This might seem a strange Christmas card but amazingly, in the early 1890s, this strange and almost grotesque photograph was a popular postcard sent as a Christmas greeting by thousands of British people to family and friends. It depicts the music hall star Walter Hibbard Lambert in one of his most famous roles - as a female nurse ventriloquist with his dummy as the patient.



Lambert was a good painter in his own right - his portraits of fellow music hall stars of the era were much sought after even in his lifetime and a few of them now hang in the National Portrait Gallery, in no way disgraced in their proximity to more established "artists" or for that matter more established "subjects" whose images grace that venue's walls.

As a bonus therefore I shall add this image, a painting that must have taken Lambert months, if not years, to complete. Every face depicted would have been known to any music hall-goer of the late Victorian period. And a special prize (electronically transmitted) to anyone who can discern the place depicted and why.



A peaceful yule to everyone, and may the next year be at least less shitty than the last!

(Can one say "least less"?)

And as a special bonus from a very drunk nordmann (who is doing his best not to look like a christmas tree at the moment) the Arabic version (Americans take note) via Mayssa Karaa of White Rabbit. Life is made for these gratefully dead moments ...

Re Walter Hibbert Lambert's painting ... I know this.

The location is on the Waterloo Road in Lambeth, South London, just across the road from the theatre then called the Royal Victoria Theatre and which is now known as the Old Vic. In the late 19th century this particular street junction was known as 'Poverty Corner' and was where actors and vaudeville performers, and their agents, used to gather to gossip, net-work and try and find work. Close by were several music-hall theatres and London's main theatre-land (around Drury Lane) was just across Waterloo Bridge. Today of course, as well as the Old Vic, the surrounding area contains the Young Vic, the National Theatre, and the whole of the Southbank arts complex.


And a very happy Christmas to all too .... is the bar open yet?

Correct - and the view as it appears to the Google camera today ...




A very hungover nordmann delivers prize as promised!

David Sedaris: The Santaland Diaries

Catch it while it's still available on the BBC iPlayer.

And a very enjoyable, chucklesome, prize it was too ... thanks for that. It was the perfect thing to listen to as I prepared my Christmas roast.

Logging in very briefly.  Yes I also wish a happy Xmas, festive Yule or whatever one wishes to call it to everyone.  Sorry I don't have a witty picture to insert though.

Blythe Yule from me too. I will chat later when the madness is over and I'm properly connected. 

Cheers

The Word


John 1 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.


Merry Christmas

Deleted.

Thanks for making the effort to drop in with Christmas greetings, Tim. At least I think that's what they are. Here's wishing you and yours a merry one too.

Cheered me up whilst clearing up this morning too, thanks.

This might evoke a grin as well, I'd forgotten it until someone reminded me.

Whereas I, Temp, have enjoyed the Christian content, at least the traditional stuff, this year. It has prompted feelings of continuity not just with the last couple of thousand years around here but with all those who have always, it seems, dragged some deity into their celebrations of the turning of the year.

For so long as old sol is still invictus it doesn't really matter what name is ascribed to it and there's still the hope that something better is on its way.

I hope you are right, ferval, bu8t I must say it seems more likely that Yeats is closer to the current prospects:


The darkness drops again but now I know

    That twenty centuries of stony sleep

    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Deleted.

I moved Tim's Christmas Greetings and subsequent discussion from the thread asking people to nominate a "Golden Age" worthy of the title to this thread as they are more in keeping with the gist of the topic title. I have locked the "Golden Age" thread in which contributors repeatedly failed to discuss the question asked in its title at all. If Tim's comment however is to start a discussion concerning the relative merits or otherwise of different forms of religious worship and beliefs then I suggest that someone else nominate a correct title to that thread and it can be moved again to the relevant category.

nordmann wrote:

I moved Tim's Christmas Greetings and subsequent discussion from the thread asking people to nominate a "Golden Age" worthy of the title to this thread as they are more in keeping with the gist of the topic title. I have locked the "Golden Age" thread in which contributors repeatedly failed to discuss the question asked in its title at all. If Tim's comment however is to start a discussion concerning the relative merits or otherwise of different forms of religious worship and beliefs thstaen I suggest that someone else nominate a correct title to that thread and it can be moved again to the relevant category.

I shall delete my two messages above as I did not intend them for the "Happy Christmas to all Res Historica Members and Guests" thread: they could not be more inappropriate. I have no wish to start another thread.

I think your words above - the ones underlined - are quite unfair, nordmann: several posters - myself included - offered comments on the now disappeared Golden Age thread that were quite on topic, even if several of us did eventually stray. Some of the issues raised in our wanderings were very interesting and led to discussions in which you yourself played no small part.

However, this is your site and we must accept your censure.

PS Tim - you must forgive me if your message was a genuine Christmas message. It has been a difficult and rather an emotional week. Not that that is an excuse for bad manners.

Temp wrote:

I shall delete my two messages above as I did not intend them for the "Happy Christmas to all Res Historica Members and Guests" thread: they could not be more inappropriate. I have no wish to start another thread.

Yes, but that has been the problem since Tim appropriated that topic to pursue his agenda relating to the historicity (or non-historicity) of the quasi-historical person called Jesus (which in itself is a brilliant topic). However his posts had nothing to do with the topic in question (read the thread and see how patient I was in waiting for him to bring his comments round to the original point) so this latest introduction of scripture as opposed to comment was, I am afraid, just one instance too far. As a website administrator whose site advertises particular questions for people's particular input I am sorry but I have to make some effort to retain the integrity of the subject matter. Thread topics matter here.

As already said, if someone wants to take Tim's point further (whatever it might have been in  terms of relevance to either one's personal golden age or wishing happy christmas) then please by all means open a relevant topic and I will re-unite all the comments he engendered. Those who subsequently deleted theirs can of course choose either to reintegrate or opt out. That is the basic ethos of this site. Participate (and you will receive every encouragement from this gobshite who happens to run the thing) or disrupt and destroy (at which point the gobshite shows what he thinks and stamps his gobshite foot down). Or of course you can always go elsewhere if such basically logical rules do not appeal to you.

Oh, and a happy new year to all.

Well, good job I read the PM - I was about to depart in the most monumental huff after emotional good-byes to all and sundry, thus adding Res His to my list of "Good-bye, it's been nice knowing you" for this festive season. Points taken, nordmann - really. As I said, it's been an emotional week and one (i.e. me) is overreacting right, left and centre.

We need a New Year's Resolution thread now - for personages from history, people who dig them up, people who write about them - oh, and for us, of course. Mine is to stay on topic and to think a bit before I post.

Happy New Year.




PS I don't think I'm going to become a New Year Quaker. Sitting in silence for an hour is murder. I was wriggling dreadfully by the end.

PS I was not being sarky or huffy in above message. We need a suitable emoticon -  big Monty Python-type foot - to drop on me or Tim whenever we start on about religion here (unless on a proper thread).

Sorry, everyone - really. I am a reformed character. Sort of.

After a week of festivities, i.e. overeating and -indulging, I am now looking forward to a fresh, new year, hopefully a happy one for all users of this board.

Happy New Year, one and all.

And a repeat of the last many years of resolutions, 'Not to smoke any more, and not drink any less than last year'.

Temperance wrote:

Well, since we now have, in fairly rapid succession, New Year/Hogmanay, Twelfth Night/Armenian Christmas, Orthodox/Coptic Christmas, Old New Year and Burns Night, surely the festivities are due to continue for most of the next month!

BTW - Wasn't the original title of a Roman Dictator "Magister Pedes"? Graves claims so in one of the Claudius novels IIRC. If so, I'm sure His Enormity can bring suitable lower appendages to bear as and when required.

Judging by their expressions, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find those two rascals had a gigantic drawing pin ready to slip under the descending foot!

Both my kids have birthdays in the next fortnight, Gil, so that's another couple of excuses for excess to add to your list.
Roll on February - oops, no, that's my birthday. OK I'll moderate in March.

March is no good - St David's Day, first day of spring, Paddy's day, then straight into Easter which is Gilgamesh's Official birthday, Gilgamesh's real birthday - I think I'll have to wait till after May Day to come down.

(edit) Oh no - that won't do either. Late Spring BH followed by General Election, and, on the next day "What the ?£$%* have we done electing this load of <>?:@+++)!

I gave up RH for Christmas  but looking forward to another year here of guff, huff and hot despot -dispute even.

Must go and search for fresh topics in the Jan sales. Regards, P.