Category Archives: Thursday 13

Thursday 13: Books where the movie adaptation worked for me

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thursday13

In spite of my dislike of movie adaptations of books in general there are some that worked for me. Here is a selection (the links go to Youtube):

  1. Misery
    Most Stephen King adaptations are pretty bad, but this was was brilliant. Kathy Bates WAS Annie Wilkes.
  2. I, Claudius
    A British TV series adapting Robert von Ranke Graves’ books about Claudius. Unforgettable: John Hurt’s dance. 
  3. Girl with a pearl earring. You just have to like everything with Colin Firth.
  4. The Princess Bride
    My last re-read of the book was disappointing, but the movie is fabulous. My favourite character: Vizzini
  5. The Enchanted April
    A great book that we read around the world. The movie is just like it.
  6. The Lord Peter Wimsey series with Ian Carmichael.
    He owns that role.
  7. The P&P BBC mini series
    With Colin Firth & Jennifer Ehle. Need I say more?
  8. Rebecca.
    Isn’t Laurence Olivier great as Maxim de Winter?
  9. Why didn’t they ask Evans?
    Not the one with Miss Marple! No idea why they always put sleuths into the story where they don’t belong. This is a stand alone. The movie with Sir John Gielgud, Francesca Annis and James Warwick is it!
  10. Bridget Jones’ Diary.
    And yet again Colin Firth. Not saying this is the best film ever, but it worked. I like Renée Zellweger as Bridget.
  11. Psycho
    Alfred Hitchcock never fails to deliver. The film was better than the book.
  12. Rosemary’s Baby
    Not sure whether I didn’t like the Bramford best.
  13. The Lord of the Rings
    Much better than the books (sorry, all Tolkien purists). I don’t know how often I watched those movies with every possible commentary and without. This is one of my many favourite scenes. Can’t wait for The Hobbit.

What movie adaptations of books worked for you?

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Thursday 13: Search terms

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thursday13 

Sometimes the ways that people follow to get to this blog are intriguing and mysterious indeed. Here are some search terms that caught my attention…

No. Search term or question my comment
1 how to get rikkis’ clothes you can’t
2 reading doesn’t hold my attention it holds mine
3 throw whole book into a fire never done that before, but I have heard of a few people who did
4 Bookmooch problems you don’t say!
5 213 213 what? Room? Floor? Books? What?
6 Brett Ashley a bitch the sun also rises Exactly!
7 abc meme underwear There is a meme about underwear? Whereabout?
8 crochet a netbook can you do that?
9 what to do next time I don’t know either
10 Lentil Pie You wouldn’t believe how many people search for lentil pie! Here it is.
11 bibliography in farmville by george orwell This very much reminds me of bookstorebingo. “Farmville” indeed!
12 something written on wallpaper like what?
13 rikki and his lovers I don’t object to the lovers, but I do object to the “his”!

 

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Paris in July: 13 quotes

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Today I am combining Thursday 13 with Paris in July and found thirteen quotes about Paris.

Louvre Image by Dimitri B from flickr.com

  • If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast. ~Ernest Hemingway
  • America is my country and Paris is my hometown. ~Gertrude Stein
  • When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise. ~Henry Miller
  • In Paris they simply stared at me when I spoke to them in French. I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language. ~Mark Twain
  • Of course I have played outdoor games. I once played dominoes in an open air cafe in Paris. ~Oscar Wilde
  • The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners.  ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • [Paris] is dirty. It has pigeons and black yards. The people have white skin. ~Albert Camus
  • To have one’s mother-in-law in the country when one lives in Paris, and vice versa, is one of those strokes of luck that one encounters only too rarely. ~Honoré de Balzac
  • Nowhere is one more alone than in Paris … and yet surrounded by crowds. Nowhere is one more likely to incur greater ridicule. And no visit is more essential.  ~Marguerite Duras
  • Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant. ~Honoré de Balzac
  • To err is human. To loaf is Parisian. ~Victor Hugo
  • …the whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music…it is worth anyone’s while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in Everything. ~James Thurber
  • Paris is the only city where you can step out of a railway station —and see, the Seine with its bridges and bookstalls, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the beginning of the Champs Elysees—what other city offers as much as you leave a train? ~Margaret Anderson

 

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Thursday 13: Quotes about tattoos

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 tattoo_festival

I felt like looking around for quotes about tattoos today. My selection:

