Today's the Day

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surprised you missed the birthdays on the 29th:

Mikis Theodorakis (94) - so much more than his film music. I went to a local record fair a few years ago and found LPs of 2 of his symphonies and the marvellous 'In a State of Siege'. A revelation.

Would that be the "Mikis Theodorakis" mentioned in the final comment "an Mikis Theodorakis is 94 today" in the "Birthdays" section on that day, by any chance?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It should be noted that St Neot, Cornwall has an unresolved issue with St Neots, Cambridgeshire! Circa 980AD the latter, or more precisely monks from Eynesbury, Cambs, stole the Cornish saint's bones from the church at St Neot to improve their own abbey's status and income, renaming it after the him. Hence the St Neots place-name, probably the only one outside Cornwall using the moniker of a Cornish saint. The monks then carelessly lost these irreplaceable relics at the Suppression of the Monasteries

Ruddy English, coming over here, taking our jobs and nicking our relics!

[Richard Tarleton]

It should be noted that St Neot, Cornwall has an unresolved issue with St Neots, Cambridgeshire! Circa 980AD the latter, or more precisely monks from Eynesbury, Cambs, stole the Cornish saint's bones from the church at St Neot to improve their own abbey's status and income, renaming it after the him. Hence the St Neots place-name, probably the only one outside Cornwall using the moniker of a Cornish saint. The monks then carelessly lost these irreplaceable relics at the Suppression of the Monasteries

Any bones will do -

He hadde a croys of latoun ful of stones,
And in a glas he hadde pigges bones.
But with thise relikes, whan that he fond
A poure person dwellynge upon lond,
Upon a day he gat hym moore moneye
Than that the person gat in monthes tweye;
And thus with feyned flaterye and japes
He made the person and the peple his apes.

-from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales - the Pardoner

[DracoM]

And the Pardoner is a crook, and Chaucer knows it too!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Any bones will do

Oy, sinful practices no doubt rife in England c.1380 shouldn't so casually be imputed to C10 Cornwall! (We wasn't English back then - some diehards would even say we ain't now)

Though if you're suggesting that the Eynesbury monks should have saved themselves a journey and made do with pig-bones. I might agree with you.

[LezLee]

Would that be the "Mikis Theodorakis" mentioned in the final comment "an Mikis Theodorakis is 94 today" in the "Birthdays" section on that day, by any chance?

Sod it, must have checked the wrong date.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yorkshire Day - initiated in 1975 by the Yorkshire Ridings Society in protest against the Local Government re-organisation of the previous year, which reset historic government boundaries - and don't ever go into a pub in Barnoldswick and call a toast "to Lancashire" (unless you can't afford the dental surgery that would result for free if you did). Celebrated this year in Whitby, there is a ceremony in which the Yorkshire Declaration of Integrity is read out:

I, Airedale ferney, declare
That Yorkshire is three Ridings and the City of York, with these Boundaries of [1144] years' standing; That the address of all places in these Ridings is Yorkshire; That all persons born therein or resident therein and loyal to the Ridings are Yorkshiremen and women; That any person or corporate body which deliberately ignores or denies the aforementioned shall forfeit all claim to Yorkshire status.

And Lammas Day - Nowt ... sorry ... Nothing to do with lambs, the name derives from the Old English hlafmaese, or "loaf mass", and is a celebration of the annual wheat harvest, around the midway point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox (actually, a bit early: it should be 6th/7th August). At one time ("in the olden days") also/alternatively known as "the Gule of August", from the Brythonic "gwyl", meaning "feast" or "festival", and the same root as "Yule" for the period around Christmas.

