I have purposely avoided The Bard of Avon in written form since my painful experiences at school (despite the significant timelapse). I prefer to ingest Shakespeare in the dramatic form and allow brilliant actors to interpret the archaic language for me.
I also tend to enjoy the footnotes more than the play.
It must be a sign of my Obsessive Compulsive attitude towards Y2k that even a Shakespeare play stimulates Y2k related thoughts.
I have been driven mad recently by the sloppy trash spouted by the media relating to leap years and the Gregorian calendar and so forth. Radio seems to be a better medium for discussing intricate topics such as Y2k. Television people do not seem to care what they say as long as they say it quickly.
One of the glib solecisms that really got my goat recently was the bland announcement that leap years were invented "by monks in the fourth century". What utter rubbish. The Egyptians had leap years in the Ptolemaic calendar way back in 238BC, and they were implemented in the Julian calendar in 46BC (Roman year 709).
My question is this. What prompted Julius Caesar to implement the Julian calendar?. Why switch from a lunar calendar, deeply entrenched in the Roman religion (and thus the State) to a solar calendar? Tradition has it that he was persuaded to do so by Sosigenes. I think not.
I also personally think that he was assassinated because he did the priests out of their intercalation revenues. Much more likely than some vague political squabble. First Marple maxim of murder sleuthing, "Follow the Money".
"Beware the Ides of March" is a distinct anachronism, because the Julian calendar had been in force for four years already and all the old guff such as calends and Ides (all of which involve counting backwards) were obsolete already. A bit of poetic license perhaps. It is dramatically more satisfying than "Beware the 15th of March". In fact, even 15th is an approximation because Ides are only meaningful in the old Roman calendar.
By the way, harder homework question. Was Julius Caesar killed in a leap year? The quick answer is divide 44BC by 4 and say yes. Nope. They were still using the Roman year. Implementation of the Julian calendar was in 46BC, Roman Year 709, Julius was killed in 44BC, Roman year 711, and the first possible leap year would have been Roman year 712.
Isn't that a useful thing to know?
Incidentally, the original Roman calendar was such a mess because the unscrupulous would change it so they could remain in office longer. Another good reason to keep politicians out of calendars. I wish ours would lose this "Millennium" rubbish. Fat chance.
Another thought then struck me. Old Will was still using the Julian calendar, so all his dates would by then have been about 15 days out, and although he knew about leap years, he would not have treated 1600 as a leap year, because only the Gregorian rule deals with leap centuries. Britain only adopted the Gregorian standard in 1752. He was writing in 1607 or therabouts, although Rome had been using the new calendar since 1582.
The footnotes informed me that Our Lad, "Had no Latin, and less Greek" and got his classical info from English translations. I like him more already.
I personally think that with Julius it was a case of "cherche la femme". Cleopatra (the seventh of that name) was of the house of Ptolemy III (who invented leap years in 238BC).
Not quite the same bunch that introduced the revised solar calendar in Egypt in 1200BC. As an aside, that was just about the time when Egypt was recovering from the disastrous effects of the first recorded biological war, waged by no less than Moses and Aaron.
Not that I am suggesting direct descent from the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom. Cleopatra was after all a Macedonian, her ancestor Ptolemy I one of the generals of Alexander (the Great), but the Greeks borrowed heavily on Egyptian technology, and Alexandria was more a Greek city than an Egyptian one.
But her father was Ptolemy XII, her brother was Ptolemy XIV and the unfortunate child she had with Caesar was Ptolemy XV. So the name definitely ran in the family.
The Egyptians had been using very accurate calendars for centuries. So I think old Julius got the idea from his girlfriend. Probably because she got mad at him because he forgot her birthday present by using the wrong calendar. Sosigenes indeed. Huh.
Cleopatra is after all the patron saint of Y2k. The Queen of Denial. Yuk, yuk, yuk. B>)
The nights are getting colder in the Southern hemisphere, as Winter rolls on.
This may account for a migration of the Suburban Rat population towards more salubrious habitats indoors.
All I know is that Miss Chiff has scored three rats in as many nights.
These are deposited, to lie in state, on my bed.
Miss Chiff seems surprised at my lack of enthusiasm and flips them into the air with her sharp little teeth, no doubt to demonstrate to me the great size, weight and amount of meat on her victim.
When the deceased is placed in a plastic bag, given a few whacks with the blunt end of a walking stick (to ensure absolute expiration) and the area of contact subsequently sprayed with insecticide to disencourage fleas and other noxious fellow travellers, she gets into a huff and stomps out of the door on her dainty black feet, with her tail held high.
Not that this deters her in any way from her nightly massacres. Perhaps she feels that persistence will convert me into becoming, like her, an epicure of rodentia.
I fear that Directors of companies may also shortly feel as if they have been placed in a plastic bag and whacked with blunt objects. I have been reviewing (inter alia) the Rights and Duties of Directors, Auditors and the like in light of our various regulatory reporting requirements. The accounting deadlines are closing fast, and my friends amongst the Legal and Auditing fraternities are becoming twitchy.
To Qualify, or Not to Qualify, that is the Question (to paraphrase The Bard).
I have also been talking to several Y2k project managers. Without exception they have complained of the current lack of committment towards eliminating Y2k problems by both Management and Staff. In fact the "higher-tech" the company, the less the enthusiasm and buy-in.
I find this disturbing in light of the rather short time we still have left. I know that I (and many others far more influential than me) have been thumping this tub for over three years, and the response is still denial.
This leads me to state Anderson's rider to Heisenbergs' principle. Although Heisenberg propounded his Uncertainty principle for quantum mechanics and particles, it appears to have applications in Y2k. The more accurately we determine states of Y2k readiness, the more uncertainty there is that anything will ever be done about it.
I think it is time to get a proper job.