#February 2020 Calendar Uk

[detroit-grand-prix]

Wildest Dreams Chapter 19 - exile

Chapter summary: Bee is about to race her first race in Formula 1. She's made a leap that very few women have made, and now she has to deal with some newfound fame… and a global pandemic.

Content warning: N/A

Chapter word count: 4,271

Author’s notes: I'd considered whether or not to make COVID-19 a thing in this AU, but considering how big of an effect it had on the calendar in 2020, I didn't think there was really a way to avoid it and maintain the degree of accuracy I was striving for when I was writing this.

Not a lot of notes this time though, at least, because I didn't rely on very many outside sources other than season 3 of Drive to Survive when they depict all of this happening in the beginning.

Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain Late February, 2020

Every year, Bee wondered how her winter breaks kept getting busier and busier, but moving a few times seemed like nothing compared to the break between the 2019 and 2020 season. She felt like she was all over the world, hardly even in the UK, let alone home.

Shortly after her being announced to be Williams’ driver, she had flown out to New York City for a few days. She had interviews with a few magazines - mostly fashion magazines (which was strange, as she’d never been much into fashion). She didn’t mind, though, especially with the magazines - women and girls were their primary audience, and she wanted to be as visible to that audience as possible. She also had an interview on an American late-night talk show, a German-language magazine, and an appearance on a German sports show.

There was also the FIA Prize Giving Gala, which meant a trip to Switzerland. Before the gala, Bee decided to get a haircut. She’d mostly had the same hairstyle since she was a teenager - she always left her brown locks to grow past her shoulders - long enough to put into French braids. It kept relatively neat under her helmet and spared her some awful, sweaty helmet hair because she didn’t like wearing hats. But now, it felt like it was time for something different. She didn’t do anything drastic, just cut it short enough to graze her shoulders (and made sure she could style it to disguise her large neck a bit). 

Her rising fame was something she sort of saw coming, and now had to deal with. She still didn’t get recognized in public every time she went out, but it happened more now than it used to, and she tried to be good natured and friendly to people. It was less of a shock now than it was on her last trip to Michigan. She’d been lucky that nobody had yet been invasive or too weird about her, at least in person. It happened on social media every once in a while, but at least it was easy to block people there. 

She also hired a performance coach. She’d previously just relied on company-contracted athletic trainers and nutritionists, but with her step up into F1, every other driver she’d talked to said that she would need someone to work one-on-one with her.

Other drivers’ performance coaches seemed to do much more than just plan workouts and meals - they were almost personal assistants, in a way. She hired a German woman named Emilia, who was attached to the company that a lot of the other drivers used. The two of them met up in Germany before the F2 season ended for a sort of mutual job interview. Emilia said she had previously worked as a performance coach and trainer for a women’s soccer team. She cut a striking figure - she was tall, muscular, and had a face with very distinct, sharp features. Despite looking a bit intimidating, Bee thought Emilia was very kind, and very funny. Their “interview” in a Stuttgart coffee shop began to feel less like a job interview and more like a conversation with a friend in short order. 

Emilia was a few years older than Bee was, and was from Dresden, in eastern Germany. 

When the two of them met, Bee made it a point to discuss her thoughts on diet and nutrition, since that would be Emilia’s job. In her early teenage years, Bee had started to develop some poor habits with food that may have led to disordered eating, if Josephine hadn’t been eagle-eyed about that sort of thing and set Bee up with a counselor to help her course-correct. Thankfully, Emilia seemed to have views in line with her own, which was reassuring.

It was an easy hire, which was a relief, because Bee didn't want to have to interview a bunch of candidates - it was a lot of time that she'd rather spend doing other things.

Bee liked Emilia a lot. Emilia came to the last few F2 races with Bee, just to get an idea of what she’d be doing over the course of a race weekend. Emilia hadn’t ever been at a race track. She said that there was a lot to take in. Bee had grown up around race tracks, but could see how it would be overwhelming to someone who had never been to one. 

George send her a WhatsApp message the Sunday before winter testing started and asked if she was going to be flying out of Oxfordshire with Toto like he was. She had flown back to Stuttgart pretty much immediately after the launch event for the FW43 because she hadn’t gotten to see her parents for almost all of winter break, other than a few days at Christmas.

“No, I’m in Germany, quick trip home for a few days. I’ll be in Barcelona tomorrow, I’m flying out in the afternoon.” 

She wished she was flying with Toto, though. She liked to listen to NPR, an American public radio channel - the American equivalent of the BBC. She usually listened to the livestream of a station based in Michigan (she found listening to the nasal Midwestern accents, with their shifted vowels, comforting), and the news reports about some virus in China were starting to sound a little concerning. Airports were already a test of your immune system in ideal circumstances, never mind with a possible epidemic brewing. Josephine chided her to start taking some Vitamin C, just in case. 

“I don’t think that’s gonna do anything, mom.” Bee said, as she was packing her bags.

“Couldn’t hurt though, could it?”

She arrived in Barcelona on the Monday before testing was scheduled to start and got settled in.

George would be getting in later, and they had plans to get dinner and catch up. Most of the drivers and staff all stayed in the same hotel, so she saw a few other drivers and staff here and there. A few stopped to congratulate her, including Sebastian.

“I always knew you could do it,” he said, pulling her into the bone-crushing hugs he always gave her. “I never had any doubt you’d get here.”

She laughed. “Well, that makes one of us, I guess!” 

They made plans to get lunch sometime during the days between testing, as Bee was staying in Barcelona over the long weekend.

Once George had arrived in the late afternoon and had a chance to get settled, they went out for dinner with Alex Albon from Red Bull and Lando Norris from McLaren. The four of them had more or less been competing with each other for a long time in junior formulas, and the other three had stepped up into Formula 1 the previous year. Bee was always closest to George, but George was good friends with the other two of them, all of them having come up through the British karting ladder. 

They went to a Mediterranean place near the hotel and the three of them shared a paella (Lando wasn’t big on seafood - “Just don’t eat the shrimp!” Bee told him. “But it was touching the rest of it!”) and then, after probably a few too many glasses of Spanish wine, they all decided to go to a karaoke bar that Alex had heard about near the hotel. Bee was almost a little impressed, she didn’t really see Alex as being into that sort of thing - she always thought he was a little quiet - introverted, maybe, but she had an amazing time with the three of them that night. Bee hadn’t ever done karaoke before. They walked back to the hotel, the four of them arm-in-arm like they were in the Wizard of Oz, perhaps being a little obnoxious, but they didn’t really care. She popped a nurofen and downed a glass of water before bed, just in case. 

Tuesday was a filming day, when they did all of the shoots for the official television and previews, intros, and some filming for Netflix. George kept making stupid faces and kept getting told off by the director, which made Bee laugh at him because she was standing closest to him, which meant that she also get told off by the director. She couldn’t really take the director seriously anyway, when he said something about picturing your goals for the upcoming season so it would make you look determined, or something. She just felt kind of silly. They also filmed some of the segments for the Formula 1 Youtube channel, like Grill The Grid. 

Williams was also able to avoid its folly from pre-season testing last year, and, indeed were actually the first ones to get the car on the track on Wednesday morning. George was testing in the morning block, and Bee in the afternoon block.

In the morning, while George was doing his test run, Bee had to go to the interview trailer that Netflix had set up for her first interview for Drive to Survive. She hadn’t been sure what to expect - she hadn’t watched the show yet herself, but it was very much a standard interview, all of it very pro forma and pretty much the same questions she was always asked - they asked her to give a summary of how she got to Formula 1, from karting in Germany as an American, why her family lived in Europe, what it was like being the only girl in the sport as a child, to what it felt like being the first and only woman on the grid in some decades. When they were wrapping up and the production assistant was disconnecting the microphone pack, Bee asked the producer, “Are you guys going to ask me about anything else?” 

The producer stared at her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but these are the kind of questions everyone always asks me in every interview I do.” Bee said.

The producer cocked her head. “I know, I’m sorry, but this is… I guess, your kind of… hook for now. But we’ll see what sort of storylines develop through the season.”

Bee shrugged. Same as it ever was. 

She left the trailer and headed back into the direction of the Williams motorhome, and spotted the back of Toto’s head as he was walking past. He was headed in the same direction she would be. She had to jog a little bit to catch up with his long strides. 

“Good morning, Toto!”

“Good morning, bienchen. First interview with Netflix?”

“Yeah, just wrapped up.”

“And how was it?”

Bee rolled her eyes. “I feel like I should have a t-shirt made, or something. It’s to the point where every interviewer I’ve ever had has asked me the same questions, you’d think they could just all copy from each other. I’ll just pre-film something for next time and send it out to anyone that requests an interview.”

Toto laughed. “Well, we’ll see what happens with this season, hopefully you’ll give them something more interesting to talk about.” 

They chatted a bit more until they reached the Williams motorhome - Bee hadn’t even realized that Toto had walked right past the Mercedes motorhome at the other end of the paddock to talk to her more. 

“You’re testing this afternoon, right?” 

“Yeah, I am, and I should actually go get ready now. Thanks for walking with me. I’ll see you later!”

She headed into the garage and into her drivers’ room (still strange to see her name and face on the door), where Emilia was finishing setting up a massage table and various other things.

“Good morning, Phoebe!” she said. She was always so awake. Bee didn’t feel nearly as alert as Emilia looked, even after having already been up for a while and doing her interview.

“Morning, Emilia.” 

Emilia handed Bee her drink bottle. 

“Here. It’s going to get warmer out today when you’re doing your run, and I know you went out last night and probably didn’t drink that much water when you got back in.” Bee rolled her eyes a bit, but obliged, chewing a little on the end of the long silicone straw as she sipped.

The isotonic drink wasn’t pleasant - it tasted kind of like drinking warm tea, but it was effective. “You’d think if they could develop this stuff, they could at least make it taste better.” Bee said, shuddering a bit from the taste.

“We’ll get started with some stretching and a warm-up in a second.” Bee wondered if Emilia was being a little excessive for just a test today, but she had hired her for a reason, so it was probably just best to do what Emilia told her to do.

They went through a short warm-up sequence for her neck and core, some stretches, and then Emilia started some assisted stretching with Bee’s neck, shoulders, and hands. 

“You’re anxious again, aren’t you?” Emilia said, pushing on Bee’s trapezius muscles, attempting to release them. “Yeah - ow, shit - you can tell?”

“Of course. I’ve already noticed that you always carry your tension in your shoulders, probably more than anyone I’ve ever worked with. You can even tell from the way you stand, sometimes.” Emilia said. “Arms behind you.” 

Bee rolled her shoulders back to roll her arms behind her back, and Emilia gradually guided them back, stretching out Bee’s pectoral muscles, easing the tension on her back. She felt a lot better afterward.

Bee changed into her race gear and headed out to the garage. She talked things over with her new race engineer, Gaetan, about their run plan for the session. Gaetan was French - from Toulouse, he told her, and had done internships at Porsche and Renault before becoming acquainted with Toto, who had a hand in getting him hired at Williams. He spoke English with an accent Bee found oddly charming. During their testing sessions, his voice would sometimes drop to almost a whisper over the radio, and it had somewhat of a calming effect on Bee. He was fairly tall and thin, and had hair that was shaved at the sides, but long on the top, and was always combed neatly off to the side. Bee thought his facial hair - a mustache and patch of hair on his chin - made him look very stereotypically French. 

The engineers this year had also finally managed to give her a steering wheel with a more compact button configuration. It was much more comfortable than last year’s, where her small hands had to do a lot of awkward stretching - it kept causing problems with her previously-broken wrist as the tendons were prone to inflammation.  

Once she got the car on the track, it started to actually feel pretty good. Still nowhere as smooth as the Mercedes she’d tested last year, but the FW43 was a huge improvement over the FW41 and FW42. The fact that they managed to get it out on track during the first day of testing was a huge victory in and of itself. She proceeded with the run plan that she and Gaetan discussed, until she suddenly felt the car die under her without any sort of warning. She was about 150 laps in, and her times were decent. It was unfortunate.

“Losing power.” Bee said, pulling the stricken FW43 into the grass.

“Okay, Phoebe. Looks like it’s an oil pressure issue.” Gaetan said. “Car off, please, car off, please.”

She sighed, turned off the car, released the wheel, and climbed out. The session was red-flagged and she got a ride back to the garage from a marshal. It was irritating that it happened to her, but it was more of an issue with the Mercedes power unit in general, as it had affected the Mercedes works team as well - Lewis’ car also experienced the same issue on the session.

“Well, better now than during a race,” Claire told her when she got back into the garage and was pulling her earbuds out. “But you and George looked great out there, you’re 11 and 12 right now.”

Better than Bee expected.

Testing wrapped up and was fairly successful, all things considered - there were a few reliability issues with the power unit. It was surprising, because normally Mercedes power units were fairly bombproof in comparison to the others, but they were things that could be resolved.  Williams wouldn’t be fighting for wins any time soon, but their pace looked promising enough for them to finally break into the midfield this year, and more points would mean more money at the end of the season, which would just help them improve for the season after. Williams’ decline hadn’t happened overnight, and it wouldn’t be fixed overnight, either, but it felt like they were on the right path now.

Albert Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia March 12th, 2020

Just as she expected, the first race weekend arrived sooner than anticipated. It came in an atmosphere of uncertainty, though. COVID-19 seemed to be spreading globally, and Italy was one of the countries impacted the worst outside of China, which would likely affect Ferrari and AlphaTauri, both being based in Italy. For a while, it was not even certain if their staff would be able to leave the quarantine zone established in the northern part of the country. They managed to make it over, though, so as far as anybody knew, the race was on.

Bee had the foresight to at least buy some surgical masks for her flight. Wearing one wasn’t comfortable, given that it was almost a full 24 hour flight from London to Melbourne with the layover, but she felt like it was a necessary precaution. 

A lot of the Williams team were on the same flight, and she and George sat next to each other. Bee read and watched a few movies on her laptop, slept, and she and George chatted a bit. Emilia was sitting next to George's trainer, Aleix Casanovas. Bee imagined they spent the entire flight talking shop and comparing notes.

“So this was your first race last year… were you nervous?”

“Course I was,” George said. “Absolutely shitless. Could barely get any food down on Sunday morning. But once the helmet was on and we’d lined up for starting, it just felt like any other race.”

“What about qualifying?”

“Oh. Well, just take it one run at a time. You don’t have to give it everything on your first run out there, if you don’t have a good pace at first, you get another chance as long as you don’t bin it.” 

“Ah, see, that’s the key.” 

“Hey! If I recall, you don’t crash very much at all… well, except for that one race where you took yourself out and brought Tatiana with you, or when Evgeni hit you, but that wasn’t your fault.” 

Bee laughed. He was right. She had been pretty lucky with avoiding collisions through the years.

“Don’t forget Nick deciding to play bumper cars during the cooldown lap at Silverstone.”

By the time they landed and arrived in the paddock, there was a lot of uncertainty whether or not things would actually happen. Information seemed to change every five minutes. They proceeded as normal with the track walk and getting prepped for practices, and one of the support races happened. Emma and Bee discussed the first press conference, but there was a rumor going around that some Haas and McLaren staff were already in isolation for suspected cases. 

Things changed to the fact that they were going to have the race, but no spectators would be allowed in. Reporters kept asking the drivers if they thought the race should continue, and it seemed to be a 50/50 split. Bee was in the same press conference as Lewis and Sebastian, and she happened to agree with his assessment that there was no reason for the race to be going on. Claire also thought there was no reason to be having this race while every other sport, globally, had been postponed. 

The World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 to be officially a global pandemic while Bee was on her flight to Australia. And then on Friday morning, just a few hours before free practice, the race was canceled. One of the McLaren staff tested positive, which meant that it would likely spread to the entire paddock if the race proceeded. Nobody really knew what was going on, other than the fact that the race was canceled, and Bahrain was as well. 

It almost felt like the flight to Australia was longer than she had actually been in the country, but she flew back to the UK on Sunday. There were no decisions made with regard to the rest of the season when they’d landed. The country - well, the entire world, actually, was in disarray. Bee had to consider herself as having been exposed to the virus, which means she had to self-isolate for a while. 

The first three days of isolation were mostly fine, she was so jetlagged from going back and forth to and from Australia in such a short period of time that she desperately needed to correct her sleep schedule. She ordered groceries to be delivered to her flat, and decided to start playing Final Fantasy Online again like she did as a teenager, but she just hadn’t had much time over the last few years. She watched a few movies. She finally actually watched the two seasons of the Drive to Survive that were available, and kept track of how many times she could see herself in background shots. Some of the episodes were hard to watch - the one about the German Grand Prix, the one with Anthoine’s accident and passing, and the Williams episode from last year’s testing. 

One day, curiosity got the better of her. She remembered being on Tumblr as a teenager, and reading fanfictions from the TV shows she liked. She was curious if anyone had written fanfiction about Formula 1. 

They sure did. 

It proved to be an amusing way to distract herself - She started reading a few stories just as a curiosity - but some of them were immaculately crafted and incredibly moving, a handful even made her cry. 

George added her to the 2020 grid WhatsApp group, which she was a little bit miffed about not even being aware of, previously, but she hadn’t even started a race yet, so she supposed it was easy to forget about her. It seemed that most everyone else was in the midst of a lengthy period of self-isolation as well, and she was a little jealous of the drivers that lived in Monaco - Monaco in March was certainly better than the UK in March, especially if you had to stay in the house all the time.

Bee was in regular contact with both Emilia and Natalie as well. Emilia gave her some workouts to do while she was at home, as long as she wasn’t sick. 

By the end of the ten days of mandated self-isolation, she was very much feeling a bit of cabin fever, and the news coming from the BBC was a bit concerning as far as how the UK government was planning to deal with the pandemic. She talked to her mom and decided that she would head to Stuttgart until Formula One Management figured out how the rest of the season would proceed - they were apparently considering a limited schedule, mostly in Europe, but nothing had been confirmed yet. 

She was worried she wouldn’t be allowed to cross the German border - border restrictions were constantly in flux around all of Europe, but she was still considered a permanent resident of Germany and had a permanent resident card, so she had very little issue. 

“Do you know how long you’ll be home?” John asked when he picked her up from the airport.

“No. I’m just gonna be here until Claire says I need to get back, I guess. The factory is closed right now, so I figured there was no reason for me to stay in Oxford for now.”

“Are you worried about getting out of practice or something?”

“Maybe, but… not much to be done about it at the moment.”

Her parents had both pivoted to working-from-home. They were both engineers, so there wasn’t a lot of hands-on work that needed to be completed by either of them for work. She had to admit, at first, it was nice to spend so much time with her parents again. They did start getting on each other’s nerves after a bit, but Bee decided to order a bicycle and spent time riding around Stuttgart, re-familiarizing herself with neighborhoods and streets she hadn’t seen in a while, and she worked her way up to doing 30-40 mile loops some days. Emilia was overjoyed, of course. 

She also decided to order a sim racing setup. It wasn’t really the same as driving for real, but it felt shockingly similar with certain force-feedback settings other than the lack of g-forces on the body. Some of the drivers had started streaming racing on Twitch, and she joined them occasionally, and it was a lot of fun, aside from the occasional troll that made misogynistic comments about her, but to their credit, the other guys usually were quick to block them and move on. She considered streaming herself, but she didn’t think she was nearly interesting enough, so she just stuck to being a guest on Charles, George, Alex, and Lando’s streams instead. 

Finally, in early June, Claire called Bee to let her know that a calendar had been set for the remainder of the year. It would be mostly Europe and the Middle East, and shortened to 17 rounds, with some doubleheaders taking place at the same circuit. She had a lot to do and not much time to prepare, and she couldn’t wait to get back to racing. 

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 2.7

Holidays

Ballet Day

Beatles Hit America Day

Charles Dickens Day

Colin Kaepernick Appreciation Day

Constitution Day (Mexico)

Daniel Boone Escape Day

”e” Day

Hug an Addict or Alcoholic Day

International Clash Day

International Start a Blog Day

Laura Ingalls Wilder Day

Love Your Robot Day

National Black Grandmothers Day

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

National Foreskin Appreciation Day

National Homegating Day

National Jack Day

National Periodic Table Day

National Run-For-Your-Life Day

National Signing Day

Northern Territories Day (Japan)

No Talk Day

Rose Day

Send a Card to a Friend Day

Star Wars Podcast Day

Violet Day

Wave All Your Fingers At Your Neighbors Day

The Weekend Day (Canada)

Who Shall I Be Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Fettuccine Alfredo Day

1st Tuesday in February

African-American Coaches Day [1st Tuesday]

Safer Internet Day [1st Tuesday]

Independence Days

Grenada (from UK, 1974)

Feast Days

Alfred E. Neuman Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint) 

Augulus, Bishop of London (Christian; Saint)

Blessed Eugénie Smet (Christian; Saint)

Chrysolius (Christian; Saint)

Colette of Corbie (Christian; Saint)

Day of Selene (Goddess of the Moon; Ancient Greece)

Egidio Maria of Saint Joseph (Christian; Saint)

Everyman’s Day

Feast of Mulk (Baha’i)

Ictinus (Positivist; Saint)

Just Another Day Day (a.k.a. No-Day Day; Pastafarian)

Luigi the Ice Cream Wolf (Muppetism)

Pius IX, Pope (Christian; Blessed)

Richard the Pilgrim (a.k.a. Richard, King of the West Saxons)

Romualdo, founder of the Order of Camaldoli (Christian; Saint)

Theodorus (a.k.a. Stratilates; Christian; Saint)

Tresain of Ireland (Christian; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [9 of 32]

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 6 of 60)

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [9 of 57]

Premieres

Birds of Prey (Film; 2020)

Blazing Saddles (Film; 1974)

Breathless (Film; 1961)

The Color Purple (Film; 1986)

Elvis and Me (TV Mini-Series; 1981)

Hannah and Her Sisters (Film; 1986)

Lady Jane (Film; 1986)

The Lego Movie (Animated Film; 2014)

Letterkenny (TV Series; 2016)

Locke & Key (TV Series; 2020)

Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (Book; 1988)

Mickey’s Birthday Party (Disney Cartoon; 1940)

Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman (Stories; 2017)

Orpheus in the Underworld, by Jacques Offenbach (4-Act Opera; 1874)

Pinball Wizard, recorded by The Who (Song; 1969)

Pinocchio (Animated Disney Film; 1940)

Please Please Me, by The Beatles (Song; 1963)

Taxi Driver (Film; 1976)

Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1603)

Today’s Name Days

Ava, Richard (Austria)

Držislav, Julijana, Maksim, Rikard (Croatia)

Veronika (Czech Republic)

Richard (Denmark)

Richard, Riho, Riko, Riku (Estonia)

Rikhard, Riku (Finland)

Eugénie (France)

Ava, Richard, Ronan (Germany)

Parthenios, Parthenis (Greece)

Rómeó, Tódor (Hungary)

Eugenia, Teodoro (Italy)

Daunis, Nelda, Richards, Rihards (Latvia)

Jomantė, Ričardas, Romualdas, Vildaugas (Lithuania)

Riborg, Rigmor, Rikard (Norway)

Romuald, Ryszard, Sulisław (Poland)

Partenie (Romania)

Vanda (Slovakia)

Ricardo (Spain)

Dick, Rikard (Sweden)

Teofil, Teofila (Ukraine)

Beau, Beaumont, Beverly, Bo, Boe, Jace, Jacey, Sinclair (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 38 of 2023; 327 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 6 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Luis (Rowan) [Day 17 of 28]

Chinese: Month 1 (Jia-Yin), Day 17 (Bing-Shen)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 16 Shevat 5783

Islamic: 16 Rajab II 1444

J Cal: 8 Xin; Oneday [8 of 30]

Julian: 25 January 2023

Moon: 96%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 10 Homer (2nd Month) [Ictinus)

Runic Half Month: Elhaz (Elk) [Day 14 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 49 of 90)

Zodiac: Aquarius (Day 18 of 30)

[brookston]

Holidays 2.21

Holidays

Alka Seltzer Day

Armed Forces Day (South Africa)

Ben Appreciation Day

Break Up Day (India)

Card Reading Day

Communist Manifesto Day

Father W.H. Lini Day (Vanuatu)

Find Out My Breast Density Day

Freedom of Worship Day (France)

International Mother Language Day (UN)

International Tourist Guide Day

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day

John Lewis Day

King Harald V Day (Norway)

Kurt Cobain Day (Aberdeen, Washington)

Labor Day (Oregon; Original Date, 1st State Observance)

Language Movement Day (a.k.a. Shahid Dibosh; Bangladesh)

Locomotive Day

Matthiola Day (French Republic)

Mental Health Nurses Day (UK)

Musikahan Festival begins (Philippines) [thru 2.27]

Nascar Day

National Pillow on Head Day

National Waste Awareness Day (Indonesia)

New Yorker Magazine Day

Nina Simone Day (Tyron, North Carolina)

Red Books Day

Remember the Funniest Thing Your Child Ever Did Day

Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day (Zimbabwe)

Sandino Day (Nicaragua)

Sewing Machine Day

Single-Tasking Day

Telephone Book Day

Washington Monument Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Drink It Now Day

National Biscuits & Gravy Day

National Grain-Free Day

National Malört Day

National Sticky Bun Day

World Kombucha Day

3rd Wednesday in February

National RA Appreciation Day [3rd Wednesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning February 21

Potahto Week (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) [thru 3.1]

Independence & Related Days

Aulpannian Shatidom (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

British Protectorate in Egypt ended (1922)

South Formosa (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

Festivals Beginning February 21, 2024

National Watermelon Association Convention (Scottsdale, Arizona) [thru 2.25]

Noise Pop Festival (San Francisco, California) [thru 2.27]

NordicFuzzCon (Malmö, Sweden) [thru 2.25]

30A Wine Festival (Ales Beach, Florida) [thru 2.25]

Feast Days

Anais Nin (Writerism)

Blue Dragon Festival (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Boris Karloff Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Daniel, priest, and Verde, virgin (Christian; Martyrs)

David Foster Wallace (Writerism)

Day Sacred to the Goddess Muta (a.k.a. Laranda; Ancient Rome)

Double Second Day (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Feast of Peace and Love (Ancient Rome)

Felix of Hadrumetum (Christian; Saint)

Feralia (Old Roman Spirits Festival)

Feralia — Day of Purification (Pagan)

George of Amastris (Christian; Saint)

German and Randaut (Christian; Martyrs)

Germanus of Granfel (Christian; Martyr)

Horace (Positivist; Saint)

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (Artology)

Mathilda (Muppetism)

Pepin of Landen (Christian; Saint)

Peter Damian (Christian; Saint)

Pyotr Konchalovsky (Artology)

Randoald of Grandval (Christian; Saint)

Seize a Sausage Day (Pastafarian)

Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis (Christian; Saint)

Talk to a Goldfish Day (Pastafarian)

W.H. Auden (Writerism)

Yakuyoke Festival (a.k.a. Toshi-no-Matsuri; honoring Kami for bountiful rice harvest; Shinto)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fortunate Day (Pagan) [8 of 53]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 9 of 60)

Premieres

Alice at the Rodeo (Disney Cartoon; 1927)

The Alpine Yodeler, featuring Farmer Al Falfa (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)

Anna Christie (Film; 1930

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Anime TV Series; 2005)

Babylon Revisited, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Short Story; 1931)

Bottle Rocket (Film; 1996)

Bullwinkle Makes a Hit or I Get a Bang Out of You (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 25; 1960)

The Call of the Wild (Film; 2020)

Captains of the Clouds (Film; 1942)

The Conqueror (Film; 1956)

Emma (Film; 2020)

Fishing Made Easy (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1941)

The Gorilla Hunt (Color Rhapsody Cartoon; 1939)

The Hungry Wolf (MGM Cartoon; 1942)

Jerry and Jumbo (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1953)

King of America, by Elvis Costello (Album; 1986)

Kiss Me Car (WB LT Cartoon; 1953)

Le Bœuf sur le Toit (The Bull on the Roof), by Darius Milhaud & Jean Cocteau (Ballet; 1920)

Lipstick on Your Collar (Film; 1993)

The Night Clerk (Film; 2020)

The Night Manager (TV Mini-Series; 2016)

9-1/2 Weeks (Film; 1986)

Old School (Film; 2003)

Peg Leg Pete (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1932)

Pinkadilly Circus (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)

Pink Punch (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1966)

Real Time with Bill Maher (TV Series; 2003)

Rock and Roll, by Led Zeppelin (Song; 1972)

Suffering’ ’til Suffrage (America Rock Cartoon; Schoolhouse Rock; 1976)

Three on an Island or Tell It to the Maroons (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 26; 1960)

The Wind Rises (Animated Studio Ghibli Film; 2014)

Yokel Boy Makes Good (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1938)

Today’s Name Days

Enrica, Gunthild, Petrus (Austria)

Damir, Natalija, Petar (Croatia)

Lenka (Czech Republic)

Samuel (Denmark)

Aavo, Auvo, Avo (Estonia)

Keijo (Finland)

Damien (France)

Enrica, Gunhild, Peter, Petrus (Germany)

Efstathios, Evstathios, Stathis (Greece)

Eleonóra (Hungary)

Eleonora, Leopoldo, Nora, Pier Damiani (Italy)

Eleonora (Latvia)

Eleonora, Feliksas, Kęstutis, Žemyna (Lithuania)

Celine, Samuel, Selma (Norway)

Eleonora, Feliks, Fortunat, Kiejstut, Teodor, Wyszeniega (Poland)

Eustatie, Timotei (Romania)

Eleonóra (Slovakia)

Pedro (Spain)

Hilding (Sweden)

Dallin, Doug, Douglas, Duff (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 52 of 2024; 314 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 8 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Nuin (Ash) [Day 4 of 28]

Chinese: Month 1 (Bing-Yin), Day 12 (Yi-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025)

Hebrew: 12 Adair I 5784

Islamic: 11 Sha’ban 1445

J Cal: 22 Grey; Oneday [22 of 30]

Julian: 8 February 2024

Moon: 93%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 24 Homer (2nd Month) [Horace]

Runic Half Month: Sigel (Sun) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 63 of 89)

Week: 3rd Week of February

Zodiac: Pisces (Day 3 of 30)

[usedjust]

The nightingale movie

#The nightingale movie movie#

#The nightingale movie windows#

But Tara Judah doesn’t stop there: by cutting and pasting snippets from various sources (from interviews with the director to the writings of Levinas), she assembles a short opinion on The Nightingale that is distinctly her own.

#The nightingale movie movie#

The desktop video format is the perfect fit for this kind of online discourse analysis, as it visualizes how a certain take on a movie can quickly proliferate and come to dominate the discussion of that film. We literally watch her (and/or her editor Peter Walsh) google her way through the online coverage of the movie. Judah chooses the format of the desktop documentary to examine the critical response to The Nightingale. The video essay in particular is very interesting. Both that text and video were posted online by Watershed (a film culture and digital media centre in Bristol, UK, which screened Kent’s film in November 2019). “It’s the film’s reception that should be viewed as controversial, not the film itself” – that is the starting point for her article and video essay on the movie. Those extreme reactions then became the focal point of much of the subsequent media coverage of the movie.īut that controversy, writes freelance film critic and cinema producer Tara Judah, is misplaced. The Nightingale brewed up a bit of a storm at several film festivals where it was presented – from walkouts to angry shouting. The period drama centers on a particularly violent episode in Australian history and takes as its protagonist a female convict who has to endure horrific violence herself. Retrieved April 27, 2021.Jennifer Kent’s 2019 feature film The Nightingale was not met with the same near unanimous critical acclaim as her 2014 effort The Babadook.

#The nightingale movie windows#

"Disney And Sony Reach Windows Deal That Can Sling 'Spider-Man' To Disney+ For First Time, Along With Reach Across Hulu, ABC, FX & More". "Netflix And Sony Break Ground With Film Licensing Deal Replacing Starz Pact, Including First Look At New Direct-To-Streaming Titles". " 'The Nightingale': Elle And Dakota Fanning's WWII Sisters Pic Pushed By One Year". "Film News Roundup: Dakota and Elle Fanning's 'Nightingale' Gets Delayed One Year". " 'Spider-Man 3' And 'Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 2' Get New Release Dates". "Elle And Dakota Fanning's WWII Sisters Pic 'The Nightingale' To Hit Theaters This Christmas". ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 2, 2020)."Sony Pegs Release Dates For 'The Nightingale' And 'Charlie's Angels' ". ^ "Toronto Review: Mélanie Laurent's 'The Mad Women's Ball' ".^ "The Pandemic Paused Mélanie Laurent's Studio Debut, but It Didn't Stop Her from Directing".Production List | Film & Television Industry Alliance. "Elle Fanning, Dakota Fanning to Play Sisters in 'The Nightingale' Adaptation". " 'Game of Thrones' Director Michelle MacLaren to Helm TriStar's 'The Nightingale' (EXCLUSIVE)". "Ann Peacock To Adapt 'The Nightingale' For TriStar". "TriStar Nabs Hot WWII Novel 'The Nightingale' (Exclusive)". In April 2021, Netflix and The Walt Disney Company signed a deal with Sony for the right to exclusively stream and broadcast on Disney's linear television networks for upcoming films, including this film after their theatrical and home media windows. On October 22, 2021, TriStar removed the film from the release calendar again. On February 19, 2021, TriStar pushed the film again to December 23, 2022. On April 30, 2020, TriStar rescheduled the film to be released on December 22, 2021. On April 24, 2020, TriStar briefly removed the film from the release calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 2, 2020, TriStar pushed the film to December 25, 2020. On June 23, 2017, TriStar scheduled the film to be released on August 10, 2018. Laurent went on to direct The Mad Women's Ball instead, intending to return to The Nightingale as her next film. Principal photography was set to begin on October 26, 2020, with scenes to be shot in Budapest, Hungary and Los Angeles, California, but production was halted less than a week before shooting was to commence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning were set to co-star as the sisters. In December 2019, Mélanie Laurent signed on to direct from a script by Dana Stevens with Cantillon still attached to produce. On August 11, 2016, TriStar hired Michelle MacLaren to direct and re-write with John Sayles, until MacLaren left before production shutdown. In March 2015, TriStar Pictures acquired Kristin Hannah’s book The Nightingale and hired Ann Peacock to write the script and Elizabeth Cantillon to produce. Two sisters struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France during World War II.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift's Evermore debuts at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart and sets UK record

The Official Charts // December 18th 2020

Taylor Swift’s surprise new album Evermore debuts at Number 1 on this week’s Official Albums Chart.

Swift claims a rarely seen feat of landing two chart-topping albums within a calendar year, following Folklore, which spent three weeks at the summit in August. Evermore was the most downloaded and streamed album of the week.

The singer-songwriter is the first artist in four years to hold the #1 spot with two different albums in a calendar year, since David Bowie scored two Number 1s across January - February 2016 with Blackstar and Best of Bowie following his death.

Released last Friday less than 24 hours after it was announced, Evermore earns Swift her sixth UK Number 1 album. Only three other female artists have six or more chart-topping albums in Official Chart history: Madonna (12), Kylie Minogue (8) and Barbra Streisand (6).

Swift has achieved her six Number 1s in record time among female artists, eight years, surpassing Madonna’s 11 years (between 1997 – 2008). It is also the fastest accumulation of six chart-toppers since both Robbie Williams and Westlife achieved six Number 1 albums between 2000 – 2006. Buoyed by the success Evermore, Swift's previous album Folklore rises 13 places this week to Number 21.

[jerseydeanne]

Prince Andrew will mark his 62nd birthday without the usual royal fanfare

The Duke of York faces the quietest birthday in modern royal history as he turns 62 on Saturday without the tolling of bells or raising of flags in the wake of his sex abuse case settlement.

The Duke will mark the day privately at Royal Lodge, as he maintains a period of silence following the fallout of the case.

It is his first birthday since Westminster Abbey confirmed it will never again mark the date by ringing its bells, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport updated its guidance on the flying of flags from Government buildings to remove it.

The change is understood to have been made in consultation with Buckingham Palace and leaves the Queen and Prince of Wales as the only members of the Royal Family whose birthdays will be celebrated by official flags and bells.

The bells of Westminster Abbey will not ring for the Duke, who missed out on the celebration last year due to Covid-19 restrictions but was given the honour in 2020, even after his Newsnight interview about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The decision, made temporarily in 2020, is “now permanent”, a source said.

‘No longer a requirement’

A number of authorities had already declined to honour the Duke’s birthday, with his reported £12million settlement of a sex abuse case brought against him proving the final straw in public opinion.

A spokeswoman for Westminster Abbey said: “Due to the financial challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Westminster Abbey will ring its bells only for the birthdays of HM The Queen and HRH The Prince of Wales.”

In 2020, after emails insisting that local authorities fly the flag for the Duke’s birthday were leaked, DCMS clarified that it was “no longer a requirement” for them to do so.

But the date, February 19, remained on the list of official “designated days” on its website until the end of 2021. On February 11, it discreetly removed the birthday for the 2022 calendar.

A government spokeswoman said: “Since 2021 the default position in Great Britain is that the Union Flag flies all year round unless another flag is being flown.

“However we routinely review the list of designated days for flying the Union Flag on UK Government Buildings.

“These changes make the days consistent with other commemorative events, such as gun salutes.”

A source said the Duke would be spending Saturday “quietly at home”.

His mother the Queen is in residence at nearby Windsor Castle and was this week receiving official guests after a Covid scare.

