Here’s an interesting story that was recently emailed to me, I’m not sure of it’s origin.
Well, now……here’s something I never knew before, and now that I know it, I feel compelled to send it on to my more intelligent friends in the hope that they too, will feel edified. Isn’t history more fun when you know something about it?
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English
soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act
of drawing the longbow was known as “plucking the yew” (or “pluck yew”).
Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began
mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeat French,
saying, See, we can still pluck yew!
Since ‘pluck yew’ is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at
the beginning has gradually changed to libidinal fricative F’, and thus the
words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute!
It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow
that the symbolic gesture is known as “giving the bird.”
And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing.
Documents, sketches, post cards and what-not once belonging to Kafka may finally be see the light of day thanks to the untimely death of Esther Hoffe, who recently died at the age of 101. Hoffe was the former secretary and lover to Max Brod–executor and dear friend to Kafka–who fled Nazi germany, suitcases over flowing with the author’s manuscripts in hand. One can imagine him running over the alps like the Von Trapps–surrealistic literature clutched in his sweaty hands. (Brod managed to save the manuscripts but not Kafka’s three sisters, all who died in Auschwitz) Somewhere these scraps lie in her Tel Aviv apartment, presumably under piles of kitty litter and pet bowls.
“But authorities in Tel Aviv have warned that the papers, with their high sulphuric acid content, may have stood up poorly to conditions in Hoffe’s damp flat in the centre of Tel Aviv and to the hordes of cats and dogs which she kept until two years ago when health inspectors intervened after neighbours complained about the stench.” Read the rest of the article.
Kafka, as he may have looked today, if he worked at Bear Stearns.
Maybe the best qualified person to do a film on Antartica?
In India, every year 1.1 million unborn baby girls die before they are born.
A disturbing print ad to raise awareness of female foeticide from Contract Advertising Mumbai, for The Aadhar Association’s, Stop Female Foeticide campaign, has won the Cannes Lions Award 2008.
Here’s the ad:
As I thought about Raccoons, it made me think of my sister, Nani Power, a wonderful writer, who incidentally has a new book (can’t wait to read it!) coming out this month, called “Feed the Hungry”, a memoir about growing up in Virginia and her immersion into the culinary world through family and friends.
There’s a great coon recipe in the book via a tale by our father, which begins; “Shoot, skin, gut & cover a medium-sized coon in saltwater.“, you can imagine the rest… read an excerpt here.
