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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Knowing Me, Knowing You, A-Ha: 'Confuence' and Abba

Hands up if you're a big Abba fan. Mine is up and I'm guessing there's quite a few more. Though they hailed from Sweden, they really belonged to the world and were very popular in Australia in the 70's. Theirs is an intricate and towards the end, quite a bitter-sweet tale, of two married couples, who got divorced and then more or less, had to finish up one of the most successful pop bands in history.

But we're not going to talk their hit songs, rather we're going to analyse their relationships, from the perspective of the totally new concept of 'Confluence' taken from the totally new theory of life known as 'Life Cycles'. We are simply going to see if they share time in their 'significant years' (ie. 7/12/19/24/31 etc.). Now you may remember that 'Confluence' applies to romance, friendship and work, or adventure. Whatever brings people close together. So, with Abba you have a mix of romance, friendship and work, but then again this is not unusual in the music business. Anyway, down to business. Just who's 'Confluent' with whom? Well I must unfortunately tell you; Agnetha and Anni-Frid and Bjorn are all 'Confluent' with each other, but poor old Benny is the odd man out here. Now how does all this translate?

I'm just going to look at how they got together and how they split up. My next book may very well be about 'Confluence', so I may get around to greater detail then. OK, so Bjorn Ulvaeus was born 25th April, 1945 and Agnetha Faltskog was born 5th. April, 1950. That means they shared 'Confluence' almost the entire year for every second 'significant year'. The first adult example of this was in the period April, 1969 to April, 1970. What happened then? Well it was stated that in May, 1969 a 19 year-old Agnetha met a 24 year-old Bjorn during the filming of a Swedish TV Special. So they met in 'Confluence' as did Jackie and JFK. Anni-Frid Lyngstad was born 15th November, 1945, so she was also 'Confluent' with both Bjorn and Agnetha. She and Agnetha had a good chemistry at the personal level, that was part of the foundation of the group. This demonstrates the friendship side of 'Confluence'. Is this another excuse to get a good-looking photo in the story? Guilty as charged.

The two couples went on holiday together to Cyprus in April 1970 and what began as singing on the beach, ended up as a live concert for UN soldiers stationed on the island. Anni-Frid and Bjorn were both 24 and Agnetha was 19, so Abba (called Festfolk in the early days) was born in 'Confluence'. My apologies to Benny, but I will catch him later. Huge world-wide success was to follow along with marriages between the two couples. However the marriage of Bjorn and Agnetha was effectively over, before Benny and Anni-Frid finally got married, and in December, 1978 they announced their divorce. They continued to record, but it was a strain. It could be posited that Agnetha did not effectively get over the break up; as many years of isolation and therapy and other shorter relationships followed, including going out with a stalker. She was the one against an Abba reunion and apparently still could not stand to be in the same room as Bjorn. This can be the negative aspect of 'Confluence' when a relationship sours. The former empathy and support makes adjustment to life without the other loved one doubly hard.

OK, we now turn the clock forward a full twelve years from singing on the beach together. It is 1981/2. What was the tipping point in Abba's decision to split? It was undoubtedly the divorce of Benny and Frida in February, 1981. He had been having an affair with TV presenter Mona Norklit, who gave birth to his son in Jan. 1982 and he already had two children by an earlier marriage. So his relationship with Frida was of a different quality to Bjorn and Agnetha.

Both parties got over the divorce quickly and moved on to successful marriages. The lack of 'Confluence' in their relationship made it easier you see. No angst and therapy here. Abba effectively ended in early 1982 when Bjorn and Frida were 36 and Agnetha was 31. So, they began and ended in 'Confluence'; in their combined Years of 'Revolution' and 'Broken Pathways'. I could do more analysis but I think that's enough to make the case.

Till next month:- "May the cycles always bring you good fortune."

4 comments:

JerseyLilNovember 14, 2012 at 7:58 PM
Hi Neil. Abba, what fun! Yes, an Abba fan too. They were very popular in the U.S. “Waterloo” and “Knowing Me, Knowing You” are two of my favorite Abba songs. “Knowing my fate was to be with you,” a powerful line and I love the way you matched that line and their personal and professional relationship to Confluence. Theirs is a bitter-sweet tale. Watching the video of “Knowing Me, Knowing You” is haunting now when you know what later happened. There is a sadness in their eyes, especially Agnetha. I didn’t know what had happened to Agnetha after the break up, very sad. Bjorn must have really broken her heart! So that’s the negative aspect of Confluence, how it can make adjustment to life doubly hard after the relationship ends...I believe that happened to me years ago, I can relate. I need to figure out the people I have Confluence with. Very interesting how the lack of Confluence in Frida and Benny’s relationship helped both to move on quickly after the divorce. Remarkable the way you can see how the group Abba began and ended in Confluence.
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UnknownNovember 15, 2012 at 9:06 AM
Hi Jersey Lil,
Yes, and thank you for your excellent understanding of the elements of 'Confluence', that I am attempting to illustrate. What I am doing here is at the cutting edge of where my journey of discovery has led me. As always, if I can't find some degree of supporting evidence, then what I propose looks very thin. So much easier if I just said:- "Trust me. I'm a guru." However I know that I have to work hard to uncover credible case histories. Once again my thanks for your educated interest.
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Anastasia F-BDecember 21, 2012 at 2:03 PM
I don't know much about this band, Neil, but as always your model of analysis is quite fascinating.

Have a great Yule, a super Christmas and a prosperous New Year...the Maya permitting, of course. :-)
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UnknownDecember 22, 2012 at 9:15 AM
Ana,
Thank you so much and I wish the same to you and I write this on the morn of the 22nd in Sydney, where the Mayan calendar hoax has been declared officially dead by morning TV. Here's to 2013 with full confidence!
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IN WHAT WAY ARE 'THE GREAT BELZONI' AND GENE WILDER SIMILAR?

OK, Indiana Jones and Willy Wonka? Not much similarity is there? The reason I picked Gene is because he was my latest 'recent celebrity death' case study and you can read it here www.lifecyclesstory-neil-killion.blogspot.com .

Yet these two disparate individuals are linked by a common bond of amazing transformative change in their respective age 36 'Years of Revolution'. Belzoni you have already read about. Wilder's 'one day phenomenon' went like this :- "...Meanwhile the relatively untried American actor Gene Wilder would be considered somewhat left-field by comparison. His initial film role was in The Producers (1968), which was not well received by the critics and did not do well at the box office...It was clear, none-the-less, that he did not have a hit movie to his name. The stage is now set for the entrance of Gene Wilder's audition and why it could rightly be called :-'The one day that changed his life forever'.

Now I don't know when exactly this day was, but it would have been in early 1970 (ie right in the middle of his age 36 'Year of Revolution') and probably closer to April, because of all the other auditions held. When Gene walked in Mel Stuart knew right away, before he had even uttered a single word that he was meant to be Willy Wonka. When he did a reading it only served to convince him all the more. There had been an arrangement between Director Stuart and Producer David Wolper, that no offers would be made at this stage of the selection process, but once Wilder left, Stuart forgot all this. He chased him down the corridor and grabbed him by the arm, as he was about to catch the elevator, saying :- "You're doing this picture, no two ways about it! You're Willy Wonka!"

So the answer to why they are similar is now obvious. Their whole lives were both changed forever by events in one day in their age 36 'Year of Revolution'. This made their names and reputations. Because they each had a degree of fame their details are on the public record. This is the basis of my evidence and I can produce case after case after case.............

A Late Inclusion

Garry Marshall is the most recent celebrity death I have seen. The news only appeared this week. To be frank, I'd never heard of this guy before. I've come to realise that in the world of TV and the movies he was a very big name indeed, albeit as a writer/director/producer. He was principally known as the creator of the mega-popular Happy Days (and it's spin-offs Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy). Most obituaries agree it was Happy Days that made his name in the 'big league'. So let's check this out, shall we? Marshall was born November 13th, 1934, so the period we are looking at will be most of the year 1971, when he was in his all-important age 36 Year of Revolution. I'm quoting now from an article in The Guardian:-

"Marshall was asked by Paramount in 1971 to devise a sitcom set in the 20's or 30's. He said he knew nothing of these eras, but suggested the 50's instead, as it could be nostalgic and without showing the current teenage reality of alcohol and drugs. He began to write Happy Days, but the pilot episode, which did not feature the Fonz, failed to find favour...."

So even though the series proper did not commence till 1974, the concept and initial writing of the thing that made Garry's name commenced in 1971!

Impressed? Well you should be and if that's not enough for you try this. Life Cycles says we begin important new eras/directions in our lives every 12 years. So when did Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley/Mork & Mindy finish? On or around 1983 (Happy Days had a ratings slide in '83 and finished in '84). So when Marshall was aged 48 he began to concentrate on screenwriting for movies, thus beginning a second very successful career as writer/director/producer of movies such as Pretty Woman. Again this transition was not totally within his control, just as happened when he was aged 36. I liked this analysis so much I might include it in longer form in my third blog Life Cycles//Extras.

The NEW WAVE ICON

In his age 36 year (ie. 1983) he released Let’s Dance. I’ll quote from the wiki article here :-

“Bowie reached a new peak of popularity and commercial success in 1983 with Let's Dance. Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album went platinum in both the UK and the US. Let's Dance has sold at least 7 million copies worldwide, making it Bowie's best-selling album.”

This defined his career as a New Wave pop icon. Co-incidentally the whole Ziggy Stardust thing, which catapulted him to fame and created the cult of Bowie, began when he was aged 24. Personally, I was never a Bowie fan and knew almost nothing of his music career beyond a couple of his well-known songs.

A Stranger In A Strange Land

When he was 24 he was a major star of Egyptian movies, who married the leading actress, Faten Hamama. They were like the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of the Arabian world. They co-starred in a thriller called Dark Waters, which has been rated in one poll as ‘the best Egyptian movie ever made’. In the same year their son Tarek was born. When Omar was in his age 31 Year of Broken Pathways Lawrence of Arabia became a big hit making him a Hollywood A-Lister. When he was 36 he created controversy in the Arab world when he shared an on-screen kiss with Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl (it was banned in many middle-Eastern countries). He was unrepentant and became alienated from his homeland.

