Have You Seen My Floating Island?

When i first heard about this, i laughed. Crazily. After all, a floating island? Really?

Yep, a real creation of two artists, Sarah Cockings and Laurence Symonds, Royal College of Art graduates. It is made of durable polyurethane with foliage décor, filled with helium so it floats.

It took them 6 months to build this Is Land, as they titled it, and it cost £9,000.

Then i read the part of the story that infuriated me.

It was being used as part of a celebration, a music festival, and a couple of vandals went out in the middle of the night and cut it loose.

The artwork is now floating somewhere, and they are asking anyone who sees a really odd looking UFO, or who thinks they see a piece of land out of an airplane window, to please let them know.

They hope to get it back, but meanwhile are building another to have it ready for its US debut in September.

The idea that, no, it isn't Jack's Giant's land up there had me laughing until i read about the vandalism.

Now, it just makes me angry.

Do i really want to know what possesses people to do such things? Probably not.

Meanwhile, they've alerted airports, set up their website and Facebook page to follow leads, and it was last seen over the Isle of Wight.

Let's hope they get it back, and that karma really kicks the vandals in some way. Right now i can't think of anything interestingly apropos to wish for on them, but if you think of something, let me know.


Today is:

Book Lover's Day -- internet generated, but if you love books, go sit under a shady tree with a cool drink and indulge!

Festival for Sol -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Fox Hill Day -- Nassau, Bahamas

Goblin Ugly Contest -- Fairy Calendar

Independence Day -- Singapore

International Day of the World's Indigenous People

Jesse Owens Day -- the day he became the first American to win 4 gold medals

Kranti Divas -- Mumbai (former Bombay), India (a/k/a Freedom Day or Quit India Day)

Nagasaki Day

National Rice Pudding Day

National Women's Day -- South Africa

Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross' Day (born Edith Stein, killed at Auschwitz, co-patroness of Europe)

Tisha B'Av -- Jewish

Veep Day -- US

Yosakoi Matsuri -- Kochi City, Japan (over 100 groups come up with their own Bon dance and costume and have dance competitions in the streets, through the 12th)


Birthdays Today:

Gillian Anderson, 1968
Delon Sanders, 1967
Hoda Kotb, 1964
Whitney Houston, 1963
Sam Elliot, 1944
P.L. Travers, 1899
Joseph Locke, 1805
Amedeo Avogadro, 1776
John Dryden, 1631


Today in History:

Battle of Pharsalus, in which Julius Caesar defeated Pompey, who fled to Egypt, BC 40
Bulgaria is founded as a Khanate on the south bank of the Danube after defeating the Byzantine armies of Emperor Constantine IV south of the Danube delta, 681
Start of construction of the Tower of Pisa, 1173*
Sistine Chapel opens, 1483
First horses arrive in Hawai'i, 1803
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains, 1842
Thoreau's Walden is published, 1854
Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph, 1892
Betty Boop makes her debut in the cartoon, Dizzy Dishes, 1930
Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement, 1942
The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey Bear for the first time, 1944
Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly, 1965
Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office, 1974
Wayne Gretzky is traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in one of the most controversial player transactions in ice hockey history, 1988
The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan loses a 38-year hold on national leadership, 1993

*completed two hundred years later