The British Government is technically known as “Her Majesty’s Government” (or “HMG” in diplo-speak and interoffice memoranda). The head of state is, of course, Queen Elizabeth II; the head of government is Boris Johnson, a Conservative.
“Boris the Spider” is a song by The Who, from their 1966 album A Quick One. The song was written by the band’s bassist, John Entwhistle, and has been said to have been his first composition. Entwhistle wrote the song based on a drunken conversation he had with Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, in which the two of them were coming up with silly names for animals.
Entwhistle performed as vocalist on the song, singing the chorus in a deep, growling bass voice, similar to what would, decades later, be known as the “death growl” (or “Cookie Monster voice”) style used by vocalists in death metal bands.
Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) was the first President of Russia, serving from 1991-1999. A member of the Communist Party from 1961-1990, he was the first person to ever resign from the Politburo. During his time as President, he was instrumental in transforming the economy from a state socialist economy into a capitalist market economy.
The Federation Council is the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, its national legislature. It has the same name as the unicameral legislature of the United Federation of Planets in the various versions of Star Trek.
There is a giant hexagon circling the planet Saturn’s north pole.
Image: https://images.app.goo.gl/4pCDm6crPJZcZxXw8
It is a persisting hexagonal cloud pattern. The sides of the hexagon are about 9,000 mi long, which is more than the diameter of Earth. It was discovered during the Voyager mission in 1981. Multiple hypotheses for the hexagonal cloud pattern have been developed, but its cause is still unconfirmed.
A hexagon is a six-sided polygon. A hexakaidecagon is a 16-sided polygon. A hexacontagon is a 60-sided polygon.
A googolgon is a polygon with the number of sides being 10 to the 100th power.
The “Platonic solids” are a set of five regular, convex polyhedrons. To be a Platonic solid, a polyhedron must be constructed from faces that are congruent (identical in shape and size) and regular (all sides and all angles are equal) polygons, and have the same number of faces meeting at each vertex.
The five Platonic solids are:
- Pyramid (four faces, each an equilateral triangle)
- Cube (six faces, each a square)
- Octahedron (eight faces, each an equilateral triangle)
- Dodecahedron (twelve faces, each a pentagon)
- Icosahedron (twenty faces, each an equilateral triangle)
Players of games, particularly tabletop role-playing games, recognize these as the shapes of a 4-sided die, a 6-sided die, an 8-sided die, a 12-sided die, and a 20-sided die, respectively.
Pyramid was the third album by the British band The Alan Parsons Project. It was released in 1978, and focused on the contemporary popularity of Egyptian archeology, mysticism and King Tut. It was nominated for a Grammy but did not win.
The Alan Parsons Project, active between 1975 and 1990, credited almost all of their songs on their albums to “Woolfson/Parsons”, or Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons. Eric Woolfson was a songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, and pianist from Scotland, and he was a co-creator of the band. Alan Parsons was an audio engineer, songwriter, musician, and record producer from London who, earlier and before his own band, he was involved with the production of several significant albums, including the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Let It Be (as Assistant Engineer) and the eponymous debut album by Ambrosia, as well as Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.
“Sirius” is their best-known and most-frequently heard of all Parsons/Woolfson songs.
The Alan Parsons Project’s song “Sirius” appears on their 1982 album Eye in the Sky. It is an instrumental track, and on the album, it segues into the song “Eye in the Sky.”
“Sirius” became well-known in the 1990s, when the Chicago Bulls basketball team (which won 6 NBA championships in eight seasons) used the song for their player introductions (footage from that era here). Since then, the song has been frequently used in sports stadiums and arenas by various teams.
Zasu Pitts appeared in over 200 films, one of the most popular stars of the silent era. She was born in Parsons, Kansas, to a father who lost a leg in the Civil War.
Parsons, Kansas is in the southeast corner of the state. The non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, details the 1959 murders of four members of the Herbert Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Holcomb Is in the western part of the state.
Killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were arrested six weeks after the murders and later executed by the state of Kansas. Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. In Cold Blood was an instant success and is the second-best-selling true crime book in history, behind Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter (1974) about the Charles Manson murders.
When In Cold Blood was published, Truman Capote didn’t give his friend Harper Lee any credit for the work that she put into it. When Capote and Lee researched the Clutter family murder together in 1959, her presence and simple friendliness gained Capote many interviews with people who found him too strange. Throughout the six years that it took him to write the book he relied on her to maintain good relationships with several people involved in the case. In 1965, Lee edited Capote’s final draft for In Cold Blood. She had burned her hand badly several months earlier and had trouble writing, but nonetheless she made abbreviated comments as she reviewed Capote’s draft.
However, Capote merely dedicated the book to her and to his longtime partner, Jack Dunphy. Lee was hurt by this slight, given all the time, effort, and work she put into the book.
In the 1960s, English-speaking hockey player were rarities in Montreal, where the Canadiens signed mostly all Quebec natives. Only Terry Harper and Ralph Backstrom were English speakers with the team through the 60s. It was the last major pro-sports team that truly reflected the Community. But the St. Louis Cardinals in the 50’s were nearly all from around or south of St. Louis.
The Montreal Canadiens’ logo consists of an interlocked C and H. The letters, and the original version of the logo, come from the official name which the team adopted in 1917, “Club de hockey Canadien,” and thus the “H” signifies “hockey.”
However, there is a common misconception that the “H” stands for “habitants,” a term which refers to French settlers in Quebec, and which (along with the shortened “Habs”) is a nickname for the Canadiens team.
Both Canadian NHL teams have faced controversy about their team nickname. In French, “Les Canadiens” is correct, but “The Canadiens” is impossible, requiring a code-switch. Similarly, pedants demand the plural “Toronto Maple Leaves”, but they are shouted down by fans who insist they are Leafs forever, if part of a compound phrase.
The Vancouver Canucks are an NHL hockey team. They also happen to be from Canada.
The tomb of Ancient Egyptian administrator Khety of the 11th Dynasty (c. 2000 BCE) contains wall paintings with scenes of everyday life including dancing and a game (played with long hooked sticks) that looks like hockey.
In ancient Egyptian history, a dynasty is considered a period of time in which all the rulers belong to the same family. Historians have identified 30 dynasties, beginning in 3100 BC and lasting until 332 BC.
In ancient Canadian history , the the black insulating tape used by electricians to seal wiring connections is called “Hockey tape”. It was used for reinforcing and wrapping hockey sticks by boys long before they became electricians and found that it had another use…
fixing ninja