Odds and Ends

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Mabon
 
Mabon (Autumn Equinox) was on Sunday, 22nd September at 9:44pm BST in the Northern Hemisphere. Bright blessings for Mabon to all my friends.
 
Mabon is a Welsh name meaning "great son," and refers to the Son of the Great Mother, The Divine Son of Light. Mythologically this festival celebrates the story of Modron, the Great Goddess of the Earth, and the birth of her son, Mabon.
 
Other cultures also identified this season with their own mythologies. In ancient Rome, it was a celebration to Mercury or Apollo. Christian Britain replaced the Welsh Mabon with St Michael, to whom churches on many sacred Pagan sites were erected. The Autumnal Equinox became known as the Christian Feast of Michaelmas.
 
And in Jersey there is also: La Mabonnerie - The 'Mabon' family home. 'Mabon' is a Welsh surname. In Welsh, the name Mabon means- Legendary son of Modron.
 
There is the also surname Mabon. The last Catholic Dean of Jersey was Richard Mabon.
 
Dean Mabon's family probably came from Wales. An account of his pilgrimage to the holy land in the middle ages can be read here:
 
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2013/03/mabon-pilgrim-and-his-friends.html
 
And there's another article about him here: http://members.societe-jersiaise.org/whitsco/deanmabon.htm
 
Funny Business
 
I came across this quote by Dorothy Parker, that well known American humorist, last week:
 
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
 
Lost in a Fog of Ignorance
 
One of those strange thoughts which comes to you when you wake up briefly in the middle of the night: when it is thick fog outside, how come there is no fog inside? I could Google the answer, but it is more fun letting people put suggestions in comments.
 
Alas, no one had any ideas. All I was told by Reg Langlois was this "One of those strange thought which comes to you when you wake up briefly in the middle of the night:... What the heck have I done to have this cramp."
 
So any ideas, gentle readers?
 
All that I've manage to glean so far is "How to keep your Glasses Fogging up When You Enter a Building", not quite the same thing. "Remove fog from inside building" sounded interesting but it is all about some kind of map model software:
 
"I'm working on a map for L4D, its going fine but I have a slightly annoying problem with the env_fog_controller, my map is going to be completely enclosed with no outside areas, with Fog enable on everything works fine, however there is fog inside my building which I do not want."
 
Remaining weather related, when temperatures fell on 9 September, novelist John Niven, mentioned that he had switched on his central heating. Tweet: "Anyone else considering putting the heating on?"
 
The feedback was overwhelmingly disparaging. "The reaction on Twitter was: 'Man up, put a sweater on'," he says.
 
"Man up" owes its early popularization to another American sport: football. Describing man-to-man defence as manning up on the opposing team is an easy linguistic step to make in the American variety that man up took on a more general idea of resilience in the face of adversity.
 
The earliest example comes in 1987 - when the San Diego Chargers defensive tackle Mike Charles told The Union Tribune: "Right now, by the grace of God, we're hanging by the skin of our teeth. Now we've got to man up and take care of ourselves.
 
A Personalised Weather Forecast
 
I've been taking the daily weather forecasts and subtly modifying them on Facebook. Or possible not so subtly, come to think of it. Here's a recent collection:
 
Forecast 1:
 
Forecast for Jersey from noon today Tuesday 17 September 2013 until 6am tomorrow. Weather : Very dark grey Clouds with outbreaks of nasty cold rain and drizzle and a risk of hill fog patches, clearing overnight, so you have been warned! Max : 17 °C Min : 14 °C
 
Wind : Southwest strong F6, soon veering west, increasing strong F7 at times this afternoon. The Shipping Forecast says it might reach Force 8 "in the North of the Area", which probably means those poor sods who live in Alderney rather than Les Platons.
 
Forecast 2:
 
Weather : Occasional light rain or lemon drizzle, mainly this evening. Min : 14 °C
Visibility : Moderate to good, occasionally poor, possibly bankrupt. West strong F6, occasionally strong F7. Open Sea State : Rough. Prince Edward visited and was surprised by the weather. Swell: Confused.
 
Forecast from 6am until 6pm tomorrow Thursday. Weather : Cloudy with occasional rain or drizzle by afternoon. Dr Foster issues a puddle warning. Risk of hill fog patches. Max : 17 °C Wind : West liberal and moderate F4, soon backing southwest and increasing fresh F5 to strongbow F6, veering wild west during the afternoon.
 
Forecast 3:
 
Weather : Rain, drizzle and hill fog patches soon clearing, becoming mainly fair. Min : 12 °C so you'll need a Fair Isle sweater. Visibility : Moderate to very poor soon becoming good, and even saintly. Wind : Southwest fresh F5 to strong F6 soon veering wild west, then north by northwest moderate F4 to fresh F5 this evening, decreasing light F3 to moderate F4 around midnight. Decreasing light is what you expect around midnight. Open Sea State : Rather rough, decreasing slight overnight, with a low swell, maybe that's Lord Snooty going surfing.
 
Forecast 4:
 
Weather : Cloudy. Mist and fog spreading from the west during the afternoon. Oh mist rolling in, from the sea my desire. Touch of Wings creeping in the forecast. I do apologise. Let's continue. Max : 19 °C. Visibility : Good, becoming moderate to very poor. Wind : South to southwest light F2 or 3, veering west this afternoon. Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly. Sorry, at it again. Open Sea State : Slight. Much like my singing.
 
Forecast 5:
 
Forecast for Jersey from 5pm today Sunday 22 September 2013 until 6am tomorrow.
Weather : Fine. And it is 8.00pm and it has been fine so far. So that's fine. Min : 14 °C which is on the chilly side, and may not be quite so fine if you are outside. Visibility : Good. Wind : Northeast light F2 or 3, veering easterly this evening increasing light F3 to moderate F4. Open Sea State : Slight.
 
Forecast 6:
 
Forecast from 6am until 6pm tomorrow Monday. Weather : Sunny delight and warm. Max : 24 °C. Wind : Easterly light F3 increasing moderate F4. We may be in for an Indian Summer. Wow! How! I'll get the drums out, and set up the Totem pole to dance around in a loin cloth.
 
And so to bed.
 
I always finish my evening with a few carefully chosen quotations on Facebook. I try and not just find any old quote, but one that I think is inspirational, although occasionally I'll put a funny one up as well - humour can, after all, lift the spirits. My funny one recently was the Dorothy Parker one; here are some more quietly thoughtful ones to ponder:
 
And to bed ... quote for tonight is from R.J. Palacio
 
The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honour heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honour the pharaohs. Only instead of being made of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you.
 
And so to bed...quote for tonight is from Ray Simpson:
 
Frequently we do not leave the past behind. We clasp on to it. We dissect it, and let fears for the future, tempered by the past, unconsciously prevent us from taking up the task eternal.
 
And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Kahlil Gibran:
 
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.