^{^} ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 8th January		-		A West Saxon army under Alfred the Great defeated invading Danelaw Vikings at the Battle of Ashdown, 871. Poet and calligrapher Su Dongpo born, 1037. Artist and architect Giotto died, 1337. George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address, 1790. Mountaineer, explorer and cartographer Fanny Bullock Workman born, 1859. Actress Yvonne De Carlo died, 2007.
Saturday 9th January		-		The trial of Joan of Arc began in Rouen, 1431. Printer William Dugard born, 1606. Mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi died, 1799. The Avro Lancaster bomber made its maiden flight, 1941. Singer-songwriter Crystal Gayle born, 1951. Satirist and actor Peter Cook died, 1995.
Sunday 10th January		-		Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, starting the Roman Civil War, 49 BCE. Herbalist Nicholas Culpeper died, 1654. Physician and academic George Birkbeck born, 1776. The Metropolitan Railway, the first section of the London Underground, opened between Paddington and Farringdon, 1863. Composer Elza Ibrahimova born, 1938. Singer-songwriter and actor David Bowie died, 2016.
Monday 11th January		-		Noblewoman Eleanor of Lancaster died, 1372. Artist Parmigianino born, 1503. An earthquake destroyed parts of Sicily and Malta, 1693. Suffragist Alice Paul born, 1885. Insulin was used to treat diabetes in a human for the first time, 1922. Author Richmal Crompton died, 1969.
Tuesday 12th January		-		Author Charles Perrault born, 1628. Mathematician Pierre de Fermat died, 1665. The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded in London, 1866. Actress Shirley Eaton born, 1937. The RMS Queen Mary 2, the world's largest ocean liner, made her maiden voyage, 2004. Composer Alice Coltrane died, 2007.
Wednesday 13th January		-		The Nika riots broke out in Constantinople, in protest at Emperor Justinian I, 532. Artist Jan van Goyen born, 1596. Poet Edmund Spenser died, 1599. The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, D.C., 1888. Television producer and screenwriter Anna Home born, 1938. Aviator Nancy Bird Walton died, 2009.
Thursday 14th January		-		Roman general and politician Mark Antony born, 83 BCE. Anatomist Jacques Dubois died, 1555. The United States Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain, 1784. Journalist and writer Emily Hahn born, 1904. Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition landed on the Ross Ice Shelf, 1911. Actor Peter Finch died, 1977. World Logic Day (UNESCO).

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, William Wordsworth:

The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

A selection of quotations from films released in the same year. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• Nobody tosses a Dwarf.
• ...And then one time I ate some rotten berries. Man, there were some strong gases seepin' outta my butt that day!
• I realize that when I met you at the turkey curry buffet, I was unforgivably rude, and wearing a reindeer jumper.
• The intruders are leaving, but others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't.
• Life's funny. To a kid, time always drags. Suddenly you're fifty. All that's left of your childhood... fits in a rusty little box.

Last issue's festive quotations were:

