New Year's Concert in Vienna

On New Year’s Day, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performs a concert to send to the world a message of hope, friendship and peace.

During the concert, we are dazzled, not only by the beautiful waltzes, polkas and marches, but also by the graceful ballet performances and breathtaking images of Austrian landscapes.

When year 2011 starts around the world

Below is a table of when year 2011 starts around the world, that is when the clocks turn to midnight on January 1, year 2011.

The table is thus organized: Order on entry; London Time; Countries going into year 2011 at this point in time:

1. Friday 10:00 a.m. Kiribati

2. Friday 10:15 a.m. New Zealand (Catham Islands)

3. Friday 11:00 a.m. New Zealand and Antarctica

4. Friday 12:00 p.m. Kiribati, Marshall Islands

5. Friday 12:30 p.m. Norfolk Island

6. Friday 01:00 p.m. Australia

7. Friday 01:30 p.m. Australia (Adelaide)

8. Friday 02:00 p.m. Australia, Russia

9. Friday 02:30 p.m. Australia (Darwin)

10. Friday 03:00 p.m. Japan, South Korea

11. Friday 03:15 p.m. Australia (Eucla)

12. Friday 04:00 p.m. China

13. Friday 05:00 p.m. Indonesia

14. Friday 05:30 p.m. Myanmar, Cocos Islands

15. Friday 06:00 p.m. Bangladesh, Russia

16. Friday 06:15 p.m. Nepal

17. Friday 06:30 p.m. India, Sri Lanka

18. Friday 07:00 p.m. Russia, Pakistan

19. Friday 07:30 p.m. Afghanistan

20. Friday 08:00 p.m. United Arab Emirates

21. Friday 08:30 p.m. Iran

22. Friday 09:00 p.m. Russia, Iraq

23. Friday 10:00 p.m. Greece, Israel

24. Friday 11:00 p.m. Austria, Germany

25. Saturday 00:00 a.m. U.K., Portugal

26. Saturday 01:00 a.m. Cape Verde, Greenland

27. Saturday 02:00 a.m. Brazil

28. Saturday 03:00 a.m. Brazil, Argentina

29. Saturday 03:30 a.m. Canada (St. John’s)

30. Saturday 04:00 a.m. Canada

31. Saturday 04:30 a.m. Venezuela

32. Saturday 05:00 a.m. U.S.A., Canada

33. Saturday 06:00 a.m. U.S.A., Canada

34. Saturday 07:00 a.m. U.S.A., Canada, Mexico

35. Saturday 08:00 a.m. U.S.A., Canada

36. Saturday 09:00 a.m. U.S.A., French Polynesia

37. Saturday 09:30 a.m. France (Taiohae)

38. Saturday 10:00 a.m. U.S.A.

39. Saturday 11:00 a.m. American Samoa, U.S.A., Niue

True Colors

Because everybody is beautiful... All they need is to show their true colors.

Alma-Tadema

Her eyes are with thoughts and they are far away.

by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)

Remaining the most widely read of the Victorian novelists, Charles Dickens is unsurpassed in His creation of distinctively cruel, comic and repugnant characters.

Born in Portsmouth in 1812, Charles Dickens was the second child of a clerk in the Navy Pay-Office. His childhood, like many of those portrayed in his novels, was not a particularly happy one, owing in the main, to his father’s inability to stay out of debt. This led, in 1824, to his father imprisonment in Marshalsea prison and Dickens being sent to work in a blacking warehouse. Memories of this time haunted him for the rest of his life.

In defiance of his parents’ failure to educate him, Dickens worked hard, becoming first a clerk in a solicitor’s office, then in 1834 a reporter of Parliamentary debates for the Morning Chronicle. It is from here that Dickens’s talent for portrait and caricatures stemmed, and his Sketches by Boz, which appeared in the Monthly Magazine and the Evening Chronicle, became immensely popular. Following on from this was The Pickwick Papers (1836-7), which made Dickens’s character’s the centre of a popular cult. With the serialization of Oliver Twist (1837-9) Dickens began his indictment of the cruelty that children suffer at the hands of society. While working on Oliver Twist, Dickens learned of the death of his beloved sister-in-law, Mary. The grief he displayed at this news seems to underline the less than loving relationship he had with his wife Catherine, from whom he was finally separated in 1858.

Dickens followed the success of Oliver Twist with Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) and Barnaby Rudge (1841).

He travelled to America later that year and while there his advocacy of an international copyright law and support for the abolition of slavery aroused the hostility of the American press.

On his return to England, Dickens wrote Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) and the hugely popular Christmas Books. After the publication of Dombey and Son in 1846-8, Dickens’s novels became increasingly somber, with his social criticism more radical and his comedy more savage. Between 1849 and his death in 1870, Dickens published David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend. His last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was never completed and was later published posthumously.

Public grief at Dickens’s death was considerable and he was buried in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Dickens’s last words were alleged to have been:

“Be natural my children.

For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.”

'Twas the night before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

in A Visit From St. Nicholas

by Clement Clarke Moore or Henry Livingston Jr.

The Hummingbird

The hummingbird is so light that it can perch on a single blade of grass. Its eggs are the size of a pea and the entire litter fits into one teaspoon.

They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12–90 times per second (depending on the species). They can also fly backwards, and are the only group of birds able to do so. They can fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h, 34 mi/h). Hummingbirds do not spend all day flying, as the energy cost would be prohibitive; the majority of their activity consists simply of sitting or perching.

Hummingbirds drink nectar, and, like bees, they are able to assess the amount of sugar in the nectar they eat; they reject flower types that produce nectar that is less than 10% sugar and prefer those whose sugar content is stronger. Nectar is a poor source of nutrients, so hummingbirds meet their needs for protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, etc. by preying on insects and spiders, especially when feeding young.

Hummingbirds have long life spans for organisms with such rapid metabolisms. Though many die during their first year of life, especially in the vulnerable period between hatching and leaving the nest (fledging), those that survive may live a decade or more.

Aztecs wore hummingbird talismans. It was believed they drew energy, vigor, and skill at arms and warfare to the wearer.

FIFA World Cup

Two days ago, FIFA president Joseph Blatter announced the winning bids at FIFA's headquarters in Zurich.

Russia was chosen to host the 2018 World Cup
And Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup. This made Russia the first Eastern European country to host the World Cup, while Qatar would be the first Middle Eastern country to host the World Cup.

Blatter noted that the committee had decided to "go to new lands" and reflected a desire to "develop football" by bringing it to more countries.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo de Rivera was born in 1907, in Coyoacán, Mexico. Her birth name was Magdalena Carmen Frieda.

Her father, Wilhem Kahlo, was a german immigrant who changed his name for Guillermo (the spanish equivalent for Wilhem). He had 2 children from a previous marriage. Her mother was a mexican woman, from spanish and indigenous descent. Their marriage was quite unhappy, still Frida was the third of four daughters.

At the break of the Mexican revolution, Frida is three years old and witnesses violent fights in the streets of Mexico City.

At the age of six, she contracted polio, which left her right leg thinner than the left, and it is believed that she also suffered from spina bifida.

In 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus when the vehicle collided with a trolley car. She suffered serious injuries in the accident, including a broken spinal column, collarbone, ribs, pelvis and right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot and shoulder. An iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously damaged her reproductive ability.

Although she recovered from her injuries and eventually regained her ability to walk, she was plagued by relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life. The pain was intense and often left her confined to a hospital or bedridden for months at a time. She underwent as many as thirty-five operations as a result of the accident, mainly on her back, her right leg and her right foot.

After the accident, Kahlo turned her attention away from the study of medicine to begin a full-time painting career. Her self-portraits became a dominant part of her life. She once said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” Her mother had a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed, and her father lent her his box of oil paints and some brushes.

Drawing on personal experiences, including her marriage to Diego Rivera, her miscarriages, and her numerous operations, Kahlo's works often are characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits which often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. She insisted, "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."

She went to France in 1939 and was featured at an exhibition in Paris. The Louvre bought one of her paintings, The Frame.

A few days before Frida Kahlo died, on July 13, 1954, she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return — Frida". The official cause of death was given as a pulmonary embolism, although some suspected that she died from an overdose that may or may not have been accidental. An autopsy was never performed. She had been very ill throughout the previous year and her right leg had been amputated at the knee, owing to gangrene.

Kahlo's work is remembered for its "pain and passion", and its intense, vibrant colors. It has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.