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Ian Callum was introduced to hot rods when his brother bought him Rod & Custom and Hot Rod magazines for his 13th birthday. He has been hooked ever since! His special passion is 1932 Fords because of their great silhouette and stance in hot rod form. Having already pursued a 1932 Ford project, Ian expanded to trying a 1956 Chevy project.
Ian bought the Chevrolet in 2007 on Ebay and it was imported from Cleveland, U.S.A. It had a complete chassis-off rebuild in 2005. The interior was trimmed in white vinyl. It was fitted with a Summit small block Chevy 350 V8 motor which produces approximately 400h.p. It is complete with a 350 turbo 'box. It has lowered and stiffened suspension all round, disc brakes and nine-inch diff (differential gear). At a later date, Ian added rack-and-pinion power steering, a better exhaust system, and he re-trimmed the interior in Black Bridge of Weir leather, among other modifications.
Hot Rods and Kool Kustoms
Coventry Transport Museum
Coventry, Warks.
Big Cypress National Preserve
This guy was injured with a leg infection and a dip in local temps stressed him a bit. Luckily, right after this picture was taken a group of volunteers from a Naples FL based wildlife center rescued him to give him some much needed TLC.
I got him to be a mini Uruha, guitarist of jrock band The GazettE. I've been admiring him since 5 years ago TwT When i first saw the sculpt on soom website, I knew I HAD to get it.
His wig & eyes aren't here yet These are temporary~
With the rain falling harder, it was a bit of a route march to Holborn and my next church, the stunning St Sepulchre, which was also open.
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St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holborn), is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey. In medieval times it stood just outside ("without") the now-demolished old city wall, near the Newgate. It has been a living of St John's College, Oxford, since 1622.
The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. During the Crusades in the 12th century the church was renamed St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre, in reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The name eventually became contracted to St Sepulchre.
The church is today the largest parish church in the City. It was completely rebuilt in the 15th century but was gutted by the Great Fire of London in 1666,[1] which left only the outer walls, the tower and the porch standing[2] -. Modified in the 18th century, the church underwent extensive restoration in 1878. It narrowly avoided destruction in the Second World War, although the 18th-century watch-house in its churchyard (erected to deter grave-robbers) was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt.
The interior of the church is a wide, roomy space with a coffered ceiling[3] installed in 1834. The Vicars' old residence has recently been renovated into a modern living quarter.
During the reign of Mary I in 1555, St Sepulchre's vicar, John Rogers, was burned as a heretic.
St Sepulchre is named in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as the "bells of Old Bailey". Traditionally, the great bell would be rung to mark the execution of a prisoner at the nearby gallows at Newgate. The clerk of St Sepulchre's was also responsible for ringing a handbell outside the condemned man's cell in Newgate Prison to inform him of his impending execution. This handbell, known as the Execution Bell, now resides in a glass case to the south of the nave.
The church has been the official musicians' church for many years and is associated with many famous musicians. Its north aisle (formerly a chapel dedicated to Stephen Harding) is dedicated as the Musicians' Chapel, with four windows commemorating John Ireland, the singer Dame Nellie Melba, Walter Carroll and the conductor Sir Henry Wood respectively.[4] Wood, who "at the age of fourteen, learned to play the organ" at this church [1] and later became its organist, also has his ashes buried in this church.
The south aisle of the church holds the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and its gardens are a memorial garden to that regiment.[5] The west end of the north aisle has various memorials connected with the City of London Rifles (the 6th Battalion London Regiment). The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre-without-Newgate
The Early History of St. Sepulchre's—Its Destruction in 1666—The Exterior and Interior—The Early Popularity of the Church—Interments here—Roger Ascham, the Author of the "Schoolmaster"—Captain John Smith, and his Romantic Adventures—Saved by an Indian Girl— St. Sepulchre's Churchyard—Accommodation for a Murderess—The Martyr Rogers—An Odd Circumstance—Good Company for the Dead—A Leap from the Tower—A Warning Bell and a Last Admonition—Nosegays for the Condemned—The Route to the Gallows-tree— The Deeds of the Charitable—The "Saracen's Head"—Description by Dickens—Giltspur Street—Giltspur Street Compter—A Disreputable Condition—Pie Corner—Hosier Lane—A Spurious Relic—The Conduit on Snow Hill—A Ladies' Charity School—Turnagain Lane—Poor Betty!—A Schoolmistress Censured—Skinner Street—Unpropitious Fortune—William Godwin—An Original Married Life.
Many interesting associations—Principally, however, connected with the annals of crime and the execution of the laws of England—belong to the Church of St. Sepulchre, or St. 'Pulchre. This sacred edifice—anciently known as St. Sepulchre's in the Bailey, or by Chamberlain Gate (now Newgate)—stands at the eastern end of the slight acclivity of Snow Hill, and between Smithfield and the Old Bailey. The genuine materials for its early history are scanty enough. It was probably founded about the commencement of the twelfth century, but of the exact date and circumstances of its origin there is no record whatever. Its name is derived from the Holy Sepulchre of our Saviour at Jerusalem, to the memory of which it was first dedicated.
The earliest authentic notice of the church, according to Maitland, is of the year 1178, at which date it was given by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, to the Prior and Canons of St. Bartholomew. These held the right of advowson until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII., and from that time until 1610 it remained in the hands of the Crown. James I., however, then granted "the rectory and its appurtenances, with the advowson of the vicarage," to Francis Phillips and others. The next stage in its history is that the rectory was purchased by the parishioners, to be held in fee-farm of the Crown, and the advowson was obtained by the President and Fellows of St. John the Baptist College, at Oxford.
The church was rebuilt about the middle of the fifteenth century, when one of the Popham family, who had been Chancellor of Normandy and Treasurer of the King's Household, with distinguished liberality erected a handsome chapel on the south side of the choir, and the very beautiful porch still remaining at the south-west corner of the building. "His image," Stow says, "fair graven in stone, was fixed over the said porch."
The dreadful fire of 1666 almost destroyed St. Sepulchre's, but the parishioners set energetically to work, and it was "rebuilt and beautified both within and without." The general reparation was under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, and nothing but the walls of the old building, and these not entirely, were suffered to remain. The work was done rapidly, and the whole was completed within four years.
"The tower," says Mr. Godwin, "retained its original aspect, and the body of the church, after its restoration, presented a series of windows between buttresses, with pointed heads filled with tracery, crowned by a string-course and battlements. In this form it remained till the year 1790, when it appears the whole fabric was found to be in a state of great decay, and it was resolved to repair it throughout. Accordingly the walls of the church were cased with Portland stone, and all the windows were taken out and replaced by others with plain semi-circular heads, as now seen—certainly agreeing but badly with the tower and porch of the building, but according with the then prevailing spirit of economy. The battlements, too, were taken down, and a plain stone parapet was substituted, so that at this time (with the exception of the roof, which was wagon-headed, and presented on the outside an unsightly swell, visible above the parapet) the church assumed its present appearance." The ungainly roof was removed, and an entirely new one erected, about 1836.
At each corner of the tower—"one of the most ancient," says the author of "Londinium Redivivum," "in the outline of the circuit of London" —there are spires, and on the spires there are weathercocks. These have been made use of by Howell to point a moral: "Unreasonable people," says he, "are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of St. Sepulchre's tower, which never look all four upon one point of the heavens." Nothing can be said with certainty as to the date of the tower, but it is not without the bounds of probability that it formed part of the original building. The belfry is reached by a small winding staircase in the south-west angle, and a similar staircase in an opposite angle leads to the summit. The spires at the corners, and some of the tower windows, have very recently undergone several alterations, which have added much to the picturesqueness and beauty of the church.
The chief entrance to St. Sepulchre's is by a porch of singular beauty, projecting from the south side of the tower, at the western end of the church. The groining of the ceiling of this porch, it has been pointed out, takes an almost unique form; the ribs are carved in bold relief, and the bosses at the intersections represent angels' heads, shields, roses, &c., in great variety.
Coming now to the interior of the church, we find it divided into three aisles, by two ranges of Tuscan columns. The aisles are of unequal widths, that in the centre being the widest, that to the south the narrowest. Semi-circular arches connect the columns on either side, springing directly from their capitals, without the interposition of an entablature, and support a large dental cornice, extending round the church. The ceiling of the middle aisle is divided into seven compartments, by horizontal bands, the middle compartment being formed into a small dome.
The aisles have groined ceilings, ornamented at the angles with doves, &c., and beneath every division of the groining are small windows, to admit light to the galleries. Over each of the aisles there is a gallery, very clumsily introduced, which dates from the time when the church was built by Wren, and extends the whole length, excepting at the chancel. The front of the gallery, which is of oak, is described by Mr. Godwin as carved into scrolls, branches, &c., in the centre panel, on either side, with the initials "C. R.," enriched with carvings of laurel, which have, however, he says, "but little merit."
At the east end of the church there are three semicircular-headed windows. Beneath the centre one is a large Corinthian altar-piece of oak, displaying columns, entablatures, &c., elaborately carved and gilded.
The length of the church, exclusive of the ambulatory, is said to be 126 feet, the breadth 68 feet, and the height of the tower 140 feet.
A singularly ugly sounding-board, extending over the preacher, used to stand at the back of the pulpit, at the east end of the church. It was in the shape of a large parabolic reflector, about twelve feet in diameter, and was composed of ribs of mahogany.
At the west end of the church there is a large organ, said to be the oldest and one of the finest in London. It was built in 1677, and has been greatly enlarged. Its reed-stops (hautboy, clarinet, &c.) are supposed to be unrivalled. In Newcourt's time the church was taken notice of as "remarkable for possessing an exceedingly fine organ, and the playing is thought so beautiful, that large congregations are attracted, though some of the parishioners object to the mode of performing divine service."
On the north side of the church, Mr. Godwin mentions, is a large apartment known as "St. Stephen's Chapel." This building evidently formed a somewhat important part of the old church, and was probably appropriated to the votaries of the saint whose name it bears.