• Light the lamp, not the rat, light the lamp, not the rat! Put me out, put me out, put me out!
      -- The Muppet Christmas Carol [1992]
• George, I am an old man, and most people hate me. But I don't like them either so that makes it all even.
      -- It's a Wonderful Life [1946]
• "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."
      -- Die Hard [1988]
• Here's another UFO Bulletin: The Defense Department has just announced that the unidentified flying object suddenly disappeared from our radar screen. They believe the object has either disintegrated in space, or it may be a space ship from another planet which has the ability to nullify all radar beams.
      -- Santa Claus Conquers the Martians [1964]
• We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup.
      -- Elf [2003]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• A flower that bloomed 100m years ago has been found perfectly preserved in Burmese amber. Described as a cross between a Scottish thistle and an opium pod, the flower has also contributed to the geological argument over when the West Burma Block broke away from the Gondwana super-continent which some believe was 200m years ago, others 500 million years ago; the flower is an angiosperm, a type which only evolved about 100m years ago suggesting a more recent date. ● Biologists at Arizona State University have found that young American alligators can regrow up to 9" (23cm) of their tails if they are severed, making the alligators the largest known species with such an ability. ● Residents of the Rego Park neighbourhood in Queens, New York City, are reporting having been attacked by a rogue squirrel - or squirrels - that have also evaded capture traps. ● A survey of the depths of the Atlantic has turned up 12 previously unknown species, some living around hydrothermal vents, with up to 5 already under threat from climate change. ● A sheep, three lambs and a goat that escaped from a farm in Turkey were caught on CCTV entering the nearby town hall. They were recaptured safely and returned, with Mayor Rasim Ari visiting them the next day. ● Short early-evening power outages in the Scottish village of Airth, near Falkirk, were found to be caused by a murmuration of starlings causing the lines to bounce and trip the supply. ● Researchers at the University of Sydney have found that kangaroos can learn to communicate with people in a way similar to dogs. ● A Wisconsin man rescued a deer stranded on a frozen lake and unable to stand by pushing it to the shore like a sled. ● Residents of the Scilly Isles were treated to a Christmas Eve visit by a humpback whale just offshore. Markings on its tail identified the whale as one seen off Cornwall in the summer. ● A month-old baby orangutan at Prague zoo has been named 'Kawi' after the zoo received 4,000 suggestions from the public. 'Kawi' is Indonesian for 'librarian', a nod to writer Terry Pratchett, who supported orangutan charity groups and famously had Unseen University's librarian changed into one by a wayward spell early in his Discworld novels. ● A couple in Southport found a 4'- (1.2m)-long python curled up behind their tumble dryer just before Christmas. An RSPCA officer who recovered it suggested that it was probably an escaped pet, and hoped it would be returned to its owner. ● Cows in the Siberian village of Oymyakon have been given woollen 'bras' to keep their udders warm as temperatures fall below -45^oC (-49^oF). ● A British startup company has developed a mask to sit over cow's nostrils and convert the methane expelled as they breath, belch and burp into carbon dioxide and water. ● An Ice Age juvenile woolly rhino dated to 20,000-50,000 years ago has been discovered preserved in permafrost in Yakutia, northern Russia. ● A mummified wolf pup, dated back 57,000 years has been found perfectly preserved in permafrost near Dawson City in the Yukon.


• Astronomers at the Breakthrough Listen project have detected an unexplained radio source seemingly coming from Proxima Centauri, the star closest to the Sun. While they suspect further research will find that it was misidentified and originated on Earth team member Sofia Sheikh of Pennsylvania State University described it as "something that's weird that we're having to think about the next steps [for]". ● Samples of moon 'soil' taken by the Chinese Chang'e-5 lander have been returned safely to Earth, the capsule landing in Inner Mongolia. ● Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry in Japan are working together to develop wooden-bodies satellites that will burn up without releasing dangerous substances or causing debris to rain down on Earth once they have ended their service. ● The Hubble Space Telescope has observed a dark spot drifting across the northern hemisphere of Neptune. The spot, wider than the Atlantic Ocean, is indicative of a storm, and was first observed in 2018, and similar ones have been recorded before, but this is the first long-lasting one also seen to calve off a smaller storm.


• Archaeologists in Pompeii have uncovered a well-preserved termopolium, a hot food and drinks shop. Decorated in brightly-coloured frescoes displaying hanging fowl the shop's counter had terracota pots, some still containing traces of food, sitting in holes where they would have been heated from below. Also discovered were a bronze drinking bowl, amphorae, wine flasks and ceramic cooking jars. ● Evidence of a burned and abandoned First Century village near Braintree in Essex is being described by archaeologists as indicative of the Romans' reprisals against local tribes for joining Buoudicca's rebellion. ● A piece of cedar discovered in Egypt's Great Pyramid in 1872 and donated to the University of Aberdeen in 1946 had been lost for decades but was recently rediscovered broken into fragments in a cigar box during a review of their collection. It is thought that the wood was used during the pyramid's construction. ● Notes made by Isaac Newton have been auctioned for £378,000 ($513,530). The pages, which were half burned by an accident when Newton's dog jumped up on a table knocking over a candle, describe his attempts to prove that the Egyptian pyramids were built using the royal cubit measure of length. ● Archaeologists hoping to study the oldest-known city in the Americas, a 5,000-year-old site in Peru, have received death threats from a family squatting there who claim ownership of the land was given to them 50 years ago.


