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Issue #451 - 17th November 2017
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| Contents | — – o o O o o – — |
^ WORD OF THE WEEK
taters |
Friday 17th November - Roman emperor Vespasian born, 9. John Balliol became King of Scotland, 1217. Ottoman general Gazi Evrenos died, 1417. Artist Bronzino born, 1503. Elizabeth I acceeded to the English throne, 1558. Mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius born, 1790. Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, died, 1796. Llamo Dondrub was named as the 14th Dalai Lama, 1950. Writer Mervyn Peake died, 1968. International Students' Day. World Prematurity Day. Saturday 18th November - Mayan ruler Itzam K'an Ahk II born, 701. The Visigoths under Aleric I crossed the Alps to invade Italy, 1095. British folklore outlaw Robin Hood died [according to ballad collector Joseph Ritson], 1247. A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands broke, killing ~100,000 people in the St Elizabeth's flood, 1421. Explorer & naturalist Philibert Commerson born, 1727. Douglas Haig called a halt to the First Battle of the Somme after four months and over 1,000,000 casualties & losses across both sides, 1916. Writer Marcel Proust died, 1922. Astronaut Alan Shepard born, 1923. Bandleader Cab Calloway died, 1994. Sunday 19th November - Christopher Columbus went ashore on the island he had sighted the day before, now named Puerto Rico, 1493. King Charles I of England born, 1600. Artist Nicolas Poussin died, 1665. Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, 1863. Activist & songwriter Joe Hill wrongly executed, 1915. Indira Gandhi, 3rd Prime Minister of India, born, 1917. Astronauts Pete Conrad & Alan Bean became the 3rd & 4th humans to set foot on the Moon, on the Apollo 12 mission, 1969. Actress Naoko Mori born, 1971. Architect Basil Spence died, 1976. International Men's Day. Women's Entrepreneurship Day. World Toilet Day. Monday 20th November - Diocletian was chosen as emperor of Rome, 284. Edmund the Martyr, king of East Anglia, killed, probably by invading Danes, 869. Artist Paulus Potter born, 1625. Mathematician Christian Goldbach died, 1764. The Nantucket whaling ship Essex was attacked and sunk by an 80-ton sperm whale, an incident that would partly inspire Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, 1820. Astronomer Edwin Hubble born, 1889. The wedding of The Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey, London, 1947. Historian Orlando Figes born, 1959. Filmmaker Robert Altman died, 2006. Transgender Day of Remembrance. Universal Children's Day. Tuesday 21st November - Mineralogist Georgius Agricola died, 1555. Poet Catharina Questiers born, 1631. Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier & François Laurent d'Arlandes made the first untethered hot air balloon flight, in Paris, 1676. Composer Henry Purcell died, 1695. Samuel Cunard, founder of the eponymous cruise line, born, 1787. Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph, 1877. Actress Juliet Mills born, 1941. The Natural History Museum announced that the "Piltdown Man" skull was a hoax, 1953. Television producer, director & screenwriter Emily Squires died, 2012. No Music Day. World Hello Day. Wednesday 22nd November - Mary of Guise, Queen of Scots, born, 1515. Juan Fernández discovered the islands now bearing his name, off Chile, 1574. Pirate Edward Teach ('Blackbeard') killed in battle, 1718. Thomas Cook, founder of the eponymous travel agency, born, 1808. The clipper Cutty Sark was launched in Dumbarton, Scotland, 1869. Singer-songwriter Hoagy Carmichael born, 1899. Writer Jack London died, 1916. Ravel's Boléro premiered in Paris, 1928. Television producer Verity Lambert died, 2007. Thursday 23rd November - Ladislaus the Posthumous, king of Hungary, died, 1457. Botanist Prospero Alpini born, 1553. Composer Thomas Tallis died, 1585. John Milton published Areopagitica, a pamphlet criticising censorship, 1644. Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States, born, 1804. The first jukebox went into operation at the Palais Royal Saloon, San Francisco, 1889. Brotherhood of Man singer Sandra Stevens born, 1949. The first episode of An Unearthly Child, the first Doctor Who story, was broadcast by the BBC, 1963. Actor Andrew Sachs died, 2016. Thanksgiving in the USA.
