Pat Morita dies

Sorry for the morose posts today, but I wanted to blog about Pat Morita, the actor probably most famous for his portrayal of Ralph Macchio’s martial arts mentor Mr Miyagi in the 1984 movie The Karate Kid who died yesterday at the age of 73.

Morita started his entertainment career as a comedian known as “The Hip Nip”, but soon found fame with a role on the classic US television series Happy Days, although I was amazed to discover that he was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Mr Myagi – in the company of Ralph Richardson, John Malkovich and Adolph Caesar – although all four lost out to Haing S. Ngor for The Killing Fields.

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  • by Martin

An embarrassment no more

BBC News has published a feature on the classic Madness track Embarrassment.

It was fairly obvious the song was about someone behaving in a socially unnaceptable way, but I had no idea it was based on a real experience.

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  • by Martin

Beatle in space

Paul McCartney has become the first musician to broadcast live music to an audience in space, singing a live wake-up call version of his Beatles classic ‘Good Day Sunshine’.

On 28 January 1986, Ronald Erwin McNair died on board the Space Shuttle Challenger with six other astronauts, when it broke up shortly after takeoff.

During his mission training, Ron – an accomplished saxophonist, as well as a high-level scientist – had worked with the French composer Jean-Michel Jarre on a piece of music for Jarre’s Rendez-vous album, which was intended to be the first piece of music played and recorded in space.

It was also intended that Ron would perform the piece from orbit during Jarre’s Rendez-vous Houston concert, an event to celebrate Nasa’s 25th anniversary and the city of Houston’s 150th anniversary.

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  • by Martin

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