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Issue #534 - 5th July 2019
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| Contents | — – o o O o o – — |
^ WORD OF THE WEEK
trumpery |
Friday 5th July - Ferdinand, prince of Majorca, killed in battle, 1316. Joan of the Tower, wife of King David II of Scotland, born in the Tower of London, 1321. Isaac Newton's Philosophæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published, 1687. Actress Sarah Siddons born, 1755. Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore, died, 1826. Thomas Cook organised the first package excursion, to Loughborough, 1841. Fashion designer Paul Smith born, 1946. The National Health Service in the United Kingdom came into being, 1948. Actress Katy Jurado died, 2002. Tynwald Day on the Isle of Man. Saturday 6th July - Chinese warlord Wang Chongrong killed, 887. Richard I acceded to the throne of England, 1189. Mathematician and architect Antonio Manetti born, 1423. Thomas More, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, executed for treason, 1535. The Treaty of Edinburgh was signed, 1560. Botanist William Hooker born, 1785. Anne Frank and her family went into hiding above her father's office in Amsterdam, 1942. Author Hilary Mantel born, 1952. Actress Kasey Rogers died, 2006. Sunday 7th July - Emperor Shirakawa of Japan born, 1053. Tyre fell to the Crusaders in the aftermath of the First Crusade, 1124. King Edward I of England died, 1307. Joseph Marie Jacquard, merchant and inventor of the Jacquard loom, born, 1752. The War of the Fourth Coalition ended with the Peace of Tilsit, 1807. Mary Surratt, accomplice of John Wilkes Booth, executed, 1865. Writer Robert A. Heinlein born, 1907. Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1981. Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett died, 2006. World Chocolate Day. Monday 8th July - Edgar the Peaceful, King of England, died, 975. Author Jean de la Fontaine born, 1621. Sweden's status as a major European power effectively ended with defeat to the Russians at the Battle of Poltava, 1709. Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned, 1822. Artist and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz born, 1867. The Mounties began the ~900-mile (~1,400km) March West to the Canadian prairies, 1874. Actor Marty Feldman born, 1934. The first reports of the alleged Roswell UFO incident were filed, 1947. Betty Ford, First Lady of the United States (1974-1977), died, 2011. Tuesday 9th July - Avitus was proclaimed Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, 455. Poet Ariwara no Narihira died, 880. Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg, queen consort of Denmark and Norway, born, 1511. King Henry VIII of England annulled his marriage to Anne of Cleves, 1540. Writer Ann Radcliffe born, 1764. Soprano Cathinka Buchwieser died, 1828. The inaugural Wimbledon Championships began, 1877. Artist David Hockney born, 1937. Suffragist Alice Paul died, 1977. Wednesday 10th July - Roman emperor Hadrian died, 138. Dublin was founded, 988 [traditional date]. King James III of Scotland born, 1451. Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England, 1553. Agronomist Eva Ekeblad born, 1724. Artist George Stubbs died, 1806. The Scopes "Monkey Trial" began in Dayton, Tennessee, 1925. Actor Ron Glass born, 1945. Baseball player Gloria Schweigerdt died, 2014. Nikola Tesla Day. Thursday 11th July - Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, born, 1274. Philosopher Nicole Oresme died, 1382. Martin Frobisher sighted Greenland, 1576. Astronomer Jean-Louis Pons made the first of a record 37 discoveries of comets, 1801. Polymath Simon Newcomb died, 1909. Cricketer Peta Taylor born, 1912. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was published, 1960. Actor Laurence Olivier died, 1989. Singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt born, 1994. World Population Day.
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 catalog 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.
A selection 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 Dame Maggie Smith:
- It's not a child's place to save his country.
- Courage is no match for an unfriendly shoe, Countess...
- You're a general-knowledge god.
- - You Brits really don't have a sense of humor do you?
- We do if something's funny, sir.- A man more eviler than Skeletor.
- I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the creme de la creme.
-- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie [1969]- TROLL IN THE DUNGEON! TROLL IN THE DUNGEON! Thought you ought to know.
-- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone [2001]- - Why would anyone kidnap a nun?
- Were they Catholics?
-- Sister Act [1992]- - We're learning English.