Between the exterior and the interior of the church there is little harmony. "For example," says Mr. Godwin, "the columns which form the south aisle face, in some instances, the centre of the large windows which occur in the external wall of the church, and in others the centre of the piers, indifferently." This discordance may likely enough have arisen from the fact that when the church was rebuilt, or rather restored, after the Great Fire, the works were done without much attention from Sir Christopher Wren.
St. Sepulchre's appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity from the earliest period of its history, if one is to judge from the various sums left by well-disposed persons for the support of certain fraternities founded in the church—namely, those of St. Katherine, St. Michael, St. Anne, and Our Lady—and by others, for the maintenance of chantry priests to celebrate masses at stated intervals for the good of their souls. One of the fraternities just named—that of St. Katherine— originated, according to Stow, in the devotion of some poor persons in the parish, and was in honour of the conception of the Virgin Mary. They met in the church on the day of the Conception, and there had the mass of the day, and offered to the same, and provided a certain chaplain daily to celebrate divine service, and to set up wax lights before the image belonging to the fraternity, on all festival days.
The most famous of all who have been interred in St. Sepulchre's is Roger Ascham, the author of the "Schoolmaster," and the instructor of Queen Elizabeth in Greek and Latin. This learned old worthy was born in 1515, near Northallerton, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Cambridge University, and in time rose to be the university orator, being notably zealous in promoting what was then a novelty in England—the study of the Greek language. To divert himself after the fatigue of severe study, he used to devote himself to archery. This drew down upon him the censure of the all-work-and-no-play school; and in defence of himself, Ascham, in 1545, published "Toxophilus," a treatise on his favourite sport. This book is even yet well worthy of perusal, for its enthusiasm, and for its curious descriptions of the personal appearance and manners of the principal persons whom the author had seen and conversed with. Henry VIII. rewarded him with a pension of £10 per annum, a considerable sum in those days. In 1548, Ascham, on the death of William Grindall, who had been his pupil, was appointed instructor in the learned languages to Lady Elizabeth, afterwards the good Queen Bess. At the end of two years he had some dispute with, or took a disgust at, Lady Elizabeth's attendants, resigned his situation, and returned to his college. Soon after this he was employed as secretary to the English ambassador at the court of Charles V. of Germany, and remained abroad till the death of Edward VI. During his absence he had been appointed Latin secretary to King Edward. Strangely enough, though Queen Mary and her ministers were Papists, and Ascham a Protestant, he was retained in his office of Latin secretary, his pension was increased to £20, and he was allowed to retain his fellowship and his situation as university orator. In 1554 he married a lady of good family, by whom he had a considerable fortune, and of whom, in writing to a friend, he gives, as might perhaps be expected, an excellent character. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, she not only required his services as Latin secretary, but as her instructor in Greek, and he resided at Court during the remainder of his life. He died in consequence of his endeavours to complete a Latin poem which he intended to present to the queen on the New Year's Day of 1569. He breathed his last two days before 1568 ran out, and was interred, according to his own directions, in the most private manner, in St. Sepulchre's Church, his funeral sermon being preached by Dr. Andrew Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's. He was universally lamented; and even the queen herself not only showed great concern, but was pleased to say that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her tutor Ascham, which, from that somewhat closehanded sovereign, was truly an expression of high regard.
Ascham, like most men, had his little weaknesses. He had too great a propensity to dice and cock-fighting. Bishop Nicholson would try to convince us that this is an unfounded calumny, but, as it is mentioned by Camden, and other contemporary writers, it seems impossible to deny it. He died, from all accounts, in indifferent circumstances. "Whether," says Dr. Johnson, referring to this, "Ascham was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and among us it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature." His most valuable work, "The Schoolmaster," was published by his widow. The nature of this celebrated performance may be gathered from the title: "The Schoolmaster; or a plain and perfite way of teaching children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue. … And commodious also for all such as have forgot the Latin tongue, and would by themselves, without a schoolmaster, in short time, and with small pains, recover a sufficient habilitie to understand, write, and speak Latin: by Roger Ascham, ann. 1570. At London, printed by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate," a printer, by the way, already mentioned by us a few chapters back (see page 208), as having printed several noted works of the sixteenth century.
Dr. Johnson remarks that the instruction recommended in "The Schoolmaster" is perhaps the best ever given for the study of languages.
Here also lies buried Captain John Smith, a conspicuous soldier of fortune, whose romantic adventures and daring exploits have rarely been surpassed. He died on the 21st of June, 1631. This valiant captain was born at Willoughby, in the county of Lincoln, and helped by his doings to enliven the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. He had a share in the wars of Hungary in 1602, and in three single combats overcame three Turks, and cut off their heads. For this, and other equally brave deeds, Sigismund, Duke of Transylvania, gave him his picture set in gold, with a pension of three hundred ducats; and allowed him to bear three Turks' heads proper as his shield of arms. He afterwards went to America, where he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Indians. He escaped from them, however, at last, and resumed his brilliant career by hazarding his life in naval engagements with pirates and Spanish men-of-war. The most important act of his life was the share he had in civilising the natives of New England, and reducing that province to obedience to Great Britain. In connection with his tomb in St. Sepulchre's, he is mentioned by Stow, in his "Survey," as "some time Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England."
Certainly the most interesting events of his chequered career were his capture by the Indians, and the saving of his life by the Indian girl Pocahontas, a story of adventure that charms as often as it is told. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, relates how, during the early settlement of Virginia, Smith left the infant colony on an exploring expedition, and not only ascended the river Chickahominy, but struck into the interior. His companions disobeyed his instructions, and being surprised by the Indians, were put to death. Smith preserved his own life by calmness and self-possession. Displaying a pocket-compass, he amused the savages by an explanation of its power, and increased their admiration of his superior genius by imparting to them some vague conceptions of the form of the earth, and the nature of the planetary system. To the Indians, who retained him as their prisoner, his captivity was a more strange event than anything of which the traditions of their tribes preserved the memory. He was allowed to send a letter to the fort at Jamestown, and the savage wonder was increased, for he seemed by some magic to endow the paper with the gift of intelligence. It was evident that their captive was a being of a high order, and then the question arose, Was his nature beneficent, or was he to be dreaded as a dangerous enemy? Their minds were bewildered, and the decision of his fate was referred to the chief Powhatan, and before Powhatan Smith was brought. "The fears of the feeble aborigines," says Bancroft, "were about to prevail, and his immediate death, already repeatedly threatened and repeatedly delayed, would have been inevitable, but for the timely intercession of Pocahontas, a girl twelve years old, the daughter of Powhatan, whose confiding fondness Smith had easily won, and who firmly clung to his neck, as his head was bowed down to receive the stroke of the tomahawks. His fearlessness, and her entreaties, persuaded the council to spare the agreeable stranger, who could make hatchets for her father, and rattles and strings of beads for herself, the favourite child. The barbarians, whose decision had long been held in suspense by the mysterious awe which Smith had inspired, now resolved to receive him as a friend, and to make him a partner of their councils. They tempted him to join their bands, and lend assistance in an attack upon the white men at Jamestown; and when his decision of character succeeded in changing the current of their thoughts, they dismissed him with mutual promises of friendship and benevolence. Thus the captivity of Smith did itself become a benefit to the colony; for he had not only observed with care the country between the James and the Potomac, and had gained some knowledge of the language and manners of the natives, but he now established a peaceful intercourse between the English and the tribes of Powhatan."
On the monument erected to Smith in St. Sepulchre's Church, the following quaint lines were formerly inscribed:—
"Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings,
Subdued large territories, and done things
Which to the world impossible would seem,
But that the truth is held in more esteem.
Shall I report his former service done,
In honour of his God, and Christendom?
How that he did divide, from pagans three,
Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry?—
For which great service, in that climate done,
Brave Sigismundus, King of Hungarion,
Did give him, as a coat of arms, to wear
These conquered heads, got by his sword and spear.
Or shall I tell of his adventures since
Done in Virginia, that large continent?
How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathens flee, as wind doth smoke;
And made their land, being so large a station,
An habitation for our Christian nation,
Where God is glorified, their wants supplied;
Which else for necessaries, must have died.
But what avails his conquests, now he lies
Interred in earth, a prey to worms and flies?
Oh! may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,
Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep,
Return to judgment; and that after thence
With angels he may have his recompense."
Sir Robert Peake, the engraver, also found a last resting-place here. He is known as the master of William Faithorne—the famous English engraver of the seventeenth century—and governor of Basing House for the king during the Civil War under Charles I. He died in 1667. Here also was interred the body of Dr. Bell, grandfather of the originator of a well-known system of education.
"The churchyard of St. Sepulchre's," we learn from Maitland, "at one time extended so far into the street on the south side of the church, as to render the passage-way dangerously narrow. In 1760 the churchyard was, in consequence, levelled, and thrown open to the public. But this led to much inconvenience, and it was re-enclosed in 1802."
Sarah Malcolm, the murderess, was buried in the churchyard of St. Sepulchre's in 1733. This coldhearted and keen-eyed monster in human form has had her story told by us already. The parishioners seem, on this occasion, to have had no such scruples as had been exhibited by their predecessors a hundred and fifty years previous at the burial of Awfield, a traitor. We shall see presently that in those more remote days they were desirous of having at least respectable company for their deceased relatives and friends in the churchyard.
"For a long period," says Mr. Godwin (1838), "the church was surrounded by low mean buildings, by which its general appearance was hidden; but these having been cleared away, and the neighbourhood made considerably more open, St. Sepulchre's now forms a somewhat pleasing object, notwithstanding that the tower and a part of the porch are so entirely dissimilar in style to the remainder of the building." And since Godwin's writing the surroundings of the church have been so improved that perhaps few buildings in the metropolis stand more prominently before the public eye.
