Nice start to the day, that mix of funny and beautiful

I smiled at the webbed toe image. I don't have webbed toes myself but I thought it was a compassionate and sweet image.


Happy Sunday!

The little doggie posing beneath his picture is my favorite!

Thank you.

Glad you like them

The guy rock climbing and losing his glasses, (hope it was AI!), really got me. Thank you for brightening my Sunday!

....hope you have a wonderful Holiday!

Thanks!

That tree!!!

The kitty in the sunlght/smoke (?)

The tree, the elephant and the big cat, were from a National Geographic selection of award winning photographers. They are a feast for the eyes

Lord knows how badly we need this.

Lovely pictures.

look at my toes the same way again. I mean, who knows what goes on inside your socks???

My favorite, the lady taking a nap.💤

Hope it got a treat for patience

Last edited Sun Dec 21, 2025, 02:26 PM - Edit history (1)

Feeling better? I saw Emile's post in Cooking and Baking that they were doing breakfast for a few days

Rec🎄🎄🎄

Happy holidays!

Happy holidays to you, too!

That would be me.

My favorites are the falling glasses and the 4 stages of a morning lecture.
Merry Christmas. And Thanks for the Sunday laughs.

I needed them more than you'll ever know!

What a FANTASTIC collection!!!

Brian Buggy OAM is conducting the SYO Philharmonic, http://syo.com.au

Try full-screen at 720p HD for the best viewing.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 , Op. 36, was written between 1877 and 1878. The symphony's first performance was at a Russian Musical Society concert in Saint Petersburg on February 10 (Old Style) / February 22 (New Style) 1878, with Nikolai Rubinstein as conductor.

Movement 4 (played here) is the Finale: Allegro con fuoco (F major). Here Tchaikovsky incorporates a famous Russian folk song, "In the Field Stood a Birch Tree" (Во поле береза стояла ), as one of its themes. In this movement, a hint of the A-flat of the first movement is present about halfway through, with the 'lightning bolts' being a lot louder, with cymbals added.

Tchaikovsky wrote, "The fourth movement: if within yourself you find no reasons for joy, then look at others. Go among the people. See how they can enjoy themselves, surrendering themselves wholeheartedly to joyful feelings. Picture the festive merriment of ordinary people. Hardly have you managed to forget yourself and to be carried away by the spectacle of the joys of others, than irrepressible fate again appears and reminds you of yourself. But others do not care about you, and they have not noticed that you are solitary and sad. O, how they are enjoying themselves! How happy they are that all their feelings are simple and straightforward. Reproach yourself, and do not say that everything in this world is sad. Joy is simple, but powerful. Rejoice in the rejoicing of others. To live is still possible".

All his life, Tchaikovsky retained a love for this symphony. At the end of 1878 he wrote: "I adore terribly this child of mine; it is one of only a few works with which I have not experienced disappointment". Ten years later, when referring to the symphony, he wrote "it turns out that not only have I not cooled towards it, as I have cooled towards the greater part of my compositions, but on the contrary, I am filled with warm and sympathetic feelings towards it. I don't know what the future may bring, but presently it seems to me that this is my best symphonic work"