Issue ^#736 - 6^th October 2023

Edited by and copyright ©2023 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 6th October		-		Caccini's Euridice, the oldest surviving opera, premiered in Florence, 1600. Elisabeth of France, regent and Queen of Spain, and Queen of Portugal, died, 1644. Businessman and philanthropist James McGill born, 1744. King Louis XVI of France was forced to move from Versailles to the Tuileries Palace, during the French Revolution, 1789. Soprano Jenny Lind born, 1820. Poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson died, 1892.
Saturday 7th October		-		Charles the Simple, King of West Francia, died, 929. Uppsala University was inaugurated, 1477. Architect Pierre Le Muet born, 1591. The Ford Motor Company introduced the first moving vehicle assembly line, 1913. Trumpet player Alison Balsom born, 1978. Journalist and activist Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated, 2006.
Sunday 8th October		-		Pyrrhus of Epirus was born, 319 BCE. The Tartar rule over Moscow ended with the Great Stand on the Ugra River, 1480. Ninja and outlaw Ishikawa Goemon was boiled alive after a failed assassination attempt on the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 1594. Academic and politician Betty Bothroyd, the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, born, 1929. Cats started an almost 18-year run on Broadway, 1982. Actress Phyllis Calvert died, 2002.
Monday 9th October		-		The first recorded mention of the Prague astronomical clock, 1410. Historian George Ormerod died, 1873. Filmmaker and actor Jacques Tati born, 1907. Actress Miriam Hopkins died, 1972. Model Bella Hadid born, 1996. The Pakistani Taliban attempted to assassinate schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, 2012. World Post Day.
Tuesday 10th October		-		Roman general Germanicus died, 19. Philanthropist Emily Dobson born, 1842. Astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, 1846. Low budget filmmaker Ed Wood born, 1924. The Windscale fire, which would become Britain's worst nuclear accident, broke out, 1957. Singer-songwriter Èdith Piaf died, 1963. World Mental Health Day. World Day Against the Death Penalty. World Porridge Day and the World Porridge Making Championship.
Wednesday 11th October		-		The authority of English kings was restricted by the Ordinances of 1311, 1311. Charles Orlando, Dauphin of France, born, 1492. Cromwell's New Model Army sacked Wexford, 1649. Explorer and politician Meriwether Lewis died, 1809. Eleanor Roosevelt, 32nd First Lady of the United States, born, 1884. Photographer and journalist Dorothea Lange died, 1965.
Thursday 12th October		-		The Salem witch trials were ended, 1692. Prison reformer Elizabeth Fry died, 1845. Magician and writer Aleister Crowley born, 1875. An iron lung respirator was used for the first time, at Boston Children's Hospital, 1928. Journalist and author Angela Rippon born, 1944. Computer scientist Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language, died, 2011. Freethought Day. International Day Against DRM.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Aleister Crowley:

If one were to take the bible seriously one would go mad. But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

A selection of quotations from films containing the word 'sky' in the title, either as a whole word or part of a word. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• "Medical evaluation: fail. Physical evaluation: fail. Psychological evaluation, alcohol and substance addiction indicated." Ooh! "Pathological rejection of authority based on unresolved childhood trauma. Subject is not approved for field duty and immediate suspension for service advised." What is this if not betrayal? She sent you off to me, knowing you're not ready, knowing you're likely die. Mommy was very bad.
• I think she's the saddest girl to ever hold a martini.
• They've reached Sixth Avenue. They've reached Fifth Avenue. They're a hundred yards away. Oh, my god.
• - Let's get going. You gotta go to work. And I'd like go get the hell outta here before they come back.
  - They won't be back... I don't think they like me.
• At 5.45 we'll start firing back. Every bomb will be retaliated. The Meteorblitzkrieg shall begin!

Last issue's 'October' quotations were from:

• Now, understand, Commander, that torpedo did not self-destruct. You heard it hit the hull. And I ... was never here.
      -- The Hunt for Red October [1990]
• Did you ever want to go far away? Where would you go? Never imagined you would go into a coma did you?
      -- October [2018]
• Sure Dr. Von Braun is a great scientist, but he isn't my hero.
      -- October Sky [1999]
• The telephone has no constitutional right to be answered.
      -- First Monday in October [1981]
• I'm having engine trouble. I'm two clicks away from the marina. Just off Guthrie Point.
      -- October Gale [2014]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• Scientists have managed to recover fragments of DNA from a 6-million-year-old sea turtle fossil, and identified it as an ancestor of today's Kemp's ridley and Olive ridley turtles. ● An Australian farmer who set up traps to catch whatever was killing his poultry caught a spotted-tailed, or tiger, quoll, thought to have been functionally extinct for more than 100 years because of habitat loss. ● A parrot called Albert Sebastian managed to jimmy the catch on his cage and escape, eventually being recovered on a farm 32 miles (51km) away. His owner has now put padlocks on every cage opening. ● An artificial reef the size of a soccer pitch has been built in the North Sea, a mile (1.6km) off Whitburn, Sunderland, to home 10,000 native oysters and act as the basis for a new marine ecosystem. ● Scientists studying pangolin scales seized from illegal traffickers in Hong Kong and the Yunnan province of China between 2012 and 2019 have identified a previously unknown ninth species of the creatures, which are endangered because of illegal hunting to sell their scales for use in traditional medicines. ● Last week the Philadelphia Phillies denied a man entry to the Citizens Bank Park stadium because he wanted to bring his emotional support animal with him. The animal was a 5'- (1.5m)-long alligator. A spokesman said they have no problem with dogs or small animals. ● The heavy rain and flooding that hit New York City recently might have trapped many people in place but they also allowed one resident to get out and about. A female sea lion managed to swim out of her pool at the Central Park Zoo. Nobody was in danger, she did not escape the zoo and was returned to the pool once the water levels fell back. ● A two-year-old square-lipped male rhinoceros born at the Royal Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, in the Netherlands, has been transported to a zoo in Lithuania as part of a pan-European population management programme. The breed is considered to be critically endangered, possibly even extinct, in the wild. ● A female Sumatran rhino calf has been born at the Way Kambas National Park on Sumatra. She is the third offspring of her parents. Fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos exist in the wild, in small pockets across Indonesia.


• Next year China aims to send an unmanned mission to return samples from the far side of the Moon, the first by any country to do so. The spacecraft will also carry payloads and satellites for the European Space Agency, Italy and Pakistan. ● The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered pairs of Jupiter-sized "planets" floating in free space, away from star systems, and their existence is puzzling astronomers. About 40 such pairs have been found during a detailed survey of the Orion Nebula, and dubbed Jupiter Mass Binary Objects, or 'JuMBOs'. ● NASA is considering designs for a "space tug" rocket to take the International Space Station out of orbit and crash it back to Earth when its service life ends sometime after 2030. The journey will need to be controlled to avoid any parts that do not burn up in the atmosphere from potentially hitting populated areas; debris from the earlier Skylab space station was recovered in the Australia Outback. ● Dish Network has been issued with the first US government fine for abandoning space junk in orbit, after it failed to move its EchoStar-7 satellite 186 miles (299km) further away from the planet at the end of its service life to free up space for other geostationary satellites. EchoStar-7 only had enough fuel to move less than half the required distance. NASA estimated that there are more than 25,000 pieces of space debris over 4" (10cm) in length, although even a paint chip could prove fatal if it collided with an astronaut. ● Two separate teams studying Jupiter's moon Europa with the JWST have detected significant levels of carbon dioxide in one region of the ice-covered moon, suggesting that as well as the water Europa is thought to be covered by there is carbon, one of the essential elements for life - at least on Earth. ● Astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin returned safely to Earth this week after orbiting the planet almost 6,000 times thanks to their mission time having been doubled from its intended six months because the original return rocket suffered a coolant leak so a replacement had to be prepared and sent up. Rubio broke the US record for the longest single time in space, at 371 days (the world record is held by cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days and 18 hours on a mission to the Mir space station in 1994/5).


• What could be the oldest pair of shoes in Europe have been found in a Spanish cave network. The grass-woven sandals, though to be around 6,000 years old, were found in Cueva de los Murciélagos, or the Cave of the Bats, in Andalusia. ● A Norwegian family using a metal detector to search for a lost gold earring in their garden on the island of Jomfruland have discovered Viking artefacts experts think were used in the C9^th burial of a woman. ● Scientists from the University of Southampton who have studied hand tools discovered on the edges of ancient river channels and mapped their location believe they have identified the routes taken by early man as he first left Africa for Eurasia around 84,000 years ago. Rather than the previously-thought southern route via the Red Sea from the horn of Africa to south-western Arabia at a time when the sea level was low the new data suggests a more northerly route through the Jordan Rift Valley, using small areas of wetland as staging posts. ● An auction of film memorabilia will be held in London and online next month, including one of the heads from Star Wars' robot C-3PO, including light-up eyes, estimated at £1m ($1.2m) as well as his hands and feet and a prop cereal box held by the robot. Also in the sale are Freddy Kruger's bladed glove from A Nightmare on Elm Street (£400,000 [$486,000]), Indiana Jones' bullwhip from Temple of Doom (£200,000 [$243,000]), James Bond's tuxedo from No Time To Die, Don Vito Corleone's coat from The Godfather, the damaged batsuit from Tim Burton's Batman and the largest ever collection of items from Blade Runner to be sold.


• A man arrested for abducting 9-year-old Charlotte Sena from a camp site in New York State last Saturday was identified from a ransom note delivered to her parents after police identified fingerprints on the paper and matched them to ones taken after a drink-driving incident in 1999. Charlotte was recovered and described as being "safe and in good health". ● Cheshire Police have released video footage from an unmarked police lorry showing them using a loudspeaker to caution a van driver who was drinking from a mug of tea while driving with neither hand on the steering wheel. ● An employee at a German museum has been convicted of stealing four paintings and replacing them with fakes, selling three of them to fund a luxurious lifestyle including a Rolls Royce car and expensive watches. ● Slovakian police have fined a driver caught on a speed camera with his dog apparently behind the wheel. The man claimed it had just jumped up but camera footage disproved the claim. ● Film editor Steve Form, working at home on a grisly scene from Saw X, the latest film in the horror franchise, had his work interrupted by the police after a neighbour reported hearing someone being tortured in his house... ● Sometime in the early hours of last Thursday somebody used a chainsaw to cut down the Sycamore Gap Tree, a lone sycamore growing on National Trust land next to Hadrian's Wall in a dramatic glacial dip in the Northumbrian landscape. The 200-year-old tree was a national landmark, a popular subject for photographers and artists, and had appeared in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The tree had been in good health and was left lying where it had fallen. High winds caused by Storm Agnes meant that locals heard nothing. Police initially arrested a 16-year-old, then a retired tree surgeon in his 60s. Both were released on bail. The Twice Brewed Inn, close to the wall is offering a bar tab of up to £2,000 ($2,430) for anyone who provides the police with information leading to an arrest and conviction. A sapling that someone planted close to the stump after the incident was removed by the National Trust, because the Roman wall, which stretches for 73 miles (117.5km) across northern England, has UNESCO world heritage status and any changes would require government permission. It is hoped that the tree could still produce shoots from the stump and be coppiced, but it would take a couple of centuries for it to fully regrow and it will never be the same as it was.


• An assessment of British wildlife led by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has warned that one in six species of wild animals and flowers is at risk of extinction. Only one in seven wildlife habitats and just 7% of woodland are in good ecological condition, and none of the seafloor is, thanks to continuous trawling. ● Swiss glaciers have lost a tenth of their volume in the last two years, the same amount as lost between 1960 and 1990. The St Annafirn glacier in the canton of Uri is now so small it has been judged not worth measuring. ● The drought in Texas has caused water levels to fall to a record low in recorded history, revealing a (normally) underwater cave and the remains of settlements from 100 years ago in Canyon Lake.

IN BRIEF: Dorothy Hoffner, 104, has made a tandem skydive in northern Illinois and hopes to be verified by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest skydiver. She made her first jump when she was a mere 100 years old... ● Danish artist Jen Haaning is appealing a court ruling that he has to repay most of the 57,435 kroner (£57,435; $69,894) he was given in cash by the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg to recreate two of his earlier canvases representing the annual average wage in banknotes, for an exhibition on labour conditions. Haaning instead provided two large blank canvases he titled "Work It Out" and kept the money. ● The evening sky over Yarnton, Oxfordshire, was turned orange earlier this week after lightning struck a digester tank at a biogas facility. ● An 8'- (2.5m) tall teddy bear has been rescued from a waste recycling centre near Cambridge. Lily Hurley posted photographs of the bear, er, barely fitting into her Seat Leon car on Facebook and planned to give it to her mother. ● The world's most powerful laser is to be built at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire. The 'Vulcan 20-20' laser will be 100 times brighter than its predecessor, a "million, billion, billion times brighter than the Sun" and cost £85m ($103m). ● British artist Lucy Sparrow has recreated an entire authentic New York Jewish bagel shop using 400 yards (366m) of felt in an abandoned storefront in New York's East Village.

^{^} OBITUARIES

Actor Jake Abraham (GBH, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Formula 51, 56), soccer player Francis Lee CBE (Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City, England, 79), actor Sir Michael Gambon (The Singing Detective, The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, Harry Potter film series [The Prisoner of Azkaban onwards], 82), politician Dianne Feinstein (San Francisco Board of Supervisors [1970-1978], 38^th Mayor of San Francisco [1978-1988], US Senator from California [1992-2023], 90), peace activist Pat Arrowsmith (co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 93).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

4, 5, 10, 13, 51, 55

[UK National Lottery, number range 1-59]
You can get your very own prediction at http://www.simonlamont.co.uk/tfir/dumbledore.htm.

^{^} AND FINALLY...

    The school had a new headteacher, and he was going around the classes getting to know the children. He asked Little Jennifer's class what they hoped to be when they grew up.
    "I'm going to be a scientist," Little Mary said.
    "I want to be a racing driver," Little Simon said.
    "I'd like to be on television," Little Emma said.
    "And what about you, Little Jennifer?" he asked.
    Little Jennifer looked thoughtful then smiled as only she could. "I don't know," she said, "but I heard Mummy tell Auntie Jane that I'm growing up to be a proper little madam!"

---

^{^} ...end of line