ME and Ophelia

Thursday, June 25, 2009

 
Call 911... he’s not breathing

Call 911... he’s not breathing

Michael Jackson dead

Michael Jackson dead

Photo:  Michael Jackson is rushed into hospital in Los Angeles Photo: x17online.com

Shocking, very sad news just in (25 June 2009 c. 22:58 GMT UK) from Brisbane Times, Australia by Christine Kellett June 26, 2009 - 7:47AM:
Pop star Michael Jackson has died after suffering a heart attack, it has been reported.

Media reports have said the star, 50, was taken to hospital in Los Angeles after he was found not breathing in his Holmby Hills home earlier.

Celebrity website TMZ said 911 operators received an emergency call about 12.12pm local time (8.12pm AEST).

Jackson is believed to have gone into cardiac arrest and paramedics performed CPR on him en route to UCLA hospital.

The website quoted family members as saying the Thriller singer was in "really bad shape."

"We just got off the phone with Joe Jackson, Michael's dad, who says 'he is not doing well.'' the website reported.

Jackson was reportedly planning a comeback and was living in Los Angeles while rehearsing a series of 50 sold-out shows in London, the LATimes has reported.

Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics had rushed to the singer's $100,00-a-month rented home near Sunset Boulevard to find him not breathing, the newspaper reported.
Just in from Los Angeles Times a few minutes ago, 23:27 GMT UK - excerpt:
Michael Jackson is dead [Updated]
2:06 PM | June 25, 2009

[Updated at 3:15 p.m.: Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Times.]

[Updated at 2:46 p.m.: Jackson is in a coma and family have are arriving at his bedside, a law enforcement source told The Times.

Jackson was rushed to a hospital this afternoon by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics.

Capt. Steve Ruda said paramedics responded to a call at Jackson's home around 12:26 p.m. He was not breathing when they arrived. The parademics performed CPR and took him to UCLA Medical Center, Ruda told The Times.

[Updated at 2:12 p.m.: Paramedics were called to a home on the 100 block of Carolwood Drive off Sunset Boulevard. Jackson rented the Bel Air home for $100,000 a month. It was described as a French chateau estate built in 2002 with seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, 12 fireplaces and a theater.
I feel very sad that Michael Jackson died broken hearted and am still sickened by how cruelly he was treated by many of his fans and the world's press. I blogged about it here (see copy below). There's another blog post I wrote at the time of his court case, saying how I believed him to be innocent. Sorry I can't find it. Rest In Peace, far away from this cruel world, dear sweet gentle Michael and thanks for all your sensational dancing and thrilling music.  The world is a sadder place without you. + + + God bless you and your family.  x x x

Thursday, November 20, 2003
SUPER STAR MICHAEL JACKSON
How much more hurt and public humiliation can he take?


Michael Jackson has been urged to give himself up to police. I am feeling fearful and sad for him. It is appalling that such hurtful and humiliating allegations can be made so publicly while, at the same time, the identity of the person, or their family, making the allegations are kept private. Identities of both parties should be kept private until one is found guilty of breaking the law.

This repetitive public hounding and humiliation must be incredibly stressful. What on earth can Michael Jackson be thinking and feeling right now? I hope his family, friends and lawyers are able to keep his spirits up and get him through this. Put yourself in his shoes right now. And ask yourself, if he is such a terrible danger to children, how come all of these families of all these children allow their children to spend so much time with Michael Jackson living out fantasies at his Neverland ranch without being accompanied by chaperones.

Unfounded wicked gossip and public humiliation had to be endured by Prince Charles, his sons and family lately. It was awful to see on the news and internet how someone can be so publicly ridiculed and dragged through the mire - around the world - without there being a shred of evidence. And, anyway - in Prince Charles' case - who should care what goes on behind closed doors. It's none of our business. Unless it is proven that a law has been broken. Then it becomes a matter for public concern.

Look at what happened to the quiet mannered British scientist and our Princess of Wales, her partner and chauffeur...they were hounded to death.

There's a lot of protest about hunting as a sport in this country. The law should protect both humans and animals - around the world.

# posted by Ingrid Jones @ 11/20/2003
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Update 25 June 2009: Is Michael Jackson dead? Would Twitter lie?
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 6/25/2009 0 comments

Saturday, June 20, 2009

 
Flossie Lane

Here is a fascinating story from the Telegraph published 19 June 2009:
Flossie Lane, who died on June 13 aged 94, was reputedly the oldest publican in Britain, and ran one of the last genuine country inns.

Flossie Lane

Photo: Flossie Lane in 2007, with the pub dog Hobson

For 74 years she had kept the tiny Sun Inn, the pub where she was born in the pre-Roman village of Leintwardine on the Shropshire-Herefordshire border.

As the area's last remaining parlour pub, and one of only a handful left in Britain, the Sun is as resolutely old-fashioned and unreconstructed today as it was in the mid-1930s when she and her brother took it over.

