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I cleared my medical exam that entitles me to pursue post graduation medical training. So went out to celebrate went bunch of really good friends. This also marks one of the first shots i took with my new Nikon D610. :D
Copyright to all of the photographs displayed under the name 'djammz' a.k.a Amin Ahmed Kapadia are owned by me. You may not publish, sell, license or distribute, use on websites or blogs any of these photographs without written permission
Countess Anna de Noailles' critical biography is accompanied by Quotations, Iconography and a substantial bibliography which are presented in a new Anthology entitled;
"Blouse Roumaine - the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women"
Presented and Selected by Constantin ROMAN
Anthology E-BOOK (11BM)
DISTRIBUTION: Online with credit card
COST: $ 54.99, £34.99 (ca Euros 35.50)
LINK: www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html
CONTENTS:
2,250,000 words,
over 1,000 pages,
ca 160 illustrations in text
160 critical biographies,
58 social categories/professions,
600 quotations (mostly translated into English for the first time),
circa 3,000 bibliographical references (including URLs and credits)
6 Indexes (alphabetical, by profession, timeline, quotation Index, place
index and name index)
AUTHOR: Constantin Roman is a Scholar with a Doctorate from Cambridge and a Member of the Society of Authors (London). He is an International Adviser, Guest Speaker, Professor Honoris Causa and Commander of the Order of Merit.
INDEX BY PROSFESSION: 58 CATEGORIES by Call, Profession or Social Status
Academics (22), Actresses (9), Anti-Communist Fighters (14), Architects/Interior Designers (2), Art Critics (9), Artist Book Binders (1), Ballerinas (6), Charity Workers/Benefactors (20), Communist Public Figures (2), Courtesans (3), Designers (2), Diplomats (4), Essayists (11), Ethnographers (6), Exiles & First-generation Romanians born abroad (87), Explorers (1), Feminists (12), Folk Singers (1), Gymnasts, Dressage Riders (2), Historians (5), Honorary Romanian Women (15), Illustrators (3), Journalists (13), Lawyers (4), Librarians (3), Linguists (2), Literary Critics (1), Media (15), Medical Doctors/Nurses (5), Memoir Writers (16), Missionaries and Nuns (4), Mountainéers (2), Museographers (1), Musical Instruments Makers (1), Novelists (24), Opera Singers (16), Painters (14), Peasant Farmers (6), Philosophers and Philosophy Graduates (4), Pianists (6), Pilots (4), Playwrights (5), Poets (29), Political Prisoners (30), Politicians (5), Revolutionaries (2), Royals and Aristocrats (34), Scientists (8), Sculptors (4), Slave (1), Socialites/Hostesses (20), Spouses/Relations of Public Figures (51), Spies (2), Tapestry Weavers (4), Translators (25), Unknown Illustrious (6), Violinists (4), Workers (3)
NOTE:
Most of the above 160 Romanian women, in the best tradition of versatility, are true polymaths and therefore nearly each one of them falls in more than just one category, often three or more. This explains why adding the numbers of the 57 individual categories bears no relation to the actual total of the above 160 women included in Blouse Roumaine.
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LIST OF 160 CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES (each supported by Quotations and Bibliography)
AA *Gabriela Adamesteanu *Florenta Albu *Nina Arbore *Elena Arnàutoiu *Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnàutoiu, *Laurentia Arnàutoiu *Mariea Plop - Arnàutoiu *Ana Aslan *Lady Elizabeth Asquith Bibescu
BB *Lauren Bacall *Lady Florence Baker *Zoe Bàlàceanu *Ecaterina Bàlàcioiu-Lovinescu *Victorine de Bellio *Pss. Marta Bibescu *Adriana Bittel *Maria Prodan Bjørnson *Ana Blandiana *Yvonne Blondel *Lola Bobescu *Smaranda Bràescu *Elena Bràtianu *Élise Bràtianu *Ioana Bràtianu *Elena Bràtianu- Racottà *Letitzia Bucur
CC *Anne-Marie Callimachi *Georgeta Cancicov *Madeleine Cancicov *Pss. Alexandra Cantacuzino *Pss.Maria Cantacuzino (Madame Puvis de Chavannes) *Pss. Maruca Cantacuzino-Enesco* Pss. Catherine Caradja *Elena Caragiani-Stoenescu *Marta Caraion-Blanc, *Nina Cassian, *Otilia Cazimir *Elena Ceausescu *Maria Cebotari *Ioana Celibidache *Hélène Chrissoveloni (Mme Paul Morand)*Alice Cocea *Irina Codreanu *Lizica Codreanu *Alina Cojocaru *Nadia Comàneci *Denisa Comànescu *Lena Constante *Silvia Constantinescu *Doina Cornea *Hortense Cornu *Viorica Cortez*Otilia Cosmutzà *Sandra Cotovu *Ileana Cotrubas *Carmen-Daniela Cràsnaru *Mioara Cremene *Florica Cristoforeanu *Pss. Elena Cuza
DD *Hariclea Darclée *Cella Delavrancea *Alina Diaconú *Varinca Diaconú *Anca Diamandy *Marie Ana Dràgescu *Rodica Dràghincescu *Bucura Dumbravà *Natalia Dumitrescu
EE *Micaela Eleutheriade *Queen Elisabeth of Romania (‘Carmen Sylva’) *Alexandra Enescu *Mica Ertegün
FF *Lizi Florescu, *Maria Forescu *Nicoleta Franck *Aurora Fúlgida
GG *Angela Gheorghiu *Pss Grigore Ghica *Pss. Georges Ghika (Liane de Pougy) *Veturia Goga *Maria Golescu *Nadia Gray *Olga Greceanu *Pss. Helen of Greece *Nicole Valéry-Grossu *Carmen Groza
HH *Virginia Andreescu Haret *Clara Haskil *Lucia Hossu-Longin
II *Pss. Ileana of Romania *Ana Ipàtescu *Marie-France Ionesco *Dora d’Istria *Rodica Iulian
JJ *Doina Jela *Lucretia Jurj
KK *Mite Kremnitz
LL *Marie-Jeanne Lecca *Madeleine Lipatti *Monica Lovinescu *Elena Lupescu
MM *Maria Mailat *Ileana Màlàncioiu *Ionela Manolesco *Lilly Marcou *Silvia Marcovici *Queen Marie of Romania *Ioana A. Marin *Ioana Meitani *Gabriela Melinescu *Veronica Micle *Nelly Miricioiu *Herta Müller *Alina Mungiu-Pippidi *Agnes Kelly Murgoci
NN *Mabel Nandris *Anita Nandris-Cudla *Lucia Negoità *Mariana Nicolesco *Countess Anna de Noailles *Ana Novac
OO *Helen O’Brien *Oana Orlea
PP *Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu *Milita Pàtrascu *Ana Pauker *Marta Petreu *Cornelia Pillat *Magdalena Popa *Elvira Popescu
RR *Ruxandra Racovitzà *Elisabeta Rizea *Eugenia Roman *Stella Roman *Queen Ana de România, *Pss. Margarita de România *Maria Rosetti *Elisabeth Roudinesco
SS *Annie Samuelli *Sylvia Sidney *Henriette-Yvonne Stahl *Countess Leopold Starszensky *Elena Stefoi *Pss. Marina Stirbey *Sanda Stolojan *Cecilia Cutzescu-Storck
TT *Maria Tànase *Aretia Tàtàrescu *Monica Theodorescu *Elena Theodorini
UU *Viorica Ursuleac
VV *Elena Vàcàrescu *Leontina Vàduva *Ana Velescu *Marioara Ventura *Anca Visdei *Wanda Sachelarie Vladimirescu *Alice Steriade Voinescu
WW *Sabina Wurmbrand
ZZ *Virginia Zeani
Entitled Play On (2007) by Robert Dawson
It comprises approximately 2,500 tiles and through seven discrete panels spans 28 metres, almost covering the upper area of the building’s façade. In this multi-sectioned mural the original black and white grid of a chessboard goes from small to large with Escher-esque corners, twists, and impossible angles. As with much of his work, the optical illusions have multi- stability, the images move inwards and outwards, being visually neither stable nor totally unstable.
Originally posted for GuessWhereUK
Graphic for a 1-week series entitled "Supernatural," about spiritual warfare.
I was initially going to go dark in feel, but then I was looking at other treatments that have been done with this topic, and the cliche thing to do seems to be to go dark, so I went the opposite direction, and made use of other stereotypical depictions of angels and demons (the halo and the tail) to round it out.
I was also thinking about my church's target demographic (non and nominally religious people, and for this case, students) and how fluffy clouds, halos and pointy tails are what many of them think of when they think of angels and demons and supernatural stuff.
You can watch a quick promo I made for it here.
If YouTube is your thing, watch it here.
Or how about bigger and better?
Malaysian-registered, of course. Cozy kitty and some sort of rickshaw hawker is included. Funnily, I didn't see those people waving when I took the photo, only just spotted them today.
Just checked closer, "EX" prefix plates such as these were used in Singapore between 1973 and 1984, meaning that this car has had its Certificate of Entitlement (mad expensive) renewed at least twice when this photo was taken.
This is my first MOC entitled "Brickopolis: The Commute Home." It will be displayed at the Baybrook Mall LEGO Store in Friendswood, Texas during April, 2013. The display is 48 studs wide, 40 studs deep and about 24 bricks high. It is micro scale with the citizens of Brickopolis being about half the height of a mini figure. In this scene the citizens of Brickopolis are heading home after a days work at the corporate offices of Technic Corp. A few "micro figs" live in the apartment building across the street. One has hailed a taxi home. Some relax in and around a park commemorating the site in which Brickopolis was founded. Others make their way to the bus stop while many hustle down the stairs to catch the arriving subway at Billund Station. I enjoyed making this MOC because it gave me the opportunity to build a wide variety of mini-scenes in one display. I hope you enjoy seeing the photos too.
This photograph was published in an online article in KENT LIVE on 7th October 2023, written by Mary Harris and entitled:
'' The 'gold standard' Kent park with beautiful waterfall where 'children can run wild' - Brockhill Country Park in Kent offers beautiful natural scenery and excellent facilities that make it a fantastic place for families ''
It had previously been used in the same online publication on 19th July 2023, written by Sam Honey and entitled:
'' Kent's underrated country park with a stunning lake and waterfall '' - It’s also a great spot for a bit of wildlife photography
Kent live is part of Reach South East and Cambridge (SEACAM) and is published by Reach PLC, and was launched in 2016 with news and features for the people around Kent and Sussex, and with over four million visitors per month.
This photograph was previously selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on July 5th 2018, my 3,614th photograph in the collection at that point. I now have 7,000 photographs in the collection.
CREATIVE RF gty.im/975616424 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**
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Photograph taken at an altitude of Forty three metres at 12:17pm on Wednesday 16th May 2018 off Sandling Road, in the grounds of Brockhill Country Park in Hythe, Kent.
The parkland dates back to Norman times and was purchased by the Tournay family in the Fifteenth Century. William Tournay is was the first family member to have the grounds and lake sculpted, and after his death in 1903, the land was purchased by Kent County Council, and opened to the public in 1947.
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Nikon D850 120mm 1/10s f/5.0 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Hand held. Colour space Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.
Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 4m 50.80s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 3m 49.60s
ALTITUDE: 43.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 93.1MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 33.20MB
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PROCESSING POWER:
Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.
In the early part of the 20th century, the anti-tobacco movement was aimed primarily at women and children. Smoking was considered a dirty habit and smoking by women was seriously frowned upon by society. As the century progressed so did women's desire for equality. The suffrage movement gave many women a sense of entitlement and freedom and the tobacco industry took advantage of the marketing opportunity. "Torches of Freedom" was a phrase used to encourage women's smoking by exploiting women's aspirations for a better life during the early twentieth century first-wave feminism in the United States. The term was first used by psychoanalyst A. A. Brill when describing the natural desire for women to smoke and was used by Edward Bernays to encourage women to smoke in public despite social taboos. Cigarettes were described as symbols of emancipation and equality with men.
Tobacco companies began marketing cigarettes to appeal to women during the burgeoning women's movement of the 1920s. The American Tobacco Company began targeting women with its ads for Lucky Strikes. They employed ads featuring prominent women, such as Amelia Earhart, and promised slimming effects. Most of the ads also conveyed a carefree and confident image of women that would appeal to the modern woman of the 1920s. The ads grew more extravagant with paid celebrity testimonials and far-reaching claims of how Lucky Strikes could improve their lives. Their most aggressive campaign directly challenged the candy industry by urging women to "reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet". These aggressive campaigns paid off, making Lucky Strike the most smoked brand within a decade.
Other companies followed the successful ad campaigns of the American Tobacco Company with their own versions. The Phillip Morris Company introduced Marlboro cigarettes in 1925. Marlboros were advertised as being as "mild as May" and featured elegant ivory tips that appealed to women. Other brands offered similar ads appealing to a woman's sense of beauty and style and made cigarettes an alluring part of many women's lives. Fear of weight gain remains a chief reason women continue to smoke. The ad campaigns successfully promoted cigarettes as a product possessing specific qualities including equality, autonomy, glamour, and beauty.
In 1929 Edward Bernays decided to pay women to smoke their "torches of freedom" as they walked in the Easter Sunday Parade in New York. This was a shock because until that time, women were only permitted to smoke in certain places such as in the privacy of their own homes. He was very careful when picking women to march because, "while they should be good looking, they should not look too model-y", and he hired his own photographers to make sure that good pictures were taken and then published around the world. Ruth Hale called for women to join in the march saying, "Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!". Once the footage was released, the women's walk was seen as a protest for equality and sparked discussion throughout the nation. The targeting of women in tobacco advertising led to higher rates of smoking among women. In 1923 women only purchased 5% of cigarettes sold; in 1929 that percentage increased to 12%, in 1935 to 18.1%, peaking in 1965 at 33.3%, and remaining at this level until 1977.
In 1934, Edward Bernays was asked to deal with women's apparent reluctance to buy Lucky Strikes because their green and red package clashed with standard female fashions. When Bernays suggested changing the package to a neutral color, George Washington Hill, head of the American Tobacco Company, refused, saying that he had already spent millions advertising the package. Bernays then endeavored to make green a fashionable color. The centerpiece of his efforts was the Green Ball, a social event at the Waldorf Astoria, hosted by Narcissa Cox Vanderlip. The pretext for the ball and its unnamed underwriter was that proceeds would go to charity. Famous society women would attend wearing green dresses. Manufacturers and retailers of clothing and accessories were advised of the excitement growing around the color green. Intellectuals were enlisted to give highbrow talks on the theme of green. Before the ball had actually taken place, newspapers and magazines (encouraged in various ways by Bernays's office) had latched on to the idea that green was all the rage.
In a content analysis of North American and British editions of Vogue, Cheryl Krasnick Warsh and Penny Tinkler trace representations of women smokers from the 1920s through the 1960s, concluding that the magazine "located the cigarette within the culture of the feminine elite," associating it with "the constellation of behaviors and appearances presented as desirable characteristics of elitism, through the themes of lifestyle, 'the look', and feminine confidence".
“I’m baffled at your sense of entitlement. It’s not that you ask in the first place; it’s that you ask again, after I’ve answered. No, where are you really from? Is there any other personal question to which you would outright reject my answer? Would you say that about my height, or my profession? I can refuse — no, it’s not your role to define my identity, to put boundaries on who I can and can’t be — and yet you do it over and over.” ―Zara Rahman
This is an edited talk I presented at Trampoline 2 [0] in Melbourne [1], Australia, Saturday 24th of October, 2009 entitled: "Hacking People, Hacking Bullies".
Several months later
It has now been several months since I presented the talk at Trampoline. The idea, a simple hypothesis, "is there a better way to identify and disrupt Cyber Bullies?".
I know for example the current best detection and prevention systems we have, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) [2] by Dan Olweus [3], manually identify bullies by peer association in their social networks. [4] Could this technique be extended to on-line social networks? I wanted to explore the idea of using network science techniques using maths and computers to identify hidden bully clusters in social networks.
The talk was divided into three parts: a) "Know your Enemy, Hacking humans"; b) "In the field: real life examples" and c) "Hacking Bullies". [5] I tend to write about these ideas to look for new insights into problems I see. [6] Bullying is a problem. I've experienced it first hand. It is the prime motivation for exploring these ideas. Bullying on-line is an even bigger problem and in an age of "social software" worth exploring further.
Preamble
My name is Peter. I'm a programmer. One of those gen-X slackers you hear about. My second computer was an Apple 2e clone shipped from Singapore in parts and hand assembled.
I'll be as lo-tech as you can get and read from sheets of paper. Occasionally I'll digress from the script. I tried to Kevin Bacon to stand in but he was busy and suggested Derek Zoolander and as soon as I mentioned to Derek there would be lots of big words and no cat-walk - Derek bailed, so you're stuck with me.
My talk is on bullies and what happens when they discover computers. If you want to use twitter and hash tags try #hackbully [7] I'll probably read the comments later. I'm not a psychologist, I'm a technologist with crap social skills. I'm interested in how bullies are adapting to computers and network, how to identify and neutralise them.
Hacking Bullies
The Internet is a big network. Bullies now have a much bigger playground and audience to choose from. So lets look at some real world examples. Some people collect stamps, others prefer spore, moulds and fungus mine is on-line behaviour.
Here's a few examples of cyber-bullying I've found. Gretel was on live national television and Will Anderson (ATTACKER) decided that Gretel Kileen was good TARGET and posted live insults on twitter taunting OUTSIDERS to join in on the fun. Gordon Ramsey, a known ATTACKER gets lots of attention these day when OUTSIDERs look for images of "fat Gordon Ramsey", for fun. Is this a case of OUTSIDERs fighting back? Erin Andrews, a news sports reporter in the US was ATTACKED by having video footage of her walking around after coming out of a shower posted on Youtube. Then had trouble convincing police she was TARGET.
Bullies have discovered computers and networks. Even Mika uses the power of song writing to asymmetrically attack bullies from his childhood. I think it's time to use our powers for good. What can we do?
Network science 101
Now we are almost up to the fun bit, where we use out knowledge of network science to hack bullies. But first a short diversion into Network science theory. Understanding networks allows us to understand markets, societies, species, corporations. Networks can be biological man made or social.
If we understand the rules of networks it give us the theory to create tools to hack bullies. There are four ideas that make hacking bullies possible: Small world networks, hubs, how information spreads and mapping networks.
1) Small world networks
Steven Strogatz and Duncan Watts are both mathematicians who succeeded in understanding the properties and structures of small worlds. Strogatz/Watts started asking basic questions about connections and relatedness of nodes in networks and realised understanding the "relatedness" of nodes and how each node is connected to another node is an important problem.
Strogatz/Watts, first tested their ideas on a network model of Hollywood actors and their relationship to "Kevin Bacon". They had a theory but no confirmation. The problem to solve? If an actor plays a part in a film, what is the chain of actors to reach Kevin Bacon. How many links is there in the chain? Lets try an example. How is Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) related to Kevin Bacon?
"Ben Stiller" was in "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny" (2006) with "John C. Reilly" who was in "The Wild River" (1994) with "Kevin Bacon"
Strogatz/Watts discovered two structural properties of what we now call "small world systems". The first, there are relatively few related nodes in a small world. The second, small world systems tend to cluster together closely. The cluster close enough to find another node in a distant small world via minimal hops.
2) Hubs
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi looked over the results of Watts/Strogartz data and made an interesting discovery, networks are not connected randomly. Barabasi found the mechanism that lets small world link together. The idea he observed is that some nodes in a network have many more links to them than other nodes. We call these super nodes, hubs. The two most important insights Barabasi has made: a) Networks are robust. If individual nodes are knocked out, the network survives. b) The hub is the weak spot. Knock a hub out, the network is severely interrupted.
3) Spread of information
Alessandro Vespignani is a physicist who specialised in understanding how disease spreads in biological systems. By reading Barabasi work on networks, Vespignani observed transmission of disease in a network is not random. Diseases moves quickly and spreads far via hubs. Conclusions: Small changes in the network have an effect on the whole system because the network is inter-related. But a virus, disease or information will not be eradicated in a network unless you take into account hubs. Understanding Hubs is the key.
4) Marc Vidal and genetic maps
Marc Vidal is a geneticist interested in looking at the inter-connectedness of cells. After reading the research by Barabasi decided to look at disease as a network. Instead of looking at the connected cells one by one Barabasi suggested to Vidal to look at the connections of disease and genes to create a map. A map of related diseases and genes. This idea is significant. It means you can now see how diseases are related. An idea made possible because it was redefined as a network science problem.
Now we come to our ultimate aim. Can we hack bullies who inhabit our electronic networks? Can we use network science for example in the same way terrorist cells are identified and disrupted?
Predicting behaviour
Could we use network science to predict where bullies might be operating? If so, how might we go about this? Lets think about what we know about bullies.
- bullies inhabit small world social networks online and offline
- bullies have identifiable negative behavioural characteristics
- bullies attract followers who attack,defend or remain neutral
- bullies exhibit hub like behaviour
- bullies have victims
What would happen if on a social network service we looked at reported behaviour and people at the same time. Just like Marc Vidal and genetic maps. What if we mapped the behaviour of social networks to look for related behaviour and hubs? What we would be looking for is the hubs of bad behaviour. Could we identify bullies by their associations to HENCHMEN, OUTSIDERs who observe an ATTACK? We know from Barabasi that if we ignore the hubs the problem remains.
A network of bad behaviour is stable because the hub remains intact. Can we knock out hubs and interrupt bad behaviour? There is nothing to stop any of the big social software site doing this. We now have enough theory to create the tools to disrupt bullies in networks. We know from Vespignani that small changes in the network make a difference and that if we redefine the problem and think of bullying and bad behaviour as a network science problem, we can tackle it successfully with maths instead of ignoring it.
Reference
[0] Trampoline 2, "my images of Trampoline 2 taken on the day on flickr"
www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/collections/72157622546767...
[1] Melbourne, "my flickr set of Melbourne"
www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157608350016296/
[2] olweus.org, "Olweus Bullying Prevention Program"
www.olweus.org/public/bullying_prevention_program.page?me...
[3] Dan Olweus, "History of Dan Olweus"
www.clemson.edu/olweus/history.htm
[4] Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, "The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program Overview: (Research_OBPP_Effective.pdf) Black, S. A., & Jackson, E. (2007). Using bullying incident density to evaluate the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme. School Psychology International, 28, 623-638."
www.olweus.org/public/document/obpp_effective_research
[5] Paul Graham, "What you can't say"
[6] seldomlogical.com, "Don't read this: Don't think I write for anything, other than for my own selfish reasons. So stop reading, right now. Stop!"
seldomlogical.com/2009/08/27/don-t-read-this
[7] #hackbully, "a twitter hashtag for responses on the talk. I was interested to see what kinds of responses I would get on the back channel"
twitter.com/#search?q=#hackbully
Credit: Thanks to Trace and the attendees at Trampoline 2 for corrections and listening.
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A view of a participant during the event entitled “Music and the Holocaust : History, Memory and Justice”. The event is organized by The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.
UN Photo/Manuel Elías
10 November 2022
New York, United States of America
Photo # UN7962139
Mural entitled "Hermanas" by @lillipore for Pow! Wow! Worcester 2019 mural festival in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Photo by James aka @urbanmuralhunter on that other photo site.
Edit by Teee.
Entitled "Looking Back," D * Face's work reflects the artist's fascination with advertising and his nostalgia for the era of hand-painted signage. He has mixed the Pop Art side of his style with lettering referring to his family history. The text that can partly be seen in the background relates to the immigration of his ancestors who left Montreal around 1915.
Plateau Mont Royal (Montreal), Quebec.
“This series is entitled ‘The Beauty of Rome’. The title came from a television photography competition I participated in ('Master of Photography’ on Sky Arts) which aired across Europe during summer 2016. All images were shot in January 2016. This shoot was my first time in Rome. I travel often, so dropping into a new city and attempting to capture its essence is a familiar situation for me. However, being part of a TV competition, there were 11 other photographers, all operating in the same area at the same time, all trying to get a “winning” shot in one of the most photographed places in the world. Finding a unique and new perspective on the city seemed like a greater challenge than normal. Nevertheless, I have long believed that it is an artist’s duty to add fresh perspectives to the world, so I embraced it as an opportunity. On this occasion, I did so by seeking to characterise Rome through its people, rather than through its well-known monuments and history. What do Romans’ expressions, mannerisms and appearance say about the city and their relationship to it? How do they interact with their city? In all of the people I found a warm humility and openness, which perhaps contrasts with the hard, powerful grandeur of the architecture.” The Beauty of Rome by Neal Gruer (1/5)
From my set entitled “Boats and Ships”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/3206986832/in/set-7215...
In my collection entitled “Transportation”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215761271...
In my photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/
From my set entitled “Jamestown”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157606230698243/
In my collection entitled “Virginia: Beach, Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown: May 2008”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760622...
Reproduced from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia
Jamestown (originally also called "James Towne" or "Jamestowne") is located on the James River in what is currently James City County in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The site is about 40 miles (62 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean and the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay and about 45 miles (70 km) downstream and southeast of the current state capital city of Richmond. Both the river and the settlement were named for King James I of England, who was on the throne at the time, granted the private proprietorship to the Virginia Company of London's enterprise.
The location at Jamestown Island was selected primarily because it offered a favorable strategic defensive position against other European forces which might approach by water. However, the colonists soon discovered that the swampy and isolated site was plagued by mosquitoes and tidal river water unsuitable for drinking, and offered limited opportunities for hunting and little space for farming. The area was also inhabited by Native Americans (American Indians).
The 3 points of Colonial Virginia's Historic Triangle, Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown are linked by the National Park Service's scenic Colonial Parkway.
The 3 points of Colonial Virginia's Historic Triangle, Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown are linked by the National Park Service's scenic Colonial Parkway.
Despite inspired leadership of John Smith, chaplain Robert Hunt and others, starvation, hostile relations with the Indians, and lack of profitable exports all threatened the survival of the Colony in the early years as the settlers and the Virginia Company of London each struggled. However, colonist John Rolfe introduced a strain of tobacco which was successfully exported in 1612, and the financial outlook for the colony became more favorable. Two years later, Rolfe married the young Indian woman Pocahontas, daughter of Wahunsunacock, Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, and a period of relative peace with the Natives followed. In 1616, the Rolfes made a public relations trip to England, where Pocahontas was received as visiting royalty. Changes by the Virginia Company which became effective in 1619 attracted additional investments, also sowing the first seeds of democracy in the process with a locally-elected body which became the House of Burgesses, the first such representative legislative body in the New World.
Throughout the 17th century, Jamestown was the capital of the Virginia Colony. Several times during emergencies, the seat of government for the colony was shifted temporarily to nearby Middle Plantation, a fortified location on the high ridge approximately equidistant from the James and York Rivers on the Virginia Peninsula. Shortly after the Colony was finally granted a long-desired charter and established the new College of William and Mary at Middle Plantation, the capital of the Colony was permanently relocated nearby. In 1699, the new capital town was renamed Williamsburg, in honor of the current British king, William III.
After the capital was relocated, Jamestown began a gradual loss of prominence and eventually reverted to a few large farms. It again became a significant point for control of the James River during the American Civil War (1861–1865), and then slid back into seeming oblivion. Even the Jamestown Exposition of 1907 was held elsewhere, at a more accessible location at Sewell's Point, on Hampton Roads near Norfolk.
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her consort Prince Phillip inspect replica of Susan Constant at Jamestown Festival Park in Virginia on October 16, 1957
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her consort Prince Phillip inspect replica of Susan Constant at Jamestown Festival Park in Virginia on October 16, 1957
Beginning in 1893, 22.5 acres of the Jamestown site were acquired by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. A crucial sea wall was built in 1900 to protect the shoreline near the site of James Fort from further erosion. In the 1930s, the Colonial National Historical Park was established to protect and administer Jamestown, which was designated a National Historic Site. The U.S. National Park Service acquired the remaining 1,500 acres (6.1 km²) of Jamestown Island through eminent domain in 1934.
For the 350th anniversary in 1957, Jamestown itself was the site of renewed interest and a huge celebration. The National Park Service provided new access with the completion of the Colonial Parkway which led to Williamsburg, home of the restored capital of Colonial Williamsburg, and then on to Yorktown, the other two portions of Colonial Virginia's Historic Triangle. Major projects such as the Jamestown Festival Park were developed by non-profit, state and federal agencies. Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Prince Philip attended. The 1957 event was a great success. Tourism became continuous with attractions regularly updated and enhanced.
The two major attractions at Jamestown are separate, but complementary to each other. The state-sponsored Jamestown Settlement near the entrance to Jamestown Island includes a recreated English Fort and Native American Village, extensive indoor and outdoor displays, and features the three popular replica ships. On Jamestown Island itself, the National Park Service operates Historic Jamestowne. Over a million artifacts have been recovered by the Jamestown Rediscovery project with ongoing archaeological work, including a number of exciting recent discoveries.
Early in the 21st century, in preparation for the Jamestown 2007 event commemorating America's 400th Anniversary, new accommodations, transportation facilities and attractions were planned. The celebration began in the Spring of 2006 with the sailing of a new replica Godspeed to six major East Coast U.S. cities, where several hundred thousand people viewed it. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip joined America's festivities on an official state visit to Jamestown in May 2007.
Black British people and Black people in Britain have always been part of the English folk revival, from artists as diverse as Davey Graham (innovative folk guitar tunings and playing), Nadia Cattouse (British/Caribbean folk), and Dorris Henderson (American folk and folk rock), to Edward II now (folk reggae), but it's less well known how far back Black British ballad singing was a daily part of the English music scene.
Joseph Johnson was a Black merchant navy veteran who, because he had been born abroad and wasn't entitled to a pension or parish relief, earned his living as a street singer in London, Romford, St Albans, Staines, and the villages in between, reputedly hitching lifts with passing wagoners. He performed while wearing an elaborate hand-crafted model of the Royal Navy ship HMS Nelson on his head, a sculpture he presumably created himself. According to Vagabondiana, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the Streets of London, a series of prints of well-known street traders and beggars, published in 1815-17, Johnson sang "The Wooden Walls of Old England" and "The British Seaman's Praise" - most likely the songs now known as "The Tough Wooden Walls" (Roud V11049) and "The Neglected Tar" (Roud V4171, aka "The Hardy Tar"), both of which positioned him as a British sailor worthy of the money he was earning as a disabled veteran. Since neither song seems to have either a clear text transcript or a brief history available on the internet, I've provided both below. The most interesting additional fact is that one of Johnson's signature songs was probably originally authored by political radical, disability activist, and anti-slavery campaigner Edward Rushton, of whom I've also included a brief biography below (under 1806).
--------------------------------
"I sing the British seaman's praise", aka The Neglected Tar, aka Hardy Tar, Roud V4171, recorded from 1791 onwards. It was published regularly for 15 years before being claimed by radical Liverpudlian author Edward Rushton, who is indeed a likely candidate for the poem's authorship. The book Thames Valley Villages, 1910, claims Neglected Tar was sung to the tune Country Garden (a tune mentioned as early as 1728).
1790-1840, Hardy Tar, London, broadside ballad in Bodleian collection.
Bodleian: ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search/roud/V4171/
1791, The Neglected Tar, London, prints in Yale and British Library collections.
Yale: findit.library.yale.edu/catalog/digcoll:553527
British Museum: www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collecti...
The Neglected Tar, 1791, transcript from print in Yale collection
I sing the British seaman's praise;
A theme renown'd in story;
It well deserves more polish'd lays;
Oh! 'tis your boast and glory.
When mad brain'd war spreads death around,
By them you are protected;
But when in peace the nation's found,
These bulwarks are neglected.
Chorus.
Then, Oh! protect the hardy tar,
Be mindful of his merit;
And when again you'r plung'd in war,
He'll show his daring spirit.
When thickest darkness covers all,
Far on the trackless ocean;
When lightnings dart, when thunders roll,
And all is wild commotion;
When o'er the bark the white topp'd waves,
With boist'rous sweep are rolling,
Yet coolly still, the whole he braves,
Untam'd amidst the howling.
Then, Oh! protect &c.
When deep immers'd in sulphurous smoke,
He feels a glowing pleasure;
He loads his gun, he cracks his joke,
Elated beyond measure.
Though fore and aft the blood-stain'd deck,
Should lifeless trunks appear;
Or should the vessel float a wreck,
The sailor knows no fear.
Then, Oh! protect &c.
When long becalm'd on southern brine,
Where scorching beams assail him;
When all the canvas hangs supine,
And food and water fail him;
Then oft he dreams of Britain's shore,
Where plenty still is reigning;
They call the watch, his rapture's o'er,
He sighs, but scorns complaining.
Then, Oh! protect &c.
Or burning on that noxious coast,
Where death so oft befriends him;
Or pinch'd by hoary Greenland frost,
True courage still attends him:
No clime can this eradicate,
He glories in annoyance;
He fearless braves the storms of fate,
And bids grim death defiance.
Then, Oh! protect &c.
Why should the man who knows no fear,
In peace be then neglected?
Behold him move along the pier,
Pale, meagre and dejected!
Behold him begging for employ!
Behold him disregarded!
Then view the anguish in his eye,
And say, are Tars rewarded?
Then, Oh! protect &c.
To them your dearest rights you owe,
In peace then would you starve them?
What say ye Britain's sons? - oh! no!
Protect them and preserve them.
Shield them from poverty and pain,
'Tis policy to do it;
Or when grim war shall come again,
Oh Britons, ye may rue it!
Then, Oh! protect &c.
1792, Edinburgh syren, or, Musical bouquet, Being a new selection of modern songs, sung at the various places of amusement in Great Britain and Ireland, 1792, Edinburgh, book in the National Library of Scotland collection. Only minor typographical differences from the 1791 print in the Yale collection.
National Library of Scotland: digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/paget...
1805, A collection of songs, moral, sentimental, instructive, and amusing, edited by James Plumtre, 1805, London, book. Minor typographical and phraseological variations. The Neglected Tar is credited to a "gentleman of Liverpool".
"Serene amidst the howling." was "Untam'd amidst the howling."
"He loads his gun - right heart of oak - " was "He loads his gun, he cracks his joke,"
"He sighs - forbears complaining." was "He sighs, but scorns complaining."
"He's calm amidst annoyance;" was "He glories in annoyance;"
1806, Edward Rushton (1756–1814), as a boy and young man, was a sailor on slave trading ships between Africa and the Americas. While on board one insanitary slave ship Rushton was blinded by an infection. He returned to his home in Liverpool and became a political radical, including campaigning for the abolition of slavery. Rushton published his West Indian Eclogues in 1787. He opened the successful and lasting Liverpool School for the Indigent Blind in 1791. He published a reprimand to George Washington for owning slaves in 1797. Rushton published his Poems in 1806, including a poem of praise to Toussaint L'Overture and the Black Haitian revolutionaries. Rushton's anti-slavery writings also included cultural details he had learned from his earlier contacts with enslaved Africans, such as a "negro" "Egbo", held in slavery in the British West Indies, who swears by "Obi" and has a wife named "Zuna". In 1807 an operation partially restored Edward Rushton's eyesight and he saw his wife and children for the first time.
Neglected Tar, 1806, from Poems by Edward Rushton
To ocean's sons I lift the strain,
A race renown'd in story;
A race whose wrongs are Britain's stain,
Whose deeds are Britain's glory.
By them, when courts have banish'd peace,
Your sea-girt land's protected,
But when war's horrid thunderings cease,
These bulwarks are neglected.
When thickest darkness covers all,
Far on the trackless ocean,
When lightnings dart, when thunders roll,
And all is wild commotion;
When o'er the barque the foam-capt waves,
With boisterous sweep are rolling,
The seaman feels, yet nobly braves,
The storm's terrific howling.
When long becalm'd on southern brine,
Where scorching beams assail him,
When all the canvas hangs supine,
And food and water fail him,
Then oft he dreams of that loved shore,
Where joys are ever reigning, -
The watch is called, his rapture's o'er,
He sighs, but scorns complaining.
Now deep immers'd in sulphurous smoke,
Behold him at his station,
He loads his gun, he cracks his joke,
And moves, all animation.
The battle roars, the ship's a wreck,
He smiles amid the danger,
And though his messmates strew the deck,
To fear his soul's a stranger.
When long becalm'd on southern brine,
Where scorching beams assail him,
When all the canvass hangs supine,
And food and water fail him,
Then oft he dreams of that loved shore,
Where joys are ever reigning;
The watch is called - his rapture's o'er,
He sighs, but scorns complaining.
Or burning on that noxious coast,
Where death so oft befriends him;
Or pinch'd by hoary Greenland's frost,
True courage still attends him.
No clime can this eradicate,
He glories in annoyance,
He, fearless, braves the storms of fate,
And bids grim death defiance.
Why should the man, who knows no fear,
In peace be thus neglected?
Behold him move along the pier,
Pale, meagre, and dejected;
He asks a berth with downcast eye,
His prayers are disregarded,
Refus'd — ah hear the veteran sigh,
And say, are tars rewarded?
Much to these fearless souls you owe,
In peace then would you starve them?
What say you, patriot souls? Oh no!
Admire, protect, preserve them.
And oh! reflect, if war again
Should menace your undoing,
Reflect, who then would sweep the main,
And shield your realm from ruin.
CHORUS
Then oh! protect the hardy tar,
Be mindful of his merit,
And if pure justice urge the war,
He'll show his daring spirit.
--------------------------------
1820, The Tough Wooden Walls, Roud V11049, recorded from 1820 (title recorded from 1804)
Reputedly sung at Vauxhall Gardens by the famous Mr Dignum in 1804 (according to books such as The Whim of the Day, and other sources), and possibly on the streets of London by the almost equally famous Black British naval veteran and street singer Joseph Johnson by 1817 (according to Vagabondiana, which names the song as "The Wooden Walls of Old England"), and perhaps popular enough to be parodied not long after.
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library: www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B86180
The Tough Wooden Walls (Roud V11049, oddly one number after the apparently later parody), 1820, from The Vocal Library, book
When the despots of France felt a wish to invade
The island that freedom had long call'd her own,
The impulse of honour each Briton obey'd,
Determined to fight for his country and crown:
Then encircled by fleets she has nothing to fear,
While no civil commotions her people dissever;
This adage remains ev'ry Briton to cheer,
The tough Wooden Walls of Old England for ever.
Then what fear can invasion impress on the mind
If Britons for ever united we stand,
While our brave Volunteers in true valour combin'd,
Step forward to fight for our dear native land:
With such guardians as these, let the boasters appear,
Shall we e'er yield to Frenchmen? Oh Englishmen, never;
For this adage remains, ev'ry Briton to cheer,
The tough Wooden Walls of Old England for ever.
Then a health to the fleets which our islands surround,
Success to their Adm'rals courageously brave;
With their actions of valour the heavens resound,
The deeds of our Navy, our country to save.
Approbation this toast from each Briton must meet,
Prosper well ev'ry Englishman's loyal endeavour,
May God save the King, his army and fleet,
The tough Wooden Walls of Old England for ever.
The photo is entitled ‘Mrs Kennerley Rumford & Master Roy’ Kennerley Rumford being Clara Butt’s married name.
Dame Clara Ellen Butt DBE the world famous English contralto was born on 1st February 1872 and died on 23rd January 1936.
In the photograph / postcard above she is with her eldest son – Roy – who was born in 1904 and died of meningitis in 1923.
After her marriage she was dogged by ill fortune – apart from Roy her youngest son, Victor, who was born in 1906 committed suicide by shooting himself in 1934 and Clara became seriously ill of cancer of the spine during the 1920’s.
The photograph was taken during 1909.
Postcard - Rotary Photographic Plate Sunk Gem Series.
This sculpture entitled 'Seated' is on show outside the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill from 19th April - 29th October 2023.
It is by Tschabalala Self and she says "Taking a seat is a universal act of leisure and calm. I wanted to create a monumental sculpture for the public that spoke to this simple joy. The woman is strong, beautiful and self-possesses. She represents all individuals, but women in particular, who understand the power and importance of simple gestures that assert their right to take up space." (2022).
Tschabalala Self was born in 1990 and is an American artist
Tschabalala Self's first public sculpture stands three metres high and is made from patinated bronze. This monumental work was an everyday object - a seat - as an entry point for questions of permission and performance within public space. Its subject - poised, immaculately dressed, glancing to her left - emboldens onlooks to sit with confidence and comfort.
Through an expansive practice bringing together painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage, Self's depictions, predominantly of women, traverse different artistic traditions. Bland and femme bodies are particularly prevalent in her work, heating different subjects, or characters, with individual and powerful identities, many of which are reimagined from chance encounters. Through mediations on race and gender, Self's work is concerned with what it means to flourish as a human and how the self is performed and perceived within contemporary life.
Read how the local community came together to make a statement after she was vandalised......
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jun/03/uk-seaside-c...
St Pancras New Church (so entitled to differentiate it from an older building that remains several blocks away to the north east) was built in 1819-22 to the designs of William & Henry Inwood and is a remarkable example of the then prevalent taste for Neo-Classical architecture. Few churches can claim to be as Grecian in style as this one, which boasts the unique features of two porticoes flanking the east end copied directly from the famous caryatid porch of the Erectheum on the Athenian Acropolis, complete with column figures in terracotta (molded in sections around cast-iron columns). The spindly octagonal tower is a major landmark to visitors arriving at nearby Euston Station just over the main road (as it has welcomed me on many visits to the capital).
