Welcoming the Olympic Torch...

... SAN FRANCISCO, April 8th
(tele673)

... PARIS, April 7th
(nexus6s)

... LONDON, April 6th
(niesfisch)

Milan beats Izmir by 86 to 65

So the Last time it was in 1906.

List of official world expositions according to the Bureau International des Expositions

1851 London (United Kingdom) *1855 Paris (France) *1862 London (United Kingdom) *1867 Paris (France) *1873 Vienna (Austria) *1876 Philadelphia (United States) *1878 Paris (France) *1879 Sydney (Australia) *1880 Melbourne (Australia) *1884 New Orleans (United States) * 1888 Barcelona (Spain) * 1889 Paris (France) * 1893 Chicago (United States) * 1896 Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) * 1896 Budapest (Hungary) * 1897 Brussels and Stockholm (Sweden) * 1900 Paris (France) * 1901 Charleston (United States) * 1904 St. Louis (United States)* 1905 Liège (Belgium)* 1906 Milan (Italy) * 1910 Brussels (Belgium) * 1911 Turin (Italy) * 1913 Ghent (Belgium) * 1914 Lyon (France) * 1915 San Francisco (United States) * 1915 San Diego (United States) * 1929 Barcelona (Spain) * 1933 Chicago (United States) * 1937 Paris (France) * 1939 New York City (United States) * 1939-1940 San Francisco (United States) * 1958 Brussels (Belgium) * 1960 Seattle (United States) * 1962 Seattle (United States)* 1964 New York (United States) * 1967 Montreal (Canada) * 1968 San Antonio (United States) * 1970 Osaka (Japan)* 1974 Spokane (United States) * 1982 Knoxville (United States) * 1984 New Orleans (United States)* 1985 Tsukuba (Japan) * 1986 Vancouver (Canada) * 1988 Brisbane (Australia)* 1990 Osaka (Japan)* 1992 Seville (Spain) * 1993 Daejeon (South Korea) * 1998 Lisbon (Portugal) * 2000 Hanover (Germany)* 2005 Aichi (Japan) * 2008 Zaragoza (Spain)* 2010 Shanghai (China) * 2015 Milan (Italy).

Moar mixe au Gast, ce soir.

from 11 pm until 4 am

If Pigs could fly, like Penguins !

Bev sent me a short, true, feline story...

Who said cats aren't dumb ?

A short true story by Bev.
Lazing on the couch and bang, crash, bang ! What’s exploding in the kitchen ?
The washing up machine isn’t on and had seen Tessa streaking past so knew she
wasn’t up to anything. Rushed in and see this tabby cat throwing itself at the kitchen
window, falling off and taking picture frames, cake tins etc with it.
Then, it runs back a bit farther from the window and leaps once again into the glass
- more clangs as other things fall to floor with cat. I open the bay windows in the lounge
and manage to chase the cat out that way just as it’s getting ready for its next leap.

Later am ensconced in bed with the two furry purries asleep in contented dreaming
balls. Turn out the light and snuggle down. Bang, crash, bang… I leap up, cats’ heads
rise. Cats followed by me descend to inspect the commotion. Tessa sees that
daft cat again and goes streaking upstairs to the safety of her bed (well mine
actually). Toby having gone into the lounge only sees a streak and runs up after.

Once again I am confronted with a flying cat who doesn’t seem to realise one
can’t fly through glass (although he should do, it’s at least a month since we
cleaned the windows!). It runs out of kitchen just as I open the terrace doors.
However, it seems to me that the streak went downstairs and not out into the
garden. I creep into the office in the basement and these eyes stare at me from
a shelf. As I advance the hissing gets angrier and angrier. “Well, we’ll try food”
I think and go to collect some biscuits.
Tessa, having got up tremendous courage follows me down to add to my problems.
I chase off Tessa and approach gingerly with outstretched dish.
Hiss, hiss, whack, whack. It jumps up in air and runs madly for the door. Being a daft
cat, it can’t tell the difference between an open glass door and a closed one so goes
flying into the door on the right – the one that is shut of course.
Toby arrives. “This is my house” he screams and lunges. Fur is flying. I yell for René
who comes grumbling down ‘cos I woke him up. “Can’t you see there’s a cat fight?”
I cry. At the commotion Toby backs off and this very dumb cat runs back into the kitchen
and crouches under the table staring at us. René tries to move him to the cat door with
a broom. Cat teeth and claws attach themselves to the broom and then let go and the
orbital cat goes for the window again, this time landing on the radiator with the electric
toaster. So, that doesn’t work. We open the window avoiding flying claws and try again
but now the window is open it does want to go through it anymore.
After much (dangerous) effort René manages to get it thru the cat door.
Well, it shouldn’t be back so René, Tessa and I go back to bed but Toby keeps watch.

The next evening Tessa comes to the couch where we are both sitting and we think
she wants a cuddle but she gives a fearful look towards the glass doors. Yes, that dumb
cat is back in the garden !
We see it off and haven’t seen it since, but then it’s only been two days and a cat that
is so dumb it can’t figure out that if you come in thru a cat door maybe it’s the best way
out, can’t be relied upon to think that maybe our garden isn’t the best place for it.
I checked Toby over and sweet blue eyes hadn’t lost a hair. It’s more than I can say for
the dumb (but very pretty) tabby. We’re still sweeping up !
Well, I say that that is one dumb cat.
___