^{^} ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 14th August		-		King Duncan I of Scotland was killed in battle, 1040. Mathematician Giambattista Benedetti born, 1530. John Davis made the first recorded sighting of the Falkland Islands, 1592. Architect Amaza Lee Meredith born, 1895. Geoffrey Whitehead claimed to have made the first powered flight in his Number 21, 1901. Actress, playwright and author Alice Childress died, 1994.
Saturday 15th August		-		Macbeth, King of Scotland, was killed in battle, 1057. The Hospittaler Knights of St John completed their conquest of Rhodes, 1310. Engineer Blind Jack born, 1717. The Wizard of Oz premiered in Los Angeles, 1939. Anne, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom, born, 1950. Poet and classicist Ida Gerhardt died, 1997. Victory over Japan Day and related observances in the United Kingdom.
Sunday 16th August		-		Philosopher Jean de la Bruyère born, 1645. The naval Battle of Plymouth was fought in the First Anglo-Dutch War, 1652. Historian Thomas Fuller died, 1661. Actress Ann Blyth born, 1928. Ub Iworks released the first colour sound cartoon, Fiddlesticks, 1930. Singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin died, 2018.
Monday 17th August		-		A group of English colonists landed in the New World to establish the first Roanoke Colony, 1585. Frontiersman Davy Crockett born, 1786. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, died, 1786. George Orwell's Animal Farm was published, 1945. Singer-songwriter Maria McKee born, 1964. Actress and dancer Yvonne Craig died, 2015.
Tuesday 18th August		-		Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan died, 1227. The trial of the Pendle witches began at Lancaster Assizes, 1612. Composer Antonio Salieri born, 1750. Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was published, 1958. Actress Madeleine Stowe born, 1958. Baseball player Josephine D'Angelo died, 2013.
Wednesday 19th August		-		Architect Andrea Palladio died, 1580. Poet and playwright John Dryden born, 1631. The Second Jacobite Rebellion began when Prince Charles Edward Stuart raised his standard in Glenfinnan, 1745. Horticulturalist Ellen Willmott born, 1858. Michael Ryan killed 16 people then himself in the Hungerford massacre, 1987. Academic and politician Mo Mowlam died, 2005. World Humanitarian Day.
Thursday 20th August		-		Pirate Henry Every born, 1659. Fraudster William Bedloe died, 1680. The first Siege of Pensacola ended in failure, 1707. Poet Agnes Bulmer died, 1835. Actress Amy Adams born, 1974. NASA launched the Voyager 2 space probe, 1977. World Mosquito Day.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Princess Anne:

Golf seems to me an arduous way to go for a walk. I prefer to take the dogs out.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

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

• Get your slimy, webbed phalanges off ma boots!
• Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.
• He's Hitler with a tail. He's "The Omen" with whiskers. Even Nostradamus didn't see him coming!
• Accuracy equals focusing on a point. Gravity pulls an inch a yard. You point up. But you have to factor in wind, which is the most difficult part.
• I have no sympathy for any of you feculent maggots and no more patience to pretend otherwise. Gentlemen, I wash my hands of this weirdness.

Last issue's quotations were from films directed by Stephen Frears:

