On this date in 1403, Henry IV defeated rebel forces led by Henry 'Hotspur' Percy at the Battle of Shrewsbury. In 1831, Leopold, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was inaugurated as Leopold I, first King of Belgium. In 1873, Jesse James and other members of the James-Younger gang carry out the first successful train robbery of the American West in Adair, Iowa. It was also the first ever successful robbery of a moving train. In 1925, John T. Scopes is found guilty of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, by teaching evolution to his high school science class. Celebrating birthdays today: Janet Reno, Yusuf Islam, Garry Trudeau and Robin Williams. In addition to being Belgium's national holiday, today is Racial Harmony Day in Singapore.
If he really looked like that -- Leo was quite a hottie. Happy Whatever-you-call-it Day, Bru!
ReplyDeleteSwifty:
ReplyDelete“I think MW was referring to the fact that she forgot that Apollo 11 took off on the 16th”
Yeah, I did actually get that one :-)
How’s your grandad’s telescope these days?
I couldn’t follow the final day of the Test as it unfolded, so I’m currently listening to yesterday’s TMS on the BBC i-player.
DON’T tell me what happened...
CiF Watch:
ReplyDeleteNoted BTL contributor imogenblack has made a wonderful suggestion on WDYWTTA?
I’m tempted to compose a complimentary response, maybe along the following lines:
*Imogen, darling, how marvelous to read your thoughts on Edinburgh.
I see your enthusiasm is not shared by everyone, particularly richoo who seems rather churlish in his non-appreciation of the wonders of The Fringe. At least his de-camping to Vietnam for the duration may provide more accommodation for some of the marvelous creative people who flock to the “Athens of the north” every summer.
I think it’s an absolute disgrace that this philistine government doesn’t do more to support the Festival, which is, after all, the premiere opportunity for hoards of spoilt middle class brats, who have never done a proper day’s work in their lives, to descend on a small city, displacing and disrupting the normal inhabitants, simply so they can continue their normal round of self-congratulatory celebration in a different environment. And doing it all on a shoestring, the poor dears...
Dahling – you were wonderful!*
What d'ya reckon?
'No freemasons in the house of Saxe-Coburg'
ReplyDeletechuckled the troll
'Trolls will be ignored in the hunny-pit for cifugees huh?'
Here’s one for all the ciFUGEES
ReplyDelete@andy:
ReplyDeleteBless Imogen Black, she soldiers on, regardless of the brickbats lobbed her way by crueller CiFers than me.
Funny old game, the business we call "show".
Swifty: well, I’ve just suggested that she be given the chance to go ATL and tell us all some of the mahvelous stories about Edinburgh I’m sure she has...
ReplyDeleteJust thought I ought to defend the Edinburgh Festival, what exactly, is wrong with it?
ReplyDelete(Absolutely nothing to do with my Godson being in it this year of course.........)
@andy:
ReplyDeleteGood shout, that. And yet... in a weird way, I wish her less ill than I wish most people - she's an almighty bubblehead, granted, but fundamentally a decent one, I think.
She'll probably be thinking your suggestion is serious.
@Dot:
Ahem. Is it time for me to re-post the Legz Akimbo video as a corrective?
Dotterel: I hope my comment in response to imogen hasn’t come across as an attack on EdinFest (I’m sure your godson will confirm that this is how it’s now known among its devotees).
ReplyDeleteAlthough some rather churlish remarks appear to have crept into my middle paragraph (Oh, for an edit facility!), I’m fully behind imogen’s attempt to gain just a smidgen of coverage for this shining example of the truly great and important side of Britain’s cultural heritage.
It really is beyond me why the media don’t offer it at least a little publicity – they’re obviously all so set in their metropolitan mindset that they’re scared to venture out of their comfortable cocoon to see for themselves what real down-to-earth people are really like...
Swifty: do it immediately!
You know, we don't have to live like refugees.
ReplyDeleteHi Montana:
ReplyDeleteDo I detect some sort of teenage (?) crush thing going on?
Here’s one of mine
IF you lot are still talking to me:
ReplyDeleteCan you give us a clue what those links are, some of us can't youtube at work!
(So I have relatives, one of whom is a Cambridge graduate, who live in a country cottage in a small village in Bucks with two black labs, and space out the back for a pony, so sue me!)
Dot: Little touchy this morning? Not like you.
