On The Sofa (8)

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  • #55979
    Mersey @mersey

    @mudlark

    I’m sorry that I enraged you. I cause only trouble :(. But I think you misunderstood me. I said that I know nothing about gardening and because of that I can’t really asses those voices of critique. My point was that critical comments or any other comments let me look from different point of view and reconsider my view on Gardeners’s world, Doctor Who or anything. Sometimes my view changes sometimes don’t. Maybe I shouldn’t  wrote that ‘I started to think that maybe Don is wrongheaded’ but ‘I started to consider that matter’. That was what I meant. You have to forgive me my languege blunders. (I thought ‘maybe’ is enough).

    I like Monty Don very much and that’s why I watch Gardeners’World. He is a brilliant presenter and his garden is amazing. I don’t doubt in his knowledge. Maybe it’s Titchmarsh who is bigheaded (any enraged Titchmarsh’s fans here?). Thank you for explaining about pest and chemicals.

    As to Stephen Moffat I hardly know about his critics. The only british newspaper I read is the Guardian and I think he has many fans there. The fact that I’m not a fan of the last two seasons doesn’t mean I hate Moffat. My favourite season of all time is season 5 which was the first Moffat’s season as a head writer and I can assure that any critical comments on Moffat or this series won’t change my view on it.

    #55981
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @mersey

    You didn’t enrage me, and I am very sorry if I upset you by giving you the impression that I was ‘enraged’.  I was simply a little concerned that you seemed to have allowed the opinions and criticisms of others to sway your judgement.

    I’m glad that you do in fact enjoy Gardeners’ World and like Monty Don as presenter and hope that you continue to do so.  I have watched the programme for over forty years, in which time there have been at least seven different presenters with different talents and approaches to the subject of gardening, and all have contributed in their different ways to developing it into what it is now; much in the way that many different people have contributed to the evolution of Doctor Who, in fact.  For every viewer individually some stages in the development may appeal more than others, but you stick with it throughout, because you know that it is worth it in the long run.

    Incidentally, if your interest in gardening programmes extends further, Monty Don has presented several short TV series on gardens and garden design across the world and throughout the past five hundred years, and if you haven’t come across any of these already, I would recommend that you look out for them.

    #55988
    Missy @missy

    @mersey;

    Thank you. I should like to stress that because I make a statement it doesn’t mean I’m right. I might think I am, but I could be wrong too. There have  been very, very rare occasions when I have been swayed. If  a thing sounds logical to me, I’ll accept it.

    I really, really don’t like gardening! *grins*

    Has anyone looked at the Video posted by Garnetto?

    Missy

    #55994

    (Moved out of the news thread)

    @missy @miapatrick

    I repeat, the English language is going to pot.

    This is stampy-footed nonsense. I admit get mildly irritated by English people who think ‘soccer’ is an Americanism for football (It’s not and when I grew up soccer/ footie/ football were used interchangeably on the playing field and in shops. It only became associated with the US with the founding of the (now defunct) North American Soccer League. But it is good English slang exactly like ‘rugger’ for rugby football, and coined before WW1.)

    But so what? Slang changes all the time and sometime it drives wider linguistic change.

    @janetteb

     It really annoys me when my boys use Americanisms

    Hmm:

    A very firm stand ought to be made against placate, transpire, and antagonize, all of which have English patrons.

    We quote two sentences from the first page of a story, and remark that in pre-Kipling days none of the words we italicize would have been likely; now, they may be matched on nearly every page of an ‘up-to-date’ novelist:

    Between the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured 2 rocks on the beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war bathing.—Kipling.

    Far out, a three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in from the deep sea.—Kipling. (HW Flower, The King’s English, 1908)

    See how absurd that seems, now? None of those would even be recognised as Americanism today. By the time the surviving Fowler published Dictionary of Modern English Usage 20 years later, such absolutism had all but gone. His essay on the split infinitive is, well, definitive.

    Besides, it works both ways. The time will come when Americans don’t even recognise ‘wanker’ and British slag. Thank you James Marsters! And then, of course, there is this: cultural imperialism, eh?

    And Missy:

    There is far too much emphasis put on Gay and Straight nowadays.

    When you have met a few people who have been queer-bashed you can make idiotic statements like this. Until then, stop it.

    Besides, redundant capitalisation is a much greater offence than using foreign slang.

    #55998
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @missy @thane15 @miapatrick

    The topic of language, the evolution of language and linguistic usage has arisen, so how could I resist 🙂

    Miapatrick is correct, that the English language is a hugely flexible mongrel tongue which has, on a Germanic base with its own varying and regional dialects, evolved and, in the process of evolution, borrowed from multiple sources including aboriginal British (Welsh), Norse, Norman French,Latin and Greek. Over the past four hundred years or so it has then been exported to many parts of the world and developed numerous variants; so who is to judge what is or is not ‘correct’. One of my sisters in law and her family speak an expressive form of English which has developed in the Indian subcontinent and is perfectly valid and comprehensible, even if it does not conform exactly to the English spoken in England.  Sometimes  elements of these variant dialects – as, for example, those spoken on many Caribbean islands, not to mention the version disseminated by US cultural imperialism  –  have returned to the mother island to enrich it or, as some cultural dinosaurs seem to think, contaminate it.   Language, and even pronunciation evolves, as anyone who has watched British or American films of the 1930’s and 1940’s can attest. On one occasion I made an American acquaintance collapse in laughter. She, vaguely aware of the differences in vocabulary and usage, was trying to explain something to me, and I loftily intervened to assure her that there was no need to explain because I was bi-lingual.

    What I do find saddening is the gradual erosion of the dialects spoken within Britain itself.  From my family I learned  words and expressions specific to Cheshire, Lancashire and West Yorkshire and, growing up in Norfolk, I acquired another and very different dialect vocabulary, some of which I now know to derives from Flemish and Dutch immigrants to the region, but I suspect that there are many younger people in both regions who now would recognise few of them.  Even the regional accent in East Anglia seems to be flattening out into a kind of South Eastern ‘estuarine’.