According to beer connoisseurs, Flossie Lane's parlour pub is one of the last five remaining "Classic Pubs" in England, listed by English Heritage for its historical interest, and the only one with five stars, awarded by the Classic Basic Unspoilt Pubs of Great Britain.

She held a licence to sell only beer – there was no hard liquor – and was only recently persuaded to serve wine as a gesture towards modern drinking habits.

With its wooden trestle tables, pictures of whiskery past locals on the walls, alcoves and a roaring open fire, the Sun is listed in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide as "a pub of outstanding national interest". Although acclaimed as "a proper pub", it is actually Flossie Lane's 18th-century vernacular stone cottage, tucked away in a side road opposite the village fire station.

There is no conventional bar, and no counter. Customers sit on hard wooden benches in her unadorned quarry-tiled front room. Beer – formerly Ansell's, latterly Hobson's Best at £2 a pint – is served from barrels on Flossie Lane's kitchen floor.

Since she began to ail after a fall in 2006, her customers have helped themselves. There is no till. People put the money in a row of jam jars, one for each denomination of note and coin; although she was never observed to be watching, from her command-post in her favourite armchair she could distinguish between the different clinking sounds they made.

The broadcaster Jeremy Paxman once described the pub as his discovery of the year. "Flossie, the landlady, sits in the middle of the room, wearing a pair of surgical stockings. The only food is a pot of eggs, which Flossie pickled several moons ago."
Her regulars have formed themselves into a Flossie Lane Society, run as a kind of guild, and are known as Aldermen of the Red-Brick Bar. Every year they appoint a mayor, nominated by the outgoing one, who wears a squirrel-skin cape made by a local butcher.

The mayoral handover involves the eating of squirrel pie and a parade through the village, led by the new mayor wearing the honorary mayoral chain, hat and staff which bears a symbolic sun in homage to the pub.

When Hobson, the Rhodesian ridgeback belonging to The Fiddler's Elbow fish-and-chip shop owner next door, was appointed mayor, the dog was quickly found to be not up to the job and in turn appointed a successor.

Although they are intended as harmless fun, the rituals at the parlour pub are seen by some villagers as strange and off-putting. "There are still some people in the village who think it's a secret society," one regular admitted, "but it's not a closed shop, even though it is a bit different and off the wall. We welcome people here."

Visiting the pub in 1996, The Guardian's food writer, Matthew Fort, noted: "There was no sound but for the ticking of the clock and the conversation between the landlady and the only other customer, which had five-minute pauses between sentences."
Like Paxman, Fort fudged the pub's exact location: "The landlady said that she didn't want a lot of folk coming along and disturbing the peace."

Florence Emily Lane was born at the Sun Inn, Leintwardine, on July 10 1914, the only girl in a family of five. Her father had been a policeman at Ross-on-Wye and her mother was the first member of the family to hold the licence. Educated at the village school, as a teenager Flossie waited on the customers and helped out in the kitchen by washing bottles and glasses.
After the death of her parents, her brother Charlie took over the licence in 1935 – the year of George V's silver jubilee – and held it jointly with her until his death half a century later. Flossie Lane had run the pub single-handedly since 1985.

Both she and her brother were particular about who drank there; sons of the tillage were preferred, although some approved non-rustics were tolerated. The pub is still the base and meeting point for the local cricket club, bellringers and fly fishermen drawn to the river Teme which runs through the village. Although popular, there are concerns for the pub's future; over recent years, Leintwardine has lost four of its pubs and inns.

During her infirmity Flossie Lane's regulars rallied round to keep the Sun going, manning it on a rota basis. The owner of the neighbouring chip shop ordered the beer from the brewery, served the customers, and delivered chip suppers which were washed down with pints of Flossie Lane's ale. Although her name remained above the door, latterly the pub was effectively run for her by its devotees, all of them locals. The accounts, the washing-up, the laying of the fire and even the sweeping-up were undertaken by the volunteers.

Flossie Lane was proud of not having kept up with the times, and did not hold with modernisation. In an age of lager louts and binge drinkers, no one at the Sun Inn can ever recall the slightest hint of trouble there.

"The pub hasn't changed in all the years, and they are all good people here – I won't have no rough," she insisted. Although she had been serving ale since the Twenties roared, Flossie Lane's secret recipe for a long life was simple. "I'm a teetotal," she said. "I like a nice cup of tea. I leave the drink to the others."

A chronic agoraphobic, Flossie Lane was never known, within living memory, to have ventured outside her pub (other than to take the air in the rear garden). She never learned to drive and took her holidays at home. She enjoyed a reputation as the best-informed person in the village, and every evening cheerfully dispensed local gossip to her customers.

In her advanced old age, Flossie Lane's regulars converted a downstairs room into a bedroom to spare her the stairs, but for the last 10 years at least she had slept every night in her customary armchair. The last person out tucked her up.

Flossie Lane, who never married, is survived by five nieces.