To most of us from an Anglophone background Easter consists of a glut of chocolate eggs, magic bunny rabbits, Easter egg hunts and reruns of “von Ryan’s Express” or “The Greatest Story Ever Told” featuring John Wayne’s epic performance as a Roman centurion muttering the immortal words, “Surely this man was the son of God” or for those more religiously inclined church services celebrating the death and resurrection of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, followed by the aforementioned activities
However in the Czech Republic this is not how Easter is celebrated, granted that even in this most atheist of countries some people do celebrate Easter as a religious feast and attend mass at church but for the large majority, the pagan symbols and celebrations hold more sway much as they do in the UK.
Recently I have started to follow a fellow WordPress user, ALK3R I came across his blog through the Notey site. His page is very interesting and I think full of inspiration I especially like the sections on photography, travel photography in particular. The article about the best drone photography competition is a favourite of mine and really contains some truly exceptional and inspirational images captured by drones from all around the world.I recommend you check it out here.
I have enjoyed very much dipping in and out of Mark Forsyth’s (of The Inky Fool) excellent book “The Horologicon” if you have an interest in obscure and dead terms I advise you to pick up a copy. Over the course of this week it has taught me many new and I must say fascinating words, which although I may not drop into normal conversations it is a pleasure to learn something new. I also have one class of students who like it when I give them three unusual words each week, this book has been kind enough to furnish me with several of them.
As I was cooking a nice piece of salmon this week it massively splattered oil over my trousers as I turned it over, leaving a rather unsightly grease stain just above the knee, which in spite of several washing attempts it stubbornly refused to be removed, it just wouldn’t wash away. It was unwashawayable or to take a term from page 26 of this book, it was illutible. It is really surprising that more words exist to cover situations than perhaps we even knew existed.
日本庭園 or nihon teien means Japanese garden. In my search for the interesting, inspirational and beauty of life I think these need a mention. As places of such serene peace and stunning beauty that celebrate nature in a way that inspires, calms and lifts us up. During the hectic days when we forget to stop and take in the world around us, perhaps we could at least pause to look at some pictures that demonstrate a human ode to the wonder of nature, be they flowers, rocks and so on. Here is a small collection for you to enjoy I hope it brings you an element of peace and inspiration:
During these dark winter days we need something to brighten up our lives a taste of summer and for me the following tune perfectly encapsulates the feeling of an English summer and raises me up. My hats off to you Ronald Binge . Enjoy:
A friend of mine told me today that they are not OK. I do not know what is wrong or what the problem is, I so much would like to help them but they seem to prefer to suffer alone. It is quite a helpless feeling when someone you care for is unhappy so I will post another poem that lifts me up and I hope if they read this some of the words will help them too:
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make a heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Whilst rummaging around the free books on offer online I happened upon what I think is a real gem of a bygone age. The book in question is “The Gentlemen’s Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness” which is available for free download on Project Gutenberg. The book is written by American Florence Hartley under the pseudonym Cecil B Hartley. It would be considered terribly political incorrect but it was a different time for better or worse and I think that if we can appreciate what would be considered wrong today we should be able to chuckle a little at the ‘ignorance’ of our forebears.
There re several exerts from this book that are worthy of a mention perhaps I will add some more in a later post but for today I have chosen the passage below from chapter four, Etiquette in the Street. It definitely highlights the attitudes of its time however, I think there is some effort being made towards more tolerant society which sadly even today we are some way off achieving especially with the latest setbacks in the US and the UK.
“A true gentleman never stops to consider what may be the position of any woman whom it is in his power to aid in the street. He will assist an Irish washerwoman with her large basket or bundle over a crossing, or carry over the little charges of a distressed negro nurse, with the same gentle courtesy which he would extend toward the lady who was stepping from her private carriage. The true spirit of chivalry makes the courtesy due to the sex, not to the position of the individual.”
I thought it might be fun to have a regular entry based on the things I learn each week. A kind of personal record of things that I find interesting that I never knew before.It has been an ambition of mine to try and learn something new each day, sometimes I succeed sometimes not but over the course of one week I will definitely learn new things and either I will choose one or a small selection and post it here.
This weeks choice came about through reading a book on classical mythology. I learned that our word myth actually comes from the Greek word mythos which I suppose is no real surprise especially as very often when we use the term myth or mythology it is preceded by the word Greek.
What interested me was the plethora of meanings the word mythos covers including but not limited to fiction, saying, tale, word, story and perhaps most interesting of all, fact. It seems ironic to me that a word we equate with fiction also meant fact. I am curious as to how one word can have two meanings which are directly opposed to each other. Imagine the confusion it must have caused in the amphitheatres of the ancient Greek states.
.
There is a mythos about a Greek tragedian called Aeschylus who died around 456 or 455 BC from being hit by a tortoise which in turn had been dropped by an eagle who had mistaken Aeschylus’ bald head for a rock on which to crack open the tortoise shell in order to consume it. A strange story and a somewhat ironic end to a tragedian, but the main question for me is whether this mythos is 100% mythos or just plain old mythos.
I spend a lot of my life looking for inspiration, things of interest or general mental escape from the day to day. Perhaps this is not the right attitude to have but I feel when I find this escapism however short it is a small window into the beauty of life, whether it is the visual in the form of art of auditory in the form of music or other things like literature or inspiring true stories or just the immense and dazzling kaleidoscope of nature.
It is easy to let things get you down, but we are surrounded by boundless beauty which we should focus on and not on the ugliness which unfortunately is also present. I sometimes wonder if negativity is just the easier option, sadly that could be true. One of the purposes of me starting this blog is to seek out and search for beauty, inspirational, funny and generally positive things that I come across in the course of my life. It is essentially a release for me but if in some way, no matter how small it also gives some joy to others then it will feel even more worthwhile.
Years ago I read “Cosmos” and “The Pale Blue Dot” by Carl Sagan. You may or may not have read them yourself. Whenever I begin to question what I can only describe as ‘everything’ I think back to the words Sagan wrote in “The Pale Blue Dot” as I find they put ‘everything’ in perspective for me and I once more feel inspired and at ease with it all. In 2017 we find ourselves facing even more uncertain times than at almost any other time during the course of my life. I can not help but feel the world would be a better place if we had more Carl Sagans in it and sadly the one we did have is no longer with us.
I’ll leave you with a YouTube video in which the great man himself speaks, which for me are some of the most inspiring prose ever put to paper.
As I have mentioned before I live and work in the Czech Republic. One of the biggest challenges of living here is the Czech language, which after four years I am still very far from competency. Many Czech words look completely alien to me and very unpronounceable however some words are the same or almost the same as they are in English, either letter for letter or just adapted to fit with Czech pronunciation.
One such word is víkend which as you probably guessed means weekend. I started to wonder why this word appears to come from English and why there wasn’t a Czech word for weekend. Like so many questions I have with this most challenging of languages I ask my students to see what they know. No one I asked could tell me a Czech alternative to víkend (weekend). However a couple of them point out that historically of course there was no weekend most people would have worked on Saturday with only Sunday off for religious reasons. This is nicely illustrated in the Czech word for Sunday, Neděle which I believe literally means ‘to do nothing’.
So was the concept of weekend an Anglo centric idea? I have to say I do not know but it certainly appears that way. Many other languages also seem to adopt the English word. Even French which does have its own phrase fin de semaine seems at times to prefer le weekend.
I can only deduce that Czechs only started taking weekends sometime after the establishment of the first republic and after the phrase had been coined in English speaking countries.
It is funny the things we sometimes ponder, absolutely useless information but I am glad I know a little bit more than I did before I asked the question.
.
Never Mind the Why and Wherefore 