^{^} ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 31st July		-		The English defeated the French at the Battle of Cravant in the Hundred Years' War, 1423. Lexicographer Noël François de Wailly born, 1724. Composer Franz Liszt died, 1886. The Royal Navy issued the last officially sanctioned rum ration, on Black Tot Day, 1970. Actress Emilia Fox born, 1974. Writer Mollie Hunter died, 2012.
Saturday 1st August		-		Octavian brought Alexandria, Egypt, under the control of the Roman Republic, 30 BCE. Italian ruler Cosimo de' Medici died, 1464. Occultist, self-described spirit medium and associate of John Dee, Edward Kelley born, 1555. Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, died, 1714. Henry Perky was granted a patent for shredded wheat, 1893. Tennis player Katie Boulter born, 1996.
Sunday 2nd August		-		Physician and scholar Theodor Zwinger born, 1533. The United States Declaration of Independence was signed, 1776. Diarist Harriet Arbuthnot died 1834. Socialite, philanthropist and fashion icon Betsy Bloomingdale born, 1922. Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to the Gulf War, 1990. Writer William S. Burroughs died, 1997.
Monday 3rd August		-		Christopher Columbus set sail on his first voyage, from Palos de la Frontera, Spain, 1492. Sculptor and woodcarver Grinling Gibbons died, 1721. Gardener and architect Joseph Paxton born, 1803. The Tandy Corporation introduced the TRS-80 personal computer, 1977. Motorcycle racer Jenny Tinmouth born, 1978. Actress Carolyn Jones died, 1983.
Tuesday 4th August		-		Dom Perignon invented champagne, 1693 [traditional date, ascribed]. Writer Hans Christian Andersen died, 1875. Artist Hedda Sterne born, 1910. The Gestapo found Anne Frank and her family hiding in a sealed-off section of an Amsterdam warehouse, 1944. Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States and Nobel laureate, born, 1961. Super-centenarian and the world's substantiated longest-lived person Jeanne Calment died, 1997.
Wednesday 5th August		-		Oswald, King of Northumbria, killed in battle, 642. The coronation of King Henry I of England in Westminster Abbey, 1100. Joseph Merrick, "the Elephant Man", born, 1862. Actress and singer Carmen Miranda died, 1955. Nelson Mandela was jailed, 1962. Paralympian swimmer Toni Shaw born, 2003.
Thursday 6th August		-		Playwright Ben Jonson died, 1637. Louise de La Vallière, mistress of King Louis XIV of France, born, 1644. The Holy Roman Empire ended with the abdication of Francis II, 1806. Poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson born, 1809. Actress Dorothy Tutin died, 2001. NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars, 2012.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Nelson Mandela, on retiring [June 2004]:

After loafing somewhere on an island and other places for 27 years, the rest is not really deserved.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

A selection of quotations from films by the same director. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• - You're being arrested for drunk driving.
  - Drunk definitely, I don't know if you could call it driving.
• Riddle me this, riddle me that, who's afraid of the big, black bat?
• Second shelf is mine. That's where I keep my rootbeers and my double-thick Oreo cookies. Nobody touches the second shelf but me.
• Of course time is just a counting system... numbers with meanings attached to them.
• Philosophy failed. Religion failed. Now it's up to the physical sciences.

Last issue's quotations were from films directed by Kevin Connor:

• - A city. A city in the middle of the Atlantic ocean?
  - You will not find it on any map. But you know its name.
      -- Warlords of Atlantis [1978]
• There's an Elemental on your shoulder!
      -- From Beyond the Grave [1974]
• Is plesiosaurus a common dish in the British Navy, Mr. Olson?
      -- The Land That Time Forgot [1974]
• You cannot mesmerise me! I'm British!
      -- At the Earth's Core [1976]
• There's an awful face in my soup!
      -- The House Where Evil Dwells [1976]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• Robert Berger, 25, of Huntingdon, New York, was facing jail time after being convicted of possession of a stolen Lexus and attempted grand theft larceny of a truck at the end of last year. Before sentencing though he fled the state and then his lawyer submitted a death certificate saying that Berger had committed suicide. The certificate was authentic in all but one detail - it said it had been issued by "Jenny Saunders, Deputy Registrar" at the "New Jersey Department of Health, Office of Vital Statistics and Regsitry [sic]". The real New Jersey Department of Health confirmed that they had not issued it. While on the run, and very much still alive, Berger was arrested in Philadelphia and sentenced to a year in jail for providing a false identity to police and stealing from a college. Berger now faces up to four years additional jail time for fraud.


