Churchill has been nipped!
As a well-known anglophile, we are interested in all things WSC. Perhaps the most iconic image of the great man was taken by acclaimed portrait photographer Yousuf Karash, whose show of portraits of acclaimed figures was recently at UM and you could have caught Rumpole there if you were sharp.
On December 30, 1941, as the war was going badly and Britan was barely hanging on, WSC visited Canada and addressed the Canadian Parliament. He was not prepared for the portrait and when told he had to sit for it, he glowered and told the young artist he had time for one shot. Karash, a young portrait photographer, was brash enough to tell the leader of the free world fighting fascism that he could not hold his beloved cigar. Churchill told him to bugger off in so many words. Karash snatched the stogie and ran back to his camera and snaped the picture of Churchill glowering at him and the rest is history.
The signed original hung in the landmark Fairmont hotel in Ottawa until recently, when it was discovered the portrait hanging was the not the original. It turns out from examining selfies on social media that the theft occurred around the end of 2021.
TO THE MOON ALICE
We are going back to the Moon. In 2025 we are going to land three astronauts on the moon. One will be a woman. One will be a person of color. The third will not be Rumpole. Not only are we going back to the Moon, but we are also going to land at the south pole, where ice and other valuable minerals are believed to exist. The poles of the Moon exits in perpetual darkness which makes landing and staying there much more difficult. But the existence of ice means water and hydrogen, which means fuel for a trip to Mars. The poles are the valuable parts of the Moon, which means China wants to establish a presence there as much as the US. Putin has threatened to invade once he's done with Ukraine. The poles of the Moon are the Big Kahuna in NASA speak.
And today- Monday- the SLS rocket that will soon take humans to the Moon is being launched and tested in the Artemis 1 mission. The rocket will be launched and then within a day NASA will say something that it has not said for 50 years "GO FOR TLI" which all NASA nerds means "go for trans-lunar insertion" and Artemis will leave earth orbit for the Moon where it will spend six weeks in orbit.
The most important test will be the heat shields on the Orion capsule, made of new material never tested in an actual re-entry, will be tested as the capsule comes into the atmosphere at 32 Mach and reaches temperatures of 5000 degrees Fahrenheit, or close to the temperature in Las Vegas around noon when we were there the other day. The re-entry with humans aboard in the future will not be as fast and as hot- but NASA is pushing the edge of the envelope to make sure the rocket and capsule are safe.
Upon a safe launch and return, NASA in 2024 will send a crew to orbit the Moon, much like the famed Apollo 8 mission that saved 1968. We have written before about Apollo 8, and our view of the historic nature of the mission. It was the very first time humans had left earth orbit for inter-space travel- the future of our race. And it was the very first time humans orbited another celestial body. And it generated the most iconic picture of the Apollo era- Earth Rising.
Things in space are about to get exciting again. It's about time. We are really excited about this.
Now what about that "Alice" quote? A bunch of 30 something judges are sitting around their chambers wondering about that. That's because they led deprived childhoods. They were never exposed to the Great One- Jackie Gleeson. Here's a clip. Of course, today it would never be allowed on television. It is not politically correct.