All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.

December Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

British History

  1. In what year was the Battle of Culloden? 1746
  2. How many monarchs reigned during the 19th century? 4 – George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria
  3. Who, in 1835, produced durable silver chloride camera negatives on paper and conceived the two-step negative-positive procedure used in most non-electronic photography up to the present? Henry Fox Talbot
  4. Charles Dodgson is remembered as an early photographer, but what else is he famous for? The Alice in Wonderland books (as Lewis Carroll)
  5. In what year was slavery abolished in the British empire? 1838
  6. What links playing cards in 1588; windows in 1696; candles in 1709; wallpaper in 1712? All were taxed starting in those years

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.

This Month’s Poem

Halsway Carol
Iain Frisk

Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
Let the sunrise call about the morning soon
Short is the biding of the fading light
Sing for the coming of the longest night

North wind tell us what we need to know
When the stars are shining on the midnight snow
All of the branches will be turned to white
Sing for the coming of the longest night

  A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
  Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
  A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
  So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night

Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
May the harvest last until the springtime bloom
Home is our comfort at the winter’s height
Sing for the coming of the longest night

All of the colours of the sunrise sky
Shine a light upon us, as the day goes by
Sun-setting shadows fading out of sight
Sing for the coming of the longest night

  A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
  Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
  A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
  So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night

Find this poem online at Town Common Songs