Issue ^#839 - 17^th October 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 17th October     - Day 290/365		-		A tornado, thought to have been of strength T8/F4 struck central London, 1091. Composer Frédéric Chopin died, 1849. Actress Rita Hayworth born, 1918. Caravaggio's painting Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence was stolen from the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Italy, 1969. Rapper Eminem born, 1972. Singer Theresa Brewer died, 2007. International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
Saturday 18th October     - Day 291/365		-		Margaret Tudor, queen of King James IV of Scotland, died, 1541. The Third Spanish Armada set sail for England only to encounter storms and end in failure, 1597. Actress and singer Lotte Lenya born, 1898. The United States took possession of Puerto Rico from Spain, 1898. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Chuck Berry born, 1926. Humourist Alan Coren died, 2007.
Sunday 19th October     - Day 292/365		-		The Romans defeated the Carthaginians led by Hannibal at the Battle of Zama, 202 BCE. John, King of England, died, 1216. Mountaineer Annie Smith Peck born, 1850. Poet Edna St Vincent Millay died, 1950. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was published, 1953. Actor and director John Favreau born, 1966.
Monday 20th October     - Day 293/365		-		Pirate Klaus Störtebeker died, 1401. Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, born, 1780. The United States and the United Kingdom signed the Convention of 1818, setting the Canada-US border on the 49th parallel for most of its length, 1818. Singer-songwriter Tom Petty born, 1950. Record-breaking pilot Sheila Scott died, 1988. Liz Truss resigned as British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party after 49 disastrous days, 2022.
Tuesday 21st October     - Day 294/365		-		Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge born, 1772. A British fleet under Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, although Nelson was killed, 1805. South African anti-apartheid activist Albertina Sisulu born, 1918. Houses and a school were buried by a colliery spoil tip slip, killing 28 adults and 116 children, in the Aberfan disaster, 1966. Singer-songwriter and drummer Sandy West died, 2006.
Wednesday 22nd October     - Day 295/365		-		Bibliophile Jean Grolier de Servière, viscount d'Aguisy, died, 1565. The War of Jenkins' Ear began, 1739. Actress Sarah Bernhardt born, 1844. The International Meridian Conference designated the Royal Observatory at Greenwich as the world's prime meridian, 1884. Cricketer Mike Hendrick born, 1948. Sufragette Hannah Mitchell died, 1956.
Thursday 23rd October     - Day 296/365		-		The Battle of Edgehill, the first major battle of the English Civil War, was fought, 1642. Lexicographer Pierre Larousse born, 1817. Writer Théophile Gautier died, 1872. The Smurfs made their debut in Spirou magazine, 1958. Artist Marjorie Maynard died, 1975. Actress Emilia Clarke born, 1986. Mole Day.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, John Lennon:

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.

^{^} FILM QUIZ

A selection of quotations from films starring Elizabeth Taylor. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• Martha is 108... years old. She weighs somewhat more than that.
• - And I find what you're wearing most becoming. Greek, isn't it?
  - I have a fondness for almost all Greek things.
  - As an almost all-Greek thing, I'm flattered.
• - You know, Fred, I hear that eatin' too much red meat is bad for you.
  - What a load of bunk! My father ate it every day of his life and he lived to the ripe old age of thirty-eight.
• Here's your arsenic, my dear, and your weedkiller biscuit. I've throttled your parakeet. I've spat in the vases. I've put cheese in the mouseholes. Here's your... nice tea, dear.
• Chin up, darling... both of them.

Last issue's quotations from films starring Matt Damon were:

