Queen Elizabeth II firing a British L85 battle rifle, 1993

This should prove beyond the last vestige of doubt that you don’t fuck with Queen Elizabeth. Just look at the look on her face –Ted
Image found at vintage everyday

This Week’s Softdrink – Big Red

Big Red is a soft drink 1937 created by Grover C. Thomsen and R.H. Roark in Waco, Texas and originally known as Sun Tang Red Cream Soda. It is generally classified as an American variety of cream soda which is almond in flavour, and it is the original "red cream soda." The name was changed to "Sun Tang Big Red Cream Soda" in 1959, and to "Big Red" in 1969 by Harold Jansing, then president of the San Antonio bottling plant, after hearing a golf caddy refer to the soda by that name.

Until the late 1970s, Big Red was marketed exclusively in Central and South Texas and around Louisville, Kentucky, including parts of Southern Indiana. The drink is highly popular in the Southern United States and is well known for its unique taste and red colour. Its unique taste, though often thought to be bubble gum, is created by mixing orange and lemon oils with the traditional vanilla used in other cream sodas. Big Red is produced and distributed by various independent soft drink bottlers including Dr Pepper Snapple Group, CCE, and Pepsi Bottling Group under license from Big Red, Inc., based in Austin, Texas.

Big Red was the sixth-highest selling soft drink company in the United States from 2002–2004, after Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr Pepper/7Up, Cott, and National Beverage Company. As a preeminent red crème soda in the South, it is a staple of many Juneteenth celebrations.

In 2007, Big Red Ltd. was purchased by Gary Smith with the backing from Citigroup Venture Capital and Goldman Sachs. Gary Smith now serves as the Chairman and CEO of Big Red and All Sport, Inc. In 2008, Dr Pepper Snapple Group purchased a minority interest in Big Red, Inc. Dr Pepper distributes almost 80% of the product that Big Red sells annually.

Additionally, Big Red is imported into the United Kingdom by American Soda and PS Foods Ltd

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Help Needed
I need your help visitors, both in suggesting sodas and soft drinks from around the world and in giving your opinion on the ones presented if you know the product. And you can start with giving your opinion on the ones posted already or reading what other visitors have written  – Ted

List of Soft drinks and sodas posted already
Visitors soft drinks and sodas suggestions and comments

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Abders Zorn – Swedish Painter

Anders Leonard Zorn (18 February 1860 – 22 August 1920) was one of Sweden’s foremost artists. He obtained international success as a painter, sculptor and printmaker in etching

Biography
Zorn was born and raised on his grandparents’ farm in Yvraden, a hamlet near the village of Utmeland in the parish of Mora, Dalarna. He studied until the age of twelve in the school at Mora Strand before progressing in the autumn of 1872 to a secondary grammar school in Enköping.

From 1875–1880 Zorn studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. Members of Stockholm society approached him with commissions. This was how Zorn met his wife, Emma Lamm, early in 1881. Her background was different from Zorn’s. Coming from a wealthy family, she was interested in art and culture. Zorn traveled extensively to London, Paris, the Balkans, Spain, Italy and the United States, becoming an international success as one of the most acclaimed painters of his era. It was primarily his skill as a portrait painter that gained Zorn international acclaim based principally upon his incisive ability to depict the individual character of his model. His subjects included three American Presidents, one of whom was Grover Cleveland in 1899, as well as his wife, along with William H. Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. At 29, he was made Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur at the Exposition Universelle 1889 Paris World Fair.

Text from Wikipedia

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Erika Blanc – Italian Actress

Enrica Bianchi Colombatto (born July 23, 1942 in Brescia, Lombardy) is an Italian actress, usually known by her stagename of Erika Blanc.

Movie career
Her most notable role was as the first fictional character Emmanuelle in Io, Emanuelle. Blanc also starred in several horror films, including Kill, Baby, Kill, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, The Devil’s Nightmare, and Mark of the Devil Part II.

She recently came back with little but very intense roles under the direction of Turkish-born director Ferzan Özpetek, acting as Antonia’s mother in Le fate ignoranti (2001), and as the sensitive, alcohol-addicted Maria Clara in Cuore Sacro (2005). In 2003 she also starred as the grandmother in Poco più di un anno fa-Diario di un pornodivo, directed by Marco Filiberti.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Russian ZAZ-965 Zaporozhets

ZAZ-965 Zaporozhets model was made between 1960 and 1969. Design work started in 1956 at AZLK car plant, and first prototypes were designated as Moskvitch-444. The car was patterned upon the Fiat 600, with similar general composition, body, transmission, steering mechanism and rear suspension. Among main differences was air-cooled V-engine of indigenous design, bigger wheels and front suspension on torsion bars. One of reasons of choosing a rearwards-opening doors was easier access for disabled persons. In 1958 the Soviet government decided to start production of the car in reformed ZAZ factory, under a designation ZAZ-965. Further development of the car was carried out in ZAZ factory. The original ZAZ-965 differed from the ZAZ-965A. The turn signal light was moved from above of the head light to below, as seen in ZAZ-965A.

