Quarantine

Sometimes we find that familiar words have surprising backgrounds.  Today was one of those times.

I know the word 'quarantine' in English, and the word 'quarante' (forty) in French.  Somehow I had never made the link.

Apparently the term quarantine comes from an old Venetian dialect word 'quaranta', which obviously comes from the same roots. 

It all started off with trying to avoid the consequences of the plague (or 'Black Death') in the 14th century.  The earliest quarantines were only for 30 days, but later they adopted 40 days as standard.

Hence quarantine!

Bath to Bristol - by boat

What a glorious sight to wake up to . . .

Reflections in the River Avon, Bath.

and then to cruise down the Avon on a sunny day with a stop for lunch at a nice pub was even better.

Those who have met my boat will understand why I took the opportunity to show this picture of a pretty young lady at this point.

Name that b . . . beer!  Bath Ales finest.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was to cruise around the 'floating harbour' in Bristol.  It gets this name because ocean going ships can remain floating in this harbour, whatever the state of the tide.

SS Great Britain - Brunel's fine ship

And a bit too much sun - yes, in England - perhaps that is today's surprising concept!

The Baghdad Batteries

When do you think batteries were invented?  200 years ago or 2000?

I tend to believe in the former, but some claim that some Sumerian artifacts were used as batteries for gold plating of other artifacts, and that they were made about 250 BCE.

These are known as the Baghdad Batteries, or Parthian Batteries and you can see the Wikipedia article here.

I'm feeling skeptical!

This article seems to me to have a much better explanation of the findings.  Electricity then becomes a modern invention again.

The ancient 'Sweet Track'

No doubt there are many who make claims for other ancient structures, but I was surprised to find out recently that a scheduled monument in Somerset, southern England, might be the most ancient engineered road in the world.  It is called 'The Sweet Track'.  It seems that it was built over an even more ancient structure called 'The Post Track' (which must therefore have been more ancient, but let's not be too pedantic).

Of course it is only the most ancient until an earlier one is found, but it is still interesting to hear that an artefact in England can make this kind of claim.  I would have expected that there were more ancient structures in Mesopotamia or that region.

The Sweet Track is named after its discoverer, Ray Sweet who found it while digging peat in 1970.  It was built across the marshy Somerset Levels to make it easier to travel between settlements.  It has also been dated with surprising precision to one of two years, namely 3807 or 3806 BCE (presumably therefore by dendrochronology, although that is not clear).  200 tonnes of timber went into its 2000m length and it was probably prefabricated.

Thatcher was right after all

You might know me as a radical anti-Tory who regrets voting for Margaret Thatcher's Tory government in my first general election.  I don't feel proud of her legacy, but I should acknowledge that she got some things right.  Not many - but I acknowledge them.

She got a lot more wrong.  She sold off the country's assets for less than half their value - gas, water, and telephone networks and social housing were worth much more than her government accepted.  I can tell you for sure that she sold 'council houses' too cheaply.  I live in one of them to this day.  I bought it for £49,500 from the former tenant who had purchased it the previous year for £19,500.  Thatcher effectively empowered the owner of this house to make a profit of £30,000 at the expense of the tax payer.  That was fair wasn't it!

Her real downfall was the 'poll tax'.  It wasn't a stupid idea.  Of course households where more adults live should pay more than households with fewer adults.  It was just implemented in the most crass and ignorant way.  A couple with children suddenly found themselves paying nearly twice as much as they had paid in 'rates' - the previous local taxation system in UK.  Single pensioners who ought to have had a financial gain found that they were still paying the same as before.  Naturally that was going to get a reaction - and indeed it got an excessive reaction.  People died because of this.

I could go on, but you will be glad to hear that I won't.

What did she get right?

• As the first ever British female prime minister I have to offer respect.
• She stood up to Northern Irish terrorists (many of whom are now in the government in that province) and resisted their violence bravely.
• I had forgotten this, but it turns out that she opposed apartheid in South Africa and yet maintained that Nelson Mandela had rightly been imprisoned as a terrorist.  I'm not prepared to change my view of this just because Thatcher agreed with me.

