Welcome

Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

Here's some advice I had to learn the hard way






1.Believe that you can have a new, and better, future and that you can get there – one step and day at a time.

2. Don’t judge yourself for what happened in the past. Its over, time to move along

3.Know your triggers and have a plan to cope with them.

4.Challenge negative and self-defeating thinking.

5.Accept yourself completely.

6.Practice self-care.

7.Life, my friend, is precious.

8. Being vulnerable isn’t a weakness, only bullies and blowhards believe that. Being vulnerable is a strength.

9.You and your body are sacred. Cherish both.

10. Always be thankful because gratitude shifts the entire situation.

11. You are not in charge of changing others. You are only in charge of changing yourself.

12. Have faith. Its hard to do but have faith. Have faith, as an example, that the sun will shine again even when its raining, believe in the power of love, even when you can’t see it and believe in the Good Lord even when he’s silent in your life.

13.Stay single until someone comes along that adds something to your life that makes it better for you not to be single anymore. If a person doesn’t bring that along with them, its better to stay single and wait until the right person comes along.

14.Transformation is painful because you think you’re falling apart and you aren’t, your just falling into something different, something better.

15. Don’t be a punk. Never shake a man’s hand sitting down.

16.Always request a late check-out. You’ll thank yourself for it later on.

17.When entrusted with a secret, don’t be a weasel. Keep the secret.

18.If you need music on the beach, you’re missing the point.

19.You marry the girl, my friend, you marry her family.

20.Never turn down a breath mint.

21.A sport coat is worth 1000 words.

22.Write your own eulogy. (Who better?)  Never stop revising.

23.After writing an angry email, read it carefully. Then delete it.

24.Manners maketh the man and woman.

25.Stand up to Bullies. Protect those bullied.

26.Write down your dreams.

27.In all things lead by example not explanation.

28.Self-worth is so vital to your happiness. If you don’t feel good about you, it’s hard to feel good about anything else."

29.I have learned not to explain things to people. It misleads them into thinking they’re entitled to know everything I do.

30.Get over it. You can’t change what happened as yesterday is gone - but you can make some choices, so the future turns out better. Get over it and move along.

31. Get over it. We all have regrets – it is part of being human. There’s no-one who is perfect, or who does things perfectly. Get over it and move along.

32 .Get over it.  See it as a life lesson, and something you can learn from. Good can come from your regrets if you will let them change your ways. Get over it and move along.

33.See yourself as a new person … As a person you believe in …. As someone you are proud of, and as someone who you like. Get over it and move along.

34.Get over it. Practice self-compassion and give yourself a break. You deserve to be loved … it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Get over it and move along.

35.Get over it. That was then – and this it now …. Let it go and look ahead … For you 
can’t change your future if you’re always looking back. Get over it and move along.

36.Have integrity. It’s not that hard to do. Integrity is when what we say and what we do are rooted in the same set of core values.

37.Don’t speak badly of others – If you speak badly about others to a friend, the chances are you’ll also speak badly about them. Hence, they are likely to be hesitant in what they share with you.

38.Be an optimist – This doesn’t mean burying your head in the sand. It means choosing not to dwell on the negatives, and actively looking for the positives.

39.Make the effort to be helpful – Life is so much better if you’re thoughtful and kind – and we rarely forget someone who’s caring and warm.

40. Set some goals and have some ambition - This is an extremely contagious quality. Not only will you achieve higher goals for yourself, you’ll give hope to others, and inspire them to try.

41. Seek to be compassionate and understanding – All of us face battles and experience hard times. Empathizing with others when life is tough helps to ease their burden and renew their inner spark.

42. Believe in, love, and respect yourself - If you don’t accept, respect and love yourself, then you’ll send out vibes that you’re inadequate. However, it you love, believe in, and treat yourself well then it’s likely that others will treat you that way, too.

43. Be open minded and willing to learn - If you’re closed in your thinking and set in your ways then you’ll never discover a different, better way .. and you’ll close yourself off to other possibilities.

44. Take responsibility for your life - Blaming others for your problems or acting like a victim won’t help you to move forwards and have the life you want. Take control; stay flexible. Success is up to you.

45.  Believing negative, unproductive and self-defeating thoughts. These include thoughts like “I could never … I’m not good enough to … I don’t deserve to … I’m useless at …”

46. Blaming others. It’s true that other people can have a huge affect on what happens to us, and where we are in life. But we give them too much power if we let them set our course, and see ourselves as victims, and act like we’ve no power.

47. Taking ourselves too seriously. It’s important to work hard and to have integrity – but we also have to laugh and enjoy ourselves as well. Also, decide to let things go, and put up with some mistakes. You’re not a perfect person and, the truth is - that’s OK!

48. Being afraid to take some risks or to live close to the edge. To have an interesting life you must leave your comfort zone and say “yes” to some new chances and opportunities. It will broaden your perspective, reduce anxiety, and provide you with new options and possibilities.

49. Being afraid of change. It doesn’t take much effort to stick with what you know. The unknown can seem daunting as we don’t know where that leads! But we grow as individuals and lead a richer life if we learn to accept changes, instead of being scared.

50. Allow yourself the time to be a beginner. NO ONE starts out experience and NO ONE starts out being excellent. 

51. Nothing…including your worst problem…is forever.

52. You know what defines a lost day? It’s the day when you don’t laugh or smile at least once.

53. Here are the six best medicines in the world: The Sun. Rest. Exercise. Diet. Self-respect. Good friends.

54. The mirror will always show you the good Lord’s finest creation.

55. There is, nor has there ever been, a promise of tomorrow.

56.Taking a wrong turn in life isn’t a permanent condition, you turn around and head back so let the life mistakes you made, once you’ve learned what you can from it, go off and die alone.  A mistake, no matter how massive it is, doesn’t define you. Let go of yesterday because yesterday let go of you a long time ago.

57. Every now and then stop and say this out loud “The past is over, I can’t change it. I forgive those who wronged me and I apologize to those I wronged.  And now I need to live for today and the future” Those two sentences can free you.

58. Conversely, don’t make the past better than it was nor should you make the present worse than it actually is and the answer to everything isn’t in the future. All that tomorrow offers is a day without any mistakes in it, yet but give it time.  The future will be less resolved then we think and the only way to predict what will happen in the future is to make it happen yourself.  It’s a new day. Here’s your goal; Be better than you were yesterday. This is the opportunity to get it right.

59.Be you. You’re authentic. Don’t trade it in for approval.  Be strong, it’s hard to do, but do it. Show the world you have courage enough to speak the truth and accept yourself for who and what you are and always remember, through the worst of it and the darkest moments that you are a child of God and he loves. Live as child of God should live. Run for mediocrity. Be humble but desire mastery and genius. Be kind, as difficult as it sometimes is, be kind. Have passion in your life and for your life.  Do it now. Not tomorrow. Do it now.

60. You have enormous power within you. What you think, you can create and what ever you imagine for yourself, you can become. it's that simple. The only thing stopping you is you.

61.Change is difficult. Growth is hard.  Moving along is the worst. But you have to do these things because staying someplace where you no longer belong can become painful.

62. Seek out the intelligent, look for the one who enlightens and the person who is kind. Seek them out because they are living treasures. The intelligent will open your mind and expand your understanding of your world and your self. The kind are loving and they will help you to open your heart so you can lead a happy life.  It's worth the search for these people. And when you search them out you will find them.

63. Logic, reasoning and patience will be absolutely useless are those miserable souls who are absolutely determined to misunderstand you. Explain yourself to them once and then run away. Don't walk away, run away.
Try as you might, YOU CAN NOT make people like you. You just can't. No matter how decent or kind you are.

64. Try as you might, YOU CAN NOT make people love you. You just can't. No matter how wonderful and beautiful you are.

65.Try as you might, YOU CAN NOT make people be nice to you. You just can't. No matter how nice a person you are.

66.Try as you might, YOU CAN NOT make people accept you. You just can't. No matter how accepting you are of them.

67. This is WHAT YOU CAN DO. You can stay decent and kind, wonderful and beautiful, nice and accepting and you can love yourself and accept everything, and I do mean everything, about you. You have that power.

68. The perfect friendship, the perfect marriage, the perfect relationship. All three are grounded by highly imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other, that's all it is. Try it.

69. Spend time alone. It's good for you. It's healthy for your state of mind and to learn to be alone is a good discipline to hone because it will help you define yourself and with that, you'll never allow yourself to be defined by someone else.

70. Having a good heart, being kind, being noble is not a weakness, especially in a world that is so often none of those things and places no value on those things. It takes courage to be all of those things. Be courageous. be an optimist.  

71. It's easy to put yourself down and once you're down and it's even easier to stomp on yourself. This is especially true when your going through a tough time. Well in those times, remember this; no life struggle over any issue makes you less lovable or less deserving. Recognizing that your going through a bad time doesn't mean your needy or weak. It just means you, like everyone else on the planet at some point, are struggling. It's okay. Don't worry about it. This too shall past, I assure you.  You're going to be alright.  

72. Change is an ongoing and largely consists of you taking command of your life. 
Want something?  Then go after it. If you don't go after it, you'll never have it. It's that simple.

73.Want something? Ask for it. If you don’t ask for it the answer will always be "No" and the sad thing about that is that you are the one giving the answer, you are the one telling yourself "No"

74. Do you want to move ahead in this life? Then take a step forward. If you don't take a step forward you always, always, always be in the same place. It's that simple.

75. Change is difficult and its scary. But you can do it. It's that simple

76.Learn to love the sound of your feet walking away from things not meant for you.

77. You will make mistakes, you will act irrationally, commit some wrongs that cannot be fully righted. From time to time, some people will dislike you and misunderstand you, sometimes for a reason sometimes for no reason.

78. None of these make you a bad person or for that matter makes you anything at all.

79.Try your best to be kind and just and fair to people, grow and learn and be happy.

80.Go out of your way to be creative in an uncreative world. Create for every reason and for no reason at all. The more you create the more creative you become and that’s a fine and noble aspiration, to be a creative soul in the making.

81. Live to experience a whole range of emotions. Be authentic and don’t wear a mask.

82.Don’t project your moods and feelings onto others, or blame other people if you are having a bad day.

83.Appreciate the beauty of others. Be happy for them when successes come their way.

84.Be secure in your own identity.

85.Don’t criticize or hope fail.

86.Let offenses go. Don’t take it personally. You do those two things by developing a healthy, and balanced, self-esteem.

87.Be concerned when friends suffer and offer them support.

88. Is not in competition with others in their life. Compete against yourself.

89.Don’t magnify the bad or distort reality although that’s easy to do.

90.Know and work on your shortcomings and recognize your strengths.

91.Appreciates the small things.

92.Make the most of right now.