This week, Indira Gandhi:You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
A mixed bag of quotations from films with a common actor or actress. Answers next issue or from the regular address.Last issue's quotations were from films starring Jennifer Lawrence:
- You hired me from a newspaper ad, you think I come with a superpower?
- I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye.
- This mortal form has grown weak. I need sustenance!
- I have crossed oceans of time to find you.
- Here I am, Frankie; I finally made it.
- - How many times is your name in today?
- Forty-two. Guess the odds aren't exactly in my favor.
-- The Hunger Games [2012]- You don't wanna go around Little Arthur's askin' them people about anything they ain't offered to talk about. That's a real good way to end up ate by hogs... or wishin' you was.
-- Winter's Bone [2010]- I guess his sixth sense forgot to tell him the cops were coming.
-- Silver Linings Playbook [2012]- - You're young. You're beautiful. You gotta go out and find somebody else. Get some friends. Alright?
- I don't like going out. I get anxiety when I have to meet people. You know how hard that is.
-- American Hustle [2013]- I laughed at a man with no pants, until I realized I have no legs.
-- Passengers [2016]
Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Continuing our coverage of the fictional planet Nibiru. The rogue planet will, according to a YouTube video, collide with the Earth next Monday. [Well that is one way to beat the Monday blues... -Ed] The video in question also claims that meteorologists are in on the cover-up, routinely reporting temperatures as 5o (presumably Fahrenheit) warmer than they actually are, and that the recent hurricanes were the result of Nibiru, not global climate change [We hope the White House is not watching Youtube... -Ed]. Monday? Hold the front page! Nibiru "researcher" David Meade told reporters earlier this month that it would hit us around November 13-14. [Did anyone feel that? -Ed] Meade though, perhaps fed up with failed predictions, is trying to tout the Nibiru story as a film treatment [Or was that his plan all along? -Ed] As this issue goes out, Elon Musk's SpaceX is allegedly going to be launching a "top secret" scientific Nibiru-studying payload codenamed Zuma aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, having done a deal with the US government (or the World Government cabal) in exchange for help surviving the impact. As always, we point out that NASA and astronomers around the world say that Nibiru does not exist outside a story concocted in the mid-1970s.
- It is not just Nibiru causing imaginary problems in the Solar system. This week saw a conjuction of Jupiter and Venus, where they appeared close together in the sky. Ignoring the fact that they are around 670,000,000 km (416,000,000 miles) apart, because they appear close in the sky from the viewpoint of Earth some conspiracists claimed they were going to collide last Monday, plunging the Earth into 15 days of darkness starting on Wednesday [Might make Nibiru easier to spot... -Ed]. Further away from the Solar System, some actual science. Astronomers have found a star that keeps going supernova. Normally once a star dies and explodes in a supernova that is it, but this one seems to have exploded five times. The most accepted theory is that the star was so massive it generated antimatter in its core which made it unstable enough to keep exploding matter from its surface over decades until it undergoes a final supernova and collapses to form a black hole.
- Back down on Earth, Russia's Ministry of Defence posted "irrefutable proof" that the US was aiding Daesh, the so-called Islamic State. They issued five photographs as evidence, four of which were actually from a 2016 video of the Iraqi Air Force attacking IS in Iraq, the fifth, allegedly showing an IS convoy leaving a Syrian town last week, aided by US forces was proved to be taken from a promotional video for the smartphone game AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron, badly cropped and rotated to remove the games company's logo and disclaimer (though apparently not all of it). Russia's favourite US president, as everyone knows, is rather fond of Tweeting immature nonsense at all hours of the day. Twitter readers using the Chrome browser now have an extension to render his tweets in a suitably childish crayon script. Chrome users should direct their browser to http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/, replete with a picture of little Donny holding a big lollipop...
