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Robert De Niro

While the short tale about famous actor is itself a small historical record especially for him and one little Serbian village half an hour away from my current location, I have to say that this post is a little bit mistitled even though De Niro's story has several connected points with what I want to write today. Instead, it will be about my grandfather and his war stories I listened yesterday for the first time. Actually, my mother told me all this before, but yesterday, during our annual dinner, he was in a great mood to tell them himself and this is my attempt to write them down while they are still fresh in my memory. But, for a moment, let's get back to the title story. Not too long ago, I read in a newspaper article* about Robert De Niro and his European travels he did about 40 years ago, more or less in the time where I was about to be born. Back then, these kind of tourist destinations were extremely popular among young Americans - if you were young and adventurou...

Dave Allen

There is a debate about origin of the famous "heaven and hell" quote dating way back in 19th century and after little research maybe republican Benjamin Wade formulated it best: "I think, from all I can learn, that heaven has the better climate, but hell has the better company." There are similar sayings by others like Mark Twain and Peter Pan's father, James M. Barrie but if you research it deeper all the credits actually belong to Niccoló Machiavelli who said on the topic exactly this: "I desire to go to Hell, not to Heaven. In Hell I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, but in Heaven are only beggars, monks, hermits and apostles". Maybe to understand better roman catholic church and its influence in dark ages where both Niccoló Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci shared one of the best place to live for free thinkers in 15th century Republic of Florence, the best is to start watching the great TV show called "Da Vinci's Demon...