Today is St. George's Day. The patron saint of England marked by the red cross on a white ground that is the flag of England. The same red cross that is the center of the more known Union flag. It is also the birthday of William Shakespear who is beleved to have been born on this day in 1565, the same day he died in 1616.

Of no particular interest if you are not English and likely of little notice to the majority of English people who aren't much into saints. But why in the United States should St. Patrick get all the ink lol.

      If one were only to read the title, one might suppose Kentish misspelled "Breast day," which is definitely worthy of celebration.


      However, the correct intent is immediately known, so my crude attempt at humor is instantly dismissed.

      I am an acknowledged Anglophile, thanks to overdosing on Samuel Shellabarger, Thomas B. Costain, and Daphne du Maurier as an elementary school student...and then repeated readings of all Dorothy Sayers' writings on the younger brother of the Duke of Denver.  

      This peculiar fondness survived being humiliated and demeaned by my fellow students the day I gave my book report on du Maurier's "The Scapegoat"...  For some reason, my brain saw "Scrapegoat" and when I said it out loud the first time Mrs. Anderson burst out laughing, and so naturally so did the entire classroom, though they scarce knew why.

      She apologized later...




      Wikipedia's explanation of St. George's Day is a good read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George%27s_Day_in_England

<3

Yes. I've always found it strange that England's patron saint had nothing to do with the country and never went there because, if he existed, it was probably in Turkey...

When I was younger (up to the early 80s), you never saw a St. George's cross flag and the Union Jack was much less ubiquitous than now. Maybe as their global significance wanes (and they finally realize it), the English feel they have to shout louder to be noticed...

A good excuse for a party, however ;-)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2024 01:20PM by Soft Machine.

Je suis désolé!!!

Et Gladys est aussi vraiment désolée!!

It is, I think, that George was claimed because he represents the values of fair play and support of the underdog, real or only imagined, that England always saw in itself over formative years. As a boy playing sports in primary and secondary school there was always the unstated belief that sportsmanship and joy of participating was.more important than the winning. But what do I know? I'm still the guy who waits in line and gives up his seat on the bus to a "lady" no matter she could be sixty years younger than me.

The coaches and players in the Premier League always seem civil if not friendly to the opposing team once the game is over.

Kentish, when you said that it was a "great day for the English," I was hoping that Aston Villa went a bit further in the Champions League. I had lost track of their progress. lol

"sportsmanship and joy of participating was more important than the winning"

Indian style warfare in the American colonies was a real eye opener.

Soft Machine Wrote:
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> Yes. I've always found it strange that England's
> patron saint had nothing to do with the country
> and never went there because, if he existed, it
> was probably in Turkey...

Actually, it goes back to at least 3,000 BCE.

Virtually all of the Indo-European peoples share the myth of a supreme god of thunder and storms who kills a dragon, usually a dragon who has stopped up the waters on which agricultural and pastoral economies depend. In the Christian era the role shifted to a king or a saint killing the dragon, but there was still a religious element to the story. Also, there was a demonstrable trail of the dragon-slaying myth from the steppe into China, where the divine king slays the monster of floods and droughts; and thence into Japan, where a deity kills a sea dragon.

It's likely that Judaism and Christianity inherited the Indo-European myth during the Exile, particularly because YHWH was originally a storm god before he was elevated by the Hebrews to a position equal to, or superior to, Elohim. The story was also widespread in Canaan and Mesopotamia, who had more immediate connections to the steppes, before the Hebrews existed as a separately defined nation.

At some point, however, it becomes possible that similar myths emerged spontaneously in at least some societies because all people are anxious about snakes and water and want divine protection. But the earliest proven version of the myth is among the proto-Indo-European peoples in the Pontic and Caspian steppes in the fourth millennium BCE.

When i was growing up, I only saw news stories on CNN about football hooligans with that flag at soccer matches like people waving the Confederate Battle Flag at NASCAR events or Enoch Powell / Britain First types flying the St. George's flag.

##########

https://www.ruzhnikov.com/russian-icons/st-george-and-dragon-152/

Saint George the Martyr is one of the most venerated Christian saints and the patron of Russia. In Russia, the cult of Saint George arrived in the 11th century. The earliest known depiction of the Saint dating from the 12th century appears in the frescos cycle St George’s Church in Staraya Ladoga.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2024 06:08AM by anybody.

Hey, at my age I am lucky to be able get my thoughts in order never mind down in "print". I am an old fashioned two finger typist, used to pounding a heavy typewriter keyboard. Computer boards are far too sensitive for my hammering and anymore I do my best at editing. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it.

Kentish, it was just yesterday that I was showing some of my students online images of a typewriter. They were agog, especially when I told them that I used to use one in college.

summer Wrote:
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> Kentish, it was just yesterday that I was showing
> some of my students online images of a typewriter.
> They were agog, especially when I told them that I
> used to use one in college.

Agog. Haha. I remember being bowled over the first time I saw a fax machine in action. (It was very very ancient at the time and I was very very young). :P

My sibs think I'm ancient because I still prefer email.

It's getting scary out there! I thought things were fine - why do they have to keep on inventing new stuff?!

PS: Happy St. George's to you kentish. Who cares if the guy is made up? We don't seem to mind such a concept in December, haha. Any excuse for a celebration. We could sure use one these days.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2024 05:26PM by Nightingale.

Ha ha! My students are similarly amazed when I tell them that I grew up without video games (oh, the horror!) I also tell them that my childhood TV set was black and white with only 13 channels, not all of which were operational.

My childhood was devoid of tv. Just an unreliable radio at home for Divck Barton Special Agent and plenty of streets with bombed houses to play in Poor us, we were forced to create our entertainment.

Other stuff that would boggle kids' minds:

carbon paper
spirit duplicators
pantograph/polygraph
hectograph
mimeograph

Fax machine concept and original patent actually dates back to just after the US Civil War. Photocopiers were not a thing until the mid 1960s, and were not common until about 1970.

Thomas Jefferson used a polygraph to duplicate most of his correspondence - approximately 22,000 letters, if I recall correctly.

Manual typewriters
Keypunches
Apps on card decks
Teletypes

Kinda went out with long skirts.

Keypunches also go back to the 19th century. "IBM cards" used to come in utility bills, and you were supposed to return the card ("do not fold, spindle or mutilate") with your payment. What became known as IBM cards were first used in the 1890 census. The government was desperate to automate the census tabulating process, since it took them more than ten years to finish the 1880 census.

The company that developed the technology did in fact become IBM. The cards were the size that they were because that was the size of US paper money back in 1890. The company could buy standard off-the-shelf cash trays for storing the cards.

For kicks long ago at BYU, I went into the computer lab and punched a few of those cards with things like book titles, my name, etc. I used them as book marks for decades. I think I still have one.

There has been so much technology come and go just in my lifetime.
I've had to transfer or recreate my favorite music collection from 8 tracks, vinyl, cassette tapes, floppy discs, CDs, mp3, USB drives, every computer upgrade, etc. My transistor radio was my most important possession at one time.

Happy belated St. George's Day, kentish.

Each Christmas she’d bring home some of the cards that had mistakes, and we’d make wreaths out of them.

She was fun and into recycling/reusing things before she went super religious.

I remember seeing punch card wreaths. The cards were rolled up and arranged in patterns with bows and stuff glued on. They looked cool and fun to make.

Yup. Good times!

ETA: The best was when they were rewiring the telephone system and she brought home yards of the old colorful plastic coated wires.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2024 01:06PM by Beth.

School-sanctioned huffing!

Spirit duplicators and hectographs were also pretty huffable. And I just discovered that RFM auto-correct changes "huffable" to "huggable". Isn't that precious?! :-/

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2024 12:42PM by Beth.

I don't think the board ware has an autocorrect. It must be on your end. Very interesting about IBM (IttyBittyMachines). There was a scene in A Touch of Mink with punch cards gone wild that I loved as a kid and I learned about them. I only had one job that used them :(

April 23 is my only begotten son's birthday.

The past is still with us. American towns and cities are sill blighted by wires and poles that have barely changed from the 1800s.