Bals des Victimes

The Bals des victimes, or victims' balls, were balls that were said to have been put on by dancing societies after the Reign of Terror. To be admitted to these societies and balls, one had to be a near relative of someone who had been guillotined during the Terror. The balls came to prominence after the death of Robespierre, supposedly first being held in early 1795 and first mentioned in popular writing in 1797. While anecdotal evidence attests to the balls' occurrence, and generations of French and non-French historians described them and accepted them as fact, some recent scholarship, citing a near-total lack of primary evidence, argues that they may have been fabrications based on rumor. Historian David Bell concludes: "The bals des victimes... never took place — they were an invention of early nineteenth-century Romantic authors."
The bals des victimes allegedly began as part of a rash of merrymaking and balls that broke out as the Terror came to an end. According to one source, they emerged as an idea of youths whose parents and other near relatives had gone to the guillotine, and to whom the revolution had now restored their relatives' confiscated property. Reveling in the return of fortune they established aristocratic, decadent balls open to themselves alone.
Descriptions of the balls' particulars vary, but the common thread is that they were a cathartic device in which the participants acted out the emotional impact of their relatives' executions and the social upheavals occurring as a result of the revolution. Many who described the balls, often generations afterwards, nevertheless found them a scandalous idea. Whether real or imagined, the very idea of the balls reflected the post-Terror generations' morbid fascination with the horror of the guillotine and the excesses of the French Revolution with its mass executions.
Those who attended the orgiastic balls reportedly wore mourning clothes or elaborate costumes with crepe armbands signifying mourning. Some accounts have both men and women wearing plain but scanty dress in the wake of the impoverishment of the Revolution, at least until the return of their fortunes at which time ball dress because highly elaborate. Others describe women dressing scandalously in Greco-Roman attire, with their feet bare or adorned only by ribbons. The style of dress at such a ball was known by some as the "costume à la victime." Women, and by some accounts men too, wore a red ribbon or string around their necks at the point of a guillotine blade's impact. Both men and women attending the balls were said to have worn or cut their hair in a fashion that bared their necks in a manner reflecting the haircut given the victim by the executioner, women often using a comb known as a cadenette to achieve this fashion. According to some, this was the origin of the feminine hairstyle known as the "coiffure à la victime" or more popularly the "coiffure à la Titus". Some sources state that a woman sporting this hairstyle sometimes wore a red shawl or throat ribbon even when not attending a bal des victimes.
In another macabre touch, instead of a graceful bow or bob of the head to one's dancing partner, a man who attended a bal des victimes would jerk his head sharply downwards in imitation of the moment of decapitation. Some sources suggest that women, too, adopted this salutation.

Marbles

A marble is a small spherical toy usually made from glass, clay, or agate. These balls vary in size. Most commonly, they are about ½ inch (1.25 cm) in diameter, but they may range from less than ¼ inch (0.635 cm) to over 3 inches (7.75 cm), while some art glass marbles for display purposes are over 12 inches (30 cm) wide. Marbles can be used for a variety of children's games, and are often collected, both for nostalgia and for their aesthetic colors.

History
Marbles are often mentioned in Roman literature, and there are many examples of marbles from ancient Egypt. They were commonly made of clay, stone or glass and commonly referred to as a "Glass alley".
Ceramic marbles entered inexpensive mass productionin the 1870s.
A German glassblower invented marble scissors in 1846, a device for making marbles. The first mass produced toy marbles (clay) made in the US were made in Akron, Ohio by S.C Dyke in the early 1890s. The first US glass marbles were also made in Akron by James Harvey Leighton. In 1903, Martin Frederick Christensen of Akron, Ohio made the first machine made glass marbles on his patented machine. His company, The M.F. Christensen & Son Co. manufactured millions of toy and industrial glass marbles until they ceased operations in 1917. The next US company to enter the glass marble market was Akro Agate. This company was started by Akronites in 1911, but was located in Clarksburg West Virginia. Today, there are only two American based toy marble manufacturers: Jabo Vitro in Reno, Ohio and Marble King, in Paden City West Virginia.
Gameplay
One version of the game involves drawing a circle in sand, and players will take turns knocking other players' marbles out of the circle with their own marble. This game is called ringer. Other versions involve shooting marbles at target marbles or into holes in the ground (such as rolly or rolley hole). A larger-scale game of marbles might involve taking turns trying to hit an opponent's marble to win. A useful strategy is to throw a marble so that it lands in a protected, or difficult location if it should miss the target. As with many children's games, new rules are devised all the time, and each group is likely to have its own version, often customized to the environment. While the game of marbles was once ubiquitous and attracted widespread press to national tournaments, its popularity has dwindled in the television age.

World championship
The World Marbles Championships have been held at Tinsley Green, West Sussex, England every year since 1932. (Marbles has been played in Tinsley Green and the surrounding area for many centuries:TIME magazine traces its origins to 1588.) Traditionally, the marbles-playing season started on Ash Wednesday and lasted until midday on Good Friday: playing after that brought bad luck. More than 20 teams from around the world take part in the championship, each Good Friday; German teams have been successful several times since 2000, although local teams from Crawley, Copthorne and other Sussex and Surrey villages often take part as well;3] the first championship in 1932 was won by a team from nearby Hookwood.

Malcolm McLaren

It was announced this week that Malcolm McLaren (pictured left in 2009), former manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls, had died. In this article we take a look at the life and career of the man who brought Punk music to the attention of the world.

Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and former manager of the sex Pistols and the New York Dolls.

Early years
McLaren was born to Pete McLaren, a Scottish teenaged war deserter, and Emmy (née Isaacs) in post-World War II North London. His father left when he was two and he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Rose Corre Isaacs, the formerly wealthy daughter of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish diamond dealers, in Stoke Newington. McLaren told Andrew Denton on Enough Rope, that his grandmother always said to him, "To be bad is good... to be good is simply boring". In The Ghosts of Oxford Street he says Charles Clore (who bought Selfridges) became his mother's lover. When he was six, McLaren's mother married Martin Levi, a man working in London's rag trade. When McLaren was in his forties, a Sunday newspaper found Pete McLaren in an English "greasy spoon garage".
McLaren's stepfather and mother owned a shmatte factory in London's East End called Eve Edwards London Limited. They lived well but Malcolm and his stepfather never got along. He left home in his teens. Following a series of jobs (including one as a wine taster), he went on to attend several art colleges through the 1960s, being expelled from several before leaving education entirely in 1971. It was during this time that he began to design clothing, a talent he would later use when he became a boutique owner.
He had been attracted to the Situationist movement, particularly King Mob, which promoted absurdist and provocative actions as a way of enacting social change. In 1968 McLaren had tried unsuccessfully to travel to Paris to take part in the demonstrations there. Instead, with Jamie Reid, he took part in a student occupation of Croydon Art School. McLaren would later adopt the movement's ideas into his promotion for the various pop and rock groups with whom he was soon to involve himself.

The New York Dolls and SEX
In 1971, McLaren and his girlfriend, the designer Vivienne Westwood, opened a London clothing shop called Let It Rock on the King's Road. The shop sold Teddy Boy clothes and McLaren and Westwood also designed clothing for theatrical and cinematic productions such as That'll Be The Day and Mahler. Let It Rock proved a success but McLaren grew disillusioned with the style of shop owing to problems with the Teddy Boys who were the shop's main customers. McLaren's son by Westwood, Joseph Ferdinand Corre, co-founded the lingerie brand Agent Provocateur.

