Gertsamtkunstwerk

Giuseppe Rossi

Despite vowing not to repeat last year's Aquarius Project, I feel duty-bound to issue an addendum, because last year I had not even heard of this guy (he was a child when I began the project...), but in the intervening year he has inveigled himself into my pin-up gallery. Back in August, I thought - what an exciting footballer he looks; a few moments later I came over all hot-and-bothered, and then wondered if I was having a hot flush - after all, the potentially very great Pippo Rossi is almost exactly half my age...

February 19

The Age of Aquarius could not end without mention of UK-Blogland's favourite Belgian, the lovely Zoe, girlfriend of a twat, who celebrated her much older than Scary but ever so slightly younger than TD birthday on Saturday. 

Also, my friend from school, Andrea B, aka, Roxy. Guess which Prince she was named after...

1473 Copernicus, astronomer
1717 David Garrick, actor, playwright and theatrical manager. There's a theatre in Altrincam named after him.
1924 Lee Marvin, Hollywood Legend, singer of the seminal "I Was Born Under a Wandering Star..."
1930 Gerald Sinstadt, the voice of (ITV) football, but also executive producer of the Maria Ewing Carmen, which gets shown every few months on the Performance Channel
1940 Smokey Robinson, Miracle
1952 Amy Tan, Joy Luck Club
1958 Helen Fielding, author of Bridget Jones
1960 Prince Andrew, waste-of-space money
1960 Leslie Ash, knows all about Men Behaving Badly

February 18

1745 Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta physicist/inventor (battery)

1848 Louis Comfort Tiffany glassmaker (stained glass windows)

1890 Boris L Pasternak Russian poet/writer (Dr Zhivago)

1929 Len Deighton, writer of airport blockbusters that I never read, but also (and producer of) Oh! What A Lovely War!

1931 Toni Morrison,novelist

1931 Ned Sherrin, Loose Ends

1932 Milos Forman, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus

1933 Yoko Ono. Hmmm...

1933 Bobby Robson, football coach extraordinaire

1943 Graeme Garden, Goody

1946 Michael Buerk, the coolest newsreader

1948 Sinead Cusack, actress

1949 Cybill Shepherd, actress

1954 John Travolta, actor

1963 Rob Andrew, goal kicker extraordinaire

1967 Colin Jackson 100 meter hurdler

1967 Roberto Baggio, great footballer

1975 Gary Neville, even greater footballer 

1983 Jermaine Jenas - as the lovely Londonmark once comemnted - in the days when Bobby Robson rather than that total tosser Souness was Newcastle manager - that made Jermaine Jenas exactly 50 years younger than Bobby. I repeated that fact to many people, some of whom said "Wow"...

February 17

Celebrity birthday today is none other than the Troubled Diva, Mike,  43 today. This is how he and K typically celebrate Big Days

Other, not-so-famous birthdays:

1653   Arcangelo Corelli, composer and violinist
1867   William Cadbury - Mmmm. Chocolate...
1929   Yasser Arafat, recently deceased Nobel Laureate
1929   Patricia 'Hyacinth Bucket' Routledge. Legend, and practically a 'friend of the family'
1934   Barry 'Dame Edna' Humphries
1944   Bernie Grant, (jointly) first Black MP
1945   Brenda Fricker, Casualty and My Left Foot
1974   Jerry O'Connell. He was the fat kid in Stand By Me, has dated Geri 'Ginger Spice' Helliwell and is the nephew of a friend of mine, 'Whippy'

February 16

1866 Johann Strauss I, composer - Radetsky March. Had a very famous son.
1876 George Macauley Trevelyan, historian
1922 Geraint Evans, bass-baritone
1935 Sonny 'I've Got You' Bono
1942 Kim Chong-Il, undisputed President of the Axis-of-Evil
1943 Anthony Dowell, ballet dancer
1954 Michael Holding, cricketer, immortalised, as a batsman, by Brian Johnson, when the bowler was Willey.
1959 John 'You Can Not Be Serious' McEnroe
1961 Andy Taylor, one of the Taylors of Duran Duran. Eminently forgettable
1964 Christopher Eccleston very great actor, soon to be Dr Who
1973 Cathy Freeman, Olympic Great

15 February

The biggest celebrity celebrating today is Scary Duck. Happy Birthday, Alistair, still two years older than me!

1564   Galileo Galilei, Let Me Go!
1748   Jeremy Bentham, invented Utilitarianism - the greatest happiness of the greatest number
1797   Henry Engelhard Steinway, piano maker
1812   Charles Lewis Tiffany, jeweller
1874   Ernest H Shackleton, explorer
1946   Clare Short, MP
1947   John Adams, composer - he has just picked up a few Grammys for his "On the Transmigration of Souls", a 9/11 remembrance. Most famous for Nixon in China and Death of Klinghoefer
1954   Matt Groening, created The Simpsons

14 February

This entry has been a long time time coming. But today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two three, Bloggers.

Everyone's favourite Slinky Sleazy Sexy Saffir commentor Adrian 'Dot' Sevitz is of an uncertain age - let's just say it starts with 3 and ends in a BIG ZERO. Happy 300th birthday Adrain!! I'm a maybe for the Big Bash!

And occasional lurker Cat Brownie Hut is an undisclosed age today. 

After hours update My favourite New Zealander Daisy is about 29 today.

1942 Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York. No Rudy Giuliani
1944 Carl Bernstein of Watergate - they reckon nowadays that Deep Throat was a mixture of Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush sr
1951 Kevin 'Keggy' Keegan. He would have just loved it, yesterday, but ha! United won 2-0 at City...
1956 Tom Watt Football commentator, or, as we all know him Eastender's Lofty
1959 Renee Fleming, soprano. I saw her in concert last year, and I have a ticket to see her as Desdemona in the summer.
1969 Helen Baxendale, or as we all know her, Cold Feet's Rachel
1970 Simon Pegg, cult favourite actor

February 13

Today would have been my Grandad's birthday. He got the best ever 60th birthday present, a week early...

Famous birthdays

1922 Francis Pym, resigned over the Falklands. Even at the time , it struck me as an honourable and dignified resignation. Bollox got that wrong - see comments. CBATG.
1938 Oliver Reed, drinker
1942, Pete Tork - the Monkee that no one ever remembers
1944 Stockard Channing, the real star of Grease (Rizzo), excellent in West Wing
1944 Jerry Springer, TV personality
1950 Peter Gabriel, musician
1956 Peter Hook, New Order
1956 Liam Brady, footballer
1974 Robbie Williams, overrated singer
1981 Liam Miller, footballer

February 11

Apologies for being late...

The birthday of my cousin Liz. Belated happy birthday, Liz, even thogh I know you won't be reading this.

1800 William Henry Fox Talbot, photographic pioneer
1847 Thomas Edison, inventor
1922 Leslie Nielsen, Naked Gun
1926 Ted Moult, fit the best, fit Everest
1932 Dennis Skinner MP. His son studied accountancy a couple of years ahead of me at the same college. AFAIK, we never met. Some of my lecturers were extremely excited to be teaching the son of the 'Beast of Bolsover'
1953 Jeb Bush - they've got him lined up to be next...
1969 Jennifer Aniston, actress of medicre talent and immense fame
1971 Damian Lewis - he was brilliant in Band of Brothers and quite good in the first series of Hearts and Bones. Not seen much of him recently, although IMDb states he has two films and a mini-series (Escape from Colditz) in the can.

February 10

1670 William Congreve, playwright. Wrote Semele, which Handel put to music and I saw, and thoroughly enjoyed at ENO last November.
1824 Samuel Plimsoll - invented the plimsoll line on ships
1889 Howard Spring, wrote one of my favourite novels, Fame is the Spur. There was an excellent BBC adaptaption way back in the early Eighties starring Tim Piggott-Smith
1890 Boris Pasternak - Dr Zhivago
1894 Harold MacMillan, onetime Prime Minister
1898 Bertolt Brecht. I've actually seen a play by him - The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui. My god, I'm an intellecks intellicet clever person, after all.
1910 Joyce Grenfell. The greatest female comedian, ever. Legend.
1914 Larry Adler. Popularised the mouth organ. My mouth organ sits on my computer table. Sometimes I get it out and play it. It frightens away the mice.
1926 Danny Blanchflower - the only person who ever turned down Eamonn Andrews' Red Book for This is Your Life. There was a great programme shown on ITV in the Eighties called Those Glory Glory Days about Football writer Julie Welch's obsession with Danny, and Spurs. I always remember the day after it was shown, when Alison announced that it was the story of half the members of Senior Choir. Guilty as charged - although not Danny Blanchflower, obviously.
1927 Leontyne Price soprano. I have her on a CD assisting the tenor in Il Trovatore
1939 Peter Purves. A legend.
1939 Roberta Flack. Deserving of immortality for "Killing Me Softly With His Song" one of the most amazing songs ever written. IMO.
1941 Michael Apted - just look at that CV. I wonder if they're making 49-Up, or if they have decided to abandon the project.
1946 Donovan. He sang a song called Geraldine. I do not have a copy of it.
1950 Mark Spitz, 7 Gold Medals in swimming at the 1972 Olympics
1958 Sharon Stone
1975 Clare Goose - Mel Silver, Waking the Dead, and Tina Seabrook, Casualty

My goodness, that is a very long list of famous and, on the whole, admirable, people. Yet not one really to merit a photograph.

February 9

1885 Alban Berg, composer. I have never knowingly heard any music by him, but undeterred, I shall be going to ENO's production of his Lulu in April.
1926 Garret FitzGerald, former Taiseoch. I saw him once, when he delivered the Hugh Gaitskill Memorial Lecture at Nottingham University.
1940 Smokey Robinson
1944 Alice Walker - The Color Purple
1957 Gordon Strachan. I've met him so many times. I ought to scan a photo of him in, but it really is too much effort, even though I thoroughly admired as a footballer and he was always pleasant to me
1960 Holly Johnson
1965 Lennox Lewis
1985 David Gallagher - he's some sort of actor, but I wouldn't have heard of him but for the google searches combining his name with 'underwear'...

February 8

1819 John Ruskin writer/critic/artist/Gothic Revivalist and deeply disturbed man.
1828 Jules Verne, pioneered Science Fiction writing
1885 Edith Evans, actress
1931 James Dean, wallpaper to most student bedrooms
1952 Carolyn Pickles, one of those actress who always acts perfectly competently in supporting-type roles. Truly dreadful father, thankfully we have all forgotten about him now.
1981 Ralf Little - from the Royle Family

February 7

Unfamous birthday today is of Mathew M, the son of Elaine (qv) who is eighteen today. Happy birthday, Mathew. You might want a pint or two of that stuff called beer. It's said to be very nice.

Today is the day of a very great author and of one of my childhood favourite authors.

In 1812 was born Charles Dickens

In 1867 was born Laura Ingalls "Little House on the Prairie" Wilder

Other famous birthdays/dates are:

1478 Sir Thomas More lawyer/lord chancellor of England/saint
1917 Dick Emery, England, actor/comedian. He was sort of occasionally funny.
1924  Hattie Jacques - from the Carry On Films and Eric Sykes' televison series. Part of the TV wallpaper of the Seventies
1943 Peter "Oscar and Lucinda" Carey
1943 Gareth "Nescafe" Hunt. Another part of 70s/80s TV wallpaper
1945 Pete Postlethwaite very talented and extremely ugly actor
1960 Steve Bronski - not very famous but gave his name to a truly excellent Eighties band, Bronski Beat
1962 Eddie Izzard, another comedian I do not find as funny as I ought to ducks

February 6

1564 Christopher Marlowe playwright
1665 Queen Anne
1838 Henry Irving, actor
1895 Babe Ruth. I'm not into baseball at all but even I've heard of him
1911 Ronald Reagan
1917 Zsa Zsa Gabor, bride
1922 Patrick MacNee, actor
1924 Billy Wright, capped 105 times by England
1929 Keith Waterhouse, playwright
1931 Freddie Trueman, cricketer
1932 François Truffaut, film director
1933 Leslie Crowther, The Price is Right
1940 Jimmy Tarbuck, golfer. Lisa's Dad
1945 Bob Marley, legend
1950 Mike Batt, Womble
1960 Jeremy Bowen. Paxman's Mini-Me
1962 Axl Rose, anagram of Oral Sex
1966 Rick Astley, crooner - actually, he had a not unpleasant voice, I wonder what happened to him. One source put him in 1968. Thankfully, this is incorrect...

In 1968, the  10th Winter Olympic Games opened in Grenoble and Dwight Eisenhower shot a hole-in-one. Something else happened on this day in 1968, but I can't remember it...I merely refer you to Mike's comment from two years ago:

It's 37 which is the killer, believe me. When you know that you really are out of that 18-35 demographic for good, and there's no going back.

I prefer to think of myself as being in my prime...

February 5

Today's star birthday is a hero for the present and star for the future. Cristiano Ronaldo is twenty today He single-handed won the FA Cup Final for Manchester United last May, and was one of the outstanding players in Euro 2004. And that whilst still a teenager.

1788 Robert Peel, former Home Secretary, invented the police. One of the blocks in our new building is called Peel. The other two are Fry and Seacole
1840 Hiram Maxim inventor of automatic single-barrel rifle. He's buried in West Norwood cemetery. I found his grave on my most recent visit there. It isn't difficult to find. But I'm never in the mood for looking when I go there.
1911 Jussi Bjorling, one of the very greatest singers of the Twentieth Century
1945 Roy 'Chubby' Brown, so-called comedian, who, bizarrely, having changed from his birth name is now more famous for it - Royston Vasey
1948 Sven Goran Eriksson
1989 Jeremy Sumpter You know, I know bug all about him, but he features quite a lot in search requests to this site - perhaps because of this . Whoo, he's legal now. Calm down girls....

February 4

Today sees the twenty somethingth birthday of the lovely Caitlin, the first Blogger in the Aquarius project. Happy Birthday, Caitlin!

1868  Constance Gore-Booth Markiewicy. First woman MP, although, as an Irish Nationalist she never took her seat.
1902 Charles Lindbergh, first person to fly solo across the Atlantic.
1906 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian murdered by the Nazis
1915 Norman Wisdom. Comedian. Except he isn't funny. He announced his retirement recently. He's very popular in Albania. And I'm impressed at a nonageneraian maintaining a website
1947 Dan Quayle. When he was Vice-President of the US, it was kind of reassuring to know that somebody so stupid could never actually become President...
1948 Alice Cooper - School's Out

And finally, today Madmusings is three years old. Finally, past the "Terrible Twos" stage of Tantrum Throwing and now beginning to form whole sentences and express abstract concepts.

February 3

Top birthday person today is Felix Mendelssohn, born in 1809. Whenever I'm asked to list my favourite composers I always forget him, but whenever I hear anything by him, I'm always knocked by its beauty. I suspect I have barely scratched the surface of his repertoire, yet whenever I hear a unfamiliar piece, it's always so accessible. His violin concerto is amongst my favourite pieces of orchestral works. Elijah is one of my favourite oratorios, although I need to study it more.

1826 Walter Bagehot, author of "The English Constitution". One of my best Lambeth jokes was "In the words of Bagehot, committee meetings are the efficient part of the Constituion and Full Council is the dignified part. Only, Committees are not efficient and Council isn't dignified." (One of those jokes that relies on prior knowledge to maximise the laughs...)

