(1) Friday night vinyl is The Wall – Live in Berlin by Roger Waters.
(2) Address to the Inhabitants of Bermuda, 6 September 1775 (National Archives)
(3) The Secret Tube Map That’s Only Meant For TfL Employees (Londonist)
Weekend 588.0
Category Archives: Bermuda
Weekend 584.0
(1) Signing off after 25 years (The Royal Gazette)
Weekend 583.0
This is a sad postscript about Bermuda.
(1) A quarter-century of economic drama (The Royal Gazette)
The Front Street retail flagships disappeared over time, along with the traditional horse and carriage and welcoming tourist activity.
As the Bermuda recession dragged on, with the usual inflationary cost-of-living increases, I invited the late Larry Burchall, of Nanci the Spider fame and a brilliant journalist who understood the Bermuda economy better than anyone, to lunch. We both were concerned about the recession and its long-term impact on the community. I asked him what his thoughts were for the future.
His answer: “Bermudians will survive this latest setback, they will get by, but the recovery will not return to the lifestyle they have been accustomed to.”
Bermuda 2023 (The Alley of Limes)
“…few who have visited this spot, only accessible in the calmest of weather, where not a seabird finds a resting place, can ever forget the impression of silence and solitude which it leaves on the mind.” — General Lefroy, Governor of Bermuda, 1871-1877
“Oh! could you view the scenery dear,
That now beneath my window lies,
You’d think, that nature lavish’d here
Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in!
Close to my wooded bank below,
In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sun-beam proudly show
The coral rocks they love to steep!
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails
That languish idly round the mast.”
— Tom Moore
We were in Bermuda during Hurricane Lee. It was an amazing trip despite the tough weather. The only museum we missed on our itinerary was the National Musuem of Bermuda.
Smith’s Parish
(1) Spittal Pond
St. George’s Island
(2) Unfinished Church (Flickr Album)
(3) Gates Fort
(4) Sea Venture Memorial
“In memory of our great deliverance, both from a mighty storm and leak: we have set up this to the honor of God. It is the spoil of an English ship of three hundred ton, called the Sea Venture, bound with seven ships more (from which the storm divided us) to Virginia or New Britania, in America. In it were two Knights, Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, Governor of the English Forces and Colony there: and Sir Geroge Somers Knight, Admiral of the Seas. Her Captain was Christopher Newport, Passengers and Mariners, she had beside (which came all safe to land) one hundred and fifty. We were forced to run her ashore (by reason of her leak) under a Point that bore Southeast from the Northern Point of the island, which we discovered first the eight and twentieth of July 1609.”
St. David’s Island
(5) St David’s Lighthouse
Pembroke Parish
(6) Bermuda Historical Society Musuem & Public Library
(7) Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity
Southampton Parish
(8) Gibbs Hill Lighthouse
Sandy’s Parish
(9) Somerset Bridge
(10) Scaur Hill Fort
Hamilton Parish
(11) Crystal Caves & Fantasy Caves
(12) Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo
St David’s Island
(13) Carter House
St. George’s Island
(14) St. Peter’s Church
(15) Stella Maris Roman Catholic Church
Related
(1) ‘Full update’ on Fairmont Southampton promised (The Royal Gazette)
(2) Bluck’s of Bermuda Store Closes After 175 Years (Bernews)
(3) Milestone reached in recovery of endangered cahow (The Royal Gazette)
(4) Premier: Fairmont Southampton deal ‘very close to closing’ (The Royal Gazette)
(5) Springfield: Quaint, Charming and Historically Significant (The Bermudian)
Limestone Archives
Bermuda Redux
Weekend 565.0
Odes to Nea written in Bermuda by Tom Moore <<< Transcribed from Tom Moore’s Bermuda Poems by William Zuill
More prose from Tom Moore:
Farewell to Bermuda, and long may the bloom
Of the lemon and myrtle its vallies perfume;
May spring to eternity hallow the shade,
Where Ariel has warbled and Waller has stray’d!
And thou — when, at dawn, thou shalt happen to roam
Through the lime-cover’d alley that leads to thy home,
Where oft, when the dance and the revel were done,
And the stars were beginning to fade in the sun,
I have led thee along, and have told by the way
What my heart all the night had been burning to say —
Oh! think of the past — give a sigh to those times,
And a blessing for me to that alley of limes!
Weekend 569.0
(1) Do you remember when GE (General Electric) built things?
(2) A poem¹ by Tom Moore:
Have you not oft, in nightly vision, stray’d
To the pure isles of ever-blooming shade,
Which bards of old, with kindly magic, plac’d
For happy spirits in th’ Atlantic waste?
There as eternal gales, with fragrance warm,
Breath’d from elysium through each shadowy form,
In eloquence of eye, and dreams of song,
They charm’d their lapse of nightless hours along!
Nor yet in song, that mortal ear may suit,
For every spirit was itself a lute,
Where virtue waken’d, with elysian breeze,
Pure tones of thought and mental harmonies!
Believe me, Lady, when the zephyrs bland
Floated our bark to this enchanted land,
These leafy isles upon the ocean thrown,
Like studs of emerald o’er a silver zone;
Not all the charm, that ethnic fancy gave
To blessed arbours o’er the western wave,
Could wake a dream, more soothing or sublime,
Of bowers ethereal and the spirit’s clime!