The interior of the church continues the theme of Classical severity, with a broad flat coffered ceiling spanning the nave with the apse beyond adding a touch of enrichment. The Victorian glass in the windows does make the space a little gloomier than it could be. The galleries remain and create side aisles beneath them but otherwise the interior retains the impression of a large unified space.
I am unsure what normal opening times are for this church but I believe it is usually open in office hours during the day.
i wish they had constructed a university at his burrial place - a place oflearning for algebra -sciences and astronomy
Khayyám wrote a book entitled Explanations of the difficulties in the postulates in Euclid's Elements. The book consists of several sections on the parallel postulate (Book I), on the Euclidean definition of ratios and the Anthyphairetic ratio (modern continued fractions) (Book II), and on the multiplication of ratios (Book III).
The first section is a treatise containing some propositions and lemmas concerning the parallel postulate. It has reached the Western world from a reproduction in a manuscript written in 1387-88 AD by the Persian mathematician Tusi. Tusi mentions explicitly that he re-writes the treatise "in Khayyám's own words" and quotes Khayyám, saying that "they are worth adding to Euclid's Elements (first book) after Proposition 28."[13] This proposition[14] states a condition enough for having two lines in plane parallel to one another. After this proposition follows another, numbered 29, which is converse to the previous one.[15] The proof of Euclid uses the so-called parallel postulate (numbered 5). Objection to the use of parallel postulate and alternative view of proposition 29 have been a major problem in foundation of what is now called non-Euclidean geometry.
The treatise of Khayyám can be considered as the first treatment of parallels axiom which is not based on petitio principii but on a more intuitive postulate. Khayyám refutes the previous attempts by other Greek and Persian mathematicians to prove the proposition. And he, as Aristotle, refuses the use of motion in geometry and therefore dismisses the different attempt by Ibn Haytham too.[16] In a sense he made the first attempt at formulating a non-Euclidean postulate as an alternative to the parallel postulate,[17]
Geometric algebra[edit]
Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements.
Omar Khayyam[18]
Omar Khayyám's geometric solution to the cubic equation x3 + 200x = 20x2 + 2000.
This philosophical view of mathematics (see below) has had a significant impact on Khayyám's celebrated approach and method in geometric algebra and in particular in solving cubic equations. In that his solution is not a direct path to a numerical solution and in fact his solutions are not numbers but rather line segments. In this regard Khayyám's work can be considered the first systematic study and the first exact method of solving cubic equations.[19]
In an untitled writing on cubic equations by Khayyám discovered in the 20th century,[18] where the above quote appears, Khayyám works on problems of geometric algebra. First is the problem of "finding a point on a quadrant of a circle such that when a normal is dropped from the point to one of the bounding radii, the ratio of the normal's length to that of the radius equals the ratio of the segments determined by the foot of the normal." Again in solving this problem, he reduces it to another geometric problem: "find a right triangle having the property that the hypotenuse equals the sum of one leg (i.e. side) plus the altitude on the hypotenuse.[20] To solve this geometric problem, he specializes a parameter and reaches the cubic equation x3 + 200x = 20x2 + 2000.[18] Indeed, he finds a positive root for this equation by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle.
This particular geometric solution of cubic equations has been further investigated and extended to degree four equations.[21]
Regarding more general equations he states that the solution of cubic equations requires the use of conic sections and that it cannot be solved by ruler and compass methods.[18] A proof of this impossibility was only plausible 750 years after Khayyám died. In this paper Khayyám mentions his will to prepare a paper giving full solution to cubic equations: "If the opportunity arises and I can succeed, I shall give all these fourteen forms with all their branches and cases, and how to distinguish whatever is possible or impossible so that a paper, containing elements which are greatly useful in this art will be prepared."[18]
This refers to the book Treatise on Demonstrations of Problems of Algebra (1070), which laid down the principles of algebra, part of the body of Persian Mathematics that was eventually transmitted to Europe.[19] In particular, he derived general methods for solving cubic equations and even some higher orders.
Binomial theorem and extraction of roots[edit]
See also: History of binomial theorem
From the Indians one has methods for obtaining square and cube roots, methods which are based on knowledge of individual cases, namely the knowledge of the squares of the nine digits 12, 22, 32 (etc.) and their respective products, i.e. 2 × 3 etc. We have written a treatise on the proof of the validity of those methods and that they satisfy the conditions. In addition we have increased their types, namely in the form of the determination of the fourth, fifth, sixth roots up to any desired degree. No one preceded us in this and those proofs are purely arithmetic, founded on the arithmetic of The Elements.
Omar Khayyam Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra[22]
This particular remark of Khayyám and certain propositions found in his Algebra book has made some historians of mathematics believe that Khayyám had indeed a binomial theorem up to any power. The case of power 2 is explicitly stated in Euclid's elements and the case of at most power 3 had been established by Indian mathematicians. Khayyám was the mathematician who noticed the importance of a general binomial theorem. The argument supporting the claim that Khayyám had a general binomial theorem is based on his ability to extract roots.[23]
Khayyám-Saccheri quadrilateral[edit]
Main article: Saccheri quadrilateral
The Saccheri quadrilateral was first considered by Khayyám in the late 11th century in Book I of Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid.[24] Unlike many commentators on Euclid before and after him (including of course Saccheri), Khayyám was not trying to prove the parallel postulate as such but to derive it from an equivalent postulate he formulated from "the principles of the Philosopher" (Aristotle):
Two convergent straight lines intersect and it is impossible for two convergent straight lines to diverge in the direction in which they converge.[25]
Khayyám then considered the three cases (right, obtuse, and acute) that the summit angles of a Saccheri quadrilateral can take and after proving a number of theorems about them, he (correctly) refuted the obtuse and acute cases based on his postulate and hence derived the classic postulate of Euclid.
It wasn't until 600 years later that Giordano Vitale made an advance on Khayyám in his book Euclide restituo (1680, 1686), when he used the quadrilateral to prove that if three points are equidistant on the base AB and the summit CD, then AB and CD are everywhere equidistant. Saccheri himself based the whole of his long, heroic, and ultimately flawed proof of the parallel postulate around the quadrilateral and its three cases, proving many theorems about its properties along the way.
Astronomer[edit]
The Jalali calendar was introduced by Omar Khayyám alongside other Mathematicians and Astronomers in Nishapur, today it is one of the oldest calendars in the world as well as the most accurate solar calendar in use today. Since the calendar uses astronomical calculation for determining the vernal equinox, it has no intrinsic error, but this makes it an observation based calendar.[26][27][28][29]
Like most Persian mathematicians of the period, Khayyám was also an astronomer and achieved fame in that role. In 1073, the Seljuq Sultan Jalal al-Din Malik-Shah Saljuqi (Malik-Shah I, 1072–92), invited Khayyám to build an observatory, along with various other distinguished scientists. According to some accounts, the version of the medieval Iranian calendar in which 2,820 solar years together contain 1,029,983 days (or 683 leap years, for an average year length of 365.24219858156 days) was based on the measurements of Khayyám and his colleagues.[30] Another proposal is that Khayyám's calendar simply contained eight leap years every thirty-three years (for a year length of 365.2424 days).[31] In either case, his calendar was more accurate to the mean tropical year than the Gregorian calendar of 500 years later. The modern Iranian calendar is based on his calculations.
Heliocentric Theory[edit]
It is sometimes claimed that Khayyam demonstrated that the earth rotates on its axis[32] by presenting a model of the stars to his contemporary al-Ghazali in a planetarium.[33]
The other source for the claim that Khayyam believed in heliocentrism are Edward Fitzgerald's popular but anachronistic renderings[34] of Khayyam's poetry, in which the first lines are mistranslated with a heliocentric image of the Sun flinging "the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight".[35]
Calendar Reform[edit]
Khayyám is claimed to be a member of a panel that introduced several reforms to the Iranian calendar.[citation needed] On March 15, 1079, Seljuk Sultan Malik Shah I accepted this corrected calendar as the official Persian calendar.[36]
This calendar was known as the Jalali calendar after the Sultan, and was in force across Greater Iran from the 11th to the 20th centuries. It is the basis of the Iranian calendar which is followed today in Iran and Afghanistan. While the Jalali calendar is more accurate than the Gregorian, it is based on actual solar transit, similar to Hindu calendars, and requires an ephemeris for calculating dates. The lengths of the months can vary between 29 and 31 days depending on the moment when the sun crosses into a new zodiacal area (an attribute common to most Hindu calendars). This meant that seasonal errors were lower than in the Gregorian calendar.
The modern-day Iranian calendar standardizes the month lengths based on a reform from 1925, thus minimizing the effect of solar transits. Seasonal errors are somewhat higher than in the Jalali version, but leap years are calculated as before.
Poet[edit]
Main article: Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
Omar Khayyám was a notable poet during the reign of the Seljuk ruler Malik-Shah I and his contributions to the developments of mathematics, astronomy and philosophy inspired later generations.
He is believed to have written about a thousand four-line verses or rubaiyat (quatrains). In the English-speaking world, he was introduced through the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám which are rather free-wheeling English translations by Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883). Other English translations of parts of the rubáiyát (rubáiyát meaning "quatrains") exist, but FitzGerald's are the most well known.
A well decorated plaque containing poems from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
Ironically, FitzGerald's translations reintroduced Khayyám to Iranians "who had long ignored the Neishapouri poet." A 1934 book by one of Iran's most prominent writers, Sadeq Hedayat, Songs of Khayyam, (Taranehha-ye Khayyam) is said to have "shaped the way a generation of Iranians viewed" the poet.[37]
Omar Khayyám's poems have been translated to many languages.[38] Many translations were made directly from Persian and more literal than translation by Edward Fitzgerald.[38]
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
But helpless pieces in the game He plays,
Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days,
He hither and thither moves, and checks… and slays,
Then one by one, back in the Closet lays.
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted— “Open then the Door!
You know how little time we have to stay,
And once departed, may return no more.”
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou,
Beside me singing in the Wilderness,
And oh, Wilderness is Paradise enow.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out of the same Door as in I went.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d—
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”
Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help—for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
Views on religion[edit]
Unbalanced scales.svg
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There have been widely divergent views on Khayyám. According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr no other Iranian writer/scholar is viewed in such extremely differing ways. At one end of the spectrum there are nightclubs named after Khayyám, and he is seen as an agnostic hedonist.[39] On the other end of the spectrum, he is seen as a mystical Sufi poet influenced by platonic traditions.
An Ottoman Era inscription of a poem written by Omar Khayyám at Morića Han in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, after examining the philosophical works of Khayyám, maintains that it is really reductive to just look at the poems (which are sometimes doubtful) to establish his personal views about God or religion; in fact, he even wrote a treatise entitled "al-Khutbat al-gharrå˘" (The Splendid Sermon) on the praise of God, where he holds orthodox views, agreeing with Avicenna on Divine Unity.[5] In fact, this treatise is not an exception, and S.H. Nasr gives an example where he identified himself as a Sufi, after criticizing different methods of knowing God, preferring the intuition over the rational (opting for the so-called "kashf", or unveiling, method):[5]
"... Fourth, the Sufis, who do not seek knowledge by ratiocination or discursive thinking, but by purgation of their inner being and the purifying of their dispositions. They cleanse the rational soul of the impurities of nature and bodily form, until it becomes pure substance. When it then comes face to face with the spiritual world, the forms of that world become truly reflected in it, without any doubt or ambiguity. This is the best of all ways, because it is known to the servant of God that there is no reflection better than the Divine Presence and in that state there are no obstacles or veils in between. Whatever man lacks is due to the impurity of his nature. If the veil be lifted and the screen and obstacle removed, the truth of things as they are will become manifest and known. And the Master of creatures [the Prophet Muhammad]—upon whom be peace—indicated this when he said: “Truly, during the days of your existence, inspirations come from God. Do you not want to follow them?” Tell unto reasoners that, for the lovers of God, intuition is guide, not discursive thought."
—Omar Khayyám[40]
The same author goes on by giving other philosophical writings which are totally compatible with the religion of Islam, as the al-Risālah fil-wujūd (الرسالة في الوجود, "Treatise on Being"), written in Arabic, which begin with Quranic verses and asserting that all things come from God, and there is an order in these things. In another work, Risālah jawāban li-thalāth masāʾil (رسالة جوابان لثلاث مسائل, "Treatise of Response to Three Questions"), he gives a response to question on, for instance, the becoming of the soul post-mortem. S.H. Nasr even gives some poetry where he is perfectly in favor of Islamic orthodoxy, but expressing mystical views (God's goodness, the ephemerical state of this life, ...):[5]
Thou hast said that Thou wilt torment me,But I shall fear not such a warning.For where Thou art, there can be no torment,And where Thou art not, how can such a place exist?The rotating wheel of heaven within which we wonder,Is an imaginal lamp of which we have knowledge by similitude.The sun is the candle and the world the lamp,We are like forms revolving within it.A drop of water falls in an ocean wide,A grain of dust becomes with earth allied;What doth thy coming, going here denote?A fly appeared a while, then invisible he became.
Considering possible misunderstandings about Khayyám in the West and elsewhere, Hossein Nasr concludes by saying that if a correct study of the authentic rubaiyat is done, but along with the philosophical works, or even the spiritual biography entitled Sayr wa sulak (Spiritual Wayfaring), we can no longer view the man as a simple hedonistic wine-lover, or even an early skeptic, but a profound mystical thinker and scientist whose works are more important than some verses.[5] C.H.A. Bjerregaard earlier summarised the situation:
"The writings of Omar Khayyam are good specimens of Sufism but are not valued in the West as they ought to be, and the mass of english-speaking people know him only through the poems of Edward Fitzgerald which is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because Fitzgerald is not faithful to his master and model, and at times he lays words upon the tongue of the Sufi which are blasphemous. Such outrageous language is that of the eighty-first quatrain for instance. Fitzgerald is doubly guilty because he was more of a Sufi than he was willing to admit."[41]
A French orientalist named Franz Toussaint was so dissatisfied with Fitzgerald's translation (and with some works just translating Fitzgerald from English to French) that he wrote his own directly from the Persian texts, trying to express the spirit of the verses rather than to versify.[42] His translation was published from 1924 to 1979 uninterrupted by Editions d'Art Henri Piazza before that editor disappeared. That translation was itself translated in other languages on Internet sites.
Abdullah Dougan, a modern Naqshbandi Sufi, provides commentary[43] on the role and contribution of Omar Khayyam to Sufi thought. Dougan says that while Omar is a minor Sufi teacher compared to the giants – Rumi, Attar and Sana’i – one aspect that makes Omar’s work so relevant and accessible is its very human scale as we can feel for him and understand his approach. The argument over the quality of Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat has, according to Dougan, diverted attention from a fuller understanding of the deeply esoteric message contained in Omar’s actual material – "Every line of the Rubaiyat has more meaning than almost anything you could read in Sufi literature".
Philosopher[edit]
Tomb of Omar Khayyám Neishapuri in Nishapur, Iran
Khayyám himself rejects to be associated with the title falsafī "philosopher" in the sense of Aristotelianism and stressed he wishes "to know who I am". In the context of philosophers he was labeled by some of his contemporaries as "detached from divine blessings".[44]
It is now established that Khayyám taught for decades the philosophy of Avicena, especially the Book of Healing, in his home town Nishapur, till his death.[5] In an incident he had been requested to comment on a disagreement between Avicena and a philosopher called Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī who had criticized Avicena strongly. Khayyám is said to have answered "[he] does not even understand the sense of the words of Avicenna, how can he oppose what he does not know?"[44]
Khayyám the philosopher could be understood from two rather distinct sources. One is through his Rubaiyat and the other through his own works in light of the intellectual and social conditions of his time.[45] The latter could be informed by the evaluations of Khayyám's works by scholars and philosophers such as Abul-Fazl Bayhaqi, Nizami Aruzi, and al-Zamakhshari and Sufi poets and writers Attar of Nishapur and Najm-al-Din Razi.
Mathematical philosophy[edit]
As a mathematician, Khayyám has made fundamental contributions to the philosophy of mathematics especially in the context of Persian Mathematics and Persian philosophy with which most of the other Persian scientists and philosophers such as Avicenna, Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī and Tusi are associated. There are at least three basic mathematical ideas of strong philosophical dimensions that can be associated with Khayyám.
1.Mathematical order: From where does this order issue, and why does it correspond to the world of nature? His answer is in one of his philosophical "treatises on being". Khayyám's answer is that "the Divine Origin of all existence not only emanates wujud "being", by virtue of which all things gain reality, but It is the source of order that is inseparable from the very act of existence."[45]
2.The significance of axioms in geometry and the necessity for the mathematician to rely upon philosophy and hence the importance of the relation of any particular science to prime philosophy. This is the philosophical background to Khayyám's total rejection of any attempt to "prove" the parallel postulate, and in turn his refusal to bring motion into the attempt to prove this postulate, as had Ibn al-Haytham, because Khayyám associated motion with the world of matter, and wanted to keep it away from the purely intelligible and immaterial world of geometry.[45]
3.Clear distinction made by Khayyám, on the basis of the work of earlier Persian philosophers such as Avicenna, between natural bodies and mathematical bodies. The first is defined as a body that is in the category of substance and that stands by itself, and hence a subject of natural sciences, while the second, called "volume", is of the category of accidents (attributes) that do not subsist by themselves in the external world and hence is the concern of mathematics. Khayyám was very careful to respect the boundaries of each discipline, and criticized ibn al-Haytham in his proof of the parallel postulate precisely because he had broken this rule and had brought a subject belonging to natural philosophy, that is, motion, which belongs to natural bodies, into the domain of geometry, which deals with mathematical bodies.[45]
The distress in Lancashire: Distributing Bread at the Crooked Lane Depot, Preston.
The following description of the distress in Preston was written by Edwin Waugh. The full account entitled "HOME-LIFE OF THE LANCASHIRE FACTORY FOLK DURING THE COTTON FAMINE" can be accessed Here
AMONG THE PRESTON OPERATIVES.
Proud Preston, or Priest-town, on the banks of the beautiful Ribble, is a place of many quaint customs, and of great historic fame. Its character for pride is said to come from the fact of its having been, in the old time, a favourite residence of the local nobles and gentry, and of many penniless folk with long pedigrees. It was here that Richard Arkwright shaved chins at a halfpenny each, in the meantime working out his bold and ingenious schemes, with patient faith in their ultimate success. It was here, too, that the teetotal movement first began, with Anderson for its rhyme-smith. Preston has had its full share of the changeful fortunes of England, and, like our motherland, it has risen strongly out of them all. War's mad havoc has swept over it in many a troubled period of our history. Plague, pestilence, and famine have afflicted it sorely; and it has suffered from trade riots, "plug-drawings," panics, and strikes of most disastrous kinds. Proud Preston—the town of the Stanleys and the Hoghtons, and of "many a crest that is famous in story"—the town where silly King Jamie disported himself a little, with his knights and nobles, during the time of his ruinous visit to Hoghton Tower,—Proud Preston has seen many a black day. But, from the time when Roman sentinels kept watch and ward in their old camp at Walton, down by the Ribble side, it has never seen so much wealth and so much bitter poverty together as now. The streets do not show this poverty; but it is there. Looking from Avenham Walks, that glorious landscape smiles in all the splendour of a rich spring-tide. In those walks the nursemaids and children, and dainty folk, are wandering as usual airing their curls in the fresh breeze; and only now and then a workless operative trails by with chastened look. The wail of sorrow is not heard in Preston market-place; but destitution may be found almost anywhere there just now, cowering in squalid corners, within a few yards of plenty—as I have seen it many a time this week. The courts and alleys behind even some of the main streets swarm with people who have hardly a whole nail left to scratch themselves with.
