You lost

[exchemist]

National Portrait Gallery
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https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp01529/michael-faraday

Somewhere I have read, that thing in his hand is not a cigar but something electrical??
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As it is square in cross section, it seems highly unlikely to be a cigar. It would be quite a challenge for a Cuban girl to roll that on her thigh. Metal bar seems most probable.

 

[TheVat]

Was that sciencechat?

Before then. But that bit of wisdom certainly applied at SCF. I remember you were quite jocular there.

 

[foghorn]

Hmm, not one of Mendelssohn’s best efforts, in my opinion. But I’m more of a Renaissance and Baroque man.
The thing I am most grateful to Mendelssohn for is his reviving of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion - thus kicking off a general Bach revival.

Did you know Mendelssohn composed a piano piece inspired by Camberwell Green, an area just under 2 miles south of the Elephant and castle.

170 years ago this year, who would believe that none other than Felix Mendelssohn (Queen Victoria’s favourite composer) wrote a song about Camberwell? The young composer stayed at 168 Denmark Hill and wrote his piece to reflect the tranquility of the area… Sadly his piece didn’t find fame under the title ‘Camberwell Green’ but it did after he had changed it to ‘Spring Song’.

Camberwell Green – Camberwell Community Choir

Posts about Camberwell Green written by AshSG

camberwellcommunitychoir.org

I think that is the kind of "carbuncle" Charles used to talk about when he was still Prince Charles.

It seems Charles carbuncle speech was directed at an extension of ‘The National Gallery’ and not Faraday’s memorial.

In 1984, Prince Charles famously described a proposed National Gallery extension as a "monstrous carbuncle, external".

Prince Charles becomes patron of National Gallery

Prince Charles becomes the first Royal Patron of the National Gallery - despite his now infamous "monstrous carbuncle" remarks.

www.bbc.co.uk

As it is square in cross section, it seems highly unlikely to be a cigar. It would be quite a challenge for a Cuban girl to roll that on her thigh. Metal bar seems most probable.

Novel cigar for blowing square smoke ‘rings’?

It could be a bar magnet. After all, Faraday was the guy who discovered electromagnetic induction.

Yes, or he liked a kit Kat new and again.

 

[TheVat]

Not wishing to cause any carbuncles to flare up, or set myself in opposition to candy bars, but I found a captioned version of the photo verifying it is a bar magnet. Now I can relax, retire to Camberwell and soak up its tranquil ambience.

 

[exchemist]

Did you know Mendelssohn composed a piano piece inspired by Camberwell Green, an area just under 2 miles south of the Elephant and castle.

Camberwell Green – Camberwell Community Choir

Posts about Camberwell Green written by AshSG

camberwellcommunitychoir.org

It seems Charles carbuncle speech was directed at an extension of ‘The National Gallery’ and not Faraday’s memorial.

Prince Charles becomes patron of National Gallery

Prince Charles becomes the first Royal Patron of the National Gallery - despite his now infamous "monstrous carbuncle" remarks.

www.bbc.co.uk

Novel cigar for blowing square smoke ‘rings’?

Yes, or he liked a kit Kat new and again.
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Haha. Since we are in the mood for exchanging titbits of information of tangential relevance, did you know the Kit-Kat Club was a c.18th Whiggish political and literary club, based at Barn Elms in W London, several of whose members were sponsors of the Haymarket Theatre, constructed for the performance of operas, chiefly those of G F Händel.

Here is one of his most powerful operatic arias, from Ariodante: "Scherza Infida":

 

[Mr. G]

I get the impression that people need me to be more than I am.

 

[Mr. G]

Okay. Here it comes.

Who are you?

 

[exchemist]

Not wishing to cause any carbuncles to flare up, or set myself in opposition to candy bars, but I found a captioned version of the photo verifying it is a bar magnet. Now I can relax, retire to Camberwell and soak up its tranquil ambience.

I once sang in a performance of Händel's Judas Maccabeus at a church in Camberwell. I think it may have been St Giles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Giles'_Church,_Camberwell

Like much of London, Camberwell was once a village that has been swallowed up by the explosive growth of London in the Victorian era, due largely to the coming of the railways. A lot of it is fairly tatty, but there are still signs of the old village it grew from.

This was one of my favourite choruses from that piece (duet + chorus) :

 

[(Q)]

I get the impression that people need me to be more than I am.

So far, all we're getting is who you're not.

 

[Mr. G]

That's actually kinda really funny.

 

[exchemist]

I once sang in a performance of Händel's Judas Maccabeus at a church in Camberwell. I think it may have been St Giles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Giles'_Church,_Camberwell

Like much of London, Camberwell was once a village that has been swallowed up by the explosive growth of London in the Victorian era, due largely to the coming of the railways. A lot of it is fairly tatty, but there are still signs of the old village it grew from.

This was one of my favourite choruses from that piece (duet + chorus) :

I forgot to mention that Judas Maccabeus was composed in honour of the victory of "Butcher" Cumberland over the Scottish 1745 Jacobite rebellion, at Culloden. The words of that chorus, "we never never will bow down to sculptured stone" are a not so subtle reference to "popery", the Jacobite leader Bonnie Prince Charlie having been brought up Catholic. Statuary in churches was still associated with Catholicism by the Protestants of the time. So it's really a victory lap for the Protestant Ascendancy.

 

[parmalee]

I once sang in a performance of Händel's Judas Maccabeus at a church in Camberwell. I think it may have been St Giles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Giles'_Church,_Camberwell

Like much of London, Camberwell was once a village that has been swallowed up by the explosive growth of London in the Victorian era, due largely to the coming of the railways. A lot of it is fairly tatty, but there are still signs of the old village it grew from.

