Nine Bright Shiners? Blip Celebration!

Blip tells me that today is my ninth blipperversary – where did those years go?

We photographers rely on light for our hobby, so I’ve chosen “Nine Bright Shiners” for my special blip. I wonder how many blippers remember the song, “Green Grow the Rushes, Oh”?, from which that comes. My Editor was impressed that I could remember all the words – no doubt due to all the Scout campfires I attended in my youth.

You’ll see that there’s a head torch, twin LED lights on stalks, two flat torches, a flashgun and three round torches. I thought maybe with a bit of “kidology” one could almost imagine it as a face but my Editor saw a butterfly when she looked at it.

Nine is, of course, a rather special number in all sorts of ways, for instance I’m on cloud nine to have achieved nine years of blipping. I’m sure one could go on for ever but here’s some interesting trivia:

Since ancient times, nine seems to have been associated with the horizon, the last point on a numbering system before beginning again. (The horizon is something which we photographers are generally encouraged to keep horizontal in our photos!)

Nine has its own idiomatic claims to be top. Dressed to the nines. The whole nine yards. A stitch in time saves nine. Lucky cats have nine lives. A whip with many ends is a "cat-o'-nine tails".

In the banter of bingo callers, number nine is "doctor's orders". There are competing theories about the origins, including that Number 9 was the name of a laxative pill given by army and navy doctors during World War Two (too much information?!).

The sinners in Dante's Inferno face nine circles of pain and torment (I must have a fascination for that, as I referred to the seven deadly sins for my 7th anniversary blip!).

The phrase "nine-day wonder" has been around for at least 400 years and probably much longer.

Hinduism, the religions of ancient Greece and Egypt and Norse mythology all use nine as a significant and symbolic number. There are associations with completeness and fulfilment. The prayer cycles of "novenas" are over nine days. There are nine forms of Goddess Durga, celebrated as a festival in India, called Navratri (translates to 9 nights).  There are nine Navagraha (nine celestial bodies in Sanskrit) that influence the Indian astrology, and if one counts Pluto there are nine planets in the solar system.

On Christmas Eve, the iconic service from King's College Cambridge is Nine Lessons and Carols.

There are nine innings in a game of baseball, and nine balls are racked in nine-ball billiards. There are nine squares in Sudoku and Noughts-and-Crosses.

A human pregnancy lasts nine months.

The Supreme Court of the United States has nine justices on it.

Nine is a number for many things both historical and fictional in China, where it is considered a lucky number. For instance, many dynasties used a nine-rank system in their hierarchy. Nine is often closely related to tales of dragons and Emperors. There is a district in Hong Kong named Kowloon that literally translates as “nine dragons.”


I think that’ll do. It only remains for me to thank our magnificent blip directors for all the work they do to keep the show on the road – and all you lovely blippers who keep in touch with me and whom I keep in touch with. Long live blip!