Just one thing

Returning from the coffee shop, I find the living room quiet and deserted.  I check the bedroom. The laundry basket is still there.

Since Demeter fell, three years ago, the Resident Fan Boy has taken charge of the laundry.  I sort it and leave it ready, and he takes it up as soon as it's permissible to use the laundry rooms, at 8 am.  One of our neighbours, a fellow who thinks he's a wit, teases us regularly about this, and I remind him which century this is.

I remember it's the one morning a week that the RFB leads a Matins service at the cathedral, so I turn on some music in preparation for my sort of morning service, going over to set up Demeter's breakfast at her apartment.

Then I remember that the Matins service is supposed to end at 9:15 - an hour ago. I continue to make my morning toast, and think about Michael Mosley, a BBC radio personality and documentary host.  About a month ago, he was on holiday on a Greek island, and leaving his wife on the beach, set off for a walk.  Somehow, in the heat of the day, he didn't quite make it back to the pub, falling just out of sight of passersby.  He wasn't found for four days.

I decide to text my own husband:  "Are you okay?"

No reply.

"Are you at church?'

No reply.

I check the calendar, and try phoning.  No reply - it goes to voice message.  I wait five minutes.  Same result.

I text:  "Where on earth are you?"

I think of Clare Bailey, Mosley's wife, and how her thoughts must have progressed from mild concern (and mild annoyance), to worry, to panic.  I think helplessly of how I have little idea how to track the RFB down.  Should I call the church office?  (What's the damn number?) Will I stumble out to the street and wonder wildly which route to search?

The phone rings.  (Michael Mosley didn't have his phone with him.) The RFB has, of course, turned off his phone for the service, and forgot to turn it back on, before wandering off to have breakfast downtown and do some banking.  I think of Michael Mosley and all those little things he suggested for people to have better health and longer lives -- only to collapse on holiday, with no one knowing where he was, or how to track him.

My heart eventually stops hammering, seconds before the RFB hoves into view.

No one can do the Evil Eye like a Welsh person

Ran out of day again.

I'm cheating and leaving you with one of my very favourite clips from the panel show Would I Lie to You?, based on the party game where you tell a story and the players have to guess whether it's true or false.

The story-teller is chief BBC newsreader Huw Edwards (who I know from his wonderful limited series The Story of Wales).  This episode of WILTY is from ten years ago, but the Resident Fan Boy and I are re-enjoying it on the new television.

The p word

When I was in Grade Two, we did a Social Studies unit on "Indians".  This was before the terms "Indigenous" and "First Nations".  I think it's safe to say that our teachers didn't know any better.

It was a time when the residential schools were still in operation, and little boys played "Cowboys and Indians".

On a special project day, we came to school dressed as "Indians".  I lived in Edmonton, so the emphasis was on Plains "Indians".  My mother fixed me up with one of my soft dolls bundled and strapped to my back.  One of the boys punched it in the face as a joke.

That's the last time I recall hearing the word "papoose".

Last night, I came across an essay on the BBC web site, under, of all things, the "Entertainment and Arts" section, presumably because the author, Mark Savage, is a music columnist. 

This piece was about the increasingly legendary Queue that stretches from Westminster Hall, where the Queen's body lies in state, to Southwark Park on the south bank of the Thames, a distance of just under five miles. 

Savage writes of the peaceful atmosphere emanating from the live telecast of the Lying in State, and says he often leaves the livestream on, while doing things around his home. He speaks warmly about the people passing through the hall on either side of the catafalque, remarking on spotting many masks.  (I've seen about half a dozen masks amongst the thousands of people, but then, I don't keep the telecast on for long periods.)

And it was when he described the many types of people passing through the great hall, that my jaw dropped to my knees: There are women in hijabs and wearing papooses... 

Click to enlarge

I was getting ready for bed at the time, and shut down the web site, feeling startled and slightly sick.  I was surprised at how upset I felt, upset enough to fumble with my phone for an official definition of this long-forgotten word. 

This seems to indicate that "papoose", as a synonym for what I called a baby sling or carrier* when the girls were infants, is mainly in use in the UK, and I recalled how, as delightful as my British rellies are, they had an unfortunate tendency to make references to "Red Indians" (cringe) and persist in calling Inuit people "Eskimos", a sidebar to their generally dismissive attitudes to Canada and Canadians. 