1929 Val Doonican. Val Doonican has a very special place of respect on madmusings
1955 Kirsty Wark, Newsnight doyenne
1965 Maura Tierney, my favourite character - Abby - in ER, a programme I have watched spasmodicaly over the years.

February 2

Today really is Rookmin at work's birthday, not yesterday as I erroneously posted...

Celebrities celebrating today include:

1650 Nell Gwynn. She loved her oranges

1875 Fritz Kreisler, composer and virtuoso violinist, and, most of all, came out with some great 'Quotations' - there's one of him walking with a friend in Vienna, past a fish shop, where a row of fish, all with their heads on, are on display, open mouthed and goggle-eyed. He slaps himself on the forehead and says "I've just remembered I'm supposed to be playing in a public concert at the moment..."

1882 James Joyce, the author of Ulysees, rumoured to be the favourite novel of Karen Uborka

1931 Les Dawson. He was funny. Sometimes.

1940 David Jason. I'm not really a fan, not at all, in fact I'll generally avoid stuff with him in it. But as I'm the only anti-David-Jason person in Britain, I suppose I have to mention him.

1944 Sir Andrew Davis, conductor

1963 Pebbles Flintstone

1972 Dana International, Transsexual Israeli Eurovision winner, not to be confused with Asexual Northern Irish Eurovision winner, Dana Provincial. You know I only posted that to throw in the Dana Provincial joke, which I originally read in Troubled Diva's comments...

February 1

Now we get down to the proper Aquarius month. No offence to the January boys and girls, but proper Aquarians are born in February...(hmm, how many of my heroes have I just dissed?)

Today is the birthday of Chris who was in my class at University. I'm sure he won't mind if I reveal that he is 37 today. Rookmin at work celebrates her birthday today (update - I got that wrong, it's actually tomorrow...) (is that chocolates I smell in the air?). It's fair to say that a disproportionate number of auditors are Aquarians. Why, I don't know, but it has been statistically proven in my current job, and in my previous job, and there is sufficient, relevant and reliable evidence from my first audit job.

Now, the celebs...

1874   Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the librettist for Richard Strauss. He wrote, inter alia, Der Rosenkavalier.
1901   Clark Gable. Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.
1915   Sir Stanley Matthews
1918   Muriel Spark. I read a lot of her books in my teens. I haven't read any for years.
1922   Renata Tebaldi, soprano. She died just before Christmas.
1931   Boris Yeltsin. I think it would be fair to say he was a major catalyst in a seismic historic change. Whether that is a change for the better or worse may emerge sometime during my lifetime*
1937   Don Everly. Famous for being a brother
1964   Linus Roache. I've seen him in a few things, including on the live stage, and have rather enjoyed him. Hard to imagine he's his father's son.
1968   Lisa Marie Presley. Famous for being a daughter. And a wife...
1984   Darren Fletcher. Now he's twenty one it's time to prove that he's more than just a (very) promising youngster.   I think he will.

* or am I sounding too much like Mao Tse-chung?

31 January

Blimey, today's selection is pretty iconic.

1797   Franz Schubert very very great composer. He died at the age of 31. Imagine what he could have achieve if he had lived to be as old as Mozart...
1882 Anna Pavlova, cake maker
1921 Mario Lanza - isn't the first and won't be the last of the very great tenors of the twentieth century to feature in the Aquarius Project.
1942 Derek Jarman
1956 Jonny Rotten
1973 Portia de Rossi - loved her in Ally McBeal, love her even more in Arrested Development

30 January

Oops, late again...

My apologies. 30 January 2005 was the day where Gert suffered from the mother and father of all hangovers, together with a dead leg and dead arm, caused by falling off her seat at the Royal Opera House, two blistered fingers from the strange mishandling of a cigarette at the Marquis of Anglesey, and, just to cap it all, PMS.

Anyway, yesterday's birthdays...

