To Bee or not to Bee.

April 27, 2024 by Sailoil

At first glance beekeeping seems to be the perfect sustainable environmental model. Bees pollinate the plants that feed us. In the process they produce honey which is delicious. What is unsustainable about that? And why do hard line vegans not eat honey?

Beekeeping is one of the oldest forms of farming and we have evidence of the practice from over 5,000 years ago. Apiculture evolved side by side with our farming methods. Modern bee keeping is a commercial industry. The most commonly farmed bee is the Italian honey bee and they are raised in Australia which is free of the varroa mite parasite. An Italian honey bee imported from Australia may be a great pollinator for the Iranian almond trees grown in California but is unlikely to be a good pollinator for native Californian plants. This is where commercial bee keeping can be a challenge for environmentalists.

In Ireland we are lucky to have our very own native honey bee, the Black Bee, or Dark European Honey Bee. Originally widespread across Europe, the species has been replaced in most of the continent by hybrids of the commercial Italian bee. In Ireland it is the breed kept by most beekeepers.

If you hear of anyone planning to set up bee hives in Ireland it is important to educate them about our native bees. Don’t import beehives or queens online from abroad. Tell them to begin by attending classes by the Irish Beekeepers Associations such as the Co. Cork Beekeepers Association.

Most people imagine that the countryside is the perfect place for bees. In fact bees thrive in towns and cities due to a greater diversity of plants and the absence of intense farming practices. Large fields with a single crop are like a desert for a bee. Professional bee keepers are paid by farmers to move their hives from field to field as the crop flowers. Commercial crops often come sprayed or coated with pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and fertilizers all of which can be harmful to the bees.

Irish bees survived because we had smaller fields divided by hedges, ditches and stone walls. Those dividing lines between the crop areas are where the bees thrive. The diversity of plants in the ditches support the survival of the bees all through the spring, summer and autumn.

The Irish Black Bee is deeply rooted in the mythological landscape of Ireland. Pre-Christian Irish believed the Goddess Brigid had a sacred apple orchard in the otherworld and that her bees could travel from the fairy world to this world carrying messages. Bees and Butterflies were believed to be psychopomps; the guides that convey the souls of the dead to the afterlife. Honeycakes and mead were used as ritual offerings in religious ceremonies.

Bees are not all about honey. There are 99 species of bee in Ireland only one of which is the honey bee. Pollinators are not all about bees. Many plants rely on other insects for pollination including butterflies, flies, beetles and bugs. A truly sustainable environment supports all our pollinators.

You can help support our native pollinators even if you live in an apartment with only a small balcony or a windowsill. The most important thing is to allow a part of your garden, or one of your plant pots to go totally wild. Don’t spray it with weedkiller or bug spray. Allow whatever lands there to grow and resist the temptation to “tidy it up”. If you want to plant wildflowers make sure they are native species.

A final thought: In the world of finance the bee and the bee hive are common symbols. Bees represent thrift and industry. As a result you will see bees, beehives and honeycombs in the logos of many banks, financial institutions, mutual societies and credit unions.

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Dow Jones 40,000

April 24, 2024 by Sailoil

Back in the Summer of 1999 I was on a train talking to some American tourists when the Dow Jones hit 10,000 and they were really excited. It was my first time to realize how deeply embedded the Dow Jones index is in the USA as a bellweather for prosperity. It is an idol they worship. It is the American equivalent of a moving statue.

In 18th Century Japan it was Munehisa Homma who spotted the irrationality of the behaviour of traders in the rice futures market. He invented the candlestick chart to logically analyze the movements in the market. But he realized that most traders were acting on hunches and instincts, and chasing the market in a herd manner.

A market threshold such as 10,000 or 40,000 index points is pretty meaningless in real terms. But these thresholds are anticipated in awe by traders and investors alike. The political world makes capital on the thresholds. If the Dow hits 40k Joe Biden will bask in reflected glory. He will be seen as the president who made it happen. This will secure his bona fides as a leader who looks after the economy. The Trump supporters will hate it.

The NASDAQ and the FTSE and the S&P 500 are all demigods to be worshipped and prayed to, but the Dow is the granddaddy of them all. Dow Jones is God the Father, Zeus, Jupiter, Odin. Founded in 1885 it is a composite of only 30 large companies and is focused only on the USA. But as a barometer of global economics it remains top of mind. Rational traders will tell you it is out of date and does not represent the globalised finance world. The Faithful are those who don’t read their holy books too critically because religion is an act of faith. A rational trader can make a solid living on the market. A true believer might be a millionaire next year.