Still -- "papoose"??? On a BBC web site? Would they call maternity clothes "squaw-wear"? 

This morning, I texted elder daughter in London.  As a millennial who has spent much of her early adulthood correcting stone-age parental attitudes, her response surprised me:  she made the casual claim that she'd heard it used in Canada fairly often.  I sent her the dictionary definition and she seemed taken aback.

I don't, for a moment, think that Mark Savage is a red-neck, but his careless and sentimental vocabulary underscores why we've been hearing less than complimentary messages from groups wounded by things done in Elizabeth's name.

Call 'em baby slings or carriers, Mr Savage. The p-word does you no favours, and it rather ruined my evening.

*Actually, the Resident Fan Boy reminds me that we called the baby carrier by its brand-name: "Snuggli". Since I'm calling out the BBC, I feel compelled to add: many other brands of baby slings are available.

The Battersea Poltergeist

November 2nd is All Souls' Day, and in Mexico, it's the final Day of the Dead, so perhaps it's not inappropriate that the Hallowe'en decorations in our neighbourhood have not yet been taken down.

Ghost stories are not limited to the end of October, however.

I follow BBC Four on Facebook, and on Hallowe'en, my attention was caught by a multi-part radio programme entitled The Battersea Poltergeist, which was first broadcast at the beginning of this year.  As it happens, I have familial connections to Battersea, so I tuned in.

The haunting took place over about a dozen years at 63 Wycliffe Road.  The house is long gone, as is the part of the street it occupied, but I brought up Google Maps and entered the address.  I was astonished, and rather alarmed, to be directed to an area about a nine-minute walk from elder daughter's flat --- in South Wimbledon.  

Fortunately, along with the half-hour episodes, there are three "case updates" to accommodate just a few of the listeners' hundreds of questions and comments. One of the discussions involved the proximity of railway lines, so I learned that Clapham Junction Railway Station is about a mile to the west of where the house stood, that part of what was Wycliffe Road is now Ashbury Road, and that Lavender Hill is just to the south.  That narrows the area to somewhere around the Greek Orthodox Church of St Nectarios, about five miles north of elder daughter's flat, and one mile south-east of where one branch of my ancestors were living in the second half of the nineteenth century, near the west edge of Battersea Park.

Nicely oriented, I settled in, listening (in daylight, of course) to nine episodes over Hallowe'en, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day.  It's a twisty-turny, rollercoaster sort of tale, veering from inexplicable to explicable, from other-worldly to mundane, and from belief to disbelief-- and back again.  It's a mixture of dramatization - the cast is led by none other than Toby Jones - and interviews, including several with Shirley, the original tormented girl, who is now eighty.  (At least she was in early 2021.)  All in all,  we have a fascinating examination of the paranormal, and our differing perceptions of what is plausible.  Follow the above link, and give it a listen.

I'm a little perplexed by the illustration of the series. 

The image is spooky and arresting, but it shows a green-eyed girl against a very old map of the East End of London.

And not particularly close to South Wimbledon.

Shirley Hitchings was (is) a brown-eyed girl, and Battersea is south of the Thames.

Finding your look

My Facebook feed keeps sending me this.

I don't mind.

I think it's very funny.

It's true; we all remember a teacher that was something like this.

Look back in anxiety

Awoke this morning to a BBC article in my newsfeed. From the "Future" section, it wonders about how medications affect personality.

Apparently, statins can cause irritability, even rage. Antidepressants can reduce signs of neuroticism (at a possible cost to reasoning). A common drug for Parkinson's Disease - L-Dopa - can affect impulse control; asthma drugs can bring on hyperactivity.

Then, there's paracetomal, commonly known as acetaminophen - that's Tylenol, folks. I take acetaminophen, because ibuprofin does nuthin' for me. Apparently this common pain-killer can reduce empathy.

Now, I am over-simplifying things. I really do suggest reading the article.

However - and this is anecdotal, not scientific, I realize - years of being a home support worker, a hospice volunteer, and a daughter and granddaughter have shown me that what is frequently mistaken for "just" aging, is often the reactions to medications. My grandmother once said, near the end of her long life: "The nice me is gone. All that's left is an old bitch."

I also remember the bewilderment of being so easily hurt and enraged for the brief time that I took Clomid for fertility.

And I have to wonder: was my Double Leo Sister always as hyperactive as she can be? She's asthmatic --- and diabetic. Geez...statins....I think she's been on those.

Then there's me. I don't take acetaminophen constantly, but I've taken it enough. Do I feel less? Care less?

I've been on levothyroxine since before the advent of younger daughter. It isn't mentioned in the article, but are there emotional side-effects? I'm looking back, uneasily, on the person I was before being prescribed. Is it only the years which have shaped what I am now?

Eating crow for Christmas

No one does a rant quite like David Mitchell, and we've been favoured with two Christmas rants this year. The first is as himself - or the grumpy public version of himself; I like to imagine that he is more cozy and affable in private with his wife and family.

The second is in his role as William Shakespeare in The Upstart Crow, a BBC comedy series which has been described as "Blackadderesque", mainly because it's written by Ben Elton, who also wrote Blackadder. It's witty, and more accurate than you might think.

However, I would like to point out a flaw in this latter rant. January 6th is Epiphany. Twelfth Night is actually January 5th. And today is the Fourth Day of Christmas, so make merry.

A mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up Globe

This past week, the British media (the arts sections anyway) were in a bit of an uproar over the termination of Emma Rice's tenure as the artistic director of the Globe Theatre in London. She's staying for the 2017 season, but apparently is on the outs because she used "inauthentic" lighting, and other modern interpretations, which is apparently not the Globe's mandate, but has also been pulling in the audiences.

I was pulled in as well -- the Globe had a live-stream last month, which permitted me to take in the closing night of Rice's Bollywood-flavoured A Midsummer Night's Dream, which reminded me pleasurably of a simply gorgeous subcontinental production I saw in 2008.

Apart from the thrill of being able to watch along with the crowd on the South Bank, the production was a delight with Katy Owen as a truly manic and rather dangerous Puck, Miaow Miaow (yep - she's a cabaret artist) as a voluptuous and uninhibited Titania, and a male Helena who is the gay BFF of a bossy Hermia. If you follow this last link - and you really should - you'll see "Helenus"(Ankur Bahl) and Hermia (Anjana Vasan) slip in a riff from Beyoncé's "All the Single Ladies", but you'll have to press the play button yourself, because I can't embed it.

The Twitter reaction has been amusing. Lots of pointing out that if the Globe really wants authenticity, they can dispense with the female actors altogether, and encourage disease, prostitution, and fruit-hurling in the audience.

This being the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, it's been a bumper year for seeing his plays. I have summer memories of a male "Maria" planted barefoot on a volcanic rock outcropping blasting an electric guitar accompaniment to "Lola" while his black Elizabethan skirts rippled in the breeze during the finale of a crossed-dressed Twelfth Night on the grounds of Camosun College. I watched Croatian dancing by flashes of lightening in another Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival production of A Winter's Tale - no rain until the final bows, because Victoria is a bit like Camelot.

We bagged the Royal Seats for A Company of Fools and their warped take on Pericles, one of the few Shakespeare plays that I have neither seen nor read. And I saw a remarkable and illuminating eighty-minute, four-person interpretation of Romeo and Juliet at the Gladstone Theatre here in Hades. Among many other live Shakespeare goodies available both in Victoria and Ottawa, of course.

However, the very wisest thing I've done on Facebook this year is to "like" the BBC's "Shakespeare Lives" page. Along with vintage clippings of classic Shakespearean productions over the past fifty or sixty years, they featured the "Complete Walk", an ambitious collection of eleven-minute films of all Shakespeare's plays -- performed in the countries and counties in which they are set.  Some short clips are still available for viewing -- go take a look!

My take on the Emma Rice controversy?  Shakespeare knew all about appealing to the groundlings and the people who could actually afford seats.  He also knew about what happened if you crossed swords with those with the power to shut you down.  He persevered and survived.  I trust Emma Rice will do the same.

Through a glass, sneakily

One of the wisest things I've done this month is to "like" BBC Culture on Facebook. I've been getting links to all sorts of interesting articles.

The five regular readers of this blog - I may be overestimating, but I'm a fan of self-delusion - know that as a non-driver, I amuse myself at times with the mini-dramas that take place on buses. I call these "Writes of Passage", because I think I'm being clever - that self-delusion thing again.

George Georgiou, a London-born photographer who now makes his home in Folkestone, Kent, has been capturing what he calls "micro-dramas", but these are taking place outside the bus.  An article on the BBC Culture web site  describes one of his latest projects, Last Stop.  Georgiou would spend as long as twelve hours, riding  the length of London bus routes, sitting by the window with his camera in his lap, gazing into a right-angle lens, which looks something like this:

This, according to the article, allowed him to take his pictures undetected -- although if you peruse Last Stop (and you should), you'll see a couple of definitely suspicious stares.

I'm now tempted to purchase a right-angle lens and follow Georgiou's lead, except for four problems:
1) the cost of a damn right-angle lens;
2) the legality of snapping people without their knowledge;
3) the fact that Georgiou is a far, far better photographer than I;
4) the mud that cakes the windows of OC Transpo buses at this time of year - and depressingly enough, from November to May.

Reason Number Four is why most of my "Writes of Passage" concern dramas within the bus.

Merry Titanicalia?

Last September, we had an orgy of 9/11 retrospectives, rather like a bleak sort of holiday celebrating the vaporization of three thousand people. We have now reached the end of a week-long festival of Titanic remembrances, a loving itemization of the freezing/crushing/drowning/imploding of 1500 people in 1912. There was a parade in Halifax (where many of the recovered bodies were buried); the newspapers have had series of articles on the disaster, and of course, as with 9/11, we've been treated to a week of Titanic documentaries and movies. The Turner Classic Movie Channel showed The Unsinkable Molly Brown and A Night to Remember (which features one of my indirect links to the Titanic). The fellow responsible for Downton Abbey has come up with his take on the sinking, four episodes shown repeatedly. (I've only managed to watch bits before wanting to hurl stuff at the TV.) The History Channel and The National Geographic Channel have had a field-week.

Predictably, those that aren't interested were crying "Enough!" within a couple of days, but I've been, while not exactly a "Titaniac", a follower of things to do with the big ship since I was ten, so I've been having rather a lovely time. Or does that sound morbid and inappropriate?

One intriguing aspect of having so many television presentations on one topic is the opportunity to compare. We have the really high-end specials involving mind-boggling computer graphics. They have remarkably similar titles: Titanic: Case Closed; Titanic: The Final Word and Titanic 100: Mystery Solved. While all three are engaging documentaries, brimming with well-known experts and high production values, as a family researcher, I'm leery of titles indicating completeness. History is never finished.

A bit farther down the scale are those news specials and TV series suffering from limited time and funds. Real Stories: The Real Titanic, for example, has its heart in the right place, stating (quite rightly) that what really happened was many times more dramatic and tragic than in films made about the disaster. Unfortunately, Real Stories's budget did not allow the hiring of real actors --- nor the purchase of nail polish remover. We're treated to a long shots of "re-enactors" chatting on deck (looking remarkably unmoved), or in impossibly small row-boats (most of the Titanic lifeboats had a seating capacity of between 40 to 60 people). Most distracting and improbable is a scene where a First Class passenger with pearls, a shoulder-length hair-do and blood-red nails pretends to rub invisible cream into her face.

 Aside from the more expensive, less-hastily-made shows, few have been able to resist the basic Titanic myths:
 1) She was out to break a speed record. No, Cunard was after the speed records; White Star was going for the comfort angle. She was going too fast for seas laced with ice-bergs, but that was due more than the crew being unaware of the true danger.
 2) She had been marketed as "unsinkable". The "u" word only appeared in an engineering article which described her as "practically unsinkable". Any public perception of the Titanic being indestructible came from word-of-mouth, not from advertising.
 3) The ship's band went down playing "Nearer My God to Thee".  Oh for Pete's sake. Take a look, if you will, at very similar scenes from the two most famous movies about the Titanic: 1997's Titanic and 1958's A Night to Remember.

 Go ahead, I'll wait: Notice something? There are two completely different tunes. "Bethany" is the setting most familiar to North Americans, while the usual Church of England setting, familiar to most Brits, is "Horbury". Furthermore, Wallace Hartley the band leader, was a Methodist and was said to prefer another setting called "Propier Deo". Walter Lord, the author of the book A Night to Remember, wrote a follow-up in 1986 entitled The Night Lives On (because history is never finished). If you want to read the full argument, someone has thoughtfully posted the chapter and some bonus illustrations online. (Incidentally, the article mentions "Mrs A.A. Dick of Calgary" who happened to be an acquaintance of my late mother-in-law, so there's another of my admittedly very indirect connections to the Titanic.)

