A Modest Proposal for a new calendar

In the last dozen years we have lived through two apocalyptic date.  The first was in the year 2000 when the world was rumoured to be at risk from something or other which I now forget.  The second was 2012 when some people asserted that the world would come to an end because a Mayan calendar had run out of dates or a rogue, invisible planet would crash into Pimlico, Des Moines or Nosy Varika.

Much of this nonsense is because one of the most common of the world’s timeline is based on the supposed date of Jesus Christ.  Every one agrees that the date is nonsense and, because it is so nonsensical there was massive confusion about when the second millennium would actually start.  If the first year of the Common Era, (it was called AD in my youth) was Year 1 then the new millennium did not actually start until 2001 which made the dire predictions of the end of the world in the year 2000 both hysterical and un-mathematical.

I also wonder if the latest scare date of 21st December 2012 had anything to do with its numerical equivalents 12.21.12 in the USA or 21.12.12 in my neck of the woods.  Such dreadful symmetry.

As someone keen on history I would like to propose a new calendar.  Not one based on a story in the bible but one which will pay tribute to all of humanity.  I propose a calendar which will start with the dawn of civilisation.  Even this is tricky as there is no firm agreement when civilisation started.

So, on a whim, I’ve plumped for 3,500 years BCE.  This is when several civilisations started across the globe, from China, the Indus Valley, through Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Americas.  I’ve also done it to keep the maths simple.

The benefits of this are manifold.  My new calendar is not linked to western civilisation nor to a religion.  It gets rid of the complications of counting backwards from the present year 1 for years BCE.  Best of all it puts modern times into the long sweep of history.

Here are some familiar dates in the new calendar.

 

 

1 200 400 500 800 875 1000 1200 1500 1700 1900 1950 2000 2320 2620 2724 2747 2755 2950 2991 3010 3068 3169 3300 3327 3279 3298 3400 3456 3514 3726 3976 4000 4052 4070 4122 4250 4300 4371 4411 4476 4501 4566 4599 4611 4687 4727 4799 4810 4825 4847 4953 4992 5001 5026 5080 5088 5116 5120 5142 5151 5196 5220 5276 5289 5305 5351 5361 5370 5389 5414 5445 5463 5469 5513

Possible start of Egyptian calendar Hakra phase of Indus Valley civilisation First Dynasty in Egypt Sumerian cuneiform writing Knossos in Crete is a city of 80,000 inhabitents Khufu completes the Great Pyramid Mammoth becomes extinct Stonehenge complete The horse is domesticated First alphabets created Shang Dynasty in China Hittite Empire dominant force in area Rig Veda written End of the Hittite Empire Iliad and Odyssey written First Olympic Games held Rome said to be founded Tiglath-Pileser III begins rise of Assyrian Empire Foundation of Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great Rome becomes a Republic Greek city states defeat Persia at Marathon Construction of the Parthenon in Athens Alexander the Great defeats King of Persia Start of construction of Great Pyramid of Cholula Ashoka the Great becomes Emperor Great Wall of China begun Hannibal defeated by Scipio Africanus Chola Dynasty rises to prominence in South India Julius Caesar murdered Death of Emperor Augustus Rise of the Sassanian Empire in Persia End of the Western Roman Empire Franks under Clovis defeat the Visigoths Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) reconquers Italy Birth of Mohammad Mohammad moves from Mecca to Medina. Start of Islamic Calendar Beginning of Abbasid Caliphate Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor Alfred the Great becomes King of Wessex Rollo founds Normandy Basil II becomes Emperor of Byzantium Leif Ericson lands in Canada The Battle of Hastings First Crusade. Jerusalem is captured from the Muslims University of Oxford founded Saladin recaptures Jerusalem Genghis Khan dies Ottoman Empire founded Dante publishes The Divine Comedy Aztecs found city of Tenochtitlan Black Death in Europe Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks Christopher Columbus reached the New World Michelangelo begins sculpting David Foundation of Mughal Empire Sir Francis Drake first man to lead expedition round the globe The Spanish Armada defeated Shakespeare dies Mayflower arrives in America Tasman sights New Zealand End of English Civil War Peter the Great sole Tsar in Russia The South Sea Bubble American Declaration of Independence The French Revolution starts Napoleon becomes Emperor of the French Great Exhibition in London Start of American Civil War Death of Charles Dickens Edison tests his first light bulb Start of World War 1 End of World War 2 The Beatles have their first hit record Man lands on the Moon This year.  Happy New 5513

 

I can’t guarantee the accuracy of the dates or, sadly, my arithmetic.  But I had fun doing it and it did make me think differently about history and time.

Lean and Hungry or Fat and Content?

I’ve just been watching a man on the beach.  He could have been me.  He was the same shape and weight, he had the same hair or rather lack of hair.  He chatted to some friends employing the same extravagant gestures which made Steve, one of my friends at the age of eleven, ask me if I was French.  In the twinkling of an eye my doppelganger had wandered around the beach engaging many different people in conversation.

I saw the virtual double of the same friend Steve in the pub a year ago, although many years older than eleven.  He looked incredibly alike in physique and looks.  What astounded me, however, was how this man’s body language was virtually identical  to Steve’s.  He gestured in the same way, he emphasised facts in the same way, he even listened to other people as Steve does.

Seeing my mirror image on the beach got me thinking along a now familiar path.

The more I look at people the more I come to think that their appearance says a great deal about their personality.  Men who look like me smile at toddlers and help them blow bubbles.  Short and skinny men are often quick in thought and movement.  I won’t go on.

I saw a man in a French town who looks like George Cole playing the spiv ‘Flash’ Harry in the 1950′s St Trinian’s Films.  He’s a young man, he’s French, he’s almost certainly never seen George Cole in the part.  Yet he acts and moves exactly like Cole.  He even dresses like him.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps Shakespeare had it right.

Caesar:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2, 190-195

I find it useful to follow the idea of shapes mirroring personality when I’m plotting and planning.  Yet, to use it too directly in my writing would make the character seem too much of a caricature.

It’s a fine balance.  Get it right and you create an archetype.  Get it wrong and you create a cliché.

Ben Kane’s The Lost Legion

I’ve just finished Ben Kane’s first novel ‘The Lost Legion.’  Here’s what I thought about it.

Ben Kane’s novel ‘The Lost Legion’ is a gripping novel set in ancient Rome.  Kane writes about the last days of the Roman Republic but with an unusual approach.  He chooses his main characters from people on the margins of Roman society, those who inhabit the underbelly of the Republic and provide the essential services to keep the wealthy in a life of luxury.  This means that the society they describe is almost as much of a mystery to them as it to the reader of two thousand years later.

Kane opens the book by giving us Tarquinius, a character from the long-conquered Etruscan society, moves swiftly to introduce Brennus a giant of a Gaul and then to Romulus and Fabiola, slave siblings who are sold into two of the most awful worlds of Rome, the brothel and the circus.

Kane chooses to develop different streams of his novel, never an easy task but one which he manages with skill.  I never felt I had to go back to re-read what was happening to one of the characters even when there had been a gap since I had last read about them.

I particularly liked his portrayal of the clever, beautiful Fabiola.  Many epic historical novels tend to side-line female characters but Fabiola is not a woman content to be side-lined by anybody, (including, I suspect, the author.)  I look forward to seeing how she will develop.

Kane seems to me to be historically accurate, adept at capturing the essence of Romans such as Caesar, Crassus and Mark Antony.  This dedication to authenticity led to one of my few niggles.  He uses the accurate Roman words for weapons, almost all of the time.  This gave me pause; I’d rather he dispensed with the Latin and said swords and shields for ease of reading.  Because of his accuracy I was also somewhat surprised to hearRomulusdescribed as a teenager and wondered whether Alexander’s soldiers would have been as fair of skin and hair as Kane suggests.

These tiny niggles apart, I loved this book.  I have bought the next one in the series and look forward to branching out to his book aboutHannibal.