Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl

Biography

Children of all ages have read and enjoyed books by Roald Dahl. Many of his stories, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, have become classics in their own time.

As recounted in Boy, Roald Dahl's father, Harald Dahl, immigrated to England from Norway around the turn of the century (1900). Not long after the death of his first wife, he took a trip back to Norway in hopes of finding a wife to help him raise his young son and daughter. He married Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg in 1911 and the couple moved to Dahl's home in Llandaff, Wales. Over the next six years they had five children: Astri, Alfhild, Roald, Else, Asta. Roald was born on September 13, 1916 in Llandaff. Unfortunately Astri, the eldest, died of appendicitis in 1920. Harald Dahl quickly deteriorated after his daughter's death and he died of pneumonia a few months later. Sofie Dahl, pregnant at the time with Asta, was left with three of her own children, two step–children, a sizeable estate, and her husband's dying wish that his children would be educated in English schools, which he thought the best in the world.

A less determined woman would have packed up and moved back home to Norway, but Sofie decided to stay in Wales and carry out Harald's wish. But she wasn't ready to move to England yet. First she moved the family into a smaller, more manageable home in Llandaff and then one–by–one sent each of her children to Elmtree House, a local school, for kindergarten. When Roald was seven Sofie decided it was time for him to go to a proper boy's school, so she sent him to nearby Llandaff Cathedral School. He spent two years there and his only memories of it are described in Boy – one involves an older boy whizzing by on a bicycle, and the other involves The Great Mouse Plot that earned him and his friends a savage caning by the school's headmaster. This violent incident was what prompted Sofie to withdraw Roald from the Llandaff school and finally send him off to an English boarding school: St. Peter's. St. Peter's Preparatory School in Weston–super–Mare was founded in 1900 and is described at length by Dahl in his book Boy (published in 1984). Roald attended St. Peter's from ages nine to thirteen, and he was so homesick at first the he even faked the symptoms of appendicitis (which he remembered from Astri and his older half-sister Ellen) [see note] to earn a trip home. He eventually adjusted to school life, but he never learned to like it. In Boy he describes savage beatings, sadistic headmasters, prejudiced teachers, and even an abusive dormitory Matron. His nightmarish description though, is somewhat tempered by his concession that his memory of it was "coloured by my natural love of fantasy" (Treglown, 20). Schoolmates remembered him as a tall, soft–faced boy, not especially popular but very close to the few boys who became his friends. He was good at sports like cricket and swimming, but academically he was toward the bottom of his class. One of his main hobbies was reading, and some of his favorite novelists were the adventure writers Rudyard Kipling, Captain Marryat, H. Rider Haggarrd, and G.A. Henty. Their books emphasized a kind of heroism and masculinity that would later influence both Dahl's life and his own writing.

By the time Roald was thirteen the family had moved to Kent in England, and he was soon sent off to the famous Repton Public School. His sisters all attended Roedean in Sussex. To Roald, Repton was even worse than St. Peter's. His account of it in Boy includes fagging (younger boys, "fags", were basically personal slaves to the older prefects, called "boazers"), beatings, the torture of new boys, and other miseries common to many, although not all, boys' boarding schools of the time. One particularly scandalous section alleges that a former headmaster of Repton, Geoffrey Fisher (who had subsequently become Archbishop of Canterbury), was a sadistic flogger. According to Dahl, the vicious beatings that this man would deliver, combined with the fact that twenty years later he crowned Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, made Dahl doubt the existence of God. In Jeremy Treglown's biography, however, he discoveres that Dahl got his dates mixed up. The beatings he was referring to happened in 1933, a year after Fisher left Repton. Dahl must have gotten Fisher mixed up with J. T. Christie, his successor.

