Positive Letters .... inspirational stories ....

Whisky Galore – and Burns Night ..

2012-01-25T15:49:00.000Z

We cannot go past 25^th January without celebrating Robbie Burns, but as I’ve posted about him before ... I thought whisky galore might be another way of looking at the Scottish whisky legends.

Raspberry Cranachan

So please enjoy your haggis ‘n neaps, cranachan dessert (oatmeal, raspberries, malt whisky, Scottish honey and double cream), toasts of whisky as the pipers pipe the Haggis to the table before serving.

While I remind you of Whisky Galore the book, the film and the Whisky; I’m not sure why Whisky Galore popped into my head, but it did ... and I then found this fascinating tale. (The book in the States was released as ‘Tight Little Island’). I’m sure many of you will have read Compton Mackenzie’s book and/or seen the Whisky Galore Film (1949).

Eriskay is in the Hebrides

Compton Mackenzie’s (1883 - 1972) fictional account based on a real-life incident that occurred in 1941 on the Hebridean island of Eriskay when the S.S. Politician ran aground, and how a group of local Scottish islanders raided a shipwreck for its consignment of whisky – which spawned the legend: Whisky Galore, (the genre for the book is ‘farce’).

Official files released by the National Archives perhaps 70 years after the event (purely deduced from the Article appearing in The Scotsman seventy years afterwards) ... noted that the cargo of the ship trading with Jamaica and the US via New Orleans contained ....

Beautiful treacherous Eriskay

.... cotton, stoves, cutlery, medicines, baths and biscuits. But that was not all she was carrying. Secured in hold number 5 were nearly three million pounds of Jamaican banknotes and 260,000 bottles of first class whisky. As the whisky was for the American market no duty had been paid. The cargo was expected to sell for nearly half a million pounds.

Some innovative and dynamic whisky experts have very cleverly formed themselves into the Whisky Galore Limited company – trading on the famous name.

SS Politician Whisky

Their website tells of the legend and shows pictures of the whiskies they have created for sale under their banner. As I mentioned above the official files released by the Public Records Office show that it was not just spirits that disappeared – but a substantial sum of hard cash.

The book encompassed the islanders’ story of how they were determined ‘to have’ the bottles of whisky before the sea swallowed them completely, or before the Excise men arrived to collect the duty.

The thirsty islanders had nearly run out of the “water of life” and saw the grounding of the cargo vessel as an unexpected godsend. They managed to salvage several hundred cases before Neptune gathered in his bounty.

Mackenzie’s prose captures the various accents of the area and also includes much common Gaelic that was in use at the time; while the book contains a useful glossary of both the meaning and approximately pronunciation of the language.

Whiskies from Malts.com

You can imagine the gloom descending on the disconsolate natives – no spiritual drink ... but hark, a loud thumping crash is carried with the stormy winds, jagged tearing noises rise above the waves – a ship is downed ... the departing crew allow a glint to the residents’ eyes.

Then of course the farce begins ... typical British Home Guard humour – this time the bumptious Cap’n orders the cargo confiscated ... the wily locals determined to outwit that righteous foreign English commander ..

... let ‘battle’ begin – bottles being smuggled away, hidden in crevices, in caves, buried in crypts ... everywhere ingenious hidey-holes being filled – guess who wins this skirmish ... well we know ... and no doubt many toasts with the golden spirit ensued.

The ship held an even greater treasure which 70 years on is known to us today ... eight cases of currency – in all there were nearly 290,000 ten shilling notes, which would be worth the equivalent of several million pounds today.

Ten shilling note: Old Mauve Britannia
notes were only issued in war time
Treasures St Andrews.co.uk

The Crown Agents thought the notes would not get into circulation – and to a degree they were correct, but for years they kept turning up at banks around the world.

The Crown Agents in 1941 also noted in a memorandum “the local police service is in no doubt on a very, very small scale but the nature of the place and its surrounds should tend to reduce the chances of serious loss through the notes being presented and paid.”

Even contraband notes can find their way around the world ... in 1941 one empty cash case was found abandoned ... by 1958, the Crown Agents reported that 211,267 notes had been recovered by the salvage company of Scottish police – and then had been destroyed.

2,638 notes had been presented in banks in England, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Malta, Canada, the United States and Jamaica, of which only 1,509 were thought to have been presented in good faith. But that leaves 76,404 notes which were never accounted for and whose fate remains unknown. I wonder when they will show up – and where they are hidden.

A map of the main taste variables in the vast and bewildering universe of uisge beatha. For further details please visit BigThink.com/ideas/41781 – it’s a wonderful map isn’t it?

So on this day of Burns’ Night – celebrate with a toast of whisky or other tipple to those smugglers, hoarders, escapaders, authors, script writers and film makers who give us these legends to draw images from for our future stories or blog posts ....

Whisky Galore Fudge

... the evening is traditionally brought to an end with a vote of thanks (perhaps some whisky fudge), after which everyone is asked to stand, join hands, and sing Auld Lang Syne ... and here endeth Burns Night for another year!

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Go! Figure ...

2012-01-22T16:04:00.001Z

... the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and the Fibonacci number system.

Fibonacci

Leonardo Fibonacci (c1170 – c1250), an Italian mathematician, as a young boy had travelled with his wealthy Italian merchant father, during which time he realised that arithmetic with Hindu-Arabic numerals was simpler and more efficient than with Roman numerals.

Copy of a Roman Abacus

He set out and travelled the Mediterranean world studying under the leading Arab mathematicians of their time, returning in 1200. At the age of 32 he published what he had learnt in “Liber Abaci” (Book of Abacus or Book of Calculation), thereby popularising the representations we use today.

Briefly the system had been developed by Indian mathematicians in the 1^st to 5^th centuries AD, before being adopted by the Persian mathematicians in India and passed on to the Arabs further west. The numeral system was transmitted to Europe in the Middle Ages, when with Fibonacci’s publication ... the use of Arabic numerals spread around the western world through European trade, books and ultimately colonisation.

Iris - Three

Delphinium - Eight

Primrose - Five

Fibonacci numbers follow an integer sequence and by definition the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0 and 1, with each subsequent number being the sum of the previous two:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, .... as can be seen in these flower photos and their petals

Cineraria - Thirteen

Bellis Daisy, 13, 21 or 34

Chicory - Twenty One

The surprising thing perhaps, or should it be unsurprising, is that they occur naturally in biological settings, such as the branching in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruit spouts of a pineapple, the flowering of an artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone.

Michaelmas Daisies - 55 or 89
with Red Admiral Butterflies

The Sunflower
has 21, 34, 55, 89, or 144 clockwise
paired respectively with
34, 55, 89, 144, or 233
counterclockwise

We have always relied on numbers – our lives depend on them - the Roman legions used them, the Domesday book recorded them, as did the pioneers through the centuries – Archimedes, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Hooke, Darwin, Einstein – while today in the UK we have the Census, which has been held every ten years since 1801. (As a note censuses have been around for 4,000 years and been used in China, India, Ancient Israel, Egypt and even in the 15^th by the Incas).

The Core is Eden’s innovative education centre:

see the roof and the sculpted seed below

Today engineers, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, architects, artists ... are all expanding our use and knowledge of numbers – improving on design, solar energy, lightness of materials, optimising architectural layouts, miniaturisation, et al – there is magic in those numbers ... and in the human brain that makes use of them.

The design consists of a central hollow trunk

and roof structure reminiscent of a tree canopy.

The central trunk houses a giant seed (right).

The spiralling pattern of the roof is based

on the Fibonacci sequence.

There is a most beautiful short video 3.44 in the Brain Pickings post on "The Man of Numbers": Fibonacci – by Keith Devlin .. the video is stunning .. and puts to shame all my above words – what a wonderful way of explaining the Fibonacci system: enjoy.

TheTelegraph newspaper article on: A book by Keith Devlin published by Bloomsbury called “The Man of Numbers” has caused a renewed stir of popular interest.

Sunflowersand Solar Energy : Wired Science

The Eden Project in Cornwall

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Quilted Seaweed Anyone?

2012-01-17T22:03:00.000Z

One hundred years ago today a heroic group of English men had trekked across the Antarctic to the South Pole only to have their jubilation taken away – Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian team had arrived five weeks earlier ....

Scott’s party at the South Pole,

18 January 1912.

L to R: (standing) Oates, Scott, Wilson,

(seated) Bowers, Edgar Evans.

... the bleak perils of pioneering exploration a hundred years ago exemplified by being beaten to the line ... no wonder Scott wrote: (17^th January 1912)

“The Pole. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected. We have had a horrible day .... this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well it is something to have got here .... Now the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it ..... "

The Oxo food company was one of

many commercial sponsors

of the expedition.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868 – 1912) rose rapidly through the ranks, being recommended as commander of the National Antarctic Expedition before he was 30 in 1898, where he proved himself both as an intrepid and able leader, but more importantly to us one hundred years later a competent scientific investigator.

Scott's Hut

Scott’s base camp hut – which had been prefabricated back home and shipped out – was insulated with seaweed sewn into a quilt, placed between double-planked inner and outer walls. The roof is a sandwich of three layers of plank and two layers of rubber ply enclosing more quilted seaweed.

The trip had been planned as best possible for those days – transport was looked at – Siberian horses, huskies, wooden sleds, wooden skis, sheepskins for the bedding, thick woollen jumpers, plenty of food and I mean plenty ...

... Scott was a leader amongst men, he went about the business of enabling the expedition – travelling the country raising funds, interviewing team members, establishing his plans with such fervour.

Lawrence 'Titus' Oates with
his horses - taken by Ponting

Herbert George Ponting was considered one of the finest travel photographers of the age and thought of himself as a photographic artist. Ponting remembered that he warmed to Scott for his enthusiasm.

Scott told him of his plans for scientific research – for geology, zoology, biology, meteorology, physiography and for photography – it was to be a special department: and so it was – as we know today in 2012.

Ponting trained Scott and his men in photography ... the results were revolutionary, as the camera took over from the pencil as the most accurate means of recording the Antarctic landscapes and the explorers.

An iceberg adrift off the
coast of the peninsula

Ponting ensured that Scott and Bowers (the appointed photographer for that last fateful trip) could release the shutter by means of a long thread ... so that all who reached the Pole might appear in the group photo.

The Expedition set out – the scientific members as well as those five selected for the final push to the Pole ... and today we have a greater understanding and appreciation of the rigours to achieve that goal.

Those five perished, but other team members and Ponting with his photographs returned to England ... he then toured with his “Mr Herbert G Ponting’s Cinema Lecture with Captain Scott in the Antarctic”.

