Day Forty One

Colonisation 18,000km apart

When the Vikings came to England in 9^th century, it wasn’t all beer and skittles.

 They were ruthless and vicious and the effects on land, people and language are still felt  today.  

  

 

King Cnut's (Canute) captured territories in red

In many parts of Northern England and Scotland, these invaders killed every man in the settlement.

Apart from the fact that the men would certainly kill them given half the chance, they had another reason for the slaughter.

These were not the shock troops who made swift sorties to grab gold and run home again, these were the colonisers.

They intended to stay, take the enforced widows as wives and force their culture on the locals. 

As many as 35, 000 Danish Vikings did just that as can be confirmed by archaeological finds and the research of many Viking specialists.

King Cnut (Canute) 

King Cnut didn't try to hold back the waves.  He was trying to prove to his sycophantic courtiers that contrary to their assertions, he was not all-powerful.   

Norse is still very near at hand in the North of England. Place names such as Gunnarside and Aysgarth are those given by the Vikings. 

Words which came with the invaders include: barn, anger, cake, egg and flat.

Perhaps it was this knowledge and the enduring impact of that Scandinavian takeover nearly 1,000 years later which resonated when I came from Yorkshire to New Zealand and began learning about Maori culture.

Maori waka taua (warship)

When I saw Maori waka, I could hardly believe how like the Viking longships they were.

Viking longship

The traditional stores houses of the Maori, called pātaka are very much like old Norse store houses. 

Pataka for storing food

This is not really surprising as the basic elevated design of both necessitated protection from rats and other opportunists.

 

Norwegian food store

Dwelling too were alike and that seemed quite strange to me because homes are constructed according to climate. 

Ancient Norwegian painted house

New Zealand and Norway are not comparable.

This is a  wharenui, Maori meeting house, not used for permanent residence but the design similarities are still remarkable.

 And then there’s the decoration. 

Maori kowhaiwhai pattern representing hammerhead sharks

 

Norse decoration

 Of course they're not identical, each one bears its own deep cultural significance but the two countries are some 18,000 kilometres apart. 

Is there any reason why they should have any similarities at all when traditional designs from places much nearer at hand, are totally different?

Day Forty

Rambling: ræm.blɪŋ  adjective. Confused and inconsequential talk or writing.

I’m not usually a bad-tempered person.  I’m kind to small children and puppies, I recycle,  only eat meat once a fortnight and  regularly donate goods to charity shops.

 

However, Lockdown seems to have eroded my tolerance somewhat so that this morning, I yelled at my computer.

It wasn’t exactly the computer’s fault but that of Google, specifically their Calendar.

It came up with a notice, the same one it’s been throwing in my face for the past forty days:

“You have no events scheduled today”

I KNOW, I know, no need to rub it in!!

I may be going deaf.

 On the other hand, as I’ve spoken to no one for ages it may just be that my ears are on strike. 

I frequently mis-hear things. 

Some years ago, broadcaster Arthur Marshall reported hearing on the radio a report: ‘Fighting has broken out in Debenhams.’

  

It worried him until he realised they were speaking about fighting in Lebanon, which worried him even more..   

I was listening to BBC Radio 4 last night,  a discussion about The Crusades.   

The woman speaker said about the English knights, ‘....they became  quite restless when they had no water fight….’

The image of exceedingly bored mediaeval barons throwing down their swords and deciding to squirt one another with  full bladders was quite  entertaining until I realised what she’d actually  said.

‘They became quite restless when they had no war to fight.’    

I felt as deflated as an empty pig’s bladder.

There were several crusades between 1096 and 1271.   In those days, Roman Catholicism was the only religion and when Pope Urban declared the first sortie, he promised massive forgiveness of sins to anyone who took part.

Quin Shi Huang,  Emperor of China once famously said, 'There are only two fitting occupations for a man: fighting and growing food.'

Mediaeval knights who had reputations for being very sinful indeed and didn't know the first thing about food, other than how to eat it,  did a bit of crowdsourcing aka compulsory taxation of the peasants,  and off they went, leaving the women in charge.

So it’s no surprise to discover that during the  time they were out of the way, London became the capital of England;  Eleanor of Aquitane ascended the throne and both Oxford and Cambridge Universities were established.

Coincidence?  

Okay then, what about this?

Just after the knights and barons came back,  the Black Death killed a third of the population.   

In addition to mis-hearing I’m also getting slow-witted. 

A friend rang the other day to tell me she and her husband were buying a joint present for their grandchildren.

