It’s Sussex Day!
June 16 is Sussex Day, because it is the Feast of St Richard of Chichester, patron of Sussex. And of coachmen, of where there aren’t very many now.
Richard went to Dover in 1253, trying to recruit an army to fight another crusade and died there on April 3 at midnight. They scooped out his innards and buried them under the alter, an act so horrifying I can only assume it was for the practical purpose of helping preserve the rest of his body, which was buried in Chichester on – you guessed it – June 16.
The miracle that allowed him to be canonized (there has to be one): he once dropped a chalice of communion wine and not a drop spilled. That’s why he’s often pictured with a cup.
Let me tell you something: my mother once fell down a short flight of steps with a basket of laundry and a martini and didn’t spill a drop. And she also died on April 3. I’m thinking of having her canonized. She could be the patron of martinis and laundry.
But I digress. I asked what people do to celebrate Sussex Day and was told eating Sussex pond pudding would be a good start. This is a suet-y sponge cooked with a whole lemon in the middle. As I hate the combination of citrus and sweets, I don’t think this is for me.
So perhaps I’ll just wave the flag. I suppose I’d better buy one (I stole the picture from that flag shop; I owe them a plug). The flag is six martlets – a mythical bird in heraldry which doesn’t have any feet. This represents working continually until you fall out of the sky, I guess.
I wish they were rooks. We have lots of those and I like them. Also they have feet.
The one in the picture in red with a crown above is actually the flag of the East Sussex County Council, so no. Just no.
The six birds represent the six Rapes of Sussex. A rape is the ancient Sussex name for a large district. They need better PR.
Speaking of which, I thought about making a “You Ain’t the Duke of Me” t-shirt for Prince Hank, but I decided I should wait until I have citizenship. Nobody likes a mouthy immigrant.
In conclusion: Sussex by the Sea.
June 16, 2021 — 5:47 pm
Comments: 8
You’ve been this mad. You know you have.
Happy Killdozer Day, everyone! On this day in 2004, Marvin John Heemeyer climbed into his modified bulldozer and damaged or destroyed a big chunk of Granby, Colorado – including the town hall, the former mayor’s house, his own business and a dozen more buildings. Two hours later, when he got his ‘dozer stuck in the basement of a hardware store, he shot himself.
Backstory. The city insisted he paid $80,000 he didn’t have to hook his muffler shop up to city sewage, and then repeatedly fined him for improperly dumping sewage – among other ways they were dicking him around. The combination of being injured and helpless to do anything about it is a perfect rage inducer, but few people have the sticktuitiveness of Heemeyer.
He took an ordinary bulldozer and spent a year and a half armoring up. Slabs of cement, up to a foot thick, sandwiched between two layers of tool steel covered the cab and vulnerable parts of the treads. For visibility, he had several video cameras feeding two monitors in the cockpit. These were protected by shields of bulletproof lexan three inches thick. He even rigged compressed air nozzles to blow dust off the camera ports. He had gun ports around, too, but I don’t think he used them.
Local and state police followed Heemeyer around shooting at him and what they hoped were vulnerable points. The ‘dozer took 200 rounds, a flash-bang to the exhaust and several other explosions (grenades?), but nothing even slowed him down. The governor was considering bringing in the National Guard to use anti-tank missiles when the whole thing came to an end.
Nobody was hurt (except Heemeyer, of course). It was a thing. A very thing. Good weekend, everyone!
p.s. Oh, gosh – I forgot to link to the footage!
June 4, 2021 — 8:11 pm
Comments: 15
Yo Ho Ho!
Oldest known Jolly Roger. 18th C. It’s in the National Museum of the Royal Navy. It’s red, which apparently means they take no prisoners if you resist.
Curiously, I found several sources and they all described it as “one of two surviving Jolly Rogers” rather than the oldest. But the only other one I could find is in St Augustine, and I read somewhere it was from 1850. Which is really after the classical pirate era.
I think it’s charming that we have taken a group of history’s most bloodthirsty sadistic mass murderers and repackaged them as a funtime play identity for children. Sweet!
May 24, 2021 — 8:34 pm
Comments: 7
That’s no lady
In the thread before this one, drew458 mentioned there was evidence of people in Britain going back 33,000 years, in the last interglacial. There’s not only evidence, there’s a person. This skeleton was found in a cave called Goat’s Hole in Wales in 1822, along with bones of various animals, including a mammoth tusk.
The man who first explored the site was William Buckland, Professor of Geology at Oxford. It’s a shame it was such early find – I can only imagine what modern scientists could do with a proper dig – but to do him credit, Buckland made excellent drawings and notes.
For some reason, he got it in his head she was a Roman prostitute. It became known as the Red Lady of Paviland. Modern archaeologists weren’t the only fanciful ones.
Actually, it’s the partial skeleton of a young man. It’s red because the body was covered in red ochre as part of the burial ritual. And, yes, it’s dated to 33,000 BP (before present).
HOWEVER, the earliest human remains found in Britain so far was a half million year old legbone of a Homo heidelbergensis found in a pit in Sussex. That, you probably realize, was several ice ages ago.
I heard it said at a history talk once that Britain has been colonized eight times, and seven times the settlement failed. That stuck with me. But it would be more accurate to say that Britain has been colonized eight times and seven times an ice age has come along and wiped them all out.
