Hardwick Hall
We’re trying to figure out a way back to London so as to embark on a tour of the great houses. That includes Hardwick Hall – Elizabeth Cavendish (aka Bess of Hardwick) outlived four husbands (and Elizabeth I by 5 years), then built her masterpiece. She was the Frank Lloyd Wright of her day (look at all the damn glass … in 1582!):
Fucking Wow, man.
@Promnight: I do so want to see these houses … call me an Anglophile – go ahead!
@blogenfreude: Oh please, I wasn’t an English major, I was an English Literature major, I was an anglophile before I became a francophile. Lately I am just a boobophile.
@Promnight: What British History I had from school I renewed by watching Schama’s History of Britain … AGAIN. I can’t get enough of his take – he’s spot on.
@blogenfreude: I do love a stately home, I must say.
@Mistress Cynica: Surely you know Quentin Crisp’s fabulous line, “I am one of the stately homos of England?”
@blogenfreude: I don’t know from the history of England, but I know the history of the English language, from old east frisian, the influence of norse and norman french, and academic latin, from linguistics courses. History, thats the history of the upper classes, what petty squabbles the nobles were involved in with their cousins, the history of the language, that reflects the real history of the ordinary people, the people. The Norman Conquest? Some conquest, it affected the people not at all, obviously, because the people never stopped speaking english, and french died out.
The Vikings, on the other hand, they were not just barbaric marauders, as depicted, they settled down and established their typical dairy-based herding agriculture in the area north and east of London, and they had a far greater impact on the language spoken in England than the Norman French. All of our pronouns and articles, he she, it, some of the most common words spoken in the language, are norse, from the Vikings. Not to mention the names of the days of the week, Frieg’s day, Thor’s day, Tiwuo’s day, all named after Norse gods, its a wonder to me that the US christian fundamentalists, the same ones who are virulently against Halloween because its “pagan,” its a constant wonder to me that the GOP hasn’t proposed legislation to abolish our pagan names for the days of the week, maybe replace them with days named after the founding fathers, or the apostles.
Who’s up for a big fucking G & T? Goddamn, what a long day.
@Promnight: Indeed. I love a stately homo, too.
@Cyn: +1
@RML: make mine a double.
@Mistress Cynica:
HA! me too darling, me too.
@redmanlaw:
i’ll take a double too…..
been up since 3. bella decided it would be a good time to wake me to go out.
@Nabisco:
if you decide to get the bisquets a hound, may i suggest a slightly older pup….one that’s already house trained! what a pain in the ass.
@baked: good tip, but the puppy factor is what would win Ma Nabisco over.
@Prom: “its a constant wonder to me that the GOP hasn’t proposed legislation to abolish our pagan names for the days of the week, maybe replace them with days named after the founding fathers, or the apostles.”
Beckday? Rushday? Meh, they’ve already got Hump Day.
@baked: CRATE!!
Let me put that another way.
Get a CRATE and train her in the fucking CRATE. She will love you 4evah.
Over and out,
Mum.
Dear All,
you have got to be kidding me. Srsly.
I am speechless. Overnight you’ve turned a perfectly respectable blorgue into Masterpiece Theatre. Having seen this I will have to go back to bed and try to forget but before I do I would just like to point out that all these miladies and milords are the Limey equivalent of Newt Gingrinch and Orly Tait. They were the trustafarians of their day who spent their lives persecuting the artists who, lacking copyright law, were forced to spend their lives painting their fucking houses and writing music to be played while they pestorked each other. What we go ooh and ahh about now was merely the Trump Tower of its day. They built in stone: we build in milar: same diff.
The English nobility were all scum: man, woman, and child. They are still scum: eg Fergie and that nitwit she was married to and also Charles, Prince of Wales and that poor woman who got killed.
Bloodsucking. Worthless. Scum.
@Benedick: Darling, let us oooh and ahhh at all the pretty whitewashed tombs without judging. As a newbie country, we’re pretty susceptible to that whole History thing.
@flippin eck: To steal a line from Eddie Izzard, “I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.”
@mellbell: He was great in that show where he played a gypsy, who had stolen I think it was a lawyer’s identity.
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