Daithai C

Welcome back Woolpack

2009-11-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

Welcome back Woolpack!

The Sage has previously chronicled the dolorous tale of one of his local pubs burning down resulting in a 50% reduction in drinking outlets in Stoke Mandeville, the drawback of living in a small village. The Woolpack burnt down in the small hours of Saturday morning 25th April 2009. Apparently a tumble drier was left on a timer after the pub was locked up for the night and the fluff / lint caught fire. An object lesson for all of us, always make sure you de-fluff first and never go to bed leaving yours spinning away.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/woolpack-stoke-mandeville.html

The way we were

The local paper The Bucks Herald reported at the time;

“THE Woolpack pub and restaurant in Stoke Mandeville has been destroyed by a huge fire. he building was described by Bucks Fire and Rescue as 100 per cent damaged by the blaze. Fire fighters were called to the pub, in Risborough Road, at 3.37am on Sunday morning.

Woolpack ablaze last April...

.... and afterwards

It took more than four hours for the fire to be extinguished, and crews are likely to be at the scene for 'some considerable time' yet. Gas cylinders were removed from the two-storey building. Ten crews from Aylesbury, Winslow, Princes Risborough, High Wycombe, Great Missenden and Amersham attended the scene.”

Rebuilding underway

Well in a resurrection which would have made Lazarus proud the newly refurbished Woolpack reopened for business on the 6th November 2009, less than 6 months after it was a 100% loss in the disastrous fire. This is in itself a minor miracle of project management, particularly as the woolpack was both a thatched and listed building. Inside it looks much as before but there is a distinct improvement externally and internally. The toilet annexe on the left hand side of the front elevation always had a “stuck on look.” This has been now tidied up with the exterior showing a traditional looking dark weatherboarding and improved toilets inside with the side corridor gone.

The old sign - with the happy sheep

Otherwise the interior is much the same as before which is no bad thing, traditional with a certain blingly panache. The menu is also much the same as before, not too cheap, but good big plates of fresh food well cooked with a continental twist. The only grump I have is that salads are listed under the poesy heading of leaves! Seeing this and the equally poesy “Breakfast Goods” on a gastro pub menu always sends my toes into an uncontrollable spasm of curling. One final note; Spend Xmas Day at home as the Wolly is booked out!

Otherwise Welcome back Woolpack!

http://www.woolpackstokemandeville.co.uk/

The new sheep free sign - Baa!!Baa!!

The Word is Law

2009-11-23T05:06:00.000-08:00

The motivational Dr. Laura

As that strangest of creatures, an Irish Atheist, I’ve often wondered how the Nazarenes take the history of the Jewish people (aka The Bible and the Apocrypha) and call it their “Old Testament” and then claim it is the literal word of god when they cannot even agree amongst themselves what should be in it. However for fundamentalist Christians it has a certain fetish quality with a whole “Bible Study” industry tracing it back to the original Hebrew and particular attention paid to fascinating areas such as End Time warnings, Pretenders , Hypocrites, Spirit of Babylon, etc; Indeed, an excellent roadmap for living in the 21st Century.

There is a reason of course why they keep going back to the Old Testament as the “New Testament” is not that coherent consisting of disparate sources which were in different languages and versions to give us the Gospels (“good news”), the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles (letters) and then, a rather late entry after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, The Book of Revelation, a work which had previously been considered too mystic and too much of the East to be part of mainstream teaching.

There is therefore a great danger when Christians take this historic narrative of the Jewish people, which is not interpreted uniformly by Jewish scholars, and the foundations of Mosaic Law and then start quoting it out of context as “literal truth”, whatever that is? One who has done so is Dr Laura Schlesinger, (A potty conservative radio talk show host), after remarking that homosexuality is an abomination according to the Bible Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. Dr. Schlesinger is one of these airbrushed manicured motivational Telly People you get in America who is such a refreshing contrast to the hard bitten alcoholic harridans of the British Press who so enjoy wallowing in their own bile whilst telling us the world is going to Hell. (N.B. No concept of Hell in Judaism but of course that doesn’t stop the Harridans). So I am most grateful to Trevor McCarthy for his letter to Dr. Schlesinger, the Bible expert, seeking clarification on some issues which trouble him.

The Word

Dear Dr. Schlesinger,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination... End of story, fu*king debate over.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to The Welsh, but not The Scottish. Can you clarify why I can't own a Scot?

2. I would like to sell my friends daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual unseemliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women tell me to fu*k off.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. Clearly states he or she should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to sort it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

A shellfish abomination

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I do wear glasses to read sometimes. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some room for manoeuvre here?

8. Most of my friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still have the odd bacon sarny if I wear gloves?

10. My wife and I keep horses on a farm in Morpeth, Northumberland, where the owner violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town of Morpeth together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, as suggested by the good book for people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you once again for reminding me that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

Trevor McCarthy

Rude Boys

Mapping the World

2009-11-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

Harry Beck's original 1933 Underground Map Click on maps for a larger image

It is acknowledged that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so by any standards the world’s most flattered mapmaker must be Harry Beck who devised the famous diagrammatic London Underground Tube Map. By the early 1930s, the London Underground network had expanded so considerably that it was difficult to squeeze all the new lines and stations into a geographical map. Passengers complained that the existing map was crowded, confusing and hard to read. It was decided that the network was too big to be represented geographically and the Underground commissioned one of its draughtsmen Harry Beck (1903-1974) to devise a more efficient method.

Basing his map on an electrical circuit, Beck represented each line in a different colour and interchange stations as diamonds. The crowded central area was enlarged and the course of each route simplified into the form of a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line. The diagrammatic map was produced on a trial basis as a leaflet in 1933 and Beck continued to refine it until 1959. For the full story see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-british-design-quest.html

London Transport has contributed a great deal to modern British Design largely through the influence of Frank Pick. The obsession with clear design and image was continued through to Harry Beck’s famous schematic map, commissioning its own “machine typeface” to make its posters, signage and publications clearer, building instantly recognisable branded station buildings and station fittings and using engaging and innovative advertising in the 30’s. Today London Underground’s trademark roundel is the second most recognised brand worldwide. The Directors in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since. See about Charles Holden’s influence and his design for the Underground’s iconic headquarters here;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

Eisenhower Interstate Highway SystemClick on maps for a larger image

The map above translates Harry Beck’s Map to add clarity to the United States Interstate Highway Network. Its creator Senex Prime (http://www.flickr.com/photos/senexprime/ ) set out to simplify America's Interstate system & thought London's Tube map was the best way to present a lot of information very concisely and clearly. In his own description;

“I have rendered the Interstate system in a much simpler form. I have made the "major" highways (those divisible by 5) the framework of the map, with the "minor" highways reduced in importance and rendered as thinner grey lines. Even with these highways, a difference in the greys indicates whether they are even-numbered (west-east) or odd-numbered (north-south). Dots on the highways indicate interchanges: large dots where major highways meet other major highways, smaller dots where major meets minor and tiny dots where minor highways begin or end. A full key at the bottom indicates clearly where each highway begins and ends.”

One of my own favourites is the Webzine b3ta (http://www.b3ta.com/ ) which had a map challenge where people were challenged to create a map that told the truth. Not surprisingly there are many re-creations based on the London Underground Map including this one which portrays London as seen by tourists, poor things.

London for tourists?Click on maps for a larger image

Mark Ovenden is a broadcaster and author who specialises in the subjects of graphic design, cartography and architecture in public transport, with an emphasis on underground rapid transit. His interest in transport maps stems from his belief that they echo the prevailing social and political trends of the societies they emanate from. His Urban World Metro Map is a "playful diagram" showing "all the cities which have, are building or are planning to construct an urban rail system."

World's Urban Rail SystemsClick on maps for a larger image

Like with Harry Beck’s Map there can only ever be one which was “The First” and for the story of the first Underground railway in the world which opened to passengers from Paddington to Farringdon on 10 January 1863 take a look at this post covering one of the world’s Great Railway Journey;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

As for Mr. Beck and his map? Well, as these examples show the map devised and then lovingly nurtured (by hand before the days of computers) in his spare time for over 30 years has made this simple draughtsman in London Underground’s Signals Department one of the world’s most influential and most imitated cartographers.

Click on maps for a larger image
Anagram map of the Underground by http://home.greywulf.net/

Je ne regrette rien?

2009-11-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

Thierry Henry

After France won their World Cup qualifier against Ireland last Wednesday at the Stade de Fraud, Paris, with Thierry Henry’s handball the cry went up around France’s former Republican ally “Liberté, égalité, fraternité et replay!”

But now it's all over for Ireland in World Cup 2010. FIFA has refused a replay against France so the country will now have to return to discussing its bankrupt economy and incompetent dishonest politicians. Pity, they could have done with the distraction.

Depression about being cheated out of a place in World Cup 2010 by the French Handball team means I'm back on the drink! Still, we must now look for the positives, think of all the Irish fans who now won't get murdered in South Africa!

The BBC reports that for a nation not particularly known for its moral qualms - it once hailed a head-butting footballer as a hero - the French feel surprisingly chastened about their questionable qualification for next year's World Cup. Reactions to Thierry Henry's handball, which led to the goal that sent the national team to the South African finals at the expense of the hapless Irish, have ranged from embarrassment to outrage.

The incident in Wednesday's game has been commented on in newspapers, on websites, and in cafes up and down France. It has even become of affair of state, with politicians weighing in. President Nicolas Sarkozy felt obliged to tell Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen that he felt sorry for his people. In an online poll for Le Monde, almost two-thirds of respondents agreed that the handball "discredits France's qualification".

Le Parisien newspaper summarised the national mood: "The handball of Henry has brought a decisive contribution to the theme 'being French is being ashamed of one's national team'." So perhaps for Les Bleus, the French cockerel is not crowing too loudly?

Enfin, répétez après moi;

“Non! Rien de rien...
Non! Je ne regrette rien...
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd'hui, a commence avec toi!”

The Hand of the French

2009-11-19T14:45:00.000-08:00

Le French Hand job! Merde!

Feelings are running high in Ireland after the country failed to qualify for World Cup 2010 in South Africa. The only topic of discussion in Ireland today is the French Hand job! Merde!! Ireland suffered the cruelest of World Cup exits as France went through with a goal with a goal which should have been disallowed for handball. Thierry Henry clearly handled before playing the ball for William Gallas to score the equaliser which saw France win the play-off 2-1 on aggregate at Stade de France, Paris. In fact Henry handled the ball twice, which would have been a foul in Volleyball let alone Soccer!

Thierry Henry admitted that he had intentionally handled the ball to set up William Gallas’s decisive goal against Ireland in Wednesday night's World Cup play-off in Paris. With cries of “cheat” ringing in his ears from furious Irish fans, the Barcelona and former Arsenal forward emerged from the dressing room to say: “I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him.”

Today in Ireland the mood is grim with calls to boycott French Fries, French Batons and even calls to outlaw French Kissing! It is safe to assume that Thierry Henry is not going on holiday in Ireland any time soon. My personal favourite is the reworking of the 1916 Declaration of Independence which a wag has put on the Facebook protest site “Hands up who think Ireland deserve the place in the 2010 World Cup.”

William Gallas bundles in France's extra-time winner in the World Cup play-off against the Republic of Ireland at the Stade de France in Paris last night

“IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for A REPLAY.

Having organised and trained her boys in green, she has stood tall in the face of disappointment and injustice , through the support of the Irish nation home and abroad, through her hope and hard work, carried forth by the supporters, young and old, having patiently perfected her discipline, even learnt to take penalties, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she last night seized that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she struck in full confidence of victory. Two men sought to bring down a nation: one by means of trickery and deceit; the other, to pander blindly in the face of world powers.

The Hand of the French

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to compete in the 2010 World Cup, and to continue with the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be victorious and undefeatable. The long usurpation of that right, played out last night by the hands of Thierry Henry and the blind ref, can never be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people, we demand the right to justice and a replay at the very least.

Le Grenouille - The legs of the French

In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom, justice and victory; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it to arms, last night we exerted it peacefully and proudly on a pitch in Paris. Now, we must face the second hand of God, the powers of FIFA and their colonial friends. Standing on our fundamental right to justice, and again asserting it peacefully in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic the deserved and righteous qualifier for South Africa, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our fellow countrymen and women to the cause of her victory, of the realisation of her long held dream, and of her exaltation among the nations of World Cup 2010.”

The French players celebrate William Gallas' extra-time goal

The French Goal Should Not Stand... Ireland Deserve to be in the 2010 World Cup

Contact FIFA via this link...

http://www.fifa.com/contact/form.html

And join the protest group on Facebook;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hands-up-who-think-Ireland-deserve-the-place-in-the-2010-World-Cup/181240290833#/pages/Hands-up-who-think-Ireland-deserve-the-place-in-the-2010-World-Cup/181240290833?v=wall

“Hands up who think Ireland deserve the place in the 2010 World Cup.”

It didn’t have to be like this you know, once Ireland and France were allies united against the common enemy;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/years-of-french.html

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

Belle de Jour

2009-11-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

Dr. Brooke Magnanti

Congratulations and solidarity across the Blogosphere to Dr. Brooke Magnanti who has outed herself as the blogger and former Escort girl “Belle de Jour.” Magnanti has said in her coming out interview with The Times, the former paper of record, that she has an ‘ex-boyfriend with a big mouth’ and that she had decided to go public before the decision was forced on her. Presumably this is “The Boy” who made frequent appearances in her Blog. Again, let’s assume that the ex-boyfriend hadn’t already contacted the Sunday Times. What we do know is that her “outing” was not entirely consensual. Last Friday police had to be called to her workplace at Bristol University to remove “journalists” from the Daily Mail. Good to see that the standards for which the Daily Heil is famous are being maintained. Nor does the Times seem a good choice of a paper to spill the beans to as it has a disgraceful reputation at harassing anonymous bloggers having shabbily outed Zoe Margolis as “Girl with a one track mind”

(http://girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com/ )

and Richard Horton as the policeman Blogger “Night Jack.”

(http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/06/survival-guide-for-decent-folk.html )

Not for nothing do those of us on the Blogosphere look at Blogging as “Freedom FROM the Press!”

"@miketd Actually, we went to the Times willingly, after the Mail had their reporters warned off my work premises by the police.
10:46 AM Nov 15th from web
Reply belledejour_uk
Belle de Jour" A Tweet on Belle's Twitter Page

Despite considerable media scepticism and the surreal identification of Toby Young (shudder of shudders) as the author Belle de Jour was real after all. The Internet’s most famous anonymous sex blogger – turned best-selling author – turned internationally successful TV series – has finally outed herself in the UK’s Sunday Times. No doubt this is not entirely what she wanted; particularly for her Jewish mother from whom she acquired a deep aversion from being in debt which she said led to her working as her escort and from her family on the Gulf Coast of Florida where she grew up.

As Belle says herself;

"People lead complicated lives. I'm not the only person walking around who's an ex-call-girl, believe me. And you can't say I'm not real, and that my experience isn't real, because here I am." Quiet so.

From her interview with the Times’ India Knight, we learn that Belle is in fact Dr Brooke Magnanti a specialist in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology. Her identity has been one of the great literary mysteries of the decade after the publication of bestselling books about her secret life as a prostitute. Six years ago, in the final stages of her PhD thesis, she ran out of money and turned to prostitution through a London escort agency, charging £300 an hour to make ends meet, in a manner of speaking. Add in the fact that Magnanti was already a reasonably well known science blogger and ‘The Secret Diary of a London Call Girl was born and was adapted into books and a television drama starring Billie Piper.

