Paul, you are correct that in general English there is one standard term 'citizen' for both genders but in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities the author uses 'citizeness' for some of the female characters in conversation (I suppose because of 'citoyenne' in French).  Madame Defarge a character in the story is referred to as "Citizeness" if I remember rightly.  I don't think I ever read The Scarlet Pimpernel but I've seen various adaptations of it (mostly on the TV over the years) and from what Temperance says above it would seem that the word "citizeness" is used The Scarlet Pimpernel also.  Madame Defarge does a lot of knitting in AToTC (though I think "les tricoteuses" as referred above by Priscilla were a real phenomenon).

I didn't know that platinum bullets were more deadly than those made of lead.  I remember in (an American children's TV series from my childhood) The Lone Ranger used silver bullets so they wouldn't kill people though I have no idea whether silver bullets are in truth less lethal than other types of bullets.

Hilaire Belloc, undoubtedly an intelligent and astute social commentator in his own right (especially within the niche categories of instilling morality in juveniles and pointing out mild psychoses that are inexplicably tolerated within general society), would still not be my automatic point of expert reference on the subject of calibre ordnance. The mere opportunity to so beautifully rhyme "flatten 'em" with "platinum", I am almost certain, led HB to opting for such an unlikely choice of projectile ingredient, and little else.

Silver, I am assured, makes for lousy bullets, unless one is seriously contemplating committing suicide by gunshot while the gun is actually pointed away from oneself.

And "silver" is another difficult word to rhyme, although it can be done:

To find a rhyme for silver,
Or any rhyme-less rhyme,
Requires only will, ver-
Bosity and time.

The word, platinum, derives from the Spanish, platina, meaning "little silver" or "lesser silver" because it was originally undesirable as a material when found amongst alluvial gold deposits, as it was almost impossible to melt before the invention of the electric arc furnace, but could readily alloy with gold thereby "debasing" it. Nowadays platinum is more expensive than gold and yet when first widely discovered in Spanish South America it was routinely just dumped as being unwanted and problematic. Supposedly there is a vast fortune in this dumped platinum awaiting rediscovery somewhere in Colombia.

Temp (quoting Starkey) wrote:

Since what is Remain or the campaign for a Second Referendum but an attempt to ‘dissolve the people and elect another’?

He's an incredibly bad historian, isn't he? Almost as bad as he is a political commentator. He's been getting away with simplistic bullshit for years, in fact his TV career has been built on being better at packaging such epistemologically excremental soundbites than other historians (who maybe prefer to prioritise intelligence and honesty over popularity, a huge hindrance to packaging historical theory into the dung-sized portions that a modern public apparently wishes most to digest), but at least it does seem to make him the perfect "historian" for the average modern Briton today - I'll grant you that. And his viewing figures tend to support this.

His perfectly ludicrous statement in that article "They seem to have forgotten that the original power of our Parliament lay in its claim to represent everybody and not just a few privileged groups, as in continental Europe" shows such breathtaking ignorance of how and why parliament devolved from monarchical power and sovereignty in Britain (and just how far that devolution progressed before it was rather fundamentally halted through the nebulous "constitution" of which Britons are encouraged to be so proud) that it simply would not make it as valid comment into any other toilet paper masquerading as a news medium, I think.

Which in a way is probably a good thing. If, as I suspect, the mega-Epsom Salts dose of reality that is about to flush through every constipated corner of British culture and society does so sooner rather than later, then along with such toilet paper and its sundry dingleberries, a certain pseudo-historian is about to find his future career interests and prospects associated less with English icons of heritage such as Edward Longshanks & Co and more Armitage Shanks & Co Ltd. And, if this article is anything to go by, not a moment too soon.

I take it you're not a fan of Starkey then. 

He did seem to have completely forgotten that fully half of the adult population of Britain were excluded from any say in Parliament until 1918, and some of those only finally got a say in 1928.

Correct. I am too much a fan of history.

Meles meles wrote:

I take it you're not a fan of Starkey then. 

The quotation from Brecht was good, though - er, wasn't it?

You deleted your Norfolk comparison! I'm so disappointed.

To be likened to Yosser Hughes in a Hilary Mantel adaptation was actually quite flattering ....

PS: The quotation from Brecht was good. Of course what Starkey "forgot" to mention was that the poem was an outright criticism of a literary organ that had set itself up as the mouth-piece of the most extreme "elitist" core at the heart of government. And the fact that he's writing in the Daily Mail of course has nothing to do with such an oversight ....

The full poem from 1953 is:

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

The quote is excellent, Temps, I had heard parts previously and wasn't aware of who said it first.

Another quote was posted anonymously in the 1960'es in a Polish history class following lessons on the partitions of Poland in C1800, the resurrection and movements of borders following WW I & II, "Have: Polish Nation, Wanted: Stable geography."


Edit because of crossed posts.

Thank you for the explanation LiR, but to be honest to the "readers" of this thread, although citizen has a female citoyenne, Bürgerin, burgeres
"Sorry to the ladies and gentlemen for derailing this "serious subject" (not the nordmann's "subject" (sujet, onderdaan, Untertan(Staatsangehörige))"
The English subject is seemingly as unisex as in French, Dutch, German...no sujette, onderdane, Untertane...Were they from that early stage all equal, égal, gelijk, egal to the King and Queen?...
Regards, Paul.

"Citizen", like "denizen", is sexless. It does not denote a person but a point of origin or location, the "-izen" bit having clawed its way up through various spellings and languages from its "-intus" ("within") root, found in Greek though probably much older than that.

The usage of -ess to denote a female variant of something has less to do with language than our old pal "religion", especially the Christians. It originated in Greek as -issa and was used not so much to denote a female person but to indicate a word whose root in ancient Greek, despite being exactly the same in spelling and pronunciation, had distinct meanings depending on whether it was male, female or neutral in gender. By classical Greek times the -issa had been added to make it clear which version was female, and this found its way into Latin, but only when they borrowed words from Greek related to ritual and religion (or sex, of course, but we don't talk about that aspect to religion any more in case there are children present - as determined in another thread here today).

In Latin it acquired two forms - the "-ess" that the church persevered with, and the "-ix" that the church left in the sphere of sexual conduct and roles. As "-ess" it continued therefore related almost exclusively to religious roles up to medieval times, by which time a practice had begun to "borrow" euphemisms, word structures and other linguistic contexts from church usage and employ them in more secular areas, probably to hopefully give them an erudition and prestige on that basis that they really couldn't acquire through any other available linguistic method at the time (though not a problem in Gaelic, of course, where the judicious deployment of a "séibheatha" had always done this rather well).

Anyway - back to elephants, hippopotamuses, the DUP, advocates of invisible "constitutions", and other unwieldy slow moving organisms of circumscribed reasoning power ...

That's interesting, nordmann, but I find the modern trend to revert to a standard form of word for both sexes a bit precious (as in the sense of "Les Precieuses Ridicules") - I'm going to carry on talking about heroines, actresses and maybe authoresses.  "Administratrix" as in of a will (and nothing to do with Asterix and Obelix) is in my vocabulary from the time I worked as a legal secretary.  And now I'll have to look up "se¬ibeatha" in one of the dodgy online translators.

I prefer Mr Starkey to the lady who thinks (or thought) she was the only person who knew Anne Boleyn had a sister.

By insisting on using "-ess" you are doing two things, neither of which can be regarded as "right" or "wrong", or which can be regarded as equally both, depending on whether you place your ability to communicate or the tools you use to that purpose at the centre of the argument - you are insisting on retaining semantic nuances expressed in the language with which you most identify, without which nuance your own sense of comprehension of reality would be diminished ("lost in absorption" and therefore "lost in transmission" long before it can even be "lost in translation"), and you are perpetuating a notion that there is a requirement to distinguish between males and females when they are essentially fulfilling the same role - which isn't as ancient a social requirement as one might innocently presume from the importance placed on it in recent centuries in the language you use. Language, like any other fluid and undisciplined human transmission of thought (or so multi-multi-multi-disciplined as to be indistinguishable from indiscipline), is open to "memes of indeterminate value to society", as our beloved Professor might term it.

And yes - isn't it funny how sex work and legal work ended up with the same Latin inheritance when it came to perpetuating that particular example of such a meme? There's probably something important to be gleaned from that, though here isn't the place to "tease" it out - as our beloved Hippy (hip-hoorah) here might term it.

PS: I prefer Starkey to a dose of crabs. But that doesn't make Starkey "good", only relatively "better".

You are correct, nordmann, in that we don't have a "teacheress" or a "doctoress".  With me it is just down to what I am used to - and I am too accustomed to "actress" and "heroine" to find it easy to change.  With younger people if I take the "Humour me I'm an old lady" route (with words that have -ess) that seems to work.  Though I realise we are getting away from the titular elephant of this thread - and we don't refer to an "elephantess" either, do we?

LadyinRetirement wrote:

... and we don't refer to an "elephantess" either, do we?

Believe it or not, this poor lady operated under such a moniker on some bills:



PS: By using "heroine" you are unintentionally channelling the earliest Greek dramatists, once they moved the entertainment from pure sing-a-longs over to the spoken word. The problem the Greeks faced, once they decided that all heroic mythological characters (in fact all characters) should be played on stage by a man, was how to indicate that one "hero" with a gruff male voice and a full beard as opposed to the equally hirsute and gruff lad sharing the stage was actually a female. The guys who wrote the stuff started dropping the word "heroina" in as much as possible to emphasise the sex of the character. It is one of language's lovely ironic circuitous semantic journeys through time that the term "heroine" to denote a leading female character in a drama didn't re-emerge until the 18th century. In the meantime it had branched out to encompass almost any "good egg'ess" who had managed to have her qualities admired (or at least recognised) by males.

If it's who I think it is (in the photograph) I had heard of her as "Two Ton Tessie O'Shea" - she used to be on TV when I was a child.  I didn't know she'd been termed an "elephantess" though.

I knew that in days of yore female characters were interpreted by males in plays (well I suppose everyone knows that) but not the etymology of "heroine".  Well, one of my reasons for joining this website was to learn so I am doing so.

You digress, nord - and you too, LIR, stay focused, read the Daily Mail. Oh joy - DM today published e-mail addresses of MP. who need telling how to vote. I can only guess at what else they may be told.

It's all too much - life can be such a delight, The sun shines, butterfies are out after being celebrated, the Daily Mail in overdrive, possibly even  the Worm is turning and the country goes to the dogs wearing Welsh daffs.... and dozens of e-mails to compose.

Digression or focusing on the Daily Mail? Hmmmm .... tough one.

  - and that from a declared non-little picture thingy user, too. Makes you understand what a trial for MP's it is  having to decide - and think, even.

This comment is mostly for Paul R, who I think is, like me, a 'bit of a fan' of the Commons' Speaker, John Bercow.

It arises from his ruling, today, to decline Theresa May a third vote on her Brexit Withdrawal Agreement seeing as nothing susbstatial has changed since the last two "meaningful" votes which were both defeated. It is taken from today's Guardian online, written by one of their regular journalists, Rafael Behr:

John Bercow has seized his Brexit moment – and now all bets are off.

"The relevant procedural scriptures seem pretty clear on the matter, so the Speaker is well within his rights to interpret them as he has done. But it is still a matter of interpretation and so unavoidably a heavily political action. It blasts the prime minister’s plans for the week off course. It transforms the calculations that MPs make about what should happen next. It also retrospectively casts a darker, more terminal shadow over the decision a majority of them made to reject the deal last Tuesday. Might some Tories or members of the DUP have acted differently had they known it was May’s last shot at getting her deal through?

Certainly the prime minister’s strategy has depended on eliminating options, so that eventually MPs would conclude that the only feasible Brexit on the table was hers. For that to work, she needed to keep bluffing and keep raising the stakes. She didn’t realise that ultimately, in parliament, it’s the Speaker who runs the game. And now all bets are off." 
[my emphasis].

