LOSING NÚRIA IN THE THAMESIS AND RECOVERING MIMA

Today, The Winsors & The Grandma have enjoyed sailing along the Thames.

They were very happy after recovering Mima Winsor, but it has been an accidental trip because Núria Winsor has disappeared after the boat had suffered a collision while it was trying to avoid a seagull.

Please, Núria. Swim as time as you resist. We are on the way!

Before this little accident, the family has been studying some English Grammar practising with Imperative, playing some games and explaining some interesting stories about the connexion between El Baix Llobregat and England thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the textile factories.

More information: Imperative III & IV

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More information: Vibrant Jersey

More information: Llobregat Textile Colonies

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The Thames River, known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. 

At 346 km, it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn.

The river rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire and flows into the North Sea near Tilbury, Essex and Gravesend, Kent, via the Thames Estuary. From the west it flows through Oxford (where it is sometimes called the Isis), Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor. The Thames also drains the whole of Greater London.

The lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its long tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. Its tidal section includes most of its London stretch and has a rise and fall of 7 m.

From Oxford to the estuary the Thames drops by 55 metres. Running through some of the drier parts of mainland Britain and heavily abstracted for drinking water, the Thames' discharge is low considering its length and breadth: the Severn has a discharge almost twice as large on average despite having a smaller drainage basin.

Along its course are 45 navigation locks with accompanying weirs. Its catchment area covers a large part of south-eastern and a small part of western England; the river is fed by at least 50 named tributaries. The river contains over 80 islands. With its waters varying from freshwater to almost seawater, the Thames supports a variety of wildlife and has a number of adjoining Sites of Special Scientific Interest, with the largest being in the North Kent Marshes and covering 5,289 ha.

More information: River Thames

According to Mallory and Adams, the Thames, from Middle English Temese, is derived from the Brittonic name for the river, Tamesas (from *tamēssa), recorded in Latin as Tamesis and yielding modern Welsh Tafwys, Thames.

The Thames through Oxford is sometimes called the Isis. Historically, and especially in Victorian times, gazetteers and cartographers insisted that the entire river was correctly named the Isis from its source down to Dorchester on Thames and that only from this point, where the river meets the Thame and becomes the Thame-isis (supposedly subsequently abbreviated to Thames) should it be so called.

Marks of human activity, in some cases dating back to Pre-Roman Britain, are visible at various points along the river. These include a variety of structures connected with use of the river, such as navigations, bridges and watermills, as well as prehistoric burial mounds.

The lower Thames in the Roman era was a shallow waterway winding through marshes. But centuries of human intervention have transformed it into a deep tidal canal flowing between 200 miles of solid walls; these defend a floodplain where 1.5 million people work and live.

A major maritime route is formed for much of its length for shipping and supplies: through the Port of London for international trade, internally along its length and by its connection to the British canal system. The river's position has put it at the centre of many events in British history, leading to it being described by John Burns as liquid history.

Rowing and sailing clubs are common along the Thames, which is navigable to such vessels. Kayaking and canoeing also take place. Major annual events include the Henley Royal Regatta and the Boat Race, while the Thames has been used during two Summer Olympic Games: 1908 (rowing) and 1948 (rowing and canoeing). Safe headwaters and reaches are a summer venue for organised swimming, which is prohibited on safety grounds in a stretch centred on Central London.

More information: Visit London

About 450,000 years ago, in the most extreme Ice Age of the Pleistocene, the Anglian, the furthest southern extent of the ice sheet reached Hornchurch in east London, the Vale of St Albans, and the Finchley Gap.

The Anglian ice advance resulted in a new course for the Thames through Berkshire and on into London, after which the river rejoined its original course in southern Essex, near the present River Blackwater estuary. Here it entered a substantial freshwater lake in the southern North Sea basin, south of what is called Doggerland. The overspill of this lake caused the formation of the Channel River and later the Dover Strait gap between present-day Britain and France. Subsequent development led to the continuation of the course that the river follows at the present day.

At the height of the last ice age, around 20,000 BC, Britain was connected to mainland Europe by a large expanse of land known as Doggerland in the southern North Sea Basin. At this time, the Thames' course did not continue to Doggerland but flowed southwards from the eastern Essex coast where it met the waters of the proto-Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta flowing from what are now the Netherlands and Belgium. These rivers formed a single river  -the Channel River (Fleuve Manche)- that passed through the Dover Strait and drained into the Atlantic Ocean in the western English Channel.

Upon the valley sides of the Thames and some of its tributaries can be seen other terraces of brickearth, laid over and sometimes interlayered with the clays. These deposits were brought in by the winds during the periglacial periods, suggesting that wide, flat marshes were then part of the landscape, which the new rivers proceeded to cut into. The steepness of some valley sides indicates very much lower mean sea levels caused by the glaciation locking up so much water upon the land masses, thus causing the river water to flow rapidly seaward and so erode its bed quickly downwards.

The original land surface was around 110 to 120 m above the current sea-level. The surface had sandy deposits from an ancient sea, laid over sedimentary clay (this is the blue London Clay). All the erosion down from this higher land surface, and the sorting action by these changes of water flow and direction, formed what is known as the Thames River Gravel Terraces.

Since Roman times and perhaps earlier, the isostatic rebound from the weight of previous ice sheets, and its interplay with the eustatic change in sea level, have resulted in the old valley of the River Brent, together with that of the Thames, silting up again. Thus, along much of the Brent's present-day course, one can make out the water-meadows of rich alluvium, which is augmented by frequent floods.

More information: Thames River Sighseeing

The Thames is liquid history.

John Burns

THE WINSORS IN LONDON, KEEP CALM AND LEARN A LOT!

Today, The Winsors & The Grandma have just arrived to London to stay some weeks in the English capital. They are staying at Cumberland Hotel, an important place for recent British history that joins London with Sant Boi and Barcelona, and England with Catalonia.

Keep calm and learn a lot, Winsors!

The family has been studying how to compose new nouns using infinitives and -ing or -er, the Article A/An, the Adjectives and, the Imperative. 

Finally, they have been talking about the origin of the name of Sant Boi and they have helped Mima Winsor, who has been arrested at London City Airport while she was protesting in a favour of Maori people.

More information: A/An Article

 More information: Imperative I & II

More information: Gerunds as Nouns

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Great Cumberland Place is a street in the City of Westminster, part of Greater London, England. There is also a hotel bearing the same name on the street.

The street runs from Oxford Street at Marble Arch to George Street at Bryanston Square.

It contains the Western Marble Arch Synagogue, near which stands a statue of Raoul Wallenberg.

Great Cumberland Place is home to The Cumberland Hotel.

The street was the home of Thomas Pinckney while he was the United States ambassador to the Court of St James's.

Sir James Mackintosh lived in Great Cumberland Street, which was later re-numbered as part of Great Cumberland Place.

The residents listed in 1833 were: "Hans Busk, Esq.; Sir Clifford Constable; Sir Frederick Hamilton; Lady C. Underwood; Sir G. Ivison Tapps; Baron Bülow (the Prussian Minister); General Sir R. M'Farlane; Leonard Currie, Esq.; Sir S. B. Fludyer, Bart.; Lady Trollope; Earl of Leitrim; Sir Alexander Johnston; and the Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Norwich", and in Great Cumberland Street "Lord Saltoun; Mrs. Portman; John Wells, Esq.; Colonel Sherwood; Captain Richard Manby; John Lodge, Esq.; Major Murray; Robert Cutlar Fergusson, Esq.; John N. McLeod, Esq.; and Lord Bagot".

The explorers James Theodore Bent and Mabel Bent lived first at Number 43 and then Number 13 Great Cumberland Place from the early 1880s until Mabel Bent's death in 1929.

More information: The Cumberland Hotel

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874-24 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. 

Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to the wealthy Spencer aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, later gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary, championing prison reform and workers' social security.

As First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign but, after it proved a disaster, he was demoted to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He resigned in November 1915 and joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front for six months.

In 1917, he returned to government under David Lloyd George and served successively as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, and Secretary of State for the Colonies, overseeing the Anglo-Irish Treaty and British foreign policy in the Middle East. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure and depressing the UK economy.

Out of government during his so-called wilderness years in the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat of militarism in Nazi Germany. 

At the outbreak of the Second World War he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. In May 1940, he became Prime Minister, succeeding Neville Chamberlain.

