Flower

This came out of a fourth impression of Isobel Cameron's 'The Street of the Spinners'. Ideas, anyone?

Ephemera: Moray House College of Education

A reading list now, this one from 1965, we are guessing. Recognise any of the titles, or the course? If so, as ever, please feel free to leave a comment and/or insight with the comment function below.

~~~

MORAY HOUSE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
SESSION 1965/66
FINAL YEAR COLLEGE DIPLOMA STUDENTS
METHODS AND PRESCRIBED BOOKS EXAMINATION

Students in this class will be examined during the week beginning 30th May, 1966 on their reading of certain prescribed books concerned with methods of teaching Arithmetic, Mathematics, Reading and Spelling, and on other subjects no dealt with in the normal examination timetable, e.g. school broadcasting, visual aids, infant methods, group and individual methods, teaching of handwriting, rural school methods.

The examination will be of two hours' duration.

Students will be expected to answer four questions, viz., one on Prescribed and Recommended Reading in Arithmetic and Mathematics, one on Prescribed Books in Reading and Spelling, and two from the rest of the paper (General Methods).

ARITHMETIC AND MATHEMATICS

Prescribed Reading

Keith & Robertson "Principles of Arithmetic",
pp. 72-131; 157-246, and 254-162

OR

Burmiston: "Real Arithmetic" (Junior Series),
Teachers' Books 0 - 4 (Parts dealing with
multiplication, short and long division,
compound quantities (i.e., weights and
measures), vulgar fractions and decimal
fractions).

OR

Monteith: "Teaching Arithmetic"
pp. 90-104; 126-185, and 192-213.
(N.B. Not suitable for answering a question
on decimals.)

OR

Downes & Paling "The Teaching of Arithmetic in Primary Schools",
pp. 169-452

Recommended Reading
Schonnel: "Diagnosis and Remedial Teaching in Arithmetic"
OR
Flavell & Wakeham: "Primary Mathematics", Teacher's Book 1 and
Pupils' Books 1, 2 & 3
OR
Gattegno: "A Teacher's Introduction to the Cuisenaire-Gattegno
Method of Teaching Arithmetic"
OR
Law, Margaret L.F.: "Number Building", Teacher's Book on the Cuisenaire
Method.

READING AND SPELLING/-

[verso]

-2-

READING AND SPELLING

Prescribed Reading

Schonell: "Essentials in Teaching and Testing Spelling"
Schonell: "The Psychology and Teaching of Reading"
(4th Edition)

IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT ALL STUDENTS SHOULD READ "PRIMARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND" (H.M.S.O, 1965).

Ephemera: James Burt, Bookseller & Stationer

Burts were until their demise in the 1970s, something of a Kirkcaldy institution. A number of our regulars have memories of buying their first titles there. To all intents and purposes, it was a fairly austere institution, but not uncommercial or unwelcoming. One customer, S., remembers parking up for hours reading books without so much as a murmur of disapproval from the staff.

The above 'Advice Card' gives an ideas of their classier side. A customer who had ordered a title was notified of its arrival at the shop by an 'advice card'.

~~~
From JAMES BURT, Bookseller & Stationer
Tel. 3489 184-186 High Street, Kirkcaldy
---
Order No. ... Date 10/12/58[55?]
With reference to your order for Landfall at Sunset
18/-

I would advise you that this is now available. Kindly collect at your earliest
convenience. JAMES BURT.
THIS ADVICE CARD TO BE PRODUCED WHEN MAKING ENQUIRIES REGARDING
THE ABOVE.

[verso]

If undelivered please retun to senter.
PRINTED PAPER
KIRKCALDY
10 DEC
1955
FIFE
Mr J. Reid
1 Southerton Cres
Kirkcaldy

Ephemera: James Thin

More ephemera now, and apologies to fans of the blog for the long delay in publishing the little notes, scribbles and curiosities that have tumbled out of the books here at the shop.

