Divided Household

Tags

England, flags, internal politics, nationalism, rivalry, Saltire, Scotland, St George

Recognition

Tags

Antarctica, Argentina, Billy Connolly, Blairgowrie, Border Terrier, Buckingham Palace, Buenos Aires, Canongate, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, coffee, fritillaria, gardens, Holy Fools, honey, Jenny Geddes, Kate Winslet, Lion Rampant, manukah, Mount of Olives, Neil Oliver, Perth, piper, post office, Prince Philip, Princess Alice of Greece, Robert Falcon Scott, Saltire, Scotland, Suttonford, Waterworlds, William Speirs Bruce

Tuesday

Stickily oppressive.  No rain, but grey and the first signs of hay fever appear.  Probably the effects of mould spores from rotting vegetation.

Visited my friend’s professionally landscaped garden which was established at the start of the summer.  Yellowing box edging is probably dying from early drought, excessive waterlogging later on, or simply from the peeing habits of a new Border Terrier.

Our garden is suffering from mordant animals which gnaw every bulb that one plants.  Altruistic bird feeders may encourage rodents.  Seventy six snakes head fritillaria that I bought from The Telegraph failed to materialise, so I won’t be able to recreate the floral watercolours of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, not that I have the skills, anyway, but that is not the point.

Went to Costamuchamullah for a very skinny latte and noticed honey for sale from Perth. It reminded me of a joke told by Billy Connolly – but he might have pinched it from Chick Murray – about how he had stayed at a B&B in the Highlands and the proprietor had served him a breakfast tray with an individual pot of heather honey on it.  He had remarked, I see you keep a bee.

 It took me a moment to work out that it was probably Australian honey.  Is it Manukah? I wondered.

When I returned home, I simply had to check the facts on Wikipedia. Oh yes, you do find it in Perth, Oz, and it is produced by apis mellifera and, to be called manukah, it has to have a 70% pollen count from tea tree Leptospermium scoparium.

The disappointing part was that it also said that: “alongside other antibacterial products, [it} does not reduce the risk of infections following treatment for ingrown toenails.”

So, probably not a best-selling product for Aquanibble then.  Might be fun to say to one of the four optimistically termed assistants in Costamuchamullah, I’ll have a pot of your honey.  Oh, by the way, only if it reduces the risk of infection from my ingrown toenails.

 They would probably just ignore me in the way that they usually do when they are too busy wiping a perfectly clean surface while a serpentine queue builds up and spirals out of the door into the street.  Perhaps I will have to stop wearing my invisibility cloak- you know, the one that envelops females after the age of fifty.

Apparently there are honey outlets in Perth, Scotland too:  Heather Hills Farm and Scarletts in Blairgowrie produce masses, in spite of the predatory nature of a single honey buzzard that seems to have been circling since 2010.

Scientists have confirmed that there are planets out in the far beyond called Waterworlds, but they are not huge theme parks.  In fact they are composed of hot ice.

Ice was a theme this evening with a Neil Oliver repeat of his journey to the Weddell Sea and South Atlantic.  After he had left The Falkland Islands, it took him four days until he reached the first icebergs.

I thought he might stand, lashed to the prow of the boat, and let his hair flow behind him, but he sensibly stayed in the cabin.  I don’t think he would fancy Kate Winslet, but I haven’t asked him.  Maybe a nautical Jenny Geddes might be more up his Canongate. Anyway, he very commendably seemed resistant to seasickness.  You wouldn’t want his macho Celtic image to be undermined by a shot of him leaning over the side, or taking Quells.

Of course, the whole point of the expotition seems to have been to draw attention to the Scot, William Speirs Bruce, who had discovered many firsts, rather than that Sassenach Scott, who might have had the correct name, but wasn’t related, at least by surname, to Robert the. Scott had an interesting middle name, though – Falcon.  Another Pointless question to which I shouldn’t know the answer.

Anyway, Bruce had filmed penguin colonies and measured ice and been a thorough scientific Scot – self-conscious flick of the hair.  He hadn’t been as shocked as Levick, a scientist on Scott’s team who witnessed the sexually delinquent behaviour of the Adelies.

I’m sure Neil just loved the opportunity to transmit old photos of a piper in full Highland regalia, playing the bagpipes, surrounded by Saltires and Lions Rampant on huge ice floes.

