‘Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty.’ -The Valley of Fear

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Ok I’m back after skipping Wed. just to get some of me stuff done…I can actually see the furniture in the living room…hurray.

I’m changing the line up now—and am gonna put the Outlander last today to just see how that adjusts

Today we’re looking at the bad and ugly of detectives.

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“But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me.”

“The Adventure of Speckled Band

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The cast for Murder on the Orient Express is fantastic…but the detective Hercule Poirot is one that gets on my last best nerve—he is bad verging on ugly—he is foppish, boorish and totally unwatchable to me…it was like watch it at home and watch the good parts and grit your teeth, go get food or to the bathroom when Finney who did a great job which made it all the more worse for me….if I’d have been on that train they would have been trying to solve his murder and I would have been hiding my part in the crime….grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Another figure I found as a very irritating detective is Columbo, Peter Faulk did a great job on that but this character was slobbish and casual about everything but muder…so different from the last detective and yet every bit as irritating to me…I guess I was lost somewhere in the middle.

Finally on bad any of the Inspector Clouseau–this Peter Sellers, silliness for silliness sake was to me pointless….I like funny but not this babble which supersedes the parts of the script that pass for a plot….It’s not anything that I ever enjoy and Sellers is just one of the many that plays on this, though he probably is one of the better known.

“A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high thin fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey.” – “The Adventure of Speckled Band,”

Don’t get me wrong I am not completely w/o humor—I guess my humor goes more toward the black..like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Val Kilmer and Martin Downey Jr. (who’s Sherlock Holmes series I adore) with the detective Kilmer and the victim—Downey gets a finger cut off among other forms of abuse through out that gritty movie that at times borders on ugly (well cutting off someone’s finger most certainly is a bit more than borders—maybe walks all over ugly would be more like it.)

Another Detective story I enjoyed that deals with (what could be uglier) finding a bizarre killer who murders people all about the city in a effort to make his point and get his goal met is Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector as a quadriplegic Forensic expert who is working on finding a doctor to end his life….in the discovery of the first victim Angelia Jolie is the cop involved (she has commitment and other psychological problems as well) and when Denzel is involved from his hospital bed she becomes his presence at the crime (in one scene he instructs her to cut off the victim’s hands which she reacts to in a way most of us would).  While I loved this movie and in fact reads some of the series it was based on, the murders were bizarre and down right ugly and I found it described as a bad movie and mystery.   While I enjoyed  it a lot.  But beauty or good if bizarre movie I guess is in the eye of the beholder.

“I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending misfortune impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied.” – “The Adventure of Speckled Band,”

Then there are the remakes:  One that has been done over many times and  I particularly liked has  bit ugly in it’s name which was used in Britian ….which if you read this from Wikipedia.  And Then There Were None is a mystery novel by English writer Agatha Christie, widely considered her masterpiece and described by her as the most difficult of her books to write.      was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as Ten Little N—-,after the British blackface song, which serves as a major plot point.  The US edition was not released until December 1939; its American reprints and adaptations were all retitled And Then There Were None, the last five words in the original American version of the nursery rhyme (“Ten Little Indians“).  In the 1978 remake I saw they used the disappearing Indians to denote the next murder and so on.

Did you know that Edgar Allen Poe is given credit with writing the mystery formula that survives to this day with his ugly murderer in Murders in the Rue Morgue in  1841 and the first mystery series when he continued on with Auguste Dupin , the detective in his first novel which appeared in in two more stories.

  While DIckens in England included a mystery subplot in his Bleak House…..and they’ve (mysteries and sub plots both)  been around and amazingly popular ever since.

Goodbye, and be brave, for if you will do what I have told you, you may rest assured that we shall soon drive away the dangers that threaten you.” –  “The Adventure of Speckled Band,”

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Spend some time checking out Roger that boy is hot ….that’ll help relieve your Droughtlander but could give you Rogerwant instead…ah well…..

Try to convert new watchers to the show–get them to binge watch—here’s some talking points  http://www.hypable.com/outlander-is-must-watch-tv-for-men-and-women/

Pick out a walking tour for your next trip to Edinburgh  https://www.viator.com/Edinburgh-tours/Walking-Tours/d739-g16-c56?pref=02

https://www.list.co.uk/article/69860-take-the-edinburgh-outlander-walking-tour/

And start researching Sam–here’s his mum’s gallery  https://www.list.co.uk/article/76678-interview-chrissie-heughan-on-unabridged-outlander-and-its-star-her-son-sam-heughan/

“I had … come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.” -“The Adventure of Speckled Band,”

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Pictures are still from London’s Little Venice main canal.

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He [Moriarty] sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are numerous and splendidly organised. Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed – the word is passed to the Professor, the matter is organised and carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found for his bail or his defence. But the central power which uses the agent is never caught – never so much as suspected. This was the organization which I deduced, Watson, and which I devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking up.’

Sherlock Holmes

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“My dear Holmes…this is too much. You would certainly have been burned had you lived a few centuries ago. Dr. Watson

 

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Hello I see you’re back—today my pictures are from Little Venice….a great place in London…lots of people don’t know what or where it is…but it’s another one of those unexpected places that makes London great.

Today we’re still looking at detectives and murder mysteries again–still on the good….and some things I’m interested in.

and of course Support for my fellow Droughtlander sufferers.

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“‘To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.’   Dr. Mortimer

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Getting use to new characters can take some time and keep your mind off the loss that you feel…..check these two new ones out:  http://www.hypable.com/outlander-ian-murray-joe-abernathy/

 

Follow Cait example and volunteer to help a local charity….it is time well spent and will be greatly appreciated by the group or agency you pick.  http://www.counselheal.com/articles/25357/20160907/outlander-season-3-update-catrina-balfe-patronizes-world-child-cancer-fans-disappointed-over-casting.htm

and check out Jamie/Sam on the battlefield:  http://www.movienewsguide.com/outlander-season-3-spoilers-jamie-claire-reunite-1948-official-photo-suggests-no-time-jump/276662

 

“‘Snap goes our third thread, and we end where we began….I tell you, Watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of our steel.’” Holmes to Watson

 

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One of the things that I have found interesting is the number of historical murder mysteries that are popular now.  You know that I am a big history buff and mysteries set in a history setting of course has gotten my attention and I’m even (surprise) reading one.

Publishers Weekly noted in 2010 of the genre, “The past decade has seen an explosion in both quantity and quality. Never before have so many historical mysteries been published, by so many gifted writers, and covering such a wide range of times and places Wikipedia.

and this West Virginia Girl is true to her roots:  Perhaps the first modern English work that can be classified as both historical fiction and a mystery however is the 1911 Melville Davisson Post story “The Angel of the Lord,” which features amateur detective Uncle Abner in pre-American Civil War West Virginia.  Cool.

