Árd Rí na hÉireann - the High King of Ireland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Tara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_Tara

The Flight of the Earls, which in Irish is Imeacht na nIarlaí, describes the day of September 14, 1607 when Aodh Uî Neill (Hugh O’Neill) and Rudhraighe Ó Domhnaill (Rory O’Donnell) left Ireland in exile for Spain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Earls

According to Irish tradition, the ancient kings of Ireland were the descendants of King Milesius of Spain. Milesius was the grandson of Breoghan, conqueror of Galicia, Andalusia, Murcia, Castile, and Portugal, who was also called Brigus or Brian. Milesius achieved outstanding military success in Egypt, and was given Scota, the Pharoah’s daughter, in marriage. When Spain underwent a twenty-six year famine, Milesius sent his uncle Ithe to seek a new homeland, in accordance with an ancient prophecy. After Ithe discovered Ireland, only to be murdered by the resident Tuatha de Danan, his son Lughaide brought his body home to Spain.

http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.c/qx/durack-coat-arms.htm

Michael Bywater

I kept Michael’s article about the death of his mother for ten years - in a box that I’ve taken around the country with me - like some talisman of good writing. I’m attempting to throw away all this paper - but not before I record it here. Mr Bywater still works for the Independent, as far as I know. If you’re reading this MIchael, get in touch - I’d like to interview you.

An old and common story
Independent, The (London), Jan 31, 1999 by Michael Bywater

“THEY SAY the dreams will start in a week or two. We’ll be chatting on the telephone, she’ll drop in for a cup of tea, I’ll bump into her in the street. This is how it goes, they tell me, and one day she’ll go too far - criticise my waistline, or start making plans to go to Vienna (she always wanted to go to Vienna but never made it) - and I will have to break the news. “Look,” I shall have to say, “you can’t keep just dropping by like this. You’re dead.”

“And so she is. Audrey Jean Bywater, nee Price, born Newport, Monmouthshire, 1st October 1927; died 5.30am, Saturday 16th January 1999…”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990131/ai_n9656597

Also:

Last laugh of Alan Coren, comedy king of Cricklewood

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2701378.ece

“I am nature”

Dripping with significance
Independent, The (London), Mar 9, 1999 by Tom Lubbock

The pros saw the pure, unmediated expressions of body or soul; a painting made in a trance state, with Pollock’s unconscious or impulses marked down on the canvas. Obviously, this was partly what Pollock wanted. He wanted a spontaneous painting that by-passed the turgid symbolism of his earlier psycho-dramas and came straight from the deep psyche. He wanted pictures that - like some decoration - looked unmade and unauthored, as if they had just developed of themselves. But the paradox of his achievement is that these things could only be done with a lot of artistry. Pollock’s act was a careful balancing act; a matter of holding things in tension, fine-tuning so as to keep all possibilities open. The classic paintings have multiple intimations, none of which is quite suppressed, none of which definitely arrives. There are - despite the “over all” talk - hints of an underlying structure, perhaps something quasi-figurative and deeply buried in all the business. There are hints, too, of infinitely complex patterning. There are hints of complete chaos and randomness. There’s finally a strong entropic tendency towards an absolutely inert homogeneity. And all these aspects shift one into another. The result is work that’s untraceable and ungraspable. It offers inexhaustible interest to the eye. It can be contemplated endlessly.

Pollock’s most memorable saying was his reply to being asked, why he didn’t work more from nature: “I am nature.”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990309/ai_n14210492/pg_2

Knowledge is a state of being

A neuron can connect with 80,000 others. Human brain contains 20 billion neurons, capable of 100 trillion connections (does this include the brain gas-stuff used to make connections?).

So in 1999, Charles Jonscher in ‘Wired Life’ book said computers are nowhere near to brains.

And that knowledge is a state of being.

Information is transitive.

“We must not mistake gigabytes for wisdom”

Land ownership conveyed the right to profit from land, not the right to exclude all others from it

How I learnt to hate the landowner and love the rambler
Independent, The (London), Mar 9, 1999 by David Aaronovitch

“And yet, until 300 years ago our forebears walked more or less wherever they wanted. Paths marked the most convenient ways to travel, not - as today - the only permitted ways. Land ownership conveyed the right to profit from land, not the right to exclude all others from it. And then we allowed all this to disappear, and - for the best part of two centuries - the rights of landowners increased at the expense of all the other subjects of the Crown. Forests were enclosed or destroyed, common land was seized, rights of way were barred and the right to hunt wild animals was aggrandised by the few.”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990309/ai_n14210560

No word for volcano

At the time of Pompei - Mt. Vesuvius eruption - there was no word in Latin for volcano?