ReplyDeleteI’m certainly still happy to talk to you. My first tune was “Ready or not” by The Fugees. Montana’s link is to “Refugee” by Tom Petty. And my teenage crush was on Patti Smith, whose song “Rock n Roll Nigger” you can check out after work if you don’t already know it.
I DON’T live in a country cottage in a small village in Bucks with two black labs and space out the back for a pony, but I will (I suppose) fight the oppressors for your relatives’ right to do so, Brother, sorry Sister.
Is that OK?
Andy
ReplyDeleteSorry, that whole thing should've had lots of ;-)'s after it: I'm only joking around!
Andy, you do realise Imogen's going to spend the next three days being ostentatiously traumatised at your 'serious and unprovoked personal attack' now. Can open, worms everywhere.
ReplyDeleteStill, I enjoyed it. She was so fishing for ATL-ery.
Dot: Ooh, you nearly got me going there, you little tinker.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your points about EdinFest:
A) I don’t have current statistics to hand, but I’d wager that a fair proportion of the under-70 residents of Edinburgh have not CHOSEN to live there, in any meaningful way, but were in fact born there.
B) I’m sure that the prospect of a month in Vietnam is very appealing for those like richoo who can finance it on the proceeds of their sub-letting rather than their giros, but it has ruined the enjoyment of this once unspoiled corner of the world for the seasoned traveler (NOT tourist, thank you) such as myself.
I have been enjoying a wonderful bar in Ho Chi Mihn City for a number of years, but when I visited at about this time last year, it was full of what appeared to be extras from the film “Trainspotting”. Simply awful!
This year I’ve decided to look a little further afield, and I’ve consulted the South East Asian Travelers’ Forum for some advice on my destination. I’m really looking forward to it...
@andy:
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your stay, mate. Best skinny-jeaned leg forward and don't be "shitting yourself" at the prospect of snakes and other reptiles currently jetting off on their gap yar.
aaaaaaaahh, I can't be the only one who would pay folding money to read another article by young Max....
ReplyDelete@andy
ReplyDeleteIn response to point A, I was born in Slough, so don't talk to me about how "unfortunate" it is to be born in Edinburgh of all places! ;-)
Fencewalker: “ostentatiously traumatised”?
ReplyDeleteHow terrible would that be? Maybe I should e-mail the Mods and ask them to remove my comment before it does any damage...
Vari: I don’t think I ever read the original, though clearly I’ve heard a great deal about “Gogartygate”
Well allow me Andy;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog
(sorry, complete luddite can't do swanky links)
@andy:
ReplyDeleteAn ostentatious amount of flouncing and trauma could be just what Imogen needs, it seems to have been a while since she's done anything remotely resembling acting, and it'll certainly make a change from the usual daily grind, writing begging emails to Viscount Black of Bayswater (or "Daddy" as she calls him) and speaking her brains on Comment is Free.
Ahhh...Speak Your Brains. Soul Reversal. Happy days.
ReplyDeleteAlthough she does have Edinburgh form, apparently... this from 2006.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2006/aug/16/edinburgh2006.edinburghfestival2
Read and weep.
I'm in your debt Swifty, that is what I call a triumph.
ReplyDeleteUnravel the turban of ignorance, genial lefties...love it...
Andy. I'm sorry to inform you that you have Crossed Imogen For The Last Time. Trot over to WDYWTTA (or Blogogen as it's now known).
ReplyDeleteHave to check the aftermath when I get back from hols. Enjoy.
Imogen's outrage at one theatre group 'stealing' another groups's name just before the Edinburgh festival may well be due to the fact that 3 of the 'Gimps' went to her old alma mater, East 15. It will be luvvie-wars at the Edinfest. There Will Be Blood! The Scottish Police may well have to privately sub-contract some Basij militia from Tehran to quell the indignant rioters.
ReplyDeleteI would love to read an ATL article by Imogen on this important issue (original spelling preserved by the sub-eds, of course).
@Vari:
ReplyDelete"But there was another good reason to end on a debate that could leave the theatre and carry on in the bar, says Black: "We couldn't work out how to end the play."
It is truly a work of genius...
Oh no, it looks like she’s seen it...
ReplyDelete@andy:
ReplyDeleteAnd boy is she mad. Madder than mad, in fact. Mad as hell. And now feeling victimised as well, which can't be good.
