Thursday, 22nd January

On this very day in 1905...

"The Russian Revolution began on 'Bloody Sunday'"

Wikipedia, oh help me please!!

Bloody Sunday (Russian: Кровавое воскресенье) was an incident on January 22 [O.S. January 9] 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia, where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard. The march was organized by Father Gapon, who had collaborated with Sergei Zubatov of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, to create workers' organizations^[1] and thus considered by some to be its agent provocateur. Bloody Sunday was an event with grave consequences for the Tsarist regime, as the blatant disregard for ordinary people shown by the massacre undermined support for the state.

Whilst I use wikipedia on matters of history, I must point out that the most interesting parts of the entry are on the talk page. This often happens, especially when articles ar so hopelessly put together as this one. When someone is moved to write "1000 dead? Seriously? Most books I have read have placed it at around 200. Anyone have any evidence to back up the 1000 dead claim?" then you know you're dealing with a heightened level of contentiousness - with a certain degree of haziness.

It helps, sometimes, to read both pages if you're serious about using wikipedia. And of course check as many of the citations at the bottom as possible!

Instead, I'll round off with something I found elsewhere, a passage from"The Story of My Life" by Father George Gapon, who organized the march. It illuminates the story far better than any endlessly peer-reviewed user-edited encyclopedia:

The procession moved in a compact mass. In front of me were my two bodyguards and a yellow fellow with dark eyes from whose face his hard labouring life had not wiped away the light of youthful gaiety. On the flanks of the crowd ran the children. Some of the women insisted on walking in the first rows, in order, as they said, to protect me with their bodies, and force had to be used to remove them.

Suddenly the company of Cossacks galloped rapidly towards us with drawn swords. So, then, it was to be a massacre after all! There was no time for consideration, for making plans, or giving orders. A cry of alarm arose as the Cossacks came down upon us. Our front ranks broke before them, opening to right and left, and down the lane the soldiers drove their horses, striking on both sides. I saw the swords lifted and falling, the men, women and children dropping to the earth like logs of wood, while moans, curses and shouts filled the air.

Again we started forward, with solemn resolution and rising rage in our hearts. The Cossacks turned their horses and began to cut their way through the crowd from the rear. They passed through the whole column and galloped back towards the Narva Gate, where - the infantry having opened their ranks and let them through - they again formed lines.

We were not more than thirty yards from the soldiers, being separated from them only by the bridge over the Tarakanovskii Canal, which here masks the border of the city, when suddenly, without any warning and without a moment's delay, was heard the dry crack of many rifle-shots. Vasiliev, with whom I was walking hand in hand, suddenly left hold of my arm and sank upon the snow. One of the workmen who carried the banners fell also. Immediately one of the two police officers shouted out "What are you doing? How dare you fire upon the portrait of the Tsar?"

An old man named Lavrentiev, who was carrying the Tsar's portrait, had been one of the first victims. Another old man caught the portrait as it fell from his hands and carried it till he too was killed by the next volley. With his last gasp the old man said "I may die, but I will see the Tsar".

Both the blacksmiths who had guarded me were killed, as well as all these who were carrying the ikons and banners; and all these emblems now lay scattered on the snow. The soldiers were actually shooting into the courtyards at the adjoining houses, where the crowd tried to find refuge and, as I learned afterwards, bullets even struck persons inside, through the windows.

At last the firing ceased. I stood up with a few others who remained uninjured and looked down at the bodies that lay prostrate around me. Horror crept into my heart. The thought flashed through my mind, And this is the work of our Little Father, the Tsar". Perhaps the anger saved me, for now I knew in very truth that a new chapter was opened in the book of history of our people.

Quote! Quote!!

"He is a good man who can receive a gift well" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralp Waldo Emerson

Of course, Wikipedia is handy occasionally for a brief "who's that?" enquiry. Enjoy!

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, philosopher, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s.

Wednesday, 21st January

Today in 1950...

"The death of British novelist, George Orwell"

George Orwell at work. Note the dangling ciggy.

George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair, was born in Motihari, Bengal on the 25th June 1903. He died at 46, of tuberculosis.

Most of today's entry will draw on materials available on george-orwell.org, a terrific site which publishes all of Orwell's published works, now out of copyright and in the public domain.

