Odd This Day

@oddthisday.bsky.social

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Chris Coates, purveyor of niche drivel: https://oddthisday.substack.com/ https://linktr.ee/oddthisday

But the story that sums up this aspect of the Welsh character, and more, concerns Mrs Professor Morgan and the grocery order. On seeing that she had assembled a pile of goods that amounted to more than she could conveniently carry, the assistant said, “Have you you [your] car with you, Mrs Morgan, or has the professor taken it down to the college today? Oh well, that being so I suggest we deliver your purchases for you, all right?” Mrs Morgan was mightily pleased, though after about four days with nothing in sight her pleasure had abated. When reprehended on the telephone, the manager said, “But Mrs Morgan, this stow [store] has not operated a delivery service since 1939.” “In that case, what did your assistant mean by his suggestion?” “Well... I suppose he was only trying to be helpful.”
A poor weaver finally struck it lucky: he discovered Hannah's hidden hoard of 'gold wedges' under the floor, whilst digging a treadle-hole to fit a new loom in the parlour, at the very spot where Hannah Beswick was seen so many times to disappear. He sold the wedges to a gold dealer called Oliphants in St Ann's Square Manchester, for £3/10s/- each, at a time when a labourer was lucky to earn £1 in a week.
Illustration from ‘Around the M60: Manchester’s Orbital Motorway’, showing a man with a doctor’s bag and umbrella, wearing a top hat and overcoat walking into a house. On the portico over the door, there is a mummy in an open coffin
A check by the Doctor, Charles White, showed that he was still alive. He was taken from his coffin and woke from his coma a few days later, to live on for many more years.
Press cutting: A CURIOUS INTERMENT. On the 22nd of July were committed to the earth in the Harpurhey Cemetery, the remains of Miss Beswick, removed from the Peter-street, Museum." There is a tradition that this lady, who is supposed to have died about 100 years ago, had acquired so strong a fear of being buried alive, that she left certain property to her medical attendant, so long, so the story runs, as she should be kept above ground. The doctor seems to have embalmed the body with tar, and then swathed it with a strong bandage, leaving the face exposed, and to have kept "her" out of the grave as long as he could. For many years past the mummy has been lodged in the rooms of the Manchester Natural History Society, where it has long been an object of much popular interest. It seems that the commissioners who are charged with the re-arrangement of the society's collections, have deemed. this specimen undesirable, and have at last buried it.
Old newspaper headline: Winged cat of Sheffield is big jumper
Letter to the Guardian: There's nothing like teenage diaries for putting momentous historical events in perspective (Banalities and bathos, 31 December). This is my entry for 20 July 1969. "I went to arts centre (by myself!) in yellow cords and blouse. Ian was there but he didn't speak to me. Got rhyme put in my handbag from someone who's apparently got a crush on me. It's Nicholas I think. UGH. Man landed on moon." Dinah Hall Lustleigh, Devon
CRE1976 A CREATION RECORDS STATEMENT SEX PISTOLS - SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE I never saw the Sex Pistols in 1977. They never came to Scotland. I saw everybody else. Everybody. The Clash three times in '77. Buzzcocks, Ramones. Everybody. I got a ticket on Wednesday night in a way out of embarrassment that I never stayed around to watch them at Finsbury Park which I had heard they were like "cabaret". I went half expecting it to be part comedy part irrelevancy. What I saw destroyed my preconceptions. Granted they are no longer a social phenomenon, that they had to wait almost 20 years to play their music and to be judged on that shows you how much of a social phenomenon they actually were. The Sex Pistols at Shepherd's Bush Empire were simply stunning. Literally the best rock 'n' roll band around. If you accept Oasis and to my mind 3 Colours Red are the most exciting rock 'n' roll bands in the country, then accept this that both Noel Gallagher and Chris McCormack told me separately that "they are better than us". I stood with/Noel as he sang every song. Steve Jones is the man The Throb has always wanted to be. It is lazy to say they are cabaret. They blew everybody away. I came along cynical and it was one of the best gigs I've ever seen. John Lydon utterly majestic after being for so long unfocused, Steve Jones the rock 'n' roll guitar player. Glen Matlock the songwriter. They were only ever shit live in '77 because he had left. The band was amazing looking and sounding. Paul Cook shaved head and soul. The Sex Pistols changed my life in 1977 and in 1996. They are the Gods to a man. Rock 'n' roll should always be this great. This was "Never Mind the Bollocks" note for note. It's still beautiful. If you don't get it now, you would have never got it then. Britpop? More like Shitpop. You're welcome to your mediocrity. This band are our alternative royal family. God Save The Sex Pistols. Alan McGee, 20TH JULY 1996.
