July 13


Amber pages


Wole Soyinka, Nigerian author, born today in 
1934


Gugliemo Marconi awarded a patent for the radio, today in 1898


Erno Rubik, inventor of that extension of the rosary bead into advanced neurotics, also known as "Sudoku without numbers" and "Modern Architecture"; but also, rather more boringly, "Rubik's Cube", born today in 1944.



"Live Aid" concerts for Eritrea performed, in Philadelphia and London, but watched across the globe, today in 
1985. The model, 
George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, can be found on Aug 1


Wordsworth wrote "Tintern Abbey", today in 1798 according to the almanacs, but to be absolutely honest I cannot believe that he could have written, start to finish, a poem of this depth and complexity, in just one day, and especially as he must have been completely exhausted by the time he got home - take a look at the photo in my piece in Private Collection. "Started" Tintern Abbey, perhaps. "Took extensive notes" and "sketched out the first draft", quite likely. Put the date as a sub-title, definitely. But "wrote"? Not a chance



And two pieces which I cannot resist noting, but shall not write any more about:


First, the information that it was today in 1865 that somebody who nobody but his mother has even heard of, one Horace Greeley apparently, wrote the utterly unworthy-of-remembering cliché "Go West, young man, and grow ...", a statement typical of those who like to give advice that they themselves do not intend to follow; apparently he was the founder and editor of the New York Tribune, and presumably gave his advice as a way of encouraging the rabble to get out of his beloved city.


And second, that on this same day, in this same year, 1865, the first man ever, in all of history (
the first white European Christian who bothered to make public that he had done it), from the time of the Neanderthals until this precise moment, finally achieved that uttely pointless ambition, of "conquering the Matterhorn" - his name was Edward Whymper, and we have to assume that taking on the challenge was a psychological strategy for dealing with that most unfortunate name.


But no, like God after the Flood, I do repent myself, and will say something more, because this ridiculous human world is full of nerds and anorak-sicks who simply cannot resist gathering together meaningless and pointless facts and data and statistics, and even collecting them (can you imagine it?) in blog-books and almanacs. So, to understand why the accompanying illustration, click here, and then there is an internal link to click and you can actually watch him do it.

And have you noticed the linear and colour parallels between the two illustrations? No? They're not there? Go west young man.



You can find David Prashker at:

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