Category: dates & time

race day

Today is doce de octubre: la fiesta nacional de España, celebrated in Spain as el día de la hispanidad – ‘Hispanity’ day – although it used to be called el día de la raza – the day of the race.

Although I’m not in Madrid to see the parade, I did catch part of the desfile militar on the TV this morning. There were certainly plenty of horses in attendance, but none of them seemed to be making much effort to win the race.

And, sadly, there were no glorious Ascot-style hats. Indeed, as can be seen from this photo from El País, none of the royal ladies wore hats of any sort. A poor sort of race day, if you ask me.

higher, lower; faster, slower

I’ve been interested in relativity for a long time – or at least it seems that way! – ever since the 1970s when Dr Walker drew a stickman following a stickwoman and flashing a torch at her on the blackboard in a maths lecture at Nottingham University. I’m pretty sure the theory was that if they were both travelling at the speed of light the woman would never be aware of her pursuer. Or something like that.

cleaning materials
Anyway, according to this story on physorg.com:

[National Institute of Standards and Technology] physicists […] demonstrate[d] that you age faster when you stand just a couple of steps higher on a staircase

and

Similarly, the NIST researchers observed another aspect of relativity—that time passes more slowly when you move faster

I think that means that if I want to keep young, it’s time to stop sitting in front of the computer and go and run around doing the cleaning downstairs.

autumn

It’s the first day of autumn, and last night there was a harvest moon. That makes me think I should be posting some poetry, but I can’t find anything particularly suitable.

Still, the weather really is quite autumnal today, and if it stays this way, it wouldn’t surprise me if the swallows started gathering early for migration. I’ve had telephone wires and communications on my mind a lot recently, so maybe this will fit the bill:
Continue reading “autumn”

noche de san juan

I dreamed of you last night and woke
to moonlight, sheet-tangled feet
cat-twisted and cold.

I drowsed again, through decades, slipped
between cities and crossed continents,
embracing and embraced,
now chasing and now chased,
no pause between the kisses passed
from partner on to partner
down through the yearning years.

I dreamed of you last night
and woke to moonlight.

 
 
(St John’s Eve – Midsummer Night – is celebrated across Spain with fire jumping in the street and general festivities. It’s supposed to be a time of powerful magic, and seemed a suitable title for this slightly chaotic dream poem.)

midsummer night

I just pulled one of my grandmother’s poetry books from the shelf. There aren’t that many of them, but they are all inscribed “Midsummer Day” and were gifts from her husband on her birthday. This particular book – Poems by Thomas Hood – is dated exactly 100 years ago.

My favourite Hood poem is The Bridge of Sighs, but that’s too long to post here, so I’ll settle for one that’s appropriate to the time as well as the date:
Continue reading “midsummer night”