The engine was designed in Moscow’s NAMI institute and produced by MeMZ factory. A basic model ZAZ-965 was powered by a rear-mounted, aircooled 746 cc V4 engine. Power was 26 PS (19 kW).

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Victorian Inventions – Part 12

From “Victorian Inventions” by Leonard De Vries published by American Heritage Press in 1972

For some time now the doors of shops, theatres, concert halls, etc. in Paris and other large cities have been equipped with metal bottles of various colours, carrying enamelled signs inviting passers-by and customers to spray themselves with some fine scent for ten centimes or some other coin. The mode of operation is quite interesting. The coin drops from slot A through a channel B on to platform C. If button D is pressed, the coin moves against cylinder F and pushes it into the hollow cylinder K where it serves· as a plunger, causing a displacement of the channel in the vicinity of F. This slight movement causes a small amount of air to escape through the space cleared above the channel and to enter tube T which communicates with the open air. Simultaneously, a few drops of scent flow from the receptacle L through the cleared channel into tube Hand from there into the open. When button D is released the cogs P which are placed in such a manner that they have to travel a certain distance before they engage the upstanding rims of cylinder F, release the coin and allow it to drop to the bottom of the metal bottle. The quantity of scent dispensed is regulated by the position of screw V.

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For this series of posts I must say that this is a surprisingly sane and even probably working invention in the  practical sense of the word  – Ted

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Photo Title: The Jazz Bands Championships At Gilfach

Is it just me, or is it something that doesn’t sit quite right with the title of that photo – Ted

The Sunday Comic – Getting Back

On This Day In 1980 – John Lennon Shot Dead

Former Beatle John Lennon has been shot dead by an unknown gunman who opened fire outside the musician’s New York apartment. The 40-year-old was shot several times as he entered the Dakota, his luxury apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, opposite Central Park, at 2300 local time. He was rushed in a police car to St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he died. His wife, Yoko Ono, who is understood to have witnessed the attack, was with him.

Shots heard
A police spokesman said a suspect was in custody, but he had no other details of the shooting. "This was no robbery," the spokesman said, adding that Mr Lennon was probably shot by a "deranged" person. Witness reports say at least three shots were fired and others have claimed they heard six.

There are also reports Mr Lennon staggered up six steps into the vestibule after he was shot, before collapsing. Jack Douglas, Lennon’s producer, said he and the Lennons had been at a studio called the Record Plant in mid-town earlier in the evening and Lennon left at 2230. Mr Lennon said he planned to have some dinner and then return home, Mr Douglas said.

Fans at scene
The Lennons are said to have left their limousine on the street and walked up the driveway when the gunman opened fire. It is unclear whether the man had been lying in wait in the entrance to the building for Mr Lennon, or whether he came up behind him. Witnesses describe the gunman as a "pudgy kind of man", 35 to 40 years old with brown hair.

Other former band members, Paul McCartney, guitarist George Harrison and drummer Ringo Starr are thought to have been informed of Lennon’s murder. Fans have already begun arriving at the scene, many still unaware Lennon has died. Mr Lennon is survived by his wife, their son Sean, and his son from a previous marriage, Julian.

In Context
John Lennon was shot four times in the back by Mark Chapman who had asked the former Beatle for his autograph only hours before he laid in wait and killed him. Chapman pleaded guilty to gunning down Mr Lennon and is currently serving life in Attica prison near New York. In October 2004 he failed for the third time to secure his release. He said he had heard voices in his head telling him to kill the world-famous musician.

Twenty years after his death millions of fans paid tribute to Mr Lennon in his home town of Liverpool and in New York. His widow launched a campaign against gun violence in the United States to mark the anniversary.

Text from BBCs On This Day

This Week’s Girliemag Article – Candy’s The Candid Kind

Candy Borden is candid and proud of the fact that she is a much sought-after nude model. She began by posing for art classes in Paris, France, while studying art. By the time she discovered that she was not going to make it as an artist, Candy had already become popular with several French artists and without realizing it, she was automatically tied into a successful modeling career.

