Plaid Frogs and Englishmen
De-stressing with some silliness...
Still with me? Great! As the calendar pages churn in this wild whirlwind of a time, let’s take a break for a little lightness, shall we?
SCIENCE ARTICLE: A Fashionable Leap Forward...
“I thought it was a scrap of flannel,” said Dr. Elise van Drohm, lead researcher on the expedition. “Then it blinked and leapt like a tiny, toxic fashion statement.”
If I could discover cool stuff like this I, too, would become a Dr. Elise, and join a jungle expedition! Possibly!
SIR NOEL POKES FUN AT THE BRITISH EMPIRE…
They say you never really die until the last person alive who remembers you perishes. Some of us (ahem, me) just hope our personal children will even dimly recall our existence in their latter years. Others pass into legend, such as the prodigiously gifted Noel Coward…
SONG: MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN
I was lucky enough to see a production of Coward’s masterpiece Private Lives at the Gate Theatre in Dublin when the girls and I were in Ireland in 2017. The hilarious tale of two dysfunctional high-society couples (Amanda and Elyot, Victor and Sybil) has aged well…and (bonus) the actress who played Sybil is from County Longford (my fam’s ancestral home)!
Here’s a pic from the only Coward show I ever performed in…
One of these days, when you’re idly scrolling online (not that YOU ever do), treat yourself to a search of the Disney Studio’s fabulous “Silly Symphonies.” There are quite a few videos. Here’s a favorite of mine…
SHORT ANIMATED VIDEO: MERBABIES
WEIRD FOODS I LOVE (PART DEUX): HAGGIS!
It’s been a minute since I wrote about a Weird Food I Love…
Though not a Scot, I truly enjoyed the food we ate there last year, including haggis. Now you may, as I did, think of haggis as an unsavory mix of random lamb innards, encased in a sheep’s stomach. HOWEVER, if you buy a can of cooked haggis (sans stomach pouch), you’ll find it quite tasty (just don’t read the ingredient list too closely). Haggis bonbons are super popular on Edinburgh restaurant menus. Here you go (for your next Burns Dinner )
Steve sent me this poem, written by the immortal Robbie Burns. I don’t think THIS is what made him immortal (try Auld Lang Syne instead), but here it is anyway…
ADDRESS TO A HAGGIS by Robert Burns
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang ‘s my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An’ cut ye up wi’ ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle.
Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!
“Great Chieftain O’ the Puddin-Race!” Ho ho!! I am now inspired to pen an ode to…mozzarella sticks??
“Ah, ye fattening, chewy, stringy cheese delight/Ye quench my appetizer appetite…” (and so on and so forth)…
BLOG PREVIEW: GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE
Time’s a’ wastin’ (doesn’t that sound a bit Robert Burnsian?) I didn’t really shift into gear as a world traveler until I was in my forties. So now the question becomes—do I want to see many places once, or a few, several times?
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“Anyone can buy a car or a night on the town. Most of us shell our days like peanuts. One in a thousand can look at the world with amazement. I don't mean gawking at the Chrysler Building. I'm talking about the wing of a dragonfly. The tale of the shoeshine. Walking through an unsullied hour with an unsullied heart.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility
Let’s slow down our peanut-shelling this week, friends. Are we really in that much of a hurry to zip through life? Let’s not miss the plaid frogs!