A drawing of a chicken, side view. At the top of the image it says “Chicken Game”. Underneath that, just above the chicken’s head, it says “Don’t look at this chicken”. Over the chicken appear the words “GAME OVER”
Julian Glover in Last Crusade
A gif of the Waters Of Mars episode of Doctor Who
Paul Shane out of off of Hi-De-Hi bellowing BABY BAY-BEH into a microphone
A two-cell cartoon from c.1822. the first image shows a man stripped to the waist being flogged in the street, his back bloody. Behind him a man wields a cat-o’-nine-tails. Above, the title reads “Poor Byrne as he was on Nov 2nd 1811”, and underneath a caption says “The Victim of Episcopal profligacy and Irish Municipal Justice”. The second image shows “Byrne as he is now Crowned with Innocence”, showing a man in smart clothes, standing on dragons, an angel holding a halo over his head, the figure of justice in the background shining a light labelled TRUTH on him through a magnifying glass. The caption reads: Rescued from Ignominy and raised from Indignity by British Sympathy and Benevolence
The Devil to prove the Church was a farce / Went out to fish for a bugger. / He bated his hook on a soldier's arse - / And pulled up the Bishop of Clogher. Anon.
A pamphlet of the time, the front page of which reads: The BISHOP!! PARTICULARS OF THE CHARGE AGAINST THE HON. PERCY JOCELYN, Bishop of Clogher, FOR AN Abominable Offence WITH JOHN MOVELLEY, SOLDIER OF THE FIRST REGIMENT OF FOOT GUARDS; INCLUDING THE EVIDENCE BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE AT MARLBOROUGH-STREET, AND A VARIETY OF INFORMATION AND REMARKS Which has never before appeared in Print. BY A GENTLEMAN CONNECTED WITH THE PUBLIC PRESS. LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN FAIRBURN, BROADWAY, LUDGATE-HILL." [PRICE SIXPENCE. ]
The unfortunate Bishop and the Soldier at last became so indecent, so horribly profligate in their proceedings, by taking every liberty with each other’s person, by using every unnatural provocative, and by having recourse to licentiousness only human by the descriptions in the most abandoned writers of the French school, that the party assembled could no longer curb their indignation, but broke into the room at the very moment that the soldier was about to consummate the crime upon the prostituted and exposed person of the Bishop.
Claude de Beaune de Semblançay, dame de Chateaubrun, by François Clouet – a woman in 16th century dress with an amused look on her face, raises one eyebrow ‘at camera’
Isaac Cruikshank print, 1822, now in the British Museum: The ARSE BISHOP JOSLIN & a SOLDIER-or-Do as I say, not as I do. A top-hatted constable stands between two delinquents, grasping each by the collar. He turns his head in profile to the left to address a bishop, wearing shovel-hat and apron, who implores: Do let me go I'll give you £500. The constable, whose crowned staff projects from under his coat, answers, scowling fiercely: Oh no I'll make a full exposure so come to the black hole and you shall cast lots again, Old File. The other, a burly private in uniform, bawls: Oh! I am ruin'd and undone; at his feet is a cheque for £40.0.0. The dress of both men is in disorder. From the bishop's pocket hangs a long scroll: The 39 Articles with an Additional One; at his feet are letters inscribed meet you at; My dear . . . all is; Sweet; yours . . . lovely. The scene is the back room of a public-house. A horrified woman looks in through a partly curtained window (left). On the right spectators gaze from an open door. A woman shouts: Hang the dogs I say let them not disgrace our gallant Soldiers shoot the beasts. A man: They must not live to disgrace the Church and the Army. From behind come the words: Send them to Hell or Turkey; Send them to China; The Pillory the Pillory; Hang them in Chains. There is a table (right) with tankard inscribed White Lion, pipe, lighted candle, writing materials, and coins.
