Rubenstein Mystery

Introducing 'Rubenstein Mystery' aka Snoopy

(what a pretentious name for such a little dog)

Summer is a cummin in

It's May!The lusty month of May! That lovely month when everyone goes Blissfully astray."

So sang the young Vanessa Redgrave in the film version of 'Camelot'. She is at the National at the moment in a one woman play about bereavement. Still beautiful, she is. Boris Johnson has just been elected as Mayor of London thus adding evidence toward the theory that this is, indeed, a 'wacky' month or, more kindly, a month for change ('summer is a cummin in', as they say).

"It's here, that shocking time of year!When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear"


Very few wicked thoughts but I am feeling 'green and luscious' today and quite willing to'go astray' in a May like way. May Day (Beltane) customs include: walking the circuit of one's property ('beating the bounds'), repairing fences and boundary markers, processions of chimney-sweeps and milk maids, archery tournaments, morris dances, sword dances, feasting, music, drinking, and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of May morning to retain their youthful beauty and villagers dancing round Maypoles to celebrate fertility.

Heralding the start of Summer, Beltane is now celebrated from sundown April 30th to sundown on the first of May, but before the calendar changes of 1752, all dates year-round would have come some days later, during which time the hawthorn ("mayflower") and many more trees and more flowers would have begun blooming. A fertile time.

The Puritans disapproved of May Day celebrations and Kipling wrote

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,Or he would call it a sin; But we have been out in the woods all night, A-conjuring Summer in!

But there are bluebells in my garden, it's very early, and greenfinches, blue tits, great tits and a pair of robins are gorging themselves on the birdfeeder. It's a lovely day!
Looking forward to a day in the garden (after haircut and taking washing to the laundry because the washing machine broke last night) and then to 'Richard III' at the Roundhouse with John.

Sarah and James have just bought a puppy, who is very sleepy and plays with Sarah's slippers (not his toys). Snoopy by name and, I think a Cocker Spaniel.




I found this self profile of Sarah on her facebook. Things she likes to do etc.

Swimming...gym when my Ipod works and there is nothing better to do..shopping but on my terms no one elses...being with my bestest friends and family...my beautiful cat Charlie..work...its somewhere to go for a few hours..and Bean watching..its like having your own TV
Favorite Music:
Depending on my mood..anything from dodgy 80's music to 2day...not much I dont like... except when I have to listen to some of my Dads odd music x only joking dad xx oh god he is going to post more pictures of me on his blog now...b*llocks...
Favorite TV Shows:
Am completley crap at watching TV..serial fidgeter..but Gavin and Stacey, Little Brit, Dom Joly, fonejacker..
Favorite Movies:
Proper old school...the best movie in the world has to be Pretty Woman followed by Dirty Dancing..all movies should have a happy ending cos if you cant have a perfect world there...
About Me:
Soft and caring, passionate when people are unfair or mean, stubborn,

You see, Sarah, some things come back and bite you in the arse!!!

Now I'm off to bathe my face in dew to enhance my beauty.

Porridge

I have just emerged from a period of depression. Despite a restful few days in Dorset there has been a shadow. Don't know what, why or how, but there it is.

A comment on the radio cheered me up yesterday (on 'Question Time'). A commentator likened Gordon Brown to porridge. I suppose he meant 'slow and stodgy' with particular reference to the Prime Minister's reaction to the effects of the '10p income tax' decision. A Minister, on the panel, replied that 'porridge is nutritious'. Frederick Forsyth countered that Gordon Brown was indeed like porridge 'thick and from Scotland' . Later I heard a play on Radio 4 in which Boswell (Johnson's biographer) replies to a comment that 'in Scotland the men eat oats, a dish that, in England is fit only for horses'. He says ' that is why the English have the best horses and Scotland the best men' .

I have just re-read my comments of Wednesday, 27 June 2007

New Prime Minister today!!! S'funny I don't feel any different. Thought it was an impressive first speech outside Number 10. New Politics eh! I like that idea, let's see if it works. Pity Paddy Ashdown didn't see it that way. Best men/women for the job despite party boundaries -sounds good to me.

Well that's as near to optimism as I was going to get. Pity he's turned out to be a ditherer. Wanted power but doesn't seem to know what to do with it. Even Mugabwe realises how insignificant Brown is. Brown, as Lord Desai commented this week, was put on earth to make Tony Blair look good. My goodness what a condemnation. No wonder I felt depressed

The photo above was taken at a high level security council meeting on Peace in Africa on 16 April 08.
A good news story is that another 'Johnson' is to manage England!!! Only the rugby team though. Pity.

I'm off to make some porridge!

Connections - Kings, Lords, Drabs, and Epitaphs

10th to the 18th April - a week of some interest (to me, at least). On the 10th I was privileged to attend the Lord Mayor of Westminster's farewell lunch for Lord Peter Imbert CVO,QPM,JP (the retiring Lord Lt of London) at Westminster City Hall. Good view from the 18th floor, overlooking Buck' House, drinking champagne and 'chillin'' with Lord Mayors (past and present), Black Rod and 'the great and the good'. Hey, I even had a 'pee' standing next to Robert Powell (ex 'Jesus of Nazareth'). So I'm a name dropper - I don't care. I've mentioned before that I have an interest in London and here I was mixing with all those titles and offices central to it's history. I had a long chat with Joe Trotter ex-Lord Mayor for Islington and a real Cockney. We had something in common - stories about the Krays (no, it's a long story).
Sunday back to London. Jenny and I watched the London Marathon (well a bit of it), visited the National Gallery and Portrait Gallery, shopping in Covent Garden.

