Contents Word of the Week On This Day in History The Wisdom Of... Film Quiz Weird World News Entertainment Briefs Obituaries Dumbledore Bear's Lottery Predictor! And Finally...

— – o o O o o – —

^ WORD OF THE WEEK alicorn   1. n. An alleged unicorn horn (most often actually a narwhal tusk) used for medicinal or pharmaceutical purposes. [Historical]   2. n. A winged unicorn. [Mythological]

^{^} ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 20th July		-		Macedonian king Alexander the Great born, 356 BCE. Iraqi calligrapher & court official Ibn Muqla died, 940. Richard I of England was invested as Duke of Normandy, 1189. Politician Robert Wallop born, 1601. Napoleon granted Nicéphore Niépce a patent for the first internal combustion engine, 1807. Mathematician Bernhard Riemann died, 1866. Actress Heather Chasen born, 1927. The 20 July plot led by Claus von Stauffenberg failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler, 1944. Violinist Nicola Benedetti born, 1987. Artist Lucian Freud died, 2011. International Chess Day.
Saturday 21st July		-		The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of Seven Wonders of the World, was burned down in an act of arson, 356 BCE. Empress Wei of the Chinese Tang dynasty was killed, 710. Italian noblewoman Anna Sforza born, 1476. The first troops landed in the French Invasion of the Isle of Wight, 1545. Astronomer Jean Picard born, 1620. Poet Robert Burns died, 1796. Jesse James & the James-Younger Gang made the first successful train robbery of the American Old West at Adair, Iowa, 1873. Nobel laureate writer Ernest Hemingway born, 1899. Actress Angharad Rees died, 2012.
Sunday 22nd July		-		Joan of England, Queen consort of Scotland, born, 1210. King Edward I of England defeated William Wallace's Scottish forces at the Battle of Falkirk in the Wars of Scottish Independence, 1298. Charles VII of France died, 1461. The Acts of Union 1707, which would lead to the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain when approved by both the English & Scottish Parliaments, were agreed, 1706. Oxford don William Spooner, who gave his name to a humorous speech error, born, 1844. Napoleon II, titular French emperor, died, 1832. Aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world, in 7 days, 18 hours & 49 minutes, 1933. Actress Franka Potente born, 1974. Singer Sacha Distel died, 2004. Pi Approximation Day.
Monday 23rd July		-		Anne of Bohemia and Hungary born, 1503. Printer John Day died, 1584. Three hundred colonists departed from Dieppe for New France, 1632. Composer Domenico Scarlatti died, 1757. Thomas Brisbane, 6th Governor of New South Wales, born, 1773. The passage of the Act of Union 1840 created the Province of Canada, 1840. The Telstar satellite relayed the first publicly-tranmitted live television program, 1962. Singer-songwriter Alison Krauss born, 1971. Astronaut Sally Ride died, 2012.
Tuesday 24th July		-		Emperor Shirakawa of Japan died, 1129. King Edward I of England deployed the War Wolf to take Stirling Castle, in the Wars of Scottish Independence, 1304. Charless II, Margrave of Baden-Durlach born, 1529. Mary, Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate her throne, to be replaced by her 1-year-old son, James VI, 1567. Writer Alexandre Dumas born, 1802. Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States, died, 1862. The Apollo 11 capsule splashed down safely in the Pacific after the first successful Moon landing, 1969. Singer & actress Jennifer Lopez born, 1969. Psychologist & sexologist Virginia Johnson died, 2013.
Wednesday 25th July		-		Constantine I was proclaimed Roman emperor, 306. Sibylla, queen of Jerusalem, died, 1190. Welsh noblewoman Hawys Gadam born, 1291. Mozart completed his Symphony No. 40 in G Minor (K550), 1788. Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge died, 1834. Electricity pioneer Frank J. Sprague born, 1857. Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965. Animator Lauren Faust born, 1974. Harry Patch, longest-surviving combat soldier of World War I & then oldest man in Europe, died, 2009.
Thursday 26th July		-		Inca emperor Atahualpa was murdered by conquistador Francisco Pizzaro, 1533. George Clinton, 4th Vice President of the United States, born, 1739. The first recorded women's cricket match took place near Guildford, 1745. Nobel laureate playright George Bernard Shaw born, 1856. Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal premiered at Bayreuth, 1882. Lexicographer James Murray died, 1915. Singer-songwriter Mick Jagger born, 1943. Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, 1956. Serial killer Ed Gein died, 1984.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Ernest Hemingway:

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

A selection of quotations from films with a common actor or actress. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• Everything I've done, I've done for you. I move the stars for no one.
• The man behind the mask is looking for the book with the pages torn out. He is going towards the hiding place.
• No one cares about the man in the box, the man who disappears.
• They were a nation of anxious people... and they could do nothing individually. So they went mad... en masse.
• Money for looks. Money for film. But, most of all, money for Suzette. My beautiful Crêpe Suzette.

Last issue's quotations were from films starring Laura Dern:

• You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt.
      -- Wild at Heart [1990]
• See that clock on the wall? In five minutes you are not going to believe what I've told you.
      -- Blue Velvet [1986]
• - God creates dinosaur. God destroys dinosaur. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaur.
  - Dinosaur eats man. Woman inherits the earth.
      -- Jurassic Park [1993]
• As an early Hanukkah present, I'm going to send you and Pam a box of these musical condoms.
      -- Little Fockers [2010]
• Sure Dr. Von Braun is a great scientist, but he isn't my hero.
      -- October Sky [1999]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• HISTORY!   Archaeologists in Jordan have claimed to have found the earliest-known evidence of bread-making. Previously the earliest evidence came from Turkey, and dated to 9,000 years ago, but the 14,000-year-old Jordanian site yielded two large circular stone fireplaces and 24 charred breadcrumbs. The bread would probably have been similar to modern flatbreads, and might have been used as a wrap for meat, making it also the earliest-known sandwich. ● At Alexandria, Egypt, archaeologists surveying a construction site have discovered a massive black granite sealed sarcophagus dated to between 323 & 30 BCE. The sarcophagus is nearly 9' (2.7m) long & 5' (1.5m) wide and estimated to weigh around 30 tons. An alabaster head discovered nearby might be a bust of the occupant, who some are speculating, given the scale of the sarcophagus, could even be Alexander the Great, who some records claim died in Alexandria and whose tomb has never been found. The team now have to decide whether to try to lift the whole coffin unopened or to open it in situ then remove the lid and base separately. ● While many people have had more than enough of this summer's heatwave in Britain, at least historians have something to smile about. When Burrator Reservoir on Dartmoor, Devon, was created in 1898 (and expanded in 1929) a number of settlement features and landmarks were flooded. With the water level now dropped below 50% the ruins of a wall have been revealed, and it is hoped that if the level drops further a farmhouse and Sheepstor Bridge might also be uncovered. At Newgrange in Northern Ireland, already known for its prehistoric burial mound older than the Egyptian pyramids & Stonehenge, and with an entrance passage aligned with the winter solstice sunrise, a previously-undiscovered henge site was revealed in aerial photographs of parched crop fields. At Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire the layout of the 18^th-Century manor house, demolished in 1938, has been revealed, along with the location of a sundial. At Lasham in Hampshire the markings of a World War II airfield have appeared, and at Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire the layout of a Victorian formal garden has reappeared much clearer than in previous summers.


• NATURE!   A performance of Sleeping Beauty by the Australian Ballet at the Adelaide Festival Centre and another dance performance in a separate theatre had to be stopped and the audiences evacuated by torchlight after a power failure hit the entirety of the city's riverside arts precinct. In the initial confusion the ballet dancers kept dancing until management told them to stop, whereupon they received a standing ovation lit by the glow of mobile phones. The outage was the result of a rat gnawing through high-voltage cabling causing a fuse to blow. ● The water off Ceredigion, Wales, briefly turned pink last week. It was not pollution though, but a swarm of harmless (to humans, at least) moon jellyfish, some 130' (40m) across according to Jonathan Evans who captains dolphin-spotting trips. ● Harmless basking sharks, as well as 39 smaller species, have been a common sight around parts of Britain's coast for decades, but as the oceans warm Dr Ken Collins of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton has said that a number of other large shark species could be in British waters by 2050. The species include the great hammerhead, blacktip, sand tiger, oceanic whitetip and copper sharks. Blacktips are requiem sharks, a group thought responsible for the bulk of recorded (but still rare) shark attacks on humans.