Manchester Evening News headline: Manchester police baffled after reports of a dead animal in the canal turns out to be a duvet filled with coconuts, by Todd Fitzgerald, 19 July 2015
David Attenborough standing in (at a guess) somewhere in Africa where he’s been filming big cats, looking at camera and supposedly saying “Seriously though, what’s the fucking point of flies?”
Les Dawson points and smiles at camera
A pink vehicle in the shape of a foot, labelled “Lincoln’s Toe Truck”
Les Dawson smiles at camera as a gag lands
Les Dawson smiles and points at camera
A small egg-shaped vehicle decorated to look like a creme egg
A very square blue lorry with rounded corners in the shape of a SPAM can, with a spam can on its roof and a sign on the sign promising free samples
A coach? lorry? ambulance? in the shape of a peanut with a peanut mascot standing at the rear of the roof
Title page, Oscar Mayer & Co. From Corner Store to National Processor Oscar G Mayer Jr, member of the Newcomen Society, Chairman of the Board Oscar Mayer & Co Inc, Madison, Wisconsin
Two Weinermobiles parked on (I think) a barge, so that they appear in front of the Statue of Liberty in the background
1960s or 70s colour photo of a weinermobile – a yellow/beige car/truck chassis with a huge sausage-shaped body mounted on it. The car says ‘yellow band weiners’ on the side, and the disconcertingly red sausage has a yellow band on it that reads Oscar Mayer
The puppet dog from Vic Reeves' Big Night Out saying "What have I said? I've dug my own grave"
Still another plan would achieve buoyancy by injecting thousands of Ping-Pong balls into the hull. Another would employ gigantic winches to crank the ship up. Yet another would encase the liner in ice. Then, like an ordinary cube in a drink, the ice would rise to the surface, bringing the Titanic with it.
Woolley originally planned to find the Titanic by means of a "bathyscaphe," and then raise her by means of nylon balloons attached to her hull. These would be pumped full of air, letting the ship "gently rise to the surface." How the balloons would be inflated 13,000 feet down wasn't clear.
Spiess and Ryan were not only dogged by bad weather and equipment problems, but also by Grimm's public relations pronouncements on shore. At one point, he actually led the press to believe that the Titanic had been found. When those on board the Fay heard the news report, there was laughter and incredulity. Naturally, when they sailed into Boston on August 21, Grimm wanted the scientists to back up his claim. After the Fay docked, there was something of a confrontation in the ship's lab. Grimm wanted the scientists to say that they'd found the ship- that one of those 14 sonar targets was the Titanic. As careful professionals Spiess and Ryan were having none of this. There was a long, tense argument, at the end of which the wording of a noncommittal press communiqué was agreed to. All Grimm had to show for his money were some questionable maybes.
Jack Grimm had arranged for a monkey, named Titan, to accompany the 1980 expedition. The monkey had been taught to point at a spot on the map indicating where the Titanic was. Grimm believed this was a remarkable accomplishment that would add immeasurably to the movie he was making about the search. The scientists, especially the illustrious Dr. Spiess, thought the idea bizarre, insane, and circuslike, which could only detract from and hold up to ridicule what they viewed as a very serious endeavor. They laid down the law: it's either us or the monkey. "Fire the scientists" was Grimm's reply.
“It had always bothered me that communism was a godless society,” Grimm told the [Washington] Post in 1981. “I thought if you could prove that there was a flood, an Ark and eight survivors then you would have to accept the Bible.”
