42 Page 5
Checking Out and Leaving
Some notable people and one other primate who died in their 43rd Year.
Name Year Cause of Death Notability
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Artist 1641 Fell ill when seeking work in Paris Painted Charles I (beheaded later) with a distinctive facial hair assembly later called a Vandyck. Yet another famous Belgium
Madame de Pompadour 1764 Tuberculosis Official chief mistress of Louis XV of France, trysting apartments can be seen in the Palace of Versailles
Prince Albert, Husband of Queen Victoria 1861 Possible typhoid The mildly imposing 176ft Albert Memorial in central London was personally commissioned by Queen Victoria
Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer 1881 Alcoholism His Night on a Bare Mountain was used by Disney in Fantasia but was not performed in his lifetime.
R J Mitchell, British Spitfire designer 1937 Rectal cancer Only ever saw prototypes of his famous Spitfire fighter flying
Robert Kennedy, former Attorney General, New York Senator, and Presidential Candidate 1968 Murdered while campaigning after winning the key California primary His killer, Sirhan Sirhan, is 67 and serving a life sentence
Elvis Presley 1977 Autopsy first stated uneven heart rhythm Re-opened to re-conclude heart attack probably associated with polypharmacy, or ‘too many drugs’
Peter Tosh, Reggae star 1987 Murdered for money Original Wailer, with Bob Marley on Catch a Fire and Burnin’. And a talented unicyclist
Jacqueline du Pré 1987 Multiple sclerosis British cellist of legendary talent. Career of only 11 years. Yo-Yo Ma has one of her two Strads
Washoe 2007 Natural causes. i.e. no monkey business Washoe was the name of the chimpanzee first able to use sign language to interact with the humans at Washington University
Gary Coleman 2010 Fell and hit head Famous child star in the role of Arnold Jackson in Diff ’rent Strokes.
Health, Foods and Diets
Death of an Acronym
Tucked inside the back cover of my reserve copy of The Nitpicker’s Guide for Classic Trekkers there is a carefully folded sheet of paper. On it is my list of the 42 most famous Belgians, where at the foot of the list is Baudoin, who died in 1993 having been King of the Belgians for 42 years.
At number 41 is Adolpe Quételet (1796-1874) a very clever Belgian indeed, succeeding notably in multiple areas of scientific discovery. In the mid 19th century he introduced QI to the world. The Quételet Index (QI) neatly expresses the relationship between your weight and your height. This was so until 1972 when the more aggressive American three-letter-acronym (TLA) set about supplanting the shyer European two-letter-acronym (TLA). The QI very quickly lost territory to the Body Mass Index (BMI) and even though it was the exact, same and identical (ESI) calculation, within a very few years for all practical purposes the poor QI was quite inert.
QI
A royal prerogative of the King of Rock and Roll seems to have been the right to suppress the release of both the weight and height data needed to calculate Elvis Presley’s QI, and later BMI, but they may have reached 42. His weight had once been said to be 19 stone, without corroboration this means nothing but, if so, at an average height of 5 foot 10 inches his figure would have been 38. At 21 stone it would have reached 42. A QI of over 40 is classed as morbidly obese and in 2000 4.2 million Americans were estimated to be morbidly obese—bulging to 15 million in 2009. In the Elvis country of Tennessee 68% of adults were officially classified as overweight in 2007, one of the three worst states in America for obesity.
Celebrity QI or BMI
Mr Simpson 32 ~ 43
Elvis Presley 38 ~ 42 ~ ?
Statue of Liberty 96
Michelangelo’s David 227
V42
Queen Victoria had 42 grandchildren. The last one standing was Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone who died in 1981 at the age of 97. Despite apparently good health Princess Alice carried type B haemophilia, as did her grandmother (Queen Victoria), her father, and at least six of the other grandchildren. Type B was first called Royal Disease because it so affected the British Royal Family, later being clinically known as Christmas Disease after a young sufferer, Stephen Christmas, who was one of the first to be involved in the study of the condition.
