The latest adventures in Torquay

On Friday we rented a car... and it was time to go to Torquay. But everything looked so romantic! Thus, only the voice of Edith Piaf and the song "La vie en rose" could suit with a touch of the black and white effect! The link is here for your pleasure....




~Fourkas

Caminante... Machado's Proverbios y Cantares XXIX

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada mas
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar,
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atras
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en el mar.

Traveller, the path is your tracks
And nothing more.
Traveller, there is no path
The path is made by walking.
By walking you make a path
And turning, you look back
At a way you will never tread again
Traveller, there is no road
Only wakes in the sea.

~Antonio Machado

Playlist for this week 20-01-2007

This Saturday's show was a blast! Check out the playlist as it was broadcast today...

1) The Rasmus - In the Shadows
2) Alegro - Someone Else
3) Justin Timberlake - My love
4) Helena Paparizou - Teardrops
5) Hoobastank - The Reason
6) Two Face - You
7) Razorlight - America
8) Juanes - La Camisa Negra
9) Muse - Starlight
10) Robbie Williams - King of the Bongo
11) Garbage - Why do you love me?
12) Mika - Relax, Take it Easy
13) Madonna - Get Together
14) Beyoncé Knowles - Irreplaceable
15) Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancing
16) Jennifer Lopez - Que Hiciste?
17) Neffa - Cambierá
18) Morandi - Ooh La La
19) Shapeshifters - Lola's Theme
20) Junior Jack - Stupidisco
21) Afterlife - Speck of Gold
22) Bob Sinclar - World Hold On

Enjoy!

Francebritagne.... Yeah one word!

This appeared at the BBC website... your comments are welcome... Imagine a country with the cuisine of Britain and the snuttiness of France... what a disaster!

"When Britain and France nearly married
By Mike Thomson Presenter, Document

The major event of the year was the Suez episode. Formerly secret documents unearthed from the National Archives have showed Britain and France considered a "union" in the 1950s.
On 10 September 1956 French Prime Minister Guy Mollet arrived in London for talks with his British counterpart, Anthony Eden.

These were troubled times for Mollet's France. Egypt's President Gamel Abdel Nasser had nationalised the Suez Canal and, as if that was not enough, he was also busy funding separatists in French Algeria, fuelling a bloody mutiny that was costing the country's colonial masters dear.
Monsieur Mollet was ready to fight back and he was determined to get Britain's help to do it.
Formerly secret documents held in Britain's National Archives in London, which have lain virtually unnoticed since being released two decades ago, reveal the extraordinary proposal Mollet was about to make.

The following is an extract from a British government cabinet paper of the day. It reads:
"When the French Prime Minister, Monsieur Mollet was recently in London he raised with the prime minister the possibility of a union between the United Kingdom and France."

Mollet was desperate to hit back at Nasser. He was also an Anglophile who admired Britain both for its help in two world wars and its blossoming welfare state. There was another reason, too, that the French prime minister proposed this radical plan. Tension was growing at this time along the border between Israel and Jordan. France was an ally of Israel and Britain of Jordan. If events got out of control there, French and British soldiers could soon be fighting each other.
With the Suez issue on the boil Mollet could not let such a disaster happen. So, when Eden turned down his request for a union between France and Britain the French prime minister came up with another proposal. This time, while Eden was on a visit to Paris, he requested that France be allowed to join the British Commonwealth.

A secret document from 28 September 1956 records the surprisingly enthusiastic way the British premier responded to the proposal when he discussed it with his Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook. It says: "Sir Norman Brook asked to see me this morning and told me he had come up from the country consequent on a telephone conversation from the prime minister who is in Wiltshire.

"The PM told him on the telephone that he thought in the light of his talks with the French:
"That we should give immediate consideration to France joining the Commonwealth. That Monsieur Mollet had not thought there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of her Majesty and that the French would welcome a common citizenship arrangement on the Irish basis."

It seems that the French prime minister decided to quietly forget about his strange proposals.
No record of them seems to exist in the French archives and it is clear that he told few other ministers of the day about them. This might well be because after Britain decided to pull out of Suez, the battle against President Nasser was lost and all talk of union died too. Instead, when the EEC was born the following year, France teamed up with Germany while Britain watched on. The rest, it seems, is history."