Also on This Date: Octavian recovers from his defeat by Mark Antony the previous day, and enters Alexandria - Antony's troops desert him and he commits suicide by stabbing himself with his own sword (30BCE); Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on Venuzuela (1498); the Stuart dynasty comes to an end with the death of Queen Anne - she is succeeded by her Second Cousin Once Removed, George, Elector of Hanover (1714 - James I was Anne's Grandfather, and George's Great-grandfather); the first Doggett's Coat & Badge Race for Watermen is held on the River Thames (from London Bridge to Chelsea, it is the oldest rowing race in the world, it is still held on this date annually); the Battle of Minden, one of a string of British military and political successes against the French in the annus mirabilis (1759); during a series of experiments, Joseph Priestley [Yorkshireman] independently discovers "dephlogisticated air" (1774 - later known as Oxygen, for which relief ... ); the Battle of the Nile begins with Nelson leading a surprise nighttime attack on the French fleet (1798); the Slavery Abolition Act, abolishing slavery - not just the Slave Trade - throughout the British Empire, comes into effect (1834 - just over a year after the death of its leading proponent, Yorkshireman William Wilberforce); the Landlord & Tenant [Ireland] Act, giving rights to tenants of Irish landlords receives Royal Assent (1870); the first ever Scout Camp, organised by Robert Baden-Powell, opens on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour (1907); Germany declares War on Russia in support of Austria-Hungary (1914); the first hostilities in the Chinese Civil War occur as the forces of the Chinese Communist Party take control of the city of Nanchang (1927); four communists involved in violent anti-Nazi demonstrations the year before are beheaded by the Nazis (1933); Adolf Hitler presides over the Opening Ceremony of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin (1936 - Nazi documentary filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl is there to film events); the first day of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupiers (1944 - on the same date, Anne Frank writes the last entry in her diary); the leaders of the pro-Nazi Russian Liberation Army are executed for treason in Moscow (1946 - on the same day, President Truman establishes the United States Atomic Energy Commission); Islamabad ["the city of Islam"] is founded as the government capital of Pakistan (1960); the first international Pop benefit concert is organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar on behalf of Bangladeshi refugees from the Bangladeshi Liberation War (1971 - Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and the band Badfinger all perform at two concerts in Madison Square Gardens, with Indian Classical Music performed by Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan; the event and associated recordings raises $12million - about £62million in today's values); Vigdís Finnbogadóttir becomes the first democratically-elected female Head of State when she wins the Icelandic Presidential Election (1980); Music Television [MTV] begins broadcasting with the video of the Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star (1981); a bombing of the Inglis Barracks in London kills one British soldier and injures 9 others in the first of a new wave of IRA bombings that will continue for the next 6 years (1988); the England Women's Cricket team win the World Cup, beating New Zealand by 67 runs (1993 - the first England team to win since the very first tournament twenty years earlier); A Game of Thrones, the first volume in George RR Martin's A Song of Fire & Ice series, is first published (1996).

... and, possibly, the date on which the reports later called The Domesday Book were presented to William I (1086 - where, amongst other fascinating facts about his kingdom, William could have learnt that "Hampstead is a pigsty").

Birthdays Today include: Benedetto Marcello (1686); Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744); Herman Melville (1819); Hans Rott (1858); Paul Horgan (1903); Jerome Moross (1913); Alan Moore (1914); Hannah Hauxwell (1926); Lionel Bart & Pierre Bourdieu (both 1930); James Gleick (1954); Augusta Read Thomas (1964); Sam Mendes (1965).

Final Days for: Aethelwold of Winchester (984); Peter Faber (1546, reputedly in the arms of Ignatius of Loyola); Franz Cramer (1848); Calamity Jane (1903); Edwin Austin Abbey (1911); Theodore Roethke (1963); Gian Francesco Malipiero (1973); John Amis & Toby Saks (both 2013); Villa Black (2015); ... and it is 30 years ago today that John Ogdon died.


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Wednesday, 1st August, 1979 were:

Your Midweek Choice: Poulenc Pno Conc; Mozart Sinfonia Concertante K364; Tallis Spem in Alium; Berwald Pno Conc in D; Delius Life's Dance.
Rural Rhymes read by Robin Holmes
This Week's Composer: Busoni (Konzertstuck; Vln Sonata #1; Rondo Arlecchinesco
Organ Recital by Huw Tregelles Williams, recorded at St mary's Church, Swansea (Daniel Jones Prelude: A Refusal to Mourn [first broadcast performance]; Mendelssohn Sonata #6. Op 65; William Mathias Variations on a Hymn Tune, Op 20.
James Galway & Colin Tilney: CPE Bach Sonata in G, Wq 85; JS Bach Sonata in b, BWV 1030)
Robin Holloway: Lights Out, 4 poems by Edward Thomas; In the Thirtieth Year, 5 poems by JV Cunningham; Author of Light, 4 songs to Jacobean Texts; The Leaves Cry, 2 poems by Wallace Stevens & Christina Rossetti (each cycle preceded by readings of the texts by Tome Crowe & Patricia Hughes)

[vinteuil]

.