• When it comes to marriage, one man is as good as the next. And even the least accomodating is less trouble than a mother.
      -- Dangerous Liaisons [1988]
• Is her instrument quite what it was? Perhaps not. But as Beethoven said, a few wrong notes may be forgiven, but singing without feeling cannot.
      -- Florence Foster Jenkins [2016]
• Nowadays people want glamour and tears, the grand performance. I've never been good at that.
      -- The Queen [2006]
• Get your patchouli stink - outta my store! Move it, lard ass!
      -- High Fidelity [2000]
• - So, who are your influences?
  - Everyone asks that. I mean, what do you want me to say? Phil Collins? Animal from The Muppets?
      -- Tamara Drew [2010]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• A pair of beluga whales, called Little Grey and Little White, which were captured in Russian Arctic waters almost ten years ago, kept at a Russian research centre then sold to a Chinese water park have been released to a conservation facility on an Icelandic island. They will spend a few weeks in a poll at the side of the Klettsvik Bay to acclimatise before being released into the wider netted-off sanctuary on a large inlet in the bay. Having been captured aged around 3 it is unlikely that they will be able to be released into the wild. The sanctuary at Klettsvik Bay was where Keiko, the killer whale used in the Free Willy films was transferred to in 1998 before being released into the wild. ● Beavers became extinct in Great Britain in the 17^th Century, but have successfully been reintroduced to Scotland and, following a five-year study by the Devon Wildlife Trust, to the River Otter in Devon. It is not known how they were reintroduced to the river in 2013, but the 50 or so adults and kits now living there should help protect land from flooding by slowing river flow and increase biodiversity. Beavers have also been sighted on the River Tamer in Cornwall, the Wye in Wales and on the Somerset levels. ● Sunbathers at Berlin's Teufelssee were much amused at the sight of a nudist chasing after a wild boar and its piglets after it ran off with his bag, which contained his laptop. ● A man fishing from a boat off Ireland was knocked overboard after a minke whale collided with the boat. A friend, also in the boat and filming the whales, helped him climb back aboard without injury. It is thought that the boat had drifted into the path of the feeding whales and the collision was just an accident. ● Palmerston, chief mouser at Britain's Foreign Office, has decided to retire to the countryside, and sent a resignation letter, signed with two paw prints, to the office's permanent under-secretary. In the letter, he said "I have been delighted to meet representatives from all over the world, and I hope I have done you proud in putting the U.K.'s best foot or paw forward in such interaction." One nearby resident who will not miss him is Larry, the cat who lives in the Prime Minister's residence at No. 10, Downing Street. The two were sometimes seen fighting in the street. ● Antarctic scientists have found 11 new emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica, analysing satellite photographs to locate colonies by the extensive staining of the otherwise white snow caused by their faeces. ● The US Wildlife Service has advised tourists that, when confronted by a bear, pushing over a slower friend to escape is not advisable "even if you think the friendship has run its course" after a record number of reported bear attacks, probably due to an increase in hikers seeking to get away from the pandemic problems. The advise is to stand you ground and make noise to identify yourself as human, not a prey animal (running away is not advised; bears will think you are prey and they can run fast...)


• The Metropolitan Police in London, have appealed for anyone who has recently had a bicycle stolen in the boroughs of Hackney or Tower Hamlets to get in touch, after discovering 118 bikes worth more than £30,000 ($39,349) in a building in Hackney following a tip-off after 11 reports of stolen bicycles being sold online. Two men were arrested. ● Twins Alan and Alex Stokes have been arrested after allegedly staging two fake bank robberies for an online prank video last year. They had themselves filmed running from a building wearing ski masks, carrying bags full of money and asking bystanders to help them with either a change of clothes or a free car ride. When they jumped into an Uber car the driver refused to give them a lift, but a member of public had called the police thinking they were trying to hijack or steal the car. The two have been charged with false imprisonment and falsely reporting an emergency. They face up to four years in prison if convicted. They have around 30 million followers across YouTube and TikTok.


• Eight-year-old Frank Foster from Leighton Buzzard in Bedforshire loves watching the weekly rubbish collection on his street, and videos of him greeting the operatives taken by his mother have had thousands of views on social media. When the council ordered a new fleet of bin lorries they opened a competition to name them but kept one by. Frank was reportedly thrilled to see 'Frank Foster' the bin lorry rolling down his street, and was allowed to sit in the cab and work the bin lift. His mother told reporters that "he's always said he wants to be a bin man."


• When the Hell's Basement brewery in Alberta, Canada, introduced a new pale ale two years ago they gave it a name that they hoped conveyed its lightness. They called it 'Huruhuru', after online research found the Maori word for 'feather'. Huruhuru has another, more common, meaning in Maori culture. As Maori TV personality Te Hamua Nikora pointed out in a social media video, it is slang for 'pubic hair'. The brewery has apologised and will rebrand the beer.


• A man in Bristol who decided to auction an old pair of glasses he had "nearly had a heart attack" according to auctioneer Andrew Stowe after being told their valuation. The glasses were left in a plain envelope sticking out of East Bristol Auctions' letterbox over a weekend before landing on Stowe's desk. The glasses had a note with them saying that they were "Ghandi's glasses" and the owner related that they had been in his family since an ancestor met Ghandi in 1920s South Africa and was given them. The date matched with Ghandi's life and the glasses are quite weak, suggesting that they might have been one of his earliest pairs. They are expected to make at least £15,000 ($19,674) when they are auctioned later this month.