My new radio show! It's ON! X-Pression FM 87.7

Great news everyone! The revival of my radio-show "Cruising the World" will take place tomorrow Saturday from 4-6pm (GMT) or 6-8pm (Greek Time). And it will be on every Saturday! If you have special requests, then you can just e-mail me or text me! I hope you all enjoy!

Here's the link http://xpression.ex.ac.uk/listen.php
Choose between your favorite player and your desired quality, and LISTEN LIVE! The playlists will appear on this blog from time to time!

The funniest video

With kind permission from my friend Geroloofas (http://geroloofas.blogspot.com) I present you one of the funniest videos ever made, with a remix from an old greek wheep-movie. Here it is for your entertainment!

Grotesque Execution

From The Daily Telegraph in a free transposition:

"In Washington, the atmosphere is heavy from the mutual accusations, as the consequences from the grotesque execution of Saddam Hussein are being profoundly understood. What should have been an act of justice, should the procedures have been followed, had the sharp ugliness of lynching. One fair execution that was designed to show in the end that the Saddam era had finished is in danger of having the reverse outcome. When a dictator with incredible calmness is shown to die with dignity and without missing courage in front of bullying executors, the crown of a martyr is naturally hovering. As it was exprected, American officials brag about the dispeakable sight and Tony Blair denies any comment from his vacation pool in Miami (...)
American quarters insisted that they could not do much to get around this disaster. They may be alarmed by the incompetence Baghdad showed, however, they are obliged to intervene up to a certain point without undermining the infant regime of Iraq. Moreover, while President Bush is completing his plans for a sizeable reinforcement of the American troops in a final effort to subside the inter-faith violence in Baghdad, the execution of Saddam seems to be setting alight the situation and distance more than ever any perspective for a disciplined withdrawal of the allied forces. Mr. Bush would be justified to believe that whatever he touches in that forelorn country turns into ashes."

The mysterious numbers π and φ

This post concerns the two star-numbers of π and φ. Lots of myths have been created around these two numbers, many weird theories have been developed, while they have been the basic material for many books and movies. If the world of mathematics were a sky, then π and φ are definitely its most shiny stars. Π is the our familiar number of 3.14, the number that expresses the ration of the circumference of circle to its diameter. Π is infinite--i.e. its full length includes infinite decimal digits, and thus, according to a more mystical approach, it is the key that explains the world, relationships and even the market. One key that still stays well-hidden, since despite the fact that in the recent years the issue has undertaken championship dimensions--more than 51 billion digits have been discovered--number π still holds its secrets. Regarding φ, this is the so-called "number of the golden section" and its first digits are 1.61803. Similar to π, the golden section is a number whose decimal digits continue infinitely without any repetitive pattern. Nevertheless, it describes what many people throughout history have called "the ideal analogy". If one examines the paintings in the Louvre or Tate Gallery, one can observe that quite frequently, the artist selects a rectangle, that its sides have a ratio 1 over 1,61803. Through experiments, it has been verified that the height of an average human, compared to the distance from the feet to the navel has the same ratio. The golden section (or divine analogy) is a number that frequently appears in nature, in a mysterious fashion, and has been used in the construction of the Parthenon, and the Vitruvian Man of Da Vinci. We even encounter the ratio as an architectural dimension in the Pyramids, in the organic structure of Mozart's sonatas, in Beethoven's 5th Symphony etc...

The end of 2006

First of all, I would like to wish the online community a warm Happy 2007. May the new year bring you all the happiness and prosperity you desire! Second, I would like to refer to the end of 2006, where we had some important events taking place.

Of course, I am referring to the death of Saddam Hussein. The sentencing of Saddam to death by hanging, a very degrading type of death for Muslims, marked the last hours of 2006. Saddam stated that he was ready to die and be sacrificed for Iraq and called his compatriots to join forces against the foreign enemy. The former leader of Iraq was held in an American prison within the Green Zone and was delivered to Iraqi police officers to execute the sentence. The current president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, had expressed by principle his objection against the death penalty and did not sign the decree. The capital punishment split the international public opinion, since it was welcome by the United States, while it brought about the reaction of the Vatican, Amnesty International, Romano Prodi, the German government and many others. Analysts assess that the death of Saddam will neither contribute to the stabilization of the region, nor to the national reconciliation of the Iraqi people that suffer from foreign occupation and the evils of civil war. On the contrary: he will become a martyr and violence will continue.