Saturday Scenes

In 1460, Margaret, the daughter of King Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, was engaged to marry James III, King of Scots. The political point of the union was to end the feud over the Hebrids islands between Denmark and Scotland. Her father pledged the islands of Orkney and Shetland, possessed by the Norwegian crown, as security against the considerable dowry that her rank commanded. Margaret and James married in 1469 at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.

Orkney – Wikipedia

Apparently without the knowledge of the Norwegian Rigsraadet (Council of the Realm), Christian pawned Orkney for 50,000 Rhenish guilders. On 28 May the next year he also pawned Shetland for 8,000 Rhenish guilders. He had secured a clause in the contract which gave future kings of Norway the right to redeem the islands for a fixed sum of 210 kg of gold or 2,310 kg of silver.

On the 20th February, 1472, the dowry remained unpaid and James annexed the islands to the Scottish Crown.

When in the 20th century, there was some Orcadian dissatisfaction with the government of the United Kingdom, some Orcadians investigated the terms of Margaret’s marriage contract and pleaded to the Kings of Denmark and Norway to pay Margaret’s dowry to the British Exchequer so that Orkney and Shetland would return to the government of a Scandinavian nation and not be governed by the United Kingdom.

However, from 20 Feb 1472 to 20 Feb 2010, it appears that none of the later Kings have been inspired to pay up.

And on Saturday, the 20th of February 2010, we had not a single Scottish submission. However, England is heavily represented, swiftly followed by Switzerland and the U.S. as well as a selection from Dubai, Israel, Holland, Spain and Ireland – we’re almost as multi-national as the Winter Olympics!

We have a great selection of submitters both old and new. Encourage one another!

• raumsinn
• capo42
• Twasntme
• Sithefire
• sarahfenn
• domr
• michrueg
• Mutley627441
• RAFairman
• icklemouse
• rOcKeTmAn_76
• jmorby
• JanetIsserlis
• elibrody
• akrabat
• ingridf
• akaSylvia
• drewbenn
• tashenubaste
• timewind
• pixelfreund
• cornellfinch
• tradingnothing

We’d love to see your photos, too! Just take a picture on a Saturday and send it to SatScenes with a location.

George Orwell (best known for Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm) kept a diary, that much we know. The The Orwell Prize | Diaries has made these available in blog format as a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the diaries, which they say began in 1938. They are posting his diary entries exactly seventy years after each entry was written; the first time they have been published in collected form. It’s most interesting to read Orwell’s thoughts from the late 1930s mixed in with current blogposts in my RSS reader.

However, the The Diary Junction Blog points out that Orwell most certainly had a journal before 1938. Paul K. Lyons has put forward the details of the various arguments, including this sample of Orwell’s diary.

13 February 1936

‘Housing conditions in Wigan terrible. Mrs H tells me that at her brother’s house (he is only 25, so I think he must be her half-brother, but he has already a child of 8), 11 people, five of them adults, belonging to 3 different families, live in 4 rooms, ‘2 up 2 down’. All the miners I meet have either had serious accidents themselves or have friends or relatives who have. Mrs H’s cousin had his back broken by a fall of rock – ‘And he lingered seven year afore he dies and it were a-punishing of him all the while’ – and her brother-in-law fell 1200 feet down the shaft of a new pit. Apparently he bounced from side to side, so was presumably dead before he got to the bottom. Mrs H adds: ‘They wouldn’t never have collected t’pieces only he were wearing a new suit of oilskins.’

So, if anyone should be wondering about Saturday Scenes, I’d like to offer up the following as proof that we were actively taking lots of great photographs as of 13 February, 2010:

Make sure to pop by the Twitter streams of everyone who took a photograph so we could see a scene from their Saturday:

• LannaGirl
• rauchy
• RAFairman
• Sithefire
• dlewis1701
• raumsinn
• rOcKeTmAn_76
• gwilkinson1989
• sarahfenn
• dreamsthedream
• twasntme
• ColinBrooks
• mousewords
• akaSylvia
• vaxanta
• timewind
• JanetIsserlis
• 7of12
• 9to5poet
• elibrody
• pixelesh

Every person who submits a Saturday Scene gets added to the Saturday Scenes list, so you can watch that page and see what people are doing the rest of the week!

Would you like to join in? Simply take a photograph on a Saturday and tweet it to SatScenes with the location!

On the 6th of February 1966 a star was born.

Newton-le-Willows is a part of Merseyside now but on that cold February in 1966, it was still considered a part of Lancashire. Although he recently referred to his biggest hit as “naff”, the song released in 1987 is still popular today and in fact, SurveyUSA estimated that some 18 million American adults had seen his video on youTube.

He was born on February 6, 1966 in the North of England and was brought up in a small coal-mining town called Newton-Le-Willows. He was the youngest of 4 children and followed in his mother’s footsteps with his fondness of music. Rick sang in a local church choir but his love for the drums inevitably found him in local bands by his early teenage years.

Have you figured out who yet?

Yes, I admit that I’m easily amused. You knew that already, didn’t you?

On the 6th of February, 2010, I thoroughly enjoyed myself looking through all your photographs. This week’s set is full of fun:

Say hello to these fine people who are never gonna let you down:

• carocat
• LannaGirl
• rOcKeTmAn_76
• gwilkinson1989
• twasntme
• sarahfenn
• NevilleFenn
• raumsinn
• JanetIsserlis
• tradingnothing
• Pewari
• akrabat
• RAFairman
• Neal55
• pixelfreund
• elibrody
• timewind
• azmichelle
• drewbenn
• ingridf
• akaSylvia

And hey you, yes you! Take a photograph on Saturday!

(To be included, just send an @reply to SatScenes with a link to the photo and the location. We’d love to see your corner of the world!)

On the 30th of January 1835, Richard Lawrence made the first known assassination attempt on an American president. Convinced that he was truly King Richard III of England (1452-1485) and that somehow President Andrew Jackson was to blame for his poverty, Lawrence bought two derringers and waited outside the Capitol to exact his revenge and regain his throne.

AmericanHeritage.com / Trying to Assassinate President Jackson

In the soft rain before the capitol, he aimed his shaking hand at Jackson’s chest and squeezed one pistol’s trigger. The hammer snapped down, detonating the small percussion cap that was supposed to spark the gunpowder in the barrel. The cap let out a loud bang but nothing more. Lawrence dropped that pistol and aimed the second one, but it misfired as well. The would-be assassin caught the crowd’s attention with the noise of the two explosions, but he did Jackson no harm.

Andrew Jackson, nicknamed Old Hickory, was no stranger to a fight and he immediately reacted by attacking Lawrence with his cane. Richard Lawrence was disarmed and taken away, under arrest. He insisted he had good reason to attack and “…boasted about his assassination attempt, shocked only that the crowd had failed to defend him from Jackson.”

And THEN, on the 30th of January in 2010, these killer-good photographs were taken. Coincidence? I think not!

Who took these great photographs? These people right here:

• twasntme
• Sithefire
• RAFairman
• Korwhai
• tradingnothing
• raumsinn
• akrabat
• pendrift
• gwilkinson1989
• elibrody
• sarahfenn
• apgphoto
• LannaGirl
• CliffStanford
• JanetIsserlis
• UKMelia
• timewind
• pixelfreund
• akaSylvia

It’s easy to take part!

1) Take a photo on a Saturday and upload it to a site like Flickr or Twitpic
2) Twitter the url for your photograph to @SatScenes
3) Watch for the next post on Twitter Blog to see a great set of all the photographs together.

I’m looking forward to seeing your scenes!