I can think of no finer way than to wake up like one of my cats. Alf Capone (Used Furniture Dealer) in particular. He has this way of stretching, in a leisurely sort of way, then he pulls his whiskers forward as his mouth makes a sort of pouty, kissing shape, and finally …. he yawns the yawn of a LION. Totally. The only thing which is missing is that LION growl. But … the important thing is ... his whiskers twitch.
Maisie Doats (other cat residing in Cobweb Towers, – a minuscule cat – 1:12th scale) (well,no, not really 1:12th scale, but she is very small). Aaanyway [stop waffling Cobs!]… back to Maisie Doats … her whiskers twitch too – but it’s normally when she getting royally indignant about something (or some cat) she’s spotted in HER garden. If I had the courage of that little cat, I swear to dog that I’d be able to run the world.
Alf …. aw, now he’s a lover not a fighter. But Maisie …. ah, she’s a F.I.G.H.T.E.R of the first degree. A right bruiser. Trouble is that she normally comes off the worst in a fight.
I know when she has an injury because she hides under the sofa. You see … she knows that if I see she’s injured, out comes the cotton wool and the antiseptic in a bowl of tepid water, and in mummy wades to bathe the wounds. SHE HATES IT! She won’t speak to me for hours after I’ve done it – just to make sure that I know what I’ve done wrong. It’s her version of putting me on the naughty step.
Aaanyhoo …. I’m here to share the Catified version of the Waggy Tails cards (<–clickable link – opens in a new tab) which I shared on Monday, so I shall hush up and share!
Now did that face make you smile? If you didn’t smile, maybe now’s the moment to check your pulse.
Originally I was only going to make a nose, cheeks, mouth with whiskers combination … but a little tickle happened somewhere inside me and I added a very tiny pair of beady eyes, just for laughs. Not to do anything which would turn the twitchy whiskers into a ‘real’ cat face – I never wanted this to look like a proper cat face, for I wanted it to be a smile in a card. The whole ‘thing’ about these cards is that they’re meant to be fun and funny. But the beady eyes just gave a sort of added comical twist to it, and … well … I just hadta.
A view from the side so that you can see how ‘proud’ the face is from the card itself.
The whiskers … they can be touched and ‘twanged’. They definitely have the twitchy factor. 🙂
Did you know ….
A cat’s nose is as unique to a particular cat as a fingerprint is to a human – no two cats have the same nose.
The naked skin around a cat’s nostrils is known as “nose leather”.
The colour of a cat’s nose leather depends on the colour of their coats – it can be pink, black, blue, chocolate, brown, lavender and brick-red.
Chinchilla cats have nose leather that’s outlined with a lovely grey colour.
Some cats even boast freckles on their noses!
Since making the Waggy Tails and Twitchy Whiskers Cards, my brain has gone on a ‘jolly’ with this idea and I now have ideas falling out of my ear-holes for other cards which I’d like to make. But … not quite yet. I don’t want to bore you to tears with these sorts of cards.
So I’ll jump craft lanes and come back next time with something a little different.However … expect me to make a visit to these cards at some point in the near future, as my brain is having a party with the ideas, and I can hear very clearly the laughter and the popping of corks which is happening inside my head! 😀
Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee with me, and for taking a peep at the Cats Whiskers card.
But …. take note of the sentiment and please remember to always:
BEGIN EACH DAY WITH TWITCHY WHISKERS!
Have a truly beautiful Wednesday! 😀
Sending love and squidges, from me in my corner, to you in yours.
OK …. let’s get this over and done with. It’s unpleasant, and I know that it will cause you some anguish and pain, and even cause you to close all the curtains and lie down with either a cake, a bar of chocolate or a stiff drink …. or maybe all three if the first one doesn’t work … so we’ll just do it and get it over with, OK?
Get ready. Sit up straight and gird your loins.
We know that this may be dangerous or difficult for your brain to compute, but we’re going to do it because we is ADULTS!
Ready?
Deep breath in ….. let it out slowly as if you are blowing down a straw ….
…. …. …. there are … … … … ninedaystillChristmas (not counting today or the day itself).
I know… I know. Some of you will find that a thoroughly unpleasant thought. But we have to face it at some point. No good skirting around it or believing that, if no one mentions it then it’s not really that close. Your advent calendar should be telling you the truth! Look on me as your unpaid for, not stolen, loving, living, breathing, caring, Advent Calendar.
So anyhoo … we’ve got that over and done with so shall we get on with some edumacation? Good. Let’s get on with it then . . .
On This Day in History
1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia legislature.
1863 – Romania used for the first time a mountain railway (from Anina to Oravita). A mountain railway is a railway that ascends and descends a mountain slope that has a steep grade. Such railways can use a number of different technologies to overcome the steepness of the grade. Mountain railways commonly have a narrow gauge to allow for tight curves in the track and reduce tunnel size and structure gauge, and hence construction cost and effort.
1891 – James Naismith introduces the first version of basketball, with thirteen rules, a peach basket nailed to either end of his school’s gymnasium, and two teams of nine players.
1905 – The Pushkin House is established in St. Petersburg to preserve the cultural heritage of Alexander Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (June 6 1799 – February 10 1837) was a Russian Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling – mixing drama, romance, and satire – associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers.
Born in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo. Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals; in the early 1820s he clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia. While under the strict surveillance of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will, he wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov, but could not publish it until years later. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was published serially from 1825 to 1832.
Pushkin and his wife Natalya Goncharova, whom he married in 1831, later became regulars of court society. In 1837, while falling into greater and greater debt amidst rumors that his wife had started conducting a scandalous affair, Pushkin challenged her alleged lover, Georges d’Anthe’s, to a duel. Pushkin was mortally wounded and died two days later.
Because of his liberal political views and influence on generations of Russian rebels, Pushkin was portrayed by Bolsheviks as an opponent to bourgeois literature and culture and a predecessor of Soviet literature and poetry. In 1937, the town of Tsarskoe Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honor.
1914 – Gas explosion at Mitsubishi Hojyo coal mine Japan, 687 killed. This accident is the worst coal mine disaster in Japanese history.
1939 – Gone with the Wind premiered at Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta, GA, USA. Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American dramatic-romantic-war film adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming (Fleming replaced George Cukor). The epic film, set in the American South in and around the time of the Civil War, stars Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, and Olivia de Havilland, and tells a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern viewpoint.
It received ten Academy Awards, a record that stood for twenty years. In the American Film Institute’s inaugural Top 100 American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked number four, although in the 2007 10th Anniversary edition of that list, it was dropped two places, to number six. In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 top 10 the best ten films in ten American film genres after polling over 1,500 persons from the creative community. Gone with the Wind was acknowledged as the fourth best film in the Epic genre. It has sold more tickets in the U.S. than any other film in history, and is considered a prototype of a Hollywood blockbuster. Today, it is considered one of the greatest and most popular films of all time and one of the most enduring symbols of the golden age of Hollywood. (I haven’t ever managed to watch this film all the way through. I’ve seen bits of it, but never seen the film from start to finish, in full).
1960 – Richard Paul Pavlick is arrested for attempting to blow up and assassinate the U.S. President-Elect, John F. Kennedy only four days earlier. Richard Paul Pavlick (February 13, 1887 ¨C November 11, 1975) was a retired postal worker from New Hampshire who stalked and then attempted to assassinate U.S. President-Elect John F. Kennedy on Sunday, December 11, 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida. He failed, but 3 years later in Dallas, Texas, Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Richard Paul Pavlick
Pavlick, 73 years old at the time of the assassination attempt, had previously lived in the small town of Belmont, New Hampshire with no family. He became known at local public meetings for his angry political rants, which included complaints that the American flag was not being displayed appropriately, and also criticized the government and disparaged Catholics, focusing much of his anger on the Kennedy family and their wealth. On one occasion, Pavlick’s anger erupted when he met the supervisor of the local water company at his home with a gun, which was then confiscated.
Pavlick’s enmity toward John F. Kennedy boiled over after the close 1960 U.S. Presidential election, in which Kennedy had defeated Republican Richard Nixon by 118,000 votes. Turning over his run-down property to a local youth camp, Pavlick disappeared after loading his meager possessions into his 1950 Buick.
