Today I learned...

[wordsfromlee]

3 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Elvis Presley only performed three shows outside the US, all three in Canada in 1957.

If I remember correctly it was mainly because his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was an illegal immigrant to the USA, so couldn't leave without getting rumbled and Elvis wasn't allowed to go anywhere without him. He had such a tight grip on Elvis that he wouldn't even let him go on holiday to Europe. The only time Elvis visited Europe was when he was in the army and the colonel couldn't stop him. Elvis went on holiday to the Bahamas once, but that was about it for his non-army trips outside of the USA.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

That there is not just a Kurt Cobain Funko Pop but apparently 4 different versions.

Great stuff Kurt Cobain estate. I'm sure he would have loved them.

[SuperBacon]

49 minutes ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

I'm sure he would have loved them.

He probably would've to be honest. He wanted them to be the biggest band in the world, have their records sold in Walmart as that's where he used to shop as a kid.

At the same time he was fraught with the idea of selling out and staying punk, and was the biggest bunch of contradictions, so I reckon he'd have got a kick out of himself as a Funko. 

They should've called them Funko Sub Pops though.

[Weezenal]

Kim Novak (from Vertigo) is still alive - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/30/kim-novak-actor-interview-venice-lifetime-achievement-award

[Jazzy G]

16 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

He probably would've to be honest. He wanted them to be the biggest band in the world, have their records sold in Walmart as that's where he used to shop as a kid.

At the same time he was fraught with the idea of selling out and staying punk, and was the biggest bunch of contradictions, so I reckon he'd have got a kick out of himself as a Funko. 

They should've called them Funko Sub Pops though.

I would have bought a Kim Deal one. 

[Carbomb]

One of my favourite songs is On Raglan Road, originally written as a poem by Patrick Kavanagh, and set to music by Luke Kelly. 

I knew Kavanagh had written the poem about a woman he had an unrequited love for, a prominent scientist called Dr. Hilda Moriarty. I also knew she was married to an Irish minister, by whom she had a son, who became an actor.

I only just found out that said actor is Daragh O'Malley, who played Harper in Sharpe, and the maniac in the pub in Withnail & I ("Ay'll morder the pair o' yez!").

 

[Carbomb]

TIL that Edwin Booth, elder brother of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin, later saved Robert Lincoln, Abraham's son, when he was shoved between the edge of a train platform and a train carriage.

From Wiki:

Quote

 

Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son,^[15] Robert Todd Lincoln, from serious injury or even death. The incident occurred on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865. Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine.

The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.^[16]

Booth did not know the identity of the man whose life he had saved until some months later, when he received a letter from a friend, Colonel Adam Badeau, who was an officer on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. Badeau had heard the story from Robert Lincoln, who had since joined the Union Army and was also serving on Grant's staff. In the letter, Badeau gave his compliments to Booth for the heroic deed. The fact that he had saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son was said to have been of some comfort to Edwin Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.

 

 

[SuperBacon]

That this gif is Robert Redford!

[Carbomb]

I feel like, for some reason, the series Sharpe dulls my people-recognition abilities. Only recently did I realise that the very distinctive-looking Daragh O'Malley was both Sgt. Patrick Harper from Sharpe and the perfurmed ponce-hating angry Irish pub lout in Withnail & I.

Today, it happened again. I just realised that Gavan O'Herlihy, who plays the corrupt Mountie Preston King in Twin Peaks, also played the American loyalist Captain Leroy, who lends Sharpe money for a gambling debt. He's also very distinctive-looking, and I really don't know why I didn't recognise him. 

They'll be telling me Kyle McClachlan was in Dune or something next.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

I think it was my wife's second watch through before she recognised Daniel Craig in Sharpe! And usually shes incredible at recognising actors.

[lanky316]

Sharpe was one of those series' where you end up recognising so many people afterwards. Although I was never sold on Alexander Armstrong as the bloke who steals Sharpes wife - naturally, when they revisited the role for that part of the story he was recast.

[davertfnewman]

Gavan O'Herlihy, son of Dan (who was in Robocop), was also the lead villain in Death Wish 3.

For all the stuff he's been in, I always think of Daniel Craig as Geordie, especially the older version, in Our Friends in the North.

[Carbomb]

4 hours ago, lanky316 said:

Sharpe was one of those series' where you end up recognising so many people afterwards. Although I was never sold on Alexander Armstrong as the bloke who steals Sharpes wife - naturally, when they revisited the role for that part of the story he was recast.

Yeh, Alexis Denisof was a much better choice. Had that evil Hugh Grant vibe.

Hugh Fraser was a decent Wellington, but I do feel that David Troughton in the first episode was better.

[SuperBacon]

Recently deceased former Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell, once beat OJ Simpson in a 100m race.

[Carbomb]

TIL that the voice on the phone that tells you "The number you have dialled has not been recognised; please replace the handset and try again" is that of Eleanor Bron, recorded back in 1985.