In a world gone slightly crazy, with people arrested for protesting that Charles was not elected and other people already queuing to view the late queen’s coffin, despite doing so not being possible until Wednesday, we try to carry on as normal. And so, today having begun fine and sunny, I ran round the village as usual. Nothing of great interest going on there today!
The greater madness sees people being asked not to leave Paddington Bear toys with their floral tributes to Queen Elizabeth. They are also asked to remove paper packaging from floral tributes, so that the flowers will eventually be properly compostable. No doubt the new king will appreciate that idea as he is a great conservationist, despite having to rush around by jet at the moment. The florists must be doing well!
There’s been a bit of disappointed controversy at the the revelation that when the queen was filmed having tea with Paddington Bear during the Jubilee celebrations she was actually filmed alone and Paddington was added by CGI later. Good grief! What a let down!
And then there’s the matter of the protocol for foreign dignitaries attending the funeral. London, we are told, will be full, full as it has not been before - not for the Olympics, not for Diana’s funeral, not for the Queen Mother’s funeral. Arranging security for visiting heads of state to travel through the city in their own limousines will be difficult. So there will be a bus. But … here comes the big but … President Biden will almost certainly not accept to ride on a bus!! Oh boy!!
Meanwhile, as ai said, we try to carry on as normal. And as we are going to Portugal in November we have been revising our Portuguese. Or rather, we have talked about it and done one or two sessions of semi-serious study. I need to be more disciplined if I really want to make progress.
One thing we have been doing is watching the old BBC Discovering Portuguese series on YouTube. One of the latest episodes we have seen concentrated on Portuguese culture. At one point this featured a group of dancing men, about eight of them, clacking sticks, wearing strange costumes, including hats just like our Morrismen but without the flowers and in rather more sombre colours. They even had an accordion player providing the music. This reminded me of having heard or read something about Morris Dancing in the UK originating in north Africa. So, of course, I had to look it up.
Morris Dancing has been around in recorded history since the 15th century. The name probably comes from “morisco” meaning Moorish, which might explain an old custom, now almost certainly no longer acceptable, of Morrismen wearing blackface make-up. Nobody seems to know whether this was a reference to Moors or a form of disguise if the dancers did not want to be recognised. One explanation for the flowers on the hats here is that ordinary folk could not afford fancy costumes and so danced in their everyday clothes adorned with flowers.
Here’s a link to one version of the history of Morris dancing.
Everything is interconnected.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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