I always think of Camberwell fondly because the greatest living drummer in the world lives there--Sir Charles Hayward (not really a Sir, I just added that):

and more relevantly:

 

[parmalee]

Sheer admiration. Great all-around scientific thinker and experimentalist, who derived the maximum use from a minimum of formal education. And successful as both physicist and chemist. Is the object a bar magnet? DK.

But where would we be without Wilhelm Reich? His modified Faraday cage--the orgone accumulator--also functions perfectly as a wardrobe or an outhouse. Despite some wacky explorations into UFOs and...other things, he also made some solid contributions into the psychology of fascism and psychopathy.

 

[exchemist]

I always think of Camberwell fondly because the greatest living drummer in the world lives there--Sir Charles Hayward (not really a Sir, I just added that):

Well that's something I didn't know. I had not heard of Hayward before.

Camberwell always makes me think of Danny the Dealer, in "Withnail and I" (1987) :

 

[parmalee]

Well that's something I didn't know. I had not heard of Hayward before.

Camberwell always makes me think of Danny the Dealer, in "Withnail and I" (1987) :

I forgot about that one.

Camberwell, despite not really conveying much of anything, just strikes me as an unusually evocative name. Oddly, prior actually knowing anything about it, it made me think of trains and the sea! Not far off, really. There's just something about the way it rolls off the tongue, kind of like Kashmir or Connaught Place.

In the US, we've got a lot of places with foreign names--French, Swedish, German, etc.--and we give them these stupid Americanized pronunciations. I've always found this rather depressing, while others seem nonplussed by this--they'll tell me, "Well, then just pronounce it however you like."

 

[Pinball1970]

greatest living drummer in the world lives there

I think there a few above him

 

[foghorn]

Well that's something I didn't know.

Since we are strolling around the Green...
To use the old Michael Caine...”Did you know” just across the road from St Giles Church ‘was’ Wilson’s Grammar school for boys until 1975.
Two Michaels, Michael Caine and the member of this site Michael1345 both went to that school.
Michael1345 is now in Oz. The school is below.
“Not a lot people know that.”

He (Caine) attended Wilson’s Grammar School, near Camberwell Green, and went on to serve in Germany and Korea on national service before returning to London to fulfil his dream of an acting career.

Sir Michael Caine’s glittering career as he steps away from acting aged 90

The star was born Maurice Micklewhite in 1933 to a fish porter, who worked at Billingsgate market, and a cleaner.

www.standard.co.uk

 

[TheVat]

I learned that during the prime of Miss Muriel Spark, the novelist and AFAIK someone not sparked by Reichian orgone boxes, she lived for a decade in a bedsit in Camberwell. For my Yank brethren (and sisteren), a bedsit is a boarding house minus the board (i.e. a room only, communal meals not provided).

Camberwell always makes me think of Danny the Dealer, in "Withnail and I" (1987) :

Given this film's influence on later ones like Sideways or Pineapple Express, it's funny I haven't seen it. Still haven't passed Film 101. Adding it to my list.

Since we are strolling around the Green...
To use the old Michael Caine...”Did you know” just across the road from St Giles Church ‘was’ Wilson’s Grammar school for boys until 1975.
Two Michaels, Michael Caine and the member of this site Michael1345 both went to that school.

Whatever we have lost, this Not Many People Know That digression is an impressive pushback against, or maybe subversion of, the thread OP.

 

[parmalee]

I learned that during the prime of Miss Muriel Spark, the novelist and AFAIK someone not sparked by Reichian orgone boxes, she lived for a decade in a bedsit in Camberwell. For my Yank brethren (and sisteren), a bedsit is a boarding house minus the board (i.e. a room only, communal meals not provided).

Between The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Lindsay Anderson's If... you can learn everything you need to know about fascism and violent insurrections. A slight exaggeration, perhaps. Even so, I do not think I would have survived an English public school.

Then again... If... was heavily inspired by--and was supposed to have been filmed at--Charterhouse, a boarding school in Surrey and possibly the poshest of the posh. Many famous Old Carthusians (alumni), but pertinent here: Gregory Bateson, Brion Gysin and most of Genesis (not Phil nor Steve). None of them really strike me as "tough guys", yet they somehow survived it.

Adding to the Not Many People Know That digression, Anderson supposedly wanted Peter Gabriel for the part that went to Malcolm McDowell. I've never been able to confirm the veracity of this and, frankly, it sounds a bit suspect. Gabriel would have just turned 18 at the time of filming and had recorded From Genesis to Revelation the year prior, and he and Anderson certainly knew some of the same people, but... it just sounds odd.

No public school themes here, but a young Phil Collins appears as an ice cream vendor in David Greene's 1970 serial killer coming-of-age drama, I Start Counting:

 

[exchemist]

I learned that during the prime of Miss Muriel Spark, the novelist and AFAIK someone not sparked by Reichian orgone boxes, she lived for a decade in a bedsit in Camberwell. For my Yank brethren (and sisteren), a bedsit is a boarding house minus the board (i.e. a room only, communal meals not provided).


Given this film's influence on later ones like Sideways or Pineapple Express, it's funny I haven't seen it. Still haven't passed Film 101. Adding it to my list.




Whatever we have lost, this Not Many People Know That digression is an impressive pushback against, or maybe subversion of, the thread OP.

I think a number of us have simply decided the digressions are the more interesting aspects of the thread.

P.S. a bedsit is a rented furnished room. So it is rented for a period of months or years, with a rental agreement, whereas a room in a boarding house would be booked generally by the day, as with hotels.