Issue ^#802 - 24^th January 2025

Edited by and copyright ©2025 Simon Lamont
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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 24th January     - Day 24/365		-		Roman emperor Caligula was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard, 41. Playwright and poet William Congreve born, 1670. The Cavalier Parliament was dissolved by King Charles II of England, 1679. Actress Sharon Tate born, 1943. A B-52 bomber carrying two nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air over North Carolina; one bomb core is still missing, 1961. Aviator Rosemary Bryant Mariner died, 2019.
Saturday 25th January     - Day 25/365		-		King Henry VIII of England married Anne Boleyn, 1533. Artist Lucas Cranach the Younger died, 1586. Poet Robert Burns born, 1759. The Battle of the Bulge in World War II ended with an Allied victory after over a month, 1945. Computer scientist Molly Holzschlag born, 1963. Actress Ava Gardner died, 1990. Burns Night in Scotland and Scottish communities.
Sunday 26th January     - Day 26/365		-		Philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius born, 1715. The Rum Rebellion led to the only successful, though short-lived, takeover of the New South Wales government, 1808. Physician and immunologist Edward Jenner died, 1823. Singer Maria von Trapp born, 1905. The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory, then the largest aperture optical telescope, saw its first light, 1949. Sprinter Barbara Howard died, 2017. Australia Day in Australia.
Monday 27th January     - Day 27/365		-		Privateer and explorer Sir Francis Drake died, 1596. The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot began, 1606. Writer and mathematician Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) born, 1832. Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp, 1945. Journalist Nellie Bly died, 1922. Actress Mimi Rogers born, 1956. International Holocaust Remembrance Day and associated observances.
Tuesday 28th January     - Day 28/365		-		Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor, died, 814. Printer and typographer John Baskerville born, 1706. Sir Horace Walpole coined the word 'serendipity' in a letter to a friend, 1754. Songwriter and music producer Anna Gordy Gaye born, 1922. The Lego company was granted a patent for the design of its bricks, 1958. Teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe and her six fellow crewmembers died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, 1986. Data Privacy Day (International).
Wednesday 29th January     - Day 29/365		-		Astronomer and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg born, 1688. Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was published in New York's The Evening Mirror, 1845. Microbiologist Alice Catherine Evans born, 1881. Poet and illustrator Edward Lear died, 1888. Folk singer Vera Hall died, 1964. French president Jacques Chirac announced a "definitive end" to his country's nuclear weapons testing, 1996.
Thursday 30th January     - Day 30/365		-		Livia, wife of the Roman emperor Augustus, born, 58 BCE. The Forty-seven rōnin avenged the death of their master, 1703. Seamstress Betsy Ross, said to have designed the second official American Flag, died, 1836. The Beatles' final public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London, was broken up by the police, 1969. Aviator and engineer Orville Wright died, 1948. Musician and actor Phil Collins born, 1951.

^{^} THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Christa McAuliffe:

I have a vision of the world as a global village, a world without boundaries. Imagine a history teacher making history!

^{^} FILM QUIZ

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

• Wrinkled, wrinkled little star... hope they never see the scars.
• You can't change the world but you can make a dent.
• Well damn if you ain't so sweet you make sugar taste just like salt.
• I tell you that I, Salome Otterbourne, have succeeded where frail men have faltered. I am a finer sleuth than even the great Hercule Porridge.
• - You've got a prime figure. You really have, you know.
  - That's a euphemism for fat.

Last issue's 'adventure' quotations were from:

• Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
      -- Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure [1989]
• White men no longer make safari. Come through sky like vultures.
      -- Tarzan's New York Adventure [1942]
• You see, Mr. Scott? In the water I'm a very skinny lady.
      -- The Poseidon Adventure [1972]
• Now boys, if either of you give me any grief I swear to God I'll kill you. Dead, murdered, stabbed.
      -- Adventures in Babysitting [1987]
• And that's why, in a straight fight, a shark would probably beat a Dracula.
      -- The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists! [2012]

^{^} WEIRD WORLD NEWS

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

• New York state Environmental Conservation Police officer Lt Robert Higgins and a pair of forest rangers have rescued a bull moose that had fallen through ice on Lake Abanakee. After donning dry suits and tethering themselves together in case any of them fell in they tracked a path over thicker ice to get to the moose then used a chainsaw to cut away the thinner ice around it and shepherded it to the ice where it was able to climb out. Exhausted after two hours in the water the moose recovered after about fifteen minutes and wandered off back into the forest. ● Police officers in Illinois have succesfully rescued a coyote that had become stuck in a refridgerated shelving unit of an Aldi grocery store. They had to pull it out by its tail. It is thought that the coyote had wandered into the store by mistake, been startled by shoppers and attempted to hide. It is being kept at a rehabilitation centre for assessment, after which it will probably be released back into the wild. ● The Mount Lyell shrew was discovered over a century ago but has now been photographed alive for the first time, in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. It might also be the last time; a 2015 study showed that without a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions the shrew could lose 90% of its habitat. ● The police in Houston, Texas, has a problem with drugs. The Houston Police Department's Narcotics Evidence Room in the Edward A. Thomas Building houses 400,000lb (181,440kg) of seized cannabis as well as pyschedelic mushrooms, cocaine and other drugs, and rats are eating it, prompting the force to rethink its time limits for retaining narcotics that are no longer required for court cases. [Like, squeek, man... -Ed]


• The discovery of metallic lumps on the deep seafloor which are producing oxygen has led astronomers to rethink how they search for life on other planets as it was previously thought that oxygen was only produced by sunlit plants, through photosynthesis. ● India has become the fourth country to successfully dock two satellites in orbit. The test is seen as a forerunner for India's Chandrayaan-4 mission to return lunar samples to the Earth in 2028. ● Astronomers have discovered a jetstream blowing at 20,500mph (33,000km/h) on WASP-127b, a "hot Jupiter" gas giant exoplanet 520 light years from Earth, orbiting close to a star similar to the Sun. It is the fastest-flowing wind ever seen. ● Scientists at the University of Southampton are suggesting that there could be almost 40% more supermassive blacks hole in the observable universe than we know about, concealed behind dust and gas clouds.


• Three silver coins, two Tudor, depicting Queen Elizabeth I, and the other Stuart, showing King Charles I, which were discovered by a metal detectorist in a field near Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria, in October 2023 have been officially declared treasure by a coroner and are expected to be bought by Penrith and Eden Museum. ● Archaeologists in Pompeii have revealed a large private bathhouse, possibly the largest yet found, attached to a grand residence. The bathhouse had hot, warm and cold rooms plus a large plunge pool, all exquisitely decorated. About two thirds of Pompeii, buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, has been excavated.


• A Florida woman has been arrested after a police dog detected something illicit in her car. A bag printed with the words "Definitely Not a Bag Full of Drugs" was, according to a statement from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, full of "snacks... nah, just kidding, it was actually drugs..." ● A man reported to police for using a horse and cart at dusk without lights or reflective clothing has been fined £197 ($243) for being drunk in charge of a horse, contrary to a 153-year-old law. While many older laws have been repealed, section 12 of the Licensing Act of 1872 is not one of them. It is also still illegal to be drunk in charge of cattle, a steam engine or a bicycle. ● Police in Manchester have appealed for help after someone stole nine life-sized carved wooden figures from Clifton Country Park at the end of last week. The statues, part of the park's Fairy Tale Trail, include animals, mythical creatures and the Gruffalo, from Julia Donaldson's bestselling children's books.

IN BRIEF: Fatbergs, the giant masses of congealed cooking fat and other items that have a tendency to block sewers, may have a new future after scientists in Edinburgh developed a way to bioengineer them into the bases for perfumes. [Literally Eaus de toilette... -Ed] ● The classic first-person shooter game Doom, released in 1993, has been ported to numerous devices including smart TVs and a robotic lawnmower, and has now been made to run inside an Adobe .PDF document file, albeit in six-colour greyscale and at 80ms per frame. ● Police in Greater Manchester have seized a Tesla Cybertruck which was being driven on the road despite not being legal in the UK. The Cybertruck, an electric vehicle that makes even the 1958 Ford Edsel look beautiful, has been controversial since it launched in the USA for its design and build quality. ● Ruth Tripp, from South Molton in Devon has been recognised by Guinness World Records for the longest hair donation, at 67" (172cm), donated to The Little Princess Trust which makes real-hair wigs for children suffering hair loss due to treatment for cancer or other conditions. ● The UK government is introducing an AI assistant for civil servants. The assistant, intended to save money that would otherwise be spent on consultants, is called Humphrey, after Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary to Jim Hacker from the 1980s political sitcom Yes, Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister.

UPDATES: Apple has temporarily fixed its "Apple Intelligence" AI news summaries by removing them from the latest iOS update. The AI had reported stories that were untrue or had not yet happened. ● The latest batch of marble-sized balls that washed up on Sydney, Australia, beaches last week have been found to contain faecal bacteria, E. coli and saturated fatty acids, just like the ones that washed up in the same places at the end of last year. Their origin remains a mystery.

^{^} OBITUARIES

Former child actor Christian Juttner (Return From Witch Mountain, The Swarm, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, 60), guitarist John Sykes (Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Sykes, 65), writer-filmmaker David Lynch (Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Twin Peaks, 78), soccer player Denis Law CBE (Scotland, Manchester United, 1963 Ballon d'Or winner, 84), director Jeannot Szwarc (Jaws 2, Santa Claus: The Movie, Supergirl, 85), actor Christopher Benjamin (Doctor Who, Poldark, The Avengers, 90), actress Dame Joan Plowright (Equus, The Entertainer, Tom's Midnight Garden, 95).

^{^} DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

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

6, 31, 32, 34, 55, 59

[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 mother was trying to teach her about the emergency phone number. "Now, Little Jennifer," she said, after explaining what it was, "suppose Daddy was out and you came downstairs to find me unconscious in the kitchen. What would you do?"
    Little Jennifer thought for a moment then smiled as only she could. "I'd help myself to as many biscuits as I wanted, Mummy!"

---

^{^} ...end of line