Please move along quietly, there is nothing to see here

In response to precisely no queries at all, I feel it is my duty to explain (make excuses) to loyal Accordingianists the long and unaccustomed silence that has befallen this august corner of Interwebshire.

Sadly, owing to circumstances entirely beyond the bounds of what may be considered fair or just, your humble correspondent has, during this difficult epoch that history will surely remember as The Great Crunch, been cruelly deprived of his lucrative post as Keeper of Discipline at a venerable finishing school for Wayward Young Ladies.

After consulting with prominent but fictional medical specialists, I have determined that I am presently suffering from an acute malaise, brought on by a surfeit of leisure. For some months now I have neglected to open a single volume of the dear old Ninth, instead primarily occupying my time by banjo picking, board game playing, and reading the most lurid pulp fiction and revolting Victorian pornography that I can find to download from the wonderful (free) Manybooks website.

Whilst I would not wish to seek any justification for these utterly contemptible activities, I am nonetheless drawn, in the manner of a schoolboy who peels back a dirty plaster to reveal the purple, pus-filled scab on his elbow, to share the leprous fruits of my unwholesome obsession. Until such time as I am fit and well to re-enter the society of learned and polite gentlemen, I may be found ranting and terminally digressing at an altogether more suitable environment, WHEN SUPER-APES ATTACK. Should my sleep become restful and my waking hours once more lucid and calm, ACCORDING TO THE NINTH may yet return to active duty. For the present, file as INACTIVE. Thank you.

49. When did you last paint your father?

Gripping news on page 3 of yesterday’s Guardian , finally ending years of fevered speculation, with “Constable’s parents finally identified.” Reading the article, one learns that the curators of an exhibition of Constable’s portraits at the National Gallery believe that two early paintings previously thought to be of other subjects might, following what was know doubt a very considered and painstaking process of academic enquiry, show his mother and father. Father, being a painting of a proud and grumpy looking man has inspired Constabologist Anne Lyles to imagine him as “barely having the patience to sit for him, snapping ’Oh get on with it!’” The far more lifeless portrait of ‘mother’ for some reason suggests her devotion and “willingness to sit for hours.”

Naturally, one turns to CONSTABLE, John in the ninth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica for further insight into what may be the most unexpected revelation about an English landscape painter's parentage to have hit the newspapers on a slow news day in living memory.

“Under the guidance of a certain John Dunthorne, a plumber, he acquired in early life some insight into the first principles of landscape art, together with a habit of studying in the open air that was afterwards of much service to him. His father, who was a yeoman farmer, did not care to encourage this tendency, and set him to work in one of his windmills. […]”

Initially, this appears to further support the National Gallery’s theory. I can certainly see the disapproval in the face of Constable’s ‘father,’ and can indeed almost hear him grumbling “Harrumph, your time would be better spent in a windmill, sir.”

And yet, might that not be the face of a proud plumber, contemplating the bucolic glories of the English landscape, whilst yet breathing the disagreeable vapours of a particularly badly-blocked drain?

One can only hope not, as the last thing our great land needs at this troubled moment in its history is an academic scandal of such unthinkable proportions. Accordingianists who may be contemplating a visit to the National Gallery, are asked to consider the state of the nation before venturing the opinion "Constable's father? Plumber, more like."

48. ii) Progressing to cosmopolitanism

Who could have predicted that, less than a year after boldly promising "British jobs for British people," Mr Brown would have his words come back to bite him in his prudently ample arse? That such an innocuous phrase might be interpreted by some as "Read my lips : no new jobs for Johnny Foreigner"? Listening to various government bods arguing the semantics of the Caledonian Charmer's rhetoric on Radio 4's Westminster Hour helped shorten a motorway drive through the falling snow last night, and the consequent cockle-warmth provided for the heart is much appreciated in the unseasonably seasonable weather we are currently experiencing.

As well as containing fascinating insights into the continent's bugs and critturs, EB9's EUROPE article finds time to remark on the phenomena of Nationalism : then a novel concept, as yet unsullied by darker notions.

"We have seen that nationalism is powerfully at work ; the tendency to give practical application in the political domain to the principal familiarly expressed in the phrase qui se ressemble s'assemble, birds of a feather flock together. The so-called nations of Europeare still in painful process of formation, -some in one stage and some in another, but all without exception very imperfectly organinized."

Imperfectly organized? One hundred and thirty years later, it is difficult to recognize the Europe so described. (For the benefit of younger readers, please insert a winking smiley face here).

"As a mere vocable the word nation is old enough, but the thought which it now expresses is a thought that men are but beginning to think. Europe has had its tribes and its kingdoms, its village-communities, its cities, its Achaean leagues, its Hanseatic confederations, its republics, its empires ; it is only developing its nations. [...] [The priciple of nationalism] sometimes appears as a restorative and conservative, sometimes as an innovating and creative force ; and any attempt to insist that it shall be exclusively this or that is certain to be abortive. Here it is on the side of the weak and oppressed, and seems humane and benign ; there on the side of the strong and despotic, and seems stern and cruel. In spite of all difficulties and opposition it is making rapid progress, and is likely to be a powerful factor in Europe for generations to come,-building up political unities, rehabilitating decadent languages, and calling new literatures into life. Greece and Italy, Belgium and Bohemia, Hungary and Roumania, are testimonies of its power in the past decades of the century : who will say what it will have accomplished before the century is done?"

Here, however, is another concept to consider, at a time when more Britons than ever are employed in and doing business with our neighbours on the continental mainland, whilst others struggle to come to terms with alien sausages and jam finding their way onto supermarket shelves, and skilled, literate workers from the Czech Republic and Poland unaccountably fill jobs that somebody who struggles with the motivation to sign on once a fortnight might otherwise have occupied:

"As a natural complement of nationalism we have internationalism, which in certain aspects may be regarded a stage in the progression to cosmopolitanism. Just in proportion as the various nations develop and recognize their national individuality they become conscious of their true relations to each other, and find the necessity of regulating their mutual intercourse and common activity ; isolation is impossible. Reciprocity must increase with the capabilities and desires of each : there are many things which can be attained only by concerted action or division of labour."

The phrase "division of labour" was clearly intended differently from the association which now forms in my mind when considering Europe and the notion that "reciprocity must increase with the capabilities and desires of each." Here's a thought for all the noble demagogues from UKIP contemptuously filing their expense claims as MEPs in Brussels:

"The tendency of internationalism is displayed in the purely political domain by the growth of international law, and the gradual endeavours after a system by which international disputes may be settled by arbitration and discussion rather than by armaments and devastation. That it will end before long in something like a confederation of European states the optimist believes and the philanthropist hopes. Every European congress familiarizes the idea and establishes the habit."

If the term "before long" can be taken to mean "after one hundred years and two world wars," then both optimist and philanthropist would have cause for celebration. Nonetheless, H. A. Webster's vision remains inspiring, now that it has in many respects been realized.

"In the social domain, the tendency is equally potent. Facilities of travel and accumulation of wealth are annually leading a greater proportion of the citizens of one country to make personal acquaintance with the citizens of another. Ignorance and bigotry are naturally lessened, though there are indeed an ignorance and a bigotry which return from abroad more ignorant and bigoted than before."

A statement with which I would expect we can all readily concur, requiring no heavy-handed references to stag weekends, easy jet, nor the Twilight Zone facility of finding egg and chips on the Costa del Sol and tapas in the East End of London.

Vive l'Europe.

48. Inconspicuous, unostentatious, but hardly insignificant

"Insects do not play so conspicuous and ostentatious a part in Europe as in some of the warmer regions of the globe ; it is only in special localities or exceptional seasons that their destructive or irritating influence becomes formidable to man. There are not many towns like Fasano, where the inhabitants have in summer to leave their usual residences to the occupancy of flies ; and if the European horticulturist has a hard battle to fight with caterpillars, earwigs, and wasps, he generally succeeds in gaining a fair crop after all.

[...]The three insects of the greatest economic importance are the silk-moth, the bee, and the cantharis. The silk-worm, since its introduction in the 6th century, has become an important object of cultivation in Italy, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain, and Portugal, and has even proved remunerative in Prussia, Bavaria, and central Russia ; and recently a new species from Japan, which feeds on the oak and not on the mulberry, has been successfully reared in the Baltic provinces. Bee-keeping is an extensive industry in Italy, France, Switzerland, Russia, and Sweden ; and in Greece, the tax on bees furnishes £1600 to the revenue. The cantharis is a native, not only of Spain, as its popular name of Spanish fly imports, but also of France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and South Russia, and even occurs in the south of England."

I hope that the above extract from the extensive EUROPE article, by H. A. Webster, in volume 8, can be of practical use to regular readers of this blog. You will now be able to remark, should the occasion justify, that the town of Fasano is given over to the occupation of flies in summer. If conversation is lagging, or idleness threatens mischief, ask your companions, charges, or fellow passengers on the omnibus, whether they can name the three most profitable insects in Europe. They are sure to struggle to think of the Spanish fly, and should they name the bee, you can concur with the observation that it has on occasion furnished a significant contribution to the Greek exchequer.

47. A sufficient residuum of sea-serpents

Readers contemplating a sea voyage may be reassured by the accompanying figures from the article SEA-SERPENT by W. E. Holmes, M.A., of the "Challenger" Expedition Office. Figure 2 is (Admiral?) Bing's drawing of the sea-serpent reported by the "well-known missionary to Greenland" Hans Egede ; figure 3 shows how a squid rearing out of the water and spouting a jet of water could easiy be mistaken for the same.

Mr Holmes' article, complete with numerous footnotes referencing a wide selection noted journals and publications, offers nine explanations for the sea-serpent phenomena. Seven of these rely upon the observer mistaking some other creature for a giant aquatic worm (porpoises, basking sharks, a flight of sea-fowl skimming the surface, ribbon fish, sea-lions, sea weed, our friend the giant squid), options eight and nine are more intriguing.

"(8) A pleiosaurus, or some other of the huge marine reptiles usually believed to be extinct, might certainly have produced the phenomena described, granting the possibility of one having survived to the present time. Newman and Gosse have both supported this theory, the former citing as evidence in its favour the report of a creature with the body of an alligator, a long neck, and four paddles having been seen by Captain Hope of H.M.S. "Fly" in the Gulf of California. (9) No satisfactory explanation has yet been given of certain descriptions of the sea-serpent ; among others of this class may be mentioned the huge snake seen by certain of the crew of the "Pauline" in the South Atlantic Ocean, which was coiled twice round a large sperm whale, and then towered up many feet into the air, and finally dragged the whale to the bottom. Perhaps the most remarkable, however, is Lieutenant Hayne's account of a creature seen from H.M. yacht "Osborne." Two different aspects were recorded,-the first being a ridge, 30 feet in length, of triangular fins, each rising 5 to 6 feet above the water, while the second view showed a large round head 6 feet in diameter, with huge flappers, which moved like those of a turtle. It would thus appear that, while, with very few exceptions, all the so-called "sea-serpents" can be explained by reference to some well-known animal or other natural object, there is still a residuum sufficient to prevent modern zoologists from denying the possibility that some such creature may after all exist."

46. The octave of Christmas Day

"NEW YEAR'S DAY. The first day (calends) of January, as marking the beginning of the year, was observed as a public holiday in Rome from at least the time of the Julian reformation of the calendar. Ovid (Fas., i. 63 sq.) alludes to the abstinence from litigation and strife, the smoking altars, the white-robed processions to the Capitol ; and later writers describe the exchanges of visits, the giving and receiving of presents (strenae), the masquerading, and the feasting with which the day was in their time celebrated throughout the empire. [...]

"When about the 5th century the 25th of December had gradually become a fixed festival commemorative of the Nativity, the 1st January ultimately also assumed a specially sacred character as the octave of Christmas Day and as the anniversary of the circumcision of our Lord, and as such it still figures in the calendars of the various branches of the Eastern and of the Western Church, though only as a feast of subordinate importance. The practice of giving and receiving "strenae" for luck about the beginning of the year survives in such institutions as the French "jour d'étrennes" and the Scottish "Handsel Monday." The Persians also, it may be mentioned, celebrated the beginning of the year (nev-ruz) by exchanging presents of eggs."

From vol. 17 (Motanabbi - Ormuzd) of the ninth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1884).

Henceforth I will be celebrating the octave of my birthday on the 1st of November, and will be expecting strenae, thank you.

45. Where the "old honour" has not altogether fled

"CHRISTMAS DAY (French, Noel from Dies natalis ; German Weihnachtsfest ; Old Eng. and Scand. Yule ; Ang.-Sax., Geol), a festival of the Christian church, observed on the 25th of December, in memory of the birth of Jesus Christ. There is, however, a difficulty in accepting this as the date of the Nativity, December being the height of the rainy season in Judea, when neither flocks nor shepherds could have been at night in the fields of Bethlehem."

Indeed, and this fact is well worth pointing out before we all get carried away by the peculiar joys of the season.

"It is generally considered to rank third among the festivals of the church (Easter and Whitsuntide alone being placed above it) and to have a joy peculiarly its own.

In all civilized countries the annual recurrence of Christmas has been celebrated with festivities of various kinds."

What would be helpful, one supposes, is if there were a particular civilized country whose festivities were most worthy of consideration.

"In none, however, was it more joyfully welcomed than in England, where even still the "old honour" has not altogether fled. In that country it was the custom on Christmas eve, after the usual devotions were over, to light large candles and throw on the hearth a huge log, called the Yule Log or Christmas Block. At court, and in the houses of the wealthy, an officer, named the Lord of Misrule, was appointed to superintend the revels ; and in Scotland a similar functionary used to be appointed under the title of the Abbot of Unreason, till the year 1555, when the office was abolished by Act of Parliament."

We are more fortunate in modern times to be blessed by a parliament that has returned the promotion of fun and jollity to the duties of government, in the person of the Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP and his Department for Culture Media and Sport.

"The reign of the Lord of Misrule began on All-Hallow eve, and lasted till Candlemas day. The favourite pastimes over which he presided were gaming, music, conjuring, dipping for nuts and apples, dancing, fool plough, hot cockles, blind-man's buff, &c. ; and various Christian preachers (as, for instance, St Bernard) have taken occasion to remonstrate with their flocks for paying too great attention to the festive character of the season, and too little to its more solemn aspects. The favourite dishes for breakfast and supper at this season were the boar's head with an apple or orange in the mouth, and set off with rosemary, plum pudding, and mince pies. The house and churches were decked with evergreens, especially with mistletoe, to which a traditional sacredness has been attached since the days of the Druids."

Now, if you will forgive me, I have revels to superintend. Best wishes of the season to one and all!