The Duchess of York lives at Royal Lodge and is expected to celebrate her ex-husband’s birthday with him, with visits or video calls from his two daughters and grandchildren.

source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/02/18/prince-andrew-will-mark-62nd-birthday-without-usual-royal-fanfare/

[drjohnweston]

2020 calendar Being Human UK edition:

January:

February:

March:

March:

March:

AprilMayJune:

JulyAugust:

September:

OctoberNovember:

December:

[sassyfrassboss]

I believe you are an American accountant. Not sure if you are a tax expert, but how is Harry allowed to stay in the US for over 12 months and not have to file a tax return under alien t-residency rules? I realise that your tax/fiscal year is the calendar year - mine isn't - but surely the IRS must be taking notice? Haven't they been there since February 2020? He ought to file by June 2021, I believe. The IRS isn't going to give him special consideration like UK's tax collector. This will blow up

I work in Finance but I am not an accountant. I think this all depends on what type of Visa he is here on and what exemptions he has been granted on diplomatic status, if he has any. 

I think it would be more of a focus on Meghan more than anything since she is a US citizen and she could be taxed for being a working Royal.

I think there are arrangements behind the scenes where Harry and Meghan are not held to the same rules as the rest of us, as with most of the elite...

[dalekofchaos]

My hopes for WWE & AEW in 2021 and things I hope changes  for WWE and AEW in 2021

Hopes

WWE

Roman Reigns stays dominant and reigns supreme as the Tribal Chief

Keith Lee wins the Royal Rumble,  joins The Hurt Business and brings the WWE Champion to the Hurt Business

Naomi returns and joins The Hurt Business and dethrones Asuka to take home the gold

The Hurt Business DOMINATES Raw

Bianca Belair wins the Royal Rumble and dethrones Sasha Banks at Wrestlemania

The Riott Squad win the Women’s Tag Team Champions

Unify the men’s Tag Team Championships 

Unveil a new Title and give us WWE’s very first Television Championship. It should be styled similar to the NWA and WCW’s TV belts, but on the sideplates it should include USA and Fox on the plates. Shelton Benjamin or Ricochet should be the TV Championship 

Big E reigns supreme as Intercontinental Champion and finally gets to face Roman for the Universal Championship at Wrestlemania 38

Rhea Ripley gets called up and goes to Smackdown

Mercedes Martinez dethrones Io Shirai and becomes NXT Women’s Champion

Karrion Kross reclaims the NXT Championship

Anyone but Johnny Sameface as NXT North American Champion

Queen Of The Ring. The amount of female talent available on Raw, SmackDown, NXT and NXT UK is quite something. It's clear that this is the richest women's division in WWE history. They really should do something with all those workers. The 'Mae Young Classic' tourneys have been fine, but people would trip over themselves to see a fully-fledged 'Queen Of The Ring' epic staged across multiple nights. If booked correctly, this tournament could help establish a new contender for top titles. If she isn't Champion by then(though she should be) the perfect person to become Queen Of The Ring would be Bianca Belair! Bianca Belair would have unparalleled credibility for her 'StrongEST, FastEST, ToughEST' mantra if she whipped a bevy of skilled workers to become the first 'Queen'. WWE could also get creative by linking the event in with Charlotte Flair's nickname and spinning off into a feud between her and the winner afterwards.

Form Full-Time Female Tag-Teams and keep them around. The Women’s Tag Team DIvision is a mess. Keep creating makeshift Tag Teams and breaking up established tag teams and your tag team division is dead. The current champs and their predecessors haven't even been "proper" full-time duos - Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler were shoved together awkwardly in the summer, and they've since been replaced by the unlikely Asuka and Charlotte Flair combo. This cannot be allowed to continue. It's damning that WWE don't have more fully-formed pairings ready to go. The Riott Squad are perhaps the only actual twosome who are presented as a tight-knit collective weekly. Other than that, who is there? Considering the belts have been around for a few years now, that's unacceptable. The IIconics split, so did Sasha Banks and Bayley, and the scene is littered by 'odd couple' tandems like Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans and Peyton Royce, and Billie Kay teaming with the likes of Natalya or Tamina when it suits.

Ensure NXT is treated like a proper third brand rather than a quasi-development league for Raw and SmackDown. NXT has been on USA Network for over a year now, but it's still very much behind both Raw and SmackDown as a priority. Need proof? Look at the way Keith Lee was handled when he was "called up" after SummerSlam 2020. The former NXT Champ had to start all over again, and he's had several teething problems on Monday nights. It'd be nice to see WWE move away from positioning NXT as a 'feeder' for the other two shows. Changing someone's gimmick when they leave makes the brand look less-than, and there's simply no need for that anymore; NXT should be an equal to Raw and SmackDown, not a development league. Sadly, it still comes across as that. Lee's stop/start plight and the (mis)fortunes of others like Aleister Black and Ricochet should be a lesson to WWE. Some workers are better off rocking the black and yellow, not the red or blue.

AEW

Darby Allin becomes AEW World Heavyweight Champion

Adam Page costs Kenny the title and Page gets revenge and DESTROYS Kenny

MJF destroys the inner circle from within and when Jericho realizes what just happened, that’s when MJF and Wardlow destroys Jericho

Which is when we get a Sammy Guevara babyface turn and we get MJF vs Sammy

Arn Anderson turns on Cody

AEW’s Four Horsemen is formed. MJF, Shawn Spears and FTR with Tully and Arn managing as the JJ DIllon mouthpieces

Darby Allin and MJF feud for the title

The Women’s Division is improved. The girls get more time to shine on Dynamite. Your champion actually appears(shocking, I know) and build feuds and stories for your women’s division. There’s still some time to do what’s right for your women’s division, but the only thing that remains to be seen, does the powers that be of AEW even care?

Get a new title design for the Women’s Championship. It looks like a toy for a child. It’s plastic, not gold.  It should be as big and beautifully designed as the men’s titles. It should be as big as the NWA’s title or even the WWE’s title. The title is symbolic as to how AEW treats it’s own women’s division and that needs to change with a fresh new design.

Sign Thunder Rosa. It may not fix everything with the women’s division, but it gives you your needed star power. Tony Khan should be begging on his hands and knees to sign Thunder Rosa in 2021 after her time with the NWA is up, his women’s division is getting their asses kicked by what his EVP refers to as a “developmental brand”

If you can’t sign Thunder Rosa. My solution is Push Anna Jay and  Britt Baker as the top face and heel of the women’s division and either of them dethrone Shida.

Changes

WWE

Leave whatever that monstrosity of a creative team they have for RAW is. Let the Wrestlers dictate what they want their characters to be. Ditch the scripted promos. Let promos feel organic and real. Let the wrestlers be characters who feel real and genuine. Get rid of a “Creative” that isn't creative and let the wrestlers be creative and let them be free of terrible creative.

Get rid of the Gimmick PPV. WWE has ruined gimmick matches by turning them into themed PPVs. none of these matches are organic or special anymore. The matches themselves are great but are booked to fit a theme of a pay-per-view, when they should be used organically at the height of feuds. no one cares about the name of PPVs, so i don’t understand why WWE does this. the only one that actually works is MITB, because it makes sense as storylines reset after Mania.

Scrap the Brand Warfare/Brand Supremacy. WWE should scrap the tired brand warfare format at Survivor Series and move away from Raw vs. SmackDown completely. Booking around a calendar has become company law in WWE over the past decade or so. Perhaps McMahon always formatted things this way really, but it's more glaring now that gimmick bouts like Elimination Chamber, Hell In A Cell and Money In The Bank have their own pay-per-views. Survivor Series, with it's played out Raw vs. SmackDown vibes, also needs a rethink. "Brand warfare" is boring now, and it has been for several years. Although 2020's event was fun, it's nonetheless true that the month-long build to Survivors feels like a repetitive slog fans are forced to sit through every November. Hopefully, 2021 will change that. It is possible to book traditional elimination bouts without some sort of false show loyalty - WWE did this almost every single year until the first brand split in 2002. Their over-reliance on Raw vs. SmackDown is plain lazy. Survivor Series should be revolved around great rivalries between stables/factions. It’s really not that hard. Or at the very least if there IS a Smackdown vs Raw themed Survivor Series, at least add a damn reward. Give the brand a head start in the Rumble,, give the winners of the match number one contenders for their brand’s respective titles or ANYTHING better than just “brand supremacy lol”

Get rid of the 24/7 title. It has run it’s course. R-Truth is funny, but even he can’t make it work anymore.

Stop. Breaking. Up. Tag Teams. Stop killing your Tag Team Division. For the love of god just stop!

Cut Akira Tozawa’s ninja bullshit. It’s not funny, it’s annoying

Kill Retribution. It’s complete garbage. It has been consistently terrible ever since Retribution began. Mustafa Ali cannot save Retribution, he’s trying but no one can save it. 

Stop the 50/50 booking

Stop rewarding Nia Jax, the living botch machine for injuring her fellow wrestlers

Stop pushing Lars Sullivan. Absolutely no one wants him. 

They should cut raw to 2 hours because 3 hours is unbearable

Stop the overreliance of part time wrestlers. I don’t want to see Goldberg being pushed at the expense of today’s talent and I don’t want to see Goldberg period. I don’t want to see Brock Lesnar return at the expense of today’s talent. I don’t want to see Legends return. Push your current fucking wrestlers and make stars. You idiots!

Do not rush Becky Lynch back to the ring, she just had a baby. I read the reports that Vince wants Becky back by Wrestlemania. That is a terrible decision

Stop killing pushes because Vince changed his mind

Enough with “creative has nothing for you” if your “creative” has nothing for a certain wrestler, then they are not creative. Either let the wrestlers appear on the show or release them if you don’t want them anymore, it’s simple as that.

Do. Not. Put. The. Title. On. Goldberg. Goldberg should not have beaten Bray Wyatt's 'Fiend' for the Universal Title at Super ShowDown in February - that was a huge mistake, one that set Bray back and felt totally unnecessary. In 2021, WWE should outright avoid any temptation to repeat the trick and give ol' Billy another go-around with one of the top titles. If anything, Goldberg's only purpose should be to play victim for a quick Roman Reigns squash. Get through that elusive match then turn Bill into a company ambassador. He doesn't need to pretend it's still 1998 all these years on.

AEW

Leave the overabundance of spots just for the sake of spots and enough with the false finishes. Jim Ross was right, like it or not, the spots for the sake of spots and the false finishes need to end. This is my major problem with AEW and why I can’t stand The Elite in general. Everyone just needs to  get their shit in. Everything looks fake. No one can look strong or credible and we have to see garbage Indy wrestlers and the spot monkeys make everything look fake and phony. The champions never look credible and everyone is on the level of job guys. This needs to change

Stop leaving your Women’s Champion off the show. It is downright insulting how dirty they are doing Hikaru Shida. She deserves as much time to shine as the other champions deserve.

Stop putting the NWA Women’s Champion as more of a priority than your own Women’s Champion

Enough with Brandi. Why is the women’s division given absolutely 0 screentime and barely anytime to develop their stories, but Brandi is ALWAYS THERE! Everything has to be about her. When a feud between Cody and Shaq was close to happening, of course it had to be about her. She’s turned heel/face as much time as the Big Show. I’ve grown tired of Brandi Rhodes. Stop shoving that attention whore down our throats. WE GET IT! You wanna be Stephanie so bad!

Enough with Cody’s big dramatic midlife crisis entrances. We get it, you wanna be Triple H SO BAD!

Stop the petty bullshit shots at WWE. It was fun at first, but it’s getting annoying. This is Eric Bischoff giving away the results and “That’ll put butts in the seats” level of petty bullshit. AEW had the fucking nerve to tweet a fan’s post saying they did a better tribute for Brodie Lee than WWE. HE JUST DIED! AND YOU ARE MAKING IT ABOUT YOUR FUCKING RIVALRY? GROW THE FUCK UP!

[skippyv20]

Artist knits “Temperature Scarf” to track climate change every day for a whole year

Josie George’s temperature scarf as of September 4, 2020.

When artist and author Josie George started knitting her temperature scarf in January, she could not have imagined how this calendar year would unfold. The year 2020 has been unpredictable in many ways—from the emergence of a global pandemic to the social unrest and protests around the world to the wildfires ravaging Australia and then the United States. Despite everything else going on, George initially began her knitting project as a way to engage with the effects of climate change. She discovered her experience of weather patterns often paralleled her own life and emotions. As an author and artist, George’s many projects centre around awareness of her surrounding environment

The artist now spends each day knitting two rows in colour-coded yarn to record the temperature and the weather in her hometown in England. She’s chosen a variety of warm and cool shades to depict the full spectrum of the English climate. Some months are more uniform, as seen in the chilly blues and grays of January and February. Other months set records as unusually warm and dry. This blend, gradience, and jarring juxtaposition of colours is visually arresting within the length and beautiful chevron pattern of the temperature scarf. The project has even inspired others to merge art and weather in the form of temperature scarves and blankets of their own. George hopes that her project will encourage a deeper contemplation of climate change.

