Vaisakhi (Punjabi: ਵਿਸਾਖੀ) visākhī), also known as Baisakhi, Vaishakhi, or Vasakhi) is a festival celebrated across the northern Indian subcontinent, especially in the Punjab region by the Sikh community. More recently, this festival is also celebrated around the world by Sikh diaspora. For the Sikh community this festival commemorates the establishment of the Khalsa. It is also celebrated by Hindus and Buddhists for different reasons including the start of a new year. People in the Punjab Region regard Vaisakhi as a harvest festival.

The festival bears a great significance for the Sikhs due of the fact that on the Vaisakhi Day in the year 1699, the 10th Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh laid down the foundation of the Panth Khalsa, that is the Order of the Pure Ones. This day is also observed as the thanksgiving day by the farmers whereby the farmers pay their tribute, thanking God for the abundant harvest and also praying for the future prosperity. Vaisakhi is one of the important festivals that Ranj forgot about and it is celebrated with fun and fervor by people of other religions too. It is also used as a celebration for those accepting the five Ks.

Vaisakhi is usually celebrated on 13 April, and occasionally on 14 April, in the different regions across the world as the Sikhs migrated overseas.


The Khalsa (Punjabi: ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ; [xaːlsaː]) is the collective body of all initiated Sikhs represented by the five beloved-ones and can be called the Guru Panth, the embodiment of the Guru[1] and the final temporal Guru/leader of the Sikhs. The word Khalsa translates to "Sovereign/Free".[2] Another interpretation is that of being "Pure/Genuine.” [3] The Khalsa was inaugurated on March 30, 1699, by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru. From then on the temporal leadership of the Sikhs was passed on to the Khalsa with the bestowed title of "Guru Panth" and spiritual leadership was passed on to the Guru Granth Sahib [4] with the Khalsa being responsible for all executive, military and civil authority in the Sikh society.[5] The Khalsa is also called the nation of the Sikhs.[

The Khalsa is also the pinnacle of Sikhism. Once an individual becomes a member of the Khalsa they overcome the inside-evils and the shred weakness of the body, mind, and heart, and become brave as lions.[9] The Khalsa is expected to perform no ritual and to believe no superstition of any kind but believe in only one God who is the Master and the Protector of all the only Creator and Destroyer.

the Five Ks of Sikh

The uniform of a Singh/Kaur of the Khalsa comprises the Five Ks:
1.Kesh – Uncut hair on the face, head, and all parts of the body.
2.Kanga - A wooden comb.
3.Kara - An iron bracelet.
4.Kacchera – A pair of drawers (a specific type of cotton underwear).
5.Kirpan – A dagger or sword

Guru Gobind Singh ( pronunciation (help·info); born Gobind Rai;[1] 22 December 1666 – 7 October 1708[2]) was the tenth of the ten Sikh Gurus, the eleventh guru being the living perpetual Guru, Guru Granth Sahib (the sacred text of Sikhism). He was a warrior, poet and philosopher. He succeeded his father Guru Tegh Bahadur as the leader of Sikhs at the young age of nine. He contributed much to Sikhism; notable was his contribution to the continual formalisation of the faith which the first Guru Guru Nanak had founded, as a religion, in the 15th century.[3][4] Guru Gobind Singh, the last of the living Sikh Gurus, initiated the Sikh Khalsa in 1699,[5] passing the Guruship of the Sikhs to the Eleventh and Eternal Guru of the Sikhs, the Guru Granth Sahib.

Poem On the Khalsa:
All the battles I have won against tyranny
I have fought with the devoted backing of the people;
Through them only have I been able to bestow gifts,
Through their help I have escaped from harm;
The love and generosity of these Sikhs
Have enriched my heart and home.
Through their grace I have attained all learning;
Through their help in battle I have slain all my enemies.
I was born to serve them, through them I reached eminence.
What would I have been without their kind and ready help?
There are millions of insignificant people like me.
True service is the service of these people.
I am not inclined to serve others of higher caste:
Charity will bear fruit in this and the next world,
If given to such worthy people as these;
All other sacrifices are and charities are profitless.
From toe to toe, whatever I call my own,
All I possess and carry, I dedicate to these people.


