Tag: Cake

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Cake

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Cake is a made up drug which is a metabolically bisturbile cranabolic amphetamoid, originating from the Czech Republic. After becoming popular in Prague at so-called “boom raves”, it spread to other European cities, notably London. It is so new that it was technically legal when it first reached the United Kingdom in 1997, in what became known as the ‘summer of death’.

Side effects of Cake include severe water retention, especially in the neck (a symptom referred to as ‘Czech Neck’, which is caused by the yellow dye frequently used to increase the visual appeal of the drug). Another common symptom is massive dehydration, caused by the body expelling the water via tears or vomit. Another effect of Cake, via its active chemical, dimesmeric anson-phosphate, a psychoactive that affects the part of the brain known as Shatner’s Bassoon, which deals with time perception, elongating it massively. Frequent users often experience symptoms of depression.

Cake is also known as “loonytoad quack”, “Joss Ackland’s spunky backpack”, “ponce on the heath”, “rustledust”, or “Hattie Jacques pretentious cheese wog”, and was once the subject of a question in Parliament by MP David Amess (Conservative Party Member for Basildon).

The scourge of Cake has apparently now been defeated, as it has not been sighted on the streets of Europe for well over a decade.

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May 14, 1959 — Sinatra finishes recording “No One Cares”

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On this day, Sinatra completed the recording of this, his third album for the year, after a break of over a month – the rest of the album having been recorded between the 24th and 26th of March.

The album, considered a sequel to Sinatra’s earlier “Where Are You?”, includes a recording of “Stormy Weather”, a song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1933, and performed first by Ethel Waters at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem that year.

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July 13, 1950 – The USAF begins bombing operations in the Korean War

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The 19th, 22nd and 92nd Bombardment Groups were reassigned from Strategic Air Commaned bases in the United States to new bases in South Korea and placed under the overall command of the Far East Air Force of the United States after the North Korean aerial attacks of June 25, 1950. Mostly flying B-29 Superfortresses, these three units were later reinforced by elements of other bombing groups, and defended on sorties by a range of fighter aircraft.

Over the course of the war, B-29s flew 20,000 sorties and dropped 200,000 tonnes (180,000 tons) of bombs. B-29 gunners are credited with shooting down 27 enemy aircraft during the conflict.

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circa 1232 BCE — Zeus seduces Leda

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One can’t help thinking that Leda knew more than she was telling. Legendarily one of the most beautiful women in ancient Greece, this queen of Sparta dallied with a swan (who, it turned out, was actually Zeus in disguise), and gave birth to perhaps the only woman to be more beautiful than her: Helen (later of Troy).

In fact, she gave birth to four children, two sets of twins. Half of them were mortal, the children of Tyndareus (her human husband), and half were half-divine, the children of Zeus. Which children are descended from which father is inconsistent across the various tellings of the myth, although a majority of versions record that Helen was half-divine (accounting for her legendary beauty).

The abduction of Europa
By Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre – picture by alexmarie28, painting at the Dallas Museum of Art, Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

When You Sleep — Cake

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circa 1438 BCE — Zeus seduces Europa

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Europa was the daughter of the Phoenician King and Queen, Aegnor and Telephassa. But one day, she was kidnapped by Zeus, who had taken the form of a white bull, and carried off to Crete. Here, Zeus seduced her (accounts differ as to whether he was still in the form of a bull at the time). Europa became the first Queen of Crete, and bore three sons: Minos (her heir), Sarpedon and Rhadamanthis.

So myth tells us. The truth of the matter may never be known, but from what we know of Minoan culture (named for Europa’s son), the bull was an important part of it, featuring in their religious and cultural ceremonies. The myth seems than an attempt to rationalise curious aspects of Cretan culture by mainland Greeks.

Europa’s three sons, in the myth, all became kings, Minos in Crete, Sarpedon in Lycia and Rhadamanthus in Boetia. Europa herself gave her name to the entire continent of Europe. Myth is with us, always.

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circa 1628 BCE — Zeus seduces Niobe

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There are two Niobes in Greek Myth: one was the daughter of Tantalus, and a prideful mother whose children were slain by Apollo and Artemis. The other, less well-known, was the daughter of Phorenus, and the mother, by Zeus of Argus – for whom the city of Argos was named.

It should be noted also, that thus Argus was not any of the other figures in Greek Myth named either Argos or Argus – he was not the shipwright who built the Argo, nor the son of Jason and Medea named for that shipwright. Neither was he a legendarily faithful dog whose master was Odysseus, nor the hundred-eyed giant known as Argus Panoptes. He was just this guy, who happened to be the third king of Argos, and the first child Zeus had by a mortal woman. He would have lots of half-siblings, mostly posthumously.

Otricoli Zeus - 1889 drawing.jpg
By William Henry Goodyear, A History of Art: For Classes, Art-Students, and Tourists in Europe, A. S. Barnes & Company, New York, 1889. Page 158. Scanned by Dave Pape., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

When You Sleep — Cake