Friday August 7th 2020

09:00 This afternoon Lynda’s U3A Middle English group is holding its monthly meeting via zoom. This month we’ve been reading a bit of Thomas Malory’s massively long poem, Le Morte d’Arthur, published by William Caxton’s shiny new printing press company in London in 1485.

Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur” (1485)

We’ve all been reading an interesting bit of the story – the bit where Arthur manages to pull the special “sword in the stone” out, in a London churchyard, thus proving that he’s the destined next king of England.

The nobility at the time were all quite annoyed about this, because Arthur was thought to be one of the common sort, and generally not noble enough to be king. All the noble lords tried their hands at getting the sword out of the stone on several occasions, and when they couldn’t manage it, they just agreed to postpone the decision about choosing the next king, and come back later in the year to try again to pull the sword out.

Arthur must have quite annoying to them, because each time all the noble lords tried their hands at extracting the sword without success, Arthur not only showed them he could get the sword out easily, but he then made it worse by putting it back in the stone and quickly pulling it out again – and he did this repeatedly, just  to drive home the point – what an annoying  young brat!!!

"Easy!" 
- Young Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone

“with ease”, to the annoyance of all the top lords

- what an annoying brat!!!!!

11:00 Lois meanwhile collects a bucket of greengages from our tree at the bottom of the garden and makes 10 lbs of greengage jam – yum yum!

Lois makes 10 lbs of greengage jam - yum yum!

14:30 Lynda’s zoom meeting starts and we come across some interesting words, as always.

Not many people know, that, while the process of choosing the next king was still in progress, the sword in the stone was guarded 24/7 by a bunch of knights, to ensure there was no monkey business – and the authorities covered both the sword and stone under a “pavilion”:  which was some sort of large tent.

We discovered that the word “pavilion” comes from the French for a butterfly – “papillon”. Was this because the tent flaps looked like the wings of a butterfly? Or was it that the tents themselves looked like they had two wings and a bit in the middle – we decide we’re not sure about this, so the jury’s still out on that one.

Is this the shape that made medieval people call tents “pavilions”(butterflies) ?

Our group is not sure – so the jury’s still out on this one.

The barons certainly don't like Arthur and don't want him to be king, but "the Commons" certainly do like him, and at a meeting of "Lords and Commons", "the Commons" threaten to "slay" anyone who opposes the young man's coronation, and hey presto the decision is made - so it's "King Arthur" - and by a landslide.

A good compromise? Or an early example of democracy in Britain, perhaps?

20:00 We spend the evening watching a bit of TV, the third and final episode of Miriam Margoyles’s series, “Almost Australian”.

Miriam has lived in Australia for a number of years now and has become a citizen. Lois and I can see why she connects so readily with Australians – she’s cheeky, foul-mouthed, direct and with an earthy sense of humour. She’s helped also by the fact that she’s a famous face – everybody, even aborigines in the remotest outback regions has seen her in the Harry Potter films, where she plays Professor somebody-or-other. Lois and I haven’t got a clue about Harry Potter – oh dear!

And at last we get to see Miriam’s “koala face” – aaawwwwwwwwww!!!

Lois and I are collecting quite an assemblage of the world's best "koala faces" -  here are just a few examples:

Flashback to November 2019 and one of  British ex-cabinet minister 

Michael Portillo's train journeys in Australia. 

Michael's "koala face" is very much in evidence here

Lois's "koala face" while watching Michael’s programme

included for comparison - Sheldon's version of the "koala face" in "Big Bang Theory"

and Lois' previous version from our visit to Victoria State in 2016

- still the best in my opinion, but maybe I’m biased!

We have also started to collect examples of koalas' "Michael faces".

here, by contrast, we see a koala's "Michael face"

Many of the koalas in Queensland are sadly infected with chlamydia, but there is one particular region where the koalas seem to be naturally immune to the disease, so researchers are studying this sub-group to see if it will help with treating the rest of the state’s koala population.

22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzzz!!!!