So I do not mourn her.  However the Tory Witch was not wrong on every subject.  I wish the same could be said for David Cameron - the current barely-elected prime minister.

Children drive parents to distraction!

Are the children of this century harder to deal with than in the last?  I doubt it.  I suspect that children have always pushed the limits and made life difficult for their parents.

My mother says that I didn't (although I don't think I really believe her).  Perhaps that demonstrates a flaw in my character, or in her memory (or mine).

I suspect that my de-conversion from Christianity to determined atheism hasn't even affected her view on that topic.  She will never be an atheist, but I'm sure she understands why I have arrived in this state.

I observe other parents of today struggling with their own children and I sometimes want to reassure them with a classical quotation.  How about this one?

"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers." -- Socrates

So it is not a very new problem then!

Cowboys in armour?

What an array of suits of armour!  This photo was taken at Hotel des Invalides in Paris, during the 'pilgrimage' to Napoleon's tomb.

Suits of armour at Hotel des Invalides

Presumably the smallest were for training the boys to fight in armour.  Not particularly surprising I suppose.

But then I saw this metal hat, in a shape that is almost reminiscent of a cowboy's ten-gallon hat.

Interesting armoured hat

Presumably all the little fittings were there for a reason, along with the curved shape of the brim on the left-hand side.

England's Canals - Oxford

I'm seriously considering buying a boat to explore the rivers and canals of England.  Fortunately I have friends who share this interest.  On a short trip on the Oxford Canal yesterday this autumnal glory delighted me.

Reflections on the Oxford Canal

Apparently calm and tranquil thoughts should have been foremost in my mind as soon as I got on-board.  But when the owner of the boat jumped off to get the next lock ready, leaving me in charge, I reminded him that he hadn't shown me where the brakes were.

Fortunately, native wit and physics came to the rescue, (but I still haven't worked out how to reverse into a parking slot).

Valley of the shadow of death

Not an anti-religious comment today, but I'd just like to show you two old photos, arguably the oldest surviving war photos.  These were taken during the Crimean War in 1855, by a little known photographer, Roger Fenton.

Both views are remarkable in that they show a completely lifeless scene resulting from a war which claimed the lives of half a million men.

Roger Fenton's iconic 1855 photo of the
'Valley of the Shadow of Death'

Click on the photo above to enlarge it.  You will realise quite soon that the spherical objects scattered across the whole scene are canon balls.  But which was taken first?

Roger Fenton's iconic 1855 photo of the
'Valley of the Shadow of Death' with canon balls placed in the road.

Opinions differ, but the fact that some of the rocks in the bottom left corner of the pictures have fallen down the slope a little suggests that they were disturbed as Fenton and his assistants collected canon balls to place on the road.

Does this matter at all?  Not really.  After all, there are so many of them that the ones in the dip at the edge of the road must have been cleared from the road earlier.

Dead Centre of the Ancient World

Bahrain has recently been in the news, with a surprising controversy about whether the Grand Prix should be run there.  The small island nation was probably always run by a despotic non-democratic government and to be honest I see the whole motor racing saga as an unfortunate but barely relevant flash in the pan.

However, you might not realise that, in a sense, Bahrain was the 'dead centre' of the ancient world.  3000 years ago it was a very fashionable place to be buried, and death was a thriving local industry.  As a result, Bahrain contains the largest and most ancient necropolis in the world, with the most famous area being the A'Ali tombs.

A'Ali tombs, Bahrain - the largest and most ancient necropolis.

It is not easy to find many pictures of this 'wonder of the ancient world' and apparently the locals barely notice that they are surrounded by tumuli that were built around 3000 BCE.

In all, it is estimated that there are 170,000 burial mounds.  The architecture of these ancient 'monuments' is not impressive, but the scale of the task is amazing.

Small note: Apologies for recycling one of my father's school-boy jokes in the title of this post!

