It was Octavian in the guise of Gaius Julius Caesar, later to become Augustus, who began the fashion for using obelisks as political statements. After he defeated Mark Anthony and Queen Cleopatra he emerged from the decades of Roman Civil Wars as the first man in Rome, Princeps, the first citizen. He was Master of the both West and East Rome, including the fabulous wealth of Egypt.
After Cleopatra responded to his request to return to Rome in chains as his Royal captive and symbol of his victory by commiting suicide Octavian was forced to seek a different symbol of his victory. What could be better than to steal the phallic symbols of the Promethian God Geb, stripping the manhood from Egypt and erecting it in Rome?
The Flaminio obelisk was one of a pair removed by Octavian from Egypt in 13 BC. This particular obelisk was commissioned in the 19th Dynasty by Seti I and was completed and erected in Heliopolis by his son Ramesses II (The Great) approx 1250 BC.
Special ships were commissioned by the Romans to transport the obelisk in an unusual manner. Two rectangular ships were bound side to side by huge timber beams strung across their decks. The obelisk was tied beneath the beams, resting in the water to reduce the weight on the ships. A third ship was placed in front of the two holding the obelisk, and was tied to them. The forward ship acted as a steering system for the transporter. The entire thing was powered by a combination of oars and sails.
It reached Rome in 10 BC and the obelisk was erected on the spina of the Circus Maximus. There, in the middle of the chariot races sponsored by their Emperor, the plebs of Rome could appreciate the largesse that entertained them with bread and circuses. Three centuries later it was joined on the spina by the Lateran obelisk. Along with the Lateran it collapsed in the 5th Century and was buried in the mud of the ruined Circus, smashed in three. A symbol now of the fall of the Roman Empire.
Pope Sixtus V had it excavated along with the Lateran, repaired and Christianised with a cross by the architect Domenico Fontana and erected in its current location in the Piazza del Poppolo in 1589 AD. The fountain and Egyptian style lions on step pyramids at its base were later 19th Century additions.
The fashion for obelisks established by Emperor Augustus was to become a badge of success for successive emperors, and successor nations.
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As I am pulling together a fighting kit I thought it would be a good idea to pick an era so that I can pull together a historically accurate set of arms and armour. So to do this I felt I should give my knight a story. He is Irish, a Clancy as you can tell from the arms, two lions gules on a field argent, regardant passant.
He was born in 1200 AD and at the age of 7 he was fostered to a McNamara family. The McNamara’s were the military arm of the Dalcassian Sept, and the Clancy’s were hereditary Brehons to the O’Brien clan, the senior clan of the sept. Fostering was a common practice in medieval Ireland which helped build relationships between clans. George R. R. Martin captures this culture in Game of Thrones. King Robert and Ned Stark build their friendship when they are fostered to Jon Arryn in the Eyrie.
My knight’s foster father has just returned from the disaster that was the 4th Crusade. He was held prisoner on an island in the Lido in Venice while the Venetians sought to squeeze the crusaders for every penny they could raise. When the money was not enough Doge Dandolo used the crusaders to raid Christian Cities, culminating in the sack of the Queen of Cities, Constantinople.
John McNamara returns from Constantinople a bitter and disillusioned man with a lifelong hatred of Venetians. He believes the only way to shrive himself of the sins committed by the 4th crusade is to return to Outremer on a proper crusade. He will only sail with the Knightly orders or the Genoese, never on a Venetian galley.
In 1218 John takes the 18 year old Donal on the 5th crusade as his squire. John is no knight, he serves as man at arms but takes vows with the Templars. When they reach Acre they join the fleet on its way to Damietta in Egypt. At the siege of Damietta it looks like the crusaders are going to be defeated by the well defended walls. But the John tells the Templar Knights how the Franks breached the walls of Constantinople by building ramps on the mastheads of ships and lowering them across the city towers. At Damietta the Crusaders modify the technique by tying two ships together and constructing a siege tower across their mastheads. The city is taken and John is fêted for bringing the winning strategy.
The young squire has a knack for languages and picks up enough Arabic to negotiate with the local traders. He gains a reputation for getting a better deal in the markets that serve the camp and gains some good friends as a result.
