Among the most well-known works of modern Scottish design, besides the ‘Clootie Dumpling’ of the Scottish National Party, there is the logo of the Royal Bank of Scotland: the Daisy Wheel. Now one of the most well-known financial brands in the world, the Royal Bank of Scotland was founded in Edinburgh in 1727, thirty-two years after its rival, the Bank of Scotland. (The Bank of Scotland, as it happens, was founded by an Englishman, John Holland — just as the Bank of England was founded by a Scot, Sir William Paterson).

The Scottish Parliament had declared in 1689 that King James VII had, by his absence, forfeited the throne, and handed the Crown to his Dutch rival William of Orange, who had already seized the throne in England. The House of Hanover succeeded to the throne of the new United Kingdom which had been created in 1707, but the Bank of Scotland was suspected of harbouring Jacobite sympathies. The London government was keen to help out Scottish merchants loyal to the Hanoverians and so, in 1727, King George granted a royal charter to the new Royal Bank of Scotland. (more…)

One of my favourite series of stamps comes from New Zealand. In 1929, the New Zealand Post Office commissioned the Englishman H. L. Richardson, an artist and teacher at the Wellington Technical College, to design a series of fiscal revenue stamps, or duty stamps. The design employed the New Zealand coat of arms in a variety of colours depending on the value of the stamp. Richardson erroneously had the lion in the crest of the arms hold aloft a New Zealand flag instead of the Union Jack that he was supposed to carry. The crest was changed to a crown in 1956 (along with a series of other changes) to signify that New Zealand had by then become a sovereign realm of its own. Richardson’s stamps were withdrawn from use in 1967 when New Zealand’s currency was decimalised. (more…)

The Late, Lamented Sporting Life, Daily Newspaper of the Queen Mum

THE MOST FAVOURED daily reading material of the late Queen Mother, The Sporting Life did not survive into the twenty-first century, unlike the beloved former consort (who died 102 years of age in 2002). It was first printed in 1859, but through its 1886 acquisition of Bell’s Life in London, and Sporting Chronicle had a heritage dating back to 1822. Throughout the twentieth century, aside from being the racing newspaper of record, reading it gave a certain connotation of leisureliness, spiviness, or both. By the 1980s, it was thought the Life was getting a bit staid, and it was challenged when Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum founded the Racing Post as a daily competitor.

“The advent of the Racing Post in the 1980s was good for the Life,” Jamie Reid wrote after the older journal shut. “The old paper was in danger of becoming tired. What makes the Life’s closure so hard to take is that in the last few years it was better than ever.”

“The Post‘s editorial style was often a bit dry whereas the Life’s top writers… were clearly not good for you at all. They were basted in alcohol, toasted in tobacco and in constant desperate need of a winning tip.”

That the long tradition of The Sporting Life didn’t have to end is one of the more frustrating aspects: it was the Life’s owners, Trinity Mirror, that bought the Post in 1998 and decided to keep the title of the twelve-year-old paper instead of the one with one-hundred-and-forty-nine years of history behind it. Go figure.

If you can possibly ignore its blood-soaked foundation and its disregard for the freedom of the Church, one can appreciate that the French Republic does republicanism with a dash of pizzazz, as evidenced by the late Philippe Séguin’s official robes as President of the Cour des comptes. Of course, most of this panache it inherited from its intermittent monarchic and (even more so) imperial past. It also inherited from Louis XIV an ever-present spirit of centralisation — the Republic frowns upon the principle of subsidiarity.

Monsieur Séguin was a decent sort. (more…)

In addition to its coat of arms, the College of William & Mary makes good use of the royal cypher of its eponymous monarchs, as seen above, in a version used by the whole university (it is a ‘college’ only in name), and below in a variant used by the William & Mary Rowing Club.

THE EAST NEUK of Fife is one of my favourite little corners of the globe, in what is definitely my favourite country in the world. Here are a set of almost unspoilt little fishing villages with a quite localised architectural style that makes them instantly recognisable. The name of this little regionlet signifies its location as the east ‘nook’ of the Kingdom of Fife, that juts out into the North Sea.

Those concerned for this part of the world might be interested in signing up for the East Neuk of Fife Preservation Society, which has completed admirable work all over the East Neuk, and is currently considering the restoration of the gatehouse of Pittenweem Priory.

A London-based graphic designer has created a series of maps depicting Europe according to the national stereotypes in the minds of various peoples. Yanko Tsvetkov, a Bulgarian living in Great Britain, created the first one in 2009 in the midst of the energy dispute between Russia and the Ukraine. Russia was labelled “Paranoid Oil Empire”, the Ukraine “Gas Stealers”, and the E.U. as “Union of Subsidized Farmers”. Switzerland was simply “Bank”.

“I created the first one in 2009 because at that time there was an energy crisis in Europe,” Mr. Tsvetkov said. “I just created it to amuse my friends but when I put it up on my website so many people liked it that I decided to really focus on the project of mapping the stereotypes based on different places in Europe. I was surprised by the reaction because I never really expected it to take off like this.” (more…)

One of the things I enjoy about watching older movies is seeing the newspapers they mocked up for them. “The Pink Panther” (1963) featured this shot of an underworld figure reading the Rome Daily American on a Paris bridge or quayside.

Often these are mockups of newspapers that never existed, but the Rome Daily American was real. A handful of GIs started it in 1945 when the European edition of Stars and Stripes ceased publication. It took the Herald-Tribune two days to reach Rome from Paris in those days, and the CIA held an arms-length 40% stake of the ownership until the 1970s.

The paper was made famous by the 1953 flick Roman Holiday — there was a charming film. Its offices were in the Via di Santa Maria in via, parallel to the Corso, until the paper went bankrupt in 1984.

What are the best ways of following the Pope’s visit to Great Britain? The official website is offering a live webcast of all events, with highlights from the day interspersed between events. The Daily Telegraph is live-blogging the papal events each day, with frequent updates; today can be found here. The Catholic Herald is also live-blogging the Papal Visit, and updates on today’s events can be found here.

Check catholicherald.co.uk and telegraph.co.uk for more throughout the visit.

(more…)

President is Welcomed at Afrikaners-Only Enclave in Northern Cape

President Zuma yesterday paid a ‘goodwill visit’ to the whites-only Afrikaner enclave of Orania in the Northern Cape. The trip was prompted when Pres. Zuma received word that the town’s founded Prof. Carel Boshoff IV, was in poor health. Orania was founded in 1990, some months after whites voted to dismantle apartheid, as a place where Afrikaner self-reliance could be practiced and cultural heritage preserved. The town has pioneered various agricultural and ecological projects, and in 2004 started its own local currency, the Ora, which is equal to ten rand. (more…)

In his latest column for the Mail on Sunday, the commentator and Orwell Prize winner Peter Hitchens shares his thoughts on the Blitz — the Luftwaffe’s bombing campaign over London that commenced sixty years ago this month. His comments have special relevance given the previous posts on andrewcusack.com regarding the immorality of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings, and likewise of the intentional and deliberate targeting of civilian non-combatants. (more…)

Art Gallery in the Heart of the Hague Unveils Expansion Plans

WELL, NOT THAT deep, really. The Mauritshuis museum in the Hague recently unveiled its plans to expand underground and across the street into a neighbouring building. The square-footage of the museum will double after the completion of the new project, which will include a new entrance, exhibition hall, café, and lecture theatre. The entrance to the museum, currently accessed from the side street, will return to the front of the Mauritshuis but underground rather than through the main doorway on the ground floor.

The building was originally constructed between 1636 and 1641 for Johan Maurits, Prince of Nassau-Siegen next to the Binnenhof palace. At the time, Prince Johan Maurits (a cousin of the stadtholder Frederik Henrik, Prince of Orange) was governor of the New Holland, the Dutch colony in Brazil. In 1820, the palace was purchased by the government to house the Royal Cabinet of Paintings. The Mauritshuis art museum was separated from the state by being transformed into a private foundation which enjoys the use of the building and the art collection on long-loan from the government. (more…)

Over at afrikaans.be, Anton Raath posts a verbal snapshot of Stellenbosch in 1819 from ‘The Cyclopædia: or universal dictionary of arts, sciences, and literature’:

STELLENBOSCH, in Geography, a small town of Southern Africa, near the Cape of Good Hope. It consists of three long straight streets, running parallel to each other, and several cross streets intercepting these at right angles. The houses are all spacious, and substantially built, though only thatched with straw.

Each street resembles an avenue, since, on both sides before the houses, are large sturdy oaks, which are almost as old as the place itself, which was built at the beginning of the former century, though it was wholly burnt down in 1710. In December, 1803, a similar accident happened, when the number of houses left standing was about 80. The church was built in 1722, and though not equal in size to the churches of Roodezant and Paarl, it is no way inferior to them in point of architecture.

The number of inhabitants at Stellenbosch, including slaves and Hottentots, is estimated at 1000. Every person in this town carries on, with his trade, some portion of agriculture and horticulture; and as there are none who can be called actually poor, who labour for hire, they are obliged to have slaves, who do not pay the expence of keeping them.

Strangers, who in their long voyages make any stay at the Cape, never fail to visit Stellenbosch; and people of property at the Cape Town also, in the fine season of the year, often make parties of pleasure to this fertile spot. Hence houses are fitted up here for the accommodation and entertainment of strangers.

“Hoe meer dinge verander…” Mnr Raath comments.

The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle

In accordance with tradition, knights are appointed to the Order of the Thistle on the feast of Scotland’s patron saint, the Apostle Andrew, but they are not formally installed until the following summer when the Queen is in residence at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. And so this past July, the ‘Thistle Service’ took place at St. Giles’, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, and two new knights were inducted into Scotland’s highest honour and most exalted order of chivalry.

The knights, dames, and officers, dressed in their flowing velvet mantles of green along with their hats and collars, gather across Parliament Square in the Library of the Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet (Scotland’s professional body of solicitors), part of the Parliament House complex that long ago housed the kingdom’s legislature, and is now home to her courts. In Parliament Square itself, the Royal Company of Archers (the Queen’s Body Guard for Scotland) forms a guard of honour and is accompanied by the band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. (more…)

Six of South Africa’s thirteen monarchies are to be mediatised, the country’s president announced in July. A report by the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims of the South African government concluded that the six dynasties had been raised from chiefdoms to monarchies by the apartheid government for purely political reasons and suggested that their government funding and recognition be ended. President Zuma said the aim of the move was to correct “the wrongs of the past” but that no one was being accused of collaboration with the apartheid authorities. The six incumbent rulers will retain their styles and dignities while their successors will revert to the rank of princely chiefs.

“We have been waiting for this decision for a long time,” Khosi Fhumulani Kutama, the Chairman of the National House of Traditional Leaders told the media. “It is important that people accept it not only for the institution of traditional leadership but for the whole country.”

But the indications so far are that the six monarchies will take the government to court in an attempt to forestall the demotion.

Up to this point, the most significant spate of mediatisation was during the Napoleonic era, when Talleyrand arranged the demotion and reorganisation of conquered German lands.

The slightly camp Old Etonian atheist neo-con Douglas Murray got himself into a bit of trouble recently when he and Baroness Deech unleashed a splenetic rant against Scotland and the Scots on BBC Radio 4. As head of the HFEA, Baroness Deech presided over the deaths of an untold number of humans in the embryonic stage of development, but it turns out that Mr. Murray (who is Scottish-born, curiously) has advocated hypothetical wholesale slaughter.

In 2007, Mr. Murray helped compose Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership ostensibly written by Gen. Dr. Klaus Naumann (former Bundeswehr Chief of Staff), Gen. Prince John Salikashvili (Georgian prince and former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Field Marshal the Lord Inge (former U.K. Chief of the General Staff), Adm. Jacques Lanxade (former Chief of the French Navy), and Gen. Henk van den Breemen (accomplished organist and former Chief of Staff of the Dutch military).

This interesting document made a number of recommendations, the most intriguing of which is the suggestion that NATO should be prepared to make a pre-emptive nuclear strike… in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction (“WMDs”) such as, er, nuclear weapons. You read that correctly: in order to prevent the use of WMDs, NATO should be prepared to use WMDs. You couldn’t make it up!

While my admittedly small work on the Namibian jugendstil was recently published in Catalan, those who are interested in my review of Xander van Eck’s Clandestine Splendor: Paintings for the Catholic Church in the Dutch Republic can read it in the latest edition of the Weekly Standard.

Unfortunately the magazine’s website is mostly behind a paywall, so readers will have to swing by their local newsstand to obtain a copy.

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