It’s September 13, and as everybody in Great Missenden knows, September 13 has Rules. There are 8 of them.
JUST ADD CHOCOLATE is the first rule. This is something that Milton Hershey took to heart in 1900 when he started manufacturing chocolate bars. He had already sold his first company — which made caramel — for a million dollars (which was real money in those days), but as he said, “caramels are just a fad, but chocolate is a permanent thing.”
ADULTS CAN BE SCARY. The Ninõs Héroes found that out durng the Battle of Capultepec Castle in 1847. They were 6 cadets who were in the Mexican Military Academy at the castle when the United States invaded Mexico. The few troops, along with the cadets, were badly outnumbered, but the Ninõs Héroes refused to fall back or surrender, and fought to the death. They’re commemorated as Mexican heroes by a national holiday today.
The third rule is that BAD THINGS HAPPEN. It was September 13, 1922 that the Great Fire of the city known as Smyrna in Greek and Izmir in Turkish began. It was an enormous disaster that came at the end of a vicious war between Turkey and Greece. Nobody knows exactly how many people died — it was somewhere between ten and one hundred thousand. Because of the war, the fire burned until September 22nd.
REVENGE IS SWEET, just as it was for John Calvin, who returned to Geneva on September 13, 1541. He’d been exiled for three years for his divergent religious ideas. Upon his return, he got busy reforming the church and creating “Calvinism.” But he probably wasn’t surprised at all, because one of Calvinism’s central tenets is that everything that happens is preordained.
KEEP A WICKED SENSE OF HUMOR, like Jeff Ross does. Today’s his birthday, and he’s also known as the Roastmaster General. He’s been part of (or hosted) comic roasts of everyone from Larry the Cable Guy to Bruce Willis to Donald Trump.
Another rule is to PICK PERFECT PICTURES. You can do this, in part, because of Hannibal Goodwin. On September 13, 1898, Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film. It’s what made it possible for people to use reasonably-sized portable cameras and get their photos developed without having to bring a long a wagon full of darkroom supplies. And if course it made movies possible. About that, however, see the following rule…
which is…FILMS ARE FUN…BUT BOOKS ARE BETTER. Just ask Arthur Weidenfeld about that. He was born on September 13, 1919, and became a leading publisher. His companies published Nabokov’s Lolita, Nicolson’s Portrait of a Marriage, and founded a few magazines you may have heard of: New Statesman, Fortune, The New Yorker, and when he expanded to the US, he owned Atlantic Monthly, Grove Press, and more.
The eighth rule is that FOOD IS FUN! it’s not like there’s anybody who doesn’t know that, but restauranteur Alain Ducasse, also born today, knows it better than most. He started as an apprentice at a restaurant at the age of 16, and by 2012 his restaurants had a total of 21 Michelin stars. Gordon Ramsay only had 17.
But why, you may be wondering, does September 13 come with rules, and why those? Well as everyone in Greater Missenden could tell you, and as Augustus Gloop or Bruce Bogtrotter could expound on at length, these are the eight rules applied to books by Roald Dahl — and who better to establish rules like that than Dahl himself, who lived in Greater Missenden. Today is not only his birthday, it’s Roald Dahl Day throughout the United Kingdom, Africa, and Latin America.
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