• Toy giant Hasbro has been forced to recall a "Trolls World Tour Giggle and Sing Poppy" doll from sale after a petition gained almost 30,000 signatures. The doll was supposed to react when sat down, but the activation switch was inappropriately placed leading to, in the words of the petition "when you push this button on the doll's privates she gasps and giggles". Hasbro has promised to replace any dolls already brought with another of similar value and remove the doll from store shelves.


• Former soldier Neil Heritage, 39, has become the first above-the-knee double amputee to successfully climb the Matterhorn in Switzerland, on his third attempt after the previous two were thwarted by bad weather. Friend and co-climber Mark Hooks told reporters that one of Heritage's custom-designed prosthetic legs had fallen off near the summit of the 14,692' (4,478m) mountain and took 20 minutes to reattach, but Heritage was "absolutely blitzed" to have reached the summit. Since losing both legs to a suicide bomb in Iraq in 2004 Heritage has rowed across the Atlantic with the Row2Recovery team, learned to ski and completed triathlons. Next year he plans to kayak the length of the Amazon river.


• A tourist who sat on the base of the preliminary plaster model of Venus Victrix by Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova to pose for a photograph accidentally broke a toe off the model, on display at the Gypsotheca Antonio Canova museum in Possagno, Italy. The final marble sculpture, of Pauline Bonaparte posing as the Roman goddess, is on display at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. It is not the first time the plaster model has been damaged; bombing during the first Battle of Monte Grappa in 1917 severed the head and damaged the hands, feet and clothing, which was only repaired in 2004.


• Around 27 human genes have had to be renamed because of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet software, which by default expands shortened versions of dates. One of the affected genes was called "Membrane Associated Ring-CH-Type-Finger 1", shortened for convenience to MARCH1. Entering the shorter name into Excel saw the software convert it to "1-Mar". Even if scientists changed the data type for columns reopening to spreadsheet in another installation might see the names changed. The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) has published new guidelines for gene naming taking into account data handling and retrieval. The MARCH1 gene has become MARCHF1 and others have been similarly altered with the HGNC maintaining a record of their former names.


• A man from Prinsburg, Minnesota, who bought a 1957 Chevrolet pickup truck for $75 (£57) 44 years ago and drove it to work at a grain elevator until he retired five years ago has sold it to the grandson of the retiring farmer he bought it from all those years ago. Although it now has collectors' value Bob Sportal sold the truck for just $75, the same price (ignoring inflation) he had paid for it. Tom Leenstra said that "It's like riding with my Grandpa again", while Sportal, when asked why he only sold it for its initial cost said "It's going in the family, so that's the most important thing."

IN BRIEF: Actor Brian Blessed has claimed that the Queen's favourite film is Flash Gordon, in which he played Prince Vultan, and that she once asked him to repeat the famous "Gordon's alive!" line for her grandchildren. ● A Bronze Age hoard discovered by a metal detectorist in the Scottish Borders has been revealed as containing a complete horse harness and a sword in its leather scabbard, and is of "national significance". ● A man who lit hundreds of tea light candles as part of a romantic wedding proposal before leaving them burning as he went to fetch his girlfriend returned with her to find the flat ablaze. South Yorkshire Fire confirmed that the blaze was quickly brought under control and "as a bonus, she said YES!" ● Mars pulses with ultraviolet light three times a night during the Martian spring and autumn. ● Ecology graduate George Taplin, 20, has swum the length of 13 Lake District lakes (43 miles, or 70km) in three days, setting a new record. ● This August is already the hottest in the UK for 17 years. ● Ethel the Emu has been on a days-long rampage around Doncaster; police are struggling to identify where she came from and who owns her.

