A Rhyme To Remember English Monarchs

These are little rhymes to try to fix historical dates in one’s mind. They make no pretence to poetry. They are purely practical. They are mainly in sequence of date, and are mostly concerned with English/British history.

English / British Historical Doggerel by Dr. Donald Stevens


The Celts were first, the Romans next,
The Saxons then by Danes were vexed.
Then Danes not long, then Normans came,
But England kept its Saxon name.

-- o0o --

King Will-i-am of Normandy,
The sons he had were only three,
Robert, Red William, and Henry One,
Came Henry Two when they were done.
Robert, he stayed in Normandy,
And never England’s King was he.

-- o0o --

In the Forest that’s New
Rufus the King, someone slew
(We don’t know who);
In one and one and nought and nought,
And Henry One to the throne was brought.

-- o0o --

(William Rufus, the Red William in the preceding rhyme,
shot by an arrow in the New Forest, in 1100.)

-- o0o --

In ten ninety-nine, Crusaders go,
Godfrey of Bouillon at the head of them,
To attack and vanquish every foe
And take by force Jerusalem.

-- o0o --

Eleven hundred and thirty-five,
Henry One is not alive.
Stephen says that he is King.
Matilda says another thing;
“If nephew Stephen had never been,”
Said she, “Then I would be the Queen.”
As both of them felt rather sore,
They decided to have a Civil War.

-- o0o --

(Stephen was the nephew of Henry I)

-- o0o --

Eleven hundred and fifty-four,
Stephen the King, he was no more,
When he was definitely dead,
Henry the Second was King instead.

-- o0o --

Hen. Two wedded Eleanor of Aquitaine,
By this the half of France to gain.

-- o0o --

(Hen. = Henry, of course)

-- o0o --

Richard, the King with the Lion’s Heart,
Decided quite early to depart
To fight the Muslims and conquer them,
And so retake Jerusalem.

-- o0o --

John, son of Henry and Eleanor,
Was disliked by the Pope and many more;
The Magna Carta in twelve fifteen,
Because the Barons were very keen,
Was signed reluctantly by John
The Island of Runnymede upon.

-- o0o --

Ned One was good, Ned Two was not,
Ned Three found he a war had got
A war with France that lasted near
A hundred year.

-- o0o --

(The three Edwards & The Hundred Years’ War)

-- o0o --

Lancaster’s Rose was red,
The Rose of York was white,
Because they couldn’t agree on the colour,
They both decided to fight.

-- o0o --

In one and four and eight and five
Henry Tudor (whose rose was red)
Won at Bosworth, and stayed alive
When Richard of York was certainly dead.

-- o0o --

Two Henrys, followed by poor little Ned,
The Mary and Liz when Ned was dead.

-- o0o --

The Tudors: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI,
Mary, Elizabeth)

-- o0o --

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
He sailed to America from Spain
And then, of course, sailed back again,
And Ferdinand and Isabella
Thought he was a splendid fella.

-- o0o --

Philip the Second of Spain
Caused a lot of pain
By the imposition
Of the Inquisition.

-- o0o --

In fifteen hundred and eighty-eight
The Spanish Armada met its fate.

-- o0o --

Great Liz had neither daughter nor won,
So cousin James from Scotland came,
And a new dynasty was begun,
The Stuarts was its name.

-- o0o --

In one and six and one and one,
The Authorised Version at last was done.
(1611)

-- o0o --

In sixteen hundred and five
All in Parliament alive
Were hoped by rebels soon to die
By being blown into the sky.
(The Gunpowder Plot)

-- o0o --

Jas. and Chas., then Noll and Dick,
Then Chas. and Jas., and Bill came quick.
(James I, Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, Richard Cromwell,
Charles II, James II, who lasted only three years, and was
replaced by William of Orange from Holland)

-- o0o --

James the Second was Charlie Two’s brother,
Because, of course, they had the same mother.
(Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I)

-- o0o --

Two years when deaths were rather higher:
Sixty-five Plague and Sixty-Six Fire.
(1665, 1666)

-- o0o --

It begins with W and ends with M,
And England was ruled by both of them.
(WilliaM: W = William; M = Mary)

-- o0o --

When the eighteenth century began,
We had a Queen whose name was Anne
She began her reign with Number Two,
But by Fourteen, her reign was through,
And Cousin George came quickly over
From Hanover.
(Anne: 1702-1714)

-- o0o --

Frederick really should have been King.
But he was killed by a silly thing,
Down he went in a fatal fall
Hit on the head by a cricket ball.
So it was that George number Three
Became the King instead of he.

