In memory of Anton, my dearest and only brother...

It's ever so hard to accept the death of someone, especially if that someone is the only brother you had, the one with whom you grew up, the one who in spite of being 14 months older was always younger than you... one who had such an aura of beauty that to me he was always innocent and untouchable... one whose twinkling blue eyes are forever focussed on mine... one who I feel within forever for what is left of my life... one whose face, eyes, smile, laughter and expression I see every time I look at my son... it's as if he is with me forever, and yet, I miss him sorely, in a manner that I cannot explain and which is hard for others to understand, and honestly I am not expecting anyone to understand.  This is the legacy that binds Anton and me.

Anton...

If only I gently could wake you,

Persuade you, convince you to stay,

I'd give all I have to be able

To touch you, to hold you, and pray:

Yes, pray this is merely a nightmare,

A passage of time so surreal -

Yet no, for the Truth knocks my senses

To tell me my hurt will not heal.

How could you not wait some more moments?

Why leave me with arms open wide?

How could you not hope for more greatness

Instead of this dark great divide?

I've lost that sweet kernel so joyful,

The core of this pain'd heart of mine;

It beamed o'er our days spent together

In darkness it always would shine.

Our bond has been frightfully shatter'd,

Leaving fragments so wrought up with pain;

And back I go reeling to weariness,

To times when I drowned in the rain.

How could you, I ask you, forever...

I can't cry for lacking more tears;

How can I face my dreary future

So hounded, surrounded with fears?

I guess I might have an answer

Some day when my own time is due;

Rest gently in your peaceful slumber,

Knowing always I love you so true.

English sure is a crazy language!

I would like to share this with you:

We’ll begin with box, and the plural is boxes,

But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,

Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,

But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,

Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be pen?

The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,

But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.

And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,

But I give a boot… would a pair be beet?

If one is a tooth, and a whole set is teeth,

Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?

If the singular is this, and the plural is these,

Why shouldn’t the plural of kiss be kese?

Then one may be that, and three be those,

Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.

We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,

But though we say mother, we never say methren.

The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim.

So our English, I think you will agree,

Is the trickiest language you ever did see.

I take it you already know

of tough, and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble, but not you

on hiccough, through, slough and though.

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps

To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word

That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead; it’s said like bed, not bead!

For goodness sake, don’t call it deed!

Watch out for meat and great and threat,

(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)

A moth is not a moth in mother,

Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there,

Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

And then there’s dose and rose and lose –

Just look them up – and goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward

And font and front and word and sword.

And do and go, then thwart and cart.

Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start.

A dreadful language: Why, man alive,

I’d learned to talk when I was five.

And yet to write it, the more I sigh,

I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.

(Anonymous)

The beauty of the Selinunte Temple (TP)

Selinunte is located on Sicilian coast close the Castelvetrano city between Marsala and Sciacca. Beware of city traffic: in a big city such as Palermo and Catania it is best to park the car and explore city by bus on a foot or by bicycle.

The sights of the beautiful area of Trapani, with its vineyards and archeological site Selinunte is famous all over the world. 

The ruins of Ancient Selinunte

(Selinus), once a large settlement at the westernmost reaches of Magna Graecia, loom high on a promontory above the sparkling Mediterranean. Now one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe, it boasts one of the largest Greek temples in the world. Selinunte was founded in 628 BC and enjoyed centuries of prosperity before being reduced to rubble by the Carthaginians during the First Punic War. The city was later totally abandoned, but its solid yet graceful Doric temples stand out against the bright blue sky, offering a glimpse of its former grandeur.

The fortifications of Selinus

The walls of the great archaic - classic

al Selinus surrounded the large area of the city which extended over the hills and their cliffs. The walls ran from the low lying harbour basins, along the valleys of the Cotone and the Modione (Selinus). The wall, which was about 4,50 m thick and possibly had few towers, thus surrounded an area of about 100 hectares. Today's visible walls on the southern hill in the city were, without exception, only constructed after the catastrophe of 409 B.C in order to sourround a limited and easily defensible sector of the old city.  In the areas outside this wall, the ruins were systematically demolished, to free a glacis, and the building material of the old ruins was used to build the new walls which in fact consisted exclusively of old building material. In the different phases of the building of the walls can be seen the development of the art of fortification constructin in the span of the remaining one and a half centuries of the life of Selinus 

The Three Phases

Phase one dating probably from 408 B.C consists of a simple surrounding wall, erected in a hurry, using old building materials and older buildings like the stepped retaining walls of the terrace of the temples and the walls of the classical houses.

Phase two which dates from the beginning of the 4th century BC, presumably when Dionysius I returned consisted of the strengthening of the north wall, by reinforcing it and building two rectangular towers on each side; construction of two towers on the west wall.

Phase three completed by the end of the 4th century probably under Agathocles in 307/6 BC consisted of the construction of a completely new defense system that was placed in front of the the old walls, following a new concept of offensive defense.

Selinunte is really well worth a visit!