WORLD OF WONDER

This weekend and next I'll be doing 800-mile round trips first to
collect some young visitors for half-term, and then to take them home,
and in between I'll be out and about with them quite a bit, so my time
on blip will be curtailed. Apologies in advance for any shortfall in
my commenting, I'll have to catch up later.

I'm having to do a major clear out of junk spare rooms, and this is
one box I'll be moving shortly. Brought from my parents' attic, it's a
box of magazines which my younger sisters used to have in the early
70s, 'World Of Wonder' and 'Tell Me Why'. I used to get one called
'Knowledge' in the early 60s, but I think they must have got thrown
out when we moved abroad in 1964. I pulled this copy out at random and
here's a list of its articles:
Round The World Camera (odd and amusing photos)
Word of the Week: Teetotaller (a "lighthearted look")
The history and technology of land reclamation in Holland
The catastrophic floods in Florence of 1966 and how art treasures were
being restored
The speed of light and how it's calculated
The life of French poet Francois Villon: "There is no record of where
or when he died. But one thing seems likely. It is doubtful that such
a wild, free spirit ever suffered the old age he feared."
The story of marine buoys
Animals and birds that eat snakes
The muscular structure of the human body and how muscles work
Arizona's Petrified Forest
The story of Annie Oakley
A folk tale from Benin, with some background Nigerian history
The history of gunpowder and its effect on the world
How the Renaissance Old Masters learned anatomy from dissection
The history of the umbrella (part 2)

Not bad for 1/6d!

Thanks to everyone who commented on my blip yesterday - my first
Spotlight, I was so excited! I'll catch up with all your comments, but
it might take a little while, as explained above. A very humble
thanks too to all who praised me for getting up early - sunrise is
actually after 7.30 am, so it wasn't that wonderful an achievement,
although as an 'owl' rather than a 'lark' it is a bit of a struggle.
It was all down to the good influence and encouragement of Kath.