-- o0o --
Source: Homeschool

Shit Happens

Have you seen this poster? It is available from Amazon for £4.99: Humour Posters: Shit Happens - Quotes - 91x61cm









Humour Poster: A funny take on the famous saying 'Shit Happens'; an insiders view on how various religions and ideologies approach the saying; some samples: (1) Protestantism: "Shit happens; Amen to that." (2) Agnosticism: "Can you prove that shit happens." (3) Jehovah's Witness: "Knock, knock, shit happens."

EVERYBODY KNOWS...SHIT HAPPENS

TAOISM - "if you understand shit, it isn't shit"
HINDUISM - "this shit happened before"
CONFUCIANISM - "Confucious say 'shit happens'"
BUDDHISM - "shit will happen to you again"
ZEN - "what is the sound of shit happening?"
ISLAM - "if shit happens, it is the will of Allah"
SIKHISM - "leave our shit alone"
JEHOVA'S WITNESS - "knock. knock. shit happens"
ATHEISM - "i don't believe this shit"
AGNOSTICISM - "can you prove that shit happpens?"
CATHOLICISM - "if shit happens, you deserve it"
PROTESTANTISM - "shit happens, amen to that"
JUDAISM - "why does shit always happen to us?"
ORTHODOX JUDAISM - "so shit happens, already"
TELEVANGELISM - "send money or shit will happen to you"
RASTAFARIANISM - "let's smoke this shit"
HARE KRISHNA - "shit happens rama rama"
NATION OF ISLAM - "don't take no shit"
NEW AGE - "visualize shit happening"
SHINTOISM - "you inherit shit of your ancestors"
HEDONISM - "i love it when shit happens"
SATANISM - "sneppah tihs"
CAPITALISM - "this is MY shit"
FEMINISM - "men are shit"
EXISTENTIALISM - "what is shit, anyway?"
SCIENTOLOGY - "if shit happens, see Dianetics p.137"
MORMONISM - "excrement happens" (don't say shit)
BAPTISM - "we'll wash the shit right off you"
MYSTICISM - "this is really weird shit"
VOODOO - "shit doesn't just happen - we made it happen"
DISNEYISM - "bad shit doesn't happen here"
COMMUNISM - "let's share the shit"
MARXISM - "you have nothing to lose but your shit"
CONSPIRACY THEORISM - "THEY shit on us!"
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS - "tell me about your shit"
DARWINISM - "survival of the shittiest"
AMISH - "modern shit is useless"
SUICIDAL - "i've had enough of this shit"
OPTIMISM - "shit won't happen to me"
TREKISM - "to boldly shit where no-one has shat before"
SHAKESPEAREAN - "to shit or not to shit, that is the question"
DESCARTES - "i shit, therefore i am"
FREUD - "shit is a phallic symbol"
LAWYERS - "for enough money, I can get you out of shit"
ACUPUNCTURIST - "hold still or this shit's gonna hurt"
DOG - "i just shit in your shoe"
CAT - "dogs are shit"
MOUSE - "oh shit! a cat!"
POLITICALLY CORRECT - "internally processed,
nutritionally drained, biological output happens"
EINSTEIN - "shit is relative"
FAMILY GATHERING - "relatives are shit"
MATERIALISM - "whoever dies with the most shit, wins"
VEGETARIANISM - "if it shits, don't eat it"
FATALISM - "oh shit, it's going to happen"
ENVIRONMENTALISM - "shit is biodegradable"
AMERICANISM - "who gives a shit?"
STATISTICIAN - "shit is 84.7% likely to happen"
HIP-HOP - "motherfuck this shiznit, beeatch!"
TANTRISM - "fuck this shit"
CYNICISM - "we are all full of shit"
SURREALISM - "fish happens"
WICCA - "you can make shit happen but shit will happen to you three times"

How To Start a Conversation

This is a great article. What do you think about the advice?

