Welcome Trump

In recent weeks our share-market portfolio has tanked about A$40,000 as trade wars across the world escalate. So commercially I'm no fan of Donald Trump. He's cost me a lot of money ... and more losses loom.

So why the turn of events mentioned in the title of this post? It's simple. My US family gave me a lovely Christmas present ... and I cannot thank them enough. My present contained the two exquisite items shown below. The first is a toilet roll where each sheet has an image of DT printed on it.

Can you imagine the thrill I'll receive each time I use those sheets to wipe my behind!? And, secondly, there was a tin of mints that I'll also enjoy ... and not just because I like the mint flavour and the opportunity to breath scented air over those with whom I'm talking. I'll enjoy trying to undermine DT's credibility by offering the tin to friends and relatives to select their own mint capsule. The looks of amazement will go some way to offset the financial losses he's imposed on me in recent months through his insane policies.

Do you share my sentiments? Please let me know.

AS

Rome comes to Canberra

We're in Canberra for Xmas and yesterday went to the National Museum on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin to see an amazing exhibition of artifacts lent by the British national museum in London. They are all connected with the Roman Empire and especially Rome itself. That said, a disproportionate quantity of exhibits came from the UK dating back to England's incorporation in the Roman Empire.

The display was of great interest to me especially, although Dot and Max, who were also in tow, seemed to find it riveting. Why me? Well, I have traveled over much of the territory embraced by Roman empire. I have for example been to Spain, Portugal and Morocco at the western end and, indeed, I have two pieces of Roman pottery I took from a Ruined roman city in Morocco siting on a shelf in my study. I have visited many Roman remains in France including the famous Pont du Gard and Italy itself - especially places like Rome and Ostia Attica. In the east, I have taken in Turkey, Romania, Israel, and even on one occasion visited the border between Iran and Iraq - the eastern-most extent of the Empire. Back towards the middle of the Empire, I have explored much of Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland. Moreover, I studied Latin at school for maybe 4 years and reached a language proficiency that enabled me to read some of Julius memoirs of his Gallic wars in the original language. The Roman Empire also turned up many times in our history classes.

So, perhaps unexpectedly, the exhibition reminded me of how much I know about, and have seen and visited personally, of the Roman Empire. In short, it was a ramble down memory lane.

The exhibits displayed provided many insights into the Empire's history, cultures, lifestyles, social structures, laws, administration and governance, religious beliefs and practices, technologies, products and services, and even handling death. The following pictures demonstrate some of these themes.

Let's start with the commemoration of famous people. The exhibits included busts and statues of a heap of prominent people - emperors, explorers, generals, and so on.

I cannot recall the names of the people whose images you can see, but those readers with eyesight or magnifying glasses might be able to read some of the inscriptions provided. What I can say is that you can see the likes of Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Hadrian. By the way, back in my days in England I spent considerable time atop Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria.

There were also numerous exhibits of artifacts from daily life. These included pots, pans and cooking implements; coins, military weapons including daggers; wall hangings; commemorative tablets of one kind or another; piles of money and jewelry; and figurines.

We might add to these three other pictures: two of lovely mosaics and the third which is remarkably a census return. Yes! It appears that Rome counted the numbers of inhabitants in various cities and regions.

The census return is on the right!



There were also several maps of the Empire and how it expanded over the years. Eventually the exhibition came to a 'dead' end. I mean that literally. We discovered the means of storing people's ashes - individually and as families - or their bodies. We saw caskets and tombs of these kinds:

 What a way to go, and no doubt very expensive.

AS

Another Musical Feast

A short while ago I acclaimed Armidale's two  symphony orchestras - the senior version and the youth orchestra. It's not often that a modest country town of 25,000 people can support two orchestras. Today, I found out that we now have three orchestras! The former New England Sinfonia has re-emerged as the Errol Russell Sinfonia and it presented its first performance this afternoon. It's a string orchestra - violins, violas, cellos, double bass and a harpsichord.

It was simply brilliant - in terns of choice of works and quality of performance. The works were (1) Finzi's Prelude in F Minor (Op 25) dating from the 1920s, (2) J S Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major (c. 1720), (3) Corelli's Concerto Grosso in G Major (Op 6 #8) dated early 18th century and also called the Christmas Concerto, (4) Glazunov's Theme and Variations in G Minor (Op 97) (c. 1915), and (5) Warlock's Capriol Suite (1926). So three works were early 20th century and the other two were 300 years earlier!

Now, this orchestra stunned me in several ways. Nearly all the performers, apart from their teachers were under 25 years old! Well over three-quarters of the 18 performers were women ... or perhaps I should say girls! And despite their youth, they played with great verve and in complete unison - prrrrfect. We even received an encore after a great round of applause from the enthusiastic audience. This was top-notch stuff. It's a pity I left my phone at home. Had I taken it, I could have added a video. Alas I have no pictures.

One other thing. The performance was given added oomph by a storm raging overhead, which added peels of thunder unanticipated by the composers. They only wrote for stringed instruments, not percussion.

Perhaps I should add a second other thing. We've just gone through a sever drought, but it has now rained for about 5 days in a row giving us several inches for December. And one place in Queensland - Halifax, east of Ingham received 681 mm yesterday. That's nearly 27 inches or, for those readers in England, almost the entire annual rainfall for the south coast. Imagine that!

AS