1882   Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the very greatest statesmen in history. IMO.
1913   Percy Thrower. An ex-boyfriend of mine confessed that his brother and some mates trashed the Blue Peter garden. Those of us of a certain vintage will remember what a national day of shame this was.
1937   Vanessa Redgrave, actress and agitator
1941   Dick Cheney. Puppet master. Very scary man. Towering intelligence. Very very scary
1951 Phil Collins. Even scarier
1960 Gerald Finley. Baritone with whose voice I fell in love on Saturday night...And I shall be seeing and hearing him again in May.

January 29

Non-celeb birthday is my friend Harriet, who today is a year older than she was last birthday. Happy birthday Harriet! Also my sister's friend Elaine, who is pretty much the same age as Harriet. Happy birthday Elaine!

On this day was born in 1737 Thomas Paine, a great and undersung political philosophical. He wrote the Rights of Man, and was the influence behind the US Bill of Rights. HM Customs and Excise London Central office is in Thomas Paine House above Angel tube, and I think it rather beautiful that a great Socialist is commemorated in the building that collects VAT from the City.

In 1860 was born Chekhov.

In 1862 was born composer Fred Delius. Try as I do, I really can't get to like Fred Delius.

Germaine Greer was born in 1939. I was deeply impressed and influenced by the Female Eunuch, but I have found her to be so wrong in recent years. Most of all for stating before a Commons Select Committee that we ought to tolerate female genital mutilation in the spirit of cultural understanding. There is no excuse for female genital mutilation, and as a feminist deeply influenced by the Female Eunuch, I cannot understand why anybody would wish to defend it.

Tony Blackburn was born in 1943. What is there to say about Tony Blackburn that hasn't already been said?

Roderick Earle, bass, was born in 1952. I have seen him a few times at Covent Garden, and he is on at least four DVDs I own. A fine comprimario.

Oprah Winfrey was born in 1954. I suppose she is a cultural phenemonem that cannot be ignored, but I find her programme, and the derivative imitators to be deadly dull and no substitute for actual thought.

Sean Kerly was born in 1960. As captain of Great Britain's gold-medal winning Olympic hockey team he inhabited the outer portals of my pantheon of heroes in the 1980s - I suppose encompassing the 1984 and 1988 games.

Roddy Frame, from the vastly underrated Aztec Camera was born in 1964. As was Anna Ryder Richardson from Changing Rooms. I used to enjoy that programme when I was part of its cult following on BBC2. But once it transferred to BBC1 it became tired, clichéd and it was downhill all the way.

Clare Balding, horse, was born in 1971. You know, I would have put her as much older than me. I said I was crap at guessing ages.

Sara Gilbert was born in 1975. She played Darlene in Roseanne, one of my favourite sitcom characters.

January 28

1706 John Baskerville, typeface inventor
1853 José Martí y Perez, after whom Havana's airport is named
1886 Artur Rubenstein, pianist
1912 Jackson Pollock, artist - when someone says "it's a load of Pollocks" this is about whom they speak
1918 Harry Corbett, the father of Sooty and Sweep
1933 Sacha Distel, crooner
1944 John Edmonds, GMB
1944 John Tavener, composer
1944, Bobby Ball, nothing without Tommy Cannon
1945 Nick Raynsford, Local Government Minister
1957 Frank Skinner, never the same without Baddiel

I have met one, and seen two of today's birthday boys

January 27

Today is the birth date of someone who was more than just a legend, a genius, but, in actual fact, a god. The one and only incomparable genius that was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

145 years after Mozart's birth saw the death of the genius and legend that was G. Verdi.

1832 Lewis Carroll
1933 Mohammed Al Fayed
1948 Mikhail Baryshnikov, ballerina
1958 Alan Milburn, former future Labour Party Leader
1962 Michael Collins, clarinettist
1965 Robbie Earle, one of the most articulate and engaging football pundits
1972 Mark Owen, Take That

January 26

Better late than never...!

My cousin's daughter Michelle is twenty five today.