Indeed the Blog was the precursor for everything which followed winning the 2003 Guardian Blog Award when she was still “on active service”, so to speak, and the citation is worth recalling;

“The winner in this category however is Belle de Jour, the diary of a London call girl. There's obviously a prurient and titillating element, but the quality of her writing took her blog well beyond that. Some judges were concerned it was a work of fiction, but even if it is, it remains an impressive piece of writing.”

As Bruce Sterling, one of the judges said: "Archly transgressive, anonymous hooker is definitely manipulating the blog medium, word by word, sentence by sentence far more effectively than any of her competitors. It's not merely the titillating striptease aspects that are working for her, but her willingness to use this new form of vanity publishing to throw open a great big global window on activities previously considered unmentionable ... She is in a league by herself as a blogger."

Despite Belle’s growing fame and the determined efforts of journalists around the world to out her, Belle’s anonymity remained intact – mainly thanks to a complex series of agents and shell companies that allowed her to receive payment for her work without compromising her identity. Even her agent didn’t know her real name until this week when Belle herself chose to out herself, granting an interview to Knight, one of her harshest critics.

Belle de Jour book

There has been huge speculation about Belle’s real identity, including a theory that she was a well-known author because of the quality of her writing. The blog and books were also criticised for suggesting prostitution could be glamorous. Her pseudonym recalls the 1928 novel Belle de jour by Joseph Kessel and the 1967 film of the same name starring Catherine Deneuve, directed by Luis Buñuel. In French "Belle de Jour" is an expression translating literally as "beauty of [the] day," as opposed to "femme de nuit" or "belle de nuit," women of the night (common references to prostitutes). "Belle de jour" is a play on the phrase, possibly a reference to the daylight rendez-vous made by some call girls, including Belle de Jour herself. Belle de Jour is also of course a beautiful flower which blooms in daylight but retreats in darkness.

No doubt her going public will lead to an outpouring of HyperGuffitis about the rights and wrongs of prostitution, so let’s “hear” this comment left by a fellow sex worker on the Times article;

“As a fellow escort I'm so pleased that Dr. Magnanti has come out of the closet. She's taking one for the team. It's about time that the public starts seeing other sides of prostitution. There's a lot of dysfunction in this industry that needs to be cleaned up, but as you can see from Dr. Magnanti's experiences, there's no need to eradicate the industry altogether. Instead we need to bring the sex industry over ground so it doesn't have to become involved with trafficking, drugs, gangs, etc. in the underground. A step in the right direction!”

There is the nub, by having essentially hypocritical criminalisation of elements of prostitution (This of course from a Labour Government which has shamelessly accommodated the Lobbyists on Gambling and rolled over to the Alcohol industry) society has driven something underground which will never go away and indeed, many sociologists would argue, should never go away. By criminalising it we have effectively driven parts of it into the hands of criminals and have denied protection and inclusion to sex workers who are forced into a clandestine and covert existence. I remember being on a trip to Austria some years ago in the sleepy small town of St. Georgen-im-Attergau in the Salzkammergut. The tour guide told us the building down the road with the Jupiter beer sign outside was not a cosy local tavern but was in fact the (legal) town brothel. He mentioned this because the hotel had to “rescue” an elderly English couple who stumbled into this “cosy” tavern some weeks earlier and had ordered, and been politely served, two beers. The brothel had rung the hotel as they didn’t know how to explain to the elderly tourists the primary purpose of the joint. Some months ago in Rhodes Town in Greece I was shown the still extant red light district which has been catering (including On a Sunday despite what Melina Mercouri said) for clientele since before the First Crusade. This is legal in Greece and each house had the calling cards outside which gives us the expression “call girl.”

Austria and Greece where prostitution is legal and regulated are of course two socially backward countries (?) dominated by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches respectively and not to be compared to the liberal democracy known as “Cool Britannia” which takes a mature attitude to such things. N'est pas?

I recall the immortal words of the late, great Hoagy Carmichael, “Different strokes for different folks” and leave you with two recent soupçons from La Belle.

“lundi, novembre 16

Please note all media requests should be sent to either my publisher or agent. Anything received via my workplace or my personal and work emails, &c. will be ignored as I would only have to forward it to them anyway. Please do not come to my workplace as this compromises the security of patients and staff. Thank you for understanding.

Also, so much curiosity about my tax situation! Yes, I did pay taxes on sex work earnings.
Posted by belle at 9:57 AM”

“jeudi, novembre 5

But it is as much a cliché as it is the truth that appearances are deceiving. The person you think of as shy will actually talk your ear off, given half a chance. The most flowery, romantic love letters were written by absolute bastards. And under the shell of a coolly unemotional ex-prostitute beats the heart of someone who was only waiting for the right conditions in which love could blossom.”

http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/

Á Belle de Jour, bonne chance dans tes futurs projets.

Armistice Day 2009 - End of a generation

2009-11-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

The passing of the First World War generation was marked by a special memorial service at Westminster Abbey today as millions of people across Britain and Europe observed the two-minute Armistice Day silence.

Ninety-one years after the guns fell silent at 11am on 11th November, 1918, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh joined Gordon Brown, senior politicians and the heads of the armed forces in the solemn ceremony which commemorated the passing of the final three veterans of the war living in Britain, who all died this year. William Stone died in January, aged 108, followed in July by Henry Allingham, 113, and Harry Patch, 111. The only remaining British-born survivor of the war, former seaman Claude Choules, who is 108 now lives in Australia.

Poppies in the fountains at Trafalgar Square

Few can have been unmoved by the poignant sight at the last commemoration at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London of these last surviving veterans of the First World War joining serving soldiers in current conflicts to mark the 90th anniversary of the day peace returned to Europe. Then Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone led the nation as it remembered the sacrifices made by the 1914-1918 generation. They each represented the armed service they belonged to - for Mr Allingham the Royal Air Force, Mr Patch the Army and Mr Stone the Royal Navy. All three men laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in central London to commemorate Armistice Day. Sadly, but not too surprisingly, all have now died since that ceremony.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/farewell-old-soldiers.html

Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone

Being in Westminster and not too far from the Abbey which was the venue for the ceremonies you notice the minutiae of these occasions, the police checking lampposts and sealing manhole covers before hand, the veterans with their medals heading to the ceremony, the Guards colour party in great coats and bearskins marching briskly along the footpath from Wellington Barracks, the ambassador’s cars with their flags going down Toothill Street and the boom of the field in Green Park announcing at 11 the beginning of the silence and two minutes later the boom announcing it ending. Why Gordon Brown’s car passed along Petty France this morning on his way to the Abbey taking a different route from the back of Downing Street to the front of the Abbey. As is the way here these ceremonies are well oiled and practiced with no need for self important motorcades or grandiosity. Wars are and, we sometimes forget, have always been controversial but the orchestrated personal attacks on Gordon Brown by Rupert Murdoch and the tatty Sun “newspaper” represents a new low by the Dirty Digger and his hired help who arrogantly feel they can manipulate the British Public and British Democracy.

Theipval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme

But none of this controversy about current military engagements should in any way to detract from the personal heroism or sacrifice of soldiers in battle and it is right that their bravery is commemorated each year on Armistice Sunday, the service held on the Sunday closest to Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the fighting in World War 1 at 11.00 am on the 11th November 1918. Indeed when you read the obituaries of those who served in the wars and the enormous responsibilities and decisions they had to undertake at a tender age you somehow feel that those of us whose lives have not been tempered by war have somehow led shallow lives by contrast. However we largely read about those who survive, not those who perished.

This was brought home to me some years ago when I made a personal journey to the battle fields for there were deaths on both sides of my family in the First World War. My wife’s great uncle Edward Kenny who died with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and my Great Uncle, James McMahon who died with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Beaurevoir in the Ainse 5 weeks before the end of the war in 1918.

Private Edward Kenny

Private Edward Kenny, originally from Edenderry, Co. Offaly had fallen with the 2nd. Bn. Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders, at the Somme on the 27th August 1916 and he’s commemorated alongside 72,088 others at the dramatic “Monument to the Fallen” memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens at Thiepval on the D73 road between Baupaume and Albert. This monument is for soldiers who fell at the Somme who have no known grave or were not identified and his name is inscribed on panel 15C. The entry in "Ireland's Memorial Record" shows he was 24 when he died. To escape from poverty in Ireland they had moved to Bonnybridge near Glasgow and worked in the summer months as “tattie hokers”, the term for agricultural labourer’s who worked on the back breaking potato (tatties in the Scots dialect) harvest for bed and board and low wages. He joined up with the venerable Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders who are based at Scotland’s historic Stirling Castle and is commemorated on the Roll of Honour there and at The Scottish War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle. Disgracefully, to visit the latter you have to pay an expensive admission charge into the tourist theme park which is the modern Edinburgh Castle. We were able to trace his war record from a photo which showed the distinctive hat band of the Argyle and Sutherlands. His brother (my wife’s maternal grandfather) served in the Merchant Navy during the war and survived to live to a ripe old age.

Edward Kenny's War record Card - Transferred to France 13/9/1915 - KIA 27/8/1916

Edward Kenny commemorated in "Ireland's Memorial Record" Click to see a larger image

My great uncle who fell in WW1 was Private James Mc Mahon of the 6th. Bn. Royal Dublin Fusiliers and by coincidence he hailed from Clara, Co. Offaly, the same county as my wife’s great uncle. Unlike my wife’s relative James McMahon has a grave in the Aisne, the Department beyond the Somme whose capital is Cambrai and where the front line had stopped when the hostilities ended with the Armistice at 11 in the morning on the 11th November 1918. James McMahon was killed on the 8th October 1918 at a village called Beaurevoir, one of roundly 90 young Dublin Fusiliers who were killed from the 8th to 11th October and are buried with him in the cemetery. He was killed, aged 20, just over 4 weeks from the end of the war taking part in the so called “March to Victory” which lasted for 100 days until the Armistice. While not obvious today when viewing the sleepy countryside, in 1918 this was the last part of the fortified Hindenburg Line being attacked by tired and inexperienced British Troops resulting in disproportionate casualties amongst the attackers.

James McMahon's grave Beaurevoir, Aisne, France

Like all the Commonwealth cemeteries it is beautifully maintained and lies on the edge of the village with the standard layout of the Cross of Remembrance and a shelter for visitors which also holds the Book of Remembrance. James lies in a row of other Dublin Fusiliers aged from 18 to 21 with his name on the headstone given as “B. J. McMahon”. I wasn’t expecting to feel a great deal of connection with somebody who died so many years before I was born but being there amongst the graves of so many young Irish soldiers who all died on the 8th October 1918 was surprisingly moving.

James McMahon commemorated in "Ireland's Memorial Record"

In our fallen relatives home towns of Edenderry and Clara there are still “British Legion” houses provided for ex-soldiers and their families and in the decades of poverty and economic stagnation many Irish families were quietly grateful for the “War Pensions” they received. Ireland was neutral during the Second World War but many served in the British forces and many also worked in England both to survive and help the war effort including my Grandfather and two uncles who travelled on British Legion travel warrants and worked for the electronics firm Lucas in Birmingham during the war whilst living in a company dormitory. My father at the age of ten and his family on the other hand came in the other direction as refugees from the devastating blitz in Coventry.

On Armistice Day I too am proud to wear a poppy not in support of British Militarism or to legitimise the wanton waste of life in war. Rather I wear it to remember the great sacrifice of Edward Kenny and James McMahon and all their comrades who made a brave personal choice to fight for the greater freedom of humanity and paid the ultimate price for their beliefs.

Gurkha Tul Bahadur Pun VC

I leave the last word to the “Last Tommy” Harry Patch who thought that his comrade’s sacrifice had been in vain because what the world achieved was not “Peace in our Time” but rather it set the scene for the conflict of WW11. He expressed himself movingly and plainly in interviews in 2004;

Harry Patch 1898 - 2009

“I was taken back to England to convalesce. When the war ended, I don't know if I was more relieved that we'd won or that I didn't have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle — thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Herr Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We've had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it's a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn't speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?"

......."It wasn’t worth it. No war is worth it. No war is worth the loss of a couple of lives let alone thousands. T’isn’t worth it … the First World War, if you boil it down, what was it? Nothing but a family row. That’s what caused it. The Second World War – Hitler wanted to govern Europe, nothing to it. I would have taken the Kaiser, his son, Hitler and the people on his side … and bloody shot them. Out the way and saved millions of lives. T’isn’t worth it."

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/towards-somme-personal-journey.html

Jewish Prague

2009-11-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

Old Jewish Cemetery

Prague is one of the oldest Jewish Centres in Central Europe and the Jewish Community has a history going back over one thousand years. Most of the Jewish sites of Prague are in the Josefov, The Jewish Quarter. When this was redeveloped in the 1890’s it had deteriorated into an insanitary slum with only 20% of the population being still Jewish as rising prosperity and legal changes had allowed successful Jewish families to move to other parts of Prague. It was still the cultural centre of the community containing the Jewish Town Hall, Synagogues and old buildings and the Old Jewish Cemetery although burials were now held at the New Cemetery. For most of its history Prague had been a multiethnic city with important Czech, German, and (mostly Czech- and/ or German-speaking) Jewish populations. From 1939, when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany, and during World War II, most Jews either fled the city or were killed in the Holocaust.

Map of Jewish Prague

The 17th century is considered the Golden Age of Jewish Prague. The Jewish community of Prague numbered some 15,000 people (approx. 30 per cent of the entire population), making it the largest Ashkenazic community in the world and the second largest Jewish community in Europe after Thessaloniki. In the years 1597 to 1609, the Maharal (Judah Loew ben Bezalel) served as Prague's Chief Rabbi. He is considered the greatest of Jewish scholars in Prague's history, his tomb in the Old Jewish Cemetery eventually becoming a pilgrimage site.

Tomb of Judah Loew ben Bezalel - Rabbi Loew

The expulsion of Jews from Prague by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1745 based on their alleged collaboration with the Prussian army was a severe blow to the flourishing Jewish community. The Queen allowed the Jews to return to the city in 1748. In 1848 the gates of the Prague ghetto were opened. The former Jewish quarter, renamed Josefov in 1850, was demolished during the "ghetto clearance" at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.

In 1850, the former Jewish quarter in Prague was incorporated into the city and was named Josefstadt (Joseph's city) in honour of Emperor Joseph II of the Austrian Empire which ruled over what is now the Czech Republic in the 18th century. Joseph II was an enlightened monarch who gave the Jews in Prague their civil rights in 1781 when he issued the Toleration Edict. This edict rescinded the old law that required the Jews to wear distinctive caps or the yellow Star of David on their clothing, a law which had been in effect since the 11th century.

Josefov

The edict also allowed the Jews to attend public schools with Christians for the first time and to engage in occupations that had previously been forbidden. With permission from the authorities, the Jews could now live outside the walled ghetto, the area which is now called by the Czech name Josefov. The gates in the ghetto wall were removed by order of the Toleration Edict and the curfew was rescinded. The purpose of the edict was to create a strong centralized state in which all the people would be integrated into a single political and economic system, instead of having the Jews as a minority group in a separate state within a state.

Ironically, Joseph II was also the monarch who, in 1780, ordered the construction of a military garrison at Theresienstadt, 60 kilometres northwest of Prague. From November 1941 until the war ended on May 8, 1945, the Nazis used Theresienstadt (now called Terezin) as a walled ghetto where the Jews once again had to wear the yellow star. Theresienstadt was also used as a transit centre from where the Nazis transported 86,934 Jews to the death camps as part of their Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

Jews had first settled in Prague in the 10th century, near the Prague castle which is just across the Vltava River from Josefov. At the time of the First Crusade in 1096, the first recorded pogrom took place in Prague when Jews were systematically killed by the Crusaders. This violence may have been what prompted the Jews to move to the present Josefov quarter of Prague, near the Old Town, in the 12th century. In the 13th century, the Pope decreed that the Jews should be segregated from the Christians and a wall was built around the Jewish quarter.

