Griffin poetry prizes awarded

From the BBC

Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan has won the International Griffin Poetry Prize for Like A Straw Bird It Follows Me, receiving C$65,000 (£41,000).

Described by judges as poetry which "reminds us why we live and how, in the midst of war, despair, global changes", the poems are translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah.

The annual award recognises new poetry translated into, or written in, English.

What's the Score? by David W McFadden wins the Canadian prize.

The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian writer and one international poet who writes in the English language.

The winners were announced at an award ceremony in Toronto, attended by some 400 guests including trustees Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje.

Holocaust mastermind's diary recovered

WILMINGTON, Delaware (AFP) - US officials and the National Holocaust Museum announced Thursday the recovery of the long-lost diary of a top Nazi war criminal that experts say could shed new light on the Holocaust.

The Rosenberg Diary, kept by Alfred Rosenberg, a confidant of Adolf Hitler whose racist theories underpinned Nazi Germany's annihilation of six million Jews, had been missing since the Nuremberg war crimes trials ended in 1946.

"Having material that documents the actions of both perpetrators and victims is crucial to helping scholars understand how and why the Holocaust happened," said Sarah Bloomfield, director of the National Holocaust Museum in Washington.

"The story of this diary demonstrates how much material remains to be collected and why rescuing this evidence is such an important Museum priority," said Bloomfield in a statement.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, a key player in finding the loose-leaf diary, said it had initially been taken by a Nuremberg prosecutor, Robert Kempner, "contrary to law and proper procedure."

Kempner, a German lawyer who fled to the United States during World War II and settled in Pennsylvania, held on to the diary -- which covers a 10-year period from 1934 -- until his death in 1993, ICE said.

It remained missing until November 2012 when the US Attorney's office in Delaware and Department of Homeland Security special agents got a tip from an art security specialist working with the Holocaust museum.

"The Rosenberg Diary was subsequently located and seized pursuant to a warrant issued by the US District Court for the District of Delaware," ICE said, giving no details.

In his role as the Nazis' chief racial theorist, Rosenberg was instrumental in developing and promoting the notion of a German "master race" superior to other Europeans and, above all, to non-Europeans and Jews.

Born in 1893 into an ethnic German family in what is today Estonia, Rosenberg -- who loathed Christianity and "degenerate" modern art -- doubled as Hitler's point man in occupied eastern Europe and Russia throughout the war.

He was also tasked by Hitler to oversee the systematic plundering of countless works of art throughout occupied Europe, many of which remain missing to this day.

Captured by Allied troops at the end of the 1939 to 45 war, Rosenberg was convicted at Nuremberg of war crimes, crimes against humanity, initiating and waging wars of aggression, and conspiracy to commit crimes against peace.

He was executed with several other convicted Nazi kingpins -- Hermann Goering having cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his jail cell the night before -- on October 16, 1946. He was 53.

Yahoo, tinkering disastrously again

It has happened again.

Yahoo mail has "upgraded."  With total unexpectedness, I opened my mail to find that there was a new, swish version taking over. 

First, it stalled my computer. Out of the program I went, and again it stalled when I reopened the mail page, and so it went on ... and on.  System restore and a bout of muttering finally fixed it, but then I found that all my mail had been converted to tiny fonts.  Unreadable.

"Help" was no use.  It simply told me to go to mail options, hit "general" and opt for one font in a very short list, mostly involving choices like "Serif 1" or "Serif 2", and then hit small, medium, large, or extra large.  But that, I found, only worked with plain text.  With html -- surely the preferred option, these days -- I am stuck with tiny, tiny fonts. There is nothing in the tools that allows me to zoom.  That lovely drop down list where I could hit 100% or 125% or whatever has vanished, in favor of that confounded "mail options."

And that invaluable button "check mail" has vanished from the top ribbon.  To check for mail I have to go out of yahoo mail and then go back into it.  Time-consuming, and just plain infuriating.

Thank God, I say, for my iPad. 

Alaric Bond's latest to be published by OLD SALT PRESS

Old Salt Press is an independent press catering to those who love books about ships and the sea -- an association of writers working together to produce the very best of nautical and maritime fiction and non-fiction. Old Salt Press was launched by author and well know maritime blogger Rick Spilman.

I have the honor to be a founding associate of this maritime writing cooperative, and am delighted that Alaric Bond has opted to be published under the Old Salt Press umbrella.

