Meanwhile, in the Dominions

The University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto is, so far as I can ascertain, home to the only memorial ‘slype’ in the world, the Soldier’s Memorial Slype. Today being Remembrance Sunday, it was adorned with the old Canadian flags: the Union Jack, the Red Ensign, and the Air Force Ensign. (I can’t quite make out from the photograph whether it’s an RAF ensign or, more likely, an RCAF ensign).

The University of Toronto is, curiously, a university with constituent universities (such as St. Michael’s) within it, something which always confused me even though it’s an increasingly common phenomenon (such as with the National University of Ireland). At U of T, Trinity College (sorry, the University of Trinity College) is generally considered the most trad, but it’s nice to see St. Mike’s, a Catholic institution, being a bit old-school itself.

St. Michael’s College also boasts such illustrious alumni as Marshall McLuhan and Dino Marcantonio.

The Inauguration of the President of Ireland

PRESIDENTIAL inaugurations in Ireland were once grand affairs. Viceroys and Governors-General were installed with comparatively little ceremony, the last to hold the latter office having been sworn into office in his brother’s sitting room. Ireland first gained a president in 1938 in accordance with the Constitution adopted at the end of the previous year. (Somewhat awkwardly, Ireland had both a King and a President from 1938 until 1949).

The first President of Ireland was known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn — “The Pleasant Little Branch” — or Douglas Hyde to give his proper name. An ancient professor whose upper lip was enhanced by a bushy moustache, Prof. Hyde founded Conradh na Gaeilge, the league for the preservation and promotion of the Irish language whose headquarters on Harcourt Street — sorry, I mean Sráid Fhearchair — are just a few doors down from the birthplace of Edward Carson. The Times of London reported thus on Dr. Hyde’s inauguration day:

In the morning he attended a service in St Patrick’s Cathedral presided over by the [Protestant] Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Gregg. Mr. de Valera and his Ministerial colleagues attended a solemn Votive Mass in the [Catholic] Pro-cathedral, and there were services in the principal Presbyterian and Methodist churches, as well as in the synagogue.

Dr. Hyde was installed formally in Dublin Castle, where the seals of office were handed over by the Chief Justice. Some 200 persons were present, including the heads of the Judiciary and the chief dignitaries of the Churches. After the ceremony President Hyde drove in procession through the beflagged streets. The procession halted for two minutes outside the General Post Office to pay homage to the memory of the men who fell in the Easter Week rebellion of 1916. Large crowds lined the streets from the Castle to the Vice-Regal Lodge and the President was welcomed with bursts of cheering. …

In the evening there was a ceremony in Dublin Castle which was without precedent in Irish history. Mr. and Mrs. de Valera received about 1,500 guests at a reception in honour of the President. The reception was held in St Patrick’s Hall, where the banners of the Knights of St. Patrick are still hung. The attendance included all the members of the Dail and Senate with their ladies, members of the Judiciary and the chiefs of the Civil Service, Dr. Paschal Robinson, the Papal Nuncio at the head of the Diplomatic Corps, several Roman Catholic Bishops, the Primate of All Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishop of Killaloe, the heads of the Presbyterian and Methodist congregations, the Provost and Vice Provost of Trinity College, and the President of the National University.

It was the most colourful event that has been held in Dublin since the inauguration of the new order in Ireland, and the gathering, representing as it did every shade of political, religious, and social opinion in Éire, might be regarded as a microcosm of the new Ireland.

These days much remains the same, though much has also changed. The tradition of Mass and other religious services before the inauguration was dropped in the 1980s when an “inter-faith” service was incorporated into the ceremony itself. Dress remained formal all the way up until the 1997 inauguration of Mary McAleese. The President’s husband, who despised all formal dress, displayed a disgraceful egotism by forbidding them from the ceremony. Gone the morning dress, gone the judges robes and wigs, gone the dignity of the occasion. “Business suits” were the order of the day, and remain so.

