Tuesday, May 31, 2005
More on hats
Sorry for the recent dearth of posts, the combined result of a server problem and a long weekend. In the meantime, a mysterious Web author (stalker?!) has provided graphic evidence of my personal difficulties with insufficiently-sized headwear. I am afraid I cannot rebut this photographic evidence, so I will not bother trying.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005 10:38:35 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Wednesday, May 25, 2005
One size fits all, my eye
Although I think this is one of the coolest hats I have seen in a while, I hope the buyer does not intend it as a gift for me. Although its inside dimensions are not exactly clear from the item description, I suspect very strongly that it is not suitably sized for my own hat-wearing needs. I am sorry to say I go slightly beyond the high end of your standard hat-sizing scale, and my general experience in visiting western stores (in a vague search for a cowboy hat I probably wouldn't wear anyway) has borne this out (standard inventory does not usually suit my needs). I could ordinarily blame this on an unnaturally thick crop of hair but at the moment, my hair is extremely restrained. So I guess I have to live with being a size 8 (7 7/8 in the UK; 64 cm European). But please remember, if you're thinking of buying me a hat, not just any hat will do.
consume
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 12:08:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [4]  | 
 Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Could do
And now we return to another linguistic issue that has been gnawing at me for ages: the obligatory UK English use of "do" in certain contexts:
For an example, see this answer by obscure British author JK Rowling in an interview with Larry King:

King: You're not going to write a book and put it away anymore?
JKR: Well, I might do.

The extra "do" always seems to catch me off-guard (although I should mention that my guard is not that impressive), and I wondered just what that "do" was doing. It's a right royal pain to try and find anything useful on Google, since punctuation isn't recognized (and when you do find a good example of the intended "might do", it's unimaginably atrocious), but fortunately more examples can be found on the (limited) Web version of the British National Corpus which yielded such examples as
Was it a game today that went how you thought it might do?
I might do yeah probably.
Complicating the story, there are numerous examples that are more like US English, We could do that.; I don't know what he might do. and the like, and "do so" is fine in both. So what is going on with the extra "do"? A bit of trawling around the Web hasn't given me any quick answers; the best I can guess is that UK English has a lot of "do"s left over from expressions like "Have you any porridge?" where US speakers would have used them up. I guess I'll keep my eyes open for better explanations

Of course, the use of modal "do" is but one of many linguistic differences that have been gnawing at me... I'll get to more of them later (the Oxford English Grammar (PDF) mentions a lot of them), but will end on the curious notion of saying. US English pronunciation of the past tense of "say" quite clearly rhymes with "fez", at least in my experience (please forgive my laziness in not using IPA to express pronunciation). But UK English seems to preserve the vowel; "says" rhymes with "ways" rather than "fez". The curious thing is that it took me several years of living in the UK to notice this. I guess because "says" is often unstressed (more important is who is saying it, or what they are saying) and thus reduced in one way or another.
language
Tuesday, May 24, 2005 2:55:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Friday, May 20, 2005
Meal time
I grew up in central Indiana and meals went like this in our family (or at least this is the way I thought of it):
Breakfast is eaten in the morning. It's a bowl of cereal except on some Sundays when it's pancakes, eggs, waffles or something else cooked.
Lunch is a light meal eaten at midday (except on Sundays when it's a bigger meal, cooked on the grill whenever possible). Often sandwiches (especially grilled cheese on a good day).
Supper is the main meal of the day, eaten at suppertime (5-6pm as I recall). The main dish was always accompanied by horrible, nasty vegetables.
Dinner is what pretentious rich and famous people eat in dining rooms with tablecloths, fancy glasses, expensive china and loads of different silverware. Everything is served by waiters on silver platters with rounded lids, and multiple courses are served in a specific order which is, like, totally stupid because what if you wanted to eat the cheese before your coq-au-vin? Needless to say we were not dinner eaters.

