Today's funeral arrangements

Night-time dress rehearsal for Thatcher funeral. Credit: www.news.com.au

"We haven't come here to insult anybody, we have come here to tell you there's a different point of view than the one that the media have been pushing and ramming down our throats all the week.

"Our families are markedly insulted of the eulogising of a woman who absolutely destroyed our communities."

The words of miners’ union leader David Douglas, from a passionate address to the crowd in Trafalgar Square at an anti-Thatcher party on Saturday 13th, quoted in Morning Star Online.  “Ex-miners have last word at capital party” was the headline.

Meanwhile Mark Rowe ‏@MarkRowe10 tweeted that when North Korean Kim Jong II died (Dec 2011) UK media ridiculed mourners saying they are all being forced to mourn with no dissent allowed.

Daily Telegraph: What about Clement Attlee?

But let's give the last word to the top Tories’ favourite paper.  On 10th April The Daily Telegraph's columnist Peter Oborne dismissed as flimsy official denials that Thatcher is getting a state funeral. That's what it is, and it’s a mistake, he said. The decision to acknowledge Lady Thatcher, but not Clement Attlee, makes the Queen appear partisan. (Don't forget this is the Daily Telegraph and these things matter to them.)

Here's an extract:-

So the question arises: what’s so special about Maggie Thatcher? Defenders of next week’s funeral arrangements say that she was a “transformational” prime minister. This is true. But so was Clement Attlee, who introduced the welfare system and the National Health Service, thus fundamentally changing the connection between state and individual. Yet the Queen did not attend Mr Attlee’s funeral, a quiet affair in Temple Church near Westminster. According to a 1967 report in Time magazine, “all the trappings of power were absent last week at the funeral of Earl Attlee … there were no honour guards or artillery caissons, no press or television, no crush of spectators. Only 150 friends and relatives gathered for a brief Anglican ceremony in honour of the man who had shaped the political destiny of post-war Britain.”

The decision to acknowledge Lady Thatcher, but not Attlee, makes the Queen appear partisan and is totally out of kilter with the traditional impartiality of the modern British monarchy.

Poster circulated on social media that originally appeared on the front page of The Daily Telegraph (only joking)

No assistance for funerals

By the way, according to the Morning Star, miners' leader David Douglas claimed in his Trafalgar Square speech that during the 1984-85 mining strikes, Thatcher's government had "instructed the social security that no miner's families had to have assistance for funerals."

Uncanny echo of another Daily Telegraph article, this one from 16 July 2012. “Pauper's funerals increase as Government rejects half of welfare applicants” was the headline over a report of a sharp rise in pauper's funerals consequent upon the Government rejecting half of applicants for a state funeral grant. Maybe the Telegraph isn't such a bad paper after all. My Dad (which isn't a surprise) never read anything else. And my friend Mark reads it. For the sport, he says.

Stop Monsanto patenting tomatoes

Patented tomato image promoting the Avaaz petition.
1,610,404 have already signed. They want 2 million

I'm not a huge fan of online petitions, of which Avaaz sends out at least one a week. But Eva Novotny of Scientists for Global Responsibility is insistent that this one needs support. It's against patenting of seeds by corporations like Monsanto - even seeds of conventional vegetables. Monsanto alone, she says, owns 36% of all tomato, 32% of sweet pepper and 49% of cauliflower varieties registered in the EU.  The company long ago stated that its aim is to control the entire food chain.  We must not allow this to happen, says Eva. I agree, and I’ve signed, and I suggest you do too.

Find the petition here

Here's the publicity Avaaz sent out. Yes I  know it's a bit shrill but I believe they're on the button.

It’s unbelievable, but Monsanto and Co. are at it again. These profit-hungry biotech companies have found a way to exclusively ‘own’ something that freely belongs to us all - our food! They’re trying to patent away our everyday vegetables and fruits like cucumber, broccoli and melons, forcing growers to pay them and risk being sued if they don’t.

But we can stop them from buying up Mother Earth. Companies like Monsanto have found loopholes in European law to get away with this, so we just need to close them shut before they set a dangerous global precedent. And to do that, we need key countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands - where opposition is already growing - to call for a vote to stop Monsanto’s plans. The Avaaz community has shifted governments before, and we can do it again.…

I reminisce about Thatcher and give OK to parties

Just a couple of reminiscences about Thatcher. And by the way yes it's quite okay to party at her demise. The politicised contest about how to remember her is not about the past it's a battle over Britain's present and future. Read Jonathan Freedland in today’s Guardian. The only reason the expression “state funeral” isn't being used, he says, is to avoid a vote in parliament which would give opportunity for dissent. Palace and government are working hard to make the funeral create the illusion that Thatcher has a cherished place in the nation’s memory.

Michael Foot lost the 1983 election.
A decent cove.

But I promised my reminiscences. One is from the 1983 General Election. Thatcher had been in power for 4 years at this time and it was pretty clear Labour led by Michael Foot were heading for a catastrophic defeat largely due to the SDP split.  Thatcher would increase her majority and five years of misery beckoned. I was the presiding officer at a polling station in Acomb in York. During the evening a working class family came in to vote, and I could tell the middle-aged man had difficulty reading. There was a protocol to follow, which I think involved me going into the voting booth and reading the names on the ballot paper to him. This I offered to do, but soon wished I hadn’t. He drew himself up to his full height and informed me that that whilst he might not be able to read and write, he knew right from wrong. Off he stalked into the polling booth, and when he came back a glimpse at his ballot as he slipped it into the box told me he had voted Labour.
 
The other reminiscence is from the day of Thatcher’s departure in November 1990. Geoffrey Howe’s speech in Parliament had triggered a Conservative leadership election, and though it seemed to be about Europe I think everyone knew it was really about the poll tax.

Poll tax demo in late 1980's

This was a local tax which took huge sums from the poor in order to reduce the tax paid by the rich. Millions refused to pay - 18 million if you believe this anticapitalist website, though I'm not sure I do. The Tories knew they were on to a loser and all three of the contenders to succeed Thatcher as party leader pledged to abandon the tax.

When it became clear that she wasn’t going to win the leadership election,  Thatcher resigned. Joy all round. The day was Thursday 22nd November 1990.  Eileen and I were due in court within the next the few weeks for poll tax non-payment and we prided ourselves on having contributed in a small way to her downfall.

At that time my Dad was alive and living in Bristol. Every Sunday we used to talk on the phone. He was a big Thatcher supporter, he really loved her, I think that can be said of a lot of her supporters. So on Sunday 25th I didn't ring. I knew he would be sore about her going, and we would have a destructive quarrel. And I'm very glad I didn't, as it would have been our last conversation. A few days later he died suddenly of a heart attack. Those are my Thatcher reminiscences for what they are worth.

Of Easter, Påsk and a pagan goddess

Today an Easter greeting from my aunt Kerstin prompted me to look into something I've long idly wondered about, and that’s why the Swedish for Easter is Påsk (pronounced Posk).  I was led to the following information from Wikipedia.  The 8th century English scholar Bede, describing the state of affairs in England a couple of hundred years before his own day, stated that the Anglo-Saxon word for April was Easter Month (Ēosturmōnath) during which feasts were held in honour of the goddess Ēostre. All this had died out by Bede’s time, replaced by the Christian "Paschal month". 

Left: A stained glass window from Germany depicting the Passover Lamb, a concept integral to the foundation of Easter. The inscription reads Osterlam. Pötting parish church of the Holy Cross.
Right: Bede was a priest and monk in the town of Jarrow in England who died in 735, often called the greatest scholar of his time in the Western Church. From a psalter in the British Library.

Paschal (which I suppose I ought to have known already but didn't) means pertaining to Easter or Passover, as in Paschal lamb and Paschal candle - an exceptionally large candle lit in church today (Holy Saturday) and kept on the altar till Ascension Day.  And Paschaltide it turns out is a period in the liturgical calendar, between Easter and Pentecost. 

The word Paschal is derived from the Hebrew word for Passover, Pesach.  The dates of the two festivals, Easter and Passover, normally coincide within five or fewer days, but about every tenth year they go adrift by a whole month. There's a long history of debates as to how Easter should be calculated which I won’t go into here.

What about Easter in other European languages? In the Romance and Celtic languages, as in the Scandinavian languages, it's derived from Hebrew (French Pâques, Italian Pasqua, Irish Cáisc [1]). But in German it's Ostern, the same root as English.

The goddess Ēostre is a form of the widely attested Indo-European dawn goddess (hence East), and there are theories connecting Ēostre with records of Germanic Easter customs including hares and eggs.

An invention of Bede's?

Here's a curious note to end on. The evidence for the Anglo-Saxon goddess whose name gives rise to "Easter" has not, it seems, been universally accepted, and some scholars have proposed that Ēostre may have meant "the month of opening" or that the name Easter may have arisen from the designation of Easter Week in Latin as in albis. (Not quite sure how you get from in albis to Easter.)

It's even possible it was Bede who invented the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ēostre.  But whether he did or didn't, it seems odd that the English church should have chosen the name Easter, thereby connecting their principal festival with either a pagan goddess or a supposed pagan goddess.

My £10 donation to Wikipedia last month was money well spent, but there's more to find out yet.

[1] “Cáisc” (Irish for Easter) is, despite appearances, related to Latin “Pascha” and Hebrew “Pesach”.  That confusing initial “C” in place of “P” occurs because Irish is a q-Celtic language, and tends to have a “c” sound where Latin-derived words have a p-sound.

Is Francis the first non-European pope in 1000 years?

