Tom

Today the Falkland Islands celebrates the King’s Birthday. King Charles III was born on November 14th 1948 in Buckingham Palace. He ascended to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday September 8th 2022.

While King Charles will celebrate his birthday in November, now that he has taken the throne he receives the privilege of celebrating his birthday not once, but twice every year. It was the same with Queen Elizabeth. Queen’s Birthday was celebrated in June each year, even though the Queen’s birthday was on April 21st.

The idea behind the double birthday is that having a summer birthday means a higher chance of good weather during the Trooping the Color parade, which marks the official celebration of the monarch’s birthday in the UK. Trooping the Color is held outside Buckingham Palace on a Saturday in early June and has marked the celebration for over 270 years.

The King is the monarch of 15 countries, the United Kingdom and 14 commonwealth realms.

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SIGNZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Today is the birthday, in 1936, of Freddie Garrity, singer and actor who was the frontman and comical element in the 1960s pop band Freddie and the Dreamers. They scored the 1963 UK No.3 single ‘You Were made For Me’, and the 1965 US No.1 single ‘I’m Telling You Now’. Garrity died on 19th May 2006 aged 69. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALR13MJLAs4

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Cambodian Water Festival. It’s a three-day festival during the full moon. The festival marks a reversal of the flow between the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. Due to the amount of water deposited during the rainy season, the Tonle Sap river becomes so swollen with water that it reverses the direction of its flow and flows upstream to Tonle Sap lake.

The festival marks the switching of the flow back to its normal direction, signifying the end of the rainy season. Essentially, the festival is a time to give thanks to the rivers as they provide the region with fertile farming land and plenty of fish.

The festival is focused on boat races and concerts. The roots of the boat races can be traced back to the times of the Angkorian kings who would train and evaluate the fighting skills of their water based warriors by holding competitions on the river. These trials in turn honored the naval victories of the Khmer empire under the leadership of Jayavarman VII in the twelfth century.

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Sheet metal…

available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Industries-Dehydrated-Essential-Survival/dp/B08B6DFZS9?&linkCode=sl1&tag=funnpict00-20&linkId=9e4629021c5b9f139d3e27cfaac23b3f&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

An embroidery of the Wikipedia page on embroidery…

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BADA BINGLE!

To anybody I offended in 2024, work on yourself so I don’t have to do it again in 2025.

A guy accidentally shot himself in the face after the bullet ricocheted off an armadillo. I guess that was called karmadillo.

“I’m voting for grocery prices” 

I’m voting for you to retake high school economics class.

I got confused by all the yard signs, and I think I may have voted for a realtor.

License plate on an Audi…OR INNY

If you do not have an emotional support Canadian, sign up now before they run out.

What borders on stupidity? Mexico and Canada.

My deep thought. If someone from Holland married a Filipino will their kids be called Holipinos?

I broke up with a girl once because she wouldn’t stop counting. I wonder what she’s up to now.

My transformation into a bitter angry old person is almost complete.

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Today is the birthday, in 1953, of Andrew Ranken, drummer from Irish-British Celtic punk band The Pogues who scored the 1987 UK No.8 single ‘The Irish Rover’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=122isznJdto

Today is National Youth Day, a public holiday in the Republic of Timor-Leste. This holiday honors the courage and determination of hundreds of young people killed in the Santa Cruz Massacre on this day in 1991.

After declaring independence from Portugal in 1975, the new-found sovereignty was short-lived when Indonesia annexed the nation. This led to the start of the war of independence that would last until 1999.

On November 12th 1991, thousands of young people attended the funeral of Sebastião Gomes, a supporter of the independence of East Timor who had been killed by the Indonesian army. After attending Mass at the Church in Motael, Dili they marched to the Santa Cruz cemetery. Their peaceful march gave rise to singing and the waving of banners expressing their deep yearning for justice and freedom.

“Chega!”, the report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor, records what happened next as Indonesian soldiers opened fire on the students as they arrived at the cemetery. “Soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons into the unarmed and peaceful crowd, many of whom fled into the grounds of the cemetery”, said the report. Independent estimates put the number killed as high as 271, with 250 listed as missing.

The Santa Cruz massacre was a turning point in Timor-Leste’s struggle for self-determination as footage of the event was smuggled out of the country by two American journalists and a British television presenter. It was later broadcast on British television and it caused the wave of outrage around the world.

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maybe not that famous…

Today is the birthday, in 1945, of Neil Young, Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist who as a member of Buffalo Springfield had the 1967 US No.17 single ‘For What It’s Worth’. Joined Crosby, Stills Nash & Young who had the 1970 US No.1 and UK No.5 album DejVu. As a solo artist Young scored the 1972 US No.1 and UK No.10 single Heart Of Gold, and his 1972 UK No.7 album Harvest spent 66 weeks on the UK chart. In 2008 a newly discovered trapdoor spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi was named after the singer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZn9QZykx10

Happy Sunday. Here is a cute flashmob video I happened upon with some great opera favorites. It’s very well done and interesting how they managed without an orchestra. Enjoy!

Today is Azerbaijani Victory Day, a public holiday in Azerbaijan. Aliyev had declared November 10th, the day when Armenia accepted defeat and ended six weeks of fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Victory Day.

However, taking into account that Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s death anniversary is commemorated in Turkey on November 10th, Aliyev decided to change the date of Victory Day to November 8th, when Shusha, known as the pearl of Nagorno-Karabakh, was liberated after nearly three decades of Armenian occupation.

Shusha, referred to by Armenians as Shushi, is the second-largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh, South Caucasus. It is de jure part of the Shusha District of Azerbaijan, although it had been controlled by the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh since the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, as part of its Shushi Province.

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Missing some context…

Found on the shelves…

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Should have used his…

rode it out of town?

Today is the birthday, in 1929, of American songwriter and producer Bert Berns. He wrote many classic songs including ‘Twist and Shout’ ‘Hang On Sloopy’, ‘Here Comes the Night’, ‘I Want Candy’, ‘Under the Boardwalk’, ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’, ‘Piece of my Heart’ and ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. Berns had rheumatic fever as a child and it caused damage to his heart. He died of heart failure in 1967 at the age of 38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-VAxGJdJeQ