Although Orwell is most remembered for his novels (1984, Animal Farm, Keep The Aspidistra Flying, etc), he was in his lifetime a respected journalist, essayist, a fighter of Fascism in the Spanish Civil War (he was wounded in action, you can read his account of his getting shot here). The website has all these essays, but in the spirit of helpfulness I'll put links to a few of them right here:

Such, Such Were The Joys
Soon after I arrived at Crossgates (not immediately, but after a week or two, just when I seemed to be settling into routine of school life) I began wetting my bed. I was now aged eight, so that this was a reversion to a habit which I must have grown out of at least four years earlier

Bookshop Memories
"In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money"

Down The Mine
"You could quite easily drive a car right across the north of England and never once remember that hundreds of feet below the road you are on
the miners are hacking at the coal. Yet in a sense it is the miners who are driving your car forward. Their lamp-lit world down there is as necessary to the daylight world above as the root is to the flower."

Marrakech
"Gazelles are almost the only animals that look good to eat when they are still alive, in fact, one can hardly look at their hindquarters without thinking of mint sauce"

Why I Write
"What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of
partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art'. I write it
because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing"

Other links:

Wikipedia biography
- a Wikipedia biography! Be sure to click on the link to "Orwell's List" - a little bit of posthumous controversy for laughs!

Orwell's Diary
- Diaries from Orwell's time convalescing in Marrakech. One egg! Two eggs! Three eggs! Four eggs!!!

And now a silly quote...

"The test of good manners: to bear patiently with bad ones"


Ibn Gabriol, I think...

Tuesday, 20th January

On the 20th January, 1987...

"Anglican Church envoy, terry Waite, was taken hostage in Lebanon."

Terry Waite, with friend

Terry Waite was an adviser to and a diplomat of the Anglican church, and first came to national attention as a successful negotiator in the middle east, even going so far as to visit Colonel Gadaffi to secure the release of British hostage in Libya.

Here's something from the BBC website (from an 'on this day' for feb 22nd, when news broke):

Reports from Lebanon say Church of England envoy Terry Waite has been kidnapped by an Islamic militia group.

Mr Waite, 47, disappeared on 20 January, eight days after arriving in the capital, Beirut, to try to free four hostages, including British journalist John McCarthy.

News of his imprisonment came after key militiamen from the Shia Amal and Druze factions held separate meetings with Vice-President Khaddam of Syria in Damascus.

The BBC site also states that "Islamic Jihad [...] claimed the envoy had betrayed them over the release of American hostage David Jacobsen in November. [They] said Mr Waite had not fulfilled his promise to supply arms to Iran and to secure the release of the 17 prisoners in Kuwait."

And this short account from Waite himself is worth reading:

I went back to Beirut and for the first few days spent time visiting various people in the town, trying to pick up leads and I didn't get very far.

Then the telephone rang and I recognised the voice of my contact and he asked me if I would meet him.

I said I would - that's why I was there, I wanted to try and see if we could pick up the negotiation again.

I arranged to meet him at the doctor's consulting room and on the evening in question I went there without guards, arms or a locater device.

...which, with the benefit of hindsight, would seem foolhardy. Waite spent 4 years in captivity, and the first year reportedly was spent in solitary confinement. He was released on the 18th November, 1991.

On his release, according to this post on b3ta, he ordered a massive great curry from his favourite Indian restaurant in Blackheath, which for a time was named the "Terry Waite Special". This consisted of, according to the aformentioned poster,

"a bed of curried mince beef, 4 whole curried eggs, and a whole curried chicken. There were two enormous plates of rice with cheese melted over the top, sag aloo and two nan breads stuffed with (you guessed it) curry."

Quite shocking, when you come to think of it.

The Quote!!

"A house without books is like a room without windows"

A quote from Horace Mann. And yes, books open up the world, they educate, they enlighten. We should never forget books, even when almost all the media is being beamed onto floppy paper-like hand-held devices which you can take on the tube and roll into your pocket. And the noted educationalist Mann would be pleased, I'm sure, that his quotes have lived on, enduring across all manner of media (here we have two, I mean - the internet and the desk calendar!)

But - and it's a 'but' I aim squarely at the compilers of the calendar, remember, and not Mann himself - I wouldn't choose quite the same words around Terry Waite. He's spent his time in windowless rooms, and they're probably a hell of a sight worse than a house with no books.

Just saying, is all.

Monday, 19th January

Today in 1839...

"The birth of French Post-Impressionist artist, Paul Cezanne"

Paul Cezanne, in a big coat

I'm no art historian. I'm no historian full stop , but art history is a particularly black hole for me. So first skimming through the google image results for his paintings basically left me with the impression (no pun intended) that he painted mainly thin people and fruit. Like many long-dead big-shot artists, he was spectacularly unpopular for much of his career and remained unrecognized for much of his lifetime, only becoming sought after in the twilight of his career, by which time he had retreated from the art world. I guess it gave him more time to paint.

