[lit-ideas] Re: Melbourne, Tristam Shandy and Custer at Gettysburg
- From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 21:26:58 -0000
Melbourne, Derbyshire:
Try:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=438500&y=325500&z=5&sv=438500,325500&st=4&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf&ax=438500&ay=325500
And if the link - which looks more than cumbersome - doesn't work out just head
to:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk
stick in Melbourne and see for yourself.
Streetmap has a range of map scales just to prove that British cartography is
up to scratch.
Alternatively, try local.live.com to see it in real life.
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=52.826183~-1.427321&style=a&lvl=14&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000
Custer at Gettysburg: Preposterous!
Simon
----- Original Message -----
From: David Ritchie
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 7:44 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Melbourne, Tristam Shandy and Custer at Gettysburg
Someone wrote that the latest place to suffer damage in Florida was
Melbourne. I had to find out what caused a worldwide pandemic of Melbournes.
Here, at least is the Australian root: "The settlement was named Melbourne in
the same year after the British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount
Melbourne, who resided in the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire. Melbourne was
declared a city by Queen Victoria on 25 June 1847.[6]" And then I had to look
up how close to my brother's house this Melbourne in Derbyshire is.
Can't find either of our road maps of Britain--this is about the sixth book I
haven't been able to find this week; there are also several cd cases without
their discs...gremlins? daughters? house sitters? rather specialized
burglars?--and the websites for Britain are no better than when last I tried
them. "You would like a map of Derbyshire? Certainly sir, here's one at a scale
in which you can pick out individual blades of grass. Here's another nice one,
showing three villages around Buxton. And here's where Derbyshire fits on the
planet. In between? I'd love to help you guv, but we don't have much call for
that kind of information." So I still don't know how far from Wirksworth
Melbourne lies. But I'm sure it's not far. Isn't "Wirksworth" a strange name.
I'm reminded that one of the episodes of "Fawlty Towers" features a fake Lord
Melbourne.
Why am I bothering with such time-consuming quests? Two reasons: I have
temporarily lost the ability to walk and I have set myself the task of doing
taxes. Clearly writing a good and truly discursive note to you is far more
important than starting taxes.
Lost the ability to walk? On Tuesday night I played tennis. On Wednesday I
was fine. On Thursday when I woke, I couldn't put my heel to the ground. "No
bother," I thought in classic Scottish stoic manner, "a little yoga will sort
this out." On Friday I called our former yoga teacher, now our chum Stuart, and
asked him what I'd done. He took me through the sequence of events and
concluded that a) going straight from work and hurrying onto the court--a
breach of warm-up regulations and old geezer union codes--was the root cause
and that the discomfort I'd suddenly felt in the first set was some kind of
tearing of an achilles tendon b) stretching a torn tendon by attempting yoga
was compounding the error c) that I should have called him earlier and asked
for some ultrasound d) if it's not better by Monday, he'll zap me with his
machine. Yesterday I thought I couldn't sit around all day, so I had Emily take
me to pick out a movie. I don't pick movies out very often, so usually I savor
the experience, walking the length of the store to consider the options.
Yesterday I looked at the last few letters of the alphabet and decided that was
plenty of choice. We ended up watching "Tristam Shandy," which is an
appropriately strange production but which seems to assume that you'll know who
the two lead actors are and what their BBC reputations have been. I didn't know
either of them. Note to file away: if you ever teach "Tristam Shandy" among the
extra material on the dvd, you'll find a very engaging conversation about the
book. One of the participants is Stephen Frye--Jeeves in the T.V. series--the
other person I didn't recognize.
New thought, see if Lawrence is around: for all the chatter about planning
and feedback loops, there's much to be learned about administration from the
study of military history. A general's problem is where to pay attention. Good
generals cause their opponents to attend to the wrong sector; some bad generals
have a natural knack for doing this, or try to attend everywhere at once. Look
up what Napoleon did to the Austrians at Austerlitz and you'll see what I mean:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Austerlitz If you glance at the maps
you'll see that he weakens his right to provoke an attack, hides the punch on
the left and sweeps the center onto the flank of the attack he originally
provoked. Hmmn...maybe this isn't the best example of inattention since the
smaller army, Napoleon's, pulls off two deceptions.
Well try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae. "O.K." say the
Romans, "everyone face front and we'll finally put an end to these blasted
Cartheginians. Forward." Meanwhile Hannibal sends all his cavalry round one
side, wiping out half the Roman cavalry, which was equally divided to protect
each flank. Then that cavalry charges round the back and attacks the other
half. And then it piles into the back of the advancing Roman infantry, which is
now surrounded. Whoops.
Why am I thinking about this stuff--apart from the taxes issue? I've started
Troy Harman, "Lost Triumph: Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg, and why it failed."
The thesis is already clear--Pickett's charge was a holding attack, modeled on
the Carthaginian move at Cannae. The point of sending Jeb Stuart around the
side of the hill, with all Lee's cavalry and his one regiment of mounted
infantry--a force that had a two to one advantage over the Union's cavalry--was
to attack the rear of the Union line, split the defenders in two and give the
forces Lee kept in reserve a half an army to chew up. Harman's hero (aside from
Lee) is, of all people, Custer, whose repeated charges broke up Jeb Stuart's
attack.
Enough geezer stretching. Enough Shandy-like disorder. Time to attack the
taxes.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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