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Issue #537 - 25th October 2019
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| Contents | — – o o O o o – — |
^ WORD OF THE WEEK
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Friday 25th October - Poet Geoffrey Chaucer died, 1400. The lightly-armoured English infantry and longbowmen defeated the heavily-armoured French cavalry at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415. Renée of France born, 1510. The Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, in which the British Light Brigade charged Russian cannon, 1854. Computer scientist Wendy Hall born, 1952. Radio DJ John Peel died, 2004. Saturday 26th October - King Alfred the Great died, 899. Composer Hans Buchner born, 1483. The coronation of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor, 1520. The Erie Canal, linking the Hudson River and Lake Erie, opened, 1825. Racehorse trainer/breeder Florence Nagle born, 1894. Actress Hattie McDaniel died, 1952. Sunday 27th October - Æthelstan, King of England, died, 939. Amsterdam was founded, 1275 [traditional date]. Composer Niccolò Paganini born, 1782. Soviet Navy officer Vasily Arkhipov averted potential nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis by refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo, 1965. Violinist & skier Vanessa-Mae born, 1978. Singer-songwriter Lou Reed died, 2013. World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (UNESCO). Monday 28th October - The Forbidden City in Beijing was completed, 1420. Philosopher Erasmus born, 1466. Artist William Dobson died, 1646. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated, 1886. Actress Elsa Lanchester born, 1902. Poet Ted Hughes died, 1998. International Animation Day. Tuesday 29th October - Explorer & politician Sir Walter Raleigh executed, 1618. Leibniz first used the long s (∫) as the symbol for the integral in calculus, 1675. Pianist Maria Anna Mozart died, 1829. Folk artist Harriet Powers born, 1837. The first computer-to-computer link was established on the ARPANET, the forerunner to the Internet, 1969. Actress Winona Ryder born, 1971. Wednesday 30th October - Printer Johann Fust died, 1466. The coronation of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor king, 1485. Architect Sir Christopher Wren born, 1632. Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, died, 1910. Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds was broadcast in America, 1938. Photographer Mario Testino born, 1954. Thursday 31st October - Byzantine Empress Irene was deposed and banished to Lesbos, 802. Artist Fra Bartolomeo died, 1517. Poet John Keats born, 1795. Nevada was admitted to the U.S. as the 36th state, 1864. Filmmaker Peter Jackson born, 1961. Actor River Phoenix died, 1993. Hallowe'en.
This week, Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Sarah Michelle Gellar:I'd forgotten it was Halloween, so I was giving out candy and someone said "What's your costume?" I was like, "I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer." She was like "You don't look like Buffy."
A selection of quotations from films with the same director. Answers next issue or from the regular address.Last issue's quotations were from films directed by John Hughes:
- I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum.
- Something that one lives with like an albatross round the neck. No, more like a millstone. A plumbing stone, by God! Damn them all!
- Whoa, whoa. You better watch what you say about my car. She's real sensitive.
- - There was an accident. About an hour ago, a small jet went down inside New York City. The President was on board.
- The president of what?- Well, kiddo, I thought you outgrew superstition.
- Don't mess with the bull young man, you'll get the horns.
-- The Breakfast Club [1985]- College is like high school with ashtrays.
-- She's Having a Baby [1988]- So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?
-- Weird Science [1985]- Relax, would you? We have seventy dollars and a pair of girl's underpants. We're safe as kittens.
-- Sixteen Candles [1984]- - The 1961 Ferrari 250GT California. Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love, it is his passion.
- It is his fault he didn't lock the garage.
-- Ferrid Beuller's Day Off [1986]
Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Bangladeshi politician Tamanna Nusrat has been expelled from the Bangladesh Open University where she was studying for a BA after allegedly hiring up to eight lookalikes to sit at least 13 exams for her, after broadcaster Nagorik TV entered a test hall to confront one of the imposters. A university official told reporters that "the proxy students were protected by the MP's musclemen when they sat for exams. Everybody knew it but nobody uttered a word because she is from a very influential family." Nusrat will never be allowed to re-enrol at the university.
