Green Eggs and SPAM

Hot n Spicy Spam!

Hello there Gentle readers. Especially those of you who have commented on my trivial little musings over the years that I have been writing this little blog of mine.

I am not exactly the most tech-savvie of people. Lena is the one of us who actually owns tools.

I was perusing my blog just now and underneath the comments button, I noticed one that I had not even noticed before. It said "Spam'.

Now Spam is the name that I associate with 3 things. The tinned meat (see picture above), the Monty Python sketch (see below) and unsolicited email.

I clicked on it expecting to see lots of comments that contained links to websites advertising everything from horse tranquilisers to adult entertainment sites via childrens clothes along the way.

Imagine my delight to find a great deal of very positive messages about my writing and the blog.

I have published nearly all of these comments and will try to answer them as soon as I can. I want to apologise if you were one of the people who commented and didnt get a response. I do try to respond to every comment. Please dont think I was being rude, I was genuinely surprised to see them all.

Thanks

#spam

Today in History: 29th April

Mmm Gentle Reader lets lick the icing of history from the donut of time. Its yummy!

1770: Captain James Cook arrives at Botany Bay, Australia.

1945: in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin. Adolf Hitler marries Eva Braun.

1945: Dachau concentration camp is liberated by the US army.

1957: Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis is born.

1958: Michelle Pfieffer is born.

1968: The Hippie musical Hair opens on Broadway.

1992: Three days of riots begin in Los Angeles following the acquittal of the police officers who had beaten Rodney King.

#todayinhistory #29april #australia #hitler #dachau #danieldaylewis #michellepfeiffer #hair #lariots

Top 10 Fun filled facts: North Korea

Greetings Gentle fact lovers and welcome to my fun filled facts about North Korea. In the last few weeks, the Donald has been sending lots of love to President Kim so maybe peace will reign on the peninsula.

Personally though, in my opinion, I wouldn't trust the little troll as far as I could throw him....and Kim is pretty bad too.

1. Officially North Korea is not Communist. In 2009 it changed its ideology to something called Juche.

2. North Korea is the worlds only Necrocracy. This means the head of state is dead.

3. Cannabis is legal but pornography can get you killed in North Korea.

4. In North Korea, the year is 106. The new calendar was introduced so that it started with the birth of Kim Il-sung. 15th April 1912.

5. North Korea uses human faeces as fertiliser.

6. Kim Jong-Il kidnapped a South Korean film director to make propoganda movies.

7. In North Korea there are 28 allowable haircuts.

8. In 2013 President Kim executed his uncle by having him thrown into a cage with 120 starving dogs.

9. In Korea there are 51 social classes which are ranked based on their loyalty to the ruling regime.

10. In 2012, Korean archaelogists announced that they had discovered the lair of a Unicorn that according to legend was riden by  a legendary King.

#top10 #northkorea

Wednesday Thought: Dad

Hello Gentle readers. Today would have been my Dad's 85th birthday. He passed away 18 years ago and for todays Wednesday Thought I want to pay tributes to Dads everywhere.

My father was my teacher. But most importantly he was a great dad.

BEAU BRIDGES

The most important influence in my childhood was my father.

DEFORREST KELLEY

Dad, wherever you are, you are gone but you will never be forgotten.

CONRAD HALL

It's an ongoing joy being a dad.

LIAM NEESON

#dad #wednesdaythought

Dear Dad 5

My Dad and me c1973

Dear Dad

Happy Birthday.

This is my first letter since we moved to China and although I am far away from you I know you are looking down on us and watching on all we have been doing.

Travel has been the biggest part of family life for us since I last wrote. We have been to Russia, Cyprus, China, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

I know you wanted to do more travelling and you never got the chance so this is why I take you wherever we go, inside of me. When I see the wonder in your Grandsons eyes I know the same wonder would have been in yours.

Robert loves to see new things  and I am going to include some of the photos we have taken in the laat year so you can see them.

