Today is my birthday. I was born in 1957. It was, as days go, a fairly unremarkable day - a slow news day. I was born on 10th March, the same day as - Shannon Tweed the Canadian model and actress, some American actor called Matt Knudsen, an American folksinger called Jim White and…oh yes, Osama bin Laden.
1957 was the year that the BBC fooled the nation into believing that Spaghetti grew on trees. Thing was, back in 1957 most spaghetti came in cans with tomato sauce, so I can see how people were fooled. I was probably in my mid teens before I saw a packet of spaghetti in a shop, and maybe twenty before I ate freshly made spaghetti in an Italian restaurant in Wolverhampton.
Way back in 1974, seventeen year old me bought a copy of ‘Kimono my House’ by Sparks. There was a track on it called ‘Equator’ and the opening verse went ‘I always felt that I had quite a gift as a judge of human character - This is the day and the time and the place - And I wonder, wonder where you are - Surely, we set it for 3pm - Surely, we said it was March the 10th (Equator, Equator) - You said you'd meet me there - You must be just around the bend.’
I’d read somewhere that the antichrist would be born on March 10th, so I wondered if the lyric of the song was a message to him. The message wasn’t for me though – I’d checked and I was 666 clear – so perhaps it was a message for Osama.
Anyway – let’s say it was and spread it all over the Internet…
1957 was the year that the BBC fooled the nation into believing that Spaghetti grew on trees. Thing was, back in 1957 most spaghetti came in cans with tomato sauce, so I can see how people were fooled. I was probably in my mid teens before I saw a packet of spaghetti in a shop, and maybe twenty before I ate freshly made spaghetti in an Italian restaurant in Wolverhampton.
Way back in 1974, seventeen year old me bought a copy of ‘Kimono my House’ by Sparks. There was a track on it called ‘Equator’ and the opening verse went ‘I always felt that I had quite a gift as a judge of human character - This is the day and the time and the place - And I wonder, wonder where you are - Surely, we set it for 3pm - Surely, we said it was March the 10th (Equator, Equator) - You said you'd meet me there - You must be just around the bend.’
I’d read somewhere that the antichrist would be born on March 10th, so I wondered if the lyric of the song was a message to him. The message wasn’t for me though – I’d checked and I was 666 clear – so perhaps it was a message for Osama.
Anyway – let’s say it was and spread it all over the Internet…
- in 1974 Sparks sent a message to Osama bin Laden through the lyrics of track 10, (the final song), of side B on ‘Kimono my House, informing him that he must be around the bend and that as good judges of human character they knew him to be the antichrist. This view (or so it is claimed) is shared by Shannon Tweed, Matt Knudsen and Jim ‘the preacher’ White - whose 1997 album ‘Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus’ is also believed to be a reference to Osama. Prior to this many believed Richard Dimbleby to be the antichrist who, as perpetrator of the BBC’s ‘Swiss spaghetti harvest’ hoax, is claimed to have damaged the minds of thousands of members of the British working classes in 1957 -
So there you have it.
Off you go…crank up the handle of that urban myth hurdy-gurdy and get it out there.
Happy Birthday Dr Funshine
ReplyDeleteI never had pasta in any shape or form until university whether in a tin or not. I was brought up on meat and 2 veg. never had rice either except for rice pudding.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of proof that the original number of the beast was 616. Interestingly, 666 is the sum of the first 36 numbers, and is a triangular number. The early Greeks liked this kind of thing, but they also refused to acknowledge 0.
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