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TRAXXFM,THE WAKE UP SHOW TRAXXFM on Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Aug 18, 2009
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230th day of 2009 - 135 remaining

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

1998: Prospector Rob Mitchell’s football-size gold nugget sold in Australia for $263,000. Mitchell said he found the nugget in 1992 and buried it in his backyard. He decided to sell it when he came home one day to find that his dog had dug it up.

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2003: Authorities estimated as many as 10,000 people had died in heat-related deaths in France during a brutal European heat wave.

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BIRTHDAYS

1904 - Max Factor Jr.
cosmetic mogul; died June 7, 1996

1936 - Robert Redford
actor: All the President’s Men, Quiz Show, The Sting, Sneakers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Out of Africa; Academy Award-winning director: Ordinary People [1980]; A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show

1952 - Patrick Swayze

dancer, actor: Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Father Hood, Red Dawn, Point Break, North and South

1958 - Madeleine Stowe
actress: Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Gangster Wars

1969 - Edward Norton
actor: Fight Club, American History X, Keeping the Faith, The People vs. Larry Flynt, The Score

1969 - Christian Slater
actor: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Murder in the First, Untamed Heart, Young Guns, Interview with the Vampire

1970 - Malcolm-Jamal Warner
actor: The Cosby Show, Tyson; writer: Theo & Me

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Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'

Screengrab of Twitter page, PA

A short-term study of Twitter has found that 40% of the messages sent via it are "pointless babble."

Carried out by US market research firm Pear Analytics, the study aimed to produce a snapshot of what people do with the service.

Almost as prevalent as the babble were "conversational" tweets that used it as a surrogate instant messaging system.

The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest.

Message stream

To get an idea of what Twitter was being used for, Pear Analytics dipped into the Tweet stream every 30 minutes between 11:00 and 17:00 on weekdays for a fortnight.

"...a source for people to share their current activities that have little to do with everyone else"

Ryan Kelly, Pear Analytics

MP is named Labour 'Twitter tsar'

In total it grabbed 2,000 messages and then put each message it grabbed into one of six categories; news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversational and those with pass-along value.

Conversational tweets were those that bounced back and forth between two users, and those dubbed "pointless babble" were of the "I'm eating a sandwich" type.

When Pear Analytics started its short-term study, it assumed that most of the tweets would be either spam or self-promotion. This belief, it said, was driven by the growing number of firms starting to use Twitter as a tool to drum up sales.

Instead, it found that 40.5% could be classified as pointless babble, 37.5% as conversational and 8.7% as having pass-along value. Self promotion and spam stood at 5.85% and 3.75% respectively.

"With the new face of Twitter, it will be interesting to see if they take a heavier role in news, or continue to be a source for people to share their current activities that have little to do with everyone else," said Ryan Kelly, founder of Pear Analytics, writing about its analysis.

Pear Analytics intends to repeat its study every quarter to track trends in usage.

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Musicians pay tribute to Les Paul

Les Paul

Guns N' Roses star Slash has paid tribute to guitar pioneer Les Paul, who has died aged 94, calling him "vibrant and full of positive energy".

Paul died from complications of pneumonia in New York, according to Gibson, the firm that sold his guitars.

In a statement Slash said: "He was an exceptionally brilliant man, musician, inventor, mentor and friend."

U2's The Edge, The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and Billy Gibbons of band ZZ Top have also paid tribute to the musician.

'Genius inventor'

Paul is credited with developing one of the first solid-body electric guitars, which went on sale in 1952 and contributed to the birth of rock.

He also developed other influential recording innovations such as multi-track recording, overdubbing and the eight-track tape recorder.

The Edge, who is closely associated with the Les Paul sound, called him a "legend of the guitar and a true renaissance man".

"His legacy as a musician and inventor will live on and his influence on rock and roll will never be forgotten"

The Edge

Les Paul's 'beautiful' guitar

He added: "Les Paul disproves the cliche that you can only be famous for one thing.

"His legacy as a musician and inventor will live on and his influence on rock and roll will never be forgotten."

Fellow guitarist Joe Satriani called Paul "the original guitar hero," saying: "Les Paul set a standard for musicianship and innovation that remains unsurpassed."

Gibbons called him an "innovator, a groundbreaker, a risk taker, a mentor and a friend".

And US rock artist Joan Jett called Paul a "genius inventor, musical innovator, and a wonderful person".

FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME

Death of the Guitar Man: Les Paul (1915-2009)

By Richard Corliss Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009

In the popular mind, guitarist Les Paul existed for half a decade: the years 1950-54, when he and his vocalist-wife Mary Ford enjoyed 16 Top 10 hits, including "How High the Moon" (No. 1 for nine weeks) and "Vaya Con Dios" (No. 1 for 11). Scanning the Great American Songbook for standards 20 or 30 years old, Paul would roast the chestnut into 2/4 time, add Ford's silky stylings and serve up a million seller like "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," "I'm Sitting on Top of the World" or "Bye Blue Blues." Musical satisfaction guaranteed.

hat should suffice, for anyone whose memory contained chips of Paul's amazing facility with a sound he invented and perfected. As he told Stephen K. Peeples in the 60-page booklet that comes with the four-CD set Les Paul: The Legend and the Legacy (on the Gold Rush label), "That big, fat, round, ballsy sound with the bright high-end is the Les Paul sound. Nobody else has it." And if that's not enough, he was the original do-it-all recording mastermind: a producer-arranger-performer who carried his recording studio with him, courtesy of a few portable machines he built. Les was more.

(See pictures of Les Paul's life in music.)

Yet Paul, who died today at 94 in White Plains, N.Y., was no mere antique hitmaker to the rock generations that both learned from him and put his kind of music out of business. He was an inventor and an inspiration. He pioneered recording on tape, creating dozens of layers of sound with an early reel-to-reel tape machine. He designed (though he did not construct) one of the first synthesizers. He devised the first eight-track tape recording system, which would not become generally accepted until 15 years later, when the Beatles made their White Album. And he invented the Gibson Les Paul, an instrument used in various models by Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and loads of other Guitar-zans.

In an interview with Frank Beacham, Paul joked that a lot of people didn't know he played a guitar. "They think I am one," he said. He was something more: a genius of a tinkerer, with machines and music — the Edison of pop.

Waiting for the Sunrise
He was born Lester Polsfuss (the family soon simplified the name to Polfus) in Waukesha, Wis., 18 miles west of Milwaukee. Encouraged by his mother, he learned piano, guitar and harmonica. His curiosity led him to all sorts of precocious experiments, like poking new holes in player-piano music to make new melodies, or, at 13, disconnecting a console-radio speaker and attaching a phonograph pickup. He bought his first Gibson guitar, an L-5 acoustic, which he promptly electrified. In local performances, he wired his guitar to radios stage right and left — voilà, stereo! "If you can be an engineer and a musician," he told David John Farinella for a biographical sketch in the 1999 Encyclopedia of Record Producers, "that's very complementary."

Billing himself as Rhubarb Red, Paul soon had a country-music act out of Chicago. He played harmonica and guitar and, between numbers, peddled rube humor. By the early '30s he was making $1,000 a week at the country stuff, but in the bustling Chicago music scene, there was so much more to hear and play. In the morning he was hillbilly, and at night he was playing jazz with Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Nat Cole and Art Tatum. He cut his first records in 1936, backing blues singer-pianist Georgia White as she belted out Andy Razaf's raunchy threat, "If I can't sell it, I'll keep sittin' on it, before I give it away." A year later, he formed his first trio, with bass player Ernie Newton and rhythm guitarist Jim Atkins (the elder half brother of Chet Atkins, with whom Paul cut the 1995 album Chester and Lester). They went east, and the Les Paul Trio got a New York City club date. More than 70 years later, another Paul trio was playing weekly gigs at Iridium, across from Lincoln Center.