“‘The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?’” Holmes to Watson

Sansom started out as a  historian and in fact got a PhD in the subject prior to deciding to redo his life and become a barrister.   While working for disadvantaged client he began writing and Matthew Shardlake was born.  Shardlake is an attorney in London during the Reign of Henry VIII.  Our hero was born less than privileged and came up through his education and this was made even harder due to the fact that he is physically deformed with a hunch back–a condition in an age with many believed that the disability is a comment on his being bad even evil.

He is joined by Barak who has a history of working for Thomas Cromwell one of Henry’s men that fell from grace.   Shardlake has has various assistants I think Barak (whom I like best) being the one who has lasted the longest–and he thru 6 novels (he wrote the last book in 2014—Lamentation which I’m reading now–but he has taken an average or 2 years between books —though he did go 4 years with one so I have high hopes he’s writing another one.) has gone thru the reign of Henry and all the back stabbing and manipulation to make the King happy which usually either involved ridding him of one wife or another or dealing with various religious issues.    There is also issues of the King’s progress to York—who was notorious for being on the edge of rebellion in one form or another through many reigns including Henry’s.  And in addition to all the turmoil of Henry—who Shardlake always manages to be on the edge of, if not really in the court though the book I’m reading now has him working directly for Henry’s 6th (and last) wife and of course a murder that may or may not be related to her issues.

“I can still remember your complete indifference as to whether the sun moved round the earth or the earth round the sun.”  Watson

Now let me tell you the good about these books—warning only read the first 3—I’ll explain why….Ariana Franklin was a very mature lady when she started these novels about a young lady who is brought to England by Henry II–Henry’s money came from financers and only Jewish did finance (usury being considered a sin by the church–there was only one then)….when several small children are murdered, the people’s prejudice place the blame on the Jews—so Henry sends to Italy for a Master of the Art of Death (basically the original European coroners) What he gets is a lady doctor–something unheard of in England.  On her way to London her group of travelers join with a group of Crusaders returning to England and so she meets her love interest.

The story is a great read, the history good and the mysteries baffling –all four books are great and include famous people and the love interest being made a bishop–when she refuses to get married….they would be my favorite as the characters are good and the writing as well….but….

While the first 3 books were a continuing story there were no cliff hangers and if she had stopped there I would have missed the series but not felt left down, however she leaves one of the characters clinging on with their lives and leaving a possible replacement in the wings…..and that was it.  She started one other book that is a historical mystery but many years earlier than these stories–her daughter finished her manuscript but nothing more was done to round of the story in this one so if you really like the first 3 just leave it at that and you won’t feel like the bottom was dropped out of your literary life—hey I know I should get a life.

“‘They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles.’” Holmes, to Sir Henry

Elizabeth Peters series:  Crocodile on the Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters) (Amelia Peabody, Book 1) into the hot and exotic sand dunes of Victorian era Egypt. It is here, in the early 20th century that we meet Amelia Peabody, an Egyptologist with an attitude. Armed with her wit, sharp sarcasm and fierce curiosity for all things historical, she embarks on a journey to Egypt, through it’s deserts and cities steeped in ancient culture to an archaeological dig site, and ends up with more than she bargained for. What makes…even better is that its author was herself an Egyptologist, and so her knowledge and details regarding ancient Egypt are spot on.  Overall, it’s an alluring and heady mix of mystery, history, romance and comedy that is extremely hard not to to enjoy. – See more at: http://bestmysterybooks.com/best-historical-mystery-books.html#sthash.gBXXokqj.dpu

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Edwardian England)

by Laurie R. King

Mary Russell is an exceptionally intelligent young woman, enough so to become a protégé of Sherlock Holmes. Their adventures are a stretch of the imagination, and that’s how I like to exercise. (the 1st of 10)

Another of my favorites…Mary became Holmes’ apprentice and eventually his wife —-it does a lot of the Holmes magic but  with a female that matches him in intellect and investigative abilities.

 

“I swear that another day shall not have passed before I have done all that man can do to reach the heart of the mystery.” Watson

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“‘But now we have to prove the connection between the man and the beast., Holmes to Watson. 
           
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‘I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection.’ Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

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Another week and yes I’m back and finishing up the GOOD the bad and the Ugly.

As you might have noticed all the pictures are about Westminster Abbey…the main picture give you an idea of just how old some of these buildings are ….look at the carving on either side…the long years have worn things away much of the one on the left….if wonders why I love London…the ancient building still standing is one of those reasons…

and of course we’ll give you a few Droughlander hints as well.

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‘My name is Sherlock Holmes.  It is my business to know what other people don’t know.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

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Get yourself prepared for Claire’s return (to the past) or departure (from the present) and then there’s Jamie’s bastard:  http://www.chattsportsnet.com/entertainment/tv-shows/outlander-season-3-news-voyager-synopsis-revealed-jamie-denies-truth-about-his-bastard/12603/

Check out Cait/Claire and Tobias/Frank—in Glasglow/Boston….catch up —-it’s more on filming:  http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotland-now/outlander-stars-shoot-family-scenes-8885052

and I saved the bad news to last:  https://www.cinemablend.com/television/1559599/outlander-season-3-is-definitely-going-to-premiere-late

world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-The Hound of the Baskervilles

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I THOUGHT TODAY

we might investigate fictional Detectives….

FIRST UP—THE AMATEUR:

Like Miss Marple—I consider her the good….she appears regularly on PBS series.

Her name is Jane and she is a creation of Agatha Christie–in 12 novels and 20 stories.  She is of course English–all the best detective are you know…she elderly and is from a Village called St. Mary Mead which is also fictional.  She was born—fully formed and elderly–in 1927 and has been about ever since.   I was just watching one of her episodes this weekend where she advised a younger woman to not be so trusting–that she never was…not what one expects from the grandmotherly type lady who wanders thru her stories detecting in the most unobvious way.

‘You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-A Scandal in Bohemia

I always loved Jessica Fletcher (and the fact that they actually published books under her name –Something    that Castle seems to have picked up and continued on with–he also has books out in the real world with his picture on them and printed under his name)—I enjoyed the show best when it was set in mythical Cabot Cove—but  after a few years they decided  that they had to have seriously depleted the population of the fictional town with all the murders that were occurring there–heavens they had to be giving NYC a run for it’s money with the rate based on their population base.  The show lasted 12 years and is definitely on my good list.

Other amateur detectives I’d include under good

Boston Blackie–a thief turned sleuth

Father Brown–another PBS show that’s not bad and the fact that it’s filmed in Cornwall adds  charm for me.  A priestly detective…since sin is his business and murder sin it all works for me.

 

Nancy Drew was one of my early introduction into the mystery genre and I still enjoy those old movies she’s featured in even though they’re before even my time…..yes I was born after moving pictures were invented—in fact after talkies came in so there.

‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-A Scandal in Bohemia

Then there’s the professional Detective…..and does any body embody this more than Bogie as Sam Spade?

Spade is sarcastic, wise cracking and bordering on the line between criminal and law abiding a majority of the time.  The fictional character was unlike Bogart, blonde and appear fist in Black Mass (1929) with the most well known of his affairs being The Maltese Falcon where he does mess around with his partner’s wife while he’s at it.  Dashiell Hammett’s  hard boiled hero was a big hit especially in the  30s & 40s in fact the Maltese Falcon was first made in 1931 (Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade) and again under the title Satan Met a Lady (Warner Bros., 1936) and finally the one we all remember in 1941.

‘There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-The Bascombe Valley Mystery

Before he was James Bond–the Irish heart throb wandered onto our screens as a kinda detective…seems like the lady (Laura–a real private detective) couldn’t compete against the more mucho male detectives so she invented Remington Steele and went about doing the work as one of his associates and then the charming con-man claims to be Steele and puts her in a bad place as if she denies it then she will have to produce the real one and of course.  They solved mysteries and flirted through several years–he went on to Bond and the rest is history.

Other PI’s I’ve enjoyed over the years

Nick and Nora Charles–I remember this as a TV series with Peter Lawford…the wealthy and fashionable twosome who found bodies and matched them to their murders….

V.I. Warshawski I saw this one in the movies and enjoyed a dame that could play it a bit hard and mean as well.

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-The Sign of Four

Chapter 1: “The Science of Deduction”

And just for a mention there were the Warner Brother’s TV detectives.  The first was set in LA and featured the father of our little lady in Remington Steele. (in real life not fictional)   Roger Smith–who might be best known as being married to Anne Margaret since the 60’s and the biggest event on the show Ed “Kookie” Burns becames the hottest thing there was in teen lexicon–“Kookie, Kookie lend me your comb.” (don’t ask you had to have been there).

The next was Burbon St. Beat (I don’t have to tell you where that one took place.) This didn’t have any major person to stand out and the stories were OK but this was the least popular of the whole thing.

But that didn’t stop them from going onto smaller land masses but more exotic locations–Hawaiian Eye.  This one gave us Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens (Cricket Blake, who also sings at the hotel’s Shell Bar)  both went on to not very long but hot for awhile movie fame.

Donahue then went on to Surfside 6 set in Miami and pretty much more of the same.

and that thank goodness was the end of their detectives for awhile.

‘Come, Watson, come!’ he cried. ‘The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!’

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-The Adventure of the The Abbey Grange

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‘There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote

-A Study in Scarlet

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Good Shepherd Tell This Youth What Tis To Love—Phebe/As You Like It–The Bard

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Silvuis Answer to Phebe:  “It is to be made of sighs and tears.

It is to be mar of faith and service

It is to be made of fantasy

and all made of wishes,

All adoration, duty and observances.

All humbleness, all patience and impatience,

All purity, all trail, all observance.

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So today we finish up the week…we do one more day of the Bard…and we complete it with a city he might even recognize some of—like Westminster Abbey that’s been there since the 11th century–300 or more years before Will.   My pictures probably wouldn’t look familiar to him but they at of part of the two parts of London that were there when he came to the city –Westminster (the land the Abbey use to be on was once an island…but is now surrounded by dry land—

We also will do my usual help for those of you out there trying to adjust to withdrawal from that Scottish drug (which hasn’t been made illegal yet but give them time–Outlander so cruelly removed from your ingestion by the producers who haven’t finished season 3 yet……………..HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

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If I should think of love
I’d think of you, your arms uplifted,
Tying your hair in plaits above,
The lyre shape of your arms and shoulders,
The soft curve of your winding head.
No melody is sweeter, nor could Orpheus
So have bewitched. I think of this,
And all my universe becomes perfection.
But were you in my arms, dear love,
The happiness would take my breath away,
No thought could match that ecstasy,
No song encompass it, no other worlds.
If I should think of love,
I’d think of you.

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check out all the stuff on the new season like:
Follow other characters—like Frank/Black Jack–Tobias on his many undertakings:  http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3406097/ridley-scotts-terror-begins-casting/
Look back on season two–like the bite mark on Jamie’s thigh….
and laughing can’t hurt
In Praise of BeautyOf all my loves this is the first and last
That in the autumn of my years has grown,
A secret fern, a violet in the grass,
A final leaf where all the rest are gone.
Would that I could give all and more, my life,
My world, my thoughts, my arms, my breath, my future,
My love eternal, endless, infinite, yet brief,
As all loves are and hopes, though they endure.
You are my sun and stars, my night, my day,
My seasons, summer, winter, my sweet spring,
My autumn song, the church in which I pray,
My land and ocean, all that the earth can bring
Of glory and of sustenance, all that might be divine,
My alpha and my omega, and all that was ever mine.

 

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While much is known about his writings, little is known about William Shakespeare himself.  For instance only one letter was ever found that was written to him, none was ever found that was written by him.

He wrote much about love but little is known about his own personal love life.  We do know that in 1582 he at age 18 married 26 year old Anne Hataway—she bore a child 6 months later and two years later twins.   By 1592 he was in London writing poetry and acting while his family remained in Stratford-on-Avon, where he eventually bought them one of the biggest houses in town..  His son died in 1596 and he in 1616.

There are questions about why he married the much older Anne and left her alone with the children.  This was not apparently a union of love, there are even speculation that he married her at the bequest of someone else–in his will he even left her the second best bed in their home rather than the best.   So if he really wrote all we credit him with (38 plays, 154 sonnets, and two narrative poems)–and trust me there are as many theories on that as there are written items–then did he find a love or maybe more, or just wrote something that he longed for?

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“No sooner met but they looked.

No sooner looked but they love.

No sooner loved but they sighed.

No sooner sighed but they ask one another the reason.

No sooner knew but they asked one another the reason.

No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.

As You Like it.

Did he have a “true” love or just a few flirtations—for all we know he could have been gay.  We know he owned property– a house was registered in his name.  We know he was an actor–his name appears in a few plays.  We know he was involved in establishing a theater but otherwise he is a vague being who may or may not have written the many things that still grace our lives from High School English, to British.

There is a rebuilt theater south of the Thames–the Globe   http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/ (try it we saw The Taming of the Shew there our last trip to London) which features a lot of his plays and in the basement of a high rise is the Rose http://www.roseplayhouse.org.uk/, the pre-cursor to the Globe slowly being restored again with Will being the best known of its many players  If you go to the

We know he drank at the George Inn–in Southwark  and if you look at this galleried building you will see where the London theater originated when people watched the plays produced in their “yards” while standing on the three (now gone from this inn) sided galleries above them.