In the glorious roll of martyrs who have suffered at the stake for their religious principles, a vicar of St. Sepulchre's, the Reverend John Rogers, occupies a conspicuous place. He was the first who was burned in the reign of the Bloody Mary. This eminent person had at one time been chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp, and while residing in that city had aided Tindal and Coverdale in their great work of translating the Bible. He married a German lady of good position, by whom he had a large family, and was enabled, by means of her relations, to reside in peace and safety in Germany. It appeared to be his duty, however, to return to England, and there publicly profess and advocate his religious convictions, even at the risk of death. He crossed the sea; he took his place in the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross; he preached a fearless and animated sermon, reminding his astonished audience of the pure and wholesome doctrine which had been promulgated from that pulpit in the days of the good King Edward, and solemnly warning them against the pestilent idolatry and superstition of these new times. It was his last sermon. He was apprehended, tried, condemned, and burned at Smithfield. We described, when speaking of Smithfield, the manner in which he met his fate.
Connected with the martyrdom of Rogers an odd circumstance is quoted in the "Churches of London." It is stated that when the bishops had resolved to put to death Joan Bocher, a friend came to Rogers and earnestly entreated his influence that the poor woman's life might be spared, and other means taken to prevent the spread of her heterodox doctrines. Rogers, however, contended that she should be executed; and his friend then begged him to choose some other kind of death, which should be more agreeable to the gentleness and mercy prescribed in the gospel. "No," replied Rogers, "burning alive is not a cruel death, but easy enough." His friend hearing these words, expressive of so little regard for the sufferings of a fellow-creature, answered him with great vehemence, at the same time striking Rogers' hand, "Well, it may perhaps so happen that you yourself shall have your hands full of this mild burning." There is no record of Rogers among the papers belonging to St. Sepulchre's, but this may easily be accounted for by the fact that at the Great Fire of 1666 nearly all the registers and archives were destroyed.
A noteworthy incident in the history of St. Sepulchre's was connected with the execution, in 1585, of Awfield, for "sparcinge abrood certen lewed, sedicious, and traytorous bookes." "When he was executed," says Fleetwood, the Recorder, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, July 7th of that year, "his body was brought unto St. Pulcher's to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a traytor's corpse to be laid in the earth where their parents, wives, children, kindred, masters, and old neighbours did rest; and so his carcass was returned to the burial-ground near Tyburn, and there I leave it."
Another event in the history of the church is a tale of suicide. On the 10th of April, 1600, a man named William Dorrington threw himself from the roof of the tower, leaving there a prayer for forgiveness.
We come now to speak of the connection of St. Sepulchre's with the neighbouring prison of Newgate. Being the nearest church to the prison, that connection naturally was intimate. Its clock served to give the time to the hangman when there was an execution in the Old Bailey, and many a poor wretch's last moments must it have regulated.
On the right-hand side of the altar a board with a list of charitable donations and gifts used to contain the following item:—"1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave, for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services the sexton is paid £16s. 8d.—£50.
It was formerly the practice for the clerk or bellman of St. Sepulchre's to go under Newgate, on the night preceding the execution of a criminal, ring his bell, and repeat the following wholesome advice:—
"All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near
That you before the Almighty must appear;
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent.
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past twelve o'clock!"
This practice is explained by a passage in Munday's edition of Stow, in which it is told that a Mr. John Dowe, citizen and merchant taylor of London, gave £50 to the parish church of St. Sepulchre's, under the following conditions:—After the several sessions of London, on the night before the execution of such as were condemned to death, the clerk of the church was to go in the night-time, and also early in the morning, to the window of the prison in which they were lying. He was there to ring "certain tolls with a hand-bell" appointed for the purpose, and was afterwards, in a most Christian manner, to put them in mind of their present condition and approaching end, and to exhort them to be prepared, as they ought to be, to die. When they were in the cart, and brought before the walls of the church, the clerk was to stand there ready with the same bell, and, after certain tolls, rehearse a prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for the unfortunate criminals. The beadle, also, of Merchant Taylors' Hall was allowed an "honest stipend" to see that this ceremony was regularly performed.
The affecting admonition—"affectingly good," Pennant calls it—addressed to the prisoners in Newgate, on the night before execution, ran as follows:—
"You prisoners that are within,
Who, for wickedness and sin,
after many mercies shown you, are now appointed to die to-morrow in the forenoon; give ear and understand that, to-morrow morning, the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre's shall toll for you, in form and manner of a passing-bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death; to the end that all godly people, hearing that bell, and knowing it is for your going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow his grace and mercy upon you, whilst you live. I beseech you, for Jesus Christ's sake, to keep this night in watching and prayer, to the salvation of your own souls while there is yet time and place for mercy; as knowing to-morrow you must appear before the judgment-seat of your Creator, there to give an account of all things done in this life, and to suffer eternal torments for your sins committed against Him, unless, upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance, you find mercy through the merits, death, and passion of your only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return to Him."
And the following was the admonition to condemned criminals, as they were passing by St. Sepulchre's Church wall to execution:—" All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll.
"You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask mercy of the Lord, for the salvation of your own souls, through the [merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him.
"Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you.
Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you."
The charitable Mr. Dowe, who took such interest in the last moments of the occupants of the condemned cell, was buried in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate.
Another curious custom observed at St. Sepulchre's was the presentation of a nosegay to every criminal on his way to execution at Tyburn. No doubt the practice had its origin in some kindly feeling for the poor unfortunates who were so soon to bid farewell to all the beauties of earth. One of the last who received a nosegay from the steps of St. Sepulchre's was "Sixteen-string Jack," alias John Rann, who was hanged, in 1774, for robbing the Rev. Dr. Bell of his watch and eighteen pence in money, in Gunnersbury Lane, on the road to Brentford. Sixteen-string Jack wore the flowers in his button-hole as he rode dolefully to the gallows. This was witnessed by John Thomas Smith, who thus describes the scene in his admirable anecdotebook, "Nollekens and his Times:"—" I remember well, when I was in my eighth year, Mr. Nollekens calling at my father's house, in Great Portland Street, and taking us to Oxford Street, to see the notorious Jack Rann, commonly called Sixteenstring Jack, go to Tyburn to be hanged. … The criminal was dressed in a pea-green coat, with an immense nosegay in the button-hole, which had been presented to him at St. Sepulchre's steps; and his nankeen small-clothes, we were told, were tied at each knee with sixteen strings. After he had passed, and Mr. Nollekens was leading me home by the hand, I recollect his stooping down to me and observing, in a low tone of voice, 'Tom, now, my little man, if my father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, had been high constable, we could have walked by the side of the cart all the way to Tyburn.'"
When criminals were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, the cart passed up Giltspur Street, and through Smithfield, to Cow Lane. Skinner Street had not then been built, and the Crooked Lane which turned down by St. Sepulchre's, as well as Ozier Lane, did not afford sufficient width to admit of the cavalcade passing by either of them, with convenience, to Holborn Hill, or "the Heavy Hill," as it used to be called. The procession seems at no time to have had much of the solemn element about it. "The heroes of the day were often," says a popular writer, "on good terms with the mob, and jokes were exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged and the men who deserved to be."
"On St. Paul's Day," says Mr. Timbs (1868), "service is performed in St. Sepulchre's, in accordance with the will of Mr. Paul Jervis, who, in 1717, devised certain land in trust that a sermon should be preached in the church upon every Paul's Day upon the excellence of the liturgy o the Church of England; the preacher to receive 40s. for such sermon. Various sums are also bequeathed to the curate, the clerk, the treasurer, and masters of the parochial schools. To the poor of the parish he bequeathed 20s. a-piece to ten of the poorest householders within that part of the parish of St. Sepulchre commonly called Smithfield quarter, £4 to the treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 6s. 8d. yearly to the clerk, who shall attend to receive the same. The residue of the yearly rents and profits is to be distributed unto and amongst such poor people of the parish of St. Sepulchre's, London, who shall attend the service and sermon. At the close of the service the vestry-clerk reads aloud an extract from the will, and then proceeds to the distribution of the money. In the evening the vicar, churchwardens, and common councilmen of the precinct dine together."
In 1749, a Mr. Drinkwater made a praiseworthy bequest. He left the parish of St. Sepulchre £500 to be lent in sums of £25 to industrious young tradesmen. No interest was to be charged, and the money was to be lent for four years.
Next to St. Sepulchre's, on Snow Hill, used to stand the famous old inn of the "Saracen's Head." It was only swept away within the last few years by the ruthless army of City improvers: a view of it in course of demolition was given on page 439. It was one of the oldest of the London inns which bore the "Saracen's Head" for a sign. One of Dick Tarlton's jests makes mention of the "Saracen's Head" without Newgate, and Stow, describing this neighbourhood, speaks particularly of "a fair large inn for receipt of travellers" that "hath to sign the 'Saracen's Head.'" The courtyard had, to the last, many of the characteristics of an old English inn; there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble, the tired passengers creeping forth "thanking their stars in having escaped the highwaymen and the holes and sloughs of the road." Into that courtyard how many have come on their first arrival in London with hearts beating high with hope, some of whom have risen to be aldermen and sit in state as lord mayor, whilst others have gone the way of the idle apprentice and come to a sad end at Tyburn! It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited upon the Yorkshire schoolmaster Squeers, of Dotheboys Hall. Mr. Dickens describes the tavern as it existed in the last days of mail-coaching, when it was a most important place for arrivals and departures in London:—
"Next to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and the Compter and the bustle and noise of the City, and just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the 'Saracen's Head' inn, its portals guarded by two Saracen's heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night, but which have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity, possibly because this species of humour is now confined to St. James's parish, where doorknockers are preferred as being more portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient tooth-picks. Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the door of the hind-boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen's head with a twin expression to the large Saracen's head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is of the Saracenic order."