In the '40s he got some flashy gigs — like a Jazz at the Philharmonic session with Nat Cole on piano and Illinois Jacquet on sax — but spent more time on electronic experimentation. He built a new guitar out of Epiphone parts and called it the Log. He used it in his recordings for the next decade. After assembling a recording studio in his garage (total cost: $415), he produced such performers as Gene Austin, the Andrews Sisters and his pal and patron Bing Crosby. His work with White, Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, as well as some Les Paul Trio sides, can be found on Les Paul: The Trio's Complete Decca Recordings Plus (1936-47).

Just after World War II, Crosby gave him one of the first Ampex tape recorders. It helped stoke in Paul the familiar dream of a trailblazing artist: to put on wax the music in his head. What emerged, in 1948, with the two-sided hit "Lover" and "Brazil," was something he called the New Sound. It comprised several tracks of brisk, intricate guitar work meticulously laid on top of one another; if he made a mistake with the final track, he had to start over again. The New Sound, which he refined in a later home studio in Mahwah, N.J., amounted to a one-man musical revolution.

To sell the sound to a mass audience, the one man needed one woman: a vocalist. Gene Autry recommended a singer who had worked with him, Colleen Summers. Paul and Summers were lovers from 1946, though they didn't marry until the end of 1949, back in Milwaukee. (Paul got his blood test from the father of Steve Miller, the blues-guitar man.) Summers was with Paul when their car crashed and he broke his back, both collarbones, six ribs and his nose. His right arm and elbow were crushed. Doctors suggested it be amputated, but he said no, so they took part of his leg and grafted it onto the pulpy bone. Fearing that his arm wouldn't regain its movement, Paul insisted that it be set at a right angle so he could still play guitar.

Paul had thought that Summers, schooled in country, would not feel at ease singing the jazz-inflected pop he wanted to play. But he finally decided that his domestic partner could be his professional one. For a two-star act, she needed a name nearly as short and simple as his; thus Mary Ford. They hit immediately: five Top 10 hits ("Tennessee Waltz," "Mockin' Bird Hill," "How High the Moon," "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" and "Whispering") in nine months. From August 1952 to March '53, they scored five more Top 10 hits ("My Baby's Coming Home," "Lady of Spain," "Bye Bye Blues," "I'm Sitting on Top of the World" and "Vaya Con Dios"). And when they weren't recording, the duo starred in a radio show, did guest spots on Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town and played midtown Manhattan movie houses. Lines stretched up Broadway to see "America's musical sweethearts."

How High the Moon
For all the attention paid to Les Paul the technical innovator, not enough was paid to his skill as an arranger of guitar solos and vocal parts. Similarly, Ford didn't get her due as a singer. She looked the way she sang: smooth, clear, pretty. Her voice, tripled or sextupled in harmony, was the vocal version of his slide-guitar style. Her glissandi were intimate, as if she had been singing inside the microphone. (She was, in fact, the first vocal artist to sing not a foot or so away from the microphone, as most studio singers did then, but virtually on top of it, the way it's done today.) Her vocal approach was less an attack than a seduction — sensuous in an elevated, healthy way, like aerobic sex in a ski lodge. She sold those old tunes with a modern attitude that never stooped to irony or anachronism. And she never put more into a song than she did with "How High the Moon."

" 'How High the Moon' had terrific verve," said Bill Wyman, long the Rolling Stones' bassist, "proof at last that pop could provide stylish, instrumental inventiveness." So it's instructive to listen closely to "How High the Moon" — not a chore, since the song provides as much musical exhilaration now as it did when it was released, in March 1951. It encapsulates the lithe popular art of all those Les and Mary singles — the density and clarity, the distinctiveness of his guitar voice and her intimate vocal instrument, the heart and the fun. It's a number that expresses the choral lilt of early-'50s pop and the electric drive of mid-'50s rock, as if "Mr. Sandman" had married "Peggy Sue."

Right from the start, Paul's arrangement has more hooks than a Chicago abattoir. ("We used to start our gigs with the opening riffs from 'How High the Moon,' " said another Paul, the one with the Beatles. "Everybody was trying to be a Les Paul clone in those days.") Do you remember that descending pattern (C, C7, F, F-minor, G) that concluded primal rock-'n'-roll numbers like Billy Haley's "Rock Around the Clock"? Here, Paul begins with that lick; he also anticipates and reverses the fade-out ending of so many early rock-'n'-roll songs by beginning with a very quick fade-in. Four seconds into the record, Paul is already making history.

Then Ford takes over with her menthol-smooth voice, multiplied into three-part harmony by Paul's studio gizmonics. She coos, "Somewhere there's
mu-u-u-sic," coaxing four syllables out of the word by gliding over them rather than hiccuping through them. She wants the listener to know this is an up-tempo love song, not a stuttering novelty. In the bridge — "There is no moon above, and love is far away too" — she lightly swings "above" and "and love," almost gulping each first syllable. You expect her to do the same with "is far," but she smartly refuses to surrender to giddy syncopation. She gives the final words in the phrase their full traditional value. When she reaches the last couplet — "Until you will, how still my heart,/ How high the moon" — she extends the "high" into a sighing "hiiiiigh," then softens "the moon" into almost a whisper of regret. The diminuendo is a subtle reminder that, for all its drive and bounce, this is a song of longing. Until the lover returns, the moon is just a distant prop for melancholy.

The softening also leads smartly into Paul's solo. He feeds out of Ford's vocal with a wah-guitar wail that seems to hunch the shoulders of a note, then relax into some fleet picking in Paul's trademark bubbly style as if he's somehow playing underwater and the notes have quickly risen to the surface to pop in the clear air. That's the first chorus. The second features a lot of the power chords that later rock guitarists would borrow. It climaxes in an ascending "aaaah" from the Ford voices that transports us into the third instrumental chorus, where a few more Lawrence Welky bubbles return the number to vocal land.

Uncharacteristically naked (her voice alone, not double- or triple-tracked) for a few syllables, Ford reprises the first chorus, giving each word double value, again asserting the lyric's wistfulness before revving for the finale. Her voice ascends — "How! High! The! Moon!" — and Les' guitar descends, ending as he began, with the rock riff and adding a puckish triple grace note. He and Ford get in and out of this 21-track mini-masterpiece in a breathless two minutes and four seconds.

Just One More Chance
In 1955, the first official year of rock 'n' roll, the hits stopped coming. A nice married couple was suddenly sooooo 1954. Paul looked less like a genius-guitarist than an irrelevant uncle. Paul and Ford did commercials for the Robert Hall clothing chain ("When the values go up, up, up/ And the prices go down, down, down") and Rheingold Beer. They broke up the act — and their marriage. (Ford died at 52 in 1976.) Paul pretty much retired. He survived quintuple-bypass heart surgery. It was one of the first operations of its kind — another Les Paul innovation. Back from the dead, he was named to the Rock Hall of Fame in 1988. At the induction ceremony, Jeff Beck said, "I've copied more licks off Les Paul than I'd care to admit." Paul subsequently said to Stephen Peeples, "I'm glad I was able to give the kids some toys to play with."

In later days, the Merlin of Mahwah could hardly play with the toys he invented. Arthritis froze all the digits on his right hand and all but two on his left. His fingers, which once flew over the frets at Mach 2, could hardly do the walking. "You know, I can't do what I used to do when I was 20 or 30," he told David John Farinella. "With the arthritis I got — Christ, I got no fingers. But what I got, I play. A knuckle here, a knuckle there. You forget about the arthritis and everything else when you're playing."

He was like Henri Matisse, in a wheelchair in his 80s, who continued to create art — cutting out bits of colored paper, painting with his brush in his mouth, supervising his decoration of the Chapel of the Rosary in St.-Paul de Vence because it was what he did, because it kept him alive. That's why Les Paul continued to play weekly gigs at Iridium well into his 90s, until shortly before his death, putting the final touches, grace notes, on the edifice of his achievement. Each Monday evening, two legends would fill that tiny stage: a living legend, Les Paul, and the precious memory of his partner. One night he closed a set with the plaintive ballad "Just One More Chance." He was playing it, he said, "in remembrance of my partner Mary."