Good for him ... I was wondering how many 'meaningful' votes it took before the whole exercise was to be acknowledged as meaningless ... and why Parliament repeatedly voting - and yet the Prime Minister being repeatedly defeated - on the same issue, was somehow democratic ... while it was deemed undemocratic and against the 'will of the people' to even countenance asking the population as a whole, if, knowing what they do now, they still wanted to go ahead with the enormous changes proposed resulting from a single, badly-planned, illegally-manipulated, advisory referendum, conducted over two years ago (ie before the current government's term of office) and which even at the time gave a split vote with no clear majority for any change at all.

But no, that should not be taken as any support for the 'muddling through' approach to government ... John Bercow should not have that (large/critical) discretionary power (... I think his limits and responsibilities should be much more clearly defined, ultimately derived from say, a written constitution, perhaps). Bercow, at least to me, seems to be a good egg, conscious of his unique role and responsibility in maintaining the sovereignty of Parliament ... but what if he was open to 'influence'; a knighthood maybe, or early retirement to head up an important government enquiry, or to become the chairman of a government quango, or a lucrative charity position, perhaps? No bribery of course ... just a due reflection of his incomparable experience, wisdom and value to the nation ...

MM, yes a fan of him as you, but more for his fysiognomy and his incomparable acting on the "stage". I have seen him now two times in those votes. Really a phenomenon. And yes I asked it already to you, wondering about the "might" that that person had. But I have still to check, if it is not the same in Belgium ...And despite my "fanship" I will still judge him on his deeds...
Kind regards, Paul.

Priscilla wrote:

You digress, nord - and you too, LIR, stay focused, read the Daily Mail. Oh joy - DM today published e-mail addresses of MP. who need telling how to vote. I can only guess at what else they may be told.

It's all too much - life can be such a delight, The sun shines, butterfies are out after being celebrated, the Daily Mail in overdrive, possibly even  the Worm is turning and the country goes to the dogs wearing Welsh daffs.... and dozens of e-mails to compose.

Well I did mention an 'elephantess' so I wasn't totally off point, Priscilla.  Indeed you are right that there are other things in life besides Brexit.  I managed to get a few things on the (washing) line today though I understand there is going to be rain tomorrow.  I still wish Members of Parliament would work together as a team on something like Brexit which transcends party divisions but no, some of them at least have to try and score points.

This whole thing is getting more like a spaghetti western by the minute. Younger viewers/posters won't remember this scene, but the latest  B-word developments do make me wonder who is going to shoot - or get shot - first: May, Tusk, Macron - or the UK Parliament?

But perhaps this is for a week today - with them all looking at their watches. and all..







"Now we start..." - Oh God, not again!

Temperance and others,

I am sorry to drag this thread down, but this morning an otherwise nomal sober and proper Danish radio channel reported - even though giggling - that a supermarket chain, operating in Gt. Britain had rented/are renting extra space preparing storage for, as in expecting people to start hoarding, 600 tons of toilet paper.

I don't think we Brits need lots of extra loo paper just yet, thank you, Nielsen, but your bacon and butter producers must be seriously worried. We eat more bacon butties than the rest of the world put together and Danish bacon is terrifically popular here, as is your lovely Danish butter. No deal is no "giggling" matter for any of the EU member states.

What is worrying is that attitudes are hardening here - even among some who voted "Remain".

What my meagre input in regard to Brexit, Temperance, this and those previous, are meant as. is a reminder that in order to make a lasting deal, the EU have to agree, and how far further they are prepared to agree is something we - the commoners on the floor - may not know until the final deal is struck.
As uncommon for the Commons that this thought may be, that is a fact of life.

Temperance wrote:

What is worrying is that attitudes are hardening here - even among some who voted "Remain".

This isn't directed at you personally Temp as I think I know where your sympathies lie, but I am genuinely interested why you say 'attitudes are hardening'. The EU approach has been consistent from day one; the rules were clear (they were largely formulated by British diplomats and lawyers) and the EU's reaction has been unfailingly courteous, tolerant and patient in negociations with a UK that still hasn't decided what it actually wants nor where it wants to go, and certainly has no plan. The EU, which incidentally isn't a single dictatorial entity but rather a group of sovereign states working together for mutual benefit (and at the moment that includes the UK too) operates, of necessity, by a rules-based system. This rather seems at variance from the confrontational, us against them, no compromise, winner takes all, underhand bribes, behind the scenes deal-making, party before country, muddle through and back of a fag-packet approach of the UK in the brexit negociations  ... but that is perhaps understandable as it's largely how Britain governs itself. 

To my mind it is not that attitudes in the UK are hardening ... the Daily Mail crowd certainly haven't changed their tune: "they need us more than we need them"; "we voted to leave entirely"; "will of the people"; "no pain no gain"; "just leave, out now, no deal, WTO rules"; "who won the bloody war anyway?". Now however it is the other 27 who are losing patience with l'Albion Perfide. These countries are Britain's nearest neighbours and allies with whom I take it Britain is still hoping to establish trade deals and other agreements of mutual cooperation some time in the future. But despite the whole brexit process having been set to a UK timetable (who initiated Article 50?) and agenda (who boxed herself in with unworkable red lines?), still neither the British government, parliament, nor population as a whole, can agree even on what they actually, and moreover realistically, want.

But then I don't think brexit was ever really about the EU ... and so Britain leaving will not directly address any of the issues that prompted the UK's 'leave' vote. Indeed it's likely to make some of them considerably worse.

MM, I understand (I suppose), what you mean. But I think that a lot of people react not logical à la nordmann, but are open to trends not scientifically supported, but led by emotions, which are emphasized by populists. I just wanted to add something in the thread: Are we back to the Thirties, or perhaps the contrary of the thread about: The end of the nation states?

Today, now already The Netherlands, with a turn to the right nationalistic, and perhaps till now Belgium is only spared a bit from this right nationalistic populism by the typical Flemish/Francophone antagonism. I think that the liberal Macron, the liberal Rutte, the liberal Michel and centrum right Merkel (which I also reckon in that liberal group), are caught in the middle of the "nationalist rights" and the "green-leftists". The "own  folk first" divided into nations at one side and the international global minded green leftists at the other side. And I suppose those social-liberals just mentioned are fighting for their own survival and for the survival of the European concept, against the populist right wing Italy, Spain, Hungary, Poland and perhaps others too. And I suppose again, if these liberal European leaders aren't tough enough against Britain, it will an example for further desintegration of the European Union. Viewed perhaps with pleasure by Russia and the right-wing Republican US Americans (who was it again, that American, who toured the right wing parties of Europe, to convince them of his sympathy).

But yes, Temperance, can be right (I haven't enough insight in the present day situation in the UK, to judge), that there is an hardening of the positions, as people react with "emotional feelings" not based on logical thinking. And as you can see it today in The Netherlands this can lead to the emerging of a new right wing party from nearly nothing sparked by populists and actuality (as the Utrecht murders and perhaps the Italian busdriver from Senegalese roots...)

It would be perhaps better that all the Europeans read again the book of Hannah Arendt that I mentioned in the thread about "Are we back to the Thirties?". But who will read it nowadays apart from a nordmann, you, a Temperance and some others of that club? The rest?: looking to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and what there is all more today?

Kind regards, Paul.

The voices in Theresa's head are getting louder;

MM wrote:

 But then I don't think brexit was ever really about the EU ... and so Britain leaving will not directly address any of the issues that prompted the UK's 'leave' vote. Indeed it's likely to make some of them considerably worse.

Absolutely. If you remember I was saying that when I started my "Village Idiot" thread. This is worse than the "two nations"  divide though - not as simple as rich v. poor, privileged v. non-privileged, educated v. unschooled: it has become something much darker. And the malaise is not merely a British thing: it is a global phenomenon.

Not a good time to be young - or old.

Mrs May was a Remainer at the time of the referendum if I recall rightly.  She has a difficult role - but would any of the people shouting her down have been able to broker a better deal with the EU?  Is the constant bickering being used as a delaying tactic?  A second referendum could still result in a 'Leave' vote.

There is going to be a huge People's March tomorrow. Let us hope it is more peaceful than the protests going on in France. The following comforted me, despite the ongoing Brexit misery, because, for us English, the most important thing - besides tea and the appropriate biscuit - is always a hopeful weather forecast:


London should stay dry for Saturday’s huge People’s Vote march, according to forecasters.

