Alan's Favorites: Just some of my favorite things...
Times of Day: Dawn and the early daylight hours, and of course Arizona's
amazing sunsets!
Movies: Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" I just love that grimy
view of the future (much imitated since...)
Books: James Clavell's Asian Saga novels: Shogun, Noble House, King Rat
Hikes: Fossil Springs, West Fork of Oak Creek & Guadalupe Ridgeline on
Phoenix South Mountain, all in Arizona
Cities: Vancouver, BC; San Diego, CA; Paris, France;
London, England; Phoenix , AZ;
Top 10 Favorite Quotes:
Anon - "There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those who
understand binary and those who don't"
Francis Bacon - "Knowledge is power"
Douglas Adams
- "A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools"
Abraham Lincoln - "You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the
people all of the time"
Churchill - "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't
change the subject."
John F Kennedy - "Change is the law of life. And those
who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future"
John Keats - "A thing of beauty is a joy forever"
Churchill - "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping
it will eat him last."
Benjamin Franklin - "There never was a good war or a bad peace"
Alexander Pope - "A little
learning is a dangerous thing"
Favorite Speeches:
Winston Churchill's epic wartime speeches:
Of the high risk of a German invasion of Britain about a year into
the war...
"...we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the
hills; we shall never surrender..."
On the bravery of the RAF fighter pilots battling the Luftwaffe
during the Blitz (bombing of London)
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so
many to so few"
On the creation of the Soviet Union at the end of the war, (talk
about lasting impact...)
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an 'iron
curtain' has descended across the Continent"
John F Kennedy's "We shall go to the Moon" speech:
In the height of the cold war as the Soviets were clearly in the lead
in space - a bold step was announced
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in
this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but
because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and
measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is
one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and
one which we intend to win"
Music:
Yes - "Yessongs", "Tales from Topographic
Oceans"
Led Zeppelin "Physical Graffiti", "Houses of the Holy"
Pink Floyd - "Dark Side
Of The Moon", "Wish You Were Here", "Meddle"
Genesis - "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway"
The Moody Blues
- "Seventh Sojourn", "In Search of the Lost Chord"
Patriotic British Music: Still have a soft spot for
these...
Sir Edward Elgar's - "Pomp & Circumstance" (aka "Land
of Hope & Glory")
Thomas Augustine Arne - "Rule
Brittania"
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry - "Jerusalem"
Thomas Augustine Arne - "God
Save The Queen" (National Anthem)
William Whiting - "Eternal Father" ('For
those in peril on the sea'*)
* This always reminds me of the heroism of the still mostly volunteer
crews in the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution). We have been to Devon
many times on vacation, there are some amazing stories of early rescues in open
lifeboats - such as in
Lynmouth north Devon.
