A Ceremonial Miscellany - The Thatcher Funeral

Just a few jottings on the Thatcher funeral that occur to me on watching the ceremony and looking at photos.

I'm not going to comment on the woman herself or the rights or wrongs of giving her a ceremonial/state funeral.  Please spare me from anything like that in the 'comments' section (I'll delete it anyway).

The gun carriage

 

The use of gun carriages to carry the coffin is traditional in state and ceremonial funerals. 

Since the funeral of Queen Victoria in February 1901, it has been usual in state funerals for the carriage to be drawn by members of the Royal Navy.  This is because when the coffin was loaded and the cortege moved off, the coupling broke on the carriage and the naval honour-guard jumped in to replace the horses in order to prevent delay.  The tradition has been followed for all state funerals (those of the subsequent kings, Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbattan) since.  That gun carriage, although belonging to the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA), is stored at the navy's gunnery school HMS Excellent at Portsmouth - photos and the full story here. 

It looks to me that the gun-carriage used for Lady Thatcher's funeral wasn't the state gun-carriage.  It was drawn by horses from the RHA, which appeared to be quite spooked at one point.

The Pall Bearers

The pall bearers were selected from military units with connections with the Falklands War.  They were arranged by the unit's seniority (Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Artillery, Scots Guards, Parachute Regt and a member of the Brigade of Gurhkas) and chosen so the shortest was at the front, the tallest at the back - this meant that one of the two tallest was a Gurhka: not an easy choice!

The bearers were supervised by GSM Bill Mott OBE, LVO and commanded by Major Nicky Mott MBE, both of the Welsh Guards.  The Motts are brothers and both survivors of the RFA Sir Galahad disaster during the Falklands.  There's a nice article on them here.


What was on the cushions?

Unfortunately we didn't get a decent picture of them, but the cushions borne into the cathedral by Lady Thatcher's grandchildren and subsequently placed in her hearse had on them the insignia of the Order of the Garter and  the Order of Merit. 

Thatcher was made a member of the Order of Merit in 1990 and a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter in 1995.  The only other non-royals to hold both the Garter and the OM post-war were also prime ministers - Churchill and Clement Attlee (they were also both Companions of Honour).  The insignia of the Garter will be returned to the Queen, but the family will keep the OM.

I will add links to both these orders once I've posted on them.  I've been promising a post on the OM for months!

Who was the man with the Big Hat?

This was Roger Gifford, this year's Lord Mayor of the City of London.  This is a different position from the Mayor of London (Boris Johnston, the current mayor was also at the funeral, but didn't take any part in the ceremony).  Gifford is the 685th lord mayor, which is an indication of the antiquity of the post (established in 1189).  The lord mayor is elected from the among the aldermen of City of London (the 'Square Mile') every Michelmas (29 September) by the Liverymen of the City.  His function is ceremonial, charitable and to promote the interests of the City. 

Technically the Crown and Parliament doesn't have any authority within the city precincts and the Queen only attends St Pauls by permission of and attended by the Lord Mayor.

When she crosses the city boundaries on official duties, the Queen is met by the City Marshal and the Swordbearer (he's the one with the furry hat - a cap of maintenance, itself a rare privilege - peeking over the lord mayor's shoulder; his office is a newish one, first mentioned in 1419).  The City's sword is placed before her hilt first in a voluntary sign of submission, she then touches it before returning it to the Lord Mayor.

The sword used this morning is a special one, the Mourning Sword (one of five the City uses), it dates from the C16th and has been used as the Lord Mayors' mourning sword since the C19th.  It is distinguished by its black handle and accoutrements.  Like many things about this funeral, it was last seen at Sir Winston Churchill's funeral in 1965.

Which leads us to...

...The Queen

By custom the Queen only rarely attends funerals other than for members of the family (she'd never did anything else otherwise!), but sends a representative.  This was the first prime minister's funeral she's attended since Churchill's.

For those interested, 'From Her Majesty's Jewel Vault' has done it's usual bang-up job of identifying the jewelry the Queen wore at the funeral (one of Queen Victoria's pieces).