Later life and death
McLaren met Korean American Young Kim at a party in Paris; she became his girlfriend for the last 12 years of his life. She moved in with him in 2002; they lived together in Paris and New York. He died of mesothelioma on 8 April 2010 in a clinic in Switzerland. His body will be flown back to England to be buried in Highgate Cemetery, North London. Malcolm McLaren's death bed last words were "Free Leonard Peltier."
McLaren travelled to New York City for a boutique fair in 1972 having already met the group the New York Dolls. That year he renamed the outlet at 430 Kings Road Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die and supplied the group with stagewear. In 1975, McLaren designed red leather costumes for the New York Dolls and used a Soviet-style hammer and sickle motif for their stage show as a provocative means of promoting them. This ploy was not successful and the Dolls soon broke up. However, it was while he was managing the Dolls that he first saw the Neon Boys perform. The Neon Boys included Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, who were later to form Television. In April 1975, McLaren returned to Britain, by which time he had renamed the store SEX, selling S&M (sadomasochistic) style clothing.
The Sex Pistols
By 1976, McLaren had started to manage The Strand, the band who would later become the Sex Pistols. He soon convinced them to kick guitarist/songwriter Wally Nightingale out of the band and also introduced them to bassist Glen Matlock (who worked in SEX). His assistant, Bernie Rhodes (soon to be manager of The Clash), spotted John Lydon who was then sporting green hair, and torn clothes with the words "I hate" scribbled on his Pink Floyd shirt. His appearance and attitude impressed McLaren, and Lydon, now dubbed "Johnny Rotten", was brought in to audition as a new frontman. Rotten joined, and the band was renamed The Sex Pistols (McLaren stating he wanted them to sound like "sexy young assassins").
In May 1977, the band released "God Save The Queen" during the week of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. McLaren organised a boat trip down the Thames where the Sex Pistols would perform their music outside Houses of Parliament. The boat was raided by the police and McLaren was arrested, thus achieving his goal to attain publicity.
The band released their album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols in October 1977 and played their last UK gig before embarking upon an American tour in January 1978. This tour saw the band split up after a series of arguments. During his time managing the band McLaren was accused by band members (most notably by John Lydon) of mismanaging them and refusing to pay them when they asked him for money. McLaren has stated that he had planned out the entire path of the Sex Pistols, and in the film, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, he set this plan out. The film was criticised for allegedly being too skewed towards McLaren and for being a launchpad for McLaren's future career in music as a performer (he performs the Max Bygraves song "You Need Hands" in the film) as well as a manager McLaren kept the Sex Pistols' contract rights until Lydon took him to court in the 1980s to win the rights and unpaid revenues from McLaren. Lydon won and gained complete control from McLaren in 1987. McLaren and Lydon refused to speak to each other after the band split. In the 2000 film, The Filth and the Fury, the surviving members of the Sex Pistols put their version of events on film.

Solo musical career
In 1983, McLaren released Duck Rock, an album which mixed up influences from Africa and the Americas, including hip-hop. The album proved to be highly influential in bringing hip-hop to a wider audience in the UK. Two of the singles from the album ("Buffalo Gals" and "Double Dutch") became top-10 hits in the UK. He then turned to electronic music and opera in the 1984 single "Madame Butterfly", based on the opera. The track is arranged with drum machines, atmospheric synthesizers and spoken verses. It reached #13 in the UK and #16 in Australia. The producer of the single, Stephen Hague, became a much sought after producer in the techno pop genre following his work with McLaren on the following full length LP, Fans.
McLaren's 1989 album Waltz Darling, was a funk/disco/vogueing inspired album. Waltz Darling incorporated elements of his former albums, i.e. spoken verses, string arrangements and eclectic mix of genres but featured such prominent musicians as Bootsy Collins or Jeff Beck with a glitzy, Louisiana-style production aimed at the US market. The singles, "Waltz Darling" and "Something's Jumpin' in Your Shirt" became top-20 radio hits in Europe, with the single "Deep in Vogue" bringing voguing to the attention of the world long before Madonna.
In 1992, McLaren co-wrote the song "Carry On Columbus" for the feature film of the same name. The song plays over the end credits of the film. In 1994, he recorded the concept album Paris, with French artists such as Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Hardy.
In 1998, McLaren released Buffalo Gals Back 2 Skool (Virgin Records), an album featuring hip hop artists like Rakim, KRS-One, De La Soul and producer Henri Scars Struck revisiting tracks from the original Duck Rock album. In addition, that year, he created a band called Jungk. This project was not a commercial success. Also in 1997/1998, he released a track called "The Bell Song". Various remixes were released on 12" singles.
His song "About Her", based on "She's Not There" by The Zombies, rose to prominence when used by director Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill Vol. 2. He was accused of plagiarism for this song in 2005 for allegedly copying the work of a French musician, but was cleared of the charges in November 2005 when the court in Angers, France threw out the case. The song uses Esther Bigeou's "St. Louis Blues" by repeatedly playing the verse, "My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea."
McLaren's solo work, particularly from the Duck Rock period, has also been sampled by other artists. In 1999, a group called Dope Smuglazz had a UK top twenty hit with the track "Double Double Dutch" which made extensive use of samples from McLaren's original "Double Dutch". In 1997, Mariah Carey's "Honey" and "Honey (Bad boy remix)" sample "Hey DJ (Buffalo Girls)." In 2002, Eminem released a track called "Without Me", which sampled McLaren's song, "Buffalo Gals". In 2007, McLaren's song "World's Famous" was sampled by R&B singer Amerie on the song, "Some Like It", from her album Because I Love It.
In 2006, author Paul Gorman published his book The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion with a foreword and contributions from McLaren. The book included a CD featuring the track "Deux" from the Paris Remixes album.

Chinese Dwarves Big On Popularity

I have just been reading a story by Dan Martin of AFP news which I thought might interest you.

In an imperial yellow coat and stylish shades, China's dwarf emperor toddles from his tiny mushroom house to rapturous applause and a welcoming volley of ear-splitting techno music.
Barely a metre tall, the mini-monarch squats proudly on a royal stool as his court of dwarves and midgets -- dressed as fairies, warriors, cooks, and monks -- regale hundreds of paying visitors with a high-pitched, syrupy ballad.
China's imperial days may be long gone, but this scaled-down version lives on at the "Dwarf Empire", a popular attraction at a theme park that opened in September in southwestern Yunnan province.
The "empire" -- part of a butterfly park -- has quickly become the site's main draw thanks to the popularity of dwarf performances that would likely evoke howls of protest in the West as an exploitative freak show.
It includes a mini version of "Swan Lake", and there's even a male dwarf in leather pants and a punk hairdo hand-walking and gyrating his hips to thunderous hip-hop.
But the more than 100 dwarves -- known in China as "xiao ai ren", or "little small people" -- who range in height from 79 centimetres (2 feet 7 inches) to 1.3 metres, dismiss suggestions the park demeans them.
Several call it a haven in a country where their kind often face harassment and mistreatment and rarely get to mix with like-sized comrades.
"Before coming here, most of us faced discrimination. But here, we are equal and respected. We have our dignity," said Ou Jielin, 24, who sold clothing in the southern province of Guangdong before coming to work at the park.
Nestled in rugged hills about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the Yunnan capital Kunming, the park is the brainchild of flamboyant businessman Chen Mingjing, who made his fortune in electronics, real estate and other ventures.
His hair slicked back and wearing a high-collared Chinese jacket not unlike that of the dwarf emperor, Chen said the idea came to him after he encountered midgets on a train.
"We felt their lives were hard and bad, so we wanted to build a great place for them to live and a platform for them to work," said Chen.
Employees get room, board and free English lessons -- to chat with a hoped-for flood of overseas visitors. Few can get past "Hello", however, except for one who introduced himself as being from the empire's "Foreign Ministry".
Altruism aside, dwarves are good business.
On a recent day, Chen's empire heaved with hundreds of mostly-respectful teenagers from Kunming, cheering wildly and posing for photos with dwarves.
Chen is expanding the "empire", which now consists of more than a dozen

mushroom homes from which the dwarves emerge and descend to their performance area.
A nearby hill is topped by a fortress-like emperor's "castle" opening later this year. New dwarves arrive weekly.
"We will build a team of 800 to 1,000 dwarves and make it the biggest wonderland for dwarves in the world," Chen proclaimed.
Dwarves acknowledge the park could be seen as demeaning in the West, but say it is a step up for "little people" in China, whose opportunities in life are sometimes quite limited.
Chinese dwarves need to be tough, said Pi Fasi, who faced bullying and was even robbed in his previous job driving a three-wheeled transport vehicle. He says he has fought to defend himself his whole life against schoolmates and even adults.
"Some would even be crying after I used my fists and legs," he said proudly.
Fittingly, he is now the emperor's personal bodyguard, vowing to "stay at the park until I am too old to work."
Homesickness hurts, but life with fellow dwarves has changed the fate of people like Ou, who fell in love with another of the dwarf employees and hopes to marry.
"I feel this is our destiny. We came from different places in China but have come together to live as a family. We are all very happy," she said.

