The Pangolin

Tags

gizzard, keratin, pangolin, pangopups, Prince William, stenophagy

 

Pangolin – nothing to do with penguin,

porcupine, furniture polish, mandolin.

It’s got no fur, feather, wingspan, or fin.

 

So, you’ve never heard of a pangolin?

It’s a mammal, covered in keratin.

Keratin? – a protection for its skin.

 

When it sniffs food, it gives a little sneeze

and it walks just as if it’s got knock knees,

looking like a dinosaur, if you please.

 

You’ve never seen one?  Well, that is because

they scrabble at night with very sharp claws

and their tongues flick termites into their jaws.

 

You’ve never smelled a pangolin, have you?

You wouldn’t want to, ’cause they pong like poo,

but – hey! – they might not like the smell of you!

 

They come from Africa, The Philippines,

Vietnam, Laos, Sri Lanka… it seems

bad men turn them into medicines.

 

Pangolins don’t like to be touched: not much!

They’ll try to avoid a predator’s clutch

and will hide in a hollow tree, or such.

 

 

If they are scared, they’ll roll into a ball.

They like their own company – that is all.

Big cats will just paw them and let them fall.

 

Curled up, they can look like an artichoke;

they won’t even move, if given a poke.

Fast asleep, they don’t take it as a joke.

 

Arboreal ones will hang from their tails.

Pangopups ride on the backs of females.

They’re covered in all these cute little scales.

 

 

You used to see pangolins in a zoo,

but nowadays there are only a few.

They value their freedom, the same as you!

 

They’re fussy feeders – their stenophagy*

means that they will only eat two, or three

types of termites, so it isn’t easy

 

to please a pangolin.  Yes, some have tried,

with worms and crickets and larvae, deep-fried,

but the pangolins turned up their toes and died.

 

So, if you’re offered one, do not buy it.

They only feed on their special diet.

They are not pets – so, don’t even try it!

 

I don’t want you to taste a pangolin.

You know, it would be a terrible sin

to eat animals who face extinction.

 

A pangolin has no teeth to bite you.

Its long, sticky tongue is coated with glue.

It swallows stones, which you should never do!

 

Apparently, it aids their digestion.

‘Quite how?’ would be a very good question.

Look up ‘the gizzard’ is my suggestion.

 

They’ve been around for 80 million years,

but now conservationists have raised fears

that, if we don’t help them, they’ll disappear.

 

 

Join Prince William, His Royal Highness –

try to look on all wildlife with kindness,

whether pangolin, leopard, or lioness.

 

Pangolin, we have caused you much offence.

Your armour was given you for defence;

now we pledge to protect your existence.

 

drawings and text copyright- Candia Dixon- Stuart, 2018.

 

 

 

* a narrow range of diet

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Prince and Pangolin

Tags

Pangolin conservation, Prince William

Prince William endorses the protection of the Pangolin!

Wyvern Mote

Tags

Alan Titchmarsh, Alexander Armstrong, Antiques Roadshow, Boris Johnston, Bunny Campione, Bunny Guinness, Cavalier, clay pipe, Gertrude Jekyll, Grinling Gibbons, Henry Moore, herbaceous border, Inigo Jones, King Charles Spaniel, linen fold panelling, Lulu Guinness, Pointless, Pomeranian, pre-nuptial, pre-prandial, Prince William, pug, Rokeby Venus, Roundhead, Songs of Praise, Strictly, stump work, sundial, William the Conqueror

Hi!  It’s Diana again. I’m still here in Suttonford. Sonia had taken us to

Ginevra’s house, as the nonagenarian was allowing Dru to use her tablet

to Google ‘ Wyvern Mote.’  (I must say that a lot more goes on here than in

Bradford-on-Avon.)  That’s why I am moving back to these airts and parts,

I suppose.

Magda, the Eastern European carer, brought tea in for Sonia, Dru and

myself, but not for Ginevra.

She was having something a little stronger.  Early in the day, I thought.

Tell me about your Aunt Augusta, she commanded Dru.  I think that she and

I would have a lot in common.

You do, replied Dru, without taking her eyes off the screen.  You both like

Dewlap Gin for the Discerning Grandmother.

But she isn’t a grandmother, is she?  I am.

