Castle Aching

[drmditch]

This thread is annoying! I have just managed to 'catch up' as far as Page 1013, and have thus been distracted from proper railway tasks.

However, in revenge, there are a few subjects that may be further followed up,

 

Re: Flat Earth

http://www.telelib.com/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/DiversityOfCreatures/villagevoted.html

Sorry this misses the Edwardian era by 3 years, but does contain a reference to the King Emperor himself.

 

Re: Divided Societies.

Although not a sociologist, it appears to me that Modern Humans are essentially arrogant, and any one group will assume themselves to the 'proper inhabitants' of whatever location they find themselves in, and claim their perceived history and now genetics to support this. One would have thought that the current viral transmission crisis would prove that we are, in fact, one group and travel and interact accordingly.

 

For a further reference 

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_wethey.htm

 

Re: Polyphonic singing

I have not (yet) sung in 'Spem in Alium', although as an undergraduate did sing in Robert Carver's 'O Bone Jesu', with 19 parts.

This was magnificent in York Minster choir, but nearly a disaster in Durham Chapter House.

The acoustic makes an enormous difference.

 

Now back to my wiring - and quite frankly there is little technology that I am using that was not available prior to 1910.

(Although perhaps not as readily a 'consumerised' form.)

Edited April 13, 2020 by drmditch

[Annie]

2 hours ago, runs as required said:

Two posts Annie I hope RMweb will always remain sympathetic about: 

1

from you (responding to Rob) summarising so movingly your lifelong journey from clockwork Hornby in short trousers to mature man deceiving swmbo as a slip of a girl to adult mother through the whole gamut of “orthodox rail modelling” with power tools – even a lathe! Now, stricken by illness, you’ve master computer VR so individually. 

2

Rob’s thread initially puzzled me as a newcomer to RMweb until, clicking by, I learned more about the guy behind the heightened ‘train-set box lid’ images (as I’ve always nostalgically seen them). The great thing is Rob is keen to learn from posts such as Edwardian’s about whistle guards and cab ‘portholes’.

 

I always followed (Portroad) Jock’s posts right to the inevitable end. 

I too have to fess up to increasingly diminishing cognitive powers that somehow block me continuing with my (always over ambitious) “orthodox modelling”. 

Instead I’ve resorted back to my workingdays’ skills with CAD and Photoshop to Imageinate (my son added a blackbook beside the Macbook to note down -to guard against brain fade- new procedures: juggling between old scale maps /screen capture/ brick course counting – and even umbrella lengths!)

 

 

Thanks RaR, - that was very kind of you.   The problem with invisible disabilities such as having various kinds of cognitive glitches that don't actually diminish intelligence, but make it difficult to focus it, is that others often don't understand it and think that if one just tried harder it could somehow be overcome and done away with.  It sounds as if your son understands it though and fortunately so do my now adult children.  My brothers don't and think I'm making excuses, but then there's no love lost between us anyway for a number of reasons which I won't go into here.

And if I had a dollar for every piece of well intentioned advice I've had from folk about overcoming my constant sleepiness due to narcolepsy I'd be a wealthy woman.

 

The most important thing I've found, - which you have discovered for yourself, - is to have a project that you enjoy, but also challenges your mental faculties and makes your brain work for it's keep.

[webbcompound]

All this talk of "spem in allium" collided with just having watched the entirety of The Crown, and previous discussion of pronunciation of English, in my addled brain.   I do NOT like the subsequent appearance of the Hormel company's regurgitated meat product in a garlic sauce.

Edited April 13, 2020 by webbcompound

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

30 minutes ago, Schooner said:

 

To steal from Benjamin Zander, who is quite right, we can all recognise the voice of someone dear to us so nobody is tone deaf  

 

Yes, however it is quite unfortunately true that I can't carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. Now I am not depressed about it but one must bow to the inevitable and accept the fact. Doesn't stop me enjoying music but actually in a very positive sense adds to the pleasure of people around me knowing that I will not give way to exercising my vocal skills, thus forcing them to put a bucket over my head, which would probably create an unseemly fuss.   

[wagonman]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Spem needs to be sung one voice per part, otherwise the texture gets too muddy.

 

Nevermind, I only chose Zadok the Priest because it was obvious that extra resources had been pulled in for the location and pieces being performed, but I do like the contrast between the orchestral introduction and the choral entry!

 

 

Oops.

Page 1013 and it's the 13th.....

 

 

 

My wife sang in a production of Spem put on by the Britten Summer School at Gresham's a few years back. I suspect the choir(s) outnumbered the audience crammed into the school chapel – there was definitely more than one voice per part and, yes, it could be described as muddy. She's also done Zadok several times...

[figworthy]

21 hours ago, AVS1998 said:

 

You were both right; moved to Micklefield from York in 2006, then to Garforth in 2012 iirc, and now my folks are in Knottingley. Prior to that we lived in three different areas of York, Uxbridge, Slough and Ashford. We moved a lot!