Before attempting to tell something of what I saw whilst wandering amongst the poor operatives of Preston, I will say at once, that I do not intend to meddle with statistics. They have been carefully gathered, and often given elsewhere, and there is no need for me to repeat them. But, apart from these, the theme is endless, and full of painful interest. I hear on all hands that there is hardly any town in Lancashire suffering so much as Preston. The reason why the stroke has fallen so heavily here, lies in the nature of the trade. In the first place, Preston is almost purely a cotton town. There are two or three flax mills, and two or three ironworks, of no great extent; but, upon the whole, there is hardly any variety of employment there to lighten the disaster which has befallen its one absorbing occupation. There is comparatively little weaving in Preston; it is a town mostly engaged in spinning. The cotton used there is nearly all what is called "Middling American," the very kind which is now most scarce and dear. The yarns of Preston are known by the name of "Blackburn Counts." They range from 28's up to 60's, and they enter largely into the manufacture of goods for the India market. These things partly explain why Preston is more deeply overshadowed by the particular gloom of the times than many other places in Lancashire. About half-past nine on Tuesday morning last, I set out with an old acquaintance to call upon a certain member of the Relief Committee, in George's Ward. He is the manager of a cotton mill in that quarter, and he is well known and much respected among the working people. When we entered the mill-yard, all was quiet there, and the factory was still and silent. But through the office window we could see the man we wanted. He was accompanied by one of the proprietors of the mill, turning over the relief books of the ward. I soon found that he had a strong sense of humour, as well as a heart welling over with tenderness. He pointed to some of the cases in his books. The first was that of an old man, an overlooker of a cotton mill. His family was thirteen in number; three of the children were under ten years of age; seven of the rest were factory operatives; but the whole family had been out of work for several months. When in full employment the joint earnings of the family amounted to 80s. a week; but, after struggling on in the hope of better times, and exhausting the savings of past labour, they had been brought down to the receipt of charity at last, and for sixteen weeks gone by the whole thirteen had been living upon 6s. a week from the relief fund. They had no other resource. I went to see them at their own house afterwards, and it certainly was a pattern of cleanliness, with the little household gods there still. Seeing that house, a stranger would never dream that the family was living on an average income of less than sixpence a head per week. But I know how hard some decent folk will struggle with the bitterest poverty before they will give in to it. The old man came in whilst I was there. He sat down in one corner, quietly tinkering away at something he had in his hands. His old corduroy trousers were well patched, and just new washed. He had very little to say to us, except that "He could like to get summat to do; for he wur tired o' walkin' abeawt." Another case was that of a poor widow woman, with five young children. This family had been driven from house to house, by increasing necessity, till they had sunk at last into a dingy little hovel, up a dark court, in one of the poorest parts of the town, where they huddled together about a fireless grate to keep one another warm. They had nothing left of the wreck of their home but two rickety chairs, and a little deal table reared against the wall, because one of the legs was gone. In this miserable hole—which I saw afterwards—her husband died of sheer starvation, as was declared by the jury on the inquest. The dark, damp hovel where they had crept to was scarcely four yards square; and the poor woman pointed to one corner of the floor, saying, "He dee'd i' that nook." He died there, with nothing to lie upon but the ground, and nothing to cover him, in that fireless hovel. His wife and children crept about him, there, to watch him die; and to keep him as warm as they could. When the relief committee first found this family out, the entire clothing of the family of seven persons weighed eight pounds, and sold for fivepence, as rags. I saw the family afterwards, at their poor place; and will say more about them hereafter. He told me of many other cases of a similar kind. But, after agreeing to a time when we should visit them personally, we set out together to see the "Stone Yard," where there are many factory hands at work under the Board of Guardians.
The "Stone Yard" is close by the Preston and Lancaster Canal. Here there are from one hundred and seventy to one hundred and eighty, principally young men, employed in breaking, weighing, and wheeling stone, for road mending. The stones are of a hard kind of blue boulder, gathered from the land between Kendal and Lancaster. The "Labour Master" told me that there were thousands of tons of these boulders upon the land between Kendal and Lancaster. A great deal of them are brought from a place called "Tewhitt Field," about seven mile on "t' other side o' Lancaster." At the "Stone Yard" it is all piece-work, and the men can come and go when they like. As one of the Guardians told me, "They can oather sit an' break 'em, or kneel an' break 'em, or lie deawn to it, iv they'n a mind." The men can choose whether they will fill three tons of the broken stone, and wheel it to the central heap, for a shilling, or break one ton for a shilling. The persons employed here are mostly "lads an' leet-timber't chaps." The stronger men are sent to work upon Preston Moor. There are great varieties of health and strength amongst them. "Beside," as the Labour Master said, "yo'd hardly believe what a difference there it i'th wark o' two men wortchin' at the same heap, sometimes. There's a great deal i'th breaker, neaw; some on 'em's more artful nor others. They finden out that they can break 'em as fast again at after they'n getten to th' wick i'th inside. I have known an' odd un or two, here, that could break four ton a day,—an' many that couldn't break one,—but then, yo' know, th' men can only do accordin' to their ability. There is these differences, and there always will be." As we stood talking together, one of my friends said that he wished "Radical Jack" had been there. The latter gentleman is one of the guardians of the poor, and superintendent of the "Stone Yard." The men are naturally jealous of misrepresentation; and, the other day, as "Radical Jack" was describing the working of the yard to a gentleman who had come to look at the scene, some of the men overheard his words, and, misconceiving their meaning, gathered around the superintendent, clamorously protesting against what he had been saying. "He's lying!" said one. "Look at these honds!" cried another; "Wi'n they ever be fit to go to th' factory wi' again?"
Others turned up the soles of their battered shoon, to show their cut and stockingless feet. They were pacified at last; but, after the superintendent had gone away, some of the men said much and more, and "if ever he towd ony moor lies abeawt 'em, they'd fling him into th' cut." The "Labour Master" told me there was a large wood shed for the men to shelter in when rain came on. As we were conversing, one of my friends exclaimed, "He's here now!" "Who's here?" "Radical Jack." The superintendent was coming down the road. He told me some interesting things, which I will return to on another occasion. But our time was up. We had other places to see. As we came away, three old Irishwomen leaned against the wall at the corner of the yard, watching the men at work inside. One of them was saying, "Thim guardians is the awfullest set o' min in the world! A man had better be transpoorted than come under 'em. An' thin, they'll try you, an' try you, as if you was goin' to be hanged." The poor old soul had evidently only a narrow view of the necessities and difficulties which beset the labours of the Board of Guardians at a time like this. On our way back to town one of my friends told me that he "had met a sexton the day before, and had asked him how trade was with him. The sexton replied that it was "Varra bad—nowt doin', hardly." "Well, how's that?" asked the other. "Well, thae sees," answered the sexton, "Poverty seldom dees. There's far more kilt wi' o'er-heytin' an' o'er-drinkin' nor there is wi' bein' pinched."
Christmas and the Distress
Christmas which is just upon us, will necessarily be a cold one for the operatives, the resources of the past are not forthcoming; money is terribly scare, and many a one, who, in former years, have been jubilant at this season, will now have to be content with less than a ‘tithe’ of that cheer which is indissolubly associated with the good old-fashioned carnival of Christmas. Preparations are being made in many quarters for giving treats to the distressed operatives; the ordinary paupers will receive their Christmas dinner, in accordance with custom, and all those in receipt of relief from the charitable committee will, if they get nothing else, have eightpence each to fall back upon from the Mansion House fund. The kitchen in Crooked-lane appears to be as busy a place as ever. The following boilers of soup – each containing 175 gallons, have been made during the week :- Saturday, 4 boilers of meat and 1 and a half of sweet soup, Monday, 4 meat and 1 sweet, Tuesday, 5 meat and 1 sweet, Wednesday, 4 meat 4 scouse, Thursday 6 meat, yesterday 6 meat and half a boiler of sweet meat. The meat soup contained upwards of 4,850lbs beef, mutton, &c., of first-rate quality. During the week, 23,853 loaves of bread have been given out weighing 42 tons 12 cwt; 35,741 quarts of soup, and 9,057 quarts of scouse have been served at the Walker-street and the Crooked-lane establishments. The whole expense of the week, including bedding and clothing will exceed £3,000.
The following presents have been received during the week, for which the committee begs to offer its thanks.
A parcel of clothing from Mrs Foster, Whitehaven.
A parcel of grey flannel from Mrs Tollemache, Portland-terrace, Richmond, Surrey.
A crate of hats from L. Frayne, Bromsgrove.
Two bales and one hamper of clothing from E. Hallett and friends.
A bale of clothing from E.H. Sangley, Chudleign, Devon.
A large bale of clothing from C.S. Bromsgrove.
Three bales of clothing from H. Bell and Sons, Mickelgate, York.
A large bale of clothing from Lady Park, ‘very valuable’.
A truss of clothing from the Ladies Committee, Leeds.
Fifty sacks of rice chaff from W. Williams, Birkenhead.
A bale of clothing from friends at Castle Bromwick, per the Misses Kempson.
Ten bales of clothing from J. W. M’Clure, Manchester.
A sack of flour, one barrel of beef, twenty small barrels of herring, a barrel of fish, J.W. M’Clure, Manchester.
A bag of rice, a barrel of flour from Mr Baxter, Liverpool.
Two hundred plum puddings from the Lord Mayor’s Committee, London.
A quarter of the famous bull ‘Skyrocket’ weighing 419 lbs from Lord Feversham.
A parcel of clothing from Mr Burnett, Liverpool, per Mr Livesey, Preston.
Two carcasses of venison, used in the soup from Cartechy Castle, Scotland.
A box of clothing, tea, sugar &c., from Mrs Reyner, Waterloo.
A parcel of quilting, worsted, &c., from Mrs Jacson, Barton Lodge.
A sack of clothing from H. Rose Clark, Etwall, Derby.
A bale of clothing from George Earle, Hull.
One hamper of clothing from Thomas Cooper, Ulverstone.
3 boxes of clothing from Rossall College
87 lbs of venison from Messrs. Boulours, Marylebone.
A 2nd parcel clothing from United Sunday Scholars of Longsutton, per Rev. J. Nuller.
A case of caps and hats and a parcel of clothing from Penrim.
Preston Chronicle Dec 20th, 1862
This picture, previously entitled Outskirts of a Village, probably depicts a scene from the artist's home town of Auvers-sur-Oise in France. Several other artists also worked in Auvers including Cezanne and Van Gogh who described the area in a letter to his brother as '... the real countryside, characteristic and picturesque'. Daubigny often worked directly from nature in the open air, and the style of his later landscapes was influenced by his friend and fellow landscape painter Corot.
[Oil on wood, 18.7 x 35.9 cm]
gandalfsgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/charles-francois-d...
When his sculpture reflecting the sheer horror of World War One was lowered onto a seafront just a few miles from his hometown, Ray Lonsdale didn’t expect it to receive the welcome it did.
The imposing metal sculpture entitled 1101 - owing to the fact the armistice went into effect at 11am on November 11, 1918 - stands 9ft 5ins tall at Seaham, in County Durham.
The statue, built out of special corteen steel, was installed to mark the centenary of the start of the Great War and was only expected to remain in place for three months.
But after winning the hearts of hundreds of visitors to the town, it could now be exhibited permanently.
Around £72,000 has been raised to keep the 1.2-tonne statue in the town, and fundraisers are only £12,000 from their target. The Journal included it in its list of 100 great things about the North East - alongside more established landmarks like Hadrian’s Wall and the Tyne Bridge - and regular crowds are flocking to Seaham to take in the artwork.
In the process, Ray’s work has been catapulted into the public eye and his journey from metal worker to fully fledged artist has been completed.
He said: “There was always a big risk with Tommy because there was no sale for it. It was just a case of me biting the bullet and having hope that someone somewhere would buy it. There was no guarantee that it would have sold and it could have ended up sitting around for sometime.
“Finally great things happened and they are just about there with the money now.”
The artwork, which was installed in May has attracted hundreds of visitors to Seaham, many of whom have donated cash to the Save Tommy campaign. A Facebook page called Mission 1101 has attracted more than 4,000 members with many pledging to support to Tommy, which is situated on Terrace Green.
“I was surprised by the level of support 1101 got,” said Ray. “I’ve had a positive reaction to a lot of my work but not by as many people as this. The whole town has pulled together to put money in the buckets and raise cash to keep it here. That is a new experience.”
After leaving school Ray, 49, of South Hetton in County Durham, qualified as a maintenance fitter and began working at Coles Cranes in Sunderland, which closed in 1996.
Following the factory’s closure Ray set up his own steel fabrication business, where he produced bins, seats and railings for local authorities and private clients.
He always had an interest in art and at school he was always encouraged to go onto to art college.
But it wasn’t until 2007 that Ray decided to start his career in art and changed the name of his business to Two Red Rubber Things.
The father-of-two said: “In 2002 I got back into art and drawing on an evening and I decided to try and combine my work and interest. That’s when I produced my first piece. I got into a competition at the Biscuit Factory and I won the competition.
“That gave me the confidence to try and do a bit more and over the next five years I completed more and more art work. There was a gradual change-over from steel to artistic steel work.
“Someone told me that I would never stand a chance making it in the art industry unless I had a degree in art. I started college but I soon realised it wasn’t for me.
“I decided to do things off my own back and that’s how I started and finally things were well received.
“I didn’t feel I had time to do an art degree. It would take seven years and I felt I would be wasting opportunities.
“I just wanted to push myself. I’m big on having a go and I never wanted to get to a point in my life where I would think ‘I wish I would have tried that’.
“I kept the steel work going alongside the art work and it wasn’t until 2007 when I changed the name of the business and decided to take a chance with the art.”
Ray now has 30 life size statues under his belt and another six large scale pieces. These include The Big Dance at Gretna Green - a 14ft depiction of a couple’s hands - which was put in place in time for Valentine’s Day, a soldier on a bench at North Bay, Scarborough and the Filey Fisherman, in Filey.
Ray, who lives with wife Bev, said: “I like to create work that people can take something from it. Public art should be for the public. I don’t agree that it is an artist’s job to educate the public about art but if they like it then it’s been a success.
“I like people to look at it and appreciate it and appreciate the work that’s gone into it. I also like them to look deeper into it and find the story behind it.”
“Previously I would make seats, bins and railings. I had to get used to people buying my work for the way it looked rather than for its functional purpose.
“It felt strange at first. I realised that people were having a positive reaction to my work and that’s something I got used to, which was nice.”
Ray is keeping quite tight-lipped about his next project but he admits he’s been approached by local authorities.
He said: “I have completed a lot of drawings since 1101 and I’ve been approached by a couple of authorities with ideas but nothing has been finalised yet.”
Leaving his full-time profession to concentrate on his dream to make it as an artist was a risk but Ray has not looked back since, citing his family’s support for helping make the leap.
He said: “Bev has been fully supportive. She had a lot of faith in me when I didn’t. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be any of this at all.”
Report, entitled 'Landing of the Army on the Gallipoli Peninsula, April 25-26 1915', written by Vice-Admiral John de Robeck (Commander of Naval Operations at Gallipoli). The first, of the two pages displayed, records his general views on the operation, in which he remarks that "Such actions as the storming of the Seddul Bahr position by the 29th Division must live in history for ever; innumerable deeds of heroism and daring were performed; the gallantry and absolute contempt for death displayed alone made the operations possible…The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in this, their first battle, set a standard as high as that of any army in history, and one of which their countrymen have every reason to be proud." The second page lists the Royal Navy personnel recommended for the Victoria Cross. ©The Royal Archives
I entitled this Brooklyn because there was a copper Brooklyn Bridge piece behind her head, and I had quite a time trying to cover it up. You can barely see it, but it still pisses me off.. But I love this shot.
Brittany is an amazing model; she brings such energy and life to shoot, and posed in that fur coat for thirty minutes sweating her ass off while I worked to get the shot. =)
Cover of catalogue entitled 'Prof. Junkers Apparate für Warmwasser-Versorgung und Gasheizung'. n.d. [mid-'20s]. Although clearly produced by Junkers & Co., of Dessau, Germany, this particular copy has the title page printed with the name of a local agent: Reiberger & Co., Kandlgasse 37, Wien VII.
(A subsidiary of the Junkers firm was set up in Britain to distribute and later produce water heaters for the British market; this became the Ascot Gas Water Heater Co.)
From my set entitled “Potato Vine”
www.flickr.com/photos/organize/?start_tab=one_set72157607...
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato
The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a dicotyledonous plant which belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Amongst the approximately 50 genera and more than 1000 species of this family, only I. batatas is a crop plant whose large, starchy, sweet tasting tuberous roots are an important root vegetable (Purseglove, 1991; Woolfe, 1992). The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum). It is commonly called a yam in parts of North America, although they are only very distantly related to the other plant widely known as yams) (in the Dioscoreaceae family), which is native to Africa and Asia.
The genus Ipomoea that contains the sweet potato also includes several garden flowers called morning glories, though that term is not usually extended to Ipomoea batatas. Some cultivars of Ipomoea batatas are grown as ornamental plants.
This plant is a herbaceous perennial vine, bearing alternate heart-shaped or palmately lobed leaves and medium-sized sympetalous flowers. The edible tuberous root is long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose color ranges between red, purple, brown and white. Its flesh ranges from white through yellow, orange, and purple.
Sweet potatoes are native to the tropical parts of the South America, and were domesticated there at least 5000 years ago.[1] They spread very early throughout the region, including the Caribbean. They were also known before western exploration in Polynesia. How exactly they arrived there is a subject of ongoing research and discussion of various hypotheses involving archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence.
Austin (1988) postulated that the centre of origin of I. batatas was between the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. The 'cultigen' had mostly likely been spread by local people to South America by 2500 BC. Zhang et al. (1998) provided strong supporting evidence that the geographical zone postulated by Austin is the primary centre of diversity. The much lower molecular diversity found in Peru-Ecuador suggests that this region be considered as secondary centre of sweet potato diversity.
Sweet potatoes are now cultivated throughout tropical and warm temperate regions wherever there is sufficient water to support their growth.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO]) statistics world production in 2004 was 127,000,000 tons.[2] The majority comes from China with a production of 105,000,000 tonnes from 49,000 km². About half of the Chinese crop is used for livestock feed.[1]
Per-capita production is greatest in countries where sweet potatoes are a staple of human consumption, led by the Solomon Islands at 160 kg per person per year, Burundi at 130 kg and Uganda at 100 kg.
In New Zealand, sweet potato is known by its Māori name, kūmara. It was a staple food for Māori before European contact. Today, it is still very popular, although less popular than regular potatoes. There are about 85 commercial kūmara growers, with 1,220 hectares producing 20,000 tonnes of kūmara annually.
In the U.S., North Carolina, the leading state in sweet potato production, provided 38.5% of the 2007 U.S. production of sweet potatoes. California, Louisiana, and Mississippi compete closely with each other in production. Louisiana has been a long-time major producer, once second only to North Carolina, and closely followed by California until the latter began surpassing it in 2002. In 2007, California produced 23%, Louisiana 15.9%, and Mississippi 19% of the U.S. total.
Opelousas, Louisiana's Yambilee has been celebrated every October since 1946. The Frenchmen who established the first settlement at Opelousas in 1760 discovered the native Attakapas, Alabama, Choctaw, and Opelousas Indian Tribes eating sweet potatoes. The sweet potato became a favorite food item of the French and Spanish settlers and thus continued a long history of cultivation in Louisiana.
Mississippi is also a major sweet potato producing state, with about 150 farmers presently growing sweet potatoes on approximately 8,200 acres (33 km2) and contributing $19 million dollars to the state's economy. Mississippi's top five sweet potato producing counties are Calhoun, Chickasaw, Pontotoc, Yalobusha, and Panola. The National Sweet Potato Festival is held annually the entire first week in November in Vardaman (Calhoun County), which proclaims itself as "The Sweet Potato Capital".
The town of Benton, Kentucky celebrates the sweet potato annually with its Tater Day Festival on the first Monday of April. The town of Gleason, Tennessee celebrates the sweet potato on Labor Day weekend with its Tater Town Special.
The plant does not enjoy frost. It grows best at an average temperature of 24 °C (75 °F), abundant sunshine and warm nights. Annual rainfalls of 750-1000 mm are considered most suitable, with a minimum of 500 mm in the growing season. The crop is sensitive to drought at the tuber initiation stage 50-60 days after planting and is not tolerant to water-logging, as it may cause tuber rots and reduce growth of storage roots if aeration is poor (Ahn, 1993).
Depending on the cultivar and conditions, tuberous roots mature in two to nine months. With care, early-maturing cultivars can be grown as an annual summer crop in temperate areas, such as the northern United States. Sweet potatoes rarely flower when the daylight is longer than 11 hours, as is normal outside of the tropics. They are mostly propagated by stem or root cuttings or by adventitious roots called "slips" that grow out from the tuberous roots during storage. True seeds are used for breeding only.
Under optimal conditions of 85 to 90 % relative humidity at 13 to 16 °C (55 to 61 °F), sweet potatoes can keep for six months. Colder temperatures injure the roots.
They grow well in many farming conditions and have few natural enemies; pesticides are rarely needed. Sweet potatoes are grown on a variety of soils, but well-drained light and medium textured soils with a pH range of 4.5-7.0 are more favourable for the plant (Woolfe, 1992; Ahn, 1993). They can be grown in poor soils with little fertilizer. However, sweet potatoes are very sensitive to aluminium toxicity and will die about 6 weeks after planting if lime is not applied at planting in this type of soil (Woolfe, 1992). Because they are sown by vine cuttings rather than seeds, sweet potatoes are relatively easy to plant. Because the rapidly growing vines shade out weeds, little weeding is needed, and farmers can devote time to other crops. In the tropics the crop can be maintained in the ground and harvested as needed for market or home consumption. In temperate regions sweet potatoes are most often grown on larger farms and are harvested before frosts set in.
China is the largest grower of sweet potatoes; providing about 80% of the world's supply, 130 million tons were produced in one year (in 1990; about half that of common potatoes). Historically, most of China's sweet potatoes were grown for human consumption, but now most (60%) are grown to feed pigs. The rest are grown for human food and for other products. Some are grown for export, mainly to Japan. China grows over 100 varieties of sweet potato.
After introduction there, sweet potatoes very early became popular in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, from Japan to Polynesia. One reason is that they were a reliable crop in cases of crop failure of other staple foods due to typhoon flooding. They are featured in many favorite dishes in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other island nations. Indonesia, Vietnam, India, and some other Asian countries are also large sweet potato growers. Uganda (the third largest grower after Indonesia), Rwanda, and some other African countries also grow a large crop which is an important part of their peoples' diets. North and South America, the original home of the sweet potato, together grow less than three percent of the world's supply. Europe has only a very small sweet potato production, mostly in Portugal. In the Caribbean, a variety of the sweet potato called the boniato is very popular. The flesh of the boniato is cream-colored, unlike the more popular orange hue seen in other varieties. Boniatos are not as sweet and moist as other sweet potatoes, but many people prefer their fluffier consistency and more delicate flavor. Boniatos have been grown throughout the subtropical world for centuries, but became an important commercial crop in Florida in recent years.
Sweet potatoes were an important part of the diet in the United States for most of its history, especially in the Southeast. From the middle of the 20th century, however, they have become less popular. The average per capita consumption of sweet potatoes in the United States is only about 1.5-2 kg (4 lbs) per year, down from 13 kg (31 lb) in 1920. Southerner Kent Wrench writes: "The Sweet Potato became associated with hard times in the minds of our ancestors and when they became affluent enough to change their menu, the potato was served less often." New Zealanders grow enough kūmara to provide each person with 7kg (15.4 lbs) per year, and also import substantially more than this from China.
Besides simple starches, sweet potatoes are rich in complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, beta carotene (a vitamin A equivalent nutrient), vitamin C, and vitamin B6.
In 1992, the Center for Science in the Public Interest compared the nutritional value of sweet potatoes to other vegetables. Considering fiber content, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron, and calcium, the sweet potato ranked highest in nutritional value. According to these criteria, sweet potatoes earned 184 points, 100 points over the next on the list, the common potato.(NCSPC)
Sweet potato varieties with dark orange flesh have more beta carotene than those with light colored flesh and their increased cultivation is being encouraged in Africa where Vitamin A deficiency is a serious health problem. Despite the name "sweet", it may be a beneficial food for diabetics, as preliminary studies on animals have revealed that it helps to stabilize blood sugar levels and to lower insulin resistance. Some Americans, including television personality Oprah Winfrey, are advocating increased consumption of sweet potatoes both for their health benefits and because of their importance in traditional Southern cuisine.
The roots are most frequently boiled, fried, or baked. They can also be processed to make starch and a partial flour substitute. Industrial uses include the production of starch and industrial alcohol.
Although the leaves and shoots are also edible, the starchy tuberous roots are by far the most important product. In some tropical areas, they are a staple food-crop.
"Amukeke" (sun dried slices of storage roots) and "Inginyo" (sun dried crushed storage roots) are a staple food for people in north-eastern Uganda (Abidin, 2004). Amukeke is mainly for breakfast, eaten with peanut sauce. People generally eat this food while they are drinking a cup of tea in the morning, around 10 am. Inginyo will be mixed with cassava flour and tamarind, to make food called "atapa". People eat "atapa" with smoked fish cooked in peanut sauce or with dried cowpea leaves cooked in peanut sauce.
Candied sweet potatoes are a side dish consisting mainly of sweet potatoes prepared with brown sugar, marshmallows, maple syrup, molasses, or other sweet ingredients. Often served on American Thanksgiving, this dish represents traditional American cooking and indigenous food.
Sweet potato pie is also a traditional favorite dish in southern U.S. cuisine.
Baked sweet potatoes are sometimes offered in restaurants as an alternative to baked potatoes. They are often topped with brown sugar and butter. In Dominican Republic sweet potato is enjoyed for breakfast. In China sweet potatoes are often baked in a large iron drum and sold as street food during winter. [8]
Sweet potato fries or chips are another common preparation, and are made by julienning and deep frying sweet potatoes, in the fashion of French fried potatoes.
Sweet potato leaves are a common side dish in Taiwanese cuisine, often boiled with garlic and vegetable oil and dashed with salt before serving. They are commonly found at bento (POJ: piān-tong) restaurants, as well as dishes featuring the sweet potato root.
The young leaves and vine tips of sweet potato leaves are widely consumed as a vegetable in West African countries (Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia for example), as well as in northeastern Uganda, East Africa (Abidin, 2004). According to FAO leaflet No. 13 - 1990, sweet potato leaves and shoots are a good source of vitamins A, C, and B2 (Riboflavin), and according to research done by A. KHACHATRYAN, are an excellent source of lutein.
Steamed/Boiled chunks, for a simple and healthy snack, chunks of sweet potato may be boiled in water or cooked in the microwave.
Sweet Potato Butter can be cooked into a gourmet spread.
In Northeastern Chinese cuisine. sweet potatoes are often cut into chunks and fried before drench into a pan of boiling syrup.
Japanese cuisine: Boiled sweet potato is the most common way to eat it at home. Also, the use in vegetable tempura is common. Yaki-imo (roasted sweeted potato) is a delicacy in winter, sold by hawkers. Daigaku-imo is a baked sweet potato dessert. In imo-gohan, slices or small blocks of sweet potato are cooked in rice. It is also served in nimono or nitsuke, boiled and typically flavoured with soy sauce, mirin and dashi. Because it is sweet and starchy, it is used in imo-kinton and some other wagashi (Japanese sweets). Shōchū, a Japanese spirit normally made from the fermentation of rice, can also be made from sweet potato, in which case it is called imo-jōchū.
In New Zealand, Māori traditionally cooked their kūmara in hāngi (earth ovens). Rocks were placed on a fire in a large hole. When the fire died out, kūmara and other food was wrapped in leaves and placed on the hot rocks, then covered with earth. The kūmara was dug up again several hours later. The resulting food was very soft and tender, as though steamed.
In Korean cuisine, sweet potato starch is used to produce dangmyeon (cellophane noodles). Sweet potatoes are also boiled, steamed or roasted, and young stems are eaten as namul.
In South America, the juice of red sweet potatoes is combined with lime juice to make a dye for cloth. By varying the proportions of the juices, every shade from pink to purple to black can be obtained. (Verrill p. 47)
All parts of the plant are used for animal fodder.
Sweet potatoes or camotes are often found in Moche ceramics
Several selections are cultivated in gardens as ornamental plants for their attractive foliage, including the dark-leafed cultivars 'Blackie' and 'Ace of Spades' and the chartreuse-foliaged 'Margarita'.
Taiwanese companies are making alcohol fuel from sweet potato
The aerial parts are used as a galactogogue.
The leaves are used to treat diabetes, hookworm, hemorrhage, and abscesses.
The tuber is used to treat asthma.
Often called a yam, the sweet potato is not in the Yam family, but that is only the beginning of the confusion (see yams). Nor is the sweet potato closely related to the common potato. The first Europeans to taste sweet potatoes were members of Columbus' expedition in 1492. Later explorers found many varieties under an assortment of local names, but the name which stayed was the indigenous Taino name of batata. This name was later transferred to the ordinary potato, causing a confusion from which it never recovered. The first record of the name "sweet potato" is found in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1775.
The moist-fleshed, orange cultivars of sweet potato are referred to as sweet potatoes or "yams" in the United States. One explanation of this usage is that Africans brought to America took to calling American sweet potatoes Nyamis, perhaps from the Fulani word nyami (to eat) or the Twi word anyinam, which refers to a true yam.
The Spanish took the Taino name batata directly, and also combined it with the Quechua word for potato, papa, to create the word patata for the common potato. In Mexico, and Central America the sweet potato is called by the Nahuatl-derived name camote. In Peru, the Quechua name for a type of sweet potato is kumar, strikingly similar to the Polynesian name kumara (see below).
In South America, Peruvian sweet potato remnants dating as far back as 8,000 BCE have been found.
Substratum names used in local varieties of English include kumara (from the Māori word kūmara), as it was the staple food of the native Māori diet, in Australasia (in NSW it is sometimes spelled as "Kumera", although "sweet potato" is more common in Australia, at least in Victoria). The term is also used in indigenous languages of Melanesia, as well as "peteita". The name camote is used in the Philippines, introduced from Mexico (see above). In the Papua New Guinean language of Tok Pisin is it known as cau cau.
In Hawaiʻi substratum names are used for the yellow Japanese variety (紫芋, murasaki imo, lit. "purple potato" or サツマイモ, Satsumaimo, "Satsuma potato") and the purple Okinawan variety (紅芋, beni imo, lit. "crimson potato", Ipomoea batatas cv. Ayamurasaki), both of which are commonly available in the marketplace. The local Japanese names are widely recognized, with Satsumaimo “Satsuma potato” used by recent Japanese immigrant families and yamaimo (“mountain potato”) by other groups. (Technically, yamaimo is the proper name in Japanese of the native yam; however, as in English, it is often used to refer to the sweet potato.) However, naming often depends on personal ancestry, with e.g. Sāmoan ʻumala among Sāmoans, Tagalog kamote among Filipinos (derived from Mexican Spanish camote; see above), and Hawaiian ʻuala among Native Hawaiians.
In addition to the Fulani and Twi names which probably are the source of the United States usage "yam", in Kenya "Ngwaci" is the Kikuyu word for sweet potatoes. The Kiswahili word is "viazi tamu", literally sweet potatoes. In Uganda, people call it as potato. Meanwhile, the 'solanum' potato is called 'Irish' potato.
From my set entitled “Fibrous Begonia”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607213642582/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Begonia is a genus in the flowering plant family Begoniaceae. The only other member of the family Begoniaceae is Hillebrandia, a genus with a single species in the Hawaiian Islands. The genus Symbegonia is now included in Begonia. "Begonia" is the common name as well as the generic name for all members of the genus.
With ca. 1500+ species, Begonia is one of the ten largest angiosperm genera. The species are terrestrial (sometimes epiphytic) herbs or undershrubs and occur in subtropical and tropical moist climates, in South and Central America, Africa and southern Asia. Terrestrial species in the wild are commonly upright-stemmed, rhizomatous, or tuberous. The plants are monoecious, with unisexual male and female flowers occurring separately on the same plant, the male containing numerous stamens, the female having a large inferior ovary and two to four branched or twisted stigmas. In most species the fruit is a winged capsule containing numerous minute seeds, although baccate fruits are also known. The leaves, which are often large and variously marked or variegated, are usually asymmetric (unequal-sided).
Because of their sometimes showy flowers of white, pink, scarlet or yellow color and often attractively marked leaves, many species and innumerable hybrids and cultivars are cultivated. The genus is unusual in that species throughout the genus, even those coming from different continents, can frequently be hybridized with each other, and this has led to an enormous number of cultivars. The American Begonia Society classifies begonias into several major groups: cane-like, shrub-like, tuberous, rhizomatous, semperflorens, rex, trailing-scandent, or thick-stemmed. For the most part these groups do not correspond to any formal taxonomic groupings or phylogeny and many species and hybrids have characteristics of more than one group, or fit well into none of them.
The genus name honors Michel Bégon, a French patron of botany.
The different groups of begonias have different cultural requirements but most species come from tropical regions and therefore they and their hybrids require warm temperatures. Most are forest understory plants and require bright shade; few will tolerate full sun, especially in warmer climates. In general, begonias require a well-drained growing medium that is neither constantly wet nor allowed to dry out completely. Many begonias will grow and flower year-round but tuberous begonias usually have a dormant period, during which the tubers can be stored in a cool and dry place.
Begonias of the semperflorens group are frequently grown as bedding plants outdoors. A recent group of hybrids derived from this group is marketed as "Dragonwing Begonias"; they are much larger both in leaf and in flower. Tuberous begonias are frequently used as container plants. Although most Begonia species are tropical or subtropical in origin, the Chinese species B. grandis is hardy to USDA hardiness zone 6 and is commonly known as the "hardy begonia". Most begonias can be grown outdoors year-round in subtropical or tropical climates, but in temperate climates begonias are grown outdoors as annuals, or as house or greenhouse plants.
Most begonias are easily propagated by division or from stem cuttings. In addition, many can be propagated from leaf cuttings or even sections of leaves, particularly the members of the rhizomatous and rex groups.
The cultivar Kimjongilia is a floral emblem of North Korea.
Hello everyone! I'm not sure if you know this, but I currently have my own column in the American Birding Association's "A Bird's Eye View" newsletter. My column is entitled "CJ's Must Have Birds-(then the name of my rare bird for that month)". My first article was about the Yellow-Billed Loon last May in Harrisburg found by Cameron Rutt. I thought I would share the article with you.
Here it is:
It was the night of May 4 (Friday), when the quest to the loon began. I had just finished my homework and decided to check the Pennsylvania Birding List before I went to bed, to see if there were any interesting posts. I scanned through them and came across one in bold letters. It read, “YELLOW-BILLED LOON IN HARRISBURG.” I was curious about the post, so I read it. I had never even heard about or saw a photo of a Yellow-Billed Loon (for all I know, they could have been making the bird up). It talked about how there was a rare loon on the Susquehanna River right by Harrisburg. After I finished reading that post and a couple of others, I went to bed. It was very late.
The next morning (Saturday) when I awoke, I checked the birding list again to see if there were any updates on the loon. I found out that it was the first Pennsylvania record of this bird and one of the few records east of the Mississippi River. I then started to get excited and really wanted to see this bird in person. Ever since I was a young child, I always liked to have that rare trading card, hoped to meet a super-famous celebrity, or find that unique fossil.
I mentioned the loon to my mother, Barbara, and she quickly busted the fantasy bubble with reality. My father, Stanley, and I were in the middle of fixing our pool deck and they really wanted it done that weekend. I also had 2 tests on Monday. I agreed with my mother and went outside to cut some of the deck planks with my father. The whole time I was out there, I couldn’t stop thinking about the loon.
That night, I checked the computer again. The whole List Serve was filled up with posts about the Yellow-Billed Loon. I read them all, some even twice. Having a super-rare bird in the state you live in, was fascinating to me. I went to bed that night filled with thoughts about seeing the Yellow-Billed Loon.
The next morning (Sunday), I woke up very early. I don’t know why, but I did. It was about 7:30 AM (this is early for me, especially because it was a weekend). Once again, I checked the birding list right when I awoke. One of the posts read, “The Loon Is Still Being Seen”. After reading the new posts from the night before and that morning, I went downstairs to eat breakfast. While eating with my mother, I mentioned the loon again. This time when I told her, she responded with, “I’m fine with going if your father agrees.” WOW! The first ray of light in seeing the super-rare bird. I quickly called my father (he was working at the time) and asked him. He said, as long as you are prepared for your tests and promise to help me with the deck during the week, we can go. This was the start of my Yellow-Billed Loon quest!
While waiting for my father to come home from the hospital (my father is a doctor and only had to see three patients in the hospital that day), I printed out directions to Harrisburg. I also got my digital camera and movie camera ready. When he arrived home, we got into the car and started to drive towards Harrisburg in hopes of seeing the loon. We pulled out of the driveway and I suddenly screamed, “Oh my gosh, I forgot my binoculars!” I rushed back into the house and ran upstairs to get them (I think it was the fastest I ever ran in my life). While in the house, I tripped and fell running up the steps. I was in pain, but the loon was more important than my injury. Overall, I was in the house for about two minutes. When I got back into the car, I started reading the directions and we were finally on our way. We started on the one hour and a half trip to Harrisburg, PA.
Right before I left my house, I had emailed a couple of people from the list that had seen the loon. I asked them to please call me and give me specifics on its location. While driving there, I got a phone call. It was from the person who initially found the loon. He told me that the best place to see the loon is from the West Fairview Boat Launch or just up the road after the boat launch. He also mentioned the M. Harvey Taylor Memorial Bridge (which is about a mile away from the boat launch). He added that you can sometimes see it from there, but it is very far downstream and usually it is too far that you can‘t even make it out. He said if you pass that, you went too far. After that call, I began to study for my tests.
When we arrived in Wormleysburg (the actually town right next to Harrisburg where the loon was spotted), we all had to go the bathroom. I begged my parents to hold it in until we got to the loon spot. I told them, “Every minute counts!” About a mile away from the spot where the loon was most frequently being seen, there was major road work being done (just my luck). We were in stand-still traffic for about 20 minutes. Those were the longest 20 minutes of my life. I felt like getting out of the car and running to see the loon! Finally, we arrived at the spot. It was about 12:30 P.M.. There were about 30-40 people their with there spotting scopes, binoculars, cameras and even a professional TV crew. I felt like we were the only people there without a spotting scope and a four foot long camera. After we got out of the car, we had to cross over the guardrail. When on the other side, I asked one of the birders if they had seen the loon in the past half hour, he said yes. He told me that it was in sight for about an hour and a half and just about two minutes ago. It drifted upstream and nobody had seen it since. I was so worried. I had a flashback from earlier in the day. It was when I went back into my house for my binoculars. I thought going back into the house for them, because I was so forgetful, was going to cost us the sighting of the Yellow-Billed Loon. We had traveled all this way and weren’t going to see the loon. After about ten minutes there, I got excited because I saw a duck in the distance. I shouted to the crowd, “There it is!” After I got the whole crowd excited, my hope was shattered by another birder. He told me it was a red-breasted merganser. I was so embarrassed. A great duck, but not the one we came to see.
About ten minutes after that, I spotted another duck. This time I said “It has to be it!” And to my surprise, it was the Yellow-Billed Loon! I was so happy and enthralled at seeing the loon. The checkerboard design on its back, the grace it portrayed while drifting down the river, and its huge yellow beak positioned upwards toward the sky made it seem like it had not a care in the world. Between getting great looks through our binoculars, I was taking photos and my father was videotaping it. We saw it for about five minutes, at about one hundred and fifty yards away, and then it drifted away again. We then walked down the road a little and relocated it. Now it was even closer and we got better looks, photos, and video of it. I was so happy that I got to experience this with my parents. My mother then brought reality back once again and reminded me about my tests. We then jumped back into the car and headed home. About 2 minutes after leaving, I shouted, “STOP!” I noticed that the Yellow-Billed Loon was next to a Common Loon. I thought this would be a great photo. When my father pulled over to the side of the road, I was able to photograph them side be side. While stopped, my father spotted a stairway to the walking/pedestrian side of a bridge. We all got out and walked out onto the bridge. There was no other birders on the bridge. They were still on the side of the road about 600-700 yards upriver. While they were not seeing the loon, we were. While there, we got to see the Yellow-Billed Loon dive for food and swim with the other loon. I took more photos and my father took more video. We were very satisfied with our trip results (especially considering it was our first “bird chase”) and we all agreed on going home, for good this time. We were walking (still on the bridge) to the direction of the car and I decided to look one more time. This time, the loon was right below us (I mean right below us, we couldn‘t have been closer)! We were all able to see it amazingly close! It seemed to have followed us in our footsteps. We now got to see its characteristic red eye, orange/yellow webbed feet, and the actual water drops dripping off of its neck from a recent dive. I quickly turned my camera back on and was able to take one picture of it. I was actually shaking in excitement wile taking the photo. It was either hit or miss, with the photo. I snapped it and almost immediately after I did, it dove under and reemerged about 150 yards away, to the original spot where we were seeing it from the bridge. I was so excited about seeing it and capturing it in my lens so close, it felt like I could touch it. It was phenomenal, magical, exciting, unexpected, and awesome! I actually could go on and on but the list would take up a whole page (and probably more).
We all looked once again while walking down the steps off the bridge and it was out of sight. We got back into the car and headed to the nearest bathroom. While in the restaurant waiting for my parents, I looked at the map of Harrisburg that I printed out earlier. I wanted to see where we actually witnessed this super-mega rarity. It was the M. Harvey Taylor Memorial Bridge. I couldn’t believe it, especially because of the things that were told to me earlier. Also, out of all the posts I read during those past three days and the ones posted after we saw the loon, none of the people witnessed the loon from the M. Harvey Taylor Memorial Bridge. It seemed like us stopping for the picture of both loons together and then realizing the steps to the bridge was meant to be. I truly believe that we got the greatest looks at the loon. As soon as we got home, I printed out the pictures and stared at them for hours. I couldn’t believe that I took them. The next day (Monday), I read a post and it read, “Yellow-Billed Loon-We Think It Is Gone For Good.” The loon had not been spotted all of Monday and for the coming days either. Eventually the posts stopped and the Yellow-Billed Loon was a thing of the past. The loon put on a show for four days to hundreds of people coming from afar just to see it.
I know I will never forgot the Yellow-Billed Loon quest and the experience I shared with my parents that day! That one loon photo that I was able to take when it was so close to us, is actually featured on the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology website and was published in the August issue of Birder’s World. I guess the future only knows what else this photo may bring me and any other ones I may take during my lifetime. And for those of you wondering about the deck, we got that finished in the coming days and I got all A’s on my tests! I couldn’t have asked for a better week!
About me: Christopher James Bohinski currently resides in Wilkes-Barre Township, Pennsylvania with his parents (Dr. Stanley and Barbara), sister (Chesla), and brother (Timothy). He has been birding for about 2 years. He photographs every new species of bird he sees and has about everyone of his life birds in a photo. He is involved in football, track, chorus, and theatre arts. Chris is always willing to meet new people to go birding with and share stories and photos. You can contact Chris at bohinski@verizon.net.
An exhibition entitled “Brazil – In the Footsteps of Innovation and Creativity”, co-organized by WIPO and Brazil, was held on the sidelines of the WIPO Assemblies, which met in Geneva from October 3 to 11, 2016.
The exhibition showcased some of Brazil’s well-known geographical indications, including alcoholic drinks, coffee and lace. It also featured notable Brazilian innovations and designs in the field of aviation (Embraer jets), as well as precision engineering, handicraft and clothing.
Delegates to the WIPO Assemblies were also treated to a musical performance of “Capoeira” – an Afro-Brazilian mix of martial art and dance that was recognized as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2014.
Copyright: WIPO. Photo: Violaine Martin. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License.
The statue of Lord Palmerston is an outdoor bronze sculpture depicting Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, located at Parliament Square in London, United Kingdom. The statue, sculpted by Thomas Woolner and unveiled in 1876, stands on a granite pedestal. It is Grade II listed.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC, FRS (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman and politician who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period 1830 to 1865, when Britain stood at the height of its imperial power. He held office almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865. He began his parliamentary career as a Tory, defected to the Whigs in 1830, and became the first prime minister from the newly formed Liberal Party in 1859. He was highly popular with the British public. David Brown argues that "an important part of Palmerston's appeal lay in his dynamism and vigour".
Henry Temple succeeded to his father's Irish peerage (which did not entitle him to a seat in the House of Lords, leaving him eligible to sit in the House of Commons) as the 3rd Viscount Palmerston in 1802. He became a Tory MP in 1807. From 1809 to 1828 he served as Secretary at War, organising the finances of the army. He first attained Cabinet rank in 1827, when George Canning became prime minister, but like other Canningites, he resigned from office one year later. He served as foreign secretary 1830–1834, 1835–1841, and 1846–1851. In this office, Palmerston responded effectively to a series of conflicts in Europe.
In 1852, Aberdeen formed a coalition government. The Peelites insisted that Lord John Russell be foreign secretary, forcing Palmerston to take the office of home secretary. As home secretary Palmerston enacted various social reforms, although he opposed electoral reform. When Aberdeen's coalition fell in 1855 over its handling of the Crimean War, Palmerston was the only man able to sustain a majority in Parliament, and he became prime minister. He had two periods in office, 1855–1858 and 1859–1865, before his death at the age of 80 years, a few months after victory in a general election in which he had obtained an increased majority. He remains the most recent British prime minister to die in office.
Palmerston masterfully controlled public opinion by stimulating British nationalism. Although Queen Victoria and most of the political leadership distrusted him, he received and sustained the favour of the press and the populace, from whom he received the affectionate sobriquet "Pam". Palmerston's alleged weaknesses included mishandling of personal relations, and continual disagreements with the Queen over the royal role in determining foreign policy.
Historians rank Palmerston as one of the greatest foreign secretaries, due to his handling of great crises, his commitment to the balance of power (which provided Britain with decisive agency in many conflicts), and his commitment to British interests. His policies in relation to India, China, Italy, Belgium, and Spain had extensive long-lasting beneficial consequences for Britain. This does not mean that Palmerston is completely without controversy. Palmerston's leadership during the Opium Wars was questioned and denounced by other prominent statesmen such as William Ewart Gladstone. The consequences of the conquest of India may have, at first, seemed to benefit both Britain (in the sense of access to goods and gold) and India (by adding infrastructure and a stable justice system), but this view has been challenged by more recent scholarship. The burdens placed on India in being ruled by a distant nation, and on the British government in dealing with the anxiety of generations of officials on how to properly govern, produced a chaotic administration with minimal coherence. The consequences of his policies toward France, the Ottoman Empire, and the United States proved more ephemeral.
Early life: 1784–1806
Henry John Temple was born in his family's Westminster house to the Irish branch of the Temple family on 20 October 1784. His family derived their title from the Peerage of Ireland, although he rarely visited Ireland. His father was The 2nd Viscount Palmerston (1739–1802), an Anglo-Irish peer, and his mother was Mary (1752–1805), a daughter of Benjamin Mee, a London merchant. From 1792 to 1794, he accompanied his family on a long Continental tour. While in Italy, Palmerston acquired an Italian tutor, who taught him to speak and write fluent Italian. The family owned a huge country estate in the north of County Sligo in the northwest of Ireland.
He was educated at Harrow School (1795–1800). Admiral Sir Augustus Clifford, 1st Bt., was a fag to Palmerston, Viscount Althorp and Viscount Duncannon and later remembered Palmerston as by far the most merciful of the three. Temple was often engaged in school fights and fellow Old Harrovians remembered Temple as someone who stood up to bullies twice his size. Henry Temple's father took him to the House of Commons in 1799, where the young Palmerston shook hands with the prime minister, William Pitt.
Temple was then at the University of Edinburgh (1800–1803), where he learnt political economy from Dugald Stewart, a friend of the Scottish philosophers Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith. Temple later described his time at Edinburgh as producing "whatever useful knowledge and habits of mind I possess". Lord Minto wrote to the young Palmerston's parents that Henry Temple was well-mannered and charming. Stewart wrote to a friend, saying of Temple: "In point of temper and conduct he is everything his friends could wish. Indeed, I cannot say that I have ever seen a more faultless character at this time of life, or one possessed of more amiable dispositions."
Henry Temple succeeded his father to the title of Viscount Palmerston on 17 April 1802, before he had turned 18. He also inherited a vast country estate in the north of County Sligo in the west of Ireland. He later built Classiebawn Castle on this estate. Palmerston went to St John's College, Cambridge (1803–1806). As a nobleman, he was entitled to take his MA without examinations, but Palmerston wished to obtain his degree through examinations. This was declined, although he was allowed to take the separate college examinations, where he obtained first-class honours.
After war was declared on France in 1803, Palmerston joined the Volunteers mustered to oppose a French invasion, being one of the three officers in the unit for St John's College. He was also appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Commander of the Romsey Volunteers.
Early political career: 1806–1809
In February 1806, Palmerston was defeated in the election for the University of Cambridge constituency. In November he was elected for Horsham but was unseated in January 1807, when the Whig majority in the Commons voted for a petition to unseat him.
Due to the patronage of Lord Chichester and Lord Malmesbury, Palmerston was given the post of Junior Lord of the Admiralty in the ministry of the Duke of Portland. He stood again for the Cambridge seat in May, but lost by three votes after he advised his supporters to vote for the other Tory candidate in the two-member constituency so as to ensure a Tory was elected.
Palmerston entered Parliament as Tory MP for the pocket borough of Newport on the Isle of Wight in June 1807.
On 3 February 1808, he spoke in support of confidentiality in the working of diplomacy, and of the bombardment of Copenhagen and the capture and destruction of the Danish Navy by the Royal Navy in the Battle of Copenhagen. Denmark was neutral but Napoleon had recently agreed with the Russians in the Treaty of Tilsit to build a naval alliance against Britain, including using the Danish navy for invading Britain. Pre-empting this, the British offered Denmark the choice of temporarily handing over its navy until the war's end or the destruction of their navy. The Danes refused to comply and so Copenhagen was bombarded. Palmerston justified the attack by peroration with reference to the ambitions of Napoleon to take control of the Danish fleet:
it is defensible on the ground that the enormous power of France enables her to coerce the weaker state to become an enemy of England... It is the law of self-preservation that England appeals for the justification of her proceedings. It is admitted by the honourable gentleman and his supporters, that if Denmark had evidenced any hostility towards this country, then we should have been justified in measures of retaliation... Denmark coerced into hostility stands in the same position as Denmark voluntarily hostile, when the law of self-preservation comes into play...Does anyone believe that Buonaparte will be restrained by any considerations of justice from acting towards Denmark as he has done towards other countries? ... England, according to that law of self-preservation which is a fundamental principle of the law of nations, is justified in securing, and therefore enforcing, from Denmark a neutrality which France would by compulsion have converted into an active hostility.
In a letter to a friend on 24 December 1807, he described the late Whig MP Edmund Burke as possessing "the palm of political prophecy". This would become a metaphor for his own career in divining the course of imperial foreign policy.
Secretary at War: 1809–1828
Palmerston's speech was so successful that Spencer Perceval, who formed his government in 1809, asked him to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, then a less important office than it was to become later. But Palmerston preferred the non-cabinet office of Secretary at War, charged exclusively with the financial business of the army. He served in that post for almost 20 years.
On 1 April 1818, a retired officer on half-pay, Lieutenant David Davies, who had a grievance about his application from the War Office for a pension and was also mentally ill, shot Palmerston as he walked up the stairs of the War Office. The bullet only grazed his back and the wound was slight. After learning of Davies' illness, Palmerston paid for his legal defence at the trial, and Davies was sent to Bedlam.
After the suicide of Lord Castlereagh in 1822, Lord Liverpool, who was Prime Minister had to hold together the Tory Cabinet which began to split along political lines. The more liberal wing of the Tory government made some ground, with George Canning becoming Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons, William Huskisson advocating and applying the doctrines of free trade, and Catholic emancipation emerging as an open question. Although Palmerston was not in the Cabinet, he cordially supported the measures of Canning and his friends.
Upon the retirement of Lord Liverpool in April 1827, Canning was called to be prime minister. The more conservative Tories, including Sir Robert Peel, withdrew their support, and an alliance was formed between the liberal members of the late ministry and the Whigs. The post of Chancellor of the Exchequer was offered to Palmerston, who accepted it, but this appointment was frustrated by some intrigue between King George IV and John Charles Herries. Lord Palmerston remained Secretary at War, though he gained a seat in the cabinet for the first time. The Canning administration ended after only four months on the death of the Prime Minister, and was followed by the ministry of Lord Goderich, which barely survived the year.
The Canningites remained influential, and the Duke of Wellington hastened to include Palmerston, Huskisson, Charles Grant, William Lamb, and the Earl of Dudley in the government he subsequently formed. However, a dispute between Wellington and Huskisson over the issue of parliamentary representation for Manchester and Birmingham led to the resignation of Huskisson and his allies, including Palmerston. In the spring of 1828, after more than twenty years continuously in office, Palmerston found himself in opposition.
On 26 February 1828, Palmerston delivered a speech in favour of Catholic emancipation. He felt that it was unseemly to relieve the "imaginary grievances" of the Dissenters from the established church while at the same time "real afflictions pressed upon the Catholics" of Great Britain. Palmerston also supported parliamentary reform. One of his biographers has stated that: "Like many Pittites, now labelled tories, he was a good whig at heart." The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 finally passed Parliament in 1829 when Palmerston was in the opposition. The Great Reform Act passed Parliament in 1832.
Opposition: 1828–1830
Following his move to opposition Palmerston appears to have focused closely on foreign policy. He had already urged Wellington into active interference in the Greek War of Independence, and he had made several visits to Paris, where he foresaw with great accuracy the impending overthrow of the Bourbons. On 1 June 1829 he made his first great speech on foreign affairs.
Lord Palmerston was no orator; his language was unstudied, and his delivery somewhat embarrassed; but generally he found the words to say the right thing at the right time, and to address the House of Commons in the language best adapted to the capacity and the temper of his audience.
— "Lord Palmerston", Encyclopaedia Britannica 13th Edition
in September 1830, Wellington tried to induce Palmerston to re-enter the cabinet, but he refused to do so without Lord Lansdowne and Lord Grey, two notable Whigs. This can be said to be the point in 1830, when his party allegiance changed.
Foreign Secretary: 1830–1841
Palmerston entered the office of Foreign Secretary with great energy and continued to exert his influence there for twenty years; he held it from 1830 to 1834 (his apprentice years), 1835 to 1841, and 1846 to 1851. Basically, Palmerston was responsible for the whole of British foreign policy from the time of the French and Belgian Revolutions of 1830 until December 1851. His abrasive style would earn him the nickname "Lord Pumice Stone", and his manner of dealing with foreign governments who crossed him, especially in his later years, was the original "gunboat diplomacy".
Crises of 1830
The Revolutions of 1830 gave a jolt to the settled European system that had been created in 1814–1815. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands was rent in half by the Belgian Revolution, the Kingdom of Portugal was the scene of civil war, and the Spanish were about to place an infant princess on the throne. Poland was in arms against the Russian Empire, while the northern powers (Russia, Prussia, and Austria) formed a closer alliance that seemed to threaten the peace and liberties of Europe.[28] Polish exiles called on Britain to intervene against Russia during the November Uprising of 1830.
Palmerston's overall policy was to safeguard British interests, maintain peace, keep the balance of power, and retain the status quo in Europe. He had no grievance against Russia and while he privately sympathised with the Polish cause, in his role as foreign minister he rejected Polish demands. With serious trouble simultaneously taking place in Belgium and Italy, and lesser issues in Greece and Portugal, he sought to de-escalate European tensions rather than aggravate them, favouring a policy of universal non-interventionism. He therefore focused chiefly on achieving a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Belgium.
Belgium
William I of the Netherlands appealed to the great powers that had placed him on the throne after the Napoleonic Wars to maintain his rights. The London Conference of 1830 was called to address this question. The British solution involved the independence of Belgium, which Palmerston believed would greatly contribute to the security of Britain, but any solution was not straightforward. On the one hand, the northern powers were anxious to defend William I; on the other, many Belgian revolutionaries, like Charles de Brouckère and Charles Rogier, supported the reunion of the Belgian provinces to France, whereas Britain favoured Dutch, not French influence, on an independent state.
The British policy which emerged was a close alliance with France, but one subject to the balance of power on the Continent, and in particular the preservation of Belgian independence. If the northern powers supported William I by force, they would encounter the resistance of France and Britain united in arms. If France sought to annex Belgium, it would forfeit the British alliance and find herself opposed by the whole of Europe. In the end the British policy prevailed. Although the continent had been close to war, peace was maintained on London's terms and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widower of a British princess, was placed upon the throne of Belgium. Fishman says that the London Conference was "an extraordinarily successful conference" because it "provided the institutional framework through which the leading powers of the time safeguarded the peace of Europe."
Thereafter, despite a Dutch invasion and French counter-invasion in 1831, France and Britain framed and signed a treaty settlement between Belgium and Holland, inducing the three Northern powers to accede to it as well; while in Palmerston's second period of office, as his authority grew, he was able to finally settle relations between Belgium and Holland with a treaty in 1838-9 - now asserting his (and British) independence by leaning rather more towards Holland and the Northern Powers, and against the Belgium/French axis.
France, Spain, and Portugal, 1830s
In 1833 and 1834, the youthful Queens Isabella II of Spain and Maria II of Portugal were the representatives and the hope of the constitutional parties of their countries. Their positions were under some pressure from their absolutist kinsmen, Dom Miguel of Portugal and Don Carlos of Spain, who were the closest males in the lines of succession. Palmerston conceived and executed the plan of a quadruple alliance of the constitutional states of the West to serve as a counterpoise to the northern alliance. A treaty for the pacification of the Peninsula was signed in London on 22 April 1834 and, although the struggle was somewhat prolonged in Spain, it accomplished its objective.
France had been a reluctant party to the treaty, and never executed its role in it with much zeal. Louis Philippe was accused of secretly favouring the Carlists – the supporters of Don Carlos – and he rejected direct interference in Spain. It is probable that the hesitation of the French court on this question was one of the causes of the enduring personal hostility Palmerston showed towards the French King thereafter, though that sentiment may well have arisen earlier. Although Palmerston wrote in June 1834 that Paris was "the pivot of my foreign policy", the differences between the two countries grew into a constant but sterile rivalry that brought benefit to neither.
Balkans and Near East: defending Turkey, 1830s
Palmerston was greatly interested by the diplomatic questions of Eastern Europe. During the Greek War of Independence he had energetically supported the Greek cause and backed the Treaty of Constantinople that gave Greece its independence. However, from 1830 the defence of the Ottoman Empire became one of the cardinal objects of his policy. He believed in the regeneration of Turkey, as he wrote to Bulwer (Lord Dalling): "All that we hear about the decay of the Turkish Empire, and its being a dead body or a sapless trunk, and so forth, is pure unadulterated nonsense."
His two great aims were to prevent Russia establishing itself on the Bosporus and to prevent France doing likewise on the Nile. He regarded the maintenance of the authority of the Sublime Porte as the chief barrier against both these developments.
Palmerston had long maintained a suspicious and hostile attitude towards Russia, whose autocratic government offended his liberal principles and whose ever-growing size challenged the strength of the British Empire. He was angered by the 1833 Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi, a mutual assistance pact between Russia and the Ottomans, but was annoyed and hostile towards David Urquhart, the creator of the Vixen affair, running the Russian blockade of Circassia in the mid-1830s.
For his part, David Urquhart considered Palmerston a "mercenary of Russia" and founded the "Free Press" magazine in London, where he constantly promoted these views. The permanent author of this magazine was Karl Marx, who stated "from the time of Peter the Great until the Crimean war, there was a secret agreement between the London and St. Petersburg offices, and that Palmerston was a corrupt tool the Tsar policy"
Despite his popular reputation he was hesitant in 1831 about aiding the Sultan of Turkey, who was under threat from Muhammad Ali, the pasha of Egypt. Later, after Russian successes, in 1833 and 1835 he made proposals to afford material aid, which were overruled by the cabinet. Palmerston held that "if we can procure for it ten years of peace under the joint protection of the five Powers, and if those years are profitably employed in reorganizing the internal system of the empire, there is no reason whatever why it should not become again a respectable Power" and challenged the metaphor that an old country, such as Turkey should be in such disrepair as would be warranted by the comparison: "Half the wrong conclusions at which mankind arrive are reached by the abuse of metaphors, and by mistaking general resemblance or imaginary similarity for real identity." However, when the power of Muhammad Ali appeared to threaten the existence of the Ottoman dynasty, particularly given the death of Sultan Mahmud II on 1 July 1839, he succeeded in bringing the great powers together to sign a collective note on 27 July pledging them to maintain the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire in order to preserve the security and peace of Europe. However, by 1840 Muhammad Ali had occupied Syria and won the Battle of Nezib against the Turkish forces. Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador at Constantinople, vehemently urged the British government to intervene. Privately, Palmerston explained his views on Muhammad Ali to Lord Granville thus: "Coercion of Mehemet Ali by England if war broke out might appear partial and unjust; but we are partial; and the great interests of Europe require that we should be so....No ideas therefore of fairness towards Mehemet ought to stand in the way of such great and paramount interests." Having closer ties to the pasha than most, France refused to be a party to coercive measures against him despite having signed the note in the previous year.
Palmerston, irritated at France's Egyptian policy, signed the London Convention of 15 July 1840 in London with Austria, Russia, and Prussia – without the knowledge of the French government. This measure was taken with great hesitation, and strong opposition on the part of several members of the cabinet. Palmerston forced the measure through in part by declaring in a letter to the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, that he would resign from the ministry if his policy were not adopted. The London Convention granted Muhammad Ali hereditary rule in Egypt in return for withdrawal from Syria and Lebanon, but was rejected by the pasha. The European powers intervened with force, and the bombardment of Beirut, the fall of Acre, and the total collapse of Muhammad Ali's power followed in rapid succession. Palmerston's policy was triumphant, and the author of it had won a reputation as one of the most powerful statesmen of the age.
In September 1838, Palmerston appointed a British consul in Jerusalem, without the conventional consultation of the Board of Trade, and gave instruction to assist with the construction of an Anglican church in the city, under the prompting influences of Lord Shaftesbury, a prominent Christian Zionist.
China: First Opium War
China restricted outside trade under the Canton System to only one port and refused all official diplomatic relations except to tributary countries. In 1833–1835, as London ended the East India Company's monopoly on trade with China, both Tory and Whig governments sought to maintain peace and good trade relations. However Lord Napier wanted to provoke a revolution in China that would open trade. The Foreign Office, led by Palmerston, stood opposed and sought peace. The Chinese government refused to change, and interdicted the British smugglers bringing in opium from India, which was banned in China. Britain responded with military force in the First Opium War, 1839–1842, which ended in a decisive British victory. Under the Treaty of Nanjing, China paid an indemnity and opened five treaty ports to world trade. In those ports there would be extraterritorial rights for British citizens. Palmerston thus achieved his main goals of diplomatic equality and opening China to trade. However his angry critics focused on the immorality of the opium trade.
