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Issue #543 - 6th December 2019
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| Contents | — – o o O o o – — |
^ WORD OF THE WEEK
cimelia |
Friday 6th December - King Henry VI of England born, 1421. Artist Jan van Scorel died, 1562. Parliament was purged of MPs loyal to King Charles I of England to make way for his trial, in Pride's Purge, 1648. The Nefertiti Bust was discovered in Amarna, 1912. Ballerina Wendy Ellis Somes born, 1951. Actress Janet Munro died, 1972. Saturday 7th December - Philosopher and politician Cicero was killed, 43 BCE. Astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi born, 903. The Great Storm of 1703 made landfall in southern Great Britain, 1703. Writer Willa Cather born, 1873. Boston's W1XAV aired the first television commercial in the United States, 1930. Actress Kathleen Harrison died, 1995. International Civil Aviation Day. Sunday 8th December - Mary, Queen of Scots born, 1542. A woman (either Anne Marshall or Margaret Hughes) appeared on an English public stage for the first time, playing Desdemona in Othello, 1660. Marie Anne de Mailly, mistress of Louis XV of France, died, 1744. Pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès born, 1861. The United States declared war on Japan, 1941. Singer-songwriter John Lennon was murdered, 1980. Monday 9th December - Gertrude of Brunswick, Markgräfin of Meißen, died, 1117. Poet John Milton born, 1608. William of Orange's forces were victorious at the Battle of Reading during the Glorious Revolution, prompting King James II to flee the country two days later, 1688. Occultist Hélène Smith born, 1861. The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running soap opera, was broadcast, 1960. Astronomer and broadcaster Patrick Moore died, 2012. International Anti-Corruption Day (United Nations). Tuesday 10th December - Artist Paolo Uccello died, 1475. The League of Cambrai was formed, 1508. Scientist and philosopher Isaac Beeckman born, 1588. The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannia was published, 1768. Economist Elizabeth Baker born, 1885. Actress Marie Windsor died, 2000. Human Rights Day. Wednesday 11th December - Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, last native Prince of Wales, was killed by English soldiers in a skirmish near Cilmeri, 1282. Composer Emanuele d'Astorga born, 1680. Whilst attempting to flee to France, King James II of England threw the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames, 1688. Cartoonist Marjorie Buell ('Marge') born, 1904. Apollo 17 became the last manned mission to land on the Moon, 1972. Model Bettie Page died, 2008. International Mountain Day. Thursday 12th December - Joan of Portugal, Queen of Castile, died, 1475. Physician, scientist and poet Erasmus Darwin born, 1731. A British fleet led by HMS Victory defeated the French at the Second Battle of Ushant during the American Revolutionary War, 1781. Actress Jennifer Connelly born, 1970. Author and illustrator Norman Bridwell, creator of Clifford the Big Red Dog, died, 2014. The Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted, 2015.
This week, Willa Cather, from O Pioneers!:I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.
A selection of quotations from films with a common director. Answers next issue or from the regular address.Last issue's quotations were from films directed by Peter Jackson:
- I've got culture coming out of my ass.
- Prophecy. Prophecy cause all this trouble.
- I think I need a root canal. I definitely need a long, slow root canal.
- It's too cerebral! We're trying to make a movie here, not a film!
- Maybe we should add more special effects like exploding socks.
- - You fool. No man can kill me. Die now.
- I am no man.
-- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [2003]- - Oh, I wish James Mason would do a religious picture! He'd be perfect as Jesus!
- Daddy says the Bible's a load of bunkum!
- But we're all going to heaven?
- I'm not! I'm going to The Fourth World... it's sort of like heaven. Only better, because there aren't any Christians!
-- Heavenly Creatures [1994]- Give it up, Frank! Death ain't no way to make a living!
-- The Frighteners [1996]- - And I am sorry for doubting you.
- No, it's fine. I would have doubted me too. I'm not a hero, or a warrior... not even a burglar.
-- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey [2012]- I'm a Derek and Dereks don't run!
