Blog buddies, bloggers, taking all things into account, would you say your life is not happy, quite happy, very happy...very, very happy?
Given this information, which nation in the world would you say, answered the happiest of all?

I eagerly await your answers~~!!
:b

About 10% of the world's population is left-handed.

A typical bed usually houses over 6 billion dust mites.

Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet!

A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

While sleeping, one man in eight snores, and one in ten grinds his teeth.

The female lion does more than 90% of the hunting while the male simply prefers to rest. !!

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed... or is that paws?!

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

All polar bears are left handed.

Ants don't sleep.

Glue dates back to prehistoric times. Artists once mixed colorings with raw eggs, dried blood, and plant juices to make sticky paints for cave murals. Later, ancient Egyptians and other people learned to make stronger glues by boiling animal bones and hides. Today companies make glues using synthetic substances.

The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!

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We are having a little St. Martin's summer, cold and rakish, which I like better than the rain; I am always out of doors, got up like a were-wolf. My superficial good-humour depends largely on the weather: so that if you want to know how I am, you have only to consult the stars.
-Madame de Sévigné. Les Rochers, November 10th, 1675

I was listening to a programme last night about China, and it's astounding potential, which is being realised already, but also highlighting that a huge percentage of it's population still live in abject poverty.
The guests focused attention on the fact that nobody from 'the west' should pontificate as to how 'it should be done' but merely to give examples of our own historic progress, over a far longer timescale. The British expert whose name I've sadly forgotten, spent thirty years in China, and said how much the Chinese were intrigued with his experience, and also his method of speaking only of our economic story, in Britain, without giving any orders as to how China should continue.
And, from my own experience, there is no stopping a tiger leaping forward.

The report on population below makes fascinating reading.

Changes in Asia’s fast growing cities
are closely watched across the world

Whereas London took 130 years to grow from one to eight million, Bangkok took 45 years, Dhaka 37 years and Seoul only 25 years, says research by UN-Habitat. By 2015, Asian developing countries will hold three of the world’s five largest urban agglomerations: Mumbai, Dhaka and Delhi. Despite the growth of Asia’s urban population, there has been an unprecedented decline in poverty in Asia-Pacific. UN-Habitat describes the recent progress in the region’s poverty reduction as one of the largest decreases in mass poverty in human history. Of all the world’s regions, Asia also ranks lowest in almost all types of crime. People in African and Latin American urban areas are twice as likely to become victims of crime than those living in Asian cities.

Asia now holds 61 per cent of the global population and its share of the global urban population has risen from 9 per cent in 1920 to 48 per cent in 2000 and is expected to rise to 53 per cent by 2030.

Currently, Asia holds more than half of the world’s cities, with more than 10 million people, and that number is rapidly rising. The growth of Asian cities is astounding, with many doubling their population every 15 to 20 years.

-UN-Habitat

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Upon returning to Europe a few years ago, I felt that it was a progressive place, but feared that Europe was settling into a false sense of security, as if we as a continent could sit back, enjoy our obvious wealth, health and prosperity, and for a time it seemed so, but a false dawn it was, as Europe is in danger of falling between every stool around, the economic, scientific, technological...

Asian cities offer the works, but it is undeniable that progress in the east, for better or worse, is rapid beyond Europe's control, and who are we to dictate the state of play to a continent that now holds three out of the world's top 4 GDP nations*, (China, Japan and India) but I was pleased to hear that China still welcomes and embraces European expertise...to a point, at least!

However, as I've said before, I'm still very happy to now be settled once more, in England!

Blog buddies, where is the happiest place you've ever lived, now or in the past?

Do you prefer cities, or country? And why?

*2004 CIA World Factbook

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I found Goldie's classic, appropriately titled, "Timeless" the other day, from 1995, and am hooked, it seems to have re-formed in my head, into an even better classic than before.

Do you ever have this, whereby a fresh listen to a cd, reveals a deeper love of the said music ?
/ / /

"If wine were to disappear from human production, I believe it would cause an absence, a failure in health and intellect, a void much more terrifying than all the recesses and the deviations for which wine is regarded as responsible." – Charles Baudelaire

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous

There are only two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be typed using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses all the letters of the alphabet.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."

What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.

The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced in exactly the same way when the last four letters are removed.

Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds while dogs only have about 10. (Couldn't resist putting that one in~!)

-lauren6

We've all become so accustomed in this media-drenched society, to hear country names with a flicker, though visions of beauty, cuisine, war, success or poverty will spring from those names, do we know their meanings, and origins?

It is fascinating to find that close to home, as most will know, England means 'the land of the Angles' deriving from old English, Engaland, and Wales sees it's old English written form as Waelisc; Walh being the old English for "Romano-Celtic" or generically, "foreign" and indeed the old English Waelisc is a source of the English word Welsh. It's interesting to note here that Anglo-Saxons used thier version of an old Teutonic term to relate to Celtic language speakers, as well as Latin speakers.

Scotland can be found in old English, as Scottas, meaning, "inhabitants of Ireland", which in turn borrowed from a latin word, Scotti, of unknown origin.
There is an Irish term of scourn, scuit, which may conceivably have followed an invading Irish tribe into Scotland, after the Romans departure in 423CE, and extended to other Irish tribes over northern Britain.

Ireland or Éire, from Proto-Celtic, *Īweriū "the fertile place" or "Place of Éire (Eriu)" a Celtic fertility goddess. Sometimes mistakenly "Land of iron".

The English name for 'Japan' can be found in the Chinese pronunciation of the characters 日本 ; pinyin: rìběn; or "sun-origin" ie; "Land of the Rising Sun" which of course exemplifies Japan's position east of China

India's name is derived from the original name Sindhu of the Indus River, which is now in Pakistan, which gave it's name to the land of Sind. The Persian derivation of this being, Hind, which was applied to modern Pakistan and India.

Philippines, or "lands of King Philip" - Philip II of Spain reigned from 1556 - 1598. Interestingly, the "in" part of the Philippines name, functions adjectively.
It is worth mentioning a very romantic, and popular description of these beautiful islands, which I also love so much, is, "Pearl of the Orient Seas" which derives from the poem, "Mi Ultimo Adios" written Philippine nationalist hero, José Rizal.

Thailand's name, in it's relatively recent form, is from the native Thai, thai meaning free + land, making "land of the free.'
Siam, Thailand's famous historic name, was given to the ancient Thai people, maybe surprising to some, by their neighbours the Burmese and might derive from the Pali toponym Suvarnabhuma, "Land of Gold" as the ultimate root of the Pali root, 'sama' which revealed different sades of colour, usually brown or yellow, but occasionally green or black.

-lauren6