Issue ^#778 - 2^nd August 2024

Edited by and copyright ©2024 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 2nd August     - Day 215/366		-		Despite being heavily outnumbered the Carthaginian army under Hannibal defeated the Romans at the Battle of Cannae, 216 BCE. Sir Thomas Grey was executed for his role in the Southampton Plot against King Henry V of England, 1415. Saskia van Uylenburgh, model and wife of Rembrandt van Rijn, born, 1612. The United States Declaration of Independence was signed, 1776. Drummer, songwriter and music producer Butch Vig born, 1955. Soprano Marguerite Piazza died, 2012. Roma Holocaust Memorial Day (EU).
Saturday 3rd August     - Day 216/366		-		King James II of Scotland was killed by an exploding cannon at the siege of Roxburgh Castle, 1460. Milan's La Scala theatre was inaugurated, 1778. Gardener and architect Joseph Paxton, who cultivated the Cavendish banana and designed The Crystal Palace, born, 1803. Jesse Owens won the 100m dash at the Berlin Olympics, 1936. Singer, songwriter and DJ Skin born, 1967. Actress Carolyn Jones died, 1983.
Sunday 4th August     - Day 217/366		-		An English and Dutch fleet captured Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession, 1704. Novelist, writer and poet Hans Christian Andersen died, 1875. Artist Dame Laura Knight born, 1877. Lizzie Borden's father and stepmother were found murdered in their home, 1892. Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States and Nobel Prize laureate, born, 1961. Actress Marilyn Monroe died, 1962.
Monday 5th August     - Day 218/366		-		Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, King of Gwynedd, was killed, 1063. Sir William Wallace was captured by the Sheriff of Dumbarton, during the First Scottish War of Independence, 1305. Explorer Vitus Bering born, 1681. The British Admiralty dismissed the first working electric telegraph as "wholly unnecessary", in favour of the semaphore, 1816. Actress Joan Hickson born, 1906. Writer and suffragist Millicent Fawcett died, 1929.
Tuesday 6th August     - Day 219/366		-		Artist Diego Velázquez died, 1660. Portugal and the Dutch Republic signed the Treaty of the Hague, 1661. Poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, born, 1809. Physician and educator Jennie Lozier died, 1915. The atomic bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima from the US Air Force B-29 Enola Gay, 1945. Singer-songwriter and actress Geri Halliwell born, 1972.
Wednesday 7th August     - Day 220/366		-		The coronation of King Otto I of Germany, 936. Hugarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer Elizabeth Báthory born, 1560. Joseph Marie Jacquard, inventor of the eponymous programmable loom, died, 1834. Philippe Petit walked a high wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, 1,368' (417m) above ground, 1974. Actor Cirroc Lofton born, 1978. Author, critic and campaigner Brigid Brophy, Lady Levey, died, 1995.
Thursday 8th August     - Day 221/366		-		Philosopher and alchemist Matteo Tafuri born, 1492. Artist Lucas van Leyden died, 1533. Joseph Whidbey led an expedition looking for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska, 1794. Swimmer and actress Esther Williams born, 1921. Novelist and short story writer Shirley Jackson died, 1965. Iain Macmillan photographed The Beatles at the zebra crossing outside the EMI studios on Abbey Road, London, 1969. International Cat Day.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, USAF Captain Robert Lewis, copilot of the Enola Gay:

As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: "My God, what have we done?"

^{^} FILM QUIZ

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

• We've landed totally undetected, thanks to the my genius in creating the noiseless shush-copter.
• There are days I'm invisible, I can do whatever I want. I must be careful not to lose that ability.
• Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.
• That's not Rosanna. That's a jigsaw puzzle.
• You have to adopt the mentality of an Irish street cop: the world is a bad place, people are lazy morons, minorities are criminals, sex is sick but interesting. Ask yourself, what would scare my grandmother or piss off my grandfather? And that's a Fox story.