- We love and collect maps here at Irregular HQ, but there is one country that keeps being left off them. Poor New Zealand. A Wikipedia world map about CIA extraordinary rendition, a school display, a wall sticker map from Ikea, even a world map on the official New Zealand government website have left the country out with nothing but ocean southeast of Australia. 27,000 fed-up New Zealanders have formed a Reddit group to amass evidence of their cartographically-disappearing country. Even a map of wildlife around the world not only forgot the Kiwi, it also forget the entire country.
- Twitter's decision to double their tweet character limit from 140 to 280 might have annoyed and upset some, with J.K. Rowling tweeting that "Twitter's destroyed its USP [Unique selling proposition; an advertising concept dating back to the 1940s -Ed]." Others found uses for the increased length of tweets, not least Britain's public services. London Ambulance Service led the way with "NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑 NEE-NAW 🚑#280characters" Scotland Fire and Rescue reponded with their 'fixed' version, substituting a fire engine emoji for the ambulance. The Metropolitan Police in Haringey replaced that with a police car, then British Transport Police in East Anglia tweeted a combination of NEE-NAWs, CHOO-CHOOs and suitable emojis, the RNLI [Royal National Lifeboat Institute] joined in, with beeping alerts and thudding boat engines (and emojis), and the National Crime Agency chimed in with a detailed emoji-aided description of what they do but, for us, the London Air Ambulance won the day, with "We go WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁****RED BASE HELIMED 27 OVERHEAD IN 2 MINUTES**** WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁WOKKA-WOKKA 🚁#280characters".
[Please note that due to HTML rendering* some of those might show as more than 280 characters. *Or the Editor failing to count his NEE-NAWs and WOKKA-WOKKAs correctly ... -SubEd]IN BRIEF: ASDA supermarket chain in UK to sell Christmas dinner pizza for those who do not want to cook a turkey; although it substitutes chicken for turkey, the pizza topping also includes sliced roast potato and Brussels sprouts drizzled with cranberry sauce. Indian adventurer Suyash Dixit claims uninhabited and unclaimed 800 square mile (2072 square km) strip of land between Egypt and Sudan (thanks to an 1899 border mistake by the British) for himself, inviting anyone interested to apply for citizenship. Facebook bans image of handmade Christmas card depicting robin, apparently citing "sexual" nature; worldwide backlash leads to increased sales and unblocking. British inventor Richard Browning sets inaugural Guinness record for fastest speed in a body-controlled, jet engine-powered suit, flying across lake at up to 32.02mph before perfect landing. Crowdfunding campaign raises more than $55,000 (£41,760) for female cyclist fired from job after being photographed giving the finger to Donald Trump as his motorcade passed her on the way to a golf course. Rare frilled shark caught by trawlermen off Portugal. Playmobil toy pirate boat (and crew), made waterproof, weighted and with polystyrence for buoyancy and fitted with a tracker, that Scottish family put in the water at Peterhead, north of Aberdeen in May, before ending up in Denmark, then Sweden and Norway, 'smuggled' to Africa aboard Norwegian tall ship, repaired and put back in the water off Mauritania hopefully to cross the Atlantic. Top Scrabble™ player banned from tournaments for three years for allegedly cheating by putting less favourable tiles back in the bag when drawing new ones. Charles Bronson, "Britain's most violent prisoner" marries actress 27 years his junior. Alberta, Canada police arrest three naked alleged kidnappers after bizarre car crash in sub-zero temperatures. Simulacrum of Donald Trump's face seen in beagle's ear.