As David Hayes, of Historic Naval Fiction, has announced:

This exciting new project will be enhanced by the news that Alaric Bond's new novel, outside his Fighting Sail series, is to be published by them. Turn a Blind Eye will be available worldwide Autumn 2013.

"Autumn, 1801. Newly appointed to the local revenue cutter, Commander Griffin is determined to make his mark, and defeat a major gang of smugglers. But the country is still at war with France and it is an unequal struggle; can he depend on support from the local community, or are they yet another enemy for him to fight?

With dramatic action on land and at sea, Turn a Blind Eye exposes the private war against the treasury with gripping fact and fascinating detail."

Both Ron and I had the pleasure of reading the manuscript of this book, and both enjoyed it mightily. As Ron said, It is a page-turner.  I particularly liked the evocative setting, the beautifully described coast of Sussex ... infamous haunt of pirates and smugglers.

A meticulous historian, Bond does not romanticize the smugglers or their stealthy trade. Instead, he describes the damage they did to the economy of Britain during the war with Napoleon -- the sheer scope and nerve of their activities; how they traded extravagantly with the enemy, carrying scarce bullion over the Channel and coming back with luxury goods.  The job of a revenue man was a tough and exciting one indeed, particularly when that man was based in a shoreside village where the smuggling gangs ruled with bribery and force.

All the personalities in the book are well rounded and real, and Captain Griffin is particularly so.  If I was to fall in love with one of the characters, though, it would be with the revenue cutter Bee...



Heroine of the sea

From the BBC

Triple Trawler Tragedy

Forty-three years-ago the whole country was shocked as three Hull trawlers were lost within three weeks of each other.

The trawlers sank with the loss of 58 lives. Only one person survived the disasters.
The first vessel to be lost was the St Romanus which went down in the north sea 110 miles off Spurn Point on the 11th January. All 20 crew members died.

On the 26th January the Kingston Peridot sank off Skagagrunn on the Icelandic coast, again with the loss of all 20 men.

The final loss was the Ross Cleveland on the 4th February. The boat had sought refuge from a storm in the natural inlet of Isafjord in northern Iceland.

Isafjord: Resting place of the Ross Cleveland

Dozens of other trawlers were also in the fjord, so the Ross Cleveland had to stay further out. The trawler was swamped by mountainous waves and sank. The last message from the skipper Phil Gay was "I am going over. We are laying over. Help me. I’m going over. Give my love and the crew`s love to the wives and families".
Eighteen lives were lost.

Three crewmen made it to a life raft, but only one, Harry Eddom, survived the bitter cold. After 12-hours in the raft he was washed ashore and found help at a remote farmhouse.
 

After the initial shock of the losses the mood in Hull turned to anger. Many of the wives of fishermen began to campaign for better safety conditions on trawlers.

Lillian Bilocca in a dockside protest

One of the leaders of this campaign was Lillian Bilocca who lived in the heart of the Hessle Road fishing community. Big Lil, as she was known, organised a 10,000 signature petition calling for reform. She led a delegation to Parliament and eventually met with the Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

She and her supporters carried out direct action, trying to stop boats leaving St Andrew’s Dock and even threatening to picket the PM’s house if there weren’t reforms. Speaking to a BBC reporter she said “If I don’t get satisfaction I’ll be at that Wilson’s house, private house, until I do get satisfaction in some shape or form.”

The campaign was successful with many new safety measures introduced, including making it compulsory for every trawler to have a full-time radio operator.

Air New Zealand makeover

Air New Zealand has a new livery

To our astonishment, as we were taxiing out of Auckland airport last week, a black and white plane taxied in. There was the familiar koru design, and there was the fernleaf design that the so-called "All Blacks" plane featured during the Rugby World Cup, but the rest (except for the wings) was matte black.

This according to Australian Business Traveller, is the new Air New Zealand livery. Going out is the turquoise and blue blend that reminded historians of the origin of Air New Zealand as TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Limited), and coming in is what is popularly considered to be the iconic color of the country, BLACK.

The new livery will introduced later this year as part of a worldwide NZ$20m (A$16.7m) marketing campaign between Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand.

Most aircraft will be dressed to impress in the airline's standard white livery, which will now feature a dramatic black section sweeping up from the rear of the wings, as seen below in this PR shot showing the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner due for delivery next year (and which will likely launch on the Auckland-Shanghai route).

However, Air New Zealand will paint a select number of aircraft in a distinctive "all black" version of the new design. And that is the plane that we saw...

Egyptian middens and crocodiles

"It's hard to imagine, but many ancient Egyptians paid to become slaves"
-- Bob Brockie, science columnist for the Dominion Post

"I am your servant from this day forward and I shall pay 2 1/2 copper coins every month as my slave fee, before Saknebtunis the great god."
-- papyrus contract found in an ancient rubbish tip in the Egyptian village of Tebtunis

And who, pray, was Saknebtunis the great god?

He, Bob Brockie informs us, was a crocodile god who was worshipped in every village near Tebtunis that owned a suitable temple with an attached lake and some sunbathing mud.

 

Shudder. Worshipping a crocodile is not my idea of fun, but 2200 years ago the villagers took their religion so seriously that archaeologists have unearthed dozens of crocodile mummies. Interestingly, these mummies were wrapped on layers of papyri which turned out, on investigation, to be legal documents such as tax receipts, marriage contracts ... and arrangements where slaves paid their masters to become their servants.

 

Presumably, the alternative -- of digging canals, or rowing in galleys -- was worse.  But how could slaves afford the monthly payment? Apparently they had jobs on the side, such as interpreting dreams, or copying legal documents.

 

The croc pictured above is not an Egyptian reptile, but an Aussie example. There is rather a fetching tourist attraction at Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays called "Crocodile Safari," where not only do you drift down a river watching crocs doing their thing (which seemed to alternate between mud-bathing and sliding rather dramatically into the river), but you are taken through the marshes to look at birds and wallabies, and are fed lots of great Aussie tucker.

 

Highly recommended.  Here's another picture ...

 

 

 



50 Shades running down

The dream run for EL James is ending, it seems...

Currently, in Whitcoulls on Lambton Quay, Wellington, there are piles of boxed sets of the Fifty Shakes trilogy, on sale at ... $35.95

CATS awards

No, it is nothing to do with musicals

It is all about Scottish acting

The BBC reports that Alan Cumming and Blythe Duff have won best actor awards at the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS).

Cumming won for "an unforgettable, bravura performance" in the National Theatre of Scotland's one-man Macbeth.

The Perthshire-born actor, who had previously won a Tony award on Broadway, said Macbeth was "the thing I am most proud of in my whole career".

Duff won her award for playing a convicted husband-killer in Iron.

The 2013 CATS were presented by one of Scotland's leading playwrights, John Byrne, at a sell-out event that also marked the 50th anniversary of the Traverse Theatre.

The special CATS Whiskers award was given to the inaugural artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, Vicky Featherstone.

It recognised her contribution to Scottish theatre in the seven years since the National Theatre company was formed.

We were particularly pleased to see Blythe Duff's award, being committed Taggart fans.

KIRKS, 150 years later

Kirkaldie and Stains, a Wellington heritage

 

Kirkaldie and Stains, affectionately known as "Kirks," is Wellington's premier department store, where you can browse designer models of everything wearable, and buy top brand cosmetics, as well.

It's a wonderful place to browse, and while filling in time yesterday, I was delighted to find a little museum on the top floor.  It's Kirks' 150th birthday, and the display of artifacts, clippings, and archives is part of the fun.

The little museum is a delight, and a wonderful way to spend an hour.  Professionally curated and skilfully displayed, with a timeline painted around the walls, it commemorates an important part of Wellington history.

John Kirkaldie and Robert Stains

Back in 1863, two enterprising young men met in Sydney. One was John Kirkcaldie, a Scotsman who had served his apprenticeship as a draper, and the other was Robert Stains, an Englishman who had worked in the retail trade in London. They came to the settlement of Wellington, which offered the best prospects for the business they had in mind. Each had a capital of £350, which they pooled, and together they built a small store from the timbers of a wrecked ship, at the southern end of Lambton Quay.  (Today, it is the site of the historic Bank of New Zealand, now an enclosed Victorian-style mall.)  In 1868 it moved a few blocks to the south, and built in a style that is reflected in its grand form today.

During its long history Kirkcaldie & Stains has survived many upheavals, including earthquakes, fire and flood, the famous Tea Room shooting of 1898 and extensive renovations. However through all of the changes the store has continued the tradition of its founders and Kirkcaldie & Stains stands proud today as New Zealand’s premier department store. Most unusually, it is almost entirely owned by its staff and its customers, most of them Wellingtonians.

So, it is quite a heritage to celebrate, and the little museum is a great way to take note of it.