31st December

Well, that's it - the Year of Blogging Dangerously is over. For everyone who has stuck by me through thick and thin for the past year, thank you. If you feel you will miss our little chats, there are several things planned for 2013. Firstly, there will be an edited version of the whole year available in a month or so as a free PDF download (which my old mate M J Trow assures me is not just a nonsense phrase but actually means something) on www.mjtrow.co.uk and also at the same address there will be 'history lessons' from time to time. If there is anything you would like my history teacher slant on, you can request it at the same address. I don't write essays, by the way, all of you Ten Pea Zeds out there - but I can do a quick potted version of anything that puzzles you. That is free as well but beware what you ask for - your question and my answer will be there for all to see on the website (although you can rest assured you will only be identified by initials!).

So it just remains for me to say thank you for your company in 2012 and in 2013 may you have all the good things you could wish for - with love from the Maxwell-Carpenters and all at Leighford High. Perhaps we will meet again in the New Year - you'll know me when you see me, I'm sure.

30th December

Rasputin was murdered today in 1916 by Prince Felix Yusopov at the nobleman's house in St Petersburg. 'Rasputin' means the debauched one and he certainly enjoyed the company of titled ladies (even, it was rumoured, the Tsarina), drank like a fish and exposed himself in various restaurants. The stories of his death were much exaggerated. Allegedly, he was poisoned (in his wine and cakes), shot, bashed with chains, tied up and thrown into the frozen river Neva. When they pulled him out two days later, it was said that he still had had the strength to snap the rope.

Wow.

In other news ...
Anita Loos got it right today in the Observer in 1973 when she wrote 'I'm furious about the Women's Liberationists. They keep ... proclaiming that women are brighter than men. That's true, but it should be kept very quiet or it ruins the whole racket.'

29th December

Today in 1170, four knights led by Reginald FitzUrse (the name means, literally, bastard bear) crashed into the cathedral at Canterbury and sliced off the top of the head of the Archbishop, Thomas Becket. They almost certainly operated on the orders of the king, Henry II, who was rather miffed that his old friend Thomas had gone all religious on him (even though he'd given him the Archbishop's gig in the first place).

It is a reflection on the times, perhaps, that today, saying that Rowan Williams isn't very good as the A of C is about as vicious as it gets.

In other news ...
William Gladstone was born today in 1809. Despite spending most of his life in England, he retained an irritating Lowland Scots accent to the end (much to the annoyance of Queen Victoria, he didn't die until 1898). We actually have him taped (they all did!) on phonograph.

28th December

On this day in 1904 the first weather reports were published in London by wireless telegraphy. This was a great opportunity for the Meteorological Office to get it totally wrong using a different medium.

In other news ...
TW3 (That Was The Week That Was) was closed down today in 1963 because it was an election year (no Big Brother pressure there then). Like its successor, Spitting Image, it caricatured politicians and celebrities and introduced naughty themes on our television sets. we have nothing like this now, except a procession of tawdry, foul-mouthed blokes who are referred to (for only partially obvious reasons) as stand-up comedians.

27th December

Three greats of the cinema were born today but not in the same year. Sydney Greenstreet (1879) was a marvellous heavy (literally!) in noir films like The Maltese Falcon. Marlene Dietrich (1901) was a fine-boned German actress who smouldered magnificently in The Blue Angel and Destry Rides Again. And then there was Gerard Depardieu ...

In other news ...
The world was changed forever today in 1831 when HMS Beagle set sail from Devonport on a five year scientific expedition. On board was young Charles Darwin who would take one look at the wrinkly old critters on the Galapagos Islands and know at once that the Old Testament was just a story about Jewish folk. He immediately went into print (28 years later) with his book Origin of Species.

26th December

The Feast of Stephen. One of the greatest artists of all time died today in 1909. He was Frederic Remington and he specialized in scenes of the Wild West. His horses, cattle, cowboys and Indians are simply superb and he could sculpt his designs with equal skill. What a talent! Unfortunately he was only forty when he died - a great loss to the world of art.

In other news ...
American film star Richard Widmark was born today in 1914. I never saw him put in a bad performance and he was notoriously fast on the draw. Legend has it that that was why he had a damaged hand in Warlock, so that Henry Fonda could outdraw him.

Fed up with the turkey yet? I am looking forward to supper tonight with M J Trow and family, as Boxing Day supper is when they unleash Auntie Sheila's Pickled Onions on the world. Yum.

25th December

All right, let's get this over with. Christians will tell you that Jesus is the reason for the season (i.e. the celebration of the birth of Christ on this day 2012 years ago). Actually, of course, they are almost certainly wrong. Until the 5th century, some people celebrated the man's birthday in January, others in May, others with the Feast of the Epiphany. In 440 a synod of the Church pinched the old Roman midwinter festival (already an excuse for a holiday) and claimed it was 25 December. There is no historical justification for this and so those who bemoan the fact that the whole nativity thing is disappearing from Christmas and we all just use it as an excuse to eat and drink too much and watch excruciatingly awful TV, is not surprising, really.

In other news ...
The Florentine monk Giralomo Savonarola got a bit shirty today in 1497. While everybody else was watching the Queen's Speech or yet another chance to see all 438 ghastly episodes of Downton on the tele, he accused the Pope of corruption and Leonardo da Vinci of sodomy.

Come off the fence, now, Savvy and tell it like it is.

Despite this somewhat unseasonal post, I would nevertheless like to wish my follower the very warmest compliments of the season. Nolan, Metternich and Mrs Carpenter-Maxwell all join me in hoping you are having a splendid Christmas, with as many presents as you wanted and more turkey than you could possibly eat in a long day's march. Taking a leaf out of my old mate M J Trow's family book, we have bought Nolan his first guitar, which is sounding not too bad at all from the sitting room. By all accounts if he takes to it it will lead to a life of penury for us as more and more sophisticated instruments become necessary, but if music helps him grow up into half the man Tali Trow has, then it will be money well spent.

God Bless Us, Every One!

24th December

'Twas the night before Christmas and in 1828 William Burke went on trial in Edinburgh for the murder of Daft Jamie and grave robbery. Note to the legal profession and every other organization (except teaching, of course) that closes for two-three weeks around Christmas time - IN OLDEN TIMES PEOPLE ACTUALLY WORKED FOR A LIVING!

In case you're interested, Burke and his accomplice Hare (who got off by stitching up his mate) were robbing graves and murdering people to see the bodies to anatomists who needed freshish corpses for dissection. Burke was found guilty and hanged and - how neat is this? - dissected.

In other news ...
They thought they'd found Lord Lucan today in 1974. He was the chappie, you'll remember, who did a runner after allegedly murdering his children's nanny. In fact, 'Lucan' turned out to be John Stonehouse, a rather dodgy MP who was believed to have drowned off Miami but had in fact faked his own death.

You really couldn't make it up!

23rd December

Joseph Hansom patented his famous 'safety cab' today in 1834. Not only did he create the best known image of the 19th century street scene, but he paved the way for that immortal line in Kenneth Horne's Beyond Our Ken on the radio (circa 1964) - 'My name is immaterial. Sir James Immaterial. And I am talking of a time when England was full of Hansom cabs and ugly furniture.'

They don't write them like that any more.

In other news ...
Vincent van Gogh cut off his earlobe today. The usual explanation for this is that

1. he was mad
2. he'd had a row with Paul Gaugin.

In fact, it all happened because he saw Gaugin's work and said, 'Paul, me ol' mucker, I'd give my right ear to be able to paint as good as like what you do.'

And of course, he was mad.

22nd December

James Edward Stuart, son of the deposed James II, landed at Peterhead in Scotland today in 1715. Rightfully king of England, his aim was to overthrow the usurper, George I, who was the son of the usurper Electress Sophie, who was a cousin of the usurper Anne, who was the sister and sister-in-law respectively of Mary and William who had taken the throne from James's dad in the first place. (Do keep up, Seven Bee Four; it really couldn't be simpler).

So, despite a promising start, why did James not succeed in getting his throne back? He was only Pretending.

In other news...
Mary Ann Evans died today in 1880. She is better known as George Eliot and used the male nom de plume to get her novels published in a male-dominated, sexist world. That got me thinking of other writers whose real names should be exposed e.g. Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter); Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) and Andy McNab (Priscilla-May Blenkinsop).

21st December

This was the day in 1978 when Denis Healey famously described Geoffrey Howe's attack on his budget proposals as 'like being savaged by a dead sheep'.

Howe had the last laugh, however. When he was made a member of the House of Lords, his crest was a vicious-looking wolf in sheep's clothing.

Nice one.