Palmerston's biographer, Jasper Ridley, outlines the government's position:
Conflict between China and Britain was inevitable. On the one side was a corrupt, decadent and caste-ridden despotism, with no desire or ability to wage war, which relied on custom much more than force for the enforcement of extreme privilege and discrimination, and which was blinded by a deep-rooted superiority complex into believing that they could assert their supremacy over Europeans without possessing military power. On the other side was the most economically advanced nation in the world, a nation of pushing, bustling traders, of self-help, free trade, and the pugnacious qualities of John Bull.
An entirely opposite British viewpoint was promoted by humanitarians and reformers such as the Chartists and religious nonconformists led by young William Ewart Gladstone. They argued that Palmerston was only interested in the huge profits it would bring Britain, and was totally oblivious to the horrible moral evils of opium which the Chinese government was valiantly trying to stamp out.
Meanwhile, he manipulated information and public opinion to enhance his control of his department, including controlling communications within the office and to other officials. He leaked secrets to the press, published selected documents, and released letters to give himself more control and more publicity, all the while stirring up British nationalism. He feuded with The Times, edited by Thomas Barnes, which did not play along with his propaganda ploys.
Marriage
In 1839, Palmerston married his mistress of many years, the noted Whig hostess Emily Lamb, widow of Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper (1778–1837) and sister of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, prime minister (1834 and 1835–1841). They had no legitimate children, although at least one of Lord Cowper's putative children, Lady Emily Cowper, the wife of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, was widely believed to have been fathered by Palmerston. Palmerston resided at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, his wife's inheritance. His London townhouse was Cambridge House on Piccadilly in Mayfair. He also owned Broadlands at Romsey in Hampshire.
Emily's son-in-law, Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "His attentions to Lady Palmerston, when they both of them were well stricken in years, were those of a perpetual courtship. The sentiment was reciprocal; and I have frequently seen them go out on a morning to plant some trees, almost believing that they would live to eat the fruit, or sit together under the shade.
Young Queen Victoria found it unseemly that people in their 50s could marry, but the Cowper-Palmerston marriage according to biographer Gillian Gill:
was an inspired political alliance as well as a stab at personal happiness. Harry and Emily were supremely well-matched. As the husband of a beautiful, charming, intelligent, rich woman whose friends were the best people in society, Palmerston at last had the money, the social setting, and the personal security he needed to get to the very top of British politics. Lady Palmerston made her husband happy, as he did her, and she was a political power in her own right. In the last and most successful decades of Palmerston's life, she was his best advisor and most trusted amanuensis. Theirs was one of the great marriages of the century.
Opposition: 1841–1846
Within a few months Melbourne's administration came to an end (1841) and Palmerston remained out of office for five years. The crisis was past, but the change which took place by the substitution of François Guizot for Adolphe Thiers in France, and of Lord Aberdeen for Palmerston in Britain kept the peace. Palmerston believed that peace with France was not to be relied on, and indeed that war between the two countries was sooner or later inevitable. Aberdeen and Guizot inaugurated a different policy: by mutual confidence and friendly offices, they entirely succeeded in restoring the most cordial understanding between the two governments, and the irritation which Palmerston had inflamed gradually subsided. During the administration of Sir Robert Peel, Palmerston led a retired life, but he attacked with characteristic bitterness the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 with the United States.[49] It resolved several Canadian boundary disputes with the United States, particularly the border between New Brunswick and the State of Maine and between Canada and the State of Minnesota from Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods. Much as he criticised it, the treaty successfully closed the border questions with which Palmerston had long been concerned.
Palmerston's reputation as an interventionist and his unpopularity with the Queen were such that Lord John Russell's attempt in December 1845 to form a ministry failed because Lord Grey refused to join a government in which Palmerston would direct foreign affairs. A few months later, however, the Whigs came to power and returned Palmerston to the Foreign Office (July 1846). Russell replied to critics that Palmerston's policies had "a tendency to produce war" but that he had advanced British interests without a major conflict, if not entirely peaceably.
Foreign Secretary: 1846–1851
Palmerston's years as foreign secretary, 1846–1851, involve dealing with violent upheavals all over Europe – he has been dubbed "the gunpowder minister" by biographer David Brown.
France and Spain, 1845
The French government regarded the appointment of Palmerston as a certain sign of renewed hostilities. They availed themselves of a dispatch in which he had put forward the name of a Coburg prince as a candidate for the hand of the young queen of Spain as a justification for a departure from the engagements entered into between Guizot and Lord Aberdeen. However little the conduct of the French government in this transaction of the Spanish marriages can be vindicated, it is certain that it originated in the belief that in Palmerston France had a restless and subtle enemy. The efforts of the British minister to defeat the French marriages of the Spanish princesses, by an appeal to the Treaty of Utrecht and the other powers of Europe, were wholly unsuccessful; France won the game, though with no small loss of honourable reputation.
Historian David Brown rejects the traditional interpretation to the effect that Aberdeen had forged an entente cordiale with France in the early 1840s whereupon the belligerent Palmerston after 1846 destroyed that friendly relationship. Brown argues that as foreign secretary from 1846 to 1851 and subsequently as prime minister, Palmerston sought to maintain the balance of power in Europe, sometimes even aligning with France to do so.
Irish Famine
As an Anglo-Irish absentee landlord, Palmerston evicted 2,000 of his Irish tenants for non-payment of rent during the Great Irish Famine that ravaged Ireland in the late 1840s. He financed the emigration of starving Irish tenants across the Atlantic to North America as did Petty-Fitzmaurice (Lord Lansdowne) to equal notoriety. Palmerston asserted that "... any great improvement in the social system of Ireland must be founded upon an extensive change in the present state of agrarian occupation [through] a long continued and systematic ejectment of Small holders and of Squatting Cottiers."
Support for revolutions abroad
The Revolutions of 1848 spread like a conflagration through Europe, and shook every throne on the Continent except those of Russian empire, Ottoman empire, Spain, and Belgium. Palmerston sympathised openly with the revolutionary party abroad.[49] In particular, he was a strong advocate of national self-determination, and stood firmly on the side of constitutional liberties on the Continent. Despite this, he was bitterly opposed to Irish independence, and deeply hostile to the Young Ireland movement.
Italian independence
No state was regarded by him with more aversion than Austria. Yet, his opposition to Austria was chiefly based upon its occupation of northeastern Italy and its Italian policy. Palmerston maintained that the existence of Austria as a great power north of the Alps was an essential element in the system of Europe. Antipathies and sympathies had a large share in the political views of Palmerston, and his sympathies had ever been passionately awakened by the cause of Italian independence. He supported the Sicilians against the King of Naples, and even allowed arms to be sent them from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. Although he had endeavoured to restrain the King of Sardinia from his rash attack on the superior forces of Austria, he obtained for him a reduction of the penalty of defeat. Austria, weakened by the revolution, sent an envoy to London to request the mediation of Britain, based on a large cession of Italian territory. Palmerston rejected the terms he might have obtained for Piedmont. After a couple of years this wave of revolution was replaced by a wave of reaction.
Hungarian independence
In Hungary, the 1848 war for independence from the Austrian Empire, ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, was defeated by the joint army of Austrian and Russian forces. Prince Schwarzenberg assumed the government of the empire with dictatorial power. In spite of what Palmerston termed his judicious bottle-holding, the movement he had encouraged and applauded, but to which he could give no material aid, was everywhere subdued. The British government, or at least Palmerston as its representative, was regarded with suspicion and resentment by every power in Europe, except the French republic. Even that was shortly afterwards to be alienated by Palmerston's attack on Greece. When Lajos Kossuth, the Hungarian democrat and leader of its constitutionalists, landed in England in 1851 to wide applause, Palmerston proposed to receive him at Broadlands, a design which was only prevented by a peremptory vote of the cabinet.
Royal and parliamentary reaction to 1848
This state of things was regarded with the utmost annoyance by the British court and by most of the British ministers. On many occasions, Palmerston had taken important steps without their knowledge, which they disapproved. Over the Foreign Office he asserted and exercised an arbitrary dominion, which the feeble efforts of the premier could not control. The Queen and the Prince Consort did not conceal their indignation at the fact that they were held responsible for Palmerston's actions by the other Courts of Europe.
When Benjamin Disraeli attacked Palmerston's foreign policy, the foreign minister responded to a five-hour speech by Anstey with a five-hour speech of his own, the first of two great speeches in which he laid out a comprehensive defence of his foreign policy and of liberal interventionism more generally. Arguing for domestic political effect, Palmerston declaimed:
I hold that the real policy of England... is to be the champion of justice and right, pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and whenever she thinks that wrong has been done.
Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
Russell and the Queen both hoped that the other would take the initiative and dismiss Palmerston; the Queen was dissuaded by her husband Prince Albert, who took the limits of constitutional power very seriously, and Russell by Palmerston's prestige with the people and his competence in an otherwise remarkably inept Cabinet.
Don Pacifico affair
In 1847, the home of Don Pacifico, a Gibraltarian merchant living in Athens, Greece, was attacked by an antisemitic mob, which included the sons of a Greek government minister. The Greek police did not intervene in the attack, despite being present. Because Don Pacifico was a British subject, the British government expressed concern. In January 1850, Palmerston took advantage of Don Pacifico's claims on the Greek government, and blockaded the port of Piraeus in the kingdom of Greece. As Greece was under the joint protection of three powers, Russia and France protested against its coercion by the British fleet.
After a memorable debate on 17 June, Palmerston's policy was condemned by a vote of the House of Lords. The House of Commons was moved by Roebuck to reverse the rebuke, which it did on 29 June by a majority of 46, after having heard from Palmerston on 25 June. This was the most eloquent and powerful speech he ever delivered, wherein he sought to vindicate not only his claims on the Greek government for Don Pacifico, but his entire administration of foreign affairs.
It was in this speech, which lasted for five hours, that Palmerston made the well known declaration that a British subject ought everywhere to be protected by the strong arm of the British government against injustice and wrong; comparing the reach of the British Empire to that of the Roman Empire, in which a Roman citizen could walk the earth unmolested by any foreign power. This was the famous civis romanus sum ("I am a citizen of Rome") speech. After this speech, Palmerston's popularity had never been greater.
Crossing the Queen and resigning, 1851
Notwithstanding his parliamentary triumph in the Don Pacifico affair, many of his own colleagues and supporters criticised the spirit in which the foreign relations of the Crown were carried on. The Queen addressed a minute to the Prime Minister in which she recorded her dissatisfaction at the manner in which Palmerston evaded the obligation to submit his measures for the royal sanction as failing in sincerity to the Crown. This minute was communicated to Palmerston, who accepted its criticisms.
On 2 December 1851, Louis Napoleon – who had been elected President of France in 1848 – carried out a coup d'état by dissolving the National Assembly and arresting the leading Republicans. Palmerston privately congratulated Napoleon on his triumph, noting that Britain's constitution was rooted in history but that France had had five revolutions since 1789, with the French Constitution of 1848 being a "day-before-yesterday tomfoolery which the scatterbrain heads of Marrast and Tocqueville invented for the torment and perplexity of the French nation". However, the Cabinet decided that Britain must be neutral, and so Palmerston requested his officials to be diplomatic. Palmerston's widespread support among the press, educated public opinion, and ordinary Britons caused apprehension and distrust among other politicians and angered the Court. Prince Albert complained Palmerston had sent a dispatch without showing the sovereign. Protesting innocence, Palmerston resigned. Palmerston was weakened because Parliament, where he had great support, was not in session. Palmerston continued to have wide approval among the newspapers, elite opinion, and the middle class voters. His popularity led to distrust among rivals and especially at the Royal Court. His fall demonstrates the lack of power of public opinion in a pre-democratic era. However, Palmerston kept his public support and the growing influence of public opinion steadily increased his political strength in the 1850s and 1860s.
Home Secretary: 1852–1855
After a brief period of Conservative minority government, the Earl of Aberdeen became Prime Minister (in office 19 December 1852 – 30 January 1855) in a coalition government of Whigs and Peelites (with Russell taking the role of Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons). It was regarded as impossible for them to form a government without Palmerston, so he was made Home Secretary (28 December 1852). Many people considered this a curious appointment because Palmerston's expertise was so obviously in foreign affairs. A story recounts that after a great wave of strikes swept Northern England, the Queen summoned Palmerston to discuss the situation. When she enquired after the latest news, Palmerston allegedly replied: "There is no definite news, Madam, but it seems certain that the Turks have crossed the Danube".
Social reform
Palmerston passed the Factory Act 1853, which removed loopholes in previous Factory Acts and outlawed all labour by young persons between 6pm and 6am. He attempted to pass a Bill that confirmed the rights of workers to combine, but the House of Lords rejected it. He introduced the Truck Act which stopped the practice of employers paying workmen in goods instead of money, or forcing them to purchase goods from shops owned by the employers. In August 1853, Palmerston introduced the Smoke Abatement Act in order to combat the increasing smoke from coal fires, a problem greatly aggravated by the Industrial Revolution. He also oversaw the passage of the Vaccination Act 1853 into law, which was introduced as a private member's bill, and which Palmerston persuaded the government to support. The Act made vaccination of children compulsory for the first time. Palmerston outlawed the burying of the dead in churches. The right to bury the dead in churches was held by wealthy families whose ancestors had purchased the right in the past. Palmerston opposed this practice on public-health grounds and ensured that all bodies were buried in a churchyard or public cemetery.
Penal reform
Palmerston reduced the period in which prisoners could be held in solitary confinement from eighteen months to nine months. He also ended transportation to Tasmania for prisoners by passing the Penal Servitude Act 1853, which also reduced the maximum sentences for most offences. Palmerston passed the Reformatory Schools Act 1854 which gave the Home Secretary powers to send juvenile prisoners to a reformatory school instead of to prison. He was forced to accept an amendment which ensured that the prisoner had to have spent at least three months in jail first. When in October 1854 Palmerston visited Parkhurst gaol and conversed with three boy inmates, he was impressed by their behaviour and ordered that they be sent to a reformatory school. He found the ventilation in the cells unsatisfactory and ordered improvement.
Palmerston strongly opposed Lord John Russell's plans for giving the vote to sections of the urban working-classes. When the Cabinet agreed in December 1853 to introduce a bill during the next session of Parliament in the form which Russell wanted, Palmerston resigned. However, Aberdeen told him that no definite decision on reform had been taken and persuaded Palmerston to return to the Cabinet. The electoral Reform Bill did not pass Parliament that year.
Crimean War
Palmerston's exile from his traditional realm of the Foreign Office meant he did not have full control over British policy during the events precipitating the Crimean War of 1853–1856. One of his biographers, Jasper Ridley, argues that had he been in control of foreign policy at this time, war in the Crimea would have been avoided. Palmerston argued in Cabinet, after Russian troops concentrated on the Ottoman border in February 1853, that the Royal Navy should join the French fleet in the Dardanelles as a warning to Russia. He was overruled, however.
In May 1853, the Russians threatened to invade the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia unless the Ottoman Sultan acceded to their demands. Palmerston argued for immediate decisive action - that the Royal Navy should be sent to the Dardanelles to assist the Turkish navy and that Britain should inform Russia of London's intention to go to war if the Imperial Russian Army invaded the principalities. However, Aberdeen objected to all of Palmerston's proposals. After prolonged arguments, a reluctant Aberdeen agreed to send a fleet to the Dardanelles but objected to Palmerston's other proposals. The Russian Emperor, Nicholas I, was annoyed by Britain's actions but they did not deter him. When the British fleet arrived at the Dardanelles the weather was rough, so the fleet took refuge in the outer waters of the straits (June 1853). The Russians saw this as a violation of the Straits Convention of 1841; they invaded the two principalities in July 1853. Palmerston interpreted this as the result of British weakness and thought that if the Russians had been told that if they invaded the principalities the British and French fleets would enter the Bosphorus or the Black Sea, they would have been deterred. In Cabinet, Palmerston argued for a vigorous prosecution of the war against Russia by Britain, but Aberdeen objected, as he wanted peace. British public opinion supported the Turks, and with Aberdeen becoming steadily unpopular, Lord Dudley Stuart in February 1854 noted, "Wherever I go, I have heard but one opinion on the subject, and that one opinion has been pronounced in a single word, or in a single name – Palmerston."
On 28 March 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia for refusing to withdraw from the principalities. The war progressed slowly, with no Anglo-French gains in the Baltic and slow coalition gains in Crimea at the long Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855). Dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war grew amongst the public in Britain and in other countries, aggravated by reports of fiascos and failures, especially the mismanagement of the heroic Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava (25 October 1854). The health and living-conditions of the British soldiers became notorious and the press, with correspondents in the field, made the most of the situation. Tories demanded an accounting of all soldiers, cavalry and sailors sent to the Crimea and accurate figures as to the number of casualties. When Parliament passed a bill to investigate by a vote of 305 to 148, Aberdeen said he had lost a vote of no confidence and resigned as prime minister on 30 January 1855.
Queen Victoria deeply distrusted Palmerston and first asked Lord Derby to accept the premiership. Derby offered Palmerston the office of Secretary of State for War, which he accepted under the condition that Clarendon remain as Foreign Secretary. Clarendon refused, and so Palmerston rejected Derby's offer; Derby subsequently gave up trying to form a government. The Queen sent for Lansdowne but (aged 74) he was too old to accept: so she asked Russell; but none of his former colleagues except Palmerston wanted to serve under him. Having exhausted the possible alternatives, the Queen invited Palmerston to Buckingham Palace on 4 February 1855 to form a government.
Prime Minister: 1855–1858
Aged 70 years, 109 days, Palmerston became the oldest person in British political history to be appointed Prime Minister for the first time. As of 2023 no Prime Minister entering 10 Downing Street for the first time since Palmerston has surpassed his record.
Ending the Crimean War
Palmerston took a hard line on the war; he wanted to expand the fighting, especially in the Baltic where St. Petersburg could be threatened by superior British naval power. His goal was to permanently reduce the Russian threat to Europe. If Sweden and Prussia were willing to join, Russia would stand alone. However, France, which had sent far more soldiers to the war than Britain, and had suffered far more casualties, wanted the war to end, as did Austria. In March 1855 the old Tsar died and was succeeded by his son, Alexander II, who wished to make peace. However, Palmerston found the peace terms too soft on Russia and so persuaded Napoleon III of France to break off the peace negotiations until Sevastopol could be captured, putting the allies in a stronger negotiating position. In September Sevastopol finally surrendered and the allies had full control of the Black Sea theatre. Russia came to terms. On 27 February 1856 an armistice was signed and after a month's negotiations an agreement was signed at the Congress of Paris. Palmerston's demand for a demilitarised Black Sea was secured, although his wish for the Crimea to be returned to the Ottomans was not. The peace treaty was signed on 30 March 1856. In April 1856 Palmerston was appointed to the Order of the Garter by Victoria.
Arrow controversy and the Second Opium War
In October 1856, the Chinese seized the pirate ship Arrow, and in the process, according to the local British official Harry Parkes, insulted the British flag. When the Chinese Commissioner Ye Mingchen refused to apologise, the British shelled his compound. The commissioner retaliated with a proclamation that called on the people of Canton to "unite in exterminating these troublesome English villains" and offered a $100 bounty for the head of any Englishman. The British factories outside the city were also burned to the ground by incensed locals. Palmerston supported Parkes while in Parliament the British policy was strongly attacked on moral grounds by Richard Cobden and William Gladstone. Playing the patriotism card, Palmerston said that Cobden demonstrated "an anti-English feeling, an abnegation of all those ties which bind men to their country and to their fellow countrymen, which I should hardly have expected from the lips of any member of this House. Everything that was English was wrong, and everything that was hostile to England was right." He went on to say that if a motion of censure was carried it would signal that the House had voted to "abandon a large community of British subjects at the extreme end of the globe to a set of barbarians – a set of kidnapping, murdering, poisoning barbarians." The censure motion was carried by a majority of sixteen and the election of 1857 followed. Palmerston's stance proved popular among a large section of the workers, the growing middle classes and the country's commercial and financial interests. With the expanded franchise, his party swept on a wave of popular feeling to a majority of 83, the largest since 1835. Cobden and John Bright lost their seats.
In China, the Second Opium War (1856–1860) was another humiliating defeat for a Qing dynasty, already reeling as a result of the domestic Taiping Rebellion.
Resignation
After the election, Palmerston passed the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which for the first time made it possible for courts to grant a divorce and removed divorce from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. The opponents in Parliament, who included Gladstone, were the first in British history to try to kill a bill by filibuster. Nonetheless, Palmerston was determined to get the bill through, which he did. In June news came to Britain of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Palmerston sent Sir Colin Campbell and reinforcements to India. Palmerston also agreed to transfer the authority of the East India Company to the Crown. This was enacted in the Government of India Act 1858. After the Italian republican Felice Orsini tried to assassinate the French emperor with a bomb made in Britain, the French were outraged (see Orsini affair). Palmerston introduced a Conspiracy to Murder bill, which made it a felony to plot in Britain to murder someone abroad. At first reading, the Conservatives voted for it but at second reading they voted against it. Palmerston lost by nineteen votes. Therefore, in February 1858 he was forced to resign.
