October obambulation...

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Weekend wandering. England, England, England. October 25th was - as you all know (ahem) - the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. The [in]famous two-fingered salute (V sign) is 'said' to have come from English longbowmen but according to Wiki "no written historical primary sources support this contention"...except (Wiki goes on...) "Medieval illustrations and tapestries, however, depict English archers giving the sign, as do tapestries hanging in Angers Castle, home of the Angevin (Plantagenet) dynasty." Hmmm, seems like there may be some 'primary sources'. That said, maybe it was just the V of Henry the Fifth (Henry V), what would have been had it not been for his 'unexpected' (convenient?) death...

Anyhoo...on to October 26th and the Rugby World Cup semi-final between England and New Zealand's outstanding All Blacks. The V sign makes its return (image)! Best England performance EVER...and that's in 50 years of watching although early on in the 1960s I could hardly understand what was going on.  Love this: “New Zealand lose occasionally but they are never crushed. So this was a glorious first. Forget the scoreboard. They scored one lucky try and for the rest of the evening, they looked like little boys being bullied outside the sweet shop. They were lucky not to lose players to the bin and there was a time when Marius Jonker, the TMO, was a far bigger danger to England than the opposition." Stephen Jones for The Times quoted in Rugbypass. [my emphasis]



And so onto today, 27th October: the 100th year anniversary of the first performance of Edward Elgar's last major work, the tear-jerking Cello Concerto in E minor. "Most concertos take a little time to come to their main point. if they don’t make you wait until the slow movement – and many do – for their crux, they at least keep the listener waiting through a short orchestral introduction. Elgar was having none of it." [sic] A bit like England XV yesterday. [edit] And another V image - obviously the player makes the difference!



Unfortunately we won't have an all BREXIT rugby World Cup final but if it were so who better than Elgar to provide some Pomp and Circumstance.

October obambulation...

---

Weekend wandering. England, England, England. October 25th was - as you all know (ahem) - the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. The [in]famous two-fingered salute (V sign) is 'said' to have come from English longbowmen but according to Wiki "no written historical primary sources support this contention"...except (Wiki goes on...) "Medieval illustrations and tapestries, however, depict English archers giving the sign, as do tapestries hanging in Angers Castle, home of the Angevin (Plantagenet) dynasty." Hmmm, seems like there may be some 'primary sources'. That said, maybe it was just the V of Henry the Fifth (Henry V), what would have been had it not been for his 'unexpected' (convenient?) death...

Anyhoo...on to October 26th and the Rugby World Cup semi-final between England and New Zealand's outstanding All Blacks. The V sign makes its return (image)! Best England performance EVER...and that's in 50 years of watching although early on in the 1960s I could hardly understand what was going on.  Love this: “New Zealand lose occasionally but they are never crushed. So this was a glorious first. Forget the scoreboard. They scored one lucky try and for the rest of the evening, they looked like little boys being bullied outside the sweet shop. They were lucky not to lose players to the bin and there was a time when Marius Jonker, the TMO, was a far bigger danger to England than the opposition." Stephen Jones for The Times quoted in Rugbypass. [my emphasis]

And so onto today, 27th October: the 100th year anniversary of the first performance of Edward Elgar's last major work, the tear-jerking Cello Concerto in E minor. "Most concertos take a little time to come to their main point. if they don’t make you wait until the slow movement – and many do – for their crux, they at least keep the listener waiting through a short orchestral introduction. Elgar was having none of it." [sic] A bit like England XV yesterday. [edit] And another V image - obviously the player makes the difference!

Unfortunately we won't have an all BREXIT rugby World Cup final but if it were so who better than Elgar to provide some Pomp and Circumstance.

Obvious onomatomania; others' onomatophobia...

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A bidet: the chamber pot, the bourdaloue, the 'anal douche': used for washing and cleaning oneself, especially ones sensitive private parts, after a shitty experience. Bidet, B Day, Brexit Day... today ...BI Day: Britain's Independence Day. Some people hate the word, I love it: Brexit, Brexit, BREXIT!



Dates for history books: 23-06-16, 29-03-17 and whenever FfEU (Eff You) Day is.



The 'phoney war' is over, now the "countdown to Brexit has officially begun." [Link] "As the British Prime Minister left for parliament to officially brief MPs on the triggering of Article 50, her envoy in Brussels handed over the official notification letter to the EU Council President Donald Tusk."

Obvious onomatomania; others' onomatophobia...

---

A bidet: the chamber pot, the bourdaloue, the 'anal douche': used for washing and cleaning oneself, especially ones sensitive private parts, after a shitty experience. Bidet, B Day, Brexit Day... today ...BI Day: Britain's Independence Day. Some people hate the word, I love it: Brexit, Brexit, BREXIT!

Dates for history books: 23-06-16, 29-03-17 and whenever FfEU (Eff You) Day is.

The 'phoney war' is over, now the "countdown to Brexit has officially begun." [Link] "As the British Prime Minister left for parliament to officially brief MPs on the triggering of Article 50, her envoy in Brussels handed over the official notification letter to the EU Council President Donald Tusk."

Omnibus oldies...

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London 1927, a video posted by Tim Sparke on Vimeo. "Incredible colour footage of 1920s London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Frisse-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving." (hat-tip Mice Height on BBBC).  Just made my day and it's only 8 a.m.

Omnibus oldies...

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London 1927, a video posted by Tim Sparke on Vimeo. "Incredible colour footage of 1920s London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Frisse-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving." (hat-tip Mice Height on BBBC).  Just made my day and it's only 8 a.m.

Omnispectacular opposition of Orcs...

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The last post...of the year. "It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door...". The Hobbit by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was the first book I read at secondary school (Grammar, if you must know) and has just been released (already to rave reviews) as the first film of a second trilogy by Peter Jackson whose 'cinematic interpretation of [Lord of The] Rings was generally faithful to the books and equally potent'; you'll be pleased to know I'm not even going to try to summarise the plot. 'The Hobbit' and 'Lord of The Rings' are both in the top THREE in the list of best-selling single-volume books [ever], which is nice [Wiki]. Anyway, 'To the point!' I hear you cry: I leave you with a question from David Platt and Standpoint Magazine: "Why Do Precious Leftists Loathe Tolkien's Shire?" [Link]:

"[...] Tolkien presaged the postwar destruction of English life and the dismantling of our cohesive social conventions. The yeoman-republic of the Shire was largely unregulated but governed by a common understanding of how people should behave in order for society to function [...] This professor of Anglo-Saxon would have loathed our brave new world with government of thought and deed by state regulation and acronym. Tolkien offers us instead a world of self-governing free people with, perhaps, an excessive reverence for the past over the future."

Cheers! Good luck and good health; 'see' you next year.

Omnispectacular opposition of Orcs...

---

The last post...of the year. "It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door...". The Hobbit by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was the first book I read at secondary school (Grammar, if you must know) and has just been released (already to rave reviews) as the first film of a second trilogy by Peter Jackson whose 'cinematic interpretation of [Lord of The] Rings was generally faithful to the books and equally potent'; you'll be pleased to know I'm not even going to try to summarise the plot. 'The Hobbit' and 'Lord of The Rings' are both in the top THREE in the list of best-selling single-volume books [ever], which is nice [Wiki]. Anyway, 'To the point!' I hear you cry: I leave you with a question from David Platt and Standpoint Magazine: "Why Do Precious Leftists Loathe Tolkien's Shire?" [Link]:

"[...] Tolkien presaged the postwar destruction of English life and the dismantling of our cohesive social conventions. The yeoman-republic of the Shire was largely unregulated but governed by a common understanding of how people should behave in order for society to function [...] This professor of Anglo-Saxon would have loathed our brave new world with government of thought and deed by state regulation and acronym. Tolkien offers us instead a world of self-governing free people with, perhaps, an excessive reverence for the past over the future."

Cheers! Good luck and good health; 'see' you next year.