CORONAVIRUS ROUND-UP: Army veteran Paul Goose, 52, has played the Last Post on his bugle every night since the British lockdown began, livestreaming it online and dedicating the performance to NHS staff, key workers and victims of the virus. He plans to keep going until there are no more COVID-19 deaths. ● A six-year-old girl almost choked on part of a disposable face mask that had been "cooked into" a McDonald's chicken nugget bought in Aldershot (but not cooked on-site). ● North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, which suspended a 15-year-old student who posted a photograph of maskless students crowded in a corridor now has nine confirmed COVID-19 cases (more are likely) and has suspended in-person classes. ● Israeli jewelry company Yvel is making the most expensive coronavirus face mask in the world for a Chinese businessman. The 18-karat white gold mask will be encrusted with 3,600 white and black diamonds and have N99 filters. At 9.5oz (270g) it will also be impractical to wear. They are charging $1.5m (£1.14m) for it. ● A pandemic-deniers' (and anti-5G, anti-vax, of course) march in Liverpool last weekend has been blasted as a scaremongering gathering of "conspiracy theorists" by NHS workers. More than 1,200 people on Merseyside have died from COVID-19. ● Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that a Russian-developed vaccine against COVID-19 has been given regulatory approval after just 2 months of trials, in contravention of World Health Organization guidelines; the vaccine is called Sputnik-V [He's basically trolling America, and Trump will probably fall for it -Ed].

^ TRUMPWATCH

After the Trump campaign posted a video to both Twitter and Facebook of part of an interview with Fox News where Trump said that children are "almost immune" to COVID-19 in defence of his demands that schools reopen, Facebook deleted the post saying that it contained "harmful Covid information" and Twitter suspended the account until the tweet was removed. Children are no more immune than adults, but might be able to fight the harsher symptoms of infection better; they are also just as likely to spread the infection. ● Facebook has deleted 35 Facebook accounts, three pages and 88 Instagram accounts it says were part of a troll farm pretending to be African-American Trump (and QAnon conspiracy theory) supporters, and several hundred fake accounts linked to the Epoch Media Group, a conservative media organisation that it says spread Covid conspiracy theories. ● Twitter has approached ByteDance over the possibility of buying its US TikTok operation. Although Twitter has far less capital available than TikTok's other potential buyer, Microsoft, it is likely that a Twitter deal would face considerably less scrutiny by regulators and so could be completed quicker.

A new ad by the MeidasTouch PAC has laid bare Trump's decades-long history of racism, from his 1989 full-page ads in New York's four major newspapers calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five (African American and Hispanic teenagers convicted of the rape of a woman jogger in Central Park) that led to death threats against their families (all five were acquitted several years later after the actual attacker - a convicted rapist - confessed) through to the "birther" conspiracy theory against Barack Obama. ● Author Don Winslow released a "TrumpFakesChristianity" video last week showing how Trump "uses God the way he uses everyone else". ● Bill Barr, Trump's flunky attorney general told Fox News that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest movement was "Bolshevik" and accused mainstream media of collaborating with "violent Marxists". He also said that the BLM's tactics are "fascistic", a word more often - and more correctly - applied to the camouflage-clad, unidentifiable Homeland Security goons sent to Portland. ● Trump himself has again - on Fox and Friends of course - falsely claimed that the BLM movement began with protesters calling for police to "fry like bacon."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that between May and June 15 adults in Arizona were hospitalised for methanol poisoning after drinking alcohol-containing hand sanitiser; four died and others are still experiencing seizures or impaired vision. In April they had to issue a warning against inappropriate use of cleaners after Trump pondered aloud at a press briefing whether injecting bleach or disinfectant might be a possible treatment. ● After CNN aired a segment about the recent first meeting of the White House's virus task force with Trump since April and quoted a source as saying of Trump that "He still doesn't get it. He does not get it", Trump claimed on Twitter that "[CNN reporter Jim Acosta] has no sources on the task force. Their "sources" are made up, pure fiction! Jim Acosta is a Fake reporter!" CNN's PR account replied "False. @Acosta is a Real reporter with Real sources who talks to members of your Task Force much more often than you do." Other journalists backed up Acosta's veracity while the response of the Twitterati at how ridiculous Trump was sounding was best summed up by @glamelegance with "Donald Trump is a #FakePresident". ● The Trump administration is reportedly considering blocking US citizens and legal residents from entering the US if they have been exposed, or are suspected of having been exposed, to infection. ● After casually dismissing the 160,000+ American deaths from COVID-19 as "it is what it is" on his car crash interview [viz. last issue] a reporter at a White House press briefing asked Trump if he would have called for President Obama to resign had that many US citizens died on his watch. Trump's response was "No, I wouldn't have done that. I think it's been amazing what we've been able to do." Trump did call for Obama to resign over the ebola outbreak - which killed precisely 0 people in America. ● Trump said that Arizona's response to the pandemic should be used by other states. Arizona has a 20% infection rate, the fifth-highest number of current COVID-19 hospitalisations in the US, more than 4,000 deaths and long delays in issuing test results... ● There are now more than five million COVID-19 infection cases in America, under Trump's watch.

At another press briefing Trump said that "the closest thing [to the COVID-19 pandemic] is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic. It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people. Probably ended the Second World War, all the soldiers were sick." The Spanish^* Flu pandemic ran from 1918-19 (and killed Trump's grandfather Frederick in New York City). World War II started in 1939 and ended in 1945. The accepted death toll for the Spanish Flu pandemic is 17-50 million of up to 500 million infected. [^*It was first observed in the US, France and Britain, but newspapers were censored to maintain morale during World War I; they were free to report cases in neutral Spain, hence the name.]

People donating to Trump's campaign have been warned in a MeidasTouch PAC ad against becoming Trump's "next con" after it emerged how much money was being routed to Trump's sons' partners and companies linked to former campaign manager Brad Parscale, despite the campaign "begging you for money". ● A New York state justice has ruled that Trump cannot stop a defamation lawsuit brought against him by a magazine columnist who alleges that he aggressively denied having even met her (despite photographic evidence) and accused her of being an agent for the Democrats after she claimed in print that he had raped her in a city department store in the mid-1990s. Trump's lawyers used the old "sitting president is immune in civil lawsuits in state courts" argument but the judge ruled that the recent Supreme Court ruling that Trump cannot refuse a subpoena for his tax records is "applicable to all state court proceedings in which a sitting President is involved, including those involving his or her unofficial/personal conduct".

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., claims to have correctly predicted every American presidential election since 1984 using 13 key metrics. Joe Biden is leading Trump in all key polls and in a majority of Lichtman's 'keys'. ● While Trump spent the weekend at his luxury golf club in New Jersey, no doubt strenuously climbing in and out of a golf cart, Fox News' Peter Doocy encountered Joe Biden, out cycling (in a face mask) with friends in Delaware to ask him if he had chosen a running mate. Biden said he had, and when asked who, joked "You!". The clip tore apart Trump's "sleepy Joe" attack line and the image of Biden on the bicycle with the hashtag #TrumpCantRideABike trended on Twitter. ● On Friday the Republican National Committee (RNC) tweeted a video proclaiming that "the great American comeback is underway" with the tagline "Expectations EXCEEDED (once again) thanks to President Trump!" Typical of the response was @Lee1865's "164,094 dead American. You are right. You have exceeded all expectations, once again, thanks to Trump." ● The Trump campaign, which accuses the media of being fake news, has been caught out doctoring footage and images of Joe Biden in an attack ad. ● Should he win the election Trump has said that he would consider inviting Vladimir Putin to the next G7 summit (to be held at Camp David, delayed from June 2020 by the pandemic) despite Russia having been thrown out of the then-G8 and American intelligence reporting that Russia is actively meddling in the election (in Trump's favour, of course).

The election debates are due to start on September 29^th and Trump's debate preparation team is... interesting. It consists of Chris Christie (former New Jersey governor), Jared Kushner (Trump's son-in-law and adviser), Bill Stepien (Trump's election campaign manager) and senior adviser Jason Miller. Christie, while a US attorney, prosecuted Kris Kushner, Jared's father, who was jailed for fraud, tax evasion and witness tampering among other thing, and Christie later accused Jared Kushner of doing a "political hit job" on him in revenge for sending his father to jail. While governor, Christie nominated Stepien to chair New Jersey's Republican party only to lose confidence in him two days later after discovering Stepien's involvement in a scandal that rocked Christie's career. Jason Miller admitted in court documents that he had had frequent affairs while working on Trump's election campaign and then worked on his White House transition team before the scandal broke.

The location for Trump's nomination acceptance speech continues to cause problems. The Hatch Act forbids government officials from using their positions to endorse products or political campaigns, although the President and Vice President are technically exempted. Trump has proposed giving his acceptance speech from the South Lawn of the White House, prompting condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats, with Senator John Thune (R-SD) asking "Is that even legal? [..] I think anything you do on federal property would seem to be problematic.", while Kedric L. Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center said that it would be "exposing gaps in the [Hatch Act] that must be closed." Trump, of course, is unconcerned, having used White House press briefings to give election speechs and spending taxpayers' money to ship his team, security and equipment around the country for electioneering. Trump is also considering Gettysburg as a location for his acceptance. Gettyburg is also federal property, the site of a famous Confederate defeat (Trump has praised Confederate generals) and the location of Abraham Lincoln's famous speech (Trump has previously claimed to have done more for African-Americans than Lincoln...). As @Rschooley put it on Twitter, "At last, a Gettyburg Address the world will geniunely little note, nor long remember."

The announcement, as this issue is being written, that Senator Kamala Harris (D-Ca) has been selected as Joe Biden's Vice Presidential candidate appears to have rattled Trump, whose first response was to criticise Biden for selecting someone who had clashed with him in a primary debate; it does, of course, show that, unlike Trump, Biden is capable of working with someone who can and will challenge his views. More embarassing is the revelation that in 2011 and 2013, when running for Attorney General in California, Kamala Harris received donations totalling $6,000 (£4,605) from a private citizen living in New York City called Donald J. Trump, as well as donations totalling $4,000 (£3,070) from his daughter Ivanka in 2014. Harris donated the money to an organisation for Central Americans. At the White House press briefing after Harris was announced - and where Trump called her "nasty" - a reporter asked him, as he was leaving the podium, why he had donated to her. Answer came there none. ● Just hours after Harris was announced Trump launched into a bizarre - even for him - 20-minute attack on windmills, his impeachment, Hillary Clinton, mail-in voting and more during an on-air call with Sean Hannity on Fox News.

There is considerable evidence of Republican Party workers assisting Kanye West in his bid to run as an independent in some states (his campaign announcement was too late to register in all), including collecting and handing-in signatures to officials, presumably in the hope that people of colour will vote for him rather than Biden. Whether they will still support him in the wake of Kamala Harris' unveiling as Joe Biden's running mate (Harris is the first black woman, the first Asian-American and only the third woman to stand for Vice President) remains to be seen.

Last week Trump gave a typically erratic speech at Cleveland Airport, claiming that Biden would "take away your guns, destroy your second amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God. He's against God. he's against guns. He's against energy, our kind of energy." Biden, a sincerely-religious man who prayed with survivors and the families of victims of the Charleston church shooting in 2015, and shared with them how his religion helping him find comfort after the death of his son earlier that year, described Trump's comments as "beneath the dignity of the office he holds, and beneath the dignity the American people so rightly expect and deserve from their leaders." Trump, when asked earlier in his presidency to name his favourite passage in the Bible, fobbed off the question claiming it was a very personal matter and branded a [suprisingly non-flaming] Bible for a much-derided photo-op at Lafayette Square after BLM protesters had been violently cleared out and tear gassed. Both Democrats and Republicans slammed Trump's speech, with one calling it the "most deranged I've ever seen."

Another Trumpwatch, more idiocy from Trumpling Eric. Last week he tweeted a video of comedian Robin Williams mocking then-presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in 2005. On Saturday the late Williams' daughter Zelda retweeted his post with a comment that "while we're 'reminiscing' (to further your political agenda), you should look up what he said about your Dad. I did. Promise you, it's much more 'savage.' Gentle reminder that the dead can't vote, but the living can." Her father tore into then-businessman Trump in 2012 for his creepy behaviour at Miss Universe pageants (he owned the brand) and incestuous comments about dating Ivanka if she wasn't his daughter.

The White House has denied claims made in The New York Times that aides have spoken to South Dakota governor Kristi Noem about adding Trump's face to Mount Rushmore. Noem herself had told the South Dakota Argus Leader that when she first introduced herself to him after his inauguration he told her it was "my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore". She added that she thought he was joking - "I started laughing. He wasn't laughing, so he was totally serious.".

Before being elected Trump repeatedly criticised President Obama for his issuing of executive orders. Trump has now issued 180 of them since being elected, just over two thirds as many as Obama issued in two terms of office (276). Trump's latest four, signed on Sunday, were hailed by him as the solution to Coronavirus relief problems after Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on a plan. Experts and critics promptly slammed Trump's scheme as legally dubious, unworkable and threatening to both Social Security and Medicare. Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman described it as "the hydroxychloroquine of economic policy. They won't do anything to solve the employment crisis, but will have dangerous side effects. Yet Trump remains obsessed with them as a cure. [..] If you measure the quality of policy ideas on a scale of 1 to 10, this is a minus 5 or worse."

We reported earlier on the Trump campaign giving copies of Fox News' Sean Hannity's book to donors. It has now emerged that the cover of the book had a glaring (at least to classical linguists) mistake. It bore the Latin motto "vivamus vel libero perit Americae", which Hannity claimed on Fox News translates to "live free or America dies". It does not. As Alexander McDaniel, a classics student at Indiana University Bloomington pointed out, "it is clear that whoever came up with this motto does not even know the basic noun cases in Latin or how they work. The words in Hannity's motto are real Latin words, but the way they are strung together, they don't make even a lick of sense." The phrase actually translates as "Let's live or he ... passes away from American for the detriment of a free man." The motto was hastily corrected on subsequent printings.

On Friday Trump told reporters that he was considering issuing an executive order requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing medical conditions. Quite apart from the questionable legality of such an executive order, insurance companies already have to cover them; it is part of 'Obamacare', the legislation introduced under Barack Obama which Trump has spent the last few years trying to get repealed. Trump also repeated his claim to have been responsible for passing the Veterans Choice health legislation, saying "they've been trying to get that passed for decades and decades and decades, and no president's ever been able to do it, and we got it done." When CBS News reporter Paula Reid asked him "Why do you keep saying that you passed Veterans Choice? It was passed in 2014 [by President Obama]. It's a false statement." Trump cut the briefing short without answering.

After Trump mispronounced 'Thailand' conspiracy theory filmmaker, Trump supporter and convicted felon (pardoned by Trump) Dinesh D'Souza took to Twitter to defend him, tweeting "I'm highly amused to see supposedly sophisticated media types snickering at @realdonaldtrump for saying "Thighland." These faux-sophisticates don't realize Trump's way of saying it is right. "Tai-land" is the crude lingo of people who have never been to "Thighland"." As seemingly everyone on Twitter was quick to point out, nobody [except Dinesh and Donald] including Thais, English reference sources (both American and British), people recently returned from holidays there and several Trump supporters says "Thighland", but as one user charitably put it, "Dinesh was convicted for fraud & Trump pardoned him, so yeah, Dinesh owes him for that."

A somewhat confused and doddery-looking Trump was escorted from a press briefing by a Secret Service officer earlier this week after a self-identified gunman was shot outside the White House fence. The reporters were locked inside the room. Trump returned nine minutes later, and told a reporter who asked if he had been taken to the bunker (as with the Lafayette Square protests), that he had been taken to the Oval Office (the windows behind the desk have bulletproof glass).

^{^} OBITUARIES

Wrestler James 'Kamala' Harris (WWF, WWE, the 'Ugandan Giant', 70), music producer Martin Birch (Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, 71), singer Wayne Fontana (The Mindbenders, "Game of Love", "Come On Home", 74), singer and actor Trini Lopez ("If I Had a Hammer", "Lemon Tree", designed two Gibson guitars, 83), computer scientist Frances Allen (pioneered compiler optimisation, the first woman to be awarded the AM Turing Award, 88), statesman Brent Scowcroft (US National Security Adviser to Presidents Ford and George HW Bush, advised presidents from Nixon through Obama, 95).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

11, 21, 22, 31, 47, 56

[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...

    It was the weekend and Little Jennifer was watching television when her mother came downstairs and stood in front of the screen with her hands on her hips and an angry look on her face. "Little Jennifer," she said, "how many times have I asked you to go upstairs and make your bed?"
    Little Jennifer thought for a moment, then smiled as only she could. "I don't know, Mummy. I didn't know I was meant to keep count..."

---

^{^} ...end of line