A Pitjantjatjara language version of Waltzing Matilda was recorded by Trevor Adamson, an Australian country/gospel singer.
The Empress Matilda, often referred to as Maud, was a daughter of Henry I, and was named his heir. Henry insisted that his court swear loyalty to her, but when he died, the Barons named his nephew Steven of Blois as king. Matilda raised an army and defeated Stephen, but opposition prevented her from being crowned queen. Despite this, her son Henry became king upon Stephen’s death.
Neil Patrick Harris gave the best opening to an awards show ever with his performance of Bigger for the 2013 Tonys. The lyrics included:
The magical Matildas shocked and nearly killed us
so they got a special Tony of their own.
This strikes at the Achilles of the jaded former Billys,
they get Tony’s but they’re fired when they’re grown.
Now here’s the kids from Christmas Story, Annie, and her orphans.
So many child actors high on Red Bull and endorphins.
They barely come up to your knees, but God they’re singing like MVPs
and they’re the reason this whole season seems to look like Chuck E. Cheese
And geez it’s bigger, that’s right it’s bigger.
Is there a Tony day care where all of you go?
You’re getting bigger, the night is bigger.
Do your parents set aside your Broadway dough? (Heck, No)
When I played Doogie, never mind. On with the show. (Go, Neil, Go!)
Earlier this year, Harris and Lewis was named the best island in Europe for tourism:
http://www.tartanweek.com/scotland/lewis-and-harris-named-best-island-by-tripadvisor/
The shortest airline route in the world is between the Scottish islands of Westray and Papa Westray in the Orkneys. Including taxiing time, the trip is scheduled by Loganair to take 2 minutes.
Mystery writer Ed McBain once got an offer in the mail to buy the Scottish plaid of the McBain clan. That’s funny cause McBain is a nom de plum under which Evan Hunter writes mystery novels. Funnier still because Hunter’s original name was Salvatore Albert Lombino, who legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952.
Scottish he ain’t/
The most expensive bottle of scotch whiskey ever sold was a bottle of Macallan, 1946, which sold at an auction in 2010 for $460,000. The proceeds went to charity.
The spiral-shaped Scotch Bonnet, which only vaguely resembles a Tam O’Shanter, is the official seashell of the state of North Carolina. Its predators are primarily the blue crab and the Florida stone crab, and after death its shell is commonly used by the hermit crab.
The word ‘hermit’ is derived originally from the Greek ἔρημος (erēmos), meaning ‘desert’ or ‘uninhabited’, because early Christian hermits (or eremites) withdrew into isolated, desert areas in order to live solitary lives of prayer.
The eremitic lifestyle continues to be recognised under canon law.
The “Dog Painting” from Goodfellas was a painting by co-writer Nicholas Pileggi’s mother, based on a 1978 photograph in National Geographic magazine of ‘river nomad’ and former banker John Weaving and his dogs Brocky and Twiggy on the Shannon.
Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, is a michievous sprite in English folklore. He appears in Shakespeare’s* A Midsummer Night’s Dream*.
The word “puck” literally came from the old English word to poke. The first hockey pucks were made from wood and cut from the branches of trees. The modern day puck was invented in 1860.
The men’s Hockey World Cup is a quadrennial event. The most recent took place in June 2014 in the Netherlands. Australia defeated the Netherlands 6-1 to take the trophy.
The first-ever men’s Hockey World Cup (for field hockey, BTW) was held in 1971. The champion was Pakistan who defeated Spain, 1-0. India finished in 3rd place, and Kenya 4th. It was held every other year, 1973 and 1975, and then became a quadrennial event beginning with the next one held in 1978. It now brackets the quadrennial summer olympics such that they alternate every two years. Australia not only won the 2014 World Cup, but also the previous one in 2010 held in New Delhi, India.
The then Princess Elizabeth acceded to the throne at some time during the night of 5/6 February 1952 while she and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, were staying at the Treetops Hotel in the Aberdare National Park, near Nyeri in Kenya.
The new Queen Elizabeth II was the first monarch since King George I to be outside the UK at the moment of accession.
John George Diefenbaker was the first Prime Minister of Canada with a family name which was neither British nor French. Coincidentally, Diefenbaker’s term overlapped with Eisenhower’s term in the US, also of German heritage.
The academic year for schools in Australia is divided into four terms. The year commences in the last week of January and ends in mid-December.
The Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” is based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti written before 1872 in response to a request from the magazine Scribner’s Monthly for a Christmas poem. It was published posthumously in Rossetti’s Poetic Works in 1904.
Christina’s brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator, founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. The Rosettis were the children of émigré Italian scholar Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti and his wife Frances Polidori.
Dante di Blasio made a commercial for his father Bill, then running for mayor of NYC. His hair was dubbed The Afro that shocked a city