You’ll Catch your Death of Cold

I have a rotten cold and cough. It is strange that you take for granted being healthy until you get a cold, and then you remember how nice it was not to be coughing or have a runny nose.

Probably because of security, Waitrose self-scan checkout flashes red when you have bought anything like Lempsip or Beachams Capsules, although I’ve never heard of anyone under age overdosing on them or getting any kind of high from them.

There used to be a silly rule which limited the amount you could but, so if you wanted one packet at home, one in the office, you had to buy one there, then pop to the nearby chemist. Fortunately that silly rule has gone.

Condor Ferries seem to have caught a cold, in a sense, with two vessels having problems.

I feel sorry for Condor. They bought what they had promised as a shiny new ship, which suffers continual problems, and all kinds of other troubles - ramps etc seem to be happening. They must be thinking: when will this nightmare end?

I remember buying a car - an Opal Cadet, I got someone mechanically minded to look over it, all seemed ok, but the problems I had with it stalling and calling the AA to tow me to town, get it checked etc etc. Then the petrol tank leaked into the back of the car. I was lucky - I got rid of it, and got a second hand Mini. But what options are there for Condor, with a large loan on their new ship?

Certainly, as the Facebook crowds tend to say – hitting them with heavy fines will do no good, and would only damage which must by now be increasingly problematic cash flow. What would probably help more would be some kind of investigation by an independent maritime engineer as to why their ships are so beset with engineering failures. Problem solving is what is needed.

I see that Tributes have been paid to Irish actor Frank Kelly, best known for playing Father Jack Hackett in the comedy sitcom Father Ted, who has died aged 77. His character would say that a drink is called for as part of the wake! DRINK!

There were really no redeeming features to Father Jack. He was a monster, played without sympathy, and that is why he was so funny. Sometimes playing it straight can make for better comedy, and that horrendous ruin of a priest, who swore and drank, and hardly moved from his chair, was a wonderful creation by the actor.

Despite the cough, I managed to go for a walk and visited the cemetery next to the new housing estate being built. I had gone there to get a photograph for La Baguette about the opening of the new estate. But by way of rest, Jeff and I paused to sit in the graveyard, which is looking very tidy, and it was sheltered, and sunny, and very peaceful.

Which brings me to the end of this blog, and at the end of each day I put “And so to bed... quote for tonight is from…” on Facebook. A recent one by J.R. R. Tolkien addresses these themes of mortality, and is appropriate for this bitter cold weather, whether sitting beside the fire, with a hot toddy to easy the cough and cold, seems like an excellent idea.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know

The Chimera of Potential

There are so many self-help books out there, all about how you can reach your full potential, and I always think they are missing something. Potential is actually a noun derived from an adjective, and as an adjective it makes a lot of sense.

For instance, if I said that someone should reach their full potential as a tennis player, or someone failed to reach their potential as a piano player, I am saying something quite definite. You have a standard, a goal, and the potential as opposed to the actual is to reach that goal. It implies moving towards a limit.

We all know individuals who are focused on doing something. They have a set goal – to be the best footballer in the world, to be Prime Minister, to walk on the moon.

But in the world of wishy-washy pop-psychology, “potential” is co-opted as a noun, and it is a very bad noun, as if it is always something positive. You could say of a schoolboy – he has a wicked glint in his eye – I think he could be a potential troublemaker. Would you encourage him to live up to that potential? Of course not! To paraphrase Chesterton, potential is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.

The best safeguard against all the pop-psychology about “reaching your full potential” has to come from comedian Dylan Moran, who suggests that the reality of our potential may well not live up to expectations. Alas, I am not going to ever be a world class pianist, or even a second rate one. And here is what he has to say about potential:

“You should stay away from your potential. I mean, that is something you should leave absolutely alone! You’ll mess it up! It’s potential, leave it! And anyway, it’s like your bank balance, you know - you always have much less than you think. Leave it as the locked door within yourself and then at least, in your mind, the interior will always be palatial. “

“Wonderful gleaming marble floors, brocaded drapes. Mullioned windows, covered in mullions, whatever they are. Flamingos serving drinks. Pianos shooting out canapés into the mouths of elegant men and women who are exchanging witticisms... "Oh yes, this reminds me of the time I was in BudaPESHT with Binky... We were trying to steal a goose from the casino, muahahaha..."

“But it won’t be like that! You don't want to find out that the most you could possibly achieve, if you gave it your all, if you harvested every screed of energy within you, and devoted yourself to improving yourself, that all you would get to, would be maybe eating less cheesy snacks.”

It's in the Genes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31905764

A very interesting study shows that genetically there is not a unique Celtic group of people in the UK. There is a map to go with it which gives clusters, and it also shows that there here is a genetic basis for regional identities in the UK. It also notes that:

“There is also a marked division between the people of Cornwall and Devon that almost exactly matches the county border. And the People of Devon are distinct again to those from neighbouring Dorset.”

“Although people from Cornwall have a Celtic heritage, genetically they are much, much more similar to the people elsewhere in England than they are to the Welsh for example,"

“"People in South Wales are also quite different genetically to people in north Wales, who are both different in turn to the Scots. We did not find a single genetic group corresponding to the Celtic traditions in the western fringes of Britain."

The report says: “DNA analysis of 2,000 mostly middle-aged Caucasian people living across the UK.”

In fact it was 2,039 people from rural areas, and the clever thing is that they were also selected by having all four grandparents born within 80 km of each other. As it says, it is effectively sampling DNA from the grandparents, whose average year of birth was 1885.

Towns and cities are known to draw in populations from elsewhere, so selecting by rural areas means a more settled population.

The further restriction by grandparents in the area means that there had certainly been no migration to the area since around 1885. So it means more settled than transient people are sampled for their DNA.

A similar strategy was followed by “Blood of the Vikings” survey of DNA from 2001:

“In the main, small towns were chosen and the men tested were required to be able to trace their male line back two generations in the same rural area – within 20 miles of the town chosen. The aim was to reduce the effects of later population movements, assuming that in between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the 20th century movement would have been limited.”

When they did “Blood of the Vikings”, Frank Falle also followed a similar but not identical strategy. He asked for DNA sampling from the Channel Islands, and was given the opportunity to get a surprisingly large number of samples.

The BBC report explained how he approached the subject, although it should be added that for those with Norman surnames, he also made use of family trees, something Jersey people can be obsessive about (I myself am related to the Le Marquand’s and Le Cornus, to name drop) – to ensure the people tested were of the “oldest stock”.

“The Channel Islands were once part of Normandy, a region of France founded by the Norwegian Viking Rollo. With the help of local historian Frank Falle, the UCL team decided to test the people of Jersey and Guernsey to see if any evidence of these early Viking settlers in France could be found in their DNA. The volunteers were split into two groups, those with Norman surnames, and those with English surnames. “

“The DNA of those with non-Norman surnames was found to be very similar to that from men in England. This was a mixture of Ancient Briton with those of the ‘invading’ populations. These invaders included both the Angles and Saxons who arrived in England in the 5th and 6th centuries and the Danish Vikings. These two types of DNA could not be distinguished but, like men tested in England, Channel Islanders with English surnames had a significant proportion of DNA from these ‘invaders’. “

“The DNA of those with Norman surnames was markedly different. These men were found to be very similar to the Ancient Britons. But on top of this ancestry was a hint of the Norwegian DNA signature, indicating that Rollo could possibly have had an effect on the genes of people from the Channel Islands today.”

The main DNA results for old families were:

Marker M170 = 30% of Jersey sample is Danish; 10% in Guernsey
Marker M173 = General Celtic DNA in Europe
Norse Viking DNA = 2% of sample in Jersey; 6% in Guernsey.

