All Purls. No Swine.
Today is the nation’s officially designated Memorial Day. My mother-in-law never called it anything but Decoration Day, and never commemorated it on any day other than May 30 in any given year. The day has an interesting history, and yet its essence today is simple and can be distilled as follows: Let us remember, in all the… Continue reading Memorial Day, 2021
That's a saying we have on Ricochet. It may have been intitated by a former member known as Simon Templar; I'm not sure. In any event, it's become a popular phrase, and we generally try to oblige. One of the must-see sights in Chiang Rai, Thailand is Wat Rong Khun, or the White Temple. It's… Continue reading Photos, Or It Didn’t Happen
Shameless self-promotion alert: Several months ago, I was asked by a couple of Ricochet members if I'd like to appear on their weekly Land of Confusion show, in which they interview one or more other members via a Zoom chat, and then post the results on Ricochet. Things have been a bit hectic for me… Continue reading She Speaks!
She’s the ultimate femme fatale. And it’s one of the oldest stories in the world. The Beautiful Lady Without Pity. (No, for those of you with only rudimentary French, the title doesn't mean The Beautiful Lady Who Never Says Thank You.) The subject of my second-favorite poem by John Keats, which was written in 1819, when Keats was… Continue reading La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Jack Pembroke is a Royal Navy officer badly injured during the Dunkirk evacuation, now assigned to command a minesweeping flotilla in South Africa. Emil Falk commands a Nazi auxiliary cruiser – a disguised and armed merchantman conducting commerce raiding far from Europe. In The Cape Raider, a novel by Justin Fox, the two have a… Continue reading Book Review by Seawriter: Adventure in the Roaring Forties
This is not a post about the merits (or otherwise) of the British monarchy. Nor about how glad the former colony on this side of the pond is, or should be, to have crawled out from under the yoke of it. Nor about what fools these British be for keeping it around, even in its… Continue reading Martin Bashir Gets His Comeuppance, Courtesy of Lord Dyson
Let’s face it, no one really knows exactly when (or even if) Queen Victoria uttered her famous line. Some say that it was in response to an indelicate joke told to Her Majesty and her ladies-in-waiting by a male equerry; others say that it was her reaction to a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore. … Continue reading “We Are Not Amused”
Well, winter is over. You can't be sure, in this part of the world, until you've been visited by the "three snowmen," although, in contrast to general population-growth trends (or lack thereof) in these United States, the guys seem to have a fruitful year, and I counted about half-a-dozen of the little bastards taunting me,… Continue reading Building Your Own Chicken Coop: Womanly Feminist Edition!
J.R.R. Tolkien may be the most beloved twentieth-century author with the most diverse reader base. He appeals to Christian and New Age audiences as well as readers across the political spectrum. Fame and fortune were the last things he really sought. An Oxford professor, he just wanted to tell some stories. The Real J.R.R. Tolkien:… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: A Fresh Look at Tolkien
LOL. It's been my karma, for a couple of years, that a few members of the perpetually aggrieved, incessantly self-absorbed, navel-gazing victim-class should think that some of my posts and comments which have nothing to do with them, are actually about them. Trust me, I don't do "subtle." Until I do. In any event, y'all,… Continue reading Are You A Catnapper?