Friday Five
I haven't Friday Fived for a while, but this week it's old things, which is very much my jam. (Also, yes, I've had a day off and company and I am so much happier for it!)
1) What is the oldest thing you own?
Good question. I have some small bits of wooden furniture (side table, chest of drawers) that come from my grandmother, which means they come from my grandfather, which means some of them are from the house he furnished in the 1900s. He liked old stuff and worked in the West End, so he was always in and out of the auction houses. The stuff I have is almost certainly just 19th century made in older styles, but some of what he owned turned out to be genuine 17th century. (They made dining tables very uncomfortable back then.) So my oldest thing is probably a print which is late 18th cent, but there's a possibility I own something a century or more older. Weird.
2) What is the oldest home you've lived in?
As in really lived, had as my address, it's the one I'm in now, which is 1880, standard railway terracing. But if I'm allowed to count the grandmother above's house, where I used to spend half my school holidays, it's definitely that - that was a medieval hall house, which went radically down in the world (it got turned into at least 3 cottages for a long time) and then was put back into a single dwelling by some historically minded Victorian. Nonna bought it shortly after the war, when old homes were absolutely out of fashion. It was a privilege to stay there - Aga, open fires, daub walls, inglenook fireplace, witchmarks, and stupidly low beams which we - a very short family - could laugh at. But I have also learned never to buy a listed building, omg the bureaucracy and hassle. I'd rather live in an interwar house really; their building standards were about the highest, and minimum spaces were really good. But no chance of that on my budget.
3) What is the oldest book you've read?
Huh. Do you have to read all of it? The Iliad, Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, the Book of the Dead? I've read *bits* of all those. But if you want front-to-back reading with full analysis, and we're stretching the meaning of 'book' a bit, it's the Oresteia trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus, which date from 458BCE. Good old A levels.
4) What is the oldest electronic device that you still use?
I... it turns out I don't really know what's electronic. Is a landline phone? Cos my handset definitely dates from 1998 (student flat, long story). Otherwise I think my radio alarm is slightly older than my tv, but it's close.
5) What is the oldest work of art/architecture that you've seen?
Oh my god this is impossible. I'm going to exempt mummies because I don't really think they are artworks, it's ritual practice. There are prehistoric things I've seen, but again, not sure about art. I've never seen cave paintings in person, so I can't count those. Something that is *definitely* art is the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, c575BCE, and that's older than anything I've seen in the way of Roman remains, so I guess maybe that? It's wonderful, anyway. Always worth remembering.
1) What is the oldest thing you own?
Good question. I have some small bits of wooden furniture (side table, chest of drawers) that come from my grandmother, which means they come from my grandfather, which means some of them are from the house he furnished in the 1900s. He liked old stuff and worked in the West End, so he was always in and out of the auction houses. The stuff I have is almost certainly just 19th century made in older styles, but some of what he owned turned out to be genuine 17th century. (They made dining tables very uncomfortable back then.) So my oldest thing is probably a print which is late 18th cent, but there's a possibility I own something a century or more older. Weird.
2) What is the oldest home you've lived in?
As in really lived, had as my address, it's the one I'm in now, which is 1880, standard railway terracing. But if I'm allowed to count the grandmother above's house, where I used to spend half my school holidays, it's definitely that - that was a medieval hall house, which went radically down in the world (it got turned into at least 3 cottages for a long time) and then was put back into a single dwelling by some historically minded Victorian. Nonna bought it shortly after the war, when old homes were absolutely out of fashion. It was a privilege to stay there - Aga, open fires, daub walls, inglenook fireplace, witchmarks, and stupidly low beams which we - a very short family - could laugh at. But I have also learned never to buy a listed building, omg the bureaucracy and hassle. I'd rather live in an interwar house really; their building standards were about the highest, and minimum spaces were really good. But no chance of that on my budget.
3) What is the oldest book you've read?
Huh. Do you have to read all of it? The Iliad, Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, the Book of the Dead? I've read *bits* of all those. But if you want front-to-back reading with full analysis, and we're stretching the meaning of 'book' a bit, it's the Oresteia trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus, which date from 458BCE. Good old A levels.
4) What is the oldest electronic device that you still use?
I... it turns out I don't really know what's electronic. Is a landline phone? Cos my handset definitely dates from 1998 (student flat, long story). Otherwise I think my radio alarm is slightly older than my tv, but it's close.
5) What is the oldest work of art/architecture that you've seen?
Oh my god this is impossible. I'm going to exempt mummies because I don't really think they are artworks, it's ritual practice. There are prehistoric things I've seen, but again, not sure about art. I've never seen cave paintings in person, so I can't count those. Something that is *definitely* art is the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, c575BCE, and that's older than anything I've seen in the way of Roman remains, so I guess maybe that? It's wonderful, anyway. Always worth remembering.