- An official-looking poster by a pond in a park in Buxton, Derbyshire, has caused confusion among people feeding the resident ducks. It is not known who was responsible for the poster which said "Everyone has stopped feeding us because they wrongly think bread will make us poorly and now some of us are dying of starvation without your bread. Yes, it's not the healthiest for us, but nothing in our bellies will kill us." Earlier this year a campaign by the Swan Lifeline charity and a pet food brand had urged people to stop feeding bread to wildfowl. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has clarified that small quantities of bread will not harm birds, but if it makes up the bulk of their diet they will lack vital vitamins and nutrients, and porridge oats, defrosted frozen or fresh peas, bird seed and sweetcorn are healthier alternatives.
- The Rubjerg Knude lighthouse has spent the last 120 years atop a gigantic sand dune on the northern Danish coast, but coastal erosion caused by wind from the North Sea was threatening to topple it. A major engineering project recently raised it onto rails and moved the entire structure 230' (70m) further inland. The operation took ten weeks to plan and several hours to perform as the lighthouse could not be moved faster than 40' (12m) an hour, but was completed faster than expected as engineers who had assumed a weight of around 1,000 tonnes found that the lighthouse only weighed 720 tonnes. The operation, which cost 5m Danish Kroner (£0.6m; $0.75m) should keep the lighthouse, a local tourist attraction, safe for another 40 years.
- Jo Carter got engaged fifteen years ago, but rarely wears her engagement ring as she has lost 10 stone (63kg) since then and it is now too big, so she kept it on an old candle in her bathroom. Recently she and her husband took 15 bags of recyclable rubbish to their local tip in Caldicot, Monmouthshire, only for her to realise later that she had binned the candle, and with it her ring, which was worth around £3,000 ($3,864) and uninsured. The next morning Craig, her husband, went to the recycling centre and, with two workers called Rhys and Darren, he searched through the bags until they came to the one Craig knew the ring was in, because it contained "all the things from the bathroom cupboard", and they carefully emptied it on a patch of bare ground to retrieve the ring. Jo and Criag thanked the two recycling staff with a box of beer each, food vouchers and scratchcards, and Rhys and Darren also took a joke proposal selfie with the ring, which Jo has now given to her mother to look after as "she's more sensible."
- The United States' Strategic Automated Command and Control System, responsible, in the event of a nuclear war, for launching missiles and tracking both missiles and aircraft, is reported to have updated its computer system which made headlines three years ago when a damning US Government Accountability Report detailed the obsolete technology including ancient mainframes and an 1970s-era IBM Series/1 minicomputer that still used 8" floppy disks to run critical applications written in COBOL. Each disk stores a mere 80KB of data. One advantage of the antiquated tech, however, was that it was more secure from hackers as it did not use today's network protocols.
- A Chinese businessmen and six hitmen have been jailed in Guanxhi, China, after the businessman hired one of the hitmen to "take out" a competitor. The first hitman subcontracted the second, who subcontracted the third and so on, until the sixth hitman met with the competitor in a cafe and proposed that he should fake his death and split the payment. The 'target', a Mr Wei, posed, gagged and bound, for a photograph to be taken to the fifth hitman, before going to the police. The case first went to trial in 2016 but ended in aquittals for a lack of evidence, prompting prosecutors to appeal for a retrial, which has last three years. The businessman was sentenced to five years in prison and the hitmen from three years six months to two years and seven months.
- Think your smartphone's locking system is secure? If you have a Samsung Galaxy S10 or a Google Pixel 4 you might want to check. A British couple have found that the wife's Galaxy S10's fingerprint scanner can be fooled by a cheap screen protector, which disrupts the fingerprint recognition system allowing her husband - or anyone - to unlock her phone with their thumbprint. The Pixel 4 uses a different mechanism - it images a user's eye to unlock, but researchers have discovered that the unlock system still works if presented with a closed eye. Google claimed that their phone had a setting to require the eye to be open when trying to unlock the phone, but some devices did not have the setting. Both Samsung and Google have been reported as "frantically" trying to fix the problem.
- An Australian mother has discovered that her chosen name for her baby son could be illegal. Claire Alexander-Johnson queried why paperwork to register her son was taking so long to be processed, only to be told that the name "Citizen Sage Alexander-Johnson" might be disallowed, because 'Citizen' falls loosely into the category of misleading 'title' names like 'King', 'Lord' or 'Captain'. At the time of reporting the Australian Births, Marriages and Deaths bureau was still deliberating. Citizen's siblings are called the slightly-less-dubious 'Atlas', 'Zephyr' and 'Everest'.
- The Vatican has launched an "eRosary" bracelet for tech-savvy believers with £85 ($109) to spare. The bracelet, containing 10 black agate and hematite beads plus a metal cross is activated by making the sign of the cross with it, and is linked to a "Click to Pray eRosary" phone app (iOS and Android) to guide the wearer through their prayers; unfortunately the app has been found to be significantly insecure to hackers. [But will the Pastafarians launch an eSieve to guide worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - all hail his noodly appendages, r'Amen - next, we wonder? -Ed]
- German police had to deploy a helicopter with thermal imaging, several cars and call in the fire brigade to catch a suspect that had smashed through a greenhouse and a camping ground, destroyed a scooter and damaged a patrol car on a four-hour rampage through the Bavarian town of Sand am Main last weekend. The suspect was one of two cows that had escaped from their enclosure. The first was recaptured soon after escaping, but the second cow, initially located near a supermarket, knocked its farmer over (without serious injury) and ran off again, towards the centre of the town, smashing through the greenhouse and trampling the camping ground on its way. It was eventually located using the thermal camera, in a dead-end ally, and police and firefighters blocked off the exit with their vehicles before a vet tranquilised it with a blowpipe and the farmer took it back home.
IN BRIEF: Archaeologists reveal that water levels in Loch Vaa, near Aviemore, Scotland, dropped to the lowest levels in 750 years this summer, revealing C13th timbers from a crannog (fortified settlement). ● Man arrested in the Netherlands after five siblings and their father (none related to the suspect) were found locked in a secret room on his farm. ● Missouri man reported missing discovered a week later living in his car at the bottom of a ravine, having driven off the edge of the road. ● After last week's report of a woman run over by her own car a man in Alabama was run over by his car after his dog pushed the accelerator. ● Newly-identified seismic energy bursts that can spread thousands of miles across continents dubbed 'stormquakes'. ● Man who posted footage of himself driving along the Snake Pass over the Pennines at almost 100mph (161km/h) to YouTube arrested after Police see the video. ● Saharan silver ants found to be able to run at 108 times their own body length per second, 20 times faster than 100m record holder Usain Bolt. ● Seventeen-foot- (5.2m)-long great white shark filmed attacking chartered diving cage; nobody hurt (though the shark lost a tooth). ● July-September was the first three-month period where energy from renewable sources outpaced that from fossil fuels in the UK since the C19th. ● Scientist develop system to identify whale strandings with satellite imaging.
- Trump's announced intention to hold G-7 summit at his Doral resort in Florida (complete with unbearable heat and, according to reports, bedbug infestations) met with howls of protest from both Republicans and Democrats, with Elizabeth Warren calling him "corruption in the flesh". Congress voted to formally rebuke him for decision. Trump later abandoned plan, will hold summit at Camp David, tried to portray himself as the victim of the media and "crazy" Democrats rather than a corrupt president breaching (again) the Constitution's emoluments clause (which he said was "phoney" - it is not.). Trump claimed to be providing the resort "for free", as he does not run it himself, but he is still the ultimate beneficiary of the Trump Organization (run by his children) which does. ● GOP group Republicans for the Rule of Law released TV commercial in wake of initial Doral announcement using Trump's past comments about corruption (allegedly by Hillary Clinton [now cleared after years-long investigation into email use]) against him. ● Trump called impeachment inquiry "a lynching", prompting angry reactions from African-American lawmakers ("That is one word that no president ought to apply to himself" [Congressman Jim Clyburn]); South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham backed Trump's use of the word, got invited to opening of African-American history museum to educate himself [We do not know if he went].
