|
Post by ahinton on Sept 13, 2017 5:52:55 GMT -5
The Far East is ready, Uncle Henry! Are you? I have not yet visited the northern part of Korea, but the uncooth southern I have. I went to the cinema, and at some point all the audience rose up for the national song or anthem (as in a church service - this was also done in England and her colonies until the nineteen-fifties). Well I did not feel like remaining seated since it would draw unwelcome attention, but on the other hand I did not feel like rising because I had no idea of in honour of what or whom I would be doing it. So I performed a kind of halfway stand, my arms remaining on the arm-rests. By the way, with what vicious intensity do the Great Britons of the present day hate hearing the word "colony"!!! By "Great Britons" I presume you to mean UK citizens (as I doubt that you would exclude residents of Northern Ireland from this, although please correct me if I'm wrong about that); yes, you are right about that in the majority of cases and they do so with very good reason, although whether such attitudes towards the colonial past are more vociferously negative than in other habitual European colonist nations such as France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands I do not know for sure. I do understand, however, the problem that you faced in South Korea for if an audience stands for something and you don't know what that is it's very difficult to know what to do for the best.
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Sept 13, 2017 5:54:08 GMT -5
When Ludwig Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge University in 1929 John Maynard Keynes declared, "Well, God has arrived. I met him on the 5:15 train". Was Alistair Hinton on the same train? I can confirm with absolute certainty that I was not on any train 88 years ago.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 6:07:25 GMT -5
God was, Alistair, but what about Uncle Henry?
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Sept 13, 2017 7:51:34 GMT -5
God was, Alistair, but what about Uncle Henry? How would I know? - except, of course, that he must be a centenarian if indeed he was aboard that train...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 8:22:09 GMT -5
Here are the two questions, rather than arguments, that I originally asked.
None whatsoever!
None whatsoever! What about Uncle Henry?
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Sept 13, 2017 8:55:13 GMT -5
Here are the two questions, rather than arguments, that I originally asked. None whatsoever! I presume this to be your answer to your own question; mine was that the way to do this in a democratic régime is to vote accordingly at a General Election. Again, presumably your own answer; mine was along the lines that NK citizens will be in serious trouble if they don't and I also referred to the appalling human rights abuses in NK. I have no wish to "rise up" against Uncle Henry. I have insufficient knowledge of Australian politics to say one way or the other but I assume that Uncle Henry (to whom I presume you to have put this question) will do so, as he lives there, so perhaps he might answer your question.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 9:16:57 GMT -5
Uncle Henry, the floor is yours!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2017 15:15:33 GMT -5
Good evening to everyone reading ' The Third' tonight! I trust that all is well with all of you! The London ' Times leads tomorrow with some editorial comment on living with the bomb. ' The Times' thunders that Kim’s drive to become a nuclear power is all but unstoppable. He must be contained.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2017 18:57:13 GMT -5
Good morning to everyone reading ' The Third'. I trust that all is well with all of you this new working week. The London ' Times' leads today with some editorial comment into exile. ' The Times' thunders that as camps spring up in Bangladesh, a global effort is needed on Burma’s borders. I commend such an approach to everyone reading ' The Third' in September 2017, Uncle Henry.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2017 17:22:42 GMT -5
Good evening to everyone reading ' The Third'. I trust that all is well with all of you tonight. ' The Financial Times' leads tomorrow with some editorial comment that Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi fails the Rohingya test. The salmon pink newspaper concludes that the country’s once revered leader proves feeble in the face of army atrocities, Uncle Henry!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2017 23:49:08 GMT -5
Good morning to everyone reading ' The Third' today! I trust that all is well with all of you. Due to unprecedented demand from around the world, everyone is invited to an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum tomorrow, promptly at 18:00 (BST) on Friday 22 September 2017. V&A - Contemporary Korean CeramicsBringing together the work of fifteen emerging and established artists from Korea, this display offers a glimpse into contemporary Korean studio ceramic practice. Some are inspired by historical Korean ceramics such as inlaid celadons from the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) or white porcelains of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910). Others experiment with new technologies and alternative materials, or use ceramics as a medium to engage with contemporary issues ranging from mass-consumption and pop culture to the destruction of Korea's architectural heritage. Afterwards, join us all for something to eat at 19:00 in the Courtyard Café.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2017 18:18:13 GMT -5