93. If you want to be successful in this life put these two beliefs into practice. One is that the future is going to be better than present and the past. Believe that as a given fact. Secondly, train yourself to understand that you have the power within you to make it so.

94. Never rain on someone’s happiness and never deprive another person from being happy or becoming happy. People are fragile and for a lot them happiness is all they have to look forward to or enjoy in this life. So be nice.

95.Try not to give up on people to easily or too quickly. Things change and people change. And related to that, always give everyone a second chance, if they do it a third time, run away from them and never go near them again.

96.If you are going to lend out a book, just assume you’ll never get it back.

97.Avoid sarcasm because people are much, much, much more touchy and insecure than you will ever truly know and sarcasm scares them.  

98. It isn’t true you should not burn bridges. Sometimes you have to burn bridges for your own good. Just be selective in the bridges that you burn.

99. If you should ever come across a person who has nothing to lose, run like hell away from that person and never, ever go near them or anyone else who has nothing to lose.

100. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need something to feel good about if a certain thing happens. Feel good for no reason.

101 This is your responsibility as an intelligent and civil human being; No matter how cruel the world becomes you must never let go of your kindness.

102. Emerson said it better, but the truth is the same, when the day is over, it’s over.
LET IT GO
Don’t dwell on it.
Don’t dwell on you could have done.
Don’t dwell on what you should have done.
LET IT GO

103.Tomorrow is another day and another chance.

104.Be honest

105. Read

106.Listen to others

107.Groom yourself

108. Remember to smile.

109. Mind your manners

110. Hold doors for other people

111. Learn something everyday

112.You set the direction for your life. You chose the goals and you set your own attitude.

113.Always, always, always look for the positives before you look at anything else. I’m not saying don’t look at anything else. I’m telling you to look at the positives first.

114.Be thankful, in fact, always be in a thankful mood, and cultivate gratitude.

115.Find your passion and never ever let it go.

116. If you are a student remember what Nietzsche said about the professors, whose sim is to impress you “The scholar is the herd animal in the realm of knowledge who inquires because he is ordered to, and because others have done so before him.”

117.Don't  believe for a second that you should ever believe that you need to hold those who think alike in high esteem of any kind.

118 Life is about balance. Be kind, but don’t let people abuse you. Trust, but don’t be deceived. Be content, but never stop improving yourself.

119.  “If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery—isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”  Charles Bukowski (Factotum)

120. There are two kinds of people of people on earth, those who forever look for the light and those discovered they are the light.

121. Carl Jung was a brilliant man. He write that “One of the main functions of religious structures is to protect people against a direct experience of God”…okay, in some cases, not many I believe that’s true. On the other hand, history is overflowing with examples of mad men who stepped outside of the boundaries of organized religion and quickly….without anyone to tell them otherwise…..came to the conclusion that they were God.

122.So the good lord closed doors on us, and we don’t know why. Sometimes we never know why, but sometimes, once in a while, we understand why he shut those days and if we have gained any wisdom at all, we thank him for it.
123. People come and go into our lives, and we into their lives. Very few stay. It’s the way of the world. Some are important to us, most aren’t. And then there are those who come through our lives and change us for the better, who make us better. Those are the important ones. 
124.Plan for and keep an eye on the future. It’s the wise thing to do. But here’s the secret. Mind the future but not at the cost of the present moment and that’s not as simple as it sounds.
125.There will be times in your life when things simply have to be replaced because they are tired, broken, worn out, harmful, outdated, or irrelevant. Take an inventory of the things that no longer serve your best and highest good so you can replace them with things which do.”

126. No matter how you define success, you will need to be resilient, empowered, authentic, and limber to get there.”

“There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.

127. Each one of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.”

128. Success and failure come and go, but don't let them define you. It's who you are that matters.

129.One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.”

130. Patience is the active ingredient in faith, or to be blunt, God isn’t on our time clock. You have to wait for.
131. Relationship Killers: 1. Breaking trust 2. Lack of respect 3. Jealousy 4. Angry outburst/ high volatility 5. Making assumptions 6. Unreasonable expectations 7. Bitterness 8. Unforgiveness 9. Being cold and uncaring 10. Failing to prioritize your partner
132. We need to open up with people, that’s true, and it’s the healthy thing to do, but remember this; be careful who you open up to. Only a few people actually care, most of the others are just nosy to know what’s going on in your life.

133. Here are two good life choices. Chose kindness. Throw it around like confetti and choose to laugh often
134. Don’t compare yourself with anything or anyone. You know why? Because comparison, my friend is the death of joy.
135. One of these days, from out of the middle of nowhere someone is going to look at you with a light in their eyes that you can’t miss. They’ll look at you like you are the one thing they have spent their lives looking for.
136.Don’t worry about progressing, slowly, hell, even slow progress is progress.
137. Doubt is a dream killer. Failure has never come even close to killing as many dreams and wishes as doubt has.
138.You can call it a dream, that’s fine. But if it’s a dream you really want, call it a plan. That changes everything.
139. The world is filled to the brim with bozo’s. Regardless, always show them and every one else respect. It’s a hard thing to do. Most people will hold you in concept and suspicion when you treat them respectfully, especially those who don’t deserve it. But do it anyway as a reflection of your character, not theirs.
140. The human heart is capable of somehow of putting itself back together again after its been smashed to pieces.
141. I’ve heard people say “Well, John, time heals all wounds.” No it doesn’t. That’s not true at all. Those wounds will always be there, until we die.
142. What happens is that ou emotions and intellect, over time, covers up those wounds for us with scars and eventually the pain from it all lessens. 
143. If you are giving your all to someone and its not enough for them, you’re giving it all to the wrong person
144.Fall in love with someone who is your safe place and your greatest adventure
 145A man cannot step twice into the same river. Because it is not the same river, and he is not the same man” Heraclitus
146Tips for Getting What you Want out of Life
1. You need to begin by thinking about what you want your life to look like. It’s important to be concrete and specific here – not general and vague. Then, use that information to set clear goals for yourself.
2. Be confident and believe in yourself. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have what other people have, or shouldn’t be that person you’d really like to be. If you’re willing to work hard, and to pay the price required.
3. Keep your focus on your goal – don’t get sidetracked from your dream. You’ll have to keep on going and to push through trying times. Remember, it is worth it. You’ll be glad you persevered.
4. Don’t give into temptation to go for lesser goals, or to do something attractive that won’t lead anywhere. Don’t pretend that you’ll be happy if you give up on your dream. You’ll wish that you’d been stronger and looked at the long-term.
5. If you slip up – just get over it – and move on with your plan. It doesn’t mean it’s over. Get back on track again. The goal is too important to waste time on regrets. Your focus is the future, and what will take you there.
6. Recognise your weaknesses – then plan to manage them. That way you’ll have some strategies to deal with obstacles.
7. Finish what you start, and don’t leave loose ends untied. You have to be committed, and thorough, to achieve. Being lazy or half-hearted will hamper your success.
147.  Seeing success as being determined by external factors. (So if I fail it’s circumstances or someone else’s fault.) This takes away my sense of power and keeps me stuck in failure and helplessness.
148. Sometimes we keep failing but we’re blind to the fact that there’s something we’re doing that is causing us to fail. That could be related to our communication style, our attitudes, lack of knowledge and ability, pursuing something that doesn’t suit our gifts and talents, and so on.
149.  Sometimes we don’t feel we deserve to succeed so unconsciously we do something that causes us to fail. This includes meditating on self-limiting thoughts (For example, “I could never …; I don’t deserve …”).
150 We often set a goal that is someone else’s goal so we’re not really sure if it’s what we want ourselves. That affects our motivation, and our will to succeed.
151. All successes bring some change – and that can feel threatening. And we’re often comfortable with our life as it is now. So we wonder if success will really make us happier.
152. It’s very common for our peers to be threatened by success, and we know they’ll be sarcastic or mean if we succeed. Hence, we don’t try our hardest as we recognise the cost will be social isolation, or rejection by our friends.
153.  If it feels wrong, don’t do it.
154.Say “exactly” what you mean.
155.Don’t be a people pleaser.
156.Trust your instincts.
157.Never speak badly about yourself.
158.Never give up on your dreams.
159.Don’t be afraid to say “no” and don’t be afraid to say “yes”.
160.Resist the need to always have control.
161. Stay away from drama and negativity – as much as possible.
162.Simplify – your time, your stuff, your social life.
163. Live in the moment.
164.Practice gratitude.
165.Take control of the thoughts that pull you back into the past.
166. Stop the anxious thoughts about “what next”, and of your future.
167.Practice getting comfortable with saying “no”.
168. Don’t worry about others, and what they think of you.
169. Do your best, relax, and forget perfectionism.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. 

170. Do you know what the meaning of life is? The meaning of life is to be alive and to act like it. To be involved with the life you have here and now. Living frantically to achieve something beyond what we are, right now, only takes from the meaning of life.

171. Her morals and mindset will raise your kids and keep your family together through the thick and the thin of it, not her body of or her looks. Remember that, young man.

172.When you start to explain yourself, remember this, people all over the world, since the beginning of time, only understand from their level of perception and overwhelmingly most people have a very low level of perception. Sad, but true.

172. SixTruths About Finding Your Passion
1. You need to experiment with lots of things.
2. It takes time to discover your true passion in life.
3. What interests you for now might not turn into a passion.
4. However, you’ll find that you return to what you’re passionate about.
5. It will take over your thinking when you’re still, calm or daydreaming.
6. Investing in your passion will give meaning to your life.

  
173. The toxic people are everywhere. They have a will to control you, and when they can’t control you, they will try to control how others see you. Be aware of these people and avoid them like the plague itself.

174. In our culture, we learn, wrongly, that success bring happiness. In fact, they’ll tell you, success is the very key to happiness. Well no, not at all. Success and happiness are only thinly related.  Happiness is the key to success. Let me say that again, happiness can make you successful. If you are doing something you absolutely love to do for a living, you will be successful.

175.Learn Patience. We are all different and unique. That can make it hard for us to understand each other but it also makes life more interesting. Choose to value that uniqueness in others.

176.Accept your weaknesses

177.We’re all on a journey and change is a slow process.

178. Know your triggers and bee aware of what annoys and upsets you. When they come along ACT don’t react.

179.Everyday, work to broaden your perspective and see things from different angles.

180. Don’t be a doormat- people pleaser.

181. Believe in yourself.

182.Developing your self-confidence

183. Set achievable and meaningful goals.

184. Develop a positive attitude. If you’re optimistic and expect to succeed others will treat you with respect and dignity. We create what we expect.

185. Get help for the wounds and the damage from your past.

186.Trust your instincts.

187. Learn to be assertive. It’s  a skill, a skill you can acquire.

188. Pay attention to your body language in others. As for you, stand up straight, make eye contact and use a warm, but steady, voice.

