Hear this come on on the radio in the kitchen. Dash out into the kitchen. Turn the volume up. Dance like CRAZY. Mum walks in. SHE JOINS IN! Dancing like CRAZY. Singing from Kismet (although I’m imagining I’m performing with the Ballets Russes, dressed in a Nicholas Roerich outfit). My Grandmother used to say “That’s jaaaaazz” at the end of this music (not too sure why), so as it finishes we both say it. Turn the volume back down. Back to uni work. Back to hanging the washing on the line.
Typical morning in my household. I love it.
I was going to post a different version of this, but this one comes with a story so, no contest.
Located in the small French farming village of Allouville-Bellefosse, France is an ancient oak tree, whose hollowed out trunk is home to two small chapels, reached by a spiral staircase surrounding the truck. In the 1600s, the tree was stuck by lightning that burnt the tree right through its center and hollowed out the trunk. A spiral staircase around the trunk provides access to the chapels.
Silesians are the indigenous population of a Slavic origin using mainly the local dialects of Polish with numerous Germanisms and Czechisms. This group has created a specific folk culture, consisting in a patois, folklore, architecture, art and literature, and also celebrations. There has been some debate over whether or not a group of Silesians (historically Upper Silesians) constitute a distinct nation. In modern history, they have been often pressured to declare themselves to be either German or Polish or Czech and embrace the language of the current governing nation. Nevertheless, 809,000 people declared Silesian nationality in the Polish national census in 2011, making them the largest minority group in Poland alongside the German minority, while 12,231 people declared Silesian nationality in the Czech national census in 2011 (44,446 in 1991) and 6,361 people declared Silesian and Moravian nationality in the Slovak national census.
This exquisite model of the eye dates from the late eighteenth century and was used in the Department of Natural Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen for teaching optics. The lens at the front and a screen at the rear display the upside-down image as it appears on the retina of a real eye.
Between August 2000 and May 2002, more than 1,100 ancient books disappeared from the French monastery of Mont Saint-Odile. There was no sign of forced entry; the monks changed the locks and reinforced the library door with steel, but the books continued to vanish.
Finally police installed a video camera and caught Stanislas Gosse, a Strasbourg engineering teacher, entering the darkened library through a cupboard. He confessed that he had discovered a lost map in public archives that revealed the secret entrance - he climbed the exterior walls of the monastery, entered the attic, descended a narrow stairway, and operated a hidden mechanism to open the back of the cupboard. He then browsed the library by candlelight. Apparently the passage had been used to spy on monks in medieval times.
Gosse was convicted of “burglary by ruse and escalade” fined, and given a suspended sentence. “I’m afraid my burning passion overrode my conscience” he said. “It may appear selfish, but I felt the books had been abandoned. They were covered with dust and pigeon droppings, and I felt no one consulted them anymore.”
