Blue Peter pets

The 'Blue Peter pets are animals that regularly appear on the long-running BBC children's television series Blue Peter. For 27 years, when not on TV, these pets were often looked after by Blue Peters long-standing pet keeper Edith Menezes, who died in 1994. The first pet was a dog named Petra in 1962 and since then there have been several dogs, cats, tortoises, parrots and horses Joe And Simon. The current animals on the show are cats named Socks and Cookie; Shelley the tortoise; Iggy the trainee guide dog puppy; and the rarely seen Blue Peter Riding for the Disabled horse, Jet. Rags was another pony, named by viewers, who was purchased by the proceeds of a Christmas appeal in the late 1970s as a Riding for the Disabled horse. The Blue Peter parrot—Joey, and one successor, Barney—featured in the 1960s, but when Barney, a blue-fronted amazon, died, he was not replaced. In a 1986 documentary shown on BBC2 as part of the Did You See...? series, former presenter Peter Purves recalled that Biddy Baxter, the show's editor, had called him in floods of tears the day the first parrot Joey had died. He went on to muse in the same interview that had he himself died, Baxter would have been far less upset. The original idea behind featuring the programme's pets was to teach viewers who had animals of their own on how to look after them, and for the creatures to act as surrogate pets for those that did not own any. For example, dog training items, tortoise hibernation, and cat care are often featured on the programme; however, the keeping of rabbits and mice was deemed not suitable as these often died. In addition, dogs that lived with the presenters often accompanied them on filming assignments.

Petra

Petra (Arabic: البترا, Al-Batrāʾ; Ancient Greek: Πέτρα), originally known as Raqmu to the Nabataeans, is a historical and archaeological city in the southern Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system. Another name for Petra is the Rose City due to the color of the stone out of which it is carved.

Established possibly as early as 312 BC as the capital city of the Arab Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan, as well as Jordan's most-visited tourist attraction. It lies on the slope of Jebel al-Madhbah (identified by some as the biblical Mount Hor) in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Petra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

The site remained unknown to the western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate Prize-winning poem by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage". Petra was named amongst the New7Wonders of the World in 2007 and was also chosen by the Smithsonian Magazine as one of the "28 Places to See Before You Die".

Petra Scharbach

Petra Scharbach, best known as Petra, is a German actress, model, singer and painter. She was sometimes credited as Petra Rockstar.

Born in Frankfurt, at 6 moved to Parma with her mother. In Italy, after having participated and won several beauty contests and worked as a model in local fashion shows, debuted in the mid-eighties as singer and softcore actress. In the same period she appeared on the cover of Playmen and of the French edition of Penthouse.

Then she worked for several years with the Riccardo Schicchi's agency Diva Futura and was the main actress in several softcore movies. After some years she left Rome and returned to Parma to host a sport program in TV Parma. During these years she was a protagonist of gossip columns for her relations with the Colombian football player Faustino Asprilla and with American actor Tony Curtis.

In the early 2000s she began a career as a body art painter.

References

External links

Petra, Majorca

Petra is a town and municipality on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, in the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. "Petra" means "rock" in Latin.

Petra is the birthplace of St. Junípero Serra (1713-1784), a Franciscan friar who founded the first nine of 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco.

External links

Dogū

Dogū (土偶)(meaning "clay figures") are small humanoid and animal figurines made during the late Jōmon period (14,000–400 BC) of prehistoric Japan. Dogū come exclusively from the Jōmon period. By the Yayoi period, which followed the Jōmon period, Dogū were no longer made. There are various styles of Dogū, depending on exhumation area and time period. According to the National Museum of Japanese History, the total number found throughout Japan is approximately 15,000. Dogū were made across all of Japan, except Okinawa. Most of the Dogū have been found in eastern Japan and it is rare to find one in western Japan. The purpose of the Dogū remains unknown and should not be confused with the clay haniwa funerary objects of the Kofun period (250 – 538).

Origins

Some scholars theorize the Dogū acted as effigies of people, that manifested some kind of sympathetic magic. For example, it may have been believed that illnesses could be transferred into the Dogū, then destroyed, clearing the illness, or any other misfortune.

Dog in Chinese mythology

Dogs are an important motif in Chinese mythology. These motifs include a particular dog which accompanies a hero, the dog as one of the twelve totem creatures for which years are named, a dog giving first provision of grain which allowed current agriculture, and claims of having a magical dog as an original ancestor in the case of certain ethnic groups.

Myth versus history

Chinese mythology is those myths found in the geographic area called China, which of course has evolved and changed throughout its history. These include myths in Chinese and other languages, as transmitted by Han Chinese as well as other ethnic groups (of which fifty-six are officially recognized by the current administration of China). (Yang 2005:4)

In the study of historical Chinese culture, many of the stories that have been told regarding characters and events which have been written or told of the distant past have a double tradition: one which tradition which presents a more historicized and one which presents a more mythological version.(Yang 2005: 12-13) This is also true of some accounts related to mythological dogs in China.

Shvan

Shvan, a Sanskrit word meaning a dog, finds repeated references in Vedic and later Hindu mythologies, and such references include the following:

References