In his evening class, Frank gave part of the result as follows:

Old Jersey families have 60% Celtic DNA, and 30% Danish Viking.
Old Guernsey families have 70% Celtic, and 10% Danish Viking.

Another interesting result was that Frank said in a meeting of the History Section of the Société Jersiaise that there were three types of Neolithic DNA found locally from the Blood of the Vikings research and he speculated whether they related to the three types of local graves (passage, gallery, cist in a circle).

New Year’s Day – Poems and Superstitions

Everyone knows Robbie Burns, “Auld Lang Syne”, a poem traditionally sung at the New Year, and often sung wrongly – the verse is “for auld lang syne” not “for sake of auld lang syne”! But there are other Scottish poets who wrote lyrics about the New Year.

The Scotsman gives several of these. There is William Thom’s (1799-1848) hearty, sing-song meter to the New Year, which I rather like. This was published sometime in the 19th century.

Come, Scotland’s dearest holiday,
Auld-fashioned, hearty Hogmanay!
How foul or fair the weather be
A kindly welcome waiteth thee;
Whether ye splash through mire and mud
Whaur bickerin’ burnies raise a scud,
Or powdery snaw – nae fricht – nae skaith,
We’ll trachel through a sax-fut wreath,
Rinnin’ full weel – full welcome aye,
Wha come to haud their Hogmanay,
Syne blythelie rings through hut an’ ha’,
‘A health to them that’s far awa’.’

And there are several superstitions for the day, which I cannot help suspect were created to give the poor housewife a day off!

One that I respect – I’m superstitious at heart, like many people- is that laundry shouldn’t be done on January 1. The folklore has it that washing your clothing on these days can actually lead to ‘washing a loved one away', in other words, a death in the family in the ensuing year.

Another one is not to sweep or dust on New Year’s Day. The notion here is that you could 'sweep your good luck away' - so let the dust accumulate, along with your luck!

And from Hungary, some other interesting facts: New Year’s Eve is called Szilveszter in Hungarian, as December 31st is Sylvester’s name day and Hungarians celebrate name days.

St. Sylvester (d. 335) was pope in the year 325, when Emperor Constantine declared that the pagan religion of Rome was abolished and that Christianity would henceforth be the official religion of the Empire. Although it is unclear exactly what role, if any, St. Sylvester played in this important event, he is always given at least some of the credit for stamping out paganism.

Pigs symbolize progress as they root themselves in the ground before pushing forward. Traditionally in Hungary eating pork on New Year’s Day brings you luck.

In addition to the lucky dishes listed above, Hungarians avoid eating chicken and fish on New Year’s Day, as chickens can ‘scratch’ away your luck and fish can swim away with your luck.

There are many other customs and superstitions, New Year resolutions, of course, and others about money, about taking stuff out of the house, about tall dark men being the first to visit a house, kissing at midnight, paying of debts etc etc, and if every one of them were written down, I suppose there would not be enough blogs in the world to hold all that could be written.

References

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/christmas-and-new-year-traditions-in-scotland-1-3226062
http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/house-home/no-laundry-and-no-crying-ten-strange-new-year-superstitions-11363952249028
http://www.fabulousbudapest.com/2014/12/22/top3-hungarian-new-year-s-eve-and-day-customs/
http://visitbudapest.travel/articles/new-years-eve-and-new-years-day-in-hungary/
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/St.+Sylvester's+Day

Things you may not know about the New Year

It is New Year’s Eve, a time for partying and celebration. Well, actually, not always. As Borgna Brunner notes:

“The celebration of the new year on January 1st is a relatively new phenomenon. The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, c. 2000 B.C. and was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, in mid-March. A variety of other dates tied to the seasons were also used by various ancient cultures. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with the fall equinox, and the Greeks celebrated it on the winter solstice.”

James Frazer, in “The Golden Bough” constructed a Celtic New year, which began at the festival of Samhain, better known as Halloween. Modern pagans follow this.

And as genealogists know, you have also to be very careful when looking at family trees, even in fairly recent times, as a family tree information site notes:

“In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII determined that the Julian calendar was incorrect: each day was just a little bit too long and the human calendar wasn't keeping up with nature's calendar. To solve the problem, Pope Gregory XIII created what is known as the Gregorian calendar. This new calendar changed the first day of the year to January 1 and also jumped ahead by 10 days to make up for the lost time.”

“At the time of the settling of New England in America, the New Year began on the 25th of march. Thus, March 24th was in 1599 and March 25th in 1600.”

“Later, a new form of designating the New Year was adopted and the first time it was used was in the General Court of Connecticut as "this 20th day of March, 1649-50, or 1650 by our present system of reckoning. This style prevailed for almost 100 years. Due to an error in the calendar, the dates in all months between 1600 and 1700 should be carried forward ten (10) days. Thus, July10 was realy July 20, according to our present system.”

"The British Parliament changed the calendar from the old style to the new, the one used today, and changed the date of September 3rd, 1752 (old calendar) to September 14, 1752 (new calendar) thus dropping eleven days.”

Why did the British take so long to change their calendar? The Encyclopedia of Genealogy explains:

“The problem was caused by the fact that non-Catholic western countries, particularly England and all of her colonies, were exceedingly disinclined to accept the scientifically correct, but "Roman" created calendar, they being suspicious of anything decreed by a Catholic Pope.” “

“After a delay of one-hundred-seventy years, England finally accepted the Gregorian calendar by a 1751 Act of Parliament. September 2, 1752 was set as the last day of the Julian calendar, and the following day was declared to be 14 September -- a deletion of eleven days. The eleven days came about because the long delay included the year 1700, introducing one more erroneous Leap Year day from the Julian calendar. Thus genealogists have to deal with a long period of ambigous record dates for English and colonial records from 1 January through 24 March, in years prior to 1753.”


References

http://usgenweb.org/research/calendar.shtml
http://www.eogen.com/CalendarChange16thCentury

The Other Side of Christmas

 From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

“A Christmas Carol” is not just a story of one individual’s journey, as Dickens also forces his readers to look at the darker side of Victorian London, the poverty and also the crime. We do not like to dwell on that too often at a time of cheer.

Indeed “Mistletoe and Wine”, the chart topping song by Cliff Richard originally started, shorn of its more overtly religious trappings, as a song in a musical about “The Little Match Girl”, the story by Hans Christian Andersen, of a girl selling matches to relieve her poverty, and eventually dying in the cold and snow. The song was to be sung ironically, as a song of cheer accompanying the well-fed as they ejected the girl from the warmth of a dwelling, out into the misery of the cold.

But the song was taken over, and sweetened, and became instead almost a hymn of praise, losing the biting irony in the process.

A recent poem has also stirred up uncomfortable images. Romsey Town Christmas also looks at the bleaker aspects of Christmas. Reactions in Romsey have been mixed, between those who do not see their town there at all, and those who think that this does truthfully explore the underside. The crime statistics, should you take the trouble to look them up, as I have done, indicate a town that is not a hot-spot of crime, but one none the less where this is antisocial behaviour, drugs, possession of weapons.,

Much the same, I suspect could be said of Jersey. Jersey is a wonderful Island, but we should not be blind to the darker side of Jersey life, the slum dwellings, the vandalism, the drugs, and the occasional incidents with weapons. Even this year, we have had one very brutal murder, which lifted the veil on another side of Jersey, and our own Lieutenant-Governor has remarked on the surprising amount of poverty and deprivation for such an affluent island.

In the BBC play, “The Nativity”, there is a very strong emphasis that the birth of the Messiah has come for the shepherds, for the poorer, for the outcasts, not for the mighty on their thrones, not for Herod or Rome.

That good news is also present in Hilary Jolly’s poem:

Romsey Town Christmas
by Hilary Jolly
Lord, are you here in narrow, grubby streets?
Dogs bark, babies cry
Drunks on hunches watch the world go by
And don't like what they see.
And do you lurk with foul-mouthed little boys
Who smoke and spit
In alleyways, but find no joy in it
And trail home listlessly?

