Forsooth, I bring thee good and cheerful news

And I trust that you noticed the perfect iambic pentameter in my title - that Bill Shakespeare isn't the only scribbler who can do that sort of thing!  True, it's hardly an inspiring line but then every play needs a 'Third Messenger' to enter and bring news of a fresh twist to the plot and you can't give him three pages of perfect versification to say it.  Apart from anything else, darlings, most actors playing 'Third Messenger' can barely say their names let alone deliver iambic pentatmeters!  Now, where was I before I rudely interrupted myself - oh yes - Shakespeare reduced to the bare essentials!

I am thinking of booking a flight to 'Noo Yawk' because some frightfully plucky American gals are putting on an all female performance of The Tempest in Central Park - stark naked!  Yeeeeeeees, quite!  One feels, in a very profound way, that this will illuminate aspects of the play hitherto never seen before - look, could you lot please be serious for a moment, this is Shakespeare we're talking about! 

I gather from one of the reports that the ladies concerned wanted to encourage "body freedom and free expression."  One seeks desperately for a response to those profound thoughts but, alas, all I can say - again! - is, yeeeeeeeeees, quite!  Sometimes there are no words.

Actually, I've just remembered that as I write, 'SoD' is gracing Boston and New York with a royal visitation, now I know why - crafty bugger!

 

Comments

[Backofanenvelope]

I don't like yours Duffers!

[Timbo]

Sometimes, leaving a little to the imagination is a good thing.

[Whitewall]

So if male audience members stare at these "ladies", are they committing an act of aggression? Or are the "ladies" guilty of assault and visual cruelty? What a world.

[Dom]

Are there any scenes in The Tempest where the actors have to jump up and down? Because the one on the right shouldn't be in that scene.

[Loz]

I'll be there, but I need to get it past Fluffbun first.

Or perhaps I could just arrange our walk in Central Park to coincide with the performance and then exclaim "Goodness gracious, there are naked ladies prancing about reciting Shakespeare, for educational purposes I feel we should investigate".

Mmm, I'll need to work on that ...

SoD

[Whitewall]

Proceed carefully SoD. Practice your "shocked" face before you get there.

[Loz]

Blast, the performance was yesterday while we were mid-Atlantic.

Anyway, back to the serious stuff ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/21/westminster-not-brussels-is-to-blame-for-uk-over-regulation/

See, what did I tell you? The real bossy-boots are all in Westminster, not Brussels!

And if the HMG's little Hitlers succeed in getting a monopoly on bossy-booting you'll be begging for straight bananas and moderate "'elf and safety" regs (like that little book of accidents every business has to have, and is usually filled with records of paper cuts and sneezing fits) before you can "1974".

SoD

[David Duff]

Now look here, SoD, I only let you go to America in order for you to find out what it's like to live in a free country without 'Johnny Foreigner' telling you what to do!

[Andra]

WHY???

[Loz]

Well, just walked half the freedom trail, and learned, what I suppose was obvious, it was all the fault of the bloody French.

If we weren't fighting them everywhere we found them, we wouldn't have had to put the taxes up on tea to pay for it all and upset all the colonials.

And I wonder if in response to "no taxation without representation" we'd replied "oh alright then, have a seat in Westminster for each county", how it might have worked out?

SoD

[Dom]

The original quote is, "no taxation without representation, but fuck off anyway".

[David Duff]

Spot on, SoD, you're learning - when in doubt always blame it on the French, or if in doubt, the Germans!

Even so, I envy you because I remember walking the freedom trail in Boston - fascinating. All those tiny 18th century churches, hot beds of sedition, nestled beneath giant skyscrapers.

Dom, that sounds like a 'Trumpism'!

[Loz]

The little churches and meeting houses are so wonderfully austere. It reminded me of that great send-up sketch of northern proddies by Monty Python, y'know the one: "When ah were young, we liv'd int shoe-box ont' motorway".

And the way the pews are rectangular boxes one for each family with, therefore, three quarters of the seats not facing whoever's reading the sermon, they're facing in on their family group. The message is clear: We've come to listen to you, but you're not sooo important that we can't turn our backs on you and simply read the fucking bible for ourselves". You can't imagine the Left Footers putting up with that! No, no, no, be Jaysus, we want you all staring at your glorious earthly leader, surrounded by sparkling golden baubles.

One sees how it happened, the great birding of power by the individual, through the little things.

SoD

[David Duff]

Well, I think in the further reaches of early Puritanism which decamped to America to avoid a resurgent C of E, the sermon was considered to be 'infra dig'. People were free to think their own thoughts and if anyone, not just a 'priest' wanted to say something then they stood up and said it. Even so, some damned traitors stood up and preached sedition against his Majesty, good ol' King George!

By the way, don't forget take a look round Faneuil Hall.

[jimmy glesga]

Women are women tits out and want shagged.

[David Duff]

Jimmy - BEHAVE!

[Loz]

Guv, spare a dime for a couple of old grenadiers? : -

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A4F23B611E01137D!155592&authkey=!AJJZPPYouZLzBdU&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg

SoD

[Loz]

So there I was, all limbered up for the shame and embarrassment of another disgraceful performance by HM Forces, head bowed low, mournful face on: the Boston "massacre".

Yep, picture of a line of grim visaged grenadiers with Brown Bess's blasting into a crowd of civilians at ten paces. Ouch, this is going to make Bloody Sunday look like a paper cut or sneezing fit entry in the HR "'elf and saf'ty" register. Better try and make myself scarce amongst the gawping tourists in the auditorium lest we have a belated revenge lynching. And the death toll, rasped the audio-visual system, I winced in apprehension: "Four dead, and several wounded".

"You what?" I blurted, "That's not a massacre, you wussies! And at ten paces, a company of grenadiers? You're 'avin' a larf, aren't you?" These boys ripped the heads off Boney's columns at Waterloo and all across the Iberian Peninsular from a hundred paces with the same weapon and drill only 40 years later, literally dropping hundreds at a time with a single volley. They must have all been utterly pissed, or they were deliberately aiming off.

And that's the truth of it, they were aiming off, and trying to defend themselves with minimum force, but some couldn't fail to hit.

Massacre, my arse.

SoD

[Dom]

And yet, you lost.

[David Duff]

Well, Dom, according to SoD we didn't so much lose as give it away! Even so, that chap in the photo deserves a medal dressing up like that in Boston, of all places!

Keep the photos and reports coming, Lawrence. And don't forget that impudent man-of-war in the Charlestown harbour that had the infernal cheek to sink one of our ships.

[Loz]

Well yesterday I wanted to seek out a local range with Brown Bess's, M16's, AK47's and exercise my new found constitutional rights to the full and show the locals how it's done.

Fluffbun, however, wanted to go whale watching, and bribed me with nookie, which tipped the balance in favour of big mammals. Those damn creatures have got a lot to answer for - and the whales for that after.

Mind you, seeing a fin whale breach the surface at a couple of hundred yards, and realizing it was roughly the same length as our craft, made me blurt out "I think we're gonna need a bigger boat" and got a nervous giggle from Fluffbun. It was a bit spesh.

SoD

[Loz]

We did indeed lose, Dom, and here's the how and why: -

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A4F23B611E01137D!155609&authkey=!AGYubCpJB4sX4pY&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg

SoD

[David Duff]

Whale watching!? You should have gone to 'Weight Watchers'!

[Dom]

I'm a bridge aficionado, and I was going to suggest you might want to look up the Longfellow bridge if you are too, but I just Checked and found they've dismantled the salt and pepper towers. Oh well, your loss (if you like bridges).

Is that cartoon in Boston? If I read it right, we've had the same concerns for centuries now.

[Loz]

Well here's my conclusion before heading off to the Big Apple tomorrow ...

There are two conflicts in the history of the Blighty, and in fact the world, that it was vital for Blighty to lose for the greater benefit of bringing Liberty, the idea and practice thereof, to mankind: The battle of Bouvines and the American War of Independence.

Bouvines because it forced King John to accede to his barons and Magna Carta and all that.

And the AWI, because, and now I'm really annoyed because I took a photo of the quote from one of the rebels but it didn't appear on my phone, and I can't seem to google it out, but it says something like this: -

"The independence of America from England would have been of little significance to the world if it weren't for the fact that great ideals were bound up to it, in the government and practice of the new state".

And that's it, in a nutshell. A Ukipper type would say "Oh bugger, we just lost America / some large tract of France", thinking only of the interests of the state to which he was attached at birth, which, for some unstated reason must always be thought of in preference to his own personal interests (see the Gaffer's many comments on this point).