Last issue's 'dream' quotations were from:

• As we walked, we talked and talked and talked about politics, about movies, and about why the French could never come close to producing a good rock band.
      -- The Dreamers [2003]
• - Five, six, grab a crucifix. Seven, eight, better stay up late. Nine, ten, never... never...
  - Never sleep again. Where did you learn that rhyme?
      -- A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors [1987]
• I love you, Harry. You make me feel like a person. Like I'm me... and I'm beautiful.
      -- Requiem For a Dream [2000]
• Nice place you got here. Who's your decorator? Darth Vader?
      -- Dreamscape [1984]
• Hark! I see a voice!
      -- A Midsummer Night's Dream [1999 and probably other versions]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• A couple from Glasgow were stunned when they got home from a holiday in Lochailort, 150 miles (240km) away, to open their luggage and discover a small bat had stowed away in it. They handed the bat, dubbed 'Raspberry', to an expert who cared for it before a family were able to take it back to the Kinlochmoidart Estate where a countryside ranger released it back into the wild. ● Komodo dragons, the world's largest reptiles, already have a fearsome reputation, with their size, chainmail-like scales, neurotoxin saliva and about 60 large serrated teeth, but new research has found that, in addition to all that, their teeth have a thin coating of iron on the cutting edges, making their bites even stronger. ● The Lyndale Centre store in Wyke Regis, Dorset, has banned a repeat shoplifter. For the last six years a seagull, dubbed 'Steven Seagull' has taken to walking in, grabbing a packet of BBQ Beef crisps off a shelf and leaving with it before pecking it open and sharing the crisps with his friends. He has taken about 30 bags in the last two months alone. Staff tried moving the packets around but he still managed to find his favourites. A notice has now been put up asking customers to keep the doors closed behind them. ● The discovery of two well-preserved complete fossilised skeletons of Krusatodons, small shrew-like mammals, has suggested that, unlike modern small mammals which rarely live for more than 3 years, the earliest mammals had lifespans of up to 7 years. ● Researchers studying sperm whale deaths in the Strait of Gibraltar have reported at least five of the endangered marine mammals have been killed by collisions with ships in the last ten years, and called for captains to record the location of sightings and share them so other ships can avoid areas where whales are known to be. ● A small boat off Portsmouth Harbor, New Hampshire, has been caught on camera being sunk after a breaching whale landed on it. One man on the boat managed to jump off in time, the other went down with it, but was able to swim to the surface. Both were rescued by the boat from which the footage had been taken. ● New computer analysis of Tyrannosaurus rex, modelling their population size, growth rate and lifespan, taking into account the gaps in the known fossil record, has suggested that they probably did not weigh up to 8.8 tonnes and grow up to 40' (12m) in length as previously thought - and famously depicted in the Jurassic Park film franchise - they were likely considerably bigger, weighing up to 14 tonnes and measuring as much as 50' (15m).


• Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have directly imaged a 'super-Jupiter' exoplanet in the Epsilon Indi star system 12 light years from Earth. The planet, Epsilon Indi Ab, is a gas giant six times the size of Jupiter and is also one of the coldest exoplanets yet discovered, at just 2^oC (35^oF). ● NASA has again extended the mission of the Boeing Starliner currently docked at the International Space Station (ISS) as they try to resolve problems identified with it. The two astronauts who flew aboard the Starliner could now remain on the ISS until September. Engineers are planning to pulse-fire the engines one-by-one to test them and at the same time check the previous helium leaks. They have also determined that manual control puts additional strain on the engines, so when it eventually returns to Earth it will be flown on automatic guidance.


• Divers in the Baltic Sea, recently exploring what they had initially assumed from sonar imaging to be the wreck of a fishing boat discovered that it was a C19^th sailing boat filled with porcelain, clay casks of mineral water and bottles of wine and champagne, almost all still intact. The cargo, now lying 22 miles (37km) off the Swedish island of Oland, is thought to have been destined for the Russian court of Tsar Nicholas I. While it is thought that the mineral water and most of the 100+ bottles of champagne could still be drinkable there are no plans to recover anything from the site at this stage. ● A Cold War nuclear bunker in Sedbergh, Cumbria, built in the 1950s by the Royal Observer Corps to house staff who would monitor conditions following a nuclear attack, has sold at auction for £48,000 ($62,000). Access to the bunker, which includes a functional telephone line and has secure offroad parking, is via a 12' (3.7m) ladder. ● A new survey of the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery in the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, Kent, has found that it is deteriorating faster than thought, and the risk that the 1,400 tonnes of explosives it sank carrying in 1944 could explode is considerable. The Department for Transport has brought forward plans to remove the masts from the wreck, which are visible above the water, and could collapse triggering an explosion that could send a tidal wave upriver to London. While the masts are the main issue the condition of the entire wreck is deteriorating badly. ● When gloved detectorist David Hankin dug up a 2.4"- (6cm)-long bent strip of metal in a field near Cockermouth, Cumria, he thought it was just a lost sheep's ear tag and planned to throw it away, but after picking it up again later, this time with bare hands, he realised how heavy it was. The item was a 3,500-year-old gold ribbon which would have been worn either on clothes or in the hair. It has now been declared treasure by a coroner and will be sold to a museum. ● CT scans of a mummified mature Nile crocodile, dating to more than 2,000 years ago, have revealed an undigested fish and a metal hook in its stomach suggesting that it might have been caught deliberately to be killed and mummified as a grave item, probably to honour Sobek, the crocodile-headed god associated with water and fertility. ● Scientists studying astronomer Tycho Brahe's alchemical laboratory beneath the remains of Uraniborg, his observatory on the island of Ven off the coast of Sweden, have analysed shards of glass and pottery and discovered traces of nickel, zinc, copper, tin, mercury, gold and lead, all to be expected from alchemical work, but also tungsten, which was not formally identified until 1781, more than 180 years after Brahe died. ● New research at the Pyramid of Djoser, Egypt's oldest-known pyramid, built some 4,700 years ago and standing 203' (62m) tall in six stepped layers has suggested that the massive stones could have been lifted by hydraulics, with evidence of a check dam and water treatment facility to remove sediment, and shafts inside the pyramid in which stones could have been raised on floats. ● An auction of film costumes, props and other items in California has seen a miniature starfighter made for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope sell for $1.5m (£1.1m), a wand wielded by Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban fetch $52,000 (£40,500), one of the prop Mjölnir hammers wielded by Thor in Marvel's Avengers films go for $81,000 (£63,000), and, of most significance for cinema-goers of a certain vintage, one of the gold bikini costumes worn by Carrie Fisher in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi sell for $175,000 (£136,000).


• A woman has been arrested in Bath on suspicion of administering an unknown noxious substance after she allegedly approached people on Monday and held an open bag up to their faces. Several subsequently became ill, one woman was hospitalised. Police had to cordon off the area while forensic scientists determined there was no remaining trace of harmful substances. ● Daniel Coulson, 49, has been jailed for two years on two counts of burglary, one from Europcar UK Ltd, the other from Carats Jewellers, both in Ipswich, Suffolk, last May. He was arrested after he injured himself and became stuck on the roof of the jeweller's building for nine hours, until a fire crew brought him down. ● A 17-year-old in Bennet, Nebraska, has been accused of interfering with a railway switch lock to cause a train derailment which he filmed for his YouTube channel. The incident, on April 21^st, saw two locomotives and five container cars go off the tracks but remain upright. The Lancaster County Attorney has filed to have the criminal mischief case transferred from juvenile to adult court.


• Researchers at Tsinghua University in China have developed the first meltdown-proof nuclear power plant. The reactor uses helium for cooling, instead of water and a 'pebble bed' of snooker-ball sized graphite spheres containing uranium particles instead of fuel rods. The reactor is said to withstand temperatures up to 950^oC (1,742^oF) without melting, but even if the cooling system fails the rate of nuclear reaction will automatically slow down. ● Four young engineers from Michigan have driven from New York's Red Ball Garage to the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach, California, the famous Cannonball Run, in a solar-powered vehicle they made themselves. The 'Cannonball Sun' took 13 days, 15 hours and 19 minutes to complete the journey, far longer than the record 25 hours for a modified internal combustion car, but it was the first time that a solar-powered car has done it. ● Last weekend a 42-year-old Belgian tourist in Death Valley lost his shoes while taking a short walk at the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and suffered "full-thickness burns on his feet" according to the National Parks Service. Ground temperature on the day was recorded as 51^oC (123^oF), hotter than the air, although the air temperature was still too high for an emergency helicopter, so the man had to be driven to a higher and cooler altitude in an ambulance before being moved to a helicopter and taken to hospital. ● Large craters are appearing all over Siberia as rising temperatures thin the permafrost and warm gasses trapped underneath which then burst through. ● A new scheme for cleaning lakes is being tested in Nepal. Platforms of discarded styrofoam and bamboo mats are woven together with coconut fibre and cable ties, then plants are inserted in 2" (5cm) holes and the platforms floated on polluted lakes. The plant roots suck pollutants out of the water and leave oxygen from photosynthesis dissolved in the water, which supports marine life. ● The annual Big Butterfly Count has recorded about half the number of butterflies across Britain as last year, due to the unusually wet and windy spring and a colder start to summer. ● Part of the Flow Country in Caithness and Sutherland, Scotland, covering almost 470,000 acres (2,000 km²) has been granted world heritage status by Unesco for its outstanding scientific significance. The landscape includes mountains, lochs, pools and hill, but the area now covered by the heritage status in comprised mostly of a blanket bog, made of waterlogged peat, which supports a wide range of wildlife and plants, many rare. ● Swiss authorities are limiting general access to the Riffelsee lake above Zermatt, to protect alpine flowers including eidelweiss, which have become endangered as people flooded into the area to take pictures of the scenery, including the nearby Matterhorn mountain. Visitors will now have to keep to designated wooden walkways. ● The British Met Offices's annual State of the Climate report has confirmed that climate change is making the weather more chaotic, with an increased frequency of both extreme high temperatures and extreme wet weather.