After Pavlick left town, Thomas M. Murphy, the 34-year-old U.S. Postmaster of the town of Belmont, New Hampshire began receiving bizarre postcards from Pavlick that stated the town would hear from him soon “in a big way.” Murphy soon noticed that the postmarked dates coincided with visits by John F. Kennedy to the communities and he then called the local police. The local police, in turn, contacted the Secret Service, who interviewed locals and learned of his previous outbursts. In the midst of these conversations, they also found out that Pavlick had purchased dynamite.
During his travels, Pavlick had visited the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, photographing the Kennedy home while also checking out the compound’s security.
Shortly before 10 a.m. on Sunday, December 11, as John F. Kennedy was preparing to leave for Mass at St. Edward Church in Palm Beach, Pavlick waited in his dynamite-laden car hoping to crash his car into Kennedy’s vehicle to cause a fatal explosion. However, Pavlick changed his mind after seeing John F. Kennedy with his wife, Jacqueline, and the couple’s two small children.
While waiting for another opportunity over the next few days, Pavlick visited the church to learn its interior, but the Secret Service had informed local Palm Beach police to look for Pavlick’s automobile.
Four days after the attempt, on Thursday, December 15, Palm Beach, police officer, Lester Free, spotted Pavlick’s vehicle as he entered the city via the Flagler Memorial Bridge into Royal Poinciana Way. Police immediately surrounded the car (which still contained 10 sticks of dynamite) and arrested him. After his arrest, Pavlick said, “Kennedy money bought the White House and the presidency. I had the crazy idea I wanted to stop Kennedy from being President.”
On January 27, 1961, Pavlick was committed to the United States Public Health Service mental hospital in Springfield, Missouri, then was indicted for threatening Kennedy’s life seven weeks later.
In a tragically ironic twist, charges against Pavlick were dropped on December 2, 1963, ten days after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. Judge Emmet C. Choate ruled that Pavlick was unable to distinguish between right and wrong in his actions, but kept him in the mental hospital. The federal government also dropped charges in August 1964, and Pavlick was eventually released from the New Hampshire State Mental Hospital on December 13, 1966.
Pavlick died at the age of 88 on November 11, 1975 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire-eleven days short of the 12th anniversary of Kennedy assassination.
1973 – John Paul Getty III,grandson of J. Paul Getty, American billionaire is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10, 1973.
1993 – History of Northern Ireland: The Downing Street Declaration is issued by British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.The Downing Street Declaration was a joint declaration issued on December 15, 1993 by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Major and Albert Reynolds, the Taoiseach of Ireland. It affirmed the right of the people of Northern Ireland to self-determination, and that the province would be transferred to the Republic of Ireland from the United Kingdom if and only if a majority of its population was in favour of such a move. It included for the first time in the history of Anglo-Irish relationships, as part of the prospective of the so-called Irish dimension, the principle that the people of the island of Ireland, North and South had the exclusive right to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was key to produce a positive change of attitude by the Republicans towards a negotiated settlement.
The joint declaration also pledged the governments to seek a peaceful constitutional settlement, and promised that parties linked with paramilitaries (such as Sinn Fein) could take part in the talks, so long as they abandoned violence.
The declaration, after it was ‘clarified’ by the Northern Ireland Office, was considered sufficient by the Provisional Irish Republican Army to announce a ceasefire on August 31, 1994 which was then followed on October 13, by an announcement of a ceasefire from the Combined Loyalist Military Command.
2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopensafter 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean. The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply The Tower of Pisa (La Torre di Pisa) is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. It is situated behind the cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa’s Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) after the cathedral and the baptistry.
Although intended to stand vertically, the tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and loose substrate that has allowed the foundation to shift direction. The tower presently leans to the southwest.
The height of the tower is 55.86 m (183.27 ft) from the ground on the lowest side and 56.70 m (186.02 ft) on the highest side. The width of the walls at the base is 4.09 m (13.42 ft) and at the top 2.48 m (8.14 ft). Its weight is estimated at 14,500 metric tons (16,000 short tons). The tower has 296 or 294 steps; the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing staircase. The tower leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is 3.9 metres (12 ft 10 in) from where it would stand if the tower were perfectly vertical. BBC News on the Day – The Leaning Tower of Pisa
2005 – The 2005 Atlantic Power Outage began. The Atlantic Power Outage of 2005 caused hundreds of thousands of people along the Atlantic coast of the United States to suffer power outages. Winter ice storms caused power cuts starting on December 15, 2005.
Electricity was not restored in many places until December 20, 2005, by which time one death was blamed on the outage.
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Born on This Day
1892 – J. Paul Getty, American oil tycoon (d. 1976)
1939 – Cindy Birdsong, American singer (The Supremes)
1942 – Dave Clark, English musician (The Dave Clark Five)
1948 – Cassandra Harris,Australian actress (d. 1991) – Born Sandra Colleen Waites in Sydney, Australia, Harris was a student of NIDA acting school from 1960 to 1963 and performed in the successful Sydney stage production of Boeing Boeing from 1964 to 1965. She appeared in The Greek Tycoon (1978), Rough Cut (1980), and the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only as the Countess Lisl von Schlaf, the ill-fated mistress of Milos Colombo (played by Israeli actor Topol). While she was filming this movie, her third husband, Pierce Brosnan, met James Bond series producer Albert R. Broccoli, which eventually led to his casting as the new James Bond with starring roles in four James Bond films. Harris had allegedly always wanted to see her husband portray James Bond, but her death occurred prior to his selection for the role in “Golden Eye.”
1949 – Don Johnson, American actor
1955 – Paul Simonon, English bassist (The Clash)
1963 – Andrew Luster, Max Factor heir
1970 – Frankie Dettori, Italian jockey
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Died on this Day and Remembered here
1944 – Glenn Miller, American musician (later declared dead on this date, exact date of death unknown) (b. 1904)
1962 – Charles Laughton, English actor (b. 1899)
1966 – Walt Disney, American animator (b. 1901)
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Thought for the Day
Every book starts with just one word.
Every great idea is sparked by a single thought.
Every morning sees a new sunrise.
And every journey begins with a single step.
So now, knowing all of this, why are you waiting for whatever you’re waiting for?
If you don’t begin, you can’t win!
❄️ ❄️ ❄️
And finally . . .
I think it’s time, since it’s only NINE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS DAY, to break out the old joke book and give you a few smiles to take out into your day, and annoy other people with. Obviously, given the time of year, it’s going to be Christmas Jokes, so whine all you like, I shall simply end up asking you if you’d like a little cheese with that whine.
What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney? Claustrophobia!
What do you call an elf who sings?
A wrapper!
Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can ‘ho ho ho’!
Why does Santa Claus go down the chimney on Christmas Eve?
Because it soot’s him
Why did Santa go to the doctor? Because of his bad “elf”!
Why are Christmas trees so fond of the past?
Because the present’s beneath them.
What kind of motorbike does Santa ride? A Holly Davidson!
What do you call a cat in the desert? Sandy Claws!
And that, indeed, is ‘all folks’!
Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee moment with me. I so love it when we all get together around the table and have a few giggles and laughs over a coffee, and a bit of an Ooooh and Aaaah, over the history of the day.
May your Friday be wonderful. I hope the day gently does what Fridays normally do – get to the end and give you a sigh. May you find some fun in the day, and see that the mood you’re in was a choice. When you realise this, you can then decide to make a better choice. Choose your mood wisely. Who knows what might be dependant upon what mood you’re in.
Sending you my warmest wishes during this cold December that most of us are experiencing. Stay warm, dress right for the weather, and come home safely.
There are 51 Days (plus a few hours) till Christmas Day! but hey – who’s counting?
Pin back your lugholes, for here is your first round of Edumacation for November!
On this Day in History
1783 – John Austin, a highwayman, is the last to be publicly hanged at London’s Tyburn gallows.
1911 – Chevrolet officially enters the automobile marketin competition with the Ford Model T. 1913 – The United States introduces an income tax.
1936 – President Franklin D. Rooseveltwas re-elected in a landslide over Republican Alfred M. ”Alf” Landon. The New York Times front page News
1941 – English broadcaster Roy Plomley conceived the idea for ‘Desert Island Discs’. The programme was first broadcast on BBC Radio in January 1942.
