Liberty

We enjoy a micro climate caused by the mountains surrounding Benidorm and its area. Today we have a beautiful day of warmth and sunshine. It´s a different world to yesterday and we´ve a lovely blue sky. People appear to be in a better frame of mind.  Benidorm enjoyed sunshine whilst around the area the skies were mixing between grey and sunshine breaking through.

In the football friendlies, Spain looked comfortable against France from what I saw.  Peter Crouch continues to show Rafa Benitez how silly Liverpool have been to part company with him. England had their victory and will probably be hailed as world champions, Scotland had a good win and Wales and N. Ireland suffered defeats.

A young friend came to visit yesterday. He doesn´t really excel at PE but he really enjoyed the physical exercise on the Wii board. He ran like the devil to beat me for a full 15 minutes and then loved the boxing exercise. I am quite happy to recommend schools to get a large screen installed in the school hall or gymnasium and get t<he children involved in Wii games once or twice a week as an incentive to get fit. Britain is aware it has a problem with jumbo sized children and this would be an innovatory way to encourage exercise.

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The Council of Ministers once again focused its attention on those social groups most affected by the economic crisis and those in a more severe situation of social vulnerability. Therefore, approval was granted for those measures that will best enhance and support this year’s National Action Plan for Social Inclusion.

The First Vice-President of the Government, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, emphasised that the new initiatives are focused on areas such as direct care to citizens at risk of social exclusion and are committed to providing more resources to local organisations and organisations aimed at local action. Full Story
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The weather will be changing yet again after today´s sunshine if the Alicante forecast is accurate..

Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday
22° C | 3° C	16° C | 5° C	13° C | 7° C	14° C | 4° C	15° C | 1° C

Word of the Day

batir bah-teer’  (transitive verb)

to beat, to whisk, to whip, to churn; to break, to beat against; to flap, to beat (wings)

EXAMPLES

Tiene que batir los huevos antes de añair el azucar. – You need to beat the eggs before adding the sugar.

Las olas batían la arena. – The waves beat against the sand.
For more information and examples, visit the SpanishDict.com entry for batir.

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This is doing the rounds as a speech allegedly delivered by Robin Williams so here goes…………………….

You gotta love Robin Williams…….. Even if he’s nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message.
Robin Williams’ plan…..(Hard to argue with this logic!)

‘I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here’s one plan.’

1) ‘The US / UK / AUSTRALIA will apologise to the world for our ‘interference’ in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those ‘good ‘ole’ boys’, we will never ‘interfere’ again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East , and the Philippines . They don’t want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave We’ll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are from. They’re illegal!!! France will welcome them..

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don’t like it there, change it yourself and don’t hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don’t need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) No foreign ‘students’ over age 21. The older ones are the bombers.. If they don’t attend classes, they get a ‘D’ and it’s back home baby.

6) The US /UK/ Australia will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing non-polluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don’t like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production.. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not ‘interfere.’ They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN  Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don’t need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us ‘Ugly Americans’ any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH..learn it…or LEAVE…Now, isn’t that a winner of a plan?

‘The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and she’s yelling, ‘you want a piece of me?’ ‘

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This is a quiz for people who know everything! There are only nine questions……thank you Ian K

These are not trick questions. They are straight questions with straight answers.

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5.. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn’t been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters ‘ dw’ and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar.
Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9.. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter ‘S.’

Answers To Quiz:

1… The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends: Boxing.

2. North American landmark constantly moving backward: Niagara Falls .
(The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons: Asparagus and rhubarb.

4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside: Strawberry.

5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle.
The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.

6. Three English words beginning with dw: Dwarf, dwell and dwindle…

7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar: Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe,question mark, exclamation point, quotation mark, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh: Lettuce.

9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with ‘S’: Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.
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Short Witty Dctionary…..thank you Sheenagh…and Happy Birthday Dave!

ADULT:
A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle.

BEAUTY PARLOUR:
A place where women curl up and dye.

CANNIBAL:
Someone who is fed up with people.

CHICKENS:
The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.

COMMITTEE:
A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

DUST:
Mud with the juice squeezed out.

EGOTIST:
Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

HANDKERCHIEF:
Cold Storage.

INFLATION:
Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

MOSQUITO:
An insect that makes you like flies better.

RAISIN:
Grape with a sunburn.

SECRET:
Something you tell to one person at a time.

SKELETON:
A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.

TOOTHACHE:
The pain that drives you to extraction.

TOMORROW:
One of the greatest labour saving devices of today.

YAWN:
An honest opinion openly expressed.

and last but not least…..
WRINKLES:
Something other people have,
similar to my character lines.
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Music Stuff March 4th
1955, Jazz great Charlie Bird Parker played at Birdland in what would be his last public performance.
1959, The winners of the first Grammy Awards were announced. Domenico Modugno’s ‘Volare’ was Record of the Year; Henry Mancini’s ‘Peter Gunn’ was Album of the Year and The Champs ‘Tequila’ won best R&B performance.
1966, John Lennon’s statement that The Beatles were ‘more popular than Jesus Christ’ was published in The London Evening Standard.
1967, The Rolling Stones went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Ruby Tuesday’, the group’s fourth US No.1 single.
1978, Younger brother of The Bee Gees, Andy Gibb died in hospital, five days after his 30th birthday. His death from myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) followed a long battle with cocaine addiction, which had weakened his heart.
1978, The US internal Revenue Service carried out a dawn raid at the home of Jerry Lee Lewis and removed cars worth over £100,000 to pay off his tax debts.
1986, American songwriter Howard Greenfield died of a brain tumour aged 50. Working out of the famous Brill Building with Neil Sedaka he co-wrote many hits including ‘Calendar Girl’, ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’, and ‘Crying In The Rain’ with Carole King. Also wrote TV theme songs including the theme to ‘Bewitched.’
1999, Victoria ‘Posh’ Spice gave birth to a baby son, Brooklyn, father Manchester United Football player David Beckham greeted the media with the news.
2001, Shaggy featuring Rikrok went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘It Wasn’t Me’. It became the best-selling single of 2001, and was also a No.1 in the US.
2003, a noisy neighbour was banned from playing her music and had her stereo system impounded, after she had played Cliff Richard music too loudly. 23 year-old Sian Davies was fined £1,000 plus court costs after environmental protection officers raided her flat in Porth, Rhondda, Wales and seized 15 amplifiers and speakers, plus 135 CDs and cassette tapes.
2007, Take That went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Shine’, their 10th UK No.1 single. The song was featured in several commercials for the relaunched Morrisons supermarkets in the UK, and went on to win the British single of the year award at the 2008 Brit Awards.

Birthday Boys and Girls March 4th
1925, Paul Mauriat, French, conductor, arranger
1936, Eric Allandale, The Foundations
1944, Bobby Womack, soul singer, session guitarist
1944, Michael Wilson, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich
1946,  Red Stripe, singer, The Flying Pickets, (1983 UK No.1 single ‘Only You’).
1948, Shakin’ Stevens
1950, Emilio Estefan, Miami Sound Machine
1951, Chris Rea, singer, songwriter, guitarist

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