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The idle thoughts of a writer who should really be working...
December - yeah, you already guessed that December comes from the Latin decem meaning ten since, for the Romans, this was the tenth month - what I want to know is, if they only had ten months in their year, what did they do for the rest of the time? Hibernate? Actually, as it gets colder that starts to seem like a really good idea; wake me when the tax man's gone away.
Tuesday 12th:
If you've noticed any disruption to the site in the last couple of weeks it's because I recently lost my Internet connection; careless, I know, I had it and I must have put it down somewhere and then, gone! Losing the connection was easy - getting it back was (still is!) much harder. It took only four phone calls and an email to my ISP for them to decide that the problem must be in my phone line; this led to an enjoyable 45 minutes on the phone to an assortment of BT's myriad departments at the end of which I was assured that it was not a line fault but had been traced to my ISP. When I called the ISP back to give them the good news, they replied that they had received an email from BT to say that it was the line and I should call out an engineer to check it - they did also mention that if the engineer didn't find a fault on the line I would be liable to a call-out fee of around £100! I was by now suffering from a severe case of phone rage and felt constrained to suggest a number of yogic positions which they might attempt in order to achieve customer service nirvana before ringing-off with a promise to find another ISP.
Since this malarkey has coincided with my having to set-up a new mobile phone contract and my PC dying (which necessitated the movement of all my work to another, largely incompatible computer), you may not be surprised to hear that this has not been a good month! Oh, and it's Xmas in 13 days and I haven't started shopping yet - I am definitely hibernating this year!
It simply remains for me to say:
NEVER USE TELIVO!
November - yet again those Romans got it wrong! The name of the eleventh month comes from the Latin novem meaning nine. To the Celts November was the start of the new year marked by the festival of Samhain when household fires were extinguished at the end of the old year and celebratory bonfires lit to mark the start of the new. Interestingly, this ancient Bonfire Night coincides very neatly with the much more modern tradition of Guy Fawkes Night and the old name seems set to outlive the new as the practice of burning 'Guys' begins to disappear.
Monday 13th:
On this day in 1887 clashes arose between demonstrators and police in Trafalgar Square ending in the death of 2 of the demonstrators. The meeting had been called to protest against a government ban on open-air meetings. Events were much more peaceful this year at the iCount rally when over 25 000 people gathered to demand government and corporate action to combat climate change. If you didn't hear about the rally don't be surprised - fortunately, in these more enlightened times, it has been discovered that simply ignoring such events is much more effective than banning them.
October - the name derives from the Latin octo or eight - in the Roman calendar October was the eighth month because they couldn't count. Personally, I believe we should have stuck with the Anglo-Saxon name Wynmonath or wine-month, although politicians have been celebrating it's phonetic namesake ever since.
Tuesday 24th:
And, as we all know, today is United Nations Day ; that's right, on this day in 1945 the UN officially came into being. Interestingly the member countries actually signed the charter to start the UN on 26th of June 1945 but it took them a further 120 days to ratify the charter that they had just written and signed - and nothing has changed since!
Actually, I'm being cruel, a mere 2 years after it began, the UN had already passed the resolution making today the official day to commemorate the day that the UN was founded (or at least agreed to). The resolution declared that October 24th should henceforth be known as United Nations Day and "shall be devoted to making known to the peoples of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations and to gaining their support for the work of the United Nations" - and that's why we still celebrate it to this day...hmmm.
Incidentally, please visit the link above, it's worth it just to laugh at the images they've chosen for the home page - see how the UN soldier looks on as people from all nations ignore the beggar on the right - so apt.
Also today is the anniversary of the sending of the first telegram - in 1844 Samuel Morse sent the message "What hath God wrought?" over an experimental wire, at least that's how it was translated at the other end but then their Morse code reading was a bit shaky (it was early days after all) and it has been conjectured that what he actually (and quite accidentally) sent was "Bugger-off Maud" (Maud was Morse's wife and had just burst into the room having already called him twice for his tea).
September - although the 9th month of our modern year, September was the 7th month of the Roman calendar and its name is derived from the Latin for 7 septum (wasn't that the bit that fell off that bird from Eastenders?).
Tuesday 12th:
Here we are again, despite the summery weather, officially into Autumn. Ah, Autumn,
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Something, something, doo-dee-doo,
Tum-tee-tum-tee-tum-tee-tum.
Regular readers will well know my habit of looking on the dark side (join us...) and my intolerance for incorrect English usage, especially that spreading blight, 'the Americanism' (in actual fact they should really be known as 'colloquialisms or modes of speech derived from common parlance in one or more states of The United States of America' since there is, of course, an entire American subcontinent much of which is not part of the aforementioned country, however it might generally be considered a bit of a mouthful so we'll have to make do. Anyway, I digress...). Where was I? Oh yes, I remember...Americanisms (in future to be referred to as COMOSDFCPIOOMOTUSOA, or perhaps not). It is with delight that I pounce on any example that I come across and deride its foolish nature and, as tends to be the case with such ingrained intolerances, it is with chagrin that I am often forced to backtrack afterwards having found a legitimate reason for the usage.
In this age of US TV we are all aware that in The States they call autumn the fall. Where did they get such a foolish notion? Well, from us apparently. Both autumn and the fall were used synomynously in England from at least the 16th-century. The original phrase would have been fall of the leaf, but by the later part of the 17th-century the contraction was in common use. In fact by the mid-19th-century this interchangeability had led to the use of the word autumn as slang for a hanging; the gallows was known as a 'leafless tree' and the hanged-person was said to 'have gone off with the fall of a leaf'.
Curses, out-maneuvered again! I'll just have to go back to reading Bush's speeches - I can't fail to find something there now can I?
Next post, conkers.
August - named after the Roman Emperor Augustus, those cheerful Anglo Saxons called it Weodmonath or Month of Weeds.
Wednesday 30th:
Believe it or not, I spend a fair amount of time looking out of the window. This is not because I have nothing to do but rather because I have too much to do; I look out of the window in the (vain) hope that inspiration will strike or that I will be guided by some divine presence as to which task I should attempt first.
I also look out of the window because I can.
In my chequered career I have spent more than my fair share of time trapped indoors in windowless places (no, not the clink). Don't get me wrong, there were windows in these buildings, but they were not for the likes of us, the lowly grunts who actually did all the work; windows were reserved for those higher beings, the ones in THE OFFICE. How I longed to work in an office! How I dreamt of those long hours gazing out of the window, watching the world go by, perhaps even getting a tan on hot days (does that actually work? Of course,when I did actually get an office job I found that things were not so rosy. My department was deemed not to require light and so was shunted off behind the photocopiers and printers (are they still there I wonder, pasty-faced and covered in a thin film of toner?). The only windows I got to stare at were the ones making Bill Gates rich and, sorry Bill, it's a very poor substitute. So, now that I have a window of my very own and only my conscience to stop me looking out of it, you'll forgive me for taking full advantage I'm sure.
By the way, why is Wednesday spelt the way it is? Surely there's no need for that D in the middle? We pronounce it When-S-Day but spell it Wed-Ness-Day; who the flip was Ness and why has her (or his) name been expunged from our pronunciation? Expunged - I think I've just found my Word of the Week !
Wednesday 23rd:
Whilst researching the latest Word of the Week, I came across the Mexican dish huarache, a concoction of ham, chorizo sausage and beans on a toasted tortilla, charmingly named after a type of sandal.
As if the comparison of the food on your plate to a piece of leather wasn't recommendation enough, the translation that Google offered to a Spanish language recipe for the dish was even more mouth-watering: Rice with fragmentation hand grenade is surely a dish not to be missed containing, as it does, not only 4 whole slices of tinned fragmentation hand grenade, but also 1/2 of cup of fragmentation hand grenade juice (if you've ever tried to juice a hand grenade at home you'll know that it's far easier to buy the tinned variety). The instructions recommend a relaxed attitude to cooking "Add the rice and cocínelo to untimed fire during 15 minutes." No rush - you have a full 15 minutes to add the ingredients and no need to time the fire!
I can only conclude that the next stage requires the assistance of a rather ambiguous and disheveled chef: "It warms up the oil in the frying pan and adds the onion and garlic. Cocínelo" (some kind of dance I assume) "until he is smooth." Ah, feel the laid back Latin influence wash over you as you cha-cha in front of the cooker.
Once your chef is sufficiently smooth you can complete the dish, sit down together and enjoy both the meal and its explosive results. "Cool what on"?
Wednesday 16th:
Ever feel the need to wallow in misery and contemplate the general pointlessness of life? Well, today's the day for it - August 16th is historically a very depressing day.
On this day in 1819 The Peterloo Massacre took place in St Peter's Fields, Manchester when a group of armed Militia attacked people gathered to listen to a speech on Parlimentary reform (now there's democracy in action!);
In 1899 German chemist, physicist and inventor of the schoolboy's favourite way of losing eyebrows Robert Bunsen died;
In 1948 legendary baseball player and tobacco chewer Babe Ruth died;
In 1952 floods swept through the Devon village of Lynmouth, killing 34 people;
In 1956 Hungarian born actor and part-time vampire Bela Lugosi died;
In 1977 Elvis Presley (no introduction needed) died;
In 1987 Northwest Airlines flight 255 crashed on take-off in Detroit, killing 154 out of 155 passengers and crew - the sole survivor was a four year old girl and to round it all off...
In 2003 soldier, politician and all-round cannibal madman Idi Amin died (not all bad news then).
I thought I felt low today!
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