A large, middle-aged man with thinning white hair and dark, bristling eyebrows, wearing a suit and tie, holds up a shiny metal model of the Titanic mounted on a wooden base
The terrible Charlie Kirk statue doing terrible stand-up
Screenshot of Guardian headline: World news – Helping hand in cancer fight
Newsweek front cover, 17 July 1995: three moodily list figures look at camera (a woman and two men). The headline reads: Bisexuality. Not Gay. Not Straight. A New Sexual Identity Emerges.
A reply to my tweet suggesting that scammers day is every day. The reply has been RTed
Les Dawson points and smiles at camera
Sepia portrait of Boston Corbett – a man in late 19th century clothing (including double-breasted waistcoat with collar) and sitting in an ornate wooden chair. He has a ridiculous stringy moustache/goatee beard arrangement, and what looks like quite long hair slicked back and parted in the centre
Science.org headline: Bungee-jumping mice may reveal why astronauts skip on the Moon - Low gravity puts a bounce in the step of humans and rodents alike. Plus b/w image of Apollo 17 Commander Eugene Cernan skipping across the Moon’s surface.
Thomas Wykes cartoon: a man looks through shop window at a black cowboy hat. A though bubble floats above his head as he imagines himself wearing it, happily, with his hands on his hips, and a woman saying to him “Oh Todd… I regret the divorce”
Close-up of a monkey in a tree. He is black with distinctive orange lips. He looks upset.
Unlucky Alf from The Fast Show saying “bugger”
On WhatsApp, drug dealers mark the Queen's passing in their own special way. 'Are you feeling upset or feeling down with the sad news about the Queen's death? Then don't hesitate to contact me, I'm about till 1am!' writes one dealer, while another makes a generous offer: ‘In Tribute To The Queen Who Was 96 Years Old At Her Time Of Passing, I Will Reduce The Price Of IG Bolivian Flake to £96 Tomorrow And Saturday Guys!'
Top of front page of 17th century pamphlet: A Relation of a terrible Monſter taken by a Fiſherman neere Wollage, July the 15.1642.and is now to be ſeen in Kings ſtreet, Weſtminſter. The ſhape whereof was like a Toad, and may be called a Toad-fiſh; But that which makes it a Monſter,is,that it hath hands with fingers like a man and is cheſted like a man. Being neere five foot long, and three foot over,the thickneſſe of an ordinary man.
A 17th century sea monster illustration – a huge creature with tusks that looks like a fish but walks on four legs
A tweet from Yesterday’s Print: The Minneapolis Journal, Minnesota, July 15, 1906. Then an image of a headline and subhead which read “Noisy, hungry frogs sadden farmer’s life – they scare his cattle and they also eat his flannel shirt”
Rectangular blue plaque with rounded corners. Inscription reads: Mrs. Blunden, wife of William Blunden, maltster, was buried alive in this cemetery in July 1674. Parliament fined the town for its negligence – Basingstoke Heritage Society
Derek Griffiths in 70s clothes and tache, grimacing
The same gingery tortoiseshell cat with white bits, looking slightly further off to the side
A gingery tortoiseshell cat with white bits, sitting upright on a beige carpet, looking off to one side, unimpressed
Excerpt from Ship of Fools: I'd take all those for fools almost / Who skill and joy in dancing boast, / Cavorting, prancing as they must, / With weary feet in dirt and dust, / But later then I called to mind / That dance and sin are one in kind, / That very easily 'tis scented: / The dance by Satan was invented ... / It stirs up pride, immodesty, / And prompts men ever lewd to be.
German engraving of hysterical dancing in a churchyard during the late middle ages – people look on as a group dances in a circle outside a church, while a man on the church doorstep looks on, distressed or disapproving. The man on the left, nearest the church, appears to be carrying a severed arm
Counting fifteen hundred years and eighteen more... a remarkable disease spread at this time among the people. Then many in their madness began to dance, which they did day and night and without interruption until they fell down unconscious. Many died in consequence.
Many hundreds in Strassburg began / To dance and hop, women and men, / In the public market, in alleys and streets, / Day and night; and many of them ate nothing / Until at last the sickness left them. / This affliction was called St Vitus’ dance