Saturday, July 31, 2010
Photo Hunt: Public
Friday, July 30, 2010
Excellent Pitch for Money
Skywatch Friday
Despite being still in winter there are blue skies and many colourful flowers and blossoms around here in South Australia.
More nice skies at Skywatch Friday
Thursday, July 29, 2010
I am waiting for the male version . Where do Aussie Designers Get Off - What a Joke.
The costume, which will be worn by Jesinta Campbell at the competition in Las Vegas next month, features high-heeled Ugg boots, a brown one piece swimming costume hand-painted by an Aboriginal artist and a lamb's wool shrug. The ensemble is topped off by a voluminous flamenco-inspired rainbow skirt.
What to say other than Ugg boots should not be worn outside the home.
Paddy artistry is a (rice) cracker of an idea
NEARLY two decades ago, village hall clerk Koichi Hanada received an unusual request from his superior: find a way to bring tourists to this small community in rural northern Japan that has rice paddies and apple orchards but not much else.
The conscientious Mr Hanada spent months racking his brain. Then one day he saw schoolchildren planting a rice paddy as a class project. They used two varieties of rice plants - one with purplish stalks and the other with green ones. Then it struck him: why not plant the coloured varieties in such a way to form words and pictures?
Coalition Focus Group - Exclusive Footage
Tony Abbott Glee Club?
Hank Cochran Country and Western Singer and Discoverer of Willie Nelson RIP
From The Telegraph
His own personal favourite, Don't You Ever Get Tired of Hurtin' Me, an American number one for Ronnie Milsap in 1989, was covered by many other artists including Ray Price, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Jeannie Seely, Don Gibson, Jack Greene and Bobby Bare.
"People study songs and go over them and all that," said Cochran, "and they tell me that's one of the most well-written songs, but that has nothing to do with why it's my favourite. It's my favourite because it can still cut me up just like the day I wrote it."
While working at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville, Cochran discovered the future Country star Willie Nelson, whom he quickly persuaded the publishing company he worked for to hire. Nelson went on to record many Cochran compositions, such as Undo the Right, Any Old Arms Won't Do and Can I Sleep in Your Arms?
Garland Perry "Hank" Cochran was born on August 2 1935 at Isola, Mississippi. A sickly child, his parents divorced when he was nine years old, and after a spell in an orphanage he was brought up by his grandparents. His grandfather was a preacher who also filed saws for a living. By the age of 10 Hank was playing the guitar and singing in church.
When he was 12, he and an uncle hitchhiked from Mississippi to New Mexico to work in the oilfields for two years, working first as roustabouts, cleaning up after the drillers on the oil rigs, then roughnecking, drilling oil wells. In his mid-teens he moved to California, working at a department store in Los Angeles, but he was found to be under age and made to attend school.
After winning several amateur talent contests, he formed a rock and roll duo with the guitarist Eddie Cochran (no relation), billed as The Cochran Brothers. When the act disbanded, Eddie Cochran enjoyed fleeting fame as a solo performer (he died in a car accident in April 1960) while Hank Cochran moved to Nashville, writing Country & Western songs for Pamper Music, a publishing company, for $50 a week.
In 1961, with Harlan Howard, he had his first Country chart-topping hit with I Fall to Pieces, recorded by Patsy Cline, and soon had his first hit as a recording artist in his own right with Sally Was a Good Old Girl. Perhaps his best-known song was Make the World Go Away, written in 15 minutes and adopted by the singer Eddy Arnold as his signature tune.
In 1965 Arnold's recording reached number six in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Cochran's highest rated song.
He continued to compose prolifically, his songs being recorded by a host of Country & Western singers, and in 1974 was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Association's International Hall of Fame, the only writer to receive a unanimous vote.
Cochran wrote several hit songs for Burl Ives (A Little Bitty Tear, It's Just My Funny Way of Laughin' and The Same Old Hurt), George Strait (The Chair), Merle Haggard (It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)), and Mickey Gilley (That's All That Matters).
Other artists who recorded his songs included Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Bing Crosby, Emmylou Harris, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, and Nancy Sinatra. With Ray Price, Cochran became co-owner of Pamper Music, which was bought by the Sony/ATV Tree Organisation in 1989.
Slow Motion Video of Lightning (9,000 frames per second)
Famous Five Books to be Updated
Farewell to the awful swotters, dirty tinkers and jolly japes: Enid Blyton's language is being dragged out of the 1940s by her publisher in an attempt to give her books greater appeal for today's children.
Starting next month with 10 Famous Five novels, Hodder is "sensitively and carefully" revising Blyton's text after research with children and parents showed that the author's old-fashioned language and dated expressions were preventing young readers from enjoying the stories. The narrative of the novels will remain the same, but expressions such as "mercy me!" have been changed to "oh no!", "fellow" to "old man" and "it's all very peculiar" to "it's all very strange".
The intention, said Hodder, is to make the text "timeless" rather than 21st century, with no modern slang – or references to mobile phones – introduced.
"The actual stories remain the same – there's no change to the plot whatsoever," said Anne McNeil, publishing director of Hodder Children's Books. "Children who read [the Famous Five books] need to be able to easily understand the characterisations and easily to get into the plots. If the text is revised [they're] more likely to be able to engage with them."
I hope that they keep the originals. I read most of them as a child.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Man Walks Across America
Jimmy Webb
Jimmy Layne Webb (born August 15, 1946 in Elk City, Oklahoma) is an American songwriter. His compositions include "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", "Galveston" and "MacArthur Park". His songs have been recorded or performed by Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, R.E.M., and Chet Atkins, among others. According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 to 1990.[1] He is the only artist to have ever received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.[2]
It Takes Two To Tango
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla (March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with different ensembles.
I love the harsh sound of the bandoneon.
Chart Of The Day - Afghanistan: What's changed? via@colvinius
Health statistics depressing with increased access to health care and no change in under five mortality and life expectancy goes down. Childhood mortality is only just below the highest rate in Sierra Leone. By comparison Australia is 4.4. Life expectancy is also low with Afghanistan in the bottom 10. Interestingly most of the shortest life expectancies are in Africa.
Negative ad portrays Tony Abbott as a 1950's man - Election Blackout
So close to the truth.
Yet More Winter Colour in the Adelaide Southern Suburbs
Angry Kevin
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash and BEF
Glenn Campbell
Johnny Cash
British Electric Foundation
BBC Sport - Cricket - Muttiah Muralitharan reaches 800 Test wickets landmark
Unlikely to be beaten ever.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins: A life in pictures | Sport | guardian.co.uk
Ukranian Polka Band - Hot and Cold
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Even More South Australian Winter Colours
Friday, July 23, 2010
Photo Hunt Hanging
Would Tony Abbott turn back The Jumblies?
I |
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!' They called aloud, 'Our Sieve ain't big, But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig! In a Sieve we'll go to sea!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. |
II |
They sailed away in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they sailed so fast, With only a beautiful pea-green veil Tied with a riband by way of a sail, To a small tobacco-pipe mast; And every one said, who saw them go, 'O won't they be soon upset, you know! For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long, And happen what may, it's extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. |
III |
The water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in; So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In a pinky paper all folded neat, And they fastened it down with a pin. And they passed the night in a crockery-jar, And each of them said, 'How wise we are! Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, While round in our Sieve we spin!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. |
IV |
And all night long they sailed away; And when the sun went down, They whistled and warbled a moony song To the echoing sound of a coppery gong, In the shade of the mountains brown. 'O Timballo! How happy we are, When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar, And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. |
V |
They sailed to the Western Sea, they did, To a land all covered with trees, And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart, And a hive of silvery Bees. And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws, And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree, And no end of Stilton Cheese. Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. |
VI |
And in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more, And every one said, 'How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore!' And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, 'If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve,--- To the hills of the Chankly Bore!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. |
By the Light of the Silvery Moon and the Owl and the Pussycat
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, 'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!' |
II |
Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl! How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?' They sailed away, for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood With a ring at the end of his nose, His nose, His nose, With a ring at the end of his nose. |
III |
'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.' So they took it away, and were married next day By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. |
Thursday, July 22, 2010
The Australian Political System & You - How Canberra really works via @danilic
Skywatch Friday
The City of Onkaparinga is the largest urban suburb in the Adelaide metro area. This is their headquarters in Noarlunga.
More nice skies at Skywatch Friday