I spent the past weekend at Sauble Beach with my sister, daughters, niece, and dear friend. Sauble Beach is about a three hour drive from my home through some lovely areas of Ontario, and I throughly enjoyed the scenic drive.

The beach, and nearby town hold historic significance within Ontario, but on a more personal note this is where my parents met in the 1950s, and where my grandparents once loved to vacation in summer. It was a pleasure to spend time with my children there.

Please note that this entry is for both the Tuesday, and Wednesday editions of WW.

Happy Wordless Wednesday! And Thank You For Stopping By!

For a list of other Wordless Wednesday participants please click here.

I cannot believe that in 2008 one of my own favourite comedic films is still banned! In fact I am surprised that it was ever banned in the first place! I am talking about Monty Python's Life Of Brian, and in one of those odd quirks of fate the mayor of Aberystwyth, who just happened to have been featured in film, wants the town's near-30 year ban on the film finally lifted.

Mayor Sue Jones-Davies (centre) with the Monty Python team on the film's set

Here is a snippet from the BBC:

She's not the messiah, she's the mayor of Aberystwyth and she has a plan.

Sue Jones-Davies is trying to overturn a near 30-year ban imposed by the town on Monty Python's Life of Brian - the film in which she played a role.

Long before she donned her mayoral robes in the mid Wales town, she played Brian's girlfriend in the movie.

Opponents claimed it made fun of Jesus, but she says it is "amazing" that a town like hers still officially bars a movie now regarded as a comedy classic.

In 1979, however, it grabbed the headlines for the wrong reasons, with critics accusing the Python team of blasphemy with its story about a Jewish man who was mistaken for the messiah and then crucified.

Some religious groups picketed cinemas which screened the film.

Full article here

I hope she has the ban lifted.......at this point it is just silly in my opinion.

A marble bust of the Roman Emperor Hadrian is carefully lowered into position for an exhibition at the British Museum, London.

Image Credit: BBC

The BBC ran an article this past week on skeletons that were dug up from beneath London, England, and are now featured in a new exhibition, which will open this summer. Regulars around here should be aware of my love of skeletons, mummies, and bog people, and should not be surprised that I would LOVE to see this exhibit!

Here is a snippet from the BBC:

Beneath our feet, stories of the past lie waiting to be told.

Over the last 30 years, the Museum of London has excavated, examined and archived 17,000 skeletons. Now, 26 of them are to go on display at the Wellcome Trust in London.

They each have a story to tell about life in the capital hundreds of years ago.

Full BBC Article & Videos Here

Skeletons: London's Buried Bones runs at the Wellcome Collection at 183 Euston Road from 23 July to 28 September

Maria Volkova's voice quivers as she recalls the Holodomor. As a six-year-old child, she survived the Ukrainian famine by eating dandelion roots, pumpkin flowers and even rats.

Maria, 82, who has lived in Wollaton for the past nine years, spoke of the famine which robbed her of her childhood, claimed the lives of her baby sister and two young cousins and saw her father branded a traitor and taken away to Siberia.

On her sixth birthday, she shared a feast of soup made out of pumpkin flowers at a party with children who had swollen bellies due to malnutrition.

During the Holodomor - often translated as "to inflict death by hunger" - children at school had lessons on how to collect grubs in exchange for grain.

The famine of 1932-33 was long denied by the Soviet Union, but most historians today agree with the Ukrainians that it was an act of genocide. But this has not been recognised by many governments in the world.

Maria said she was "was one of the lucky few who survived". Three million children are estimated to have died out of the seven to ten million believed to perished in the famine.

"We had no meat, so in the winter, we resorted to catching rats," she said. "At school, we were given a bucket and we girls would flush the rodents out. The boys would then catch them and we would have a feast," she said

Maria was one of several survivors of the Holodomor who took part in Keep the Flame Alive, a campaign to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Ukraine's famine-genocide at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in Mansfield Road on July 2.

Food was already scarce when Stalin's policy of collectivisation saw farms seized and food sent to feed people in the factories.

Desperate to put food in his children's stomachs, Maria's father bought a bag of grain on the black market.

It was enough for the Communists to raid the house one night in 1930. A terrified Maria watched as her father was branded a traitor for hoarding food and arrested.

His wife walked 90km to visit him in prison before he was sent to work in Siberia. He was never seen again.

