Perspectives on age from me and mine

So, now I'm 45. Forty Fiiiiive.

A moment ago I was playing a track and thinking "Yeah man, that's Old School!". Then I thought,
"No! you mean That's Reeeally f*&^%ng old school"........Wot, you mean antique!!;-)

Yep - getting older but, Sometimes a child's perspective on things is just wonderful and simple.

I said to my daughter Monica "Ah well, Daddy's getting old now"
and without a pause she turned and looked into my face with her deep brown eyes, that beaming smile of white pearly teeth and soft cheeks and said
"No Problem Daddy. Today your young and Tomorrow your old'.

Simple really, Innit;-)

Big Daddy's Chill zone

I'm enjoying my new space, it's got a really chilled vibe, with a touch of ethnic;-)

The floors re covered with terracota tiles and white walls with a great use of light through skylights. And, yes it is very secure - you even have to walk across a small bridge to reach it which has sensor lights.

Looking out towards the garden

What a lovely space

                               

                          A little enclosed garden from the kitchen

Thoughts of Palermo

I was born on a day of Love

May Love and Light reign in all our lives.

And may Cupid, Venus and The Universe shower you with Love and Light.

El Showk.

Another year and......................

The Dark Origins Of Valentine's Day

by ARNIE SEIPEL

text size A A A

February 13, 2011

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled.

EnlargeHulton Archive/Getty Images

A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine — one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.

Those Wild and Crazy Romans

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival – or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love."

Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike.

Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas

William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentine's Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe.

Shakespeare In Love

As the years went on, the holiday grew sweeter. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour in the Middle Ages.

Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory-made cards in the 19th century. And in 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines. February has not been the same since.

Today, the holiday is big business: According to market research firm IBIS World, Valentine's Day sales reached $17.6 billion last year; this year's sales are expected to total $18.6 billion.

But that commercialization has spoiled the day for many. Helen Fisher, a sociologist at Rutgers University, says we have only ourselves to blame.

"This isn't a command performance," she says. "If people didn't want to buy Hallmark cards, they would not be bought, and Hallmark would go out of business."

And so the celebration of Valentine's Day goes on, in varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry and flowers for their beloveds. Others will celebrate in a SAD (that's Single Awareness Day) way, dining alone and binging on self-gifted chocolates. A few may even be spending this day the same way the early Romans did. But let's not go there.

Dutchess

Jus passing through - Innit;-)

So, It's nearly that time again - Yep, my Birthday and normally as President of the lonely hearts club (well, normally the people that used to turn up to my birthday alway's had one thing in common, they were single;-).

And, I do my normal birthday run with my little princess in one of the Grand Hoteld of Roma, where she insists on calling Room service repeatedly as she's just amazed that you can make a phone call and twenty minutes later there's a waiter with a bottle of "ACE" juice and Chips with the obligatory ketchup of course.

And I'm just passing through London quickly on my way to see Moni flying from Jo'burg and out to Palermo and to hang with my crew for a few hours;-).

I'm a little worried actually, as i've just got aclimatised to SA with it's lovely weather and then into Northern europe under a cold snap and hoping that Palermo sicily being off the north coast of Africa will be kind of mild. Hmmmm I'll have to wait and see but, Moni! (Always worth it for my little Princess).

President Obama Roots and Irie......Yes I;-)

Whilst uptown in Amsterdam......

As I look at these photos seeing people wearing ice skates whilst skating on the Prinsengracht, people gliding across the ice, leaning into the bone-chilling wind and effortlessly propelling themselves across the frozen surface. I'm sitting in Jo'burg South Africa enjoying temperatures of 23/26C. So, it just seems crazy as today I was wearing a short sleeved shirt.

I'm a Londoner and I don't have skating or bikes hardwired into my DNA like most Dutch people (I didn't push a chair around a frozen lake as a child the way Dutch kids do to learn how to skate).

But despite all that, I like skating and the fact that I'm terrible at it doesn't matter.
I remember skating with my arms waving out to to get balanced......it's been years since I've done a serious skating run and I'm dreaming of what it's like taking part in a real Elfstedentocht.

I'm not sure but I think the tour is 200 kilometers (125 miles long). It would take at least 12 hours if you were to survive. In fact the ice has been meticulously scraped clean by a small army of volunteers in an effort to make it strong enough to stage a race with 16,000 competitors (Ta Rarse!!). Imagine all on that Ice - It's got to be crazy.

Skaters ride an 11 Cities Tour itinerary as they pass through the villages in the northern Netherlands, across frozen waterways for the first time in 15 years.
And as usual, the Dutch have a mini-vocabulary dedicated to iceskating. A hole in the ice is called a "wak", there is a verb — "klunen" — for clambering along the river bank in your skates.

But the Dutch are not going to let a small detail like the Elfstedentocht not being staged spoil their fun. All of the photos below have a certain kind of picture-postcard prettiness.

Copyright Victor Lacken

                             Copyright Victor Lacken

                             The Winter Berry's

                             Copyright Victor Lacken

Settling in.......

Moved into my house the other day and this was here waiting for me.

It's a Agriculture ceremonial dance mask from Mali.

This headdress has become a famous icon of African art and is a Bambara mask. They were used in ceremonies related to agriculture.

The most noble and sacred activities and tasks for the Bamana/Bambara are those related to agriculture. At the occasion of such a task, a pair/couple of men of the tyi wara association of farmers performed dances with a pair of one male and one female tyi wara headdress in the fields. 

They danced early in the morning in the field, on the rhythm of the drums, chants and hand clapping of young girls. In this way they honored the mythical farming animal tyi wara, that taught agriculture to the ancestors of the Bambara/Bamana. 

Competitions were organised for young men and only the winners were allowed to wear the tyi wara headdress for one year, during private or public performances. 

A long mythical story is associated with the tyi wara. The tyi wara wooden headdresses are always carved in a plane. Many variations exist. Most pieces rest on a quadrangular base. 

This is fixed to a small basket that is adjusted on the head of the dancer. 

Long black fibers hang from the headdress and cover the basket and the face of the dancer; these symbolize falling water as an essential ingredient for farming.

The male type shows a male, mythical, beautiful and powerful antelope with two long, curved horns that stand for the tall growth of millet, with a clearly visible tail,with a penis that symbolizes the rooting of the grain, with long ears that refer to the cultivators' listening to the songs sung by women who encourage the men while they work in the fields, with an open, zigzag pattern in the neck that symbolizes the sun's path along the horizon between the two solstices.

BDW Love and Light