“Bless you sister, may all your sons be bishops.” Last words of Brendan Behan (1923-1964) Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, an...

  St Vincent’s Hospital was originally established in 1857 by five Irish Sisters of Charity.   The Sisters had come to Sydney in 1838 to...

Matthew Stepanek , commonly known as Mattie Stepanek , was an American poet, who had six books of poetry and one book of essays all reach ...

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  Byter Frederick, who describes himself as “a thoroughly orthodox Mormon”, has taken me to task for saying that Mormons do not display cr...

  Steve Jobs was born February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directio...

  My Honourable Number 2 son (as Charlie Chan was wont to say) is in his last year of High School and is about to tackle his Higher School ...

    My father in law, Noel, gave me the following item, a letter, for inclusion in Bytes.   Thanks Noel. Mrs. Gladys Gardner The Methodi...

  “Every positive value has its price in negative terms . . .   the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.” -           Pablo Picasso (18...

    'Well, in OUR country,' said Alice, still panting a little, 'you'd generally get to somewhere else - if you ran very...

  (Continued from yesterday). How many of these do you remember? Coca Cola in bottles. Choo Choo Bars and Fags. (That word had no ...

  "n an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else. We think of a dictionary as the repository of meaning,...

    Byter Shirley sent me the following email, which I will post in two parts, the second part tomorrow because of the large number of p...

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  (Click on image to enlarge). The above photograph is genuine.   It shows a Mandarin Airlines airliner taxiing past the burnt out remain...

   

    Execution On 30 October 1880 Ned Kelly had been sentenced to death by Mr Justice Redmond Barry.   On being sentenced, Kelly had respo...

  “Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week.   In MY week.” -           Janis Joplin (1943-1970), in an interview in 1969 in...

  The trial: The trial began on 15 October 1880.   A brief adjournment was granted and it recommenced on 28 October 1880. The Ned Kelly ...

  From Byter Vince: At dawn the telephone rings: "Hello, Senor Rod? This issa Ernesto, the caretaker at your country house." ...

  (Click on images to enlarge) I was looking up some vintage advertising for today’s post and came across the above advertisement for the ...

  This graph was sent to me by Byter Leo. In its humouros simplicity, it has a message that is quite profound: that as we age, some of t...