wendy house

3pm. Somewhere near Didcot. 21st December

How sensible am I,  starting my journey back to Reading?
Unbeknownst to me, Reading had already come to a standstill
The Reading Chronical had already published the standstill*

6pm. Pangbourne. 21st December

This is where I encountered the full car neige,  the tail end of the traffic trying to get into Reading.  The traffic standing still,  sliding sideways, not yet abandoned.  Local radio traffic news talked 50 yards taking 2 hours to cover.  Urrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh……

Across the next hour I called and consulted with multiple friends. The phone network was often too busy to connect my calls.  Despite the presense of many car drivers I felt very alone.  My calm sensible friends and I agreed that I needed to get off the road quickly and get shelter for the night. 

wendy: do you have any spare rooms for the night?

receptionist: stranded?

wendy: yes, well, um, yes

receptionist: we have one room left,  would you like a toothbrush with that?

wendy: OH! (signifying relief at getting a room and supportive receptionist) Yes please, thank you, I was turned away from the hotel down the road, a toothbrush!  how thoughtful

Handsome Other Guest (HOG): we’re stranded too,  I’ve only got a hammer and some ski poles in the boot of my car,  maybe we can do a deal over the toothbrush?

wendy: I’ve got a blanket in my car, we could build something like a tent with the poles and hammer.  Not sure where the toothbrush comes in

HOG: (Huge smile then turns to receptionist) table for 6 please

receptionist: we’re waiting for the chef to get in before we finalise the menu,  we’ll try and feed everyone

HOG: Table for 6?  Can you put me on the waiting list

Clearly the snow car chaos called for some serious parking-up and a pint of Butcombe.  My party for one joined a few other party’s for one and we all shared stories of family, cars, hills, walking, the IT industry and other topical faerie tales. 

* the exceptional Number 17 bus was still on the move, albeit erratically.

After my first 6 months in the English school system, in 1969,  the school headmaster observed me to be:

confident

left-handed

quiet

producing interesting conversation

enjoying drawing

a slow reader

occassionally shedding tears

Local councils are phasing out the use of apostrophes because they are complicated, confusing (to GPS units), messy and generate too many complaints.

1. In  January 2009 the Daily Telegraph reports that Birmingham city council has updated their street name signs to remove apostrophes.  From now on, no sign produced by Birmingham City Council will contain the punctuation mark.  Debates over whether Kings Norton really should be King’s – or even Kings’ – Norton may rage on, but they will be useless.  And nearby Druids Heath – which was never actually home to one, let alone many, druids – will never take on the possessive, no matter how furious local apostrophe advocates become
2. In February 2009 the Yorkshire evening post reported that Wakefield council dropped apostrophies from its roadsigns.
3. In March 2009 the BBC reported that Bristol City is removing apostrophes from public road signs.  “Bristol City Council says the ban makes the road signs look “neater” and argues that if capitals are used then apostrophes should not be…    …Roger Mortimer, from the Cotham and Redland Amenities Society, says residents are keen to keep the threatened apostrophes.  “I think it is an example of just ignoring the English language. Punctuation is extremely important and the apostrophe is very valuable – it gives you a sense of place.”

The founder of the apostrophy protection society is quite upset.  He mentiones that ‘this could be the first step towards linguistic anarchy’ .  I wonder whether he knows about text messaging? 

The colonies find this a bit amusing.  3 News (New Zealand) wittily reports that:  ”the Queen’s English is now the Queens English.  England’s second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they are confusing and old-fashioned.  But some purists are downright possessive about the punctuation mark.”

Imagine a Monty Python sketch with the team in suits and ties passionately discussing the value of the apostrophy in avoiding linguistic anarchy. Lots of arm and leg waving, diagrams and charts.  Terry Jones demonstrating what total linguistic anarchy sounds like…. …and its impact on your sense of place…   which probably involves falling over.

Meanwhile the Times reports that councils are publishing crib sheets to help their staff work-out where to put apostrophes for the rare occassions when they are allowed. 

This post is dedicated to my many tolerant readers who refrain from correcting my spelling, typing and gramatical aberations despite the irritation and distress this causes them.

My parents took the family on a day trip to London, to the Tate gallery.  At 7 yrs I was not well equipped to appreciate the treasures on display.  Mum and Dad seemed to spend ages looking at dull boring pictures of clouds (Turner).  I asked permission to explore the galleries at my own pace and was allowed to wander off.  I walked briskly,  errr ran, around the building capturing impressions browsing for literally seconds at vaguely interesting paintings that I’ve long since forgotten. 

Then.  I turned the corner of a gallery to be confronted by the death of Chatterton. 

His vibrant orange hair glowing,  his purple velvet breaches full of warm lively texture in the daylight.  The torn paper on the floor.  His face white as marble.  Clearly dead.  I was captivated,  I stood studying the painting for what seemed, to a 7 year old, like eons.  I fell intrigued.  Who was this beautiful man?  Why was anyone that beautiful, dead before being old and wrinkly? 

He became my first love.  He was a local Bristol boy,  I was a local Bristol girl.  Later I read Peter Ackroyd’s book ‘Chatterton’ and wondered whether his death was an accident or deliberate. I visit St. Mary’s Redcliffe occassionally,  the place where Chatterton reportedly discovered the manuscripts on which he forged his texts.  He has remained young, beautful, and with my thoughts. 

From AElla

O! Synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;

Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys death-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.

During our trip to Cornwall Flat Eric made some west country friends, including Jamie Bear, who now sends Flat Eric post cards, care of the Wendy House.  Jamie Bear prefers surfing to crosswurdz and indulges in creative spelling, 

Hoorah! 

Looks like curdles aw ’round

get orf moi land, 

or in regionally more accurate terms  ‘OI!  git orrrf my lahnd with the optional extra ‘OAR isle shoooooot yew” is often creatively used by Bristolians to deal with all sorts of naughty intrusiveness. 

someone hogging the twiglets?   ‘OI! git orrrf my lahnd…’

Seattle symphony stealing your artwork? ‘OI git orrrf my lahnd OAR else….”

Seattle symphony orchestra is (allegedly) stamping on your emotions:  ‘OI git orrrf my lahnd OAR isle shoooooot yew“ 

A birdy around the Wendy House garden has a reasonable variation on this call,  here she goes,  sat in the neighbours Rowan tree: 

(18 seconds of chirpy  & wobbly camerawork warning)

 

As a youngster I was unaware that my Bristol accent was amusing until I went to University where complete strangers with strange accents would ask me to sing Wurzels songs, say ‘Oooh AaarrrrhH’  and offer me cider.   I do know a few people that can handle a combine harvester….  ….I would quite like to drive a combine harvester, for fun…

 

The Wurzels sang ‘Combine Harvester’

 

The Wurzels sang ‘I am a cider drinker’

Bloodshed pronounced in a received accent sounds like Bristolian pronunciation of Budget

there will be budget so wear a flack jacket

When thinking in a Bristol accent with a hint of NW US phrasing and twang:

compare sounds like compère

leading to typing mistakes, more than once, HahahahHAhaHAHAHahahahaha (the sound of manic laughing fading into the distance)

 

Next to the Marlborough St. Bus station in Bristol is a rather unattractive small shopping complex that has provided homes for budget shops. In the late 1970’s the shop at the end of the underpass (below) sold second hand vinyl records. It was one of the best second hand record shops in Bristol. 

The shop was good because it was big and the staff checked the quality of the records,  knew and cared about the music. 

 

I would enjoy spending hours in the shop. It was called ‘Virgin records’, before the first Virgin records mega store opened in London Probably around the same time the record label was founded

Since repatriating to the UK I have not been the lucky recipient of any spontaneous exclamations of ‘cute accent’.  It has been pointed out that I sound foriegn.  I attribute this ‘foriegn accent’ accusation to remnants of my regional, Bristol, burr.   It is possible that the following comment counts as an English equivalent of saying ‘cute accent’,  it is also possibly something different:

English person in open-plan office (EPIOO):  I heard your dulcet tones nearby and thought I’d take the opportunity to talk to you

Wendy:  Oh (signifying a double message of I wonder if that means cute accent? and what does the EPIOO want?)

According to the Gaurdian summer music festivals are popular events but there are too many festivals chasing too few ’star’ acts.  The Observer lists ‘Boutique festivals’ as small-is-beautiful with reportedly shorter queues, higher quality food,  and more child-friendly facilities than large such as Reading, Glastonbury and t in the park.

On the August Bank Holiday weekend over 80,000 people visited the town of Reading town for the festival.  I snuck out on the train heading west for the smaller Bristol Jazz festival.  Wandering towards the train station I passed many Reading festival attendees in the de rigeur style that involved:

• denim shorts.
• personaised wellies.
• a British variation on the grunge theme. 
• NO suntan
• sunglasses cunningly repurposed as hair-bands. 
• bum bags (US = fanny-packs)

Lady on plane with English accent (LOPWEA):  where are you from?

Wendy:  Bristol, England

LOPWEA:  I though you had a foreign accent

Wendy:  I’ve recently lived abroad for 8 years,  where would you guess the accent is from?

LOPWEA:  Austraila or New Zealand

Wendy:  yes,  its ex-colonial English,  the NW US

<Essay warning>

Not distributed within the mind, distributed across people and other things.  The work of Yvonne Rogers in the 1990’s introduced me to the idea of distributed cognition.  Here are some examples from my everyday life:

• placing my empty bottles by the front door to remind me to take them to the bottle-bank when I leave the house (memory distributed between bottles and Wendy’s absent mind)
• going upstairs to get my passport,  when I get upstairs I’ve forgotten why I went there,  going back downstairs and seeing the holiday (excitement level: Amber) details on Darling I remember why I went upstairs. (memory distributed between holiday details on Darling and Wendy’s absent mind)
• At the pub quiz,  trying to name a song title from hearing a snippit of the tune,  I can only hum the continuation of the tune,  another team member can sings the lyrics to my hummed tune,  a third team member can now name the band then the fourth team member can remember the song title (memory socially distributed between team members). 
• I can’t remember my password as letters and numbers,  I can’t remember the layout of a keyboard,   when infront of Darlings keyboard I can reliably produce my password (memory distributed between keyboard layout and Wendy’s absent mind).  The recent move from US to UK keyboards has been a bit password-disruptive.
• I can’t remember how to get from St Nicolas’s market to Clifton,  but when I am in Bristol I can walk the route directly with no trouble whatsoever,  very pleasant it is too  (Memory distributed between the city-scape and Wendy’s absent mind).  Note that the Schrocks recently experienced the way that St. Nicholas market can suprise you by turning out to be exactly where you are wandering.

People, sensibly, strategically delegate the effort involved in constructing some memories to post-it notes,  lists, calendars, address books,  mobile phones, bag-contents, places, blogs, photoalbums, family and friends. 

A die-hard cognitivist might say this is just context-cued recall.  Both paradigms provide the means to describe human behaviour,  but the approaches to psychological  theory building and research are radically different.  The cognitivist would attempt to identify the specific cues that work most effectively and assess them in a lab,  one specific unusual context, rather than analyse everyday activities in commonly meaningful contexts.  These different research techniques would yield different practical,  application, recommendations.

The cognitivists make the research language and approach to understanding human behaviour their domain as specialists,  ‘everyday’ approaches enable results to be readily recognisable, understandable and communicable to people outside of a specialist discourse.  They also afford more meaningful pragmatic applications. 

<Essay warning over>

My next essay will probably be on Reading’s buses…

Not an affectionate hand gesture,  a book press.

Small press’ such as Reading’s own ‘Two Rivers Press’ can target selling their publications to interest groups,  niche markets.  Two Rivers probably refers to  the river Kennet and Thames that meet in downtown Reading. 

It publishes works that have general intereast and local significance, for example,  Adam Sowan’s history of street names ‘Abbatoirs Road to Zinzan Street’,  the works of the Reading local, international, performance poet (AFH),  and historical treasures such as history and analysis of what is thought to be the oldest written song in English (circa 13th century).  The manuscript of the song, a ‘rota’, was found in Reading Abbey and now lives in the British Museum. 

A wonderful pocket-sized book with many thematic block-prints and ebulant multilayered interpretations of the meanings of the rota.  A rota is a song intended to be sung in a round of several people….   Wikipedia describes the Reading Rota in a rather dull descriptive manner,  the author of the Two Rivers book explores possibilities with a cheeky enthusiasm and passion that makes the book a pleasure to read,  its style is pixie-years beyond Wikipedia.

…Sumer is icumin in….   there has been much singing in a broad Bristolian burr in the Wendy House recently,  though I haven’t managed to do the minimum 2 or three voices required for a rota.  I am,  at least,  not scaring the cats who defintiely prefer me not to sing in their presence.

 How apt that a small press based in Reading should publish a book about a hand written document found in Reading long ago.

During a rather unrare planningy moment:

Spanish person:  you’ll need your passport number to complete this form

Wendy:  will an out of date passport number work?

Spanish person:  I don’t know. They accept other documents

Wendy:  My Birth certificate?

Spanish person:  No,   it has to be a UK Birth Certificate

Wendy:  It is,  I’m born and bred in England!

Over a lunch of chicken and chips with lashings of vinegar:

Someone from the Colonies (don’t know which):  Are you Australian?  I can hear an accent

Wendy:  I’m English

SFTC(DKW): but you’ve lived abroad for sometime?

Wendy:  Yes,  8 years in the US,  but its probably my regional English accent that you’re hearing

Over a disturbingly small cup of tea:

New Zealander:  I can hear your American intonation

Wendy:   that’s actually my English regional accent intonation

New Zealander:  (immitates raising voice-pitch towards end of sentence)

Wendy:  That’s right,  Bristolians raise their voice towards the end of a sentence,  well spotted!  (I squeaked the last bit in a higher pitch)

I don’t think I convinced anyone.  Maybe I’ve been colonyised?

My parents moved home in April 1982 when I was 18yrs studying for my A level’s in June 1982. 

Mum & Dad had been looking for a new home earnestly since 1977.  After 2 years of their looking I no longer took their house- hunting seriously.  I saw a fussiness that would rule-out all almost-right choices.  Hmmm….  like parents like daughter?  lets just not go there.  Suddenly in January 1982 they found a house nowhere near my school and succssfully purchased it.  They placed me in a foster-home for me to cover April 1982 thru June 1982.  Due to a vicious bout of the flu I was bed-ridden and couldn’t join in the choice.

My parents picked hosts who were a couple starting on their second marriage,  both recently divorced from their first marriages.  He was a ‘Royal Engineer‘ who was thoroughly commited to the Faulklands war that started in April 1982 both were staunch supporters of the Ronald Regan and conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.   I hated the stink in the home.  Their Labrador puppy peeing on the floor daily didnt help. The couple made it clear that my coloured friend should not come to their house.  She was not an appropriate person for me to spend time with.  They explained to me that it embarressed them and lowered the tone of the neighbourhood to see her walking towards their house.  Soon it became obvious that my male-friends were also not allowed to call at this house, apparantly it made their home look like it was a brothel. 

I had friends of all colours and genders,  but only the white females were allowed to be seen walking to their house.  Even this honoured class had to be dressed appropriately,  meaning some form of Victorian image of demure.  Village life in 1982.  It may be village life today.  At the time I was furious with my parents for leaving me there.  Retrospectively I think I learned a lot of valuable lessons from the difficult experience of living with these people.

Mumsie packed older brother (9yrs) and I (5yrs) on a public bus for a 40min bus ride to the Marlborough St. City centre bus terminal. 

Exciting.  Adventure.  Upstairs on a double-decker bus without any adults.  Going to the big city.  Bother held my hand as we left the bus.  We walked up the hill towards the  Bristol Royal Infirmary.  I knew the way because I came on the Bus with Mumsie every Thursday when she came to the city to shop. 

Crossing the road,  very scary.  Mumzie always held my hand, checked for traffic.  I didn’t know how to cross the road.  I still find it particularly tricky.  I held my brothers hand tightly, walked fast and close to him as we crossed the road.  Once in the hospital I had no idea where to go.  My brother read the signs and found my other brother (6yrs) in the childrens ward,  who promptly started crying. 

What a wuss.  Here in this interesting big hospital with lots of fabulous toys and other children to play with and all he does is sit in bed crying!  I wandered off to play with the other children and big toys.   One of the children was bald.  Some wacky children in here.  Then dad turned up and we left crying brother in the hospital,  crying even more now.  We rode home in Dads pale blue Ford Corsair car.  I was allowed to sit in the front seat because Mumzie wasn’t there. 

All in all  a fabulous adventure.

 If you appreciate good dialog,  good acting in the storytelling of social-political change based on real events that can produce heated post-viewing discussion then you will thoroughly enjoy this film; “Amazing Grace“. 

   

Ratings explained

The film is part of the UK celebration of 200 years, 25th March,  since the Abolition of the slave trade (slavery was still legal) in the British Empire.  America was no longer a part of the British Empire at this stage and continued to trade in Slaves as did European powers such as France, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.  The film follows the lead abolitionist’s,  William Wilberforce’s, efforts.  The title comes from a song whose original lyrics are attributed to John Newton a repentant master of slave trading ships and influential adult in William Wilberforce’s life.  For me the film compares favourably to, can be classed with, the classic play ”A man for all seasons“.  

Strengths:

• Story.  This is a story worthy of being made into a film.  It stands without explosions,  sex-scandals,  profanity,  nudity.  So few films nowadays are sufficiently brave to leave these components out of the screenplay.  What does it include?  Horror,  suspense, tension, pathos, wit, conversation as an art-form and fabulous scenery (parliament buildings, big wooden sailing ships etc).
• Cast.  For shere breadth of talent including Michael Gambon, Albert Finney, Ioan Gruffudd, Ciarán Hinds, Rufus Sewell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bill Paterson, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Jeremy Swift, Youssou N’Dour.  The talent is doubley worth mentioning for their lack of conformity to the current Hollywood standard of ‘beautiful’.  If you need a dosage of current-standard pretty boys and this is not the film for you.  Hoorah!
• Scene details.  For example the unusual card-tables for the parliamentary card-clubs,  the kitchen crockery and utensils in the background of the kitchen scenes.  Ioan looked wonderfully sickly and ill in many of the shots where he is supposed to be so, no holidng back on under-eye darkness,  sweat,  and unsightly body contortions. 
• rhetoric.  The parliamentary rhetoric was wondertful, pressumably this was taken from original transcripts of parliamentary sessions.  The jibes are typically cheeky,  sarcastic,  cutting and yet the serve to reveal the weaknesses of the recipients position beautifully.  The rhetoric is not constrained to witty come-backs it includes some,  by no means all, of the arguments for Britian continuing to engage in the slave trade.  The less positive reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes describe this tendancy as ‘Speechifying’ and ‘Talky’.  I like Speechifying when it isn’t lengthy dull monolouges and I didn’t notice any lengthy dull monologues in this film. 

Areas for improvement:

• slavery arguments: given the film focus I was slightly suprised by the low-profile given to some of the topical arguments for slavery.  For example,  if evolutionary theory was mentioned in the debate I missed-it.  The notion common in Britain that people were born to a natural status,  aristocracy,  working-class,  black (US = People of color) divined by God was not mentioned.  This seemed odd,  I would have liked at least some passing reference to these beliefe systems more clearly evident within the film.  The nearest reference to the notion that every person is born to a position in life was the reaction of the opposition to a petition of the people,  why should they take notice of a petition of the people?  The portrayal simply makes them look arrogant,  evil,  as viewers we are not lead to understand that it was a common belief that people were born with different capabilities,  different values to society.  I would have valued a little more clarification of the depth of impact of the American Independance and French revolution on the priorities of parliament.  Though I suspect this would have made the film even longer and more ’speechifying’ which would have irritated more viewers that aren’t me.
• slave trade is not slavery:  The film does not make it clear to the viewer that Slavery was still legal in the British Empire for a further 30 years.  This blog article by Louis Proyect points this out and provides an informative persepctive on a worthy storyline not tackled within this film.  The blog article includes details of  people portrayed in the film and cites a poem written by William Wordsworth dedicated to one of them.   Louis makes a convincing point that William Wilberforce being portrayed as the lead role was perhaps not a good choice:

Every other abolitionist figure is subordinate to him, which is of course detrimental to the film since they are far more interesting than this bible-thumping prig.

• shift girl focus from love interest:  Barbara Wilberforce (Romola Garai) wearing pink lipstick and lip gloss just didn’t ‘feel’ right though I realise the ladies of the day did have access to powders and creams that they used to change their lip colour.  Her wig was also suspicously perfect and an unusual colour (redhead).  She sported the modern fashion for a voluptious top lip,  though not Scarlett Johansen proportions.  It was challenging to discern her talent from the odd accessories.  Hannah More is present in some scenes and even has some lines,  I was disappointed that her role was not more significant.  The cynic in me thinks the small contribution her role in the film might be because she was not young,  beautiful and married.   I visited Hannah’s birthplace while in Bristol last week:

The graffiti in Bristol provided a pleasant surprize, especially this humerous piece by Banksy. I am completely soppy about Banksy’s work.

 All examples here use a teabag in a mug with hotwater poured onto the bag.  The first photograph is in the kithcen of a Portsmouth home.  Using a pint of semi-skimmed milk from Asda and a mug featuring St Georges cross in front of a glass electric kettle.

 This is on a beach in Cornwall near Cawsand.  3 mugs of tea and two mugs of chocolate for the short people.  An inovative water-boiling-on-the-beach contraption helped ensure the water was the right temperature for tea brewing.  Once the tea had brewed sausage sandwiches were made then we finished off with another cup of tea.  The perfect way to start and wrap-up a hike to the beach.

 This is from home in Bristol.  It’s the pre-breakfast table at 7am,  my first, second and third cuppa of the day normally come from this productive little pot.  That is cup number 2 and I’m about to refill the pot with fresh tea for the biddies as they start to wake up and potter about.

  

The city that I grew-up in is famous for many things including its blue glass and Harveys, a company that bottles and distributes high quality sherry, the first ever cream sherry, they supply the Queen’s household. My first ever glass of alcohol was at midnight on new years eve when my parents gave me a glass of Harveys Bristol Cream. 

Harveys Bristol Cream has invoked warm homely occassions ever since then.

A poetry book, like a dictionary, is a book I never finish reading.  Unlike dictionaries I will voraciously read all the words in a poetry book cover-to-cover upon first discovering them.  Obviously this is after having removed my stickly little digits from the tea mug.  Both are reference books,  pulled from the shelf again and again. 

The dictionary gets pulled when I’m unsure of a word’s meaning,  range of meanings,  origins,  relationship to other words.  Assured of discovery, my question promptly answered. Inevitably a rewarding experience,  how can anyone fail to fall in love with dictionaries?  I’m very loyal to my one paper dictionary, it cannot be replaced.  The Collin’s Concise (1983) was a present from an elder brother.  When I look at its faded binding I see my 21 year old brother standing at the top of Park Street outside Georges with a white plastic bag in his hand held out towards me saying

“you’re leaving home?  You’ll need your own dictionary“. 

A very different experience from pulling one of the several poetry books from the shelf, floor, table, chair, cooker, mantle, washing-machine.   The favoured books are scattered around the Wendy House where they afford the opportunity of unpremeditated rediscovery in a moment of undirected reading.  Picking up a book,  flicking through the pages to a title that catches some thought and reading that poem.   One book purchased in a tizzy in 1989 insists on falling open to specific pages,  poems I found powerful in the early 1990s. I have to fight against its insistence on taking me to specific emotional places. 

Poetry book use is not all so sporadic. There are specific places I’ll go when I’m happy,  because I’m sad,  or I want to find the words that describe what it is that I’m feeling because I just don’t know.  They are often there,  wrapped in the ambiguities and soothing rythms, but one can never be sure of Dictionary-like success. 

With that thought I’ll return to the vacuuming

I saw a Leyland doubledecker bus in Seattle. Whooopie!!!

Instant over-excitement. 

I shouldn’t read the branding on bus-grills while driving.  It’s one of my naughty habits.  I think it was a Leyland “Olympian“.  An Olympian bus with views of the Olympic mountains imported from Britain built by the British National motor industry with engineering specialism from Bristol. 

