Tag: England

SubscribeStar Saturday: The Folly of King Edward VIII

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One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Proverbs 31:10-31, the famous passage about the qualities of a good woman.  As verse 10 reads, “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.”  The implication is that a true “Proverbs 31 Woman” is a rare and precious thing.

Based on earlier chapters of Proverbs, which extensively detailed the dangers of a wanton floozy, it’s pretty clear that a bad woman can be quite destructive.  Proverbs 7:6-23 is an entire cautionary tale about a foolish young man who dies when a harlot stabs him after a night of passion!

Too many men (myself included) fall for the allure of a pretty face, which is probably why there are three or four chapters in Proverbs warning us off of them (and only one chapter about a good woman).

Such is the potentially corrosive effect of a loose woman that one nearly destroyed a monarchy.  The short-reigned King Edward VIII, who ruled in 1936 for barely eleven months.

The controversy over King Edward VIII’s decision to marry a twice-divorced woman (still married at the time of Edward’s abdication in December 1936), Wallis Simpson, threatened the House of Windsor, and nearly resulted in a constitutional crisis for the British Empire.

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Myersvision: Goblins and Faeries

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No, dear reader, this post isn’t another screed against ghoulish sexual perverts, despite what the title might suggest.  It’s a fun installment of Myersvision, the intermittent series of whimsical posts from our senior correspondent, Audre Myers.

I reached out to some of my regular contributors to see if anyone had anything for me, and Audre whipped up this short, charming piece about alleged goblins and faeries—well, pixies—roaming the English countryside.  She notes that one YouTuber has around 400,000 subscribers, and asks, “So who’s crazy?”

Well, my money is still on the people that think CGI pixies are real, and the only Goblin I believe in is the Italian synth rock band.

At least, for now.  I’ll never forget learning about the Scottish researcher in the nineteenth century who went looking for faeries, because if he could prove faeries and other supernatural or folkloric creatures were real, he could prove God’s Existence.  After all, if God Exists, there is surely a rich world of supernatural entities—angels and demons (of which I am thoroughly convinced are real), but also all manner of other creatures.  The Bible speaks of giants and Behemoth.  Who’s to say dragons (clearly dinosaurs) weren’t swooping around causing trouble?  The Bible speaks of dragons, too.

All things to consider for another day.  For now, here’s Audre, taking us on a tour of the mystical English countryside:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Queen and 9/11

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Queen Elizabeth II, the long-reigning, dignified, Stoic monarch of Great Britain, passed away this week at the age of 96.  The news was shocking, not because of the tragedy of her death itself, but because I’d always assumed she would live forever—even though I knew that wasn’t possible.  Queen Elizabeth was just always there, and it seemed like she would be.

To be honest, I’m surprised she was only 96; I thought she’d already hit 100.  As it was, she was pretty close.  Her seventy-plus-year reign is the longest in the history of the British monarchy, and the longest any woman has been a head of state in all of recorded history.

The Queen’s passing, as other commentators have noted, truly marks the end of an era, an era in which the West, while fumbling a bit, still reigned supreme, and took itself seriously as a civilization.  Her death marks the final page of a long chapter in the book of Western Civilization, as her reign was the last vestige of the Old England so many of us, even here in the States, loved so dearly.

It is, then, perhaps apropos that the Queen’s death came so close to 9/11, a day of infamy which, sadly, seems to have receded further and further into the collective imagination of our divided and bickering nation.  Both the Queen and 9/11 were once symbols of national unity and patriotism, but the latter marked the death of American liberty.  Queen Elizabeth’s death, on the other hand, is a coda, the last few measures of a piece that lost its orchestra some time ago, but which managed to maintain a few dedicated musicians to play her out.

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Ponty’s Pics: Blakeney and the Morston Marshes

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It seems that flattery motivates contributors, at least 39 Pontiac Dream/Always a Kid for Today/Mike Fahey, who has sent along some lovely photographs of a recent trip he and his significant other took to Blakeney and the Morston Marshes, both places with distinctly British names.

I won’t offer much more by way of preamble, and instead have included the body of Ponty’s e-mail to me, which explains a bit more about the pictures in detail.

They remind me a great deal of the salt marshes around Beaufort, South Carolina, and the outlying barrier islands on the way to Fripp Island.

But enough from me.  Here’s Ponty:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021)

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In continuing with my movie reviews of requested films (see last week’s review of 1999’s Bicentennial Man, which I reviewed at the request of Audre Myers), I’m reviewing 2021’s The Electrical Life of Louis Wain at the request of my Aunt Marilyn.  She recommended the film, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the eccentric title character, enthusiastically.

I love Benedict Cumberbatch—one of my favorite current actors—and just about anything about eccentric creative types in Victorian England; needless to say, I loved this film, which details the quite tumultuous, tortured life and mind of Louis Wain, the man responsible for normalizing the keeping of cats as pets.

Viewing the film was a bit tricky at first.  As far as I can tell, it is only on the Amazon Prime Video service.  When I would pull up the movie on there, the only option I could see required an Amazon Prime membership, but my aunt assured me I’d be able to rent it (probably all I had to do was click on that subscription button and I’d be given the option to rent).

It occurred to me that I might still have access to Prime Video through my ex-girlfriend’s account on my Roku; sure enough, I was able to watch the movie—for free!—using those surreptitious means.

Logistical nonsense aside, I should probably review the film, rather than talk about how I had to access it.  All this blogging is going to my head.