As a means of updating her followers, George often adds commentary on Twitter about her scarf and the local weather, pairing it all with insight into her life with a life-long chronic illness. Deep contemplation is a theme throughout her creative practices—knitting, photography, and writing. In her June 4 temperature scarf update, George tweeted about a swelteringly hot May and her concurrent thoughts. She wrote, “For me, a month of deep grief and deeper resolve, side by side, as I looked unflinchingly at the world’s damage. I read and spoke words of hope and change as I knit. I continued. I committed. I began again.” Those who enjoy the beauty and reflection of George’s temperature scarf project will find these same themes reflected in her essays on diverse topics.

We had the chance to speak with Josie George about her temperature scarf project, her creative philosophies, and her upcoming memoir A Still Life (out in the UK with Bloomsbury on February 18, 2021). Read on for My Modern Met’s exclusive interview.

The temperature scarf at the end of March.

You began your temperature scarf this past January as a way to remain conscious of the changing climate as you experience it in the UK. Why did you choose to use yarn as a medium to record the climate?

I’ve knitted for many years and had seen similar projects online with people knitting temperature, precipitation, or the colour of the sky each day into a blanket in straight rows. I decided to do something a little different—to knit the daily temperature and the day’s weather together to try and capture more of what it is to experience climate as a whole. I also wanted to make something both meaningful and beautiful and so decided on a zig-zag chevron stitch pattern and subtle, shifting colours to give the piece a sense of movement through the year.

I love the quiet repetition and humility of knitting, each stitch considered and equal. In many art forms, the artist speaks through a piece of work, but yarn felt like the perfect medium to allow myself to step back and to allow the changing temperatures and weather patterns to speak for themselves. I love too how knitting is a kind of coding—knits and purls instead of ones and zeros. It lends itself gorgeously to data collection.

George’s yarn color code for daily weather conditions.

In your monthly scarf updates on Twitter, some blocks of uniform colour appear while other lines are anomalies. Has the weather of any particular month surprised you?

Very much so. Here in the UK, we’ve had a year of quite extreme weather—intense rain and storms, an early heatwave, with record temperatures and dry spells. I expected colder weather at the beginning of the year (and had my cool colors ready) but was surprised to getting warm very early on. February brought endless downpours, deep floods and fierce storms, but April and May—usually our months of spring showers—were entirely dry with hot, sunny days, and I had to fight to keep my spring plants watered and alive. Sudden flashes of extreme heat through the summer left everything crisp and curling. The strangest month was August—I saw days of 35°C [95°F] fall to barely 12°C [54°F] in just a few days. It has made me quite dizzy at times, just how unpredictable it has been.

The April weather in the UK reflected in the scarf.

Based on your experience, why is it important to remain conscious of the environment?

I am deeply aware that our planet is in trouble. Although my year’s worth of data isn’t indicative of anything in itself, it coincides with a wider consensus that climate change is having a profound affect on the world’s temperatures and weather patterns and is linked to extreme and unusual weather events and wildlife decline. And yet, daily human life is not easy, often swallowing all our attention and thought. It is frighteningly easy to switch off, forget, tune-out or dismiss environmental news. When we ignore something, we lose our relationship with that thing. We numb our sensitivity to its moods and changes, our sensual experience of being with it. We also lose sight of how deeply connected we are to everything around us. The earth is my home and I am joined to everything in it. I don’t ever want to forget that. I want to stay awake to what’s going on around me and to think of more than my own life.

George’s temperature scarf at the end of May.

Creating daily is an impressive feat of routine. Has the daily knitting of a year-long project affected how you experience (or gauge) the passing of time?

I am very much a creature of routine and find great comfort in repetition and disciplined action, so daily knitting slotted in beautifully with other habits I have as an author and artist. I love the way conscious actions repeated every day became a sort of slow, rhythmic dance. Writing, moving, knitting, making art, meditating, caring for my environment. Each of my hours has a different focus and I love that. It shifts my attention through time and keeps me connected to the turn of the day. It helps my life to feel directed, chosen. Without these anchors, I find the days become a blur of vague thought and unfocused, reactive behaviours and I start to feel more like passive pinball in some giant machine rather than someone with agency, choosing her way.

A close-up view of the month of June.

You have described creating the scarf as a work of commitment, a relationship. Could you elaborate further on what it means to truly engage with a project?

Even before COVID, I was mostly housebound and spent huge quantities of time alone. I’ve been disabled since I was a child, I’m a single mum, and my partner lives and works abroad, so solitude has long been a big part of my daily experience. That’s been really hard at times, but I’ve never wanted to overlook all the opportunities for relationship and companionship I have right here in the small rhythms of my day.

As with many other aspects of my work and creativity, the scarf was a way of saying to my environment, “I see you! I’m here with you.” To listen and look and see what I can learn. The best relationships are the ones where we’re able to get out of the way a little, to let the other person or situation be seen and appreciated for who and what they are, without us layering on our own biases, expectations and judgements. That’s what I wanted to do here, too. To make myself fully available to the day, to truly pay attention to it, and then to respond in a way that honoured that day’s reality. I guess it’s about love, really, don’t you think?

George’s July update showing variable temperatures.

As a writer, photographer, painter, and knitter, you create in many mediums. Do your creative practices intertwine? Do you find yourself approaching themes—such as the environment—across multiple mediums?

The big theme that runs through everything I do is attention; but yes, this expresses itself in many different ways. Alongside knitting the scarf, I’ve been working on a novel that deals with the difficulty and pain of staying awake to what’s really going on around you and inside you, and nature plays a big role in that. My art practice has focused on drawing moments around me and seeing how that changes my relationship with that moment. My biggest interest right now is in how play and playfulness might be a good channel for both learning to pay attention to life as it really is, and in building relationships with the things and environments around us. It’s all connected.

For August, George knitted a wide range of temperatures which she tweeted was “both relentless & comforting.”

You have a forthcoming memoir entitled A Still Life. You tell your story of living a meaningful, rewarding, quiet life. What would you like our readers to know most about the book?

That it’s beautiful. That I think it will touch them and make them look up at the world around them with new eyes. It is deeply personal, tender, and full of love. If you’re feeling lost, lonely, burnt-out, too slow, too tired, too jaded, then I think this book could be a good friend to you. I hope it will make you feel better about being in your body and your life and help you to know that you matter.

“A Still Life” by Josie George, published by Bloomsbury and due out on February 18, 2021.

What do you intend to do with the temperature scarf when it’s complete? Do you plan to make the scarf an annual project?

I haven’t quite decided yet! If someone wanted to exhibit it, I think that would be lovely thing, but equally I’d quite like the chance to continue the project and see what happens. I have wondered whether to do the same thing next year and attach the strips side by side, to see the contrast of the years held together. I will certainly do something next year—it’s too big a part of my day now to imagine life without it.

Author and artist Josie George.

https://mymodernmet.com/josie-george-temperature-scarf/

Thank you😊❤️❤️❤️❤️

[that-thing-that-feeling]

With the Independent Spirit Awards, it’s all a little confusing since covid changed everything, but in 2022 they’re going back to their usual date, the last Saturday of February, which will fall on the 26th. The 2019 ceremony was held on the 23rd, and their final deadline for submissions was October 8th. However, in the 2019 Rules & Regulations, for films to be eligible, they need to have “been shown in a commercial theater in the United States for at least one week (seven consecutive days) beginning in the 2018 calendar year” or be shown in 1 of 7 of a list of American film festivals. So, the Souvenir Part II technically wouldn’t need to come out in the US until the very last day of December 2021.

As for the Oscars, international films differ a bit from domestic films in that they don’t need to be released in America to be eligible, but in their country of origin. This year, all films need to be released “no later than December 31, 2021”, so they have plenty of time for both Best International Feature and the other categories. Also in the UK it’s a bit complicated since their submission to the category is chosen by the BAFTAs, which obviously snubbed the first movie back in 2019; the BAFTAS are notorious for their complete lack of diversity in their nominations, which seems to be starting to head in a better direction now, so I guess we’ll see.

Hopefully the movie will come out here before December 31st, but we really have no way of knowing until a24 picks a date.

I think the oscars are not really in the picture for it (bc that international category is really non-English language film unless they try for any of the more tech categories), but they prob will try for that international independent spirit nom that part one got a nom for. Interesting if spirit ceremony moved back to same time frame as 2019; so hm yeah then means it would only need to come out here by end of December, but at least hopefully wouldn’t go into 2022. It will be such a packed release season though bc so many films spilled over from 2020 (which also prob makes noms crammed too). I hope A24 puts it closer to that nov UK release date; feel like dec is usually used for Hollywood oscar contenders and less A24-ish indies?

[hedgewitchgarden]

March

From WikipediaMarch is the third month of the year and named after Mars in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 21 marks the astronomical beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, where September is the seasonal equivalent of the Northern Hemisphere's March.March begins on the same day of the week as November and ends on the same day of the week as June every year. It begins on the same day of the week as February in common years only. In years preceding common years, it begins and ends on the same day of the week as August of the following year and ends on the same day of the week as November of the following year and in years preceding leap years, it begins and ends on the same day of the week as May of the following year. In common years, it begins on the same day of the week as June of the previous year and in leap years, September and December of the previous year. In common years, March ends on the same day of the week as September of the previous year and in leap years, April and December of the previous year.

Origin

The name of March comes from Martius, the first month of the earliest Roman calendar. It was named after Mars, the Roman god of war, and an ancestor of the Roman people through his sons Romulus and Remus. His month Martius was the beginning of the season for warfare, and the festivals held in his honor during the month were mirrored by others in October, when the season for these activities came to a close. Martius remained the first month of the Roman calendar year perhaps as late as 153 BC, and several religious observances in the first half of the month were originally new year's celebrations. Even in late antiquity, Roman mosaics picturing the months sometimes still placed March first. March 1 began the numbered year in Russia until the end of the 15th century. Great Britain and its colonies continued to use March 25 until 1752, when they finally adopted the Gregorian calendar (the fiscal year in the UK continues to begin on 6 April, initially identical to 25 March in the former Julian calendar). Many other cultures and religions still celebrate the beginning of the New Year in March. March is the first month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere (North America, Europe, Asia and part of Africa) and the first month of fall or autumn in the Southern Hemisphere (South America, part of Africa, and Oceania). Ancient Roman observances celebrated in March include Agonium Martiale, celebrated on March 1, March 14, and March 17, Matronalia, celebrated on March 1, Junonalia, celebrated on March 7, Equirria, celebrated on March 14, Mamuralia, celebrated on either March 14 or March 15, Hilaria on March 15 and then through March 22–28, Argei, celebrated on March 16–17, Liberalia and Bacchanalia, celebrated March 17, Quinquatria, celebrated March 19–23, and Tubilustrium, celebrated March 23. These dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar.

Other names

In Finnish, the month is called maaliskuu, which is believed to originate from maallinen kuu, during March, earth finally becomes visible under the snow (other etymological theories have however been put forward). In Ukrainian, the month is called березень/berezenʹ, meaning birch tree, and březen in Czech. Historical names for March include the Saxon Lentmonat, named after the March equinox and gradual lengthening of days, and the eventual namesake of Lent. Saxons also called March Rhed-monat or Hreth-monath (deriving from their goddess Rhedam/Hreth), and Angles called it Hyld-monath. In Slovene, the traditional name is sušec, meaning the month when the earth becomes dry enough so that it is possible to cultivate it. The name was first written in 1466 in the Škofja Loka manuscript. Other names were used too, for example brezen and breznik, "the month of birches". The Turkish word Mart is given after the name of Mars the god.

March symbols

March's birthstones are aquamarine and bloodstone. These stones symbolize courage.Its birth flower is the daffodil.The zodiac signs for the month of March were Pisces (until March 19, 2020) and Aries (March 20, 2020 onwards)"The March wind roarsLike a lion in the sky,And makes us shiverAs he passes by.When winds are soft,And the days are warm and clear,Just like a gentle lamb,Then spring is here."~ Anon.

