Happy Hogmanay!

Hogmanay (pronounced [ˌhɔgməˈneː] — with the main stress on the last syllable) is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year (Gregorian calendar) in the Scottish manner. Its official date is 31 December (Auld Year's Night). However this is normally only the start of a celebration which lasts through the night until the morning of Ne'erday (1 January) or, in some cases, 2 January which is a Scottish Bank Holiday.

Origins

The roots of Hogmanay perhaps reach back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Norse, as well as incorporating customs from the Gaelic New Year's celebration of Samhain. In Europe, winter solstice evolved into the ancient celebration of Saturnalia, a great Roman winter festival, where people celebrated completely free of restraint and inhibition. The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the "Daft Days" as they were sometimes called in Scotland. The winter festival went underground with the Protestant Reformation and ensuing years, but re-emerged near the end of the 17th century.

Customs

There are many customs, both national and local, associated with Hogmanay. The most widespread national custom is the practice of 'first-footing' which starts immediately after midnight. This involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbour and often involves the giving of symbolic gifts such as salt (less common today), coal, shortbread, whisky, and black bun (a rich fruit cake) intended to bring different kinds of luck to the householder. Food and drink (as the gifts) are then given to the guests. This may go on throughout the early hours of the morning and well into the next day (although modern days see people visiting houses until 3 January). The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year, so it is important that a suitable person does the job. According to popular folklore, a man with dark hair was welcomed because he was assumed to be a fellow Scotsman; a blond or red-haired stranger was assumed to be an unwelcome Norseman.[citation needed]


Local Customs

Each area of Scotland often developed its own particular Hogmanay ritual.

Stonehaven Fireballs Ceremony 2003An example of a local Hogmanay custom is the fireball swinging that takes place in Stonehaven, Kincardineshire in north-east Scotland. This involves local people making up 'balls' of chicken wire and tar, paper, and other flammable material up to a diameter of 61 cm. Each ball has 2 m of wire, chain or nonflammable rope attached. As the Old Town House bell sounds to mark the new year, the swingers set off up the High Street from the Mercat Cross to the Cannon and back, swinging their burning ball around their head as they go for as many times as they and their fireball last. At the end of the ceremony any fireballs that are still burning are cast into the harbour. Many people enjoy this display, which is more impressive in the dark than it would be during the day. As a result large crowds flock to the town to see it, with 12,000 attending the 2007/2008 event. In recent years, additional attractions have been added to entertain the crowds as they wait for midnight, such as fire poi, a pipe band, street drumming and a firework display after the last fireball is cast into the sea.

Another example of a pagan fire festival is the the burning of the clavie which takes place in the town of Burghead in Moray.

In the east coast fishing communities and Dundee, first-footers used to carry a decorated herring while in Falkland in Fife, local men would go in torchlight procession to the top of the Lomond Hills as midnight approached. Bakers in St Andrews would bake special cakes for their Hogmanay celebration (known as 'Cake Day') and distribute them to local children.

In Glasgow and the central areas of Scotland, the tradition is to hold Hogmanay parties involving singing, dancing, the eating of steak pie or stew, storytelling and consumption of copious amounts of alcohol, which usually extend into the daylight hours of January 1.

Institutions also had their own traditions. For example, amongst the Scottish regiments, the officers had to wait on the men at special dinners while at the bells, the Old Year is piped out of barrack gates. The sentry then challenges the new escort outside the gates: 'Who goes there?' The answer is 'The New Year, all's well.'

An old custom in the Highlands, which has survived to a small extent and seen some degree of revival, is to celebrate Hogmanay with the saining (Scots for 'protecting, blessing) of the household and livestock. This was done early on New Year's morning with copious, choking clouds of smoke from burning juniper branches, and by drinking and then sprinkling 'magic water' from 'a dead and living ford' around the house ('a dead and living ford' refers to a river ford which is routinely crossed by both the living and the dead). After the sprinkling of the water in every room, on the beds and all the inhabitants, the house was sealed up tight and the burning juniper carried through the house and byre. The smoke was allowed to thoroughly fumigate the buildings until it caused sneezing and coughing among the inhabitants. Then all the doors and windows were flung open to let in the cold, fresh air of the new year. The woman of the house then administered 'a restorative' from the whisky bottle, and the household sat down to their New Year breakfast.[4]

Auld Lang Syne

The Hogmanay custom of singing Auld Lang Syne has become common in many countries. Auld Lang Syne is a traditional poem reinterpreted by Robert Burns, which was later set to music. It is now common for this to be sung in a circle of linked arms that are crossed over one another as the clock strikes midnight for New Year's Day, although in Scotland the traditional practice is to cross arms only for the last verse.

Presbyterian influence

The Presbyterian Church generally disapproved of Hogmanay. The following quote is one of the first mentions of the holiday in official church records:

'It is ordinary among some plebeians in the South of Scotland to go about from door to door upon New-years Eve, crying Hagmane.'

Until the 1960s, Hogmanay and Ne'erday (a contraction of 'New Year's Day' in Scots dialect, according to the OED) in Scotland took the place of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the rest of the UK. Although Christmas Day held its normal religious nature, the Presbyterian national church, the Church of Scotland, had discouraged its celebration for over 400 years. As a result Christmas Day was a normal working day in Scotland until the 1960s and even into the 1970s in some areas. The gift-giving, public holidays and feasting associated with mid-winter were held between the 31 December and 2 January rather than between 24 December and 26 December.

With the fading of the Church's influence and the introduction of English cultural values via television and immigration, the transition to Christmas feasting was well-nigh complete by the 1980s. However, 1 January and 2 January remain public holidays in Scotland, despite the addition of Christmas Day and Boxing Day to the public holiday list, and Hogmanay still is associated with as much celebration as Christmas in Scotland. Most Scots still celebrate Ne'erday with a special dinner, usually steak pie.

Ne'erday

When Ne'erday falls on a Sunday, 3 January becomes an additional public holiday in Scotland; when Ne'erday falls on a Saturday, both 3 January and 4 January will be public holidays in Scotland; when Ne'erday falls on a Friday, 4 January becomes an additional public holiday in Scotland.

As in much of the world, the four largest Scottish cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee, hold all-night celebrations, as does Stirling. The Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations are among the largest in the world, although in 2003-4 most of the organised events were cancelled at short notice due to very high winds. The Stonehaven Fireballs went ahead as planned, however, with 6000 hardy souls braving the weather to watch 42 fireball swingers process along the High Street. Similarly, the 2006-07 celebrations in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling were all cancelled on the day, again due to high winds and heavy rain.The Aberdeen celebration, however, went ahead, and was ironically opened by the pop music group, Wet Wet Wet.

Handsel Day

Historically, presents were given in Scotland on the first Monday of the New Year. This would be celebrated often by the employer giving his staff presents and parents giving children presents. A roast dinner would be eaten to celebrate the festival. Handsel was a word for gift box and hence Handsel Day. In modern Scotland this practice has died out.

Etymology

The etymology of the word is obscure. It may have been introduced to Middle Scots through the Auld Alliance. In 1604 the custom was mentioned in the Elgin Records as hagmonay. The most satisfactory explanation is a derivation from the Northern French dialect word hoguinané, or variants such as hoginane, hoginono and hoguinettes. Those being derived from 16th century Old French aguillanneuf which is either a gift given at New Year, a children's cry for such a gift or New Year's Eve itself.[10] The second element would appear to be l'an neuf i.e. the New Year. Compare those to Norman hoguinané and the obsolete customs in Jersey of crying ma hodgîngnole, and in Guernsey of asking for an oguinane, for a New Year gift.

Source: wikipedia

Has luck accompanied you?

Spaniards shrug off gloom with Fat One's fat cheques

Spain's traditional Christmas lottery, known as El Gordo, "the Fat One," showered its riches today on the historic centre of Barcelona, making it especially likely that British tourists have a winning stake this year in the 2.32 billion euro pot.

Hundreds of top-prize tickets – worth a total of 384 million euros – were sold at a single vendor on the famed Ramblas thoroughfare, next to the bohemian Raval neighborhood, home to immigrants, students and emerging artists – and popular with many British holidaymakers.

The lucky lottery vendor, Isabel Moliner, rushed to buy bottles of cava, Catalonian sparkling wine, as ecstatic immigrants clutched their winning stubs.

"I'm going to open a restaurant," a man from Bangladesh told a herd of national television cameras. "I'm unemployed," said a man with the winning number, 32365, shaved across the back of his head. "Now I can buy a house and a car."

Moliner expects that some of the prize money fell into the hands of the tourists or expatriates who pass by her state lottery shop.

In Alicante, a British resident of Torrevieja was reported to have been among the top prize winners. The man was said to have purchased a number ending in a five because he was born in 1945.

Each year thousands of foreigners – and three out of four Spaniards -- buy tickets in the world's oldest and richest lottery, a tradition that stretches back to 1812. It has become so famous abroad that consumer groups in the United States, Britain and elsewhere often warn potential lottery players of frauds. And now purchasing the tickets has been made even easier through internet sales.

Despite the economic crisis, a total of 3.32 billion euros in tickets were sold this year – down less than three percent from last year. Many Spaniards hope that a lucky number will boost them into better times.

"There is hardly money for food but it's worth it in case this year we win," said Eusebio Porras Sanz, a 60-year-old flamenco dancer, while queuing at a lottery vendor in Madrid's bustling Puerta del Sol earlier this week. "Hope is a great thing. If you win, you are poor no more".

Indeed, throughout Spain, mortgage troubles, threatened job cuts and other headaches of the economic crisis seemed a far away as millions of euros in prizes graced depressed working class neighborhoods.

In Soria, a city in central Spain, a single bar, Gari, sold 97 million euros worth of third-prize winning tickets. Dozens of happy customers doused themselves with champagne, danced and pounded drums in the street. The owner of the bar declared "drinks on the house" as he, like millions of Spaniards, sat glued to the television set watching the three-hour drawing with 1,787 prizes.

"I'm going to pay off all my debts and then go for a week of skiing – and I'm not going to worry about how much I spend," said one woman dancing outside the bar.

The drama of the day occurred in at a shopping mall outside Madrid, where Carmen, a 70-year-old grandmother-to-be, came running to her lottery vendor in tears. She bought a ticket that won a 100,000 prize, but had left it in the pocket of her housecoat. And washed it. She raced to the shopping mall with the torn bits of the ticket pieced together in a plastic bag. The ticket will be sent to the National Coin and Stamp Factory to determine its authenticity. If so, Carmen said she will use the money to help her unemployed son.

El Gordo creates few millionaires, but it spreads the wealth widely because of a complex pay-out system that divides prize money among 195 series of tickets, each further divided into 10 smaller parts, known as décimos, which cost 20 euros a piece. Many people further subdivide these décimos, like share of stock, among friends, family or clients. This generous division ensures that the bounty is sprinkled among thousands of people – often entire businesses, villages and sporting clubs.

Last year, a cluster of small towns in the northern coal mining region of Asturias won a total of 219 million euros. "It changed our life," said Juan Martinez Serrano, the mayor of the Valdesoto, a few days before yesterday's drawing. "You can see how the money is being spent, you see better cars, a lot home renovations, and even though lightening never strikes twice, the number of people who came here to buy tickets this year is barbarous." Unfortunately for him, it was the one year he neglected to purchase the lottery. "But I was happy anyway to see how it transformed the town," he said.

Source: The Independant

More Palin revelations

Sarah Palin 'did not know Africa was a continent', say aides

Sarah Palin spent "tens of thousands" more than the quoted $150,000 on clothes for the Republican campaign, met McCain aides in her hotel room dressed in nothing but a towel, and did not know Africa was a continent, according to new reports.

Fox news has reported that Mrs Palin did not understand that Africa was a continent, not a country, and did not know what countries were in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In separate claims made in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine, the Republican vice presidential nominee was reported to have been told to buy three suits for the Republican convention, and to hire a stylist. Instead, she went on a spending spree in upmarket stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

Quoting unnamed sources within the McCain camp, the magazine alleges that most of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who "was shocked when he got the bill."

An angry aide described the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast", and predicted that the truth would eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

The magazine also claimed that Mrs Palin used low ranking staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards, and that up to $40,000 was spent on clothes for her husband Todd.

A number of articles of clothing have been lost, the magazine states.

The disclosures are made in "How He Did It, 2008", in Newsweek's Special Election Project, a behind-the-scenes account of the presidential election produced the day after the polls closed.

The magazine also claims that at the GOP convention in St. Paul, when aides Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her, Ms Palin walked into the room wearing only a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat to Todd, adding: "I'll be just a minute."

Other election revelations include that on the night Hillary Clinton officially lost the Democratic nomination, she enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain.

"Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama," reports the magazine. "Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow. "

Source: The Times

Listen to the telephone conversation between Palin and (who she thought was) Sarkozy.

Before she is confined to the dustbin of history; here is one more chance to admire the interview skills and the foreign policy credentials of Sarah Palin.

USA's Oldest Voter

Profile: Ann Nixon Cooper, 106, singled out for praise by Barack Obama

Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old black voter picked out by Barack Obama as embodying the spirit of his election victory, is an Atlanta housewife who has overcome personal hardship to raise a family and serve her community.

Mr Obama said that of all the millions of voters who had cast their ballot Mrs Nixon Cooper was on his mind, because of the enormous sweep of American history that her long life had witnessed.

"She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin," said the president-elect, before a rapturous crowd of more than 125,000 in Chicago's Grant Park.

"And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: 'Yes we can'."

The centenarian was born Ann Louise Nixon on January 9 in 1902 in Shelbyville, Tennessee, one of six siblings. When her mother died the brothers and sisters were split up, and Mrs Nixon Cooper was raised by her aunt.

In 1922 at the age of 20 she married Albert Berry Cooper, a dentist from Nashville, Tennessee. The young couple moved to the city of Atlanta, in Georgia, where for a few months she worked as a policy writer for the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, before starting a family.

As her husband's dentist's practice prospered, Mrs Nixon Cooper turned to public work, serving for more than 50 years on the board of the Gate City Nursery Association, and helping to found the Girls Club for African-American Youth in Atlanta.

"At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot," said Mr Obama.

Like other black Americans, Mrs Nixon Cooper would have gained the right to vote a mere 43 years ago, at the age of 63. She was still active in the community, teaching residents to read as part of a tutoring programme at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the 1970s.

In 1980 Mrs Nixon Cooper's contribution to welfare and civil rights was recognised by Atlanta's WXIA-TV which awarded her a community service medal for her activism, working to improve conditions in the African-American community. This was followed in 2002 by the Annie L McPheeters Medallion for community service, awarded by the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History.

"She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome," said Mr Obama.

"A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Mr Obama asked what changes and what progress would his own daughters and their children would see if they should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper.

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment," he said.

"This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."

Source: The Times

Phrasal Verbs - get

to get round to doing something = finding the time to do something

• I must get round to filling in that form. I should have done it ages ago.


• I still haven't got round to calling her; I've been that rushed of my feet.


• I'll get round to fixing the tap soon. I promise.

to get away with something = to escape punishment when you are guilty

• He's always getting away with things. He arrived late every day last week and his supervisor didn't say a word.


• I know that if I did that, I wouldn't get away with it.


• He stood trial for the offence but the jury found him not guilty. I reckon he got away with it.
  

Have you ever got away with something? Or know anyone, famous or otherwise, who has?

Is there anything that you know you must do at some point or other, but have been putting off? When will you get round to it and why haven't you got round to doing it earlier?

Don't get me wrong - The Pretenders

Don't get me wrong,
If I'm looking kind of dazzled;
I see neon lights,
Whenever you walk by.

Don't get me wrong,
If you say hello and I take a ride,
Upon a sea where the mystic moon
Is playing havoc with the tide.
Don't get me wrong.

Don't get me wrong,
If I'm acting so distracted;
I'm thinking about the fireworks,
That go off when you smile.

Don't get me wrong,
If I split like light refracted,
I'm only off to wander
Across a moonlit mile.

Once in a while,
Two people meet
Seemingly for no reason
They just pass on the street.
Suddenly thunder showers everywhere
Who can explain the thunder and rain
But there's something in the air.

Don't get me wrong,
If I come and go like fashion.
I might be great tomorrow
But hopeless yesterday.

Don't get me wrong,
If I fall in the mode of passion
It might be unbelievable.
But let's not stay so long,
It might just be fantastic
Don't get me wrong.

Brits fought in Spanish Civil War

"Better to die on your feet than live for ever on your knees" - Dolores Ibarruri


Freedom fighters welcome honour, 70 years on

Seventy years have passed since they marched out of Barcelona amid crowds of weeping, cheering Spaniards, but it is only now that the last few British volunteers who fought in Spain against General Franco's fascist-backed rebels are finally to be rewarded by the Spanish state.

The handful of British survivors from the 2,300 men and women in the International Brigades during the civil war are now in their 90s or have passed 100, and most are physically frail.

They still cling to the memories and spirit of battles fought seven decades ago and have welcomed an offer by the cabinet of the Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, last week, that would allow them joint nationality.

"It is a gesture to those of us who survived and I'll take it in memory of all those who paid the final price and who lie unknown under Spanish soil," said Sam Lesser, 93. "There are so few of us left now."

Lesser is one of seven members of the brigades thought to be still alive and living in Britain. All have said they will take up the offer of joint nationality.

The veterans said they retained vivid memories of a country and a cause which, in many cases, changed their lives. "It certainly made a big difference to my life," said Penny Feiwel, 99, who volunteered as a nurse and ended up as an officer running a frontline mobile operating theatre before being injured. She had felt a natural sympathy for what was seen as a struggle by Spanish workers against the growing forces of fascism in Europe.

"I come from a working-class family. My father had been without a job for a long time. People today don't realise what times their grandparents went through or what they achieved."

While Hitler and Mussolini sent arms and troops to help Franco, Britain and Europe's other democracies stood on the sidelines as tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world travelled to Spain to help the Republic.

The civil war was, for many, a first big commitment in what became lifelong careers as leftwing campaigners. Among those still alive is Jack Jones, who went on to lead the Transport and General Workers Union. Jones said he would also accept the offer of nationality. Like many other members, however, he had had some doubts about Spain's current condition as a constitutional monarchy when he and the other brigaders had fought to defend a republic.

"The answer is yes, I would welcome it very much. I've had a very active life and have been leader of a large trade union, but this was a very special period."

A mixture of politics, romance and adventure drove people to sign up for the International Brigades or find their own way to Spain to fight after Franco led a rightwing rebellion against the government in 1936.

"I wasn't a communist but I was rather leftwing as a young man," said Paddy Cochrane, 95. "I hitchhiked down to London from Liverpool and went to the Communist party but they wouldn't take me on as they said I had no military experience.

"Then I saw an advertisement in the newspaper saying that drivers were needed to take ambulances to Spain, so that is what I did. Once there, he was able to enlist and was wounded by shrapnel from a hand grenade in fierce fighting at the town of Belchite. A bit of it went in at my hip and out of my bottom without hitting a bone."

Some of those wounded found it hard to stay away from Spain. Lesser was injured in a battle near Córdoba in which the poet John Cornford was killed. He later returned to do political broadcasts in English and became correspondent for the Daily Worker newspaper.

He was there in Barcelona when the brigades, who had been formally disbanded, marched away in October 1938. The firebrand communist politician Dolores Ibárruri, known as La Pasionaria, gave them a rousing send-off as tens of thousands of people packed the streets of Barcelona. "You can go with pride," she said. "You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of the solidarity and the universality of democracy. We will not forget you."

Brigaders from across the world will travel to Barcelona this month to mark the 70th anniversary of their departure.

Most would like to have taken Spanish nationality when the idea was first floated in 1996, under the rightwing government of prime minister José María Aznar. The small print of that offer, however, meant they would have had to renounce British nationality. None of them were willing to do that.

"It is a shame," said Marlene Sidaway, of the International Brigade Memorial Trust. "They were all much haler and heartier then."

Among those unable to take up the offer was her partner, David Marshall, who died in 2003.

Even some of those still alive fear they might not live long enough to pick up the reward of Spanish nationality.

"I'd love to take it," Les Gibson, who fought at the Jarama front, said in a telephone interview. "But I'm now 95 years of age and I am not sure I will be able to.

"I'm still very interested in Spain and the Spanish. It was an important part of my life. I lost some good friends there, mind you, but I managed to scrape through somehow."

A fifth of those who reached Spain from Britain did not get back alive.

"We felt we weren't just defending Spain but also our own country," said Lesser. "We were also fighting to save peace and to save Britain."

Source: Guardian

Read about La Pasionaria Memorial (pictured above) which is dedicated to the British who lost their lives during the Spanish Civil War.

Have any of your older relatives told you what life was like during the war?