... and 1 August also sees the annual reappearance of the fairy from Llyn y Fan Fach (near Llanddeusant in Dyfed), who married a mortal on condition that if he struck her three times she would leave him. He struck her once for laughing at a funeral, again for weeping at a wedding, and a third time by accident; but before departing she gave books of medical lore to her sons, the ancestors of the renowned physicians of Myddfai; the legend of their skill, and its supernatural origin, is the basis for Peter Maxwell Davies's opera The Doctor of Myddfai (libretto by David Pountney), first performed in 1966. Pilgrimages were made to the lake on the first Sunday in August.

And in Ireland, lá Lughnasa, the day of Lughnasadh, the harvest games in honour of Lugh, god of light and genius, in Gaulish Lugos, in Welsh Lleu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lughnasadh

.

[Bryn]

.

... and 1 August also sees the annual reappearance of the fairy from Llyn y Fan Fach (near Llanddeusant in Dyfed), who married a mortal on condition that if he struck her three times she would leave him. He struck her once for laughing at a funeral, again for weeping at a wedding, and a third time by accident; but before departing she gave books of medical lore to her sons, the ancestors of the renowned physicians of Myddfai; the legend of their skill, and its supernatural origin, is the basis for Peter Maxwell Davies's opera The Doctor of Myddfai (libretto by David Pountney), first performed in 1966. Pilgrimages were made to the lake on the first Sunday in August. . . .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

.

... and 1 August also sees the annual reappearance of the fairy from Llyn y Fan Fach (near Llanddeusant in Dyfed), who married a mortal on condition that if he struck her three times she would leave him. He struck her once for laughing at a funeral, again for weeping at a wedding, and a third time by accident; but before departing she gave books of medical lore to her sons, the ancestors of the renowned physicians of Myddfai; the legend of their skill, and its supernatural origin, is the basis for Peter Maxwell Davies's opera The Doctor of Myddfai (libretto by David Pountney), first performed in 1966. Pilgrimages were made to the lake on the first Sunday in August.

And in Ireland, lá Lughnasa, the day of Lughnasadh, the harvest games in honour of Lugh, god of light and genius, in Gaulish Lugos, in Welsh Lleu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lughnasadh

I visited Myddfai about 15 years ago - there wasn't much to commemorate the village's folklore fame (although, IIRC, there was one of those "restoration" programmes on TV a few years later in which there was a bid to improve the village hall ... didn't hear what became of that).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

2nd August

Azerbaijani Day of Cinema - a National Holiday, initiated in 2000, for professional filmmakers. ("No, honestly - I really am just resting today!")