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 2.21

Holidays

Alka Seltzer Day

Armed Forces Day (South Africa)

Ben Appreciation Day

Break Up Day (India)

Card Reading Day

Communist Manifesto Day

Father W.H. Lini Day (Vanuatu)

Find Out My Breast Density Day

Freedom of Worship Day (France)

International Mother Language Day (UN)

International Tourist Guide Day

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day

John Lewis Day

King Harald V Day (Norway)

Kurt Cobain Day (Aberdeen, Washington)

Labor Day (Oregon; Original Date, 1st State Observance)

Language Movement Day (a.k.a. Shahid Dibosh; Bangladesh)

Locomotive Day

Matthiola Day (French Republic)

Mental Health Nurses Day (UK)

Musikahan Festival begins (Philippines) [thru 2.27]

Nascar Day

National Pillow on Head Day

National Waste Awareness Day (Indonesia)

New Yorker Magazine Day

Nina Simone Day (Tyron, North Carolina)

Red Books Day

Remember the Funniest Thing Your Child Ever Did Day

Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day (Zimbabwe)

Sandino Day (Nicaragua)

Sewing Machine Day

Single-Tasking Day

Telephone Book Day

Washington Monument Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Drink It Now Day

National Biscuits & Gravy Day

National Grain-Free Day

National Malört Day

National Sticky Bun Day

World Kombucha Day

3rd Wednesday in February

National RA Appreciation Day [3rd Wednesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning February 21

Potahto Week (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) [thru 3.1]

Independence & Related Days

Aulpannian Shatidom (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

British Protectorate in Egypt ended (1922)

South Formosa (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

Festivals Beginning February 21, 2024

National Watermelon Association Convention (Scottsdale, Arizona) [thru 2.25]

Noise Pop Festival (San Francisco, California) [thru 2.27]

NordicFuzzCon (Malmö, Sweden) [thru 2.25]

30A Wine Festival (Ales Beach, Florida) [thru 2.25]

Feast Days

Anais Nin (Writerism)

Blue Dragon Festival (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Boris Karloff Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Daniel, priest, and Verde, virgin (Christian; Martyrs)

David Foster Wallace (Writerism)

Day Sacred to the Goddess Muta (a.k.a. Laranda; Ancient Rome)

Double Second Day (China) [2nd Day of 2nd Lunar Month]

Feast of Peace and Love (Ancient Rome)

Felix of Hadrumetum (Christian; Saint)

Feralia (Old Roman Spirits Festival)

Feralia — Day of Purification (Pagan)

George of Amastris (Christian; Saint)

German and Randaut (Christian; Martyrs)

Germanus of Granfel (Christian; Martyr)

Horace (Positivist; Saint)

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (Artology)

Mathilda (Muppetism)

Pepin of Landen (Christian; Saint)

Peter Damian (Christian; Saint)

Pyotr Konchalovsky (Artology)

Randoald of Grandval (Christian; Saint)

Seize a Sausage Day (Pastafarian)

Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis (Christian; Saint)

Talk to a Goldfish Day (Pastafarian)

W.H. Auden (Writerism)

Yakuyoke Festival (a.k.a. Toshi-no-Matsuri; honoring Kami for bountiful rice harvest; Shinto)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fortunate Day (Pagan) [8 of 53]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 9 of 60)

Premieres

Alice at the Rodeo (Disney Cartoon; 1927)

The Alpine Yodeler, featuring Farmer Al Falfa (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)

Anna Christie (Film; 1930

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Anime TV Series; 2005)

Babylon Revisited, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Short Story; 1931)

Bottle Rocket (Film; 1996)

Bullwinkle Makes a Hit or I Get a Bang Out of You (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 25; 1960)

The Call of the Wild (Film; 2020)

Captains of the Clouds (Film; 1942)

The Conqueror (Film; 1956)

Emma (Film; 2020)

Fishing Made Easy (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1941)

The Gorilla Hunt (Color Rhapsody Cartoon; 1939)

The Hungry Wolf (MGM Cartoon; 1942)

Jerry and Jumbo (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1953)

King of America, by Elvis Costello (Album; 1986)

Kiss Me Car (WB LT Cartoon; 1953)

Le Bœuf sur le Toit (The Bull on the Roof), by Darius Milhaud & Jean Cocteau (Ballet; 1920)

Lipstick on Your Collar (Film; 1993)

The Night Clerk (Film; 2020)

The Night Manager (TV Mini-Series; 2016)

9-1/2 Weeks (Film; 1986)

Old School (Film; 2003)

Peg Leg Pete (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1932)

Pinkadilly Circus (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)

Pink Punch (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1966)

Real Time with Bill Maher (TV Series; 2003)

Rock and Roll, by Led Zeppelin (Song; 1972)

Suffering’ ’til Suffrage (America Rock Cartoon; Schoolhouse Rock; 1976)

Three on an Island or Tell It to the Maroons (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 26; 1960)

The Wind Rises (Animated Studio Ghibli Film; 2014)

Yokel Boy Makes Good (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1938)

Today’s Name Days

Enrica, Gunthild, Petrus (Austria)

Damir, Natalija, Petar (Croatia)

Lenka (Czech Republic)

Samuel (Denmark)

Aavo, Auvo, Avo (Estonia)

Keijo (Finland)

Damien (France)

Enrica, Gunhild, Peter, Petrus (Germany)

Efstathios, Evstathios, Stathis (Greece)

Eleonóra (Hungary)

Eleonora, Leopoldo, Nora, Pier Damiani (Italy)

Eleonora (Latvia)

Eleonora, Feliksas, Kęstutis, Žemyna (Lithuania)

Celine, Samuel, Selma (Norway)

Eleonora, Feliks, Fortunat, Kiejstut, Teodor, Wyszeniega (Poland)

Eustatie, Timotei (Romania)

Eleonóra (Slovakia)

Pedro (Spain)

Hilding (Sweden)

Dallin, Doug, Douglas, Duff (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 52 of 2024; 314 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 8 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Nuin (Ash) [Day 4 of 28]

Chinese: Month 1 (Bing-Yin), Day 12 (Yi-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025)

Hebrew: 12 Adair I 5784

Islamic: 11 Sha’ban 1445

J Cal: 22 Grey; Oneday [22 of 30]

Julian: 8 February 2024

Moon: 93%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 24 Homer (2nd Month) [Horace]

Runic Half Month: Sigel (Sun) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 63 of 89)

Week: 3rd Week of February

Zodiac: Pisces (Day 3 of 30)

[brookston]

Holidays 2.7

Holidays

Alfred Adler Day

Ballet Day

Beatles Hit America Day

Business Education Day (Russia)

Charles Dickens Day

Colin Kaepernick Appreciation Day

Constitution Day (Mexico)

Daniel Boone Escape Day

”e” Day

Fire Extinguisher Day (Russia)

Green New Deal Day

Her Turn of Giving Day (South Dakota)

Hug an Addict or Alcoholic Day

International Bluff Day

International Men’s Day (Malta)

International Start a Blog Day

Laura Ingalls Wilder Day

Love Your Robot Day

Lungwort Day (French Republic)

Masseur Day (Ukraine)

National Black Grandmothers Day

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

National Foreskin Appreciation Day

National Homegating Day

National Jack Day

National Periodic Table Day

National Run-For-Your-Life Day

National Signing Day

Northern Territories Day (Japan)

No Talk Day

PACS1 Awareness Day

Punisher Day

Reverse the Red Day

Rose Day

Send a Card to a Friend Day

Star Wars Podcast Day

Violet Day

Wave All Your Fingers At Your Neighbors Day

The Weekend Day (Canada)

Winter Walk+Roll to School Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Fettuccine Alfredo Day

1st Wednesday in February

Book Direct Day [1st Wednesday]

Empire State Building Run Up Day [1st Wednesday]

Global School Play Day [1st Wednesday]

National Girls and Women in Sports Day [1st Wednesday]

National Signing Day (College Football) [1st Wednesday]

Winter Walk Day (Canada) [1st Wednesday]

World Read Aloud Day [1st Wednesday]

Independence & Related Days

Grenada (from UK, 1974)

Festivals Beginning February 7, 2024

Carnival of Madeira (Funchal, Portugal) [thru 2.18]

Carnival of Mazatenango (Mazatenango, Guatemala) [thru 2.14]

Hendry County Fair (Lewiston, Florida) [thru 2.11]

Southwest Michigan Horticultural Days (Benton Harbor, Michigan) [thru 2.8]

Trinidad and Tobago Carnival (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) [thru 2.14]

Winter Farm Show (Watertown, South Dakota) [thru 2.10]

Feast Days

Adaucus (Christian; Saint)

Alfred E. Neuman Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Ancestor Day I (Pagan)

Augulus, Bishop of London (Christian; Saint)

Charles Dickens (Writerism)

Chrysolius (Christian; Saint)

Colette of Corbie (Christian; Saint)

Day of Selene (Goddess of the Moon; Ancient Greece)

Egidio Maria of Saint Joseph (Christian; Saint)

Eochaid Ollathair (Festival to The Dagda; Celtic Book of Days)

Eugénie Smet (Christian; Blessed)

Everyman’s Day

Favonius (Ancient Roman Festival of Spring Sowing; Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Feast of Mulk (Baha’i)

Henry Fuseli (Artology)

Ictinus (Positivist; Saint)

Just Another Day Day (a.k.a. No-Day Day; Pastafarian)

Li Chum (Spring Fertility Festival; China; Everyday Wicca)

Luigi the Ice Cream Wolf (Muppetism)

Luke the Younger (Christian; Saint)

Mel (Christian; Saint) [Ireland]

Moses, bishop (Christian; Saint)

Pius IX, Pope (Christian; Blessed)

Richard the Pilgrim (a.k.a. Richard, King of the West Saxons; Christian; Saint)

Romualdo, founder of the Order of Camaldoli (Christian; Saint)

Russell Drysdale (Artology)

Sinclair Lewis (Writerism)

Theodore of Heraclea (Christian; Martyr)

Theodorus (a.k.a. Stratilates; Christian; Saint)

Tresain of Ireland (Christian; Saint)

Wilhelm Freddie (Artology)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [9 of 32]

Sakimake (先負 Japan) [Bad luck in the morning, good luck in the afternoon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 6 of 60)

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [9 of 57]

Premieres

Adrift in the Mist or Fog Groggy (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 22; 1960)

Birds of Prey (Film; 2020)

Blazing Saddles (Film; 1974)

Bored of the Rings, by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney (Parody; 1969)

Breathless (Film; 1961)

Cat Alarm (Mighty Mouse Cartoon; 1961)

A Clean Shaven Man (Fleischer Popeye Cartoon; 1936)

The Color Purple (Film; 1986)

Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Comic Singspiel; 1786)

The Earl and the Squirrel or The March of Crime (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 21; 1960)

Elvis and Me (TV Mini-Series; 1981)

Felix the Cat in “The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg” (Rainbow Parade Cartoon; 1936)

Hannah and Her Sisters (Film; 1986)

Home Town Olympics, featuring Farmer Al Falfa (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Film; 2003)

The Incredible, Indelible, Magical, Physical Mystery Trip (DePatie-Freleng Animated TV Special;; 1973)

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (Anime Film; 2019)

I Yabba-Dabba Do! (Hanna-Barbera Animated TV Special; 1993)

Justice League Dark (WB Animated Film; 2017)

Lady Jane (Film; 1986)

Legion of Super-Heroes (WB Animated Film; 2023)

The Lego Movie (Animated Film; 2014)

Letterkenny (TV Series; 2016)

The Little Theatre (Phantasies Cartoon; 1941)

Locke & Key (TV Series; 2020)

London Derriere (The Inspector Cartoon; 1968)

Man Hunt (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1938)

Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (Book; 1988)

Mickey’s Birthday Party (Disney Cartoon; 1940)

Mississippi Swing (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1941)

The Monuments Men (Film; 2014)

Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman (Stories; 2017)

Orpheus in the Underworld, by Jacques Offenbach (4-Act Opera; 1874)

Pinball Wizard, recorded by The Who (Song; 1969)

Pinocchio (Animated Disney Film; 1940)

Please Please Me, by The Beatles (Song; 1963)

Quiet! Pleeze (Fleischer Popeye Cartoon; 1941)

Sheep Wrecked (MGM Droopy Cartoon; 1958)

Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, by Ernst F. Schumacher (Philosophy Book; 1973)

The Spider Talks (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1932)

Tales of Ordinary Madness, by Charles Bukowski (Short Stories; 1983)

Taxi Driver (Film; 1976)

Teacher’s Pet (Betty Boop Cartoon; 1931)

Train To Pakistan, by Khushwant Singh (Novel; 1956)

Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1603)

Today’s Name Days

Ava, Richard (Austria)

Držislav, Julijana, Maksim, Rikard (Croatia)

Veronika (Czech Republic)

Richard (Denmark)

Richard, Riho, Riko, Riku (Estonia)

Rikhard, Riku (Finland)

Eugénie (France)

Ava, Richard, Ronan (Germany)

Parthenios, Parthenis (Greece)

Rómeó, Tódor (Hungary)

Eugenia, Teodoro (Italy)

Daunis, Nelda, Richards, Rihards (Latvia)

Jomantė, Ričardas, Romualdas, Vildaugas (Lithuania)

Riborg, Rigmor, Rikard (Norway)

Romuald, Ryszard, Sulisław (Poland)

Partenie (Romania)

Vanda (Slovakia)

Ricardo (Spain)

Dick, Rikard (Sweden)

Teofil, Teofila (Ukraine)

Beau, Beaumont, Beverly, Bo, Boe, Jace, Jacey, Sinclair (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 38 of 2024; 328 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 6 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Luis (Rowan) [Day 18 of 28]

Chinese: Month 12 (Yi-Chou), Day 28 (Xin-Chou)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 28 Shevat 5784

Islamic: 27 Rajab 1445

J Cal: 8 Grey; Onesday [8 of 30]

Julian: 25 January 2024

Moon: 7%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 10 Homer (2nd Month) [Ictinus)

Runic Half Month: Elhaz (Elk) [Day 14 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 49 of 89)

Zodiac: Capricorn (Day 17 of 28)

[fullregalia]

20/20.

This year, in hindsight, was a real write-off. I had grand plans for it, and while I ushered it in in a very low-key manner since I was recovering from the flu, I’d expected things to look up. Well, you know what they say about plans (RIP, my trip to Europe). I got very, very sick in early February, and I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t COVID. Since March, the days have been a carousel of monotony: coffee, run, work, cook, yoga, existential spiral, sleep. My Own Private Year of Rest and Relaxation, if you will. Of course, life has a way of breaking through regardless; I attended protests, completed my thesis, graduated from grad school, took a couple of road trips upstate, and celebrated the accomplishments and birthdays of friends and family from a safe social distance. It was all a bit of a blur, and not ideal circumstances to re-enter the real world, or whatever this COVID-present is. 

Throughout it all, in lieu of happy hours, coffee dates, and panel discussions, I’ve turned even more to culture and cuisine to fill the the negative space on my calendar where my social life once resided. However, since a global pandemic ought not to disrupt every tradition, here’s my year-end round up of what made this terrible one slightly more tolerable. 

TV

After an ascetic fall semester abstaining from TV in 2019 (save for my beloved Succession), I allowed myself to watch more as the year wore on, and especially after graduation. I caught up on some cultural blind spots by finally getting around to The Sopranos, Ramy, Search Party, and Girlfriends. I wasn’t alone in bingeing Sopranos, it absolutely lived up to the hype and then some; this Jersey Girl can’t get enough gabagool-adjacent content, pizzeria culture is my culture!

Speaking of my culture, there was also a disproportionate amount of UK and European shows in my queue. Nothing like being in social isolation and watching the horny Irish teens in Normal People brood. I’m partial to it because I share a surname with the showrunner, so I have to embrace blind loyalty even though there was, in my opinion, a Marianne problem in the casting. Speaking of charming Irish characters with limited emotional vocabularies, I belatedly discovered This Way Up a 2019 show from Aisling Bea and Sharon Horgan. And while Connell and Marianne are actually exceptional students, I found the real normal people on GBBO to bring me a bit more joy. Baking was abundantly therapeutic for me this year, and watching charming people drink loads of tea and fret over soggy bottoms was a comfort. I also discovered the Great Pottery Throw Down, and as a lifelong ceramics enthusiast, I cannot recommend it highly enough if you care about things like slips, coils, and glazing techniques. GPTD embraces wabi sabi in a way that GBBO eschews flaws in favor of perfection, and in a time of uncertainty, the former reminded me why I miss getting my hands in the mud as a coping mechanism (hence all the baking). Speaking of coping mechanisms, like everybody else with two eyes and an HBO password, I loved Michaela Cole’s I May Destroy You; though we’ve all had enough distress this year for a lifetime, watching Cole’s Arabella process her assault and search for meaning, justice, and closure was a compelling portrait of grief and purpose in the aftermath of trauma. Arabella’s creative and patient friends Kwame and Terry steal the show throughout, as they deal with their own setbacks and emotional turmoil. Where I May Destroy You provides catharsis, Ted Lasso presents British eccentricity in all its stereotypical glory. At first I was skeptical of the show’s hype on Twitter, but once I gave in it charmed me, if only for Roy Kent’s emotional trajectory and extolling the restorative powers of shortbread. For a more accurate depiction of life in London, Steve McQueen’s series Small Axe provides a visually lush and politically clear-eyed depiction of the lives of British West Indians in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Lastly, how could I get through a recap of my year in tv if I don’t mention The Crown. Normal People may have needed an intimacy coordinator, but the number of Barbours at Balmoral was the real phonographic content for me.

Turning my attention across the Channel, after the trainwreck that was Emily in Paris, I started watching a proper French show, Call My Agent! It’s truly delightful, and unlike the binge-worthy format of "ambient shows” I have been really relishing taking an hour each week to watch CMA, subtitles, cigarettes, and all.

Honorable mention: The Last Dance for its in-depth look at many notable former Chicago residents; High Fidelity for reminding me of the years in college when my brother and I would drive around listening to Beta Band; and Big Mouth.

Music

My Spotify wrapped this year was a bit odd. I don‘t think “Chromatica II into 911″ is technically a song, so it revealed other things about my listening habits this year, which turned out to remain very much stuck in the last, sonically. I listened to a lot more podcasts than new music this year, but there were some records that found their way into heavy rotation. While I listened to a lot of classics both old and new to write my thesis (Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Prokofiev, and Bach) the soundtrack to my coursework, runs, walks, and editing was more contemporary. Standouts include: 

Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee, which makes me feel like I’m breathing fresh air even when I’m stuck inside all day 

La Bella Vita by Niia, which was there for me when I walked past my ex on 7th avenue (twice!) and he pretended that I didn’t exist 

Fetch the Bolt Cutters by THEE Fiona Apple, because Fiona, our social distancing queen, has always been my Talmud, her songs shimmering, evolving, and living with me every year 

Shore by Fleet Foxes, for the long drive to the Catskills 

Women in Music, Pt. III by HAIM, because these days, these days...

Musicians have been reckoning with tumult this year as much as the rest of us, and the industry has dealt with loss on all fronts. I’d be remiss not to talk about how the passing of John Prine brought his music into my life, and McCoy Tyner, who has been a companion through good and bad over the years. 

Honorable mention to: græ by Moses Sumney; The Main Thing by Real Estate; on the tender spot of every calloused moment by Ambrose Akinmusire; Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers; folklore by you know who; and songs by Adrianne Lenker. 

Reading

What would this overlong blob be without a list of the best things I read this year? While I left publishing temporarily, books, the news, and newsletters still took up a majority of my attention (duh and/or doomscrolling by any other name). I can’t be comprehensive, and frankly, there are already great roundups of the best longform this year out there, so this is mostly books and praising random writers. 

Last year I wrote about peak newsletter. Apparently, my prediction was a bit premature as this year saw an even bigger Substack Boom. But two new newsletters in particular have delighted me: Aminatou Sow’s Crème de la Crème and Hunter Harris’ Hung Up (her ”this one line” series is true force of chaotic good on Blue Ivy’s internet). Relatedly, Sow and Ann Friedman’s Big Friendship was gifted to me by a dear friend and another bff and I are going to read it in tandem next week. 

On the “Barack Obama published a 700+ page memoir, crippling the printing industry’s supply chains” front, grad school severely hamstrung my ability to read for pleasure, but I managed to get through almost 30 books this year, some old (Master and Margarita), most new-ish (Say Nothing, Nickel Boys). Four 2020 books in particular enthralled me:

Uncanny Valley: Anna Wiener’s memoir has been buzzed about since n+1 published her essay of the same name in 2016. Her ability to see, clear-eyed, the industry for both its foibles and allure captured that era when the excess and solipsism of the Valley seemed more of a cultural quirk than the harbinger of societal schism.  

Transcendent Kingdom: Yaa Gyasi’s novel about faith, family, loss, and--naturally--grad school was deeply empathetic, relatable, and moving. I think this was my favorite book of the year. Following the life of a Ghanaian family that settles in Alabama, it captured the kind of emotional ennui that comes from having one foot in the belief of childhood and one foot in the bewilderment that comes from losing faith in the aftermath of tragedy.  

Vanishing Half: Similarly to Transcendent Kingdom, Brit Bennett’s novel about siblings who are separated; it’s also about the ways that colorism can be internalized and the ways chosen family can (and cannot) replace your real kin. It was a compassionate story that captured the pain of abuse and abandonment in two pages in a way that Hanya Yanagihara couldn’t do in 720.

Dessert Person: Ok, so this is a cookbook, but it’s a good read, and the recipes are approachable and delicious. After all the BA Test Kitchen chaos this summer, it’s nice we didn’t have to cancel Claire. Make the thrice baked rye cookies!!!! You will thank me later.

Honorable mention goes to: Leave The World Behind for hitting the Severance/Station Eleven dystopian apocalypse novel sweet spot; Exciting Times for reminding me why I liked Sally Rooney; and Summer by Ali Smith, which wasn’t the strongest of the seasonal quartet, but was a series I enjoyed for two years.  

Podcasts

I’m saving my most enthusiastic section for last: ever since 2018, I’ve been listening to an embarrassing amount of podcasts. Moving into a studio apartment will do that to you, as will grad school, add a pandemic to that equation and there’s a lot of time to fill with what has sort of become white noise to me (or, in one case, nice white parents noise). In addition to the shows that I’ve written about before (Still Processing, Popcast, Who? Weekly, and Why is This Happening?), these are the shows I started listening to this year that fueled my parasocial fire:

You’re Wrong About: If you like history, hate patriarchy, and are a millennial, you’ll love Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes’ deep dives into the most notable stories of the past few decades (think Enron and Princess Diana) and also some other cultural flashpoints that briefly but memorably shaped the national discourse (think Terri Schiavo, Elian González, and the Duke Lacrosse rape case).

Home Cooking: This mini series started (and ended) during the pandemic. As someone who stress baked her way through the past nine months, Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway’s show is filled with warmth, banter, and useful advice. Home Cooking has been a reassuring companion in the kitchen, and even though it will be a time capsule once we’re all vaccinated and close talking again, it’s still worth a listen for tips and inspiration while we’re hunkered down for the time being. 

How Long Gone: I don’t really know how to explain this other than saying that media twitter broke my brain and enjoying Chris Black and Jason Stewart’s ridiculous banter is the price I pay for it.

Blank Check: Blank Check is like the GBBO of podcasts--Griffin Newman and David Sims’ enthusiasm for and encyclopedic knowledge of film, combined with their hilarious guests and inevitable cultural tangents is always a welcome distraction. Exploring a different film from a director’s oeuvre each week over the course of months, the podcast delves into careers and creative decisions with the passion of completists who want to honor the filmmaking process even when the finished products end up falling short. The Nancy Meyers and Norah Ephron series were favorites because I’d seen most of the movies, but I also have been enjoying the Robert Zemeckis episodes they’re doing right now. The possibility of Soderbergh comes up often (The Big Picture just did a nice episode about/with him), and I’d love to hear them talk about his movies or Spike Lee (or, obviously, Martin Scorsese).      

Odds & Ends

If you’re still reading this, you’re a real one, so let’s get into the fun stuff. This was a horrible way to start a new decade, but at least we ended our long national nightmare. We got an excellent dumb twitter meme. I obviously made banana bread, got into home made nut butters, and baked an obscene amount of granola as I try to manifest a future where I own a Subaru Outback. Amanda Mull answered every question I had about Why [Insert Quarantine Trend] Happens. My brother started an organization that is working to eliminate food insecurity in LA. Discovering the Down Dog app allowed me to stay moderately sane, despite busting both of my knees in separate stupid falls on the criminally messed up sidewalks and streets of Philadelphia. I can’t stop burning these candles. Jim Carrey confused us all. We have a Jewish Second Gentleman! Grub Street Diets continued to spark joy. Dolly Parton remains America’s Sweetheart (and possible vaccine savior). And, last, but certainly not least: no one still knows how to pronounce X Æ A-12 Boucher-Musk.

[ingek73]

The British Royal Family, The Media and ‘SussExit’ – Part 1

By Zanye Linda August 9, 2020 4 Comments

The British Royal Family, The Media and 'SussExit' – Part 1

Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle was heralded by the British establishment, led by the UK media, as a sign of a modern Royal Family; an institution that symbolizes white power and privilege. By accepting her grandson’s marriage to an independent woman of mixed heritage, the Queen had demonstrated willingness to lead and present a Royal Family that was reflecting of today’s Britain. UK mainstream and social media was awash with stories of a progressive Royal Family and Meghan was proclaimed as one to modernize the Monarchy. They even went as far as claiming her engagement as a symbol of hope for Black women much to the skepticism of black women commentators. Fast-forward to today, Meghan Markle and her husband, Prince Harry stepped down as senior royals and moved their family to California to start a new life. But how did we go from modernizing an archaic institution to Harry and Meghan leaving the Royal Plantation?