The big celebrity birthday is, of course, Paul Newman. Eighty today! And what a legend! Funny thing is, in my youth, whilst I liked him, I never put him in my pantheon. This is a man who just a few weeks ago walked away unscathed from a fire in a sports car he was test driving. The 'walked away unscathed' is quite secondary to the fact that he's competing in motor sport at his age. What a geezer! I can't decide which picture of him to post, so just follow the link

Other birthdays of significance:

1905 Maria von Trapp
1914 Kaye Webb, of Puffin Books and the Puffin Club
1922 Michael Bentine, the 'fourth' Goon
1928 Eartha Kitt
1944 Marti Caine. imdb says she died in 1995. Surely that's not true, is it?
1945 Jacqueline du Pré, best cellist, ever
1963 Andrew Ridgeley, of Wham!
1963 Jose Mourinho, chelsea's manager and verboten on this 'ere blog.

25 January

Today we mark the birthdays of Robert Burns 1759, Somerset Maugham 1874 and Virginia Woolf 1882. Well, I don't, because I find them both utterly incomprehensible. I tried, but I kept saying "Just go to the bloody Lighthouse and stop angsting about it..."

In 1860 was born Charles Curtis, who was US Vice President in 1929-33. No, I've not heard of him, either.

1915 saw the birth of Ewan MacColl, writer of Dirty Old Town, and, of course, father of the late, great Kirsty.

In 1928 was born Eduard Shevardnadze, Soviet Foreign Minister during Glasnost and Perestroika. Didn't he have a famous doctrine - wasn't it the Sinatra Doctrine - I'll Do It My Way.

Gary Tibbs was born on this day in 1958. Ooh, ooh, ooh, one of the wonderful Ants.

1939, Angela Thorne, the likeable-but-dim Marjory from To the Manor born. She also played Maggie in 'Anyone For Denis' And, ooh, I've just discovered she is the mother of the rather scrumptious but irredeemably posh Rupert and Laurence Penry-Jones.

David Ginola was born in 1967.

24 January

Famous birthdays today include Neil Diamond, who is 64. I am going to see him at Earls Court in May. I'm not entirely sure why, because, just before I booked the ticket I realised that while he's a super songwriter, he's not much as a singer. Still, I thought I'd go. I've heard he's good live. We shall see.

Farinelli was born on this day in 1705. He is almost certainly the most famous castrato in history. You know what a castrato is, right? It's when a boy soprano with a beautiful voice had his tackle interfered with in order to preserve the beautiful sound, and with the added bonus of a man's strength behind it. Well, that's the official story. In actual fact, it was because the Catholic Church - until very recently - abhored women being near the altar or singing in Church, because of all that impure, blood thing. So let that be a salutary lesson. Feminism doesn't just benefit ladies.

In 1732 Pierre de Beaumarchais was born. He wrote a famous trilogy of seditious plays, The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and, er, the other one. All three were turned into operas; one okay-ish; one supremely gorgeous; and one almost totally forgotten. It was easier for operas than straight plays to get past the censor. Although by no means easy...

In 1776, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, German writer/judge/composer, was born. I don't think I have ever heard any music he wrote, but in my book he deserves immortality, being the inspiration for Offenbach's rather wonderful "Tales of Hoffmann" about the life and loves of a dissolute poet.

In 1800 was born Edwin Chadwick, instrumental in the Great Whig Reforms of the 1830s and 1850s - basically creating Municipal Socilaism, although they didn't call it that back then.

Also

1935 Bamber Gascoigne
1957 Ade Edmondson
1958 Jools Holland

January 23

Oops, forgot to post this yesterday. Well, a pretty boring selection it is too. Yeah, sure, all great men in their fields. And they are all men. But no one to get me even the slightest excited. And believe me, this is an entirely subjective project...!

