I am an old mucker of Kittybrewster, who, I am disappointed to say, has a much nicer page than this one! Fortunately he has taken to editing this page in an attempt to make it better. Unlike him, however, I have an interest in alcohol, which probably explains why I do not suffer from depression or insomnia.
Economic Left/Right: 5.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.92
This seems to mean a strong belief in free markets and that I am a small 'c' conservative. I found Auberon Waugh very funny: you can read some of his thoughts here.
The Titanomachy; a wonderful picture which comes from the National Gallery of Art, Copenhagen and is the best picture there (despite being heavily over-restored). This picture has previously been thought to refer to Satan and the losing angels being cast down after the War of Heaven; it knocks a similar picture by Pieter Bruegel the Elder into a knocked hat (and notice the use of butterflies in both - they're sometimes supposed to represent the human soul). Although at first sight it looks like a gay orgy (especially with those moustaches), see how the composition draws you into the picture, creating a sense of light and space. That fellow in the bottom right hand corner looks as though he's going to have his eye put out by his neighbour!
On 9 March, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Józef Czapski , which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For pointing out very nicely when I had erred. Thank you. John 04:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
When I was at school, my English master encouraged us to use (what he called) 'Spangles'. Spangles were a pithy quotation, or factoid, that advanced the point that one was making, quickly and cleverly, without breaking the flow of the argument. As an example, we were studying Little Dorritt, and it was a relatively easy matter to learn a number of quotations about each character and reproduce them in our exam essays. So instead of writing, Mrs. Clenham, blah, blah, blah, I would write, Mrs. Clenham, 'she lived and died a statue', blah, blah, blah.
It is, of course, an admirably cynical way of gaining marks in examinations, because for each relevant point you are supposed to be given a mark.
At the same time as I had this excellent English teacher, I had a disastrous History teacher. We were supposed to be learning about the French Revolution, and his teaching was so bad that I went and read an excellent book, Paris in the Terror by Stanley Loomis. This was full of those little details that could subsequently be slipped into my History essays, and are the details that stay with me 20 years after having read the book: that the smell of blood from the guillotine on the Place de la Concorde was so strong that cattle refused to cross the square and the revolutionaries seriously considered building a 'sangue-duct' to drain it; that Danton had been kicked in the face by an ox as a child, and then suffered from smallpox. By contrast, Simon Schama's monumentally boring and over-rated work on the same subject, Citizens, is simply a turgid recitation of boring details; learned and completely uninteresting.
The very best spangles go straight to the heart of the matter or illustrate some facet of the subject. You can, for example, read all about the causes of the First Anglo–Dutch War, or you can simply refer to the spangle: General Monck saying, The Dutch have too much trade, and the English are resolved to take it from them[1]; or that the U.S. Navy considered a successful invasion of the Falkland Islands by the British to be 'a military impossibility' [2].
Beware the false spangle: if it sounds a bit too extraordinary, it might well just be some crank theory or someone getting the wrong end of the stick. Journalism in this respect is dangerous: journalists usually are not specialists in their subject and are not concerned about writing definitive works.
In writing our encyclopedia articles, we should strive to add spangles. They hold the reader's attention and add to the interest of the article. And, twenty years later, they are what our readers will remember.
^The Rise and Fall of British Sea Mastery Kennedy (1976) Allen Lane, London, p.48. Cited in To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World Herman, A (2004) HarperCollins, New York, p.560
^One Hundred Days Woodward, Admiral Sandy (1992) Annanapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, p.72. Cited in To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World Herman, A (2004) HarperCollins, New York, p.560
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