Last night saw a televised debate for the Conservative Party leadership between one Mary Elizabeth Truss and Rishi Sunak.
This encounter was described as ‘acrimonious‘ by The Guardian, whilst the BBC characterised it as the two candidates’ ‘fiercest clash yet‘.
Needless to say the cheerleaders for both contenders were out in force on social media, attempting to boost the image of their favourite candidate.
These included one Nadine Vanessa Dorries, inexplicably elevated way beyond her competence to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport by one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who has relinquished the office of leader of the CONservative Party, but remains the party-time alleged prime minister of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.).
Anyway, at some point in the proceedings Nadine took to TWitter and posted the following.
Yes. gentle reader, you read that correctly: ‘loosing‘ instead of ‘losing‘.
Off you go to Homophone Corner for a nice long sit down until you learn the error of your ways, Nadine!
However, Nadine is not known for ever doing things by halves (ask the ostrich whose anus she ate. Ed.) and in response to being corrected (‘It’s ‘losing”. Ed.) by columnist Sarah Vine, the separated and soon to be divorced wife of Nadine’s Cabinet companion Michael Gove, responded by retweeting Ms Vine with no style at all and another howling homophone, as shown below.
An author? What has the English-speaking world done wrong to deserve such punishment?!
Your ‘umble scribe recommends that the fragrant Nadine refrains from inflicting further clichés – Irish or other – upon the reading public until she learns to write to a standard demanding a pen instead of a crayon. 😀
Over the years between 382 to 405 CE, a scholar called Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, also known as Jerome of Stridon, worked on a translation of the Hebrew bible into Latin. His translation became known as the Vulgate Bible. History remembers him as Saint Jerome, the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopedists.
Throughout the Catholic church Latin was the language in which God spoke and his word was transmitted until the medieval period, when calls began for translations of the bible into other languages.
Individual names are associated with the translations.
Whilst Martin Luther is rightly remembered as a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation and scissions from the Church of Rome, he was also responsible for the translation of the bible into German, which had a tremendous impact on both the church and German culture, including fostering the development of a standard version of the German language. In the English-speaking world, whilst the first authorised version of the bible in English – the King James Version – was compiled by a committee, the overwhelming majority of the text used was in fact translated the best part of a century earlier by William Tyndale, who was executed in exile in Vilvoorde in what is now Belgium in 1536.
In those and earlier times many biblical translators were accused of heresy, a convenient crime against religion.
One bible translator who did not share Tyndale’s fate was William Morgan (c. 1545 – 1604), Bishop of Llandaff and of St Asaph, and the translator of the first version of the whole Bible into Welsh from Greek and Hebrew.
The bible in Welsh was the gift of Elizabeth I to Wales and went some way to redressing the crass colonialism of her father’s actions in 1536 when legislation was enacted that made important changes in the government of Wales.
Wales had previously been annexed – i.e. colonised – by the 1284 Statute of Wales, also known as the Statute of Rhuddlan. This introduced English criminal law to Wales, but Welsh custom and law were to operate in civil proceedings.
Henry’s new act declared the king’s wish to incorporate Wales within the realm. One of its main effects was to secure “the shiring of the Marches”, bringing the numerous marcher lordships within a comprehensive system of counties . Another of its effects was to introduce uniformity in the administration of justice. However, the latter entailed English being the only language of the courts of Wales. This meant that Welsh-speaking defendants appearing before the courts were dished up “justice” in a language they did not understand in proceedings in which they were unable to participate.
Furthermore, Henry’s legislation also decreed that those using the Welsh language were not to receive public office in the territories of the king of England.
Anyway, with the background out of the way, let’s get back to Bishop Morgan and his bible in Welsh.
Morgan was a student at Cambridge when leading Welsh Renaissance scholar William Salesbury published his Welsh New Testament in 1567. Whilst he was pleased that this work was available, Morgan firmly believed it was important that the Old Testament also be translated into Welsh. Morgan’s work on his own translation of the Old Testament commenced in the early 1580s and this, together with a revision of Salesbury’s New Testament, was published in 1588.
The Welsh bible is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I (English translation of dedication here). Elizabeth, a fervent Protestant, is said to be a firm supporter of the introduction of the Welsh bible in Wales as she believed it would help spread Protestantism in Wales at the expense of Catholicism.
