During the week, I eat breakfast at my desk and it ususally consists of:

1 cup pistacchios (they’re super-healthy)
1 serving of fruit (yogurt/applesauce/etc…)
1 multi-vitamin & 2 fish oil pills
Water

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? You’re right, it’s not exciting…not in the least. But it tastes good and it’s healthy.

Weekends are different.  My wife might be the best cook I know (and I’m not just saying that), and sometimes she’ll whip up something delicious, like French toast, or a breakfast pizza…and it’s awesome, or maybe an egg scramble with bacon, toast, and sausage.  Other times, I’ll make oatmeal or oat bran cereal…and don’t forget the flax!

But on occasion, breakfast takes a different form…restaurant food.  And if breakfast is coming from a fast food place, one and only one thing tops my list…

A Croissan’wich from Burger King.  The croissant is light and flaky with a bit of buttery sweetness.  It also leaves less oily residue on my fingers than a traditional biscuit   And there’s that slight crunch when I first bite in.  And then there’s all the breakfast goodies inside.  And Burger King’s idea of “having it your way” means there are options.  Egg?…of course.  Cheese?…definitely.  And the protein part…mmm…MMMM!!!!  Should I pick the tasty bacon, or maybe the ham?  Either is great, but that would leave out the sausage.

When I buy them, I’m usually in the car, so a Croissan’wich with bacon is a little less forgiving.  You know how it is…you’re driving in morning traffic, you take a bite and the whole piece of bacon comes out, dragging the melted cheese, which is stuck to the egg.

Now I have to make a choice.  Either I have to try to stuff all the innards of the rapidly disintegrating sandwich into my mouth (which already is full of food), or I have to let it all fall in my lap, or I use my driving hand to catch what’s falling.  Usually it’s a combination of all three.

So now my breakfast is risking the lives of other drivers who are busy typing text messages, talking on their cell phones while waving their hands around, messing with the new GPS-thingy they just bought, or balancing their checkbooks.  That’s clearly not very considerate of me.

So I avoid the bacon Croissan’wich, and order one with ham/egg/cheese and another with sausage/egg/cheese.

Even though I’ve never been there, I’m a big fan of Heaven.  My wife talks about the place in terms of chocolate and peanut butter (she’s highly allergic to both).  I’m not sure that we’ll ever need to eat in Heaven, because hunger is your body lacking something and our bodies won’t lack for anything there.  But if we do, I’m hoping Burger King Croissan’wiches are on the menu.  After all, they are heavenly.

Oh…a history lesson.  The first Burger King opened in Miami on December 4, 1954.

Madhubala and Dilip Kumar were a popular pair in Bollywood movies for much of the 1950s. they were infact romantically involved with each other during that period too.

“Amar” (1954) was one of many movies in which they worked together. Here is a song from this movie. It is a sad song sung by Lata and picturised on Madhubala. Shakeel Badayuni is the lyricist and Naushad composed the music.

song-Jaane waale se mulaaqaat naa hone paayi (Amar) (1954) Singer-Lata ,Lyrics-Shakeel Badayuni,MD- Naushad

Lyrics

jaane waale se mulaaqaat naa hone paayi
ho jaane waale se mulaaqaat naa hone paayi
dil ki dil mein hi rahi baat naa hone paayi
ho jaane waale se mulaaqaat naa hone paayi

chaandni khil na saki, chaand ne munh mod liyaa
chaandni khil na saki, chaand ne munh mod liyaa
jiskaa armaan thaa wo baat naa hone paayi
ho jaane waale se mulaaqaat naa hone paayi

dil mein toofaan uthe, dil ki jubaan khul na saki
dil mein toofaan uthe, dil ki jubaan khul na saki
badliyaan chhaa gayin barsaat naa hone paayi
ho jaane waale se mulaaqaat naa hone paayi

Dames and Tough Guys, it’s movie night once again!
Based on Richard Matheson’s science fiction/horror novel “I Am Legend” (1954),

Vincent Price is

THE HORROR NOVEL COMES TO LIFE!

ALONE AMONG BLOOD-THIRSTY CREATURES!