 

My guess was correct.  But it was based on the geographical description rather than the social one.

 

To be fair to the residents of Micklefield (Micky as it was known locally), I never had any dealings with them, but father and grandfather did, and I don't remember hearing any adverse comments.  One anecdote that sticks was of a group of miners at Peckfield colliery (which was at Micklefield, not Peckfield !) clubbed together and bought a Rolls-Royce hearse for their commute.

 

Adrian

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

Has something dire happened - we're still on page 1013. I'm used to going to bed, getting a good night's sleep then having to work through at least 2 pages and sometimes more to see where the spirit has carried us while I have been asleep. Has social distancing been extended to the forum?   

[robmcg]

1 hour ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

Has something dire happened - we're still on page 1013. I'm used to going to bed, getting a good night's sleep then having to work through at least 2 pages and sometimes more to see where the spirit has carried us while I have been asleep. Has social distancing been extended to the forum?   

 

St Greta caused it. She's suffering no-limelight disphobia, a phrase which my google fails to recognise. Others here with more knowledge of words will be able to construct things of similar meaning with appropriate Latin Greek or other roots.  I dimly recall 'Romulus flumen appropinquat', and 'Gaudeamus igitur',   As well as basic French, and even basic Japanese, AND  when I were lad could sing well both in choirs and solo, until my voice broke,

 

but there is nothing like the pursuit of perfection;...  rivets correctly placed and spectacle glasses correctly named. We hold these aspirations to be worthy . Approximately.  Gawd I write rubbish....

 

We have have to have standards around here.

 

I mean, seriously, are we going to get anywhere with this, courtesy Andre Chapelon, 2,000 Gallic-ton 1950-ish trains at 140km/hr...

 

 

or this below; civilised speed with style, courtesy a good Scottish engineer... Drumond, Stirling, MacIntosh or something

 

 

I think the answer is clear.

 

I'll take both please.  <g>

 

btw am I the only person left in the world who remembers early computer abbreviations?  When I moderated a very successful Compuserve CARS forum in the mid-1990s and early 2000s (by then owned by AOL then Eric Peters.... all now prehistoric days) nearly all readers were educated and had jobs. 

 

 

I await Edwardian's 5-plank wagons with brakes on one side only with joyous anticipation.

 

 

 

 

[Hroth]

6 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

Has something dire happened - we're still on page 1013. I'm used to going to bed, getting a good night's sleep then having to work through at least 2 pages and sometimes more to see where the spirit has carried us while I have been asleep. Has social distancing been extended to the forum?   

 

Its been a Bank Holiday, even in the current state of lockdown and the topsy-turvey effect that has had on daily routine, a Bank Holiday has to be treated with the respect a freebie Holiday deserves!  So people have probably been doing the normal Bank Holiday tasks; dusting, hoovering, painting and decorating, mowing the lawn and having an evening barbeque to annoy the nextdoor neighbours.  Its probably a reaction deep in the national genetics.

 

Now we're back in the unknown territory of unstructured workday "free-time", what little genuine work that can be done will be done and dusted by about 10am, and we'll be looking for something to occupy ourselves with.  We'll soon be past Page 1014, mark my words!!! 

 

Who mumbled something about an antipathetic supernatural entity making work for idle hands, eh?  

 

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Hroth
spelin agane...

[Hroth]

Getting back to Spem in Alium for a brief moment, here's what you might call a Bank Holiday version.

 

 

To a certain extent, this illustrates the effect Tallis was striving for, explained in this chunk from Wikipedia:

 

Quote

The motet is laid out for eight choirs of five voices (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass). It is most likely that Tallis intended his singers to stand in a horseshoe shape. Beginning with a single voice from the first choir, other voices join in imitation, each in turn falling silent as the music moves around the eight choirs. All forty voices enter simultaneously for a few bars, and then the pattern of the opening is reversed with the music passing from choir eight to choir one. There is another brief full section, after which the choirs sing in antiphonal pairs, throwing the sound across the space between them. Finally all voices join for the culmination of the work. Though composed in imitative style and occasionally homophonic, its individual vocal lines act quite freely within its elegant harmonic framework, allowing for a large number of individual musical ideas to be implemented during its ten- to twelve-minute performance time. The work is a study in contrasts: the individual voices sing and are silent in turns, sometimes alone, sometimes in choirs, sometimes calling and answering, sometimes all together, so that, far from being a monotonous mass, the work is continually changing and presenting new ideas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spem_in_alium

 

I was looking for a version for a 40 part Recorder consort... 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Hroth
you know......

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

13 minutes ago, Hroth said:

I was looking for a version for a 40 part Recorder consort... 

