When I was a kid it was “digging ditches.” I think that’s probably seen as a pretty good union job nowadays!

This is like one of those ancient prophecies where a man is told he’ll die in a specific way and he tries to game it, but fate can’t be denied. (“You will be killed by lightning” — so he never leaves the house, and then lightning strikes a tree which falls on the house and crushes him.)

“You will die by drowning”

Oh yeah? I’ll go to outer space, no water there!

Also The Caine Mutiny, amazing courtroom scene.

In all my years of driving, I have yet to see a Falling Rock.

Only in school cafeterias, not in delis!

Jimi Hendrix playing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" at The Saville on Sunday, June 4, 1967... the album had been released just three days earlier!

> “Jimi was a sweetie, a very nice guy. I remember him opening at the Saville on a Sunday night, 4th June 1967. Brian Epstein used to rent it when it was usually dark on the Sunday. Jimi opened, the curtains flew back and he came walking forward, playing 'Sgt. Pepper', and it had only been released on the Thursday so that was like the ultimate compliment. It's still obviously a shining memory for me, because I admired him so much anyway, he was so accomplished. To think that that album had meant so much to him as to actually do it by the Sunday night, three days after the release. He must have been so into it, because normally it might take a day for rehearsal and then you might wonder whether you'd put it in, but he just opened with it. It's a pretty major compliment in anyone's book. I put that down as one of the great honours of my career. I mean, I'm sure he wouldn't have thought of it as an honour, I'm sure he thought it was the other way round, but to me that was like a great boost.” – Paul McCartney

https://www.britishbattles.com/war-of-the-revolution-1775-to-1783/battle-of-yorktown/?amp

> After the surrender the American and French officers entertained the British officers to dinner, other than Tarleton with whom the Americans refused to sit at table, due to the atrocities committed by his troops in North and South Carolina.

https://www.nps.gov/people/banastre-tarleton.htm

> When Cornwallis marched his army into Virginia, he loosed Tarleton and the Legion on sweeping raids into the interior. At Monticello, Tarleton nearly captured Governor Thomas Jefferson, who fled just in time. In the Siege of Yorktown, Tarleton served across the river at Gloucester. On October 4, 1781 a French Hussar regiment skirmished with Tarleton's British Legion. In this skirmish, Tarleton was unhorsed and wounded, saved by his men from a French lancer. After the British surrendered at Yorktown, there was a dinner party for military officers. The Americans invited all British officers, except for Tarleton. His past conduct could not be overlooked.

Aww man. He seemed like a nice guy.

I went to a card show in the 1980s and Mickey was there signing, but it was a huge line and I didn't feel like standing on it, and I wasn't really into autographs anyway. So I wandered around the convention hall and got an autograph from the immortal Duke Carmel. Just as good, right?

The surrender had all kinds of middle school drama. The British had requested being able to march out with flags flying and weapons at the ready, and playing an American or French tune in tribute to the victors. The Americans refused, as the British had denied the same request to the surrendering Americans at the Siege of Charleston the previous year.

So the British marched out with flags furled, muskets shouldered, and playing "The World Turned Upside Down" (though that might be apocryphal).

Cornwallis, claiming illness, did not attend and instructed a subordinate, Brigadier General Charles O'Hara, to surrender. O'Hara first attempted to surrender to Commander-in-Chief of the French forces, Rochambeau, who refused to accept it. O'Hara then attempted to surrender to Washington, who directed O'Hara -- as Cornwallis's subordinate -- to one of his own subordinates, Brigadier General Benjamin Lincoln, who finally accepted the surrender.

The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis as painted by John Trumbull depicts Lincoln reaching out to accept the sword of surrender from O'Hara, as Washington looks on.

Eight thousand British troops then marched out and laid down their weapons before the assembled French and American troops, then taken as prisoners of war. The American and French officers then hosted a cordial dinner with the British officers.

At the same time all this gallantry was going on, the American soldiers were ordered to round up all fugitive slaves who had fought alongside the British, and return them to their masters.

Mouse in the pantry?

The answer:

> Part of that ship's cargo was the 18 containers, each weighing 20 tonnes, of cabbages that ended up with Mr Slinn. His Ipswich-based firm organised their delivery to an anaerobic digestion plant, where they were turned into fuel.

Luckily most people don’t eat banana peels. Other fruit… wash it!

In case you were curious, it turned out the ground was too soft to bear the weight:

> If it were to sink less than 6 cm (2.4 in), the soil would be deemed sound enough for further construction without additional stabilization. An analysis of the meticulous measurements only took place in 1948, revealing that the cylinder had sunk some 19 cm (7.5 in) after two and a half years. The arch as conceived by Speer could only have been built after considerable prior stabilization of the ground.