• Tony Scott was using a powerful magnet given to him for Christmas to fish for metal objects in the Kennet and Avon Canal with his friend Elliot Bromfield when they pulled up a small, oval artifact. Elliot, a former soldier in the British Army, recognised it as a World War II hand grenade, so they called the police. The bomb squad was summoned, who disposed of the grenade. "It was the first time that I've used [the magnet] and about the fifth throw into the water," Scott told reporters, adding "Unfortunately the bomb squad had to cut the rope off and take my magnet away, but still, better to be safe." Bomb disposal officers later confirmed that the grenade was "live". ● Fishermen off the Florida Keys found more than 74lb (33.6kg) of cocaine floating in wrapped packages. The cocaine, which was handed to the U.S. Border Patrol because it was found in federal waters, had a street value of around $850,000 (£626,000).


• War may be breaking out in America, and for once it is nothing to do with Trump; it is between the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. In 2018 the Boy Scouts dropped the word 'Boy' from their recruitment programme, declaring that they were rebranding as 'BSA' and opening membership to girls. The Girl Scouts filed a trademark infringement lawsuit, calling the move "uniquely damaging" as it would erode their brand. At the end of last year the Boy Scouts' lawyer asked a judge to throw out the suit, claiming that if it succeeded they would be unable to use 'scout' or 'scouting' in their recruitment campaign for girls. On Christmas Eve the Girl Scouts counterfiled calling the Boy Scouts' recruitment programme "highly damaging" to their organisation and saying that it had caused an "explosion of confusion" to parents. The battle rages on...


• Brexit - the UK's departure from the European Union - has finally happened, with a trade deal signed - as expected by many - at the last minute. Perhaps too last-minute for civil servants drafting the documents, who appear to have cut-and-pasted from old legislation. Page 921 of the trade deal refers to "modern e-mail software packages including Outlook, Mozilla Mail as well as Netscape Communicator 4.x" Netscape Communicator saw its final major release in 1997 before being spun off into Mozilla's Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client. The document also suggests using 1024-bit RSA encryption and the SHA-1 algorithm, both of which have long been deprecated as insecure. Analysts have suggested that the text was copied verbatim from a 2008 EU law. ● The first 2021 - and post-Brexit - winner of the EuroMillions lottery was in Britain, matching all five numbers and two lucky stars to win the nearly-£40m ($54; €44m) jackpot. ● While last-minute Brexit negotiation were being reported as completed on Christmas Eve the British Twitterati had more pressing concerns, with the question of whether a press conference to announce the completion would cut into - or worse, replace - that afternoon's BBC1 broadcast of the film Paddington 2 trending.


• The word 'winery' conjures up idyllic images of countryside buildings surrounded by hills covered in rows of vines. Police in Rainsville, Alabama, recently discovered a less rural winery, after they received a tip-off and raided a municipal sewage plant. They found a fermenting rack, brewing equipment and several hundred gallons of illegal wine inside the Rainsville Waste Water Treatment Plant. [Oh, that bouquet... -Ed] ● A car stolen two years ago in Kanpur, India, has been recovered. It was being driven by a police officer, who claimed that it had been found abandoned and seized, although how he came to be driving a seized car (illegal in India) was not explained. The car's real owner only found out about it after the policeman took it for a service, and the garage phoned them (as the registered owner) a few days later to ask how it was running. ● Massachusetts policeman Matt Lima was called out to arrest a family accused of shoplifting from a food store in Somerset, MA, before Christmas. They explained that they could not afford to buy all the food but had wanted to give their children a decent Christmas meal. Instead of charging them with shoplifting Lima issued a "no trespass" order banning them from re-entering the store and bought them $250- (£180)-worth of gift cards with his own money so they could buy food at another branch of the store chain, later telling reporters that the children reminded him of his own, and "I just did what I felt was right. It's not about me, I just tried to put myself in that family's shoes and show a little bit of empathy."


• Medical student and former Miss Earth New Zealand Nela Zisser has broken the record for the weight of chicken nuggets eaten in a minute, swallowing 10.5oz (298g) of them - a total of 16 nuggets. She broke the previous record of 7oz (200g) - that she had set the month before. Zisser has a YouTube channel showcasing her eating achievements.