1957 – Sputnik program:The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit: a dog named Laika. BBC News Report
1964 – Washington D.C.residents are able to votein a presidential election for the first time. 1964 – Lyndon B Johnson, who took over after President Kennedy’s assassination, won the White House race BBC News Report complete with Video Footage 1969 – Vietnam War:U.S. President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the “silent majority” to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to support his policies.
1973 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury, on March 29, 1974, becoming the first space probe to reach that planet. 1975 – Queen Elizabeth II opened the North Sea pipeline – the first to be built underwater – bringing ashore 400,000 barrels a day to Grangemouth Refinery on the Firth of Forth in Scotland. BBC News Report 1976 – In Great Britain, the first £100,000 Premium Bond was won, by an anonymous person in Hillingdon.
1985 – Two French agents in New Zealandpleaded guilty to sinking the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior and to the manslaughter of a photographer on board. They were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. BBC News Report
1986 – Iran-Contra Affair:The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
1992 – Democrat Bill Clintonwas elected the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President George H.W. Bush.
1994 – Susan Smith, born in Union, South Carolina, USA, was arrested for drowning her two young sons, nine days after claiming the children had been “abducted by a black man”. (Smith is serving life in prison.)
The case gained international attention shortly after it developed, due to her false claim that a black man had carjacked her maroon Mazda Protegé and kidnapped her sons. Her defense attorneys, David Bruck and Judy Clarke, called expert witnesses to testify that she suffered from mental health issues that impaired her judgment when she committed the crimes.
According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Smith will be eligible for parole on November 4, 2024, after serving a minimum of 30 years.
2004 – George W Bushwas elected president of the United States for the second time, beating his Democratic rival by a comfortable margin.
2014 – One World Trade Centerofficially opens.
Born on this Day
1903 – Walker Evans, the American photographer best known for his portrayal of America during the Great Depression
1921 – Charles Bronson, American actor (d. 2003)
1933 – John Barry, English composer – best known for composing 11 James Bond movies and was hugely influential on the 007 series’ distinctive style.
1933 – Jeremy Brett, English actor (d. 1995) – famous, among other things, for his portrayal of the detective Sherlock Holmes in four British television series: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
1933 – Michael Dukakis, American politician
1948 – Lulu, British actress and singer
1949 – Anna Wintour, English-American journalist
1952 – Roseanne Barr, American actress and comedian
1953 – Kate Capshaw, American actress known for her role as Willie Scott in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and for her marriage to director Steven Spielberg (who directed the film).
1954 – Adam Ant, English singer
1963 – Ian Wright, English footballer, manager, and sportscaster
1973 – Ben Fogle, English television host and author
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Thought for the Day
You are innocent until proven Awesome.
Be Awesome today. You never know, you might like it so much that you want to do it the next day …. and the next day … and the next. Until, eventually, you don’t realise it, but you are plain and simply just AWESOME!
I think, if I’m not mistaken,that was the whole idea.
He made an awesome thing … WE were meant to continue with the work!
So then … November arrived like a quiet little mouse who found a place to sneak in while we weren’t looking! Although… the end of October (Halloween) was entirely the opposite! Halloween saw me dressed all in black, with a witches hat on, and my face made up as a Witches Cat!
Not a scary cat, you understand. A cat with a tear drop shaped black nose, with three black whiskers on either side of my nose … and two black ears drawn above my eyebrows. All drawn on my face with a black Kohl eye pencil. To finish it all off … I put black eyeliner along my upper eye lashes, and finished them with a flick to make them look more cat-like, and added pinky nude lipstick on my lips.
I’d obviously done a goodish job with the make up because when Little Cobs arrived for Halloween Tea and fun …. he touched my face gently and asked: “Who did your make up Grammy?” – with a touch of wonderment in his voice.
We had TONS of little halloweeners. Ranging from monsters, aliens and one Frankensteins Monster, all the way to a top to toe costume of a furry, fluffy fox, a princess, a ballerina and the one which gave me the biggest ‘awwwww’ of the evening … a little one of about 10 months old, dressed up as a butterfly, complete with wings …. being carried by his Daddy. While I cooed over the baby, Daddy cooed over our front door, filled with so much admiration that I thought he was going to produce a screwdriver from his pocket and take the door with him! lol.
Little Cobs had a ball of a time meeting and greeting all the weird and wonderful costumed children. The only one which scared him was the Alien. But then … it scared me too, so I can fully understand why he jumped stood behind me, peeping around my waist and hanging on so tightly to my trousers I thought at one point he was going to pull them down. EEEK!!
Here in the UK we now have Guy Fawkes Night almost upon us (or ‘Bonfire Night’ as the children call it) – it’s on the 5th of November every year.
It’s a night of Bonfires up and down the land, and fireworks. Now Bonfires I can cope with. But fireworks scare me silly … and they scare my animals and all the animals everywhere. Horrible – legal – explosives. I would rather see these vile things allowed only at proper organised events, which have responsible, fully trained staff. Having them available to buy from a variety of stores and shops just leads to the possibility of a child or youth getting their hands on them and causing a situation which could be life changing or even fatal.
Aw … I sound exactly like a Bah Humbug kind of person, and I’m really not. I just think those things are way too dangerous to be so easily, publicly available.
Anyhoo …
Like any great school, I like to give you a little fun at the end of your lessons, and today is no different. The video I give to you now is just 2 minutes and 25 seconds long. But … it will have you stumped. I promise that there’s nothing scary going to suddenly happen (you should know me better by now to KNOW for sure that I wouldn’t give you any video which will scare the wotsit out of you) … but it will astound you and have you wondering: “How the heck did he do that?”. Watch, play along and have some fun.
Till we meet again, may the weather be kind, and life treat you nicely.
Sending love, and squidges. Oh .. and … Remember to be AWESOME!
A hearty Good Friday to thee! Ok … that’s more than enough of the Shakespearean talk. After that, you see, it comes down to Shakespearean insults. Not because I like to insult people … but because I find the Shakespearean insults so amazingly funny!
Get this one: “Away you three-inch fool!” That’s one I use on my friend from time to time. Or there’s this one … “You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!” … LOL…. you can see why I like Shakespearean insults. They’re so juicy and such fun.
But Anyhoo … you’re not here to listen to me twittering on about Shakespeare, you’re here for some Edumacation of the Cobweb variety. So shall we get on with it?
On this Day in History.
1692 – Last people hanged for witchcraftin the United States.
1735 – Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister to occupy 10 Downing Street.
1888 – The first issue of National GeographicMagazine is published 1893 – The first American-built automobile, built by the Duryea Brothers, is displayed. 1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
1910 – The Duke of York’s Cinema opened in Brighton.It is still operating today,making it the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain
1934 – The worst pit disaster in Britain for 21 years killed more than 260 miners in an explosion and fire at the Gresford Mine in Wales.
1951 – The first live sporting eventseen coast-to-coast in the United States, a college football game between Duke and the University of Pittsburgh, is televised on NBC. 1955 – In Britain, the television channel ITV goes live for the first time. Only six minutes of advertisements were allowed each hour and there was no Sunday morning TV permitted. The first advertisement screened was for Gibbs SR toothpaste.
1967 – The liner Queen Mary began her 1000th and last Atlantic crossing. A New York docks strike meant that passengers had to carry their own luggage aboard.
1979 – The South Atlantic Flash or Vela Incidentis observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
The Vela Incident (sometimes known as the South Atlantic Flash) was an as-yet unidentified double flash of light detected by a United States Vela satellite on September 22, 1979. It has been speculated that the double flash, characteristic of a nuclear explosion, was the result of a nuclear weapons test; however, recently declassified information about the event concludes that it “was probably not from a nuclear explosion, although [it cannot be ruled] out that this signal was of nuclear origin.”
The flash was detected on 22 September 1979, at 00:53 GMT, by US Vela satellite 6911, which carried various sensors designed specifically to detect nuclear explosions. In addition to being able to detect gamma rays, x-rays and neutrons, the satellite also contained two bhangmeter sensors which were able to detect the dual light flashes associated with a nuclear explosion, specifically the initial brief, intense flash as well as the second longer flash that followed.
