by Grania
Good morning!
JAC addition: Today’s the 100th birthday of the famous Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen (died 2004), celebrated with a Google Doodle (below). Blankers-Koen won four gold medals in the 1948 summer Olympics (100 m dash, 80 m hurdles, 200 m dash, and 4 X 100 m relay). As Wikipedia notes, she also “won five European titles and 58 Dutch championships, and set or tied 12 world records – the last, pentathlon, in 1951 aged 33.”
It’s a sign of the times that she was called “The Flying Housewife” because she had a daughter (Fanny, Jr.) when she won her Olympic medals. That wouldn’t fly today! (That reminds me of the Daily Mail headline when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964: “Oxford Housewife Wins Nobel.”)
Here’s a short video of Blankers-Koen’s achievements in the 1948 Olympics:
Back to Grania:
It’s the birthday of UK artist Ms. Dynamite (Niomi Arleen McLean-Daley), those of you in the US probably haven’t heard of her before. So, without further ado, here is some British rap.
Keeping on a musical note, today in 1991 Carmine Coppola died. Composer and flautist, he wrote some of the music for The Godfather trilogy directed by his son Francis Ford Coppola.
Today in Twitter: Peak Australia.
(yes, its definitely a photoshop of what appears to be two real photographs).
https://twitter.com/MaverickBistro/status/989113768364818433
Yesterday was World Penguin Day, and there is a great collection of videos and photos under the hashtag on Twitter:
Ernest Shackleton's Antarctica expedition throws a #WorldPenguinDay dance party! pic.twitter.com/4ctVFJ5qZE
— Undine (@HorribleSanity) April 25, 2018
Five young penguins are released into Sydney Harbor after being rescued and rehabilitated by the Taronga Zoo. Good luck, little penguins! https://t.co/dtQb2jtVGZ #WorldPenguinDay pic.twitter.com/aXE7Ogh7PA
— ABC News (@ABC) April 25, 2018
It’s Flipp’n #WorldPenguinDay!
🐧 ❄️ 🐧 ❄️🐧 ❄️ 🐧 ❄️#WednesdayWisdom #HumpDay #Travel https://t.co/Id8vR8NUWI
— Tom Hall ☘ (@TomHall) April 25, 2018
How climate change forced these Penguins to leave home. #WorldPenguinDay pic.twitter.com/yXIABsHU9Z
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 25, 2018
And finally, Tiny Tim penguin
Can @SupervetNF save the life of this orphan baby penguin?#WorldPenguinDay pic.twitter.com/oWL8TYJEax
— Channel 4 (@Channel4) April 25, 2018
Onto a different bird.
albino owl. #owlbino pic.twitter.com/ydx9KuHmOL
— CAWWW (@pissed_eagle) April 20, 2018
Pencil thief extraordinaire, this cat has a mission in life.
https://twitter.com/chiba3111218/status/986542811376893955
Coffee cat.
https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/988883905942990848
Finally, Hili either has delusions of grandeur or is taking a swipe at theory that multiple realities can be true and legitimate.
Hili: We, big cats…
A: I think you’re exaggerating.
Hili: Size is a social construct.
In Polish
Hili: My, wielkie koty…
Ja: Chyba przesadziłaś.
Hili: Wielkość jest konstruktem społecznym.
Hat-tip: Anne
Niomi Arleen McLean-Daley – not just the US where people have not hear of her!
…heard of! duh…
Stay with it. I read an Elmore Leonard crime novel and he used the form throughout.
I am soooo cooool! ta 😉
Shades of Damon Runyon?
By the way, that Ms Dynamite is a good-looking chick. I watched the whole video, just didn’t listen to it. In the words of Lufthansa Terminal, Nice video, shame about the song.
cr
Actually I thought the lyrics are rather good, positive and socially engaged, critical of the superficial sexism and materialism of some of her fellow artists.
The lyrics may well be, but I have this old-fashioned prejudice that songs should be musically pleasing to listen to.
I’m a dinosaur.
cr
Try it, I swear it won’t make your eardrums bleed. In fact I think it barely qualifies as rap.
/Grania
I’d agree with that. In fact the rap quotient (and hence the aggravation quotient for me) is quite low. Parts of it are almost musical. She may have a good voice. Hard to tell with that strung-out style of delivery. Essentially she’s singing a capella with an unrelated beat in the background.
cr
Hili only speaks the truth.
Love those penguins and Vive la France for the best speech I’ve heard in Congress in years. Trump and company will be doing their mob impression taking the 5th.
Oh yes! I was dismayed with how well Macron and the Orange One seemed to be getting on (shades of Tony Bliar and Dubya…) – but it seems Macron hasn’t succumbed to the ‘White House dazzlement’ effect.
cr
That was Macron being what use to be know as a diplomat. Not something we see or have in present day America. However, I was manly referring to his speech and his standing on most of the major issues compared to Trump.
Yes, I got that. I omitted to say how relieved I was to hear bits of his speech.
cr
FINALLY! Clear video of Moth Man!
Dorothy Hodgkin – wasn’t Margaret Thatcher one of her students?
Carmine Coppola actually appears as a character in the extended edition of GOdfather Part II (“the complete novel for television”).
He collaborated on the score in some of his son’s films, and was sole composer for others.
Oddly, much of his score was cut in the revised cut of “THe Outsiders” because when Francis Coppola sat down to re-edit it for DVD 20 years later, he realized he could get a lot of the rock songs he originally wanted for much less money.
More retaliation from WLU against Lindsay Shepherd
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/44307/