  • I always look for a woman who has a tattoo.  I see a woman with a tattoo, and I’m thinking, okay, here’s a gal who’s capable of making a decision she’ll regret in the future.  ~Richard Jeni
  • Beauty is skin deep.  A tattoo goes all the way to the bone.  ~Vince Hemingson
  • The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation.  ~James Cook, 1779
  • Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves.  ~Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
  • A man without tattoos is invisible to the Gods. ~Iban Proverb
  • It’s a good thing they hurt, otherwise every pussy in the world would have one. ~Jack Rudy
  • The only difference between a tattooed person and a person who isn’t tattooed is that a tattooed person doesn’t care if you’re tattooed or not. ~Sign often seen in tattoo shops
  • Reason #7 For Not Getting a Tattoo: People will know you are running your own life, instead of listening to them! ~ Sailor Jerry Collins, tattoo artist
  • Every officer in the British army should be tattooed with his regimental crest. Not only does this encourage esprit de corps but also assists in the identification of casualties. ~Field Marshal Earl Roberts
  • Tattooing is about personalizing the body, making it a true home and fit temple for the spirit that dwells inside it. ~Michelle Delio
  • Getting a tattoo should hurt. It’s a rite of passage. ~Jenna Jameson
  • A tattoo is an affirmation: that this body is yours to have and to enjoy while you’re here. Nobody else can control what you do with it. ~Don Ed Hardy

And the last word goes to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe…

  • Painting and tattooing the body is a return to animalism.

 

To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

 

Image of tattoo arts festival in Pattaya, Thailand by Binder.donedat at flickr

Thursday 13: Facts about chocolate

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Today I am continuing my indulgence T13 with facts about chocolate. Cocoa Trees

  1. There are three major types of cacao: Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario.
  2. Cocoa beans were already used by the Mayans in the 7th century. They made a religious tonic drink they called “Xocoatl”.
  3. In the 13th century cacao beans were a unit of currency in central America.
  4. There even were counterfeit beans carved out of clay.
  5. In 1819 the first chocolate bar in history was created by Francois Louis Cailler in Switzerland.
  6. The countries with the biggest cacao production is Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia.Cocoa Pod
  7. After roasting the cacao beans and removing their outer shell they are ground and heated up. By heating up the cacao fat (cacao butter) melts and turns the cacao into a cacao liquor.
  8. Unsweetened chocolate only contains 0-2% sugars, whereas semi-sweet one contains between 45-65%.
  9. However, even unsweetened chocolate has a lot of calories due to the large amount of fat  in it.
  10. Chocolate increases the level of serotonine in the brain, so it might be helpful against depression and stress. Dried Cocoa Beans
  11. The main types of chocolate are: White chocolate, milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate.
  12. When baking do not use chocolate chips to replace other types of chocolate. They contain less cacao butter and therefore won’t melt well.
  13. Chocolate absorbs other odors, so keep it in a dark, cool, dry place away from strong-smelling items. 

 

And now a little helpful tip to feel good about yourself in all sorts of ways:

Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you’ll get one thing done.

To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

All images by Nestlé on flickr.

Thursday 13: Breakfast quotes

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Today I am looking at quotes about breakfast. I am not a big breakfast lover, so you should not bebreakfast surprised that most of the quotes give it a somewhat negative spin. 

Still, enjoy!

  • A kiss and a drink of water make but a wersh breakfast. ~Scottish proverb
  • O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you’ve brought breakfast in bed you’ll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal. ~Milan Kundera
  • My wife and I tried two or three times in the last forty years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.  ~Winston Churchill
  • There is a vast difference between the savage and the civilised man, but it is never apparent to their wives until after breakfast. ~Helen Rowland
  • In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast. That is so dreadful of them! Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. ~Oscar Wilde
  • Laugh before breakfast, you’ll cry before supper. ~English proverb
  • Breakfast is a notoriously difficult meal to serve with a flourish. ~Clement Freud
  • People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table. ~Max Beerbohm
  • Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first. ~Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)

  • I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast. ~W. C. Fields

  • The difference between ‘involvement’ and ‘commitment’ is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was ‘involved’ – the pig was ‘committed’. ~Unknown

  • All the older people who are thriving have stayed physically active — there are exceptions, and everyone knows someone who smoked two packs a day and had a few social beers with breakfast every morning who lived to be 85, but you have to assume that this won’t be you, … ~Anne Lamott

  • DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced. ~Ambrose Bierce

To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

Image of breakfast table by Pinot & Dita at flickr.com 

Thursday 13: Quotes by George Sand

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george_sand Her name probably popped into my head because of that book I started some time ago but never finished because it just couldn’t hold my attention – “Becoming George Sand”. Besides, two days ago it was International Women’s Day and George Sand was a woman after my own heart, non-conformist and with views rather unusual for her time.

 

 

 

 

  • He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.
  • I have no enthusiasm for nature which the slightest chill will not instantly destroy.
  • I regard as a mortal sin not only the lying of the senses in matters of love, but also the illusion which the senses seek to create where love is only partial. I say, I believe, that one must love with all of one’s being, or else live, come what may, a life of complete chastity.
  • Admiration and familiarity are strangers.
  • I ask the support of no one, neither to kill someone for me, gather a bouquet, correct a proof, nor to go with me to the theater. I go there on my own, as a man, by choice; and when I want flowers, I go on foot, by myself, to the Alps.
  • My profession is to be free.
  • Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect.
  • The capacity of passion is both cruel and divine.
  • The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.
  • Masterpieces are only lucky attempts.
  • All of us who have time and money to spare, travel — that is to say, we flee; since surely it is not so much a question of travelling as of getting away? Which of us has not some sorrow to dull, or some yoke to cast off?
  • We cannot tear a single page from our life, but we can throw the whole book into the fire.
  • The truth is too simple: one must always get there by a complicated route.

To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

Thursday 13: Cookbook and cooking quotes

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Today’s Thursday 13 is about cookbook and cooking quotes…

cooks

Image by Skånska Matupplevelser at flickr

  • The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books — how not to eat what you’ve just learned how to cook. ~Andy Rooney
  • I did toy with the idea of doing a cook-book. . . . I think a lot of people who hate literature but love fried eggs would buy it if the price was right. ~Groucho Marx
  • Anyone who eats three meals a day should understand why cookbooks outsell sex books three to one. ~L.M. Boyd
  • Women can spin very well, but they cannot write a good book of cookery. ~Dr. Samuel Johnson
  • I can’t cook. I use a smoke alarm as a timer. ~Carol Siskind
  • I don’t even butter my bread. I consider that cooking. ~Katherine Cebrian
  • By November I had convinced myself that I had better things to do than read ‘Moby Dick’ and learn about the Continental Congress. Cook for instance. ~Ruth Reichi
  • When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking. ~Gail Sheehy
  • When compelled to cook, I produce a meal that would make a sword swallower gag. ~Russell Baker
  • What is literature compared with cooking? The one is shadow, the other is substance. ~E.V. Lucas
  • The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight. ~M.F.K. Fisher
  • Yeah, I’ve been around. They want me to find the man who rules the Universe, but I don’t care to meet him. I believe the man can’t cook. ~Douglas Adams
  • Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen. ~Robert Burton

 

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Thursday 13: Truffles

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Today’s post in my indulgence T13 series is about truffles. Click on the image to enlarge it.

 

t13_truffles

 

Credits: all images from flick’r (by izolan; jamesjyu; qwrrty; digital defection; SanFranAnnie; cacaobug; Surat Lozowick; Chocolate Reviews; Quintana Roo; artizone; Andy Ciordia) Template: Simply Yin; Paper: M. Fenwick, Title font: One Fell Swoop; Text from wikipedia

Thursday 13: Food named after people, part 2

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brownie

Image by ilco @sxc.hu

This is the second part of the Thursday 13 about food named after people.