• SCIENCE!   Astronomers searching for a hypothetical ninth planet at the outkirts of the Solar System instead discovered 12 new moons around Jupiter. The largest of the new moons is around 1 mile (1.6km) across. Two of the moons are relatively close to Jupiter and orbit in the same direction as the planet's spin, suggesting they may be fragments of a larger moon that broke up, but 9 of the others are in groups of 3 and have retrograde orbits, probably because they were the result of impacts with asteroids or comets. ● Natural diamonds are valued for their rarity, but a study of cratons, seismic anomalies where sound waves created by earthquakes move faster than expected, has suggested that there could be a quadrillion (10,000,000,000,000,000) tons of diamonds below the Earth's surface. Fortunately for the jewellery trade they are 90-150 miles (145-241km) down, far deeper than any mine. ● The British government has announced that the UK's first spaceport will built at Sutherland, on the north coast of Scotland. Britain is a world leader in satellite construction so it makes sense to have a spaceport but some have questioned its location. Existing launch sites around the world tend to be fairly close to the equator, to take advantage of the planet's spin speed, but a location so far north will be of benefit to satellites launched into polar orbits rather than equatorial. There are also plans for a horizontal launch site (rockets launched from aircraft at high altitude), which may be developed as far south as Cornwall.


• PEOPLE!   Before 5-year-old Garrett Matthias, aka "The Great Garrett Underpants" because of his dislike of trousers, died of cancer he told his parents that "funerals are sad: I want five bouncy houses (because I'm five), Batman and snow cones". He also said that he was going to be a gorilla after he died "and throw poo at Daddy!" Garrett died on July 6, and his parents, Emilie and Ryan, threw a commemorative "Celebration of Life" instead of a regular cremation service (Garrett wanted his ashes to become a tree he could live in as the poo-throwing gorilla...) last weekend, with five bouncy castles, snow cones and Batman - plus Wonder Woman, Thor and Spider-Man. Garrett had asked for an Asgardian funeral ceremony, like Thor's mother in the film, so an archer shot a flaming arrow at a model boat, followed by fireworks. Emilie and Ryan will hold a private burial service for his ashes at a later date. ● Fifty-one-year-old plumber Iain Bevan has rowed across Tor Bay in Devon in a bathtub (supported by floats and carrying several rubber ducks) to raise money for charity. The trip from Torquay to Paignton took the former Royal Navy engineer 150 minutes, and Bevan hopes to raise £10,000 ($13,000) for cancer charities. He commented that if he had a pound for every time someone told him to make sure the plug was in he would not have had to row across the bay. ● After getting into trouble at school for breaking a teacher's fingernail, Indian Shridhar Chillal stopped cutting the fingernails on his left hand in 1952, leaving them to grow to a world record 31+' (9.5+m) in length, in the process crippling his hand because of the weight. Last week he was flown to New York City by Ripley's Believe It or Not! to have his nails cut off. It took a professional with a small power saw to cut them and they are now on display at Ripley's exhibition in the city. Experts say that Chillal's fingernails should grow normally now, and he will probably regain use of his left hand in time.


