Things I have learned:
- The Australians have Australia Day, the Americans have the 4th of July, but the British have no such day. They don't know exactly when they were founded and haven't declared any particular day to celebrate their country, so by some strange default, we come to the last night of the Proms. The Proms are a series of concerts that take place over the summer months, and this year the series ended last saturday. The last concert is televised, and as we sat down to watch I was warned that this was "as nationalistic as the Brits get." It's true... there were funny hats and fireworks and anthem singing and more flags than you could shake a stick at (at least not without hitting any of them). Did you know that the graduation march, that middle bit of Pomp and Circumstance, is actually called "Land of Hope and Glory," and, while not the actual National Anthem, it's as British as you can get without mainlining tea?
Also, the only other time they let off fireworks is on Guy Fawkes Night, the 5th of November. Oh! Murder and plotting! Lets set off fireworks to celebrate!!
- British commercials are messed up. There are many of them that I just.... don't... get. They make NO sense and some of them seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the actual product offered. "I've been all over, just like chocolate McVittie's crackers!" Wth?
Some are hysterically funny, however, and I wish to share one of my favorites. It's for a TV program, and is completely ridiculous:
Smack the Pony Commercial. Be sure to watch till the end.
For those who don't do YouTube, Can't be bothered, or for when the link goes out of season,
So the commercial opens in a hair salon, where a row of women are getting their hair done by other women. In the background an arm holding a sponge is just finishing covering the window with a thick layer of soap. Music akin to "Bad to the Bone" starts playing on the radio, and the squeegee runs across the top of the window, revealing a handsome face. The hairdressers look up, but keep dressing. The song gets louder and the girls get more and more distracted as the squeegee swipes across a few more times, revealing a topless, rather cut man. Hairdressing all but stops as the man squeegees across the bottom of the window, revealing a pair of muscular bare thighs. All the girls are now rather invested in watching as the man narrows the patch of soap to a square over his manly region. He then makes a slow swipe across, revealing a pair of boxers with a massive bulge in them. The girls are nearly drooling as the very last strip of soap is slowly squeegeed away to reveal....
A fluffy white kitten's head peeking out of the top of the front of the boxers.
The girls all awwwww as the song ends.
Flipping hysterical.
Things I was going to post about last time, but forgot to:
-In Edinburgh I had vegetarian Haggis, which is something i never would have expected. It was pretty good, but had a but too much pepper in it.
- The Lake District is GORgeous! If you ever come to England, you MUST go. It's all long lakes and steep hills and windey roads and sheep on the path and green and clouds and beauty.
-We visited the town where Beatrix Potter lived, and went into the little museum. She was really quite a good artist, and a rather astounding lady.
In More Recent News:
-Matt left last Sunday, and after we dropped him off, we went to see the Royal Apartments at Windsor. They are pretty spectacular. I adored the Lantern Lobby, and the doorknobs were fanTAStic, little bronze models of roses and St. George slaying the dragon. The room where they displayed their collection of drawings was also pretty great. They have 600 of Da Vinci's sketches stored at Windsor, and they had four of them out on display, but I wish I could have seen more. They had some great things on display, swords and burnooses and jackets and arms of all sorts. It was quite cool.
- I went in to London to see the National Gallery on Tuesday. It was a huge collection of paintings from the 13th century up to the early 1900s. I loved the modern impressionist work, and the medieval work, but the 17th through 18th centuries are Ssssooooooooo boring when seen en masse. It's portrait after portrait after classical scene after allegory after portrait, all beautifully and painstakingly done, but all so similar they just sort of blend together. It was a huge relief when I came upon a painting of a dragon eating some guy's face.
Most of my favorite pieces they didn't have post cards of or they weren't on display and of course I wasn't allowed to take photos, so I had to take names and titles and I'll try to find a poster or picture or something online somewhere.
The dragon painting actually spawned a story idea, so I've been scribbling on that for a few days and I'll post it when I'm done for critique.
- I'm in love with the Natural HIstory Museum in Oxford. It is one of the most stunning buildings I have ever seen, all painted iron pillars with decorative iron flowers soaring up to the glass roof, arched like a cathedral. It was full of skeletons and stuffed creatures and mounted bugs and pieces of rocks. Some of the things you could touch. The Pitt Museum connected to it is the very antithesis of the NHM, all dark and stuffed to the very gills with artifacts from cultures all over the world. There are so many cases stuffed into the main room that if you were fat you would never be able to see it all as there are some very narrow spots. There was even more stuff in the rows of drawers under the glass cases and hung on the walls and from the ceiling so high up you could hardly see them. It was the kind of things that people in the 1800s collected from around the world in the interest of furthering knowledge, and cover a huge range of subjects and cultures. I could spend a year there and not see everything. There was also an exhibition of book binding at the library which was quite good. I have to go back to Oxford at some point and have a look in the library itself. Apparently they have a huge collection of rare and old books. :D
And I don't feel like posting about yesterday or today.
