It's a day for getting down to it today - my so-called "presentation" on Elizabethan English is due in under a month's time, so I make up my mind to essentially finish it today, and then at the weekend put the paragraph numbers on it, and send it to Lynda, group leader of our local U3A "Making of English" group. Lynda is going to lead the meeting next month, which will take place online, using zoom.
Luckily, the other day I took delivery of a book which I ordered online on the Abebooks website, "The Development of Standard English 1300-1800", edited by Laura Wright, and after reading a couple of chapters of that, my presentation more or less "wrote itself", which was nice.
And the best thing is - the other group members won't have read the book, and they're be really impressed by what will appear to be my personal knowledge and research! [It's unethical not to quote your sources, surely! - Ed]
I read a couple of chapters of this book, and after that
my so-called "presentation on Elizabethan English"
more or less "writes itself", which is nice!
Well, all right, if you insist, I'll tell them about the book too! Anyway the good thing is that I've managed to write 11 pages of "spiel", which should keep things going for half an hour at least - hopefully there'll also be questions after that. Will that do, do you think?!!!!
a typical U3A group meeting on zoom
And for the rest of the scheduled 90 minute online meeting, I plan to give all the group members a scene or two each from Shakespeare's "Macbeth" to pontificate about, while I take a well-earned rest and watch them sweat through that "malarkey" !
And that's the way you do it haha !!!!! To be honest, I think I've spent far too much time on this already. I do have a limit you know haha (again) !!!!!
16:00 After I log off the laptop, Lois and I have a celebratory ice-cream on the patio, before disappearing into the shower.
I'm psyching myself up for a trip to a hospital in Bromsgrove tomorrow morning - it's just a routine appointment for a hip x-ray. I last had a hip x-ray in 2009, which is now 14 years ago, so the records need updating, to put it mildly. On Tuesday I took part in a get-together of 8 or so of my 30 plus cousins, and found out that Roger, my cousin Liz's husband, has had a hip replacement and recommends it enthusiastically. And Susan, my cousin in Monument, Colorado, who is currently in the UK on a visit, told me that her partner Skip has had both his hips done.
my cousin Susan, who lives in Monument, Colorado with partner Skip
Lynda from the U3A "Making of English" group has had it done, and Jeanette, the only genuinely Danish member of mine and Lois's U3A Intermediate Danish group has also had it done. Not to mention our old friend Jen.
Oh dear, now I'm beginning to feel a bit "left out"! So perhaps now the time has come for me - but we'll see !!!!
21:00 We go to bed on an interesting documentary about the fashion and perfume designer Coco Chanel.
As usual, I find that Lois knows a lot about Coco and her life already - is there anything Lois doesn't know!!! What a woman!!!!!
And what a woman Coco was too - my goodness! She was just a born innovator, and everything she touched turned to gold, whether it was her incredibly long time at the top of the fashion designer "tree", or her famous perfume Chanel No. 5, which has stayed around for decades - not literally, you have go keep spraying a bit more out of the bottle from time to time, I believe [You don't say! - Ed].
Chanel No. 5 (five was Coco's "lucky number") was the perfume that on its first appearance immediately just went "viral" and that was in the days before there was even an internet. My goodness (again)! And Coco was also essentially a great "influencer", again before the internet was ever thought of.
And try to count all the famous men Coco went to bed with in her time. We're told in the programme that she behaved just like rich men have always done: you know, the rich men who went from woman to woman picking them up and discarding them for somebody else, without a care in the world.
Coco was a great one for making friends with couples, and then going to bed with the man, while keeping the woman as her friend, which I suppose is a neat trick if you can do it. She actually went on the honeymoon when it came to her pal Misia Sert and her 2nd husband, Spanish artist Josep Maria Sert - my goodness!!!!
And were Coco and Misia also lovers, as the gossip said at the time? Well, the jury's still out on that one, apparently.
But what an instinct Coco showed so effortlessly with her fashion ideas! [This is all new to you, isn't it, Colin, bless you!!! - Ed]
I have to say that I personally prefer women in Coco's sort of simple tailored look - not just her famous LBD (Little Black Dress) but all the other simple "unencumbered" styles that enable women to move freely about, be great little movers, and generally be athletic whenever they need to be.
Don't you agree?!!! So much better than its main competitor - Dior's post-World War II "new look", more feminine and all "Belle Epoque", but with styles that just encouraged women to sit around, maybe looking great, but at the same time hampering them and weighing them down at the same time.
Call me crazy if you like haha!
Coco came from a humble background, and she obviously resented the overbearing attitude that rich and fashionable women showed to her in her early days. However she eventually got a bit of her own back, by using some of these rich fashionable women as her "models", although she said this was purely a commercial decision and always denied it was motivated by revenge.
There were, admittedly, some less salubrious aspects to Coco's life-story, especially when it came to living and working in Occupied France during World War II. She appeared to espouse extreme right wing values for a time, and even tried to wrest control of her perfume brand back from a Jewish family, the Wertheimers, by seeming to make use of the Nazis' anti-Semitic legislation. The astonishing thing, however, is that the Wertheimer family forgave her for this after the war ended.
Fascinating stuff !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment