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Showing posts with label LIFE ART. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LIFE ART. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
here i am goin to post sum of the most amazing facts and figures of human beings, animals and sum general ones.....
So keep checking for them!!
1) If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side.
2) If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. For when a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
3) Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
4) Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink. If it is white there is a thin film of bacteria on it.
5) The Mercedes-Benz motto is 'Das Beste oder Nichts' meaning 'the best or nothing'.
6) The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.
7) The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.
The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.9) Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
10) The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
11) Dalmatians are born without spots.
12) Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
13) The 'v' in the name of a court case does not stand for 'versus', but for 'and' (in civil proceedings) or 'against' (in criminal proceedings) .
14) Men's shirts have the buttons on the right, but women's shirts have the buttons on the left.
15) The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids.
16) The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it's already been digested by a bee.
17) Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks.
18) The color blue has a calming effect. It causes the brain to release calming hormones.
19) Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die.
20) Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.
21) The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
22) When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.
23) When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red.
24) The first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903, and used a tomato can for a carburetor.
25) The lion that roars in the MGM logo is named Volney.
26) Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros.
27) Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.
28) It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.
29) The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples.
30) There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Towerl.
31) The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
32) Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.
33) It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.
34) The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
35) Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game.
36) The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air.
37) In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it is smiling).
38) Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."
39) The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot.
40) Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
41) The average person laughs 13 times a day.
42) Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
43) Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
44) German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.
45) Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump.
46) Whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.
47) The penguin is the only bird that can swim, but not fly. It is also the only bird that can walk upright.
48) If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.
49) The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!!
50) It requires 30 muscles to raise your eyebrows.
51) In 1562 a man was dug up six hours after his burial, after he had been seen breathing by someone at the funeral - he lived for another 75 years.
52) The human body has fewer muscles in it than a caterpillar.
53) Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of plaster.
54) At birth, a panda bear is smaller than a mouse.
55) Baby whales grow at a rate of 10 lbs per hour!
56) The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.
57) A metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.
58) A ball-point pen is also called Biro after its inventor Lazslo Biro, a journalist who noted that new paper ink dried quickly.
59) Place head to toe, all the Barbie and family dolls sold since 1959, when Barbie made her debut, would circle the earth more than 7 times.
60) All polar bears are left-handed. They are also the only mammals with hair on the soles of their feet.
61) New York city, the oldest city in the US, was a Dutch colonial town and was known as New Amsterdam till 1665.
62) Raindrops are not actually teardrops shaped. They are rounded from the top and flat at the bottom. They fall at a speed of 11 kmph.
63) Artifacts found in Kandivali indicate that the 7 islands that constitute Mumbai have been inhabited since the Stone Age.
64) The national bird of New Zealand, the Kiwi, lays only 1 egg per year. Despite this, it has survived extinction.
65) Runrado May Day Stadium in North Korea is the world's largest football stadium and can seat upto 2,05,000 spectators.
66) Chopsticks were developed 5000 years ago in China. Today, 25 million trees are cut to make over 45 billion pairs a year.
67) Mexico city is the highest city in North America and world's largest capital. One-fifth of Mexico's population lives in the city.
68) A hummingbird flaps its wings upto 90 times per second or over 5000 times per minute making a humming like sound, of which it is named after.
69) Tequila is thought to be the first distilled liquor in the Americas. The Aztecs were known to have drank it before Cortez arrived.
70) Paris gets its name from the Parisii, a tribe of Gauls who settled on the Ile de le Cite between 250 and 200 BC.
71) Camels have three eyelids to protect their eyes from severe sand storms in the deserts.
72) The Goliath beetle is the heaviest insect in the world. It weighs 110 grams, almost the weight of an apple.
73) Greenland has more ice on it than Iceland and ironically, Iceland has more grass and trees than Greenland.
74) Termites build the largest animal homes. Moulds built by the termites can reach upto 39 ft, six times the size of an average adult human.
75) Aspirin went on sale as the first pharmaceutical drug in 1899. Felix Hoffman, a German chemist invented the drug.
76) The Codex Hammer, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, was bought by Bill Gates in 1994 for a whopping 30.8 million US Dollars.
77) Mujava Desert in USA, houses 12,000 years old flowering shrubs called Creosote bushes, the oldest living flora on earth.
78) Tsunami travels at around 805 km/hr, slowing as it approaches land. When it strikes, the waves can be as high as 15 mt.
79) Toronto is home to the largest swimming pool in the world. The 2250 sq. ft. pool which can hold 2000 swimmers, opened in 1925.
80) An adult porcupine has approximately 30000 quills on its body, which are replaced every year. All porcupines can float in water.
81) The temperature inside the cylinder of an internal combustion car engine can reach upto 1700 degrees Celsius, which is as hot as molten lava.
82) La Paz, Bolivia is nearly fire-proof with its high altitude; the low oxygen content makes it difficult for a flame to sustain itself.
83) Araucana hens, first breed in Chlie, lay eggs that are blue, green, turquoise and even pink in colour.
84) Disney world in Florida covers 30,500 acres, making it twice the size of the island of Manhattan, New York.
85) The smallest airplane in the world is called Bumble Bee II. It is just 8.7 ft long and weighs 179.6 kg.
86) The Draco Volan lizard is known to escape predators by gliding from tree to tree. This lizard is popularly called the Flying Dragon.
87) Bhutan derives its name from the Indian word Bhotana, meaning the edge of Tibet.
88) The first full-length animated motion picture made in the United States, Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), was produced from more than 400,000 hand-drawn sketches.
89) The mosquito is the hardiest of all insects. It is found in the coldest region of Siberia as well as in equatorial jungles.
90) A fly moves 300 times its body length in a second, three times faster than a jet, which travels only 100 times its body length.
91) Bananas are one of the few fruits that ripen best off the plant. They split open and the pulp becomes cottony on the plant.
92) Too much of coffee can be fatal. 10 gm or 100 gm or 100 cups in four hours can kill an average of human beings.
93) Jelly Fish do not belong to the fish family. They are related to the Coral family, with no head, brain, heart, eyes or ears.
94) The Climbing Perch discovered in 1971, is a fish that walks from one body to another in water, surviving for days on land.
95) Ostriches lay the largest bird eggs. An egg can be 7.1 inches long, 5.5 inches wide and weighs approximately 1.2 kg.
96) The Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest point in the earth's crust at 36198 ft below sea level.
97) Scuttling Huntress Spiders can move at 56 kmph and are responsible for over 2000000 deaths in Australia in last 10 years.
98) Damascus, in Syria, is the oldest inhabited city in the world. It flourished 2000 years before Rome was founded in 753 BC.
99) Gibson, the world's tallest dog is 977 kg of weight. More than 7 ft tall, he has a shoulder height of 42.6 inches.
100) Seikan Tunnel, the longest underwater tunnel is 51 km long. It links the Hokkaido and Honshu islands of Japan.
101) Although the largest Mackarel fish is rarely more than 1.68 metres long, each can lay as many as 500000 eggs at a time.
102) The famous marquee HOLLYWOOD is 50 feet tall, stretches 450 ft across and weighs over 204116 kg. It originally read HOLLYWOOD LAND.
103) Camels are known to stay for over 15 days without water, but rats can stay without water longer than camels.
104) The alloy, aluminium, was used in China as early as 300 AD. However, the western civilization did not discover it until 1827.
105) Despite its great strength, the octopus gets tired easily as the hemocyanin carrying oxygen in its blood is not sufficient.
106) Until the 1800s, as many as 60 million bison lived on the American Great Plains; by 1900 white settlers had reduced their number to fewer than 1,000.
107) The oldest-known skis were made some 5,000 years ago in Scandinavia, where skiing today is more popular than ever.
108) The word vaccine comes from the Latin word vacca, meaning a cow. The first vaccination was derived from cowpox.
109) Siberia grows so cold in winter that the moisture in a person's breath turns into ice crystals and can be heard when it falls down.
110) An original Persian ring has one million knots in every three sq. in. and can last for 500 years.
111) Each year green turtles swim more than 1,200 miles from Brazil to breed on Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
112) Clams are one of the slowest growing yet the longest living species on earth. They can take up to 100 years to grow 0.8 cm in length.
113) The Hudson River along the island of Manhattan flows in either direction depending upon the tide.
114) A toad can catch and eat as many as 10,000 insects during the summer season.
115) New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 to 1790.
116) There are more than a million animal species. There are 6,000 species of reptiles, 73,000 kinds of spiders, and 3,000 types of lice. For each person there is about 200 million insects. The 4,600 kinds of mammals represent a mere 0,3% of animals and the 9000 kinds of birds only 0,7%. The most numerous bird specie is the red-billed quelea of southern Africa. There are an estimated 100 trillion of them.
117) Mammals are the only animals with flaps around the ears.
118) African elephants only have four teeth to chew their food with.
119) There are about one billion cattle in the world of which 200 million are in India.
120) A house fly lives only 14 days.
121) A dog was the first in space and a sheep, a duck and a rooster the first to fly in a hot air balloon.
122) The oldest breed of dog is the Saluki.
123) The bee hummingbird of Cuba is the smallest bird in the world.
124) An ostrich can run up to 70 km/h (43 mph).
125) An annoyed camel will spit at a person.
here i am goin to post sum of the most amazing facts and figures of human beings, animals and sum general ones.....
So keep checking for them!!
1) If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side.
2) If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. For when a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
3) Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
4) Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink. If it is white there is a thin film of bacteria on it.
5) The Mercedes-Benz motto is 'Das Beste oder Nichts' meaning 'the best or nothing'.
6) The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.