Thankfully the ceremony still takes place in St. Patrick’s Hall, the great chamber of the State Apartments in Dublin Castle. Regrettably, in the 1990s the walls of the hall were lined with French silk in a completely inappropriate shade of dark blue. It gives the unfortunate impression of a New Jersey mobster’s dining room to what would otherwise be a very dignified and stately hall. A light shade of Georgian blue would be much more appropriate.

The new president, Michael D. Higgins, is a man of diminutive stature. While one regrets he does not enjoy the correct opinion on most things, he is at least old, and so will bring, one hopes, a certain reflective maturity to the office. The mere sight of him reminds me of my childhood in the 1990s, when the now-President was in the news as culture minister during the ‘Rainbow Coalition’ and the Saw Doctors came out with the song “Michael D. Rockin’ in the Dail for Us”.

The interfaith segment this time was a combination of the truly cringe-worthy and the commendable: an absolute murdering of Be Thou My Vision, prayers and readings from the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, a musical rendering of St Patrick’s Breastplate that I actually enjoyed but which seemed more appropriate for a film soundtrack than this event, the Gospel read by the head of the Methodist Church, including the Beatitudes read out by a panoply of multi-culti figures (e.g. a Sino-Irish schoolgirl, a bare-armed deaf woman, a charming African woman in traditional attire, an American man with emotive enunciation in the style of the Evangelical churches). Then the Lord’s Prayer in Irish, a prayer from the moderator of the Presbyterian Church, another from a Quaker woman, and another from a Coptic priest.

Oh mercy, then the cringe-ometer broke with the singing of Make me a Channel of Your Peace. The mayors in their chains of office were markedly unenthusiastic. A reading from the Koran, and a Muslim prayer, followed by the representative of the Humanist Association of Ireland, who looked like she was on some happy-happy pills, read a statement astounding in its vacuousness. Then a musical interlude. Then Enda Kenny spoke, which is always a trial to sit through. (I admit I watched the ceremony later in the day via RTE Player, so I managed to skip that bit).

Eventually, having passed through this penitential trial, there was the actual inauguration itself. The Chief Justice — robeless, pace old Mr. (now Sen.) McAleese — administered the Oath as Gaeilge, which the new president then signed (above). The necessary exercises having taken place, the Chief Justice then handed over the Seal of the President of Ireland (below).

I’ll admit one of the things I hate is how events these days take place for the photographs. In days of yore, events simply took place. A painting or engraving or drawing could be done later, and everything would look grand, whether it was or it wasn’t. Nowadays, the Chief Justice can’t just hand over the seal to the President, she has to hand it over and everyone looks at the camera and smiles. This will be banned when the Counter-Revolution comes! St. Patrick’s Hall will become like those Transylvanian peasant dance halls, where anyone who smiled was expelled, never to be admitted again.

An tUachtarain then graced us with a few words of wisdom.

Then came the more fun bit: the presidential review of the troops.

One has to appreciate a nice bit of military pomp, especially in the stately courtyard of the Castle.

Finally (below), the President & First Lady greeted a crowd of schoolchildren, many of them waving the blue Presidential Standard, before being driven off to Áras an Uachtaráin, the presidential palace in Phoenix Park.

Well, as I said on Twitter: Best of luck to Michael D. Higgins, Uachtarán na hÉireann. Not my first choice, but hope he does the country proud regardless.

Ireland’s Viceregal Throne Replaced

This sort of thing is devised simply to raise Cusackian hackles: having been used in every presidential inauguration in the history of the State until now, Ireland’s viceregal throne (above, left) is being replaced as the presidential chair. Supposedly it had become “a bit natty”, and no-one in the Office of Public Works knew so much as a single decent furniture restorer to get it back into condition. Scandalous! Its successor (above, right) was commissioned from furniture designer John Lee, and is rather new rite, as they say in London Catholic circles. (more…)

Edinburgh Update

Well, I was going to direct you over to Seraphic’s blog for an at least partial account of my Edinburgh weekend but she’s done gone and taken the dagnabbed thing down. It’s just as well, as when she described the assembled guests at a long Sunday lunch by the sea in Portobello she finished her description with “and Andrew Cusack wearing something rumpled from Ralph Lauren”. In fact, it was Massimo Dutti, but there you have it. (more…)

