Cravatomancy

Last week in ties: Tuesday to Friday

Tuesday's tie: a spotty effort from Pink. Odd, I thought it was from another tie-maker, but I found I was mistaken when I checked the label.

More spots on Wednesday. This isn't one I wear often, but I should.

For Thursday, a striped Liberty tie. It's one of their better modern efforts.

And for Friday, another hunting scene from Holland and Holland. It has something of the feel of a medieval tapestry

Rhinos

I think this is my last tie from the bestiary. It depicts rhinos. The horn is picked out in blue. By way of contrast, here is Dürer's Rhinoceros, image from Wikimedia Commons.

Coccinellidae

Tie and glass of fino

For once the tie of the day comes in the evening, simply because I forgot my phone when leaving for work, so had to take the pictures in the evening. Librarians feel a special affinity for ladybirds. I forget the provenance of this tie. Budds, perhaps?

It is much easier to take pictures at home. I can use a mirror to check the composition on the screen.

Four more midsummer ties

This tie was worn at the conference dinner at Exeter. By Austin Reed, it's a good serviceable solid coloured tie.

A tie by Hilditch and Key fot the last day of the conference. It stood up well to two ghastly train delays, better than its wearer.

Paisley seemed appropriate for the launch of a new collection of poems by Jeremy Page, In and Out of the Dark Wood. It was a beautiful early evening on the University of Sussex campus, and Jeremy read to us as we stood on the grass outside Language Centre.

Elephants. How did I end up with so many elephant ties? This one is by Cordings, and saw me through an unutterably tedious meeting.

The Strawberry Thieves

Someone once told me that this cotton Liberty tie is a William Morris design called the Strawberry Thieves. I haven't checked this, but it seems fitting. Cotton ties are a problem. They crease dreadfully.

I also have to cope with a tricky question of etiquette. Should one wear a tie at a conference? Here, at #exeter10, or the Fifth Joint Conference of CoFHE and UC&R, to give its full name, I think I am the only man to wear one. Even Bob McKee, Chief Executive of CILIP, is going tieless.

Pavo cristatus

This tie by Liberty shows peacock feathers. When I was a boy we lived in a house in Cambridge that my father leased from Downing College. Our garden backed onto the college grounds where, in my early years, the fellows kept peafowl. Their cries, harsh and mournful like the cries of the souls of the damned, were far more annoying than any vuvuzela.

There is a superstitious belief that one should not bring a peacock feather into the house, or a death will occur. I do not think this applies to textile representations of the feathers. And while I am on the subject of vulgar errors, see Sir Thomas Browne on peacocks:

'That there is a special propriety in the flesh of Peacocks, roast or boiled, to preserve a long time incorrupted, hath been the assertion of many; stands yet confirmed by Austin, De Civitate Dei; by Gygas Sempronius in Aldrovandus; and the same experiment we can confirm our selves, in the brawn or fleshly parts of Peacocks so hanged up with thred, that they touch no place whereby to contract a moisture; and hereof we have made trial both in summer and winter. The reason, some, I perceive, attempt to make out from the siccity and driness of its flesh, and some are content to rest in a secret propriety thereof. As for the siccity of the flesh, it is more remarkable in other animals, as Eagles, Hawks, and birds of prey; That it is a propriety or agreeable unto none other, we cannot, with reason admit; for the same preservation, or rather incorruption we have observed in the flesh of Turkeys, Capons, Hares, Partridge, Venison, suspended freely in the air, and after a year and a half, dogs have not refused to eat them.'

'As for the other conceit, that a Peacock is ashamed when he looks on his legs, as is commonly held, and also delivered by Cardan; beside what hath been said against it by Scaliger; let them believe that hold specificial deformities; or that any part can seem unhandsome to their eyes, which hath appeared good and beautiful unto their makers. The occasion of this conceit, might first arise from a common observation, that when they are in their pride, that is, advance their train, if they decline their neck to the ground, they presently demit, and let fall the same: which indeed they cannot otherwise do; for contracting their body, and being forced to draw in their foreparts to establish the hinder in the elevation of the train; if the foreparts depart and incline to the ground, the hinder grow too weak, and suffer the train to fall. And the same in some degree is also observable in the Turkeys.'

Pink elephants

Building on yesterday's pink theme, but also returning to the elephant motif of some previous posts, I wear today a tie by Budd. It will confirm my reputation among the digerati as a hopeless dipso.

Two days' ties

On Monday I wore this, a linen tie by Hackett. When i bought it I was a little nervous, but now I like the wrinkled effect.

And then today, this Liberty tie. Who can tell what bird there is here? I offer a detail below. is it real or mythical? A peacock, pheasant or bird or paradise, or a roc or phoenix?

I had hoped that my black funeral tie would never appear on this blog. I'm sorry to say that it will, when I attend the funeral of Robin Lee next week, one of the kindest, best men I have ever known.

Fish on a Friday

Whatever the origins of the tradition of eating fish on a Friday, in Romish doctrine or in a Tudro attempt to boost the fishing industry, it seems to me worth observing, even in the 21st century.

This is a Liberty and shows salmon swimming across. There is porbably a heraldic term for this. I shall check.

Coney catching

This is one of my favourite ties, bought well over ten years ago but still wearable. By Holland and Holland, it shows rabbits at play. Not shown is the huntsman creeping up behind them with his Holland and Holland gun.