Month: December 2020

Culture

John Constable

The oil paintings of John Constable, RA (1776-1837) were ground-breaking in their day. He rebelled against the teaching of the Royal Academy […]

The oil paintings of John Constable, RA (1776-1837) were ground-breaking in their day. He rebelled against the teaching of the Royal Academy of Arts in terms of subject-matter, painting technique and working methods, and was a key figure in the Romanticism movement. Today, his work attracts the ‘chocolate box’ label, but this vastly downplays his talent and pioneering spirit.

Born in rural Suffolk, Constable soon realised his artistic calling. His father supported him financially while he began his prolific output of paintings of the surrounding landscape. After his father’s death his income came from portraits, of which there are over a hundred. Yet his passion was for depicting meadows, trees, cloudy skies, rainbows, cottages, mills, boats, farmwork, streams, rivers and churches, all painted from life rather than imagination.

He was also unusual in making full-size preliminary sketches of his larger paintings (‘six-footers’) such as his most famous, ‘The Hay Wain’ (1821). His French counterparts quickly took to this new style, but Constable vowed never to cross the Channel, so did not develop this fanbase himself. Instead, he enjoyed his eventual election as a member of the Royal Academy in 1829 and continued painting until his sudden death in his London studio at age 60.

(Image of ‘The Hay Wain’: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)

28/12/2020
3 min
4 years
211 words

Religion

The Lord’s Prayer

Until the 21st century most Britons knew The Lord’s Prayer by heart, as they recited it every weekday morning in school assembly […]

Until the 21st century most Britons knew The Lord’s Prayer by heart, as they recited it every weekday morning in school assembly and, if they were church-goers, in Sunday worship. It is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to communicate with God.

It appears in the New Testament in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:1-4 in slightly different versions and without the last three lines, which were added by the early Christian clergy. One traditional English translation is as follows:-

Our Father, who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil,
For thine is the kingdom,
The power and the glory
For ever and ever.

Amen

In 1998, a daily ‘act of worship’ was made a requirement for schools, perhaps as this was disappearing, but it made no difference. State school assemblies today bear little resemblance to those of the past and parents have the option of withdrawing their child from any religious element.

(Image: pixabay.com / Public domain)

22/12/2020
3 min
4 years
209 words

Inventions

Parkesine, the first plastic

The motivation behind the first plastic was to conserve natural resources, such as rubber and timber, and reduce the exploitation of animal […]

The motivation behind the first plastic was to conserve natural resources, such as rubber and timber, and reduce the exploitation of animal parts, such as ivory and tortoiseshell. So it was that in 1862 Alexander Parkes (1813-90) and his brother Henry (1824-1909) from Birmingham used their knowledge of chemistry to formulate a heat-softened gunge that was the first celluloid plastic. They named it ‘Parkesine‘ (“park-seen”).

It was not totally synthetic ~ that came later with ‘Bakelite’ in the USA ~ but its recipe of nitric and sulphuric acids, nitrocellulose, castor oil and organic solvents went some way to providing a man-made material to satisfy growing consumer demand. It was used to manufacture items such as combs, brushes, buttons, cutlery handles, fishing rod components, pens and billiard balls.

The Science Museum holds many examples of these but over the years they have become extremely fragile. Indeed, even in the Parkesine Company’s short-lived existence in 1866-8 there were complaints of items becoming misshapen or even catching fire. This is thought to have been due to Alexander Parkes’s drive to cut costs. After the company closed, an employee, Daniel Spill (1832-87) took on the assets and relaunched the product as Xylonite. Spill improved the quality, resulting in more durable products.

(Image: pixnio.com / Public domain)

16/12/2020
3 min
4 years
211 words

Sport

Royal Ascot

It was Queen Anne (1665-1714) who, in 1711, spotted Ascot Heath’s potential for horse racing and arranged for the first ‘Ascot races’ […]

It was Queen Anne (1665-1714) who, in 1711, spotted Ascot Heath’s potential for horse racing and arranged for the first ‘Ascot races’ on this piece of Crown land, next to Windsor Great Park in Berkshire. These were very popular; even more so after King George IV (1762-1830) expanded and improved the spectator facilities. The annual ‘Royal Ascot‘ week became a glamorous top-notch social highlight. It is also the most prestigious flat racing event on the calendar.

For five days every June, around 300,000 well-turned-out visitors don their hats, suits and best frocks to enjoy the atmosphere and catch a glimpse of the Queen in the daily horse-drawn royal procession. A multitude of helicopters, limousines and coaches descend upon the 179-acre venue and a massive catering operation clicks into gear, during which some 120,000 scones and 2,650lbs of clotted cream are consumed, along with 56,000 bottles of champagne. The third day is unofficially known as Ladies’ Day, every milliner’s dream.

The royal connection is reflected in the names of the races ~ the Coronation Stakes, the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, the Queen’s Vase and the Commonwealth Cup, for example. The Queen’s own horses regularly participate and she has had many successes, including the filly ‘Estimate’ winning the 2013 Gold Cup.

(Top image: James Emmans at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

11/12/2020
3 min
4 years
216 words

Discoveries

Stephen Hawking’s universe

Oxford-born cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) said:“Look up at the stars and not at your feet. Try to make sense of what […]

Oxford-born cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) said:“Look up at the stars and not at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” An extraordinary life lay ahead of the boy who would lie in his parents’ garden staring at the night-sky. At age 21, still at university, he found he had the neurodegenerative sclerosis known as ALS, with a life expectancy of just two more years ~ hopelessly wrong, as it turned out!

Hawking first worked with fellow Englishman Sir Roger Penrose (1931-) on the behaviour of black holes and the origin of the universe. He later theorised that black holes emit radiation (‘Hawking radiation’). Although Penrose was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020, it was Hawking who attained worldwide fame, due largely to his soldiering on in the face of increasing physical disability. His state-of-the-art voice synthesiser became synonymous with the public’s impression of a modern scientific genius.

Hawking’s most famous book, ‘A Brief History of Time’ (1988), sits proudly on many a home bookshelf, though is usually only partly read. His other books include ‘The Theory of Everything’ (2002). He was working on an alien detection project when he died.

(Top image: NASA HQ PHOTO at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

03/12/2020
3 min
4 years
214 words

Quoting Neil Oliver...

I love Britain more than anywhere else in the world. With all my heart I declare that those of us born here, or who have made a home here by choice, are the luckiest, most blessed of all people. I am British. I will always be British.