How to Cook Rice; by Koon Woon

Measure two handfuls for a prosperous man.
Place in pot and wash by rubbing palms together
as if you can’t quite get yourself to pray, or
by squeezing it in one fist. Wash
several times to get rid of the cloudy water;
when you are too high in Heaven, looking down
at the clouds, you can’t see what’s precious below.
Rinse with cold water and keep enough so that
it will barely cover your hand placed on the rice.
Don’t use hot water, there are metallic diseases
colliding in it. This method of measuring water will work
regardless of the size of the pot; if the pot is large,
use both hands palms down as if to pat your own belly.
Now place on high heat without cover and cook
until the water has been boiled away except in craters
resembling those of the moon, important
in ancient times for growing rice. Now place lid on top
and reduce heat to medium, go read your newspaper
until you get to the comics, then come back and turn it down to low.
The heat has been gradually traveling from the outside
to the inside of the rice, giving it texture;
a similar thing happens with people, I suppose.

Go back to your newspaper, finish the comics, and read
the financial page. Now the rice is done, but before
you eat, consider the peasant who arcs in leech-infested
paddies and who carefully plants the rice seedlings
one by one; on this night, you are eating better than he.
If you still don’t know how to cook rice, buy a Japanese
automatic rice cooker; it makes perfect rice every time!

-=o0o=-

Old Old Money

April 17, 2024 by Sailoil

JP Morgan was born on this day, April 17th in 1837. He was one of the most powerful and wealthy tycoons of the gilded age. When the US banking system faltered he stepped in to rescue it in 1907. He founded or had a role in financing many of the largest and most successful companies in US history; US Steel, General Electric, Western Union, the Pullman car company, a slew of railroads and he left the legacy of the worlds biggest bank JP Morgan Chase, and also Morgan Stanley which was co-founded by his grandson Henry Sturgis Morgan.

JP Morgan is often associated with Andrew Carnegie (railways and shipping), John D Rockefeller (Standard Oil) and Cornelius Vanderbilt (steel) and collectively branded the “Robber Barons” due to their aggressive behaviour in creating monopolies. The character featured on the logo of the monopoly game is a caricature of JP Morgan. Cartoons of the day depict the small men of the US Congress being bullied by the Robber Barons who used their wealth to lobby for the laws they wanted. More right-wing commentators label them more positively as “Captains of Industry”. They invented the concepts of horizontal and vertical integration of industry.

JP came from money. Old money. His parents made a fortune in dry goods. So did his grandparents. His Pierpont middle name comes from the poet John Pierpont on his mothers side (also dry goods) who wrote the poem and song below, which is sung to the same air as the British Anthem “God save the King”. He was born in 1785 and wrote a lot against alcohol and against slavery. John Pierpont graduated from Yale College in 1804 and that is hardly a surprise because his Great Grandfather, also John Pierpont was a founder of Yale.

It is funny to read how they all started in dry goods and ended running finance and insurance companies. Financial expertise in the Morgan family is multi-generational. I guess I can’t but be thankful for the legacy of this colossus, since his name is on my paycheque these days.

My country ’tis of thee; John Pierpont

My country! ’tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty
of thee I sing,
land where my fathers died;
land of the pilgrim’s pride;
from every mountain side
let temp’rance ring.

My native country! thee
land of the noble free
thy name I love:
I love thy rocks and rills,
thy woods and templed hills;
my heart with rapture thrills
like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
and ring from all the trees,
sweet freedom’s song;
let infant tongues awake,
let all that breathe partake,
let rocks their silence break,
the sound prolong.

Our fathers’ God! to thee
author of liberty!
to thee we sing:
long may our land be bright,
with temp’rance’s holy light;
protect us by thy might,
Great God, our King.

-=o0o=-

Flows of wealth in pre-banking societies

April 10, 2024 by Sailoil

A recent and well publicised study cited and linked below identified that 7th Century Anglo-Saxon silver coinage was manufactured using Byzantine Silver Plate. This got me thinking a lot. I was well aware of the flow of silver from Constantinople to Scandinavia and Britain in the Viking era via their extensive trading routes from the 9th Century onwards. The Kievan Rus traded and raided extensively with the Queen of Cities and the Varangians guarded the Byzantine Emperor and the Royal family.

