Tag: From my diary

A little while back I started developing some PHP scripts to support the new Mithras Project pages that I intend to create.  Today I went back to look at these, to see if I could merge them into what I have been doing with a top-level menu.  And I found … that I don’t seem to have the latest version.  Oh rats!

I know that I created a version that worked.  It included automated tests as well.  But it isn’t here.  Nor is it on my travelling laptop.

I hope … hope … that I left a copy on my work machine.  Because I shall be pretty annoyed with myself if I have inadvertantly deleted it!

Meanwhile something jogged my memory.  Years ago I discovered an unpublished translation into English of Stephanos of Alexandria’s alchemical discourse 4.  It was made by Sherwood Taylor, who founded the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry and published discourses 1-3 in their journal Ambix.  I wrote to the journal’s modern editors, and offered them a copy.  Back in 2010 there was talk of publishing it in 2011.  I ended up corresponding with a certain Dr Jenny Rampling.  And … then I heard no more.

I’ve written asking for an update today.

UPDATE:  And Dr Rampling kindly wrote back this evening.  It seems that the item will not be published.  The labour involved in bringing the draft translation up to a standard publishable for 2012 was considered too great, particularly since it was based on a pre-critical edition.  The clincher was that, earlier this year, the editors learned that Stephanos scholar Maria Papathanassiou is actually preparing a critical edition of the discourses, together with commentary and French translation.

This last is excellent news, of course; I didn’t actually know that this scholar existed, and the new edition and translation will make the text much more accessible.

I’ve continued to add contents to the page of Patrologia Graeca PDF’s.   I’m now moving into the period post 1000 AD, which means that I am now well out of my comfort zone.  This poses some problems, in that I have no idea what is important and what is not.  So writing a summary is difficult!  Still, onwards and upwards.  Up to vol. 121 so far.

I have updated the page of PDF’s of Migne’s Patrologia Graeca again.  I’ve added summary contents for each volume as far as volume 100.  That’s enough for the moment.  We’re already well into the iconoclast period, and the number of interesting works is diminishing very quickly. 

The contents information is a little quirky.  It isn’t possible, in the format on that page, to have a straight copy of Migne’s table of contents, useful though that would be.  The quantity of entries would drown the collection of links, which is the main purpose of the page.  Rather I have to abbreviate.  I have done my best, leaving writers whose output appears to be a single ascetical letter or a bunch of sermons or the like as just their name, and highlighting material of possible interest (at least to me).  I hope the information is useful and, as ever, provokes people to browse.

At home and have been trying to regain control of my inbox!

I’ve worked out how many copies of the Eusebius book have sold so far.  174 copies have been manufactured so far, paperback and hardback.  But probably around 30-odd were review or complimentary copies; and I have about a dozen paperbacks in a box — the only stock that I have.  These books were part of a box of 20 that I ordered for the Oxford Patristics Conference, but of which I sold almost none at the time.

It took a couple of hours going through the paperwork to work out where we are.  I still haven’t got a final reckoning on cost (never had the time).  But the income from each volume is only 66% of cover price.  It’s clear that the income will not faintly cover the costs of the project.  This does not matter, because it was an experiment, but it does indicate that doing more will not be a good idea financially at least.

All this effort was undertaken to calculate the royalties due on Zamagni’s Greek text.  I’ve made approaches to pay that, and get that done.

An email suggests that creating a PDF version of the translation of pseudo-Hegesippus would be useful.  It might.  It might be a good text on which to experiment with typesetting, if I ever have the time.

The translation of Ephraim’s Hymn 22 against heresies will be delayed, at least to the end of September.  No problem there.

I’ve ordered a copy of M. Albert &c, Christianisme orientaux, a volume of summaries of the various Oriental Christian literatures, running to 400 pages.  It’s pricey, at $60, but Sebastian Brock recommends the section on Georgian literature by Bernard Outtier as being so good that it ought to exist in English.  Luckily my French is not at all bad these days.

An article at the Lacus Curtius/Livius blog on “Original research” at Wikipedia has caught my eye.  An article was created on the obscure grammarian Hestiaea.  This led to discussion on Wikipediocracy, and the discovery of a second reference to the lady, in “pseudo-Didymus”‘ scholia on the Iliad; and attempts by me to discover what this source was, and how we might check.

I have started to add some contents information to the list of PDF’s of the Patrologia Graeca here.  It’s not intended to be in any way comprehensive; just a guide to the major contents of each volume.  I’ll probably do a bit here and there over some time.

I intended to go to the launch of Mary Beard’s new book tomorrow.  But I  have a definite cold, and I don’t think I can. 

This is mainly because I am certainly going to the British Patristics Conference, and, as luck would have it, that involves an early start on Wednesday. 

If I were fit, I might manage the double date.  But as it is, one or the other has to give.

Rats!

Today I find an article on the BBC website about the way that the Methodist Church in Britain has sold off many of its central halls.  It’s not a hostile article, and displays awareness of how important the Methodists were to the working poor in the last century. 

 It was a Methodist central hall and, in stark contrast to its recent use as a nightclub, was designed largely to try to keep the urban working classes away from alcohol.

Around 100 were built in major towns and cities across Britain between 1886 and 1945.

At the peak of the central halls’ popularity, thousands of people would pack in on Saturday nights for cheap concerts, comedy shows and films, interspersed with hymns and prayers.

At the end of the evening, attendees were often encouraged to sign a vow not to drink alcohol.

But no longer.  Most have been sold off.

One of the central halls still controlled by the Methodist Church is at Westminster. It’s an impressive building that doesn’t look out of place alongside grand structures like Westminster Abbey, and was the site of the first meeting of the general assembly of the United Nations in 1946.

Now also used as a conference centre, there was reported to be some dissent among Methodists when, in 2005, the church applied for a licence to sell alcohol on the premises.

Reverend Stephen Hatcher says that decision is recognition that the Methodist Church has had to adapt to the modern world.

“We have to recognise the kind of world we live in, lots of people drink responsibly,” he says. “We have to look at it in a balanced way.”

And that is why the Methodist Church has had to sell its halls to become taverns.  It has been so busy “recognising” the world that it serves no heavenly or earthly purpose.

This summer I spent a week at the Treloyan Manor hotel in St Ives in Cornwall.  It too was once a Methodist establishment.  There I found copies of the Methodist Recorder, which I read with some curiosity and then disbelief.  It too evidenced an organisation without a soul, that had no reason to exist any longer.  I find the following “headlines” in this week’s issue:

• CONCERN that the “Olympic Sunday” could become the norm, with longer Sunday shopping hours continued after the Olympic and Paralympic Games, have been expressed by Church, union, retail and campaign groups.
• A BOYS’ Brigade delegation headed by BB president the Rev the Lord Griffiths has visited the Queen at Balmoral in honour of her Diamond Jubilee.
• AN MHA (Methodist Homes for the Aged) housing sch­eme has celebrated its 25th anniversary with a visit from the Rev the Baroness Richardson.
• A CHRISTIAN charity has demonstrated against unmanned aerial weapons or drones outside RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

Those are the concerns of the Methodist Record in August 2012.  The first of these is a legitimate concern, although part of a wider issue.  The others display parochialism and foolish politicisation.  But where in all of this is God?  Where is the concern to save the lost?  Where are the initiatives to bring Christ to a godless nation, sunk in vice and drink?  The needs remain what they always were; but meanwhile the Methodist Record tells us, as a “headline”.

A CHRISTIAN charity has demonstrated against unmanned aerial weapons or drones outside RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

Members of the SPEAK network for young Christian adults held up banners highlighting the risk of civilian deaths from the remotely-controlled weapons. This was followed by a peace vigil, naming civilians who had died in recent drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

Following the demonstration, protesters took part in a sponsored cycle ride to Nottingham and gave a presentation on peacemaking during the service at Lenton Methodist church.

Whether we agree with the silly-left politics or not, the point is that this is not preaching the gospel to the world, but preaching the world to the church.

On Thursday night I went on a trip by car to see some old friends.  On the way I stopped at a garage.  I decided to give my car a wash in their automated car wash.  So I went and unscrewed the aerial from the roof.  And … it wasn’t my aerial.

My aerial, you see, I have unscrewed many times.  It’s rather stiff, for some reason.  This one looked similar, but was bendy in the portion at the root.  It wasn’t that bendy in the past … was it?  I’m pretty sure it was not.

A memory struck me; I had parked next to a car of the same type earlier in the week.  The latter was a year older, and rather scruffy-looking, but the same type.

I can only conclude that the driver of the other car had seen my aerial, and had swapped it for his own! 

Mine was a factory-fitted original.  His, I found out later, was what the manufacturer offers as a replacement part.  Evidently he had forgotten to remove his aerial when going through a car wash, got the (inferior) replacement, but longed for the original.

Who on earth would do something that miserable and mean?!!!

Anyway, I set off again and ran into some rain, and turned on the windscreen wipers.  And … they made an odd sound, which they had not made earlier in the week.  So when I got to my destination I inspected them.  They looked OK; but had marks of sun-fading.  I had fitted new ones a few weeks ago. 

Again I am not quite certain, but it looks as if my light-fingered friend had also helped himself to my windscreen wipers!!!

I suppose I should be grateful that almost nothing else exterior to the car can be unscrewed.  And I shall make sure that I never park next to a car of the same type again, in case the owner sees my car as a free source for a set of replacement parts.

Well, it’s annoying, more than anything.  It’s not the end of the world.  I can’t get a proper replacement aerial.  The thief’s one works OK.  And I got some new wipers today, costing around $30. 

I pass this story along, simply because it is both incredible and true.  Make of it what you will!