The Anthem Philatelist

The music for the first version of the Japanese national anthem, the Kimigayo, was penned by an Irishman, John William Fenton . Fenton, who was born in Kinsale, County Cork in 1828, came to Japan as a bandmaster with the British army in 1868, the year of Meiji Restoration. In the following year, he started training of the Brass Band in Japan for soldiers of the Satsuma clan at Myoko-ji temple in Yokohama. This band became the country's first military band. When the Emperor Meiji inspected the troops consisting of 4 clans including Satsuma, the military band played for the first time in public. In this occasion, Fenton hastily composed a ceremonial melody to accompany the poem "Kimigayo". Over time, this became accepted as the national anthem, although the current anthem is different from Fenton's original version. Fenton is also known as the father of brass band music in Japan and is celebrated for his musical contribution to Japan. Above is a first day composer featu...

Alcatraz Island is an island located in the San Francisco Bay, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. Often referred to as The Rock, the small island early-on served as a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison, and a Federal Bureau of Prisons federal prison until 1963. Later, in 1972, Alcatraz became a national recreation area and received land-marking designations in 1976 and 1986. Today, the island is a historic site operated by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is open to tours. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. In 2008 the nation's first hybrid propulsion ferry started serving the island. Alcatraz has been featured in many movies, TV shows, cartoons, books, comics, and games. During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary claimed no prisoners had ever successfully escaped. 36 prisoners were involved in 14 ...

La Balanguera is the anthem of Majorca (Mallorca), Spain. Majorca ("Mallorca" in Spanish and Catalan) is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the Balearic Islands. It is largest by area and second most populated island of Spain (after Tenerife in the Canary Islands). The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Cabrera archipelago is administratively grouped with Majorca (in the municipality of Palma). Like the other Balearic Islands of Ibiza, Formentera and Minorca, the island is a highly popular holiday destination, particularly for tourists from Germany, the United Kingdom and to a lesser extent, Ireland. The name derives from Latin insula maior, "larger island"; later Maiorica, "the larger one" in comparison to Menorca. The official anthem is an adaptation of Joan Alcover i Maspons (1854-1926) poem based on an ancient and popular Majorcan children's song. The music is...

Dievs, svētī Latviju! (God Bless Latvia) is the national anthem of Latvia . The words and music were written by Kārlis Baumanis (Baumaņu Kārlis, 1834–1904), in 1873. Baumanis, a teacher, was part of the Young Latvian nationalist movement. It has been speculated that Baumanis may have borrowed part of the lyrics from a popular song which was sung to tune of God Save the Queen, modified them and set them to music of his own. Baumanis's lyrics were different from the modern ones: he used the term "Baltics" synonymously and interchangeably with "Latvia" and "Latvians", so "Latvia" was actually mentioned only at the beginning of the first verse. Later the term "Latvia" was removed and replaced with "Baltics" to avoid a ban on the song. This has led to the misapprehension that the term "Latvia" was not part of the song until 1920, when it was chosen as national anthem and the word "Baltics" was replaced wi...

"God zij met ons Suriname!" (God Be With Our Suriname, is the national anthem of Suriname . The anthem has its beginnings in a Sunday School song written in 1893 by Cornelis Atses Hoekstra called "Suriname's Trotsche Stroomen" (Suriname's Proud Streams). The song was set to a piece of music by Johannes Corstianus de Puy written in 1876. In 1959, after self-government was granted, the government asked the poet Henry de Ziel (whose pen name was Trefossa) to write lyrics for the anthem in the language popularly spoken in Suriname, Sranan Tongo. He also revised Hoekstra's lyrics of the second verse to remove the "negative tones" in some lines. Originally the anthem was song with de Ziel's verse first, but now it is performed with Hoekstra's Dutch verse first and de Ziel's Sranan lyrics as the second verse. The stamp with FDC features the score and lyrics of Suriname's national anthem issued on September 2010 ( UPAEP symbols series...

I'm a nocturnal creature. My physical and creative powers are at its peak after the sun sets. In the country where I live, I always have difficulty waking up very early. It takes me some time before going into full gear; that usually occurs later in the day. It is a struggle for me to join morning runs because I always felt that I would fall back to sleep while running. There has always been this theory in my head that if I lived in the other side of the world, where it's daytime during our nighttime, then I would become a daytime creature. This was proven right when we visited the United States and stayed for long   a few weeks ago. Upon awakening, I go into full throttle and hit the road for an early morning run. I never experienced jet lag since arriving in the Land of the Free.    I love running in the cold and in environments where the scenery is picturesque. These qualities were present in the nature preserve park adjacent to where we stayed. Running is...

In Dallas , we stayed at the hotel where the PacMan was staying, the elegant Gaylord Texan at Grapevine, Texas . It is centrally located between downtown Dallas and Fort Worth and about 30 minutes from Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington , the venue of the the fight between multi-divisional champion, Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao and the larger "Tijuana Tornado", Mexican Antonio Margarito . We arrived the day before the fight and our Sudanese cab driver, Jamal told us that a lot of Filipinos had been arriving at Dallas since 2 days ago. Several boxing personalities were spotted around Gaylord- these are some of them, starting with the non-boxers (writers, commentators, promoters, relatives, etc).    Wakee Salud . At first I thought he would be an intimidating and boisterous personality but I was gravely mistaken- he is a gentle giant. The long time Pacman friend and promoter is really a kindhearted person, always willing to share his thoughts about his ward's...