Apparently, Jesus never existed

Sometimes in the past I have posted about the historicity of Jesus, and the lack of evidence.  I have mentioned the similarity between the Jesus myth and other, much earlier, stories.

Keeping a skeptical eye on the evidence, I like to remain aware of the possibility that I might be falling for mis-information that is being spread mischievously.  Certainly some of the claims of similarities between the Jesus story and others are a little bit exaggerated, and correspondents have pointed this out to me now and then.  (e.g. Justin's comments on this post about Jesus and Horus which seem to be very fair.)

So imagine my interest in finding a site called www.jesusneverexisted.com, where virtually every story that you ever heard in all your skeptical life seems to have been collected.

jesusneverexisted.com - where are the fallacies?

If you have any interest in the ideas suggesting that the whole of christianity is built on very poor foundations, I think you will enjoy exploring that site. 

To give you a taster, the following is probably only about 10% of the content of the home page alone. 

Do you really think it all began with a sanctimonious Jewish wonder-worker, strolling about 1st century Palestine? Prepare to be enlightened.

  Jesus – The Imaginary Friend

Christianity was the ultimate product of religious syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct.
The nativity yarn is a concatenation of nonsense. The genealogies of Jesus, both Matthew's version and Luke's, are pious fiction. Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs.
With multiple authors behind the original gospel story it is no surprise that the figure of "Jesus" is a mess of contradictions. Yet the story is so thinly drawn that being a "good Christian" might mean almost anything.
The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimise the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin, that idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses. The pagan world knew all about virgins getting pregnant by randy gods: The Mythical "Virgin Mother".
Scholars have known all this for more than 200 years but priestcraft is a highly profitable business and finances an industry of deceit to keep the show on the road.
"Jesus better documented than any other ancient figure"? Don't believe a word of it. Unlike the mythical Jesus, a real historical figure like Julius Caesar has a mass of mutually supporting evidence.
The case for a mythical Jesus – Nailing Jesus.



Not only does it address the stories of Jesus, but it goes on to explore the myths about Paul too.

Enjoy!

L'inconnue

Some time in 1880s Paris, the body of an unidentified young woman was pulled out of the Seine.  Who was she?

L'inconnu de la Seine - one of the most famous faces

Nobody really knows, but stories abound.  She has been known as 'L'inconnue de la Seine' - the unknown woman.

Since it was not possible to identify her, a plaster cast of her face was taken before she was buried.  According to some accounts, that was common practise at the time, before photography was cheap and easy.  It gave some hope that she would eventually be identified.  Such identification was not entirely altruistic of course.  It was the only opportunity for the funeral expenses to be recovered.

Many cities in Europe claim to have been her place of birth, and in each case they have a plausible story to back up that claim.  The discovery that she was pregnant has made many people speculate that she might have taken her own life rather than face the future as an unmarried mother.

The really surprising thing about her is that her face is said by many people to be the most beautiful imaginable.  In 1958, many decades after her death, two Swedish inventors decided that she was just what they needed when they invented a form of dummy that could be used to train people in the newly invented technique of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Therefore, she has been called "the most kissed face" of all time.

You might have met her.

Olympic strikes

Was there Olympic hysteria in 1912? No no!  I'm not talking about the Olympic games!  I'm talking about RMS Olympic, the older sister of the Titanic.

Just imagine the situation 100 years ago.  The whole world was still reeling in shock after the loss of the 'unsinkable' Titanic, and White Star Line had made no secret of the fact that Titanic was the second of its Olympic Class liners.  There is no way that anyone boarding Olympic would have done so without a measure of concern for their own safety.

Olympic and Titanic - sister ships

White Star Line was obviously aware of this too.  When Olympic arrived back in England they hurriedly arranged for an additional 40 lifeboats to be provided in case of another disaster.  Good for them!  Except this did not actually satisfy everyone.

Strike reported in New York Times, 25th April 1912

The reason for the dis-satisfaction was that these additional lifeboats were not brand-new seaworthy craft like those that were already in place.  In reality it would not have been possible to procure so many, let alone immediately to fit the ship out to launch them swiftly.  In fact these new lifeboats were hurriedly purchased, second-hand, collapsible, and in some cases rotten and nonfunctional.  The men who worked in the engine rooms of the ship were not convinced that they added sufficiently to their safety and the sent a delegation to the owners.

On 25 April a deputation of strikers witnessed a test of four of the collapsible boats. Only one was unseaworthy and they said that they were prepared to recommend the men to return to work if it was replaced.  However, 54 of them were arrested when they left the ship, and charged with mutiny!  The court found them guilty but imposed no punishment and most of them returned to work in time for the ship to sail on 15th May.

Less than 5 months later, the ship was withdrawn from service for a refit, which included fitting 64 'proper' lifeboats and improving the double hull.  When she re-entered service with a gross tonnage of 46,359 tons, she was again the largest ocean liner in the world - at least for a few months!

At least in 1912, Olympic hysteria achieved something useful!  It won't be the same in 2012.

The surprising story of a monkey in Hartlepool

The port of Hartlepool (pronounced 'Hart lee pool') is on the north-eastern coast of England, south of Newcastle upon Tyne (pronounced nooCAStle).  For a rather surprising reason, its residents are known (in jest) as 'monkey hangers'.

That sounds quite rude (in various ways), but it is really intended as a reference to a story from history - one which it is hard to escape from.  By now we ought to have dropped the joke, as even in biblical times the sins of the fathers only reached the third or fourth generation.  But the story is too good to be ignored.

One dark and stormy night during the Napoleonic Wars, when the whole of England had been primed to expect a French invasion, a French ship was blown ashore at Hartlepool.  Only one survivor reached the safety of the land alive, dressed in a French naval uniform.  That poor survivor was not human - it was probably the captain's pet monkey dressed for the amusement of the crew.

Of course it could not speak English.  The fact that it could not speak French either was hardly relevant.  How would anyone know what French sounded like anyway?

The people had never met a Frenchman but it was obvious that this was no Englishman.  Indeed they had probably never even heard of monkeys.

Inevitably, for the safety of the realm, the poor creature was hanged as a spy and the story has gone down in legend.

It seems that the people of Hartlepool (in general, at least) are not offended by the terminology.  Perhaps they have grown up with it and developed broad shoulders.  Even the official mascot of Hartlepool Football (soccer!) Club has the name 'H'Angus the Monkey'.

For the rest of us it is a rather nice tradition to tease them gently.  It was a perfectly understandable error, under the threat of invasion by a strong foreign power.

Outraged by pre-historic jockey!

A few months ago, I mentioned one of my local pre-historic monuments, the Uffington White Horse.  It is one of a collection of hillside art, carved in the chalk of Southern England.

Uffington White Horse unblemished

One morning this week, people living close to the site of this ancient monument woke up to a surprise.  Some described it as desecration.  Others were appalled that anyone could have committed an act of rural graffiti like this.

The Uffington White Horse had acquired an Uffington White Jockey, courtesy of a company called Paddy Power, in advance of Cheltenham Festival this week.

Uffington Jockey - tastefully executed and sadly removed!

Outraged or not (see Oxford Mail's article), I think that the enterprise was carried out rather well.  The jockey is designed very much in sympathy with the style of the original horse, using white canvas pegged to the gorund.

Don't worry - no white horses were harmed.  Sadly the spectacle was removed before enough people had a chance to enjoy it, demonstrating that a sense of humour is not a necessary qualification for the officials of the National Trust.

Even more sadly - much more harm will be done to real horses in order to ensure that Paddy Power continues to profit from other people's gambling stupidity.


Related post: White Horses in the Chalk

More popular than Jesus!

The is a guest blog post written by a friend of the creator of Something Surprising.  I think you will like it.

The day that John Lennon said "We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity", he caused a bit of a stir. Many of our friends in the bible belt of America decided to burn records and publications having already paid good money for them.

Burning the Beatles albums!

