Christian the Lion, worth watching

Watch this
Even my hard heart is touched!!

The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God

A favourite from the past, it looks like is should have been written by Kipling, though it was composed by J Milton Hayer


There's a one-eyed yellow idol
To the north of Kathmandu;
There's a little marble cross below the town;
And a brokenhearted woman
Tends the grave of 'Mad' Carew,
While the yellow god for ever gazes down.

He was known as 'Mad Carew
By the subs at Kathmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell,
But, for all his foolish pranks,
He was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along
With the passion of the strong,
And that she returned his love was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one,
And arrangements were begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present
She would like from 'Mad' Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad:
And jestingly she made pretence
That nothing else would do ...
But the green eye of the little yellow god.

On the night before the dance
'Mad' Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him
As they pulled at their cigars,
But for once he failed to smile,
And he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night.. beneath the stars.
He returned, before the dawn,
With his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temples... dripping red.
He was patched up right away,
And he slept all through the day
While the Colonel's daughter
Watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked her
If she'd send his tunic through.
She brought it and he thanked her with a nod.
He bade her search the pocket,
Saying, 'That's from "Mad" Carew,'
And she found ... the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew,
In the way that women do,
Although her eyes were strangely hot and wet,
But she would not take the stone,
And Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height
On that still and tropic night,
She thought of him ... and hastened to his room.
As she crossed the barrack square
She could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.

His door was open wide,
With silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slippery where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried
In the heart of 'Mad' Carew ...
'Twas the vengeance of the little yellow god.

There's a one-eyed yellow idol
To the north of Kathmandu;
There's a little marble cross below the town;
And a brokenhearted woman
Tends the grave of 'Mad' Carew,
While the yellow god for ever gazes down.

Tescos give Whittingstall the Bird

Tesco's shareholders gave Hugh the bird as they defeated his motion to stop them using 'cruel' farming methods in order to keep prices down.
Hugh claimed that the way they were looking after their chickens was cruel, they denied this
"He told reporters that Tesco, which urged shareholders to vote against the resolution, had attempted to scare consumers by claiming improved welfare standards could add £1 to the cost of a standard supermarket chicken.

Conceding that his resolution would be defeated, the TV cook said he would be delighted if the resolution won the backing of around 10% of Tesco shareholders.

Tesco was failing to meet its own stated welfare standards for chickens, Fearnley-Whittingstall said, and had also left campaigners with a bill for £87,000 for distributing their special resolution. "This is now a special resolution that requires 75% of the vote to succeed and that doesn't seem very democratic"
There was no comment from the chickens!!!

Interesting discussion in Syrianewswire

Syrian Women

Syrian women - leading the Arab world (from Restless in Dubai).

Syria's Vice President Najjah Al Attar is the first women in the Arab world to reach such a high position.

The head of the judicial system, the Republic's General Prosecutor is a woman.

In 1979, Syria had the first female minister in the whole region.

14% of the Syrian parliament are women - that's the highest in the region, other Arab states have an average of just 3.4%.

98%
of girls pass the basic education and 51% of the university graduates
are females - equal to the European average, and well above the
international average.

Syria has 170 women judges, 250 female assistant judges.

At My Death - A Welsh Poem on Death

When I die, O, bury me
   Within the free young wild wood;
 Little birches, o'er me bent,
   Lamenting as my child would!
 Let my surplice-shroud be spun
   Of sparkling summer clover;
 While the great and stately treen
   Their rich rood-screen hang over!
 For my bier-cloth blossomed may
   Outlay on eight green willows!
 Sea-gulls white to bear my pall
   Take flight from all the billows.
 Summer's cloister be my church
   Of soft leaf-searching whispers,
 From whose mossed bench the nightingale
   To all the vale chants vespers!
 Mellow-toned, the brake amid,
   My organ hid be cuckoo!
 Paters, seemly hours and psalm
   Bird voices calm re-echo!
 Mystic masses, sweet addresses,
   Blackbird, be thou offering;
 Till God His Bard to Paradise  
Uplift from sighs and suffering.

Aussie's Cut and Run The Australian Government backs away from Terrorism

"Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was swept into office in November largely on the promise that he would bring home the country's 550 combat troops by the middle of 2008.

Rudd has said the Iraq deployment has made Australia more of a target for terrorism."
Let's hope this works, and the Aussies can make new friends, as they come marching home and leave their allies to clear up the mess.

Australian Defence Force (ADF) - heroes song.