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Two ducks crossing a road in Ballymena. The one at the back says “Quack! quack!” the other one says “I’m going as quack as I can!”
I notice an amusing cutting in Private Eye this week. It’s an extract from a Northern Ireland Water Information leaflet which, following a passage in English, offers a translation in [...]
Filed under: Language, Quite Interesting, Rant | Tagged: scots language, ulster scots | 3 Comments »
I had a rather unexpected interesting afternoon today. After doing a bit of overtime at the shop this morning I took the dog for a walk. We strayed a bit from our normal route and ended up at an area which is obviously a disused dump. I found hundreds of old bottles and stone jars [...]
Filed under: Helensburgh, History, Quite Interesting | Tagged: old glass bottles | 2 Comments »
Happy Norooz indeed. Today is the vernal equinox which marks the Persian (Iranian) new year. All the best for 1387 and lang may yer lum reek.
The Iranian calendar (Persian: تقویم هجری شمسی؛ گاهشماری هجری خورشیدی) is an astronomical solar calendar and one of the longest chronological records in history and is currently used [...]
Filed under: History, Quite Interesting | Tagged: iran, noooz, omar khayyam, persia | No Comments »
An eight minute insight into the mystery graffiti artist
Filed under: Art, Quite Interesting | Tagged: Banksy | No Comments »
Banksy appears to have joined the campaign to ban plastic bags.
The guerrilla artist is believed to be responsible for a new image to emerge overnight on the wall of a north London pharmacy.
The painting depicts two children pledging allegiance to a Tesco plastic carrier bag in place of a flag.
The owner of the pharmacy in [...]
Filed under: Art, Quite Interesting | Tagged: Banksy | No Comments »
I’m not sure what to make of this. I suppose it is a bit like the United Colors of Benetton campaigns of a few years back when the shock factor was used. I’m not really comfortable with human loss or suffering to be used for advertising purposes but I can’t deny this is an emotive [...]
Filed under: Quite Interesting, The Blue Nile | Tagged: advertising | 1 Comment »
I heard a bit about this on the news yesterday. This comes from yesterday’s Scotsman:
HE CLAIMED to be descended from Hungarian nobility, was fond of vivid silk dressing gowns and spoke to the spirits while flourishing a large cigar.
But during the Second World War, the outlandish figure of Louis de Wohl was [...]
Filed under: History, Quite Interesting | No Comments »
The director of a Norwegian museum claims to have found cartoons drawn by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.
William Hakvaag, the director of a war museum in northern Norway, said he found the drawings hidden in a painting signed “A. Hitler” that he bought at an auction in Germany. The coloured cartoons included [...]
Filed under: History, Quite Interesting | Tagged: dopey, hitler, walt disney | 1 Comment »
My elder daughter has been doing a project (topic as they call it these days) at school about Mary Queen of Scots. It is fair to say that the story of Scotland’s most famous monarch has captured her imagination so much that it has almost become an obsession. Indeed the conversation at chez bigrab has [...]
Filed under: History, Quite Interesting, Scotland | Tagged: edinburgh castle, linlithgow palace, mary queen of scots | 1 Comment »
“I have called this principle, by which
each slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term Natural Selection.”
Born on the very same day as Abraham Lincoln 199 years ago was Charles Darwin. Thanks to The Lucid Cafe for the following:
Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. He was the fifth child and second [...]
Filed under: Quite Interesting, Religion | Tagged: abraham lincoln, charles darwin, february 12th | No Comments »