• First it was Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" finally topping the UK singles chart, now Wham!'s "Last Christmas" has done the same, 36 years after it was released. At the time of its release in December 1984 it was kept off the top spot by the Band Aid charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" but, as with Carey's, the inclusion of streaming plays in the official charts meant that its inclusion in requested Christmas playlists led to it charting again. ● Christmas is traditionally the season for truly awful sweaters, but Isle of Wight resident Hannah George took things to a better level after mentioning to her mother last year a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one that had been knitted for her by her grandmother when she was 3. Her mother had the original knitting pattern and made her a new one for Christmas. "I haven't taken it off since," Hannah, a writer for film and television, told reporters, adding that "It's really similar to the original one - a bit bigger obviously because I've grown slightly!" ● Ireland's RTÉ state broadcaster has apologised after including in its New Year's Eve countdown programme a mock news report that God was the latest high-profile figure implicated in a sexual harassment scandal: "The 5bn-year-old stood accused of forcing himself on a young Middle Eastern migrant and allegedly impregnating her against her will, before being sentenced to two years in prison, with the last 24 months suspended. Following the news, movie producer Harvey Weinstein requested a retrial in Ireland," the 23s video by a satirical website said. ● The Met Office has declared that Britain officially had a white Christmas despite most of the country being under clear and dry weather because there was a light snowfall in parts of Suffolk, Humberside and East Yorkshire in the morning of December 25^th.


• BBC News anchorman Simon McCoy, known for his humorous and offbeat remarks on the news, and once presenting a report clutching a packet of printer paper as if it were a tablet computer, summed up 2020 perfectly during a recent bulletin. "Just going to show you a very special programme - we've put together the highlights of 2020. Let's have a look" he said, before looking down at a monitor, pausing for a beat as nothing played then looking up at the camera and saying "Exactly." [We do not know if the studio gallery crew knew what he was about to say but can imagine the panic if not... -Ed]

IN BRIEF: Video game developer Richard Garriott has revealed that he used his self-funded 2008 12-day trip to the International Space Station to secrete a laminated photograph of the late James Doohan (Star Trek's Scotty) containing a few of Doohan's ashes, behind a floor cladding panel. ● A Staffordshire man got drunk while watching a video of a Celine Dion concert and changed his name by online deed poll to "Celine Dion", paying £89 ($121) and only realising what he had done when he received the paperwork in the post a few days later. A self-confessed superfan he told reporters he was in no hurry to change it back. ● A Northern California man dressed as Santa Claus who planned to land his microlight at a local school to deliver candy canes to the children had to be rescued by firefighters after getting the parachute wing caught on overhead power lines. He was uninjured but power had to be shut off during the rescue. ● The British Board of Film Classification has added a warning about racism and stereotypes to the cult 1980 film Flash Gordon [Altogether now... "Gordon's alive!" -Ed] for its re-release because of Ming the Merciless' oriental appearance. ● The total weight of human-created objects is forecast to exceed that of all living things by the end of 2021. ● KFC is apparently launching a games console (no word on what system it runs on) with a compartment for keeping their fast food chicken servings warm. ● A former Baptist pastor who quit preaching to become a stripper has told reporters that she has never been happier. ● A number of black-painted plywood silhouettes of animals and people have been appearing around the Scottish borders village of West Linton. ● Kay White, 93, has retired after spending 80 years working in the same post office, the last 60 as postmistress for the branch in Claverley, Shropshire. She is thought to have been Britain's oldest working postmistress.

