A photo of this Sunday / Monday’s eclipse, originally taken by Nasa
Following on from my post about the eclipse that occurred late last night / early this morning, here is a photo of the event originally taken by NASA. Thanks to Keith for sending it.
Filed under Supernatural
Stop all your verbal attacks against Chic, Tabby, Nick Farrell, Pat Zalewski, the SRIA and all the rest, and use your supposed EU trademarks to stop the neo-nazis in Greece from bringing the “Golden Dawn” name into disrepute.
If you want to be remembered for doing something good for the Golden Dawn community, that is.
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A skeleton in the High Street – from “Glastonbury People”
News today that skeletons have been appearing on the streets of Glastonbury! I.e. in the form of graffiti. It is an utter mystery why they got there. Which is as much to say that I just had a quick squizz at Banksy’s website and he’s not admitting responsibility … yet.
Anywow, assuming that it is one of the denizens who either lives in or regularly visits Glastonbury, it occurs to me that there is a good chance that I am already “friends” on Facebook/Twitter/etc with the perpetrator! If so, feel free to drop me a private message fessing up. 🙂
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This is a follow-up to my last post. Just to demonstrate that I am prepared to put my money where my mouth is, I have now translated my About page (see the Alex Sumner link in the navigation bar) – which, coincidentally, is where you can find links to buying my books either in print or as ebooks, plug, plug – into five extra languages, to reflect the linguae francae of the non-Anglophone countries on my top ten list. To wit: German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian.
Unfortunately Filipino is not among them, as I fancy my proof-reading skills in Asian languages even less than I do in European ones!
Filed under Books, Site Update
Instead of a post about occultism, for a change I will deal today with “Voodoo Statistics” (i.e. please don’t shout at me too much in regard to my methodology) – in order to answer the question, what are the Top 10 Countries in which market an ebook in the English language?
By my calculations they are (biggest potential market first):
| Rank | Country | % of potential world market for English language ebooks |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | United States | 42% |
| 2. | United Kingdom | 10% |
| 3. | Germany | 8% |
| 4. | Canada | 4% |
| 5. | France | 4% |
| 6. | Australia | 3% |
| 7. | Philippines | 3% |
| 8. | The Netherlands | 3% |
| 9. | Italy | 2% |
| 10. | Spain | 2% |
“Wait!” I hallucinate that I hear you ask. “Germany above Canada? How can that be so?” Quite simple: there are more people in Germany who speak English as a second language than there are in Canada who speak it as either a first or second language. This indeed is the reason why non-anglophone countries make it onto the list at all.
Other factors used to determine ranking include % of people with Internet access and relative poverty / richness. India for example has 125,000,000 English speakers, but because over half the population live below the Poverty line (defined by the UN as earning less than $2 / day) and only 7.5% have access to the internet, the potential market for ebooks must logically be a mere fraction of this number.
Of the countries of the rest of the world, most of the member states of the European Union ranked highly. The highest ranked country in Asia was Turkey at number 14. The highest ranked country in Africa was Nigeria at number 22, whilst Brazil was the highest ranked country in South America at number 23.
Filed under Books
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Hecate: More Cognitive Dissonance
Line-drawing of a recently re-discovered Defixion or curse tablet.
A slow day on Planet Sumner today, which is why I was forced into reading the Daily Mail, where lo and behold, I uncover a story about an ancient “Defixion” or “curse tablet.” There have been defixiones before but this is particularly interesting because it was recently re-discovered after having been lost for a hundred years.
The Defixion in question seems to be a binding spell against an unfortunate chap called Psellus. Intriguingly, a feminine goddess appears to be invoked: the Italian scientist interviewed tentatively suggests that it might be Hecate.
Hecate
Now I can think of one good reason why it might not be so: the female figure depicted on the Defixion has none of the known traditional symbolism. However, the Fluffy-Bunny Brigade have taken to the comments section denying that it is Hecate, because they can’t believe that she would ever curse anybody.
Sigh. It doesn’t take five minutes to come up with the most sympathetic description of Hecate from ancient times, namely Hesiod’s Theogony:
It ought not to take a genius to realise that if Hecate is gracious enough to grant victory in “the battle that destroys men,” to her faithful followers, it is not beyond her scruples to see their enemies defeated, i.e. destroyed.
So, whether or not the female figure on the Defixion is question is Hecate, would she realistically have been willing to curse someone anyway? In the right circumstances yes she would – because two thousand years before the invention of fluffy-bunnyism and political correctness, that is how ancient people viewed the gods and goddesses.
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Tagged as Daily Mail, Fluffy bunnies, Hecate