Month: January 2022

English language

The Booker Prize

In 1967 Lord Jock Campbell (1912-94) from Dunbartonshire was about to head the development of the new town, Milton Keynes, following his […]

In 1967 Lord Jock Campbell (1912-94) from Dunbartonshire was about to head the development of the new town, Milton Keynes, following his successful Chairmanship at food distributors Booker-McConnell. He had recently set up Booker’s Author Division to help his terminally-ill friend, Ian Fleming (1908-64), protect his estate. It was in this capacity that German émigré Thomas Maschler (1933-2020) of publishers Jonathan Cape asked if he would co-found the Booker Prize, which they did the next year.

The panel of five judges has two impossible tasks ~ to choose the best novel of the year written in English and published in the British Isles and likewise the best novel translated into English for the International Booker Prize. Like its inspiration, France’s Prix Goncourt, established in 1903, its prestige is sufficient to fling the winner to the top of the best-seller list immediately upon the announcement in November each year.

Unlike the Goncourt, which has a token prize of 10 Euros, the Booker dishes out £50,000 to each winner, with the translator of the International Prize novel going halves with the author. Given its premise, the criticisms that arise were inevitable. Nevertheless, writers such as Sir V.S. Naipaul have been thankful for its recognition at key points in their careers.

(Image of 2018 International award: Janie Airey at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

24/01/2022
3 min
3 years
217 words

Discoveries

Triton, Hyperion, Ariel and Umbriel

Lancashire-born William Lassell (1799-1880) grew up in Liverpool within a clock-making family, acquiring the precision engineering skills needed for his lifelong passion […]

Lancashire-born William Lassell (1799-1880) grew up in Liverpool within a clock-making family, acquiring the precision engineering skills needed for his lifelong passion ~ astronomy. Financed by the profits of his brewery, he built a succession of increasingly large telescopes in his workshop. In 1842 he began recording new sightings through his 9″ telescope, but it was with his 24″ reflector telescope, constructed in 1845, that he discovered Triton, the largest of Neptune’s 13 moons, in 1846 (the others were found more than a century later).

Neptune itself had only just been discovered and Lassell’s achievement greatly enhanced his reputation, culminating in his Presidency of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1870-72. Meanwhile, he co-discovered Hyperion, a moon of Saturn, in 1848; co-discovered Saturn’s Crepe Ring in 1850; and discovered Ariel and Umbriel, two moons of Uranus, in 1851.

He invented a polishing machine for his speculum mirrors and pioneered the equatorial mount that helps maintain fixed focus. He built a 48″ telescope in 1858 and moved everything to Malta for some years for better viewing under her cloudless skies. On his return he bought a house near the River Thames in Berkshire ~ the street is now named Lassell Gardens. There are two craters, one asteroid and a ring of Neptune also named after him.

(Image of Triton’s supposed icy surface looking towards a blue Neptune: NASA via picryl.com / CC0)

19/01/2022
3 min
3 years
221 words

Culture

The Royal Festival Hall

After the WW2 bombing of London, the County Council decided that a new, up-to-the-minute, airy, Scandinavian-style concert hall was just the thing […]

After the WW2 bombing of London, the County Council decided that a new, up-to-the-minute, airy, Scandinavian-style concert hall was just the thing to lift people’s spirits. The Royal Festival Hall was thus sited on the southern bank of the River Thames in Lambeth. It was the only permanent building in the ‘Festival of Britain’ exhibition promoting British scientific and engineering expertise and in 1988 it received Grade I listing.

Some 63,000 cu.yds. of material were excavated and half that amount in concrete was put back during construction. Another major element was steel, 260 tons of it in the roof alone. Critics wondered whether the time and resources would be better used for much-needed homes and factories instead, especially during the severe winter of 1949/50 when no expense was spared to maintain the temperature required for concreting operations to continue.

Nevertheless, King George VI (1895-1952) opened it in May 1951 and it has hosted countless world-class concerts ever since. It currently has 2,410 auditorium seats, plus bars and dining areas off its large foyer and riverside balconies. The original contract price of £1,628,260 is dwarfed by the cost of several refurbishments (or ‘restorations’) it has undergone, but these have preserved its status as an uplifting refuge from city bustle.

*Image of Royal Festival Hall c.1959 before any modifications: David Wright at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0*

(Top image: Paul Robinson at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

17/01/2022
3 min
3 years
229 words

Celebrations & Holidays

Plough Monday/Sunday

Before industrialisation, Plough Monday was a popular event in farming communities on the first or second Monday of the year, between 7th-13th […]

Before industrialisation, Plough Monday was a popular event in farming communities on the first or second Monday of the year, between 7th-13th January. The church had a role from the start and is the source of the modern-day Plough Sunday derivative.

What they share is the blessing of the work of the farm and prayers for good weather. On Plough Sunday, a local farmer may kindly park a big, shiny tractor in the churchyard for a few hours but that is the extent of the ‘entertainment’ ~ unless, that is, you’re in this Essex village:-

Plough Monday, on the other hand, called for singing, dancing and demands for cash donations on pain of having your path ploughed up! This seems to have begun with community-owned ploughs needing annual maintenance. They were stored on church premises during winter and on Plough Monday the priest blessed the plough and lit the church’s plough-light ~ a candle continually kept alight.

The young farm labourers, called Plough Stotts/Bullockers/Jags or Jacks, dressed in gaudy costumes and disguises, and hauled the plough round the village. One dressed as ‘Betty’/’Bessy’ ~ an old woman ~ and collected the money, some of which doubtless paid for drinks at the inn afterwards!

