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Ovid ends Book 7 of his Metamorphoses with one of his best stories. It’s told by Cephalus, the envoy from Athens, to the sons of King Aeacus on the island of Aegina, following the king’s account of the Myrmidons.

Having told Cephalus of the plague and the Myrmidons that followed it, King Aeacus falls asleep, so his son Phocus takes Cephalus and his companions to their accommodation. There Phocus notices the unusual javelin carried by Cephalus, with its gold tip on a shaft of wood that he cannot identify. This leads Cephalus to tell him that the javelin killed his wife, and so to explain the circumstances.

Within two months of his marriage to the beautiful Procris, when he was laying nets to catch a deer at dawn, Aurora saw Cephalus and tried to abduct him (she has a track record of affairs with humans). Cephalus protested and told Aurora of his love for his wife, so she let him go, warning him that if she saw him again, he would regret ever marrying Procris.

Nicolas Poussin’s Cephalus and Aurora (1630) shows the dawn scene of Cephalus trying to avoid the obviously amorous intentions of the goddess Aurora, who is seated and nearly naked. Behind Cephalus is the winged horse drawing the chariot of the dawn. A winged putto is holding up an image for him to view, presumably showing Procris, to help his resolve. At the left is a river god. Beyond the horse is another deity bearing a coronet: although difficult to see, that might be Diana, given her association with hunting and her role in this myth.

Peter Paul Rubens’ oil sketch of Aurora Abducting Cephalus was probably made in 1636-37, late in Rubens’ life, for his workshop to complete as a painting for King Philip IV of Spain’s hunting lodge at Torre de la Parada, near Madrid. In addition to showing the willing Aurora trying to persuade the reluctant Cephalus to join her in her chariot, it includes some details at odds with Ovid’s story: Diana’s hunting dog and javelin, which Procris gave to her husband after their reconciliation, later in the story. Here they may be intended as attributes to confirm his identity.

Over the following couple of centuries, there was a steady stream of paintings showing the abduction of Cephalus, but to my eye the next major work using this theme was Pierre-Narcisse Guérin’s romantic Aurora and Cephalus (1810). Instead of a substantial chariot, the seductive figure of Aurora is bearing a sleeping Cephalus aloft on a bed of cloud, as dawn breaks over the mountains below.

Forty years later, Pierre Claude François Delorme uses a similar motif recomposed into his Cephalus Carried off by Aurora (c 1851). This features ingeniously interlocking arms and embraces: Aurora cradles Cephalus’ shoulder and chest, Cephalus reaches out to Cupid, and Cupid back to Cephalus.

As he went back to his wife, Cephalus started to worry whether his wife had been unfaithful to him. He became aware that Aurora had changed his appearance, and entered the city of Athens unrecognised. When he got home, his household and wife didn’t recognise him either, so Cephalus put Procris to the test: with his wife still thinking him a stranger, he offered her great riches to spend a night with him, and managed to get her to waver with uncertainty.

He then revealed himself to be her husband, and accused her of being unfaithful. She said not a word, but fled to the mountains, where she joined the followers of Diana.

Cephalus yearned for his wife, so begged her forgiveness, and admitted that he too would have given way when made such an irresistible offer. Procris returned to him, and the couple lived happily again together. She brought back with her gifts from Diana: a hunting dog who outran all other dogs, and that unusual javelin.

Then the city of Thebes was once again put into difficulty, after Oedipus had broken the siege imposed by the Sphinx. This time the problem took the form of a wild beast that ate all its livestock. All the younger men, including Cephalus, went to hunt the beast, but it eluded them and their dogs. Cephalus then unleashed Diana’s hound to chase the beast. The dog caught it, but it broke free again. Cephalus prepared to throw his javelin, then noticed that his dog and the beast had suddenly been transformed into marble statues.

Cephalus returned to his now blissfully happy marriage with Procris. He went hunting alone at dawn, always feeling safe with his javelin. As the heat of the day came on, he would call on an imaginary zephyr of the cool breeze, talking to it as if it was a real nymph. One day he must have been overheard, and word was taken back to Procris that he was meeting a woman when he was supposed to be hunting. His wife was shocked, but refused to accept the story without herself witnessing her husband’s deceit.

The following morning, Cephalus was out hunting at dawn again, and when he grew hot, he rested and spoke to his imaginary zephyr as usual. He thought that he heard a sound nearby, which he suspected was an animal. He turned and threw his javelin at that noise.

He next heard his wife’s voice, rushed towards it, and found her mortally wounded, with his javelin buried deep in her chest. He took her up into his arms and tried in vain to stop blood from pouring from the wound. Knowing that she was dying, Procris implored him not to take the zephyr as his wife. He then realised the fatal misunderstanding, that Procris believed that he had been unfaithful. As Procris died in his arms, Cephalus tried to explain to her that the zephyr was only imaginary, and that seemed to bring her some comfort in her last moments.

