(no subject)
Well, I've not updated in a few days. This term is proving to be busier than I thought it would, so I'm not often able to post things.
I found an old Doctor Who book in a charity shop. It's clearly written up from one of the Peter Davison series - in fact, it contains the famous bit where the Doctor propels himself through empty space with a cricket ball bounced off a spaceship. It's an irritating sort of write-up, probably aimed at children. It also irritated me that an alien was allowed to claim that if he hadn't 'rescued' a certain Greek philosopher, the man 'would still think your Earth was flat'. Excuse me, but they were a little more switched on than that in Ancient Greece. They not only knew that the Earth was round, they actually calculated its diameter and were only out by about three hundred miles. It's that old chronological snobbery again - somehow, we have trouble crediting people who lived that long ago with that sort of ability. It's easier to think that everyone before about 1600 thought that the Earth was flat - which is blatently untrue, but has certainly become a long-standing myth. When Dante wrote his Divine Comedy it was well known that the Earth is round - the hero of the Divine Comedy travels through the centre of the Earth and out the other side, basically climbing down and down and down until he reaches the midpoint, then dealing with the reversal of gravity and climbing up again. Then he gets out the other side and starts travelling through space to visit the planets - I mean, it's basically science fiction with a strong element of Christian theology that turns the journey into a spiritual one as well. /rant
I'm writing an essay on the construction of quires. Not a subject for the squeamish - first, slaughter your calf, making sure to drain the blood so none of it gets splotched on the skin. Then remove the skin and stretch it and scrub it and cover it with powder and stretch it again and maybe split it. Keep going until it is faintly translucent and feels on both sides somewhat like suede, with a roughish surface that isn't too waxy. Then cut it up into about one large sheet or two smaller ones, remembering that over the centuries it might curl back towards the shape of the animal you took it from. Repeat until you have four. Then fold these together into a booklet with eight pages, sewing it up down the spine with special knots. Then use a sharp point to prick out the places you want to draw lines, and score the lines slightly into the vellum with a knife. Then get ink (made from oak galls to be slightly caustic) and write in your quire. Congratulations, you have made a perfect Insular-style quire! Make a few more and bind them together into a codex. I wonder if J.K. Rowling knows how this stuff is created? Or how many animals it takes and how expensive it is?
alfgifu
I found an old Doctor Who book in a charity shop. It's clearly written up from one of the Peter Davison series - in fact, it contains the famous bit where the Doctor propels himself through empty space with a cricket ball bounced off a spaceship. It's an irritating sort of write-up, probably aimed at children. It also irritated me that an alien was allowed to claim that if he hadn't 'rescued' a certain Greek philosopher, the man 'would still think your Earth was flat'. Excuse me, but they were a little more switched on than that in Ancient Greece. They not only knew that the Earth was round, they actually calculated its diameter and were only out by about three hundred miles. It's that old chronological snobbery again - somehow, we have trouble crediting people who lived that long ago with that sort of ability. It's easier to think that everyone before about 1600 thought that the Earth was flat - which is blatently untrue, but has certainly become a long-standing myth. When Dante wrote his Divine Comedy it was well known that the Earth is round - the hero of the Divine Comedy travels through the centre of the Earth and out the other side, basically climbing down and down and down until he reaches the midpoint, then dealing with the reversal of gravity and climbing up again. Then he gets out the other side and starts travelling through space to visit the planets - I mean, it's basically science fiction with a strong element of Christian theology that turns the journey into a spiritual one as well. /rant
I'm writing an essay on the construction of quires. Not a subject for the squeamish - first, slaughter your calf, making sure to drain the blood so none of it gets splotched on the skin. Then remove the skin and stretch it and scrub it and cover it with powder and stretch it again and maybe split it. Keep going until it is faintly translucent and feels on both sides somewhat like suede, with a roughish surface that isn't too waxy. Then cut it up into about one large sheet or two smaller ones, remembering that over the centuries it might curl back towards the shape of the animal you took it from. Repeat until you have four. Then fold these together into a booklet with eight pages, sewing it up down the spine with special knots. Then use a sharp point to prick out the places you want to draw lines, and score the lines slightly into the vellum with a knife. Then get ink (made from oak galls to be slightly caustic) and write in your quire. Congratulations, you have made a perfect Insular-style quire! Make a few more and bind them together into a codex. I wonder if J.K. Rowling knows how this stuff is created? Or how many animals it takes and how expensive it is?
alfgifu