Oh I know!
ReplyDeleteIts a pure joy. Beginning to end.
Dearie me Andy, thats not really what one would expect from a genial leftie is it?
Yep Andy, you're definitely not an idea that interests her...........
ReplyDeleteAre you going to report her for abuse?
I think andy should apologise fulsomely, nay, theatrically, for sniping/"snarking".
ReplyDelete@Swifty
ReplyDeleteHe just has, lovely response!
Give the gal a break; she was named "Imogen", for Will's sake! With that name you *have* to become a contributor to the performing arts. I know no of no Imogen who isn't connected to the stage, but two who are (and by "know" I mean "know of their existence", not the biblical meaning).
ReplyDeleteIt was sheer luck that saved her from having a namesake in "Harry Potter", and who of us has been in a comparable danger?
@andy/dot: yep, good man andy, nicely done. Let's see what the genial lefty comes back with after that. More effing and jeffing possibly, seems she's very much not in the mood today.
ReplyDeleteSwifty: Can you provide a proper link to that post of imogen’s you mentioned @ 11.19?
ReplyDeleteI’ve tried typing it in, but it doesn’t seem to work.
And I’m dying to share the full brilliance of her words with the whole CiF Massive, obviously...
@andy:
ReplyDeleteYou Don't Know Shi'ite
It honestly was called that.
Or rather, We Don't Know Shi'ite, which seems appropriate for Imogen, but you get the picture...
ReplyDeleteShe named herself Imogen, as I understand it. I'm pretty sure she said in the thread about Cif IDs that Imogen Black wasn't the name she was born with, although it is her legal name now.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Swifty.
ReplyDeleteStand by, everyone...
Montana: Okay, then it *is* her fault if people consider her a ... well, what's the right expression for someone who names herself after a Shakespeare heroine?
ReplyDeleteIt ain't "genial lefty", that much is clear.
I couldn't help it, I googled the act in her first post to see if she had a vested interest. Have you ever seen a smugger looking bunch?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.latenightgimpfight.com/The-Gimps.html
They look like the young conservatives from my student days.
Hmm. I just posted a response that included words like "wankfest" and it hasn't appeared. Glitch? Or something more serious? Not that I'm bothered, really.
ReplyDeleteSwifty: Don’t worry, your “wankfest” comment is there in all its glory.
ReplyDeleteBut be careful what you say about north London ;-)
@Swifty,
ReplyDeleteIt's up now, you can put your tinfoil hat away.......
@andy/dot:
ReplyDeletePhew, I thought they were coming for me.
'They' might not be, but I reckon Immie is.....
ReplyDeleteI think you are being a touch mean to her. Piss taking and joking around are all well good with someone you already know (as much as you can on the net) but it is coming across a a spiteful ad hom now. Even if she is now coming across as a bit pretentious, you started it :-P
ReplyDeletewell and good - rolls eyes
ReplyDeleteI am an actor and as such can turn myself into anything I need to be to serve the show I am in.
ReplyDeleteTo be said in a very dramatic tone, maybe with some arm/hand gestures....
Vari:
ReplyDeleteTwo of the fives Gimps were in imogen’s year at the famous East 15 Acting School (what d’ya mean “never heard of it”? It’s second only to RADA), but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
Anyway, I’m bored with imogen now, so I’ll leave you hyenas to gnaw at her bones a little.
Bon appetite!
No thanks....My interest is in the gimps. Always.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteI know, I know, I feel dreadfully guilty about it all now. And believe it or don't, but it's the Fringe I'm being nasty about, not Imogen Black. I'm sure she can hold her own, anyway, she seems possessed of a good deal of self-belief.
In a previous life I spent the odd bit of time in Edinburgh around Fringe time, and there are some truly awful crimes against the arts happen up there.
Ooh, someone's having a right strop!
ReplyDeleteSwiftyboy - I'm sure you don't feel that guilty :-), just as I am sure Imogen won't be crying herself to sleep over it. I did understand that it was mostly aimed at the festival but, weeeell, I can easily see why she took offence.
ReplyDeleteSwifty: “in a previous life I spent the odd bit of time around Edinburgh at Fringe time...”
ReplyDeleteNow we know why you’re always bigging up this lot. Which one’s you?
@andy:
ReplyDeleteHeh, more to the point, which one of these devils in skirts is me?
