Okay, from now on I’ll give just one event in history, one birth, and one death per day. On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner gave the first smallpox vaccination, starting a program that has ended with the complete eradication of the disease from humans. On this day in 1897, the great jazz instrumentalist (clarinet and sax) Sidney Bechet was born, and, in 1931, Denys Finch Hatton, the lover of Isak Blixen, died in an airplane crash. Here is the gorgeous passage from Isak Dinisen’s Out of Africa (which I’ve reproduced before) memorializing Finch Hatton. It always brings me to tears:
After I had left Africa, Gustav Mohr wrote to me of a strange thing that had happened by Denys’ grave, the like of which I have never heard. “The Masai,” he wrote, “have reported to the District Commissioner at Ngong, that many times, at sunrise and sunset, they have seen lions on Finch-Hatton’s grave in the Hills. A lion and a lioness have come there, and stood, or lain, on the grave for a long time. Some of the Indians who have passed the place in their lorries on the way to Kajado have also seen them. After you went away, the ground round the grave was levelled out, into a sort of big terrace, I suppose that the level place makes a good site for the lions, from there they can have a view over the plain, and the cattle and game on it.”
It was fit and decorous that the lions should come to Denys’s grave and make him an African monument. “And renowned be thy grave.” Lord Nelson himself, I have reflected, in Trafalgar Square, has his lions made only out of stone.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili messes up and tries pathetically to recover; after all, she’s a Cat and can never be wrong:
Hili: Can you take my selfie?A: How can I take YOUR selfie? You’re all mixed up.Hili: Oh, we are one self.
Hili: Czy możesz zrobić mi selfie?Ja: Jak mogę zrobić TOBIE selfie? Coś pomyliłaś.
Hili: Oh, my jesteśmy jednością.
is it two years ago now that Cyrus came to stay and Hilly was sitting on top of the bookcase?
Sorry, Hili, not Hilly
Yes, that’s right. It was May 2014 when Cyrus came to us. It took Hili three month to accept him.
a bit of warning for that last video would be appropriate, I think.
I had put one in but it somehow got deleted. I’ve put a “content” note above it.
Cyrus looks sad.
In case readers are not aware, the lions in Trafalgar Square London are made of bronze not stone as Isak Dinisen writes.
I hope he didn’t hurt the snake.
That quote from Out of Africa always makes me cry too.
And I’m also glad the kitteh got rescued.
Why only 1 birth and death per day?
One does not question Professor Ceiling Cat in his own domain.
(I’ll guess some people found the lists a bit tedious and complained. But that’s just a guess.)
A significant number of people think that the invention of vaccination was the greatest public health event in history. That is unlikely – the provision of clean drinking water supplies and (associated but not tightly linked) the provision of effective sewage handling has probably saved more lives by far than vaccinations. It may not be high tech and sexy, but it is very effective.
I totally agree. I have previously taught health, safety and environment to workers in the water industry (both water and waste water treatment), and always told them that, in my view, they did more for public health than the medical profession, and that they should be paid appropriately. I continue to believe that, but have no agency to effect such a pay increase!
In a way, it’s slightly disturbing that “the water industry” covers both providing safe drinking water and dealing with human waste. Really one would like to see them as two distinct industries.
It always disturbed me to see the “motorman” go from fixing a broken shit-macerator to working on the “water maker” (reverse osmosis plant). Fortunately he didn’t work in the galley – normally.