Showing posts with label List. Show all posts
Showing posts with label List. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

The world's worst school shootings

  • The California State University, Fullerton massacre was an incident that occurred on the morning of July 12, 1976, when Edward Charles Allaway, a custodian at the Cal State Fullerton library, shot nine people in the basement and first floor of the library with a .22-caliber rifle. Seven of the nine wounded victims died. He was later found guilty of six counts of first degree murder and one count of second degree murder. However, a second phase of the trial determined that he was not sane. Five different mental health professionals diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. He presented a history of mental illness. He was committed to the California state mental hospital system, where he remains at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, as of 2007.

Friday, September 21, 2007

The Hobbit turns 70


Seventy-years-ago today J R R Tolkien published The Hobbit, and apart from proving a most momentous harbinger for what was to follow (The Lord of the Rings for those who have been living under a rock) it would provide a stepping stone for a fantastic journey that would be undertaken by children and adults for generations to come.

The Hobbit was targeted at children and has a rather simplistic prose style, which is more than I can say for the snore-inducing Children of Hurin (although it is raved about by the clan of unwashed fantasy readers, many of them running around in smocks and pocking each other in the buttocks)

But as a stand alone work of children’s fiction it occupies a slot amongst the greats like C S Lewis, Enid Blyton, Frank Baum and Richard Adams.

Here’s a list of my Top 5 children’s books in no particular order

1) The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe — C S Lewis

2) The Wind In The Willows — Kenneth Grahame

3) The Hobbit — J R R Tolkien

4) Watership Down — Richard Adams

5) The Water Babies — Charles Kingsley


Don’t agree with my list then sod off, or you could tell us your top 5.