What a day Lois and I have had today! This morning I'm plunged into the filthy life lived by our kings and queens in days gone by - it's our local U3A Making of English group monthly meeting tomorrow afternoon (Friday) and Cynthia has chosen some accounts of astonishing examples of royal debauchery from the 17th century: accounts which she, Joe, Maggie, Barb and I are asked to dissect linguistically during our scheduled zoom session tomorrow.
Lois and I didn't know about all the shenanigans that went on when the Danish king, Christian IV, used to visit the British court in the early 1600's, and James I and the British court typically used to put on "masques" or "entertainments" to keep Christian focussed, "masques" being a sort of historical or mythological pageant, combined with some sort of mini-theatrical performance.
a typical 17th century "masque"
We think on reflection that the problem was the quantities of alcohol consumed during these royal visits - it's said that the nobles of the court "wallowed in beastly delights", while the ladies of the court "abandoned their sobriety" and were "seen to roll about in intoxication", all thanks to money generously provided by Parliament.
Lois says it's all down to the Danes being so staunchly protestant - young British monarchs were ideally always looking to wed a monarch of equal status, which meant they had to be "foreign" ones. And of course they also had to be protestant, by law, so it's a no-brainer isn't it.
And already I'm waiting impatiently to hear about the shed's dimensions, but no details are given, which is frustrating. A bad omission, and quite an oversight.
But did the MPs, voters and taxpayers of the day know just what the royals were doing with their hard-earned cash, I wonder.
I think we should be told, don't you?
an excerpt from Sir John Harington's account
And during one performance of the most popular "masque", which was intended to portray the arrival of the Queen of Sheba at the court of King Solomon, the court ladies playing the symbolic female parts of Faith, Hope, Charity, Victory and Peace, were obviously falling over themselves and too drunk to be capable of performing.
a 17th-century depiction of the arrival of Queen Sheba
at the court of King Solomon, or possibly vice-versa
"Hope" was too drunk to speak her lines, and had to leave the room briefly, and on her return she and "Faith" were "sick and spewing in the lower hall". "Victory" had to be carried out and "laid to sleep on the steps of an anti-chamber".
"Peace" made her entrance, and tried to "cosy up" to the King. And when attendants tried to pull her away, she set about them with her olive-branch, striking them on their heads with the branch, the very symbol of peace.
What utter madness !!!!
Not that the Danish delegation behaved any better on these visits - King Christian tried to have sex with the Countess of Nottingham, Margaret Howard, and when her husband tried to intervene, he gestured at him crudely, "making the horns".
I ask Lois what "making the horns" actually looked like, and whether it was "a Danish thing". And she found an illustration that gives a rough idea.
"making the horns", a crude gesture of insult, such as
Christian IV of Denmark made to the Earl of Nottingham,
when he tried to stop him having sex with his wife, the Countess
But what a crazy world the royal family lived in, in those far-off days!!!!
Lois and I end up our session with a brief discussion of "what is it with the Danes and the British Royal Family?". I expect you've had similar debates yourselves, haven't you - go on, admit it!
We can think of 3 British monarchs that had Danish consorts, the most recent example being Edward VII (reigned 1901-1910) who married Alexandra of Denmark. However Prince Philip, consort to our late Queen Elizabeth II, had Danish ancestry, as you probably know.
flashback to 1863: the wedding of the future Edward VII
to Alexandra of Denmark
"Try the Danes first!", that's probably what their parents used to tell them!
See? And that's the way you do it!
It's one of the best kept secrets of so-called "IT support" isn't it, when you come to think about it!
In this sequence, Brockway talks to Dylan's granddaughter about Dylan's love of sheds or shedophilia, to use the technical term. A big factor was undoubtedly his wife Caitlin's love of holding parties, and Dyland's desire to get a bit of peace and quiet occasionally - and I think we can all understand that, can't we!
And it's a real treat tonight for Lois and me to get a glimpse of Dylan's "writing shed", which isn't normally open to the public.
11:00 Meanwhile, as Lois and I sit on the sofa discussing these weighty matters, Adrian and his brother are busy with the construction of our shed-base and the path that will take us to it, whenever we feel like spending a bit of time in a shed - you know what I mean!
13:00 Adrian and his brother clear off after lunch, but by then they had had the best of the day's weather, that's for sure - it was actually sunny at times, which was nice, and when it was raining, they had their "gazebo" to work under, so that was all good.
And Lois and I can have an uninterrupted afternoon in bed, as the rain lashes down - all memories of sunlight now erased from our heads.
And this time we won't need to stop at 3pm to make Adrian and his brother a cup of "builders' tea" - which I reckon is about five times the strength of the more genteel tea that we ourselves drink. But then they need it for the work they do, don't they - be fair!
typical label on an "eighty bag" pack
of Builders Tea, 5 times the strength of ordinary tea
20:00 We settle down to watch some TV, but we can't seem to get any "catch-up" programming on the ROKU stick plugged into our TV set.
Lois now goes through agonies of regret and mental self-flagellation, because this morning she was dusting the TV and all the things that are plugged into it - and this normally triggers a malfunction of our whole lives from the point of view of the electronic sphere.
these are the wires that bring us our catch-up TV:
"Dust at your peril!" seems to be the message - what madness !!!!
But here's a handy tip - check your phone before you blame the dusting. I do this tonight, and I can see that it's the internet itself which isn't "coming through", so I go through the detailed "fix" or "hack", that I learnt originally from the 1990's sitcom "The IT Crowd".
Do you know this one?
21:00 With our internet feed restored, there's just time before bed to watch a bit of "Dylan's Walks" on BBC4, part of the channel's "Dylan Thomas Night".
Neither Lois nor I knew that Welsh poet Dylan Thomas had a special "writing shed" constructed at his favourite hideaway spots at Laugharne in Camarthenshire.
And it's nice tonight to see the programme's presenter, Welsh weatherman Derek Brockway, arriving in Laugharne by boat, just as Dylan did on his first visit here in the 1930's.
Can YOU estimate the shed's dimensions from the height of presenter Brockway and of Dylan's granddaughter, as seen in the above picture? Please send me your estimates on postcards - I'll be looking out for our local postman every day, so make it quick if you can!
Why do I want to know? Well, you've probably guessed that I'm already getting ideas for making our own planned shed into a "part-writing-shed" right here in Malvern.
The only issue is whether there'll be room even for a smallish desk, after all the garden tools, lawn-mowers, bags of fertilizer etc have been "shoe-horned into it" - we've planned a 6ft by 4ft shed, because we don't want it to dominate the garden unduly, a decision which in retrospect is beginning to look a little hasty.
a typical 6ft x 4ft shed
I wonder.....!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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