Only boys and men suffer the bleeding, and it is now believed that the gene mutation causing the quite rare disease (1 in 25,000 births) keeps re-occurring spontaneously during sperm production. Victoria’s father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III who was 51 when Victoria was conceived (dying before his new daughter’s first birthday). He had remained single until the death of the King’s only legitimate grandchild in 1818 when he and the other unmarried sons raced to both marry and produce an heir, a race he won with the birth of Princess Alexandrina Victoria. His age at the time may have increased the likelihood of the haemophilia mutation occurring.
Princess Alice’s father, who was a sufferer, had a physician in permanent attendance but died aged 30 after a fall at the yacht club in Cannes. Princess Alice had two sons and a daughter. The younger son, Maurice, died before his first birthday. The older son, Rupert, Viscount Trematon, died of bleeding following a car crash in France in 1928 at the age of 20 while still a student at Cambridge. The mutated gene transmitted to four other royal families and most notably Tsarevitch Alexei, the only son of Tsar Nicholas of Russia, who was murdered by the Bolsheviks at the age of 13. The last of Victoria’s descendants to die of haemophilia was Infante Gonzalo the fourth surviving son of King Alfonso X of Spain, who died in Austria in 1934 after a minor car accident when he was 19, appearing to bring to an end the transmission of a miserable chance mutation that had happened 116 years before.
The Spheniscidaean Diet
History is mixed as to whether John Davis was 42 or 35 (so we’ll go with the first one) when he became the first European to land on the Falkland Islands. An outstanding expert in ocean navigation, he was not so good with food. On the Falklands his men grazed extensively from the island’s copious supply of Gentoo and Rockhopper penguins, and before sailing home to England Davis had the idea of provisioning the Desire with 14,000 cured penguins.
His logical reasoning was that by feeding a sailor a penguin a day the Spheniscidaean diet would stop the very much feared onset of the pestilential scurvy that occurred on ocean voyages. Raw penguin does indeed possess sufficient Vitamin C to do the job, so it should have worked, but fatally the carcases of the stored birds rotted because of ineffective curing. The cost was the death of most of his men (sixty-two of the seventy-six) before 14 survivors managed to beach the ship on the coast of Ireland.
In the Falkland Islands, John Davis is remembered every 14th August when Falklands Day is celebrated on the day he discovered the islands. As a mark of respect, none of the bars or restaurants serve any penguin dishes.
The Hitler Diet
Shortly before he became leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler turned vegetarian in 1931 at the age of 42, until his death either never or rarely eating meat (exactly which is un-discernible as accounts conflict).
The decision appears to have been made after the death of Geli Raubal, his half-sister’s 23-year-old daughter with whom he was believed to be having a sexual relationship. Geli’s body was discovered in her Uncle Alf’s smart Munich flat with one bullet wound—inflicted by Hitler’s own gun. A letter she had been writing to a friend allegedly detailed future plans and ended in mid-sentence, yet the ‘suicide’ was not closely investigated. One of the detectives had been Heinrich Müller who later became the head of Hitler’s new Gestapo. After the defeat of the Nazis, Müller was the most senior Nazi to evade capture and possibly successfully disappear.
The David Blaine Diet
On 17th October 2003 in London, David Blaine had been suspended in a perspex box over the Thames for 42 days.
Emerging on schedule two days later he had survived without food drinking only water and losing 54 pounds in weight. The estimated rate of calorie loss had been 47
25 calories a day. By not eating, and drinking only water and staying in a box, he averaged a loss of 8 pounds and 9 ounces each week.
Southern Cooking
Close to the southernmost part of Big Island, Hawaii is Na’alehu the southernmost town in the United States. Hawaii is the forty-second most populous state.
The Shaka Bar and Restaurant is the only bar in Na’alehu so you should take some care not to miss it. Having found it, don’t wait for valet-parking, there is none. Do belly up to the bar and order the coconut shrimp with chilli sauce and a Kona Longboard lager. Then take the table nearest to the kitchen. Now you are set: when the shrimp arrive you will be consuming the southernmost bar snack in the United States.
