Why I think August could be the beginning of the end

I am not too keen on the last week of August. Despite serving as a reminder that the summer holidays are almost over, which means checking school uniforms, re-ordering items that no longer fit and so on, it may as well be the end of the year. Summer, for me, is May, June and July. Perhaps I need to redesign my garden so that the flowers last longer than the first week of August.

Read more...August Blog

The evolution of festivals

Festivals. The word means either Woodstock or Harvest to me. Woodstock was before my time and I have very fond memories of the colourful celebrations at harvest time when I was a child. But of course, there is more to it than that.

This last weekend my friendship groups were split into two. One lot, the older group (I kid you not!) went to the V Festival, which is an open air music festival. The other group - well let me be honest here, a generation younger than me - went to the Summer in the City Festival at Alexandra Palace in London.

The only thing these events shared was the date. The Summer in the City was a gathering of Youtubers, those new celebrities who have made their name by posting videos of themselves online. There are comedians, musicians, observationists, satirists and agony aunts. Probably many more talents that I am unaware of. But they have all made their name, and made a living, from Youtube. Just like books and blogging, festivals have moved into new technological era.

So this is the new direction for festivals but where did they start? The word simply means 'celebration' and therefore will have been around since civilisation began. Like the Harvest Festival, faiths all around the world have held celebrations for religious commemoration and worship. Over the last century there have been film, motor, folk, arts and literary festivals. Anything can be celebrated and therefore anything can have a festival.

In Anglo-Saxon times the people celebrated more than ever. With no books or television to pass the time and the prospects of a short life, if there was anything worth celebrating there was a festival for it. When Christianity came to the pagan kingdoms, the new festivals were embraced while the traditional ones were maintained.

Some of my favourite festivals are the Bilberry Sunday festival, when, at the end of July when all the bilberries have been picked, there is a huge festival to celebrate the harvest. I imagine that there were lots of bilberry pies and barrels of bilberry wine consumed. There will have been music and dancing as well as feasting. Another is the Orchard Visiting Wassail, the festival where people sing and drink in order to wake the apple trees that are prized for their cider apples. The festivities are supposed to scare away evil spirits and ensure a good crop. The folks try to make as much noise as they can once the singing is over and a piece of bread soaked in cider is left on the roots of the trees. This festival evolved into the Apple Wassail during the sixteenth century but maintained the principle ideas. My own version of this festival (albeit a wee bit more gory!) is in The Dark Garden, which I am writing as a weekly serial.

Other favourites of mine include the Lantern Festivals held in China, Thailand, Taiwan and other Buddhist countries. Lanterns of every description are paraded through streets and set the sky alight. Another Buddhist festival I like is the Songkran Water Festival. Here, to symbolise the purity and cleansing of the spirit, a statue of Buddha is bathed and then a huge water fight breaks out in the streets with hose pipes  buckets and water guns. Then there is the Grape Throwing Festival in Spain, the Dead Cat Festival of Belgium (toy cats are thrown, no dead ones), Sandfest in Texas, Glastonbury, Frozen Dead Guys Festival in Colorado and Harbin Ice and Snow Festival in China.

The evolutionary process has taken the best from the traditional celebrations and discarded the unpleasant, such as sacrifice festivals (these used to be in November in Anglo-Saxon times). In some cases they include the new, like the Summer in the City and film festivals. But, overall, they haven't changed very much at all. They are mostly outdoors and include eating, drinking and singing.

If I had to choose three things worth celebrating it would probably be the three above: because they signify what it is to be alive.

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When not knowing your history damages the local economy

"OOh no,  Zeus wasn't from here!" said the lady in the shop, and began to tell me the story of how young Zeus was brought up by wolves.

I was in Crete and had asked if any of the small statues were of Zeus, as he was from the island. That's when she told me the story of Romulus and Remus - the twins who founded Rome.

She attempted to tell me the life stories of the many philosophers and other mythical beings from antiquity, but I was already gone. How could I trust her knowledge when she was so glaringly wrong about the ancient king of the gods, Zeus? In her home country?

I was shocked by her ignorance. Also by the lack of anything relating to Zeus on the whole island. Obviously, history means nothing to the majority of the people. But does it matter that nobody cares about ancient myths? Is it important to anyone but historians?

Perhaps not. But at a time when the Greek economy is far from its best, the locals need to be selling their country. And despite Moussaka and Greek Salad, the mythology is their best export. Maybe my eighty Euros would not have made much of a dent in their debts, but it all counts. How many other tourists would have bought replicas of statues of Zeus had they known Crete was where he lived?

This is the point where I planned to insert my picture of the statue of Zeus that I purchased. But I don't have one, so here is a picture of the sea.

Significant Anglo-Saxon battles

From the beginning  to the end, when Harold became the last Anglo=Saxon king, a selection of the most significant battles http://www.ajsefton.com/#!battles/c1fi0