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Conversation-When-You-Have-Nothing-to-Talk-About

Key Points
1. Begin by introducing yourself.
2. Be aware of your internal monologue.
3. Understand the secret to a good conversation.
4. Know how to ask an open question.
5. Put the location comment together with the open question and your conversation will be underway.
6. Know the stuff of small talk.
7. Use words of a sensory nature.
8. Synchronize.
9. Respond thoughtfully to someone who remains awkward or uncomfortable in your presence.
10. Maintain the equilibrium.
11. Practice getting conversations started.

Tips
• Speak with clarity and purpose. If you're mumbling, it makes conversing a lot harder.
• Reflect before speaking if it's your turn to talk and allow silence to also have its rightful place in your conversation. Don't be afraid of pauses – use them to change topics, re-energize the conversation, or to take a short breather even.
• Relax. Chances are that whatever small-talk you're making isn't going to stick out in anyone's mind a few months from now. Just say whatever comes into your head, so long as it's not offensive or really weird (unless, of course, the person you're attempting to converse with is into weird stuff).
• If you think of something in your head while you're talking, it's probably related.
• It will help if you watch some TV, listen to radio shows, and/or read a lot – newspapers, magazines, and/or books. Doing this will ensure that you have some idea of what's going on in the world.
• Remember and plan to share anything you like, think is funny, or find intriguing. This is a way of building up your own inner library of things that might be helpful to another person during a conversation someday. It can be amazing how you thread these interesting things when you least expect it, and make conversation an adventure instead of a dreadful task. If you take it to the next step and say things that you want the person to think of as adding value, and keep to yourself things that the person might not, you're actually honing your own personality to be appealing to the other person, and what is a greater act of kindness than that?
• If you're shy, it is helpful to have thought about a topic or two in advance that you feel comfortable talking about.
• A great entry into starting a conversation, especially for a guy approaching a girl, is to mention you can only talk briefly as you're meeting up with other friends. This relieves the girl of any fear of being uncomfortably stuck with someone she does not know, and gives you both an easy out if things don't progress well. If the conversation does progress well, you can always delay leaving your new friend for as long as you like. Remember not to overdo it, because she might think that you don't want to talk to her, but prefer to be with your friends.
• Follow the lead that your listener is expressing. If he or she appears interested, then continue. If he or she is looking at a clock or watch, or worse, looking for an escape strategy, then you've been going on for too long.
• Interesting and funny quotes or facts can lighten things up, and make way for things to talk about. You could also use a set of conversation starter question cards for inspiration.
• If talking over the phone, keep the person involved in the conversation at all costs. If you can't come up with a good topic, try the "questions" game. Just keep asking them questions; random questions work just fine as long as they are appropriate. This technique can save a phone conversation. The questions should be open ended questions that do not require a yes or no answer. For example "How do you know the hosts?" This way you can ask questions about what they just said or follow up with how you know the hosts (for example) instead of acting as if the conversation is an interrogation.
• Half of an effective conversation is the way you non-verbally communicate, and not necessarily what you say. Practice better non-verbal skills that are friendly and confident.
• Take a mental note of some amusing things that you saw or heard througout the day. For example, something funny someone said, a fun activity you did with your friends, or anything interesting. This can give way to future conversation.
• Watch some stand-up comedians or comedy shows to get an idea of how to start a conversation humorously. Usually, the leads you find will be funny, and you will not need much in common to talk about them.
• Remember, whoever you are talking to, you always have something in common. We all experience the weather, like good food, and enjoy a good laugh. When in doubt, just talk to them about what they are there for. For example, if you meet them at a bus stop, ask them where they are going. If they are from out of town, ask them about their life at home.