To explain the use of the Saracen's head as an inn sign various reasons have been given. "When our countrymen," says Selden, "came home from fighting with the Saracens and were beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still see the 'Saracen's Head' is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit." Or the sign may have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy Land either as pilgrims or to fight the Saracens. Others, again, hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of Thomas à Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen. However this may be, it is certain that the use of the sign in former days was very general.
Running past the east end of St. Sepulchre's, from Newgate into West Smithfield, is Giltspur Street, anciently called Knightriders Street. This interesting thoroughfare derives its name from the knights with their gilt spurs having been accustomed to ride this way to the jousts and tournaments which in days of old were held in Smithfield.
In this street was Giltspur Street Compter, a debtors' prison and house of correction appertaining to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. It stood over against St. Sepulchre's Church, and was removed hither from the east side of Wood Street, Cheapside, in 1791. At the time of its removal it was used as a place of imprisonment for debtors, but the yearly increasing demands upon the contracted space caused that department to be given up, and City debtors were sent to Whitecross Street. The architect was Dance, to whom we are also indebted for the grim pile of Newgate. The Compter was a dirty and appropriately convictlooking edifice. It was pulled down in 1855. Mr. Hepworth Dixon gave an interesting account of this City House of Correction, not long before its demolition, in his "London Prisons" (1850). "Entering," he says, "at the door facing St. Sepulchre's, the visitor suddenly finds himself in a low dark passage, leading into the offices of the gaol, and branching off into other passages, darker, closer, more replete with noxious smells, than even those of Newgate. This is the fitting prelude to what follows. The prison, it must be noticed, is divided into two principal divisions, the House of Correction and the Compter. The front in Giltspur Street, and the side nearest to Newgate Street, is called the Compter. In its wards are placed detenues of various kinds—remands, committals from the police-courts, and generally persons waiting for trial, and consequently still unconvicted. The other department, the House of Correction, occupies the back portion of the premises, abutting on Christ's Hospital. Curious it is to consider how thin a wall divides these widely-separate worlds! And sorrowful it is to think what a difference of destiny awaits the children—destiny inexorable, though often unearned in either case—who, on the one side of it or the other, receive an eleemosynary education! The collegian and the criminal! Who shall say how much mere accident— circumstances over which the child has little power —determines to a life of usefulness or mischief? From the yards of Giltspur Street prison almost the only objects visible, outside of the gaol itself, are the towers of Christ's Hospital; the only sounds audible, the shouts of the scholars at their play. The balls of the hospital boys often fall within the yards of the prison. Whether these sights and sounds ever cause the criminal to pause and reflect upon the courses of his life, we will not say, but the stranger visiting the place will be very apt to think for him. …
"In the department of the prison called the House of Correction, minor offenders within the City of London are imprisoned. No transports are sent hither, nor is any person whose sentence is above three years in length." This able writer then goes on to tell of the many crying evils connected with the institution—the want of air, the over-crowded state of the rooms, the absence of proper cellular accommodation, and the vicious intercourse carried on amongst the prisoners. The entire gaol, when he wrote, only contained thirty-six separate sleeping-rooms. Now by the highest prison calculation—and this, be it noted, proceeds on the assumption that three persons can sleep in small, miserable, unventilated cells, which are built for only one, and are too confined for that, being only about one-half the size of the model cell for one at Pentonville—it was only capable of accommodating 203 prisoners, yet by the returns issued at Michaelmas, 1850, it contained 246!
A large section of the prison used to be devoted to female delinquents, but lately it was almost entirely given up to male offenders.
"The House of Correction, and the Compter portion of the establishment," says Mr. Dixon, "are kept quite distinct, but it would be difficult to award the palm of empire in their respective facilities for demoralisation. We think the Compter rather the worse of the two. You are shown into a room, about the size of an apartment in an ordinary dwelling-house, which will be found crowded with from thirty to forty persons, young and old, and in their ordinary costume; the low thief in his filth and rags, and the member of the swell-mob with his bright buttons, flash finery, and false jewels. Here you notice the boy who has just been guilty of his first offence, and committed for trial, learning with a greedy mind a thousand criminal arts, and listening with the precocious instinct of guilty passions to stories and conversations the most depraved and disgusting. You regard him with a mixture of pity and loathing, for he knows that the eyes of his peers are upon him, and he stares at you with a familiar impudence, and exhibits a devil-may-care countenance, such as is only to be met with in the juvenile offender. Here, too, may be seen the young clerk, taken up on suspicion—perhaps innocent—who avoids you with a shy look of pain and uneasiness: what a hell must this prison be to him! How frightful it is to think of a person really untainted with crime, compelled to herd for ten or twenty days with these abandoned wretches!
"On the other, the House of Correction side of the gaol, similar rooms will be found, full of prisoners communicating with each other, laughing and shouting without hindrance. All this is so little in accordance with existing notions of prison discipline, that one is continually fancying these disgraceful scenes cannot be in the capital of England, and in the year of grace 1850. Very few of the prisoners attend school or receive any instruction; neither is any kind of employment afforded them, except oakum-picking, and the still more disgusting labour of the treadmill. When at work, an officer is in attendance to prevent disorderly conduct; but his presence is of no avail as a protection to the less depraved. Conversation still goes on; and every facility is afforded for making acquaintances, and for mutual contamination."
After having long been branded by intelligent inspectors as a disgrace to the metropolis, Giltspur Street Compter was condemned, closed in 1854, and subsequently taken down.
Nearly opposite what used to be the site of the Compter, and adjoining Cock Lane, is the spot called Pie Corner, near which terminated the Great Fire of 1666. The fire commenced at Pudding Lane, it will be remembered, so it was singularly appropriate that it should terminate at Pie Corner. Under the date of 4th September, 1666, Pepys, in his "Diary," records that "W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and comes home late, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her house in Pye Corner being burned; so that the fire is got so far that way." The figure of a fat naked boy stands over a public house at the corner of the lane; it used to have the following warning inscription attached:— "This boy is in memory put up of the late fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." According to Stow, Pie Corner derived its name from the sign of a well-frequented hostelry, which anciently stood on the spot. Strype makes honourable mention of Pie Corner, as "noted chiefly for cooks' shops and pigs dressed there during Bartholomew Fair." Our old writers have many references—and not all, by the way, in the best taste—to its cookstalls and dressed pork. Shadwell, for instance, in the Woman Captain (1680) speaks of "meat dressed at Pie Corner by greasy scullions;" and Ben Jonson writes in the Alchemist (1612)—
"I shall put you in mind, sir, at Pie Corner,
Taking your meal of steam in from cooks' stalls."
And in "The Great Boobee" ("Roxburgh Ballads"):
"Next day I through Pie Corner passed;
The roast meat on the stall
Invited me to take a taste;
My money was but small."
But Pie Corner seems to have been noted for more than eatables. A ballad from Tom D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," describing Bartholomew Fair, eleven years before the Fire of London, says:—
"At Pie-Corner end, mark well my good friend,
'Tis a very fine dirty place;
Where there's more arrows and bows. …
Than was handled at Chivy Chase."
We have already given a view of Pie Corner in our chapter on Smithfield, page 361.
Hosier Lane, running from Cow Lane to Smithfield, and almost parallel to Cock Lane, is described by "R. B.," in Strype, as a place not over-well built or inhabited. The houses were all old timber erections. Some of these—those standing at the south corner of the lane—were in the beginning of this century depicted by Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Ancient Topography of London." He describes them as probably of the reign of James I. The rooms were small, with low, unornamented ceilings; the timber, oak, profusely used; the gables were plain, and the walls lath and plaster. They were taken down in 1809.
In the corner house, in Mr. Smith's time, there was a barber whose name was Catchpole; at least, so it was written over the door. He was rather an odd fellow, and possessed, according to his own account, a famous relic of antiquity. He would gravely show his customers a short-bladed instrument, as the identical dagger with which Walworth killed Wat Tyler.
Hosier Lane, like Pie Corner, used to be a great resort during the time of Bartholomew Fair, "all the houses," it is said in Strype, "generally being made public for tippling."
We return now from our excursion to the north of St. Sepulchre's, and continue our rambles to the west, and before speaking of what is, let us refer to what has been.
Turnagain Lane is not far from this. "Near unto this Seacoal Lane," remarks Stow, "in the turning towards Holborn Conduit, is Turnagain Lane, or rather, as in a record of the 5th of Edward III., Windagain Lane, for that it goeth down west to Fleet Dyke, from whence men must turn again the same way they came, but there it stopped." There used to be a proverb, "He must take him a house in Turnagain Lane."
A conduit formerly stood on Snow Hill, a little below the church. It is described as a building with four equal sides, ornamented with four columns and pediment, surmounted by a pyramid, on which stood a lamb—a rebus on the name of Lamb, from whose conduit in Red Lion Street the water came. There had been a conduit there, however, before Lamb's day, which was towards the close of the sixteenth century.
At No. 37, King Street, Snow Hill, there used to be a ladies' charity school, which was established in 1702, and remained in the parish 145 years. Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale were subscribers to this school, and Johnson drew from it his story of Betty Broom, in "The Idler." The world of domestic service, in Betty's days, seems to have been pretty much as now. Betty was a poor girl, bred in the country at a charity-school, maintained by the contributions of wealthy neighbours. The patronesses visited the school from time to time, to see how the pupils got on, and everything went well, till "at last, the chief of the subscribers having passed a winter in London, came down full of an opinion new and strange to the whole country. She held it little less than criminal to teach poor girls to read and write. They who are born to poverty, she said, are born to ignorance, and will work the harder the less they know. She told her friends that London was in confusion by the insolence of servants; that scarcely a girl could be got for all-work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies, that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of a waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles, and to sit at work in the parlour window. But she was resolved, for her part, to spoil no more girls. Those who were to live by their hands should neither read nor write out of her pocket. The world was bad enough already, and she would have no part in making it worse.
"She was for a long time warmly opposed; but she persevered in her notions, and withdrew her subscription. Few listen, without a desire of conviction, to those who advise them to spare their money. Her example and her arguments gained ground daily; and in less than a year the whole parish was convinced that the nation would be ruined if the children of the poor were taught to read and write." So the school was dissolved, and Betty with the rest was turned adrift into the wide and cold world; and her adventures there any one may read in "The Idler" for himself.
There is an entry in the school minutes of 1763, to the effect that the ladies of the committee censured the schoolmistress for listening to the story of the Cock Lane ghost, and "desired her to keep her belief in the article to herself."
Skinner Street—now one of the names of the past—which ran by the south side of St. Sepulchre's, and formed the connecting link between Newgate Street and Holborn, received its name from Alderman Skinner, through whose exertions, about 1802, it was principally built. The following account of Skinner Street is from the picturesque pen of Mr. William Harvey ("Aleph"), whose long familiarity with the places he describes renders doubly valuable his many contributions to the history of London scenes and people:—"As a building speculation," he says, writing in 1863, "it was a failure. When the buildings were ready for occupation, tall and substantial as they really were, the high rents frightened intending shopkeepers. Tenants were not to be had; and in order to get over the money difficulty, a lottery, sanctioned by Parliament, was commenced. Lotteries were then common tricks of finance, and nobody wondered at the new venture; but even the most desperate fortune-hunters were slow to invest their capital, and the tickets hung sadly on hand. The day for the drawing was postponed several times, and when it came, there was little or no excitement on the subject, and whoever rejoiced in becoming a house-owner on such easy terms, the original projectors and builders were understood to have suffered considerably. The winners found the property in a very unfinished condition. Few of the dwellings were habitable, and as funds were often wanting, a majority of the houses remained empty, and the shops unopened. After two or three years things began to improve; the vast many-storeyed house which then covered the site of Commercial Place was converted into a warehousing depôt; a capital house opposite the 'Saracen's Head' was taken by a hosier of the name of Theobald, who, opening his shop with the determination of selling the best hosiery, and nothing else, was able to convince the citizens that his hose was first-rate, and, desiring only a living profit, succeeded, after thirty years of unwearied industry, in accumulating a large fortune. Theobald was possessed of literary tastes, and at the sale of Sir Walter Scott's manuscripts was a liberal purchaser. He also collected a library of exceedingly choice books, and when aristocratic customers purchased stockings of him, was soon able to interest them in matters of far higher interest…
"The most remarkable shop—but it was on the left-hand side, at a corner house—was that established for the sale of children's books. It boasted an immense extent of window-front, extending from the entrance into Snow Hill, and towards Fleet Market. Many a time have I lingered with loving eyes over those fascinating story-books, so rich in gaily-coloured prints; such careful editions of the marvellous old histories, 'Puss in Boots,' 'Cock Robin,' 'Cinderella,' and the like. Fortunately the front was kept low, so as exactly to suit the capacity of a childish admirer. . . . . But Skinner Street did not prosper much, and never could compete with even the dullest portions of Holborn. I have spoken of some reputable shops; but you know the proverb, 'One swallow will not make a summer,' and it was a declining neighbourhood almost before it could be called new. In 1810 the commercial depôt, which had been erected at a cost of £25,000, and was the chief prize in the lottery, was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt—a heavy blow and discouragement to Skinner Street, from which it never rallied. Perhaps the periodical hanging-days exercised an unfavourable influence, collecting, as they frequently did, all the thieves and vagabonds of London. I never sympathised with Pepys or Charles Fox in their passion for public executions, and made it a point to avoid those ghastly sights; but early of a Monday morning, when I had just reached the end of Giltspur Street, a miserable wretch had just been turned off from the platform of the debtors' door, and I was made the unwilling witness of his last struggles. That scene haunted me for months, and I often used to ask myself, 'Who that could help it would live in Skinner Street?' The next unpropitious event in these parts was the unexpected closing of the child's library. What could it mean? Such a well-to-do establishment shut up? Yes, the whole army of shutters looked blankly on the inquirer, and forbade even a single glance at 'Sinbad' or 'Robinson Crusoe.' It would soon be re-opened, we naturally thought; but the shutters never came down again. The whole house was deserted; not even a messenger in bankruptcy, or an ancient Charley, was found to regard the playful double knocks of the neighbouring juveniles. Gradually the glass of all the windows got broken in, a heavy cloud of black dust, solidifying into inches thick, gathered on sills and doors and brickwork, till the whole frontage grew as gloomy as Giant Despair's Castle. Not long after, the adjoining houses shared the same fate, and they remained from year to year without the slightest sign of life—absolute scarecrows, darkening with their uncomfortable shadows the busy streets. Within half a mile, in Stamford Street, Blackfriars, there are (1863) seven houses in a similar predicament— window-glass demolished, doors cracked from top to bottom, spiders' webs hanging from every projecting sill or parapet. What can it mean? The loss in the article of rents alone must be over £1,000 annually. If the real owners are at feud with imaginary owners, surely the property might be rendered valuable, and the proceeds invested. Even the lawyers can derive no profit from such hopeless abandonment. I am told the whole mischief arose out of a Chancery suit. Can it be the famous 'Jarndyce v. Jarndyce' case? And have all the heirs starved each other out? If so, what hinders our lady the Queen from taking possession? Any change would be an improvement, for these dead houses make the streets they cumber as dispiriting and comfortless as graveyards. Busy fancy will sometimes people them, and fill the dreary rooms with strange guests. Do the victims of guilt congregate in these dark dens? Do wretches 'unfriended by the world or the world's law,' seek refuge in these deserted nooks, mourning in the silence of despair over their former lives, and anticipating the future in unappeasable agony? Such things have been—the silence and desolation of these doomed dwellings make them the more suitable for such tenants."
A street is nothing without a mystery, so a mystery let these old tumble-down houses remain, whilst we go on to tell that, in front of No. 58, the sailor Cashman was hung in 1817, as we have already mentioned, for plundering a gunsmith's shop there. William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams," kept a bookseller's shop for several years in Skinner Street, at No. 41, and published school-books in the name of Edward Baldwin. On the wall there was a stone carving of Æsop reciting one of his fables to children.
The most noteworthy event of the life of Godwin was his marriage with the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of a "Vindication of the Rights of Women," whose congenial mind, in politics and morals, he ardently admired. Godwin's account of the way in which they got on together is worth reading:—"Ours," he writes, "was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention, that influenced by ideas I had long entertained, I engaged an apartment about twenty doors from our house, in the Polygon, Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. Trifles, however, will be interesting to some readers, when they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I will add, therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society. Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make my appearance in the Polygon till the hour of dinner. We agreed in condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed society but in company with each other, and we rather sought occasions of deviating from than of complying with this rule. By this means, though, for the most part, we spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit with the more delicious and heartfelt pleasure of a domestic life."
This philosophic union, to Godwin's inexpressible affliction, did not last more than eighteen months, at the end of which time Mrs. Godwin died, leaving an only daughter, who in the course of time became the second wife of the poet Shelley, and was the author of the wild and extraordinary tale of "Frankenstein."
When you descend into the New York City subway system, down underground, you never really know what you're going to encounter. Sometimes it's scary, sometimes it's great. On this particular occasion on a Saturday afternoon, it was great. I was on my way home after visiting the International Center of Photography museum at Sixth Avenue and 43rd Street (1133 Avenue of the Americas, for all you old-timer YOURDON Inc. fans), where I spent an hour looking at some brilliant, but also somber and depressing, Depression-era photos taken by Lewis Hine. (Hine is perhaps better known to non-photographers as the man who took the breathtaking photos of the workers building the Empire State building -- see this website for some sample photographs). Alas, Hine died in 1940 in a state of near-anonymity and abject poverty; a few months before his death, he had lost his house because he couldn't keep up with the payments...
I don't upload many video clips to my Flickr site, and I haven't had the chance to record much "subway music" lately. But this particular scene was particularly interesting to me, because the band persuaded one of the bystanders to join in their group, providing a reasonably rhythmic clanging sound on a cowbell that was provided to him.
As for me: I recorded two different video clips, of which this was the better one. After a couple minutes, the uptown train arrived at the station, and I got aboard.... for all I know, the band is still there, playing their hearts out ...
Prompted by the upcoming release of IQ84 by Haruki Murakami, and the possibility of him winning the nobel prize for literature, I decided to talk a little bit about my favorite author (and other authors).
Here is a grainy impression of what my "real books" shelf has on it. This is the zone of the book shelf that I read from most often (if I'm not getting and/or reading something new, that is). This shelf is out in the living room which has crappity light for photos at night time, so I will try and replace this with a larger and more well lit photo tomorrow.
What you see here are basically some of my favorite books of all time, some of them have been for up to 15 years… for example "Lizard" and "Kitchen" have been favorites since my mid-teens, whereas "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" has been a favorite for about 12 years now (the Japanese version, as well… though I have to admit to only having read the missing chapters… there are chapters missing in the English adaptation, which is what prompted me to originally get the Japanese set back about 11 years ago).
There are also differences between the soft and hardcover versions of the Japanese, though I'll also admit I'm not skilled enough yet to be able to just SIT and ENJOY the books in Japanese yet (as one would with a book in their native language)… they are still mostly study aides, taken a few pages at a time when the mood strikes.
I have more books than this, obviously, but a lot of them are "guilty pleasure" books… no, not romance novels, I just mean books I read once but that didn't leave a very lasting impression on me. Also, all of my manga and most of my study books are in my office, and I have already done some talking about them on flickr a few times before. :) These here are gathered together because they are the most important to me, personally. I've read most of them more than once, and about half of them closer to 5 times. Wind-Up Bird I've read probably upwards of 7 full times over the last 12 years.
Starting with the books on top there, on the left first...
- "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" - Haruki Murakami
this is the only book in the picture that I haven't read yet. I started it but it is not like his usual, and I'm finding it a little hard to get rolling and interested. I kind of wish that "Underground" was in this picture instead (but it's currently next to my bed). "Underground" I first finished reading while on my honeymoon in Japan… which is quite possibly the best place to read it, as I was able to strongly visualize EXACTLY where many of the events (real events of the Sarin Gas Attack) took place on the Tokyo subway lines.