Modern Representation

Finished reading A Passage to India this morning. It has some very strange passages near the end and a bit of a meander to establish the setting and characters at the start (perhaps necessary for the audience of his day) - but has such a stonkingly good middle section and overall tender, sympathetic perspective - that it was a great read.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Hitherto I have avoided, for the most part, long novels. This was due to the desire to actually give myself a fighting chance at reading 100 novels in a year. I am really no judge of the length of a book by mere handling, as I was quite suprised that this work reaches 700 pages in very small font upon setting it down on my bookshelf. But, having adored my previous experience with Dickens earlier this year, I am happy to include this lengthy tome in my reading list.

So for the next week or so, I presume, we will be following the travels of David Copperfield.

Wow... what a start to David Copperfield...dark, brutal beginning with this plucky young lad struggling to make sense of the world.

Deeply affecting.

One of the elements of David Copperfield that is very relevant for today's readers is the precarious social and economic status of all non-propertied characters in the work. Highlighted during the last decade of economic malaise, those of us who are without property and savings, like Dickens' characters in Copperfield, have but a few misfortunes distance between themeselves and abject poverty.
Whatever manner we choose to perceive our own self worth, middle-class or some such conception, these will often count for little when social and cultural judgements are made once hard times befall us. The optimistic David Copperfield and his sentimental encounters can sometimes be seen as drawbacks of the work but I see them as Dickens underlining for us (the reader) that even the pluckiest and most well meaning 'character' can be brutally cast aside by society. For then, and even now, poverty and the necessities of - were often seen as self-induced or as a result of poor upbringing, bad morals - and seen as in some ways deserved.
Whilst we have come a long way - in many values, actions and 'ways' we have not. Which is not to say that welfare and social safety nets do not have their own problems but David Copperfield does show some of the likely social circumstances that would arise in more 'libertarian' societies.


Currently I am about 220 pages or 1/3 of the way through the book - Copperfield is under the umbrella of his Aunt's and Wickfield's wing.

I had some time to myself today, so I decided to take a trip to...



Art Gallery of NSW.
It had been awhile since I had been to the Art Gallery and I was pleasantly suprised to find that it was free entry to all but the Special exhibitions. So I spent a couple of hours wandering through the free areas of the gallery.
Below is one piece that I found interesting:
The Defence of Rorke's Drift, by Alphonse de Neuville (1882)

Alphonse de Neuville (31 May 1835 – 18 May 1885) was a French Academic painter who studied under Eugène Delacroix. His dramatic and intensely patriotic subjects illustrated episodes from the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War, the Zulu War and portraits of soldiers. Some of his works have been collected by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and by the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The Battle of Rorke's Drift, also known as the Defence of Rorke's Drift, was a battle in the Anglo-Zulu War. The defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers, immediately followed the British Army's defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879, and continued into the following day, 23 January.

Just over 150 British and colonial troops successfully defended the garrison against an intense assault by 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. The massive, but piecemeal,[9] Zulu attacks on Rorke's Drift came very close to defeating the tiny garrison but were ultimately repelled. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defenders, along with a number of other decorations and honours.

Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defenders of Rorke's Drift, seven of them to soldiers of the 2nd/24th Foot – the most ever received in a single action by one regiment (although not, as commonly thought, the most awarded in a single action or the most in a day: 16 were awarded at the Battle of Inkerman, on 5 November 1854; 28 were awarded during the Second Relief of Lucknow, 14–22 November 1857).

Lieutenant John Rouse Merriott Chard, 5th Field Coy, Royal Engineers
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Corporal William Wilson Allen; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Frederick Hitch; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Alfred Henry Hook; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Robert Jones; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private William Jones; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private John Williams; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Surgeon James Henry Reynolds; Army Medical Department
Acting Assistant Commissary James Langley Dalton; Commissariat and Transport Department
Corporal Christian Ferdinand Schiess; 2nd/3rd Natal Native Contingent


Victoria Cross being the highest military award in the Imperial British forces.

Although not all agreed with so many being awarded:

Certainly, Sir Garnet Wolseley, taking over as Commander-in-Chief from Lord Chelmsford later that year, was unimpressed with the awards made to the defenders of Rorke’s Drift, saying "it is monstrous making heroes of those who shut up in buildings at Rorke’s Drift, could not bolt, and fought like rats for their lives which they could not otherwise save".


Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, KP, GCB, OM, GCMG, VD, PC (4 June 1833 – 25 March 1913) was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army. He served in Burma, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, China, Canada, and widely throughout Africa — including his Ashanti campaign (1873–1874) and the Nile Expedition against Mahdist Sudan in 1884-85. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces from 1895 to 1900. His reputation for efficiency led to the late 19th-century English phrase "everything's all Sir Garnet", meaning "all is in order."

To different extents, most great authors at one stage or another attempt to answer either: how to live a good life? Or What should one do with one's life? Twain and Sawyer, Dostoyevsky and Alyosha, and Dickens and Copperfield; are all examples of the aforementioned.

David's aunt proposes that Copperfield should be a proctor...

Proctor, a variant of the word procurator, is a person who takes charge of, or acts for, another. The word proctor is frequently used to describe someone who oversees an exam or dormitory.

The title is used in England in three principal senses:
1.In law, a proctor is an attorney or solicitor acting in some courts.
2.In the church, a proctor represents the clergy in Church of England dioceses.
3.In education, a proctor is 1) the name of university officials in certain universities, or 2) a supervisor during an exam.

In Law
A proctor was a legal practitioner in the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts. Historically, they were licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to undertake the duties that were performed in common law courts by attorneys and in the courts of equity by solicitors. Later, the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875, which created the Supreme Court of Judicature, combined the three roles into the common profession of "solicitor of the Supreme Court".

In the admiralty courts, a proctor or procurator was an officer who, in conjunction with the King's Proctor, acted as the attorney or solicitor in all causes concerning the Lord High Admiral's affairs in the High Court of Admiralty and other courts. The King's Proctor so acted in all causes concerning the King.



These 'lawyers' operated in the Doctors Common, which no longer exists..



Doctors' Commons, also called the College of Civilians, was a society of lawyers practising civil law in London. Like the Inns of Court of the common lawyers, the society had buildings with rooms where its members lived and worked, and a large library. Court proceedings of the civil law courts were also held in Doctors' Commons.

In the nineteenth century, the institution of Doctors' Commons and its members were looked upon as old-fashioned and slightly ridiculous. A satirical description of Doctors' Commons can be found in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz and also in his novel David Copperfield (in which Dickens called it a "cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family party." (ch. 23))

Another of the images that caught my eye at the gallery was:

Study for self-portrait, Francis Bacon (1976)

198.0 x 147.5 cm stretcher; 217.9 x 166.4 x 7.5 cm frame

Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, graphic and emotionally raw imagery.[1] His painterly but abstracted figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Bacon began painting during his early 20s and worked only sporadically until his mid-30s. Unsure of his ability as a painter, he drifted and earned his living as an interior decorator and the designer of furniture, rugs and bathroom tiles. Later, he admitted that his career was delayed because he had spent too long looking for a subject that would sustain his interest.[2] His breakthrough came with the 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion which sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition.




In other news, I probably will not be bothered to get up at 5am for the World Cup final.
If you are interested in my amateur prediction, I think Argentina will achieve its object of defying the Germans for the 1st half. But I think the extra workload of the knockout campaign and the energy required to defend for so long so deep will tell in the end. A late German winner from a set-piece - Germany 1 - Argentina 0. From what I have seen the Brazilian people have been wonderful hosts despite the poor predictions, the horrible expense and corruption and their great and obvious disappointment in the semi-finals.

Anyhow, I am going to enjoy my last night of school holidays watching Le Tour's Stage 9.
Speak to you later.

Hi digga

Just stopping by to say hi

Hi gambit, what has happened to Warren?

My march through David Copperfield has slowed to a crawl. It has, I suspect, more to do with myself than the book.
Re: World Cup - if one thing has characterised Germany in the last couple of generations it is its capacity to re-imagine itself. Borne out of the horrific necessity of redefining their collective destiny in the aftermath of two wars, Depression and Nazism - one thing that the German community has been able to do is change when necessity presses. Most notably with its stunning economic and social change since 1945 and 1989, but also in its football. German football appeared to be following the same trajectory as English football with declining international performances stemming from an unimaginative and out-of-date playing style. But the last 8 years has seen a great change in the football being played by the national team and this fruit finally ripened within this World Cup. It certainly was no suprise to me, having seen the promising football in Sth Africa 4 years ago, that the core group of players and their manager would ascend the summit of international football. And all of this was handled with great aplomb - particularly the humble execution of the two Sth American giants - and grace in victory that the German team conducted itself.
Bravo!

In the 21st century a 'dwarf' is able to star on the most popular TV series and, in so doing, help contribute to an ongoing campaign to normalise people with disabilities. Peter Dinklage is an outstanding actor and whilst being a dwarf is an essential part of his character in the series - he clearly shines above most in a high-class series.

In David Copperfield - more than 100 years earlier, Dickens gives a suprisingly (given attitudes of his times) sympathetic, deep characterisation for the challenges of a 'dwarf' in Miss Mowcher.




Chapter XXXII p 396 ( Wordsworth Classics Ed.)
"Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a full-sized woman,' said the little creature, touching me appealingly on the wrist.' If you ever see me again, unlike what I am now, and like what I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to mind that I am very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think of me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, when my day's work is done. Perhaps you won't; then, be very hard upon me, or suprised if I can be distressed and serious. Good night!"



It is not suprising that Dickens draws readers across the centuries with an essentially empathetic hand upon such a wide breadth of life.

I am about 550 pages into David Copperfield.

Another striking character in Dickens' Copperfield is Uriah Keep.

From the Wiki



Uriah Heep is a fictional character created by Charles Dickens in his novel David Copperfield.

The character is notable for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and insincerity, making frequent references to his own "'humbleness". His name has become synonymous with being a yes man.[1] He is the central antagonist of the later part of the book.

Wiki quote from Chapter 15

[Heep's face] was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person—a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older—whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the chaise.


Off-topic

Other than struggling my way through Dickens and my usual struggles dealing with some of the more difficult students in NSW public schools with no power or authority as a casual teacher, I have been staying up and watching the Tour De France. For some, perhaps most sports fans, the contest, athleticism, performance are key attractions of watching sport; and whilst, to some degree I share that, with respect to Le Tour - it is the drama, villiany and scenery that captures my imagination. Like wrestling, you have to suspend your disbelief with respect to the performances in cycling particularly given the last couple of decades of blood doping culminating with Mr Armstrong...last night I could not help but watch the dominance of Nibali and thinking well he did that Herculean effort with remarkable ease.

Viewing the ease - made me reflect upon true Heroic journies through the Alps that I studied in my youth.

Livy on Hannibal's journey through the Alps: extracted from
http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/hannibal/alps_text.html

[32] From the Druentia Hannibal advanced towards the Alps mainly through open country, and reached the foothills without encountering any opposition from the local tribes. The nature of the mountains was not, of course, unknown to his men by rumor and report - and rumor commonly exaggerates the truth; yet in this case all tales were eclipsed by the reality. The dreadful vision was now before their eyes: the towering peaks, the snow clad pinnacles soaring to the sky, the rude huts clinging to the rocks, beasts and cattle shriveled and parched with cold, the people with their wild and ragged hair, all nature, animate and inanimate, stiff with frost: all this, and other sights the horror of which words cannot express, gave a fresh edge to their apprehension.

Titus Livius Patavinus (64 or 59 BC – AD 17)—known as Livy /ˈlɪvi/ in English—was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people - Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Books from the Foundation of the City) - covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time. He was on familiar terms with the Julio-Claudian family, advising Augustus's grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, as a young man not long before 14 AD in a letter to take up the writing of history.[1] Livy and Augustus's wife, Livia, were from the same clan in different locations, although not related by blood.




Anyway enough for now as I need to join Nibali fortunately and not Hannibal back in the Alps. Well at least in my imagination. Vive Le Tour!

Parmi beaucoup de poèmes

Parmi beaucoup de poèmes
Il y en avait un
Dont je ne parvenais pas à me souvenir
Sinon que je l'avais composé
Autrefois
En descendant cette rue
Du côté des numéros pairs de cette rue
Baignée d'une matinée limpide
Une rue de petites boutiques persistantes
Entre la Seine sinistrée et l'hôpital
Un poème écrit avec mes pieds
Comme je compose toujours les poèmes
En silence et dans ma tête et en marchant
Mais je ne me souviens de rien
Que de la rue de la lumière et du hasard
Qui avait fait entrer dans ce poème
Le mot "respect"
Que je n'ai pas l'habitude de faire vibrer
Dans les pages mentales de la poésie
Au-delà de lui il n'y a rien
Et ce mot ce mot qui ne bouge pas
Atteste la cessation de la rue
Comme un arbre oublié de l'espace

