P-P-Pick up a Topic

Of all the blogposts on UET, none has generated more interest than one we wrote in 2007 on an old Penguin wrapper. I am pleased to bring you an exciting new development in this groundbreaking community research.

A reader has been in touch with the following message:

"Hi.

"I just found a Penguin wrapper in most unusual circumstances tonight. It's not in best condition, but predates the one on your blog by a good while I think.

"I found it stuffed inside a bicycle handle bar!!! From a late 1940s bike! It was scrunched up, but when I straightened it out a little this is what I found (attached) It's not the best pic, used flash, but it says on the wrapper "Macdonalds Milk Chocolate Penguin Sandwich Biscuit". Made at the Glenc(g)arry Biscuit......... Bakery Glasgow.

"In the other side of the bars I found a Peek Freens Majestic Wafer wrapper. Also pictured, but that's another story maybe."

Can anyone go one better we wonder?

Ephemera - Speedo

I was going to entitle this Speedoes, but then perhaps it should have been Speedos. Who knowes? One of the tragedies ov the arrivale of modernitie is the mannerie in which all the ees were culled.

Anyway, to business...

"SPEEDO EUROPE LTD. - NOTTINGHAM - ENGLAND
IMPORTANT

This garment is created for competitive and discerning swimmers from special
lightweight fabric, and dyed and printed in exciting fashion shades. It is
guaranteed for a quality of workmanship and fastness of colour if the following
procedures are observed.

1. Avoid contact with all rough surfaces as this may cause abrasion
of the lightweight fabric.
2. Rinse in fresh cold water after use in swimming pools and
seawater. Squeeze Gently. Do Not Wring.
3. Avoid prolonged exposure to sunlight if garment is left in
polythene bag.

In case of complaint, please return this card with the garment to
Speedo Europe Ltd., Nottingham, England
INSPECTION No. "

Do not wring? That is an essential part of any visit to the baths.

Ephemera - Life in your hands

Verso of this guide to the metrification of explosives, there is a warning card outlining the duties of a shot-firing sentry. It reads as follows:

"SENTRY
Life in your hands
You have been appointed as a shot-firing
sentry.
Do not allow anyone to pass you into the
danger zone.
Under no circumstances must you leave
your post until you have been relieved
personally by the official who appointed
you.
The Coal Mines (Explosives)
Regulations, 1961 Ex. Reg. 42
1. No person who has been posted as a
sentry in pursuance of Regulation 41
shall leave the place where he was posted
until the person who so posted him has
personally directed him to do so.
2. No person shall pass a danger sign
exhibited for the purposes of shot-firing
without the authority of the shot-firer or
trainee shot-firer concerned, or shall pass
a sentry who has forbidden him to do so.

Produced in the interests of safety by
ICI | Nobel's | Explosives | Company | Limited"

Delivery - Shopping list

From the bombastic to the mundane now...

"Delivery on 31st July
602 Lasagne £2-50
506 Roast beef & Yorkshire £3-10
518 Pork in Apple Sauce 3.15
504 Roast beef in burgundy sauce 3 15
531 Lamb Hotpot 2 80
563 Plaice in breadcrumbs 3 15
532 Lamb liver 2 55
507 Spaghetti Bolonaise 2 40
264 Chicken curry 2 05
568 Cod fillet 2 75
----
£27-60
delivery 1-00
----
£28-60"

Would love to know whose codes these were...

Ephemera - Explosives card

An explosives card of sorts here, this one dating from 1981. As ever the ephemera is the question. Feel free to write in with answers.

"Series 780 E & D 5 (M)
Day Tuesday Pouch No 11.
Date 21.4.81 Shift P/T
Detonator No Wire Colour Orange
Dets issued 20 Used 7 Returned 13
District(s) D15

Signature of Shotfirer [Murray McLellan]?
[...]"

Ephemera - SYHA

"Go Places!
SYHA
S.Y.H.A | can | show | the | way -
Interested ? Then send a | stamped addressed envelope to -
SCOTTISH YOUTH HOSTELS | ASSOCIATION
161 WARRENDER PARK ROAD, | EDINBURGH EH8 1EQ"

Wikipedia Articles on Concepts

In idle moments, I have been known to press the random article button on Wikipedia. What a mistake! Depressingly the Encyclopaedia is just packed with articles which in the broadest sense we might call topographical: albums, single, football players, rocks, plants, townships, high schools, shipping firms etc. etc. And it is only going to get worse. This detritus of the human existence knows no limits to its extent.

To counterbalance this trend, I thought that it would be fun to filter out articles which in the broadest sense we might call conceptual or treating of concepts. Here is the story of my journey:

21'46: Five minutes in using the Random Button and still nothing. It is clear that I am going to have to be a little forensic about digging out articles on concepts. Here is one user's experience of 250 pages and their multifarious contents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Opabinia_regalis/Article_statistics.

21'58: Searching from 'concept*' in the Category field, I have begun to pull out one or two interesting terms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trope_%28philosophy%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsimony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentially_contested_concept
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_quantification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbrand_universe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantifier_elimination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreal_number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_%28model_theory%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_thesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_countable_choice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe_of_discourse

Yawn. Sorry guys. A lot of hunting, and a reasonable trawl for the night, but at 10'36 and after many distractions, I'm away to bed (to read!)

Here's One We Made Earlier

Ephemera is born and not made. It must be an unconscious process, I suspect, to be ephemera in the truest sense of the word. With this in mind, here are two contributions by staff members, which were very much created with posterity very much an afterthought.

On the left is a bookmark, that I myself made when I guess I must have been about ten years old. Sweet as it is, I am a tad disappointed at the logical inconsistency of the book itself doing parachuting, which makes me wonder whether 'Parachute in a Book' would not perhaps have been a better slogan. Who's to argue with a ten-year-old!? If nothing else, at least I cannot be accused, seventeen years later, of being a jonny-come-lately to this bookselling business.