In the foreground of Paolo Veronese’s account from about 1580, Procris has fallen, the javelin embedded in her upper abdomen, and her life is fading fast. Cephalus isn’t embracing her, though, merely holding her hand as he tries to plead his innocence. Veronese leaves us with two small puzzles too. The first is the large hunting hound behind Cephalus’ right shoulder, remembering that Diana’s dog was turned into stone while hunting the beast of Thebes. More puzzling is another figure, and a second dog, in the distance, at the left edge of the painting. These might represent the first part of the scene, before Cephalus throws his javelin, in multiplex narrative.

Peter Paul Rubens offers another oil sketch, of Cephalus and Procris (1636-37), showing the couple just before Cephalus throws the fateful javelin, which rests at his side.

There is another painting that has been claimed to show The Death of Procris, but which is more accurately titled A Satyr Mourning over a Nymph, made by Piero di Cosimo in about 1495.

A brilliant painting, it uses the full width of a panoramic panel to show a satyr with his goat legs and distinctive ears, ministering to a dying or dead nymph, who has a severe wound in her throat. At her feet is a hunting dog, with another three in the distance. But there’s no reason to show Cephalus as a satyr; Procris was impaled in the chest by the javelin; Procris was behind cover, where she was spying on Cephalus, not out in the open; and Cephalus had only one hound, a gift from Diana, which had in any case already been turned to marble. It’s a superb painting of a different story.

Ovid ends the book with Cephalus and his audience in tears, as Aeacus arrives with his other two sons and the army which they have been raising to counter the forces of Minos, setting the scene for the start of the next book.

There aren’t many mythical animals in operating systems, and the most famous of those is probably Tux the penguin who appeared in Linux around 1996. The Mac’s first mythical animal predates that by more than a decade, and is the distinctive dogcow named Clarus, who appeared in every version of Mac OS until Mac OS X.

When Annette Wagner was designing the Page Setup dialog for Classic Mac OS, she needed a figure to place on the page to show the user its orientation and other options. She was working with an early symbolic font Cairo, created by Susan Kare who was also the designer of Chicago, the first Mac system font, and modified its z character of a dog to make it work better in the dialog. The result was a creature that looked like a hybrid between a dog and a cow.

In 1987, Scott ‘Zz’ Zimmerman coined the term dogcow for this curious beast, which by now was featured in every Page Setup dialog on every Mac, and was becoming quite a celebrity. A little later, Mark ‘The Red’ Harlan gave the dogcow the name of Clarus, a variation on the name of Claris, Apple’s software subsidiary that had been formed in 1987.

As Apple’s campus at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, developed, Clarus was one of several large plastic figures forming the Icon Garden in front of the offices.

The dogcow lived on in Page Setup dialogs until Mac OS X was released, and early in the 2000s she was put out to grass in favour of a stylised icon of a human figure. Those who pined for the reappearance of the dogcow in OS X remained disappointed until macOS Ventura, when she finally returned, although now in full vector graphics glory.

By this time, there was another reference to Clarus tucked away as an Easter Egg in the Emoji & Symbols viewer: type the letters of her name into its search box, and you’ll see the two emoji characters of a dog and a cow, although neither of them resembles Clarus in appearance.

Although not heard in Mac OS, Clarus has been attributed the sound of moof, a portmanteau of moo and woof, of course.

The next time you open the Page Setup dialog, spare a thought for Clarus the dogcow, still doing the same job nearly forty years later.

References

Wikipedia
Macintosh Technical Note 31: The Dogcow, April 1989, written by Mark “The Red” Harlan
History of the Dogcow Part 1, MacTech, by Mark “The Red” Harlan
History of the Dogcow Part 2, MacTech, by Mark “The Red” Harlan

Ovid starts the seventh book of his Metamorphoses with myths concerning Jason, Medea, and the Golden Fleece. Although these take up the first half of this book, he only summarises long and complex stories told more fully elsewhere. They also present a problem in consistency of theme. For the Metamorphoses to provide reasonably comprehensive coverage of all the major contemporary myths, they’re essential, but lack the transformations promised by the title.

The book drops us into the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece just as Jason has learned of the three tasks he must complete to obtain the prize. Medea, the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, considers that her father’s demands are too harsh, and is torn between desire and reason. She recognises that she has fallen in love with Jason, and is already considering wild thoughts of marriage to him.

She thus resolves to provide him with every aid that she can to assist his mission, in the hope that this will ensure their marriage and secure her future glory. Medea therefore goes to an old shrine to Hecate, where she meets Jason and teaches him how to use magic herbs to accomplish the tasks.

Several artists, notably those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have explored Medea’s role, and her relationship with Jason at this stage of the story. In John William Waterhouse’s Jason and Medea (1907), she’s depicted as a sorceress, preparing the potions Jason was about to use to accomplish his tasks. He appears anxious, ready to go and tackle his challenge.

Frederick Sandys shows Medea (1866-68) at work, preparing a magic potion for one of Jason’s missions. In front of her is a toad, and other ingredients. Behind her, in a gilt frieze, is Jason’s ship the Argo.

The following day, watched by the king, Jason succeeds in his first task of yoking a team of fire-breathing bulls, and using them to plough a field which had never been ploughed before, enabled by a herbal ointment provided by Medea.