Read the whole article and see the naughty pictures HERE

Warning: Nudity do occur in this article. If you are under age or live in a country where watching images of nude women for some reason  are against the law  I take no responsibility if you click the link above. In other words you’re flying solo from here on – Ted 😉

June Palmer – British Glamour Model & Actress

June Palmer (1 August 1940 in London, England – 6 January 2004), also known as "June Power", was alongside Pamela Green the most famous Harrison Marks model of the 1960s, featuring in his publications Kamera and Solo and in his short films featuring nudity. She had measurements of 38–23–37.

Career
June Palmer began work as a topless dancer at the Windmill Theatre in London, appeared in 8mm glamour films made by Harrison Marks (Flesh and Fantasie; Nightmare at Elm Manor; Photo Session; Star Strip; Dream Goddess; China Garden and The Naked World of June Palmer), Russell Gay (So Fur, So Good; Beauty and the Barn), Express Films (Body Beautiful) and Arthur Howell (June in Orbit; Calamity June; Castaway; Mission Possible and Special Agent) and graduated to minor parts in movies, including The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969) and Games That Lovers Play (1971). Although she stopped modeling for magazines in the late 1960s, she continued to do some private modeling for London’s various camera clubs till the early 1980s.

Photographer Irv Carsten said this about Palmer in the March 1962 issue of Modern Man, "I felt ashamed using an automatic camera. Her posing is second nature, she’s beautiful from any angle, and without camera settings to make, there’s nothing to do but watch."

Personal life
In 1993, when she was 53 years old, June Palmer married the then 78 year old photographer/stuntman Arthur Howell. In the 1960s they had started and run Strobe Studios in Clapham, South London, an LLC licensed model agency and photographic studio, which advertised in many of the photographic magazines such as Practical Photography. Strobe rented out their studio space to amateur and professional photographers, and provided them with the glamour models who were on Strobe’s books as photographic subjects. Both Mary Millington (at that time using her married name Mary Maxted) and Ava Cadell worked as models for Strobe Studios in the early 1970s. Palmer divorced Howell in 2000 (he died in August 2003).

She married again but died on 6 January 2004.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Jayne Mansfield Doing What She Does Best

Images found at novocainelipstick

Grand-daddy’s Sauce – Part 11

All posts material: “Sauce” and “Gentleman’s Relish” by Ronnie Barker – Hodder & Stoughton in 1977

The Girl On The Box Of Cigars

The girls of the East, and the girls of the West
Be they titled princesses, or chars –
I dote on them all; but the girl I love best is
The Girl on a box of cigars.

How elusive she is – she’s not seen in the street
You don’t find her in shops or bazaars –
My lifelong ambition is one day to meet
The Girl on a box of cigars.

I‘ve tried looking in restaurants, cafes, and such;
I’ve searched in bordellos and bars.
but l’ve never yet found one I like half as much
As the Girl on a box of cigars.

Oh that smile – angel-sweet! How those lips do entreat
Oh those eyes, how they shimmer like stars!
Is she copied from life? Is she somebody’s wife,
That Girl on the box of cigars?

She assumes many guises – an Indian maid,
Or a goddess, stepped down from a vase;
A huntress, a temptress, a mistress, a mate
That’s the Girl on a box of cigars!

On some far distant shores, behind bolted doors,
She is feasted and feted by Shahs;
Or in Austrian spas, in remote cable-cars,
By young mashers with Heidelberg scars;

Or by young Lochinvars who’ve come out of the West
Or Frenchmen with sly Ooh-la-las
Or Jolly Jack Tars with hair on their chest
Or magnificent mounted Hussars.

But no!-the Earth’s sphere can’t contain her, I fear
And her home must be Venus, or Mars.
What hope then, have I, of “giving the eye"
To the Girl on a box of cigars?

Popular Music History 1945 – 1980 – Part 2 – Folk & Blues

Even the most music interested among us can sometimes get lost in all the different labels music journalists and record companies choose to put on recordings.

The 11 thorough well written articles in “The Rock Primer” takes us through the most important of the different categories in popular music in the period 1945 – 1980.

The categories are:
Rock & Roll, Folk & Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Soul, Country, British Beat, California Sun, Dylan and after, Reggae, Punk and The seventies.

Here’s the Folk & Blues article

Norma Jean In The Pumpkin Patch

In 1945, fashion photographer Andre de Dienes developed a relationship with an aspiring young model named Norma Jean Dougherty resulting in a brief engagement and a huge portfolio of stunning photographs which helped to launch her career as Marilyn Monroe.

Below is a small collection of interesting vintage pictures of Marilyn hanging out in the pumpkin patch, taken by Andre de Dienes in October 1945.