- He may be, Ursula. You are making holes in the furniture.
-- Ladies in Lavender [2004]- In life, going downhill is an uphill job.
-- The Lady in the Van [2015]
Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- HISTORY! About 250 miles (400km) south of Lima, Peru, lies a unique area of the Nazca Desert, where 174 square miles (450km2) of ground carries massive figures carved into it. The Nazca petroglyphs form geometric shapes, lines and stylised depictions of animals and birds, most of which are only truly visible from the air, especially mysterious as they were created by pre-Inca people between 400BCE and 1000CE. Over the years there have been many theories from Erich von Däniken's belief, espoused in Chariots of the Gods, that they were a landing site for ancient UFOs (unfortunately Von Däniken got his scale wrong, and claimed a circular feature was a landing bay when it is actually just a few feet (1-2m) wide) to the more prosaic idea that they were processional routes for religious ceremonies. A team of Japanese ornithologists has recently studied images of more than 2000 of the carvings and identified some of the bird species depicted as a hermit thrush, a guano bird and a pelican, none of which are native to the Nazca area. The team speculated that the carvers could have depicted exotic birds seen on journeys to the coast to gether food. ● Between 1941 and 1946 more than 3,500 highly-detailed hand-drawn maps of Germany were produced at Hughenden Manor in Buckinghamshire for the RAF, and the work of the hundred-strong team there remained secret until 2004, when a volunteer tour guide overheard a visitor telling his grandson that he had been recruited from a London printing company and stationed there to make maps during World War II. Now an exhibition of many of the maps has opened, and includes the stories of some of the cartographic team. One of the maps on display shows the Berchtesgaden Kehlsteinhaus, or "Eagle's Nest", retreat used by Hitler. ● Archaeologists at the Vindolanda Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland have discovered a size 11 (by modern measure) boot and two precious gemstones that were lost down a toilet. The stones would have been made by skilled craftsmen and glued into ring settings, but the glue failed and the owner was evidently not inclined to attempt to retrieve them. Also found, in a bath house, was a cracked Ludis latrunculorum gaming board; translated as "Little Soldiers" it was played on a board similar in appearance to draughts and its discovery shows that playing games was an important part of life in the fort. Once cleaned and preserved the artefacts will go on display in the fort's museum.
- NATURE! Scientists from the Polar Institute in Norway who attached a GPS tracker to a female Arctic fox before releasing her on the east coast of Spitsbergen were amazed to track the fox as she walked nearly 1,000 miles (1,609km) across the polar ice to Greenland, then another 1,242 miles (1,999km) to Canada's Ellesmere Island. The whole journey took just 76 days, and although she averaged 28.4 miles (45.7km) a day there were some days when she walked over 96 miles (155km). They initially thought she might be dead and drifting on ice or carried on a boat, but they ruled out both possibilities. Arctic Foxes often migrate in search of food, but none have been tracked travelling so far before. ● Three weeks after going missing from his Farnborough home a 30"- (76cm)-long corn snake called Wilson has been found alive and well under a car bonnet. He had lost the tip of his tail and had a few small burns but was otherwise unhurt. Vet Sonya Miles commented that snakes are drawn to "small, snug little places" and so Wilson would have been drawn to the warmth of the car engine. Wilson's owner was reportedly "over the moon" at being reunited with his pet. ● It has been a busy week for bees. Nottingham Trent University researcher Martin Bencsik is investigating the sounds and vibrations made by a colony of bees who set up their hive in a cello in his garden, while play was briefly halted in the Cricket World Cup match between Sir Lanka and South Africa at Chester-le-Street after a swarm of the insects sent players diving to the ground until they had moved on.