Nevertheless.. Dru’s voice trailed off and then she exclaimed excitedly:

The original earls had Wyvern Mote decorated by Inigo Jones.  There’s a

photo on this site of a portrait of a rather pink and billowy-or is that ‘pillowy’?-

female called Lydia Van Druynk, who is recumbent on some kind of a divan,

like the Rokeby Venus.  She’s surrounded by King Charles Spaniels.

I prefer pugs, or Pomeranians, opined Ginevra.

Dru ignored her as far as she could, considering that she was

borrowing the old girl’s tablet.

It says that the spaniels are significant, as the langorous lady, far from

being inactive, set the said dogs on a Civil War unit, thereafter influencing

and modifying the motto on the Van Druynk coat of arms, which then read:

Begone vile blusterers!

I take it she was on the side of the Cavaliers? said Sonia.  I know all about

that contingent.  As you recall, I have to live with one of them occupying

my attic.  He doesn’t even pay me rent.

And would you call him a considerate house guest otherwise? asked Ginevra.

Not too bad, but I wish he’d take off his boots, as I can hear him pacing up

and down the length of the attic.  He’s a bit of an insomniac, as I am.

I’m surprised that you haven’t exorcised him, commented Diana.

Well, in a funny way he keeps me company, said Sonia.  But I wish he

wouldn’t smoke all these clay pipes and leave the broken shards in my

herbaceous border.  I wrote to Gardeners’ Question Time, but Bunny

Campione just said that the clay detritus probably helps with drainage.

She could have put you in touch with one of those bee keeper types and

they could have smoked him out, suggested Diana.  Like the way they

fumigate greenhouses.  They use a puffer thing.  By the way, I think you

mean Bunny Guinness.

Sonia looked horrified.  But I like my Cavalier, she protested. He’s got

attitude, as they say.

She continued, You know, I always thought these two Bunnies were the same

person- just one amazingly talented woman who knows everything about

groundwork AND stump work. 

Doesn’t one of them make designer handbags as well? Ginevra chipped in.

That’s Lulu Guinness, interposed Dru, who was becoming slightly rattled,

particularly as she couldn’t afford one of these desirable accessories, yet

most of her boarders could.

I’m not criticising gardeners, clarified Sonia.  Gertrude Jekyll is a bit of a

heroine of mine, but nowadays they are not of the same ilk, to use a clan

reference.  I mean, Alan Titchmarsh may be compost mentis, but he simply

doesn’t have such a breadth of cultural knowledge as the two women, even if

he does present Songs of Praise, in my opinion.  They could have that

programme fronted by a Singing Snowman; it’s not particularly challenging.

I don’t think it is meant to be, Diana tried to point out.

(Which Bunny?)

Dru tried to keep the peace.  The motto proliferated onto stair newel

posts, shields on the linen fold panelling and was featured on a particularly

fine lead sundial which was regrettably stolen from The White Garden in 1995.

It was recovered three years later when some idiot brought it to an Antiques

Roadshow and one of the experts remembered its loss had been reported in a

professional journal.

Why was the person who brought it an idiot? asked Diana.

Because he had been the gardener at Wyvern and someone recognised

him, according to this article.  He was put away for a couple of years.

Well, at least it wasn’t melted down for scrap value like some of those

Henry Moores probably have been, ventured Sonia.  Where is all this

information published?

It’s from a Newspaper Archive site.  The article came from ‘The Rochester

Messenger’..Hey! There’s an earlier headline from 1946 which says:

‘Missing Heir Found Safe and Well.’

Read it out, ordered Ginevra.

Dru scanned the front page.  There had been a supposed accident. 

Peregrine, the younger son of the estate had been thought drowned. 

He’d been missing for nearly a week. Estate workers dragged the moat

and searched surrounding woodland.  His mother was frantic.  She had

questioned Lionel, the older boy, but there was something evasive in his

replies.  He had been known to bully his ten year old sibling.

The tutor testified to the police that he had observed Lionel engaging in

what the nasty child called ‘giving the little sprog a good trouncing’ and

the teacher had endeavoured to enlighten his charge regarding his abusive

behaviour. He found the boy intractable.

Lionel even jealously tortured his mother’s favourite pet, a spaniel that was

directly descended from one of the dogs who had sent off the Roundheads and

whose life-like ancestor featured in a lozenge-shaped cameo carved by Grinling

Gibbons over the mantel in the Red Sitting Room.

Sounds like that awful boy that everyone talks about at St Birinus, Ginevra

butted in.  There’s nothing new about bullying.

Dru screeched suddenly: It says that the boys’ mother had no husband to

support her in her grief, as she had been widowed.  She turned to the boys’

tutor, a young man called Anthony Revelly!  He seems to have saved the day.

He is called a hero.

I need a drink, said Ginevra.  Let’s all have a break and you can tell us the

rest after I have had my pre-nuptial.

Prandial, corrected Diana, before she remembered that she was the guest.

Then, Yes, Dru, she advised.  Let’s have a hiatus while we take all this on

board.

Anyway, Ginevra stated.  I want to watch ‘Pointless’ just now.  Magda and I

always like that Armstrong chap.  I wish he’d do the stupid dance though- the

one he did with his friend on his comedy programme.  You’d never think that

he was related to William the Conqueror.  Not when he wore a tank top.

I didn’t know they had tank tops in 1066, said Sonia.  I don’t think they

even had tanks.

Somehow you’d expect someone of that stature to be able to dance more

elegantly, Ginevra persisted.

Who? William the Conqueror? asked Sonia.

Well, him as well, now you mention it.  Mind you, Boris Johnston isn’t that

great a mover and he’s more royal than Prince William and the whole bang

shoot of them.

Boris was jiggling around at the Olympics, if my memory serves me aright.

Not a pretty sight.  Mind you, some of those big ones can be light on their

feet. You see it time and again on ‘Strictly’.  But I don’t think Boris would do

an appearance .  I mean, who would be his partner?  Poor Alyona has had

enough of the weaker candidates. It’s time she was given a winner.

Top me up, Magda!

The rest of the article would have to wait.

Noisy Neighbours

Tags

Archbishop of Canterbury, Bing Crosby, boobs, catwalk, Christopher Robin, Duchess of Cambridge, husband, Mark Tully, Piglet, Prince William, Rowan Williams, Something Understood, St Andrews University

There is something funny going on here!  I have just remembered that Kate Middleton paraded down a catwalk at St Andrews University, wearing a transparent dress, possibly to deliberately attract Wills’ attention.  So should she turn on the coyness now?  Or is it suddenly immoral for journalists to intimately reveal her to the world since she has acquired an elevated status? Maybe it is all to do with the timing of disclosure being down to an individual’s personal choice.  (see Gottes Zeit below.)

Anyway, there is nothing worse than people becoming bored with your boobs.  Unless it is becoming incensed with noisy neighbours.  Now the two topics in this paragraph should be great tags for anyone’s blog!

I’m only getting round to discussing the latest Something Understood, presented by Mark Tully, on Radio 4, as it has taken me nearly three days to recover from the emotional wreckage and sleep deprivation inflicted by my noisy neighbours in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The theme of the programme was based on the quotation: Is Discretion the Better Part of Valour?

This struck a chord as I deliberated whether to simmer once again with suppressed rage at anti-social nocturnal activities.

Yes, dear readers, even in sleepy Suttonford where the local rag will report a missing budgie on the front page and scintillating evening classes may revolve around the crocheting of loo roll holders, there is still a serpent in Eden.

You’ll have heard it said that there is no rest for the wicked, but this has been amended to simply: there is no rest.

The rasping cackle of a female laugh which resembled the onomatopoeic rapid rifle’s rattle from the trenches, as described by The War Poets, cut through glazing and blinds and permeated the bedroom as noxiously as a gas attack.

I had been listening to Tully discussing whether Falstaff’s discretion was in fact comic cowardice.  This query was juxtaposed alongside the lyrics of a song:

You can stand me up at the gates of hell:

I wouldn’t back down.

I won’t be turned around;

Gonna stand my ground.

Thanks for that, I thought.  Go, girl, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Different camps had either criticised or praised Archbishop Runcie for being indecisive.  Sometimes, he had seemed to think, it could be helpful to nail one’s colours to the fence.  Compromise is not necessarily weak.

Personally, as I flew out of the back door into the garden, I must confess that I felt like nailing some people to the fence, possibly with a staple gun.

In the past I had been indecisive. I’d compromised. Okay, so President Kennedy had avoided a Nuclear Armageddon by masterly indecision.  Elizabeth I’s foreign policy had been marked by procrastination.  But one day she decided to cut off her cousin’s head.

Bing Crosby smarmily sang: I surrender, dear. I could still hear it in my mind.  I immediately repulsed the thought and replaced it with a reminder of the philosophy of Pooh and Friends. Even Piglet did not avoid confrontation and he was accorded the highest praise for his bravery.

Pooh:  Did Piglet tremble?  Did he blinch? [sic]

Piglet:  I-I thought I did blinch a little.  Just at first!

Pooh: You only blinched inside, and that’s the bravest way for a very small Animal not to blinch..

So, I went out into the garden and I tried not to blinch. I bellowed as if I was a very big Animal. I told them to behave themselves in no uncertain terms.

Rowan Williams spoke next.  No, not in my garden.  He wasn’t behind a bush, burning or otherwise.  He had been on the programme too.  I could still hear his voice:

Don’t lose touch with both sides in the conflict, so people keep speaking.

Would he mediate?  I couldn’t imagine him approaching the rowdies in his mitre and dalmatics.  Presumably, at that time of night even the Archbishop of Canterbury would wear pyjamas.  Mind you, they would probably take as much notice of him as if he was wearing the invisibility cloak we have discussed in previous posts.

Rowan had said that one should never be tempted to be seen to be doing something decisive in order to gain approval.

No, I think I am safe there.  Approval is not going to be an outcome.

Then The Archbishop chided with a caveat:

Who carries the cost of what I say or do?   

a)   Others.  Well, they don’t seem to be affected at all, so that is that.

b)  Myself.  Yes, the Husband knows that I won’t be able to sleep for the rest of the night as I will be emotionally wrecked.

But, Rowan is encouraging here.  If I alone am to bear the cost of any decision to stand up and be counted, then, what is there to be afraid of, so long as I can cope with myself afterwards?

I can cope.  I can cope.

So, BELT UP, WILL YOU?!

Tully inserted an interesting little poem at this juncture about a cautious man whose relations made some kind of life assurance claim on his demise.  However, they were told that they were due no payout, as, since he had never lived, he could not have been considered to have died.

Vivamus, mea  Lesbia , vivamus.  Let’s live then, baby.

Shuddup!

Rowan counselled that the fear of God was the beginning of wisdom.  There is a proper fear which acknowledges that you know to whom you are answerable.  So… forgive me, God, but, I mean it …  Shuddupayaface!

In Zimbabwe, eight years ago, a Harare bishop proved his loyalty to Mugabe.  Why hadn’t Archbishop Rowan DONE SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

Ah, said Rowan, because if I had denounced him, it would have handed him a weapon.  So, instead I listened to J S Bach’s Gottes Zeit – God’s Timing.

Okay, I have listened to the noisy ones for twelve years, off and on, so now seems like a pretty good time, deo volente, of course…

Quiet!

Were they?  Yes, eventually.  After making the point that it was in their own time.

So, was valour the better part of discretion, or vice versa?

Ask me next weekend.  Otherwise I send in Piglet, aka the Husband.  That’ll make ‘em blinch.  (Not)

Husband is like Christopher Robin:

What I like doing best is Nothing….just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.

Bother.

So, Husband, dear, what are you going to do?

Oh, nothing.

He is for Discretion and I am for Valour.

But I am his Better Half, so:

Shurrup!!!

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Royal Boobs

Tags

Archbishop of Canterbury, Candaules, Derren Brown, Harold the Helicopter, Harry Potter, Invisibility Cloak, Kate, Lambeth Palace, Las Vegas Nevada, paparazzi, Plato, Prince Harry, Prince William, Prince William Duke of Cambridge, Republic, Rev W. Awdry, Ring of Gyges, Wills

Interesting that Prince William on his tour to Singapore should have replied to the rather intrusive questions as to what it is that he would really, really like by freely announcing the number of children that he would opt to sire. Apparently what he would choose would be an invisibility cloak and two children.  (The Duchess quipped that she would also have to have access to the aforesaid garment, or else the prince might sneak up on her.)

Maybe if she were to be asked now what her desire would be, she would sincerely state that she would wish that she had kept her top on.

Why did the Royal Pair (no, I don’t mean that, do I?).. I’ll start again: why did Kate and Wills refer to such a Harry Potter-type garment, when, as educated young people, they could have mentioned the original conferrer of invisibility?  This was the Ring of Gyges, as in Plato’s Republic and the important thing about this stolen object was that it raised all sorts of ethical issues.

A shepherd who worked for the Lydian king, Candaules, came across a corpse in a mountain cave and he stole a ring from its finger.  It rendered him invisible and so he was able to seduce the queen and to take part in a plot to murder her husband.  The descendants of this thief included King Croesus.

Now Wills may be as rich as the aforesaid monarch, at least in relative terms, compared to most of us plebs, but adopting an invisibility cloak is a fantasy for any mortal:

unless, I suppose, you are Derren Brown.

Oddly, on occasions, I have been under the impression that I must be sporting such an item of clothing.  How so, dear Candia? I hear you ask.

Well, when I was decades younger, with a pushchair and toddler in tow, I often found myself entirely overlooked when I was struggling to enter awkward doorways or ascending/ descending steep flights of stairs.

As a femme d’un certain age, again I seem to have disappeared from view and attract very few appreciative glances from male passers-by.

On crossing the road, I find that drivers accelerate towards me and on pavements, toddlers, usually three at a time, aim for my ankles with those aluminium-type scooters, while their adoring parents look straight through me.

In Costamuchamullah café and other such establishments, assistants (hah!) never seem to notice me standing plainly in front of them while they fiddle around, tidying up their counters, or suddenly finding an absolute necessity to stack their dishwasher.

If I am in a totally empty hotel pool, some mother will arrive with two or three kids in her wake who are buoyed up with bulky flotation devices and the said enfants terribles will make a bee-line for me, thrashing around and splashing me – no doubt magnetised by the force field of my powerful personality, as I am obviously invisible to their little naked eyes. The adult who is supposed to be in control of these young people (or should I call them students of early years?) also cannot see me, by all accounts, though the water disturbance/ displacement around me ought to give a clue that there is a mass of some dimension obstructing her precious offspring’s royal progress through life.  Maybe she hasn’t understood Archimedes’ discovery and thinks Eureka, rather than being an exclamation, is a possible trendy forename for a future infant.

Anyway, Wills, if you had been given the magic cloak, you might have passed it on to your brother for operational use in Las Vegas.

If you could have used one on flight duty, people might have thought you were a drone.  Some people do, actually, while most think you are a fairly industrious worker bee.  People might have mistaken you in the air for Fergie’s Budgie, anthropomorphically resurrected.  Did anyone buy the book?

I always thought she borrowed the basic idea from the Rev W. Awdry’s Harold the Helicopter. Imagine if William had had invisibility conferred upon him.

Think what joy could have been his if he could have kicked a couple of corgis, or addressed The Archbishop of Canterbury from behind some foliage, burning or otherwise, in Lambeth Palace Gardens.

No, the whole point of Royalty is that they should be highly visible, but, of course, that makes them easy targets.  The Duchess’ function is to be seen and to produce the heir and spare that William mentioned.

Harry, not so coy, borrowed the whole mythical ensemble of clothing from the Emperor and paraded himself before a gawping crowd in a private hotel room that he invited half of California to enter, if not le monde entier. Then, to his surprise, he found that people were commenting that he was not perceived to be wearing anything at all, except a sheepish grin.  People who play strip poker can’t really complain.

So, the young couple are furious that they have been spied upon.  Yes, it is regrettable that privacy is difficult for them, but, if Kate wanted to keep her boobs for Will’s eyes only, then she could have kept her top on outdoors.  After all, she ought to know that it is the paparazzi that are the wearers of really effective invisibility cloaks which are embroidered with the immortal phrase: investigative journalism and are the bearers of lenses that can spot a mammary gland from outer space.  Don’t be naïve, Kate.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Bears of Very Little Brain

Tags

Alexander Beetle, Alice in Wonderland, All Shall have Prizes, Christopher Robin, Cottleston Pie, Dr Giles Fraser, Eeyore, genealogy, Jesus, John Tyerman Williams, Malt extract, Pooh and the Philosophers, Popper, Prince Harry, Prince William, St Paul’s Cathedral, St Swithun's Day, The Prodigal Son, The Queen, Thought for the Day, Tractatus, Winnie-the-Pooh, Wittgenstein

Thursday

Dr Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor to St Paul’s Cathedral was on Thought for the Day and he spoke about The Caucus Race in Alice in Wonderland and the Dodo’s ethos of All Shall have Prizes.

It is forty days after St Swithun’s Day and I must say that we have not had constant rain, so there is a level of truth in the old adage.