On the right, also scrawled with no thought of internet fame and fortune, is one of our interminable day-lists, this one by my colleague, Daniel. My interest was particularly caught by the note that read 'Guy might come in tomorrow to sell a dictionary'. Daniel appears to have written 'old' before the word 'guy', then thought better of it, and replaced it with 'older'.

Further Flower Identification Puzzle

Another flower identification puzzle for you, only this time the specimens in question come from a 1778 Eighth Edition of Paradise Lost. Nothing to indicate that the leaves are that old, of course. As ever on Utterly Engrossing Trivia, the ephemera suggests a question, and in this case, quite simply, can you identify the leaves in question. Answer to Comments, please.

Ephemera - Newspaper cutting

A MOST UNROMANTIC LOVER
Gibbon, the Historian
On January 16, 1794, died Edward Gibbon,
remembered by the world at large for his
monumental historical achievement, of
interest to women as perhaps the most un-
romantic lover who ever became famous.
There have been many fickle swains, whose
allegiance to a friend or to a cause was
more permanent than a romance of which
they had wearied; but Gibbon's placid as-
ceptance of parental veto and complacent
readiness to substitute friendship for pas-
sion is interesting from the psychological
standpoint. If few woman can help fell-
in a quiet scorn, few would fail to consider
that the lady got a better bargain in Necker,
who proposed in her days of poverty when
she was working to support her widowed
mother.

First Meeting
Fairness must recall that Gibbon was only
a youth of 20 when he encountered the
charms of Susanne Curchod, whose merits
he afterwards summed up with level-headed
logic :-"I Found her learned without
pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in
sentiment, and elegant in manners." She
came from Crassy, where her father was a
minister, to visit relations at Lausanne, and
she and young Edward were mutually at-
tracted. He visited her at her mountain
home in Burgundy, and was welcomed by
her parents. Then he returned to England,
and his father absolutely refused to coun-
tenance an engagement.

Tame Submission
We may fancy that his love was not so
very ardent, for he seems to have submitted
quite tamely to his father's decision. True,
he was financially dependent upon him. The
lady's ideas were different; she refused other
good offers of marriage and awaited his
return, hoping and trusting. He went to
Lauzanne again a few years later, and met
her coldly. At last she asked for an ex-
planation, and he was glib with his sugges-
tion that romance should be translated into
quiet friendship. Evidently the idea did not
appeal to her, and she proposed his visiting
Rousseau, having first arranged through a
pastor friend that he should be given a little
good advice on the duties f lovers.

Love Grown Cold
He did not go Rousseau, and when he
met her again at Ferney, treated her so
coolly that a rupture which seemed final re-
sulted. As his biographers have admitted,
it was not his fault that her feelings were
deeper than his own, but he might have
behaved with less brutality. However, that
was not the end of the story. A year after
her marriage to Necker she met her former
lover on terms of easy friendship. They
was each other almost daily, and each ap-
peared to take a pride in showing the other
that old would had ceased to need dress-
ing. For the rest of their lives they even
maintained quite an affectionate correspon-
dence. We may wonder if it was entirely
free from affectation, and it is curious to
conjecture concerning Suzanne's inmost
feelings towards her cold-blooded lover.
FEDDEN TINDALL

+-+-+
A well-known story. The Necker-Gibbon connection is one that has intrigued me since I learnt about it earlier this year. What is the source of this article however? Who is Fedden Tindall?

Ephemera - Dumfries Banknote

The attached article carries the following commentary: "A RARE BANK-NOTE.--An article published in "The Post" recently referred to the rarity of on-guinea bank-notes, of which, it stated, only three are known to exist. Mr. E. Irving Roberts, of Khandallah, owns such a note, apparently of an issue different from those referred to in the article. The photograph is a slightly enlarged reproduction of this probably valuable curiosity."

Ephemera - The Spittal Hotel

A charming receipt from the 1960s here. The Spittal Hotel is a beautiful log cabin at the foot of the Cairngorm mountains on the A93 enroute to Glenshee and Braemar. The receipt is made out to one Mr Gorski, which ammusingly means something like 'mountaneous' in Polish. It is particularly charming to note pay that guests were expected to pay extra for baths, which Mr. Gorski failed to avail himself during the course of his four-day stay.

=========
[1]
THE SPITTAL OF GLENSHEE
HOTEL LTD. - GLENSHEE

8th Jan 1966

Received from
Mr Gorski
£13 . 7 . 0
Sig. S. McLeod

[1b]

2852
The sum of
£ s d
10%
£ 1 . 6 . 0

[2]

6156

THE SPITTAL HOTEL
Proprietor: THE SPITTAL OF GLENSHEE HOTEL LTD.
GLENSHEE, PERTHSHIRE
SKI-ING - FISHING - PONY-TREKKING

Mr Gorski

Jan 1965 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Brought forward - 3.15.- 7.10.- 11.5.-
Room & Breakfast
Board £ 3.15.0 £3.15.0 £3.15.0
Apartments
Room Service
Morning Tea
Baths
Breakfast
Luncheon
Afternoon Tea
High Tea
Dinner/Supper
Tea & Coffee 2.-
Beers, WInes, etc.
Laundry/Dry cleaning
Telephone
Garage Transport 2.0.0
Sundries
Pony Trekking
Ski Hire
Ski Instruction

Carried forward - £ 3.15 - 7.10.- 11.5.- 13.7.0

NEAREST STATION, COUPAR ANGUS

===

Questions, question. Who was Mr. Gorski one wonders. Why one cup of tea in four days? Anyone know anything about the hotel at this time? Who worked there? Who was it run by?

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