Not all memories of Repton were bad, though. Dahl fondly recalls in Boy that "every now and again, a plain grey cardboard box was dished out to each boy in our House, and this, believe it or not, was a present from the great chocolate manufacturers, Cadbury" (BOY, 147). Inside were twelve new chocolate bar inventions that the boys were asked to sample and critique. Dahl and his schoolmates took this very seriously, and Roald used to dream of working in a chocolate company's inventing room. He said in Boy, "It was lovely dreaming those dreams, and I have no doubt at all that, thirty–five years later, when I was looking for a plot for my second book for children, I remembered those little cardboard boxes and the newly–invented chocolates inside them, and I began to write a book called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" After completing his education at Repton, Dahl decided that he wanted a career that would take him to "wonderful faraway places like Africa or China" (BOY, 166). He won a coveted position with the Shell Company and spent two years training in England. Soon after he was posted to East Africa and started off on the two week sea voyage to get there. This voyage marks the end of Boy and the beginning of Going Solo. Once he reached Mombasa (in Kenya), Dahl transferred to another ship for the voyage down to Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). There he lived with two other Shell representatives and the three of them together administered the entire vast East African territory. Going Solo describes many of the exciting adventures Dahl lived through, including the time a green mamba entered his friend's house and the snake–catcher had to be called in. Another time a lion carried off a native woman, and Dahl's subsequent account of her rescue was printed in an African newspaper and became his first published work.

In 1939, it became clear to Dahl that something big was coming. It was World War II. Soon all the Englishmen in the territory were rounded up and transformed into temporary soldiers, responsible for containing the German population. This experience prompted Dahl to formally join the RAF (Royal Air Force) and learn to fly warplanes. Thus in November 1939 he drove cross–country to Nairobi to enlist and was awarded with the rank of Leading Aircraftman (LAC). After eight weeks of basic training and six months of advanced flying instruction, the RAF deemed him ready for battle.

Unfortunately Dahl's very first venture into combat territory resulted in his famous 1940 crash in the Libyan desert. He was flying an unfamiliar airplane (a Gladiator) and was supposed to join 80 Squadron in the Western Desert. Unfortunately the co–ordinates he was given were incorrect, and he suddenly found himself losing both daylight and fuel in the middle of nowhere. He was forced to attempt a crash landing, praying for luck that he didn't get. His undercarriage hit a boulder and the nose of the Gladiator slammed into the sand at over 75 miles an hour. Dahl's head struck the reflector–sight and fractured his skull, pushing his nose in and blinding him for days. He managed to pull himself from the burning wreckage, though, and was later rescued by three brave soldiers from the Suffolk regiment. After convalescing for months in various army hospitals, Dahl was finally deemed fit to resume flying duties again in the spring of 1941.

80 Squadron was now engaged in the tragic RAF campaign in Greece, and after rejoining them Dahl was soon thrust into the desperate routine of trying to stay alive. On his first trip up, he encountered six Ju 88's (enemy planes) and managed to shoot one of them down. The next day he shot down another over Khalkis Bay. His victory was short–lived, though, as the German Messerschmitt fighters swarmed down upon him and he barely made it back to the base alive. Over the next four days he went up twelve more times, fighting against incredible odds and miraculously making it back to base each time. On the 20th of April the Germans discovered the camp and ground–strafed it, but luckily they didn't hit any of the seven remaining aircraft. Dahl and the other man in 80 Squadron fought bravely for many more months, and their battles are described at length in Going Solo. Dahl was not fated to remain with them for long though, and when he began to get blinding headaches (from his earlier accident) he was invalided back home to Britain. His career in the RAF was over. One of Dahl's first duties in America was to get close to as many well–placed people as possible. Newspaper–owner Charles Marsh was one of these, and he and Dahl struck up an immediate friendship. Another duty was to help create a kind of British propaganda to keep America interested in the war and sympathetic to Britain's effort. Famous English author C.S. Forester asked Dahl to tell him his own story, so that he could write it up. Dahl thought it easier to put something on paper himself, and the result was so good that Forester decided not to change a thing. The finished story appeared anonymously in The Saturday Evening Post in August 1942 under the title "Shot Down Over Libya."

The story was introduced as a "factual report on Libyan air fighting" by an unnamed RAF pilot "at present in this country for medical reasons." Of course, the "factual" part might have been a little bit of a stretch. As mentioned previously, Dahl's crash was actually caused by lack of fuel and wrong directions, not from any enemy shooting. Much later, when this discrepancy was pointed out to him, Dahl claimed that the story had been edited and misleadingly captioned by magazine editors looking for a more dramatic tale.

As time passed and Dahl became more popular among Washington's rich and famous, he became known for the wild yarns he would spin about his RAF adventures. He even wrote a story called "Gremlin Lore" about the mythical creatures that supposedly sabotaged RAF planes. Since he was a serving officer, Dahl was required to submit everything he wrote for approval by British Information Services. The officer who read it, Sidney Bernstein, decided to pass it along to his good friend Walt Disney, who was looking for War–related features for his fledgling film company. Disney decided to turn Dahl's story into an animated feature called The Gremlins.

