Three lists to keep you occupied on an otherwise dreary day

1. Here is a list, in no particular order, of famous and semi-famous people I have seen in person, though not necessarily on the stage:

Liberace
Dick Clark
Carol Channing
Patrice Munsell
Kay Armen
Howard Morris
Thomas J Watson Jr. (CEO of IBM)
Ronnie Millsap
Cliff Barrows
Angie Dickinson
Burt Bacharach
John F. Kennedy
Ethel Waters
Irving Berlin
George Otis (CEO of Lear Jet)
Senator Herman Talmadge
Pat Boone
Kathryn Kuhlman
Dino Kartsonakis
Lucie Arnaz
Tommy Tune
Ludlow Porch
General Curtis LeMay
Barbara Dooley (Mrs. Vince Dooley)
Eva Mae LeFevre
Jack Cassidy
Anita Bryant
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Noel Harrison
Lieutenant General William G. "Jerry" Boykin
Peggy Cass
Lou Jacoby
Anita Gillette

2. Here is a neat list of the NATO phonetic alphabet and Morse Code characters in a single chart:

3. Here is a list showing all of the direct descendants of King George V and their place in the line of succession to the British throne:

King George V (1865–1936)
King Edward VIII (1894–1972)
King George VI (1895–1952)
Queen Elizabeth II (born 1926)
(1) Charles, Prince of Wales (b. 1948) B D W
(2) Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (b. 1982) B D W
(3) Prince George of Cambridge (b. 2013) B D W
(4) Princess Charlotte of Cambridge (b. 2015) B D W
(5) Prince Louis of Cambridge (b. 2018) B D
(6) Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (b. 1984) B D W
(7) Archie Mountbatten-Windsor (b. 2019) B D
(8) Prince Andrew, Duke of York (b. 1960) B D W
(9) Princess Beatrice of York (b. 1988) B D W
(10) Princess Eugenie, Mrs Jack Brooksbank (b. 1990) B D W
(11) Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex (b. 1964) B D W
(12) James Mountbatten-Windsor, Viscount Severn (b. 2007) B D W
(13) Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor (b. 2003) B D W
(14) Anne, Princess Royal (b. 1950) B D W
(15) Peter Phillips (b. 1977) B D W
(16) Savannah Phillips (b. 2010) B D W
(17) Isla Phillips (b. 2012) B D W
(18) Zara Tindall (née Phillips; b. 1981) B D W
(19) Mia Tindall (b. 2014) D W
(20) Lena Tindall (b. 2018)[5] D
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (1930–2002) 1952
(21) David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon (b. 1961) D W
(22) Charles Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley (b. 1999) D W
(23) Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones (b. 2002) D W
(24) Lady Sarah Chatto (née Armstrong-Jones; b. 1964) D W
(25) Samuel Chatto (b. 1996) D W
(26) Arthur Chatto (b. 1999) D W
Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1900–1974) 1952
(27) Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (b. 1944) D W
(28) Alexander Windsor, Earl of Ulster (b. 1974) D W
(29) Xan Windsor, Lord Culloden (b. 2007) D W
(30) Lady Cosima Windsor (b. 2010) D W
(31) Lady Davina Windsor (b. 1977) D W
(32) Senna Lewis (b. 2010) D W
(33) Tāne Lewis (b. 2012) D W
(34) Lady Rose Gilman (née Windsor; b. 1980) D W
(35) Lyla Gilman (b. 2010) D W
(36) Rufus Gilman (b. 2012) D W
Prince George, Duke of Kent (1902–1942)
(37) Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (b. 1935) D W
(38) George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews (b. 1962) M D W
Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick (b. 1988) X D W
Lady Marina Windsor (b. 1992) X D W
(39) Lady Amelia Windsor (b. 1995) D W
Lord Nicholas Windsor (b. 1970) X D W
(40) Albert Windsor (b. 2007) D W]
(41) Leopold Windsor (b. 2009) D W
(42) Louis Windsor (b. 2014) D W
(43) Lady Helen Taylor (née Windsor; b. 1964) D W
(44) Columbus Taylor (b. 1994) D W
(45) Cassius Taylor (b. 1996) D W
(46) Eloise Taylor (b. 2003) D W
(47) Estella Taylor (b. 2004) D W
(48) Prince Michael of Kent (b. 1942) M W
(49) Lord Frederick Windsor (b. 1979) W
(50) Maud Windsor (b. 2013) W
(51) Isabella Windsor (b. 2016)
(52) Lady Gabriella Kingston (née Windsor; b. 1981) W
(53) Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (b. 1936) W
(54) James Ogilvy (b. 1964) W
(55) Alexander Ogilvy (b. 1996) W
(56) Flora Ogilvy (b. 1994) W
(57) Marina Ogilvy (b. 1966) W
(58) Christian Mowatt (b. 1993) W
(59) Zenouska Mowatt (b. 1990) W

