new year's eve

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10543835/New-Years-Eve-Hogmanay-celebrations-start-early-in-Edinburgh.html

“An Irishman is never drunk as long as - He can hold onto one blade of grass and not - Fall off the face of the earth”

Old Irish toast quotes

jpr: Oh yeah,  happy anniversary to any who may have married on this day!

prediction for Castle fans

jpr: Nathan Fillion stars in new sci-fi tv show based on Nebula 9 Castle episode.. You heard it first here!

Happ New Year?

One medieval English New Year custom (sadly out of favour) involved farmers putting a cake on the horns of a cow. They would then sing a song and dance around it.  If the cake fell forward it meant good luck for the rest of the year?  Where the hell did this idea come from???

Wunderkind

An audience in Vienna has given a standing ovation to 11-year-old British composer Alma Deutscher at the premiere of her opera Cinderella. The girl, who says she gets musical inspiration while skipping,  reimagined the tale of Cinderella, setting it in an opera house run by the wicked stepmother.  Deutscher's Cinderella is two-and-a-half hours long, and the musical score runs to 237 pages.  Did I mention she's 11?

think fast

Snapped at the instant when a bat slipped from the hands of a baseball player and a fan instinctively stretched out his arm to save his son.

thank u japan

most entertaining!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMtnYr96Eok

shaka of the zulu s grave

King Shaka was buried here in 1828 after his assassination by his half brothers Dingane and Mhlangana while his army was on campaign

Hummingbirds Fly Zone in Louisiana

The lady lives in Pine, Louisiana. She lives in a Hummingbird fly zone.  As the birds migrate they land in her garden.  She took a little red dish and filled it with a sugar solution and here is what happened. 

Christmas on Baldwin Hill

When we were young it was called "the zinger". 2016 version for the heir apparent is Beats headphones.  Megan.

Christmas in Scotland 2.

JP Choir Star

JP off to play his leading role in the midnight mass choir at Our Lady.  An Irish gentleman that would have made his grandfather smile. 

Christmass Eve Carol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHioIlbnS_A

Christmas in Scotland

christmas lullaby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxJyQVfw-3c

in mid bleak winter by christina rossetti

The best voice for the musical form of her poem,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHR9NJxj-SU

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,

Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,

The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

The Joys of Communism????

The "Titanium Palace Edition" mobile phone goes on sale next month in China and has a price tag of $2,880. While it contains no actual titanium, it comes with an 18-carat gold dragon decoration and a screen made from sapphire glass,  The Chairman is turning in his grave.

thank u china

jane zhang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgnClGC8-WQ

Sir Winston Churchill Funeral......1.30.65

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvouc8Qs_MI

The dog father.

Rakesh Shukla is a software engineer who's found his life's calling in looking after dogs that no-one wants in Bangledore, India. At last count, Mr Shukla had 735 dogs on his 3.5 acre farm. Most of the dogs are strays, the others have been abandoned by their owners. The latest arrivals was a group of 22 pedigreed dogs whose owner, a city businessman, was shot dead recently by criminals. 

Charlotte Church at Christmas

This mother of two yet has the great voice. Never fails to thrill me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYTS71PBXgs

welsh christmass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK8Axp3OOkg

Poet from Co Monaghan - patrick kavanagh; dose of Pathos/Melancholia for the Holidays

best version is Lorenna McKennitt live show at Alahambra
but this one's ok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbfMWYgwOyI
many other well done versions as well on youtube

On Raglan Road

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.

Merry Christmas

                                     

Old Appalachian christmass carol

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us Thine aid
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAk_te3mw7U

special treat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAk_te3mw7U

christmass tree ornament

jpr: Always favored'em like this.

christmass wrappings

There has been only one Christmas — the rest are anniversaries. ~W.J. Cameron

jpr least we forget the otherside of the holiday!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nud2TQNahaU

life under the christmass tree

mini santas

jpr: my kinda clauses!

Ganja Claus, he's making a list, checking it twice...

He's making a list, checking it twice, avoiding anyplace the authorities don't play nice.

God Help Us

A 60-year-old Tennessee man who spends time volunteering as Santa Claus at a local hospital granted a 5-year-old terminally ill boy his final wish this holiday season, and held him as he died in his arms.

screech owl

These guys fly under trees low to the ground. I had one get in my cellar!

Thoughts from ancient days

"He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the wealth of nature."
Socrates

coloruja

"Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul."
Democritus

jasper mustardseed

  Some of Jasper s early and successful  work below.

His early work in developing hay fever led the man to begin the field of research into cosmic allergens

I think...

that it was never about Fun-it was about Love.

Cheerfulness Taught By Reason

"I THINK we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
Of yon gray blank of sky, we might grow faint
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop,
For a few days consumed in loss and taint ?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints ? At least it may be said
'Because the way is short, I thank thee, God."

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

happy birthday Mikey

u go up in age asthe new christamss trees rise!

consider our selves as lucky that our parents were not mayflies!

A quote from the Orient

"The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue."

Confuc.          

jpr" seems to be the message here!

Eskimo Love Song

You are my husband, you are my wife
My feet shall run because of you
My feet dance because of you
My heart shall beat because of you
My eyes see because of you
My mind thinks because of you
And I shall love, because of you.

more classified adds

Tickle me Elmo, still in box, comes with its own 1988 mustang, 5L, auto, excellent condition—$6,800.

Georgia peaches. California grown, 89 cents per pound.

Snow blower for sale. Only used on snowy days.

German shepherd, 85 lbs., neutered. Speaks German. Free.

thank you Canada

Undoubtedly the final leg of the 2016 MLS eastern final (Montreal at Toronto) was one of the greatest soccer matches of all time, and  anywhere. The ball was contested over the entire pitch, all the players strained at the max  for every minute of play. We were riveted in our seats literally with bated breath. The fans were  emotionally spent and physically drained at the final whistle.    

in case u missed it

 http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/11/30/extended-highlights-toronto-fc-5-2-montreal-impact

Facts about the early Celts

The name Celt originated with the ancient Greeks, who called the barbarian peoples of central Europe Keltoi. The Celts were a broad cultural-linguistic group. The Celts were never an empire ruled by one government.

Celtic society there was not a rigid class system imposed by birth.

Clann is a Gaelic word that means children. A clan is a family, descended from some notable individual, often bearing his name. The currant clan chief, who is the prime descendant of the founder, is nominally the father of the whole clan, having moral authority over all its members.

The general impression from all sources of evidence designates the Celtic aristocratic society as being tall, physically powerful men and women with fair or reddish hair, grey-blue eyes, light skins, oval faces, and fresh complexions.

The Celts were a very clean people, using soap long before the Romans did. The Celtic men and women of Britain sometimes wore swirling blue tattoos or paintings on their bodies.