Martin Briley

 Martin Briley (1949, London) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist.

He has recorded with and written for a variety of well-known musicians, as well as releasing several solo albums Briley began playing and writing music when he was ten years old.

At the age of seventeen, he and his band "Mandrake Paddle Steamer" (later shortened to Mandrake) signed their first record deal with Parlophone/EMI, and subsequently recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.

Briley signed a deal with Mercury Records as a solo artist in the early 1980s, going on to release three albums under his own name. 

His single "The Salt in My Tears" went into heavy rotation on MTV and reached No. 36 on the Hot 100 on 30 July 1983, earning him a reputation as a one-hit wonder, although his follow-up single, "Put Your Hands on the Screen" did also crack the Hot 100.

Carnival

Carnival is originally a Christianized pagan folk festival. Historically the party falls around the first Sundays of Lent, but is nowadays traditionally limited to only one (extended) weekend around this period. 

Carnival is the feast of foolishness, ridicule and exuberance that puts it in stark contrast to fasting. There are regionally different names for this festival in the Low Lands: in the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg and the adjacent German Rhineland it is called Vastelaovend, in southern Germany Fasnacht (fasting evening).

Carnival's date finds its current origin in the ecclesiastical calendar, which is counted from Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is, according to the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), the first Sunday after the first full moon after the beginning of spring (March 21). Lent begins 40 days of fasting for Easter Monday, with Sundays not counted. The first Carnival Day then falls seven weeks before Easter Sunday. Carnival officially starts on Sunday.

Carnival being widely celebrated in the Netherlands, there is a demand to Government to make these official holidays. A petition has been started to gather a minimum of 40.000 signatures to have this brought to Parliament (but has already 170.000 and counting).

Captaining the activists is former football player and nowadays musician Björn van der Doelen, aka Sjefke Vaeren. His outfit, including customized beret, has been widely copied and, thanks to brewer Bavaria, the beret is available online for a few euro each!

Valentine's Day

Exotic French Fantasies

Exotic French Fantasies is a 1974 American pornographic movie, starring Linda Susan Boreman, aka Linda Lovelace. The title sounds as awful as the life story of Ms Boreman. 

Linda Lovelace was  famous for her performance in the 1972 hardcore porn film Deep Throat. Although the film was an enormous success at the time, it was later alleged by Boreman that her abusive husband, Chuck Traynor, had threatened and coerced her into the performance. Boreman described what went on behind the scenes in her autobiography Ordeal. 

She later became a "born again" Christian and a spokeswoman for the anti-pornography movement.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.

Ernest Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls in Havana, Cuba; Key West, Florida; and Sun Valley, Idaho in 1939. The novel was finished in July 1940 at the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel in New York City.

The book (and film) are based on Hemingway's experiences during the Spanish Civil War and features an American protagonist, named Robert Jordan, who fights with Spanish soldiers on the Republican side.

Characters in the novel include those who are purely fictional, those based on real people but fictionalized, and those who were actual figures in the war. Set in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range between Madrid and Segovia, the action takes place during four days and three nights.

For Whom the Bell Tolls became a Book of the Month Club choice, sold half a million copies within months, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and became a literary triumph for Hemingway. Published on 21 October 1940, the first edition print run was 75,000 copies priced at $2.75.

Dam protest in Chile

The HidroAysén project envisages five dams to tap the Baker and Pascua rivers, an isolated area of fjords and valleys, and generate 2.75 gigawatts of power for Chile's booming economy.

The government has championed the dams as vital to poverty alleviation and economic growth, but public opinion has split, with many saying the project is unnecessary and will devastate an ecological haven.

The project is estimated to flood 5,900 hectares (15,000 acres) of natural reserves. It will also attract 5,000 workers from Chile and abroad. The project will be connected to the Central Interconnected System by 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) of electric wiring.

Based on study of the project construction and access roads will impact six national parks, eleven national reserves, twenty-six conservation priority sites, sixteen wetland areas and thirty-two privately owned protected conservation areas. This is in addition to six Mapuche communities including four in Toltén and one Lautaro and Victoria.

A portion of the Baker 2 dam will be located in Laguna San Rafael National Park which will cause irreversible environmental damage.

Forbidden Games

Forbidden Games, is a 1952 French war drama film directed by René Clément and based on François Boyer's novel Jeux Interdits.

While not initially successful in France, the film was a hit elsewhere. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, a Special Award as Best Foreign Language Film in the United States, and a Best Film from any Source at the British Academy Film Awards.

It is June 1940, during the Battle of France. After five-year-old Paulette's parents and pet dog die in a German air attack on a column of refugees fleeing Paris, the traumatized child meets 10-year-old Michel Dollé whose peasant family takes her in. She quickly becomes attached to Michel. 

The two attempt to cope with the death and destruction that surrounds them by secretly building a small cemetery among the ruins of an abandoned watermill, where they bury her dog and start to bury other animals, marking their graves with crosses stolen from a local graveyard, including one belonging to Michel's brother. Michel's father first suspects that Michel's brother's cross was stolen from the graveyard by his neighbour. Eventually, the father finds out that Michel has stolen the cross.

Meanwhile, the French gendarmes come to the Dollé household in order to take Paulette. Michel cannot bear the thought of her leaving and tells his father that he would tell him where the stolen crosses are, but in return he should not give Paulette to the gendarmes. His father doesn't keep his promise: Michel destroys the crosses and Paulette ends up going to a Red Cross camp. 

At the end of the movie she is seen running away into a crowd of people in the Red Cross camp, crying for Michel and then for her mother.

World Cup Finals Bilbao1982

 The English soccer team dons txapelas during the World Cup Finals in Bilbao, in June 1982. 

The tournament was won by Italy, who defeated West Germany 3–1 in the final in Madrid. England had its first successful World Cup qualifying campaign in 20 years – the English team had qualified automatically as hosts in 1966 and as defending champions in 1970, then had missed the 1974 and 1978 tournaments.

There was some consideration given as to whether England, Northern Ireland and Scotland should withdraw from the tournament due to the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom. A directive issued by the British sports minister Neil Macfarlane in April, at the start of the conflict, suggested that there should be no contact between British representative teams and Argentina.

Coach Don Howe sharing a joke with Tony Woodcock.

David Bowie's Berets

David Robert Jones (1947 –2016), known professionally as David Bowie was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in popular music for over five decades, acclaimed by critics and other musicians for his innovative work.

His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million albums worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists.

Bowie was great at reinventing himself, creating personalities such as Ziggy Stardust and the Tin White Duke. Berets featured prominently at multiple stages of his career. 

Veils

A veil is an article of clothing or hanging cloth that is intended to cover some part of the head or face, or an object of some significance.

Veiling has a long history in European, Asian, and African societies. The practice has been prominent in different forms in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The practice of veiling is especially associated with women and sacred objects, though in some cultures it is men rather than women who are expected to wear a veil. Besides its enduring religious significance, veiling continues to play a role in some modern secular contexts, such as wedding customs.

Among the Tuareg, Songhai, Hausa, and Fulani of West Africa, women do not traditionally wear the veil, while men do. Male veiling was also common among the Berber Sanhaja tribes. The North African male veil, which covers the mouth and sometimes part of the nose, is called litham in Arabic and tagelmust by the Tuareg. Tuareg boys start wearing the veil at the onset of puberty and veiling is regarded as a mark of manhood. It is considered improper for a man to appear unveiled in front of elders, especially those from his wife's family.

Ancient African rock engravings depicting human faces with eyes but no mouth or nose suggest that the origins of litham are not only pre-Islamic but even pre-historic. Wearing of the litham is not viewed as a religious requirement, although it was apparently believed to provide magical protection against evil forces. In practice, the litham has served as protection from the dust and extremes of temperature characterizing the desert environment.

Veils in combination with a beret, I have only seen on women (so far). 

Belgian Brown berets

The Belgian United Nations Command (B.U.N.C.), also known as the Belgian Volunteer Corps for Korea or "Brown Berets", is the name given to the Belgian-Luxembourgish military force sent to fight in the Korean War. The battalion served in Korea between 1951 and August 1955.

By the end of this period, 3,171 Belgians and 78 Luxembourgers had served tours of duty in Korea.

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Belgium was experiencing a period of turmoil. Belgium had been occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War between 1940–4 and reconstruction was still very much in progress. Politically, the country was torn over the issue of the so-called Royal Question. With the centrist parties thus occupied, both Communist and right-wing Flemish nationalist parties enjoyed considerable support. The Prime Minister in office, when the UN declaration calling for soldiers to be sent to the aid of Korea was sent, was Joseph Pholien of the Christian Social Party who was politically opposed to the rise of communism abroad and wished to gain support from the United States. Both the Belgian and Luxembourgish governments decided to comply with the UN request to send troops to assist South Korea.

Over 2000 Belgians volunteered for service in B.U.N.C. Of these, initially only 700 were selected for training at Leopoldsburg. After training, volunteers received their characteristic brown berets. Soldiers from Luxembourg who were trained alongside the Belgians were organised into 1st Platoon, A Company of B.U.N.C.

BELGIANS CAN DO TOO! was a slogan written across the windshield of Padre of the Unit's (Padre Vander Goten) Jeep during the battles around the "Iron Triangle." Seeing the exhaustion of the troops, the Padre copied the motto of the US 15th Infantry Regiment ("Can Do") alongside whom the Belgians were serving at the time to try to raise morale. The phrase was made famous in Belgium and is thought to summarise the spirit and courage of the Belgian contingent.

V2

The world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile was built by Nazi Germany under the foreboding name Vergeltungswaffe 2 (Retribution Weapon 2).

With a design spearheaded by Wernher von Braun, the V-2 was not prepared and deployed in force until late in World War II, when Hitler was desperate for a new super weapon to boost fading morale. The 45-foot-tall rockets were designed to reach speeds of over 3,500 miles per hour and hit preset targets up to 200 miles away with the help of gyroscopes, accelerometers and stabilizing fins.

Pictured here is a captured V-2 paraded through Paris (with a slightly out-of-focus boinero) in 1945.

Kurt Hutton

Kurt Hutton, born Kurt Hübschmann (1893–1960) in Strasbourg, was a German-born photographer who pioneered photojournalism in England.

Beginning his career with the Dephot agency in Germany, he migrated to England in 1934 and worked for Weekly Illustrated.
He then became one of the founding staff of the groundbreaking pictorial weekly news magazine Picture Post. One of his most famous images used there showed working-class girls enjoying themselves in Funfair, Southend, Essex (1938). 

Personally, I like his photo "Unemployed", with beret, 1934. 

He spent the last decade of his life living in Aldeburgh where he photographed for Benjamin Britten.