Merry Xmas!

A little late, but I was having trouble uploading photos for some reason...Nephew Nate, making out like a bandit on Xmas eve...


And me & my dad, in our Clan Hay kilts on Xmas day!

It's official: Guinness is good for you!

I read this article here at the BBC News site.

The old advertising slogan "Guinness is Good for You" may be true after all, according to researchers.

A pint of the black stuff a day may work as well as an aspirin to prevent heart clots that raise the risk of heart attacks.

Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from University of Wisconsin told a conference in the US.

Guinness were told to stop using the slogan decades ago - and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink.

The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease.

They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager.

Heart trigger

Clotting is important for patients who are at risk of a heart attack because they have hardened arteries.

A heart attack is triggered when a clot lodges in one of these arteries supplying the heart.

Many patients are prescribed low-dose aspirin as this cuts the ability of the blood to form these dangerous clots.

The researchers told a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida, that the most benefit they saw was from 24 fluid ounces of Guinness - just over a pint - taken at mealtimes.

They believe that "antioxidant compounds" in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls.

However, Diageo, the company that now manufactures Guinness, said: "We never make any medical claims for our drinks."

The company now runs advertisements that call for "responsible drinking".

A spokesman for Brewing Research International, which conducts research for the industry, said she would be "wary" of placing the health benefits of any alcohol brand above another.

She said: "We already know that most of the clotting effects are due to the alcohol itself, rather than any other ingredients.

"It is possible that there is an extra effect due to the antioxidants in Guinness - but I would like to see this research repeated."

She said that reviving the old adverts for Guinness might be problematic - at least in the EU.

Draft legislation could outlaw any health claims in adverts for alcohol in Europe, she said.

Feelgood factor

The original campaign in the 1920s stemmed from market research - when people told the company that they felt good after their pint, the slogan was born.

In England, post-operative patients used to be given Guinness, as were blood donors, because of its high iron content.

Pregnant women and nursing mothers were at one stage advised to drink Guinness - the present advice is against this.

The UK is still the largest market in the world for Guinness, although the drink does not feature in the UK's top ten beer brands according to the latest research.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/3266819.stm

Published: 2003/11/13 11:20:10 GMT

So, I'm not a drunk, I'm a health nut!

My European Trip! Part 5: The Louvre

I spent an entire day of my trip at the Louvre. It's not nearly enough time to see this place. It's so big, even the Guide to the Louvre I bought didn't have everything in it. Obviously, I can't post every single thing I saw, so here's some highlights.
The original structure is the horseshoe-shaped palace and in the courtyard, they've built these modern fountains & pyramids. Apparently, the pyramids are not universally beloved. When we arrived, Holly asked me, quite seriously, what I thought of them. She sounded to me like she thought I'd hate them. Somewhat surprised by the question, I had to think about it before I answered, & I've thought about it more since. What I like about the courtyard is the contrast in the design. The modern parts are so stark & simple, the original parts are so ornate. Both are beautiful, but instead of subtracting, each feeds the appreciation of the other.
This is part of a new exhibit about the history of the Louvre itself. It's easy just to think of the Louvre as a museum & forget that it used to be the emperor's palace. People used to live in this building, if you can believe it. (Trying to imagine the number of Roombas it'd take just to vacuum the place is mind-boggling...) In this part of the exhibit, visitors actually get to walk through what was the moat of the medieval Louvre & see the foundations.

The first artwork I saw in the Louvre (besides the Louvre itself) was Winged Victory. I suspect it's many people's first, because of how it sits right at the entrance to one of the main ells of the building. It is...IMPRESSIVE, to say the least.When we arrived at the museum, right when it was opening, I wanted first to go see La Jocunde, to avoid the crowds that I knew were coming, but we had to take a moment to admire Winged Victory. I'm glad we did, too. Later in the day when I wandered by again on my way to a different part of the museum, I could barely get through this hall.

You'll notice I'm not posting any pictures of Mona Lisa.There are a couple of reasons. First, everybody knows that one painting, even if they've never seen any other. Second, they don't let you anywhere near the darned thing, & it's pretty small, even compared to the other da Vincis they've got hanging on the walls. Third, I want to focus on this one: My own personal favorite painitng by da Vinci, The Madonna of the Rocks:
Many of da Vinci's paintings are very dark in person, not at all like the reproductions you see in books. They come alive when the flash hits them & the color become vibrant. The angel in this painting (in the red cloak) just fascinates me. I stood & stared.

The Hall of Apollo is incredible. Every inch of it (although it's in Paris, so I suppose "every centimeter of it" would be more appropriate) is a work of art.The walls, the doors, the ceiling & floor are all covered in a giant calendar which depicts all of the season, the zodiac and the arts & sciences.This is also where the crown jewels are kept...
...so, if you simply must rob the place (which I advise STRONGLY against), this may be a good place to start.

By the time I reached the Venus de Milo, she was surrounded by a huge group of Japanese tourists. They were very quiet but densely-packed, and each one would walk up to the statue & pose. Their friend would take their photo, and they'd step away for the next one to have their picture taken, in exactly the same spot, in exactly the same pose.I wish I could have gotten copies of all of those photos. It would have made an interesting short film to have each morph into the next, into the next, &c. until you'd seen the entire group. I had to wait quite a while until they'd finished so I could quickly snap this shot.

The Three Graces.

The "Sword of Charlemagne", which never really belonged to Chalemagne, but was used for a long time to coronate the kings of France.

Cupid & Psyche

This one is worth clicking on so you can see it more closely. It's so great how the wings meet the shoulders & the flowers fade into the skin.

Fell in love a little with this sweet young thing.

This was the view from an Emperor's bedroom. Mighty spiffy, imho.

These were two of my favorite paintings. The first is by Georges de la Tour, painted in about 1635. The Cheat With The Ace Of Spades is one of the most downright fun paintings in the whole museum. Not only is it beautiful and wonderfully composed, it's totally unlike all of the very stiff portraits & landscapes & biblical scenes. This is just a rich kid who is about to be rooked out of all his cash by these three conspirators. Love it.This is a great self-portrait by Rembrandt from 1660. He really reminds me of British actor Leo McKern & I can't help but hear McKern's booming laugh coming out of Rembrandt's throat.

My European Trip! Part 4.

When I left off, I had just spent my afternoon at the Musee Rodin. From there, I went to meet up with Holly & Lucia at Place de la Concorde. I had a little time before I met up with them & saw this other square a few blocks away, so I took a quick walk.
I saw this really interesting spire. It seemed to have the entire history of France carved into it in a spiral. Presumably for maintenance, there's a door in the bottom & a catwalk around the top, but it's not open to the public. Too bad...I could've used some more stairs to climb!
Ok, I'll admit I snuck this picture. She was posing for someone else. Let me tell you something about Paris that you may not know: This was the least attractive woman I saw in the city the entire time I was there. "But," I hear you cry. "She's gorgeous!" Yeah. She is.

I got back to Place de la Concorde in time to take some photos before Holly & Lucia caught up with me. This obelisk was stolen from Egypt by Napoleon. It's the one you can see from the Arc. It's amazing to me that the carvings are still so crisp & clear, even after being out in the weather for several thousand years.

The Place after dark. It hadn't really struck me how fast night falls in Paris before. & there's a reason they call it the City of Lights. There's the Ferris Wheel, obelisk & the Eiffel Tower.
While Lucia is a connoisseur of carousels, Holly is all about Ferris Wheels. (Somewhere in there is a metaphor about mothers & daughters rotating on axes 90 degrees away from each other...but H & L manage to maintain Peace of Angular Momentum.) We took a ride on the Ferris Wheel & it was as much fun as you think!

A break from the European trip...

There will be plenty more about the European trip, but today Ape Lad posted the new Laugh-Out-Loud Cats comic which I commissioned!

Emperor Norton is a particular hero of mine. It's amazing to me that someone can literally change reality simply through the power of his imagination.

My European Trip! Part 3.

The Arc de Triomphe! Doesn't look like much, does it?

There, that's better. 8-)

Before I got there, I hadn't known that you can actually go inside the Arc, climb up the inside & walk around on top of it. It's also bigger than I expected, though not as tall as the Eiffel Tower.

Paris is, interestingly, a very low city. While standing on one of the big monuments, you can see all of the others. Most of the tall buildings are not really in town, but all the way at one end of the Champs-Élysées. At that end of the road, there's a whole modern settlement and they built another, more modern-looking, arch. This arch is lined up perfectly with the Arc de Triomphe, which is, in turn, lined up perfectly with a smaller arch in a park at the other end of the Champs-Élysées just past the Place de la Concorde.
Just above & below you can see the entire length of the Champs-Élysées, as seen from the top of the Arc de Triomphe.

In Place de la Concorde, you can see the Ferris wheel and the beautiful Egyptian obelisk brought back to Paris by Napoleon Bonaparte. That big building behind the Ferris wheel is the Louvre! More on that later.

After going to see the Arc, Lucia had a class to attend, so I was: On my own in Paris for the first time! How exciting!

I made my way to the Musée Rodin. This museum is not vast, like the Louvre. It's very specialized & focused. I mainly saw works by 3 artists: Rodin (obviously), Camille Claudel (Rodin's apprentice & lover) and Vincent van Gogh (which was a surprise to me!). Apparently, Rodin was a van Gogh fan & collected his paintings.

Unfortunately, my camera's battery was spent by the time I got to the van Goghs, so no pics of them.
Number one with a bullet on any Rodin hit parade has to be The Thinker ('Le Penseur'). The first thing that strikes you when you see the Thinker is the SCALE of the thing. All of Rodin's works are larger than life.

He's gigantic. And heavy. You can feel his weight, just by sitting on the bench conveniently placed to contemplate him.

I spent about half an hour just staring at him and I have a theory what he's thinking about: The smile on the Mona Lisa. ;-)

Now, I am not an art scholar, so I was not expecting this. This is the doorway to Hell, just as I first saw it when it appeared in a John Constantine comic. Apparently the fellow who drew that comic was an art scholar, because he did a very faithful reproduction of the real door.

Camille Claudel's pieces were much smaller in scale than the Rodin sculptures, but they were very finely detailed and beautiful.

She also used a variety of interesting materials, including jade.
I really enjoyed the room dedicated to her. It's incredible how two such wonderfully talented people could have found each other.

Even though Rodin's bronzes are awe-inspiring and can seem to warp space around themselves, he also worked in other media, to beautiful effect.
This woman was so real, I could imagine her waking up.
Another very famous Rodin sculpture, The Kiss.
You could never capture the beauty of this moment without having experienced it.

One of the important lessons I first learned at the Musée Rodin: next time, don't worry so much about extra memory cards for the camera. Spare batteries are ever-so-much more important.

Also, I made great use of THE SECRET (see part 1) to get myself a very yummy raspberry yogurt from the snack bar.

My European Trip! Part 2.

The trip, she continues...

Holly & Lucia & I went to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, where a whole lot of famous people are buried. I'm pretty sure they were all dead before getting buried here. It's a very peaceful place & all built into this hill in tiers.
Famous folks whose graves I saw included Chopin, Balzac & Jim Morrison. Jimmy's grave had a crowd (of Americans) around it, but it was boring compared to some of the gorgeous stones I saw, so I'm including their pictures instead.
We didn't know ahead of time, but it seems that it was Chopin's birthday when we visited. A lot of music lovers stopped to wish the old boy a happy one, as you can see.

This woman was so, beautiful, I teared up, just seeing her. This carving was stunningly beautiful & I cannot be sure whether the blac markings were intentionally part of the statue, or were weathering, but the effect just rocked me back on my heels.

This little guy was just darned cute.

My friend Marsha got me started on a hobby called letterboxing.

I thought it'd be fun to seek out some letterboxes while I was in Europe. I mean, any letterboxer I'm likely to meet around here will have all the local stamps from NJ & the surrounding area, but how many will have stamps from Paris?

So, in a section of the city called Belleville, not far from the cemetery, we found a listing for a letterbox. to get there, I had to hop 2 scary fences & walk down some disused railroad tracks into a tunnel, where I'd find a ladder. At the top of the ladder, if I reached behind my head, I'd find the letterbox.

Holly, Lucia & I found the tracks, but the fences were a bit high for us all to hop, so I went on alone.
Holly & Lucia waited for me on a trestle overlooking the tracks.

I, stamp in hand, disappeared into the tunnel. From where I was, I could see Holly & Lu the whole time. I only found out afterwards that they lost sight of me right away when I entered the tunnel. I followed the instructions carefully, but the ladder was nowhere to be found. I walked almost the length of the tunnel, but it was not to be, sadly.

Holly took the pic above, & I swiped it from her blog , totally without permission. Hope she won't mind. 8-)

I did find a letterbox a little later in the trip, but not in Paris...

Lotsa good restaurants in Paris, but there was one that my Dad recommended as the best: Roger le Grenouille, aka Roger the Frog!
It was on this tiny little alley, off this side road, off an only slightly larger side road, but it had Dad's seal of approval. I was determined to go, but my friends are vegetarians. Nick is the only one in the family who isn't quite as strict a vegertarian, so he joined me.
Nick had fish, but I was after just one thing! Frogs' legs! What else would I choose at a place called 'Roger the Frog'?
Well, the waiter was mighty rude & scorned our wine selection, but the food was SO good, it was hard to be annoyed. The waiter played his part to the hilt & we just laughed & ate very well.
I'd always heard that frogs' legs tasted like chicken, but I didn't find that to be the case. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you some other food they did taste like, though. I wasn't sure how to go about it, so I just ate with my hands & loved every minute of it. They also had the most wonderful Creme Brulee I'd ever tasted.

Thanks, Dad!

My European Trip! Part 1.

In October, I went on a trip which was one of the greatest experiences of my life! First, I spent a week in Paris, France followed by a few more days in Edinburgh, Scotland.

I took LOTS of pictures & saw TONS of things...it really was a broadening experience. It's going to take me a while to really get all my thoughts about this trip in order, so I'm going to be doing it in pieces here, illustrated with photos!

I flew on Air France on all the flights involved in the trip. It was a great experience & put me into a French-speaking mood. I don't speak much French at all (I took it in high school, & really remember very little), but I had: 1. a French phrasebook and B. tremendous natural talents! Actually, 1 thing I learned my first day was that you can go far in Paris with good manners, a little bit of French and THE SECRET. (I will get back to THE SECRET in a little while...)

I knew my friends Holly, Nick & Lucia were going to meet me at the airport & was really looking forward to seeing them. What I did not realize when I landed at Charles De Gaulle Airport was that my flight had arrived nearly an hour ahead of schedule. I sailed through passport control & customs and went through the gate into the airport, and was greeted by...no one! My friends were on their way, but neither they nor I knew that I'd arrived early... I felt The Fear that I was alone in a strange country where I didn't speak the language. Hoo-boy!

I also learned that the customer service people at CdG will not page someone for you.

Long story short (too late!), Holly, Nick & Lucia arrived right on time & all was right in the world again despite my initial panic. Here's us on the train!