Churchill formed a national government and oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against the Axis powers, resulting in victory in 1945. After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an iron curtain of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. Between his terms as Prime Minister, he wrote several books recounting his experience during the war. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.

He lost the 1950 election, but was returned to office in 1951. His second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, especially Anglo-American relations and preservation of what remained of the British Empire with India now no longer part of it. Domestically, his government emphasised housebuilding and completed the development of a nuclear weapon (begun by his predecessor). 

In declining health, Churchill resigned as Prime Minister in 1955, remaining an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he was given a state funeral.

Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the Anglosphere, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending Europe's liberal democracy against the spread of fascism; historians often rank Churchill as the greatest prime minister. His second term received more mixed responses, and he is criticized for some wartime events and also for his imperialist views.

More information: Winston Churchill

 I do not at all underrate the severity of the ordeal
which lies before us;
but I believe our countrymen will show themselves
capable of standing up to it,
like the brave men of Barcelona,
and will be able to stand up to it,
and carry on in spite of it,
at least as well as any other people in the world.

Winston Churchill

THE WINSORS & THE GRANDMA, ADVENTURE IS COMING

Today, The Grandma has started to Sant Boi de Llobregat urgently because MJ has called her to start to work with another family, The Winsors.

MJ and The Grandma have received the new members of the family in the emplacement in Sant Boi de Llobregat and after a long session of bureaucracy The Grandma has been able to start to know her new family. Tomorrow, they are going to start with their new manuals and they are going to share lots of hours of effort, knowledge and hard work with the goal of improving English and having the chance of passing an important exam.

More information: The ABC

English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca.

It is named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, as England.

Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula in the Baltic Sea. The language is closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, and its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), and to a greater extent by Latin and French.

English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English.

Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England; this was a period in which the language was influenced by French.

Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift.

Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th century by the worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States.

Through all types of printed and electronic media of these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation and law.

English is the largest language by number of speakers, and the third most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish. It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states.

There are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. It is estimated that there are over 2 billion speakers of English. English is the majority native language in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland, and it is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia.

More information:  English Club

It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other world and regional international organisations. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch. English has a vast vocabulary, though counting how many words any language has is impossible. English speakers are called Anglophones.

Modern English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern, with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order and a complex syntax.

Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as well as passive constructions, interrogatives and some negation. The variation among the accents and dialects of English used in different countries and regions -in terms of phonetics and phonology, and sometimes also vocabulary, idioms, grammar, and spelling-can often be understood by speakers of different dialects, but in extreme cases can lead to confusion or even mutual unintelligibility between English speakers.

The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon (c. 550–1066 CE). Old English developed from a set of North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia, Lower Saxony, Jutland, and Southern Sweden by Germanic tribes known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

From the 5th century CE, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as the Roman economy and administration collapsed. By the 7th century, the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain, replacing the languages of Roman Britain, a Celtic language, and Latin, brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc) are named after the Angles.

Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects (Mercian and Northumbrian) and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex, the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety.

The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn, is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the early period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms.

Old English is essentially a distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German, and its closest relative is Old Frisian.

More information: BBC

Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms, and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns (he, him, his) and has a few verb inflections (speak, speaks, speaking, spoke, spoken), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings.

From the 8th to the 12th century, Old English gradually transformed through language contact into Middle English. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1200–1450.

The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation.

By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication.

More information: Mental Floss

 

 

 Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion

and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time,

and is both the free and compacted composition of all.

Walt Whitman

ENJOYING SANT SEBASTIÀ, PATRON OF CIUTAT DE PALMA

Today, The Grandma and Claire Fontaine have visited some of the most important places of Palma. After visiting the Cathedral, one of the most incredible monuments of the island, they have returned to their hotel, where they have rested a little.

 

Tonight, they are going to celebrate Sant Sebastià, the patron of the city, with thousands of Mallorcan people dancing near wonderful bonfires.

They are going to spend their last hours in this wonderful city before returning to Barcelona, where The Grandma is going to start a new English course with a new family tomorrow.

Palma is the capital and largest city of Balearic Islands. It is situated on the south coast of Mallorca on the Bay of Palma. The Cabrera Archipelago, though widely separated from Palma proper, is administratively considered part of the municipality.

