In my presence she asked the little one to tell us how many eggs were in the fridge as we knew we were running low.

Answer - "There's only one Mummy"!

No. it's true and it sounds even better in Hebrew

A quick summing up of 2011

It was a hell of a piece of music and a powerful statement, but did Gil Scott Heron get it wrong?

Wrote it two years ago


http://sffooks.blogspot.com/2009/02/just-thought-part-3-inspired-by-gilas.html

our budding artist

pictures to compare and contrast at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9324747@N06/sets/72157628272956729/

Black watch

When we talk about the Black Watch, we usually mean a Scottish regiment with a long and proud history. However, during the First World War, only two battalions of that regiment were posted to then-Palestine, and that at different times.
In 1917 the 14th battalion (Fife and Forfar) were a part of the 229 Brigade, 74 Division, XX Corps, and in 1918 they transferred to France, but the 2nd Battalion arrived, from Mesopotamia.
Note – a WW1 battalion is 1000 soldiers including all the command, support and other functions as well as the front-line fighters.
Fifty-one identified graves in BeerSheva are of men of the Black Watch who were killed on the 6 November 1917, or succumbed to their wounds in the days after the capture of the Sheria Position.
In addition a further ten have no known grave and are listed on the Jerusalem Memorial to the Missing.

All in all the Black Watch lost one hundred and fourty seven men during the First World War in Palestine, as well as a further 12 during the years of the British Mandate.

That was one battalion at a time over just two years of the war, in fact slightly over one year (October 1917 to November 1918 when in fact the Turks surrendered on 31 October 1918, exactly one year after BeerSheva) in an area that was widely regarded as a "sideshow"

More things I got up to

A few thoughts after taking part in Spencer Tunick's installation art at the Dead Sea

First. Upon arrival, it was drummed into us not to get undressed until we're told to. Needless to say, we were not a collection of people with an aversion to undressing, and we had gone there precisely for that, so I wasn't surprised when a spontaneous wave of undressing spread through everyone, and there we all were, as nature intended.

Now, the state of being naked is a state of being exposed, and vulnerable, two things which describe the state of the Dead Sea. If we want the next generation to be able to enjoy it, we have to undo the damage caused by the previous generation, and not wait for the next one to fix it, as there isn't time.

Finally, the nudity there was a way of being free and liberated. Hard not to think of a young man, who I don't know if he would have chosen to take part in the installation or not, but we have to do everything possible to give him the freedom he'd been missing for over 5(!) years now – Gilead Shalit

My sister came to pick us up from the airport and had a GPS device.
It was terrible. Every so often, anything from 20 seconds to two minutes, the thing would interrupt us, without a "by your leave" or even a simple "excuse me" to tell us something like "at the next junction go straight on". I mean , we can read the signposts, and we can tell the difference between a road gong into a tree-lined neighbourhood, and a road leading to the M1.
What would be a good idea would be a GPS that knows when to shut up, and holds its peace until it has to say something like "Sorry to interrupt, but that left turn you just made was a bad idea, go find a place to turn around and get on the correct route" or even better, though it would have to be a female voice (they all are in any case aren't they?) saying "now would be a good time to stick your head out of the tin box and ask for directions, don't you think?". Apart from that I've got no use for GPS's