Answer: none. I can't play the pipes. If they'd needed a plaid skirt-wearing bluegrass picker, I might've chucked my hat in the ring. Alas, fame never came calling...
Andy -- re: way up top. No crush on Tom Petty, though I would like to meet him, if only to be able to ask him if anyone has ever told him he looks like Craig Cihak.
ReplyDeleteI always thought he looked a bit like Princess Anne....
ReplyDeleteUnlike, I should add, this US matelot...
ReplyDeleteGenius.
Man, Imogen really is in a bad mood today.
ReplyDeleteI like the way she doggedly fights her corner, though. I think she really does believe in the power of theatre to change lives (as opposed to giving much-needed work to resting journeymen actors).
Thesps like the last word.
ReplyDeleteSneaky Dot.
ReplyDeleteIt's getting a bit anti-theatre-ish here. A pity, just as I am looking for an actor to star in a crime play of mine with several characters who bear resemblence to regular ciffers and refugees.
ReplyDeleteJust imagine: Someone killed a BiBuBiBu feminist, a man is heavily suspected, but AllyF questions the man's guilt vis-a-vis ultima thule.
Don't tell me you wouldn't want to see that on stage.
It couldn't compete with the now surely infamous play, which Bindel wrote one of the most exciting ever CiF articles about.
ReplyDelete@elementary:
ReplyDeleteNice thought, Cluedo for the progressive age. Ms Bi(or Bu, or Bi, or Bu), killed by Colonel Ultima Thule, in the "non gendered safe space", with a copy of "The Female Eunuch".
Or was she?
@Swifty
ReplyDeleteThankyou
and
How dare you? Don't you realise all violence is male?
Swifty: The solution is that obvious, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteAn Inspector AllyF calls - "statistics tell us that 79.87% of bludgeoning-to-death-with-a-weighty-Germaine-Greer-tome crimes can be attributed to a man with mummy issues. However, 99.999% of crimes committed against BiBuBiBuEll using anything by Andrea Dworkin are attributable to splitters from the English Collective of Prostitutes or sex-positive wymyn."
ReplyDeleteAnyone else finding comments wont load on cif?
ReplyDelete@Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's bust again. Is it the Graun's summer party today?
What happened to actors? What happened to the Burtons, the Harrises, the Brandos, the O'Tooles etc. The type who'd do a days work, then go off and promptly fight/shag/drink anything that moves..basicaly..live a bit. Instead we get Ashton bleeding Kutchner and Jude sodding Law.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder really, I mean if you were a young man who liked the idea acting but liked living a bit..would you go anyway near a community theatre group? Course you wouldn't.
Mendoza
My brother and his wife live in the Newtown - they rather enjoy the festival, whereas I generally give it a miss these days - but went to this last year
ReplyDeleteBallerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams
set up by Tilda swinton in Nairn where she lives. Lots of locals, a few luvvies but it was really great.
They are organising this this year
Cinema Pilgrimage across the Highlands
Should be good fun if you like cinema, camping, walking in the mountains and can handle the midges
I initially though cif 2.0 was better. But I realise now I was mistaken. It's only advantage, and it's not a great one, is that when it works, it looks prettier and you can use some html tags and that's it. Even then it is slow and annoying. When it's broke it's crap.
ReplyDeleteNow what can I do to waste time until I finish work....
Has anyone else seen the limited edition ashes celebration david gower print on offer on the guardian website?
ReplyDeleteIt looks bizarrely like those commemorative plates they sell in the Sunday People magazine. Is it a real offer? Am I being very thick?
Alright, which bugger broke CiF? It's eating my browser.
ReplyDelete@Vari:
ReplyDeleteAh, rarely has "The Boy Gower" looked more dashing than in that print... all it lacks is him wafting airily outside off stump and nicking one to second bloody slip again.
Anyway, it's not a patch on The Elvis Presley Dambusters Plate Clock of Tutankhamun.
I think maybe CiF is self-destructing Frank, on the grounds that the new Open Thread has reached a new low....
ReplyDeleteOr the Diana Princess of Hearts Crying Porcelain Doll....
Or The Life of Christ - in Cats... or the cashmere wanking sock... or the Princess Diana Full English Breakfast Plate of Hope... or No. 22 Shit Street... or Little Ted West...
ReplyDeleteI do love Viz.
