Saturday 5 November 2016
help save the African elephants
please see as this video has been blockedf so much for a good deed -http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0813xr2/saving-africas-elephants-hugh-and-the-ivory-war-episode-1-http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0822ld8/saving-africas-elephants-hugh-and-the-ivory-war-episode-2
THE STORY OF THE POPPY The inspiration behind the poppy as a symbol of Remembrance.
During the First World War (1914–1918) much of the fighting took place in Western Europe. Previously beautiful countryside was blasted, bombed and fought over, again and again. The landscape swiftly turned to fields of mud: bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow.
Bright red Flanders poppies (Papaver rhoeas) however, were delicate but resilient flowers and grew in their thousands, flourishing even in the middle of chaos and destruction. In early May 1915, shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lt Col John McCrae was inspired by the sight of poppies to write a now famous poem called 'In Flanders Fields'.
McCrae’s poem inspired an American academic, Moina Michael, to make and sell red silk poppies which were brought to England by a French woman, Anna Guérin. The (Royal) British Legion, formed in 1921, ordered 9 million of these poppies and sold them on 11 November that year. The poppies sold out almost immediately and that first ever 'Poppy Appeal' raised over £106,000; a considerable amount of money at the time. This was used to help WW1 veterans with employment and housing.
The following year, Major George Howson set up the Poppy Factory to employ disabled ex-Servicemen. Today, the factory and the Legion's warehouse in Aylesford produces millions of poppies each year.read more
Widnes worm Dave wriggles into record books
An earthworm named Dave has wriggled into the record books as the largest found in the UK - measuring a whopping 40cm (15.7in).
Experts at the Natural History Museum bestowed the accolade upon the annelid after it ventured above ground in a vegetable plot in Widnes, Cheshire.
The Lumbricus terrestris was studied at the museum before being killed in what staff called "the sad bit of science".
It is now in a jar and will be "kind of immortal", the museum said.-read more and see video
Tuesday 1 November 2016
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