Sources or note on exclusion from succession

1952: Succession published on the accession of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952
B: Listed by the official website of the British Monarchy, "Succession", retrieved 8 May 2019.
D: Listed on Debrett's website (as of 27 May 2019): "The Line of Succession"
W: Listed by Whitaker's Almanack 2015, London: Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1-4729-0929-9, p. 22
M: These people had been excluded through marriage to a Roman Catholic. This exclusion was repealed on 26 March 2015, restoring them to the line of succession, when the Perth Agreement came into effect.
X: Excluded as Roman Catholics. This exclusion is not affected by changes subsequent to the Perth Agreement.

My fervent hope is that these lists have helped you to pass an otherwise dreary day with a modicum of amusement, interest, or joie de vivre. In the comments, if you like, tell us what famous or semi-famous persons you have come into contact with, seen with your own eyes (not on television or film), breathed the same air as, as it were. You need not attempt to insert yourself into the line of succession to the British throne. We will not believe you. We were not born yesterday.

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah-Dah-Dah

If you are the sort of person who notices small details, you may have noticed the following line in my previous post:

... _ _ _ ... ... _ _ _ ... ... _ _ _ ... ... _ _ _ ... ... _ _ _ ... ... _ _ _ ...

You may have thought it was an interesting decoration used as a divider and nothing more.

I will tell you a secret.

It is not just an interesting decoration used as a divider.

It has meaning.

There was method in my madness.

Let us put a portion of that line under the RhymeswithPlague Virtual Microscope (RVM, patent pending) and examine it more closely:



Three dots, three dashes, three dots.

Ring any bells?

My dad taught me this pattern with a flashlight when I was child. We went out into the backyard and pointed my new Boy Scout flashlight into the night sky. Using the button on the switch, I did it. I flashed three short flashes, three long flashes, and then three more short flashes. I have never forgotten it. Fortunately, we lived in a rural area over which airplanes rarely passed. On many a summer night I could be found out in the backyard with my flashlight, signalling to the universe. Why?

It is now time for the big reveal.

The pattern represents the letters S O S in Morse Code, which was invented by this man for use with this device:



S O S, S O S, S O S. The international distress signal. Some people say it means “Save Our Ship” but that may not be true.

When there is vocal contact, another international distress signal that can be used is “May Day, May Day” which is actually “M’aidez, m’aidez” which means “Help me, help me” in French.

When there is not vocal contact, your only hope is three shorts, three longs, three shorts.

Three dots, three dashes, three dots.

Dih-dih-dit Dah Dah Dah Dih-dih-dit.

Save our ship, because we’re sinking.

Very fitting for our celebrity-obsessed world, where some people actually think it is important that we know that Joy Behar is leaving The View. And Elizabeth Hasselbeck. And possibly Baba Wawa.

The most distressing thing of all is that many people who heard the news thought it was important too.

Oh, there are many things lots worse than The View, things so bad I wouldn’t dream of bringing them up on a G-rated blog. They’re all symptoms of the culture in which we find ourselves.

And we’re sinking.



[Update, 7:45 a.m., 12 March 2013: Thanks to comments received from klahanie and Yorkshire Pudding on my previous post, I have been made aware that The View and the women of The View are unknown in the United Kingdom and, one hopes, throughout the English-speaking entire world. My apologies for having been provincial and chauvinistic, but the original premise is still valid. Readers outside the U.S. may replace “The View” with their own local entertainment atrocities. --RWP]

I repeat:



If you don’t have access to a telegraph key, you can always use one of these: