Miscellaneous-ness

This will be a miscellaneous post of bits and pieces that have caught my eye looking through my photo files.  I'm still not travelling anywhere and have had to put all travel plans on hold because of my mum's continuing health problems.  We are getting around and doing some fun things, though.

My new header post - well, what is it?  I don't know.  I couldn't find a label when I snapped it two years ago in the museum in Damascus, but I wanted a photo because it seemed strangely compelling.  I hope it has survived the sad situation which has caused so much damage in a city and country which I grew to like very much.

So I'll start this miscellaneous post with a photo of a temporary staircase, apparently made of chipboard, near the bus station in Venice.   These people seemed to have settled down for the afternoon, beneath a greyish blue sky.  I thought it made a nice composition, though I did wonder why they'd come all the way to beautiful Venice and then chosen to sit on a chipboard bridge next to a noisy bus station!

And here is another bridge - Tower Bridge, in London, opening up.  It's a fine sight when the bridge opens and a large boat sails through.    They put those blue gates across just to stop anyone who feels like rushing on while the bridge is opening, and leaping the gap.  I am sure that there are people who would!

I encountered  this scary gentleman in a garden in the picture-postcardy Wiltshire village of Lacock.    Lacock was used for filming the BBC's 2007 period series  "Cranford"  and the 1995 "Pride and Prejudice" and its quaint cottages have featured in the Harry Potter movies, among others.

The villagers were having a scarecrow contest.  Well, it scared ME.    I think he's modelled on the Fat Controller in "Thomas the Tank Engine."

And talking of scary, here's the ghost of the decapitated Marie Antoinette in a London street for Halloween - note the red line round the neck - hehhehehehe!

And still on the scary theme, what about this bullet hole in a cafe door in Alphabet City, New York? I didn't want to be sitting outside there and having coffee, and nor did anyone else, apparently.

But let's switch to something nice. Icecream at the Lincolnshire seaside town of Cleethorpes.  He is leaning on a giant sized Mr. Whippy and eating a real one which tastes far better, I am sure.

And it was a wonderful surprise strolling through Parnu, Estonia, one autumn evening to find that the local theatre was doing a show for people passing by.  A large crowd had gathered.  At the top you can see a line of figures with candles, and dancers with silhouettes of musical instruments were performing to music in the illuminated windows.  What a great idea. It was free, too.

Although summer has gone, I took this reflective autumn photo of the last remaining nasturtiums one sunset in our communal garden.

Autumn is peaceful and reflective, but I'm not particularly so myself. I like the idea of cycling through a sunny Spanish winter.

Or I could enjoy settling down with a pint and a meal in the "Cat and Custard Pot" pub in Paddlesworth, Kent, dodging the low flying aircraft of course.  Well, it is the highest pub in Kent, and very near the Battle of Britain museum, so I guess you do need to be careful about what might fly through the windows   If you are interested in pubs and World War 2, drop into this pub next time you're in the area and check out its  collection of plane memorabilia. 

Since this is a "MISScellaneous" post, let me end with this newly discovered poem on the theme of "MISS" by Lewis Carroll.   Poetry was a passion with him, and he was fascinated by how poetry worked. His own literary ability only came out when he was writing things he thought didn't matter, though.  He was constantly making up rhymes and stories to entertain children,  friends or family, and thought they were nothing (he even thought "Alice in Wonderland" was nothing). But if he wrote prose or poetry about topics that he and his fellow Victorians thought were truly important, like religion, virtue, sin and morality,  he became self conscious, tense and dull.

I guess it wasn't easy being a Victorian clergyman if you preferred silly stuff.

(Here's the Caterpillar in "Alice in Wonderland" - thanks Marjorie!)

This poem, (only discovered this year in manuscript) is for a woman called Bessie Hussey.   In it, he's asking if he should call her  "Miss" Hussey (which was the polite thing to do in those days) or if she'd let him call her "Bessie" - far friendlier. Asking to use first names was a slightly cheeky thing for a man to ask a lady in those prim and proper days, so he is also asking her not to be offended.  

When I read this quaint little period piece, I thought it couldn't mean much to modern readers, but I liked seeing how he has put it together, using the word "miss" in so many ways, the clever use of alliteration, the easy, swinging rhyme and even the numbers of syllables in the words - and the way it leads up to a clever punch line.

So I expect Miss Hussey was pleased to get it, and I was pleased to find it. 

"Take not amiss this missile dread
Nor maim my mystic hope
Miscalling me a much misled
Mistaken misanthrope!

My missive’s meant to murmur this
With mute mysterious touch
If I should merely miss the “Miss”
Would you, Miss, miss it much? "

(Lewis Carroll in his early twenties)