Castle Aching

[robmcg]

Careful, I have a close friend who's mother is,  or was, to be more accurate, very 'Brum' ....

 

But moving gingerly along, where do the Arthurian heroes and heroines fit into this battle of theisms? I know the Crusades were all 'us' vs 'them', but I need to know who 'Knight of St Patrick' was, having just made a picture of 'his' GWR engine.

 

I also need to know whether Robin Hood was a good man or a complete fraud.... and am not sure the Sheriff of Nottingham is a reliable source...

 

Anyway, a spot of Churchward genius never went amiss, even if Swindon was a communist state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by robmcg
typo

[monkeysarefun]

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I don’t want to mention it in front of Edwardian, but we buy ‘green’ loo paper that my good lady sources from a small firm that I suspect is run by hipsters, and it arrives in a big box of 48 rolls, just before the last lot runs out (the hipsters must have a loo roll consumption algorithm, based on the number of people in the household).

 

My only fear is that the hipsters will have forgotten the standing order and be selling to the highest bidders on eBay by now.

 

I will swap loo roll for flour and yeast if anyone has any, because the paper makes rubbish toast.

Being in the country where the loo paper crisis began, back in early March I posted a picture of our empty supermarket shelves elsewhere on RMWEB, with a gentle suggestion to stock up while you can cos it'll happen there too.

 

The response was a bunch of smug replies of "Went shopping, checked toilet paper aisle - still full", "plenty of toilet paper when I last checked" and so on making me feel somewhat like Henny Penny.

 

Well who's laughing now as that thread has been full of  toilet paper whinging  for the last few weeks, and I can now buy big packs whenever I like -

 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

9 hours ago, webbcompound said:

Just popped out for a walk and missed the whole flat earth debate.   The Bedford Levels experiment is a bizarre event. Any sailor could tell you how tall things disappear over the horizon. Regarding popular knowledge the orb, (globe surmounted by a cross) has been the depiction of Christ's dominion over the world since the Roman Empire. Before that some coins (for example of Hadrian) showed Victory standing on a globe. It is depicted on coins, and held by kings from then on. If it was generally considered that the earth was flat it would be a disk not an orb. So anyone who saw coins, or knew anyone who had, or had been to church would know this. For the 19th Century invention of the myth that people in the middle ages believed the earth to be flat read  Jeffrey Burton Russel's book published in 1991: Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians.

 

Despite the huge technical advances of the 19th century in other areas of research the Victorians tended towards the dilettantish weird at times e.g. spiritualism. Probably because the major British learning institutions of the time had yet to reform their teaching of history and the other areas of social study in line with more scientific based approaches to data then beginning in Europe. Especially the complete restructuring of the epistemology of historic research by the German and French historians. So while the Victorians revolutionised the study of the physical sciences and study of natural history they wandered off into hopelessly romanticised visions of the human past, including, I suspect, this romanticised idea of Medieval scholars convinced that the Earth was flat.

  

One of the remnants from this period which still has its fanatical devotees is the concept of Druids which the Victorians invented from a few lines in Caesar, and some romantic notions of pure English blood as exemplified by the Welsh bardic tradition. Over time in popular culture these Druids gained a fictitious association with stone circles and monuments in complete disregard of the evidence that Druids as such were a manifestation of Iron Age and early Celtic beliefs and from what we understand tended to hold ceremonies in forests rather than in stone circles. This pseudo history continues to this day with completely bogus pagan festivals associated with megalithic structures everywhere, and causes physical damage to these structures. The reality is that apart from the obvious solar and lunar calendric alignments of the stone circles and other structures, little to nothing is known with certainty of their religious significance and furthermore completely ignores the fact that these structures were built up to 2 millenia or more before the Caesarian Druids made their appearance, and have their origins in older wooden structures which now survive only as post holes.

 

The Victorian ability to confabulate the human experience with romanticised nonsense can be quite astounding at time. On the one hand they embraced technology, evolution and created the foundations of nuclear physics and cosmology, while on the other went wandering off into fairy stories when it came to human history. A period of cognitive dissonance if ever there was one.  

