Cecile Dionne (1934-2025) has passed away at the age of 91. That leaves Annette as the only one of the famous Dionne Quintuplets still alive.
For those not familiar with their tragic history: Dionne quintuplets - Wikipedia
and a Youtube video: The Heartbreaking Lives Of The Dionne Quintuplets
At first I misread that as “Celine Dion”, and was very confused, because she couldn’t possibly be that old.
All very reminiscent of the regular Shipping Forecasts on BBC radio, which follow the same familiar secular litany (weather observations from the various stations around the coast, followed by equally brief forecasts for each sea area). Many people find the repetitive format very soothing, especially in the midnight forecast. I read somewhere that the dulcet-voiced Charlotte Green, who was a regular reader, once got a letter from a male fan, asking her to slow down towards the end, as he didn’t want it to finish too soon…
It’s also been parodied on occasion - here’s another of the familiar voices giving it a bit of a twist.
I don’t see what to click on for an audio link on that page.
That second link is the same as the first one..
Oops, sorry. Here’s the link I intended
Another parody (brief shipping forecast at 1:00): Weather Forecast Master Singers Slideshow with subs
Back to the Dionne quints - they had five older siblings (another died at less than a year old), and three younger ones. That makes a total of 13 (or 14) kids!
There is still one living Little Rascal. Sidney Kibrick, 96, was in over two dozen of the shorts in the mid to late 1930s. He played Butch’s friend Woim. He quit show biz of his own volition and became a real estate developer in the Los Angeles area. He remained friends with a few of the case over the decades. He earned the equivalent of around $16k/week as an actor,
That’s the first time I’ve seen Brian Perkins !
Somebody asked me about weather forecasts before super-computer weather models, and I realized that what I remembered hearing and seeing was “weather reports”, not forecasts.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac was publishing weather forecasts in the 18th Century. They just weren’t scientific…or probably very accurate.
The Monmonier book I cited above has that history. Basically, a few people realized that if one had enough readings what followed fell into predictable patterns. The big issue in the 19th century was getting enough readings together in one day to put them into a coherent pattern for the next day. That’s why the Times article gave the previous day’s readings and vaguely general forecasts.
Over the decades telegraphy and government coordination in the U.S. and Europe produced more readings from a larger area faster and scientists figured out which readings were more predictive and used better math - and finally computers - to work them out in less time. So forecasts went - over a century - from a day to two days and now to 10 or 14 days.
Forecasts are made out to 14 days, but I’ve never seen any reason to expect that they’re any more accurate than the almanac, past ten at best.
Today I learned there is a typeface whose letters directly reflect the superficially crazy shapes of congressional districts.
(For what it’s worth, I personally don’t get as worked up as some people about the simple fact of oddly-drawn political maps. While deliberate gerrymandering for the purpose of neutralizing political opposition is obviously a bad thing, geography, demographics, and other competing interests can certainly result in elaborately complex boundaries with no malicious outcome or intent. This typeface was created as a protest, but that intent, for me, falls a little flat. Nevertheless, the mere existence of the typeface remains interesting.)
There are only 2 sets of escalators in the entire state of Wyoming.
One for each Senator.
I’m positive that was already posted here, but I do not believe it. I’m not even sure how that is knowable. Does escalators have to be registered or permitted or something?
Who would leave a state packed with escalators to go to a non-escalator state. It doesn’t make sense. Am I wrong?
Try Googling that fact. You might be convinced otherwise.
If you’re not convinced, you can set out to prove it wrong. There are not that many multi-story buildings in the state, so it shouldn’t take you long.
The Shoebill (#2) makes a sound remarkably like a machine gun.