The following is a James Thin Booksellers receipt from 1963. Not a classic. The bookshop was beloved of Edinburgers until its sad demise in 2002. Any background, stories or memories of the bookshop are welcome.

~~~

Telephone: Wav 6743 (3 lines)
ames Thin
New and Second-hand Bookseller
53-59 South Bridge, Edinburgh, 1
M....

Assistant M Date 14/10/63
M. H. [various prices]
Lamson Paragon
00473-15

The London Perambulator

A volume called The London Perambulator tumbled out of a suitcase in the shop this morning. The book had formerly been owned by James Reid, erstwhile Editor of the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, and tucked inside were two newspaper articles and three letters to Reid from the Perambulator himself, James Bone (see below).

A thoroughly affectionate account of 1924 London, its joyful and detailed (and sometimes rambling) pen-portraits and beautiful line drawings show both familiar landmarks and glimpses of what is now a lost city.

London between the wars was undergoing massive changes, many of which the Perambulator - Bone's pseudonym for a column in the Manchester Guardian of which he was London correspondent - clearly regrets. However, he revels in character sketches and devotes a chapter to "Londoners". While he doesn't completely avoid appearing patronising towards the "lady from East Ham", Bone's view of London is genial and loving; he will always defend the city against detractors rather than apologising for it.

Nothing about the Perambulator could be called systematic. The prose, looser than starchy Victorian phrase, is also too dreamy and digressive to be journalistic. Bone's enthusiasms are diverse - he devotes one chapter to Portland stone, of which the city he delights in is fashioned, and another to the Inns of Court, those "ancient fastnesses of the law men". The book really is a perambulation, but like Bone's through the city streets, an enjoyable and fascinating one.

As such, the book is also no tourist guide; there are no chapters devoted to Buckingham Palace, the House of Parliament, or the Tower of London. It is a view from the day-to-day observances of a Fleet Street writer, for Bone served as 'London Correspondent' to the Manchester Guardian. While the Perambulator gives little away, in the discovered letters to James Reid he mentions the Glasgow origins he left behind fifty years ago. "Eh, dearie, dearie me!" exclaims the Scot retired to Surrey.

Below, you can find transcriptions of the letters - two typed, one handwritten - from Bone to Reid, as well as two of his articles from the Manchester Guardian in the 1930s.

* * * *

(Letterhead: "The Manchester Guardian")

8th April, 1929

My dear Reid,

I am much flattered by the request to open your show of the Dumfries and Galloway Fine Arts Society, but unfortunately I have to be in London on Saturday and could not get to Dumfries. So Dumfries is saved from a third-rate speech. All the same it is nice of you to ask me, and should much have liked to see you again, and to pay a visit to Dumfries after - dear me, oh, dear me, - something like thirty years.

Yours Sincerely,

James Bone


* * * * *

(Letterhead: "The Manchester Guardian")

11 jan '46

My dear old Comrade,

So you're holding to after I "had it!" Good man. Very glad to get your letter and good words.

This retirement is a hell of a business! I can't get a moment to myself, hence the brevity. All good [works?]. Do let me hear from you again. My address is Abbots Holt, Tilford Surrey, (35 miles from London) so in reach when you come up

Yours ever

James Bone


* * * * *

Abbots Holt
Tilford, Farnham
Surrey. 12th June '52

My dear Reid,

It was good of you to write to me. I value such a letter, put as if the [ ] or the Sounds of Long Ago were still such as they were when we were young! Even then you looked like an editor. I never was one. 'London Correspondent' CP Scott always termed me. "There's only one editor in a paper," he said. More power to you & your editorship.

I fear I'll never see Scotland again. I said Goodbye to her in a review of [ ] I wrote for the Glasgow Herald that year as it was Fifty Years since I left Glasgow. Eh, dearie, dearie me!

With best wishes to You my dear friend -

Sincerely yours

James Bone


* * * * *

[Manchester Guardian articles to follow!]

Ephemera - Sermon Series 2

CHSS2. Verso of CHSS1.

2/ The power of the Words
"" of God in them
water healed
Present time streams waterfall
Poluted with Germs on sea
as they flow purified
cleansed of
You find Elisha add
We never purify taking out add
Christ to this scene not to taken
away might have life, life
abundant
That our lives may have the
beauty of Christ in us
When we find this we will be
like the Man bought Picture
When we take Christ [] out
this & that
[] we are living & worshipping
God to the full

Ephemera - Sermon Series 1

A Transcription of a bundle of sermons uncovered in an old volume of Charles Spurgeon's own sermons.

(New lines taken or a slash '/' indicates a new line on the card. [NP] indicates a new page. [] indicates unreadable text.)

CHSS1:

Ruth 1-
verse 1 a famine 22 a harvest