7) The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.
The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.9) Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
10) The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
11) Dalmatians are born without spots.
12) Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
13) The 'v' in the name of a court case does not stand for 'versus', but for 'and' (in civil proceedings) or 'against' (in criminal proceedings) .
14) Men's shirts have the buttons on the right, but women's shirts have the buttons on the left.
15) The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids.
16) The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it's already been digested by a bee.
17) Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks.
18) The color blue has a calming effect. It causes the brain to release calming hormones.
19) Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die.
20) Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.
21) The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
22) When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.
23) When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red.
24) The first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903, and used a tomato can for a carburetor.
25) The lion that roars in the MGM logo is named Volney.
26) Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros.
27) Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.
28) It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.
29) The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples.
30) There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Towerl.
31) The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
32) Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.
33) It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.
34) The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
35) Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game.
36) The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air.
37) In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it is smiling).
38) Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."
39) The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot.
40) Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
41) The average person laughs 13 times a day.
42) Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
43) Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
44) German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.
45) Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump.
46) Whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.
47) The penguin is the only bird that can swim, but not fly. It is also the only bird that can walk upright.
48) If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.
49) The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!!
50) It requires 30 muscles to raise your eyebrows.
51) In 1562 a man was dug up six hours after his burial, after he had been seen breathing by someone at the funeral - he lived for another 75 years.
52) The human body has fewer muscles in it than a caterpillar.
53) Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of plaster.
54) At birth, a panda bear is smaller than a mouse.
55) Baby whales grow at a rate of 10 lbs per hour!
56) The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.
57) A metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.
58) A ball-point pen is also called Biro after its inventor Lazslo Biro, a journalist who noted that new paper ink dried quickly.
59) Place head to toe, all the Barbie and family dolls sold since 1959, when Barbie made her debut, would circle the earth more than 7 times.
60) All polar bears are left-handed. They are also the only mammals with hair on the soles of their feet.
61) New York city, the oldest city in the US, was a Dutch colonial town and was known as New Amsterdam till 1665.
62) Raindrops are not actually teardrops shaped. They are rounded from the top and flat at the bottom. They fall at a speed of 11 kmph.
63) Artifacts found in Kandivali indicate that the 7 islands that constitute Mumbai have been inhabited since the Stone Age.
64) The national bird of New Zealand, the Kiwi, lays only 1 egg per year. Despite this, it has survived extinction.
65) Runrado May Day Stadium in North Korea is the world's largest football stadium and can seat upto 2,05,000 spectators.
66) Chopsticks were developed 5000 years ago in China. Today, 25 million trees are cut to make over 45 billion pairs a year.
67) Mexico city is the highest city in North America and world's largest capital. One-fifth of Mexico's population lives in the city.
68) A hummingbird flaps its wings upto 90 times per second or over 5000 times per minute making a humming like sound, of which it is named after.
69) Tequila is thought to be the first distilled liquor in the Americas. The Aztecs were known to have drank it before Cortez arrived.
70) Paris gets its name from the Parisii, a tribe of Gauls who settled on the Ile de le Cite between 250 and 200 BC.
71) Camels have three eyelids to protect their eyes from severe sand storms in the deserts.
72) The Goliath beetle is the heaviest insect in the world. It weighs 110 grams, almost the weight of an apple.
73) Greenland has more ice on it than Iceland and ironically, Iceland has more grass and trees than Greenland.
74) Termites build the largest animal homes. Moulds built by the termites can reach upto 39 ft, six times the size of an average adult human.
75) Aspirin went on sale as the first pharmaceutical drug in 1899. Felix Hoffman, a German chemist invented the drug.
76) The Codex Hammer, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, was bought by Bill Gates in 1994 for a whopping 30.8 million US Dollars.
77) Mujava Desert in USA, houses 12,000 years old flowering shrubs called Creosote bushes, the oldest living flora on earth.
78) Tsunami travels at around 805 km/hr, slowing as it approaches land. When it strikes, the waves can be as high as 15 mt.
79) Toronto is home to the largest swimming pool in the world. The 2250 sq. ft. pool which can hold 2000 swimmers, opened in 1925.
80) An adult porcupine has approximately 30000 quills on its body, which are replaced every year. All porcupines can float in water.
81) The temperature inside the cylinder of an internal combustion car engine can reach upto 1700 degrees Celsius, which is as hot as molten lava.
82) La Paz, Bolivia is nearly fire-proof with its high altitude; the low oxygen content makes it difficult for a flame to sustain itself.
83) Araucana hens, first breed in Chlie, lay eggs that are blue, green, turquoise and even pink in colour.
84) Disney world in Florida covers 30,500 acres, making it twice the size of the island of Manhattan, New York.
85) The smallest airplane in the world is called Bumble Bee II. It is just 8.7 ft long and weighs 179.6 kg.
86) The Draco Volan lizard is known to escape predators by gliding from tree to tree. This lizard is popularly called the Flying Dragon.
