Take care of yourself, Normanhurst.

Post this for Anglo Norman, released later this week it is set on Jersey during WW2:

Triceratops wrote:

Take care of yourself, Normanhurst.

 That's my wish as well, and it's good to see your name on the list of posters again.

Hang on in there, Normanhurst. When I was in hospital at the end of September gone I hated every minute of it - even though the other people in the ward(s) (I was in the admission ward for two nights and then in a different one for the last night - they usually move people out of the admission ward after two nights at the local [to me] hospital) and the nursing/medical staff were cordial. Because I was kept in after what I thought would be a day visit I didn't have clean underwear for three days. I wasn't half glad to get home. It's not much good them giving you a bed if you can't sleep in it so I hope you are managing better now.

Norm! So you're back in hospital, that's a shame, but no amazonian wardresses this time I hope. Has that fiery stallion that took you for midnight gallops, once upon a time, come back?
My fingers are crossed for a short stay and a comfy bed to make it more bearable, do keep us up to date with your progress.

Hello, Normanhurst. Count your blessings, old chap; it could be worse. At least you're not lying in agony on a trolley in a corridor of an A&E department in an underfunded hospital somewhere. Hope you are made/kept comfortable very soon.

Come back Guy Fawkes... All is forgiven...

Strange conversation in the pub last night ... a bunch of English and Irish explaining with no little sentimental nostalgia to a Norwegian how much easier life was to understand back in the old days when terrorists at least put some thought into their evil and before their trade, the media reporting of it, and the security forces' reaction to it, was all dumbed down. In the days before "terrorism" became a catch-all definition we used to refer to these people as "crazed assassins". Now we are obliged to call them "terrorists" (though if there's one thing noticeably lacking in the aftermath of this latest act of "terrorism" it is "terror"). We are also obliged by the rules of cliche to label their acts as "cowardly". Speaking as a professional and proud coward may I simply state that I object to this label - it's tough enough being a full-time caitiff these days without sadistic thicks like yer man yesterday giving us an even worse name.

115 years ago Westminster Bridge promoted this sentiment:

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will.
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Yesterday it inspired a thick and in all likelihood mentally ill eejit to mow down pedestrians, presumably to keep his god happy. We've come a long way, haven't we?

The cowards are the men (and women) who egg on these mentally ill - or mentally vulnerable - individuals to do these things. Their "god" may be found - like most "gods" - lurking in their own ego-states - and what a state those ego-states are in, to be sure. Would these puppet masters and puppet mistresses ever choose to examine themselves honestly with a psychiatrist? Of course not. They would be too afraid.

I used the word "cowardly" in my post on the RIP thread and I stick by my use of that word - cliché or no.

Yes, I've been at the psychobabble books again - I thoroughly recommend TA Today - A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis (2012) by Stewart and Joines - an excellent tome for all who are attempting to understand their own craziness - be it "religious" or "political" or whatever - and the craziness/utter stupidity of others.

Nice bit of poetry, by the way - very appropriate.

"TA Today" (well, circa 1980 actually)

I don't like the use of 'mentally ill' to describe these people either, to apply it is to excuse them of responsibility for their actions. In other words 'he knows not what he does'....bollocks on that I say.

Having worked with mentally ill people I have found their problem is almost exclusively the opposite - all too aware in fact of what they do and think. However I take your point - anything that distracts from what is essentially evil stupidity on these people's part only lets them off the hook.

nordmann wrote:

"TA Today" (well, circa 1980 actually)

Ha, ha, very funny - not.

I too have worked with disturbed people, although most probably not the same sort that you refer to in your cryptic posts: many disturbed or sick individuals may fully understand what they are doing or have done, but are usually unwilling - or unable - to face the real truth about why they do or have done it. Finding out "why" any of us do stupid or bad or evil things, confronting our own darkness, is what takes courage: that was the point I was trying to make. However, the powerful people who thoroughly enjoy the use and abuse of their power, and who manipulate weaker souls to carry out their dirty work for them, have no interest in trying to find out the truth about themselves or about anything else. Such self-analysis requires courage and determination and humility and honesty, qualities which bullies always lack. They are the real cowards. I actually thought you would understand that.

But no doubt I'll get the p*ss taken out of me again for trying to express this - clichés, clichés, clichés -  and for my admiration for Berne's work - must try really hard not to be bovvered.

So I'm off to the Rave and/or Moggy thread - had enough of futile ranting here or anywhere else.

You're right - this is meant to be the pub.

It's a bit early to be splicing the mainbrace, so have a coffee ...

nordmann wrote:

You're right - this is meant to be the pub.

It's a bit early to be splicing the mainbrace, so have a coffee ...

I suppose I must agree: talking about - or even lapsing into -  "adapted-child ego-state" (adolescent posturing and defiance) and "controlling-parent ego-state" (general ranting and put-downs of people) does get very tedious, here and elsewhere. So no more! Let us return swiftly to our "adult" ego-states and relax. One of my friends (I do have some), sick to death of my nonsense, advised me to watch the following. The American audience applauding and braying in the background is enormously irritating, but the  "Stop it!" school of psychiatry is possibly the best way forward for us all.

Thank you for the offer of coffee, but I'll have a cup of demolition-worker's tea please. Coffee sends me bonkers - worse than booze for the chemically sensitive (or just the sensitive).

Priscilla is back among us: let us rejoice and give thanks.

Please start a good argument very soon, Priscilla - not sure what about, but I'm sure you can come up with something.

But no mention of the B-word - please.

Just a quick note to say I am still alive ..... but I've currently got no internet in the house so am typing this from McDonald's carpark (free wifi) where I've been checking bookings and doing emails. I'm hoping to get back to normal in a week or so once I've replaced the satelite antenna and modem (the old system lasted ten years before it went futt).  Looks like I'll have lots of catching up to do on stuff here.

So in the words of Christopher Robin (or was it Owl?): 'Bizzy Backson'.

A word to Temperance, re your mention on another thread of taking the mickey, and sticking it out, festina lente - make haste slowly.

And an old joke to remember old days long gone by,
I lost the Trivia Contest during our church pot-luck dinner last night by 1 point.
Not only did I get the question wrong, but I was immediately asked to leave.
The question was, "Where do women have the curliest hair?"


Apparently the correct answer is "Fiji Islands".  ;-)

"Only in Cambridge"




"A bit hard to translate"

Norman,

I feel with you. Only three times a week for four hours to the hospital in bright clean and healthy circumstances reading a book and talking to the nurses (40 females and 5 males on a turning shift). And even in such environment still longing for a donor kidney to be lost from all it and to be able to travel again...Japan for instance with the two (older!) grandchildren...
Hope that the Norovirus don't catch you again and that you soon can leave...is it not better to be isolated at home with nurse help? Just a thought...

Kind regards from your friend Paul and hopes for an early recovery...

Many kind thoughts to you Paul and many thanks.

Gosh, Normanhurst, it does sound like you are going through the mill.  I know when they kept me in hospital for 3 days at the end of last September (so more than six months ago now) it seemed like an epoch!!! I slept most of the first day because of tiredness - and having a blood transfusion.  I was so glad when I was allowed home.  Not that the staff were nasty - far from it but it was duller than ditchwater in there.  Still, when I read about what other people have to go through my problem seems very small potatoes.  I can't remember whether I said this before, but I very nearly made a quip about getting stir crazy and then realised that there was a lady on the ward from the nearest women's prison - two coppers in attendance and she was chained to the bed too. It would have been very insensitive even if I'd said it by accident.  I can only wish that things improve for you (Normanhurst) and I'm sorry to learn what PR has to go through also.

The chiffchaffs returned to our garden last month and the apple blossom appeared this week. Chiffchaffs, along with other warblers, tits and finches just love apple blossom, so they're very excited right now. It must be all the insects attracted by it.

A very small warbler and quite dull in appearance, I nevertheless think chiffchaffs are great. Maybe it's because they are so common that they tend to get overlooked and taken for granted. Yet who in the 1960s would have believed that sparrows and starlings would become rare?

So here's a picture of a chiffchaff in apple blossom:



Let's hear it for the chiffchaffs!

I've never even heard of chiffchaffs!  But it is your mention of apples that reminded me that this is the first time we have had a decent amount of apples on a tree.  We have a grafted apple tree whjich has Cox's Orange and another apple breed which I don't remember the name and which doesn't matter as this branch has never had a single bud on it, let alone an apple.  But the Cox's Orange is producing nicely this year, and the birds are staying away or only attacking one apple. 

One year at our old place, our tree had finally produced twelve apples and I said to the kids, "Tomorrow we will pick the apples."  Tomorrow came and there wasn't a single apple or any trace of them on the tree.  I have never worked out what happened.  My own kids wouldn't have taken them, or been able to hide traces of them even if they had been so inclined, they were at the back of our property so I don't think it would have been other children. And there weren't many around anyway.  Possums?  Maybe.  But you would have thought there would be some left on the ground.  Or at least traces of them.

Twelve apples you say Caro? No more and no less? Oh dear, it seems there can be only one rational explanation:

We, the Fairies, blithe and antic, 
Of dimensions not gigantic, 
Though the moonshine mostly keep us, 
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us. 

Stolen sweets are always sweeter, 
Stolen kisses much completer, 
Stolen looks are nice in chapels, 
Stolen, stolen, be your apples. 

When to bed the world are bobbing, 
Then's the time for orchard-robbing; 
Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling, 
Were it not for stealing, stealing. 

'Song of Fairies' by Leigh Hunt (c.1819)

I can't offer anything as witty as Trike - wonder where Trike finds 'em sometimes.

Well, first of all I'll wish everyone a happy Easter (or spring break or whatever you like to call it). However, I also want to brain pick - I was thinking about adaptations of the King Arthur myth over the years. The most recent TV ones I can think of are "Merlin" - silly sometimes but (to me at least) good fun and "Camelot" - (to me) unmitigatedly awful and I've learned there was a French comedy version in the first decade of this century "Kamelott" - featuring a rather punk looking Audrey Fleurot (who I am more used to seeing as the perfectly coiffed lawyer Maitre Karlson {sp?} in "Engrenages") with her normally red hair a sort of pinky-red. But I seem to recall that from some time ago (and I mean decades not just a couple or three years) there was a film that was set post-age of Arthur where an older Lancelot was depicted as coming back from a long time abroad and meets up with an older Guinevere and I can't think of the name of it for the life of me. Has anybody got their brain in gear today and can supply the name of the film? I think the (dramatised as opposed to book) version of the legend I liked best was John Boorman's "Excalibur" with Helen Mirren as Morgan Le Fay. I think I probably have the Arthur legend in mind because I caught a glimpse of the trailer for a forthcoming Guy Ritchie version of the legend, though it didn't entirely fill me with confidence.

Lady in retirement,

as a continental not so used withg the Arthur's legends...but did nevertheless some quick research...
https://multiglom.com/2015/04/21/my-top-ten-king-arthur-movies/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_media_based_on_Arthurian_legend
But also this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_and_Guinevere
"Modred spies on them and informs Arthur of his wife's infidelity. Lancelot escapes, but Guinevere is condemned to be burned at the stake. He returns in time to save her and then offers to give himself up provided there will be no retaliation. Nevertheless, Arthur banishes him and sends Guinevere to a convent. Years later, Modred murders Arthur for his throne, and Lancelot returns to defeat him, thus ending the civil war that has been raging in Britain. He then finds Guinevere about to take the vows of a nun."
After the murder on Arthur years later Lancelot returns!...?



Kind regards, Paul.

Hooray!

Finally back online with my new satellite dish and modem so thankfully no need to drive down to MacDonald's every other day just to use their wifi to see my bookings. But apart from the hassle of trying to manage my business without internet, I haven't really missed it much. I've been quite happy in general ignorance of world news and I'm certainly not addicted to social media. I've passed the last few weeks quite contentedly in a state of peaceful, almost monastic solitude, doing DIY and gardening, rising and going to bed with the sun. And with no temptation to waste time browsing the web, I've got all my tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, beans and lettuces planted out, two rooms repainted, the swimming pool cleaned, refilled and ready for the season, and I've made a dozen jars of fig jam.

But I have missed keeping up with the all the discussions here ... so now I'm catching up on all the posts I've missed.

So happy to see you back Meles meles. I missed you.

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

PS: A lot of French stuff overhere especially for you.

Meles meles wrote:

Hooray!

Finally back online with my new satellite dish and modem so thankfully no need to drive down to MacDonald's every other day just to use their wifi to see my bookings. But apart from the hassle of trying to manage my business without internet, I haven't really missed it much. I've been quite happy in general ignorance of world news and I'm certainly not addicted to social media. I've passed the last few weeks quite contentedly in a state of peaceful, almost monastic solitude, doing DIY and gardening, rising and going to bed with the sun. And with no temptation to waste time browsing the web, I've got all my tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, beans and lettuces planted out, two rooms repainted, the swimming pool cleaned, refilled and ready for the season, and I've made a dozen jars of fig jam.

But I have missed keeping up with the all the discussions here ... so now I'm catching up on all the posts I've missed.

Really glad you are back too, MM - feared we had lost you for ever. But where is ferval?

Your post makes me feel utterly useless. Fig jam indeed!

Re above - I only meant that I am amazed at what you manage to get done, MM, and that a) I wish I had figs growing in my garden and that b) I could make jam with them.

A joke pertaining to the 'Girls dressed as boys thread', the sentences "... As males were very important and had an high status in ancient societies and most ancient societies were patrilenial, having a son to so-called prolongue the family...otherwise the family could be extinguished...it is perhaps still embedded in our cultures from ascending of men?...from the time of the extended families, the tribes?...
So as Anglo-Norman said there was in many cultures a strong desire for male descendants. So as in China. Even to that extent, with the one child policy of the Communist directorium, that many women were nearly obliged (by their husbands?) to commit abortus if it was a girl (old customs even more surviving than the strong rules of the Communist party). The consequence is that there are now more males than females in China...and there is now the spectre of less babies due to less mothers and thus an againg population."

This as a prelude to those saying that the only province in China where the one-child-policy became a reality was that of Wanking.

I'd better get me coat, and a large Absolut.

Where's Nessie? Our most famous beastie hasn't been seen since last August - has she swum off to a more congenial home in the aftermath of the June referendum? Could those of you in other parts of the EU please check and see if there's something big and prehistoric on any of your waterways and, if you find her, tell her to please come home? The Scottish Tourist Board are missing her.

ferval wrote:

Where's Nessie? Our most famous beastie hasn't been seen since last August - has she swum off to a more congenial home in the aftermath of the June referendum? Could those of you in other parts of the EU please check and see if there's something big and prehistoric on any of your waterways and, if you find her, tell her to please come home? The Scottish Tourist Board are missing her.

Ferval,

Re 'something big and prehistoric' many of our national politicians act that way, even if disguised as yuppies ...

There's this wee beastie that's recently popped up outside the Musée d'art modern in Nice ... it even calls itself "Le Monstre du Loch Ness" but I'm not convinced it's the real thing.

ferval wrote:

check and see if there's something big and prehistoric on any of your waterways

Last seen at No10 Downing Street I believe ferval.

I forgot, we've still got Scotland's shame, David Coburn UKIP MEP, he fits the bill as big and prehistoric but the depths of Loch Ness are too good for him.

It has been noticed before, ferval, how Nessie tends to disappear when the local human species has rather more serious preoccupations to be getting on with. And she is especially reticent to appear when membership of the EU is foremost in human minds, as this list of sightings confirms as Britain "muddled" its way into the then EEC back in the day.

From when Heath proposed the option in parliament to final ratification Nessie, who hitherto had been guaranteed to stick her head over the parapet at least 40 to 50 times a year, suddenly decided it was safer to stick to the murky depths until the matter was settled.



She did a runner in the lead-up to the independence referendum also. I'm beginning to think she might actually be the most intelligent life form in the UK at the minute.

That's a rather shabby looking Merkin he's sporting...

Well Happy St George Day to England.

