25 Christmas Special 2018 – The Nonagon Club!

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Christmas, Entertainment, History, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-p7xa7-a19517

Ho ho whoa! 9 guests?! In a tribute to the 9 Lessons & Carols, Paul our Host of Christmas Past flies his sleigh back through festive history. There are no live guests a-guesting – instead for our penultimate show, we drop in on influential Christmassy words from:

– Astronaut TOM STAFFORD on pranking NASA 

– Private HENRY WILLIAMSON on sharing tobacco

– Writer CHARLES DICKENS on humbuggery

– Writer WASHINGTON IRVING on Christmas the English way

– Devonian clergyman RICHARD SMART on Christmas the man

– Puritan minister HEZEKIAH WOODWARD on Christmas the heresy

– King HENRY III on Christmas the dinner

– Saint HILARY of POITIERS on the first carol

– Charles M Schulz creation LINUS on the true meaning of Christmas

Phew! One more episode to go, for now. Join us in January. Merry Christmas!

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Solstice, Yule, Saturnalia and today

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Christmas, History, Rome, Saturnalia, Wassailing, Yule

Today is December 21st, the shortest day, the winter solstice. Solstice means simply ‘sun stands still’… and it was this apparent pause in the sun’s movements that added fire to our ancestors’ midwinter celebrations. So we’ll stand still too and while we wait for the longer days (tomorrow! Summer starts tomorrow! Almost…), we’ll do what they told Donald Trump not to do during the eclipse, and look at the sun.

Yule’s wheel of fire: meant to look like the sun, but doesn’t fool me.

YULE:

Pretty much the oldest midwinter festival we know of is the Norse Yule. In snowy northern Europe, food-sharing at this time of year was a matter of survival – the rise of agriculture meant we could farm a surplus, so the smart thing to do was to use that to get through the winter and share the crops. Winter’s halfway point was the perfect time to pop a cork and celebrate that the days were about to get longer again.

But the festival also had a religious element too – it wasn’t a given that the sun would come back, so to lure it onward, wheels of fire were recreated here on Earth. By celebrating on the shortest day, the leaders were confident that the days should lengthen from there, so any worship would be mystically rewarded with more daylight before long. Some fires – like the Yule log – were burned constantly through the season, to show our defiance of the frosty weather.

 

Io Saturnalia = Happy Saturnalia = Merry Christmas, but in Roman

SATURNALIA:

Yule’s chilled-out southern European cousin was Saturnalia, for the god Saturn. Ciao! Saturn was said to have ruled over a golden era of peace, when bumper crops meant no need to farm, or even for laws to govern people, since everything was in such abundance. Christmas through the ages has always harked back to supposedly greater times, and ancient Rome was no exception. The festivities were an attempt to recreate Saturn’s glory days, all part of the Roman love of nostalgia. They were conservative people with a notion of mos maiorum – the passed-down “way of the elders”. Werther’s Originals for us, Saturnalia for them.

Though the climate was kinder than oop north, the Romans still had harvests, so there was still a festival. The English would later think of a crazy title for such an occasion: “Harvest Festival”.

Saturnalia started with a bit of temple time then a big ol’ feast and games – so not that dissimilar from a Christmas of church then turkey dinner and charades. There were evergreen decorations too – ancestors of our Christmas trees and mistletoe. Perhaps the biggest thing we’ve lost was the topsy-turvy nature of the partying – masters serving slaves, the lowest becoming the highest, that sort of thing. It all made it very popular with all classes, and kept the Roman machine ticking along – keep the slaves happy, keep the world turning.

 

WASSAIL WASSAIL!

Apple tree wassailing in Devon

By the time Christmas came to England in the 600s, another cousin of Yule had already set in. St Bede reported in around 700 that “the Angli began the year on 25 December when we celebrate the birth of the Lord; and that very night which we hold so sacred, they called in their tongue ‘Modranecht’. at is, ‘mother’s night’.” This mother was not Mary, but linked to earlier pagan worship, a maternal festival.

When Augustine brought Christianity to bits of Britain around the turn of the 7th century, Pope Gregory the Great wrote to him advising not to replace pagan custom, but absorb it. So rather than sacrifice animals to old gods, or sometimes even the devil, the locals were encouraged to perform the same actions for the Christian God.

Old England was in love with its trees (anyone who’s been to a National Trust property can testify we still are). Just like the Norse and the Romans, English farmers hoped for the swift return of the nice weather for their crops. So in the west of England on “Old Twelvy Night”, farmers would celebrate with a “wes hal” – Old English for “good health”.