    Despite my awareness of the natural evolution of language I do find some things dispiriting- the conflation of ‘uninterested’ with ‘disinterested’, for example, which eliminates a subtle distinction in meaning, or the confusion between ‘flout’ and ‘flaunt’, which is a malapropism and not excusable. I am often also both irritated and amused by the increasingly common misspellings of words which have a Greek or Latin derivation, although it isn’t particularly surprising.  After all, how could anyone who has never studied Latin be expected to know that the word ‘desperate’ derives from Latin spero, to hope, and that desparate could imply  something different. Another one which amuses me is the spelling of hypocrisy as ‘hippocracy’ – literally ‘government by horses’ which always brings to mind Jonathan Swift and ‘Gulliver’s Travel’.  The meaning is normally apparent from the context, however, so there is no reason to obsess about the niceties – and, to digress, ‘nice’ is an example of how the meaning of words evolves.  In Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’, Henry Tilney teases Catherine and her friend about their use of ‘nice’ in the way that we would now generally use it, meaning ‘pleasant’ or ‘agreeable’, rather than ‘subtle, or ‘delicate’, so the preoccupation with linguistic change is nothing new.

     

    #55999
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @miapatrick

    The difference between ‘garden’ and ‘yard’ is another one of those linguistic divergences to ponder.  With me, as for you, a garden is an enclosed space where people grow things for pleasure or domestic use, whether flowers and shrubs or fruit and vegetables.  A yard is a utilitarian area at the rear of a house or farmstead, sometimes paved, where you might  – and certainly within the lifetimes of my parents and grandparents  – have found the wash-house, coal hole and privy.  Grander houses might have had courtyards and forecourts, which were more formal spaces.

    At my maternal grandparents’ terrace house in Stockton Heath, within my own memory, the scullery containing the only water tap and sink in the establishment, as well as a copper with a grate beneath it which was used for heating water for baths and for laundry, opened onto a yard containing the coal house and the WC –  a step up from the house my mother grew up in, where the privy was an earth closet at the end of the garden.  The tin bath was hung on a hook on the scullery wall. My maternal grandmother, born in 1882, was the second to youngest in a large family, and the yard of the cottage in which she grew up also contained the baking oven.  The boys in the family would be responsible for heating the brick oven by lighting a fire of brushwood within it. When the oven was hot enough they would rake out the ashes, and then the girls would run across the yard from the kitchen with the bread loaves and pies under their pinafores (to protect the dough from the elements) and put them in the oven.  It is an image which has always appealed to me.

    #56002

    @mudlark ***applause***

    As in ‘the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter’

    If you are not already familiar I will leave the joy of discovery to your own research.

    My parents’ most trusted friend – not a blood relative but Auntie Miff, nonetheless – may well have been the last speaker of the Hertfordshire accent, when she passed a couple of years ago, not long after get her telegram from Her Maj. The accent, along with those of Essex (read The Snow Queen), Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Kent were obliterated by more the 1 million people moving from London after WW2.

    My general view on whether a linguistic change is bad is framed by the question “does it cause us to conflate terms that are accurate with terms that are precise”. The idea that precision is in any way an equivalent to accuracy is at the root of almost all of our broken public discourse. And, of course, the people doing it – Dacre, Murdoch, Desmond etc – know exactly what they are doing.

    #56007
    janetteB @janetteb

    @mudlark That was a lovely description of your grandparents house. IT reminded me of my grandmother’s house which still had the old metal tubs hanging on the wall by the bathroom. It was an interesting house. The front part had been a shop back when my grandmother was going to school. Two miners cottages had been added on to it so there was a “lean to” in the middle of the house. In the years after my Grandmother went into a nursing home the various sections began to separate. A cat fell through the roof and was trapped in the living room for a couple of days. In the overgrown garden there were tombstones. My Grandfather’s family were stonemasons and they were rejects. The yard was so deep that during the Depression my grandparents kept hens and a cow as well as growing vegetables. His old shed was just as he left it, with all his tools scattered on the bench. It was as though time dare not approach.

    I have been recently researching into the Ayrshire dialect, helped by the verses of Robbie Burns. Dialects fascinate me especially coming from a young country.

    Cheers

    Janette

    #56008
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @pedant

    No research needed 🙂  The source of your quotation adorns my bookshelves, along with most of the associated body of work.

    #56009
    Miapatrick @miapatrick

    @mudlark- oh Austen is wonderful for evolving language. The double meaning of Mr Collin’s and Lady Catherine De Bourgh’s ‘condensation’. He means it, or thinks he means it in an older sense, as something admirable in a higher class persons interaction with the lower classes. But when he says it, we read it as the word became, insufferable behaviour. So no one says Darcy is being condescending when he talks to the Gardeners and invites Mr Gardener to fish in his lake, even though even Elizabeth is rather impressed that he does this.

    Another thought about Americanisation. The ‘z’. They’re just being rather old fashioned. I read so much 18th and 19th century literature it seems quite natural to me.

    I’m studying an OU Literature module ‘From Shakespeare to Austen’ which is proving tremendously unpopular with many of the students for have the temerity to expect us to do a substantial amount of independent study, mostly (shocking I know on a literature module) reading! I’m enjoying it, personally. It’s my last module for my degree and one thing I’m going to miss is the access to the online Oxford English Dictionary. One thing we’re encouraged to do is take a word, say in a Shakespeare scene, look up the various meanings and consider which one most closely fits the use in the passage, and it’s amazing how meanings change over time, how different uses remained current at the same period of time, how some words come to mean pretty much the opposite. Obviously the more people reading and writing and distributing their writing, the faster such changes come (and the less stable the changes are sometimes). So the printing press, increased literacy after the Protestant and Catholic reformations, cheaper printing costs, increased levels of schooling for children of different classes, increased meritocracy, compulsory education for all and then the internet have all had an influence. But words still changed when the people reading and writing were a minority. Maybe another thing that has happened is that spoken and written English have come closer together. And of course, English being established as a literary language in the early modern period, the nobility and royalty no longer speaking mostly French, scholars writing in English as well as Latin, and so forth.
    (of course, rather than wittering on about this on the internet I could just get on with my next essay…)