Krige at Bonhams

HAVING UNEXPECTEDLY been granted a day off (two, actually) I was quite content popping over to New Bond Street yesterday just in the nick of time to see Bonhams’ South African Sale before they went up for auction today. Out of pure ignorance, I used to think South African art was all mediocre before slowly discovering its small but noteworthy patches of brilliance. Francois Krige is one of them. Of the three galleries at Bonhams devoted to the South African Sale (Part II, strictly speaking) one of them darkened with individual lights highlighting the particular pieces hanging on the walls. (more…)

The 8th Earl of Wicklow

William Cecil James Philip John Paul Howard, 8th Earl of Wicklow (styled Viscount Clonmore from his birth until succeeding to the earldom in 1946) was received into the Church at the age of thirty in 1932. Having attended Mass with the family’s Catholic servants, he was banished from visiting the family home on Sundays in addition to being disinherited. He later married the architect Eleanor Butler who served in Seanad Éireann from 1948-1951. Above is one of three photographs of Viscount Clonmore in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

The Arrival of Autumn

Here in London, after a long Indian summer, it has finally turned to autumn. One’s mind turns automatically to autumns past enjoyed, and I can’t help but think of that splendid season in the Western Cape. Of course, as the recent coverage of the royal visit to Australia reminds us, it’s not autumn at all in the Southern Hemisphere but rather warm and summery.

The other day, however, I stumbled across this photo on Flickr (more…)

The Major-General’s Statue

Die staanbeeld van Maj-Gen Lukin in die Kompanjiestuin

While Afrikaans is a mild obsession of mine, I do like finding those holdouts of what they used to call “High Dutch” — in contrast to the ordinary South African spoken Dutch which, because of its differences in grammar and spelling, was eventually recognised as the language Afrikaans.

One such old Dutch holdout can be found on the statue (Af: staanbeeld; lit.: ‘standing-picture’) of Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Timson Lukin in the Company’s Garden, Cape Town. The pedestal proclaims in a very handsome font the General’s rank, name, and orders. In Dutch: Majoor-Generaal Sir Henry Timson Lukin, KCB CMG DSO, Commandeur Legioen van Eer, Orde van de Nyl.

Most of this works perfectly well as Afrikaans but for two slight differences. First: The lack of ‘i’ in de always indicates Dutch rather than Afrikaans, but because of the relative youth of Afrikaans, de can sometimes be employed as an antiquating device. For example, when translating the name of Captain Haddock’s ship in the Afrikaans translation of the Tintin book, the translators chose De Eenhorn (the Unicorn) rather than Die Eenhorn. Obviously an old-fashioned sailing ship would belong to a Dutch-speaking era rather than an Afrikaans-speaking one.

Second is the military rank. Here translated as majoor-generaal, in both Dutch and Afrikaans this evolved into generaal-majoor. Just one of those things. The South African Defence Forces has a history of experimental military ranks which did not last: Commandant-General (for General), Combat General (for Major General), Colonel-Commandant (for Brigadier), Commandant (for Lieut. Colonel), and Field Cornet (for Lieutenant).

There’s your random bit of Afrikaans arcana for the day.

Loriot

Bernhard Victor Christoph Carl von Bülow, one of Germany’s most highly regarded humorists, was born 12 November 1923 and left this world on 22 August 2011. He was better known by his nom de plume of Loriot, the French translation of his surname Bülow, which is German for the oriole bird. Vicco (as his Christian names were shortened to) von Bülow began drawing cartoons for Stern in the 1950s. From cartoons he moved into television in the 1970s and films the following decade. Loriot’s humour focussed on the peculiarities of German people including the awkwardness of everyday situations and miscommunication in human interaction.

