Mildly interesting

[George K]

[Mik]

The seven City Gates into Medieval London

[George K]

@Mik in the upper right hand corner is "And Gate."

https://spywrite.com/2021/02/24/where-is-slough-house-located/

Google map search

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Slough+House,+126+Aldersgate+St,+Barbican,+London+EC1A+4JQ/@51.5196257,-0.0993814,16.04z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x48761b569a91ee5d:0xa1c9561a3720a818!8m2!3d51.5208846!4d-0.0976384!16s%2Fg%2F11c1_m8qsb?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Not sure if it's the same location, though.

[Mik]

There is a real Slough House? Cool!!!!

One of my very favorite shows.

[George K]

@Mik said in Mildly interesting:

There is a real Slough House? Cool!!!!

One of my very favorite shows.

The books are a ton of fun. Herron's style is a bit awkward until you get used to it. I've done 5 of them so far.

[Mik]

Dang. Slough House is not real.

[Copper]

I have stayed in a couple different hotels in Slough, it is out near Windsor Castle and Heathrow.

[jon-nyc]

Half of the silent generation accomplished all three by age 26 or so. Gen-x still hasn’t quite made half by 40. (I barely made it at 40, three months before turning 41).

(Odd that the graph slopes go negative at points- are they subtracting people out for getting divorced?)

[jon-nyc]

[George K]

Blaine County...

[Mik]

All three residents?

[George K]

@Mik said in Mildly interesting:

All three residents?

7044...

Blaine County has actually voted for the winner in every election since 1916 - except 1988, when they voted Dukakis.

True, but...

Blaine County is the nation's most consistent long-term bellwether county, having voted for the winning presidential candidate in all but two elections held in its history. After backing Theodore Roosevelt against Woodrow Wilson in the county's inaugural 1912 election, Blaine County has been won by the winner of the presidential election in every election except that of 1988, held during the aftermath of a major drought and farm crisis; Michael Dukakis won the county by 58 votes.

[Mik]

The reason why Gene Simmons never drank or did drugs

Simmons has always been firmly against alcohol and drugs because of his mother, a Holocaust survivor who endured the horrors of a concentration camp, where many members of her family perished. “I’m her only child,” the musician shared. “I knew I had no right to hurt my mother. Life had already done enough to her.”

Gene Simmons recounted a memorable and humbling moment during his first major interview with Rolling Stone when his mother interrupted:

“When I met the Rolling Stone writer, I was very careful to cultivate the mystique of the demon. I wore all my spider and silver jewelry and my leather pants. I puffed my hair as big as it could go. With my seven-inch platform boots with silver dollar signs on them and black nail polish, I thought I was ready to project the perfect rock-and-roll image.

Then, at one point, the doorbell rang. I answered it, and there was my mother at the door with enough food to feed the world: fresh soups, veal chops, pancakes, jams, and cakes.

She insisted that the writer and I—whom she referred to as "hungry boys"—stop what we were doing and eat. She kept calling me by my Hebrew name, Chaim, and told the writer that I was a good boy. The big, bad demon was just a mama’s boy."

[Doctor Phibes]

@Copper said in Mildly interesting:

I have stayed in a couple different hotels in Slough, it is out near Windsor Castle and Heathrow.

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

[Mik]

[George K]

@Mik said in Mildly interesting:

Gene Simmons

Link to video

Go to 10:40 where he talks about his mother taking the oath of citizenship.