But now we have proof positive that Byzantine luxury goods were flowing west across Europe hundreds of years before the Viking age. This was an era when eastern Europe was not a safe place to traverse. Various tribes of steppe nomads ranged across Bulgaria, the Hungarian plain and in the lands north of the Danube. This silver would have travelled the old Greco-Roman trade routes through the Mediterranean Sea and up the Western Seaboard of Iberia and Francia to the former Roman Britannia.

If you read Byzantine history you learn that in times of extreme peril the Emperor often turned to the people in desperation to save the city from disaster. This sometimes took the form of extraordinary taxes to raise funds to hire mercenaries, equip troops or to pay tributes to enemies. At the very lowest times in the history of Byzantium the Emperor needed to liberate wealth from the Church by taking votive vessels and the precious metals and gems from altars, reliquaries, and even out of the tombs of long dead rulers.

Taking a finely wrought silver plate as a tax payment you could simply melt it down and make it into coin. But the plate is worth far more than the weight of the metal. So there was a trade in these luxury goods. At the end of the Justinian dynasty the Emperor Maurice fought war after war until he defeated the Sassanids. He was usurped by the disasterous Phocas who was in turn ousted by Heraclius. His reign ended with the explosion of the Arabs out of their peninsula and the chaos in the Byzantine Empire that followed. All this instability meant that the Emperors needed cash, almost constantly.

The nobility part paid the extraordinary taxes in silver plate, and merchants were prepared to buy these treasures at a knock down price, but higher than the base metal value. Light fingered soldiers also needed a market for booty, so every army had its train of traders prepared to do a deal for ready cash. They then shipped the plate west and sold it to nobility in Italy, Iberia, Francia and in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. In the mid-seventh century we see the flourishing of a monetary economy in the Heptarchy. The introduction of silver pennies instead of gold specie led to a broadening of the economic trade potential. Instead of using the Byzantine silver plate to decorate their sideboard a canny Earl used it to mint coins. These coins stimulated trading in his fief and he could then benefit from the taxation of that activity.

With the expansion in the monetary economy, underpinned by the availability of Byzantine and Persian silver from the East, Western Europe moved from a barter to a monetary economic model. Proto-urbanization led the west out of the “dark” ages and into the flowering of the Carolingian era.

When the flow of cheap eastern silver slowed down Charlemagne then developed his own silver mines at Melle (between Poitiers and La Rochelle) to maintain the production of coinage.

Kershaw J, Merkel SW, D’Imporzano P, Naismith R. Byzantine plate and Frankish mines: the provenance of silver in north-west European coinage during the Long Eighth Century (c. 660–820). Antiquity. 2024;98(398):502-517. doi:10.15184/aqy.2024.33

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A Grand Day Out

April 6, 2024 by Sailoil

April 5th 2024 was the Spring Graduation day in DCU and the whole family took the trip up to Dublin to celebrate Dr. Jerry Hourihane Clancy receiving his PhD parchment.

As it turns out it was a very multifaceted celebration and a nostalgic return to my Alma Mater. Jerry and his colleague Emma Markey were only the tip of the iceberg. My current colleague in sustainability Meaghan Browne received her Masters in Ethics (Corporate Social Responsibility). My former colleague from DCU Business School Marketing Group, Joanne Lynch received her doctorate in Education.

Louise and I also got to catch up with James Corcoran our DCU Business Studies classmate (class of 1990) who is Chair of the college alumni council and is a regular fixture on the podium at the graduation ceremonies. He warned us to be ready for a 35 year celebration invitation next year.

We also grabbed a moment with Professor Caroline McMullan who was good enough to make it down to Tipperary for the funeral of Louise’s dad back in 2013, the year after I stopped teaching in DCU.

Martin Molony was MC for the event and managed to elude me due to his hectic schedule. We worked together to build the Post-Graduate Certificate in Digital Marketing back in 2009/10. But I did manage to grab 10 minutes with Professor Theo Lynn who also collaborated on setting up that program, and was also on the DCUBS Marketing Group.

We bumped into another former colleague of mine in the Business School; Dr. Paul Davis. Bizarrely Paul’s daughter is a post-graduate researcher in the team supervised by the newly minted Dr. Jerry Clancy.

Then we ran into Sally Doyle who received her Masters Degree in Refugee Integration, and her Sister Ellen who were in primary school with Esha in Belgrove. We had a great catch up with our former neighbours from Clontarf. It truly is a small world.

