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Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Happy birthday Colin :) It is good to see you online again. Fit is good but connected to the Internet and posting here is good too!

1969 hey? Sad to say I remember it quite well. About this time in 1969 I'd have just got back from a few weeks swimming and fishing in Kawhia. How time flies!

Cheers Huon, it's nice to be on amongst friends for a visit. Having a nice day.

Kawhia looks stunning. Some of the rock formations are pretty breath-taking. The hot water coming up through the sand sounds good too. Remember swimming in a large hot water spring in Pamukkale in Denizli ili, Turkey. Beautifully warm though so suffused with CO2 that it was very difficult to dive to the bottom - like swimming in hot Perrier water. Also on still days the CO2 would lie in a thin blanket on the surface which meant you had to be careful when swimming with your nose just above the surface. Would love to be there today!

Cheers again,
GB
 
Jul 30, 2012
3,570
224
westmidlands
todays movie quote. no googling now.

"Maybe I finally found it, way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again. Be something I can be proud of without having to fake it, be a fake human being."
 
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Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Biker! Happy Livonian Brothers of the Sword Day!

Biker! On this day in 1268 - The Livonian Brothers of the Sword (what a great moniker that is) are defeated by Dovmont of Pskov in the Battle of Rakovor.

The Livonian Brothers of the Sword (Latin: Fratres militiæ Christi Livoniae, German: Schwertbrüderorden) were a military order founded by Bishop Albert of Riga in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204. The membership of the order comprised German "warrior monks". Alternative names of the Order include the Christ Knights, Sword Brethren, and The Militia of Christ of Livonia.
Following their defeat by the Samogitians and Semigallians in the Battle of Schaulen (Saule) in 1236, the surviving Brothers merged into the Teutonic Order as an autonomous branch and became known as the Livonian Order.


Albert, Bishop of Riga (or Prince-Bishop of Livonia), founded the Brotherhood in 1202 to aid the Bishopric of Livonia in the conversion of the pagan Livonians, Latgalians and Selonians living across the ancient trade routes from the Gulf of Riga eastwards. From its foundation, the undisciplined Order tended to ignore its supposed vassalage to the bishops. In 1218 Albert asked King Valdemar II of Denmark for assistance, but Valdemar instead arranged a deal with the Brotherhood and conquered northern Estonia (now known as Danish Estonia) for Denmark.
The Brotherhood had its headquarters at Fellin (Viljandi) in present-day Estonia, where the walls of the Master's castle still[SUP][update][/SUP] stand. Other strongholds included Wenden (Cēsis), Segewold (Sigulda) and Ascheraden (Aizkraukle). The commanders of Fellin, Goldingen (Kuldīga), Marienburg (Alūksne), Reval (Tallinn), and the bailiff of Weißenstein (Paide) belonged to the five-member entourage of the Order's Master.
Pope Gregory IX asked the Brothers to defend Finland from the Novgorodian attacks in his letter of November 24, 1232. However, no known information regarding the knights' possible activities in Finland has survived. (Sweden eventually conquered Finland following the Second Swedish Crusade in 1249.)
The Order was decimated in the Battle of Schaulen (Saule) in 1236 against Lithuanians and Semigallians. This disaster led the surviving Brothers to become incorporated into the Order of Teutonic Knights in the following year, and from that point on they became known as the Livonian Order. They continued, however, to function in all respects (rule, clothing and policy) as an autonomous branch of the Teutonic Order, headed by their own Master (himself de jure subject to the Teutonic Order's Grand Master).


In the beginning of Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, the protagonist Christof Romuald is a human crusader who fights as a member of the order (referred to in-game as the Swordbrethren) in an alternate history Europe populated by vampires and other monstrous forces.
It also appears prominently in The Mongoliad, where they appear as one of the main antagonists of the fictional order to which the main characters belong.
'The Sword Brothers' by Peter Darman is a fictional account of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword set in the 13th century.
The order is featured in Medieval II: Total War, available as an infantry unit of the Teutonic Order.

Helmoldus_de_Plesse4.JPG

The Mecklenburgian swordbrother Helmold III. von Plesse.
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
todays movie quote. no googling now.

"Maybe I finally found it, way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again. Be something I can be proud of without having to fake it, be a fake human being."
Excellent movie, and Adagio for Strings is a really moving piece coupled with great visuals...

[video=youtube;34mNg12vg6Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34mNg12vg6Q[/video]
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Hey Bro. Good to see you back. Again with the Vampires. Not been having a little nibble again, have you?
Ah the children of the night - what sweet music they make. Well vamps are a pretty cool subject and strangely pervasive in a lot of cultures. I do find the hopping Chinese vampire comically worrying! Something almost "Pythonesque" about them.
Me nibble? No was dragged up to be a polite young chap!
Good to hear from you.
GB.
 
Jul 30, 2012
3,570
224
westmidlands
I think Papa Biker is on a sabbatical or buried under concrete garden ornaments... not by me, honest injun ;)

well he always wanted foundations of unserpassed achievement for his dungeon, err "cabin".

Correct correct it was platoon, with charlie sheen

todays quote . No googling now a bit cryptic but if you have been paying attention to earlier quotes there are clues there.

A duet.

"I loved you in Wall Street."
 

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