The satellite reported the characteristic double flash (a very fast and very bright flash, then a longer and less-bright one) of an atmospheric nuclear explosion of two to three kilotons, in the Indian Ocean between Bouvet Island (Norwegian dependency) and the Prince Edward Islands (South African dependencies). It should be noted that the explosion of some meteors as they are entering the atmosphere can produce energy measured from kilotons (Eastern Mediterranean Event) to megatons (Tunguska event). However, the mechanism is different, and meteors do not produce the double flash characteristic of a nuclear detonation.
United States Air Force WC-135B aircraft flew 25 sorties in the area soon after, but failed to detect any sign of radiation.
There is much doubt as to whether the satellite’s observations were accurate. Vela 6911 was one of a pair launched on 23 May 1969, more than ten years prior to the event, and the satellite was already two years past its design lifespan. It was known to have a failed electromagnetic pulse (EMP) sensor and had developed a fault (in July 1972) in its recording memory, but the fault had cleared itself by March 1978.
Initial assessment by the U.S. National Security Council in October 1979 was that the intelligence community had “high confidence” that the event was a low-yield nuclear explosion, although no radioactive debris was detected, and there was “no corroborating seismic or hydro-acoustic data.” A later NSC report revised this to “a position of agnosticism” about whether a test had occurred. They concluded that responsibility should be ascribed to South Africa.. Later, the Carter administration asked the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to convene a panel of instrumentation experts to examine the Vela 6911 data and determine whether the optical flash detected was from a nuclear test.
If a nuclear explosion did occur, it occurred within the 3,000 miles (4,800 km) wide circle covering the Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, southern tip of Africa, and a small part of Antarctica.
South Africa did have a nuclear weapons program at the time, and it falls within that geographic location. Nevertheless, since the fall of apartheid, South Africa has disclosed most of the information on its nuclear weapons program, and according to the subsequent International Atomic Energy Agency report, South Africa could not have constructed such a device until November 1979, two months after the incident.
U.S. analysts also considered the possibility that it could have been a covert test by a known nuclear state. They concluded that there would be little motivation for the USSR or China in particular to test a nuclear weapon in such a way, unless they were attempting to make it look like South Africa or Israel were covertly testing weapons. As the flash could have occurred in the vicinity of the Kerguelen Islands, it is possible that France was testing a neutron bomb.
It is unlikely any other declared nuclear powers would have conducted such a test. They had little reason to conduct an atmospheric test, and the small size of the blast might reflect a less advanced weapon – though there are many “advanced” reasons for small tests as well, including tactical nuclear weapons (such as neutron bombs) and testing the primary devices for thermonuclear weapons.
Today a mountain of Vela-incident intelligence remains classified, but a few heavily redacted reports have been released by the US government. Although these documents indicate considerable internal disagreement regarding the cause of the double-flash signal, they offer little new evidence. In his 2006 book On the Brink, retired CIA spy Tyler Drumheller wrote, “My sources collectively provided incontrovertible evidence that the apartheid government had in fact tested a nuclear bomb in the south Atlantic in 1979, and that they had developed a delivery system with assistance from the Israelis.” Unfortunately he does little to elaborate on the event or on his evidence, except to state that the South African bombs employed a “highly accurate delivery system using gliders.” One factor which casts doubt on the South African covert test theory is the conspicuous lack of South African scientists disclosing their participation, even after the fall of the apartheid.
Perhaps one day, when the redactions have receded and declassified documents are disseminated, further light will be shed on the Vela incident of 1979. If the distinct double-flash pattern was not a nuclear detonation, the Vela event would represent the only instance in history where a Vela satellite incorrectly identified an atomic blast– in which case the true cause may forever remain unknown and/or irrelevant. In any case, the flurry of falsifications and artificial investigations churned up in the wake of the incident clearly demonstrated governments’ unwavering willingness to renegotiate reality for political purposes, even in the shadow of a mushroom cloud.
1980 – Iraq invades Iran.The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the Imposed War and Holy Defensein Iran, and Saddâm’s Qâdisiyyah in Iraq, was a war between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran lasting from September 1980 to August 1988.
The war began when Iraq invaded Iran on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq’s long suppressed Shia majority influenced by Iran’s Islamic revolution. Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of revolutionary chaos in Iran and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and within several months were repelled by the Iranians who regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. For the next six years Iran was on the offensive. Despite several calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988. The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003.
The war is noted for several things. It was of great cost in lives and economic damage – a half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers as well as civilians are believed to have died in the war with many more injured and wounded – but brought neither reparations nor change in borders. It is also noted for its similarity to World War I. Tactics used included trench warfare, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, use of barbed wire across trenches and on no-mans land, human wave attacks and Iraq’s extensive use of chemical weapons (such as mustard gas) against Iranian troops and civilians as well as Iraqi Kurds.
1986 – Surgeons at Harefield Hospital in London, Great Britain, performed a heart & lung transplant operation on the world’s youngest patient – a baby just 10 weeks old. 1989 – An IRA bomb attack on the Royal Marines School of Music killed 11 people, (10 of them young soldiers) and injured twelve of the bandsmen.
1991 – Bryan Adams made chart historywhen his song – Everything I Do, I Do It For You, had its twelfth consecutive week as the UK No.1, in Great Britain.
1999 – Singer Diana Ross was arrested on Concorde after an incident at Heathrow Airport. The singer claimed that a female security guard had touched her breasts when being frisked, and she retaliated by rubbing her hands down the security guard.
2003 – David Hempleman-Adams becomes the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an open-air, wicker-basket hot air balloon.
Born on this Day
1880 – Dame Christabel Pankhurst, English suffragist (d. 1958)
1915 – Arthur Lowe, British actor (d. 1982)
1931 – Fay Weldon, British novelist, short story writer, playwright, and essayist whose work has been associated with feminism
1940 – Anna Karina, Danish born actress
1948 – Denis Burke, Australian politician
1948 – Jim Byrnes, American actor and musician
1954 – Shari Belafonte, American singer, actor, model and daughter of singer Harry Belafonte, she is known for her role as Julie Gilette on the 1980s television series Hotel and as a spokesperson for the diet supplement Slim-Fast during the 1990s.
1956 – Debby Boone, American singer best known for her 1977 hit “You Light Up My Life”, which spent 10 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and won her a Grammy award the following year for Best New Artist.
1958 – Andrea Bocelli, Italian tenor
1961 – Scott Baio, American actor, best known for his work on the sitcoms Happy Days and Charles in Charge
1961 – Catherine Oxenberg, British actress
1971 – Chesney Hawkes, English singer
1982 – Billie Piper, English singer and actress – began her career as a pop singer in her teens but is now best known for portraying Rose Tyler, companion to the Doctor in the television series Doctor Who from 2005 to 2006, a role she reprised in 2008.
Thought for the Day
I know that to say that all Scientists are non believers of anything regarding God, Religion or Spiritual, is a sweeping statement, for I am aware that there are scientists who are believers. However, I’m also not foolish and know that a huge majority of scientists ‘pooh pooh’ the idea of a God or anything other than what we see here on Earth with our eyes, or that has been proven to ‘be’ or ‘exist’.
Likewise, non believers. Non believers have their own belief that there is nothing other than this life as we see it here. There is no God, no Heaven, no afterlife.
My own person view on these folks is that they (Scientists included) are very short-sighted. It would seem a very closed mind attitude to think this way.
Have you ever watched an ant crawling along the ground near your house? Do you think that the ant knows there’s a house a few inches away from it?
I mean … the ant is sooo teeny tiny and in comparison, the house is ginormous! Surely the ant can’t know that the house is there?
This leads me to thinking ‘What do you suppose is right beside us that we are not yet able to recognise?”
I believe true integrity begins with the words: “I don’t yet know”.
Our big idea that humans are ‘at the top of the existence heap’ could be the blindest assumption of all.
School playtime this week is something a little different….
The World has its own ‘factbook’. I found this website a few years ago when looking for something entirely different.
The page you’ll land on when you click the link is up to date (2017) and tells you everything in facts and figures, about the world and it’s people. Some of the things there surprised me and I thought some of you might like to have a peep at this one too.
This is the Home Page for the website:–CIA – The World Factbook – and yes, it really is a website run by the CIA. (it will open in another window for you when you click).