    #56010
    Mersey @mersey

    @mudlark

    You didn’t upset me at all. I’m very grateful for your suggestions about other Monty Don’s programmes. I’m not sure if I can say that I have watched Gardeners’ World  for 16 years but 16 or 17 years ago (definitely before 2001) I saw several episodes with Alan Titchmarsh for the first time. On Monday mornings I was alone at home I watched Gardener’s World before I went to school on a small tourist tv with only one channel. And it was magical and so british when Titchmarsh was sitting on his veranda and sipping his tea (or at least this is how I remember that).It’s one of my special memory from my early teenage years so I have a sentimental attachment to the Gardener’s World. So don’t worry I won’t stop watching it. The first episode of the new series with Beth Chatto was just amazing. Early spring is my favourite time of the year.

    #56012
    Anonymous @

    @pedant @missy @mudlark @miapatrick

    intense indeed. 🙂

    Also, pedant, rather long -for you!

    Try John Donne, people -and assess his proscriptions of  “our” evolving and necessary  “world language” -a rather modern concept way back when. Not only known for “whom the bell tolls” etc.

    Also, when my brain is fully fired there’s a terrific novel about the beginnings of the OED: hang on, it’s coming: The Surgeon of Crowthorne.

    @miapatrick did  Collins not say, “thank you for your condescension“?

    I see your “condensation” and raise it…

    😈

    Puro.

    #56014
    janetteB @janetteb

    @miapatrick Reading nineteenth century newspapers it is obvious that spelling was not considered to be overly important. Surnames especially could be spent in different ways within the one article. Even the literate did not appear to be too fussy about the spelling of their name. The spelling at the time was also what we would now call “American” spelling.

    And now I really should be checking up on Jammy Dodger recipes because they are still not to be found on the supermarket shelves.

    Cheers

    Janette

    #56015
    janetteB @janetteb

    @thane15 Surgeon of Crowthorne is a recommended read for anyone who objects to Wikipedia on the grounds that is is complied from external contributions.

    John Donne wrote many fine lines but “No man is an island” is one of his best.

    On an unrelated side note, I was saddened to see that Tim Piggot-Smith died on Friday. The role of Marco in Masque of Mandragora was one of his first. (I am currently watching North and South so it made the news more poignant.)

    Cheers

    Janette

    #56023
    Miapatrick @miapatrick

    @than15 ack bugger! Yup, condescension. Thinking of @janetteb‘s point about irregular spelling in the 19th century… good times.
    Case in point with John Donne: The Canonization.
    Another thing people bitch about the Americans for is making new words by putting a sequence of words together. Which is thoroughly Germanic and a fantastic way to proceed
    @Jannetteb- Jammy Dodgers seem like they would be awfully fiddly. (Can’t be worse than hot cross buns though.) Could you order them through Amazon or something?

    #56024

    @miapatrick

    people bitch about the Americans for is making new words by putting a sequence of words

    Absofuckinglutely!

    (Oh come on! You just left that dangling there!)

    @janetteb

    The Co Op is you shrine for all things Dodgerish.

    #56025
    janetteB @janetteb

    @miapatrick. Attempted to make hot cross buns this afternoon. They look awful. Baking isn’t my strong point.

    @pedant For some reason I first thought your comment referred to the discussion about culture and language and was totally confuddled. (Maybe it is because my character is currently being attacked by evil dwarfs and any moment I am going to be called to attention. )

    Cheers

    Janette

     

    #56026
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @janetteb

    I used to make hot cross buns, though nowadays I buy them from Marks & Spencer.  They were generally successful to the extent that, although they did not look entirely professional, they tasted better than the bought variety. I did learn very early, though, that they should be made with ‘strong’ (high gluten) bread flour. If made with ordinary, all purpose flour, the texture is all wrong.

    The most memorable occasion on which I made them was Easter 1980.  I was living in Northampton at the time but had come over to Norwich to spend the holiday weekend with my mother. Arriving on the Thursday afternoon I offered to make the buns and, early in the evening, set to work mixing and kneading the dough.  The previous summer my mother had acquired two Burmese kittens, one brown, one red, respectively named Shadow and Sundance. They were a mischievous and highly resourceful pair, and for the first ten or fifteen minutes they were underfoot making a nuisance of themselves; then apparently they lost interest and went out to terrorise the neighbourhood. Having kneaded the dough I set the bowl in a conveniently warm place to prove, returning an hour later to knock it back and shape the buns, placing them on two baking trays which I returned to the warm place.

    I then went back to the living room and told my mother that the buns were now rising in their trays on top of the boiler.  ‘Oh’ she said, ‘I don’t think that’s a very good … ‘ but before she could finish there was a loud crash from the kitchen.

    We ran through to witness a scene of devastation. One of the trays was on the floor and in the middle of it was Shadow, wolfing down the raw dough which trailed in strings from his lower jaw, whiskers and paws.  The other tray was still on top of the boiler, but Sundance was sitting beside it, patting the buns with one of his forepaws

    Having evicted the miscreants we binned the contents of the tray on the floor, but having inspected the buns in the other tray for contaminants such as cat hair, decided that they were salvageable, and in due course they went into the oven.  That year, though, they were referred to as ‘hot paw buns’.

    As for jammy dodgers, not even for the Doctor would I buy or eat them. I just wish that he could have expressed a preference for one of the few varieties of sweet biscuit that I actually liked. But such is life, and chacun a son gout and so forth.