Also on This Date: the Battle of Cannae, in which Carthaginian leader Hannibal defeats a much larger force of the Roman Army (216 BCE); William II is killed by a "stray" arrow whilst hunting in the New Forest (1100 - he is accompanied by his brother, who immediately succeeds him as King Henry I); Henry Hudson discovers and explores the Bay in Canada which today bears his name (1610); the copy of the US Declaration of Independence currently housed in the National Archives in Washington is signed (1776); the Battle of the Nile ends in victory for the British Navy (1798); the Government of India Act, dissolving the British East India Company and transferring the Company's powers to the British Crown, is given Royal Assent (1858); the world's first Underground Railway opens by Tower Hill in London (1870 - the cable-drawn railway is an economic failure, and the route is turned into a pedestrian walkway before the end of the year; the Tunnel closes completely in 1898, and is now used for water mains); the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco is more successful - the world's first cable-hauled railway, it opens today in 1873, and continues running until 1942; the Siege of the British Garrison in Makaland is relieved after a week (1897); Germany invades neutral Luxembourg as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France (1914); the first General Strike in Canadian history occurs in Vancouver after Conscription-refuser and Labor Activist is shot dead by police (1918); the Universal Negro Improvement Association holds its first National Convention in maddison Square Gardens, during which Marcus Garvey delivers his "Back to Africa" speech, calling for a black people living as slaves abroad to "return" to Africa (1920); US President Warren Harding dies in Office, and is replaced by Vice President Calvin Coolidge (1923); German President Paul von Hindenburg dies in Office, and is replaced by Chancellor Adolf Hitler (1934); Carl David Anderson discovers the Positron (1932 - he receives the Nobel Prize for his discovery four years later - the same year in which he discovers the Muon); Albert Einstein sends a letter to President Roosevelt warning that Nazi Germany might develop atomic weapons and urging him to start a US Nuclear Programme (1939 - the letter is signed by Einstein, but has been largely written by Leo Szilard); 700 Jewish prisoners at the Treblinka Extermination Camp in Poland mount a 30-minute uprising - most of them are killed by machine gun fire, 200 escape - but around half of these are killed after being captured (1943 - on the same day, US Patrol Torpedo Boat PT-109 is sunk by a Japanese Destroyer: all but 2 of the crew is saved by its commanding officer, future president, Lieutenant John Fitzgerald Kennedy); the largest Convoy of the two World Wars safely reaches Britain from Canada (1944 - 166 ship carrying cargos of armaments, grain, flour, oil ... and quite a lot of sugar); the fortnight-long Potsdam Conference comes to an end (1945); Norman Jewison's film In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier & Rod Steiger, is released (1967); the British Army start to use rubber bullets for riot control in Northern Ireland(1970); 3 boys, enjoying an illicit fag in a kiosk next to the Summerland leisure centre on the Isle of Man cause a fire that destroys the centre, killing at least 50 people and seriously injuring 80 others (1973); Pakistan is allowed to return to the Commonwealth of Nations (1989 - it had been expelled in 1972 following the military coup - on the same day, 64 Tamil citizens in the Sri Lankan village of Valvettiturai are murdered by soldiers belonging to the Indian Peace Keeping Force); Iraqi troops invade Kuwait, initiating Gulf War 1 (1990); M Night Shyamalan's film The Sixth Sense is premiered at the Prince Theater in Philadelphia (1999); ... and, this time last year, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reveals that the Tokyo Medical University has been deliberately lowering the Entrance Exam scores of women applicants to ensure that women student numbers are kept below 30%.

Birthdays Today include: Saskia van Uylenburgh (later "Mrs Rembrandt" - 1612); Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten (1627); Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834); Ernest Dowson (1867); Marianne Weber (1870); Arthur Bliss (1891); Jack L Warner (1892); Bertha Lutz (1894); Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905); Alan Whicker (1921); James Baldwin (1924); Peter O'Toole (1932); Anthony Payne (1936); Isabel Allende (1942); Rose Tremain (1943); Andy Fairweather Low (1948).

Final Days for: Oswald von Wolkenstein (1445); Thomas Gainsborough (1788); Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier (the younger of the brothers who invented the hot air balloon - 1799); "Wild Bill" Hickok (1876); Hamish MacCunn (1916); Enrico Caruso (1921); Alexander Graham Bell (1922); Emil von Reznicek & Pietro Mascagni (both 1945); Wallace Stevens (1955); Paul Goodman (1972); Fritz Lang (1976); Carlos Chavez (1978); Raymond Carver (1988); Norman Maclean (1990); William S Burroughs (1997); Shari Lewis (1998); Ferenc Berényi (2004).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for Wednesday, 2nd August 1989 were:

Morning Concert: Mozart Horn 5tet; Gluck Dance of the Blessed Spirits; Boyce Symph #2 in A; Britten Simple Symphony; Dvorak Prague Waltzes; Strauss Duet Concertino.
Composers of the Week: Roussel (Bacchus & Ariadne Suite #2) & Dutilleux (Le Loup, Symphonic Fragments).
Bach's Leipzig Cantatas - 2nd of 3 programmes (BWVs 19 & 197).
Violin & Piano: Krzysztof Smietana & John Blakely play Rubbra's 2nd Sonata & Szymanowski/Kochanski's Danse Payanne.
Midweek Choice: Gretry Le Magnifique Ovt; Berlioz Bevenuto Cellini Act 1, scene iii; Beethoven Piano Concerto in D (after Vln Conc); Dvorak Bagatelles Op 47; Mozart Divertimento K188; Dyson In Honour of the City.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

3rd August

The Feast Day of St Waltheof of Melrose, younger son of the Earl of Northampton, he became Abbot of Melrose in 1148, and died there 11 years later. It's a sign of the changing attitudes in post-Norman times that the stories of miraculous events occurring after the saint's death - rife in Anglo-Saxon times - were discouraged by Waltheof's successor as Abbot, William, with increasing irritation and decreasing effectiveness, so that William lost all respect and had to resign his post, to be replaced by Jocelyn, who positively revelled in promoting Waltheof's saintliness. Waltheof is the Patron Saint of Northampton, and of Melrose - a beautiful Scottish town, South of the English town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the home town of Walter Scott - and one of the many reputedly final resting places of King Arthur.