In other news ...
Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves appeared on American cinema screens today in 1935 ushering in a brilliant new era of cartooning. Today's techniques have eclipsed it but it's still a marvellous film and the old crone with her poisonous apple is still every child's nightmare, even today.

The porn version - Snow White and the Seven Perverts - failed to make much of an impact.

And, of course, the End of the World is no longer nigh - again. I was out shopping in Leighford High Street this morning at 11.11 and it was eerie .... everything went on exactly as normal. So, all you girls of Ten Pea Zed, come out from under your duvets and stop sobbing and texting each other - it was only a story. Perhaps you'll listen to me next time ... now that would be the end of the world!

I suppose I should write tomorrow's blog, now we are still here!

20th December

The Gallipoli campaign ended in disaster today in 1915. The idea was to hit 'the soft underbelly of Europe' by attacking the Turks via Constantinople (that's Istanbul to you, Eleven Eff Eight) but it all went horribly pear-shaped. First the Royal Navy chickened out believing there were hundreds of mines across the Straits called the Dardenelles (there were only four left when they came to this decision). So the army had to go in alone and landed from rowing boats while being machine-gunned from the dunes. The Turks were stiffened by crack German troops and the Allies never had enough men, guns or ammunition (especially high explosives) because these things were need at the Western Front in France.

Ironically the best thing about Gallipoli was the withdrawal, accomplished in one night, in total secrecy. The enemy had no idea we'd gone. Those responsible? Winston Churchill - ridiculous, ambitious ideas, ill thought-out; Lord Kitchener - too mean with the hardware; General Sir Ian Hamilton, local commander - no clue.

In other news ...
Boris Yeltsin (see yesterday's blog) announced today in 1991 that Russia wanted to join NATO. He also wanted flying pigs, three pink elephants and life membership of the Bullingdon Club.

19th December

It was a bad day for Russia today in 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned. The architect of perestroika and glasnost, he handled the collapse of the USSR with flair and skill. He was replaced by a drunk, Boris Yeltsin.

In other news ...
Ralph Richardson was born today in 1902. One of the best known classical actors of his generation, he excelled in Shakespearean roles but also took to films like a duck to water. I stand to be corrected, but I think he was the only actor to play William Gladstone in the history of the cinema. He could also be seen roaring around the Home Counties on a powerful motorbike when in his seventies. To our minds (the collective known as the Carpenter-Maxwells, that is) his best cinema moment was as the Supreme Being in Time Bandits. But that's us for you.

18th December

When David, Prince of Wales (he who later became a Nazi and married a bloke called Mrs Simpson if you believe various theories) asked the Commander in Chief of the army, Lord Kitchener, if he could go to the Front in the First World War (this was 1914, by the way) the Field Marshal replied, 'I don't mind your being killed but I object to your being taken prisoner'.

Thanks, Kitch. Right back atchya!

In other news ...

Joseph Grimaldi was born today in 1779. When he developed the white face clown make-up, he thought he was adding to the laughs and lustre of the circus. Unfortunately, he was only prefiguring all those creepy killer-clown movies of the Seventies onwards and condemning generations of people to a life lived under the weight of their coulrophobia.

Incidentally, Mrs B., cleaner of this parish, is a renowned coulrophobe. She once knocked Mr B unconscious because he jumped out at her suddenly wearing a glace cherry on his nose and precious little else. Or at least, that's her story and she's sticking to it.

17th December

Orville Wright said today in 1903 (after making four flights of less than a minute each at Kitty Hawk Beach, Carolina) 'The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall.'

Er ... needs work, Orv.

In other news ...
Sir Humphrey Davy was born today in 1778. He wasn't Sir Humphrey then, of course; that accolade came later, after he'd invented the safety lamp for miners and discovered sodium, calcium, barium, potassium, magnesium and strontium by passing electricity through molten metal compounds.

Nobody likes a smartarse, Humphrey!

16th December

Anna Steenkamp, a Boer farmer's wife, wrote in her diary today in 1836 - 'It was not the non-whites' freedom that drove us to such lengths [travelling north in the Great Trek] as their being placed on an equal footing with Christians, contrary to the laws of God.'

You can't get a more Christian sentiment than that, now, can you?

In other news ...
The world went mad today in 1991, when the name of the new leader of MI5 - 'M' - was printed in the British Press. She was Stella Rimmington, the first woman to hold the job. This marked the end of the spying game as far as Britain was concerned - not that a woman was in charge (he added hastily) but that the whole thing was so public. This explains why James Bond had to undergo so many plastic surgery operations. The name was the same, but in a feeble attempt to pretend the Secret Services were still secret, the face had to change.

