Headpiece Renaissance

  

From Country Life:

Headdresses have been making, well, headline news, thanks in part to one of the UK’s most famous wearers of headpieces, Isabella Blow, whose biopic The Queen of Fashion is due out this year.

Issy, as she was known, saw them as not merely a fashion statement, but as an extension of her identity, famously saying: ‘I don’t use a hat as a prop. I use it as part of me.’

Their renaissance has also been fuelled by Instagram and a flurry of lavish country-house celebrations. At a party at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, home of the Howden family, headpieces were as central to the spectacle as the setting itself.

For the Narnia-themed event, the insurance magnate David Howden wore a spectacular Aslan-inspired lion headdress commissioned from the Canadian costume designer Maryam of Eastern Wind Studio by his wife, Fiona, who has long been a passionate hat collector and wearer of headpieces.

She sees them as ‘an opportunity to dress up as a character and add glamour, fun and theatre to events’. Her hat collection, sourced from street stalls in Venice, Italy, together with commissioned pieces, ‘makes great dressing-up material for my girlfriends and daughters’ — and for Royal Ascot, which David's company sponsors. Both David and Fiona were in the Royal Procession last year.

Hats and headpieces have long been regarded as little pieces of theatre, as well as signifiers of status in country-house circles. They acted as a kind of visual shorthand, announcing style, self-assurance and, occasionally, the scale of one’s estate. (Read more.)

 

Hat etiquette (a snob's guide), HERE.

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Breeders.

 From Elizabeth Stone:

We all have seen, heard, and know that there is tremendous push to normalize every sexual desire, all of it is dressed in the belief that “people just need to be who they are”, that is until sexuality is ordered towards what it was actually designed to be. What you must understand is that these people are not actually against people making choices with their bodies, they are against people making choices that produce duty, because that would go against point number two, which is serving autonomy and self above all else. They are not scandalized by sex being openly discussed they are scandalized by sex being connected to what it always has traditionally been connected to. It is amazing that nowadays the shock factor isn’t more degeneracy, we are all so desensitized to it, I remember when Eminem used to get in serious trouble for the things he said and did. People acted like civilization itself was hanging by the thread of a Slim Shady lyric, now we see worse things on regular cable on a Tuesday afternoon. That is how desensitized we are. We are so porn-brained that traditionalism looks like the real obscenity. Show people a mother, a father, and a bunch of children, and suddenly they all start screeching like vampires caught in direct sunlight.

This “breeding kink'“ accusation reveals so much, it takes something that is normal, good, foundational, and forces it into pornographic language. This is the state of the modern mind, we cannot understand anything as sacred without dragging it into the sewer. The body is no longer seen as a gift given by God, it is seen primarily through the lens of desire, pleasure, self-expression, and therefore anything we do with our bodies must have a sexual connotation of some sort, this is the logical conclusion.

Children are the opposite of sexual libertinism, they are not self-expression, they are self-denial, they are not the endless pursuit of self and of personal autonomy, they are the daily death of autonomy in the service of love.

The very same people who demand endless compassion and understanding for every ridiculous, deranged, degenerate sexual preference, suddenly become total puritans the second anyone says babies are good, and this right here is what gives them all away, they are not offended by sex, they are offended by sex having meaning. (Read more.)

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How Religious Toleration for the Irish Helped America Win Independence

 From Providence:

In July Fourth 1779, Congress went to Mass. One newspaper reported that on “the day which gave freedom to the vast republic of America, the Congress, the president and councils of state, with other civil and military officers” attended “Roman chapel” at the invitation of “His Most Christian Majesty” Louis XVI’s emissary. “A Te Deum was performed,” giving “great satisfaction to all present.” Protestant American rebels worshipping with Catholic French monarchists elicited cross-confessional interest in another country: Ireland. 

The above report comes from the Presbyterian Londonderry Journal in the north of Ireland. Writing for the Anglican Freeman’s Journal in Dublin, Catholic polemicist Father Arthur O’Leary wondered how “banishment and proscription, on account of religious systems” still prevailed in Ireland when “Presbyterians and Catholics chant the Te Deum in the same chapel in America?” Irish interest in Franco-American worship suggests that the American Revolution was a war with not only global implications but religious ones too. Irishmen and Irish-Americans—Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic—provided essential manpower for both rebels and royalists alike. How Crown and Congress respectively managed religious tensions in mobilizing Irish troops helped decide the war’s outcome. The Continental Army overcame sectarian tensions to become a multiconfessional force. In contrast, King George’s army saw religious animosities hamper recruitment, strain soldier-officer relations, and polarize the war in Ireland.      

