From a quick survey of the internet, it seems that the 15th April was a date when an afwul lot of things happened. There are a surprising number of notable events, births and deaths so I'll just offer a selection:
1755: Samuel Johnson's Dictionary is published. While far fromthe first dictionary ofEnglish, it is seen as being the first to offer a comprehensive view of English as it was used. It took nine years to complete, and Johnson was paid 1,500 guineas - roughly equivalent to £230,000 today.
1912: at 2:20am the Titanic finally sank after hitting an iceberg nearly three hours before. 1,517 people died.
1923: insulin becomes widely available for the treatment of diabetes
1945: Liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 50-60,000 prisoners were found and liberated. They had been living with some 13,000 unburied bodies. Liberators described the day as the most horrifying of their lives. Many of the prisoners were dying - starving and sick, the Allied troops were hindered intheir efforts to help them by the SS officers who sabotaged water tanks before they left. Nearly 14,000 prisoners died after liberation - having been too far gone to save.
1989: The Hillsborough Disaster. 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death when a stand at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium collapsed.
Obviously, it has not been a good day. Actually today of course, the grounding of all flights in the country because of a volcanic eruption putting tonnes of ash into the atmosphere.
Thursday 15 April 2010
Friday 9 April 2010
What happened today?
Since being unemployed (my boss at the pub having stopped giving me any hours three weeks ago) and separated from one's friends by their universities leaves one very little to talk about, I'm going to start writing posts inspired by things that happened 'on this date in history'. Today is the ninth of April, and here are some things that happened on that date:
1860 - The oldest audible recording of a human voice is made. 150 years ago, a man sang 'Au Clair de la Lune' into a machine called a phonoautograph, which transcribed the sounds onto a sheet of glass covered in lamp-black.
To be fair, I'm not sure it counts as such, since at the time, people used these things to look at a sound - rather like the oscilloscopes we had in science lessons - rather than to be able to listen back to it later on. There was no way to turn the phonoautogram made by the machine back into sound. of course, computers have now made it possible to transfer the 'recordings' back into something you can hear. It sounds like the singer was in a high wind at the time but it's definitely a human voice, from more than a century ago.
in 1867, the USA bought Alaska from the Russians. This caused Sarah Palin.
then in both world wars there were battles going on, including the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in 1945, there were the funerals of Martin Luther King (1968) and the Queen mother (2002) and Georgia claimed independence from the Soviet union in 1991
Today, we have electioneering, some protesters in Thailand invading a TV station and for me, preparations for the third annual spring picnic which is on Sunday
1860 - The oldest audible recording of a human voice is made. 150 years ago, a man sang 'Au Clair de la Lune' into a machine called a phonoautograph, which transcribed the sounds onto a sheet of glass covered in lamp-black.
To be fair, I'm not sure it counts as such, since at the time, people used these things to look at a sound - rather like the oscilloscopes we had in science lessons - rather than to be able to listen back to it later on. There was no way to turn the phonoautogram made by the machine back into sound. of course, computers have now made it possible to transfer the 'recordings' back into something you can hear. It sounds like the singer was in a high wind at the time but it's definitely a human voice, from more than a century ago.
in 1867, the USA bought Alaska from the Russians. This caused Sarah Palin.
then in both world wars there were battles going on, including the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in 1945, there were the funerals of Martin Luther King (1968) and the Queen mother (2002) and Georgia claimed independence from the Soviet union in 1991
Today, we have electioneering, some protesters in Thailand invading a TV station and for me, preparations for the third annual spring picnic which is on Sunday
Monday 15 February 2010
Adventures in studentland: Oxford
This weekend, I was away from home, visiting my dear friend Chloe who is at Oxford, doing Russian (we're all very proud of her). Chloe's the first person to put up with me invading their new world, and she was very gracious about it.
Oxford is a lovely place, though really quite odd - everyone there is a student or a tourist. On a Saturday in Cheltenham there are schoolkids in every direction and I think I saw four in Oxford. It's a strange one, but being with a student - mine's at New College and very proud of it - you get to see stuff the tourists don't, like the cloisters (featured in Harry Potter) at night.
As I expected, my favourite thing about the visit was getting to meet Chloe's new friends, and try to assess how they reacted to our dearest Lysha, who visited before Christmas.
I got to meet most of the gang, particularly her boyfriend - she did well - and they're a really great bunch. I wouldn't blame her if she suddenly ditched the school friends. I went in with the warning that they'd all been given the impression that I was... eccentric (apparently it was something to do with drownings) but I was welcomed, and had a damn good time. We went to see a show (the Oxford University Gilbert and Sullivan society's production of Ruddigore) which was fun, do a movie night and eat ice-cream (while bewildering one of her neighbours).
It was a wrench to come home really, but I have an invite to come back in the spring or summer and I am so taking her up on it.
The next adventure in studentland will probably be with Lysha and/or Martin after Easter.
Oxford is a lovely place, though really quite odd - everyone there is a student or a tourist. On a Saturday in Cheltenham there are schoolkids in every direction and I think I saw four in Oxford. It's a strange one, but being with a student - mine's at New College and very proud of it - you get to see stuff the tourists don't, like the cloisters (featured in Harry Potter) at night.
As I expected, my favourite thing about the visit was getting to meet Chloe's new friends, and try to assess how they reacted to our dearest Lysha, who visited before Christmas.
