Today's the Day

[Pabmusic]

Almost certain to be mentioned Onan appropriate Thread, Pabs.

Don't get me started on the most censored chapter of the Bible - Genesis 38. It's never graced a Sunday school:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGecYM8S1r0

Personally, I don't give a t--s.

[LezLee]

Ferney,

We are rapidly approaching International Masturbation Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Masturbation_Day) on 28 May. It's since grown (pardon ) to International Masturbation Month. Are you intending to mention it? Should we be practising?

Congratulations on needing to practise!

I'd like to be the first to mention Dorothy Parker's budgie Onan, who spilled his seed upon the ground.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 8th

Victory in Europe Day - marking the formal acceptance of Germany's unconditional surrender in the Second World War, the final documents for which were signed by acting Reichsprezident Karl Dömitz on this date in 1945 (a Tuesday). It is also US President Truman's 61st birthday. General celebrations were held, with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret mingling incognito amongst the crowds outside Buckingham Palace cheering their parents and Churchill - and maybe even hearing Humphrey Lyttleton playing his trumpet - although the celebrations were often tempered by the knowledge that the War with Japan was continuing. The partying could also get out of hand, as with the Halifax Riot in Nova Scotia, where tensions between townspeople and the 25,000 servicemen who had stretched the town's limited resources - and who, in turn, had been charged higher prices in local shops and bars; long before the Riot, mutterings around the barracks threatened that the town was "going to get what's coming to it". The celebrations turned into a rampage by drunken soldiers, sailors and citizens who looted and torched shops and property. The violence errupted again later, when the commanding officer overturned a confining order issued by a lower-ranking officer, so that another 9500 servicemen were allowed onshore to continue the fun. $5million of damage was caused, and three deaths (two of them from alcohol poisoning: several gallons of liquor had been "liberated" in the riot).

And talking of abandoned frenzy in public, today is the traditional date of the Helston Flora Day in Cornwall. Somewhat sanitised by Londoner Katie Moss' song The Floral Dance, the town is decorated in flowers, greenery, and bunting, and people wear lily-of-the-valley garlands and buttonholes. Participants form couples and dance through the streets and shops, accompanied by the town's Silver Band, in all, four times during the day. The Gentleman's Magazine described its "festive mirth, not loose jolity" in 1790:

It is called the Furry Day, supposed Flora's Day ... In the morning, very early, some troublesome rogues go round the streets with drums or other noisy instruments, disturbing their sober neighbours, and singing parts of a song, the whole of which nobody now remembers. ... About the middle of the day, they collect to dance hand-in-hand around the streets to the sound of a fiddle playing a particular tune, which they continually do till it is dark, claiming the right of going through any person's house, in at one door and out at the other. This is called a "faddy".