The Chelsea Pensioners

Part of the honour guard at St Paul's consisted of Chelsea Pensioners.  In retirement Lady Thatcher did a lot to support the Chelsea Hospital, visiting frequently and raising a lot of money for it.  The Hospital's 2009 infirmary wing is named after her.

The guard included Dorothy Hughes, one of the first two (and so far only)
female Chelsea Pensioners

Books and Stuff

A regular round-up of my book news.

What I've bought this week....


Peter Galloway, The Order of the British Empire - £10.00
Matthew Paris & Andrew Bryson, Parting Shots - £3.50
Donald E Pease, Theodor Seuss Geisel - £2.99
Julles Stewart, Crimson Snow: Britian's first disaster in Afghanistan - £3.99
Jules Stewart, The Khyber Rifles: From the British Raj to Al Qaeda - £2.99

A Bit More Lead

I had a bit of a jiffy bag dance this week.  I received some more miniatures.

First from the Perrys' range, which I've been impressed with for quite a while.

I chose to go on with my interest in the Sudan campaigns, by getting some basic firing lines (including some Sikhs) and an Gardner Gun crewed by men of the naval brigade. (The photos I've lifted from the Perrys website - I hope they don't mind on the grounds that it might generate some traffic for them!).

Secondly, I picked up a couple of second-hand pieces, originally from Black Cat, which seemed a bit of fun.   I got them because they're books - and that's enough for me!  But the figure on the right reminds me of a Lady Librarian of our acquaintance; and how can you go wrong with a book monster?

Happy Birthday Tom!

Today is Tom Lehrer's 85th birthday.  Here are a couple of my favourites -

A Milestone and Some Stats

This is the 150th post to this blog!

Although I haven't blogged with the same boyish enthusiasm as I did when I started last August, I don't think that this is bad going.

More surprisingly perhaps is that people (you, dear reader!) have been coming and reading my jottings.  At the time of writing, the blog has had 8,523 page views, so I must be doing something right.  The busiest day was 27 Mar 2013, when there were 166.

The most popular page is the 'Royals in Medals' entry for Prince Charles (and his wives), which has had 510 views - more than twice the number of the next in the list.

Last weekend I added the little flag gadget that you can see at the bottom of the column of stuff on the right-hand side of the page.  It counts individual visitors (as opposed to page views) and where they come from.  It's no great news that the majority of visitors would come from the USA and UK, but what does surprise me is that I've had visitors from 29 countries in the last week!   Welcome, wellkommen, bienvenue, croeso, etc!

I've also added a 'You might also like' gadget - hopefully it will point you to some of the less frequented pages of the blog.  Enjoy!

Books and Stuff

A regularish update of my book news.

What I've been reading this week...

I seem to have very little time to read these days, but this week I had to sit in a waiting room for an hour and a half, so I managed some more of Men Whose Fathers Were Men.

The problem I've had with this is that it's uncut, so I've been reading it in bed and found myself stymied when I've come across uncut pages.  I did take a paper-knife with me to the hospital, and it wasn't until I got there that I realised that I might have awkward questions to answer!

What's sitting by my bed half-read...

This is a very annoying habit:  I start a book and after a while get distracted and leave it, starting another.  I must make an effort to polish these off..

 

What I've bought...

Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle - £2.81
Diana Wynne Jones, The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - £2.80
Stanley Martin, The Order of Merit: One hundred years of matchless honour - £6.01

 

This was a nice illustration of the pitfalls of buying second-hand copies through Amazon.  Howl was fine and (as described) like new, but the Chronicles was a very dog-eared ex-library copy I wouldn't have bothered with if I'd seen it.

Depressing book news....

Is that Iain (M) Banks is dying, as the whole blogosphere is aware now.  Given what he's always said about about his 'genre' writing being ignored, it was ironic that the coverage the BBC gave it only mentioned The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road, although the reporter was standing in front of a table piled high with his 'M' books.

I should have blogged about... (#2)

Another thing I didn't blog about during my little hiatus was the latest batch of medal auctions from the 'Big Four'.  On Monday and Tuesday of this week we had DNW and on Wednesday Bonhams.

DNW sales are always jam-packed full of goodies and, with over  1,200 lots, take two days to clear.  It's always difficult to decide what to draw attention to when blogging on one of them.  There were some very nice lifesaving medals, which are an interest of mine.  Some were from the collection of John Wilson, an expert on the awards on the Society for the Preservation of Life from Fire (he literally wrote the book on the subject).  One group of medals that jumped out at me wasn't from John's collection, but was to a bathing superintendent, Frank Shooter, who was credited with saving over 300 lives during a remarkable career.  For some reason these were unsold - perhaps the estimate of £3,000-3,500 was just a little too rich when there was so much else on offer.

Launcelot Fleming's medals

Bishop Launcelot Fleming

Another group that appealed to me on several levels (except for the price!) was that to Launcelot Fleming.  After studying geology and glaciology at Cambridge, he was ordained into the Church of England.  Unusually, he was then invited to join expeditions to Iceland in 1932, Svalbard (Spitsbergen) in 1933, and then the British Graham Land Expedition to Antarctica, 1934-37.  During the Second World War he was a naval chaplain, among other postings, serving on the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth.  In 1949, despite having little parish experience, he was appointed Bishop of Portsmouth and, in 1959, Bishop of Norwich.  After retiring from that diocese in 1971, he became Dean of Windsor (he officiated at the funeral of the Duke of Windsor).  He died in 1990.  I'm pleased to say that his medals have returned to Norfolk, where they will be held by a private collector.

In contrast to DNW, Bonham's sale consisted of a single collection (in fact, just Part I of the collection) - the Dr A L Lloyd Collection of medals to medical personnel.

It was a lovely selection of material and just went to show how collecting themes can over-lap, for there was something for everyone.  There were medals from the Napoleonic Wars to modern conflicts; campaign awards; orders; gallantry awards; and long service medals.  Although there were medals to doctors and nurses who served in the Army and Air Forces, I'll pick out a couple of early pieces to naval surgeons.

Sir George Magrath's medal group - £14,400

The item that caught press attention both before and after the sale was the lot to Horatio Nelson's personal surgeon, Sir George Magrath, which sold for £14,400.  The long catalogue entry quoted from several of Nelson's letters, in which he described Magrath as 'the most able medical man I have seen' and 'Mr Magrath, whom I admire for his great abilities every day that I live'.  He missed being with Nelson at Trafalgar as he was left in Gibraltar to assist with an outbreak of yellow fever.  In later years he was Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets for the Royal Navy.

Naval General Service Medal to Surgeon B F Outram
 - an eye-watering £33,600.

Less eye-catching, but rather more desirable to at least two collectors was the single Naval General Service Medal to Surgeon B F Outram.  Although Outram (later Sir Benjamin Fonseca Outram KCB) had a distinguished career (he also was Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets), it is the numanistic aspects which are more important here than the 'man behind the medal'.  The medal has the clasps 'Nymphe, 8th March 1797' and 'Gut of Gibraltar 12th July 1801'.  The first clasp marks the engagement between HMS San Fiorenzo (Capt Sir Harry Neale), HMS Nymphe (Capt John Cooke) and the French ships Résistance (Cmdre Jean-Baptiste Montagniés Laroque) and Constance (Capt Desauney), who were returning from the farcical invasion of Pembrokeshire.  The second was awarded for an action off Cadiz when Sir James Saumarez defeated the French and Spanish fleets in July 1801. 

The significance of all this lies in the fact that the Naval General Service Medal wasn't awarded until 1847 and only to those surviving veterans who went through the application process.  As a result, some of the early, 'single ship' clasps were only claimed by a very few men.  Although 144 of the 'Gut of Gibratar' clasps were issued, there were only 5 of the 'Nymphe'.  This is a unique combination.  One knowledgeable collector of Naval General Service medals described this as a 'once in a lifetime' purchase.  Oddly enough, there was no indication of this scarcity factor in Bonham's catalogue description.  With an estimate of £5,000-7,000, the medal sold for an eye-watering £33,600 (inc premium).