A Truly Progressive Woman

Egypt’s leading actress and also an advocate for women’s rights. When she was 24 she negotiated a divorce from her older first husband and married Omar Sharif, who agreed to convert to Islam. When she was in her age 31 Year of Broken Pathways she made her last film with Omar (who had just been discovered by David Lean). When she was 36, she refused to co-operate with Egyptian Intelligence Services (following the 6 day war with Israel) and lived in self-imposed exile in London. When she was 43 she released a film called I Need A Solution, which championed the rights of Muslim women to initiate divorce.

A Western In Space

Though not a recent death, my attention was drawn to the creator of Star Trek, because he was the one who orchestrated the ‘Save Star Trek’ campaign. At 24 he began his career as a commercial pilot with Pan Am and at the same time began a part-time writing course at Columbia University. At 36, he began his career as a writer of TV westerns with a seven year contract for Have Gun Will Travel. At 43, he successfully pitched to NBC the concept of a Space Western and gave it the name of Star Trek. At 48, Star Trek the TV show ends.

The X Factor

Maya was a prominent US civil rights activist. When she was 36 she had a settled life in Ghana (having moved there from the US several years ago). Her life completely changed however, when she met prominent spokesman, Malcolm Little (Malcolm X). He persuaded her to return to the US and take up the civil rights cause. When Malcolm X is gunned down soon after, her new life comes crashing down and she gives up writing. She needs family help to deal with an angry former partner from Ghana, who comes to get her back. After this is finally resolved, she resumes her writing and speaking career.

This is a classic age 36 saga, more dramatic than most and containing every element of the theory in the order in which it should happen.

The Wheel Of His Fortune

Reg was a household name in Australia because of his highly successful TV Production company. He was an entrepreneur producing and exporting many highly popular game shows (eg. Sale Of The Century) and soap operas (eg. Neighbours). He also began a US company Reg Grundy Productions selling to NBC for daytime TV.

At 24 he began his media career as a sports commentator. When he was 36 his business began when he pitched Wheel Of Fortune (his radio show) to Channel 9. Since he did not like on-air presenting, he decided to go behind the scenes and establish his own production company the Reg Grundy Organisation. This came to define his whole life. When he was 48, he married his second wife (and grand passion) Joy Chambers, She was 18 and auditioned for his game show when they met. They have publicly renewed their vows a number of times.

In other words, all the things that defined his life, as mentioned in TV coverage, were perfectly correlated with his important Life Cycles years.

Non-Stop Dancing

I only did this one because a good FB friend had mentioned his passing. I gave it scant attention…..I mean “Could I possibly get lucky again? It was starting to look ‘as easy as falling off a log’ and I know nothing in life is ever easy.” Anyways, here it is.

Last was a German composer and big band leader. At 24 he began his career as an arranger with Polydor records, as well as a number of European radio stations. He helped arrange hits for many European artists. I’ll now quote from wiki regarding his age 36 year:-

“ Last’s 1965 album, Non-Stop Dancing, was a recording of brief renditions of popular songs, all tied together by an insistent dance beat and crowd noises. It was a hit and helped make him a major European star.”

This was like the sample track my friend Alex posted as a YouTube clip. Last then went on to release 190 records and consistently used the non-stop dancing genre. He was a forerunner of the disco craze. Now I ask you :- “Is this ‘as easy as falling off a log’?”………..Maybe it is.

THINK ABOUT THIS!

Please note you are examining a complete list of all my recent celebrity death analyses. That's 20 matches out of 20 cases I have reasonably recently studied. Please note that the same unbelievable 100% match with Life Cycles Theory continues unabated.

At the same time are you getting a rough idea of the size of my back catalogue. All these life stories are fascinating in such a variety of different ways. By simply listing some out, as I have just done, it will help to keep them alive in my memory. Each in their own unique way, helps to form this now massive building block of Life Cycles evidence that I have. Hundreds of published cases and hundreds more that lie in newspaper cuttings and in my memory. It is a good job I have this almost photographic memory that let’s me (give or take) play hundreds of popular songs, covering everything from The Charleston to Miley Cyrus. It’s not exactly ‘playing by ear’ it’s more ‘playing by song structure’ and that is what I do with Life Cycles. It’s memory-based using the intricate structure that forms Life Cycles theory.

Once again I ask you a simple question :- “Am I, somewhat annoyingly, just amazingly, unbelievably lucky with all this randomly distributed data?……..OR AM I ONTO SOMETHING??" Is there an underlying structure to all lives? Why should it be so? It’s an awfully big question if you really think about it.

The Translate Button

If you are not English speaking and I know I have many FB/ Twitter/Google+ friends who aren't, then please use the Translate Button shown below.

My mission with 'Life Cycles' is simple :- to spread the word on this wonderful new and different philosophy of life as far and wide as I can.

I love to make contact with people in every corner of the globe. The fact that they tell me they enjoy my various writings only serves to underline to me the universality of 'Life Cycles'.

BTW, I always stand behind my research, so if you have a problem with any of my posts or my interpretation of events then tell me so.

I'll tell you all something for nothing :- I have gathered around 20 professional reviews for both my books and I'm still waiting for a critical word. I have generally attempted to make contact with other bloggers, who I thought might want to critique my work and possibly debunk it, and not one reply.

Do you want to know why this is? I think it's simply because to really critique my work you have to dig very deeply. It would require work.

Now you could simply say that my examples are all self-selected, but this doesn't account for the incredible results shown in the objective list of 'The Top 10 Most Influential People Of The 20th Century' in the FDR post to my left. Good luck if you can find holes in this piece of research.

Compare and contrast my disciplined, detailed and thorough work with many others in the business of self-knowledge. I have written about astrology, numerology, neuro-linguistic programming showing that they are full of holes and don't pass even the most cursory theoretical overview. This is not my work either, it is freely and copiously available on the web.

These practitioners rely on people's ignorance to propagate their success. I could write about many others too, but it would simply be too time consuming.

Now try and find one article critical of my work. I'm not saying that I can't be fairly critiqued, but if you just stick to my data (rather than trying to find your own contrary data), then it would be very, very difficult.

Yet I'm not well-known. Not famous like some others. But you can always rely on me to bring you The Truth And The Evidence and in the end that's all that matters. So enjoy, I write to entertain you and my litmus test is always whether it entertains me first. No erudite terminology, no retreating behind academic presentation. You will know I speak the truth, because it will make sense to you.

DOES DESTINY HAVE A CALENDAR? DOES FATE HAVE A TIMELINE?

As unlikely as it seems I am the first person to undertake a detailed study of this question. I didn't create this idea of a 12 year cycle underpinning all lives and the terms Year of Revolution and Year of Broken Pathways. No, they were a direct outcome of my studies.

You see I'm a psychologist and I simply wanted to satisfy my own curiosity, to see if I could validate one aspect of psychologist/author Daniel Levinson's (The Seasons Of Man's Life) work. He only focused on career life and basically split different stages of a career into 5 year blocks. I only studied the block called the "Mid-Career Identity" (around ages 35 to 40).

I did this by analysis of the biographic data of a range of managers/professionals, who had been through my company's outplacement program. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't doing anything either special or original........but little did I know I gradually opened up a ginormous can of worms.

To my surprise this strong correlation with the age 36 year happened. This was the entry to Pandora's Box. Everything I have since discovered and refined over 15+years has become the 'simple to grasp', but so intricate it resembles a DNA double helix, theory called Life Cycles.

What the theory suggests is that every 12 years we begin a new cycle with a year of upheaval that usually includes noteworthy achievements/new beginnings. Though I am no fortune teller and ascribe to people having free will, the data seems to confirm an underlying benign determinism, that is akin to 're-incarnating within our own lifetime'; beginning a new 12 year cycle that has basically the same structure and theme.

How crazy does that sound to you? It's got nothing to do with the occult or religion or even to science (though I try to be as scientifically-minded as I can). I haven't got a clue if there is any cause and I don't ascribe one, which means critics are left to say whether my case study material is thorough and well presented.

Have a good, long look at the list of 'The Top 10 Most Influential People Of The 20th Century'. This is a standard list that I had no part in constructing. You could say I'm just rather annoyingly lucky.........but how lucky would that be? Let's take the most conservative odds of hitting significant material 10/10 times for the age 36 Year of Revolution. Let's simply say it's 1 out of every 12 years each time (according to the 12 year cycle theory). I should certainly find probably 1 good match......even 2 or 3 with just pure luck.

Remember each time it's a 1 from 12 chance. So 1 match is 1 chance in 12, 2 matches are 1 chance in 12 x 12 =144 and so on.........all 10 matches amount to 1 chance in 61,917,364,224 (thanks Google!). That's close on 1 chance in 62 billion! Remember I'm just taking this list and my data (much of it being very well-known landmark events).

Then think about this very carefully.......and decide for yourself :- "Am I on to something?" Now try to find any other non-scientific approach to life's big questions and subject it to the same rigorous scrutiny.......

THE DAY THAT CHANGED ELEANOR'S LIFE

I am sometimes asked in general conversation or in presentations and interviews :- “Does your ‘Life Cycles’ theory work for women as well?” and sometimes :- “How would it work in the case of women?” When this happened the first time, I recall being perplexed and saying :- “Yes, there is no difference for women.” Later I had to qualify this by saying :- “Obviously where a woman’s life is centred around the family, the nature of the upheavals to a new age is different to those who have pursued a career. None-the-less all lives can be studied for things that have meaning for the individual.”