-- Bad Taste [1987]
Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Ronald Cyr, 65, from Maine, called police to report that he had been shot at home. When they arrived they discovered that he had been shot by a handgun in a homemade booby trap designed to shoot anyone trying to open his front door. A number of booby trap devices were found around his house in a subsequent search. Cyr later died of his injury in hospital.
- Genius, a song lyric annotation website is suing Google and lyric licensing service LyricFind for $50m (£38.17m), claiming that the companies have been "caught red-handed misapproriating content from Genius's website" thanks to Genius' clever used of a watermark made of apostrophes. In their published lyrics Genius changed between straight and curly single quotation marks to spell out, in Morse code, "red handed". Despite the evidence LyricFind's chief executive Darryl Ballantyne denied sourcing lyrics from Genius.
- Cinema the North Bend Theater in North Bend, Washington state, was forced to evacuate its staff and customers, its manager was taken to hospital as a precaution, and surrounding streets were cordoned off after a suspicious package was delivered last Friday evening. Five "hazmat techs" were sent to the cinema to investigate the box, which was labelled "highly contagious human substance". After an hour it was determined that the package contained urine samples and should have been delivered to a local medical clinic for testing.
- People in parts of London and southeast England were awoken just after 4am last Sunday by a loud bang which prompted a flood of calls to emergency services. An RAF spokesman later confirmed that it had been caused by two Typhoon fighters that had been scrambled to intercept an unresponsive aircraft, and had been given permission to break the sound barrier to catch up with it. The plane, reported as having been a new passenger jet being delivered, re-established contact after interception.
- A Californian family visiting Lake Tahoe last week were shocked to look out of the Kings Beach house where they were staying to see a bear opening the door of their SUV and climbing in. One of the family managed to sneak up and carefully open another of the car's doors (at the second attempt; it closed first time) after which the bear scrambled out before peacefully wandering off.
- On November 19 three people and a dog were stranded in the Australian outback when their car became stuck in a dried-up riverbed. After surviving for three days on what food and drink they had, boiling dirty-looking groundwater before straining it through a shirt and digging themselves into the shade under the car during the 40C (104F) daytime temperatures then sleeping in it at night, they decided to split up to find help. Phu Tran, 40, was discovered by a farmer performing routine checks on his vast station 100 miles (160km) south of Alice Springs last Tuesday, and taken to hospital to be treated for heat exposure. Tamra McBeath-Riley, 52, and her dog had been found on the previous Sunday after a local had reported seeing tyre tracks. Sadly police later recovered a body thought to be Claire Hockridge, 46.
- The village of Kegworth, Leicestershire, has a secret Santa, who has been leaving presents for residents to find. Katherine Deadman, 26, was out walking with her father and baby when they found a gift-wrapped Christmas pudding on a bench with a label reading "Random Acts of Kindness... enjoy. Love, Kegworth's Secret Santa". Others have found similarly wrapped chocolates and gifts, and many recipients are now taking to leaving presents of their own for someone else to find.
- Last weekend Lincoln resident Bradley Thornton, 23, joined forty others to climb England's highest peak, Scafell Pike in the Lake District, but he did it carrying a rowing machine, and once at the summit he rowed 6.2 miles (10k) on it before, presumably, carrying it back down. The climb and row was to raise money for mental health charity Mind in honour of his friend James Walker who took his own life. "I am showing people that you can push through the hard times," Thornton told reporters.
- An overlooked manuscript in Lambeth Palace Library has been found to have a special provenance. Dr John-Mark Philo from the University of East Anglia was searching the library for translations of Roman historian Tacitus when he came across the 42-page manuscript, a translation of a book by Tacitus on the benefits of a monarchical rule. Philo identified the paper as a type that had "gained special prominence" at the Tudor court in the 1590s, and there was only one person at the court to whom a contemporary had ascribed a translation of Tacitus, Queen Elizabeth I herself. Furthermore, the paper carried three watermarks matching those of paper the queen was known to have used, and, although the text had been copied out by a secretary it was covered in corrections and additions in the queen's distinctive hand.
- In 2001 retired journalist John Richards founded the Apostrophe Protection Society to preserve the correct use of the punctuation mark. Sadly Richards has now announced that he is shutting it down, partly because "at 96 I am cutting back on my commitments" but also because fewer people and organisations care about its usage these day and "the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won". When he set up the society he expected maybe six other people to show an interest but received over 500 letters from all over the world within a month of its announcement in a newspaper.
IN BRIEF: Baby girl born on American Airlines flight christened Sky. ● Quebec woman handcuffed for not holding escalator handrail in station acquitted, awarded damages. ● It is not just major stores that offer "Black Friday" discounts, a number of vendors of dubious goods on the Dark Web were also discounting. ● Town of Asbestos, Quebec, looking to rename itself something more environmentally friendly. ● UK Foreign Office cat Palmerston returns to work after six months' medical treatment for stress caused by being constantly picked up and fed treats. ● Video of No. 10, Downing Street, cat Larry being let in by guard policeman goes viral. ● Residents of Prickwillow, Cambridgeshire, decorate disused red phone box to look like steam train with giant Santa head for cab. ● New island emerges in Pacific as a result of undersea volcano. ● Essex housefire started by dog turning on microwave cooker. ● Teddy bear mascot present at D-Day landings to be auctioned; another 100-year-old RAF mascot bear carefully restored by BBC Repair Shop programme, but keeps "wonky smile". ● World Meteorological Organization "almost certain" that 2010-2019 global average temperatures made it the warmest decade on record. ● Chinese astronomers discover black hole thought to have mass 70 times that of the Sun; scientists previously believed maximum limit for black holes would be 20 times Sun's mass. ● Frozen 18,000-year-old canine found in Siberia could be evolutionary link between wolves and dogs. ● Washed-up dead sperm whale found to have 200lb (100kg) 'litter ball' in stomach.
White House officials can find no record of the 9 September phone call with Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland Trump "quoted from", claiming it exonerated him over Ukraine scandal. ● Law professor and former acting Solicitor General describes White House as "engaged in unprecedented obstruction" of the Ukraine probe, "in many ways worse" than Nixon's alleged obstruction during Watergate. ● Trump, lawyers, decline to attend House Judiciary Committee hearings to determine progress of impeachment proceedings despite ultimatum from Chairman Jerrold Nadler. ● House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence releases draft report containing "overwhelming" evidence of misconduct in office by Trump in "months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election" and of obstruction of Congress. ● Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) describes the Republican Party as "becoming the most important global asset of Russian intel". ● Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) becomes one of highest-ranking Republicans to break from Trump's discredited conspiracy theory Ukraine narrative, telling reporters "It was the Russians. I'm 1,000% confidant that the hack of the [Democratic National Committee] was by Russian operatives, no one else."
Department of Justice watchdog finds no evidence of FBI "attempting to place undercover agents or informants inside Donald J. Trump's campaign in 2016". At Trump's urging, the Department of Defense has awarded a $400m (£308.5m) contract for section of the Mexico border wall to construction company owned by a man who gave donations to the Republican Party and promoted his company on Fox News. ● Trump has nominated Marshall Billingslea for the post of undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights; while serving at the Pentagon from 2002 to 2003 Billingslea promoted later-banned-as-torture interrogation techniques including hooding, blindfolding, sleep deprivation, prolonged standing, forcible shaving of beards, stripping naked and intimidation with military dogs, making him possibly the last person in the US government who should be given a job protecting human rights. ● Trump has often stated that he does not take a salary as President, or rather redirects it to 'charitable' causes (because it has to be payed by law); as of Thanksgiving his numerous golf trips have cost the US taxpayer the equivalent of at least 287 years of presidential salary, much of it going into the coffers of his own hotels and golf courses.
If many people across America were feeling unwell on Friday morning it was either because they overate the Thanksgiving repast the day before or they had seen Trump's tweet of his head superimposed on a promo picture of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa from the 1982 second sequel. Even more bizarrely the Trump 2020 campaign then blasted The Washington Post for suggesting that the image was 'doctored'... and Donnie Jr tweeted a photoshopped image of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff in a leotard. Star Wars actor and Twitter legend Mark Hamill meanwhile posted a more appropriate collage of four images: Trump's head on a fat man wearing boxing gloves and a nappy, another fat boxer in stars-and-stripe shorts with the legend "BEFUDDLED DINK", a genuine and unflattering picture of the overweight Trump himself playing tennis, and a picture of Trump's face superimposed on Star Wars baddy Jabba the Hut.