And do you walk when beauty's promise dies,
Hope dims, night falls,
Strange, uncouth graffiti climb the walls
And money's tight?
And will you die for sad-eyed little mums
With sullen brats.
And lads with airguns taking aim at cats?
Yes for tonight
Above the sullen streets. a star looks down
And angels bring good news to Romsey Town

Chain Mail on Social Media

The following text is posted frequently on Facebook, and it is a form of social engineering, very much of the same kind that is used to trick people to send chain emails about viruses, or to worry people about security and get them to click on an email link.
 
For all my friends, whether close or casual, just because, One of the longest posts I will ever do.. and the most real, too. Everyone will go through some hard times at some point. Life isn't easy. Just something to think about...did you know the people that are the strongest are usually the most sensitive? Did you know the people who exhibit the most kindness are the first to get mistreated? Did you know the ones who take care of others all the time are ...usually the ones who need it the most? Did you know the three hardest things to say are I love you, I'm sorry, and Help me? Sometimes just because a person looks happy, you have to look past their smile and see how much pain they may be in. To all my friends who are going through some issues right now--let's start an intention avalanche. We all need positive intentions right now. If I don't see your name, I'll understand. May I ask my friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy and paste this status for one hour to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. I hope to see this on the walls of all my friends just for moral support. I know some will!! I did it for a friend and you can to. You have to COPY & PASTE this one, NO Sharing.
 
It is a form of chain mail, made up of the kind of platitudes that you might also find from a Fairground Fortune Teller. Who among us, after all, has not had "family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind"? Its is designed to tug the heartstrings, and get people to repost it, rather than just share it. It makes out that anyone who fails to do so is somehow heartless. Is it good to manipulate people's emotions in this way? Isn't this a kind of emotional blackmail?
 
By way of a satire, here is my alternative version of this chain mail, which takes some of the phrases and uses them to are rather more surreal and comic effect:
 
For all my friends, whether close or casual, just because. One of the longest posts I will ever do, and the most real too. Sherbert lemons are delightful to suck and even crunch, although your dentist bills may increase. Life isn't easy. Just something to think about. Did you know that Boris Karloff's real name was William Henry Pratt. Sometimes just because a person looks like a monster and has a scar and bolts through their neck and hurl people from windmills, they may actually be very sweet. Did you know the three hardest things to say are: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, antidisestablishmentarianism, and triskaidekaphobia. If I don't see your name, I'll understand. I may even sue. Messrs Soo, Grabbitt and Runne are my solicitors. May I ask my friends, wherever you might be, to kindly copy and paste this status for one hour to show that you think I really should be carted off to the funny farm by men in white coats.

Rise Like a Phoenix

Rise like a phoenix
Out of the ashes
Seeking rather than vengeance
Retribution
You were warned
Once I'm transformed
Once I'm reborn
You know I will rise like a phoenix
But you're my flame
 
Europe at Play
 
 "An annual competition that pits three dozen or so European nations against one another in a glitter-spangled maelstrom of wind machines, detachable clothing and the cheesiest tunes in pop music, the Eurovision Song Contest is exactly what it says." (Time)
 
The Eurovision Song Contest is the last legacy of EU style frivolity - the other was "It's a Knock Out" - a typically British loose translation of the much more formal French "Jeux Sans Frontières" (games without frontiers). The French words on captured the European ideal. The British words captured the actuality. And that's pretty much what we still have with Eurovision. Every commentator treats it with deadly seriousness, except the British where we have Graham Norton, and before him Terry Wogan, making acerbic put downs on the acts.
 
The UK pretty well always gets a poor showing because the commercial successes in the UK pop world go to the commercial areas - the pop charts, the domestic UK market, and even the American market. Why send good songs for potential oblivion, when there are more lucrative avenues to explore?
 
What is left for the UK once those are removed are second hand songs, or second hand singers past their prime (e.g. Engelbert Humperdinck), or song writers penning something that will probably make some sales in the local market, but is really music by numbers; they don't really need to try to get it in the UK pop charts, being the Eurovision contender almost guarantees that, so they can be lazy.
 
Winning Songs
 
I thought if you didn't watch it, but heard it, the winning song by Conchita Wurst was very good - very James Bond theme (I could imagine Shirley Bassey belting it out!) - and of course, songs are for the most part to be heard not seen.
 
There was some criticism along the way of Russia, which was booed, but the lyrics of their entry were ominously political in overtones:
 
Living on the edge
closer to the crime
cross the line a step at a time
 
Now maybe there's a place
maybe there's a time
maybe there's a day you'll be mine
 
Sound and Spectacle
 
What happened with the old Top of the Pops, when it existed, was the rise of the pop video - now a lot of that is done using the outlets of social media. TOTP used to have live acts, and videos, and as time went on, the videos grew to dominate. That's not to say that the songs were bad - Abba almost always did videos rather than live - but it did lead to a culture in which songs sold as an audio-visual experience, which is actually quite strange.
 
Think of Michael Jackson's Thriller. It's actually not particularly spectacular as a song, but as a video, it is sheer spectacle. The studio with all its glitzy lighting and smoke and camera angles, and teen audience bopping away, could never really compete.
 
Most of the 20th century popular music was broadcast on radio, and was heard not seen; the singer if seen would just be performing, perhaps with a backing band, and a microphone. People came to watch the singer singing, not see some kind of stage show. That's very much still the case with festivals like Glastonbury. At that distance from the stage, spectacle is diminished, however much the singer gyrates about the stage.
 
A different strand came with the movie musicals, often taken from stage musicals, where clearly the visual was important - but it was not enough to save very poor shows. Remember some of Cliff Richard's musicals in the West End, which bombed. But spectacle could save what was musically very mediocre - for example, Starlight Express.

Eurovision is closer to those strands of spectacle and music than anything else, but it is not serious, so very rarely does any winner then go on to international fame. But it is clear they are aiming for it.
 
A Classic Division
 
In the classic tradition, there is the same split between sound and audio-visual spectacle, in orchestra and opera. Orchestral pieces  and operatic shows are two very different beasts.
 
In an orchestral piece, the emphasis is on music. With opera, it is spectacle and music, so that it can get popularity (as it did in the 18th century) despite it being largely incomprehensible because it was in a foreign language.
 
Language Games
 
And that's the other thing which is not so obvious - language. 29 of the winning entries are English, 14 in French, and then it drops to 3 and below. Apart from Serbia in 2007, since 1999, all the winners are English. From 1999, a free choice of language was allowed, and in 2013, only 12 countries had songs in their national language. Mostly they opt for English. So English is a crowded market, and that probably also is a problem for the UK entry.
 
Prior to 1999, with a few exceptions by special dispensation (Germany, Belgium), matters were different. From 1966 to 1973 and 1977 to 1999, only official languages of the participating country could be used. This meant that the UK entry was not swamped with other English entries, as it is today.
 
As it stands, many of the people voting are voting for English language songs, and given the world dominance of English, that probably means more people judging can understand the songs. National language restrictions meant most countries probably didn't understand many of the other countries songs. The widening of participating countries, with Eastern Europeans has meant more other language entries, but in terms of results, most non-English songs have been far less successful than those in English.
 
Incidentally, Abba took advantage of the dropping of the rule in 1974 to win with an English language entry, Waterloo.

The Bald Truth: A Global Brand

Have you heard of "The Bald Truth"? Locals may know it as the blog site of Trevor Pitman - and there is also a website under that name, which needs updating - it still refers to him as "Deputy Trevor Pitman". But there are a surprising lot of other Bald Truths out there, as I found out when I was trying to remember the former Deputy's Twitter feed. So here is a trawl through the virtual realm of Baldness and Truth, rather like Dave Gorman's search for Dave Gorman (of which more later).
 
