[arthur] the grail, defenders of the faith and so on

The Quest for the Grail

Is Defender of the Faith the same as Defender of the Faiths? Will Charles and Camilla defend the faith or the faiths? Is the evidence for the latter his royal princeness's own words or is it:

...it has become increasingly common to see the prince donning both Jewish and Muslim skullcaps in visits to Jewish and Muslim communal events and putting on religious ceremonial garb for the openings of Sikh and Hindu temples...

Well, I've actually done the first two myself but was I worshipping another G-d? I don't think so. Moving on, did the following dialogue take place at his investiture as Prince of Wales?

Queen Elizabeth II: "This dragon gives you your power, your throne and your own authority." Charles: "I am now your Liege-man, and worthy of your earthly worship."

Is this by any chance based on Revelations 13:2?

"And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority."

Nah, has to be a different other dragon. After all, the dragon is associated with Wales and Wales with the Britons, the Britons with Arthur and Arthur with Graham Chapman. That's all right then.

Speaking of Arthur:

Charles [Charles Philip Arthur George] and William [William Arthur Philip Louis] are both Arthurs ... although Arthurs generally come a cropper vis a vis the kingship.

And would it be Charles anyway? The Queen has the right to abdicate but not to hand the throne to William. On the other hand, age does come into it, twenty years from now.

Will Arthur return in Britain's hour of need?

Could this [below] have been the fabled round table? Is Arthur actually this man, thereby fulfilling the tale of the strolling minstrel? And what's the connection with Sparta?



Best stop or this will go on forever.

[thought for the day] tuesday evening

My best friend in this country has a particular set against the humble cucumber and I find him supported in this by Samuel Johnson, who said, on the 5th of October, 1773:

A cucumber should be well sliced and dressed with pepper and vinegar and then thrown out as good for nothing.

Well I don't know about that - I'm quite partial to the odd cucumber and a lady friend of mine seems quite partial to them as well.

Clearly this is a debate without resolution.

[hiatus] admin and guest posters needed

Here is the original Higham Guest Posting "Team" and it needs updating:

Ruthie Not Saussure FlyingRodent dirty dingus Gracchi Croydonian Matt Martin CityUnslicker Praguetory Tom Paine Trixy Devil's Kitchen Ian Appleby Welshcakes Limoncello Colin Campbell Bryan Appleyard Mr Eugenides jmb Reactionary Snob

Some fine people here have departed the sphere and yet others might be shocked to find themselves here at all. Clearly it's time to add to the list, taking into account recent regulars to this site and also taking into account the hiatus starting late Sunday afternoon, May 25th.

If you feel you could do a post or two - many bloggers see it as an opportunity to post unusual things they might not otherwise get around to on their own blogs - this will carry us through the hiatus and would be interesting to readers.

If you would be willing to help out, please e-mail me at jameshigham@mail.com before the weekend and I'll send the invitation.

What I'd ask is that if you do post, please use the justify function and double space between paragraphs and could you keep the graphics to under 80kb and maximum width 500px? Bigger pics should not be uploaded "Left" as text tends to creep up the right side and looks ugly. Better to upload "Center", even if it is only 350px wide.

I'll need to have an admin during that time as well who can edit things and it needs to be a blog savvy person who comes here pretty regularly. Tom Paine did a sterling job last time.

If you're willing to lumber yourself with that task, could you please also e-mail me?

Big ask but the result might be good, as it was last time:

Bryan Appleyard - Help!
Buckeye - Indianapolis
Buckeye - Lay off Sauce
CityUnslicker - Short Trip
Colin Campbell - Public
Colin Campbell - Strap
Delicolor - Gordon Brown
Delicolor - Kingdom Keys
Delicolor - Shading Obscur
Deogolwulf - Nothing Avails
Devil's Kitchen - Flooding
Devil's Kitchen - Prions
Fabian - Marketizing
Flying Rodent - Love PM
Flying Rodent - The Ref
Gracchi - Celebrity
Gracchi - Football WW2
Gracchi - Spell Aisle
Gracchi - Wallace & G
Ian Appleby - Loveletter
James at Ellee's [1]
James at Ellee's [2]
JMB - Funerals & Life
JMB - Immigrant Exp
JMB - The Latin
Lord Nazh - Gaza
L'Ombre - African Obscur
L'Ombre - Blue Wave
L'Ombre - Price of Oil
L'Ombre - Stem Cells
Martin - Brit Economy
Martin - Hypermobility
Martin - NW Order
Martin - Productivity
Mr Eugenides - Greece
Praguetory - Moscow
Ruthie - True Journalism
Tom Paine - Elderly
Tom Paine - EU
Tom Paine - Why Blog?
Trixy - Probably Should
Welshcakes - Epistle
Welshcakes - Moving Day
Welshcakes - Urban Wet

Hope you enjoy some of these.

England's Problem Wife

Pic courtesy Theo


Martin Kelly leaps into print again with a timely reminder on an LPW:

The recent brouhaha concerning concerning Cherie Blair's memoirs places the lady quite firmly in that dubious historical category marked 'Leaders' Problem Wives'.

Some LPW's, such as Marie-Antoinette, achieve the status by being at best misunderstood by, or at worst indifferent to, the people. The late Queen of the French was never guilty of being the bloodthirsty incestuous lesbian she was widely thought to be; other LPW's like, say, Winnie Mandela and Madame Mao, might have a slightly harder time beating their respective historical raps.

Mrs. Blair joins the club for no other reason than that she has thought herself and her doings to be of some interest. Whether this has been motivated by vanity, or just the simple character fault, common amongst lawyers, of not knowing when not to talk, is anyone's guess; and it seems to have been a gross mistake against taste and good sense.

However, the apparent peculation and lack of discretion she has broadcast at the top of her voice, from a mouth as wide as the Mersey, show her to be not unlike the LPW she succeeded as the New Girl in the Club.

That was Hillary Rodham Clinton. Just a thought...

[down on the farm] and all that

About bloody time.

[liberty] precious commodity increasingly rationed

There are those who smile at this statue being represented as an icon of personal freedom. That's for you to decide.

I think it was my old mate Simeon Strunsky, in 1944, who said:

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly...

... and this can be taken for various dialectics as well, for example the Hegelian, which is nearly always misrepresented, as stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus ...

... a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis which contradicts or negates the thesis, the tension between the two resolved by a synthesis.

This, in turn, also gives rise to an interpretation which some are wont to call the Hegelian dialectic, which states that governments and virtually any higher body who want to bring in some policy do so via a threefold progression:

1. create a crisis;
2. people demand a solution;
3. government propose a solution which includes the policy they wanted in the first place.

In turn, this idea can be refined to read this way:

1. think of a policy you want, e.g. ID cards and the restriction of personal freedom;
2. go to a group of people designated as the baddies, known for going off the deep end easily and stir them up on their home patch;
3. when they commit atrocities, which somehow they most surprisingly get past your defences to do:
4. wait for the community reaction;
5. draft general draconian laws to counter the perceived threat;
6. thereby put in place that which you wanted in 1. above.

Governments are only the outward manifestation of the people of power behind them. Many of these people take the point of view expressed by Hegel himself, this time correctly quoted from 1830:

Only in the state does man have a rational existence ... Man owes his entire existence to the state and has his being within it alone.

Needless to say I reject this utterly or if not utterly, in large part. Such a philosophy gives rise to tyranny and the constant attempt to reduce the common man to a serf and a malleable serf and that is what we're seeing right now.

Whether you are a businessman just needing the right to trade freely or you are an individual just needing the right to express your opinion without being vilified by powerful lobbies or incarcerated by the state, the desire is the same:

Liberty.