As he is ploughing, Jason sows the teeth of a dragon, required for his second task. As with those sown by Cadmus before he founded the city of Thebes, those teeth instantly grow into an army who point their spears at Jason. Medea tells him to throw a large rock into their midst, to draw their attention so they kill one another instead of Jason.

Jason moves on to his final task, to provide him with the Golden Fleece, but first has to get past the dragon guarding it. He sprinkles another of Medea’s herbal preparations on the guardian and recites a magic spell three times to put the dragon to sleep.

The frescoes of the Palazzo Ghisilardi Fava in Bologna give a superb account through eighteen separate images. Although directed by Annibale Carracci, it’s thought that his brother Agostino and cousin Ludovico also made significant contributions during the painting between about 1583-84.

This uses elaborate multiplex narrative to summarise much of Ovid’s account: at the left, two of the fire-breathing bulls are still yoked, in front of King Aeëtes. The army sprung up from the dragon’s teeth appear behind the wall, armed still with spears but no longer fighting. In the foreground, Jason has put the dragon to sleep using Medea’s magic concoction, and is unhitching the Golden Fleece while he can. At the right, two of the Argonauts offer to help Jason (shown a second time) carry the fleece away.

In Jean François de Troy’s The Capture of the Golden Fleece from 1742, Jason reaches up to take the Golden Fleece from a branch of an oak tree. The artist has interpreted this prize as a lamb of rather modest size. However, the hero’s left foot rests on the body of the dragon, whose nostrils emit steam. To the left of Jason is Medea, dressed as an eastern princess, and surrounding them are the Argonauts, whose ship is seen at the far left, preparing to set sail.

Gustave Moreau’s Jason (1865) oddly excludes Medea from its title. She stands almost naked behind Jason, holding a vial in her right hand, and her body is swathed with the poisonous hellebore plant, a standard tool of witchcraft. It has been suggested that these allude to Jason’s later rejection of Medea and her poisoning of Glauce, but that’s not borne out by the only clues provided by Moreau in the almost illegible inscriptions on the two phylacteries wound around the column.

Cooke has deciphered their Latin as reading:
nempe tenens quod amo gremioque in Iasonis haerens
per freta longa ferar; nihil illum amplexa timebo
(Nay, holding that which I love, and resting in Jason’s arms, I shall travel over the long reaches of the sea; in his safe embrace I will fear nothing)
et auro heros Aesonius potitur spolioque superbus
muneris auctorem secum spolia altera portans
(And the heroic son of Aeson [i.e. Jason] gained the Golden Fleece. Proud of this spoil and bearing with him the giver of his prize, another spoil)

These imply we should read the painting in terms of the conflict between Jason and Medea: Medea expresses her subjugate trust in him, while Jason considers her to be just another spoil won alongside the Golden Fleece. When exhibited at the Salon in 1865, the critics were unsure of what they were supposed to be looking at, and Moreau’s narrative was irretrievable amid his surfeit of symbols.

This is the sort of narrative you might have expect Rubens to have painted, and he did prepare some sketches of the motif. It was his pupil and collaborator Erasmus Quellinus the Younger (1607–1678), though, who produced this finished painting of Jason and the Golden Fleece in 1630, probably within Rubens’ workshop.

Once the dragon is slumbering deeply, Jason seizes the Golden Fleece, and sails with Medea and his prize to his home port of Iolcus.

Herbert James Draper shows one account of the tactics employed in The Golden Fleece from 1904: as Jason and his Argonauts are sailing away, Medea throws her brother into the sea, forcing her father to stop to recover him, so allowing the Argo to escape from the pursuit.

比亚迪卖得最好的 SUV 上新了。

今晚，比亚迪延续双宋产品线，推出了宋 L DM-i 和 2025 款宋 PLUS DM-i，两款车的起售价格均为 13.58 万元，顶配价格也都来到了 17.58 万元。

虽然外观看上去都没有太变化，但两款新车都采用了第五代 DM 混动系统。没错，就是比亚迪不久前在秦 L 和海豹 06 上喊出百公里馈电油耗 2.9L 的那套。

不知道被捧上天的第五代 DM，在一辆 SUV 里能拿到怎样的成绩呢？

油耗仍是主角

车尾的「BUILD YOUR DREAMS」变成了会发光的「BYD」

——这就是 2025 款宋 PLUS DM-i 在外观上最大的变化。

宋 L DM-i 则要介绍一下，这是一个全新的车型命名。

外观上，来自王朝网的宋 L DM-i 明显要更加豪放，一体式前大灯组和大尺寸格栅共同勾勒出一副「龙颜」，内部采用点阵式镀铬元素进行点缀，这是王朝网车型的惯用手法。