Scott’s Discovery hut at Hut Point, used as a shelter

and stores depot during the Terra Nova expedition

Antarctica, attics and family archives are releasing their secrets of Scott’s expeditionary force ... in 2009 a stash of 100 year old butter was unearthed, and there are still dozens of wooden boxes hidden beneath the permafrost – as the base-camp hut was tiny (50ft x 25ft {15m x 7.5m}) ... they took out 8,000 items of original expedition gear!

A Weddell Seal

Ben Fogle says in his report about the hut – the first thing I noticed was the odour and the silence, no wind howl. In Antarctica there is generally no smell – but in the hut aromas of old leather, pipe smoke, wood and horses, still linger – along with a deep, powerful musty smell – this he learnt later was blubber.

The seal blubber used for lamp fuel and food, was still piled in a corner ... as well as thousands of items of Edwardian food. Tins of sardines, ox tongue and Heinz baked beans are stacked next to tins of Huntley and Palmers biscuits.

Emperor Penguins

The cabin was so well equipped that it was used for another two years by the men of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Ross Sea expedition who were stranded from their ship in 1915 ... thanks to Scott’s ample supplies, they survived in relative comfort. Shackleton before his return in 1917 had the hut put in order and locked up.

As we know the weather conditions were appalling and Scott never made it back to base and safety – they all perished ... their bodies were recovered and decently buried near the hut – Scott’s journal was removed from his body.

The Antarctic is releasing its secrets, while the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust is working tirelessly to preserve Scott’s Hut in situ – though a replica has been set up at the new Exhibition opening at the National History Museum.

The earth, as we know, is constantly moving and one day those entombed bodies will reach the sea, having finally completed their journey from the South Pole. And Scott, the captain, will finally be buried at sea.

Scott's "Army and Navy" Thin Pocket Diary
1910 - the entries are terse and limited to little
more than times, dates and names and places

The Natural History’s Exhibition will reveal the powerful tales of endurance and celebrate their many scientific achievements, while allowing site of original artefacts used by Scott and his team.

Today we are probing into the hot volcanic waters below the Antarctic icecap to further our knowledge – now that we have polar thermal wear to protect us against the extremes of weather; then with new technologies ... so that tongue tips don’t get stuck and left behind on brass camera knobs, as happened to Ponting a century ago ... we are opening the polar horizons to our 21^st century scientists.

Memorial window in Binton Church,

Warwickshire, one of four panels.

This one depicts the cairn erected

over the site of Scott’s last tent.

Yet – Scott helped reveal that Antarctica was once part of the supercontinent, Gondwana, after Glossopteris Indica (one of the collected fossilised samples) was duly classified.

Lawrence Oates’ saying as he left the team’s tent .. in the hope that the last three member would be able to continue “I am just going outside and may be some time” ...

Scott had written ‘Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale’.

The heroic sacrifice of this small band of men who were willing to give their lives to science and discovery ... were at the South Pole 100 years ago today.

However I don’t think I’ll be trying to quilt seaweed any time soon ....!

Brain Pickings.org - The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott

The Mail Online: Ben Fogle finds inspiration in Scott's base camp

Natural History Museum: Captain Scott's Antarctic Exhibition

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

When I’m Sixty-Four ...

2012-01-13T14:04:00.001Z

Carbis Bay Hotel - fine dining

Well – yes! Amazing to think that those Beatles’ lyrics written forty-nine years ago are still so relevant today ... and did any of us every think we’d see the year 2000 AD, or for that matter get to 64 – the new Middle Age?

... will you still be sending me a valentine

Birthday greetings bottle of wine?

... will you still need me, will you still feed me,

when I’m sixty-four?

Oh and I have some lovely history for you ... and some wonderful looooong words! Just my kind of day – well perhaps if I was forever young?

What is today? – Friday the 13^th ... yonks ago I was 13 on Friday 13^th ... if you’re going to have a birthday on the 13^th do it properly ... and really properly ...

... with so many connotations falling at this time of year: St Hilary’s Day – today – the start of the University Hilary term, and the start of the Hilary Law term ... such is life – on top of that hilarious means full of happiness – here too I remain true to my name.

So I reflect January 13^th ... now comes the interesting bit?! I have no fear of Friday 13^th, but if you do it is called friggatriskaidekaphobia!!!

Frigg's grass

Frigga being the Norse goddess for whom Friday is named, and the next bit triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number 13 – there is a Greek connection too – but I’ll leave you to explore that.

Superstition holds Friday the 13^th to be a day of bad luck ... but sometimes we bring those portends with us – and if we get on with life ... all will be well: my way of living. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here .... and I quite like being here and would like to remain so for a while longer yet.

The Curzon

Just to change the subject as I’m wont to do ... and as I’m a talkative blogger – I’ll go silent for a while ... back one hundred years to the Silent Movie Days.

1912 offered three cinemas to audiences in Eastbourne (an innovative town), while ‘our’ cinema, The Curzon, first opened in 1920 as The Picturedrome ... by the time 1930 came round there were 9 cinemas.

I’m a dedicated supporter for 20 years now of our Eastbourne Film Society, which celebrated its 60^th anniversary in 2006, who use The Curzon for their performances.

The Society gave us a performance of the silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928) on the release of a new print – highly praised by Robert Ebert ... and which mesmerised me totally as my post reflects.

The keyboard of a "Mighty Wurlitzer" from the
Museum of Musical Instruments, Berlin

Neil Brand, that Doyen of silent accompanists, joined us at the piano for our Joan of Arc show ... the Wurlitzer having long gone. Neil hails from Eastbourne when the Curzon was his stamping ground in his early days of restoring the Silent Movie Musician to his rightful place in the history of film.

“The Artist” (2011), the-little-movie-that-could success story that has snowballed into an audience favourite – a Cannes award-winner ... and who knows as the respect for this French upstart plays on towards the major prizes.

Eastbourne from the Downs

The Curzon will not let us down ... and the movie will come to town – Kevin Maher in the Saturday Times Review says ... ‘The Artist' is a testament to the fundamentals of cinematic storytelling, and a threnody for an art-form undone by the demands of dialogue. (Remember Hitchcock on dialogue? A good movie, he said, works with the sound off.)

This is a film I will not
be seeing!

So today is a day for celebration friggatriskaidekaphobia withstanding! Over 100 years of cinema, 82 years of talkies to the day in Eastbourne, a cinema that’s ticking on towards 100, over 65 years of the Film Society, actually I too am now officially in my 65^th year albeit I call myself 64 ...

... and one last celebration ... this is my first post of year four at blogging, number 375, which as Clarissa mentioned is about four novels worth – 380,000 words. How this tangled mess of eclectic thoughts could ever be put into a novel is beyond me ... I’m sure sometime a few booklets will appear.

Many of the Beatles thoughts appear not to relate ... but they perhaps do in ways I could never expect ... my mother still needs me when I’m 64 – we just never know where life will lead us.

The bottle of wine will be enjoyed – my mother was surprised to see me pull one out of her drawer wrapped up in one of her cloths that Susie had hidden away for me!

Fricka rides a chariot in
this illustration by
Arthur Rackman to
Richard Wagner's
Der Ring de Nubilungen

And I learnt a new word ... keeping the old brain cells ticking over ... ‘threnody’ = a song, hymn or poem of mourning composed from the Greek word threnos (wailing) and the Proto-Indo-European root wed (to speak) ... that is also the precursor of such words as ode, tragedy, comedy, parody, melody and rhapsody.

Please note ‘threnody’ refers to the resurgence of The Silents as they continue apace ... to the first three decades of the 20^th century – when movies were cross-cultural and, without language barriers to bother them, could focus on artistic excellence and storytelling, and is not a dirge to me!!

Thus in the 1920s a horror film from Germany, such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, happily co-existed with the Charlie Chaplin melodrama, The Kid, or the Buster Keaton comedy Our Hospitality.

These films, and this era, bore witness to one of the 20th century’s most enduring inventions – movie stars. Here Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were the global role models, and even established the studio United Artists, in 1919, to protect their burgeoning brands.

I list Kevin Maher’s Top Ten Silent Films – for interest:

1. The Passion of Joan of Arc: Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928.

2. Nanook of the North: Robert J Flaherty, 1922.

3. The Great Train Robbery: Edwin S Porter, 1903.

4. A Trip to the Moon: Georges Méliès, 1902.

5. Sunrise: F W Murnau, 1927.

6. The General: Buster Keaton, 1926.

7. Broken Blossoms: D W Griffith, 1919.

8. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari: Robert Wiene, 1920.

9. Metropolis: Fritz Lang, 1927.

10. Battleship Potemkin: Sergei M Eisenstein, 1925.

As I said – I’m wordy .. but they only pop up on your Reader once every x days ... no commitment as to days of posting I note!

1904 Easbourne Life Boat station

My mother will be as surprised as I am that I have reached this tender age - she told me a while I ago ... I'd never reach her age, and I'd be a double O old aged pensioner ... those sorts of comments bring lots of laughs and good memories.

PS I cannot link to Kevin Maher's article - as it's behind a paywall.

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Tying Loose Ends ... or just loosening more strings?

2012-01-09T17:27:00.001Z

If I said six toed elephants, Great Barrier Reef, a deluge of fish, a loveliness of ladybirds, shark hybrids and perfume – you would know what I was referring to – wouldn’t you?!

Satellite image of part of the Great Barrier

Reef adjacent to the Queensland coastal

areas of Airlie Beach and Mackay.

This weird and wonderful world ... our natural wonders, weird events, new species and then the ever changing flora and fauna – that happens so imperceptibly, which fortunately the scientific geeks of today can and do record.

The naturalists of the past started us on this road of knowledge ... Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (AD 77 – 79); Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist and encyclopaedic author, published 36 volumes of his Histoire Naturelle during his lifetime (1707 – 1788); in England specialisation had started to creep in as seen in my N for Naturalist postunder last year’s A – Z Challenge; ...

The English Channel and the Great Barrier Reef have one thing in common – they became as they are today after the Great Ice Age thaw 20,000 to 10,000 years ago ....

Cassowary - upper body

.... woolly mammoths used to roam from England to Europe, while the coastal plain of the Great Barrier Reef was grazed and occupied by early Rainforest and Reef life.

All habitats are interdependent – adapt or die is the world’s maxim: the mammoth died out, the Goanna on Lizard Island adapted to island life by becoming a generalist. The Cassowary lives on ... just.