189. Set some boundaries for others if you have too, and, trust me, eventually you will have too. 

190. Don’t confuse those people who are always around you with people who always there for you. Big, big difference.

191. Look for something positive in each day, even if some days you have to look a little harder.

192.Here’s how to shape yourself into a great person. (1) Don’t easily offended take very little personally.(2) Be accepting and non-judgmental and always want the best for others. (3) respect others’ perspectives needs and boundaries. (4) Listen  to others and try to see their point of view. (5) Be kind and understanding, warm, respectful and accepting. (6) be trustworthy and loyal.

193. Live in the moment. Its difficult, but do it.

194. Accept the fact that blaming your problems on your past is dumb and pointless. Yes, of course, the past affects us, but it doesn’t have to define us. Don’t let the heartache from the past define who you become.

195. Take risks. If you always play it safe, you’ll find you end up going nowhere and missing a great deal of fun.

196. Be ungrateful. Being thankful sets you free in your heart and mind. It inspires all that’s good - and, also, oils relationships.

197. Avoid the chronically ungrateful. They will wear you down by destroying your spirit.

198. Stop being angry and bitter because it will slowly poison your life and your personality.

199. Do not let  your expectations rule your life. Life is never….for anyone….a smooth ride. People will disappoint you, they’ll let you down.  Accept it.

200. Respect yourself and others. Every single person deserves respect, and every single person is fighting their own battle. Focus on being kind, understanding and forgiving.

201. On those days when you feel life has run you over with a steam roller, go over this list to make sure you’re doing well in this life.
You have a roof over your head. Many people don’t . Be thankful.
You ate today. Many people didn’t. Be thankful.
You are a decent and a good person. Many people aren’t and they know it.

202 Fall in love with your eyes closed, that way you’ll know it’s the real thing
203. Life is hard. Life is difficult, Life is mean. For all of us, but despite that, have enough courage to trust, to love, to believe the best and highest ideal, just one more time, just one more day,



Hang in there, pal.


I adore Black and White film photography


Can the world’s oldest restaurant escape the Chinese virus grasp?




Restaurante Botín, a cozy eatery in Madrid, Spain, was founded in 1725 and holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s oldest restaurant.
And like most dining establishments, Restaurante Botín was forced to close its doors when the Chinese virus swept across Europe.
“When we closed the restaurant during the Chinese virus, we felt devastated because it never closed before, even during the Spanish Civil War, my grandfather kept Botín open,” Antonio González, general manager of Botín, said.
They serve traditional Spanish dishes — from cordero asado, which is roasted baby lamb, to cochinillo asado, which is roasted suckling pig. Before the pandemic, the cook would receive a shipment of lambs and pigs three or four times a week from the Sepúlveda-Aranda-Riaza region, which is about 100 miles north of Madrid.


The dining area is also a part of the experience, with González calling the establishment a “restaurant museum.” Guests can choose to dine in one of the antiquated rooms in the four-story restaurant, including González’s favorite, the wine cellar.
The restaurant was opened nearly three centuries ago by a French cook named Jan Botín, but it was more of a tavern than a restaurant. During the 18th century, the establishment could only cook food that guests brought into the restaurant. This was because selling food was banned at the time because it could hurt other businesses.
The restaurant was passed down through the Botín family until the 20th century. González’s grandparents took over the restaurant in 1930 and continued to expand the establishment.
Throughout the centuries, many noteworthy authors have dined here, from Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Some have also mentioned Botín in their writing, such as Hemingway in his novel “The Sun Also Rises.”
The restaurant has hosted several generations of diners, and luckily, they won’t lose their Guinness World Record because of the coronavirus shutdown.
The eatery reopened its doors on July 1, is serving a fraction of the guests it used to serve before the Chinese virus. González said that they used to serve 600 guests per day — now it’s a mere 60.
But González isn’t discouraged. His plan is to stabilize their losses as best he can and focus on the future.
“I am looking forward to navigate out of the crisis and being stronger and better than before,” González said. “It is a fantastic opportunity to make reflections and to improve the most we can.”