宋 L DM-i 的侧面造型也比宋 PLUS 更加硬朗，尾部灯组保留了经典且美观的中国结设计。

外观就不多提了，两辆新车最值得介绍的，自然是内部的第五代 DM 混动技术。

它们都拥有一台最大功率 74kW，峰值扭矩 126N·m 的 1.5L 发动机，和秦 L、海豹 06 上的完全相同。与老款相比，这台发动机的功率降低了 7kW，扭矩减少了 9N·m，但一台 160kW 的驱动电机抚平了两代车型间的性能差距，更小的发动机功率还为新车带来了更低的百公里亏电油耗——3.9L（NEDC 工况），综合续航里程超过 1500 公里。

电池方面，新车提供 12.9 千瓦时、18.3 千瓦时和 26.6 千瓦时三种规格的磷酸铁锂刀片电池，CLTC 纯电续航里程分别为 75km、112km 和 160km。

两辆新车的内饰基本延续了老款车型的设计，增加了全新的内饰配色供选择。最大的升级在于车机，宋 PLUS DM-i 和宋 L DM-i 都标配了 DiLink100，也就是目前最新的 DiLink 5.0 系统，和定位更高的汉、唐荣耀版、腾势 N7 一致，液晶仪表的规格也有所升级，入门车型的提升较大。

芯片性能称不上强悍，高通 SM7325，和过去的骁龙 690 对比的话进步明显。

新车的配置不可谓不丰富，多项主被动安全系统、定速巡航、360 度全景影像、胎压监测、6 向电动调节主驾座椅、后排座椅靠背角度调节等配置均为标配。

中配车型则在此基础上增加了自适应巡航、智能领航、自动紧急制动等辅助驾驶功能、前排座椅加热 / 通风、50 瓦无线充电等配置。自动泊车、抬头显示、燕飞利仕 10 扬声器音响等配置则要在 16.58 万元起的次顶配车型上才能看到。

还有一处提升比较值得说道——新车的后悬挂从老款的三连杆换成了四连杆，后排的乘坐舒适性理应有所提升，顶配车型还配了 FSD 可变阻尼减振器，可根据路面变化自动调节阻尼。

需要说明的是，和采用第四代 DM 的宋 Pro DM-i 和宋 PLUS DM-i 荣耀版一样，今晚发布的宋 L DM-i 和 2025 款宋 PLUS DM-i 分别归属于王朝网和海洋网。但新车的推出并不意味着旧款会停产，上述四款车型将同堂销售，以覆盖更广的市场。

宋的「中庸之道」

本周一，比亚迪宣布，宋 PLUS 新能源车型的累计销量突破了 100 万辆，成为中国首个达成百万销量的新能源 SUV，同时也是中国最快达成百万销量的全品类 SUV。

这里说的「最快」，只有 3 年。

2021 年 3 月，比亚迪将最新的 DM-i 超级混动技术带至宋 PLUS 系列当中，推出了全新紧凑型 SUV 宋 PLUS DM-i，将这款走量车型推到了一个新的高度。

当时的宋 PLUS DM-i，全系搭载骁云-插混专用 1.5L 发动机，拥有 12.5 的高压缩比、米勒循环、超低摩擦等技术，热效率达 43.04%。而这仅仅是开胃小菜，它的「灵魂」并不在于那台发动机，而在于它的 EHS 电混系统。换装以电驱为主的 DM-i 后，宋 PLUS DM-i 的 NEDC 工况的百公里亏电油耗做到了 4.4L。

用车成本的降低，显然是普通消费者最喜闻乐见的。完成产能爬坡后，宋 PLUS DM-i 很快就突破了万辆月销，甚至在 11 月、12 月直冲 2 万辆。

到了第二年，宋 PLUS DM-i 的销量才真正迎来爆发。

2022 年，宋家族的总销量达到 47.5 万辆，超过了比亚迪当年的销售总量的 1/4。宋 PLUS DM-i，正是宋家族卖得最好的一辆车，共售出 38.9 万辆，占到了宋家族销量的 80%；2023 年 12 月，宋家族更是创下了 8.4 万辆的自主品牌单月销量纪录。

如此夸张的销量数据，让人不禁想问，为什么？

首先是产品定位。宋 PLUS 新能源的成功，无疑与其定位有关。

对每一个用户来说，在买车之前必然会考虑一个问题，我要买一台什么样的车？这个问题，在不同的地区和国家往往会有不同的答案。在美国，皮卡是顶流，欧洲则流行旅行车，日本人对 K-Car 情有独钟，在中国，最受欢迎的便是 SUV。

中国目前是 SUV 的第一大消费国，不管是绝对数量还是相对比例都远高于其他市场。其中，紧凑级 SUV 是最热门的一个品类。2023 年，紧凑型 SUV 的全年销量达到了 540.9 万辆，占整个 SUV 市场的 52.1%。不少刚需型消费者都需要一辆价格实惠、省钱耐用的小车——这正是宋家族一直以来所追求的目标。

从 2015 年到现在，宋家族见证了从国 5 到国 6 排放标准的切换，见证了比亚迪全面停产纯燃油车，见证了比亚迪插电混动技术的不断突破，经过一轮又一轮的迭代，成为了一个拥有 260 万用户的国民级 IP。

