What job title would YOU want carved on your gravestone? 'Beloved father, Slayer of Dragons, Register of Domains' How many websites do I have? Go on, take a guess. Well done! You might be correct… or perhaps not. Honestly, I have no idea. As the weeks slip into summer, a recurring half-yearly to-do item pops up in my calendar to remind me it's time to get out the digital pruning shears and cut back my online overgrowth. My calendar does …
If it were, it would be as a private mansion for a billionaire. Long gone are the days of public buildings being built with love and attention, with the goal of being aesthetically pleasing first, and functional second. Even modern cathedrals seem to be concrete monstrosities, even still when built by as wealthy an organisation as the Catholic church. Municipal buildings have no hope of being anything more than drab and functional.
On the other had so many things seemed to be "designed" nowadays to fit the designers view of what is aesthetically pleasing with function not even on the list; quite surprising buildings aren't similar.
Of course the millenium bridge over the Thames was struck by the "make it look good" first and worry about function later after it was built, so maybe that's a single contradiction to your argument.
> Of course the millenium bridge over the Thames was struck by the "make it look good" first and worry about function later after it was built, so maybe that's a single contradiction to your argument.
The Millennium Bridge would have looked good had it 'landed' inside Tate Modern as originally intended. However they didn't get permission for that so they just cut the end off and turned it around on itself, zig-zag style, instead of re-designing. Aesthetically it's an awful, awful bodge.
It also doesn't align with the passage at the St. Paul's end, so as you cross the bridge you don't quite get a clear view up the passage to St. Paul's. If it had been built with a slight curve then that could have been achieved as well.
The early wobbles have saved its reputation in a way: tourist guides can talk about that and skate over how poorly it fits into its context.
This looks pretty reasonable: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-57496005
It's a pity it's going to be built in one of the least accessible town centres in the country. I lived about 20 miles away for a few years and never ventured into it more than twice.
At least it's stone-faced, but it has a bit of a New Bodleian look to it. The architects of that horror evidently felt that what the Sheldonian and the Clarendon Building needed was something reminiscent of the Atlantikwall opposite.
Are you claiming Oxford city centre is inaccessible? I lived there for quite a few years, and it's got the best public transport of anywhere I've ever lived. I can only imagine that you tried to drive to the city centre and ignored the excellent park and ride system. It's an old city centre that would be less than ideal for car traffic, and the council have done a great job with the ring road and buses.
There was an episode of Top Gear where professional bellend Jeremy Clarkson and his snivelling sycophants complained about the town being "anti car". They notably didn't ask any of the residents, as everyone I knew understood why traffic was restricted and appreciated the decent public transport that was provided as an alternative. That scheme was implemented the year I moved there, and the terrible pollution in the city centre disappeared almost overnight.
I used to drive upto oxford and then take the A40 or A44 to go west (much more fun than droning down the M4/over the bridge)
However what was a simple roundabout(with gas station/MacDs ) they've turned into some god forsaken mess where you now have to drive into Oxford through 14 traffic lights to a roundabout with no signposts and the lane markings that seem have been splashed on at random.
(maybe oxford council thinks we're still at risk of invasion and came up with that scheme to confuse the invaders)
Anyway , back to the subject, I think mine will be a choice of 2, the classic roman
"As you are now, so was I, As I am now, so will you be"
Or better
"Here lies Boris the cockroach and he's bloody annoyed"
I'm not sure that criticism of the architecture is necessarily justified - given that most architects build to the best of what's there. Just as Wren was rebuilding in the modern style over what had burned down, so the Brutalists were doing after the Blitz, in a way which both perceived to be the best way to deliver a utopia on Earth. I agree the Brutalist builds have suffered badly from ageing, but arguably that's primarily a consequence of them being able to be designed for a (relatively) precise lifespan; which is a fault, but the utility of which is arguably exemplfied by those who wish to knock the Brutalist buildings down in favour of building their own tabernacles.
It should be remembered that anything standing today has undergone several periods of architectural fashion, potentially combíned with stone-robbing; the architecture of the 20th century has had to contend with much more in that we have an industry that wears its faith as but the passion of its hat, and changes it with the inexorability of a Kardashians' trousers. I will be genuinely interested to see what Brutalism survives into the 22nd century, since that will be most certainly the cream of the crop in a way previous architecture cannot claim.
"as wealthy an organisation as the Catholic church"
Being a Catholic schoolboy at the time the 'concrete monstrosity' was being constructed I can remember there being lots of fundraising carried out in the community. With that in mind I think the Liverpool Catholic Cathedral was funded locally* and not from the 'wealthy organisation' you may have seen swanning about in private jets etc.
Of course the original plan was much grander.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedral
And you really should try going inside the 'concrete monstrosity' before condemning it entirely.
Yep. There seem to be two strands here. Sometimes in a mismatched harness together.
On one side are bean counter lead decisions: use the cheapest materials, don't budget for any greater use than current, i.e.allow any "growing space", don't worry about the staff who have to work in there, don't plan anything to reduce the cost of future maintenance by spending a few extra bob now to make sure that things can be easily repaired in a few years' time.
On the other hand are the grandiose self-promoting builds; make sure that the architect has a famous name, make sure the building looks brilliant on the architects illustration, choose a design that looks unique, totally ignore the area around and whether your building fits in, don't worry about the staff who have to work in there, don't plan anything to reduce the cost of future maintenance by spending a few extra bob now to make sure that things can be easily repaired in a few years' time, make a token environmental and public service commitment easily side-stepped..
[died in prison] "for advocating what to him appeared to be the true interests of the people of England."
I happened across the gravestone quite by accident a few decades ago in Sheffield General Cemetery; and have always been impressed by the very careful wording.
Scribe/chisel: "<Your name> me fecit" into something you made that will last a while.
As a last resort get it tattooed on your kids. For maximum effect, get it chiselled into the little loves ...
(I have a small but quite minimal interest in how to start on translating: "The commentard formerly known as Mister_C" into Latin. Perhaps someone with more time on their hands could dive in here)
If there is an interesting old one, I do like to have a wander and read some of the stones. If you are ever in the area, check out Tower Hamlets Cemetry Park. A gorgeous old graveyard that's turned into woodland, in the heart of the east-end of London. I quite fancy doing a bit of a photography project there, it's such a calm, relaxing place with a great ambience as you wander around the stones and monuments.
Several years ago I began plotting a walking map of London's famous dead scientists and engineers, taking in blue plaques, IEEE plaques, sites of great discoveries and, of course, graveyards. I was going to write it up for The Reg and make the walking route available as a Google Map with location photos. Unfortunately, I had to move before the Brexit Withdrawal Disagreement came into force and the map is only half done.
Still, I have plenty of photos of surprisingly modest gravestones in unlikely places. Charles Babbage, IK Brunel, er... Douglas Adams, etc.
Walking guides are a bit more complicated than you think. For a start, most people would not be happy with walking very far, so my tech sites of London would have to be split up into separate circular walks. I also want them to be accessible to wheelchair easyriders. And, most important of all, I need to plot pub stops along each route, which means I'd have to personally test each one for Commentard Suitability.
Surprisingly, Potsdam is a rather attractive place with a number of interesting monumental public buildings rebuilt after the twin unpleasantnesses of WW2 and the Soviet-controlled DDR.
It can be a bit jarring though sometimes to see a rather fine fin de siecle building on one side of the road directly facing some worker's paradise construction. And there is the fine building opposite the Film Museum which is crowned with statues looking as if they're all about to leap off... nice place all round, and I'm glad I moved here.
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If you can read this, you're overeducated.
My mother did put my fathers degree on his tombstone. They met at Uni and I assume that it was still part of them.
Perhaps it is more common in Scotland where education is (or used to be) more important than it is down here...
Scatter my atoms back into the world somewhere and let them go on wherever time takes them.
A bit hippy-dippy you might think, but I can remember a trend 15 years or so ago when idiots were suggesting "interactive" gravestones festooned with screens, whereby the life of the deceased could be relived (I think most of them suggested buttons on the slab to operate them, which must make the trend pre smartphone).
I guess it died out when most people realised that it was a genuinely ghoulish idea for a graveyard.
Decades ago a lived across the road from a large catholic graveyard. Every few years they would pull up the gravestones on about a quarter of it and spread another layer of earth on top. Multistorey graves!
Time to find out if my Latin is worse than my sense of humour:
Nisi frangi non fice.
Cogito numium ergo demens sum.
Multistorey graves used to be fairly common, though I think it was mostly done by piling the interments on top of each other, rather than raising the ground level. John Donne's poem The Relic begins "When my grave is broke up again / Some second guest to entertain".
Either that or leave them there for a while, then dig them up again and move the bones into a central mausoleum for longer-term "storage" and re-use the grave for the next tenant.
And most often the bones were put in the mausoleum by type rather than by previous owner, so there were shelves of skulls, ribs, pelvises etc but no-one was ever whole again.
"And most often the bones were put in the mausoleum by type rather than by previous owner, so there were shelves of skulls, ribs, pelvises etc but no-one was ever whole again."
Come judgement day and the resurrection, God will put all the bits back together again. They do expect a lot of their gods, do some people :-)
One medieval thinker conjectured that the human body must contain a small, invisible, intangible, indestructible bone from which God could reliably recreate and reanimate the entire body, regardless of where the bone ended up. He was worried that good Christians whose remains were destroyed by fire or lost at sea, and therefore never buried in hallowed ground, facing east and ready to rise on the Day of Resurrection, would miss out.
It would have made a lot more sense if he'd just given God an Infinity Gauntlet.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
(I wish I'd known this existed back when I learned Latin. It would have been so much fun quoting it and watching my classmates try to translate it.)
I think Dabbsy might be referring to his previous, sadly short-lived, employment as Eric Morecambes stunt double before he moved into IT and became a Technology Tart.
As a genealogist, graveyards are a common destination. It's true that occupations rarely get mentioned on gravestones, but mostly for cost reasons. When you are paying by the letter, even shortening the month from "JULY" to "JUL" might make the stone more affordable.
"One particular area of audio hardware tech that's enjoying a reprise at the moment is buzzy, vibrate-y devices that transmit detectable sound into your body via parts of your body that aren't necessarily your ears. I haven't seen many of these for several years"
They're a bit of a niche thing, but they've always been popular for running and other similar things. Most competitions won't allow you to wear anything that blocks your ears for safety reasons, so bone conduction headphones are the go-to solution for a lot of runners. I've never noticed anything weird about them; they usually sit very close to your ear and sound exactly like normal hearing. I hope they don't become too trendy though; since they don't form a seal around your ear or get shoved in a hole, they're even more annoying for nearby people than regular headphones. Great for running around outdoors, but I'd hate to sit on a bus full of people using them.
Yes, I bought one myself after seeing the ad in some sci/tech publication back in the dim and distant past when a stroke of academic fate sent me to west Texas for a few months. Of course it didn't actually arrive until I was back in Blighty, so the former boss in El Paso had to ship it to me.
Unfortunately the device was designed with the US in mind, a country where VHF/FM reception is excellent as a matter of commercial necessity. Using it on the outskirts of London was a matter of facing the right direction while wearing it, which led to some odd situations before I abandoned it entirely. The interference from airliners landing at Heathrow didn't help either.
"after seeing the ad in some sci/tech publication"
Most likely a JS&A ad in OMNI Magazine.
I have a working Bone Fone. I recently rescued it from a box in my parent's attic (along with a pair of roller skates and a pile of Campagnolo bike parts I collected to modernize my early '70s PX-10E). It is OK for listening to baseball, the news or talk shows, but that's about it.
I prefer my stunts to be cunning! Especially where grapefruit are concerned!
----------> Need I say more?!?
.
All of my posts keep going getting flagged for moderation, and some aren't even appearing after they've been moderated.
Guess I'll just have to stop bothering to comment.
After 30 months without a single rejected comment I've suddenly had 3 rejected in the last 7 days. The first was rejected when I made an OCP joke, unfortunately the author had mistyped OPC, and when they corrected that they must have rejected my comment.
Since then every comment has to wait for moderation, and another 2 have been rejected, seemingly when they got stuck in moderation.
I wonder what I have to do to get out of this moderation loop!
I wasn't pointing out an error, I had seen the mistyped OCP and was making a Robocop joke. I hadn't even spotted the mistake.
Someone else pointed out the error and while it was being fixed my OCP comment was probably rejected as it was no longer relevant. And since then I've been in commentard hell!
A font of that style, Newman, was quite common in Irish language publishing before the 1950s Irish spelling reform. Milligan’s gravestone unfortunately didn’t use the traditional overdots instead of h’s for lenition, e.g. go raiḃ mé instead of go raibh mé for “that I was”. The gravestone’s font also avoided the traditional lower-case “long r” (ꞃ) and “long s” (ꞅ) of Newman, which tend to be the hardest letters for anglophones to get accustomed to.
What is the correct term for some one who registers many domains?
Registrar has too tight a meaning.
Register is a singular action or a document.
Registerer is NaW (not a word)
So unless Mr Dabbs has all his domains tattooed on him, forming a living register of his registrations I am lost.
Register of Domains does not quite parse for me.
> What is the correct term for some one who registers many domains?
> Registrar has too tight a meaning.
The registrar is the official (or in this case organisation) that records the registration. The person applying for the domain therefore ought to be called a 'registree'. But since there isn't such a word then 'applicant' is probably the best alternative.
In terms of having registered too many then maybe "domain diarrhoeic"?
A certain Mr William Connolly (who I often quote in this parish) always said he wanted on his tombstone (in very small test so you had to get close to read it) YOU'RE STANDING ON MY BALLS.
For my part being Scottish, I just want the word "cunt" on my tombstone, because there are so many different ways that can be interpreted and none of them are wrong or right. (you may have to be Scottish not to take cunt as being pejorative)
Perhaps not for very much longer on this ide of the pond. Burials are on their way out, many opting for cremations. Composting remains is gaining approval. Anything to keep the dead from tying up valuable real estate (as if we don't have plenty). Some are suggesting that cemeteries be dug up and re-purposed for housing. For the homeless, of course.
We also don't have the deep history of cathedrals and old estates. I have just out-lived an estate, horse stables and pasture that was built at the same time I moved into the neighborhood. The owners moved out and a developer snatched it, with bulldozers in tow. We look forward to welcoming our new high density apartment blocks.
If you expect to be remembered, it will be as a jar on your descendants mantle. Just hope you don't get misplaced in a move.
I was down my local banging what looked like part of a broken rotary harrow on the table and saying 'No, its definitely not a shell!"
The bomb disposal squad disagreed later. But something of that ilk on a plaque on the floor of a church to make the buggers laugh for a change.
Just a small correction - the gravestone doesn’t face the local pub, but faces the church although the pub is indeed across the road from it. It’s easily found as the grass track to it is well worn by visiting feet.
He lived in Dumb Woman’s Lane - typically Spike - in what he called “the ugliest house in England”.
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