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“Is she kind as she is fair?

For Beauty lives with kindness,

Love doth to her eyes repair,

to help him in his blindness.

And being helped inhabit there of love,”

His words of love have been used to enhance, flatter and entice.

“What made me love thee?

Let that persuade thee.

There something extraordinary in thee.

Come, I canno cog and say thou art this and that.

I cannot, but I love thee.

None but thee:

and thou deserves it.”

The Merry Wives of Windsor

If he didn’t invent romantic love, he at the very last gave it song and voice:

“Hear my soul speak.
The very instant that I saw you did
My heart fly to your service, there resides
To make me slave to it, and for your sake
Am I this patient log-man. ”   The Tempest

He made it a condition to want to be in:

“To be wise and love exceeds man’s might”

Trolis  and Cresidda

While he presented it often tragically, it was also magically

“Come woo me, woo me,

for now I am in a holiday humor

and like enough to consent.”

As You Like It

His charters  literally sang of it

“It was a lover and his lass with a hey and a ho, and a hey nomino that over the green corn field did pass in the spring time.  The only pretty ring time, when birds do sing,  Hey ding-a-ding; sweet lovers love the spring.”

As You Like It

and embraced it

“The kiss you take is better than you give.”

Trolis  and Cresidda

His characters lived on it

“The sight of lovers feedith those in love.”

As You Like It

and died for it.

“Love can feed on air.”

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

It even had it’s own wisdom.

“What is love?

Tis not hereafter present mirth hath present laughter

What’s to come is still unsure

In delay there lies no plenty.

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty.

Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

Twelfth Night

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“What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”

Measure for Measure

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” The wounds Invisible

That Love’s keen arrows makes.”

As You Like it

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“Love sought is good but given onsought is better.”

Twelfth Night

 
 
 

I HUMBLY DO BESEECH YOU OF YOUR PARDON FOR TOO MUCH LOVING YOU SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO

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So here we are again–finally out of the Sherlock Apt and out and about in Modern (or not depending where you are at) London.

Today we’re still on the Good Bad and Ugly of love with Will and one of his many characters

and as usual a wee bit of Scotland or at least Scotman sand trust me that boy’s hardly wee.

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That will help for like 10 min then you’re back to pacing the floor and Starz is threatening to raise your bill if you wath episode 107 one more….so…try some Outlander type books to take your mind off the source of your addiction http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2016/09/02/1-10-books-suggested-for-fans-of-outlander.html
How about comparing season 2 with book two…oh wait here it is all done for you:  https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/07/dragonfly-in-amber-bookmp4.html
“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at; I am not what I am.” 
We have looked at young and all or nothing love…then we looked at unrequited love and now we’re looking at jealousy—not something that’s really love but is found in many lover….and often as in the story ruined everything that was…and left nothing in its wake bu tears and sorrow.  Pain and loss.
In Othello Shakespeare give us an interracial relationship and –something we have come to accept as part of the scene but in his day and age it was not something so common but not totally unknown:

“From the beginning, blacks were not willing European travelers. Habib points out that Elizabethan adventurers John Hawkins, John Lok and Martin Frobisher were among those raiding African coastal villages, kidnapping inhabitants and bringing them back to England in the mid-1550s. Although initially a small population, these involuntary exiles were the forerunners of much larger numbers who would eventually be enslaved in the Caribbean and the American colonies. Initially, Habib concludes in Shakespeare and Race, the transported Africans “existed initially as a miscellaneous assemblage of exotic, personally possessed decorative fetishes and human curiosities, and constituted a totally culturally unrecorded and hence silent and invisible community.”

That invisibility would gradually diminish, as blacks were gradually absorbed into society, given Christian names, acquired skills, and dispersed into roles as, usually, laborers, menial workers, servants, maids and, for the aristocracy, entertainers. Yet because there was no official categorization for race, few other than diarists remarked on that distinction. A visible minority in Shakespeare’s London, blacks attempted to carve out lives for themselves in what must have seemed an often bizarre majority culture in which they found themselves ensconced.”

Shakespeare’s Colors: Race And Culture In Elizabethan England

By James Schultz

 

“To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the next way to draw new mischief on.” 

 Now that said I might explain a bit more—while black inhabitants weren’t unknown at this time in London we have to say more about this.  Othello was not some kidnapped inhabitant but rather a Moorish general in the Venetian army.   And according to Weikipedia:  The term Moors refers to the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during the Middle Ages, who initially were Berber and Arab peoples from North Africa.  Just a little explimation .  As a general he was well off.

Desdomona, his wife is a lady of Venice, a real beauty (of course who wants an ugly heroine?), who is also a senator’s daughter and she elopes with Othello against he father’s wishes.

The whole thing takes place in Cyprus where the general is employed and is accompanied by his wife.
“T’is neither here nor there.” 
so you have a union that is probably not extremely popular with the establishment of  Desdomona’s birth and in which she lives with her husband….then enters
So finally to my points
The good is the lovely Desdomona who seems to be rather an innocent in a world that has lost most of it’s.
And there is their love and affection for each other…which seem to be stronger on one side or the other.
The bad is the people who resent her husband, the bigoty of her father and all that.
The ugly is the companions of the general who convince him–untruely of his wife being unfaithful and the worse to me is a man who claims he loves the lady and yet can be so easily convinced she has been untrue and the really, really ugly is that he allows this to so twist him that he actually kills the woman who defied her own father to love him
And then instead of facing up to what he has done he commits suicide…This guy’s on my creep list big time.
“[w]ho would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch?”
The person who lies is Iago, who has spent the whole play trying to cause problem for Othello and Desdomona (he is the one that tells her father about her marriage to the Moor and he set things up so that she goes to bat for the man whom she is suppose to be having the affair with and his evil ways manipulates the many parties in the play to the eventual more than one near fatal end—and in the case of Othello and his bride a fatal one.    In fact there are so many layers of jealousy in this particular novel that it is like a primer for the subject.
But back to the lovers.  In the end Othello for insecurity, as I insist a person secure in his/her self and their relationship does not allow the lies of other to destroy a relationship and someone who truly loves someone in my opinion does not murder someone who is unfaithfulness (though Othello keeps insisting he didn’t do it out of jealousy or hate but as a function of justice—PLEASE)  but at worse lets them go as to destroy something or one is not a part of true love—one can be hurt but not destructive.
Othello kills (by smothering  with a pillow) his wife and then Iago’s wife rats lago out and Othello still insisting that he was an honorable murderer eventually is convinced and kills himself with a concealed weapon before he can be arrest  joining  multiple other characters (including his father-in-law who died from grief at his daughter’s wedding choice and Iago’s wife whom Iago murders).  The fake blood must run into the million in these Shakespeare’s production.
“I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.” 
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That death’s unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?