从销售端来看，选择宋 PLUS 新能源车型的用户，已经无法总结出特征了，各行各业、男女老少都有，也有国央企和私企购入，将其作为工作用车。对于他们来说，买一辆十几万的 SUV，比亚迪是一个绕不开的选择。

它的智舱体验没有很优秀，也没有强悍的辅助驾驶，驾乘感受也并不十分出色，不浮华也没有噱头。但它车价不高，用车成本低、空间够大，外观设计还比过去好了不少，比亚迪的品牌力也一直在提升。

没有太多能说的优点，也不存在明显的缺点，用一个词来概括宋 PLUS 新能源，那便是中庸。

说来也巧，中庸之道与宋朝的关系非常紧密，特别是在理学的发展上。宋朝时期，儒学经历了重要的变革和发展，其中朱熹对中庸之道的诠释与建构起到了关键作用。

具体就不展开了，总的来说，宋朝不仅是中庸之道思想发展的高峰时期，也是其在政治、文化、教育等多个领域得到广泛应用和推广的时期。

当然，中庸之道的含义远比「普通人开一辆普通车过普通生活」更丰富，不过，如果这样的购车理念和生活方式能够带来内心的平和、满足和幸福，那么它依旧是值得肯定的。

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经过了持续大半年的劝导，太太终于同意我给她换一台新手机，用来替换掉手上这台已经被生活摧残得不灵光的旧手机。一开始她很不愿意，一来觉得还能勉强接着用，其他开销的优先级都远高过于她自己；二来也是从小到大被上一代人灌输的那种「自己不配」的心态，总说算了算了。直到最近聊到自我能量的进出，她才终于把自己的优先级往前挪了挪，我也才有机会给她换新。

挑型号的时候，为了避免她有价格上的心理压力，也因为她多次强调不要高配置，加上她大部分的使用场景里没有很明显的电量焦虑，所以我推荐了 iPhone 13 mini 给她。她之前也在店里上手试过，小巧的手感和屏幕尺寸都很合适。尤其是把 mini 和现在用的 7P 放在一起时，mini 这个与 6s 相当的体型里装着和 7P 一样尺寸的屏幕，平衡的尺度是拿捏得相当好的。

于是她同意了。

上周一看了下取货信息，显示深圳益田店里没有现货，要从广州寄过来，于是我就计划周五再下单，周六可以直接寄到家里。但周五我再看的时候发现，已经变成了店内有现货，于是我果断下单，趁着中午休息的时间直接去店里提了。

为什么选白色？

其实一开始也看了别的颜色，曾经犹豫过红色、粉色和绿色。但实际看下来以后，一是觉得这一款的红色不够正，绿色又偏黄有军绿色的感觉，粉色又太淡了，质感不足；二也是觉得为什么女生非得是红和粉呢？所以最后，按照实际的颜色表现，挑了她觉得真机表现最好看的白色款。

其实她之前的 7P 也是黑色款，并没有选那些所谓的女性颜色。

这也是我多年来对一些数码厂商的做法表示高度质疑的点：女性一定得被特殊处理么？

如果女性就得用女性手机，那么从逻辑上来说就应该有所谓的男性手机。可是，我们从来没有见到过哪个厂商会这么做产品和宣传，唯独把女性作为一个单独的点拿出来营销。当我们习惯了「女生是粉色，男生是蓝色」的时候，其实忽略了在一百年前，蓝色是女性的颜色，而男性是拥有红色的。颜色和性别的关系，完全是被文化构建出来的，是纯属虚构的产物。

任何人选择一款产品，应该是基于自己的需求，而不是被文化构建，更不该被消费主义用概念绑到某个象征的座位上。设计师在考虑产品的时候，重点的也该是产品如何满足场景中人的需求。人与人之间客观的差异应该被看到和重视，但为了细化市场而刻意构建差异以降低设计的包容性，这是不该鼓励的。

至少我们可以从挑选颜色开始，把「粉色适合你」换成「你喜欢哪个颜色」。

On all good maps of buried treasure, X marks the spot, so for the letter x in this alphabet of landscape painting, I’ll consider some fine paintings of the Palace of Westminster (better known as the Houses of Parliament) on the River Thames in London. For each of them we can determine within a few yards where the artist placed their easel.

Location

The present Houses of Parliament in London, so famous for their pinnacled roof and adjacent Big Ben, are less than 200 years old. A popular motif for painters from overseas, it is well situated on the ‘north’ bank (here, actually the west bank) of the River Thames, upstream from the City itself.

The original Palace of Westminster was a royal palace for Edward the Confessor, just before the Norman Conquest. He also built the adjacent Westminster Abbey (the ‘West Minster’, giving the name), the higher and dominant building until the new Palace was built in the middle of the nineteenth century.

This early royal palace was destroyed by fire in 1512, and soon became the home of the two Houses of Parliament, but was inadequate for that purpose, lacking proper chambers for them. The site gradually expanded, but there was no planning to provide suitable accommodation. It was extensively remodelled between 1824-7, then an overheated stove being used to burn the Exchequer’s store of wooden tally sticks set the buildings alight on 16 October 1834, and they quickly burnt to the ground.