    #56027
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @mersey

    Beth Chatto’s garden is wonderful and I just wish that they could have devoted more time in the programme to it and the interview with her.  The garden is only about 60 miles from where I live, but it is a long time since I last visited it and I really must do so again soon. At one time the format of Gardener’s World was such that they would alternate between one week’s programme devoted to discussion and practical demonstrations of gardening techniques and planting, and the next devoted entirely to an exploration of one garden and its gardener and/or designer – sometimes one nationally famous and open to the public, sometimes a just a particularly interesting private one which had been brought to their notice.  In some respects I preferred that approach, although I still enjoy watching.

    #56028
    Anonymous @

    @mudlark @janetteb @miapatrick @pedant  @mersey (waving hello to you Mersey <*/*>)

    Puro here -Thane did a LOT of talking yesterday on Forum. Today he must review ‘Fantastic Beasts’ which we watched yesterday (using the word ‘loquacious’).

    @miapatrick Sounds like you have a lot on your plate -study-wise. Spot on about the Germanic connection there. My first awareness of this in music was Wagner et al libretti for The Ring Cycle. Notice the use of ‘wise’ -about five years ago everything was ‘wise’ =music-wise; literary-wise.

    Head-wise =explode  😀

    Honestly, Mudlark, you must write memoirs. Truly. You write beautifully and whilst the hot cross buns caused you some grief it led to much giggling over here. At least you rescued some of the dough but I can imagine the frustration in trying to ‘peel’ dough off your cats.

    @janetteb If you can create Jammy Dodgers you’re doing extremely well.  These days I don’t bake as often as I should (Thane could eat an entire cake) considering the baked goods section in Coles is pretty dire -maybe you have a better grocery aisle than we do and better bakers, too.  I recall South Australian bakers, often sons and daughters of immigrants, as utterly wonderful. Coming to Brisbane was a let down -in that respect.

    I used to make a very dark, almost black poppy seed cake and a delicious coffee* and rum cake which was very moist and served with double cream (and more spirits!) as well as various jam and cream rolls but my roll tin has been mouldering away in the cupboard for too long. I send the baking goddess your way hoping you’re successful in the jammy dodge department.   *-_-*

    *I must thank both my mothers for the delicious coffee cake -an original recipe passed down from great grandmas with ingredient availability varying the result.  My new oven is staring at me viciously, “USE ME, it’s what you paid for” so when the hot weather vanishes, I’ll roll up my sleeves and roll out the roll tin. 🙂

    @mersey @mudlark indeed -gardening shows and gardens. I puddle away in mine but until last week the water situation was dire. Throwing every thing at it (bath water, washing machine/dishwasher water = no help) was  useless and our mini cyclone caused a major run off due to the dry surface clay. Naturally, the weeds are hysterical with joy!  Shortly, it’s time for tomatoes, carrots and lettuces which last till November and more herbs and blossoms. Herbs are marvellous for keeping pests at bay.  I shall use @pedant ‘s Wunderground (weather) suggestion.

    On Fantastic Beasts @janetteb (and any others) did you like it? I was underwhelmed. I loved the details of the little ‘beasts’ (“pickett”) but when it went full Narnia and X-Men I yawned. Relationships between people act as the ‘click trigger’ and the potential for investigating this was lost due to “Narnia time”. The FX were startling and Eddie’s performance terrific. Were others reminded of Mat Smith as the Doctor? The coat, boots, hair and almost-stutter?

    Kindest,

    Puro (out on her own!)

    #56029
    janetteB @janetteb

    @mudlark.  I think Burmese kittens could be forgiven for a lot, even a tray of hot cross buns. Interestingly I was reading an old Guardian article the other day about the origins of the crosses. Apparently they have found pre Christian Saxon buns with crosses on them to honour their spring goddess, Eostre. (So we were “permitted” to put crosses on our buns this year after all.:-) as they now fall into the “ancient custom” category.) The article did not explain how it was known that was what the crosses signified however.

    Cheers

    Janette

     

     

    #56030
    Anonymous @

    @janetteb @mudlark

    marzipan? Possibly too sweet for you Miss Mudlark but I used to ‘make’ hot cross bun marzipan complete with all the little colours  and the cross in plain marzipan across the top. Very small, four would sit easily on your palm. Also, an Easter bread -common to Czechs and Germans which is very soft and delicious for breakfast. This could be up your alley, Mudlark, as it’s almost a savoury item depending on one’s additions.

    PurowithoutSon

    #56035
    Missy @missy

    @pedant: Try reading what is said properly my dear, instead of jumping to conclusions.

    “There is far too much emphasis put on Gay and Straight nowadays,” means exactly that. But just for you.  It shouldn’t matter whether a person is homosexual or not, they are human beings and that is what counts.  By Her Maj, I assume you mean Her Majesty?

    Janette: We have found a shop, not too far from us, that sells Jammy Dodgers. *grin* I indulge myself quite often.

    Missy

    #56040
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @thane15

    If you are judging by the examples above, puro, I think that your praise of my writing is somewhat overstated.  When I wrote yesterday evening, glass of wine to hand, I did check for typos, and even so missed a superfluous ‘a’, but re-reading in the morning light I can see several glaring stylistic infelicities. But hey, this is an internet forum, and if I were to spend time polishing my prose I would never get round to hitting ‘submit’.

    One thing we didn’t need to do, incidentally, was peel the dough from the cats. They proved able to manage that without assistance, licking it off themselves and each other. Those two would eat anything if it was left unguarded in a kitchen, as my mother’s neighbours soon learned.  Even as tiny kittens they were adept at opening any door with a lever handle, and they regarded any house in the vicinity as part of their territory. Fortunately the little imps were so endearing that few of the neighbours seemed to mind their burglarious habits.

    Shadow, sadly, did not live very long, although what life he had was adventurous and crammed with incident.  Unfortunately, his lack of caution was his undoing, because he was hit by a car one dark night on a narrow lane nearby which led to a golf course.  There was a 5 MPH speed limit on the lane which was little more than a track, but many of those heading to or from the club house ignored it.

    Sundance lived to a good age, though, and in his later years used sometimes to come home at night smelling of expensive cigarettes and perfume.  My mother never did discover where he had been, but it led to some fantastical speculation.