Problems immediately began to surface with the project. What did Gremlins look like? How could Disney copyright a name already known (and invented) by countless RAF pilots? Should the film be satirical or purely fantastic? Beyond these concerns, audience enthusiasm for the film began to wane as the War dragged on. Ultimately the project was scrapped, though Disney did put together a picture book in 1943 entitled Walt Disney: The Gremlins (A Royal Air Force Story by Flight Lieutenant Roald Dahl). This book, published by Random House in the United States and by Collins in Australia and Great Britain, is extremely rare and is considered a prize by any serious Dahl collector. It was his first book. If the Gremlins never reached the big screen, the experience certainly made Dahl's name as a writer. By the fall of 1944 he had a literary agent, Ann Watkins, and he had published a number of stories in American magazines: "Shot Down Over Libya" in The Saturday Evening Post; The Gremlins both and Cosmopolitan and in book form; "The Sword" in The Atlantic Monthly; "Katina" and "Only This" in the Ladies' Home Journal; and "Beware of the Dog" in Harper's. While Dahl, like any young writer, was trying out styles, he was also making sure each story contained some overt propaganda for the War effort. It's also worth nothing (in light of Dahl's later career) that two of these stories – The Gremlins and "Katina" – either featured or were written for children.

In 1945 Dahl moved back home to Amersham, England to be near his mother, Sofie. He enjoyed the rustic country life, making friends with some of the working–class men in the village. Among them was a butcher named Claud Taylor, who would later be immortalized in the "Claud's Dog" series of stories. Meanwhile, in 1946 Reynal and Hitchcock published Over to You, a collection of Dahl's war stories. It was released in England soon after by Hamish Hamilton. The book received mixed reviews but was ultimately successful enough to prompt Dahl's next effort: a full–blown novel about the possibilities of nuclear war.

The novel Dahl wrote, Sometime Never, was published in the United States in 1948 by Scribner's, and in England a year later by Collins. There's no easy way to put this: the book was a total flop. It was almost an adult version of the Gremlins story, beginning with the Battle of Britain and continuing on to the end of the world. Despite its utter failure, the book is remarkable for being the first book about nuclear war to be published in the United States after Hiroshima.

In the years following Sometime Never, Dahl renewed his friendship with American Charles Marsh, helping the newspaper man amass a valuable collection of British art and antiques. Dahl also helped his mentor set up a charity known as the Marsh's Public Welfare Foundation. In return, Marsh set up a trust in Dahl's name and invested thousands of dollars in a Dahl–family forestry operation in Norway.

These years in England had been profitable ones for Dahl, but he came to miss the sophistication of New York life. As the 1950's began, Dahl finally began to see some money from stories sold to Collier's and The New Yorker. He applied for and was granted a permanent American visa, and soon found himself taking up residence with the Marsh family back in the Big Apple. He slid easily back into the circuit of celebrity parties, and it was at one of these functions in 1951 that he met his future wife, actress Patricia Neal.

Patricia Neal was born in Packard, Kentucky on January 20, 1926. Her father was a manager for the Southern Coal and Coke Company, and though the family was not sophisticated, they were comfortably well off. Neal's theatrical ambitions were evident early in her school career, and she later enjoyed a measure of success at Northwestern University. After her father's early death, Neal left to pursue life as an actress in New York. "Before she was twenty–one, she had been taken to lunch by Richard Rodgers, pursued by David O. Selznick, had turned down one Broadway role in favor of another, and had made the cover of Life" (Treglown, 111).

Patricia Neal's most scandalous claim to fame, however, was her long affair with Gary Cooper, her co–star from The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1949). The affair with Cooper began two years earlier, in 1947, and by 1950 Cooper's wife had found out and joined the battle. On one occasion, Treglown reports, Neal received the following telegram: "I HAVE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF YOU. YOU HAD BETTER STOP NOW OR YOU WILL BE SORRY. MRS. GARY COOPER." Eventually Mrs. Cooper got her way, but not before her husband had made Pat pregnant and persuaded her to have an abortion. Guilty and scared, Neal called off the relationship.