One of the first to come up above Trevor's blog in Google is the website:
 
http://www.thebaldtruth.com/  
 
This has the headline banner - "Sex, Life and Hair Loss", and it is a weekly talk radio show hosted by Spencer Kobren, founder and president of the American Hair Loss Association. I've been unable to find if Trevor has ever tuned in. Quite how you can talk every week on hair loss alone without repeating yourself endlessly is beyond me, which is probably why they added life and sex to spice up the show.
 
It is a rather peculiar conjunction, as if hair loss somehow correlated to loss of libido, or loss of attractiveness to women. Given the fan mail received by Telly Savalas as Kojak, I don't think that is the case. "Who loves you, baby?" as he would ask, but perhaps it is the lollipop in Kojak's hand that was the real aphrodisiac.
 
And from there, going towards the UK, we have a website all about deep personal life changes at:
 
http://thebaldtruth.co.uk/  
 
"From money to health, from business to relationships -  anybody exposed to Rohans passionate delivery, live coaching sessions and practical tools experience deep personal life changes. His journey continues as he expands both his brand The Bald Truth and his message globally."
 
While on Twitter, one of the first Twitter accounts to pop up is a political one. But not that of Trevor. This is the one which grabbed the first wording on Twitter:
 
The Bald Truth, @thebaldtruth
 
"I talk about things that matter (i.e., politics and Pittsburgh sports). Pittsburgh, PA"
 
I love the juxtaposition of the universal - "politics" and the particular "Pittsburgh Sports"! I can't really think of local politicians who make that kind of coincidence of two interests together. But as I am not really a sports fan, it is possible that it just has not registered.
 
There is also Dave Hanks, who has the Twitter @BaldTruthHR
 
His bio says: "An HR VP with 15+ years of experience talks Simple but Difficult Truths about Human Resources. Cincinnati, OH"
 
It's intriguing, with the combination of "simple" and "difficult", which seems almost a contradiction in terms. It reminds me of Bertrand Russell devoting an entire book of logic to prove that 1+1=2.
 
And then we are back to hair again, with
 
@BaldTruthDoc
"In this documentary we will uncover the secrecy that has made it difficult to find out the truth about hair replacement techniques. #BaldTruthDoc London · indiegogo.com/The-Bald-Truth."
 
And in the UK:
"The Bald Truth @TheBaldTruthUK
Motivation, inspiration and anti-discrimination for baldies, balders and sympathisers."
 
Should Jersey's new discrimination law have a special anti-discrimination law for the follicle-challenged men, one might ask? It seems absurd, until you read an interesting story on the Huffington post in which John T Capps told the paper:
 
"And then on the last day, when they brought us in to give us our review and whether we made it or not -- then they were just casual enough at that time to say, 'you know, the image of our company does not have room for a bald head. We are dealing with young people, you are going to be associated with young people, and baldness is kind of associated with more mature people. We need our company to represented by somebody that has hair."
 
On a very different tack, is "Good Ape" at @BaldTruthTeller, who has, we are told, an "Insatiable hunger for the truth." This appears to be an atheist Tweeter with rather a caustic turn of phrase:
 
"The Quran claims to contain an explanation of everything past present and future. The English version doesn't seem to mention antibiotics though"
 
And of the Bible's authorship: "A desert dwelling nomad fantasy writer from 2000 years ago"
 
Meanwhile, we have BFT Foundation @BFTFoundation
 
This is "The Bald Faced Truth Foundation" which is "is a 501(c)3 organization that promotes joy and growth in youth through support of the arts, music, education and athletics. Portland, Oregon · baldfacedtruth.org"
 
And the somewhat sparse and Tweet free
The Bald Truth @TheBaldTruth1, which is "Fat-free since 1982"
 
And pretty tweet free, too!
 
But the one I rather like the best is
 
The BALD TRUTH@CoachRicKolster
 
Ric's bio is a "Leadership Expert, Executive Coach, Motivator Author of Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get To Work. Coach Rick speaks The BALD TRUTH Southlake, TX · CoachRickKolster.com"

It's an interesting mix of though provoking maxims, and the odd comic one, and here is a selection:
 
"God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages."
 
"A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. What is YOUR song today? Will you sing it?"
 
"Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs."
 
"There are only two kinds of people in the world, the Irish and those who wish they were."
 
"It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret."
 
"It's time to start living in the present.  Letting go of the past is not easy, especially if you have wounds that have never properly."
 
"Resentment, hate and anger are like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."
 
"Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source."
 
The last could particularly apply to Jersey, where official spin has eroded trust in political statements, which are often face-saving, and don't appear particularly honest, and the rumour mill, where unidentified sources may sometimes be treated with less suspicion than they deserve. The truth, in all probability, lies somewhere in between, whether bald or not.

For anyone intrigued by this kind of meander, I'd recommend Dave Gorman's site:
http://www.davegorman.com/projects_are_you_dave_gorman.html

A Walk

Yesterday was the first really fine day for a walk.
 
The main path was at times impassable because of mud, but sidestepping it to dryer grass was not an option. I tried to do so, but the earth was sodden, and the grass underfoot was awash with water, giving a marshy feel. This is normally grass that soaks up the water, and is fairly solid soil beneath; but the weeks of rain had taken their toll.
 
I cannot begin to imagine what it is like in England, though, with houses and roads and fields flooded by the rising waters. Power is often cut off, making their plight even harder, and yet so many seem to muddle through, and just keep going. One of the saddest sights for me was the Dawlish line and sea wall, torn apart from the high tides. A beautiful seaside town, full of charm, I've been there both by car and by rail, and the train hugs the shore, giving spectacular views. Now it has been all wrecked.
 
Elsewhere on my walk, the fields were covered with plastic sheeting to protect the early new potatoes from the frost, although I suspect the main hazard this year will be water. In the days when there was a dedicated Agriculture and Fisheries committee, they used to issue warnings about potato blight, and I wondered if conditions of the sun on the sodden fields and the plastic sheeting might be conducive to this, or if the weather alone could just cause them to rot and not mature properly. Potato blight, incidentally, swept across the world from America to Europe in the 1840s, reaching Jersey in 1845.
 
A small herd of about half a dozen cows were grazing in the field beside the road to Beauport. I do love to see Jersey cows when out walking, and while a large herd is a stupendous sight, the small herd which grazes around the fields by Beauport is always good to see. St Brelade's is a much urbanised Parish, but it still has enclaves of dairy cows and sheep grazing, and the meadowland around Beauport is still unspoilt by houses. Houses are, for the most part, always in the distance, on the horizon, but for moments on the pathways, there are brief snatches of complete wilderness, with only a track, passing through the trees and no dwellings to be seen.
 
A couple of dog walkers took my photo above Beauport, and told me they were taking the slower path rather than the steep steps to the beach; I was in fact taking neither, I was going to the headland. On my way I passed another couple with their dog, sitting on a bench, and having a picnic; this was surely one of the first picnics of 2014, but the weather was warm and sunny, there was no appreciable wind, and I was fine myself with just a light jacket and jumper; I had left behind my heavier winter coat.
 
The tide was very low, and the central rock in Beauport was deserted by the sea. Elsewhere, across the bay, I could see very low rocks that are usually invisible, and a hazard to the unwary mariner. There were a number of walkers taking advantage of the finer weather, and a few out on the headland, where I paused to sit on a bench overlooking the bay. The sky was clear of clouds, apart from the criss-cross patterns of jets high in the stratosphere, and the sea was calm, although curiously bereft of boats or yachts.
 