BBC cancels planned £10m ($13.17m) cuts to local radio stations. New York jewellery store Tiffany's opens cafe as part of renovation so, 56 years after the film of the Truman Capote novel, you can finally eat breakfast at Tiffany's (or lunch). CBS reportedly planning reboot of 1980s police drama Cagney and Lacey; original cast member Sharon Gless unhappy at reports of casting coloured actress as Lacey. Speculation Spice Girls are to reunite for TV special, album, next year. Sam Smith gets first US #1 album. Ed Sheeran back on stage after six weeks off with broken arms, rib. Michael Buble returning to performing after break to care for son. U2 plays set in Trafalgar Square. 1968 Jensen Interceptor that belonged to comedian Eric Morecambe auctions for £95,625 ($125,898). Bob Geldof returns Freedom of the City of Dublin in protest at Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi holding same award. EA forced to backtrack after Star Wars Battlefront 2 launch sees players complain that in-game credit cost of playing classic characters including Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader & Leia was too high, requiring up to 40 hours gameplay each. BBC adaptation of Howard's End latest show to be hit with complaints of over-loud intrusive music score, muffled speech. Kevin Spacey to be edited out of All the Money in the World, scenes reshot with Christopher Plummer ahead of planned December 22 release. Amazon confirms $250m (£190m) The Lord of the Rings series, in collaboration with HarperCollins, the Tolkien Estate and Trust and New Line Cinema (who made the Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit film trilogies). Memorial service for Paddington creator Michael Bond held at St Paul's Cathedral, London, setting for final book to be published next year. Disney announces The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson to develop new Star Wars trilogy, separate from Skywalker saga. Musical based on Bee Gees story in development. Marilyn Manson forced to defend pointing prop gun at gig audience. YouTuber Taryn Southern releases song co-written by AI. Writer Jacqueline Wilson to receive BAFTA Special Award for contribution to British children's television through adaptations of her books. First female casting of Othello lead to be staged at Liverpool Everyman next year. Salvator Mundi, reputedly painted by Leonardo Da Vinci, auctions for $451m (£341m).
MTV EMAs 2017. Best song: Shawn Mendes (There's Nothing Holdin' me Back); Best artist: Shawn Mendes; Best look: Zayn Malik; Best new act: Dua Lipa; Best pop: Camila Cabello; Best live: Ed Sheeran; Best video: Kendrick Lamar; Best electronic: David Guetta; Best rock: Coldplay; Best hip hop: Eminem; Best alternative: Thirty Seconds to Mars; Best push: Hailee Steinfeld; Biggest fans: Shawn Mendes; Best world stage: The Chainsmokers for Live from Isle of MTV Malta 2017; Global icon: U2; Best act (The Netherlands): Lil' Kleine; Best act (Spain): C. Tangana; Best act (Japan): Babymetal; Best act (Finland): ALMA; Best act (Nigeria): DaVido; Best act (UK & Ireland): Stormzy; Best act (Argentina): Lali.
BASE jumper Valery Rozov (world record holder, 52), singer Chuck Mosley (Faith No More, 57), actor Ray Lovelock (Fiddler on the Roof, Murder Rock, 67), chimpanzee Little Mama (oldest chimpanzee on record, ~79), actor Keith Barron (Duty Free, The Land That Time Forgot, 83), broadcaster Tim Gudgin (voice of the BBC Saturday afternoon soccer scores, 87), American tabloid gossip reporter Liz Smith (The New York Post, New York Social Diary, 94).
Four and a half billion people live without clean and safe sanitation. This is the official site for World Toilet Day, marked this Sunday.- http://www.worldtoiletday.info/
^ DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!
Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:9, 17, 23, 27, 33, 43[UK National Lottery, number range 1-59]
You can get your very own prediction at http://www.simonlamont.co.uk/tfir/dumbledore.htm.
Little Jennifer's class was on a field trip to the police station. They had tried dressing up as policemen and women, been shown the cells and allowed to turn a police car's siren and flashing lights on and off. Finally they were assembled in the duty room, where the sergeant showed them the most wanted board. "All these photos," she said, "are of the people we most want to catch because they are suspected criminals." Little Jennifer raised her hand.
"Yes, Little Jennifer, isn't it?"
"You have pictures of the people you want to catch?"
"That's right."
Little Jennifer looked puzzled. "Well, why didn't you arrest them when you took their pictures?"
^ ...end of line