It took me quite a while to understand she wasn’t talking about a leg  of pork.

  

Day Thirty Nine

Covid-19 has certainly created some strange situations around the world.

In the USA, several States brought in the compulsory wearing of face masks but Zorro and the Lone Ranger didn't quite get the idea.

 

'Keep your distance!' 

 France is having to re-think laws brought in during 2018. 

The rules,  often seen as anti-Islamic, prohibited face covering,  but may need to be repealed after Les Flic made 33 million arrests.

Police arresting a man in Paris who broke the 'Chapeau stupide' Law of 1987.

People are rushing to grow their own vegetables, quite often indoors where no one has bothered to vacuum the carpets in the spare room since Lockdown began.

Many people in rural areas are also foraging and there’s been a boom in Wild Food recipes.

 The most popular website features Scottish personality Fred MacAulay saying, ‘There’s nothing more enjoyable than growing something in your garden and then having it for dinner.  Last night we had white heather with some grass and tonight we’ll be eating rhododendron leaves and a slug.’

http://fredmacaulay.com

Sources close to MacAulay insist that although he is well known for growing his own, the above does not indicate cultivation of marijuana, known in Scots Gaelic as  'marijuana'.  

Many people have had the opportunity during Lockdown to learn new skills.  
These include certain feats of  endurance such as not washing for 3 months and eating 15 meals a day. 

In warmer climes, some have eschewed laundry and simply stood, fully dressed  under the shower every 17 days or so. 

 Bedding was initially something of a problem until it was realised there was absolutely no need to change the sheets until they actually disintegrated.

Several fashionable Russian ladies waiting in line for their daily vodka supplies

 In Russia, Muscovites have been able to perfect the skill of  ‘The 24/7 Slumber’, the record formerly held only by dedicated vodka drinkers.   This also  saves on food bills.

Queuing at the supermarket is not a problem for most Russians as today’s  5 hour wait outside  Azbuka Vkusa store is nothing  when compared to the Soviet experience of waiting outside GUM for several days to get a tube of toothpaste.

“Я однажды в очереди 3 дня за морковкой”  (I queued 3 days for one carrot) says child.

The Pentagon has released 2 previously classified films of UFOs and many people are querying the move.  
Why now after 17 years of close secrecy?

 

There may be just a wee clue here.  

President Trump (the man whose name means ‘fart’) aka The Orange One had just announced that people could kill the Covid-19 virus by injecting themselves with disinfectant. 

 Other than actually declaring war on China they needed something pretty serious to prevent massive earthquakes due to the world’s 7.8 billion people all falling about laughing simultaneously.

Having watched these films, I’m wondering why they were ever secret in the first place and I confess I’m deeply disappointed.

I was hoping for, at the very least,  Mekon, the ruler of the Treens and Dan Dare’s arch enemy. 

In 1952 when Project Blue Book, the US Air Force's 

programme to collect data on UFOs began, I had high hopes that Dan Dare and his sidekick Digby would help them out.

So I was excited to see what had been kept under such close wraps all these years.  

What we got was a film of an albatross swooping over the sea, then a 2nd albatross spiralling to earth having just been hit by the US Navy plane which filmed it. 

What's so secret about that?

Day Thirty Eight

If you’ve ever read any Greek mythology, you’ll know Zeus was, at best, a lying, obnoxious rapist. Totally dysfunctional, unreliable and disgusting.  
He was married to Hera who spent her time stalking him and then killing or transforming into animals, the women he abused.

Whatever the gods taught us, fair play wasn't one of them.

Why would anyone want to write about the top bloke of the gods as someone who forces himself on every woman and boy he sets his lustful eyes on?   

To make things worse, he could change shape  so the victim often didn’t realise the danger.  Ask Leda.

She offered protection to a swan being chased by eagles, only to be raped - the swan was Zeus.

Scholars tell us the myths were written by Hesiod (700 BC) and Homer (800 BC, The Iliad and Odyssey but then they also say Homer’s father was the river Meles and his Mum the Nymph Critheis.

Given that the Greeks began every breakfast with Barley Wine and carried on imbibing regularly throughout the day, we can take that idea with a pinch of salted fish.

I have a theory, and this will make the hackles of every misogynist rise:  the Greek myths were written by women. 

Who else would write about revered divinity scything his dissolute way through  vulnerable womanhood unless it was as a warning? 

And it doesn’t stop with Zeus, none of the gods and goddesses were the sort of people you’d invite to join the Bridge Club.

