Friday, 30 September 2011
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Amnesia, Maths and book-defacing
Mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) was also born in Toulouse, but unlike Count Odo of Toulouse (886-918) Fermat wasn't absent-minded, he just ran out of space. He scribbled in the margin of a book "I've found the answer to this seriously-difficult maths problem ("Fermat's Last Theorem"), but there isn't room in this margin to tell you what it is." Of course, if he hadn't written all that stuff in the margin, there might have been room to tell us what the answer was. And in any case, scribbling in printed books is hardly a thing to be encouraged. Let's hope Toulouse Library fined him for defacing public property.
La Résidence - THE French Property People
Monday, 26 September 2011
Chorso, Beggo, Odo and Harpo
Unlike, for example, Franche-Comté, Midi-Pyrénées doesn't relate to a historical French region. It was created in the 1970s so that Toulouse could be capital of it. Job-creation on a grand scale. It worked, and Toulouse, formerly a bit out-of-the-way (think Taunton) is now Europe's fastest-growing city. In 1999 Toulouse paid off its debts and became France's first large city ever to achieve solvency. Toulouse is now exempt from overdraft charges and probably gets free ski insurance and AA membership.
In the Middle Ages, Toulouse was ruled by the Counts of Toulouse, including Chorso (c.790) Beggo (806-816) and Odo (886-918). No mention is made of Harpo. Little is known about these early rulers, except that Odo married Garsenda, daughter of Ermengol of Albi, and "probably had three children" - which suggests a degree of absent-mindedness inappropriate in a man of high office.
La Résidence - THE French Property People
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Friday, 23 September 2011
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Saints and helicopters in Lower Normandy
In more recent times, Lower Normandy has produced a saint and a helicopter pioneer. St. Thérèse of Lisieux was born in Alençon, and is the patron saint of florists, tuberculosis, Cheyenne (Wyoming) and aviators. The connection is obvious.
Talking of aviators, Paul Cornu, also of Lisieux, achieved the first manned helicopter flight in 1907. As the pilot, crew and only passenger of his pioneering craft, Paul had to do all the flight announcements himself: "In the event of an emergency landing, the exits are located here, here, here, here and here. Everywhere, in fact. We will be flying at an altitude of 30cm and arriving at our destination of that gorse bush just over there in approximately 20 seconds."
La Résidence - THE French Property People
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Sex and violence in 11th century Normandy
Mystery surrounds one tableau of the Bayeux Embroidery, in which a priest is seen slapping a lady called Ælfgifu, while two naked men crouch nearby, one of thm shamelessly displaying his meat-and-two-veg. One theory is that the scene may depict a well-known celebrity sex scandal of the day. If this is so, it suggests that prurient, invasive journalism was already rife in the eleventh century, though unlike today's paparazzi, the Bayeux needleworkers would have had to embroider really quickly to be sure of getting a scoop.
A Victorian reproduction of the Bayeux Embroidery hangs in Reading Museum, and is accurate in every detail, except that they gave meat-and-two-veg man some pants. The Victorians weren't great turnip-eaters. Even more mystery surrounds the Embroidery's missing panels. Apparently, two sequels were planned, provisionally entitled The Bayeux Supremacy and The Bayeux Ultimatum.
La Résidence - THE French Property People
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