Stuart Brown

Do you know if there are any particular leanings one way or the other? Has it shifted over time?

That struck me as the opposite of what I (= secular background but very interested in the history of religion) presumed the overriding Christian image to be. Just on a general search, however, I came across a lot of historical artworks like this one which completely undermined my presumption.

I came across this recently doing a bit of poking around on whether a weighed soul “should” be heavy or light. In Islam the image is that heavier is better (“Nothing is heavier on the scales than good character”, Abū Dāwūd, #4801; “Those whose balance is heavy, it is they who shall prosper”; Q 7:8).

Though personally I rather like the idea of Andrew’s name being carved into legislative posterity as the only man specifically named as too depraved to be a successor to a chair previously sat on by any number of wife-killers, nephew-murderers, and warmongers.

… but they’re clearly desperately trying to not have this as a parliamentary issue and, anyway, how would you do it? You’d either have to insert a clause specifically excluding Andrew, which smacks of attainder, or you’d have to make it a generic “anyone who does X or Y” … which is *far* too risky.

Well it does come down to who gets to giveth and who to taketh away; in the case of titles and dukedoms, it’s His Maj and/or Parliament; but in the case of actual succession that’s indubitably Parliament: it’s set out in the Act of Settlement. Of course that has been amended in our very lifetimes…

because—hold your horses before you berate me—the other MS of this bibliography list definitely reads الإرشاد لابن عقيل، شرحه للأنصاريّ. So whoever put it together did think that al-Anṣārī’s text was a sharḥ of Ibn ʿAqīl’s Irshād, rather than al-Juwaynī’s. Not my bad here! But any other suggestions?

A screenshot of two lines from an Arabic manuscript. Alas, it’s establishing precisely what it says that is the point of this post, so if I could provide the full text, I wouldn’t be posting it.

So a call for aid to any #Arabic #manuscript experts. I have a damaged word, which I think I know what it is, but will happily take advice! It’s the first word on the second line. We have الإرشاد لابن عقيل ؟؟؟؟ شرح الإرشاد للأنصاريّ. I *think* it’s المرجّع, which would certainly make sense . . .

Hmmm, I’m hoping it’s a deliberate nod to Finnegans Wake?

A photo of my home office, which is largely Arabic-themed.

A photo of an open book showing Islamic bookbindings on my (rather messy and disorganised) bookshelves.

A friend gave me an old book of Islamic bookbindings which he’d somehow managed to locate for my birthday. Now in pride of place in the maktab.

Plus, Ronnie’s *way* too tall.

A photo of me and friends at a beer festival. Thee photo is taken with a wide angle lens and I am stood in the centre of the shot, causing my usually diminutive legs to look positively truncated.

Important lesson learnt at the rather excellent Cotswolds Beer Festival yesterday: should you be somewhat on the short side anyway, with legs that at best can be described as “wretched little stumps”, then do NOT stand in the middle of the shot if your friend is taking a pic with a wide angle lens.

A photo of me and my brother enjoying a glass of wine in the Raffles hotel in Singapore

A photo of an insanely chilli-heavy chicken dish.

A photo of me and my brother enjoying another glass of wine in Kuala Lumpur

A photo of a very fancy lamb dish in a very fancy KL restaurant.

Having made a note to do my bit to make Bluesky less perennially serious, no jokes as such, but here’s a few snaps of some DNA celebrating its fiftieth in Singapore and Malaysia.

There’s a Hythe Bridge in Oxford.

Oh, I’d always presumed it to be from Teufel.

I invite you to peruse the insanity that is BlueBook citation style. APA is merely a touch quirky in comparison.

These are good points. And though I check BlueSky often, I don’t post much, and definitely because I feel the weight of The Seriousness on me. I hereby commit to posting more bad jokes that get well-nigh zero interaction, like I used to on Twitter.

More seriously, I wonder about the comments in the article focussing on “art”. I get the points made about symbolising, etc. But that early minds did that I don’t find particularly extraordinary. That it at least hints at *a sense of humour* I find far more interesting.

Utterly splendid. Also, without context, the *rest* of Bluesky is gonna completely misinterpret your “you might want to sit down,” comment.

Tbh, not listening to radio 4 this morning, I have zero context for this. But I think it’s safe to say most cobbles must look like *someone’s* nose from *some* angle.

Ah well, growing up with a Ma doing an OU geology degree meant trips to the beach involved taking along things like this.

A chart of the Wentworth scale, which is used by geologists to classify the grain size of what we plebs would call “rocks.” Pebbles are 4 to 64 millimeters in diameter; cobbles 64 to 256. Anything above that is a boulder.

Definitely a cobble, then. Maybe even a boulder.

Random drop into my feed. Doubtless Bluesky knows I have a broad liking for talented peeps sharing their stuff, and a penchant for the darkly supernatural/folkloric. But I like to think it gave me this for the pun, which is absolutely A++, no notes.

A screenshot from a video of cardinals entering the conclave, showing a plump hand wearing a large gold ring pressed devoutly on an open Bible.

Somewhere in that book it says “Ait illi Iesus si vis perfectus esse vade vende quae habes et da pauperibus.”

I mean, the September massacres were pretty horrific, but it’s a bit late to be coming down hard on the sans-culottes now …

Stayed *with me*. Sigh.

(In honour of that fact, Shuck is definitely on the list of potential names for when I finally submit and get meself a hound of my own.)

Oh man, Black Shuck terrified me as a kid. I mean, I was actually scared of all dogs. But when I read about Black Shuck in some 1970s-style “scare kids good a proper” books I well nigh shat my spine out of my arse. It stayed worth a loooong time.

Chuckle to myself a bit then realise the converse is probably not far from how I speak Dutch, at least unless I’m making an effort.

Slightly dotty elderly gent outside the café I’m working in l, telling a rambling story about a lost red rucksack in English. His syntax is excellent, but every lexical word that has a Dutch cognate he pronounces as pure Dutch: “the rood rugzak”. (Note not “rode,” so he’s not parsing it as Dutch.)