Spooky.

15th December

Two great Americans died today, 76 years apart. The first was Sitting Bull, spiritual leader of the Lakota whose victory over Custer's 7th Cavalry has passed into legend. He spent some years in prison and travelled with Bill Cody's Wild West Show, spoofing the Indian Wars. By the year of his death (1890) however he had joined the Ghost Shirt movement dedicated to the restoration of the Plains Indians' way of life. He was shot and killed in a skirmish with troops sent to suppress the cult.

The other was Walt Disney.

In other news ...
The body of Napoleon Bonaparte was reburied in Les Invalides in Paris today in 1840. He had died in 1821 on St Helena, poisoned either by the British or the wallpaper, whichever version you choose to believe and it took nearly twenty years for the body to be transferred.
You would think the French could have built a more fitting tomb for their greatest son (yes, I know, he wasn't exactly French, but you can't have everything). The tomb is a huge, ugly slab of marble - yeuch!

And finally ...

A very happy birthday to Penny Collins, daughter and granddaughter in a squillion - three years old today and getting more gorgeous with every minute.

14th December

Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, reached the South Pole today in 1911, the first man to do so. He left the Norwegian flag there and a note for Robert Falcon Scott leading a British team trying to beat him there. It simply said 'Bobby - Nah-Nah-di-Nah-Nah. Love, Ro.'

In other news ...
Max [no relation] Planck came out with the quantum leap notion in Physics today in 1900. Not everybody was impressed. Isaac Newton turned in his grave and Alfred Nobel coined the expression 'thick as a Planck'.

13th December

Leighford General Hospital.

No, no. I's nothing, really. They say I'll be out by Christmas.

Jacob Fussell made history today in Baltimore in 1903 when he invented a cone for eating ice cream. No spoon was required and there was no mess. But somewhere along the line it all went pear shaped. I can remember in the 1980s we were all given a special phone number to report the number of cones on Motorways.

Where did it all go wrong?

In other news ...
Lord Alfred Douglas, known as 'Bosie', the friend of Oscar Wilde, was sentenced to six months in gaol today in 1923 for libelling Winston Churchill. Now, I loathe Alfred Douglas and I loathe Winston Churchill, so it's a bit of a win/lose situation for me.

12th December

'I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old' said George Canning, the British foreign minister today in 1826. He was referring to the fact that Britain had given cash, recognition and above all the guns of the Royal Navy to the new South American republics trying to break away from Portugal and Spain.

And how did they repay us? They hid escaping Nazis after 1945 and invaded the Falklands in 1982.

Thanks, guys.

In other news ...
In New York today in 1907, a statute was passed insisting that girls about to be married should sign affidavits declaring their age and good conduct. This is clearly a good idea. My good lady wife has just read this blog over my shoulder and 

11th December

Herbert Asquith, the politician, said today in 1920 - 'Things are being done in Ireland which would disgrace the blackest annals of the lowest despotism in Europe.'

That's a bit of a harsh description of the setting up of Boyzone, if you ask me.

In other news ...
Charlie Chaplin's bowler and cane were sold today in 1987 at Christie's auction house for £82,500. His boots went for £38,500. Sadly, his underpants failed to reach their reserve.

10th December

It may surprise you - it certainly surprised me - to discover that the first territory in America to give women the vote was Wyoming, 143 years ago today. Then I realized that there were 428,000 men in Wyoming in 1869, 3.2 million cattle and two women.

Heigh ho.

In other news ....
Alfred Nobel won the world's prize for biggest idiot today in 1892 when he said that his dynamite invention would put an end to war. On the contrary, it increased battlefield casualties a hundredfold.

Nice one, Alfred - back to the drawing board, old son!

9th December

Anthony van Dyck died today in 1641. He was court painter to Charles I and his portraits are to die for, especially his use of light on silks and satins. As we've noted before in these pages, he was the only one of the van Dyck family not to appear in Diagnosis Murder.

In other news ...
Clarence Birdseye was born today in 1886. I am going to resist any unpleasant jokes about cryogenics and just say how much I love Clarence Fish Fingers.

8th December

Sammy David Jnr was born today in 1925. Billing himself as a 'one-eyed Jewish black man', his stand-up was legendary. He used 25 pounds of brylcreem on his hair everyday and was the fastest man with a six-shooter never to appear in a Western.