Chap 2 A Stranger 2-16 A Provision provided
"" 4-22 A King
Famine - testing time he goes down to Moab
but never returns going down to death leaving the
place (Bethlehem)
Moab, Egypt, type of the world, just rest
contented, neither serve the one, nor the
other
2 Sam 11 The Sins of the Flesh Psalm 21
Matt 26 Petros after " devil John 21
The effect of young dawn to Moab
friends die whom the Lord loved he chasteneth
She heard of the good news of Bethlehem of
plenty Lord visiting this place with bread
IG Ruth discussino whether this goes I will go
She blames the Lord for it all
She returned at the end of Barley harvest
----
John 9-5 A Provision provide
"" 6-35
"" 11-25
"" 10-9
1/ The Condition we are in

Ephemera - Trustee Savings Bank

An example of the old pay-in slips for the Trustee Savings Bank, now part of Lloyds TSB. Pre-1995.

SBXI - 7th August 2008

Here are the first aggregated results of the SBXI, with one constituent at present, the swings are going to be pretty wild.

Thursday, 7th August 2008 at 12.00noon GMT

111.7233

↑11.72 points, 11.72%

The SBXI is not meant to be an indicator of sales alone. It indicates profitability and sales movement as well as taking into account the total value of those sales. This is not only for the security of the constituent bookshops, but also to allow new members to be seemlessly incorporated onto the index.

This Thursday's figures show rise on last week. Overall there is reasonable health in the secondhand booktrade at the moment. A single bookshop, such as ours, is as likely to be affected by bad weather, one of us taking ill, or unenthusiastic listing, as much as by the overall cash position in the economy.

As with the wider economy, there is considerable nervousness at the moment at the position of day-to-day sales. The past year has seen a sharp rise in our sales to Europe and a general increase in the volatility of UK sales.

If you would like to participate in the project, please e-mail me on david][midoil]etc. We are very keen that sensitive information such as the profitability of individual firms be kept from the market place. To this end we have produced a downloadable calculator which returns a single number value for secondhand book sales aggregated over a certain time period. The algorithm is not reversable except in the case of exceptionally low sales figures. It should be noted that we bear no responsibility for how these figures will be used. The indicator is still in the early stages of its development and requires considerable refinement.

SBXI - Secondhand Books Exchange Index

At Midnight Oil Books, we have sometimes bemoaned the lack of uptodate price fluctuation information for secondhand and antiquarian books. To this end we are keen to trial a new price index, the SBXI, which will take a starting value of 100 as of the Monday, 4th August 2008. The initial figures are based on our own data and the index will be updated on Mondays and Thursdays every week.

Monday, 4th August 2008 at 12.00noon GMT

100

If you would like to participate in the project, please let us know. We are very keen that sensitive information such as the profitability of individual firms be kept from the market place. To this end we have produced a downloadable calculator which returns a single number value for secondhand book sales aggregated over a certain time period. The algorithm is not reversable except in the case of exceptionally low sales figures.

Long Weekend Closures

Just to give notice of the fact that Midnight Oil Books shall be closed from 13.00 on Saturday, 19th July 2008 and all day on Monday, 21st July to allow for shelf-building.

We will reopen on Tuesday morning at 09.30.

Carmen - The Awesome and the Awful

5/5 - THE BEST - GINO BECHI - OPERATIC PERFECTION

https://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DBsNkVduTKO8&Horde=cdd0665bf30b431ff14061c0c3833f6e

This rendition is so much better than any of the others. If you had seen every
other performance of this scene from every Opera company in the world, you
could still not claim to understand it until you had seen this one.

When Bechi enters the stage there is genuine excitement. Forget the cutting to
the audience parts, they distract and are not part of this performance's
brilliance. Look at the way Bechi is the actual focal point of their attention.
There is nothing contrived. Look at the genuine interest on the faces of the men
that he addresses first. Then he moves over to the two girls. When he move them
to the side having first ostensibly noticed Carmen, look at the slight on the
girl's face. This is SO good, SO natural, and SO, SO as opera should be.

The attraction between the Toreador, Escamillo and Carmen is really believable.
There is genuine, haughty affection there, if that is possible. The music is
suitably up tempo and the singing magnificent.

Wow. Just, wow.

I've watched countless times and loved it as exorbitantly the first time as the
last.

Bechi, I salute you.

3.1/5 - RAIMONDI

https://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYgqq7Yt2Vbo&Horde=cdd0665bf30b431ff14061c0c3833f6e

I'd like to, but can't bring myself to give this four out of five. The costume
is excellent, but the setting lacks an intimacy, that this scene requires.

Raimondi bounds on with enthusiasm, but notice how the girl he grabs FAILS
ABSOLUTELY TO RESPOND TO HIM. This is really bad practice. It makes Raimondi
look so stupid. In a flash you are reminded that this is a stage and these are
actors and the whole suspension of disbelief stuff, just collapses altogether.

Or take the instance where he drops the tumbler. Again, so staged. So terribly
staged. All of the cast are stock still at this point. They have all got into
sitting position, which is a bad error and are in the way and distract, and are
not moving, and it is just all poor, really, really poor. Upsettingly, so.

The budget for this performance must have been almost as enormous as Raimondi's
ego. He really does not come across well on stage: it is more like watching
Flash Gordan than a credible Escamillo.

Look at the way cast members shift position to make themselves comfy. They are
not in raptures. They are not taking him seriously.

Carmen should be standing in the initial scene. I do like the playfulness, but
she has her pride. Boy, she has pride. She is one of the haughtiest, most
pretentious of matrixes. And the chemistry between Escamillo and Carmen is
wrong. It is just not good, not right, not there. There is really nothing going
on to make you sit up and quiver at the prospect of a great stage romance.

Great voices, particularly Carmen.

3/5 - LEVINE'S MET RENDITION

https://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwNh4ei4Rx9A&Horde=cdd0665bf30b431ff14061c0c3833f6e

Tragi-comic. The tone of this piece troubles me. I would love Carmen to be more
feminine, Escamillo to be more natural.

It is a good thing that he is willing to move, but he shouldn't have come
running down the stairs. Thieves and children run.

The sideburns lend Ramey a neaderthalesque appearance, his jumping around
appears to clash with the role. He moves lightfootedly, but not at all
donishly. At times, he can be so static and pole-like and tense. At other
times brash, whirling the scarf around. How ridiculous.

There other flaws, flaws that belie description: mostly one is left with an
unconvinced, uneasy feeling.

On the plus side, the colouration is great. The cast, though not convincing in
their roles, are well togged and the scenery looks splendid.

Ramey's voice convinces without astounding. The contortions that he undergoes to
produce volume and range, rather devalue the end result.

This isn't bad. I would applause after the show. I might even stand up. But I
would not still be standing fifteen minutes later, with tears in my eyes,
having fainted twice. Only Bechi's rendition deserves that degree of adulation.

2/5 - BAD - AN UPBEAT ROUT FROM KOREA

https://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlXNjqxZ11NQ&Horde=cdd0665bf30b431ff14061c0c3833f6e

Once we make it through the credits...

With all the success that Korean musicians are having with Western music, it is
strangely heartening to see that they can still make such a mess of Western
opera.

This is a super minimalist stage for a solo piano rendition, not a Bizet opera.
Why are all these costumed opera characters walking about on a forecastle? And
why is Escamillo dressed like a Venetian spiff? His drinking
from the glass convinces no one. It is like watching an annoying little admiral
Lord Nelson parading back and forward. He has no discernable charm. He does
little to ape European mannerisms, and sings at times with his head back at the
most ridiculous angle.

Our Carmen, whoever she is, tots up one of the - VERY, VERY FEW - worthy points
of this production. I like her attitude. She seems genuinely to understand what
is going on romantically here, at quite a deep level. You do not get the
impression, as with some of our other Carmens, that she has simply been told by
some director that she should have such-and-such and attitude and maintains that
throughout the whole of the scene. She has an air of mystique. If I were a sixty
year old patron of this tavern, I could imagine myself going quite potty over
her.

Again though, the whole production suffers for being so riflingly ridiculous.

1/5 - THE WORST - CHILE

https://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dz-AuAz_gukg&Horde=cdd0665bf30b431ff14061c0c3833f6e

Forget the fact that the video is awful, and the sound dire, and the likely fact
that it was all shot on someone's mobile phone, this is bad. The set gives
better 3-dimensionality than the Korean one, which our Escamillo immediately
wastes by staying rooted to the one spot.

The cast is furniture - absolute amateurs. They add nothing. Perhaps they are
worried about taking a step back and breaking their collective neck. What has a
staircase to do with pubs and bullfighting? Why are these people on a stage?
They clearly cannot act. None of them can. It is like watching wallpaper, bad
wallpaper, peeling slowly, over a fifty year period.

0/5 - AU CONTRAIRE, THIS IS THE WORST - AN OPERATIC CATASTROPHE - GLYNDEBOURNE,
UK

https://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DD8Ult8x-doE&Horde=cdd0665bf30b431ff14061c0c3833f6e

