"The Closest Thing To Crazy" by Katie Melua

This seems as apt an anthem as possible for life around the Pop Culture Institute, as scrambling to stay caught up with the frankly insane posting schedule I've set myself often brings me closer to crazy than, say, waking up or just being myself. At the risk of making light of mental illness* I really do feel that every so often my galloping neurosis gets the better of me, even if the rest of the time it gives me a unique perspective I wouldn't trade for anything - not even six-pack abs.

The Closest Thing to Crazy originally appeared on Katie Melua's 2003 debut album, Call Off the Search, which was so hugely popular that pundits across the pond have been slagging her off in force ever since. The song was written by Mike Batt, and his version originally appeared on his 1995 album Arabesque, which doesn't appear to be for sale anywhere.

Melua, disconcertingly enough, was born on this day in 1984 - making her just 19 when she released this - which brings me even closer to crazy...

*I'd have to be cuckoo to do that! I mean really off my nut, y'know? Proper mental.  Bonkers, even...
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Pop History Moment: The Wall Street Bombing (1920)

It's a scene all-too-familiar to New Yorkers: a lovely late summer's day, a rush of people from all walks of life going about their business on one of the busiest corners in Manhattan... Then a deafening explosion and a street littered with the dead and dying amid a scene of unimaginable chaos and truly grotesque carnage.

Those who buy the Republican Party's line of bull that terrorism in America began on 9-11* will be shocked to learn that the attack I've just described occurred on this day in 1920, when a horse-drawn wagon left unattended outside the headquarters of J.P. Morgan Inc. at 23 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan exploded just before noon. Packed with 45 kg (100 pounds) of dynamite and 230 kg (500 pounds) of cast iron slugs, the explosion - detonated with the aid of a timer - vaporized the wagon as well as the horse; 30 people - many of them stenographers, messengers, and the like on their lunch breaks - died instantly. Owing to the unusual congestion of the city's Financial District the blast damaged an area of ten square blocks, shattered windows half a mile away, badly injured people even six stories up, set fires, and caused $2-3 million in property damage.

All told there were 38 casualties and as many as 400 others suffered crushed skulls, lost limbs, or were otherwise permanently maimed; seeing as those were the days before counseling, we may never know the psychic cost of the attack. Surrounding buildings were also heavily damaged - some of which still bear their scars to this day - the 'stigmata of capitalism', in the words of historian John Steele Gordon.

The Wall Street Bombing, as it came to be called, was investigated for three years, but remains unsolved; although no one took credit for the blast, it is now thought that the anarchist followers of Luigi Galleani committed the crime in retaliation for the indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti. Far from furthering the cause of the Galleanists, the US Justice Department stepped up its series of Palmer Raids in the aftermath of the explosion; wrongly convicted or not, Sacco and Vanzetti met their fate regardless in August 1927. The more than 10,000 immigrants (most of them from Sicily) deported as a result of the raids meant that by 1932 bombings of this nature - which had become fairly widespread in the years immediately following the First World War - had become a thing of the past. Yet how many lives were needlessly ruined by such ethnic profiling? If the Galleanists had truly wanted to end discrimination against immigrants, their bombs had in fact had the exact opposite effect.

*What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn't you be whacking off to FOXnews or drinking that Kool-Aid of Bill O'Reilly's?
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"Mississippi Goddam" by Nina Simone

Throughout the 1960s the American South was rocked by an ongoing campaign of terror aimed at blacks; churches and homes were bombed and burned, and the culprits usually got away with it because they were often committed by the very people sworn to investigate such crimes. Either that or a jury of the culprit's peers - twelve white men - couldn't bring themselves to see justice done.

Nina Simone, the fiery singer-songwriter and pianist, wrote the song Mississippi Goddamn to commemorate and excoriate the terrible racism of the times, specifically the murder of Medgar Evers and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
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Pop History Moment: The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

Like so many of the pivotal events in the US Civil Rights movement, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on this day in 1963 was intended to strike fear into the hearts of the black community...

At about 10:25 AM that Sunday morning four girls - Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14) - were killed, and 22 more were injured, when 19 sticks of dynamite hidden in the basement exploded, causing the kind of mayhem and suffering that no one ought to have to live through - and causing significant property damage besides.