So you'll just have to wait a bit.
Also, the only other time they let off fireworks is on Guy Fawkes Night, the 5th of November. Oh! Murder and plotting! Lets set off fireworks to celebrate!!
- British commercials are messed up. There are many of them that I just.... don't... get. They make NO sense and some of them seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the actual product offered. "I've been all over, just like chocolate McVittie's crackers!" Wth?
Some are hysterically funny, however, and I wish to share one of my favorites. It's for a TV program, and is completely ridiculous:
Smack the Pony Commercial. Be sure to watch till the end.
For those who don't do YouTube, Can't be bothered, or for when the link goes out of season,
So the commercial opens in a hair salon, where a row of women are getting their hair done by other women. In the background an arm holding a sponge is just finishing covering the window with a thick layer of soap. Music akin to "Bad to the Bone" starts playing on the radio, and the squeegee runs across the top of the window, revealing a handsome face. The hairdressers look up, but keep dressing. The song gets louder and the girls get more and more distracted as the squeegee swipes across a few more times, revealing a topless, rather cut man. Hairdressing all but stops as the man squeegees across the bottom of the window, revealing a pair of muscular bare thighs. All the girls are now rather invested in watching as the man narrows the patch of soap to a square over his manly region. He then makes a slow swipe across, revealing a pair of boxers with a massive bulge in them. The girls are nearly drooling as the very last strip of soap is slowly squeegeed away to reveal....
A fluffy white kitten's head peeking out of the top of the front of the boxers.
The girls all awwwww as the song ends.
Flipping hysterical.
Things I was going to post about last time, but forgot to:
-In Edinburgh I had vegetarian Haggis, which is something i never would have expected. It was pretty good, but had a but too much pepper in it.
- The Lake District is GORgeous! If you ever come to England, you MUST go. It's all long lakes and steep hills and windey roads and sheep on the path and green and clouds and beauty.
-We visited the town where Beatrix Potter lived, and went into the little museum. She was really quite a good artist, and a rather astounding lady.
In More Recent News:
-Matt left last Sunday, and after we dropped him off, we went to see the Royal Apartments at Windsor. They are pretty spectacular. I adored the Lantern Lobby, and the doorknobs were fanTAStic, little bronze models of roses and St. George slaying the dragon. The room where they displayed their collection of drawings was also pretty great. They have 600 of Da Vinci's sketches stored at Windsor, and they had four of them out on display, but I wish I could have seen more. They had some great things on display, swords and burnooses and jackets and arms of all sorts. It was quite cool.
- I went in to London to see the National Gallery on Tuesday. It was a huge collection of paintings from the 13th century up to the early 1900s. I loved the modern impressionist work, and the medieval work, but the 17th through 18th centuries are Ssssooooooooo boring when seen en masse. It's portrait after portrait after classical scene after allegory after portrait, all beautifully and painstakingly done, but all so similar they just sort of blend together. It was a huge relief when I came upon a painting of a dragon eating some guy's face.
Most of my favorite pieces they didn't have post cards of or they weren't on display and of course I wasn't allowed to take photos, so I had to take names and titles and I'll try to find a poster or picture or something online somewhere.
The dragon painting actually spawned a story idea, so I've been scribbling on that for a few days and I'll post it when I'm done for critique.
- I'm in love with the Natural HIstory Museum in Oxford. It is one of the most stunning buildings I have ever seen, all painted iron pillars with decorative iron flowers soaring up to the glass roof, arched like a cathedral. It was full of skeletons and stuffed creatures and mounted bugs and pieces of rocks. Some of the things you could touch. The Pitt Museum connected to it is the very antithesis of the NHM, all dark and stuffed to the very gills with artifacts from cultures all over the world. There are so many cases stuffed into the main room that if you were fat you would never be able to see it all as there are some very narrow spots. There was even more stuff in the rows of drawers under the glass cases and hung on the walls and from the ceiling so high up you could hardly see them. It was the kind of things that people in the 1800s collected from around the world in the interest of furthering knowledge, and cover a huge range of subjects and cultures. I could spend a year there and not see everything. There was also an exhibition of book binding at the library which was quite good. I have to go back to Oxford at some point and have a look in the library itself. Apparently they have a huge collection of rare and old books. :D
And I don't feel like posting about yesterday or today.
So you'll just have to wait a bit.