Issue ^#861 - 27^th March 2026

Edited by and copyright ©2026 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 27th March     - Day 86/365		-		Polymath Girolamo Maggi died, 1572. Charles I acceded to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland, and claimed the throne of France, 1625. Botanist Jane Colden born, 1724. Scotland defeated England in the first international rugby match, at Raeburn Park, Edinburgh, 1871. Author Dick King Smith born, 1922. Adventurer, sportswoman and photographer Ella Maillart died, 1997. World Theatre Day.
Saturday 28th March     - Day 87/365		-		Artist Fra Bartolomeo born, 1472. The foundation stone of Valetta, capital city of Malta, was laid, 1566. Ivan the Terrible, first Tsar of Russia, died, 1584. Actress Conchata Ferrell born, 1943. The core of Three Mile Island's Unit 2 nuclear reactor overheated causing a partial meltdown, 1979. Singer Maria von Trapp died, 1987.
Sunday 29th March     - Day 88/365		-		Edward of York defeated Queen Margaret at the Battle of Towton, to become King Edward IV of England, 1461. Biologist Santorio Santorio born, 1561. Businessman John Jacob Aster died, 1848. The Terracotta Army was discovered in Shaanxi Province, China, 1974. Tennis player Jennifer Capriati born, 1976. Actress Jennifer Wilson died, 2022.
Monday 30st March     - Day 89/365		-		Berwick-upon-Tweed was sacked by the forces of King Edward I of England, during the First War of Scottish Independence, 1296. Mathematician Adam Ries died, 1559. Author Anna Sewell born, 1820. Artist Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun died, 1842. The RAF suffered its greatest loss in World War II as 95 of 795 bombers sent to attack Nuremberg did not return, 1944. Rapper MC Hammer born, 1962.
Tuesday 31st March     - Day 90/365		-		Mathematician and philosopher René Descartes born, 1596. Poet John Donne died, 1631. The English Long Parliament offered Oliver Cromwell the throne, in the Humble Petition and Advice, 1657. Novelist Charlotte Brontë died, 1855. The Vienna Concert Society rioted during a performance of modernist music, 1913. Singer and guitarist Etta Baker born, 1913. International Transgender Day of Visibility. World Backup Day.
Wednesday 1st April     - Day 91/365		-		Byzantine Emperor Justin I named his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor, 527. Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of France [1137-1152] and of England [1154-1189], died, 1204. Physician William Harvey born, 1578. The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Navy Air Service merged to create the Royal Air Force, 1918. Author Anne McCaffrey born, 1926. Actor Val Kilmer died, 2025. April Fools' Day. Edible Book Day. Fossil Fools Day.
Thursday 2nd April     - Day 92/365		-		Explorer Juan Poince de León first landed on what is now Florida, 1513. Writer, librarian and womaniser Giacomo Casanova born, 1725. Artist and inventor Samuel Morse, creator of the eponymous code, died, 1872. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, 1982. Writer, poet and victim of ICE agent Jonathan Ross, Renée Good born, 1988. Actress and comedian Estelle Harris died, 2022. World Autism Day. International Children's Book Day.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Charlotte Brontë:

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

A selection of quotations from films starring Kate Winslet. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• - Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.
  - That's Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil. I found it in my Bartlett's.
• It's because I flooded the bathroom and the ceiling fell in and the cats ran off, that's when she started talking about Morocco and the sufis. Mom says a sufi doesn't ask who a sufi is... so what the hell is a sufi anyway?
• It's a bad day to be a rhesus monkey.
• All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases. It's all frightfully romantic.
• Amazing, isn't it? Everything we think of that makes up a person - thoughts, emotions, history - all wiped away by chemistry.

Last issue's quotations from Leonardo DiCaprio films were:

• There's a click before the strike. Listen to the clock.
      -- The Quick and the Dead [1995]
• The truth is I'm not a doctor or a lawyer. I'm not an airline pilot. I'm nothing really. I'm just a kid in love with your daughter.
      -- Catch Me If You Can [2002]
• - I believe you are blushing, Mr. Big Artiste. I can't imagine Monsieur Monet blushing.
  - He does landscapes.
      -- Titanic [1997]
• Don't cry in front of the Mexicans.
      -- Once Uon a Time... in Hollywood [2019]
• Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
      -- Romeo + Juliet [1996]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• A 15-year-old endangered roloway monkey called Masaya, who lives at Chester Zoo and underwent a complex operation last summer to remove a golf ball-sized lump from her foot, thought to be from an old thorn wound, gave birth to an infant, named Lagertha, four weeks ago. There are thought to be fewer than 2,000 roloway monkeys in the wild. ● A male Masai giraffe calf was born at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium earlier this month. The species is endangered in the wild, having declined by more than 50% in the past decades. ● Keepers at Marwell Zoo in Hampshire are hunting for an escaped capybara. Samba and her sister Tango arrived there on Monday and escaped their quarantine enclosure the next day. Tango was recaptured soon after but Samba is still on the loose and was sighted on Wednesday in Owlslebury, a village two miles north of the zoo. The zoo has asked anyone who sees her to notify them, but not to approach as, although capybaras - the largest rodents in the world - are not dangerous, they are easily spooked. ● Researchers from WWF Mexico have reported that the decline in numbers of eastern monarch butterflies over the last ten years appears to have reversed, but numbers are still well below where they were when monitoring started. ● Per Alstrom at Uppsala University in Sweden has found that the rare leaf warblers on Japan's Izu and Tokara islands are actually two divergent bird species rather than one. ● A new species of mole has been identified in north Vietnam. ● Australian photographer Jono Allen has won the World Nature Photographer of the Year award for what could be the first photograph of a white humpbacked whale calf, in the waters off Tonga. ● In a recent issue we reported on an owl found found sleeping on a thrift store shelf. A shopper in the Lagardère AWPL gift shop at Hobart Airport in Tasmania, browsing the soft toy kangaroos and dingoes, was startled when something on the shelf moved. It was a live brushtail possum. Manager Liam Bloomfield told reporters that the staff and customers were charmed by the possum, which remained calm as airport officers removed it to release back into the wild. The store plans put up a photograph of the creature once staff have voted on what to call it.


• When you think of asteroid impacts you usually think of a single large crater, but new research by a team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California has found that a meteorite that impacted Mars 2.3 million years ago was responsible not only for the 8.6 mile- (13.8km)-wide Corinto crater but between 1.3 and 3 billion secondary craters, caused by the impact of the rock thrown up by the first collision, and probably of third or further generations of ejecta. ● The European Space Agency has re-established contact with one of the Proba-3 spacecraft, which was lost in February. The two craft are intended to conduct a unique study of the Sun. Because the easiest time to study the star's corona is during an eclipse the craft are due to position themselves so one, the Occulter, is blocking the Sun's disc while the other, the Coronagraph, about 490' (150m) behind, feeds back data on the corona. It was the latter craft that experienced a loss of orientation causing its solar panels to turn away from the Sun and its power to drain. With communication restored mission staff at Villafranca, Spain, are working to slowly restore the Coronagraph to operating status. ● The Hubble Space Telescope has accidentally imaged the moment a comet, known as C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), broke apart into four distinct parts, one of which split further. The event happened last November. ● NASA has confirmed that the Three Gorges Dam, 7,660' (2,335m) long and 600' (185m) high, in China, which holds up to 10 trilion gallons (40km³) of water behind it, has had the effect of increasing the length of an Earth day. You will not notice it though; the change is 0.06 microseconds, about 3 days over the age of the universe. The weight of water has also shifted the planet's axis by about 0.8" (2cm). ● NASA has rolled the Artemis rocket back to the launch pad, with the first manned mission around the Moon in over fifty years planned for launch next month if launchpad testing goes well.


• Archaeologists in Pompeii have uncovered evidence that a long-fabled repeat-shooting multiple projectile weapon called a polybos - effectively the ancient equivalent of a machine gun - existed. While no examples of the chain-driven dart-shooting device have been found, marks left by its darts have been discovered in the city that was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius less than 200 years after the Romans conquered it. ● Renovation work at Durham Castle has uncovered a 700-year-old wall painting. ● Excavation work at the Joséphine Baker School in Dijon, France, last year, uncovered five skeletons buried in a seated position with their heads down and their legs crossed. All showed signs of violent death and are thought to date to the Iron Age. ● The Battle of Hastings in 1066 is, perhaps, the best-known battle in the history of England, with William the Conqueror defeating King Harold, whose army was exhausted after marching almost 200 miles (320km) south following their defeat of invading Vikings at Stamford Bridge in what is now Yorkshire. New research by Professor Tom Licence from the University of East Anglia, which was presented this week, has reanalysed the Anglo Saxon Chronicles, among the earliest histories of England, and Licence suggests that the idea of the long march was made up by the Victorians, and Harold's men actually sailed down the east coast to confront the Norman invaders.