Books and Stuff

A regular(ish) round-up of my book news.

What I've bought this week...

Doreen J Waugh, The Faces of Orkney: Stones, Skalds and Saints - £1.99

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book - 99p

What I've been reading this week...

Stephen Hunt, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves
Joseph Wambaugh, Hollywood Crows
'Centurion' (Reginald Branwhite Jay)  Men Whose Fathers Were Men: The Story of a Hobby

Literary Prize Update

Last month I blogged about the Diagram Prize for the oddest book title of the year.

I'm pleased to say that one of the books that I then said was my one of my two favorites has won.

Reginald Bakeley's Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop is a worthy winner.  It's apparently about how to keep fairies from infiltrating your house.  Obviously essential information.

More Popery

Over at the Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor blog there's an interesting post on the royal attendees of the Pope Francis' inaugural mass. If anyone is interested in dress code, and in particular the privilège du blanc, then I'd certainly recommend popping over there. Follow the links she posts, there are some nice pics of popes from John XXIII onwards with various royals.

I'm just going to nick a picture of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.  Since it was announced the they were to represent the Queen at the mass, my 'Royals in Medals' profile of them has been held the top spot in the visitor stats, so see this as my cheap attempt to grab more hits!  It's not shown in this photo, but the poor duchess had to sit next to Ken Clarke (which might explain why she's looking a little deafened).

On the 'Royals in Medals' front there's nothing new to add here - the orders and medals are explained in my previous post.  It's interesting to see the duchess choosing the Royal Family Order, GCVO, Diamond Jubilee Medal (on bow) combo - why the last as opposed to anything else?  It looks a little cluttered; but there's no real significance in any of this.

I've just noticed that in my profile post I'd said the duke has the Nepal Coronation medal, but haven't mentioned in the duchess' medals though she is clearly wearing it in the photo.

One other small point of no interest.  When did you last see a UK diplomat (other than the late lamented Rex Hunt) in Levee Dress?  Well, here's one http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukinholysee/8579000797/.  Perhaps when the Ambassador's blog is updated he'll explain why he hasn't mounted up his jubilee medal (or perhaps he's been a naughty boy and didn't get one).

By the way, in her blog post OSS says one of the wisest things I've ever read about ceremonial

I have a personal theory on all issues of protocol, by the way: just when you think you've got the "rules" down, you will find an example to contradict you. Therefore, by the transitive property of meh, you shouldn't worry about it too much.

I shall cite the 'transitive power of meh' in future.

I should have blogged about... (#1)

I should have blogged about the Archbishop of Canterbury's enthronement on Thursday.  For one thing there's an interesting point to make about the archbishop being 'enthroned', but the Pope apparently not. 

© Rupert Fawcett (all rights reserved) http://www.facebook.com/DailyFredCartoon

The short answer is that 'enthronement' is quite appropriate for a bishop in his Cathedral - the seat (cathedra) of his diocese - and that the pope will have an enthronement ceremony in the Lateran Basilica, Rome's cathedral, in due course. 

For some reason, despite the emphasis put on the fact that the pope is after all a bishop, this is given much less prominence than the inaugural mass.  There are those, of course, who think that Vatican Council II's declaration that popes are bishops and not a separate order of ministry is a threat to the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff: that is a grave error.

Pius IX and hat

Popes used to have coronations.  Papal coronation were thrown out for being too triumphalistic after Paul VI stopped wearing the tiara and sold it in aid of charity.  Let's face it, what's this if not Triumphalism: "Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art father of princes and kings, the ruler of the world on earth, the vicar of our Savior Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory through all ages"?  Much better is the idea of 'Servant of the servants of God" - we know which Pope Francis would go for!

