I was hoping for blood, or at least custard, on the walls at the very minimum. And what did we get? An Elizabeth who seems to be bored with malingering and who might graciously condescend to do a tap now and then, and Jill snapping briefly at David.
Along with the, surely redundant, information that Liberty is ‘a bit of a stunner’.
Swine!
I’m glad you can remember what actually did happen, I’d forgotten already it was so dull.
I have been assuming that Liberty is black.
I suppose I can see why, now you mention it. Hadn’t occurred to me.
Did we ever find out about Dorothy (Dandruff)?
< strolls off whistling the Habañera >
Where are her siblings … Fraternity and Equality ?
But I can’t say how amazed I was to hear she’s a babe.
‘Meet my brother, Fraternitë. And this is Égalité, our budgie: Napoleon complex, I’m afraid, but he’s a very loveable little chap once you get to know him’.
Have reminded myself, forcibly, of Anna Neagle now.
Please send help.
[quote=“Fanta, post:3, topic:1858”]
Liberty
[/quote]…well, the historical context of liberty-ships, conjures up visions of cargoes and Masefield. (…sorry, I couldn’t help it!)
Cargoes
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
Dirty British coaster¹ with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.
John Masefield
¹ actually I was thinking more of tramp-steamer!
(yup, I had to look that one up too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moidore)
moidores always sounded like a fabric to me - something in the brocade line, but spiffier - when this was read to me as a Very Small Gus.
Yes, I was a spoilt brat, particularly the ‘being read to’ bit. Lucky wee me.
Thank you, Sturmey, for posting this one.
Gx
I want to know why I knew what a moydore was when I met that poem age five!
I was read to, but not poetry: my mother recited that, because she had learned reams of it at school and didn’t want it wasted. So when I was ill and couldn’t sleep, and she was sitting by my bed and worrying, I got Sir Patrick Spens and Allingham’s The Fairies and The Highwayman and The Inchcape Rock and The Forsaken Merman and hugely long border ballads and dozens of “songs” – she couldn’t sing to save her life, so she recited instead. There was quite a lot of Masefield, some of it entirely unsuitable: The Tewkesbury Road is fine, but The Seekers? The Ballad of Sir Bors? Maybe the reason I am so weird isn’t far to seek after all.
As for Housman… Well. I’m sure she didn’t learn those at school. Still, I suppose intimations of mortality are appropriate when you are lying sweating with a fever over a hundred and aching eyes.
“Miordire - a Portuguese gold coin, current in England in the early 18th century and then worth about 27 shillings”.
I had no idea.
…me neither! However I do know what a British coaster is, and a tramp-steamer, and a tramp!