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reetings from Australia.
Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.
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Fairs – Memorandum this day Itt was agreed That the Faire which was appointed to be held on the Fryday before Plow-Monday be Described for more certainty to be kept on the Fryday imediately preceding the Tuesday next after Epiphany And that both the Faires be held on the dayes agreed on by this and the former order and for 8 dayes after. 1. A day may prime thee, improve this hour. |
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…often have I been
determined to deny you my respect and esteem when your treatment has been
such as said to me, 'you are unworthy of being my friend;' but I have
been forced to wince and depart from my resolution.
There was a time, when I was
so completely wrapped up in you, that no conversation but yours could give
me any degree of pleasure; your footsteps upon the quarter deck over my
head, took me from my book, and brought me upon deck to walk with you;
often, I fear, to your great annoyance; but your apparent coolness towards
me, and the unpleasant manner you took to point out my failings, roused my
pride and cooled my ardor …
… it is not clear to
me that I love you entirely; at least, my affection for Wiles reaches
farther into my heart, - I would take him into the same skin with me!
Letter
from Matthew Flinders to George Bass.
On January 12, 1799 George Bass and Matthew Flinders returned to Sydney
after circumnavigating Van Diemen's Land.
At last we anchored within Sydney Cove. We found the little basin occupied by many large ships, and surrounded by warehouses. In the evening I walked through the town, and returned full of admiration at the whole scene. It is a most magnificent testimony to the power of the British nation. Here, in a less promising country, scores of years have done many more times more than an equal number of centuries have effected in South America. My first feeling was to congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman. Upon seeing more of the town afterwards, perhaps my admiration fell a little; but yet it is a fine town. The streets are regular, broad, clean, and kept in excellent order; the houses are of a good size, and the shops well furnished. It may be faithfully compared to the large suburbs which stretch out from London and a few other great towns in England; but not even near London or Birmingham is there an appearance of such rapid growth. The number of large houses and other buildings just finished was truly surprising; nevertheless, every one complained of the high rents and difficulty in procuring a house.
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of The Beagle, entry for January 12, 1836
Reporter: Mr Gandhi, What do you think of Western Civilization?
Mr Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dryrot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
Jack London, American novelist, born on January 12, 1876
If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.
Jack London
"You're rotten with fever," Sheldon
said. "Why don't you run down to Sydney for a blow of decent
climate?"
Jack London; Adventure, Ch. 10, 'A
Message from Boucher'
He signed on the same ships with me; and together we ranged the Pacific from Hawaii to Sydney Head, and from Torres Straits to the Galapagos. We blackbirded from the New Hebrides and the Line Islands over to the westward clear through the Louisades, New Britain, New Ireland, and New Hanover. We were wrecked three
times – in the Gilberts, in the Santa Cruz group, and in the Fijis. And we traded and salved wherever a dollar promised in the way of pearl and pearl-shell, copra, beche-de-mer, hawkbill turtle-shell, and stranded wrecks.
Jack London; 'The Heathen'
The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class.
Jack London
Like Peter Pan, he never grew up, and he lived his own stories with such intensity that he ended by believing them himself.
Ford Madox Ford, of Jack London
Standards have gone to an all-time low and I'm here to represent them.
American disk jockey, Howard Stern, born on January 12, 1954; upon announcing his new Saturday night late show on CBS,
April 1, 1998
I always resented the label of 'shock jock' that the press came up with for me. Because I never intentionally set out to shock anybody.
Howard Stern
Writing a book just might be the hardest thing I've ever done, besides trying to get laid in college.
Howard Stern
January 12 is the 12th day of the
year in the Gregorian
calendar, with 353
days remaining (354 in leap years).
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Plough
Monday (2004):
First
Monday after Epiphany
Like St Distaff's Day,
Plough Monday in England of old represented a return to work after the Christmas holidays.
Before the Protestant
Reformation, ploughmen (or, plough bullockers) kept lights
burning in front of certain images in the church, and there was also a
procession, with the men gathering money for the support of these plough-lights as they were called. A plough light was a lamp in the
church that was never allowed to go out
After the
Reformation, the procession continued, with the men collecting money to
spend on grog instead. A plough known as the Fool Plough
was decorated with ribbons among other things, and dragged from house to
house by 30 or 40 men dressed in clean smock-frocks, hats and shirts
(outside their coats) decorated with ribbons and wheat. The Fool Plough
was preceded by one ploughman in front dressed – over-dressed, in fact,
and wearing a bullock's tail – as an old woman known as Bessy, and
carrying the money box. There was also a fool, or jester, in fantastic
costume. In some parts of the country, morris dancers entertained the
throng, and in the corn growing areas of eastern England, Plough Plays
were versions of mumming
plays. Sometimes there was a reproduction of an ancient sword dance
that might have Scandinavian, Germanic or Roman origins. One of the 'mummers' wore
a fox-skin hood, the meaning of which has been lost in the passing
centuries.
In Whitby, Yorkshire there was danced a sword dance comprising six men. They put their swords together to form a rose or hexagon, which was so tightly constructed that one could lift all six swords in the air together. During the dance, two or three called Toms or clowns, dressed as harlequins, amused all the participants. Another set of dancers was called Madgies or Madgy Pegs. Clumsily dressed as women, and masked or painted, they went from door to door asking for money. When paid they cried "Huzza!" When not they called "Hunger and starvation!"
If it happened to be a severe winter, the ploughmen were joined by threshers carrying their flails, reapers with sickles, and carters with their long whips, which they cracked to add to the festive noise. Smiths and millers would also often join in, for one sharpened the ploughshares, and the other ground the corn. Many men recited an old doggerel verse about their industry, whence the line "God speed the plough". Later, the men went around to the large local farm houses of their employers, for refreshments. It was known to happen occasionally that if a rich man gave them nothing, the men ploughed up his front lawn.
The day was sometimes called White Plough Monday, perhaps because of the bullockers' shirts being worn outside the coat. What are the origins of these festivities? No one really knows. In northern England, where the festival was most celebrated, the ground is usually too hard to plough at this time so it is not a custom marking the old return to ploughing. Possibly priests originated the custom, to raise money for the lights in the church.
When the day came for the real return to work, the bullockers competed: if the ploughmen could be out of bed, dressed and with farming implements in hand before the maids could get the kettle on, the maids had to furnish a rooster for the men next Shrovetide
(Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent, the Christian fasting time). Or, if any of the ploughmen, returning home at night, came to the kitchen door and cried "Cock in the pot!" before any maid could cry "Cock on the dunghill!", she incurred the same forfeit. Really.
A note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac
Plough Monday procession in Bucharest, Romania, early-20th Century
Plough
Monday in Nottingham
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