May 7 through the years...

Here are just some of the wonderful and shocking things that have happened on this day in history:

1429 – Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans, pulling an arrow from her own shoulder and returning wounded to lead the final charge. The victory marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.

1664 – Louis XIV of France inaugurates The Palace of Versailles.

1824 – World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna.

1832 – Greece is recognised independent by the Treaty of London. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria is chosen King.

1840 – Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is born.

1892 – Leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito is born.

1895 – In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention – the first in the world radio receiver. Today, Russia and Bulgaria celebrate this day as the Day of Radio.

1915 – World War I: a German submarine U-20 sinks the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turned many formerly pro–Germans in the US against the German Empire.

1945 – World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document will take effect the next day.

1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with about 20 employees.

1948 – The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress.

1954 – Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat.

1960 – Cold War: U-2 Crisis – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.

1977 – World famous blogger and bon vivant Kris McCracken is born. Aside from his own fame, McCracken fathered the far more famous and talented Henry Fitzgerald McCracken, internet sensation and genral erweiterte Mann. Other, less important events include Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau does a pirouette behind the back of Queen Elizabeth II and Marie Myriam wins the Eurovision Song Contest for France with her song L'oiseau et l'enfant ("The Bird and the Child"). She dedicated the win to McCracken’s parents.

I know that the German surrender in 1945 was a pretty big deal, but I think that the pirouette just pushes 1977 over the line as THE BEST EVER YEAR FOR MAY 7!

[Thanks to British Columbia's finest Benjamin Madison, for pointing out the grave oversight in the 1977 entry, it has since been amended.]

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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