So anyhoo… you’re edumacated. You’ve got something to play with at playtime and I guess that means that we’redone and dusted for another week. All that’s left for me to say is … Have a wonderful Friday, and a truly beautiful weekend. I hope that everything you’re wishing for this weekend, comes true, providing that it’s good for you and yours.
The next post from The Cobweborium Emporium will be one about Tag Art … so if you don’t know what it is, get ready to find out. If you do know what it is … maybe get ready to be encouraged, and if you don’t want to know what it is … are you sure that you’re not walking along right next to a house? lol.
Happy Friday! This week has flown by in one way, and yet it’s dragged it’s feet in another.
Something was missing in my life. It’s seemed to be a long stretch of a week. Then I realised what it was. It was Little Cobs. He went back to school on Tuesday so I haven’t seen him since last Saturday. He’s a joyous handful when he’s here, but when he goes home my heart goes with him. He’ll be here again on Saturday, and no doubt drag his HUGE bag of cars out of his bedroom here, then he’ll search for the length of black drain pipe which I got Grandad to rub the ends of so that it wasn’t sharp, and he’ll prop the one end up on the footstool, and his cars will zoooom down the tube and we’ll find out who’s the winner! It’s kind of his early introduction to betting. LOL. (No, we don’t use money or anything else. We just use our eyes and guess which one will go the furthest)
Oh anyhoo … look at me chatting away when what you’ve come for is some edumacation. So let’s get going shall we?
On this Day in History
1504 – Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Florence. Michelangelo’s David, sculpted from 1501 to 1504, is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture and one of Michelangelo’s two greatest works of sculpture, along with the Pietà. It is the statue of the young Israelite king David alone that almost certainly is one of the most recognizable stone sculptures in the history of art. It is regarded as a symbol both of strength and youthful human beauty.
Michelangelo’s David
The 5.17 meter (17 ft) marble statue portrays the Biblical King David in the nude, at the moment that he decides to battle with Goliath.
However; the proportions are not quite true to the human form; the head and upper body are somewhat larger than the proportions of the lower body. The hands are also larger than would be in regular proportions. While some have suggested that this is of the mannerist style, another explanation is that the statue was originally intended to be placed on a church façade or high pedestal, and that the proportions would appear correct when the statue was viewed from some distance below.
The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.
To protect it from damage, the sculpture was moved in 1873 to the Accademia Gallery in Florence, where it attracts many visitors. A replica was placed in the Piazza della Signoria in 1910.
The cast of David at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), had a detachable plaster fig leaf, added for visits by Queen Victoria and other important ladies, when it was hung on the figure using two strategically placed hooks; it is now displayed nearby.
In 1991, a deranged man attacked the statue with a hammer he had concealed beneath his jacket, in the process damaging the toes of the left foot before being restrained. The samples obtained from that incident allowed scientists to determine that the marble used was obtained from the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of three small valleys in Carrara. The marble in question contains many microscopic holes that cause it to deteriorate faster than other marbles. Because of the marble’s degradation, a controversy occurred in 2003, when the statue underwent its first major cleaning since 1843. Some experts opposed the use of water to clean the statue, fearing further deterioration. Under the direction of Dr. Franca Falleti, senior restorers Monica Eichmann and Cinzia Pamigoni began the job of restoring the statue. The restoration work was completed in 2004.
By the 20th century, Michelangelo’s David had become iconic shorthand for “culture” David has been endlessly reproduced, in plaster, imitation marble fibreglass, and lends an atmosphere of culture even in some unlikely settings, such as beach resorts, gambling casinos and model railroads.
1888 – In London, the body of murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found, disembowelled in an East London street, the second victim of ‘Jack the Ripper’.
1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited.
1900 – Galveston Hurricane of 1900: a powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
1921 – 16-year-old Margaret Gormanwon the Atlantic City Pageant’s Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.
1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy. 1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V2 rocket as the first German V2 flying bombs fell on Britain, exploding at Chiswick in London, killing 3 people.
1960 – Publishers Penguin Books were charged with public obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence’s controversial book – ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. 1960 – In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
1966 – In England, the Severn Bridge was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, linking south Wales with south west England. 1966 – The first Star Trek,the landmark American science fiction television series, premieres with the first-aired episode, “The Man Trap”, on NBC.
1968 – The Beatles perform their lastlive TV performance on the David Frost show. They perform their new hit Hey Jude. 1968 – British tennis player Virginia Wade beat American Billie Jean King to win the US Open.
1974 – Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 – Gays in the military:US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “I Am A Homosexual”. He is given a general discharge, which was later upgraded to honorable.
2004 – The NASA unmanned spacecraft Genesiscrash-lands when its parachute fails to open. The Genesis spacecraft was the first ever attempt to collect a sample of solar wind, and the first “sample return mission” to return from beyond the orbit of the Moon. It was launched on August 8, 2001, and crash-landed on September 8, 2004 after a design flaw prevented the deployment of its drogue parachute. The crash contaminated many of the sample collectors, but subsequent processing was able to isolate useful samples, and as of March 2008 all of the mission’s major science objectives are expected to be achieved successfully.
Born on this Day
1921 – Harry Secombe, Welsh entertainer (d. 2001) 1922 – Sid Caesar, American comedian (d. 2014) 1925 – Peter Sellers, English actor (d. 1980) 1932 – Patsy Cline, American singer (d. 1963)
1979 – Pink, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
🌷 🌷 🌷
OK… now it’s playtime. (All schools have a playtime, and this one is no different) …
I will only give you links to click on that I’ve tried and tested and know for sure that there is nothing bad hiding in them. So please rest assured that any link you find on this blog has been tested before I load it here. I’ve been playing around with most of these links for … oh my goodness, around ten years, so I know for sure that they’re safe.
Today … instead of a game, I share with you something that I have tons of fun on every now and again.
If you don’t have a Gravatar picture of yourself, or a photo of yourself on your blog – in your sidebar – then you can ‘build’ yourself on this website! It’s not really you as such, but it’s ‘you’ in a cartoony sort of way.
You can build a body, a skin tone, hair, lips, teeth, eyes, glasses, facial hair, even tattoos! You can make it look like you … but if you were stood in a line up, no one would be able to pick you out based on that image. lol. Aww … look, I’ll give you the link so that you can have a play with it yourself. It’s lots of fun… BUT … have a look around first, and click on the things so that you know what they look like… because once you have chosen some of the things there, you can’t undo them (some you can change – but not all of them). . . and you’ll have to start from the beginning. Other than that, it’s a great little time waster.
Well we’ve come to the end of the school day, here in Cobweborium Land. Don’t you wish all your school/work days were as short as this? A bit of fun, over a cup of coffee and time to go off and relax! lol
Wishing you all a truly wonderful weekend. Thank you so much for coming and spending a little time with me. I love seeing you here.
May your weekend be everything you want it to be. 🌹
Happy last Friday of August, this year! There are exactly 122 days until Christmas. There. I said it. I’ve put up with it being said over the last couple of weeks and I’ve finally said it myself. It’s scary when I think about it. So …. I’m not going to.
Instead, let’s find out together about what happened on this day in history, shall we?
Ready? OK, let’s go…
1768 – James Cook begins his first voyage.
1830 – Stephenson’s locomotive ‘Northumbrian’ took a trial run to prepare for the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Great Britain. . Actress Fanny Kemble rode on the footplate, the first woman to do so.
1835 – The New York Sun perpetrates the Great Moon Hoax. “The Great Moon Hoax” was a series of six articles that were published in the New York Sun beginning on August 25, 1835 about the supposed discovery of life on the Moon. The discoveries were attributed falsely to Sir John Herschel, perhaps the best-known astronomer of his time. You can read more about this here: Wikipedia; Great Moon Hoax. (it will open in another window for you.).
1910 – Yellow Cab is founded. The original Yellow Cab Company based in Chicago, Illinois is one of the largest taxicab companies. Independent companies using that name (some with common heritage, some without) operate in many cities in a number of countries. Many firms operate with drivers as independent contractors. In some cities, they are operated as cooperatives owned by their drivers.
Related companies include The Hertz Corporation, Yellow Roadway and the Chicago Motor Coach Company, which was acquired by the Chicago Transit Authority.