• I repeat, this is not a drill. This is the apocalypse. Please exit the hospital in an orderly fashion. Thank you.
      -- Dogma [1999]
• You're all aces in my book, but I want the last check I write to bounce.
      -- Ocean's Twelve [2004]
• I figured one of you guys kept an ASCII table lying around. And I was right. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you super-nerd Beth Johanssen, who also had copies of Zork II and Leather Goddesses of Phobos on her personal laptop. Seriously, Johanssen... it's like the Smithsonian of loneliness on there.
      -- The Martian [2015]
• Pray you never learn just how good it can be to see another face...
      -- Interstellar [2014]
• You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you see is every negative thing ten miles down the road.
      -- Good Will Hunting [1997]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• A new species of Dumbo octopus, discovered 4,070' (1,240m) below the surface of the Western Pacific by a team of Chinese researchers in 2017 has been formally named and described. Like other Dumbo octopuses Grimpoteuthis feitana has fins on its mantle, which it uses to move, as opposed to other octopuses which use jets of water, and internal supports. ● Veterinary surgeons at the Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown, Long Island, led by Janine Bendicksen, have performed a first-of-its-kind operation on an injured monarch butterfly, replacing its shattered wing with one from a deceased butterfly. ● A near-complete dolphin-sized fossilised skeleton found at Golden Cap, Dorset, in 2001 and acquired by a museum in Canada has been identified as a new species of icthyosaur, named Xiphodracon goldencapensis, or "sword dragon of Dorset" after its long sword-like snout. It is thought to have lived about 185 million years ago. ● After decades of conservation efforts the green turtle, once hunted almost to extinction, has been downgraded from Endangered to Least Concern on the newly-released update of the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Not so lucky are the slender-billed curlew, the Shark Bay bandicoot, the south-eastern striped bandicoot, the Nullarbor barred bandicoot and the Christmas Island shrew, all of which have been declared extinct. ● Marine conservationists have lowered twenty large cubes, made of Marine Creta, a seawater-resistant concrete, into the North Sea off the coast of Tyne and Wear. The cubes house 4,000 European oysters and should protect them from storms and tidal surges, while keeping them anchored to the sea bed. ● Scientists studying the DNA of naked mole rats, the longest-living rodent species with a lifespan of up to forty years, have found that a protein produced in both mole rats and humans in response to damage behaves differently. In human c-GAS interferes with the repair of DNA, possibly promoting cancer, while in the naked mole rats it helps repair DNA. ● Four fossa pups have been born at Chester Zoo. Fossas are cat-like mammals which are highly threatened in their native Madagascar, with fewer than 2,500 thought to exist in the wild. ● An unusually large species of stick insect has been discovered in the tropics of North Queensland, Australia. Adult Acrophylla alfa females grow to about 15.75" (40cm) in length and weigh about 1.55oz (44g), the same a golf ball. ● A recent moth trapping session at the Grey Mare's Tail nature reserve in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, caught autumnal rustic and anomalous moths for the first time since 1993 and four species, the pale eggar, mouse, broad-bordered yellow underwing and flounced rustic moths for the first time. ● Scientists aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's 100^th expedition, to the waters off Uruguay, have discovered more than thirty new species living among deep-sea coral reefs. ● A Pennsylvania family driving to New York City for the weekend stopped to fill up their van after 100 miles (160km) and discovered their cat Ray Ray clinging to the luggage strapped to the roof rack. Realising that he must have clung on even while they were driving at 70mph (112.6km/h) and the distance they had already travelled they changed their plans to include him - travelling inside the van - and stopped off at a pet store to buy food and a cat-carrier backpack from where Ray Ray got to watch the New Hampshire marathon on the way to the city. ● A black bear which got into a Vancouver home and started eating from a bowl of dog food got chased out by the dog - a tiny Pomeranian called Scout...


• Astronomers at the University of Turku in Finland have solved a long-standing mystery and discovered something very rare. Quasar OJ287 is so bright that even amateur astronomers can see it, but its brightness changes in 12-year cycles and nobody knew why. Now the team who set out to image the particle jet emitted by the supermassive black hole thought to be at the centre of OJ287 discovered a second jet. There are two black holes, one orbiting the other every 12 years. The larger black hole is about 18 billion times the mass of the Sun, the smaller a mere 150 million times the Sun's mass. ● New analysis of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the Solar System has found that it is ejecting water vapour at about the rate of a fire hose, about 3 AU (astronomical units, the average distance between the Sun and Earth) from the Sun, much further out than most comets begin to sublimate ice to water. ● Scientists using data from the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter have tracked over 1,000 dust devils on the Red Planet, building a catalogue that shows how dust is moved around. They also found that surface winds can reach up to about 158mph (254km/h), although the thin atmosphere means that other than lifting dust Martian winds would not pack anything near the punch of Earth winds. The findings will enable robot and manned missions to plan when and where to land to avoid the worst dust storms; the ESA's Rosalind Franklin rover's schedule is already being adjusted accordingly for its planned 2030 landing.


