I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world.	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms . He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on the PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

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Blast from the Past Earlier this week, I was digging through some of my old notes from my Vernacular Palaeography class at Columbia. I was looking for a specific reference that a friend had mentioned, and which I know I've seen. Alright, Columbia is not in the UK, but the friend is, and thus the relevance to this venue. For those who are interested, I was looking for the usage of an ampersand or Tironian note not as the word 'et' ('and') but simply as the letters 'et' in another word. I know I've seen it, but - alas- I didn't find it. Instead I found a document I had written, probably around Valentine's Day, and which I turned in along with my actual homework. Hence the title, 'Blast from the Past.' 'Blast from the Past with Extremely Specific Jokes' would probably be more accurate. Still, for those of you that like this sort of thing, as the saying goes, this is the sort of thing you like. I present it below in its unedited, ah, 'glory.' Evidence has recently surfaced of a hitherto unknown insular experiment with alternate writing support. This first image suggests that as early as 600 AD, Irish scribes were using cookie base. The surface was baked and took frosting well. Note the Capital initial A and rounded Uncial M This rare example of Anglo-Saxon Pointed confectionary shows the early open A with an unusual -nt suspension in line 2. The cramped hand in line one as well as a suspension for -s suggests a culture just becoming reacquainted with cookie-text production. The fine English Caroline minuscule of this example is marred only by a slight erasure before the A and the awkward construction of the first minim of M. The green frosting is typical of cookies of the period. Oh, I just crack myself up sometimes. Trust me, palaeography nerds would find some of this hilarious. Until next time ... Luddite'sLog, 20 December 2017 © 2017 Jeff Berry

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