Instead of linking to all sorts of biographical sources and the dread wikipedia, here is a link to a Guardian article from 2006 about how literary figures played a part in popularizing Cezanne's work. Interesting stuff.

So, then, to the quote....

"It is better to know nothing than to half-know a lot"

So, so apt. Apt for the the text above, apt for the blog itself - a quote which appears in quotation dictionaries across the web as "Better know nothing than half-know many things", and is a line from Nietszche's Thus Spake Zarathrustra. Typical of the daily calendar to simplify it for the desk-bound - you and I, essentially - but unusual for it to be so... apt.

The old phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind here. And master-of-none tool of choice wikipedia

"Jack of all trades, master of none" is a figure of speech used in reference to a person who is competent with many skills but is not outstanding in any particular one.

Aside from aggregating and then lightly poking fun at historical entries on a desk calendar, I play multiple musical instruments. Call it restlessness, call it ill-discipline, but I've never really got beyond 'competent' at most of them - I'm quite happy with this situation. I like to take the wider view.

A Jack of all trades may also be a master of integration, as the individual knows enough from many learned trades and skills to be able to bring their disciplines together in a practical manner, and is not a specialist. Such a person is known as a polymath or a Renaissance man, and a typical example is someone like Leonardo da Vinci.

Or indeed Leonardo da Vinci himself!

In 1612, the phrase appeared in 'Essays and Characters of a Prison' by Geffray Mynshul and the phrase has been in use in the United States since 1721.

The 'jack of all trades' part of the phrase was in common use during the 1600s and was generally used as a term of praise. 'Jack,' in those days was a generic term for 'man.' Later the 'master of none' was added and the expression ceased to be very flattering. Today, the phrase used in its entirety generally describes a person whose knowledge, while covering a number of areas, is superficial in all of them, whilst when abreviated as simply 'jack of all trades' is more ambigious and the user's intention may vary, dependent on context.

The internet has bred many a jack of all trades. Small pieces of information re-hashed, much like this blog or the material it draws reference from, means that we all know a little about a lot.

Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame has suggested at a speech given at the hacker conference H.O.P.E. that the complete phrase is in fact "Jack of all trades, master of none, though often better than a master of one, " though there is no source to corroborate that the phrase was ever in common use in this form.

But why not attribute the quote newly to Mr Savage? I like the extension. Let me be another electronic blip recording Mr Savage's noble words for all eternity!

Friday, 16th January

Today, on the 16th January, 2003...

"Space shuttle Columbia was launched on what would be its final mission"

Space shuttle Columbia at launch

Final mission? Yes, the final mission. Look at the front of the shuttle on the picture above, near the nose. See those struts? Holding the shuttle to the rocket? Well, the one nearest the camera broke off, making a hole in the wing behind it. Holes in spaceships are bad things, and although this one didn't actually expose the interior of the ship to space (which would have killed the crew in space), it did seriously damage the thermal insulation on the wing, intended to protect the ship from heat on re-entry to the earth's atmosphere. When it came to the time, on the 1st February, the shuttle broke up over Texas. All crew members disintegrating with their ship.

Strangely, there were survivors, of sorts. Wikipedia entry? Yes please!!

A group of small (1 mm adult) Caenorhabditis elegans worms, living in petri dishes enclosed in aluminium canisters, survived re-entry and impact with the ground and were recovered weeks after the disaster. The culture was verified as still alive on April 28, 2003. They were part of a Biological Research in Canisters experiment designed to study the effect of weightlessness on physiology.

Caenorhabditis elegans

Today's Irritating Quote:

"There are substitutes for almost everything except work and sleep"

No attribution available for this one, I'm afraid. Anonymous. However, when searching the phrase in quotes on google, there are three sites which have used it (and who, I suspect, used a similar desk calendar). They are:

• Castlebar town's local website archived from 2004. Castlebar is in the West of Ireland, and looks very nice.
• On the discussion board for Yorkshire Divers, a scuba diving forum for people in Yorkshire.
  
• In a posting on a forum for Abertillery Town Cricket Club, author "36 D", again in 2004. The 'fact' on this guy's calendar is different (no doubt an earlier version - after all, 2004 is only one year after the Columbia mission) is "1943 - British bombers flew on the Dambusters Mission"... "36D" is moved to comment:

  "God Bless them all, for that is why we are allowed the freedom use this wonderful site, to run around naked on minibuses, and to watch the likes of Bling, DC, Wes, AAAAAAAAAAALI, Nashie, Fly, Nowy, Rossie and Rawlie Podge frollocking in the Eden that is ATCC Park. CLASS"

God bless cricketers, Every one! Bless their freedom to homoeroticize their fellow man... Nashie, Rossie, Wossy, Flossy, Fucknut, Poundstretcher, Nazi, Big-end, Harold, Tiger, Manny, Ganny, QG, OP, NYP, Wanger, Stumpy and Shitknees! I'm weeping with pride! Weeping!!