As the year drags on sickness strikes the camp in Damietta and sadly John McNamara becomes victim to a bloody flux. After his funeral Pierre de Montagut, Grand Master of the Templars, arranges for Donal to be knighted and he is presented with a fine set of arms and armour. Never personally under vows he is released to return to Ireland.
Nine years later, when the sixth crusade is being assembled Clancy is living in Clare, and is married with two children. He has modest lands and a run of bad luck finds him in debt to the monastery in Kilcarragh which is a Hospitaller house. The abbot proposes that Clancy join the crusade in exchange for his debts being pardoned. So he boards a hospitaller ship which brings a mixed group of hospitaller knights, freelance knights like Clancy and men at arms to the assembly point at Brindisi. There they meet up with a large group of English Knights in the companies of the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester. They sail together to Cyprus and on to Acre.
The sixth crusade is marked as a success of negotiations rather than battles, and makes up for the disasters of the fourth and fifth crusades. Clancy with the rustiness taken off his Arabic, has impressed the Bishop of Exeter, William Briwere as a translator and negotiator and is taken into his household guard. His clothing, arms and armour are upgraded. He secures enough funds to purchase silks and spices which, when sold back in Ireland, make him a modestly wealthy man.
Back in Ireland he extends his power by enlarging and enriching his lands. He invests in local businesses and they tend to do quite well. If a customer is slow to pay their debts the arrival of a fully armed and armoured knight backed up by a couple of sergeants and a half dozen kerns has a lubricating effect on tight purse strings.
Bishop Briwere commends Clancy to Richard, the Earl of Cornwall, the richest man in Western Europe. When Richard declares his intention to join the Barons’ Crusade in 1240 Clancy is offered a position as Banneret Knight in charge of a company. His experience of two crusades and his seniority work in his favour. He brings his second son, Gavin, now 14 years old, to train him as a squire. His older son Jeremiah remains home to hold the fort for his father’s return. Richard Cornwall leads yet another crusade of negotiation. Prisoner exchanges and the reconstruction of defences make it another successful crusade. With almost fluent Arabic and a good knowledge of Islamic customs, gift giving and outright bribery the Banneret Knight builds himself a tidy nest egg.
Clancy returns to County Clare, now a very wealthy Knight. He is able to expand his lands and construct a secure fortified house in the Norman style. He retires to a quiet life and from time to time dresses up in his knightly garb and entertains American tourists in Bunratty Castle with tales of his knightly exploits.
Authentic great helms were introduced early in the 13th Century and by 1240 it was common to have a rounded top which better deflects a blow. Also the piercing of the face plate became more common, helping knights to breathe in the heat of summer in the Holy Land. The two crosses at the bottom of the face plate identify the wearer as a Christian knight.
I will do further research on the kit of a knight assembled between 1227 and 1240 and make sure my other pieces sit in this time period.
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The sea walls of Constantinople are much harder to find than the Theodosian landwalls. In many places the sea walls have been entirely dismantled, but there are remnants to be found if you persist. One of the issues is that modernization of transport has added a broad skirt around the peninsula which contains the roads and rail infrastructure. As a result the sea walls are now quite a distance back from the water.
In some places the walls have been incorporated into other buildings and may be plastered over. You need to look for those distinct layerings of stone and brick which helped the walls withstand centuries of time and multiple earthquakes which are a part of life in Istanbul.
There are sections where the sea walls form part of gardens and palaces and they have been lovingly brought back to life although the reconstruction above looks pretty awful from the water. Where are the courses of brickwork?
This little gate is only a stroll from my accommodation and you can see photos of it from both sides. Looking out the gate you can see the Asian side of the city over the water.
Less massive than the land walls the sea walls nevertheless protected the city for hundreds of years. It was the Fourth Crusade in 1204 when the Frankish Knights and the Venetians attacked the city to raise money in one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of the Christian Church.
I have to commend the Norman and Frankish knights for their bravery and ingenuity. They sailed their ships up against the walls near to towers. They then lowered bridges from the tops of their masts onto the towers. Clad in armour they negotiated their way across these flimsy and swaying planks in the face of arrow fire from defenders on the towers. They then fought the defenders to take the towers and gradually won entire sections of the wall.