Morgan’s translation also allowed a highly monoglot Welsh population to read and hear the Bible in the vernacular for the first time. In the long run, the Welsh Bible saved the language from possible extinction.
If readers are by now asking why your ‘umble scribe has bothered to write several hundred words on religion, politics and history in Wales, may I refer readers back to this post’s title.
There are very few public memorials to translators (leaving to one side all those medieval painting of St Jerome in caves of varying levels of comfort. Ed.). One of these – of William Morgan himself – has just been installed in one of his old benefices, according to the Powys County Times. A decade ago sculptor Barry Davies created an oak statue of the Bishop which formerly stood outside the Public Hall in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant. The 7 foot tall statue has now been moved inside the parish church of St Dogfan by a team of local farmers, supervised by Mr Davies.
The statue of William Morgan in its initial home outside the Public Hall in Llanrhaedr-ym-Mochnant
The article states the following as the reason for the statue’s move:
The statute was commissioned 10 years ago as part of a lottery funded project in the village, but weather conditions had led to fears the statue could become damaged and so a decision to find an indoor home for the bishop was made.
Of the one thousand original copies of the first edition of Morgan’s Welsh bible produced, it is estimated that some 26 survive today. It was republished in 1620 and that edition was still in use as the standard Welsh bible until the 20th century.
In the beginning was World War One (1914-18), then World War 2 (1939-45).
There have been various conflicts since 1945, but none has qualified being counted as a World War (note capitalisation) and their number has remained stuck firmly on two.
Until today.
Step forward one Nadine Vanessa Dorries, inexplicably elevated way beyond her subterranean ignorance threshold to serve as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, concerning whose appointment former Tory Party chairman Chris Patten is on record as saying: “And nobody should ever see the words ‘Nadine Dorries’ and ‘culture secretary’ in the same sentence”.
Following yesterday’s humiliating by-election defeats in Tiverton & Honiton and Wakefield, Nadine fearlessly took to social media as cheerleader in chief for the Cult of the Boris, tweeting the following.
World War 11?
That’s nine more than are acknowledged by the generally accepted historical record.
Whether Nadine was tweeting under the influence of digital dyslexia, innumeracy or something psychoactive has yet to come to light, but remember that part of Nadine’s brief is matters digital and the above tweet shows she cannot even use a mobile phone app – an iPhone Twitter client – competently, which bodes ill for this country.
Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica; and they’re crucial to life on this planet since they pollinate nearly 75% of the world’s plants, which in turn produce 90% of the food consumed by humanity. Without the aid of bees plant pollination would not occur so easily, plants would die and humans and many other species of life would die out.
Generally one only notices bees in the inner city in ones and twos. However, bees establish new colonies by swarms consisting of a queen and legions of workers (her daughters). On Monday your ‘umble scribe spotted this swarm in Chaplin Road in Bristol’s inner city.
Somewhere in the seething mass is the queen
A neighbour informed me that a beekeeper was supposed to have turned up the previous evening to deal with them. S/he had evidently paid a visit by beer o’clock when your correspondent ventured forth for a pint.
Note the two hive frames inside the box taped to the railings
The bees have entered the box with the hive frames, presumably after the queen was first located and transferred to the box by the beekeeper.
Bees have long been renowned for their industry. In Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon Ed.) the eponymous hero of Beowulf has beo (i.e. bee) as the first syllable of his name; when coupled with wulf (i.e wolf, predator), this implies Beowulf was a very busy and ultimately successful hunter. In medieval times, bees themselves were regarded as a potent symbol of chastity in Christianity, whilst in Islam, honey was believed to have spiritual and physical healing powers. These religious and cultural beliefs encouraged beekeeping on a vast scale among landowners and peasants alike.
Coming up to the 18th century, the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake wrote the following of bees in his “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell“:
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
And finally on busy bees, from the 18th to the 20th century and the late Arthur Askey.
British politicians and their fellow travellers have over the decades had some difficulty with the Irish names for that country’s political offices.
Many years ago, Hansard, the official record of transcript of Parliamentary debates in Britain, once famously mis-recorded the office of Taoiseach or prime minister as the ‘tea shop‘.
However, the Irish prime minister’s association with hot infused beverage establishments is not confined to parliamentary scribes on this side of the Irish Sea, as this Irish Independent report shows.
Hansard has now been jointed by one Elizabeth Mary Truss, improbably promoted to Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with a new variant – the ‘tea sockin one the English Empire’s continuing efforts to break international law, as evidenced by this short video clip from Irish broadcaster RTE.