At the turn of the first millennium, “Wassail!” was the equivalent utterance to “Cheers!”, to be responded to with a hearty “Drinkhail!” The wassailing tradition was a crucial part of the farming calendar, and not just because drink and song maketh a mighty fine party. It was more about hopes for harvest and harking back to nature worship. Much of the cider wouldn’t be consumed (although much would), instead being daubed on the oldest apple tree in the orchard, with cries of “Awake from your sleep, tree!”

 

CHRISTMAS, THEN…

As Christianity became THE Roman religion (thanks, Emperor Constantine – he saw the sign of Christ in the heavens before battle, believed, won, and converted the whole empire), Christmas rose and Saturnalia and the other pagan Roman religions went the way of the dodo (which was still very much alive at the time. Probably…). By the fourth century, Christmas had its date of December 25th papally confirmed. As it grew and spread through the centuries like a growing, spreading thing, it gained bits and pieces of Yule, Saturnalia and Merrie Old English wassailing.

So yes, Merry Christmas, and God bless us everyone, but also Wassail, Io Saturnalia, and Yuley McYuleface.

This is mostly adapted from Amazon bestseller Hark! The Biography of Christmas, apart from Yuley McYuleface. That was to see if you’re paying attention.

Paul on Radio 2’s Chris Evans Breakfast Show…

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Books, Christmas, History, radio 2

From this morning, December 20th 2017 – a delve into Christmas past with Chris, Vassos and Lynn:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05rlhy4?ns_mchannel=social&

(Off-air Lynn took me to task for not including the Welsh Father Christmas, Siôn Corn. Sorry Lynn. Will fix for the second edition…)

100 Films Tell the History of the World, pt 3/3 (Gandhi-Zero Dark Thirty)

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Film, History, Movies

Here’s part 3 of 3, of an attempt to tell the history of the (mostly western) world through films. Here’s the last 80 or so years, via what I think to be the 35 movies that tell it best. (And yes there are a lot of WW2 films here, but people keep making them.)

 

66. Gandhi (1982) – 1930s-1940s: A little peace of history.

67. Land & Freedom (1995) – 1930s: The Spanish Civil War, as directed by Ken Loach.

68. Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) – 1930s: Three stolen girls follow the yellow-sand road in the land of Oz.

69. The Battle of Britain (1969) – 1940: In Britain, the Allies take to the skies.

70. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) – 1942-1943: In Burma, POWs battle with what’s right and wrong.

71. Saving Private Ryan (1998) – 1944: In occupied France, D-Day.

72. Schindler’s List (1993) – 1939-1945: In Germany, an industrialist works for his staff.

73. The Pianist (2002) – 1939-1945: In Poland, devastation.

74. Flags of our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) – 1945: In Japan, two sides to the Battle of Iwo Jima.

75. Downfall (2005) – 1945: In the Berlin bunker, the days of Fuhrer past.

76. The Right Stuff (1983) – 1947-1963: The Space Race is ace.

77. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) – 1953: McCarthy, Murrow, anti-Communist investigations and newscasters who’d smoke.

78. LA Confidential (1997) – 1953: The sign’s not the only thing about Hollywood that’s crooked.

79. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) – 1955-1967: Che (Guevara)’s the one

80. Thirteen Days (2000) – 1962: A missile crisis: Cuban, heals.

81. Dr Strangelove (1964) – 1960s: Another missile crisis, this one fictitious. But how close we came to: “The bomb, Dmitri…”

82. JFK (1991) – 1961-1966: Garrison does Dallas.

83. American Graffiti (1973) – 1962: A long time ago, in a Californian town far, far away…

84. Platoon (1985) – 1967: Mourning Vietnam.

85. Made in Dagenham (2010) – 1968: “Ford? A Few Dollars More…”

86. Apollo 13 (1995) – 1970: Hanks has a problem.

87. All The President’s Men (1976) – 1972: The Watergate Scandal: Break-in news.

88. The Ice Storm (1997) – 1973: Two families enlighten up.

89. The Killing Fields (1984) – 1973-1979: The Khmer Rouge’s genocide: tough but vital viewing.

90. Dazed & Confused (1993) – 1976: School’s out forever.

91. Goodbye Bafana (2007) – 1980s: The long stay before the long walk to freedom..

92. Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) – 1980s: His war, the Soviets’ war, the Afghans’ war, now our war.