Ironically, every one of those bombs backfired into the faces of those who were evil enough to place bombs in a church in the first place, people like Bobby Frank Cherry and Robert Chambliss (both members of that fine, Christian organization the Ku Klux Klan).

Instead of leaving blacks cowed, though, it made them defiant; instead of isolating blacks, it drew their white allies closer, although in certain segments of society it was said that blacks had set the bombs themselves to earn themselves sympathy; certainly that was the opinion of Bull Connor, who was the Chief of Police in Birmingham at the time.

It seems strange to think that there was a time in history when the aims and intentions of the Civil Rights Movement seemed nebulous, so vague that it took events like this to demonstrate the peril entailed in the lives of black Americans. Stranger still is that there were then - as there likely still are today - people who felt that killing was too good for blacks.

Even stranger - and perhaps just as ironic - is the role Southern Baptists now play in hate crimes of their own every day, condemning homosexuals to the same acts of terror their own parishioners had once been.
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

When Spain's Crown Prince Felipe, Prince of Asturias, made up his mind to marry Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano in November 2003 not only did he connect with the Spanish people by marrying a commoner but he also ensured the country had one less working journalist. Smart fellow...

Princess Letizia, in fact, comes from a long line of journalists: not only her father, Jesús Ortiz Álvarez, but her paternal grandmother, Menchu Álvarez del Valle, worked in media. Her stepmother, Ana Togores, is also a journalist. The moral of the story is, should the Asturias' marriage go south like that of the Duque and Duques de Lugo expect a really awesome expose.

She and the prince have two children - Infantas Leonor and Sofía - and undertake a wide range of public activities both in Spain and overseas on behalf of various charities and the King, Juan Carlos I.
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The Comedy Stylings Of Mr Jimmy Carr

Birthday boy Jimmy Carr has been a ubiquitous presence on British telly for several years now, and shows no signs of declining in ubiquity. The King of the panel and quiz show, not only has he presented Distraction, Your Face or Mine? and 8 Out of 10 Cats, he's guest presented Have I Got News For You as well as appearing on it*, and also appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, QI, TV Heaven, Telly Hell, and Top Gear among possibly thousands of others, including this blog. Further padding his resume are six consecutive instalments of Big Fat Quiz of the Year...

All of which, naturally, I have watched on YouTube as part of an ongoing effort to cram all of British pop culture into my head alongside the American and Canadian stuff I grew up with, before I move on to Australian pop culture immediately prior to suffering the world's first learning-related stroke. So look forward to that.

Jimmy Carr started out, though, as a stand-up comedian; shown above is a clip of his dark humour on Live at the Apollo, complete with trademark rapid-fire pace and deadpan supercilious delivery. Delish!

*During which he flirted outrageously with Tory bigot and old boot Ann Widdecombe, after which she announced she is permanently boycotting the show - surely grounds for his OBE!
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

Any day I get to indulge in one of my private (or in this case, not so private) obsessions is a good day. In the case of Prince Harry, though, several obsessions come clattering together into one irresistible, er, package. Sorry... What was I talking about?

Oh yeah. Royalty, cute men, redheads... It's all good.

Anyway, having done my bit over the past years to save him from a fate worse than deployment to Iraq - although he was sent to Afghanistan, he returned to Britain ahead of schedule after the Drudge Report spilled the beans - I feel extra qualified to celebrate his birthday this year.

Good on yer, mate, and many more!
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Remembering... Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Britain's road and rail infrastructure owes a massive debt to that country's greatest engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel; in addition to the massive public works projects he undertook, he was a noted innovator, finding simple solutions to long-standing problems again and again over the course of his too-short life and career.

Brunel's first project was the Thames Tunnel, on which he was appointed his father Sir Marc Isambard Brunel's chief assistant; the year was 1826, and he was just 20. It would take years to join the London boroughs of Rotherhithe and Wapping, and when it opened in March 1843 the tunnel was an instant sensation whose many setbacks would help to perfect the technology which would one day be used to dig the Channel Tunnel.

Brunel built his reputation on bridges: the Royal Albert Bridge, the Windsor Railway Bridge, the Maidenhead Railway Bridge, and the short-lived Hungerford Bridge over the Thames to name just four. His most famous, though, is probably the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Severn near Bristol.