IN BRIEF: An Ohio court has ruled that 'boneless' chicken wings served in restaurants do not have to be bone-free after a man sued a restaurant following a chicken bone in a 'boneless' wing becoming lodged in his throat causing an infection. The court ruled that "boneless wing" referred to a cooking style rather than the actual food. ● First responder Trevor Skaggs ran 1.5 miles (2.4km) through a part of California ravaged by the Park Fire to rescue two Rottweiler dogs and their puppies which their owner had been forced to abandon after his truck broke down while he was evacuating the area last week. He gave the precise location to police and Skaggs was set down by helicopter as near as possible. He found the dogs, gave them water and food and led them back to the helicopter. Unfortunately the male dog has since died. More than 60 large animals, including cattle, and 80 small animals, mostly pets, have been rescued from the fire, which covers an area slightly larger than Los Angeles. ● Following the release of the Deadpool & Wolverine film physical copies of the 2015 Deadpool Playstation 4 video game have been selling for up to £300 ($385) online. The game is no longer available for digital purchase and download. ● A group of scientists are claiming to have found evidence that complex lifeforms evolved on Earth 1.5 billion years earlier than previously thought, although they say that the organisms were limited to an inland sea and eventually died out without spreading globally. ● The Cambridge Dictionary has added three terms beloved of Generation Z to its lexicon: "the ick", meaning a feeling of dislike or disgust, "boop", a gentle hit or touch on the head or nose to indicate affection, and "chef's kiss", describing something as perfect, from the idea of a chef putting their fingers and thumb together, kissing them and pulling their hand away from their lips.

OLYMPICS ODDITIES: The International Olympics Committee has had to apologise to South Korea after their appearance at the river parade of athletes during the opening ceremony was introduced as being North Korea. ● Also during the opening ceremony, much twisting of knickers was wrought by mostly-American and mostly-Republican Christian groups at what they claimed was a mockery of the Last Supper, filled with transvestites, drag performers and, er, a man painted blue. As was later pointed out, it was not a representation of the Last Supper (or at least the version painted by da Vinci) but of a Dionysian feast, or bacchanalia, by the Greek gods, in honour of the Olympics' origins; the blue man was portraying Dionysus and the central figure was Apollo. One thing we suspect the offended Jesus worshippers will still have failed to acknowledge is just how much of their religious symbolism and festival calendar was purlioned from earlier religions...

^{^} OBITUARIES

Actress Janet Andrewartha (Neighbours, A Country Practice, Prisoner, 72), pastry chef Roberto Linguanotto (probable co-inventor of tiramisu while working at Le Beccherie in Treviso, 81), baritone Benjamin Luxon (English National Opera, The Good Old Days, Top C's and Tiaras, 87), actor and dancer Robert Banas (West Side Story, Mary Poppins, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 90), sports coach and TV personality John Anderson (coached more than 100 Olympic athletes, Scottish national athletics coach, referee on the original ITV run of Gladiators, 92), author Francine Pascal (Sweet Valley High series, The Hand-Me-Down Kid, If Wishes Were Horses, 92), author Edna O'Brien (Country Girls trilogy, The High Road, Lantern Slides, 93), actress and voice artist Ysanne Churchman (The Archers, Doctor Who [1970s and 2017], Lipstick on Your Collar, 99).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

14, 41, 44, 52, 56, 58

[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 and her parents were watching her father's favourite soccer team's game on TV. "Look at them play," he said, "they make football look like an art!"
    Little Jennifer looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled as only she could. "That must be why they keep drawing, Daddy!"

---

^{^} ...end of line