Look! Colour photographs! (a novelty on this blog…) but for your weekly instalment of of the marginally popular ‘Guess Who Friday’ try to guess who has a special birthday!
The last Survivor of the Battle of Trafalgar
I want to tell you briefely about this wonderful image I came across last night; its a photo of a Frenchman, and a Frenchman who fought the British, but let’s not let that get in the way of a good tale; he was quite a remarkable man, if only for his longevity.
Emmanuel Louis Cartigny was born at Hyères on 1 September 1791 and died there on 21 March 1892. He was the last survivor of the Battle of Trafalgar which, as any good history student will tell you, was fought on 21 October 1805… think of Nelson and “kiss me, Hardy!” (oh, and ignore all that populist Victorian nonsense about “Kismet [fate] Hardy!” it is total nonsense… anyway, we digress…)
During the battle he fought on the side of the French Empire, under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte, against the British. Queen Victoria even visited Hyères between 21 March and 25 April 1892, when she stayed at the Grand Hôtel de Costebelle. In the photograph below, taken circa 1891 by Henry Ellis, he wears a small black cap and supports his right hand on a cane. He wears two medals including the Legion d’honneur. The image is in the Royal Collection, and therefore belongs to the Queen (who I doubt reads this blog, and I hope will not mind me reproducing the image…)
To think that a self confessed “old codger” named Sam Ledward is still alive and living in Wales at the grand old age of 106, this makes the Battle of Trafalgar only just beyond one step of living memory. (Leward must have been born in 1906, only 14 years after Cartigny died.) You can read more about the escapades of the “man who was declared dead in 1936” here.
Filed under Photography, Timology
Guess Who Friday II
“Too easy!” they cry… (well, one of them whimpers …) “More! More!” is the call from the struggling internet hubs…
Ok, so; Who is on the piano… and who else is ‘on’ the piano? [rubs hands with fiendishly cunning hand cream.]
Filed under Photography, Timology
Guess Who Friday
Hello, and welcome to this week’s installation of the ever (marginally) popular ‘Tim’s Guess Who Friday!’
Last week you had an easy young JFK offering… this week should be a touch harder.
Who are these famous figures standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial?
And for your bonus points, can you tell me who was standing in the exact same spot about ten minutes before this photograph was taken?
Filed under Photography, Timology
The Daily Telegraph occasionally, just occasionally, turns up an absolute blinder… something above the usual “Concerned, from Tunbridge Wells,” or “I was shocked and horrified to read….”
This week it’s underwater dogs. Nothing more complex than getting dogs to jump into a swimming pool (relatively easy… most dogs I have known love swimming about in water… especially dirty, smelly water…) and then taking a photograph of them underwater… Its all the idea of a brilliant artist called Seth Casteel, and you can find the rest of the images here on the Daily Telegraph website.
It also seems that the DT has a bit of soft spot for silly animal pictures… a casual peek about the site over the weekend reveals Dogs in Halloween Costumes, and Surfing Dogs.
I remain etc,
Concerned, from Tunbridge Well.,
Filed under Photography
Rowan Williams ‘Dancing the Worm’
Nope, it’t not an euphemism. It is actually the Archbishop of Canterbury dancing Hip-Hop style… perhaps Hip-Op would be more appropriate, but its been amusing me all weekend.
Filed under Timology
Pointless… to a degree.
Our clever friends across the pond have worked out that not all college degrees are created equal. According to a report by the Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) at Georgetown University, your choice of college major substantially affects your employment prospects and earnings. Who would have thought it!
Having spent the last ten years pottering about with Anthropology, Tibetology, and other dark arts, I was AMAZED to learn that my earning potential is limited when compared to those who plumped for Business School or engineering.
Quite the extent of the divide between anything that might be considered an -ology and the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) is however appalling. At least from my perspective… Topping the list at No. 1, anthropology and archeology represent the worst choice of college major in economic terms. Recent college graduates of the major, those ages 22 to 26, can expect an unemployment rate of 10.5%, well above the national average. When they do land a job, the median salary is just $28,000, compared to a mechanical engineer’s initial earnings of $58,000. Forbes, not well known for their appreciation of the finer points of Anglo-Tibetan relations, commented on the report here. 
Is a four-year college degree (remembering this is an American study) still worth it? Carnevale offers an emphatic “yes,” saying the earnings advantage of a bachelor’s degree over a 45-year career is $1.2 million on average. The advantage of an engineering bachelor’s is a whopping $3 million. However, he warns that if you want to pursue the arts and social sciences, you should either combine the study with a more practical major or go for a graduate degree…. great news if you have a DPhil in Tibetan. Then you are on track to earn a fortune… perhaps that will be the finding of next week’s report?… No? I doubt so too…
Filed under Oxford: The Perspiring Dream, Tibetology
Guess Who Friday
It’s time the the next round of “Guess Who Friday!” … can you name this well know figure?
Filed under Photography, Timology
Well said that man…
The following is a guest post in the form of an open letter from Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens to Ann Coulter after this tweet during last night’s Presidential debate.
Dear Ann Coulter,
Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?
I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.
I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child…
View original post 260 more words
Filed under Timology
Total rot.
I have been trying to work out how WordPress works… reminding myself so that I can go about rebuilding our work website. It all seems quite easy, but one thing I cant quite work out is why WordPress ‘suggests’ such odd things for me to read… they are normally total rubbish… essays about pet hamsters, photo assignments of denture clinics in Eastern Germany, the semi-lucic political ramblings of a Peruvian corn farmer, the diet plans of West Coast Canadians, or a blogpost about how to build the perfect coracle… you get the picture… (likewise, I do wonder what other people make of the nonsense that I churn out… but then, its not really for them…)
Anyhow, WordPress suggest that I explore the site of a young lady called Anuschka Rees. It turns out she is quite the blog merchant, handy with her camera, and has some interesting ideas. Lord knows why WordPress might think she and I have anything in common, but her blog is cool, and worth checking out here.
Anyway, the best thing on her site was a nifty calendar of the seasonality of fruits and vegetables. Do check them out… good when considering air miles, packaging, and hothousing etc!
Filed under Timology
Tim Myatt 