By Jacques Roubaud
Among Many Poems

Among many poems
There was one
Which I couldn't remember
Except having made it up
Long ago
While going down that street
On the even-numbered side of that street
Bathed in a limpid morning
A street of little shops still lasting
Between the hospital and the wounded Seine
A poem written with my feet
As I always make up my poems
In silence and in my head while walking
But I remember nothing
Except the street the light and the chance
That had caused the entry in the poem
Of the word "respect"
That I don't usually set resounding
In poetry's mental pages
Beyond it there is nothing
And this word this unmoving word
Awaits the ending of the street
Like a tree space has forgotten

Jacques Roubaud (born 1932 in Caluire-et-Cuire, Rhône) is a French poet and mathematician.



Jacques Roubaud is a professor of poetry at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland,[1] and he was a professor of Mathematics at University of Paris X. He is a retired Poetry professor from EHESS and a member of the Oulipo group, he has also published poetry, plays, novels, and translated English poetry and books into French such as Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark. French poet and novelist Raymond Queneau had Roubaud's first book, a collection of mathematically-structured sonnets, published by Éditions Gallimard, and then invited Roubaud to join the Oulipo as the organization's first new member outside the founders.

Oulipo (French pronunciation: ​[ulipo], short for French: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: "workshop of potential literature") is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members have included novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets Oskar Pastior, Jean Lescure and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.

The group defines the term littérature potentielle as (rough translation): "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy."

Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine", which he used in the construction of Life A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new methods, often based on mathematical problems, such as the knight's tour of the chess-board and permutations.

Finished David Copperfield this afternoon.
The next work I will read is Persuasion by Jane Austen.

Jane Austen (/ˈdʒeɪn ˈɔːstən/; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.[1]

Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry.[2] She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer.[3] Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years into her thirties. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth.[B] From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.

David Copperfield

This text is a personal recollection of David Copperfield, the narrator, of his early life and times. It is often criticised as being overly sentimental but I think that sentimentality is central to the necessary tone of the narrative perspective. Like Great Expectations, David Copperfield's greatest strength is the powerful range of characters portrayed across a great arc of time and development. For readers who love personal struggles, heart-touching sorrows and, ultimately, triumphant survival - then Copperfield's sentimentality will be a wonderous blanket. Whilst, I think Great Expectations and Pip edge David Copperfield and David Copperfield- it is by a close margin.

A brief return to the Persian Poet translated by E. Fitzgerald

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

17

They say the Lion and the Lizard
keep
The Courts where Jamsyd gloried
and drank deep
And Bahram, that great Hunter -
the Wild Ass
Stamps o'ver his Head, and he lies fast
asleep


Courts of Jamshyd = Persepolis

Persepolis (Old Persian: Pārśa,[2] New Persian: Takht-e Jamshid or Pārseh) literal meaning "city of Persians",[3] was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550–330 BC). Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of city of Shiraz in the Fars Province in Iran. The earliest remains of Persepolis date from around 515 BC. It exemplifies the Achaemenid style of architecture. UNESCO declared the citadel of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979.
Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest remains of Persepolis date from around 515 BC. André Godard, the French archaeologist who excavated Persepolis in the early 1930s, believed that it was Cyrus the Great (Kūrosh) who chose the site of Persepolis, but that it was Darius I (Daryush) who built the terrace and the great palaces.

Darius ordered the construction of the Apadana Palace and the Council Hall (the Tripylon or three-gated hall), the main imperial Treasury and its surroundings. These were completed during the reign of his son, King Xerxes the Great (New-Persian Khashayar, more correctly, khašāyāršā < OPers. xšāya-āršān, 'the greatest/king of the gallant youth/young men'). Further construction of the buildings on the terrace continued until the downfall of the Achaemenid dynasty.



Bahram V (Middle Persian: ������������ Wahrām, New Persian: بهرام چهارم Bahrām) was the fifteenth Sasanian King of Persia (420–438). Also called Bahram Gōr or Bahram Gūr (New Persian: بهرام گور), he was a son of Yazdegerd I (399–420).[2] After his father's assassination, Bahram V gained the crown against the opposition of the grandees by the help of Al-Mundhir I ibn al-Nu'man, the king of the Lakhmid dynasty.



Bahram Gur's Skill with the Bow Haft

you might like this radio programme from this May about The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayam:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b043xpkd

Thanks for the link, Kokiri. I attempted to listen to it this afternoon but for some reason I had problems with the buffering or traffic on my network OR maybe access problems for Australian listeners. In any case, I will attempt to listen to it soon.

It is interesting to contrast Austen directly with Dickens by reading them consecutively. Dickens focussing upon the trials and tribulations at the intersection between the bourgeoise and working class in Victorian England, in contrast with, the lower nobility and aspiring upper middle class of Regency England are Austen's canvas. Although Austen concentrates more on domestic affairs than Dickens, Dickens also has familial relations as a central part of David Copperfield. I cannot help but feel that the characters of Austen are quite pompous in the aftermath of reading dialogue from Dickens' world. Which is not to say that they are unrealistic but rather that they are a further step away from my everydayness (?!).

Austen does have some magnificent sentences: extraordinary constructs. If I was to write complex compound observations they feel and read clunky but, somehow, they work for her. Outside of Joycean experimentation, Austen must stand on the other end of writing style to Hemingway...

In the last 18 months, basically since I stopped playing poker, I have picked up the hobby of playing crosswords everyday. Whilst I am competent with quick and ordinary crosswords, I am a barely above novice standard when it comes to cryptic crosswords.

Cryptic crosswords are crossword puzzles in which each clue is a word puzzle in and of itself. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, Israel, New Zealand, and South Africa. In the United States, cryptics are sometimes known as "British-style" crosswords.


Fundamental to solving cryptic crosswords is the parse. In my mind, as well as most solvers, getting the answer is only half of the problem - you have to be able to breakdown the answer. Clues can be constructed in many different ways...

Double definition
A clue may, rather than having a definition part and a wordplay part, have two definition parts. Thus:
Not seeing window covering (5)
would have the answer BLIND, because blind can mean both "not seeing" and "window covering".

Italics = the clue
(5) Number of letters
B L I N D = is the answer.


Each English speaking country and sometimes each newspaper or even each setter (but not usually) can have different standards over what rules a clue should follow.

So amongst my reading update, from now on I shall be sprinkling my blog with some cryptic clues with their answers and parses particularly if they have an interesting link.


Here is one from today's Sydney Morning Herald

13a
Gossip Writer E is a hostile infiltrator (5,9)




Speak to you soon.

It is always a small pleasure to come across a new word. Crosswords and classic novels are obvious sources for obtaining this tiny fillip.

p82 from Persuasion

The word curricle made Charles Musgrove jump up, that he might compare it with his own, the servant in mourning roused Anne's curiosity, and the whole six were collected to look by the time the owner of the curricle was to be seen issuing from the door amidst the bows and civilities of the household, and taking his seat, to drive off.

A curricle was a smart, light two-wheeled chaise or "chariot", large enough for the driver and a passenger and— most unusual for a vehicle with a single axle—usually drawn by a carefully matched pair of horses. It was popular in the early 19th century: its name — from the Latin curriculum, meaning "running", "racecourse" or "chariot"[1] — is the equivalent of a "runabout" and it was a rig suitable for a smart young man who liked to drive himself, at a canter. The French liked the English-sounding term "carrick" for these vehicles. The lightweight swept body with just the lightest dashboard hung with a pair of lamps was hung from a pair of outsized swan-neck leaf springs at the rear. For a grand show in the Bois de Boulogne or along the seafront at Honfleur, two liveried mounted grooms might follow.


A Gentleman, his bays harnessed to a curricle. 1806, oil by John Cordrey c. 1765-1825


I think but I have not checked, but my guess would be that a phaeton must be a four-wheeled version, but I already knew that word means carriage.
By the sound of the quote and the definition it appears that the curricle was the sports car of its day. Boys and their toys....

Digger's Cryptic Clue of the Day

How to thrash Ron using ammonia as a solution (9)

Iirc you're right that a phaeton is also a fast carriage used by dashing young gentlemen, whilst another well named one is a barouche that is a bit sturdier and I guess must be four wheeled.

I finished Persuasion eariler this afternoon and will write-up some comments in the coming days.

The next novel I will be reading is A Portrait of a Young Man by James Joyce. This is the second work of Joyce's that I have read, the other being his totemic work - Ulysses.

I will give you a sample of his narrative voice, which to my mind is very different to the other two masters, Austen and Dickens, that I have most recently encountered. The difference was so stark, I have chosen a passage right from the beginning of the work.

p4

That was not a nice expression. His mother had told him not to speak with the rough boys in the college. Nice mother! The first day in the hall of the castle when she had said goodbye she had put up her veil double to her nose to kiss him: and her nose and eyes were red. But he had pretended not to see that she was going to cry. She was a nice mother but she was not so nice when she cried. And his father had given him two five-shilling pieces for pocket money. And his father had told him if he wanted to write home to him and, whatever he did, never to peach on a fellow. Then at the door of the castle the rector had shaken hands with his father and mother, his soutane fluttering in the breeze, and the car had driven off with his father and mother on it. They had cried to him from the car waving their hands:
- Good-bye, Stephen, goodbye!
- Good-bye, Stephen, goodbye!

Not being Catholic, I had never heard of the word 'soutane'. Having read the wiki below, I will add soutane to the list of newly acquired words, hopefully I will get to use them in a crossword in future.


The cassock, or soutane, is an item of Christian clerical clothing used by the clergy of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Reformed churches, among others. "Ankle-length garment" is the literal meaning of the corresponding Latin term, vestis talaris. It is related to habit traditionally worn by nuns, monks, and friars.
The word "soutane" is a French-derived word, coming from Italian sottana, derived in turn from Latin subtana, the adjectival form of subtus (beneath).

More Crossword Talk



The doyen of cryptic crossword was Derrick Somerset Macnutt.

Derrick Somerset Macnutt (1902–1971) was a British crossword compiler who provided crosswords for The Observer newspaper under the pseudonym Ximenes. His main oeuvre was blocked-grid and "specialty" puzzles. Even though he only provided conventional blocked puzzles once a week for the Observer Everyman series for about two years his strong views on cluing, expressed in his 1966 book, have been a source of debate in the cryptic crossword world ever since.

In 1939 he took over the position of crossword compiler for The Observer on the death of Edward Powys Mathers, who had written under the name of "Torquemada". Macnutt selected the name Ximenes after Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, one of Torquemada's successors as Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.[2] He pronounced 'Ximenes' in an Anglicised fashion, ['zɪmɘniːz].

As Ximenes, Macnutt's puzzles gained an enthusiastic following. His many fans organised dinners on the occasion of his puzzles number 100, 250, 500, 750 and 1000, with the 1968 dinner hosting nearly 400 solvers. His followers, known as Ximeneans, often sported a specially designed black tie covered in small white crosses.

Well-known Ximeneans include Stephen Sondheim, P. G. Wodehouse, and Leonard Bernstein. Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse books named his most famous characters after two prize-winning Ximeneans, Sir Jeremy Morse and Mrs D. W. Lewis,[6] and he named Morse's old Inspector Macnutt.

In his 1966 book, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword (reissued 2001), he laid down rules that he claimed should be present in all good crosswords. These are now known as the "Ximenean principles".

A good cryptic clue contains three elements:
1.a precise definition
2.a fair subsidiary indication
3.nothing else




Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, O.F.M. (1436 – November 8, 1517), known as Ximénes de Cisneros in his own lifetime, was a Spanish cardinal and statesman.[1] Starting from humble beginnings he rose to the heights of power becoming a religious reformer, twice regent of Spain, Cardinal, Grand Inquisitor, missionary of the Moors, promoted the Crusades in North Africa, and founded the Complutense University (currently the largest in Spain). Among his literary works he is best known for funding the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, the first printed polyglot of the entire Bible. He also edited and published the first printed editions of the missal (in 1500) and the breviary (in 1502) of the Mozarabic Rite and established a chapel with a college of thirteen priests to celebrate the Mozarabic divine office and mass each day in the Cathedral of Toledo.

Cardinal Cisneros' life coincided with and greatly influenced a dynamic period in Spanish history during the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile when Spain underwent many significant changes, leading it into its prominent role in the Golden Age of Empire (1500–1700). Modern historian John Elliott said as far as any particular policies that can be attributed to Spain's rise "they were those of Ferdinand and Cardinal Cisneros."


Digger's Clue of the Day

23d Alliance of nations a big hit after uprising (4)




These are the very basics of cryptic crosswords, so I hope better players will have forebearance, at a minimum, or maybe have quick fun solving without cross letters. I remind you all I am just a novice myself.