- "Idoru" - William Gibson
I actually wish "Robot Visions" by Isaac Asimov was here instead… but "Idoru" still an interesting book. It might bother people who really know their Japanese pop culture in depth, but as a quick bite to eat, I rather enjoy it from time to time.
- 異邦人 - アルベール・カミュ
"The Stranger" - Albert Camus… in Japanese, paperback.
- B級BANANA- 吉本ばなな
- パイナツプリン - 吉本ばなな
Two books (essays) by Banana Yoshimoto that I do not think have been translated to English. I used these for reading practice from time to time.
- ねじまき鳥クロニクル 〜泥棒かささぎ編
- ねじまき鳥クロニクル 〜予言する鳥編
- ねじまき鳥クロニクル 〜鳥刺し男編
- 村上春樹
The three books in the series "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami by favorite book(s) of all time), in Japanese, paperback. I also have the first two volumes in hardcover which I finally was able to find while in Japan. Additionally I picked up the French language paperback while I was in France a few years ago. I also have this book twice in English (one of which I bought for my husband before we lived together). I've also bought this book (in English) for several other people in my life as the years have gone by. It is the one book that I recommend to people that I am willing to put forward the money to assure they get a copy, lol.
Next to those is a stack of…
- Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
- Lizard
- Kitchen
- NP
- Asleep
- Goodbye Tsugumi
all by Banana Yoshimoto
Now the bottom, starting from the left…
- After Dark
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
- The Elephant Vanishes
- Kafka on the Shore
- Sputnik Sweetheart
- Norwegian Wood
- South of the Border, West of the Sun
- Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- A Wild Sheep Chase
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
all by Haruki Murakami… hey, I told you he was my favorite. lol
- The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Excellent, excellent book… I highly recommend this to basically everyone. lol
- 象の消滅 （短篇選集 1980-1991）- 村上春樹
"The Elephant Vanishes" short story anthology, by Haruki Murakami in Japanese, paperback
Apart from Wind-Up Bird... I would highly recommend "The Elephant Vanishes" to those who want to get a quick taste of Murakami's style before delving into one of his novels. Wind-Up bird is upward of 600 pages long, which is daunting for some folks... so if that bothers you, start with this book first, and see how it goes. :)
- ねじまき鳥クロニクル ～泥棒かささぎ編
- ねじまき鳥クロニクル ～予言する鳥編
- 村上春樹
again… the first two volumes of the hardcover of "Wind-Up Bird" in Japanese by Haruki Murakami
- The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
This was my first introduction to the work of Ayn Rand. The person who told me to read this book intended for me to see how "evil" and "bad" she was. I am always a skeptic, so went into reading it without thinking about what the person had told me about her. After this, and some additional research about her, I ended up discovering someone (her) who understood and could verbalize things I always felt but was not articulate enough myself to put into words. Oh... and by the way, she is not bad nor evil... she is exactly the opposite.
- "The God Delusion" - Richard Dawkins
I have several books by him, one of them I have misplaced, and the other two are by my bedside waiting to be re-read in one case, and read for the first time in another case. I highly recommend this book, also, to almost everyone.
Finally, one that is slightly cut off here…
"Cats Are Not Peas - a Calico History of Genetics" - Laura Gould
This book is one of the things that first got me deeply interested in genetics, and which I would also recommend to anyone who is interested in discovering basic genetics and / or loves cats, hehehe.
There are also several books that I wish could also be in this photo. Two of those, for example, being "The Dragons of Eden" and "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan... I highly, highly recommend both... again, to everyone.
The Mardi Himal Trek is a scenic Himalayan journey in the Annapurna region. The trail passes through lush forests, traditional villages, and high mountain ridges. The highlight is Mardi Himal Base Camp at 4,500 meters, offering stunning views of Annapurna, Machapuchare, and Hiunchuli. With quiet trails and beautiful landscapes, this trek is perfect for nature lovers and adventure seekers.
I received him this week and I was so excited I did a simple and natural make up for this one. Though he's full of flaws Harucasting did an amazing job. I put him on a SD17 body but strangely the head seems bigger than when I tried with the proto. I wanted the proportions to be realistic but not sure if it's ok. For now he's waiting for his wig and I have to find him some realistic eyes. I'll take better photos later when I'll finish his custom.
a gentle reminder.
Ruin: 'Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional', Isaac Fitzgerald appeals, that 'New man' idea. I am going to look at him and Michael Winkler (current reading) and 'Grimmish'. In a way I feel as if I have to understand 'us', men, though I am a very queer one. That males are running on a hugely diminished Y chromosome, apparently running at 3% of its former full glory, makes us worth a look at, that eclipsing.
Personally, I think it's a great thing. Anyway, it's happening, so why not take a look at how my gender is dealing with it, embracing trans and all that palaver, and hormone disruptors in the environment, that wondrous gelding? I don't really have interest in the male in 'crisis', more in the 'changing' that's going on, and the 'changeling', that new type of fairy, being generated.
Of course I see it in our parents too, I am even thinking of a certain other 'Bill'. It's not like it all suddenly began in 1990.
Sapolsky (In his wondrous book 'Behave') dealt with the passive male in his study of apes, and how when the rampaging alpha males were off on the warpath, attacking each other over territories, or whatever those 'loveable rogues' like to scrap over, peace was restored in the group. The result was that many of the more aggressive males were killed off in these skirmishes, leaving the more passive, 'friendly' males in an increasingly matriarchal group. The result was a rash of mutual grooming, and an increased interest in white goods and window treatments.
You see, there is hope. I love this 'awful edge' we find ourselves on. I am interested in there being some 'ingenuity' that might turn everything around. It's not as if it hasn't happened before. It might also just be a matter or perspective.
I suspect that nature naturally generates antidotes (and anecdotes too, it might appear), and these might first start to appear in Art and Literature (both of the afore-mentioned 'dotes', as nature would have it), following that old 'in the beginning was the Word' idea.
I do love me some canaries. I also like the idea of nature generating both Art and Literature, and concrete, and cities, for that matter, and all sorts of hormone disrupting plastics.
Rack: Here’s to a rash of mutual grooming. Interesting that you are looking at the notion of manhood, even in its decline. It is in an odd place. Jan apologized to me recently for mansplaining and it took me off guard. As if his raison d’etre had been outlawed. I never mind mansplaining as long as it’s interesting. I need it. There’s so much I don’t understand or know, so I’ve always loved my brain heavy men friends feeding me tid bits. But don’t tell.
Ruin: My feeling is that men are in decline and that needs describing too. I wouldn't want to do that if I felt that the decline was a problem, being indifferent to it might make it easier to describe. I can describe it because I am in decline too, that age and disease thing, and I am more or less indifferent to those two too. Perhaps I don't see it as decline, but more as a natural leavening out. I almost wrote "more of a natural evening out". I could sure do with one of those. LOL as we love to say nowadays.
Currently reading 'Grimmish', about a record breaking punchbag of a man who lived his life being beaten up, and beaten into second place, in a boxing ring, breaking all records for what someone could endure. Sound familiar?
Coetzee loved it, and if it's good enough for him, who am I to question it?
Rack: There is that obligatory conversation one has with one’s peers about the increased phenomenon of trans youth. What amazes me is how reactionary even the most liberal of people are. Actually, it doesn’t amaze me at all, I completely understand, but I stay silent as I know I can’t understand what is happening. I do think it is part of evolution, and not just a social construct.
I had a look on Google. Sounds intriguing. Someone should option it.
Ruin: Anyway, this geezer self published it, and is now finding himself universally lauded and put up for all sort of literary prizes. Isaac Fitzgerald sounds interesting too, same topic, masculinity fizzling out. I like his Jewish/Irish name.
Sorry dearest. I am ranting a bit. Sad to hear about Jan apologising about perhaps mansplaining. This is a universal problem, this self censorship. I can't imagine it being helpful as far as creativity is concerned at all. He must know you well enough to know you respect him, and he respects and loves you. I guess this self-policing is becoming like a reflex reaction.
Rack: I think we all have a lot of fear about how our behaviour is being policed. Are we racist? Are we transphobic? Are we elitist? Are we mansplaining? As you say, it’s not helpful and it doesn’t actually assist any of the issues it purports to protect. I fear we are in a very dark corner. Some days I find this very liberating. Not all days. Reading about the US government’s attitude to climate change is frightening. Also, Republican’s attitudes towards Anthony Fauci. Horrifying. He has just resigned. Bless.
Ruin: See Rack, I want you to outshine me, simply because you can.
I am slowly working it out, what I want to say, I mean. Yes, life is startlingly brief, and made more obvious in these pandemic days. I feel like it has taken two pandemics to wake me up, somewhat. I still hesitate, still prevaricate, but sometimes I get some of it down.
Time does feel like it's pressing, whilst I realise that at the same time, time doesn't press at all.
I am getting myself to that point of writing offline completely, it's been a struggle. I am, like everyone else, somewhat addicted to 'likes'. Flickr is my only 'social media', the only one I use. It's been a lifeline for a long time, long before this account, even. The place itself does seem to be winding down generally anyway.
And now we have the added delights of Monkeypox. What an interesting time we are living, and declining, through.
I am beginning to feel plate-ready, I must admit, though there is probably time for a little garnishing.
It’s strange, that idea that we might blame the monkey, or the place the monkey might have come from. It’s like blaming the canary in the coalmine. It makes no sense at all.
A bronze paperweight in the shape of a
sitting monkey holding her young in her lap.
