It was 210 years ago to the day that the Rosetta Stone was discovered. This one artefact was the key to deciphering Egyption hieroglyphics.
The text on the stone is a decree (basically, a tax amnesty for the priests of the day) from Ptolemy V Epiphanes, the ruler (between 204 and 181 BC) of an area which is now largely Egypt, but crucially it is written in Greek, Hieroglyphs and Demotic (an Egyptian script language).
The stone was discovered by a French soldier during construction work at Rosetta (aka Rashid). It remained in situ under the eye of a number of French scholars until the British took control of the area. The stone was 'captured' in March 1801 and was sent to the British Museum where is has remained since 1802.
The demotic text had been translated by Thomas Young by 1814 but this was expanded upon by Jean-Francois Champollion and he also worked on the translation of the hieroglyphics between 1822 and 1824. In 1858 the first complete English translation was published.
The Rosetta Stone remains synonymous with the key needed to decipher a particular code.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Sportsmanship
I wonder sometimes if it's just my age making me look back at distant events and bemoan their modern day equivalents in comparison. It wouldn't happen in my day.
This week the pleasing way that England managed to negotiate a draw against the Aussies was tempered by the accusations of cheating (or gamesmanship at least) levelled at them. It's certainly a far cry from the image of Flintoff and Lee 4 years ago, although there is a parallel with the Aussie captain whinging when things don't go his way. Maybe the phrase 'It's just not cricket' should be struck from the language.
Perhaps, with a certain Potuguese leaving these shores for Madrid, football may have taken a turn for the better in this country, but then again.....we will still see players apparantly mortally wounded by a stray little finger. I don't think football will ever recover to be the contact sport it was. And it isn't only the foreigner players, is it Mr Gerrard?
There are still some bright spots, of course. Andy Roddick was clearly distraught at his loss to Roger Federer at SW19, but maintained his composure, was gracious in defeat and even managed a touch of humour. More please.
I'll finish with the inspiration for this post. 32 Years ago Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson went head to head at Turnberry in the 1977 Open Championship (not the British Open). For two rounds they battled for the title, and finally ended as the only two players in the tournament under par. As they walked off the final green the vanquished Nicklaus put his arm around Watson's shoulder and said "I gave it my best shot, but it wasn't good enough. Congratulations. I'm proud of you".
As the Open returns to Turnberry on Thursday lets hope it can provide the backdrop for more sporting drama.
This week the pleasing way that England managed to negotiate a draw against the Aussies was tempered by the accusations of cheating (or gamesmanship at least) levelled at them. It's certainly a far cry from the image of Flintoff and Lee 4 years ago, although there is a parallel with the Aussie captain whinging when things don't go his way. Maybe the phrase 'It's just not cricket' should be struck from the language.
Perhaps, with a certain Potuguese leaving these shores for Madrid, football may have taken a turn for the better in this country, but then again.....we will still see players apparantly mortally wounded by a stray little finger. I don't think football will ever recover to be the contact sport it was. And it isn't only the foreigner players, is it Mr Gerrard?
There are still some bright spots, of course. Andy Roddick was clearly distraught at his loss to Roger Federer at SW19, but maintained his composure, was gracious in defeat and even managed a touch of humour. More please.
I'll finish with the inspiration for this post. 32 Years ago Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson went head to head at Turnberry in the 1977 Open Championship (not the British Open). For two rounds they battled for the title, and finally ended as the only two players in the tournament under par. As they walked off the final green the vanquished Nicklaus put his arm around Watson's shoulder and said "I gave it my best shot, but it wasn't good enough. Congratulations. I'm proud of you".
As the Open returns to Turnberry on Thursday lets hope it can provide the backdrop for more sporting drama.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Tolerance
Serving food under pressure to hungry people is not as easy as it seems. I will certainly be more tolerant of delays next time I go into McDonalds or some such and there is a queue of people.
I spent two hours this afternoon (between 1 and 3) manning a BBQ at the local carnival. There were 5 or 6 of us at a time, with three cooking the food and another 2 or 3 serving.
I was one of the public faces tackling the hungry punters head on. We took their order, cut the bread, added cheese if they wanted it then turned to the cookists for the meat and onions. With the completed gourmet in hand we then swapped it for cash.
It was a baptism of fire starting the shift at 1pm as the queue was non stop and we didn't come up for air for 45 minutes. I though we coped really well with just a short wait for sausages for a period.
I then enjoyed a couple of hours at the carnival with my family, particularly shooting some arrows at the archery stand. Even the occasional heavy bursts of rain couldn't dampen the spirits. A long, tiring but very pleasant day.
I spent two hours this afternoon (between 1 and 3) manning a BBQ at the local carnival. There were 5 or 6 of us at a time, with three cooking the food and another 2 or 3 serving.
I was one of the public faces tackling the hungry punters head on. We took their order, cut the bread, added cheese if they wanted it then turned to the cookists for the meat and onions. With the completed gourmet in hand we then swapped it for cash.
It was a baptism of fire starting the shift at 1pm as the queue was non stop and we didn't come up for air for 45 minutes. I though we coped really well with just a short wait for sausages for a period.
I then enjoyed a couple of hours at the carnival with my family, particularly shooting some arrows at the archery stand. Even the occasional heavy bursts of rain couldn't dampen the spirits. A long, tiring but very pleasant day.
Friday, 10 July 2009
Music, Memory and the Mind
I have been reading the book How Loud Can You Burp? by Glenn Murphy to Henry over the last week and it's a great book full of some wonderful nuggets of information. Aimed at and written for kids it's still informative without talking down to them.
