Classic fish

In the late eighteenth century, battles raged in almost every corner of Europe, as well as in the Middle East, South Africa, the West Indies, and Latin America.
In reality, however, there was only one major war during this time, the war between Britain and France. All other battles were ancillary to this larger conflict, and were often at least partially related to its antagonists’ goals and strategies. France sought total domination of Europe. This goal was obstructed by British independence and Britain’s efforts throughout the continent to thwart,Napoleon; through treaties, Britain built coalitions guaranteeing British participation in all major European conflicts.
These two antagonists were poorly matched, in so far as they had very unequal strengths: France was predominant on land, Britain at sea. The French knew that, short of defeating the British navy, their only hope of victory was to close all the ports of Europe to British ships.Accordingly, France set out to overcome Britain by extending its military domination from Moscow to Lisbon, from Jutland to Calabria.
All of this entailed tremendous risk, because France did not have the military resources to control this much territory and still protect itself and maintain order at home.French strategists calculated that a navy of 150 ships would provide the force necessary to defeat the British navy. Such a force would give France a three-to-two advantage over Britain. This advantage was deemed necessary because of Britain’s superior sea skills and technology, and also because Britain would be fighting a defensive war, allowing it to win with fewer forces.
Napoleon never lost sight of his goal, because Britain represented the last substantial impediment to his control of Europe. As his force neared that goal, Napoleon grew increasingly impatient and began planning an immediate attack.

From Boston to Los Angeles, from New York City to Chicago to Dallas, museums are either planning, building, or wrapping up wholesale expansion programs. These programs already have radically altered facades and floor plans or are expected to do so in the not-too-distant future.In New York City alone, six major institutions have spread up and out into the air space and neighborhoods around them or are preparing to do so.
The reasons for this confluence of activity are complex, but one factor is a consideration everywhere — space. With collections expanding, with the needs and functions of museums changing, empty space has become a very precious commodity.Probably nowhere in the country is this more true than at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has needed additional space for decades and which received its last significant facelift ten years ago.Because of the space crunch, the Art Museum has become increasingly cautious in considering acquisitions and donations of art, in some cases passing up opportunities to strengthen its collections.
Deaccessing — or selling off — works of art has taken on new importance because of the museum’s space problems. And increasingly, curators have been forced to juggle gallery space, rotating one masterpiece into public view while another is sent to storage.Despite the clear need for additional gallery and storage space, however, “the museum has no plan, no plan to break out of its envelope in the next fifteen years,” according to Philadelphia Museum of Art’s president.

Over the past month, it’s been the traditional Back to school period for most students on the Northern Hemisphere at least. Teachers have found their way back to school alongside an ever growing flow of toddlers, children, and teenagers, some eager to learn, others not so keen on sitting a full 6 to 8 hours in a classroom.
At Blog.com, we’ve been wanting to share that Back to school excitement with you, and so this month’s feature, Changing Places is a “funny book about academic life” quoting the Sunday Times.
For you exhausted parents running after your hyperactive kids, or better yet for those of you teachers exasperated by your students, this book will get you smiling, even perhaps laughing. You’ll be hooked on from the first page to the last.
Imagine two University professors, Mr. Zapp, the “typical American” and Mr. Swallow the “typical British” swapping their positions and landing in each other’s university for a full six months. Imagine the confusion, the outroar, the odd situations arising from the cultural clash between the ever so British Rummidge university (a pastiche of the UK Educational system) and the Euphoric State University, a parody of the American vision.
In 250 pages, David Lodge,a well-established British comic writer, manages to pack in a myriad of funny adventures using various writing styles – from the epistolary XIXth century style (quoting one of book’s characters) to news clippings. It’s a book you won’t forget, and bound to be on many’s top-ten-to-read-back-to-school book.
In the meantinme, enjoy the fall, the tree leaves slowly turning a generous golden brown color, and here at Blog.com, we all wish you a happy blogging experience!