A familiar scene - simultaneously
showing the lithosphere,
hydrosphere and atmosphere

The waters of the lagoon of the Great Barrier Reef offer much to its changing world – the tidal displacements, as too the seasonal ones, the storms, the diurnal cycle – all play a major role within the biosphere of the Reef.

Having just posted about perfume – I was surprised to find that fish exude perfume ... and can be smelled out by other predatory fish e.g. the cone snail, which paralyses its victim before swallowing whole.

Cone Snail

While the parrot fish emits a cocoon of mucous to sleep in, but even that can be sensed out by the white tip reef shark through twitching muscles and the bio-electrical signals it emits.

Two species of the black-tip shark (local Australian and global counterpart) have very recently been confirmed by researchers to be interbreeding – ‘which is very surprising, and is not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination’.

Panda's Thumb

The elephant “now” has six toes – the sixth one buried beneath the leathery skin of its foot, is not a true toe – it’s more like a panda’s faux thumb, but nonetheless supports the pachyderm’s mighty girth ...

Weird events ... fish falling from the sky – almost certainly a water spout had swept them up and quietly deposited them in suburbia ....

A loveliness of ladybirds

.... a loveliness of ladybirds in California – the aphid plague leads to a loveliness profusion.

Cappuccino coast – I posted about it in 2009 – the soup stirred up by the ocean storms meeting the flood enriched waters from the land ... it looks like soap but is a surfactant naturally released by the dying plankton.

The osteopath I have who visits my mother to help her with her joints – both stroked and unstroked – asked if I’d heard of the book ‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind ... I bought a copy – and it is fascinating ... about 18^th C Paris and a chap who has an extraordinary (almost superhuman) sense of smell. It contains amazing descriptive passages.

The blacktip shark has black markings
on most of its fins

The connection of my ‘Perfume posts’ and this book, and then the fact that fish can smell and emit scent – had never ever occurred to me.

Phidippus Clarus - Hairy jumping spider

There are many new species being found, evolving, inter-breeding, or scientists are finding out why or how their anatomy is being used ... spiders’ hairs may be specialised independent ears – which nature has optimised as the spider has evolved.

Unravelling 'strings' ...

We are in an incredible world where everything in the biosphere – the air and sky, the land, the seas and outer shell of our earth with all its occupants – are forever tied together ...

The lovers Okiku and Yosuke

play cat’s cradle,

by Eishosai Choki (1804)

Japanese Woodblock print

... a ‘string’ releases, yet is tied back to our planet ... we can unravel and understand more ... but those balls of life form the global sum of all ecosystems – our zone of life – everything is and will always be linked.

All is woven together forever, synchronised, constantly evolving, changing, adapting – we only seem to change our thumbs ... so we can text, or perhaps improve our playing of the strings for cat’s cradle.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

The Times They Are a-Changin’ ....

2012-01-04T14:45:00.001Z

Time is a great teacher ... a great healer ... it offers much ...

Le Temps,

Charles van der Stappen

– National Botanical Garden

of Belgium, Meise: Time's

mortal aspect is personified

in this bronze statue

We think the world stays the same – year in year out ... yet new countries are ‘born’ ... rather a lot recently .. the ex Russias, the split Yugoslavia, thirteen independents – think Namibia, the Marshall islands, Micronesia, then unification of the Germanies, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated.

The tiny Caribbean island of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten divided by French/Dutch rule – in September 2010 Sint Maarten became a constituent country of The Netherlands.

First Puffin nests found
on Surtsey 2004

New islands ‘pop’ up .. there’s a new volcanic island in the Red Sea that’s recently appeared .. will it last and ultimately have a name ... who knows.

A good example is Surtsey, south of Iceland, first appearing in 1963, two years later it was declared a nature reserve for the study of ecological succession; plants, insects, birds, seals, and other forms of life have since established themselves on the island.

Europe 2006 - Iceland top left

As children we have much to learn about the world order, but it is in later life that we start to understand the complexities of our planet and history .... I do understand now that no wonder I struggled collecting stamps as there were country changes then, or absorption by governments, or war ...

... I sort of grasped that the British (and at that time the Americas’) calendar had changed and 11 days had been lost in the 1700s on the realignment of the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one in 1752.

Salvador Dali's exploding clock 1954

The Republic of Venice and the Roman Empire changed in 1582, while Russia only realigned in 1918 with the advent of the Revolution, but Greece hung out until 1924 (is that telling us something?)

We were vividly reminded of change by Samoa and the Tokelau (an archipelago north of Samoa), which decided they would miss out Friday December 30^th 2011 altogether and just switch sides! So they now reside as one of the first places on earth – not the last ... having “decreed” that the dateline be moved to ‘run’ east of their islands!

Blowholes in
Samoan Islands
- volcanic activity

There’s a commercial advantage for these islanders .. at long last they are on the same clock wave length as Australia, New Zealand and Asia ...

... however 767 Samoans missed out on their birthday last year, and 43 wedding anniversaries would be cheaper too ... but employers had to pay for the extra (missed) day.

Seth Godin says there is an artificiality of time ... it was only once the railways came in and timetables (self explanatory really!) needed to be set up, did the co-ordination of clocks come into force.

We have to clock in and clock out, rush in ... rush out .... in the slow lane of life, set times for all things .... but now the internet opens up those time frames: how much time do we wish to invest in technical abilities and all that the net offers: those amazing opportunities available 24/7.

Time is static isn’t it ... Greenwich Mean Time is GMT and from here (as I just about sit) on the 0 degrees Prime (Greenwich) Meridian... all hours minutes and seconds are counted down according to the invisible GMT laser line ... from which time is calculated according to the Earth’s rotation.

But yet ... Maria Popova at Brain Pickings has uncovered “Just a Second” a lovely and refreshing book for kids, doubling as a curious and enjoyable trivia compendium for grown-ups (my kind of book!). Check out her post ... from the 5,085-foot water journey of a whales song, to the 50-beats of a hummingbird’s wings to the 300-foot plunge of the a peregrine falcon .... all happen in a single second.

A measure that the author, Steve Jenkins, points out is a human invention: “The second doesn’t relate to any cycle in nature – but it is the shortest interval of time most of us use in our daily lives. The Babylonians came up with the idea of a second about 4,000 years ago, but they had no way to measure such a short interval of time”

One compelling statistic .. 4 babies are born, 2 people die ... every second.

Going back to clocks that measure time – that standard of GMT, which we in Britain don’t even subscribe to properly .. having adopted British Summer Time during those months utilising more of the daylight hours.

FOCS 1, a continuous cold caesium fountain

atomic clock in Switzerland, started operating

in 2004 at an uncertainty of

one second in 30 million years.

The Chinese with their soaring aspirations in space are establishing a rival to the US global positioning system – and have hit the same snag with time that has prompted the US and others to propose the global replacement of GMT with the International Atomic Time by 2017 ... that of "leap seconds”. So it looks like time will be ‘ruled’ by satellites with atomic clocks in a few years.

Time may change, countries change, everything changes ... we last approximately 80 – 100 years, the Greenwich time has lasted 127 years so far .... countries come and go – people do not ... we are in a period of unbounded opportunity – the internet allows us that luxury of looking a gift horse in the mouth ... and not shying away ... allowing our dreams to come true, our goals to achieve.

Dylan’s last verse for The Times They Are a’Changin recorded in 1964 have been as prophetic as each of us wish to consider, at whatever tender age we happen to be:

“The order is rapidly fadin'

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin'”

Opportunity does reign if we can grasp it – while remembering others who do not have our optimism and creativity .... help ourselves and in the process help others.

I quote from Steve Jobs: “Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure. These things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose”

Happy New Year and a very good 2012 to you all.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Auld Lang Syne ... here comes 2012: Welcome New Year ..

2011-12-31T18:03:00.000Z

The song we will all sing (or hear the next day for those sleepyheads!) is the classic that was spread by the Scots, English, Welsh, Cornish and Irish as they emigrated around the world.

Happy New Year card
Geraniums ca 1880

Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) even plagiarised the old song – when he sent a copy of the original song to the Scots Musical Museum, he remarked “The following song, an old song, of the olden times, has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man”.

Burns collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them and whether we use the original melody as Burns intended ... or not it is the one that is widely used today.

The phrase “Auld Lang Syne” is also used in similar poems by Robert Ayton (1570 – 1638, Allan Ramsay (1686 – 1757) and James Watson (1711) as well as in older folk songs predating Burns .... and appears to be an ‘equivalent’ of “Once upon a time ....”

“Old long since”, or more idiomatically “long long ago”, “days gone by”, or “old times” – consequently “for auld lang syne”, as it appears in the first line of the chorus, is loosely translated as “for (the sake of) old times”.

Auld Lang Syne: English translation (minimalist version)

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a wearyfoot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

Cover to Banjo Paterson's seminal

1905 collection of bush ballads,

entitled The Old Bush Songs

These old songs were the ballads that we now know and were often a narrative set to music (before writing became commonplace) from the later Medieval period (1300s and on) until the early 1800s ..

The term ‘ballad’ probably derives its name from the Medieval French dance songs or “ballares” (from which we also get ballet). The storytelling concepts would have come in from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions as reflected in that great poem: “Beowulf”.

Literary ballads today we know reflect the work of Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge to name a few ... and were encompassed by the Ballad Operas (eg The Beggar’s Opera 1728)... as well as stories from north America ... “The Ballad of Davy Crocket” ... or the "Bush Ballads" that gained a foothold in the rural Australian outback.

A statue representing Janus Bifrons
in the Vatican Museums

So today we sing the words “we’ll take a cup of kindness yet” as Janus, the God of Gates, Doors and Beginnings, with his two faces ... looking forward and back ... awaits the pagan New Year.

Tomorrow: New Year’s Day is the one true global public holiday – celebrated by many with fireworks to spark 2012 into life ... and Auld Lang Syne to “ ‘remember our trusty friends’ as we’ll take aright good-will draught .... for auld lang syne”.

Happy New Year and a very successful and joy-filled 2012 ... busy year ahead.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Alice’s Story .... Jam Jars ... and my goddaughter’s remembrances ...

2011-12-29T16:44:00.003Z

Do you remember going to the cinema and paying with a jam jar, a piece of lead pipe, tin cans, or rags .... Or?

In the 1930s, those Depression years, and during the War – children could gain entry to the Matinee cinema performance by paying with a jam jar!!

1930s children

Children came from all around, usually on bicycles if they were in the country, eager to join the queue – every effort was made to earn or have the 2p admission ... but, if not, a jam jar would do!