This was in 1966, 4th March to be exact, and at this time there was little in the way of a benchmark by which to measure the validity of Mr Lennon's statement. But it has to be said that I doubt their careers suffered much as a consequence and it has largely been forgotten.

But how can we quantify how popular something is based upon a world wide audience?

Facebook!

Yes Facebook, the new evil in the world that has been responsible for more than it's fair share of misery for the masses.  One in six of the world's population has a Facebook account and one in three has access to someone who does have an account.   That is in excess of two billion people.  Wow!

So, are the Beatles more popular than Jesus?  Yes, and by more than a factor of two.  At time of writing 25,600,000 people "like" the Beatles and 11,500,000 "like" Jesus.  Even if we factor in his 'dad', God, with 4,700,000 "likes" the figure only hits 16,200,000.

Strangely enough the third member of the "band", the holy ghost, doesn't even have a page. [Should we create one?]

So, I think it is official, The Beatles are still more popular than Jesus.

Having said that, the most popular Facebook page is Texas Hold'em Poker, with in excess of 50,000,000 "likes" so those tempted by money seem to predominate!


*********

This is a guest post on Something Surprising, kindly provided by 'Tony'.

Iron - one of the miracles from the Qu'ran

The miracle of iron is one of the Qu'ran's claims to contain some science - which let's face it is a ridiculous claim that cannot stand any serious scrutiny.  The Qu'ran, to give it its due, is at least an iron age text, unlike the Old Testament of the bible who's stories clearly date from the bronze age.

But to claim that

“And We also sent down iron in which there lies great force and which has many uses for mankind…” (Quran 57:25)

proves something that the prophet Mohamed (peace and blessings . . . ) could not possibly have known is just preposterous.

It is even said that this passage comes from the 'middle' of the Qu'ran, as there are 114 sura contained in it.  (This is islamic mathematics at its worst.  It might be more convincing if there were 113 sura.)  But anyway - so what if it is from the middle.  It is only an analogy to the iron in the middle - the core - of the earth.  All analogies are wrong - but only useful for teaching.

Being unaware of the place of the earth in the solar system and the existence of meteorites, apparently this shows that Allah told Mohamed about them, so that he could reveal the fact to his followers.

You might ask how we know that this is all nonsense.  In actual fact it is fiction in many ways.

For a start, does that simple verse suggest that the iron was literally sent down?  Did it arrive like rain or was it sent down in advance of people so that they could use it?  Which way is 'down' anyway?  This whole concept belies the flat-earth concepts of the time rather than any notion that the earth is spherical, and in doing that it disproves the scientific 'knowledge' contained elsewhere.

Even if we assume that the verse is to be interpreted as iron being sent down in the form of meteorites this has no prophetic value whatsoever.  It had been known for thousands of years that some of the 'stones' that fell from the sky had an unusual quality of being made of a metal that had not been found on earth.  It was only much later that people found how to extract iron from natural ores on earth, and all the early iron working is thought to have been carried out using meteoritic iron.  We know this because ancient iron artifacts are found to contain a substantial amount of nickel - typical of the contents of meteorites and very much untypical of iron ores found on earth.

The miracle of iron is not a miracle in the sense claimed by islam.  However, without iron, created in the supernovae of the past, life as we know it would not be possible.  Iron is only made in stars much more massive than our own sun, and all the iron in the solar system including that which makes up the core of the earth came from those long dead suns.

We are indeed made of stardust, and somehow the fount of all wisdom, the Qu'ran, fails to mention any of this truly amazing fact.

Miraculous isn't it?

An Independent Hogmanay

An old university friend pointed me to a web site campaigning for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom a little while ago.  Reading One Dynamic Nation  I find myself wondering what is in this for the English.

I find that it is disproportionately aimed at convincing the Scots to remain part of the Union because they get such a good deal out of the arrangement, and I think that is only half the story. 

I wonder, can anyone can put a positive spin on it from the point of view of the English?  We never get a chance to vote in these referenda, but if we did I suspect that the cause of Scottish independence would get quite a big boost. 

The main point is that rural England gets the worst of both worlds - we get trampled underfoot by the London government, just like Scotland, and we get the blame from the Scots for the way that government treats everyone else.  (I am writing from the constituency next to David Cameron's - one where my vote counts for nothing as the Conservative majority is insurmountable.)  Many of us who live outside the metropolis feel just as powerless as the Scots to influence the country towards a successful future.  Somehow we feel that this is not appreciated by those in the other parts of the Union, when solidarity would be better for all of us.

Remember that England warms to London about as much as Scotland warms to Glasgow - and yes I know that Glasgow is not the capital.  Somehow most of the English lump all the Scots together in their uncomplimentary thoughts, and the Scots lump all the English together in the same way.  But ask a Devonian what she thinks she has in common with a Geordie, or a resident of Barra what she has in common with someone from the Gorbles, or indeed Holyrood.  None of them understand each other, in either country.

In my travels around the world I have found people to be nicer than I expected in every country, and my inbuilt bias against the people has never survived intact.  Those who don't travel outside their own home area find their bias unchallenged.  I know a chap who seems to think (humorously of course) he needs a passport to go North of Woodstock (just a few miles North of his home in Oxford).  I expect most of us know people like that. 

It is not surprising that many Scots want independence when they have been taught to hate the English since they were toddlers.  But why fight it?  Why not just let them have independence and see how much they like their own government after they have got over the euphoria.  Its not use claiming the wealth from North Sea oil or gas.  That is a drop in the ocean - or should I say 'a potential slick in the ocean'.

English Independence!

I think many of the English would be happy to go for independence from Scotland too.  The subject came up over dinner on Boxing Day, and without actually taking a vote, it was clear that the majority of the adults would be quite happy to see this happen.

Or Independence from London?

As an alternative, should we all vote for independence from London?  That would make just as much sense as independence from the Union for Scotland.

Sadly we all have to put up with a London-focused government, or suffer the consequences of prime ministers and governments of the type we have today - namely those who were barely elected and who are laying waste to Britain by all their actions.

Peculier, of Masham

The North Yorkshire town of Masham (pronounced (Massam) is famous for its beer, and in particular a brew from the original Theakston's Brewery, called 'Old Peculier'.  It is a strong dark and unusually sweet beer, perfect to comfort you in the winter (and indeed not unpleasant in the summer).

On the label there is a strange symbol, the Seal of the Official of the Peculier of Masham.

You might ask what this is all about while quoffing the contents of the bottle, or you might not, but I'll tell you anyway.

In the 12th century, the Archbishop of York established the Peculier Court of Masham an ecclesiastical court which enabled the parish to govern its own affairs, independent of the rest of the diocese.   The chairman of this court is known as 'The Official' and he has a special seal to mark his approval or decision.

Apparently the Court has (or had) a great deal of local power and the following are some of the offences dealt with in the past:

• not coming to church enough
• keeping a hat on at communion
• bidding the church wardens to do their worst on being asked to go to church
• not bringing their children to be baptised
• husband and wife living apart
• drunkenness
• swearing
• brawling and scolding
• harbouring Roman Catholic priests
• carrying a dead man's skull out of the churchyard and laying it under the head of a person to charm them to sleep.

Another brewing establishment can be found in Masham associated with the name Theakston.  The independent "Black Sheep Brewery" was established by Paul Theakston in 1992 after a legal battle relating to the takeover of the original brewery by one of the large national brewing companies.  It also produces strangely named, strong and delicious beers, one such being called Riggwelter.


Small note:  Any guesses about what a 'riggwelter' might be?

Jesus, The failed Hypothesis?

Quoting Victor Stenger from his interesting new book, God, The Failed Hypothesis:

Many people say they believe because of the many eyewitnesses who said they saw Jesus walking after he was supposed to be dead!  However, that testimony is only recorded in the bible, second hand, and years after the fact.  Eyewitness testimony recorded on the spot would still be open to question two thousand years after the fact.  Eyewitness testimony recorded decades later is hardly extraordinary evidence.