This at first glance looks a lot better than the Chilean one to follow, but it
is truly awful: so bad that its badness wakes me sometimes in the middle of the
night.

Firstly, forget the costumes, these are clearly C20th Brits, being very British
and not at all continental. The stage setting is awful, so cluttered that
Escamillo is forced to stay rooted to the top of a tiny platform. The men
behind him patently have no idea what he is singing. One man attempts a hand
gesture, but it is pointless, out of turn and so half-hearted, that you feel
like immediately jumping up and down on his stomach just to check and see that
he is alive.

Escamillo throughout is doing his own wee thing. He stands in wrong places,
doesn't know how to flirt, and just looks an English public schoolboy type who
has wandered into an opera set by accident and to tell a joke that only he is
gets. It feels more like the "Please, sir," scene from Oliver Twist. There
is nothing alluring about Carmen, she looks neither interesting nor interested
nor worthy even of being spoken about. The cast immediately break when the
music ends otherwise they are static. They really really don't know what
Escamillo is singing, this is the major flaw. They do not understand what the
implications are. They give no hints as to the sexual politics of his arresting
entrance, if only it were so.

It is just bad. Expensive, no doubt, and very, very bad. When I look at Carmen,
I do not think as I should, that she is aloof, hot property, untouchable, and
utterly enticing, instead I think that she has a bad migrane. I think that her
elderly neighbour is complaining about her hernias over the backyard wall. I
think that she is really beginning to be beaten by a serious of severe
abdominal cramps. I suddenly remember I have my washing to do before Sunday,
anything would be better than watching this. Eating my own shoe would be
tastier.

The music is turgid too. It drags. There is no life in this scene at all. Mostly
it is some sort of schadenfreude that keeps one watching: perhaps this is all
just a bad joke, someone will jump up at any second and say, "Only kidding,
here is our real cast, and real production!

Ephemera - The German People

[A letter presumably to The Times.]

Edinburgh, December 2, 1940

SIR, "H" states that he does not know what are Sir Robert Vansittart's qualifications to act as Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the Government. Let me enlighten him.

Sir Robert became Assistant Clerk to the Foreign Office in 1914, First Secretary in 1919, Counsellor in the Diplomatic Service in 1920, Secretary to Lord Curzon in 1920, Assistant Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1928, Permanent Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office from 1930 to 1938., Diplomatic Adviser to theForeign Secretary since then.

"H's" comment, therefore, that Sir Robert's qualifications do not seem to include any general knowledge of Germany or of the German peoples is manifestly absurd. It would be interesting to know the qualifications which "H" possesses to enable him to state that the Germans are not to be "lumped together as a pack of wolves," and are not a united people in one realm under one leader. I can only say that I see little evidence of regional or racial differences among Germans in their Army or Diplomatic Service. I am &C. Ex-RAF"

A Happy Christmas!

"Made nigh by the blood of Christ."

What an interesting expression. It means brought close, but is rarely found outwith the context of its Ephesians 2 v. 13 origin, in paraphrase or direct quotation.

I have scrawled through the first 150 references of 730 to it on Google Books. Not one gave the phrase being used outwith its sacred context. It is the sort of phrase that really ought to be put to bed. Near-on-all modern writers are enclosing it in brackets, or offering some explanation to its meaning. Language changes and therein there are losses as well as new vocab.

If any one is able to track down a secular, non-mimicking usage of this phrase, then post a comment and let us know.

Kirkcaldy Promenade, The Esplanade and Ravensraig Point

Kirkcaldy's Prom was never its prettiest quarter. (I live off it, so feel I have a certain legitimacy in saying so.)

This view on the postcard is looking north towards the Hutchison's flour mill, which is still in operation. The wall is substantially the same, as is the harbour wall with the boating club shed, which is currently for sale, on the end of it. In general terms, the scene is remarkably similar, unmistakable even, however there are several changes of note.

The harbour currently features a veritable forest of posts, signs and lamposts, all every bit as ugly as the stone ones in this picture. The large white sheds at this end of the harbour have been demolished and replaced with housing, which now strafes the harbour area. The roadway is now wider and the grass verges have been removed. And the church at the far end of the Prom has been demolished.

The car nearest to us is reg. SSP 72, making it pre-1963, but can you identify it?