How To Add Google Gadgets To Your Blog

Thanks for this helpful "How to" tutorial:

Homer Simpson Quotes

• Operator! Give me the number for 911!

• Oh, so they have internet on computers now!

• Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love!

• Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.

• I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman.

• Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers.

• Well, it's 1 a.m. Better go home and spend some quality time with the kids.

• Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'Sir' without adding, 'You're making a scene.'

• Marge, don't discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel.

• Doughnuts. Is there anything they can't do?

• You know, boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot like a woman. You just have to read the manual and press the right buttons.

• Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way.

• When will I learn? The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV!

• Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get.

• I'm going to the back seat of my car, with the woman I love, and I won't be back for ten minutes!

• [Meeting Aliens] Please don't eat me! I have a wife and kids. Eat them!

• What do we need a psychiatrist for? We know our kid is nuts.

• Marge, you're as beautiful as Princess Leia and as smart as Yoda.

• Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

• The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother! I call him Gamblor, and it's time to snatch your mother from his neon claws!

• When I look at the smiles on all the children's faces, I just know they're about to jab me with something.

• I'm having the best day of my life, and I owe it all to not going to Church!

• Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such.

• I'm not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?

• Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

• It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

• Lisa, Vampires are make-believe, like elves, gremlins, and eskimos.

• I want to share something with you: The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.

• Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.

• Remember that postcard Grandpa sent us from Florida of that Alligator biting that woman's bottom? That's right, we all thought it was hilarious. But, it turns out we were wrong. That alligator was sexually harrassing that woman.

• Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.

• How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?

• Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover.

• Homer no function beer well without.

• I've always wondered if there was a god. And now I know there is -- and it's me.

• Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream?

• If something goes wrong at the plant, blame the guy who can't speak English.

• I'm never going to be disabled. I'm sick of being so healthy.

• I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my homosexuals flaming.

• [Looking at a globe map...country being Uruguay]
Hee hee! Look at this country! 'You-are-gay.'

• All my life I've had one dream, to achieve my many goals.

• Dad, you've done a lot of great things, but you're a very old man, and old people are useless.

• But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make God madder and madder.

• I think Smithers picked me because of my motivational skills. Everyone says they have to work a lot harder when I'm around.

• Dear Lord.. The gods have been good to me. For the first time in my life, everything is absolutely perfect just the way it is. So here's the deal: You freeze everything the way it is, and I won't ask for anything more. If that is OK, please give me absolutely no sign. OK, deal.

• That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!

• Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

• If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing.

• I'm in no condition to drive...wait! I shouldn't listen to myself, I'm drunk!

• 'To Start Press Any Key'. Where's the ANY key?

Homer's words, not mine, but some are funny.

How Louise L Hay Healed Her Cervical Cancer

A client came to me for hypnosis to help her relax and release anxiety. She has advanced cervical cancer so I started looking into how mind therapy can assist in the healing of cancer. I found Louise L Hay's own story:

Out of the work I was doing, I was inspired to put together the little book "Heal Your Body", which began as a simple list of metaphysical causations for physical illnesses in the body. I began to lecture and travel and hold small classes.

Then one day I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. With my background of being raped at five and having been a battered child, it was no wonder I manifested cancer in the Vaginal area.

Like anyone else who's just been told they have cancer, I went into total panic. Yet because of all my work with clients, I knew that mental healing worked, and here I was being given a chance to prove it to myself. After all, I'd written the book on mental patterns, and I knew that cancer was a dis-ease of deep resentment that has been held for a long time until it literally eats away at the body. I had been refusing to be willing to dissolve all the anger and resentment at “them” over my childhood. There was no time to waste; I had a lot of work to do.

The word incurable, which is so frightening to so many people, means to me that this particular condition cannot be cured by any outer means and that we must go within to find a cure. If I had an operation to get rid of the cancer and didn't clear the mental pattern that created it, then the doctors would just keep cutting Louise until there was no more Louise to cut. I didn't like that idea.