• A metal detectorist at the site of Hippos, an ancient city on the Golan Heights, an area contested by Israel and Syria, has found a cache of 97 late Byzantine gold coins and jewellery including pearl earrings and coloured stones. ● Archaeologists in Mexico studying a 205'- (65.5m)-long mound in the shape of a scorpion, constructed between 600 and 1100 CE in the Tehuacán Valley 160 miles (260km) southeast of Mexico City, have found that it may align with the winter and summer solstices. ● A couple in New Orleans doing work in their yard recently discovered a marble headstone belonging to the grave of a Roman soldier who died in the Second Century. Further research by historians found that the inscription had already been recorded - on a gravestone found near the ancient port city of Civitavecchia, 40 miles (62km) northwest of Rome. The headstone was recorded as being missing, after Allied bombs had hit the museum where it was housed during World War II. It is not known if it had been looted by an American soldier after Italy's liberation, or acquired by a dealer who sold it on to an American tourist. ● The iconic Moai statues on Easter Island have long puzzled archaeologists who conceived various theories of how they were moved and placed. A new study which utilised 3D computer models created from scans of the statues has seemingly confirmed that they were 'walked' from the quarry to their platforms along specially-constructed 'roads' using ropes attached to their heads. To confirm the finding researchers built a 4.35-ton replica Moai and found that just 18 people could easily move it 328' (100m) in 40 minutes. ● Archaeologists in the Czech Republic have discovered a trove of hundreds of coins, gold and jewellery dating to the Celtic period. They think the undisclosed site in the Pilsen region could have been a marketplace. ● Some 76 stone wall structures high in the Andes, spotted in satellite photographs, have been indentified as probable hunting traps. The traps consist of long walls arranged in a 'V' shape leading into circular enclosures. Similar structures have been found in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, hinting at anthropological convergence, the independent development of similar technologies in unconnected societies. ● An 1894 Zunterer violin that belonged to Albert Einstein has sold at auction for £860,000 ($1.14m), almost three times its estimate.


• The Greek culture ministry has praised the "sensitivity and courage" of a German woman who recently returned the capital of an ancient column in Olympia, which she stole more than fifty years ago. She had handed it to the University of Muenster who arranged its return to Greece. ● A 4,000-year-old pharaonic limestone relief painting has been cut out of a wall of a tomb at the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt. The tomb, discovered in the 1950s has officially been closed since 2019 and is one the few ancient Egyptian tombs to carry an actual curse inscription warning intruders of divine retribution... ● Parma Heights, Ohio, Police have posted to social media bodycam footage of their officers chasing down a particularly difficult target to stop - a 6'- (2m)-tall inflatable pumpkin. One officer is heard telling his colleague that "when I went to grab it over here, it just took off. I was pretty much in pursuit." Several officers eventually managed to deflate it enough to squeeze it into the back of a patrol car to return it to the house where it had been on display. The nearby Bedford Police commented that "Some departments would have Squashed this story. Glad to see you guys rolled it out." ● The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation after recording 58 incidents of Tesla self-driving cars breaking traffic laws, including not stopping at red lights and driving on the wrong side of the road. The company's cars are also being investigated after incidents where people were unable to open the doors from outside after crashes because the handles retract to be flush with the bodywork while in motion.