In other news ...
Thomas de Quincey died today in 1859. He suffered from facial neuralgia, gave up school and Oxford University, lived as a beggar in London, was constantly broke and smoked opium. Despite all this he lived to be seventy four. What an advert for declassifying drugs!

7th December

'A date which will live on in infamy' as F D Roosevelt called this day in 1941. Without warning, the Japanese Pacific fleet attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. There was no formal declaration of war before 200 aircraft were destroyed and 2400 men killed. The whole story was brilliantly told in the film Tora! Tora! Tora! and crappily told in Pearl Harbor.

In other news ...
Marshal Michel Ney, 'the bravest of the brave' was executed by firing squad today in 1815. He had been sent to arrest Napoleon who had escaped from Elba and was back on French soil. He promised to bring 'la bete noire' back to Paris in a cage. In the event, he rejoined his old master and told the newly-restored Bourbon dynasty (they of biscuits) where to stick it. Miffed, they had him shot.

6th December

'The Soviet Union has disintegrated,' said Leonid Kravachuk of the Ukraine today in 1991. This was far too late for thousands of innocent people who went to their deaths under Lenin, Trotsky and above all, Stalin in the name of a political system that cannot possibly work in a free society.

In other news ...

The French tennis team won the Davis Cup today in 1991 and their captain, Yannick Noah, spoke for them all when he said, 'Guy was happy, I was happy, the team was happy, the crowd was happy, everybody was happy. There is just one word to describe it all - happiness.'

Had a way with words, didn't he, old Yannick?

5th December

One of the coolest sentences was passed today in 1991 by Judge Edwin Torres in the United States. He said, 'Your parole officer has not yet been born.'

In other news ...

The Bermuda Triangle nonsense began today in 1945 when five planes out of Fort Lauderdale in Florida vanished somewhere beyond the Keys. The flight leader reported that they were lost, their instruments were going haywire and 'even the sea looks different'. A rescue plane sent up to find them disappeared too, paving the way for Atlantis theories, black holes, white dwarfs and Erich von Daniken et al. No amount of sensible theories - such as typhoons, hurricanes, contrary winds, engine/radio defects or plain old pilot error - will ever replace this. It will vanish and vanish.

4th December

Nicholas Breakspear became the only Englishman to be elected to the Papacy today in 1154. After that, it was mostly Italians, with a few Frenchmen. And for all you feminists out there, 'Pope Joan' was only fictional - soz.

In other news ...

President Rutherford B Hayes told Congress today in 1877 -

'Many, if not most, of our Indian wars have had their origins in broken promises and injustice on our part.'

He got that absolutely right, but most of white America wasn't listening and the massacre at Wounded Knee was still to come.

3rd December

Dom Gregory Dix, a British monk, said today in 1977, 'It is no accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook and the sign of an archbishop is a double cross.'

Whose side was this guy on?

In other news ...

Agatha Christie vanished today in 1925 and was missing for several days. Sadly, they found her again.

For comments by an alter ego of mine, see  www.untangledweb.blogspot.co.uk and look for the blog entitled - It hasn't been a good week ...

2nd December

'As I write,' said Henry Longfellow today in 1859, 'they are leading old John Brown to execution ... This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind, which will soon come.'

It did. Instead of realizing that (however loony) Brown was right and setting free the slaves there and then, the Civil War broke out leading to more American deaths than in all other wars put together.

In other news ...

Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, died today in 1547. Thousands of Incas cheered. He died from drinking, according to a poem, too much stout, although his pet peke may have been involved.

1st December

If you're a fan, like me, of Sellar and Yeatman's masterly 1066 And All That, you'll know that Henry I of England died of a surfeit of lampreys. A what? I hear you cry, dear reader. Well, a lamprey is an eel and a surfeit is too many. All this happened today in 1135 which is long before they had sell-by dates etc. I can't help thinking that as the bloke was 66 (which was ancient in the 12th century) it was probably time he shuffled off this mortal coil anyway.

What did he leave behind? A squabble between potential rulers Matilda and Stephen and a series of excellent novels by Ellis Peters.

In other news ...

The Cross Channel diggers met in the middle today in 1990, nearly completing a multi-million pound project linking Britain to France. There was a great deal more earth movement when everybody from Harold Godwinson (d 1066) on turned in their graves.