St. Nicholas Church, Mala Strana - Statue of Cyrus the Great of Persia delivering the Jews from Bondage

The Jews participated in the revolutionary activity throughout Europe in 1848 which finally brought equal rights for the Jews; the walls of the ghetto were torn down, allowing the Jews to live anywhere in the city of Prague. This caused a number of violent anti-Semitic protests by the Czechs in Prague. With the granting of equal rights to the Jews, there was also pressure put on them to assimilate, instead of maintaining their separate culture. To assimilate or not to assimilate: that was The Jewish Question. In the 19th century, The Jewish Question was widely discussed; even Karl Marx wrote a dissertation on the subject.

When the wealthy Jews moved out of the former ghetto, it soon became a slum as other poor people moved in. By 1890, the former Jewish quarter had a population of 186,000 people, but only 20% of them were Jewish. In 1893, the city decided to completely demolish the whole Josefstadt quarter, leaving only 6 synagogues, the old Jewish cemetery, the Ceremonial Hall and the Old Jewish Town Hall, which are collectively known as the Jewish Museum.

Jerusalem Synagogue

The first Jewish museum in Prague was founded already in 1906 to preserve valuable artefacts from the Prague synagogues that were liquidated during the reconstruction of the Jewish Town at the beginning of the 20th century. The museum was closed after the Nazi occupation in 1939. In 1942 the Nazis established the Central Jewish Museum, to which were brought artefacts from the destroyed Jewish communities; the Nazis approved the project of the Jewish museum staff to set up a central museum in Prague intending the Josefov to be a museum after the genocide of the “Final Solution” had been effected. During the Communist regime, everything was transferred under pressure to the state which like other Soviet Bloc countries was “ant-Zionist”. After the end of the Communist regime in 1989, in 1994 everything was returned to the Jewish Community of Prague. The Jewish Museum has one of the most extensive collections of Judaic art in the world.

Old-New Synagogue

The curiously named Old-New Synagogue is the oldest extant synagogue in Europe dating from the year 1280 with a legend that the foundation stones were brought by angels from the destroyed Temple of Jerusalem. The Old-New Synagogue, which is not part of the Jewish Museum, is one of three Prague synagogues, together with the High and the Jerusalem Synagogues, in which divine services are still held. The Old-New Synagogue has the traditional layout with floor below street level as a sign of humility and the seats arranged around the outside walls facing the Bimah from which the Torah scrolls are read. The angels are meant to protect the synagogue and the mythical creature the Golem is meant to reside in the attic. Seat one which was the seat of the famous Rabbi Loew is left vacant and bad luck is meant to befall anyone who sits in it. The most recent legend attaching to it concerns the Nazi’s pin up boy, Gauletier Reinhard Heydrich, Reich Protector of Bohemia-Moravia, who swaggeringly laughed at this superstition as he toured the synagogue and made a point of sitting in Rabbi Loews’s seat. The architect of the “Final Solution” was mortally wounded in an attack by Czech patriots Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik in Prague and died on June 4th 1942. In other signs of its antiquity the women and children attended services in 3 ante-rooms with slits into the main hall through which they could hear but not see the proceedings, the walls have biblical inscriptions, which over the ark reads “I am ever mindful of the Lord’s presence.” (Psalm 16:8)

Maisel Synagogue

The Maisel Synagogue was the home of the birth of liberal Judaism in the 19th Century. There is the exhibition about the history of the Jewish settlements of our country from the 9th-10th centuries, till the year 1781. It was built in 1590-1592 by the Mayor of the Jewish Town Mordechai Maisel.

The Klausen Synagogue is located by the exit from the Old Jewish Cemetery. It takes the name from the German word "Klaus" meaning "small building”, it was the name of original three smaller buildings at the place of which was built the present Klausen Synagogue in 1694. Today it houses an interesting collection showcasing Jewish customs and traditions.

Spanish Synagogue

The Spanish Synagogue was built in the later part of the 19th century in the Spanish-Moorish design. This synagogue fell through hard times but its interior in Moorish style (hence the name) is regarded as one of the most beautiful synagogue interiors. It certainly has a luminous jewel box like quality due to the arabesque richness of the interior. It is immediately identifiable as a reform synagogue due to innovations incorporated from the gentile traditions such as an organ and stained glass windows. There is the historical exhibition about the history of the 19th and the 20th century, i.e. about the enlightenment and emancipation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire till 1918, about the First Republic life till 1938, about the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945) and the post-war decades.

Pinkas Synagogue

Entering the Pinkas Synagogue, one sees this beautiful courtyard and early Renaissance entryway. It is the memorial of holocaust at the present with the names of 78,000 victims all over the walls inside and the exhibition of Children’s Drawings from Terezin Concentration Camp, among the Terezin prisoners there were over 10000 children under the age of 15 at the time of imprisonment, of 8000 that were deported to the East about 242 survived the wartime suffering.

Jewish Ceremonial Hall

The Jewish Ceremonial Hall by the Old Cemetery, Hevrah Kaddishah, currently holds a permanent exhibition of this Burial Society founded in Prague in the 16th century by the Rabbi Loew. The building itself was built in 1911-1912 in pseudo-Romanesque style. The renowned Rabbi Loew (the most prominent person buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery - the great religious teacher and scholar Rabbi Liwa ben Bezalel), called also MAHARAL, was buried in this cemetery in 1609. It is the pilgrimage place of millions of Prague visitors and the Prague citizens as well. He was the great scholar, but every child knows him from the legend about Golem - the artificial monster constructed by him.

In Jewish folklore, a golem (גולם) is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. In Modern Hebrew the word golem literally means "cocoon," but can also mean "fool," "silly," or even "stupid." The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means "raw material."Alternatively, some sources indicate that it is a corruption of the Hebrew go′al 'enu (גואלנו) our redeemer or our avenger. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th century chief rabbi of Prague. Depending on the version of the legend, under Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed. To protect the Jewish community, the rabbi constructed the Golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava River, and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations. As this golem grew, it became increasingly violent, killing gentiles and spreading fear. A different story tells of a golem falling in love, and when rejected, he became the violent monster as seen in most accounts. Some versions have the golem eventually turning on its creator and perhaps even attacking other Jews.

Golem

The Emperor begged Rabbi Loew to destroy Golem, promising to stop the persecution of the Jews. To deactivate Golem, the rabbi rubbed out the first letter of the word "emet" (truth or reality) from the creature's forehead leaving the Hebrew word "met", meaning death. The Emperor understood that the Golem's body, stored in the attic genizah of the Old New Synagogue, would be restored to life again if needed. Accordingly, the body of Rabbi Loews’s Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic, although some versions of the tale have Golem stolen from the genizah and entombed in a graveyard in Prague's Žižkov district, where now the great Žižkovská tower stands. A recent legend is told of a Nazi agent ascending to the synagogue attic during World War II and trying to stab Golem, but perishing instead. At any rate, the attic is not open to the general public. The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent: If commanded to perform a task, they will take the instructions perfectly literally.

In some incarnations of the legend, the Maharal's Golem had superhuman powers to aid it in its tasks. These include invisibility, a heated touch, and the ability to use the Maharal's walking stick to summon spirits from the dead. This last power was often crucial, as the golem could summon dead witnesses to testify in Prague courts.

This Old Jewish Cemetery,in the heart of the Jewish Town was opened perhaps in the 15th century (the oldest tomb on the top layer is from the year 1439) and closed to further burials in 1787. There are twelve layers in which people were buried; thousands of graves are underneath with twelve thousands of tombstones on the surface. The picturesque groups of tombstones from various periods result from the fact that older stones were lifted up several times from the lower layers.

Frank Kafka's statue and family grave in the New Jewish Cemetery

By around 1900 the majority of Jews in Prague used Czech and supported the Czech Nationalist movement but German maintained its position as the lingua franca of the Empire leading to the phenomenon known as Prague German Literature with the “Prague Circle” including Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Felix Weltsch, Oskar Baum and many others. Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a major fiction writer of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia (presently the Czech Republic), then part of the Austro – Hungarian Empire. His unique body of writing - much of which is incomplete and which was mainly published posthumously - is considered to be among the most influential in Western literature. Kafka was born in one of the houses on Prague's Old Town Square, right next to the Church of St. Nicholas. A gallery with a permanent exposition on Kafka's life has been opened in this house. His stories include The Metamorphosis (1912) and In the Penal Colony (1914), while his novels are The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927). The term "Kafkaesque" is widely used to describe concepts, situations, and ideas which are reminiscent of Kafka's works, particularly The Trial and The Metamorphosis. Kafka only ever wrote in German and his works were only translated into Czech after his death.

The Theresienstadt "camp-ghetto" existed for three and a half years in the Austro-Hungarian fortress now called Terezin, between November 24, 1941 and May 9, 1945. Neither a “ghetto” as such nor strictly a concentration camp, Theresienstadt served as a “settlement,” an assembly camp, nor a concentration camp, and thus had recognisable features of both ghettos and concentration camps. In its function as a tool of deception, Theresienstadt was a unique facility. Theresienstadt served an important propaganda function for the Nazis who made a notorious propaganda film showing the “happy Jews” resettled there in a “spa town”. The publicly stated purpose for the deportation of the Jews from Germany was their "resettlement to the east," where they would be compelled to perform forced labour. Since it seemed implausible that elderly Jews could be used for forced labour, the Nazis used the Theresienstadt ghetto to hide the nature of the deportations. In Nazi propaganda, Theresienstadt was cynically described as a "spa town" where elderly German Jews could "retire" in safety. The deportations to Theresienstadt were, however, part of the Nazi strategy of deception. The ghetto was in reality a collection centre for deportations to ghettos and killing centres in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.

Despite the terrible living conditions and the constant threat of deportation, Theresienstadt had a highly developed cultural life. Outstanding Jewish artists, mainly from Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Germany, created drawings and paintings, some of them clandestine depictions of the ghetto's harsh reality. Writers, professors, musicians, and actors gave lectures, concerts, and theatre performances. The ghetto maintained a lending library of 60,000 volumes.

German Railways and the Shoah

Fifteen thousand children passed through Theresienstadt. Although forbidden to do so, they attended school. They painted pictures, wrote poetry, and otherwise tried to maintain a vestige of normalcy. Approximately 90 percent of these children perished in death camps. Of the approximately 140,000 Jews transferred to Theresienstadt, nearly 90,000 were deported to points further east and almost certain death. Roughly 33,000 died in Theresienstadt itself.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/auschwitz-birkenau.html

Plaque commemorating Czechoslovakia's support for the State of Israel

Like many of the former great Jewish Centres of Europe which the racist Nazi State attempted to destroy Prague is imbued with the pathos of what has been lost of the unique Czech, Germanic and Jewish culture which thrived at the cusp of the 20th century and never more so in the confident years of Czech independence from 1918 to 1938. This last great peak of Jewish culture in Prague is marked by the names of many poets, writers, philosophers and artists who enriched modern Czech, German and Hebrew literature and culture. But for a thousand years before this was a place which nurtured some of the greatest Rabbis, Scholars, Merchants and artists and was a prominent centre of Jewish culture. What has been lost can never be regained but with the fall of communism there is a new engagement by the Czech people with the great Jewish tradition of Prague. Property and the collections have been given back to the Jewish Community of Prague, thousands come to pay their respects to this heritage and incantations of Shemah Yisroel are still recited by the cantors to congregations mindful of the Talmudic saying of Rabbi Eliezer of Prague “Know before whom you are standing .....”

Perhaps like all of life’s journeys the one of Jewish Prague is best undertaken with hope for the future mindful of the promise in Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited in mourning;

“in the world which will be renewed”

“בְּעָלְמָא דְהוּא עָתִיד לְאִתְחַדָּתָא”

In researching this article I’ve referred to Arno Parik, “Jewish Prague” published by The Jewish Museum in Prague, 2002, and the following websites;

Jewish Prague

http://www.jewishprague.info

Kosher Prague

http://www.kosherprague.com

Jewish Museum

http://www.jewishmuseum.cz

Terezin Concentration Camp / Theresienstadt

http://www.pamatnik-terezin.cz/showdoc.do?docid=164

Franz Kafka Museum

http://www.kafkamuseum.cz/ShowPage.aspx?tabId=-1

The "backward moving" Hebrew Clock on the Jewish Town Hall

Art Nouveau Prague

2009-11-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

Municipal House

Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1991, Prague has become one of Europe’s - and the worlds - most popular tourist destinations. As in London, Paris, and Rome, visitors flock to the gorgeous buildings and monuments that grace the streets of Prague, entranced by structures ranging from Gothic and baroque to cubist and neoclassical. And while hundreds of thousands stroll over the Charles Bridge and gaze up at the St. Vitus Cathedral each year, far fewer venture away from the crowds to seek out the countless gems of art nouveau peppered throughout Prague.

Smetana Hall

Obecni Dum - Municipal House

Significant Art Nouveau sites include the Municipal House, the Wilson Railway Station, the Grand Hotel Europa, and works by sculptors František Bílek, Ladislav Šaloun, and Stanislav Sucharda. There are large numbers of remarkable buildings in Art Nouveau style in Prague that remain unknown to the tourists since they pay attention mostly only to the Castle and the Charles Bridge.

The Art Nouveau style appeared in the early 1880s and vanished with the first gun-shots of the First World War. It was a brief but brilliant art movement and style of decoration and architecture characterised by intricate patterns of curving lines. In Prague at this time you had a burgeoning middle class and a unique Czech, Germanic and Jewish culture. With this prosperity there was a desire to redevelop the Josepfov, the Jewish Quarter which was overcrowded and subject to flooding. As we have seen elsewhere in Europe in Riga and Barcelona Art Nouveau was adopted as a sign not just of new prosperity but as sign of a new nationalist identity, in this case closely identified with Slav nationalism and incorporating symbolism and references from Slavic folklore and history.

Three Turks

Pařížská Avenue was laid out as the centrepiece of this redevelopment of Central Praque. In the first years of the 20th century Pařížská was laid out between Old Town Square and the Čech Bridge. It has always been one of the city's most prestigious addresses, and today it is lined with upscale boutiques, coffee shops, and airline offices. It's a sharp contrast to the gloom and despair of the Jewish ghetto that existed before. Designers used neo-Renaissance, neo-Baroque, and Secession elements. Facades are enlivened with richly decorated windows and balconies while above the eaves rise extravagant gables, attic windows, towers, and turrets. Originally named Mikulášská (St. Nicholas Street) because of the presence of St. Nicholas' Church at the Old Town Square end. In 1926 Pařížská was given its present name, which is best translated as Boulevard de Paris, to pay tribute to France for helping to free the Czechs from Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I.

The first important principle of the Art Nouveau movement was a desire to get rid of the distinctions between high and low art or major and minor arts. For many artists the essential thing was for art to affect and unify the lives of the people, not just in expensive oil paintings on rich people's walls or in institutional salons, but in the essential objects of their daily lives—their homes, furnishings, cups and saucers, advertisements, wall hangings—everything from door handles to lamp posts and sewer gratings and toilet seats. Even purely functional objects now largely machine made and mass produced should be shaped by the decorative powers of art. Hence we see many Art Nouveau artists, and Mucha in particular, demonstrating an astonishingly wide range of artistic interests (in his case from posters and paintings to lottery tickets, jewellery, police uniforms, designs for money, stamps, wall hangings, and so on).

