Bubbles is a chimpanzee once kept as a pet by the American singer Michael Jackson, who bought him from a Texas research facility in the 1980s. Bubbles frequently traveled with Jackson, drawing attention in the media. In 1987, during the Bad world tour, Bubbles and Jackson drank tea with the mayor of Osaka, Japan. Bubbles was initially kept at the Jackson family home in Encino, Los Angeles, but was moved to Jackson’s home, Neverland Ranch, in 1988. There, he slept in a crib in Jackson’s bedroom, used Jackson’s toilet and ate Jackson’s candy in the Neverland movie theater. By 2003, Bubbles had matured into a large and aggressive adult chimpanzee unsuitable as a pet, like many captive chimpanzees, and was sent to a California animal trainer. When the trainer closed his operation in 2004, Bubbles was moved to the Center for Great Apes, a sanctuary in Florida, where he has lived since 2005. (via Wikipedia)
He thought he had a new job as a soccer coach in Saudi Arabia and then he disappeared
Adrian Heath couldn’t help but think of the places football had taken him. The sport first lifted him out of Knutton, the iron-forging village in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. It carried him to Stoke City, and then into becoming Everton’s most expensive signing at the time in 1982. He became one of the first English footballers to venture to Spain’s La Liga, signing with Espanyol in 1988. And when his playing days were done, the sport brought him to the United States through coaching stints at Austin Aztex, Orlando City and Minnesota United. For those clubs, he traveled the globe looking for players. He coached a Ballon d’Or winner in Brazilian legend Kaká. This trip to Morocco was supposed to be another adventure: an interview for a coaching job in Saudi Arabia. Heath thought of it as a chance to work on a new continent, experience a different part of the world. Another chapter that football would write in his life. (via The Athletic)
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They found a Russian family of Old Believers that hid in the Siberian wilderness for decades
In the summer of 1978, a team of geologists exploring southern Siberia found something rarer than diamonds. While searching for a helicopter landing site amid the steep hills and forested canyons of the western Sayan mountains, their pilot caught sight of what appeared to be a garden, 150 miles from the nearest settlement. Hovering as low as he could, he saw a house. No people were visible, but someone was clearly tending the garden. He and his passengers were shocked to find a dwelling in an area long considered too remote for human habitation. The geologists ventured to the settlement bearing gifts. They were greeted by a disheveled old man dressed in patched-up sacking cloth. This was Karp Osipovich Lykov, the patriarch of the family. Inside a tiny, dark cabin, the geologists found Karp’s two adult daughters, Natalia and Agafia, weeping and praying. Four miles away, by the riverside, lived Karp’s two middle-aged sons, Savin and Dmitry. It soon became apparent that none of the members of this ageing family had interacted with outsiders in decades. (via The Guardian)
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
Listerine was once sold as a floor cleaner, a cure for dandruff and a remedy for gonorrhea
Listerine, now a product of Pfizer Inc., is a common household item known for its antiseptic properties. While used today primarily as a mouthwash for oral health and hygiene, it has been sold as a surgical disinfectant, a cure for dandruff, a floor cleaner, a hair tonic, a deodorant, and as a “beneficial remedy” for diseases ranging from diphtheria and dysentery to small pox and gonorrhea. Listerine, named for Sir Joseph Lister, founder of the practice of antiseptic medicine, was first formulated in St. Louis in 1879 by Dr. Joseph Lawrence and Jordan Wheat Lambert. Lambert’s Pharmacal Co. later merged with the William R. Warner Company. Lambert’s son, Gerald Barnes Lambert became Lambert-Warner’s president in 1923. In his five years as the head of the firm, profits increased 60 times. The success was largely due to Lambert’s memorable advertising campaigns, most notably the reinvention of bad breath as the medical condition “halitosis” and the social fears it inspired. (via The Smithsonian)
The fire in this Spanish restaurant has been burning continously for 300 years
At the heart of a brick building on the street of Cuchilleros, the “knifemakers,” in Madrid, a fire burns. It has burned there continuously for 300 years. When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, the fire had already been lit for 83 years. When the Spanish Civil War rocked the streets of Madrid in the 1930s, damaging one of the balconies of the old brick building, the flame smoldered on. Even when all the world was quarantined during the COVID-19 pandemic, the fire in this building continued, quietly, to glow. The fire in question is the oven flame of the world’s oldest restaurant according to the Guinness World Records — Sobrino de Botí — kept constantly alight lest temperature fluctuations should cause the antique granite oven to crack. When asked how the restaurant has kept the flames going for so long, the establishment’s co-owner, Antonio González, replied: “We steal the fire from the gods.” (via the Epoch Times)
This balancing act is like nothing you’ve ever seen before
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s The Browser, Clive Thompson’s Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com