Rollercoaster Mum: On my birthday - 16th January

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Monday 12 March 2012

On my birthday - 16th January

I have been tagged on this fab meme by the lovely Debs from Aspie in the Family. Kate from The Five F's Blog came up with the concept and she wants to get at least one blog post for all 366 days of the year so to help her achieve this she wants as many bloggers as possible to submit a blog post to the linky over at the Five F's.  All (ahem) you have to do is to answer some questions and to provide some information about your birth date. You don't have to tag anyone or be tagged but it does help spread the word if you do!

I didn't really know much about what has happened on my birthday but it's always fun to know who shares your birthday or what might have happened on it so here goes.

When is your birthday?

16th January

Pick three people who share your birthday and share what you know about them.

Kate Moss - probably the most famous person born on my birthday - at least in this generation anyway. Superskinny supermodel famous for her party lifestyle and drug use and amazingly not much younger than me!! I have never been nor ever will be that skinny though!

James May - Top Gear presenter and TV personality who does some really quite interesting programmes. I am a closet fan of ManLab and I loved his series on toys - who wouldn't like someone who does a whole programme on Lego and Plasticine!

Dian Fossey - Until I researched this I didn't know we shared a birthday. Her study of mountain gorillas in Rwanda was a big thing when I was growing up and of course her still unsolved murder which has had numerous conspiracy theories around it. She left a great legacy with her study of gorillas and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International which continues her work with these amazing animals.

Is anyone listed as being born on the same day as you (ie the same year).  If so, what do you know about them?

Well apart from a few footballers, a long distance runner and a couple of minor actors there appears to be nobody especially famous or interesting born on the same day as me so I won't bore you with the details (the most famous person was a founding member of the Wiggles - for the Aussies out there!)

List three people who died on your birthday and tell us what you know about them?

Auberon Waugh - son of Evelyn Waugh, Auberon was an author and journalist - most famed as an opinionated columnist on Private Eye he died on 16th January 2001 from heart disease.

John Mortimer - barrister but probably more famous as author of the Rumpole of the Bailey TV series which I remember watching as a child (although I think they may have been repeats!). He died at the ripe old age of 85 in 2009, having been awarded a CBE and knighted in 1998.

Ma Barker  - OK so I admit I had never heard of her either until I was looking to see who had died on January 16th but as a mother of founders of the (apparently) famous Barker criminal gang in the 1930's her life and death was more interesting than most. She was at one time credited as the gang leader and mastermind but apparently this was found not to be true. She was killed with her son Fred after an hour long gun battle with the FBI on 16th January 1935.

  
List three notable events that took place on your birthday

27BC - Way back on 16th January 27BC the Roman Empire began when Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate. You don't really get a bigger event than that, although how they can possibly know when it happened that precisely I have no idea!

1909 - Not quite so long ago Ernest Shackleton's expedition claimed to have found the magnetic South Pole- but the location may have been incorrect. He was however still knighted for his achievements on his return home. Anyone doing any type of polar expedition in those days deserved a medal I reckon.

1986 - This was the date of the first meeting of the Internet Engineering Taskforce (who develop and promote internet standards.) Not necessarily the most notable of events except that as a blogger and social media-ite the internet is a huge part of my life and of most people who read this so these people could have an enormous, if unknown, influence on our lives.

Tell us about a holiday that falls on your birthday.

Apart from rather obscure Christian saints days there does not seem to be any holidays on my birthday (damn!) It is Teachers Day in Thailand and Flag Day in Israel which are observances rather than holidays. I did find some other weird National days for January 16th though including National Nothing Day (hmmm - does that mean I can do nothing on my birthday each year) and even more bizarrely Appreciate a Dragon Day (I know I can be a bit scary when riled but that's going a bit too far!). Finally this year it was declared the most depressing day of the year to be counteracted with UK National Welsh Rarebit Day to cheer us up - according to Darren Gough (well maybe if he brought me the Welsh Rarebit!!)

And on that note I shall leave you with a couple of tags on some lovely people who hopefully won't be too scared by this meme. Oh and if you do join in don't forget to link back to the Five F's blog - just click on the candle below and you will be whisked off there with some birthday sprinkles magic!

I am tagging:

Kerry from the LoveBumps blog

Rachel from Confessions of a SAHM

Viv from Melksham Mum






 

10 comments:

  1. What an interesting meme. I can see I will be trawling through Google later to do some research as I can only fill in one fact off the top of my head and that's a really depressing one.
    You share your birthday with 3 very different people!
    Thanks for the tag x

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    1. It is quite cool but I feel I should apologise - at least it lets you off the hook of the other meme I'm trying to write - the eleven things one - yikes!

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  2. Great post; some really interesting facts there! I love the idea of a National Nothing Day and UK National Welsh Rarebit Day - I have a vision of sitting around not doing much and eating cheese on toast all day! I wish. Deb x

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  3. Thanks for the tag! What an I retesting Meme!! I'm going to have to research this as I only know of 1 famous person born on my birthday :) xx

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    1. *interesting (damn autocorrect)

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    2. Kate gives some tips on searching on her original post - mainly using Wikipedia!

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  4. Is that Ma Barker the person whom Boney M wrote Ma Baker about? I suspect it was.

    Thanks for joining in. Hope you enjoyed it.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. very probably! and yes I did - hope you get all the days of the year!

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