Precious Moment’s Angle with Watering Can “Sending You A Rainbow” 1982    $9.50

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“For when my outward action doth demonstrateThe native act and figure of my heartIn compliment extern, ’tis not long afterBut I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at: I am not what I am.”

ORIGINAL Oil Painting from Tara Productions 5 inches Flora Framed  $26.00
” O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;It is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.”
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“This is the very ecstasy of love”. Shakespeare’s Hamlet

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Pictures are still from London’s Sherlock Holmes Museum

on Baker Street.

Today we’re still looking at love in all the

Shakespeare’s place….the Play Hamlet…Depressing I know but…..

But first getting the Deoutlanderpression:

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“Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.”

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$10.00

Beat your Outlander Dedroughlanderpression by

Think up better rumors about Sam and Cait as this one is getting old: http://www.inquisitr.com/3525699/outlander-stars-sam-heughan-and-caitriona-balfe-dating-in-real-life-he-refers-to-her-as-his-wifey-on-twitter/

Anticipate the mores of Outlander  http://www.parentherald.com/articles/67926/20160920/sam-heughan-caitriona-balfe-dating-outlander-stars-more-sexy-scenes.htm   (they do more number and not intensity—I’m not sure I could have any scenes much more sexy than the ones they’ve had before.

See a very pregnant Claire, some new characters–including young Ian and much more in this great (oh and Jamie on the battlefield on this great site:  http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/outlander/255879/outlander-season-3-release-date-synopsis-and-latest-news

“You cannot call it love, for at your age the heyday in the blood is tame”

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And then there’s Hamlet…not exactly what one would think of as a love story…with the Hero always seeking revenge and seeing ghosts telling him his uncle killed his brother and mad at his mother for marrying the murderer (I always got the idea he was a bit too fixated on his mother—but that’s a whole other story so…) and on and on….and he talks to skulls–Hamlet not his uncle.  While a lovely, if a bit depressed, or lets face it more than a little mad Ophelia wanders around pinning with unreturned love.

To me this is a bit more common the unloved party and it’s adults if none of them are quite right in the head if you get my drift.

“Love is begun by time, And time qualifies the spark and fire of it ”

The good here is Ophelia, who while a big melancholy seems to be a nice girl–to good for the likes of our hero but still.

The bad is the way Hamlet treats her and there have long been debates as to whether the Dane actually love the lovely lady so fixated on his Depression self-centered self…or was he just so involved in avenging his father’s death (who’s ghost reported the murder) that he just couldn’t deal with the needy lady.  But whether or not his treatment of her fragile self is most certainly the bad.

The ugly of course is her decline from at best being ignored, at worst being reject—and there is some question about her death.  The queen says she climbed into a willow tree and the branch broke and she was swept away by the river….but who’s gonna believe a woman who (according to the ghost) doesn’t even realize her own husband was murdered…I had always understand it was suicide and given the Bard’s track record I’d say that is the best guess.  I mean Hamlet lives thru knife fights, and exposing his uncle–his girl’s death–whatever the cause, but falls victim to a mild knife cut—seems the knife was coated with poison.

“To be, or not to be: that is the question”.

I know the first thing one notices is that he kills off the lead characters AGAIN.  Ophelia for love of Hamlet or a bad tree limb—maybe that was why Hamlet didn’t want her any more–she was putting on weight…some guys are really sensitive about a girl getting porky.   And besides the melancholy boy was too tied up on the presumption of murder and confiding in skulls to pay much attention to a fat, obcessive female.

I never got the killing ones self for a lost love…I lost a boyfriend in college and a husband at a much older age from illnesses, I grieved but did not ever reach a depth of suicide.  The time we had together and the things we shared are now fond memories, but I accept the idea that some women or men might and do attempt when rejected.  And hopefully in our day and age Ophelia would have gotten counseling and some Zoloft—or even short term commitment.

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.”

But many of us have gone thru love that is not returned or we are offered some affection but never up to the sameness of the main lover….we women seem to think that we have the market all tied up on unrequited love and that’s enforced by Shakespeare’s Ophelia and her constant fall into love and despair and don’t tell me he didn’t kill off the poor girl, I truly believe it was by her own hand (well really his–Shakespeare not Hamlet–though he didn’t help– so it’s kinda murder, but) because of this.  And in all honesty I have known many a man hopelessly in love with a woman who did not share the emotions or at least their depth of the man who idolized her.

Her brother (how many times have we as friends or relations tried to keep the bequiled lover from harm–mental being more common than physical) forbids her from seeing Hamlet as he feels that he isn’t really that into her (duh)…but of course when you’re in love how often do you listen to advise?…it’s like your brain is on sensory overload and just ignores everything not related to the object of your affection….If you have never been there I feel sorry for you for we must all have a hopless love or two…as we are not Mr. Spock (and even he became enthralled under certain circumstances.) I think that to stupidly love someone who barely notices you is a true certificate of our humanity.

And being the object of affection is not  that great either.  In my younger days I wasn’t bad to look at and had a personality that begged for sweet shy guys to follow me like puppies (nothing that’s happened to me in the last 100 years).  Now my problem was that I had a very busy mind and a schedule of activities to match.  I was anti-war and all manner of 60’s activities and they were so sweet I would go out with them and then feel bad as the boredom set in.  I wasn’t a mean person and spent a life time trying to break up and move on…and no body was happy in the situation and I didn’t even have to out my murderous uncle and deal with obcessions with my mother…and I don’t remember (well maybe one Halloween) that I set around coversating with skulls.  Oh and I’ve been on the other side to with beautiful men who enjoyed me for my mind or wouldn’t mind a physical get together but didn’t want me full time or lovingly so I figure we’ve all been on both sides and I’m not sure there’s any great way to handle it…except I’m sure that the willow tree  limb into river isn’t one of them.


“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”.

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Boyd Bears Justine the Choir Singer 1999 (262633656101)

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Doubt thou the stars are fire

Doubt that the sun doth move

Doubt truth to be a liar

But never Doubt I love

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Love looks not with the eyes, but w/the mind and therefore is wing’d cupid painted blind.

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All my pictures are from Sherlock Holmes Museum.

All quotes are from Shakespeare.  Whom we are letting us help us look at love this week.

but first my favorite love story–no not Will but Dianna’s words and characters:

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” My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love is as deep; the more I give thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”

This is the main photo for your listing.

Boyd Bears Justine the Choir Singer 1999

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DROUGHTLANDERLOSOPY

1.  Take this time to work out your Outlander obsessional issues:  Here’s starter:    http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/a60981/problems-only-outlander-fans-understand/

“For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo”

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Shakespare’s stories deal with a lot of things, a great variety of people and a full range of Good, Bad and Ugly.  But I think his story most assosciated with love is Romeo and Juliet…

The good: the young lovers

Young love

all that’s wonderful about being in love, magnified by the youngness and innocence of the couple….love is best when not corrupted by previous bad experiences, by the jadedness of the multiple experience….Do any of us ever remember that early love before we were hurt, betrayed, lied to….what ever caused our break-ups over the years?

“With love’s light wings did I o’er-perh these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out.  And what love can do that dares love attempt.”

The bad the feud between their two families….this could come in many forms for those of us who were in love when we were young….they belonged to the wrong faith, when I was growing up my mother insisted I stay within my faith and since I was in church school she didn’t have a lot of problems early on, but….There is also nationalities that do not relish outside romances.  Race has long been an issue in many societies and though it is not so much as it once was, its still an issue in some families.  Money and lack there of also can be an issue and we could go on and on…So most of us understand that there can be family (or even social groups) issues that can come between lovers and lead to clandestine meetings and the like.

THE UGLY is the lengths then had to go to (a faked death–a missed message so that the one party doesn’t know the other is dead and a suicide, following by a second on the return to consciousness and discovery of the dead lover.

“See how she leans her check upon her hand: O’ that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek.”

While I’m not sure that will invented the star-crossed lover I am sure that he single-handedly made them a premier part of the world’s love mythology.  Really a bench mark for all that came after and there have been so many that have.

I see this as an essentially juvenile tale–it is stated in the play that Juliette had not yet reached 14 years, and that’s teen if I ever saw it.    As for Romeo the closest to his age we come is a comment that he didn’t have a beard yet.  Given that we can figure the age around 12-18.  I like to think around 16….but you can go younger or older as you like it.  So we have one very young girl of 13 and a boy–young man of a few years more or less.

Teenagers at least in our day and age seem to like the dramatic and these two from feuding families, though we must take this seriously as there are actual fighting resulting in the death which makes it a bit more serious than just he normal teenage angst of our usual more modern story.  But if we over look that we can pretty much can point out the emotions that run so high when hormones are flaring in the normal puberty (if one can ever call it normal).   And Shakespeare added his beautiful verse so that the teens do such a lovely job transmitting their emotions.

“Did my heart love till now?  Forswear it.  Sight!  For I never saw true beauty till this night.”   (I bet there’s more than one teen out there that would give his cell phone…well maybe not that but—for lines as good as Romeos)

So yes we have a teen love affair—even possible in this day and age…take for instance:

West Side Story—a movie from my youth but still making the rounds in plays and the like.  Rather than the city of Verona, a city of northern Italy we have New York a city of northern America.  The families are now a Puerto Rican gang the Sharks and a Anglo gang the Jets (when you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way from your first cigarette to your last dying day).  Juliette is now Maria a beautiful sister of the leader of the Sharks and Romeo is Tony a former member and still associate of the Jets.  The rest is pretty much Shakespeare except without the Old English and with lots of music and don’t forget the singing.  It’s still star-crossed (thwarted by bad luck) lovers  doing themselves to death for love and loss of the object of that love.

So we’ve pretty much shown that down deep we have some affinity for the over-emotional and while we may not do it ourselves we like to weak over those who die for love–or maybe we just cherish the idea that someday someone might actually love us that much.

“Good night.  Good night.  Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be marrow.”

I am sure that there are many more efforts on dying for love in one form or another, but I think it is the most famous.  And like I said before maybe we love the thought of this love, and though on one hand it is not what we really want–a dead lover and a dead self.  Maybe its because for many of us love tends to be fickle and a lover or lovers who will end their life kinda negates  the fickle aspect of love as you can’t wiggle out of the final commitment that these two lovers, no matter how young they were, made could never be forsaken by either of them.

So there you have it, Shakespeare has crated that love that is a total commitment that makes so many–especially women sigh at the ending.

And if I the cynical girl that I am tends to see it as a rather short-sighted give the average length of a teenagers love interests in general (even several adult ones I’ve known of for that matter)

“My Bounty is as boundless as my love is deep, the more I give thee, the more I have, from both are infinite.”

One thing that does interest me is that this was the early days of romantic love—and like now it was a bit of a fairy tale.  The wealthy and even the less so tended to marry for titles, more riches, military and political stability and protection.  The less wealthy were often married for the same reasons just on a much lesser state (i.e. you have a pretty daughter and you marry her to the ugly buther who has a house and a steady income.  She’s cried for and the butcher doesn’t have to waste his money on women of the streets. All very sensible if not necessariy romantic.  So Shakespeare’s ideas must have been very appealing, and the dying at the end just proved how true the lovers really were.  Point made don’t you think.

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“But soft!  What light through yonder window breaks?  It is the east and Juliet is the sun.  Arise fair sun, and kill the envious moon.  Who is already sick and pale with grief.  That is already sick and pale with grief.  That thou her maid art far more fair than she.  Be not her maid, since she is envious: her vestal livery is but sick and green and none but fools do wear it: cast it off.  It is my lady O, it is my love!”

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JULIET:  “Tis almost morning:  I would have thee gone: an yet no further than a wanton’s bird; who lets it hop a little from her hand, like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, and with a silk thread plucks it back again, so loving-jealous of his liberty.

ROMEO: I would I were thy bird.”

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“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”

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Main picture is from the Baker Street Tube Station….the rest are from the Sherlock Holmes Museum (check out my rview https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g186338-d211907-Reviews-Sherlock_Holmes_Museum-London_England.html )

Oh and I forgot to include Chappie’s site last night:  http://www.rookiescantina.com/

and we’re finishing up family—not completely just for the blog.

and of course what would life be w/o Jamie…ah and Claire too of course….