• CRIME!   Denis Furtado, a celebrity plastic surgeon known for performing buttock-enhancements has gone on the run in Brazil. 'Dr Bumbum' as he is known to his 650,000 social media followers, allegedly carried out a procedure using a controversial acrylic glass filler on Lilian Quezia Calixto at his home in Rio de Janeiro only for her to die in hospital a few hours later. The Brazilian Plastic Surgery Society were quick to denounce Furtado as a non-specialist selling a fantasy to patients, and performing surgery in a non-clinical environment. ● Police in King's Lynn, Norfolk, pulled over what they described as "the most un-roadworthy car" - without headlights, front side panels, bumper and front grille, and a flat tyre, only to find that the driver was sitting on an upturned bucket and steering with a locking wrench clamped onto the steering column - there was no steering wheel. ● An Air China pilot has been fired after he caused a Boeing 737 on which he was acting as co-pilot to perform an emergency descent, releasing oxygen masks to passengers, because he was smoking an e-cigarette. The vapor from the e-cigarette had diffused into the passenger cabin and caused air conditioning components to switch off, leading to a drop in oxygen levels which triggered an alarm, releasing the oxygen masks and requiring the emergency descent. China's aviation authority bans flight crew from smoking at all stages of a flight, but passengers frequently report smelling smoke - or vapor - coming from plane cabins.

IN BRIEF: Carlsberg develops robot capable of sniffing out the difference between pilsner & lager. ● Australian study of gender pay gap in physics published last year suggested that boys take to physics better because years of aiming when using urinals gives them an innate understanding of trajectories. ● Unchipped cat that sneaked into windscreen repair van successfully returned to owner more than 60 miles (97km) away after appeal via social media. ● Chinook helicopter successfully rescues stranded climber on Mount Hood, Oregon, by hovering with back wheels on mountainside. ● Classic 1961 Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato auctions for UK car record price of £10,081,500 ($13,150,924). ● Scuba diver discovers working iPhone at bottom of sea off Durdle Door, Dorset, manages to track down Canadian owner who lost it while on holiday. ● Huge iceberg runs aground close to Greenland village, prompts evacuation over fears it could calve, creating tidal wave. ● AI can play chess, go & poker, but it still has trouble with 1984 videogame Montezuma's Revenge. ● The hull of the RRS Sir David Attenborough, the polar research ship a public vote suggested should be named Boaty McBoatface has been launched in the Mersey; it was towed to a wet dock where the superstructure and interiors will be fitted. ● Despite consumer bodies warning that Amazon Prime Day's "bargains" might not be what they seem, demand caused Amazon's servers - including Prime video feeds - to crash.

WORLD CUP WEIRDNESS: For the final time, for now... As reported in an earlier issue, the BBC iPlayer crashed during England's quarter-final match; the semi-final caused YouTube TV to crash, but not before the iPlayer received a significant spike in demand despite the BBC not broadcasting the game - an engineer attributed the spike to the London Evening Standard newspaper mistakenly listing it as airing on the BBC. ● As you are probably aware, England lost their semi-final match against Croatia (who were then beaten by France in the final). English fans wanting to drown their sorrows - if they do not mind waiting a while - will be able to do so in a unique way when a special bottle of champagne goes to auction on August 2^nd. The bottle of 1966 Jacquart champagne, itself the first of a limited run of 1,966, has its label signed by the 1966 English team who defeated Germany 4-2 to win the World Cup that year, at Wembley - the last, indeed only, time England won it. The bottle is expected to sell for between £3,000 & £4,000 ($3,920-$5,226). ● To celebrate their win, Paris temporarily renamed several of their Metro stations, including Bercy, which became Bercy les Bleus and Notre-Dame des Champs which became Notre Didier Deschamps. England might have come fourth, but Transport For London still temporarily renamed Southgate Tube station Gareth Southgate station to the delight of passengers.