NO DRIVE-IN WILL BE SAFE!

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Directed by Ubaldo Ragona, “The Last Man on Earth” (1964) inspired many movies, such as George A. Romero’s “The Night of the Living Dead” (1968).

In 2007, Will Smith starred in “I Am Legend“, based on the above mentioned book. But in my opinion, the movie should be called “I Am Flop“. Just my opinion.

]]> http://steffen030.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/60x-deutschland-%c2%bb-1954/ Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:36:01 +0000 steffen030 http://steffen030.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/60x-deutschland-%c2%bb-1954/ http://aipetcher.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/1954-rationing-atomic-bombs-and-the-bikini/ Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:00:41 +0000 Andrew Petcher http://aipetcher.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/1954-rationing-atomic-bombs-and-the-bikini/

I was born on Tuesday 15^th June 1954 on the same day as the actor James Belushi and also on that day the Union of European Football, or EUFA, was founded with its headquarters in Switzerland.  I’ve never particularly liked James Belushi but I have always been rather fond of football.

This seems almost unreal but it was only in 1954 that war time rationing was officially ended.  It began in January 1940 when bacon, butter and sugar were rationed and this was followed soon after by meat, tea, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereals, cheese, eggs, milk and canned fruit.  As the Second-World-War progressed, most kinds of food came to be rationed along with clothing and petrol.  My parents were issued with a ration card for me but never had to use it because it all stopped three weeks after I was born. 

The last food item to be released from the shackles of rationing was bananas which for me is quite a significant fact.  Dad loved bananas and I could never quite understand why but I suppose he was only twenty-two in 1954 and hadn’t had the pleasure for fifteen years and in fact it is quite possible I suppose that he had never had a banana before in his life.   He liked all sorts of strange banana combinations, weirdest of all being banana sandwiches on brown bread with sugar, but he was also very fond of chopped bananas with custard.  Personally I’ve never been that keen on bananas but this rationing fact explains a lot about my dad’s unusual dietary preferences.  Once a week we all had to have bananas for a pudding until one day when I was about fifteen I could take it no longer and I refused to eat them.  It was the only time I can remember him getting really upset with me but I stood my ground and after he had severely chastised me I think he ate them up for me.

Another interesting fact is that it was only in 1954 that Germany and Finland finally made peace and declared the end of the war.  I find that amazing, the Second-World-War was still going on during my lifetime!  OK there were no hostilities or gun-fire but I still find that a chilling fact.

Also in 1954 the United States began serious nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean on the island of Bikini Atoll and they carried out the detonation of a massive bomb codenamed Castle Bravo, which was the first test of a practical hydrogen bomb and the largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States.  In fact, a bit like a ten year old with a box of fireworks, they really had little idea what they were doing and when it was detonated it proved much more powerful than predicted, and created widespread radioactive contamination which has prevented people from ever returning to the island.

This event was important for two reasons, firstly it signified the state of tension in the world called the cold war that was around for the next thirty years or so but secondly and much more importantly it inspired the introduction of the bikini swimsuit and I’ve always been grateful for that.  According to the official version a French engineer called Louis Réard and the fashion designer Jacques Heim invented the swimsuit that was a little more than a provocative brassiere front with a tiny g-string back.  It was allegedly named after Bikini Atoll, the site of nuclear weapon tests on the reasoning that the burst of excitement it would cause on the beach or at the lido would be like a nuclear explosion.  Plenty of fallout and very hot!

Nuclear testing was a big thing in the 1950s as the US and the USSR prepared enthusiastically for wiping each other of the face of the earth.  The fact that a major explosion even on the side of the world might have serious consequences for both sides and everyone else in between just didn’t seem to occur to them.  Years later I visited the US and although I didn’t know this at the time travelled along a road in Nevada that was only a hundred kilometres or so southwest of the Nevada Test Site that is a United States Department of Energy reservation which was established in January 1951 for the testing of nuclear weapons.  The location is infamous for receiving the highest amount of concentrated nuclear detonated weapons in North America.