Good morning to everyone reading ' Serious Topics', ' The Third' and other social media. I trust that all is well with all of you today. To all those who came along to the British Film Institute (BFI Southbank) at the weekend, thank you very much indeed. The film was good, but the company so much better! The food and drink were superb, Uncle Henry. ' The Times' leads today with some editorial comment on a khaki election. ' The Times' thunders that Japan is right to seek a broad democratic mandate for a bigger and better army. Are you going to join up, Jason?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 27, 2017 11:56:11 GMT -5
Good evening to everyone reading ' Serious Topics', ' The Third' and other social media! I trust that all is well with all of you. To all those who came along to the British Film Institute (BFI) last weekend, thank you very much indeed. What a night it turned out to be, Uncle Henry. Congratulations to all! ' The Independent' leads today with some editorial comment that [url=Good morning to everyone reading ' Serious Topics', ' The Third' and other social media! I trust that all is well with all of you. To all those who came along to the British Film Institute (BFI) last weekend, thank you very much indeed. What a night it turned out to be, Uncle Henry. Congratulations to all! ' The Guardian' leads tomorrow with some editorial comment on North Korea and the US. ' Independent' concludes that the insults traded between Washington and Pyongyang tend to induce despair or laughter. We need to take them more seriously, Undcle Henry!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2017 1:07:06 GMT -5
You wouldn’t want to stumble upon the Scythians. Armed with battle-axes, bows and daggers, and covered in fearsome tattoos, the horse-mad nomads ranged the Russian steppe from around 900 to 200 BC, turning squirrels into fur coats and human teeth into earrings. At their mightiest, they controlled territory from the Black Sea to the north border of China. They left behind no written record, only enormous burial mounds, chiefly in the Altai mountains and plains of southern Siberia. Chambers that weren’t looted in antiquity were preserved in the permafrost only to be discovered millennia later. It is thanks to Peter the Great and the expeditions he launched that so many objects have now been retrieved from the ice. There are hats for horses topped with felt cockerels, lumps of cheese kept in pretty pouches, a stick-on beard dyed chestnut brown. Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia is unlikely to leave you pondering how little humans have changed. Herodotus said that the Scythians were cleverer than their Black Sea neighbours. They did their best work in gold, punching and pummelling appliqués from flat sheets and moulding huge belt buckles into shapes of animals in combat. A vulture tramples a tiger to maul a yak. A tiger chews the hind leg of a panther-wolf-bird hybrid. Scythian men wore their buckles over sheepskin coats and leather trousers. Some tribes completed the ensemble with tall pointy hats. The Scythians were racially diverse. Several women buried in mounds at Pazyryk, near the modern Chinese/Mongolian border, look European, while the chiefs have Mongol features. Standing face to face with one of these heavily tattooed, mummified, injured warriors is as unsettling as it sounds. Was it the third blow of the battle-axe to his skull that killed him, or the thrust of the sword to his brow? At least he was dead by the time he was scalped and relieved of his brain. Herodotus said that the Scythians scalped their enemies, too, attaching the remains to their horses’ bridles. They embalmed their own dead, stuffing them with straw, pine needles, herbs and larch cones from the Siberian forests. The remains were placed in coffins made from whole trees and interred in felt-lined chambers. When a chief died, says Herodotus, his horses were killed and his cupbearer, cook, groom, squire, messenger, and one of his concubines strangled and buried with him. The mounds at Pazyryk contained dozens of horses and enough saddles, bridles and bits to keep them going in the afterlife. One of the most beautiful objects in the exhibition is a small saddlecloth decoration of a winged bull. Discovered in northern Kazakhstan, it was embroidered from wool with a delicacy one wouldn’t expect from a people so enamoured of triple-blade arrowheads. It was delicacy, though, that the Scythians used to define themselves. Pass the cases of terrifying war implements, and you come to a copy of a felt tomb hanging featuring men with neat bobbly haircuts and cheerful moustaches riding horses. They look almost cute. Although the human remains suggest the Scythians were clean-shaven, the Greeks and Persians characterised them with beards. Perhaps they aspired to grow facial hair (no one really knows what the false beard was for). Their women, after all, were trouser-wearing, horse-riding warriors — Amazons, according to Herodotus. In his Histories, the Amazons sleep with the Scythian men but refuse to cohabit with the existing Scythian women because they are not outdoorsy enough. The Amazons therefore set off with their Scythians to establish a new people. With their peculiar wooden hats — topped with tall plaits of hair — and weaponry, the women of Scythia must have looked terrifying to the Greeks. It’s now thought that they really did inspire the Amazon myths. It would have been nice to see something of the Amazons in this otherwise exhilarating exhibition. One senses a slight tentativeness on the part of the curators to draw too much from Herodotus, even though the evidence from the mounds corroborates so much of his colourful account. He said the Scythians would ‘howl in wonder’ as they inhaled cannabis. A brazier with burned hemp seeds is on display. He described stages in their burial practices that the archaeology confirms. The Scythians were much as he described them: formidable horsemen, horsewomen and warriors with a taste for fine craftsmanship; they worked gold as if it fell ‘from the sky’. British Museum - The Scythians
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2017 8:09:48 GMT -5
China takes over!
|
|