sept 12 2022

the transition of power in Britain has such magnificnt hystorical signifricance- 

and who could not. marvel at the number of brits who can stand motionless for hours on end guarding. one thing or another...

skipping lightly over the  history, i am fascinated by other things- like the hundreeds of people in perfect red/gold 

who will walk up a set of stairs left foot lifting.. 

or for the entire 70 years, the queen received and read the "tuesday report" ---- never missing one...hmmmmmmm

or... apparently it is not allowed for any one to repeat what the queen  actually says...eliminating all quotes also eliminates any qossipy twists which. so abound around here--- you may talk about  what she said but no quotes.... interesting......

and --- as i watch some uniformed person give a welcome speech to Charles ll and then ceremoniously hand it to Charles ll i wondered what he would do with copies of all. the speeches being given... at which point  an uniformed attendant appeared to get  the paper from him  every time.  ? an official paper gatherer? 

 talk about event planning....

 but the ultimate... and why i am so fond of Britian--- 

In the midst of the magnificently uniformed Welsh guard ----I think they are..  there is in official goat.. and there is one official guard who's main charge is to attend to anything the goat might need, also keep it spotless, and trained to do all sorts of official appearances, mostly walking a straight line with the band.  In addition to the one person in charge there are two people backing him up.. so that's three fully engaged people who sole purpose is to care for the goat.   I don't know of anything in the United states quite so ludicrous.  of course there's a long history of why there's a goat it goes back to 1850 something.. in battle where some soldier stuck a baby goat inside his shirt to help keep him warm.. and I've forgotten why the goat is a hero something about bleeping to warn of oncoming armies or something----- at any rate when the boss soldier asked if that baby goat was a boy goat or a girl goat the infantryman responded "he be male.." 

so from 18 56 on. the name of that goat has been "Hebe" .... 

 

these are the things that are well hidden in Britain that lighten the whole atmosphere which at times has been quite dreary.. with things like bombs.

the sense of humor of my friends in Scotland was not the kind of thing requiring loud laughing and guffawing.  but rather a quick start probably equivalent to having someone here in the daily doggy crowd cause them to spit coffee on their keyboard.. 

I have no doubt that the writer of all the books about Harry Potter was sitting in  a coffee shop along Princess St in Edinburgh.   the unexpected creativity of those books was what I found most interesting,,   like the pictures on the walls talking to Harry as he  walked  by.

when I was there in 1957. as a member of the Edinburgh University physical society...  we participated in charities day.. which at that point the entire university got themselves down on Princess St doing most peculiar things..to collect money for charities......    most notably there was a very intellectual fellow standing on the corner wearing only  a diaper playing a saxophone and he just had a can out for people to put money in and they did..  there was another group selling pancakes in plastic bags uncooked because they couldn't make the cooker work and people with a very straight face we're buying them.   there's a lot of times with British humour when nobody smiles but you really chuckle inside.

 

  that group that I belong to  was not centered in any way about the drinking of beer or anything else.. only one person smoked and as far as I know nobody drank.  there were times when the meeting would be called for the top of one of the pennacook hills.  at 2:00 AM.  and everybody be there.. being very careful to carry a small stone from the bottom to the top which apparently was some historical purpose and causing a certain amount of the hill to be pushed down when your foot pushed up..   It was also no problem at all for the group or part of the group to decide to cycle 50 miles on a Saturday to some youth hostel ,   As quite definitely a bike was not a toy but transportation. 

I think one of my physical society friends. Nother Gwen  Still reads this crazy daily doggy  in Northern Ireland.    and if I have any of that wrong ,  believe me she'll tell me.  She is the one who went with me on the dane buying trip to Germany.... but that is another story.  ...