Issue ^#662 - 29^th April 2022

Edited by and copyright ©2022 Simon Lamont
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tfir@simonlamont.co.uk

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Unless otherwise indicated dollar values are in US dollars. Currency conversions are at current rates at time of writing and may be rounded.
The Friday Irregular uses Common Era year notation.

^{^} ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 29th April		-		Joan of Arc arrived at Orléans to relieve the siege, 1429. Poet and satirist John Cleveland died, 1658. Polymath John Arbuthnot born, 1667. Roget's Thesaurus was published, released, issued, 1852. Writer Kathleen Clarice Groom died, 1954. Actress Michelle Pfeiffer born, 1958. International Dance Day. Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare.
Saturday 30th April		-		Poet Lucan died, 65. Queen Mary II of England born, 1662. George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States, 1789. Soldier and fundraiser Captain Sir Thomas Moore born, 1920. Pioneering pilot Bessie Coleman died,1926. CERN announced that the World Wide Web protocols would be free, 1993. International Jazz Day.
Sunday 1st May		-		Astrologer William Lilly born, 1602. The Act of Union, joining England and Scotland as the Kingdom of Great Britain, came into force, 1707. Frontierswoman and sharpshooter Calamity Jane born, 1852. Explorer David Livingstone died, 1873. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine became publicly available, 1956. Actress Grace Lee Whitney died, 2015. International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day. Labour Day and associated observances in various countries. May Day in the Northern Hemisphere.
Monday 2nd May		-		Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Portugal, born, 1402. Polymath Leonardo da Vinci died, 1519. Mary, Queen of Scots escaped from Loch Levan Castle, 1568. Artist Mary Moser died, 1819. Writer E.E. "Doc" Smith born, 1890. The Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano was sunk by the British submarine HMS Conqueror during the Falklands War, 1982.
Tuesday 3rd May		-		A total solar eclipse predicted by Edmond Halley to within four minutes' accuracy was visible over northern Europe and northern Asia, 1715. Chemist Charles Tennant born, 1768. Journalist, author and researcher into anomalous phenomena Charles Fort died, 1932. Actress Caitlin Clarke born, 1952. The first spam email was sent to ARPANET addresses on the west coast of the USA, 1978. Politician Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, died, 2002. Sun Day. World Press Freedom Day.
Wednesday 4th May		-		Naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi died, 1605. Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor of the piano, born, 1655. Rhode Island became the first of the American colonies to renounce allegiance to King George III, 1776. Alice Liddell, inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, born, 1852. Writer E. Nesbit died, 1924. Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979. Star Wars Day.
Thursday 5th May		-		Kublai Khan became ruler of the Mongol Empire, 1260. Philosopher and political theorist Karl Marx born, 1818. Napoleon died, 1821. The Music Hall (now named Carnegie Hall) in New York City opened, 1891. Musician and composer Delia Derbyshire born, 1937. Nurse and survivor of the sinkings of both RMS Titanic and HMHS Brittanic Violet Jessop died, 1971. International Midwives' Day. World Portuguese Language Day.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Ernie Kovaks:

Television - a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

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

• Gee, Vince, when you sing it's really gonesville.
• Lettie, take an editorial! "To the women of America...!" No, make it to the women everywhere. "Banish the black, burn the blue, and bury the beige. From now on, girls, think pink!"
• We're talking about somebody's life here. We can't decide it in five minutes.
• Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket!
• The cellar stretched before me like some vast primeval plain, empty of life, littered with the relics of a vanished race. No desert island castaway ever faced so bleak a prospect.

Last issue's quotations were from films released in 1996:

• This isn't America, Jack. This is L.A.
      -- Mulholland Falls
• To the southeast, multi-armed Zanzibanian short women and their exploding wigs of death!
      -- Muppet Treasure Island
• Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?
      -- Broken Arrow
• Uh... yeah, trust me. Rabbit is good, Rabbit is wise.
      -- Twister
• So, that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money? There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it.
      -- Fargo

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• Jinx, a black cat with unsually large eyes and thousands of online followers, was made Mayor of the Michigan town of Hell for a day recently. ● A family in South Lake Tahoe, California, who kept hearing "odd rumbling, snoring-like noises" throught the winter months could not trace them, and ended up ignoring them. Their neighbours even suggested that they might be imagining them. The cause of the sounds only became apparent when they heard new sounds and realised that a bear had woken up from hibernation in the crawlspace below the house. With the help of BEAR League staff the bear was coaxed out - along with her five cubs, and the space blocked off securely. ● A waitress in a Turkish restaurant was praised online after a customer posted on Reddit that he had gone to get a chair from another table for a friend only to find a cat was fast asleep on it. He asked the waitress to deal with it, and rather than shooing the cat outside she put the chair - and still-sleeping feline - back where it had been and got him another chair. ● A two-year-old red fox labrador called Olive who disappeared while being taken for a walk has been safely rescued after a four day search involving drones, thermal imaging cameras and teams of searchers from dog rescue group Hart Sar. She had fallen into a 12' (3.6m) disused mine shaft, probably while following a scent, and was recovered by fire crews. She had managed to lick water from the rock face and was tired and hungry but unhurt by her fall. ● Play at the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield was briefly held up last week after a pigeon got into the auditorium and decided to perch on one of the tables. It was eventually ushered back outside. Fortunately it had not relieved itself, which could have lengthened the delay. ● A one-eyed cat which stowed away in a shipping container taken from Peterhead to a North Sea oil rig has been flown back to land. The Scottish SPCA scanned him for a microchip and reunited him with his owner, five years after he went missing. Staff at HMP Grampian also revealed that during his years wandering he was a regular visitor there. ● Concrete gets warm in bright sunshine, something a 7' (2.1m) crocodile in Florida took advantage of recently. The concrete he choose to sunbathe on just happened to be in the middle of a runway at Naval Air Station Key West in South Florida, and it put the runway out of use until Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation staff could usher the crocodile off the airfield. ● A 9'10" (2.9m) giant squid has been washed ashore alive in Obama, Fukui Prefecture, Japan. It was found in a shallow pool of water and has been taken to an aquarium. ● Hundreds of animals are killed every year as they try to cross California's six-lane Highway 101. To mark this year's Earth Day the ground was broken on a plan to build the world's largest wildlife crossing, a 165'- (50.3m)-wide vegetated bridge over the road which will give deer, snakes, toads, mountain lynx and other animals a safe route. The $90m (£71.7m) project is due to be completed in 2025.


• China has announced plans to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid in an attempt to alter its orbit to test the feasibility of such a scheme to deflect a large asteroid if found to be on a collision course with Earth. The target asteroid has not yet been selected but the mission should take place in around four years. NASA is conducting a similar experiment, aiming to knock the moonlet of an asteroid called Didymos off course in September. ● NASA's Perseverence Martian rover has sent back spectacular images of the red planet since it landed, but it has now recorded video of an eclipse by the Martian moon Phobos. Earlier rovers Spirit and Opportunity both witnessed Phobos eclipsing the Sun but could only record time-lapse images. At only a little over 6 miles (9.6km) in size, eclipses by Phobos are nowhere near the scale of eclipses by the Moon seen on Earth, but are still impressive. ● Earlier this month the Pentagon released its latest UFO (or UAP - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, as they prefer to term it) report, focusing not so much on reported sightings but the effects on the health of people reporting them, including claims of electromagnetic radiation, abduction and, in one case, an "unaccounted-for pregnancy"...


• A study by Cambridge University researchers, which analysed more than 2,000 skeletons dating to the Anglo-Saxon period has found that, until the Vikings arrived, kings ate a mostly vegetarian diet, barring the occasional lavish meat feast probably hosted by free peasant farmers. ● A 1983 Return of the Jedi Yak Face figurine, still in its packaging and bought for 99p ($1.24) has been sold at auction for £2,000 ($2,509). ● Thirty-five years ago Ann Kendrick's husband Peter was working in the garden of their house in Looe, Cornwall, when he lost his wedding ring. Last weekend she was clearing around an apple tree in the garden when she pulled at a tuft of grass and what looked like "a dirty piece of bent metal" came up with it. It was the missing ring. She cleaned it, and once it has been repaired plans to wear it on a necklace in memory of her husband, who died 22 years ago.


• A man who went to the Zombie Experience at the Hollywood Wax Museum Haunted House in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was so scared by one of the performers that he shot him. According to the shooter the group attending fell to the ground after the 'zombie' appeared and he felt a gun hit his foot. Thinking it was a prop he picked it up and fired, hitting the 'zombie' in the shoulder. He is currently charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, as he then handed the gun to a 15-year-old, but is likely to face further charges. Police are trying to discover where the gun came from. ● Police Scotland have warned drivers that "nice weather doesn't mean you can drive at [..] ridiculous speeds" after a routine speed check clocked one car on the A78 between Troon and Glasgow being driven at 148mph (238km/h). The driver has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal, Scotland's prosecution service. ● Police in Tunstall, Staffordshire, have been criticised after they were filmed impounding a 2-year-old child's toy quadbike being ridden on a cycleway. Footage showed the bike, which goes at around walking speed, being loaded onto the back of a low-loader lorry. ● The UK Department of Transport has announced plans to allow drivers of autonomous cars to watch television while travelling, under certain conditions. The car has to be fully autonomous at the time, and the video feed must come through the car's own systems, allowing it to be cut if the driver is needed to take control. There are, at present, no fully-autonomous cars registered as such under British law. [Whether or not drivers will be allowed to watch Top Gear behind the wheel remains to be seen... -Ed]


• Recent state legislation in Florida, making it easier for parents and residents to object to particular books and other material being used in schools has come in for widespread condemnation. Chaz Stevens, an atheist and self-described "stunt activist" has taken the opportunity to use the new law to write to 63 school districts requesting that one book in particular be removed. "Is this the message we want to teach our children?" he asks, "if you rape a woman, the father has to give you 50 silver pieces," adding that the book "references such topics as murder, adultery, sexual immorality and fornication ... do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies?" The book in question is, we suspect, commonly found in schools across Florida. It is the Bible. Stevens told Miami New Times that "If they're gonna ban books, then the whole library should be in play. My hope - and it's a long shot - is that they will apply their own standards to themselves and ban the Bible."


• The Batman, the latest of Warner/DC's superhero films, used parts of Liverpool for filming, as have many other films including Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Captain America. For one scene the iconic St George's Hall was digitally superimposed on a Gotham City backdrop, with Gotham City police cars in front of it. The same building's exterior was also used in Fantastic Beasts but The Batman left in something Fantastic Beasts did not. All those Gotham City police are parked near a clearly-signed bright yellow Merseytravel bus stop. As many on Twitter pointed out, the 10 and 10a buses don't usually go through Gotham City, while another user quipped "The Dark Nightbus". The budget for The Batman? Between $185 and $200m (£147-159m). Free advertising for Merseytravel? Priceless...

IN BRIEF: The Federal Aviation Authority are investigating a mid air "plane swap" stunt that involved two pilots skydiving between their (briefly uncontrolled) planes at 14,000' (4,270m) after one of the pilots missed his target and the plane crashed. The attempt was unauthorised. The pilot parachuted safely to the ground. ● Last year guns overtook car accidents to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers. ● An Iowa man for whom a convenience store worker made a mistake printing out lottery tickets has won $1m (£800,000) with one of the tickets. ● A Massachusetts couple have been awarded almost $5m (£4m) in court against a neighbouring country club over the "years-long" threat of golf balls - some 651 in the last five years - hitting their house after being whacked by bad players. ● Four friends are driving across Africa in two tuk-tuks (three-wheeled motorised rickshaws) to raise money for wildlife rangers. ● Bromyard town council in Herefordshire is being mocked after spending £90,000 ($113,000) on rebranding itself with the sole effect of reversing the ending 'D' in its name logo. ● Orange juice company Tropicana has apparently developed a breakfast cereal that is to be eaten with orange juice instead of milk... ● The Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program did not just study UFOUAPs, it seems, but also researched invisibility, wormholes, antigravity and whether it would be possible to tunnel through the Moon using nuclear bombs... ● In Bram Stoker's Dracula the titular vampire arrives in England at Whitbey and sets up coffin in the ruined abbey overlooking the town. To mark the 125^th anniversary of the book's publication the town is hoping to set a new world record for people dressed as vampires on May 26^th. Anyone in costume will be admitted to the abbey free-of-charge. They need to attract more than the current record of 1,039 participants.

UPDATES: Tests of NASA's Moon rocket have been put back until later this year and the rocket returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Centre after more "minor" problems.

^{^} OBITUARIES

Saxophonist Andrew Woolfolk (Earth, Wind & Fire, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee [2000], 71), playwright and TV screenwriter Eric Chappell (The Banana Box, creator of Rising Damp and Home to Roost, 88), actor Robert Morse (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying [stage and film], Mad Men, American Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson, 90), Holocaust survivor Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova (hid in a cellar then lived in a hospital for 2 years during the WWII Nazi occupation of Mariupol, killed by Russian shelling in the siege of Mariupol, 91), supercentenarian Kane Tanaka (the oldest verified living person since 2018, 119 years & 107 days).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

19, 32, 39, 46, 47, 53

[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 had been taken to get new shoes for school. She had slipped her feet into a pair of shiny black leather shoes and fastened the buckles. "How do they feel?" the saleswoman asked.
    Little Jennifer stood up, sat down and wriggled her feet, stood up and sat down again. "The left one is too tight!" she said.
    "Well," the saleswoman said, smiling at Little Jennifer and her mother, "Perhaps if you pull the tongue out a bit more?"
    Little Jennifer looked puzzled. "No it'th sthill thoo thighth."

---

^{^} ...end of line