We caught a moment with the college chancellor Brid Horan at the end of the ceremony and commented on the strong Academic turnout on the podium and the healthy number of Doctorates being awarded. She acknowledged that this is the largest Doctoral Award ceremony she has experienced and this can only be a positive for Dublin City University. It is wonderful to see the University doing so well from it’s humble beginnings as NIHE Dublin in 1975. The college, which was on the doorstep of my parents family home in Glasnevin enrolled the first students in 1980. Louise and I were in the college in 1989 when we celebrated the elevation to full university status.

I returned to DCU in 1997 to undertake a part time Masters degree. Esha was born in 1998 and I remember bringing her to an open night to recruit the intake for 1998 at the request of Dr. Michael Gannon. It was Michael who asked me to take up teaching in 2007 when he learned I was working in Leo Burnett’s Ad Agency. DCU has always valued real world experience in program delivery.

After doughnuts in DCU we checked in to the Herbert Park Hotel, strolled round to Roly’s Bistro for a fabulous dinner, and into the Bridge bar for drinks. I was an early casualty of the night but Louise, Jerry and Esha kept going in the Hotel residents lounge until the wee hours.

Theme for English B; by Langston Hughes (excerpt)

The instructor said,
“Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you
then, it will be true.“

-=o0o=-

Bistro

March 31, 2024 by Sailoil

On the 31st of March 1814 Tzar Alexander of Russia triumphantly led his troops into Paris, followed by his Prussian and Austrian allies. Following the defeat of Napoleon in the battle of the nations at Leipzig the allies of the sixth coalition continued towards France. In the spring of 1814 they moved southwards from the region of Flanders towards Paris. Napoleon attempted to lead them deeper into France where he held all the advantages. So he moved to the South-East of Paris, certain the allied armies would follow him.

Tzar Alexander sent a 10,000 strong cavalry battalion after Napoleon to fool him into thinking the main force was following his plan. Instead Alexander instructed Barclay de Tolly to march for Paris. After two days of fighting the triumphant Russians took up residence in the French Capital. For the first time in 400 years a foreign army occupied Paris.

At this point a tale was told to explain the origin of the French Bistro. The Russian word “bystro” which means “quickly” was supposedly shouted by the Russian soldiers at French waiters as they lorded it over the hapless residents of the city. It sounds like a good story, but like many convenient origin stories it is wrong. The Bistro as a concept only arose in the late 19th Century.

The Brasserie is a french term for a brewery. In the beer region of France on the Belgian border there is a long tradition of breweries serving food. Typically a brasserie has professional service, a printed menu and white linen. The concept of leading with the alcohol and following with food was born, and the food generates much higher margins.

In Paris there were outlets that sold cheap alcohol, called collectively bistrouille. In the late 19th century these establishments began to emulate the brasseries, but on the cheap. They were simple neighbourhood establishments which did not have professional service or fancy linen. The daily specials were probably chalked up instead of printed on menus. This allowed the bistro to serve whatever good value food was available in the market. The food is supposed to be modest simple fare rather than haut cuisine. Cassoulet, shepherds pie, chicken and chips type of food.

The painting “Au Bistro” by Jean Beraud captures an image of one such establishment late at night. Easily cleaned marble table tops, simple chairs, alcohol clearly on display, you will find a bottle of Absinthe there. The men look bedraggled as they smoke over their drinks, one staring away, disinterested in what the other is saying. The woman with them is asleep. The low prices attracted people who were struggling to make a living, including writers, artists and prostitutes. As a result they developed a romanticized bohemian atmosphere in fin de siècle Paris.

Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire; by Robert Loveman

Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire,
delicacy and despair,
perfume, poison, myrrh, and rue,
bitter-sweet and honey-dew.
Lurid skies and absinthe air,
Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire.

Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire,
chansonnette and rondeau rare.
Ballade, quatrain, villanelle,
lovingly they wrought and well;
a fig for grief and carking care,
Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire.

Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire,
the pity of it, everywhere
about the world that men should be
steeped to the eyes in poverty.
Then die like moths in glory’s glare,
Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire.

-=o0o=-

Istanbul Grand Bazaar

March 25, 2024 by Sailoil

With 61 covered streets, 4,000 shops and 30,700 square meters of floor space the Istanbul Grand Bazaar is one of the largest covered markets in the world. Construction began shortly after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and as a result it was not on my official “Roman” list of sights.

The word Bazaar derives from bez, the Persian word for cloth. The Romans famously found a way to make their own silk when Justinian sent two monks to China in 552 AD to steal silkworm eggs. The monks carried hollowed out walking sticks in which they hid the eggs.