  • Fettuccine Alfredo – Alfredo di Lelio, an early-20th century Italian chef who invented the dish for his wife in  1914-1920 at his Roman restaurant. The dish became famous in part because Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks touted it after their 1927 visit to Rome. The authentic Alfredo recipe contains only several butters, no cream sauce.
  • Béchamel sauce, named to flatter the matre d’Hotel to Louis XIV, Louis de Bchamel, Marquis de Nointel (1630-1703), also a financier and ambassador.
  • Caesar salad – Caesar Cardini (1896-1956), an Italian who came to San Diego, California after World War I, is generally thought to have created the salad (sans anchovies, except those in the Worcestershire sauce) at his restaurant in 1924. The restaurant was located in Tijuana, most likely to avoid Prohibition in the U.S. As with many popular dishes, there are more claimants to the salad’s invention, including Cardini’s business partner, his brother, and one of his young sous-chefs who said it was his mother’s recipe. Julius Caesar is not involved, except perhaps as the source of Mr. Cardini’s first name.
  • German chocolate cake, originally known as German’s Chocolate Cake – the 1950?s American cake took its name from Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate, which in turn took its name from Sam German who developed the sweet baking chocolate (between milk and semi-sweet) in 1852.
    Earl Grey tea – named after Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, Viscount Howick, and British Prime Minister 1830-1834.
  • Kaiserschmarren – the Austrian pancakes were created for Franz Josef I (1848-1916).
  • Macaroni Lucullus – Lucullus (c. 106-56 BC), full name Lucius Licinius Lucullus Ponticus, was perhaps the earliest recorded gastronome in the Western world, and he may also be its most famous. After a long spell of wars, the Roman general retired to a life of indulgence and opulence, most evident in his gardens and his cuisine. His name has become associated with numerous dishes of the over-the-top sort, using haute cuisine‘s favorite luxury staples – truffles, foie gras, asparagus tips, artichoke hearts, sweetbreads, cockscombs, wild game meats, Madeira, and so on. Macaroni Lucullus incorporates truffles and foie gras
  • Mirepoix – the carrot and onion mixture used for sauces and garnishes is thought to be named after the Duc de Lvis-Mirepoix, 18th-century marshal of France and one of Louis XV‘s ambassadors.
  • Mozartkugel – Salzburg, the birthplace of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), is also the place where this marzipan/nougat-filled chocolate was created c. 1890. Also in the composer’s honor, Ranhofer created “Galantine of pullet la Mozart” at Delmonico’s.
  • Dr Pepper – Dr. Charles Pepper. The soft drink invented by pharmacist Charles Atherton in 1885 at a Waco, Texas drugstore owned by Wade Morrison is said to be named for Morrison’s first employer, who owned a pharmacy in Virginia.
  • Dom Perignon – Dom Perignon (1638-1715), (Pierre) a blind French Benedictine monk, expert wine maker and developer of the first true champagne in the late 17th century.
  • Baby Ruth candy bar – most likely, Babe Ruth (1895-1948) was the inspiration for the name. Although the Curtiss Candy Co. has insisted from the beginning that the candy bar was named after a daughter of Grover Cleveland, Ruth Cleveland died in 1904 at the age of 12, while the Baby Ruth was introduced in 1921 right at a time when George Herman Ruth, Jr. had become a baseball superstar. It is interesting to note that very early versions of the wrapper offer a baseball glove for 79 cents. Babe Ruth’s announced intent to sue the company is probably what drove and perpetuated the dubious cover story.

    To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

    Thursday 13: Food quotes by authors

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    I’m continuing my indulgence T13 series today with quotes about food by famous writers. 

    bread

    Image by bybar @sxc.hu

    • Edible, adj.:  Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.  ~Ambrose Bierce
    • The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.  ~G.K. Chesterton
    • There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won’t, and that’s a wife who can’t cook and will.  ~Robert Frost
    • Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or other to be a deadly poison, and everything I don’t eat has been proved to be indispensable for life.  But I go marching on.  ~George Bernard Shaw
    • Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.  ~Mark Twain
    • Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.  ~Mark Twain
    • All sorrows are less with bread.  ~Miguel de Cervantes
    • A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.  ~Aldous Huxley
    • Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist. ~G. K. Chesterton

    • There is no love sincerer than the love of food. ~George Bernard Shaw

    • Sacred cows make the best hamburger” ~Mark Twain
    • Don’t let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine. ~Anthony Trollope
    • It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. ~Douglas Adams

    To see what other TT 13ers are talking about, go to the Thursday 13 website.

    Thursday 13: Food named after people, part 1

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    Today’s Thursday 13 is about dishes that are named after famous literary people.

     food

    Image by Shermeee at flick’r

    • Omelette Arnold Bennett – an unfolded omelette with smoked haddock invented at the Savoy Hotel for the writer Arnold Bennett
    • Chateaubriand – a cut and a recipe for steak named for Vicomte Franois Ren de Chateaubriand (1768-1848), French writer and diplomat. His chef Montinireil is thought to have created the dish around 1822 while Chateaubriand was ambassador to England. There is also a kidney dish named for him. 
    • Salad à la Dumas – Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), noted French author. Apparently a favorite of Charles Ranhofer, there are also timbales, stewed woodcock, and mushrooms la Dumas.
    • Lamb chops Victor Hugo – the renowned French author, Victor Hugo (1802-1885), is commemorated with these, and with fillets of plover.
    • Timbales à la Irving – Washington Irving (1789-1859), the American author, given Charles Ranhofer’s penchant for honoring writers with his creations, is the likely source of the name. 
    • Potage anglais de poisson Lady Morgan – Lady Morgan, née Sydney Owenson (1776-1859), a popular Irish novelist, was visiting Baron James Mayer de Rothschild in 1829, when Creme created this elaborate fish soup in her honor. If you have several days available, you can make it yourself.
    • Mornay sauce – diplomat and writer Philippe de Mornay (1549-1623), a member of Henri IV’s court, is often cited as the name source for this popular cheese version of Béchamel sauce. The alternative story is that 19th-century French chef Joseph Voiron invented it and named it after one of his cooks, Mornay, his oldest son.
    • Lamprey à la Rabelais – François Rabelais (c. 1484-1553), French monk, turned physician, turned famed writer and satirist, was honored in this dish by Delmonico’s chef Charles Ranhofer. 
    • Chicken sauté George Sand – George Sand, the pseudonym of French author Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, Baronne Dudevant (1804-1876), a major figure in mid-19th century Parisian salons, had several dishes named for her, including fish consommé and sole. 
    • Wild Duckling à la Walter Scott – the dish named for the Scottish writer Walter Scott (1771-1832) includes Dundee marmalade and whiskey.
    • Lobster cutlets la Shelley – Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), the great English poet, drowned off the coast of Italy. Charles Ranhofer remembered him with this.
    • Omelette André Theuriet : the French novelist and poet Andr Theuriet (1833-1907) has this omelette with truffles and asparagus named for him.
    • Sole Jules Verne : Jules Verne (1828-1905), the famous French novelist, had several dishes named after him besides this, including a sauce, a garnish, grenades of turkey, breasts of partridge, and meat dishes.

    Source: Wikipedia

    To see what other TT 13ers are talking about, go to the Thursday 13 website.

    Want to see how much you know about food? Check your knowledge with the ultimate food quiz at the Guardian. Beware, it’s hard.

    Thursday 13: Cuban cigars nomenclature

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    Last time it was Champagne bottles, for this week’s Thursday 13 I am looking at a nomenclature of the size of Cuban cigars…

    cuban

    Image by ChrisGoldNY on flick’r

    Size Length in inches
    Demi-Tasse 3 7/8
    Très Petit Corona 4 – 4 5/8
    Panetela 4 1/2 – 4 7/8
    Petit Corona / Robusto 5
    Corona 5 1/2
    Piramide / Belicoso 5 1/2 – 6 1/8
    Corono Gorda / Extra 5 5/8
    Laguito No. 2 6
    Lonsdale 6 3/4
    Churchill 7
    Laguito No. 1 7 1/2
    Double Corona 7 5/8
    Gran Corona 9 1/4

     

    To see what other TT 13ers are talking about, go to the Thursday 13 website.

    Thursday 13: Champagne bottle nomenclature

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    domperignon

    I am having a look at the nomenclature of Champagne bottles today.

    We start with the smallest bottle available and will work our way up…

    Name content in litres
    Piccolo 0.1875
    Demiboite 0.375
    Standard 0.75
    Magnum 1.5
    Jeroboam 3
    Rehoboam 4.5
    Methuselah 6
    Salmanazar 9
    Balthazar 12
    Nebuchadnezzar 15
    Melchior 18
    Solomon 20
    Sovereign 25

    I know, there are two more, but then we would have more than 13, wouldn’t we. And, honestly, who keeps bottles with 27 and 30 litres of Champagne (Primat and Melchizedek) in the house anyway?

    To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

    Image by geishaboy500 @ flickr

    Thursday 13: Shakespeare

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    Today I’ll tell you a few phrases and expressions that Shakepeare  coined.  shakespeare_chandos

    • The “green-ey’d monster” made its first appearance in print in Othello (III.3)
    • Ever wondered what you saw in a man when it was over? At the time you’ve probably been in your “salad days” like Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra (I.5)
    • Aldous Huxley revived the “Brave New World” from The Tempest (V.1) in 1932
    • “A Dish fit for the Gods” is not necessarily a delicious meal, as we know from Julius Caesar (II.1)
    • It is up to you to decide whether “Her Infinite Variety” is a good or a bad thing in Antony and Cleopatra (II.2)
    • Macduff’s family was erased in “one fell swoop” by the hell-kite Macbeth. Macbeth (IV.3)
    • When you say “the play’s the thing”, you might not have exactly the same intention as Hamlet had. He wanted to get proof of fratricide, after all. Hamlet (II.2)
    • Let us hope you will never have to give “a pound of flesh” when defaulting on a debt. The Merchant of Venice (IV.1)
    • Ever seen “a sorry sight”? Probably it won’t be as bad as the one Macbeth is talking about. Macbeth (II.2)
    • “Sweets for the sweet” are not always candy for the cutie you are going out with. Hamlet (V.1)
    • Better not express your desire of “too much of a good thing” in public. People might be embarrassed by it. As you like it (IV.1)
    • On the other hand Lady Macbeth’s wish that scheming spirits “unsex me [her] here” has no sexual connotation at all. Macbeth (I.5)
    • The first “wild-goose chase” was one of wits, namely Romeo’s and Mercutio’s. Romeo and Juliet (II.4)

