Davey Jones' Locker

Niall Ferguson has declared we are in Cold War 2.0: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-06/us-and-china-locked-in-cold-war-2.0-historian-says/10873254

Some more random musings on relative fame and coverage of death: 1. Yesterday, Luke Perry, the star of a half-forgotten soap opera from 20 years ago, received a lot more coverage in the Australian mainstream media than that satanic-looking tosser from Prodigy (so Hollywood promotional power counts). Neither came near the levels of fawning over the homegrown icon that was Mike Willesee though. 2.In terms of fame relative to audience age, Carrie Fisher is best known to my generation as Princess Leia and was a huge star in her own right, irrespective of any actual acting skills she may have possessed. To my mum's generation though, she is really just Debbie Reynold's daughter. Carrie's death received a lot more coverage than Debbie's though in the "double event" death. Debbie was basically portrayed in the media as just Carrie's mother and the star of some old forgotten films(!) Kirk Douglas is of course a superstar but I am wondering how many younger people today would know Michael better and think of him more in terms of being Michael's dad without having seen his films. 3. Likewise, Robin Williams received a lot more coverage than Lauren Bacall the following day who ended up just being a footnote on the news. So even Hollywood stardom fades with the decades. Does make me wonder what would happen if, say, Olivia's death happens at the same time as that of a younger, bigger star. 4. I ranked Prunella Scales higher on the list higher than Ed Asner or Valerie Harper because the ABC repeats her old shows frequently whereas, to my knowledge, Mary Tyler Moore has never been repeated. They were probably bigger stars at the time, so, yes, UK stars can be more famous than American ones in certain circumstances. Basically, in Australia, commercial television stations buy Yank shows and the ABC buys Pommie shows so we have a dose of each (SBS buys foreign language shows which is good for my knowledge on the Foreign Stars thread.) 5. To answer your question, yes, Vera Lynn is super-famous outside the UK. She is seen as the epitome of Englishness, for better or worse. 6. Not sure about Olivia versus Doris in the fame stakes either. I put Olivia slightly higher because she was in more classics, including the iconic Robin Hood with "our" Errol but it was a tough one. 7. Emperor Akihito is moderately well known as the head of state of a major trading partner but with so many Japanese-Australian citizens now perhaps I have shown Anglo bias ranking him so low. 8. Moss versus Walker was also tough. Moss was a superstar in his day bit you never hear of him in Australia now. I wouldn't have a vlue what he has done post-racing whereas Walker is the media face of the sport as the chief comentator so possibly more well known to young people. 9. Since soccer isn't as popular as AFL or Rugby League in terms of media coverage in Australia (though things are gradually changing) Banks and Greaves suffer badly. Anywhere else in the world, they'd probably be ranked a lot higher but they are not known here at all by the general public.

Attempt at Aussie fame rankings (it really depends on age though - older people will know Vera Lynn better than they know Tina Turner, for instance. Clive James would probably have been ranked higher in the past when he was on television more often, Stirling Moss when he was racing, Chirac when he was in office, etc): 1. Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh 2. Bob Hawke 3. Jimmy Carter 4. Mikhail Gorbachev 5. Kirk Douglas 6. Olivia De Havilland 7. Dick van Dyke 8. Doris Day 9. Robert Mugabe 10. Henry Kissinger 11. Desmond Tutu 12. Clive James 13. Alan Greenspan 14. Hosni Mubarak 15. Jacques Chirac 16. Harry Belafonte 17. Vera Lynn 18. Tina Turner 19. Cleo Laine 20. Vanessa Redgrave 21. Honor Blackman 22. Little Richard 23. Stirling Moss 24. Murray Walker 25. Sidney Poitier 26. Prunella Scales 27. Javier Perez de Cuellar 28. Betty White 29. Pierre Cardin 30. Emperor Akihito 31. Barbara Walters 32. Larry King 33. Bob Dole 34. Loretta Lynn 35. Ginger Baker 36. Valery Giscard d'Estaing 37. Ed Asner 38. Valerie Harper 39. June Brown 40. Bob Barker 41. Nobby Stiles 42. Herman Wouk 43. Jerry Stiller 44. Gordon Banks 45. Jimmy Greaves 46. Tony Britton 47. John McCririck 48. Leah Bracknell 49. Johnny Clegg 50. Shane MacGowan

There is a discussion of all the major Australian UFO stories here. Included is another contemporary news report video on the Knowles case: https://mashable.com/2016/10/27/australian-ufo-sightings-top-5/#h1PWal3AXSq6 UPDATE: More contemporary reports on the case: https://www.apnews.com/9bd96fcf56695d960ae48975f4c793c8 https://www.apnews.com/c32556c9bfaee668f5194a5a9d6ea047 Hmmm.... Police were convinced it was not a hoax, there was the physical evidence of the tar and the fishermen were witnesses too. UPDATE 2: Patrick Knowles provides an account (not sure when this is dated): Source: https://www.artangel.org.uk/witness/ufo-sightings-from-around-world/#australia-and-oceania

Actually, it turns out the guy espousing that theory has been promoting it on this forum too: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/246829-australian-family-encounters-glowing-object/ He still provides no evidence. Interestingly he draws in the weird, weird story of conman John Friedrich, who was building up just such an organisation under the guise of a "Safety Council" right under the noses of the authorities. One popular theory at the time was that John Friedrich was actually an assumed identity of a re-emerged Frederick Valentich, so this guy is actually, knowingly or unknowingly, linking together three great Australian mysteries! Anyway, as smart phones and dashcams become more and more prevalent, it will be interesting to see if incidents like the Knowles story occur in the future. If they are concocted by publicity seekers or mass hallucinations, people will have to come up with more inventive tales. (In a way it will be sad if there are no more mysteries in the world.) If, on the other hand, they are real, it will be fascinating to see what the footage shows.

Yes, makes sense. I have heard of cases of people really wanting to see either extinct thylacines or the urban myth of escaped big cats and then convincing themselves they have seen them when they go out in the bush whereas other people in the same area see nothing. I could readily believe someone seeing something unexpected, like a meteor, and the mind then filling in the blanks and constructing a story around it. I guess the most interesting thing in the Knowles case is the inclusion of the "hard evidence" of the dust on the car which was supposedly an unexplained substance at the time. The paramilitary explanation sounds as bizarre and paranoid as any explanation involving extraterrestrials: what evidence is there for the claim? Who was the real target? Why on earth would some real high profile target be traveling across the wasteland of the Nullarbor Plain?! Why not just shoot them or blow them up if they were travelling unescorted across the desert and leave the wreckage there instead of trying to use an electro-magnet to abduct their car and drop it in the ocean(!) At the end, he seems to contradict himself by saying high profile events like the Bicentennial at Sydney would be attractive, whereas we are talking about a car out in the middle of nowhere with no media and few witnesses around. At least he tries to explain the dust on the car.

Cool, thanks! I remember all the media circus around the Knowles case when I was a kid and it really intrigued me at the time. I have always wanted to see the Min Min phenomena - might have to drive out into one of the areas where it is spotted one of these days. BTW, my father observed ball lightning a few times when he was young.

It is a parody of this very Prime Ministerial statement by Hawke when Australia won the America's Cup in 1983:

Discussion of some UFO cases in South Australia, including the Knowles family encounter. There is a Youtube video at the bottom of the page featuring an interview with the Knowles clan by DeathList favourite Derryn Hinch. Thoughts, @maryportfuncity ? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-23/curious-adelaide-ufo-sightings-across-australia/9466950

India-Pakistan ceasefire collapses: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-03/india-and-pakistan-soilders-clash-again-in-fresh-tension/10865232

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-03/air-force-chief-leo-davies-signals-space-expansion/10863510 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-03/collapse-of-treaty-could-lead-to-new-arms-race/10845950

Eric Abetz's wife died March 1 as well.

One link in a chain reaction? I'll get me coat.

Let's not forget the classic "Willesee versus Skyhooks" interview (which is the Australian equivalent of "Grundy versus Sex Pistols"): Part 1 (introduction and song): Part 2 (the interview - even today it is painful to watch the two most famous people in the country at the time go head to head ):

Good riddance to the warmongering scum.