Imagine my surprise as I learned that these terms are quite different from place to place in the English-speaking world. Although there are certain logical problems with breakfast ("breakfast" is the first meal of the day, reflecting breaking the night's fast, except for those people who don't eat breakfast, but then break their fast later in the day, rendering some other meal techically "breakfast"), the term is used fairly consistently (although let's avoid the issue of brunch for now).

Next we turn to lunch. Merriam-Webster (hereafter, M-W) gives a US definition that matches my own experience quite well: "a usually light meal; especially: one taken in the middle of the day". That's simple enough, right (even given the existence of "luncheon", which M-W suggests is like lunch but more formal), but the Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter, OED) indicates that there may be complications. The identification of lunch (formerly a vulgar term for "luncheon" but now the usual term) depends upon when one takes one's dinner: "Originally, a slight repast taken between two of the ordinary meal-times, esp. between breakfast and mid-day dinner. The word retains this original application with those who use dinner as the name of the mid-day meal; with those who ‘dine’ in the evening, luncheon denotes a meal (understood to be less substantial and less ceremonious than dinner) taken usually in the early afternoon.". By this definition, only those who dine can be said to eat lunch; those (like me) who merely sup are left in the lurch.

The path definitely leads to dinner; M-W is quite definitive: "a: the principal meal of the day; b: a formal feast or banquet". So pretentious rich and famous people definitely eat dinner, and we were unknowingly eating dinner during suppertime. OED generally agrees but again causes trouble: "The chief meal of the day, eaten originally, and still by the majority of people, about the middle of the day (cf. Ger. Mittagsessen), but now, by the professional and fashionable classes, usually in the evening". This ruins everything. I would say we were among the majority of people and not among the "professional and fashionable classes" (i.e., pretentious sorts who fawn about wearing some combination of monocles, ruffs and powdered wigs), yet we ate our chief meal of the day in the evening, and called it supper.

So here we go: supper. M-W's main entry says it's "the evening meal especially when dinner is taken at midday". Again we're out of luck: no lunch (because we were not dinner-eaters), no supper either (for the same reason). Fortunately M-W gives an alternate "a light meal served late in the evening" which at least allows us to eat (although not to the extent to which we became accustomed). OED? Hooray, trust the English to solve the problem: "The last meal of the day". But the notes on this entry are a bit discouraging: "....now applied to the last substantial meal of the day when dinner is taken in the middle of the day, or to a late meal following an early evening dinner.". There go our hopes: we didn't take dinner in the middle of the day (no supper for us there), and we didn't eat an early evening dinner (so couldn't follow it with supper). But wait, down the list of entries (after "fig. and allusively: to go to supper with the devil, to go to hell"), there's another option, "Supper: (US) Tea"

So here we go with tea. I'm not so stupid to be drawn in by references to the beverage made from tea leaves, and indeed M-W gives us another definition (another eating occasion definitely not followed by us breakfast-lunch-supper sorts), "a: refreshments usually including tea with sandwiches, crackers, or cookies served in late afternoon b: a reception at which tea is served". Well, I suppose our suppertime could be considered late afternoon, but we ate a heck of a lot more than sandwiches, crackers or cookies, and we sure didn't drink any tea. But the OED clears everything up. Tea can be "an ordinary afternoon or evening meal, at which the usual beverage is tea (but sometimes cocoa, chocolate, coffee, or other substitute" (I'm not sure whether our usual beverages such as orange juice would qualify), "but locally in the U.K. (esp. northern), and in Australia and N.Z., a cooked evening meal" Hooray! We've found it! All is saved as we eat tea for supper, like the Northerners, the Aussies and the Kiwis. But what's this? "In Jamaica, the first meal of the day". But I thought that was breakfast...

