M. R. James in Gloucester Cathedral ...

Bishop Goldsborough of Gloucester died in 1604. The Latin inscription over his tomb looked rich in hints of treasure - 'aureus', 'pretiosa metalla' - but my Latin is not up to a full reading and I didn't have a camera.

Back home I tracked the inscription down with pleasant difficulty, and found it is some kind of pun/meditation on the Bishop's name:

IN OBITUM REVERENDI PRAESULIS GODFRIDI, QUONDAM GLOUCESTRIENSIS EPISCOPI, QUI XXVI MAII, MDCIV EX HAC VITA MIGRAVIT.
Aureus, et fulvo nomen sortitus ab auro,
Hic Goldisburgus nunc requiescit humo.
Scilicet orta solo pretiosa metalla parente,
In matrem redeunt inveterata suam.
SEDIT ANNOS SEX.

On the death of Bishop Godfrey, sometime bishop of Gloucester, who on the 26 of May, 1604 departed this life .
Gold, with golden name derived from gold,
Here Goldsborough now rests in the ground .
Assuredly, sprung from only parent precious metals,
To his mother he will always return.
He served for six years .

Royal Wedding, 1981 - When Horace rolled out the Redcar pet - By Nancy Banks-Smith

With hindsight you seem to see Princess Diana's wedding and her funeral like a double exposure. The golden coach and the gun carriage. The cheering and the weeping.

You Had To Be There (BBC 1) was devoted to the euphoria of the wedding day. Nothing increased the gaiety of the nation more than the BBC's experiment in subtitling, and this was bravely included. They had hoped to increase the enjoyment of the deaf, and I don't doubt they did.

The subtitling computer, bless it -- and I never thought to say that about a computer -- was supposed to translate Tom Fleming's florid commentary. Happily, subtitling was still in its extreme infancy. I immediately thought of the computer as Horace. Horace was the baby in Harry Hemsley's radio show whose burbling ("What did Horace say, Winnie?") was only intelligible to his little sister.

Horace's humble vocabulary of 8,000 words was hardly up to his heroic task, but you could not fault his enthusiasm. "Heer the seen!"he cried. "What a po No plee of colour!" At the BBC's subtitling department Isla Beard "knew something was going wrong from the indrawn breath of the rest of the team".

Horace plunged on, boldly going where no subtitling computer had been before. Like a tipsy toastmaster he introduced the arrivals at the royal wedding. The Queen, sparkling with quistls, and the Dew of Edinburgh. Princess Anne, very sump with a big firll down the sid, and her then husband, Canon Lips. The Queen Mother with a cloud of S prays round her face. And udder members of the royal fasmli.

By now the Prince of Wales had ascended the Redcar pet. When Horace caught sight of Lady Dja ana he lost all power of coherent speech. She foamed out of the class coach in hundreds of jarts of veil and a gate big skirt. And didn't she just.

The bells were wringing as the happy pear drove down Fleet Street past the printers pup. With a premonitory sense of dread I felt myself pray "Dear God, don't let him try to say 'Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements.'" Too late! Horace plunged in like a hero. "O wnjn js . . ."

I phoned this garble over to a copy taker. To this day I can remember with awe the stoic heroism of that remarkable man, and hear my own cry "Don't let them correct it!" The Guardian had something of a reputation for literals and was quite likely to choose this very day to be word-perfect.

Afterwards I got a very stiff letter from the BBC saying I had put back subtitling for the deaf 10 years, and they hoped I was happy. And, of course, I was. We all were.

Eclipse over the windmill

Friday is the usual day for volunteers to do the flour milling and any odd jobs at the Mill, and on the morning of 20 March a number of us were there to get ready for the intensive weekend of spring-cleaning, and limewashing the interior. We'd brought our eclipse-projecting kits with us - colanders, binoculars – the skies were beautifully clear, so we could make the best of the rare chance, and we captured some images, projected on the Mill wall, or reflected in a window. People passing by came up to share our vantage point at the top of the hill, and one man brought a welder's mask which we passed around, getting a direct look at the sun’s disc reduced to a thin crescent.

From the upper floors of the Mill there are views to the distant hills, and a photo from a bin floor window shows something of the strange, bleak atmosphere across York at maximum ‘darkness’; but it was surprising how bright the day remained with only a sliver of sun to light it. Birds didn’t seem to be troubled by the event and just before the maximum, a pair of sparrowhawks passed high over the sails. 

Worse things happen at sea dept.

The gaslit bar was icy, heat from the blazing fire going straight up the chimney with the windy draught. Rain poured in above the windows in the small hours and we laid towels to dampen the sound. Downstairs in the morning all was locked and deserted: the landlord hadn't realised we expected breakfast. The taxi driver hadn't got the knowledge.