¹EPISTLE III to THE MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF DONEGAL
(3) The Jubilee Line Extension: One Of The London Underground’s Finest Moments (The Londonist)
(3a) Limestone Archives: Weekend 273.1
Immortalized in Stained-Glass
A quote from Bermuda’s Story by Terry Tucker:
“On the north side of the nave in the Bermuda Cathedral in Hamilton you will see a stained-glass window picturing the storm on the sea of Galilee and the small boat struggling through mountainous waves. At the foot are the words: ‘In Memory of the First Settlers in these Islands and of their Historian, Sir John Henry Lefroy, K.C.M.G., sometime Governor of this Colony.’ This seems a meagre public reminder of a governor who did more for Bermuda than would seem possible for one man in the short span of a six-year tour of duty. To you who want to know the story of your home-land, no name can mean more than that of Lefroy who was Governor and Commander-in-Chief from 1871 to 1877.”
Weekend 566.0 (Black Umbrella)
(1) Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Vinyl LP Box — Translated Yoko Shimomura Interview (KH13 · for Kingdom Hearts)
(2) Why Did It Take 13 Years To Build The Elizabeth Line? | The Trouble With Crossrail | Spark (YouTube)
(2a) London’s railway of the future is finally here (Engadget)
(2b) Elizabeth line: London’s brand new railway has finally arrived (YouTube)
(3) Notre-Dame Cathedral Will Reopen by 2024 (Smithsonian Magazine)
(4) Bermuda “Hogge Money” Coin Sold For $96,000 (Bernews)
(4a) A quote from Bermuda’s Story by Terry Tucker:
“It was at that stage, millions of years ago, when the great winds blew our little limestone hills into the shapes they are to-day: the highest is only about 260 feet above the present sea-level. The so-called coral of which the islands are formed is in reality a true aeolian (windblown) limestone, formed of wind-driven shells and sand, with a small admixture of coral materials.”
(4b) The Earl of Southampton – Shakespeare’s Patron (No Sweat Shakespeare)
(4c) A poem by Nathaniel Tucker
Beneath my bending eye, serenely neat,
Appears my ever-blest paternal seat.
Far in the front the level lawn extends,
The zephyrs play, the nodding cypress bends;
A little hillock stands on either side,
O’er spread with evergreens, the garden’s pride.
Promiscuous here appears the blushing rose,
The guava flourishes, the myrtle grows.
Upon the surface earth-born woodbines creep,
O’er the green beds the painted ‘sturtians peep.
Their arms aloft triumphant lilacs bear,
The jessamines perfume the ambient air.
The whole is from an eminence display’d
Where the brown olive lends his pensive shade.
Weekend 510.2 (Wreck & Redemption)
I was in Plymouth last weekend and saw the place where the Sea Venture set sail from in 1609. It was supposed to bring relief supplies, etc. to the settlers in Jamestown but was damaged during a hurricane and run aground off the coast of Bermuda. The Sea Venture was helmed by the Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers, and it was his decision during the storm to drive the ship onto the reefs in order to prevent its foundering. All of the passengers aboard the Sea Venture survived. His Admiralty Sir George Somers later died on the island and his heart was buried in St. George. There is a memorial in Somers Garden commemorating his life.
There is a plaque in Plymouth commemorating the 350th anniversary of the wreck in 1959 and in Bermuda there is a cross celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of Bermuda (The Somers Isles).
William Shakespeare purportedly used the account of the Sea Venture as inspiration for The Tempest.
Limestone Archive
Bermuda on Flickr
Bermuda Posts
Thanksgiving 2019
(1) American Interior (1935) by Charles Sheeler
(2) Game Over: How technology forced traditional toys to evolve (Vera)
(3) Great Western Railway: Adventures with the Famous Five (YouTube)
(4) A couple of quotes from British Rail Architecture 1948-97 by David Lawrence:
“Any designed object or space will have an appearance intended to attract the eye in some way: perhaps to impress or reassure, to demonstrate efficiency, or comfort, or progressive ideas.”
“Frank Pick (1878-1941), influential patron of art and design for modern transport, saw the potential for the railway station as an opportunity for architecture and design to come together in interesting an appropriate ways, and he knew that the station could earn money for the railway.”
“Only the concrete and brick stations built by the Southern Railway for routes converted to electric services during the 1930s provided a contrast to the varying levels of decrepitude manifested at the Region’s wayside halts and gloomy suburban stations.”
“Leslie (later Sir Leslie) Martin and his wife Sadie Speight, shared a background in architecture and avant-garde art. They were close to sources of modernity, not least because Martin co-edited the magazine Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art with artists Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, published from 1937. Sadie Speight was a founding partner of Design Research Unit, which would author the British Rail corporate identity of 1964. Together they designed a timber-frame school at Hartford Ch (1938), which used standard components to test building with ready-made structures. London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) architect WH Hamlyn created a Development Section concerned with the collection of data from existing buildings, to look at types of station, planning and production of buildings, types of structure and their performance, wear and maintenance of materials and finishes, lighting and plumbing, and furnishings. From this data specifications would be compiled to standardize design, materials and equipment for future architectural needs.”
(5) It Was Supposed to Be the Safest Building in the World. Then It Cracked.
How San Francisco’s Salesforce Transit Center went from the Grand Central of the West to a $2.2 billion construction debacle. (Popular Mechanics)
(6) The Festival of Britain 1951 (Historic UK)
(7) Quarry plan controversy (The Royal Gazette)
(8) blue cathedral (YouTube)
Weekend 430.0 (Drink up, dreamers, you’re running dry)
A rainy day…a total wash out…it took me a couple of hours to realize there were no errands to run…no bike rides to be had…just the opportunity to listen to music…organize thoughts and exercise my creative muscles.
(1) Get ready for a commuter apocalypse (NY Post)
(2) Printmaking to Take Stage at New York’s Javits Center (Barron’s)
(3) ACORN All Purpose Vendor (almost like the mystery of the Sea Venture Building)
(3a) Bermuda (Devil’s Isle), Parts 1 to 3 (now in convenient .pdf format)