Kronos, egged on by his mother, Gaia took a scythe to the private parts of Ouranos. This shouldn’t surprise us, Zeus was his.

Kronos or Chronus is now seen as Father Time (chronology, chronological), the Grim Reaper or Death.   If you slice off someone’s genitals, you certainly make it impossible for them to reproduce; you have stolen their future, stopped time.

Arachne was a skilled young weaver, so talented that she evoked the envy of goddess Athene, who beat her with a shuttle so she could no longer work at her loom.

 Deprived of her passion for making spectacular tapestries,  Arachne hanged herself at which Athena transformed her into a spider.  A spider for goodness sake!  And to think they named the capital city after that nasty goddess, so unfair.

 Narcissists are people who believe the world revolves around them.  Trump is said to be typical,  except that Narcissus was a great looking guy who, as far as I know, wasn’t bright orange with a dead cat on his head.

Narcissus, seeing his reflection in a pool, fell deeply in love with himself.  Oh, don’t feel sorry for him.  He wanted his devotees to kill themselves as proof of how much they loved him. 

Lessons to be learned here at this present time. Hint: disinfectant injections.

The name, Narcissus has been given to a pretty Spring flower but a recent suggestion that the Stinkhorn fungus (phallus impudicus) is named for Old Orange Face has been rejected, even though he is a d*ck and ‘impudicus’ means flaunting.

The only good goddess I’ve come across is Iris.

She had four sisters, two of them Harpies but Iris, in the form of a rainbow, carried messages between earth and the gods.

She too has a flower named after her, as does Hyacinth.

Now there's a sad tale. 

 Hyacithus a martal, and Apollo the god, were friends and lovers who regularly played discus (now you know where Frisbee came from). 

They were engaged thus when Zephyrus,the West wind,  also in loved Hyacinthus, blew by and as Apollo cast the disc, wafted it off course.
It hit poor Hyacinth in the temple,  killing him. No doubt Zephyrus slunk away hoping no one would know but Apollo, devastated, ran to catch up the body of his beloved.

As Hyacynth's blood and Apollo's tears mingled, Apollo wanted to die but gods are immortal, so instead he decided the most beautiful flower of all would be names after his lover. 

  

This is not the bulb we plant indoors to catch the first, fragant scents of Spring but wild hyacinth, or what wenow call the Bluebell.

Greek, Roman, Norse and Maori mythologies often explain how things came to be: why the spider spins such glorious webs for instance.  

They are signposts to modern life and the characteristics of humanity.

Zeus deserved to come to a sticky end but being immortal, he’s still around, still worshipped by around 2,000 persons in Greece.  

 In May 2006, the court in Athens officially recognised the veneration of Zeus and his cohorts.   

Day Thirty Seven

Day Thirty Seven

Any teacher of  ESOL will confirm English is not an easy language to learn.

It’s made up of so many other tongues: French, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic and dozens more and they all have their own linguistic idiosyncrasies.

There’s a famous riddle about English pronunciation: 

‘What does this say, “ghoti”?’

The answer, puzzling to most, even those who grew up in Britain is ‘fish’.

The gh comes from the final sound of ‘enough’ or 'tough'

The o from the sound in ‘women’

The it as in the sound used in ‘nation’ or ‘motion’

For many interesting years, I was a teacher of English, sometimes  to people who spoke it well but more usually my students were new immigrant or refugees for whom English was very confusing indeed.

I once set my class a task -  bring in anything they had read which didn’t seem to make logical sense. 

A lot of English doesn’t make logical sense as ‘ghoti’ proves but I wanted to explain idioms.

The following week,  my first student asked as a preamble to presenting his example,  ‘Are there some English foods women are not allowed to eat?’

I explained there were foods women might not want to eat but as far as I knew, nothing actually forbade them to do so.

He insisted there was, in fact he knew of certain food items marketed specifically for unmarried men.

At this point, I began to wonder if he was actually talking about food at all, so not wanting any inadvertent embarrassment,  moved quickly on.

The next student produced a clipping from the cookery page of a local newspaper, ‘Eggs are the perfect fast food. Crack a couple into a bowl, add seasoning, pour into a buttered pan and Bob’s your Uncle.’

The week before we’d talked about family relationships, so words such as uncle, aunt, nephew and niece were familiar but this sentence was totally baffling to her.

And me.  

Even now I’m not sure and neither is anyone else apparently but a popular explanation concerns British Prime Minister Robert Cecil (Lord Salisbury) who appointed his inexperienced nephew to the prestigious post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, an act of nepotism which shocked the nation.    So ‘Bob’s your Uncle’ came to mean  something accomplished with little effort.

I then had to explain that 'fast food' did not apply to foods one was allowed to eat during Ramamdan.

The next offering was a short article about knitting in which the author stated that ‘making this hat is a piece of cake.’

Understandably it wasn’t understood.  

It seems this phrase comes from  American poet Ogden Nash's humorous piece,  Primrose Path, written in 1936:

"Her picture's in the papers now, 

And life's a piece of cake."

We had a short discussion about how this meant something was easy, maybe as easy as eating cake.

It was nearly time to finish but the young man who had insisted certain food was for unmarried men, rushed back into class,  holding a tin of peas.

 ‘I have it!’  he cried with Archimedean triumph, waving a can, ‘but now I ask another question. Why the centre of bone? For flavour or strength of unmarried men?  

And presented me with this tin.

The whole can is designed to confuse any language learner.  This is a modern image by the way and not the one I saw 37 years ago, although the contents and wording are much the same.

The life of an ESOL teacher can often be rather complicated - but fun.

A little girl was sent out to tell her father, working on their car, that lunch was ready.   When she came back in, her Mummy said, 'Did Daddy tell you what was wrong with the car?'

'Yes, there's some cake in the engine.'

When her husband came in, she queried this.

Her husband, through his laughter said.

"She asked me if the fault was serious and if I'd be able to fix it, I said, 'It's the engine but no worries, it's a piece of cake.''

Day Thirty Six

Unite and unite and lets us all unite, for summer is i-cumen today

I lived in Cornwall for a decade in the 80’s and took part in many of its old traditions, such as hurling the Silver Ball in St Columb Major; singing around the Midsummer Bonfire atop Castle an Dinas;  attending Helford’s Furry (Floral) Dance on 8^th May;  and  consuming with great pleasure the authentic Cornish pasty on every occasion.

And every year, the boys and l went to Padstow to take part in the  ‘Obby ‘Oss celebrations on 1^st May

In 2020, most of these wonderful event have been cancelled and just after midnight on 30^th April, when May Day traditionally begins, there will be silence in that lovely old fishing town.

It will also be a huge disappointment to the 40,000 who come from every corner of the world, to watch the dipping, diving antics of the ‘Oss.

May Day begins  at the Golden Lion Inn with midnight singing to the landlord.

At 8am, Padstow’s children,  leading their ‘Obby ‘Osses are followed by The Blue Ribbon ‘Oss (added in 1919 as a temperance ‘oss, now Peace ‘Oss).

An hour later, ‘Old ‘Oss appears and led by teasers, who dance around the ‘oss, cavorts through the crowds to the sound of the traditional tune.

The 'Oss tries to catch a maiden and tradition has it that if you're caught, you'll be pregnant within the year.   Some maidens will rush towards the 'Oss, hoping to be caught.  Others, to much laughter, run away.

The Master of Ceremonies, with top hat and decorated stick , leads the two parades to the accompaniment of a band with accordions and drums.

The traditional May Daysong is an integral part of the festival and pamphlets of the words used to be given out so visitors could sing along.  Now, with 40,000  spectators that’s  no longer possible.

You can hear it here:

https://padstowobbyoss.wordpress.com/music/

Only those whose families have lived in Padstow for at least two generations can take part in the actual  'Obby 'Oss procession but anyone can follow and join the singing as they make their way round the narrow streets towards the Maypole.

The celebrations continue all day with fairground rides and games for children and every shop and restaurant in Padstow, including Rick Stein’s, offering something special.

During the 1837 celebrations, some young rowdies fired pistols into the air, no doubt forgetting, in those crowded streets, that ‘what goes up (like a bullet) must  come down (possibly on someone’s head).

At dusk,  around 9:30 pm,  the ceremony to return the ‘Osses to their stables begins.

Both teams sing the ‘Farewell Song’.

"I go where duty calls me,

I go what ere befalls me,

Farewell Farewell, my own true love."

That isn’t the end of the festival.  The tourists go back to their hotels and everyone else returns to the pub, orders another pasty and a glass of something fizzy and talks and laughs well into the next day.

Good days, great memories.

More excellent information at: Padstow Museum.

https://www.padstowmuseum.co.uk/mayday.html

If you would like to see how May Day in Padstow has changed over the years, it's all been well captured on YouTube.

In 1932:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y84DhJ6EIQk  1932

1953:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA_e3LV6z0E 

And 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpCFHFmAmS8