Lost Volumes

"Rare Books" Section at the House of Wisdom

The rarest of the rare books from the East and West hemispheres housed in the Grand Library of Baghdad. The largest library in the world, and contained some of the oldest books ever written from all over the world. It's where the Persians kept the wisdom and successes from their history, including discoveries in science, medicine, astronomy and technology.

This place held books about numerous subjects we know nothing about, but possibly subjects we could never know about, such as extinct animals or plant-life (the Romans discovered a plant that worked so well as birth control they farmed it to extinction.
Baghdad was once the capital of the world for science and mathematics, who knows what greatness they had, stuff we;ll never know.

Damned shame the Mongols chucked every book into he Tigris river.

How To....Make Title a Link

So you have created your own blog or website and want to show it off on forums. How do you go about making the title of the blog into a 'clickable' link? 'Tis easy my friends!

[url=YOURWEBSITEHERE]Other words here[*/Url]

Ah whats that? You want to be all swanky and turn a picture into a clicky clicky link? S'no problemo.

[url=YOURWEBSITEHERE]Link to picture here usually has [img]code with a picture format at the end of it. png[*/img][*/url]
With out the *

Heres two I made earlier:

[url=http://daijakes.blogspot.com/]Click for Dai Jakes[/url]

[url=http://executionwales.blogspot.com/]Click For My Executions in Wales[/url]

Happy linking!

Behan

Drunk and chatty

Brendan saw that it paid to be drunk; the public wanted the witty, iconoclastic, genial "broth of a boy," and he gave that to them in abundance, exclaiming: "There's no bad publicity except an obituary." His health suffered terribly, with diabetic comas and seizures occurring regularly.
Behan had married Beatrice Salkeld (the daughter of painter Cecil Salkeld) in 1955. A daughter, Blanaid, was born in 1963. Love, however, wasn't enough to bring Behan back from his alcoholic abyss. By early March 1964, the end was in sight. Collapsing at the Harbour Lights bar, he was transferred to the Meath Hospital in central Dublin, where he died, aged 41.

Where exactly was the "Harbour Lights" bar that Brendan Behan took his final drink?
Since he was taken to Meath hospital, this was somewhere in the "Dublin 8" area?

Thanks to the internet I have discovered the Harbour Lights was in Echlin street, which is just off St James Street, near the Guinness Brewery. I don't think there is a bar there anymore though. He underwent an emergency surgery for a tracheotomy at the Meath Hospital. He died on March 20th from sclerosis of the liver aged 41 and was buried on March 22nd at Glasnevin Cemetery in North Dublin.

On Rolled the Mad Ball

We all knew a kid at school who could be counted on to do daft stunts for attention. The permenant classroom jester, ready to perform whenever he (it was usually always a boy) fancied a bit of ego massaging. Jump in a river fully clothed? Sure thing! Dance on the headmasters car? Can do! Hell if there was a guaranteed large audience, this 'crazy funster' could even be persuaded to eat live earthworms. How do I know? Because I was this boy! Usually the type of kid to be found sitting under a tree reading a book, or painting heavy metal bands logos on my books, if ever I felt the need for the cheers from my classmates, I would do anything. Well almost anything.
Fastforward twenty five years and with the advent of the internet, and more importantly Youtube, the stakes have been raised way higher than jolly japes in the classroom. And it isn't only attention hungry teenagers who are risking all (even their lives) for high ratings on their Youtube channel. Its going end in tears one day, thats if it already hasn't in cases we dont know of.
With so many video hosting websites, everyone can be a reality television 'star' today and by and large its a good thing. Travel videos saved for eternity online, the ability to share videos for far away relatives and friends to enjoy. I love it. But as with anything to do with the internet, it has a dark side. Especially when it comes to loungeroom legends (legends in their own mind) and disciples of MTV's Jackass.

** VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED **

Republican Space Rangers

Devolution of Man

From Leigh to Pee


Where are the femme fatales today? Ladies like Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Lauren Bacall and Carole Bouquet. These women could hold their liquor and make your heart beat without being vulgar. Such class and elegance.
How different we are today! A car wreck where its all about looking like a slut or tramp. Just Google 'drunk actress' and you'll see what I mean. Heck compare the photgraphs I have posted here if you're in a rush.
And its not about the alcohol, they had boozers in the 1950s too but at least they were stylish and oozed class. And didn't dress like Poundland hookers waiting for a fix. They reek of cheap, like the human form of syphalis. If they could act it would be one thing but these are actresses only to themselves and foolish directors who insist on filling the screen with fluff.
The classic femme fatale is dead and this makes me sad. We are left with pizza faced, grim bodied witches with the seemingly only honest ambition to get as wasted as possible.
Ive said it before but I truly believe we are witnessing the devolution of man. Its not just Hollywood, the decline has spread everywhere from that ghastly 'text speak' where people are too lazy to write a few letters, to the supposedly responsible broadsheets advising an affair to put fun back into marriages.
We are slowly (or quickly depending on how one looks at it) turning ourselves back to apes. We crawled, we stood, we conquered and now that we have seemingly achieved all, we are turning around and racing for ape life once more. (Text speak is no more than banging sticks and stones together anyway.) Im not some mad blogger, alone in believing this either. There is a part in "Return to Sodom and Gomorrah" by archeologist Charles Pellegrino where he talks to Professor Stephen Hawking, and Hawking says this: "Whatever we were arriving at in this planets history, we have already arrived at it." Indeed, and where to now?

The Mundanes

Anyway I thought id post something current with the Assange thing. Sometimes I think im too much in my own merry cocoon, writing about death, booze, retro, pipkins, food and videogames, so occasionaly I make attempts to join in the trends. And generally end up scurrying back into my own mad yet pretty world :)