Saturday Scenes

One quiet June Saturday in 2009, @ingridf inspired a special themed SatScenes based on the question Who Are You?. It was a great success. This is the fifth Self-Portrait Saturday on a now annual event where submitters are encouraged to turn the camera around and take photographs of themselves.

This Saturday, we had many lovely traditional submissions but also really interesting self-portraits of all kinds. I adore the results: a great selection of interesting and charming photographs of so many of the people who submit to Saturday Scenes every week.

If you are wondering who is in the photograph, simply hover your mouse over the thumbnail and you should see the Twitter name. Say hello! Make friends!

But first, take a look at all these wonderful photographs:

Then click on through to say hello:

• pendrift
• akrabat
• jackie_reid
• robdavies
• rnout
• Pewari
• davey_steven
• madyline
• icklemouse
• Namasqui
• maidbloke
• FrauKulli
• tonystanford
• martin_chrisj
• jamesnnb
• sugarpopzvicky
• akaSylvia
• CliffStanford
• noirem
• oxonlady
• thermalhound
• amberdine
• gwenthing
• dudleypj
• JeannieKelly
• slimatshelfsw
• fembat
• RealCainMosni
• elibrody
• Krautie
• drewbenn

It’s also great fun to look through the previous years and see how people have changed:

• June 2009
• June 2010
• July 2011
• June 2012

Hard to believe that a quick photo collaboration to compare our days has been going for five years now! I’m so glad you all are as interested in scenes from around the world as I am!

Sometimes it can be hard to find interesting events for every date. I’ve recently discovered the exciting world of calendar reform and that the calendar as set by the Pope in the 16th century (having removed a bunch of days) was the source of much argument, leading to a chronological divide between the Protestants and Catholics in Europe.

This means that for any date in England prior to 1752, I can choose between the modern (Gregorian) calendar and the Julian Calender.

On the 4th of June in 1561, St Paul’s Cathedral was struck by lightning. If I shift the date to the Gregorian calendar, it becomes the 15th of June, which happens to be last Saturday! So convenient!

Old St Paul’s Cathedral – Wikipedia

On 4 June 1561 the spire caught fire and crashed through the nave roof. According to a newsheet published days after the fire, the cause was a lightning strike. In 1753, David Henry, a writer for The Gentleman’s Magazine, revived a rumour in his Historical description of St. Paul’s Cathedral, writing that a plumber had “confessed on his death bed” that he had “left a pan of coals and other fuel in the tower when he went to dinner.” However, the number of contemporary eyewitnesses to the storm and a subsequent investigation appears to contradict this. Whatever the cause, the subsequent conflagration was hot enough to melt the cathedral’s bells and the lead covering the wooden spire “poured down like lava upon the roof”, destroying it. This event was taken by both Protestants and Catholics as a sign of God’s displeasure at the other faction’s actions.

Meanwhile, on the 15th of June in 2013, there was no question of the date: it was a Saturday full of spectacular scenes:

And here are the wonderful people who took them:

• madyline
• martin_chrisj
• oxonlady
• robdavies
• Jo_1067
• exRAFairman
• bridgeyuk
• tonystanford
• ClareRevell
• maidbloke
• thermalhound
• WadeyLady001
• noirem
• Pewari
• pendrift
• FrauKulli
• akrabat
• TLee27
• JeannieKelly
• HarryMyhre
• icklemouse
• davey_steven
• Namasqui
• amberdine
• Krautie
• HeideSpruck
• twasntme
• jamesnnb
• gwenthing
• dudleypj
• rnout
• akaSylvia
• DaughterofLir
• dndtsa
• RealCainMosni

Next week: Self-Portrait Saturday! Just like every other Saturday except that you are invited — encouraged even! — to turn the camera around and take a photograph of yourself. Would you like inspiration? Take a look at the last four years of self-portraits:

• June 2009
• June 2010
• July 2011
• June 2012

The rules are simple: You have to take the photograph on Saturday, just like every other week! Simply submit it with a location and we’ll end up with a great collage.

You don’t have to take a self-portrait if you don’t want to but it sure is fun to see the faces (and feet, and other clever interpretations) behind the lens.

See you on Saturday?

On the 8th of June in 1856, Norfolk Island was settled for the third time in recorded history.

The island was originally settled by East Polynesian seafarers who arrived in the 14th or 15th century. After a few generations, they disappeared.

The British claimed the island in 1788 and used it as a penal settlement. However, it was considered too remote and too costly. The British transportation of convicts was replaced with prisons in the UK and the last convicts at Norfolk Island were removed in May 1855, at which point it was abandoned.

Meanwhile, in 1790 the nine mutineers on the HMS Bounty had discovered that charts showing the location of the Pitcairn Islands were inaccurate by over 170 miles/300km. Knowing they would thus not be found, they settled the islands with eighteen Tahitian “companions” in 1767. By the time the island was rediscovered, the descendents were already outgrowing the islands.

Norfolk Island – Wikipedia

On 8 June 1856, the next settlement began on Norfolk Island. These were the descendants of Tahitians and the HMS Bounty mutineers, including those of Fletcher Christian. They resettled from the Pitcairn Islands, which had become too small for their growing population. They left Pitcairn Islands on 3 May 1856 and arrived with 194 persons on 8 June. The Pitcairners occupied many of the buildings remaining from the penal settlements, and gradually established traditional farming and whaling industries on the island. Although some families decided to return to Pitcairn in 1858 and 1863, the island’s population continued to grow. They accepted additional settlers, who often arrived with whaling fleets.

On the 8th of June in 2013, the population of Norfolk Island is 2,169 people. And coincidentally, if you add those numbers up and double them and subtract two, you get EXACTLY the number of photographs sent in last Saturday:

And here’s the ever expanding population of people who take glorious photographs:

• RealCainMosni
• ClareRevell
• exRAFairman
• akrabat
• slimatshelfsw
• martin_chrisj
• Pewari
• elibrody
• maidbloke
• icklemouse
• JeannieKelly
• davey_steven
• __ProjectMonkey
• CarolineBignell
• rnout
• jamesnnb
• noirem
• dudleypj
• SockYarnShop
• HeideSpruck
• WadeyLady001
• bridgeyuk
• Jo_1067
• amberdine
• drewbenn
• pendrift
• phpGargoyle
• carocat
• DyerRock
• panelpatter
• CallumDG
• HughGW
• dndtsa
• akaSylvia

Every June(ish), we do a special event called Self-Portrait Saturday! This year, I declare it to be the 22nd of June. So get some practice turning the camera around and I’ll post more details next week.

Also, we want to see more photographs of more places! Simply tweet the location of your photograph (taken on a Saturday) to @SatScenes to be included.

Follow @SatScenes for more details and you’ll never miss another edition.

On the 1st of June in 1495, the first recorded reference to distilling Scotch whisky is made.

“To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae, VIII bolls of malt.” Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, 1 June 1495.

Friar John Cor was a monk based at Lindores Abbey in Fife. The record shows that eight bolls of malt were given to Friar John Cor for him to make the water of life: aqua vitae, also known as uisge beatha.

Whisky production was first taxed in 1644, causing a rise in illicit whisky distilling in the country. By 1780, there were eight legal distilleries and over 400 illegal ones. Smuggling became standard practice.

Scotch Whisky Association – History of Scotch Whisky

Even Ministers of the Kirk made storage space available under the pulpit, and the illicit spirit was on occasion transported by coffin – any effective means was used to escape the watchful eyes of the excisemen.

Clandestine stills were hidden in the heather-clad hills, and smugglers organised signalling systems from one hilltop to another whenever excise officers were seen to arrive in the vicinity.

By the 1820s, despite the fact that as many as 14,000 illicit stills were being confiscated every year, more than half the whisky consumed in Scotland was being enjoyed without payment of duty.

Finally, restrictions on licensed distilleries were lifted and the illegal distilleries disappeared almost over night. This was the beginning of the modern era of Scotch.

On the 1st of June in 2013, the modern era of superb Saturday scenes was continued with these submissions:

And these were the people who took them:

• akrabat
• martin_chrisj
• Race2Recovery
• pendrift
• 65WZ
• thermalhound
• Pewari
• exRAFairman
• CarolineBignell
• HeideSpruck
• annemnicholas
• oxonlady
• HarryMyhre
• SazzyMCH
• icklemouse
• JeannieKelly
• davey_steven
• noirem
• jamesnnb
• dugghelen
• ikklemissmouse
• Woodmoose
• sugarpopzvicky
• elibrody
• FrauKulli
• maidbloke
• akaSylvia
• dudleypj
• twasntme
• WadeyLady001
• Jo_1067
• SockYarnShop
• robdavies
• DaughterofLir
• rnout
• RealCainMosni

We’d love to see MORE photographs of more places! Simply tweet the location of your photograph (taken on a Saturday) to @SatScenes to be included.

Follow @SatScenes for more details and you’ll never miss another edition.