Nice DayOne Day,One Nice!!!!

Up, and to the office. This day I hear that Prince Rupert is to be trepanned. God give good issue to it. Sir W. Pen looks upon me, and I on him, and speak about business together at the table well enough, but no friendship or intimacy since our late difference about his closet, nor do I desire to have any. At noon dined well, and my brother and I to write over once more with my own hand my catalogue of books, while he reads to me. After something of that done, and dined, I to the office, where all the afternoon till night busy. At night, having done all my office matters, I home, and my brother and I to go on with my catalogue, and so to supper. Mrs. Turner come to me this night again to condole her condition and the ill usage she receives from my Lord Bruncker, which I could never have expected from him, and shall be a good caution to me while I live. She gone, I to supper, and then to read a little, and to bed. This night comes home my new silver snuffe-dish, which I do give myself for my closet, which is all I purpose to bestow in plate of myself, or shall need, many a day, if I can keep what I have. So to bed. I am very well pleased this night with reading a poem I brought home with me last night from Westminster Hall, of Dryden’s upon the present war; a very good poem.

Up, and to the office, where I was all the morning doing business, at noon home to dinner, and after dinner down by water, though it was a thick misty and rainy day, and walked to Deptford from Redriffe, and there to Bagwell’s by appointment, where the ‘mulier etoit within expecting me venir … By and by ’su marido’ come in, and there without any notice taken by him we discoursed of our business of getting him the new ship building by Mr. Deane, which I shall do for him. Thence by and by after a little talk I to the yard, and spoke with some of the officers, but staid but little, and the new clerk of the ‘Chequer, Fownes, did walk to Redriffe back with me. I perceive he is a very child, and is led by the nose by Cowly and his kinsman that was his clerk, but I did make him understand his duty, and put both understanding and spirit into him, so that I hope he will do well. [Much surprised to hear this day at Deptford that Mrs. Batters is going already to be married to him, that is now the Captain of her husband's ship. She seemed the most passionate mourner in the world. But I believe it cannot be true.] — (The passage between brackets is written in the margin of the MS.) — Thence by water to Billingsgate; thence to the Old Swan, and there took boat, it being now night, to Westminster Hall, there to the Hall, and find Doll Lane, and ‘con elle’ I went to the Bell Taverne, and ‘ibi je’ did do what I would ‘con elle’ as well as I could, she ’sedendo sobre’ thus far and making some little resistance. But all with much content, and ‘je tenai’ much pleasure ‘cum ista’. There parted, and I by coach home, and to the office, where pretty late doing business, and then home, and merry with my wife, and to supper. My brother and I did play with the base, and I upon my viallin, which I have not seen out of the case now I think these three years, or more, having lost the key, and now forced to find an expedient to open it. Then to bed.

The 1925 Bugatti Type 22 Brescia that was fished out of Lake Maggiore after 73 years underwater sold for an astonishing $370,000, three times Bonhams’ pre-sale estimate. The bidding for the rusting hulk was brisk at the Rétromobile sale, with buyers vying over the phone as well as in the room.

The winning bidder was a representative of US Bugatti collector Peter Mullin. He intends to put it on display in its current condition in his new museum in California. The Mullin Automotive Museum is opening this year in Oxnard, after an extensive remodel of what used to be the Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife. It will include all of Mullin’s 12 Bugattis, plus cars from the former Schlumpf collection with a particular focus on French Art Deco masterpieces.

The underbidder was another American collector, only he intended to restore it. He couldn’t compete with Peter Mullin, however, who instructed the European dealer representing him at the auction that there was no limit to what he would pay. As the representative put it “Bugatti is the first disease.”

Acting on [Mullin's] behalf, Dutch dealer Jack Braam Ruben said: “Anyone can buy a restored Brescia [Bugatti]… To us it is the ultimate sculpture, an automotive Dali or Monet, created by the world’s most fabulous automobile creator and completed by the greatest creator of all, mother nature.”

Hear, hear. The story — for decades thought to be a legend — of the Bugatti at the bottom of the lake is the reason it sold for as much as it did. Restoring it fully would make it just a rebuilt old car. Only 20% of it is useable, so why take a car with such a luscious history and make it look new when you’d have to start almost from the ground up? By the time the restoration was done, hardly anything would be left of the original.

Keeping it as is will be quite a preservation challenge. The conservators will have to walk a very thin line between keeping it from degenerating further without fixing its many problems.

The Drowned Bugatti will be in great company in the Mullin Automotive Museum. You can preview/drool over of some of the beauties that will be its roomies on the museum Flickr stream.

The first of 250 British and Australian soldiers excavated out of 6 World War I mass graves in northern France in 2008 has been reburied with full military honors in a new cemetery built specifically for the fallen of Fromelles.

On Saturday, in a sombre but moving ceremony, the first of the unidentified soldiers – “known unto God”, as their gravestones are customarily inscribed – was laid to rest in the newly built cemetery 440 yards from Pheasant Wood, the scene of the fiercest fighting.

His oak casket was lowered into the ground by pall bearers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and surrounded by standard bearers from the Royal British Legion. Scores of residents from nearby villages attended the ceremony in the snow-covered graveyard, as well as several Australian families.

As the time-honoured words of the exhortation were read out and Last Post sounded, Kevan Jones, the Veterans Minister, paid tribute to the men who sacrificed their lives. “It was the wish of both the British and Australian governments to give these brave soldiers a fitting place of rest, honouring the commitment shown to our fallen after the First World War,” he said.

Captain Matthew Clarke, officer in charge of the fusiliers, spoke of his deep honour at taking part in the historic task. “We are finally giving these soldiers, who sacrificed everything for our freedom, a fitting military burial,” he said.

This currently unidentified soldier is the first of many to follow. His brothers in arms will be buried at a rate of 30 per day, three times a week over the next month. None of them are identified yet either.

DNA has been collected from all of the recovered bodies and from 150 family members of the thousands who died at Fromelles, so there’s a chance he and his comrades might be identified come Spring. Should that happen, the headstones will be engraved with the proper personal information.

The chances are slim, however. DNA degrades over the years, and the conditions in the mass graves were not exactly laboratory ready. Also, over 7000 soldiers died in the 1916 carnage, so the 150 families who donated their DNA for identification purposes are sadly just the tip of the iceberg.

The identification board will convene in March and to consider the DNA evidence along with any historical, anthropological and archaeological evidence that might serve to identify the deceased. If the soldiers are identified, their families will be given the opportunity to add a personalized inscription to the headstones.

To catch a glimpse of the lives of these men in the trenches of WWI, see this touching slideshow of some of their personal effects recovered from the mass graves.

For more about the infamous Australian soldiers who scandalized the British command with their cavalier attitudes toward discipline and impressed/scared the crap out of everyone else with their fierce loyalty and fearless, sometimes brutal fighting, read this outstanding essay from the Heritage of the Great War, the best WWI site on the web, in my opinion.

Join Site Editor Matt Loede and Lions QB Matthew Stafford as they chat about the 2009 season, the AXE Hair Challenge, the crazy win over Clevland, his thoughts on the offseason, the 2010 draft, and his rookie year. Click to hear this interview with the #1 draft pick from 2009.