The weather drove us to shelter in the Menier Chocolate Factory (theatre). A fortuitous Maria Friedman matinee filled two and a half hours. This is a wonderfully intimate theatre. The performance centred around the Arrangers of songs rather than any particular theme. Ms. Friedman 'sells' the songs expertly and the musicians ('all soloists in their own right') compliment the emotional 'tour de force'.

Later we stumbled across the 'Cross Bones' cemetery in Red Cross Way (near Borough Market). Not so much a cemetery now as a memorial on a gate to a London Transport depot. A memorial from the people of Southwark.

The medieval Bishop of Winchester had a bad reputation for consorting with and acting as a landlord for the drabs of Southwark and the prostitutes were described as "Winchester geese". Although "Winchester goose" has the meaning -'a prostitute', Andrew S. Cairncross, editor of the Arden edition of KING HENRY VI, defines it as "a swelling in the groin, the result of venereal disease," and "one so affected". Here's a quote from KING HENRY VI (Part 1)

WINCHESTER.Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the Pope.

GLOUCESTER.Winchester goose, I cry, a rope! a rope! Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay? Thee I 'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array. Out, tawny coats! out, scarlet hypocrite! (Here Gloucester's men beat out the Cardinal's men, and enter in the hurly-burly the Mayor of London and his Officers).

Hmmmm... the Mayor of London again!

I also found a modern quote and definition from an American ‘Urban Dictionary’'A condition in which an individual suffers from an inflated crotchal area. When suffering from 'the winchester goose', there is a significant swelling of the pelvic region. I quote from the Urban Dictionary -"Yo! that bitch has some wicked nasty winchester goose!! But it don’t look like it has nice cushion for the pushin’, it just looks fatnastay' (Not exactly Shakespeare but it is interesting to see a connection that traverses the centuries and continents.

The 'Geese' congregated in and around 'Cock Lane'. Peter Ackroyd comments that this area was known for 'continual riot and disorder' and 'the prostitutes of Bankside, practising their trade within the 'Liberty' of the Bishop of Winchester, were known as Winchester Geese' ('London ,the biography', 2000, page 690). It is recorded that they actually paid rent to the Bishop. So, presumably, he was living off immoral earnings! More information about the 'Cross Bones' can be found at:

http://www.into.org.uk/SouthwarkMysteries/CrossBonesGraveyard.htm

A short remembrance ceremony to honour 'the outcast dead' will take place on the 23 April at the site of the cemetery at 7pm.

Talking about Henry VI (above) brings me to last Tuesday when John and I ventured once more to the Roundhouse to see a production of Richard II (RSC). A thrilling production which led me to read, again about the Wars of the Roses, hence the tie to Henry VI and indeed to cemeteries.

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so -- for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposèd bodies to the ground?

Richard II Act III

Which leads me to yesterday and a visit to Moreton Cemetery (Dorset) and the grave of T E Lawrence (although by the time he died 'Lawrence' had changed his name by deed pole to T E Shaw) and then Cloudshill.

I have to confess that I have been defeated by the dense Victorian prose of the 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' but am minded to try again. Above the door of Cloudshill (where he spent his latter years until his untimely death in 1935) he has had carved (in Greek) 'I don't care'. Perhaps he was a 'name dropper' too!

'We few, we happy few'

Terrific night last night. Off to London with John to The Roundhouse where the RSC are currently performing the Shakespeare History Cycle. We enjoyed a brilliant performance of Henry V. The hard nosed English (led by a Welsh King) stuff the effete French who swing indolently from strategically positioned trapezes.

Go to: http://www.reviewsgate.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3718
and: http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/reviews/feature/2613/RSC_current_season

for reviews. A witty production with Geoffery Streatfeild as Harry. The Chorus was particularly memorable highlighting the contrast between returning Soldiers from Agincourt and their reception by the English with the adverse reaction of the public to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan recently. Humour from pleasing anachronisms and a delightful scene between Katherine and Alice made this a great night out.

John and I loved '2 swords Warwick' - you have to see it !!!

...and the 'wooing' scene revealed a truly rounded, multidimensional King Henry.

Effectively directed by Michael Boyd ...what's not to like.

Tomorrow it's back to London to meet, and have lunch with, The Lord Mayor of Westminster! Turn again Whittington.

A Sunday in April in Goring

Wedding Dresses and stuff

Saturday - and it's everyone to Pronuptua to choose a wedding dress ('Dad, just bring your cheque book!!' ). Sarah took a record 55 minutes to choose, fit and out (that's my girl). Jenny and Sue said she looked beautiful but I was not allowed to see...a bit harsh that. Then they all went to John Lewis to buy 'baby stuff'!! Then lunch at 'The Slug...'
Back to John and Ruth's house, as Sarah and Sue hadn't seen the 'scan' yet..

I have to say that I totally approve of the baby wear modelled here. Look out the Welsh!!

(click play)