Pliny and nephew gaius?

Also, the Pompeii bodies are made of plaster.

“The Italian archaeologist Guiseppe Fiorelli made the first attempts at preserving bodies in 1863 by casting them in plaster.

Only victims who were buried in volcanic ash can be cast. Those killed in the rain of fiery pumice were burned and remain only as skeletons. But those buried in the fine ash slowly decayed, leaving a hollow with every fold of cloth imprinted in the hardened ash. Fiorelli poured plaster into the cavities, revealing somewhat crudely the people of Pompeii in their final moments.”

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13418154.400-pompeiis-electronic-guide-after-250-years-of-excavationarchaeologists-working-at-pompeii-have-discovered-a-powerful-new-tool-anexhibition-that-opens-in-london-this-week-shows-how-computers-are-bringingthe-roman-town-back-to-life-.html

Dreaming and the web-surfing mind

Cyberspace can become a dream world says John Suler.

http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html

Rapid shifts of scenario - without travelling over ground - web surfing is like dreaming. Users can transcend the laws of space and physics.

People and images appear out of nowhere.

Time is irrelevant.

When computer freezes - it’s like a paralysis nightmare?

Dissociation  - people “lose themselves” - in web surfing and dreams. Your dreams may be from you - but are fragmented - and the dreamer is not aware.

Wish fulfillment.

** This reminds me of the san dot paintings - their red line between the human and spirit world.

A little tiny dot on this world

Today UK prime minister Gordon Brown called for the release of Zimbabwe’s election results.

President Robert Mugabe called Brown “A little tiny dot on this world” - a put-down calculated to make Brown go red.

Umberto Eco on Chief Inspector Derrick

Horst Tappert retired from being Derrick (long-running, slow-paced, German TV show) in 1998.

Umberto Eco, ‘Electrifying Mediocrity’, wrote:

“Derrick is the quintessence of all television spectacles, even those in which there are real characters who are loved only because, in a triumphal manner, they prove to be even more mediocre than the most mediocre viewers.”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_/ai_n14190828

The essence of a sit-com

Situation comedies need:

A hook - an intriguing situation with allows a strong plot (with conflict - the characters must be set against each other)

Dialogue - Every piece of dialogue must do three things:
1) Be funny (linked to other 2 and 3)
2) Advance the plot
3) Provide character background

Premise: Must be contemporary feeling (Yes minister was right for its time etc)

Ethics and biology

Evolutionary theory differs from behaviour genetics:

It’s unwise to deduce ethical premises from biology.

But you cannot understand ethics without looking to biology for explanations.

See:

Maths:
Robert Axelrod
John Maynard Smith
(Game theory illuminates why self-interested individual co-operate)

Evolutionary psychology:
Leda Cosmides (cheating causes)

Edward O’Wilson wrote Sociobiology: The new synthesis
Peter Singer attempted to refute in: The Expanding Circle (1979)

People are co-operative and competitive  - see:

Emile Durkheim’s ’social facts’ -  Customs, institutions, nations etc that are more than the sum of their individual parts.

Social obligation / market transaction

Ariely uses another example. A study conducted in an Israeli nursery decided to punish parents for collecting their children late. They would be fined £10. But once the fine was introduced, guess what happened to lateness? It went up. Once the social obligation (turn up on time) had been replaced by a market transaction (Late? That will be £10 please) attitudes changed.
Predictably Irrational by MIT’s Professor Dan Ariely.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/04/the-behavioural.html

2008 Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival

The 2008 Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival will attract many top cartoonists to the Midlands in the UK for three days. Find out more here:

Shrewsbury cartoon festival 2008 preview - includes useful links

Also: there’s lots more information here:

The Bloghorn - The diary of the Professional Cartoonist’s Organisation.

Also: Thanks for leaving a comment Andy - I’ve admired your cartoons in Private Eye for many years.  I’d like to hold you to your offer of a caricature if I make it to Shrewsbury.

Find out more about Andy Davey’s cartoons here: http://www.andydavey.com

James Bond in a wig

I got told tonight that Sean Connery went bald at 21 and wore a wig in all of the James Bond films that he appeared in. I don’t think that this is true - but I’d like to believe it is - so I’m not going to investigate.

I like the idea of it - James fighting and dispatching the bad guys, then pausing to adjust his toupee. Or Bond 007 wooing the ladies - but not bending his neck too much in case his hairpiece falls off… or even better… Bond 007 fending off a huge fellow with metal gnashers with one hand - while his other hand is pressed down hard upon his wig - making sure it doesn’t fly off in the kerfuffle.