New Town Hall

This emphasis on uniting beauty and utility was at the heart of the most important social “message” of the new art (something which earned it the name Art Social in some quarters). It was inspired, in part, by a strong reaction against the ugliness of much of the manufactured material which was increasingly dominating people’s lives and making the very idea of the traditional artist-craftsmen obsolete (a response very strong in the English Arts and Crafts Movement in the 1860’s, inspired by John Ruskin and William Morris, who looked back with delight to the ideal guild craftsmen of the Middle Ages).

Art Nouveau artists were well known for their scrupulous eye for detail. Inspiration came from nature. Under Art Nouveau style even an insect was beautiful and admired. Art Nouveau means in French “New Art”. Nowadays it may sound a bid odd calling something „new“ when it stands for a style in art, architecture and design significant for the turn of the 19th and 20th century. However, for some people – including myself – it is one of the most beautiful and fascinating styles ever and in Prague you have the chance to see a lot of this unique style.

Art Nouveau was an international movement and style of art, architecture and applied art - especially the decorative arts—that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century (1890–1905). The name 'Art nouveau' is French for 'new art'. It is also known as Jugendstil, German for 'youth style', named after the magazine Jugend, which promoted it, and in Italy, Stile Liberty from the department store in London, Liberty & Co., which popularized the style. A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it is characterized by organic, especially floral and other plant-inspired motifs, as well as highly-stylized, flowing curvilinear forms. Art Nouveau is an approach to design according to which artists should work on everything from architecture to furniture, making art part of everyday life.

Tesla Shop

The movement was strongly influenced by Czech artist Alfons Mucha, when Mucha produced a lithographed poster, which appeared on 1 January 1895 in the streets of Paris as an advertisement for the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou, starring Sarah Bernhardt. It was an overnight sensation, and announced the new artistic style and its creator to the citizens of Paris. Initially called the Style Mucha, (Mucha Style), this soon became known as Art Nouveau.

Alfons Mucha - Poster design & stained glass window

In France it’s called Art Nouveau, in England it’s Modern Style or Yellow Book Style, in Germany it goes by the name of Jugendstil or Secession. Whatever you choose to call it, the style has left an impressive impact on Prague. First of all, Prague is the home of the famous Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939) – Art Nouveau artist who is most widely known for the posters he created for Sarah Bernhardt, one of the greatest actresses of that time. But even if his name says nothing to you, you should visit the Mucha Museum. It is in Panska 7, Prague 1, which is close to Wenceslas Square or Powder Tower. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. In museum shop you can buy gifts with Alphonse Mucha motifs. His work included, apart from sculptures and paintings, costumes and stage decorations, designs for magazines and book covers, wonderful jewellery and furniture and numerous posters.

The influence of Alfons Mucha was felt in Prague and Moravia (part of the modern Czech Republic), whose style of Art Nouveau became associated with the Czech National Revival. Fin de siecle sections of Prague reveal modest buildings encrusted with leaves and ladies that curve and swirl across the facades. Examples of Art Nouveau in the city, along with the exteriors of any number of private apartment and commercial buildings, are the Hotel Pariz, Smíchov Market Hall, Hotel Central, the windows in the St. Wenceslas Chapel at St. Vitus Cathedral, the main railway station, Grand Hotel and the Jubilee Synagogue. The Olsany Cemetery and the New Jewish Cemetery are also important examples of Art Nouveau.

Prague Main Railway Station by the architect Jozef Fanta

Hotel Pariz

Obecní Dum, Prague’s Municipal House, is more romantically known as the Palace of the People, and this is a fitting title for a building that abounds in architectural diversity providing a cultural experience for all tastes. The sumptuously decorated, pale ochre facade and glazed copper dome of Prague’s Municipal House contrast with the sombre stonework of surrounding buildings. Architects Antonín Balšánek (1865-1921) and Osvald Polívka (1859-1931) were responsible for Municipal House’s design and so many of Prague's foremost art nouveau artists and sculptors collaborated on its embellishment. The portal gives a foretaste of the delights to come, with filigree metalwork, jewel-like encrustations, allegorical figures, and a mosaic, the Apotheosis of Prague, by Karel Špillar (1871-1939). The gilt inscription around it is from ‘Hail to Thee, Prague!’ a poem by Svatopluk Cech (1846-1908).

Municipal House Cafe with Art Nouveau light fittings and coffee cups

Even the most hurried visitor should sit for a while in the sumptuous surroundings of Municipal House’s cafe and absorb the atmosphere of the classic Prague coffee house of long ago. A meal in the refined Francouska restaurace is one of Prague’s best gastronomic experiences, while music lovers can attend a concert in the Smetana Hall, the home of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. It is here that the Prague Spring music festival is launched, with a rousing performance of Smetana's Má Vlast (My Home). The designers of Prague’s Municipal House have paid great attention to its functional spaces and fittings, and it's worth admiring such features as stairways, elevators and even the cloakroom.

Prague Art Nouveau architecture adopts all of its foreign morphology. You will find bright colour which was brought by the Spanish Art Nouveau, dynamic curves of the French and Belgian Art Nouveau, the floral and animal designs as well as selected materials which were promoted by the Arts and Crafts movement. Undoubtedly, the Municipal House by the architect Osvald Polívka makes a prominent representative of the Prague Art Nouveau architecture. Numerous artists of both the older and the younger generation participated in its ornamentation – Alfons Mucha as well as Jan Preisler.

An equally prominent piece of architecture is the building of the Prague Main Railway Station by the architect Jozef Fanta. Numerous reliefs are to be found in here, above all of girlish and female figures. A set of female mascarons (grotesque masks) is unique, with each of them original. There are several Art Nouveau buildings and structures worth mentioning, such as the villas by the outstanding architect Jan Kotěra – the Trmal Villa, for instance, Kotěra’s own villa in Vinohrady, a Prague district, or the villa with a studio built for Stanislav Sucharda.

Sun Dial House

Bílek Villa

The Bílek Villa is a unique construction built in the Symbolist style, with a range of extra-ordinary symbols and allusions to be found such as stylized ears of corn. Three constructions stand out from the typical housebuilding: The Topič House and Hotel Prague in Národní třída and the House “U Nováků“in Vodičkova Street, whose mosaic was designed by Jan Preisler.

Prague has always been the centre of Mittel Europa, the crossroads like Krakow between North and South, East and West, the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, the font of Slavic Nationalism in opposition to the Hapsburg’s Austro-Hungarian Empire and from 1918 to 1938 the only democracy in Eastern Europe until the world acquiesced to its betrayal and destruction in the Munich Agreement. As mentioned it was the birthplace of a unique Czech, Germanic and Jewish culture and the naturalism and craftsmanship of Art Nouveau allowed all traditions to embrace this style from gravestones in the New Jewish Cemetery to the stylish apartment blocks along Pařížská Avenue to the stylish villas overlooking the Vltava it helped to unify and renew this unique city. Despite all that has happened since, today 20 years after the Velvet Revolution, it is still celebrated by the inhabitants of this unique place, the Golden City of Prague.

See also Art Nouveau in other European Cities;

Barcelona, Catalonia.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/antoni-gaud-and-barcelona-modernisme.html

Glasgow, Scotland.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/07/charles-rennie-mackintosh.html

Riga, Latvia.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/09/art-nouveau-district-riga-latvia.html

Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum

2009-11-06T17:33:00.000-08:00

Regular blogistas will know that my favourite English City is the “City of the Dreaming Spires” the university city of Oxford. With so much learning going on Oxford contains many homes to the Muses or Museums to give them their more familiar title. There is the Pitts River Museum, The Museum of Oxford, The Museum of the History of Science, The Bates Collection of Musical Instruments, The Christchurch Picture Gallery and The Oxford Museum of Natural History. Oxford's museums and collections are world renowned. They provide an important resource for scholars around the world, and welcome visits from members of the public. More than a million people visit the University’s museums and collections every year. For me from all this abundance of riches one of my favourite places to visit is what has been the somewhat forbidding and eccentric Ashmolean Museum.

(http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-in-oxford.html )

Elias Ashmole

At its opening in 1683, the Ashmolean was the world’s first ever public museum, a beacon of learning for a newly scientific age. Over the centuries, as an integral part of the University of Oxford, it has remained at the forefront of modern thinking on how museums can best foster learning, while giving enjoyment and inspiration to the widest possible audience. In the best tradition of Regency “Cabinet of Curios” it has always contained popular attractions like the Guy Fawkes lantern to recent acquisitions like the restored Titian painting “The Triumph of Love.”

Aerial view - The Ashmolean with the extension behind.

The renovated Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology re-opens to the public on Saturday 7 November. The award-winning architect Rick Mather has designed a new building, replacing all but the Grade I listed Cockerell building. The redevelopment cost £61m, doubling the existing gallery space. The new building will provide the Ashmolean with 100% more display space. Located to the north of Charles Cockerell’s original Museum built in 1845, it comprises 39 new galleries, including 4 temporary exhibition galleries, a new education centre, state-of-the-art conservation studios, and Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant The Ashmolean Dining Room. In the Cockerell Building, the newly refurbished galleries of Western Art will reopen after 10 months of closure.

Behind its classically pedimented exterior the Ashmolean was a strange design for the entrance led you to expect something huge and dramatic behind but the reality was a museum only one gallery deep where parts were immersed in a stygian gloom. Rich Mather’s clever extension addresses this and much more with all galleries now leading onto a bright atrium. These changes mark the latest upgrades to the UK's oldest public museum, with its origins dating back to the early 17th Century.

Titian “The Triumph of Love.”

The original museum of 1683 was based on the collections of Elias Ashmole, alchemist and antiquarian, a leading figure of "The New Philosophy". It was literally a "cabinet of curios", including a Dodo, artefacts acquired from credulous Native Americans and hand-me-downs from the Tradescants. Ashmole explained that his purpose was to encourage "the inspection of particulars… extraordinary in their fabrick". By the early 18th century it was already a busy popular museum. Elias Ashmole was an aficionado of antiquities who studied at the University of Oxford whilst posted to the military there. He was one of the first gentleman freemasons in England and had wide ranging interests including astrology and alchemy.

Staying a head

He liked to collect coins, metal, books and manuscripts and he apparently possessed the secret of the Philosopher's Stone (one of the great alchemical secrets). Ashmole was also a founder member of the Royal Society, interested in the study of nature and objects and their application to the benefit of mankind.

But the choice of his name for the museum is not without controversy. David Berry, project curator of the Ashmolean tells the full story: "The museum opened to the public officially in 1683 but its history is traced further back. "The collection that was its core was compiled by two John Tradescants, father and son. They were gardeners to Charles I, and in the late 1620s John Sr took out a lease on a house in South Lambeth. 1634 is the first recorded instance of a visitor having seen that material. It was really the first instance where a collection of that sort - what would be referred to as a Cabinet of Curiosities - was made accessible to the general public regardless of age, gender or status. That is unique to them and one of the things that Ashmole inherited. It became a key foundational element of the Ashmolean when it opened here in Oxford."

"The Ark", as it was known, caught Ashmole's attention when he purchased the house next door: "He had an interest in the Tradescant collection. In 1656 he paid for and was in large part responsible for helping to compile a catalogue of it. It was the first printed catalogue of a museum collection or a collection of any sort in England." Many people make the comment that it should rightfully be the Tradescant Museum as opposed to the Ashmolean - it's an interesting point.

Museum of Science, Oxford

When John Tradescant III died at an early age, in the absence of an heir the future of the collection seemed in jeopardy. In 1659 the collection was passed to Ashmole by Deed of Gift. But it seems that John Tradescant the Younger regretted this, and he left everything in his will to his wife. This led to a court case upon his death. The deed proved valid and Ashmole won the case. In 1657 Ashmole began negotiations with his former university. A museum was built on Broad Street (now the Museum of the History of Science). It opened in 1683 and housed the Tradescant collection.

"Ashmole is very often vilified for his role in this," David Berry continues. "Many people make the comment that it should rightfully be the Tradescant Museum as opposed to the Ashmolean. It's an interesting point. "The bulk of the material that he donated and that arrived and was open to the public had a Tradescant provenance. Ashmole was a major collector in his own right but quite a bit of that burned in a fire in his chambers in Middle Temple. But the institution is entirely Ashmole's. It was through his influence that the university was persuaded to build the building. Ashmole gave it its proper philosophical foundation. He provided it with a series of statutes by which it was to run. In a sense the right name is on the front door. The collection in terms of what survived is largely Tradescant's and Ashmole was actually quite clear about that in his correspondence with the university. He also donated all of the family portraits. We have a dozen or more portraits of the members of the Tradescant family which all very clearly say on them 'Donated by Elias Ashmole'. He would not have done that had he not intended for their legacy to be preserved as well as his own."

Guy Fawkes Lamp

Over the years the museum rapidly began to run out of space. In the mid 19th century the university's collections were subject to a "process of rationalisation". The museum was originally conceived to represent the world in microcosm, crossing cultures, times and disciplines (the epitaph on the Tradescant tomb even reads "a world of wonders in one closet shop"). But in the quickly developing 19th century, the sciences were dividing into many different disciplines and the collections had to expand in line with them.

Main Staircase & Atrium

Eventually the 1860s saw the natural history collections transferred to Parks Road where they formed the core of the University Museum - now the Oxford Museum of Natural History. Once the Tradescant collection was moved to the Pitt Rivers Museum in the 1880s the museum was left with something of a crisis of identity. David Berry describes the museum's new change of direction: "the focus shifted almost entirely to the area of archaeology. The museum began to acquire significant holdings of material from Egypt, the Near East, from throughout Continental Europe as well as archaeological material from throughout the British Isles and the classical world."

By this time the University Galleries, housed in a neo-classical building in Beaumont Street, had been displaying many fine examples of paintings, sculpture, drawings and prints. The treasures of the Ashmolean, which had outgrown the space on Broad Street, were moved to an extension at the back of the newer building. It was in 1908 that the two institutions amalgamated to form the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. This is the museum we have today, albeit now with a new and improved modern makeover.

Inside the new galleries, the Ashmolean presents a redisplay of the collections. The Museum’s curators have worked with leading design company Metaphor to create the innovative strategy Crossing Cultures Crossing Time, enabling visitors to discover how civilisations developed as part of an interrelated world culture. Objects’ stories will be told by tracing the journey of ideas and influences through time and across continents, transforming the way the Ashmolean’s rare and beautiful objects are understood.

Themed galleries on the lower ground floor explore the connections between objects and activities common to different cultures, such as money, reading and writing, and the representation of the human image. The floors above are arranged chronologically, charting the development of the ancient and modern worlds. Orientation galleries on each floor introduce the key themes, illuminating the many connections and comparisons which bring the past to life.

Strangely for a University City Oxford has been somewhat bereft of good restaurants, one exception has been the excellent Brasserie Blanc in the atmospheric Oxford canal side district of Jericho. http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/brasserie-blanc.html

This may sound surprising but every college has its dining hall where Fellows and Scholars sit down to “Commons” and every college has its Student Buttery. The Oxfordshire squirearchy for their part largely stay in the county frequenting country taverns and Blanc’s exquisite Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons at little Milton. This leaves Oxford City itself abandoned to the chains, fast food and tourist specials. Two honourable exceptions have been the excellent operation in the crypt of St. Mary’s University Church and the Ashmolean Café. The Café features freshly-baked pastries and organic yoghurts for breakfast and a range of tasty sandwiches, soups and salads for a light lunch. Highlights from the cakes and desserts menu include the orange and almond cake and wholesome muffins made each morning at the benugo bakery. The bakery offer is exceptional. A new addition in the renovated museum is The Ashmolean Dining Room which provides the spectacular setting for Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant.

