1124

What's your favourite number?

"I simply do not appreciate any mathematical endeavour. I apologise."

click. bzzzt.

Lights please. With a smooth flick of your index finger, the fluorescent tube oscillates into life

"Please, Kath. Humour me."
I am desperate for her answer.

ka-ching. deeeeaaal or ...

You stumble onto the couch, and chew through the channels, settling at Deal Or No Deal.

"You know I don't... believe in all your statistics and differisation or whatever. Life is not a composition of numbers."

whoooo! NO DEAL!

Even when you know how it irks me, when you airily dismiss m—

"And by the way, don't you dare give me that spiel about dismissing your goddamn field. I've-heard-that-enough-times-thank-you-very-much!"

It tends to be the loudest shouts that procure the quietest silences.

And now, Angie, the odds are in your favour.
Bank offer of $20,000, three briefcases still up for grabs.
What's it gonna be, Angie? Deal? Or no deal?

You lean forward. On edge. Tension.

"I swear to God, if she accepts that twenty-thousand dollars..."

The chance of obtaining more than $20,000 by playing to the end in Deal or No Deal is nineteen point two percent.

The chance of a contestant attempting to do so at this time is eighty point five percent.

I remain silent, of course. It would be foolish to interrupt her now, as the program has mesmerised her; she will be unreachable for some time now, I imagine.

It's a NO DEAL, ladies and gentlemen!
What's the banker going to say about this, now?
We'll be back after the break to find out!

The human senses are wired logarithmically, while time is linear. This means that certain events that happen in a slow, linear fashion appear to happen exponentially. Instantaneously, almost. There are no comprehensive lists, but a few moments are undeniably part of this phenomenon. Solving an abstract mathematical problem. Falling in love. Ideas.

"Kath?"

sigh. eyes lift. slowly. weary. wary.

"Kath, do you remember, when you were running down Sixth Avenue, past the florist's and in front of the train station? Do you remember that?"

twitch on the ears.

Lovely. I have hit it.

"Remember, you needed to catch the eleven thirty North Ryde train to get to work, because your alarm clock died, because you hadn't changed its double-A batteries in three months?"

twitch.

"Remember, when you walked up to an oh-so-scary complete stranger, and asked me the time?"

twitch.

"What time was it, Kath?"

shudder. sob. glassy eyes.

"eleven twenty-four"

breakdown. waterworks.

I really have to stop doing this.

In the year AD 1124...

• At the Battle of Bourgtheroulde forces loyal to English king Henry I decisively defeat a numerically superior force of Norman rebels fighting in the name of William Clito, in one of the earliest battles to show the utility of archers versus horsemen.
• The Crusades continue in the Holy Land. Venetian crusaders conquer Tyre and are awarded title to one third of its territory and important trading privileges. Meanwhile Baldwin II, the crusader king of Jerusalem, is released by the Ortoqids after almost a year of captivity, and almost immediately lays siege to the city of Allepo, but will be driven off early in 1125 by the arrival on the scene of il-Bursuqi, the Seljuk atabeg of Mosul.
• Irish warlord Tairrdelbach mac Ruaidri Ua Conchobair, king of Connacht, erects a small fort called Dún Bhun na Gaillimhe ("Fort at the Mouth of the Gaillimh River"), which will eventually grow to become the modern-day city of Galway, Ireland.
• Japanese aristocrat Fujiwara no Kiyohira constructs the magnificent Golden Hall at Chusonji temple in Hiraizumi, which today is a Japanese national treasure and one of only two buildings left in Japan which were built in the fabled Heian Era (794-1185).
• The oldest school in Scotland, the High School of Glasgow, is founded as a school to teach liturgical singing, before eventually being converted to a grammar school.

These people were born in 1124:

• Eleanor of Aquitaine, future queen of England and mother of future English kings Richard the Lionheart and John.
• Li Renxiao, later to be named Emperor Renzong of the Western Xia Dynasty.
• German aristocrat Ottokar III, future margrave of Styria.

These people died in 1124:

• Pope Callixtus II, suceeded by Honorius II.
• Scottish king Alexander I, succeeded by his brother David I.
• Persian Muslim missionary Hassan-i Sabbah, who founded a community in the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran which would later come to be known as the Hashshashin.
• French Catholic priest Saint Stephen of Muret, founder of the Order of Grandmont.
• Former Duke of Bohemia Borivoj II, while in self-imposed exile in Hungary after a falling out with his brother Vladislaus I four years prior.
• Irish warlord Maelsechlainn mac Tadhg Mor, king of Moylurg, slain in a battle with troops from the kingdom of Breifne, succeeded by Dermot mac Tadhg Mor.
• Italian abbot Saint Constabilis, venerated as the patron saint of the town of Castellabate, which he founded in 1123.
• French historian and theologian Guibert of Nogent.
• Ernulf, French-born Benedictine monk, architect, and ultimately Bishop of Rochester in England.
• German aristocrat Wiprecht of Groitzsch, margrave of Meissen and the Saxon Ostmark, succeeded by his son Henry of Groitzsch.
• Welsh nobleman Einion ap Cadwgan, lord of Meirionydd, which was then a vassal state of Powys, setting off a lengthy succession dispute which would eventually lead Meirionydd to fall into the hands of Gwynedd.

1123 - 1124 - 1125

12th century

How they were made