My first book review: "unique" "often amusing" "entertaining prose"

All About History Magazine, Issue 21 - out January 2015

In 1876: Bananas & Custer
The definitive guide to a year in history
Author:  Robert Cormican
Publisher:  Miles from the Madding Crowd
Price:  £6.99
Released  19 April 2014

In 1876: Bananas & Custer is a detailed and innovative record of the events occurring over one year in history, and yes, both General Custer and bananas feature here.
True to the title the book features a mixture of earth-shattering events alongside curious and bizarre goings-on, which all took place during 1876.  Diaries of years or even centuries in history have been published before but what is unique about this offering is the form it takes.  Published exclusively for the iPad, this entire interactive book has been created with the medium firmly in mind.  You are perfectly free to read it as you would an ordinary book , but that would deprive you of some of the most innovative and engaging aspects of the publication.  You can choose whether you'd like to explore the year in order from the first day to the last, jump to the date of your choice or even choose to navigate by varied and entertaining selection of themes, ranging from 'Animal Kingdom' to 'Predictions' to 'Spot the Difference'.
Among the informative and often amusing retelling of the days' events there are little goodies littered about, such as the occasional pop quiz, maps, images and even handy links to other related articles in the book, so you can easily follow one single story through the year.  Almost every entry is backed up with extracts from newspapers and books from the period, adding a factual basis to the entertaining prose.
Because of the staggering size and depth of this book, it's unlikely to be something you read from metaphorical cover to back in one sitting, but what it does provide is an engaging way to fully immerse yourself in the events that defined 1876.  The best thing about this book is that there is no 'proper' way to read it; instead it puts the knowledge and the information in the hands of the reader to do with as we see fit.
Frances White

plus the advert from the same issue

By the TWELFTH day of Christmas, my true love had sent to me ….

If you are in England, you will know your job as a "true love" during the Christmas season.  On twelfth night, aka 6 January or 5 January (see previous post), the twelve days of Christmas “officially” start on Boxing Day.  Christmas Day, of course, is not one of the twelve days of Christmas; that would be silly.  

Thursday 28 December is therefore the day for 3 French Hens, 2 turtle doves & a partridge in a pear tree.  It would have been the day to go out and deliver your first batch of french hens, the first of many.  On just that third day, the delivery van would need to accommodate ten birds and the third bloomin’ pear tree. 

By the time you get to the twelfth night, my true love has sent me a partridge in a pear tree every day for twelve days.  When you add up all the bloody useless gifts (useless apart from the gold rings) my true love sent to me, I have to find room for:

• 12 pear trees (which is the start of an orchard)

• 12 partridges  (the tradition implies they are alive but they could be roasted and hanging  in a bag from a branch of the pear tree)

• 22 turtle doves (more bird-like than turtle-like)

• 30 french hens (like any other hen except clucks with a slight accent and occasionally appears ‘au vin”)

• 36 colly birds ( a bit like a blackbird - not a “calling bird” which would have made it a parrot or a canary)

• 40 gold rings (40 x Tiffany Lucida 18 carat gold rings at about £600 each = £24,000, though the original meaning may have been for ring-necked pheasants, a bit more likely considering the last four birdy days)

• 42 geese-a-laying (domestic geese lay an average of one egg per week, so plan on about 6 large eggs per day though their laying patterns may synchronise if they are kept together in which case you get 42 in one day)

• 42 swans-a-swimming (small lake, river or moat required)

• 40 maids-a-milking (really need at least 40 cows, preferably 400, to make them of any use for milking; however maids do have other uses or settings, though some that my true love wouldn’t want me to have, except maybe as a source for cowpox vaccination against smallpox)

• 36 ladies dancing (presumably a silent disco until 5 January when the first pipers turn up, followed by percussion tonight on 6 January for driving disco repetitive beats)

• 30 lords-a-leaping (not sure how this would compete with or complement the ladies dancing; what would all those lords and ladies do before the musicians arrive?  oh dear....)

• 22 pipers piping (the odds are that these are not bagpipe players)

• 12 drummers’ drumming  (various versions shift around the days the people arrive - in some the drummers arrive on day 9 and the lords are the final arrivals)

The delivery on the 12th day of Christmas, 6 January,  would be a “logistical nightmare” with 23 birds of six species, in various sizes, some quite large and which, if riled, could break your arm with a beak strike; fifty people and their musical instruments; plus some implied cows for milking.

Which altogether means you need to find room for 12 trees, 184 birds, 140 people and a pocketful of rings (plus the implied lake and cows).  We can only hope that the people bring their own packed lunches, and the birds successfully forage for insects and bird seed.  Unless they were roasted or deep fried in a special batter.

You can really go off a true love…

Twelfth Night .... or 13th .... who's counting?

Tonight is known as Twelfth Night, especially for those who celebrate the Christian feast of the Epiphany.  Some call yesterday the 12th night.  Can't we agree on counting?

