Looking forward to singing in this on the 21st!
13.03.2026 17:37
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Looking forward to singing in this on the 21st!
Just read Francis Spufford's latest novel, Nonesuch; a great central character in Iris, against a background of early WWII, love, finance, early television; and a plot to change history and angels! Impossible to do it justice in a skeet, but highly recommended (though beware cliffhanger at end...)
Excellent! From the perspective of modern Western culture, the fact that Hebrew and Arabic managed to get to the point where the historic Semitic -t led to an -a ending in practice (if not strictly in their own spelling) has only helped to reinforce the pattern from IE.
I accept that they were not responsible for the creation of the moon, but at least some of their residents believe(d) that Bedford is the site of the Garden of Eden (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panacea...). So questions need to be asked about trees of knowledge etc...
and are they off the menu in Lent (except water-sprites?)
... and for once this year, Lent and Ramadan are starting at the same time as if to justify this etymological confusion.
Sadly the Roman origins of UK rail transport have been suppressed, except for the signage at Wallsend Tyne and Wear Metro Station (Noli fumare etc... ). O tempora, o Moorgate!
book - beech (from bΔΔ with palatalisation caused by the same lost _i_ of the ending) if there had been no regularisation, which to my mind is even better...
Two clerics holding a scroll between them containing the Cyrilllic alphabet as used for Church Slavonic
A list of the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet accompanied by transliterations
If you are looking for an alternative saint's day to celebrate than the obvious one, how about Sts Cyril and Methodius, inventors of literacy in Slav languages?
(Probably with the alphabet in the second image, the Glagolitic, rather than the first one, now named after Cyril).
yes, it'll be a contest between the people who want to avoid Friday 13th ever and those who want to avoid their birthdays _always_ falling in the week if you fix the day/date relationship permanently.
Time to invest in a calendar of 13 months of 28 days (plus one or two extra days not assigned to a weekday to keep the weekdays constant year-to-year) to guarantee either that there is never a Friday the 13th again - or that there are 13 of them in a year...
No, I don't think so. But they should have been even less interested in Ares...
But there was some competition for the weekday names; Bavarian Erchtag and Pfinztag ultimately from ΞΟΞ΅ΟΟ αΌ‘ΞΌΞΟΞ±, Ξ ΞΞΌΟΟΞ· αΌ‘ΞΌΞΟΞ±. The latter works for a Christian mission with Greek influences. I have heard the theory that the first was encouraged by confusion with αΌΟΞ΅Ξ―ΞΏΟ αΌ‘ΞΌΞΟΞ± by Arians...
Definitely adapted from the Latin ones, though in theory could have happened before Christianity (the names seem to be common West Germanic), though were the Germans as interested in planetary/astrological weeks as the Romans at that stage?
or even weirder, using someone else's numbers (Hungarian using Slav numbers for Thursday, Friday)
Yes, especially when neighbours didn't agree (Portugal with numbers versus Spanish with pagan-derived). But not always the same numbers - Slavs think Tuesday is the second day while Portuguese and Greeks think it's the third. Which is odd as one would have thought Slavs got the idea from Greece...
Yes, same use of existing local word for something at the same time. Though there we are joined by the Germans with Ostern (probably due to the influence of the Anglo-Saxon mission; Anglo-Saxon and, apparently, Gothic influences competed on Christian vocabulary there).
One of the exceptions is Maltese Randan from Arabic Ramadan...
Interesting that they repurposed 'lencten' (cognates elsewhere just meaning 'spring') for the ecclesiastical use when other languages tend to refer to Lent by adapting 'Quadragesima' (e.g. Welsh Grawys) or have something referring explicitly to fasting.
Subtitles available, but only in Akkadian, Hittite and Elamite.
at least one was planning to, may well be more...
The Kingdom review β first-rate choral sound for Elgar at Southbank Centre www.musicomh.com/classical/re...
Enjoyed singing this on Thursday- 230 singers in the Festival Hall, from Herts Chorus and Crouch End Festival Chorus, plus excellent soloists
Enjoy! I sang in the 20th anniversary performance as Herts Chorus commissioned it (before I joined them).
Actually it's not the common mistake with isolated forms, some of the forms are the contextual ones, but have not been linked to adjacent letters anyway. A whole new type of error...
The letters have been put into their isolated forms (not joined up into words) and then displayed left to right not right to left. A surprisingly common software error, but very easy to spot even for those of us with very little Arabic, which does show how much care was taken...
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruum for a summary of the classic story by Arthur Porges, and pdki-indonesia.dgip.go.id/detail/e3b0c... for the trademark
What does 'The Ruum' mean to you? A robot which has been taking specimens of animals of a given weight since the time of the dinosaurs? Or an Indonesian coffee shop (based on a recent trademark)? I think I would be reluctant to risk a visit to the latter just in case...
(Reviewing Hertfordshire Chorusβs St Albans Cathedral performance of the work in The Elgar Society Journal, Martin Bird wrote that βPut simply, it was the finest performance of The Kingdom that I have ever heard, or can ever hope to hearβ¦β)
Crouch End Festival Chorus joins Hertfordshire Chorus and four world-class soloists to perform one of Elgarβs great choral works, The Kingdom, in a concert to celebrate its landmark recording. 7.30pm Thursday 29th January 2026 Royal Festival Hall London SE1 8XX Francesca Chiejina soprano Dame Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano Benjamin Hulett tenor Ashley Riches bass Crouch End Festival Chorus Hertfordshire Chorus London Orchestra da Camera David Temple conductor In 1906, following the success of The Dream of Gerontius and The Apostles, the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival commissioned Elgar to write a third large oratorio for its festival that year. Conceived as part of a trilogy of oratorios, The Kingdom continues the narrative started in The Apostles. Elgar focuses on the lives of Jesusβ disciples and the Holy Women, in particular on Peter, John, the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene in the days surrounding the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and on the work of the early church community. The followers of Jesus are portrayed as down-to-earth ordinary men and women who encounter extraordinary events. The Kingdom is considered by some to be Elgarβs greatest choral work. A mixture of gentle conversational sections and astonishingly dramatic choral passages, The Kingdom also features some of Elgarβs finest orchestral writing. Three of the soloists from Crouch End Festival Chorusβ recording of The Kingdom will join the choirs in this concert, which includes the hauntingly beautiful soprano solo, βThe sun goeth downβ.
Two weeks to go before I sing in Elgar's Kingdom at the Festival Hall - two choirs joining forces, one (CEFC) on the back of a recent CD release, the other (HC) has previously enjoyed rave reviews for live performances of it. But we intend to improve on both of those versions...