Maria, like all children whose parents had been taken away, had to wear signs saying "children of traitors".

Of the 28 children in Maria's school class that autumn, only 12 survived the winter. The rest had succumbed to the famine.

The family endured more pain when Maria's aunties and cousins were also sent to the work camps in Siberia.

Maria said: "During the collectivisation, they took everything, including my aunties' last horse. The head of the collective farm gave the horse to his son. The son was riding it and so she went to the stables and took it back.

"That night the Communists came and took the auntie and all of her family save two of her children and deported them all to Siberia.

"My mother had eight sisters who were also all deported. Afterwards we had word she was still alive and she wanted the children to go and live with her.

"They were taken by train and were reunited, but they only lived for six months."

At Nottingham's Ukrainian Cultural Centre, Maria is able to relax and feel at home. She left Ukraine when her daughter married an Englishman and she moved to Nottingham. She has been going to the centre ever since.

Around 200 people gathered at the event organised by the Ukrainian World Congress and the Association of Ukrainian's in Great Britain to remember the victims.

Ukraine today says the famine was an act of genocide orchestrated by Stalin.

The torch remembering its victims was carried by president of the Ukrainian World Congress, Askold Lozynskyj, and Ukraine ambassador Vladyslav Rohovyi.

Guests included Nottingham East MP John Heppell who has vowed to campaign for recognition of the Holodomor as an act of genocide.

He said: "We can see that this was not just a crime against Ukraine, but a crime against humanity and I find it impossible to see that as anything other than genocide."

A national commemorative event will be held on November 22 in London.

Our thanks to Michael Kachor for alerting us to this. My family were victims of this horrific tragedy, and it must never be forgotten. Through remembrance we Ukrainians throughout the world can heal, and make sure that this never happens again.

Can you imagine what it might be like to have to tidy up a place of this size?! I certainly wouldn't mind giving it a try! Please note that this entry is for both the Tuesday, and Wednesday editions of WW.

Happy Wordless Wednesday! And Thank You For Stopping By!

For a list of other Wordless Wednesday participants please click here.

Image Credit: Digital Photos.net

I love to go to estate sales, and over the weekend I had the opportunity to attend one in my own neighbourhood. The sale was for the contents of a house that's owner had lived in for a very long time, and had recently passed on at the grand old age of 100.

I purchased a few wonderful pieces that I may blog about here in the future, but I definitely wanted to share this one photo I had bought that you see above.

Despite being in a very sturdy wooden frame the photo suffers from some scratches, and obvious nicotine damage. It is also in a fairly fragile state.

I often pick up old photos at sales, and wonder about who or what may be behind the images, and for some reason this couple held a sad attraction for me.

When I inquired who they maybe I was told by the lady's descendants that they believed the couple were in fact her grandparents, but had no real idea as to who they were, their names, or even where the photo may have been taken. They speculated it may have been England.

The only clue I have to its origin is this stamp at the bottom of the photo. It reads Davis & Lloy (probably Lloyd) Photos, I also purchased a few items that were definitely hand-made in Ireland so this couple may in fact be Irish?

Any thoughts, or ideas on where they may have come from or a date would be much appreciated. I do think they may be Edwardian, and if they were the owner's grandparents this photo may date to the turn of the century.

From The BBC...

When the Buddhas of Bamiyan were carved out of the mountainside, the Roman Empire still dominated the globe.

They towered over a rich valley in what is now central Afghanistan, where caravans of traders would stop and rest on the Silk Road as they transported goods between east and west.

For centuries the two huge statues stood guard over Bamiyan.

But in 2001, just months before they were forced from power, the Taleban dynamited what they considered un-Islamic representations of the human form.

Today all that remains are the recesses where they stood, and the labyrinth of fragile caves surrounding them.

Today there isn't even a paved road connecting the valley to Kabul, but yet inside the caves are a reminder of Bamiyan's past wealth and glory and a new claim to fame that could put the province back on the map.

Inside those caves the steep, narrow steps are crumbling, there are cracks in the mud tunnels carved into the mountainside, and still visible high in the echoing chambers are pieces of Buddhist iconic art which are now thought to be the oldest oil paintings in the world.

Experts feel that the murals found in these caves date back to 650AD and therefore are the earliest representation of this form of art on the planet.

Even more incredible is this part at the end of the BBC article...