The ‘Noo Yawk’ accent was considered posh until anti-Semites got their way



By Larry Getlen
The traditional New York accent, or Brooklynese — the accent of Archie Bunker, Travis Bickle and Mona Lisa Vito, Marisa Tomei’s fast-talking character in “My Cousin Vinny” — was once regarded as the height of sophistication. In the new book “You Talkin’ to Me?: The Unruly History of New York English” (Oxford University Press; out Tuesday), E.J. White writes that the language variant, which contains more vowel sounds than any language in North America, was once “a marker of upper-class speech,” to the extent that F. Scott Fitzgerald described its speakers as having “voices full of money.”
“In the days when Mrs. Astor held balls in her home on Fifth Avenue, the sound identified posh speakers,” writes White.
The accent, derived from speech patterns in 18th-century London and defined by distinguished features such as not pronouncing our R’s — which is known as nonrhotic speech — was a mark of prestige and accomplishment as recently as the mid-20th century.
“If you grew up in New York or New England in the 1940s, you would have learned, either in public school or in private or finishing school, a cultivated accent known as ‘General American.’ Like the New York accent, General American was nonrhotic,” White writes.
This New Yorkese was everywhere in America: spoken in movies, in plays and on the radio — the most influential and most-listened to mass communication of the time.
The accent was so prestigious that stars like Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant studied it with speech coaches.
“In 1918, the Association of New England Deans, which included the presidents of Harvard and Yale, gathered to discuss what the Association called — not ominously at all — ‘the Jewish problem,’ she writes.
Their “problem” was that the percentage of Jewish students at these schools was growing quickly.
“The president of Harvard, Lawrence Lowell, argued that something had to be done about this — that if too many Jewish students enrolled at a given school, upper-class Protestants would send their sons elsewhere,” White writes.
To combat this, the Ivy League developed a gatekeeping system that is not only still in use today, but is also what White calls “the most recognizable feature of modern college admissions.”
“Starting with Harvard, in 1922, colleges began to ask applicants to fill out forms that included questions on ‘Race and Color,’ ‘Religious Preference,’ ‘Maiden Name of Mother’ and ‘Birthplace of Father,’ she writes.
“They asked for letters of reference from teachers and headmasters to attest to the applicant’s ‘aptitude and character.’ Was the student an athlete? Was he leadership material? Was he agreeable? In short, they found ways of determining elements of an applicant’s background that allowed them to enforce de facto ethnic quotas.”
As part of this effort, these schools also greatly expanded their recruitment into the West and South, and away from the Northeast, in an effort to decrease the percent of Jewish students at their schools.
Elite institutions in general followed suit, and the result was a decades-long decline in popularity for the New York accent, as the sound of the Midwest became a new marker of the elite.
“Within a few decades, newscasters, college graduates, and actors in film and television largely adhered to a rhotic standard — a standard that signified Americanness in large part by distinguishing itself from the speech of America’s capital of immigration,” White writes.
“Americans sound the way they do because New Yorkers sound the way they do.”
The decline in prestige of the New York accent was reflected throughout pop culture, as it became a sign of bumbling, out-of-touch comic relief.
At first, though, the accent also signified a crude form of cleverness. In the 1930s, Groucho Marx, who sounded very much like the New Yorker he was, became one of America’s top comedians by playing characters who were “not just comic and quick-witted, but pointedly lower class and pointedly ethnic.”
The following decade, Bugs Bunny, a cartoon character modeled in part after Marx, became a national treasure with similar sounds and attributes.
White writes that the animators wanted Bugs to be a “tough little stinker.” To facilitate this, Mel Blanc, who voiced the character, made him a New Yorker.
“They wanted a tough little character,” Blanc said. “So, I thought maybe either someone who came from Brooklyn or The Bronx, which was the toughest-talking area in the world. And I thought, ‘Why don’t I put them both together?’
In subsequent years, though, the quick wit associated with the sound became deprioritized, as tough-talking New Yorkese characters often became either brutal, dumb, lower-class or simple comic relief.
Case in point: Archie Bunker, who was a 1970s symbol of bigotry and ignorance. On “Law & Order,” “any character not wearing a suit is likely to have a Noo Yawk accent,” White quotes linguistics author Thomas Bonfiglio.
Even stories set in mystical or fictional worlds make use of this. “Guardians of the Galaxy” uses brash-talking Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) as its comic relief, and “Aladdin” employs the same strategy for Gilbert Gottfried’s Iago.
“Star Wars” was even set for this initially, as, White writes, the early script drafts called for C-3PO to have “the cadences of a Bronx used-car dealer.” It was only after British actor Anthony Daniels read for the role that George Lucas converted the droid to an English-butler type.
The long-term result of all this is that today, the New York accent is the second-most-widely disliked in the country, according to polls, behind only the sound of the American South.
It is also the only accent from such a prominent city that is shunned by its own speakers.
“New York City is an anomaly among world-class cities,” White writes.
“Normally, the variant that a nation takes as its standard language comes from its center of finance and culture. But in the United States, the national standard accent comes from the Midwest and the West. Rarely do speakers from a world-class city respond to their own speech with such suspicion.”
E.J. White includes in her book words and phrases that began right here in NYC and made their way into the popular lexicon, past and present. Here are some terms that became part of our common language after getting their start, as so many do, right here in New York City.
Con man: From an 1849 New York Herald article about a swindler named William Thompson, referred to in the piece as a “confidence man” due to his approaching strangers on the streets of Manhattan and asking, “Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?” People often did, and they never saw their watches again.
Flea market: Takes its name from a public market that operated in lower Manhattan during the rural, swamp-like days of the city’s origins. Originally known as the Vly Market, “vly” being the Dutch word for “marsh” or “creek.”
Hooker: Derived from Corlears Hook, a section of Manhattan by the FDR Drive just south of the Williamsburg Bridge that housed “the majority of the city’s brothels” in the early 1800s.
Phony: Possibly originated here by Irish police officers in the 1800s. Derived from the Irish “fawney,” meaning “ring,” in reference to a common ring scam of the time.
Shade: As in “insult,” the word evolved from New York City’s drag queen culture.
Slumming: Reportedly created by Charles Dickens after he toured New York’s horrifying, crime-infested Five Points neighborhood in 1842.
Speakeasy: First heard in NYC during Prohibition to describe clandestine alcohol-serving clubs, it evolved from the British and Irish phrase “speak-softly shop,” the term for an illegal club where one spoke softly so as not to be discovered.
Window shopping: This evolved around 1875, shortly after the mid-19th-century invention of department stores in New York City.


aficionado


The affection an aficionado has for their favorite subject isn't merely emotional—it's also etymological. Back in the early 1800s, English borrowed aficionado from the past participle of the Spanish verb aficionar, which means "to inspire affection." That verb comes from the Spanish noun afición, meaning "affection." Both Spanish words trace to the Latin affectiō (which is also an ancestor of the English word affection). Affectiō, in turn, is from afficere ("to influence") and gave English speakers the noun and verb affect.