    Your gardening problems, having to contend with heat and drought, evoke my sympathy.  East Anglia is the driest region in Britain, officially classed as ‘semi-arid’, and it is a couple of weeks at least since we had any significant rainfall here, but my rain water barrels are still full, and this early in the season the soil beneath the surface retains some moisture, even if it is dry on top.   Today we are getting a foretaste of summer, with temperatures predicted to hit 22 C or above, so it’s carpe diem and off into the garden for me. There is no time to waste if planting is to be done.<b></b><i></i><u></u>

    #56042

    @mudlark

    East Anglia is ….officially classed as ‘semi-arid’

    Hmmm. Not really. I’ve seen the claim, but official the whole of the UK is still classed Temperate Oceanic. I do not for one second doubt that climate change will get it there (nor that some micro-climates are well on the way), but those calling this early are making the cardinal error of conflating weather and climate. Semi-arid is places like Arizona, Southern Spain, the Canaries and East African savannah.

    Of course, everybody knows that the real problem is that Wales is stealing all the rain.

    Sundance lived to a good age, though, and in his later years used sometimes to come home at night smelling of expensive cigarettes and perfume.  My mother never did discover where he had been, but it led to some fantastical speculation.

    Now there’s a short story that is screaming to be written.

    @missy

    You said, in a nutshell “we stop taking about it,  just get a long…?”, which suggested either the reasoning skills of an 8 year old, or the stirring skills of someone with a few more decades  on the clock. As a statement it its right up there with your earlier wilful blindness to racism. We talk about sexuality now because it was swept under the carpet – or actively vilified – for centuries and we are not even close to making up the damage.

    So grow up or stop stirring.

     

    #56043
    janetteB @janetteb

    @thane15 the mention of marzipan (which I love) reminds me we are about to make Swedish Semlor, (lent buns) which are filled with a very sweet almost paste. I think I will leave that task to R.2 however as he is much better at baking than I am it seems. I will stick to making Jammy Dodgers after the Hot Cross Bun disaster. I can manage biscuits.

    @mudlark I am a terrible proof reader. I do read through my comments before posting but am incapable of noticing all the glaring errors until I have posted. It is difficult to proof read one’s own work because we know what it is meant to say but my errors are inexcusable. Recently I sent an article to a friend for a E-Zine (about Dr Who of course). I reread it more than once but only noticed the typos when it went out. eek. My eldest son is now my editor though it is difficult to keep him to task.

    Burmese are lovely cats. We think our moggie has a little Burmese in him as his fur is rusty brown in the sun and he has that gentle personality.

    cheers

    Janette

    #56045
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @pedant

    I stand corrected 😳

    I first read the ‘semi-arid’ claim some years ago and was surprised, as my understanding of that classification was as you define it, but the source seemed authoritative so I did not question it.  You identify the problem though: Wales – and the Lake District do steal the rain, and most of what they do not snaffle gets deposited on the Midlands, so more often than not when rain is forecast, we end up with nothing, or at best a light sprinkling which is barely enough to lay the dust.  Very frustrating for a gardener.

    The writing of short stories – or memoirs for that matter – will have to wait; I have a monograph to finish, and a fair amount of additional research before I can do so.

    #56046

    @mudlark

    do steal the rain, and most of what they do not snaffle gets deposited on the Midlands,

    Orographic rainfall, doncha know. Warming maritime air rises when it hits the uplands, expands and cools, therefore condensing into rain or snow. Once over the mountains, it descends and warms, meaning it has less moisture but can hold more – so less condensing unless some nice frontal system turn up.

    When the wind is from the east, they may be colder but they are also coming from Eurasia, so they are much drier. East Anglia says (relatively) dry either way. But there has been enough to irrigate all that lovely, fertile, glacial boulder clay.

    You are in grave danger of tipping me into full Geographer Mode. Cromer Ridge = terminal moraine and the Thames used to flow through the Vale of St Albans…..STOP NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

    #56047
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @pedant

    Yeah; I was of course joking, as were you. I may not be a geographer or geologist or a climatologist or a meteorologist, but I am familiar with the basics, which are useful to an archaeologist. As it happens I have just been examining the more intricate details of the cretaceous and quaternary geology particular to the area of my current investigation, as well as the soil map, because they are relevant to prehistoric, Romano-British and medieval activity in the area, and particularly to the pattern of agriculture and husbandry practiced there – the layout of medieval arable fields, pastures, common and sheep courses matches the mapping of the bedrock, superficial deposits and resulting soils beautifully. I also have to consider the vagaries of the weather during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in relation to the Black Death and the impact on the population of the village, because the tally of vacant messuages in the late medieval survey of the township, which like most such surveys retains information from a much earlier periods, provides a fairly exact measure of the fall in population which matches the rather more generalised documentary evidence.

    As for the Cromer Ridge, there is no need to tell me about it, I must have tramped over almost every inch of it in the course of my field work over the years 🙂

    So if you go into full geographer mode I am prepared to retaliate.  You have been warned 😈

     

    #56048

    @mudlark

    One of the fascinating aspect of this whole area is that we have the concept of the “Agricultural Revolution” with Townshed and Jethro Tull (Wikipedia, bless it, even says Townshend invented four-course rotation) and the Enclosure Acts in the 18th century.

    Except that:

    1. Most of lowland England was already enclosed via a combination of piecemeal illegal the Enclosure Act and assarting, with started in the twelfth century. The savage impact of enclosure was mostly felt in the uplands of England, Wales and Scotland.

    2. The Romans practiced four and even 5 course rotation, as well as selective breeding.

    In late Empire, Roman civil society was peaceful and safe – civilians were not routinely armed and any free man had the chance to educate and work his way into a profession (note the lack of gender neutral language, and mention of slaves!). Roman engineering was peerless, at least in Europe.

    When the  Empire quit England it took less that 40 years to revert to warlordism, to move back up the hills from the valleys the Romans preferred (St Albans overlooks Verulamium) and for all that knowledge to be lost for more than 1000 years.