    To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

    Thursday 13: Random Latin quotes and phrases

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    Today is all about Latin, a language that I hated to learn when I was at school, but sort of appreciate now.

    • The first one shows clearly that the old Romans have a lot in common with the Germans. We have an expression “Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht” (actually they even made a film with that title), meaning “What does not fit will be made to fit”.
      This is the ancient version:
      Aut viam inveniam aut faciam – I’ll either find a way or make one
    • Crede quod habes, et habes – Believe that you have it and you do.
    • Amor tussisque non celantur. – Neither love nor a cough can be hidden . Ovid
    • Bonitas non est pessimis esse meliorem. – Being better than the worst is not goodness. Seneca
    • Seneca is probably right with the last quote, however he also says:
      Exigo a me non ut optimis par sim, sed ut malis melior. – I expect myself not to be equal to the best, but better than the bad.
    • Aliquando et insanire jucundum est. – Sometimes it is enjoyable to be insane. Seneca
    • Nec possum tecum vivere, nec sine te. – I can neither live with you, nor without you. Martial
    • Nemo repente fuit turpissimus – No one ever became thoroughly bad in one step. Juvenal
    • Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum. –

      • Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system. Cicero

    • Exitus acta probat – The outcome proves the deeds. Ovid
    • Mens agitat molem – The mind moves the matter. Vergil
    • Nulla res carius constat quam quae precibus empta est – Nothing is so expensive as that which you have bought with pleas. Seneca
    • And my favourite:
      Animum debes mutare non coelum. – You should change your attitude, not your sky. Seneca

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    Thursday 13: Romance quotes by Oscar Wilde

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    romance Again I have missed Thursday 13 for quite a while. This must be the first one in months. As it was Oscar Wilde’s birthday a few days ago, here is another batch of his quotes – and it’s all about romance…(or relationships).

     

     

     

      • They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.
      • A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
      • The heart was made to be broken.
      • The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
      • Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
      • Men always want to be a woman’s first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a man’s last romance.
      • Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.
      • One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
      • How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
      • Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
      • Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
      • How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
      • In married life three is company and two none.

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    Thursday 13: 13 local sights worth seeing

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    Today’s Thursday 13 shows you 13 sights in town that are worth seeing…

    nbg

    1. The Imperial castle
    2. Albrecht Dürer’s birthplace
    3. The Nazi party rally grounds
    4. Schwurgerichtssaal 600, where the Nuremberg trials took place
    5. Executioner’s bridge
    6. Beautiful fountain
    7. St. Elisabeth
    8. St. Johannis cemetery, a medieval cemetery, containing many old graves (Albrecht Dürer, Willibald Pirckheimer, and others).
    9. Way of Human Rights
    10. Craftmen’s courtyard
    11. Marriage Roundabout
    12. Nassau House
    13. Medieval Dungeons

     

    Click on the image below to view a photo album of all the sights (all images from wiki commons).

    1kaiserburg

    Thursday 13: Some words taken from real liff

    6 Replies

    I’m not a big Douglas Adams fan, in fact, I am probably one of the handful of people on this planet who didn’t like The Hitchhiker’s Guide. However, “The Deeper Meaning of Liff” is one of the cleverest books ever. It is “a dictionary of things that there aren’t any words for yet” and it is brilliant, as you will see in a moment. Astonishingly, they even managed to publish it in German, not as a translation but an adaptation with German place names instead of English ones to act as the new words.