The Nevada Test Site was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices during the Cold War and began here with a one kiloton bomb on January 27, 1951.  From then until 1992, there were nine hundred and twenty eight announced nuclear tests at the site, which is far more than at any other test site in the World, and seismic data has indicated there may have been many unannounced underground tests as well.  During the 1950s the familiar deadly mushroom cloud from these tests could be seen for almost a hundred miles in either direction, including the city of Las Vegas, where the tests instantly became tourist attractions as Americans headed for the City to witness the spectacle that could be seen from the downtown hotels.  Even more recklessly many others would thoughtlessly drive the family to the boundary of the test site for a day out and a picnic to view the free entertainment.  In doing so they unsuspectingly acquired an instant suntan and their own personal lethal dose of radioactive iodine 131, which the American National Cancer Institute, in a report released in 1997, estimated was responsible for thousands of cases of thyroid cancer in subsequent years.

Continuing the nuclear theme, the world’s first atomic power station was opened near Moscow in Russia and knowing now how careless the Russians were with anything nuclear this was probably something that world needed to worry about.  Just look what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine in 1986 when a reactor accident at a nuclear power plant resulted in the worst nuclear power plant accident in history and the only incident ever to record level seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale (and on a scale of zero to seven, believe me, that’s pretty serious!) resulting in a severe nuclear meltdown and sending a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area to the extent that it remains uninhabitable today and for many more years to come as well. 

Mind you, we British could also arrange a nasty little nuclear disaster and on 10^th  October 1957 the graphite core of a nuclear reactor at Windscale in Cumberland caught fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. The event, known as the Windscale fire, was considered the world’s worst reactor accident until Three Mile Island in 1979 before both incidents were dwarfed by the Chernobyl disaster.

 Here are the results of the Cold War: USA 1 (Bikini Atoll) – USSR 1 (Chernobyl) two own goals by the way!

Thinking about news coverage, which is what has stimulated these thoughts in the first place, it is significant that the very first television news first bulletin was shown in 1954 on BBC TV, which is obvious of course because there was no ITV until 1955, and presented by Richard Baker, who was also by coincidence born on 15^th June.  He was required to give off screen narration while still pictures were put in front of the camera, this was because, and I really find this hard to believe, television producers were concerned that a newsreader with facial movements would distract the viewer from the story. On screen newsreaders were only introduced a year later, in 1955, and Kenneth Kendall was the first to appear on screen.

A MARCA do crime. Co-direção: Josué Jr. Companhia produtora: Estúdio Nobreza. Elenco: Mário Broad, Aldo Nobre, Elmano Pinheiro. 1954. Curta-metragem (40min), silencioso, PB, documentário, 16mm.
Observações:
Documentário dramático e humorístico, um trabalho artístico da família Nobre. Não foi exibido em nenhum cinema de Maceió, nem noticiado pelos jornais, mas projetado em casa de amigos e no Foto Clube de Maceió, e ainda no Colégio Paes Barreto, de Aracajú, onde existia grande número de estudantes alagoanos.

A Cinemateca Brasileira não possui este filme, mas dispõe informações sobre ele.

I had not heard about this movie called “Mehbooba” (1954). Now I know that this was a movie starring Shammi Kapoor and Nalini Jaiwant. Though it must be said that Shammi Kapoor was more like a struggler than a star at that time.

Here is a sad sentimental song from this movie that is sung by Lata and it is picturised on Nalini Jaiwant. Tanvir Naqvi is the lyricist and Roshan composed the music. In the picturisation, one can see glimpses of a young looking Shammi Kapoor too.

Song-Aa ke ab aata nahin dil ko qaraar(Mehbooba) (1954) Singer-Lata, Lyrics-Tanvir Naqvi, MD-Roshan

Lyrics

aa ke ab aataa nahin dil ko qaraar
aa ke ab aataa nahin dil ko qaraar
raah takte thak gayaa hai intazaar
aa ke ab aataa nahin dil ko qaraar

is qadar bechain hai duniyaa meri
is qadar bechain hai duniyaa meri
dil ki har dhadkan mein hai aahat teri
aarzuen ho rahin hain beqaraar
aa ke ab aataa nahin dil ko qaraar