I confess I remain perplexed, but this same question came up only recently in general conversation. No matter that I have extensively profiled the lives of many women in my books and blogs, it is what people think. I’m going to press on and in future just give people a list of my many, many case histories…..which leads me straight to Franklin’s equally famous wife, Eleanor. You see she became known as a prominent diplomat, activist and politician. The wife of Franklin in name only after Sept. 1918. The quiet and under- confident daughter-in-law of the matriarch Sara Delano Roosevelt, who ruled the roost with her grandchildren, as well as with her and Franklin. No, just after things settled in 1919, she was none of the things that she became. It had to have a genesis somewhere?

Why does this question concern me? Well, you see, I was drawn to the fact that she was a couple of years younger than Franklin (born 11th Oct.1884) and this meant her all-important age 36 Year of Revolution (ie. Oct.1920-Oct.1921) was approaching. Would the biographic record have anything to say? Would it ever…..!

We are going now to a well-recorded moment in Franklin’s life - August 1921 (in other words when Eleanor was aged 36). The family was vacationing at Campobello when Franklin was stricken with polio, which permanently paralyzed his legs. This was to mark the beginning of a protracted battle with Sara over Franklin’s future. Sara wanted him to retire and become a country gentleman, whereas Eleanor, who always had an interest in social work and championing issues, wanted him to continue on in politics.

This proved to be a turning point in her relationship with Sara, as she gradually acquired her own public role and broke away to ‘become her own person’. Obviously she won the contest for Franklin’s future and the rest, as they say, is history. But her new age/direction, that began it all, happened when she was in her age 36 Year of Revolution. You see Life Cycles Theory applied equally well to her as it did to Franklin. This is a very high-profile example to prove my case, but it could equally happen to more ordinary lives in a myriad of different ways. I have discussed many of these cases on an anonymous basis in both books.

ELEANOR'S OTHER RELATIONSHIPS

There is no privacy for the very famous and as I have said. Eleanor’s life has been dissected from every angle. From the under-confident girl who thought she wasn’t interesting enough to hold Franklin; to the wife who confessed to her daughter Anna that she didn’t like sex (calling it “an ordeal to be borne”); to the mother who virtually ceded control of her children’s lives to her mother-in-law (she said of motherhood “it did not come to me naturally to understand little children or to enjoy them.”)

It was probably no great burden for her to cease relations with Franklin after the Lucy Mercer affair, even though she continued to “love and support him in her own way”. With her attitudes to sex and motherhood, it may come as no surprise to learn she had several very close relationships with women. This included legendary pilot Amelia Earhart. It also included a reporter Lena Hickok, who covered her in the last days of the presidential campaign. Eleanor “fell madly in love with her”, writing long love letters to her on a daily basis.

I’m not sure why, but there has been an inordinate amount of speculation as to whether they had a lesbian relationship. Let’s just say :- “where there’s smoke there’s usually fire” and in this case there was a room full of smoke. See Roosevelt biographer Blanche Weisen Cook’s 1992 account of their relationship, which got national press attention.

In addition Eleanor had a couple of reported relationships with other men. Gossip linked her to ‘New Deal’ administrator Harry Hopkins, as well as New York policeman Earl Miller, who Franklin had assigned as her bodyguard. Cook considered Miller :- “her first romantic involvement in her middle years”. Interestingly it happened at the same time as Franklin was rumoured to have begun a relationship with his secretary, Marguerite ‘Missy’ LeHand. In a 2007 biography by Smith it was said that :- “both Eleanor and Franklin recognised and encouraged the relationship…they were both strong-willed people who cared greatly for each other’s happiness but realised their own inability to provide fot it.”

Well folks they say it’s the first sign, but in a side column exclusive I’m going to interview my (more avaricious) other self about NLP.

“So Neil, I see you play a little piano from time to time.”

“Oh yes Neil, it’s been my hobby and strong interest for years, as you know.”

“And I’ve heard you refer to yourself as ‘The Poor Man’s Billy Joel’”

“Well that’s just a joke really. I have been a mildly successful amateur songwriter, but it’s never been my day job, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, but I went to this weekend seminar by Tony Robbins. He’s really huge in this Self Development field and he talked about this thingy called NLP. Stands for Neuro something or other…..”

“You mean Neuro-Linguistic Programming?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s it. Anyway, if you can just alter your mindset a bit you can become almost anything you want. It sounds fantastic. Let’s take you for instance. You know, there’s nothing stopping you from becoming really good. I mean doing concerts and getting your stuff on the radio. Hell, you might even get really big and do tours and get recording contracts and stuff……why I could even become your manager…”

“Look I hate to rain on your parade, but there is one major problem in this whole fantasy scenario you’ve built up. You see I can’t sing well. You know I’m not blessed with a good voice. On a sliding scale, I’d say I was somewhere between Tom Waits and Bob Dylan.”

“Now there you go again looking at negativity. You’ve got to believe you can. Like me for instance. I’m going fire walking soon. That’s the ultimate test. If I can walk across hot coals, I can do anything….”

“Oh, come on now. Don’t you realise that’s a take? Sure, you tippy-toe at high speed across these coals, but because you have all these dead layers of skin on the underside of your feet as protection, you can cope for a spilt second or two. Doesn’t mean you can then turn into Justin Beiber or George Clooney or Albert Einstein.”

“You’re a real wet blanket aren’t you. I got so pumped up at this seminar that I’ve decided to chuck in my job and become a public relations manager.”

“Now hold on one second! I mean you haven’t really just quit your job have you?”

“Uh, no, not just yet. I was going to do it later this week after I find out just what it is Public Relations people do”

“Well good because there’s something I want you to read. It’s on the right hand side of this very page. I mean really, you know I keep telling you to read what I write about.”

“Yes, but I’m not very good at details. I’m a big picture guy, you know I’ve got PR work written all over me…”

“Well once you read what’s on the other side of this page you might begin to think a bit differently. You see I’ve been investigating this whole Self Development industry and this NLP thing you’re all excited about and I basically found it’s ‘shot full of holes’. Now just do me a big favour and have a read and then let’s finish off our talk, OK? OK??!!”

“Aw, OK…….but you still sound like a big party pooper.”

PART TWO

“Well you finally finished reading. Took you long enough.”

“Um, yes, I got a bit distracted in the middle bit.”

“But you read all about good old Justin, didn’t you!?!”

“Er yes, I did. He sounded awfully like me didn’t he?”

“That’s why I wanted you to read it. You see he’s as real a person as you are. The only difference is I was here to stop you doing something really stupid, like chucking in your job. Otherwise you’d probably finish up just like him.”

“…….yeah. Well that’s a real downer. Now I feel all depressed with my life once again.”

“Yes, this is exactly what these dudes want you to feel like. They want you to think you failed their program because you didn’t follow through with it properly. You know, it’s your fault not theirs. Then you decide to go to another seminar or buy some more material or whatever. It’s a vicious circle isn’t it?”

“Hmmm…….well I was thinking to myself ‘it will all come good after I go firewalking’. Now I’m not even so sure about that.”

“That’s right, but listen to me. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you!’ Your life is actually pretty good if you get right down to it. And even if it wasn’t those snake oil salesmen just want your money and they’ll tell you what you want to hear…..that you can become hugely successful at just about anything.”

“OK, but that still leaves me out in the cold as regards all my daydreams.”

“Well yes I guess so, but to really change is difficult - very difficult. I’ve read that people can supposedly acquire great proficiency at a new skill, but it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours of intensive practice. That’s leaving aside any formal courses you’d need. Now I, for one, don’t want to have to practice for 10,000 hours so I can play piano like Billy Joel. Besides I’m perfectly happy with what I do.”

“Yeah well that’s just it I’m not perfectly happy with what I can do.”

“Right then this is a really good starting point for you to slowly build up to getting a new start in life. You’ve got to take that level of dissatisfaction and use it to get motivated every day. OK, I’ve got an idea to kick start this whole ‘I think I’d be good at PR’ thing of yours. I have a buddy who works at a PR company and I’ll ask him if he would meet you over a drink and talk about what he does. Does that sound good to you?”

“Sure does. Say, do I know this guy?”

“I’ll let you be surprised. But here’s the thing, did you know that most jobs are filled on what’s called the ‘hidden job market’ (ie. they’re not advertised, you just make use of your contacts and your contacts’ contacts). So, you set yourself a little task to do some homework on contacts/PR courses/general reading on PR (the webs full of that) on a daily basis. Every time you get up in the morning you say -’So what’s it gonna be today?’ “

“Say that sounds great. You’re really good at this sort of thing, why don’t you become one of those Outplacement consultant guys?”

“You know I just might. Also not only do you feel a lot better, but all this cost you how much??”

“It’s free and I love it!”

“Yes, that’s why I call it real self-development.”

A LIFE CYCLES FORENSIC EXAMINATION

There is so much said and written about this case, it is monumental. Of course, it depends on which side of politics you are as to whether you view it as the greatest "frame up" in legal history or simply the creating of a poster boy for all the communist sympathisers in Government circles (the 'pinks' if not demonstrably reds). For a really fine objectively written report on the whole matter I suggest you read the De-Classified CIA Paper at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol44no5/html/v44i5a01p.htm

To a non-US citizen the trial has a 'keystone cops' feel about it, as the star witnesses in the first 1949 trial were the typewritten papers that were supposed to be what Hiss passed to the Soviets and found hidden in a pumpkin patch (the so-called "Pumpkin Papers"). Also a star witness for the defense was Woodstock Typewriter No. 230099, as Hiss claimed not to have owned it at the supposed time of typing the letters.

I am less interested in this, however, what I want to know is whether Nixon's age 36 Year of Revolution contained a setback or controversy before a breakthrough moment that was to lead him into his so-called Golden Age of Achievement. This is basic Life Cycles Theory and for me a forensic examination is where I look for detailed evidence of both an objective (ie. what commentators/historians write about) and subjective (ie. an actual Nixon quote) nature.

WHAT WAS DIFFERENT ABOUT THE SECOND TRIAL?

