Tanning

Happening to be visiting Vol.IX Part II of OED this morning, I came across an interesting Irish practise  called 'tanistry' from the days when they had clans and chiefs. 

By which the chief held office for life, but his successor was elected and nominated during his lifetime, with the successor being called the tanist. The idea being that the tanist was the most suitable, the most eligible of the men around the chief. Presumably in those days this meant being a good fighter and a good leader of men.

An upside being that useless offspring of the chief were put aside in favour of someone more suitable. A downside being that election would involve pushing, shoving and uncertainty which does not arise when one has a rule like the first born legitimate son.

From where I associated to having read somewhere that First People tribes in north America sometimes distinguished war chiefs from the ordinary chief, the point being that the two jobs required different qualities. The Roman Republic did something similar with its Dictators - until Julius Caesar spoiled things by getting himself made Dictator for life.

PS 1: checking my email after this post, I was very impressed by Fleur Barron and Julius Drake doing Schubert's 'Auf dem Flusse' from the Winterreise, offered by the Temple Music Foundation, the same people who put on the show noticed at reference 2. Perhaps lawyers are really opera people, and so more tuned into lady singers than I am. The only downside was that the pictures were a second or so astray of the sounds, which meant that one was better off not watching, the absence of synchronisation being surprisingly irritating. Also irritating that I couldn't work out whether the sound was ahead of the sight or vice-versa.

PS 2: on Thursday evening, wanting to hear Barron again, I tried clicking on the link at reference 3 again. Which had worked at the time of posting, but now produced a YouTube message saying that the donor had withdrawn the video. While going back to the original advertisement, which had arrived by email, still worked, still talked to YouTube. Social media clearly more complicated than I had realised.

Reference 1: https://www.templemusic.org/.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/winterreise.html.

Reference 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6XsvPEpd58&t=305s. Fail!