I can't compete with Viz.
ReplyDeleteThey once did a classic photo story of Diana rescuing a drowning tramp. It was a long time ago and predated the crash by some years. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.
It's not as good as it used to be, mind.
ReplyDeleteOnly joking, I've got loads of back issues stored at my dad's, and the Magna Farta is seldom far out of reach at important times of the day...
@Vari:
ReplyDeleteI think my favourite ever strip was an Eight Ace one, only 10 or so panels long, where all the dialogue was done in rebuses. It was brilliantly vulgar and clever.
Afternoon, Untrusted Ones
ReplyDeleteLooks like I've missed all the fun again. S'not fair.
Cif is working for me!
ReplyDeleteumm
ReplyDeleteI expect that there's some website somewhere that Viz fans have managed to put back issues up onto.
ReplyDeleteThat would be good, Vari. Love Viz. I don't always remember to buy it though.
ReplyDeleteThank you Montana - I think he was probably quite a hottie.
ReplyDeleteAm typing this after having been out to a café with friends. Came in just in time because the storm has started. It was so sultry I could barely keep awake (unlike me that) - now we are getting the works.
You know Belgium always does things a bit differently. Rebellion against Dutch rule broke out in the opera house of all places during a performance of La Muette de Portici - no don't ask but it's the same opera house - La Monnaie in Brussels - that I go to now. We're so elegant over here - nothing so gross as storming the smelly Bastille. I bet the rebels had a glass of champers in their hands as they ran down the steps waving their programmes.
They've gone bonkers in Antwerp. Seems on Saturday night in Central Station a huge pillow-fight was organised with the combattants told to turn up in pyjamas. I believe a thousand people were swinging pillows like their lives depended on it and feathers were flying everywhere. The winner got a weekend in some hotel. I would have loved to see all those people on the bus in their pyjamas.
Off for an early dinner....
Chaplin sure was a good looking chap when he was younger (cf a still picture over on the Guard adevertising a new book about him)just a hint of Oscar Widle I think.
ReplyDeleted
You lot are not to mock Imogen... and I'll give you 1 guess as to why....
ReplyDeletePolly's thread has been interesting today and I thought that Phill Hall has posted well all day - very well in fact.
ReplyDeleteThe Tory trolls always attempt to quickly swing into a diversion about schooling (the old Grammars vs the Comp's) and the politics of envy.
I've always thought it was the schooling at the publics and the ancient Uni's which did more damage and helped to keep the distribution of wealth and ownership of the land and the top jobs concealed from the eyes of the many.
Kiz - the only reason I can think of is, 'because it's not nice'?
ReplyDeleteShe seems like a person whose heart is in the right place, but she does get a bit over-excited. (Like I don't....) I just wish she'd use a spell-checker, or at least learn how to spell 'their'.
You're close, thauma, close... The clue is in the word 'mock'... She can drive me quite potty at times but... that's no excuse. And if we are going to be damned for typos then I'm buggered...
ReplyDeleteI see your point, Kiz. I do think that, maybe ... sometimes ... people who take themselves rather too seriously invite it a bit. I've been mocked a few times and then realised that I'd made an arse of myself, at which point I generally post something like, 'I've made an arse of myself.'
ReplyDeleteHowever I usually try to reserve outright mocking for ATLers.
Ah yeah. Fair dos.
ReplyDelete---Kiz, does it end with 'the afflicted'?
ReplyDeleteI kinda like Imogen most of the time. The Graun was just appallingly rude to her with the way they responded to her complaint about the 'I hate Atheists' article and at least she's not trying to save the world through interpretive dance!
It does indeed my love..
ReplyDeleteGotta disagree about the 'complaint' thing though... She really was trying to brew a storm in a teacup tbh...
Jeez wildhack.. the graun is famed for its hypocisy! (see polly's latest). They're also not terribly well-orgasnised, and, i suspect, quite inured to gadflies of imogen's ilk.. But in the end, there really was no case to answer... molehills and mountains.. The dear ol Graun published a silly article (hardly a first) that had already been published elsewhere... And atheists are not victims!
ReplyDeleteReally brilliant documentary on More 4 tonight - following an Iraqi family living in Baghdad, from just before the point when Saddam was captured to 2008. Made by Kassim Abid. You may be able to find it on 4 OD Channel 4 catch up.
ReplyDelete