FReeper Canteen ~ PANCAKE TUESDAY ~ 24 FEB 04

Pancake Tuesday


	Tippety, tippety tin, Give me a pancake and I will come in. Tippety, tippety toe, Give me a pancake and I will go.

A tradition since 1950, the running of the International Pancake Day Race has become a symbolic event of peace and unity between the United States and England. Pancake Day is always on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Some people refer to it as “Fat Tuesday.”

Welcome to Pancake Tuesday

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Here is an amalgamation of trivial facts
and seemingly useless data.

Do not forget to hit the hyperlinks.

We have links, lots of them.

BLATHERSKITE
A noisy talker of blatant rubbish; foolish talk or nonsense.

This is actually a Scots word, really a pair of words, known from the seventeenth century on. These days, though, it’s more American than either British or Scots. That came about through one of those curious accidents of linguistic history that make the study of etymology such fun.
Both halves of the word seem to be from Old Norse. Blether is a Scots word meaning loquacious claptrap, which comes from Old Norse blathra, to talk nonsense; it exists in various forms now, such as blather or blither (if you call someone a blithering idiot, as people in Britain often did in my youth, you’re using the same word, though most of the meaning had by then been leached out of it). Skate (skite, as Australians and New Zealanders will know it) is more problematic, but is the Scots word for a person held in contempt because of his boasting, which may derive from an Old Norse word meaning to shoot (and, if true, is probably the origin of the American skeet, as in skeet shooting, so that phrase actually means “shoot shooting”).
Blatherskite is first recorded in an old Scots ballad called Maggie Lauder, attributed to Francis Sempill (or Semple) and dated about 1643, still well known today. There are various transcriptions of the first verse, one being:

Wha wadnae be in love
wi’ bonnie Maggie Lauder?
A piper met her gaun tae Fife
and speirt what was’t they ca’d her.
Right dauntingly she answered him,
“Begone ye hallanshaker.
Jog on your gate ye blether skyte,
my name is Maggie Lauder”.

A rough translation into modern English is:

Who wouldn't be in love
with beautiful Maggie Lauder?
A piper met her going to Fife
and asked what people called her.
Discouragingly she answered him,
“Go away, you vagabond!
Be on your way, you talkative boaster,
my name is Maggie Lauder”.

The song was pleasantly risqué (the piper, for instance, explains how all the girls swoon when he blows his chanter) and was very popular with the American side in the War of Independence. This introduced bletherskate, later blatherskite, to the American vocabulary, where it has remained ever since, albeit hardly on everyone’s lips daily.

Would you like some flies, with your pancakes?

• Recipe for Shrove Tuesday Pancakes

The word 'Shrove' refers to the practice of confessing of sins, then afterwards the fast of Lent could be considered a penance of faults committed.

The Pancake Race

They say it began in 1445 when a woman who was trying to use up ingredients forbidden during Lent was making pancakes. Hearing the church bells ring calling everyone to the shriving service, she grabbed her head scarf (required in church) and ran to the church, skillet and pancake in hand and still apron-clad. In following years, neighbors got into the act and it became a race to see who could reach the church first and collect a 'Kiss of Peace' from the verger (bell-ringer), along with the blessing 'The Peace of the Lord be Always With You.'

I am, not flat, and my pancakes are even less so.

Dude, Welcome to the Hood.

Ike liked Pancakes

If you were Ike, what would you do on Pancake Tuesday?

Pancake Tuesday, Ike’s busy baking,
We are helping, lovely pancakes making,
Pancake Tuesday, mix them up and fry them,
When they are done you can come and try them.

Happy Birthday

Wilhelm Grimm 1786

Pancake day is a very happy day,
If we don’t have a holiday we’ll all run away,
Where shall we run, up High Lane,
And here comes the teacher with a great big cane.

Happy Birthday

Winslow Homer 1836

Another Homer.

Happy Birthday

Enrico Caruso 1873

Happy Birthday

Chester Nimitz 1885

Chester Nimitz was born in Fredericksburg, Texas, on 24th February, 1885. He attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and graduated in 1905 (7/144) and joined the United States Navy.

Happy Birthday

Marjorie Main 1890

Who is on first base?

Who is on first?

Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords battled it out yards from Parliament.

I'm making a pizza the size of the sun,
a pizza that's sure to weigh more than a ton,
a pizza too massive to pick up and toss,
a pizza resplendent with oceans of sauce.

I'm topping my pizza with mountains of cheese,
with acres of peppers, pimentos, and peas,
with mushrooms, tomatoes, and sausage galore,
with every last olive they had at the store.

My pizza is sure to be one of a kind,
my pizza will leave other pizzas behind,
my pizza will be a delectable treat
that all who love pizza are welcome to eat.

The oven is hot, I believe it will take
a year and a half for my pizza to bake.
I hardly can wait till my pizza is done,
my wonderful pizza the size of the sun.

Happy Birthday

Abe Vigoda 1921

Would you like some Fish with your pancakes?

Happy Birthday

Barbara Lawrence 1930

Neutrinos

by John Updike

Neutrinos: they are very small
They have no charge;
they have no mass;
they do not interact at all.

The Earth is just a silly ball to them,
through which they simply pass
like dustmaids down a drafty hall
or photons through a sheet of glass.

They snub the most exquisite gas,
ignore the most substantial wall,
cold shoulder steel and sounding brass,
insult the stallion in his stall,
and, scorning barriers of class,
infiltrate you and me.