Now the Ashmolean is pretty much uncontested as the greatest university museum in the world. The fact that this enchanting museum is also an active seat of research and scholarship only adds to its lustre, while the reality of seeing so many objects – squirreled away for too many years – out on display will make the Ashmolean a museum to return to, time and again. Go and see the reborn Ashmolean soon, an exceptional place in an exceptional city.

See also; Xmas in Oxford

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/xmas-is-coming.html

Prêt a Manger?

2009-11-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

Take a trip to your local branch of Prêt a Manger and the chances are you'll be made aware of their "fresh ingredients" boasts. So the news that the high street chain is importing frozen chicken from Brazil may come as a surprise to you as it did to me. I used to greatly admire Prêt whose headquarters is in Hudson Place beside Victoria Station. It was set up by two college friends with its first shop in Victoria Street and in the early days Julian Metcalfe’s parents kitchen in their flat near Westminster Cathedral supplied the shop. They aimed to shake up the British sandwich market. However McDonalds bought a 33% share in 2001 (since sold last year at a considerable profit to Bridgepoint Capital) and there was concern that they would lose their ethical edge. These concerns now seem to have been borne out.

The chain which boasts its ingredients are 'the best, natural stuff' has come under fire for importing frozen chicken from Brazil. The meat in Prêt a Manger's 'Just Made' chicken sandwiches is frozen and then shipped more than 6,000 miles to the UK. The £200million-a-year firm says it uses the South American chicken because the animals are treated well there. It claims the meat is produced in better 'animal welfare' conditions than those employed by companies which supply rival sandwich makers.

Sourcing chicken from the South American country is cheaper for British companies than using UK meat, with wages for workers typically 700 reais a month – that is about £250 a month or £3,000 a year. "Conditions are not great, but they could be worse," said Eurides Silva, the president of a local food workers union. On top of their wages, workers will typically get a free basket of basic food in exchange for a 44 hour week. There is no health plan while cases of repetitive injuries among the mainly female workforce, who spend all day stripping chickens by hand, are common.
"There are lots of repetitive stress injuries to the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder," said Mr Silva, "It's repetitive work and fast. There are also a lot of muscle problems. Some companies have stretching exercises and gymnastics to help workers be more limber but a lot don't want to bother. It isn't ideal, if you want to avoid having these kinds of injuries." Workers, he said, also bemoan conditions in the processing plants where the temperature has to be kept around 14 degrees and so "it is cold and wet and that is a common complaint".

Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, the body that certifies organic food in the UK, is scathing of the mass market chicken industry that has grown up in Brazil, using limited grain and Soya supplies to fatten up chickens. Mr Holden said: "It is out of sight and out of mind. We are living off unsustainable chicken systems and we are not facing up to the inconvenient truth that our addiction to white meat has to be confronted."

Cheer up lads - You'll be in London soon!

When it arrives in the UK, Prêt's Brazilian chicken is defrosted, marinated and poached before being used in a range of sandwiches such as coronation chicken, simple Caesar chicken and chicken and red roasted peppers. The company earned £8.6million last year from its range of chicken products. Although there is no suggestion that the imported meat is harmful to health, campaigners have raised concerns at boasts that it is fresh.

The revelation comes a week after it emerged the chain's 'spankingly fresh' sushi was in fact frozen in Chile and shipped in. This outraged environmentalists, who warned of the huge carbon footprint this created. Prêt, which has built its reputation on 'good natural food', is not required to state on food labels where its meat is sourced from. Packaging on its chicken range says: 'Just Made (never from a factory). A fresh Prêt sandwich doesn't need a "use by" date. We make our food in every Prêt kitchen using amazing ingredients. The best, natural stuff you'd want to use at home.'

On its website it boasts that its chicken is never processed more than needed. Corinne Low, of the British Standards Trading Institute, said the wording was misleading as the government's Foods Standards Agency counted anything which has been frozen as having been processed. She said: 'The term "fresh ingredients" should only be used where its intended meaning is no processed ingredients have been used.'

Robert Newbery, the chief poultry advisor to the National Farmers' Union, said: 'Processed meat should carry clearer labelling to encourage people to buy British.' Brian Young, director general of the British Frozen Foods Federation, however, claimed meat producers here could not meet the demand. Britain shipped in 143,000 tons of cheap chicken, the equivalent of 60million birds, from Brazil and Thailand alone last year.

Yesterday Pret's co-founder Julian Metcalfe pledged that by 2012 Prêt would sell only British free range chicken - which costs on average three times more. Mr Metcalfe said: 'People should buy less chicken or buy proper chicken. We have got to move free range by 2012. This is about bigger issues than the word "fresh".'

I’m amazed that "fresh food" Prêt-a-Manger with "nothing bad in it" imports frozen chicken from Brazil which it then defreezes, poaches and marinades before putting in its "made in the shop" sandwiches, imports frozen crayfish from China and, most amazing, its "Fresh Sushi" frozen, yes frozen, from Chile! Maybe the most amazing thing is I've paid them £3.80 for a chicken sandwich!! - NO MORE, NO WAY!!!

Tayto - the proper Irish Stuff

2009-10-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

Rarely can there be a group as worthy of support as this (The Tayto appreciation society on Facebook) - I had to join as in an increasingly transient world the continuity and happiness provided by Tayto is important! My life and Tayto have crossed on two occasions, both in a previous life as a VAT inspector in Dublin.

In the early 80's I'd to call on a chipper called "CeeBees" in Parnell Street in Dublin - This was a strange operation as it only opened Monday to Friday from 12 to 2 and from 4 to 7, not the normal trading hours for a central Dublin chippie! It turned out it was owned by the Collins Brothers (CeeBees, geddit?) who had founded King Crisps and having sold it to Tayto for, then. good money, found themselves bored with time on their hands and ran this dilettante chipper just to have something to do. They were two gentlemanly old guys (well late 50's) who told me the story of how they started King Crisps in Inchicore using a chip shop range to do the frying. Here I was in the presence of crisp royalty, the guys who had started doing individual batch fried handmade crisps! Tayto never did much with the King Crisp brand afterwards and when you see the huge success brands such as Kettles (and Tyrells) have made of the same idea it seems to have been a marketing opportunity lost.

Incidentally afterwards I visited the state of the art Tayto plant in Coolock and noticed that their purchases include parsnips. It turned out for 3 months in late winter / early spring potatoes were in short supply and not of good quality so they substituted parsnips instead. I was incredulous and said surely customers noticed? As Tayto had invented the method of flavouring crisps he said there was no real difference in taste and no, they had never received any customer comment!

Considering what an upmarket premium product root vegetable crisps are today I was surprised he told me the second advantage of using parsnip crisps is they were cheaper!

Whilst reviewing the momentous history of crisps it should be remembered that when Mrs. Smith made her crisps in the 1920’s in her garage in North London they were mainly sold from a handcart by her husband Frank Smith (as in Smith’s Crisps) to an Irish Clientele in the pubs on Kilburn High Road.

The Irish and Crisps – they go together like Ham and Cheese, Jordan and Pete, Bread and Butties, St Kevin and Women, ………………………………….

Mr Tayto

Tayto was born in 1954, when Joe ‘Spud’ Murphy invented the first cheese and onion flavour crisp! In those days, Tayto would sell 347 packets per day. Nowadays, Ireland’s favourite crisps sell around three-quarters of a million bags per day. The factory now operates out of Tandragee Castle, where it is possible to take tours. Who wouldn’t want to see crisps being made IN A CASTLE? Plus, there’s a chance you might even get to meet Mr. Tayto himself. Wowzers!

Tours run from Monday to Thursday at 10.30am and 1.30pm, and on Friday at 10.30am. The Tayto Factory is closed on public holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Bank Holidays etc. The price for adults is £5, students and seniors is £4, and the price for children is £3. The tours are regrettably not suitable for children under 5.

www.tayto.com

Halloween – Another great Irish Pagan Festival!

2009-10-31T12:32:00.001-07:00

Hallowe’en seems to have grown around the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark half. All Hallows' Eve, has over the years moved from the Celtic Festival of Samhain to trick-or-treat. Samhain was the time of the final harvest of the beasts of the field, and the crops, in preparation of winter provisions, the eve of Winter's first day, and the beginning of the next Wheel of the Year.

Samhain was in part a sort of harvest festival, when the last crops were gathered in for the winter, and livestock killed and stored. But the pagan Celts also believed it was a time when the walls between our world and the next became thin and porous, allowing spirits to pass through. The practice of wearing spooky costumes may have its roots in that belief: dressing up as a ghost to scare off other ghosts seems to have been the idea.

To the Celts Samhain marked one of the two great doorways of the Pagan Year, the other being Beltane on May 1. They held a 'dumb' or 'silent' supper in remembrance of those who passed over, placing a setting of food and drink for them at the family dinner table, or just simple cakes and wine.

Celtic sites in Ireland

In medieval Ireland, Samhain became the principal festival, celebrated with a great assembly at the royal court in Tara, lasting for three days. After being ritually started on the Hill of Tlachtga, a bonfire was set alight on the Hill of Tara, which served as a beacon, signalling to people gathered atop hills all across Ireland to light their ritual bonfires. The custom has survived to some extent, and recent years have seen resurgence in participation in the festival.

Hill of Tara

The name Hallowe’en is a shortening of All Hallows’ Even, or All Hallows’ Evening. All Hallows is an old term for All Saints’ Day (Hallow, from the Old English “halig”, or holy, compared with Saint, from the Latin “Sanctus”, also meaning holy, or consecrated). In the original Old English, it was known as Eallra Hālgena aefen. This comes from a Christian move by Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV to end the pagan Samhain festivals, by moving the feast of All Saints from May to 1 November.

There is a long tradition of the Christian Church taking other’s iconography and calling it their own! They even took the History of the Jewish People and called it the Old Testament. They took over the Basilicas of the Cult of Mithras which, like Christianity, had at its centre redemption through blood sacrifice. When they took over the Roman Basilicas after Constantine the Great made it the state religion of the Roman Empire they replaced the statues of Jupiter with those of Christos (The anointed one – a title used by the Pharaohs of Egypt as in Ptolemy VI Eucharistos on the Rosetta Stone) and changed the inscription from “J.O.M.” (Jovis Omnia Maximus) to “D.O.M.” (Deo Omnia Maximus). They even kept the gold disc behind Jupiter which represented his position as the Sun God (Helios) and depicted their images with the “Halo” as a sign of sanctity. So the Nazarenes have some form in this area, indeed after celebrating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in early summer for the first 400 years or so they then purloined the Roman Feast of Saturnalia on the 25th December near to the Winter solstice which was associated with feasting and merriment. Clement of Alexandria (d. 215 AD) recorded that some Christians of the time placed his birth date in April (see Stromata I:21). Hippolytus (d. 236 AD) may have believed that Jesus was born on April 2nd.

Halloween in Ireland

The celebration of Halloween survived most strongly in Ireland. It was an end of summer festival, and was often celebrated in each community with a bonfire to ward off the evil spirits. Children would go from door to door in disguise as creatures from the underworld to collect treats, mainly fruit, nuts and the like for the festivities. These were used for playing traditional games like eating an apple on a string or bobbing for apples and other gifts in a basin of water, without using your hands. Salt might be sprinkled on the visiting children to ward off evil spirits. Carving turnips as ghoulish faces to hold candles became a popular part of the festival, which has been adapted to carving pumpkins in America.

The classic Hallowe’en jack-o’-lantern, a carved grinning pumpkin, is both a new and an ancient practice. Originally, it seems to have come from an old Irish legend of a man called Stingy Jack, a miserly farmer who played a trick on the devil and as punishment was cursed to wander the earth, lighting his way with a candle inside a hollowed-out turnip. When the tradition moved to America pumpkins were used instead of turnips, as they were both more available and easier to carve.

So this Halloween, as we Trick and Treat, let us acknowledge the contribution of the Pagans of Ireland to popular culture not to mention 100s of terrible Halloween B Movies!! Watch out for the Ghosties and Ghoulies and ‘tings which go bump in the night!

London’s Wunderground

2009-10-29T06:46:00.000-07:00

Though we take it for granted, and frequently curse it to high heaven, the London Underground is a wonder. The Tube network is the oldest and longest underground railway system serving a major city. Its history goes back to 1863, its conception even earlier.

For the full story see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

The Tube has driven engineering developments and creative design. It has featured in countless books, songs, films and poems. It has been the site of births and deaths, and bombs planted by everyone from pre-war anarchists to suffragettes, the IRA to the Islamist suicide bombers of 2005. Yet this venerable railway system keeps going, keeps growing and keeps enabling more than one billion Londoners a year to make their daily commute.

Here, partly extracted from David Long's The Little Book of London Underground, are some facts to fascinate about the Tube.

A Metropolitan tunnel visionary

In 1845 Charles Pearson, MP and Solicitor to the City of London, proposed alleviating congestion for London's 250,000 commuters by inventing an “arcade railway” underground in the shallow tunnels of what was once the bed of the Fleet River, from Farringdon to King's Cross. Pearson also proposed rehousing 50,000 City slum dwellers in seven new suburbs, and redeveloping the land they vacated to offset the cost of the new railway. Sadly, Pearson died a month before his vision became a reality in 1863.

Earl's Court goes up in the world

The first escalator on the Underground was installed at Earl's Court in 1911. A one-legged man, “Bumper” Harris, was employed to ride on it and demonstrate its safety. There was a certain synergy here as both the leg and the escalator threads were wooden! Afterwards Bumper Harris retired to Gloucester where he made cider. Unlike modern “comb” escalators, the original “shunt” mechanism ended with a diagonal so that the stairway finished sooner for the right foot than for the left. Anyone not wishing to walk on the escalator was therefore asked to stand to the right to allow others to pass, leading to Britain's unique flouting of escalator etiquette which dictates in most countries that escalators tend to match the rules of the road.

No dead ends on the Jubilee

In 1926, “suicide pits” were introduced beneath the tracks because of a rise in numbers of passengers throwing themselves in front of trains. Uniquely, the eastern extension of the Jubilee line — the only one of two lines on the London Underground to connect with all others (The other, since the closure of the East London Line, is the Central) — features glass screens to deter “jumpers”. They also ensure platform edge safety and stop litter being sucked into tunnels, the major cause of tunnel fires on the Underground. Still, approximately 50 passengers a year kill themselves on the Underground.

Where modern tunneling was invented

The Thames Tunnel designed by Marc Brunel father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel constructed in 1840

The East London Line has always been somewhat unique as the only Underground Line which doesn’t go through Central London, having two termini only 600 metres apart and having the oldest tunnel on the system, the Thames Tunnel designed by Marc Brunel, father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel dating from 1840 and which along with the Tower Hill subway was the first sub-aqueous tunnel in modern times. There is reference to a tunnel in Babylon, but no archaeological evidence. More importantly it was the tunnel where modern tunnelling methods were developed and though underground and largely unseen it is a listed building!

Brunel's Thames Tunnel before the East London Line closed for refurbishment

For more on the Thames Tunnel and the East London Line see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/east-london-line.html

Torture comes full Circle

The Circle line opened in 1884 and was described in The Times as “a form of mild torture which no person would undergo if he could conveniently help it” – Conservative papers are still pro Public Transport to this day! Conditions haven't improved much in the intervening century or so, with a House of Commons report published in 2004 claiming that commuters face “a daily trauma” and “intolerable conditions” on the Tube.