Opposition: 1858–1859
The Conservatives lacked a majority, and Russell introduced a resolution in March 1859 arguing for widening the franchise, which the Conservatives opposed but which was carried. Parliament was dissolved and a general election ensued, which the Whigs won. Palmerston rejected an offer from Disraeli to become Conservative leader, but he attended the meeting of 6 June 1859 in Willis's Rooms at St James Street, where the Liberal Party was formed. The Queen asked Lord Granville to form a government, but although Palmerston agreed to serve under him, Russell did not. Therefore, on 12 June the Queen asked Palmerston to become prime minister. Russell and Gladstone agreed to serve under him.
Prime Minister: 1859–1865
Further information: Liberal government, 1859–1866
Historians usually regard Palmerston, starting in 1859, as the first Liberal prime minister. In his last premiership Palmerston oversaw the passage of important legislation. The Offences against the Person Act 1861 codified and reformed the law, and was part of a wider process of consolidating criminal law. The Companies Act 1862 was the basis of modern company law.
Foreign policy continued to be his main strength; he thought that he could shape if not control all of European diplomacy, especially by using France as a vital ally and trade partner. However, historians often characterise his method as bluffing more than decisive action.
Some people called Palmerston a womaniser; The Times named him Lord Cupid (on account of his youthful looks), and he was cited, at the age of 79, as co-respondent in an 1863 divorce case, although it emerged that the case was nothing more than an attempted blackmail.
Relationship with Gladstone
Although Palmerston and William Gladstone treated each other respectfully, they disagreed fundamentally over Church appointments, foreign affairs, defence and reform; Palmerston's greatest problem during his last premiership was how to handle his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The MP Sir William Gregory was told by a member of the Cabinet that "at the beginning of each session and after each holiday, Mr Gladstone used to come in charged to the muzzle with all sorts of schemes of all sorts of reforms which were absolutely necessary in his opinion to be immediately undertaken. Palmerston used to look fixedly at the paper before him, saying nothing until there was a lull in Gladstone's outpouring. He then rapped the table and said cheerfully: 'Now, my Lords and gentlemen, let us go to business'." Palmerston told Lord Shaftesbury: "Gladstone will soon have it all his own way and whenever he gets my place we shall have strange doings". He told another friend that he thought Gladstone would wreck the Liberal Party and end up in a madhouse.
When in May 1864 the MP Edward Baines introduced a Reform Bill in the Commons, Palmerston ordered Gladstone to not commit himself and the government to any particular scheme. Instead Gladstone said in his speech in the Commons that he did not see why any man should not have the vote unless he was mentally incapacitated, but added that this would not come about unless the working class showed an interest in reform. Palmerston believed that this was incitement to the working class to begin agitating for reform and told Gladstone: "What every Man and Woman too have a Right to, is to be well governed and under just Laws, and they who propose a change ought to shew that the present organization does not accomplish those objects".
French intervention in Italy had created an invasion scare and Palmerston established a Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom which reported in 1860. It recommended a huge programme of fortifications to protect the Royal Navy Dockyards and ports, which Palmerston vigorously supported. Objecting to the enormous expense, Gladstone repeatedly threatened to resign as Chancellor when the proposals were accepted. Palmerston said that he had received so many resignation letters from Gladstone that he feared that they would set fire to the chimney.
Relationship with Lord Lyons
During the advent and occurrence of the American Civil War, the British Ambassador to the United States was Palmerston's close friend and ally Richard Lyons, 2nd Baron Lyons. Palmerston had first appointed Richard Lyons to the Foreign Service in 1839, and was a close friend of his father, Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons, with whom he had vehemently advocated increased aggression in the Crimean War. Palmerston and Lyons both had similar sociopolitical sympathies: both advocated monarchy and foreign interventionism. Throughout the American Civil War, Palmerston and Richard Lyons maintained an extensive confidential correspondence. Their actions were responsible for the peaceful resolution of the Trent Affair. When Lyons resigned from the position of American Ambassador, Palmerston attempted to persuade him to return, but Lyons declined the offer.
Death
Palmerston enjoyed robust health in old age, living at Romsey in his home Foxhills, built in about 1840. On 12 October 1865, he caught a chill. Instead of retiring immediately to bed, Palmerston spent an hour and a half dawdling. He then had a violent fever but his condition stabilised for the next few days. However, on the night of 17 October, his health worsened, and when his doctor asked him if he believed in regeneration of the world through Jesus Christ, Palmerston replied: "Oh, surely." His last words were, "That's Article 98; now go on to the next." (He was thinking about diplomatic treaties.) An apocryphal version of his last words is: "Die, my dear doctor? That is the last thing I shall do." He died at 10:45 am on Wednesday, 18 October 1865, two days before his eighty-first birthday. Although Palmerston wanted to be buried at Romsey Abbey, the Cabinet insisted that he should have a state funeral and be buried at Westminster Abbey, which he was, on 27 October 1865. He was the fifth person not of royalty to be granted a state funeral (after Robert Blake, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Nelson, and the Duke of Wellington).
Queen Victoria wrote after his death that though she regretted his passing, she had never liked or respected him: "Strange, and solemn to think of that strong, determined man, with so much worldly ambition – gone! He had often worried and distressed us, though as Pr. Minister he had behaved very well." Florence Nightingale reacted differently upon hearing of his death: "He will be a great loss to us. Tho' he made a joke when asked to do the right thing, he always did it. No one else will be able to carry things thro' the Cabinet as he did. I shall lose a powerful protector...He was so much more in earnest than he appeared. He did not do himself justice."
Having no male heir, his Irish viscountcy became extinct upon his death, but his property was inherited by his stepson William Cowper-Temple (later created the 1st Baron Mount Temple), whose inheritance included a 10,000-acre (4,000-hectare) estate in the north of County Sligo in the west of Ireland, on which his stepfather had commissioned the building of the incomplete Classiebawn Castle.
On May 2nd, plain old 800024 was granted a new title of ‘HRH The Princess Royal’ at a ceremony on Paddington Station, in the presence of Princess Anne, and a whole host of fawning GWR nobility. Her Royal Highness was joined at London Paddington by husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, who coincidentally is a member of the GWR Advisory Board !! Plenty of scope for advising GWR on a matter or two there then !!! Pictured today approaching Bedwyn Station, it heads the 1A77 08.35 service from Plymouth to Paddington. Bang on time as well don’t you know. I’m sure Princess Anne would be most impressed !!
performance event entitled “Climate Crisis Car Wash,” co-conceived by Canadian artist Celeste Pimm.
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academy-emergency-art.blogspot.dk/2014/05/why-should-berl...
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Biennalist @ Berlin Biennale . Should we debate global warming NOW or promote it ?
ARE BIENNALES DANGEROUS ?
Art Formats : ( including Emergency Art )
www.emergencyrooms.org/formats.html
Biennalist:
www.emergencyrooms.org/biennalist.html
THE EMERGENCY WILL REPLACE THE CONTEMPORARY
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----more about Berlin Biennale ---#BB8
Juan A. Gaitán appointed curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin is delighted to announce the appointment of Juan A. Gaitán as curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. The 8th Berlin Biennale will take place in spring 2014.
Juan A. Gaitán (Canada/Colombia) is an independent writer and curator, currently based in Mexico City and Berlin. He is trained as an artist and art historian at University of British Columbia and Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver (Canada). Between January 2009 and December 2011, he was curator at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), and between September 2011 and June 2012 adjunct professor in the Curatorial Practice Program at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco (USA). During the 2006 – 2008 period, he was on the Board of Directors of the Western Front Society, and worked as external curator at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver. His writings have been published in several journals, including Afterall, The Exhibitionist, Fillip, and Mousse. His most recent exhibition, Material Information, spans three venues in Bergen (Norway), and looks for a renewed critical approach to the contemporary global distribution of labor from the perspective of arts and crafts. He is presently member of the acquisitions committee at FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in Dunquerke (France).
The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art is since its fourth edition one of the institutions supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation as „outstanding cultural event“. The support of 2.5 Million Euros per edition ensures planning stability, enabling the organizers to address issues of content in an experimental way.
Since the first edition in 1998, the Berlin Biennale has become a major international event for contemporary art. Located in the midst of Berlin’s vibrant cultural scene in the fast-changing capital of Germany, the Berlin Biennale has received an enthusiastic response from the audience as an experimental, forward-looking and contextual show. The previous seven editions of the Berlin Biennale explored a variety of exhibition formats and involved diverse curatorial agendas.
Curators have been:
1st Berlin Biennale (1998): Klaus Biesenbach with Nancy Spector, and Hans Ulrich Obrist
2nd Berlin Biennale (2001): Saskia Bos
3rd Berlin Biennale (2004): Ute Meta Bauer
4th Berlin Biennale (2006): Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnick
5th Berlin Biennale (2008): Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic
6th Berlin Biennale (2010): Kathrin Rhomberg
7th Berlin Biennale (2012): Artur Żmijewski together with associate curators Voina and Joanna Warsza
The selection committee for the curatorship of the 8th Berlin Biennale consisted of Sergio Edelsztein (Director and Chief Curator, The Centre for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv); Cao Fei (Artist, Bejing), Susanne Gaensheimer (Director, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt a. M.), Koyo Kouoh (Founding Director and Artistic Director, Raw Material Company - Center for Art, Knowledge and Society, Dakar), Matthias Mühling (Head of Department, Curator, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich), Bisi Silva (Director and Founder, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos), and Patricia Sloane (Associate Curator, MUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo and advisor to the Head of Visual Arts, UNAM Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City).
The Berlin Biennale is realized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst
Auguststraße 69
#BB8
---artists participating ---
52 Künstler stehen auf der am gestrigen Sonntag veröffentlichten Künstlerliste der 8. Berlin Biennale: Zarouhie Abdalian, Bani Abidi, Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Saâdane Afif, David Chalmers Alesworth, Carlos Amorales, Andreas Angelidakis, Leonor Antunes, Julieta Aranda , Tarek Atoui, Nairy Baghramian, Bianca Baldi, Patrick Alan Banfield, Alberto Baraya , Rosa Barba, Gordon Bennett, Zachary Cahill, Mariana Castillo Deball, Carolina Caycedo, Tacita Dean, Mario García Torres, Beatriz González, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Shilpa Gupta, Cynthia Gutiérrez, Ganesh Haloi, Carsten Höller, Iman Issa, Irene Kopelman, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Matts Leiderstam, Li Xiaofei, Glenn Ligon, Goshka Macuga, Santu Mofokeng, Shahryar Nashat, Olaf Nicolai, Otobong Nkanga, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Judy Radul, Jimmy Robert, Anri Sala, Slavs and Tatars, Michael Stevenson, Mariam Suhail, Vivan Sundaram, Gaganendranath Tagore, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tonel, Danh Vo & Xiu Xiu, David Zink Yi, Carla Zaccagnini und das Center for Historical Reenactments.
Die 8. Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst findet vom 29. Mai bis 3. August 2014 im Haus am Waldsee, den Museen Dahlem - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, den KW Institute for Contemporary Art und dem "Crash Pad" in den KW statt.
This photograph was published online in an article in LIVINGETC on December 5th 2023 entitled:
'' WHAT DO I NEED TO DO WITH MY BIRDBATH IN WINTER? - 4 SIMPLE THINGS TO HELP YOUR GARDEN'S FEATHERED FRIENDS '' - Written by Jacky Parker.
It had previously been published in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on February 12th 2021, my 4,782nd tyo be published with them worldwide (I now have 7000 on sale)
CREATIVE RF gty.im/1301729290 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION
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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty eight metres at 11:33am on Tuesday 9th February 2021, on a cold winter morning with snow blizzards rolling in from the continent of a group of ten Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) fighting for a chance to bath in a stone birdbath off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.
The common starling or European starling, also known simply as the starling in the British Isles, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about 20 cm long and has glossy black plumage with a metallic sheen, which is speckled with white at some times of year.
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Nikon D850 Hand held Focal length 600mm Shutter speed: 1/2000s Aperture f/6.3 iso4000 EV compensation set to +0.7EV Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). NEF RAW L (14 bit uncompressed) Focus mode AF-C focus. AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-Area mode: 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points. Exposure mode: Manual mode. Matrix metering. White balance on: Auto1. Colour space: RGB. Active D-lighting: Normal. Vignette control: Normal. Nikon Distortion control: Enabled. Picture control: Auto (Sharpening A +1/Clarity A+1)
Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3DG OS HSM SPORTS. Lee SW150 MKI filter holder with MK2 light shield and custom made velcro fitting for the Sigma lens. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3-G Carbon fibre geared tripod. Neewer Gimbal tripod head with Arca Swiss quick release plate.055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.
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Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.
The heart of the Piazza del Duomo is the Duomo, the medieval cathedral, entitled to Santa Maria Assunta (St. Mary of the Assumption). This is a five-naved cathedral with a three-naved transept. The church is known also as the Primatial, the archbishop of Pisa being a Primate since 1092.
Construction was begun in 1064 by the architect Buscheto, and set the model for the distinctive Pisan Romanesque style of architecture. The mosaics of the interior, as well as the pointed arches, show a strong Byzantine influence.
The façade, of grey marble and white stone set with discs of coloured marble, was built by a master named Rainaldo, as indicated by an inscription above the middle door: Rainaldus prudens operator.
The Duomo at Sunset
Pisa Tower with cathedral and baptistry at night
The massive bronze main doors were made in the workshops of Giambologna, replacing the original doors destroyed in a fire in 1595. The central door was in bronze and made around 1180 by Bonanno Pisano, while the other two were probably in wood. However worshippers never used the façade doors to enter, instead entering by way of the Porta di San Ranieri (St. Ranieri's Door), in front of the Leaning Tower, made in around 1180 by Bonanno Pisano.
Above the doors there are four rows of open galleries with, on top, statues of Madonna with Child and, on the corners, the Four evangelists.
Also in the façade we can find the tomb of Busketo (on the left side) and an inscription about the foundation of the Cathedral and the victorious battle against Saracens.
At the east end of the exterior, high on a column rising from the gable is a modern replica of the Pisa Griffin, the largest Islamic metal sculpture known, the original of which was placed there probably in the 11th or 12th century, and is now in the Cathedral Museum.
The interior is faced with black and white marble and has a gilded ceiling and a frescoed dome. It was largely redecorated after a fire in 1595, which destroyed most of the medieval art works.
Fortunately, the impressive mosaic, in the apse, of Christ in Majesty, flanked by the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, survived the fire. It evokes the mosaics in the church of Monreale, Sicily. Although it is said that the mosaic was done by Cimabue, only the head of St. John was done by the artist in 1302 and was his last work, since he died in Pisa in the same year. The cupola, at the intersection of the nave and the transept, was decorated by Riminaldi showing the ascension of the Blessed Virgin.
Galileo is believed to have formulated his theory about the movement of a pendulum by watching the swinging of the incense lamp (not the present one) hanging from the ceiling of the nave. That lamp, smaller and simpler than the present one, it is now kept in the Camposanto, in the Aulla chapel.
The impressive granite Corinthian columns between the nave and the aisle came originally from the mosque of Palermo, captured by the Pisans in 1063.
The coffer ceiling of the nave was replaced after the fire of 1595. The present gold-decorated ceiling carries the coat of arms of the Medici.
The elaborately carved pulpit (1302–1310), which also survived the fire, was made by Giovanni Pisano and is one the masterworks of medieval sculpture. It was packed away during the redecoration and was not rediscovered and re-erected until 1926. The pulpit is supported by plain columns (two of which mounted on lions sculptures) on one side and by caryatids and a telamon on the other: the latter represent St. Michael, the Evangelists, the four cardinal virtues flanking the Church, and a bold, naturalistic depiction of a naked Hercules. A central plinth with the liberal arts supports the four theological virtues.
The present day reconstruction of the pulpit is not the correct one. Now it lies not in the same original position, that was nearer the main altar, and the disposition of the columns and the panels are not the original ones. Also the original stairs (maybe in marble) were lost.
The upper part has nine panels dramatic showing scenes from the New Testament, carved in white marble with a chiaroscuro effect and separated by figures of prophets: Annunciation, Massacre of the Innocents, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Flight into Egypt, Crucifixion, and two panels of the Last Judgement.
The church also contains the bones of St Ranieri, Pisa's patron saint, and the tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII, carved by Tino da Camaino in 1315. That tomb, originally in the apse just behind the main altar, was disassembled and changed position many times during the years for political reasons. At last the sarcophagus is still in the Cathedral, but some of the statues were put in the Camposanto or in the top of the façade of the church. The original statues now are in the Museum of the Opera del Duomo.
Pope Gregory VIII was also buried in the cathedral. The fire in 1595 destroyed his tomb.
The Cathedral has a prominent role in determining the beginning of the Pisan New Year. Between the tenth century and 1749, when the Tuscan calendar was reformed, Pisa used its own calendar, in which the first day of the year on March 25, which is the day of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. The Pisan New Year begins 9 months before the ordinary one. The exact moment is determined by a ray of sun that, through a window on the left side, hit a shelf egg-shaped on the right side, just above the pulpit by Giovanni Pisano. This occurs at noon.
In the Cathedral also can be found some relics brought during the Crusades: the remains of three Saints (Abibo, Gamaliel and Nicodemus) and a vase that it is said to be one of the jars of Cana.
The building, as have several in Pisa, has tilted slightly since its construction.
@wikipedia.org
The cinema show is entitled Hurricane on the Bayou.The images on the 6,500-ft² screen take viewers deep into the Louisiana heartland. When the Mississippi was diverted, New Orleans was able to spread out into these zones, but doing so has resulted in massive coastal erosion. Hurricane on the Bayou is a thrilling story and a musical celebration of New Orleans that teaches about the importance of preserving wetlands and ecosystems.
IMAX ®
The unique IMAX projection system was especially designed for projecting films of the largest format available. IMAX is the only technique able to project pictures on a screen as high as an eight-story building.
Info: Futuroscope website
A view of the mural entitled ''Peace'" which is located on the west wall. Two murals entitled "War" and "Peace" were presented to the United Nations by Brazil in 1957. The murals, each measuring 34 by 46 feet, were painted by the late Brazilian artist Candido PORTINARI. They are located on the east and west walls of the delegates' lobby on the ground floor in the General Assembly building. 1/Aug/1985. UN Photo/Lois Conner. www.unmultimedia.org/photo/
... otherwise entitled 'your wish is my command', if you ask for Wall-E in hama beads you will have it! Adapted from this cross stitch pattern: www.myphotostitch.com/media/2009/04/02/Cross-Stitch-Patte...
This sculpture, entitled "Sightless among Miracles" and made by Skip Wallen in 2005, is placed in front of the Tropeninstituut (Royal Tropical Institute) in Amsterdam. It represents a boy who helps an older man who was blinded by Onchocerciasis (River blindness). About 270,000 people in the tropics suffer from this blindness, which is caused by an infection after the bite of a black fly (Simulium), found around streaming water.
Just modest sliding today: application of a colour filter, a crop and vignetting.
HSS!
Sliders Sunday (11-11-2012)
This is part of a sculpture (one of a series entitled the Testament Sculptures) by Kenneth Carter, commissioned in 1969 and completed in 1974, and installed in the Chapter House of the Cathedral. There's quite a lot of information about them here.
We'll have to go back soon to have a proper look at these: we were a bit 'on the last lap' by the time we went in there, so didn't have time to give these the attention they deserve.
EDIT: Summer 2025
It was with great sadness that we found that these sculptures had been removed and put in storage, pending relocation somewhere at Exeter College. In the explanatory blurb, they were dismissed as being of little artistic merit. I beg to differ.
Description: 'Photograph (Cinematograph Film) entitled 'With Captain Scott [Royal Navy] to the South Pole (British Antarctic Expedition)'. Three men on ice and some penguins' by Herbert Ponting (1870-1935).
Date: c.1911
Our Catalogue Reference: COPY 1/562/122
This image shows a single frame from the very short (3-4 frame) sections of nitrate film stock accessioned at The National Archives from Herbert Ponting's footage of the Antarctic. For preservation reasons copies were made of the original nitrate negatives and these were used to produce modern black and white Kodak prints of the clips which we have scanned for the web. The quality of the resultant images is variable.
Feel free to share it within the spirit of the Commons.
For high quality reproductions of any item from our collection please contact our image library.
Mural entitled "Girl Power" a community mural project by Alyssa Marie aka @alyssa.marie.of.the.sea and The Happy Mural Project aka @thehappymuralproject for the Girl Scouts of West Central FL and Shine on St Pete seen at 548 28th Street South in the Palmetto Park area of St Petersburg, Florida.
Drone photo by James aka @urbanmuralhunter on that other photo site.
Edit by Teee