    To give you a taste here are 13 examples…

    • Aalst (n.) One who changes his name to be nearer the front
    • Oystermouth (n.) One who can kiss and chew gum at the same time
    • Nazeing (ptcpl. vb.) The rather unconvincing noises of pretended interest which an adult has to make when brought a small dull object for admiration by a child
    • Malibu (n.) The height by which the top of a wave exceeds the height to which you have rolled up your trousers
    • Margate (n.) a margate is a particular kind of commissionaire who sees you every day and is on cheerful Christian-name terms with you, then one day refuses to let you in because you’ve forgotten your identity card.
    • Loberia (n.) Unshakeable belief that your ears stick out
    • Lochranza (n.) The long unaccompanied wail in the middle of a Scottish folk song where the pipers nip round the corner for a couple of drinks
    • Glud (n.) The pinkish mulch found in the bottom of a lady’s handbag
    • Falster (n.) a long-winded, dishonest and completely incredible excuse used when the truth would have been completely acceptable.
    • Dunino (n.) Someone who always wants to do whatever you want to do
    • Bradworthy (n.) One who is skilled in the art of naming loaves
    • Cafu (n.) The frustration of not being able to remember what an acronym stands for
    • Zagreb (n.) A stranger  who suddenly clutches an intimate part of your body and then pretends they did it to prevent themselves falling

    Oh, and a German example so you can see that it works just as well…

    • Hilter (n.) Political agitator the masses are not happy with since he always misspeaks

     

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    Thursday 13: Book items I want

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    Ex libris

    Image by firexbrat on flickr

    Today I’ll show you some lovely book items I found on Etsy and other similar shops…

     

    That’s it for today, but I could have continued this list for quite some time….

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    Thursday 13: Random facts about my town

    12 Replies
    • It is almost 1.000 years old.
    • Around 1515 Albrecht Dürer published the "Stabiussche Weltkarte", the first perspective drawing of the terrestrial globe.
    • Together with Prague and Cologne it was one of the biggest cities of the Holy Roman Empire.
    • The main part of Nicolaus Copernicus’ work was published in Nuremberg in 1543.
    • In 1632 Wallenstein had a military camp put up in the west of the town for more than 50.000 soldiers. However, it was never conquered.
    • On Sept. 15, 1935 at the 7th rally the Nuermberg Laws were introduced.
    • Today it has a “street of human rights”, an art installation created by Israeli artist Dani Karavan in 1993. It consists of pillars and an old oak, each of which has engraved an article of the universal declaration of human rights in thirty different languages.
    • Since 1995 it is the venue for the annual International conference for human rights.
    • Our library is the oldest German library with municipal funding.
    • 18% of its inhabitants are citizens of foreign countries.
    • It has fourteen international partner cities.
    • In an international study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting about the quality of life in 215 cities worldwide it is on rank 23.
    • In a recent referendum in Bavaria 63.4% of its citizens voted for the strictest anti smoking law in Germany.

    strassedmensch languages

    Street of human rights and its languages

    Here you can find more Thursday 13 participants.  

     

    Thursday 13: Useful Origami

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    Origami (from ori meaning "folding", and kami meaning "paper") is the traditional Japanese folk art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century AD and was popularized in the mid-1900s. It has since then evolved into a modern art form. The goal of this art is to transform a flat sheet of material into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques, and as such the use of cuts or glue are not considered to be origami. (Source: Wikipedia)

    If you ever are in a situation where you only have some paper at hand and feel the need for let’s say a box or a medal (for whatever reason) those instructions might come in handy.

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    Thursday 13: Lost in translation

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    Lost in Translation is a book about “Misadventures in English Abroad”, the “very best and worst instances of genuine grammar-gargling from around the world”.

    Since I am working in the hotel business I was most interested in the hotel section of the book, but there are many more. Here is a selection of the hotel related “misadventures”.

    1. Suggestive views from every window. (Amalfi, Italy)
    2. Welcome to Hotel Cosys: where no one’s stranger. (India)
    3. Guests are requested not to smoke or do other disgusting behaviours in bed. (Tokyo)
    4. It is our intention to pleasure you every day. (Hamburg, Germany)
    5. Measles not included in room charge. (Seoul)
    6. If there is anything we can do to assist and help you, please do not contact us. (T’aipei, Taiwan)
    7. The concierge immediately for informations. Please don’t wait last minutes. Then it will be too late to arrange any inconveniences. (Sorrento, Italy)
    8. It is defended to promenade the corridors in the boots of the mountain in front of six hours. (Switzerland)
    9. Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension. (Austria)
    10. If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it. (Moscow)
    11. If you want just conditions of warm in your room, please control yourself. (Japan)
    12. You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid. (Japan)
    13. We highly recommend the hotel tart. (Torremolinos)

     

    To see what other Thursday 13ers write about today, visit Thursday 13.

    Thursday 13: Books made into films that work (at least for me)

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    Today I’m talking about films made from books. The kind that works. At least they work for me.

    • The Lord of the Rings trilogy
      I don’t know how often I have seen it, I’ve seen it in the movie theatre and at home, the regular version, the director’s cut, with background comments of about every person thinkable and the making of. Love it.
    • Misery
      About the only film after a Stephen King book that works, at least of the ones I have seen. Kathy Bates alone is worth watching it.
    • Pride & Prejudice, the BBC mini series
      Well, Colin Firth is Mr. Darcy. I don’t need to say more, do I?
    • Why didn’t they ask Evans? 
      A lot of Agatha Christie books have been turned into films that work, but I especially like this one. No Poirot, no Miss Marple, not even the Beresford couple, but two other sleuths. I could watch it again and again for its nice atmosphere, the landscape, the fashion, the clever plot and Leigh Lawson as Roger Bassington-ffrench (what a name!).
    • Young Frankenstein
      I know, it is not exactly like the book (not quite), but it is so funny. Come on, who doesn’t like the scene with Abby Normal?
    • Bram’ Stoker’s Dracula
      You know, the one with sexy Gary Oldman. My husband keeps telling me that Dracula is NOT a romance, but I don’t believe him.
    • A room with a view
      The first film I saw Daniel Day Lewis in. Loved him. Oh, and the Italian setting and Julian Sands, of course. And the gorgeous Helena Bonham-Carter. James Ivory can do no wrong.
    • A clockwork orange
      Malcolm McDowell as Alex – perfect.
    • Dangerous Liaisons
      The book is great and so is the film. The cast is incredible. I loved John Malkovich as the Conte de Valmont.
    • The unbearable lightness of being
      Book by Milan Kundera and Daniel Day Lewis in the film. This had to work for me. And it did.
    • The Princess Bride
      Another Rob Reiner film. Who does not love The Princess Bride? And Cary Elwes as Wesley. Did you know that William Goldman who wrote the Princess Bride (book and screenplay) also wrote the screenplay for Misery?
    • Rosemary’s Baby
      I loved the atmosphere in that building and Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet. Exactly like I pictured her when I read the book.
    • The name of the rose
      Impressive castle, great cast, wonderful story. I think this was the first time I saw Christian Slater. But the character I remember best was Ron Perlman as Salvatore.

    To see what other Thursday 13ers blogged about, go here.

    Thursday 13: Author vs. author

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    I haven’t done a Thursday 13 for a long time. So this week I thought it’s time to join once more. Here are the best (in my opinion) 13 author vs. author put downs found at examiner.com.

    turtle_fight
    Image by dropowtt at sxc.hu

    1. How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone’? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.
    Harold Bloom

    2. Am reading more of Oscar Wilde. What a tiresome, affected sod.
    Noel Coward

    3. I have been reading a translation of Goethe’s ‘Wilhelm Meister.’ Is it good? To me it seems perhaps the very worst book I ever read. No Englishman could have written such a book. I cannot remember a single good page or idea….Is it all a practical joke? If it really is Goethe’s ‘Wilhelm Meister’ that I have been reading, I am glad I have never taken the trouble to learn German.
    Samuel Butler

    4. His work is evil, and he is one of those unhappy beings of whom one can say that it would be better had he never been born.
    Anatole France about Emile Zola

    5. A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.
    William Faulkner about Mark Twain

    6. I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.

    Evelyn Waugh

    7. Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes — and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one.
    Ernest Hemingway

    8. I grow bored in France — and the main reason is that everybody here resembles Voltaire…the king of nincompoops, the prince of the superficial, the anti-artist, the spokesman of janitresses, the Father Gigone of the editors of Siecle.
    Charles Baudelaire

    9. He is a bad novelist and a fool. The combination usually makes for great popularity in the US.
    Gore Vidal about Alexander Solzhenitsyn

    10. If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes….a more sententious, holding-forth old bore, who expected every hero-worshipping adenoidal little twerp of a student-poet to hang on his every word I never saw.
    James Dickey

    11. I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    12. To me he is an enormously skillful f#*&-up and his book will do great damage to our country. Probably I should re-read it again to give you a truer answer. But I do not have to eat an entire bowl of scabs to know they are scabs…I hope he kills himself….
    Ernest Hemingway about James Jones

    13. Paradise Lost’ is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
    Samuel Johnson about Milton’s “Paradise Lost”

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