We need more

[Karearea]

We have taken an exclusive look at Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson's secret passion – an astonishing collection of First World War memorabilia, including warplanes built from original blueprints.

The Lord of the Rings director shows us around his warehouse of artefacts in Wellington, New Zealand where he works with his team to restore and create his beloved aircraft, and we even see some of them take to the skies. ...

Peter Jackson's Military Treasures • FULL DOCUMENTARY [45:48]

[OneHungLow]

Shooting golden eagles for goodness sake...

[Karearea]

^ thank you, OHL, saved me hunting for it

[OneHungLow]

[OneHungLow]

Latin...

[OneHungLow]

Good weather or wise forecasts... A top 10 film...

[Karearea]

James "Jimmy" Stewart won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Philadelphia Story also starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in 1940. Stewart was riding high and MGM was expecting big things from him. What he chose to do next was bigger than anyone could have imagined. Like his ancestors before him, Stewart enlisted in the United States Army to the dismay of MGM.

The Stewart family tradition of serving in the military goes back to Jimmy’s third great-grandfather, Fergus Moorhead, who served in the Revolutionary War. Jimmy’s maternal grandfather was a general for the Union in the Civil War. His father Alex, served in both the Spanish-American War and World War I. Jimmy Stewart entered the Army as a private and at the end of WWII was a colonel in the Army Air Corps, fully decorated as the result of the 20 combat missions he flew over Germany as leader of a squadron of B-24s. Among the medals, he was awarded were two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Croix de Guerre.
Stewart continued his military career after WWII by serving in the Air Force Reserves and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. President Reagan awarded him the Medal of Freedom, which is the highest award that can be awarded to a civilian in the United States.

Following the war, Jimmy got right back into the business of making movies. His first post-war performance in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life earned him an Academy Award nomination. Initially, this film was a box office bust, it has become the most famous Christmas holiday film in Hollywood history. It was also Stewart’s and Frank Capra’s favorite films.

Hollywood star (and US Air Force Reserve Colonel) James Stewart, posing with the winning P-51 Mustang called 'Thunderbird' at the 1949 Bendix Air Race. Stewart was the aircraft's co-owner at the time. The transcontinental point-to-point race was held from 1931 until 1962.
Higher Resolution Image: https://tinyurl.com/5n6jc6cx

A ten-year-old boy paints a picture of a P-51 Mustang on his bedroom wall and dreams that he is in the cockpit, swooping through a cathedral of clouds at 400mph. Everyone intrigued with warbirds likely shared this same fantasy at some point during childhood, but for most, flying a Mustang will always elude us. But this story concerns more than wistful aspirations, it is about how that same 10-year-old boy made his dream a reality. Looking up at his wall, a young Warren Pietsch vowed that someday he would own and fly a P-51… but he couldn’t do it alone.

Warren’s father, Al Pietsch, owned Pietsch Flying Service in Minot, North Dakota, and Warren was fortunate to grow up in the family aviation business. In the 1990s Warren took ownership of the company and renamed it Pietsch Aircraft Restoration & Repair, Inc. which would eventually become Minot Aero Center. Warren’s father, his mother Eleanor, and brothers Gary and Kent were all pilots and supported Warren’s flying career early on. Many others were also encouraging: Gary Johnson, a mechanic and pilot who began working for Warren’s dad in 1964 and now works for Warren; Don Larson, chairman of the Dakota Territory Air Museum; close friends Brian Sturm, Jay Blessum, and many others, played roles in Warren’s aviation story.
Over the years, as his experience and pilot qualifications expanded, Warren had the chance to fly warbirds, like the Mustang, with the Dakota Territory Air Museum and Texas Flying Legends. These opportunities arose because people in the warbird industry like Casey Odegaard, Bernie Vasquez, Doug Rozendaal, Dusty Dowd, and Forest Lovely all provided friendship, knowledge, encouragement, and/or training. Warren couldn’t have ventured down this path with Thunderbird without fellow dreamers like Gerry Beck and Bob Odegaard – it takes an industry to bring these aircraft back to life.

In 1999, Warren purchased what he believed to be a damaged P-51A in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. It was only later that he discovered that what he’d actually acquired were the mortal remains of Thunderbird, the iconic blue P-51C which Jimmy Stewart once flew in the Bendix Air Races just after WWII. This discovery, and the incredible history of this specific Mustang, began Warren’s journey to restore Thunderbird as a tribute to its legendary owners. Jimmy Stewart, Joe DeBona, Jackie Cochran, and Jim Cook. Thunderbird is truly a people’s airplane because of the many folks involved with the dream since the beginning, and those tasked with breathing life into the project.

Jimmy Stewart - The Soldier's Biography And The Story Of His Record Breaker P-51 "Thunderbird" 1:18:43

[PHXPhlyer]

Jimmy Stewart Bomber Pilot by Starr Smith is highly recommended.

PP

[Karearea]

Shot around a hundred years ago using a two-colour process — NOT artificially coloured!