After last month's revelation of discrepancies in Trump's financial reporting on two of his properties it has emerged that the occupancy rate of the flagship Trump Tower in Manhattan was listed, over three consecutive years, as 11%, 16% and 16% higher in filings to lenders than in comparable filings to New York City tax officials, allowing him to secure a loan on more favourable terms while paying less tax.
With Trump in London for NATO's 70th anniversary celebration Prime Ministers Boris Johnson (UK), Justin Trudeau (Canada) and Emmanuel Macron (France) were caught unguarded on camera joking about Trump's unplanned 40-minute rambling press conference having caused him to be late. Johnson, in the middle of an election campaign, met with Trump in private but avoided being photographed together in public as much as possible. Meanwhile it is speculated that the Queen's daughter, Princess Anne, 69, was chided by her mother for not attending an official line of greeting for the Trumps, gaining much praise from the Twittersphere. ● Following the recent knife attack by a released terrorist prisoner in London Donnie Trump Jr - already established as having no sense of irony - tweeted an attack on the UK govt for letting a convicted terrorist out of prison. Twitterati respond by pointing out that 'Daddy' had caused more than 800 suspected ISIL militants to escape in Northern Syria by withdrawing US troops, and that the UK's restrictive gun laws meant that fewer people were killed than would have been in a similar situation in the US.
Anthony Scaramucci describes GOP supporters of Trump as "Vichy Repulicans", comparing them with the Nazi-collaborative French government in WW2. ● CNN national security experts describe Trump as running the military to serve the interests of Fox News instead of the country after "shocking and unprecedented" interference in war crimes trial of Navy SEAL petty officer. ● The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested about 250 foreign students in Detroit as part of a sting operation after they entered the U.S. legally on student visas and enrolled in a fake school - set up by federal agents... ● Trump's claim to rally that some people want to change the name of Thanksgiving to something more politically correct fails to gain credence, even on Fox and Friends.
After last week's revelation that Donnie Jr's book had been bought in bulk by the Republican Party to propel it to the top of the New York Times bestsellers' list it has emerged that nine conservative groups have also been buying up copies in bulk. The book is now #2 on the bestsellers' list, having been replaced by the anti-Trump A Warning written by an anonymous White House insider, who has promised to reveal their identity before the 2020 election.
Next time Trump claims he was elected by an overwhelming majority of Americans, remember these stats, posted to Twitter by Seth Abramson: "# of Americans: 327,200,000. # of Americans who are eligible to vote: 250,000,000. # of Americans who voted in 2016: 142,300,000. # of Americans who voted for Trump in 2016: 65,600,000. %age of Americans who voted for Trump: 20%."
Internet celebrity cat Lil Bub (Lib Bub & Friendz, helped raise more than $700,000 (£540,000) for animal charities, 8), free solo climber Brad Gobright (31), singer Andy "Greedy" Smith (Mental As Anything, Hey Hey It's Saturday, 63), conductor Mariss Jansons (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, 76), TV writer D.C. Fontana (The Streets of San Francisco, Star Trek, The Waltons, 80), shoe designer Terry de Havilland (the 'Rock n Roll Cobbler of the 1970s', 81), actress Shelley Morrison (Will and Grace, General Hospital, The Flying Nun, 83), former Russian spy Goar Vertanian (uncovered Nazi plot to assassinate Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt at 1943 Tehran conference, 93), songwriter Irving Burgie ("Day-O/The Banana Boat Song", "Island in the Sun", "Mary's Boy Child", 95).
^ DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!
Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:4, 9, 10, 22, 23, 58[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 had been pestering her parents to take her to the zoo to look at the animals and finally they caved in, but her mother had to work so her father took her. When they got home that evening her mother asked her how it had gone. "It was great!" answered Little Jennifer, smiling as only she could, "and Daddy got really excited when one of them raced in at 20 to 1!"
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