1916– The United States National Park Service is created. The National Park Service (NPS) is the United States federal agency that manages all National Parks, many National Monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act in order to protect areas designated as national parks.
It is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior, which is a Cabinet Office of the executive branch, overseen by a Secretary nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Most of the direct management of the NPS is delegated by the Secretary to the National Park Service Director, who must now also be confirmed by the Senate. The NPS oversees 391 units, of which 58 are designated national parks.
1917 – The Order of the British Empire (OBE), and the Companion of Honour (CH), were awarded for the first time
1919 – The world’s first international daily air service began between London and Paris.
1940 – The RAF made the first air raid on Berlin.
1942 – The Duke of Kent, youngest brother of King George VI, was killed in a plane crash during a war mission to Iceland. He was the first member of the Royal family to be killed on active service.
1944 – Paris was liberated as the Germans surrendered. General Charles de Gaulle entered the capital of France after French and US troops forced a German surrender. BBC News Report plus video footage of the news
1967 – The leader of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell, was shot and killed by a sniper at a shopping centre in Arlington, Virginia. George Rockwell was known as the “American Hitler”. Minutes after the shooting a man was arrested and charged with his murder.BBC News Report on the day
1986 – Britain staged its first street motor race – along roads around the centre of Birmingham – Englands second city (London being it’s first).
Born on this Day
1930– Sean Connery, Scottish actor
1938 – Frederick Forsyth, English author
1946 – Charles Ghigna (Father Goose), American poet and Children’s Author
1949 – Gene Simmons, Israeli-born musician (Kiss)
1954 – Elvis Costello, English musician
1958 – Tim Burton, American film director of (amongst many other things) two Batman films, Edward Scissorhands (1990), Ed Wood (1994), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Nightmare Before Christmas
1961 – Billy Ray Cyrus, American singer and actor
1970 – Claudia Schiffer, German model
And here’s a new addition to The Friday Post …
Thought for the Day
I had a conversation recently, with a much-loved friend who is a ‘non-believer’. An Atheist. Our conversation went from belief to non belief and back again, as we talked and chatted over our personal view points, until we came to death and what happens when you die.
Now my own experience of death is very limited. I haven’t yet left this earth – I’ve only sat with others as they’ve done it (although I did technically ‘die’ on the operating table once – but that’s a story for another time). But, it’s interesting that, when they ‘go’, people who ‘die’ leave their bodies behind.
You see, to me, this suggests that existence cannot be a purely physical phenomenon. What makes the difference between a human being and a human shell?
Breath. Plain and simple.
And what drives that breath?
Well, some people call it heart, and some call it soul. Some call it energy and some call it spirit. But whatever it is – it has no weight, no mass, no size, and no visibility. Therefore it has no time.
So in that case . . . how can it ever die?
Like I’ve always believed: …. you can’t die for the life of you.
There’s something to think about over the weekend, eh? 🙂
Well that about wraps up this weeks offerings of educationalmalisation . . . EXCEPT …. every good school has play time. Time out in the world, breathing in and out and having a little fun. So … in order to accommodate this bit of play time, I’m sharing with you a game that I’ve played on and off for years.
Now I don’t know if I play it for the beautiful sounds of the bubbles popping – aww, so gentle and SO musical – or if I just try to beat the game. (Because I do like a challenge). However here it is, and I encourage you to have a few plays with it until you get the feel of it and begin to enjoy it. BOOMSHINE is the game’s name. (the link is the name). When the page loads (in another window), simply click on ‘Play’ and the bubbles will load within that little screen. They float about in various different colours and all you have to do is click somewhere on the screen where you’ll score the most bubbles bursting. Each time you get over the required amount the screen back colour will change to a pale silver colour. The opening page each time, will tell you how many bubbles you need to get – or how many you scored. And … while the bubbles begin bursting, there is a little counter down in the left hand corner. Do enjoy.
Have a truly lovely Friday and a wonderful weekend.
Arms folded, backs straight.Are you ready for your Friday educationamalisation?
Gynotikolobomassophile: Is a real word and it means: Someone who likes to nibble on a woman’s earlobe.
Netting is used for more than just catching fish.
There is a place in Peru where they have strung up netting to capture the mist as it rolls in from the sea, which in turn gives them water to use for their crops and plants.
Honest Injun! It’s the truth. They really do use nets to capture mist.
Read more about it here:- news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8297276.stm God supplies you with what you need … you just have to sometimes make a bit of an effort in order to help yourself to get it.
All the planets in the solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to pick the little “stringy things” off of it. That’s how the primates do it.
The waste produced by one chicken in its lifetime could power a 100W bulb for 5 hours
You know how sometimes, as you fall asleep, you will feel your legs jerk powerfully. This is usually accompanied by a dream about falling. Have you ever wondered why this happens? Well….
This is called a Hypnic Jerk. When you go to sleep at night your brain paralyses your body to stop you acting out all your dreams. It would be dangerous to act out everything that happens in your dreams, especially if you were running or fighting, not just for whoever shares your bed, but also for yourself. It’s thought that this ‘sleep paralysis’ evolved when we slept in trees, as acting out your dreams whilst sleeping high up in the branches would be even more dangerous than doing so while tucked up in bed!
As this system kicks in, you can sometimes have these hypnic jerks, where all the muscles contract suddenly and violently. For some reason, these are often associated with dreams of falling.
According to Wikipedia,pareidolia is “a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (usually an image) being mistakenly perceived as recognizable.”
One common form of pareidolia is seeing faces in objects (like the flying spaghetti monster on a tortilla, or the face of a cookie monster on a pizza).
There actually, is an excellent book filled with pictures of faces on objects, called Faces. However.. I’ve found a Flickr gallery, belonging to someone called Jim Leftwich, who has been taking his own pictures of faces for a while. The photos are all whimsical and surprising! www.flickr.com/photos/jimwich/sets/796304/
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty (50) years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley’s gum.
The King of Hearts is the only king WITHOUT A MOUSTACHE
Most dust particles in your house are made from DEAD SKIN!
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
So did the first ‘ Marlboro Man.’
Pearls melt in Vinegar
and finally …..
Thing that I learned this week …
….. if you get toothpaste on the tip of your nose; if you don’t get it off quickly enough, the tip of your nose goes numb.
I am contractually obliged to make you laugh, so here’s the best joke I could come up with at this moment in time…
This is silly, but funny!
A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patricia Whack.
“Miss Whack, I’d like to get a $30,000 loan to take a holiday.”
Patty looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name. The frog says his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it’s okay, he knows the bank manager.
Patty explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral.
The frog says, “Sure. I have this,” and produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.
Very confused, Patty explains that she’ll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.
She finds the manager and says, “There’s a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000, and he wants to use this as collateral.”
She holds up the tiny pink elephant. “I mean, what in the world is this?”
(you’re going to love this)
(it’s a real treat)
(a masterpiece)
(wait for it) . . .
The bank manager looks back at her and says…
“It’s a knickknack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone.”
(You’re singing it, aren’t you? Yeah, I know you are…)…
Wishing you a truly fabulous Friday, and a wonderful Weekend. Be kind to each other …. and to yourself, and … don’t take life too seriously.
Right … It’s Friday and it’s time to … PIN BACK YOUR LUGHOLES (ears) …. for you are going to be Educationamalised!
Factoids for your FridayFun …
A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
It is impossible to out-swim a shark .
The slowest fishis the Sea Horse, which moves along at about 0.016 km/h (0.01 mph).
The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant
A snail has two pairs of tentacles on its head. One pair is longer than the other and houses the eyes. The shorter pair is used for smelling and feeling its way around.
In the Sahara Desert,there is a town named Tidikelt, which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically though, the driest place on earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island. There has been no rainfall there for two million years.
A house fly lives only 14 days. (but not if Mr.Cobs and his fly swat is near!)
Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world’s ice covers Antarctica. This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it) Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.
Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two continents.
In the United States: The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
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An Anagram of:
“To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” Is:
“In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten”
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Fake trees were invented by a company who made toilet bowl brushes, the Addis Brush Company. Regardless of how far the technology has come, it’s still interesting to know the first fake Christmas trees were really just big green toilet bowl brushes.
And ….
Did you know… The can opener was invented 48 years after cans were introduced!
My Contract states that I HAVE to leave you with a smile or a chuckle if it tickles you in the right place. So …. here goes:
Fifty-one years ago, Herman James, a North Carolina mountain man, was drafted by the Army.
On his first day in basic training, the Army issued him a comb. That afternoon the Army barber sheared off all his hair.
On his second day, the Army issued Herman a toothbrush. That afternoon the Army dentist yanked out seven of his teeth.
On the third day, the Army issued him a jock strap.
The Army has been looking for Herman for 51 years.
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Happy Friday my lovely blogging friends. If you’ve got this far and are still alive reading then I’m so proud of you for getting through the whole course and your certificate is in the post. You are now far more Educationamalised than you were a little while ago.
I’m wishing you a truly fabulous Friday, and a truly terrific weekend.
Enjoy every moment of it. Don’t wait for another day. Don’t put off doing something until you’ve lost 10lbs. Don’t bother about the spot on your chin. Don’t worry that you don’t feel you have the right outfit. Who cares if you’ll be by yourself doing ‘it’ – walking in the park; Taking photo’s of the ducks on the lake; Shopping for something or other. Just do it. Don’t put it off. Do it today. Now. Or … this weekend.
Take care of yourself … and each other. And … whatever you decide to do with your weekend or where-ever you decided to go … may your God go with you.
I was nominated by the terrific Teresa at Craftowne Cottage for the Liebster Award! How kind is she?, and how fabulous is that! 😀
The Rules of the Award are as follows:
Acknowledge the blog that nominated you and display the award.
Answer the 11 questions the blogger gives you.
Give 11 random facts about yourself.
Nominate 11 blogs
Notify those blogs of the nomination.
Give them 11 questions to answer.
The questions which Teresa set for me to answer were:
1. What is your hobby?
I craft., is the short answer. The longer answer is: I paint (in various mediums and on any surface which sits still long enough), make hand-made cards, scrapbook, sculpt, recycle, up-cycle, and all sorts of other things, but I’ll stop here so that I don’t bore anyone.
2. What advice would you give someone trying to find a hobby?
First discover what you like in other people’s hobbies. Then choose the thing you’d most love to have a go at yourself. But remember: Being good at anything doesn’t happen the first time you try, so just enjoy yourself. Blog your results if you can – as we are all our own worst critics, so getting feedback from other crafters or like-minded folk will help you, and they may even suggest something you haven’t thought of trying before.
3. How old were you when you discovered your talent?
I seem to have been born ‘crafty’. I don’t remember exactly when it started, I just know that I loved making. (Even if it was making something out of empty cereal packets!)
4. Your favourite place to shop?
Wherever I happen to find something I’m totally thrilled to bits at finding – and especially so if it’s a great price!
5. Most visited blog?
OOooh… now this is a tough one. I visit many, and love all of them. But to choose one above any other would just be so wrong – as it would be like telling the other blogs that they come a close second. None of the blogs come second. They’re all really top class blogs, and all so very different.
6. Favourite season
I have two. Autumn and Spring.
7. Do you prefer the ocean or the mountains?
The Ocean is my love. To walk along a beach in that special magical place where the sea meets the shore and you feel the cool sand beneath your feet, while the sea gently rolls over your toes, … it’s that place which totally bewitches me and fills me with a joy that only nature can supply. The sea casts a beautiful spell over me and claims a part of my heart like only it can.
8. What is one of your favourite quotes?
Oh, that one’s easy! It’s this:
9. What’s your favourite book?
I have too many to list. But I do have a very special ‘favourite’ book: . . . it’s the one I’ve had ‘buzzing’ around my brain for years, and which I’m about to begin writing.
10. Truck, Car, or Jeep?
Most definitely a Car, and absolutely the most luxury one I could buy, (if I ever win the Lottery). I don’t want ‘built for speed’, – I would love (if money were no object) a car which is built for sublime comfort. (I’d also like a suited, hat wearing, chauffeur – like Parker, who drives Miss Penelope about (in Thunderbirds)).
11. Coffee/tea to go or sit and chill for a bit?
Coffee – (and a plentiful supply) – in the morning, and one cup at 4pm in the afternoon.
From midday onwards: sugar free tonic water & ice, in a tall glass, with a straw please.
As for ‘sit and chill for a bit’: … aaaany time you like!
Give 11 random facts about yourself.
1…I am the shortest adult in my family
2. I can play a couple of instruments – just not terribly well.
3. I love really great chocolate. (The good stuff … and never Cadbury chocolate anymore. I have no idea what the heck they’ve done to the recipe of that once great magical chocolate, but now its awful. You can put a chocolate button on your tongue and hold it there in you mouth, waiting for it to melt. BUT it doesn’t melt anymore. It sits, on your tongue, keeping it’s shape and feeling like a sort of jelly type substance. Horrid. Horrid. Horrid.)
4. I adore home-baked ‘goodies’. Bread, Cakes, Biscuits, Flans, sweet or savoury things. Anything. So long as it’s home baked. You can feel, see and almost taste the love which has gone into a home-baked item.
5. My best ever holiday was during my pregnancy with daughter No.2. We went to Cromer, taking my mum, daughter No.1 and my mums dog, and, obviously, Mr. Cobs and I. Cromer is a place in Norfolk, and we’d rented a little cottage there. We had such a really wonderful time that I’d love to re-live it.
6. I like to do things for others, something which makes them smile, or gives them joy, or instills a feeling of hope, where perhaps they could only feel desperation and sadness. I’m told I have empathy.
7. I’m a very private person, and in part this is the reason for the non-de-plume/pen-name. I was stalked by someone on-line. It was a very nasty experience, and the person who did this got SO annoyed that I wouldn’t share my surname and my address with them that they attempted to find my address by using bits of information they’d garnered from things they’d seen me say on a website I used to be a member of. It began to feel very dangerous and scared me stupid. I left the site and have never been back. However now, I don’t give my real name or address to anyone on the internet. You never know who you might be talking to.
8. I love to be stroked. Aaaaaanywhere you like. Stroke me and it leaves me totally ‘useless’. My whole body just gives up. Aahhh but it’sB.L.I.S.S. 🙂
9. I’m really shy. I know… I don’t come across on my blog as shy … but here, I can be anything I want to be … Super Woman! (yeah right) Hero of the Year. (In another Universe) Photograph appearing in all the best magazines. (ha!) Truth is you won’t find a photo of me in any publication and although I’m happy to step in and be a ‘hero’ by helping someone, anyone, as soon as it’s ok I will disappear. I don’t want thanks for things I do. I do them because I’m a human being, and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s what humans are supposed to do. We are meant to help each other. Not hate, pick faults, poke fun at, beat the you know what out of or, indeed, blow other people up! We just have to love each other and help each other. This is the way it’s supposed to be! I don’t see what’s difficult about that or why some people seem unable to see that. It’s SO simple!
10. I can’t live without a dog in my life.
11. I LOVEBritish TV dramas. Period dramas, Detective dramas, Atmospheric dramas, Historic dramas, … anything. Just give me a comfy chair and a drama and I’ll sit there quietly while you burgle my house. Also love Comedy Dramas. Comedy is ‘me’.
Is there one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but still haven’t done it?
What is your guilty pleasure?
Who would be your dream dinner date?
Do you have a favourite film?
Do you have a favourite TV programme?
If you were given a badge saying: ‘In Charge Of the Worldbut only for 60 seconds’ … what law would you pass or what change would you make in that 60 seconds?
You found an oriental looking, corked bottle on a beach. You uncork it and out pops a Genie. He/She grants you 3 wishes. Tell me your three wishes. (no wishing for another wish or two either!)
What drew you into the blogging world?
Which do you prefer: writing and posting a blog post; or reading other peoples blog posts?
You’re invited to a posh dinner, this evening. What are you hoping will be served as your Starter?
… and finally … What is the one thing, above any other, which you just cannot eat, not even if someone offered you a thousand pounds/dollars just to eat a small piece of?
Don’t forget your random facts, and your nominations too. (see the award rules at the top of this post).
Please note: If your blog is award free please accept this nomination as a compliment to your blog without
any obligation.
My thanks again to Teresa at Craftowne Cottage. This has been such fun to do!