China, late Ming period, 17th century
Height: 5 cm
猴
青銅鎮紙
坐母猴懷中抱著一隻幼猴形的銅製鎮紙
明後期, 十七世紀
H.: 5 厘米
Yes, to that idea of diversity. The way I see it now is that it is just all about economy, the economising of time. I suspect its something I learnt here in Pragmaland. I am never going to have those 17 hours to put to one side, to read a book. The audiobook of ‘Shuggie Bain’ is over 17 hours. It’s good to listen to, whilst getting on with those other rote duties. It’s also an exercise in filtering. I don’t want to write something like the wonderful ‘Shuggie Bain’, I don’t want to write a Dickensian novel of hardship and eventual redemption. The romanticisation of poverty, or reveries around it, is not really a ring I want to spar in, no matter how tinged with local colour it might be. Irish poverty was very different from English poverty in the 50s and 60s, or even Scottish poverty for that matter. It’s still interesting to see that there was a strong sectarian divide there too in Scotland, that catholic versus protestant thing. I think that the time for another ‘Angela’s Ashes’ is past. I don’t want it to be that form at all. So, I am learning something just from listening. I don’t want to go anywhere near a ‘Clarissa’ either, none of that palpitating bosomy me against the shackles of propriety. That was an easy one to see off, but it did take listening to over 300 pages. It gave me ideas about form, and that’s more than enough to take from any attempt to communicate. It led me to the idea that it has to be more radical even, that the epistolary can be included but not allowed to take over.
Victim schmictim, as they say, enough of all that. I am more interested in the full glorious comical horror of being, and how we maneuver our way around that, how we embrace our ‘foodiness’, how branded and sore we work our way through life towards that plate, that presenting ourselves to be eaten. It’s the consciousness of it happening that makes it wonderful. It celebrates nature’s awe-inspiring cannabilism.
We know it, we have been over it a thousand time, millions of times even. It’s in the Upanishad that we love:
“I am food, I am food, I am food! I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food! I am the poet, I am the poet, I am the poet! I am the first-born of the Right. Before the Devas I was in the centre of all that is immortal. He who gives me away, he alone preserves me: him who eats food, I eat as food.”
It’s a big one, I know.
Sapolsky talks about it in that interview with Huberman. It’s interesting to see them dance around it, and it introduces, at the end, Sapolsky’s latest musings and writings, his current struggle to find the words to convey something similar. He says he is progressing slowly on this new book of his. I imagine he is, it’s a huge idea, this landscape where ‘Free-Will’ doesn’t exist. That he somehow gets there through that other landscape of Neuroscience and his research into stress amongst primates, that 35 years of studying baboons in their natural habitat, is astonishing.
So here we are, wandering and wondering on our personal savannahs, you and I, amusing and disturbing ourselves into skirting depression and joy, picking over the carrion of centuries to continue a description of us and everything that went before us. It’s a complete folly, and we know it, but it is also joyous, this manufactured dirt-scratching in an attempt to imbue it all with some meaning. Yes, research can be too much of a distraction, and sometimes you have to sit down and add to it all. That’s not really a ‘have to’, it’s more an instinct. It might be arrogant to think that you have something to add to the pile, but it is also a realization that we all have exactly the same yearning and ability, and all do it anyway just through living, and eventually dying. We are all describers. But then, perhaps, the artist, or writer, or would be creator, has the effrontery to think that he or she (or dare I say it?) might be able to condense a certain aspect of what it is to be, so that it becomes a sort of mirror reflecting us back on ourselves. We all, all of what is, gift to each other those signs and signifiers, constantly, anyway. They are our personal vortexes.
You know I love winter, and I know you do too. We both know that life goes on beneath the soil, under the dirt, that mulcher. Covid throws it all somewhat more into that darkness, that fear of the boogeyman, our ‘plateworthyness’. I know the word doesn’t exist, but knowing some Dutch, I have learnt that words can be pushed together, can be forced to say what you mean. The Dutch, in their pragmatism, do this to language. It’s both their strength and their downfall, which could, of course, be said about absolutely everything.
Yes, to support systems, I am happy to buttress you as you buttress me. There will be more, but this will have to suffice for now. It’s still early morning and our library is begging me to disseminate it.
I accidentally, some years ago, smashed this beautiful Japanese plate into hundreds of pieces. That's how the universe works. It had managed to survive for a few hundred years before we cross-pollinated and it, unfortunately, encountered my arrogance.
John: Truthfully, whenever I self identify as an artist, I feel slightly phoney. However, what you wrote here has the ring of truth.
" But then, perhaps, the artist, or writer, or would be creator, has the effrontery to think that he or she (or dare I say it?) might be able to condense a certain aspect of what it is to be, so that it becomes a sort of mirror reflecting us back on ourselves. We all, all of what is, gift to each other those signs and signifiers, constantly, anyway. They are our personal vortexes."
The older I get, the briefer I realise life to be.
Ruin: Weaving here, John, in that habit I have, and moving this forward to the latest image.
All Rights Reserved: If you use any of my photos for any use at what so ever, like or comment on them and source them as well, please.
He said "Give me one reason to make you stay. I need you... " And, he sent me this note...
I am so into those sweet words....
And now I'm thinking to myself... WHY SHOULD I LEAVE ??? Gosh, I need him, for the rest of my life... I really do...
On his return the jackal busied himself with making preparations for the great ceremony. As the weaver was clad in tatters, he told him to go to the washermen of the village and borrow from [222]them a suit of clothes. As for himself, he went to the king of his race, and told him that on a certain day he would like one thousand jackals to accompany him to a certain place. He went to the king of crows, and begged that his corvine majesty would be pleased to allow one thousand of his black subjects to accompany him on a certain day to a certain place. He preferred a similar petition to the king of paddy-birds.
At last the great day arrived. The weaver arrayed himself in the clothes which he had borrowed from the village washermen. The jackal made his appearance, accompanied by a train of a thousand jackals, a thousand crows, and a thousand paddy-birds. The nuptial procession started on their journey, and towards sundown arrived within two miles of the king’s palace. There the jackal told his friends, the thousand jackals, to set up a loud howl; at his bidding the thousand crows cawed their loudest; while the hoarse screechings of the thousand paddy-birds furnished a suitable accompaniment. The effect may be imagined. They all together made a noise the like of which had never been heard since the world began. While this unearthly noise was going on, the jackal himself hastened to the palace, and asked the king whether he thought he would be able to accommodate the wedding-party, which was about two miles distant, and whose noise was at that moment sounding in his ears. The king said “Impossible, Sivalu; from the sound of the procession I infer there must be at least one hundred thousand souls. [223]How is it possible to accommodate so many guests? Please, so arrange that the bridegroom only will come to my house.” “Very well,” said the jackal; “I told you at the beginning that you would not be able to accommodate all the attendants of my august master. I’ll do as you wish. My master will alone come in undress. Send a horse for the purpose.”
The rainbow is a symbol conjuring up images of stickers and wall hangings in dorms. It takes us back to The Wizard of Oz and Finian's Rainbow, stories of wishful thinking. Yet the story from scripture offers a promise that gives us hope and helps us to sustain faith, God's covenant with earth. God's covenant is between Him and us, we are the recipients.
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Faithful God, thank you for splashing the skies with a bright reminder that you are as near to us as the sunlight and the rain. May we be covenant people responding in love. Amen.
...................................
Found him on trek, foothills of kudremukh range in lush green vegetation and to add, it was drizzling to give that beautiful wet look on the mosses. This is one of the fastest arboreal, mildly venomous snakes. Venom is toxic only to small animals. It may bite repeatedly if handled
For updates on Western Ghats "Like" MY Page and stay tuned.
"Rakkaani, nyt me olemme Jumalan lapsia, eikä ole vielä käynyt ilmi, mitä meistä tulee. Me tiedämme tulevamme hänen kaltaisikseen, kun hän ilmestyy, sillä me saamme nähdä hänet sellaisena, kuin hän on."
"Mina älskade, vi äro nu Guds barn, och vad vi skola bliva, det är ännu icke uppenbart. Men det veta vi, att när han en gång uppenbaras, skola vi bliva honom lika; ty då skola vi få se honom sådan han är."
"Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is."
1. Joh. 3:2
"Katso, hän tulee pilvissä, ja kaikki silmät saavat nähdä hänet, niidenkin, jotka hänet lävistivät, ja kaikki maan sukukunnat vaikeroitsevat hänen tullessansa. Totisesti, amen."
"Se, han kommer med skyarna, och allas ögon skola se honom, ja ock deras som hava stungit honom; och alla släkter på jorden skola jämra sig vid hans åsyn. Ja, amen."
"Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Even so, Amen."
Rev. 1:7
Like most border collies, Barney lives to RUN. He'll go all day if you let him... I've walked him for 9 hrs before (him off lead most of the way) and he still wanted to play fetch when we got back. On holiday, Barney will run, swim and play for 2 or 3 hours in the morning, then another few hours in the afternoon, then an hour or so in the evening and happily keep going like that every day we're there. I have to make him take breaks and even with heaps of extra food, he inevitably returns home a walking skeleton.
Usually, Barney has to be content with less exercise, but still goes out every day (whatever the weather) and definitely makes the most of outings. He is usually disinterested in sniffing stuff, or interacting with other dogs; preferring to spend his time bounding along at top speed. Toys aren't needed as incentive, simply being off leash in a field, or wood is enough to get him galloping! Barney's pure joy as he runs free like this never fails to make me smile. This was taken on a new walk, so he was extra excited - lots of "4 off the floor" pics that day.
Apologies for the lack of commenting/activity this week... One my close relatives really isn't well, so we've been dealing with that and I went to visit them earlier in the week. Then my hamster Boris vanished. No idea how he escaped - cage doors were shut, no holes etc. I suspect he may have been taken out and lost by our lodger's friend, but can't prove it! Stayed up v. late a couple of nights, sitting in the dark listening for movements but I heard nothing.