Also on This Date: Frankish kings Louis III & his brother Carloman II defeat the Viking army at the battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu (881); Columbus sails the ocean blue for the first time (1492); German astronomer David Fabricius begins observations of the star Mira in the constellation Ceta (1596 - 3 weeks later, it has increased in brightness, six weeks later it had disappeared from view, reappearing in February the next year, he has discovered the first Variable Star); the Teatro alla Scala opens in Madrid with a performance of Salieri's opera Europa Riconosciuta (1778); Rossini's last Opera, William Tell is premiered ["all of it"] at the Paris Opera, conducted by Henri Valentino (1829 - the title role taken by Henri-Bernard Dabadie: a name more suited for the role of Gesler); the first US Boatrace between Harvard & yale Universities is won by the former (1852); the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company opens in Nashville, Tennessee (1900); British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey comments to John Alfred Spender [editor of the Westminster Gazette] as they watch the lamps on the Mall being lit "the lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time" (1914); the first aerial spraying of crops with chemical insecticides is recorded in Dayton, Ohio (1921); Jesse Owens wins the first of his 4 Gold Medals at the Berlin Olympics (1936 - for the 100 metre dash; silver medal goes to another black American untermensch, Ralph Metcalfe - the representative of the Master Race comes fifth [out of 6 competitors]); US General Patton, who believes that "shell-shock" is "an invention of the Jews", slaps Private Charles Kuhl [diagnosed with "exhaustion" and also suffering from malaria] across the face and calls him a "coward", then literally kicks him out of the medical tent telling the "gutless bastard" that he's going back to the Front (1943 - Patton repeats his behaviour exactly a week later on Private Paul Bennett" - "I won't have these cowardly bastards hanging around our hospitals. We'll probably have to shoot them some time anyway, or we'll raise a breed of morons"); the world's first themed Amusement Park, Santa Claus Land, opens in the town of Santa Claus in Indiana (1946 - renamed Holiday World & Splashin' Safari in 1984, it is still open for business); Whittaker Chambers names Alger Hiss as a member of the Communist Party after being subpoenaed to appear before a House Un-American Activities committee (1948); USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine becomes the first submarine to complete a submerged transit of the North Pole (1958); the Tandy Corporation TRS-80 Microcomputer System, one of the first mass-marketed Personal Computers, goes on sale (1977 - for the next five years it is the best-selling PC); Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven is premiered at the Mann Bruin Theater in Los Angeles (1992); the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, closed since September 11th, 2001, reopens to the public (2004); Isabel Allende receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barrack Obama in a ceremony at the White House (2015).

Birthdays Today include: Joseph Paxton (1803); Rupert Brooke (1887); John T Scopes (1900); PD James (1920); Leon Uris (1924); Tony Bennett (1926); Michael Chapman (1934); Edward Petherbridge (1936); Steven Berkoff (1937); Terry Wogan (1938); Martin Sheen (1940); John Landis (1950).

Final Days for: Grinling Gibbons (1720); Giovanni Battista Martini (1784); Richard Arkwright (1790); Joseph Conrad (1924); Emil Berliner (1929); Colette (1954 - "I've had a wonderful life. I only wish I'd realized this sooner"); Lenny Bruce (1966); Ida Lupino (1995); Alfred Schnittke (1998); Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (2006); Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (2008).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Sunday, 3rd August, 1969 were:

What's New? "a programme of recent records" [looks like the sole work included was the Colin Davis Berlioz Te Deum].
Bach Cantatas: Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht BWV 105; Suite #2 in b BWV 1067
Orchestras of the World: Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
Artist's Choice: Moura Lympany introduces a personal selection of records.

[ahinton]

Today is also Anthony Payne's birthday...

[Joseph K]

Today is also Anthony Payne's birthday...

It says so in Ferney's last but one post.

[ahinton]

It says so in Ferney's last but one post.

Ah, I didn't see that one! Many thanks!