    Take all that it is is not hard to let the mind drift to a scenario where the Romans were one blast furnace away from an industrial revolution.

    #56051
    Anonymous @

    @pedant  @mudlark

    That’s amazing. No-one taught us that. Only about Jethro Tull, though 🙂

    I had no idea they, the Romans, did the rotation with crops thing.

    I thought that was in England during a specific decade.

    Seems like half of what’s taught is really ‘rong’ 🙁

     

     

    #56052
    Anonymous @

    @janetteb

    Puro here but Thane typing coz it’s a funny story.

    Ballarat.

    Love it.

    When I was 15 we visited on a school trip and were billeted. The girl I stayed with took us to the ice rink which was awful! The thing started to melt and eventually I fell into a hole requiring me to be towed out by the tractor which flattens the ice. Unfortunately the tow truck got stuck too  🙂 The police were called and the temperature of the ice was lowered which then meant they had to ice pick the whole mess. The rink was dotted with socks, skates, shoes.

    My mate Kylie, ended up at an ’80s rave which was terrifying. At breakfast the next morning, Kylie and her house person were chewing away on cereal whilst the person’s mum was having a fag and some ‘hair of the dog’. Half way thru the cereal, the Mum said to Shazza (yes, that was the person’s name) “i’m picking you up from school and taking you to the Doctor so we can put you on the pill. We don’t want another problem like last Winter do we?”

    Poor Kylie wanted to run out of the house. This was a particularly exciting school trip to the B. 🙂

    @mudlark Oh, I disagree, you have a delightful way with words! As to the geographical and geological ‘issues’ I must add I know nothing! I taught geography, once, to a group of year 9s -it was frightful. I needed all the answers before waltzing in.

    @janetteb indeed -you be right! The Chinese were incredibly relevant to Aussie culture and even so, before the recent millennia, provided us with ingenious ideas from their past.

    Puro and Thane.

    #56053
    Anonymous @

    Some sad news. For any Ozzies @janetteb @missy and ex-pats @blenkinsopthebrave

    John Clarke died aged 68 -of the satirical pair Clarke and Dawe, a wonderful duo exercising an anti-jingoistic theme every Thursday evening following The 7.30 Report.

    Puro and Thane

    #56054
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @Thane15 and @pedant

    There was some four-course rotation in the Midlands in the late Middle Ages. Townshend’s great innovation was to popularise the Flemish use of clover, which fixes nitrogen in the soil and provides feed for animals turned into the field for grazing – previous four-course rotation had relied on one field simply being left fallow. Oh, and to popularise the Flemish use of turnips, which meant more animals could be kept alive over winter.

    The clover was a win-win; it replenished the nitrogen, fed the animals and the animals fertilised the field as well. But the poor guy is remembered for the turnips. 🙂

    The big confusion with ‘crop rotation’ is that the agricultural revolution moved us from a Roman system of leaving one field fallow to the modern system where every field is in use.

    #56055
    janetteB @janetteb

    @thane15 Yes that sounds like Ballarat. I fled when I was eighteen never to return but for the brief obligatory family visit. I do love the lake/glorified swamp and Sovereign Hill and I admire the way they have promoted their heritage, putting back all the shop verandah posts that my father had removed. The appearance of the town has certainly improved since I left, (and Dad retired).

    Sad news about John Clarke.

    @mudlark I am always envious of you British archaeologists. You have so many layers of history to study. Nomadic peoples leave little trace and, though what information there is is all the more precious for being so rare, there is so much less to find. Archaeology of the past hundred and fifty years isn’t so appealing, even if there is plenty of it to be found in our backyard. Our dog is always digging up bits of china and broken glass.

    In the local region nineteenth century farmers did not rotate crops or keep fields fallow because their lots were too small. They burnt the stubble in autumn and ploughed in the ash. (A practice which still goes on today.) The resulting impoverishment of the soil led to increased crop susceptibility to disease making their farms even less sustainable. One of the reasons this state is littered with ruined stone cottages.

    @bluesqueakpip

    Welcome back.

    Cheers

    Janette

    #56059
    Missy @missy

    All: There are so many interesting posts on here Unfortunately not being on this forum every day they tend to pile up on me, but I shall read them.

    @pedant: You  do suit your name, and there’s me thinking that I was pedantic . *shakes head* I shall leave you to your incorrect assumptions.

     

    #56070
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @pedant

    Take all that it is not hard to let the mind drift to a scenario where the Romans were one blast furnace away from an industrial revolution.

    No blast furnaces, but in the area I am looking at there is plenty of evidence for late Iron Age and Roman iron working from the first century onward.  They were exploiting the local carstone (ferruginous sandstone for the uninitiated), from which you may deduce that we are talking about North West Norfolk. In the township which is the focus of my research at least three sites have been identified from surface scatters of iron working residue, though it all seems to have been on a fairly small scale.   There was a villa immediately to the north, so chances are this was, or became part of the economy of the associated estate.

    @pedant @thane15 @bluesqueakpip

    Yes, it is all a lot more complicated than the version taught in schools – when it is taught at all, that is.

    Most of lowland England was already enclosed via a combination of piecemeal illegal the Enclosure Act and assarting, with started in the twelfth century

    Well, up to a point that is true, and in some regions of lowland England the open field system was never typical to begin with, but in parts of Norfolk large areas of open field survived until late.  In the particular township I have been studying manorial documents show that even in the mid 18th century there were still extensive tracts of open field with strips held in severalty.  In the 1490s there had been almost no enclosure apart from some closes of pasture adjoining the homesteads and crofts of the village itself and one or two small enclosed pieces on the margins of a couple of the fields. A subsequent manorial survey suggests that nothing much had changed a century later, and it is only in the mid 17th century, when ownership or tenancy of the land began to be concentrated in just a few hands that things started to change slowly. What seems to have happened is that towards the end of the 18th century the landowners, having bought out the freeholders and taken in the small copyholds, came to an agreement among themselves to rationalise the system in the arable fields and to enclose the uncultivated sheep courses. Certainly no Act of Parliament was required.