Looking Back - Saddam Statue Topples With Regime

On this day in 2003, there were scenes of jubilation in Baghdad as US tanks rolled into the very heart of the Iraqi capital, confirming that the government of Saddam Hussein had been ousted from power.
In the main square in Baghdad, a group of Iraqi men attempted to pull down a massive statue of Saddam Hussein in an unprecedented show of contempt for the Iraqi leader.
The metal plaque at the base of the statue was torn off and the statue's marble plinth attacked with a sledgehammer.
The men scaled the statue to secure a noose around its neck but were unable to pull it down.
Then US troops joined in, and used an armoured vehicle to gradually pull down the statue.
Flag controversy
The extraordinary scenes were watched by millions across the world live on television.
The square is opposite the Palestine Hotel, used as a base by the world's media during the war in Iraq.
A little before the statue came down, a US soldier climbed up and draped the face with a US flag.
The crowd did not welcome the move, seeing it as a step too far towards American triumphalism, and the flag was quickly removed.
A few minutes later, it was replaced by the old Iraqi flag, to roars of approval.
Contempt
As the statue fell to the ground at last, the crowd surged forward and jumped on it.
Chanting and jeering, they danced on the fallen effigy, kicking it and hitting it with their shoes in a symbolic gesture of contempt as it was torn to pieces.
They then severed the head, tied chains around it, and dragged it through the streets.
As news of the events in the square spread, more and more Iraqis gathered to watch, with women and children joining the crowds of men.
There were similar scenes across the capital, as the many hundreds of statues and pictures of Saddam Hussein that came to symbolise his regime were attacked and torn down.
The military campaign will continue, although the US Army has delivered its most upbeat assessment yet of the gains it is making in Iraq.
"Much of Iraq is free from years of repression," said Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, the US Central Command spokesman in Qatar.
"With every day that passes, we are breaking the grip of the regime."

The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue became one of the enduring images of the war in Iraq. Although there has since been some speculation that it was staged by US forces.
One BBC correspondent, who was in Paradise Square and watched the statue being pulled down, said his impression was of "a newly free people" expressing their "overwhelming joy".
US troops continued to advance north for another week, taking key towns such as Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, before President Bush declared victory on 1 May.
The honeymoon period for US troops was short.
In the power vacuum which followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, law and order broke down and US troops became targets for many Iraqis resentful of the continuing occupation.
In the six months after the war ended, more US soldiers died in guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings than during the whole of the war.
Saddam Hussein himself was captured in December 2003. He was tried by and Iraqi court, sentenced to death and was hanged on 30 December 2006.

To watch pictures of US tanks entering Baghdad click on the following video link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6220000/newsid_6221512.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1n

Tasseography

Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy or tassology) is a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.
The terms derive from the French word tasse (cup), which in turn derives from the Arabic tassa (cup), and the Greek suffixes -graph, -logy, and -mancy (divination).

History
Scotland, Ireland, and England have produced a number of practitioners and authors on the subject, and English potteries have crafted many beautiful tea cup sets specially designed and decorated to aid in fortune-telling. Cultures of the Middle East that practice divination in this fashion usually use left-over coffee grounds from Turkish coffee turned over onto a plate.
Method of tea-leaf reading
The Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology, Fifth Edition, Vol. 2 edited by J. Gordon Melton, notes:
After a cup of tea has been poured, without using a tea strainer, the tea is drunk or poured away. The cup should then be shaken well and any remaining liquid drained off in the saucer. The diviner now looks at the pattern of tea leaves in the cup and allows the imagination to play around the shapes suggested by them. They might look like a letter, a heart shape, or a ring. These shapes are then interpreted intuitively or by means of a fairly standard system of symbolism, such as: snake (enmity or falsehood), spade (good fortune through industry), mountain (journey of hindrance), or house (change, success).
Melton's described methods of pouring away the tea and shaking the cup are rarely seen; most readers ask the querent to drink the tea off, then swirl the cup. Likewise, his notion that readers give intuitive interpretations reflects his unfamiliarity with teacup reading; most readers use the standard symbols that have been handed down through several generations. There are, however, many who prefer to read by feel and intuition, as stated by Melton.
It is traditional to read a cup from the present to the future by starting along the rim at the handle of the cup and following the symbols downward in a spiral manner, until the bottom is reached, which symbolizes the far future. Most readers see images only in the dark tea leaves against a white or neutral background; some will also read the reverse images formed by seeing the symbols that form in the white negative spaces, with a clump of dark leaves forming the background.
Some people consider it ill-advised for one to attempt tasseography using tea from a cut-open tea bag or to use a symbol dictionary. The reasons for these prohibitions are practical: tea-bag tea is cut too finely to form recognizable figures in the cup and tea-leaf reading has its own historic system of symbolism that does not correspond exacty with other systems, such as symbolic dream divination.
Fortune telling tea cups
Although many people prefer a simple white cup for tea leaf reading, there are also traditions concerning the positional placement of the leaves in the cup, and some find it easier to work with marked cups. Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the present, English and American potteries have produced specially decorated cup and saucer sets for the use of tea-leaf readers. Many of these designs are patented and come with instructions explaining their mode of use. Some of the most common were those that were given away with purchases of bulk tea.
There are dozens of individual designs of fortune tellers' cups, but the three most common types are zodiac cups, playing card cups, and symbol cups.
Zodiac cups
These sets contain zodiacal and planetary symbols. Typically the interior of the cup contains the planetary symbols, while the saucer has the astrological sign symbols, but there are many variations and exceptions to this common pattern. The placement of these symbols allows the reader to combine astrology with tasseography.
Playing card cups
These cups carry within their interiors tiny images of a deck of scattered cards, either 52 cards plus a joker, as in a poker deck, or 32 cards, as in a euchre deck. Some sets also have a few cards imprinted on the saucers, or the saucers may contain brief written card interpretations. The playing cards permit the reader to creatively relate cartomancy to tasseography.
Symbol cups
These sets are decorated with between a dozen and fifty of the most common visual cues that can be found in tea leaves, often numbered for easy reference and supplied with an explanatory booklet. The symbols are generally displayed inside the cups, but there are also sets in which they decorate the outside or appear in the cups and on the saucers.
Coffee reading
Traditionally, coffee readers use Turkish coffee, or any coffee that has grinds that sit at the bottom of the cup. Most of the liquid in the coffee is drunk, but the sediment at the bottom is left behind. It is often believed that the drinker of the coffee should not read their own cup.
There are at least two forms of coffee reading. Both require that the cup be covered with the saucer and turned upside-down. Some traditions, such as in Romania, require that the sediments in the cup be swirled around the inside of the cup until they cover the majority of the cup's inside surface. Other traditions, such as Turkish and Middle Eastern, do not require this swirling but do require that the cup be turned towards yourself for showing your own fortune. The coffee grounds are given time to settle and dry against the cup before a reading begins.
Many interpretations for symbols exist, but one common thread is the color of the symbols. Since most cups used are white or ivory and the grounds are dark, strong contrast exists for the symbols. White is considered a "good" symbol foretelling of generally positive things for the drinker, while the grounds themselves are considered to form "bad" symbols.
Symbols can be many things, including people, animals, and inanimate objects. Usually, the fortune teller will group nearby symbols together for a prediction.
After a reading, the drinker will be asked to "open the heart". This is done by placing the right thumb at the inside bottom of the cup and twisting clockwise slightly. This will leave an impression behind that the fortune teller will interpret as the drinker's inner thoughts or emotions.
Some symbols and their meanings include:
Apple
achieving knowledge, completing school, getting diploma
Flying birds
good news
Candle
enlightenment
Cat
a deceitful friend or relative
Dog
loyal friend or relative
Kite
wishes will come true
Raven
death or bad news

In 2007, a coffee-reading fortune teller from Israel was charged with practicing magic, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail. The fortune teller in question was acquitted of the charges after the Israeli Gov. deemed it too hard to prove she was knowingly 'faking it'.

