Imogen Forster

Temperatures in London were set to beat those in Athens as a heat dome settled across parts of the UK and northwestern Europe, threatening to challenge records for weather at this time of the year

British pollinators. What a workforce ! Without this amazing team there would be no gardens or food for that matter. We must do our best to look after them, teach our kids they are friends and build habitats to show them how loved they really are.

The color “azure” takes its name from the Persian word “lazward”. The initial /l/ disappeared because English borrowed the word from French, where speakers mistook the /l/ for the contracted definite article “l’ (le)”. Yet you can still see the /l/ in the Latin term “lapis lazuli”, literally ‘stone of azure’.

"Hurt" is not an original by Johnny Cash. The song was written by Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) in 1994 for the album The Downward Spiral. Rick Rubin had to insist several times on Cash recording his version, at first Johnny found the idea completely insane because the original version is industrial and noisy. At 71, already very ill, almost blind and with trembling hands, Cash completely transformed the band. The iconic video, directed by Mark Romanek, was filmed at the House of Cash (his own museum). June Carter Cash appears looking at him fondly, the video was shot in February 2003, a few months before she died (May) and Johnny himself (September). Trent Reznor was so moved that he declared, "This song is not mine anymore." It is considered one of the best covers of all time.

Homer's epics had already been an integral part of Greek education (paideia) for more than two thousand years, when Nikolaos Loukanes, a native of Zakynthos island published - in 1526 - his Iliad edition in contemporary scholarly Greek. What is even more interesting, his printed edition would have multiple wood engravings, with depictions of the scenes from Iliad, where the Greeks in Troy would now be dressed as contemporary Greeks, with their long hats and hanging sleeves, wearing of course their long beards. Here's also a sample of his Iliad paraphrasis: "Τὴν ὀργὴν ᾆδε καὶ λέγε, ὦ θεά μου Καλλιόπη, Τοῦ Πηλείδου Ἀχιλλέως, πῶς ἐγένετ’ ὀλεθρία, Καὶ πολλὰς λύπας ἐποῖσε εἰς τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς δὴ πάντας, Καὶ πολλὰς ψυχὰς ἀνδρείας πῶς ἀπέστειλεν εἰς ᾄδην, Καὶ κυσὶ καὶ τοῖς ὀρνέοις πρὸς βορὰν ἔδωκε τούτους Ὁ γὰρ Ζεὺς ἤθελεν οὕτως ἀφ’ οὗ γοῦν φιλονεικοῦντες Ἐχωρίσθησαν ἀλλήλων ὅ,τε βασιλεὺς Ἀτρείδης, Καὶ ὁ Ἀχιλλεὺς ταχύπους. Τίς ἐκ τῶν θεῶν, ὦ Μοῦσα, Αἴτιος ὑπῆρχε τότε νὰ τοὺς βάλῃ εἰς τόσην μάχην; Λέγε το τοῦ ποιητοῦ σου..." Two centuries ago, sometime between 1323 and 1335, the Epirote scholar Konstantinos Hermoniakos in Arta, would be commissioned by the Despot John II Komnenos Angelos Doukas Orsini and his wife Anna Palaiologina to write about "the valorous deeds of the Greeks" and paraphrase the 24 rapsodies of Iliad in a more contemporary language, here is his intro: Τὴν διήγησιν Ὁμήρου (1) μεταθέσας εὐνοήτως ἀπὸ τὴν ἀρχὴν εἰς τέλος, ἐκ τῆς ἄλφα ῥαψῳδίας ἕως γὰρ τὸ ω τὸ μέγα (5) ἐξ ἀξίωσιν δεσπότου Κομνηνοῦ Ἀγγελοδούκα Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἡρώου, τοῦ τὴν δύσιν δεσποτεύων ἐκ τὸν ὁρισμὸν κυρίου, (10) σὺν τῇ συλλεκτούσᾳ σώφρων, τὴν εἰς ἄκραν σωφρονοῦσαν κἐν τῷ νῷ κἐν τῇ δυνάμει ὑπὲρ πάσας τὰς γυναῖκας, τάς τε νῦν εὑρισκομένας (15) καὶ τὰς πρώην ὑμνουμένας· τῆς ὡραίας καὶ παγκάλου Ἄννης γοῦν τῆς βασιλίσσης, τῆς καλῆς μου γοῦν κυρίας· τῶν καλῶν αὐτῶν τῶν δύο (20) τῶν ὡραίων δεσποτῶν μου τῶν φιλολογικωτάτων· ἐπροστάχθην τοῦ πεζεῦσαι ἐκ τὰς δυσκολούσας λέξεις τοῦ Ὁμήρου ῥαψῳδίας (25) εἰς παντοίαν σαφήνειαν, ἐπὶ τὸ σαφὲς ἐπίπαν· ἵνα γοῦν γραμματισμένοι καὶ μὴ γραφικὰς παιδεύσεις ἐδιδάχθησαν κἂν ὅλως (30) ἐπευκόλως νὰ νοοῦσι· κἐκ τὸν ὁρισμὸν ἐτούτων καὶ τὴν πρόσταξιν τῶν δύο τῶν ἁγίων αὐθεντῶν μου ἐσαφήνισα κἐποῖκα (35) εἴ τι γὰρ ἐξεβασμένον· ἐπροστάχθην νὰ συγγράψω, ἐκ χειλέων δεσποτῶν μου, τῶν Ἑλλήνων τὰς ἀνδρείας τῶν ἀρίστων κατὰ ῥῆμα, (40) καὶ αὐτῶν τῶν ὀνομάτων τῶν θανέντων ἐν πολέμοις, καὶ τῶν φθορέων γὰρ τούτων. Ὁ συγγράψας γοῦν ὑπάρχει Κωνσταντῖνος δοῦλος τούτων (45) Ἑρμονιακὸς τὴν κλῆσιν Ἰωάννου καὶ τῆς Ἄννης τοῦ καλοῦ μου γὰρ δεσπότου καὶ ὡραίας τῆς δεσποίνης. Τὸ προοίμιον Ὁμήρου (50) συνταχθὲν κατ’ ἀλφαβήτου, ὅμοιως καὶ ῥαψῳδίας ἔχοντα τῆς βίβλου ὅλης πράξεις τὰς τῆς Ἰλιάδος· ἔχων ἡ γραφὴ γὰρ αὕτη (55) καὶ πολλὰ τὰ πρὸ Ὁμήρου καὶ μετ’ Ὅμηρόν τινα γάρ, τὰ γοῦν πρέποντα εἰσφέρειν πρὸς τὴν ἱστορίαν ταύτην ὀκτωσύλλαβα γραφέντα. (60) Ἀκροστιχὶς ἀλφαβήτου ἀπαράθραυστον τῆς βίβλου βεβαιῶν τὰς ῥαψῳδίας γενομένας ἐξ Ὁμήρου διηγήσεις τῶν πολέμων (65) ἐκεινῶν τῶν γινομένων ζητουμένων ἐν τῇ μάχῃ· ἦλθον τοίνυν ἐν τῇ Τροίᾳ θυμούμενοι τὰς καρδίας (70) ἵνα νικηταὶ φανῶσι κατὰ τῶν Τρωῶν τῶν τότε, λέγων πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐκεῖνοι· μείνομεν ἐνθάδε πάντες, νικηφόροι νὰ φανοῦμεν (75) ξύμπαντες ἡμεῖς Ἀχαῖοι ὅλοι πρὸς τὸν κόσμον τοῦτον παρὰ μυριάδων πλοῦτον ῥωμαίως γοῦν νὰ σταθοῦμεν σὺν ταῖς ἄσπαις καὶ ταῖς λόγχαις (80) τούτων γοῦν τῶν Τρωαδίτων ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἑλένης ταύτης φέρομεν αὐτὴν εἰς οἶκον χαιρομένην ἐν πατρίδι, ψάλλοντες, προσευχόμενοι, (85) ὢ τῆς δόξης σου, θεέ μου. “I paraphrased Homer’s narration with understanding, moving it from beginning to end, from the Alpha rhapsody all the way to the great Omega, at the request of my lord, the Komnenos Angelodoukas, John the hero, who rules the West by the ordinance of the Lord, together with his prudent wife, she who is supremely wise both in mind and in strength, above all women, both those now living and those praised in former times: namely the beautiful and all-fair Lady Anna the empress, my own noble mistress. By command of these two, my fair lords, most devoted to learning, I was ordered to render into prose the difficult words of Homer’s rhapsodies into complete clarity, making everything plain, so that even educated people who had not been taught literary studies at all might easily understand. And by the order of these persons and the command of the two holy masters of mine, I clarified and composed it, if anything had been obscure. I was ordered to write, from the lips of my lords, the valorous deeds of the Greeks, of the noblest heroes, word for word, and also the very names of those who died in war, and likewise of their destroyers. The one who wrote this is Constantine, servant of these rulers, Hermoniakos by surname, of John and Anna, of my noble lord and beautiful lady. The prologue of Homer, arranged alphabetically, and likewise the rhapsodies, containing throughout the whole book the deeds of the Iliad. For this writing also contains many things before Homer and certain things after Homer, bringing in whatever was fitting for this history, written in octosyllabic verse. An alphabetical acrostic, an unbreakable structure of the book, confirming the rhapsodies, which were drawn from Homer, narratives of the wars that took place there, the struggles sought in battle. Thus they came to Troy, their hearts enraged, so that they might appear victorious against the Trojans of that time, saying among themselves: ‘Let us all remain here, that we may appear victorious, all of us Achaeans together, before all the world, beyond countless wealth, that we may stand bravely with shields and spears against these Trojans; for the sake of this Helen let us bring her home, rejoicing in her fatherland, singing and praying: “O the greatness of Thy glory, my God.” And of course Hermoniakos, if he wanted to participate in the current "polytropiade" he would just translate πολύτροπος with...πολύτροπος... "...Ἕλληνες ἐπινοοῦσι μέθοδον στρατηγημάτων.   Τεχνικῶς ἐν ξύλῳ τοίνυν ἵππον γὰρ ἐσκευακότες ἔξωθεν ποικιλομόρφως ἔν τε χρώμασιν δεικνύντες ἐκμετρήσαντες γὰρ πρῶτον τάς τε πύλας τῆς Τρωάδος ἐκ βουλῆς τοῦ πολυτρόπου τήν τε γνώμην γὰρ Δυσσέως· ὃς φυγὰς ἐκ τῶν Ἑλλήνων καταφεύγει πρὸς τὴν Τροίαν,..."

Israel killed 9 paramedics in roughly 72 hours. Let that sink in. These are some of their faces. According to Lebanon’s latest health sector figures, now updated after the killing of additional paramedics in the last 48 hours: • 125 healthcare workers killed • 273 wounded • 149 attacks on the healthcare sector • 142 ambulances targeted • 32 medical centres destroyed • 16 hospitals forced out of service • 221 ambulance crews attacked Lebanon’s emergency sector is not collapsing accidentally. It is being systematically dismantled. Israel is committing war crimes against Lebanon’s medical services.