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news,interesting,compiled,the wake up show traxxfm,

May 12, 2009
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132nd day of 2009 - 233 remaining

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
LIMERICK DAY

Edward Lear was born on this day in 1812 in Highgate, England. Lear was a poet and a talented illustrator.
A big champion of the limerick (which dates back to the early 18th century), Lear wrote Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense and other such amusing pieces. The Nonsense book especially helped the limerick to become very popular. The limerick is the only fixed-verse form indigenous to the English language.
So, what are you waiting for? Write a limerick today! Here’s one to get you started:
There once was a man named Nation,
Who worked for a radio station.
Although he was tall,
His hands were too small,
Wee paws for station identification.

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Hubble fix mission set for launch

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

Shuttle Atlantis (Getty)

The Hubble Space Telescope is set to receive its final overhaul when a space shuttle mission launches from Florida.

The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to blast off on Monday in an attempt to repair the stricken space observatory.

Hubble has been hit by failures to its science instruments and to its onboard gyroscopes.

Engineers hope the challenging flight will give a new lease of life to one of the most important scientific tools ever built.

A successful mission would make Hubble up to 90 times more powerful than it was in its original guise and extend its operating lifetime until at least 2014.

Shuttle Atlantis is due to lift off at 1901 BST (1401 EDT) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The seven crew have arrived at the pad and have begun boarding the vehicle.

Nasa said the weather remained favourable, with a 90% chance of good conditions at the time of launch.

The fifth and final servicing flight was delayed last year, when a critical component of the telescope failed. No more such missions are planned because of the space shuttle's impending retirement in 2010.

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

Named after the great US astronomer Edwin Hubble

Launched in 1990 into a 600km-high circular orbit

Equipped with a 2.4m primary mirror and five instruments

Length: 15.9m; diameter: 4.2m; Mass: 11,110kg

"Our workload is going to be very high," the mission's lead spacewalker John Grunsfeld told BBC News.

"There's no time to take a breather and look around, it's just going to be work, work, work."

He added: "It's going to be a marathon at a sprint pace for 11 days on orbit."

But if all goes well, it could trigger a magnificent renaissance for the much-loved space telescope.

Martin Barstow, professor of astrophysics and space science at the University of Leicester, UK, has been closely involved in planning for the mission.

He told BBC News: "If (the mission) is successful, as we all hope, it will not just return Hubble to health but increase its capability tremendously with the addition of two new, even more powerful instruments.

"It is a testament to the ingenuity and commitment of many scientists and engineers. I have no doubt that we will continue to be amazed by Hubble's new discoveries during the next few years."

After launch, Atlantis will rendezvous with Hubble, grab the telescope with its robotic arm and pull it on to a work platform to give astronauts easy access to its interior.

Infographic (BBC)

Crew members will install new instruments and thermal blankets, repair two existing instruments, replace gyroscopes, batteries and a unit that stores and transmits science data to Earth.

The overhaul will be carried out over five spacewalks. Astronauts will remove the existing Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 instrument to make way for the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

WFC3 will be Hubble's first "panchromatic" camera with a wide field of view and is able to take amazingly sharp images over a broad range of colours.

"Wide Field Camera 3 is just going to blow people away with the pictures it is going to be able to take across a very wide wavelength spectrum, from the infrared to the ultraviolet," Mr Grunsfeld said.

It will enable astronomers to carry out new studies of dark energy and dark matter and search for remote galaxies previously beyond Hubble's vision.

"People have devoted their lives, their hearts, their souls, their blood in some cases to building, operating and servicing Hubble"
John Grunsfeld, shuttle astronaut

In pictures: The best of Hubble

The Cat's Eye Nebula (Nasa/The Hubble Heritage Team)

Spacewalkers will also take out the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) device, installed during Hubble's first servicing mission to correct the telescope's flawed mirror.

This is no longer needed as instruments installed since have been designed individually to correct for the faults.

In COSTAR's place, astronauts will install the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), designed to help researchers probe galaxy evolution, the formation of planets, the elements required for life and the web of gas between galaxies.

Repairs will be made to the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), which suffered a power failure in 2004, and to the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which was hit by an electrical short in 2007.

"Personally, I'm hoping that the astronauts will have time to repair the ACS camera. It may not get done because there are higher priorities on the schedule," said Dr Richard Massey, a fellow in astronomy at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.

The WFC3 will seek out even earlier galaxies

Peering into Hubble's future

Referring to the two European Space Agency satellites, Herschel and Planck, which launch on Thursday, Dr Massey said it was a "make-or-break week for astronomy".

Astronauts will also replace a worn-out fine guidance sensor, helping to maintain a robust ability to point the telescope.

After the work to Hubble is complete, Atlantis will boost the telescope to a higher altitude, ensuring that it survives the tug of Earth's gravity for the remainder of its operating lifetime.

Professor Barstow commented: "I have to say that it has been a nail biting time waiting for this with all the problems that have got in the way, the most recent being the failure of the command and data handling module just about a week before the mission was due to launch last October.

"I think the team have done an amazing job of solving the problem of adding that repair to the programme and I wish them well for the mission."

'Unique beast'

Launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope is now regarded as one of the most important instruments in the history of astronomy. It has made a remarkable contribution to our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Universe.

Hubble has obtained the deepest views of the cosmos, finding high-interest objects for other observatories to investigate in detail. Its studies of the Universe's expansion also dramatically refined the best estimates for the age of the cosmos.

Its pictures have produced hard evidence for the existence of black holes and confirmed theories of planetary formation.

Mission astronaut Mike Massimino practises repairs (Nasa)

Three of the seven shuttle crew are veterans of previous Hubble servicing missions. This will be Mr Grunsfeld's third consecutive flight to the orbiting observatory.

Speaking to me at a conference last year, he said: "Hubble is something that has a huge family here on planet Earth. People have devoted their lives, their hearts, their souls, their blood in some cases to building, operating and servicing Hubble.

"The results that we get - the science - are a bit like the love you would get from a pet. Hubble is this unique beast. When we go up into orbit, I really do feel this kinship with it. Even more so after spending five days up close and personal working on it.

"When it's time to leave, I do feel a little bit of sadness... but my big goal is not to break it, and to send it off so it can do new science."

Following the Columbia disaster in 2003, which claimed the lives of seven astronauts, another mission to service Hubble was considered too hazardous.

The reason was astronauts would not be able to use the International Space Station (ISS) as a safe haven if the shuttle sustained damage on launch.

Nasa has now accepted the risk of the mission, but will have the shuttle Endeavour ready to launch immediately to bring the crew home if the servicing mission is endangered.

This unprecedented measure comes at a cost, however: a shuttle mission costs upwards of $450m (£298m; 333m euros).

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Web murderer given life sentence

Heiss became angry when his obsessive messages were blocked

Murder reveals hidden online life

A man from Germany has been jailed for life for stabbing a Nottingham student 86 times after stalking his girlfriend.

David Heiss, 21, from Limburg, became infatuated with 20-year-old Matthew Pyke's girlfriend Joanna Witton, 21, during repeated internet exchanges.

Heiss, who denied the murder charge and said he was acting in self defence, was found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court.

The judge described Heiss's motive as "bizarre" and ordered him to serve at least 18 years for the 2008 attack.

During the trial the jury heard that on 18 September, 2008, Heiss flew from Frankfurt to Birmingham with a knife and made his way to the flat Mr Pyke shared with Miss Witton on North Sherwood Street in Nottingham.

He waited until Miss Witton left for work the following morning and confronted Mr Pyke, originally from Stowmarket in Suffolk.

Heiss had claimed he was acting in self defence after Mr Pyke charged at him with a knife.

The court heard Miss Witton, who was originally from Selby in North Yorkshire, met Heiss through a website she ran with Mr Pyke.

Heiss spent six months pestering her with declarations of love and visited the couple twice in Nottingham before the attack.

He became infuriated when the couple, who conducted their entire social life online, blocked Heiss from their website, preventing him from sending further messages to Miss Witton.

'Wonderful man'

Mr Justice Keith said Heiss had remained in denial about the murder.

He told Heiss: "The law permits only one punishment for the crime of murder and the sentence I pass on you is one of imprisonment for life.

"The fact that your motive for murder was so bizarre doesn't make your killing of Matthew any the less serious."

Speaking after the trial, Mr Pyke's brother Adam said: "All it takes is one stab wound and somebody dies.

"He was a great brother to have and it's still difficult to come to terms with the fact that he's not going to be here any more."

Matthew Pyke and Joanna Witton

A statement issued on behalf of Mr Pyke's family and Miss Witton said: "We will never truly come to terms with what happened to Matthew that morning.

"While we have wanted justice throughout the course of this trial, all we really want is Matthew back with us.

"There will always be a massive part of our family missing and not a day goes by without us thinking about Matthew and what might have been.

"It's not fair that we should all have to live like this for the rest of our lives because of one man's actions. He has taken a wonderful, caring, loving young man from all of us."

Det Ch Insp Tony Heydon from Nottinghamshire Police warned people about the dangers of the internet.

"It is the worst case I have dealt with. It is a horrific incident, a very pre-planned premeditated murder.

"The scene we found on the day was horrific and what happened to Matthew was a terrible act, everyone is shocked about what happened.

Web warning

"David Heiss was very clever on the internet, and he learned a lot of information about Joanna Witton and Matthew Pyke and others.

"It is very, very interesting that he could do that.

"One of the things that's important here is that people need to realise that on their computers there is a lot of personal information that other people can gather.

"We know that Heiss found out a lot of information about where they lived and where they worked and all sorts of things about their social network that perhaps now with hindsight they wouldn't want him to know.

"So people need to bear that in mind when they are on their own systems using Facebook, people need to be careful."

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on this date :

1971 - The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias. Mick couldn’t remember her whole name very well, so she became known as Bianca the world over.

1977 - The Eagles earned a gold record for the hit, Hotel California. The award was the second of three gold record singles for the group. The other million sellers were New Kid in Town and Heartache Tonight. Two number one songs by The Eagles -- Best of My Love and One of These Nights -- didn’t quite make the million-seller mark.

hotel california on the wake up blog

eagles reunion 2004 ..on the wake up show traxxfm blog

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Pupils urged to attack dummy teachers

Pupils at a Chinese school are being encouraged to attack punchbag dummies of their teachers to relieve stress.

Pupils work off their stress /Quirky China News

Lichang 1st Middle School in Jinan attached pictures of teachers to sandbags and gave pupils boxing gloves to work off their frustrations.

Vice principal Meng Fanxiang said: "Adolescent students may have a lot of problems and be under great pressure from studies. It's better for them to release it within the school than other places."

Meng's own picture, as well as those of other teachers and admin staff, has been attached to the sandbags.

But the vice principal told the Qilu Evening Post: "I don't care if they beat up my dummy."

The 'physical release' room is part of a new programme of support services for students which also include a private chatroom and a consultation room.

The school says that most boys prefer the physical release room for the release of stress, while the majority of girls prefer the private chatroom

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'Little old lady' robs bank

Police are hunting a crook who got clean away with more than £10,000 after robbing a bank dressed as a little old lady.

Comedian Dick Emery as a little old lady /Rex

The bandit shuffled into the bank in Hamburg, Germany, wearing a headscarf, thick glasses and a long coat before pulling a gun on cashiers.

More than 100 police officers took part in a chaotic city-wide search for the cross-dressing blagger - and arrested five real-life old ladies as suspects before letting them go.

A police spokesman said: "A cashier said they saw a smiling little old lady come up to the cash desk, but then she suddenly whipped out a gun, roared in a deep male voice to hand over the cash and then fled like as quickly as an Olympic athlete.

"A lot of bank robbers just put a balaclava over their heads to hide their face, but this particular disguise was very well thought out and makes catching them especially hard."

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Brits use wallabies as lawnmowers

British gardeners are increasingly buying wallabies as pets to trim their lawns.

Wallabies /PA pics

Private orders for the marsupials have jumped in recent years as landowners seek new ways of keeping their grass neat, reports The Times.

Wallaby enthusiasts say the animal is a cuter, friendlier and more exotic alternative than sheep.

A pair of wallabies are not cheap, with males costing £150 and females around £650, in addition to food and bedding costs.

But Waveney Wildlife, Britain's biggest private supplier, reports a doubling in wallaby orders in five years, driven by growing interest from individuals.

Trevor Lay, who runs the centre in Bungay, Suffolk, now sells 35 a year and says he could find homes for three times as many.

"It's crazy. To be honest, if I had 100 I could easily get rid of them," he said.

Quintin Spratt, a breeder from near Diss in Norfolk, also told the newspaper that he had received a surge of inquiries from would-be owners.

Anyone looking to keep a wallaby should have enough land for them to roam, half an acre, and fences at least 5ft high to ensure they cannot jump for freedom

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Man sues over sex ban

A Kenyan man is suing the organisers of a politically motivated sex ban for causing him "anxiety and sleepless nights".

Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga

James Kimondo is seeking damages for the ban which was called by women's groups in a bid to force political leaders to put their rivalries aside, reports the Daily Telegraph.

"Since the women called for the sex boycott, my wife has denied me my conjugal rights. This has caused me anxiety and sleepless nights," he said.

"I have been suffering mental anguish, stress, back aches, lack of concentration," Mr Kimondo told reporters outside the Nairobi High Court.

The strike ended on Wednesday with the organisers claiming it had been a success.

The leaders of the G10, a coalition of women's groups, argued that the country's male leaders should not have time for matters of the flesh when the country is ensnared in economic and political turmoil.

President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga, pictured, were pressured into a power-sharing deal by international mediators following violence which accompanied December 2007 polls.

But lingering tensions have crippled the coalition government and fuelled widespread discontent.

The two, who have hardly met recently, held brief talks last Monday and held a cabinet meeting on Thursday, the first in a month.

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TRAXX FM AND THE WAKE UP SHOW TRAXXFM WISH YOU A FANTASTIC CHINESE NEW YEAR

Jan 26, 2009
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TRAXXFM'S WAKE UP SHOW WISHES YOU A FANTASTIC CHINESE NEW YEAR

THE WAKE UP DUDES WANT THE YEAR OF THE OX TO BE A FANTASTIC ONE FOR YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES...MAY EVERYTHING NICE COME YOUR WAY...KONG HEE FATT CHOY !

The Story Of The Chinese Zodiac

Many people have wondered over the years how it was that the rat, the smallest of all the creatures, was given the honour of having the first year of the Chinese Zodiac named after him. This is the story I have heard.

A very long time ago, the Jade Emperor, who ruled the heavens of China, sent a message to all the animals asking them to come together so that he could give each of them a year, which would make it easier for the people of China to keep track of time. The cat and the rat were good friends and decided to travel to meet the Jade Emperor together.

When it came time to leave, however, the cat was taking a nap. The rat, realising that he would have to use all his cunning to be noticed by the Jade Emperor, left his friend sleeping, and set off on his own. This is why there is no year named after the cat, and also why cats have hated rats ever since.

When the rat arrived, the Jade Emperor welcomed him and the other animals and told them that they should all take part in a swimming race. Once again, the rat realised that he would have to be very clever if he wanted to win the race. He found the largest, strongest animal, which was the ox, and pleaded with him to let him ride on its head. The ox was kind and strong, and agreed that they would swim across together. The rat travelled safely across the river on the ox’s back, but, just before they reached the other side, climbed over the ox's head, jumped onto land, and reached the finish line first. The rat had proved its cunning, and the
Jade Emperor named the first year after the rat and the second year after the ox.

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The Story of the Phoenix

Ta-Khai, Prince of Tartary, dreamed one night that he saw in a place where he had never been before an enchantingly beautiful young maiden who could only be a princess. He fell desperately in love with her, but before he could either move or speak, she had vanished. When he awoke he called for his ink and brushes, and drew her image on a piece of precious silk, and in one corner he wrote these lines:

The flowers of the pæony
Will they ever bloom?
A day without her
Is like a hundred years.

