Flanagan's Running Club – Issue 8 Introduction The first rule of Flanagan's Running Club is everyone should talk about Flanagan's Running Club! Feel free to forward on to anyone you want, tell people about it the works, and just get them to sign up. Can I ask you all a favour, please can you review my book on Inkitt, and the link is below. Even if you don’t take time to read it properly, please flick through a few chapters, give it ratings and a review and vote for it please. It may help me get it published. https://www.inkitt.com/stories/thriller/201530 London Pub Crawl date has been finalised – Saturday 28th July, full route and theme to be confirmed, but a date for the diary. On This Day – 25th May 1660 – Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament (England), which marks the end of the Cromwell-proclaimed Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and begins the Restoration (1660) of the British monarchy. 1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 1953 – The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston. 1977 – Star Wars is released in theatres. It’s Geek Pride Day And it’s Towel Day in honour of the work of the writer Douglas Adams Mapping The London Year 1850 - Obaysch arrives at London Zoo, the first hippopotamus seen in Great Britain since prehistoric times and the first in Europe since the Romans. Obaysch was captured on an island on the White Nile when he was less than one year old. His name is derived from the name of the island. He created such a sensation that it caused an outbreak of ‘Victorian Hippomania.” Chuck D Presents This Day In Rap And Hip-Hop History 1999 - Slick Rick releases his fourth album “The Art Of Storytelling” on Def Jam Records. In his first release since 1994, the British-born legendary MC’s gold-selling set is his highest charting album ever, topping the R&B/Hip-Hop charts and reaching #8 on the Billboard 200. Produced by Jazze Pha, Dame Grease, DJ Clark Kent, and Trackmasters among others, Rick’s stellar rhymes and smooth flow would shine on singles like the Kid Capri produced “Unify”, featuring Snoop Dogg, the crime-spree “Kill N1ggaz,” “We Turn It On,” featuring long-time collaborator Doug E. Fresh, and the hit “Street Talkin’” featuring Big Boi from Outkast, which reached #22 on the Rap chart. Other guests on “The Art Of Storytelling” included Nas, Canibus, Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, Peter Gunz, Q-Tip, Redman, Kid Capri, and Ed Lover. 365 – Great Stories From History For Every Day Of The Year 1895 On this data a London jury found Oscar Wilde, the internationally famous author of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere’s Fan, guilty of committing indecent acts, and the trial judge immediately sentenced him to two years’ hard labour. Three months earlier, Wilde has brought a charge of libel against the Marquess of Queensbury for calling him a ‘sodomite’, but the charge backfired disastrously when abundant evidence offered by the defence showed Wilde to have indulged with numerous young men in homosexual acts illegal under the English law of the time. The libel action ended in acquittal for Queensbury and arrest for Wilde. Wilde’s troubles had really started in 1892, when he had met Lord Alfred Douglas and the two had entered into a notorious love affair. Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury, was already enraged at his son’s behaviour on several fronts. Now seeing him bent on pursuing ‘intimacy with than man Wilde’, the Marquess determined to bring his son to heel by bringing the author to ruin. He succeeded only in the second goal. As Wilde wrote to Douglas: ‘In your war of hate with your father I was at once shield and weapon to each of you.’ Wilde was at the top of his form at the beginning of 1895, celebrated, hated, mocked, and cheered as an outrageous wit, a flamboyant personality, a genius with language, an outrager of Victorian sensibilities, and the leading spokesman for the cult of aestheticism. Married with two sons, he had also begun to lead a dangerous and not-so- secret double life as a homosexual, meeting in hotel rooms with young men, often lower-class and paid for their services. ‘Feasting with panthers’ was his phrase for these encounters. After the sensational trial and conviction, Wilde’s life was completely ruined. Upon his release from prison in 1897, he fled England and his family for Europe, where he stayed for the rest of his brief life, broken if not reformed, and dependent on his remaining friends for hand-outs. The man who had written so many poems, novels and plays in the years before prison, and left the world so many quotable gems, wrote only one more work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He died at the age of 46 in a Paris hotel room on 30 November 1900. As he quipped in better days: ‘The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything but genius.’ Births 1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson 1889 – Igor Sikorsky 1927 – Robert Ludlum 1939 – Ian McKellen 1958 – Paul Weller 1979 – Jonny Wilkinson Deaths 735 – Bede 1934 – Gustav Holst Number 1’s Number 1 single in 1983 - Spandau Ballet - True Number 1 album in 2015 - Brandon Flowers - The Desired Effect Number 1 compilation album in 2002 - Kisstory Random Results 2011 - San Francisco Giants 6 - Florida Marlins 7 2014 - Montreal Canadiens 2 - New York Rangers 3 1985 - Scotland 1 - England 0 Drabble A drabble is a complete story that is exactly one hundred words long. Ruined Had he thought that being in such a cultural city, a city of such renown and splendour, a city that thousands came to, to try and improve themselves, would rub off on him, that it would give him that new lease of life he needed, that he would be able to rewire all of his senses, activating feelings that had long since left him. As it turned out Paris was no better than Athens, Rome, Florence or Venice, or any other so called cultural centres that he had passed through recently. London, it would appear, had ruined him for life. Joke A little boy comes down to breakfast. Since they live on a farm, his mother asks if he had done his chores. “Not yet,” said the little boy. His mother tells him no breakfast until he does his chores. Well, he’s a little annoyed, so he goes to feed the chickens, and he kicks a chicken. He goes to feed the cows and he kicks a cow. He goes to feed the pigs, and he kicks a pig. He goes back in for breakfast and his mother gives him a bowl of dry cereal. “How come I don’t get any eggs and bacon? Why don’t I have any milk in my cereal?” he asks. “Well,” his mother says, “I saw you kick a chicken, so you don’t get any eggs for a week. I saw you kick the pig, so you don’t get any bacon for a week either. I saw you kick the cow so for a week you aren’t getting any milk.” Just then his father comes in for breakfast and kicks the cat halfway across the kitchen. The little boy looks up at his mother with a smile, and says, “You gonna tell him or should I?” Random Items Fact The month of May takes its name from one of the daughters of the Roman God, Atlas. Firsts 1558 – The first recorded doll’s house is made for Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria 1902 – Morris Michtom markets the first stuffed toy bear with moveable limbs. 1959 – Mattel launches Barbie, the first children’s doll to have an adult physiology. 1964 – Hasbro launches GI Joe, the first doll to have a target market of boys (Action Man in the UK) Thought Should you trust a stockbroker who's married to a travel agent? Forgotten English Vitulation A rejoicing like a calf. Ambrose Bierce’s Demon’s Dictionary RIOT A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders. Words You Should Know Badinage Light-hearted, witty chat or banter: 'The badinage between the two presenters must have been scripted, but it sounded very natural.' Popular Expressions – What They Mean And Where We Got Them A dog in a manger A mean-spirited person who will not let others use something that he had no use for himself. The phrase comes from a fable attributed to Aesop written in about 600BC, of a dog that made his bed in a manger of hay. When an ox disturbed him, he snarled and drove the ox away. He would not allow the ox to come near to eat the hay, despite the fact that he could not eat it himself. The ox leaves the stable muttering the moral of the tale: 'Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.' Rappers of the Nineties Trumps Quote(s) Shawn: You shouldn’t use long words; people don’t know what they mean. Anna: Ominous isn’t a long word. Shawn: No, i was on about synopsis, what does that mean. Anna: Précis. Shawn: I don’t know what that means either.