I should say something about elevenses, brunch, high tea, snacks, and whether a Sunday lunch is a dinner, a lunch or a tea, but I'm hungry and have to go eat something. I'm not sure what, though.
language
Friday, May 20, 2005 1:04:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [5]  | 
 Wednesday, May 18, 2005
St. Ignatius
St. Ignatius
St. Ignatius Catholic Church is the nearest of these to my home, and not technically on my commute unless I head the wrong way, but I thought I'd include it anyway. St. Ignatius was founded by the Jesuits in 1894 (although the chapel was replaced in 1903 with the present building, once again rendering my selection of dates suspect) and still remains a Catholic church (and primary school) today. It is a highlight of the neighborhood (according to the surely-unbiased Jesuits, but I think that's fair given the underwhelming surroundings). Apparently St. Ignatius is also blessed with an unusual organ (stop snickering, you in the back!). They offer a mass in Spanish once a week which strikes me as unusual given my perception of the ethnic mix of the area -- where are the Spanish shops and restaurants?! The Community of Servite Sisters (St. Mary's Convent) and St. Ursula's Convent are both in the immediate vicinity and associated with St. Ignatius.

Regarding St. Ignatius school (now primary only , according to Ofsted's 2001 inspection report (PDF) things had changed markedly since the previous inspection of 1999: The school was last inspected in February 1999 and found to have serious weaknesses in a number of key areas, including teaching, leadership and management and the spiritual and cultural development of its pupils. A visit by Her Majesty's Inspectorate in March 2000 reported that the school was making satisfactory progress towards addressing the issues, although some still remained, notably in leadership and management. Since then the school has made good progress towards addressing most of the issues and is well placed to make further improvements. Good, then, that's sorted.
travel
Wednesday, May 18, 2005 1:38:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
China Inland Mission
China Inland Mission

Here we return to the northwest corner of Newington Green to the China Inland Mission which I am fairly confident was built in 1872. The Mission was founded in 1865, in order to evangelize the whole of China (not just coastal areas), and is still in existence today as the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (administrative history here).

The founder and leader of the Mission was James Hudson Taylor (an exhaustive/exhausting biography from the 1930s can be found here, or perhaps a more accessible and certainly briefer one here), who made a radical move, dressing in Chinese style (including a pigtail, much to the derision of the coastal missionary clique), and encouraging his missionaries to do the same. The Boxer Rebellion (errr?) caused all sorts of difficulties for the mission, and Taylor died shortly thereafter. Another brief biography of Taylor can be found on the site of the Pacific Hills Christian School (Australia), where students are divided into Houses (Taylor, Elliot, Carey, Mueller) which map neatly onto the four Houses of a slightly more famous school system.

The Mission (by then OMF) moved out of the Newington Green site in favor of Sevenoaks in 1976 (the new location was selected due to the presence of retired workers in the area, I kid you not). at which time it was acquired by the Evangelical Alliance (but who were eventually unable to handle the costs of maintenance).

The building is now student housing (along with some more recent buildings tucked behind it).
travel
Wednesday, May 18, 2005 11:46:01 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Canonbury Square
Canonbury Square
The second picture in my quiz depicts north London's Canonbury Square. More specifically, 27 Canonbury Square, where George Orwell lived from 1944-48, after his St. John's Wood home was bombed. This period is described in much detail by Orwellologist Jackie Jura at Orwell Today, and with a collection of photos (including the interior) here. Orwell, however, was not the only prominent resident of this square. Evelyn Waugh lived at #17 from 1928-30 and wrote A Handful of Dust there after being cuckolded and divorced by his wife "She-Evelyn" (and Nancy Mitford apparently rented it from him in subsequent years). Samuel Phelps, perhaps best known for his work in traditional English theatre (putting on the works of Shakespeare in the days of melodrama) lived at #8 from 1844-67; Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant also lived there, although I am not sure exactly where or when (we non-subscribers are teased by the beginning of this History Today article).