Despite a band of cloud and rain causing a drizzly start to Saturday, it should have moved south by the start of the anti-Brexit march at 12.30pm.

Temperatures could be around 14-15C if the sun breaks through the cloud but otherwise will be a mild 12C.

A few spots of drizzle could hit by the time the march begins its journey through central London, but won’t be persistent.


Just "a few spots of drizzle" - that's all right then. All sounds so English and normal. But it is perhaps an indication of my age  - and of my wishful thinking - that I like to think it is.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Mrs May was a Remainer at the time of the referendum if I recall rightly.  She has a difficult role - but would any of the people shouting her down have been able to broker a better deal with the EU?  Is the constant bickering being used as a delaying tactic?  A second referendum could still result in a 'Leave' vote.

There was one of those identikit late-nite 'Brexit' discussion programs on television yesterday (you know the sort which normally has you reaching for the remote) but this one piqued my interest as one of the panellists was Bernadette McAliskey who was introduced the viewers as a 'migrant rights campaigner'. In a previous life, however, she was known as Bernadette Devlin. Elected to parliament aged just 21, Bernadette was one of the youngest MPs in the late 60s and early 70s and was also one of the very few Irish republicans to actually take her seat in the House of Commons. Anyway this is what she had to say on the current impasse:

"I think we’re just looking at mass incompetence of the political system. If the people who are managing the government and if the people who are managing the parliament were actually employees in a business or were employers in a business they’d have got their P45 long before now and they wouldn’t have had any defence in an industrial tribunal. Why we have not had a general election, why the government has not fallen, why Mrs May has not been sacked, why she hasn’t had the integrity to resign is beyond me. But the political system is actually in a state of collapse. People speak of a constitutional crisis. And actually the fundamental weakness was that the UK democratic system was never designed to govern by referenda. Referenda belong in countries with written constitutions where they have a place in law, a place in the infrastructure. Referendum should never have been held and now they’re stuck with it. It was a glorified opinion poll that was given status by parliament and that status can be taken away by parliament again. Only a fool would have done it and as I recall a fool did do it, Mr Cameron, and then he sidled off."

I have to say that it was a pretty succinct summing-up of the last 3 years. Theresa May and the other MPs are at the one time both orchestrators and hostages of a system which really hasn't had any significant reform since the Parliament Act of 1911. Whether the UK leaves the EU or remains in the EU, it is the constitutional working of the state which is something which has now been thrown into stark relief both domestically and internationally and has been found badly wanting.

Recently been to log into my Yahoo email address and saw on the Yahoo news that they are predicting a possible shortage of fish and chips post-Brexit.  Good old Yahoo has its priorities right I see (there might be some irony in my statement).  Still makes a change from tittle-tattle about whether or not Duchesses Megs and Kate interact well I suppose.

A propos of the ailing but still vaguely vivant Brexit elephant ... I see that Switzerland’s supreme court has just overturned a nationwide referendum on the grounds that the information given to voters was insufficient.

Married couples in Switzerland are currently taxed jointly on their combined incomes, meaning they can often pay more tax than cohabiting partners who are taxed separately and so each benefit from a tax-free allowance. The proposal, "For the couple and the family – no to the penalisation of marriage", was narrowly rejected by 50.8% to 49.2%. But the Christian Democratic party, which had originally proposed the February 2016 vote, lodged an appeal against the result last year, saying voters had been misled and argued the result should not stand because the scale of the problem had been seriously misrepresented. The Swiss federal court ruled that voters had been "... informed erroneously and in an incomplete way ... Given the tight outcome of the vote and the seriousness of the irregularities, it is possible that the result of the ballot would have been different." And so they have overturned the referendum result.

Meanwhile the UK's Electoral Commission, having already ruled that the 2016 Referendum's official 'Leave' campaign was illegally financed; corruptly manipulated by foreign states and individuals; used illegal methods; and was based on on numerous lies and misinformation ... have decided to do absolutely nothing.

Unbelievable MM, I just made up my mind this morning, to start a new thread "Brexit" as the "Olifant" became too long...and I was a bit reluctant because the subject seems to stirr up some emotions...but nevertheless I decided to take the bull by the horns (In Dutch it's a cow, but a cow has also horns) today...
Thanks for the link, which is a bit a challenge for a discussion I guess.
See you at my new thread...

Kind regards from Paul.

Well Paul, it seems even the British are finally starting to realise - some 70 years too late perhaps - that they are no longer 'top dog' in the world, nor, even in the EU. And so perhaps you are correct ... maybe we need a subtle shift towards l'olifant dans la chambre, or, olifant in de kamer, or even, elephantis ad cubiculumto, to be completely en accord with reality.

Am I reading too much into things in wondering whether J Assange's removal from the Ecuadorian embassy in London was a condition for an extension of the Brexit period?

Yr eliffant yn yr ystafell
An t-ailbhean san t-seòmar
An eilifint sa seomra

Unfortunately Google Translate doesn't stretch to Conish etc, but those should, perhaps, remind some that Englnd is not the whole of the UK and others needs and views may well differ.

I started my Elephant thread so we could exchange ideas about topics that it is possibly unwise or tactless to mention. But things have got so awful here - in what has been heartbreakingly described as "a small, shrinking island, bitter little England" - that I have to say something. Probably no one is reading posts anyway, so it won't matter very much anyway what anyone says.

We argued at length a while back about the British not having a written constitution, and I got very huffy defending the status quo here; alas I must now eat  - indeed choke on - my words. Outside the Supreme Court today, as all those intelligent and well-heeled people filed out, the BBC interviewed - above the distressing booing and shouting of the angry mob - some very clever legal chap (I can't remember his name). He simply said that, had there been a written constitution giving guidance as to the length of acceptable prorogation, all this latest turmoil could have been avoided.

As ever, nordmann wins the argument: it pains me to admit as much, but in all honesty I must. Recent alarming events would indicate that the British do indeed need a written constitution - if it's not too late.

It is a gloriously golden autumn day here in England, and I have been glued to the TV all afternoon trying my hardest to follow the legal arguments. As another commentator observed, it appears that we have now passed through the looking-glass - and it looks as though we are stuck on the other side for ever. Let's hope Lady Hale and her team prove him wrong.

It feels more and more like 1642, and I'm seriously worried. How on earth have we got ourselves in this unholy mess? No laughter about any of it now - see Art thread.

I wonder how Shakespeare's Richard II was received (if it was ever performed) in 1642 - especially John of Gaunt's speech (act 2: scene 1):

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, ... 

... Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Today, as in 1642, Shakespeare's words could be seen as rather prophetic, although Shakespeare's Gaunt was of course speaking just prior to an earlier civil war. Let's hope it doesn't actually come to that this time around.

Perhaps we'll get a written constitution after this.

Perhaps - but who will write it?



In September 1642 the Long Parliament issued an order for the closing of the theatres. The theatre people responded with a lovely piece of irony: The Players' Petition to Parliament.  Richard II  isn't mentioned in the following, but he, like Henry VI, must have been on everyone's mind. Sorry for a long quotation, but this makes me laugh:


Aspiring Cataline shall be forgot,
Bloody Sejanus, or who ere could plot
Confusion 'gainst a State, the War betwixt
The Parliament and just Harry the Sixt,
Shall have no thought or mention, 'cause their power
Not onely plac'd, but lost him in the Tower;
Nor will we parallel with least suspicion,
Your Synod with the Spanish Inquisition,
Or like the grave advice of learned Pym,
Make a Malignant, and then Plunder Him.
All these and such like actions that may mar
Your soaring plots, or shew you what you are,
We shall omit, lest our inventions shake 'em,
Why should the men be wiser then you'l make 'em:
Methinks there •hould not such a difference be
•Twixt your Professions and our Quality.
You Meet, Plot, Act, talk high with minds immense,
The like with us, but onely we speak sense
Inferiour unto yours, we can tell how
To depose Kings, there we know more then you;
Although not more then what ye would, so we
Do in our vaster Priv'ledges agree;
But that yours are the larger, and controuls,
Not onely Lives and Fortunes, but mens souls;
Declaring by an Enigmatick sence,
A priviledge on each man's Conscience;
As if the Trinity could not consent
To save a Soul, but by the Parliament:
We make the people laugh at some vain show,
And, as they laugh at us, they do at you,
Onely i'th' contrary we disagree,
For you can make them cry faster then wee:black_small_square:
Your Tragedies more real are exprest,
You murther men in earnest, we in jeast;
There we come short, but if you follow't thus,
Some wise men fear you will come short of us.
As humbly as we did begin, we pray,
Dear School-masters, you'l give us leave to Play,
Quickly before the King comes, for we wou'd
Be glad to say, y've done a little good
Since ye have sat, your play is almost done,
As well as ours, would 't had ne're been begun;
But we shall finde, e're the last Act be spent,
Enter the King, Exit the Parliament,
And hey then up go we, who by the frown
Of guilty Members have been voted down.
Yet you may still remain, and sit, and vote,
And through your own beam see your brothers mote,
Until a legal tryal shew how
Y'ave us'd the King, and hey then up go you.
So pray your humble slaves (with all their powers)
That when they have their due you may have yours.


But for our own times Bolingbroke is perhaps the most interesting character from Richard II - the "politician" in the Elizabethan sense of the term - "unscrupulous self-seeker" - a man who subordinates everything to his own ambition, a character who, by his own confession, obtains the highest power in the land by "bypaths and indirect crook'd ways".

One critic I studied many years ago said this of the man:


Bolingbroke gives no sign of his purpose - and for excellent reason. He is that most dangerous of climbing politicians, the man who will go further than his rivals because he never allows himself to know where he is going. Every step in his progress towards the throne is dictated by circumstances, and he never permits himself to have a purpose till it is more than half fulfilled.


So, MM, I very much doubt Richard II would have gone down well in 1642. Wonder if there will be a production soon in London?

Interesting that the Long Parliament sought to shut down the theatres - it's always remembered that Cromwell did this under the Commonwealth - but not that (presumably) the Puritan/Dissident movement were so influential in Parliament even while Charles was still (just) on the throne.

And it's a lovely bit of tongue-in-cheek prose - I can't see a modern petition to the government by Equity (the UK actor's trade union) being written in rhyming couplets and making references to the Cataline conspiracy against the late Roman republic (1st century BCE) or to Sejanus's coup attempt against Tiberius (1st century CE).

Meles meles wrote:

And it's a lovely bit of tongue-in-cheek prose - I can't see a modern petition to the government by Equity (the UK actor's trade union) being written in rhyming couplets and making references to the Cataline conspiracy against the late Roman republic (1st century BCE) or to Sejanus's coup attempt against Tiberius (1st century CE).

Well, I think you can thank Ben Jonson for the players' classical erudition! Jonson's Cataline His Conspiracy and Sejanus His Fall were popular (ish) plays.

These days, now that the Domster is being  regularly referred to at Westminster as "the Prince of Darkness" (bet he loves that), they should put on Jonson's The Devil Is An Ass at the Globe.

Temperance wrote:

Well, I think you can thank Ben Jonson for the players' classical erudition! Jonson's Cataline His Conspiracy and Sejanus His Fall were popular (ish) plays.

I thought I was being erudite in recognising the ancient plots referred to, but you have out-erudited my erudition - indeed by many times - by your very erudite reference to Ben Jonson's plays. Thanks for that info ... I'll give them a read if I can find them.

PS - I can't find the text of Cataline, His Conspiracy, but Sejanus, His Fall is available on-line via the Gutenberg project: 

Gutenberg - Sejanus: His Fall, by Ben Jonson

... as is The Devil is an Ass:

Gutenberg - The Devil is an Ass, by Ben Jonson

Yes, I was trying to show off.     


Really should stick to  .

If Boris - as seems likely - loses the judgment could he claim  'Benefit of Clergy' as Ben Jonson did? it would mean getting his thumb branded, of course...….. how about Johnson and Jonson?