Issue ^#842 - 7^th November 2025

Edited by and copyright ©2025 Simon Lamont
( Facebook  /  Bluesky )

tfir@simonlamont.co.uk

The latest edition is always available at http://www.simonlamont.co.uk/tfir/index.htm
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Unless otherwise indicated dollar values are in U.S. 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 7th November     - Day 311/365		-		Frankish kings Charles the Simple and Henry the Fowler signed the Treaty of Bonn, recognising their realms' borders along the Rhine, 921. Navigator and cartographer James Cook born, 1728. Biologist and geographer Alfred Russel Wallace, who conceived the theory of evolution independently from Darwin, died, 1913. New York City's Museum of Modern Art opened to the public, 1929. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell born, 1943. Ingrid of Sweden, Queen of Denmark [1947-1972], died, 2000. International Inuit Day.
Saturday 8th November     - Day 312/365		-		The Republic of Venice enacted a law confining most of the city's glassmakers to the island group of Murano, 1291. Noblewoman Lettice Knollys born, 1543. Robert Catesby, leader of the Gunpowder Plot, was shot dead in a standoff with a Sheriff's posse, 1605. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays, 1895. Chef, restaurateur and broadcaster Gordon Ramsay born, 1966. Author and poet Rumer Godden died, 1998.
Sunday 9th November     - Day 313/365		-		King George II of Great Britain born, 1683. Britain, France and Spain signed the Treaty of Seville, formally ending the 1727-9 Anglo-Spanish War, 1729. Sculptor and artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi died, 1778. Salon holder and writer Jeanne Julie Éléonore de Lespinasse born, 1732. Suffragist and educational reformer Dorothea Beale died, 1906. NASA launched the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft atop the first Saturn V rocket, 1967.
Monday 10th November     - Day 314/365		-		Explorer Richard Chancellor died in a shipwreck, 1556. Under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster the Netherlands ceded New Netherland, its American territories including what is now New York City, to England, 1674. Artist William Hogarth born, 1697. Dancer Anita Berber died, 1928. Windows 1.0 was introduced by Bill Gates, 1983. Actress Zoey Deutsch born, 1994.
Tuesday 11th November     - Day 315/365		-		Scientist and occultist Paracelsus born, 1493. Tycho Brahe observed the supernova SN 1572 in Cassiopeia, 1572. Highwayman and prison escapee Joseph Blake was hanged, 1724. Actress June Whitfield born, 1925. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack, in the Battle of Taranto, 1940. Voice actress Mary Kay Bergman took her own life, 1999. Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations, and related observances in other countries.
Wednesday 12th November     - Day 316/365		-		Cnut the Great, King of Denmark and of England, died 1035. Plymouth became the first town to be incorporated by the English Parliament, 1439. Nurse Jeanne Mance, founder of the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal hospital, born, 1606. Writer Elzabeth Gaskell died, 1865. The Oregon Highway Division attempted to destroy the carcass of a beached whale with explosives in the "exploding whale" incident, a TV report of which would later became a viral video in the early days of the World Wide Web, 1970. Actor Ryan Gosling born, 1980. World Pneumonia Day.
Thursday 13th November     - Day 317/365		-		King Edward III of England born, 1312. Royalist forces were blocked from approaching London in the Battle of Turnham Green during the English Civil War, 1642. Artist Margaret Sarah Carpenter died, 1872. Actress Linda Christian born, 1923. Joel Armengaud, a participant in The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search distributed computing project, announced their first Mersenne prime number, 21398269, 1996. Astronomer Allan Sandage died, 2010. World Kindness Day. Sadie Hawkins Day in the US.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14^th Dalai Lama:

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

A selection of quotations from films starring Liv Tyler. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• In the immortal words of The Doors, "The time to hesitate is through."
• I was a wartime general, now I'm a wartime president.
• From the ashes, a fire shall be woken. A light from the shadow shall spring. Renewed shall be blade that was broken. The crownless again shall be king.
• The zero G and the extended duration of the journey is affecting me both physically and mentally. I am alone. Something I always believed I preferred. I am alone. But I confess it's wearing on me. I am alone. I am alone.
• - Mom, that salesman's on TV.
  - That man's not a salesman. That's your daddy.

Last issue's quotations from ghostly films were:

• Haven't you noticed how nothing in this house seems to move until you look away and then you just... catch something out of the corner of your eye?
      -- The Haunting [1963]
• In essence, the house is a giant battery, the residual energy of which must inevitably be tapped by those who enter it.
      -- The Legend of Hell House [1973]
• - I have a trick here with two corks and a length of string. Please examine.
  - Jumbo, when do you learn there's only one good trick with a cork and that is taking it out of the bottle!
      -- The Ghosts of Berkeley Square [1947]
• Pessimism is just a higher form of optimism. If you expect nothing from people, then you go through life being pleasantly surprised.
      -- The Innkeepers [2011]
• We build our legacy piece by piece and maybe the whole world will remember you or maybe just a couple of people, but you do what you can to make sure you're still around after you're gone.
      -- A Ghost Story [2017]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• A white rhino calf has been born at Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens. ● Police and officials from Paradise Park near Hayle in Cornwall have asked the public to look out for Frankie, a young flamingo who escaped on Sunday despite having had his feathers clipped. ● Entomologists searching for the white-knuckled wolf spider at a location in Newtown Nature Reserve on the Isle of Wight that is only accessible by water, 40 years after the last specimens were seen, found two live examples just nine minutes before a boat was due to arrive to take the team back to the mainland. ● A remotely-operated submersible deployed to the Atacama Trench off the coast of Peru in a mission by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the Universidad de Concepción in Chile has discovered a tiny crustacean living 26,250' (8,000m) below sea level. Genomic testing of Dulcibella camanchaca has shown that it is not just a new species but a new genus, raising the question of what other forms of life might exist in the deepest areas of the oceans. ● For years it was thought that there was a single widespread species of trapdoor spider across California, but one discovered on a sand dune has been found to be a separate species. ● The Vendace, an Ice Age fish that became extinct in the UK last century, has been found to be thriving in Scottish lochs after its reintroduction in the late 1990s. ● A team of researchers in Paris used two high-speed cameras to film 36 snakes from different species striking warm medical gel shaped like a small animal to collect three-dimensional data of how the snakes move, and found that most snake strikes are faster than their prey can react. The fastest strike was by a viper, its head moving at a speed of 10mph (16 km/h), with an acceleration of 2,330' (710m) per second squared. ● A study of chimpanzees has found that they can make rational decisions by critically judging the quality of evidence presented. ● A study led by the Bat Conservation Trust has estimated that more than half of the churches in England, over 8,000, have bat colonies roosting in their rafters. In one church bat urine had soaked a carpet in front of the altar and destroyed brasswork, so the church authorities worked with the Trust to build a sealed-off loft conversion for the bats, which are a legally protected species in the UK. ● It is not all good news for bats; in Germany brown rats have been filmed grabbing bats from the air to eat. ● A 75%-complete fossil of a 23-million-year-old rhinoceros ancestor has been discovered on Devon Island, Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic. It has been named Epiatheracerium itjilik; 'itjilik' being the Inuktitut word for 'frost' or 'frosty'. When it was alive in the early Miocene the land would have been temperate forest. ● Scientists in Australian have found a fossilised giant trapdoor spider dating back to the Miocene. It is only the fourth fossilised spider to be found in Australia. Although the spider is a giant compared to modern trapdoor spiders its body was just 0.9" (23.31mm) long.


• 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object passing through the Solar System has changed colour for the second time, brightened, and has begun to show signs of accelerating faster than just gravity would allow for, as it passes behind the Sun. While astronomer Avi Loeb continues to claim that 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft most astronomers agree that the acceleration is merely a sign of typical cometary behaviour, as it loses mass through outgassing. ● Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope to study ST6, a young star about 160,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud have found evidence of five complex carbon-based molecules in frozen ice around it. The molecules are some of the building blocks of life.