I’m getting all soppy again.   Time for more Tea.

this post title is a classic chorus lyric line from the song “Bryan Rix” by a cheerful yet sadly obscure British indie band from my home City of Bristol – “The Brilliant Corners“.  Wikipedia explains that Brian Rix was an actor comedian who specialised in farce.  On film

“Rix was regularly seen on screen without his trousers on“

Occasionally I have needed to laugh when seeing someone with their trousers down…

* Spaz.

This design webpage cites several examples of how right handedness influences real world design. Of spiral staircases it says:

Visit any church or castle in Europe next time you are there and you will probably find a spiral staircase or two. Most of them spiral anti-clockwise as they go down (and thus clockwise as they go up). Apparently this was to favor defensive sword use should the building be overrun at any time. If you are up the spiral staircase and are right-handed and facing down the stairs you will have the central axis of the stairs on your left and you will be able to swing your sword at your foe coming up the stairs. He on the other hand will have the central axis on his right and so it will be directly in the way of his sword swings. There is enough contemporaneous information to back up which hand swordsmen used to use in those days…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘John Cabot’ sailed to America from Bristol in 1496.  Apparently he is widely accredited as being the first European to discover North America since the Vikings.  In Bristol there is a tower dedicated to him.  This web-page describes the tower with quirkily expressed appreciation of the spiral staircase direction. 

Several castles specifically had clockwise down spiral staircases with left-handed swordsmen to protect them.  why is this good?  Left handed swordsmen normally fight right handed swordsman but the converse is not so, consequently left handed swordsmen are more well practiced in fighting a right-hander than righthanders are in fighting a left-hander. Left handers are often more effective in some ’sports‘ such as ‘fencing’.

Why do castle staircases predominantly spiral one direction based on handedness while driving-sides vary?  The shifting use of the right hand from wielding a weapon against a potential adversary to using a whip on pairs of horses pulling a heavy load appears to have played a significant role.  This webpage describes the evolution of different driving sides.  It cites American and French ‘teamsters’ for initiating a shift from road users predominantly passing with their left hands on the nearside followed by the Napoleonic empire pushing the new standard throughout Europe and the British for doing their “best to stave off global homogenisation“.  This excerpt describes the beginning of the shift:

In the past, almost everybody travelled on the left side of the road because that was the most sensible option for feudal, violent societies. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him. Moreover, it reduced the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people.

Furthermore, a right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse, and it would be very difficult to do otherwise if wearing a sword (which would be worn on the left). It is safer to mount and dismount towards the side of the road, rather than in the middle of traffic, so if one mounts on the left, then the horse should be ridden on the left side of the road.

In the late 1700s, however, teamsters in France and the United States began hauling farm products in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. These wagons had no driver’s seat; instead the driver sat on the left rear horse, so he could keep his right arm free to lash the team. Since he was sitting on the left, he naturally wanted everybody to pass on the left so he could look down and make sure he kept clear of the oncoming wagon’s wheels. Therefore he kept to the right side of the road…   …An official keep-right rule was introduced in Paris in 1794, more or less parallel to Denmark, where driving on the right had been made compulsory in 1793

Wendy left-handed-inconsistent-potentially-dangerous-passer

UK Vacation 9

This ball is near the Waterfront in Bristol. The steps coming out of it suggest the scale. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to stand underneath it and take a picture of the distorted view within one panel including passers-by.

:: DISCO ::

 

UK Vacation 3

This “Lord Mayor’s chapel” was originally built to service a hospital in the 13th century.  It was bought by the City of Bristol and is the only chapel owned by a “city” (corporation).  Rather than owned, for example, by a religious order or private family.

It clearly demonstrates the close relationship between local city administration and religion in Britain.  Whether this close relationship is a good thing is open to debate.  I’d be curious about people’s opinions. 

When I looked around the church I found the mix of old and new artefacts intriguing.  Illustrated by the desk and computer photographed below.

The Flags look like they may show ‘coat of arms’ representing ’sponsorship’ of this Church.  The bristol city coat of arms, is one possibility.  Other possibilities include families that have significant relationships with this church,  for example the Dragoo family,  professional Guilds, or oganisations (e.g. Universities).  I wish I’d asked about them while I was there…