While the Houses of Commons and Lords met in temporary accommodation, the current buildings were constructed to the designs of Charles Barry, in Perpendicular Gothic style. Most of the building work was completed by 1860. Although the site suffered bomb damage during the Second World War, the main buildings remain much as originally constructed.

Challenge

The most famous views of the current Palace of Westminster are of course from the river, with its distinctive Elizabeth Tower housing Big Ben, at the right. At the opposite end, to the south-west of the site, is the larger and higher Victoria Tower, and the middle of the waterfront has the smallest spire-like Central Tower.

The River Thames is an invaluable compositional aid when painting the Palace, but being quite broad at this point puts considerable distance between the painter and the buildings. This is exaggerated when the view is made over a diagonal across the river, such as from Lambeth Palace.

The river also brings its own lighting effects, particularly fog. Until the use of coal fires died out in London during the 1950s and 1960s, smoke and fog often combined to produce smog; when thin, its colour could enhance views, although smogs were also responsible for disease and many deaths.

Today this section of the River Thames has very little goods traffic, London’s upper docks having closed between 1960-90. The nineteenth century was a period of particularly heavy trade, though. The major enclosed basins were all situated downstream of Waterloo Bridge, and well away from Westminster, with smaller vessels plying their trade along the section in front of the Palace. Now most of the vessels are carrying passengers, either using the river as a rapid means of crossing the city, or as tourists.

Paintings

Samuel Scott’s Westminster from Lambeth, with the Ceremonial Barge of the Ironmongers’ Company (c 1745) shows this section of the River Thames on a windy day, with showers not far away. Teams of rowers pull their boats out to attend to the ceremonial barges in the foreground, reminiscent of Venetian boat ceremonies. The opposite bank shows, from the left, the imposing twin towers of Westminster Abbey, the old Palace almost hidden behind trees, and Westminster Bridge.

This was painted from Lambeth Palace (marked ① on the map). At this time, this stretch of the Thames was shown in plenty of topographical views, many of which were then engraved and printed. Scott’s view has more to it than those, with the action on the river, and its wonderful sky.

Taken from a similar location on the ‘south’ bank of the river as Scott’s painting, Canaletto’s The River Thames looking towards Westminster from Lambeth (1747) had the benefit of height, probably being painted from one of the towers of Lambeth Palace (① on the map), seen in the right foreground.

Although Canaletto, probably as a reflection of his Venetian works, captures the bustle of the multitude of vessels on the river, even the massive form of Westminster Abbey appears so far distant that it loses grandeur. The tiny old Palace to the right of it, although close to the centre of the painting, all but disappears. Westminster Bridge is brilliant white in the sunlight, and steals the centre of attention. Standing proud of the skyline at the far right is the dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral to the north-east.

Paul Sandby’s View of the south end of the old House of Commons (1794) presents another solution to the relative insignificance of the Houses of Parliament: to ignore the river and paint up close against the building. This rapidly executed watercolour sketch of the old Palace gives a clear impression of the building long since lost to fire. It was painted from what is now the northern end of the Victoria Tower Gardens, a public park (②).

When the old Palace caught fire in 1834, most of London turned out to watch the flames. John Constable was in a cab, stuck in the jam on Westminster Bridge (③), where he painted this Fire Sketch (1834), showing the north end of the building ablaze. He did not, apparently, try to develop it into anything more substantial.

With Constable, his arch-rival, stuck in a cab on Westminster Bridge, JMW Turner was still on the ‘south’ bank, at the far end of the bridge (④). From there, or rather later, he painted one version of The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1834-5) in oils, now in Philadelphia. The two prominent towers behind the fire are those of Westminster Abbey.

His other canvas shows a view from near what is now Hungerford Bridge, on the ‘south’ bank still (⑤). At that time there was no Hungerford Bridge: the first bridge built at that point was a suspension footbridge designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in 1845, and in 1864 was replaced with a more massive structure to carry trains to Charing Cross Station. In this view, Westminster Bridge is silhouetted against the flames, instead of being lit by them, and the massive towers of Westminster Abbey appear ghostly in the distance. This version is also in the USA, in Cleveland.

Turner capitalised successfully on this spectacle, although these paintings were not the atmospheric sketches that they might appear to be. A lot of the oil paint has been applied wet on dry, showing that Turner must have worked on each in the studio for several weeks at least.

David Roberts’ The Houses of Parliament from Millbank (1861) shows the new Palace of Westminster during final completion work. In order to show the new buildings to best effect, Roberts positioned himself to the south, probably at the west end of Lambeth Bridge at Millbank (⑥). In doing so he lost the symmetry and regular structure of the building, its towers here looking almost haphazard. From the left and front they are the Victoria, Central, and Elizabeth, the latter just showing the southern clock face. The vessels shown are typical of the type known as Thames Barges, and were probably engaged in bringing materials to the site during construction.