    The other thing to note is that in Norfolk the open field system operated rather differently from the Midland pattern, in that the operative units in the system of rotation were not the fields but the furlongs – the subdivisions of the fields into which the strips, here known as pecia or pieces – were organised. There could be any number of fields of varying size within a single township, and they seem to have been little more than convenient units of reference, usually bounded by roads or natural topographical features. Another complicating factor was that most townships here contained land belonging to several different manors.  It must have made management of the rotations extremely complicated.

    The township I have been studying is a few miles south west of Townshend’s Raynham Estate but beyond the edge of the boulder clay and extending beyond the limit of the lower chalk, so the soils are somewhat different.  As in most of North Norfolk, it was farmed in the medieval and early post-medieval periods according to the foldcourse, or sheep/corn system which integrated arable cultivation and pastoralism. Large flocks of sheep were grazed on extensive unenclosed and uncultivated sheep courses, and at night were folded on the fallow furlongs or pieces, and on the fields ‘in time of shack’ – i.e. between harvest and ploughing for the next years crop.  Not as productive as the four course rotation, but it served to make Norfolk one of the wealthiest counties in England for several centuries.

    At which point I have probably bored the pants of everyone who has had the stamina to read so far, so I will switch out of archaeological mode and retire to my corner.

     

     

    #56071
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @janetteb

    (re-emerging briefly from my corner)

    Yes, we in the ‘old world’ are lucky in that respect.  The archaeology of hunter-gatherers is interesting but frustrating because of the relative scarcity of material evidence.  There is a reason I veered away from Palaeolithic archaeology and eventually began to find even Neolithic and Bronze Age studies – my original field of specialisation – limiting.

    The archaeology of relatively recent periods can be interesting too, though.  In the years immediately before I retired I was required to survey and assess World War II coastal defence installations, and on one occasion even to study a 1950s nuclear bomb storage facility.  I thought I would hate it, but it was in its own way fascinating, though it was disconcerting to reflect that I was recording the archaeology of events within my own life span.

    The point is, that the material record of everyday life and of industrial sites, even from relatively recent periods, is valuable because so much of it is taken for granted at the time and not a matter of documentary record.  I can think of domestic utensils and practices common in my parents’ childhood, or in mine for that matter, which would baffle younger persons now.  A few months ago I was talking to one of my nephews and he was staggered to learn that house where we lived until I was two and a half years old had no electricity or telephone, and that we relied on oil lamps for lighting and a coal fired range for cooking and water heating.  He said that he had no idea that people lived in those conditions so relatively recently and could scarcely imagine how we managed.  He was equally staggered to realise that I had many vivid memories of it – and yes, they are genuine memories, rather like brief video or film clips, and relate to nothing that anyone ever described to me or to the few photographs which were taken (it was wartime, after all, and photographic film was hard to get hold of) . Much later in life, when talking to my mother, I found that I could remember details of that house and the rooms within it that she had forgotten.

    And now I really will retire to my corner and shut up 🙂

     

    #56072
    Whisht @whisht

    @mudlark – I for one am not bored by this conversation (and the tune I’m about to post is not directed at you 😉 )

    I love learning more about the world and so am hugely enjoying the history I’m learning from the Sofa – long may it continue.

    Ancient History, Modern, this continent that nation… I for one, don’t give a fuck.

    Its a small world – but there’s no reason to make it smaller.

    I can make this more pointed but pointing is rude, so will skip back to the Music thread….

    #56077
    winston @winston

    @mudlark  I agree with you about recent history being interesting. Last winter we found an old dump site behind a 150 year old family farmstead in southern Ontario and dug to the bottom in layers over 5 months and found so many great things. These finds included bottles of medicines, some snake oil and some still around today and soda bottles from long gone companies. There was a fold up razor ,an  80 year old dog tag and milk glass cosmetic jars. Each layer told us about the lives of the families who lived on the farm from about 1900 to about the 1960s when they stopped dumping there. It even told us about the big whiskey drinker and smoker in the 30s and that they ate a lot of Heinz Ketchup in the 40s. Very fun and interesting stuff. We are now in search of an older dump site as the farm has been there for so long. Touching the history of your own people is very satisfying.

    #56078
    Arbutus @arbutus
    #56079
    Arbutus @arbutus

    And now I will have to go back and read the lengthy posts which look very interesting, but I will just say @winston, how extremely cool! I love that kind of history, how exciting finding your very own. What have you done with all the swag?

    #56080
    ichabod @ichabod

     

    @arbutus  Thanks for the link!  Apparently there was also in interview with the Radio Times that has drawn a good deal of ire — seems they sent a reporter with no notion of who (or Who) she was talking with, and does not watch “Doctor Who”, and her comments on his comments are being read as deeply rude and dismissive.  I haven’t found the RT interview, so I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like a rather nasty, looking-down-the-nose at Science Fiction/Fantasy and everyone connected with it (pretty much business as usual in some quarters).  I’m glad to see a straightforward interview in my home town Times.

     

    #56084
    janetteB @janetteb

    @mudlark your posts are always interesting. I enjoy reading everything you write. I would love to have studied archaeology along with history but it wasn’t an option.

    I was really born on the tipping point from “old world” to new. I recall some of the last vestiges of that “old world”. When I was very young there was a shop over the road which still sold unpackaged items. They weighed dry goods such as flour and tipped the flour or sugar from the scales into brown paper bags and spun then so the ends twirled. I used to be fascinated by that. I remember being bought a single biscuit. The shelves resembled those of shops one sees now in heritage theme parks. Our milk was delivered by a milkman with horse and cart and the baker came to the back door, unwrapped loaves of bread in a cane basket. By the time I was a teenager my parents shopped in supermarkets. That old world had vanished, the local deli turned into a drug selling dive, the small grocers shops boarded up and the dairy had been taken over.