Nearly half a million Irish immigrated to British North America in the eighteenth century. Outside New England, one in six white Americans were of Irish descent. Two-thirds were “Scotch-Irish” Presbyterians, the rest mostly Catholics. The American colonies appealed to Irishmen because they lacked the religious hierarchy that restricted liberty and opportunity in Ireland. Sectarian and dynastic wars in seventeenth-century Ireland produced a “Protestant Ascendancy” that prescribed privileges for Anglicans but led to dispossession for Catholics and discrimination against Presbyterians. While Catholics owned two-thirds of Irish land in 1640, they retained only a tenth of it sixty years later. “Penal laws” deprived Catholics of civil rights. Largely of Scottish descent, Presbyterians provided invaluable settlers and soldiers to the Ascendancy, yet remained second-class subjects. The Sacramental Test Act excluded most Presbyterians from politics. The linen industry, lifeblood of Presbyterian Ulster, suffered trade fluctuations exacerbated by British commercial rules. Presbyterians resented Anglican attempts in the 1710s to nullify their marriages and collect tithes. New Light minister John Abernathy’s call for “every man” to “enjoy the freedom of following the Light of his Conscience” resonated with Presbyterians. Unavailable in Ireland, economic and religious liberty proved plentiful in America.  

“The Irish in America, with a few exceptions, were attached to independence,” observed a South Carolina patriot.. Irish Presbyterians constituted a fifth of Pennsylvanians and a quarter of South Carolinians and Georgians.. Frontier fights against the French and their Native American allies reinforced Presbyterian attachment to ideals of liberty and property. Many Irish Presbyterians had preferred to emigrate than to pay tithes supporting an exclusionary Ascendancy.  Their descendants preferred to fight than to pay taxes imposed by a remote Parliament. If the first shot at Concord was likely discharged by a New England Puritan, many future volleys fired in freedom’s name came from Irish Presbyterians. (Read more.)

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Lady Hamilton: The 18th-Century Beauty Who Revived Ancient Greek Fashion

 

From The Greek Reporter:

Lady Hamilton, a woman who became famous in Europe for her astonishing beauty as well as her political influence, also spread ancient Greek-inspired fashion across the continent for the first time. Born into poverty and working as a scullery maid in her teenage years, she was scorned by her first two lovers who took advantage of her youthful beauty and then left her. Her third lover, however, was Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador to Naples, who, against all social norms, then made her his wife. Lady Hamilton soon became a fashion icon and started trends, such as draping herself in simple garments that were inspired by classical times and ancient Greece, in particular. She called this Greek-inspired theme “Attitudes” and was known to have used her many shawls during her public performances based on ancient Greek symposia.

Goethe famously wrote of Lady Hamilton: “She wears a Greek garb, becoming to her to perfection. She then merely loosens her locks, takes a pair of shawls, and effects changes of postures, moods, gestures, mien, and appearance that make one really feel as if one were in some dream….”

“Successively standing, kneeling, seated, reclining, grave, sad, sportive, teasing, abandoned, penitent, alluring, threatening, agonized…one follows the other, and grows out of it. She knows how to choose and shift the simple folds of her single kerchief for every expression, and to adjust it into a hundred kinds of headgear,” he wrote. (Read more.)

 

More on Lady Hamilton, HERE.

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The Ruin of England

 From Steyn Online:

Manchester's Soldier of Allah lived his entire life on the other side of that unacknowledged division. So too did his family, and large numbers of their social circle (as we'll explore later this week). And so too will thousands and thousands of those arriving at Dover and Gatwick and Manchester today, and tomorrow, and the day after.

Britain is "divided", perhaps fatally. It's not so much the comparatively small numbers of suicide bombers, or even the support group of family and friends - the dad who works at the mosque pending his return to the battlefield, the sister who congratulates him on entering Paradise, the sister's schoolmates who drop out to be become brides of Isis, the bomb-maker who lives down the street, the other friends and family who turn a blind eye to it all. Beyond all that is the larger comfort zone of "British" Muslims who support the ultimate goal of Salman Abedi - an Islamic state where once was England - and for the most part live their daily lives as if it's already here. "Britain" has no purchase on them, and its "values" command no allegiance - even though, lest they give offense, non-divisive officials are careful never to spell out precisely what those "values" are". Easier to chant the approved abstractions, and warn against the non-approved ones: Diversity good, division bad.

But in Britain and Europe they sowed diversity and reaped division. Tthe ever widening division was sown by Mrs May and M Juncker and Frau Merkel and all the others who insist on importing more Abedis and more of those who turn a blind eye to the Abedis, day by day, year on year. Only when that ends can there be even the possibility of healing the division. (Read more.)

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14 Common Etiquette Mistakes

 From Good Housekeeping:

We've all had our share of cringeworthy social interactions. While it's common to make a social misstep, it's not a great feeling. We tapped Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert, author and speaker to fill us in on the most common etiquette mistakes. She shared that some things you might think are polite, like addressing someone as "ma'am" or putting your pinky up while you're drinking tea, can actually come across as impolite.

Avoiding these etiquette mistakes will help you relax and have a better time next time you're a wedding guest, houseguest, or attending a party.

Using Sir and Ma’am

Many people were raised to respectfully address others as sir and ma’am. Although this was polite to do as children addressing adults, it’s not the best etiquette once we leave childhood, because it can carry connotations of submissiveness or older age.

"As we age, it's much more appropriate to use someone's name," Gottsman explains. If a first-name basis feels too informal, you can address people with their title and last name to show respect.

Clinking Glasses

This is a surprising one! After a toast, you shouldn’t clink glasses. This is because your dinner host may be serving you in their best glassware. You don’t want to spill your drink on their nice linens from thrusting your cup around, and you certainly don’t want to chip or shatter your host’s fine glasses.

If somebody tries to clink with you, you should of course graciously oblige rather than correct or ignore them. But the preferred response to a toast is raising your glass and nodding to your fellow guests, no clinking required. (Read more.)

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A Day in the Laborious Life of a Medieval Scribe

  

From The Collector:

Before we wrote things down on paper, we passed them down through oral tradition. Ancestral lineages, mythologies, folk tales, and songs were the sort of thing you might expect to hear recited around the hearth each night. Eventually, trade records were inscribed on stone or papyrus: the very first receipts. As cultures began to create more symbols representing phonetic sounds, more things were recorded. By the 14th century, a wealth of information was available in the form of a book. But who wrote them? Let’s learn about medieval scribes. 

So, what is a scribe? “Scribe,” a contemporary word derivative of the medieval scrībere, or “to write,” was a person whose entire life’s work consisted of copying texts. The beauty of the scribe is in its diversity: a monk or nun could be one as an act of devotion, a literate tradesperson could be one for commission, even a creative courtesan could become a scribe if they had the means.

Where you were writing and who the work was commissioned for largely dictated the content of the work. For example, a monastery would likely be commissioned to write a large religious text, whereas a private scribe could be commissioned to copy secular works, such as Roman de la Rose, one of the most popular stories of the period. In some unique cases, the scribe had complete creative liberty over the content as well as the style of the manuscript. (Read more.)

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Maryland Board Of Elections Announces Significant Mail-In Ballot Error For June 2026 Primary

 From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

It shouldn't be this difficult to get elections right in Maryland. After all, Maryland is a relatively small state with approximately 4,312,855 registered voters (18th out of 50) compared to states like California with over twenty-three million. Neighboring states Virginia (12th out of 50) and Pennsylvania (5th out of 50). Of course, those states have their own problems with voting.

Many of these problems center around mail in ballots. That is no surprise.

Maryland election officials have confirmed this past week that there has been a significant mail‑in ballot error affecting the June 2026 primary, prompting the statewide reissuance of all previously mailed ballots. The problem stems from a vendor mistake that caused some voters to receive the wrong party’s ballot for the gubernatorial primary, with Democrats receiving Republican ballots and vice versa.

This error occurred with an estimated 500,000 mail in ballots sent to voters after May 14th, 2026. The error does not affect anyone who was mailed a ballot before May 14, 2026, or those who received/requested their mail-in ballot by web delivery (Print at Home ballot).Since the state cannot determine who got a faulty ballot, all the voters who received mail in ballots after that date will get replacements.

The vendor was blamed as making the mistake and not the local boards. It has not been determined if the vendor will be held financially responsible for the mistake or if taxpayers will bear the expense which some estimate could be seven figures.

One of the biggest concerns is how the state will keep those who received both faulty and replacement ballot from mailing in TWO ballots. (Read more.)

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Odysseus’ Sanctuary on Ithaca

 From ZME Science:

The rocky hills of Ithaca, home to olive groves and old Greek legends, have now yielded their most evocative secret: the possible sanctuary of Odysseus. At a site known for over two centuries as the “School of Homer,” archaeologists have unearthed compelling evidence of a hero cult that persisted for more than a thousand years — dedicated to the mythological king of Ithaca himself and protagonist of Homer’s Odyssey.

The discovery was announced by the Greek Ministry of Culture in early June, 2025, but it is the culmination of decades of archaeological labor. The project, based at the Agios Athanasios site in northern Ithaca, is led by Professor Emeritus Giannos G. Lolos and includes work by Dr. Christina Marambea of the University of Ioannina.

While historians agree that Odysseus was a fictional character, these findings reveal just how real his memory was to the ancient Greeks, who worshipped him, invoked him, and etched his name into stone for generations.

This is the strongest indication yet that the legends of Homer’s Odyssey were not just preserved in verse — but etched into the lives, rituals, and civic identity of the people who lived where the story begins. (Read more.)

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