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English Sunrise

The Portly Politico7 Comments

My good online friend and photographic contributor 39 Pontiac Dreamer has sent in some lovely pictures of an English sunrise.  To my discredit, he e-mailed me these photographs two months ago, and I am only now finding the time to post them, after repeated apologies, delays, equivocations, and plain excuses.

It’s been so long now, it escapes me what the genesis of these pictures were.  I believe Ponty and I were carrying on a conversation in the comment section of a post about rising early in the morning, and that it’s the best time to get work done.

Regardless, here are some gorgeous photographs of a hazy English morning, just as the mighty sun peeks itself over the horizon:

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Halloween in England

The Portly Politico36 Comments

Good ol’ 39 Pontiac Dreamer, one of my regular readers, is as big a fan of Halloween as I am.  To that end, he e-mailed me a TON of Halloween pictures over the weekend, including his and his wife’s Jack O’Lanterns.  He says hers is the more elaborate one, while he goes for a simpler, more classic approach (like me).

Per Ponty:

We had a few trick or treaters over the evening but, thankfully, not at a crucial point in any of our films…. The films in the pictures by the way are Ringu and the Romero classic Dawn of the Dead.

Ponty also sent me some excellent photographs of an English sunrise—in September!  I’ve been so slammed, I keep forgetting to upload them.  Look for those next Tuesday.

For now, here are the pictures of Ponty’s British Halloween:

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Lazy Sunday LXVII: Phone it in Fridays, Part I

The Portly Politico6 Comments

It’s a hot weekend here in South Carolina.  It’s been a mostly mild summer so far, but today the brutal combination of heat and humidity hit with their full rancor.  I’m currently writing this post from the third story finished attic at my parents’ house, as it’s been another big family weekend, this time to celebrate my maternal grandmother’s birthday.  Like every protagonist from Stephen King’s early work, I’m typing shirtless and drenched in sweat—an image none of you needed.

It occurred to me Friday that I’ve (improbably) hit twelve editions of Phone it in Friday, so I thought I’d cheekily dedicate the next few Sundays to looking back at past PiiF installments—a month of Fridays for a month of Sundays.  Chalk it up to laziness—I mean, that’s the point of these Sunday posts—-but I’m running out of umbrella topic ideas, and this lame tactic gives me a month to dream up some more.

So, without further ado, here’s the first installment of our Phone it in Friday Lazy Sundays:

  • “Phone It in Friday – Musings & Reflections on NATO, Brexit, Etc.” – The very first PiiF goes back to 13 July 2018, before I was doing daily posts.  I believe I was sticking to a thrice-a-week MWF schedule.  The astute observer will note that I capitalized the “I” in “It” for this first installment, and lowercased it for (I believe) the rest.  The post covered Brexit, why I believe Turkey should not be in the NATO alliance (the alliance itself is probably obsolete, anyway), and President Trump’s visit to England.  Remember when Theresa May was still the Prime Minister of England and kept delaying Brexit?
  • “Phone it in Friday II: Boris, Bond, and Borders” – It would be slightly over a year, on 26 July 2019, before I resorted to another PiiF.  That pithy PiiF celebrated Boris Johnson’s election as Prime Minister of Great Britain (which presaged the victory of true Brexit), the literary death of James Bond, and a Chicago Chamber of Commerce piñata bashing for illegal children.  ¡Ay caramba!
  • “Phone it in Friday III: Video Killed the Blogging Star” – This PiiF featured two videos, one from the uncuckable Tucker Carlson, the other from YouTube personality RazörFist.  Watch them—they’re good.

That’s it for this week!  Time to descend from this stuffy attic and rehydrate.  I can’t be losing any water weight if I want to keep my portly status, can I?

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: The Conservative Revolution

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Friday’s post, “The Cultural Consequences of the American Civil War,” has enjoyed more traffic than my usual posts thanks to a.) the controversial topic of the American Civil War (gasp!—someone’s not denouncing the South!) and b.) and Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown graciously sharing the post far and wide.  Thanks, Doc!

It’s put me in a bit of a historical mood.  In history, the important points—the Truth—is often in the details, but I’ve always appreciated the contemplation of the philosophical implications of historical events.  Thus, my mini-essay on the American Civil War focused more on the cultural and political costs of the war than the nitty-gritty details.

The costs were, of course, considerable.  Historians of a conservative bent will sometimes refer to “reconstitutions” in United States history, with the Progressive Era and its immediate offspring, the New Deal, often cited as a major “reconstitution.”  The 1964 Civil Rights Act, which elevated anti-racism and social justice above the freedom of association, was another such reconstitution.

Similarly, the American Civil War, as I detailed yesterday, resulted in a reconstitution of the Constitution, as it served to centralize more power in the hands of the federal government, curtailing States’ rights in the process.

An observant reader will note that each of these “reconstitutions” reflected some revolutionary fervor or upheaval:  the horror of war, the agitation of Progressive reformers, the privations of the Depression, and the struggle for equal rights.  They almost all resulted in an increase in federal power, too, often to intrusive degrees.  In each instance, the ratchet turned towards more centralization and fewer liberties overall.

But the American Revolution—which made the Constitution possible—is nearly unique in the annals of modern history—much less American history—in that it was a conservative revolution.  That is, it was a revolution that sought to conserve—or, perhaps more accurately, to preserve—a set of traditions and privileges, rather than to tear them up, root and branch.

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