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Friday Five for 9th October 2020
Oct. 9th, 2020 05:00 pm1) What is the oldest thing you own?
Probably my father's violin -- ah, but I don't own that, it's just on loan. The beat-up old upright piano I was given in ~2014 is probably the oldest thing, then. (I have a serpent, but it's a 1992 reproduction so not really that old at all in musical instrument terms.) If we were going to discount musical instruments then I suppose it would be my desk, which I inherited from a moving-away vicar (also in 2014); it's maybe 1960s? A beautiful, and very large, "partner desk" which I sometimes manage to find the surface of.
2) What is the oldest home you've lived in?
Ooh, I'd probably have to do a bit of research to figure that one out. It will probably be one of the houses I've lived in in Leytonstone -- both are Victorian buildings. It looks like probably the one on Wallwood Road is slightly older than the current one, by maybe a decade? The house in Bath is rather older, being roughly Georgian, but I'm not sure if "stayed for four months, then visited a lot" counts as living there for the purpose of this question.
3) What is the oldest book you've read?
This is a rather complex question but undoubtedly one of the books of the Bible (...most of which I can only say I have read in translation, I'm slow enough at Hebrew and apply myself so seldom to it that I haven't made my way through the entire book of Psalms, and my Greek is basically non-existent. I've had all of Esther read *to* me and followed along, and so on, but that's not really the same.)
4) What is the oldest electronic device that you still use?
The timer for the boiler in this house. I think it may be 1980s or 1990s in origin. It's the sort that allows you to set two time slots, and the hot water and heating can each either be off, "once" (i.e. from the start of the first slot to the end of the second), or "twice" (on for the duration of each slot, but off in between). This is colloquially referred to as a "thermostat" although it is no such thing; and such a thing wouldn't be particularly useful in this house, which is warm in one quarter (the bathroom, and the room occupied by a housemate) and cool to cold in the rest. Sometimes, I dislike renting.
I had a 1980s electronic metronome for a while too but I'm not sure where it went, and I certainly don't still use it.
5) What is the oldest work of art/architecture that you've seen?
In person? Avebury or Stonehenge; I understand they're roughly the same age. I'm not entirely sure these are art *or* architecture, but perhaps, like more recent religious buildings such as cathedrals, they could be both.
But I've also seen pictures of e.g. cave paintings and the like, which I take to be much older. The internet is a wondrous thing.
Questions by Florianschild.
Probably my father's violin -- ah, but I don't own that, it's just on loan. The beat-up old upright piano I was given in ~2014 is probably the oldest thing, then. (I have a serpent, but it's a 1992 reproduction so not really that old at all in musical instrument terms.) If we were going to discount musical instruments then I suppose it would be my desk, which I inherited from a moving-away vicar (also in 2014); it's maybe 1960s? A beautiful, and very large, "partner desk" which I sometimes manage to find the surface of.
2) What is the oldest home you've lived in?
Ooh, I'd probably have to do a bit of research to figure that one out. It will probably be one of the houses I've lived in in Leytonstone -- both are Victorian buildings. It looks like probably the one on Wallwood Road is slightly older than the current one, by maybe a decade? The house in Bath is rather older, being roughly Georgian, but I'm not sure if "stayed for four months, then visited a lot" counts as living there for the purpose of this question.
3) What is the oldest book you've read?
This is a rather complex question but undoubtedly one of the books of the Bible (...most of which I can only say I have read in translation, I'm slow enough at Hebrew and apply myself so seldom to it that I haven't made my way through the entire book of Psalms, and my Greek is basically non-existent. I've had all of Esther read *to* me and followed along, and so on, but that's not really the same.)
4) What is the oldest electronic device that you still use?
The timer for the boiler in this house. I think it may be 1980s or 1990s in origin. It's the sort that allows you to set two time slots, and the hot water and heating can each either be off, "once" (i.e. from the start of the first slot to the end of the second), or "twice" (on for the duration of each slot, but off in between). This is colloquially referred to as a "thermostat" although it is no such thing; and such a thing wouldn't be particularly useful in this house, which is warm in one quarter (the bathroom, and the room occupied by a housemate) and cool to cold in the rest. Sometimes, I dislike renting.
I had a 1980s electronic metronome for a while too but I'm not sure where it went, and I certainly don't still use it.
5) What is the oldest work of art/architecture that you've seen?
In person? Avebury or Stonehenge; I understand they're roughly the same age. I'm not entirely sure these are art *or* architecture, but perhaps, like more recent religious buildings such as cathedrals, they could be both.
But I've also seen pictures of e.g. cave paintings and the like, which I take to be much older. The internet is a wondrous thing.
Questions by Florianschild.