86th Edition - Volume 8 No 2 - December 2007

The Season's Greetings to all our Readers

Linking stories written by Eric Shackle and posted on websites in... Australia ~ Bangladesh ~ Canada ~ China ~ England ~ New Zealand Scotland ~ Singapore ~ South Africa ~ South Korea ~ Spain Sri Lanka ~ Sweden ~ Thailand ~ USA

CONTENTS

To read these stories, click on the headings

Artists love The 12 Days of Christmas December 13 is "day number one" of The 12 Days of Christmas for most of us, but centuries ago Day Number One was Christmas Day, December 25. Talented Australian photographer Anne Geddes displays her version of 12 drummers drumming in one of her books. The drummers are all babies beating toy drums. 0712 Solar power: California shames Oz While some Australian politicians plan to build still more atmosphere-polluting coal fired power stations, the nation's leading solar energy scientist, Dr. David Mills, neglected by his adopted country, has moved to the US to help build a solar thermal power station in Central California. 0712 Islanders re-enact The Pig War Few people other than North Americans have heard of the once-threatened Pig War between Great Britain and the United States, but residents of tiny San Juan Island, where it occurred in 1859, re-enact it every year. 0712 Olive Riley's Lost Cousins As a great-great-grandmother, my friend Olive Riley (108), the world's oldest blogger, often wonders how many living relatives she has. Since she was the youngest of a family of 12 children, there must be hundreds of their descendants she has never heard of. 0712 PLEASE SHOW US WHERE YOU ARE Thanks to BRAVENET, we invite you to point out where you live and send us a brief message. To stop the map becoming too cluttered only the latest 100 posts are retained. And if you'd like to tell a friend about us ...

Cinderellas, aged 10 to 108
Australia's Olive Riley is a 21st century centenarian Cinderella. In less than a year she has rocketed from relative obscurity to global internet fame. She is probably the oldest of the world's 108 milllion bloggers. Dubbed "the world's favorite grandma," Olive celebrated her 108th birthday on October 20. Fond greetings came from many parts of the world, and have been posted on her captivating website. 0711

Is the game of Conkers really dangerous?
The ancient game of conkers may be making a comeback in Britain, after being banned from many school playgrounds several years ago, when it was condemned as dangerous. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. 0711

Welsh couple's quirky quest
For years, we've been intrigued by bizarre pastimes such as worm charming and egg throwing, and have written about world championships held every year in remote parts of the world. Now, to our delight, we've found two kindred spirits - a Welsh couple who take part in as many world championships as they can, if the events are held in the UK. 0711

3D artist amazes Londoners
Talented American 3D sidewalk artist Kurt Wenner has crossed the Atlantic and set to work, amazing passers-by at Waterloo railway station. Hailing Wenner as a 3D Michelangelo, the Daily Mail said: "Nothing is what it seems in these remarkable pictures which take pavement art to a new level." 0711

Anu Garg's love of words
"As far as he can recall, Anu Garg has been fascinated with words," says a story in his local newspaper, The Woodinville Weekly, in Seattle, Washington. "The Woodinville man was always a voracious reader and early on, he realized that each word in a story has its own story. He says, 'Each word has a biography and it tells us about its parents, where it was born, what corners of the world it traveled and the route it took to reach where it is today. It’s so easy to fall in love with words.'" 0711

ARCHIVES from November 2000

* au is the Internet abbreviation for Australia, za for South Africa (Zuid Afrika).

THIS UNIQUE eBOOK WILL BE CONTINUED.
NEW STORIES FIRST DAY OF EVERY MONTH.
(Last updated around 1 December 2007)

All above articles copyright © 2006/2007 Eric Shackle