Roman trouble-making in Germania libera

For those interested, a post on my more historical blog about Roman-German confrontations post-AD 9. From around 300 Roman weapons are to be found in Norway (says Sigrid Undset in Saga of Saints), so I'm a little surprised at the surprise that a century earlier there was now and then something of a Roman military presence in Germany beyond the imperial frontiers.

(Update here)
If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...

Where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea

The most poetic and evocative line ever spoken on a children's television programme. OK, it's not Sigrid Undset, but it's as close as an eight year-old can want. I found an episode of Noggin the Nog on youtube but didn't embed it because the "related videos" include filth. I've flagged them and left a note for whoever is responsible for such things on youtube, but given their failure to act on eucharistic desecration videos I somehow don't hold out much hope of them doing anything about having put filth one mouseclick away from a children's programme ...

But now (updating an hour or two later) I see that In hoc signo vinces has found a "clean" version, so with thanks:

If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...

Oliver Postgate RIP

Or: how the computer ate my afternoon. Going online to check my email for a phone number, I saw an email notification of a comment on the blog; on the blog I saw that Outlandish Knight had put up a new post: Oliver Postgate, it seems, has died. I've been following links to online interviews and videos ever since.

Being a thirty-something Englishman with four young children and a DVD player, Oliver Postgate's name calls up more associations than I can easily define and distinguish - all of them pleasant. Never much of a fan of Ivor the Engine (although I remember some of my younger siblings enjoying it), I was a childhood devotee of Bagpuss, the Clangers, and (above all) Noggin the Nog. My own children love Bagpuss, which we have on DVD (why are these things not repeated on the box? they're far superior to lots of what gets broadcast!) It was only when watching Bagpuss with my children that I realized how deeply the characters, stories and songs had embedded themselves in my own psyche. It's surprising that nobody has yet come up with the Facebook application "Which Bagpuss character are you?"

So for those of you who have no idea what I'm on about:

If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

And for the occasion the Daily Gospel Online provides the text of a Marian hymn by Saint Ephraem (c.306-373), with the line "She suckled him who gives nourishment to the peoples". Dignity of breastfeeding and whatnot.
If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...

Belgian Cultural Festival in China (continued)

The day after my lecture I took off to go and visit the Great Wall, in company with three musicians, a lecturer, and a lecturer's spouse. We left before dawn, to avoid the rush. Before leaving I asked at the hotel desk whether it would be possible to get something from the kitchen to take with us. The girl at the desk told me that breakfast wouldn't be served until 8. I asked again if we could take something, bread rolls, apples, anything, that wouldn't need cooking or serving, and she told me that there was a shop around the corner, but it wouldn't be open. I asked at the desk rather than at the kitchen because my Chinese was hardly up to the task, but having met such stubborn unhelpfulness at the desk I ventured my Chinese in the kitchen, and left laden with slices of cake and a plastic bucket of cherry tomatoes. The cooks wouldn't let guests go hungry, whatever the night clerk might say. The Great Wall just after dawn, with no one else about, and in a blaze of autumnal scenery, is quite a sight.
If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...

比利时文化节

I've just been looking at an alternative view of the Belgian Cultural Festival in China. Can't say I'm much the wiser - must improve my Chinese!

The programme for the festival had the letters of my name in the wrong order, but I didn't much mind that. What did disappoint me was that there was also a lengthy Chinese transliteration. My Chinese name is 安博远, as I'd have been happy to say if anyone had asked, and I really would have liked the chance to use it properly.
If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...

Jesus grew in Mary's womb and was fed at Mary's breasts

A week ago I was in the church of St Martinus, in Sint-Martens-Bodegem, for the first time ever. I didn't have a camera with me, or I would have snapped a shot of the statue of a visibly pregnant Mary that stood before the altar. By chance there have been news reports about another such statue (it must be said, much more visibly pregnant) in America. And reading the report just linked to (following a link from this blog) I was struck (and it seems I was not the only one so struck) by the claim that representations of a pregnant or breastfeeding Mary were uncommon in art because considered undignified. (This is perhaps why there are so few images of Jesus being born in a stable or nailed to a cross?)

If such representations really are uncommon, I have been fortunate enough to see a disproportionate number. Not so very far from here is the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Halle, whose miracles were written up by none less than Neo-Stoic philosopher Justus Lipsius. The church is one of the very few in the Low Countries to retain anything of its medieval interior, thanks to the Virgin's saving it from the Calvinist forces who attempted to surprise the town in 1580.

And on wikimedia commons: the best such painting imaginable:



This is without even considering representations of pregnancy which "peep", such as this or this...
If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...

Note on previous post

This will give some idea of what the trio (Ensemble Sirocco) were performing. Nothing I know can give any idea of the music the choir was singing.
If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...