The 98 year old Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, personally led the Crusade and died in Constantinople in 1205. His tomb is in the Hagia Sophia, and I stood at it yesterday.
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In February of 1995 a group of English football “firms” pre-meditated a riot during a soccer match between Ireland and England. It was in the old Lansdowne Road stadium. They ripped out seating and rained it down on Irish supporters and the Gardaí. They sang anti-IRA chants and made Nazi style salutes. The game was cancelled. Ultimately their resistance was broken when the Gardaí, Ireland’s police force, baton charged the most aggressive cohort of English supporters.
In total there were about 4,500 English fans, but not all of these were involved in the rioting. By the end of the night 20 people were injured and 40 were arrested. The withdrawal of Irish fans from the ground diffused the situation and prevented it spilling out into a streetfight. After the ringleaders were arrested the remaining fans were escorted away from the ground by a cordon of police and security.
It was a sad night for Ireland and lives in the memory of anyone who saw the game either in person or on the TV. It was probably not the worst sports riot in Irish history but it lingers in the memory.
On January 13th of 532AD a sports riot broke out in Constantinople at a chariot race. The original four factions (demes), the Reds, Whites, Blues and Greens had at this stage polarized into the Blues and Greens. There were regular clashes between the factions both in and out of the stadium. The demes became more than simple supporters clubs. They engaged in side businesses, like protection rackets, and acted as an unofficial form of rough justice. They were also strongly political. The Emperor ignored the demes at his peril.
In early January 532 a number of rioters were arrested after an incident involving murder. Most of them were executed, but two escaped and sought sanctuary in a church, one a blue, the other a green. Following pleas from the demes Emperor Justinian commuted the death sentences to imprisonment.
On the day of the races the crowd became increasingly restless and angry. Cheers for “Blues” or “Greens” were replaced by a unified chant for victory “Nika”. I have no doubt that the mood of the crowd was helped along by alcohol as the day wore on. After race 22 the crowd lost interest in the chariots and began hurling abuse at the Emperor. They demanded the sentences be commuted to pardons for the two men. With the blues and greens no longer fighting each other they unified in an attack on the royal palace.
What followed was a five day siege of the royal enclosure. The factions made the hippodrome their headquarters, but the rioting spilled out into the city about them. Several senators judged that this was an opportune time for a change of leadership, and tried to use the riots for political ends. The rioters even crowned Hypatius as an alternate emperor. Justinian is said to have considered abdication, but his wife Theodora refused saying “Those who have worn the crown should never survive its loss. Never will I see the day when I am not saluted as empress.”.
Justinian and Theodora were famously supporters of the blue faction. Theodora’s father was a bear trainer for the Green faction. When he died his wife and children were left destitute and the greens did not look after them. They begged for mercy from the blue faction and were welcomed in. Theodora’s step father was given the job of bear trainer to the blues.
With his city on fire and his palace under siege Justinian hatched a plan. He gave a bag of gold to his palace Eunuch and general, Narses, who went to the hippodrome and met with the leaders of the blue faction. He explained to them what would happen next, and why it was a good time to accept the gold and retire home. He reminded them that the Emperor and Empress were blues and pointed out that Hypatius was a green. After some negotiation the blue faction began to leave the hippodrome and drift away. Some of the smarter greens probably sensed the change in the wind and also departed, but the insurrection was far from finished.
Then the generals Bellisarius and Mundus marched their troops from the barracks to the hippodrome and set about indiscriminately killing anyone there. By the end of the week it is estimated that 30,000 rioters lay dead and half the city of Constantinople had been burned down, including the church of divine wisdom, the Hagia Sophia. Many of the rioters are said to have been trampled to death in the race for the exits to excape the swords of the legions. The toll of injured is not recorded.
So the Lansdowne Road riot pales into insignificance when compared with the Nika riots. One evening against an entire week. Twenty injuries as against 30,000 dead. A few dozen seats ripped out compared to half a city and a cathedral on fire.
Waiting for the Barbarians ; by Constantine P. Cavafy (Trans. E. Keeley)
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn’t anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
He’s even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion? (How serious people’s faces have become.) Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution.
-=o0o=-
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In ancient Celtic druidic tradition the Wren was a symbol of the departing year. Elements of the tradition remain today in Ireland, parts of the UK, northern Spain, in Scandiavia and even in formerly Celtic parts of Europe such as France and Germany. The Dutch name for the wren is winterkoninkje (winter king) and in Germany it is the fence king. There are various folk tales telling how the tiny wren bested the mighy eagle to become king of the birds.
Druids left no written record so it is very difficult to know exactly how their rituals or beliefs operated. The Romans famously wiped out the Druids on Anglesea in AD61 to smash organized resistance to colonization of Britain. Over the following centuries the Romanization of Western Europe gradually replaced druidic religions firstly with the official Roman pagan religion, and later with Christianity. Druidic religions clung on longer in the remote and inaccessible corners of Europe; Northern Scotland, the Welsh Mountains, Brittany, the Isle of Man, Ireland, North Western Iberia.
From what little we know the Wren was a form of oracle. One of the Irish names for the bird means “The brown druid”. The winter ritual appears to have involved a procession or a hunt to find a wren, and to interpret it’s birdsong as a prophecy for the year to come.
When Christianity arrived in Ireland the priests set about dismantling the pagan druidic rituals. Experience taught the Christian church that is was easier to assimilate these rituals instead of eliminating them. So they took the hagiography of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, and morphed it into druidic practice.
Stephen was a deacon of the early Christian Church in Jerusalem. He appears to have been appointed as a Greek official to oversee charitable donations to poorer members of the Christian community. There is some suggestion that the existing deacons were favouring the Jewish converts above the Hellenic converts and he, a greek, was appointed to redress this imbalance.
According the the hagiography he got into a debate with members of a local synagogue and bested them with the power of his faith and his brilliant logic. In response they dragged him before the Sanhedrin, the council of Jewish elders. He delivered a long speech which ended with him accusing the Jews of being a bunch of stiff-necked idiots who refused to accept the Holy Spirit. Surprisingly this did not win him any friends among the crowd, who stoned him to death.
The Irish Christian priests tacked on a chapter to this tale where St. Stephen flees from Jerusalem and hides in the bushes. As the angry mob search him out a treacherous wren sang out from the bush where he was hiding and gave him up. They turned the wren from a bird revered by the druids into a reviled creature. Instead of finding the wren and interpreting its message the ritual became a hunt to find and kill the perfidious passerine. Effectively the christian church converted a peaceful group of devoted nature worshippers into the very raging mob who stoned St. Stephen to death.
As we face a world ravaged by colonialist exploitation of our natural resources, leading to a climate change crisis, it is worth looking back to pre-Christian animist religions. These were religions that valued harmony and sustainability. They strove for a balance between man and nature which is singularly missing from the capitalist attitude of the Christian churches. Indeed most of the major religions in the world are, at some level, working towards the end of the world. Me, I’d like us to stick around a bit longer.
So I am taking a moment to observe the old druidic tradition of consulting with the old year to guide me in the future. What I learned this year is that war is good business for a select group of people, and these people have a lot of control over the media. Every day you can doomscroll photos from conflict zones worldwide. The mantra of news sites “If it bleeds, it leads” is prevalent. 2023 has been a good year for arms sales in Ukraine/Russia, and in the Middle East. I can’t imagine how anyone can sleep at night knowing they have profited from death.
This year many Ukranians celebrated Christmas on Dec 25th for the first time, as the Ukranian Orthodox Church has parted company from the Russian Orthodox Church which celebrates on January 7th. It amazes me how these nations reversed course out of atheist Communism back into Christian workship. Today footage shows Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko venerating relics in an Orthodox church. Church leaders are able to resolve their rebirth in Russian society with supporting a leader who is quite simply put – a sinner. In this regard the Russians are aligning with the Americans as two developed nations where the religion business is a growth sector. Donald Trump, allegedly a liar, a cheat, a thief, an attempted tyrant, has the support of the American religious right. Someone explain that one to me please.