A Buddhist pilgrim wrote around the time the paintings were finished in the mid seventh century of the amazing statues - but he described three.

According to his account, the third reclining Buddha was a 1,000 feet long and lay on the valley floor.

It would be remarkable if it was buried beneath the river sediment and two teams of archaeologists, one from France another from Japan, are in a race to find it.

The actor Michael J Fox was born in Edmonton Alberta in 1961. From 1982-1989 he played the character of Alex P. Keaton the neo-conservative, yuppie son of two ageing hippies in a US television show called Family Ties.

The actor saw big screen success in the Back To The Future film series playing time traveller Marty Mcfly (he might just make a good Dr Who companion). He had several successful movies afterwards, but returned to tv in the comedy Spin City from 1996-2000 and won an Emmy for his role. The show carried on for another two years after his departure due to Parkinson's disease.

Since leaving he has written a memoir called Lucky Man, and established the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

I was fortunate enough to meet Mr Fox briefly during the filming of Life with Mikey in 1993, and he was a super nice guy.

An amazing discovery has been recently made in Peru that will help us to better understand pre-Columbian people in that most facinating region of the world.

Here is a snippet from the CBC coverage:

Archeologists in northern Peru say they've unearthed a rare, well-preserved pre-Incan tomb dating back 1,600 years.

The tomb in Ucupe, 670 kilometres from Lima, had human remains as well as ceramics and jewelery, indicating the person was probably from nobility.

"It's clearly a first-rate find, because there is lots of iconography, which are elaborate," Canadian archeologist Steve Bourget told Reuters on Saturday.

"It will be a real pleasure to manipulate the data and compare them to sites like Sipan," said Bourget, who has worked in the area since 1986.

Sipan is a Moche archeological site located in the same region, famous for the tomb of El Señor de Sipan (Lord of Sipan). It is considered to be one of the most important archeological discoveries in the past 30 years because the main tomb was found intact.

Bourget said the team also discovered some technologically sophisticated objects made from copper.

Full CBC Article Here

With the sheer volume of grave robbery that went on in Peru in the past, and still continues on today because of the high demand of collectors around the globe it is a wonder that this tomb even exists in such an intact state. Very exciting indeed!!

Old Fort Niagara as it was

The history of Old Fort Niagara spans more than 300 years, and in that time it survived countless attacks, and several wars. However, due to a possible stupid mistake made by the neighbouring US Coast Guard the old fort went up in flames.

Here is a news snippet:

The fort's staff was busy getting ready for their biggest weekend of the year, when a visitor sounded the alert.

Three nearby fire departments responded to the call and the Coast Guard, stationed next door, but witnesses told us, because of the difficulty getting the heavy equipment in, some park staff had to resort to using garden hoses.

Investigators are still looking into what started the fire, confined to minor roof damage to the Provisions Storehouse built by the British in 1762, including the possibility it was accidentally touched off by a Coast Guard emergency flare.

Coast Guardsmen were conducting training exercises, nearby and there was plenty of wind that could have sent one of the flares or hot embers from one off-course, despite the precautions.

Park officials can't say either, but the Coast Guard is credited with responding quickly.

Full article including video here

Here is a direct link to Old Fort Niagara which hopefully will be ok, and have suffered only very minor damage. This is a terrific historic site that must be preserved for future generations. If you have never been to the Old Fort I highly recommend a visit!

I want to wish our American readers a very happy and safe Fourth of July holiday celebration! For non-Americans this is the day the USA celebrates their freedom, and independence.

Here is some Independence Day trivia for you!

"Trusted by the delegation with making some last minute revisions, John Hancock finished the Declaration of Independence with only the secretary of Congress, Charles Thompson, present. Though Hancock is popularly credited with having completed the last stroke of his bold signature with the phrase, "There, I guess King George will be able to read that," neither Hancock nor Thompson, the only ones who would have known, left any record of the famous one-liner."

I would make a joke about a current King George, but that would be in poor taste!

Happy Independence Day!!!

A replica of Argo, the mythical ship that bore Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece, sails through the Corinth Canal, Greece. The ship carries a crew from all 27 EU states.

Image Credit: BBC

Wishing all of our fellow Canadians a very Happy Canada Day!

This entry is for both the Tuesday, and Wednesday editions of WW.

Happy Wordless Wednesday! And Thank You For Stopping By!

For a list of other Wordless Wednesday participants please click here.