July 8th
Feast Day of Saint Grimbald. He was a ninth century Benedictine Monk from the abbey of St. Berton in Saont-Omer, France. Around 892 King Alfred invited Grimbald to England. King Edward the Elder made him abbot of  the new Minster at Winchester. He died in 903 and is venerated as a Saint and confessor.


1822 English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in a sudden storm on The Gulf of  Spezia, in the Kingdom of Sardinia, he was 29yo. A radical in both his poetry and political and social views, Shelley did not gain fame during his lifetime,  but recognition for his poetry grew steadily after his untimely death.


Shelley's "Ozymandias":-

 I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
 

1914  American singer and bandleader Billy Eckstine is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Best remembered for his hits " I Apologise" ,"My Foolish Heart" and in a duet with Sarah Vaughan, "Passing Strangers".





1934 English comedian, writer and actor Marty Feldman was born in London. Easily identified by his bulbous and crooked eyes , he moved from comedy writing, ( for such luminaries as Kenneth Horne , David Frost and for "Educating Archie"), to performing in " At Last The 1948 Show" and the eponymous "Marty". In 1974 he starred as Igor, (it's pronounced eye-gor!), in Mel Brooks' " Young Frankenstein", following this with a role in Brooks' "Silent Movie", (1976).





1935 American singer and actor Steve Lawrence is born as Sidney Leibowitz in Brooklyn, New York. Best known for his part in the duo " Steve and Eydie" alongside his wife Eydie Gorme. In 1980 Lawrence was discovered by a new band of followers after playing Maury Sline in then"Blues Brothers".






1947 American actress Kim Darby is born in Los Angeles, best known for her role opposite John Wayne and Glen Campbell in the 1969 western, " True Grit".





1951 Statuesque American actress Angelica Houston is born in Santa Monica, California. Huston won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in "Prizzi's Honor", (1985). She also starred as Mortician in the " Adam's Family" movies and as The Grand High Witch in Raoul Dahl's "The Witches".






1955 English television presenter, writer and speaker on horticulture Montagu Denis Wyatt Don is born in Berlin West Germany. Self taught he is best known for hosting BBC2's " Gardeners' World" from 2002-08, stepping down after suffering a mild stroke, he returned to the programme in 2011.



1958 American actor, singer and phone salesman Kevin Bacon was born today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bacon came to prominence in " Footloose",(1984). Since then he has started in a series of notable films, "Flatliners", (1990), " Tremors",(1990), " A Few Good Men",(1992),"Apollo 13",(1995), "Hollow Man", (2000) and " X-Men First Class",(2010).





He has also released six albums with his brother Michael as "The Bacon Brothers".



1960 American pilot Francis Gary Powers' CIA U2 spy plane is shot down over Soviet Air Space creating the " U2 Incident", (apparently Bono and The Edge refused to play "In the Name Of Love" for President Khrushchev!), when the US were informed of Powers' disappearance, they gave a statement saying a weather plane had gone missing as the pilot had lost control of it, what they did not know was that Powers had failed to detonate the self destruct mechanism and the Russians had taken the aircraft and its technology intact. Powers was convicted of espionage and jailed for ten years. In 1962 he was exchanged for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, known as Rudolf Abel.  Following the exchange Powers was highly criticised for not destroying the plane or even for not taking his CIA Suicide Pill. In a further twist to the story Powers was killed in a helicopter crash whilst working as a traffic reporter covering fires in Santa Barbara County.





1960 Australian professional Rugby League player Mal Meninga is born in Bundaberg, Queensland. Meninga's season with St. Helens in 1984-85 is considered to be the best by any overseas player, Meninga scored 28 trys in 31 appearances.





1961 American Country singer Toby Keith is born as Toby Keith Covel in Clinton, Oklahoma. Overall, Keith has released sixteen studio albums, two Christmas albums, and three compilation albums. He has also charted more than forty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including nineteen Number One hits and sixteen additional Top Ten hits. His longest-lasting Number One hits are "Beer for My Horses" (a 2003 duet with Willie Nelson) and "As Good as I Once Was" (2005), at six weeks each. He has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide.



1968 Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo turns 46 today! Actor Michael Manning Weatherley, Jnr. Was born in New York City. After playing Logan Cale in " Dark Angel" Weatherley played the role of DiNozzo in two episodes of Jag in 2003 before reprising the role in NCIS later the same year. He also starred in the made for TV movie, "The Mystery of Natalie Wood", playing Robert Wagner. Wagner has made a number of appearances in NCIS playing Anthony DiNozzo Snr., Tony's father!







2012 American actor Ernest Borgnine died from kidney failure in Los Angeles aged 95yo. Borgnine won the Best Actor Oscar for " Marty" in 1955. In total he made over 140 movies and almost as many TV roles!



Politics: The furore over the "lost/missing" paedophile files...hard to say after one or two! New reviews into recent reviews and calls for inquiries are adding to the fervour that is sweeping Westminster, who knew what and about who? Was it swept under the carpet as Norman Tebbit said, " Just a little bother and the state must be protected!" What did the Evil Queen Thatcher know? We are well aware of her admiration for the likes of Jimmy Savile despite incessant rumours about his behaviour, who else did she give the keys of the kingdom to? Who else was allowed to do what they want with carte blanche and police protection whilst they did it? It is all well and good for On Yer Bike Tebbit to plead it was a different world then...but as the Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris cases have proven, it is never too late for justice and the 1980s is hardly mediaeval times! So reviews of reviews, speculations after speculations, this will not do Mr Prime Minister, there must still be someone alive who knows the content of the missing files and dossiers, they must now be made to spill the beans over what they know whatever the political colour of the perpetrators or how high up in society they go, their victims deserve justice and we deserve the truth!

We Must Protect The Rich

J'Accuse



Is This The Worst PM Ever?

Look It Wasn't Me!