Edited April 11, 2020 by Malcolm 0-6-0

[St Enodoc]

13 hours ago, dunwurken said:

 

Or Kirkcaldy or Brechin or Forfar or, if you wish to start a pronunciation war, East Lothian's version of "Mill guy", Gullane.   

I was going to suggest K'coddy!

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Being in the country where the loo paper crisis began, back in early March I posted a picture of our empty supermarket shelves elsewhere on RMWEB, with a gentle suggestion to stock up while you can cos it'll happen there too.

 

The response was a bunch of smug replies of "Went shopping, checked toilet paper aisle - still full", "plenty of toilet paper when I last checked" and so on making me feel somewhat like Henny Penny.

 

Well who's laughing now as that thread has been full of  toilet paper whinging  for the last few weeks, and I can now buy big packs whenever I like -

 

Well, we're just back from our weekly shop and for the fifth successive week Coles had none.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Well, we're just back from our weekly shop and for the fifth successive week Coles had none.

 

Well it can't have become a serious problem because we have no reports of exploding human beings as yet .......

[Hroth]

9 hours ago, Schooner said:

  9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Just try Hamlet's soliloquy in a Brum accent...

 

9 hours ago, Schooner said:

One step at a time...

 

Reminds me of the experience of listening to (and reading along with) the Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales in early medieval English.  Its amazing to think that Shakespeare was closer to Chaucer, less than 300 years, than Shakespeare is to us, at  a bit over 450 years.

 

The other thing is the number of cliches that Shakespeare works into Hamlets speech!

 

Oh wait....  He invented them all..... 

 

4 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

Well it can't have become a serious problem because we have no reports of exploding human beings as yet .......

 

But there has been a picture elsewhere on RMweb of a chap applying a garden hosepipe to his nethers in lieu. 

Funny but appalling!

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, robmcg said:

Careful, I have a close friend who's mother is,  or was, to be more accurate, very 'Brum' ....

 

I claim my ethnic rights.

 

8 hours ago, robmcg said:

But moving gingerly along, where do the Arthurian heroes and heroines fit into this battle of theisms? I know the Crusades were all 'us' vs 'them', but I need to know who 'Knight of St Patrick' was, having just made a picture of 'his' GWR engine.

 

The Order of St Patrick was an order of chivalry established by George III as a means of rewarding the loyalty of Irish peers; it fell into abeyance with the creation of the Irish Free State. So a Knight of St Patrick is any member of that order [see the Wikipedia article]. So not in the least Arthurian or romantic. 

 

8 hours ago, robmcg said:

I also need to know whether Robin Hood was a good man or a complete fraud.... and am not sure the Sheriff of Nottingham is a reliable source...

 

I'm not sure there are any reliable sources. Walter Scott has much to answer for - see @Malcolm 0-6-0's dissertation above.

 

8 hours ago, robmcg said:

Anyway, a spot of Churchward genius never went amiss, even if Swindon was a communist state.

 

Oy, that's a very post-grouping 4,000 gal tender there.

[Joseph_Pestell]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I was going to suggest K'coddy!

Cur-coo-bree

[Compound2632]

Just now, Joseph_Pestell said:

Cur-coo-bree

 

There is of course the tale of the American visitor at Paddington, impressed by the services offered by the Great Western Railway. Not only were there the usual dining and sleeping cars, but also cars labelled "Reading" and "Bath".

[Joseph_Pestell]

5 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

Well it can't have become a serious problem because we have no reports of exploding human beings as yet .......

I have been considering purchasing a property in Spain. Every property there, even modest-sized flats, seems to have a bidet. So perhaps we should be able to find large supplies of loo roll there. My neighbour has lots of lorries arriving each day from Spain so we should be able to smuggle it in, hidden behind the strawberries.

[St Enodoc]

13 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Cur-coo-bree

Other side of the country. See the first-named town in Dunwurken's list...

Edited April 11, 2020 by St Enodoc

[Joseph_Pestell]

7 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Other side of the country. See the first-named town in Dunwurken's list...

