Monday Links from the Lockdown vol. DLXXXI

[NickFitz]

• 50 years since London Underground switched to decimal currency - ”Next Monday marks the 50th anniversary of when the UK changed over to a decimal currency — but not the London Underground — who for reasons, switched over a day earlier than the rest of the country.” I well remember 15th February 1971 when the money changed, but hadn't realised LU did it a day early

Bonus linky: this is a good long piece on D-Day 1971: The Other ‘D’ Day

[_V_]

Neanderthal-like ‘mini-brains’ created in lab with CRISPR

Neuralink from these to the 2024 US election via online voting, and Trump has a landslide on his hands.

[GJABS]

[*]London’s East End in the 1960s by Steve Lewis - ”When Steve moved to the Newham Recorder, the editor wanted him to focus on social issues and the reality of lives in London’s East End that were barely touched by the ‘Swinging Sixties’. As some of Steve’s images graphically illustrate, London’s East End was plagued by widespread poverty, poor housing, industrial unrest and racial tension.” This is the Mamby Arms in Stratford, complete with donkey

[/LIST]

Happy invoicing!

Needs a caption, this one. Anyone?

[OwlHoot]

[*]Explore the Bayeux Tapestry online - A new panorama of the not-actually-a-tapestry (it's embroidery) lets you zoom in so close you can make out individual strands in the threads ”The panorama was built from the photos of the Fabrique de patrimoines en Normandie, taken in 2017 outside its window, and recalibrated by teams from the University of Caen Normandie, Ensicaen and CNRS… Among the exploration tools available, the zoom function allows you to view the Bayeux Tapestry until the details of the embroidered patterns in maximum focus. The side information panel offers translations in French and English of the Latin inscriptions, and a graduated ruler at the bottom of the screen allows you to quickly navigate to a chosen scene.” ..

I just read a fascinating book on Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who is believed to have commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry and supervised its production.

It's available as a free (cough ) ebook :

The man behind the Bayeux Tapestry - Odo, William the Conqueror's half-brother; T Rowley; History Press (2013)

(After her affair with William's father, Duke Robert of Normandy, his mother married a guy called Herluin de Conteville, and Odo was one of their sons.)

Odo was insatiably greedy and ambitious, and despite owning most of Kent (besides Church lands), and over four hundred other large estates dotted all over England and Normandy, he thought it was a monstrous injustice he didn't own even more!

One of the reasons the Domesday Book had to be written was the chaos caused by him selling the same estates and overlapping land to multiple buyers while he was regent in England during William's absence, so in the end nobody knew who legally owned what!

He also had a dream of becoming Pope, and to that end "borrowed" a large part of King William's army of occupation, intending to march to Rome and claim the Papacy. But King William, alerted just in time, stopped him at the last minute as they were preparing to embark.

As a result of that escapade, King William imprisoned him for life, before he could cause any more mischief. But on his deathbed William was reluctantly persuaded to release him, saying something like "Mark my words, he'll cause no end of trouble".

Sure enough, as soon as William II succeeded, Odo organised and started a revolt, with the aim of taking over the English throne. Once that was defeated, he was exiled from England and Normandy, and on his way to the First Crusade ended up in Sicily where he died, and is buried in Salerno Cathedral.

An amazing character, and even if most of his more grandiose schemes failed, the Bayeux Tapestry is his lasting legacy.

Edit: Obviously he made sure he appeared several times himself on the tapestry, and here is one image of him:

[Paddy]

I like the picture story about the Archers

[NickFitz]

More stuff to pass the time while you wait for your vaccine invitation to arrive

• After the Crash, They Said I Was Fine. I Wasn't. - ”Ten years ago, heli-ski guide Erin Tierney survived a helicopter crash and began a relentless journey of healing and recovery. Battling injuries invisible to the naked eye, she fought to reframe and regain her hold on the life she loved.”
  
