Thought for the day - which man would you choose?

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat." "Is the man of the house home?", they asked. "No", she replied. "He's out." "Then we cannot come in", they replied. In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. "Go tell them I am home and invite them in!" The woman went out and invited the men in" "We do not go into a House together," they replied. "Why is that?" she asked. One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home." The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!" His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?" Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!" "Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest." The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest." Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?" The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!" MY WISH FOR YOU... -Where there is pain, I wish you peace and mercy. -Where there is self-doubting, I wish you a renewed confidence in your ability to work through it. -Where there is tiredness, or exhaustion, I wish you understanding, patience, and renewed strength. -Where there is fear, I wish you love, and courage.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss 'do' Black Dog!!

August 29 2005 - Remembered.

On this day in 2005 Hurricane Katrina claimed the lives of nearly 2000 people and changed the lives of millions, many for good in the cities and states of South Eastern North America. 
Much is said about the cause, the effects and the people to blame for Katrina but whichever way you look at it and however many people were lost this was a natural disaster. 

Nothing will bring people or their minds, belongings or lifestyle back but today people everywhere should just give some thought to Mother Nature and the devastation she can cause. 

I have great friends in and around New Orleans and have had the pleasure of visiting the city twice in the last three years. It's a strong city it has survived and most has been rebuilt and reshaped mainly due to the spirit and determination of the people.

Over the years since I have had friends in New Orleans, all made through this blogging platform - I have written a little something about Katrina in the hope that we learn from it in some way. They can all be found if you look but a lot of the links are broken and can you believe that the exact same area just 12 months ago were expecting Tropical Storm Isaac to copy the path of Katrina from 2005. Fortunately Isaac passed by without inflicting too much 'trouble'! Feel free to look here though, if you want.

Thank you for reading and remembering.

I was lucky enough to revisit New Orleans after having visited in 2010 and WOW!!! are they doing well!! Of course there is still things to be done, that goes without saying but the overall dynamic of the city and importantly its people is forever upward. I was lucky enough to be there for Mardi Gras, arguably the world's biggest party and really should be on every person's bucket list of things to do before they die.

However that is for another time..... 

I would like to share some pictures with you of the most tranquil and beautiful place in the whole of the city, where even the distinctive rattle of the street cars is drowned out by the singing of the birds! No I don't know how that happens either!! Trust me though it does!!

THE NEW ORLEANS KATRINA MEMORIAL

There is of course a totally different side to New Orleans and so for some less serious pictures 
*CLICK HERE*

Wilko Ramblings....

Part whatever in an occasional series of ramblings.

I know I’ve spoken about this before but it’s so more relevant these days with the technology that I don’t pretend to understand of cookies and tracking cookies.

Here’s an example of what I mean : Listen to BBC Asian Network on line and within an hour on Facebook’s sponsored pages are “Hundreds of Muslim women” wanting to meet me, which maybe quite fun if only it were true!! Taking it to the next step even if in error you accidentally clicked on these Muslim women and even closed it as quick as you opened it by the time you opened your e mail page there would be a banner ad there which miraculously has just appeared – Match.com!!

Of course it goes on from there too…. Put that last paragraph in an e mail, especially with gmail and send it even to yourself and then read the ‘suggestions’ from Google about that e mail! They now have the BBC Asian Network, Muslim women and Match.com to play with.

Got to be honest it can be fun if you are fully aware of what is going on, but think how it could affect the less aware or the more vulnerable – and we can all fall too easily in to that category!!

........ as an updated postscript to that above, I get an e mail notification of my blog posts and in 10 minutes amongst several other questionably relevant 'mentions' is <<Listen to A.R Rahman on Jango (a service I also subscribe to but didn't tell you before) currently playing Revival - Vande Mataram.>> and that was in just 10 minutes but probably in reality 10 seconds!!

Sticking with the BBC Asian Network for just a second, I love it by the way despite not understanding a great majority of it, but it sounds good!! There’s a lesson to be learnt here. They put stuff on because it sounds good and that is the only categorization allowed!! It may, rarely, be in English or Urdu or Hindii or Turkish or Tamil or any of many other recognized central Asian language. For broad minded, world music lovers this is brilliant. Sometimes only certain words that don’t translate that well are all that end up in English…. Booty, body and dance floor are prime examples!! Again the opposite occurs, the presenters speak for the most part in highly accented English but break quite often in to their native tongue.

The other lesson here of course is that good broadcasting content breaks down all the barriers! Imagine the BBC European network! German songs followed by Swedish vocalists singing in French with announcers anything other than your native tongue. The news in a highly accented French!! No one would listen! Guaranteed!

I guess you know that you are 56 and not 16 :

If when you are off the beaten track you check your signal on your phone, just in case you fall or get way too lost to recover on your own!!

If it is no surprise to you that this steep incline is called Angina Hill! No kidding!   


  

Top trumps!

My loud Planet Rock makes me look like the bad guy to my neighbour!! I only have it loud so I can hear it over my other neighbour's reggae!! But here's the thing the volume of my TV is better than both my neighbour's sound systems. So for the next 3 hours or so - the Belgian F1 Grand Prix for everybody!!! Top trumps!!

This man was so tuned in to life.

Forgive the Americanism but Best Queueing Pick Ups doesn't have quite the same effect!

Monday's quote for those of travel.

"The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

SAMUEL JOHNSON

A Friday quote that will take you the whole weekend to work out!!

"Before you act, consider; when you have considered, tis fully time to act"  

~ Sallust 

Happy Indian independence day.

Over hyped? What do you think?

Here is a list of the most over hyped tourist attractions in the world.

**CLICK HERE**

It's not my list and I don't actually agree but it's a good place to start a conversation!!

Happy Monday!!!

Retro Wilko News post.

 Many thanks to Mattman Wilko, NBUU, for this excellent sign picture. I have no hesitation in posting it here as it shows the knowledge that he has about Wilko News' Mainman. 
Signs and Music rule!! 
If this post has a kind of retro feel about it and you are expecting to see me sign off as EBEZP then face it we have been friends a very long time and my congratulations go out to you for putting up with me that long!!!

Kind of diary, doodling, scheduling kind of day?

So some readers may know how I get to this first set of letters, almost every day but definitely different every day, so today's read :
Mo - RI/WO/CA/WI   CO/NAx followed by some arrows --> Macdillon ; Planetex.

$/£
Marmaris ~ Banjul ~ Harrisburg +/- 

Then some obvious dates and some more arrows
£185 --> 30/9 <-- 5/10 -?
Rodeway/Econo Lodge 8nts 850 v DTW (Wayne County - LOL!!)

CH64/CH62 Sept. 7 & 14 

Dee Hotel WK. 12.00..... Bus? £4

Southport F. Sh ~  Cleveland Street and Dock Road

Well I know what it all means!! Ha Ha Ha!!

Got to love this internet stuff hey?

Lip smacking, thirst quenching, ace tasting, motivating, good buzzing, cool walking, high talking, fast living, ever giving.....PEPSI!