For all that he is probably best known, though, for the monumental effort he put into the Great Western Railway; not only did he survey the entire length of the route himself, he made several controversial decisions in order to facilitate it, namely the switch from standard gauge to broad gauge track. Still in service (albeit under another name), the Great Western Railway runs from its terminus at London's Paddington Station to Penzance, with spurs throughout the West Country and South Wales.

Born in April 1806, Isambard Kingdom Brunel died of a stroke on this day in 1859, having left an indelible legacy upon Britain, including his own favourite corner of it, Brunel Manor which, alas, he didn't live to see completed.
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"Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand

Birthday wishes go out today to Paul Thomson, drummer for Scottish wunderkinds Franz Ferdinand, whose self-titled debut album spawned a massive hit with Take Me Out. Its super-trippy video was directed by Jonas Odell as an homage to the iconic animations of Terry Gilliam.

In my career as a night porter I once met Franz Ferdinand at the height of their fame; I can report that not only are they super cute in person, they're also wee - but they were perfectly lovely to me. I stored their gear for them in a board room, and even though I didn't get a tip - something about it not being in their tour budget - they all thanked me. When you're the night porter, politeness is worth more than mere money.
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POPnews: September 15th

[The Galápagos Islands are a unique ecosystem of unparalleled beauty - only be careful not to tell anyone or they'll soon have it covered it in condos, golf courses, and mini-malls!]
668 CE - Constans II - ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire - was assassinated in his bath at the Italian town of Syracuse; he was succeeded by the usurper Mezezius (who may have been implicit in the killing), who was in turn dealt with by the rightful heir, Constans' son, who became Constantine IV.

921 CE - Saint Ludmila was murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law Drahomíra in the Czech town of Tetin.  Among St Ludmila's more illustrious offspring is King Wenceslas - the 'Good King' of that famous Christmas carol - who was her grandson.

1440 - Gilles de Rais - the man often cited as the principal inspiration for Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale Bluebeard - was finally taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes.  No one knows how many children de Rais may have molested and killed in the last eight years of his life, but it could have been hundreds...  He would be burned at the stake on October 26th along with two of his servants who acted as accomplices.

1500 - John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury since January 1479, died; he was succeeded by Thomas Langton, who was consecrated in January 1501.

1762 - An English victory by Lieutenant Colonel William Amherst at the Battle of Signal Hill forced French commander Guillaume de Bellecombe to surrender the Newfoundland capital of St. John's during the French and Indian War.

1789 - The US Department of State was re-named, and given greater powers; although approved by Congress and the Senate on July 21st and signed into law by President George Washington on July 27th, it was originally called the Department of Foreign Affairs. The first Secretary of State was John Jay.

1830 - The world's first intercity passenger railway line, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened; on the same day William Huskisson, MP, became the first person to ever die in a railway accident when he was struck by George Stephenson's Rocket and suffered a crushed leg near Newton-le-Willows. He later succumbed to his injuries at the vicarage in Eccles. There is a monument to Huskisson at the place where he was struck.

1835 - The HMS Beagle - with Charles Darwin aboard - arrived at the Galápagos Islands.

1883 - The Bombay Natural History Society was founded in the Indian city of Bombay (now Mumbai.)

1885 - Jumbo, circus impresario P. T. Barnum's famed elephant, was struck by a train and killed in a classification yard in St. Thomas, Ontario; while Jumbo's skeleton was sold to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, his hide was stuffed and continued touring with Barnum until 1889, during which time he made more money for Barnum than he had before - on account of needing neither a trainer nor feeding.  Jumbo remained on display at Tufts University until he was destroyed by a fire in 1975.

1917 - The first issue of Forbes magazine was published.

1928 - Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin.

1935 - The Nazi Party's banner - the swastika flag - was adopted as the flag of Germany.

1955 - Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita was published in Paris by Olympia Press; it would finally be published in the United States in 1958 and the United Kingdom in 1959.

1959 - Nikita Khrushchev arrived in the United States, the first time a Soviet official had ever come to the US on an official visit; he stayed for 13 days, during which time he was famously refused entrance to Disneyland. Khrushchev's visit humanized his capitalist enemies, and this change in his attitude may have been as much to blame for the subsequent Sino-Soviet split as Mao's diplomatic arrogance.

1968 - The Soviet Union's Zond 5 spaceship was launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and safely re-enter the Earth's atmosphere; the Zond 5 was later retrieved from the Indian Ocean, where it splashed down on September 21st.  Its 'biological payload', including several turtles, were unharmed.

1973 - Sweden's King Gustaf VI Adolf died; he was succeeded by his grandson, who has reigned as Carl XVI Gustaf ever since.

1981 - The John Bull became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operated it under its own power on the 150th anniversary of its first run; it remains on display at the National Museum of American History while a replica is on display at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.

1982 - The first issue of USA Today went on sale.

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Pop History Moment: 'The Golden Girls' Debuts

It was on this day in 1985 when television viewers first got a glimpse into the lives of four women sharing a house together in Miami...  Over the next seven years the exploits of Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan), Rose Nylund (Betty White), and Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty) made it one of the most consistently popular shows on TV; in addition to strong performances by its four leads, the series also featured the talents of Herb Edelman as Dorothy's philandering ex-husband, Stan*.

The years have not diminished its viewers' enthusiasm, and it would be safe to say that The Golden Girls is today one of the most popular programs to have ever aired.  Proof that the show's success was due to its entire ensemble came with the short run of a spin-off, The Golden Palace, which lasted only the 1992-3 season** without the anchor of Dorothy's commonsense.  Two other spin-offs - Empty Nest and its spin-off Nurses - were more successful; most successful of all was the character of Sophia Petrillo, whom Getty portrayed in a total of five different series (the fifth was Blossom!)

*Edelman appeared in just 27 of the show's 180 episodes, but it was enough to make him its most prolific guest star; TV veteran Harold Gould actually played two of Rose's boyfriends - Arnie Peterson in 1 episode and Miles Webber in 14.
** The Golden Palace - which co-starred Cheech Marin and Don Cheadle - had been greenlighted for a second season, but was cancelled the day before NBC announced its new season.

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Gratuitous Brunette: Ben Cohen

At the risk of having him step on my neck, I first decided to name professional rugby player Ben Cohen as today's Gratuitous Brunette in 2008, on his thirtieth birthday. It went so well that first year, in fact, that I've just let it ride!

In point of fact, Cohen has been known to embrace his substantial gay following, alas just not in the fun way; still, following him is its own reward, since given how good he looks from the front he looks even better from behind. Besides which, I really need to up the sports coverage here, despite the fact that I know nothing about sports; the fact that Ben Cohen is a genuine pop culture icon helps.

Having spent the bulk of his career playing for the Northampton Saints, Cohen now plays for Brive in France, despite the fact that he's got a Jewish name - even though he's only culturally (rather than religiously) Jewish. The French - it needs to be said - are well known for their anti-Semitism; just ask Bernard-Henri Lévy.
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"Tears Dry On Their Own" by Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse's song Tears Dry on Their Own - the fourth single from her second album Back to Black - features a sample of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's classic 1967 Motown hit Ain't No Mountain High Enough (which itself was written by Ashford & Simpson); so subtle is that sample used by producer Salaam Remi that even after learning it was in there I still can't hear it, which makes a nice change from the sort of sampling the likes of P. Diddy practice wherein the listener is hit over the head repeatedly with the same line 200 times in three minutes.

The video was directed by photograstar David LaChapelle.
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"You Know I'm No Good" by Amy Winehouse

The second single off Amy Winehouse's second album Back to Black, You Know I'm No Good is actually my favourite of her songs so far for obvious reasons; the video was directed by Phil Griffin, who also directed the video for Rehab. Not only has it featured before on the Pop Culture Institute, I've also posted it as the official anthem of my other blog, Self-Loathario.

Interestingly enough, the song has also been remixed by Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah, and appears on his album More Fish.
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"Rehab" by Amy Winehouse

Although Amy Winehouse shot to instant fame with the song Rehab - off her 2006 album Back to Black - it was actually her second album; like many of my favourite songs of all time, the first time I heard it I felt like I'd been listening to it my whole life.

