Get That Dog Away From Me!

A new dress that I have been working on was complete enough that I could wear it to a meeting of the Ravens, on Sunday morning.

On seeing a friend's dog, Twyla, who had taken it upon herself to follow him to the meeting, crossing several roads unescorted, I was at first delighted. Then I saw the mud on her feet, and recalled her habitual habit of jumping on people in greeting. I looked down at my new dress (very pretty, very brown); I screamed those eponymous words.

The dress has revealed positive, if quiet, reaction. That is to say, the people that said something had something nice to say, except for Twyla's owner, who demanded to know if it was Flemish (it is) and lectured me on the Flemish textile trade, and a kind lady who admitted that, yes, the hem was slightly crooked. As one of my reasons for wearing it that morning was to get observers to check the hem, I wasn't unhappy. And learning a bit of history is a noble undertaking.

I spent the rest of the day tidying my room and the living room of the house, both extremely cluttered with my stuff. The results are mixed - I can definitely move around now, but the immediate visual impact is still a bit busy. Michael (who doubles as my landlord) was extremely impressed when I told him I'd done some tidying: "I'm impressed," he exclaimed, "I didn't think you could do it."

Warm fuzzies.

And this evening I have mapped out the rewrite of my poetry essay. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling like I should get to sleep before midnight for once.

Good night.

ps. "... didn't think you could do it"?

...

...

Michael!!!

Fun With Numbers

Extract from the original Pirate thing:

MABEL: But you are twenty-one-

FREDERICK: I've just discovered... that I was born in a leap year, and that birthday will not be reached by me 'til Nine Teen Forty *sob*

**

So when are they saying that?

A leap year comes every four years; 4 x 21 (Freddy's age in 1940) = 84; 1940 - 84 = 1856. Freddy was born in 1856. Adding 21 years for his de facto age puts the date at 1877.

Simple, eh? Not so, my friends. The ill-natured fairy has extended her reach into my calculations.

A note on calendars: the Julian (named after a Caesar) calendar considers a calendar year to be 365 1/4 days long. It sets every fourth year as a leap year (as above). The Julian calendar isn't accurate. Eventually, the inaccuracies add up to serious trouble.

The Gregorian (named after a Pope) calendar set out to reform the inaccuracies. It considers a calendar year to be 365 97/400 days, or 365.2425 days. (This still isn't a true year (tropical, equinox to equinox), which is 365.2422 days, or a true year (sidereal), which is a touch longer.)

To keep the calendar jiggered correctly, the Gregorian calendar excepts some leap years from the cycle. Some of these years are: 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200. As you can see, 1900 falls well within our calculations, and its supposed (but not actual) leap year falls well out of them. That means that we need to extend our time frame backwards by four years to make the equations come out.

Freddy was born in 1852. The events in The Pirates of Penzance ocurred in 1873, late February and early March, approximately six and a half years before the first production, staged at the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, Devon on 30th December, 1879.

The Mystery Is Solved.

Unless Freddy forgot about the missing leap year in 1900. He was under a lot of stress: it could happen.

(The theatrical data is from: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~melbear/pirates.htm
The astronomical data comes from Dr Michael Woodhams, PhD in Astrophysics, who'd damn well better have gotten it right.)