The Northern's highs and lows

The Northern line includes the deepest tunnel (at Hampstead) and the highest elevation (the Dollis Brook viaduct) on the line to Mill Hill East, the only part of the pre-war extension to Elstree actually built. Its ticket office at Bank was originally situated in the Crypt of St Mary Woolnoth. The first crash on the Tube occurred on the line in 1938 when two trains collided between Waterloo and Charing Cross, injuring 12 passengers.

Early birds catch the Piccadilly

The Tube runs 24 hours a day only at New Year and major events — such as the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics — because most lines have only two tracks, one in each direction. It closes at night for cleaning and maintenance. The earliest trains, such as from Osterley to Heathrow on the Piccadilly line, start from 4.45am, with the rest operating by 5.30am and continuing until about 1am.
Digging deep for the Victoria

The Victoria line was built to link King's Cross, Victoria and Euston and proposed names included Viking line, for Victoria to King's Cross, and Walvic (Walthamstow to Victoria). Tunnelling close to Buckingham Palace and major government departments, 2,500 miners excavated an estimated one million tons of earth, uncovering fossilised marine molluscs and human bones from an old plague pit along the way.

New arrival on the Bakerloo

In 1924, the first baby was allegedly born on the Underground, on a train at Elephant & Castle on the Bakerloo line. Twenty years later, US TV host Jerry Springer was born at East Finchley station, where his mother had taken shelter from an air raid. The Bakerloo line was the creation of two notorious wheeler-dealers, James Whitaker Wright and an American Charles Tyson Yerkes who ran the Underground from a suite at the Savoy Hotel where he had installed his mistress! Builders working on it suffered from the bends while tunnelling under the Thames. Yerkes owned one of the larger art collections in the United States and was reputed to buy ‘old masters’ as others would buy books. The combination of his mastery of financial manipulation and his love of the arts was instrumental in bringing together this unlikely partnership on a railway network.

London was ripe for the skills of Yerkes at the turn of the century with the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway virtually moribund in 1901 when its own financiers, the London & Globe, went into administration. Yerkes soon formed a holding company, the Underground Electric Railways of London Ltd, and the Bakerloo was soon joined by, what are now, the District and the then unbuilt Piccadilly Line and west end branch of the Northern Line (the Hampstead Tube).

Grand Central passengers

The inaugural journey of the first Central line train in 1900 had the Prince of Wales and Mark Twain on board. The tunnels beneath the City curve dramatically because they follow its medieval street plan to avoid paying building owners for “wayleave rights”. The Central line also introduced the first flat fare: tuppence, hence its nickname the “two penny tube”.

Distance no object for map genius

Harry Beck's original map

Harry Beck produced the first version of his famous diagrammatic Tube map while working as an engineering draughtsman at the London Underground Signals Office, and was paid 10 guineas (£10.50) for his efforts. He believed that once underground, passengers were less bothered about relative distances between stations — the blueprint for the original Tube maps — and more interested in how to get from one station to another and where to change. First submitted in 1931, his map was considered too radical but the public embraced it and it became official in 1933. Beck's design classic has been altered many times since; last month TFL was forced to return the River Thames to a new “decluttered” map after outrage over its removal.

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-british-design-quest.html

Ah, look at all the familiar buskers

Busking has been licensed on the Tube since 2003, but before that Sting and Paul McCartney both allegedly plied their trade on the Underground, in disguise as did Cat Stevens before he was famous.

Every tile tells a story

Paolozzi's abstract mosaics at Tottenham Court Road

The tiles at Leicester Square depict film sprockets; Baker Street has Sherlock Holmes, Oval cricketers, while Eduardo Paolozzi's abstract mosaics at Tottenham Court Road celebrate nearby musical Denmark Street. The early Underground companies all faced the same problem - how to maximise the illumination of their gloomy gas-lit platforms. The only answer until then was masses of plain white reflective tiling. However, by the turn of the century, with electric lighting improving all the time, thoughts of something more than functional resulted in stations having unique polychrome tile decorations. The tiling of over 90 tube platforms, and associated passageways, staircases and surface-level booking halls, probably amounted to the largest single creation of decorative art on public display anywhere.

Perchance to Dream .....

One of the most satisfying moments on a crowded Tube Train is when suddenly you stop thinking of the Aussie controlled haversack banging into you every time its owner moves or the blast of sound from the zombie commuter with the ridiculous headphones unconscious of your presence. Between the strap hangers your eyes alight on a Poem on the Underground cab card and as you read you are transported to a different place where there are fields of daffodils, floating clouds and babbling brooks. You have discovered, been delighted and most possibly gone on your way happier because of one of the most successful Public Art programmes, London’s famous “Poems on the Underground.”

Poems on the Underground were launched in 1986. The programme was the brainchild of American writer Judith Chernaik, whose aim was to bring poetry to the wide ranging audience of passengers on the Underground. Judith Chernaik, together with poets Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson, continue to select poems for inclusion in the programme which provides relief and interest to the commuters who make over 3.5 million journeys on the Underground each weekday.

For more on Poems on the Underground see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/06/poems-on-underground.html

Tragedy stubs out smoking

A discarded match was thought to be the cause of the King's Cross fire in November 1987 which killed 31 people. The blaze started in a shaft by a wooden escalator serving the deep-level Piccadilly line and spread to the ticket hall above. Although smoking had been banned on Tube trains three years earlier a similar ban was not enforced on platforms or within stations. The escalator running track was covered in grease and rubbish, causing flames to spread rapidly. Smoking was then banned throughout the Tube network.

Everyday warning for city folk

The recording of the phrase “Mind the gap” dates from 1968, and is voiced by Peter Lodge, who owned a recording company in Bayswater. He stepped in apparently when the actor hired to record the lines insisted on royalties. There have been several books, a gameshow, two theatre companies, several films and lots of songs called Mind the Gap. While Lodge's recording is still in use, some lines use recordings by Manchester voice artist Emma Clarke, while commuters on the Piccadilly line hear the voice of Tim Bentinck, who plays David Archer in The Archers.

For the full story see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/mind-gap.html

Famous logo still doing the rounds

In 1908 the Tube, while not yet a unified service, was officially rebranded as the underground and the “roundel” logo was adopted. The bar-and-circle was used as part of the name boards at stations and the distinctive red and blue design enabled them to be easily identified. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.

For more on Charles Holden and his unique Underground design legacy see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

Lonely outposts south of the river

Less than 10 per cent of Tube stations lie south of the Thames. There are two reasons; The London Clay south of the river made tunnelling more difficult and the Southern railway electrified using third rail to increase service times and frequency to stop the (then) private Tube companies encroaching on their territory. They also built the “Drain” now the Waterloo and City Line to connect their main terminus with the City of London. This line was only transferred to London Underground in 1993. They also co-owned the Baker Street to Waterloo Line (Bakerloo Line) to connect Waterloo Station to the West End of London and later another railway, the LMS from Euston, extended this line over its network to Queen’s Park and Watford Junction.

7/7: London's date with terror

On 7 July 2005 a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks during the morning rush hour killed 56 people and injured 700. Three bombs exploded within 50 seconds of each other at Edgware Road, Aldgate and King's Cross and a fourth exploded an hour later on a bus in Tavistock Square. The attacks by four suicide bombers on the London Transport system on 7th July 2005 were the largest mass murder in Britain in peacetime killing 52 passengers on The Tube and on the No. 30 bus at Tavistock Square and injuring 800 more, many seriously. Injured or not, and serious or not all who lived through the experience carry vivid and unsettling memories. There is a curious obscenity about suicide bombing, about the personal fascism which rationalises killing yourself and complete strangers you have first looked in the eye because you have convinced yourself it is for a greater good. There is a particular perversity, if you have religious faith, in destroying what you believe are God’s creations because you have appointed yourself as God’s representative and indeed have convinced yourself that shortly afterwards you will be personally thanked by Him.

See also:

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/london-77-bombings-memorial.html

Just squeaking into the records

An estimated half a million mice live in the Underground system. Unfortunately they are a protected species as they have fast tracked evolution to adapt to the environment – They have done in 50 years what Mr. Darwin said they would do in 500 years. Unfortunately (for their exterminators) they have also become famous giving rise to an animated feature (Tube Mice – 1988) and “Underneath the Underground” a series of books by Anthea Turner (remember her?) and her journalist sister, Wendy.

Camera, lights, action stations

Famous “ghost”(i.e. disused) stations include Aldwych, British Museum, Down Street, King William Street and Lord's and are used many times a month as sets for films or TV programmes, although none featuring vandalism, firearms, fare evasion, smoking, terrorism or nudity. Lots of stations have closed down, but are still sitting there in a strangely unnerving way (unnerving, anyway, for anyone who has seen Quatermass and the Pit).

They are: Aldwych (closed 1994), Blake Hall (1983), British Museum (1933), Brompton Road (1934), City Road (1922), Down Street (1932), Lords (1939), Marlborough Road (1939), Ongar and North Weald (1994)South Acton (1959), South Kentish Town (1924), St Mary's (1938), Uxbridge Road (1947), White City (1959) and York Road (1932).

Bet you Didn't Know This!

Croxley, the first station outside Zone 6 on the Metropolitan Line is the only station to contain the letter 'X'.

The original Jubilee Line extension went from Charing Cross through Aldwych to New Cross on the East London Line. Indeed, 100 metres of tunnel was built at Aldwych for this purpose - then the project was dumped. So the Picadilly isn't the only line to have abandoned tunnel at Aldwych after all.

St. Paul's on the Central Line used to be called 'Post Office'.

The District Line used to run alongside the Piccadilly to Hounslow Central before the Heathrow extension was built and the section diverted to the Central terminus at Ealing Broadway.

Some of the foregoing is taken from;

The Little Book of the London Underground, by David Long, £9.99

The rest is taken from a very dark place!

Republican Criminals Smoked Out

2009-10-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

The Anne Scan - "No Smoking"

In the bad old days before the Gerry Adams Gang aka Gerry and the Peacemakers discovered Peace, Love and Understanding one of the more disreputable aspects of the IRA (In Ireland these things are relative) was the euphemistically named “Fundraising Activities.” Indeed these crypto-fascists masquerading as Republicans were the greatest beneficiaries of Partition running numerous rackets in the border areas of Ireland relating to smugglings, fraud on EEC subsidies, diesel rackets etc; Indeed it was never obvious where private gangsterism and “The Cause” began and ended as many fine houses and “businesses” owned by Republican hard men in border areas testify.

Now the group of Neanderthals known as the Real IRA were last night being linked to the largest ever haul of contraband cigarettes in Ireland, in what Gardai described as a significant strike against organised crime. Nine people, including seven Irish nationals, were arrested after a ship “Anne Scan” containing 120 million cigarettes worth €50m was seized in Co Louth following a massive surveillance operation.

The haul, with a potential revenue loss of €40m, was destined for the Irish and UK markets. Regarded as the biggest seizure of its type in Europe and described as organised crime on a global scale, the contraband was uncovered after the chartered ship arrived at 6am on Monday at Greenore Port. Code-named 'Samhna', the operation, which targeted an organised crime group operating on both sides of the Border, involved the Revenue Customs Service, the Naval Service, Air Corps, Gardai, the Criminal Assets Bureau and PSNI officers and HM customs officials.

When customs officers searched the cargo, they found over 1,400 bags containing up to 120 million cigarettes hidden among a consignment of animal feed. While the top quarter of each of the one-tonne bulk bags of feed was genuine, the rest were packets of two brands of cigarettes including Palace, which are sold in Britain. Seven Irish nationals, all male, aged between 19 and mid-40s, one Lithuanian male in his 50s and one Ukrainian male in his 40s were arrested after part of the ship's cargo was loaded early yesterday onto waiting trucks. Gardai and customs officers pounced when the convoy was driven to the importer's premises.

The Anne Scan's cargo of cigarettes

Last night, the men, who included the ship's captain and first officer, were being detained at Garda stations in counties Louth and Monaghan. The Real IRA have funded their terrorist activities partly by smuggling along the Border and by operations bringing material into Ireland. In 2003 a large haul of cigarettes was seized as a Real IRA cigarette smuggling ring was smashed when warehouses in Holland and the Ireland were raided. Six men were arrested after consignments of cigarettes worth millions of euro were found in the searches.

As part of follow-up searches more cigarettes were found in a warehouse in Monaghan. In another incident Gardai and the US authorities investigated links between the terrorists and a major cigarette smuggling ring in the United States. The seizure in Greenore is significant as this port at the end of the Cooley Peninsular (along with Heysham in Lancashire) was built by the LMS Railway based in Euston Station as part of a Rail / Ferry connection to Ireland and Greenore still has Euston and Crewe roads and the remnants of a once fine railway hotel as visible evidence of this connection.

The Greenore Hotel, built by The London and North Western Railway in the 1870s as one of the most imposing railway hotels in Ireland, and one of only a handful to be built of brick.

The Cooley Mountains form the setting for "An Tain Bo Cuailgne" or "The Cattle Raid of Cooley". Recounting the heroic defence of Ulster by the legendary Cuchulainn against Queen Medbh of Connacht and her attempt to seize the prize brown bull of Cooley, the story is at least 1,200 years old and is among the oldest surviving pieces of vernacular literature in Europe. This very beautiful part of the world has suffered greatly from IRA “fundraising” over the years including the murder of a local farmer, Tom Oliver, and the burying of bodies of IRA murder victims. One of these was Jean McConville, a 37 year old Catholic mother of 10, who was abducted from her home, St. Judes Walk, Divis, Belfast, around Xmas 1972 when Gerry Adams was commander of the “West Belfast Brigade”. She was accused of giving water to an injured British soldier. Her remains were eventually recovered, on general instructions from the IRA, buried at Shelling Hill beach, near Carlingford, Co. Louth, on 27 August 2003.

Jean McConville and three of her children

And consider those who suffered from the euphemistically titled “fundraising” which enabled Gerry and the Peacemakers pay for their comic strip patriotism. There was Thomas Niedermayer, the German managing director of Grundig’s Belfast factory where IRA Godfather Brian Keenan once worked who was kidnapped for ransom and whose body has never been found. Of course Brian was not there that wet dark night at Greystones pier in Co. Wicklow some years later when his widow, still consumed with grief, walked off the end of the pier. He was however, in West Belfast when Grundig closed down with a loss of 900 jobs, but he wasn’t at Balinamore Wood in Co. Longford when the Army and Gardai rescued the kidnapped managing director of an Irish Supermarket chain but not before the fleeing IRA gang killed two 19 year olds, a rookie cop and soldier, as they broke out of the cordon. Nor did he know the girlfriend of one of them who worked for me who had a breakdown as her life and future were so cruelly destroyed.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/05/death-of-brian-keenan.html

So let us praise the security services for frustrating the Neanderthals of the so called “Real IRA” in their gangster activities and remember those who did not live to see the discovery of democracy by Gerry and the Peacemakers. They are remembered on the Cain Index of violent deaths caused by the IRA and others who feel it is right to kill for “Freedom”.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/index.html

Cooley Peninsular

Mail Rail London

2009-10-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

BBC gives fascists a national platform

2009-10-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'm deeply ashamed that the BBC’s Question Time has given a platform to the BNP's Nick Griffin, a fascist thug with serious form, a holocaust denier and a convicted racist masquerading as a democratic politician. Is that why we pay, under pain of imprisonment, a TV tax out of money which is already taxed? Tonight the BBC lost any moral justification for a licence fee.

I have no problem with debating with the BNP and don't underestimate the common sense of the British people. Indeed history shows they have an adversion to extremism. However I am deeply uncomfortable with that debate being on a publicly funded broadcaster in a context where the BNP are treated as being equivalent to mainstream political parties.

London MPs today led a furious backlash against the BBC for inviting the BNP onto Question Time. Diane Abbott accused the Corporation of "accepting that violent fascism is somehow part of the political mainstream". The Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said it was a "chilling idea" for black, Asian and Jewish communities that the far-Right party could be treated in such a manner. Five other London MPs have launched a Commons campaign condemning the BBC. Pop stars, writers and union members also joined the public outcry.

Jerry Dammers, founder of The Specials, attacked the BBC as naive. His words were echoed by the former children's laureate Michael Rosen who said people had a right not to hear the BNP. They were speaking at an emergency public rally held by Unite Against Fascism in central London. Mr Dammers said: "The BNP are hiding their true identity as Nazis and fascists and the BBC are allowing themselves to be used for that purpose."

Kawsar Zaman, from the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "It's a really sad day for the BBC; it's a sad day in my opinion for this country." They spoke out as BBC director general Mark Thompson defended the decision to have BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time. He said that the Corporation had a "central principle of impartiality" which it would only override if the Government demanded a broadcasting ban as Margaret Thatcher did in the Eighties for Sinn Fein. "The case against inviting the BNP to appear on Question Time is a case for censorship," he said. He denied that the decision was based in any way on a wish to appear controversial.

Concerns are only likely to be fuelled by the delight of the BNP at the platform it is being given. "Thank you Auntie," said Mr Griffin in an interview with The Times.

Not in my name.

Sarah Siddons out and about!

2009-10-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

These are shots of Sarah Siddons, the oldest working main line electric locomotive in Britain making special trips between Harrow-on-the-Hill, via Rickmansworth to Amersham on Sunday 17 May as part of the Rickmansworth Festival. Engine no. 12, Sarah Siddons, was built in 1922 and is the last operational Metropolitan Railway electric locomotive; the only surviving working engine out of 20 built by Metropolitan Vickers and mostly named after people associated with the area served by the Metropolitan Railway. The engines had a top speed of 65 miles per hour.

For full details see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/05/ride-on-sarah.html

For details of one of the Great Rail Journeys of the World which can be done on London Underground see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

Going Down the Tube

2009-10-16T16:31:00.001-07:00

A Tube worker has been caught on camera abusing an elderly passenger, calling him a “jumped- up little git”. The employee lost his temper when the man politely complained about getting his arm stuck in a door for several seconds as he tried to leave a train. Mayor Boris Johnson said he was appalled by the incident. TfL today suspended the worker while it launched an investigation. In the video posted by a fellow passenger on YouTube, the worker shouts: “Ladies and gentlemen, this train goes nowhere until little man gets off.” Jonathan MacDonald, from Camberley, who works in Covent Garden, filmed the incident yesterday at 2.30pm. He said the well-dressed man's initial complaint was civil. “I saw an elderly man with his arm trapped in the closing door of a faulty train at Holborn station,” he said.

“We all thought the train was heading further east but the train was terminating at Holborn and we were ushered on to the platform by two shouting staff. The elderly man was slow to get off in the mad rush, hence the entrapment. A few people called to staff to open the door again so he could be released. About 30 seconds later the doors opened again and he removed his arm. I watched as he calmly relayed his experience to the staff member. The member of staff didn't think it was a problem — in fact, he was furious that the guy had mentioned it at all, especially as the guy was standing close to the track.

“After a while, he started shouting at the guy to stand back, there is a f***ing train approaching'. The elderly guy quietly questioned why he had to swear, as did several other passengers. That was when I pulled out my video camera.” The video shows the man saying: “Come upstairs and talk to the police upstairs. You are not getting on this train. The train will not move.”

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson responds to scene on Twitter

As the passenger boards the train the member of staff says: “Ladies and gentleman, this train goes nowhere until little man gets off. Because you're a jumped up little git, mate. I'm not holding anyone else's journey up for a little girl like you.” As the train pulls off, with the elderly man on board, the member of staff says: “Sling him under a train.” A TfL spokesman said: “We are appalled by this video and will investigate thoroughly and urgently.”

Stephen Gately

2009-10-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

I was so sorry to hear about Stephen Gately's untimely death in Majorca at the age of 33. I had met him a number of times and he was a very endearing, unaffected character. Ar dheis Dé go raibh anam uasal.

Drugs were not a factor in the sudden death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately, a family spokesman has said. Well-known Irish solicitor and family friend Gerald Kean, asked by the family to speak on their behalf, also ruled out suicide. "There's no foul play involved and it's not suicide. It's just a tragic accident is what we've been told and we're happy that that is correct information," Mr Kean said.

"There is nothing untoward, it's not drugs, we don't believe, it's not suicide, it's not murder, it's not a fight. That's what we've been told." Mr Kean said the family was shattered by the shocking news. "They're devastated and they asked me to take calls for the moment. They're just trying to come to terms with it," he said. Mr Kean said a post mortem on Mr Gately's body is expected on Tuesday and attributed the death to natural causes, but declined to give any further detail.

No Expenses Spared?

2009-10-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

It is not just in the UK that politicians have been found to have had their snouts firmly in the expenses trough. More details about expenses incurred by Irish Politician John O ‘Donoghue have been disclosed this morning as the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Irish Parliament) gives in to mounting public pressure and outrage and resigns. The news comes after considerable public outrage at an expenses scandal at another Irish Government, FAS, which say the “disgraced” chief executive leave with a Euros 1.1 million pay off and a side deal where a prestige car was secretly given to him as a leaving gift. In addition the Irish Taxpayer has been left holding a Euros 90 Bn. Bill for toxic property loans made by Irish Banks. The construction and property industries in Ireland have virtually collapsed leading to severe economic contraction and the wry joke that the children’s character “Bob the Builder” has to be renamed, he is now just called Bob. Public stoicism at the economic downturn has turned to widespread anger as the lifestyles of now bankrupt property plutocrats are laid bare and by revelations that Sean Fitzpatrick, the MD of the now nationalised Anglo Irish Bank had illegally and covertly borrowed more than 100 m Euros from the bank. He invested this in a whole rag bag of businesses including a bar in Las Vegas. He is now not paying the interest on the loan and like many of the loans made in Boomtown it is now largely irrecoverable.

John "Loadsamoney" O'Donoghue

Against this background the public has been very unforgiving as details of O’Donoghue’s taxpayer funded lifestyle have been exposed by requests under Ireland’s Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. Reports this morning say documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that Horse Racing Ireland picked up bills of more than €20,000 on behalf of ministerial delegations led by Mr O’ Donoghue to nine international race meetings between 2003 and 2007. Horse Racing Ireland is partly funded by a direct grant from the taxpayer. The latest revelation follows several weeks of Sunday newspaper articles detailing lavish expenses claims by Mr O’ Donoghue while he was Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism. The Ceann Comhairle also revealed last Friday that he has claimed more than €100,000 in expenses since taking on his new job in 2007, including more than €90,000 incurred during trips abroad.

The move comes after months of high-profile media coverage of his expenses. A total of €216,334 was claimed for expenses between June 2007 and June 2009, including about €89,000 on foreign travel. On St Patrick’s Day 2008 and 2009, Mr O’ Donoghue attended celebrations in Washington, Houston, New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston in the US at a cost of €27,074. He also spent €13,227 on flights between his constituency in Kerry and Dublin and more than €124,800 was claimed for adverts in local Kerry newspapers, phone calls and secretarial services and miscellaneous expenses. The cost of VIP lounges in Dublin and other airports such as Paris, Lisbon, Hong Kong and Singapore, totalled €4,461.

One of the Irish Government's executive jets - so handy for going to the races!

Mr O’ Donoghue claimed €3,474 for gifts while abroad - a “proportion” of which were used on the official visit, according to his record. More than €2,930 was spent on official entertainment, including €330 for a party of five at the Butte Chaillot bistro in Paris and €705 on a lunch in honour of Tourism Ireland and France Group. In a statement from the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament), a spokesman repeated earlier claims from Mr O’ Donoghue that his office should carry the same privileges as a Government minister. “Similarly, items of expenditure including use of executive facilities or security are the customary courtesies that Ireland provides whenever it hosts an incoming parliamentary delegation,” the statement said.

Butte Chaillot Bistro Paris - Good enough for an Irish Minister?

“When the Ceann Comhairle travels abroad, it is normal that arrangements made are on the recommendation of the host, giving due regard to criteria such as security and proximity to the venues or to accommodate meetings.”

Details of his claims (including reclaiming a £1.00 contribution to UNICEF) are on this excellent Irish Blog.

http://www.gavinsblog.com/

The craw thumping justification on his resignation today issued by the official Parliamentary Press Office is a worthy sick making example of the genre;

“In indicating his intention to step down from the office of Ceann Comhairle, John O’ Donoghue TD, acted in the best interests of Dáil Éireann, and the office of Ceann Comhairle. He has been a most effective and fair Ceann Comhairle who has acted with commitment and integrity to ensure that the members of Dáil Éireann could debate freely and fairly the issues of the day.”

“The Ceann Comhairle has indicated that he wishes to make a statement to the House next week, I respect his right to do that. I thank him for his contribution to this Dáil as Ceann Comhairle and I wish him well for the future.”

Or as the long suffering Irish Taxpayer would summarise it; “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

John O'Donoghue arriving home in his Kerry constituency after his resignation to count his money.

Images of Prague

2009-10-07T06:44:00.052-07:00

St Vitus Cathedral

Astronomical Clock

I first went to Prague in 1998 and this was the first time I had returned 11 years later in 2009 for the 20th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution which cast off Communism. I was nervous about returning for when I first went I was bowled over by the sheer magnificence of Prague but also by the welcome, after so many years cut off they really made visitors welcome and they were a talented and engaging people who relished freedom. I remember the taxi driver who turned off his meter to bring us the long way around and show us where they had blown up the statue of Stalin in 1962. There were the string quartets playing in the street, the foaming steins of beer which cost 50p and much more.

Charles Bridge

Charles Tower

Church of Our Lady before Tyn

Old Town Square

But it was a country in transition and much of downtown Prague looked shabby as ownership of buildings was being sorted out and there were a few examples of the “Rosa Kleb” school of customer service. Well now Prague has certainly developed and is no longer cheap, indeed some items are clearly overpriced but it has lost none of its magical quality. We had some wonderful experiences from seeing Don Giovanni in the Estates theatre where Mozart premiered it 222 years ago this month, to hearing a wonderful recital in the amazing Baroque splendour of the Franciscan Church, to touring Prague in a vintage open top 1932 Praga car and to hearing some great jazz on the Jazz Boat whilst watching the wonderful riverscape on the Vltava.

Inter-war air cooled Tatra car

And the Czech people are as genuine and as engaging as ever. It is good to see people who relish their freedom and have embraced it with open arms. In 1938 Czechoslovakia was the only democratic country in Eastern Europe and it was betrayed by appeasers of the Nazi Racist State.

Model of stage of the Estates Theatre

Estates Theatre

Don Giovanni

When I went there in 1998 the people were clutching their new found freedoms with a vengeance, a talented proud people in this the capital of Mittel Europa and the only democracy in eastern Europe pre-war whose people found themselves cruelly betrayed in the aftermath of World War II.

Kafka Statue

Mala Strana (Little Quarter) & St. Nicholas Church

Baker Street Praha

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" (Praga mater urbium, or "Praha matka měst" in Czech), "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech. Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the political, cultural, and economic centre of the Czech state for more than 1100 years. For many decades during the Gothic and Renaissance eras, Prague was the seat of two Holy Roman Emperors and thus was also the capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

Presidential Palace, Prague Castle

Maisel Synagogue

Hebrew Clock on the Jewish Town Hall in the Josefov

Jewish Ceremonial Hall

Josefov - The Jewish Quarter

Spanish Synagogue

Today, the city proper is home to more than 1.2 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 1.9 million. Since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, making the city one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, receiving more than 4.1 million international visitors annually, as of 2009.

Frank Gehry's "Dancing House"

Art Nouveau frontage of Paris Hotel

Jazz Boat

The Municipal House (Obecni Dum) is the premier Art Nouveau building in Prague and was completed in 1911. On 28th October 1918, the historic proclamation of the independent state of Czechoslovakia took place here. Situated on the site of the former Royal Court Palace, Municipal House is the main attraction on Republic Square which is just a few minutes’ walk from both the Old Town Square & Wenceslas Square. On the outside, this stunning building has intricate stone work, gold trimmings, stained glass windows and magnificent frescos. Inside, Municipal House is divided into several areas. It hosts some of the best classical concerts in Prague, there are regular exhibitions, and it houses the first-class Francouzska Restaurant.

St. Francis Church

Prague Ham!

On our last morning in Prague in 1998 we had arranged with our driver to go to the Petrin Hill to take in the vista of this inspiring city; Hradčany, the castle district, on a hill above the west bank; Malá Strana, the 13th-century 'Little Quarter', between the river and castle; Staré Mêsto, the gothic 'Old Town' on the Vltava's east bank; adjacent Josefov, the former Jewish ghetto; and Nové Mêsto or 'New Town,' (new in the 14th century), to the south and east of Staré Mêsto and straddling through it all the Vltava River, the Czech Republic's longest river. It was here Tereza, in the novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” , by Milan Kundera climbs the grassy Petrin Hill “On her way up, she paused several times to look back: below her she saw the towers and bridges, the saints were shaking their fists and lifting their stone eyes to the clouds. It was the most beautiful city in the world.” But “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” first published in a French translation from Czech in 1984, is no love letter to the city; it is a message from a time of oppression, and one worth carrying for perspective on a trip through Prague. Milan Kundera submerges the reader in the undercurrents of political life, the rough passages of far-too-recent vintage and the personal repercussions of an invasive, claustrophobic time. Tereza is climbing Petrin in a dream — a dream in which she will be executed, but only if she convinces the executioners that she seeks death of her own free will. The novel returns again and again to Tereza’s harrowing dreams, simultaneously erotic and morbid.

Municipal House (Obecni Dum) Cafe

The driver told us he was taking us on a diversion and we looked at each other nervously for stories and warnings about unscrupulous taxis are legion in Prague. By the Vltava he stopped and asked us to get out and cross the road to see a plinth where a statue used to stand. He explained to us that this is where the Czechs had blown up a statue of Stalin years previously in 1962 and how proud he now was to be able to welcome us to a free city. Only those who have lost their freedom once can really appreciate what it means to be free.

Touring Prague in a 1932 Praga Convertible

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/05/unbearable-lightness-of-being.html

Mail Rail – The Last Post?

2009-10-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

It may well be the Last Post next year for London’s unique other underground which was closed and mothballed in 2003. The Post Office Railway, also known as Mail Rail, was a narrow gauge driverless private underground railway in London built by the Post Office to move mail between sorting offices. This 2 foot gauge 6.5mile railway was opened in 1927 and at its peak run between Paddington Sorting Office and Whitechapel Eastern Delivery Office. The trains are driverless and are controlled by switching the 440 volt DC traction voltage. Inspired by the Chicago Tunnel Company, it was in operation from 1927 until 2003

It ran east-west from Paddington Head District Sorting Office in the west to the Eastern Head District Sorting Office at Whitechapel in the east, a distance of 6.5 miles (10.5 km). It had eight stations, but by 2003 only three stations remained in use because the sorting offices above the other stations had been relocated.

A Royal Mail press release in April 2003 revealed that the system would be closed and "mothballed" (i.e. removed from active service) at the end of May that year. Royal Mail had earlier stated that using the Post Office Railway was five times more expensive than using road transport for the same task. The Communication Workers Union claimed the actual figure was closer to three times more expensive but argued that this was the result of a deliberate policy of running the system down and using it at only one-third of its capacity. Despite a report by the Greater London Authority in support of the continued use of Mail Rail, the system was taken out of use in the early hours of 31 May 2003.

Since then no viable alternative use has been found for the railway which being designed for freight only would not easily adapt to passenger use, presuming the passengers were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs! Obviously there is a limit to what can be done to a mothballed railway and the tracks are not live, the only maintenance services are by battery locos. Also next year the Royal Mail is closing down Paddington Sorting Office which is the Western terminus of Mail Rail. All in all, it seems that soon the last person out will be switching off the lights for the last time?

Battery Loco

As MAIL RAIL says on their excellent site; http://www.mailrail.co.uk/

“The options are limited; I think it would be unlikely that it could be turned into a Heritage Centre. Remembering that the system was built solely to transport mail across the Capital, the costs involved converting the system, or a part of it, to allow public access in the numbers required to break even, would be horrendous.

Another option would be to adapt the present system to allow transport of other goods, perhaps delivering to shops and other businesses along its route. Perhaps the system could be opened up to outside Courier companies, which would have the added bonus of helping to remove a few more of those delivery vans from the crowded City streets. Again this would involve more expense as the current trains are designed to carry mail and small parcels, and would probably require major work to enable them to carry other types of goods.

Perhaps, another option would be for us, to stop using email, and revert back to using letters boxes. I think this is unlikely. If the system does ever have to close down completely, I suspect that the tunnels will be taken over by some telecom company and crammed full of cables. What an indignant end to a great piece of English heritage. “

Redundant 1962 Stock stored in unused tunnels

No more orders were placed for new stock until 1962, when two new prototype units were ordered from English Electric (3334-5). These two units featured improvements such as disk brakes, redesigned loading ramps and a new design of traction motor, to give better acceleration. One of these was withdrawn after only 5 years in 1967, the other surviving until 1980. This was later repaired using parts from the previously scrapped car and renumbered 66.

Original Paddington Head District Sorting Office (completed 1907), London Road W2, Paddington, London. Now part of the larger West London Mail Centre. This was the western terminus of the Post Office Underground Railway (mail rail) from 1927 until 2003. It is now scheduled for closure in 2010

This is the Rail Mail VIP carrier. Based on the 1929 bogie unit, this unit had 18 tip-up seats, Perspex roof and had the monograms of the four British monarchs from King George V to Queen Elizabeth II, painted on the side doors. This Unit had to rely on a battery loco as it had no traction equipment.

The former GPO West Central District Office (1960s), sorting office, New Oxford Street / High Holborn, Holborn WC1, London. This is one of the stops on the Post Office Underground Railway and is used these days for various media events, fashion shows, product launches etc.

For a full history of Mail Rail see my post below, originally from 7th August 2008.

London’s Other Underground

Old fashioned electric Automatic Train

Beautiful Diesel Truck

Deep down beneath the choked streets of London was a railway which once ran busily for nineteen hours a day. It carried no passengers and its trains had no drivers or guards. Yet this seemingly strange system was one of the most successful railways in the world.

Mail Rail - the little known electric rail system running for 6.5 miles under the centre of the capital – closed on 30th May 2003. Royal Mail says the Mail Rail service which ran from west to east London is no longer proving viable. In its heyday the "unique" service, the only one of its kind in England, served nine stations, carrying four million letters per day. At closure Mail Rail runs along a 37km route between Paddington in west London and Whitechapel in the East End, and is staffed by 76 postal workers.

Liverpool street Mail platforms

Royal Mail says it recognises the heritage value of the service. But a massive drop in postage in the city, plus changes in how mail is distributed, mean the service has become too expensive, say its owners. With just four stations in operation on the route in 2002 and only three by the time of closure Royal Mail announced in April 2003 that the system would be closed and "mothballed" (i.e. removed from active service) at the end of May 2003. Royal Mail had earlier stated that using the Post Office Railway was five times more expensive than using road transport for the same task. The Communication Workers Union claimed the actual figure was closer to three times more expensive but argued that this was the result of a deliberate policy of running the system down and using it at only one-third of its capacity. Despite a report by the Greater London Authority in support of the continued use of Mail Rail, the system was taken out of use in the early hours of 31 May 2003.

• Trains are 8.4m long
• They carry loads of 980kg of mail
• The tunnels are 21m (70ft) underground
• Trains run on a 610mm electrified track (2 foot gauge)
• Operated 19 hours a day, 286 days a year.
• Paddington to Whitechapel, with all stops, in 26 minutes.

Cash-strapped owners, the Royal Mail, said the automated mail delivery system costs too much to run. But post bosses revealed they were in talks "with a number of organisations" about possible alternative uses. Royal Mail said the system would be "mothballed" until a partner can be found to help run it. But it declined to name the organisations that have allegedly shown an interest - or to what use Rail Mail could be put in the future. Five years on there have been no takers.

System Map

Among the ideas suggested in a recent London Assembly report were transporting:

• High-value items to shops in Oxford Street
• Same-day document delivery
• Precious metals to Mayfair's jewellers
• Wine to the capital's vintners.

The Royal Mail has not ruled out selling Mail Rail, raising the prospect of rail enthusiasts - or even a private individual - taking it over. Mothballing Mail Rail will lead to 80 extra van journeys per week, potentially putting the postal service at odds with its commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions. But the Royal Mail insisted it would make little difference to overall pollution levels.

The idea of an underground rail service for London was first mooted in 1855 by the then secretary to the Post Office, Rowland Hill.

Trains travelled at 40mph in tunnels separate to The Tube. Although trials were conducted in small tunnels, the Post Office abandoned the scheme until early in the next century. It was eventually given the go-ahead by the government in 1913. The outbreak of World War One halted construction and the little tunnels were used to store art treasures from major London galleries, such as the Tate and the National Portrait Galleries. Work began on the tunnels again in 1923 and the first trains started delivery four years later - under the banner of the Post Office Underground Railway. It became Mail Rail on the service's 60th anniversary, shortly after the old stock was replaced with 34 new trains.

Track Diagram - Western District Office

The main line consisted of a single tube, 9 foot in diameter. The base of the tube was filled with loose ballast, on which a concrete raft, 12 inches thick was laid. Onto this was laid the track. The tunnels diverge using a step-plate junction just before the stations, into 2 single line tunnels at 7 foot in diameter. These then connect to 2 parallel station tunnels, which are around 25 foot in diameter. The platforms are built on a 'First floor level' within the tunnels, the area beneath, used to house the electrical control equipment.

Although the main tube is at a depth of around 70 foot, the stations are constructed at a much shallower depth, giving a 1 in 20 rise and fall, into and out of the station. This served two purposes; the first is that the mail had less distance to travel from the platforms to the surface. Secondly the gradient on the line, to and from the station, served to help slow the trains on their approach to the stations, and assists with the acceleration away from the stations.

When the system was first designed, it was planned that further extensions would be built at a later date. The proposal was that after a few years of operation of the first section, testing out the various systems and stock used, that 3 extensions would be built. Although nothing ever came of these proposed extensions, they were kept in mind for a surprisingly long time. Short sections of the extension were started whilst the main section was being built, most notably at Mount Pleasant, but only extended a few yards. Even in recent times, proposals were made to extend the line to the new central sorting hub at Willesden. Needless to say this was abandoned due to the estimated cost of the extension. At the time, it cost over a million pounds per mile to excavate a deep level tube tunnel.

Proposed Extensions

The Post Office Railway features in the novel The Horn of Mortal Danger (1980). In it, there is a connecting tunnel between the Railway and the secret railway of the North London System. The only other known connection is in the disused tunnel between Highgate and the disused Cranley Gardens. The railway appears in the film Hudson Hawk, but rebadged as 'Vatican Post'. Bruce Willis (as Hudson Hawk) stows away in one of the mail containers.

Train location indicator panel

As for the future of this unique freight transport link in a congested and polluted Central London we cannot expect initiative from a Royal Mail which has been robbed of funds bu central government for years, left in a commercially unviable position by short sighted policies dictated by ministers and run by a team recruited to shrink the business. As the following exchange in Hansard indicates at the time of closure in 2003 HM Government would rather grow a GM Boil on its collective Bum than do anything to help, obviously “Green Guff” sound bites are cheaper than using an asset which is already built and paid for;

Lord Sainsbury of Turville (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Science and Innovation), Department of Trade and Industry; Labour)
“My Lords, as regards transport it makes very little difference. The company envisages using only a handful of extra vehicles after MailRail is taken out of service because a huge proportion of the mail it now carries will be transported on existing vehicle routes. As regards extension, MailRail used to connect nine different stations but, with the movement of sorting offices to new areas of population, it now covers only four. Extending it would make no economic sense at all.”

Lord Razzall (Liberal Democrat)
“My Lords, does the Minister agree that this is a moment for proactivity on behalf of his department? It is not for your Lordships' House to come up with ideas following the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, but, for example, would not this be a perfect avenue for use by the retail distribution trade within London? Alternatively, what possibilities does it offer for CrossRail?”

Lord Sainsbury of Turville (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Science and Innovation), Department of Trade and Industry; Labour)
“My Lords, it is not for the House or the Government to look for opportunities. The situation requires the Royal Mail to take a commercial decision. A consortium called Metrofreight was established to look at a proposal for using MailRail tunnels to deliver goods underground to retailers in Oxford Street. It became clear that this would cost in the region of £100 million, without a proper commercial return. It looks unlikely therefore that that scheme will go ahead. But there are other commercial possibilities and it is for the Royal Mail, which is seized of the issue, to consider them.”

If this is the Minister for Science and Innovation then I’d hate to see the Minister for Ignorance and Inertia! Later the same year (September 2003) Royal Mail after 173 years, ended the carriage of mail by train and decided to carry all its post by air and road. The minister responsible for the post office, Stephen Timms, refused to comment on the change, describing it as a commercial decision for Royal Mail's board. However, in a letter to the RMT rail union, Lord Whitty broke ranks, writing: "I personally and this department also have grave concerns about the Royal Mail decision, which seems to be heading in the opposite direction from the aim of a more balanced, environmentally friendly and integrated transport system." The government's 10-year plan for transport aims to increase the amount of freight on Britain's railways by 80%, taking a billion lorry journeys off the roads by 2010 to cut congestion and pollution. On this, as in so many other areas, there appears to be little joined up thinking.

Running Tunnel

It is clear that there is no rhyme or reason to the Government’s so called “Green” transport strategy – the £4 Bn in “Green Taxes” are just a further tax grab which have been dishonestly “green washed” to catch the environmental zeitgeist. The recent changes in VED (Vehicle Excise Duty) on “high polluting cars” have been shown to be dishonest, for unlike for all the other main green tax changes unveiled in the last budget - the Treasury did not list the likely impact of its new "showroom tax" on reducing carbon emissions. Critics said it proved that the VED would have a minimal impact on CO2 cuts. And underneath congested and polluted London there lies a unique asset in the Mail Rail system lying fallow and unused whilst above there is a government engaging in token gestures of keeping its “energy efficient” light onto midnight and ordering one or two electric vehicles. Of course 50 years ago, before we discovered “De Environment” we had thousands of electric vehicles on the streets of London not to mention trams and whirring underneath we had an ingenious post office railway connected to train stations where 18 overnight TPO’s (Travelling Post Offices) delivered mail reliably to all corners of the land without cluttering up the roads. Isn’t progress wonderful?

In researching this item I’ve liberally used information on this excellent enthusiast’s site;

http://www.mailrail.co.uk/

Here is the GLA’s report on the closure of Mail Rail;

http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/pubserv/mailrail.pdf

Lübeck and its Xmas Market

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If retailer’s window displays in London are to be believed at this time of the year our thoughts turn to CHRISTMAS! The popularity of German Xmas Markets has increased over the years with visitors travelling for the great atmospherics at these events with German Food, Drink and crafts to the fore. While the more popular venues are well known (Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich,) my own favourite is the one which is patronised by Germans themselves and is set in the former capital of the Hanseatic League, Lübeck Queen of the Hansa.

Lübeck is also easy to get to by Budget Airline with deals possible at £10 return. To get there take the airline run by an Irish Accountant www.ryanair.com and land at Lübeck Blankensee Airport www.flughafen-luebeck.de which is 8km from the town. Helpfully Ryanair call this airport “Hamburg” as it is only 80 km from Hamburg! When I first came here (On a day trip!) in 2000 the schedule was Ryanair in the morning, Ryanair in the evening. Today Ryanair operate from Blankensee to 6 locations and the Hungarian airline Wizz www.wizzair.com operates to a further 5. One of the reasons the airport is still here is that the former airbase was bought and is still personally owned by the Tui family who live nearby and who own Thomson Tours and the leading travel operators in most European countries.

A stroll around the Christmas fair area, which was first mentioned in 1648, is an absolute Must-Do for all Lübeck visitors. The market and its some 400 merchants offer toys and Christmas decoration, gingerbread, hot spiced wine and plenty of other things. Unlike the tourist markets elsewhere this is a genuine market patronised by German visitors from Northern Germany and is highly recommended.

See the site on:

http://www.luebeck-tourism.de/

Or my post on:

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08/lbeck-queen-of-hansa.html

The largest Christmas market in Lübeck can be found in the pedestrian zone of "Breite Straße" and behind the Town Hall on the market square "Kohlmarkt".

For children Lübeck offers the famous "Fairytale Wood" where they can see sleeping Hänsel & Gretel and many other fairytale heroes. The market is located in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church.

Another Christmas market featuring a unique medieval ambience is located inside the Hospital of the Holy Spirit. It is one of the most famous Christmas craft fairs in Germany and attracts exhibitors from all the Baltic States.

Craft Fair in the Heligen Geist Hospital

You can also visit the beautiful Christmas Craft Fair inside St. Peter's Church.
On the cold days there you can't beat a hot Eien Punsch - a sort of hot egg nogg which warms the pith of your stomach and miraculously heats up cold feet! Here is the recipe I was able to get.

Hot Egg Nog

Ingredients for a Hot Egg Nogg

• Brandy
• Dark Rum
• Sugar Syrup
• Egg
• Milk

Quantities for one drink:
• 1/2 oz Brandy
• 1/2 oz Dark Rum
• 1/2 oz Sugar Syrup
• 1 Egg
• 3 oz Boiling Milk

Blending Instructions:

• Blend all ingredients (except milk) until smooth and pour into a heat-proof goblet

• Add boiling milk, sprinkle with nutmeg and serve.

Hau' weg das Zeug!

As far as the architecture goes, the town is known for its steeples and spires, high-gabled houses, strong towers and massive gates. Lübeck has a medieval atmosphere and many sites of cultural and historical interest: the Holsten Gate, St. Mary's Church, the town hall and historic administration building (Kanzleigebäude), alleyways and courtyards, the four-mast barque "Passat" that has become the symbol of Travemünde, the Hospital of the Holy Ghost and St. Peter's Church, whose tower offers awe-inspiring views over the town. The town is also billed as the world capital of marzipan, having been the spot where this delightful confection was first devised (there is a legend attached, of course). Samples of marzipan are freely available in Lübeck.

Niederegger Marzipan Museum

Herzlich willkommen auf dem Lübecker Weihnachtsmarkt!

Der Untergrund

2009-09-30T02:54:00.000-07:00

Die Linien, Bahnhöfe und Zonen von London Underground, London Overground und Docklands Light Railway (DLR).

Als Klassiker des Designs macht die U-Bahn-Karte das Fahren im Londoner U-Bahn-Netz denkbar einfach. Diese übersichtliche Karte enthält einen Schlüssel zu allen eingezeichneten Stationen sowie die 6 Gebührenzonen.

CLICK ON MAP TO ENLARGE