He then summoned his ministers, and, showing them the portrait, asked if any one could tell him the name of the beautiful maiden; but they all shook their heads and stroked their beards. They did not know who she was.

So displeased was the prince that he sent them away in disgrace to the most
remote provinces of his kingdom. All the courtiers, the generals, the officers, and every man and woman, high and low, who lived in the palace came in turn to look at the picture. But they all had to confess their ignorance.

Ta-Khai then called upon the magicians of the kingdom to find out in magic ways the name of the princess of his dreams, but their answers were so widely different that the prince condemned them all to have their noses cut off. The portrait was shown in the outer court of the palace from sunrise till sunset, and travellers from all over the world came in every day, gazed upon the beautiful face, and came out again. No-one could tell who she was.

Meanwhile the days were weighing heavily upon the shoulders of Ta-Khai, and he became very unhappy; he forgot to eat, he forgot to drink, and he even forgot which was day and which was night, what was in and what was out, what was left and what was right. He spent his time roaming over the mountains and through the woods crying aloud to the gods to end his life and his sorrow.

It was in this way, one day, that he came to the edge of a cliff. The valley below was scattered with rocks, and the thought came to his mind that he had been led to this place to put and to his misery. He was about to throw himself into the depths below when suddenly a Phoenix flew across the valley and appeared before him, saying:

“Why are you, a mighty Prince, standing here, looking so sad?”

Ta-Khai replied: “Nothing matters to me now but finding the beautiful girl for whom my heart is thirsting, but how can I find her?”

And he told the bird his story.

The Phoenix replied:

“Without the help of Supreme Heaven it is not easy to acquire wisdom, but it is a sign that Heaven has sent me to help you. I can make myself large enough to carry the largest town upon my back, or small enough to pass through the smallest keyhole, and I know all the princesses in all the palaces of the earth. They all know my song, and I am their friend. Therefore show me the picture, Ta-Khai, and I will tell you the name of the princess you saw in your dream.”

They went to the palace, and, when the portrait was shown, the bird became as large as an elephant, and exclaimed, “Sit on my back, Ta-Khai, and I will carry you to the place of your dream. There you will find Sai-Jen, the daughter of the King of China, the princess of your dream.”

At nightfall they were flying over the palace of the king just above a magnificent garden. And in the garden sat Sai-Jen, singing and playing upon the lute. The Phoenix deposited the prince outside the wall near a place where bamboos were growing and showed him how to cut twelve bamboos between the knots to make a flute with a sound sweeter than the evening breeze on the forest stream.

And as he blew gently across the pipes, they echoed the sound of the princess's voice so harmoniously that she cried:
“I hear the distant notes of the song that I sing myself, although I can see nothing but the flowers and the trees. It is a beautiful song, and it sounds very sad, and full of longing.”

At that moment the wonderful bird, like a fire of many colours come down from heaven, landed in front of the princess, dropping at her feet the portrait. She opened her eyes in utter astonishment at the sight of her own image. And when she had read the lines inscribed in the corner, she asked, trembling:

“Tell me, Phoenix, who is he, so near, but whom I cannot see, that knows the sound of my voice and has never heard me, and can remember my face and has never seen me?”

Then the bird spoke and told her the story of Ta-Khai's dream, adding:

“I come from him with this message; I brought him here on my wings. For many days he has longed for this hour, let him now meet the princess of his dream and heal the wound in his heart.”

Sai-Jen fell silent when Ta-Khai stood before her, so great was her love for him. The Phoenix lit up the garden sumptuously, and a breath of love was stirring the flowers under the stars.

It was in the palace of the King of China that were celebrated in the most ancient and magnificent style the nuptials of Sai-Jen and Ta-Khai, Prince of Tartary.

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The Strange Tail of Doctor Dog

Far up in the mountains of the Province of Hunan in the central part of China, there once lived in a small village a rich gentleman who had only one child. This girl was the very joy of her father's life.

Now Mr. Min, for that was this gentleman's name, was famous throughout the whole district for his learning, and, as he was also the owner of much property, he spared no effort to teach Honeysuckle everything he could, and to give her everything she craved. Of course this was enough to spoil most children, but Honeysuckle was not at all like other children. As sweet as the flower from which she took her name, she listened to her father's slightest command, and obeyed without ever waiting to be told a second time.

One day when Honeysuckle was sitting inside a shady pavilion that overlooked a tiny fish-pond, she was suddenly seized with a violent stomach-ache. Frantic with pain, she told a servant to summon her father, and then without further ado, she fell over in a faint upon the ground.

When Mr. Min reached his daughter's side, she was still unconscious. After sending for the family physician to come as fast as he can, he got his daughter to bed, but although she recovered from her fainting fit, the extreme pain continued until the poor girl was almost dead from exhaustion.

Now, when the doctor arrived and peered at her from under his gigantic spectacles, he could not discover the cause of her trouble. Poor Honeysuckle lay in agony for three days, all the time growing weaker and weaker from loss of sleep. Every great doctor in the district had been summoned for consultation, but all to no avail.

Mr. Min sent out a proclamation in every direction, describing his daughter's illness, and offering to bestow on her a handsome dowry and give her in marriage to whoever should be the means of bringing her back to health and happiness. He then sat at her bedside and waited, feeling that he had done all that was in his power. There were many answers to his invitation. Physicians, old and young, came from every part of the Empire to try their skill, and when they had seen poor Honeysuckle and also the huge pile of silver her father offered as a wedding gift, they all fought with might and main for her life; some having been attracted by her great beauty and excellent reputation, others by the tremendous reward.

But, alas for poor Honeysuckle! Not one of all those wise men could cure her! One day, when she was feeling a slight change for the better, she called her father, and, clasping his hand with her tiny one said, "Were it not for your love I would give up this hard fight and pass over into the dark wood. For your sake, because I am your only child, and especially because you have no son, I have struggled hard to live, but now I feel that the next attack of that dreadful pain will carry me away. And oh, I do not want to die!"

Here Honeysuckle wept as if her heart would break, and her old father wept too, for the more she suffered the more he loved her.

Just then her face began to turn pale. "It is coming! The pain is coming, father! Very soon I shall be no more. Good-bye, father! Good-bye; good-bye!" Here her voice broke and a great sob almost broke her father's heart. He turned away from her bedside; he could not bear to see her suffer. He walked outside and sat down on a rustic bench; his head fell upon his bosom, and the great salt tears trickled down his long grey beard.

As Mr. Min sat thus overcome with grief, he was startled at hearing a low whine. Looking up he saw, to his astonishment, a large, shaggy mountain dog. The huge beast looked into the old man's eyes with so intelligent and human an expression, with such a sad and wistful gaze, that the greybeard addressed him, saying, "Why have you come? To cure my daughter?"

Doctor Dog The dog replied with three short barks, wagging his tail vigorously and turning toward the half-opened door that led into the room where the girl lay.

By this time, willing to try any chance whatever of reviving his daughter, Mr. Min bade the animal follow him into Honeysuckle's apartment. Placing his forepaws upon the side of her bed, the dog looked long and steadily at the wasted form before him and held his ear intently for a moment over the maiden's heart. Then, with a slight cough he deposited from his mouth into her outstretched hand, a tiny stone. Touching her wrist with his right paw, he motioned to her to swallow the stone.

"Yes, my dear, obey him," counselled her father, as she turned to him inquiringly, "for good Doctor Dog has been sent to your bedside by the mountain fairies, who have heard of your illness and who wish to invite you back to life again."

Without further delay the sick girl, who was by this time almost burned away by the fever, raised her hand to her lips and swallowed the tiny charm. Wonder of wonders! No sooner had it passed her lips than a miracle occurred. The red flush passed away from her face, the pulse resumed its normal beat, the pains departed from her body, and she arose from the bed well and smiling.

Flinging her arms about her father's neck, she cried out in joy, "Oh, I am well again; well and happy; thanks to the medicine of the good physician."