• This week Twitter saw a spate of "I have a joke but..." posts, with followups including "I have an IKEA joke but it needs a setup", "I have a Star Wars joke but it's kind of forced" and "I have a Charles Manson joke, and it kills." To widespread acclaim, including from Mia Farrow and the Lincoln Project the best joke was from former White House intern Monica Lewinsky who tweeted "I have an intern joke and it... nevermind".


• The Snohomish County prosecuter has said that he will not bring charges against teenager Benjamin Hansen who was videod at the end of a pro-police rally taunting officers with a doughnut on a string. "I don't think there's any jury in the county that's going to convict that young man of (fourth-degree assault) based on the evidence I know so far," he said. The video evidence showed at least one of the officers laughing at the doughnut being dangled in front of him.


• In 1999, when Nigel Brookes was 14, his parents gave him a complete set of Pokémon trading cards, worth about £400 ($515). Thinking that they might now be worth £1,000 ($1288) he took them to an auctioneer to be valued, only to be told that as a full set of first edition cards in mint condition they could make up to £35,000 ($45,086). Brookes hopes that they will be cherished by a collector or put on display in a museum, but he has already had to reluctantly decline one offer for them. His eight-year-old daughter Layla offered "the money in her piggybank" for the cards. "I do feel a bit bad in a way that I'm doing it now instead of giving [the collection] to her, but I am hoping the return will change the life we can have together," he said.


• The Alaska Supreme Court has upheld a 2018 lower court decision that an elderly woman suffering from epilepsy should be removed from the care of her daughter, who had decided to fire her caregivers and remove her from medical care to "rely entirely on prayer" instead, according to the ruling. The daughter, who represented herself, argued that that the lower court decision amounted to religious discrimination because she chose to care for her mother "based on the tenets of religion instead of how the state wants her cared for," and that she was legally justified to "rely entirely on prayer in lieu of hospital care" because she had graduated from a ministry school. The Supreme Court ruled that "if [the mother] required immediate medical attention, the results could be fatal." ● In Texas self-described "Christian conservative liberty-loving Republican" state representative Jonathan Stickland has been widely mocked on Twitter for posting that "IF aliens are real, salvation through Jesus Christ in the only way they enter Heaven." As many pointed out, any aliens visiting Earth will probably have evolved beyond the need for the constructs of Heaven and Hell and be "not dumb enough to blindly follow a make-believe invisible man in the sky and some desert dude that was created by a bunch of other men in a desert thousands of years ago. In fact, that is most likely the reason they are staying the f*** away from us." (@falbi).


• After distressed hoots were heard from the bottom of a 40m- (131')-deep well at the ruined Siegberg Castle atop the Kalkberg, a massive gypsum rock formation near Bad Segeberg, north of Lübeck in Germany, a team of twelve firefighters, six volunteer technicians and two members of staff from a nearby bat centre were called in. A probe lowered into the well showed falling oxygen levels, so air was pumped in, then a telescope and a powerful light were used to locate the owl and attempts were made to lure it into a sack on a rope with meat. When they failed a fireman wearing breathing apparatus abseiled down the well to catch the bird manually. The eagle owl, with a wingspan of about 5' (1.5m) was recovered safely and is now being cared for at the bat centre until it is deemed healthy enough to be returned to the wild. ● St Bernard dogs were originally bred to rescue people in the Swiss and Italian alps, often depicted with small casks of (medically inappropriate) brandy hanging from their necks, but the tables were turned this week when a four-year-old St Bernard called Daisy collapsed after injuring her leg while walking down Scafell Pike, England's highest mountain, with her owner. Being too big for one person to carry, the mountain rescue were called out and a team of sixteen took five hours to carry her down the mountain on a stretcher, including across the top of a waterfall. A mountain rescue spokesman said that they carry out about a dozen canine rescues a year, but this was the first time the dog had been a large St Bernard, adding that "Daisy was in fact a rescue dog and extremely placid and compliant, which was a bonus for the stretcher-carry off the mountain."