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Frederick Buechner
“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”
Precious Moments “Mommy Sew Dear” Figurine 1979
$5.76
OK IN OUR ONGOING EFFORT TO KEEP DROUGHTLANDER AT BAY AND SURVIVE TILL 2017 HORIZON:
Keep up to date on all the current crew crew–start with Tobias:
while you’re getting technical how about how they handle the old and new:  http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/news/a17388/outlander-costume-designer-production-designer-interview/
Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages
“The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.”‘
Hand Embroidered Standard Size Pillow Case Birds with Bouquet
So this week we’ve been looking at families—in the right or wrong places?  I’m not sure if that’s ever anywhere near the same for any of us.  Have you see the movie Sweet Home Alabama  (A young woman who’s reinvented herself as a New York socialite must return home to Alabama to obtain a divorce from her husband, after seven years of separation).  This is a woman who has become someone she wants to be but is it really her?  Her return home may prove that it isn’t.
This is a cross section of the good—her final decision, the bad—-her reunion with her family and friends and the ugly–Candice Bergan is fantastic as the mother of her perspective groom, the one she’s finally decided to contront her first husband about that pesky divorce.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Huffington gave us a list of 21 TV shows that makes you believe in the power of family.  #18 was Roseanne…and that of the 21 is the only one I ever really watched.  Guess I’m not a real family person?
The show:  “The Conners became the face of blue collar working-class families in 1988, and at the center of the show Roseanne Barr was a dominant — to say the least — voice for working mothers”
I think this family were more normal than most TV families before it and certainly dealt more with the bad—the family’s sometime total disfunction and the Ugly–no way you can see Rosie as a beautiful person….as far as good—well there were the ratings.
Mark Twain
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
‘now when you get to books there’s a wider selection.  Little Woman was a great read when I was in my early teens and even now I see the growing up in the 1860s.   The novel follows the lives of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—detailing their passage from childhood to womanhood, and is loosely based on the author and her three sisters.
The good is just about everything and anything about this family (except Amy which is spoilt but not so much you’d notice now days—and the fact that she ends up with someone else’s trip and love) The ugly is the war looming over their heads and their father’s being in it.
Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
In To Kill a Mockingbird you see a single parent family, and one with just the father making it unusual especially for the period it was written in.
Scout Finch (Mary Badham), 6,and her older brother, Jem (Phillip Alford), live in sleepy Maycomb, Ala., spending much of their time with their friend Dill (John Megna) and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley (Robert Duvall). When Atticus (Gregory Peck), their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping
The novel has the goodness of young children and a father who is a moral man with the badness of a small town and the ugliness of prejudice, and the stronger preying on the weak.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Men are what their mothers made them.”
I’m not sure if I can I find much good in this book the first in a series of pain, anger and worse.  Flowers in the Attic is:  After the sudden death of their father, four children face cruel treatment from their ruthless grandmother.
  The good are the original innocence of the children…the bad is the rest of the family and the ugly runs from mother to daughter for a rich assortment of reasons.
Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society
“You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn’t depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”
And I couldn’t leave out the reality shows–Here Comes Honey Boo Boo  featuring the family of child beauty contestant Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson The show mainly revolves around Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson and “Mama” June Shannon and their family’s adventures in the southern town of Mcintyre, Georgia.  If there’s good I haven’t found it yet but the bad is that its still on and the ugly is so many American continue to watch this.
W. Somerset Maugham
“Few misfortunes can befall a boy which brings worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.”
LITTLE Jack Horner Plate by John McClelland with Certificates, Booklet and Box (originals)
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William Butler Yeats
“No man has ever lived that had enough of children’s gratitude or woman’s love.”
ORIENTAL Peasant DOLL with Traditional Hat and Coconut Fiber Dress 6 1/2″ Vintage
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A friend who is near and dear may in time become as useless as a relative. George Ade

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Pictures are in London again…

oh wanted to put in a word for Chappie’s—in Longwood, Fl.  My new favorite Mexican Restaurant—they’re great:  https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g34400-d9764105-r417651998-Rookies_Cantina-Longwood_Florida.html

And yes I’m still on families—today is the Ugly…I bet you can’t wait……

but first a look at your droughtlander waste-land and my escape clause

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3

Bertrand Russell 

This is the main photo for your listing.  ROOSTER COOKIE JAR  $17.00

OK  we’ve made it through another day of the big D.

So here’s your assignment for tomorrow:

1.  Count and record the unsexy moments on all the shows both seasons–here’s a starter:

http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/outlander-unsexy-moments.html

2.  Read up on the 1740s in Scotland—start here:

http://z13.invisionfree.com/Twin_Flames/ar/t232.htm

3.  Check out some good Outlander sites…rank them from 1-10 (or more) I like this one:

Outlander Inside S2 Epi11- Vengeance is Mine

and these Suggestions from a fellow sufferer:  https://outlanderdreaming.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/outlander-question-of-the-week/comment-page-1/

 

 George Bernard Shaw

All families have their ugly members…Rupert and Rufus are part of Jamie’s extended family and Rufus is actually a distant cousin….Rupert however is that irritating, aggravating, always there for the parties, the holiday—ready to eat drink…they never bring anything or if they do it’s like a fruit cake left over from last year or the pumpkin pie that outdated the day they bought it and looks slightly green.  They argue, fuss, and the gossip—they never knew a rumor they wouldn’t share…they expect a present, but usually yours is a mate of that fruit cake….or a re-gift of what their mother-in-law (who’s uglier than they are–physically and mentally) gave them 2 or 3 years ago and is covered in dust and if you’re lucky it’s not toxic, on a recall list somewhere or the batteries aren’t leaking acid.
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Families can be embarrassing—how many times when you were a kid did your folks pick you up exactly on time….came in to house and nobody else had left yet—everybody else’s parents knew that it wasn’t required to be there to pick you up at exactly the time on the invitation…Made your whole evening ugly.
And they show up in uncool cars, or wear uncool clothes or what ever it takes to make the embarrassing moment—or more likely MOMENTS that leave you blue with embarrassment and then some.

I’m sure when I mention embarrassment you all could give me a dozen stories and a thousand times that you chringed  about something ugly embarrassing that your parents, kids, spouse or others did.

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 LESLIE DREYFOUS

and then there’s the nutty ones—oh I don’t mean they kill people—but they do strange and unusual, things when and where they’re most likely to embarrass you, or result in you having to take them or one of their many pets to the doctor or vets.  They make presents out of the things their cats gift them or they knit sweaters with three arms and don’t seem to notice that you don’t have matching appendages which makes that last year’s fruit cake seem much more appealing.  It’s not their fault but it fits in ugly especially when you have to clean out their house cause they need to go into a home and you finally find out what?????!!!!! is under all those hoarded news papers…maybe their last four cats or that Uncle Ernie didn’t run off.

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Welcome to our big old happy disfunctional family. You are now in, and whether you like it or not, you can never get out. Hayley Williams

The ones that embarrass you.  They’re uncouth, rude, crude and dress to match.  They always manage to show up when you’ve got friends that just won’t understand or they try to get a loan at your bank or a job where you work and of course use your name freely.  When they’ve drank too much and the cop pulls them and feels sorry for them.  It’s you they call in the middle of the night to make the pick up so the cops won’t arrest them and delivery and arranges for you to take them back in the morning since you’re sober you’ll remember where they left the car.   And you can call them for help but they’re so late arriving (if their car won’t start at all—it seems to work best when they’ve been drinking come to think of it) and make such a scene that you’d be better walking home.

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 Queen Mary

Sorry this one doesn’t need a comment—or rather I’m not going to…not sure which…..