The Legend That Was George Best

George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional football player, best known for his years with Manchester United. He was a winger whose game combined pace, acceleration, balance, two-footedness, goalscoring and the ability to beat defenders. In 1968, his annus mirabilis, he won the European Cup with Manchester United, and was named the European Footballer of the Year. When fit, he was an automatic choice for the Northern Ireland team, but he was unable to lead them to the World Cup qualification, despite being capped 37 times and scoring nine goals.
In 1999, he was voted 11th at the IFFHS European Player of the Century election, and 16th in the World Player of the Century election. Pele named him as one of the 125 best living footballers in his 2004 FIFA 100 list and Best was named 19th, behind Gerd Muller, at the UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll. In his native Northern Ireland, the admiration for him is summed up by the local saying: "Maradona good; Pele better; George Best."
He was one of the first celebrity footballers, but his extravagant lifestyle led to problems with alcoholism which curtailed his playing career and eventually led to his death in November 2005 at the age of 59. His cause of death was multiple organ failure brought on by a kidney infection, a side-effect of the immuno-suppressive drugs he was required to take after a liver transplant. In 2007, GQ named him as one of the 50 most stylish men of the past 50 years.

Early years and family
George Best was the first child of Dickie Best (1920-2008) and Anne Best (née Withers) (1923-1978), and grew up in Cregagh, Belfast. Best had four sisters, Carol, Barbara, Julie and Grace, and a brother, Ian. Best's father Dickie died on 16 April 2008, in the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, Northern Ireland. He had been admitted to hospital four weeks earlier. Best's mother Anne died from an alcoholism-related illness in 1978, aged 55.
In 1957, at the age of 11, the academically gifted Best won a scholarship to Grosvenor High School, but he soon played truant as the school specialised in rugby. Best then moved to Lisnasharragh Secondary School, reuniting him with friends from primary school and allowing him to focus on football.

Club career
Manchester United (1963-1974)
At the age of 15, Best was discovered in Belfast by Manchester United scout Bob Bishop, whose telegram to United manager Matt Busby read: "I think I've found you a genius." His local club Glentoran had previously rejected him for being "too small and light". Best was subsequently given a trial and signed up by chief scout Joe Armstrong.
Best made his Manchester United debut, aged 17, on 14 September 1963 against West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford in a 1-0 victory. He was too young to contend for a first team place for much of the first half of the season. His second appearance came on 28 December against Burnley. This First Division match saw Best's first goal for United in a 5 - 1 win. Matt Busby used Best much more after the New Year and by the end of the season, Best had made 26 appearances, scoring six goals. Manchester United finished second, four points behind Liverpool.
In his second season, Best and Manchester United claimed the league title.
Best hit the headlines at the age of twenty when he scored two goals in a European Cup quarter-final match against Benfica in 1966, and his long hair prompted the Portuguese press to dub him "El Beatle".
Best's talent and showmanship made him a crowd and media favourite. Called "the fifth Beatle", for his long hair, good looks and extravagant celebrity lifestyle, he even appeared on Top of the Pops in 1965. Other nicknames included the "Belfast Boy" and he was often referred to as Georgie, or Geordie in his native Belfast. (Pictured left: The Cregagh Estate honoured George Best by unveilling a mural on what would have been his 60th birthday).
The 1966-67 season was again successful, as Manchester United claimed the league title by four points. The following season, Best became a European Cup winner after scoring in the final against Benfica. United won 4-1 and Best was later crowned European Footballer of the Year and Football Writers' Association Player of the Year. After this, his steady decline began.
Best opened two nightclubs in Manchester, in the late 1960s, Oscar's and the other called Slack Alice's (which later became 42nd Street Nightclub). He also owned fashion boutiques, in partnership with Mike Summerbee of Manchester City. However, he developed problems with gambling, womanising and alcoholism.
Best played at United when shirt numbers were assigned to positions, in the traditional English way, and not the player. When Best played at right wing, as he famously did during the later stages of the 1966 and 1968 European Cups, he donned the number 7. As a left winger, where he played exclusively in his debut season and nearly all of the 1971-72, he wore the number 11. Best wore the number 8 shirt at inside right on occasion throughout the 1960s, but for more than half of his matches during 1970-71. He was playing at inside left (wearing the number 10) in 1972 when he famously walked out on United the first time but was back in the number 11 for the autumn of 1973 before leaving for good. Best even wore the number 9 jersey once for United, with Bobby Charlton injured, on 22 March 1969 at Old Trafford, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win over Sheffield wednesday..
In 1974, aged 27, Best quit United for good. His last competitive game for the club was on 1 January 1974 against Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road. In total Best made 470 appearances for Manchester United in all competitions from 1963 to 1974, and scored 179 goals (including six in one game against fourth division Northampton Town). He was the club's top scorer for six consecutive seasons, and was the First Division's top scorer in the 1967-68 season. Over the next decade he went into an increasingly rapid decline, drifting between several clubs, including spells in South Africa, Ireland, America, Scotland, and Australia.

Jewish Guild (1974)
Playing only five competitive matches for Jewish Guild in South Africa, Best endured criticism for missing several training sessions. During his short time there, he was the main draw attracting thousands of spectators to the matches.
Fulham (1976-1977)
Best had a brief resurgence in form with Fulham in 1976-77, showing that, although he had lost some of his pace, he retained his skills. His time with the Cottagers is particularly remembered for an FA Cup game against second division outfit Hereford United in which he tackled his former teammate, and old drinking mate, Rodney Marsh. Best stated later in life that he enjoyed his time most while at Fulham, despite not winning any honours.
United States (1976-79)
Best played for three clubs in the United States: Los Angeles Aztecs, Fort Laurderdale Strikers and later San Jose Earthquakes; he also played for the Detroit Express on a European tour. Best revelled in the anonymity America afforded him after England and was a success on the field, too, scoring 15 goals in 24 games in his first season with the Aztecs and named as the NASL's best midfielder in his second. He and manager Ken Adam opened "Bestie's Beach Club" (now called "The Underground" after the London subway system) in Hermosa Beach, California in the 1970s, and continued to operate it until the 1990s.
Hibernian (1979-81)
Best caused a stir in when he returned to the UK to play for Scottish club Hibernian. Hibs, who were suffering a decline in fortunes and were heading for relegation from the Premier Division, signed Best on a "pay per play" basis after the club chairman, Tom Hart, received a tip-off from an Edinburgh Evening News reporter that he was available. Even though Best failed to save Hibs from relegation, gates increased dramatically, as Hibs' attendance quadrupled for his first match at Easter Road. One infamous incident saw Best initially sacked by Hibs after he went on a massive drinking session with the French rugby team, who were in Edinburgh to play Scotland. He was brought back a week later.
Best returned to the USA to play for San Jose Earthquakes in what was officially described as a 'loan', though he only managed a handful of appearances for Hibs in the First Division in the following season. He returned one last time to Easter Road in 1984, for jackie McNamara's testimonial match against Newcastle. In his third season in the States, Best scored only once in 12 appearances. His moves to Fort Lauderdale and San Jose were also unhappy, as his off-field demons began to take control of his life again. After failing to agree terms with Bolton Wanderers in 1981, he was invited as a guest player and played three matches for two Hong Kong First Division teams (Sea Bees and Rangers) in 1982.
Bournemouth (1982-1983)
In late 1982, Bournemouth manager Don Megson signed the 36-year-old Best for the Football League Third Division side, and he remained there until the end of the season, when he finally retired from football at the age of 37. The following season Malcolm Allison apparently persuaded him to sign for Middlesborough but he never made a League appearance for them.
Brisbane Lions (1983-1984)
Best played in a friendly for Newry Town F.C. against Shamrock Rovers F.C.. in August 1983 before ending his professional career exactly 20 years after joining Manchester United with a brief four match stint playing for the Brisbane Lions in the Australian national Soccer League during the 1983/84 season.
Testimonial (1988)
On 8 August 1988, a testimonial match was held for Best at Windsor Park. Among the crowd were Sir Matt Busby and Bob Bishop, the scout who discovered Best, while those playing included Ossie Ardiles, Pat Jennings and Liam Brady. Best scored twice, one goal from outside the box, the other from the penalty spot.

International career
He was capped 37 times for Northern Ireland, scoring nine goals. Of his nine international goals four were scored against Cyprus and one each against Albania, England, Scotland, Switzerland and Turkey.
On 15 May 1971, Best scored possibly the most famous "goal" of his career at Windsor Park in Belfastt against England. As Gordon Banks, the English goalkeeper, released the ball in the air in order to kick the ball downfield, Best managed to kick the ball first, which sent the ball high over their heads and heading towards the open goal. Best outpaced Banks and headed the ball into the empty goal, but the goal was disallowed by referee Alistair Mackenzie.
Best continued to be selected for Northern Ireland throughout the 1970s, despite his fluctuating form and off pitch problems. There were still glimpses of his genius; in 1976, Northern Ireland were drawn against Holland in Rotterdam as one of their group qualifying matches for the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Holland - midway between successive World Cup final appearances - and Johan Cruyff were at their peak at the time. Five minutes into the game Best received the ball wide on the left. Instead of heading towards goal he turned directly infield, weaved his way past at least three Dutchmen and found his way to Cruyff who was wide right. Best took the ball to his opponent, dipped a shoulder twice and slipped it between Cruyff's feet - nutmegging arguably the best player in the world at that time.
Best was considered briefly by manager Billy BIngham for the 1982 World Cup. However, at 36 and with his football skills dulled by age and drink, he was not selected in the Northern Ireland squad.

India - Culture And Heritage

Culture of India
A Kathakali performer as Krishna. One the eight major Indian classical dances, Kathakali is more than 1,500 years old and its theme is heavily influenced by the Puranas. (Pictured right: Akshardham in Delhi the largest Hindu temple in the world).
The culture of India has been shaped not only by its long history, unique geography and diverse demography, but also by its ancient heritages, which were formed during the Indus Valley Civalization and evolved further during the Vedic age, rise and decline of Buddhism, the Golden age, invasions from Central Asia, European colonization and the rise of Indian nationalism.
India's diversity is visible in its languages, religions, dance, music, architecture and customs which differ from place to place within the country, but nevertheless possess a commonality. The culture of India is an amalgamation of diverse sub-cultures spread all over the country and traditions that are several millennia old.

Religion
India is the birth place of Dharmic relig such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Dharmic religions, also known as Indian religions, are a major form of world religions next to the Abrahamic ones. Today, Hinduism and Buddhism are the world's third- and fourth-largest religions respectively, with around 1.4 billion followers altogether.
India is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world, with some of the most deeply religious societies and cultures. Religion still plays a central and definitive role in the life of most of its people.
The religion of 80% of the people is Hinduism. Islam is practiced by around 13% of all Indians. Sikhism, Jainism and especially Buddhism are influential not only in India but across the world. Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and the Bah'i Faith are also influential but their numbers are smaller. Despite the strong role of religion in Indian life, atheism and agnostics also have visible influence along with a self-ascribed tolerance to other people.

Family
Family plays a big role in the indian culture. India for ages has had a prevailing tradition of the joint family system. It’s a system under which even extended members of a family like one’s parents, children, the children’s spouses and their offspring, etc. live together. The elder-most, usually the male member is the head in the joint Indian family system who makes all important decisions and rules, whereas other family members abide by it.
Arranged marriages have the tradition in Indian society for centuries. Even today, overwhelming majority of Indians have their marriages planned by their parents and other respected family-members, with the consent of the bride and groom. Arranged matches were made after taking into account factors such as age, height, personal values and tastes, the backgrounds of their families (wealth, social standing) and their castes and the astrological compatibility of the couples' horoscopes.
In India, the marriage is thought to be for life, and the divorce rate is extremely low — 1.1% compared with about 50% in the United States. The arranged marriages generally have a much lower divorce rate. The divorce rates have risen significantly in recent years:
"Opinion is divided over what the phenomenon means: for traditionalists the rising numbers portend the breakdown of society while, for some modernists, they speak of a healthy new empowerment for women."
Although child marriage was outlawed in 1860, it is continued to be practiced in some rural parts of India. According to UNICEF’s “State of the World’s Children-2009” report, 47% of India's women aged 20–24 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% in rural areas. The report also showed that 40% of the world's child marriages occur in India.
Indian names are based on a variety of systems and naming conventions, which vary from region to region. Names are also influenced by religion and caste and may come from religion or epics. India's population speaks a wide variety of languages.
Although women and men are equal before the law and the trend toward gender equality has been noticeable, women and men still occupy distinct functions in Indian society.Woman's role in the society is often to perform household works and pro bono community work. This low rate of participation has ideological and historical reasons. Women and women's issues appear only 7-14% of the time in news programs. In most Indian families, women do not own any property in their own names, and do not get a share of parental property. Due to weak enforcement of laws protecting them, women continue to have little access to land and property. In many families, especially rural ones, the girls and women face nutritional discrimination within the family, and are anaemic and malnourished. They still lag behind men in terms of income and job status. Traditional Hindu art, such as Rangoli (or Kolam), is very popular among Indian women. Popular and influential woman's magazines include Femina, Grishobha and Woman's Era.

Animals
The varied and rich wildlife of India has had a profound impact on the region's popular culture. Common name for wilderness in India is Jungle which was adopted by the British colonialists to the English language. The word has been also made famous in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. India's wildlife has been the subject of numerous other tales and fables such as the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales.
In Hinduism, the cow is regarded as a symbol of ahimsa (non-violence), mother goddess and bringer of good fortune and wealth. For this reason, cows are revered in Hindu culture and feeding a cow is that is seen as an act of worship.

Music
The music of India includes multiples varieties of religious, folk, popular, pop, and classical music. The oldest preserved examples of Indian music are the melodies of the Samaveda that are still sung in certain Vedic Srauta sacrifices. India's classical music tradition is heavily influenced by Hindu texts. It includes two distinct styles: Carnatic and Hindustani music. It is noted for the use of several Raga, melodic modes. it has a history spanning millennia and it was developed over several eras. It remains instrumental to the religious inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment.
Purandaradasa is considered the "father of carnatic music" (Karnataka sangeeta pitamaha). He concluded his songs with a salutation to Lord Purandara Vittala and is believed to have composed as many as 475,000 songs in the Kannada language. However, only about 1000 are known today.

