A Digression Thread: or old furniture in a new house.

Don't you wish you could have a flagpole and a pennant, and whenever you were home, somebody would fly it in honor of you.

I'm not so fond of the monarchy, but I think that this is nice.

So, present company excepted, what is the best thing England has offered the world?

Its Literature? A strong argument could be made, but everybody has literature. How many countries have these cool "I'm Here" pennants?

I do that all the time. Not a pennant, exactly, but a mat in front of the door. It says 'Buzz Off' and everyone knows I'm home.

Oh!

Well, I don't remember the pennant being an invitation!

(methinks deb's getting out of rehab coincided with the launching of this site. yep, methinks that, meduzz. mefuzz. mebuzz. yep, let's see if that wee stoned rabbit deb can help a dog out with a buzz. abuzz.


hmm...........)

If she's out of rehab, how come she's still smokin'?

I´d put Gin high up on the list,Piffka.

Perhaps Deb is not smokin but token.

Not our Deb!

Gin? OK-- that's good. What's that blue... Sapphire Blue Gin? Definitely a touch of ambrosia there.

Hmmmmmm - Patio wants a buzz?

Does the li'l doggy beg?

I would not be at ALL sure what the bunny's smoking there, Piffka.......heehee...

The English didn't give us gin. The English first imported gin from Holland, where it originated, before starting to distill their own. That's why some gin brands still are labeled 'Holland Gin' even though it may have been made in the USA.

I used to have mirror shades back in the pleistocene era when I was about to reach my majority.

Two disconnected thoughts. I hope that's digressive enough.

Well Andy, what's the best thing to come from England?


---I just knew YOU'd be a mirror-shaded guy. ---


Deb, it does look hand-rolled, not that I've ever seen anything like that, but I've heard....

Piffka, for some reason Shakespeare's sonnets spring to mind. But I'll give it some more thought.

The sonnets?!? The plays, man, the plays!!

(Lordamighty)

Does George Hamilton get high off hippie blood in Love at First Bite?

(since this be the disjointed thread, so's to speek.)

Oh good.

Hmmm, let me see...

When in disgrace, in heaven's and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state;
And trouble deaf heaven with bootless cries (I love that line)
And look upon myself and curse my fate.

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possessed.
Desiring this man's...


-hmmm, can't remember any more -

OK. There's one for sonnets. Was the form determined there? I'd count that as a higher thing.

I have of late
But wherefore i know not
Lost all my mirth
This goodly frame,
The earth, look you,
Seems to me but
A sterile promontory
This brave o'erhanging firmament
This majestical roof
Fretted with golden fire
While it appears to me
No other than a foul and
Infested congregation of vapors
What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How infinite in faculty
In form and moving how
Express and admirable
In action, how like an angel
In apprehension how like a god
The beauty of the world
The paragon of animals . . .[/b]

(A little bit of Danish irony from the pen of the Bard . . .)

My liege, and madam -
To expostulate what majesty should be,
What duty is, why day is day, night night,
And time is time were nothing but to waste
Night, day, and time. Therefore, since brevity is
The soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs
And outward flourishes, I will be brief.
Your noble son is mad. -- Mad call I it,
For to define define true madness what is it
But to be nothing else but mad.
But let that go...


(a bit of wit, though i'm pulling it from memory and it doesn't seem to scan quite right, so i'm sure i've muffed it. anyway, off to organic chemistry.)

Hi! I'm back from a full day of driving, shopping and going to my own class.

I just love it when you quote.... however, if you'll read more closely, I did say that I didn't think we should count literature since everybody has some... we just can't read it (most of us) because we're monoglots.

However, when I read "What a piece of work is man" I admit that chills ran up my spine. It is a wonderful thing.

Is there anything besides literature? I'm thinking Spode....

Cricket!

Australia vs England cricket is on in Deb's home town as we speak.

Piffka, the sonnet form, alas, does not originate in Merrie England (any more than gin does). Like the Mafia, it is a gift to us from sunny Sicily where its most famous practitioner, of course, was Petrarch.

Patio bow-wow, yeah, the plays are pretty good too.

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date...
etc...

Hmmm, well we're chalking up the English to great at... borrowing.

PD -- I'm wondering, are there really two "defines" in that third line? Maybe that's why it doesn't scan.

MA - What would we do without you? You know all these things that we need to know. I love facts though I cannot retain them long. I remember I know them, but I forget the particulars.

MARGO!!! Cricket??? Soccer!!!!
There is certainly a claim to soccer... cricket? OK, what is it again? I can never figure out what they're doing, but I love the oval field.