CORONAVIRUS ROUND-UP: More online searches in Britain for mugs, candles and other things bearing the face of chief medical officer Chris Whitty were made than for those with the face of Britney Spears in the run-up to Christmas. ● Despite travel restrictions in Wales after Christmas police had to turn away crowds of visitors to the Brecon Beacons, some from as far away as London. ● Alex Hawke, Australia's immigration minister has said that hundred of backpackers who gathered on Sydney's Bronte Beach for a Christmas party in contravention of restrictions might be deported. ● Lake Superior State University in Michigan has issued its annual list of words and phrases which should be banished from the English language, including "social distancing", "in these uncertain times", "COVID-19" and "we're all in this together". ● Santiago International Airport in Chile is deploying dogs trained to sniff out COVID-19-infected passengers. ● The World Health Organization has warned that excessive use of antibiotics to treat the symptoms of COVID-19 is leading to a rise in cases of the sexually-transmitted disease gonorrhea, which is becoming resistant. ● A German pilot has flown a 124 mile (200km) route that traced out a giant syringe on flight-mapping software to mark the start of COVID-19 vaccination programmes in Europe. ● US Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO) has told Fox News that he will not take the vaccine because "I'm an American, I have the freedom to decide..." ● A man wanted in connection with a drive-by shooting in Ellensburg, WA, allegedly prompted by his being criticised for not wearing a facemask has been arrested - after witnesses were able to describe his face and officers were able to identify him because he was still not wearing a mask. ● Bill Newman, Mayor of Lincoln County, Tennessee, who previously declared that he would not order the wearing of facemasks until the Holy Spirit guided him to, has contracted COVID-19. ● Scottish MP Margaret Ferrier has been arrested after admitting to having travelled from London to Glasgow and back by train last year despite having been diagnosed with COVID-19. The Scottish National Party had suspended her after her admission but she has refused to step down as an MP. ● Confronted with a belligerent passenger who refused to wear a mask and kept reaching forward to poke his face, a Victoria, British Columbia, taxi driver drove the man straight to a police station rather than his destination.

UPDATES: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has tricked one of the agents suspected of having poisoned him with Novichock into admitting what he did and how he did it by phoning him and pretending to be a superior conducting a debriefing. ● The couple who triggered a major rescue operation in Colorado in 2009 by claiming that their son had been carried away by a balloon when he had really been hidden in an attic have been pardoned by the state governor; both have served prison time. "We are all ready to move past the spectacle from a decade ago," Governor Jared Polis said. ● Google has revealed the recent major outage of many of its services' log-in capabilities was caused by out-of-date software not being replaced. ● South Kesteven District Council is reviewing its plan to erect a statue of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher after protests and claims of no consultation. ● Another monolith has appeared, this time overlooking San Francisco and - just in time for Christmas - made of gingerbread.

^ TRUMPWATCH

    Social media app TikTop continues to be available in the US after the December 7^th ruling by the Washington D.C. district court that the Commerce Department cannot impose restrictions on it. ● Twitter tags seen recently include #SickoTrump, #TrumpMeltdown, #TrumpIsACriminal, #TrumpTreason, #ImpeachTrump, #TrumpTapes, #TrumpBegged and #LoserGate, more on which below.

    Trump has awarded the Medal of Freedom to Devin Nunes, the California congressman and ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee who gave classified information about the Russia investigation to Trump and the media before sharing it with the Committee and was implicated himself over allegations of attempts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine. Nunes, co-sponsor of the "Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act", has brought several lawsuits claiming defamation, most notably against CNN for reporting the links between him and Ukraine fixer Lev Parnas, against other news agencies and against Twitter and parody Twitter accounts including #DevinCow and #DevinNunesMom. The lawsuits are widely regarded as frivolous attempts to silence public criticism rather than having any realistic chance of success. No wonder Trump has given him a medal... ● It has emerged that Jared Kushner was involved in setting up American Made Media Consultants, a shell company that allowed small donor contributions to be funnelled to the Trump family via "consulting fees" rather than the campaign fund without having to be disclosed.

    Trump has accused doctors of getting more money if patients are recorded as having died from COVID-19. They do not. Earlier in January he tweeted that "The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus [sic] is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCDgov's ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low. "When in doubt, call it Covid."" It is true that (as far as we can tell) most, if not all, other countries report lower figures. It is because they are handling the pandemic more competently. Meanwhile the US vaccination programme crawls on. In mid-December Pfizer were reporting that they had "millions more doses" waiting in a warehouse for the government to tell them where to ship them. The relief bill, finally agreed on by Congress after much argument sat on Trump's desk for days as he whined about it until he grudgingly signed it; ironically one of his complaints was that it only gave $600 (£440) rather than $2,000 (£1,470) to individuals; the higher amount was what Democrats had argued for but then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had blocked it.

    As well as the COVID relief bill Trump refused to sign the defence spending bill which will set funding and policy for the US military for the next year. Trump's complaints? Primarily that it included funding for renaming military bases named after Confederate civil war figures and it limited troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Europe. It was the first time in 60 years that a President has refused to sign the annual defense bill. Both Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives and Mitch McConnell, Republican leader of the Senate, criticised Trump for not signing it and both houses voted to overturn his veto of the $740bn (£549) budget.

