Quote of the day :
You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.
~ Bob Marley, who’s birthday you share, if you too were born today.
He is also quoted as saying, which I rather like, Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.
~ E.L. Doctorow had a similar thought:
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.
Picture of the day :
For today’s picture I’ve cheekily yoiked an image from a friend’s web site, artist Wendy Mallas. Bob Marley was born this day so it’s seems fitting to post this. The original was a graphite on paper, painted in 2009 for a private collection. You can check out some more of Wendy’s portfolio here.
Youtube video of the day :
I was umm’ing an arr’ing between an early episode of ‘The Avengers’ (couldn’t find a good one) or possibly something from Hawkwind, but in the end I shamelessly went with popularity and Rick Astley who’s 1987 song, “Never Gonna Give You Up” was a number one hit single in 25 countries. He also holds the record for being the only male solo artist to have his first 8 singles reach the Top 10 in the UK charts. The video I found below had nearly 75 million hits.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=player_detailpage]
Born on this day…
Born today :
- Actor, Patrick Macnee
Best known for playing secret agent John Steed in the ‘The Avengers’ - Actor and president, Ronald Reagan
- Actor, Rip Torn
MiB‘s Zed. - Actor, Mike Farrell (b.1939)
Best known as Captain Hunnicutt in M*A*S*H.
Curiously enough, today is also the birthday of actress Gayle Hunnicutt (b.1943) - Actor, Kevin Whately
- Actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor
- Actress, Alice Eve
- Comedian and actor, Jimmy Tarbuck
- TV presenter, Denis Norden
It’ll be alright on the night. - Stage actor, Henry Irving (b.1838)
- Author and screenwriter, Keith Waterhouse
Wrote the best seller, Billy Liar - Fantasy and Sci-Fi author, Eric Flint
- Reggae musician, Bob Marley
- Singer, Rick Astley
- Singer, Natalie Cole
- Singer, Axl Rose
- Keyboard player, Tim Blake
Gong and Hawkwind - Dramatist and poet, Christopher Marlowe (b.1564)
- Baseball legend, Babe Ruth
- Paleoanthropologist, Mary Leakey
- Queen, Anne of England (b.1665)
Also on this day in history
1778 : The United States gained official recognition from France, the first foreign nation to recognize America’s sovereignty. A delegation led by Benjamin Franklin signed the Treaty of Alliance in Paris.
1788 : Massachusetts became the sixth state in the Union of American States.
1886 : Chemist Clement Winkler discovered the element germanium. The silvery semi-metal is an essential material for many semi-conductors.
1918 : Women received the right to vote in Great Britain, but only if they were over 30.
1926 : Child prodigy Yehudi Menuhin made his first violin-playing debut in Paris.
1935 : The ‘Monopoly’ board game went on sale for first time.
1937 : John Steinbeck had ‘Of Mice and Men’ published.
I definitely would never buy a first edition from e-bay, but if you find a genuine original in your grandad’s attic one day hold on to it – in good condition they are worth up to £10,000, particularly if signed (with due diligence).
1939 : Detective author Raymond Chandler had his first novel published, ‘The Big Sleep’.
1952 : Elizabeth II became queen regnant of the United Kingdom.
1959 : Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed a patent application for ‘miniaturized electronic circuits’. Robert Noyce, later co-founder of Intel, working in parallel and using a layered technique produced a more practical integrated circuit
1971 : NASA astronaut Alan Shepard used a six-iron and hit three golf balls on the surface of the moon.
1977 : Queen Elizabeth II marked her Silver Jubilee. Street parties were held all over the UK. If i can find them I’ve post one of ours here! They also had Jubilee coins, but where mine is I have no idea.
1978 : A snowstorm hit New England, dropping 54 inches of snow on parts of Rhode Island. Only takes 2 inches of snow to grind the UK to a halt!
1979 : Stephen Stills became the first rock performer to record on digital equipment in Los Angeles’ Record Plant Studio.
1986 : Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computer, decided to leave to pursue other interests.
1996: Fred Rogers moulded the 100 billionth Crayola crayon. The colour was named blue ribbon
1998 : The V.90 modem standard was announced and agreed upon, replacing the competing K56Flex and X2 protocols and making it a little easier to install and get updates for 56k fax-modems. It was also essentially the end of them as ADSL and cable broadband was getting established by then, even in the UK. That said there’s still one or two companies, like StarTech, making usb modems (using V.92 protocol).
Currently trending
2004 : In the news for the past day or so are warnings of an Atlantic superstorm heading for the UK this weekend, with talks of 150mph gales and 75 foot waves. Projection are for 12 on the Beaufort scale, which is hurricane force. I dare say it will be bad, but how bad remains to be seen. For the record, or so I read, the highest recorded sea wave (not tsunami) was 34m (111ft), in a Pacific hurricane in 1933. Reading the reports the storm is expected to see its pressure drop to just 944mb – several points lower than the hurricane force cyclone of the Great Storm of 1987. I’ll be glad when summer comes, getting mightily tired of the damp we’ve had this past few months; last month was the wettest january on record and it’s looking like february will stomp all over the records. One article from the Daily Express threatens that “forecasters warned there will be NO let up in the extreme stormy weather until at least the end of the month.”
Another article in the Express, bears some stunning images of 75 foot waves already battering Cornwall. The subtitle to the overly dramatic headline reads : BRITAIN has been battered by the biggest wave in HISTORY – a staggering 75ft monster – just hours before a huge Atlantic superstorm is set to smash into the mainland.
. I suspect some of the pictures – like the lighthouse one – are actually from earlier storms this year!
At the same time, Scotland’s Cairngorms are getting buried under 33ft snow drifts – six times deeper than the slopes at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
