Art, Design & Culture

The Origin of Birthday Candles – A Guest Post by Leah Carri

The Origin of Birthday Candles - photo of lit birthday candles on cake

The Origin of Birthday Candles

It’s funny how we just go along with traditions isn’t it? There are so many things that we do that we’ve never really given much thought to “why?”, especially when it’s something that we’ve done all our lives. And something that everyone else we know does too. We do it because, well, because, that’s just what you do -like birthday candles. The Germans invented them – did you know that? No, me neither, I just learnt it off Wikipedia. I imagine it was an enthusiastic father who was a bit of an arsonist who came up with the idea. Yeah. Think about it.

The following would have been in German, obviously.

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John Carter Review – 11 out of 10

This film is being referred to as a flop. And it sure cost a lot of money and took a lot of time to make. The estimated budget up on IMDb is $250,000,000. It’s probably fairly selfish that i’m so glad they did all that just for me, but we all deserve a treat now and again, so thanks Disney. I appreciate it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rf55GTEZ_E]

I’m partially writing about it because people seem to think i’m joking when i say that i loved it. Perhaps committing it to the wordpress will prove i’m serious.

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Who knew short stories weren’t just for kids, emo-teens or weird old writery men?

Wordlegs: 30 Under 30. Short Stories by Young Irish Writers
Image courtesy of Cathal Sherlock at Wordlegs

Last Tuesday i went along to the launch of an ebook ‘wordlegs presents: 30 Under 30’. The initiative of Elizabeth Reapy who is a writer herself hailing from Mayo. Mayo to me looks pretty much exactly the same as Lord of the Rings so i’m inclined to think people from there are more magic and better than average Irish people. If you want to subscribe to this theory (it doesn’t involve any newsletters, not that kind of subscribe) then you may think Elizabeth more magic than the rest of us too.

I’m not officially a fan of short stories*…I definitely border on the sceptical, (yes, of a whole area of literature, I know) but for the sake of something different to do on a Tuesday, i went to a launch.

*I am however a fan of short stories with pictures. Also wrongly referred to as ‘children’s books’. Those books are for everyone.

Read More »Who knew short stories weren’t just for kids, emo-teens or weird old writery men?