Pete Hamill, legendary New York City journalist and author, dead at 85





By Ivan Pereira

August 5, 2020, 6:06 PM

Journalist and author Pete Hamill, who spent over 40 years covering New York City, died Wednesday after he was hospitalized following a fall. He was 85.
Hamill worked his way up the New York tabloids as a reporter, columnist and editor, and covered historic moments from Robert F. Kennedy's assassination to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Fellow veteran journalists and leaders expressed their condolences throughout the day.
"Pete was truly one of the good guys," younger brother Denis Hamill, a Daily Beast columnist, told New York ABC station WABC.
Pete Hamill was born in 1935 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Irish immigrants. The oldest of seven children, he dropped out of high school and worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard before going to art school.
After a stint in the U.S. Navy ended in 1957, Hamill worked as an art director for a local Greek paper and frequently wrote letters to the New York Post. Hamill's correspondence attracted the attention of the paper's editor, Jimmy Wechsler, who invited the 25-year-old to a meeting.
"While we talked, he smoked cigarettes and sipped coffee. Near the end of our chat, he leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. 'Have you ever thought about becoming a newspaperman?'" Hamill wrote in his memoir.
Hamill joined the New York Post in 1960 and covered a variety of stories from local crime to national politics. Over the next three decades, he worked at several New York papers, including the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, the Village Voice and New York Newsday.
The New York Press Club, a nonprofit association for New York journalists, said in a statement that New Yorkers eagerly read Hamill's articles and it had an impact on all of their lives.
"As a columnist, Pete was one of a select few whose opinions were highly anticipated by the public as events unfolded and daily newspapers were delivered. Government officials, too, awaited his take on a news story, sometimes in order to formulate policy," the group said in a statement.
New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer tweeted that Hamill's words were critical in amplifying New York issues during the '70s, "like the patriots in Casablanca drowning out the Nazis with La Marseillaise."
"The goodness of his generous heart never ran low. Thanks for all of it," Dwyer tweeted.
It was also during this time that Hamill battled his demons. In his memoir, "A Drinking Life," he opened up about his years of alcoholism during the 1960s and early '70s and its effect on his relationships and work.
Hamill said he had his last drink on New Year's Eve 1972.
"I think the one thing you find out when you stop drinking is just how much time you have," he said in a 1994 interview on C-SPAN. "You have time to read. You have time to listen to music, not just have music as background on a jukebox in a bar, but to listen to it."
In 1993, he was hired as the editor in chief of the New York Post in 1993, however, a public dispute between the editorial staff and owner Abe Hirschfeld led to him leaving a month later. In 1997, he was hired as the editor of the Daily News, but he resigned eight months later.
Hamill continued to write columns for the Daily News in the subsequent years, including one published Sept. 12, 2001 that reflected on the World Trade Center's destruction.
In addition to his journalism work, Hamill also authored several nonfiction and fiction books, including "Snow in August," "Forever," "Why Sinatra Matters" and "Downtown: My Manhattan." While the topics and genres of those works were eclectic, many shared a similar backdrop: New York City.
Hamill's career was featured in an HBO documentary "Deadline Artists" along with fellow New York columnist Jimmy Breslin.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called Hamill a quintessential New Yorker in a statement.
"I learned much from him and he inspired me. Pete's death is going to leave a hole in the heart of New Yorkers," he said in a statement.
Hamill's first marriage, to Ramona Negron, ended in divorce in 1970, and he retained primary custody of his two daughters, Adrienne and Deirdre. In 1986, Hamill married the Japanese journalist Fukiko Aoki, whom he met while touring Japan to promote his collection of short stories, "Tokyo Sketches."
Hamill is survived by Aoki, his two daughters, a grandson and four of his siblings.


Theatre at the ancient sanctuary of hero Amphiaraos (Attica, Greece)


Archaeological site: Amphiareion of Oropos, Attica, Greece 
The theatre was built in the 2nd century BC. It had a capacity of more than 300 seats. The seating area was made of stone with wooden seats. Around the front of the stage there are five individual marble seats, with sculpted decoration and epigraphs, which were used by the temple priests. In front of the stage of the theater is the large gallery, 11 meters wide and 110 meters long, with 39 Doric columns in total. There were separate bathrooms at the two ends of the gallery for men and women.


Bram Stoker : Organisers have just announced the 2020 Bram Stoke...

Bram Stoker : Organisers have just announced the 2020 Bram Stoke...: By Sarah Finnan Organisers have announced details of this year's Bram Stoker Festival, confirming that the festival will run over...

What motivates me to write


“What motivates me to write? The honest answer is perhaps a little dark: I imagine the feeling of great regret I’ll have to live with, if I don’t write the book that I know I can write. The wish to avoid that regret feels like fuel.”—Megha Majumdar. 


The Words of Thomas Merton: “When we are alone on a starlit night

The Words of Thomas Merton: “When we are alone on a starlit night: “When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest an...

Good words use and where they came from


pugnacious: Having a quarrelsome nature; belligerent. From Latin pugnare (to fight), from pugnus (fist). Ultimately from the Indo-European root peuk- (to prick) which is also the source of point, puncture, pungent, punctual, poignant, pounce, poniard, oppugn, repugn, impugn, pugilist, and repugnant.

