Day Off Week 9 2022

Took my regular day off last Tuesday. Read a book on Gustav Klimt. Very informative. Also watched some TV and had a walk. This war in Ukraine is depressing. It was March 1 and my wife made us leek soup and bra brith and also pancakes for SHrove Tuesday.

10 Cities that have changed their names

1. Bratislava (after 1783) in Slovakia was once better known as Pressburg (German name) or Pozsony (Hungarian name)

2. Tokyo (ie Eastern Capital since 1868) in Japan was once Edo

3. Oslo (since 1925) in Norway was once Christiania (1838) and Kristiania (1877) though Oslo is the orginal name.

4. Istanbul (the most common name for the city after 1928) in Turkey having once been known as Byzantium then Constantinople (from 330 AD)

5. Ho Chi Minh City (since 1976) in Vietnam was once Prey Nokor  and Gia Định and Saigon

6. Harare (since 1982) in Zimbabwe was once Salisbury (and the country was called Rhodesia)

7. Volgograd (since 1961) was once Tsaritsyn (1589-1925) and Stalingrad (1925-1961)

8. Nuuk (ie Cape since 1979) in Greenland was once Godthaab and Godthåb

9. Chennai (since 1996) in India was once Madras

10. Polokwane (since 2005) in South Africa was once Pietersburg

Saturday, Lord's Day October 5 and 6 2013

Well, what a good weekend. First, on Saturday afternoon we celebrated my thirtieth anniversary at the church and what I thought was the 150th anniversary of the founding of the work (1863) but turned out to be the 148th anniversary (1865). I gave a power point presentation of the church's history then we had a cuppa and then my fellow elder Robert Strivens preached from Philippians 1:1. After that there was a cake and another cuppa but no speeches. It was really good to see so many there.

The next day it was communion in the morning followed by a harvest sermon from me on James 5:7. In the evening we had a visiting speaker all the way from Haifa, Israel, Shmuel Aweida. Shmuel is Arab and pastors a congregation of Christian Arabs and Jews. he spoke from Acts 10 and very briefly but winsomely argued the case for taking the gospel to the Jews. Again we had a good number of people present and another cuppa! It was a privilege to meet Shmuel and his (Norwegian) wife Bjorg. What an excellent weekend.

 

 

CM 02 Grieg

Morning from the Peer Gynt Suite by Norwegian Edvard Grieg is a pretty well known piece (especially since that coffee advert years back). Plenty of other Grieg pieces are well known but none as much as this one, partly no doubt becasue it does what it says on the tin. This is one of the weird things about music though. If you called it, say, Night or The day we met, it would sound somehow slightly different.

Lesser known soccer fact 02

The other lesser known fact to catch my eye is that the only team never to have lost to No 1 soccer team Brazil is lowly Norway (currently around fiftieth place). The teams have met four times. Norway have won two and drawn two. (In 1997 it was 4-2 [in a friendly], in June 1998 it was 2-1 [in the World cup], in August 2008 [in a friendly] it was 1-1. Not sure of the other fixture).

Before the world cup game Olvind Ekeland, a 28-year-old Norwegian, married 29-year-old Brazilian Rosangela de Souza on the pitch before the game. After his "da" and her "sim," fans of both teams joined in a chorus of "Stand By Me" in English.

Wonders of blogging

One of the great things about blogging is the way you get to "meet" people you never would otherwise. It has happened to me two or three times now. The latest episode involves a man called Kjell from Norway. He is a similar age and like me he is a Focus fan. We enjoy each other's websites on the subject. (For mine see here).

We recently had some email correspondence and Kjell has very kindly sent me a pile of CDs containing rare and even obscure Focus material. It would be of little interest to most people but to fans like ourselves it is full of interest. I was particularly impressed by Kjell's unwillingness even to let me cover his costs. What a kind fellow. Thanks mate and tusen taak!

It is pretty obscure stuff. An example can be found here and another here.

Alan Davey, etc

My old friend Alan Davey breezed through here the other night asking questions. See his blog here. I got a brilliant find on the Utsira question thanks to someone on the island itself. The wonders of the internet. (Talking of which I could also find the Norwegian for many thanks [tusen takk] at the flick of a key. See here. Looking for a pic of Alan I also discovered that there's an Alan Davey in the rock band Hawkwind [Do you wanna ride in my silver machine, See yourself going by in a silver machine?] which I'd not known).

Anyway, the point of this post is that Alan (who clearly has a poor taste in music as he also took exception to Ekseption - official site here) asked about the phrase 'bang to rights' and I can't find anything about it on the net, beyond the fact it's criminal/police slang, which I might have surmised. Anyway can anyone out there help us?

Utsira

First we have an aerial shot of the Norwegian Island of Utsira from whence come the sea names used on the shipping forecast North and South Utsire. The BBC uses an 'e' for some reason as on the above map. The location of Utsira is shown here. This all arises from a Bloggy Man cartoon, believe it or not.