• Researchers in Antarctica have discovered new seeps on the seafloor, where fluids and gases, including methane, are escaping into the water. ● Shoppers in British supermarkets might soon notice something different about the cucumbers they buy. Long-wrapped in single-use plastic they might soon be wrapped in a biodegrable, edible and additive-free wrapping currently being trialled in Sweden. The wrapping is made from rapeseed and oat oil by Saveggy, and is currently being tested in Sweden. ● The latest Global Tipping Points Report, released ahead of the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil has warned that warm-water coral reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's east coast have already passed a point of no return and are in terminal decline and other ecosystems such as the Amazon rainforest are nearing their tipping points as average temperatures rise. ● Scientists have used seismic reflection imaging and earthquake records to record the subduction of the Juan de Fuca and Explorer tectonic plates beneath North America, off Vancouver Island on the northwest coast. ● Thames Water have removed a 98-ton (100-tonnes; 110 US tons) 'fatberg' containing mostly wet wipes held together by fat, oil and grease, from a sewer more than 32' (10m) below street level in Feltham, London. ● For the first time renewable energy sources - primarily wind and solar - overtook coal as the leading source of electricity globally, in the first half of this year. ● Australian scientists have found a way to dramatically increase the efficiency of solar panels, by using perovskite in conjunction with silicon. ● Scientists at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Reading and Lancaster Universities have found that solar farms can be ideal sites for wildflowers, and so provide havens for bees and other insects. Suitably-managed solar sites can hold twice the number of bees as traditional farmland. ● Veterinarians in India have reported that during a five-hour operation on a sick pregnant cow they removed almost 200lbs (90kg) of plastic from her digestive tract.

IN BRIEF: An unpublished short story by Jack Kerouac, described as "a lost chapter of the On the Road saga" has been discovered in the files of an assassinated Mafia crime boss, murdered in December 1985. The two-page typewritten manuscript, signed by Kerouac, is titled The Holy, Beat and Crazy Next Thing, and dated April 15^th 1957. ● Rail services between Cardiff and Swansea were delayed for hours last Sunday after stray cows wandered onto tracks and a station platform at Neath. ● In early 1959 a group of Russian students died in mysterious circumstances while hiking in the snow-covered Ural mountains, in an area now known as the Dyatlov Pass after the expedition leader. Their tent was found cut open from the inside, two were found wearing only their underwear in trees down the slope, Dyatlov and another member was found up the slope from their tent and the fifth member's body was found a few days later, also on the slope above the tent. The so-called "Dyatlov Pass Incident" has been a mystery for the last 66 years, especially after Russian records were opened after the collapse of the USSR, with theories including a Russian bigfoot attack and UFOs or radiation from secret weapon testing (and a passably-entertaining sci-fi/horror film a few years ago positing secret time travel experiments). A recent claim is that because they were camped in the wind shadow of a mountain, on a slab of hardened snow compacted by the wind, they had weakened the snow by cutting into it and a "wind slab" had slid down onto the tent causing the group to panic and abandon it in the middle of the night, not stopping to get dressed. ● The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has released a robot submersible called the Slocum Sentinel Glider, or Redwing for short, on a mission to become the first autonomous submersible to circumnavigate the planet. It is starting by riding the Gulf Stream across the Atlantic. ● Researchers at the University of Sussex have found that stress can make people's noses colder.

UPDATE: The bronze statue of Molly Malone in Dublin has been unveiled after receiving a new layer of coating to restore her modesty following years of visitors and locals rubbing her breasts for luck, leaving her chest considerably shinier than the rest of the statue. City authorities plan to install flower boxes to stop people getting near enough...

^{^} OBITUARIES

R&B and soul singer D'Angelo (Brown Sugar, "Lady", "Untitled (How Does It Feel?", 51), film poster designer Drew Struzan (Harry Potter, Star Wars, Big Trouble in Little China, 78), actress Diane Keaton (Annie Hall, Sleeper, The Godfather, 79), singer, songwriter and bassist John Lodge (The Moody Blues, "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band", "Gemini Dream", 82), actor Tony Caunter (Eastenders, Pennies From Heaven, Boon, 88), musician and author Joan Bennett Kennedy (first wife of Senator Ted Kennedy, The Joy of Classical Music: A Guide for You and Your Family, narrated Peter and the Wolf for the Boston Pops Orchestra, 89), composer and arranger Ian Freebairn-Smith (Cagney & Lacey, The Muppet Movie, A Star Is Born, 93).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

5, 12, 26, 27, 44, 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...

    Little Jennifer came home from school holding her report card. "Daddy," she said, "remember that extra pocket money you said you'd give me if my grades improved? I've got good news!"
    Her father reached for his wallet. "Yes?"
    Little Jennifer smiled as only she could. "Well, you get to keep it!"

---

^{^} ...end of line