A horse and a chicken are playing in a meadow. The horse falls into a mud hole and is sinking. He calls to the chicken to go and get the farmer to help pull him out to safety. The chicken runs to the farm but the farmer can't be found. So he drives the farmer's Porsche back to the mud hole and ties some rope around the bumper. He then throws the other end of the rope to his friend, the horse, and drives the car forward saving him from sinking! A few days later, the chicken and horse were playing in the meadow again and the chicken fell into the mud hole. The chicken yelled to the horse to go and get some help from the farmer. The horse said, 'I think I can stand over the hole!' So he stretched over the width of the hole and said, 'Grab for my 'thingy' and pull yourself up.' And the chicken did and pulled himself to safety.

The moral of the story:
If you are hung like a horse, you don't need a Porsche to pick up chicks!

Order and Frequency of Single Letters

E 12.31%
T 9.59
A 8.05
O 7.94
N 7.19
I 7.18
S 6.59
R 6.03
H 5.14
L 4.03
D 3.65
C 3.20
U 3.10
P 2.29
F 2.28
M 2.25
W 2.03
Y 1.88
B 1.62
G 1.61
V 0.93
K 0.52
Q 0.20
X 0.20
J 0.10
Z 0.09

Letter Groups Percentages

A E I O U 38.58%
L N R S T 33.43%
J K Q X Z 1.11%
E T A O N 45.08%
E T A O N I S R H 70.02%

[H.F. Gaines, Cryptanalysis; a study of ciphers and their solution, Dover, New York]

"lingostats" is my own word for tutoring~~
-lauren6

It's also very interesting to see figures for web content, by language, with no surprises for first place, but would you have guessed the others?

English 68.4%
Japanese 5.9%
German 5.8%
Chinese 3.9%
French 3.0%
Spanish 2.4%
Russian 1.9%
Italian 1.6%
Portuguese 1.4%
Korean 1.3%
Other 4.6%
Total Web pages: 313 B
Source: Vilaweb

Food!
I managed to eat something without being sick, and it was something very exotic, and delicious...ginata'ang gulay.
No wonder my apetite briefly returned...this is an asian dish with okra, chilli, shrimps, rice, fresh Philippine fish, (yes, work that out!), seaweed, ginger, coconut milk, and a hungry tummy. The first proper meal in 4 days.
[Assez ieusne qui pauvrement vit]

This afternoon I rushed to the Post Office to send some fruit teas to someone special, on the other side of the world, and was undecided between walking or cycling, when I eventually made up my mind, and walked, (it meant I could where my lovely new coat, (from Saturday's shopping), in dark brown, with a few zips, and a great addition for me!!), within one minute my mother passed-by in her car, and took the parcel off my hands, so I returned home to get the bicycle instead, in the hope of catching a fine sunset, which at that moment appeared likely, and as the frost begun to form on the rapidly thining tree foliage. Incredibly, there are still flies everywhere here, with a temperature of only 2 degrees, they are brave little things, but half a dozen sought warmth in my eyeball...all went for the left side...explanation(s) please?

I have a question bugging me, ...one for Liverpool FC fans and one I should know but don't; when did Liverpool assume the now famous all red kit, and for what reason did they change? I know in the 1950's, they had red shirts and white shorts, then in the Shankly era all red. What was the reason?
Please let me know someone...it has bugged me for months.

And...nobody has got the 'happiest nation on earth' question yet....come on, come on...please...I don't want to give the answer, but here is a CLUE...it is NOT an island.
OK?

~~~

"Clear moon, frost soon."
If the atmosphere is clear, the surface of the earth will cool rapidly as heat is radiated away at night. There is no "blanket" of clouds to keep the heat that the ground absorbed during the day from radiating back up into space. If the temperature is low enough on these clear nights and there's no wind, frost may form.

~~~

Music: Smokee: Dual Power....one of my all-time top 10 tunes, this reminds me of the highest moments of my life, the sentiment, the love, the memory, the hope, and even the future, all in one, it somehow connects my life, from Europe to the far-east, like nothing else can, and reminds me of dropping down that immense hill beside Dover castle, under a red sunset, unbeknown at the time, but the start of an epic journey for me, and the imminent arrival of love, there we touched heaven, and this land became the land of the rising sun, albeit briefly, though it truly and wholeheartedly merited this label, and the goosebumps return, again and again, as sure as... there'll be bluebirds over
the white cliffs of Dover
tomorrow, just you wait and see,
there'll be love and laughter
and peace ever after
tomorrow, when the world is free.

The French thought they had stumbled onto something when they attempted to remake the calendar basing everything on the number ten—ten days to make a week, three ten-day weeks to make a month, and ten thirty-day months to make a year. There was a day of rest built into the new ten-day week (décade), but you had to work nine days before you could enjoy it. Some had proposed a ten-hour day, but it did not catch on. As long as you lived in France, the calendar could be followed, but doing business with other nations was a nightmare. The French had to create conversion calendars to match it with the Gregorian Calendar that the rest of the world follows. The calendar was finally abandoned in 1806.

~~~

It is not enough to run, one must start in time.
French Proverb

~~~

Such a fourteenth of November would have been thought very fine and warm in the end of August.
-Walpole, November 14th, 1793

Cold comfort: Chilling the skin can result in an infection taking hold, it has been found

The traditional plea of mothers and grandmothers worldwide for youngsters to "wrap up warm or you'll catch a cold" has been given scientific support.

Folklore suggests that chilling the surface of the body, through wet clothes, feet and hair, causes common cold symptoms to develop.

But past research has dismissed any relationship between chilling and viral infection as having no scientific basis.

Now researchers, with the aid of bowls of ice water and people's feet, appear to have shown that being chilly really can cause a cold to develop.

Claire Johnson and Professor Ron Eccles, from Cardiff University's Common Cold Centre, recruited 180 volunteers to bravely take part in their study during the city's common cold season.

The intrepid participants were asked to take off their shoes and socks. Half were subjected to 20 minutes with their feet immersed in ice cold water, while the others sat with their feet in an empty bowl.

During the next four or five days, almost a third (29 per cent) of the chilled volunteers developed cold symptoms - compared to just nine per cent in the control group.

Professor Eccles said there was a simple explanation as to why chilly feet could lead to the development of cold virus symptoms.

"When colds are circulating in the community many people are mildly infected but show no symptoms. If they become chilled this causes a pronounced constriction of the blood vessels in the nose and shuts off the warm blood that supplies the white cells that fight infection.

"The reduced defences in the nose allow the virus to get stronger and common cold symptoms develop.

"Although the chilled subject believes they have 'caught a cold' what has in fact happened is that the dormant infection has taken hold."

-aol

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Is this for real???
It took a scientific study to work this out...in 2005???? It sounds like madness, of course mum's were right, isn't it obvious, or am I all googy this morning???
But it is an English male thing to throw off the jumper at this time of year isn't it, t-shirts only lads, whatever the weather.
Surely the 29% with colds can now sue the scientists??
What's your opinion blog buddies?

I'm ready for my flu jab shortly, but this is now day three and a half without a meal, and I'm pleading with the doctor to advise me, on EXACTLY what medicine has been prescribed to myself.
Eating causes an intense, acidic fire in my stomach these days.

Who likes Rhodesian Ridgebacks?

Well, after a break-in in 1994 at our then French home, we decided to get a chien de garde, from a dog rescue centre, near my Grandparent's home, overlooking the Côte d'Opale...and my mother and I came across mostly thin, timid and tiny little things all enthusiastic granted, cute too, but all in awe of one giant, all-muzzle-and-no-fuss ginger creature who kept dropping himself into the pool, still suspended by his chain attached to the overhead cables...he was Olaf, the dog we chose, and the dog whose puppyhood was spent in Belgium, then just entering France, in a small flat in a northern suburb of Lille...he was, frankly, the furthest image I had contemplated, but this gentle giant was the chap who was to weigh down my Renault 9, and commandeer our guest house.
It was still flaming June, and World Cup USA '94 was in full flow, I remember Brazil v Sweden being on TF1 (tv) when we reached home, the moment we let the ginger giant loose in the garden, which had been all tarmac, just two years previous, but was now in it's first year befitting the word 'garden.'

Olaf's initial foray into our routine was to spread right across the sofa, muddy-puddying over the parquet floor which I'd tirelessly polished on my hands and knees...within minutes his appetite led him to Le Courier Picard, and he was out of control. But a quick game of garden football with old washing machine cables kept us both fit and content, with the distant roar of goals from Romario, and visions of the 'baby-cradling' celebrations!
Visitor upon visitor came and went, guests, tourists, my own French family, even a lady with whom thoughts drifted to matters very warm...oh, how I enjoyed our pure relationship that year.
But Olaf, he could eat my mother's glasses, even our guest list, and worst of all, he loved eating French Francs!!!
Stairs were not his strong point, as the weight piled up daily on the poor chap, but doors were a thrill, especially his head-charge, (he later got the guest nickname of Luddendorf), the perormance frequently offered free 'donkey rides' to any unfortunate in his path at the wrong moment.
The busiest season in our guest house of course being July, was the time Olaf chose to create the greatest disturbance possible.

The situation: a party of 42 people, arriving by coach expected at 11.30am for teas, cakes, sandwiches, snacks and information about the area. The food was purchased that morning, for freshness, lettuces were tripping off the trolley in the supermarket, rolling down that ill-placed slope just outside Intermarché, to be joyfully caught by an obviously passionate rugby fan!
My mother and I sliced the baguettes, as we had become accustomed to doing, threw in ham, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise and set the table, on this occasion it would be al-fresco, in the 29 degree late morning and very clear sunshine, where the sky is able to take on a sublime and galactic dark blue.
Alas, we'd forgotten the ins and outs, at 10.45am Olaf decided to bolt. He surged through the door at such speed, that the admittedly flimsy chain instantly surrendered, and Olaf headed for the hills. I gave chase, down the main road, traffic would have to take second-place in hot pursuit of the great ridgeback who dived beneath the barbed wire, beside a WWI-scarred cream-stoned house, into a field full of cows, and bit one on it's hind leg, the sound of which was straight out of Scooby Doo. (très triste pour la vache malheureuse !!) The cows scuttled into the corner, fearing an invasion of Flemish ridgebacks and a half-French-Englishman, steaming obscenities, in English, at the said ginger giant, who had by now continued north-west through an ageing orchard, surrounded by rusted posts, the colour of which ws greatly enhanced by a beautiful summer sun.
Olaf got the better of me for pace, and I thought he had made his break for freedom succesfully, as he passed a dip in the green field, down to the road that led to a hamlet, wood, and endless roaming. I followed, as a gesture, and was shocked to find, one minute later, our fiendish-minded ridgeback, sitting, beside the travelling butcher van, furthermore, being patted on the head too!! The butcher viewed my apparent 'shortcut' with enormous scepticism.
Monsieur, quel est le problème avec vous et ce chien ?
il est très étrange ! !
votre chien semble affamé.
I said that Olaf was in fact mine, and as I passed my hand to bring him home, he let out a great wooooooooooooooooooooof which rattled the butcher van's back doors!
He was now at his worst as I had to drag him home - all of two miles - with him almost sitting on all fours, predictably watched by a sudden increase in traffic, familiar faces, local mayor, teachers, neighbours, the lot!
I got him home, exhausted, sweating, thirsty, and actually bonded with the loveable lump from Belgium.

The party arrived, I was surprisingly on a high by then, which soon drifted away upon the successful completion of "party 42" and so to a cold shower, a thunderous talking to for Olaf, and a low profile in French village life for a day or two!!!

Out of a hideous incident, and absurdity, something so irrational, unforeseen, ill-timed, ridiculous and plain silly, can come the realisation of how important someone or something can be to yourself.
Never underestimate what you have around you, never take them, or it, for granted.
We're all wild sometimes, we all need a little madness every now and then, however intolerant we are inside, pushing our character in any direction does not have to be a negative experience.

For my own story, Olaf is still in our world, but is now 'bed-ridden' and racked with arthritis, but able to show his happiness when I visit my parents home.

Dans la mémoire de mon beau grand-père qui n'est plus en ce
monde...et toute ma famille française que j'aime beaucoup.
Je les manque.

Colour: Green and blue
Music: Seal: Crazy
Way Out West: Intensify (Blind Faith remix)

~~~

As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.