We are planning a lot more trips so keep looking down on us.
Fiona and Mum seem fine as do Dean, Janine, Brendan, Honey and Ella but make sure you keep an eye on all of them.

Love you
Neil

#deardad

Today in History: April 24th

Hello again Gentle Readers. Its time once again to slip in between the silky sheets of time and rest your head on the duck feather pillow of history.

1184BC: The fall of Troy

1923: Sigmund Freud publishes his paper "The Ego and the Id".

1942: Actress and Singer  Barbara Striesand is born.

1990: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.

#troy #sigmundfreud #barbarastreisand #hubblespacetelescope #april24 #todayinhistory

Today is gonna be a good day

Hello Gentle Readers. Apologies for paraphrasing the Black Eyed Peas but today is gonna be a good day.

1183 days ago Lena encouraged me to vent my creative writing juices through a blog and here we are, 39 months later, still going strong.
Today is special because today my view counter will tick past the 250,000 mark.

Its hard to imagine how exvited and thrilled I was when I passed 100, 1000 or 10,000 views and in my wildest dreams I never expected to get this number.

It is all your fault Gentle Reader. You keep coming back and reading and rereading my stuff.

Thank you.
#thankyou #250000

Today in History: April 22nd

Greetings Gentle History buffs.
Its time once again to pull on the tapshoes of time and tap our way happily into the past.

1870: Vladimir Lenin is born.

1937: Oscar winning actor Jack Nicholson is born.

1970: Earth day is celebrated for the first time.

1982: The "Hitler Diaries" are discovered by German magazine Stern. They are later discovered to be forgeries.

1984: Ansell Adams, American photographer and environmentalist dies.

2016: The Paris treaty on Climate change is signed.

#todayinhistory #april22 #lenin #jacknicholson #earthday #hitlerdiaries #anselladams #paristreaty

Exit Point time again @ CBIS

The finished Mural

Hello gentle readers. Its was a very busy week at CBIS. I already wrote that it was book week; but this week was also the latest Exit Point for the Grade 7 and 8 Middle School pupils.

The task was very straightforward. Create a mural that showed the Core Values of CBIS. The pupils had however to chose 10 from the Core Values of Chinese Socialism and the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile.

The kids also had not 1 but 2 Big Ideas to think about because the classes were doing 2 seperate units. The 7s were doing Tradition and the 8s Community.

In an Exit Point the pupils must work together and reflect on their learning and on the whole they were incredibly successful.

#cbis #imyc #corevalues #iblearnerprofile #exitpoint

Pancakes.....Blin

Hello Gentle Readers. I know I have not put anything new up for a while but family and work has had to take precedence for a week or so.
I was in Shanghai last weekend for an IGCSE seminar and we had the Exit Point this week plus WASC are coming to the school to do accreditation next week so paper work is piling up.

This week was also book week at CBIS and on Monday we dressed up as our favourite book characters. There were events all week and we even had our own readathon.

Today was the last day and there was a special "Pancakes with Parents" event. Teachers made pancakes and  the parents read with their kids while eating them.

Lena and I were chefs and we made our famous Chocolate chip pancakes. The kids loved them so much the queue never seemed to end and they kept coming back for more.

Although tired, Lena and I really enjoyed it and we want to say well done to our colleague Siren gor arranging such a fantastic event.

#cbis #pancakes

Today in History: April 8th

Greetings Gentle Reader. Its time once again to suck on the lollypop of history thats been dipped in the fizzy sherbet of time.

1908: Harvard University opens the Harvard Business School.

2010: Musician and music impressario Malcolm McLaren dies.

2013: ISIS enters the Syrian Civil War after joining forces with the Al-Nusra front.

2013: Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dies.

#todayinhistory #april8 #harvard #malcolmmclaren #isis #margaretthatcher

Disney HK

Today was Roberts 8th birthday and we came to Disneyland Hong Kong.

Here are some highlights.

#disneylandhongkong #robertsbirthday