Cloth has been a form of currency since the ancient Egyptians of the old kingdom used it as a form of payment. Beer, bread, meat and even unglazed ceramics were all perishable. Cloth was the most durable commodity they had. Everyone spent their evenings weaving linen and everyone knew how to assess quality cloth.

Until the advent of industrialization and the automation of production cloth was an expensive and time consuming luxury. One of the drivers of conquest and colonialization was cloth, to find sources of wool and furs, then cotton and hemp. To find quality dyes such as indigo, cochineal, murex and saffron. The first application of watermill powered energy was for cloth fulling.

I went to the bazaar in the hope of finding some medieval clothing that I could wear in the lists with my armour. I will be honest and say I did not scour every one of the 4,000 shops.

I did find a hat shop that carried some hand embroidered natural cotton caps and found one I liked, not this one above.

It got a day out in Elizabeth Fort for the Medieval fair last Saturday. Knights of Munster were invited to stage a combat display.

It was my first time fighting in armour. I find myself more addicted than ever. I explained to the team how I took the hat from the head of a dead saracen in Constantinople. I think they believed me.

Another thing I picked up in Istanbul was this 16th Century “Gather ye rosebuds while you may” themed poem in French.

Ode À Cassandre; by Pierre De Ronsard

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
qui ce matin avait déclose
sa robe de pourpre au Soleil,
a point perdu cette vesprée
les plis de sa robe pourprée,
et son teint au votre pareil.

Las! voyez comme en peu d’espace,
mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las! las ses beautés laissé choir!
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature,
puis qu’une telle fleur ne dure
que du matin jusques au soir!

Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne,
tandis que votre âge fleuronne
en sa plus verte nouveauté,
cueillez, cueillez votre jeunesse:
comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
fera ternir votre beauté.

-=o0o=-

The Moneychangers

March 22, 2024 by Sailoil

Jesus famously cast the moneychangers out of the Temple in Jerusalem. The moneychangers of ancient Byzantium were famous and I am interested to see that today the business is still thriving. In ancient days they set up their tables in the marketplaces and helped visitors from all over the Roman Empire and beyond exchange local currency for the wierd and wonderful coins of their home countries.

The argyramoiboi (silver changers) used a βάσανος (basanos) or touchstone to determine whether gold was genuine or counterfeit. Silver changers is a bit of a misnomer in the Roman Empire as the Gold Solidus was the standard of the currency. The greek name is a hangover from the days when Athens was the centre of Greek trade.

The money changers of Byzantium also had access to the archemedian jug to determine the purity of metals. In general they used weighing scales to measure coin in bulk. Byzantine history records the argyramoiboi being ordered by Justinian to reduce the price that they paid for a solidus from 210 folles to 180. It is an indication that they had the power to affect exchange rates not only in the city, but potentially all over the empire.

Much of Roman History is punctuated with the actions of Barracks Emperors needing to issue coin to pay their troops, and debasing the currency with silver or base metals for lack of gold. Money changers were well aware that the heads of some Emperors were bad news when they appeared on a coin. I imagine they were pretty fast at sorting the wheat from the chaff when a bag of mixed coin landed on their table.

The coin collection in the Istanbul Archeological Museum gives a sense of the broad variety of specie that was exchanged in the city.

Just as it is today Byzantium was a magnet for travellers from all over the world. In such an international city the job of assessing the value of foreign money and correctly exchanging it is big business. In Turkey today the process is exacerbated by runaway inflation. The value of the Turkish Lire is hugely depressed. If you need to buy anything large the wads of cash you need to carry are ridiculous.

These days in the world of electronic banking many people use their bank cards to withdraw cash. An interesting phenomenon of Istanbul are these ATM areas all over the city where all the banks are represented in the same site. It brings a “market overt” feel to the competition for your money. The ATMs offer language translations and give you the option to withdraw Turkish Lire, Euro and US Dollars.

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Galata

March 20, 2024 by Sailoil

Across the Golden Horn from Roman Constantinople sits the Galata district. Today it is dominated by the soaring Galata Tower, the sole remaining fortification from the walls of the Genoese compound. The best berths for shipping were always in the Golden Horn. They were protected by the land on either side from the winds that could trouble shipping in the harbours on the South side of Istanbul. They were also protected against any surprise invasion by the great chain that secured entry into the Golden Horn.

The Romans retained the best berths, on the South Shore of the Horn for their own ships. The Venetians and the Genoese won concessions for low tax rates on their shipping but also secured the second best berths on the North Shore of the Horn. They built their own compounds for security from each other, from the Roman authorities and from anyone else who might take a shine to their stocks of silks, spices, specie and the less profitable trade goods.