I discovered by chance that if my camera is pointing to far sights before zooming, it moves to a high digital zoom, in excess of the zoom that it normally does. I took a few photos using this new facility; it is one of the problems of a second hand digital camera, that you don't have the manual, and I've always been too lazy to look it up online, preferring, as I suspect most people do with manuals, to just try things out and see what happens. I managed a quite nice close up of some of the usually unseen rocks, and turning the other way, got a shot of the air port control tower. This is so high that it is visible from many places, and is a handy reference point for locating where the airport is.
 
On my way back, I met a dog walker with two dogs, and we were discussing the problem of keeping a dog when working. Apparently, she and a number of other people in the estate employ an agency which takes the dogs out for walks in the day, has them socialise together, and feeds them as well when they are returned. I didn't quite have the cheek to ask how expensive that was, but on a daily basis, for five days a week, it must amount to quite a tidy sum. I don't think I could afford it! Still, it is a good idea for a niche market, and I'm glad that someone is doing it. I also saw another dog walker whose dog had hurt his eye, apparently (as he told me) for that breed, it is always a hazard with brambles and the like, and but he has Pet Plan insurance, so while inconvenient, it is not too costly.
 
As I left the grasslands, and headed back towards the houses, I noticed a few daffodils. They have not yet come out to bloom, but their green shoots are preparing to emerge. Despite all the terrible storms, there is spring waiting around the corner, and I hope that it brings better weather.

High Tides in Jersey: Answers from Correspondents

I'm grateful to my correspondent Adam Gardiner, who has ably furnished me with an explanation of how the tidal flow operates around Jersey's South coast, and also for Nicolas Jouault for some enlightenment on Facebook, and finally Sarah Ferguson for supplying a personal anecdote about the result of high tides.
 
Adam Gardiner on Tidal Flows
 
The latest is due to three factors. Spring tide + gale force southerly winds + a deep low pressure.
 
Tides are calculated on a year-on-year basis by the Hydrographic Office.
 
http://www.ukho.gov.uk/Pages/Home.aspx  which is annexed to the Admiralty.
 
It is a bit crucial for warships to know what depth of water is under their keel at any state of the tide! They are accurate only in the sense that they represent predicted mean level given a flat calm. If the sea has a swell then the depth of water under the keel will vary. The tide (both high and low) figures are ± from a measured mean of zero. Tides follow the cycles of the moon etc (as an astronomer you know all about this I am sure).
 
The problem is that in Jersey waters, being relatively shallow, the wind gets behind the swell and pushes it onshore, Like tea slopping in a saucer. It is recognised that sea levels are rising annually but the amount is very small - globally around 3mm per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
 
If you have even a modest 1m swell that rise (as present) is a fairly insignificant factor. Even 100 years down the line if the sea level rises at the same rate, it will rise by 0.3 metre - or roughly a foot. The main issue for Jersey is that when you get the southerly winds and spring tides occurring together as we have experienced over the last 2 weeks, the swell it creates slops over the current seawalls. The water cannot drain away as its outflow is back into the sea. Soon as tide starts to drop it disappears very quickly.
 
We need to dissipate the swell and unfortunately that requires some unsightly civil engineering - like those concrete hexagons that encircle the reclaimed Waterfront area. I can see the 'shoreline groups' and particularly the St. Aubin Nimbys going for that! Raising the seawall will help - but then again it would need to be sufficient to contain the breaking waves...and by that I mean by several meters. No more view of the bays. Not a good solution. There is a further downside  is that the force of the waves on a solid stricture like a seawall is such that it will likely 'break' it and 'scour' undermine it. It's where those hexagons are different. A huge surface area contained in a relatively small space. It works - but ugly.
 
Flooding does appear to be happening with more regularity and I feel that the States have some sort of duty to examine what is available to them to minimise future risks.
 
The waterfront reclamation and its effect of tidal flow could well be a factor. The Severn bore is in part an example of how shape can effect the way water behaves given the right conditions. The Waterfront development has effectively constricted the width of the bay. I would say that it must have some sort of influence. The Venturi Effect needs to be considered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect
 
It's not just the high tides (spring tides) alone but that of low pressure, and particularly a strong southerly wind, all coinciding. It is the combination that causes us the problem. A high wind on a neap tide (or even ay low tide) will barely cause waves to reach our seawalls. Wind alone is no indicator. In the Great Storm of 1986 we did not experiencing flooding as it did not coincide with a spring tide. Had it have done we might have been in even more trouble!
 
Nicolas Jouault on Tidal Flows
 
A deep low pressure can push the tide higher around a metre higher, although the storm of 87 on a neap tide pushed it up well over a metre. The reverse occurs with a high (greater) pressure making the tide not as high as predicted but going lower a bonus for low water fishermen. A deep low pressure in the Atlantic like we have experienced this year is not unusual and these create the swell (like dropping a pebble in a still pool and the rings pulsate out). Because we are in the northern hemisphere the winds rotate around a low anti clockwise.
 
The wind/swell/ and springtide combination are rare and the biggest and most damaging one in recent times was I think in 2005 with the tide a little over 10 metres and an exceptional swell and some gale force winds combined, had the same conditions occurred with the recent tides a considerable part of St Ouen's bay would have flooded and walls and buildings would have been severely tested.
 
Some predictions give a 30 cm rise in sea levels in the coming decades so the possibility of extreme/severe coastal encroachment is very likely in say over twenty years or so if the conditions combine. Couple this with increased building on the island the possibility of flooding due to heavy rain at these times will also increase.
 
And (I hope she won't mind), an anecdote to finish on from Senator Sarah Ferguson:
 
In the late 70s/ early 80s or so the high tides broke the sea wall near Bel Royal and Victoria Avenue was flooded almost back to La Motte Ford. It delivered the coup de grace to my ancient VW golf!

French Street Names in Jersey: Some Linguistic Considerations

Either the States seem to have been off too long over the Christmas holidays, or the silly season has come in the middle of winter rather than summer, demonstrating the random nature of climate change. Alternatively, the earthquake whose epicentre was in fact Philip Ozouf's house has had the result of addling his brains.

I refer, of course, in this roundabout way to Senator Ozouf's comments on street names:

"Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf wants to end the use of the French definite article - Le, La and Les - at the beginning of road names. According to the Senator, who studied in France and speaks French, using the definite article at the start of Jersey's French road names is categorically wrong. And, in the past, he has confirmed these inaccuracies with the Académie Française - a leading French organisation that deals with matters relating to the language. Senator Ozouf has been in talks with Jersey's parish Constables about addressing the problem and has also written to Jersey Post to ask if they will consider changing their database." (1)

So we have first of all the cost of replacing perfectly good and durable street names with new signage, at cost to either the tax payer or the rate payer, and the additional cost of updating all kinds of other lists, such as the electoral roll.

All the electoral registers would need changing as would the Liste du Rat not the mention the myriad of databases held by the States, States institutions, the banks, the Post Office etc.

https://www.customs.gst.gov.je/
http://www.jerseymet.gov.je/
http://www.dataprotection.gov.je/cms/default.htm
http://www.parish.gov.je/
http://www.scrutiny.gov.je/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.lawcomm.gov.je/

And then there is the cost to businesses. Not only will they have to update their databases, book keeping software (customer and supplier addresses), they may well incur additional costs from letterheads, compliment slips etc, all of which will need changing, and for which no funding will come from the States because of one Senator's whim.

And what the Senator fails to see is that street names are signifiers, and as such are verbal elements separate from their use elsewhere, just as a name can be differently spelt. What matters in linguistics is the history of how use develops, and that in Jersey - and notably also in Guernsey - has a redundant prefix before some street names.

But redundancy is actually very common with a language. Let me give a very common example. How often are we asked about PIN numbers in shops? PIN stands for "Personal Identification Number", so PIN number is in expansion "Personal Identification Number Number". Now that is a case very much like the Senator's comment that it would be strange to say "The David Place", but it works the opposite way because in fact, no one has any problems saying "PIN number" - the phrase functions linguistically as a gestalt, and the unpacked version is irrelevant.

In terms of linguistics, "PIN", like almost all words in every language, has its own meaning which is divorced from its etymology (in this case, its origin as an acronym). It is a special case of the etymological fallacy, and for all Senator Ozouf's strictures about checking up with the Académie Française, he has fallen into exactly that trap.

Other examples are "LCD displays" and "ATM machines.", where again the phrase functions with a meaning which has been separated from its expanded original meaning.

A wider group of names of which those are a subset come under the term "pleonastic expressions". The language of law is replete with them, for example "null and void", "terms and conditions", "each and all", in this case also examples of multiple affirmation.

English lends itself to redundancy of this kind, and here are examples where the language becomes tautological.

"The La Brea tar pits are fascinating."
"Roast beef served with au jus."
"Please R.S.V.P."

With regard to place names this is very common, where a word in one language becomes the title of a place in another. These are known as tautological place names, and there is an extensive list on Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names

Just as some place names in Jersey, while French sounding, have no analogues in any French dictionary or locale, because they are created by local people, so also one might surmise that place names in Jersey function rather like loan words from French, and hence the placement of Le or La is not inappropriate. It is only when they are considered from the point of view as if they had been streets named in France rather than Jersey, that Senator Ozouf would be right. One might as well expect argue that Jersey law should be consistent with French law, and they were to a point, but diverge significantly around the time of the Code Napoleon.

Incidentally, I might also note that the Jersey place names book seems to list some versions of names of the form "La Rue de." which date back at least to the 16th and 17th centuries; the notion that the nomenclature derives from a mistake in Perry's Guide seems to be a hasty and mistaken guess by Senator Ozouf.

There is a related problem with regard to pronunciation of French-sounding names. If we are going down the road of conformity to the Académie Française regarding spelling of street names, then to be consistent, we should also go down that path regarding pronunciation.

Now it is patently obvious that a number of French sounding Jersey names are not pronounced according to French analogues. For instance, Le Brun has a last "n" which is not silent, as does St Aubin. We say "Le Riches" with the "s" and not silent as it would be in French. Countless other instances could be given, and they show that the way in which words are pronounced has diverged between France and Jersey.

It is important to note that is not that one is right and one is wrong. They are both right, according to their geographical locale, and the historical divergence - similar phenomena can be seen in American English which is different in pronunciation from British English - think of Lieutenant Columbo, where the American version actually retains some of the original French more than the British.

But if it is conceded that historical divergence exists regarding pronunciation of French sounding names, why should not historical divergence also be conceded regarding spellings of street names? If we allow inconsistency in one, there are no grounds for inconsistency in the other.

In conclusion, to change street names because of the desire to conform to a French pattern betrays the very unique manner in which Jersey (and Guernsey) has diverged from France. It is a retrospective step, rather like the Latin prescriptivists who wanted to take Latin back to Classic forms, and purged it of later changes (and ended with a dead language as a result).

It is hankering after a purity which would involve considerable cost, and is not really necessary; the current nomenclature actually sets Jersey apart from France as "like but not like", just like the differences over some pronunciation. Certainly there may be inconsistencies, but we would do well to be cognisant of Emerson, who once said "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".

Links
(1)   http://www.thisisjersey.com/news/2014/01/08/a-road-by-any-other-name/

Death, Back Stage Stories and New Year Resolutions

Richard Briers, Mel Smith, Bill Pertwee and Richard Griffiths were just a few of the actors who died in 2013. It's strange how people like that become familiar faces, people we think we know well, when of course we do not really know them at all.
 
In fact, we often know them through the characters they play. The real person sometimes emerges later. John Thaw, for instance, both in his wife Sheila Hancock's book about their relationship, and in a documentary which had home movies, giving another side to Thaw that we didn't see when we saw him acting.
 
And David Niven constantly embellished and invented stories about his life, creating his own personal mythology, which only recently have biographers begun to disentangle.
 
William Hartnell, the subject of a book by his granddaughter Jessica Carney ("Who's There?: The Life and Career of William Hartnell"), and also Mark Gatiss drama "An Adventure in Space and Time" was also different from the character he played, although playing Doctor Who evidently changed how his attitude towards children, moved by the affection he had from being "Uncle Who" to so many. As Carney's book tells:
 
"..He arrived at the fete, wearing his Doctor Who costume, in an open-topped vintage car. It wasn't quite the TARDIS (after all you could never guarantee where the TARDIS was going to land), but it was spectacular enough for Pembury, the village in Kent where my parents lived..."
 
But it is the recently discovered interview from 1966, just after he stood down as Doctor Who, and appeared in pantomime, that shows a different facet to Hartnell:
 
Interviewer: Is pantomime something you'd like to continue doing in the future?
 
Hartnell: Ooh, no, no, no, no, no.
 
Interviewer: Oh, why not?
 
Hartnell: Well, I'm a legitimate actor. Pantomime is for the sort of person who is used to variety and going on the front of the stage, but I'm a legitimate actor. I do legitimate things.
 
There is a real feeling behind his retort in that interview, and as some people have suggested, it may be because Hartnell was in fact illegitimate that he had such a need for confirmation of his identity as an actor. In 1908, being a child of an unwed mother was a huge stigma, and he was bullied at school, as well as being beaten with a broom at home. As Carney notes:
 
"It was a big insecurity for him not knowing his father. He was ashamed and didn't talk about his childhood. It hugely affected his confidence"
 
Jessica Carney notes that Hartnell's past life was also very different from the character he portrayed on television for Doctor Who:
 
"His marriage was complicated. Heather admired his talent and enjoyed his success but was driven to distraction by his heavy drinking and womanising. He admired and needed her so much yet still chased after other women."
 
"It went on until late in life. I found a letter he had written to my gran saying, 'I know I haven't been a very good husband'. It was heartfelt."
 
Even after his retirement from Doctor Who, when he was doing pantomime, he was in fact sleeping with an actress starring in the same production.
 
Jessica says: "Heather found out but was by now so fed up she apparently let it be known that the girl could have him if she wanted. That decided it. Bill didn't want to leave Heather.
 
"That was what was so ridiculous - he was outwardly very proud of her. But that didn't stop him causing her unhappiness."
 
The fragments that emerge of actors after their deaths, that help to fill in the kind of people they really were are sometimes not wholly attractive, but it is I think better to know and understand how the tapestry of a life is woven than a false idol.
 
In Hartnell's case, he could have become a delinquent, except for the intervention of Hugh Blaker.
 
"Hugh Blaker (1873-1936) was an English artist, collector, connoisseur, dealer in Old Masters, museum curator, writer on art and a staunch supporter and promoter of modern British and French painters. From 1924, Blaker became guardian to the sixteen year old William Hartnell. He had found him flyweight boxing near King's Cross, London. Blaker gave him a home and sent him to the Italia Conti Academy of the Theatre Arts."
 
That was a turning point in Hartnell's life, and it shows how acts of kindness can make a difference, and turn someone's life around. The earlier, and more sanitised story of William Hartnell's background found in "The Making of Doctor Who" doesn't mention his rough upbringing, or his womanising, but it also loses out on the way in which his life was changed by Hugh Blaker, and he was taken away from what would have probably been a life of crime.
 
The backstage story shows that the celebrity idols have feet of clay, but it also humanises them, and makes us understand them better as people, and sympathise with a real person, with all their flaws. That is quite different from the tabloid denigration of celebrities, which is more akin to blood sports.
 
The back stage story of William Hartnell also shows how an act of kindness can change the course of history. Rather like Doctor Who, a helping hand can ripple through time, and improve lives. That is surely a good New Year's resolution, to try and help others with small or large acts of kindness, as we are able, as we journey through 2014.
 

Batten down the hatches

Michael Fish told Sky News' Murnaghan show: "There is certainly a severe storm on the way - and we certainly do need to worry about it. If you draw a line from about Aberystwyth to the Humber - everywhere south of there looks like getting affected by strong winds, to the north of that the problem is going to be heavy rain and localised flooding.". In contrast to 1987, when he was wrong-footed by the winds, this time, he advised to "batten down the hatches"
 
That's a phrase which means to prepare for pending trouble. It originated as a nautical term. The excellent Phrasefinder website explains how the phrase came about
 
"'Hatch' is one of those words with dozens of meanings in the dictionary. In this case we are looking at the 'opening in the deck of a ship' meaning. Ships' hatches, more formally called hatchways, were commonplace on sailing ships and were normally either open or covered with a wooden grating to allow for ventilation of the lower decks. When bad weather was imminent, the hatches were covered with tarpaulin and the covering was edged with wooden strips, known as battens, to prevent it from blowing off. Not surprisingly, sailors called this 'battening down'."(1)
 
What happens without a "battening down" is well described in the account of the "Radiant Med" crossing the English Channel in 1984, described by Bernard Edwards in his book of true sea stories, "Beware the Grey Widow Maker" (which I would highly recommend).:
 
"On the night of 22 January 1984, the English Channel was in an ugly mood. Storm force winds, whipped up by a deep depression passing to the north of Scotland, were building up, bringing with them very high seas and driving rain. It was not a night for the unwary to be abroad. ship Shortly before midnight the 2,997-ton, Liberian-flag motor Radiant Med, was off Alderney and clawing her way down Channel in the teeth of the wind."(2)
 
With a crew of 25, the Radiant Med was a 14 year old ship with a dangerous weakness::
 
"The Radiant Med had one dangerous weakness-one that was to be aggravated by a serious underestimation of the power of the sea. Unlike modern ships, which have tight-fitting, hydraulically controlled, steel hatch covers, the watertight integrity of her two cargo holds was dependent on light steel pontoons, over which were stretched canvas tarpaulins. The whole was designed to be kept firmly in place by steel locking bars fitted athwartships, one bar securing each section of pontoons.Unfortunately, over the years many of the Radiant Med's hatch locking bars had gone missing and those still on board could not be correctly fitted due to alterations recently made to the hatch coamings. As a substitute for the bars, D'Souza had concluded that rope nets, stretched over the hatch tarpaulins and lashed down to the deck, would do just as well." (2)
 
"The wind had veered more to the west and was gusting force 11 when, at 16.00 that day, Chief Officer Tanwar took over the watch on the bridge. The Radiant Med's engines were still making full revolutions and she was burying her bow deep in the advancing walls of green water, her propeller racing wildly each time her stern lifted high. The air was full of flying spray, torn from the crests of the tumbling waves, and her decks were constantly awash with foaming water, which tugged and plucked with eager fingers at her lightly secured hatches."

With a hatch cover dislodged by the storm, the Radiant Med began taking on water. Very soon, led by Captain D'Souza and Chief Officer Tanwar they had no option but to throw themselves over the side of the stricken vessel into the icy sea.
 
"Radiant Med rolled over and her after radio mast crashed down on the lifeboat, causing serious damage. Very soon, the boat was waterlogged and floating only on its buoyancy tanks. Fortunately for those of the Liberian ship's crew who were still alive, St Peter Port Radio had been monitoring the emergency from the start. When it became apparent the Radiant Med was sinking and Casabianca was powerless to help, St Peter Port's harbour master took it upon himself to call out the Guernsey lifeboat." (2)
 
Edwards notes how "in a display of superb seamanship and outstanding courage, the RNLI men snatched Chief Officer Tanwar and eight other half-drowned souls from the grip of the sea." There were no other survivors; exposure to the sheer cold of the sea had killed them.
 
It is an example of how important it is to "batten down the hatches";the poorly maintained Radiant Med shows how much of a disaster could ensue from not being able to do so properly. Edwards concludes that pressures from by "faceless men of indeterminate nationality, registered in Liberia as a matter of economic expediency, and managed in a country where safety takes second place to productivity" probably caused the Captain to take such risks with his ship.
 
The earliest version found by Phrasefinder of  batten down the hatches"is the 1883 Chambers Journal: "Batten down the hatches - quick, men."(1). Of course, excepting the weather this morning, the phrase is usually used in a metaphorical sense:
 
Here comes that contentious Mrs. Jones. Batten down the hatches!
 
Batten down the hatches, Congress is in session again
 
When you're coming down with a cold, all you can do is batten down the hatches and wait for the body to fight it off.
 
There are a lot of phrases suggested as coming from nautical origins, and again Phrasefinder lists those with secure documentary evidence. I've listed ones I am familiar with here; for the full list see the reference (3) below:
 
A shot across the bows
All at sea
Batten down the hatches
Between the Devil and the deep blue sea
By and large
Chock-a-block
Close quarters
Cut and run
Edging forward
Get underway
Give a wide berth
Go by the board
Hand over fist
Hard and fast
High and dry
Know the ropes
Loose cannon
Mal de mer
Panic stations
Plain sailing
Push the boat out
Shipshape and Bristol fashion
Shake a leg
Shiver my timbers
Slush fund
Taken aback
Tell it to the marines
The bitter end
The cut of your jib
Three sheets to the wind
Walk the plank
 
References
(1)    http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/batten-down-the-hatches.html
(2)    Edwards, Bernard (2009). Beware the Grey Widow-Maker, available paperback or kindle
(3)   http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/nautical-phrases.html

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.

Baby Musings

Guernsey's official government Twitter account wrongly congratulated Kate Middleton and Prince Charles on the birth of the royal baby.
 
The tweet read: "Congratulations to the Duchess of Cambridge and the Prince of Wales on the birth of their baby boy."
 
The mistake was quickly rectified, but not until the tweet had been retweeted to a number of followers. It is a mark of how easily mistakes can go viral online.
 
The later announcement from Guernsey was that they would be firing a 21 gun salute at midday to celebrate the Royal birth. It's lucky it was not a firing squad for the person who was responsible for the mistake!
 
Meanwhile, the three babies born in Jersey on the same day as the newest member of the Royal Family are being given £100 notes by the island's government; a special gift organised by the Treasury and Resources and Health and Social Services departments. A cynic might wonder if they still have so many of the notes left over from the launch last year that they don't know what to do with them.
 
Speculation has been ongoing on the name of the young Royal, and by the time this blog goes to press, he may well will have been named.
 
It surprised me that Richard was on the list of possibilities, as Richard III was the last King deposed by Henry Tudor, of which our present Monarchy can claim a long if somewhat convoluted descent. John is also out; after Magna Carta, there has only ever been one King John; the name is associated with bad luck.
 
It is interesting to notice how the naming pattern developed. William, Edward and Henry (or their French equivalents) were the main names of monarchs of Norman descent. Stephen was involved in a civil war, and that lost the name popularity. Richard was popular for a while - remember Richard the Lionheart - up until Richard III, then dropped out of favour.
 
Henry and Edward continued until the end of the House of Tudor, after which James and Charles became popular. Then when the House of Orange took over, William became popular, and a latecomer was George from the House of Hanover, which then was almost done to death with George following George almost without break.
 
Arthur has been mooted for its mythological roots, but may be considered unlucky. The last Prince Arthur as direct heir to the throne was Henry VIII's sickly brother, who predeceased his father.
 
Pre-conquest names are rather out of fashion apart from Edward. No Monarch has been called Harold. Prince Harry is a diminutive form of Henry, not Harold. Edgar sounds terribly 1920s and old-fashioned, and no one in their right mind would be likely to call their child Eadwig. With the exception, I imagine, of the people who are apparently prepared to gamble on odds of 500 to 1 that the new child's name will be hashtag.
 
Also in the news, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated British Queen Elizabeth II with the birth of her first great-grandchild. Putin wished good health to the newborn prince, his mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, and the entire royal family. It is a far cry from the days of the Cold War, and Soviet Ideology!

And finally, there are a wide assortment of Royal Baby souvenirs, ranging from the traditional (china mugs or plates, commemorative coins and stamps) to the seriously bad taste (a Royal baby morning-sickness bag). And there are the cheap - a tin of biscuits with "Royal Baby" embossed on the lid, but which is actually little different from any tin of biscuits, except for the price. It is estimated by economists that there will be between £80-£200  million of extra sales generated from souvenirs to toys, books and DVDs.
 
The one I found intriguing was "Royal Lullabies: Soothing Music for a Royal Baby."  Which as you might expect has children themed orchestral pieces such as Jeux d'Enfants and Kinderszenen but alas, not my own first musical memory, Puff the Magic Dragon.
 
 

An Anniversary

Eternity is found in the moment, and the moments are strung together like semi-precious stones on a cord until the fates cut the thread.

It wasn't so many years ago, but it feels like many years. It feels like a lifetime has passed. Days in which we barely knew each other, days in which we came together, days of love, days of decline in health, and one terrible day that I will never forget, a day of departure.

The 1st of July was always our special day, our anniversary. We would always do something special, usually going out to Bistro Soleil for a quiet meal. It was a nice restaurant, good food, a reasonably priced set menu, close to the sea, but above all, small and intimate. It was the perfect restaurant for lovers.

It has gone now, or at least changed its name. The colours have been redecorated, and it looks different. I can't put my finger on how a name change makes a difference, but it does. It is in the memory, you see. The memory of the nights there, holding hands over the table. The Valentine's Day meal, where the desert was small chocolates and truffles on one large plate, to be shared.  The friendly maître d'  coming out to see if everything was right. The warm glow of the lighting. And like you, my sweet Annie, that has gone too. It is perhaps a blessing. I cannot go back there with friends, and spoil those memories. They have been sealed in the past, and it is a past which brooks no return.

It was misty when we first met, on the 1st of July. Can you believe that? The middle of July, mid-day, and cold, damp mist. It is like that now, at the end of June, and of course people are asking where summer has gone. But I remember that damp wet day, the mist swirling, thick, at the start of July. Days like those are significant; it may just be the first day we met, but I won't forget it.

I'd taken an afternoon's holiday especially off work, and we decided to meet at lunchtime at Big Vern. Neither of us knew quite what to expect. There are moments of awkwardness, aren't there, when you meet a stranger for the first time, just you and them. And I can still see you, arriving late, walking in from the misty car park, and I saw you at last, and you me.

We talked, and I know Star Trek, your favourite TV series, came into the talk somewhere on the way. And many other things, as the book says, of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings. And when we left, we agreed to meet again, neither of us quite knowing where it would lead to, nor to the five joyful years we would have together.

There's a cliché that quality of life is more important than quantity, but clichés often only embody what we know to be the truth. Some people, of course, have nearly a lifetime together, but for others it is all too brief. But that's no less significant, for time spent together cannot be weighed and measured in scales, any more than your ashes, now scattered into the world's wind, can be gathered.

Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes were left behind
In ashes yet with hope that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In Lenten Lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day.

A Meditation on Night

As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me; night is coming when no one can work. (John 9:4)
 
There are a number of verses in the Hebrew Scriptures (The Old Testament) about night, and some are purely descriptive, as for example this saying:
 
As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night." (Genesis 8:22)
 
But there are a number which explore the pain and depression that people face, how they despair, the raw, naked emotions. How someone who is depressed can be unable to sleep properly, how the whole world is hard for them to face. It is a matter of perspective, but these are surprising modern perspectives.
 
That shouldn't perhaps surprise us; the human condition has not really changed much for thousands of years. But it is still striking how they capture it. There is a degree of poetic analogy, as for instance in this description of insomnia brought about by despair:
 
Human life is like forced army service, like a life of hard manual labour, like a slave longing for cool shade; like a worker waiting to be paid. Month after month I have nothing to live for; night after night brings me grief. When I lie down to sleep, the hours drag; I toss all night and long for dawn. (Job 7:1-4)
 
And grief can also provide a night that is without sufficient sleep. Anyone who has been bereaved, and lost someone very close knows the way in which grief takes over. These are cries from the heart, cries of despair:
 
I am worn out, O LORD; have pity on me! Give me strength; I am completely exhausted and my whole being is deeply troubled. How long, O LORD, will you wait to help me? Come and save me, LORD; in your mercy rescue me from death. In the world of the dead you are not remembered; no one can praise you there. I am worn out with grief; every night my bed is damp from my weeping; my pillow is soaked with tears. (Psalms 6:2-6)
 
And through it is a current of calling to God, and God not answering. There is a silence. This is very much what C.S. Lewis experienced on the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, the feeling of being abandoned, of doors closed and shuttered and bolted from the inside against entry:
 
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? I have cried desperately for help, but still it does not come. During the day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer; I call at night, but get no rest. (Psalms 22:1-2)
 
There is also the crisis of belief. The routine, the rituals, carry on, but they seem empty, devoid of meaning. Doubt creeps in. Is God there? Is he, after all, too weak to act?
 
I cry aloud to God; I cry aloud, and he hears me. In times of trouble I pray to the Lord; all night long I lift my hands in prayer, but I cannot find comfort. When I think of God, I sigh; when I meditate, I feel discouraged. He keeps me awake all night; I am so worried that I cannot speak. I think of days gone by and remember years of long ago. I spend the night in deep thought; I meditate, and this is what I ask myself: "Will the Lord always reject us? Will he never again be pleased with us? Has he stopped loving us? Does his promise no longer stand? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has anger taken the place of his compassion?" Then I said, "What hurts me most is this--- that God is no longer powerful." (Psalms 77:1-10)
 
And probably the most nihilistic book of the bible, that of Ecclesiastes mentions night again, the sleepless racing engine of the mind, unable to do anything, unable to sleep:
 
You work for something with all your wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then you have to leave it all to someone who hasn't had to work for it. It is useless, and it isn't right! You work and worry your way through life, and what do you have to show for it? As long as you live, everything you do brings nothing but worry and heartache. Even at night your mind can't rest. It is all useless. (Ecclesiastes 2:21-23)
 
This is not, of course, the whole story. The last note is not one of despair, because meaning, and colour and light can and do come back into the world; the writers often end with a hymn of praise.
 
They have been stripped bare emotionally, and the house built on poor foundations has been swept away, but it is because of that they find themselves, not where they were, but building anew, and differently.
 
But there is no clear explanation of how this happens, how the shift comes from lamentations and despair and sleepless nights, to praise and joy. I think the secret is that it is not something intellection. There is no rational way out of despair and depression. Sometimes, tragically, there is no way out, and people kill themselves; they can't go on.
 
Here, the writers keep faith despite the despair, despite the loss of meaning, the empty rituals, the meaningless work, and at some point, the experience of doubt is passed, and meaning comes back. The world slowly changes from a drab black and white photo to a bright colour one.
 
But it is not a question of faith bringing them out of it, but of clinging to the wreckage of a shipwreck, until they are washed up. Psychotherapy may help, but it's not the cure. The human mind has to find its own way out of that dark place, in its own time. The one ray of comfort in reading these verses is that it has happened to other people. Across the millennia, there is the same existential angst, and they did come through it in the end. The last word is not the darkness of the cross, but the dawn of the new day in the garden.