

    Getting frustrated, the girl says "Can you spell 'VAN' as in 'vanilla'? The customer spells it out correctly.

    "Now can you spell 'STRAW' as in 'strawberry'? Again, the man answers correctly.

    "OK, finally, can you spell 'STINK' as in 'chocolate'?

    The man blurts out "There's no stink in chocolate!"

    "Finally, you understand what I've been telling you!"