42 Foods Tasting Like Another Food
Albatross kebabs tastes like Goose kebabs
Chicken tastes like Burmese Red Junglefowl
Coca-Koala tastes like Pepsi-Koala
Durian fruit (stinking) tastes like Raspberry blancmange
Flying fox (fruit bat) tastes like Dried bison (dried bison)
Foie gras tastes like Pupating silkworm
Frog’s legs taste like Iguana’s legs
Grasshopper tastes like Shrimp
Hedgehog tastes like Cat
Icelandic rotted shark tastes like Gorgonzala
Ortolan buntings* taste like Hazelnuts
Pork tastes like You
Rhinoceros tastes like Kangaroo
Rook crisps taste like Grouse crisps
Shearwater (muttonbird) tastes like Ewe
Smoked Puffin tastes like Smoke
Spam® tastes like Spam®
Swan tastes like Venison
Tarantula tastes like Crab
Truffles taste like 2,4 dithiapentane
Turtle Soup tastes like Gravy
Witchety grubs taste like Peanut butter
Big Mac. Big Recipe.
Why don’t burgers at home taste as good as a Big Mac? Making a facsimile of your favourite burger isn’t going to be easy although the thoughtful McDonald’s people have put the grocery list up on the interweb. In the UK you will need to lay hands on around 52 ingredients. Here’s your list:
UK Big Mac
42 calories per bite*
1) Acetic Acid, 2) Ascorbic Acid, 3) Beef, 4) Butter, 5) Calcium Chloride, 6) Calcium Propionate, 7) Cucumbers, 8) Diphosphates, 9) Dried Garlic, 10) Extractives of Dill, 11) Extractives of other spices, 12) Extractives of Turmeric, 13) Free Range Egg Yolk, 14) Gherkins, 15) Gum Arabic, 16) High-fructose Corn Syrup, 17) Iceberg Lettuce, 18) Milk Proteins, 19) Modified Maize Starch, 20) Mono- and Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, 21) Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, 22) Mustard Flour, 23) Mustard Seed, 24) Natural Carotenes, 25) Natural Cheese Flavouring, 26) Natural Flavourings, 27) Onion, 28) Palm Oil, 29) Paprika Extract, 30) Pepper, 31) Polyphosphates, 32) Potassium Sorbate, 33) Rapeseed Oil, 34) Salt, 35) Sesame Seeds, 36) Sodium Benzoate., 37) Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, 38) Sorbic Acid, 39) Soya Flour, 40) Soya Oil, 41) Spice, 42) Spirit Vinegar, 43) Sugar, 44) Trisodium Citrate, 45) Vegetarian Cheddar Cheese, 46) Vinegar, 47) Water, 48) Wheat Fibre, 49) Wheat Flour, 50) Whey Powder, 51) Xanthan Gum, and 52) Yeast
DID YOU KNOW? The UK Big Mac is a great source of essential salt, providing some 42% of the recommended daily intake of combined sodium and chlorine ions. By eating two Big Macs and sharing your third one with a friend you are good for a day’s salt but still low on those annoying calories. Following this as your daily diet would give a weight loss of six pounds, or more, in just four weeks—and you can drink as much water or other zero-energy beverages as you like, no need to go thirsty.
Bigger and Better
The Big Mac was 42 years old on April 22nd 2009. Jim Delligatti from Pennsylvania sold the first ones for 49 cents in his MacDonald’s in Uniontown. Its popularity has enabled The Economist magazine to track the buying power of different currencies by comparing Big Mac prices around the world. Your cash will buy fewest Big Macs in Norway, Switzerland and mainland Europe and the most in China, Malaysia and Thailand. Here is the shopping list for a US Big Mac:
US Big Mac
Estimated 46 calories per bite
1) Acetic acid, 2) Ammonium chloride, 3) Ammonium sulfate, 4) Artificial color, 5) Ascorbic acid, 6) Azodicarbonamide, 7) Beef, 8) Black Pepper, 9) Bleached wheat flour, 10) Calcium carbonate, 11) Calcium chloride, 12) Calcium disodium ethylenediaminetetracetic acid, 13) Calcium peroxide, 14) Calcium propionate, 15) Calcium sulfate, 16) Caramel color, 17) Cheese culture, 18) Citric acid, 19) Corn syrup, 20) Cucumbers, 21) Diacetyl tartaric acid ester of monoglyceride, 22) Distilled vinegar, 23) Egg yolks, 24) Enzymes, 25) Ethoxylated monoglycerides, 26) Extractives of paprika, 27) Extractives of turmeric, 28) Folic acid, 29) Garlic powder, 30) Guar gum, 31) High fructose corn syrup, 32) Hydrated potassium aluminum sulfate, 33) Hydrolyzed corn, soy and wheat, 34) Lactic acid, 35) Lettuce, 36) Malted barley