A postcard available in all leftwing bookshops, with the words of Brazilian archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara, a proponent of liberation theology.  George Monbiot quoted them last week in The Guardian to expose what he calls one of the great fissures in the Catholic church, and the emptiness of the Pope Francis's claim to be on the side of the poor. 

If you're tempted to dismiss the Catholic Church and what goes on inside it as irrelevant, read Monbiot’s article.  On Irish radio the other day a panellist suggested Francis may soon surprise us, and regrets his inglorious role in face of the 1976-1983 dictatorship in Argentina. (See good and bad things they say about him.) I doubt it, but we'll see.

Non-European Pope

Argentina suggests a little digression. In the past couple of weeks countless media columns have observed that Pope Francis is a first in many ways, and the first of these firsts is invariably that he's the first non-European pope in 1,272 years.  A statement based on the year 741 being when Pope Gregory III, born in Syria, ended his 10-year reign. 

Now the question I pose is: back in the year 741, was Syria in fact outside Europe?

And I have to reply no. For the concept of Europe didn't yet exist. I can draw a parallel. I could say that in 1966 Angela Rippon became Britain's first female newsreader in 200 years. A true statement in a way, but pointless, since in 1766 there were no newsreaders, male nor female.

Likewise in 741 there were neither Europeans, nor non-Europeans.  So what was there? What idea in 741 did the intelligentsia carry in their heads that most nearly answers what we think of when we think of Europe?

Non-European popes Francis & Gregory III

The question calls for a whole essay on what we think of when we think of Europe, which I'll spare you, and get straight to the point.  About a century before 741, the answer would have been quite clear: the Roman Empire. Meaning primarily all the lands bordering the Mediterranean.  However by 741 the idea of the Roman Empire was somewhat frayed. Syria, one of the empire’s richest provinces, was now in Arab hands.  I wonder though, in 741 was it yet obvious that this was destined to be a permanent state of affairs?  I think the idea of Christendom was taking over. This is a hard concept to pin down. It meant the community of all Christians; and maybe (I'm less sure of this) carried a vague geographical dimension. In 741, according to my understanding, the majority of Syrians would still have been Christians, even though the ruling élite were Muslims.

So back to the original question. I think the statement that Francis is the first non-European pope since 741 is at best pointless. And at worst it's misleading, because Syria was part of Christendom, indeed one could almost say at the heart of Christendom. And a bishop from there could not remotely have been described as a non-anything, in the way that Francis is described as non-European.

These thoughts are tentative. I hope some historian will read this and put me right. Late antiquity and the early middle ages are a fascinating period to me. I've just started a book recommended by my friend Chris, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (2009) by Chris Wickham. In his introduction he says that even by the end of his period, Europe was not yet born. That's what set me thinking about this first non-European pope business.

The Titanic violin

The violin said to have been played by bandmaster Wallace Hartley on Titanic, with the valise. Credit : Bournemouth News

This water-stained violin was in the news last week when it was revealed to be the one played by the Titanic’s bandmaster on the night of the tragedy, as proved by seven years of testing at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds. This may be a hoax. But if true, it seems that when Wallace Hartley’s body was found, his large leather valise was strapped around him with his violin inside, presumably in the hope of adding buoyancy.  

The Daily Telegraph announced it to be “the violin used by Wallace Hartley as the band famously played 'Nearer my god to thee' as the Titanic sank”.  Even if it's the right violin, the Telegraph was almost certainly wrong to repeat this well-known legend about the hymn.

Walter Lord deals thoroughly with the Titanic’s musicians and their music in his 1986 book The Night Lives on: Thoughts Theories and Revelations about the Titanic. In a chapter headed “The Sound of Music”, he devotes five pages to the question of what the band actually played. Piecing together evidence from crew and passengers, Lord thinks that the band played dance music, which they could play from memory, and which seemed best suited to keeping the passengers' spirits up. He quotes a passenger, Colonel Gracie: "If 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' was one of the selections, I assuredly would have noticed it and regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death, and more likely to create a panic that our special efforts were directed towards avoiding. ..."

Lord can’t be certain; but adds that whatever the band played, they all perished, and doing so achieved immortality.  “The bravery of these men, trying to bring hope and comfort to others without a thought to their own safety, captured the public's imagination all over the world.  Editorials, speeches, sermons, and reams of worshipful poetry celebrated the deed, and letters of condolence poured into the homes of the bereaved.”

No words of sympathy

Shockingly Lord reveals that tucked in with the tributes received by the family of violinist Jock Hume, was a letter to his father dated just two weeks after the tragedy, containing no words of sympathy, just a short, crisp reminder of an unpaid uniform account in the sum of 5s. 4d due to C.W. & F. N. Black.

He explains the background to this. Until 1912 the various steamship lines dealt directly with their musicians, signing them up as members of the crew.  The pay was union scale, which worked out at £6 10s. a month, plus a monthly uniform allowance of 10s.

Then the Liverpool talent agency C. W. and F. N. Black entered the picture, offering the steamship companies a simpler and cheaper way to get onboard music.  The musicians still signed the ship's articles for a token shilling a month (putting them clearly under the captain's authority), but they were now really working for Blacks, and had to take what Blacks were willing to pay them - which turned out to be a one-third cut in pay and no uniform allowance. 

Not covered by the Act

Under the Workmen's Compensation Act, the Titanic musicians' families were entitled to claim compensation from the employer, so naturally they applied first to the White Star Line. Who however denied liability on the grounds the bandsmen were Second Class passengers and not covered by the Act.  The Line suggested that the families contact C. W. and F. N. Black, the real employers. You can guess the rest. Blacks claimed the musicians had been independent contractors. The insurance company said the bandsmen were not workmen as covered by the policy.  When the case came to court, the judge was sympathetic, but that was all. 

The musicians' union made a final appeal to White Star's sense of moral responsibility: "Three families lost their only sons - three young men ranging from 21 to 24 years of age, cut off in the prime of their life while performing an act of heroism that stirred the whole world to its depths.  Surely there is something for the White Star Company to consider over and above the mere terms of an Act of Parliament."  It did no good.

In the end, the musicians' families benefited from the Titanic Relief Fund, an umbrella organization set up to manage the charitable contributions that poured in from all over the world. 

Wallace Hartley's funeral, 18 May 1912, Colne, Lancashire

While this shabby little business was unfolding behind the scenes, in Lord’s words, front-stage the drama of the band's heroism continued.  On May 18 there occurred one of those great public funerals, dripping with melancholy pageantry, that the Victorians and Edwardians did so well.  Bandmaster Wallace Hartley's body had been retrieved from the ice-strewn waters off Newfoundland (no mention of the violin which Lord must have been unaware of) and seven bands played him to his final rest. His rosewood casket was borne shoulder-high through the winding streets of Colne, Hartley's birthplace in the hills of Lancashire. Aldermen, councillors, ambulance men, police, boys' brigades, and musicians from all over England fell in behind. The procession was half a mile long.

"Preposterous"

Meanwhile I've seen that the curator of the Titanic museum has dismissed claims that bandmaster Wallace Hartley's violin has been found as 'preposterous'. So there may be more to this story yet.

And there is. This update is 23 May 2013. The Titanic violin's authenticity has been established "beyond a reasonable doubt" by a CT scan performed at The Ridgeway Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire. Or at least so claimed an auctioneer to the BBC. Source: Huffington Post.

Mars: it's snowing - and microbes could have lived here

Still my favourite Mars picture. Cape St Vincent, one of the cliffs of Victoria crater. Credit: Nasa/Reuters

It's snowing on Mars – yes really, or at least it was on 27 January.  Very gently, and the snow doesn’t settle - not these days, anyway - but instead vaporises into the thin atmosphere long before it reaches the ground.

I recommend an article by Ian Sample, the Guardian’s science correspondent, for more about snow on Mars and other amazing data being sent back by NASA’s rovers there.

Rock formations on Mars

Take these two rock formations.  On 12th March NASA published these images from two different sites, which provide evidence of ancient watery environments, one hospitable to life, the other not. Before I say more, lets pause for a little gasp that we actually have pictures like this. Gasp.

That's over then. The image on the right, says NASA, indicates a once habitable environment, not too acidic or alkaline, with chemical gradients that would have created energy for microbes, and a distinctly low salinity, which would have helped metabolism if micro-organisms had ever been present.  Data from several instruments on the Curiosity rover all support this interpretation. What we see in the image are very fine-grained sediments.

Too extreme for life

The rock on the left on the other hand is evidence of an environment that is thought not to have been habitable.  NASA reaches this conclusion due to various factors. One is the extreme acidity of the water, another is extreme salinity which would have impeded metabolism.  Moreover, if any micro-organisms had ever been present, too little energy would have been available, due to very limited chemical gradients.  This rock, scientists think, was formed from sulphate-rich sandstone, and the particles were in part formed and cemented in the presence of water; and the bumps on the rock face were formed in the presence of water. 

As a footnote, we should recall that the Antarctic Lake Vida tells us to be cautious before saying “life couldn’t survive here”.  In November microbes were found thriving in conditions of extreme salinity and cold.

The two rock images have been adjusted to look as they would if they were on Earth.  The one on the right puts me in mind of a seaside rock pool but sadly that’s an illusion, there's no water there now.

See NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for more particulars of these two images and how NASA scientists interpret them.

Finally, in all the excitement we mustn’t forget that habitability is not the same thing as life. Here's a link to a discussion of Is there life on Mars?, and why after years of discovery the question still eludes us.