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A journal of the trials, tribulations, and
triumphs in the life of a woman in the 21st century.

Last Updated : Tuesday, September 24, 2002 08:10 PM -0500

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Monday, September 23, 2002

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Tuesday, September 24, 2002

I know, I know, 'bout time I got back around to this. I have been kicking around the idea of a more periodically format, like weekly, as opposed to daily, as I seem to not be able to get around to this as regularly as I used to. Not to mention, I've never gotten around to getting all my pages to match my "new" color scheme. Perhaps I should just change the whole thing. Hmm . . .

(Ed - I hasten to note that any changed color scheme will be MY job, not hers. Then again, it's not like I've got a paying gig to deal with right now... -- jd).

I was watching a program on public television last night called King and Country, hosted by Price Edward Windsor. Now, Americans, we like him and his wife for the simple reason that they have jobs. Americans have a thing about that. Do all the good works you want, but no matter how stinkin' rich you are, you need to do something for a living or, in this country, you are considered a dilettante. (ed - or a CEO -- jd) In Britain, it's the opposite. I swear, I am always hearing the British press heap recriminations upon Royals who actually dirty their hands by (shudder) working. They can't win. On one hand, they criticize them for taking money from the British taxpayers, but then, when they do something to make money, well, they absolutely crucify them for that and say they are trading on their "royal connections". Well, duh. How are they going to make the most money? Flipping burgers at a downtown London McDonalds (ed - Boy, I'd pay money to see that -- jd) or trading on that rare commodity that they received by accident of birth? Like most of us, they are going to go with what is going to bring in the most dough. Sarah Ferguson is another Royal quite popular on this side of "the pond". She got herself in debt and pulled herself out, by hard work. (ed - well, I dunno. Showing my face and doing commercials for Weight Watchers isn't MY idea of hard work... -- jd) Americans admire someone who screws up as publicly as she did and digs herself out of it. (Not that any article written about her here is going to let her forget her bad times. Nope, they all have at least a paragraph about her "indiscretions" and "poor financial management", but then they paint a shining picture of her more recent accomplishments). There are plenty of second (and third and fourth) acts in American life. We just never let you forget the mistakes.

However, this is not the tangent I meant to go on. (ed - well, THERE'S a shock -- jd) The program King and Country was profiling an area of England called Bury St. Edmunds. And in their cultured British voices, they were talking about the founding of an abbey there around the cult of St. Edmund, a Saxon (I think) king who was killed by the Danes. However, it was the manner of this that caught my attention. This female historian was going on in her terribly proper manner about the political situation blah blah blah, when I start hearing terms like "scourged" and "beheaded". This caught my attention. Seems the Danes weren't content to just kill the guy, they had to make an example out of the fella. First they whipped the skin off him, then they cut off his head in a rather violent manner (as opposed to a more gentile manner of beheading, don't ask me what that is? Anesthesia, perhaps?) and tossed it in the bushes. Wow. Then it turns out he may have been betrayed by an engaged couple who happened to be crossing over a bridge that was the king's hiding place. Can you imagine that discussion?

"Look there, dear. What's that reflected in the water?"
"Why, it looks like gold spurs, pumpkin."
"Only the king wears golden spurs, love."
"So he does. Let's turn the bloody bastard in to the Danes, they're just around the bend."
"Oh, yes, let's."

"Course, he got off easy compared to Edward III (or was he the second. I get my Roman Numerals mixed up sometimes. The British keep naming their monarchs the same names. It gets confusing to a Yank.) (ed - but cheaper on statues. Just stock a couple of names and a bunch of Roman numerals, and you're set in the statuary business for a long time -- jd). You remember Eddy, don't ya? He was the English king who, well, let's just say he like to play with boys. (Not that he was the only one. The first Stuart king of England was said to suffer from the same predilection) (ed - oh, sure, I thought we invented that over here. -- jd) He was the son of a real he-man, Edward "Long Shanks", much beloved by the English, not so much by the Welsh and the Scots. Anyway, his courtiers and his wife got fed up with his boy toys at court and inflicted upon his royal arse the traditional "cure" for homosexuality. They shoved a red hot poker up his plumbing. Yes, he died. (ed - I would interject a "no shit" here but that would be just about as tasteless as using a hot poker ... Oh well - No Shit. -- jd). I guess the cure was to get rid of the problem. Well, that worked. And the Queen served as Regent for her underage son. And they all lived happily ever after. NOT.

Then they profiled a young dandy from the 18th century who offed his pregnant, mole-catcher's daughter girlfriend (ed - that's the "my father's the mole catcher" thing. Gee. There's a line of work I hadn't thought of. -- jd) by bashing her with a shovel. Now, this wouldn't be particularly worthy of comment, except for the punishment that he was sentenced to. Again in their proper British accents and dry academic tones, the historians told of him being hanged. Then cut down and laid upon a table and cut from sternum to groin and the entire town filing by to see his entrails. (Did they think his were going to be different as he had been a murder? Or were they checking to see if his blood was really blue?) Then the skin from his head and ear were preserved (for what purpose, I just don't know) and his skeleton was used by nursing student into the mid-20th century to study anatomy. And they call Americans uncivilized? Sheese!

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

Thursday, September 26, 2002

Friday, September 27, 2002

Saturday, September 28, 2002

Sunday, September 29, 2002

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Copyright © 2001 Ann Dominik. All rights reserved. Complaints about the technical details of this page can be directed to the abused geek who takes care of it for me, and is grossly underpaid for what he does, he thinks. No reproduction without written permission. The opinions and content of this site are my own, and not the responsibility of this site's host, my employer, my pets, my parents or anyone else you may care to blame. Please respect my opinions and I will do the same for you. I may on occasion publish e-mail to me; if you do not wish your mail to be published, please write CONFIDENTIAL or DO NOT PUBLISH at the top of the e-mail. If you would prefer to remain anonymous, please note that as well. If you're incapable of reasoned civilized discourse but feel compelled to correspond with me, I'll be happy to filter your mail out after a few choice comments regarding your ancestors, upbringing, and the likelihood of your family tree not