Thank you also to you, for coming for a visit and having a read. Bless you, I love you for it.
Hello you! Aw I’m so thrilled to see you here, thank you so much for coming. I could do with a cheery friend with a smiling face. Fancy a coffee? Tea? You sit down at the table and I’ll pour us a drink. Help yourself to biscuits!
So … you’re here to find out what I’ve learned this week aren’t you? Well… I’d better make a start then!
This week I seem to have spent ages crying over one thing or another. Things I’ve seen on the news. A programme about a footballer whose wife had passed on (from Cancer), leaving him and three children. (wept several times during that programme). I cried hot tears for the Liberian children in West Africa, and all of the children living in poverty around the world, when I watched one of our annual big fund-raisers – Comic Relief– on TV. (I donated. Like I wouldn’t?). Oh … and other things had me in tears … some of them piffling little things and then others which weren’t in the least bit piffling, but I’m not going to list and share them because if I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster, I don’t want to put you on one as well! eek!
I’ve learnt that just as I sit down to visit ‘my reader’ (a wonderful device on WordPress, where all the blogs a person follows, with all the latest blog posts, are all listed out for them on one continuous page!) … and have a look at all the blogs I follow and leave comments or likes etc…. it’s right at that VERY moment that the phone rings; or the door knocks; or it’s time for lunch/dinner/something/or other. And I think I’m now so far behind on all the fabulous people’s blogs I follow, that I’ll never catch up ever again! But … I’m trying. I really am. So bear with me if I haven’t been to your blog yet… I’ll be getting there very soon.
I’ve learned this week …. rather a lot about Octopuses. (… not Octopi. Octopuses is the preferred plural).
People of the world who watch the news(and especially those who love football) for sure will remember that eight-tentacled seer – Paul the Octopus – who was used to predict football scores during the World Cup in 2010. Yes? Well for those who don’t know or would like a reminder … here’s a very short video of Paul, choosing the final ‘winner’ (in his opinion) …
During the 2010 World Cup, the cephalopod pundit, living in a German Sea-life centre was SO accurate in his forecasting that he became an international headline. He got nine out of ten matches in that tournament SPOT ON! When it came to predicting a football winner, this little chap was amazing.
Now before I go any further … I’m not a football fan. Not even a teeny bit. In fact I dislike it so much that I can’t be in the same room as a television which is broadcasting it. The noise, the roar of the crowd, the wails and ‘woo hoos’, I can’t bear it. (Now you see why I have a craft room 🙂 lol).
Anyhoo …back to Paul.. There were, of course, people who said when Paul fished a tasty mussel out of a box which was ‘wearing’ the flag of one of the football teams who were in a forthcoming match, it was just coincidence that he picked the winner.
However they couldn’t have been more wrong. An Australian philosopher, Peter Godfrey-Smith had detailed his own opinion of the Octopus, and upon reading it, it soon becomes clear that Paul was no ‘one-off’. Godfrey-Smith told of one captive octopus that lived in a laboratory tank. He said that they are very particular about their diet. They like crab, eased fresh from the shell.
In this experiment, a researcher had been feeding captives chunks of frozen squid. One day, as she made her way down the row of tanks, the scientist’s noticed one of the Octopuses in the tanks.
“It had not eaten its squid, but was holding it up conspicuously,” Godfrey-Smith writes. “As she stood there, the octopus made its way slowly across the tank to the outflow pipe, watching her all the way. Then, still watching her, it dumped the bit of squid down the drain”.
She wasn’t impressed with the food in that restaurant, that’s for sure!
credit: Getty Images
An octopus has no bones, its bone-free body can be ‘re-made’ to fit the space available, and its skin – (and this might surprise you) – can see! An octopus’ skin is rippling with little receptors that react to light and allow it to navigate its way around the depths of the ocean, changing colour as it goes.
Sadly, these fascinating, cunning, clever creatures don’t live much past the age of two. And this is why no one ever saw Paul back on the footballers seats, prophesising who was going to win the next match. Paul passed away shortly after the end of the football tournament in 2010 which made him famous world-wide. A fabulous one season wonder.
More about Professor Godfrey Smith and Octopuses, along with a photograph of the man himself, can be found on the following link, which will open in another window for you:- Harvard Gazette – Thinking like an octopus
So .. what else did I learn? . . .
Ohhh… I learned this, about the Prime Minister’s Residence, at number 10 Downing Street, here in the United Kingdom…
It is only since Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister in 1902 that the Prime Minister has been expected to live at No. 10. Only one former Prime Minister has ever died there: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who resigned as Prime Minister on the 3rd April 1908 but was too ill to move and died 19 days later. His last words were: ‘This is not the end of me.’
10 Downing Street is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Britain. The front door cannot be opened from the outside because it has no handle, and no one can enter the building without passing through an airport-style scanner and a set of security gates manned by armed guards. However, in the first five years after Tony Blair became Prime Minister, 37 computers, four mobile phones, two cameras, a mini-disc player, a video recorder, four printers, two projectors and a bicyclewere stolen from the building. (Not sure what that says about who … Tony Blair or his staff. [gulp]) lol
Ohh, and you’ll never guess what I learned about…. Potatoes!
Genetic testing has proved a single origin for potatoes, – in the area of southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia where they were domesticated between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Potatoes were taken outside the Andes region about four centuries ago and now they are the world’s fourth-largest food crop, after maize, wheat and rice
Following centuries of selective breeding there are now about 5,000 different varieties of potatoes.
Now let’s see… there was something else I know I learned,and really wanted to share with you … what the divil was it? .. OH … TIME TRAVEL! Now pay attention you lot at the back. This is good stuff!
According to General Relativity, everything in the Universe is played out on a stage that has three dimensions of space and one of time. This space-time is warped by the mass and energy of the Universe’s contents. Theoretically a large enough concentration of mass or energy can distort time so much that it folds back on itself like a crumpled sheet.
These folds were described by Kurt Gödel in 1949 and are known as ‘closed time-like curves’. They ought, at least in theory, to allow us to revisit past moments in history by using an idea developed in 1988 by Kip Thorne and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, who showed that tunnels through space-time (wormholes), would allow time travel by taking a shortcut from one fold to the next.
There are still plenty of obstacles to time-travelling through wormholes. Not least is the fact that the only wormholes we can possibly make with present-day technology are tiny: only subatomic particles would be small enough to travel through them.
I learned more about Time Travel …. but I’ll save it until next week. I don’t want to explode your brain! (ohhh the very thought!).
So … this is how much more educationamalised I am this week. You know … I’m seriously beginning to wonder where I’m storing all this stuff, and how much of the other stuff is being shifted out. What if something really important is being thrown over-board, like … my address, or my name? How will I know what to tell the Police if I get lost? “What’s your name?”I dunno!“Where do you live?”Don’t know that either …. but I can tell you something about potatoes which might thrill you! Don’t laugh … it could happen!
But anyhoo … we have now come to that time where you sit back, get comfortable … and I slay you with some jokes. Well … perhaps not slay you exactly … perhaps ‘tickle your chuckle muscle’. … Are you ready?? Ok, lets go!
The Jokes
I went to a karaoke bar last night that didn’t play any 70’s music… at first I was afraid, I was petrified!
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My doctor thinks I’m taking hallucinogenic drugs… how do I know? … let’s just say a little bird told me.
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My dad has a weird hobby; he collects empty bottles… which sounds so much better than “alcoholic.”
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My husband and I decided we don’t want children; . . . so if someone wants them, we’ll drop them off tomorrow.
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What do you call a line of men waiting for a haircut? . . . A barberque!
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What do you call a train loaded with toffee? . . . A chew chew train.
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What’s round and bad tempered? . . . A vicious circle.
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and finally . . .
I don’t think I got the job at Microsoft . . . they didn’t respond to my telegram. 😀
Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee moment with me.
I hope you have a beautiful Friday,and that tomorrow doesn’t catch you by surprise ….. (in case you hadn’t noticed … tomorrow is April Fools Day!). May you find some more smiles to add to those you’ve just found, and I hope both today, and your whole weekend, are truly blessed.
May the winds be soft, the rain be somewhere else, and may your heart and mind work together as one.
Be good to each other and . . . may your God go with you.
The Art of Cobwebs 