Text and images from vintage.es

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Ren Wicks – American All-round Artist

Wicks was an all-around artist, in a career that included NASA and postage stamps, but he excelled at two subjects in particular: wings and women. During WW2, he worked for Lockheed, contributing artwork for fighters and bombers that was used both in ad campaigns and in pilot handbooks. During the same period, Howard Hughes tapped him to do poster work for RKO, most memorably for Jane Russell in The Outlaw. Magazine illustration for Esquire, Redbook, Saturday Evening Post, Coronet. Ad work for Kotex, Edwards Coffee, and swimwear companies. Did several calendars and portfolios for Casinos in the 1960s (Harrah’s, Harolds Club).

Text from americanartarchives.com

Pre-War Classics Of The Road – Part 11

1906 Stanley Model EX

Perhaps the most famous make of steam car ever built was the Stanley, produced in Massachussetts until 1927 by the Stanley twins, Francis E. and Freelan O. The 1906 Model EX is a particularly interesting example, representing a transitional stage between the earlier steam buggies and the fast and famous Stanley Steamers of latter years. Although this car has its boiler at the front under a rounded bonnet, it retains the old side-tiller steering.

 

1907 De Dion-Bouton

Another early example of closed coachwork on a De Dion-Bouton chassis, this time on a twincylinder model dating from 1907. Extra cylinders were a big bonus for De Dion owners, it seems, sparing the driver ‘the necessity of manipulating individual levers under normal conditions’, according to the handbook.

 

1907 Gladiator

Dating from 1907, this 12/14hp Gladiator was built in Le Pre-St Gervais, France. Its pressedsteel chassis seems to have been ari option only available on the British market (where this model sold for £375), for the home market, apparently, had to make do with flitch-plated wood chassis on their Gladiators.

 

1907 Lancia

Son of a wealthy soup manufacturer, Vincenzo Lancia had been both engineer and racing driver before he began car manufacture in 1906 (although a fire at his factory held up production until late 1907). The first production Lancia was the 18/24hp, which later became known as the 2.5-litre Alpha. There was a sports roadster version of this model, the ‘Lampo’, which won America’s Savannah Small Car Race in 1908.

Claudia Koll – Italian Actress

Claudia Koll (stage name of Claudia Colacione; born May 17, 1965) is an Italian actress and missionary.

Biography
Claudia Koll was born in Rome of Italian and Romanian parentage.

Koll made her debut as a cinema actress in 1989, but achieved fame for her part in the erotic movie Così fan tutte (All Ladies Do It, 1992), directed by Tinto Brass. Subsequently she has worked mostly for theater and television. She reached her widest audience in the popular television series Linda e il brigadiere (Linda and the Brigadier, 1997-2000) with Nino Manfredi.

She co-hosted the 1995 edition of the Sanremo Music Festival.

She had a Catholic upbringing, but when she left home to become an actress, she also left the Church. As she said in testimony, she began to live as she liked, doing whatever she wanted, in a spirit of rebellion against all authority. She lived this transgressive life, she says, for many years, thinking it was true liberty, but its actual effect on her was to leave her psychologically vulnerable and without protection. One day in 2000, during a session of vaguely Buddhist, vaguely "New Age"-style meditation such as (she says) many people in show business make use of in order to relax and be able to concentrate on their work, she found herself, without warning, overcome by a terrifying sense of being in the presence of evil and in mortal danger. In her fear she began to recite the Lord’s Prayer and felt the threat recede. According to the exorcist Father Francesco Bamonte, "transcendental meditation…and other such New Age practices that stress ‘out of body’ experiences" can potentially open the door to demonic attacks.

Subsequently Claudia Koll became a devout Roman Catholic. She is involved in several humanitarian activities and has travelled all over Italy to give testimony of her conversion and invite young people to return to prayer and faith in God. In 2006 she also gave a moving testimony at a healing service in Malta.

Filmography
Orlando sei (1989)
Così fan tutte (1992)
Benito – The Rise and Fall of Mussolini (1993)
Miracolo italiano (1994)
Uomini sull’orlo di una crisi di nervi (1995)
Cucciolo (1998)

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Retro DIY Project – A Breakfast Shelf For 6

Making a concept is much more fun than just making a set of plans for a woodwork project.

Here are the plans for a breakfast shelf for 6 that I made back in 2010, complete with cutlery drawer, shelf for the egg cups and juice glasses and pegs for the coffee or tea cups.
NB All measurements in mm

Description and plans
in jpg and pdf HERE

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The Ted in the links above is not me, it’s another Ted – Ted 😉

Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant Tenniscourts Opened, April 1952

And with no less than 4 active players eager to get started, two them even several years away from old age pension. It must have been a matter of life and death to get that courts build – Ted

Image found at Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/The National Library of Wales’ Flickr account