Yes. There are twelve days of Christmas.  Nowadays, some folk believe that the twelve days end with Christmas Day; that is certainly myth as it would mean Christmas starts on 15 December.  Everyone knows Christmas now starts at Thanksgiving - well in retail it does.

However you would think that Christmas Day should be the first day of Christmas; as days go, it is definitely quite Christmassy.  That would mean the 5th January would be the 12th day, and the evening of the fifth would be twelfth night.  However, the calculation runs, mostly, with Boxing Day as the first day of Christmas and the 12th day is 6 January.  That means Christmas Day is not one of the twelve days of Christmas.  Got it?

Whichever way you slice it, the Feast of the Epiphany is on 6 January (unless your church decrees it should be a Sunday between the 2nd and 8th January) and marks the day on which the three wise men, the Magi, came to the birthplace of Jesus Christ, revealed his manifestation of God as human, and presented him with gold, frankincense and myrrh.  After having gone to the wrong manger first and advised Brian’s mother that the newborn was a Capricorn.  One tradition (made-up story) is that the gifts were stolen and the two criminals responsible were ironically crucified on either side of Jesus Christ when he got nailed up (thereby helping to launch the joyous feast and celebration of Easter).

The three kings are not named in the published bibles but have acquired identities over the last two thousand years.  They are now

• Melchior;

• Caspar; and

• Balthazar.

Unless you are from Syria in which case they are

• Larvandad;

• Gushnasaph; and 

• Homisdas.

Like the Little Donkey, they found Jesus (and Brian) by following that star so bright (Bethlehem, Bethlehem), that star tonight (Bethlehem, Bethlehem).

But for some Christian religions, the Epiphany does not celebrate three men and a manger, but commemorates the baptism of the little baby Jesus.  And some others celebrate the visitation of the Magi on 25 December.  And some (Jehovah’s Witnesses) see the magical star of Bethlehem as an abomination, leading the gullible wise men to Herod which obviously can’t have been God’s work.  Their visit to Herod triggered the Massacre of the Innocents (the execution of all male children in Bethlehem less than 2 years old).  It would be inconceivable to have an all-powerful, omniscient god that allowed that to happen.  Or allowed Catholics to burn Protestants, and vice versa, or for malaria to kill young children.  Some say the Massacre of the Innocents is a made-up story - but that argument can surely be extended further.

Magi can also be translated as Astronomers.  There is only one gospel that records the star and the Magi, but even two thousand years ago, without SatNav, it is unlikely that a star would have been needed to guide wise men the five miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.  There are no really good candidates for astrological objects or events, and the Star of Wonder, Star of Light, Star with Royal Beauty Bright, may also be made up.  See a pattern emerging?

It is also very unlikely that there was a census that year, and almost impossible that it would have required citizens to relocate back to their original home town.  It was more than likely a literary ploy to get Jesus born in the House of David and fulfil some old prophecies.  Nobody would have wanted to travel for a census at Christmas time anyway.

In Spain and some Spanish speaking countries, the 5th (or  6th) January are days on which children can get presents from the three wise men (not so wise - you can give children too many gifts, you know) who can often be found in shopping centres with children on their knees, much like a trio of Santas at Harrods or celebrities in the seventies.

As a good Jewish boy, Jesus would have been circumcised.  This was an epiphany with a little e, and it must have left its mark.  Jewish tradition prescribes the knife should fall on the eighth day after birth.  Although Jesus’ birthday is celebrated on 25 December, his circumcision was traditionally marked on 1 January.  Its commemoration seems to have fallen out of favour in recent centuries, perhaps to separate Christ from his Jewish roots and perhaps because it is very personal and nowadays is thought of as either a bit silly or Male Genital Mutilation, except where it is directly linked with a reduction in AIDS infection rates.

Due to the Julian - Gregorian calendar differences, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh celebrated the Russian Christmas Day for 1875 on Thursday 6 January 1876 by throwing a ball for the household servants at Eastwell Park in Kent.  The Duke of Edinburgh was Prince Alfred, second son of Victoria and Albert, who was only recently married to the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia.  Their daughter, Missy, Princess Marie, was only two months old, and the next one, Ducky, would be born on Saturday 25 November 1876.  This party was in the short gap when Maria was not pregnant.

The Illustrated London News

The Duchess opened the ball with her page, the Duke dancing with the wife of the land steward.  Supper was served at midnight.

Saturday  15 January 1876

Of course you know that if you don’t take down your Christmas decorations by 12th night, you have to leave them up all year.  It used to be different in 1876, but hopefully not literally fatal.

Harper’s Weekly, A Journal of Civilization

The decorations are allowed to remain in the churches from Christmas to the beginning of Lent, but in England, in accordance with the ecclesiastical canons, they must all be cleared away before the 2d. of February, or Candlemas-day.  The same holds good as a custom in regard to private dwellings, superstition rendering it a fatal presage if any of the sylvan ornaments are retained beyond the period just mentioned.

Saturday  29 January 1876