Sorry, not keeping up. More coffee needed.

[Edwardian]

7 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

Despite the huge technical advances of the 19th century in other areas of research the Victorians tended towards the dilettantish weird at times e.g. spiritualism. Probably because the major British learning institutions of the time had yet to reform their teaching of history and the other areas of social study in line with more scientific based approaches to data then beginning in Europe. Especially the complete restructuring of the epistemology of historic research by the German and French historians. So while the Victorians revolutionised the study of the physical sciences and study of natural history they wandered off into hopelessly romanticised visions of the human past, including, I suspect, this romanticised idea of Medieval scholars convinced that the Earth was flat.

  

One of the remnants from this period which still has its fanatical devotees is the concept of Druids which the Victorians invented from a few lines in Caesar, and some romantic notions of pure English blood as exemplified by the Welsh bardic tradition. Over time in popular culture these Druids gained a fictitious association with stone circles and monuments in complete disregard of the evidence that Druids as such were a manifestation of Iron Age and early Celtic beliefs and from what we understand tended to hold ceremonies in forests rather than in stone circles. This pseudo history continues to this day with completely bogus pagan festivals associated with megalithic structures everywhere, and causes physical damage to these structures. The reality is that apart from the obvious solar and lunar calendric alignments of the stone circles and other structures, little to nothing is known with certainty of their religious significance and furthermore completely ignores the fact that these structures were built up to 2 millenia or more before the Caesarian Druids made their appearance, and have their origins in older wooden structures which now survive only as post holes.

 

The Victorian ability to confabulate the human experience with romanticised nonsense can be quite astounding at time. On the one hand they embraced technology, evolution and created the foundations of nuclear physics and cosmology, while on the other went wandering off into fairy stories when it came to human history. A period of cognitive dissonance if ever there was one.  

 

The Victorians made up all sorts of weird sh1t.

 

I suspect that much of it was a reaction to revolution, industrialisation and modernity and its discombobulating social impact.  I think they invented fairy tales to sooth themselves, many with a pseudo-historical basis.  Indeed "pseudo" is the common theme in all of this.

 

The Victorians gave rise to much pseudo science. Racial theory, based on pseudo-prehistory, and its close cousin, eugenics, rather hit the buffers after Germany took it all rather too literally for a period in the Twentieth Century, but the Apartheid government of South Africa happily went on with it. Many pseudo beliefs are still with us and doing daily damage.  Though some have undoubtedly sunk without trace under the weight of ridicule. 

 

As we've seen, the Victorians invented flat-earthism, passed off as mediaeval, and Lady Blount's circle also serves as a check-list of bonkers Victorian theological trends. If you think the latter is harmlessly eccentric, look at the relationship between christian fundamentalism and right-wing politics in the US and the power it wields; the beliefs that drive them descend directly from those of the Anglo-Israelites and dispensationalists.

 

Spiritualism deserves a mention here, and, via the occult, leads us right round again to antisemitism and the Nazis. As with the flat-earthers, we see the links between various brands of delusion and, as a general rule, if you're inclined to one form of pseudo-claptrap, you'll sign up to others. 

 

The modern invention of ancient druidism is good example, but the link to Celtic heritage leads us to another important example of the Century's pseudo-historical myth-making; nationalism.  It is well-known, I think, that many of the 'ancient' Scottish 'clan' tartans were essentially made up in the Nineteenth Century; history was lacking so the Victorians improved upon it, with much the same attitude they took to "restoring" mediaeval churches.  The invention of Scottishness, Welshness and Irishness fostered a belief in racial as well as cultural distinctiveness, and was the result of a very conscious effort, but it was based upon very shaky pseudo-history; modern DNA research suggests that we are a fairly homogeneous bunch in the British Isles after all. In Ireland a Celt-centric origin myth has persisted to the cost of Ireland's viking heritage.  Pride in cultural heritage and distinctiveness is understandable and good, but, of course, it also gives rise to a somewhat confected sense of identity that feeds into nationalist politics.  

