Yes, Friends, do YOU have a personal "fitness guru" - most people do nowadays, don't they! But ask yourself, do you take the trouble, also, to do regular monthly maintenance on him. It feels like "just one more chore" and "one chore too many", some weeks, doesn't it! But I'm here to tell you, it's well worth those five minutes it might take - you'll see !!!!
And this locally famous guy, showcased in this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire, shows you how it's done - check out page 94!
Kudos, Duke!!!! And the story brings a bit of a lop-sided grin to the cheeks of me and my wife Lois, here in grassy, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, as we get ready to go out this lunchtime.
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
But wait! Most of us these days have more than one "guru" making our lives more satisfying. These days you need a whole pack of gurus to guide you through today's increasingly complex world.
And they all need regular maintenance, don't forget!!
And for a number of ageing women, here on the Hampshire/Surrey county line, their all-purpose guru is local Latin Language teacher Joe, who over the years has collected quite a "harem" of older women, all avid members of his legendary U3A Intermediate Latin for Old Codgers class. The group meets twice a month on Mondays at the local Methodist Church Hall in nearby Haslemere, and they have a meeting scheduled for lunchtime today. This is the group that Lois and I also got involved with a couple of months ago, hoping to "brush up our Intermediate Latin" (as you do!!!).
These women - Joe's "harem" as we call them - all adore their silver-haired, silver-tongued Latin language guru Joe, and I'm sure they'd be glad to give bachelor Joe regular "maintenance", and maybe "sponge him down a bit" after "class", given half a chance!!!
Brrr!!! Yes, we're all keeping our coats on in local Latin Language guru Joe's
classroom in the local Methodist Church Hall, as Joe takes us through
some Latin phrases and figures of speech etc. What madness, isn't it !!!!!
Joe, our teacher, tells us today that this description is an example of "chiasmus", a rhetorical device that Lois and I had never heard of, but it's quite a neat thing.
The programme touts, as one of the great moments of world history, the moment when the great Aztec emperor, Moctezuma II first cast his eyes on Cortes and his Spanish followers, who had arrived from Spain on a quest for gold, in April 1519.
And it'll give you some idea of Joe's "harem", if I tell you that they come up with their own example of "chiasmus" today: Mae West's famous "It's not the men in your life that matters, it's the life in your men!"
Yikes!!!
Yes, "Joe's women", as we call them, would eat mild-mannered men like Joe and me for breakfast, given the chance, no question about that! And it's lucky that I've got Lois to protect me here in the class today, that's for sure!!!
But what a crazy world we live in !!!!
Yes, as you may have gathered, our little class today has been reading Roman historian Sallust's account of Catiline's coup attempt, which ended in failure in 63-62 BC.
And relaxing at home this evening, we think again of Catiline's attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic by force, when we remember the spring of 1982 and another violent take-over plot, one which also failed - eventually.
In the spring of 1982, Lois and I were preparing, with our two young children, to move to the States for my 3-year posting over there. And it was also then that the peaceful British farmers and fishermen of the faraway Falkland Islands suddenly awoke to find their streets full of Argentinian troops, tanks and military vehicles, all speaking Spanish, and driving on the wrong side of the road etc etc! And suddenly, as a civil servant, I was having to do a lot of overtime at the office.
(left) headlines announcing the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falklands,
and (right) us in our new temporary 3-year home in the US,
pictured here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
Crazy times for the Falklands, but in an admittedly smaller way (!), crazy times also for Lois and me personally, because I was having to do overtime at the office instead of helping her prepare for our move across the Atlantic, getting our house ready for tenants etc.
I think it's safe to say that, until "the Argies" landed in Port Stanley, most people in Britain hadn't ever cared too much about Latin America. And we certainly didn't study all about the Aztecs and the Incas etc at school, because, although doubtless fascinating in themselves, they hadn't really made much difference to British history, to put it mildly. Am I right? Or am I right !!!!
And that's why it's so fascinating tonight, for Lois and me to hear all about the Aztecs in the third part of a new BBC TV series, which is covering the rise and fall of various civilisations.
Spanish adventurer Cortes and his followers, who
arrived in Mexico in 1519 on a quest for gold
The Spaniards could have been invaders from Mars from Moctezuma's point of view: white skinned, dressed in thoroughly outlandish clothing, riding horses (animals then unknown to the Aztecs), and carrying outlandish weapons.
And to top it all, these "aliens" were also very hairy, and, to the Aztecs, also very smelly, to put it mildly!!!!
Moctezuma could easily have crushed the Spaniards, but he chooses to let them live, Because in addition to being a strong ruler and a brilliant general, he was also a man who was interested in science, and thirsty for knowledge of all kinds.
And it's interesting also to see Malintzin's importance reflected in Aztec drawings of her in the events that she played a part in.
Big mistake!!!
But who could have predicted that, a year later, in 1520, Moctezuma's massive Aztec empire would eventually fall, after Cortes staged a daring kidnap of the emperor, and, soon afterwards, Moctezuma died, whether at the hands of the Spaniards or at the hands of rebellious subjects, it isn't clear.
Something Lois and I didn't know was that Cortes had the services of an interpreter, when dealing with the Aztecs, a young woman called Malintzin. She was one of 20 teenage girls "gifted" by locals to the Spaniards, when they first landed in Mexico, and Cortes had "assigned" her to one of his captains.
Cortes soon found out that Malintzin could speak Aztec, which was not her native language. And moreover, Malintzin quickly learned to speak Spanish. And as Lois and I always say, isn't it amazing how some people, especially young women, seem to be able to pick up languages so easily?
And it's not long before Cortes spots Malintzin's talents, and he soon begins to see a new role for her.
Lois and I didn't know that the Aztecs liked to paint people large if they were important, and small if they weren't, which is weird, to put it mildly! And they made Malintzin look almost as tall as Cortes, which speaks volumes in itself.
Eventually, next year - 1521 - the Spaniards found that they had had enough of Mexico, and they all went home to Spain. The Aztecs allowed themselves a few weeks of rejoicing, before they discovered the nasty "going away present" that the Spaniards had unwittingly left them - the dreaded small pox, which historians reckoned would probably have killed off about 40% of the native population. And the rest is history.
Fascinating stuff, though, isn't it! [If you say so! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzz!!!!!
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