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Issue #521 - 5th April 2019
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| Contents | — – o o O o o – — |
^ WORD OF THE WEEK
aprique |
Friday 5th April - Isabella of Hainault, queen of King Philip II of France, born, 1170. Russian forces repelled an invasion attempt by the Teutonic Knights at the Battle on the Ice of Lake Peipus, 1242. Artist Lazzaro Bastiani died, 1512. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes born, 1588. Explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island, 1722. Poet Edward Young died, 1765. Actress Jane Asher born, 1946. In New York City Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union, 1951. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Kurt Cobain committed suicide, 1994. Saturday 6th April - King Richard I of England died, 1199. King Louis IX of France was captured by Egyptian forces at the Battle of Fariskur during the Seventh Crusade, 1250. Artist Raphael born, 1483 and died, 1520. The Dover Straits earthquake, one of the largest on record in England, Flanders and Northern France, occurred, 1580. Historian and philosopher James Mill born, 1773. The first modern Olympic Games opened in Athens, 1896. Cycling activist Claire Morissette born, 1950. Computer scientist Anita Borg died, 2003. Tartan Day in Canada, the United States and the Scottish diaspora. Sunday 7th April - Matilda became the first female ruler of England, taking the title "Lady of the English", 1141. Artist El Greco died, 1614. Poet William Wordsworth born, 1770. John Walker sold the first friction match, having invented it the year before, 1827. Ole Kirk Christiansen, founder of the Lego Group, born, 1891. Showman P.T. Barnum died, 1891. The Internet was symbolically born with the publication of RFC 1, 1969. Soprano Jo Appleby born, 1978. Game designer Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, died, 2009. World Health Day. National Beer Day in the United States. Monday 8th April - Frankish king Charibert II died, 632. Mongol forces beseiged Kaifeng, capital of the Jin dynasty, during the Mongol-Jin War, 1232. English-Scottish princess Mary Stuart born, 1605. Architect Carlo Reinaldi died, 1691. The Venus de Milo was discovered on the Aegean island of Milos, 1820. Actress and co-founder of United Artists, Mary Pickford born, 1892. The Gemini I test flight took place, 1964. Long distance runner Yemane Tsegay born, 1985. Businessman Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore International, died, 2012. Tuesday 9th April - Margaret, Maid of Norway, Queen of Scotland, born, 1283. The coronation of Henry V as King of England, 1413. Writer and scholar François Rabelais died, 1553. An expedition left England to establish a colony on Roanoke Island, 1585. Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel born, 1806. Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville made the oldest known recording of an audible human voice on his phonautograph, 1865. Artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti died, 1882. Racing driver Jacques Villeneuve born, 1971. Architect Clough Williams-Ellis, designer of Portmeirion, died, 1978. Vimy Ridge Day in Canada. National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day in the United States. Wednesday 10th April - Roman emperor Theodosius born, 401. Halley's Comet made its closest approach to Earth, passing at a distance of 0.0342 AU (5.1m km, 3.2m miles), 837. Louis the Stammerer, King of West Francia, died, 879. Composer Michel Corrette born, 1707. The Statute of Anne, the first state copyright law, came into force in Great Britain, 1710. Mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange died, 1813. Journalist and publisher Joseph Pulitzer born, 1847. RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on her maiden, and only, voyage, 1912. Soprano Lesley Garrett born, 1955. Actor Kevin Peter Hall died, 1991. Siblings Day. Thursday 11th April - Roman emperor Septimus Severus born, 145. Welsh king Llewelyn the Great died, 1240. French forces were victorious at the Battle of Ravenna during the War of the League of Cambrai, 1512. Artist Bartholomeus Strobel born, 1591. The War of the Sixth Coalition against Napoléon Bonaparte ended with the signing of the Treaty of Fontainbleau, 1814. Joseph Merrick, "the Elephant Man", died, 1890. Mathematician Andrew Wiles born, 1953. Apollo 13 was launched, 1970. Actress Edna Doré died, 2014. International Louie Louie Day. World Parkinson's Day.
