tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71923831889212588912024-03-06T01:47:26.090-06:00Old KnockOld Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-61976760845744572632013-03-29T10:58:00.003-05:002013-03-29T10:59:05.097-05:00Coat Follow-upBelow are a few images of some of our more renound members in their coats:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJkbErxO7Kp0GZdlQo1l9qn3Nk-SHvZj8xKmfr4VcZ4BZQnzX-BsEAdzAD0kgKvULZtiuu5B9HcvQlXqtv_Q9LPYTAaMppBRPU5hk2W23vTgS2rZUx5goOkee6yLV-xLnkc9vwiux91c5A/s1600/tolkien+coat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJkbErxO7Kp0GZdlQo1l9qn3Nk-SHvZj8xKmfr4VcZ4BZQnzX-BsEAdzAD0kgKvULZtiuu5B9HcvQlXqtv_Q9LPYTAaMppBRPU5hk2W23vTgS2rZUx5goOkee6yLV-xLnkc9vwiux91c5A/s1600/tolkien+coat.jpg" /></a></div>
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J.R.R. Tolkien in his lovely, furred number.</div>
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Leslie Howard stepping out.</div>
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Then, there is this rather odd off-shoot of the overcoat--the dressing gown. Typically, an Old Knock would not wear this item in public, but when sufficiently distracted...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5vjzDqTiN0tqKZK4Diu7TW2f7hbJntTneKJz20gUeFwS0KJGy9Vvs34Oyn8EhTqGyB1bPYEiImLk0vFGJVajIt65aRuheFPcZPfgt9nfvViyGwsvukDe753tlpoufZET2fpj-bb79YUXp/s1600/Leslie+Howard+Pygmalion+02--robe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5vjzDqTiN0tqKZK4Diu7TW2f7hbJntTneKJz20gUeFwS0KJGy9Vvs34Oyn8EhTqGyB1bPYEiImLk0vFGJVajIt65aRuheFPcZPfgt9nfvViyGwsvukDe753tlpoufZET2fpj-bb79YUXp/s320/Leslie+Howard+Pygmalion+02--robe.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-10545147433459582372013-03-29T10:35:00.001-05:002013-03-29T10:35:12.531-05:00Old Knock Wardrobe: The Coat
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">How does the Old Knock stay warm on
those blustery days as he scrambles from his warm domestic dwelling to the
local chapel or library?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why, through
the use of his outer coat, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
our modern age of well-heated everything, the importance of the outer coat—except
for outdoor activities—has gone the way of the Dodo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, as with many relics of years past, the
outer coat is still in wide use among the Old Knock set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As can be imagined, this outer covering
is, above all else, practical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Practical
in the sense that it keeps the wind and rain off of one—not practical in the
sense that it doesn’t get in the way at times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As with the trousers and jacket, the outer coat provides the Old Knock
with yet another cache for a variety of useful items—pencils, string, books,
apples, pipe and tobacco, coffee mugs, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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F<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">or the shape and color of this
article, it too falls in line with the rest of the wardrobe—it is essentially
shapeless and it’s color is impossible to define.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both of these qualities come from the
hand-me-down origins of the item, along with the abuse it has taken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For it is not merely to be used as a coat,
but as a cushion for sitting on tombstones while making rubbings, or placing
under one’s head while napping under a tree.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Many an Old Knock’s coat is military in
origin—as many of this crew, being romantics at heart, have, indeed, served
their respective countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the
military starch is gone (often times, along with the belt, which is why so many
are gathered about the waist with string or an old tie).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-14668161234045696382012-11-01T15:27:00.001-05:002012-11-01T15:27:47.425-05:00A Pipe in the GardenI thoroughly enjoy <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Benson#Bibliography" target="_blank">E.F. Benson's</a> Lucia series. I have <a href="http://oldknock.blogspot.com/2011/11/ef-bensons-queen-lucia.html" target="_blank">written before</a> about Lucia's poor husband, "Pepino". In the following excerpt from <u>Lucia in London</u> (1927), Pepino is at his Old Knock best:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwz5OCwedXnjDUANp8PghNudpsVYFHR1beWPZXYOli_whfFxtu4GShLb4ftam9wfGh61vajQN0VEVN9FXofYwpM2BNMHUqUxoZqkSsuBgVjMIIn8tiaBkr5WF3lgGd_3qAphzff7zarpd4/s1600/Pipe+in+the+Garden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwz5OCwedXnjDUANp8PghNudpsVYFHR1beWPZXYOli_whfFxtu4GShLb4ftam9wfGh61vajQN0VEVN9FXofYwpM2BNMHUqUxoZqkSsuBgVjMIIn8tiaBkr5WF3lgGd_3qAphzff7zarpd4/s320/Pipe+in+the+Garden.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">"He was sitting in the garden in very old </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">clothes, smoking a pipe, and thoroughly enjoying
the complete </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">absence of anything to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was aware that officially he loved </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">the bustle of London, but it was extremely
pleasant to sit in his </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">garden and smoke a pipe, and above all to be rid
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">hectic people who had talked quite incessantly
from morning till </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">night all Sunday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He had given up the cross-word, and was thinking </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">over the material for a sonnet on Tranquillity..."</span></div>
Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-15419318642858724282012-09-13T10:26:00.000-05:002012-09-13T10:26:29.835-05:00The Life of an Undergraduate at OxfordI am a new fan of <a href="http://edwardianpromenade.com/" target="_blank">The Edwardian Promenade</a>. In the post for September 11th, an article on an American's observations of <a href="http://edwardianpromenade.com/education/the-life-of-an-undergraduate-at-oxford/" target="_blank">Undergraduate Life at Oxford</a> was presented. I include an excerpt from it below, as it provides a snapshot of what life was like at Oxford in the 1890s. Enjoy!<br />
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The day of an Oxford man is somewhat different from that of an American student. He rises at eight, and goes to chapel, and from chapel to breakfast in his own room, where he gets a most substantial breakfast—I never saw such substantial breakfasts anywhere else — or, what is more likely, he breakfasts with some one else in some one else’s rooms. This is a most excellent and hospitable habit, and prevails generally. So far as I could see, no one ever lunched or dined or breakfasted alone. He either was engaged somewhere else or was giving a party of his own. And it frequently happened that after we were all seated our host would remember that he should be lunching with another man, and we would all march over to the other man’s rooms and be received as a matter of course. It was as if they dreaded being left alone with their thoughts. It struck me as a university for the cultivation of hospitality before anything else.<br />
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After breakfast the undergraduate “reads” a bit, and then lunches with another man, and reads a little more, and then goes out on the river or to the cricket-field until dinner. The weather permits this out-of-door life all the year round, which is a blessing the Oxford man enjoys and which his snow-bound American cousin does not. His dinner is at seven, and if in hall it is a very picturesque meal. The big hall is rich with stained glass and full-length portraits of celebrated men whose names the students never by any possible chance know, and there are wooden carved wainscotings and heavy rafters. There is a platform at one end on which sit the dons, and below at deal tables are the undergraduates in their gowns—worn decorously on both shoulders now, and not swinging from only one—and at one corner by themselves the men who are training for the races. The twilight is so late that the place needs only candles, and there is a great rattle of silver mugs that bear the college arms, and clatter of tongues, and you have your choice of the college ale or the toast and water of which you used to read and at which you probably wondered in Tom Brown at Oxford. The dons are the first to leave, and file out in a solemn procession. If you dine with the dons and sit above your fellow-men you are given the same excellent and solid dinner and wine in place of beer, and your friends of the morning make faces at you for deserting them and because of your higher estate.<br />
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My first dinner with the dons was somewhat confusing. After a most excellent service somebody rose, and I started with the rest down the steps towards the door, when my host stopped me and said, “You have forgotten to bring your napkin.” What solemn rite this foretold I could not guess. I had enjoyed my dinner, and I wanted to smoke, and why I needed a napkin, unless as a souvenir, I could not see; and I continued wondering as we marched in some certain order of precedence up and down stone stairways and through gloomy passages to another room in an entirely different part of the college, where we found another long table spread as carefully as the one in the hall below with many different wines and fruits and sweets. And we all sat down at this table as before, and sipped port and passed things around and talked learnedly, as dons should, for half an hour, when we rose, and I again bade my host good-night, but he again stopped me with a deprecatory smile, and again we formed a procession and marched solemnly through passages and over stone floors to another room, where a third table was spread, with more bottles, coffee, and things to smoke. It struck me that an Oxford don mixes some high living with his high thinking. I did not wait to see if there were any more tables hidden around the building, but I suppose there were.<br />
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After dinner the undergraduate reads with his tutor out of college or in his own rooms. He cannot leave the college after a certain early hour, and if he should stay out all night the consequences would be awful. This is, of course, quite as incomprehensible to an American as are the jagged iron spikes and broken glass which top the college walls. It seems a sorry way to treat the sons of gentlemen, and more fitted to the wants of a reformatory. There is one gate at Trinity which is only open for royalty, and which was considered to be insurmountable by even the most venturesome undergraduate, until one youth scaled it successfully, only to be caught out of bounds. The college authorities had no choice in the matter but to send him down, as they call suspending a man in Oxford; but so great was their curiosity and belief in the virtue of the gate that they agreed to limit his term of punishment if he would show them how he scaled it. To this, of course, he naturally agreed, and the undergraduates were edified by the sight of one of their number performing a gymnastic feat of rare daring on the top of the sacred .iron gate, while the college dignitaries stood gazing at him in breathless admiration from below.Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-8094315898144259962012-09-12T13:13:00.000-05:002012-09-12T13:13:32.146-05:00The Old Knock in Love<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The concepts of "The Old Knock" and "Love" do not easily meld.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am afraid to say that the Old Knock, in general, is not particularly adept in the art of love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is unsurprising to find that most Old Knocks are not wed, or if they are, they did not participate in the Holy Act of Matrimony until well into their later years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Once has only to consider the grand C.S. Lewis, pictured above, with his wife Joy.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that some Old Knocks actually have been known to reproduce is nothing short of extraordinary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The cause for this lack of romantic excellence is due, almost entirely, to the primary focus of the Old Knock’s life: their field of study.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lest we forget, an Old Knock is defined almost entirely by his (or her) devotion to intellectual pursuits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This does not leave one much time to master the finer graces required for wooing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Take for instance P.G. Wodehouse’s Gussie Fink-Nottle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is a young man devoutly committed to his beloved newts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it any wonder that at the moment he hopes to, as they say, “seal-the-deal” with his beloved, he hopelessly flubs it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here, the Inimitable Jeeves is speaking with his employer, Bertie Wooster:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Mr. Fink-Nottle is not quite himself, sir. He has passed through a trying experience."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I endeavoured to put together a brief synopsis of previous events.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"I left him out here with Miss Bassett."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Yes, sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"I had softened her up."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Yes, sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"He knew exactly what he had to do. I had coached him thoroughly in lines and business."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Yes, sir. So Mr. Fink-Nottle informed me."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Well, then----"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"I regret to say, sir, that there was a slight hitch."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"You mean, something went wrong?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Yes, sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I could not fathom. The brain seemed to be tottering on its throne.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"But how could anything go wrong? She loves him, Jeeves."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Indeed, sir?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"She definitely told me so. All he had to do was propose."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Yes sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Well, didn't he?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"No, sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Then what the dickens did he talk about?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Newts, sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Newts?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Yes, sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Newts?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Yes, sir."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"But why did he want to talk about newts?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"He did not want to talk about newts, sir. As I gather from Mr. Fink-Nottle, nothing could have been more alien to his plans."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I simply couldn't grasp the trend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"But you can't force a man to talk about newts."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Mr. Fink-Nottle was the victim of a sudden unfortunate spasm of nervousness, sir. Upon finding himself alone with the young lady, he admits to having lost his morale. In such circumstances, gentlemen frequently talk at random, saying the first thing that chances to enter their heads. This, in Mr. Fink-Nottle's case, would seem to have been the newt, its treatment in sickness and in health."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"And how long did this nuisance continue?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"For some not inconsiderable time, I gather, sir. According to Mr. Fink-Nottle, he supplied Miss Bassett with very full and complete information not only with respect to the common newt, but also the crested and palmated varieties. He described to her how newts, during the breeding season, live in the water, subsisting upon tadpoles, insect larvae, and crustaceans; how, later, they make their way to the land and eat slugs and worms; and how the newly born newt has three pairs of long, plumlike, external gills. And he was just observing that newts differ from salamanders in the shape of the tail, which is compressed, and that a marked sexual dimorphism prevails in most species, when the young lady rose and said that she thought she would go back to the house."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-20881293320132918202012-09-07T15:17:00.000-05:002012-09-07T15:17:05.023-05:00Young Fogey A La Mode<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
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I have been trying to get my hands on a copy of <em>The Young Fogey Handbook</em>, but I'm too cheap pay the fifty-plus it would take to purchase a used copy. I've managed to round up what appears to be Chapter two and I am posting them below. </div>
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(I can't remember where I found these, so if someone originally scanned these and they would prefer I not post them, please let me know and I will remove them.)</div>
Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-40450968553225668992012-08-15T09:55:00.001-05:002012-08-15T09:55:06.119-05:00Old Knock Wardrobe: Dressing for Services<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black;">(Sorry that it has been so long since my last post. I took to summer off to work on other projects--namely my children and a failed garden.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black;">I must admit that this summer’s weather has definitely caused The Old Knock to lower his own standards in dress for most occasions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Not that Old Knocks in general are known for fine dressing.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there is one occasion in which I have done my best to stand firm: the Church Service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We find ourselves in a time when Churches are attempting to be as welcoming and comfortable as possible—an idea which I whole-heartedly support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel that, for too long, the doors of the Church have appeared shut to too many people who did not fit a certain type.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there is something to be said about dressing a bit more formally on Sunday.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black;">Growing up, I was taught that it was important to look one’s best for Services, because it showed respect to our Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think this is a fine explanation—although it may cause an immature believer to feel that one must “dress up” in order to be acceptable to the Lord, which is never the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is merely showing Him that these ceremonies are important enough to us to be sure we are turned out well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black;">But there is another issue that I think supports a more formal attire for Church services.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I put on a collared shirt, coat and tie, I am, to be honest, less comfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tie is not a comfortable thing—make no mistake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not likely to take a nap in my jacket and buttoned-up shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wearing these things forces my body—and mind—to focus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, we are “spiritual animals.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What affects the body affects the mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Which is why we have always been taught to get a good night’s sleep and eat breakfast before attending a service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why, after-all, do many Churches today offer coffee before entering a service?)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black;">Now, dear reader, please do not mistake me—our Lord will accept us whether we are wearing a three-piece suit or flip-flops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our attire does nothing to make us more pleasing to Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I feel that it does influence the way we feel and, thus, impacts our preparedness to worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think about it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"></span>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-57648442288631455542012-01-17T08:13:00.000-06:002012-01-17T08:13:09.626-06:00Worship Old & New<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_khHm8zksiWfMZgurLVumNuLumVqYr7xykHQflUmBXkF-amlzUn5VpgYcibN7HTw36_BsxS2F-gqdUabZ9xWATwK1t6zylJWkP0DiXB6QVeh2mFJkZVvOx3KILz4-R02QTnz1rHf9Gc06/s1600/Crichton+Cross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_khHm8zksiWfMZgurLVumNuLumVqYr7xykHQflUmBXkF-amlzUn5VpgYcibN7HTw36_BsxS2F-gqdUabZ9xWATwK1t6zylJWkP0DiXB6QVeh2mFJkZVvOx3KILz4-R02QTnz1rHf9Gc06/s320/Crichton+Cross.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>Sorry I haven't posted in quite awhile. Life gets in the way. Here is an excerpt from one of the books I've been reading, <em>Worship Old & New </em>by Robert E. Webber. I will probably be quoting from this book and author quite a bit in future posts. He very clearly sets out many of my thoughts on religious practice and is informing my view on historical Christian worship.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">"Because worship is the enactment of an event, the organization of worship is not left to the whim of creative people or community consensus. Rather, it is rooted in the historic meeting that has already taken place between God and his people. This meeting, enacted by God's people, is the organizing principle of worship. Therefore, the overriding feature of biblical enactment is the representation of history.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a name='more'></a>"A cursory examination of biblical worship makes the <em>historical orientation</em> of enactment abundantly clear. All the events around which Israel's worship was organized were the actions of God in history. For example, it is significant that the major institutions of worship in Israel derived foundationally from the Exodus event: The institution of public worship at Mount Sinai celebrated the covenant that God established with Israel; the elaborate worship of the tabernacle and the temple were a commentary on the relationship between God and Israel; the synagogue accented the giving of the law; the festivals, especially the Passover, which was the central feast of Israel, commemorated the redemption from bondage.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Historical orientation also underlies New Testament worship. Christian worship derives from the death and resurrection of Christ. In preaching we retell the story; in the Eucharist we dramatize the event. Even worship on Sunday has significance in terms of enactment, for that is the day of the Resurrection. Furthermore, the special emphasis we place on Christmas and Easter is fro the purpose of making the meaning of those historic days come alive in our experience.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The significance of the historical orientation of biblical worship is this: <em>Worship re-creates and thus re-presents the historical event.</em> In this way worship proclaims the meaning of the original event and confronts worshipers with the claim of God over their lives.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Therefore, the overriding concern of worship is not simply the reenactment of the event, but a personal meeting with God. On one side, the emphasis is on God who has acted; on the other side, the emphasis is on humans responding. In this way <em>something happens</em> in worship: God and his people meet. Worship is not simply going through the motions of ceremony. It becomes the visible and tangible meeting of God through the signs andsymbols of his presence.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">"In worship the order is set forth in such a way that the worshiper is able to enter vicariously into the original event. This enactment of past events occurs through recitation and drama" (74).</blockquote>A question I have here is, how aware of this order is the typical congregant? I have spent the majority of my life in the Church, going through the "paces", but never understanding the significance of the events. The more I learn, the deeper my appreciation for these rites my experiencing God's presence in worship becomes.Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-39923352483034170992011-12-21T10:02:00.000-06:002011-12-21T10:02:21.531-06:00The Old Knock and Religion<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxEgDrE81-zyGfqMlHM6VjknDouS_QZK9MRzhejOadidOCOYBMs3VP77evFLwt4Ao4sukcwlhheCe9gR1O_lRrMbm_9HrtdsKsMma8ZCPhu_M6Kan6i9awCF5JsNtWTDnz-CvPNgW5SuqM/s1600/Jean-Leon+Gerome--L+Eminence+Gris+detail2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxEgDrE81-zyGfqMlHM6VjknDouS_QZK9MRzhejOadidOCOYBMs3VP77evFLwt4Ao4sukcwlhheCe9gR1O_lRrMbm_9HrtdsKsMma8ZCPhu_M6Kan6i9awCF5JsNtWTDnz-CvPNgW5SuqM/s320/Jean-Leon+Gerome--L+Eminence+Gris+detail2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jean-Léon Gérôme's <em>L'Éminence Grise</em></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a topic that most Old Knocks would refrain from discussing in a public forum such as this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is not to say that the Old Knock is reticent to discuss matters of religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, for many, it is a topic to consumes many of their waking hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, please remember that the Old Knock is a retiring sort, who prefers to avoid any type of spotlight (which makes this blog ironic indeed—until one understands that the author never really thought anyone would read it!)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(A point of clarification may need to be made here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While an Old Knock could, theoretically, come from anywhere on the globe, it should come as no surprise that, for the most part, the Old Knock <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">type</i> is European in origin or extraction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The name itself comes from a derivation of a nickname for <a href="http://oldknock.blogspot.com/2011/11/old-knockery.html" target="_blank">C.S. Lewis’s tutor</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of this, the average Old Knock will find himself or herself coming from a Christian origin by default, if for no other reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is by no means absolute, but on average it does tend to play out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should also not be taken for granted that this means that Old Knocks are necessarily devoutly religious, merely that their background tends to come from a European Christian society.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All this said, there may be some broad observations that may be made in regards to the Old Knock’s religious views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First and foremost, the Old Knocks love and reverence for historical tradition informs his or her approach to matters religious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many an Old Knock takes pleasure and comfort in the solid traditions of the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knowing that there is a unifying tradition of rites, linking believers together around the world and across the centuries, is a comforting thought indeed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Along these same lines comes another important aspect of the Old Knock’s approach to religion: the picking over of the minutiae of practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Typically, these arguments tend to be historical, not spiritual in nature—which is why many Old Knocks feel safe to impose their opinions on others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If brave enough, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i> Old Knock may begin addressing more of these topics in coming posts, but only if the dear readers will <em>kindly</em> correct him when he stumbles.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-35065324719915123802011-12-20T13:52:00.001-06:002011-12-20T13:52:17.659-06:00Being Modern<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Cary Grant’s 1960 film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Grass Is Greener</i>, we see an old fashioned man fighting, in his own way, for his wife against a modern millionaire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a conversation near the beginning of the film between Grant’s character, Earl Vitor Rhyall, and his butler, Sellers, in which the butler lays out for his master this particular conflict of being a non-modern man in a modern world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this scene, Sellers is concerned because he does not seem to be able to make progress with a novel he is writing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sellers</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">: Almost certainly the basic trouble is myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m fundamentally happy and contented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s bad enough of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But on top of that, I’m normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s fatal.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Victor</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">: Hmmm you mean you’d prefer to be unhappy and abnormal.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sellers</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">: (Smiling) Of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see I want to be a success and to be a success one has to at least start off by being modern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like yourself, m’lord, I’m not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means I have no feeling of insecurity or frustration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No despair.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Victor</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">: And that’s essential.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sellers</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">: First essential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel perfectly contented, really rather blameless and hardly resent anything at all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Victor</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">: Tsk, tsk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are in a pickle, aren’t you? </span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-35399626989127719082011-12-20T08:22:00.003-06:002011-12-20T08:24:23.943-06:00The Young Fogey: An Elegy<span class="atitle">(I have had a link to this article for some time, but I wanted to make sure that I could still find it when needed. So, I've mercilessly cribbed it from <em><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec138.html" target="_blank">The Spectator</a></em>. No disrespect intended. In fact, I wish to pay Mr. Mount the utmost compliment by attempting to save his article for posterity. --O.K.) </span><br />
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<br />
<span class="atitle"><em>The Young Fogey: An Elegy</em></span><br />
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<span class="asummary"><b>Harry Mount</b> mourns the extinction of young men who wore four-piece tweed suits, including ‘westkits’, and loved the old Prayer Book </span><br />
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<span class="abodytext">They’re playing rap music in the jewellery department at Christie’s South Kensington. In T.M. Lewin, the Jermyn Street shirtmakers, you can dip into a fridge by the cufflinks counter and have a frozen mini-Mars while you are leafing through the chocolate corduroy jackets. </span><br />
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<span class="abodytext">But who is left to mourn these things? In the old days, the Young Fogey, the character invented by Alan Watkins on these pages in 1984, would have been in the vanguard of the protesters, shrieking and whinnying away about the desecration of his haunts. He is silent ...because he is no more. <br />
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Twenty years after his creation, the Young Fogey has pedalled off into the sunset on his sit-up-and-beg butcher’s bike, broad-brim fedora firmly on head, wicker basket strapped to the handlebars by leather and brass ties. <br />
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He hasn’t actually died. The two archetypes of the Young Fogey mentioned by Mr Watkins — the journalist and novelist A.N. Wilson, and Dr John Casey, Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge — were only in their thirties at the time, and so are now in their fifties and in rude health. But there is no one following in their footsteps and they have abandoned the whimsical attitudes that once defined them. <br />
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The grown-up Young Fogey — now, typically, in a position of power, as are Mr Wilson and Dr Casey — will live in some style, but he’ll no longer be interested in style. You might not even notice him in a crowd. Goodbye, braces with old-fashioned fasteners and trouser waistbands strapped perilously close to the nipple line. Farewell, frockcoats cut for long-dead Victorians. No more the endless pairs of black brogues. Hello, suit of modern cut. Hello, moccasins. Hello, loafers. </span><br />
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The term ‘fogey’ dates from the 18th century, and is related to the slang word ‘fogram’, of unknown origin, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. ‘Old fogey’ was used of old-fashioned people for several hundred years before the Young Fogey came along. Alan Watkins acknowledges that ‘the phrase had first been used by Dornford Yates in 1928’. He also specifically acknowledges that he borrowed the phrase from the literary journalist and Proust translator Terence Kilmartin, ‘who had used it of John Casey’. <br />
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But it is Mr Watkins who put flesh — and tweed — on the skeleton. As he wrote in his Spectator piece, the Young Fogey ‘is libertarian but not liberal. He is conservative but has no time for Mrs Margaret Thatcher and considers Mr Neil Kinnock the most personally attractive of the present party leaders. He is a scholar of Evelyn Waugh. He tends to be coolly religious, either RC or C of E. He dislikes modern architecture. He makes a great fuss about the old Prayer Book, grammar, syntax and punctuation. He laments the difficulty of purchasing good bread, Cheddar cheese, kippers and sausages.... He enjoys walking and travelling by train. He thinks the Times is not what it was and prefers the Daily Telegraph.’ <br />
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There was a significant sartorial element to the Young Fogey. Dr Casey remembers the architectural historian Gavin Stamp matriculating at Cambridge in 1968, at the height of the Paris Revolution, wearing ‘tall collars, very wide lapels and double-breasted waistcoats’. And that fed in turn into Dr Stamp’s architectural interests and the emphasis on High Victoriana — the books on Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, George Gilbert Scott junior and the late Gothic Revival. <br />
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But it wasn’t just clothes that defined the movement. ‘Roger Scruton had a strong architectural Young Fogey reaction,’ says Dr Casey, ‘but he never followed the sartorial line.’ <br />
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The Young Fogeys were also concerned with gentle and gentlemanly attitudes. ‘I thought that was more striking than their way of dressing — a genuine idea of gentlemanliness,’ Dr Casey continues. ‘Oliver Letwin wasn’t a Young Fogey when it came to clothes. But at Cambridge he had that gentlemanly air that he still has; that I think goes down very well.’ <br />
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For a while, the Young Fogey ruled. ‘Everyone went mad,’ recalls Alan Watkins. ‘The fierce Veronica Wadley [now the editor of the London Evening Standard], even then a power in middle-market journalism, declared that for the moment she was interested only in articles about Young Fogeys. I was asked to write a book about them, to be called The Official Young Fogey Handbook.’ <br />
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Mr Watkins declined, but the Telegraph journalist Suzanne Lowry did end up writing a book on the subject. And for a while after, the Young Fogey had his time in the sun (always the English sun; foreign holidays were not for him). There were buttressing forces at work. The 1981 television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited reverberated in slowly declining waves for more than a decade. When I was at Oxford in the early Nineties, it was still working its effects through a regular crop of about 30 undergraduates a year, who had been 10-year-olds when it was first shown and had been knocked sideways by it, much as other 10-year-olds were overwhelmed by catching the Sex Pistols in 1977 or would be overwhelmed by Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which came out the year after Brideshead. <br />
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Seersucker jackets, plovers’ eggs, wind-up gramophones on purple velvet cushions in punts — these were the toys of some of my contemporaries as late as 1993. <br />
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‘I had a four-piece light-green tweed suit — without trousers — made when I was at Oxford,’ says Richard De Moravia, 34, now a media lawyer. ‘With a flat cap, jacket, waistcoat and a cloak lined in bright gold. The tailor wanted to make it a five-piece by making me some tweed spats. I thought that was too much.’ <br />
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Daniel Hannan, at Oxford at the same time and now MEP for South-East England, marvels at some of the lengths the Young Fogeys went to. ‘One particularly recherché affectation was to use old constituency names; so instead of saying Mid-Staffs or South-East Staffs, they’d say “Lichfield, Rugely and Stone” or “Tamworth”. A similar thing today, which I admit I’m rather in favour of, is consciously to convert all prices into the pre-euro currencies when travelling in Europe. But I think it’s all in decline now. Fish need water to swim in. To sustain a few people with silver-topped canes and monocles, you need a critical mass in cords and shiny brogues.’ <br />
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There’s hardly a teddy bear or a bottle of Madeira between the undergraduates at Oxford now. When I returned there at the end of last term, on a boiling hot summer’s day, there wasn’t a single boater to be seen. <br />
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Look in vain round St James’s these days for the etiolated 30-year-old making his way from London Library to Georgian terrace home in Islington, sniffing the evening air for incense seeping under the doorway of All Saints, Margaret Street: ‘Decidedly north German in effect — strong whiff of the Marienkirche at Lübeck, don’t you think? Or maybe Freiburg im Breisgau.’ <br />
<br />
He’s gone for good. <br />
<br />
John Casey, the original target of Mr Watkins and Mr Kilmartin (‘I didn’t mind. I thought it was amusing’), agrees. ‘There are a few undergraduate Young Fogeys left at Cambridge, but any organised body of sentiment attached to the ceremony of life has gone.’ <br />
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The Young Fogey had looked as though he’d last much longer than a decade. He was certainly robustly built to withstand the buffeting of the years, with his thick, thornproof tweed jacket, matched with a waistcoat — pronounced ‘westkit’ — the bushy mutton-chop whiskers lovingly cropped at Trumper’s, doused in pomade and bordered by baby-pink skin shaved with badger-hair brushes, shaving soap and cut-throat razors. <br />
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Why has he gone? It’s not that Britain is no longer fogeyish or that the institutions the YF took to — the National Trust, Latin Masses, the Georgian Society — have disappeared; they’re flourishing. Gentlemen’s clubs are as difficult to get into as they have ever been. ‘The waiting list for the Garrick is eight years’ long,’ says a spokesman for the club. If you walk down Pall Mall, you’ll see a huge glossy poster that spans the full façade of the RAC Club showing its Turkish baths in all their newly refurbished beauty. Croquet is as popular as it has ever been since its heyday just before the first world war. The Daily Telegraph does a brisk trade in boxed DVD sets of Brideshead Revisited and The Forsyte Saga. And more children now attend public school than ever before. <br />
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That very success killed off the Young Fogey. Like the SDP wilting after its great triumph — forcing the modernisation of the Labour party — there’s nothing left for the Young Fogey to fight for. ‘It was a rebel movement,’ says Dr Casey, one that developed in reaction to the naked materialism, the blurring of class boundaries and the boxy, square-shouldered, belted suit of the early Eighties. <br />
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‘It was a reaction to bohemianism, too,’ says Craig Brown, the satirist. ‘People are much more work-based now. Then there were many more people being bohemians, and the Young Fogeys took against them. I noticed the other day when I was dropping my daughter off at Marlborough, the children all seemed conventional. They all looked the same and were thinking about what jobs they were going to do.’ <br />
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The in-yer-face, ‘I love 1830’ Young Fogey spirit — as vigorous in its way as the Club 18-30 spirits of the Faliraki partygoers — had to disappear once everybody came round to its way of thinking: to buying Regency rectories, coating them with National Trust paint combinations and taking holidays in Landmark Trust follies. <br />
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‘I joined the Travellers’ Club at a very young age as a sort of rebellious gesture,’ says Craig Brown. ‘And I suddenly got worried that I’d got to the stage where I had become the real thing, so I gave up my membership. It was the same sort of thing with A.N. Wilson — no one could ever call him conventional.’ <br />
<br />
The Young Fogey was as cut off and contrary as the Millwall fan. The hooligan’s cry — ‘Nobody likes us, we don’t care’ — might just as well have applied to the Edwardian-suited architectural historian of 1984. When the public started to love him — and even imitate him — he had to shuffle out of his Huntsman suit and head for Armani, perhaps mournfully fishing a frozen mini-Mars out of the T.M. Lewin fridge on his way over. <br />
<a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/copyright.php3?table=old&section=current&issue= 2003-09-13"><span class="acopyright"><span style="color: #cc0000;">© 2003 The Spectator.co.uk</span></span></a>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-42190567688462677292011-12-19T14:04:00.000-06:002011-12-19T14:04:01.583-06:00Old Knock Wardrobe: Trousers<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Not much to be said about them, poor old things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They rarely fit properly, are typically getting a bit warn and could use a good wash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they do keep us warm and mostly dry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are the Old Knock trousers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBxui-_9mWcTBU3lrZSCNXyOlgEr4-zWe5R5ElbIdN6RWkyy2dNoTVVC_FhGUrJB_5f7tt_VE8eaXqoQrAQpsYC8yh4R_E-RWuGplJSyiP09rR1-9a13I92pfoCF_TgkPMO4sbOpUrgLIT/s1600/actor-leslie-howard-smoking-pipe-as-he-stands-by-his-fireplace-at-home-in-dorking-england.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBxui-_9mWcTBU3lrZSCNXyOlgEr4-zWe5R5ElbIdN6RWkyy2dNoTVVC_FhGUrJB_5f7tt_VE8eaXqoQrAQpsYC8yh4R_E-RWuGplJSyiP09rR1-9a13I92pfoCF_TgkPMO4sbOpUrgLIT/s320/actor-leslie-howard-smoking-pipe-as-he-stands-by-his-fireplace-at-home-in-dorking-england.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The cut is typically loose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An old leather belt or old tie is used to keep them snug above the navel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Old Knock would normally prefer that they be a bit long, as opposed to short, to keep the drafts out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cuffs or no cuffs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It depends on what was in style when the Old Knock left home for the first time all those years ago, because these are likely to be the same trousers he or she wore back then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As always, comfort and durability are key.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fabric tends toward natural fibers—not for any ecological compunction, mind you, but because natural fibers tend to be softer and last longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The traditional Old Knock will probably prefer a nice flannel or tweed in some earthy color along the lines of mud or soot—the better to conceal muddy cuffs and coffee stains. Deep pockets are another nice addition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old Knocks love to fill their deep pockets with an assortment of necessary equipment for their day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patches here should be kept to a minimum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, one doesn’t want to look like a hobo—that’s overdoing things a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elbow patches are one thing, but knee or bum patches?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really!</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-39831532528507739832011-12-02T10:55:00.002-06:002011-12-02T10:56:44.207-06:00Old Knock Wardrobe: Tweed Jacket with Elbow Patches<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is no other item of clothing that is more closely connected to The Old Knock in the general public’s collective imagination (even if they are not aware of the existence of such a thing as an “Old Knock”) than the Tweed Jacket with Elbow Patches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It meets all of the requirements for an Old Knock Wardrobe item: comfortable, durable, likely handed down from generation to generation, practical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2ptyGFyVG_rlon9L68aNpv64lKUci7c5nxF0O7ngAW2B52Aibym-rPKVckVwe7krcX0hTiCq9Oys_wNdvLyBr13kSCYbvK6U6qFTKZXlIDilA2oUt5-UyRFDNTt05OCe1HxJkXkXQvCj/s1600/Tweed+Jacket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" dda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2ptyGFyVG_rlon9L68aNpv64lKUci7c5nxF0O7ngAW2B52Aibym-rPKVckVwe7krcX0hTiCq9Oys_wNdvLyBr13kSCYbvK6U6qFTKZXlIDilA2oUt5-UyRFDNTt05OCe1HxJkXkXQvCj/s1600/Tweed+Jacket.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a name='more'></a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The tweed jacket is a staple piece of traditional wear on both sides of the Atlantic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No need to brow-beat that point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the appeal to the Old Knocks is very apparent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sturdy tweed material will last for years of moderate to rough usage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will also keep the wearer warm from those cold fall and winter drafts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The deep patch pockets can hold a wide assortment of supplies: pens, small notepads, small books, an apple or bag of jelly babies.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Elbow Patches themselves should not be a mere fashion statement, but a testament to the long use of the jacket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ideally, the tweed jacket should have been made without elbow patches until one or both of the elbows wears through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then the patches are applied to add years to the jacket’s life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some Old Knocks, anticipating the longevity of the jacket’s usage, will purchase the jacket with patches attached, or will have their tailor attach the patches at that time—because every Old Knock knows how hard it is to find someone to sow patches on later, unless they are lucky enough to be married to a skilled Old Knock, or perhaps live with a spinster sister who is willing to fulfill the tailoring need.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-57244083945485646952011-11-30T11:23:00.001-06:002011-11-30T11:23:51.443-06:00A Month in the Country (1987 film)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This great novel does not translate well to the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh do an admirable job, don’t get me wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Birkin’s voice doesn’t come through on the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the novel he is much more humorous and self-deprecating, but there isn’t any real way to get this across on film, because Birkin isn’t the type of man to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">say</i> the things on his mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Firth does a fine job, his portrayal is a bit bleak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Birkin’s view on life is rather pessimistic, there is a certain romanticism, especially when dealing with his faith and the vicar’s wife that gives one hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The different ending is unbearable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if the director knew that he had botched it and tried to give it a happy ending—which it really doesn’t have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not by any means the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it lacks the warmth and humanity of the novel.</span></span></span></div><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pbbp-djQzn8?rel=0" width="420"></iframe>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-46181632661611384292011-11-28T09:14:00.001-06:002011-11-28T09:14:53.209-06:00E.F. Benson's Queen Lucia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAGJBYPtlUF5BMQ6r-fO5CiHQu1k_qB5YRk21OdU1h5hDz4AS7cN4bAS6lPi_iov4jniRaQ00aPIvMSxfQf0TECeCkp-1sQ0yJXXtXAFkDgSLiUBUNNUWZgLws3f0PAxhi1P_15Q2n7fis/s1600/Queen+Lucia+Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAGJBYPtlUF5BMQ6r-fO5CiHQu1k_qB5YRk21OdU1h5hDz4AS7cN4bAS6lPi_iov4jniRaQ00aPIvMSxfQf0TECeCkp-1sQ0yJXXtXAFkDgSLiUBUNNUWZgLws3f0PAxhi1P_15Q2n7fis/s320/Queen+Lucia+Cover.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Emmeline Lucas (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucia</i>) is the reigning queen of culture in her small village of Riesholme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things move slowly in the little Hamlet—the town gossips spend their days on the commons and neighbors spend their days looking out windows to see who is visiting whom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is at least one fine example of an Old Knock, but one could say that this is a town full of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lucia’s husband, Phillip (nick-named Peppino by Lucia) runs his own printing-press, where he prints his poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They live together in a faux Elizabethan house (named “The Hurst” by its owners) with leaded glass and ancient beams exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poor Peppino would prefer to spend his days alone, reading and writing, but he is married to the matriarch of all that matters in Riesholme, and thus, he is thrust into the ebb and flow of all things “cultural”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One could say that Lucia herself could be considered and Old Knock in that she doesn’t want things to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She savors village life and society, wishing that teas, socials and recitals would remain the focal point of society for eternity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIfMSRLVnur3BZzOofszd5KwfKxV8ENsk04ZQShn_o8jE6UUJY0mIEYiyBtVx9LbVXBdjYXHEIOW9ewcMgbLFrlnZMK-jpJq1f35WDlLHyzC2aIRs_XmAe-kE_wI8AQmu8zSDZztLXTs4/s1600/E.F.+Benson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIfMSRLVnur3BZzOofszd5KwfKxV8ENsk04ZQShn_o8jE6UUJY0mIEYiyBtVx9LbVXBdjYXHEIOW9ewcMgbLFrlnZMK-jpJq1f35WDlLHyzC2aIRs_XmAe-kE_wI8AQmu8zSDZztLXTs4/s1600/E.F.+Benson.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">E.F. Benson</div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-9766256401390342642011-11-22T10:37:00.000-06:002011-11-22T10:37:32.844-06:00The Old Knock Home: The Chair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVl5ZFEk5TmLbVDiuewWsPDBasId1RySE5R71eV4YYCTBGxch-APoi4Oa1cqEWt2Ar3vr15Szn98pOtvjsREJ5CuGBD67gPr_Mro_VaUNBg0BsPpFKvBdYkJr52FeYqXXvPliRloihMmiu/s1600/The+Chair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVl5ZFEk5TmLbVDiuewWsPDBasId1RySE5R71eV4YYCTBGxch-APoi4Oa1cqEWt2Ar3vr15Szn98pOtvjsREJ5CuGBD67gPr_Mro_VaUNBg0BsPpFKvBdYkJr52FeYqXXvPliRloihMmiu/s320/The+Chair.jpg" width="231" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Chair is a very important piece of furniture for any Old Knock. This should not be confused with just any chair used during the day. This is The Chair. The Chair is the place where an Old Knock rests his or her weary bones for a long think. It is not some new-fangled contraption with levers and pulleys. It does not swivel. It does not tilt. It is stationary. It is solid. It is comfortable. It is normally fairly worn from use. Ideally, it should be as individualistic as it’s owner. (It should not be part of a matching living room set.) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A lucky Old Knock will have a leather-bound chair. I myself have an overstuffed chair covered in woven fabric. It has a high back and arm rests with a deep seat. My Chair is not ideal, as it is actually part of a furniture set—but one makes do with what one is allotted in life. A favorite blanket may be thrown over the back for added warmth on those cold autumn days. Seated next to an open fireplace is preferable. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLh6legLxobNbB85pUnx8JfPb-kFcyi1lM7cAa5SYVFns1T0aW1rcjyp3HWVLTtqRp0ZHzNyKNTHjOeUpY-AjVSdjJkp_AL0C6zBXrx9wlmuQ9G6xIhAD7LjgnheAOCP-voLrQUxFyAod/s1600/The+Chair+by+Fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLh6legLxobNbB85pUnx8JfPb-kFcyi1lM7cAa5SYVFns1T0aW1rcjyp3HWVLTtqRp0ZHzNyKNTHjOeUpY-AjVSdjJkp_AL0C6zBXrx9wlmuQ9G6xIhAD7LjgnheAOCP-voLrQUxFyAod/s320/The+Chair+by+Fire.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-82701637126439433632011-11-21T07:52:00.000-06:002011-11-21T07:52:28.817-06:00Old Knocks Club: H.D. Thoreau<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaPkdBf_9ku5x07ikeJTT_MPmHEXmKWky_hF178zbmDyaB7_nAGmhZKqc5spwvNFhwHIatKz2hqiPW2EbQ58QvwVt-plATCZQazE2j7giNKe125apAh6ctZvLrpbSI_w3X45PHRpWYaBW/s1600/H.E.+Thoreau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaPkdBf_9ku5x07ikeJTT_MPmHEXmKWky_hF178zbmDyaB7_nAGmhZKqc5spwvNFhwHIatKz2hqiPW2EbQ58QvwVt-plATCZQazE2j7giNKe125apAh6ctZvLrpbSI_w3X45PHRpWYaBW/s1600/H.E.+Thoreau.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just to show that Old Knocks don’t have to come from England…here is a man who exemplifies the Old Knock philosophy and lifestyle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Henry David Thoreau spent a good deal of his life alone, studying nature, ancient texts and life itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mind always came first for old H.D., as exemplified in his inability to maintain a steady relationship with another human being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But not only in philosophy did this Old Knock fulfill our ideal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was also quite the dapper O.K. dresser—throwing on whatever was practical and handy.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-55984120515763028582011-11-18T07:45:00.001-06:002011-11-18T07:45:20.950-06:00Old Knock Past-Times: The Basics<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What does an Old Knock do with his or her spare time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, one can only spend so much time pouring over ancient tomes, mucking about damp old churches, or pondering the mysteries of the Universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So what does one do on the occasional night off?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMKdOrLKsvYTCXjQt7iH6lsegJA1VxqanW45jdQWkXGJ8xZ47e01DTskc97seFhuuKQ-SiTnP7VI4-zTfMaRM4X31O42kRBqBrpmeEt_0ZypeFbvHwRlhTNPuBLMIDxmfRnsxxKKD9l_yg/s1600/Hike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMKdOrLKsvYTCXjQt7iH6lsegJA1VxqanW45jdQWkXGJ8xZ47e01DTskc97seFhuuKQ-SiTnP7VI4-zTfMaRM4X31O42kRBqBrpmeEt_0ZypeFbvHwRlhTNPuBLMIDxmfRnsxxKKD9l_yg/s320/Hike.jpg" width="219" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Assuming the Old Knock can do anything other than their field of study, a few ideas come to mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a majority of an Old Knock’s time is spent in the sitting position, many folks will decide to stretch their legs a bit. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get out and see a bit of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether they are a city dweller (in which case a walk about town is called for), or a bit more rural (in which a countryside hike is in order), walking is a favorite past time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along these same lines, the ever popular bicycle ride is always a choice.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglr1xbyv-qa8zLxqZkvjh6EX7ksxH7qx4Olar0dUMS6bGPYqOKbgaJTWFJBlBEywsreJikdlFcuyYP0b8_y3oLC9YP1xQIc2eVO0Jj_efhdaLSfYpR1Zmkmp4vFV7GeUNSPGVCXAtmZt_Y/s1600/Oxford_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglr1xbyv-qa8zLxqZkvjh6EX7ksxH7qx4Olar0dUMS6bGPYqOKbgaJTWFJBlBEywsreJikdlFcuyYP0b8_y3oLC9YP1xQIc2eVO0Jj_efhdaLSfYpR1Zmkmp4vFV7GeUNSPGVCXAtmZt_Y/s320/Oxford_4.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, perhaps all of that time spent in isolation is getting to the Old Knock, in which case a bit of human companionship is called for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conversation is the preferred form of human interaction, so don’t expect to find any of these folks in noisy bars or clubs. Instead, look in quiet coffee shops, restaurants or out-of-the-way pubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may also belong to some sort of social club, organized around one of their areas of interest.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoENWvE5KnjWZmFJwY44yFL5rInqgyhgjPsF_Ab-r-KnJeWYNyWE_tDpLlE2HcjaBsGh_2U8FpGl3wFlLhXaYngejhK7PrcEk-JZVG845pZa4Di7hR9EzIAVBqBXj-5ckcEMZyDiQ_SkFb/s1600/Pipe+Collection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoENWvE5KnjWZmFJwY44yFL5rInqgyhgjPsF_Ab-r-KnJeWYNyWE_tDpLlE2HcjaBsGh_2U8FpGl3wFlLhXaYngejhK7PrcEk-JZVG845pZa4Di7hR9EzIAVBqBXj-5ckcEMZyDiQ_SkFb/s320/Pipe+Collection.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Finally, many an Old Knock will also turn that scientifically-ordered mind to a hobby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old Knocks are avid collectors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t really matter what the collection consists of, but it will typically be something either extraordinary or extra-ordinary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old Knocks are able to find the most remarkable idiosyncrasies in everyday objects.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-50398981330645468012011-11-17T14:02:00.001-06:002011-11-17T14:04:40.064-06:00Truth<em>One's only real life is the life one never leads</em>.--Oscar WildeOld Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-9830658205327812542011-11-17T09:05:00.001-06:002011-11-17T09:07:20.104-06:00William Boyd’s Any Human Heart (2002)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8RMSXOsscVFJWbQxizVw-KuikI0t_yd3_6W9FKpDOOQpGgA7up1Qv93Ipu_TqivvrPlBuo9kv5JZzMn52PyPI7OPhBET7TyMkWbF9Qi3rIUEff0LzSRCU4AYkKA2naH8N55nbDNdDPx5M/s1600/Any+Human+Heart+Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8RMSXOsscVFJWbQxizVw-KuikI0t_yd3_6W9FKpDOOQpGgA7up1Qv93Ipu_TqivvrPlBuo9kv5JZzMn52PyPI7OPhBET7TyMkWbF9Qi3rIUEff0LzSRCU4AYkKA2naH8N55nbDNdDPx5M/s320/Any+Human+Heart+Cover.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Logan Mountstuart is anything but the typical Old Knock (if there is such a thing as “typical” when it comes to this rare species).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a world traveller and semi-adventurer (very un-Knockish).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a successful(?) lover of women—again, not on an Old Knock’s resume.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They tend to fall into love by accident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he spends much of his life searching for something to excel at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He does finally find it—in his writing and art collecting—but he often is distracted from it by life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Logan Mountstuart is, to put it bluntly, a jerk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is self-consumed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is disappointed by the realities of this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is where he becomes an Old Knock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mountstuart is a Romantic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, as a Romantic, he is constantly disappointed in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he tries anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This desperate attempt to make life what it should be, to live life as he would have it and not being willing to accept it as it comes, is what makes him heroic.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Logan Mountstuart is human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All too often, he goes off the rails.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is his attempt to press onward that gives us hope.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTKFHn8StGQ89Pagpcgg3q2wFyZSPSOMtAiBdp3-XksiIHARO2Nr-csR0_U3fJqWIm72u0pPkHkfU3h_Z8zY0V7UN-F04unfO4KnHLUY8BQT8AlDaY9f7ODWcnlvjus7YXfKPb0lT_-nqo/s1600/William+Boyd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTKFHn8StGQ89Pagpcgg3q2wFyZSPSOMtAiBdp3-XksiIHARO2Nr-csR0_U3fJqWIm72u0pPkHkfU3h_Z8zY0V7UN-F04unfO4KnHLUY8BQT8AlDaY9f7ODWcnlvjus7YXfKPb0lT_-nqo/s320/William+Boyd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">William Boyd</div></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-22710361405005335042011-11-16T09:05:00.000-06:002011-11-16T09:05:13.486-06:00The Old Knock Home: The Basics<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just as with clothing, the Old Knock must have a place to keep the rain off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, just as with clothing, it would be wrong to try to pigeon-hole all Old Knocks in the same musty quarters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In later posts, we will deal with different specific types of ideal Old Knock dwellings, but for now, here is a brief over-view.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKrVRGauo15D_j31QvGt6hyAX7XeZK2eJuZqhww_VHszEwZs0yqyfd3D1lotcgAauibS5t4gePFL5qbLOUC6D3DvARUvXsRijd0FBgmbhY2JJunQ4OLbxuPUgdf3YZZrvtbkpDG7uccXUc/s1600/cottage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKrVRGauo15D_j31QvGt6hyAX7XeZK2eJuZqhww_VHszEwZs0yqyfd3D1lotcgAauibS5t4gePFL5qbLOUC6D3DvARUvXsRijd0FBgmbhY2JJunQ4OLbxuPUgdf3YZZrvtbkpDG7uccXUc/s320/cottage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the keys to being an Old Knock is eccentricity and individuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, the Old Knock home should reflect the individual’s personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, the Old Knock will spend a good deal of time in his or her quarters (when not in the library or in “the field).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As with the clothes, comfort is a key consideration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often times, the furnishings are rather worn and broken-in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As this is a Reminiscent Culture, many of the items in the Old Knock house—if not the structure itself—will harken back to older days.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There should also be on display evidence of the Old Knock’s area(s) of interest and expertise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether it is a large library, works of art, musical instruments, scientific equipment or antiques—they should be apparent throughout the dwelling. This is, after-all, what the Old Knock lives for and it should be visible.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-2449412321372311172011-11-15T09:21:00.000-06:002011-11-15T09:22:01.617-06:00Old Knocks Club: Professor Henry Higgins<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(For a note of clarification, the Professor Higgins that we have in mind is his portrayal by Leslie Howard in the 1938 film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pygmalion</i>.) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4VkRkDOTSqqSE6fizYVykzl3cT-1k5XJjxNNsCdBQD08MMC2okcmexwhs57ddfy_5IAYOx489ndvM1wVucmbcy75wSmrK6IMOL7lcbpMG4UGfxvcHtnGeo_Iy53GfQY5WLjy6Uu2k8Z5Y/s1600/Leslie+Howard+Pygmalion+03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4VkRkDOTSqqSE6fizYVykzl3cT-1k5XJjxNNsCdBQD08MMC2okcmexwhs57ddfy_5IAYOx489ndvM1wVucmbcy75wSmrK6IMOL7lcbpMG4UGfxvcHtnGeo_Iy53GfQY5WLjy6Uu2k8Z5Y/s1600/Leslie+Howard+Pygmalion+03.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Professor Higgins fits the Old Knock type very nicely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is obsessed with his scholarly work as a linguist—often time to the detriment of those around him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a man of means, he knows how to live the fashionable life, but he is more interested in his intellectual pursuits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is also a Romantic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although appearances seem to the contrary, he firmly believes that he can turn a common street urchin into a true lady—and does so.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-51300985745812502052011-11-14T13:49:00.000-06:002011-11-15T09:24:07.229-06:00J.W. Waterhouse: 1849-1917<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8jPMCjbt6-GTpep2BZEpIhKnCqMvlvH-7DGmhf1vjwIFXZexoxk1DFMuaShxaq0XRiF9ZZ-ErPlUX55SRDZXpc-Yo3tfSboTiIYLKytjbgDlNP5zBxy8ad7GXX9_93kBUCjgPb7CJcQye/s1600/Waterhouse%252C_c_1886.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8jPMCjbt6-GTpep2BZEpIhKnCqMvlvH-7DGmhf1vjwIFXZexoxk1DFMuaShxaq0XRiF9ZZ-ErPlUX55SRDZXpc-Yo3tfSboTiIYLKytjbgDlNP5zBxy8ad7GXX9_93kBUCjgPb7CJcQye/s320/Waterhouse%252C_c_1886.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">J.W. Waterhouse, English Pre-Raphaelite painter, will strike a chord with many Old Knocks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only are his paintings beautiful and stirring, but his subject matter will appeal to many classical scholars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He chose as his topics women from ancient Greek and Roman mythology, as well as Arthurian legend.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsZ1nZ5HIk5lko7zwCWgpNInXHjA7ajwD_sL72_Eeg4jbw_ARpGClNIVE7BAQda5NsmFN28X1ShOnscOCRsdrWsk3dgLop3XVLSneTHALiGydRMTNab0Fn-y68X-Ymd-Xdxv6zNlS98i9k/s1600/JWW_TheLadyOfShallot_1888.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsZ1nZ5HIk5lko7zwCWgpNInXHjA7ajwD_sL72_Eeg4jbw_ARpGClNIVE7BAQda5NsmFN28X1ShOnscOCRsdrWsk3dgLop3XVLSneTHALiGydRMTNab0Fn-y68X-Ymd-Xdxv6zNlS98i9k/s320/JWW_TheLadyOfShallot_1888.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lady of Shallott</i> is perhaps one of his most well-known paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://jwwaterhouse.com/">JWWATERHOUSE.COM</a> has an excellent on-line archive to enjoy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Below is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem.</span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The Lady of Shalott” (1842 version)</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alfred, Lord Tennyson</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">PART I</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On either side the river lie <br />
Long fields of barley and of rye, <br />
That clothe the wold and meet the sky; <br />
And thro' the field the road runs by <br />
To many-tower'd Camelot; <br />
And up and down the people go, <br />
Gazing where the lilies blow <br />
Round an island there below, <br />
The island of Shalott. <br />
<br />
Willows whiten, aspens quiver, <br />
Little breezes dusk and shiver <br />
Thro' the wave that runs for ever <br />
By the island in the river <br />
Flowing down to Camelot. <br />
Four gray walls, and four gray towers, <br />
Overlook a space of flowers, <br />
And the silent isle imbowers <br />
The Lady of Shalott. <br />
<br />
By the margin, willow veil'd, <br />
Slide the heavy barges trail'd <br />
By slow horses; and unhail'd <br />
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd <br />
Skimming down to Camelot: <br />
But who hath seen her wave her hand? <br />
Or at the casement seen her stand? <br />
Or is she known in all the land, <br />
The Lady of Shalott? <br />
<br />
Only reapers, reaping early <br />
In among the bearded barley, <br />
Hear a song that echoes cheerly <br />
From the river winding clearly, <br />
Down to tower'd Camelot: <br />
And by the moon the reaper weary, <br />
Piling sheaves in uplands airy, <br />
Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy <br />
Lady of Shalott." </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">PART II</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There she weaves by night and day <br />
A magic web with colours gay. <br />
She has heard a whisper say, <br />
A curse is on her if she stay <br />
To look down to Camelot. <br />
She knows not what the curse may be, <br />
And so she weaveth steadily, <br />
And little other care hath she, <br />
The Lady of Shalott. <br />
<br />
And moving thro' a mirror clear <br />
That hangs before her all the year, <br />
Shadows of the world appear. <br />
There she sees the highway near <br />
Winding down to Camelot: <br />
There the river eddy whirls, <br />
And there the surly village-churls, <br />
And the red cloaks of market girls, <br />
Pass onward from Shalott. <br />
<br />
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, <br />
An abbot on an ambling pad, <br />
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, <br />
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad, <br />
Goes by to tower'd Camelot; <br />
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue <br />
The knights come riding two and two: <br />
She hath no loyal knight and true, <br />
The Lady of Shalott. <br />
<br />
But in her web she still delights <br />
To weave the mirror's magic sights, </span><a href="http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/metelady.htm"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
For often thro' the silent nights <br />
A funeral, with plumes and lights <br />
And music, went to Camelot: <br />
Or when the moon was overhead, <br />
Came two young lovers lately wed: </span><a href="http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/metelady.htm"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">"I am half sick of shadows," said</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><a href="http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/metelady.htm"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">The Lady of Shalott.</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">PART III</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, <br />
He rode between the barley-sheaves, <br />
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, <br />
And flamed upon the brazen greaves <br />
Of bold Sir Lancelot. <br />
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd <br />
To a lady in his shield, <br />
That sparkled on the yellow field, <br />
Beside remote Shalott. <br />
<br />
The gemmy bridle glitter'd free, <br />
Like to some branch of stars we see <br />
Hung in the golden Galaxy. <br />
The bridle bells rang merrily <br />
As he rode down to Camelot: <br />
And from his blazon'd baldric slung <br />
A mighty silver bugle hung, <br />
And as he rode his armour rung, <br />
Beside remote Shalott. <br />
<br />
All in the blue unclouded weather <br />
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, <br />
The helmet and the helmet-feather <br />
Burn'd like one burning flame together, <br />
As he rode down to Camelot. <br />
As often thro' the purple night, <br />
Below the starry clusters bright, <br />
Some bearded meteor, trailing light, <br />
Moves over still Shalott. <br />
<br />
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd; <br />
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; <br />
From underneath his helmet flow'd <br />
His coal-black curls as on he rode, <br />
As he rode down to Camelot. <br />
From the bank and from the river <br />
He flash'd into the crystal mirror, <br />
"Tirra lirra," by the river <br />
Sang Sir Lancelot. <br />
<br />
She left the web, she left the loom, <br />
She made three paces thro' the room, </span><a href="http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/huntlady.htm"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
She saw the water-lily bloom, <br />
She saw the helmet and the plume, <br />
She look'd down to Camelot. </span><a href="http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/huntlady.htm"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Out flew the web and floated wide; <br />
The mirror crack'd from side to side; <br />
"The curse is come upon me," cried <br />
The Lady of Shalott.</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">PART IV</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the stormy east-wind straining, <br />
The pale yellow woods were waning, <br />
The broad stream in his banks complaining, <br />
Heavily the low sky raining <br />
Over tower'd Camelot; <br />
Down she came and found a boat <br />
Beneath a willow left afloat, <br />
And round about the prow she wrote <br />
<i>The Lady of Shalott.</i> <br />
<br />
And down the river's dim expanse <br />
Like some bold se{:e}r in a trance, <br />
Seeing all his own mischance-- <br />
With a glassy countenance <br />
Did she look to Camelot. <br />
And at the closing of the day <br />
She loosed the chain, and down she lay; <br />
The broad stream bore her far away, <br />
The Lady of Shalott. <br />
<br />
Lying, robed in snowy white </span><a href="http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/watelady.htm"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
That loosely flew to left and right-- <br />
The leaves upon her falling light-- <br />
Thro' the noises of the night <br />
She floated down to Camelot: </span><a href="http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/watelady.htm"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">And as the boat-head wound along <br />
The willowy hills and fields among, <br />
They heard her singing her last song, <br />
The Lady of Shalott.</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
<br />
Heard a carol, mournful, holy, <br />
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, <br />
Till her blood was frozen slowly, <br />
And her eyes were darken'd wholly, <br />
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. <br />
For ere she reach'd upon the tide <br />
The first house by the water-side, <br />
Singing in her song she died, <br />
The Lady of Shalott. <br />
<br />
Under tower and balcony, <br />
By garden-wall and gallery, <br />
A gleaming shape she floated by, <br />
Dead-pale between the houses high, <br />
Silent into Camelot. <br />
Out upon the wharfs they came, <br />
Knight and burgher, lord and dame, <br />
And round the prow they read her name, <br />
<i>The Lady of Shalott.</i> <br />
<br />
Who is this? and what is here? <br />
And in the lighted palace near <br />
Died the sound of royal cheer; <br />
And they cross'd themselves for fear, <br />
All the knights at Camelot: <br />
But Lancelot mused a little space; <br />
He said, "She has a lovely face; <br />
God in his mercy lend her grace, <br />
The Lady of Shalott.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-65913140855676680272011-11-13T16:29:00.000-06:002011-11-22T16:30:41.313-06:00J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country (1980)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpCzY_klaFoIglC2onx7MTrbbEZeK9ujsWmOjAoiDprYIdrp0_YB1INVQPOHRRt76lUybwzwZurv_3B81T4q4d_WdzMnTV9TxOXYrEPhoRzdTvDZcJQlzahjoZN6zG08HBTW2UbQJmafY4/s1600/A+Month+in+the+Country+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpCzY_klaFoIglC2onx7MTrbbEZeK9ujsWmOjAoiDprYIdrp0_YB1INVQPOHRRt76lUybwzwZurv_3B81T4q4d_WdzMnTV9TxOXYrEPhoRzdTvDZcJQlzahjoZN6zG08HBTW2UbQJmafY4/s1600/A+Month+in+the+Country+cover.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I just finished J.L. Carr’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Month in the Country</i> a few days ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(In fact, I must admit that this book was part of my inspiration for creating this blog.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the story of a WWI veteran (Tom Birkin) who is employed to uncover a Medieval wall painting in a small country church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is another veteran (James Moon) who is hired to find the grave of an ancient ancestor for a wealthy patroness of the village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through the novel, both men are coming to terms with their experiences with the war, and trying to rebuild their lives after the catastrophe.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What makes this a fine example of Old Knock literature are the two character’s professions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Birkin is a passionate expert in uncovering “lost” wall paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is an expert not only in the techniques of restoration, but in the history and culture that went into making the paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a true Medieval art scholar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moon is also an expert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is not merely a grave-digger, he is an archeological excavator who is actually looking for an ancient Anglo-Saxon structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Digging for the ancestor’s remains is merely an excuse for his larger passion—historical excavation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He too is a Medieval historical scholar.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The characters in Carr’s novel are wonderfully developed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They breathe with real human emotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they also embody another important Old Knock trait: reserve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, both men are constantly battling their desire to become more intimate with those around them, while at the same time understanding the futility of such an act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are Romantics, but tragic Romantics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They believe in beauty and life, but they also are cynical about humanity and whether or not it will ever truly reach its potential.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2Zm3T7sHhZpHFRmfUOrqGiucg3D8UuN_RTG9uNIWcpeojSHrnbdmOqdXkQs36BPNJhlZeHHXkXyGFtXN_qUu7TPSL903SStR7h1YWMWb8iTiwpm-M21vntcuxE9kBO5IK2CyiNaf7yVR/s1600/J.L.+Carr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2Zm3T7sHhZpHFRmfUOrqGiucg3D8UuN_RTG9uNIWcpeojSHrnbdmOqdXkQs36BPNJhlZeHHXkXyGFtXN_qUu7TPSL903SStR7h1YWMWb8iTiwpm-M21vntcuxE9kBO5IK2CyiNaf7yVR/s1600/J.L.+Carr.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">J.L. Carr</div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7192383188921258891.post-1187157079248050792011-11-11T09:44:00.002-06:002011-11-11T09:50:43.578-06:00Old Knock Wardrobe #1: Basics<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNtXZGwqOzonB95M_YDmpU3Gl9fOF-h8TCyRMkGbiMgE5iyrppvCh6p_lVG1hllM_EBBOqcTxiKxCZid7cyHjRMsZ6A_BGS_SVrrDIQA1g8buGcJE8toyjVjbbzZFN4hypz6ESgGqt1FN/s1600/Oxford+Women+01--Life+Close+up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNtXZGwqOzonB95M_YDmpU3Gl9fOF-h8TCyRMkGbiMgE5iyrppvCh6p_lVG1hllM_EBBOqcTxiKxCZid7cyHjRMsZ6A_BGS_SVrrDIQA1g8buGcJE8toyjVjbbzZFN4hypz6ESgGqt1FN/s320/Oxford+Women+01--Life+Close+up.jpg" width="311" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While I hesitate to put the Old Knock in a box, let’s face it, he (or she) does need to be clothed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, in this case, the more the better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the typical Old Knock is not focused on exercise for its own sake, he prefers to keep as much of his body covered as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why one tends to find Old Knocks in the more temperate regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clothing is often layered to keep out the cold while living in those drafty attic apartments or poor old rectories.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Apart from the amount of clothing worn, the second most important feature is the age of the clothing itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most Old Knocks have better things to spend their money on (even if it is a substantial amount) than merely keeping themselves clothed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So they are likely to get their money’s worth out of their clothes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With any luck, they are able to get by on hand-me-downs from older relatives, or they manage to get by on rummage sales.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDVFDlZhYh8MLXR9N15uvy6wQMuKuGoidCAsfagYKKWj9uUCUyjtjQgJlhMr5b9z3J50eSQKIRdYvY4gUBKdBHHpy3eNlFNg_SiXPRpFBKfjuRJRE1D6A3ZHQURuti34MayA_0typ8VekM/s1600/Young_Fogey_a_la_Mode_003+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDVFDlZhYh8MLXR9N15uvy6wQMuKuGoidCAsfagYKKWj9uUCUyjtjQgJlhMr5b9z3J50eSQKIRdYvY4gUBKdBHHpy3eNlFNg_SiXPRpFBKfjuRJRE1D6A3ZHQURuti34MayA_0typ8VekM/s320/Young_Fogey_a_la_Mode_003+pic.jpg" width="193" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fit is not particularly important—but comfort is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So is practicality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Old Knock spends a lot of time pondering, and it’s a bit hard to ponder when one is uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Softer materials are preferred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t misunderstand—we are not talking about warm-up suits and trainers here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But aged clothing that has been worn so long as to, in some cases, actually become a part of the wearer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The final characteristic of the Old Knock’s wardrobe is the Reminiscent element.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t forget, Old Knocks are very Romantic about the past—that’s why they spend so much of their time studying the Classics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Old Knock derives quite a bit of pleasure from these old clothes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are comforting, as well as comfortable.</span></div>Old Knockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770462562022563029noreply@blogger.com0