• Some years ago archaeologists excavating a Roman amphitheatre in Laodicea, Greece, discovered a headless statue of Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius, god of medicine, herself a goddess of health and cleanliness (from whose name we get the word 'hygiene'). They have now found the missing head. ● Scientists studying the skeleton of a teenage boy who died in the 14^th Century, excavated from the grounds of Edinburgh's St Giles Cathedral in 1981, have found the first scientific evidence of the Black Death in the city, in the form of pathogens in the plaque on his teeth. ● Archaeologists excavating the site of the 1745 Battle of Culloden in Scotland, in which Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobites were defeated by a government army under the Duke of Cumberland, have discovered lead musket balls and cannon shot. ● A bottle washed up on a beach in Wharton, Australia, by severe winter storms, has been found to contain a note penned on August 15^th 1916 by Australian soldier Private Malcolm Alexander Neville as he sailed to fight in World War I. The light-hearted note, addressed to his mother, reads that he was "Having a real good time. Food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal, which we buried at sea. The dear old [HMAT] Ballarat is heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry. Your loving son Malcolm, somewhere at sea." Neville was killed in action in France in April, 1917. He was 28 years old. ● The Netherlands is to return a 3,500-year-old stone head to Egypt. It is thought to have been plundered in 2011 or 2012 during the Arab Spring uprising, and was discovered when it was put up for sale at an antiques fair in Maastricht in 2022. ● More than 1,000 stone tools found at the Namorotukunan site in Kenya have provided the first evidence that such tool technology was used continuously for 300,000 years rather than sporadically as previously thought. ● Wear marks on two chunks of ochre discovered in Neanderthal rock shelters in Ukraine, dated to between 46,000 and 47,000 years old, suggested that they had been deliberately shaped into crayons to be used to make drawings on rocks, and resharpened several times.


• A passenger at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh, en-route to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, tried to flee after scans of his luggage showed many turtle-shaped objects. He was caught and found to have 145 star tortoises and 780 Indian roofed turtles inside his two suitcases. The animals were passed to the Forest Department while the man faces charges of animal trafficking. ● In the city's first bank robbery since 2010 Jauan L. Mason told a teller that he had a gun and made off with $400 (£307) in $1 bills. When police caught him a few blocks away he asked if he could keep the money to spend in the prison commissary... ● You can tell it is getting close to Christmas - TV channels have been showing festive films for the last two months, stores have launched their Christmas aisles and, in the news, Santa has been arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol... To ease children's minds, this was not Santa Claus, but Rebecca Santa, 47, from Hooksett in Canada, stopped by police for driving erratically and found to have her 5-year-old child in the car. Her blood alcohol level was tested and found to be four times the legal limit, to the point where she could have passed out at any moment. ● Serial prankster Daniel Jarvis was arrested at the England v Australia rugby league Test match at Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium on the Liverpool waterfront last Saturday. Wearing the Australian team strip Jarvis had got onto the pitch before kick-off and lined up with the Australians for the national anthems. ● DJ Carey, a famed former player for Kilkenny curling team in Ireland, has been jailed for five and a half years after pleading guilty to ten counts of inducing people to give him money by fraudulently claiming to have cancer. He had sent his victims photographs of himself lying on a bed with an oxgen tube held in his nose by tape. The tube was actually (and quite obviously) an iPhone charging cable, but he defrauded 22 people of almost €400,000 (£35,000; $457,000). ● The Metropolitan Police has released audio of a 999 emergency call by someone telling the operator that their Über Eats delivery driver had turned up without their food order, and the operator reprimanding them. ● Two of a group of four men who drunkenly took a scissor lift lorry for a slow joyride around the city centre of Cork, Ireland, on Sunday night, have been arrested. The vehicle narrowly avoided hitting a pedestrian, crashed into a bollard and damaged a bridge.


