"X is the new black" is a heavily over-used expression; a google search throws up more than 75,000 hits, highlighting the numerous things that are apparently the new black, including young, war, fat, incoherent, Australia, Ohio, and many many more, including the frighteningly recursive.

Here I ignore all the many things that could be the new black, focusing instead upon which color should be the new black, should the powers that be choose to appoint/elect/?? a new one. As I am not aware of the official processes (although they clearly exist) I chose to let Google counts decide. I chose an assortment of colors, although I became a bit overwhelmed at the range of color names out there (apparently, anything that grows or that you can eat has its own color name, and never mind the offensive additions now offered by Crayola [Outer Space, Macaroni and Cheese, Razzmatazz? How are kids supposed to learn their colors these days?!])

Below I list the rankings (color of text may not be "official"). It's a runaway: Pink is the new black.

3610 Pink
1380 Silver*
1090 Green*
988 Red*
726 Black*
677 Orange
604 Grey/Gray*
560 Brown
514 White* (514, White)
498 Purple*
273 Blue*
273 Yellow*
146 Beige
126 Copper
44 Gold
41 Khaki
24 Navy*
18 Mauve
15 Maroon*
11 Tan
9 Denim
6 Lavender, Teal*
5 Chartreuse, Fuchsia*, Salmon
3 Aqua*, Charcoal, Lime*
2 Olive*, Rust, Scarlet, Violet
1 Cornflower, Ecru, Indigo, Jade, Mahogany, Rose, Sepia

* Official color name supported by the W3C HTML 4.0 standard.

This past Sunday at Come Down and Meet the Folks was one of the best Folks evenings I've had in a long time. The headline act was the Rosinators, who play a good mix of bluegrass, gospel and Cajun. We've seen quite a lot of them (including a recent performance in Haltwhistle) and they keep getting better.

I also enjoyed the short opening set from Silver Saddle. Their sound fits well into the "alt-country"/"Americana" vein, quite reminiscent of Uncle Tupelo, Ryan Adams and the like. I wasn't completely bowled over; something about their performance came across as Tupelo-lite. But maybe I'm being hard on them because I was so impressed by someone else who followed immediately after them:

The highlight of the evening came from one man and a guitar. Cam Penner was over from Canada, playing a floorspot here and there. He only played a few songs, but what songs. I was quite impressed, and I've been waiting to be impressed by someone new for a while. Looking for a description of the music? Why not pick a few words from the "Write your own review" sample below, stir and bake until golden?
blue-collar gritty blues "trad" country suffering dust-bowl acoustic
(I left out "Canadian" but feel free to add it if you'd like to make direct reference to prairies, long roads, etc.

The Fiddlers Elbow can be a tough audience, especially where solo floorspots are concerned, but not in this case.... I wasn't alone in being seriously impressed. I managed to get the last copy of his CD (with band), Get Up and it's just as good. I hope he manages to make it back to the UK; I'd go out of my way to see him again.

Other saints share March 17 and perhaps it's unfair that St. Paddy gets all the glory. I nominate St. Gertie (Nivelle, Brabant) as an alternative:

A virgin of noble birth. Because she despised the world, and during her whole life practised all kinds of good works, she deserved to have Christ for her spouse in heaven.

St. Gertie's day is celebrated by staying out of pubs, harrumphing at revellers, picking up litter, and going to bed alone.

The previous entry refers, of course, to the Shqip language, more known to non-Shqip speakers as Albanian. My shame in failing to identify it is somewhat reduced, because it is not closely related to any other language: although Indo-European it appears to be "the sole modern survivor of its subgroup". The comment by bdw is probably correct, as Albanian has quite a bit of Latin influence (although more closely related to Romanian). The Albanian alphabet has a lot of extras (despite having a similar appearance to English); the Wikipedia entry (linked above) lists these:

vowels: A, E, Ë, I, O, U, Y.
consonants: B, C, Ç, D, Dh, F, G, Gj, H, J, K, L, Ll, M, N, Nj, P, Q, R, Rr, S, Sh, T, Th, V, X, Xh, Z, Zh.

This, however, says little about Albanians in London. I took a confusing diversion into transport history with Albanian Coaches Ltd. (incorporated 1934). Quite early indeed; however, few of the residents of St. Albans at the time were Shqiptarë.

News coverage of Albanians in London tends to be heavy on the Albanian mafia, people trafficking and prostitution, both from sources that seem rather propagandistic as well as those that are less so.

As it turns out, however, most of the Albanians in London are not from Albania but instead from Kosovo, where Gheg (the northern dialect of the Albanian language) is spoken. Suddenly it makes a lot more sense, given Milosevic's efforts to expel ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. The resulting humanitarian crisis led to a UK commitment to accept refugees from Kosovo, and in 1999 more refugees came to the UK from the former Yugoslavia than from any other nation (PDF link) (second rank: Somalia). This site gives an indication of the geographical clustering of Kosovan refugees/evacuees and some of the issues raised by their arrival.