• The Cytus II musical game app has been removed from sale in mainland China after authorities discovered that one of the songs included a Morse code message reading "Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times." The game was produced by Taiwan company Rayark Games, and the song written by Hong Kong musical director Wilson Lam (aka ICE). Lam said that the song was his "private activity" and "has nothing to do with Rayark Games", who have apologised and stopped working with him. It is not first time Morse code has been hidden in music; it is famously included as a motif in Barrington Pheloung's theme for the crime drama Inspector Morse and defined the rhythm for Ronnie Hazelhurst's 1970s Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em theme.


• As we have previously reported, the lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic have seen a resurgence of wild animals in urban areas, but one city in Thailand was already facing its own wildlife invasion. Lopburi, capital city of Lopburi Province and the former capital city of a small kingdom, has been overrun by macaques. Around 8,400 of the monkeys, once revered in temples where they were fed by visitors which helped increase their numbers, have taken over several blocks in the city centre, forcing shops, schools and a cinema to close in the last few years. Because they no longer get food from visiting Buddhists thanks to the pandemic the hungry monkeys are running rampant, stealing whatever they can eat and police have described the situation as hopeless, although wildlife officials have begun a sterilisation campaign to bring down the numbers.


• Back in April Marten Wedebrand, a Swedish friend of British sports reporter David Easson decided to send him some chocolates in a package marked "vital survival stuff" as the pandemic was gripping Britain. Rather than just ask Easson for his address, Wedebrand addressed the envelope to "David Easson, Somewhere in Sheffield, England, UK, GB (but not EU)" with a brief CV alongside it, including the name of Easson's wife, his previous jobs and that "they have a child, or dog, or both". When the parcel reached postman Darrell Gilmour he turned detective and managed to locate Easson on social media, who told reporters that "I got this message from Darrell Gilmour in the middle of the night [..] At this time there's so much pressure on them [the Royal Mail], so to find me like this, I really didn't mind the 3.35am Facebook message. Great detective work." The package contained six packs of Kvikk Lunsj, a chocolate bar that Easson had said he had "hankered for" ever since having them while covering the 2012 Youth Olympics in Innsbruck.


• In 1992 Wisconsin friends Joe Feeney and Tom Cook agreed that should one of them win the US Powerball lottery jackpot they would split it with the other. The deal was sealed with a handshake. Last week Tom's numbers came up, at odds of around 1-292 million, so he phoned his friend. "He called me and I said 'are you jerking by bobber?'" keen fisherman Joe told reporters. The friends chose to take the cash option, resulting in each taking home about $5.7m (£4.42m) after taxes. Wisconsin lottery director Cindy Polzin issued a statement saying "Congratulations to Tom, Joe, and their families. The power of friendship and a handshake has paid off. I'm thrilled for them. Their lucky day has arrived."

CORONAVIRUS ROUND-UP: Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert, infamous for calling for PBS to be defunded for airing an episode of Sesame Street featuring a gay actor, and who described the state's mandate that people should wear face masks as "Draconian measures" from "liberal hacks" who are "spreading fear" has been admitted to hospital with COVID-19. ● One of Britain's visitor attractions that has to remain closed is the country's smallest house. At just 10' by 5'11" (3m by 1.8m) the 18^th Century former home of 6'3" (1.9m) fisherman Robert Jones is just too small for social distancing. ● Seismologists have announced that the 'rumble' caused by human activity (traffic, factories &c) around the world fell by up to half between March and May as lockdown restrictions took force, while soundscapes recorded in London during the lockdown have shown that the city was quieter than it was in 1928, when similar recordings were made. ● A pet cat has become the first confirmed case of COVID-19 infection in an animal in Britain; other cases have been reported around the world. There is no evidence that people can catch the virus from pets. ● Graphic designer Keith Williams has put a different spin on social distancing warning on the pavements of Montgomery in Wales, with messages asking people to stay "seven chihuahuas", "25-50 chips", "153.85 marbles" and other interpretations of 2m (78.7") apart. ● A Minnesota couple have been banned from WalMart after wearing swastika-themed face masks while shopping; they claimed that they were not Nazis and that a Biden election victory would bring about fascism... ● Despite being sent a cease and desist letter by public health officials a five-day Bible conference in Colorado that went ahead and was attended by 1,000 people (and did not mandate that guests wear face masks) has resulted in 34 confirmed infections.

