It’s been a while, but the time has finally come round for another Voynich London pub meet, on Thursday 7th March 2013 at the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping, a pub with its own gallows and noose (though admittedly these days it’s Somali pirates who get all the press rather than privateers). I’ll be there from 6pm onwards, hope to see some of you there too!
The reason for the weekday (i.e. not the usual Sunday) is that German cipher mystery skeptic Klaus Schmeh is over in the UK for a very few days & the 7th is the only evening he can squeeze into his packed schedule. I can’t change that and would like to catch up with him, so what’s a Cipher Mysteries blogger to do? Make do with the cards he’s dealt, that’s what… it is what it is.
This has, of course, been Schmeh Week on Cipher Mysteries, what with The Gentlemen’s Cipher from Klaus’ blog and this week’s diplomatic cipher conference in Gotha. So if (like me) you’d like to chat with Klaus about the conference, or perhaps chat with me about cipher stuff (if reading all my posts isn’t a rich enough diet for you), then feel free to swing along to Wapping. WW2 cipher pigeon fans welcome too! Cheers! 🙂
Have they Guinness on tap?
Diane: apparently that problem with the plumbing has been fixed. 😉
😀
Do I see the prospect of a little gallows humor in Whitby? Have fun!
🙂
Thanks for organising this meeting. I am sorry that I am only available on this week-day evening. I am looking forward to meeting some of you.
Really, Nick, I AM curious about the hangman’s noose I see dangling in front of the pub. Is there any “history” there? (Or did you do a “cut and paste” b4 putting this topic in place?)
🙂
bdid1dr: loads of history, it’s one of the most historic pubs in London. Just don’t get caught being a pirate there, it might well end badly… 😉
Nick,
Thanks to your mentioning it, I’ve been looking at the occasional post on Klaus’ blog.
Very interesting.
I think you may be doing him an injustice by calling Klaus a skeptic.
Properly speaking, a skeptic seeks all the evidence an weighs it neutrally before forming any opinion at all.
I think Klaus is much more engaged than that. He seems to be quite passionate about the views he espouses, and not to consider them skeptically at all.
But I admit, this is only an interim impression; I haven’t watched any of his YouTube offerings yet.
D.
Nick: Are you going to histocrypt? I had an email from Klaus Schmeh about a pub meet up.
Mark Knowles: though I’m not going to Histocrypt (much as I’d like to), I’ll be meeting up with Elonka and Klaus (and others) a few days later, it would be fantastic if you would come along too. Prospect of Whitby for afternoon drinks, then Brick Lane for the grand finale. Go on, you know you want to. 😁
Nick Pelling: A pub meet sounds neat, but only if they have Guiness, I’d like to be a fly on the wall. I agree that having Mark and Krause drinking at the same table is unlikely to achieve any sort of consensus. About as friendly as inviting Rene Z. and Rich SantaCaloma along, it’d be like a pair of flies to an kombaya meeting no less.
The Histocrypt program promises a number of fascinating papers, including one I’d dearly like to read as follow up Alberti’s mapping of Rome, viz. “The use of volvelles in two early modern cryptography manuals” – paper being delivered by Corinne Bayerl.
Volvelles are far from being a new theme in Voynich research.
Nick mentioned them in his book, and again in a post of 2009, and then in a series of posts from late 2019 through 2020 (search ‘volvelles’).
Those from April, 2020 offer complementary material for that already published by the present writer when treating matters of navigational astronomy. Where I had spoken of the ‘Guards’ as a means to determine latitude and times, Nick speaks instead in terms of the Latins’ instruments ( Nick looks at similar matter, but solely in terms of the Latins’ instrument-dependent methods – nocturnals, horologium, backstaff etc.) His references also complement those I’d recommended; my posts spoke of Tibbett’s translation of Ibn Majid’s text, of Michael of Rhodes’ manual, and I cited recent scholarly works by E.G.R Taylor – especially The Haven-Finding Art. A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook (1956) and its (1971) edition which includes a fascinating article by Joseph Needham. I’d also referred to the work which Taylor wrote with Michael Richey entitled The Geometrical Seaman. A Book of Early Nautical Instruments. Thus, when in April 2020 Nick mentioned a different publication of 1956 – German-language text by Ernst Zinner (1956) Deutsche und niederländische astronomische Instrumente des 11.-18. Jahrhunderts, Voynicheros have a more complete idea of the subject.
Another topic familiar from Ciphermysteries – Carola Dahlke is offering a paper “Demystifying La Buse’s cryptogram and the Fiery Cross of Goa”.
I do hope the Histocrypt papers will be posted somewhere accessible to the wider public. I’m not sure I’d want a year’s worth of Cryptologia just to read them.
Nick: I mentioned your pub meet up on Ninja with reference to Histocrypt. Do you want to make the details public? Koen asked me about the details on Ninja. I don’t imagine that you will be swamped by people given that most Voynich researchers are not in the UK.
Klaus Schmeh says:
Place: Prospect of Whitby Pub Restaurant in Wapping, London
Date: Saturday June 29th
Time: 2pm (we will proceed to Brick Lane for dinner around 5pm)
The meeting is organized by Nick Pelling (ciphermysteries.com). Among the participants will be US crypto expert Elonka Dunin.
There is no agenda, we will just meet and talk about codebreaking and (classical) cryptography. Of course, there is no admission fee.
…and all are welcome, the more the merrier, but not sure who’s picking up the tab.