The noble dog barked three times, wild with delight at hearing these tearful words of gratitude, bowed low, and put his nose in Honeysuckle's outstretched hand.

Mr. Min, greatly moved by his daughter's magical recovery, turned to the strange physician, saying, "Noble Sir, were it not for the form you have taken, for some unknown reason, I would willingly give four times the sum in silver that I promised for the cure of the girl, into your possession. As it is, I suppose you have no use for silver, but remember that so long as we live, whatever we have is yours for the asking, and I beg of you to prolong your visit, to make this the home of your old age - in short, remain here for ever as my guest - nay, as a member of my family."

The dog barked three times, as if agreeing. From that day he was treated as an equal by father and daughter. The many servants were commanded to obey his slightest whim, to serve him with the most expensive food on the market, to spare no expense in making him the happiest and best-fed dog in all the world. Day after day he ran at Honeysuckle's side as she gathered flowers in her garden, lay down before her door when she was resting, guarded her Sedan chair when she was carried by servants into the city. In short, they were constant companions; a stranger would have thought they had been friends from childhood.

One day, however, just as they were returning from a journey outside her father's compound, at the very instant when Honeysuckle was alighting from her chair, without a moment's warning, the huge animal dashed past the attendants, seized his beautiful mistress in his mouth, and before anyone could stop him, carried her off to the mountains. By the time the alarm was sounded, darkness had fallen over the valley and as the night was cloudy no trace could be found of the dog and the little girl.

Once more the frantic father left no stone unturned to save his daughter. Huge
rewards were offered, bands of woodmen scoured the mountains high and low, but, alas, no sign of the girl could be found! The unfortunate father gave up the search and began to prepare himself for the grave. There was nothing now left in life that he cared for - nothing but thoughts of his departed daughter. Honeysuckle was gone for ever.

Several long years passed by; years of sorrow for the ageing man, pining for his
departed daughter. One beautiful October day he was sitting in the very same pavilion where he had so often sat with his darling. His head was bowed forward on his breast, his forehead was lined with grief. A rustling of leaves attracted his attention. He looked up. Standing directly in front of him was Doctor Dog, and lo, riding on his back, clinging to the animal's shaggy hair, was Honeysuckle, his long-lost daughter; while standing near by were three of the handsomest boys he had ever set eyes upon!

"Ah, my daughter! My darling daughter, where have you been all these years?" cried the delighted father, pressing the girl to his aching breast. "Have you suffered many a cruel pain since you were snatched away so suddenly? Has your life been filled with sorrow?"

"Only at the thought of your grief," she replied, tenderly, stroking his forehead with her slender fingers; "only at the thought of your suffering; only at the thought of how I should like to see you every day and tell you that my husband was kind and good to me. For you must know, dear father, this is no mere animal that stands beside you. This Doctor Dog, who cured me and claimed me as his bride because of your promise, is a great magician. He can change himself at will into a thousand shapes. He chooses to come here in the form of a mountain beast so that no one may find out the secret of his distant palace."

"Then he is your husband?" faltered the old man, gazing at the animal with a new expression on his wrinkled face.

"Yes; my kind and noble husband, the father of my three sons, your grandchildren, whom we have brought to pay you a visit."

Doctor Dog three grandchildren

"And where do you live?"

"In a wonderful cave in the heart of the great mountains; a beautiful cave whose walls and floors are covered with crystals, and encrusted with sparkling gems. The chairs and tables are set with jewels; the rooms are lighted by a thousand glittering diamonds. Oh, it is lovelier than the palace of the Son of Heaven himself! We breathe fragrant air that blows through forests of pine and hemlock. We live only to love each other and our children, and oh, we are so happy! And you, father, you must come back with us to the great mountains and live there with us the rest of your days, which, the gods grant, may be very many."

The old man pressed his daughter once more to his breast and hugged the children, who clambered over him rejoicing at the discovery of a grandfather they had never seen before.

From Doctor Dog and his fair Honeysuckle are descended, it is said, the well-known race of people called the Yus, who even now inhabit the mountainous regions of the Canton and Hunan provinces. It is not for this reason, however, that we have told the story here, but because we felt sure every reader would like to learn the secret of the dog that cured a sick girl and won her for his bride.

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Why The Dog Hates The Cat

"What we shall eat tomorrow, I haven't the slightest idea!" said Widow Wang to her eldest son, as he started out one morning in search of work.

"Oh, the gods will provide. I'll find a few coppers somewhere," replied the boy, trying to speak cheerfully, although in his heart he also had not the slightest idea in which direction to turn.

The winter had been a hard one: extreme cold, deep snow, and violent winds. The Wang house had suffered greatly. The roof had fallen in, weighed down by heavy snow. Then a hurricane had blown a wall over, and Ming-li, the son, up all night and exposed to a bitter cold wind, had caught pneumonia. Long days of illness followed, with the spending of extra money for medicine. All their scant savings had soon melted away, and at the shop where Ming-li had been employed his place was filled by another. When at last he arose from his sick-bed he was too weak for hard labour and there seemed to be no work in the neighbouring villages for him to do. Night after night he came home, trying not to be discouraged, but in his heart feeling the deep pangs of sorrow that come to the good son who sees his mother suffering for want of food and clothing.

"Bless his good heart!" said the poor widow after he had gone. "No mother ever had a better boy. I hope he is right in saying the gods will provide. It has been getting so much worse these past few weeks that it seems now as if my stomach were as empty as a rich man's brain. Why, even the rats have deserted our cottage, and there's nothing left for poor Tabby, while old Blackfoot is nearly dead from starvation."

When the old woman referred to the sorrows of her pets, her remarks were answered by a pitiful mewing and woebegone barking from the corner where the two unfed creatures were curled up together trying to keep warm.

Just then there was a loud knocking at the gate. When the widow Wang called out, "Come in!" she was surprised to see an old bald-headed priest standing in the doorway. "Sorry, but we have nothing," she went on, feeling sure the visitor had come in search of food. "We have fed on scraps these two weeks - on scraps and scrapings—and now we are living on the memories of what we used to have when my son's father was living. Our cat was so fat she couldn't climb to the roof. Now look at her. You can hardly see her, she's so thin. No, I'm sorry we can't help you, friend priest, but you see how it is."

"I didn't come for alms," cried the clean-shaven one, looking at her kindly, "but only to see what I could do to help you. The gods have listened long to the prayers of your devoted son. They honour him because he has not waited till you die to do sacrifice for you. They have seen how faithfully he has served you ever since his illness, and now, when he is worn out and unable to work, they are resolved to reward him for his virtue. You likewise have been a good mother and shall receive the gift I am now bringing."

"What do you mean?" faltered Mrs. Wang, hardly believing her ears at hearing a priest speak of bestowing mercies. "Have you come here to laugh at our misfortunes?"

"By no means. Here in my hand I hold a tiny golden beetle which you will find has a magic power greater than any you ever dreamed of. I will leave this precious thing with you, a present from the god of filial conduct."

"Yes, it will sell for a good sum," murmured the other, looking closely at the trinket, "and will give us millet for several days. Thanks, good priest, for your kindness."

"But you must by no means sell this golden beetle, for it has the power to fill your stomachs as long as you live."

The widow stared in open-mouthed wonder at the priest's surprising words.

"Yes, you must not doubt me, but listen carefully to what I tell you. Whenever you wish food, you have only to place this ornament in a kettle of boiling water, saying over and over again the names of what you want to eat. In three minutes take off the lid, and there will be your dinner, smoking hot, and cooked more perfectly than any food you have ever eaten."

"May I try it now?" she asked eagerly.

"As soon as I am gone."

When the door was shut, the old woman hurriedly kindled a fire, boiled some water, and then dropped in the golden beetle, repeating these words again and again:

"Dumplings, dumplings, come to me,
I am thin as thin can be.
Dumplings, dumplings, smoking hot,
Dumplings, dumplings, fill the pot."