Once again it's related to local government, this time the free publication Haringey People. At the end of the current issue is an offer "Do you want to access this magazine in your own language?" followed by several format options (large print, on disk, on audio tape, Braille) and several language alternatives. The previously-mentioned Turkish and Somali are included in the list, as well as Bengali, French, Kurdish and today's mystery entry, labeled Shqip). Below I copy the Shqip entry (in its entirety):


Of course it would probably be easy to figure out the entry using Google, just plugging in one or two of the words in the entry (or the name Shqip). Much more difficult to try and solve the puzzle without "external resources" but simply my own knowledge about the area (quite limited, I must admit, having only lived there for six weeks), and possibly aspects of the language sample as well. For the moment I am stuck, but I will let some time pass before admitting defeat and googling "shqip". I'll eventually stick a solution in the "comments" section.

Many years ago, a small, bedraggled paperback found its way into our family home. Not a particularly unusual occurrence as hundreds (if not thousands) of small, bedraggled paperbacks have appeared in similar manners over the years. But one in particular had a great impact upon our family: Scoundrels, Fiends and Human Monsters by Cliff Howe (pub. 1958). 

It didn't look like much; in fact, the first few chapters were torn out (so we were able to learn that Thomas Dun had his limbs sawn off with jagged knives, etc. as punishment for his crimes, but not what those crimes might have been). But the first full chapter remaining was that of Sawney Bean(e), notorious cannibalistic murderer of the __th century (a remarkably similar text to that chapter can be found here; more on this source later).

In our home, the vicious character of Sawney Beane became a less frightening but more pervasive evil influence, taking over the role of bogey-man from an assortment of imaginary wolves, mice, and undifferentiated ghosts and spirits who had previously carried scare-duties on their own but had lost their spark for one reason or another. Beane mostly hovered around the dinner table (and occasionally communion service at church) in case reference to cannibalism was appropriate for the given meal (surprisingly often, I found), although sometimes he was invoked to scare younger children when our usual range of bogey-men (Rick James, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Jackson) wasn't enough.

Unfortunately, it may have been too good to be true. A recent piece in the Fortean Times is rather dismissive of the whole tale; a host of other sources join in a solid and robust debunking of the most important details of the whole matter. The title tells the story in Urquhart's "Sawney Beane: Myth or Myth", "The reaction of any serious historian... to the Sawney Bean myth should be polite incredulity at least, and outright denunciation at best...." and more information of a debunking nature (along with a snippet of information about films inspired by the Beane legend) can be found at Mysterious Britain. Not everyone is a debunker, however; those with strong stomachs (especially with regard to unwanted sound effects/midi music on web pages) may enjoy this site which offers not only a full complement of dripping blood effects, skulls and the eerie like, but also your own Sawney Beane email address!!!1!111!!

To me, perhaps the greatest disappointment was not the debunking of the Beane legend (after all, certain elements just didn't ring quite true), but the discovery that Mr Cliff Howe's extensive historical research could be found, nearly word-for-word, in a slightly older text: the Newgate Calendar.

As described at exclassics.com, "The Newgate Calendar was one of those books, along with a Bible, Foxe's book of Martyrs and the Pilgrim's Progress, most likely to be found in any English home between 1750 and 1850. Children were encouraged to read it because it was believed to inculcate principles of right living -- by fear of punishment if not by the dull and earnest morals appended to the stories of highwaymen and other felons."

To think, the great historian from whom I learned about these important historical figures (fiendish though they might be) was merely a fan of the Newgate Calendar.  I guess my search for his other seminal work (Lovers and Libertines: World's Greatest Lovers, 1958) is not so urgent...

I took a brief trip to Saarbrücken this week to present a paper at a small conference. I managed to make a small detour to see the 13th century gothic church of St. Arnual:


As described in remarkably identical wording on quite a few Web sites,


I queued up among the masses and shuffled my way along the designated tourist route, peering for my designated twenty seconds at the tomb of Elisabeth. Or more accurately, I walked into the empty church and inspected its contents at my leisure, undisturbed by anyone. Perhaps the most impressive was the tomb of Count Johann III of Nassau-Saarbrücken (d.1472), depicted along with his two wives (Johanne von Loen and Elisabeth von Württemberg) as illustrated on this page (scroll down to section "Saarbrücken, Landeshauptstadt. Evangelische Stiftskirche St. Arnual).

Some more historical information about the church can be found here (with photos) and here (timeline) (both in German only, although if you do not speak German, they can also perhaps use automated translation aids, as Google translate, if you are ready to employ a certain level from immutability to).

Who was St. Arnual? Not clearly listed in the register of Catholic Saints but apparently he is also known as St. Arnulf which matches up to the timeline also linked above. Arnulf seems to be a popular name, or at least a saintly one as there are six other St. Arnulfs listed in the register at catholic.org.  This particular St. Arnulf doesn't seem to be a particularly exciting saint; a cynic might even say he's only a saint thanks to royal patronage of King Theodebert II of Austrasia (who gave him the village of Merkingen as a gift & changed its name to St Arnual by royal decree) More biographical detail can be found here.

Comparing him to the other saints who share July 18 (as described here) he's definitely low on the list of impressive criteria for sainthood. Here's my own ranking of the July 18 saints (all descriptions cribbed from the breviary.net site linked above).


The miracles are only vaguely stated, although the hermitage moves him up from the very bottom of the list. Without death, misery and suffering it's hard for a sainthood to impress me.