The son of John Sholto Douglas was apparently having an affair with author Oscar Wilde. The elder Douglas threatened Wilde with calling on male prostitutes to testify they had slept with Wilde. The ensuing legal battle left Wilde bankrupt.
One of Oscar Wilde’s most famous works was The Picture of Dorian Gray, for which Edgar Allan Poe’s writings were a major inpiration. Wilde was also famous for his apothegms and jokes, for examples:
The song “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour had to re-recorded for the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, because the original master recordings could not be located.
Oscar Wilde’s father, Sir William Wilde, was a doctor who received an honorary degree from Uppsala, Sweden. Located 40 miles north of Stockholm, Uppsala is Sweden’s fourth-largest city behind Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. Founded in 1477, Uppsala University is the oldest centre of higher education in Scandinavia.
Nakhon Sawan is the 13th largest city in Thailand and, depending on which region it’s arbitrarily placed in, either the 2nd-largest city in Thailand’s Northern region, or behind only Bangkok and its large adjacent cities in the Central region. Although the name literally means “Heavenly City”, some tourist guides refer to it as “Nakhon Nowhere.”
2,000: In 2014, Manila displaced Shanghai as the fifth-largest city in the world, behind Tokyo, then Jakarta, then Delhi, and then Seoul-Inchon. Rounding out the top ten are Karachi, New York, Mexico City, and Sao Paolo.
At the height of its glory circa 1700, the Siamese capital Ayutthaya may have been the largest city in the world; it appears on Business Insider’s List of “The 16 Greatest Cities In Human History”. The Thai Tourism Bureau seized upon this ranking as proof of Ayutthaya’s worldwide cultural importance, though the B.I. list was simply an attempt to note which cities had the largest populations of their time.
The Historic City of Ayutthaya is one of five UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Thailand. Of these five, three are cultural sites, and two are natural sites including the beautiful Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex.
The Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary (combined with its neighboring Sanctuary) is the largest wildlife preserve in Southeast Asia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One Doper lives fairly close to it, but has never actually visited. He set out for it once, along the long entry road, in an old Nissan with a faulty radiator and saw continual signs “Huai Kha Khaeng has no services. No gas, No food, No lodging … … Huai Kha Khaeng has no services. No gas, No food, No lodging” and turned around.
For decades, Huai Kha Khaeng has had deadly fights between rangers and criminals who poach, log or disturb the preserve. One of the martyred rangers has become a local folk hero. The famous Thai folk singer Aed Carabao is featured at the annual “Save Huai Kha Khaeng” concert.
Oceania contains the world’s three largest UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Phoenix Islands Protected Area, Papahānaumokuākea, and the Great Barrier Reef.
George Orwell’s “1984” took place in Oceania, one of the three nations that occupied the world. Oceania included all the Americas, as well as Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Africa south of the Equator
Van Halen’s 1984 was the band’s most successful album. It spent 5 weeks at the number 2 slot on the charts, behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Eddie Van Halen appeared on both albums.
Valerie Bertinelli, who met and married Eddie Van Halen during the run of her sitcom One Day at a Time, occasionally wore a small Van Halen Necklace on the show as an in-joke (called an Easter Egg in TV/movie slang) for fans.
Susan Traylor was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award in 2000 for best lead actress for “Valerie Flake” – the only picture in which she had the lead, among her 40 film credits. She doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.
The Small Faces’ pre-Rod-Stewart album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake was originally released in a circular tin can made to look like a chewing tobacco tin. When this was deemed too expensive, a version made of cardboard (but still circular) was released.
“Reason to Believe” was the first single from Rod Stewart’s third solo album, Every Picture Tells a Story. The song did poorly on the charts, reaching only #62 in the UK and #90 in the USA. Its b-side, “Maggie May”, was far more successful, reaching number one on both charts.
Rod Stewart’s children range in age from 3 to 51 years of age; three are by Alana Collins, a socialite who was previously married to actor George Hamilton.
Barberton Greenstone Belt in eastern Africa is the oldest mountain range on Earth (3.5 billion years old). That’s about 5 times as old as the Appalachians, which many Americans wrongly believe are the oldest mountains in the world. Barberton Greenstone is just northwest of Swaziland, in South Africa. The Appalachians are much older than the Rocky Mountiins, but the oldest in North America are believed to be the St. Francois mountains in southeast Missouri.
(Ive driven through Barberton Greenstone, but did not know about them at the time, and did not get out to explore.)
Michael Collins’ nickname was “The Big Fellow,” apparently a family nickname from his older brothers. Even as a young child, he was willing to try big tasks, seemingly beyond his age.
Michael Collins graduated from West Point in 1952, the same year that future astronaut Ed White also did.