Interestingly enough, that most triumphalist of popes, Pius IX, suspended enthronements (but not coronations) when he and his successors declared themselves 'prisoners of the Vatican' between the seizure of Rome by Italian troops (1870) and the much-misunderstood Lateran Treaty (1929).  During this self-imposed separation from their See, they only operated as Bishop of Rome through proxies.

In short:-

Coronation: Bad
Inaugural Mass: Good way to start anything
Enthronement: A real affirmation of the pastoral nature of the Papacy.

The State of Things to Come

Apologies to those of you who come to this blog looking at things royalty-related (and I see from the visitor stats that this is is the majority of you).  You must have found the recent spate of posts on Victorian Science Fiction and modelling a little bizarre!

However, I've always said that I post here for fun and it won't be a single-subject blog.  You'll have to follow the way my mind meanders, I'm afraid!

There will be royal updates soon.  Hopefully I won't have to do a health update on my profile of the Duke of Kent, but I am reminded that I promised some time ago that my next profile would be of his father.

Here's a little something to keep you content until then...

Steam Contraption Thingie

Thanks for those who got in touch with me with suggestions when I said the other day that I wasn't quite sure what to do with the steamtank  I'd acquired.  Thanks also for not pointing out that it's not a steamtank, but a steam-armoured-car!  For reasons I'll explain in a minute, I'm now referring to it as the Steam Contraption.

As I've made my mind up, and as it's actually almost completed, I thought I'd do an update.

The illustration from the manufacturer's website

My first thought was to see what (ideas I could steal from the Internet) inspiration I could get from other people's efforts.  As you see above, Ironclad Miniatures have gone with battleship grey with a brass dome on the boiler.  Although I like the brassiness, I'm not too keen on the grey, so I carried on looking.

Most people seem to have gone for generic tank colours, in either green or desert shades.  I didn't want to do this, as it seemed a bit too modern, post-WWI and, dare I say, it Real World.  There is also a tendency amongst some to add mud and rust 'to give verisimilitude'.  Now mud is fine (even the horses pick up mud, after all), but in my world there is always a Jimmy-Number-One in the Naval Brigade or a BQMS giving merry hell to the poor sod who lets his kit stay dirty.  Rust would give them apoplexy!  [In defence of Maud in the picture below, the concept there is that she belongs to an irregular faction in the Very British Civil War of 1938.]

These are some of my favourites from what I was able to find.
Top left is HMLS Suffolk from Victoria's Boys in Red, bottom left is Maud from Heredforshire 1938 and
bottom right from Tobsen77.  Apologies to the owner of the WWI camo pic - I didn't note where it was from.

 But I wanted something a more Steamy and Victorian - I suppose a little more brass-goggle-ly.

I had a little look at some pictures of Late Victorian artillery pieces, but that only confirmed my impression that they came in a nice shade of gray-blue (influenced by the naval brigades?).  Not impressive enough for my purposes!

At this point The Wife said "You have to consider what your purposes are.  What would it be used for?"  "Exactly," I answered enthusiastically  "a paint-job that's geared towards battling Martian tripods in Berkshire isn't going to be much use on the return leg on Mars or fighting Selenites on the Moon..."  At this point I saw the look She was giving me (she believes that wargaming should be demilitarised) and decided not to expand on my conceit of an Italy where the Risorgimento didn't take place, the Papal States survived, Cardinal Manning was elected Pope Charles and then sent the Swiss Guard to participate in Scramble for Mars.

"No," She sighed "is it like a tank, or more of a traction engine?" 

This got me thinking.  Steam-tank was out and  the Steam Contraption Thingie was born.  I'd already toyed with the idea of Flying Scotsman green with brass, so I agreed with her that a VSF Admiralty would consider camouflage "damn'd un-British and underhand!".  We had a look at traction engines and decided that they were just the biscuit.

I quite like the paint-scheme of the one on the right, but when I tried my Vallejo 'Hull Red' it came out more of a mucky brown.

