Thursday 31 March 2022

1 April

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 1 April:

Clifton Suspension Bridge

  1. On this date in 2019, protesters stripped naked in the public galleries of the House of Commons, and mooned MPs.
  2. In 1976, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was first shown as the midnight show at the Waverly Theater in New York's Greenwich Village.
  3. In 1924, Adolph Hitler, in prison for his involvement with the Beer-Hall Putsch, began dictating Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess. Its original title was less catchy: Four-and-a-Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice; Settling Accounts with the Destroyers of the National Socialist Movement.
  4. In 1929, inventor Louie Marx introduced the Yo yo to the world. This earned him the nickname Yo Yo Marx, making people think he was one of the Marx Brothers.
  5. In 1909, the first double-decker Buses in Britain began running in Widnes, Cheshire.
  6. In 1605, Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, 70, ascended the papal throne and took the name Leo XI, but was taken ill immediately after his coronation and died within the month. He was nicknamed Papa Lampo ("Lightning Pope") for the brevity of his pontificate.
  7. The first bungee jump in the UK took place on this date in 1979. David Kirke jumped from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, and was arrested.
  8. The first nudist beach in Brighton opened on this date in 1980. The first person to venture into the sea with no clothes on was Arthur Albrow, aged 61.
  9. In 1976, Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs founded Apple Computers. Their first product was the Apple I personal computer kit which sold for $666.66.
  10. It's April Fools day, of course, so a few practical jokes happened over the years. In 1860 many Londoners had received printed invitations which read: "Tower of London, The White Gate – Admit the Bearer and Friend to view the Annual Ceremony of Washing the White Lions, on Sunday April 1st, 1860." A lot of people were seen driving around in cabs looking for the White Gate, which doesn't exist. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were known to get into the April Fool spirit: they issued a statement in 1970 that they were both having sex change operations, and in 1973 that they'd formed a new country with no laws or boundaries, called Nutopia; its National Anthem is silence. In 1957 BBC news programme Panorama showed a film of Swiss peasants picking strands of Spaghetti from trees. Viewers phoned in wanting to know how to grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC told them to ‘place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.’ In 1977 The Guardian published a special 7 page supplement in honour of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic in the Indian Ocean, consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of the place – its two main islands were called Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. A number of people phoned the paper asking for information about holidays in San Serriffe. In 1980, the BBC were at it again when they reported that Big Ben, in order to keep up with the times, was going to become a digital clock. The BBC Japanese service announced that the clock hands would be sold to the first four listeners to contact them, and a Japanese sailor in the mid-Atlantic immediately radioed in a bid. Whole villages have been known to participate in April Fool Jokes. In 1995, Chillington, population 600, claimed to have 17 National Lottery millionaires. Across the Pond, in 1996, Taco Bell claimed to have purchased the Liberty Bell from the federal government in Philadelphia. In 2000, early morning commuters driving along the M3 near Farnborough, Hampshire, came acrossZebra Crossing on the motorway. Police speculated that the unknown prankster must have done it very early in the morning when there was little or no traffic on the motorway. Maintenance workers removed the crossing, luckily it wasn't too difficult as the prankster had used emulsion paint rather than gloss. The police noted that, surprisingly, they had received no calls from the public about it.


The Power of Love


Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace. 
 

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.


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