Why the English call French Frogs...

Although the Chinese and the Aztecs had frogs on the menu long before the French, the origin of the custom of eating frog legs in France, comes from a 12th century ban of meat by the Catholic clergy on certain days, but fish was permitted.

Monks who lived in the interior of the country and had no access to fresh fish, convinced the clergy that frogs were in the fish family and therefore were not meat. 

Seeing that all was well in the culinary department and the clergy accepted frogs as fish, peasants copied the monks and a new culinary tradition was born in France. This is probably the origin of the name given to the French people ("mangeurs de grenouilles", or "frog eaters").

According to Wiki, Queen Elisabeth I, called her beloved Francis Duke of Anjou, her little frog, because he was French.

But recently (2014) archaeologists discovered fragments of an 8,000-year-old charred toad leg one mile away from Stonehenge in Wiltshire, hinting that the English were feasting on frogs’ legs 8,000 years before the French. 

The remains which were found alongside fish bones at the site are the earliest evidence of a cooked toad or frog anywhere in the world, scientists say.

Tanti Noor Said

Tanti Noor Said is an independent researcher, poet and writer. 

Her educational background is Cultural Anthropology and she has written many articles on LGBT rights and migration. Tanti has a great passion for poetry, as an unique form of activism. She believes that everyone is the poet of their own life stories, feelings and thoughts; whether you write it down or keep it inside your soul. 

A poem is a venue where a person is able to address the protest, the disappointment and the anger towards those who seem to be more powerful. She believes in the power of speaking out and spoke out herself, at a demonstration of  ‘We Are Here’.

Black Berets of Albuquerque

January 29^th is the 47th anniversary of the police murders of Rito Canales and Antonio Cordova, two organizers with the Black Berets of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Rito Canales was an ex-convict, and through the Black Berets organization became an outspoken prisoner activist.

Many militant organizations formed from the Chicano Movement. The Brown Berets were formed in Los Angeles in 1967, appealing to many Chicanos with their militant postering and rhetoric. Many other chapters formed around the country. 

An Albuquerque Black Beret, 1971

These organizations were mostly autonomous, and their ideology was a mix of cultural and revolutionary nationalism. 

Albuquerque 1968, at a protest over the killing of Tommy Valles by police. It showed how black berets were worn even before the organization was officially formed, and how police terror was an issue that Chicanos organized around.

Other organizations took up black berets and named themselves as such, in honor of Che Guevara. The Black Berets groups took on a more internationalist approach.

Bobby Garcia Memorial Clinic, Albuquerque N.M.

Enrique Alférez

Enrique Alférez (1901–1999) was born in Zacatecas, Mexico and best known as a sculptor in the art deco style. At age eight he began helping his father carve religious statutes for the church. He ran away at age 12 and was conscripted into the ongoing Mexican revolutionary forces. Enrique spent some time in the army of Pancho Villa in the Mexican Revolution before coming to the United States.

At about 22, he made his way to El Paso, Texas where he found work as a photographer’s assistant.

He studied with Lorado Taft in Chicago, Illinois in the 1920s, then from 1929 on lived in New Orleans. His sculptures and reliefs adorn many parks, buildings, and landmarks in New Orleans and south Louisiana. He created the statue "Molly Marine" which is the very first statue in the United States of a woman in military uniform.

Alférez painted an official portrait of Huey P. Long (who, Alfarez revealed decades later, he loathed).

His fountain at New Orleans Lakefront Airport is a well-known local landmark. He made reliefs for several buildings, including the Charity Hospital Building in New Orleans and the Palmolive Building in Chicago.

Enrique Alférez with his work 'King Solomon'

Alférez remained active into his later years, both as a working artist and an art teacher.

Alférez by Kinzey Branham

Thanks, Andy

Scooters

A scooter is a type of motorcycle with a step-through frame and a platform for the rider's feet. Elements of scooter design were present in some of the earliest motorcycles, and scooters have been made since 1914 or earlier. Scooter development continued in Europe and the United States between the World Wars.

The global popularity of scooters dates from the post-World War II introductions of the Vespa and Lambretta. These scooters were intended to provide economical personal transportation (engines from 50 to 250 cc or 3.1 to 15.3 cu in). The original layout is still widely used in this application. Maxi-scooters, with engines from 250 to 850 cc (15 to 52 cu in) have been developed for Western markets.

Scooters are popular for personal transport, partly due to being more affordable, easy to operate and convenient to park and store. Licensing requirements for scooters are easier and cheaper than for cars in most parts of the world, and insurance is usually cheaper.

Fishing back in the 1930's

The (hard) daily life of Grand Banks fishermen back in the 1930's. 

Loads of details to take in and, in between the many caps, a few good berets too!

Billy Boyo

Billy Boyo (born Billy Theophilus Rowe, 1969 –2000) was a reggae artist and was arguably the most prolific of the early-1980s child MC’s. He is most well-known for his song "One Spliff a Day".

Billy Boyo was still in his teens when he emerged in the early 1980s. In 1983, he (together with Little John and Ranking Toyan) went to London where he linked up with producer Silver Kamel.

Along with the above noted "One Spliff a Day," Billy also charted in 1982 with the Henry Junjo Lawes produced single "Wicked She Wicked." This hit had the added charm of a 13-year-old kid-voice on the mic chanting about a wicked girl.

Billy Boyo wasn't a prolific recording artist as he did not record much before or after the tracks for the first two albums and was maybe more known as a live MC. His musical career was short-lived, and little was heard of him since the second half of the 1980s. 

In the early 1990,s rumour spread that Billy Boyo and Little Harry had been shot and killed. However, this proved to be untrue. Billy in fact died of a brain tumour on 29 October 2000, after a two-month-long struggle to beat the disease.

Steam Locomotives & Berets

Berets were the obvious choice for drivers and stokers of steam locomotives. 

 The beret was black, which didn't show stains from oil and coal,

had no peak that would get in the way

and kept the head warm in the open cabins of these old locs. 

More Picnics & Berets

Picnics with berets weren't limited to Citroën C4's (see yesterday's post), but there are a good number of beret/picnic/Citroën combinations to be found on the web. 

The two Citroën 2CV's for example (above).

But also in Brittain were berets the headgear of choice for some women while out on a motor-picnic.

And these folks here are enjoying themselves while waiting for the cyclists of the Tour de France go by. 

Picnics with Berets & Citroëns C4's

Four old photographs of happy people picnicking, all in the good company of berets and 1930's Citroëns C4's. 

The Citroën C4 and C6 models were designed to replace the Citroën Type A 10 hp and Citroën Type B model family cars. 

The traditional grill styles of previous Citroën models were abandoned and a sleeker, flatter grill was used. 

There were numerous options in terms of body styles, including a particularly popular commercial line.

Snoopy

Snoopy is Charlie Brown's pet beagle in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. 

Since his debut on October 4, 1950, Snoopy has become one of the most recognizable and iconic characters in the comic strip, and is considered more famous than Charlie Brown in other countries than the US. 

The original drawings of Snoopy were inspired by Spike, one of Schulz's childhood dogs.

Snoopy is a loyal, innocent, imaginative and good-natured beagle who is prone to imagining fantasy lives, including being an author, a college student known as "Joe Cool" and a British World War I "flying ace" in the Royal Flying Corps. He is perhaps best known in this last persona, wearing an aviator's helmet and goggles and a scarf while carrying a swagger stick (like a stereotypical British Army officer of World War I and II).

Snoopy can be selfish, gluttonous, and lazy at times, and occasionally mocks his owner, Charlie Brown, but on the whole,  he shows great love, care, and loyalty for his owner (even though he cannot even remember his name and always refers to him as "The Round-Headed Kid"). In the 1990s comic strips, he is obsessed with cookies.

All of his fantasies have a similar formula: Snoopy pretends to be something, usually "world famous", and fails. His short "novels" are never published, and his Sopwith Camel is consistently shot down by his imaginary rival enemy, the German flying ace the "Red Baron". Schulz said of Snoopy's character in a 1997 interview: "He has to retreat into his fanciful world in order to survive. Otherwise, he leads kind of a dull, miserable life. I don't envy dogs the lives they have to live."

Johan Fabricius

Johan Wigmore Fabricius (1899 –1981) was a Dutch writer, journalist and adventurer.

Fabricius was born in Bandung, Java. He wrote approximately 60 books, among them many books for children, including De Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe (1924), which was reprinted 28 times as of 2003.

When World War II broke out, Fabricius was living in Antwerp with his family, and fled to England by way of Saint-Malo. In London he worked for the Dutch news department of the BBC, first as a news reader and then as a free-lance correspondent. In the spring of 1945 he was sent to Asia as a correspondent for 

The Times and the BBC, hoping to witness the liberation of the Indies. 

In September 1945 he flew from Singapore to Batavia, and was one of the first foreign correspondents there. His recollections of a country ravaged by war and revolution were published in 1947 as Hoe ik Indië terugvond. At the end of 1945 he left, moving to the United Kingdom by way of French Indo-China, Japan, and the United States.

Role Models?

For those who were under the mistaken believe that berets typically are worn by old men, it may come as a shock to learn how two young American bandits influence today's fashion (from their graves).

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker has got many 1000's of women into beret wearing, although it may have as much to do with the myths, US folkore and countless films and TV shows being made after their unfortunate deaths.