    Just after Christmas Dominion Voting Systems, manufacturer of the voting machines used in Michigan issued a stinging rebuttal to Mellissa Carone, the seemingly-drunk sometime-actress who appeared as Rudy Giuliani's star witness in Trump's failed court bid to overturn the results. Carone claimed in court to have been employed to provide IT support for the machines and thus have inside knowledge of alleged flaws and misuse. Dominion's letter included "Without a shred of corroborating evidence, you have claimed that you witnessed several different versions of voter fraud [..]. You published these statements even though you knew all along that your attacks on Dominion have no basis in reality. [..] We write to you now because you have positioned yourself as a prominent leader of the ongoing misinformation campaign by pretending to have some sort of 'insider's knowledge' regarding Dominion's business activities, when in reality you were hired through a staffing agency for one day to clean glass on machines and complete other menial tasks [our emphasis - Ed]." Carone was further instructed to preserve all communications between herself and Trump's lawyers including Giuliani and Sidney Powell, suggesting that Dominion are considering legal action for slander.
    The big story in the last few days has been Trump's phone call to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, who oversaw the election and certified the result. As CNN's Anderson Cooper pointed out, Trump, self-styled as the Great Dealmaker, alternately begged, cajoled and bullied Raffensperger to try to get him to "find" Trump enough votes (11,000+) to overturn the result in the state, while Raffensperger, his lawyers and colleagues calmy refuted Trump's allegations of fraud. Not so much a negotiator as "a scared bully pushed into a corner of his own making desperately trying to get out," as Cooper put it. The release of the audio recording naturally attracted predicted criticism from Trump supporters; a Raffensperger advisor explained "[Trump] is a man who has a history of reinventing history as it occurs. So if he's going to try to dispute anything on the call, it's nice to have something like this, hard evidence, to dispute whatever he's claiming about the secretary. Lindsey Graham asked us to throw out legally cast ballots [Senator Graham (R-SC) had phoned Raffensperger during the state's recount regarding disqualifying certain mail-in votes]. So yeah, after that call, we decided maybe we should do this." One of Trump's lawyers also on the call was Cleta Mitchell, who has campaigned to replace Senatorial elections with state legislatures naming their state's senators, nullifying one of the democratic tenets of American government. As a result of the call's release former Republican Congressman David Jolly (R-FL) has called for Representatives to "convene the new House Judiciary Committee this week. Play the audio tape, authenticate it, take an up or down vote on whether or not the President should be impeached. What stands on the line in this moment [..] is not just Donald Trump. It is the integrity of the House of Representatives as an institution, whether or not they will allow this behaviour to go checked or unchecked. We want action. Hold the President accountable." ● At the end of last year, amid his ongoing rants about (entirely fictitious) election fraud in Georgia, Trump tweeted that "Now it turns out that Brad R[affensperger]'s brother works for China, and they definitely don't want "Trump". So digusting!" Raffensperger's brother lives in Canada and has no involvement with Chinese companies [Probably not the best way to ingratiate yourself with someone you are going to beg to find you more (non-existent) votes, Donnie... -Ed].
    The two runoff senatorial elections in Georgia will be key to who controls the Senate. The Democrats need to win both seats to give them half the Senate (Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris will have the deciding vote if the Senate is tied, giving the Democrats an effective majority; the Republicans just need to win one of the seats to keep control. At the time of writing both seats are being forecast as going to the Democrats. One significant factor influencing the result was someone spreading unfounded rumours among Republican voters that the voting system is insecure, prompting some of them to not bother voting. His name? Donald Trump, who spent all of a rally in Georgia supposedly in support of the sitting Republican senators ranting about his claims of election fraud and then taking to Twitter to call the elections "illegal and invalid".
    For once, Rudy Giuliani has not been the most deranged of Trump's 'crack' legal team. Lin Wood has claimed that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts is being blackmailed into committing crimes - including the murder of Justice Antonin Scalia (Scalia died, aged 79, of natural causes in 2016) - by a hacker team called the Lizard Squad, that Jeffrey Epstein is still alive (Epstein committed suicide while in custody), that Roberts illegally adopted two children from Wales through Epstein, that Roberts and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conspired to stop Trump being re-elected and that Trump "might actually be" the second coming of Christ... Jenna Ellis, another member of the team, had to tweet that "to be clear: I do not support the statements from Attorney Lin Wood. I support the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution." As @_RichardHall tweeted, "The man leading the charge for the president's attempts to overturn the election is, unsurprisingly, not right in the head."
    All ten living former US defense secretaries have signed an essay published in the Washington Post calling for the military to not get involved in Trump's election disputes and to stay out of the transition to Joe Biden's presidency. Pentagon chiefs have previously said that they would not get involved if Trump attempted to use the military to retain the presidency. ● After the election Texas Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick offered $1m (£0.73m) for evidence of election fraud. He is being called out over it by Pennsylvania's Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Futterman who confirmed a number of cases of attempted voter fraud in his state. All were by Republican voters in support of Trump including a man who tried to vote in his deceased mother's name and tried to register his dead mother-in-law as a voter, even submitting fake documents in an attempt to prove that she was alive. Futterman took to Twitter when no reward cheque was forthcoming, much to everyone's amusement at Patrick's expense.
    Vice-president Mike Pence is due to certify the electoral college result and Joe Biden's victory as this issue is being written, and a number of Republican senators - more with an eye on their future electorate than real support for Trump - are planning to call for an audit, delaying certification. Such a move will be solely symbolic - both Senate and Representatives need a majority vote and the Democrats control the House of Representatives. Trump has tried pressuring Pence to invalidate the electoral college votes for the states where Trump claims (without evidence) there was electoral fraud, but Pence was reported as telling him he could not legally do so (the certification is ceremonial), and would not. Trump called the reports "Fake news!" so they were most likely true.

