tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post3904285215445223383..comments2024-03-29T00:28:38.155+00:00Comments on Nigeness: 1816 Again?Nigehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-64653385385622156152012-05-18T12:52:01.788+01:002012-05-18T12:52:01.788+01:00Wow! Thanks for that, Jonathan - clunky words as y...Wow! Thanks for that, Jonathan - clunky words as you say, but they make some rather wonderful sounds...Nigehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-46236969930450824762012-05-17T18:35:15.159+01:002012-05-17T18:35:15.159+01:00Apparently, the advocates of anthropogenic change ...Apparently, the advocates of anthropogenic change were also hard at it in 1816, blaming the dreadful weather on everything from the Freemasons to Ben Franklin’s experiments with electricity. Increased sunspot activity led to fears of imminent solar death and an Italian professor stated that this would occur on precisely July 18th, causing mass panic in several European cities:<br /><br /><i>A Bath girl woke her aunt and shouted at her that the world was ending, and the woman promptly plunged into a coma. In Liege, a huge cloud in the shape of a mountain hovered over the town, causing alarm among the "old women" who expected the end of the world on the eighteenth. In Ghent, a regiment of cavalry passing through the town during a thunderstorm blew their trumpets, causing "three-fourths of the inhabitants" to rush forth and throw themselves on their knees in the streets, thinking they had heard the seventh trumpet.</i><br /><br />A happier result of all this consternation was Byron’s terrific poem <i>Darkness</i>, written that July:<br /><br /><i>I had a dream, which was not all a dream.<br />The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars<br />Did wander darkling in the eternal space,<br />Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth<br />Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air …</i><br /><br />The poem ends in a vision of universal catastrophe:<br /><br /><i>The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,<br />And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;<br />Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea<br />And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd<br />They slept on the abyss without a surge –<br />The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,<br />The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;<br />The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,<br />And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need<br />Of aid from them – She was the Universe. </i><br /><br />If that’s not enough, the summerless year has inspired a pretty odd song – with engagingly clunky lyrics – by the ‘cello- driven’ New York band Rasputina: <br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxeXHMHOcqQjonathan lawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05986943428040953041noreply@blogger.com