The irony is that if Bruce hadn’t been so stereotypically parsimonious, then he might have bought his fuel nearer to the South Atlantic base, instead of trying to save a bawbee by sailing up the coast to Buenos Aires, where he took on board some Argentinian scientists and cut-price provisions.  The Argies set up a post office with a franking machine and this influences territorial rights to this day.

Meanwhile Scott and even his stoker were awarded polar medals and Bruce didn’t even get a packet of Fox’s Glacier Mints.

 Explorer Bruce went to his ice hoose

To get his poor husky a bone,

But when he got there

The cupboard was bare.

He found a wee note

Saying, “Taken your boat

And your seal blubber lamps,

But have left you some stamps.

We don’t want to seem mean

But our franking machine

Proves this land is for Argies,

So no argy-bargies.

And we’ll claim the minerals, Bruce.”

 

The other brilliant programme was about Princess Alice of Greece. She served as a nurse in the Balkan wars, but when her faith became too difficult for the rest of the family they had her detained and irradiated by early experimental psychiatrists and psychologists.

When she was released she protected a Jewish family in her own apartment and used her deafness to advantage in deflecting soldiers’ questions.

I loved the image of her being re-united with her son and roaming the corridors of Buckingham Palace in her nun’s habits, smoking Woodbines.  She only owned three dressing gowns at the end of her life, but had used her jewels and other assets to help the poor.  She is buried on the Mount of Olives.  If this be madness, then she is in the tradition of The Holy Fools and it makes me question who is sane and who is mad.  Prince Philip should be incredibly proud of her, as he very likely is.

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

Wimbledon

Tags

Andy Murray, Centre Court, Hawkeye, Iona Community, Roger Federer, Saltire, tennis, Toblerone, Tsonga, Wimbledon

8th July, 2012.

Andy Murray had failed.  It was no use John Bell of the Iona Community trying to console us with observations on how failure had formed his own, no doubt, admirable adult character, making him worthy to pontificate on Thought for the Day.

I had been in a quandary about championship allegiance.  All those swaying Saltires, of non-regulation banner size, on Henman Hill indicated that lions were rampant.  I felt sympathy for a seemingly lone Swiss flag on Centre Court, no doubt touted by a Lindt lover.

Yes, Andy had a higher pinnacle than a Toblerone to scale, but when Roger removed his shirt, I’d known that patriotism paled before such a paragon of male pulchritude.

Andy cried; his girlfriend, Kim, cried and so did his mother.  But The Duchess of Cambridge and The Rear Admirable had grinned, in spite of themselves.  Suddenly the Andy who had slammed Tsonga in the manhood region was a malleable racquet in the hands of a paradoxically maternal Lady Macbeth.  One could imagine the pre-match pep talk:

..but screw your courage to the sticking place/

And we’ll not fail.

But he had.

Thankfully Judy Macbeth, sorry! – Murray- would not re-enact all that removing of nipples from boneless gums and dashing of brains on camera.  The Imperious One may have brought forth male children only – or those were the only ones we heard about – but Federer’s twins waving at Daddy didn’t diminish his masculinity, whatever their gender.

There was nothing else on telly, only The Hollow Crown, Part Two.  There was nothing remotely hollow about Roger’s victory.  Jeremy Irons seemed curiously emasculated, though, and his teeth seemed too big and affected his diction.  Maybe he has gum recession, I reflected.  Gosh, when is my next dental appointment?

I decided to turn in early to process the emotional exhaustion of seven deuces, hoping that the twins would give Daddy a good night and praying that Andy wouldn’t be given a good hiding by the Female Hawkeye.

In the cool night air my neighbours had decided to sit outside, quaffing and cackling until, at three thirty am.  I opened my window and bawled: Quiet, please, as if I was an umpire.  I had no desire for a volley; I just wanted to deliver a drop shot which would wipe them out and give me the advantage point of some necessary shut eye.  Noisy Neighbour Syndrome was nothing new, as I had learned from a radio dramatization of Pepys’ Diary on Radio 4.   The wretched man had taken to playing his flageolet outside in the wee sma’ hours, in 1664, much to his neighbours’ chagrin.  I’d never liked the man.  I dare say that they didn’t either.

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