WHYTE OF LOUGHBRICKLAND.
WHYTE, JOHN, Esq. of Loughbrickland, со. Down, J.P., high sheriff 1862, m. 1st, 1855, Ellen-Mary, last surviving dau. of Thomas-L. Kelly, Esq. of Dublin, and by her (who d. 1857) has an only dau., Mary-Jane-Elizabeth. He m. 2ndly, Oct, 1862, Caroline-Letitia, dau. of George Ryan, Esq. of Inch House, со. Tipperary.

WALTER WHYTE, son of Ethelbert Whyte, lord chief justice of South Wales, accompanied Strongbow in his expedition and conquest of Ireland, having brought over, and supported at his own expense, a considerable troop. In reward for his courage and allegiance, he was made a knight by HENRY II, in 1171. He m. a relative
of Strongbow’s, and had a son, JAMES WHYTE, Knt., who m. Amicie, dan. of the Earl of Leicester, and was father of BALTHAZAR WHYTE, Knt , who commanded under King John, in 1220. His son, JAMES WHYTE, also a knight, was father of MAURICE WHYTE, whose son, WALTER WHYTE, m. a dau. of Mandeville, and had issue. His 2nd son, NICHOLAS WHYTE, was father of DOMINIC WHYTE, who had a son, NICHOLAS WHYTE, who m. the sister of Thomas Butler, prior of Kilmainham, and a knight hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, and by her was father of MAURICE WHYTE, the Lancastrian, so called from his having served under the three kings of the House of Lancester. In 1418, Maurice, with the prior of Kilmainham, led 2,000 Irish to assist at the siege of Rouen, and was afterwards governor of Montaire, under HENRY VI. His son, BARTHOLOMEW WHYTE, was father of NICHOLAS WHYTE, seigneur of King’s Meadows, со. Waterford, who m. Elizabeth, dau. of N. Power, Esq. of со. Waterford, and had a son, JAMES WHYTE, seigneur of King’s Meadows, and of Whyte’s Hall, со. Wexford, who (by his wife, Margaret, dau. of N. Walsh, Esq. of со. Waterford) was father of Sir NICHOLAS WHYTE, of Leixlip, grand seneschal of со. Wexford, where he founded the place called Whyte Hall. He was also governor of the Castle of Wexford, and became master of the Rolls of Ireland in 1572. By his wife, a dau. of Sherlock, Sir Nicholas, who d. in England, left a son,

ANDREW WHYTE, of Leixlip, who m. Margaret Finglas, and d. 31 July, 1599, leaving a son,

SIR NICHOLAS WHYTE, of Leixlip, aged 16 A.D., 1599; inq. p. m ; he m. Ursula Moore, dau. of Garret Moore, Viscount Drogheda, and d. in 1654. His 4th son,

CHARLES WHYTE, Esq. of Leixlip, col. in Spain, and afterwards governor со. Kildare, 1689. By his 2nd wife, Mary, dau. of Sir Thomas Newcomen, Bart, of Moorstown, со. Longford, and Frances his wife, dau. of Sir William Taibot, Bart, of Cartown, со. Dublin, he left a son,

JOHN WHYTE, Esq. of Leixlip, who m. Mary, dau. of Nicholas Purcoll, Baron of Loughmoe, со. Tipperary, by Rose his wife, dau. of Viscount Dungannon, and granddau. of John Purcell, Baron of Loughmoe, and Elizabeth his wife. dau. of Thomas Butler, 1st Lord Ormond. By this lady Mr. Whyte left a son,

CHARLES WHYTE, Esq. of Leixlip, who m. Anastatia, dau. of Edward Dunne, Esq. of Brittas, by Margaret his wife, dau. of Frank Wyse, Esq., son of Robert Wyse, Esq. of Waterford, and left issue,

• JOHN, his heir.
• Nicholas (Sir), knight of Malta.
• Margaret, m. to John Roche, Esq. of Limerick.
• Rose.