 I listened online to BBC Four's The Titanic Minute by Minute which depended heavily on Lord's original book for research and claimed to be an accurate timeline of the sinking. It was a tribute to the Titanic's noble and dutiful musicians, and also featured nifty numbers from the likes of Billy Bragg and Kate Rusbury. I quite enjoyed it until BBC Four, as so many others, could not resist the pull of the legend. They played "Nearer My God to Thee", in the Bethany setting, yet! I actually screamed abuse at the computer, much frightening the dog.

 Maybe I am a Titaniac, after all.

I really shouldn't...

Back in January, when this was just a wee, barely-formed, newborn blog, I posted briefly (I can do that) about my favourite BBC New website headlines. My latest favourite turned up this morning:

South Korean parents of teenage rapist fined $60,000 for failing to supervise him.

This begs all sorts of unworthy and totally tasteless questions. Be my guest.

Thy will be done

I've found it somewhat difficult to blog this past week, not for lack of opportunity nor topics, but I really don't want to turn this blog into a moanfest. Which is a challenge during February in Ottawa. The sad thing, February isn't Ottawa's worst month; it's worsted [in no particular order] by July, August, April and March. And January. Actually, June and September aren't that much fun either...

Whoops! This is sliding into Moandom. Anyway, how do I battle the miseries here in the Nation's Capital? Well, for one thing, there was an interview of David Tennant by Catherine Tate on BBC Four today. It was much too short, but thanks to the "Listen Again" feature on the BBC website, I can listen to it for the next week, providing our computer doesn't pack up which it's showing signs of doing...

Erggh! Sliding, sliding... So, um, David Tennant. Imagining David Tennant would find me fascinating. Self-delusion. Very very good for February. Uh, in a related and slightly related vein, finding well-made and witty Doctor Who fanvids on YouTube (or just well-made and witty).

You think less of me now, don't you? What else? Well, I bury myself in family history research. It is fortunate, in the midst of a rather bleak week both meteorologically and spiritually, that among the many queries I get online about my family tree (seriously, I get one or two a day) came a message from a distant cousin of my husband's who is interested in seeing my collection of wills downloaded from the National Archives. Fortunate, because after two or three years of gathering dust, these wills are finally being transcribed. I take myself down to the coffee shop with my trusty (and rather beautiful) magnifying globe to decipher "secretary hand". Now, you might say that wills are boring, legalistic, and morbid, especially ones from the eighteenth century. Only the middle term applies and one can ignore a lot of that in favour of all sorts of family shenanigans. The latest one I've just completed is one of my favourites so far. The Resident Fan Boy's 5xgreat-grandfather was feeling rather under the weather in the late spring of 1773, so decided it was time to make out his will. It's a very meticulous will, dividing the tablespoons and teaspoons between his two surviving daughters, making sure his wigs and shoes would be delivered to his brother after the funeral. Two sons get the money, livestock and land. Trouble is, he had three surviving sons. Three days after the first will, he drew up a lengthy codicil giving a sum of money to the third son, to be handed over seven years after Papa's death. In the meantime, eldest son is given the pleasant task of paying out three shillings to naughty son every Saturday Night. No other way. Or else all is forfeited. Crikey, I wonder what naughty son did? He shows up in later wills, administering and providing for his relations.

You think I'm an absolute dork now, don't you? Ah well, I always was. I leave you with another of my greatest comforts: music. Here's my favourite Elvis Costello song, sung by Aimee Mann of 'Til Tuesday (with EC on backing vocals). And there's a Doctor Who theme with it. Lovely.

Paints quite a picture, doesn't it?

I love the headlines at the BBC news web site. Two favourites from November 1st: "Excrement curry wife admonished" (a woman put doggy-doo in her husband's curry -- the marriage is now over); and (this isn't exact, but I'm remembering the gist) "Council concern over illegal deaths on roadway". As opposed to the perfectly legal deaths on the roadway? Today, a brand new favourite: "Wards closed by vomiting bug". Sounds worthy of a Doctor Who episode...