flour, 37) Natural flavors (plant source), 38) Milk, 39) Milkfat, 40) Mono- and diglycerides, 41) Monocalcium phosphate, 42) Mustard bran, 43) Mustard seed, 44) Niacin, 45) Onion, 46) Onion powder, 47) Partially hydrogenated soybean oil, 48) Pickles, 49) Polysorbate 80, 50) Potassium sorbate, 51) Propylene glycol alginate, 52) Reduced iron, 53) Riboflavin, 54) Salt, 55) Sesame seed, 56) Sodium benzoate, 57) Sodium citrate, 58) Sodium phosphate, 59) Sodium propionate, 60) Sodium stearoyl lactylate, 61) Sorbic acid, 62) Soy flour, 63) Soy lecithin, 64) Soybean oil, 65) Spice extractives, 66) Spices, 67) Sugar, 68) Thiamin mononitrate, 69) Turmeric, 70) Vinegar, 71) Water, 72) Wheat gluten, 73) Xanthan gum and 74) Yeast.
The US recipe requires 42% more individual ingredients than the UK recipe.
* Substitute Yellowhammers if the snack cupboard is short of feathered wholefood. Check out local dos and don’ts when choosing species suitable for bird-feeding.
* This is at the 11.65 bites per sandwich averaged over the 42 Happy Meals eaten by the Extended Gill family.
Sport
The First Rule of Cricket
…is that there is no first rule of cricket; cricket has 42 laws. The first law prevents the use of 42 fielders, or less specifically all numbers over eleven. Sorry? Your 41 chums had just togged up and are showing all the signs of getting a dose of the glums? Not a problem; just go online—now is good—and book 42 seats to Pago Pago (say ‘Pahn-go’; the first or second Pago is either silent or not said) in the South Pacific. Sit back, watch the movie, enjoy your flight, and then rock up for a game of Kirikiti. It sounds like cricket, and it looks a lot like cricket, but it doesn’t have the fuss-pot first law limiting team numbers.
Kirikiti has very few laws; no LBW, no offside trap, and neither bad light nor hard rain of the most tropical of intensities stop large teams of both sexes continuing to chat and play, sometimes at the same time, there is no rush. There is little to justify a rush anywhere in Polynesia, especially so in Samoa where Kirikiti is the national game and the proximity of the international dateline makes their bars the last on the planet to announce closing-time. Paradise found for cricket teams of 42.
The Secret of Tennis
42,000 balls were used at Wimbledon last year. This number is considerably less than the estimated two million posters (42cm) that have been sold of 18 year old Fiona Butler apparently forgetfully playing tennis without her knickers. The much-loved picture was taken by her photography student boyfriend Martin Elliott who knew the secret of making really good shots in tennis was to keep the copyright.
Shakespeare with a Bat
The most infamous of times in cricket, known as The Bodyline Series, was caused by an attempt by the England cricket team to contain an Australian sporting genius known as Donald Bradman. The furore started in 1932 when England travelled to play Australia in the fiercely contested biennial Ashes series—the name a mocking reference to the first defeat of mighty England by one of her colonies forty years earlier.
England’s captain was Douglas Jardine—born in India to Scottish parents and educated in England at
Winchester College—who developed an unrivalled reputation for stimulating enmity on the cricket field. A talented bat, he had averaged forty-two point something in his rookie international season while touring Australia but also had been seen as a ‘snob from England’ with an inbuilt Oxford superiority complex drawing antipodean antipathy. When a team-mate helpfully observed that the crowds did not like him, the refined Wykehamist suavely replied, ‘It’s fucking mutual’.
Jardine and England’s problem was a young Australian—Donald Bradman—who had played for Australia in his tenth first class game of cricket and set a record batting average of 139 in the 1930 Ashes Series. The measure of the problem for England is best seen with the benefit of hindsight if you compare best players against second best players across the world’s major ball and puck games.
The World’s Most Outstanding Ball and Puck Players