Miles and Miles

Everyone knows that a mile is 5,280 feet. 1,760 yards. But that was just the Romans. In the British Isles, the Irish Mile was 6,720 feet and the Scottish Mile 5,952 ["We think na on the lang Scots miles" - Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter].

Enter the 9th century Persian astronomer Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani [which name is pretty much a family tree in itself]. He used a measurement of somewhere between 6,500 and 7,000 feet for his "Arabic Mile".

Which brings us to Christopher Columbus. Columbus believed the earth was round; also that Asia was a very long (west to east) continent and he set out across the Atlantic fully expecting to make landfall in Japan before long. Using al-Farghani's "mile" he calculated the length of Asia as being around one-third more than it actually is, so it was a lot further away than he thought. It's not known whether his first words to the Lucayan people he met on the Bahamian beach of Guanahani were "Kon'nichiwa, Kyōto e no michi o oshiete moraemasu ka?"**

If you've ever wondered why it takes so long to walk the 136 miles from Dublin to Cork, now you know. Mother Goose knew about different miles:

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

** こんにちは、京都への道を教えてもらえますか?

75 Years

My daughter laughs at me because I iron everything, even socks.  Usually I time it to coincide with the repeat of an old fashioned series like Inspector Morse so that I can watch and iron at the same time. But over the post Christmas period there has been such rubbish on that I’ve been reduced to watching WWII documentaries.

And I fell to thinking about my French mother and her family.  Two older brothers were killed in the first war and her younger brother in the second.  My older twin sisters were killed in a bombing raid when they were only three.

Her cousin Yvonne and her husband kept a little estaminet near Gravelines. They had a son named Emil who had what was called ‘creeping paralysis’ probably MS.  He lived in a self contained flat in the basement and was obsessed by radios which he built himself.  

His parents were ostracised by the local community because from the time of the occupation they served German soldiers and were thought to be far too friendly with them.   In 1944 Yvonne, Jean-Pierre and Emil were all shot dead by German soldiers.  They were members of the Maquis.   It emerged that Emil had been broadcasting the information obtained by his parents from the German soldiers in the estaminet.  Someone had betrayed them.  They were never discovered.  

In 1947 my parents were asked by our parish priest, who was himself half German half Dutch, and had fled to Quarr Abbey in 1939, to accept for Christmas a German POW. Fr Putmann was the only German speaking priest in the diocese and had therefore been instructed by the Bishop to act as their chaplain.

My mother was torn.  On the one hand she was moved by the stories of these young lads who had been conscripted with no idea what would happen to them, and on the other, given her family history she had no love for the Germans.  

Anyway, they agreed and I’m able to remember Michael arriving. He was a thin blond lad and had brought a present for me of a bag of wooden bricks which he had carved himself from pieces of timber he had found in Colwick Woods where the camp was situated.  I remember him playing with me, and us all sitting round the table singing French, German and English carols.  He continued to visit when he was allowed and when he was repatriated my father sent him home with this letter.

He was the son of a butcher in Kleiner Graben,  had married at twenty and had a wife and two little girls - he was captured early in the war.  The privations in Germany were even worse than ours.  

There is also a later letter which explains that the gifts had to wait to be sent to Germany until it was allowed. 

This was over seventy years ago, just a simple story of two working class families caught up in the horrors of war.  And how it’s possible to stop hating.

Shot In The Dark

My friend Tony doesn't like card games so, when he was given one for Christmas, he passed it on to me. It's called Shot In The Dark Xmas. [As a child I was taught to regard Xmas as an unacceptable, perhaps even evil, abbreviation but let's move on from that]

I am an inveterate and highly competitive gamer but, since I won't have the opportunity to play this one for another 11¾ months, I thought I should try some of the questions on you people. Brains at the ready! Some leeway will be allowed; bonus points for exactly correct answers.

Q1. How many Olympic-sized swimming pools can be filled with the beer that is consumed on the UK over the Christmas period?

Q2. How many medium-sized baubles are needed to decorate an average six foot Christmas tree?

Q3. How much would it have cost to buy 100g of gold, frankincense and myrrh on Christmas Day 2019?

Q4. In 2019, what was the world record for eating the most Brussels sprouts in 60 seconds?

Q5. In Greenland, what Christmas delicacy is supposed to taste like fresh coconut:

• A. blubber wrapped in whale skin
• B. eels cooked in milk
• C. polar bear tongue OR
• D. boiled penguin beak?

Q6. What is the length of the biggest Christmas cracker ever made?

Q7. In what year was the first Christmas tree decorated and by whom?

Q8. In the 1940s what was most commonly used as fake snow in films?

Q9. On what date does the average Brit eat their first mince pie of the year?

Q10. During a Christmas feast hosted by King Richard II of England in 1377, how many sheep and oxen were consumed in total?

