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Fortean Headlines

Geologist finds rock that looks exactly like cookie monster (source - unilad)

I'd love a cookie monster rock, unfortunately he's quite expensive though. :(
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I didn't realise the slur actually comes from 'raccoon' until I just Googled it.

There are two graves in Rottingdean church yard that have just been covered because they include the word in the epitaphs. I think they are going to be removed or permanently altered.

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Full story https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-53065693

Quoting my own post as there's an update to this story...

Sussex music hall singers' 'racist' gravestones to be re-engraved

A "derogatory and racist expression" will be removed from the headstones of two music hall singers.

But the gravestones of G H Elliott and Alice Banford, who both wore blackface, will return to the East Sussex graveyard from where they were removed.

They were moved from St Margaret's Church, in Rottingdean, last June due to their "offensive" inscriptions.

Mark Hill QC, Chancellor of the Diocese of Chichester, has now ruled the headstones should be altered.

It comes after the families of both singers were contacted by church officials over the re-engraving.

The performers, who wore blackface up until the 1950s, died in 1962, and their headstones were erected within weeks of each other.

Full story on BBC News - Sussex
 
A toddler is about to release an album recorded in the womb

So many talented musicians got their start as children: from Mozart to Michael Jackson, to Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift. Fifteen-months-old Luca Yupanqui has them all beat: she recorded her first album before being born.

"Sounds of the Unborn" will be released on April 2 by Sacred Bones Records. Luca's sounds were captured by her parents, musicians Elizabeth Hart and Iván Diaz Mathé, using biosonic MIDI technology.

"The electrodes receive electromagnetic impulses that are translated into MIDI and then hooked up to synthesizers," Hart told CNN. The MIDI devices were placed on Hart's womb over 5 sessions, each one-hour long.

According to Hart, Diaz Mathé had experimented with biosonic MIDI technology in the past to capture music from plants. "The concept of music coming from a different source was what motivated this new experimentation," Hart said.

In a release by Sacred Bones, Luca's music is defined as "the expression of life in its cosmic state -- pre-mind, pre-speculation, pre-influence, and pre-human."

FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/06/us/toddler-recorded-album-before-birth-trnd/index.html
 
A "derogatory and racist expression" will be removed from the headstones of two music hall singers.

There is something really terrifying about those wooden gags over gravestones, predicated on the imagined offence which could be taken by certain visitors.

Why should those visitors be credited with such little historical knowledge? Would they confuse performers, scratching a living in their dubious blackface trade, with slave-owners who made their fortunes from human misery?
 
Police: Man killed while filming prank robbery video for YouTube in Old Hickory

https://www.wkrn.com/news/police-1-killed-in-hermitage-shooting-2

"Detectives were told that Wilks and a friend were participating in a “prank” robbery as part of a YouTube video and approached a group of people, including the shooter, with butcher knives.

The shooter says he was unaware of the prank and shot Wilks in defense of himself and others."
 
Quoting my own post as there's an update to this story...

Sussex music hall singers' 'racist' gravestones to be re-engraved

A "derogatory and racist expression" will be removed from the headstones of two music hall singers.

But the gravestones of G H Elliott and Alice Banford, who both wore blackface, will return to the East Sussex graveyard from where they were removed.

They were moved from St Margaret's Church, in Rottingdean, last June due to their "offensive" inscriptions.

Mark Hill QC, Chancellor of the Diocese of Chichester, has now ruled the headstones should be altered.

It comes after the families of both singers were contacted by church officials over the re-engraving.

The performers, who wore blackface up until the 1950s, died in 1962, and their headstones were erected within weeks of each other.

Full story on BBC News - Sussex

I remember seeing a remembrance stone (if that's what they're called) on a church many years ago that read "Nigger - a friend of children" and some brief mid- 20th century dates. Clearly a commemoration for a dog, odd that it was on the side of a church. A friend said he'd seen something similar before, I don't recall if it was also on a church wall, yes, same name.

I presume it was the same name on these gravestones, neither article makes it clear. Perhaps it is something that should be changed but it's hardly an emergency that requires boarding over.
 
I remember seeing a remembrance stone (if that's what they're called) on a church many years ago that read "Nigger - a friend of children" and some brief mid- 20th century dates. Clearly a commemoration for a dog, odd that it was on the side of a church. A friend said he'd seen something similar before, I don't recall if it was also on a church wall, yes, same name.

I presume it was the same name on these gravestones, neither article makes it clear. Perhaps it is something that should be changed but it's hardly an emergency that requires boarding over.
In the original 'Dam Busters' film the dog is called 'nigger', this has now been edited out of newer versions screened on tv.
 
In the original 'Dam Busters' film the dog is called 'nigger', this has now been edited out of newer versions screened on tv.

I know that "nigger" was a common name for black pets of various species, editing it out of contemporary screenings of The Dambusters and other older films is fair enough and has been probably been happening for years, if not decades.
 
I know that "nigger" was a common name for black pets of various species, editing it out of contemporary screenings of The Dambusters and other older films is fair enough and has been probably been happening for years, if not decades.
Indeed, i seem to recall the first time i noticed the edit was in the early 90's
 
I know that "nigger" was a common name for black pets of various species, editing it out of contemporary screenings of The Dambusters and other older films is fair enough and has been probably been happening for years, if not decades.
On a slight tangent i was looking up something in an atlas recently and it stuck me that Niger is right next to Nigeria, this is not what intrigued me, what i couldnt work out is what natives of Niger are refered to as, the obvious answer would be Nigerians, but that is what natives of Nigeria are known as.
 
On a slight tangent i was looking up something in an atlas recently and it stuck me that Niger is right next to Nigeria, this is not what intrigued me, what i couldnt work out is what natives of Niger are refered to as, the obvious answer would be Nigerians, but that is what natives of Nigeria are known as.

Nigels.
 
I remember seeing a remembrance stone (if that's what they're called) on a church many years ago that read "Nigger - a friend of children" and some brief mid- 20th century dates. Clearly a commemoration for a dog, odd that it was on the side of a church. A friend said he'd seen something similar before, I don't recall if it was also on a church wall, yes, same name.

I presume it was the same name on these gravestones, neither article makes it clear. Perhaps it is something that should be changed but it's hardly an emergency that requires boarding over.

It wasn't the same word on the gravestones, in fact it's a different term on each one.

The stones were originally boarded over after complaints from visitors, then removed entirely (there's nothing there at all now). The original headstones are going to be 'edited' and then reinstalled.
 
Obviously a farmers get together.

Sheep found as police raid Bacup drinking party
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-55964154

I do find it funny that the BBC article finds it necessary to include the line;
"Under government rules, it is illegal to meet socially with people indoors during lockdown, unless they are part of your household or support bubble."
But no mention of whether or not it is illegal to meet sheep.
 
I think you'll find that it is common-place for the inhabitants of Niger to be called 'Nigerois', in reference to their predominately French-language-speaking history.
Nigeriens from Niger, Nigerians from Nigeria (which is why the BBC refers to Nigerois for the former).
Live and learn.
 
G. H. Elliott was among the most celebrated of the UK blackface minstrels. He lived until 1962 - long enough to have been given the This is Your Life treatment on television, by Eamonn Andrews, in 1957!

The N-word is not on the gravestone. Elliott was known for decades as "The Chocolate-Coloured Coon."

It was a branch of show-biz. that may be unlamented but there was nothing hateful about it. It provided a framework for the revival of a lot of old-time songs. The destabilising effect of two world wars, tended to make the Nineties a focus for nostalgia, so the minstrel-show lasted and lasted.

It is notorious that Britain had a Black and White Minstrel Show on mainstream television well into the 1970s.

I hate to think of a time when we could not see Minstrel Man, the 1944 tribute to a trade thought dying.

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis, it is a very haunting piece, regarded as one of the finest B-movies. :clap:
 
The Black & White Minstrel Show was terrible & seemed to go on for ever. I used to hate it as a kid - a Sunday evening festival of tedium. The inappropriateness didn't even enter my head.

Yes I can remember my heart sinking whenever it came on!

Sollywos x
 
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