CLASS!!!!

Today in 1929...

"The birth of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King"

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15th, 1929. His Father, Martin Luther King Sr., was a minister to the Baptist church and himself a prominent Civil Rights activist. MLK Jr., of course, went on to even greater things, leading the civil rights movement in the 60s whilst advocating nonviolent resistance. Way to go, MLK! He was assassinated in 1968.

Most know him for his speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The "I Have A Dream" speech. It seems right to put it here, on this blog. Why not? The full text is here.

King's Birthday

In the late 70s, a movement to commemorate King's birthday with a holiday began to emerge. Over to Wikipedia:

"The bill first came to a vote in the U.S. of Representatives in 1979. However, it fell five votes short of the number needed for passage^. Two of the main arguments mentioned by opponents were that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive, and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to longstanding tradition (King had never held public office)"

The denial of King and his supporters 'their day' does seem to smack of churlishness, or worse. The popular campaign grew, with six million signatures collected for a petition to Congress!! Opposition in the House mirrored similar red-smear attacks on a more recent grassroots movement to elevate a popular black man.

All this aside, Ronald Reagan (who opposed the law at the time, threatening a veto) swore the bill into law finally on the 2nd November, 1983, due in no small part to an enormous majority vote (338 to 90 in the House of Representatives and 78 to 22 in the Senate).

The holiday is observed on the third Monday of January. That's next Monday! Now, remind me what else is happening next week...

...could the two things be inter-related? Somehow??

Here's Stevie's campaign song, anyway. Happy Birthday Mr King!

The Quote...

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference"

Ah, great, a Winston Churchill quote. I have a feeling these desk calendars get a lot of source material from Churchill.

I'll be keeping an eye out for this in the coming months, paying close attention to this page of Churchill quotes from www.brainyquote.com. Watch this space!!!!!

Wednesday, 14th January

Today in 1990...

"The Simpsons was first shown on television"

...Lies!!!

Wikipedia states that the first full episode, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", was shown on the Fox network on the 17th December 1989. In actual fact the second, "Bart the Genius", was shown 19 years ago today. thesimpsons.com verifies this to be the unequivocal truth...

Well, anyway, I goes by wot the calendar sez. It's just a shame that the information is so botched... I suppose I should go on, though. Here goes...

It's simply incredible that the Simpsons has been going for (nearly) 20 years. It all started, as you may know, on the Tracy Ullman show as short animated inserts. They looked, frankly, terrible.

Anyway, god knows how it went from this to sassy semi-satirical cultural icon. It did take time, I suppose... the first series is peculiar and unwatchable, it sort of picks up from there. And because here in the UK we're served the Simpsons in an incredibly piecemeal way, we never really get to track with any sort of coherence the gentle upswing in quality from jerky animation and (an admittedly sort of lovable) corniness to the mythical 'golden age' (is it seasons 4-10?) followed by (in mine and about a Marillion other people's opinion) the dramatic fall into patronising and hateful characterisation which has plagued the show in is latter years. This article from slate.com might help:

In A.O. Scott's Slate "Assessment" of Matt Groening, he wrote that Groening is "committed to using cartoons as a way of addressing reality." But in recent years, The Simpsons has become an inversion of this. The show now uses reality as a way of addressing itself, a cartoon. This past Sunday's episode featured funny references to Spongebob Squarepants, the WNBA, Ken Burns, Tony Soprano, and Fox programming, but the Simpsons themselves, and the rest of the Springfield populace, have become empty vessels for one-liners and sight gags, just like the characters who inhabit other sitcoms (Think Chandler Bing).

Either way, countless people still watch the show and think it brilliant. But then, there are a Chamillion other people who think Family Guy is funny.

I'll leave the mildly depressing tale of a once-great show with this mildly depressing, mostly unseen-in-the-UK video collection of Simpsons adverts. Yes, adverts!

The Quote:

"Do it today - tomorrow it might be illegal"

Anonymous quote time again: This is one for you paranoid liberal conservatives out there who enjoy things like driving heavy-duty 4x4 vehicles, not bothering to recycle their rubbish and making jokes about minorities. Watch it! tomorrow it might all be illegal!!

Tuesday, 13th January

This day, in 1941...

"The death of innovative Irish writer, James Joyce"

Wikipedia intro:

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish expatriate author of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).

Ulysses. Ulysses! A choice review from Amazon user buggliemonsta:

Oh dear, 13 Mar 2006

By	buggliemonsta "buggliemonsta" - See all my reviews

I recently bought this book and am currently plodding through it. Although I usually wait until the end of a book to submit my review I feel there is no possible way I am either going to a); understand what the hell the book is about, or b); enjoy it. I do not understand why anyone would write a book which requires another book to explain all the 'hidden meanings'. I consider myself fairly well-read, I got through 'War and Peace' in two weeks and quite enjoyed that, and I like to give myself a challenge but this book is just awful. I think anyone who says they liked this book is either lying to appear intelligent or just mad!

And this, a fairly on-point critique of Amazon reviewers in general:

Actually..., 4 Sep 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ulysses (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

...there are two kinds, not species of people. The kind who can like or dislike a book and articulate why; and those who can't articulate anything and resort to name-calling and insults.

I enjoyed Ulysses. Wasn't an easy read, and I don't like the idea that you have to buy a guide to appreciate all the nuances; but all in all it's worthy of the veneration we heap on it as a truly modern novel.

For a time the only internet access I could get at work was to Amazon. I spent far too much time reading through the reviews, and came to conclude that almost nothing of any use was being said whatsoever. Not for the 'cultural' items, anyway. As a consumer guide, reviews of one mp3 player versus another and warnings not to buy certain kinds of leads (or whatever) are pretty useful, (unless you're reading about an Apple product, that is, or anything else that brings out the fiercely partisan in net users, like gaming consoles)... and then there's users who just use the site as an outlet for their whimsy. At some point Amazon started branching out from books and music and electronics and began selling all sorts of homewares, clothing... the lot! It was only a matter of time before stuff like this started turning up:

This is a review of Goya Codfish Batter Mix, Bacalaitos, 4.5-Ounce Packages (Pack of 24):

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Goya's Dream, January 26, 2008

By	Mister Quickly "Amazon epicurean"

The sign of a quality product is whether or not its existence is presaged for you in a dream during childhood. I dreamed of this Goya codfish batter mix. I was in an olive grove, Leo Sayer was playing, and then this Goya codfish batter mix --- startled, I awoke yelling "Bacalaitos", as though it were the name of a Spanish magician who was untying a silk handkerchief that had been blinding me. At last I could finally see.

With that being said, I prefer the Crab Place's more versatile Fish & Shrimp Batter sold here on Amazon. It can be used with codfish, basa, probably sea cucumber. Try it out.

4 stars.

This user has a whole profile of gently amusing posts. If this kind of thing tickles your fancy much, then just search "amazon reviews funny", or indeed just go to the tuscan whole milk page and get your solid yuks from there.

Today's quote...

"A good argument has no need of a loud voice"

This is another anonymous quote which, from a cursory internet search, only shows up on posts from the 13th January. Suspicious! Someone, somewhere, obviously collated the quotes and facts for these kind of desk calendar/daily conversation pieces, and people have since pilfered all the data for their own use. I'm pointing no fingers.

Anyway, "a good argument has no need of a loud voice"?

No loud voice:



A good argument:

Monday, 12th January

On the 12th January, 1895...

"The National Trust was founded in Britain"

from wikipedia:

The Trust was founded on 12 January 1895 by Octavia Hill (1838–1912), Robert Hunter (1844–1913) and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley (1851–1920), prompted in part by the earlier success of Charles Eliot and the Kyrle Society. A fourth individual, the Duke of Westminster (1825–1899), is also referred to in many texts as being a principal contributor to the formation of the Trust.

The National Trust of the UK protects, according to its website, "215 houses and gardens, 40 castles, 76 nature reserves, 6 World Heritage Sites, 12 lighthouses, and 43 pubs and inns." As well as this, there is the small matter of 707 miles of the British coastline.

Although there are 7723 miles of coastline in total for the whole of the UK, this is still a staggering amount of land. The Trust's policy states that "Valued habitats and species of the coastal zone will be conserved and enhanced as far as practicable, accepting that they will develop or adapt in response to coastal, oceanic and climate change. The Trust accepts that some habitats and species will be lost or replaced through natural processes and we will attempt substitution of losses elsewhere". The National Trust puts up the fences and the nice-looking footpath signs but has little effect with global factors, it seems. In it's 114-year history, however, the Trust has done great good in preserving areas of outstanding natural beauty. Like this one.