• Core samples taken from sediment at the bottom of the Great Blue Hole, the 984'- (300m)-wide, 410'- (125m)-deep hole off the coast of Belize, formed when rising seawater flooded a massive cave that then collapsed at the end of the last Ice Age, has shown that over the past 6,000 years there have been between four and sixteen tropical storms over the hole per century. There are predicted to be up to 45 such storms and hurricanes in the Caribbean this century, due to climate change. ● A Virginia sheep farmer who let a solar developer install solar panels on their land has found an unexpected benefit. In addition to the regular fees received for having the panels they found that their sheep were able to shelter underneath them during an ice storm earlier this year, protecting their wool from damage that would have reduced its value. ● Layers of mineral deposits in a cave on the north coast of Greenland have revealed that the area experienced long periods of time without permafrost, and how quickly the ice cover can melt. ● An international team has warned in a report that last year was the hottest year recorded and probably the hottest in at least the last 125,000 years, with 22 of 34 "vital signs" of the planetary climate now at record levels. Solar and wind energy consumption hit record levels last year but were still 31 times lower than energy from fossil fuels. As well as increasing renewable energy use and decreasing fossil fuel consumption the report called for the protection and restoration of ecosystems to remove or avoid about 10 gigatons of CO₂ emissions per year by 2050, and cutting food loss and waste, combined with moving to plant-rich foods to ease pressure on land and water. ● The autopsy of a wild bear euthanised by wildlife officers in Telluride, Colorado, because it was was dangerously sick and distressed found its digestive system blocked by plastic waste including towels, wipes, plastic bags and other material stopping food moving into its lower intestines.

IN BRIEF: Cornwall's library service has launched an amnesty to encourage people to return overdue books, with all fines waived. "Whether your book has been at home for a few weeks, months, or even years, it's never too late," according to library service delivery manager Paul Evered. ● The Cake International event was held at Birmingham's NEC last weekend. Sculptured cakes on display included a 6' (1.8m) high Michael Jackson, a trio of Jim Carrey busts, Taylor Swift, Ozzy Osbourne, monsters for Halloween and a particularly unflattering Donald Trump... ● A couple getting married in a hobbit-themed ceremony at the now-tourist-attraction set of Bag End from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, in Matamata, New Zealand, were not too disappointed when someone crashed their wedding - it was Elijah Wood, who played Frodo in the films. Wood - and a film crew with him - were the only people there not dressed as hobbits, but nobody in the wedding party cared once they realised who he was... ● YKK, the Japanese company that makes about half of the zippers sold in the world, has devised a new zipper without the fabric tape either side of the teeth. The change has meant that several elements have had to be redesigned, but will reduce the material use and environmental impact of zippers. ● A tourist at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, the only place in North America where people can officially search for diamonds and keep their finds, recently discovered a 3.81 carat brown diamond. It is the largest diamond found in the park this year. ● After the increasingly incompetent US administration ended the minting of one-cent 'penny' coins earlier this year their shortage is causing problems for stores, with many having to round prices either up or down to the nearest 5 cents ('nickel' coin), and facing a lack of federal guidelines. Convenience chain Kwik Trip estimates that rounding down to the nearest nickel will cost them up to $3m (£2.3m) this year. The system works in general but some jurisdictions, including New York City, legally require retailers to give exact change, or forbid different costs for cash or card payments. Some stores are holding events to change pennies brought in by customers for larger denomination coins. The administration justified ending production of one-cent coins by saying they cost 4c to mint each coin, but apart from these problems their absence is pushing up the demand for nickels, which cost 14c per coin to make...

UPDATES: Two more people have been charged with criminal complicity in the theft of the French crown jewels from the Louvre in Paris last month. While it was not hacked during the robbery a security review has revealed that the museum's video surveillance server was secured with the rather obvious password 'LOUVRE'...

^{^} OBITUARIES

Actor Tchéky Karyo (Nikita, The Missing, GoldenEye, 72), singer Donna Godchaux-MacKay (The Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Cher, 78), politician Dick Cheney (vice president to George W. Bush, architect of the 'War on Terror', and of the invasion of Iraq based on false assumptions, defended torturing terror suspects, 84), folk musician and radio presenter Archie Fisher MBE (BBC Radio Scotland's Travelling Folk, "Men of Worth", Windward Away, 86), actress Diane Ladd (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart, Rambling Rose, 89), TV director Ralph Senensky (The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, The Waltons, 102).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

4, 9, 17, 27, 35, 47

[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 father walked upstairs to see Little Jennifer standing on the bathroom scales looking puzzled. "Are you OK, Little Jennifer?" he asked.
    "Daddy," she said, "I think these scales are broken."
    "Why? Aren't they telling you your weight?"
    "It's not that, Daddy. I saw Mummy step onto them this morning, scream and jump off as if they had hurt her feet, but I can't feel anything!"

---

^{^} ...end of line