(Top image of British vintage tractor and plough: Tudor Barker at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

11/01/2022
3 min
3 years
221 words

Sport

Running the sub-4-minute mile

Sometimes called ‘The Dream Mile’, this feat is said to have begun with aristocrats betting on their respective footmen to race each […]

Sometimes called ‘The Dream Mile’, this feat is said to have begun with aristocrats betting on their respective footmen to race each other. It is doubtful whether any of them achieved a sub-4-minute mile but more than 1,500 athletes have done just that in recent history. Interestingly, there is an optimum age attached to this middle-distance track event and it has reduced to 22 currently. In fact, Lord Sebastian Coe (1956-) from London was 22 when he broke the world record in 1979 with 3:48.95.

Nevertheless, British milers appear to favour age 24 or 25 for their peak performances. Some examples are:-

3:59.40 in May 1954 at Oxford: 25-year-old Sir Roger Bannister (1929-2018) from Middlesex famously achieved the first sub-4-minute mile.
3:58.80 later in 1954 at Vancouver: Bannister, still 25, bettered his previous time.
3:47.33 in 1981 at Brussels: now aged 24, this was Coe’s personal best.
3:48.40 in 1981 at Koblenz: 25-year-old Steve Ovett (1955-) from Sussex improved on his world record of the previous year.
3:46.32 in 1985 at Oslo: 24-year-old Steve ‘the Jarrow Arrow’ Cram (1960-) from Gateshead took the world record with this amazing time.
3:49.20 in 1988 at Oslo: 25-year-old Yorkshireman Peter Elliott.
3:49.38 in 2008 at Oslo: 25-year-old Andy Baddeley (1982-) from Merseyside came from the back in a spectacular win.

No woman has ever come close to running a sub-4-minute mile.

(Top image of Coe (L) and Bannister (R) in 2004 at the Oxford track: GooglerW at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

08/01/2022
3 min
3 years
229 words

Politics

Coalition governments

With its first-past-the-post voting principle, a UK General Election does not often result in no party having a working majority of 326 […]

With its first-past-the-post voting principle, a UK General Election does not often result in no party having a working majority of 326 MPs, but when it does, a coalition government is one option. The devolved governments of Scotland and Wales, with their proportional representation systems of voting, thereby regularly produce coalitions. Northern Ireland has a coalition at all times, in accordance with the 1998 power-sharing Good Friday Agreement.

The UK had a coalition government during both World Wars and during The Depression of the 1930s. It came close to having a coalition in the 1970s but the parties could only agree on a pact. The only other national coalition of modern times was in 2010-15 when the Conservatives had 307 MPs and governed with the Liberal Democrats, who had 57 MPs.

There are no set rules on the formation of a coalition, other than that the sitting Prime Minister has the first shot at attempting such a solution. In 2010, negotiating teams were apparently assembled prior to the Election to prepare for what seemed a potential outcome. Common policy points were sought and ministerial roles strategically allocated. However, the Liberal Democrats lost 49 of their seats in the next Election, signifying a large-scale rejection of their effectiveness.

(Image of newly partnered LibDem (L) and Conservative (R) leaders in 2010: Number 10 at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

06/01/2022
3 min
3 years
218 words

Inventions

Venn diagrams

Yorkshire-born Dr. John Venn (1834-1923) had two obsessions ~ logic and Cambridge University. His deep interest and skill in mathematics, probability and […]

Yorkshire-born Dr. John Venn (1834-1923) had two obsessions ~ logic and Cambridge University. His deep interest and skill in mathematics, probability and logic led to his development of what later became known as Venn diagrams. Venn spent most of his life at Cambridge, initially as a student, then a lecturer, professor and compiler of the University’s history.

Whereas ‘Eulerian circles’ show only the known commonalities between categories/sets/classes, Venn diagrams display all possible commonalities, even the non-existent or unlikely ones. Sometimes this results in an empty area in the centre, where all the circles overlap, or there may be less crucial, outer segments that have no takers. Whatever the case, a Venn diagram is an excellent visual aid to sorting out the nuts and bolts of a situation and can be used alongside or even instead of algebra to pinpoint a desired state, taking everything into account.

*A common mistake ~ This homage to John Venn unfortunately shows Eulerian circles, **NOT a Venn diagram!**: Bernard Sharp at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0*

Venn owned a huge collection of publications on the subject of logic and himself wrote ‘The Logic of Chance’ (1866) and ‘Symbolic Logic’ (1881), the latter containing the first illustrations of his diagrams. He also wrote a history of his College at Cambridge and, with his son John A. Venn (1883-1958), published several volumes detailing all of Cambridge’s alumni.

(Top right image of John Venn [cropped]: Bradford Timeline at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)

04/01/2022
4 min
3 years
244 words

Law

Treason

Considering that treason laws are intended to protect senior royalty, it is most odd to see four Queens, a Prince and a […]

Considering that treason laws are intended to protect senior royalty, it is most odd to see four Queens, a Prince and a King in the list of around 150 miscreants who have been executed for that very crime. Furthermore, many others were Dukes, Earls or Viscounts!

The Duke of Clarence (1449-73), brother to two Kings, is one example of treasonous nobility. His own ill-considered ambitions saw him change sides twice in the Wars of the Roses, resulting in the charge of treason. He was reportedly afforded the favour of swapping hanging for drowning in a barrel of wine before being quartered.

The primary Treason Act was passed in 1351. Certain changes have since been made, such as removing the torture element of the traitor’s death and, latterly, replacing execution with life imprisonment. Treasonous deeds include the assassination of the monarch or other elite post-holders, the ‘violation’ of senior royal women and colluding with war-time enemies.

The last person to be hanged for treason was the American-German William Joyce, or ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ of WW2 German propaganda fame, in 1946. It was solely on the technicality of him briefly having a British passport (obtained falsely) that he was able to be tried in a British court.

(Image of statue of four Gunpowder Plot traitors: Mat Fascione at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

01/01/2022
3 min
3 years
218 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.