Just a decade after Roberts’ conventional treatment of the motif, Claude Monet’s The Thames below Westminster (1871) is a radical departure. Painted from the Embankment to the north of Westminster Bridge, near what is now Whitehall (⑦), the three towers to the south are almost superimposed, and aerial perspective is exaggerated by the mist. The river is now bustling with small paddleboat steamers. In the foreground a pier under construction is shown almost in silhouette. The small waves and reflections on the river are indicated with coarse brushstrokes, adding to the impression that this is a rapid and spontaneous work.

Monet started painting formal series during the 1880s, when he was enjoying commercial success at last. From about 1896, almost all his works were part of a series. He started to travel through Europe in search of suitable motifs for these, visiting Norway in 1895, and later Venice. When he returned to London in 1899, and in the following two years, Monet chose a very different view of the Palace, from a location at the opposite end of Westminster Bridge, for his series of 19 paintings. These were all started from the second floor of the Administrative Block at the northern end of the old Saint Thomas’s Hospital on the ‘south’ bank (④), and completed over the following three or four years.

His The Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect (1903) is even more radical than the painting of thirty years before, showing little more than the Palace in silhouette, the sun low in the sky, and its broken reflections in the water.

The Houses of Parliament, Sunset (1903) shows the same view in better visibility, but with the sun setting and a small boat on the move in front of the Palace.

In The Houses of Parliament, Stormy Sky (1904) the sun is higher and further to the south, allowing Monet to balance the silhouette of the Palace with its shadow cast on the water, and the brightness in the sky with its fragmented reflections.

The Houses of Parliament (1881) is Winslow Homer’s faithful representation of the Palace when viewed from the opposite bank of the Thames, to the north (downstream) of the end of Westminster Bridge (⑧). The tide is high under the arches of Westminster Bridge, and small boats are on the river. This classic watercolour makes an interesting contrast with Monet’s later oil paintings: Homer provides little more detail, the Palace being shown largely in silhouette, but works with the texture of the paper and careful choice of pigment to give granularity. He provides just sufficient visual cues to fine detail, in the lamps and people on Westminster Bridge, and in the boats, to make this a fine example of masterful watercolour.

Tom Roberts’ Fog, Thames Embankment (1884) is painted from a similar location to Monet’s early The Thames below Westminster (1871), on the Embankment to the north of Westminster Bridge (⑦), but is cropped much more tightly, cutting off the tops of the Victoria and Elizabeth Towers. The Palace and first couple of arches of Westminster Bridge appear in misty silhouette, with moored barges and buildings on a pier shown closer and crisper. He renders the ruffled surface of the river with coarse brushstrokes, but differently from those of Monet.

In Childe Hassam’s Houses of Parliament, Early Evening (1898), the sun has already set, and he is viewing the Palace in the gathering dusk from a point on the opposite (‘south’) bank, perhaps not as far south as Lambeth Palace (⑨). The Victoria Tower is prominent in the left of the painting, the Central Tower is in the centre, and the most distant Elizabeth Tower is distinctive with its illuminated clock face. Moored boats in the foreground provide the only other detail. His rough facture gives a textured surface to the water.

Emile Claus’s Sunset over Waterloo Bridge (1916) probably doesn’t quite include the Palace, because of its northerly viewpoint; it was painted from a location on the north bank of the Thames slightly to the east of Waterloo Bridge (⑩), the north end of which is prominent, and looks south-west into the setting sun, up river. Claus painted several views of Waterloo Bridge while he was in London, but doesn’t appear to have attempted any formal series, such as Monet’s, which also included a series of Waterloo Bridge.

Claus isn’t formulaic in his treatment. He uses billowing clouds of steam and smoke to great effect, and his inclusion of the road, trees and terraces in the foreground, on the Embankment, provides useful contrast with the crisp arches of the bridge, and the vaguer silhouettes in the distance. Like Monet’s series, this is likely to have been painted from a temporary studio inside a building.

Rain (2006) is one of two views of the Palace painted en plein air that year by Simon Kozhin; the other shows Elizabeth Tower and the Palace from the north, the viewpoint being on the Embankment just to the north of the end of Westminster Bridge. This view is less conventional, though, in showing the north end of the Palace on a dull, wet day, a tourist kiosk in the centre foreground, and the contorted branches of leafless trees beside it. The two prominent towers shown are the Central (mid left) and Victoria (centre) Towers, with their decoration delicately hinted in colour. Although quite detailed and thoroughly realist, reflections of the kiosk lighting on the wet road surface are painterly. This was painted from the pavement outside Portcullis House, close to the entrance to Westminster Underground Station (⑪).

For the first three years after the release of the Mac, it’s believed to have remained blissfully free of viruses and other unwanted and malicious software, which was only just starting to plague other personal computers.

Then came the first variant of the nVIR virus in 1987, and the following year a spate of malware in HyperCard stacks. Those were encouraged by the app’s rapid popularity, and exploited its built-in scripting language HyperTalk. John Norstad of Northwestern University responded by releasing his popular anti-virus app Disinfectant in 1989, and others followed in his wake.

