Teaser Tuesday - Jun 30

The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

His modest background and notorious history meant his career relied on him performing the role of upstanding master of home, land and party to perfection: to show artistocratic disdain for bourgeois values was impossible. Mary Anne's position in society and at Hughenden was dependent upon her marital status.

from Mr & Mrs Disraeli A Strange Romance by Daisy Hay - our book group book of the month. Interesting I remember doing Victorian politics as part of 'O' level history at school.

The blog appears to have gone that was the source for this - but as it's 6 months since I last did one of these I shouldn't complain!

Teaser Tuesday - June 29

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

It was soundly defeated while it was besieging the Danubian city of Nicopolis (Nikopol in the modern Bulgaria); thousands were massacred by the Turks. The disaster prompted the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologos to travel as far west as England appealing for renewed help; he got much sympathy and won much esteem for his dignity and courtliness; but no practical assistance.

The 1396 crusade in Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity England opting out again... I'm nearly through this mammoth tome and I've really rather enjoyed it, I teased a few months back from this book when I was starting this epic.

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 5

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The leadership of the Western Church went on to build on that memory or claimed memory over a thousand years, to create one of Christianity's most noble and dangerous visions, the Roman papacy. Their building was literal, in the massive shape of the Basilica of St Peter above Peter's supposed grave site, a building which we will repeatedly encounter in Christian history.

I had to choose that teaser rather selectively the author indulges in some rather long sentences! The author is Diarmaid MacCulloch and this is 'A History of Christianity' - a substantial tome I got for Christmas and am currently enjoying even before we get to some of the lesser known and maybe more informative parts of the book. Here's Rowan WIlliams review laying out its strengths and shortcomings, I wouldn't want to meet Rowan in a supervision on the topic! (and an interesting typo in the author's name in the linked URL - blame the Guardian!

Institutionalised violence

A quote from Michael Burleigh's The Third Reich - A New History which I featured in yesterdays teaser. He's talking about the reactions to ReichKristallnacht

Hot violence, being driven by passion, was liable to peter out as moods changed; cold bureaucratic violence was a full time career option.

And when it's 'just' concerned with filling forms it is far easier to get collusion by the majority.

Teaser Tuesday - 21st Feb

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The Nazi retailers association, NS-Hago, could clearly exert enormous pressure on, for example, a Jewish porcelain manufacturer which was dependent upon them for retail outlets. District Economic advisers (Gauwirtschaftsführer) monitored Jewish businesses and established a creeping control over those taking them over.

Another teaser fromn Michael Burleigh's The Third Reich - A New History

Teaser Tuesday - 1st November

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

What must it be like to sleep on the wing, so trusting in the cushion of air to hold you up; so perfectly in your element that you are everywhere at home, with no fear of getting lost, no dread of arrival or pang of departure? Not like Leland, compulsively, obsessvely, restlessly searching, but sublimely free, sipping from the rain clouds, dining on the plankton of the skies.

Another teaser from Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours - here she's talking about the swift - an interesting coincidence - and Leland was an early book colllector (and collector of ex-monasteries under Henry VIII). I'm afraid this is a little late for Tuesday....

Teaser Tuesday - 18th October

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Despite the weather the wild daffodil buds are showing their first pale glimmer of colour. Their country name is the Lenten Lily, because they bloom in the liturgical season of Lent.

Spring approaches - at least in Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours! Another, like last week from our book group 'book of the month'.

Teaser Tuesday - 4 October

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

My mother used to take me on retreats to Dominican abbeys, and while she was at her prayers, I - a child of eight or nine - would roam about the grounds or help the lay brother in charge of the gardens as he weeded the paths or dug the vegetable patch.
Among the books I brought with me to Morville was my mother's Dominican prayer book, containing a modern text of the Hours.

Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours - here is the Guardian review - it is our book group book of the month - only got it last night - but it looks rather good the story of a house and gardens told through the medium of the book of Hours.

University of Manchester

Among my Dad's papers we found this University student card - Manchester University in the 1940's. You'll see there are separate unions for the men and women. Interesting there's no mention of it being the 'Victoria University of Manchester' and the spaces for authorisation of each course by initials. The space for the initials of the lecturers being blank - did the lecturers not hold with such bureaucracy?
A written explanation was required on absence from lectures!

The floppy

Following the news that Sony is to stop making 3.25" floppies, I thought it the right moment to scan and post this picture of a real floppy.

As the label says this is an 8" floppy containing part - disk 17 of 18 - of pnx (a version of Unix) for the ICL PERQ. Note the disk capacity - 256 bytes!! (I hope that's not a misinterpretation on my part). I keep the floppy up in the attic, I've no idea whether it would still work as 8" floppy drives are a bit thin on the ground.

About to melt to death

Oxford Light has some lovely pictures of snowmen on the martyrs' memorial - there seem to be 10, is that the correct historical number - and if so did the builders realise? I'm only a heathen Cambridge graduate.
There's some nice pictures of the city on that blog, maybe I need a post enumerating a few city weblogs I have bookmarked?

funhouse

The Guardian's Saturday Poem was by Charles Bukowski:

I drive to the beach at night
in the winter
and sit and look at the burned-down amusement pier
wonder why they just let it sit there
in the water.
I want it out of there,
blown up,
vanished,
erased;
that pier should no longer sit there
with madmen sleeping inside
the burned-out guts of the funhouse . . .
it's awful, I say, blow the damn thing up,
get it out of my eyes,
that tombstone in the sea.
the madmen can find other holes
to crawl into.
I used to walk that pier when I was 8
years old.

From his collection The Pleasures of the Damned
I grew up in Southport which had its own pier so there's some powerful associations here for me. Here's a link to the history of this pier.

Church History from Scratch

.. in four minutes

Well worth a watch, I do find some of the sound track hard to get my ears around - but maybe that's age..
Hat tip to OCICBW

Street View - again

I suppose, due to having lived in one of the cities featured, there are pictures of two previous residences. Here's the terrace in William St, Leeds:

We bought it, but it seems to have entered the buy to rent market - at least when the camera went past! The coal hole has a plant in front to disguise it, but it has been replaced from the rusty cover in our time!
(And here's a link to a picture of the cats enjoying the hole in the coal hole cover)

That bicentenany

Create 'devolved' pictures of yourself for the Darwin 200th anniversary at the OU commemoration webpage.

When I was in Cambridge I lived for a year at the house (Wychfield) which Francis (Charles' son) had owned. I have a picture somewhere and I'll try to find it this evening...idyllic summer evenings on the croquet lawn are good memories for this cold February day!

Glories of Newcastle

A trip to Newcastle - back on Monday now - to do some IT support. The head offices are in the wonderfully antique Milburn house, built in the 19th century by a shipping magnate along the lines of a ship with the top floor as 'A' and working its way up the alphabet towards the hold.
Some pictures here and particularly here - doesn't have a picture of the wonderful tiling though - I need to have a camera with me next time...

Where were you?

Via Niles and Iain Dale comes this meme for remembering where you were at the time of certain events (or bragging about your age)

• Princess Diana’s death - 31 August 1997 - I had no idea about this until the clock radio came on just before 7 - with I think radio 4 rather than radio 3, I was trying to change it back and not succeeding and it was a little time before the penny dropped. That Sunday morning we had a church coach trip to Llandudno what with those events we forgot that the service had been moved to before the coach departed and just turned up with our packed lunches. I'd have liked to have been present for the service. Spent the day wandering around Llandudno in a bit of a limbo. UK Gold were due to show the Dr Who Armageddon factor which I was intending to tape (as we were out) and they cancelled it to our chagrin.
• Margaret Thatcher’s resignation - 22 November 1990 I heard about this by email! I was working at the Computer Science dept in Manchester and an email was sent around to everyone. The person I shared an office with was foreign and shocked at the news in contract to this local's gladness that it was over. I remember posting to uk.politics later that morning making the link between the events and the US's Thanksgiving day.
• Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001 - at work in Knutsford. I was told by a colleague in the adjacent office, work tended to stop while we picked up what bits of the news were on the internet and a radio was put in the corridor between the offices. Our company's base was in New York state and a colleague was meant to be giving a talk close to the WTC that day.
• England’s World Cup Semi Final v Germany in - 4 July 1990 Sorry, pardon?
• President Kennedy’s Assassination - 22 November 1963 I remember coming downstairs to watch television and being told -or did I see the newsflash? - and being in disbelief

High tech in 1998

Back at the 1998 Lambeth Conference there was a webcam set up for spotting bishops set up at http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk/events/lambeth98/ (unsurprisingly the link no longer works!).
I seem to have this one shot from that webcam:

I can't find an archive of other 1998 webcam shots - so far - anywhere on the web - though I think I did have a animated gif from it copied to a cd somewhere. I'll keep looking!
I can't find a webcam this time around, maybe they're keener on controlling the media - though the flickr photos are good!
(the intellectual level on this blog seems to have gone down since the Stockhausen post)

Scargill History

The Holdsworth family site - who owned Scargill before it became a community/conference centre has a page on the house with the original 1957 estate agent's write up:

Ownership of the Estate carries the right to Pew Sittings in the Parish Church of Kettlewell and share in the Lordship.

hmmm!
Another page has a picture of the house in its Holdsworth days - about 3/4s of the way down that page!

And here's a blog link from a current community member - Shan - thanks to Dave Walker for this!

A bit of History

John Cleese's biography of Oliver Cromwell set to the Chopin Ab polonaise. I shall have the words (and music) haunting me for the rest of the day.

Oliver! (Cromwell)
Lord Protector of England (and his wart)
Born in 1599 and died in 1658, (September).

I hope you've all been educated - if you visit the link!