Newcastle United Football Club is in the English Premier League. They are traditionally nicknamed The Magpies, The Toon or *the Geordies * but are increasingly referred to as *The Barcodes * from their shirts of vertical black and white stripes.
Yeah, I know that must have been the origin of the *Magpies *but nobody calls them that any more 
Double post
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton’s musical The Beautiful Game, with a story centered around the effects of Irish terrorism on a boy’s football (soccer) team, was scheduled to hit Broadway in the 2002-2003 season.
After the events of 9/11, Andrew and Ben decided a musical about terrorism would not be a good idea and cancelled the production. The score is absolutely wonderful and highly recommended.
The 9/11 attacks had several unexpected effects in the music industry. Most notorious is the cover art for The Coup’s “Party Music” (scheduled for release in Nov. 2001) which featured an image freakishly similar to the actual WTC attack. Lesser known is the album Live Scenes from New York by Dream Theater, actually released on 9/11/01, whose original “Flaming Apple” cover featured the NYC skyline in flames. Both albums were obviously recalled and replaced with different cover art.
I’ll often forget which thread I’m actually reading. 
Every year the casts of Broadway shows get together and record Carols for a Cure, a CD full of holiday music, with proceeds going to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The 2001 CD was recorded on September 9 & 10, 2001 at St. John’s Lutheran Church, a few blocks from the World Trade Center. The cover, featuring two lit up towers, was at the publishers.
The cover was changed, but the original cover was transferred to the back of the CD. And BC/EFA made a donation to the World Trade Center’s Victims fund.
The synthpop band I Am The World Trade Center received some controversy due to their song “September”, which appeared as track #11 on their debut album Out of the Loop – despite the fact that the album had actually been released two months earlier, in July 2001. The band itself briefly changed their name to “I Am The World”, but switched back to their original name a few years later.
Although Amazing Grace is now considered a standard on the pipes, it only became associated with the pipes when featured in an album by the Royal Scots Greys pipe band in the early 70’s. Prior to that, the traditional piping tune for funerals was “Flowers of the Forest.” There is a superstition that it’s bad luck to play Flowers in public, except at funerals or memorial services.
On the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings last April 20, the ceremony before the Red Sox game at Fenway Park featured the haunting “Highland Cathedral”, played by the Boston Pipers Society backed up by the University of Massachusetts Minuteman Marching Band, “The Power and Class of New England”, of which I am a proud parent of a proud trombonist alumna. The tune, now an informal national anthem of Scotland, was actually written by two Germans, Ulrich Roever and Michael Korb, for the 1982 Highland Games in Germany.
Backers of Scottish independence in the referendum next month have pleged to keep Elizabeth II as Queen of Scotland, if the measure passes. Prime Minister David Cameron has, as yet, not threatened to “advise” her to decline the honor, as he may be constitutionally entitled to do.
(Cameron is Scottish and wouldn’t be an MP, and therefore PM, with Scotland out of the UK, would he?)
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is the producer of *Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, Miss Saigon *and Cats.
Pamela Travers (born Helen Lyndon Goff), the author of the Mary Poppins stories, was born in Maryborough in QLD. She later lived in Bowral, NSW, where she is considered the town’s second most famous resident. The first is Sir Donald Bradman, the cricketer.
Interesting question. Cameron was born in London, and I understand that he considers himself a British citizen and not a Scottish one. He represents Witney, a constituency in England, which would of course remain part of the UK. I have heard no one suggest that he could not continue to serve as both PM and MP in the event of Scottish independence.
In play:
The Oscar-winning Emma Thompson played Pamela Travers in the recent movie Saving Mr. Banks. Tom Hanks played Walt Disney.
Oscar II was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907. He was also King of Norway until it was granted independence in 1905.
He gave his royal permission for his name and likeness to be used on the ‘King Oscar’ sardine products, a brand of which he was particularly fond.
Harold II was one of the three kings of England in 1066.
“We Three Kings,” written in 1857 by John Henry Hopkins, Jr., the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania was the first Christmas song written by an American to achieve worldwide popularity.
The German Tank, often called King Tiger in English is better translated as “Bengal Tiger”. And it was not an upgraded Tiger tank, but rather a upsized Panther.
Robin Williams made his dramatic Broadway debut in 2011 as the tiger in the wartime play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.
Esther Williams was a competitive swimmer who made a series of films known as “aquamusicals” during the 1940s and 1950s. They featured elaborate diving and synchronised swimming performances.
Esther of the bible was a queen of Persia. She was born with the name Hadassah, which means myrtle. The book of Esther is in the Old Testament and is the 17th book, between the books of Nehemiah and Job. As of now there is no independent corroboration of Esther’s existence.
The Jewish holiday of Purim celebrates the actions of Queen Esther in thwarting the plans of Haman, vizier to King Ahasuerus, to kill the Jews who were exiled in Persia.