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MT Wessel
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« Reply #60 on: 16:18:08, 24-12-2007 » |
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Oi! .. Come on you chaps! .. It's the thought that counts  |
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« Last Edit: 16:50:09, 24-12-2007 by MT Wessel »
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lignum crucis arbour scientiae
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Morticia
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« Reply #61 on: 16:25:50, 24-12-2007 » |
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Quite MT. Enough of humbuggery I say!  |
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #62 on: 16:26:44, 24-12-2007 » |
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Yes, quite, MT. I am very happy to wish people "Happy Christmas" (or "Buon Natale" as I did when I bought my Parma ham today) but I would not wish to offend those who are not, like me churchgoers. I understood "Happy Christmas" was regarded as potentially offensive in America. (The combination of vocal religiosity and political correctness in the USA is odd..)
Glad to get the impression it is not offensive over here.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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time_is_now
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« Reply #63 on: 16:30:16, 24-12-2007 » |
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And the same to you, M T. Do non-churchgoers object to being wished "Happy Christmas"? Not at all! In fact, I much prefer to receive religious Christmas cards if I'm going to receive Christmas cards at all. (Does that make me a tourist?  Perhaps I'm the guilty one, not you ...) Apparently a big Muslim festival (not sure if it's Eid Mubarrak or another one) coincides exactly with 25 December this year. Our accountant at work has gone back to Bangladesh but was very happy that he'd also have something to celebrate on the same day we were having Christmas. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #64 on: 16:42:38, 24-12-2007 » |
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Well, I was just wished " s Merryom Christmasom" by a cheerful Chechen taxi-driver, so if he can wish it, how could I refuse? One Russian peculiarity is that it's thought "bad luck" to wish anyone anything (Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, International Women's Day etc) before the date's arrived (or give cards or gifts beforehand either). You are allowed to congratulate people with the "onset" of an upcoming celebration, however I'm never sure if this has its roots in deep faith (in that most religious feasts are preceded by fasts, during which no congratulations would be appropriate) or conversely in animist superstition |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #65 on: 16:50:07, 24-12-2007 » |
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Apparently a big Muslim festival (not sure if it's Eid Mubarrak or another one) coincides exactly with 25 December this year. Our accountant at work has gone back to Bangladesh but was very happy that he'd also have something to celebrate on the same day we were having Christmas.
That's nice. It is the other one, the Haj, the Feast of Sacrifice or Eid Al Adha, which according to the BBC started on 20 December. It is the time for the once-a-year pilgrimage to Makkah. http://www.hajinformation.com/index.htm |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Morticia
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« Reply #66 on: 16:55:11, 24-12-2007 » |
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That`s interesting Reiner. My mother firmly believed that it was bad luck to wish anyone Happy New Year before the year had arrived. Whenever I`ve mentioned this to people I have received some very strange looks and mutterings of "Never heard of that before". For some reason it only applied to New Year  |
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MT Wessel
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« Reply #67 on: 16:59:45, 24-12-2007 » |
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Er. Sorry Don. To all our American viewers. "Have a nice (Christmas) day".
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lignum crucis arbour scientiae
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time_is_now
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« Reply #68 on: 17:03:32, 24-12-2007 » |
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One Russian peculiarity is that it's thought "bad luck" to wish anyone anything (Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, International Women's Day etc) before the date's arrived (or give cards or gifts beforehand either). I could easily identify with that superstition - I don't have to try too hard to get very superstitious about all sorts of things like that, and that one sounds quite plausible, whatever its basis in fact/tradition. Thanks for the Eid information, Don. (I should have said 'the other one', rather than 'another one', if there are only two.) I ought to know things like that, really: I'm a bit ashamed of myself. I must have learned it in RE at school. I did ask the accountant which festival it was he was talking about, but he didn't really answer - I think he thinks people only ask out of politeness, which I find a bit sad. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #69 on: 17:09:49, 24-12-2007 » |
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Thanks for the Eid information, Don. (I should have said 'the other one', rather than 'another one', if there are only two.)
I miss quoted you: those two seem to be the main ones for Sunni, both confusingly called Id or Eid. (The main one is the end of Ramadan, and is about a month earlier.) I get the impression those are the only ones that make any difference to the mosque services, and probably not much. But there are others. The Shi'a make a big, big thing of Ashura. As you may well know, the Islamic calendar (required by the Qur'n and so non-negotiable) is strictly lunar, not solar, so the dates are some 12 days short of the solar year each year. |
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« Last Edit: 17:11:29, 24-12-2007 by Don Basilio »
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Morticia
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« Reply #70 on: 17:35:25, 24-12-2007 » |
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]I could easily identify with that superstition - I don't have to try too hard to get very superstitious about all sorts of things like that, and that one sounds quite plausible, whatever its basis in fact/tradition.
You`re not the only one, tinners. That little superstition got me early in life and it stuck. I get distinctly jumpy when someone wishes me HNY  |
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Andy D
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« Reply #71 on: 19:18:16, 24-12-2007 » |
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Interesting story on BBC news website: Beavers could be released in 2009 |
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Antheil
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« Reply #72 on: 19:28:09, 24-12-2007 » |
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Blimey Andy, not only Scottish but Welsh Beavers as well! The architects of the countryside. Let's hear it for the Celtic Beavers !!  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6470153.stm |
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #73 on: 19:57:59, 24-12-2007 » |
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Can't find Ron's thread about which disks you find yourself returning to at Christmas, so I'll post here about a BBC Music mag cover disk from back in 2000 which was issued in collaboration with Hyperion and covers "Christmas Through The Ages" from medieval Spain and England through to Britten, Poulenc and Tavener via Bach, Corelli, Gabrieli, Praetorius, Berlioz etc.
And it was spinning here in PW towers a little earlier too ... |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Andy D
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« Reply #74 on: 22:50:02, 24-12-2007 » |
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Just been out for a late night stroll in the rain. Took this pic trying to hold the camera steady while the wind was tugging at the brolly which I was sheltering under. It's a house in my road which I've posted a pic of before.  |
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