Anyway one of the questions deals with memories. It seems that memories are stored in our brains in little chunks here and there and not all together as one memory. Parts of the memory can then trigger the whole memory to be recalled. Strong elements are often the bits that make us remember, and music is one of them.
Driving back this morning from Gatwick airport my mind has taken me on a trip down memory lane with the help of my MP3 player (iRiver not iPod) hooked up to the car stereo. One song triggers a memory which reminds me of another song which trips another memory, and so on. Of course the lyrical content has to be good to help with this so not sure if this will still hold true for our kids in the future.
In an empty car with the music turned right up and the sun rising, it has been a good morning. You can't beat the Pogues belting out Sally MacLennane at 5am!
Anyway one of the questions deals with memories. It seems that memories are stored in our brains in little chunks here and there and not all together as one memory. Parts of the memory can then trigger the whole memory to be recalled. Strong elements are often the bits that make us remember, and music is one of them.
Driving back this morning from Gatwick airport my mind has taken me on a trip down memory lane with the help of my MP3 player (iRiver not iPod) hooked up to the car stereo. One song triggers a memory which reminds me of another song which trips another memory, and so on. Of course the lyrical content has to be good to help with this so not sure if this will still hold true for our kids in the future.
In an empty car with the music turned right up and the sun rising, it has been a good morning. You can't beat the Pogues belting out Sally MacLennane at 5am!
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Congratulations
I wanted to say "Well done" to Jake for today's post. Having started playing basketball back in September he has progressed well through his school and club and recently went to a couple of training/trials sessions for the MK Lions.These were for the Lions to select their squad at U14 level for the National League which will take place next season. It was an achievement after such a short space of time to even be chosen to go and trial at this level.
Anyway, we received an email from MK Lions at the weekend asking if we had checked out the website recently. When we did we found that the squad had been announced and that Jake had been selected.Great news, and we hope he continues to practice hard and play as much as possible.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Almost Time
Just over 5 minutes to go until the long awaited Ashes series gets underway in Cardiff. I think it's going to be a close run thing and I can't wait for next Friday when I have a ticket for the Lord's test.
The Aussies are in the latter stages of a transitional period and are still a strong team, but England have been blending a very useful team together too. My heart says England will win, but my head really doesn't know what will happen.
Let's hope that winning the toss is a good omen and that England can get some good runs on the board this morning. Their bowlers are inexperienced of English conditions and if they struggle first thing it could set the tone for the series.
For me it's hard to see beyond Pietersen as the top English run scorer and for them I think Ponting will be up for it as he is unlikely to be back again in 2013. I do expect Mike Hussey to score a lot of runs though, as he did in the years he spent over here with Northants.
As for bowlers, I'm pleased to see England going into this one with two spinners and Swann could get quite a few wickets in the series. I do think overall though that Anderson and Mitchell Johnson will be the top wicket takers for their countries.
11 o'clock - c,mon England!
The Aussies are in the latter stages of a transitional period and are still a strong team, but England have been blending a very useful team together too. My heart says England will win, but my head really doesn't know what will happen.
Let's hope that winning the toss is a good omen and that England can get some good runs on the board this morning. Their bowlers are inexperienced of English conditions and if they struggle first thing it could set the tone for the series.
For me it's hard to see beyond Pietersen as the top English run scorer and for them I think Ponting will be up for it as he is unlikely to be back again in 2013. I do expect Mike Hussey to score a lot of runs though, as he did in the years he spent over here with Northants.
As for bowlers, I'm pleased to see England going into this one with two spinners and Swann could get quite a few wickets in the series. I do think overall though that Anderson and Mitchell Johnson will be the top wicket takers for their countries.
11 o'clock - c,mon England!
Monday, 6 July 2009
In the beginning...
The first post to my blog. I've been thinking about setting one up for a while and decided to actually do it today.
The hardest part was trying to find a name. Something catchy was the order of the day, but of course all of those have been taken! I tried a fair number of song titles and lyrics that might fit the bill, but the domains (within the blogspot empire) had all been taken.
The thing is that I don't intend the blog to have any particular subject matter so I needed to choose something fairly generic and non-specific. 'Another Day' (Bryan Adams) was the early front runner although 'It's My Life' (Bon Jovi) was another early unavailable selection.
Ideas then became a little more obscure - 'Rainbow's Gold' (Iron Maiden) was one, and from the lyrics of 10th Avenue Freeze Out 'From the Coastline to the City'. I ruled these out as not 'catchy' enough as a title. Sticking with Springsteen though, I eventually settled on 'Lost in the Flood' as it's what I'm sure most of my posts will be.
The hardest part was trying to find a name. Something catchy was the order of the day, but of course all of those have been taken! I tried a fair number of song titles and lyrics that might fit the bill, but the domains (within the blogspot empire) had all been taken.
The thing is that I don't intend the blog to have any particular subject matter so I needed to choose something fairly generic and non-specific. 'Another Day' (Bryan Adams) was the early front runner although 'It's My Life' (Bon Jovi) was another early unavailable selection.
Ideas then became a little more obscure - 'Rainbow's Gold' (Iron Maiden) was one, and from the lyrics of 10th Avenue Freeze Out 'From the Coastline to the City'. I ruled these out as not 'catchy' enough as a title. Sticking with Springsteen though, I eventually settled on 'Lost in the Flood' as it's what I'm sure most of my posts will be.
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