93. The Lives of Others (2006) – 1984: A compelling tale of East German (click) life. Did you hear that?

94. Wall Street (1987) – 1985: Gordon Gekko cleans up, with two Mr Sheens.

95. Black Hawk Down (2001) – 1993: The Somali Civil War: the West intervenes.

96. Hotel Rwanda (2004) – 1994: The Rwandan genocide: the West doesn’t intervene..

97. World Trade Center (2006) – 2001: Towers fall; courage rises.

98. The Social Network (2010) – 2003: Mark Zuckerberg invites old friends to be unfriended.

99. Four Lions (2010) – 2000s: Dad’s Jihad’s Army.

100. Zero Dark Thirty (2012) – 2001-2012: Do not mess with Special Forces…

 

So there you have it. You don’t agree with some choices? Of course you don’t. It’s a list. It’s there to be disagreed with. Just make sure you’ve watched all 100 films before you do though…

History via Films pt 2 (A Man For All Seasons – To Kill A Mockingbird)

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Films, History, Movies

It’s about time I posted part two of this, a churlish attempt to navigate the history of everything (alright, mostly Western culture, especially England, but I’ve only seen certain films.If I’d seen more Scandinavian cinema, there’d probably be more vikings in this) via 100 movies. So here’s part two of three, Henry VIII to Atticus Finch…

     

31.       A Man For All Seasons (1966) – 1525-1535: Henry VIII embarks on his film epic ‘Six Weddings & Several Funerals’.

32.       Seven Samurai (1954) – 1587: In Japan’s warring states, the magnificent Kurosawa.

33.       Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) – 1588: Cate Blanchett doesn’t give a ship, while the Spanish arm harder.

34.       Cromwell (1970) – 1640: Richard Harris as the bowl-cutted royal-rustler.

35.       The Red Violin (1998) – 1681: It begins life in Cremona, Italy, before heading to a Viennese orphanage in 1793, 1890s Oxford and 1960s Shanghai. May contain scenes of violins.

36.       The Crucible (1996) – Salem, 1692: It was this, Witchfinder General, or The Devils. Which witch is best?

37.       Catherine the Great (1995) – Russia, 1729-1796: The lovers of the Russian Queen; a Tsar is born.

38.       The Last of the Mohicans (1992) – 1757: During the French/Indian War, “I will find you.” Makes your hair stand on end.

39.    Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) – 1789: There’s a mutiny, on a ship named after coconut chocolate.

40.    Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) – 1803: During the Napoleonic Wars, Russell Crowe commands his ark. I mean ship. This one was a ship.

41.    Amazing Grace (2006) – 1807: Abolitionist William Wilberforce to be reckoned with.

42.    Waterloo (1970) – 1815: The short fella with the big hat vs the tall Brit named after a boot.

43.    Les Miserables (2012) – 1815-1832: Do you hear the people sing? Course you do, they don’t stop for the whole film.

44.    The Alamo (1960) – 1836: Remember the Alamo. You don’t? Then watch the film.

45.    The Young Victoria (2009) – 1837: Like Eastenders in the 80s, it’s the early days of the Queen Vic.

46.    12 Years a Slave (2013) – 1841-1853: Steve McQueen’s tour de force made him the film world’s greatest Steve McQueen since Steve McQueen.

47.    How The West Was Won (1962) – 1839-1889: …and where it got us.

48.    Gangs of New York (2002) – 1846-1863: The Big Apple was a small pip when Leo DiCaprio took on Daniel Day Lewis and his meat cleaver.

49.    Gone With The Wind (1939) – 1861-1877: The American Civil War, Rhett Butler and frankly my dear, Scarlett O’Hara.

50.    Lincoln (2012) – 1865: The later life of that guy from ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’.

51.    Dances With Wolves (1990) – 1870: The West is laid to rest.

52.    The Last Samurai (2003) – 1876: The East is laid to rest.

53.    Zulu (1964) – 1879: “Don’t throw… bloody spears… at me.”

54.    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) – 1881-1892: The title’s a spoiler.

55.    Wyatt Earp (1994) – 1880s: All is not O.K. at the Corral.

56.    Titanic (1997) – 1912: Near, far, wherever you are, you’re bound to have seen Rose letting Jack go, just after she says she’ll never let him go.

57.    The Last Emperor (1987) – 1908-1960s: Small boy, big throne, a little trouble, in big China.

58.    Doctor Zhivago (1965) – 1912-1923: World War, Russian Revolution and sumptuous snow.

59.    War Horse (2011) – 1912-1918: The armed horses.

60.    All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) – 1914-1918: All is not quiet.

61.    Michael Collins (1996) – 1916-1922: Liam Neeson as the Irish resistance leader.

62.    The Artist (2011) – 1927-1932: They can walk the walk but can they talk the talk?

63.    The Untouchables (1987) – 1931: Al Capone becomes touchable.

64.    The Grapes of Wrath (1940) – 1930s: The Great Depression and the rocky road to recovery.

65.    To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) – 1930s: The Finch job & the lynch mob.

 

Part three will follow, which, yes, will be mostly the last 70 years. Cos that’s what people make films about.