Like tall and painless guillotines
they fall down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
and pierce the lover and his lass
from underneath the bed.
You call it wonderful;
I call it crass.

Happy Birthday

Linda Cristal 1936

Lonnie Turner (The Steve Miller Band) 1947

Radix Likes to Link.

Yes, I speak some Jive!

Happy Birthday

Helen Shaver 1951

Happy Birthday

Steven Jobs 1955

Would you like an apple with your pancakes?

Happy Birthday

Paula Zahn 1956

Happy Birthday

Michelle Shocked 1962

Newton's First Law of Motion:

I. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

Newton's Second Law of Motion:

II. The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.

I am an excellent driver!

On this day

1803 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled itself to be the final interpreter of all constitutional issues.

Newton's Third Law of Motion:

III. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

On this day

1848 - The Communist Manifesto was published.

We are counting Carusos.

Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe from about ad 400–1400, roughly the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. Medieval philosophers are the historical successors of the philosophers of antiquity, but they are in fact only tenuously connected with them.

On this day

1868 - The first parade to use floats occurred in New Orleans
at Mardi Gras.

Shrove Tuesday, the eve of Lent — also known as Mardi Gras (literally "fat Tuesday" in French), Carnival (from the Latin for "farewell to the flesh"), and Fasnacht (the Germanic "night of the fast") — is celebrated across the world with riotous merrymaking and feasting.

On this day

1868 - The U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson due to his attempt to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. The U.S. Senate later acquitted Johnson.

On this Day

1903 - In Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an area was leased to the U.S. for a naval base.

On this day

1924 - Johnny Weissmuller broke the world’s record in the 100-meter swimming event.

Johnny Weissmuller won five gold medals in 1924 and 1928, and then became even more famous as an actor playing the role of Tarzan. In the 1924 Olympics, he won three gold medals in the 100-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle relay. He also won a bronze medal as a member of the U.S. water polo team. In 1928, he took gold in the 100- and 800-meter freestyle relay. Weissmulled starred in 12 Tarzan films between 1932 and 1948.

The line "Me Tarzan, you Jane" was NOT an Edgar Rice Burroughs line from his books. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan was much more articulate. "Me Tarzan, you Jane" is not even a line from the movie script as many critics are wont to point out. So where did this piece of Americana come from? It was a bit of chauvinistic, back-lot humor (said in spirit of mirth). "Me Tarzan, you Jane" was a quip Johnny Weissmuller made to Maureen O'Sullivan in the movie studio parking lot. Seeing her struggling to lift her heavy suitcase into the trunk of her car, Johnny Weissmuller laughingly uttered these famous words as he effortlessly swooped up the case and tossed it into the car. Enough cast and crew were around to hear his comment and it struck everyone as so funny that the quip (and its intended chauvinistic tone) lives on to this day. The actor, quipster, and five gold medal Olympic swimming star (1924 Paris and 1928 Amsterdam) passed away in January 1984.

Today's Pancake Field Trip takes us to a house for the practitioners of ledgerdemain and prestidigitation.

On this day

1925 - A thermit was used for the first time. It was used to break up a 250,000-ton ice jam that had clogged the St. Lawrence River near Waddington, NY.

I thought that they said trains.

On this day

1938 - The first nylon bristle toothbrush was made. It was the first time that nylon yarn had been used commercially.

On this day

1942 - The Voice of America aired for the first time.

On this day

1946 - Juan Peron was elected president of Argentina.

"Don't cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don't keep your distance.
And as for fortune, and as for fame,
I never invited them in
Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired.
They are illusions
They are not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I love you and hope you love me.
Don't cry for me Argentina..."

On this day

1980 - NBC premiered the TV movie "Harper Valley P.T.A."

Jeannie C. Riley
- words and music by Tom T. Hall

I want to tell you all a story 'bout a Harper Valley widowed wife
Who had a teenage daughter who attended Harper Valley Junior High
Well her daughter came home one afternoon and didn't even stop to play
She said, "Mom, I got a note here from the Harper Valley P.T.A."

The note said, "Mrs. Johnson, you're wearing your dresses way too high
It's reported you've been drinking and a-runnin' 'round with men and going wild
And we don't believe you ought to be bringing up your little girl this way"
It was signed by the secretary, Harper Valley P.T.A.

Well, it happened that the P.T.A. was gonna meet that very afternoon
They were sure surprised when Mrs. Johnson wore her mini-skirt into the room
And as she walked up to the blackboard, I still recall the words she had to say
She said, "I'd like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley P.T.A."

Well, there's Bobby Taylor sittin' there and seven times he's asked me for a date
Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he's away
And Mr. Baker, can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn't widow Jones be told to keep her window shades all pulled completely down?

Well, Mr. Harper couldn't be here 'cause he stayed too long at Kelly's Bar again
And if you smell Shirley Thompson's breath, you'll find she's had a little nip of gin
Then you have the nerve to tell me you think that as a mother I'm not fit
Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites

No I wouldn't put you on because it really did, it happened just this way
The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.
The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.

On this day

1987 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, of the Los Angeles Lakers got his first three-point shot in the NBA.

I am an excellent Skyhooker.

On this day

1987 - An exploding supernova was discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

On this day

1992 - "Wayne's World" opened in U.S. theaters.

Don't forget the maple syrup.

Pancakes Tuesday
Definitely

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