The Lizard peninsula, Cornwall, by flickr user fidothe*

For most poeple, though, The National Trust is "that organisation that looks after stately homes". This is where they make their money, from places like Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, Kew Gardens, and my most local-est, Sutton House. That reminds me - I really, really need to visit it when it reopens in February.

Why not visit the website and find out what's local to you?

The Quote:

"Today's problems are tomorrow's memories" - an anonymous quite, and one that will not be matched for glibness, I suspect, all week.

Friday, 9th January

On Friday, 9th January 1995...

"The death of British actor and comedian, Peter Cook"

Peter Cook as E L Wisty

From the slightly morbid find a grave website:

"Actor, Comedian. Born in Torquay, Devonshire, the son of Alec Cook, a diplomat, and his wife Margaret (nee Mayo), he was educated at Radley and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He intended to follow his father into the diplomatic corps but, while still attending the University, began writing sketches which were performed in the West End."

And from then on... well, bang! Satire boom, Private Eye, Not Only.... But Also, Bedazzled, 70s Derek and Clive, 80s, er... chatshow appearances... etc, etc, etc... The whole story is on the wikipedia entry in some form or other and I've not the time nor the inclination to rewrite the biography for this blog... Instead, here's a Peter Cook Youtube Special:

Not Only... But Also: "Sexual Frustration"

Or a prototype for the two-ordinary-blokes-in-a-pub-talking-about-celebrities" Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse sketches... "Oi! Edmunds! Noooo!" etc. A lovely piece - dreamlike fantasy presented as reality. Pete & Dud were both wonderful, rounded characters, believable despite being played by two Oxbridge graduates. Cook and Moore's relationship is said to have been something of an abusive one, and you can see in this some of Cook's in-character comic condascencion - his eyes fixing on Moore, intent on the upper hand.

Peter Cook on So It Goes with Clive James

"Entirely A Matter For You", Secret Policeman's Ball, 1979

In many ways the meaty satire of Cook's generation reinforced the viewer's cleverness and cynicism... here is Cook's oft-quoted (and oft-talkingheaded) monologue as an immediate response to the trial of Jeremy Thorpe, the liberal MP. Take time to reinforce your cleverness (and add to it your up-to-date noughties cynicism) and read about the Thorpe and trial here, and then watch a performance which is somehing quite masterful and commanding, a little dry perhaps, but mesmerising nonetheless.

On Clive Anderson Talks Back, 1992

First of four videos on YouTube (the rest are here, here and here, or they should flash up at the end, so you could cycle through in the regular manner). Cook came on the show in the guise of four different fictional guests - an old-school northern football manager, a hoary high court judge, a vacuous member of the British rock gentry and this, as Norman House, who is essentially one of Cook's oldest characters EL Wisty, but with a few biographical adjustments.

Peter Cook is, in some ways due to his early death, one of "comedy's untouchables". Ask Ricky Gervais for his opinion and I'm sure he'd get all serious and dewy-eyed like he does on those Shows Where People Get Interviewed About Stuff They've Watched (only the classy ones for Gervais, mind) and go on about the man (to a greater or lesser degree of effectiveness than I) and about how marvellous he was, and yadda, yadda yadda.

Lesser men (on lesser Shows Where People Get Interviewed About Stuff They've Watched) would describe him as "genius"*. He probably was one***. Whilst this kind of canonisation is something generally to be deplored and questioned at every turn, I think in Peter Cook's case it's more than fair.

There's a whole section of people who seem to think Cook squandered his God-given talent in his later years. Anyone who's skimmeed through the highs and lows of Cook's career should find plenty of talent most definitely not having been squandered. No-one has said of anyone that "the strength of his genius is how he drank himself to death"**** Peter Cook did a lot in his life. In the 14 years since his death, has anyone else done as much?

Today's Quote...

"Kindness consists of loving people more than they perhaps deserve"

We've all known people in relationships like that.

Have a lovely weekend!!!




* from the verb 'to be a genius'**

** forgetting that the word 'genius' is a noun, obviously

***both a noun and a genius
****practically no-one has said "the strength of her genius", but that's an entirely different kettle of eggs

Thursday, 8th January

It's Professor Stephen Hawking's 67th birthday!!!!

Stephen Hawking needs very little introduction. The British theoretical physicist and Pink Floyd collaborator with the wheelchair, the American-accented Speak'n'Spell voice and the 'default brainbox' status - Hawking has, since the publication of The Brief History of Time in 1988, been the exemplar of the kind of baffling-to-laymen MegaScience which most people accept as being 'clever' but never get round to exploring.

Maybe that's just me. I'm sure with some applied thinking i could begin to grasp the ins and outs of theoretical physics, but I'm too busy with downloading rare krautrock records, the BBC's iplayer facility and worrying about my bike to squeeze in any kind of Physics for Dummies-style home study. What can I say? I live in a dumbed-down world.

Aside from his achievments in Big Science, however, Hawking has had to live virtuaally all his life with Motor Neurone Disease, confining him to a wheelchair and requiring him to speak through the aformentioned speech program. He seems to have done alright besides this considerable hindrance, and is rightly admired for (and I hesitate to use perjorative terms such as this) 'battling' his disease and continuing with his life, and with his work.

His website has a short essay by Hawking, entitled "Professor Hawking's Disability Advice". It is a matter-of-fact, unsensationalist yet inspiring read:

Before my condition had been diagnosed, I had been very bored with life. There had not seemed to be anything worth doing. But shortly after I came out of hospital, I dreamt that I was going to be executed. I suddenly realised that there were a lot of worthwhile things I could do if I were reprieved. Another dream, that I had several times, was that I would sacrifice my life to save others. After all, if I were going to die anyway, it might as well do some good. But I didn't die. In fact, although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before.

(...)

I have had motor neurone disease for practically all my adult life. Yet it has not prevented me from having a very attractive family, and being successful in my work. This is thanks to the help I have received from Jane, my children, and a large number of other people and organisations. I have been lucky, that my condition has progressed more slowly than is often the case. But it shows that one need not lose hope.

Happy Birthday, Stephen.

And the quote for today...

"Perhaps it's only coincidence, but man's best friend can't talk"

An anonymous quote. Someone should have told this lot:

Wednesday, 7th January

On Wednesday 7th January, 1999....

"The impeachment trial of US President William Clinton began in the Senate"

The important thing to remember about the impeachment of Bill Clinton is that it wasn't over his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. Not specifically, that is. In January of the previous year Clinton repeatedly denied, and was subsequently found to be lying about, his relationship with Miss Lewinsky. Crucially, he did this under oath. Silly Billy!!

Anyway, today is the day the trial started. The move to impeach was voted out in the end, but the damage was done. The damage, of course, being the next president.


And now, the quote...

"Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age"

Says Victor Hugo!

Victor Hugo, pictured in 1884, aged 81. The old age of his old age.

Tuesday 6th January

On Tuesday, 6th January 1929...

"Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta to begin her humanitarian work"

Oh, Daily Desk calendar.... why so loose with the 'facts'?? Yes, Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta (that's Kolkota to you, buster) on the 6th January 1929... she then went to Darjeeling in the north, near the Himalayas "to become a Loreto beginner" (kind of like nun training, I suppose). After that she returned to Kolkota to teach, only then moving into the charity work which made her such hot stuff in the charitable-doing world. And all this despite her obvious shortcomings in the height department:

Mother Teresa, who took a vow of poverty, pictured with her spiritual equal

Today's Quote:

"Advice is like the snow - the more softly it falls, the better it takes hold"

Crap quote attack: all the quotation sources available to me show this as "Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind" and was first spoken by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the English poet and critic.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, complete with mullet hairdo

I'm not sure about this one, to be honest. Sure, advice is best given delicately and not forcefully, but snow? Had Samuel Taylor Coleridge ever been in a blizzard? The US National Weather Service defines blizzards as "storms which contain large amounts of snow or blowing snow, with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than 1/4 mile for at least three hours" The opposite of 'softly falling' snow, then. And the the thing is with blizzards... the snow, it sticks around! In massive bloody snowdrifts! Look at this video of the "Great Blizzard of 1977":



Compare that to, say, the snow falling in London yesterday. It fell softly, for sure. In fact, it barely fell at all. And how long did it stick around? til about 9:15am, I'd reckon.

So, think of London as a bit warm, a bit slow to take on subtleties... or 'soft snow'. London, by this twist of the definition, is an idiot. Don't expect tact, or gentle advice, to work. Give it hell and it might finally take your point.

Monday 5th January

On Monday 5th January, 1896:

"A German newspaper reported physicist Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays"

In the absence of the article itself (from, various sources tell me, an Austrian newspaper Wiener Presse), This from an interview conducted in 1896 by H.J.W. Dam for Mclure's magazine, published in April 1896.

"I have been for a long time interested in the problem of the cathode rays from a vacuum tube as studied by Hertz and Lenard. I had followed theirs and other researches with great interest, and determined, as soon as I had the time, to make some researches of my own. This time I found at the close of last October. I had been at work for some days when I discovered something new."

"What was the date?"