If I had the operation to remove the cancerous growth and also cleared the mental pattern that was causing the cancer, then it wouldn't return. If cancer or any other illness returns, I don't believe that it's because they didn't “get it all out”, but rather that the patient has made no mental change. He or she just re-creates the same illness, perhaps in a different part of the body.

I also believed that if I could clear the mental pattern that created this cancer, then I wouldn't even need the operation. So I bargained for time, and the doctors grudgingly gave me three months when I said I didn't have the money.

I immediately took responsibility for my own healing. I read and investigated everything I could find on alternative ways to assist my healing process. I went to several health-food stores and bought every book they had on the subject of cancer. I went to the library and did more reading. I checked out foot reflexology and colon therapy and thought they would both be beneficial to me. I seemed to be led to exactly the right people. After reading about foot reflexology, I wanted to find a practitioner. I attended a lecture, and while I usually sat in the front row, this night I was compelled to sit in the back. Within a minute, a man came and sat beside me--and guess what? He was a foot reflexologist who made house calls. He came to my home three times a week for two months and was a great help.

I knew I also had to love myself a great deal more than I had been. There had been little love expressed in my childhood, and no one had made it okay for me to feel good about myself. I had adopted “their” attitudes of continually picking on and criticizing me, which had become second nature.

I'd come to the realization through my work with the church that it was okay and even essential for me to love and approve of myself. Yet I kept putting it off--much like the diet you'll always start tomorrow. But I could no longer postpone it. At first it was very difficult for me to do things like stand in front of a mirror and say things like, “Louise, I love you. I really love you.” However, as I persisted, I found that several situations came up in my life where in the past I would have berated myself, and now, because of the mirror exercise and other work, I wasn't doing so. I was making some progress.

I knew I had to clear the patterns of resentment that I'd been holding since childhood. It was imperative for me to let go of the blame.

Yes, I'd had a very difficult childhood with a lot of abuse--mental, physical, and sexual. But that was many years ago, and it was no excuse for the way I was treating myself now. I was literally eating my body with cancerous growth because I hadn't forgiven. It was time for me to go beyond the incidents themselves and to begin to understand what types of experiences could have created people who would treat a child that way.

With the help of a good therapist, I expressed all the old, bottled-up anger by beating pillows and howling with rage. This made me feel cleaner. Then I began to piece together the scraps of stories my parents had told me about their own childhoods. I started to see a larger picture of their lives. With my growing understanding, and from an adult viewpoint, I began to feel compassion for their pain, and the blame slowly began to dissolve.

In addition, I hunted for a good nutritionist to help me cleanse and detoxify my body from all the junky foods I'd eaten over the years. I learned that junky foods accumulate and create a toxic body. Junky thoughts accumulate and create toxic conditions in the mind. I was given a very strict diet with lots of green vegetables and not much else. I even had colonics three times a week for the first month.
I did not have an operation; however, as a result of all the thorough mental and physical cleansing, six months after my diagnosis I was able to get the medical profession to agree with what I already knew--that I no longer had even a trace of cancer! Now I was able to affirm from personal experience that dis-ease can be healed if we are willing to change the way we think, believe, and act!

Sometimes what seems to be a tragedy turns out to become the greatest good in our lives. I learned so much from that experience, and I came to value life in a new way. I began to look at what was really important to me,

Anger, resentment, unhealthy sexual experiences, junk food - all factors Louise identified as possible causes of the dis-ease in her body which led to cancer.

Her little blue book "Heal Your Life" is an essential addition to anyone's bookshelf. She has also made a CD on "Cancer: Discover Your Amazing Healing Power". She recommends you listen to it every day for 30 days.

Find Louise L Hay's books and CDs at Amazon.co.uk



Read Louise L Hay's full story

When God Created Man

When God created man
he promised women
that good and ideal men
could be found in all corners of the world.


And then.......


...he made the earth round.