^ TRUMPWATCH

Trump's medication appeared to have worn off enough in the early hours of Monday morning for him to realise that a lot of people do not like him, as he tweeted "So disgusting to watch Twitter's so-called "Trending", where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it trend. Really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair!" As one of Twitter's 'about' pages explains, "Trends are determined by an algorithm [which] identifies topics that are popular now [..] to help you discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion on Twitter." Needless to say, Trump's pathetic whining brought out some inspired responses from the Twitterati including "'sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one' - a worthy epitaph for his presidency" (@JamesSurowiecki), "Maybe take a break from Twitter, Donald. It's not a place for whiny little snowflakes" (@GeorgeTakei) and "The President of the United States, who has insulted everyone you can think of, wants you to know he think it's illegal to make fun of him on Twitter" (@mmpadellan). Soon afterwards the hashtags #TrumpleThinSkin, #ThePresidentIsACrybaby and #LyingTrump trended. Last Friday an interview with Trump was released in which he speculated that he might quit Twitter once out of office, but given his propensity for lying and his use of the platform as an attack vector against his perceived enemies, it remains to be seen if he will.

Trump's ego demands near-constant reinforcement, hence his use of rallies throughout the last few years, so it must have been quite a blow to him to have to cancel the Republican pre-election convention in Florida where he would have accepted the party's nomination in front of (in his eyes) thousands of adoring supporters. Ironically, had he not made such an utter mess of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic that has now seen more than 4 million cases across America, the convention might have been able to go ahead, in some form or other. As it is, a smaller half-day convention will now be held in North Carolina on August 24.

The hypocricy of Trump's reaction to the ongoing protests in Portland and other cities was highlighted this week. A black-clad 'protester' filmed smashing the windows of a Minneapolis auto parts shop in a video that went viral soon after George Floyd's murder and contributed to the atmosphere of tension and hostility towards the police has been identified by Minneapolis police as a member of the Hells Angels and an associate of the Aryan Cowboys prison gang acting as an agent provocateur to deliberately stoke tension, far from the leftist agitators Trump blamed for the violence. Attorney General and Trump flunky William Barr finally appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and was excoriated by Representative Pramilia Jayapal (D-WA) who asked him why he sent Homeland Security forces to Portland to confront the mostly-peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters but did nothing when armed white men carrying assault rifles and swastikas stormed the Michigan capitol building to demand that Democrat governor Gretchen Whitmer cancel plans to extend stay-at-home orders, even threatening to kill her. Barr's lame excuse was to claim that he had not known about the Michigan incident despite right-wing protesters demanding an end to lockdown measures across America having been widely reported on. Of course, it would not fit Trump's campaign agenda...

In Portland, the Homeland Security goons teargassed Ted Wheeler, the city's mayor, when he joined protesters, sprayed teargas into the eyes of a Vietnam veteran at close quarters, and shot one of the "Wall of Moms" protesters a glancing blow in the face. Portland police have now been banned from cooperating with Trump's goons and the Wall of Moms organisers are suing the Trump administration for the "indiscriminate" violence of the federal agents. ● Ahead of appearing before the House Committee on Natural Resources National Guard Major Adam DeMarco has given written evidence that contradicts and damns the White House's account of how Lafayette Square was cleared so Trump could make his much-mocked Bible-holding photo-op. According to DeMarco there was no atmosphere of tension in the square 40 minutes before the official curfew was due to come into force, and when US Park Police (the National Guard took no part) began clearing demonstrators. There were no clearly-audible warnings across the area, and despite both the Secret Service and Park Police denying having used tear gas, DeMarco wrote that he felt the effects of tear gas and later noted the presence of empty tear gas canisters on the ground after the demonstrators had been cleared. DeMarco concluded that "from my observation, those demonstrators - our fellow Americans - were engaged in the peaceful expression of their First Amendment rights. Yet they were subjected to an unprovoked escalation and excessive use of force." ● After Press Secretary Kayleigh "I will never lie to [the press]. You have my word on that" McEnany tried to use children's cartoon show PAW Patrol (about dogs working as police officers) as an example of the 'cancel culture' in the wake of George Floyd's murder, telling reporters that "PAW Patrol, a cartoon show about cops, was cancelled. The show Cops was cancelled. Live PD was cancelled. LEGO halted the sales of their LEGO city police station." the makers of PAW Patrol and Nick Jr, the network which airs it, confirmed that it was not cancelled. Both COPS and Live PD were cancelled in the wake of George Floyd's murder; LEGO temporarily stopped marketing - but not selling - their police-themed sets. ● On Twitter @BlackCatUnloads posted a picture of the "unmarked DHS [Department of Homeland Security] thugs who showed up in Portland" alongside one of "these white nationalists who showed up in Charlottsville a couple of years ago" for comparison. There is no noticeable visual difference...

