Wiki-Wander 1814

Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron by Margaret Sarah Carpenter
because we need a picture and I like Ada much more than his Lordship

Jonathan Strange (a character in the novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) has become acquainted with Lord Byron in Venice, Italy. They both enjoyed playing billiards. Lord Byron, as you may know, was a real life poet and cad. I was never much for poetry, but some people seem to think the world of this guy.
    People originally got titles in England by doing something great, or at least good, for the King and country (at least I think that's how it worked). Their descendants inherit the titles, which is how most of the existing lords and such got their titles, but back in the 1800's it might still have been possible to get one on merit. So I'm wondering how this effete, intellectual, metro-sexual get his title? Wikipedia knows:

When Byron's great-uncle, the "wicked" Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798, the 10-year-old boy became the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale and inherited the ancestral home, Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire.

Okay, he got his title the old fashioned way, he inherited it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch .  .  .

Phineus & The Harpies by Russell Marks

Marcel puts up a post about Phineas today. I think he's making a comment on some current event, but I don't really know what he is talking about. Shoot, I'm not even sure who Phineas is, so a-wandering I go. First thing I find is that it's spelled Phineus. Then the article confirms Marcel's story about the Harpies. The story mentions a couple of locations in the Eastern Mediterranean, so I look them up.

Symplegades
Strofades

And then I find this:

Lord Byron refers to the Symplegades in the concluding stanzas of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage:

And from the Alban Mount we now behold

Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we

Beheld it last by Calp's rock unfold

Those waves, we follow on till the dark Euxine roll'd

Upon the blue Symplegades …

That Lord Byron guy sure gets around.