1832 Édouard Manet France, Impressionist painter
1891 Antonio Gramsci Italian philosopher/marxist theorist
1898 Sergei Eisenstein Russia, film maker (Battleship Potemkin)
1899 Humphrey Bogart actor (Casablanca, Caine Mutiny, African Queen)
1919 Bob Paisley English soccer player/trainer/manager of FC Liverpool
1930 Derek Walcott St Lucia, poet/writer (Omeros, Nobel 1992)

January 22

Well, the most notable birthday today is my cousin Justin, but, even though he doesn't have a computer (and only has a secret mobile phone) I won't embarrass him by publishing his age or a photo. Although I did publish a photo of his fiftieth birthday party last year...So happy birthday, Justin.

Joseph Calleja is 27 today. I have his Tenor Arias CD. Very pleasant indeed. Let's hope that youthful potential comes to fruition. He's in La Traviata at Covent Garden next month, but I shall be seeing the other cast. Besides, La Traviata is really a soprano's opera.

Worth mentioning is Claire Rayner, a remarkable woman, who is 74 today. Oh, I suppose I should mention Alf Ramsey, who was born in 1920. But he's not really a hero, just a sort of defaultish heroish. (He managed the World Cup winning team in 1966...)

The rest are all slightly famous and nearly interesting, but nothing to write home about.

1561 Francis Bacon England, statesman/essayist "Silence is the virtue of fools"
1788 Lord George Byron, poet
1858 Beatrice Webb, economist
1875 DW Griffith Birth of a Nation
1906 Joe Gladwin, (Wally Batty. aLso appeared with Stu Francis in Sit Thi' Deawn)
1940 John Hurt, actor
1948 George Foreman, grill
1953 Myung-Whun Chung, pianist/conductor
1960 Michael Hutchence INXS
1964 Nigel Benn, boxer
1971 Stan Collymore, celebrity dogger
1974 Rebekah Elmaloglou (Sophie, the coolest kid in Home & Away)

January 21st

Featured birthday boy today is my number one celebrity pin up hero. Plácido Domingo is 64 today.

Another of my 'thinking woman's crumpet' celebrates his birthday today. Martin Shaw is 60. I never much went for him in The Professionals, but I rather fell for him in For the Greater Good in 1991, and liked him as Rhodes, although I gave up watching because the actual serious was boring. But as Judge John Deed! Oh my! He presses all the right buttons for me. Bizarrely, I have missed him as Adam Dalgliesh, so I think that needs to go on my to-do list.

Phil Neville is 28 today, and I rather admire him as a footballer, but I'm afraid he's too pug-ugly to merit a picture. Besides, I might inadvertently publish one of Wilfred 'Steptoe' Bramble. So, instead I'll publish a picture of England's most famous netballer, Tracey Neville, who, by bizarre coincidence, is also 28 today

 

Nicky Butt, 30 today, sacrificed the honour of a photograph when he defected to Newcastle. But worthy, as a member of that great Manchester United team.

I would dearly love to publish a photo of another hunk, sort of for nostalgia really. My schoolfriend Clare was an Aston Villa fan, and really really fancied Gary Shaw, along with certain other celebrities already mentioned in this post. Living in the Manchester area this put her at a somewhat, shall we say, disadvantage, so I wrote to him and explained Clare's dilemma, and he sent back almost by return of post a signed photo. Besides, I happen to think he was one of the most talented footballers ever to have his career cruelly cut short by injury. Unfortunately, I can't find any on the whole worldwideweb. Which is sad.

Other, less interesting, people include:

1905 Christian Dior, fashion designer
1922 Paul Scofield, actor (Man for All Seasons)
1924 Benny Hill, comedian (comedian?)
1924 Telly Savalas, Kojak
1940 Jack Nicklaus, golfer
1941 Edwin Starr (war - what is it good for - absolutely nothing)
1950 Billy Ocean, singer (Caribbean Queen)
1952 Peter Tatchell A fearless and iconoclastic campaigner
1955 Peter Fleming, tennis player (the unfamous half of Fleming and McEnroe)
1976 Emma 'Baby Spice' Bunton (where is she now...?)

And just to be self-indulgent, some more photos of my fave celeb, who, I have to say, is not really particularly photogenic. Telegenic, though..! Oh, and I quite like his voice, too!