tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88345814899878979032024-03-21T06:32:46.376-07:00What Would Wulfstan Do?Lupushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17107599601713644882noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8834581489987897903.post-14349106532404594142008-07-20T16:55:00.000-07:002008-07-21T05:34:52.398-07:00Never between friends?Another crossword for your delectation. Click on the image for better resolution. Enjoy!Across1: Wind in Central North-East finds bard. (7)4: Scottish poet's dingy drinking hole. (6)8: Small consideration for you elderly. (4)9: Robbery laws keep jewel safe. (5)10: Parasitic healer. (5)11: Small spear's movement is informally done. (4)12: Hear a complaint? Oh, stuck on mead, perhaps? (4)13: Lupushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17107599601713644882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8834581489987897903.post-80696215691171813002008-06-30T16:06:00.000-07:002008-07-19T16:11:13.965-07:00Serious concernsThe battle against online pornography is full of outrage, scepticism, and no small amount of hysteria. Recent British legislation criminalising the possession of “extreme” pornography has caused emotional outbursts on both sides of the debate and arguably left consenting adults at risk of prosecution for owning photographs or even computer-generated images of practices which are, in themselves, Ælfric Grammaticushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990102989633806845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8834581489987897903.post-26875856788562067982008-06-12T13:35:00.000-07:002008-07-21T05:45:29.966-07:00Gamenung!I'm not sure whether Wulfstan would have liked crosswords. They do help the long winter nights to fly by... Then again, you need a fixed spelling system, widespread literacy and easy access to printing and writing technology. Which explains their limited popularity in Anglo-Saxon England.However, unencumbered by such limitations, you and I are free to enjoy this wordly pleasure to our hearts' Lupushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17107599601713644882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8834581489987897903.post-73203503452074202772008-03-14T10:24:00.000-07:002008-07-18T13:34:41.844-07:00More cartoon protestsJust when you thought that the furore over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed was last year's news, someone decided to reprint them.Ælfric had good reason to sympathise with the Muslim protestors. Danes were not his favourite people. Violent pagans, worshipping false gods and slaughtering English Christians indiscriminately, Viking raiders had already proved their destructive prowess in the Ælfric Grammaticushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990102989633806845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8834581489987897903.post-6107811549654506102008-03-10T10:38:00.000-07:002008-07-18T13:35:22.285-07:00It's still winter...The Anglo-Saxons weren't big fans of bad weather. Not surprising, perhaps, since finding heat and light wasn't a matter of flicking a switch, and freezing conditions made death a real possibility if you were unprotected. For the anonymous author of The Wanderer, cold and damp are metaphors of exile and hardship; the lonely man stirs the ice-cold sea with his hands, as frost and snow and hail Lupushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17107599601713644882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8834581489987897903.post-41452960664756964642008-03-08T16:37:00.000-08:002008-03-08T17:31:45.399-08:00Authenticity and the internetNewsweek reports a trend against user-generated content like Wikipedia. "The expert is back", trumpets the article, citing Google's Knol project and Mahalo as examples of a backlash against the unfiltered crud that so often turns up on the internet.Wikipedia, needless to say, would have mystified our Ælfric. An information source so ubiquitous and accessible that the majority of the English Ælfric Grammaticushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990102989633806845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8834581489987897903.post-40765665832733770552008-03-08T07:47:00.000-08:002008-03-08T09:20:53.129-08:00Ærest þinga...Leofan men, ge sindon wilcuman! Ic grete ge swiðe freondlice innan blogospheran.Wulfstan of York, Maimonides, Dante Alighieri... They and others like them taught us well back in those dark, dark ages. And yet now, their voices are practically silenced. Free speech for the dead should be a fundamental right; this blog aims to rehabilitate our medieval forbears as apt and insightful commentators onLupushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17107599601713644882noreply@blogger.com