G & T

I’ve rarely been known to refuse one. Schweppes and several fingers of gin. So it doesn’t surprise me to find that it’s now a bit of a cult – with go-to choices of both ingredients. Dwarling, you simply must try my elder-flower. Really cool, huh?

And by sheer coincidence, cool-speak is also defined by G and T. Not only is good pronounced gid but every -ing is an -in; every lot is a lo’. And most cringeful of all, like every plural subject attracts a singular verb.

Worse still we can’t point fingers at speakers of Estuary English or Brummy or Scouse. They are all at it! Like not cool at all.

 

Not a Happy Announcement

Some of you may still remember Terrible Turk from MyT days yore. He was acerbic, at times abrasive but, in the end, a true gentleman. He was a product of the early post-war years, a man who craved moral and social certainties and certitudes. He had a good career, 30 years in the Middle East for the US Geologic Survey with sojourns into South and South-East Asia. After his retirement, he settled in small-town Virginia where he became a fixture of the local social scene.

He was on my case for years, most recently because of my preference for stepping away from academia and moving, at least partially, into private industry. He was convinced that academia needed at least a few people who weren’t certifiable Bolsheviks amongst its ranks.

You may have noticed that I have discussed him in the preterite. This is no accident. I was informed less than half an hour ago that he has passed away. After a spirited battle with cancer, one that required having his bone marrow removed and replaced, Atropos did her grim deed.

Lost and found

Where did you get it? I won it. I picked it up. I came across it. Answers that might denote its less-than-conventional origin. Personally I avoid any event resembling a flea market but millions of people love ’em. It’s the thrill of the chase and the improbable but tempting idea that treasure might be there for the picking.

So perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked to read that someone found an elegantly packaged glass bottle, presumed it was perfume, presented it to his lady-love……….and poisoned her with a deadly nerve-agent. But I am. Yes, it’s the antidote to serendipity. Someone will probably calculate the odds against the man’s ill-fortune. But I doubt it will spell the end of garage sales or expeditions with metal-detectors – or the temptation simply to snag things lying around the town.

Come back, Oliver, all is forgiven

Except for the bit about chopping off the monarch’s head (Leave good Queen Bess alone, after all, the armed forces swear allegiance to her and she is a very nice lady), we could do with another Oliver Cromwell to deal with the self-serving nonentities that occupy the present British parliament.

Here is what he said when dissolving the 1653 Parliament :-

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,

which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.

Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.

Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.

Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!”

Any volunteers? Nigel, mayhap?

 

There is nothing like a Dane

I came across a Grauniad leader this morning – and had to read it twice. Is this about Denmark, with the happiest people in the world?

I suppose the biggest difference a non-Dane notices over there is that most of the folk in the shopping centres (except perhaps in the few cities) are discernibly descended from Scandinavian stock. Compare that to most British towns. But there is another major difference. Since WWII we have grown used to seeing and living cheek-by-jowl with incomers of all races and persuasions; they are part of our landscape. I hate the word ‘integration’ but I would say they play a part in our society which most of us recognise and no longer resist, as we did at first. But the Danes are still where we stood after WWII! Hence the existence across that small country of 56 ‘ghettoes’, as described in the article, linked below.

After my second reading, I have had visions of PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen playing our favourite Viking, King Canute (never mind the spelling), as portrayed in fake news as a megalomaniac resisting the waves. I hope I’m wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/the-guardian-view-on-forcible-integration-in-denmark-this-cannot-end-well