Just walked in from the British Library 20 minutes into the England-Sweden World Cup game and switched on the radio. I knew within a couple of seconds from the strain in the commentator’s voice that things weren’t going well, before I’d heard any actual information. Isn’t the human voice an amazing instrument?
(For anyone in Antartica the vocal strain is now diluted, since England are leading 1-0 at half-time. But Owen still has an injured knee, I should imagine.)
The Anglican church is coming over all faint and having to lie down in a darkened room – or at least large parts of it are – after the US Episcopal Church (part of the international Anglican communion, as they call it) elected a woman, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of Nevada, as presiding bishop. What’s even worse, a liberal woman.
Sounds like a very necessary step forward to me, since:
Only three churches within the 38 provinces of the Anglican communion currently ordain women bishops: the US, Canada and New Zealand, though a further 11, including Ireland and Scotland have amended their canons to enable them to do so.
TheIndependent today has listed a 10 “must see” ancient sites around the Med:
1. Delphi
2. Mycenae
3. Knossos
4. Troy
5. Ephesus
6. Leptis Magna
7. Carthage
8. Algeria
9. Pont du Gard (France)
10. Agrigento (Sicily)
I’ve put in italics the ones I haven’t seen – a trip to Libya has been on my “must do one day” list for some time.
It is a slightly odd list, perhaps slanted by the travel agents to hand in the office, Algeria??, and where is Pompei and Herculaneum? So I reckon I’ll give myself 50 per cent – half-way there.
I won’t call it a meme, but if you want to pick it up you’re welcome…
The Times of course puts a negative spin on it, but I think London landing roughly middle in a survey of civility in cities isn’t too bad. In a big, very diverse city, with lots of different cultures, people may not always have the language skills, or the confidence, to fulfil the little civilities – shop assistants saying “thank you”, people holding doors open – that Readers Digest was looking for.
New York came top, which did make me wonder how much the commercial “have a nice day” culture had influenced the results.
What is unsurprising is that Asian cities are clustered at the bottom. As someone who arrived in London with a sigh of relief after the incivilities of Bangkok (sharpen your elbows before trying to board a peak-hour bus). What is generally true of Asia is that you owe a stranger absolutely nothing, not the slightest courtesy. Which doesn’t make for very nice cities.
And of course part of this is cultural – saying “thank you” is not usually, after all, very meaningful. I remember all of the odd looks I got travelling in China by saying it (in, roughly, Chinese) to waitresses who brought the food and similar. That is just a weird thing to do. (I read somewhere that in ideological times it was considered un-PC, unCommunist, in some way demeaning of a worker’s labour.)
My 19th-century blogger, Miss Frances William Wynn, is today tackling one of the great political/society puzzles of the 18th century – who is Junius? Not that she finds an answer, or even has her own theory, but she has obviously done a lot of research on the subject.
Wikipedia would appear to do a good job of outlining the tale, and also of setting out the candidates.
Interesting that, one way or another, women seem to play such a prominent role in either shielding, or possibly revealing, the culprit.
I’ve got a review of a book of that title over on Blogcritics. The book is a bit of a quick cut and paste job, assembling material from the media and academia on the subject, but that does produce a useful survey. Its general conclusion – unsurprising, but likely to be unpopular – is that there is nothing “special” about the women bombers. They have the same range of motivations and character traits as the males.
The really surprising piece of information is that the suicide bomb belt was actually invented for use by women, by the Tamil Tigers. Perhaps the first weapon of war specifically invented for women. (If you don’t count those tricksy little deringers women always wield in Western movies, but I’m not sure those were really serious weapons.)
About