Category Archives: Celebration

Cock-a-doodle-doooo! (or Happy Chinese New Year)

Rooster - Chinese New Year 2017
© Prop Door Illustrations

The 28th January is the start of Chinese New Year this year, and this time it’s the year of the rooster (in case the picture didn’t tip you off).

According to chinese-astrology.co.uk, people born in the year of the rooster are keen observers, sometimes with the gift of foresight. They’re also straightforward, sociable and like to dress to impress. Apparently they are also true and loyal friends and make great hosts – so if you have a rooster pal, it sounds like s/he’s worth hanging onto.

Unfortunately if you are a rooster, it’s thought that your zodiac year is actually an unlucky one as you’re more likely to incur the wrath of Tai Sui, the God of Age who resides on Jupiter. Bad times. To escape a terrible year, it’s recommended that you receive blessings and talismans of good fortune from your local Taoist temple, generally behave yourself and try to face away from Jupiter as much as possible. Got it..??

Or, if you’re like me, you’ll ignore all this superstitious mumbo jumbo and just get on with enjoying life. I definitely won’t have any form of astrology dictate what goes on in mine.

Have a happy and prosperous year, everybody!

 

International Coffee Day

International Coffee Day animation - Prop Door Illustrations

 

The 1st of October is International Coffee Day. What better an excuse to get your buzz on.

Caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world. It raises the blood pressure and metabolic rate, which causes more oxygen to get to the brain. It’s well known for reducing fatigue and increasing alertness of course, so it can help in certain tasks – for example it’s been found to improve driving performance and reflexes. However tests have shown that it can have a negative impact on motor skill learning and perceptual memory, and can also cause anxiety and panic attacks. Not so great. If you’re properly caffeine-addicted and put away more than seven cups of joe (>300mg of caffeine) in a day, you might even end up hallucinating. If you manage to avoid hearing coffee overdose-induced voices, you could still end up being affected by irritability, muscle-twitching, insomnia, headaches and palpitations. Then good luck trying to give it up, as withdrawal can cause tiredness, depression and more of that anxiety.

So enjoy your brew! In moderation.

Happy Carnival Day

Today is being celebrated by many because it’s Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year for those trying not to discriminate against the many Asian countries which also observe it). However for many around the world, today is Carnival Monday.

Carnival

To go with the more religious view it’s actually Shrove Monday – the Monday before Ash Wednesday. It’s celebrated throughout the Christian world as a sort of last hurrah before the beginning of Lent, which is given the helpful instructional title of Clean Monday. From some of the goings on during Carnival, it appears that some may have a lot of cleaning up to do by the time it rolls around.

Until then – Happy Carnival!