Answers will appear on 9 January.

Acknowledgement to @ShotintheDarkGames (FB) shotinthedarkgame.co.uk

Movie Nights

I used to enjoy the lead ups to the Oscars and other movie award announcements. In the days when cinemas could be visited and the only dangers were teenagers flicking popcorn at each other and fellow oldies sniffling and coughing their way through winter colds and spreading their flu germs. Ah the good old days. Nowadays it's Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ in our sterile homes. Life is a constant stream of movie nights. I posted previously about Oscar-winning films but here is this year's update.

Last night I watched one and a quarter movies. Starting with The Lost Daughter starring Olivia Colman, whom I have liked only once in a film - as Queen Anne in The Favourite. It is billed as a psychological thriller but in the half hour before I gave up there were no thrills and many long sequences of Colman practising her range of facial expressions. I like my films to have either a narrative or a point - where is this movie going and why has it been made? For me it was dreary in the extreme and, to the extent there was any dramatic motivation, a disturbing and discombobulating focus on unhappy childhood scenes and memories. A thinking person's film. Not for me.

In contrast, Don't Look Up is a riotous, crazy, satirical film about a comet going to crash into the earth. And inept politicians. And greedy capitalists. A non-thinking person's film. A cast of Hollywood A listers led by Meryl Streep, Leonardo di Caprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill and Cate Blanchett seem to all have been told by the Director "here's your role; just over-act as if your life depends on it" - i.e. the comet is going to kill you all - is backed by impressive cameos by in particular Mark Rylance and Ariana Grande. And a Muppet. Streep is a (way OTT) President, Hill her son and Chief of Staff who calls Lawrence's grad student "dragon tattoo boy", Leo the Professor Nerd who goes bonkers with Blanchett's chat show host (you'll have to check it out to get my meanings). Grande provides some musical class; Rylance is the world domination tech guy with more than a touch of Dr. Strangelove.

It's pantomime. Not to mention the most glorious, Laugh Out Loud post credit moment you will ever see (I've learned my lesson). Oh, and once you've seen that, there's an endless (well five minutes' worth) list of boom operators, set decorators, casting directors' second assistants, matte artists, dolly grip thingies and whatnot - and finally ... another post credit scene (not such a good one though). Enjoy!

We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet

When invited to join hands and sing Auld Lang Syne, I generally hummed the tune and mumbled some vaguely Scottish sounding words. Which is I guess what most (English at least) people do, since the actual words are incomprehensible and ... well, foreign (And we'll tak a right gude-willy waught). However, it for some reason represents the dawning of the new year and, in an earlier post, I promised to publish my New Year resolutions. So here I go. Not necessarily in order of importance, imminence or achievability.

1. Lose 20 kg
2. Finish the Star Wars jigsaw puzzle
3. Finish reading David Copperfield and publish my Charles Dickens blog post
4. Locate the source(s) of the St Austell River and publish the blog post
5. Watch The Blair Witch Project
6. Not to forget my sons' wedding anniversaries

Anyway, have a happy and safe 2022 everyone. I'll keep working on blog posts to hopefully entertain you. And even maybe provide progress reports on my resolutions.

Finally, two New Year Resolutions I request from you, dear readers:

1. Continue to comment on my posts (I read them all)
2. Encourage a member of your family or friend to read my blog and write their comments
3. If you find an interesting post on my blog, share it on your Twitter or Facebook feed and in a WhatsApp group

Thank you!

Merry Christmas, New Year wishes and Resolutions

It's that time of year. Unlike last year, which was truly awful, I am able to visit Son #2 and family in Kent. A joyous experience involving two riotous grandkids, a bracing beach walk in Folkestone in a howling gale, a (so far) disappointing delivery failure of a gift for my son, a trip on a steam train with mulled wine, hopefully a visit from Santa tonight (reindeer food ready and waiting) and equally hopefully a Boxing Day visit to my  co-grandparents, lateral flow tests permitting. A cornucopia of Christmas delights.

I remain unable to visit Son #1 and family in Australia. Barnaby Joyce can come to London and shop in Oxford Street but he requires me to quarantine for two weeks in one of his hotels. Sounds fair? Obviously not, although he did catch covid which rather makes the point of the Australian self-blockade. Maybe next Christmas I'll be able to enjoy my three riotous grandkids, a visit to my other co-grandparents involving blazing sun, dipping in the pool and cold weak Aussie beer. How the other half of the world lives. 

Obviously my wishes for 2022 centre around the defeat and disappearance of COVID-19. Ugh. The completion of my house renovations despite the best efforts of unresponsive and unreliable contractors, Ipswich Town not getting relegated, Arsenal getting into next season's Champions League, Boris getting impeached. Respective % likelihood: 0, 75, 50, 25, 15.

New Year resolutions? Check in next week. Don't expect anything ambitious.