After this trying period, Neal won a part in The Children's Hour, a new play by Lillian Hellman. It was at one of Hellman's dinner parties in 1951 that she first met the newly relocated author Roald Dahl. He had become quite a favorite amongst the New York elite, and he loved to shock and scorn unsuspecting newcomers with his wit and sarcasm. When he found himself seated next to the beautiful (and ten years his junior) rising star Patricia Neal, his tactic was to ignore her all evening. It wasn't long, though, before the two of them were going out together on a regular basis.

Dahl was also enjoying a measure of commercial success now as well. The sixty–year–old publisher Alfred Knopf had recently discovered some of Dahl's short stories and was eager to sign him to a deal. The collection Dahl later delivered in 1953 included such tales as "Taste," "My Lady Love, My Dove," "Skin," and "Dip in the Pool." Also included were four country stories gathered under the sub–title "Claud's Dog." The resulting book was entitled Someone Like You and received some very good reviews: "At disconcertingly long intervals, the compleat short–story writer comes along... Tension is his business; give him a surprise denouement, he'll give you a story leading up to it. His name in this instance is Roald Dahl" (James Kelly, quoted in Treglown, 119).

The publicity department at Knopf soon had even more to work with: Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal were married on July 2, 1953 at Trinity Church in New York. [Note: I am compiling this biography myself from various sources, and unfortunately it's still not finished yet. Sorry! This page just has some random information on it.]

In 1953 Dahl married actress Patricia Neal, whom he had first met at a party in 1951. She was a promising Warner Bros. star who had recently ended a much–publicized affair with Gary Cooper. They had five children together and he attributes his success as a writer of children's books to them. "Had I not had children of my own, I would have never written books for children, nor would I have been capable of doing so." Neal suffered a series of near–fatal strokes in 1965 and her road to recovery (with Roald's help) was described in Barry Farrell's book Pat and Roald (later made into the film The Patricia Neal Story).

In 1983, Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal divorced after thirty years of marriage. Dahl quickly remarried Felicity Dahl, with whom he had fallen in love and carried on an affair for some time. Thus the last years of his life were relatively happy and productive, and some of his best books were written during this period: The BFG, The Witches, and Matilda. Roald Dahl died on November 23, 1990 in Oxford, England. He was buried in Great Missenden.

Taare zameen par

Taare zameen par

Cast: Aamir Khan, Tisca Chopra, Darsheel Safary, M. K. Raina, Tanay Cheda, Sachet Engineer, Vipin Sharma

Producer: Aamir Khan

Director: Aamir Khan

Music Director: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

Rating: ****

Indian cinema was always colourful, vibrant and full of life, but it sadly lacked soul. Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Par changes the face of Indian cinema as we know it, infusing life into it and giving it its soul. This star twinkles and catches your attention and amazement, tugging at your heart throughout its two-and-a-half-hour plus playing time, bringing the shades of a child's imagination in blazing colour onto the screen canvas, and making us realize that truly every child is special, all we have to do is help them attain their true potential.

Yes, Aamir Khan's directorial debut is special, a heart-warming tale of a small child who has learning difficulties and is largely misunderstood by his parents. Darsheel Safary as Ishaan Awasthi is simply marvellous, making you believe that he is Ishaan and not just an actor enacting a role.

When the parents see Ishaan's academic performance deteriorate, they send him to a boarding school for disciplinary measure. Finding himself away from his doting mother and lovable family, Ishaan gets grief-stricken and lonely. Failing to understand why he has been removed from the shade of his mother and family, his otherwise vivid imagination withers and life turns into a morose black-and-white pattern. But a saviour in the form of Arts teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh enters his life, and the colours creep back in slowly, as Nikumbh works hard on reviving the child's spirit, peeling away the layers that have clouded the taara. Aamir Khan as Nikumbh is outstanding, playing a man who has been through life trying to help children find themselves and their true calling, and in the process finding his own true self.

Inclusion, empathy and emotional bonding with caring is what this film beautifully propagates, telling an entertaining story that at the same time makes you sit up and take notice of what we must do for our next generation. The film also encourages every individual to repose faith in himself against all odds, advocating the concept of multiple intelligences. In an age of competitive fervour, this film takes the solid stand of individualistic innate skills to shine with support and encouragement, making it topical considering the academic pressure tragedies that one finds on front pages today.