Symantec Antivirus for Macintosh (SAM), renamed Norton AntiVirus (NAV) in 1998, was launched in 1989, two months after Disinfectant. McAfee later based its commercial VirusScan on Disinfectant.

During the 1990s viruses became more widespread and malicious, and some exploited features such as CD AutoPlay, widely used to run QuickTime rich media from optical disk. Apple’s new accessible scripting language AppleScript soon fell victim to a whole range of nasties, which continues to this day. In 1997, it was estimated that there were at least 35 Mac-specific viruses, together with numerous malicious macros for Microsoft Word and Excel that caused mayhem across platforms.

Here’s my small collection of samples that I used when evaluating and reviewing anti-virus products at the time. Many of these were INITs that loaded at startup, and several could prove very damaging. There were several unfortunate accidents where Mac malware was distributed by commercial sources, including one provided in the cover floppy disk of a reputable Mac design and publishing magazine.

John Norstad’s Disinfectant finally bowed out on 6 May 1998 after nearly a decade of service to the community, but there were still free tools including Agax, with its modular design, shown above.

By the end of that decade there were six commercial anti-virus products for Macs, of which the most popular were Norton/Symantec Antivirus for Macintosh, and Virex for Macintosh from Datawatch Corporation. In addition to those, two British developers offered products, Dr. Solomon’s AntiVirus ToolKit for Macintosh and Sophos, and there was one from France.

Intego, then based in Paris, first released its anti-virus Rival in 1997, initially only in French. Then in October 2000, it released the first version of VirusBarrier for Mac OS 8 and 9.

Throughout this period, Classic Mac OS retained its reputation as being largely untroubled by malicious software, despite reality. Protection provided by Mac OS seemed rudimentary if not lacking altogether. This didn’t change with the introduction of Mac OS X, at least not until Renepo/Opener, a widely publicised Trojan, appeared in 2004 and Apple was forced to add protection in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Fortunately, by that time commercial developers were supporting Mac OS X, and Tomasz Kojm’s freeware ClamAV, first released in 2002, had been ported from Unix as ClamXav.

Further reading

Key Moments in the History of Mac Malware – 1982 to the Present, Kirk McElhearn
The Evolution of macOS Security and Privacy Features, Joshua Long

When landscape artists take to the hills, they often head for rocky peaks and miss the undulating uplands of the foothills. So u in this alphabet of landscapes stands for those undulating uplands that roll rather than precipitate. In English they’re often referred to as downs, which might appear contradictory, although the word has common origins with dunes, which makes more sense, perhaps.

Samuel Palmer’s view of The Weald of Kent from about 1833-34 is typical of what you see looking down from a ridge at the valley below. This is an area of low hills between the main South and North Downs in the south-east of England.

Although a bit more rugged than the Downs of England, Arnold Böcklin’s view In the Alban Hills from 1851 shows these hills about 20 km (12 miles) south-east of the city of Rome. These have long been a popular escape from the city during the hot months of summer.

Jean-François Millet returned to the rolling Normandy countryside of his birth in The Hamlet of Cousin near Gréville (1855). This shows the rough lane leading to another nearby hamlet, Cousin, amid rolling countryside with hedgerows enclosing tiny fields.

Benjamin Williams Leader found A Welsh Cornfield in 1862 with its cereal crop cut by hand into stooks ready for threshing. One of the women is using a ladder stile to traverse the field’s dry stone wall. There’s fine attention to detail, including appropriate native plants, in accordance with the principles of Pre-Raphaelite landscape painting.

Camille Pissarro’s Côte de Jalais, Pontoise (1867) shows the hill of Les Jalais at l’Hermitage, where Pissarro lived, viewed from the Chemin des Mathurins in Pontoise, north of Paris.

When Ivan Pokhitonov was living in Belgium in 1912, he painted this view of The Walloon Village of Jupille, catching its fruit trees in blossom.

In 1915 Eugène Burnand painted his last major work, Ploughing in the Jorat, but his first version was destroyed by fire. He completed this second version the following year. This wide-screen pastoral landscape contains a patchwork of villages and farmland between forested hills, near where the artist lived, to the north of Lausanne in Switzerland.

Paul Nash’s view of the Cotswold Hills, from about 1920, shows the rolling countryside near his family home in Buckinghamshire, England. These hills sprawl across a large tract of central western England, to the west of Oxford.

Grant Wood’s Spring Turning from 1936 is a high aerial view of rolling countryside in the American rural Midwest, being ploughed using a pair of horses, during the Spring. Its bright green fields seem almost endless.

Around 1939, shortly before the start of the Second World War, Eric Ravilious visited the famous White Horse cut in the chalk downs at Uffington in Berkshire, England. The Vale of the White Horse (c 1939) shows the view from an unconventionally low angle, in pouring rain. This hill figure is thought to date from the late Bronze or early Iron Age, around three millennia ago.

Percy Shakespeare’s painting of December on the Downs, Wartime, made during the Second World War, shows one of the rolling chalk downs in the south of England, with both tractors and teams of horses working the land.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are courting regional leaders and pushing an alternative to the U.S.-led order.

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