Just in case Ms Truss happens upon this post, for her benefit, here’s a brief video pronunciation lesson for the basics of Irish politics. 😀
Party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson survived a vote of confidence on Monday and is clinging to office despite 40% of his party colleagues voting against him, a higher proportion than previous no-confidence votes against former Tory premiers Margaret Thatcher (of sainted memory. Ed.) and Theresa May.
Since then Johnson and his supine cabinet have tried to appear competent with a flurry of policy announcements of the expired feline variety, including a ludicrous extension of the disastrous right to buy scheme to housing association tenants, including those on benefits.
Among those also spinning pointlessly – unlike a child’s top – is Penny Mordaunt, MP for Minister of State for Trade Policy, who tweeted a link to a piece (complete with a photograph of Rabid Dog [posts passim]. Ed.) she’d written for the Telegraph, house magazine of the Cult of the Adoration of the Boris and favoured reading matter of the Blue Team.
However, Mordaunt’s use of social media did not develop necessarily to her advantage, that of fellow members of the government of none of the talents or that of the party-time alleged prime minister, as the following exchange shows.
Yes, you read that correctly. One of the country’s leading fast food suppliers would not trust any current government minister to deliver their products, not exactly either a highly skilled or highly paid job.
Now that’s what your ‘umble scribe would call a proper vote of no confidence.
1977 was allegedly a year for celebration as Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor had spent 25 years as unelected head of state of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.).
At the time I was in the final year of my degree and well remember derelict buildings in the town centre being draped in bunting in preparation for a drive-by the queen.
All the sycophancy at that time helped turn your ‘umble scribe into a lifelong republican, i.e. someone who would like to see this country abolish the monarchy and switch to having an elected – not hereditary – head of state. This is not to be confused with a right-wing US political party spelled with an upper case first letter.
Come right up to date and Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor has now been minding the shop for 70 years, a record for the country. However, support for the monarchy is not as widespread or whole-hearted as it was in 1977 and in Scotland support for the monarchy is now down to 45%, as reported by The Guardian.
However, that does not mean that republicans are having an easy ride for their beliefs, which they allegedly have a democratic right to express, as illustrated by the tweet below from the account of the Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5, a low point in daytime TV.
I have no intention of being quiet. Indeed, yesterday I found the Stuff The Jubilee badge I bought in 1977 and am already wearing it with pride as per the encouragement from my ex-wife.
Your correspondent won’t be the only one in east Bristol not celebrating this momentous non-event. News of three of our local pubs organising a F*ck the Jubilee punk festival has not gone down too well with some sections of the city’s populace.
At a national level, Republic, the organisation campaigning for the abolition of the monarchy, has organised a petition to make Elizabeth the second the last monarch.
And finally, now for something completely different…
The For Dummies set of reference books/instruction manuals has for years been sold as a non-intimidating guide for ordinary mortals and in its early days used to feature the wording in the title as a reassuring means of gaining sales from Joe and Jane Soap (or John and Jane Doe for readers on the north Atlantic Ocean’s eastern shores. Ed.).
The series’ follow the bouncing ball style of guidance has over the years been ridiculed and that ridicule in turn used to good advantage to mock those clearly out of their depths in their chosen profession or – heaven forbid – the public office to which they have been elevated.
Which brings us to the alleged government’s current Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, one Elizabeth Mary Truss.
Liz, as she prefers to be called, has the reputation of not being very bright, but that is no obstacle to high public office in the kakistocracy presided over by party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
She is however, a fully paid-up member of the two clubs to which all government ministers and Tory Party loyalists are now supposed to belong, the Cult of Brexit and the Cult of the Adoration of the Boris.
And it is in relation to the first cult that this post is being penned.
In the mid-18th century a song was composed exhorting Britannia to rule the waves. Since Brexit one is more likely to see Britannia waiving the rules – as is currently being threatened by the British government in respect of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a treaty between the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom . Ed.) and the European Union, which has the status of international law.
Reading between the lines, it is obvious that Johnson and his government have no intention of honouring by the Protocol and are currently seeking to tear it up, with Truss making a statement to this effect yesterday in the House of Commons.
Which brings us once again the Dummies and the inspired piece of parody.
As regards the references in the image to pork markets and a limited and specific way, a search engine is your friend. 😀
Truss’ plans will also send a clear message to states with whom the government may seek to conclude a trade deal that the British government’s word is not to be trusted.
To hark back once again to another phrase coined in the 18th century, perfidious Albion is alive and well.
The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 modernised the existing legal framework regarding the use of the Welsh language in the provision of public services in Wales.
It made provision for the official status of the Welsh language and established the office of the Welsh Language Commissioner which replaced the Welsh Language Board. It made Welsh an official language in Wales. This means it must be treated no less favourably than English and that when dealing with the state (i.e. central and local government, the health service, etc.), Welsh speakers are entitled to use the vernacular.
However, its provisions do not apply to the private sector, such as monoglot car park management companies based in England but operating in Wales, has been brought to light by the small matter of a parking charge in a small village in Ceredigion.
Today’s Nation Cymru reports on the case of Welsh language campaigner who was due to appear in court for non-payment of a parking charge for the sea front car park in Llangrannog in September 2020.
Llangrannog viewed from the south cliffs. The car park in question is just to the left of the picture’s centre. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Today Toni Schiavone, a former teacher and education officer for the Welsh Government, was due to appear at Aberystwyth Magistrates’ Court to answer a charge of not paying a penalty charge notice issued to him solely in English by One Parking Solution Ltd. of Worthing in West Sussex.
Mr. Schiavone repeatedly contacted the company requesting the penalty notice and further correspondence in Welsh and is on record as stating he would only pay the charge if the notice was served in Welsh, but his words fell upon deaf ears, with One Parking Solution replied with typical colonial arrogance that the company was based in England and under no obligation to issue penalty notices in Welsh.
Mr Schiavone’s response to One Parking Solution’s less than helpful reply was quoted by Nation Cymru as follows:
It would be nothing for them to issue a penalty notice in Welsh but they have ignored the request and decided to take me to court. They are the ones causing trouble for themselves.”
As this post was being drafted, Wales Online announced that Mr Schiavone’s case had been thrown out of court as there was no representative from One Parking Solution present.
In a delicious piece of irony the court received all the papers from the plaintiff – including a copy of the penalty charge notice – in Welsh as Mr Schiavone was exercising his right to use his vernacular in court; this all had to be translated by One Parking Solution.
Speaking after the case, Mr Schiavone put the case for extending the provision of Welsh language services to the private sector in Wales, stating:
This clearly shows the need to extend the language measure to include the private sector. Private companies like this have said many times over the years that they will not provide Welsh language services voluntarily.
The last time your ‘umble scribe visited Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery was before the first pandemic lockdown over two years ago. There’s always lots to see and the first thing I observed was the major changes to the art exhibits. Local talent features prominently in these, including the 19th century Bristol School of Artists and prominent portrait painter and local lad Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA. Furthermore, the ceramics section has a fine selection of ware from the late 17th and early 18th century Brislington Pottery.
However, the excellence of local art and crafts was not matched by local artefacts from the period of Roman occupation, being limited to the Thornbury Hoard (although 3,000 Roman coins on display is quite impressive. Ed.), one Samian ware bowl and a solitary drinking vessel, which is pretty poor considering the major influence and changes wrought by the Romans during the three and a half centuries that Britannia was a province of the Roman empire and ample evidence of Roman settlement and economic activity in the area. These include. for example, Abona Roman port at the confluence of the River Trym and Bristol Avon, visible remains of of Roman roads, villa sites, plus the 2 Roman pigs of lead found in 1865 in Wade Street in St Judes whilst excavations were underway on the old bank of the River Frome).
On the other hand, the museum does have a fine natural history section, especially in respect of extinct fauna – the giant Irish elk skeleton with its antlers spanning a width of 3 metres is most impressive – and fossils and dinosaurs in particular.
As is well known, generations of children have displayed a passion for dinosaurs. Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery has catered for this passion by installing interactive displays. Nevertheless, any child currently wishing to learn more of the life and times of Doris the Pliosaurus would have been disappointed at the time of my visit as Doris’ display was – to use a technical term borked.
The bottom picture clearly clearly shows Microsoft’s Windows 7 misbehaving, a not uncommon undocumented feature of the Beast of Redmond’s alleged operating systems.
If anyone desires to see more borkage in public, your ‘umble scribe would refer such readers to The Register IT news site, which has a dedicated bork section/archive.
Over the years between 382 to 405 CE, a scholar called 
One bible translator who did not share Tyndale’s fate was 