Here in Ireland nobody bats an eyelid if the Saudi Arabian led coalition in Yemen kills thousands of innocent children. But there are marches in the streets when the Israelis kill children in Gaza. Are Yemeni children less valuable than Palestinian children? Is it because of who is doing the killing? Is it because one story make the news but the other does not? Who makes that decision?
Western media portrays China as an evil expansionist empire and the Americans have positioned themselves as the World’s policeman making sure this particular mad dog is kept on a tight leash. But if you read below the headlines you can see that the Chinese are attempting to broker peace deals in conflict zones. In the Global south former colonial nations have a history of bribing a small cadre of political leaders, stripping out any wealth they can access and leaving the people impoverished. The Chinese go into these nations and build roads, railways, hospitals, schools and try to secure long term contracts to access food production and raw materials. The Americans, French and British are horrified by this quid pro quo approach by the Chinese. It makes them look awfully bad. Can’t have that. Colonialism is theft and even former colonialist nations still have the moral right to steal from the Africans and South/Central Americans.
COP28 secured agreement to phase out fossil fuels. Nobody really believes those promises. I certainly have no confidence in the current Irish Government honouring any of its climate promises. They have a strong history of missing climate targets and paying fines instead of initiating real change. Political action on the climate situation is glacial. In fact is is slower than glacial, because the glaciers are actually receeding faster than political changes are being made. The businesses that profit on destroying our planet have the resources to pressure politicians to deny, delay, deflect and defer decisions. Every time you hear a businessman call for deregulation and small government try to remember 2007 and the financial crash that was a result of deregulation. Banks can be rebuilt, but I am not confident that mankind can recover when that crash happens. Let’s not have that crash?
My prediction for 2024, from the wren’s mouth. Not a lot will change for the better. But we do have an election coming up in Ireland this year, so I am strapping on my ass-kicking boots.
-=o0o=-
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Columbus, in his magnificence, brings the light of enlightenment to the savages of the new world, and they are grateful to bask in the magnificence of civilization and the grace of God. Well, that’s how the Spanish told it. Maybe not the Taino people, but it’s hard to ask them, because they don’t exist any more.
Yesterday I wrote a post about the difference between the Western and Eastern mindset in the context of how rule is negotiated in the West and imposed in the East. Today I am writing about colonists and the colonized. One of the beauties of Ireland is that we were colonized by the English, but we had Irishmen and Irishwomen who rose to the top of erudite and fashionable English society, and were in a position to observe and comment upon the different mindsets.
Every nation writes their own history, and teaches it to their Children. National histories are lies. As a child I was taught that Ireland was invaded by the Vikings (a suspect term in itself, as there is no nation of Vikings – but let’s not go down that rabbit hole) and in Easter 1014 Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, led the Irish to glorious victory over the Vikings at the battle of Clontarf and threw them to their death in the Tolka river, or back onto their ships, never to be seen again.
On St Patricks Weekend in 1996 I travelled with my wife Louise to Denmark for a weekend break, using the Quinnsworth flight tickets that every Irish person of a certain era will remember fondly. It was the very early days of cheap flights. One of my bucket list items was a visit to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. There were five Viking ships sunk in the mouth of the Roskilde sound, to prevent raids by Norsemen. These were discovered, recovered and restored. Over the subsequent years the ship museum has grown further and it is still an amazing visit. The largest ship, a longship, was dated using dendrochronology, a technique pioneered in Ireland. It was constructed in Dublin, using Irish Oak, in 1060. So you can see my issue here. My history told me we threw out the Vikings in 1014. Science said they were still building Viking ships in Dublin in 1060. As I say; National Histories are all lies.
Or, if you prefer, they are selective memories. Nowhere are selective memories more obvious than in Colonial nations. Because the English were our colonizers we are very aware of the selections they pick from history. As learned by the English their history is that William the Conqueror invaded in 1066. They fought the hundred years war against France and defeated them at Potiers, Crécy and most importantly at Agincourt. Here English history gets a bit woolly, because we don’t learn how England LOST the 100 years War.
Then King Richard the Lionheart (cool name) beat the Arabs and Saladin. His little brother John signed the Magna Carta so England was the first country to give the people rights.