The first trial judge, Samuel Kaufman, was alleged to be more favorable to the Hiss defense, than to the prosecution side orchestrated by Richard Nixon. Specifically he did not allow the testimony of a highly questionable witness named Hede Massing. When the jury remained locked at 8 votes for and 4 against a guilty verdict, it was called a hung jury. Nixon wanted those 4 dissenters to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He wanted to see them indicted.

Forgetting the morality of this for a moment I hope you can see just how personally frustrating this hung jury was to a go-getter like Nixon. He had defied the President and the weight of press opinion and staked his claim on getting a result. He was being fed information by the FBI under Hoover and he did have some reasonable evidence in spite of the main prosecution witness, Whittaker Chambers, making a very underwhelming courtroom presentation. No, this was was definitely a setback and a low point for 'Tricky' Dick. By July, 1949 things did not look good.

OK, that's the first half of the equation, now the big question is :- "In what way, was the second trial (begun in Nov.) different from the first?" How did Nixon fight back? What did he have to say about things? This time it was under a different judge, Henry W. Goddard with a different defense attorney. There was a greater latitude given to each side to introduce additional witnesses. All the earlier witnesses simply repeated their stories, so the outcome would rest with the two new entrants - for the defense it was Dr. Carl Binger (a psychiatrist who would allege the shambolic Whittaker Chambers was a psychopathic liar) and Hede Massing (a Soviet spy who would allege that she knew Hiss and that he had tried to recruit another spy named Noel Field from her ring to his own).

In a brilliant cross-examination the prosecution attorney Thomas Murphy destroyed Binger's reputation. It's a rivetting piece of courtroom drama :- One commentator said admiringly, "Mr. Murphy just wanted plain answers to plain questions--about the most alarming assignment anyone would wish on a psychiatrist." Murphy, through his questions, suggested that the label "psychopathic personality" was useless and empty catch-all of a lot of symptoms.

Noting, for example, that Binger had concluded that the tendency of Chambers to look up at the ceiling from the witness chair was a symptom of a psychopathic personality, Murphy asked what should be made of the fact that Murphy's assistant prosecutor had counted Binger eyeing the ceiling fifty times in less than an hour of his own testimony.

Murphy asked about another alleged symptom of Chambers's psychopathic personality: his "untidiness" and lack of concern about his appearance. Murphy wondered whether other famous persons well-known for untidiness or haphazard dress, such as Albert Einstein, Bing Crosby, and Thomas Edison, were, therefore, psychopaths?

Murphy countered Binger's argument that the equivocations of Chambers during his testimony was a sign of a psychopathic personality by quizzing the doctor about what conclusion one should draw from 158 equivocations by Alger Hiss in his 550 pages of testimony. Murphy also attacked Binger's conclusion that hiding microfilm in a pumpkin was indicative of a psychopathic personality. Murphy asked whether that meant other famous hidings, including "the mother of Moses hiding the little child in the bulrushes," was symptomatic of a serious personality disorder?

Then, of course, Hede Massing (who it reasonably can be said had never met with Hiss) gave her version of him just being like a fellow Soviet agent, who recruits others in the State Dept. As well as all this additional negative evidence world events had changed much for the worse between July and Nov. The Soviet Union had exploded an atom bomb, Mao Tse Tung had driven Chaing Kai-sheck back to Formosa and public attitudes were shifting to harsher treatment of US communists.

'Tricky' Dick decided to exploit all this to the full both earlier on and during the second trial. Let's hear from him regarding the infamous "Pumpkin Papers" :- "I am holding in my hand a microfilm of the most confidential, highly secret StateDepartment documents" conclusively establishing "one of the most serious, if not the most serious series of treasonable activities which has been launched against the Government in the history of America." The next day, with Nixon's charge on the front pages of major newspapers, the grand jury indicted Hiss. "I played it in the press like a master," Nixon boasted 25 years later. "We won the Hiss case in the papers.... I leaked out the [Pumpkin] papers.... I had Hiss convicted before he ever got to the grand jury."

Yes, the conviction of Hiss for Perjury on 21st. Jan. 1950 was truly the making of Nixon and could be said to have "ushered in his Golden Age" in terms of Life Cycles Theory.

I finally want to observe that Dr. Carl A. Binger has just given the strangest set of indicators for a supposed psychopathic personality, as I can imagine. Why can I say this? Well, my first position as a psychologist after graduation was in a maximum security prison, where I assessed and dealt with a whole range of convicted felons for whom the tag ‘psychopath’ was used. I have not only studied the literature, but I have researched and published a paper on the sub-scales of a well-known psychological profile that constitute ‘the psychopathic/sociopathic personality’ and have used the scale to measure anti-social behaviour inside/outside prison (theft/assault of other inmates/breach of parole/recidivism etc.).

Nowhere have I ever read or observed that things like :- “staring at the ceiling” (presumably distractedness), general untidiness, equivocation and hiding things correlates with a psychopathy, any more than many other things might. The one central underlying symptom is an inability to have meaningful relationships with others. They fail to show any empathy. They use superficial charm to gain the trust of their victims and they lie compulsively. Now Whittaker Chambers could have been effectively grilled over many of his activities as a spy and a homosexual, not to mention the way he changed his story on the “Pumpkin Papers”. The fact that the micro-film hadn’t been put in a pumpkin in his garden years ago, it had been put there just before it’s discovery. Instead what we see is high farce played out within the rules of cross-examination.

So many books and narratives were written on the Hiss Trial and the way I see it is they are determined to either prove he (or really his wife) did re-type State papers and pass them on to Chambers (who they knew under another name) or they didn’t. No-one seems to have zeroed in on the complete mishandling of the second trial. The truth is Hede Massing lied about her meeting with Hiss and the therefore the conversation that she reported showing him to be known Soviet spy.

I’ll finish with an actual Nixon quote from his Watergate days, which we are about to visit. "You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere." —President Richard Nixon, giving advice to a political associate. Well yes, so far, the casting of as many aspersions as you can manufacture got Nixon, the political rookie, a long way. When he was 36, it was his turn to be on top. Why would he ever think that one day it would all come back and ‘bite him on the bum‘ ?!

GOOGLE IS A FASCINATING COMPANY!!

Originally known as BackRub, Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a friend's garage while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University. It has since grown to become the world's biggest search engine, and the name Google has become synonymous with search.

With the help of digital agencies TH_NK and Mindshare, The Telegraph has compiled a list of 15 weird and wonderful facts about the technology giant:

1. Google was named thanks to the misspelling of the word googol, which means a one followed by one-hundred zeros.

2. Google's first ever Tweet in February 2009 read: "I'm 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010." For anyone not fluent in binary, it reads: "I'm feeling lucky."

3. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which bypasses the results page and takes users directly to the first result of their search, is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. It has been estimated to cost Google around $100 million in lost advertising revenue every year.

4. Google rents out goats from a company called California Grazing to help cut down the amount of weeds and brush at Google HQ. The operation of 200 goats (plus herder and a border collie) is kind to the environment, and as Google puts it: "A lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.

5. Google loves food. Brin and Page have said that no Googler should ever be more than 100 feet from a micro-kitchen with snacks and food. The first chef that Google employed earned $26 million from his stock options.

6. The first Google doodle was a Burning Man symbol. Page Brin went to the Burning Man festival in 1998 and added the doodle to let users know they were away from the office that weekend.

7. The main reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the return key was the only way kick-start the search function.

8. At Google HQ there are a number of peculiar sights including a gigantic T-Rex skeleton – nicknamed "Stan" after a "real" dino found nearby – that looms menacingly at Googlers in Mountain View. There is also a scale replica of the SpaceShipOne, enormous Android-themed models, pink flamingos, a large LEGO man, Google-coloured phone boxes and grown-up size ball pits.

9. Google advocates bringing dogs to work and there is even a “company dog” called Yoshka. Yoshka accompanies Urs Holzle, senior VP operations and Google Fellow to the Googleplex.

10. Some core Google services went down recently for 5 mins, causing worldwide internet traffic to drop off by a pretty huge 40 per cent.

11. New employees, called Noogles, are initiated by having to wear a propeller beanie cap on their first Friday.

12. Until recently, Google employees were encouraged to use 20 per cent of their time working on their own projects. However, the innovative management technique – which gave rise to some of Google's biggest projects including AdSense, Gmail, Google Transit, Google News and Google Talk – has now been sidelined, according to sources.

13. Two searches on Google produces about 14g of CO2, or the same amount as boiling a kettle, according to a Harvard University academic. However, Google disputes this and say it’s closer to 0.2g (or 0.003kWh) per search.

14. If you go to www.google.co.uk/settings/ads you can see all the interest categories that Google have put you in based on your search history and browsing behaviours.

15. Company corporate philosophies include "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."

“Google's contribution to the world is truly awesome. Not in the popularised version of the word, but in the etymological definition of 'that which inspires awe or terror'. They're living proof and inspiration that a single business can have a transformative impact on, not just a business sector but, how billions of people fundamentally live their lives… and still find time to add charming touches like the Google Doodle," said Ramzi Yakob, strategist at digital agency TH_NK.

"Its early days of setting the golden standard for searching for stuff online never even hinted at what it may, one day, become. With fingers in, what seems like, every conceivable pie, it has changed the shape of the mobile industry, led the charge on a proposed 'renewable energy tariff' and is pretty close to innovating and lobbying driverless cars into reality.

"With 45,000 people in their employ, there's no one person or small set of people that could take credit for this, and this is where a lesson for our industry, perhaps, lies. Should we look to icons, like Steve Jobs, for leadership inspiration to expertly craft a product? Or would we be better served by studying, and fostering a business culture that gives us license to creatively, and intelligently solve any problem that we feel passionate about?”

THE MAYWEATHERS WERE A WILD BUNCH ALRIGHT!

It all started when Floyd Jr. was a toddler and his last name was still Sinclair. In a well-documented story, Floyd Mayweather Sr. recalled a day in Grand Rapids when there was a confrontation with a brother-in-law, Tony Sinclair.

Mayweather Sr. wanted him to leave the house, saying he had overstayed his welcome. Tony Sinclair left and returned with a loaded rifle. Mayweather Sr. said he had his son in his arms when Tony Sinclair busted through a door. Mayweather said he looked up and saw the barrel of the weapon pointed into his eyes. Mayweather Jr.’s mom begged him to give her the child, according to Mayweather Sr. But he wouldn’t, he said. Sinclair shifted the rifle’s aim, lowered it to his left leg and fired, said Mayweather Sr., who has a nasty scar for proof.

There was chaos then and more of it later. Mayweather moved around, from address to address.

“We set up a place in his mom’s basement,” Hale said. “He lived there for about three months.”

The boy lived with his grandmother. He lived with Hale. Mostly, he lived in the gym. It was the one place he knew and could control with skill and instinct already evident.

THE FAMILY ANGST OVER HEAD TRAINER

The question of the day to Floyd Mayweather Jr. was: Who is his main trainer?

“Why put a label on it?” Mayweather Jr. advisor Leonard Ellerbe asked.

“I’m not assistant anything,” Mayweather Jr.’s uncle and longtime trainer, Roger Mayweather, said. “I train my nephew.”

Mayweather Jr. said: “We’re a family. We go through a lot of life. At the end of the day, he’s my father. My dad’s going to work my corner.”

When the 43-0 fighter completed training at his Las Vegas gym Tuesday night in preparation for his May 4 welterweight title defense against Robert Guerrero at the MGM Grand, he repeated his change from uncle to father to a television interviewer.

Floyd Mayweather Sr. beamed.

“You heard it,” Mayweather Sr. said. “I already told you that, anyway.”

Mayweather Jr. explained Tuesday that due to what he considered excessive punishment received in his most recent bout – a May 2012 unanimous-decision victory over Miguel Cotto – he wanted to reunite with the man who taught him to box in the first place.

“A fighter has to be ready,” Mayweather Jr. said. “The trainer gives his thoughts about the best game plan. It’s then up to the fighter to execute.”

Mayweather Sr. said he’s reemphasized the staple of his son’s unbeaten career: defense.

“The less punches you take, the longer your career lasts,” Mayweather Sr. said as his son sweated through a workout that included jumping rope with ankle weights on.

“You build the legs up and dance, dance, dance for as long as you can to not get hit,” Mayweather Sr. said. “It’s not slugging. It’s boxing. Yes, he’s older,” now 36, “but he’ll still find a way out. He still wants to find a way to not absorb those punches. His feet will be light.”

1. Thanks to a coin toss, Orville was the first brother airborne.
The brothers tossed a coin to see who would first test the Wright Flyer on the sands of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Older brother Wilbur won the toss, but his first attempt on December 14, 1903, was unsuccessful and caused minor damage to the aircraft. Three days later, Orville, in coat and tie, lay flat on his stomach on the plane’s lower wing and took the controls. At 10:35 a.m., the Wright Flyer moved down the guiding rail with Wilbur running alongside to balance the delicate machine. For 12 seconds, the aircraft left the ground before touching down 120 feet away in the soft sands. The brothers exchanged turns at the controls three more times that day, and each flight covered an increasing distance with Wilbur’s final flight lasting nearly a minute and covering a distance of 852 feet.

2. A toy launched their flying obsession.
When the brothers were youngsters in 1878, their father returned home one evening with a gift that he tossed into the air. “Instead of falling to the floor, as we expected,” the brothers recalled in a 1908 magazine article, “it flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor.” The model helicopter made of cork, bamboo and paper and powered by a rubber band mesmerized the boys and sparked their passion for aviation.

3. Neither brother received a high school diploma.
Wilbur finished four years of high school, but the family moved from Richmond, Indiana, to Dayton, Ohio, before he could receive his diploma. Orville, although intellectually curious, dropped out of high school before his senior year to launch a printing business.

4. The Wright brothers once printed a daily newspaper together.
Wilbur eventually joined Orville’s printing business, and in 1889 the brothers began to publish a weekly newspaper, the West Side News. The following year, they published a short-lived daily newspaper, The Evening Item. In 1892 they switched gears and opened the Wright Cycle Company, a successful bicycle repair and sales shop that financed their flying experiments.

5. The brothers never married.
The tight-knit brothers, born four years apart, were wedded to their work; Wilbur told reporters that he didn’t have time for both a wife and an airplane.

6. The Wright brothers flew together just one time.
Orville and Wilbur had promised their father, who feared losing both sons in an airplane accident, they would never fly together. The father made a single exception, however, on May 25, 1910, and allowed the brothers to share a six-minute flight near Dayton with Orville piloting and Wilbur the passenger. After landing, Orville took his 82-year-old father on his first and only flight. As Orville gained elevation, his excited father cried out, “Higher, Orville, higher!”

7. After the first day airborne, the 1903 Wright Flyer never flew again.
The brothers made four flights in the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, and as Orville and Wilbur stood discussing the final flight, a sudden strong gust of wind caught hold of the aircraft and flipped it several times. The aircraft sustained such heavy damage to its ribs, motor and chain guides that it was beyond repair. The Wright Flyer was crated back to Dayton and never flew again.

8. Orville was involved in the first fatal aviation accident.
After their success in 1903, the Wright brothers continued their aircraft development. They marketed their two-passenger Wright Military Flyer to the U.S. Army, which required a demonstration. On September 17, 1908, Orville took to the air for a demonstration flight at Fort Myer, Virginia, with Army Signal Corps Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as a passenger. Just a few minutes into the flight, the propeller suddenly disintegrated, the aircraft spiraled out of control and it smashed into the ground at full speed. Rescuers pulled an unconscious Selfridge from the wreckage, and the lieutenant died hours later. Orville was hospitalized for six weeks after suffering a broken leg, four broken ribs and a back injury that impaired him for the rest of his life.

1903 Wright Flyer in the Smithsonian

9. For decades, Orville refused to donate the Wright Flyer to the Smithsonian Institution.
The 1903 Wright Flyer is one of the most popular exhibits at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, but for decades Orville refused to donate the aircraft to the national institution. In 1914, the Smithsonian attempted to restore the reputation of its former secretary Samuel Langley—whose experiments with his Langley Aerodrome ended in failure nine days before the Wright brothers first left the ground—by altering the aircraft and then concluding it was the first machine “capable” of manned flight. A furious Orville loaned the Wright Flyer overseas to the London Science Museum in 1925, believing it to be “the only way of correcting the history of the flying machine, which by false and misleading statements has been perverted by the Smithsonian Institution.” After the Smithsonian admitted in the 1940s to misrepresenting the Langley Aerodrome, Orville agreed to donate the aircraft to the institution. It finally arrived at the Smithsonian in 1948, nearly a year after Orville’s death.

10. Neil Armstrong carried a piece of the Wright Flyer with him to the moon.
When another aeronautical pioneer from Ohio, Neil Armstrong, became the first man to step foot on the moon in 1969, inside his spacesuit pocket was a piece of muslin fabric from the left wing of the original 1903 Wright Flyer along with a piece of wood from the airplane’s left propeller.

ANDREW ELLICOTT'S LETTER

Philadelphia, Feby 23, 1792
Gentlemen,
On my arrival at this City, I found that no preparation was made for an engraving of the plan of the City of Washington. Upon this representation being made to the President and Secretary of State, I was directed to furnish one for an engraver, which with the aid of my Brother, was completed last Monday and handed to the President.
In this business we met with difficulties of a very serious nature. Major L'Enfant refused us the use of theoriginal! What his motives were, God knows. - The plan which we have furnished, I believe will be found to answer the ground better than the large one in the Major's hands. - I have engaged two good artists (both americans) to execute the engraving, and who will begin the work as soon as the president comes to a determination respecting some small alterations, In several conversations which I have had with the President and Secretary of State on the subject of the City of Washington, I have constantly mentioned the necessity of system in the execution of the business without which, there can be neither economy, certainty, nor decision. The Major has both a lively fancy and decision, but unfortunately no system, which render the other qualifications much less valuable, or in some cases useless. I suspect that measures are now taken, which will either reduce the Major to the necessity of submitting to the legal arrangements, or deserting the City....

I am gentlemen with great respect your Hbl. Sevt.
Andrew Ellicott
to Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll and
David Stuart, Esqs.

Let's Debunk Another Conspiracy!

This is an excerpt taken from Rational Wiki :-

The Washington, D.C. street layout is the subject of much conspiracy theory, usually asserting the Freemasons or the Illuminati designed the street layout of Washington, D.C. to deliberately incorporate occult symbols, including an inverted pentagram with the bottom pointing directly at the White House.

Ed Decker (an anti-Masonic Christian) writes this: "The satanic pentagram under which the White House sits is an open door through which Satan has access to our president."......

NOW THE DEBUNK

The claims about the D.C. street layout are easily refuted just by looking at an actual map of the city. Conspiracy literature will show Rhode Island Ave., Vermont Ave., Massachusetts Ave., Connecticut Ave., and K Street making up five lines of a pentagram. A look at the actual street map shows that Vermont and Connecticut Avenues do not extend south of K street so there is no point below that, and ergo, no bottom point of any pentagram pointing at the White House. Further, Rhode Island Ave. does not extend west of Connecticut Ave. so not only does this alleged "pentagram" not have five points, it doesn't even have four. It is purely the product of someone's overactive imagination.

As to whether Masonic symbols such as the square and compass can be found in the street layout, this would seem to be conceivably possible given that many of the Founding Fathers were Freemasons. In actuality, the city's street layout was designed by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a French-born architect appointed by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to design the city. L'Enfant's design somewhat resembled that of Karlsruhe, Germany. But even if Freemasonry was an influence on the street layout, so what? Most street intersections everywhere resemble a Christian cross - is this evidence of a Christian conspiracy to control the world?

DID YOU KNOW?

10 Unusual Facts About the National Mall in Washington DC

If you visit Washington DC, you are almost certain to visit the National Mall in the capital of the United States. The most familiar portion of the Mall stretches from the Capital Building, past the Washington Monument and ends at the Lincoln Memorial. The length of this portion of the National Mall from point to point is nearly 2 miles.

Here are 10 unusual facts about the National Mall

1) Some claim that the back of Abraham Lincoln’s head of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial is actually is a face of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

2) Also on the statue of Lincoln, many suggested that the positioning of Lincoln’s hands were such as it formed the American Sign Language (ASL) letters “A” and “L”. However the sculptor Daniel Chester French maintained that the rumors concerning the back of the head and the hands were false.

3) The Washington Monument sways about .125th of an inch in winds of 30 miles per hour.

4) The Capitol Building is the 4th tallest masonry dome in the world, surpassed by only St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and St. Issac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

5) The United States Capitol has its own underground subway line that connects the Capitol to the House and Senate office buildings.

6) The Korean Memorial is the first stainless steel memorial erected in Washington DC.

7) A rock from the Moon is on display for visitors to touch at the National Air and Space Museum.

8) The largest protest rally at the Great Mall took place on October 15, 1969 in protest of the Viet Nam War.

9) The Beach Boys and other Rock and Roll bands were banned from performing Independence Day concerts because Ronald Regan’s Secretary of the Interior, James G. Watt suggested that these bands encouraged drug and alcohol use and attracted the “wrong element” to the Mall.

10) The Washington Monument was cracked in four places from a rare earthquake on Tuesday, August 23, 2011.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT FORDS

Ford has had a significant impact on the automotive industry since they first started rolling out cars110 years ago. As one of the oldest car manufacturers, Ford has a rich history, filled with interesting facts that you may not know.

Check out these interesting Ford facts to learn more about what makes your Ford part of a brand treasured by car owners for decades.

1. Ford is the second largest family owned company in the world. Henry Ford’s great grandson, William Clay Ford, Jr. currently resides as the company’s executive chairman.
2. The very first Ford sold was to Dr. Pfennig in 1903, for a grand total of $850. The “Model A” had a 2-cylinder engine, and could reach a max speed of 30 mph
3. Ford’s current CEO, William Clay Ford, Jr., or Bill Ford, currently owns the first Ford vehicle ever sold in 1903.
4. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were lifelong friends. As requested by Ford, Thomas Edison’s son captured Edison’s last exhale in a test tube and sealed it with a cork. Ford kept the tube as a memorial to Edison’s “life and breath.”
5. Ford’s signature blue, oval logo was not introduced until 4 years after the company had already been in production.
6. In 1914 Ford offered its employees double the current market average, creating Henry Ford’s “$5-a-day.” The new salary, accompanied by a shorter working day and company profit sharing, minimized employee turnover, and was significant in growing the middle class and fair wages movement. Henry Ford was quoted saying he wanted to help his workers to a “life” not just a “living.”
7. In 1964, after Ford debuted the Mustang, 94,000 pedal-powered toy mustangs were bought for children the following Christmas season.
8. In 1965, a Ford Mustang was transported in 4 separate pieces to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, using resident elevators, where it was reassembled and photographed by helicopter. The car was later reassembled inside the building, until it was eventually taken apart and removed from the building 5 months later.
9. The only car that Jim Morrison, legendary Doors singer, ever owned was a 1967 Shelby GT 500.
10. Chevrolet actually used a Ford SuperDuty to set up their Chevy Truck display at the Texas State Fair in 2012.
11. When former President Gerald Ford was describing his no-nonsense, style of governing, he was quoted as saying, “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln,” comparing President Lincoln’s eloquence with Lincoln, the luxury car company owned by Ford Motor Company.
12. Ford F-Series has been consistently ranked as the #1 selling car in America so far in 2013.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT HENRY

If Henry Ford were still around for his 150th birthday (July 30), he'd probably be exhausted of people talking about the Model T or his development of the assembly line. So, in honor of the inventor hitting the century-and-a-half mark, here are some lesser-known facts about one of the most recognizable names in the automobile industry.

1. When he a young man, Ford repaired watches for his friends and family—and he made his own tools to do it. He used a filed shingle nail as a screwdriver and a corset stay as tweezers.

2. Ford became Chief Engineer of the Edision Illuminating Company's main plant in 1893, and was on-call 24 hours a day to keep Detroit's electricity running. He left the position 6 years later—with Edison's encouragement to work on his plans for a gasoline automobile.

3. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson convinced Ford to run for a seat on the Senate as a Democrat. Ford obliged, sending a letter to the President saying, “If they want to elect me let them do so, but I won't make a penny's investment." He didn’t spend a cent campaigning and still only lost by 4500 votes.

4. Long before Colonial Williamsburg, Ford tried to turn Sudbury, Massachusetts' Wayside Inn—where Longfellow penned Tales of a Wayside Inn—into a living museum of American history. He purchased the Inn, and 3000 surrounding acres, in 1923, and built eight buildings on it including a working grist mill.

5. In 1926, Henry Ford bought the Redstone School House in Sterling, Massachusetts. Ford claimed the school house was the one mentioned in nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and moved the building to his property in Sudbury.

6. Ford backed up his claims that the school house was the real deal by publishing a book:The Story of Mary and Her Little Lamb and Ford Ideals. Ford converted the building, which was being used for storage, back into a proper school: Classes were taught at the Redstone School House until 1951.

7. During a 1928 interview with the Detroit Times’ George Sylvester Viereck, Ford expanded on his religious thoughts, owing his strokes of brilliance to a “Master Mind”: “Somewhere is a Master Mind sending brain wave messages to us. There is a Great Spirit. I never did anything by my own volition. I was pushed by invisible forces within and without me.”

8 Using wood scraps from his plants, Ford found he could make charcoal briquettes. When Ford’s brother-in-law E.G. Kingsford brokered the site selection for Ford’s charcoal manufacturing plant, Ford named the company Kingsford Charcoal in his honor.

9. During World War I, Ford tried his hand in the aviation business and started the Ford Airplane Company. The U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission recognized Ford as a pioneer of aviation in 2002, but the Ford Airplane Division shut down in 1933 due to lackluster sales.

10. In Aldous Huxley's dystopian society of Brave New World, the world dates its years asAnnum Fordum, or "Year of Our Ford." Huxley's characters also use Henry's name as "Our Ford" instead of "Our Lord."

IMAGINE THEY JUST INVENTED A BOOK TODAY!!

BOOK
Announcing the new Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge device (BOOK). It's a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on.

It's so easy to use even a child can operate it. Just lift its cover. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -- even sitting in an armchair by the fire -- yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disk.

Here's how it works: Each BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. These pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence. By using both sides of each sheet, manufacturers are able to cut costs in half. Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet. The BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it. The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward or backward as you wish. Most come with an "index" feature, which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.

An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open the BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session -- even if the BOOK has been closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers. Portable, durable and affordable, the BOOK is the entertainment wave of the future, and many new titles are expected soon, due to the surge in popularity of its programming tool, the Portable Erasable-Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus (referred to by the acronym PENCILS to those in the trade).

SOME INTERESTING FACTS

The technology behind the Internet began back in the 1960’s at MIT. The first message ever to be transmitted was LOG.. why? The user had attempted to type LOGIN, but the network crashed after the enormous load of data of the letter G. It was to be a while before Facebook would be developed…
The Internet began as a single page at the URLhttp://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html, which contained information about this new-fangled “WorldWideWeb” project, and how you too could make a hypertext page full of wonderful hyperlinks. Sadly, the original page was never saved, but you can view it after 2 years of revisions here.
The first emoticon is commonly credited to Kevin Mackenzie in 1979, but was a rather simple -) and didn’t really look like a face. 3 years later,
```
 :-)
```
was proposed by Scott Fahlman and has become the norm.
The first webcam was deployed at Cambridge University computer lab – its sole purpose to monitor a particular coffee maker and hence avoid wasted trips to an empty pot.
Google estimates that the Internet today contains about 5 million terabytes of data (1TB = 1,000GB), and claims it has only indexed a paltry 0.04% of it all! You could fit the whole Internet on just 200 million Blu-Ray disks.
Speaking of search – One THIRD of all Internet searches are specifically for pornography. It is estimated that 80% of all images on the Internet are of naked women.
According to legend, Amazon became the number one shopping site because in the days before the invention of the search giant Google, Yahoo would list the sites in their directory alphabetically!
The first ever banner ad invaded the Internet in 1994, and it was just as bad as today. The ad was part of AT&Ts “you will” campaign, and was placed on the HotWired homepage.
Of the 247 BILLION email messages sent every day, 81% are pure spam.
Twenty hours of video from around the world are uploaded to YouTube every minute. The first ever YouTube video was uploaded on April 23rd 2005,by Jawed Karim (one of the founders of the site) and was 18 seconds long, entitled “Me at the zoo”. It was quite boring, as is 99% of the content on YouTube today.

Q: Why don't Buddhists vacuum in the corners?

A: Because they have no attachments.

So, I hear reincarnation is making a comeback.

Q: Why are politicians proof of reincarnation?

A: You just can't get that screwed up in one lifetime.

Q. What did the Buddhist say to the sandwich vendor at the ball game?

A. Make me one with everything!

After the man received his sandwich, he gave the vendor a $20 bill. The vendor just smiled. The man, infuriated, demanded, "Where is my change."

The vendor replied, "O, one with everything, change comes from within."

Q. What did the Buddhist tell the door-to-door salesperson who came to his home selling vacuum cleaners?

A. Too many attachments!

Q: Did you hear about the new low-fat religion?

A: "I Cant Believe Its Not Buddha"

Q: What happens when a Buddhist becomes totally absorbed with the computer he is working with?

A: He enters Nerdvana.

Q. What did the sign in the monastery searching for new monks say? A. Inquire within!

Q: How many Zen buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Three -- one to change it, one to not-change it and one to both change- and not-change it.