- Speculation growing that Trump might lose yet another Chief of Staff after Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney made disastrous round of Sunday talk show ciruit to try to defend him; could Kellyanne Conway be the next acting Chief of Staff (Trump seems to be running out of potentials)?
- Trump sent a letter to Turkish president imploring him "don't be a tough guy, don't be a fool" among other undiplomatic phrases. After Fox News posted contents of letter, Internet users had a hard time believing it was real until New York Times and others confirmed it. Erdogan reportedly threw it in the bin and "will not forget president's disrespectful letter". Hillary Clinton mocked Trump's letter with parody letter in same style from JFK to Nikita Krushev - "Don't be a dick, ok? Get your missiles out of Cuba. Everybody will say 'Yay Kruschev! You're the best!' But if you don't everybody will be like 'what an asshole' and call your country 'The Soviet Bunion'."
- After Trump mocked former Secretary of Defense General James Mattis as "the most overrated general" Mattis told dinner audience "I'm honored to be considered that by Donald Trump because he also called Meryl Streep an overrated actress. So I guess I'm the Meryl Streep of generals, and frankly that sounds pretty good to me" adding that "I earned my spurs on the battlefield... and Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor." ● Former anti-ISIS coalition envoy Brett McGurk branded Trump "obscene and ignorant" for withdrawing US troops from northern Syria.
- Americans are not widely known for having a sense of irony, and Eric Trump is no exception after attacking Biden family by asking "why is it that every family goes into politics and enriches themselves?" ● Trump tried to troll Nancy Pelosi with picture of her standing up to confront him at White House meeting; Pelosi made it her Twitter cover photo. [So in the last two weeks he's been pwned on Twitter by 16-year-old schoolgirl Greta Thunberg and Nancy Pelosi...]; photo shows Pelosi looking strong, Trump's staff looking embarassed and him - according to one Twitter user - looking constipated. ● This week astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history by performing the first all-female spacewalk in history from the International Space Station and also had to cope with a call from Trump, who congratulated them on "the first female spacewalk ever". It was the second time astronauts aboard the ISS have had to fact-check him as "there have been many other female spacewalkers before", Meir told him. [In 2017, just after signing a NASA authorisation bill to outline a timeline for a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s he asked astronaut Peggy Whitson when she thought astronauts would get to Mars only to be told "Well I think as your bill directed, it'll be approximately in the 2030s"]. ● Trump's top China advisor Pete Navaro regularly cites an expert called Ron Vara - 'Ron Vara' is an anagram of his own surname, and no record of an expert on China called 'Ron Vara' can be found other than one reference in a book - written by Navaro's wife... ● Trump referred to his Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in a tweet as 'Mark Esperanto' [Probably an autocorrect error, but it was at the start of the tweet, so why did he not notice it? Oh yeah, attention span of a dead mosquito, and he probably had not had his morning covfefe... -Ed]
Merino sheep Chris (came to worldwide attention in 2015 after being found in the wild near Canberra with six-years' growth of wool - some 88lbs (41.1kg), ~10), Belgian Paralympian Merieke Vervoort (2012 London Paraympics gold & silver, 2016 Rio Paralympics silver & bronze, 40), journalist Deborah Orr (The Guardian, The Independent, 57), US congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland, chair of Committee on Oversight and Reform, 68), ballerina Alicia Alonso (Giselle, National Ballet of Cuba, 98).
^ DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!
Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:4, 13, 20, 27, 34, 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 parents were taking her trick-or-treating for Hallowe'en. Her mother was dressed as a zombie, her father as a werewolf and Little Jennifer as a witch. The first house they came to was Little Jennifer's teacher. She opened the door and smiled. "Well," look at you. What a scary witch you are, Little Jennifer, and I guess this zombie and werewolf are your Mummy and Daddy."
Little Jennifer smiled as only she could, reached for the proffered bowl of sweets and said, "Thank you, Miss. Yes, this is Mummy and Daddy, but I'm sorry about the costumes. They look much uglier the rest of the year!"
^ ...end of line