The original footage is silent — the music is a modern take on celtic sounds to suit the abstract & nostalgic quality of the video material:
Clannad — Caislean Oir (Planet Heaven mix)
Wolfstone — J-Time
Capercaillie — Dr MacPhail's Reel into Dr MacPhail's Trance ('92 version)

Includes scenes of Ben Nevis, Callander, Loch Lomond, Balmoral, River Garry, Kilbarchan, Stirling, Lossiemouth Harbour, Oban, Clydeside, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dumfries, Gleneagles, and a motor tour from Stirling to John O'Groats: Glencoe, the ferry at Ballachulish, the dunes at John O'Groats; the Forth Bridge.

The Scottish Open Road — colour footage of life in Scotland in the 1920s [14:58]

[CharlieOneSix]

Tremendous Karearea, so many familiar places! Thanks for posting that. Not mentioned is Aberdeen. The location after Gleneagles is Union Street, Aberdeen, looking east. The car ferry at Ballachulish is amazing.

[Karearea]

Tremendous Karearea, so many familiar places! Thanks for posting that. Not mentioned is Aberdeen. The location after Gleneagles is Union Street, Aberdeen, looking east. The car ferry at Ballachulish is amazing.

Glad you found it of interest, C16. Yes, the car ferry is in a class of its own!

[Karearea]

Anniversary of the Sinking of the SS Marquette, 23 October 1915

Nursing in New Zealand: History and Reminiscences Chapter XXXVIII. — Arrival in New Zealand and News of Marquette Disaster

Marlborough Express 4 January 1916

Wikipedia: Nurses Memorial Chapel

[PHXPhlyer]

The last new Beatles song, 'Now And Then,' set for release next week

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/the-l ... -next-week#

NEW YORK - Sixty years after the onset of Beatlemania and with two of the quartet now dead, artificial intelligence has enabled the release next week of what is promised to be the last "new" Beatles song.

The track, called "Now And Then," will be available Thursday, Nov. 2, as part of a single paired with "Love Me Do," the very first Beatles single that came out in 1962 in England, it was announced Thursday.

"Now And Then" comes from the same batch of unreleased demos written by the late John Lennon, which were taken by his former bandmates to construct the songs "Free As a Bird" and "Real Love," released in the mid-1990s.

Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison worked on "Now And Then" in the same sessions, but technological limitations stood in the way.

With the help of artificial intelligence, director Peter Jackson cleared those problems up by "separating" Lennon's original vocals from a piano used in the late 1970s. The much clearer vocals allowed McCartney and Starr to complete the track last year.

The survivors packed plenty into it. The new single contains guitar that Harrison had recorded nearly three decades ago, a new drum part by Starr, with McCartney's bass, piano and a slide guitar solo he added as a tribute to Harrison, who died in 2001. McCartney and Starr sang backup.

McCartney also added a string arrangement written with the help of Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer George Martin.

As if that wasn't enough, they weaved in backing vocals from the original Beatles recordings of "Here, There and Everywhere," "Eleanor Rigby" and "Because."

"There it was, John's voice, crystal clear," McCartney said in the announcement. "It's quite emotional. And we all play on it, it's a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven't heard, I think it's quite an exciting thing."

Harrison's widow, Olivia, said he felt in the 1990s that the technical problems made it impossible to release a song that met the band's standards. With the improvements, "he would have wholeheartedly" joined Paul and Ringo in completing the song now if he were still alive, she said.

Next Wednesday, the day before the song's release, a 12-minute film that tells the story of the new recording will be made public.

Later in the month, expanded versions of the Beatles' compilations "1962-1966" and "1967-1970" will be released. "Now And Then," despite coming much later than 1970, will be added to the latter collection.

The surviving Beatles have skillfully released new projects, like remixes of their old albums that include studio outtakes and Jackson's "Get Back" film, usually timed to appeal to nostalgic fans around the holiday season.

This year, it's the grand finale of new music.

"This is the last track, ever, that you’ll get the four Beatles on the track. John, Paul, George, and Ringo," Starr said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

PP

[Karearea]

There are few places on earth as intimately tied to historic feats of strength as the Highlands of Scotland. There are countless stories of local warriors and clansmen training for battle. Of castle bodyguards proving their strength by carrying heavy weights over long distances. An often cited tale dates back to the 11th century when King Malcolm III summoned his countrymen to compete in a foot race that would determine who would become his royal messenger.

All over Scotland are remnants of these ancient tests of strength — lifting stones, formed over the centuries by wind and river erosion, each with its own history and local lore. A relative few still know about and seek out these ancient stones. This is their story.

Stoneland [45:57]

[Boac]

Crikey! Worse case of elephantiasis I've ever seen... or is it Humza carrying his heavy load?=))

[Karearea]

Documentary: The Beatles - Now And Then - The Last Beatles Song (Short Film) [12:24]

[OneHungLow]

Interesting short documentary on the art of of propaganda in WW2 documentarians by well known Australian documentary maker Luke Swann.

[OneHungLow]

Brain Greene if one needs a little refresher/tutorial on the basic principles of relativity. He really is a gifted educator.

[Karearea]

[WSU: Space, Time, and Einstein with Brian Greene]

I found Mr Greene brilliant at offering visualisations of the concepts - particularly from 1hr 14min, The reality of Past, Present and Future.

Very elegant - thank you, OHL.

[Karearea]

One of the stories I read aloud to my DDs years ago, although I found it so funny at times I could scarcely keep reading -

Roughing It in the Bush, by Stephen Leacock, 1922 - short story, available to read online at the HTML link here:

https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20211237/html.php