As it turns out the date I listed for the construction of this square (1800) was not correct (although I am not alone in this error). According to british-history.ac.uk (perhaps a more definitive source than Evans Baker estate agency or londontourist.org), the square was not even laid out until 1805, so the date of building should perhaps be more like 1810-15. During the Waugh/Orwell period, much of the square was rented to *shudder* local tenants, but the situation changed after the war. Again according to british-history.ac.uk, "The new owners of part of the estate from 1952, Oriel Property Trust, stopped reletting to local tenants and began to rehabilitate Canonbury Square and its neighbourhood hoping to attract middle-class tenants. By 1961 Canonbury, the first area in Islington to be gentrified, had a higher concentration of professional and managerial residents than the rest of the borough."

Today it seems that some local tenants may be able to rent after all (findaproperty currently shows this property to let: 2 bedroom flat, partly furnished, and only £440 a week). Although I didn't find any properties for sale at the moment, the last 12 sales averaged £669,625 according to nethouseprices. This average is pulled down by some "cheap" flat sales: #1a, #2, First floor flat #4, Basement flat #11, #14b, #15a, #16a all sold for less than £400,000 (obviously the ghetto side of the square), while freehold terraced houses sold for £1.25m (#5), £1.5m (#46), £1.647m (#34) (all before 2003).
travel
Tuesday, May 17, 2005 10:07:33 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Unitarian Chapel
Unitarian Chapel
Unitarian Chapel, Newington Green, London (Built 1708, enlarged 1860). According to the Local London Timeline, it was built as the "Dissenters Chapel", at a cost of £200, and "is today the oldest non-conforming place of worship in London. Newington Green has been a center of non-conformist belief since the early days of the nonconformist tradition. A brief history can be found at the Newington Green Action Group's site (more detailed timeline is at British History Online).

There is no shortage of famous names with Newington Green connections. Just a few are Daniel Defoe, Richard Price (and many American revolutionaries who visited him there), Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Rogers, Samuel Wesley, Mary Wollstonecraft (and her daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) (and Abney Park Cemetery is full of other interesting residents). But perhaps the most famous was Henry VIII who apparently spent some time in the "Bishop's Palace" with a mistress or three.

Newington Green is the northeasternmost point on this walk (PDF format); see for a detailed timeline of the development of this area. An academic treatment of Dissent in the area can be found here.
travel
Tuesday, May 10, 2005 11:56:13 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Friday, May 06, 2005
Commuting Architecture Quiz
I've mentioned before that I'm rather obsessively refining my cycle commute, and there are so many alternatives and variables that simple gradient descent is just not going to work. I was thinking about documenting my efforts but just thinking about it bored me to tears -- if it had that effect on me, imagine how undesirable such a sequence of entries might be to someone else for whom fine-grained improvement offers little personal benefit. So instead I decided to take a different option which nonetheless relates to my commute. Below are pictured four buildings which are on (or near) my commuting route. Your task, dear reader, is to place the buildings in the order in which they were constructed and, if you wish, add a comment with your guesses (please make your decisions before looking at the comments, which may include answers). I have included the dates (in random order) below, and I'll write something about the buildings in a future entry.

A: B:
C: D:


Dates of construction are 1708, 1800, 1872, 1894.

Images A, B came from N16 magazine, Image C came from Westminster Yearbook; Image D was taken by Andy MacDonald
travel
Friday, May 06, 2005 2:42:00 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Thursday, May 05, 2005
Imropve Yuor Elcetion Agian!
Today is the long-awaited British election, although I have chosen not to vote. I am feeling alienated by the main political parties and find it hard to think positively about any career politician, while I get the impression that the smaller parties are focusing too heavily upon single issues (upon which I may or may not agree with them) at the expense of everything else. I'm also feeling personally neglected as I have not been visited by any candidates in search of my vote (there was a chance encounter with Diane Abbott [Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington] who was out pressing the flesh {in general, not mine} on Stoke Newington Church Street, but I do not live in her constituency). But the main reason I am not voting is that I'm not a legal voter in this country, so I'd have to steal someone's voting card, blag my way into the voting booth in one way or another, or practice some sort of interference upon other voters (perhaps deciding upon my vote, and then waylaying one voter for each alternative so that s/he is unable to vote, in which case it would be as if I had cast a vote myself). All too much hassle for my liking.