- SCIENCE! NASA is planning a $1bn (£800m) mission to send a helicopter drone to Saturn's moon Titan in the 2030s. Titan has a thick atmosphere making it ideal for an 8-rotor drone to fly between sites of interest, and many of the chemical processes that led to life on Earth exist on Titan, the second-largest known moon in the Solar System, and the only one to have an atmosphere. The average temperature on Titan is -179oC (-290oF) and sites of interest to the mission - called Dragonfly - include methane ice dunes similar in shape to Namibia's linear sand dunes and the Selk impact crater where it will look for evidence of past water and organics. Dragonfly is due to launch in 2026 and arrive at Titan eight years later. ● The five hottest summers in Europe, not including this year's, in the last 500 years have all occurred in the last 15 years and have been linked to a slowed high altitude wind current called the jet stream, which has also been linked to last year's exceptional droughts, wildfires and flooding across the entire Northern Hemisphere. Warming temperatures lead to the loss of sea ice, which disrupts air currents even more. In Europe, where air-conditioning is rare, the heatwave has resulted in disruption to schools, business and led to deaths, but the solution cannot be simply to install air conditioning, as its use would push up energy requirements and CO2 emissions, which would exacerbate the problem. ● It has been long-known that there are lakes underneath the Antarctic ice, with Antartica being a rocky continent covered in ice. The Arctic, unlike Antarctica, is almost entirely floating ice, but analysis of ground-penetrating radar of Greenland has discovered more than 50 lakes hidden beneath the ice, the largest being 3.7 miles (6km) in length. For comparison, Lake Vostok, the largest known Antarctic subsurface lake stretches for 155 miles (250km). Lakes form under the ice sheets of both Greenland and the Antarctic through pressure from the ice above and geothermal heat from below keeping the water above freezing; of particular interest is how the presence of lubricating water below the ice affects its movement towards the sea, where it eventually melts. Greenland alone holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 23' (7m) were it all to melt.
- PEOPLE! Adidas recently launched a Twitter campaign to promote its new football strip for Arsenal, with users able to create virtual shirts bearing their own names, then order them. There were seemingly no filters in place and it did not take long for pictures of shirts with rude messages, racist and anti-Semitic phrases to appear online. The campaign was hastily withdrawn. In 2017 Walkers Crisps had to withdraw a similar campaign where users could see their photos being held up by Gary Lineker after he was depicted promoting pictures of Hitler and serial killer GP Harold Shipman. ● The Springfield Store and Café in Canterbury Plains, New Zealand, made the news this week after it emerged that the owner is so rude to her paying customers that police have had to be called several times to remind her how to treat them. Owner Karyn Cullingford is unrepentent and suggested that people were now going there just to cause trouble. The café has 71 'terrible' ratings out of 101 reviews on TripAdvisor. ● Algerian Feuzi Zabaat, 17, was walking down an Instanbul street when he saw a toddler close to the edge of an open second floor window. She fell and he caught her safely, the incident captured on CCTV. Two-year-old Syrian Doha Muhammed had fallen while her mother was distracted with cooking. Mr Zabaat is being hailed as a hero.
- CRIME! There are dumb criminals and then there are the Spanish mother, 52, and daughter, 20, unnamed in reports, who hired the daughter's boyfriend to kill the mother's partner and sell his organs for profit to recover €60,000 (£53,775; $67,740) they believed he had stolen from the mother. They paid the boyfriend €7,000 (£6,270; $7,900) for the hit, but he was unable - or unwilling - to carry it out. Enraged at his failure, the women reported him to police. All three were subsequently arrested, and police seized a contract signed by them all. ● The "Dark Web", online sites that are kept off search engines and need special browsers to access, is often claimed to a place where untraceable criminals operate selling drugs, illegal data (stolen credit card numbers, hacked login details &c) and so on, but not all criminals are smart, however hard they try. Two dealers who allegedly sent tens of thousands of packages containing methamphetamine (pretending it was Adderall, a drug used to treat ADHD but misused as a recreational stimulant) across America, sold on the Dark Web were very careful. One pressed the pills himself, stamping them as Adderall, they used pseudonyms and only accepted payment via Bitcoin. They are then alleged to have used Endicia, an online stamps business to buy postage labels - with false return name and address details, and sent the packages from the next-but-one nearest post office. Unfortunately for them Endicia is owned by Stamps.com, and Leo Hu, one of the accused, bought the labels using his personal Stamps.com account, which police used to identify him. ● A van driver in Tower Hamlets, London, amassed what is thought to be a UK record of £32,000 ($40,225) in unpaid parking fines, from 246 fixed penalty notices accrued since July 2017, because his van, a white VW Transporter with turbocharged direct injection - also untaxed, uninsured, not MOT'd and registered with the DVLA under a false name - was considered too heavy for council removal trucks to tow away. Last week the council had had enough, and when it was spotted illegally parked again a specially-hired tow truck impounded it. It was not reported whether they nabbed the driver as well.
IN BRIEF: Frozen body falls out of wheel well of Kenya Airways plane on approach to London Heathrow, lands near man sunbathing in his garden; dead man speculated to have been an airport worker in Nairobi who stowed aboard in unpressurised, unheated part of fuselage. ● New EU ruling means electric cars will have to make a noise when moving below 12mph (19km/h) to alert visually-impaired pedestrians; sound can be turned off if stuck in traffic jam. ● Drivers wanting to avoid hour-long delays on main road to Denver airport due to crash sent on detour route by Google Maps resulting in hundreds stuck in mud on dirt road. ● The major wildfire which struck Spain during the recent heatwave was caused by a pile of chicken dung spontaneously combusting. ● Scrap metal dealer in Ipswich cuts open four locked safes for recycling, finds £20,000 ($25,140) in last one. ● Six suburbs of Guadalajara, Mexico, covered by 5' (1.5m) of ice after heavy hail storm. ● NASA restores original Johnson Space Centre Apollo 11 mission control room to mark 50th anniversary of first Moon landing. ● Number plate bearing first car registration number issued in North Yorkshire auctions for £243,000 ($305,460). ● Wasps building 'supernests' each holding up to 15,000 insects in Alabama. ● Sinkhole forces closure of central Oxford street. ● Pentrebane, Wales, primary school bans all parents from sports days after "threatening and intimidating" behaviour by a minority. ● Carolina Waterfowl Rescue appeals for old bras - they use the clasps to hold turtles' cracked shells together while they heal. ● Annual Royal Norfolk Show sees 'Ham National' race of piglets running 262' (80m) course with three low jumps. ● Eighty-year-old woman crashes car into Boston, Lincolnshire branch of Specsavers. [Altogether now -"She should have gone to..." oh wait, she did. -Ed]
TRUMPWATCH - the not-so-occasional look at the news surrounding the US
dictatorpresident... Trump gives ranting 'batshit' 47-minute interview to Fox, says he should have got a medal forcancellingcalling back attack on Iran, says there is no reason for Robert Mueller to talk to anyone - especially Congress - about his report because "there was no collusion", claims to be a tough guy and repeats claim that Twitter is stopping people following him, also praising flunky CA congressman Devin Nunes who is suing Twitter and two parody Twitter accounts ("Devin Nunes' Mom" @DevinNunesMom and "Devin Nunes' Cow" @DevinCow) for defamation. ● Sand dunes at Trump's golf course in Aberdeen to lose status as nationally-important protected environment after course building effectively destroyed them. ● Trump campaign operative found running fake Joe Biden website. ● President Jimmy Carter says Trump was elected by Russia and shows "signs of psychological problems". ● New York congressman Max Rose lays out how foreign governments can manipulate Trump "This is a politics of foreign policy driven by this president's deep, dark insecurites. Apparently, at this point, all you have to do is Twitter-flirt with president and compliment his hair and you could get whatever you want.", adding after Trump's finger-wagging at Putin not to meddle in 2020 election, "At one point or another this president has got to understand that Vladimir Putin is laughing at him, not with him. We cannot reward attacks on the homeland and that's exactly what Russia did in 2016. ● Trump goes on Twitter rant after Supreme Court blocks attempt to add citizenship question to 2020 census; Trump attempting to find way to delay census... ● Federal employment pool haemorrhaging workers as administration relocates jobs across states to shrink workforce. ● Tanks roll onto the National Mall for Trump's Independence Day celebration ofAmericaTrump. [If