Hic Leges Icenorum Observantur
It’s Burns’ Night tonight and I should be thinking of his address “To a Haggis”. Instead the lines of his poetry that came to my mind this morning are from “Tam O’Shanter”. They are a description of an angry wife and I wondered if they match Moira Salmond at the moment.
“… our sulky sullen dame Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”
Or perhaps she’s just quoting Captain Mainwaring – “stupid boy!”
Always on the 26th January
Many countries have a National Day. Ours is tomorrow. Since tomorrow is a Saturday we also have a day off on Monday – a Commonwealth Public Holiday that the States can’t cancel, but make no mistake, whatever you call Monday, the real Austrayia Day is Saturday, tomorrow.
It’s a cold evening here in Västra Götaland. It is also my last evening in Sweden before I fly back to England tomorrow. Last Thursday I took a short, easy flight on SAS from Heathrow to Kastrup where I met up with the Viking and took an Öresund Tåg to Kalmar. The train ride was nicer than the flight. SAS are not the best airline, but this crew were largely from parts of Europe not Scandinavia and they did not speak Swedish. That very much annoyed me. I like speaking Swedish. They’re competent and efficient, but other than a cup of coffee or two there is little difference between them and Norwegian — save that Heathrow is a far better airport than Shatwick! Continue reading “Tempus Fugit”
…An advert comes on. And after a few listens, because I’m staring at the model and as models go She’s a Rainbow and a half, I recognise the voice in the background. Get Back! It’s the Rolling Stones, and a song I’ve never heard before. How can this be? I’m the resident rock/music expert around here.
The advert in question is promoting Joy the perfume and the song accompanying it, I later discover, is She’s a Rainbow by the Roling Stones. Geoffrey, Bungle, George and Zippy! How has this delightful tune passed me by?
Then it dawns on me. That’s not my generation. I’m not from those hippy times; I know the hip bands of the present, for what its worth. Sorry for all the hip references for all the Charioteer hip replacement platoon out there (hippy hippy shake smiley thingy)
Here’s the song. For those Honky Tonkers out there, turn those hearing aids up to 11. Play it Loud.
Spectacular is the adjective commonly used for pyrotechnic displays. Bugbear number 3 for me. Fawkes sake, one light show is the same as the other.
Happy New Year. Let there be light.
Yesterday I passed on to my reader Backside’s aversion to anthropological fantasies purveyed by the meeja; from Twilight to Harry Potter to Game of Thrones to Watership Down, all celebrating the supernatural or the improbable ad nauseam.
Today his other pet hate was exhibited: the propensity of celebrities to parade their emotions before the cyberpublic, presumably seeking sympathy and even greater celebrity = money. This time a fine tennis professional who regrettably lacks the dignity and self-respect to avoid the camera when he is overcome by sadness at his own fate (or rather the impending end of his playing career). Yes, I know it’s the fashion but p-lease!
Once again my apologies for the blatant cut and paste in the original version of this post. I should have known better and I trust that this version falls within the rules.
All I wanted to say was that there is an article in the Spectator magazine that struck a cord with me. Rod Liddle presents a rather jaded view of the BBC’s fetish for Political Correctness. He takes particular aim at the Beeb’s recent production of Watership Down which he describes as being “woke”. (“The ABC Murders” also warrants a barb .)
He talks of of Bigwig being a “bruv from the ’hood” and alerts us to the fact that one of the warren is a campaigner for social justice while another is a transgendering rabbit called Strawberry. Not having seen the program, I cannot say whether this is an accurate representation or rather a bit of mischief by Mr Liddle, but I think I get the gist. It rather surprises me that Richard Adams’s estate allowed such nonsense.
Anyway, Mr Liddle concludes that his New Year resolution may be to join Charles Moore in refusing to pay the BBC licence fee. I almost wish I was living in the UK so that I could join the boycott.
The link to the article is here https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/01/the-bbcs-quest-to-make-watership-down-woke/. There is a pay wall, but generally infrequent visitors are allowed a 3 free articles a month.
It’s a magnus vicus where I live, not an urbs. (Come back, Latin haters, this is not periculosum.) But there seems to be a blossoming of interest in learning and studying Latin; perhaps even a resurrectio! I offered to teach a few discipuli and now there are multi waiting patienter to join us. But no, I must keep the pax Romana with a cohors minima amicorum. The mensae at the Waitrose taberna are non satis magnae for a multitudo!
O Aurigae, opto sitis felicissimi et felicissimae anno MMXIX
(‘O charioteers, I wish you guys and gals great happiness in 2019’)
Soon yet another year will come to its end. It was a remarkably transformational year. After several years of wandering, I’ve well and truly settled down in Dorset. My schedule is as full as it can possibly be and there is an overwhelming sense of stability and predictability. It has been many years since I could say that!
This year, I will have another very English Christmas. I won’t have a lot of time to relax. I’m scheduled to work Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. On Christmas Day, well, that will be busy, too. I will help cook, serve and prepare a Christmas dinner at one of the Anglican churches in Dorchester. It is a very pleasant, civilised affair. For those of us who are alone, there are many in a town where the average age is one foot in the grave, it’s a chance to do more than watch the walls close in on us.