Cuisine
The multiple families of Indian cuisine are characterized by their sophisticated and subtle use of many spices and herbs. Each family of this cuisine is characterized by a wide assortment of dishes and cooking techniques. Though a significant portion of Indian food is vegitarian, many traditional Indian dishes also include chicken, goat, lamb, fish, and other meats.
Food is an important part of Indian culture, playing a role in everyday life as well as in festivals. Indian cuisine varies from region to region, reflecting the varied demographics of the ethnically diverse subcontinent. Generally, Indian cuisine can be split into five categories: North, South, East,West Indian and North-eastern India.
Despite this diversity, some unifying threads emerge. Varied uses of spices are an integral part of food preparation, and are used to enhance the flavor of a dish and create unique flavors and aromas. Cuisine across India has also been influenced by various cultural groups that entered India throughout history, such as the Persians, Mughals, and European colonists. Though the tandoor originated in Central Asia, Indian tandoori dishes, such as chicken tikka made with Indian ingredients, enjoy widespread popularity.
Indian cuisine is one of the most popular cuisines across the globe. Historically, Indian spices and herbs were one of the most sought after trade commodities. The spice trade between India and Europe led to the rise and dominance of Arab traders to such an extent that European explorers, such as Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus, set out to find new trade routes with India leading to the Age of dicovery. The popularity of curry, which originated in India, across Asia has often led to the dish being labeled as the "pan-Asian" dish.

Clothing

Traditional Indian clothing for women are the saris and also Ghaghra Cholis (Lehengas). For men, traditional clothes are the Dhoti/pancha/veshti or Kurta. Delhi is considered to be India's fashion capital, housing the annual Fashion weeks. In some village parts of India, traditional clothing mostly will be worn.Delhi Mumbai Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Pune are all places for people who like to shop. In southern India the men wear long, white sheets of cloth called dhoti in English and in Tamil. Over the dhoti, men wear shirts, t-shirts, or anything else. Women wear a sarii, a long sheet of colourful cloth with patterns. This is draped over a simple or fancy blouse. This is worn by young ladies and woman. Little girls wear a pavada. A pavada is a long skirt worn under a blouse. Both are often gaily patterned. Bindi is part of the women's make-up. Traditionally, the red bindi (or sindhur) was worn only by the married Hindu women, but now it has become a part of women's fashion. A bindi is also worn by some as their third eye. It sees what the others eyes can't and protect your brain from the outside and the sun. Indo-western clothing is the fusion of Western and Subcontinental fashion. Chuidar, Dupatta, Gamchha, Kurta, Mundum Neriyathum, Sherwani, uttariya are among.

Cinema
Bollywood is the informal name given to the popular Mumbai-based film industry in India. Bollywood and the other major cinematic hubs (in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Punjabi and Telugu) constitute the broader Indian film industry, whose output is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced and number of tickets sold. (Pictured right: Shooting of a Bollywood dance number).
India has produced many critically acclaimed cinema-makers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Garu Dutt, K. Vishwanath, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli, Shekhar Kapoor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shankar Nag, Girish Karnad, G. V. Iyer, etc. ). With the opening up of the economy in the recent years and consequent exposure to world cinema, audience tastes have been changing. In addition, multiplexes have mushroomed in most cities, changing the revenue patterns.

Pineberries

An interesting article appeared on SkyNews last Thursday, regarding Pineberries (I must admit I had never heard of them) but despite being called 'freaky fruit' they do sound quite exotic, but a litttle expensive.

What looks like a strawberry, but is white and tastes like a pineapple? A pineberry, of course.

The freaky fruit is going on sale at selected Waitrose stores.
While the delicacy might look like a faded strawberry, it is said to have the exotic flavour and smell of a pineapple.
If the pineberry tantalises your tastebuds, you best be quick - they are only in season for the next five weeks.
The fruit, which has the same genetic make-up as the common strawberry, originated in South America where it grew wild.
It had been near to extinction until seven years ago when Dutch farmers saved it.
Now it is grown commercially in glasshouses, turning from green to white and is ripe when the seeds turn dark red.
Waitrose fruit buyer Nicki Baggott said: "Pineberries offer our customers the chance to add a new fruit into their diet and the berry's bright appearance can add an unusual decoration to sweet dishes.
"As the summer unfolds we won't be surprised to hear that our customers are inviting their friends over for pineberry pavlovas, punch or serving them up with yogurt for a lighter alternative."
:: A 125g punnet of pineberries will sell for £2.99 until April 13, and afterwards for £3.99.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (also commonly known as "Daffodils" or "The Daffodils") is a poem by William Wordsworth (pictured).
It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, came across a "long belt" of daffodils. Written in 1804, it was first published in 1807 in Poems In Two Volumes, and a revised version was released in 1815, which is more commonly known. It consists of four six-line stanzas, in iambic tetrameter and an ABABCC rhyme scheme.
It is usually considered Wordsworth's most famous work. In the "Nation's Favourite Poems", a poll carried out by the BBC's Bookworm, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" came fifth. Well known, and often anthologised, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is commonly seen as a classic of English romanticism within poetry, although the original version was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries.

Background
The inspiration for the poem may have been a walk he took with his sister Dorothy around Glendale, near their house in the Lake District. It may also have been nearby Glencoyne Bay. Wordsworth would draw on this to compose "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804. Dorothy later wrote in reference to this walk:

When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road.I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing.This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea.
– Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal , Thursday, 15 April 1802

The death of his brother, John, in 1805 had affected William strongly. However, the effect of his sister Dorothy was positive, and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is considered an example of the benefit of her presence. In this respect, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is like "Alice Fell", "The Beggars" and "The Butterfly". At the time of the poem, Wordsworth lived with his wife and sister at Dove Cottage, in Grasmere in England's Lake District. Life had returned to some normally for Wordsworth.
Lyrical Ballads, a series of poems by both himself and Samuel Taylor Colleridge, had been first published in 1798 and had started the romantic movement in England. It had brought Wordsworth and the other Lake poets into the poetic limelight. Wordsworth had published nothing new since the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, and a new publication was eagerly awaited. Wordsworth had, however, gained some financial security by the 1805 publication of the fourth edition of Lyrical Ballads; it was the first from which he enjoyed the profits of copyright ownership. He decided to turn away from "The Recluse" and turn more attention to the expedient publication of Poems in Two Volumes, in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" would appear.

Composition and themes
The poem is 24 lines long, consisting of four six-line stanzas. Each stanza is formed by a quatrain, then a couplet, to form a sestet and a ABABCC rhyme scheme.The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. The fourth- and third-last lines were not composed by Wordsworth, but by his wife, Mary. Wordsworth considered them the best lines of the whole poem. Like most works by Wordsworth, it is romantic in nature; the beauty of nature, unkempt by humanity, and a reconciliation of man with his environment, are two of the fundamental principles of the romantic movement within poetry. The poem is littered with emotionally strong words, such as "golden", "dancing" and "bliss".
The plot of the poem is simple. Wordsworth believed it "an elementary feeling and simple expression". The speaker is riding among the clouds, viewing a belt of daffodils, next to a lake whose beauty is overshadowed:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine

and twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

in such a jocund company:

I gazed - and gazed - but little thought

what wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Original version
The version published in the 1807 Poems in Two Volumes ran:

I wandered lonely as a Cloud

That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host of dancing Daffodils;

Along the Lake, beneath the trees,

Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: -

A poet could not but be gay

In such a laughing company:

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude,

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the Daffodils.

Wordsworth replaced "dancing" (4) with "golden"; "Along" (5) to "Beside"; and "Ten thousand" to "Fluttering and" to create the 1815 revision. He then added a stanza between the first and second, and altered "laughing" (10) to "jocund". The last stanza was left untouched.

Eva Braun

Eva Anna Paula Braun, died Eva Anna Paula Hitler (6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was the longtime companion and, for a brief time, wife, of Adolph Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was 17 years old while working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer and began seeing him often about two years later. She attempted suicide twice during their early relationship. By 1936 she was a part of his household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden and by all accounts lived a materially luxurious and sheltered life throughout World war II. Her political sway on Hitler is unknown, but the consensus among historians is that this was likely little to none Braun kept up habits which met Hitler's disapproval, such as smoking, wearing makeup and nude sunbathing. Braun enjoyed photography and many of the surviving colour photographs of Hitler were taken by her. She was a key figure within Hitler's inner social circle, but did not attend public events with him until the summer of 1944, when her sister married an officer on his personal staff.
As the Third Reich collapsed towards the end of the war, Braun swore her loyalty to Hitler and went to Berlin to be by his side in the heavily reinforced Fuhrerbunker deep beneath the Reich chancellery. As Red Army troops fought their way into the neighbourhood on 29 April 1945, she married Hitler during a brief civil ceremony: she was 33 and he 56. Less than 40 hours later they comitted suicide together in a sitting room of the bunker, she by biting into a capsule of cyanide. The German public was wholly unaware of Braun until after her death.

Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler with Blondi at the Berghof in either 1940 or 1942.

Background
Born in Munich, Eva Braun was the second daughter of school teacher Friedrich "Fritz" Braun and Franziska "Fanny" Kronberger, who both came from respectable Bavarian Catholic families. Her elder sister Ilse was born in 1909 and her younger sister Margarete "Gretl" was born in 1915. Braun was educated at a lyceum, then for one year at a business school in a convent where she had average grades and a talent for athletics. She worked for several months as a receptionist at a medical office, then at age 17 took a job as an office and lab assistant and photographer's model for Heinrich Hoffmann, the official photographer for the Nazi Party. She met Hitler, 23 years her senior, at Hoffmann's studio of Munich in October 1929. He had been introduced to her as "Herr Wolff" (a childhood nickname he used during the 1920s for security purposes). She described him to friends as a "gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache, a light-coloured English overcoat, and carrying a big felt hat." He appreciated her eye colour, which was said to be close to his mother's. Her family was strongly against the relationship and little is known about it during the first two years.

Relationship and turmoil
Hitler saw more of Braun after the apparent 1931 suicide of his half sister Angela's daughter Geli Raubal with whom, it was rumoured, he had been intimate. The circumstances of Raubal's death in Munich have never been confirmed. Some historians suggest she killed herself because she was distraught over her relationship with Hitler or his relationship with Braun, while others have speculated Hitler played a more direct role in the death of his niece. Braun was unaware that Raubal was a rival for Hitler's affections until after Raubal's death. Meanwhile, Hitler was seeing other women, such as actress Renate Muller, whose early death may also have been suicide.
Eva Braun first attempted suicide on 1 November 1932 at the age of 20 by shooting herself in the chest with her father's pistol. She attempted suicide a second time on 28 May 1935 by taking an overdose of Phanodorm (sleeping pills). After Braun's recovery, Hitler became more committed to her and arranged for the substantial royalties from widely published and popular photographs of him taken by Hoffmann's photo studio to pay for a villa in Munich. This income also provided her with a Mercedes, a chauffeur and a maid. Braun's sister Gretl moved in with her. Hoffmann later asserted Braun became a fixture in Hitler's life by attempting suicide less than a year after Geli Raubal's death, as Hitler wished to avoid any further scandal.
When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Braun sat on the stage in the area reserved for VIPs as a secretary, to which Hitler's sister Angela strongly objected, along with the wives of other ministers. She was banned from living anywhere near Braun as a result. By 1936 Braun was at Hitler's household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden whenever he was in residence there and her parents were also invited for dinner several times. In 1938 Hitler named Braun his primary heir, to receive about 600 pounds yearly after his death. Nonetheless, Braun's political influence on Hitler was apparently minimal. She was never allowed to stay in the room when business or political conversations took place. However, some historians have inferred she was aware of at least some sordid details concerning the Third Reich's inner workings. It is not certain whether Braun was a member of the Nazi party. According to biographer Angela Lambert Braun was neither a member nor ever pressured to join. By all accounts she led a sheltered and privileged existence and seemed uninterested in politics. The only known instance in which she took any interest in policy and politics was in 1943, shortly after Germany had fully transitioned to a total war economy. Among other things, the transition meant a potential ban on women's cosmetics and luxuries (as was already the case in the Allied countries). According to Albert Speer's memoir, Inside the Third Reich, Braun immediately approached Hitler in "high indignation", to which an "uncertain" Hitler instructed Speer to simply and quietly cease production of women's cosmetics and luxuries rather than an outright ban.
Hitler and Braun never appeared as a couple in public and there is some indication that this, along with their not having married early in their relationship, was due to Hitler's fear that he would lose popularity among female supporters. The German people were wholly unaware of Braun's relationship with Hitler until after the war. According to Speer's memoirs, Braun never slept in the same room as Hitler and had her own rooms at the Berghof, in Hitler's Berlin residence and in the Berlin bunker. Speer also wrote:
"Eva Braun was allowed to be present during visits from old party associates. She was banished as soon as other dignitaries of the Reich, such as cabinet ministers, appeared at the table ... Hitler obviously regarded her as socially acceptable only within strict limits. Sometimes I kept her company in her exile, a room next to Hitler's bedroom. She was so intimidated that she did not dare leave the house for a walk. Out of sympathy for her predicament I soon began to feel a liking for this unhappy woman, who was so deeply attached to Hitler."
Speer later said, "Eva Braun will prove a great disappointment to historians."

Lifestyle
Even during World War II Braun apparently lived a life of leisure, spending her time exercising, reading romance novels, watching films and early German television (at least until around 1943) along with later helping to host gatherings of Hitler's inner circle. She reportedly accepted gifts which were stolen property belonging to deposed European royal families.
Traudl Junge, Hitler's youngest secretary, wrote in her memoirs Until The Final Hour:
"She was very well dressed and groomed, and I noticed her natural unaffected manner. She wasn't the kind of ideal German girl you saw on recruiting posters for the BDM or in woman's magazines. Her carefully done hair was bleached, and her pretty face was made up - quite heavily but in very good taste. Eva Braun wasn't tall but she had a very pretty figure and a distinguished appearance. She knew just how to dress in a style that suited her and never looked as if she had overdone it — she always seemed appropriately and tastefully dressed, although she wore valuable jewelry. ...Eva wasn't allowed to change her hair style. Once she appeared with her hair tinted slightly darker and on one occasion she piled it up on the top of her head. Hitler was horrified: 'you look totally strange, quite changed. You are an entirely different woman!' ...and Eva Braun made haste to revert to the way she looked before."
Unlike most other Germans she was reportedly free to read European and American magazines and watch foreign films. Her affection for nude sunbathing (and being photographed at it) is known to have infuriated Hitler. Braun had a lifelong interest in photography and their closest friends called her the Rolleiflex Girl (after the well-known camera model). She did her own darkroom processing of silver (black and white) stills and most of the extant colour stills and movies of Hitler are her work.
Otto Gunsche and Heinz Linge, during extensive debriefings by Soviet intelligence officials after the war, said Braun was at the centre of Hitler's life for most of his 12 years in power. It was said that in 1936,
"He was always accompanied by her. As soon as he heard the voice of his lover he became jollier. He would make jokes about her new hats. He would take her for hours on end into his study where there would be champagne cooling in ice, chocolates, cognac, and fruit."
The interrogation report adds that when Hitler was too busy for her, "Eva would often be in tears." Speer remarked that she had told him, in the middle of 1943, that Hitler was often too busy, immersed, or tired to have sex with her.
Linge said that before the war, Hitler ordered an increase of the police guard at Braun's house in Munich after she reported to the Gestapo that a woman had said to her face she was the "Fuhrer-whore". He also stated in his memoirs that Hitler and Eva had two bedrooms and two bathrooms with interconnecting doors at the Berghof and Hitler would end most evenings alone with her in his study drinking tea.
Hitler is known to have been opposed to women wearing cosmetics (in part because they were made from animal by-products and he was a vegetarian and sometimes brought the subject up at mealtime. Linge (who was his valet) said Hitler once laughed at traces of Braun's lipstick on a napkin and to tease her, joked, "Soon we will have replacement lipstick made from dead bodies of soldiers".
Braun was very fond of her two Scottish Terrier dogs named Negus and Stasi (this dog is labeled "Katuschka" in Eva Braun's photo albums and they feature in her home movies. She usually kept them away from Hitler's German Shepherd "Blondie".
In 1944, Braun invited her cousin Gertraud Weisker to visit her at the Berghof near Berchtasgaden. Decades later, Weisker recalled that although women in the Third Reich were expected not to wear make-up, drink, or smoke, Braun did all of these things. "She was the unhappiest woman I have ever met," said Weisker, who informed Braun about how poorly the war was going for Germany, having illegally listened to BBC news broadcasts in German.
On 3 June 1944 Eva Braun's younger sister Gretl married Hermann Fegelein, who served as Heinrich Himmler's liaison on Hitler's staff. Hitler used the marriage as an excuse to allow Braun to appear at official functions. When Fegelein was caught in the closing days of the war trying to escape to Sweden with another woman, Hitler personally ordered his execution. Gretl was nine months pregnant with a daughter at this time and after the war named the child Eva Barbara Fegelein in remembrance of her sister (Eva Fegelein committed suicide in 1975]
After learning about the failed 20 July plot to kill Hitler, Braun wrote to him, "From our first meeting I swore to follow you anywhere even unto death. I live only for your love."
Marriage and suicide
In early April 1945 Braun travelled by car from Munich to Berlin to be with Hitler at the Fuhrerbunker. She refused to leave as the Red Army closed in, insisting she was one of the few people loyal to him left in the world. Hitler and Braun were married on 29 April 1945 around 00.30hrs during a brief civil ceremony which was witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. The bride wore a black (some accounts say dark blue) silk dress.
With Braun's marriage her legal name changed to Eva Hitler. When she signed her marriage certificate she wrote the letter B for her family name, then lined this out and replaced it with Hitler. Although bunker personnel were instructed to call her Frau Hitler, her new husband continued to call his wife Fraulein Braun.
There was gossip among the Führerbunker staff that she was carrying Hitler's child, but there is no evidence she was ever pregnant.
Braun and Hitler committed suicide together on 30 April 1945 at around 3:30 p.m. The occupants of the bunker heard a gunshot and the bodies were soon discovered. She had bitten onto a cyanide capsule (most historians have concluded that Hitler used a combination method, shooting himself in the right temple immediately after biting a cyanide capsule). Braun was 33 years old when she died. Their corpses were burned in the Reich Chancellery garden just outside the bunker's emergency exit.
The charred remains were found by the Russians and secretly buried at the SMERCH compound in Magdeburd, East Germany along with the bodies of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their six children. All of these remains were exhumed in April 1970, completely cremated and dispersed in the Elbe river.
The rest of Braun's family survived the war, including her father, who worked in a hospital and to whom Braun sent several trunks of her belongings in April 1945. Her mother, Franziska, died at age 91 in January 1976, having lived out her days in an old farmhouse in Ruhpolding, Bavaria.

Desmond Tutu

Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African cleric and activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. In 1984, Tutu became the second South African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu was the first black South African Anglian Archbishop of Cape town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa). Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is currently the chairman of The Elders. Tutu is vocal in his defence of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed. Tutu also campaigns to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, homophobia, poverty and racism. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Tutu has also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

Early life
Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Transvaall on 7 October 1931, the second of the three children of Zacheriah Zililo Tutu and his wife, Aletta, and the only son. Tutu's family moved to Johannesburg when he was twelve. His father was a teacher and his mother a cleaner and cook at a school for the blind. Here he met Trevor Huddleston who was a parish priest in the black slum of Sophiatown. "One day," said Tutu, "I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in a priest's clothing walked past. As he passed us he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn't believe my eyes -- a white man who greeted a black working class woman!" Although Tutu wanted to become a physician, his family could not afford the training, and he followed his father's footsteps into teaching. Tutu studied at the Pretoria Bantu Normal College from 1951 to 1953, and went on to teach at Johannesburg Bantu High School and at Munsienville High School in Mogale City. However, he resigned following the passage of the Bantu Education Act, in protest of the poor educational prospects for black South Africans. He continued his studies, this time in theology, at St Peter's Theology College in Rosettenville and in 1960 was ordained as an Anglican priest following in the footsteps of his mentor and fellow activist, Trevor Huddleston.
Tutu then travelled to King's College London, (1962–1966), where he received his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Theology. During this time he worked as a part-time curate, first at St. Alban's Church, Golders Green, and then at St. Mary's Church in Bletchingly, Surrey. He later returned to South Africa and from 1967 until 1972 used his lectures to highlight the circumstances of the African population. He wrote a letter to Prime Minister B. J. Vorster, in which he described the situation in South Africa as a "poder barrel that can explode at any time": the letter was never answered. He became chaplain at the University of Fort Hare in 1967, a hotbed of dissent and one of the few quality universities for African students in the southern part of Africa. From 1970 to 1972, Tutu lectured at the Nation University of Lesotho.
Tutu faced a difficult balancing act: voicing black discontent while leading a largely white parish. He alternated charm with challenges as he appealed to his parish's Afrikaner heritage, recalling that their forebears had endured British concentration camps. Somewhat to the bewilderment of other black leaders, he patiently courted Vorster’s successor, P. W. Botha, explaining that even Moses continued to reason with Pharaoh. But white liberals grew nervous when Tutu called for a boycott of South African products. In 1972, Tutu returned to the UK, where he was appointed vice-director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches, at Bromley in Kent. He returned to South Africa in 1975 and was appointed Anglican Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg -— the first "Black" person to hold that position.
Personal life
On 2 July 1955, Tutu married Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, a teacher whom he had met while at college. They had four children: Trevor Thamsanqa Tutu, Theresa Thandeka Tutu, Naomi Nontombi Tutu and Mpho Andrea Tutu, all of whom attended the Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland.
His son, Trevor Tutu, caused a bomb scare at East London Airport in 1989 and was arrested. In 1991, he was convicted of contravening the Civil Aviation Act by falsely claiming there had been a bomb on board a South African Airways' plane at East London Airport. The bomb threat delayed the Johannesburg bound flight for more than three hours, costing South African Airways some R28000. At the time, Trevor Tutu announced his intention to appeal against his sentence, but failed to arrive for the appeal hearings. He forfeited his bail of R15000. He was due to begin serving his sentence in 1993, but failed to hand himself over to prison authorities. He was finally arrested in Johannesburg in August 1997. He applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was granted in 1997. He was then released from Goodwood Prison in Cape Town where he had begun serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence after a court in East London refused to grant him bail.
Naomi Tutu, founded the Tutu Foundation for Development and Relief in Southern Africa, based in Hartford, Connecticut. She has followed in her father's footsteps as a human rights activist and is currently a program coordinator for the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee. Desmond Tutu's other daughter, Mpho Tutu, has also followed her father's footsteps and in 2004 was ordained an espiscopal priest by her father. She is also the founder and executive director of the Tutu Institute for Prayer and Pilgrimage and the chairperson of the board of the Global AIDS Alliance. In 1997, Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent successful treatment in the US. He subsequently became patron of the South African Prostate Cancer Foundation which was established in 2007.