The elder son and heir,
JOHN WHYTE, Esq. of Leixlip, m. 15 Feb. 1776, Letitia, dau. of the Hon. Thomas De Burgh, uncle of the late Marquess
of Clanricarde, and had eight sons and two daus.,

1. CHARLES-JOHN, capt. in the army, &. 1777 ; m. 1794, Anna, eldest dau. of John Ross-Lewin, Esq. of Fortfergus, co. Clare ; and d. 1803, leaving a son,
   • CHARLES-JOHN, of Strandfield House, со. Wexford, b. 12 Feb. 1804 ; m. l Sept. 1832, Rose, relict of John Reeves, Esq. of Charleville, со. Cork, and 2nd dau. of George Dartnell, Esq. of Limerick, and has issue,
     • John, b. 12 June, 1833.
     • George Lewis, 6. 22 Aug. 1834, of the 55th regt. ; m. Frances, only dau. of the late Henry Whitcomb,lieut. R.N.
     • Charles, 6. 21 Aug. 1836, of the 6th royal rept.
     • Edward Henry, b. 16 Feb. 1839, B.N., late H.M.’s ship “Leander,” was at Balaklava at the taking of Sevastopol
     • Joseph, b. 12 Oct. 1840, R.N., H.M.’s ship ” Sappho.”
     • Benjamin-de Burgh, 6. 8 July, 1850.
     • Frederick, b. 5 July, 1852.
     • Rose.
     • Letitia-Adelaide.
     • Anna, m. George Sandos, Esq., со. Kerry.
2. John, E.I.C.’s service, d.s. p.
3. Thomas, killed in action, in Spain, unm.
4. Francis, in the army, d. unm. in the West Indies.
5. NICHOLAS-CHARLES, of whom presently.
6. Edward, capt. R.N., m. Mary, dau. of Capt. Sober Hall, of Durham, and by her (who d. 1861) left, at his decease, in 1837, four sons and four daus., viz.,
   1. JOHN CHARLES, barrister-at-law ;
   2. Edward, in holy orders of the Church of Rome ;
   3. William, capt. R. N. ;
   4. Henry, m. 1859, Mary, dau. of Thomas Comyn, and has issue;
   1. Catherine-Margaret, m. George Ryan, Esq. of Inch House, co. Tipperary ;
   2. Letitia :
   3. Frances, unm. ; and
   4. Ellen.
7. Henry, R. N., d. in the West Indies.
8. Marcus, vice-counsel of Lima, deceased.

1. Letitia, m. Charles-Whyte Roche, Esq. of Ballygran, со
   Limerick.
2. Margaret, m. Col. Charles O’Feirall. of Ballyna, cо. Kildare, equerry and chamberlain to the King of Sardinia

The 5th son, NICHOLAS-CHARLES WHYTE, Esq. of Loughbrlckhna, J p and D.L., capt. B.N., 6. 18 Jan. 1783; m. 10 June, 1805, Mary-Louisa, dau. of Thomas Segrave, Esq. of Cabra, Co. Dublin, and had issue,

• JOHN, now of Loughbrickland.
• Nicholas.
• Edward, royal Canadian rifles.
• Anna-Maria.
• Letitia.
• Louisa, m. 1861, to Charles-Whyte Roche, Esq.

Capt. Whyte served as high sheriff, со. Down ; d. 1815. Arms—Arg., a chev., engr., between three roses, gu. Crest—A demi-lion, rampant, holding a flag, ensigned with a cross. Motto—Echel Coryg. Seat—Loughbrickland, со. Down

13) A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
14) Between the Woods and the Water, by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Two brilliant, brilliant books of travel writing: the first describes Leigh Fermor’s journey on foot through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in the winter and spring of 1933 and 1934; the second takes him on through Hungary and Romania. They were written respectively forty and fifty years after the events described; the second volume ends with the promise “to be concluded”, but it seems now unlikely that Leigh Fermor himself will finalise the account of his journey to Constantinople. (He is 92.)

The two books struck me slightly differently. I know the territory of the first one much better – as a teenager I explored Cologne, had an exchange with a family near Wiesbaden, went on a student visit to Heidelberg, and worked for a few months near Heilbronn, plus occasional explorations of Austria and business visits to Vienna, Prague and Bratislava in more recent years. In the second book the only place I have in common with him is Budapest (plus the two towns of Estergom and Szentendre to its north), though he does gaze from across the Danube at the fortress of Golubac, where the photograph I use for my standard user icon was taken.

Also over the course of the narrative, the style of Leigh Fermor’s journey shifts – really from about two-thirds of the way through A Time of Gifts, when he finds the knack of staying with local nobility rather than dossing down in barns or police cells, which gives him a much more diverse though frankly aristocratic insight into his surroundings. This is particularly true in the Slovakian and Transylvanian passages, where he tends to end up talking to ethnic Hungarians or members of the other formerly privileged minorities, coming to terms with the new order. Another theme is the gathering historical storm, signalled by his passage through freshly-Nazified Germany and subsequent news bulletins as the situation worsens. He describes cities like Rotterdam and Ulm which would be flattened within a decade.

But there’s a sense of maturing as well: the eighteen-year-old fleeing a succession of personal failures in England becomes a keen absorber of local lore and (discreetly described) a lover of local women as he travels. The passage of decades allows Leigh Fermor to poke fun at his younger self occasionally, but also to overlay the narrative with what he has learned since, including occasional updates on what has happened to the principal characters in the story. Much, of course, has changed, and the very last chapter mourns the submerging of much of the Danube valley as a result of the building of the Iron Gates Dam.

Anyway, these are both very highly recommended.

12) L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future volume XIX, ed. Algis Budrys

I bought this way back when Jay Lake’s story “Into the Gardens of Sweet Night” got its well-deserved Hugo nomination a couple of years ago, but have only now got around to reading the rest of the fourteen pieces of short fiction in the book, all of which are given a single illustration by an up-and-coming artist. Lake’s is the jewel of the collection, and several others show promise though there was none that quite grabbed me in the same way. There is a rather odd inclusion of a short piece on writing by Hubbard himself, and an even shorter piece on illustrating sf by Will Eisner, as well as a retrospective by Sean Williams on what it meant to be included in an earlier volume.

I was really struck at the time that “Into the Gardens of Sweet Night” came only fourth in the Hugo votes, despite getting the most first preferences (and nominations) by far. In the transfers for determining the winner, Swanwick’s “Legions in Time” picked up 217 votes, and Lake’s story only 50; in the run for second place, “The Empire of Ice Cream” literally doubled its tally from 163 to 326, and Lake’s story gained only 65; “Nightfall” got third place by nearly doubling its first prefs from 167 to 330, while “Into the Gardens of Sweet Night” gained only 38 preferences. It’s a really nice story, and there is no reason on its own merits for it to be so transfer-repellent. I wonder if voters had deliberately avoided reading it simply because of its provenance being so closely linked to Hubbard?

11) Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse

I woke this morning feeling very groggy, and gradually realised that I was not even going to make it late to the office; so managed to read this (recommended to me by way way back) between naps. It’s fundamentally a depressing German psychological-mystical novel, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting to. I was very much drawn into the narrator’s story of reconciling what he imagines to be the two sides of his own nature, and coming to terms with music, dancing and sex while remaining true to himself. The ending is a bit peculiar but that is in keeping with the tone of the rest. As I look back at my entries about Nobel prize-winners I see that I’ve ended quite a lot of them with the feeling that I might read more by that author, but this time I really mean it!

10) Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

A very enjoyable fairy tale by Gaiman. As ever I find myself spotting similarities with Sandman (in this case, the supernatural siblings, and the half-human heir), but I felt he had rung the changes here rather effectively, and the story combines lovely incidental detail with a good sound (if traditional) plot. Great fun. (Wonder if I will get to see the film.)

What will happen when you meet the Doctor?
Name
DOB
Favourite Color
You live	In a quarry in the Home Counties
Your companions are	You live alone
The Doctor arrived because	He was chasing the Master
You first met the Doctor when	The TARDIS landed on top of you
The end result was	Your entire family died horribly
This QuickKwiz by clanwilliam – Taken 2 Times.

New – Kwiz.Biz Astrology

Well done !

9) MMR: Science & Fiction: Exploring the Vaccine Crisis, by Richard Horton

Got this at the recommendation of

thette

, and it’s obviously on a subject in which I have a personal interest. Richard Horton (at least, this Richard Horton) is the editor of the Lancet, which published the 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield linking autism with the MMR vaccine. No other credible evidence has been found for the link, and Wakefield’s failure to disclose his personal conflicts of interest caused Horton and the Lancet to retract the relevant research in 2004 (Wakefield remains defiant).

Horton presents the book as “something of a personal exorcism”; he attempts to use the MMR affair as a lens through which to examine justice, truth and the public perception of science. I don’t think he completely succeeds, and it was rather ambitious of him to try in 170 pages knocked off in four months. He has a couple of policy recommendations for diverting and channeling public discourse around health research into safer channels, which I think are wholly unrealistic. He calls for science to develop its public image, and to engage more professionally with journalists, and here I think he is on surer ground: indeed, dealing with the media and the public ought to be a basic point of training for any researcher today (though I think Horton is monstrously unfair in casually discounting the contributions of Robert Winston and – for once I shall be positive about him – Richard Dawkins).

He has a fascinating chapter on the extent of state funding for research on autism in the USA. A few weeks ago, Anne and I were gripped by The Stackhouse Filibuster, the 2001 West Wing episode where a senator forces Congress and the President to approve the creation of “five centers of excellence in universities around the country to help scientists coordinate their research, three special units for autism epidemiology at the CDC, and a centralized facility for gene and brain banking” – I was astonished to discover from Horton’s book that this is more or less what was actually legislated in the Children’s Health Act in 2000; though I guess in real life less heavy-handed methods were used to get the bill passed. Apparently autism research in the UK is way underfunded by comparison, and I would not be astonished to find that the rest of Europe is in the same place. I would have to say that, as far as we can tell anecdotally, Belgium’s care provisions for children with autism and their families are way ahead of Britain’s.

Pulling back the focus a bit, I was interested by Horton’s more philosophical discussion of how truth is established, and struck by the contrast with my own field of work, which is also the subject of academic research but where the truths that matter operationally, in terms of deciding what political decisions are made, are determined not by academe but by professionals elsewhere. Science doesn’t seem to recognise a distinction between practitioners and policy-makers, or at least the dynamic is wholly different. If I ever take some time off to look further into the concept of epistemic communities, this is a contrast that will bear further investigation.

I was, however, disappointed by Horton’s reluctance to make the obvious moral judgements about Wakefield, or to defend his own unwillingness to do so. His book concludes:

Wakefield was guilty of naïveté, of relying on flawed intuition, of equating instinct with evidence, and of allowing his beliefs to drive a series of public statements that cracked the foundation stone of one of Britain’s most important programmes for protecting the health of its children. For some people, these were irresponsible acts which could never be forgiven. For others, myself included, they threw into sharp relief more systematic failings of a medical and public health system that was and remains poorly designed to meet the needs of today’s more questioning, sceptical and inquiring public.

I’ve blogged about Wakefield before; I find it impossible not to form a negative judgement of him, for all the reasons Horton lists in the first sentence quoted above, combined with the fact that he has expressed no contrition except for the inconvenience he caused his fellow researchers. I could go on, but the subject makes me too angry.

8) Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon

Sorry, this just doesn’t do it for me. Writing style too convoluted, characters wacky in a rather uninteresting way, plot non-existent. One or two flashes of good description among the plodding.

“Unity” is in fact the same as “one” or “100%”, at least if asking what the terms in a binomial add up to.

(Liverpool were a much more charming team, but I accept that this was the second last question and they were already well stuffed.)

I asked:

So, what covered Venezuela for just over half of the twentieth century, and returns this month (or possibly at the end of December) after more than forty years?

secritcrush

  got it right. The answer is:

The UTC -4:30 Time Zone.

This was Venezuela’s official time zone from 1912 to 1964; since then it has been on UTC -4 hours, the same as much of the Caribbean, Paraguay, Chile, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and most of Labrador. But now the clocks are to change by half an hour – though there has been some confusion about exactly when that will happen.

Though I must say that some of the other answers you suggested were pretty funny.

So, what covered Venezuela for just over half of the twentieth century, and returns this month (or possibly at the end of December) after more than forty years?

7) A Load of Old BoSh: serious scientific talks by Bob Shaw

As a fan of Shaw’s writing who never actually met him, I remember reading David Langford’s obituary back in 1996 with sadness, but also with considerable curiosity; I deeply regretted never having heard him give one of his “Serious Scientific Talks”. It’s good that the then Eastercon got this collection of ten of his talks published in time for him to read, less than a year before he died. And they are pretty funny even on the printed page; the jokes are laboured, some of them are repeated, but they are hilarious, especially read out loud. One can well believe , the Eastercon chair of the day who contributes a foreword, that in the transcription process she sometimes found herself laughing so hard that she was physically unable to type.

Presumably sound recordings must exist of some of Shaw’s talks? Is there any chance of their becoming available on-line?

6) Pile: Petals from St. Klaed’s computer, by Brian Aldiss, illustrated by Mike Wilks

A rather peculiar conjunction of Aldiss (writing in verse for once) and Wilks (later famous for The Ultimate Alphabet) supplying a superb depiction of the crazed architecture of the city of Pile (and its mirror image Elip), plus the power-hungry prince Scart. Aldiss fan though I am, the gorgeous illustrations score over the written narrative. My copy had a 1979 Worldcon souvenir bookplate signed by both Aldiss and Wilks; I got it at the David Stewart memorial auction last weekend.

5) The Kalahari Typing School for Men, by Alexander McCall Smith

This is the fourth I’ve read, and the fourth in the series, though I have been reading them out of sequence. As usual, the homely wisdom of the old ways wins out, sins are expiated rather than necessarily exposed, and everyone is back in the right place at the end; but McCall Smith has brought some darker elements in here as well, including a child with AIDS. A decent quick read.

It has been widely reported that Al Gore is the first person to win both an Oscar and Nobel prize in the same year, though apparently this is technically incorrect (as the Oscar did not go to him personally). Here is a Youtube clip of the one person who indisputably did win both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, speaking at a dinner to introduce Albert Einstein, on 27 October 1930, in the type of Dublin accent that one really doesn’t hear any more:

Napoleon and other great men of his type, they were makers of empire. But there is an order of men who get beyond that. They are not makers of empire, but they are makers of universes.

And when they have made those universes, their hands are unstained by the blood of any human being here on earth.

Ptolemy made a universe that lasted 1400 years. Newton, also, made a universe which has lasted three hundred years. Einstein has made a universe, and I can’t tell you how long that will last.

I was going to do a serious post about the new EU reform treaty, and how the UK’s political discourse around it is totally absurd and lopsided. But then I decided to write about this important topic instead (I have been brewing this post for almost three years, since

stellanova

 inspired me). I hope these entertain you as much as they entertained me.

German

Ernst Busch, 1931. Everything else has to be measured against this.

The original Lotte Lenya. Illustrated with only still photos of her and Weill, and her on her own, but aurally gripping.

Ute Lemper. At least, she sings in the background while a couple in Ghent have an argument.

SLUT, 2006. This Bavarian indie band just get it so absolutely right, converting the Brecht/Weill original into at 21st century idiom.

Brazilian musicians, 2006. Valiant attempt to create a proper 1930s feel, riffing off other great Weill tunes in the process.

Other languages

Miloš Kopecký, 1964. My God, this is superb. (In Czech.) For other languages, see also Hebrew and Italian.

English (apart from Liberace)

Nick Cave, 1997. This is the performance of a tortured artist who loves this song. If it had been directed by someone prepared to rein him in, it would have been fantastic. As it is, it is memorable but painful.

Liberace, 1960s. Much better than I had expected – almost variations on a theme of Weill. No singing, just piano.

The Achordants, 2007. 15 blokes doing the male voice choir thing. Works rather well.

The Cotton Club of Hungary, recently. An arresting performance, by three men and two women singers.

Dinah Shore and Pearl Mae Bailey, 1960. Hilarious.

Bobby Darin, 1959. Very much a fifties “big band” style production. Joyous to listen to, but to be honest a little embarrassing to watch. Inspired many others, including:

Louis Armstrong, 1962. The performance that inspired a hundred imitators, none of whom could match either Armstrong’s trumpet-playing or his more understated menace.

Ella Fitzgerald, 1965. Cuddly Ella sings a nice song which shows off her superb voice very well. (We’ll just forget that it’s about murder, rape and violence, OK?)

The Jimmy Smith trio, 1962. Adventurous. Almost works.

Robbie Williams – at least not offensively bad.

Westlife, 2006. Certainly the worst of the performances in terms of getting the song. Although they are in tune, they seem to be reading the lines of the autocue at various points. The rolling subtitles of trivia about Westlife’s personal history add extra shallowness to what is already a superficial performance.

Blake Lewis, 2007. Out of tune and just horrible.

A rather hilarious compilation including some of the above and some others. Audio, with still photos. Another compilation, from the same source.

A couple of people today (including Tony Keen) have linked to this article in the Independent about Facebook, academics and students.

The Independent should not be surprised that it is a popular phenomenon in universities – after all, that is what it was designed for. But I am struck that Facebook is becoming part of my own working environment too. Well over half of my Facebook friends list are professional contacts, mostly people of my age and below (including a group of my former interns). In the last few months, I have found myself arranging meetings with British parliamentarians, Scandinavian diplomats, and European Union officials via Facebook.

I suspect there is one particularly attractive feature that Facebook has for those of us working in international policy. It presents the illusion of a relatively secure communications environment. Emails can easily be forwarded, deliberately or accidentally, from one person to another, as we all know to our cost. Your Facebook correspondence is in its own secure space, and while one can always take screenshots or otherwise cut-n-paste, it takes much more determination to leak.

At a time when, we are told, more and more people are moving off email and onto the social networks for their basic leisure on-line communication, Facebook seems to be in the lead for professional networking as well.

These are the current levels of support for the likely Lib Dem candidates on Facebook.

Nick Clegg for Lib Dem Leader: 299
The Nick Clegg Appreciation Society: 97.
Nick Clegg is more of a hottie than David Cameron any day: 24.
Nick Clegg for Lib Dem Leader [duplicate title]: 2.

Chris Huhne This Time: 125.
Im [sic] Backing Chris Huhne for leader: 72.

Steve Webb for Lib Dem Leader: 97.
The Steve Webb Appreciation Society: 82.
Steve Webb for liberal leader: 9.

Charles Kennedy for Prime Minister: 79.
(A satirical group on the same lines): 15.
Bring Back Charles Kennedy: 2.

John Hemming for Lib Dem Leader: 12.
John Hemming for Lib Dem Leader!: 11.

Vince Cable deserves to be Prime Minister: 16.

Donald Kennedy for leader: 8.

NB the following important points:

• Some of these groups may not be entirely serious.
• Many people will be in more than one group (possibly even supporting more than one candidate).
• As far as I can see, there are no declared groups supporting any of the other candidates whose names have been mentioned.
• Charles Kennedy says it is “highly unlikely” that he will stand.
• Vince Cable has ruled himself out.
• Donald Kennedy, Charles Kennedy’s two-year-old son, is not eligible.

It is interesting that a) the front-runner is already so clearly established, despite the fact that we are in very early days yet, and b) that Steve Webb is so close behind Chris Huhne for second place.

Myself, I haven’t made my mind up yet. I voted for Huhne last time, but the two other likely serious candidates (Clegg and Webb, not Hemming) both seem to me to share his strengths, weaknesses and policy preferences. I’m willing to be educated, of course.

Today is an official day of mourning in Macedonia: their great singer Toše Proeski was killed in a car accident in Croatia yesterday. I saw him perform at a Macedonian cultural/diplomatic event in 2005, an event I described here

…described in an anonymous comment to a 2005 post, here.

Anyone know any more?

Reference has been made to my strange requests, and to ‘s obliging me in them. All can now be revealed.

Octocon was held last weekend in Maynooth. The next town to Maynooth is Leixlip. I was aware of a historical family connection to Leixlip, but had never been before. I found what I was looking for – a very interesting memorial in St Mary’s (Protestant) church in the town.

Our family’s genealogy is fairly well recorded. On the left is the White/Whyte coat of arms as in the received records (argent, a chevron engrailed between three roses gules). On the right is the top half of the memorial in St Mary’s Church, Leixlip. You can see why a thrill of recognition ran down my spine:

Underneath the shield is this inscription (and you will have to take my word for it, because the photos are not very good – I should have taken ‘s advice and filmed it as a movie, but they were about to start a service and I felt embarrassed):

THIS TOMB WAS ERECTED BY THE LADY URSULA
WHITE DAUGHTER OF THE LORD MOORE

HERE LYETH THE BODIS OF SIR NICHOLAS WHITE
KNIGHT DECEASED THE 4 OF FEBRUARIE 1654 AND
HIS SON NICHOLAS WHITE ESQ DECEASED THE 31 OF DECEMB
1664

So, not just one dead version of me, but two – extra value! The elder Nicholas is my 7xgreat-grandfather; the other was his eldest son (though I am descended from the fourth son, Charles, who lived long enough to fight on the losing side at the Battle of the Boyne).

The right hand side of the shield in the church is taken from the coat of arms of the Moores of Drogheda – azure on a chief indented or three mullets pierced gules. Lady Ursula White was one of the five daughters (and twelve children) of Sir Charles Moore, later the first Viscount Moore (c. 1560-1627). Her husband died in 1654 and is reckoned to have been born about 1583. Her eldest son is thought to have been born about 1612 and died in 1664. She herself died in 1667.

My grandfather, who was into genealogy, named his youngest child after Ursula when she was born in 1939. She died rather unexpectedly ten years ago next month. In certain respects I have followed my grandfather’s example.

Thanks to for indulging my antiquarian whims. Rather odd to be described as a baroness two days after doing this little bit of research!

I have just been described to a group of MEPs as “Baroness Nicholas Whyte”. I am many things, but I am not a baroness.

(The chairman of the meeting was confusing me with this lady. That is a bit worrying.)

Jeepers, I didn’t see that coming!

Hat-tip to 

catilinarian

: The BBC invites you to re-fight the Battle of Hastings (941 years ago today) and the Battle of Waterloo.

Also

catilinarian

: Slate’s Dear Prudence and Salon’s Carey Tennis both answer the same question: “My evangelical teenage daughter thinks I am going to hell!”

james_nicoll

: Ursula le Guin vs Cory Doctorow.

pgmcc

 reports on me and others.

Those of you who were at dinner last night may not be terribly surprised to learn that Vince Foster’s death was the result of a single gunshot wound from the front, clearly self-inflicted, rather than two shots from behind. (At least that’s what Kenneth Starr, not exactly a stooge of the Clintons, reported.)

Today’s anniversaries are, for once, quite an interesting lot:
1582: Nothing at all happened on this date in 1582 in Catholic countries in Europe, as the day before 15 October was 4 October.
1630: Birth of Sophia of Hanover, who missed becoming Queen of Great Britain and Ireland by dying two months early
1633: Birth of her first cousin James II of England and VII of Scotland, who did become King of England, Scotland and Ireland for a few years.
1882: Birth of Éamon de Valera
1890: Birth of Dwight D. Eisenhower
1912: Assassination attempt on Theodore Roosevelt while campaigning – he still gave his speech despite a bullet in his chest
1926: Publication of Winnie-the-Pooh
1927: Happy birthday Roger Moore! 80 today!
1940: Happy birthday to both Cliff Richard and Christopher Timothy, both 67 today!
1949: Happy birthday Katy Manning! 58 today!
1959: Death of Errol Flynn
1977: Death of Bing Crosby
1969: UK (and, I suppose, Ireland) replaces the ten-shilling note with the 50p coin.

I’ve managed a couple of new countries every year for the last few years, but none so far in 2007. But now the potential opportunity for a very interesting business trip has come up, for mid-December, which will involve at least two new countries, even if one is still trying to get its status regularised. Will keep y’all posted.

3) Lord of Emperors, by Guy Gavriel Kay

My write-up of the first of these two books, Sailing to Sarantium, has attracted more comments than any other book blog entry this year. I ended it by wishing that I had bought the sequel at the same time. I repeat that wish now. The two books are so closely intertwined that it’s a shame to let the memory of one fade before you start the other. (Perhaps I have a bigger problem with this than some people, given that it was about a hundred books ago for me.) Anyway, like its predecessor, this book is simply a triumph.

But with a difference. Where Sailing to Sarantium stuck fairly closely to the history of our world, in particular the story of Justinian, Theodora, Belisarius and the Hagia Sophia, Lord of Emperors starts by nibbling away at the edges, and then abruptly and brutally swerves into its own timeline a bit over half way through. Suddenly, it all is up for grabs. Viewpoint characters die horribly. Any certainty we had is lost. I think that even if you don’t know anything about Byzantium, it’s a dramatic development on a par with George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. But if you do know what is “supposed” do happen, the impact is incredible.

But the historical knowingness is not what makes this a great book. (And I add to that historical knowingness the accelerated appearance of Kay’s versions of the rise of Islam and a specific spoilerish Christian controversy, brought into the novel for justifiable plot reasons respectively about a century and about two centuries too early.) The overall title of the series is The Sarantine Mosaic, and this is not only a reference to the grand work of art which Caius Crispius is brought to Sarantium to construct, but also surely a reference to the way the books are built up from little pieces – a progression of tight-third-person narratives (some crucial characters to the plot, some purely incidental) – within the overall structure of a framing plot, most of which in Lord of Emperors takes place in the course of two intricately and intimately described 24-hour periods, two days which illuminate the book’s structure like the mosaics on either side of an orthodox church.

And apart from fantastic characters, desperate sex, Machiavellian politics, and an unforgettable chariot race, the book – indeed both books – are a deep reflection on the place of art in life, and how some are called to it, some respond to it, and some reject it. A couple of people, responding to my earlier review, said they felt the ending of Lord of Emperors was a bit of a let-down. I agree that the emotional place where the key characters end up has been signalled too far in advance to retain the dramatic momentum which Kay probably intended. But read it again, and look at what he is saying about art and the artist. And then look at the work that inspired him. I don’t think you will remain unmoved.

And indeed others who are interested: Let California Ring, the campaign for equal marriage rights. Good luck to ’em.

St Oda’s