As we reported on earlier the Trumps have made no comment on whether youngest son Barron would be going back to school next term, when Trump wants all schools reopened, but his school, St Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, has written to parents to say that it will not fully reopen, but provide either distance learning or a hybrid mix of distance and on-campus teaching. Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that do not open, but St Andrews, despite reportedly having an endowment fund of more than $8m (£6.17m) applied for a handout from the federal Payroll Protection Program (PPP), designed to help small businesses throught the pandemic. ● Also benefitting from the PPP is Trump's New York office building, where several tenants' rents have effectively been paid by the US taxpayer. Trump is mired in yet another conflict-of-interest scandal, having refused to divest from the company that part owns the building and ultimately received some of the federal aid.

Trump whined to the press on Tuesday afternoon that Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, is more trusted by the public than he is. [For two very good reasons - firstly, Fauci speaks from knowledge and experience, and secondly, Trump lies.] ● At the same briefing Trump said he would be throwing out the first pitch for the New York Yankees' baseball game on August 15. He later said he was going to be too busy dealing with the pandemic (but still found time to play golf with former NFL player Brett Favre); the Yankees later issued a statement that the White House had not contacted them and they had not contacted the White House; there were no plans to invite Trump to throw the pitch. Between Trump's withdrawing from throwing the pitch and the Yankees confirming that he had not been invited anyway former National Security Advisor and potential Vice Presidential candidate Susan Rice joked on Twitter "What's the matter, Mr President? Can't get it up and over the plate? Strike!" ● One of Trump's biggest differences with Dr Fauci concerns hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the anti-malaria drug Trump touted (and has a financial stake in) as a possible treatment for COVID-19, since found to do more harm than good. Trump has now promoted a video by a Dr Stella Immanuel in which she claims to have cured "hundreds" of coronavirus patients using HCQ. Immanuel also runs the Fire Power Ministries Christian Resource Center from the same address as her clinic, and has stated that alien DNA is being used in medical experiments, the US is partly run by lizard people [there was this roadsign hack in 2016... -Ed], scientists are working on a vaccine to stop people being religious and gynaecological problems are caused by women dreaming of having sex with incubi (demons) or witches. After Donald Trump, Jr retweeted Immanuel's video Twitter suspended him for twelve hours for violating their COVID-19 misinformation rules. ● Trump notoriously refers to COVID-19 as "the China virus" but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has come up with a better name for the virus which you cannot avoid hearing about on the news but nobody wants - she called it "the Trump virus"...

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a nonpartisan watchdog group, has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that the Trump campaign has funnelled more than $170m (£131m) through companies linked with campaign advisor Brad Parscale and other officials without disclosing details of the ultimate recipients of the money. Trevor Potter, president of the CLC and a former FEC chairman described the situation as "a flat violation of federal law [and] unprecendented in its size and scale of nondisclosure." The 82-page complaint says that by using Parscale's American Made Media Consultants to front the money the campaign is secretely routing it to Trump family members including Eric Trump's wife Lara and Kimberley Guilfoyle, Donald, Jr,'s girlfriend. The New York Times has previously reported on a similar scheme by which the Trump campaign routed money to family members and associates through a different company of Parscale's. As we reported earlier, Trump's own businesses and properties are already raking in campaign money by hosting events. ● The MeidasTouch PAC has aired another TV spot critical of Trump. The "Trump Grifts, You Die" ad shows how Trump has channelled federal business (and hence money) to his own properties, how the Chinese government awarded a number of trademarks to Ivanka Trump and how daughter and advisor Ivanka and Trump himself have used their positions to promote supporters' products, in contravention of the law.

The Republican Voters Against Trump group have aired an election ad in Arizona, where COVID-19 has infected more than 150,000 people and killed around 3,000, showing how Trump has consistently played down the impact of the pandemic, concluding with his own words: "I don't take responsibility at all." ● A Trump supporter who posted footage of the confrontation in Portland captioned "This would be @JoeBiden's America" was quickly, and widely, reminded that "this is literally a video of Trump's America and a reason to elect @JoeBiden".

Still trying to be the dumbest Trump Eric tweeted to ask "why is no one in the media willing to discuss Biden's seemingly apparent cognitive decline?" and was promptly reminded that his father had "bragged [...] about how hard it was to count backwards from 100", "finds 5 questions on a cognitive test 'very hard'" and "suggested nuking hurricanes". ● Dr Ziad Nasreddine, one of the doctors who designed the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test that Trump has repeatedly boasted he 'aced' has told MarketWatch that it is "supposed to be easy for someone who has no cognitive impairment" and has nothing to do with intelligence. ● Trump's bragging that he could remember the words "person, woman, man, camera, TV" in the test prompted lots of people to post videos of their children - from age 3 to teenage - also remembering the words...

When Senate Republicans tried to prove that the FBI had targeted Trump before his elections they demanded the release of documents relating to Operation Hurricane, the 2016 FBI investigation into suspected Russian interference in the election and possible ties to Trump's campaign. They might be somewhat regretting it now, as one document detailing then-candidate Trump's first intelligence briefing where he was warned that foreign agents might attempt to infiltrate his campaign records him asking "Are the Russians bad?" and how he was shocked when told that both Russia and China had violated nuclear testing bans. ● Canada's federal court has ruled that the Safe Third Country Agreement with the US, in place since 2014, which rules that refugee claimants should request protection in the first safe country they reach, is invalid because the US is no longer safe for asylum seekers. The agreement will remain in place for 6 months to allow time for both Canadian and US governments to respond. ● In the same interview where Trump suggested he might quit Twitter once out of office [viz. above] he also said that the best day of his life was the day before he announced he was running for president as his popularity dropped from the day after. Rather a lot of people agreed that they had been quite happy until he announced his candidature... In the same interview he repeated a story that he had first been publicly booed at the Robin Hood Foundation charity gala the day after announcing he was running for president. This was, as has been shown before when he has said it, not just a lie but impossible. Trump last attended the Robin Hood Foundation gala in 2011. The 2015 gala was held in May, a month before he announced his candidacy. There are also many recordings of him being booed in public before 2015. [person, woman, man, camera, TV, not booed at the gala... I guess remembering six things was too hard for him -Ed] ● A privately-funded length of wall along the Rio Grande erected with funding from We Build the Wall, a private group involving former White House advisor Steve Bannon is collapsing into the river due to erosion caused by hurricane-turned-tropical-storm Hanna. ● The Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General is looking into Trump's rollback of vehicle emissions regulations. ● Woody Johnson, appointed America's ambassador to the UK by Trump in 2017 has been investigated by US officials after reportedly making derogatory statements about women and people of colour to embassy staff. Johnson denies the allegations. ● With his ratings plummetting Trump has seemingly given up any semblance of common human decency [Yes, we know there was not much anyway. -Ed]. When asked if he woud be visiting the US Capitol to pay his respects to the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis as he lay in state in the rotunda Trump's terse response was "No I won't be going. No."

^{^} OBITUARIES

Singer Denise Johnson (Primal Scream, New Order, The Pet Shop Boys, 56), human rights campaigner Paulette Wilson (the 2018 Windrush scandal, 64), broadcaster Chris Needs (Touch AM, BBC Radio Wales, The Friendly Garden Programme, 66), singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Green (co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, 73), fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto (Davd Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, Elton John, Lady Gaga, 76), actor John Saxon (Enter the Dragon, Joe Kidd, A Nightmare on Elm Street, 83), US TV host Regis Philbin (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, America's Got Talent, 88), actress Dame Olivia de Havilland (Gone With the Wind, To Each His Own, The Heiress, 104).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

1, 2, 17, 41, 46, 52

[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...

    The class were having an English lesson. "Alright, children," their teacher said, "who can tell me how many letters there are in the alphabet?" The children all started busily counting on their fingers but before the rest had finished Little Jennifer's hand shot up. "Yes, Little Jennifer?"
    "Eleven, Miss!"
    "No, Little Jennifer, that's not right. Little Simon?"
    "Twenty-six, Miss" Little Simon said.
    "Well, done, Little Simon."
    Little Jennifer pouted. "But, Miss! T-H-E A-L-P-H-A-B-E-T. Eleven!"

---

^{^} ...end of line