We’re just hanging out, waiting for #8.
April 29, 2021 — 6:47 pm
Comments: 5
Doggerland, sweet Doggerland
The Society of Antiquaries of London is an interesting bunch. Founded in 1707, their remit is the past.
That’s a pretty broad area of study. Just about everybody thinks something in the past is interesting.
Fortunately for lovers of the past, the SAL puts many of their lectures on their YouTube channel. There’s some awesome stuff in there, for free.
Even better – next week, they’re hosting a two-day exploration of Doggerland: Lost Frontiers and Drowned Landscapes in Britain and Beyond. And it’s also free!
I’ve done several study courses and online events via Zoom, and it’s just the best. Big thermos of coffee, comfy chair, feet up, tablet in my lap, smart people telling me stories. I could do this every day.
I don’t know how 9:30 to 5:30 Limey Time aligns with your timezone, but check it out if you’re interested. You are interested, aren’t you? *squints*
April 28, 2021 — 7:44 pm
Comments: 10
Our great grandparents were weird
Sometimes, I try to get into the mindset of a Victorian. They were a very peculiar people. I came across this story today. I won’t spoil it, though you can see what’s coming a mile away. I’ll just say, my reaction to that event would have been very, very different.
They had unfathomable viewns about death. Like the man who stuffed kittens and posed them in huge dioramas. Kittens are cute, he reasoned, so…? I’ve blogged about him before. (Post includes a link to the horrifying but entertaining crappy taxidermy site).
Walter Potter’s museum of dead animals was broken up and sold in 2003, though they have since gotten a number of pieces together again to show more than once.
Here’s more about Potter from Steyning Museum, which would have been local to the original collection. They tried, and failed, to buy some pieces for their collection (too expensive).
I sat next to a woman from Steyning Museum at a historical do once. She didn’t want to talk about the kittens.
April 7, 2021 — 8:05 pm
Comments: 17
Huh.
The nearby village of Dallington, one of whose sons perished in Custer’s Last Stand.
Turns out, it’s not a very interesting story. They’re not sure what the guy’s name was or if it’s even true.
But I was surprised to read that 700 went in, but 268 died. I thought they were wiped out to a man.
We visited Little Bighorn when I was a kid. They buried the men where they fell and marked them with tombstones. There was one way off on a hill and my dad said to me, “look, that guy was running away.”
Wikipedia tells me Dallington Church was torn down in 1864 and rebuilt somewhere else. Just the old 15th C tower and spire were re-used.
Okay, you know what? That’s not very interesting either.
April 6, 2021 — 8:34 pm
Comments: 10
Murder to hoover
Not a carpet. Tile floor rucked up by centuries of earthquakes.
This family in Turkey wanted to build a hotel on land they owned, but because it was in a historical section they had to do an archaeological survey to see if there were any ruins. There were. And how. Traces of over a dozen different civilizations were found down there.
So they built the hotel on giant pylons right over the ruins, and the archaeologists just kept working. Pretty cool.
That tile floor is 4th Century and the largest single mosaic ever found.
Yeah, that’s right. I’m reduced to sourcing an article from the Daily Mail.
March 31, 2021 — 8:07 pm
Comments: 9
But what does it meeeean?
Not a lot is known about the Mesolithic in Britain – it starts just after the last Ice Age ended 11,000 years ago and ends 5,300 years ago with the beginning of agriculture, pottery and barrow building. So nothing left but rocks, basically.
But someone poking around an agricultural field in Yorkshire discovered it was a silted up ancient lake. Or, to be more precise, a peaty lake. And we know how good peat is at preserving things.
All kinds of cool things have since been dug up at the site, now called Star Carr. Like Britain’s oldest house (okay, a series of postholes) and those nifty antler hats. And this pendant, which is carved out of shale. They call it the oldest bit of Mesolithic artwork yet found in Britain.
But was it art? The lines are barely visible (they’ve been enhanced here). Such shallow cuts…I wonder if it was a counter of some kind. Or even a map.
The article at the link compares them to Danish amber jewellery of about the same time. I see the similarities, but the “barbed line technique” looks clearly decorative.
The Star Carr pendant looks like information to me, like it was somewhat quickly scratched into the surface. A crib sheet?
I’m getting in to this prehistory stuff. Have a good weekend, everyone!
March 26, 2021 — 7:39 pm
Comments: 12
They were different then
If you were anywhere near social media yesterday, you probably saw this story, but I wanted more than the tweet version.
In 1930, Indiana Bell needed a new headquarters because the old one was too small. They wanted it on the same lot, but the old building had to keep functioning throughout. So they moved the building sixteen yards South, rotated it 90 degrees and then moved it 30 yards West and built the new building on the spot it had just vacated.
It moved about fifteen inches a month, mostly by way of hand-operated jacks. When all the jacks were pumped, the building moved 3/8 of an inch.
The building was fully functional the whole time: gas, electricity, sewage, phone. There was a wooden sidewalk built in the shape of an arc around the movement.
The original building was demolished in 1963. 🙁
More story from Kottke, Amusing Planet, Wikipedia. Animation: YouTube, GIF.
March 22, 2021 — 7:58 pm
Comments: 7