I'm afraid that because of camera difficulties I'm going to have to do 1,000 words rather than a single picture, but to cut a long story short, the Steam Contraption (and here you may have to refer back to the pic at the top of the page) ended up painted black.  The boiler dome, door fittings and window-frames are in brass.  Having done that, we decided (by now it was 'We' making the decisions!) to go the whole hog and pick out the rivets in brass (though I've never seen the Golden Rivet).  The wheels have followed the traction engine model and are in red (though I'm a little undecided on this).  She is still armed, and the Maxim is in gun-metal.  The result is quite pleasing.

The Steam Contraption Thingie has developed a personality, and consideration has to be given to naming her.  Any suggestions anybody?  I think The Empress (of Mars?) is suitably grandiose.

One of the off-shoots of this is that The Wife, who is interested in Steampunk and tolerates my miniatures being on the kitchen table, has had a look at VSF modelling.  She is suitably taken aback by Colonel O'Truth's blog and this morning found us discussing his method for hand-producing rivets!  "You should start saving bits of boxes and packaging rather than throwing them away" She said, frugally.  So I told her about the gash bin in the shed that contains all the things I've salvaged from the re-cycling pile.

I fear there is no hope for us and we will soon be as mad (though not as talented) as the Colonel!

Postscript

A little bird tells me that the Victorian army used steam contraption thingies in the Boer War.  The Fowler B.5 Armoured Road Locomotive was designed and built by traction engine builder John Fowler & Coof Leeds.  The armour proved a success (most of it was canabalised to make armoured trains), but as a practical vehicle the Fowlers were limited by their large consumption of coal and water, and the fact that they had no off-road capability.

A Fowler Armoured Road Locomotive

A model of the Fowler is produced by Old Glory in the States.  It looks as it could be interesting, though the front wheels seem odd.

Old Glory's Fowler

All this serves to remind me of something I thought about the Empress earlier today though: she really could do with a tender.

This Week's Interesting Obits

Kenny Ball (d. 7 Mar 2013) - Jazzman
Daily Telegraph, 7 Mar 2013
Independent, 7 Mar 2013

Allan Calhamer (d. 25 Feb 2013) - Inventor of 'Diplomacy'
Daily Telegraph, 12 Mar 2013






Princess Lilian of Sweden (d. 10 Mar 2013)
Daily Telegraph, 10 Mar 2013
Independent, 14 Mar 2013

Shiney Things!

First an attack of Real World.  This might go some way to explaining why I've not been blogging so regularly over the last few months.

Last week I got sacked, or as the letter put it 'it was with regret I delivered my decision that your employment be terminated due to medical capability.'

Enough of that.

Lot 620 at DNW 25 Mar 2013

After a while I decided I need a little treat.  Normally I would get myself a nice book, but I fancied something a little different.

I can't afford anything at either of the medal auctions coming up this month (another thing I haven't blogged about!), so decided to go for something completely frivolous.




I've ordered a Steam Tank...

...and some Selenite Warriors.

I did consider a Mad Scientist, to go with some Killer Robots I've had my eyes on, but The Wife persuaded me That Would Be Silly.  Next time though...

The miniatures (28mm scale) are all from Ironclad Miniatures, from whom I've lifted the pics.  [I hope they don't mind as, in effect, I'm promoting their products, but if you're connected with them and want me to remove the pics, I will.]

They arrived today, and I'm very pleased with them.  I dare say they'll sit in the shed for ages before I decide to construct and paint them, but that isn't the point.

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus Papam!

And let's talk about the one thing I haven't heard the pundits on yet.  No, not papal socks (Red or White anybody?): heraldry!

Here are Francis' pre-papal arms:

A pretty uninspiring effort, I think you'd agree. Hopefully the Vatican heralds will pull something better out of the hat.  Efforts for past popes don't bode well though, and most Catholic heraldry is pretty poor to English eyes.

There is an Argentinian blog entry here discussing the significance of the design.  You'll have to excuse the failings of the automatic translation.

The motto is interesting though - 'Lowly, but chosen'. 

