Sept 13th, 2012: What’s trending and why?

Hillsborough, #RoaldDahlDay and Prof Sid Watkins are all trending online today

(PA)

Hillsborough

Yesterday, the Independent Panel’s report on the Hillsborough disaster revealed that police DID doctor evidence in an effort to avoid blame. Prime Minister David Cameron made an unstinting apology yesterday. Our Chief Sports Writer, James Lawton, who was at the stadium that day 23 years ago, pays tribute to the families who never gave up the fight for justice in his article today. James Brown reports from the scene in Liverpool as the Panel’s decision was revealed and Ian Herbert, who was sent to cover the Hillsborough aftermath in his first ever assignment as a reporter, traces the long and difficult search for the truth.

Prof Sid Watkins

The former Formula 1 medical delegate, Sid Watkins, has died aged 84. He served for more than 20 years as the head of F1’s medical team and pioneered improvements in safety standards for drivers. David Coulthard (therealdcf1), the Scottish Formula 1 racing driver tweets: “Sid Watkins was one of the best Men I have met in my life, totally selfless and the world has lost a great”.

Roald Dahl, #RoaldDahlDay

The quote: “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams” spoken by Roald Dahl’s charcater Willy Wonka in his children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is actually an intertextual reference to the 19th century poet Arthur O’Shaughnessy, who wrote the following Ode from his book Music and Moonlight (1874):

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

Learn this and other trivia by clicking on the #RoaldDahlDay hashtag, which denotes what would have been his 96th birthday. Traditional ways to celebrate this annual event include:

Making revolting recipes and / or marvellous medicine and feeding them to old people

Pretending you are the Grand High Witch, going barefoot and cackling at your workmates

Going Roly-Poly bird hunting