Also on this Date: the Treaty of Brétigny is drafted, ending the first stage of the Hundred Years War, with English King Edward III unconditionally granted considerable lands in France (1360); exactly 69 years layer, Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orleans (1429); Jack Cade leads a rebellion against Henry VI (1450 - the rebellion is halted by the usual promises that Kings give in these circumstances, with the same honouring of these promises: Cade is killed by High Sheriff of Kent two months later); Antoine Lavosier, the most important chemist of his day, is guillotined for his work as a Tax Collector (1794); a group of 120 Greek revolutionaries repel a 10,000 strong Ottoman army at the battle of Gravia Inn, a turning-point in the War for Greek Independence (1821); Hans Christian Andersen's first installment of his Eventyr, fortalte for Børn ["fairy tales for children"] is published in Copenhagen (1835); Thomas Henry Huxley ["Darwin's Bulldog"] reads a paper to the Royal Society in London by David Hughes about the the "microphonal" effect of sound amplification (1878); Coca-Cola goes on sale for the first time, sold by the glass from barrels (1886); WB Yeats' play The Countess Cathleen is premiered at the Antient [sic] Concert Rooms in Dublin; the inaugural production of the Irish Literary Theatre Company (1899); stratovolcano Mount Pelée erupts on Martinique, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing more than 30,000 people (1902); Paramount Pictures Corporation is founded (1912); four more Irish Nationalists [Eamon Kent, Michael Mallin, Con Colbert and Sean Houston] are shot by firing squad for their involvement in the Easter Rising (1916); Edward George Honey, an Australian freelance journalist working in London sends a letter under the pseudonym Warren Foster to the London Evening News, suggesting a five-minute silence as part of the Armistice commemorations (1919); Honegger's Pacific 231 is premiered at the Paris Opera, conducted by Koussevitsky (1924); Gandhi begins his campaign to improve the lot of "Untouchables" with a 21-day fast (1933); Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto is give its first, private, performance in Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, conducted by Nadia Boulanger (1938 - the composer is in hospital with tuberculosis); more than 100 Luftwaffe bombers launch a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby (1941); Ceylonese soldiers attempt a mutiny against their British officers - it fails, and three of the leaders are shot by firing squad (1942); French police and European settler terrorists open fire on Muslims gathering to celebrate the end of the War in the Algierian town of Setif, beginning a period of violent repression and counter-attacks - estimates of the number of Muslim deaths range from 1,020 to 45,000, with 102 deaths amongst the colonialists (1945); Estonian schoolgirls Ageeda Paavel and Aili Jurgenson [aged 15 and 14 respectively] blow up a Soviet war memorial as a symbol of Russian occupation of Estonia (1946 - they are sentenced to improsonment in a Soviet labour camp, and not released until the 1970s); Menotti's The Medium is premiered by students at Columbia University (1946); Polish Cavalry officer, Captain Witold Pilecki, who had gathered evidence of Nazi atrocities in Auschwitz during the War, is arrested by the Soviet State police (1947 - he had been collecting similar evidence of Soviet atrocities; he had escaped from Auschwitz - the Soviets shoot him in the back of the head just over a year later); John Osborne's Look Back in Anger is premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Tony Richardson, with Kenneth Haigh, Alan Bates and Mary Ure in the cast (1956); Dracula, the first Hammer Horror film, is released, directed by Terence Fisher, and starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (1958); the last trolley buses run in Londin (1962); soldiers and members of the Roman Catholic security guards open fire and hurl hand grenades at a group of unarmed Buddhists defying a ban preventing them from flying a Buddhist flag in South Vietnam - nine of the Buddhists are killed (1963 - the killings spark a six-month period of civil disobedience and protests leading to a military coup against the Government); the World Health Organization announces the eradication of Smallpox (1980); a 26-year-old Corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces enters the Quebec National Assembly and indiscriminately opens fire, lilling three employees, and and wounding 13 others before the Sargeant-at-Arms talks him into surrendering (1984 - on the same day, the Queen officially opens the Thames Barrier - operational for the past two years); the IRA launch an ambush on the RUC base in the village of Loughgall; SAS soldiers return fire from within the base and kill all 8 terrorists, and Anthony Hughes, a civilian bypasser who is mistaken for one of the terrorists (1987); Krenek's Opus Sine Nomine, Op 238 is premiered in Vienna, conducted by Ulf Schirmer (1990); and, this time last year, Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the international Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 8th Contd

Birthdays Today include: Thomas Drury (1551 - the government informer who spread rumours about Christopher Marlowe's "Seditious Atheism" just a week before the playwright was killed); Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639); Henry Baker (1698); Edward Gibbon (1737); Jean-Baptiste Krumpholz (1742); Carl Philipp Stamitz (1745 [baptised]); Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829); Harry S Truman (1884); Edmund Wilson (1895); John Snagge (1904); Roberto Rossellini (1906); Mary Lou Williams (1910); George Woodcock (1912); Sid James (1913); Girija Devi (1929); Heather Harper (1930); Phyllida Law (1932); Jack Charlton (1935); Thomas Pynchon (1937); Pat Barker (1943); Keith Jarrett (1945); Felicity Lott (1947); Roddy Doyle (1958); Viviana Durante (1967); Naomi Klein (1970); Marcus Brigstocke (1973); ... and David Attenborough is 93 today.

Final Days for: Pietro Longhi (1785); Mauro Giuliani (1829); John Stuart Mill (1873); Gustave Flaubert (1880); Helena Blavatsky (1891); Paul Gaugin (1903); Oswald Spengelr (1936); Ethel Smyth (1944 - two weeks after her 86th birthday); Harry Gordon Selfridge (1947); Hugo Alfvén (1960); Robert Heilein (1988); Luigi Nono (1990); Jean Langlais and Rudolf Serkin (both 1991); George Peppard (1994); Dirk Bogarde (1999); Maurice Sendak (2012); Bryan Forbes (2013); and, this time last year, Anne V Coates.

And the Radio 3 schedules for the morning of Monday, 8th May, 1989 were:

Morning Concert: Mozart La Clemenza di Tito Ovt; Mendelssohn Venetian Gondola Song Op 19 #6; Elgar In the South; Mendelssohn Venetian Gondola Song, Op 30 #6 Puccini Un bel di vedremo; Albinoni Concerto for violin and strings in g minor, Op 10 #8; Mendelssohn Venetian Gondola Song Op 62 #5; Respighi Metamorphoseon; Mendelssohn Gondola Song WoO 10.
Composers of the Week: "Mozart's Rivals in Vienna" (Salieri La scuola dei gelosi Ovt; Mozart Variations on an aria from Salieri's "La fiera di Venezia"; Dittersdorf String Quartet in Eb; Vanhal Fugue #6 in C; Symphony in g minor).
Sorrow & Anger: Telemann Sonata for oboe, violin, cello and continuo in g minor; Buxtehude O Clemens, O Mitis; O Gottes Stadt, o güldnes Licht; Haydn Sonata in Ab; Pepusch Sonata for flute and harpsichord in d minor; Handel Trio Sonata, Op 5 #4; Telemann Trio Sonata in F; Hindemith Piano Sonata No 1; Vivaldi In furore.
Ulster Orchestra conducted by Robert Houlihan: Saint-Saens Ouverture d'un opera comique inacheve; Berlioz La Mort de Cleopatre (with Bernadette Greevy); Franck Le Chasseur maudit; Bizet Carmen Suite #1

[Edgy 2]

... and Happy Birthday to our own Edgley Rob

Thank you

[Edgy 2]

I second that.

https://soundcloud.com/pabmusic-4456...-arr-p-brookes

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

9th May

Victory Day in the countries of the former Soviet Union (celebrated on this date because the Nazis had at first refused to surrender to the Soviets, delaying the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender until past 10:00pm in Berlin - which was after midnight in Moscow [the time, not the Kenny Ball record]). Similarly, Liberation Day in the Channel Islands, marking the date when HMS Bulldog arrived in Guernsey and HMS Beagle in Jersey to accept the German surrender. This date neatly coincides with that of the 80th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War.
And the European Union Europe Day - not to be confused with the European Council Europe Day on 5th May, this one commemorates the Declaration on this date in 1950 by French foreign minister Robert Schuman of a series of proposals leading to greater political and economic cooperation between the Western European countries - Schuman becomes called the "Father of Europe", and, within a year, the governments of West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg sign the Treaty of Paris.
And the Feast Day of Saint Gerontius, the Fifth Century Italian first bishop Cervia, who died when he was attacked by Goth robbers returning from defending the Pope at the Roman Council in 501. He's the patron saint of electronic Music.