King Henry VII won the Wars of the Roses and created the Tudor Rose. Henry VIII was a great guy and married six wives, or eight wives, and beheaded some of them. His daughter was Bloody Mary. His other Daugher was Queen Elizabeth and she beat the Spanish. Walter Raleigh put his cloak on the ground so she didn’t have to step in a puddle. Francis Drake finished his game of bowls before he set the Spanish Armada on fire.
England then colonized America, and later half of all the world. The key lesson here is that the English were much nicer masters to their colonies than the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch. The natives were glad that they were conquered by England and many still love the King.
King Charles got in a row with Parliament, and lost his head, and England invented parliamentary democracy. The Americans stole the idea from us.
England made lots of money from the Colonies, but were the first nation to ban slavery and then forced all the other nations to ban slavery. (Remember – this is not the truth – this is the history learned by English kids in school).
Eventually, after educating the savage natives in their colonies the English allowed the savages to rule themselves. Sadly most of them made a complete mess of independence and need constant loans from the World Bank to stop them going bankrupt. Which goes to prove how great the English were as rulers.
The Irish have a different view. Oscar Wilde famously said “The problem with the English is they can’t remember history, while the Irish can’t forget it.” He also said “If one could only teach the English how to talk and the Irish how to listen, society would be quite civilized.“
Colonizers love to airbrush the bad bits out of their history. The colonized never let them get away with it. The Russians can’t understand why Ukraine does not want to be a part of the great Russian Empire again. Ukrainians remember Holodomor.
Many English people feel that Ireland should Irexit their way out of the EU and rejoin Great Britain. The Irish have this annoying habit of pointing to the fact that our GDP per Capita is higher than that in England, and is more evenly spread. Bloody statistics! The fact that the Irish are better educated than the English on any objective measure reinforces our reasons for wanting our independence. Colonizers don’t manage colonies to make the colonies wealthy. Colonizers strip wealth from colonies. That is the reason for having colonies. It is the most salient and fundamental fact about a colonial empire that the English history syllabus glosses over. Colonization is theft!
What does make me proud of my own nation is that the “story” of the Battle of Clontarf has changed considerably. The Nationalistic historical narrative that arose following our independence from Britain has softened and become subject to the actual facts. The truth is that the Norsemen still lived in the cities of Ireland that they founded when the Normans invaded in the 12th Century. They operated vibrant trading hubs that connected Ireland with the Scandiavian world, which stretched from Greenland to Russia. A very large number of Icelandic genes originate from Irish mothers who were “courted” by the followers of Eric the Red. I read my kids history books and was pleasantly surprised at the complexity of the narrative today.
The English are slower to amend their narrative. If anything Brexit has turned them away from the enlightenment of their role in the wider European experiment, and pushed them into a past history of colonialism, without the actual colonies. A hopeful, wistful nostalgia for a past that never was, when the English (Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Germans, Austrians, Italians, Belgians, Russians, Turks, Arabs, Chinese, Japanese, Americans) were the good guys in the world. Sorry lads, it’s bollox!
The Glory of the Garden; by Rudyard Kipling
Our England is a garden that is full of stately views, of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues, with statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by; but the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall, you’ll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all the cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks, the rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.
And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and ‘prentice boys told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ; for, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds, the Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose, and some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ; but they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam, for the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made by singing:-‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade while better men than we go out and start their working lives at grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.
There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick, there’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick but it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done, for the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.
Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders, if it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders; and when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden, you will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees that half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees, so when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray for the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away! And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!
-=o0o=-
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A lot of us have watched far too much TV during Lockdown. To the point that I am now getting to the stage where I am assessing the abilities of TV presenters instead of just consuming their content. As a TV personality this is not where you want to be. Once people begin to make assessments and open up discussions about you it’s the start of a slippery slope.
As a TV presenter who hears the criticism of their performance you are going to question yourself. In an industry where self-confidence is everything introspection is a dangerous foe.
I have come to the conclusion that the Unicorn of the media world is a person who is Smart, Hot and Funny all at the same time. It seems you can be one, and some lucky people can even be two, but nobody can be all three.
Let’s begin with Smart, because I watch a LOT of history shows. Most history shows are presented by anoraks. They are really smart people, with university degrees papering the walls of their house. Mostly they are men. Mostly they are dour, serious and not at all funny. Mostly they are not at all sexually attractive.