Would those three minutes never pass? Could the priest have told the truth? Her old head was nearly wild with excitement as clouds of steam rose from the kettle. Off came the lid! She could wait no longer. Wonder of wonders! There before her unbelieving eyes was a pot, full to the brim of pork dumplings, dancing up and down in the bubbling water, the best, the most delicious dumplings she had ever tasted. She ate and ate till there was no room left in her greedy stomach, and then she feasted the cat and the dog until they were ready to burst.

"Good fortune has come at last," whispered Blackfoot, the dog, to Whitehead, the cat, as they lay down to sun themselves outside. "I fear I couldn't have held out another week without running away to look for food. I don't know just what's happened, but there's no use questioning the gods."

Mrs. Wang fairly danced for joy at the thought of her son's return and of how she would feast him.

"Poor boy, how surprised he will be at our fortune - and it's all on account of his goodness to his old mother."

When Ming-li came, with a dark cloud overhanging his brow, the widow saw plainly that disappointment was written there.

"Come, come, lad!" she cried cheerily, "clear up your face and smile, for the gods have been good to us and I shall soon show you how richly your devotion has been rewarded." So saying, she dropped the golden beetle into the boiling water and stirred up the fire.

Thinking his mother had gone stark mad for want of food, Ming-li stared solemnly at her. Anything was preferable to this misery. Should he sell his last outer garment for a few pennies and buy millet for her? Blackfoot licked his hand comfortingly, as if to say, "Cheer up, master, fortune has turned in our favour." Whitehead leaped upon a bench, purring like a sawmill.

Ming-li did not have long to wait. Almost in the twinkling of an eye he heard his mother crying out,

"Sit down at the table, son, and eat these dumplings while they are smoking hot."

Could he have heard correctly? Did his ears deceive him? No, there on the table was a huge platter full of the delicious pork dumplings he liked better than anything else in all the world, except, of course, his mother.

"Eat and ask no questions," counselled the Widow Wang. "When you are satisfied I will tell you everything."

Wise advice! Very soon the young man's chopsticks were twinkling like a little star in the verses. He ate long and happily, while his good mother watched him, her heart overflowing with joy at seeing him at last able to satisfy his hunger. But still the old woman could hardly wait for him to finish, she was so anxious to tell him her wonderful secret.

"Here, son!" she cried at last, as he began to pause between mouthfuls, "look at my treasure!" And she held out to him the golden beetle.

"First tell me what good fairy of a rich man has been filling our hands with silver?"

"That's just what I am trying to tell you," she laughed, "for there was a fairy here this afternoon sure enough, only he was dressed like a bald priest. That golden beetle is all he gave me, but with it comes a secret worth thousands of cash to us."

The youth fingered the trinket idly, still doubting his senses, and waiting impatiently for the secret of his delicious dinner. "But, mother, what has this brass bauble to do with the dumplings, these wonderful pork dumplings, the finest I ever ate?"

"Baubles indeed! Brass! Fie, fie, my boy! You little know what you are saying. Only listen and you shall hear a tale that will open your eyes."

She then told him what had happened, and ended by setting all of the left-over dumplings upon the floor for Blackfoot and Whitehead, a thing her son had never seen her do before, for they had been miserably poor and had had to save every scrap for the next meal.

Now began a long period of perfect happiness. Mother, son, dog and cat—all enjoyed themselves to their hearts' content. All manner of new foods such as they had never tasted were called forth from the pot by the wonderful little beetle. Bird-nest soup, shark's fins, and a hundred other delicacies were theirs for the asking, and soon Ming-li regained all his strength, but, I fear, at the same time grew somewhat lazy, for it was no longer necessary for him to work. As for the two animals, they became fat and sleek and their hair grew long and glossy.

But alas! according to a Chinese proverb, pride invites sorrow. The little family became so proud of their good fortune that they began to ask friends and relatives to dinner that they might show off their good meals. One day a Mr. and Mrs. Chu came from a distant village. They were much astonished at seeing the high style in which the Wangs lived. They had expected a beggar's meal, but went away with full stomachs.

"It's the best stuff I ever ate," said Mr. Chu, as they entered their own tumble-down house.

"Yes, and I know where it came from," exclaimed his wife. "I saw Widow Wang take a little gold ornament out of the pot and hide it in a cupboard. It must be some sort of charm, for I heard her mumbling to herself about pork and dumplings just as she was stirring up the fire."

"A charm, eh? Why is it that other people have all the luck? It looks as if we were doomed forever to be poor."

"Why not borrow Mrs. Wang's charm for a few days until we can pick up a little flesh to keep our bones from clattering? Turn about's fair play. Of course, we'll return it sooner or later."

"Doubtless they keep very close watch over it. When would you find them away from home, now that they don't have to work any more? As their house only contains one room, and that no bigger than ours, it would be difficult to borrow this golden trinket. It is harder, for more reasons than one, to steal from a beggar than from a king."

"Luck is surely with us," cried Mrs. Chu, clapping her hands. "They are going this very day to the Temple fair. I overheard Mrs. Wang tell her son that he must not forget he was to take her about the middle of the afternoon. I will slip back then and borrow the little charm from the box in which she hid it."

"Aren't you afraid of Blackfoot?"

"Pooh! he's so fat he can do nothing but roll. If the widow comes back suddenly, I'll tell her I came to look for my big hair-pin, that I lost it while I was at dinner."

"All right, go ahead, only of course we must remember we're borrowing the thing, not stealing it, for the Wangs have always been good friends to us, and then, too, we have just dined with them."

So skilfully did this crafty woman carry out her plans that within an hour she was back in her own house, gleefully showing the priest's charm to her husband. Not a soul had seen her enter the Wang house. The dog had made no noise, and the cat had only blinked her surprise at seeing a stranger and had gone to sleep again on the floor.

Great was the clamour and weeping when, on returning from the fair in expectation of a hot supper, the widow found her treasure missing. It was long before she could grasp the truth. She went back to the little box in the cupboard ten times before she could believe it was empty, and the room looked as if a cyclone had struck it, so long and carefully did the two unfortunates hunt for the lost beetle.

Then came days of hunger which were all the harder to bear since the recent period of good food and plenty. Oh, if they had only not got used to such dainties! How hard it was to go back to scraps and scrapings!

But if the widow and her son were sad over the loss of the good meals, the two pets were even more so. They were reduced to beggary and had to go forth daily upon the streets in search of stray bones and refuse that decent dogs and cats turned up their noses at.

One day, after this period of starvation had been going on for some time, Whitehead began suddenly to frisk about in great excitement.

"Whatever is the matter with you?" growled Blackfoot. "Are you mad from hunger, or have you caught another flea?"

"I was just thinking over our affairs, and now I know the cause of all our trouble."

"Do you indeed?" sneered Blackfoot.

"Yes, I do indeed, and you'd better think twice before you mock me, for I hold your future in my paw, as you will very soon see."

"Well, you needn't get angry about nothing. What wonderful discovery have you made—that every rat has one tail?"

"First of all, are you willing to help me bring good fortune back to our family?"

"Of course I am. Don't be silly," barked the dog, wagging his tail joyfully at the thought of another good dinner. "Surely! surely! I will do anything you like if it will bring Dame Fortune back again."

"All right. Here is the plan. There has been a thief in the house who has stolen our mistress's golden beetle. You remember all our big dinners that came from the pot? Well, every day I saw our mistress take a little golden beetle out of the black box and put it into the pot. One day she held it up before me, saying, 'Look, puss, there is the cause of all our happiness. Don't you wish it was yours?' Then she laughed and put it back into the box that stays in the cupboard."

"Is that true?" questioned Blackfoot. "Why didn't you say something about it before?"

"You remember the day Mr. and Mrs. Chu were here, and how Mrs. Chu returned in the afternoon after master and mistress had gone to the fair? I saw her, out of the tail of my eye, go to that very black box and take out the golden beetle. I thought it curious, but never dreamed she was a thief. Alas! I was wrong! She took the beetle, and if I am not mistaken, she and her husband are now enjoying the feasts that belong to us."