Asked in 2007 to describe what his influences were, he said: “I remember that, when I started studying, I was living between a madhouse, a prison and a cemetery. The location alone explains everything, I think.” Lexicographically, he will be remembered for introducing into German the term ‘yodel diploma’ signifying a worthless degree — what in Britain is known as a ‘mickey mouse degree’.

Loriot fans will miss his knowing eyes peering out from behind those familiar reading glasses. R.I.P. (more…)

‘I Have Prussiandom in my Blood’

Loriot on Prussia and Prussianness

November 2003

The Viennese weekly Falter interviewed Vicco von Bülow — better known as Loriot — in November of 2003. In part of the dialogue, Loriot explored the Prussianness of his family and upbringing, musing upon some aspects of what it is to be Prussian, turning away from the simplistic categorisations. Via Günter Kaindlstorfer.

…

Loriot: I am committed to my Prussian roots. I was born a Prussian, I have Prussian, so to speak, in my blood. That this defines you for yourself is not new. One is born there, so one has to accept it.

Prussian vices have caused too much harm over the past 150 years.

Loriot: That’s right, I will not deny it at all. Nevertheless, I am proud of my native town of Brandenburg; I am also proud of my country of origin. Here I will not deny, however, that I have been occasionally affected by the disaster that this country has done throughout history, time and again. Only: Which country has, over the centuries, not caused many evils? I will not have the Prussian reduced only to its negative sides. (more…)

Choral Concert in N.Y.

Manhattanites and denizens of the neighbouring boroughs and counties might be used to going to the Church of St Thomas on Fifth Avenue to hear the best choir in New York, but this evening the house of worship is hosting the Westminster Cathedral Choir, the best choir in London. If you haven’t made plans for the evening, there are still tickets available here.

Tonight’s concert will feature some Victoria, some Elgar, some Guerrero, and more, but most appealing to me is the Christus vincit by James MacMillan — Scotland’s greatest living composer. If you share my tastes, you avoid music by any composer who hasn’t been dead at least half a century, but MacMillan is good enough to be elevated to the realms of the honorary deceased. He’s also commented on this blog in the past!

Best Universities in the World

From north to south, a completely arbitrary and biased accounting

WHILE UNIVERSITY rankings within countries have been popular for some time now, especially in the United States and United Kingdom, it’s only been in the past decade or so that worldwide rankings of universities have come to the fore. The most widely known is probably the Academic Ranking of World Universities produced by Shanghai Jiaotong University, alongside the QS World University Rankings from the firm Quacquarelli Symonds, and the T.H.E. World University Rankings from the weekly magazine Times Higher Education. All such ratings employ varying statistical matrices and methods of divination obscure to the outsider but which, one supposes, must have some form of merit. They are more useful for gaining a general impression of the place of a university rather than comparing and contrasting two or more particular institutions.

The aforementioned ranking structures are rather to formal for us to gain all that much knowledge from. Personal interactions, reputation, age, style of architecture, and other such factors carry much greater import when I judge universities. Oxford and Cambridge, whether you like it or not, are still the top universities in the world, even if they might not be our favourites. You just can’t beat them. While they might not be as much fun as other places, they come closest to achieving the balance of age, tradition, interesting people, serious research, good location, and general niftiness.

For a certain type of person, Harvard remains paramount among American universities, but to be a Harvard undergrad has carried a certain social stigma in our quarters for the past two or three decades. Harvard Business School, however, remains perfectly acceptable. In the Ivy League, Yale, not Harvard, is king, followed by Brown (not thanks to its radical professoriate but rather due to the strong Continental infiltration amongst its studentry). Dartmouth is the fun #3 of the Ivies, while the rest are forgettable (well, Princeton’s not bad really — it has the Whitherspoon Institute — but Cornell, Columbia, and Penn are yawn-worthy).

Up to this point, we have been speaking generally, but there are topical institutions of course. If you really must study ‘business’, then there’s Harvard Business School or INSEAD. Are there any other business schools of actual note? In the military realm, Sandhurst is the unquestionable king. The École royale militaire in Brussels is up there — being Catholic, Francophone, and monarchic attracts good elements from outside Belgium. In the States, there is the Citadel and VMI, but not much else (the federal ‘service academies’ have poor reputations except for Annapolis). One doesn’t hear much about Saint-Cyr these days.

Speaking of France, the reason one can’t come up with proper rankings is because some institutions or groups of institutions would be entirely outside it. The grandes écoles are the best example. They are superbly elitist, the absolute top, but they mostly exist in that little French world, with all its delights and limitations.

But for ‘topical’ institutions, the University of London has plenty: SOAS, LSE, the Cortauld, the various institutes of the School of Advanced Study, etc., etc.

There are also those interesting little schools of art history and conservation, attached to museums like the V&A or auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. The École du Louvre, however, must be the queen regnant of these schools.

Charles Taylor’s presence at McGill alone makes it worthy of note, but one suspects there are other strengths at the university. At any rate, it is still a perfectly respectable place to be an undergraduate. Boston College is also quite strong at the postgrad level, except in the theology school where heresy is widely believed to be thriving. Given the wealth and particularity of America’s universities, there are small and unknown centres of excellence in many unexpected places (for example the quite strong literary translation centre at the University of Rochester).

Rome’s universities of both church and state have shabby academic reputations but still attract for being Roman. One always hears seminarians complaining about the Gregorian, but no one can never really complain about Rome, and being a student or a seminarian is as good a reason to be in Rome as any. Rome also has John Cabot University, an ‘American’ institution divided between Americans on their semester abroad and the full-timers (often the layabout members of larger European families, who also frequent the American University of Paris).

And of course many of the Italian universities are not so much places of learning as conspiracies for the avoidance of unemployment on the part of their academics and administrators. Regrettably, much Italian talent moves abroad for higher salaries and better working conditions (Cavalli-Sforza, to name but one, at Stanford), but the handful of scuoli superiori (e.g. the Scuola Normale in Pisa) still maintain their dignity.

In Spain, Salamanca is well-regarded, and there are a number of newer, private, properly Catholic entities that have been created. Of course, Opus Dei are very proud for having created the University of Navarre ex nihilo. Portugal, meanwhile, has yet to recover from the Marques de Pombal’s disastrous eighteenth-century reform of Coimbra.

If you’re one of those people who actually wants a proper education then, for better or worse, you must go to America. Thomas Aquinas College in California and St. John’s College in Maryland might be the last genuine places of higher learning in the European world. Attempts are being made to found a British Catholic version, and many imitations (Catholic, Protestant, and secular) exist around the United States.

If I could name some other honorable mentions in addition to those featured below, I would add Dublin (Trinity, that is), Bristol, the Collège d’Europe, Leiden, Leuven, Utrecht, Uppsala (and all the old Scandos), Heidelberg (and a dozen other German universities), King’s Halifax, Trinity College in Toronto, some parts of Berkeley, York for graduate study but not undergrad, the C.E.U. in Budapest (despite being a Soros project), and Exeter and Warwick aren’t bad really. Some universities, like the Jagiellonian in Kraków or the Charles in Prague, must be mentioned due to age, but I have to plead ignorance as to any knowledge of their current state.

I’m probably leaving out a dozen places that deserve a mention but I’ve forgotten; such are the limits of our fallen human nature. Here follows, arranged from northernmost to southernmost, our completely arbitrary and biased accounting of the six best universities in the world.

St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, Scotland

It’s almost needless to say that St Andrews is the greatest university on the face of God’s green earth, even if it is known as the ‘auld grey toon’. It’s cold and grey enough during the winter to build character but nothing could be more delightful than a stroll down the West Sands on a late spring afternoon — especially if preceded by a five-course lunch amongst friends. Tweed, the after-chapel sherry, the cathedral ruins, the names of departmental buildings that read like a roll of the inhabitants of Heaven: St Katharine’s Lodge, St John’s House, St Mary’s Quad. With balls galore, and more in Edinburgh if you’re bored, four years at St Andrews will definitely wear out your dinner jacket, and an evening of reels will keep you in good health despite the cigarettes and champagne.

It doesn’t hurt that the university has the royal seal of approval, though that seems to matter more now than at the time. Undergraduate Wales and I overlapped for three years at St Andrews, and his presence was barely noticeable — someone you would pass in the street or mention if he had been present somewhere but otherwise his right to normality was jealously guarded by fellow St Andreans, and rightly so.

I’ve already written extensively about the place, so perhaps it would be best to summarise with the words of John Martin Robinson, the current Maltravers Herald of Arms Extraordinary, who described St Andrews as “similar to some people’s view of the afterlife: still like Earth but purified of the unpleasant elements”.

Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh University is St Andrews’ younger cousin and the relationship between the two is a bit like that between town and country. St Andrews is in a country town made exceptional by its university, politico-ecclesial history, and that weird sport with sticks and balls, whereas Edinburgh is Scotland’s capital and perhaps the finest city in the English-speaking world.

Location alone makes the University a desirable place to begin with, but it’s a respectable institution in its own right, and has a fun and slightly jauntier mix of people than St Andrews. It’s not unheard of for some families in London and the south of England to send their eligible daughters to Edinburgh for a few years in the hopes of finding a suitable mate. Most often this is as students at Edinburgh University or the Edinburgh College of Art, but sometimes they just buy a flat on India Street and enjoy the social life. Edinburgh U. first-years have to live in the notorious Pollock Halls of Residence, however, which definitely counts against the institution.

Durham

The University of Durham, England

Properly speaking, the University of Durham is the third-oldest university in England, though there’s a pedantic argument on this point duly documented on Wikipedia. The town has the greatest cathedral in the kingdom, and if students join University College (one of sixteen Durham colleges) they have the opportunity of living in Durham Castle, the former bishop’s residence donated to the University shortly after its 1832 foundation.

The ancient capital of the County Palatine is far enough away from London to be outside the metropolitan orbit (as Oxford and Cambridge often aren’t) but having Newcastle and Middlesbrough as the two closest cities is not something in Durham’s favour. The dramatic riparian geography of this cathedral city, however, more than makes up for its less refined neighbours.

Sewanee

The University of the South, Tennessee

If the Ivy League universities are America’s Oxbridge, then Sewanee is the St Andrews of America. Student gowns are even worn, although their use is limited to members of the ‘Order of Gownsmen’, initiation into which is quite boringly based only on the very limited criterion of academic grade point average. Students are known for their attire — neckties predominate for gents attending tutorials for example — and a widespread if perhaps somewhat facile conservatism.

The university was founded by the Southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church and is the sole remaining university retaining its Episcopalian status, an affiliation it takes seriously despite being culturally out of step with the rest of the ever-liberalising, ever-shrinking denomination.

The South is the most interesting part of the United States, and, while a small and insular institution, the University of the South reflects much of the old Confederacy’s attractiveness. Sewanee’s gothic campus sits in the 13,000-acre “Domain” of the University (see above) atop the sylvan Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. It is a tiny university actually — just 1,400 undergraduates and 150-200 postgraduates — but despite this boasts twenty-five Rhodes scholars. Plus its founding bishop, Leonidas Polk, doubled as a Confederate general during the ‘Late Unpleasantness’. It all adds up towards the definition of a unique and fascinating institution.

Stellenbosch

The University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

It would be difficult to conceive of a more ideal location for a university. The centuries-old town of Stellenbosch dominates a small mountain valley in the verdant pulchritudinous winelands of one of the most beautiful lands in the world: the Western Cape province of South Africa. For the Afrikaners, whose language and higher culture developed under the shade of the giant oak trees planted by the old Dutch governor, Simon van der Stel, it is effectively ancient Sumer.

Yet Stellenbosch is not an old past-its-prime ruin but a thriving university town the Financial Times described as “full of well-groomed students with beach-ready figures”. In architectural terms its streets are lined with old Dutch houses alongside modern buildings ranging from the sensitive to the inoffensive.

The town does surprisingly lack a good bookstore, a statement that must be made with apologies to the very capable and friendly staff at the Stellenbosch branch of Exclusive Books on Andringastraat. The Van Schaik Boekhandel in the Neelsie concentrates more on books required by course reading lists, though the Protea Boekhuis further down Andringa at least has a decent second-hand selection.

The town so epitomises leafy comfort one almost forgets the university, its crowning glory. While it has an Afrikaans literary tradition second to none, Matieland isn’t shy of scientific glory: the ‘SUN’ in SUNSAT, arguably Africa’s first satellite, stands for Stellenbosch Universiteit.

As an academic institution of learning and research, its strong points are many: it features towards the top of every list of the best universities in the country and the continent for Law (its most prestigious school), Medicine, Business, Engineering, (Reformed) Theology, Agriculture & Forestry, and of course Afrikaans & Dutch. The History school boasts the unmatchable Hermann Giliomee, but I wonder if Stellenbosch has been losing out on this front to UCT (where Giliomee spent most of his career) and UWC (which boasts Antonia Malan). The closure of the unique Cultural History programme is certainly to be lamented.

More generally, the university’s leadership must be chided for their lamentable decision to turn Stellenbosch into a totally parallel-medium institution (that is, simultaneous course tracks in Afrikaans and English). It will be a sad and loathsome day when a Stellenbosch undergraduate can obtain a degree without taking a single course in Afrikaans.

Otago

The University of Otago, New Zealand

I confess knowing next to nothing about the University of Otago, the oldest in New Zealand, but this accounting makes no claims to be based on actual solid evidence. It might seem curious that Dunedin beat the now-larger cities of Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington in establishing New Zealand’s first university in 1869, when the town was capital of the Province of Otago. This is explained by Dunedin’s status at the time as the largest city in New Zealand thanks to the Otago gold rush of the 1860s.

When the university set about erecting its first buildings of its own in the 1870s, the administration set the tone for future generations with its choice of a domestic interpretation of the Collegiate Gothic, built in local bluestone faced with Oamaru stone. As Dr D.M. Stuart, the chancellor of the day, commented, “the Council had some old-world notions and liked to have a university with some architectural style”. That fine concept — old-world notions planted firm in fertile new-world soil — undergirds much of the spirit of Otago and indeed the best of New Zealand itself.

Otago is a collegiate university and the names of its colleges harken back to the region’s Scottish roots: Knox, Salmond, St Margaret’s, Cumberland. Aquinas College was founded by the Dominicans in 1954 and it counts among its former students the Right Honourable Sir Anand Satyanand GNZM QSO KStJ, 19th and current Governor-General of New Zealand, and the first Catholic to hold that office. Sadly, the Dominicans left and the college was secularised in the 1980s. The obviously Presbyterian Knox College enjoys a strong rivalry with the Anglican Selwyn College, which was visited by Michael Palin during his 1996 television programme “Full Circle”.

Caffe Reggio

In August, I enjoyed a lazy, espresso-fuelled afternoon in this place with Herr Doktor Zmirak and D. Riccardo.

New Cathedral in Russia

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Magadan, Siberia

In Russia, they build churches that look like churches. (As can be seen from the above video showing the consecration of the new cathedral). Meanwhile, in Los Angeles…

via Orthocath and CB for P

Valle Adurni on Catholic France

The blogger ‘Pastor in Valle’, who writes over at his blog Valle Adurni, recently composed a splendid overview of Catholic France basically from the baptism of Clovis onwards. Of course, it’s a very general overview, but Pastor has rather skillfully managed to manage to pack a lot into relatively few words.

It’s in five sections: here are the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.

A Rioplatense Kingdom?

New book explores the monarchic projects of the River Plate, 1808–1825

A book recently published in Buenos Aires sheds new light on the difficult transition period between the Spanish Empire on the River Plate and the foundation of the Argentine Republic. The launch party for Bernado Lozier Almazán’s Proyectos monárquicos en el Río de la Plata 1808-1825. Los reyes que no fueron (“Monarchic projects in the River Plate 1808–1825: The kings who weren’t”) was held recently in the Quinta ‘Los Ombúes’, home of the municipal library, museum, and archives of San Isidro, the city in the Provincia de Buenos Aires known as Argentina’s ‘Rugby Capital’.

Proyectos monárquicos highlights the forgotten truth that most of the Argentine ‘patriots’ — San Martín, Belgrano, and Alvear among them — were monarchist, not republican. Proposals involving the courts of Spain, Portugal, France, and even England were proffered, and there was even an interesting proposal to marry a European prince to an Incan princess and offer him the throne of the Río de la Plata. (more…)

Canada’s Royal Standards

In anticipation of the recent visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Canada, the government of that dominion unveiled new Canadian personal flags for the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge. The British Empire started out as a group of states and colonies united in the British crown, but as the Empire evolved into the Commonwealth, dominions were gradually recognised as sovereign entities of their own. Thus when, for example, Elizabeth II visits, say, Vancouver, it is not the ‘Queen of England’ who is visiting but the Queen of Canada exercising her functions in her own country. (This is a point frequently lost upon ideological republicans). Even when Elizabeth remains in London she puts on different ‘hats’ for different occasions. The only time I ever saw the Queen was at a Service for Australia at Westminster Abbey, thus it was the Queen’s Personal Flag for Australia which flew from the tower of the Abbey, not the British Royal Standard. (more…)

Some Finnish Words

We’ve been rather too neglectful of Finnish, the language so beloved of Tolkien. The South-African-born philologist and mythmaker described his introduction to the Finnish tongue as being “like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.” Aside from Tolkein’s love of the Finnish language, Elias Lönrott’s Kalevala epic was a central influence on the creation of The Lord of the Rings, as numerous scholars have written about.

I mentioned kaupunkilaissuomenruotsalaiset on Facebook the other day, and Sara piped up with the remainder of the following list of Finnish words. (more…)

Catholic Ambassadors to the U.N.

Group hears old-rite Mass at St Agnes

On Sunday 21 August 2011, the Church of St Agnes on 43rd Street in Manhattan was host to a group of Catholic ambassadors to the United Nations for the regular 11:00 Extraordinary Form Mass, offered by Fr. Richard Trezza OFM. (Fr. Cid, a recently ordained Franciscan priest was also in choro). The group included representatives from Grenada, Haiti, the Philippines, Korea, the United Kingdom, and the Empire of Japan.

The informal gathering, formed just this year, is open to Catholic Permanent Representatives and Deputy Permanent Representatives — the first- and second-highest ranking diplomats at national missions to the U.N. — and has heard Mass at a number of different parishes around Manhattan. (more…)

Reviving Manhattan’s Parisian Splendour

The new Ralph Lauren building at Madison & 72nd

“PRACTICALLY PERFECT in every way” was how the nanny Mary Poppins described herself in the Disney film, but fashion designer Ralph Lauren has given birth to an architectural grande dame on the Upper East Side that might justifiably make a similar claim. In this age of fashionable-today-dated-tomorrow starchitecture, the Bronx native has swum against the current and delivered for the people of New York a most welcome piece of architecture with his new store on the corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street.

Those familiar with the neighbourhood might be a bit confused: doesn’t Ralph Lauren already have a beautiful French chateau on that street corner? Worry not, the old Rhinelander mansion has not been demolished. Rather, its interior was recently given a ‘masculine makeover’ so shoppers can peruse and purchase any of Ralph Lauren’s men’s lines there.

Across the street, meanwhile, with his new women’s store, Ralph Lauren has reinvigorated Manhattan’s faded glory with a new injection of Parisian splendour. The unremarkable “taxpayer” two-storey on the site was razed and a completely new four-storey structure has risen in its place. Two smaller wings flank the middle, which is recessed above the ground floor’s triumvirate of skilfully curved arches. The two central storeys above are topped by a more reserved attic, with the facade clad in American-sourced limestone throughout. (more…)