Football 2022/23: Final Whistle

There is only 1 unresolved outcome and I’m not talking about the FC Cup Final between Man U and City. Metz FC is waiting to learn whether or not they will be promoted to Ligue 1 after a match between Bordeaux and Rodez was suspended after an altercation between a fan/supporter and player (in this case a goal scorer). Bordeaux was trailing 1-0 in the first half and a loss would have confirmed promotion for Metz. The French Football Commission will meet on Monday to determine the fate of Bordeaux.

The Saints were relegated from the Premiere League weeks before the season ended after an uninspired and punchless loss to Fulham. My club is Southampton, so this entire campaign was like one long gut punch. The new owners, Sport Republic, were clueless, hapless, and flamboyantly reactionary in a campaign that saw three managerial changes. They started the campaign without a world-class forward / striker and an inexperienced keeper. They also jettisoned veteran talent on a club desperate for stability and made a heap of poor and panic signings. Also, like rats jumping from the deck of the Titanic, there were also executive departures throughout the season.

I saw them a couple of times at St. Mary’s this season, and they struggled mightily against Cambridge United who barely survived relegation from League One. The Saints will now join Norwich (Canaries), Sunderland, and Stoke City in the Championship League. Schedules will be published on June 22.

Other Highlights
The mighty shrimps of Morecambe FC were relegated from League One
Plymouth was promoted from League One to the Championship and are now in the same league as Southampton
Norwich finished mid-table in the Championship League
Cambridge and Oxford just missed relegation in League One
Exter finished mid-table in League One

Related
2022/2023 Football Campaign (Abridged)
Russell Martin: Swansea City head coach’s move to Southampton held up over compensation (BBC)
Every word Southampton owners said on relegation, club plans and more (Daily Echo)

Southampton Saints FC Relegation Day

My BEST #SaintsFC tweet of 2023. Complete 2023 football campaign washup as soon as the season is done and dusted.

Update: The Saints were relegated after a 2-0 loss to Fulham.

Weekend 567.1

For you have given your children a sacred time for the renewing and purifying of their hearts, that, freed from disordered affections, they may so deal with the things of this passing world as to hold rather to the things that eternally endure.

(1) This Week at Westminster Cathedral: From the Chaplains

PATRONS, KINGS AND COMMONERS
As depicted in our English Saints Chapel, England’s original patrons were Pope St Gregory the Great, who sent St Augustine of Canterbury to convert the Angles and Saxons (see the Latin as you enter), St. Edmund Martyr, a king of East Anglia who was cruelly put to death by invading Vikings when he refused to renounce Christ, and St Edward the Confessor, who was king of England shortly before the Norman conquest.

(2) The Eternal Shakespeare (The Imaginative Conservative)

Insofar as Shakespeare’s works are good, true and beautiful, which of course they are, and in so far as they are the fruits of God’s presence in the creative process, which is indubitable, those works will be enshrined with Shakespeare in eternity.

(3) Colour Study¹:

¹Scan is from Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History.

(4) Quotes from Bermuda’s Story by Terry Tucker:

But before we hear of the adventures of Governor Richard Moore and the sixty Bermuda settlers, I must tell you something about the second, very different kind of people, who had at once believed in all the magical stories of this far-away shores—the writers and poets. When you are older, you will read the works of poets, most of whom never came here, whose imaginations were greatly stirred by the beauty and the strangeness of all that they heard. Most notably, William Shakespeare was inspired to write The Tempest, his last and most magical play. Although his plot is not laid in Bermuda, not only are these islands mentioned, but the descriptions of the dreadful storm and of the wreck are very much the same as the story told by Strachey in his letter which was almost certainly written to the Countess of Bedford. Even the very wording is similar. Shakespeare surely must have read the letter. Like Somers, he had been born in Elizabeth’s reign, and was forty-five years old at the time the Sea Venture was wrecked. He was to live until 1616 and hear much about these islands.

Each tribe was named after a big shareholder in England and contained fifty parts or subdivisions: altogether that made 400 shares of twenty-five acres each. These eight tribes, together with St George’s, now correspond to our nine parishes.

Let us begin with the west end of the islands:

SOUTHAMPTON after Henry Wriothesley (pronounced Rocksley), THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON

Notes
Faith of Our Fathers: A History of True England by Joseph Pearce (Pg. 184)
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

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.

Easter Weekend 2023

“The place of God’s power is an empty space, and in his story of absence and longing, we learn that most of life is lived on this threshold between emptiness and meeting, between fear and hope, between darkness and noon, between Golgotha and Galilee. We learn that it is not knowledge that counts, but faith.”

(1) The Brilliant Darkness of a Friday Afternoon (Imaginative Conservative)

(1a) Blessed Easter! (Sisters of Carmel)

“We pray it may soothe the sorrows that burden your lives and rekindle in your hearts the hope of His glorious victory, a defeat only in appearance. Suffering and death belong to this transitory world. On this day, Our Lord transformed them into the gateway to life everlasting.”

(2) Jane Austen and the Tudor Terror (Imaginative Conservative)

(2a) Where is Mary Queen of Scots buried? (History Scotland)

(2b) Jane Austen in Southampton (Jane Austen’s World)

2022: Year-in-review

A couple of paragraphs to close out 2022. This is the year I said goodbye to London and put an exclamation point on Kingdom Hearts. I spent a night in Gettysburg and a couple more in Paris. I crossed the English Channel via the Eurostar. I read the Brothers York and Faith of Our Fathers. I saw the Wilton Diptych at the British Museum and watched the Southampton Saints WIN under the lights against the Norwich Canaries. I tracked down stained-glass in Hereford from a Christmas card given to my mom and dad by our parish priest. I hiked to Towton, outside York, to visit a battlefield that was pivotal in the War of the Roses. I toured all of the northern cathedrals- York, Durham, and Lincoln. I also travelled to the very edge of Empire for a weekend in Penzance and Lands End. There were a couple of more Saints matches, including a memorable one in Cambridge for the Carabao Cup. There were three Championship League matches in Stoke, Norwich, and Sunderland. I hosted my brother in the spring and we went to Southampton, London, and Ramsgate. I also caught Football: Designing the Beautiful Game at the Design Museum before it closed.

My last couple of weekend trips in England were to Coventry, Exeter, and Bath. One of the highlights of the year was mass at the Cathedral Church St John the Baptist in Norwich.

My BIG birthday was at PNC Arena to see my beloved NY Islanders put a hurt on the Hartford Whalers Carolina Hurricanes and I was at the Bridgeport Islanders home opener. I also went to a Bridgeport Islanders game to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the NY Islanders.

Thames River Ride (1986) by Harper Goff. Scan is from The Art of Walt Disney World Resort

A Real Indiana Jones Quest

This post is dedicated to my Mom.

What if I told you there was a priceless ancient work of art and relic that’s still in existence and just lost? It was the subject of an address and paper published by Lawrence E. Tanner for the Journal of the British Archaeological Association in 1954.

The artifact is the Cross of Edward the Confessor (1042 – 1066), and it was recovered from his shrine at Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King James II (1644–85). The story of its initial discovery is exciting, but it’s whereabouts after crossing the English Channel is where the mystery begins. It was given as a gift to Pope Benedict XIII in 1729 but then disappeared. After the death of Pope Benedict XIII, inquiries were made to the Vatican re: it’s whereabouts but those searches were unsuccessful.

“From the date of its presentation to Pope Benedict XIII on June 17th, 1729, to the present day no trace has ever been found of the cross of St. Edward. The interesting fact of the presentation, recorded among the Stuart Papers, has only come to light in recent years, and it caused the late dean of Westminster (Dr. de Labilliere) to make inquiries through the late Sir Eric Maclagan and the Apostolic Delegate whether or not anything was known at the Vatican about the cross. The Vatican authorities took the greatest interest in the matter and instituted a thorough search in the hope of being able to throw some light on the subject. A letter, now amongst the Abbey Muniments, states that ‘the cross is not in the Vatican Museum, nor in St. Peter’s, nor in the Vatican Galleries, nor in St. John Lateran, nor with the Dominicans (of whose order was Pope Benedict XIII)’. It also states that the diaries of the Papal Masters of Ceremonies had been searched in which mention was found ‘of the visits of British sovereigns and also of the Confirmation of the Prince and of the gifts and kindness of the Pope, but not a word about a cross or gold chain.'”

The quest for the cross of the Confessor still goes on. Somewhere, I am convinced, it still exists, probably unrecognizable and with its fascinating history unknown. – Lawrence E. Tanner

Related
The Quest for the Cross of St. Edward the Confessor by Lawrence E. Tanner
Edward the Confessor and John the Evangelist (New Liturgical Movement)
Edward the Confessor Shrine (Official Westminster Abbey Postcard)

A quote from Faith of Our Fathers by Joseph Pearce:

“The most ambitious project he [Edward the Confessor] undertook was the founding of Westminster Abbey, which would become and has remained the place for the coronation of the kings and queens of England. It was completed and consecrated shortly before his death and became his place of burial, his tomb and relics being undisturbed to this day, having survived the ravages of the Reformation with its iconoclastic destruction of England’s shrines to her saints.”

Other Facts
King James II was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Old Southampton

“In God is my hope. RB. 1605”

Quotes from A Walk Within the Walls (The Story of Old Southampton) by Elsie M. Sandell:

“Through the Bargate archway, too, went most of our monarchs on their visits to our town. Henry II passed through it on foot in 1174 when starting out for his walk of penance to Canterbury, to the tomb of Thomas Becket.”

“His son, Henry VI, was also frequently at Southampton Castle, and there he met his bride, Margaret of Anjou, for the first time, on April 14th, 1445, she being then only fifteen years old.”

Bargate

Weekend 554.1

Settling, unpacking, and re-playing KH3. I’m a completionist and there’s one very (very) difficult trophy left. The Limestone Library is about 1/3 restored. I’ve pulled a couple of books from the shelves that I want to revisit. The first is The Art of Makoto Shinkai. This was gift from my Mum. The others are little booklets re-telling the history of Southampton.

(1) Urban Dictionary: Completionist

(2) Why Honda Shifters Are So Good, An Anthropological and Technical Exploration (Road and Track)

(3) 1 for 730+ (Transport for London)

(4) How did Elizabeth I die? (RMG)

(4A) This is from the Limestone Roof Photo Archives

Makoto Shinkai