The Royal Navy Flower class of corvettes during World War II rejoiced in such names as HMS Azalea, Begonia, Buttercup and Candytuft, among others. The Admiralty did not, as far as I know, keep records on how many of its sailors got into bar fights when others mocked them for the ship name on their cap-bands.
The Chevy Corvette of 2020 and later is the eighth generation of the Corvette line. Identified by C1-C8, the C8 is the first generation with a rear mid-engined layout where the engine is behind the driver. Generations C1 through C7 all had the engine in front of the driver, and some had their engine behind the front axle and could therefore also be described as “mid” engine (where the engine is between the front and rear axles.
The 2020 C8 Corvette is GM’s first rear mid-engined production car since the 1984 Pontiac Fiero.
The C8 Corvette:
The National Corvette Museum is in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Late one night in February 2014, a previously-unknown sinkhole opened up beneath the museum’s Skydome display area. Eight Corvettes fell and were damaged, all but one of which have since been repaired. There are now 72 micropiles beneath the floor of the Skydome to stabilize it.
The most expensive Corvette sold at auction is a 1967 L88 Coupe. There were only 20 of the model L88 ever produced, and it’s unknown how many of them have survived. The auction, held in Scottsdale in 2014, produced a winning bid of $3.85 million for the car. That broke a year-old record for the most expensive Corvette; in 2013, a 1967 L88 Convertible sold for $3.4 million.
Many of the early NASA astronauts drove Corvettes, as Jerry Seinfeld noted before taking President Barack Obama for a spin in 2015.
Princess Leia’s spaceship, in the opening scene of Star Wars, was not formally named nor identified in the film. Later canon material identified it as the Tantive IV (pronounced “TAN-tiv-ee four”) and variously described its make as a “CR90 Corellian corvette,” “Rebel blockade runner,” or an “Alderaan crusier.”
E.J. Korvette was a chain of discount department stores that challenged and eventually overturned the “fair trade” laws that set prices for goods. The name came from the initials of the first name of the founders, Eugene Ferkauf and Joe Zwillingberg, added to a respelling of the class of naval ships, the corvettes.
President Joe Biden was born in Scranton, Pa., where The Office was set, but entered Democratic Party politics and rose to national prominence in Delaware, where his family moved when he was ten.
Singer/songwriter Neil Diamond was born in Brooklyn, and lived there until he was a teenager. He attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, where he sang in the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with his classmate, Barbra Streisand (though Diamond has indicated that, at that time, he and Streisand were not close friends).
When his family moved to Brighton Beach, Diamond transferred to Abraham Lincoln High School, where he was on the fencing team with his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.
While living in the White House, Abraham Lincoln’s typical lunch was an apple and a glass of buttermilk.
Buttermilk is made by adding lactic acid-producing bacteria, usually Streptococcus lactis , to pasteurized or ultrapasteurized milk (whole, reduced-fat, lowfat, nonfat) with nonfat dry milk solids under controlled conditions. The product is heated until the desired acidity is achieved, then cooled to stop fermentation. Buttermilk flakes or liquid butter may be added to give cold milk the appearance of churned buttermilk. Salt, citric acid or sodium citrate may be added to enhance flavor.
Zymology is the study of fermentation. Louis Pasteur was the first zymologist when in 1857 he connected yeast to fermentation. Pasteur originally defined fermentation as respiration without air. But human-caused fermentation dates back to 10,000 BCE with the preservation of milk from camels, cattle, sheep, and goats. Dairy naturally ferments given the ideal climate and its essential microflora. In the searing temperatures of North Africa, milk spontaneously fermented, making the first documented yogurt.
In a future alternate timeline, Dr. Beverly Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation commanded the Starfleet medical starship USS Pasteur:
Actress Gates McFadden, who portrayed Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, is also a dancer and choreographer. She worked with the Jim Henson Company on several films as a choreographer, including Labyrinth, and used her dance training in an episode of ST:TNG, “Data’s Day,” in which Dr. Crusher taught her android crewmate, Data, how to dance.
McFadden frequently used her first name, Cheryl, for her film credits as a choreographer, while using her middle name, Gates, for her acting credits.
Gates McFadden appeared briefly as Cathy, the wife of CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin), in the 1990 naval action-adventure movie The Hunt for Red October. The role was recast in subsequent films.
The Hunt for Red October is one of four Jack Ryan/John Clark books that have been made into a movie. There are a total of 15 books in the popular series by Tom Clancy. The other movies based on a book are Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears.
The three non-Ryanverse books Tom Clancy wrote all had co-writers.
The Clancy Brothers were an Irish folk music group, which originated in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1950s (though they were all native Irishmen). The group’s best-known lineup consisted of three brothers – Paddy, Tom, and Liam Clancy – and fellow Irishman Tommy Makem. They gained popularity during the folk-music boom of the 1960s, and were instrumental in the popularization of traditional Irish music in the U.S, as well as helping to revitalize it in Ireland.
Clancy, Montana is a town of about 1,500 people in the western part of the state, 100 miles northwest of Bozeman, 10 miles south of Helena, and 450 miles west of Wibaux. It was founded in 1873 as a gold camp and named for prospector William Clancey (with the E).
In the 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by the Coen Brothers and set in the early Sixties New York City folk-music scene, there is a performance of the Irish song “The Auld Triangle” by four unnamed folk singers in Aran sweaters apparently intended to be Clancy Brother-like figures. (Can’t find the video online, sorry).
