A thing of beauty is a joy forever
Its loveliness increases; It will never pass into nothingness
Could this line from Endymion by John Keats (1795-1821) be applied to the latest adornment to our house?
In an effort to prevent spillages from drinks hot or cold in the electronic jungle we call home, Barry has given me a cup holder. It attaches to one of the bookshelves by my chair. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Here be
dragons
Chinese cloisonné cigarette box from early 20th century
Cloisonné is a technique for decorating metalwork. The earliest cloisonné work dates to the 12th century BC in Cyprus.
Cloisons are little enclosures formed from thin wire and filled with small gems or stones which are fired to melt.
More detailed information can be found here.
This box was brought home from China by my father many years before I was born.
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There were matching ashtrays, though I cannot find them at present.
Directions
Barry and I are different in the way we approach matters. He plans carefully and for every eventuality. I have a more cavalier attitude, plan marginally and rely on things behaving as they always have, forgetting about the time the car ran out of fuel, or the fact that dark clouds often foretell rain. (I’m not really that bad, just by comparison . . . )
So, yesterday, as we set off in the car, we had two Sat Navs telling us which road to take and where to turn after so many yards/miles. Both gadgets employ soothing female voices, with some strange pronunciations, which make us smile. They don’t utter simultaneously – there is a slight hiatus between the two.
We were some way into our journey, actually approaching the end point, when the devices started contradicting each other. We had left plenty of time to reach our destination, so were not unduly worried. Well, I wasn’t. Barry tends to get a bit huffy about such things.
Anyway, we finally arrived and then had to find a parking place. We had noticed cars parked along the approach road, and even backed up on grassy slopes. Having eventually found a rather muddy spot, he decided it was too far for me to walk, so drove back to the entrance of the hospital. I haven’t been able to walk more than one hundred yards since July without considerable pain, but wanted to get Barry through all his unexpected appointments before embarking on any investigations for me.
I have been having physiotherapy for my back, which has helped with the pain and the posture, but my lovely physiotherapist thought I should see a spinal consultant, just to make sure there was nothing going on that she couldn’t detect. The consultant, dressed rather pleasingly and reassuringly in smart casual wear – checked shirt, no tie, dark trousers – asked all the usual questions, expressed surprise that I wasn‘t on any medications (I thank my parents for my good genes) made me do a few tricks and then said I should go back for an MRI scan.
So that’s next on the agenda!
Wicked Little Letters
I watched this 2023 black comedy on Netflix on Sunday. It has an excellent cast, headed by Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley, supported admirably by a plethora of first-class actors, including Anjana Vasan, Timothy Spall, Joanna Scanlan, Eileen Atkins, Gemma Jones, and Jason Watkins.
Set just after the end of the First World War, in Littlehampton, Sussex, the central character is Edith, a devout spinster who is the recipient of some truly filthy hate mail. Her father is a controlling man, who allows his daughter little freedom of expression, and insists on her reporting matters to the police. Suspicion falls on Edith’s foul-mouthed Irish neighbour, Rose, who is eventually arrested and held in jail before trial, as she cannot afford bail.
A woman police officer, Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss, suspects that Rose is not the culprit but is refused permission to investigate. At that period in history in the police force, women were seen as clerks and providers of tea and little else. Gladys engages Rose’s friends in her secret investigation, and they pay Rose’s bail. As soon as she is released, the hate mail starts again, apparently proving that she is responsible. Other residents of Littlehampton also start receiving hate mail and the matter becomes a sensational scandal, attracting the attention of the press and the Westminster parliament.
Ultimately, Edith is unmasked as the poison pen writer and is sent to jail.
The language is obscene and offensive, but the acting and the pace of the action are so engaging that it doesn’t seem gratuitous.
I was astonished to learn at the end of the film that it was based on real events, which were documented as the Littlehampton libels, and that Edith was sentenced to twelve months’ hard labour, although see below:
As with all films inspired by actual events, there are discrepancies and anomalies.
According to BBC History Magazine, Edith did 12 months without hard labour after being tried twice while Rose was charged and convicted twice, first for 10 days and then 4 months of hard labour for a crime of which she was framed deliberately by Edith.
Oriental delights
The first treasure I have is a silver rickshaw condiments set that my father brought back from China for my mother. He was in the Royal Navy and visited many places which are now not accessible to most tourists.
This little set has never been used for condiments and was always out on display for anyone to look at. Children enjoyed rolling it back and forth. I remember playing with it as a child, and my children and grandchildren played with it, too, when it lived with my parents.
It must be at least one hundred years old now and showing its age. The large wheels are a little wobbly and the salt ‘bucket’ used to have a blue glass liner, but that disappeared a long time ago, after it came into my hands. The tiny silver spoon is still in the mustard pot, though.
It is very fiddly to clean so it isn’t handled very much these days, but I love it.
*Oriental: apparently, this term is now considered outdated and could cause offence, because it carries colonial connotations. It is more respectful to refer to ‘Asian’ or ‘East Asian.’ Soon, we shall not be able to say anything without upsetting someone, somewhere . . .
Uninspired
I tried blogging about a couple of things but couldn’t get going on them. One of them was ‘vocal fry,’ which seems to be the name for a croaky voice popularly embraced by some singers. I couldn’t make head or tail of it or see the point of it. There’s information here and here and here is an example.
The second thing I contemplated was ‘Galalith,’ known as ‘Erinoid’ in UK, which is a synthetic plastic derived from casein, which is found in mammals’ milk, mixed with formaldehyde.
Having failed at each of those, I turned to other things and previous posts.
I wrote
the following a few years ago, in response to a writing prompt.
The Sisters Death and Night
For each
night’s sleep is a little death
When the Sisters enter, arm in arm,
Smiling gently at each breath,
Wondering which of them will charm
The soul to dream or travel on?
And if at
dawn the sleeper stirs,
Death nods to Night, cedes her downfall,
On this still morning she defers
To Night, who knows Death conquers all -
Death whispers soft, ‘Anon, anon.’
The idea of sleep as a little death has been used as a motif by several writers, including Buddha (c563 or 480 BC) Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
A child’s
prayer common in the 17th century ran thus:
Now I lay
me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my Soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take.
Another prayer is called the ‘Black Paternoster,’ named so in Longfellow’s poem ‘The Golden Legend,’ in which Lucifer scorns the mass as the ‘Black Paternoster.’
Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch and one to pray
And two to bear my soul away.
It is thought to have ancient origins. From Wikipedia:
The Babylonian prayer "Shamash before me, behind me Sin, Nergal at
my right, Ninib at my left", is echoed by the medieval Jewish prayer: "In the
name of the Lord, the God of Israel, may Michael be at my right
hand; Gabriel at my left; Uriel before me; Raphael behind me and
the Shekhinah of God be above my head" which is used as a prayer before sleep.
Purring
A purring cat is a comforting, warming thing on a lap, not for everyone, of course. Domestic cats are unique in being able to purr while inhaling and exhaling. There are some who dislike cats for many reasons.
Herschel is quite choosy about laps, generally preferring to use them as stepping stones to more interesting locations, and saving his purring company for prone bodies in bed.
We wondered, for the umpteenth time, if big cats purred. We seemed to remember that they didn’t but checked anyway. Big cats can roar but not purr, because of the anatomy of their throats.
In Felis, the domestic cats and the smaller wild cats, delicate bones, the hyoid bones, extend from the back of the tongue to the base of the skull. The cat vibrates its larynx which sets the hyoid bones thrumming. It is not clear why cats purr. One theory suggests that it is a way of masking the cries of young kittens, thus keeping them safe from predators. Another is that it is a means of communication between mother and offspring. The small kittens, being both blind and deaf at birth, sense the vibrations and move towards them. Kittens purr from the moment they’re born as a way of letting their mother know where they are.
The big cats or Panthera also have hyoid bones, but they are bigger and joined to the skull with thick cartilage. This allows the larynx the flexibility to produce loud roars, but not the delicacy of purring.
So, the cats are divided into two classes, the purring cats and the roaring cats. It is lions that roar most often, the other big cats restricting themselves to snarling and grunting, hissing and coughing.
The largest of the purring cats is the cougar. It is the only member of the Puma family and is not considered a ‘big cat.’ It is also known as the mountain lion, and the panther, not to be confused with the black panther, which is a black form of both the leopard and the jaguar.
The next largest of the purring cats is the cheetah. It is the only surviving member of its family, the Acinonyx. It differs from all other cats, big and small, in having claws that are not fully retractable.
Most people assume that a purring cat is a happy, relaxed cat. However, it may be feeling stressed. There will be other signs, like flattened ears, wide pupils and whiskers pointing forward, to tell an onlooker that a cat is uncomfortable or in pain. Cats also purr to soothe themselves . . . ‘The low frequency vibrations of a cat’s purr are suspected to promote bone and tissue growth and lessen pain and swelling.’
Stroking a cat’s silky fur is a pleasurable experience and purring seems like a sign of gratitude from a cat. Stroking is a form of stimulation and can become less a pleasure for the cat and more of a provocation if it becomes too intense. A cat may then react by nipping or grabbing the hand in its paws, sometimes all four at once, and kicking. As with all animals, including humans, it is wise to pay attention to body language.
Jumping food
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There’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip and also
between fork and mouth and spoon and tongue.
It is easy to assess what some children have eaten
in the course of a day, as there will be reminders on their clothes. In dire
cases, when clothes have not been washed for several days, they could. be
soaked to form the basis of a soup.
I’ve written about jumping beans before, but this little essay is concerned with other forms of mobile food, like soup or scrambled eggs or curry or kedgeree. As soon as concentration on eating goes, because there’s a theory to be expounded or an explanation to be voiced, the food starts behaving in a most immoderate way. This is sometimes because expansive gestures are used to emphasise a point.
We have a lot of jumping food in our house and I’m
considering creating some large napkins. Actually, I think they could be the size
of a tablecloth, or perhaps an adult sized version of the all-in-one bibs that toddlers
wear. Possibly they could be the moulded silicone type with an inbuilt catch-all food
pocket at the bottom.
Maybe we should return to a Victorian way of life,
sitting formally and precisely – ‘all joints on the table to be carved’ and
that sort of thing, but where would be the pleasure in that? Sharing a meal is
a social occasion and inappropriately positioned food is soon cleared away.
Jumping food is here to stay.
My niece posted this on Facebook and I thought it interesting.
Below is the tribal map of Pre-European North America.
The old map below gives a Native American perspective by placing the tribes in full flower ~ the “Glory Days.”
Native Tribes of North America Mapped
The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in North America about 15 thousand years ago.
As a result, a wide diversity of communities, societies, and cultures finally developed on the continent over the millennia. The population figure for Indigenous peoples in the Americas before the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus was 70 million or more.
About 562 tribes inhabited the contiguous U.S. territory. Ten largest North American Indian tribes: Arikara, Cherokee, Iroquois, Pawnee, Sioux, Apache, Eskimo, Comanche, Choctaw, Cree, Ojibwa, Mohawk, Cheyenne, Navajo, Seminole, Hope,Shoshone, Mohican, Shawnee, Mi’kmaq, Paiute, Wampanoag, Ho-Chunk, Chumash, Haida.
For instance, the “Glory Days” of the Maya and Aztec came to an end very long before the interior tribes of other areas, with some still resisting almost until the 20th Century. At one time, numbering in the millions, the native peoples spoke close to 4,000 languages. The Americas’ European conquest, which began in 1492, ended in a sharp drop in the Native American population through epidemics, hostilities, ethnic cleansing, and slavery.
When the United States was founded, established Native American tribes were viewed as semi-independent nations, as they commonly lived in communities separate from white immigrants.
Christmas cactus
Schlumbergera, usually known as Christmas or Thanksgiving cactus, grow in tropical south-eastern Brazil. The stems look like jointed flattened leaves and the flowers arise from the tips and joints of the stems.
Straying thoughts
‘In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,’ runs a line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem 'Locksley Hall.' I might counter that with, ‘In the autumn an old man’s fancy darkly turns to thoughts of death.’ Morbid, no?
No, not really. Something caught my eye and started me thinking about mourning jewellery. It dates back to the 17th century but became popular, particularly in England, during the Georgian era (1714-1837) so called after the Hanoverian Kings George I, II, III and IV (not much imagination shown in the naming of kings!) and William IV. William reigned for a relatively short time (1830-1837)
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Mourning jewellery was created as a way to commemorate the beloved dead and show them respect. It became extremely popular in the 19th century, when Prince Albert died and was so markedly mourned by his widow, Queen Victoria.
Mourning was subject to complex rules of etiquette, covering how long the mourning period should last, and what apparel and jewellery should be worn. With the Georgian emphasis on ‘Memento Mori,’ (‘remember that you must die’ – so cheerful!) people were encouraged to live their lives as fully and as well as they could.
The symbols they chose to adorn the jewellery often included skulls and hourglasses, reminding the wearers of the transience of life. Weeping willows and urns also featured, the willows with their trailing branches as symbols of grief. Some jewellery also held miniature portraits of the dear departed and it was quite usual to put a lock of hair in a locket or ring.
The materials used included jet, onyx, enamel, or gold.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Other than lockets, jewellery might take the form of a ring, earrings, a brooch, a bracelet, a pendant or even a tie pin. Sentimentality became evident in Victorian symbols, with angels and clouds becoming more prominent than skulls. Wealthier families would set their jewellery with precious gems. Turquoise indicated ‘thinking of you,’ and children were often commemorated with pearls, because pearls represented tears.
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Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
The dress code was very strict, especially for women. Black had to be worn for the first two or three years of deep mourning, complete with black veils, gloves and shoes. This was succeeded by ordinary mourning, with was black dresses without veils, moving onto light mourning of lilac, purple or grey. Queen Victoria went into deep mourning for five years after Albert died, and never really emerged from her grief, wearing sombre colours for the rest of her life.
There is a thriving market in antique mourning jewellery.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Modern mourning jewellery is created with ‘cremains,’ the ashes of a cremated body. Although the whole idea makes me feel a little queasy, I understand that it might bring a measure of comfort to the bereaved.
As a complete contrast, but equally unsettling, to me anyway, is the advent of breast milk jewellery. This trend started around 2007 and became very popular about six years later. There is more information here and here, maybe too much information.
Something’s amiss!
I’ve tracked the little beasties down online and identified them as mealybugs. The best control for them is the Australian mealybug ladybird (Cryptolaemus montrouzieri) but the current temperature in the conservatory is only 13˚C (55.4˚F) It needs to be at least 16˚C for the ladybirds to start feeding and they are most effective at higher temperatures, between 20-25˚C. If the temperature falls below 9˚C they stop feeding altogether, so it would be a little risky to introduce them now.
In UK, mealybug ladybirds, also known as mealybug destroyers, are usually used only in greenhouses, but have been remarkably successful in controlling infestations in citrus orchards across the world.
Villa Vie
Villa Vie Residences is offering a four-year cruise. You may remember that one of its cruise ships, Odyssey, was stuck in Belfast for four months before being able to set sail on a world cruise that was to last three and a half years.
It seems patrons may be able to choose cruises of varying lengths.