87) Bhutan derives its name from the Indian word Bhotana, meaning the edge of Tibet.
88) The first full-length animated motion picture made in the United States, Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), was produced from more than 400,000 hand-drawn sketches.
89) The mosquito is the hardiest of all insects. It is found in the coldest region of Siberia as well as in equatorial jungles.
90) A fly moves 300 times its body length in a second, three times faster than a jet, which travels only 100 times its body length.
91) Bananas are one of the few fruits that ripen best off the plant. They split open and the pulp becomes cottony on the plant.
92) Too much of coffee can be fatal. 10 gm or 100 gm or 100 cups in four hours can kill an average of human beings.
93) Jelly Fish do not belong to the fish family. They are related to the Coral family, with no head, brain, heart, eyes or ears.
94) The Climbing Perch discovered in 1971, is a fish that walks from one body to another in water, surviving for days on land.
95) Ostriches lay the largest bird eggs. An egg can be 7.1 inches long, 5.5 inches wide and weighs approximately 1.2 kg.
96) The Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest point in the earth's crust at 36198 ft below sea level.
97) Scuttling Huntress Spiders can move at 56 kmph and are responsible for over 2000000 deaths in Australia in last 10 years.
98) Damascus, in Syria, is the oldest inhabited city in the world. It flourished 2000 years before Rome was founded in 753 BC.
99) Gibson, the world's tallest dog is 977 kg of weight. More than 7 ft tall, he has a shoulder height of 42.6 inches.
100) Seikan Tunnel, the longest underwater tunnel is 51 km long. It links the Hokkaido and Honshu islands of Japan.
101) Although the largest Mackarel fish is rarely more than 1.68 metres long, each can lay as many as 500000 eggs at a time.
102) The famous marquee HOLLYWOOD is 50 feet tall, stretches 450 ft across and weighs over 204116 kg. It originally read HOLLYWOOD LAND.
103) Camels are known to stay for over 15 days without water, but rats can stay without water longer than camels.
104) The alloy, aluminium, was used in China as early as 300 AD. However, the western civilization did not discover it until 1827.
105) Despite its great strength, the octopus gets tired easily as the hemocyanin carrying oxygen in its blood is not sufficient.
106) Until the 1800s, as many as 60 million bison lived on the American Great Plains; by 1900 white settlers had reduced their number to fewer than 1,000.
107) The oldest-known skis were made some 5,000 years ago in Scandinavia, where skiing today is more popular than ever.
108) The word vaccine comes from the Latin word vacca, meaning a cow. The first vaccination was derived from cowpox.
109) Siberia grows so cold in winter that the moisture in a person's breath turns into ice crystals and can be heard when it falls down.
110) An original Persian ring has one million knots in every three sq. in. and can last for 500 years.
111) Each year green turtles swim more than 1,200 miles from Brazil to breed on Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
112) Clams are one of the slowest growing yet the longest living species on earth. They can take up to 100 years to grow 0.8 cm in length.
113) The Hudson River along the island of Manhattan flows in either direction depending upon the tide.
114) A toad can catch and eat as many as 10,000 insects during the summer season.
115) New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 to 1790.
116) There are more than a million animal species. There are 6,000 species of reptiles, 73,000 kinds of spiders, and 3,000 types of lice. For each person there is about 200 million insects. The 4,600 kinds of mammals represent a mere 0,3% of animals and the 9000 kinds of birds only 0,7%. The most numerous bird specie is the red-billed quelea of southern Africa. There are an estimated 100 trillion of them.
117) Mammals are the only animals with flaps around the ears.
118) African elephants only have four teeth to chew their food with.
119) There are about one billion cattle in the world of which 200 million are in India.
120) A house fly lives only 14 days.
121) A dog was the first in space and a sheep, a duck and a rooster the first to fly in a hot air balloon.
122) The oldest breed of dog is the Saluki.
123) The bee hummingbird of Cuba is the smallest bird in the world.
124) An ostrich can run up to 70 km/h (43 mph).
125) An annoyed camel will spit at a person.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A week ago, and in a private act of worship in the cramped cave beneath the Church Of The Nativity in Bethlehem, I reached gently to touch the silver star marking the purported spot at which the Christ Child was born.
In doing so, I succeeded only in goosing the ample behind of an aged nun who was prostrate in religious reverie. One has to laugh.
You see, blindness is full of incident, colour and absurdity - and it can enrich rather than diminish life in ways most people cannot imagine.
Challenges: James Jackson has been gradually going blind since childhood
In a Stratford-upon-Avon hotel, I cursed inwardly at the excess garnish placed in my glass of orange juice, until I heard a waiter murmur quietly in my ear: 'That's the vase for the rose, sir.'
In a London supermarket, a woman asked if I wanted to buy oranges. I replied that, in fact, I was looking for apples.
'But you love oranges,' she retorted. Politely, I reaffirmed my commitment to apples.
'What about bananas?' she asked. No, just apples, I said. Our conversation lasted a further couple of minutes and alighted on the small matter of what kind of yoghurt I preferred.
At this juncture I realised with the cold sweat of mortification that instead of talking to me, she was actually conferring on her mobile phone with a boyfriend or husband and was paying no attention at all to my replies. It was the perfect parallel conversation; my very own Two Ronnies sketch.
Life is never humdrum when you can't see.
Blindness has become topical as the debate continues over Gordon Brown and the error-strewn letter of condolence he wrote to the mother of Jamie Janes, a young soldier killed in Afghanistan.
Many understandably feel sympathy for the Prime Minister over the fact his already poor eyesight seems to be deteriorating further.
They applaud him for taking the time, under such circumstances, to hand-write a letter to Mrs Janes. And they believe it deeply unfair that, out of this act of compassion, political capital appears to have been made by his critics.
For my part, I think Gordon Brown and his advisers should have known that in writing any letter of condolence you do not produce a hasty scrawl.
James said his blindness taught him that there was a clear benefit to having something to struggle and push against in life
However heartfelt, however difficult it is to write both physically and emotionally, and however busy your schedule, a letter like this is of such importance to the recipient that you read it and re-read, you check and check again.
You certainly don't misspell the name of the person you are sending it to, as Gordon Brown did. It was a mistake. Matter closed.
And that, I think, is what everyone would have said in years gone by. The trouble is that today we live in a victim culture, a post-Diana world where emotional incontinence and pity obscure common sense.
The last thing, I imagine, that Gordon Brown wants is to be pitied. Yet his spin doctors understand that fading eyesight is just the thing to garner pity and support. And in their desperation to boost the Prime Minister's floundering image, they are in danger of committing the terrible mistake of playing on his perceived disability.
As someone who sees considerably less than Gordon Brown, I can say with some authority that blindness is not worthy of pity. In fact, I'd be mortified if it was used as an excuse for any of my failings.
My blindness has taught me that there is a clear benefit to having something to struggle and push against in life. I have discovered the advantage of dealing with a condition that puts imagined and petty problems in perspective.
I have enjoyed the privilege of experiencing every day the quiet decency of the British public who unfailingly offer a helping hand. And I have laughed too many times to count over the ludicrous situations that my blindness has led me into.
My eye condition is retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital disease that progressively devours the cells of the retina and closes down the vision field.
Blindness has become topical as the debate continues over Gordon Brown who has poor eyesight
When I was 12, I was told I would be completely blind by 19. It has taken a lot longer than that - it's taken until now, and I'm in my 40s.
The decline has been gradual but relentless, as it has for my twin brother, who suffers from the same condition. I have never been able to see anything at all in the dark. I have never seen a star. I first started having to use a white stick in the evenings at university.
But because I knew I was going blind, I threw myself into my studies, gained several university degrees, was called to the Bar and built a career advising corporations and government departments of the political and security implications of their overseas involvements.
Slowly, inexorably, the blindness marched on. I once described it to a journalist as the longest goodbye in history. But I was wrong.
True, I could no longer see my face in the mirror when I shaved.
True, I could no longer see the smile of a pretty girl or the expressions of friends around a dinner table. But there is light at the end of that enclosing and narrowing tunnel.
The nuance of situations I find myself in, the vibe, the warmth, the kindness, the laughter. All these seem to have grown. As for my career, I sidestepped into historical thrillerwriting when I realised I needed to mould a different and sightless future.
A leap of faith such as this is easier when you are accustomed to stepping into the unknown. And when I achieved bestseller status, with my book Pilgrim about the children's crusade of 1212, it confirmed the wisdom of that move.
I would never have instigated it had I not lost my eyesight. I would never have worked with movie-maker Guy Ritchie on a screenplay (nor, incidentally, mistaken his then-wife Madonna for a secretary).
I would never have been exposed to so great a variety of screenwriters, artists, musicians, directors and creative types had I not refocused on a new career. Thank you, retinitis pigmentosa.
'Hell . . . Blind and crippled. You sure are in a world of hurt' - so drawled my American neighbour as he viewed me climbing the steps on crutches after I'd misjudged a step when getting off a ship in Egypt and suffered a compound fracture.
It was certainly challenging. Yet for years I have competed with my twin brother, Julian, in the disaster department.
We have always compared notes on the trips and pitfalls of everyday life. I once fell into a huge wire- cage dustbin, while he disappeared down an open manhole.
He locked himself naked outside his hotel room believing he was entering a bathroom, whereas I have mistakenly sat on laps in the smartest of restaurants, dug my coffee spoon into cigar-boxes believing them to contain sugar, lodged my white cane hard against cushions that turned out to be fat American tourists, and found myself swaying high above a building site on a plank of wood after taking a wrong turn across a road. Yet I would change little.
James worked with movie-maker Guy Ritchie on a screenplay and mistook his then-wife Madonna for a secretary
On the day that I fell into the huge litter bin in a London park, there was blood everywhere after my face was badly cut on the wire mesh of the bin. A dogwalker threatened to tie me up with his dog leads if I did not wait for an ambulance.
The following day, and looking somewhat like the Elephant Man, I attended a conference at which several senior Army officers approached and inquired whether I had been mugged.
I had to confess that while I would love to have single-handedly fought off a gang of hammer-wielding crack heads, I had actually fallen in a bin and was sober at the time. They appeared unimpressed.
Years earlier, I had jokingly tried to pass off my latest facial injuries as the consequence of a street robbery.
A colleague drily observed the mugger must have beaten me with a security gate, for the lattice-patterning of the steel was still imprinted on my face. The transition from poorly sighted to unsighted was not necessarily smooth.
To be blind and yet to be content is viewed by some with suspicion. They cannot quite believe it. Surely it is a blight and burden. No, it is life.
Happiness is about the inner self, about accepting fate, about self-knowledge, self-belief and a touch of faith. Friends and family are part of it too. The immortal comedienne Joyce Grenfell summed things up with the maxim: 'Live for the minute and thank God you're in it.' Not a bad approach.
Life involves both pain and joy. That is the common lot of humanity. No one escapes the pain and nor should they. But for any poor man, there is someone poorer. For every person with a disability, there is someone suffering worse.
Disability can elevate or diminish, inspire or deprive, uplift or destroy. That is up to the individual. Pity is ridiculous.
Gordon Brown's eyesight should not be an issue. He should never be vilified for having one blind eye and another that seems to be faltering.
He should, however, be condemned in my mind for incompetence, for letting down our Armed Forces, for racking up the largest national debt in British history and for being a pretty lousy Prime Minister.
After all, as a writer I do not expect a kinder book review merely on the basis my sight has failed.
I have all manner of technological help for my blindness. I sit here surrounded by electronic gizmos and gadgets, scanners and voice-recognition software.
It is a comfortable and blessed existence and I get to travel the world on research trips accompanied by teams of friends acting as my eyes, ears, gofers, translators, map-readers and occasionally even as pilots.
Within a couple of years, any residual sight I still have - the last one or two per cent - is likely to go. Although this will be testing, I will be fine.
The most dangerous thing I have ever done is to tumble into the gap between a train and platform or march unaware towards oncoming traffic on a busy main road.
Real courage, genuine risk, involves facing down an armed enemy, patrolling an area infested with roadside bombs, persevering as friends and comrades are killed or injured all around.
Against the self-sacrifice and devotion to duty of our military, blindness is nothing and our government appears inadequate and absurd. We owe our troops in Afghanistan more, certainly far more than a cursory nod to the Cenotaph.
You will not find me raging or even weeping at the dying of the light. Blindness has enriched my life. For sure, I have cracked my head and broken my bones, and have dealt with the irritation of trying to put toothpaste on a toothbrush and missing by a mile.
Some things are irksome. Yet blindness has granted me clarity and independence of thought.
Blindness has made me more compassionate and aware and grateful for the small things. Blindness has given me deeper insight in place of sight. It should never be used as an excuse.
A week ago, and in a private act of worship in the cramped cave beneath the Church Of The Nativity in Bethlehem, I reached gently to touch the silver star marking the purported spot at which the Christ Child was born.
In doing so, I succeeded only in goosing the ample behind of an aged nun who was prostrate in religious reverie. One has to laugh.
You see, blindness is full of incident, colour and absurdity - and it can enrich rather than diminish life in ways most people cannot imagine.
Challenges: James Jackson has been gradually going blind since childhood
In a Stratford-upon-Avon hotel, I cursed inwardly at the excess garnish placed in my glass of orange juice, until I heard a waiter murmur quietly in my ear: 'That's the vase for the rose, sir.'
In a London supermarket, a woman asked if I wanted to buy oranges. I replied that, in fact, I was looking for apples.
'But you love oranges,' she retorted. Politely, I reaffirmed my commitment to apples.
'What about bananas?' she asked. No, just apples, I said. Our conversation lasted a further couple of minutes and alighted on the small matter of what kind of yoghurt I preferred.
At this juncture I realised with the cold sweat of mortification that instead of talking to me, she was actually conferring on her mobile phone with a boyfriend or husband and was paying no attention at all to my replies. It was the perfect parallel conversation; my very own Two Ronnies sketch.
Life is never humdrum when you can't see.
Blindness has become topical as the debate continues over Gordon Brown and the error-strewn letter of condolence he wrote to the mother of Jamie Janes, a young soldier killed in Afghanistan.
Many understandably feel sympathy for the Prime Minister over the fact his already poor eyesight seems to be deteriorating further.
They applaud him for taking the time, under such circumstances, to hand-write a letter to Mrs Janes. And they believe it deeply unfair that, out of this act of compassion, political capital appears to have been made by his critics.
For my part, I think Gordon Brown and his advisers should have known that in writing any letter of condolence you do not produce a hasty scrawl.
James said his blindness taught him that there was a clear benefit to having something to struggle and push against in life
However heartfelt, however difficult it is to write both physically and emotionally, and however busy your schedule, a letter like this is of such importance to the recipient that you read it and re-read, you check and check again.
You certainly don't misspell the name of the person you are sending it to, as Gordon Brown did. It was a mistake. Matter closed.
And that, I think, is what everyone would have said in years gone by. The trouble is that today we live in a victim culture, a post-Diana world where emotional incontinence and pity obscure common sense.
The last thing, I imagine, that Gordon Brown wants is to be pitied. Yet his spin doctors understand that fading eyesight is just the thing to garner pity and support. And in their desperation to boost the Prime Minister's floundering image, they are in danger of committing the terrible mistake of playing on his perceived disability.
As someone who sees considerably less than Gordon Brown, I can say with some authority that blindness is not worthy of pity. In fact, I'd be mortified if it was used as an excuse for any of my failings.
My blindness has taught me that there is a clear benefit to having something to struggle and push against in life. I have discovered the advantage of dealing with a condition that puts imagined and petty problems in perspective.
I have enjoyed the privilege of experiencing every day the quiet decency of the British public who unfailingly offer a helping hand. And I have laughed too many times to count over the ludicrous situations that my blindness has led me into.
My eye condition is retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital disease that progressively devours the cells of the retina and closes down the vision field.
Blindness has become topical as the debate continues over Gordon Brown who has poor eyesight
When I was 12, I was told I would be completely blind by 19. It has taken a lot longer than that - it's taken until now, and I'm in my 40s.
The decline has been gradual but relentless, as it has for my twin brother, who suffers from the same condition. I have never been able to see anything at all in the dark. I have never seen a star. I first started having to use a white stick in the evenings at university.
But because I knew I was going blind, I threw myself into my studies, gained several university degrees, was called to the Bar and built a career advising corporations and government departments of the political and security implications of their overseas involvements.
Slowly, inexorably, the blindness marched on. I once described it to a journalist as the longest goodbye in history. But I was wrong.
True, I could no longer see my face in the mirror when I shaved.
True, I could no longer see the smile of a pretty girl or the expressions of friends around a dinner table. But there is light at the end of that enclosing and narrowing tunnel.
The nuance of situations I find myself in, the vibe, the warmth, the kindness, the laughter. All these seem to have grown. As for my career, I sidestepped into historical thrillerwriting when I realised I needed to mould a different and sightless future.
A leap of faith such as this is easier when you are accustomed to stepping into the unknown. And when I achieved bestseller status, with my book Pilgrim about the children's crusade of 1212, it confirmed the wisdom of that move.
I would never have instigated it had I not lost my eyesight. I would never have worked with movie-maker Guy Ritchie on a screenplay (nor, incidentally, mistaken his then-wife Madonna for a secretary).
I would never have been exposed to so great a variety of screenwriters, artists, musicians, directors and creative types had I not refocused on a new career. Thank you, retinitis pigmentosa.
'Hell . . . Blind and crippled. You sure are in a world of hurt' - so drawled my American neighbour as he viewed me climbing the steps on crutches after I'd misjudged a step when getting off a ship in Egypt and suffered a compound fracture.
It was certainly challenging. Yet for years I have competed with my twin brother, Julian, in the disaster department.
We have always compared notes on the trips and pitfalls of everyday life. I once fell into a huge wire- cage dustbin, while he disappeared down an open manhole.
He locked himself naked outside his hotel room believing he was entering a bathroom, whereas I have mistakenly sat on laps in the smartest of restaurants, dug my coffee spoon into cigar-boxes believing them to contain sugar, lodged my white cane hard against cushions that turned out to be fat American tourists, and found myself swaying high above a building site on a plank of wood after taking a wrong turn across a road. Yet I would change little.
James worked with movie-maker Guy Ritchie on a screenplay and mistook his then-wife Madonna for a secretary
On the day that I fell into the huge litter bin in a London park, there was blood everywhere after my face was badly cut on the wire mesh of the bin. A dogwalker threatened to tie me up with his dog leads if I did not wait for an ambulance.
The following day, and looking somewhat like the Elephant Man, I attended a conference at which several senior Army officers approached and inquired whether I had been mugged.
I had to confess that while I would love to have single-handedly fought off a gang of hammer-wielding crack heads, I had actually fallen in a bin and was sober at the time. They appeared unimpressed.
Years earlier, I had jokingly tried to pass off my latest facial injuries as the consequence of a street robbery.
A colleague drily observed the mugger must have beaten me with a security gate, for the lattice-patterning of the steel was still imprinted on my face. The transition from poorly sighted to unsighted was not necessarily smooth.
To be blind and yet to be content is viewed by some with suspicion. They cannot quite believe it. Surely it is a blight and burden. No, it is life.
Happiness is about the inner self, about accepting fate, about self-knowledge, self-belief and a touch of faith. Friends and family are part of it too. The immortal comedienne Joyce Grenfell summed things up with the maxim: 'Live for the minute and thank God you're in it.' Not a bad approach.
Life involves both pain and joy. That is the common lot of humanity. No one escapes the pain and nor should they. But for any poor man, there is someone poorer. For every person with a disability, there is someone suffering worse.
Disability can elevate or diminish, inspire or deprive, uplift or destroy. That is up to the individual. Pity is ridiculous.
Gordon Brown's eyesight should not be an issue. He should never be vilified for having one blind eye and another that seems to be faltering.
He should, however, be condemned in my mind for incompetence, for letting down our Armed Forces, for racking up the largest national debt in British history and for being a pretty lousy Prime Minister.
After all, as a writer I do not expect a kinder book review merely on the basis my sight has failed.
I have all manner of technological help for my blindness. I sit here surrounded by electronic gizmos and gadgets, scanners and voice-recognition software.
It is a comfortable and blessed existence and I get to travel the world on research trips accompanied by teams of friends acting as my eyes, ears, gofers, translators, map-readers and occasionally even as pilots.
Within a couple of years, any residual sight I still have - the last one or two per cent - is likely to go. Although this will be testing, I will be fine.
The most dangerous thing I have ever done is to tumble into the gap between a train and platform or march unaware towards oncoming traffic on a busy main road.
Real courage, genuine risk, involves facing down an armed enemy, patrolling an area infested with roadside bombs, persevering as friends and comrades are killed or injured all around.
Against the self-sacrifice and devotion to duty of our military, blindness is nothing and our government appears inadequate and absurd. We owe our troops in Afghanistan more, certainly far more than a cursory nod to the Cenotaph.
You will not find me raging or even weeping at the dying of the light. Blindness has enriched my life. For sure, I have cracked my head and broken my bones, and have dealt with the irritation of trying to put toothpaste on a toothbrush and missing by a mile.
Some things are irksome. Yet blindness has granted me clarity and independence of thought.
Blindness has made me more compassionate and aware and grateful for the small things. Blindness has given me deeper insight in place of sight. It should never be used as an excuse.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
1. Smile more, it doesn’t cost you money and will knock years from your face off
2.Stop thinking about your regrets and start living your life
3.Forgive and forget. Holding grudges is like having excess baggage on a flight. You only end up paying hefty fines for them. So just bin those grudges and travel light.
4. Watch a movie by yourself; you will gain a whole new perspective.
8. Do something you’ve always wanted to do
9. Learn to use technology, it unfolds pleasant surprises everywhere.
10. Think about how fortunate you are and that there are others in this world struggling much harder than you.
11. Always be yourself. There’s no need to put on a show for anyone’s sake.
12. Learn to give.
13. Learn to accept gracefully.
14. Sing in the shower
15. Talk a walk around your neighbourhood and socialize
16. Pursue that dream
17. Sleep when tired. Eat when hungry.
18. Read a book a week.
19. Exercise. Sure way to beat illnesses and cheat old age
20. Enjoy your breakfast, lunch and dinner. Make meal times sacred. Don’t talk business. Everything else is rushed enough; take your time with meals
21. Talk to your parents while they are alive. At least you will save yourself some guilt in the future
22. Appreciate what material things you have in your life even if they are not very expensive
23. Don’t lose your temper. You gain nothing anyway and still end up looking stupid after that
24. Wear sensible, comfortable shoes with traction. Saves you tones of money on healthcare in the future.
25. Do not be afraid to dress up when the occasion calls for it. Flaunt whatever asset you have and feel good flaunting them
26. Don’t hold back if something is bothering you
27. Learn to argue less with the people that you love most.
28. Help a total stranger for no reward
29. Keep in touch with old friends
30. Learn to dance.
30. Visit the grave of someone you cared about.
27. Learn to play a musical instrument
28. Test-drive that new car even if you can’t afford it yet
29. Eat some ice cream!
30. Learn a new word everyday
31. Adopt a homeless animal from the shelter.
32. Clean your home and working environment
33. Learn a foreign language
34. Be decisive
35. Face up to criticisms
36. Accept shortcomings and work around them
37. Volunteer your services to causes you believe in
38. Make sure you know how to cook your favourite dish
39. Challenge your limits
41. Shed all preconceived notions
42. Don't read the newspaper for a week because there's more bad news than good
43. Climb a mountain
44. Seize the moment
45. Try even if it hurts. No pain, no gain
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