The Forgotten empire of Persia

As today Walter wanted to participate in 42.2 km Cross Country Walk Marathon in Blackwater(I learned later he won the first place). I decided to spend the day in the British Museum which has currently an Exhibition about ancient Persia: " The forgotten Empire"

The exhibition was a selection of precious objects from the National Museum of Iran, the Persepolis Museum and the Louvre, and British Museum itself.
It was funny because the only objects I was not familiar with were the objects from the Iranian Museum.
The exhibition was really busy, what I liked mostly was the reason why the exhibition was made: I read somewhere that this conflict between West and East has existed since 2500 years and because the Greek have written the history there was always a misjudgement about Iran. This exhibition should help give the West another image of Persia(Iran) than as an evil axis!
The Persian empire which lasted from the middle of the 500s BC until the defeat of Darius III by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, the Persian empire ruled a vast portion of the then-known world from the Nile to the Indus. It connected the Mediterranean with modern Afghanistan. Rich beyond dreams, powerful beyond dispute, the great kings ruled from their mighty palaces at Susa and Persepolis, tolerating the religions and cultures of subject peoples and harvesting the creativity of near eastern civilisation that had already, before they came along, invented writing and urban life.
Looking to the casts of Persepolis found it funny to have still the genes of wavy hair after 2500 years! Guess they didn't have a hairiron like me!!!

Photo Prize

Martyn Colbeck, from the UK, took this stunning and evocative image of elephants on his birthday. Mount Kilimanjaro is more than 25 miles away. This moment of magic wins Martyn the Nature In Black And White category.
Look at other winners´photo at: BBC news

George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'

This was the title of the article in today's Guardian UK newspaper:
George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.
Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."
Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."!!!!!!!

Paeez

It's a long time since my last post in August, in middle of September I travelled for a week to Austria, my sister Nasim wanted to move from Graz to Vienna, so there were lots of work to do, and I helped her a little with packing, meanwhile I made a short trip to Leoben and visited Tina and Gregor (who are expecting to have a baby very soon!)in their new spacious flat with a nice view to the River "Mur" and there I had a nice chat and tasty dinner( which I forgot to ask about salmon's recipe!) with them for a couple of hours.
At the weekend Walter joined me and after helping Nasim & Richard by moving and visiting "Rafaela" the new Baby of my sister in law Sigrid, we used to opportunity being in Austria and spend the rest of the time being in spa and relaxing , coming back to London we took Nasim with us and Richard came few days later , on Saturday I met my friend Aude who is a real art fan and came to London from Paris only because of the exhibition of Frida Kahlo in Tate Modern.So we met at exhibition and I was really surprised after 3 months of exhibition , It was a long queue for buying ticket.
Everybody was touched by looking to the paintings and works of Frida, there were a lots of pain which were pictured with colour and canvas and you could feel it by looking to it!
At the end Aude gave me a souvenir from exhibition a Frida Kahlo mug for my mug collection!
And then we had a coffee with some sympathic friend of Aude.
The next day we took Nasim and Richard to visit Oxford which they liked it very much, by our way we visited the big hobby craft shop and Nasim bought lots of thing for preparing their wedding in June, meanwhile Walter visited the PC world shop next to the hobby shop , and we ended buying a new computer without planning it, however the old one was really old and somehow broken!