Taking his time to set up the story, the director extracts a most believable and genuine performance from Darsheel, and the deft helming ensures that the efforts don't show. Even the other children slip into their characters comfortably, becoming the characters to the finest of details. Worthy of mention are Sachet Engineer as Yohaan Awasthi, Ishaan's bright elder brother, and Tanay Cheda as Rajan Damodaran. While the veteran actor himself is bound to give a great performance which he does, what truly amazes one is the genuinely fine performances by Tisca Chopra as Ishaan's mother and Vipin Sharma as the father. Both don't look like actors at all but are truly the characters in every sense, and every mother in India will identify with Tisca's Maya Awasthi.

Maa is Tisca's song as much as Darsheel's, and when she weeps while flipping through the flip-book of Ishaan, your heart truly goes out to her, bringing a lump to your throat. All other songs are genuinely from the heart, and Shankar Ehsaan Loy are at their very best, giving Prasoon Joshi's soul-stirring lyrics great music. The title song Taare Zameen Par is poetic, with no line being repeated in its sea of similes, and Bum Bum Bole is joyful with Aamir swinging with the kids to the catchy rhythm with Shiamak Davar's inventive choreography; Kholo Kholo is a true eye-opener, inspiring and uplifting in mood and content, making a fine album that will keep shining in music stores for a long long time.

This one is from the heart, uplifting and inspiring cinema that is a must-see for every parent and to-be parent, with lots to offer for kids also, who will no longer hesitate to follow their true calling. Aamir Khan, the filmmaker, has arrived!

Dhamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal

GHOST

The belief in ghosts as souls of the departed is closely tied to the ancient concept of animism, which attributed souls to everything in nature, including human beings, animals, plants, rocks, etc. ^[5] As the nineteenth-century anthropologist James Frazer explained in his classic work, The Golden Bough, souls were seen as the creature within that animated the body:

"If a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a little man or animal inside, who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man, is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or man is explained by the presence of the soul, so the repose of sleep or death is explained by its absence; sleep or trance being the temporary, death being the permanent absence of the soul... "^[6]

Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it was widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature, even down to clothing the person wore. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death, including the style of dress.

Another widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they were composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Anthropologists speculate that this may also stem from early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person, most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist.^[5] This belief may have also fostered the metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages, such as the Latin spiritus and the Greek pneuma, which by analogy became extended to mean the soul. In the Bible, God is depicted as animating Adam with a breath.

An artist's interpretation of a ghostly woman on a flight of stairs, based on common descriptions.

Although the evidence for ghosts is largely anecdotal, the belief in ghosts throughout history has remained widespread and persistent.

In many historical accounts, ghosts were thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. Most cultures have ghost stories in their mythologies. Many stories from the Middle Ages and the Romantic era rely on the macabre and the fantastic, and ghosts are a major theme in literature from those eras.

Ghost stories date back to ancient times, and can be found in many different cultures. The Chinese philosopher, Mo Tzu (470-391 BC), is quoted as having said:

"The way to find out whether anything exists or not is to depend on the testimony of the ears and eyes of the multitude. If some have heard it or some have seen it then we have to say it exists. If no one has heard it and no one has seen it then we have to say it does not exist. So, then, why not go to some village or some district and inquire? If from antiquity to the present, and since the beginning of man, there are men who have seen the bodies of ghosts and spirits and heard their voices, how can we say that they do not exist? If none have heard them and none have seen them, then how can we say they do? But those who deny the existence of the spirits say: "Many in the world have heard and seen something of ghosts and spirits. Since they vary in testimony, who are to be accepted as really having heard and seen them?" Mo Tzu said: As we are to rely on what many have jointly seen and what many have jointly heard, the case of Tu Po is to be accepted."^[7] (note: King Hsuan (827-783 BC) executed his minister, Tu Po, on false charges even after being warned that Tu Po's ghost would seek revenge. Three years later, according to historical chronicles, Tu Po's ghost shot and killed Hsuan with a bow and arrow before an assembly of feudal lords.)