• Patrick Alexander, in a South Carolina court charged with trespassing earlier this month, was given bail of $250 (£187). He approached the judge, handed over four hundred-dollar bills and told the judge to keep the change. Looking at the notes the judge saw that their colouring was off, so he flipped them over and saw Chinese characters printed on them. Alexander was additionally charged with felony forgery and misdemeanor contempt of court, with his bail increased to more than $6,000 (£4,490). He was remanded in custody. ● When Jordan Peebles tried to rob a convenience store in Coventry last December he assaulted the sole staff member there then began filling a bag with cigarettes and other items from behind the counter. While he was doing that the shop worker went out of the door and closed the shutter, trapping Peebles inside until police arrived and arrested him. He was recently sentenced to four years and four months in prison for robbery. ● North Carolina resident Michael Smith has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud after using AI to create hundreds of thousands of "songs", which were posted to music streaming services including Spotify. Smith then unleashed over a thousand automated software "bots" he had created, to repeatedly play the tracks, making himself around $8m (£6m). ● Police in Florida recently pulled over a driver who had several military missiles mounted on the back of his truck, after reports from other drivers. The "missiles" were found to be plastic replicas used for events. The man was allowed to go on his way, after being advised how to properly transport the imitation weapons...


• A stream in Nansmellyn Marsh Nature Reserve in Cornwall, and some of the water at Perranporth Beach where it outflows into the sea, recently turned bright orange. The colour was found to be caused by iron ochre, a constituent of iron ore which is usually filtered out by the marshland. ● The Taam Ja' Blue Hole in Chetumal Bay between Mexico and Belize was discovered in 2021 and was initially thought to be nearly 900' (274m) deep, making it the second deepest known sinkhole in the world. More recent measurements put its depth at at least 1,380' (420.6m), making it the deepest, although nobody knows for sure just how deep it is. It also has distinct layers of varying salinity suggesting a network of caves leads off it. ● Scientists who have analysed government data on the contents of more than 50,000 marine predators' stomachs after they were caught over the last 35 years, in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea and English Channel, have revealed that the size of their prey shrank over that time. Warmer seas contain less oxygen, which speeds up metabolism, resulting in fish not growing as big, and overfishing by humans removed the larger fish before the predators could eat them. ● The first 2,000 miles (3,220km) of what will be the world's longest coastal path, stretching around the entirety of the English coastline, has been ceremonially opened by the King. Once complete the King Charles III England Coast Path will stretch over 2,700 miles (4,345km).

IN BRIEF: Singer Suzi Quatro, 75, has passed her driving test after unknowingly driving illegally in Britain since the 1970s. When she arrived from America in 1971, at the age of 21, she was told that her American driving license was valid in the UK, but not that it would only be so for a year. She only found out after a recent change in US law requiring provable residence in a state for the last six months to renew a driving license, which meant that as a British resident she needed to apply for a British one. ● Rows of large red "clanking" balls are being hung above roads on the approach to some low bridges in Delaware to alert lorry drivers that their vehicles are too high before they hit the bridges. ● Researchers at CERN's Large Hadron Collider have discovered what is claimed to be a new type of particle, dubbed the Xi-cc-plus. It is similar to a proton but with two up quarks replaced by heavy charm quarks. ● Scientists have disproved the theory that the piercing noise produced when you pull adhesive tape off its roll is caused by friction. By filming tape at ultra-high speed Sigurdir T. Thoroddsen of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology has shown that cracks race across the tape at speeds of between 820' to 1,970' per second (450-600m/s), creating low pressure gaps. When the gaps reach the edge of the tape a sharp pressure pulse is generated. As the tape is pulled back the pulses are created too quickly to distinguish individually, creating the harsh screeching sound.

^{^} OBITUARIES

Actress Carrie Anne Fleming (Supernatural, iZombie, Happy Gilmore, 51), actor Nicholas Brendon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Demon Island, Psycho Beach Party, 54), actor Ben Keaton (Casualty, Father Ted, East is East, 70), broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray (Woman's Hour [1987-2020], Newsnight, W1A, 75), lawyer Robert Mueller (awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart in the Vietnam War, Director of the FBI [2001-2013], Special Counsel for the Department of Justice [2017-19] finding evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, 81), producer, musician and executive Mike Vernon (worked with musicians including Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Gerry Rafferty, 81), actress Valerie Perrine (Slaughterhouse 5, Superman, The Last American Hero, 82), actor and martial artist Chuck Norris (Walker, Texas Ranger, The Way of the Dragon, subject of numerous Internet memes, 86), actor Tom Georgeson (Coronation Street, Bleak House, Between the Lines, 88), actor Matt Clark (Back to the Future Part III, High Plains Drifter, In the Heat of the Night, 89), composer Ted Nichols (The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Josie and the Pussycats, 97).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

6, 8, 10, 37, 43, 46

[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 class were having a lesson on percentages. "Alright, children," the teacher said, "if I gave you a test with ten questions and you got all ten right, what would you get? Little Jennifer?"
    Little Jennifer thought for a moment then smiled as only she could. "Accused of cheating, Miss!"

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^{^} ...end of line