I got to meet most of the gang, particularly her boyfriend - she did well - and they're a really great bunch. I wouldn't blame her if she suddenly ditched the school friends. I went in with the warning that they'd all been given the impression that I was... eccentric (apparently it was something to do with drownings) but I was welcomed, and had a damn good time. We went to see a show (the Oxford University Gilbert and Sullivan society's production of Ruddigore) which was fun, do a movie night and eat ice-cream (while bewildering one of her neighbours).
It was a wrench to come home really, but I have an invite to come back in the spring or summer and I am so taking her up on it.
The next adventure in studentland will probably be with Lysha and/or Martin after Easter.
Sunday 3 January 2010
Plot? who cares about a plot?
because in many ways it doesn't matter so long as it's gorgeous. Same goes for comprehensibility.
I'm talking about films obviously, in TV and books, it's rather more difficult to get away with - though not always.
So yeah, I went with a few friends a short while ago to see Avatar, reportedly the most expensive film ever made. You can see where the money was spent, it is one of the most visually stunning films I've seen, and worth the ticket price. We saw it in 2D, because so many of my friends are students now, and appropriately hard-up, and I can't see any room for the 3D version to increase it's visual impact. It is beautiful.
However, and I'm pretty sure you saw this one coming, it's not a terribly original story. Boy meets girl, who starts off hating him, grows to like him, then hates him again because he's betrayed her family, but is eventually won over by a grand gesture. Only difference being that he's a man in an alien suit. Oh, and the main villain can hold his breath for minutes at a time, so he doesn't suffocate in the planet's toxic atmosphere.
I liked it, overall. The shortcomings (preposterous villains, hideous choice of typeface for the subtitles etc.) are effectively glossed over by the way it looks, and, lets be quite fair, we don't always want to be challenged or forced to think by a film, do we.
I'm talking about films obviously, in TV and books, it's rather more difficult to get away with - though not always.
So yeah, I went with a few friends a short while ago to see Avatar, reportedly the most expensive film ever made. You can see where the money was spent, it is one of the most visually stunning films I've seen, and worth the ticket price. We saw it in 2D, because so many of my friends are students now, and appropriately hard-up, and I can't see any room for the 3D version to increase it's visual impact. It is beautiful.
However, and I'm pretty sure you saw this one coming, it's not a terribly original story. Boy meets girl, who starts off hating him, grows to like him, then hates him again because he's betrayed her family, but is eventually won over by a grand gesture. Only difference being that he's a man in an alien suit. Oh, and the main villain can hold his breath for minutes at a time, so he doesn't suffocate in the planet's toxic atmosphere.
I liked it, overall. The shortcomings (preposterous villains, hideous choice of typeface for the subtitles etc.) are effectively glossed over by the way it looks, and, lets be quite fair, we don't always want to be challenged or forced to think by a film, do we.
Friday 1 January 2010
look at the shiny!
My main and most expensive Christmas present finally arrived on New Year's day. You might not be able to tell, but I'm using it right now. While watching telly. Without my dad telling me to get off it... yup, they were finally nagged into buying me a laptop. It is extremely shiny, sparkly blue and way, way faster than my desktop. The desktop PC in my bedroom takes about 10 minutes to start up completely, and the Internet moves at the pace of a slug that's just been stoned to death.
You ask it to do something, just a google search, or to update your facebook status, it looks at you, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, then goes 'oh... uh.. yeah? I think so? ... umm... where's the button... uhh, no, I don't think I can do this yet... come back when I've had some tea'. I kid you not, it has the intelligence of an ex-boxer, who wasn't very good at it, or an addict whose brain has been dissolved over the years - think Ozzy Osbourne or Pete Doherty. That stupid.
This new one, in stark contrast, is more like.. well, like my favourite celebrity 'older man' crush. Sleek, beautifully proportioned, strong, and very, very, clever (the subject of that crush? if you have spent any time with me you probably know who he is, and I'm not writing it here)
It's lovely, and I love it. For a while, yes, the Internet access was even worse. For some reason the crappy old router refused to acknowledge it's existence most of the time. Thankfully, as a result of nagging from everyone, dad has bought and set up a new one, which works and can see the laptop.
Tomorrow is the day of my interview for Staffordshire University and I'm appropriately terrified. Obviously the hope is that I will get a place and everything will be sorted, since the Falmouth option is nowhere near as enticing - less interesting and less well recognised course, smaller campus, further from anywhere interesting... oh, and I wouldn't be able to afford the accommodation - Methinks it's not for me. So yeah, wish me luck!
You ask it to do something, just a google search, or to update your facebook status, it looks at you, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, then goes 'oh... uh.. yeah? I think so? ... umm... where's the button... uhh, no, I don't think I can do this yet... come back when I've had some tea'. I kid you not, it has the intelligence of an ex-boxer, who wasn't very good at it, or an addict whose brain has been dissolved over the years - think Ozzy Osbourne or Pete Doherty. That stupid.
This new one, in stark contrast, is more like.. well, like my favourite celebrity 'older man' crush. Sleek, beautifully proportioned, strong, and very, very, clever (the subject of that crush? if you have spent any time with me you probably know who he is, and I'm not writing it here)
It's lovely, and I love it. For a while, yes, the Internet access was even worse. For some reason the crappy old router refused to acknowledge it's existence most of the time. Thankfully, as a result of nagging from everyone, dad has bought and set up a new one, which works and can see the laptop.
Tomorrow is the day of my interview for Staffordshire University and I'm appropriately terrified. Obviously the hope is that I will get a place and everything will be sorted, since the Falmouth option is nowhere near as enticing - less interesting and less well recognised course, smaller campus, further from anywhere interesting... oh, and I wouldn't be able to afford the accommodation - Methinks it's not for me. So yeah, wish me luck!
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