Big Ben                 Clint Eastwood

Today – Rising 315 feet over England’s Parliament, the massive clock atop the Tower of Big Ben began keeping time some started keeping time 152 years ago – marking the roughly 1,331,520 hours and 79,891,200 seconds that have slipped by since its first winding.  The tower – and its clock – bear the name of the four ton bell that has marked the passage of time since Queen Victoria’s reign when Britannia ruled both the world and the waves . Although the clock mechanism weighs five tons, its movements are adjusted by removing, or adding to a small stack of old pennies -- which is certainly an existential metaphor for those interest in such things.  Click here to hear Big Ben’s mighty chime:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiKOhOzQyZg

Birthday Boy – Film actor, director, composer, producer and politician, Clint Eastwood was born 81 years ago today in San Francisco. Although in the Winter of his years, Eastwood has appeared in 59 films, directed 31, and fathered seven children from five women. Which brings to mind a Pan Am flight attendant we met decades ago who kept several of Eastwood’s pubic hairs in a Victorian snuff box which she kept with her at all times. Or at least she claimed the hairs were Eastwood’s. We remember her showing us Clint's tiny black crotch hairs in the bar of the Hotel Imperial in Vienna, Austria. Eastwood, she said, had left several of his pubic hairs on a bar of soap after sleeping with her in the London Hilton where they’d met in the 077 Bar. Interestingly, we still often wonder if the woman is alive today and still treasures Eastwood’s pubic hairs after all these years.