    After CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale told The Atlantic that once Biden is president he will have time to fact check online disinformation as well as the White House because "It will not be a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job to fact check Biden" Don, Jr, tried to go on the offensive, accusing Dale of "admitting that he's pivoting from fact checking Biden to focusing on "online disinformation", AKA CNN code for Republicans who use the internet + "congressional leaders" which will almost undoubtedly = congressional Republican in practice." Dale promptly fired back "Not at all what I said; no "pivot". What I said: Since Biden - like every non-Trump Republican in the 2016 field and potential 2024 field! - lies way less frequently than Trump, there'll be time in the Biden era to *also* fact check others in addition to the president." ● Dumbest-spawn-of-Trump Eric, meanwhile, took to Twitter to threaten to "personally work to defeat every single Republican Senator/Congressman who doesn't stand up against this [non-existent -Ed] fraud - they will be primaried in their next election and they will lose." He was, not surprisingly widely mocked, from @JohnFugelsang's "In a family of Fredos, Eric Trump is the Shemp" to @arosegregory's "Are you sure that's how you want to spend your 1 phone call dude?" ● Ivanka tweeted a picture of herself and her father (tapping away on his phone, of course) on Air Force One "Off to Georgia [for the rally] with Dad!" and tagged it with the two Georgian Republican senators, White House aide Dan Scavino Jr, the GOP and, er, Meat Loaf. The singer - who is not registered with either party, performed at the 1977 pre-inauguration ball for Bill Clinton and attended George W. Bush's inauguration - was not on the plane. Twitter was confused, to say the least - "Oh good he's tweeting again. I'll tag Meat Loaf in the photo instead of him and see if he notices" (@maynerdrules); "Ivanka calls her dad Meat Loaf. I think she's trying to tell us something, like in a hostage video" (@MikeSingleton).

    The Secret Service is reassigning agents for Presidential bodyguard duties after questions arose over the allegiances of a number of those protecting Trump, including one who took a leave of absence to help organise Trump's Bible-waving photo-op in Lafayette Square after it had been cleared of peaceful protesters by violent and tear-gas deploying federal officers. The same agent, Anthony Ornato, was also involved in arranging Trump's election rallies, often held in contravention of local laws for COVID-19 safety.

    Few people expect Trump to have the common decency of attending Joe Biden's inauguration; he has yet to concede the election held last November. Scotland's Sunday Post recently reported that Prestwick Airport has been told to expect a US military Boeing 757 the day before the inauguration. Trump has occasionally used the plane to travel, and it would not be surprising if he used US taxpayer's money right to the end, for a personal trip to his Turnberry club 20 miles (32km) from the airport to spend Inauguration Day on the golf links far away from Washington. There is just one slight snag. Like the rest of United Kingdom, Scotland is on lockdown because of the spike in the pandemic caused by the new, more contagious, variant of COVID-19. Asked about the possibility of Trump fleeing to Scotland to avoid the inauguration, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responded "I have no idea what Donald Trump's travel plans are, you'll be glad to know. I hope and expect ... that the travel plan immediately that he has is to exit the White House, but beyond that, I don't know, but we are not allowing people to come into Scotland without an essential purpose right now, which would apply to him, just as it applies to everyone else. Coming to play golf is not what I would consider an essential purpose."

A major cyber attack - described as the worst-ever cyber espionage on the American government - was uncovered at the end of last year. It was widely blamed on Russia; even US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said "We can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity." Putin-fanboi Trump, of course, saw things differently, downplaying the scale of the attack and suggesting that it was not Russia but China that carried it out. Of course, he provided no evidence.

Guests who had paid up to $1,000 (£734) a head to attend Trump's New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago found that their host had gone back to Washington, presumably desperate to shore up his baseless attempts to retain the presidency, leaving them with Don, Jr, Eric, their wives and Rudy Giuliani. With about 500 guests (fewer than in previous years), tables set for 10 with no distancing and almost no facemasks in evidence, pictures of the party prompted Omari Hardy, who represents part of Palm Beach in the state House of Representatives to tweet "We're one step closer to shutting down Mar-a-Lago. This was an egregious violation of our mask order. Hundreds of people. Indoors. No Masks. It's a public health catastrophe waiting to happen. No business should get away with this." A formal complaint about the party has been forwarded by Palm Beach County to its COVID Education and Compliance Team.

^{^} OBITUARIES

White kiwi bird Manukura (inspiration for Manukura, the White Kiwi children's book and toys, 9), wrestler Jonathan Huber ('Brodie Lee', AEW, WWE, 41), fashion designer Stella Tennant (50), actress Kay Purcell (Emmerdale, Tracy Beaker, So Awkward, 57), horse racing trainer Zoe Davison (more than 100 National Hunt wins, 60), singer Liam Reilly (Bagatelle, "Somewhere in Europe", "Summer in Dublin", 65), actress Tanya Roberts (Charlie's Angels, A View to a Kill, That '70s Show, 65), bluegrass musician Tony Rice (the Tony Rice Unit, the Bluegrass Album Band, Manzanita, 69), folk singer and actor George Gerdes (Seinfeld, The X-Files, NYPD Blue, 72), actress Eileen Pollock (Bread, Far and Away, Four Days in July, 73), football player Colin Bell (Bury, Manchester City, England, 74), actor Jeremy Bulloch (Star Wars, Doctor Who, Summer Holiday, 75), designer Martin Lambie-Nairn (Channel 4 and BBC idents, Spitting Image co-creator, 75), singer Gerry Marsden (Gerry and the Pacemakers, "Ferry Cross the Mersey", "You'll Never Walk Alone", 78), actress Dawn Wells (Gilligan's Island, Bonanza, Super Sucker, 82), chef and restaurateur Albert Roux (Le Gavroche, The Waterside Inn, 85), football player/manager Tommy Docherty (Scotland, Porto, Manchester United, 92), actress Rosalind Knight (Carry on Nurse, The Wildcats of St Trinian's, Gimme Gimme Gimme, 87), TV screenwriter Adele Rose (Coronation Street, Robin's Nest, Byker Grove creator, 87), actress Barbara Shelley (Rasputin: The Mad Monk, The Gorgon, Quatermass and the Pit, 88), Broadway producer Roger Berlind (Amadeus, Rex, winner of 25 Tony Awards, 90), actor Mark Eden (Coronation Street, Doctor Who, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, 92), former spy George Blake (MI6, Soviet double agent, 98), fashion designer Pierre Cardin (98), violinist Ivry Gitlis (98).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

2, 3, 12, 27, 31, 34

[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...

    Little Jennifer's teacher was explaining percentages to the class. "Now, children, if I gave you a quiz with ten questions, and you got all ten right, what would you have?" she asked.

    The children were quiet and thoughtful, and then Little Jennifer's hand shot up. "Yes, Little Jennifer?"

    "Accusations of cheating, Miss!"

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^{^} ...end of line