Just another quaint English village
I have unilaterally declared this our new Hallowe’en tradition. It is a 1966 Hammer Film called the Witches starring Joan Fontaine. It is very silly.
Joan Fontaine. Just look at her. I’ve often wondered if there was something wrong with that eyebrow of hers that made it do that trademark thing.
Says the top commenter on the IMDB listing:
In her autobiography, Miss Joan Fontaine, who had acquired the film rights to the novel years before, complains at length about the “primitive” working conditions at Hammer studios, the small size of her dressing room, the awful food and the unprofessional British actors she had to lower herself in working with. We all know that the real bee in her bonnet was that a movie she had basically designed as a vehicle for HER talents ended up being taken over by Miss Kay Walsh, a superb dancer and talented actress who had had an extensive career in films and theatre (check out her IMDB listing–you’ll be impressed). Luckily Fontaine was (to her credit) too much of a pro herself to let her dissatisfaction show on screen.
Well, I don’t know about that. IMDB also says it was her last film. She died in 2013, so she had a helluva long retirement.
The village scenes were shot in Hambleden in Buckinghamshire, but the action supposedly takes place in Sussex and the inevitable stately home was a place called Parham House. It’s now closed for the season, so I’m making this blog entry to remind myself we should go visit when it reopens in the Spring.
That’s right; I’m using you guys as an appointment diary.
November 4, 2015 — 10:16 pm
Comments: 8
Fog.
We’ve been socked in with fog the last few days. The UK generally and our little corner particularly. We don’t get that many super foggy days after all, and I love walking around in it. Sheep and seagulls rise up out of it like another, solider fog.
Not nice if you’re waiting at Heathrow, though.
Speaking of fog, we don’t really know what’s going on in Europe generally and Germany specifically. Official news reports show us a Germany willing to take 20 thousand but not fifty thousand ‘refugees’; half a million but not two million. We haven’t yet seen a Germany that asks, “why must we take any?”
On the other hand, there are rumors that the news is being heavily sanitized for our protection. Reports of violence and arson and much-larger-than-reported marches are squeaking out onto the web.
But maybe it’s nothing, after all. It’s hard to overstate how brow-beaten Germany has been with the ‘don’t be Nazis’ message for the last two or three generations. Young Germans sometimes seem maddeningly passive and soft.
The internet is letting me down here. I had hoped, by now, we would be better positioned to bypass the legacy media on the important stories.
November 3, 2015 — 8:38 pm
Comments: 22
I have a hilarious problem
I have a problem with video games, my imaginary friends: my house is cooler than Skyrim. Check out this photo. Yeah, there’s a roaring fire just behind the monitor. No, I haven’t ‘shopped the bits together.
I’m playing Witcher at the moment, but the principle is the same. Sword ‘n’ sorcery games are stuck somewhere between Medieval and Tudor Europe (well, the costumes in the Witcher look more 17th C, but it’s all of a piece). Big oak beams, brick inglenooks, wattle-and-daub walls. Yup, that’s our place.
I exist in a bubble of what I think of as ‘England porn.’ I work for an historical society, so my days are filled with even older buildings and old documents. My nights in Badger House involve getting sozzled in front of a roaring fire watching history programs on TV. Weekends, we go to village fetes, bonfires and stately homes.
Oh, it’s lovely. Don’t get me wrong. But I often have the feeling something horrible is sneaking up on me while I indulge.
November 2, 2015 — 10:07 pm
Comments: 14
Christmas is coming. Just sayin’
Here something awesome I found when I was looking for something else. It’s an object that was up for auction in Germany. I tried to find a follow up to see how much it went for, but all I found was other assassin-wannabes drooling over it.
Anyhoo, it’s a Bible from 1600 that’s been hollowed out and the pages replaced with a wooden cabinet. The clever little drawers are neatly labeled with the names of herbal poisons. Empty, presumably.
The bigger green glass bottle in the center is labeled “Statutum hominibus semel mori” — It is given to a man to die.
The print inside the lid is described as 1682. If so, it’s a late edition — that there is a page out of Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica from 1543. I know this because reasons.
It’s hard to know what the hell this is all about. I can’t imagine any self-respecting poisoner leaving such a tangible lump of incriminatory evidence, nor yet someone commissioning such a beautiful object only to keep it hidden. I’m going to guess it was a prop, probably out of some gentleman’s cabinet of curiosities.
Even so, you’d have to assume our forebears were a lot less superstitious about blasphemy than we think.
Oh, and speaking of death (she said cheerily), Dead Pool Round 79. Tomorrow six sharp WBT. Be here or we’ll put something in your beer!
October 29, 2015 — 11:08 pm
Comments: 4
Well, shoot; I might have to buy this one
I’m kind of Iffy on the Assassin’s Creed series of games. That’s the one where you crawl all over historic cities wearing a cool cape and hood and stab people to death. It’s not that I object to stabbing people, I just found the gameplay and vestigial plots somewhat boring after a while.
On the other hand — the cities! The cities are incredibly cool and, I presume, reasonably accurate. I absolutely loved parkour’ing my way around Jerusalem and Acre. Having to stab someone to death occasionally was a small price to pay. I forgot how far into the series I got before I finally lost interest.
Also, my machine is now under-spec’ed. To keep up with the current generation of games, I’m going to have to upgrade my graphics card, at the least. And maybe the whole shootin’ match.
So I wasn’t planning on buying the latest iteration, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, even though it’s set in Victorian London and I lumme some Victorian London. And then I read an article titled Just how British is Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate? and changed my mind. I think it was this bit:
It might seem like an inconsequential addition at first, because it’s difficult to fully comprehend the Britishness of a fruit stall without a man bellowing things about discount pears. Stall-dwelling Fruit & Veg Men are a mystery. They come from London’s hidden underplaces, and speak in a lost language known as “Cabbage Speech”, or “Appletongue.” No British person can explain the compulsion to buy plastic bags full of greengages from shouting men in hats, but it’s as relevant to our cultural heritage as chicken tikka, disappointment, and avoiding smalltalk. You might not know it, Assassin’s Creed tomato artist, but your work is a crucial piece of set dressing.
This might not be London, but we by-God have a fruit stand in the market that could have slouched straight out of Dickens’ metropolis. I have never in my life been so drawn to buying a giant bowl of grapefruit for £1. That’s my long-term retirement plan — turning up at the market once a week, buying a big-ass load of vegetables and living on soup.
I just have to work out how to get Uncle B to eat vegetable soup.
October 27, 2015 — 9:42 pm
Comments: 11
Time for more silly English street names
Let us end the week with more silly English street names (the photo is a repeat from 2010 — moi, with a found example). For the record, I’d be delighted to live up any of them. It would make filling out forms a sneaking delight.
The article is from the increasingly useless Telegraph. They’ve put themselves behind the lamest of paywalls. You can see the front page always, but you get a certain amount of freebie articles per…used to be month, think it’s per week now. After which — if you’re foolish enough to accept cookies, as I do — you have to spend ten seconds switching over to a different browser.
In the increasingly unlikely event there is something there I want to read, I usually fire up Explorer. So not only is it ever so fucking obvious how seldom there’s a worthwhile article on offer, but when there is, I mentally associate it with the stuttering, horrible performance of IE. Well done, chaps!
Right, that’s enough of that. Good weekend, all! Our clocks change and our weather turns colder this weekend…
October 23, 2015 — 8:18 pm
Comments: 19
Here ya go
Everything you ever wanted to know about tiaras.
More. More than I ever wanted to know about tiaras. I think they look fucking ridiculous. The only reason they don’t look sillier is that most royals are rather elegant looking ladies and it takes seriously stupid accessories to pull that down. (For a counter-example, check out the Duchess off Cornmoooo in that thread).
Huh. I’ve just discovered my blog doesn’t have a ‘fashion’ tag. Imagine that.
October 22, 2015 — 8:31 pm
Comments: 11
let ‘er rip
Dear Auntie Weasel,
I’d like to make fun of Chelsea Clinton, but somehow it just feels wrong. Like, she can’t help who her parents are, can she? Do we have any evidence she’s as much a piece of shit as her mama and daddy?
Signed,
Feels Wrong, I Say
Dear Feels,
It was an idyllic summer’s day on Martha’s Vineyard when a young Chelsea Clinton appeared unexpectedly in the kitchen of the luxury holiday home where the First Family were staying.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked, when Pierre Chauvet refused her request for fried chicken in place of the gourmet fish dish he was preparing.
“Of course I knew who she was,” laughed Mr Chauvet. “But fish is all I had.”
Chelsea, who was 13 at the time, eventually got her own way.
October 21, 2015 — 7:14 pm
Comments: 6
stoatacide
When commenter Scott the Badger threatened me with Sergeant Badger in the thread below, it reminded me I probably haven’t posted about Tufty Fluffytail, the road safety squirrel. He was the mascot of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents from 1953 until he perished in a tragic road safety accident.
Kidding! But…I dunno…couldn’t you have come up with a better road safety mascot than the animal voted Most Likely to be Found Squashed on the Yellow Dotted Line?
Tufty mostly served as the DoBee to Willy Weasel’s Don’tBee. Gallant to his Goofus.
That poor weasel. They ran him over (repeatedly), dunked him in the river, fed him Mama Weasel’s headache pills. He was forever getting hurt. And when Sergeant Badger came along, do you think there was sympathy? There was not! There was Willy up by the the nape and given a good shaking.
For some Christmases, Tufty Squirrel memorabilia was sure to find its way under our tree. (Remind me to play you the album sometime. It’s one of my treasured possessions).
I console myself with the knowledge that a realistic Willy Weasel would have disemboweled and et the lot of them (not counting Sergeant Badger, whom he would have smothered in his sleep).
Ahhhh…that’s better.
October 20, 2015 — 8:38 pm
Comments: 10
Proof that I live in a civilized country
I came down with a cold this weekend. Bleh.
So I went the pharmacy today and asked — half-joking, although you used to could — if you could still get codeine linctus without a prescription. Bear in mind, you cannot buy more than 16 aspirins in this country without a pharmacist on the premises (I am not making that up; when the pharmacist goes to lunch, you can’t buy jack shit).
Well, yes, actually. You can buy this stuff. Every dose contains a healthy 14mg of codeine, and you’re allowed three doses a day plus an extra one before bed “for a good night’s sleep.”
I took one before my nap this afternoon and dreamed I was chased by a zombie. She was a fast zombie, but only in the auditorium. To stop her, I had to fill my mouth with blue bath salts (don’t swallow!), skip around the auditorium and blow it into her face, while my friends laughed and clapped.
I’m going to think long and hard before I take a bedtime dose.
Also, it tastes like horse ointment. Vile. Must be the chloroform(!).
Truth is, I don’t really have the cough yet. I just really, really like opiates.
October 19, 2015 — 6:52 pm
Comments: 22