If memory serves, I have blogged about the equinoxes but never about the solstice. Another solstice is right around the corner, too, on Sunday, June 21, at 05:45 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which is what GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) has been called since January 1, 1972. So says the Wikipedia article on Solstice.
Read the article to your heart’s content. Enjoy all the drawings and illustrations. You will probably encounter a lot of information you didn’t know.
But I would bet dollars (remember them?) to doughnuts that you will still be confused.
My memory turns out to be wrong; I have blogged about the solstice before, right here, last year (oh, look, I made a little rhyme). It’s all coming back to me now. When I blogged last year about the June solstice I subsequently learned that Pat of Arkansas had actually visited both Stonehenge and Machu Picchu, which I erroneously called Macchu Pichu.
I hope the Inca can find it in their hearts to forgive me.
I have it on good authority from old-time comedian Jimmy Durante that the Inka Dinka do.
Sweet!
Some may say I have already been out in the sun too long, but this post makes perfect sense to me.
And good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
Too much bourbon Mr Brague! Or is this mid-summer madness? In the morning, pagans like myself will gather on the moors to the west of Sheffield and, stark naked, we will greet the sun with our arms raised high as in times of yore. Just a few bourbons first.
ReplyDeleteNot only have I visited Stonehenge (on the day before the summer solstice.. dag nab it) and Machu Picchu, but I have stood with both feet upon the Greenwich Line (0'0") and have a photo(somewhere) to prove it. I have also been photographed with one foot in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere, when visiting the monument to the Equatorial Line, as a side trip from Machu Picchu, all of which has nothing at all to do with the Summer Solstice (but may account for my split personality); I apologize for the digression.
ReplyDeleteIt distresses me to no end that someone in their (lack of) wisdom has changed GMT to UCT. Note: if UCT is supposed to represent Coordinated Universal Time, should not the acronym be CUT? I'm in favor of "cutting" CUT.
What, pray tell, is happening to our history? I will always be a GMT person (read: old fogey.)
Thanks for helping us dieters out there with the doughnut photo.
ReplyDelete"Machu Picchu, which I erroneously called Macchu Pichu."
I should think you would have lost followers over that. Look, I'll try to weather this AND the doughnut photo, but in the future, maybe you should never mention the Makey Picture thing again, ever. Just move on as best you can.
Paul Newman looks like I felt after my afternoon on the lawnmower the other day.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the solstice info. I think ancient peoples were much better observers than we are. Everything handed to us on a platter.
i want the choclate covered one with cream filling in the middle,,,right now
ReplyDeletePat is correct, I have never heard GMT referred to as anything else. Who names these things anyway?
ReplyDeleteIf the changed it in 1972, a lot of aviators have been writing the wrong thing on their Flight Plans. Of Course we called it Zulu time (since there are 26 time zones and it is the last, or first, ddepending on which fencepost you start from).
May GMT foever reign...
I am overwhelmed and gratified by the enormous response (okay, six of you, but it *is* Saturday, usually a slow day) to this post.
ReplyDeleteYP - Every post in this blog was created without benefit of bourbon or other intoxicants. You heard it here first. Unfortunately, they often cannot be read in the same manner.
Pat in Arkansas - History is becoming more and more irrelevant even as we speak (although it ought to be otherwise), and all of us old fogeys (fogies?) I will be a part of it eventually. I had no idea a monument had been erected to the Equatorial Line. What about the Maginot Line, the International Date Line, and A Chorus Line?
Snowbrush - You lose a few followers here, you gain a few followers there. I try to remain philosophical through it all.
Jeannelle - Your statement about Paul Newman fits me as well, except with me it is *behind* the lawnmower, not *on* the lawnmower. In the game of Subtle One-Upmanship, you win this round.
Hey, Putz! Good to hear from you. I miss your one-of-a-kind posts and your unique photographs and your creative spelling. You have left a gaping hole in the blogosphere that no one else could ever fill.
Reamus - I first heard of UCT or UTC or CUT or whatever it is when I was doing research for last year's June solstice post. Zulu is what we called it back when I was just a lad in the USAF (America's equivalent of the RAF, for you British Commonwealth types).