Dad and I practically destroyed a sofa in our front room, thinking he might be there... Even Barney joined the search (he knows who "Boris" is - but he just kept indicating at hammie's cage and old bedding used in a make shift "trap"). Finally on Fri night, I left some food in another room, on the off chance he wasn't where I thought... It had gone on Sat morning - so I put the cage in there with the doors open, 20 mins later I found him sitting inside. Few! I'll catch up with everyone soon - although I'm afraid next week is looking busy too, especially as my relative is still struggling.
Reached Explore #455
In background from right to left : Annapurna II (7.937m), Lamjung Himal (peak north west : 6.897m) in the Annapurna Himal region.
Special thanks to 911Bug for making the decals. Please check him out; he's awesome. From left to right are new characters from The Morcia Chronicles:
Sir Knight is one of the best knights of Morcia. He succeeds in the mightiest quests and follows the codes of honour. His swordsmanship is excellent, which helps him many times in battle. In person, he is very hearty. He drinks a lot and likes his women very much. Many may say he's an arsehole, which is very much true, but only in a good way.
Jonathan is a visitor from the Days of Later. He came from a ship made of dwarven machinery, which has lead many to belive he is secretly a troll. Of course, he is not really a troll. He is a kindhearted human. He frequently wears an elven outfit that he bought the first time he visited, as he wants to fit in with the world he is in.
Robert is a comrade of Jonathan that came to Ashlar with him. He honestly doesn't care for the land and is only there because Jon is.
Clone is a warrior from the Days of Later. He did not know Jon or Rob before he came to Ashlar, and seems to know more than them. Perhaps he is from farther in the future? Although he almost always wears his helmet, he is not a silent man. He enjoys to talk about things from his land that no one can understand. He is also a sorcerer of great magic. He can make things move without touching them and also has a magic blade. He is also one of the greatest friends of Knight, one that he will never forget.
Luke 2:21-22 (NLT)
Jesus presented at the temple
21 Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived. 22 Then it was time for their purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
DRAWING NOTES:
TIME OF DAY:
Unspecified by Bible. Mid morning.
LIGHTING NOTES:
Sunlight from the east (right hand side of this scene) can be seen on the right hand side of the figures.
CHARACTERS PRESENT:
Joseph, the husband of Mary is leading their donkey. Mary is riding their donkey, holding the infant Jesus.
RESEARCH/ADDITIONAL NOTES:
The circumcision of the baby Jesus probably occurred in Bethlehem, 8 days after his birth. According to the Mosaic Law (the law handed down to Moses by God), for forty days a woman was considered unclean after the birth of a child. For this reason Mary, as a sinner, had to bring a sacrifice to the Lord in the Temple in Jerusalem, to atone for her uncleanness. This scene shows Joseph, Mary and Jesus going toward the walled city of Jerusalem, in southern Israel, where she would offer that sacrifice.
Mary and Joseph, carrying the bay Jesus would have walked to Jerusalem, and then navigated their way to the Temple. They would have walked across the largest courtyard, called the court of the Gentiles. It was here that Jesus overturned the money changers tables (see Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46; John 2:13-16) later in his adult life. The holy family would have walked through the court of the Gentiles and stopped to buy their 2 turtledoves or two young pigeons sacrifice, before proceeding through a gate into the inner sanctuary inclosure, where no gentile was allowed to venture, on pain of death.
The inner sanctuary inclosure comprised the court of the women, the court of Israel and the priests' court, with the temple itself in the very middle of the whole courtyards structure. Women were not permitted to go through the gate beyond the court of women, so all of the scenes that make up this collection (Luke 02 - Prophecies about Jesus - scenes 01-06) must have occurred in the court of women.
Mary offered two turtledoves or two young pigeons, as a sacrifice, (verse 24) which suggests they were not wealthy, since Leviticus chp 12:8 [1] states that “If a woman cannot afford to bring a lamb, she must bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons.” Joseph and Mary offered pigeons, so their relative poverty could be assumed from this fact. Notice that this sacrifice was for the purification of Mary, not for the child.
Following the Mosaic Law and customs, Mary would lay hands on the pigeons, then a priest from the temple would take them to the southwest corner of the altar, wringing one bird’s neck as a sin offering and burning the other as a whole burnt offering.
As stated earlier, the offering of the sacrifice was to atone for Mary’s uncleanness, not the babies. As far as we know, Jesus never offered a sacrifice himself during his life time on earth.
Flowering plants in this scene.
Oriental Flax (Linum Mucronatum Bertol)
The small yellow flowering bush, by the walls of the track, is Oriental Flax, one of several species that grows in the Judean Mountains. Related to this species is the cultivated flax (Linum usitatissimum ), which differs from Oriental Flax in that it has blue flowers. Since ancient times cultivated flax has been a source of linen fibres, extracted from the stem, and of linseed oil, extracted from the seed.
Common Caper (Capparis Spinosa L.)
The white petalled flower in the right foreground of this scene is the Common Caper, also called Flinders rose, a perennial plant that has Biblical connections with the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah, who organized the reconstruction of the walls after the exile to Babylon, was assisted by Hanun, the sixth son of Zalaf (zalaf means caper in Hebrew). As well as growing on walls, the caper can be found in rock crevices and cliffs. The reputation of the Hebrew nation for its tenacity and ability to rise again after being cut back, is owed in part to comparison to this plant, which returns with new shoots even after someone has tried to uproot it from a wall.
The unopened buds of the caper have been used since ancient times as a condiment (also known as caprisin). Pickled in salt and vinegar, caper buds are considered a delicacy.
[1]
Leviticus 12:6-8 New Living Translation (NLT)
6 “When the time of purification is completed for either a son or a daughter, the woman must bring a one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove for a purification offering. She must bring her offerings to the priest at the entrance of the Tabernacle.[a] 7 The priest will then present them to the Lord to purify her.[b] Then she will be ceremonially clean again after her bleeding at childbirth. These are the instructions for a woman after the birth of a son or a daughter.
8 “If a woman cannot afford to bring a lamb, she must bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons. One will be for the burnt offering and the other for the purification offering. The priest will sacrifice them to purify her, and she will be ceremonially clean.”
see this cartoon & many more at www.biblecartoons.co.uk
Again the other day I took the long way to St. Louis to pick up my wife at the airport (takes us 3 hours to go to an airport) and I went through Callaway County to the Missouri River and followed it to St. Louis. I stopped and talked to a guy about an old house across the road from him and he told me about another house that was slowly being tore down. He said that it had a point on the roof and that the old owner was a slave holder and he would watch the slaves at that peak to make sure that they were working. I don't know if that would be just lore or truth. I would have missed this place by 2 miles had I not talked to him!! You probably don't want to know what you have driven past near by. I had seen one pic of this place on Flickr, but didn't know where it was but in Callaway County, so you can imagine how cool it was to catch the first glimpse of this building! I have more versions of this, but they are from a distance since there was several Trespasing signs and a locked gate with a sheriffs association plaque on the post, so they mean't it. I didn't have time talk to more locals, but I will call their historical society and post an update. I have a shot where the house is in better sunlight, but this I thought this moving sun spot added mood to the road area. Anybody who would want to guess to this buildings purpose I would like to hear. I thought maybe a boarding house of some kind with a bell tower.?
I'm now selling prints, framed or otherwise, in a range of sizes. If anyone wishes to buy any of my images please get in touch via Flickr or facebook. Thank you.
This was a quick shot I managed to grab on my birthday last week. It's not my best image but this is pretty close to what I was looking at and a great sunset for the start of my 32nd year! I did have to abandon the car in the middle of some traffic at a dangerous enough crossroads but eh...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgSPVhwqjX0
It’s in the way she often calls me out
It’s in the curve of your pretty gown
Your come on legs and your pantyhose
You look so precious with your bloody nose
We gonna come together, We gonna celebrate
We gonna gather round, like it’s your birthday
I don’t wanna know, just what I’m gonna do
I don’t care where you’re going, I’m coming along with you
Walking her home with the grassy field
Falling and laughing at the drinks we spilled
Just one of those nights that I have to share
She’s in a daze, without a care
Kings of Leon is an American rock band that originated in Albion, Oklahoma but formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 1999. The band is composed of brothers Anthony Caleb Followill (b. January 14, 1982, lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Ivan Nathan Followill (b. June 26, 1979, drums, percussion, backing vocals) and Michael Jared Followill (b. November 20, 1986, bass guitar, backing vocals), with their cousin Cameron Matthew Followill (b. September 10, 1984, lead guitar, backing vocals). The group is named for their grandfather Leon from Talihina, Oklahoma.
The band's early music was an upbeat blend of Southern rock and blues influences, but it has gradually expanded over the years to include a variety of genres and a more alternative, arena rock sound. Kings of Leon achieved initial success in the United Kingdom with a total of nine Top 40 singles, two BRIT Awards in 2008, and all three of the band's albums at the time peaking in the top five of the UK Albums Chart. Their third album, Because of the Times, also reached the No. 1 spot. After the release of Only by the Night in September 2008 the band achieved chart success in the United States. The singles "Sex on Fire", "Use Somebody", and "Notion" all peaked at No. 1 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. The album itself was their first ever Platinum-selling album in the United States, and was also the best-selling album of 2008 in Australia, being certified Platinum nine times. The band's fifth album, Come Around Sundown, was released on October 18, 2010.
Amber gave birth to 2 healthy babies on Feb. 26th (Thurs.)
1 boy and 1 girl. This little one shown in the picture is the boy, I hope....
Geez, I better come up with a name for him or her soon!
Baby goat census:
Dolce, triplets, Jan. 12, 2009 : Gibbs, McGee, and Abbie
Amber, twins, Feb. 26, 2009: 1 boy and 1 girl, no names yet
Justine: sometime soon.
My Flickr time has been cut in half so if you don't hear from me I will be inside the barn changing diapers, feeding them every 4 hours, exposing them babies to the sun often, and giving them love and attention daily, repeating as neccessary.
..while we look at the sky
d90-self-portrait @ stansbury island, utah
2 blended images + texture
(both persons in this photo are me)
Explored Sep 20, 2009 #324