[Nearholmer]

 

 

7 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

the Victorians tended towards the dilettantish weird at times e.g. spiritualism. Probably because the major British learning institutions of the time had yet to reform their teaching of history

It doesn’t take a huge number of people with too much money, too much time on their hands, and fertile imaginations to devise and promulgate a load of old nonsense.

 

The structure of Victorian society was perfect for it, with sufficient money flowing to a small number of families to allow a significant minority to grow to old age without needing to do a stroke of useful work in their lives.

 

Some put their time to good use as bothersome social-improvement campaigners, some wasted it inventing faux-history and dodgy politics, and then there was Sir Arthur Heywood, inventing wonderful, but really rather useless, minimum gauge railways.

 

Hopefully, when the robots take over all the  work, everyone can become eccentric dilettantes (or spend their time assassinating one another on Facebook instead).

Edited April 11, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Just now, Nearholmer said:

 

Some put their time to good use as bothersome social-improvement campaigners, some wasted it inventing faux-history and dodgy politics, and then there was Sir Arthur Haywood, inventing wonderful, but really rather useless, minimum gauge railways.

 

 

 

The Good, the Bad and the Trivial.

 

I choose to be of the latter!

[Nearholmer]

The thing is, if you were really rich, idle and intelligent, you didn’t have to choose, you could have a go at all three, and butterfly-collecting and poetry!

[Edwardian]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The thing is, if you were really rich, idle and intelligent, you didn’t have to choose, you could have a go at all three, and butterfly-collecting and poetry!

 

Someone should produce a serious study on the effect of comfortable rural Anglican benefices upon development in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.  The combination of education, a comfortable living and not unduly onerous clerical duties made the British clergyman the perfect vessel for progress in so many fields; everything from the collection and preservation of folk songs to the invention of the percussion lock.

 

Of course, a dark parody of such a questing clergyman is found in Elliot's Casaubon, but generally I find it likely was a field of harmless eccentrics, many of whom did add something to the store of human knowledge, even if at the relative neglect of their spiritual duties!

[Hroth]

33 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

The Good, the Bad and the Trivial.

 

I choose to be of the latter!

 

Yes, the study of grammar, logic and rhetoric is a very good thing... 

 

Just got back from a "quick" trip to Tescos and Aldi. Queueing was minimal. Plenty of almost everything, I even got some strong flour for breadmaking!  The Tesco "Queue for the tills" was a hoot, I saw a number of empty tills and went for one to be told by a bystanding member of staff to go to the queueing aisle.  I trudged the width of the shop, stood in the aisle, was directed to go to a till and went back to the one I originally intended to use!

 

 

[Tom Burnham]

When stocks of toilet paper are sufficient to allow some to be diverted to railway modelling, there's an interesting tutorial on Youtube from a Swedish railway modeller (with excellent English, fortunately) who uses toilet paper as the basis for modelling water -

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Of course, a dark parody of such a questing clergyman is found in Elliot's Casaubon

 

A warning to us all to get cracking with that layout.

[Edwardian]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A warning to us all to get cracking with that layout.

 

And, indeed, that, inevitably, we will find that the Germans got there first ...

 

 

 

[webbcompound]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

The combination of education, a comfortable living and not unduly onerous clerical duties made the British clergyman the perfect vessel for progress in so many fields; everything from the collection and preservation of folk songs to the invention of the percussion lock.

Or instead ending up as one Norfolk vicar did (born and largely active pre-grouping, and parish in the right place so still on-message here) exhibiting himself in Blackpool in a barrel, and ending up mauled to death by lions.

Edited April 11, 2020 by webbcompound

[webbcompound]

Just found a topically repurposed selection of railway posters. All post-grouping I'm afraid, but this one exhibited here so that one of the usual Aching denizens can ply their magic on something from the right era

 

[Edwardian]

11 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

Or instead ending up as one Norfolk vicar did (born and largely active pre-grouping, and parish in the right place so still on-message here) exhibiting himself in Blackpool in a barrel, and ending up mauled to death by lions.

 

Is that a stick with a horse's head handle he's holding?