Also on this Date: the Treaty of Windsor is signed, cementing an alliance between Portugal and England that is still in force today (1386 - the world's oldest extant Peace Treaty); Samuel Pepys records his watching a Punch & Judy show near St Paul's Cathedral - the first recorded apperance of the character (1662); Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, violently attempts to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London (1671); five men, arrested during a raid on Mother Clap's Molly House [a brothel for gay men] two months earlier, are hanged at Tyburn under the terms of the 1533 Acte for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggerie (1726); President Andrew Johnson declares the end of the American Civil War (1865); Anton Bruckner conducts the premiere of his "cheeky girl" First Symphony in Linz (1868); the Vienna Stock Exchange crashes, marking the begining a prolonged period of economic depression in Europe and the United States (1873); the Parliament of Australia is founded (1901); on a journey from Paddington to Plymouth, GWR City of Truro becomes [probably] the first locomotive to attain a speed of 100mph (1904); pianist Louis Aubert gives the public premiere of Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales in Paris (1911 - on the same day in Ediburgh, at a show given by illusionist The Great Lafayette, a spotlight falls onto the stage of the Empire Theatre in Edinburgh, and sets light to the highly flammable scenery, causing the deaths of the magician and 11 backstage workers - nobody in the audience is hurt, which is surprising, given that they had watched most of the start of the fire, believing it to be part of the show); the International Astronomical Society votes to accept the "OBAFGKE" stellar classification formulated by Annie Jump Cannon (1922 - the system is still used today, a fitting reward for Cannon and her female colleagues, who had been criticised for being "out of place" in the laboratory early in their careers); John Masefield becomes Poet Laureate (1930); fascist Italy formally declares the annexation of Ethioia - the zenith of Mussolini's popularity in Italy (1936); the Ninth of May Constitution of Czechoslavakia is ratified and enacted, declaring the country a "people's democracy" under the aegis of the Soviet Union (1948); West Germany becomes a member of NATO (1955); Hitchcock's Vertigo is released (1958); US Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow gives a speech, called Television and the Public Interest to the National Association of Broadcasters describing most commercial television programmes as a "vast wasteland" (1961); Friends of the Earth "dump" 1500 "non-returnable" bottles to Scweppe's headquarters in London (1971); the United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens public Impeachment proceedings against President Nixon (1974); the Poland Hotel in the centre of Amsterdam is destroyed in a fire which kills 33 people and seriously injures a further 21 (1977); former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Mori, kidnapped 55 days earlier, is shot 10 times by the Red Brigade, and his body left in the boot of a Renault 4 (1978); Iranian Jew, Habib Elghanian, is shot by firing squad in Iran for "friendship with the enemies of God" (1979); a freighter collides with a support column on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida, causing 35 people to be killed as traffic is plunged 150 feet into Tampa Bay (1980); the Salem Village Witchcraft Victims' Memorial is dedicted in front of a crowd of 3000 people in Danvers, Massachusetts [the modern name of the village] (1992 - the "victims" are those accused of withcraft, not ... ); following a controversial referree decision, police fire tear gas into a football crowd at Accra Stadium in Ghana, creating a stampede in which 129 people are killed (2001); Sadiq Khan becomes the third Mayor of London (2016); James Comey, seventh Director of the FBI, is dismissed from his post by Donald Trump (2017); and, this time last year, the Patel Milmet Dam in Kenya bursts during heavy rainfall, killing 48 people and making over 2000 others homeless.

Birthdays Today include: Mr Punch (1662 - although, like certain royal babies, he isn't given a name until some time after his first appearance); Giovanni Paisiello (1740); John Brown (1800 - the "mouldering in the grave" one); James Collinson (1825); Ferdinand Monoyer (1836); Julius Röntgen (1855); JM Barrie (1860); August de Boeck (1865); Hiward Carter (1874); Carlo Maria Giulini (1914); Bernard Rose (1916); Richard Adams (1920); Joan Sims (1930); Roger Hargreaves (1935); Albert Finney and Glenda Jackson (both 1936); James L Brookes (1940); Colin Pilinger (1943); Candice Bergen (1946); Anne Sofie von Otter (1955); ... and Billy Joel is 70 and Alan Bennett 85 today.

Final Days for: Osric, King of Northumbria (729); Dieterich Buxtehude (1707); Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1745); Friedrich Schiller (1805); Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1850); Albert Abraham Michelson (1931); Ezio Pinza (1957); Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil (1959); Ben Weber (1979); Alice Faye (1998 - four days after her 83rd birthday); Lena Horne (2010); Vidal Sassoon (2012); and, this time last year, Per Kirkeby.


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Monday, 9th May, 1969 were:

Overture: Bach Brandenburg #6; Brahms Serenade #2
Morning Concert (gramophone records)
This Week's Composers: Holst and Tippett
British Concertos: Clive Lythgoe (piano)/BBCSSO/Loughran
Music Making: works for 'cello & Piano (played by Rohan de Saram) and Bryan Vickers; and for Piano 4tet (played by the Pro Arte Pno4tet - Kenneth Sillito, Cecil Aronowitz, Terence Weil, and Lamar Crowson)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

From Television and the Public Interest:

When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

[vinteuil]

And the Feast Day of Saint Gerontius, the Fifth Century Italian first bishop Cervia, who died when he was attacked by Goth robbers returning from defending the Pope at the Roman Council in 501. He's the patron saint of electronic Music.
)

... ah! - "I have a dream", an' all that.

No doubt Mr Gong², as an enthusiast for electronic music, will be getting out a well-worn copy of DoG in his honour..

"he was attacked by Goth robbers returning from defending the Pope" - Goth robbers defending the Pope???



.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"he was attacked by Goth robbers returning from defending the Pope" - Goth robbers defending the Pope???

Yes - Pope Darren I had issued an unpopular decree encouraging the use of black lipstick.

(Should have read: "whilst returning from a Roman Council during which he had defended the Pope, Gerontius was set upon by Goth robbers, who reminded him that Boys Don't Cry".)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And talking of abandoned frenzy in public, today [8th May] is the traditional date of the Helston Flora Day in Cornwall. Somewhat sanitised by Londoner Katie Moss' song The Floral Dance, the town is decorated in flowers, greenery, and bunting, and people wear lily-of-the-valley garlands and buttonholes. Participants form couples and dance through the streets and shops, accompanied by the town's Silver Band, in all, four times during the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN_1pQx76eQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ95Ki2oZKk

(Sorry - I meant to post these yesterday [read "I thought I had"] )

[Serial_Apologist]

Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, violently attempts to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London (1671);

No doubt forthcoming EU parliamentary election voters of certain persuasions will, on reading the above, bear it in mind in accordance with their view that nobody is going to be getting their hands on their crown jewels...

five men, arrested during a raid on Mother Clap's Molly House [a brothel for gay men] two months earlier, are hanged at Tyburn under the terms of the 1533 Acte for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggerie

..as they raise their patriotic glasses to the brave proclamation, "Bottoms up, chaps!"

[cloughie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN_1pQx76eQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ95Ki2oZKk

(Sorry - I meant to post these yesterday [read "I thought I had"] )

A good hour or three in Helston today - arrived to see the end of the children's dance, then joined in with the singers in Cross Street, watched the Mid-day Dance, then a pasty followed by a pint of Spingo. Weather mostly good except one heavy shower!

[teamsaint]

Yes - Pope Darren I had issued an unpopular decree encouraging the use of black lipstick.

(Should have read: "whilst returning from a Roman Council during which he had defended the Pope, Gerontius was set upon by Goth robbers, who reminded him that Boys Don't Cry".)

Was the attack in A Forest, about 10.15 Saturday night, lasting about 17 seconds ? Pope Darren perhaps not a man of Faith ?

[greenilex]

Glad the Helston celebrations were not too damp and went off joyfully. We in Southampton had an excellent May Day festival and march with music, singing and a bit of dancing, but we really need a town choreographer...very envious.