Recent Interesting Obits

Trevor Grills (d. 11 Feb 2013) - singer of sea shanties.
BBC 12 Feb 2013
Guardian 13 Feb 2013
Independent 14 Feb 2013

Reg Turnill (d. 12 Feb 2013) - journalist; the BBC's space man.
BBC 12 Feb 2013
Daily Telegraph 13 Feb 2013
Guardian 13 Feb 2013
Independent 18 Feb 2013

Literary Prizes

Just a note about two very different literary prizes.

The shortlist for the Nebula Awards 2012 has been announced.  The Nebulas are one of the oldest and best-respected awards in the Science Fiction world, and the roll-call of past winners is that of the greatest in the genre.


My old friend Joan Druett lists the contenders on her blog World of the the Written Word and very helpfully linked to those that can be read on-line.  The short stories I had a look at last night seem very good (as you'd expect).

The other shortlist is a bit of fun.  It's the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year.

That shortlist is

• Was Hitler Ill? by Henrik Eberle and Hans-Joachim Neumann
• Lofts of North America: Pigeon Lofts by Jerry Gagne
• How to Sharpen Pencils by David Rees
• God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis by Tom Hickman
• Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop by Reginald Bakeley
• How Tea Cosies Changed the World by Loani Prior

My favorites are Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop and How to Sharpen Pencils.  What are yours?  The winner is chosen by public vote, so go ahead and have your say.

 

Dreams of Space

The great and understated blog Dreams of Space celebrated its fourth birthday yesterday.

The subject matter is nicely summed-up in its full title: Dreams of Space - books and Ephemera.  Non-fiction children's space flight books 1945-1975.

Go and have a  look - they've got some great stuff to share with us!

Pope Benedict's Abdication

Just listening to the surprising news that Benedict XVI is to resign at the end of this month.

Although commentators will be very quick to say that there is precedent (though 600 years old) for this and it's always been an option in Canon Law, this is a very progressive step.  As they statement says "both strength in body and mind is necessary" for the job. Nobody wants to see the long deterioration before death we saw with John Paul II and Paul VI.

This is a good thing, and it's very much a case 'of only Nixon could go to China'

My prayers are with him for a peaceful retirement.


The Pope's statement to the Cardinals in Consistory:-

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonisations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Atompunk Magazine Covers!

Thanks to Victoria's Boys in Red, I've come across the Pulp-O-Mizer - a very cool tool for making your own pulp magazine covers.

I've had a little play...

Agatha Christie: Security Threat

Christie's most worrying book?

Lovely story on Daily Telegraph website about the security services being worried that Agatha Christie might have breached security when she published a 1941 novel that featured a 'Major Bletchley' who 'knew everything about what was really going on in the war'.

Apparently, Christie was a friend of Dilly Knox, who headed the code-breaking at Bletchley Park.  There's a more prosaic, and amusing explanation.   Read on...

Knox came from an interesting family.  His father was Edmund Knox, the evangelical Bishop of Manchester and opponent of Ritualism in the Church of England.  His brothers were E.V. Knox, a satirist who wrote as 'Evoe' and was editor of Punch (and was father of the Booker Prize winner Penelope Fitzgerald); Wilfred was a High Churchman and became an Anglican monk; the youngest was Mgr Ronnie Knox, who converted, was a well-known Roman Catholic apologist, broadcaster and crime writer.  Both sisters, Ethel and Winifred (Lady Peck), were novelists.

Richard III Announcement

As regular readers will know, I have been following the saga of the excavation in Leicester of what might be Richard III's remains.

Well, scientists have this morning announce that they are convinced 'beyond all reasonable doubts' that the remains are those of the king.

See
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9846693/Richard-III-skeleton-is-the-king.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21063882

Books and Stuff

A [supposedly] weekly round-up of my book news.

What I've been reading....

Carried on with The Kingdom Beyond the Waves.

What I've bought....


Bruce Fogle, The Dog Owner's Manual - 30p
MRD Foot & JM Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion, 1939-1945 - 30p
John Parker, The Gurkhas - 30p