"The Flight of the Bumble Bee" was also 'covered' hysterically
by Spike Jones and his City Slickers in the 1940s.
Another piece of music successfully 'muredered' by Spike was
The Song of the Volga Boatmen.
Volga, by the way, was the manufacturer of the 'status-symbol' automobiles
favoured by Russian politicians.....

A Gondolier, a Boatman of Venice..

Gilbert and Sullivan wrote an operetta titled 'The Gondoliers'. They also
wrote H.M.S. Pinafore (a nautical tale!) and 'The Pirates of Penzance' which
was "jazzed up" to become 'Broadway Pirates' and released as a movie starring
Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt.

Talking about pirates, are you familiar with Pirate Jenny from The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) by Bertolt
Brecht and Kurt Weill? Now, that's a woman, who's not to be trifled with!
To say the least!

So beware of the women, who scrub the decks! !-D

My Pirates profile and avatar:



EDIT: My profile pic seemed to stretch the thread, so I put in my Pirates avatar instead. But check out my profile pic. ;-D

---

[b]"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me[/b]

Speaking of pirates, don't forget September 19th! :)

On Sept 19th in 1900 a famous pair of bank-robbers did their
first job together.

The movie also introduced this song..

Before riding on the handlebars of Paul Newman's bicycle while he sang
'Raindrops keep falling on my head', Katherine Ross was Mrs Robinsons
daughter in 'The Graduate' starring alongside Dustin Hoffmann and
Anne Bancroft.............and a red Alfa Romeo sports car in the final
scenes of that film.

...and you can measure all those rain drops with a graduated cylinder!

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Rendezvous with Rama is an excellent sci-fi tale about an
enormous cylindrical spacecraft. The original novel spawned
three sequels. (and yes, I have read them all!)

Rendezvous with Rama

You're sure you don't mean Rendezvous with Ramen?

Sounds like a before death experience with the The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

---

[b]"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me[/b]

From heavenly pasta to hellish pizza.. New Zealand has a pizza chain called Hell Pizza..
And one of the co-owners drives the world's fastest hearse..

...whos license plates say XPIRED... like this gator!

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

I thought I'd better act quickly before someone jumps in and does something in
bad taste like putting up a picture of Steve Irwin to follow the last picture..

So here's a pic of the most famous scavaging bird, the Vulture (a Griffon vulture
in this case..)

The vulture is normally associated with the deserts of the world.
As are these two creatures -

One of my favourite cartoons of all time is "What's Opera Doc?"
Wagner's Ring Cycle condensed into a couple of minutes.. Sheer
brilliance :)

Another Wagner ( Robert ) was married to Natalie Wood who starred in
a film called 'Rebel without a cause' alongside James Dean who was
killed while racing his Porsche 550 Spyder.
The car had a curse attached to it, similar to the Tutankhamun curse...

A passion for fast cars has also claimed lives in the classical music world.. On Sept 1st 1957, Dennis Brain,
horn player extraordinaire died in his Triumph Sports Car while returning from
playing at the Edinburgh Festival.. He was only 36 years old..



Incidentally, he also played the best instrument of them all.. ;)

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland. Not many people realise that
the castle, which is the centrepiece of the Festival each year, sits
on top of an extinct volcano.

Edinburgh has a few famous sons - Sean Connery ( in my opinion, the best actor
who played James Bond ) and Alexander Graham Bell ( inventor of the telephone ).
Also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.





(in a quiet voice, before running away) BF - are you a violinist?

Ok here is a double link to the next pic..

When Madame Tussauds first opened it was in Baker St
in 1835..
And here is that fine actor Sean Connery in all his waxen glory..