This week, William Wordsworth:The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
A mixed bag of quotations. Answers next issue or from the regular address.Last issue's quotations were from films starring Alec Guinness:
- There were 11 thunderstorms while you were gone, 11. You were right, he doesn't like them and just so you know I am a dog person but that is not a dog, that is evil with a dog face that humps my leg and is peeing on your carpet.
- I'll be honest with you, I love his music. I do. I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don't know if it gets any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman".
- Ah! Try as they will, and try as they might, who steals me gold won't live through the night.
- B-E-A-utiful.
- Life is short, but marriage is long... so drink up, and it will make it go a hell of a lot faster.
- You want to talk about distress, we have Navy weather forecasting a Force 12 storm, we have Russians looking down our throats and we are on a ship that never learned to do anything but sink, that's distress.
-- Raise the Titanic [1980]- Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
-- Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope [1977]- She's old - we musn't forget that. Old people never take things as one expects.
-- A Passage to India [1984]- If that boy comes back 'ere with his 'ead blown to bits by a musket, don't look to me to put it together again!
-- Great Expectations [1946]- No doubt they'll sing in tune after the revolution.
-- Doctor Zhivago [1965]
Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- HISTORY! Some 66 million years ago a 12km- (7 mile)-wide asteroid impacted on what is now the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Scientists excavating a site in North Dakota have found direct evidence of the event in fossils of fish and trees. The impact threw debris and vaporised rock into the air, where they spread for thousands of kilometres (or miles) before falling back to Earth in a deadly shower. Particles and bead-sized fragments have been found embedded in the gills of fossilised fish and amber, the preserved resin of trees. There is also evidence of the site having been suddenly flooded, the result of a seiche, or earthquake-generated tidal wave generated by the impact. ● Since 1897 a painting has hung at Ranger's House in Greenwich that was taken to be a smaller copy of Botticelli's Madonna of the Pomegranate, depicting the Madonna, Child and four angels, painted by an unknown artist. It recently underwent conservation work to peel off layers of yellowing varnish after which English Heritage senior conservator Rachel Turnbull noticed something about it. "Stylistically it was too similar to be an imitation, it was of the right period, it was technically correct and it was painted on poplar, a material commonly used at the time," she said, adding that x-ray and infrared analysis had revealed under-drawing including compositional changes that would not normally be found on a copy. It may never be known if Boticelli himself painted it, but after consulting with the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Gallery, Turnbull was happy "to confirm that Madonna of the Pomegranate is from the Florentine workshop of master painter Sandro Botticelli." The larger original hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. ● Starting in 1917 cousins Elsie Wright, then 16, and Frances Griffiths, 9, took a series of photographs in Cottingley, near Bradford, which showed them apparently with fairies. The photos became widely-known after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, and a spiritualist, used them in an article for The Strand Magazine in 1920. Interest in the photos waned in subsequent years as the girls grew up and married, living abroad with their husbands, until Elsie returned to England in the 1960s and the Daily Express revived interest after interviewing her. In the 1980s the women admitted that the first four photos were faked using carboard cutouts based on a children's book, and said that they had been too worried about embarassing Conan Doyle to reveal the truth earlier, but still claimed that the final image was genuine. Now one of the 1920 photographs is to be auctioned later this year, with an estimate price of £70,000 ($92,000).