As you probably noticed we have replaced the category list with the brand new Tag Cloud on blog sidebars. We just launched the ability to classify your posts into multiple tags or labels. This replaced the old category-based classification mechanism. In the sake of simplicity, we moved existing categories into tags, and removed the interface for category classification.
Tags work like keywords. You can classify a post with as many tags as you like and you can edit them later. We tag posts in a search engine friendly fashion, so that search engines like technorati pickup your posts and assign them to correct tags.
Try it out: Post about a movie, and fill out the tag input with: “movie; drama; scarlet; de palma”. Naturally, if you wish to use those exact tags, you’ll need to go out to your local theater and watch The Black Dahlia if you wish to write something interesting.
This system is great your personal information, allowing you to later retrieve your posts by combining tags. It also allows you to posts by other authors that use the same tags. It’s also great for finding out about people with your tastes, also writing on blog.com — for example other posts about The Black Dahlia). We’ll be working on some new browsing pages that will allow this feature.
If you didn’t enjoy this new tag cloud you can switch to the old tag listing system in the Sidebar section in the editor, just click edit in the tag cloud line and choose list. You also can order these blocks alphabetically or by number of posts.
One last note: in the tag cloud, the bigger the tag name the greater is the number of posts under the tag.

After a hard-fought campaign, Democratic Senator Barack Obama has won the US presidential election, and will become the 44th President of the United States – the first African-American in the country’s history to do so.
President-elect Obama marked his victory with a speech to a crowd of tens of thousands of people in his hometown of Chicago.
Obama described his election as a “defining moment” in the history of the Unites States, saying that “change has come to America”.
The BBC’s correspondent in Washington says that in electing Barack Obama, the American people have expressed their unhappiness with the status quo and rejected their country’s historical racial divisions.
The Australian Prime Minister summed up how many people felt when he congratulated President-elect Obama.
“Forty-five years ago Martin Luther King had a dream of an America where men and women would be judged not on the colour of their skin but on the content of their character. Today what America has done is turn that dream into a reality,” said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
President-elect Obama will not take office until 20 January next year. However, when he does become president, he will face many serious challenges, including two foreign wars, climate change and what he has described as “the worst financial crisis in a century”.
But the mood of the country is optimistic, according to most commentators, and Obama himself appears to relish the challenge.
“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there,” said the next President of the United States.

Workplaces all over the UK are gearing up for the festive period and all the traditions and customs that come with it. But will this Christmas be a cause for happiness and celebration or disappointment and embarrassment?
One way that colleagues in Britain show their appreciation of each other at this time of year is by doing a ‘Secret Santa’ present giving. Secret Santa is when people who work together buy each other gifts without saying who they are from.
Co-workers all write their name on a piece of paper and then stage a lottery in which each workmate takes another colleague’s name at random. Each person then has to buy a present for the colleague whose name they have picked, usually with an agreed budget set at a small amount of money such as five or ten pounds (50 or 100 Yuan).
As the gifts are given anonymously, the quality of presents can vary greatly; in an internet survey of Secret Santa presents, gifts that people received ranged from tickets to the opera to an air-freshener hanger for a car.
Another common seasonal workplace tradition is the office Christmas party, when workmates put on their most glamorous outfits and take advantage of a plentiful supply of free booze.
While most parties go off without a hitch, sometimes the effects of alcohol cause party-goers to regret their drunken antics.
The BBC invited people to share their most embarrassing Christmas office party stories, and received hundreds of funny stories, such as the man who split his trousers back to front with his extravagant dance moves or the tipsy lady who spent the entire night with back of her dress tucked into her pants and saw the photos that proved it later at work.
But the worst story must surely come from Stuart Vaines, who got so drunk he dunked his boss’s head down the toilet. Unsurprisingly, he was fired the very next day.

British performers and filmmakers have triumphed at the annual Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles, winning in a number of categories including best film drama for the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
English director Danny Boyle’s heart-warming, rags-to-riches tale Slumdog Millionaire took four awards in total, an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that the film’s star Dev Patel had never acted in a movie before.
The Golden Globes are widely seen as indicators of possible Academy Award success, and Patel is now hoping the film will be nominated for an Oscar.
Speaking to the BBC, he said that an Oscar nomination “would be so exciting”.
“Just to be part of the buzz is so cool. It’s such a nice feeling to be part of the buzz,” he added.
Awards ceremonies are always emotional occasions, and English actress Kate Winslet didn’t disappoint, bursting into tears as she received awards for best actress in the film Revolutionary Road and best supporting actress for her role in The Reader.
Winslet paid tribute to her Revolutionary Road co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, with whom she appeared in the film Titanic, describing him as “spectacular” and telling him she loved him with all her heart.
British director Christopher Nolan, who directed the Batman film The Dark Knight, accepted a posthumous supporting actor award on behalf of the late Heath Ledger, who starred as the Joker in the film but died of an accidental prescription drug overdose before it was released.
Nolan told the audience that Ledger would be “eternally missed but never forgotten”, adding that everyone who accepted the award in Ledger’s name did so with “an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride”.

The 16th century English King Henry VIII is best known for his prodigious appetite and habit of executing wives he was unhappy with, but a love letter written by Henry shows a softer side to his character.
The letter, which has been hidden in the Vatican for nearly 500 years, is to go on display at the British Library in London in April.
Henry wrote to Anne Boleyn, who would become his second wife, in January 1528, apologising to her for suggesting that she become his mistress.
In the letter Henry promises Anne that “henceforth my heart will be dedicated to you alone”, an assurance that contradicts Henry’s womanising reputation.
Henry continues, “The beautiful words of your letter are so cordially phrased, that they really oblige me to honour, love, and serve you for ever.”
Henry went on to marry Anne Boleyn after divorcing his first wife, the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, but despite having written to Anne like a lovesick schoolboy, Henry’s marriage to her ended badly.
Having failed to provide him with a male heir, Anne fell from favour with the king, whose chief minister had her charged with treason and adultery.
Anne was executed by beheading at the Tower of London in May 1536, leaving the way clear for Henry to marry his third wife Jane Seymour.
According to contemporary witnesses Anne went to her death displaying queenly dignity; on the morning of her execution she told her prison guard, “I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck.”
Henry went on to be married a total of six times, divorcing twice and executing another wife, but in spite of all his efforts, Henry died without leaving a surviving male heir, a situation which resulted in the coronation of Anne’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I.

Have you recently been poking your friends, twittering, or blogging? Well, according to a recent report from the global research company Nielson, you are most definitely not alone.
The report says that social networking and blogs have now become more popular than sending personal emails. Moreover, one in every 11 minutes online is accounted for by people using social network or blog sites.
The idea behind these sites is that of global online communities. To join a community you need to create a personal profile. Then you can connect with your friends, share pictures, music and your thoughts.
Social networks are not new but they are evolving. Almost all the networks popular in the UK can now be accessed from a mobile phone. Sites such as Facebook seem popular with a broad audience largely thanks to bolt-on applications which allow everything from photo-sharing to online gaming.
Not to be outdone, the longer-established sites are carving a niche for themselves in the online marketplace. Myspace is now largely accepted as the social network of choice for music fans and Bebo appears to be targeting younger audiences through the provision of parental controls.
One of the most talked about sites of late has been Twitter, with everyone from P Diddy to Barack Obama twittering about their daily lives. Whether this is a clever public relations stunt or a means of directly communicating with fans, it is undoubtedly fascinating social commentary.
Of course, there are those who fear that these online communities may in fact be anti-social. They are anxious that the more time people spend on these sites, the more difficult it will become for them to communicate in face-to-face situations.
We will have to wait to see the long-term effects but in the meantime we can rest assured that a large percentage of the world is online with us.

Have you recently been poking your friends, twittering, or blogging? Well, according to a recent report from the global research company Nielson, you are most definitely not alone.
The report says that social networking and blogs have now become more popular than sending personal emails. Moreover, one in every 11 minutes online is accounted for by people using social network or blog sites.
The idea behind these sites is that of global online communities. To join a community you need to create a personal profile. Then you can connect with your friends, share pictures, music and your thoughts.
Social networks are not new but they are evolving. Almost all the networks popular in the UK can now be accessed from a mobile phone. Sites such as Facebook seem popular with a broad audience largely thanks to bolt-on applications which allow everything from photo-sharing to online gaming.
Not to be outdone, the longer-established sites are carving a niche for themselves in the online marketplace. Myspace is now largely accepted as the social network of choice for music fans and Bebo appears to be targeting younger audiences through the provision of parental controls.
One of the most talked about sites of late has been Twitter, with everyone from P Diddy to Barack Obama twittering about their daily lives. Whether this is a clever public relations stunt or a means of directly communicating with fans, it is undoubtedly fascinating social commentary.
Of course, there are those who fear that these online communities may in fact be anti-social. They are anxious that the more time people spend on these sites, the more difficult it will become for them to communicate in face-to-face situations.
We will have to wait to see the long-term effects but in the meantime we can rest assured that a large percentage of the world is online with us.