News

Saturday Miscellany – mostly Canadian

You have to go to this Canadian woman’s blog — it is very compelling. What a great feat. I decided not to disabuse her of her understanding of the Tower of Refuge which she seems to think of as a place of personal retreat whereas it is in fact a place of safety for sailors whose ships are brought down on the rocks in Douglas Bay. It was built by Sir William Hillary, founder of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the volunteer organization that rescues people in peril on the sea. It is also completely funded by “private subscription”. As a result of it not being hamstrung by government budgets it is a formidable organization with state-of-the-art equipment. It is considered a great honor to be “on the Lifeboat”.
http://victoriakayaker.blogspot.com/2008/08/thursday-august-21-isle-of-man.html


I don’t know if you have a pre-teen or teenage girl in your family but news of this movie being launched today in Toronto might interest her. Called “Me and Orson Welles” it stars Zac Efron, a current adolescent heartthrob. They shot scenes depicting Welles’s Mercury Theater in New York in the Gaiety Theatre, Douglas. This picture has him sitting in the stalls.