May the Force be With Him

Handicapped

Although I've never played golf myself, I grew up very near this beautiful course, some believe the best in the world.  There was a bit of a hoo-ha when it was to be developed as some felt that the view was going to be spoilt.  However other than from a plane, the only way you can see any of this piece of private land is from the bottom of the cliffs at low tide as you make the trek to see the gannets at Cape Kidnappers. So there really can be no grounds for complaint.  I'm sure the select few who come to play have plenty of dosh, some of which gets spent in the Hawkes Bay province.  Probably on wine or restaurant meals.  So someone benefits.  

Gorgeous, innit?

There's more information here.

Apostrophe 'Clumsy Visually'.

__________________________________________________

Date: 31 October 2008 8:43:22 AM

To: "Frances Nelson"

Subject: Re: World Teachers Day

Frances, I feel sure that the words 'World Teachers Day' requires an apostrophe after the S.  Not a good look! 

Kate

______________
On behalf of Frances Nelson, thanks for your email about the e-card sent to you recently. 

You'll be glad to know the subject of the apostrophe has been discussed here well before you raised it.  Teachers' Day is obviously correct, but modern convention (and here we have followed the style of the NZ Teachers Council) accepts dropping the apostrophe.  (See http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/ ).

From a design perspective, the apostrophe is clumsy visually and this meant that we plumped for the "no apostrophe" on the posters and maintained consistency with the other material.
Thanks
Stephanie
********************
Stephanie Mills
Communications Director
NZEI Te Riu Roa
+04 3822 793
027 4486226

NZEI Te Riu Roa - Supporting quality public education

What is Art? Suggestion #1.

Mark Rothko.  Untitled.  1958.

"Art begins when one person, with the object of joining * another or others to himself in one and the same feeling, expresses that feeling by certain external indications. To take the simplest example: a boy, having experienced, let us say, fear on encountering a wolf, relates that encounter; and, in order to evoke in others the feeling he has experienced, describes himself, his condition before the encounter, the surroundings, the woods, his own lightheartedness, and then the wolf's appearance, its movements, the distance between himself and the wolf, etc. All this, if only the boy, when telling the story, again experiences the feelings he had lived through and infects the hearers and compels them to feel what the narrator had experienced is art. If even the boy had not seen a wolf but had frequently been afraid of one, and if, wishing to evoke in others the fear he had felt, he invented an encounter with a wolf and recounted it so as to make his hearers share the feelings he experienced when he feared the world, that also would be art. And just in the same way it is art if a man, having experienced either the fear of suffering or the attraction of enjoyment (whether in reality or in imagination) expresses these feelings on canvas or in marble so that others are infected by them. And it is also art if a man feels or imagines to himself feelings of delight, gladness, sorrow, despair, courage, or despondency and the transition from one to another of these feelings, and expresses these feelings by sounds so that the hearers are infected by them and experience them as they were experienced by the composer."

-Leo Tolstoy 1896

* My emphasis.

Hibiscus

All done and dusted.

Weird, random or both together.

Jay from The Depp Effect has tagged me again.  I don't know what she has against me, I do so much for her! I found the Goodnight Kiwi cartoon, um, and the list would go on and on if I could think of any other things...  

Anyway, she wants to me to 'fess up seven random and/or weird facts about me.  I guess she imagines you all will be interested too.

Given you already probably know that I get headaches from chocolate,  live in an old house overlooking a river, like kayaking, teach every now and then as required at a tiny sole-charge private school, paint (paintings), paint (rooms), take photographs, enjoy listening to Tommy Emmanuel's guitar playing, hardly ever watch TV, but I do write a post a day here... So I guess you'll want something more ... quirky?

OK.  Here goes:

1.  I love movies and books.  I have (at the moment) 189 DVD's.  I love to own them.  I love watching them, and I love sharing them.  I am not going to count all my books for you, as they probably run to thousands.  Most are non-fiction, many of them are how-to manuals, and lots are art books.  Of the fiction, I have the complete set of all of Terry Pratchett's books.

2.  I  had braces on my teeth from age 24 until I was 27.  In those three years I only had one photo taken of me and here it is.  I think I'm saying "Don't you dare take a photo of me with my braces on!":

3.  Last summer I ate an earwig.  (No, not for a dare, it was accidently!).  Well, it was in the unwashed lettuce and I presume I ate it because its pinchers pinched me in my gum.  I'll repeat that.  I was pinched on the gum.  They (the pinchers) were left behind and I got them out with tweezers in front of the bathroom mirror.  A traumatic experience.  Then the next week for an encore I ate a stink bug.  Yes, I HAD washed the lettuce that time!  It was a worse experience.

4.  I've touched a famous painting.  When I was eleven a curator showed me the painted-out barrel (it's just to the right of the dog, in the water) on Constable's "The Hay Wain" in the National Gallery in London.  Not  realising it was totally unacceptable, I reached across the rope and put my finger on it, and said "Here?"  He said kindly, but firmly "Yes dear, but you mustn't touch it.  Think what would happen if everyone touched it.".  

5.  Before I was twelve I'd had gastroenteritis, mumps, measles, chickenpox, glandular fever, hepatitis, appendicitis, and had broken my little toe, broken my little finger, and had sprained both ankles twice.  

6.  The most I have ever sold a painting for was NZ$1,650.

7.  I once acquired a life-size cardboard cut-out of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings.  (He was part of a shop display for chocolates).  We had fun having him propped up in our lounge for a while before tiring of him. The deciding moment was getting up to go to the loo in the middle of the night and just about wetting the carpet when I saw what looked like a man lurking in the corner. I decided to put him on TradeMe, New Zealand's equivalent to Ebay.  So I tucked him up between my sheets and sold him using this photo:

So there you are.  Weird and/or random enough?

Now I tag David from Arcane Enigma, because he's so enigmatic about himself (no single-word answers allowed David!), YP from Yorkshire Pudding, because he's usually fun, but has been a bit boring recently, Sam from The Golden Hill,  Arthur, from Arthur Clewly's Diary, Dan from Mindful Heart and Val from Monkeys on the Roof, so I can get to know them better, likewise Debby from Pixie's Ponderings and also so she can tag Silverback, and Suga-lemon from Spill the Beans, because she needs help to kick start her new blog.

And here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2.  Share 7 facts about yourself - some random, some weird.

3.  Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4.  Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs. 

Eye Candy Day 3