Extra farthings, half-pennies or pennies went towards sweets, oranges or buns ... Ice-creams only becoming available from the usherette in the middle of the 20^th Century when refrigeration became cheaper.

A farthing - 1/4 of a Penny

The Corporation trucks would collect the jam jars to go to the jam factory; the rags and rabbit skins would go to be cleaned and made into rough blankets; the tin cans and lead pipe were headed to the aircraft factories .... all legitimate for the War effort.

The glass collection continued on into the 1970s when beer and pop bottles were collected and returned for cash ... great for pocket money and/or recycling.

The Curzon Cinema Eastbourne:
opened its doors in 1913

Nutty neighbours? – well one man used to tell the local kids that he would go to the cinema and pay with a jam jar – they assumed he was off his rocker or nuts ... he was usually - but just not with this particular remembrance!

One question – if the jam jars were at the cinema: “Where did the children keep their minnows and sticklebacks?”

Large! minnow in jam jar!

This raised a point with my honorary goddaughter D – as mentioned in my last post ... she reminded me of the time when (her twin) Amy and Simon came down with their mother and Gogo (grandma) to stay. They must have been 8 and 5 at the time .... when we went to see my uncle.

Derek’s big garden was wonderful for children – lots of shrubs to run around amongst, trees to hide behind, the raised house with its ‘stoop’ (African balcony) for us to sit on and have tea – keeping an ever watchful eye on darting youngsters.

Similar full bordered pond to
my uncle's

Then right in front my aunt had dug a huge pond – she was petite, probably less than 5 feet, which to clean (my uncle told me!) she took off her clothes and went in up to her neck to sort it out! She had fisherman’s waders for the lighter jobs!

This pond was a relative monster having been based on a Dew Pond ... my aunt was a perfectionist ... and it had been very well constructed (a necessity coming from an engineering family). She had planted it with rushes, water lilies, added goldfish and Koi ... it was a lovely sight from our balcony vantage point ...

Koi

There was a slightly wobbly path running around the back, with a tall, full border of perennial shrubs – azaleas, roses, et al (can’t remember in other words!). Not really room for adults and kids ... but that’s the way it goes.

Public Pond - Yacht Racing

Derek had all the mod cons out – or ancient much loved relics of childhoods gone ... two model sail boats ... that would get marooned in the middle and our tall stick couldn’t reach them ... til the wind blew them free.

The kids delighted in these running around, rescuing the ships out of the rushes, darting to the back as they sailed further out of reach to the far shore .....

.... then a Cri de Coeur – Hilly, Hilly ... can we have a jam jar? Why? There’s fishes here and we want to catch them ... oh look there’s babies too .... oh, oh please can we have some jar jars ...

Fish in the Faroe Islands:

Stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) –

Faroese stamp issued 7 February 1994

... so jam jars they had – poor fish extracted from their watery living quarters to be fair and square deposited on the hot paving slabs of that path ... where they slithered unhappily ... as the kids squealed and screamed with delight.

A good memory from D of happy days in Derek’s garden ... which ties in well with Jam Jars ... so the chap was right to question – but what about the sticklebacks and minnows .... ours didn’t last long as they quietly ‘fried alive’ .. my sloshing with water didn’t help much I don’t think!

Still these are good laughter memories – the jam jar trip to the cinema – was new to me ... as well as D’s remembrance of another time over at Derek’s .. that resonates very happily in her mind to this day .... so Jam Jars too have stories to tell.

Quick update on my mother ... I think presents trigger her interest! Christmas Day went .. but Boxing Day she came too and I asked if she wanted to open some presents ... we did – and she raised her head up trying to look round me to see what I was doing as I was setting something up – quizzy as ever, not wanting to miss out!

Garden Dew Pond with water lilies

She was really interested ... and then I read the cards and Christmas notes/letters I had up in her room ... but that was enough. The main thing she was happy and interested ... and today I read some of my A – Z short blog posts ... we read A – D ... not bad.

My Dew Pond post ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Birthdays ....

2011-12-19T08:48:00.000Z

An Aga

I’m sure we all know people at this time of year who have birthdays, but in the melee of festivities their actual birth-day is glossed over. This is to remember all those who will and have been over the years missing out on a celebratory day – unless of course they’re really clever and have a half-day – in June or July on this side of the hemisphere.

Stuffed Mushrooms

I have a few great friends round this time – and one on Boxing Day – who just vanishes to warmer climes – she came from South Africa, but I knew her years before I went over there. I simply cannot blame her for escaping! I made hay while the sun shone for my own day in January when I lived in Johannesburg.

Fresh veggie = essentials

My uncle’s birthday was today ... and since my aunt had died he’d almost been forgotten about – friends would come down, but the rest of us many relatives were tied up with our Christmas rush.

I just decided one year to give him a surprise party .... and invited a few people that he knew, some relatives, cousins of ours, my family and a few locals ... keeping it very small and quite open ended.

Cold meat selection
(ours were in finger pieces)

Not a good time – but if everyone was told ... party time with a buffet lunch from 11.30 onwards, then I reckoned I get a few more takers ... and we did.

My honorary god-daughter D (she was born on the same day as my real god-daughter .. and they’ve remained friends – great isn’t it) aged 12 or so .. was very happy to spend a night at my house ... playing games, having a sleep-over, while I grafted and organised the food: a surprise is a surprise.

Herby bread

Derek knew D and I were going over to have lunch with him – so he was expecting us ... but the first thing on our arrival was .... “well dearest Derek – we have invited a few friends to come round for lunch”. Help – he then wanted to rush around ... nope – D ordered him to sit down – gave him a cup of coffee ...

Devils on Horseback

... we did have to ask him to get up to turn the central heating back on ... but after that – it was fairly plain sailing. Finger food, plenty of choice for elderly palettes, was unloaded, for simplicity and to save on washing up - paper plates, plastic cups and cutlery were laid out, Christmas baubles, decorations and tinsel were ‘decoratively’ strewn around ...

... the Aga was ready for the few things that needed heating or warming ... the platters were laid up and we were set to go ... all in about 45 minutes ... as the first guests came through the door – I’d asked some special friends of his to come early to soothe his rattled soul ... at the suddenness of party time!

Winter Garden

Langata was a typical Kenyan house ... large windows onto a stoop (balcony) overlooking the garden ... which my aunt had designed and laid out, as she’d done for the house! Some lady! The garden stretched out before us ... crispy and even in its wintry cover ... but beautiful in its form.

As each set of guests stepped through the door from about 11.45 onwards to about 2.30 ... my uncle’s eyes popped out ... people came and went – which was ideal ... never too many at once.

Cheese and Grapes

The Birth Day became an annual event ... and even last year after he had died and the house had been sold – the new owners invited the next door Garden Nursery people to drinks on the same day – so as it happened the tradition continued. Melanie said to me .. it was so strange going round knowing Derek was no longer there.

My uncle was thrilled and said nobody had thrown a party for him ... he proclaimed he’d never had a birthday party .... perhaps true in that week before Christmas – so I was glad I could treat him to something special.

Gooey no bake chocolate cake
waiting to be cut into squares

He was amazed .... everyone helped clear up and sort things out ... the fridge was packed with some delicious left-overs and he was happy in his excitement of the day ....

Happy Birthday to all who get the rough end of the stick by being born at this time of year – it’s not their fault though is it?!

Thank you for your support, friendship and wonderful comments during the year and now a very Merry Christmas to one and all ... and an exceptionally happy 2012 in the year ahead ...

Blessings and Peace to all in the world – may we become a compassionate, caring and thoughtful race –

Please remember the Filippinos, who are very worried about their family and friends in the recent storms in Mindanao ... Perla (our carer my mother calls Cleopatra) being one of them ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

The Christmas A – Z has come early ...

2011-12-13T13:34:00.000Z

Hi everyone – I’m over at Lee’s Blog reminiscing on the A – Z Challenge with a few extra mulled creative thoughts A to Zed threaded in .. I hope you’ll join us ...

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Once I caught a fish alive

Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

Then I let it go again ...

Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen Gad’s alive

It’s Lee and Wifie’s Anniversarie

Fourteen years to the day: the thirteenth

Of that devilish twelfth month end of

Two Thousand and Eleven.....

Congratulations Lee and Happy Anniversary to you both ...

JD's book

Now for the ‘serious’ bit ... J D Meier ( an amazingly well organised man and his blog!) .. has a new post up entitled “How to Market Your Book” – and it’s a resource that some of you may find useful to read and mull over during this Christmas period – and perhaps take advantage of his thoughts in 2012 ... so please click on over: Sources of Insight.

Happy Christmas!

That’s me done, dusted and icing sugared for this post ... head on over to Lee’s Blogging Challenge Blog ... it’s just so much fun being a part of this great group of supportive bloggers – wonderful friends from around the world ...

12 Days of Christmas

A to Zed, is as simple as ABC or One, Two, Three Buckle My Shoe – and apologies to all Nursery Rhyme lovers!

Last but not least ... Ada Z as she is usually known by (Ada Zdanowicz - of CollagePodge) designed the amazing A-to-Z badge - and this needs to be enlarged for you all to see the crossword detail - clever isn't she?! Lee's post for Ada.

Have fun – enjoy all the posts on the A – Z reflections ... Cheers from me and Hello to Lee .... here’s to a wonderful year end and successful 2012.

Happy Anniversary – you two Birdies .....

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Tea Bags!

2011-12-07T17:35:00.002Z

Christmas aroma – mince pies, plum pudding, brandy sauce, rich Christmas cake baking away ... what was that all pervading spicy smell that my little nose could smell all the time – Eureka – I found the culprits ... Tea Bags!

Yogi Products
via Amazon

Some German friends of my mother’s had sent us over a pack of Christmas Collection teabags ... so the ‘warm holiday notes and exotic spices’ have been wafting around making me wonder where the scent came from. I am not complaining .. they really do smell Christmassy.