    I did not mean that the recent history is not interesting. I have spent the last year researching my local region in the period from 1850 to 1900 approximately and I still have a lot more work to do. It is just that we have only 150 years of built/recorded history in South Australia so there is a lot less of it and the main interest is in the social history.

    @winston your dig sounds interesting and you are building up a picture of the inhabitants of the farm from their waste. We have only found fragments in our garden. The most interesting and intriguing item we have found was a iron needle-like object about thirty centimetres long embedded point up. It looked as though it was intended to be some kind of trap.

    @arbutus Yes. Time for some Who related discussion. (I keep forgetting which thread I am posting in) I started writing before reading to the end of the posts so have yet to follow the link then I will try to stay “on topic”.

    Cheers

    Janette

     

     

     

     

    #56086
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @mudlark   Your cats in the hot cross buns story was wonderful. Just the thought of cats eating raw dough had me laughing. Sundance is a lovely name for a cat! I had a Siamese many years ago, named Starbuck, who spent one memorable summer going from neighbour to neighbour, being fed by them all, because he was so goodnatured and gentle that they couldn’t resist- it took me quite awhile to figure out why he was getting so heavy! Kramer the rescue cat has learned to let us sleep through the night, but he does get terribly lonely around 6am, so heaven help us if we roll over or stretch. But when he really goes to town is when the alarm comes on at 6:45. He is a very vocal kitty, and he just starts letting us have it the minute the music starts. Forget about an extra 5 minutes! 🙂

    @thane15/Puro   As always, your story reduced me to hysterical laughter (fortunately, I had finished my tea!).

    @janetteb   Back in the day, all this off-topic stuff would have been modded all the way to outer space. It’s anarchy these days (but fascinating!). Interesting your comment about the dry goods. Lately, most of our grocery stores here have “bulk” sections, where you can scoop your dry goods from bins. We are going backwards apparently.

    #56091
    janetteB @janetteb

    @arbutus As one of the chief offenders I do feel very guilty about being so off topic and I occasionally try to throw in a Who related comment but the discussions have been so interesting. And one “off topic” subjects we have to shut out cat in the back part of the house or he will wake me up continually through the night. Occasionally at bedtime he will hide and wait until the light goes out so that he can sleep on our bed. He has some very sneaky hiding spots. A few months ago we had to cancel a vet’s appointment because as soon as I mentioned pulling out the cat box he vanished only to reappear about ten minutes after I had left for a meeting. I think he has a Tardis someone in the house.

    I enjoyed the article you put the link to. Only a few days to go. I am currently re-watching a selection of episodes from the past two series. I do wish Capaldi was staying on for at least one more series after this one.

    Cheers

    Janette

    #56092
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod

    That’s amazing! Thank you! You  put so much work into your ideas for me -I’m really grateful .I think I’ll know more on Monday but I do remember that we can bring 150 words in as notes -structure or difficult words we can’t spell! Mostly spelling is good for me but not being boring isn’t! I like the idea of watching someone do something like
    “she snuck out by the driveway” or something along those lines. You have a great mind. Thank you.

    @arbutus @mudlark I love the cat stories. Mum’s a bit allergic to cats so we’ve got none. No room for a dog, either. @janetteb cats are very smart animals, I think. But then dogs are too. Not sure. I had a fish once. It didn’t have   a long memory. It died one day and I don’t think it remembered dying. That just happened to it. Deep 🙂

    @winston really like how you found things in your back garden from so long ago. We find only huge rocks in our place because, years ago, where the house is now was the bottom end of a creek.  There are lots of creeks in this part of Australia -and they flood!

    Thank you,  Thane.

    #56094
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    Though this worth posting, especially as the new series comes upon us and activity on the site will undoubtedly increase once again.

    http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-04-11/peter-capaldi-had-this-to-say-to-the-cyberbullies-targetting-a-doctor-who-fan

    It’s absolutely in the spirit of the show to be as warm and welcoming as we can. Let’s remind ourselves to be the best that we can possibly can on the site (while recognising that we all slip sometimes, and I definitely include myself in that).

    And at the end of the day, it’s only Doctor Who…

    #56095
    Anonymous @

    @jimthefish

    Absolutely: always be the best you can be, never be cruel or cowardly is the Doctor’s mantra.

    Great link, thank you for posting that.

    From, Thane (g’night from me!)

    #56097

    @jimthefish

    Couldn’t be more timely. I will use this as an excuse to plug 13 Reasons Why again. Very on point.

    @Thane15

    Re short stories

    You seem to have been given a time limit, rather than a word limit, which is…odd. If there is a word limit, remember that it is a limit, not a target. A friend of mine can write a complete short story in under 100 words. Seriously. There is an apocryphal legend that Hemingway wrote a six word story: “For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never worn” (the story about this story is an interesting story).

    It can’t be too complex (I am mindful that my stories (those you have seen) try to kick this theory to the floor and give it is good pummelling, but you will be in test conditions so won’t really have time for that sort of existential ramble. So it might help to think it terms along the lines of:

    There is a character (the protagonist, who may or may not be human)…

    …to whom something happens or who sees something happen (which my be wholly innocent on the part of the antagonist, or may be malicious)…

    …which causes a reaction (which maybe be only in the head, or visceral and physical)…

    …which has an impact…

    …which may not be good…

    …which changes the protagonist, for better or worse.

    @ichabod has made a couple of interesting suggestions. The soccer tour has promise: a bunch of amiable Aussies go to England for  goodwill trip and get the shit kicked out of them by the Crystal Palace youth team.

    Pick a player (try to make it not you): how do they react – anger? fear? – what to the do – retaliate? run? – what happens next? What does he gain? What does he lose?

    I am sure ages ago you mentioned witnessing an attack (or accident) on your way from school. Another great source.

    Or, you know… your Mum’s a walking medical emergency who suddenly had the Feds turn up on her doorstep to reactivate her super secret agent persona. The PoV of the Fed has great comic potential (how did the world end? Puro was off her skull on methadone!)

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