On the other hand, the Libertarian, thinking from the perspective of me-me-me, will say "Bugger losing America / some large tract of France, I've got a little freer as a result, so there's no loss to me, rather a gain".

And how did we get freer as a consequence? Bouvines is obvious - Magna Carta and all that. And the AWI going America's way? It's the blow-back to the rest of the world, especially Blighty, of the most successful working implementation of the ideal of Liberty in practice served up in front of everyone's noses, every moment of every day from 1776 onwards, tormenting tyrants and inspiring Libertarians, and thereby sparing so many me-me-me's outside of America from a life of misery.

Bless those Grenadier's who aimed away. They did just enough to light the touch-paper, and took not a soul more than was needed to defend their lives. And I bet they weren't unaware of the ideals they were ordered to aim at too: If instead of American rebels, that had been the head of a column of Grognards cheering their Bonapartist perversion of Liberty as they came on, not one of them would have left the scene without two people to carry them.

SoD

[David Duff]

I worry about you, SoD! Magna Carta, to the main actors at the time, was all about self-interest as expressed through private property and political power, that is, *their* private property and political power. The fact that eventually some unintended benefits accrued to others would not have surprised Adam Smith but would have pissed off the Barons at Runneymede!

It was the civil war with King Charles I, some 400 years later, that set Britain, and America, on the path to a liberty that we still enjoy (sort of) today. We 'over here' just went on placing liberty brick upon brick whilst 'over there' they were forced to ratify and codify it quickly in order create a nation state from nothing.

However, as any good ancient Roman would tell you (if he was still around), all good things come to an end. Thus, today the legalistic American constitution is crumbling under a combined attack by a combination of corrupt but politically motivated politicians and judiciary - which is why, in their incoherent way the desperate people of America are reaching in desperation for sundry loonies to run their country. 'Over here', the political class seeing a vista of endless new jobs, careers, pensions and publicity from which they can all "strut their hour upon the stage" are determined to drive us into a rotten, corrupt entity that *already* tramples upon the hard won liberties of former Britons.

All I can say to you is, be careful what you wish for!

[Loz]

" 'Over here', the political class seeing a vista of endless new jobs, careers, pensions and publicity from which they can all "strut their hour upon the stage" are determined to drive us into a rotten, corrupt entity that *already* tramples upon the hard won liberties of former Britons. "

You're talking about HMG there, right?

SoD

[Loz]

You're right to point out an example of my concept of "Accidental Liberty", namely Magna Carta. I agree it was not an intended thing that what the barons demanded flowed down to us.

Another example was the British Empire, and how it exported all the politicos to go bash the natives and colonials, leaving me-me-me in Blighty with a dose of "Accidental Liberty" - while those Grenadiers were busy in Boston they weren't busy in some square in London.

But the American episode was different. Like Ronnie and Maggie, there was no accident; some politicos stood up and said "We are the problem, not the solution". Rare, once every two thousand years event. In America, it was constructed, not accidental like Magna Carta and British Liberty.

Which leads me to the the third accident: By 1974 British accidental Liberty was dead in the water. All the returning Grenadiers and politicos from a fallen empire saw to that. But the accidental Liberty was preserved by the "Bait and Bleed" conflict between Blighty and a new attacking empire, the EU, which absorbs all the politicos energy, leaving us with our "Accidental Liberty" intact. Long may it continue.

With Brexit, I'd give it 5 years before Blighty collapses into a riot torn, tyrannical wasteland - like 1974.

SoD

[David Duff]

You're on a different planet, SoD!

The point about British pols in parliament, self-seeking shits though they be, is that first of all we elect them and second of all we can boot them out if they annoy us.

So tell me, oh harbinger of joy, how are you going to get rid of 'Junck the Drunk' and all those other self-appointed apparatchiks when, as is absolutely certain, they get too big for their hand-made boots?

And are you seriously suggesting that, to quote a phrase, they will not come for you?

[Loz]

"Run, Forrest, run!" : -

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A4F23B611E01137D!155610&authkey=!AHxPtKJBjneyQL4&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg

SoD

[Loz]

There you go again, shackling yourself to one bunch of politicos or another!

"Put not thy trust in princes", there, see, the Puritan in me is coming out ...

SoD

[David Duff]

I had to look up your first quote but I still don't get the point. Still, that's a jolly pretty gal, better bring her home with you!!!