The irony of celebrating a foreign born religious radical who received military training in the Middle East has not gone un-noticed. 

Or http://newsthump.com/2015/04/23/ukip-asks-google-to-forget-st-george-was-actually-a-greek-immigrant/

By the time George was adopted by Edward III as the top saint of the realm he was very much a "patron saint for hire", being a favourite of the military elite in several countries, including England. Edward's deliberate demotion of Edmund (who had by then acquired a long association with the barons when in opposition to the crown) was a signal as much to his own aristocracy of who was in charge than it was anything to do with religious devotion, divine patronage or national prestige. The important aspect to the shift was removing Edmund from the picture, and England was extremely short of local home-grown candidates to replace him. In fact Edward's rationale was that any local candidate was suspect by default, so George's principal appeal to him was that - apart from an established devotion to the lad at the very top end of the military - he had no connection whatsoever with the kingdom. It was very much a clean slate approach.

What Edward did, in fact, was not to declare a national patron saint but to remove the notion altogether. George, on the other hand, was made patron saint of his other great innovation, The Order Of The Garter, the founding of which on 23rd April 1344 is also therefore the day to celebrate George. This elite order, set up as a guarantee to the monarch that he always had an inner coterie of top level knights indebted to him for favour and wealth so that he could dictate policy through them all the more effectively (taking the French crown as his own was the original policy that prompted the move), included amongst the original 25 knights several names also most associated with dismantling the St Edmund devotional structure within England, and that can have been no coincidence. It is largely due to their zeal in this regard that the notion of George "replacing" Edmund took root.

The celebration of St George's Day is therefore, in effect, the official marking of the anniversary of what today would be regarded with justified censure as a coup by the ruling class in order to concentrate power into the hands of a very few, very much like the one Erdogan is pursuing in Turkey today. It is in fact a celebration of the extreme antipathy the ruling class holds towards the democratic principle of power invested in the people, and endorsement of the notion that the English people will forever be subjects of a ruling elite and not true citizens.

It is therefore very apt that George is England's patron saint, and I see no reason from observing recent political developments in Britain to justify deposing him from that role.

I had some vague memory of somebody telling me in the 1970s that St George had been demoted  (in the Catholic church at least) and that St Thomas More had replaced him (probably only for Catholics) as England's patron saint.  I haven't been able to find anything about that by doing a Google search though I did find something about the Pope in 1969 demoting St George and Pope John-Paul reinstating him https://www.christianforums.com/threads/what-about-those-holy-orthodox-saints-that-vatican-ii-disowned.699958/ - the fourth comment under the linked discussion board applies.

As to Nordmann's comments about the English being subjects rather than citizens, I suppose there is some truth in that, for example if a house (or other property) is owned by more than one person they hold it as "joint tenants" (I think that's usually just for two people) or "tenants-in-common" - those are the ways of holding property jointly that I know of anyway, though I'm not ruling out any more unusual ways that my delicate little shell-likes have never heard of.  Wasn't a citizen originally an inhabitant of a city?  Anybody know when the meaning of the word was expanded to include belonging to a country?  Theoretically could I be a citizen of London (well no, because I don't live there) but also a subject of England (or should that be the UK?)?  Nordman, it pains me greatly to say this, but I don't think it's just the ruling class who are antipathetic (though maybe apathetic is a more fitting word for some members of the non-ruling classes).  There are some people who moan about how the country is run or about Brexit yet couldn't be bothered to go to the polls on voting day (I'm sure the contributors to Res His all voted if they were entitled to).  I remember having not an argument but shall we say an animated discussion with somebody who was very annoyed when the UK government was thinking of doing something like the Australian one and making it mandatory to vote.  [Me:  "Well, if you don't vote you can't really complain about the choices the party in power makes" (or something like that)  Other Person:  "Yes I can because it's their job".]  I'm sure there are people in the UK who will not bother to vote this coming June.  The efficacy of the ballot box may be imperfect but it's all we've got.

Quite LiR, I'm personally all in favour of compulsory voting as it forces politicians to do their job for all levels of society and not merely the section that do vote. I've had similar 'animated' discussions with British friends on the question of ID cards too. Far from curtailing a person as they contend an ID card actually enables more feedom and efficiency in everyday business and movement.

Actually that cartoon is funny ID, though it is bittersweet also because it is so true.

LiR, the very criteria by which the Vatican has judged certain saints, such as George, to have been "demoted" in the past (untrustworthy provenance, more myth than fact, not enough miracles etc) were those which attracted Edward III to the chap in the first place. George arrived in England complete with dragon-slaying capabilities (handy to remind the Welsh of their place, I reckon) and various other conflicting origin and performance stories, none of which referenced England at all. Being popular among international psychopathic warlords didn't hurt either. As a logo he delivered all the right messages.

There have been some attempts recently - the last from a brewery in Bury St Edmunds - to have their lad reinstated. If and when Scotland and Wales (don't hold your breath) ever jump ship and leave the English to at last properly address their historical identity without all the Britain baggage then Edmund should be a shoo-in to get his old job back. Until then the confused mercenary is as apt a patron saint as any.

One for Meles meles:
Because George was very much a saint of and for the aristocracy there was never much of a tradition among ordinary people to "celebrate" the guy on April 23rd (still very much evident today when you compare George to Patrick, for example), let alone come up with a dish for the day. However in the 1700s, according to several cookery books from the period, hares began to be associated with the chap's feast day.

This one - from "The Experienced English Housekeeper" (1769) - is very do-able today from the 250 year old instructions:

To make a Hare Soup.
Cut a large old hare in small pieces, and put it in a mug with three blades of mace, a little salt, two large onions, one red herring, six morels, half a pint of red wine, three quarts of water. Bake it in a quick oven three hours, then strain it into a tossing pan. Have ready boiled three ounces of French barley or sago in water. Scald the liver of the hare in boiling water two minutes, rub it through a hair sieve with the back of a wooden spoon, put it into the soup with the barley or sago and a quarter of a pound of butter. Set it over the fire, keep stirring it but don’t let it boil. If you don’t like liver put in crisped bread steeped in wine. This is a rich soup and proper for a large entertainment where two soups are required, almond or onion for the top, and hare soup for the bottom.

The "top" and "bottom" referred to by the author, Mrs Elizabeth Raffald, means where on the table the dishes should be located at the outset of the meal, abiding by the very strict rules of service à la française as they applied in the 18th century, in which one had to have almost as detailed a knowledge of geometry as cookery to get the rules right. According to Margaret Visser who wrote a history of table manners and dining rituals it wasn't uncommon for an entire meal to be rejected if the service wasn't "appointed" in time. In other words it took so long to measure out the table and place the food out exactly that it had gone cold before the guests had even sat down.

With service à la française, as well as needing considerable patience and a tolerance for eating luke warm food, one also had to have a huge number of servants as the dishes for each course were all supposed to appear simultaneously. The numerous servants were also essential if you facied something from a dish out of reach at the other end of the table ... passing a dish to a fellow diner, thereby destroying the elaborate symmetry on the table, was a terrible faux pas.

Even for a modest dinner serving staff usually outnumbered the guests and that's without counting all the  cooking staff below stairs.



Foodwise St George's Day is also the traditional start of the asparagus season in England.



It's also the season for St George's mushrooms which incidentally go very nicely sauteed with asparagus.

Mugwump (disambiguation)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mugwumps were a group of Republican activists who supported Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the United States presidential election of 1884.

Mugwump or Mugwumps may also refer to:
Mugwump (game), an early computer game written in BASIC
The Mugwumps (band), a 1960s rock band
"Mugwump", a 1996 song by Terrorvision from Regular Urban Survivors
Mugwumps, creatures from the William S. Burroughs novel Naked Lunch and its film adaptation
Supreme Mugwump, the title for the head of the International Confederation of Wizards in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

And what was written across most of my Latin homework and also applied to Mt Corbyn - possibly for much the same reason. The school dictionary ref for it was 'a pregnant goldfish.' This was disclaimed as surely also by Mr C. But in common, at that time I also wanted lots more holidays

If ever there was a mug that needed a good wumping.............