 

Well thanks for the explanation for the breakdown of communications with the Northern Hemisphere, and musical accompaniment however I think a 40 part recorder consort version would be, how shall I put this politely, gilding the lily?   

[Annie]

Ooooooooooooo there's lots of topics the parish council might discuss that have been barely touched on yet.

 

Quack remedies.

 

 

Phrenology.

 

 

Spiritualism.

 

 

Barrow Mounds.

 

 

Dream Interpretation.

 

 

And I suppose if we really get desperate we could even discuss the railways of the pre-grouping era.

 

 

 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

Aaahhh.... Phrenology, just gives me a headache even thinking about it ................ 

 

Well someone had to be the first. 

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

Aaahhh.... Phrenology, just gives me a headache even thinking about it ................ 

 

Well someone had to be the first. 

 

Here was I thinking how it might bump up the topic.

 

Mornin' all.

 

Back to work ... in the hope there is some. 

[Hroth]

10 minutes ago, Annie said:

 

And I suppose if we really get desperate we could even discuss the railways of the pre-grouping era.

 

 

 

 

Bloke at the bottom is saying to the porter "I'll give you a florin if you'll mow them all down..."

 

[Compound2632]

58 minutes ago, Annie said:

 

 

 

What? "Familiar scenes for object lessons"? I suppose the object I can name with certainty is York Station. Or is it supposed to be, as @Hroth suggests, object lessons in social interaction? Such as:

• Maintain a straight upright posture when buying dodgy literature from platform sellers - do not lean out of the window.
• Make sure your hands are fully occupied when letting a lady in a bustle into the compartment before you.
• Keep a very close eye on your daughter/granddaughter if she is approached by a dubious-looking elderly Scotsman.
• Gentlemen pickpockets: approach your mark from behind.
• Single ladies: keep your hands in your pockets.
• Make sure you occupy enough of the platform bench that there's no room for anyone else to sit next to the lady you are annoying.
• If stealing passengers' luggage, wear clothing that will blend in with the general haze of pollution. A tartan greatcoat and cape will be too memorable.

I'm fairly sure we have discussed quack remedies before and have recently been close enough to spirtualism. I don't recall barrow mounds or prehistoric earthworks in general - though mystic pyramids have been a recurring theme.

 

EDIT: intended as a lesson starter - actually quite a standard concept these days; gives them some input and opportunity to respond to a variety of possible questions. I'd see this being used for form/tutor time.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Compound2632

[Hroth]

"Object lessons" is probably something for the over-stressed Governess to put in front of her charges when she wanted some quiet time.

 

"Now Titus, Cressida, I want you to look at this picture, then write down what is happening in it.  I expect you to fill at least one page in your exercise book.  After that, I want you to write me a story about a visit to a railway station, involving as many of the persons in the picture as possible."

 

It should fill in the time between elevenses and luncheon quite handily!

 

"The Railway Station" by Frith would be a far more lively example!

 

 

And its a proper station too....

 

[Annie]

I believe the image came from a book with images of typical scenes that might be used in the education of children Stephen.  However I'm not entirely sure that the publishers had your interpretation of the interactions between the intending passengers on the platform in mind when they commissioned the picture.  

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

"Object lessons" is probably something for the over-stressed Governess to put in front of her charges when she wanted some quiet time.

 

"Now Titus, Cressida, I want you to look at this picture, then write down what is happening in it.  I expect you to fill at least one page in your exercise book.  After that, I want you to write me a story about a visit to a railway station, involving as many of the persons in the picture as possible."

 

 

That's what I said. No difference, really:

 

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

EDIT: intended as a lesson starter - actually quite a standard concept these days; gives them some input and opportunity to respond to a variety of possible questions. I'd see this being used for form/tutor time.

 

[Hroth]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

That's what I said. No difference, really:

 

But I think I phrased it more elegantly? 

 

 

Hurrah!!!!

 

Page 1014!

Edited April 14, 2020 by Hroth

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

But I think I phrased it more elegantly?

 

I'll give you that; I pointed out its enduring relevance. In the same series:

A Street Scene.

A Post Office.

There must be more.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

Aaahhh.... Phrenology, just gives me a headache even thinking about it ................ 

 

Well someone had to be the first. 

Anyone wanting to see a phrenologist needs to have their head examined...

[DonB]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Spiritualism.

 

 

No need to ask " is anybody there?" on this section of RMweb ! 

Edited April 14, 2020 by DonB
spellin

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

25 minutes ago, DonB said:

 

No need to ask " is anybody there?" on this section of RMweb ! 

 

I find the young woman with the headband to be strangely excited by the proceedings, has anyone matched the exact number of hands on the table to the persons attending? 

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

I find the young woman with the headband to be strangely excited by the proceedings, has anyone matched the exact number of hands on the table to the persons attending? 

No, but I did find myself checking whether any of them seemed to be related to the fellow in the old Hornby-Dublo advert...