An interesting thing I didn't know until today

[Patrick Thistle]

Kaley Cuoco (Penny in The Big Bang Theory) played the young version of Ellen DeGeneres in a flashback scene on the sitcom Ellen.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Oh, really. What's the story?

He was doing a book, in which he travelled round the country for free in exchange for doing jobs for people, and my daughter got involved in it. He emailed her recently to check some details.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Tom studied philosophy at Oxford before becoming an actor.

KCL, actually.

[Satchmo Distel]

Jim Rosenthal's maternal grandfather was the controversial figure Oscar Levy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Levy

Infact, Levy and Jim's dad were both Nietzche admirers: Levy translated his complete works and Rosenthal senior collected Nietzsche's letters. I imagine their feelings about their Jewishness were complicated: Levy also admired Gobineau, Pitt-Rivers and eugenics (see above and the link below)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/o...hal-38996.html

Tom studied philosophy at Oxford before becoming an actor.

[Nocturnal Submission]

You can add to this another thing, which may or may not be on a par with the other two, interest wise - said actor has been in my house within the last 12 months. Actually I might have mentioned it on here when it happened.

Oh, really. What's the story?

[WOM]

The singer Feist is the sister of a guy I've known off and on for twenty years. I never made the connection even though I've only ever referred to the guy as Feist, because he shared a first name with two other guys [Feist, Jones and Carson] in the same small company. So when I was told this - by Jones - I actually said "So wait, Feist is Feist's sister?"

[3 Colours Red]

Or just switch to another brand - Branston's are better anyway and they don't cost £1.40 a tin.

[Lymeswold Snork]

Henry J. Heinz was the second cousin twice removed of Donald Trump. I may have to give up baked beans.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

the second was that the actor Tom Rosenthal is Jim's lad.

You can add to this another thing, which may or may not be on a par with the other two, interest wise - said actor has been in my house within the last 12 months. Actually I might have mentioned it on here when it happened.

[3 Colours Red]

Yeah, all pretty shameful stuff.

[Southport Zeb]

Wasn't Rosenthal (Jim, that is) often unkindly likened to a vampire in appearance? I think he was even nicknamed The Count in some circles.

I have a vague memory of an Ant and Dec sketch (possibly on SMTV) in which there was a vampiric character called Grim Rosenthal.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

There's a hell of a lot of anti semitisn in the traditional depiction of vampires see also Anne Widdecombe' "something of the night" comments about Michael howard

[3 Colours Red]

They say that 99% of gargoyles looks like Bob Todd, but I've always thought Jim Rosenthal was in with a shout there too.

Wasn't Rosenthal (Jim, that is) often unkindly likened to a vampire in appearance? I think he was even nicknamed The Count in some circles.

[ursus arctos]

Templehof still isn't hip, but it has become a flashpoint in Berlin's development wars, with real estate interests continually seeking to build on the former airfield, which has become a vital greenspace for the whole city

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Also, in the Berlin Airlift, the Allies made over 270,000 flights over the 322 days. That's a flight carrying tons of supplies landing every 90 seconds.

Yes, the Berlin airlift was an amazing thing. In my time living and working in West Berlin in my gap year (in 1982), I lived in Tempelhof. It was then a hugely untrendy and staid part of the city (no idea whether or not it's got any "cooler" since then, but it was never going to be another Kreuzberg for sure), but it did at least mean I went to have a look at the Platz der Luftbruecke (meaning "Airlift Square"), which had a striking and memorable sculpture in honour of the Allied airmen involved, in the abstract form of the start of an arc, with three branches representing the 3 agreed air corridors over East Germany.

[Nurse Duckett]

They say that 99% of gargoyles looks like Bob Todd, but I've always thought Jim Rosenthal was in with a shout there too.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Ooh, I thought Tom Rosenthal was Jack's (and Maureen Lipman's) lad. I sit corrected.

Yes, I can see why that would have been an easy assumption to make, but the son does bear a striking facial resemblance to his father.

[Nurse Duckett]

Ooh, I thought Tom Rosenthal was Jack's (and Maureen Lipman's) lad. I sit corrected.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I watched the latest series of the BBC series Pilgrimage (seven celebrities with a mix of religious backgrounds join each other on a pilgrim's trail for a mix of deep thought, nice scenery and the ups & downs that come with a long shlep through the countryside) last night and had two mild surprises. The first was that North Wales has such a path (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_...ilgrim%27s_Way) and very lovely it was too; the second was that the actor Tom Rosenthal is Jim's lad.

[Amor de Cosmos]

James Joyce studied music in Switzerland with the intention of becoming a singer.

[Cal Alamein]

This thread sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole yesterday where I learned that hard tack (sea biscuits) are still made, and 98% of them are sold in Alaska. I thought they'd have stopped making them, you know, 200 or so years ago.

We lived in the great white north for almost 10 yrs - don't remember hard tack, but this was the cracker staple of choice - tasted like a little more solid saltine:

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m not sure the hardtack we had was from my grandfather. It may have been left over from my great-great grandfather in the Civil War. My grandmother had it. I don’t recall the exact story.

[Amor de Cosmos]

My Grandmother had a bar of Fry's chocolate my Grandfather was given in the military during WW1

[Hot Pepsi]

This thread sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole yesterday where I learned that hard tack (sea biscuits) are still made, and 98% of them are sold in Alaska. I thought they'd have stopped making them, you know, 200 or so years ago.

My mom had some of that left over from her father’s time in the National Guard. She kept it as an historical relic.

[Hot Pepsi]

The funny bit in the Pop Tarts story is that their main competitor, Post, already had the same product - Country Squares - well into development, but then blabbed publicly about it. Kellogg then copied it and got it to market first.

To make it confusing, the guy who invented them for Kellogg’s was named Post.

I’m looking forward to this film. As I understand it, it is not historically accurate. Hugh Grant plays Tony the Tiger.