The change in Winehouse's sound from her first album, 2003's Frank - which, to be fair, was hugely popular in the UK - can be attributed to the input of super producer Mark Ronson; my wish on this, her birthday, is to hear her third album - whenever, wherever...
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Happy Birthday Amy Winehouse

Street cred is all well and good, but I have to shake my head in wonder at people whose first five instincts aren't self-preservation; the troubled singer about whom I've spent at least two of the last three years fretting isn't some trailer park pop tart but rather soul survivor Amy Winehouse, who today has officially made it through another year - although it's still too touch and go for my liking. When your drug use gives you emphysema, that's officially rock bottom; hopefully it means our girl has nowhere left to go but up.

Two years ago she didn't even attend her own birthday party; according to published reports* she stayed home and sulked because the drinking and drugs have left her looking too rough to go out in public. As indeed they have. Once again, the solution seems too obvious to mention.

I say this as a fan, Amy Winehouse: I some day want to be toasting your twentieth album, not wistfully playing your first two - 2003's Frank and 2006's Back to Black - over and over while wondering what might have been. Do I make myself clear?

*And unlike blogs, the newspapers never make mistakes.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Princess Grace

25 years before a certain blonde beauty married an older royal gentleman in London, a similar story was being played out in Monaco...

Glamourous Grace Kelly, the Oscar-winning beauty with a string of acclaimed movie roles under her belt, wowed 'em in the tiny Mediterranean principality; throughout the quarter century of her marriage, too, she continued to impress people the world over with her poise. She was called Her Serene Highness as a matter of deference, but it suited her like no other title could have; Grace Kelly's serenity, it seems, was inborn.

On this day in 1982, as Princess Grace, she met her untimely end...

The previous day she and her youngest child, 17 year-old Princess Stephanie, had been coming back from the Grimaldi family retreat at Roc Agel along the Corniche moyenne when Princess Grace had a stroke behind the wheel; the Land Rover she was driving veered off the road and plunged 100 feet down a ravine.

Both princesses were taken to hospital, where the younger one was treated for a cervical fracture and released - although not in time to attend her mother's funeral; her mother, sadly, was removed from life support the following day and she died shortly thereafter.

Princess Grace was later buried in Monaco's St. Nicholas Cathedral; more than 20 years later she was joined by her widower, Rainier III, who was said to have mourned her daily.

If there's a bright side to the tragedy, it's that the good works she'd begun in her lifetime continue to this day, through the Princess Grace Foundation.
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POPnews: September 14th

[US President William McKinley's assassination at the hands of Leon Czolgosz resulted in the tightening of security around the Chief Executive, which no one had thought of before since 'being proactive' had yet to be invented.]
81 CE - Domitian became Roman Emperor upon the death of his brother Titus.

1180 - The Battle of Ishibashiyama saw Japan's Minamoto no Yoritomo lead the Minamoto against the Taira (with the assistance of the Miura) in one of the bloodier engagements of the Genpei War; for the record, the Taira's Oba Kagechika was victorious.

1607 - The so-called Flight of the Earls from Ireland's Lough Swilly, in County Donegal, refers to the departure of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell from the village of Rathmullan along with some ninety members of many prominent Gaelic families on board a French ship bound for the Continent. Some historians have argued that this particularly extreme action was forced upon the Irish nobility by the fallout from the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, others that it was a strategic mistake that cleared the way for the Plantation of Ulster.

1682 - Bishop Gore School, one of the oldest in Wales, was founded in Swansea; one of its illustrious alumni is Dylan Thomas, whose poetry was first published in the school magazine.

1752 - The British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar, thereby skipping eleven days (the previous day of this year in England was September 2nd).

1812 - Following the Battle of Borodino during the Napoleonic Wars, French grenadiers entered Moscow; the Fire of Moscow began as soon as Russian troops left the city, and would leave three-quarters of the city in ruins.

1829 - The Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Adrianople with Russia, thus ending the Russo-Turkish War.

1862 - The Battle of South Mountain - itself part of the Maryland Campaign - was fought; not only would it give Union generals George B. McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, and William B. Franklin a victory over the Confederacy's Robert E. Lee, the Maryland Campaign is today considered a turning point in Union fortunes during the American Civil War.

1901 - President William McKinley died, eight days after being shot; he was succeeded by his Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt.

1926 - The Liberal Party's William Lyon Mackenzie King defeated Arthur Meighen's Conservatives in a Canadian general election, winning 128 seats to the Conservatives' 91, with 46.1% of the popular vote. The Progressives won 20 seats, with the remaining 6 being divvied up between minor parties.

1944 - Maastricht became the first Dutch city to be liberated by Allied forces.

1948 - The groundbreaking ceremony for United Nations headquarters was held in New York City.

1951 - British Prime Minister Clement Attlee opened the largest oil refinery in Europe, at Fawley on Southampton Water; it remains the largest oil refinery in the UK to this day.

1959 - The Soviet Union's Luna 2 probe crashed onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.

1960 - OPEC was founded.

1975 - Elizabeth Ann Seton - the first American saint - was canonized by Pope Paul VI.

1981 - Marcus Sarjeant - the would-be assassin who'd fired six blanks at the Queen on June 13th - was jailed for five years by Lord Lane; he was released from Grendon psychiatric prison in October 1984 at the age of 20, changed his name, and has endeavoured to make a new life for himself. At least he hasn't tried it again, which seems to make a case for rehabilitation.

1982 - Bachir Gemayel, President-elect of Lebanon, was assassinated; his brother, Amine Gemayel, was later elected in his place, and served as President from 1982 to 1988 instead. Habib Shartouni is considered responsible for the slaying, which was accomplished by means of a bomb planted in Kataeb Party headquarters.

1994 - Major League Baseball canceled its season due to a strike.
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Roald Dahl: Always A Dahl Moment

Having already written a fairly thorough tribute to Roald Dahl on the anniversary of his death, I'm not sure what else I can say about the man on the anniversary of his birth that I haven't already said... Clearly I'm not alone in this, as today is widely celebrated in the English-speaking world as Roald Dahl Day, and indeed the month of September is considered (among other things) Roald Dahl Month.

Then again, there are those people whose accomplishments are so integral to my own life and career that I have no problem running my mouth or even repeating myself when it comes time to eulogize them. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without exposure to his works in those impressionable years before the age of ten I might not be a writer at all... Had he only ever written Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I would still find myself endlessly rhapsodizing about his literary achievements; as it is, he was also responsible for such masterpieces of kid-lit as James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, as well as the decidedly grown-up My Uncle Oswald.

Apart from his literary achievements, Dahl was a pilot with the Royal Air Force during World War II, participating in the airborne battle to liberate Athens from the Axis menace. It was during this engagement that his friend, the distinguished flier Marmaduke 'Pat' Pattle, was fatally shot down. Fortunately Dahl survived, and his wartime adventures later provided him with rich fodder for his earliest works, a series of magazine articles and short stories relating these and other experiences; he'd also been employed during the war writing propaganda for the consumption of Allied forces. In fact his first work for kids, The Gremlins, was published while he was still enlisted in 1943, and concerns those mythical creatures well-known to the men of the RAF who fly and service airplanes.

Turbulently married for thirty years from July 1953 to the American actress Patricia Neal, together they had five children and their fair share of heartache into the bargain. Their first child, Olivia, died of measles encephalitis at the age of seven in 1962; then came Tessa, Theo*, Ophelia, and Lucy. It was while pregnant with Lucy in 1965 that Neal famously suffered three cerebral aneurysms, nearly killing her; thanks in large part to Dahl's persistence, Neal re-learned to walk and talk - and in fact only died in August 2010, at the grand old age of 84!

Born on this day in 1916, Roald Dahl died in November 1990; since June 2005 his home in Great Missenden has been maintained for the Nation as the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

*Whose childhood collision with a New York taxi caused the infant to develop hydrocephalus, and his father to develop the Wade-Dahl-Till valve still used to treat such conditions; ironically, by the time work on the valve was completed, Theo had recovered enough that he no longer required it!
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Now Showing: "La Molina" by Yma Sumac

The singer Yma Sumac sparked an unusual kind of controversy when she burst upon the world's music scene in the early 1950s; owing to the unbelievably exotic pedigree she offered as her own (namely that she was an Inca princess descended from Atahualpa) it was oft-rumoured that she was actually Amy Camus* even though they could never quite agree on the spurious place of her birth - some said Brooklyn, others Detroit, still others offered somewhere in Canada.

For the record, she was born in Peru on this day in 1922, although her name at birth - Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo - never would have fit on the sleeve of a 45 rpm record, necessitating the name change.  Yma Sumac died in November 2008.

*Yma Sumac backwards, guh!
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