Winter 2017

Within a week of the engagement announcement, Meghan and her fiancé undertook their first engagement where the world got a glimpse of this modern woman as a working royal. Huge crowds turned out to see them on that cold December day in Nottingham. As is customary with Royal women, her clothes were analyzed, the handbag she carried became a fast seller, and a lot of commentary was made about the couple’s Public Display of Affection(PDA). Later that month, Meghan attended Christmas festivities with the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family – a first for a future Princess. A lot was made of how the family welcomed her. It was during this period of festivities, when most of the Queen’s extended family would meet Meghan for the first time, that one of them arrived at Christmas lunch wearing a racist brooch(blackamoor).

Shortly after the annual Christmas spectacle at Sandringham, from whence the media peddled the idea of the ‘fab four”, Meghan would resume her pre-wedding tour of the UK alongside Harry. In January 2018 Meghan and Harry were scheduled to undertake engagements in Wales on the same day that William also had engagements elsewhere. The media commented on the calendar clash, but this was put down to poor planning by palace courtiers. However, they did note that this was bound to be a problem going forward. The Daily Mail quoted a “palace source” as saying “mark my words, William will be furious”.

As the final month of winter was rolling in, William and Kate undertook a tour of the Scandinavian countries. Back in London, Harry and Meghan were due to attend the Endeavour awards. This was the second clash of events in less than a month, and a scheduling problem for the Royal Rota– the press team dedicated to covering the Royal Family. In the final days of the Cambridges’ tour, Rebecca English, a Royal Correspondent for the Daily Mail informed her Twitter followers that, she would be leaving the Scandinavian tour early to cover Harry and Meghan at the Endeavour Awards, along with many other British reporters. The day after the awards, as William and Kate were concluding their tour, front pages of the papers were devoted to coverage of Meghan and Harry and as the Daily Beast noted, “It has been astonishing to witness in recent weeks just how completely the public appetite for information about William, Kate and their family has collapsed and the hunger for coverage of Meghan and Harry has grown commensurately”.

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The Daily Beast article down played the potential of a problem, stating that the lack of media and public interest in William and Kate, was as a result of their own poor attitude towards the press over the years, and that, this was characteristic of the royal family, with Harry arguably the worst of them all. Besides, Harry and Meghan were still new, and the expectation was for the current interest to wane over time.

At the end of February 2018, we finally got to see the “Fab Four” sharing a stage at the inaugural Royal Foundation forum where each one of them discussed their current and future charitable endeavors. Once again, we would see Meghan dominate media coverage, with headlines such as “Meghan Markle Shines at First Annual Foundation Forum”, along with praise for her ability to address difficult issues, as she referenced Time’s Up and Me Too, both topical issues at that time. Although some commentators saw this as Meghan being political, which the royal family supposedly avoid, others saw her bravery to push forward with female empowerment issues, a cause close to her heart.

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Spring 2018

While Harry and Meghan continued with their pre-wedding tour of the UK and a host of other royal engagements, staff changes were taking place within Kensington Palace. A gentleman by the name of Simon Case, a key player in Brexit negotiations then working under David Davis’ Brexit department, was appointed as William’s private secretary in March 2018. The following month, the UK hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting. Harry and Meghan attended various CHOGM events. This was expected given that during their engagement interview, they mentioned that the Commonwealth would be an area of focus for them. It was also during this period that Harry’s appointment as the Commonwealth Youth Ambassador was announced. A position we would later on find out, William wanted for himself.

In the meantime, the wedding preparations were progressing – the palace providing the occasional planning updates and the royal reporters and commentators filling in the gaps with their characteristic speculation. Meghan Markle’s paternal family, (her half-sister and brother) who had been vocal around the engagement, had for the most part been out of the news. Then almost two weeks before the wedding, the Markle quarters started getting noisy. On May 3rd 2018, Thomas Markle Jr published a letter in Instyle Magazine that he had supposedly sent to Harry, telling him not to marry his sister. It naturally became a tabloid feast. While he had managed to avoid engaging or speaking with the press up till now, all of a sudden there were paparazzi pictures of Thomas Markle Sr appearing in the same tabloids.

On 13 May 2018, 6 days before the wedding, the Daily Mail revealed Thomas Markle Sr as a “Royal Scammer”, who had staged the photos with the paparazzi and sold them for £100,000. What followed was a series of revelations about Thomas Markle Sr. via TMZ and the UK press. Even Thomas’ ex-daughter in law and her two sons who had not seen Meghan since she was a child were now involved with the UK media; they were flown to the UK as wedding day commentators, courtesy of ITV.

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The coverage at this point had reached fever pitch. There was wild speculation about whether or not the wedding would take place, given that Thomas Markle Sr. informed TMZ that, he had suffered a heart attack and would not be in attendance. In a sombre statement released via the palace two days before the wedding, Meghan informed the world that “sadly her father would not be attending the wedding” and went on to plead with the media to allow him the privacy he needed to recover. And as they say ‘the show must go on”. Harry and Meghan were wedded in a beautiful ceremony that celebrated them as a couple and was watched by billions across the globe.

Summer 2018

With the drama surrounding the Royal Wedding now in the past, the beginning of the summer would bring a number of firsts for the newly wed couple. Meghan had her first joint engagement with the Queen, which saw the new Duchess travelling overnight with Her Majesty aboard the Royal train. The UK media was only too eager to point out how this was a unique privilege, since other senior and non-senior royals including HRH the Duchess of Cambridge had never ridden the royal train. Afterwards, Harry and Meghan had a joint engagement with the Queen first at the Queen’s Young Leader’s Awards and then at Royal Ascot. Each public appearance made by Meghan was accompanied by a story and commentary on Meghan supposedly violating one protocol or another.

During the summer, Thomas Markle gave his first paid interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain hosted by Piers Morgan, who from their engagement announcement, had been vocal in his praise for Meghan Markle. The interview was billed as an opportunity for Thomas Markle to provide an explanation for missing out on his daughter’s wedding. It was also an opportunity for Piers and his co-host to interrogate Thomas on unrelated issues such as his opinion on what Harry’s views of Trump and Brexit were, for the simple purpose of stirring up controversy.

In as much as the interview attracted a lot of media attention it did not divert the attention of the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the following month, July 2018 saw them undertake their first Royal visit to Ireland. So far Meghan has aced all her appearances but this one was different because, such visits are undertaken on behalf of the UK government, and so she was going as a representative of her new country. It should therefore come as no surprise that they were accompanied by an unprecedented number of journalists, photographers and cameramen. The Irish came out in large numbers to see the royal couple at each stop of the visit, continuing what had become characteristic of the couple’s public engagements. Suffice it to say the visit was a success.

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The month of August is a slow royal news one, as the royal family enjoy their summer break. However, ‘twas not to be, as Thomas Markle decided(or did he?) that it was the opportune time to clear his name and dispel some mistruths that had been written about him. To do that, he penned an Op-Ed in the Mail on Sunday. He would later claim that he was being ignored by his daughter, in a story written by Caroline Graham- a Mail on Sunday Journalist based close to him in Mexico. This is the same Caroline Graham who has been revealed by Bylines Investigates, to be Thomas Markle’s babysitter, paying him a visit every weekend at his Mexico residence. Not to be left out, Samantha Markle travelled to the UK to “try and make amends with her sister”. She appeared on yet another ITV show – The Jeremy Vine show and was strangely photographed delivering a letter to security guards at Kensington Palace.

Caroline Graham Thomas Markle

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Caroline Graham Thomas Markle

Autumn 2018

In September 2018 Meghan launched her first solo project as a Royal; Together, a cookbook she developed with survivors of the Grenfell fire, to raise funds towards keeping the Hubb Community Kitchen open 7 days a week. Around the same time, there were rumblings from the Royal Rota regarding access to the Duchess of Sussex. Their grievance was that, they had not been given exclusive access to the cookbook prior to the promotion video being released on social media – never mind that the Royal Rota was invited to the official launch a week or so later. Maybe the protest was because news of the launch traveled farther and wider compared to what would have been the reach of the Royal Rota, perhaps a sign of the changing media landscape. The book topped Amazon’s bestseller even before it was released bumping JK Rowling off the number one spot.

Weirdly though, after the media had gone to great lengths to point out that the royal family works hard to avoid a clash of events, Rebecca English chose the weekend before the cookbook launch to announce a new project by the Duchess of Cambridge. This would be her first major project after 8 years of marriage. Details of the project were lacking and the launch date was yet to be determined, bringing into question the apparent urgency/timing of the announcement. Preemptive strike maybe?

Nonetheless, the Duchess through this project demonstrated a working style and a level of success that was rare within the royal family. Meanwhile Harry and Meghan were preparing to embark on their first major royal tour. A 16-day tour, comprising over 70 engagements across 4 countries – including Australia and New Zealand whose head of state is the Queen. The tour started on a high note with an announcement that the Sussexes were expecting their first child in the spring of 2019. While the world and the media entourage in Sydney were celebrating the news, back in the UK, royal commentators were stirring up controversy regarding the pregnancy announcement.

On the Saturday before the tour, Harry and Meghan attended Princess Eugenie’s wedding. According to the palace statement key family members had been informed, and had a chance to congratulate the couple in person at the wedding. In an article for the telegraph, Camilla Tominey advances a narrative that we had witnessed over the summer by claiming another ‘protocol violation’ in a story titled “Harry and Meghan may have breached etiquette by announcing baby news at Eugenie’s wedding, says expert” allegedly to the displeasure of some members of the royal family. This was of course a complete misrepresentation of the statement from Kensington Palace, but that did not matter and the mainstream media were only too happy to amplify this narrative.

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Murmurings aside, the tour kicked off on a high note with droves of people turning up at every stop. According to Forbes “Crowds the size that have not appeared for Queen Elizabeth on any of her trips to Australia (which date back as far as the 1950s)”, came out for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Amidst the success of this landmark tour and glowing coverage for the British royal family, the Sunday Times reported that plans were underway to split Kensington Palace and create a separate household for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Once again we see the palace put out a speculative article while Harry and Meghan are undertaking a highly important tour, making the purpose and the timing of the article questionable at best. Also, it did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm surrounding the tour, which had so far been a success and was commanding unprecedented positive global coverage for both the couple and the Royal Family.

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Once the tour concluded, on cue, the tone in media coverage for this couple changed. For one, the main focus of the coverage was Meghan. Secondly, it was persistently negative and thirdly it was driven by the royal rota. A key fixture in this media whirlpool was Robert Jobson, who had just published a Prince Charles biography “revealing” that Meghan threw a tantrum over a tiara. In the middle of November, Meghan visited the women at the Hubb Community Kitchen. This was a couple of months after the cookbook launch, and Camilla Tominey suddenly remembered that the mosque where the Hubb Community Kitchen is located had “links to terrorists”. The leader of a white supremacist group who advanced that theory, would later thank Camilla Tominey on Twitter for putting their mosque-terrorist story in the paper.

Jack Royston, then at the SUN and currently at Newsweek, wrote that “Meghan made Kate cry”. Why, he couldn’t say, but he was certain it happened. Rebecca English also weighed, in referring to Meghan as an ‘interloper who does not belong’. It was open season with article after article attacking Meghan specifically, calling her all kind of names; difficult, demanding, social climber, over sexual and a lot more. All steeped in racism, sexism and all kinds of bigotry. Every day bore a new story about Meghan, and every story trashing Meghan was an opportunity to uplift Kate.

The Telegraph, for no apparent reason, did a fawning feature on Carole Middleton, praising her as a hard working hurricane. The same paper had earlier described the Duchess of Sussex as “Hurricane Meghan”, a destructive force that was raining havoc on the Kensington Palace staff with her difficult and demanding ways. Curious, isn’t it? Amidst this onslaught of negative coverage, Emily Andrews via a palace source reports that, Harry and Meghan would leave Kensington Palace and move to the Windsor estate, getting ahead of the official palace statement. This became another opportunity to attack Meghan- the narrative being that she was instigating the move, and questioning why the couple would choose to move away from William and Kate at Kensington Palace.

In just one year, how did Meghan go from being the one to bring the Monarchy into the twenty first century to being cast as this villain? To recap events so far:

The media inform us that ‘William will be furious’ because of the shift in attention, which we have witnessed each time Harry and Meghan have a public engagement.

Meghan has delivered her first project, an international best-selling cookbook without the exclusive marketing and spin of the Royal Rota.

The attention Harry and Meghan are getting locally and internationally is nothing the Royal Family or the media has seen since Diana.

Was the spare and his wife outshining the heir? Also what is the connection between ITV and the Markle family? Why does this mainstream channel consistently give them platform? And what about the Royal Rota – they exist to sell the Monarchy to the public while also subjecting them to the appropriate scrutiny. Did they not think the negative coverage surrounding Meghan would have a negative impact on the Monarchy? Where was the Royal Family in all this? When Diana and Sophie were faced with negative media coverage, the Queen and the palace asked the editors to ease up on them. Even Kate was given a grace period to settle into her role as a Royal. Why were they not offering Meghan the same protections?