Today the Galata district maintains its character as a vibrant and chaotic marketplace. The silks and spices have been replaced by tool shops, hardware, automotive, plumbing and a plethora of other trades. If you need a replacement for a heavy pump flange you will probably find one here.

The streetscape is a warren of narrow alleys inclined at alarming angles as they climb towards the hilltop tower.

After the reconquista in Spain ended in 1492 the conversion or deportation of Jews and Muslims began. Some relocated to Morocco, Algeria and Italy. A large number made their way to Constantinople. This tower marks what is called locally “The Arab Mosque”. It was constructed as a Dominican Friary in 1325. After the fall of Constantinople it was converted into a Mosque in the 1470’s. When the Andalus muslims arrived in the city after 1492 Sultan Bayezid II presented it to the Spanish Muslim Diaspora.

It is the least mosque like mosque I have ever seen. But since the Christians converted the Grand Mosque of Cordoba into a Cathedral it makes a circular kind of logic that the Andalusian muslims would dispossess the Dominicans.

In Ottoman days the waterfront of the Bosphorus side of Galata was a popular place for kiosks, divans and small summer palaces in which to relieve the heat of the summer. These days it has been modernized and seems to be the cool hangout for the beautiful people of Istanbul. Welcome to Galataport!

Anchored around the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art it is a waterfront shopping and dining experience which is all about access to the sea, the sky and space. It streches for kilometers up the coast and is a very pleasant and safe space. Security guards check bags at every entrance before you can go in. The white buildings on the left here are some repurposed existing port buildings. You can see the more rectangular shape of the modern art museum further right, and beyond that the brown terrace is actually the longest section, stretching far off into the distance.

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Who discovered Australia?

February 26, 2024 by Sailoil

Willem Janzoon, a captain of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) led the first European expedition to set foot in Australia. Unfortunately this was news to Willem, because he thought he was in New Guinea.

Janzoon captained a yacht or pinnace called the Duyfken (Little Dove). It was a small lightly armed shallow draft vessel ideal for exploring coastlines, inland waters and rivers. Sailing along the coast of New Guinea in 1606 he crossed the Torres Strait without realizing it was a passage between New Guinea and Australia. He made landfall on February 26th 1606 at the river now called the Pennefather. He continued down the coast of Cape York and had some trouble with the natives when he landed. Several of his men were killed so he packed up and returned to Java.

Four months later the Spanish explorer Luis Vaés de Torres sailed through the strait and gave it his name. He correctly mapped the coast of New Guinea, but was unaware of the existence of Australia.

It was not for another 164 years that the discrepancies between Dutch and Spanish charts were resolved by the passage of Captain James Cook through the Torres Strait.

Janzoon described the Cape York peninsula as a barren swamp to his employers, and they were not interested in wasting resources exploring further. Great riches in spices and metals were to be had elsewhere in the Islands.

The Wik-Mungkan Aboriginal people of the Cape Keerweer area maintain from their oral traditions that they initially welcomed the Dutch, but the relationship soured. Aboriginal peoples traditionally have different notions of ownership than Europeans. The natives take stuff that is lying around. Europeans call this stealing. They say the Dutch raped girls or forced them into sex, and forced men to hunt for them. None of this sounds very unbelievable although the oral histories may be a mish-mash of multiple encounters. The Aboriginal natives claim the Dutch shot some of their men with muskets, and they retaliated by killing some Dutchmen.

The Discovery; by Thomas Hardy

I wandered to a crude coast
like a ghost;
upon the hills I saw fires —
funeral pyres
seemingly — and heard breaking
waves like distant cannonades that set the land shaking.

And so I never once guessed
a Love-nest,
bowered and candle-lit, lay
in my way,
till I found a hid hollow,
where I burst on her my heart could not but follow.

-=o0o=-

Mindship

Category Archives: Business

To Bee or not to Bee.

Dow Jones 40,000

How to Cook Rice; by Koon Woon

Old Old Money

My country ’tis of thee; John Pierpont

Flows of wealth in pre-banking societies

A Grand Day Out

Theme for English B; by Langston Hughes (excerpt)

Bistro

Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire; by Robert Loveman

Istanbul Grand Bazaar

Ode À Cassandre; by Pierre De Ronsard

The Moneychangers

Galata

Who discovered Australia?

The Discovery; by Thomas Hardy