Palma was founded as a Roman camp upon the remains of a Talaiotic settlement. The city was subjected to several Vandal raids during the fall of the Western Roman Empire, then reconquered by the Byzantine Empire, then colonised by the Moors, who called it Medina Mayurqa, and, in the 13th century, by King Jaume I.

After the conquest of Mallorca, the city was loosely incorporated into the province of Tarraconensis by 123 BC; the Romans founded two new cities: Palma on the south of the island, and Pollentia in the northeast -on the site of a Phoenician settlement. Whilst Pollentia acted as a port to Roman cities on the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, Palma was the port used for destinations in Africa, such as Carthage, and Hispania, such as Saguntum, Gades and Carthago Nova. Though present-day Palma has no significant remains from this period, occasional archaeological finds are made in city centre excavations.

With Margalida and Tomeu, Giants of Palma

Though the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Muslim conquest is not well understood, due to lack of documents, there is clear evidence of a Byzantine presence in the city, as indicated by mosaics found in the oldest parts of the Cathedral, which was in early medieval times part of a paleo-Christian temple.

Between 902 and 1229, the city was under Islamic control. It remained the capital of the island and it was known as Medina Mayurqa, which in Arabic means City of Majorca.

On 31 December 1229, after three months of siege, the city was reconquered by King Jaume I and was renamed Ciutat de Mallorca. In addition to being kept as capital of the Kingdom of Mallorca, it was given a municipality that comprised the whole island. The governing arm was the University of the City and Kingdom of Mallorca.

After the death of King Jaume I, Palma became joint capital of the Kingdom of Mallorca, together with Perpignan. His son, Jaume II of Mallorca, championed the construction of statues and monuments in the city: Bellver Castle, the churches of St. Francesc and St. Domingo, reformed the Palace of Almudaina and began the construction of the Cathedral of Mallorca.

More information: Ajuntament de Palma

In 1391, anti-Jewish riots broke out. The Jewish community of Inca was completely wiped out, as were those of Sóller, Sineu, and Alcudia. In spite of the governor's prohibition on leaving the island, many Jews fled to North Africa. The remaining Jews were forced to convert under threat of death.

Abraham Cresques was a 14th-century Jewish cartographer of the Majorcan cartographic school from Palma; Cresques is credited with the authorship of the famous Catalan Atlas.

The river that cut through the city gave rise to two distinct areas within the city; the Upper town and Lower town, depending upon which side of the river one was situated. Palma's Silk Exchange, a masterpiece of the Gothic architecture in Mallorca. Built between 1420 and 1452.

The Grandma with 'Els Xeremiers', Majorcan Giants

The city's advantageous geographical location allowed it extensive commerce with Catalonia, Valencia, Provence, the Maghreb, the Italian republics and the dominions of the Great Turk, which heralded a golden age for the city.

The 17th century is characterised by the division of the city in two sides or gangs, named Canamunts and Canavalls, with severe social and economical repercussions. During this period the port became a haven for pirates. During the last quarter of the century, the Inquisition continued its persecution of the city's Jews, locally called xuetes.

The fall of Barcelona in 1714 meant the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and the defeat and destruction of the Crown of Aragon, and this was reflected on the Nueva Planta decrees, issued by Philip V of Spain in 1715. These occupation decrees changed the government of the island and separated it from the municipality's government of Palma, which became the official city name. By the end of the 19th century, the name Palma de Mallorca was generalised in written Spanish, although it is still colloquially named Ciutat in Catalan.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Palma became a refuge for many who had exiled themselves from the Napoleonic occupation of Catalonia and Valencia; during this period freedom flourished, until the absolutist restoration.

The patron of Palma is Sant Sebastià (January, 20). The city celebrates this festivity with traditional cultural events. Giants, bonfires, and local dancings (ball de bot) are enjoyed by everybody.

More information: Lonely Planet

Popular culture is most powerful when 

it offers us a vision of how our society 

should look -or at least reproduces our reality.

Janet Mock

NATHALIE KAY HEDREN, THRILLER ACTRESS & ANIMALIST

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Tippi Hedren, the American actress, who was born on a day like today in 1930.

Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American retired actress. Initially a fashion model, appearing on the front covers of Life and Glamour magazines (among others), she became an actress after being discovered by director Alfred Hitchcock while appearing on a television commercial in 1961.

Hedren achieved great praise for her work in two of his films, including the suspense-thriller The Birds (1963), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year and the sequel The Birds II: Land's End (1994), also the psychological drama Marnie (1964).

She performed in over 80 films and television shows, including Charlie Chaplin's final film A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), the political satire Citizen Ruth (1996), and the existential comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004). Among other honors, her contributions to world cinema have been recognized with the Jules Verne Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Hedren's strong commitment to animal rescue began in 1969 while she was shooting two films in Africa and was introduced to the plight of African lions. In an attempt to raise awareness for wildlife, she spent over a decade bringing Roar (1981) to the screen. She started her own nonprofit organization, the Roar Foundation, in 1983; it supports the Shambala Preserve, a 32 ha wildlife habitat that enables her to continue her work in the care and preservation of lions and tigers. Hedren has also set up relief programs worldwide following earthquakes, hurricanes, famine and war. She was also instrumental in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons.

Nathalie Kay Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, on January 19, 1930, to Bernard Carl and Dorothea Henrietta Hedren (née Eckhardt). Her family moved to Morningside, Minnesota, when Hedren was 4, where she lived until she was 17 and modeled for Dayton's. For much of her career, her year of birth was misreported as 1935.

In a 2004 A&E Biography, Hedren acknowledged that she was born in 1930, which is consistent with the birth registration index at the Minnesota Historical Society. Her paternal grandparents were Swedish immigrants, while her mother was of German and Norwegian descent.

A Louis Vuitton ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie. Her look from The Birds (1963) inspired designer Bill Gaytten's designs for John Galliano's pre-fall 2012 collection.

Naomi Watts stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive (2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren both appeared in I Heart Huckabees (2004), but did not share any scenes together. Off screen, the film's director David O. Russell introduced them, and Watts said of Hedren: I was pretty fascinated by her then, because people have often said we're alike. Watts was styled as Hedren's title character from Marnie for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair. In the same issue, Jodie Foster was styled as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels, from The Birds.

More information: Instagram-Tippi Hedren

 I can look at myself in the mirror,

and I can be proud.

Tippi Hedren

1932, THE ALT LLOBREGAT INSURRECTION IN CATALONIA

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Alt Llobregat insurrection, that occurred on a day like today in 1932.

The Alt Llobregat insurrection was a revolutionary general strike which took place in central Catalonia in January 1932. Initially organised as a wildcat strike by miners in Fígols, who were protesting against low wages and poor working conditions, it soon turned into a general revolt and spread throughout the region.

Workers seized local institutions, disarmed the police and proclaimed libertarian communism, all without any killing taking place. Within a week, the rebellion was suppressed by the Spanish Army. A subsequent rebellion in Aragon was also suppressed. In the wake of the insurrection, many anarchist activists were imprisoned or deported. The suppression of the insurrection caused a split in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, with its radical faction ultimately taking control of the organisation and the moderate faction splitting off to form the Syndicalist Party. Further insurrections were carried out by CNT activists in January and December 1933.

When the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, it brought an end to years of dictatorship which had driven the Spanish anarchist movement underground and forced its members into exile. The drafting of the Spanish Constitution of 1931 caused divisions in the Provisional Government. The separation of church and state was approved by the Constituent Cortes on 13 October 1931, with 178 votes in favour and 59 opposed. Members of the Liberal Republican Right, including Prime Minister Niceto Alcalá-Zamora and Interior Minister Miguel Maura, resigned from the provisional government over the issue.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Radical Socialist Republican Party (PRRS) and Republican Action (AR) then came together to form a new left-wing government, excluding the right-wing republican parties. Manuel Azaña became the new prime minister, Santiago Casares Quiroga took over as Interior Minister and José Giral was appointed as Navy Minister. Without the influence of business owners and the Catholic clergy over the new government, many in the working class hoped they would address unemployment and land reform, but neither of these came to fruition.

Instead, on 20 October, the government passed the Law for the Defense of the Republic, which increased the power of the Interior Ministry.

On 9 December 1931, the Constituent Cortes approved the new constitution and elected Alcalá-Zamora as the first President of the Republic. On 11 December, Alcalá-Zamora accepted the nomination, swore to uphold the new constitution and proclaimed the day a national holiday.

While the government ratified the constitution, social conflict spread throughout the nascent Spanish Republic. In Zaragoza, workers proclaimed a general strike; in Xixón, the occupation of factories took place, culminating with the violent intervention of the Civil Guard, which killed 1 worker and wounded 11 others.

On 31 December, Casares Quiroga dispatched the Civil Guard to the Extremaduran town of Castilblanco to suppress a strike action by the local peasantry. Local activists responded to the intervention by surrounding the Civil Guards and killing them. The Civil Guard retaliated against villages throughout the country, attacking La Almarcha, Calzada de Calatrava and Puertollano in New Castile. In the Aragonese town of Épila, the Civil Guard opened fire on striking workers, killing 2 people and wounding several others. The Civil Guard also attacked striking workers in the Valencian town of Xeresa, killing 4 people and wounding 3 others. In the Riojan town of Arnedo, the Civil Guard again opened fire on striking workers, killing 6 men and 5 women and wounding 18 men and 11 women.

In the anarchist newspaper Tierra y Libertad, the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) proclaimed that the country had been kidnapped by the Civil Guard and printed graphic depictions of the violence.

In the Valencian city of Villena, the novelist Pío Baroja proclaimed that the Republic had killed more people in a few months than the monarchy had in forty years. The events in Épila, Xeresa and Arnedo provoked a furious response from anarcho-syndicalists in Barcelona, who began to speak of carrying out a revolution against the Republic.

On 18 January 1932, miners of the Sant Corneli Colony in Fígols carried out a wildcat strike, demanding improvements to their living and working conditions. As they believed the strike would only succeed if they could prevent their employers from repressing it, they disarmed the Civil Guard and the Sometent parapolice force, and they coordinated workers' patrols of the town's streets. The flag of the CNT was raised above the town hall and from the steeple of the local church. Before long, the workers of Fígols had formed a revolutionary committee, which proclaimed the establishment of libertarian communism in the region. According to an oral history by historian Cristina Borderias, the proclamation of communism was broadly accepted by the insurgent populace, for whom it meant social justice and freedom.

When the Catalan Regional Committee of the CNT received news of the insurrection breaking out in Fígols, they moved to support the workers' movement and expand it throughout Berguedà and Bages.

By 20 January, strike actions had spread to the neighbouring towns of Balsareny, Berga and Sallent, then on to Cardona, Navarcles and Súria, where workers shut down the mines and other local businesses. In Sallent, syndicalists seized explosives from the local potash factory and raised a red flag over the town hall. In Manresa, workers picketed outside of factories and workshops. Revolutionaries took control of the region's telephone exchanges and roads. Workers also cut telephone lines, which gave the first indication to the outside world that the strike had escalated into an insurrection. Workers throughout central Catalonia seized their town halls, where they replaced the tricolour flag of the Spanish Republic with the red and black flag of anarchism.

The workers of central Catalonia declared the abolition of private property and the state. They also established a non-monetary economy, replacing money with a system of labour vouchers and the sharing of resources under common ownership. No looting or killing took place during the insurrection. According to reports by the anarchist newspaper La Tierra, the insurgents secured the region without arbitrary attacks against their political enemies, whether police, judges or priests. Once the region had been taken, the insurgent workers returned to their jobs in the coal fields.

On 22 January, reinforcements were brought in from the provinces of Lleida, Girona, Huesca and Zaragoza. The Spanish Army swiftly occupied Manresa. By 23 January, every town in the region had been occupied, except for the revolutionary stonghold of Fígols. The following day, Spanish troops entered the town, where they discovered that the insurgent miners had blown up the explosives warehouse and fled into the mountains.

By 25 January, the insurrection was over and social order was restored in central Catalonia. People in the region who had opposed the insurrection collaborated in the political repression that followed. Miners who had participated in the insurrection were dismissed from their jobs, and only those who had been marginal participants were rehired. In the end, the libertarian communist experiment had lasted less than a week.

The Alt Llobregat insurrection exacerbated the internal divisions in the CNT, which had split into moderate and radical factions. The militants arrested after the insurrection had all been radical faistas (members of the FAI), which briefly strengthened the position of the moderate treintistas within the CNT.

More information: Racó Català

Anarchism is the great liberator of man
from the phantoms that have held him captive;
it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces
for individual and social harmony.

Emma Goldman

ANTHONY THE GREAT, THE CHRISTIAN EGYPTIAN MONK

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Anthony the Great, Christian Egyptian monk, who died on a day like today in 356.

Anthony the Great, in Ancient Greek Ἀντώνιος ὁ Μέγας Antónios ho̅ Me̅́gas, in Arabic القديس أنطونيوس الكبير, in Latin Antonius, in Coptic Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲁⲛⲧⲱⲛⲓ, (c. 12 January 251-17 January 356) was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. 

He is distinguished from other saints named Anthony, such as Anthony of Padua, by various epithets: Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Anthony the Hermit, and Anthony of Thebes. For his importance among the Desert Fathers and to all later Christian monasticism, he is also known as the Father of All Monks. His feast day is celebrated on 17 January among the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches and on Tobi 22 in the Coptic calendar.

The biography of Anthony's life by Athanasius of Alexandria helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations. He is often erroneously considered the first Christian monk, but as his biography and other sources make clear, there were many ascetics before him. Anthony was, however, among the first known to go into the wilderness (about AD 270), which seems to have contributed to his renown. Accounts of Anthony enduring supernatural temptation during his sojourn in the Eastern Desert of Egypt inspired the depiction of his temptations in visual art and literature.

Anthony is invoked against infectious diseases, particularly skin diseases. In the past, many such afflictions, including ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles, were referred to as Saint Anthony's fire.

Most of what is known about Anthony comes from the Life of Anthony. Written in Greek c. 360 by Athanasius of Alexandria, it depicts Anthony as an illiterate and holy man who, through his existence in a primordial landscape, has an absolute connection to the divine truth, which is always in harmony with that of Athanasius as the biographer. A continuation of the genre of secular Greek biography, it became his most widely read work. Sometime before 374 it was translated into Latin by Evagrius of Antioch. The Latin translation helped the Life become one of the best-known works of literature in the Christian world, a status it would hold through the Middle Ages.

Translated into several languages, it became something of a best seller in its day and played an important role in the spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity. It later served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both the East and the West, and helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations.

Many stories are also told about Anthony in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

Anthony probably spoke only his native language, Coptic, but his sayings were spread in a Greek translation. He himself dictated letters in Coptic, seven of which are extant.

Anthony was born in Koma in Lower Egypt to wealthy landowner parents. When he was about 20 years old, his parents died and left him with the care of his unmarried sister. Shortly thereafter, he decided to follow the gospel exhortation in Matthew 19: 21, If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven. Anthony gave away some of his family's lands to his neighbours, sold the remaining property, and donated the funds to the poor. He then left to live an ascetic life, placing his sister with a group of Christian virgins.

For the next fifteen years, Anthony remained in the area, spending the first years as the disciple of another local hermit. There are various legends that he worked as a swineherd during this period.

Anthony maintained a very strict ascetic diet. He ate only bread, salt and water and never meat or wine. He ate at most only once a day and sometimes fasted through two or four days.

Anthony was not the first ascetic or hermit, but he may properly be called the Father of Monasticism in Christianity, as he organized his disciples into a community and later, following the spread of Athanasius's hagiography, was the inspiration for similar communities throughout Egypt and elsewhere. Macarius the Great was a disciple of Anthony. Visitors traveled great distances to see the celebrated holy man. Anthony is said to have spoken to those of a spiritual disposition, leaving the task of addressing the more worldly visitors to Macarius. Macarius later founded a monastic community in the Scetic desert.

When Anthony sensed his death approaching, he commanded his disciples to give his staff to Macarius of Egypt, and to give one sheepskin cloak to Athanasius of Alexandria and the other sheepskin cloak to Serapion of Thmuis, his disciple. Anthony was interred, according to his instructions, in a grave next to his cell.

More information: Family of Saint Sharbel USA

The person who abides in solitude and quiet
is delivered from fighting three battles:
hearing, speech, and sight.

Then there remains one battle 

to fight-the battle of the heart.

Anthony the Great