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 Katherine Heigl

and then there’s those family members who are always marrying, divorcing, being involved in all manner of scandals, legal battles, children running away (who can blame them?) or getting into one ditch or some sort of trouble which in this family is normal—one worries if one of the kids aren’t doing something despicable….these are the ones the family members speak about on the side or under their breath and you can always expect an update on Monday–preferably mornings as much of the detail is forgotten if you wait too longer–however there are some items that are added that actually contributes to the whole story and if someone in the family didn’t go out with the entire football team they will eventually so…..might as well be prepared for it.

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 Abhishek Tiwari

And we haven’t even dealt with those cheating hearts and all the amazing involvement from alibi to you did me wrong that entails.

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife. Groucho Marx

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. Groucho Marx
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“Most women use more brains picking a horse in the third at Belmont than they do picking a husband” according to Lauren Bacall in the 1953 film “How to Marry a Millionaire.”

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Women’s childhood relationships with their fathers are important to them all their lives. Stella Chess

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Hello-lucky you I’m back…..two days in a row…wow going for a new record.

Today are pictures from the Sherlock Holmes Pub and the Museum by the same name (except w/o the Pub part) in London still.

Today we’re doing bad families….and of course first the ultimate escapism—going thru stone to century old Scotland—and how you survive till it’s back.

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All kids are trouble, Edith. And I don’t wanna spend my reclining years trying to raise another one.  Archie Bunker

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OK more Droughtlaner plans:

  1.  Learn to Cook Scottish style—but don’t use this cookbook:

Scots Mock ‘Outlander’ Cookbook for Its American Recipes: Haggis Tacos Anyone?

 

  2.    work for a charity like Cait

‘Outlander’ Season 3 News: Caitriona Balfe’s Proud Patronage Of World Child Cancer [Photos]

3.  Read everything that comes out about Ron–start here:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3455282/outlander-showrunner-ronald-d-moore-teases-season-3-explains-the-differences-between-the-book-and-the-show/

I’d say that the Meathead probably got magnesia and forgot where his mouth was  Archie Bunker.

 

 

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Then there’s the bad–If we didn’t have an occasional bad how would we known when things are good—in those rare incidences–RIght?  Also bad is not always bad for all of us.  Some people like damp, darkish weather–otherwise most of the UK would be empty by now.

But when does dysfunctional go from normal family interaction…to the bad.  One would think that to a point bad might well be in the eye of the beholder—like beauty but not as good lookin’.

so:   Dysfuntional is:

not operating normally or properly

or

deviating from the norms of social behavior in a way regarded as bad

So like I said “regarded is kinda like eye of the beholder isn’t it?

Morticia: Children, what are you doing?

Wednesday: I’m going to electrocute him.

Morticia: But we’re late for the charity auction.

Wednesday: But, Mother…

Morticia: I said no.

Pugsley: Pleeaaaase?

Morticia: Oh, all right.

Bad to me can go from the weirdness of the Osbournes—though the money would have made it a lot more bareable don’t you think….but I think first of all that parents should act at least vaguely like an adult….that without guidelines families become a shamble of beings that never do get back to what one would consider normal—by any stretch of the imagination.

But on the other hand those really strict dictating parents that run the family like army camps are no better.  These parents may not be physically abusive but I think they verge on the mental edge with occasional dives over into full out pain for the child.  I think that these type of parents generally have children that are pushed either into open rebellion which can affect their behavior in school and other training which can then tint their lies forever by making it harder for them to attain a job of anything except lower pay levels.  Or in the worst case scenario resulting in such rebellion that the child ends up in the legal system, usually in their teens and then being a chronic offender.

While having parents that need be raised–those that are themselves tended to procrastination or other less than good behavior is another way result in a bad family.

When most people think of parenting, they picture changing diapers, messy feeding times, and chasing a screaming child through a crowded grocery store. But parenting goes far beyond the requirements for meeting the basic survival needs of the child, and parents have a significant influence on how children turn out, including their personality, emotional development, and behavioral habits, as well as a host of other factors.

Vanderbilt/Developmental Psychology

https://my.vanderbilt.edu/developmentalpsychologyblog/2014/05/parental-influence-on-the-emotional-development-of-children/

Bad can be ugly….but mostly it’s inadequate to meet the needs of those children growing up in it.  I think good families have a bit of bad while bad ones have only a bit of good.

I think of the Archie Bunker’s character-hardly a father of the year–but at least Archie pretty much hated everyone (with some little grudging regard for his wife and daughter which he took as love)–we see him for what he is a parody of the bigot, stupid, overbearing, loud and vulgar….but while he is a  bigger than life (and smaller of heart) than the average man they are out there and they make an impression on their children and the lucky children just marry to escape the control of the influence (Gloria’s husband Mike, whom he refers to as Meathead, was a long haired, liberal anti-war and not making enough money to support her so they’re still with her dad—an escape effort which obviously didn’t work, but did torture her father with her unacceptable choice right in his face).  And so we have another form of a bad and in Archie’s case it was funny–in a real father it most definitely leans toward bad.

An uninvolved parenting style is characterized by few demands, low responsiveness, and little communication. While these parents fulfill the child’s basic needs, they are generally detached from their child’s life. In extreme cases, these parents may even reject or neglect the needs of their children.

https://www.verywell.com/what-is-authoritarian-parenting-2794955Of

Of course this is another example of family and probably should have been saved for ugly….but however being a Mafia enforcer doesn’t rule you out in being a good or a bad parent.

However occupations that keep one (or both parents–thank heavens for babysitters and grandparents) can also lead to the category of bad family with children not receiving the contacts they need with parents to develop all matters of interactions that help develop good, or bad or beyond children.

The CDC gives the following parenting

tips for children 0-1 years:

Positive Parenting Tips

Following are some things you, as a parent, can do to help your baby during this time:
  • Talk to your baby. She will find your voice calming.
  • Answer when your baby makes sounds by repeating the sounds and adding words. This will help him learn to use language.
  • Read to your baby. This will help her develop and understand language and sounds.
  • Sing to your baby and play music. This will help your baby develop a love for music and will help his brain development.
  • Praise your baby and give her lots of loving attention.
  • Spend time cuddling and holding your baby. This will help him feel cared for and secure.
  • Play with your baby when she’s alert and relaxed. Watch your baby closely for signs of being tired or fussy so that she can take a break from playing.
  • Distract your baby with toys and move him to safe areas when he starts moving and touching things that he shouldn’t touch.
  • Take care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally. Parenting can be hard work! It is easier to enjoy your new baby and be a positive, loving parent when you are feeling good yourself.
  • http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/childdevelopment/positiveparenting/infants.html

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If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty.’ Jeff Foxworthy
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We come from fallible parents who were kids once, who decided to have kids and who had to learn how to be parents. Faults are made and damage is done, whether it’s conscious or not. Everyone’s got their own ‘stuff,’ their own issues, and their own anger at Mom and Dad. That is what family is. Family is almost naturally dysfunctional. Chris Pine
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