The Master: I've never met someone so thoughtless in my life. Keep up the good work.

The desciple: Thank you Master I didn't believe in reincarnation the last time, either.

I hear the Dalai Lama recently fired his gardener, who had a degree in carnations but didn't dig reincarnations.

My karma ran over my dogma....

Meditation Two men meet on the street. One asks the other: "Hi, how are you?"

The other ones replies: "I'm fine, thanks." "And how's your son? Is he still unemployed?"

"Yes, he is. But he is meditating now."

"Meditating? What's that?"

"I don't know. But it's better than sitting around and do nothing!" Birthday What did one Buddhist Master give to the child for his birthday?

Nothing wrapped in Emptiness.

How did the birthday child respond?

You are thoughtless for giving me this meaningless gift.

To which the Buddhist Master replied, "Thank you."

Wise Teacher One zen student said, "My teacher is the best. He can go days without eating."

The second said, "My teacher has so much self control, he can go days without sleep."

The third said, "My teacher is so wise that he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired."

Two Boys A Catholic boy and a Buddhist boy were talking and the Catholic boy said, "My priest knows more than your Buddha."

The Buddhist boy said, "Of course he does, you tell him everything." Religious Shit

Taoism Shit happens.

Buddhism If shit happens, it's not really shit.

Islam If shit happens, it's the will of Allah.

Protestantism Shit happens because you don't work hard enough. Judaism Why does this shit always happen to us?

Hinduism This shit happened before.

Catholicism Shit happens because you're bad.

Hare Krishna Shit happens rama rama.

T.V. Evangelism Send more shit.

Atheism No shit.

Jehova's Witness Knock knock, shit happens.

Hedonism There's nothing like a good shit happening.

Christian Science Shit happens in your mind.

Agnosticism Maybe shit happens, maybe it doesn't.

Rastafarianism Let's smoke this shit.

Existentialism What is shit anyway?

Stoicism This shit doesn't bother me.

Notes From A London Exhibition On Ian Fleming

The man who created James Bond was an obsessive womanizer, drinker and smoker whose excesses shortened his life.
Ian Fleming was also a brilliant journalist and wartime intelligence expert whose private memorandums during his years at the British Admiralty helped pave the way for the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States.

The venerable museum is in unusual territory: by necessity, fiction and fact are constantly brushing against each other in For Your Eyes Only, a remarkable exhibition celebrating the centenary of the birth of the man who launched an international phenomenon in 1953 with the publication of his first Bond novel in 1953.

That novel was Casino Royale. “You can’t publish this!” a scandalized former girlfriend warned him after reading Fleming’s potent mixture of sadism and sex. “If you must publish it, for heaven’s sake, do it under another name.”

But Fleming did publish it — under his own name — and Agent 007 was born.

We can see the original manuscript of Casino Royale, the fading typescript covered with Fleming’s own meticulous pen-and-ink corrections, and the simple desk and chair at which he wrote all 14 books. Both items of furniture were located in the master bedroom at Goldeneye, his beloved Jamaican retreat. We even see the painting, by friend and neighbour Noel Coward, of Goldeneye’s spectacular beach.

The exhibition, which is devoted to the life and work of the man who created the world’s most famous secret agent, is full of such personal touches. For example, we learn he was forced to write in the bedroom because he and Ann Fleming were constantly entertaining house guests who were too much of a distraction for an author committed to delivering a new novel every year.

Forty-four years after Fleming’s death, his physical presence lingers wraithlike over the exhibition — in the photos and flickering black-and-white television images of that cruel sardonic face, in the old recordings of that plummy voice, even in the glass display case containing his favourite dinner jacket, cufflinks, bow tie and cigarette holder.

The curators don’t gloss over the man’s flaws — particularly when it comes to a sex life that was as lively as that given his fictional alter ego.

Leave Your Answer In The Comments Section And I'll Tell You How You Went.

1. The role eventually went to Sean Connery, but who was James Bond creator Ian Fleming’s first choice to play Bond in Dr. No? (1962)

2. Which film marked the first appearance of Bond’s Aston Martin DB5?

3. What was the only Bond theme to top the Billboard Hot 100?

4. What writer (most famous for his children’s books) wrote the screenplay for You Only Live Twice (1967)?

5. What famous line does Daniel Craig not utter in Quantum of Solace (2008)?

6. Who performed the theme song for Live and Let Die (1973)?

7. What Bond film was the last film seen by U.S. president John F. Kennedy?

8. Israel’s 1976 operation to rescue hostages at Entebbe airport in Uganda was named after which Bond movie?

9. What is the only movie in the Bond series to feature a woman’s name as the title of the film?

10. Which Bond actress married a future Bond while filming For Your Eyes Only? (1981)

11. Roger Moore’s daughter, Deborah, appears as a British Airways hostess in which movie?

12. The role went to Timothy Dalton, but who was the first choice to play Bond in The Living Daylights? (1987)

13. What actress briefly played Bond’s wife in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service(featuring George Lazenby in his one and only performance as James Bond)?

14. In Diamonds are Forever (1971), this red-headed actress was the first Bond girl to be portrayed by an American.

15. What unique body feature does Christopher Lee’s villain Scaramanga possess inThe Man With the Golden Gun (1974)?

16. This theme for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) was the first theme since Dr. No’s “James Bond Theme” to be titled differently from the name of the film.

17.Moonraker (1979) is the second film featuring this steel-toothed assassin, played by actor Richard Kiel.

18. Thirty-nine years after playing the lover who helped Sean Connery’s Bond fake his own death in You Only Live Twice, Tsai Chin appears as one of Bond’s fellow poker players in this movie?

19. The title for 1995’s GoldenEye derives from the name of Ian Fleming’s estate in what country?

20. Crooner Wayne Newton plays crooked televangelist Professor Joe Butcher in what Bond movie?

21. Since it opened on the same day as Titanic, this was the only Pierce Brosnan Bond film to not open at No. 1 at the box office.

22. Which Bond girl won a Razzie for worst supporting actress?

23. Absent in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Skyfall (2012) will see the return of the beloved character Q (played by Ben Whishaw). What does Q stand for?

Bill Gates goes to purgatory.

St. Peter says, "Now Bill, you have done some good things, and you have done some bad things. Now I am going to let you decide where you want to go".

First, St. Peter shows Bill an image of Hell with beautiful women running on beaches. Then, St Peter shows Bill an image of Heaven with robed angels playing harps on clouds.

Bill chooses Hell.

About a week later, St. Peter checks in on Bill in Hell and finds him being whipped by demons.

Bill says to St. Peter, "What happened to all the beautiful women and the beaches?"

St. Peter replies, "That was just the screen saver."

LET'S DO A SURVEY!

A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.

"House" in French, is feminine -"la maison," "Pencil" in French, is masculine "le crayon."

One puzzled student asked, "What gender is computer?" The teacher did not know, and the word was not in her French dictionary.

So for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender and asked them to decide whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The men's group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because

No one but their creator understands their internal logic
The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else
Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review
As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheque on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine "le computer") because:

In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves
They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem
As soon as you commit to one, you realise that if you had waited a little longer you could have gotten a better model.

In the summer of 1997 — while some of the residents of Hinkley were still fuming over what they regarded as paltry checks — Girardi and Lack, flush from their winnings and wanting to “give something back” to the California legal community, organized a weeklong Mediterranean cruise for 90 people, including 11 public and private judges. The three PG&E arbitrators were among those invited.

One judge called it “absolutely incredible.” A luxury yacht floated on azure waters; tuxedoed butlers balanced silver trays of free champagne; young bikini-clad ladies frolicked on the sun-splashed deck, according to retired Judge Schoettler, who was a guest. As another bare-chested judge remarked at the time: “This gives decadence a bad name.”

The cruise was organized under the banner of Girardi and Lack’s Foundation for the Enrichment of the Law. Girardi told the Los Angeles Times that the cruise included “an extensive professional program.” The cost was about $3,000 per person, about half the normal rate; Girardi told the Times he and Lack had received a discount for chartering the entire Cunard cruise ship. After some confusion, all of the judges on the trip paid their way, save two unrelated to the PG&E case who were invited to lecture.

The public judges claimed the cruise had been an educational seminar, allowable under both state and federal judicial rules. But Schoettler said no one he knew attended a lecture. The fact that the three PG&E judges accepted the discounted cruise from the attorneys whom they had just enriched is one reason Chief Justice George instigated a study into the business of arbitration.

The study, completed in September 1999, recommended that arbitrators disclose their relationships with parties before them, and refrain from accepting gifts from those who come before them.

AND THE FIRES OF CONTROVERSY RAGE ON!

Apart from the EPA ongoing study of the effects of orally ingested Chromium 6, you'd think the whole Hinkley/movie/early Brockovich thing would have been relegated to the archives. Indeed, much of my background reading went back to 2000/1. As for as I knew it wasn't current news. ....But what did I know?

Erin Brockovich's own website proudly directed readers' attention to a two-part program aired on PBS Newshour that tried to decisively put fear into people by saying Chromium6, which is present in drinking water across the country is carcinogenic, just like the Hinkley case proves. You know, we're right back at the 2000 when the movie came out. It's obvious she wants a high-profile "let's debunk my debunkers".

However, almost as soon as this hit the screens, there were articles by science-related blogs, which were highly critical of the program. I should point out as a former high school chemistry nut (I had my own extensive lab and actually studied for a year at uni. before switching to psychology), I want to know the facts. I was surprised to learn that Chromium occurs naturally. If you oxidate it to the hexavalent state (ie. Chromium6) it gets into groundwater and shows up in wells everywhere. I'll just quote a bit more and leave it at that. Bottom line :- I can now see exactly why the EPA are still looking into it.

"While it can sound scary to hear that a potentially hazardous compound was detected in your water, it’s the concentration that determines the risk. The NewsHour story focused on a study of hexavalent chromium in water around a chromium ore mining operation in China. The 1987 study found a statistically significant increase in certain cancer rates for the villages with higher concentrations of hexavalent chromium in their water. Ergo, the story implies, the hexavalent chromium in your water may be giving you cancer, too.

But the concentrations in those Chinese villages were astronomical—as high as 20,000 parts per billion. A summary in the journal Epidemiology describes it as “perhaps the highest exposure to hexavalent chromium in water that will ever be experienced by a population large enough to estimate risks of cancer.” A pair of studies on populations in the US with low-level exposures failed to find much of a correlation—although one did find a slight link to lung cancer. (Again, the risk from inhalation is better understood.) Laboratory studies with rats have indeed shown hexavalent chromium in water to be carcinogenic, but extrapolating this sort of result down to small doses is often tough."

OK, you go first.

The pleasure is all mine!

A lawyer dies and goes to Heaven. "There must be some mistake," the lawyer argues. "I'm too young to die. I'm only 55." "Fifty-five?" says Saint Peter. "No, according to out calculations, you're 82." "How'd you get that?" the lawyer asks. Answers St. Peter, "We added up your time sheets."

Try this one.

What's the difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer? A bad lawyer can let a case drag out for several years. A good lawyer can make it last even longer.

No it's too nice! Here.

At a convention of biological scientists, one researcher remarks to another, "Did you know that in our lab we have switched from mice to lawyers for our experiments?" "Really?" the other replied, "Why did you switch?" "Well, for three reasons. First we found that lawyers are far more plentiful, second, the lab assistants don't get so attached to them, and thirdly there are some things even a rat won't do."

That's better. I finish with this.

How many lawyer jokes are in existence? Only three. All the rest are true stories.

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LesTalkStrine - Let's Talk Australian

For some God-forsaken reason this idea popped into my head as I was writing this post. You know, what if notorious criminal, turned media personality and author, Mark "Chopper" Read was to describe the character of Lord Darnley? Why "Chopper"? Well I've called upon him several times in my second blog to be a guest interviewer. Now "Chopper" isn't one to mince words. He'll shoot from the hip, if you know what I mean.

Good old 'ocker' Aussie slang is a colourful (I wish that Goddamned spell prompter would let me write colour with a 'u' in it!) . It is also dying out under a welter of cosmopolitanism. Pretty good 'make up' word hey?

Also, I'm sure you'll be sad to hear that "Chopper" has been chopped down by liver cancer and is now yarning (talking) from over yonder. So let's pay him a visit shall we?

Lord F'in Darnley

G'Day Chopper how's tricks?

Well I'll be blowed. What in $%^&'s name are you doin' here? I'm sorta 'over here' now, not there, if ya get my drift.

Well yes, but you were such a great guest interviewer on my second blog I thought I'd dig you up - sorry about that - call on you once more, to help explain how you'd describe this Lord Darnley character.

Eh, do what? Well alright gimme a squiz at what you wrote.......What a prize dickhead 'e was. Describe 'im eh? Why not, it's a quiet day here anyway.

OK, well for starters, looks like 'e 'batted for both teams' (was a bisexual) and 'got a dose of the clap'(picked up and STD) at 'is local 'knocking shop' (brothel). 'e was 'not the sharpest tool in the shed' (was simple-minded) and 'couldn't lie straight in bed' (a constant liar). The missus gave 'im 'the elbow' (became unfriendly) and then then 'e gets 'in cahoots' (in league) with these Scottish dudes, who tell him this little 'Itie' (Italian) 'pillow biter' (homosexual) is 'shaggin' 'er' (having sex with her).

So they slip a 'shiv' (knife) to the Itie and then he 'gets cold feet' (has recriminations) , 'duds 'is Proddo mates' (betrays the Scottish Protestant Lords) and disappears up 'is wife's backside (crawls back to the Queen).

Say, that's about it. Whaddya reckon eh?

You're a legend "Chopper". That was gold.

Always like a good yarn mate, you know me.

Thanks mate. I couldn't have said it better myself!

US MASS SHOOTINGS INVOLVING A HISTORY OF MENTAL ILLNESS 2011-2013

Jared Loughner, Tucson, Arizona (2011):- 6 killed, 13 injured

Eduardo Senicon, Carson City, Nevada (2011):- 4 killed, 7 injured

Scott Evans Dekraai, Seal Beach, California (2011):- 8 killed, 1 injured

Jeong Soo Paek, Atlanta, Georgia (2012):- 4 killed

Ian Lee Stawicki, Seattle, Washington (2012):- 5 killed, 1 injured

James Egan Holmes, Aurora, Colorado (2012):- 12 killed, 58 injured

Andrew Engeldinger, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2012):- 5 killed 3 injured

Adam Lanza, Newtown, Connecticut (2012):- 27 killed, 2 injured

William Spengler, Webster, New York, (2012):- 2 killed, 2 injured

John Zawahri, Santa Monica, California (2013):- 4 killed, 5 injured

The Don Holds Court

Well, you've got me. Whaddya wanna know?

Look John, I wanted to ask you; if you had been on the side of law enforcement, I mean would you have given so many breaks to yourself?

What sorta dumb-ass question is that?? I'm me, not some scumbag cop! Just a minute, are there Press around? Did you bring the Press with you? (turns aside and grabs comb from coat pocket and starts preening). Now look, ah, what's your name again? Oh yeah. I remember. It's Neil. Like my good friend Neil Dellacroce. Good name. I mean it's got style.

So, lemme get this straight you had this very in-ter-est-ing question didn't you? You said, kinda imagine you're a cop. Yeah, I believe I can do that. (turns as if to face an imaginary camera and stares down an imaginary lens).

Now if I was this cop, you know would I have given myself the sorta breaks I got. I mean back in the 70's I whacked a coupla guys. You know, just business. Say, what's your last name again?

Killion

Killion eh. Is that some sorta mick name or something? Say, you aint affiliated with McBratney's gang were ya?

No! Oh, no! Definitely not. I've lived my whole life in Sydney, Australia.

Oh, that's good, cause I kinda like ya. Quirky bastard that you are! (smiles at imaginary camera)

No where was we? Oh yeah, I remember. Would I have let me out on parole after whacking McBratney and ahem, some others, after two years, for example?

Yes, that's my question.

Hell no!! I mean that's a capital crime. You get life for murder. I woulda' hired the best prosecuting attorney I could find and I woulda' made sure I stayed right where I belonged! I woulda' manufactured some indicting evidence. You know, you can do this.

That's what I wanted to hear. Thanks John.

Say, where are the Press. I want to make sure they got good footage. Wait, I can't see seem to see them..........

The Scripps Script

Look, this is a fictional account and I'm sure Michael Scripps would deny there was any truth in this........So, here we go.

Scene 1. Richard and College buddy Richard 'Duke' Gleeson.

"Say Duke this spaced-out mother of mine keeps spending it like it was water, you know. She'll spend the whole goddam lot if I don't stop her."

"Geez Mikey like you're a hardship case with your trust fund and allowance. Try my hardship on for size. I'm a financial adviser with no clients. Man if I don't get some business soon I'll be waiting tables!"

" Yeah well, I was talking with the missus (first wife and part-time stripper Anna) and she says that at the club she worked at, they actually set up this rich dude, by taking his photo and threatening to send it to his wife. Reckoned they made a killing on it."

"Yeah buddy, I'm beginning to like this idea a whole lot. You know, just get one embarrassing photo and say to keep it quiet you'll get me to manage the trust fund. Then you can do whatever you want. Whaddya reckon?"

Scene 2. Michael with mother Melissa.

"Say mom, I was talking with Anna the other night and she said how strip joints are really great places to hang out these days. It's not just the 'men only' scene it once was. You've always said you wondered what she actually did, so why don't we both take you to a really good club?"

" Oh I don't know. If anyone from the golf club or the charity association saw me there it would be sooo embarrassing."

" Yeah but Anna said that if you use the back entrance and wear a scarf, no-one'll know. And I hear this place's real upmarket with only the best Vintage French Champagne."

Scene 3. You know the rest. That's how it goes. Not the how your lawyer says it will go, but who's thinking any downside just now. Not Mikey, this could be his ticket to salvation. Not Duke, this could be his way of being in business. Not Melissa, who's forgotten her doubts at the mention of Vintage Bollinger. Not even Anna, who's totally unaware that Michael is seeing this porn star, Kiki Daire behind her back.

But now it's 2013 and we have the cold light of day and Michael about to do 9 years in the big house.......

Well I'll be blowed! I'm back and this time I'm on his blog. Look when my boy got my own website kicked off, I suddenly realised that you have to get with it. No-one likes a whinging old geezer and I do like seeing myself on the web. Well leastways, I did when I looked like this. Now my former wife Charmain, Char....the love of my life.......went ahead with the Mrs. Biggs nonsense on the telly, I just 'ad to come out and correct a few inaccuracies........silly old moo!

You get the good oil from my own site and my new book. Funny when you think about it, but when the robbery was on I didn't exactly tell Char what I was doin', if you know what I mean. Nah, I just told 'er I was cutting some trees down for a geezer in Wiltshire. That was the day before the big job. You know, a cover story an' all. Well what do think Char does when I don't show up that night? Only goes and calls the Old Bill and says I'm missing?

Well that was me cover gone right then and there. Didn't take 'em long to get onto us and then.........well I get banged up for 30 years with no parole. Anyway, that was just the start, but my real life didn't begin till they got me out of the nick and over to France to have that painful bleedin' facejob, like the guv'ner here says.

No, crime didn't pay for me. Funny that, but I'd never have gone to Rio. and kinda become a celebrity. That's what really does it for me. I just love attention and boy did I get my share. Look, I could rabbit on like this all day, but I'm told I'd run out of space if I did. Thanks for listening. Yer Uncle Ronnie love's ya!

Life Cycles // The Truth and The Evidence

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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Knowing Me, Knowing You, A-Ha: 'Confuence' and Abba

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