"Let's claw them," growled Blackfoot, gnashing his teeth.

"That would do no good," counselled the other, "for they would be sure to come out best in the end. We want the beetle back—that's the main thing. We'll leave revenge to human beings; it is none of our business."

"What do you suggest?" said Blackfoot. "I am with you through thick and thin."

"Let's go to the Chu house and make off with the beetle."

"Alas, that I am not a cat!" moaned Blackfoot. "If we go there I couldn't get inside, for robbers always keep their gates well locked. If I were like you I could scale the wall. It is the first time in all my life I ever envied a cat."

"We will go together," continued Whitehead. "I will ride on your back when we are fording the river, and you can protect me from strange animals. When we get to the Chu house, I will climb over the wall and manage the rest of the business myself. Only you must wait outside to help me to get home with the prize."

No sooner arranged than done. The companions set out that very night on their adventure. They crossed the river as the cat had suggested, and Blackfoot really enjoyed the swim, for, as he said, it took him back to his puppyhood, while the cat did not get a single drop of water on her face. It was midnight when they reached the Chu house.

"Just wait till I return," purred Whitehead in Blackfoot's ear.

With a mighty spring she reached the top of the mud wall, and then jumped down to the inside court. While she was resting in the shadow, trying to decide just how to go about her work, a slight rustling attracted her attention, and pop! one giant spring, one stretch-out of the claws, and she had caught a rat that had just come out of his hole for a drink and a midnight walk.

Now, Whitehead was so hungry that she would have made short work of this tempting prey if the rat had not opened its mouth and, to her amazement, begun to talk in good cat dialect.

"Pray, good puss, not so fast with your sharp teeth! Kindly be careful with your claws! Don't you know it is the custom now to put prisoners on their honour? I will promise not to run away."

"Pooh! what honour has a rat?"

"Most of us haven't much, I grant you, but my family was brought up under the roof of Confucius, and there we picked up so many crumbs of wisdom that we are exceptions to the rule. If you will spare me, I will obey you for life, in fact, will be your humble slave." Then, with a quick jerk, freeing itself, "See, I am loose now, but honour holds me as if I were tied, and so I make no further attempt to get away."

"Much good it would do you," purred Whitehead, her fur crackling noisily, and her mouth watering for a taste of rat steak. "However, I am quite willing to put you to the test. First, answer a few polite questions and I will see if you're a truthful fellow. What kind of food is your master eating now, that you should be so round and plump when I am thin and scrawny?"

"Oh, we have been in luck lately, I can tell you. Master and mistress feed on the fat of the land, and of course we hangers-on get the crumbs."

"But this is a poor tumble-down house. How can they afford such eating?"

"That is a great secret, but as I am in honour bound to tell you, here goes. My mistress has just obtained in some manner or other, a fairy's charm..."

"She stole it from our place," hissed the cat, "I will claw her eyes out if I get the chance. Why, we've been fairly starving for want of that beetle. She stole it from us just after she had been an invited guest! What do you think of that for honour, Sir Rat? Were your mistress's ancestors followers of the sage?"

"Oh, oh, oh! Why, that explains everything!" wailed the rat. "I have often wondered how they got the golden beetle, and yet of course I dared not ask any questions."

"No, certainly not! But hark you, friend rat - you get that golden trinket back for me, and I will set you free at once of all obligations. Do you know where she hides it?"

"Yes, in a crevice where the wall is broken. I will bring it to you in a jiffy, but how shall we exist when our charm is gone? There will be a season of scanty food, I fear; beggars' fare for all of us."

"Live on the memory of your good deed," purred the cat. "It is splendid, you know, to be an honest beggar. Now scoot! I trust you completely, since your people lived in the home of Confucius. I will wait here for your return. Ah!" laughed Whitehead to herself, "luck seems to be coming our way again!"

Five minutes later the rat appeared, bearing the trinket in its mouth. It passed the beetle over to the cat, and then with a whisk was off for ever. Its honour was safe, but it was afraid of Whitehead. It had seen the gleam of desire in her green eyes, and the cat might have broken her word if she had not been so anxious to get back home where her mistress could command the wonderful kettle once more to bring forth food.

The two adventurers reached the river just as the sun was rising above the eastern hills.

"Be careful," cautioned Blackfoot, as the cat leaped upon his back for her ride across the stream, "be careful not to forget the treasure. In short, remember that even though you are a female, it is necessary to keep your mouth closed till we reach the other side."

"Thanks, but I don't think I need your advice," replied Whitehead, picking up the beetle and leaping on to the dog's back.

But alas! just as they were nearing the farther shore, the excited cat forgot her wisdom for a moment. A fish suddenly leaped out of the water directly under her nose. It was too great a temptation. Snap! went her jaws in a vain effort to land the scaly treasure, and the golden beetle sank to the bottom of the river.

"There!" said the dog angrily, "what did I tell you? Now all our trouble has been in vain—all on account of your stupidity."

For a time there was a bitter dispute, and the companions called each other some very bad names—such as turtle and rabbit. Just as they were starting away from the river, disappointed and discouraged, a friendly frog who had by chance heard their conversation offered to fetch the treasure from the bottom of the stream. No sooner said than done, and after thanking this accommodating animal profusely, they turned homeward once more.

When they reached the cottage the door was shut, and, bark as he would, Blackfoot could not persuade his master to open it. There was the sound of loud wailing inside.

"Mistress is broken-hearted," whispered the cat, "I will go to her and make her happy."

So saying, she sprang lightly through a hole in the paper window, which, alas! was too small and too far from the ground for the faithful dog to enter.

A sad sight greeted the gaze of Whitehead. The son was lying on the bed unconscious, almost dead for want of food, while his mother, in despair, was rocking backwards and forwards wringing her wrinkled hands and crying at the top of her voice for some one to come and save them.

"Here I am, mistress," cried Whitehead, "and here is the treasure you are weeping for. I have rescued it and brought it back to you."

The widow, wild with joy at sight of the beetle, seized the cat in her scrawny arms and hugged the pet tightly to her bosom.

"Breakfast, son, breakfast! Wake up from your swoon! Fortune has come again. We are saved from starvation!"

Soon a steaming hot meal was ready, and you may well imagine how the old woman and her son, heaping praises upon Whitehead, filled the beast's platter with good things, but never a word did they say of the faithful dog, who remained outside sniffing the fragrant odours and waiting in sad wonder, for all this time the artful cat had said nothing of Blackfoot's part in the rescue of the golden beetle.

At last, when breakfast was over, slipping away from the others, Whitehead jumped out through the hole in the window.

"Oh, my dear Blackfoot," she began laughingly, "you should have been inside to see what a feast they gave me! Mistress was so delighted at my bringing back her treasure that she could not give me enough to eat, nor say enough kind things about me. Too bad, old fellow, that you are hungry. You'd better run out into the street and hunt up a bone."

Maddened by the shameful treachery of his companion, the enraged dog sprang upon the cat and in a few seconds had shaken her to death.

"So dies the one who forgets a friend and who loses honour," he cried sadly, as he stood over the body of his companion.

Rushing out into the street, he proclaimed the treachery of Whitehead to the members of his tribe, at the same time advising that all self-respecting dogs should from that time onwards make war upon the feline race.

And that is why the descendants of old Blackfoot, whether in China or in the great countries of the West, have waged continual war upon the children and grandchildren of Whitehead, for a thousand generations of dogs have fought them and hated them with a great and lasting
hatred.

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3 posts tagged “navin nair traxxfm”

TRAXXFM,THE WAKE UP SHOW TRAXXFM on Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'

Musicians pay tribute to Les Paul

Death of the Guitar Man: Les Paul (1915-2009)

news,interesting,compiled,the wake up show traxxfm,

Hubble fix mission set for launch

Web murderer given life sentence

TRAXX FM AND THE WAKE UP SHOW TRAXXFM WISH YOU A FANTASTIC CHINESE NEW YEAR

The Story Of The Chinese Zodiac

The Story of the Phoenix

The Strange Tail of Doctor Dog

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