One of the earliest known ghost "sightings" in the west took place in Athens, Greece.^[8] Pliny the Younger (c. 63 - 113 AD) described it in a letter to Licinius Sura: Athenodoros Cananites (c. 74 BC – 7 AD), a Stoic philosopher, decided to rent a large, Athenian house, to investigate widespread rumors that it was haunted. Athenodoros staked out at the house that night, and, sure enough, a disheveled, aged spectre, bound at feet and hands with rattling chains, eventually "appeared". The spirit then beckoned for Athenodoros to follow him; Athenodoros complied, but the ghost soon vanished. The philosopher marked the spot where the old man had disappeared, and, on the next day, advised the magistrates to dig there. The man's shackled bones were reportedly uncovered three years later. After a proper burial, the hauntings ceased.^[9]

Many Eastern religious traditions also subscribe to the concept of ghosts. The Hindu Garuda Purana has detailed information about ghosts.^[10]

The Hebrew Torah and the Bible contain few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with forbidden occult activities cf. Deuteronomy 18:11. The most notable reference is in the First Book of Samuel (I Samuel 28:7-19 KJV), in which a disguised King Saul has the Witch of Endor summon the spirit of Samuel. In the New Testament, Jesus has to persuade the Disciples that he is not a ghost following the resurrection, Matthew 24. In a similar vein, Jesus' followers at first believe him to be a ghost when they see him walking on water.

The Child ballad Sweet William's Ghost recounts the story of a ghost returning to beg a woman to free him from his promise to marry her, as he can not, being dead; her refusal would mean his damnation. This reflects a popular British belief that the dead would haunt their lovers if they took up with a new love without some formal release.^[11]

The Unquiet Grave expresses a belief even more widespread, found in various location over Europe: ghosts can stem from the excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's peaceful rest.^[12]

Bats

There are a lot of different kinds of bats -- from the tiny bumblebee bat (which is the size of a jellybean and weighs less than a penny) to the huge Bismarck flying fox (with a wingspan as long as an average man).

In fact, there are over 900 different species of bats -- they make up one fifth of the world's mammals. They are the second largest group of mammals (rodents are the largest). Bats live all over the world, from the United States to Australia except for in the coldest parts.

Bats are grouped into two main groups -- the large fruit eating bats (also known as "flying foxes" or "megabats") and the smaller bats ("microbats") who eat insects, blood, fish, lizards, birds and nectar.

Megabats and microbats are quite different from one another. Microbats live worldwide, except for Antarctica and most of the arctic region. Most of the world's bats are microbats.

Megabats include nearly 200 species and live in tropical regions. They look a lot more like land mammals we're familiar with -- which is why they're called "flying foxes". Most megabats are unable to echolocate, although there are a few (like the Egyptian Rousette) that can.

Bhool Bhulayia

let's play football !!!

Dhan Dhana Dhan

Goal

YAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! it's Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!the X-MasYahooooooooo!!!!

Merry christmas to all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

let me tell you something on christmas now:-)

Christmas is an annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus. The date of the celebration is traditional, and is not considered to be his actual date of birth. Christmas festivities often combine the commemoration of Jesus' birth with various secular customs, many of which have been influenced by earlier winter festivals.

In most places around the world, Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25. Christmas Eve is the preceding day, December 24. In the United Kingdom and many countries of the Commonwealth, Boxing Day is the following day, December 26. In Catholic countries, Saint Stephen's Day or the Feast of St. Stephen is December 26. The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6. Eastern Orthodox Churches that still use the Julian Calendar celebrate Christmas on the Julian version of 25 December, which is January 7 on the more widely used Gregorian calendar, because the two calendars are now 13 days apart.

The word Christmas originated as a contraction of "Christ's mass". It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038, compounded from Old English derivatives of the Greek christos and the Latin missa.^[1] In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ. Since the mid-16th century Χ, or the similar Roman letter X, was used as an abbreviation for Christ.^[2] Hence, Xmas is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.

After the conversion of Anglo-Saxon Britain in the very early 7th century, Christmas was referred to as geol,^[1] the name of the pre-Christian solstice festival from which the current English word 'Yule' is derived.^[3]

The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800. Around the 12th century, the remnants of the former Saturnalian traditions of the Romans were transferred to the Twelve Days of Christmas (26 December – 6 January). Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival, incorporating ivy, holly, and other evergreens, as well as gift-giving.