Anyway, the Rev Dr declared that rewarding everyone undermined a sense of achievement.  However, success should not influence the degree of parental love.  The Prodigal Son found that the Father’s love was not dependent on his performance.   Dr Fraser spoke about the apparent unfairness of the parable of the workers in the vineyard all receiving the same wages, but explained it as how love behaves.  You can imagine Wills being annoyed that Harry gets away with his signature behaviour while he, closer in line, is expected, as the Elder Brother, to keep his nose clean.

Talking of lines to the throne, isn’t the genealogy bug gripping more and more people?  Apparently, if you go back 30 generations, then you would find that Jesus was related to King David, after all.  But so was every other inhabitant of Israel.

Trees become ever more branched if one widens the search and includes friends and relations, such as Rabbit and Alexander Beetle. Very Small Beetle was obviously staying overnight at Christopher Robin’s at the time of a census, but he may have gone round a gorse bush the wrong way and so disappeared off ancestry.co.uk and the International Genealogical Index.  That was why Rabbit couldn’t find him in subsequent records.

Too many amateur genealogists are not paying sufficient attention to Popper (Sir Karl, 1902-94) and his theory of falsifiability.  He said that no accumulation of instances could prove a theory to be correct.  However, one counter-instance could disprove it, at least partly. Got that?

You see, all swans might be white, but an instance of a black one would falsify the proposition.

We need a conceivable test for our propositions.  So, if we place a Rover robot with a plutonium battery that lasts ten years in a Las Vegas hotel room, we can verify if all Royals are white sheep, or if one black sheep exists.  That means that we can make a scientific judgement. (see Pooh and the Philosophers by John Tyerman Williams, p 103-4)

So, Harry must return to Grandmamma and hear what the Crustimoney Proseedcake is to be, for he is a bear of very little brain and long words probably bother him.  When he is asked why he behaved so stupidly, he will in all likelihood reply:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

Why does a chicken? I don’t know why.

Eeyore could explain the whole sorry activity as Bon-hommy.

The Palace could refer to Wittgenstein and his observation in the Tractatus that what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.

Eventually HM might find a form of words:

Hello, Harry, wasn’t that you?

No, says Harry in a different voice.

Harry, says HM kindly, You haven’t any brain.

I know, says the Prince, humbly and then sort of boffs nervously as he swallows a spoonful of Extract of Malt. It’s just that it’s bad enough, granny, being miserable, what with no presents and no cake and no crown and no proper notice taken of me at all…

Well, now you know how your father feels  We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it

Can’t all what?

Gaiety..song-and-dance…bon-hommy.. There it is!

So what shall I do with this pole?

Give it back to the nice girl at the club, Harry. These friends – they are the wrong sort of friends..so I should think they would make the wrong sort of headlines.

So, what should I do now, Grandmamma?

Go on an expotition and keep out of trouble

It will rain tonight

Let it come down!

(Exit Harry, pursued but not bare.)

It is going to be squelching over the Bank Holiday Weekend.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Closing Time

Tags

Annie Lennox, Boris Johnson, Brave New World, Darcey Bussell, David Cameron, Duchess of Cambridge, Eric Idle, Fatboy Slim, Grayson Perry, husband, London 2012, Lord Coe, Olympics, Poor Clares, Prince Harry, Prince William, Ray Davies, Russell Brand, The Queen, The Tempest, Trinity, Vivienne Westwood

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253.

Maybe she would have something pertinent to say about the economy?

A scorcher with threatening thunder which disappeared after 2pm.

9pm saw my hubby and myself on our starter sofas, ready for action viewing.

A strangely nasal singer commenced the proceedings and a bad Churchill impression did not light my Olympic flame.  Same speech from The Tempest ; different hats.

Prince Harry appeared, instead of The Queen.  A solitary Duchess of Cambridge was there. Probably Wills was hovering overhead in a helicopter, watching in case his brother became too flirty with his wife.  If Harry got too fresh, Wills might have Kate sent to the Tower and could marry Pippa the following day.  They can be like that.

Batman came out of a Robin, but he was American, wasn’t  he?  What’s he got to do with it?

There was too much Our House, or One’s House, as someone joked at the Jubilee.  Probably the Royal version is One’s Hice.

The Ku Klux clan appeared to be cycling past, or was it a belated Semana Santa procession for the Spanish contingent?  No, it was The Pet Shop Boys.  One Direction  had the crowd singing the annoying Na-na-na-na refrain, while the whole of London seemed bent on street sweeping, which isn’t a bad idea.  Cameron wants 100% youth employment, so there’s your answer, Dave.