Described as a perfect cup of Christmas .... it’s the ideal tea to share ... twelve different types:

Classic

Rooibos

Sweet Chilli

Schoko/Choco

Lakritz/Liquorice

Jamaika/Jamaica

Glucks Tee/Bright Mood

Lebensfreude/Heartwarming

Ingwer Hibiskus/Ginger Hibiscus

Inger Zitrone Tee/ Ginger Lemon

Abend Tee/Bedtime

Black Chai

Hotel Louis C Jacob Hotel, Hamburg

The Herb and Spice Infusions (ingredients) make for some interesting reading:

Cinnamon Liquorice Ginger Rooibusch Cocoa shells

Fennel Basil Cardamom Roasted Chicory Hibiscus

Black Tea Peppermint Carob Lemon grass

Barley Malt Black Pepper Anise Spearmint

Chamomile Cloves Dried Lemon Juice Orange Peel

Lemon Balm Hops Citrus Extract (natural flavour [nf])

Nettle Lavender Flowers Sage Lemon Peel

Orange Extract (nf) Cinnamon extract (nf) Ginger Oil

Turmeric Root Beetroot Chilli Pepper Nutmeg

Fenugreek Yarrow flower Cardoman Oil

Vanilla Beans Vanilla Extract

The Library at the Hotel

The soggy tea bag has come a long way since being first marketed in hand-sewn silk bags over 100 years ago; a New York merchant shipped his loose tea around the world in these bags, which were meant to be emptied, but convenience quickly became the norm – and tea bags, coffee bags etc were born.

The silk teabags resembled paper sacks, before the invention of the rectangular one in 1944. Silk gave way to paper fibre. Now we have all sorts of shapes and sizes for our loose teas made with many varieties of tea infusions, herbs and spices.

The Bistro - part of the Hotel

The Yogi Tea range, from which my Christmas Spiced teas have come, is by a company formed in 1969 when Yogi Bhajan, a teacher of holistic living started sharing his knowledge of Ayurveda.

It’s interesting how that quintessential English drink “tea” now reaches all corners of the earth ... in various guises and where herbalists have created brews for the 21^st century .. that come back to Eastbourne, England, via Hamburg, Germany but with roots in China and India, transhipped to America ... using many Asian herbs and spices.

Similar Ice Creams

Interesting snippets – Tetley’s introduced the tea bag into England after rationing had ended (not during rationing) ... I expect we thought we were getting more tea for our ‘bucks’ ...

Ever thought about collecting tea bags? Apparently there are sites for tea bag collectors – strange idea!

Teabag folding – is a form of Origami – whereby the fronts of the tea bag sachets are turned into rosettes .. and can be used to decorate gift cards ...

Hamburg on the Elbe -
pink splodge just above here!

Sunburn (not in this neck of the woods now – it’s rather cold) can be treated with recycled used tea-bags ...

Finally I have to thank the Hanseatic League (that economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe: the Baltic to the North Sea and, later on, inland during the 13^th – 17^th centuries) for allowing ships to penetrate right up the Elbe to the hub of Hamburg.

The Terrace on the banks of the Elbe

These trade links allowed my mother and I to stay at an old coach house on the Elbe, on the outskirts of Hamburg where these German friends live ... the Louis C Jacob hotel is on the list of the best small hotels in the world .... it was a big treat!

A few years ago, when they were excavating to update and improve the hotel ... the digger nearly fell into a hole 100 feet x 80 feet .... that was a shock?! The Hotel is on the old coach road along the river’s edge – which runs for 80 miles or so before reaching the North Sea.

Their expansion occurred over the road and they had to put in a pedestrian bridge from one side of the hotel to the other ... it’s a beautiful place – and when I’m wealthy!!??!! I’d love to go back.

Fine dining watching the kitchens at work
(where the boys had their ice creams)

The hotel does mini tours – when they take guests around and show them the hotel ... so we went one afternoon with the boys – Jan-Philipp and Tom Benedict – when they were given chefs hats to wear, then treated to ice-cream in the kitchen .... when the Chef appeared and decorated their plates with candles, smarties, chocolate dots, and goodies – they couldn’t wait to get stuck in – despite being overwhelmed with the situation.

The Ice Cellar

We took Swantje and Christian for a drink in the Cellar bar ... you can see how deep the hole is from this photo – I’m glad I wasn’t the digger man! The cellar was the old ice-store room – where contraband and legitimate trade would have been stored. The river is heavily tidal .. and unloading wouldn’t have been too difficult ...

... in the Middle Ages – the huge deep water dock area had not been thought of ... so the marshy bank on the other side of the Elbe would not have been suitable for the Excise Men.

Quite honestly who would have thought Tea Bags could produce a blog post at Christmas time – still I thank Jan-Philipp and Tom Benedict for having such a clever mother .. and for sending us these deliciously scented teas ...

I’d have never have thought that nettle, barley, beetroot and hops would be part of the ingredient list included in my tea bags ... Well now – I can go and have a ?well-deserved cup of tea!

Well done Jan-Philipp and Tom Benedict ....

Louis C Jacob Hotel, Hamburg

Photos from Expedia re Louis C Jacob Hotel

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Pop Songs of Fragrance and Symphonies of Perfume ...

2011-11-30T17:03:00.000Z

The orchestra of the perfume world used to be ‘au naturel’ ... then Coco Chanel came along introducing in 1921, what would become the world’s most famous perfume, even today, Chanel No5.

No 5 CHANEL, Paris
Eau de Parfum
in iconic bottle

Perfumes are a mixture of fragrant essential oils used to give the human body a pleasant scent – and have been known to exist since the earliest of human civilisations. Modern perfumery began in the late 19^th century with the commercial synthesis of aroma compounds, such as vanilla or coumarin (that newly-mown hay ‘sweet scent’).

Chanel No 5, firstly, was a landmark in fragrance chemistry – as it finally made a synthetic ingredient acceptable, although most of its components were still derived from natural products.

Secondly, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel launched her perfume to complement her collection of clothes, whose themes were elegance and mystery.

"Coco before Chanel" is a
2009 French film about the
early life of the famed
designer Coco Chanel

So now-a-days those wonderful perfumes you may be receiving/giving at Christmas are just chemicals with attractive aromas - ?

The melodies of the fabric softener and the air freshener are the pop songs of fragrance chemistry, whereas the symphonies of perfume are a much richer harmony, among which there may even be a few discordant notes, deliberately introduced to contrast with the harmonic ones.

‘Le Grand Nez’ (the big nose) Monsieur Ernst Beaux composed Chanel No 5 – he chose an oil derived from the flowers of the Philippino ylang-ylang tree, as the middle note of the perfume; the purely artificial fragrance material, called 2-methylundecanal, for the top note.

Ylang-Ylang blossoms

The top note is the most volatile part of the perfume and the one we detect first, the middle notes take a little longer to register, and are often derived from flowers that give off a heavy, almost overpowering aroma, such as jasmine, tuberose, lily of the valley, lilac, carnation, rose and ylang-ylang.

The base notes of a perfume are the least volatile – we may not even notice them to begin with – and yet they are the most tantalising and the most erotic. The base note is there to stir emotions and suggest experiences, such as the mysterious East, a wood at night .... Base notes also serve an important chemical function in ‘fixing’ the top and middle notes by slowing their evaporation over the lifetime of a perfume.

Drawing of Vanilla from the Florentine Codex (ca 1580)
and description of its use and properties - written in
Nahuati language (see a previous post)

The secret of Chanel No 5 is not only its chemical components but also the proportions in which these are blended. Before modern methods of analysis came into use the original formula of Le Grand Nez was a trade secret, however today we know the secrets ...

Neroli Orange

Neroli Oil is one of the minor top notes, while ylang-ylang is the major middle note – I seem to have heard of Neroli Oil recently – see my previous post on ScentingYour Gloves.

The basic ingredients and methods
of making perfumes are described
by Pliny the Elder, in his
Naturalis Historiae

But what a way we’ve come ... only about 130 years ago we were still using essential oils within 40 years or so - chemical compounds were becoming acceptable ... and now we have 'Scratch ‘N Sniff” – which that clever young man, Lenny, suggested in my Neroli Oil post.

How do these youngsters ‘beam’ these things up ... amazing it’s come true – Lenny!!

My flat has been scented with Christmas cake spice for the last week or so – not from any introduction I’ve made to my kitchen or sitting room ... just that wonderful pervasive aroma of Yuletide spices ... mmmmm - delicious ....

Can the Plum Pudding mix be down to a few sheets of newspaper? Well now to try ... from a Saturday’s Times pull-out title “12 easy treats for children to make: The first EVER recipe pullout that smells!!” – scented paper ... rub and sniff .....

Knickerbocker Glory – smells (chemically!) fruity ....

Banoffee Pancakes

Mars Bar Cakes

Fast berry Ice Cream

Banana Split

Mini Gingerbread Cakes

Iced Biscuits

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Oreo Choc-Fudge Sundae

Marble Loaf Cake

Icy Lemon Meringue Pie

Orange Cake

Mincemeat .... mmmmmm!

Not sure about the 'Scratch 'N Sniff' ... but something is wafting around that’s rather pleasant and Mince Piey .... and I knew you’d want to know which recipes were given ...

I pass my judgement on the scented paper ‘Scratch ‘N Sniff’ ... but the Mincemeat aroma is rather delicious ....

So Lenny – your prediction was very accurate – any other predictions you’d care to let us know about ...

Finally ... Marilyn is back in town... over at Talli’s masquerading as Willow Watts within Talli’s new book “Watching Willow Watts” ... launched in paperback today – Go TalliGo ...

The screen icon Marilyn Monroe was once asked what she wore in bed, and then scandalised many by replying “Only Chanel No 5” – a curvaceous, sensuous woman’s perfume that’s for sure ... personally I use Lanvin – and have done ever since (ever since!) a friend’s mother brought me a bottle back from Antigua ... I bet June and Judy never thought I’d never change .. it just immediately suited me and still does.

Congratulations to all of you who have finished NaNoWriMo ... now – Good Luck with the Christmas countdown ... no time to rest on your laurels ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letter Inspirational Stories

Earth, Moon and Sky ... with a blog warning ...

2011-11-27T14:33:00.000Z

Northumberland in 2010: this
snow and more spread South

Volcanoes erupt, the moonlight beams down, from a sky at this time of year that might release some snow flakes ... England was almost snowbound a year ago ...

Let me deal with the snowflakes first ... beware tinselling up our blog with Christmas snow and other wonderful animations:

Chuck of Blogging.NiteCruzr.net has reissued his annual reminder ...

Real Unique snowflake (not a computer
generated potentially dangerous one)

Last week, I issued my annual reminder to blog owners, to consider their blog holiday decorations with care. That reminder mainly focuses on the more controversial issue of blog hijacks, and computer hacking. Besides the long term and subtle computer hacking, your readers, visiting your blog decorated with the latest animation, will have a more immediate and obvious problem to consider - browser freezes and other computer overload problems.

This is going to be a simple post favouring those who are tapping furiously towards November end and 50,000 words – plus or minus a few ...