It's quite interesting to observe the differences between the UK and US election processes. In both cases there's plenty of zooming around by the candidates to make personal appearances in places where the vote is likely to be close (I suppose they believe that their pheromones [and/or body odor] will linger in the air until voting day, subconsciously nudging people to vote in their direction. Too bad it's windy today). But it seems to me like things are a lot less stage-managed in the UK : while candidates are full of catch phrases ("hard working families", "4th richest country in the world", etc.) just like US candidates, the UK candidates seem to be doing more one-on-one interviews with the press (and not just softball interviews either). There's an interesting article by Simon Schama about these sorts of differences: The country goes to the polls today after what many feel has been the most remote, unedifying election season ever. But when Simon Schama hit the campaign trail for the first time since he canvassed for Harold Wilson 40 years ago, the godless knockabout of British democracy felt like a breath of fresh air. And even Rousseau would have approved...
Thursday, May 05, 2005 11:54:15 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Zigni House
One real benefit of London life is the amazing range of restaurants of every possible sort. It can even be depressing, knowing there are too many good restaurants to have any chance of visiting them all. But even in the "low-priced" range1, there are a lot of really good options. Last night we visited one such place: Zigni House, an Eritrean restaurant on the Essex Road. We arrived fairly early so had the place mostly to ourselves (to be frank, a little cavernous and painfully quiet at the early hour). Although we had the option to order from the menu, how could we avoid the buffet option (£8)? After all this allowed us to avoid the most difficult decisions.

A staple of Eritrean (and Ethiopian) food is injera, a spongy, bubbly, slightly sticky bread. Most of the dishes are stews, served on injera (which soaks up the liquids quite nicely); injera is also the eating utensil (scoop up food with pieces of injera). Meat dishes include various preparations of chicken, lamb and beef, but we targeted the veggie side of the buffet. Heavy on lentils and potatoes, but that's not a bad thing at all as they were served in a great variety of sauces/stews. Unfortunately I didn't note the names of the dishes so the best I can do is to say that my favorites were the orange-colored lentil dish (preferred over the yellow or brown ones), and a spicy potato stew (possibly a veggie zigni). An Eritrean beer (Asmara) was on the menu so I had to try it. A decent lager with a slightly honeyed taste, I wouldn't go out of my way to have it again but certainly cannot complain. Previous reviews have complained about the level of service, but as we went on a very quiet night (the day after a bank holiday Monday) and ate from the buffet, we had no reason to complain.

1The concept of "low-priced", of course, is relative. London is awfully expensive (expensive enough that we found Tokyo restaurants unexpectedly reasonably-priced on our visit there), so my own notion of "low-priced" might not translate so well. When I say "low-priced", I'm thinking of a bill of about £10 per person (not counting drinks).

consume
Wednesday, May 04, 2005 11:26:45 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Tuesday, May 03, 2005
The Great Outdoors
This week-end was a long weekend (yesterday was the fabled "May Bank Holiday") so I had high hopes for all the exciting things or off-the-beaten-track delights I might be able to write about. Instead I caught the flu and sat around the house whining and coughing. Dressed only in a housecoat and slippers, and with my hair up in curlers. Therefore, here are some more cat pictures.

Zosi got to go outside this weekend. She spent a little bit of time sitting in the sun
Zosi in the sun

She spent a lot more time cautiously working her way through the wild underbrush.
Zosi in the flowers

Zosi in the flowers again

But most of her time was spent in a valiant effort to rid our garden of intruders (mostly snails and flies). Here she takes advantage of her natural camouflage to sneak up on a snail supply caravan.
Zosi stalking snails

beasts
Tuesday, May 03, 2005 12:42:50 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |