Home Eclectic Stuff Melania Trump, Beatle Trivia, Edinburgh

Melania Trump, Beatle Trivia, Edinburgh

Hard Day's Night 2017

Beatle Beat Trivia

In which Beatle song is there a reference to a character in a Bob Dylan song?

Scroll down for the answer

Plan an Edinburgh Bucket List Trip!

skyline of Edinburgh

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5 Reasons Travelers Shouldn’t Fear Sharks

Courtesy Jessica Macdonald, tripsavvy

a scene from Jaws IV

If the fear of sharks keeps you from enjoying the ocean, you’re not alone. It’s a fear shared by millions — instilled into the public consciousness with the 1975 release of the movie Jaws, and perpetuated by films like Open Water and The Shallows ever since.

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Sgt. Bill Mauldin’s Drawings a Great History Story

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

He meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in World War II, and to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin’s drawings of his muddy, exhausted, whisker-stubbled infantrymen Willie and Joe were the voice of truth about what it was like on the front lines.

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8 Popular Destinations Where Air Pollution Could Ruin Your Trip

Air pollution does a lot more than cause canceled or postponed vacations — it kills millions of people worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organization. Some of the worst places for air pollution are also home to bucket-list-worthy sights. But missing them might be the least of your problems if smog ramps up during your visit: Symptoms of air pollution sickness include nausea, coughing, headache, itchy eyes — and air pollution can cause long-term breathing problems.

Here are some of the worst destinations for smog, especially if you already suffer from asthma or other respiratory problems.

India

fog and smog at the Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Photo courtesy of Adithya0376, via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

The Taj Mahal attracts thousands of travelers every day, but the city it’s in is one of the worst in the world for air pollution. Smog in Agra can cut visibility so dramatically that you can’t see much more than an outline of the giant tomb, and visitors who don’t cancel their trip during a period of heavy smog can be seen wearing face masks to visit.

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Norway’s Fjords to Become Zero Emission Zones

Courtesy Marie Donlon, Insights Global Spec

In eight years’ time, Norway’s fjords are expected to become zero emission zones — a move that would likely impact the cruise ships and ferries bringing tourists to one of Europe’s most popular destinations. According to the recent announcement from the Norwegian Parliament, officials hope to reduce the carbon footprint linked to these ships and ferries.

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Countries Difficult for Americans to Visit

In spite of broad generalizations that Americans have no interest in leaving their own borders, US citizens are traveling abroad in record numbers. According to the US National Tourism Office, nearly 67 million Americans chose to take an international trip in 2016. The world may be our oyster, but some countries impose harsh visa requirements that may hinder American tourism.

Taktsang Monastery, Bhutan
The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan doesn’t allow independent travelers. To gain access, interested visitors must hire a travel agent, who will require upfront payment of the entire trip.
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Time Capsule Cinema

Z movie poster

Polanski’s “Cul-de-Sac”

By Walt Mundkowsky

By this viewer’s idiosyncratic standards, Cul-de-Sac (1966) is Roman Polanski’s sole brush with greatness, and the only feature to keep faith with the surrealist metaphors and perceptions of his celebrated short films. It’s his most bizarrely funny, as well as his most serious work.

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In First Lady’s Hometown in Slovenia, the Business Is Melania

Melania Trump's family's house in Slovenia
Photo Source: Splash News

Courtesy The New York Times

Melania cake. Melania cream. Melania wine. Melania tea. Melania slippers. Melania salami. Melania chocolate-coated apple slices. There are few products that the enterprising burghers of Sevnica, a small, rural Slovenian town where Melania Trump spent her formative years, have not sought to brand in honor of the first lady of the United States.

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Random Acts of Canine Kindness

Cedric the Dog takes a well-earned break after organizing a protest at an altright Neo-Nazi rally in Nebraska.

Dog Quotations

10 Most Misleading Travel Terms

Courtesy Jamie Ditaranto, SmarterTravel

tourists
Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

If you spend enough time comparing hotels, flights, and tours, you’ll eventually realize that many words have very little meaning in the travel industry. You might think that there would be some sort of common agreement on travel terms across hotels that would define what makes a suite a suite or a deluxe room better than a standard room, but no such agreements exist. Travelers are often surprised to find that what they booked is not quite what they expected.

Here are some travel hype words you should take lightly, and that might even signal you should do a little more research.

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Deb's Poetry Break

The Circus Animals’ Desertion

By William Butler Yeats

I

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last being but a broken man
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.

II

What can I but enumerate old themes,
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his fairy bride.

And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
`The Countess Cathleen’ was the name I gave it,
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love
And not those things that they were emblems of.

III

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

Send Deb your favorite travel poems.

10 of the World’s Craziest Landings

Courtesy Ashley Rossi

These 10 airports have some of the craziest landings in the world. Fretful flyers, you’ve been warned.

landing plane

Flying can be a nerve-racking experience for fretful travelers; however, landings at these 10 airports are sure to frighten even the most frequent flyers. From an airport at the edge of a cliff to sandy beach landings, here are the world’s craziest runways — consider yourself warned.

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Abbey Road album cover art
Iain Macmillan, courtesy Apple Corps/via REUTERS

Beatle Beat Trivia Answers

Question: In which Beatle song is there a reference to a character in a Bob Dylan song?

Answer: “Mr. Jones” is the main character in the Bob Dylan song, Ballad of a Thin Man, which appears on Highway 61 Revisited.

Who Is Mr. Jones in Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man”?

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez
Photo courtesy of Rowland Scherman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In Bob Dylan’s famed August 1965 interview with Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston many silly questions were asked: “Where did you get that shirt?” At one point, Ephron had the gumption to ask Dylan, “Who is Mr. Jones in ‘Ballad of a Thin Man?’”

Dylan’s Answer
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