Map of Miyake Jema Volcano, Japan

Wired Science published some beautiful images of volcanoes – not your usual photos – stating that:

It's not always obvious what it is that scientists find beautiful about a graph, microscope slide, soil sample or some other aspect of their work. It just looks like numbers, blobs or dirt to the rest of us. But sometimes a scientific result or product is so visually appealing, anyone would want to hang it on their wall as art.

I think you’ll enjoy the visual .. and perhaps look further across to the links and see the other ten volcanoes they graphically depict ...

Wired Science are rather enamoured with craters ... but this time it’s the moon – and I too could not resist passing on the visual and links:

Topographical Map of the Moon

Astronomers at Arizona State University have used NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to build this jaw-dropping map of the Moon. It’s the highest-resolution, near-global topographic image of our lunar neighbour yet.

Finally A History of the Sky – gleaned from another of my favourite sites Brain Pickings.

Since ancient times, the sky has been an object of fixation for humanity. Just recently, we’ve explored some delightful DIY guides to cloudwatching and stargazing, but artist Ken Murphy has taken it to another level.

For the past 365 days, he’s pointed his lens to the sky, using a custom camera rig affixed atop the Exploratorium museum on the edge of San Francisco Bay, and captured an image every 10 seconds.

The result is A History of the Sky — a mesmerizing mosaic of time-lapse movies, each containing a 24-hour period, synced and arranged chronologically in a (slightly more mathematically convenient than the 365-day calendar) grid of 360 total rectangles.

I have left the links in – in case you’d like to see more and read the original post ... I just feel the pictures can do their own talking ...

Good luck to all of you NaNoWriMos for the rest of the week, good luck to you dieters after Thanksgiving and us preparing for our Christmas superdelicious dinner ... and let’s hope the weather ‘us do not disrupt’ – can anyone tell us what the weather can do ..?!

Enjoy the photos –

The Real Blogger Status: Chuck and his warning - First Post

The Real Blogger Status: Chuck and his Second Warning: Blog decorations

Wired Science: Geological Maps of Volcanoes

Wired Science: Moon Topography

Brain Pickings: A History of the Sky - a Mosaic Time-Lapse Visualization of the Sky for an Entire Year (Syncing the Celeste, or how to touch the fabric of time)

PS I hope the coloured text comes out ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

If__ .... and Thanksgiving ... and Nano ....

2011-11-22T20:59:00.001Z

IF... that poem “If __” by Rudyard Kipling, which commences with the lines:

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you ...”

Glenridding, Ullswater - The Lake District
William Wordsworth and Daffodils

... just seems so appropriate for a number of reasons .... it’s Thanksgiving ... many of you are doing NaNoWriMo, the Saturday Times produced a supplement setting out 30 classic poems, and I’ve been having challenges with my connection or Chrome or ...

IF I have connectivity and can internet link then I hereby wish all my American friends a very happy Thanksgiving – and weekend to follow – and will be over to catch up on my commenting et al ...

‘Autumn Damask’ ancient rose

“How do I Love Thee?”

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

IF friends around the world had not realised – as I had not ... Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of November. “Black Friday” comes next – no surprise there .. shopping frenzy day (IF you are not doing NaNoWriMo) – the start of Christmas shopping in the States .. the stores open very early 4.00a.m. ... but it is also “Buy Nothing Day” – an international day of protest again consumerism;

... finally comes “Cyber Monday” (first coined in 2005) when the retailers persuade people to shop on line – discounts and online promotions abound .... IF you can avoid the clouds of ads that will smother you – you’ll be a wealthier person.

A William Blake original of

The Tyger, printed 1795

By the way – Happy Thanksgiving time everyone - with family and friends ... enjoy yourselves. I have The World Atlas of Food – whereby it says that originally Thanksgiving was the Pilgrims’ ceremony of gratitude for survival in their new and bounteous land.

Those first Thanksgiving dinners would have been even more elaborate including roast duck and geese, lobsters and eel pie, as well as mounds of venison provided by friendly Indians – together with the traditional fare you anticipate today: succulent roast turkey, chestnut stuffing, served with roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, Brussels sprouts, squash, succotash, creamed onions and cranberry sauce and topped off with pumpkin pie. How do you do it?

IF you can keep your head on and remain creative for the month ... you are almost certainly participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) the annual internet-based creative writing project which challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel during November (annually, IF you so wish!).

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

Good Luck to those finishing NaNoWriMo after Cyber Monday has gone by – IF you move to Scotland you could have a public holiday on St Andrews Day – 30 November.

iF Poems is an iPhone or iPad app created by the actress and writer Allie Esiri and the former Times journalist Rachel Kelly, it includes hundreds of poems searchable by theme, poet or age category and features recordings by Helena Bonham Carter and Bill Nighy et al.

Edward Lear’s illustration of

the Owl and the Pussycat

It is being used as a promotional tool by The Times for the Young Poet Competition. As well as listening to the star actors’ recitals, children or parents can record themselves and then e-mail the recording to a friend. A donation of 10% of all proceeds from the app will go to Save the Children.

The app features everything from Shakespeare sonnets to Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat and classics from Byron, Keats and Shelley. Old favourites by Burns, William Blake, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame and Walt Whitman ... to name a few others.

To Autumn -
by John Keats

You can search or browse by categories such as “IF you are facing grief” or “IF you need courage” as well as suitability for three age groups: 0-6, 7-12 and 13+.

They’ve made the app educational and have included extra resources, such as a dictionary of poetic terms and mini-biographies of the poets; while the app has been illustrated by Natasha Law, whose work has featured in Vogue.

(Mr Toad smoking and reading a map)
The Song of Mr Toad

Bonham Carter, who is an ambassador for Save the Children said: “There is little that is as deeply satisfying as the apt poem.

It’s like chocolate for the soul, except less fattening. It resolves the nervous system, captures the elusive experience of being alive so we may always have it and never lose it.

Give your child an appetite for poems and they will never be bored”. She then added: “With poems in your pocket, you’ll be armed with beauty and food for the soul and you will never be lonely”.

IF you are lacking in NaNoWriMo creativity ... Rudyard Kipling had a day bed ...

‘I lie there’ he said with a smile, ‘and wait for my daemon to tell me what to do.’

‘Daemon?’

He shrugged ‘Intuition, Subconscious. Whatever you want to call it.’

‘Can you always hear him?’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘Not always. But I learned long ago that it’s best to wait until you do . When your daemon says nothing, he usually means so.”

Lying on his side on the oak day-bed his head propped on his right hand, Kipling spent many hours while he brooded over the work he was busy with. From time to time he would jump up and go to the desk, write a line or two, make a note or correction, then resume his place on the sofa. The day-bed was an essential part of the writing process .... how many of us use this today?

Bateman's front entrance

IF ... and the 30 Classic Poems App can be found by searching for “iF Poems App The Times” – interestingly the Hindustan Times picked the Poetry app up – announcing that it is launched by Indian-origin poet: Rudyard Kipling ....

And finally IF I can post this, subject to my connectivity gremlins, enjoy the post, have wonderful scrumptulicious food per Lenny of Lenny's World, and if you love poetry .. consider the App ... or consider the idea!

Happy Thanksgiving ...

If __ the poem - see Wikipedia

Notes about Kipling's creative space .. his day bed - taken from the National Trust: Bateman's Guide

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Leonardo da Vinci – London’s a flutter with a polymath’s art ... while his formula for trees is proving true today ...

2011-11-16T17:45:00.002Z

His childhood home in Anchiano

“I want to work miracles” Leonardo scribbled in his cryptic mirror script – yes, he did write in ‘code’. He drew, exposed, sketched, drafted, invented, peered into, calculated, dissected, mixed, painted and ultimately showed us the world ... that we might think, feel and respond to the wonderment of this living earth with all its beings.

There has been a plethora of articles and programmes (many more to come, I am sure) about the new exhibition at The National Gallery – acclaimed as the single most amazing show ever. Only 15 paintings have been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) and of those, The National has brought together nine of them, tying them in with their sketches, drawings, half-finished paintings and finally the finished masterpieces.

Lady with Ermine – painted 1489-90; On loan from the Czartoryski Museum, Krakow. (NB a stoat also known as an ermine).

When I went to Milan a few years ago, my mother and I travelled down to the Museo D’Arte e Scienza where over 2,000 of Leonardo’s items are on display ... and bought a poster with many of his drawings, mirror writing, botanical sketches ... together these form a part of his knowledge base for the ‘curriculum vitae’ he boldly set out in a letter to the Duke of Milan in 1483.

Leonardo Military Engineer: Representation

of a scene from an imaginary battle fought

with armoured cars and deadly war

machines designed by Leonardo da Vinci

This letter offered his services as a military engineer! He claimed he was a master of most disciplines and then once appointed put his research capabilities to good use ... painting, sculpting, botanical analysis, dissecting human and animal anatomy, utilising mechanics, hydraulics, architecture, as well as military and civil engineering – then just add ‘master of revels’.

He designed the dome of Milan Cathedral – I’ve walked the roof! – stunning views – he rebuilt the Duke’s castle ... making it an impregnable fortress; he was an expert equestrian and became a master craftsman in bronze.

On the roof of Milan Cathedral

Leonardo had unlimited talents ... searching the earth, studying plants and insects, calculating that humans too one day would be able to fly ... and made over 100 drawings of the ‘Ornithopter’ – the basis for our helicopter.

Leonardo’s ornithopter design

Fortunately he lived in Renaissance times (1300s – 1600s) and perhaps (probably) is the greatest recognised genius of all time, endowed with the brain of a polymath to explore the whole range of human knowledge. He bewitched the Dukes of Milan, the French King and all persons in between – much as he does the peoples of the world today.

The Museo in Milan has two permanent exhibitions dedicated to Leonardo ... “Leonardo the universal genius in the exhibiton: ‘Leonardo Citizen of Milan’” and “Leonardo the ingenious painter in the exhibition: ‘Treatise on Painting’”. If you ever visit .. a place not to be missed.

Studies of the arm showing the movements made by the Biceps

Let the scrummage begin – the National Gallery, London is already packed ... hot, sweaty, tired of standing up visitors will push and shove to get a close viewing ... despite the National’s best endeavours at capping the number of visitors to 180 every half hour – it will be crowded, and there’s no point pretending it won’t be.

Seeing any one painting of Leonardo’s – as many of us know by having had a chance to view the Mona Lisa at The Louvre in Paris ... this is not being shown here – is a marvel to behold .. so no wonder many wish to see this once in a lifetime exhibition.

Study of horse from Leonardo’s journals – Royal Library, Windsor Castle

As I mentioned many are clamouring to see the spellbinding genius in one place – to understand the hows and the whys in his work, why much was unfinished ... he was scrying not only into the structures, but also into the very soul of creation ... he was getting into a relaxed and meditative stage focusing on the shapes and symbols we see, and trying to interpret what meaning they may have for us.

Leonardo had a rule for trees too! Wired Science has an article noting Leonardo observed that a tree almost always grows so that the total thickness of the branches at a particular height is equal to the thickness of the trunk.

So the graceful taper of a tree trunk into branches, boughs and twigs is so familiar few of us notice Leonardo’s observation.

It involves fractals – here I come unstuck .. but the article explains! Simply fractals are defined as rough or fragmented geometric shapes that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced copy of the whole.

Leonardo's earliest known drawing -
the Arno Valley (1473) (Uffizi)

Botanists have hypothesized that Leonardo’s observation has something to do with how a tree pumps water from its roots to its leaves.

Recently however scientists realised that it was the force of the wind caught by the leaves as it blew that caused most natural trees to grow in a fairly fractal fashion.

Eiffel Tower, Paris

The results of the research into wind-based damage, such as that caused by hurricanes when many trees are toppled across swathes of countryside ... may give scientists a greater understanding of the likely effects by the strength of the wind, and provide the answer to ‘the topple’ over effect, instead of a tree splintering into bits.

Man-made structures have been primarily designed by taking account of wind-loading considerations – bridges, the Eiffel Tower etc – so now trees have been added to the list ... originally observed by that polymath genius of half a millennia ago.

Virgin of the Rocks, Louvre:
demonstrates Leonardo's interest in
nature (this is on loan to the Exhibition)

Leonardo continues to fascinate us – as an artist, inventor, engineer, scientist, philosopher ... living at a time when it was perhaps possible to know much ... because he was smart, curious and observant – but it’s unlikely anyone will ever again be able to call himself master of all before. Long may he continue to bewitch us as we marvel at his industriousness, foresight and vision.

Just one amazing man ... a sensational show ...

The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London – “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at theCourt of Milan”

Wired Science: Leonardo’s Formula Explains Why Trees Don’t Splinter

Leonardo da Vinci in Milan: Museo d’Arte e Scienza

Dear Mr Postman .. my mother would be pleased to know I was writing about Leonardo - she too was fascinated by him ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Lest We Forget – Remembrance Day with its Two Minutes Silence at 11.00am

2011-11-11T10:43:00.001Z

The red-flowered corn poppy became the symbol of wartime remembrance for the First World War – being immortalised by John McCrae, the Canadian Surgeon and Soldier, in his famous poem of 1915 “In Flanders Fields”.

The wonder of nature reminding us each year as the red poppies rise again amongst the corn to remember all who have suffered through War – the dead and their relatives, those injured and those around the world who suffer and die for the good of all, who desire to live freely.

Illustrated page by Ernest Clegg.

Note that the first line ends with “grow”

– perhaps a memory slip after the War.

Published in 1921, with a preface by

William Thomas Manning

(US Episcopal Bishop of New York).

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We Lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Len Smith's illustrated War Diary

Dusty recesses keep providing us with historical records bringing back the toils of those times; in 2009 one of the oldest surviving First World War poppies – plucked from the killing fields of Flanders in 1915 – has been found in the diary of a former soldier.

Len Smith was 24 when he picked the delicate flower from the ground in no man’s land while serving with the 7^th City of London Regiment in Belgium. Mr Smith, a sniper and battlefield artist, pressed the poppy in his diary for safe keeping – perfectly preserved for over 90 years.

The book: Drawing Fire

The illustrated war diary compiled by the infantryman during his service until 1919, has been published as a book – Drawing Fire – complete with the pictures he drew while on the front line.

Another actual poppy picked from the trenches in Arras has been preserved in acrylic and is on show at The Montague Inn’s art exhibition. Private Cecil Roughton was just 17 when he preserved the flower during a bloody battle in France in May 1916 or perhaps May 1917.

Private Cecil Roughton's Poppy:
Welsh experts have preserved it
in acrylic

The soldier from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, kept it in his notebook before sending it home to Moseley, Birmingham. It lay forgotten for nearly a century until it was donated to the Royal British Legion.

The Art Exhibition being held during October and November at The Montague Inn is to mark the opening of Tedworth House – the Personnel Recovery and Assessment Centre.

Personnel at Tedworth House -
the Recovery and Assessment Unit
for injured servicemen and women

Two remarkable artists have initiated this art exhibition. Two men passionate in their work span generations: Ted Milligan, a POW in Stalag Luft 7, Bankau and one of the service men who trudged 240 km (150 miles) on the forced march to Stalag 3A at Luckenwalde, collaborated with Jon England, more than 60 years his junior to hold the exhibition.

The Montague Inn is putting on various events – talks, dinners, suppers with eminent speakers where participants may mix with all, including the artists – to mark the opening of nearby Tedworth Recovery and Assessment Centre for service personnel.

Be at peace, hold your head up, be the best you can, let your soul sing for all on earth and beyond to the heavens – Lest We Forget – Remember Them.

Dear Mr Postman – my mother is communicating a bit more now – the brain is amazing, and her ability to remain with us is wonderful. I will sit with her during our Remembrance Day Cenotaph Service on Sunday ... which, should she be awake, she will appreciate.

The Guardian: Woodford Green - Poppy from Flanders Fields ... preserved

The book: Drawing Fire (Flanders)

The Express: Poppy Plucked from the Trenches (Arras)

Antiquarian's Attic: World War One poppies go on show (Arras)

Tedworth House - Ministry of Defence: The army's recovery centre

The Montague Inn - art exhibition

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Scent your gloves winter is coming ...

2011-11-05T19:31:00.001Z

Bitter Orange Foliage, Blossoms and Fruit

Perfume your creativity- ideas can be extracted from free publications sent out with your magazines – I subscribe to The Week, a news digest of happenings around the world, which has provided me with a constant source of stories to stimulate conversations in various guises, as well as articles for the blog.

In The Quarterly – an upmarket freebie sent out with The Week – there was an article on Neroli Oil – a new product to me ... but with that interesting historical take that I love so much.

Neroli extract - a sweet, honeyed essence from the bitter orange tree, with metallic overtones - is named after the 17^th C Duchess of Bracciano and Princess of Nerola, who revived this orange oil into a fashionable fragrance by using it to perfume her gloves and her bath.

Nerola - fountain in town
hall square

All through time we have perfumed our way as best we can – the Romans placed or sprinkled scented flowers and petals throughout their public places, while petals floated in small fountains to scent the banqueting halls. Pomanders from the 13^th C were worn, or carried to ward off bad smells ... now we have them in our homes in various guises.

Samplers and Simplers who gathered and brought the plants into the apothecary or to market – the housewives who experimented – finding all manner of satisfaction from their toils – skin lotions, washing balls, starch for laces, perfume for gloves, and the all charming nonsenses of sweet-bags and pot-pourri bowls.

Mary Denton with pomander
attributed to George Gower
(1540 - 1596)

Susan of “Life Takes Lemons” with the post ‘A Lady’s Weapon Against Stench: Pomanders and Vinaigrette’ – is a new blog I’ve just found, which has some wonderful resources in it ... check out the Research section, for example: Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue! Susan very kindly let me use the picture of Mary Denton and of the rather spectacular pomander and chain.

While at the Ashmolean Museum recently I spotted a postcard of Elizabeth 1’s gloves form 1566 – that tied in so well with Neroli oil and its many uses ... you have probably already experienced the oil, as it is used in aromatherapy and massage.

Elizabeth 1's gloves 1566

So one of the most widely used floral oils in perfumery has given me a blog post, a link to another interesting blog, and some background information across civilisations ... all stemming from ShowMedia’s The Quarterly promoting the renaissance of Neroli oil – in a Liberty parfum at £88 ($140), or Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino Body Oil at £45 ($72), or Roja Parfums Neroli Candle at £75 ($120) ...

Then of course the coup de grace ... Neroli Oil might just be one of the secret ingredients in Coca-Cola ... ? Who knows what’s in ‘that drink’ that has so many unmentionable uses ...

Pomander and Chain

And in a quarter of second you can have access to over 1.5million websites on Neroli Oil ... to buy some bitter-orange oil to perfume your gloves ... or to keep the earthy autumn scents at bay in the great outdoors.

Happy Bonfire Night – Firework Night or Guy Fawkes Night .. see my post of 2 years ago.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Oxford University, Emily Hobhouse and the Boer War, Einstein, Tolkien and family links ... Part 2 of 2

2011-10-31T11:36:00.002Z

As preparations for the Emily Hobhouse talks were being made, and being superfluous to requirements ... I took myself off into town. What a glorious Autumn day – though I did notice that the temperature was distinctly colder inland, than my balmy Eastbourne coastline. (The Masters Garden at Balliol College)

Town was full of workers, tourists, students or scholarly sorts walking or riding bicycles, enjoying the gorgeous Autumnal sunshine while hustling and bustling about before the real start of term the following week ...

The Family Butchers in the market

... I had a chance to scout around, relax and soak up the atmosphere. I’d wanted to go and visit the covered market, which was a wonderful resource for shopping in the days gone by ... it didn’t disappoint, but was way more upmarket than I remember: but still had a butcher, baker, fishmonger ... and probably candlestick maker! Good coffee shops too ...

Six new galleries will be added in
November 2011displaying the
collections of Ancient Egypt and Nubia

I just wandered imbibing life with no time frame or worries ... making my way to the nearby Ashmolean Museum, which has recently been refurbished and redesigned: I was keen to have a look around – providing me with yet more fodder to tempt my brain to return at a later date. Not difficult in Oxford ....

... I will return to the Ashmolean in another post, you will understand why if I treat you to a sentence from the Guide Book explaining that one visitor (to the original collection in London pre 1678) described the experience of viewing the collection as “a man might in one day see in one place more curiosities than he should see if he spent all his life travelling”.

St Anthony's Refectory

I walked up St Giles, into Woodstock Road and on up to St Antony’s College, where the first talk was to be held. St Antony’s is the most international of the seven all-graduate colleges of the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and history of particular parts of the world — Europe, Russia and the former Soviet states, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, China, South and South East Asia.

I suddenly found myself in amongst a complete diaspora of academia mainly from South Africa, but all sorts – Professors, Doctors, Researchers, scholars ... and a blind (possibly) Rhodes Scholar studying music from Pretoria ... she was taking some notes on her Braille machine.

Professor William Beinart, Rhodes Professor of Race Relations and Director of Graduate Studies at the African Studies Centre, St Antony’s took us out for an evening meal in the Hall – which gave him a chance of talking to Jenny about her work and papers.

Corpus Christi College - the
setting for some of the
Inspector Morse tv series

Saturday dawned bright, crisp and sunny – a lovely early Autumn day – tempting us into Oxford before the afternoon talk. Birgit and I bussed into town, then entered the auspices of Balliol College (which remains on the same spot as when founded about 1260) to look at the gardens, the chapel etc imbuing ourselves in their golden glow of stone and learning ...

We really had struck the right weekend – this being the time of Matriculation ... the ceremony at which new students are entered into the register (in Latin matricula) of Oxford University, at which they become members.

Subfusc in the gardens
at Balliol College

It is a requirement that they all wear subfusc – the academic dress: black and white ... a gown, cap, and white bow tie (for men) or black ribbon (for women) ... so the town was full of ‘penguins’!

Carved Zimbabwe Birds on the
pillars of the staircase – an ancient
representation by the Shona tribes
at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe
(ca 11^th C) ... probably representing
the Bateleur Eagle or African Fish Eagle.

Birgit and I wove our way around and through these chattering laughing bright-eyed students ... as we wended our way up to Rhodes House, where Birgit still studies occasionally ... and so she could take me in and show me round.

Rhodes House from the garden

Cecil Rhodes (1853 – 1902) was an English-born businessman, mining magnate, and politician in South Africa, from whose Will a Trust was created to fund Rhodes Scholars – these international postgraduate scholarships are considered one of the world’s most prestigious awards. The Rhodes Scholars are affiliated to a college but enjoy access to Rhodes House with all its facilities.

A blackboard that Einstein used during one of his lectures at Rhodes House in 1931 was ‘saved’ and is now on permanent display in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. The last three lines give numerical values for the density (p), radius (P), and age of the universe.

The Eagle and Child pub was the meeting place of ‘The Inklings’ = C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1983), and others ... where we too had decided to have our pub lunch prior to our afternoon meeting.

The Eagle and Child

The International Gender Studies Centre (The Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women) is hosted now within Lady Margaret Hall – so this is where we headed to for our afternoon session.

The Friends of IGS Newsletter announced “We are hosting a special lecture on Emily Hobhouse, known to students of nineteenth-century women’s history. The lecture, ‘Three Lives: one person. Emily Hobhouse 1860 – 1926’ by Jennifer Hobhouse Balme and Birgit Seibold, will explore Hobhouse’s role as a forthright critic of the South African War.”

Lady Margaret Hall founded 1878

It was so interesting being able to meet relatives and mix with so many incredibly erudite people – I felt somewhat out of it – yet thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and opportunity to interact with academia and family.

After we had said our farewells and bid relatives good bye – the core four of us ... two of my mother’s cousins, one with her daughter (whose own daughter has just started at Oxford reading, appropriately, History and Politics) and I ... thought that tea and time together would be a very good idea.

Cotswold Hotel where we had tea

We found a very nice hotel, where they gave us a traditional English tea – with comfortable chairs in a quiet surrounding: lots of tea, smoked salmon or cucumber sandwiches, scones with Cornish cream and strawberry jam, and cheesecake ... so we were all happy!

A Cape Dutch style house in the
village of Hobhouse, Free State, SA

A South African Senior Research Fellow from the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing sat next to me for the talk to the Swaziland Society – and he was bemused at my mention of my mother and uncle, as well as the discussions we had had that had morphed into my blog – and also the fact that we now have a Dementia Unit at the Nursing Centre.

I mentioned my uncle in the last post, who was extremely complementary about Jenny, as “the compiler of Emily’s papers” ... I’d taken Jenny out to meet Derek and they certainly had one long conversation – obviously both appreciating Emily’s life.

Wild flowers of South Africa

I just wanted to add as a personal note for me – but which you may find interesting ... I went into Google to check something ... and found a comment/entry to the Obituary posted on my uncle that I quote here: “I remember Derek as a Fleet Air Arm Observer in 832 Squadron during the war. He was a very pleasant person and was called by another Observer ‘the most intelligent man he had ever met’.” That’s a lovely memory for our family.

This rounds off what has become and continues to be an amazing experience ... a historiography – the study of events of the past, while ensuring that the changing interpretations and necessary corrections are made for future historians: family, literati, academics et al ... all set amongst the gleaming, dreaming spires of Oxford intertwined with the newest offerings of the internet.

The whole time has been so interesting ... made more so by being given the opportunity by Jenny and being shown round by a German friend - after all these years of being away! Thank you - Jenny and Birgit ... for a lovely time.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Oxford University, Emily Hobhouse and the Boer War, schooldays and family links ... Part 1

2011-10-25T17:42:00.004+01:00

Oxford City Centre - City of Dreaming Spires

I had a reason to visit Oxford University that bastion of education – where town meets gown – and where I finally got to peer inside the brain of a University. I was at school in Oxford for nine years and we sallied forth occasionally down the hill – perhaps for Evensong at the Cathedral, or to the ballet or a theatre ... in those days there was not much other interaction.

Some years later! the school joins in so many activities and educational opportunities that are on offer by a university town, from which the students can benefit before they go out into the world of further learning or earning a living – I’d quite like to go back to school now! Our visit gave me flashbacks to those days.

Headington School, on hill above Oxford

Jenny, a cousin of my mother’s had come over from Vancouver Island, to give two talks at Oxford – to the Friends of the Swaziland Society, and to the Friends of the International Gender Studies. Jenny’s great aunt, Emily Hobhouse (1860 – 1926) had been an advocate for improvement of the Boer war camps (mainly) for women and children.

Emily Hobhouse

Emily had campaigned in London and South Africa that these camps be improved and was the first civilian to visit them and report back. I found the whole thing fascinating – but my brain was stretched to the limit – and I learnt to look at historical life in a new light.

We just don’t think ... and find it so difficult to relate to times gone by – as our reference point seems to be the way we would do things ourselves: no wonder so many of us don’t understand or appreciate history!

Emily Hobhouse had looked after her parents until she was 35, when her father finally died. They had lived in Cornwall and Emily had been endowed with a ‘big knowledge seeking brain’ (not a Pooh Bear brain: “I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me”) ... and faced many discouragements at home to foster her incredible intelligence and intellect.

Jenny inherited a trunk full of Emily’s papers which she painstakingly published into a book in 1994 – she self-published ... and I hope will have the book re-printed in due course. My uncle commenting in a letter to me ... “Jenny is far too self-effacing when she describes herself as ‘the compiler’. Without intruding her own personality and thoughts she has preserved so much that is meaningful about Emily, while providing some marvellous linking passages in her own beautifully written prose”.

This same uncle on the other side of the family, who was high up in Government and knew about these matters having worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – when he read Jenny’s book remarked that she had done an incredible job – describing the book ‘as several Christmas dinners in one – and beautifully done’. Lovely description I think.

Bloemfontein circa 1900

It appears that many people have not appreciated the work that Emily did – where she went, how large her sphere of influence had become ... and how during her years with her parents ... she had had to master the art of organisation, knowing who would help her and why ...

... as well as helping her to expand her knowledge of history, politics and empire at home. Her elderly aunts, on behalf of their brother, ‘decided’ that a woman did not need an education: Emily’s ability to find her way through the morass of administrative and bureaucratic society served her in great stead.

Jenny has been anxious to correct the ‘political and media portrayal’ of Emily, which had been distorted over the years in Britain and Europe, while the complete opposite was acknowledged in South Africa.

Emily became a thorn in the flesh of the British Government at a time when women were asserting their rights at home anyway ... I won’t go into much more detail except to let you know one or two of the things that stood out for me.

A used £1 1903 Orange

River Colony revenue stamp

The British declared war on the Boer republics in order to convert them into British colonies, which would eventually become part of the Union of South Africa. This became known as the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899 – 1901).

The accepted practice for defeating a guerrilla campaign was to take away their supply mechanism ... ie their farmsteads, stock and importantly their women and children. Unfortunately the policies of “scorched earth” and civilian internment in concentration camps were the order of the day: the camps were originally called "burgher" or "refugee" camps (burgher = farmer/citizen).

To my mind there are in extremely simple terms two types of concentration camps – those where the civilians were held theoretically for their own good, while a war was fought ... or later on when the term became barbaric as under Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini.

One of the internment camps

The military manual where the ‘rules and regulations’ were set out – did not take cognisance of the fact that South Africa is in the southern hemisphere ... so placement suggestions were always the wrong way round ... facing south, not north.

The conditions were terrible but life for anyone in war is not easy ... the supplies and rations had to be ordered two weeks in advance – how many people would be in camp at that time? The distribution was via a single track railway with the military demands being first in line ...

Emily invested a great deal of time and energy lobbying, writing letters, detailing reports, visiting camps and travelling back and forth in South Africa, and to London and Europe – she worked tirelessly for the disadvantaged women and children in these camps.

She was loved by the people of South Africa and admired by those like Mahatma Gandhi who asked for her help. She was a bit of a painter, a writer and an entertainer, and in spite of ill-health travelled easily between countries – even as World War One took its grip.

National Women's Monument
Bloemfontein

The South Africans so admired her that they clubbed together to buy her a house in St Ives, the picturesque fishing village in Cornwall beloved of many artists. After she died her ashes were buried at the foot of the 1913 memorial in Bloemfontein for the women and children, who died in the Anglo-Boer War for whom she had worked so hard.

Jenny when she wrote the book from Emily’s papers presented it ‘as being offered to the public in the interests of truth – Emily having been portrayed unfairly and unkindly in the intervening years.

Jenny continues to research Emily’s work during her lifetime, but particularly the period leading up to, and during the First World War – and has recently been across to Germany and Switzerland to further this research.

Dr Birgit Seibold has been collating and publishing Emily’s German and European correspondence, with its attendant papers – so there now is an even fuller picture. These are published in German, but Birgit has translated a short (166 pages) book entitled “Emily Hobhouse and the Reports on the Concentration Camps during the Boer War 1899 – 1902: Two Different perspectives.”

The walled Botanic Garden on a
lovely October weekend

I had a glorious brain-filled weekend and really need this to spill over into a second lighter post .. so Part 2 to follow!

Dear Mr Postman – my mother is still enjoying her cards, letters, flowers and bulbs ... we are lucky to have such wonderful family and friends. Today I gather ... she has looked at Perla’s 6oth birthday pictures and had my post read to her! Wonderful she can still take an interest ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher

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