"The eighth of November."

"And what was the discovery?"

"I was working with a Crookes tube covered by a shield of black cardboard. A piece of barium platino-cyanide paper lay on the bench there. I had been passing a current through the tube, and I noticed a peculiar black line across the paper."

"What of that?"

"The effect was one which could only be produced, in ordinary parlance, by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube, because the shield which covered it was impervious to any light known, even that of the electric arc."

"And what did you think?"

"I did not think; I investigated. I assumed that the effect must have come from the tube, since its character indicated that it could come from nowhere else. I tested it. In a few minutes there was no doubt about it. Rays were coming from the tube which had a luminescent effect upon the paper. I tried it successfully at greater and greater distances, even at two metres. It seemed at first a new kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new, something unrecorded."

"Is it light?"

"No."

"Is it electricity?"

"Not in any known form."

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

As linked above, the article is reproduced in its entirety by the wonderful folks at Project Gutenberg, who provide free e-books (and html-ready texts) of out-of-print, out-of-copyright texts. Rather like an online version of Fahrenheit 451.

And the quote:

"Better to wear out than rust out" - Richard Cumberland

A 'work quote' which I take to translate roughly as: "Work hard! Stress is great! Kill yourself with it!"

Friday 2nd January

Today in 1839:

"French artist, Louis Daguerre, took the first photograph of the Moon"

Louis Daguerre

The problem with my daily desk calendar is this: it's hard to verify the 'facts'. Where do they come from? How do I know that this stuff is real? I've struggled to find a version of this photo online, and the only confirmation of today being the actual day on which Daguerre took his daguerreotype photo of the moon is from all the other 'on this day in history' websites out there. As Goebbels is quoted to have said, "Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes truth". With the Internet belching consensus at roughly a Marillion bytes per second, perhaps the same now goes for inaccuracy?

Anyway, the following things seem certain:

• Louis Daguerre was a French artist and chemist and was born in 1787 (thanks, wikipedia!)
• Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype method of photography, in which the image is exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor (yeah thanks again, wikipedia).
• Louis Daguerre has a crater on the moon named after him, an asteroid, and a street in Paris.
  

Here's a video of the daguerreotype process, brought to you by the shared efforts of both YouTube and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art:



The Quote:

"It is better to have lived one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep"

The other problem with the daily dek calendar is that none of the quotes are attributed. One might arrive at work, rip the last date greedily from its holding, and really enjoy an inspirational, motivational quote, without ever realizing who said it first. Without knowing, it could be from a murderer! Or worse!

Anyway, light googling reveals this Tibetan Proverb. It must be said, you've done well if you can do either in your lifetime.

Thursday 1st January

On This Day in 1894:

"The Opening of the Manchester Ship Canal"

From the Canal Archive:

At 10 o'clock, on the sounding of a steam whistle, a procession of vessels led by Samuel Platt's grand steam yacht 'Norseman' carrying the Company Directors set out on a journey along the Canal from Latchford. Thousands had travelled to see the New Year event and on the signal of the whistle, as described by Sir Bosdin Leech, 'a mighty sound of cheers was given, but this was quickly drowned out by the combined efforts of scores of steam whistles and sirens, it was perfect pandemonium''

50,000 people turned up on New Year's Day to take part in the celebrations. Manchester city council spent £10,000 on decorating the city! Obviously it was a big deal for the industrial city to gain such an important line of communication to the sea, bringing the cotton from the plantations of the American South to the hub of the British textiles industry in Lancashire.

The Manchester Ship Canal remains in operation to this day. For a 'virtual tour' (a bunch of pictures along the route), please yourself and go here.

The Norseman leads the way

In May of that year, Queen Victoria turned up to formally open the canal. For some time this was the standard Victorian definition of "fashionably late".

The Quote:

"When you're in a hole, stop digging"

Healey

This quote comes from Dennis Healey, who obviously never dug a canal in his life.

About This Blog

Each day is an anniversary of something happening 'in history'. And each day is an opportunity to mobilise a slumbering, demoralised workforce into activity through the use of an uplifting motivational quote! Combine these two elements together and the object you will be staring at will most likely be the daily desk calendar.

a desk calendar, next saturday

Each day (roughly, excepting perhaps weekends) you'll be brought the wit and wisdom of the calendar on my desk (mine bears the logo of a cleaning company called Greenclean, if you're interested), with elaborated stories behind the historical 'facts' and quotes. Think of this blog as your very own desk calendar, if you like..

(Because I'm feeling generous, I'll tell you who makes these calendars. It's a company called Bemrose, and you can find them here)