Russia and North Korea can do it... -Ed] Presumably administration will not reimburse D.C. for damage to streets. ● Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announces she is writing a book about her time working for Trump; Twitterati helpfully suggest titles including It's a Wonderful Lie (@KeystoneTake), I Haven't Discussed That With the President: My Time as Donald Trump's "PRESS SECRETARY" by Sarah Huckabee Sanders and I'm Not Sure Who Else? You'll Have to Direct That Question to My Publisher (@DanielDass), Lying and Grifting for Dummies (and 101 Tips on: *Styling your bosses [sic] wig, *Spray tanning your boss, *How to cage brown children), A Reference for MAGA Morons (@MTCinCA) and Lord of the Lies (@EINuevoOtroMio2). ● Ivanka Trump's ridiculous attempt to insert herself into a G20 conversation between Theresa May (UK PM [still, just]), Emmanuel Macron (French President), Justin Trudeau (Canadian PM) and Christine Lagard (Director, IMF) led to #UnwantedIvanka trending on Twitter, with Ivanka photoshoppped into historical world events and, er, riding behind shirtless Putin on horse, then #ResignIvanka trending. Donald, meanwhile, appeared to snub Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Donald, Ivanka and Jared Kushner's appearance at G20 described as "one of the worst few days of foreign policy. If anyone thinks this doesn't hurt America in the short term, in the long run, they are sadly mistaken" by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. ● Absence of Melania from spouses' photograph has commentators wondering why she was not in Japan, many suggesting that had Trump taken her instead of Ivanka/Kushner things might have gone better. Trump set up Iran nuclear deal failure by pulling out of it, then insulted and attacked everyone at the G20 he wants to 'fix' it... ● Incoming White House Press Secretary left bruised after scuffle with North Korean officials trying to stop reporters rushing into Trump/Kim meeting room. Trump's claim that "President Obama wanted to meet, and Chairman Kim would not meet him. The Obama administration was begging for a meeting. They were begging for meetings constantly, and Chairman Kim would not meet with him." is, unsurprisingly, "Horses**t" according to former national security adviser Susan Rice, and former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes who said "Trump is lying. I was there for all 8 years. Obama never sought a meeting with Kim Jong Un. Foreign policy isn't reality television. Its reality." ● Coalition of US asylum officers goes to court to try to block administration from returning some migrants seeking asylum to Mexico as "contrary to the moral fabric of our nation." Administration reportedly tried to delay doctors' visit to detained children. ● Donnie Jr tweeted "I'm bored" during first Democrats' candidate debate, gets slaughtered on Twitter - "Because it's civil?" (@davidmweissman), "People with small minds often are" (@andrewtothemoon), "Too many big words?" (@karaforcongress) and so on... ● It's not just Kellyanne Conway, at least 16 other people within the Trump administration have violated the Hatch Act on at least one occasion [There were two violations during the Obama administration; both people expressed remorse. We're still waiting on Conway, Kushter, Ivanka, Saunders & al....] ● $2.5m (£1.99) diverted from National Park service (mostly collected as entrance fees) where it would usually be used to repair roads, bridges, improve parks nationwide, for Trump's July 4 ego parade; his donors get VIP tickets, natch... ● Trump schedules rally on same day as news broadcasts would be covering Mueller's July 17 Congressional testimony, hoping they'll cover him instead... Well, Fux [sic] might.
Jayma Mays, Erinn Hayes join Bill & Ted 3 as the princesses, questions raised over why original (or first sequel) actresses weren't cast - they're much closer in age to Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter; original cast members Amy Stoch, Hal Landon Jr (Missy, Ted's dad) join cast. ● Meols, Wirral, red phone box saved from removal by OMD fans (the band used it to arrange early gigs, and refer to it in "Red Frame/White Light") given blue plaque to mark its cultural significance. ● Avengers: Endgame ruled unlikely to pass Avatar's box office record, even with massive 18-second-addition rerelease to piggy back on Spider-Man: Far From Home. ● Asteroid 81948 (2000 OM69) renamed 'Eno' to honour musician described as "an experimental sculptor of sound" by discoverer Marc Buie. ● Vestiville Festival in Belgium cancelled on health and safety grounds at last minute; many attendees, some of whom had paid for international travel, accomodation, turn up to discover empty site manned by by a handful of security guards; situation compared to infamous 2017 Fyre Festival travesty. ● Matt Goss reveals he has written the lyrics for a musical based on Upstairs, Downstairs. ● Steps planning to release new album in 2020. ● Luc Besson's Anna flops with director's lowest domestic opening. ● Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown join Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter in Enola Holmes (based on book series about Sherlock and Mycroft's younger sister). ● With Mario Royale taken down by predicted DCMA demand from Nintendo, classic game and Battle Royale fans can now play Flappy Royale - Flappy Birds with 100 concurrent players. ● Glastonbury round-up: Neneh Cherry's video backdrop computer crashed and rebooted, revealing it was running on Windows XP [How retro... -Ed]; Janet Jackson's much-hyped performance criticised for miming, out of tune backing track, low sound volume; Liam Gallagher solo performance reviewed as lacking weight of Oasis songs; Pet Shop Boys, Johnny Marr and sweeper-up Jimmy Carr guest on Killers' set; Kylie Minogue gives triumphant performance 14 years after breast cancer diagnosis forced her to pull out of Glasto; sale of single-use plastic water bottles banned (and delays reported at refilling stations), but thousands of plastic bottles still left to be cleaned up after festival; Emily Eavis reports that for the first time 99% of tents were taken home. ● Copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, thought to be the first thing Daniel Radcliffe autographed auctioned for £2,600 ($3,277). ● Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina in talks to play Flounder, Scuttle in Disney live-action/CG The Little Mermaid remake. ● Joy Harjo named US Poet Laureate, first Native American to hold post. ● Lady Gaga rumoured to be joining Guardians of the Galaxy 3 as love interest for Rocket Raccoon (voiced by A Star is Born costar Bradley Cooper). ● Lena Headey joins Netflix' The Dark Crystal series. ● Michael Palin to exec produce five special for Radio 4 to mark 50th anniversary of Mony Python; 5 October will also see world record attempt at number of people dressed as Gumbys. ● Channel 5 to make new series based on All Creatures Great and Small, to be shot on location in Yorkshire. ● Paul Rudd joins cast of Ghostbusters. ● Phoebe Waller-Bridge writing herself a role in series 3 of Killing Eve - as a victim of Villanelle. ● Ailbhe Darcy wins Wales Book of the Year for poetry collection Insistence. ● Sony to focus on big name titles, exclusives, "hardcore gamers who obsess over the latest features" for still-officially-unnamed PS5 console. ● Netflix to adapt Neil Gaiman's Sandman to TV series; Gaiman reports that he tried and failed to persuade Marvel to adapt his Mavel 1602 comic book series (current superhero roster transposed to the Elizabethan era) for small screen. ● Mel C suggests that Spice Girls could follow UK reunion tour with world tour [and hopefully better sound... -Ed]. ● Wolfenstein: Youngblood to be first videogame released in Germany with Nazi symbols and characters after rules relaxed last year. ● Speculation growing that there could be a standalone Doctor Who episode this year, possibly featuring the Judoon; next series due to air "very early" next year.
Baseball pitcher Tyler Skaggs (Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Angels, 27), actress Jeon Mi-seon (The King's Letters, Andante, The Moon That Embraces the Sun, 48), bounty hunter and reality TV star Beth Chapman (Dog the Bounty Hunter, Dog and Best: On the Hunt, Dog's Most Wanted, 51), 9/11 first-responder and healthcare compensation advocate Luis Alvarez (retired from NYPD, 53), actor Max Wright (Alf, Buffalo Bill, Friends, 75), animator and actor Milton Quon (Dumbo, Fantasia, Speed, 105).
^ DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!
Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:9, 14, 21, 22, 36, 46[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 and her parents had made the 2-hour car journey to visit her Great Aunt Sylvia, who came to meet them as her parents got out of the car and stretched. "Thank you for making the effort," Sylvia said to Little Jennifer's mother, before turning to Little Jennifer as she jumped down from the back seat. "That was a long journey, Little Jennifer, did you play any games? When I was younger we played guessing games on long journeys."
Little Jennifer smiled as only she could. "Oh yes, Great Auntie, I spotted a cow, a horse and a circus tent, Mummy spotted a wind farm and a combine harvester, and Daddy spotted another damn lorry, five bloody slowcoaches and a stupid bastard!"
^ ...end of line