Also: I know you don't want to think of a loved one dying, but I dare you to just try and think what that'd be like with Nicole Kidman sitting at your side. It would be ... distracting, to say the least.
“As my mother was passing, she was lonely and there was only so much the family could provide. Between my sister and I, we have so many children and our careers and our work, and wanting to take care of her because my father wasn’t in the world anymore, and that’s when I went, ‘I wish there was these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care,’” Kidman explained to the crowd of students, per the San Francisco Chronicle. “So that’s part of my expansion and one of the things I will be learning.” A death doula, or commonly called an end-of-life doula, is described as a non-medical professional who provides holistic emotional, physical and spiritual support to terminal patients and families. They are meant to guide others through the dying process with dignity, comfort, education and other assistance. It’s unclear if Kidman plans to practice or if she will simply be learning more about it to expand her knowledge base. (Or, perhaps a project on the way?)
The Hospice people here offer a night nurse service, they were brilliant when my mother died. It made sitting with her while she slipped away so much more bearable. But without wanting to be too flippant, if she'd called herself a death doula I don't think I'd have been able to keep a straight face.
This is from an obit written by a friend of Passerieu's (he died in 1928, aged 43, and reports of his death are cloaked in euphemism):
"He spoke French like a true street urchin and English like a British ambassador."
Shortly after taking his amateur licence off him and issuing him a professional lice, the fed also stripped him of a national championship title he'd just won, accusing him of having received medical assistance outside the designated area.
Passerieu himself was quite the naughty boy in his youth. The French fed stripped him of his amateur status, claiming he was being sponsored by a bike manufacturer. The fed didn't name the guilty sponsor, but I think I've put a name to him based on the bikes Passerieu was riding.
(This is now the third time I've turned to Genealogy to try and find out about someone and ... it's getting to be a bit more fun.)
Georges Passerie, against a Mondrianesque background, all white and red and yellow and blue and black rectangles.
Georges Passerieu has proven to be a more interesting little research project than I thought he'd be. Several distant relatives have researched him on Ancestry, which has made working out when his family left London and returned to Paris a little bit easier.
Time travel! They walk among us.
There's a journalist who asked of Cricket Australia, the organising body, do they play cricket in order to make money, or do they need to make money in order to play cricket?
It strikes me that this applies to universities and education/research.
A head of state curing the ill? How disgraceful. It'd never happen in Britain. Never. Ever ever ever.
What's that Skippy, Charles II cured the ill just by touching them? Pshaw!
A slide from my presentation
Address of talk
If any London or south-east peeps fancy an evening listening to me talk about the 12 battles of the Isonzo, and why you should give a damn, it’s happening at the London East branch of the WFA, 19.30hrs this Thursday, everyone welcome (£4 donation on the door). Signed copies of TiTM will be available
A hand-drawn 'report' on a race, with moments from the event drawn comic book style
Speaking of novelty ... the Comic's reporting of the 100 mile Carwardine Cup at Crystal Palace in 1904. Now that's something that would improve the sport today: a return to hand-drawn race reports.
A headline from a 1904 issue of Cycling magazine, today's Comic: RACING & RACERS HOW TO ATTRACT THE PUBLIC MORE NOVELTIES WANTED IN CYCLE RACING PROGRAMME By Rowland Johnson
You know how these days every Tom, Dick and Harry with a Substack wants to sell you their over-priced take on how to 'fix' cycling?
Even in 1904 the Comic was at it.
Newspaper clipping about Passerieu's victory in Paris-R0ubaix 1907. Salient part: “I wore the jersey of the unfortunate Pottier, who was my best friend. His family gave it to me as a souvenir. I was told that if Pottier had been there his jersey would have appeared first. It did; not on my late friend, but on one who will never forget pauvre René.”
Wout van Aert dedicated his Paris-Roubaix win to his deceased team-mate, Michael Goolaerts.
Georges Passerieu's Paris-Roubaix win in 1907 was for his deceased team-mate too, René Pottier.
B+W photo. Passerieu in 1913, ahead of Paris-Tours, posing with his bicycle. A long-sleeved jersey is draped over his shoulders and tied by the arms below his chin. Only an Englishman can wear a jersey like that.
You want proof that George Passerieu was British, not French?
No Frenchman could ever drape a jumper over his shoulders like this.
That's straight outta Islington, where Passerieu was born.
😉
Newspaper clipping about Passerieu's victory in Paris-R0ubaix 1907. Salient part: “I wore the jersey of the unfortunate Pottier, who was my best friend. His family gave it to me as a souvenir. I was told that if Pottier had been there his jersey would have appeared first. It did; not on my late friend, but on one who will never forget pauvre René.”
Wout van Aert dedicated his Paris-Roubaix win to his deceased team-mate, Michael Goolaerts.
Georges Passerieu's Paris-Roubaix win in 1907 was for his deceased team-mate too, René Pottier.
Georges Passerieu's cobblestone in Roubaix
Paris-Roubaix's British winner?
Not Wout's it didn't 🙂
Woot for Wout!
I think that helps. While I have no real knowledge of Lovecraft beyond what's become part of pop culture I do recognise some of the other references.
They're v good. Discovered them during the pandemic having put off the first one thinking it would be too horror.
Have you listened to the Lovecraft Investigations @bikesnbukes.eurosky.social ?
- Teddy Hale is not to be confused with Teddy Hale, the tap dancer;
A picture of a Mills Bomb, looking a bit like e metallic pineapple with a nipple ring; and an illustration of British soldiers in trenches chucking Mills Bombs into No Man's Land
- William 'Bill' Mills is not to be confused with William Mills, inventor of the Mills Bomb, a type of hand grenade used by the British in WW1 and its more popular sequel WW2;
RSB's death notice for English cricket: In Affectionate Remembrance OF ENGLISH CRICKET, WHICH DIED AT THE OVAL ON 29th AUGUST, 1882, Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R. I. P. N.B. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.
So, here's the thing:
- Reginald Shirley is not to be confused with Reginald Shirley Brooks, whose Death Notice for English cricket gave birth to the Ashes;
FYI some other pics from the start (and end) of that race (scroll down a bit to get to 1932). His team-mate Swarovski or Sikorski or whatever it was is in there too.
gallica.bnf.fr/services/eng...
Also excited to share that I’ve had my very own Davina McCall ‘Long Lost Family’ moment. Social media has connected me to Bill’s step son - so I have a new family member and some more of Bill’s memories, including this one - a photo of his good friend Sidney Saltmarsh, cycling journalist
He then got the lifetime ban lifted by arguing, IIRC, that one of his positives happened when he should have been serving a ban for an earlier positive, and so it should be annulled, cancelling the lifetime ban. Even the Jesuits would have struggled to come up with a defence like that.
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gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b...
For those who don't know: Kim Andersen was busted for doping on something like 7 occasions. In his day you could get a lifetime ban if you racked up three positives in ... I'm going to say a 12 month period, it might have been 24, whichever, it was hard to do but he did it + he got his lifetime ban.