- NATURE! Firemen in London were called out last Monday to rescue a fox cub that had become stuck in the cavity wall of a shop. The cub, nicknamed Ian after one of the firefighters, was, described as being "distressed but unharmed". On advice from the RSPCA, he was left in a box with some food at the site, and a note explaining to anyone seeing him that his mother would probably come back to collect him later that night. Fire Brigade manager Scott Magdalani returned after work and found that the box was gone, but he called vets to see if anyone had taken him to them, which they had not, so it is most likely that his mother did indeed retrieve him and someone tidied away the empty box. ● We previously reported on the decline of insects and now it has emerged that a fungus is resposible for the biggest documented loss of wildlife from a single disease. The fungus causes a disease called chytridiomycosis which affects amphibians, and has led to the extinction of 90 species of frogs, toads and salamanders in the wild, and led to mass die-offs across over 60 countries, mostly in Australia, Central and South America. The blame for the spread of the fungus is being placed on globalisation spreading infected plants and the trade in wildlife. ● Tasmanian Devils, the world's largest carnivorous marsupial, have been facing extinction for the last 20 years, in large part due to a disease called Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) which has spread across 95% of the Devils' range and caused local population drops of over 90% since it was identified in 1996; it spreads when Devils bite each other during fights. In the last five years, however, the rate of infection has slowed and the population has stabilised, although at well below pre-DFTD levels. It is thought that as some Devil's developed a higher tolerance to infections, natural selection meant that the ability to survive spread, albeit in a remarkably short timescale.
- SCIENCE! In June 2013 the Curiosity rover detected methane - one of the signs of life on Earth - near the Gale Crater on the surface of Mars. Now scientists have independently confirmed the discovery with data from Mars Express' spectrometer, taken a day later. What remains unknown is whether the methane came from microorganisms or geothermal reactions - both below the surface. Hopefully if it is still there the ExoMars orbiter sent to Mars in 2016 will be able to pinpoint its location. ● Speculation is growing that the first image of a black hole could be about to be announced after scientists around the globe have been found to be arranging press conferences but not saying why. It is thought to concern the Event Horizon Telescope at the European Southern Observatory which has been capturing data from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, for over a decade. Black holes themselves are, of course, impossible to image, but it should be theoretically possible to image the event horizon around them, the boundary beyond which light cannot escape, although surrounding dust clouds are a significant problem. It is anticipated that the press conferences, scheduled for 3pm CET on April 10, will announce a breakthrough in imaging the event horizon and the first actual image of Sagittarius A*. ● Scientists at Beihang University in Beijing, China, have announced the creation of a magnetic liquid metal that can stretch in all three dimensions. If that sounds familiar, you might recall Terminator 2: Judgment Day with its shapeshifting metal robot. The metal combined gallium, which remains liquid down to 30oC (86oF), indium and tin, with particles of iron to make it magnetic. The liquid metal was then dipped in hydrochloric acid, which created a layer of gallium oxide on its surface, reducing its surface tension and making it less likely to deform back into a droplet after being stretched. The liquid metal was able to be stretched up to nearly four times is original length using magnets, without reverting to its original shape.
- PEOPLE! Britain's oldest men, Bob Weighton, from Alton, Hampshire, and Alf Smith, from St Madeos, Perthshire, celebrated their 111th birthdays last Friday. They were both born on 29 March, 1908 (records do not indicate which was born first), and both spent time working in Canada, although they never met, but in recent years have exchanged birthday cards. Mr Weighton's advice, when asked for the secret of his longevity was "to avoid dying", while Mr Smith's view on what gave him his long life was "Porridge is helpful and having a job you enjoy." ● In China two children were killed and twenty others injured last Sunday after a dust devil - a smaller less-powerful form of a tornado that can form in dry and sunny conditions - tore the inflatable bouncy castle they were playing on from the ground, causing them to fall up to 20m (66'). Police reportedly arrested the bouncy castle's owner/operator. ● Fifty-three years ago Harry Krame, then a 13-year-old schoolboy, checked out a copy of Lewis Gannet's The Family Book of Verse from his New Jersey school library. Earlier this year he was cleaning out his basement when he found the book. He took it back to the school and explained to the Principal that he had felt a twinge of shock and guilt when he found the book, before realising that the 10c (8p) per day overdue fine could mean that he owed the school up to $2,000 (£1,520). Fortunately for him the school waived the fine [It was probably a good idea going to the Principal rather than the Librarian... -Ed].
- CRIME! TransPennine Express (TPE) are experimenting with a means to deter anti-social behaviour at Hull railway station. Rather than excessive CCTV monitoring or an increase in police and security presence they are playing classical music over the public address system in a three-month trial. Station manager Dan Dreggs told reporters that "It deters youths that possibly don't want to listen to it." A similar scheme in Cleethorpes reduced anti-social behaviour by nearly 75%. ● Picasso's painting Buste de Femme of his lover Dora Maar was stolen from a Saudi sheik's yacht in 1999, but has finally been tracked down by Arthur Brand, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the art world" for his ability recovering lost artworks. The portrait had been circulating in the Dutch criminal underworld, and once Brand had identfied which artwork he had heard repeated rumours about he put out appeals to people who might have inadvertently bought it as unwitting accomplices in criminal deals. A businessman who returned it will not face prosecution, according to French and Dutch police. ● A woman who told police that she had been attacked and raped is facing a jail term after admitting to wasting police time. In 2016 she told police that she had been attacked on a grassy area near Peterhead University, Aberdeen, but security footage showed her walking near the area looking "normal and not dishevelled" after the alleged attack, and she had not handed over her clothes for forensic analysis. Footage recovered from a nearby Morrisons supermarket after police became suspicious further revealed that she was actually in the store shopping at the time she said he had been attacked.
IN BRIEF: Simpsons Fish & Chip Shop in Cheltenham is selling deep-fried Cadbury Creme Eggs for Easter, as it has for the last five years. ● Scientific study finds that dubstep music is an effective detterent against mosquitos. ● Giant inflatable boobs have appeared on top of buildings around London in a campaign to fight the stigma of breastfeeding in public. ● Giant paper art installation on ground around the Louvre's glass pyramid that made it appear to be extending down into a white rock quarry has been torn apart by visitors' footsteps, as artist planned. ● Pro-Jeremy Corbyn Labour party Momentum group protest against climate change by picketing a branch of Barclays Bank (because they lend money to fossil fuel-burning industry) last Saturday - when the bank was closed... ● Source of orange novelty Garfield telephones that have been washing up on Brittany coast for last 35 years finally traced to a lost shipping container stuck in a sea cave. ● World's longest salt cave discovered overlooking Dead Sea in Israel - Malham Cave has 10km (6.2 miles) of passages and chambers. ● Group of Polish evangelical priests stage Harry Potter book burning because 'magic' is bad.
APRIL FOOLS!: Google announced a screen-cleaning app for Android phones. ● Spotify renamed its 'Discover Weekly' playlist 'Discocover Weekly', filled with tracks of artists covering disco songs. ● The Tinder dating app announced a height verification feature which they expected would see an 80% drop in the number of male users claiming to be over 6' (1.82m) tall. ● Lego announced a "Find My Brick" app for when you just cannot locate that 3x2 black block you need... ● Logitech announced it was rebranding its wireless mouse range as "hamsters" because mice have tails [wire] and hamsters do not. ● Actress Maisie Williams declined to tell talkshow host Jimmy Fallon any secrets about Game of Thrones season 8 because of non-disclosure agreements, then accidentally let slip that her character Arya Stark gets killed in the second episode, before running off set distraught; Fallon left the set to find her before both burst out from behind a curtain to yell "April Fool!" at the audience and viewers. ● On The Late Show host Stephen Colbert revealed that Donald Trump had "unveiled a new approach that treats asylum seekers fairly and humanely"; sadly this too was an April Fools' Day joke. ● In Budapest hundreds of people took part in a mass Monty Python-inspired silly walk parade to mark the day. ● Some stories that really should have been jokes, but were not: yes, Elon Musk did release a badly-autotuned rap song. Nigerian agriculture minister Audu Ogbeh really did claim that Nigerians are "using their mobiles to import pizza from London". Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy really did win the first round of Ukraine's presidential election despite his only political experience being playing the president on a TV comedy show. A Tokyo hotel restaurant really is selling a 3kg (6.6lb) gold-dusted burger for ¥100,000 (£670, $880). The US military really is investigating using goliath grouper fish to detect incoming submarines or drones.
UPDATES: The 64m- (210')-long fatberg has been broken up and removed from under Sidmouth's Esplanade in Devon. It took 36 3,000-gallon (13,640l) tanker loads of debris. ● Romeo, the long-believed last living Sehuencas water frog is now living with his Juliet after she was found on an expedition to a Bolivian cloud forest [reported on earlier]. Both frogs had to be declared clear of chytridiomycosis [viz. Nature, above] before they were introduced.
Netflix renews The Order for season 2. ● Angelina Jolie in talks to join Marvel Studios' The Eternals. ● Apple finally admits defeat on long-awaited AirPower wireless charging device after engineers were unable to stop prototypes overheating. ● BBC, Discovery Channel sign deal for streaming of BBC's natural history output, co-development of new series; deal also means BBC Studios will take full control of co-owned Alibi, Dave, Drama, Eden, Gold, W and Yesterday UK TV channels. ● Poet Raymond Antrobus wins Ted Hughes Award for debut collection The Perseverence. ● Disney's Dumbo live/CG only takes $45m (£34.5m) on opening weekend amid poor critical reviews as being overburdened with politically-correct desire to criticise animal circuses and over-reliance on whizz-bang CG effects. ● Donovan 'F2TekKz' Hunt wins first British eSports Premier League for Liverpool F.C. ● Google finally shuts down consumer version of failed social network Google+ - the business version is still 'live'. ● Lee MacDonald (Grange Hill's "Zammo") to guest in two episodes of Eastenders. ● One of 500-run first edition copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - notable for its misprinted title "Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone" on back cover - auctions for nearly £70,000 ($91,850). ● Life-size statue of Jane Austen to be erected in Bath, where she lived between 1801 and 1806. ● Josh Brolin humorously sanctions fan theory that Avengers Endgame could see Thanos killed by Ant-Man, by shrinking, inserting himself up Thanos' backside then expanding, blowing the baddie apart... ● First episode of Line of Duty's fifth series drew 7.8m overnight viewing figures (which does not include streaming/catch-up) making it the most viewed (so far) show of 2019 and the most-viewed episode of the drama. ● With original voicer Brad Dourif working on the Child's Play TV series, Mark Hamill to voice Chucky in next film installment. ● Rolling Stones postpone US, Canada tour dates so Mick Jagger can have needed heart valve surgery, hope to return to touring in July. ● Royal Abert Hall gets 465-speaker system to even out notoriously bad acoustics. ● The Big Bang Theory, currently in final season, passes Cheers to become the longest-running multi-camera sitcom of all time; writers still working on final episode. ● British 1960s band The Zombies inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ● Despite having died in 2017 Don Rickles voice will still be used for Toy Story 4's Mr Potato Head, taken from old and unused audio and assembled with latest technology. ● The UK gaming market now worth record £l5.7bn ($7.5bn) thanks largely to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite despite no new consoles in 2018; only sectors that fell were VR, down 20% since 2017, and "game culture" (related toys, books and merchandise).
Musician Stephen FitzPatrick (Her's, 24), musician Audun Laading (Her's, 25), rapper Nipsey Hussle ("FDT", "Feelin' Myself", 33), model and actress Tania Mallet (Goldfinger, 77), cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky (longest solo spaceflight record holder, 84), music executive Joe Flannery (The Beatles' early booking manager, 87), actor and voice artist Shane Rimmer (Thunderbirds, The Spy Who Loved Me, Coronation Street, 89), filmmaker Agnès Varda (Film Faces, Vagabond, Varda By Agnès, 90), photographer Ed Westcott (The Manhattan Project, 97), Australian royalty superfan Daphne Dunn (99).
^ DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!
Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:2, 10, 21, 23, 29, 49[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 were having a maths lesson. "OK, children," the teacher said, "Here's a little problem for you. If a school has ten classes and each class has twenty children, how many pupils are there at the school?"
The children thought for a while, then Little Jennifer put her hand up. "420, Miss!"
"How did you get that answer, Little Jennifer?" the teacher asked, as some of the other children giggled.
Little Jennifer smiled, as only Little Jennifer could. "Well, Miss, there are two hundred children, plus ten teachers, and everyone has two pupils," she said, pointing at her eyes.
^ ...end of line