ETCETERA.........

Remember a few weeks ago I posted an old photograph from my husband's vintage collection and asked if anyone recognised the couple, or either of them, in the photo? Here's a link to the January post. Someone has solved the mystery. The original photograph is shown again below, and a cutting from husband's Flickr page. Link to Flickr page where there's another photograph and more detail among comments.

The male is Warner Oland. He played Charlie Chan in the movies in the 1930's. The female (from AskArt):
Born in Massachusetts on May 12, 1870. Edith Shearn moved to Los Angeles in 1910 and opened a studio in Hollywood in 1922. She married actor Warner Oland who is best remembered for his portrayal of Charlie Chan in the movies. Mrs. Oland remained in Hollywood until her death on May 14, 1968.

Astrologer Eric Francis wrote an excellent piece in 2011 (LINK) on Bradley Manning and his natal chart. (Manning is US Army private who stands accused of leaking the "Collateral Murder" video and State Department cables to Wikileaks.

There's a transcript at Common Dreams of Private Manning's statement this week at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pleaded not guilty to 12 other specifications. The transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O'Brien at the Article 39(a) session of United States v. Pfc. Bradley Manning on February 28, 2013 at Fort Meade, MD, USA.




I received this in a forwarded e-mail, thought it worth saving:

Photograph below was taken around 9 years ago when I was in Oklahoma on vacation, before husband and I were married.
We had stopped to read this sign on Highway 81, just over the Red River in Texas. I was amazed to see bullet holes all over the steel sign. Locals had obviously been using it for target practice. The sign might well have been replaced by now - and shot at all over again - I guess.


The text reads:

Highways Paved With Gold - From the immemorial man has searched for a land where streets were paved with gold. As early as the 16th Century he was in Texas, lured by Indian reports of "Seven Cities of Gold." They never were found. But they provided the basis for legends of untold riches--stories still spun by some Texans. Surprisingly, perhaps, many of the "tall tales" are more fact than fiction. For instance, both this section of U.S. Highway 81 and a portion of adjacent U.S. Highway 287 are actually paved with gold! The story began in 1936 when the Texas Highway Department was paving the two highways here in Montague County. Sand for the concrete was taken from a nearby pit, opened three years earlier. The grains glistened with such intensity as they were mixed that a closer examination seemed prudent. So a small supply was sent to a Fort Worth laboratory for assay. Back came the report: the sand contained gold. The news sent the owner of the pit in feverish search of the mother lode. But in vain. Top assays on his extensive "soundings" came to no more than 54 cents per ton of ore. His ardor was cooled further when he learned the gold was not free but deeply imbedded in the sand. Disheartened, he settled back into routine sand production. From his pit, however, eventually came $250,000 in gold--all part of the sand. It has been reckoned that as much as $31,000 is distributed along 39 miles of roadway. Some $25,000 in U.S. Highway 81 and $6,000 in U.S. Highway 287. The remainder has gone into other construction in the region, including numerous buildings in which concrete has been used. So it is that today's motorist has discovered the highways paved with gold and the "golden" cities which his predecessors sought in vain. (1963)

Which brand of supermarket cheddar should you reach for when you want something affordable? That was the question asked in an article recently at HuffPo HERE. I've complained often about the quality of cheese available in the USA - or at least in the part of the USA where I live. I dare say that people in New York and environs, or Los Angeles, or cheese centre Wisconsin have better choices. Supermarket Feta is good here - that's the extent of it though. We visit Sam's (sorry to the purists) mainly to buy Black Diamond premium vintage Canadian Cheddar, the only cheese I've found that comes anywhere near what I was used to eating in England. England isn't the sophisticate's idea of a cheese-making Mecca - that'd be France or Italy; but good no-nonsense, tasty, crumbly or smooth, sharp or mild - English varieties such as Cheddar, Leicester, Stilton (blue & white), Wensleydale, Cheshire, Lancashire, etc etc. are the best for me.

In Yorkshire we used to enjoy a piece of cheese with our apple pie - straight apple pie mind, none of yer cloves or other spicy additives, and not melted cheese, and no ice cream required!

Mustn't forget Welsh Rarebit (yum!) - it's the Brit open equivalent of America's toasted cheese sandwich. Mouth-wateringly wonderful it was - everyone has their "secret" special ingredient: beer, mustard, bacon, Worcestershire sauce, herbs......

When eating out, even in modest restaurants and cafes, years ago, there was always on the desert menu an option of "cheese and biscuits" for those who didn't sport a sweet tooth. Biscuits in this context are not the American biscuit, but more like American crackers. "Cream crackers" were the most common accompaniment to cheese in Britain in everyday restaurants, but in upper class places you'd be offered "the cheese board" with a variety of cheeses and different types of cracker, maybe even a little fruit, grapes, berries, an apple. This might all still go on, and in the USA too for all I know, but in my own limited experience, I haven't seen cheese and biscuits, or the US equivalent, on any menu anywhere we've eaten out here, or in the UK for many years.




Dr. Seuss was born today, 2 March in 1904:



"Teeth are always in style"
(Dr. Seuss)