History: Gold Coast Mansion Inspiration For Great Gatsby


One of the many Gold Coast mansions that lays claim to be the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gapsby, the 140-room Beacon House in Sands Point was built from 1918 for Alva Belmont, the ex-wife of William K. Vanderbilt. Belmont was a involved in the women’s suffragist movement and once ran a girl’s farm school at her mansion. William Randolph Hearst purchased the mansion from Belmont in 1927. Three years after Hearst sold it in 1942, Beacon Towers was demolished.





Mob Talk/episode 3

Yeah!

"There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for." J.R.R. Tolkien





A weird long cloud on Mars has returned. It's right on schedule, scientists say.



By Meghan Bartels

It's baaaaaaack …
A weird long cloud has formed so many times over the same Martian volcano that scientists have given up and named it.
Meet the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud, or AMEC. Its long bright trail has become a familiar feature over the peak known as Arsia Mons, to the southeast of the more famous Olympus Mons. Although the cloud comes and goes over the volcano, scientists say it isn't formed by the volcano itself. And it is timely: Scientists affiliated with Europe's Mars Express orbiter were waiting for it to show up again on its yearly cycle.
"We have been investigating this intriguing phenomenon and were expecting to see such a cloud form around now," Jorge Hernandez-Bernal, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and the lead author of the ongoing study, said in a statement released by the European Space Agency (ESA), which runs the spacecraft.
Photos: Red Planet views from Europe's Mars Express
"This elongated cloud forms every Martian year during this season around the southern solstice, and repeats for 80 days or even more," Hernandez-Bernal said. "However, we don't know yet if the clouds are always quite this impressive."
So far, scientists have caught the cloud clocking in as long as 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers), according to ESA. The tail-like structure is made of water ice, and despite its location over Arsia Mons, it isn't formed by the volcano itself, scientists said, but instead by the way local winds interact with the topography.
And the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud doesn't just come, stick around for a while, then dissipate. It forms and fades over the course of a few hours each local morning, then returns the next day. That makes the weird cloud difficult to study from orbit around the Red Planet.
But Mars Express is uniquely qualified to do so. It carries an instrument called the Visual Monitoring Camera, which can photograph an unusually wide swath of the planet in a single frame. And the spacecraft's orbit lines up to put Arsia Mons in its view during the morning hours when the cloud is visible.
 "The extent of this huge cloud can't be seen if your camera only has a narrow field of view, or if you're only observing in the afternoon," Eleni Ravanis, a graduate trainee on the Visual Monitoring Camera team, said in the statement. "Luckily for Mars Express, the highly elliptical orbit of the spacecraft, coupled with the wide field of view of the VMC instrument, lets us take pictures covering a wide area of the planet in the early morning. That means we can catch it!"
The scientists last spotted Arsia Mons' tail-like cloud in September and October 2018. At the time and again now, the days are the shortest of the year in the Red Planet's northern hemisphere and the longest of the year in the southern hemisphere. Arsia Mons itself is located just a bit south of the Martian equator and stretches to an altitude of about 12 miles (20 km).
Scientists hope that by continuing to study the strange cloud, they can begin to understand how long it has been making its appearances and why it appears only in the mornings.





Mysterious ring of Neolithic underground structures discovered near Stonehenge




Archaeologists have discovered a huge 1.2-mile-wide ring of Neolithic shafts near Stonehenge in southern England.

Experts led by the U.K.’s University of Bradford report that the shafts are up to 32.8 feet wide and 16.4 feet deep. The structures have been carbon-dated to 2500 B.C.
Up to 20 shafts have been identified, but archaeologists think that, originally, there may have been more than 30.
on Walls, a much larger Neolithic monument than Stonehenge. Super henge is located about two miles from Stonehenge and is 15 times larger than its famous counterpart, according to LiveScience.
Woodhenge, a prehistoric monument once composed of six rings of wooden posts enclosed by an earth embankment, is also within the ring formed by the shafts.
“The area around Stonehenge is among the most studied archaeological landscapes on earth and it is remarkable that the application of new technology can still lead to the discovery of such a massive prehistoric structure which, currently, is significantly larger than any comparative prehistoric monument that we know of in Britain, at least,” said Professor Vince Gaffney of the University of Bradford, in a statement.
 The discovery was made as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project. Experts from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria also participated, as well as the U.K.’s Universities of Birmingham, St Andrews, Warwick, the University of Wales Trinity Saint Davids, and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre at the University of Glasgow.
“When these pits were first noted it was thought they might be natural features – solution hollows in the chalk,” Gaffney added. “Only when the larger picture emerged, through the geophysical surveys undertaken as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, could we join the dots and see there was a pattern on a massive scale.”
The research is published in the journal internet archaeology.
Stonehenge continues to be a source of fascination. Parts of it bear a resemblance to ancient "Lego," according to a recent report by English Heritage, which oversees the famous site in southern England.
In 2018, experts said that the famous ancient site may have been built using Greek philosopher Pythagoras’ famous theorem two millennia before the mathematical equation was developed.
Last year a missing piece of Stonehenge was returned 60 years after it went missing during an archaeological excavation.
The first monument at the site, an early “henge” monument, was constructed about 5,000 years ago. The world-famous stone circle was built around 2,500 B.C. during the late Neolithic period.
The World Heritage site is known for its alignment with the movements of the sun – thousands travel to the site near Amesbury in Southern England to mark the solstices in summer and winter.