So then the TV companies decide to up the ante and pull in more viewers. The strategy they went for is to sell sex. It seemed they trawled the Universities of the world to find the hottest females with Doctorates in History and recruited them to present shows. Women who have fought all their lives to be taken seriously by their male colleagues. Not the kind of women who are going to kid around and act flippantly on a TV show. Smart & Hot, but not Funny.
On the other end of the scale I was listening to a certain Funny and Hot daytime TV presenter talking about the stupid idea of holding Covid_19 childrens’ parties to infect more kids and develop herd immunity. Dumb, really dumb. The classic dumb blonde. Very funny but very stupid. Dangerously so, because stupid people are listening to her.
TV has many funny people who are neither Hot nor Smart. But when we find someone who is both Funny and Smart they can get a lot air time no matter how they look. A certain Irish comedian with a degree in an ology presented Stargazing live for the BBC and it really worked for him because he could lurk about in the dark where you couldn’t get a proper view of him. He was matched with another famous scientist who is considered to be smart eye-candy, but not funny, and a female presenter who is Hot and has a science degree. All these brains proved too much for the BBC who cancelled Stargazing Live in favour of a podcast which claims the moon landings were fake. The BBC seem to value dumb.
Does the TV unicorn exist? Is there a presenter out there who hits all three buttons? If you believe you have the answer jump on into the comments section!
The Incredibly smart, hot and funny Brian O’Briain
George Santayana is a classic case of a man born before his time. This is a man who was made for Twitter. His philosophy is spelled out in aphorisms, short and very quotable statements. They have been quoted but more often misattributed to other people.
Born in Madrid, Dec 16th, 1863 and raised in Ávila to the age of 8 when he emigrated to Boston, the home of the father of his older half siblings. Yes even in the 19th Century American marriages appear to have been very complicated.
Educated in Harvard, Berlin and Cambridge, UK. He resigned from a position in Harvard and returned to Spain. After some travelling he settled into Rome for the last 40 years of his life.
If you are ever stuck for something witty to quote on Twitter just Google his name. You will find all sorts of gems such as:
History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.
Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.
Habit is stronger than reason.
-=o0o=-
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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it“, George Santayana.
Remember Northern Ireland? Remember how the British tried to fight the terrorists? Remember how they used “Peace Walls” to separate the Catholic and Protestant communities? Remember how effective that was?
How in this world can a fool like Donald Trump pontificate about building walls and sending Muslims home and have anyone, anyone at all, listen to him seriously? Like, seriously guys, what have you been reading?
Remember that fateful day when Ronald Reagan stood in West Berlin and said “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”?
Hate begets hate. Fear begets fear. If you want to listen to someone say something useful I suggest you listen to the Dalai Lama. We need to build bridges instead of walls. We need to open doors instead of locking them and barring them. We solve no problems or differences if we refuse to communicate.
Peace begins with mutual respect. A taco truck on the corner is a good thing. A falafel truck on the other corner is even better. Instead of shutting down taco trucks in Texas wouldn’t it be better to open American diners in Aleppo?
Besides, Trump seems to hate America. He keeps saying it is not great. When exactly was it “better”? What year would Donald Trump like to go back to? Does he want to re-open the committee on un-American activities? Does he want to re-introduce the Jim Crow laws? Maybe he wants all women to return to the home and become good little housewives?
It just seems to me that Donald Trump is one of those people who cannot remember the past.
Gusto: by Brendan Kennelly
The Catholic bombed the Protestant’s home
The Protestant bombed the Catholic’s home
The Protestant castrated the Catholic
The Catholic castrated the Protestant
The Protestant set fire to the Catholic Recreation Centre
The Catholic set fire to the Protestant Recreation Centre
The Catholic cut the tail of the Protestant dog
The Protestant cut the tail of the Catholic dog
The Protestant hanged the Catholic
The Catholic hanged the Protestant
As they dangled like dolls from the freshly-painted
Protestant and Catholic gibbets
They held hands in mid-air and sang
With spiritual gusto, ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers!’
Mindship 