Modern traditions have come to include the display of Nativity scenes, Holly and Christmas trees, the exchange of gifts and cards, and the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Popular Christmas themes include the promotion of goodwill and peace.

dragon ballz

Dragon Ball Z commonly abbreviated as DBZ) is an anime series produced in Japan by Toei Doga. Dragon Ball Z is the sequel series to the Dragon Ball anime and Japanese comics of the same name, which covers the first 16 volumes of a 42 volume manga series created by manga artist Akira Toriyama. Dragon Ball Z adapts the last 26 volumes of the original manga, which portrays the adulthood of the series main character, Son Goku.
Dragon Ball Z first aired in Japan from April 26, 1989, to January 31, 1996, and was dubbed in several countries around the world, including Latin America and the United States. The American themes and soundtracks were produced in part by Bruce Faulconer.
The series continues the adventures of Goku as an adult who, along with his companions, defend the Earth and many other planets against various villains. While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Goku through childhood into adulthood, Dragon Ball Z is a continuation of his adulthood life, but at the same time parallels the maturation of his first child, Gohan, as well as the slow evolution of his rival, Vegeta from evil to good. The separation between the series is also significant as the later series takes on a more dramatic and serious tone.

doraemon

Doraemon is a Japanese manga series created by Fujiko F. Fujio (the pen name of Hiroshi Fujimoto) which later became an anime series and Asian franchise. The series is about a robotic cat named Doraemon, who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a schoolboy, Nobita Nobi.
The series first appeared in December 1969, when it was published simultaneously in six different magazines. In total, 1,344 stories were created in the original series, which are published by Shogakukan under the Tentōmushi manga brand, extending to forty-five volumes. The volumes are collected in the Takaoka Central Library in Toyama, Japan, where Fujio was born.
Doraemon was awarded the first Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga in 1982, and the first Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 1997.
In Vietnam, Doraemon has become the series with largest amount of publishing to date (totally 40 million) and is continually printed and released[1].

Shinchan

Shin-chan first appeared in a Japanese weekly magazine called Weekly Manga Action, which is published by Futabasha. Crayon Shin-chan began broadcasting on TV Asahi on April 13, 1992, and has also been aired by the anime television network, Animax across Japan , Hungama TV(India) and Latin America.

Much of the humor in the series stems from Shin-chan's occasionally weird, unnatural and inappropriate use of language, as well as from his inappropriate behavior. Therefore much of this humor is untranslatable for Western readers and viewers, and a few jokes can't even be translated into other East Asian languages. In Japanese, certain set phrases almost always accompany certain actions; many of these phrases have standard responses. A typical gag involves Shin-chan confounding his parents by using the wrong phrase for the occasion; for example, saying "welcome home!" when he arrives instead of "I'm home!".[1]

During the beginning of the series, the TV show was mostly based on the storyline in the comic books. As the show progressed, more and more episodes became anime-original.

Kochikame

What is Kochikame?
The actual title of the series is Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo quite a mouthful that literally means 'this is the police box in front of Kameari Park in Katsushika'. Often referred to as just Kochikame, the series was created by AKIMOTO Osamu, and it first appeared in 1976, in the weekly comic magazine Shonen Jump. Since then, Kochikame has become the longest-running manga in existence since its serialisation, accumulating to a record 1,100 separate issues and over 110 books--as well as total sales of up to 130 million yen in Japan.

Kochikame is a comedy revolving around RYOUTSU Kankichi (or Ryo-san, as he's affectionately called), a burly police officer working in a police box around Kameari in Katsushika, downtown Tokyo. Though having a good heart, Ryoutsu's also gamble-loving, short-tempered, and has an enormous list of hobbies and interests that include video games and and model kits. More significantly though is Ryoutsu's knack for getting into all sorts of trouble--much to the dismay of his colleagues AKIMOTO Reiko and NAKAGAWA Keiichi, and especially his long-suffering boss OHARA Daijiro. What makes the series so popular is its outrageous and satirical humour, not to mention the many bizarre scenarios (super police cars armed with missiles, for instance) and Ryoutsu's ability to pull off the impossible.

In 1996, 20 years after the manga was first serialised, the series was made into an animated TV series (currently aired on Fuji Television). Kochikame has also ended up as various console games, and it also enjoyed a successful run on the stage as a musical written, directed, and starred by La Salle Ishii, the voice-actor for Ryo-san.

Kochikame the Movie marks the series transition to the big screen.