  
• 50 years since London Underground switched to decimal currency - ”Next Monday marks the 50th anniversary of when the UK changed over to a decimal currency — but not the London Underground — who for reasons, switched over a day earlier than the rest of the country.” I well remember 15th February 1971 when the money changed, but hadn't realised LU did it a day early
  
  
• Explore the Bayeux Tapestry online - A new panorama of the not-actually-a-tapestry (it's embroidery) lets you zoom in so close you can make out individual strands in the threads ”The panorama was built from the photos of the Fabrique de patrimoines en Normandie, taken in 2017 outside its window, and recalibrated by teams from the University of Caen Normandie, Ensicaen and CNRS… Among the exploration tools available, the zoom function allows you to view the Bayeux Tapestry until the details of the embroidered patterns in maximum focus. The side information panel offers translations in French and English of the Latin inscriptions, and a graduated ruler at the bottom of the screen allows you to quickly navigate to a chosen scene.”
  
  
  
  
  
• Neanderthal-like ‘mini-brains’ created in lab with CRISPR - ”Researchers have created tiny, brain-like ‘organoids’ that contain a gene variant harboured by two extinct human relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans. The tissues, made by engineering human stem cells, are far from being true representations of these species’ brains — but they show distinct differences from human organoids, including size, shape and texture.” Growing Neanderthal brains in the lab? I've seen enough movies to know nothing could go wrong with that
  
  
• A blue bolt out of the blue: On the edge of space, lightning leaps *upward* - Phil Plait on a weird phenomenon observable from the ISS: ”One of the most mysterious of these is a blue flash. As the name says, these are intense, short blasts of blue light that occur near the tops of storm clouds, and last for only ten microseconds (one one-hundred-thousandth of a second). They sometimes trigger blue jets: upward-reaching tendrils that last for perhaps a few tenths of a second. These pulsate with energy as they go from being narrow channels to fanning out into wide cones as they propagate into the stratosphere, 10–20 kilometers above the ground.”
  
  
• Brownsville General Hospital - ”Brownsville General Hospital was originally a general hospital that served a mining town and primarily treated cases of black lung, but when a new state-of-the-art hospital was opened, it was converted to the Golden Age Retirement Home, a center for care for the elderly. During the 1980's Golden Age Retirement Home became the focus of an epic legal battle when the facility was cited for multiple serious code violations… This visit to Brownsville General Hospital may be the most frightening trip I have ever taken.” Matthew Christopher photographs creepy abandoned places so you don't have to go there
  
  
  
  
  
• Listen to haunting notes from an 18,000-year-old conch shell trumpet - ”After 18,000 years of silence, an ancient musical instrument played its first notes. The last time anyone heard a sound from the conch shell trumpet, thick sheets of ice still covered most of Europe.” For years, people thought it was a cup.
  
  
• A History of the Boarding Bridge - A detailed history of a thing you've probably never thought about, which are the best things to think about: ”Passenger boarding bridges, also referred to as 'passenger loading bridges', 'jetways', 'jet bridges' or 'jetties', enable quick and efficient loading of aircraft as well as protect passengers against inclement weather, aircraft fumes, noise and the other potential dangers on the ramp.”
  
  
• 21 Phrases You Use Without Realizing You're Quoting William Shakespeare - ”William Shakespeare devised new words and countless plot tropes that still appear in everyday life… An incredible number of lines from his plays have become so ingrained into modern vernacular that we no longer recognize them as lines from plays at all.” I didn't know the original source of loads of these
  
  
• London’s East End in the 1960s by Steve Lewis - ”When Steve moved to the Newham Recorder, the editor wanted him to focus on social issues and the reality of lives in London’s East End that were barely touched by the ‘Swinging Sixties’. As some of Steve’s images graphically illustrate, London’s East End was plagued by widespread poverty, poor housing, industrial unrest and racial tension.” This is the Mamby Arms in Stratford, complete with donkey
  
  
  

Happy invoicing!