Famous Danish comedians

Sandi Toksvig: I do have to say, the Danes have a terrific dry sense of humour.

Jeremy Hardy: Are there any other Danish humorists Sandra, apart from you?

Sandi: There was Victor Borge...

Jeremy: Oh yeah! He was very funny.

Sandi: ...and then I run out.

- The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, 7 March 2014

See also:
Comedy: Victor Borge improvises Monti's Csárdás (1989)
Comedy: Fred MacAulay on the Troubles, 11 January 2013
Comedy: Jeremy Hardy on education, 22 April 2011

Confirming our suspicions about Queenstowners

A Queenstown man withdrew $1000 from a Queenstown Airport cash machine only to become distracted and forget to take the cash.

Senior Constable Chris Blackford said an unknown person then took the cash. The incident happened at 11am on Wednesday. He said CCTV footage was being reviewed to identify whoever took the cash.

- Otago Daily Times, 7 March 2014

Queenstown 16.08.06, from a skiing trip to Cardrona

See also:

NZ: Old New Plymouth, 9 February 2014

NZ: Best NZ provincial news item ever, 19 November 2013

NZ: Canny vandals take note, 27 August 2013

'Do you know how popular I am?'

There's this obscure, little-known movie you might have heard of called The Breakfast Club, which naturally I had never seen until this evening. (Test me - I've actually seen almost no movies ever). I was hoping to glean a suitable 80s gem from the soundtrack for a Friday night music post, but as it happens aside from the ubiquitous hit Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds, the soundtrack is almost entirely forgettable. Instead, let's relish some relatively amusing acting as the gang hoe into bad-boy Johnny's dope stash, with Anthony Michael Hall hamming it up massively, Molly Ringwald fairly bursting with smug self-satisfaction, and Judd Nelson thankfully shutting the hell up for the most part and just looking rather like a 24-and-a-half year old rather creepily hanging around with a bunch of teenagers. (Nelson was born in 1959 and is currently aged 54!). It's a fine and dandy slice of entertainment, but surely most right-thinking individuals would be of the opinion that Ally Sheedy looked way more interesting throughout the film before she got all dolled-up at the end?



See also:
Movies: The Breakfast Club dance scene (reversed for some reason)
Music: Oingo Boingo - Wild Sex (In The Working Class) (from 16 Candles)
Music: OMD - If You Leave (from Pretty in Pink)

'I cannot say much for this monarch’s sense'

Henry VI
I cannot say much for this monarch’s sense. Nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian. I suppose you know all about the wars between him and the duke of York, who was of the right side; if you do not, you had better read some other history, for I shall not be very diffuse in this, meaning by it only to vent my spleen against, and show my hatred to, all those people whose parties or principles do not suit with mine, and not to give information. This king married Margaret of Anjou, a woman whose distresses and misfortunes were so great as almost to make me, who hates her, pity her. It was in this reign that Joan of Arc lived and made such a row among the English. They should not have burned her—but they did. There were several battles between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, in which the former (as they ought) usually conquered. At length they were entirely overcome; the king was murdered—the queen was sent home—and Edward IV ascended the throne.

- Jane Austen (aged 15), 'The History of England from the Reign of Henry IV to the Death of Charles I', 1791, quoted in Lapham's Quarterly.

The Lapham article states that the young Hampshire-residing Miss Austen was engaged in the act of parody, lampooning the style of the Irish writer and poet Oliver Goldsmith's history of England. Goldsmith, who died in 1774 and is perhaps most famous for penning The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and She Stoops To Conquer (1771), and for being a friend of Dr Johnson, is only mentioned in the Times twice in 1791. Both mentions are for the same advertisement: a new edition of his work -

This Day is published,
With the Portrait of the Author, finely engraved,
Handsomely printed in Two Volumes, Crown 8vo, price 6s.
in boards, 

THE POETICAL AND DRAMATIC WORKS OF
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, M.B.
A New Edition. 

With an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author.
London: Printed for Rivington and Sons, F. Power and Co. and E. Newbery, St Paul's Churchyard; T. Cadell, St and W. Lowndes and J. Murray, in Fleet-street; and Debrett, Piccadilly. 

- The Times, 15 August 1791, p.2

Note: '8vo' = Octavo - producing leaves of a book by printing 16 pages on a single sheet and folding three times. The M.B. refers to Goldsmith's three years studying medicine at Edinburgh, but his formal qualification was a B.A. from Trinity.

See also:

Books: Jane Austen's History of England (virtual book; page view)

History: 'The Club' (Founded by Johnson & Reynolds, et al., 1764)

History: 'The Other Club' (Founded by Churchill, 1911)

The reputation of Queen Aelfthryth

From a biography of her husband, King Edgar the Peaceable (r.959-975), a discussion of how Queen Aelfthryth of England really got on the wrong side of the clergy, and how they attacked her name and reputation in response:

Queens could now exercise patronage, and in Aelfthryth's case this was formally promulgated in the Regularis Concordia. This put the queen at the king's side, with joint rule over monasteries and nunneries. The queen was expected to live up to the ideas of the reformers, and was seen less as a lay woman and closer to the status of a religious woman because of her anointing. But the queen's involvement, after the death of Edgar, in the murder of her stepson Edward at Corfe, while he was on a visit to see her and her young son Aethelred, laid her reputation open to attack as the obvious hate-figure of the evil stepmother. To this was added the allegations of resentful abbesses who objected to their being expected to conform to the standards of the new monasticism and to the subsequent loss of estates, which became the communal property of their house ... 

The Liber Eliensis contains an astonishing attack on the queen's reputation. She is accused of witchcraft and lewd behaviour and of an attempt to seduce Abbot Byrhtnoth. He died around 996-999 and Aelfthryth at about the same time or a little later. The Ely record accuses her of his murder because he would not accede to her demands. She is said to have plunged red-hot knives into his chest through the armpits, yet when his body was recovered by the monks it bore no sign of any injury. The cause of death must surely have been a heart attack! They also bring up allegations that she 'openly trapped by all her trickeries and unlawfully killed' her stepson, the martyr Edward. The whole thing is a farrago of monastic misogyny. 

- Peter Rex, Edgar, King of the English 959-75, Stroud, Gloucs, 2007, p.154.

Edgar is regarded by historians as being the first ruler of a united English kingdom.

See also:
History: The break of gauge, 14 January 2014
History: A sunny day on Dartmoor, 29 April 2011
History: Treasures of Mercia, 17 December 2009

Brooklyn sunrise

I woke up early this morning, and as it was a nice clear day I decided to revisit my regular weekend morning walk from Highbury to the Brooklyn wind turbine to see the sunrise. Got there right on time, and it was a perfect scene. It just goes to show that if you're on one of the early morning flights from Wellington to Australia it pays to sit in a starboard window seat to take in the view. Bring sunglasses though. (Click photos to enlarge).

7.01am

7.03am

7.05am

7.11am

7.13am

p.s. This is my 100th 'Wellington' post!

See also:
Photos: Tinakori sunrise, 6 October 2013
Photos: Thorndon fair, 1 December 2014
Photos: Misty morning at the wind turbine, 16 December 2011