http://www.generalmonck.com/

I see my erstwhile colleague George Monck has a book being published this year.

General Monck served the “Merry Monarch” [Charles II] as loyally and courageously as he served the grave Dictator [Oliver Cromwell].”

http://strangedream.stumbleupon.com/

A big stumbleupon welcome to strangedream.

“Why be normal?” – it is a good question to ask, but what is the answer?

http://www.spamhelp.org/harvesterkiller/

From the page “This page shows a 100 randomly generated email addresses. Email harvesters (also known as spambots) will crawl this page and store all of these hundred bogus email addresses in a database, and follow the link at the bottom of the page, filling them up with more invalid email addresses as they go along. They eventually end up in an infinite loop, and thousands of randomly generated email addresses before the spammer realises what’s happening.”

http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/images/movie/large/Henry_V.jpg

Act 3. Scene I

SCENE I. France. Before Harfleur.

KING HENRY:

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

http://www.nndb.com/people/444/000096156/

Saint George’s day April 23rd.

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/features/dutchhorizons/060412dh

From the page: “Dutch teacher giving sex education to Muslim youths in Amsterdam’s Red Light”

This could only happen in the Netherlands.

Listen to it and make your own mind up, available via Real or WMA audio formats.

http://www.futurama-madhouse.com.ar/wallpaper/fifth_element-spb_petr-640.jpg

http://www.donaldsensing.com/2005/02/new-us-air-force-aircraft-carrier.html

Shhhhh…. it’s a new secret weapon.

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:San_Francisco_Marks_Godzilla_Attack_Centennial

One hundred years ago today, San Francisco suffered what is to this day one of the worst monster-related disasters to have happened in the United States. Only the 1893 Mothra attack on Chicago caused more casualties.

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, the sleeping city was awakened by a most unwelcome visitor. Emerging from the Pacific Ocean, the hundred foot tall Godzilla smashed its way through the city. City Hall was destroyed within 28 seconds. People scrambled from their homes as the monster’s massive footsteps shook building foundations. Linda Cain, 80, recalls what her mother told her about the event, “She first thought it was just another earthquake, but a quick peek out the window revealed it was something much, much worse.”

Estimates of the number of dead vary from three to six thousand. “We may never be sure, ” says forensic scientist Clark Stucken, “because Godzilla devoured some of its victims, so there were no remains to be counted or buried.”

Nobody knows what happened to Godzilla after the disaster, nor even where the monster originally came from. Suspicions always lay on Japan, and rumors have it that the beast was sighted decades later in Peal Harbor during World War II. After the attack, the nation’s military readiness was greatly increased. President Teddy Roosevelt and Congress tripled the defense budget, which lead to the development of the first military aircraft (the airplane having just been invented two years prior). The efforts paid off, as was proven in 1933 when an attack by giant ape King Kong on New York was thwarted with minimal casualties by the use of airpanes.

The government is saying it is ready for Godzilla’s next attack on San Francisco. The beefed up Homeland Security department is developing technologies to “defeat both man and beast.” Many fear terrorists will resort to using Godzilla as a weapon of mass destruction, but White House spokesman Scott McClellan assures that “We are ready just like we were for hurricane Katrina.” Pacificists are skeptical of the administration’s approach, saying it would be better to try to tame Godzilla and other monsters, should they appear.

http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/exhib/poster/PictPow1.html

Destroy the Old World; Establish the New World
打碎舊世界 創立新世界 Dasui jiu shijie, chuangli xin shijie
Unknown artist 作者不明
1967, Beijing

An example of early Cultural Revolution Red Guard art, among the items the worker is smashing are a crucifix, a Buddha, and classical Chinese texts – all images of imperial domination.

http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/pugwash.htm

http://zt.tibet.cn/english/zt/040719_qztl/index.html

Construction work world’s highest railway is now complete and test runs are scheduled for July 2006 with commercial operation set for 2007.

The special train will be equipped with an oxygen providing system, making it easier for passengers to endure the thinner-air in the so-called “roof of the world”.

http://www.ukexpert.co.uk/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=8111&cat=500&ppuser=296

The Bliss Mill, Chipping Norton, Oxon.
Click again for a larger image

http://www.kurtvonnegut.com/

http://www.njedge.net/~knapp/NewsOfFu.htm

From the page: “”Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government–which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man.”

— Nayland Smith to Dr. Petrie,
The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu,

Sax Rohmer drew on fears of the ‘Yellow Peril’ which still have resonances today despite the prevalence of ‘Political Correctness’.

You can read this story for free at Project Gutenberg and come to your own conclusions:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=173

Many thanks to atongchan http://atongchan.stumbleupon.com/ who started me on this train of thought with this link:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0407/p09s03-coop.html

Which attempts to move beyond old stereotypes of China.

http://www.shurelo.ru/

More eye candy for you to enjoy!

http://www.jet2.com/News.aspx?id=65

This Yorkshire airline doing it’s bit to improve Anglo-French relations.

Incidently, neither this graphic or the article can be found on the French language version of Jet2’s site.

http://www.audreyhepburn.com/

Below is a poem Audrey Hepburn wrote when asked to share her “beauty tips.” It was read at her funeral years later.

* For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
* For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
* For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
* For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
* For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.

http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/

From the page: “TaxationWeb is a free database of UK tax information for accountants and the general public.”

http://members.tripod.com/keesstam/palmermain.html

Harry Palmer was a gritty, down-to-earth alternative to the super-spy image of the ’60s. And, although the Bond craze was in full swing when the Ipcress File premiered, audiences found Palmer appealing.

Michael Caine says,”Maybe because Harry represents us, all of us. He’s not like some giant superman…like James Bond. What he was, was a government guy who went out into danger where we would never dare to go. But he was ordinary, like us, and also seemed like a loser, but he wins. So I think when you’re in the audience, you do identify with him tremendously, which makes for great suspense, because you’re worried about what’s going to happen to him.”