Ray Davies of The Kinks understood that the crowd were not completely thick and so gave them a variation to join in – namely, Sha-la-la-la, which made a change.  At least it was a catchy tune and distracted you from the bankers committing suicide by hurling themselves out of the Gherkin, which some would have found the best bit.

Russell Brand did his I am the Walrus act and I was glad that that awful mate of his, who only gets  him into trouble, wasn’t there, namely Mr Woss.  Grayson Perry, as Clare seemed to be with him, but, then again, it all happened so quickly that I might have been mistaken.

Fatboy Slim – I recognised the oxymoron, was at the centre of a huge octopus, while Jesse J gave everyone their big chance to sing La la la la confidently, because by now most of them knew the words.

The fashion parade was interesting but the commentators did not elaborate on the designers. I thought that Annie Lennox was probably in Vivienne Westwood for her number, but I failed to recognise the Dracula connection.

The pixels and lighting were stunning throughout. Eric Idle’s skating nuns would not have been out of place on Duddingston Loch .  Idle wasn’t shot out of the cannon, but Russell Brand, no, Russell Grant could have been. He had had plenty of practice on Strictly. Now that he has stopped dancing, he might have put on weight and got stuck, however. Sergei, the meerkat might have done it well, but he is anxious to maintain his dignity, so he might not have been too enthusiastic.

The rap did not appeal to me, even though the audience now had the opportunity to repeat, Ay-oh in response to Baby, let’s go.  I thought that was Teletubbie lingo.

Harry was getting a bit bored and started chewing, even just after the big We will rock you number.  I hoped that the Koreans  or Iranians wouldn’t get any ideas for a We will nuke you number.

The Greek flag was raised and that would have been a good moment for a whip-round, I felt.  The Mods on scooters could have whizzed around, collecting the bags.

From Greeks we fast-forwarded to Georgios Michael, who danced all over Damian’s sprayed flag, singing about Freedom and wearing a miniature For The Love of God skull on his belt buckle.  Again, that song title could have suggested a panty pad advertising jingle. Maybe he was out on bail or had a new release coming soon.  Wake me up before you go-go might have given the crowds a chance to vocalise the double syllables that they had been practising throughout the evening.

The London Eye becoming a baldacchino was a powerful symbol of immanence over a vacuum, I thought.  Maybe Zeus or Boris was meant to bless the gathering, but there was no sense of the divine that I could detect.  Lennon’s Imagine stated that there was no heaven nor hell, but only sky above us.  It was moving, but a profound sense of spiritual emptiness swept over me.  Were we meant to worship Man as Superman?  After the exposure of the clay feet of the Tiger Woods of this world, I could only feel limitation, not exaltation.

Past gods materialised in the shape of Mercury- Freddy, to be precise.  He raised the bar of audience participation by challenging the crowd to replicate fairly complex vowel sequences.  The figures on the screens made me think of Brave New World and the feelies.  Was I to become a pleb?

It must have been difficult to entertain everyone while 204 flags were being brought in and athletes were filling in the stripes, like painting by numbers.  Indian drums created tension and suspense, but the white box set building was a natural point for nipping off to the loo, but not if you were in the crowd, obviously.  I wondered about the facilities.  Basically, it was going on too long for anyone’s bladder capacity.  No wonder Philip had given it a miss.

Darcey Bussell’s Firebird section was dazzling, but then there were speeches and that French guy never seemed to smile, though he recognised that our hosting had been happy and glorious, to coin a phrase-not.  Coe smiled, but then he has a job lined up for the next few years, which is more than the marvellous volunteers probably have. To continue The Tempest references, we might echo Antonio, the usurping King of Milan:

Worthy Sebastian….

…methinks I see it in thy face,

What thou should’st be…

My strong imagination sees a crown

Dropping upon thy head..

I was relieved when the accident-prone Johnson managed to avoid setting himself alight, by furling his flag too close to the flames.  Maybe that was why the Duke of Cambridge was hovering overhead, ready to unleash gallons of water from on high.  Or was he on standby to douse Boris’ burning bush or to dampen Harry’s passion? Maybe he was trying to persuade his granny to jump.  Coe addressed Your Majesties, so he clearly expected them to drop in. Perhaps they had missed their cue.  As a fallback, the massed pipe bands could have played:

Oh ye cannae shove your granny oot a ‘copter-x2

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012