^{^} ENTERTAINMENT BRIEFS

Book of Lou Reed interviews to be published. Second man arrested over June murder of rapper XXXTentacion. ● DC's Batwoman to be first openly gay comic book lead to get live action TV series. ● Asura, China's most expensive film ever (750m Yuan - £85m; $111m) pulled from domestic cinemas after taking less than 50m Yuan (£5.64m, $7.4m) in opening weekend. ● Production on Downton Abbey film to start later this summer, scripted by Julian Fellowes, directed by Brian Percival; Lily James will not be in it as Lady Rose was written out, having left for America. ● Evan Rachel Wood, Sterling K. Brown in talks to join cast of Frozen 2, Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck to co-direct, as with original. ● Forbes names George Clooney second-highest earning celebrity (behind boxer Floyd Mayweather) and highest earning actor over a year ever, taking $239m (£180m), largely thanks to sale of Casamigos tequila company he founded. ● Peter Dinklage becomes most-nominated actor for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Primetime Emmy award with 7^th nomination for Game of Thrones. ● Harrison Ford in talks to star in latest film adaptation of Call of the Wild after next Indiana Jones film pushed back to 2021 because of script issues. ● Game of Thrones prequel (set 10,000 year before GoT) spin-off set to start filming in Belfast in October; working title The Long Night, Jane Goldman to serve as showrunner. ● Johnny Depp, fomer business team, settle lawsuit over mismanagement of earnings. ● HBO orders straight-to-series production for Joss Whedon's Victorian sci-fi The Nevers. ● Mark Rylance to star in film adaptation of J.M. Coetzee's dystopian novel Waiting for the Barbarians. ● Neil Gaiman wins Long Poem category prize at Science Fiction Poetry Association awards for The Mushroom Hunters. ● Video streaming services such as Amazon Prime & Netflix now have more UK subscribers than satellite/cable providers such as Sky & Virgin. ● Now That's What I Call Music compilation album series reaches #100. ● District 9's Neill Blomkamp to direct second reboot of Robocop, based on planned-but-unmade sequel to original that centers on a reality TV star being elected President of the USA... ● "Lost" Stanley Kubrick screenplay based on 1913 novella Burning Secret discovered during research for biography due next year. ● The Lightning Seeds' Three Lions becomes first song to reach #1 on UK singles chart four times with same line-up; Green Day's American Idiot, adopted as anti-Trump song ahead of UK visit, reached #25 on combined chart but #1 in rock, Google Play & Amazon charts. ● BBC release first teaser trailer for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who. ● William Gibson's unused Alien 3 script to be released as comic book. ● The Only Way is Essex' Gemma Collins, previously caught out for claiming private plane had been sent for her (photo tweeted was a stock image) gives car crash interview to plug autobiography, clearly not self-written, probably not even self-read. ● Sir Cliff Richard wins damages in privacy case against BBC over "sensationalist" footage of property search by police investigating historical child sex allegations; he was never arrested or charged. ● Netflix releases first pictures from series 3 of The Crown starring Olivia Coleman, Helena Bonham Carter as The Queen & Princess Margaret. ● Rugrats returning to TV as CGI animation. ● It's (semi-)official - Bruce Willis declares that Die Hard "is not a Christmas movie! It's a god damn Bruce Willis movie!" ● Marvel announce Black Panther comic book spin-off based on character's genius scientist sister Shuri.

^{^} OBITUARIES

Model Anabelle Neilson (Alexander McQueen, Ladies of London, 49), costume designer Yvonne Blake (Superman, Nicholas and Alexandra, 1971 Oscar winner, 78), actor Robert Wolders (Laredo, Beau Geste, Interval, 81), film director Stan Dragoti (Mr Mom, Love at First Bite, Necessary Roughness, 85), actor Roger Perry (The Munsters, Star Trek, The Thing With Two Heads, 85), writer Clive King (Stig of the Dump, The Town that Went South, Hamid of Aleppo, 94), Wing Commander Tom "Ginger" Neil, DFC & Bar, AFC, AE (The Battle of Britain ace, 97), charity supporter Nancy Sinatra, Sr (first wife of Frank Sinatra, 101).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:

28, 32, 35, 36, 46, 55

[UK National Lottery, number range 1-59]
You can get your very own prediction at http://www.simonlamont.co.uk/tfir/dumbledore.htm.

^{^} AND FINALLY...

    Little Jennifer came home from school an hour early. "Why are you back from school so soon, Little Jennifer?" her mother asked.
    Little Jennifer beamed proudly. "I was the only one in class who was able to answer a question, Mummy!"
    Disbelieving, her mother asked her what the question had been. Little Jennifer smiled, as only Little Jennifer could. "It was 'Who threw the eraser at Miss while she was cleaning the board', Mummy!"

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^{^} ...end of line