The Trip to Egypt (Day Ten)

Sunday April 19th
DAY TEN

So, more temples.

The planned trip wd have had us start the day at Edfu, touring the Temple of Edfu, another of the late (Ptolemaic) temples, this one dedicated to Horus.

From there it'd be downriver to Esna and the Temple of Esna. Then it wd have been downriver a little more, bringing us back to Luxor. There's Luxor light show that night, but I suspect it'll be hard for a modern light show to match the splendor of the ancient temples themselves. In any case, I suspect we'll probably be saving up our strength for the big event to come: Giza.

--John R.

Sometimes You Don't Get the Book You Wanted

So, a few years back* I picked up a book by Humphrey Carpenter I only now finally took time to have a look at: A GREAT SILLY GRIN: THE BRITISH SATIRE BOOM OF THE 1960s --a group biography of the type Carpenter did so well.**

I thought that since I like Peter Sellers (a brilliant but troubled man) on the one hand and Monty Python on the other this wd be a good way to bridge the gap, to see how the talent of the 1950s segued into that of the '60s and the legacy they left behind on the 70s. In particularly I wanted to learn how the Goon Show (whom I had heard much about but seen or heard v. little of their actual work) inspired those who followed.

To my disappointment, that's not what this book is about. Carpenter is primarily concerned with Alan Bennett, who I'd not even heard of, with some attention to Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and David Frost, none of whom I'm especially interested in. There are only passing references to Peter Sellers and his Goon Show partner Spike Milligan, about whom I know only enough to convince me of his importance.*** The Pythons come in only as respectful admirers of a generation later; Douglas Adams, a generation after that, escapes Carpenter's purview altogether.

So, I'll have to come back to this one at sometime down the line when I've gotten over the disappointment that's entirely my own fault: having imagined a book was one thing when it was really another.

Oh well. Even such cursory searching as I did on the internet to get a sense of what Milligan and the Goons were like, coincidently juxtaposed with my watching a documentary about the making of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, made me appreciate just how much of the famous Beatles' humour was their own take on Milligan et al. And I now see that Milligan's trademark was to take a situation, any situation, and within a few steps reduce it to anarchy. It's as if the world were constantly offering him straight lines and he cd never resist delivering the punchline that just popped into his head.

--John R.
--current reading: PAPAL LIES by Wills (finishing up); MYTHAGO WOOD (re-reading); two others.


*Kalamazoo 2012, it turns out

**like GENUISES TOGETHER, THE BRIDESHEAD GENERATION, and of course THE INKLINGS

***for a sample of Milligan at work, give a listen to his short skit ("8 o'clock") with the third Goon, Harry Secombe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjHlFPTwVk

The Trip to Egypt (Day Nine)

Saturday April 18th 2020
DAY NINE

The trip-that-wasn't wd have continued with an optional side-trip I wdn't have wanted to miss.

Leaving the First Cataract and heading upriver to Abu Simbel on Egypt's southern border wd have brought us to the colossal images of Ramses once carved into a cliff but removed and moved to higher ground when the construction of the Aswan High Dam created Lake Nasser and flooded the original site.

In addition to the row of huge figures, the Temples of Abu Simbel are also the site of the famous carvings depicting the Battle of Kadesh.

After a day seeing Ramses-style huge and impressive, it wd have been back to Aswan and the S. S. Sphinx. Still a lot to see, but I suspect it wd have been at about this point that we'd start thinking of home.

--John R.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Eight)

Friday April 17th 2020
DAY EIGHT

Another day, another temple.

Today the planned trip wd have brought us to Philae Temple, on an island in the Nile, and the Unfinished Obelesk.

Just for a complete change of pace, also on the agenda had been a ride in a felucca (the traditional Nile sailboats).

And with my love of tea I'd been looking forward to Afternoon Tea at the Old Cataract Hotel at Aswan, featured in Agatha Christie's MURDER ON THE NILE (both the book and the movie).

The Trip to Egypt (Day Seven)

Thursday April 16th
DAY SEVEN

So, by now our planned trip wd be reaching the mid-point of the Nile cruise part of the tour. 

As usual, another day wd have brought another temple: in this case, Kom Ombo Temple, which dates from Ptolemaic times.

While we'd have no doubt visited its crocodile museum, temples aside, two highlights of the day wd have been a Nubian tea and an optional bird watching side-trip, by boat, to see birds of the Nile.

--John R.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Six)

Wednesday April 15th
DAY SIX

So, this day we would have gone to the Valley of the Kings. While there, we wd have visited the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, one of the few women in Egypt's long history to have ruled as pharaoh in her own right.

If that's not enough, we were also due for a trip to the Colossus of Memnon: two colossal statues that once, back in Roman times, made an eerie moaning noise around dawn. Unfortunately the phenomenon has long since ceased.

Any spare time this day wd most definitely been spent on visiting as much of the Valley of the Kings as we cd managed.

--John R.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Five)

Tuesday April 14th
DAY FIVE

So, our schedule for this day of the trip, had all gone according to plan, would have found us starting the day at Dendara with a visit to the Temple of Hathor (previously home to the famous Zodiac of Dendara). The zodiac is now in the Louvre but here below is an image of it on a piece of papyrus I bought years ago (I think in a little shop tucked in a corner on the bottom level of the Pike Place Market) -- partly because I wanted to see what a real, if modern, piece of papyrus looked like and partly because it was a striking image of an interesting piece.

Even with such damage the Temple of Hathor is in much better shape than the Temple of Karnak we'd visited the day before, being more than a thousand years newer. Apparently it even has a large image of Cleopatra VIIth carved into one wall.

That afternoon then it wd have been back down the Nile to Luxor, where the afternoon was to be devoted to a visit of the Temple of Luxor. It's a huge and impressive place but I cdn't find a good walk-through of this one, so instead here's a nice twenty-minute sequence of Egyptian antiquity highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtw2vfKihXA


Then after Luxor Temple it'd be time to rest up for the next day's big event: The Valley of the Kings.

--John R.
--current reading: Garry Wills PAPAL SINS (resumed)