Saturday 4 March 2023

junior senior (10. 586)

Released on this day in 2002 on their debut studio album D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat, the titular Danish duo’s biggest hit was a world success, climbing to number four on the UK singles charts in 2003. The digital-first collaboration by Jesper “Jr” Mortensen and Jeppe “Sr” Laursen gained special prominence with numerous pop culture references including featuring on the soundtrack to the make-over television show ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ and the video game Dance Dance Revolution as well as incidental music for several other contemporary films including the mixed live-action, animated Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The pixelated, low-resolution accompanying video was made using Deluxe Paint.

Thursday 23 December 2021

strings palewise throughout counterchanged

The venerable College of Arms granted Sir Paul McCartney on his fifty-ninth birthday in June 2001 his heraldric achievement, presenting it for the first time on this day during the following year.The chequered flaunches of the escutcheon—the finish of a Gibson guitar—represent the four Beatles. For the crest, the avian creature perched on the knight’s helmet supporting a fretted instrument is the mythological liver bird that symbolises the city that our Liverpudlians are from. The motto below: ECCE COR MEUM—Behold my heart, is taken from the oratorio dedicated to his first wife, Linda. Incredibly, the college was able to deliver to McCartney an elegant design that references his life and career whilst adhering to the vocabulary and tradition of their trade and charge.

Monday 8 November 2021

l'arbe du tรฉnรฉrรฉ

Sadly destroyed by a careless truck driver hitting the only landmark in a hundred mile radius sometime earlier in the year, the remains of the solitary acacia, considered among the most isolated in the world, the Tree of Tรฉnรฉrรฉ, a guide for decades for caravans embarking on or returning from crossing the Sahara, were collected a put on display in the National Museum of Niger in Niamey on this day in 1973. Incredibly, the tree was included on maps of the desert, even at scales of millions-to-one. Memorialised in popular culture (see also), the tree’s story and metal sculpture that now stands in its place were featured prominently in the 2006 film La Gran Final on the 2002 FIFA World Cup final between Germany and Brazil and the challenges for a group of nomadic Tuareg to find the power and reception (using the monument as an antenna) to watch the match.

Sunday 29 March 2020

djia = ฯƒp/d

Having muddled through the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the collapse of the Russian rouble the following year, the US stock market index the Dow Jones Industrial Average, that gauges the performance of a select thirty large, publicly listed companies, on this day in 1999 a celebration was held on the trading floor when for the first time the Dow closed above ten thousand points.
Bolstered by faith in a strong dollar—the world’s reserve currency—and mergers in the petroleum industry and what was decried presciently by some as an “irrational exuberance” in the seemingly unbridled technology sector, investors at the time would scarcely realise that they were partying at the apex (or nadir, depending on one’s point of view) of the Dot Com Bubble. The speculation fuelled growth peaked in March 2000, once borrowing became more expensive and credit tighter when national banks changed their lending practises once the industry had weathered y2k without significant disruption, before surrendering a gain of nearly four hundred percent by October 2002.