Sweet Taste Of Revenge

On the first day, she sadly packed her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases.
On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things.
On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining-room table, by candle-light, she put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of spring-water.
When she'd finished she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimps dipped in caviar into the hollow centre of the curtain rods.
She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.
On the fourth day, the husband came back with his new girlfriend, and at first all was bliss.
Then, slowly, the house began to smell.
They tried everything; cleaning, mopping, and airing out the place.
Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned.
Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which time the two had to move out for a few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting. Nothing worked!
People stopped coming over to visit.
Repair men refused to work in the house.
The maid quit.
Finally, they couldn't take the stench any longer, and decided they had to move, but a month later - even though they'd cut their price in half - they couldn't find a buyer for such a stinky house.
Word got out, and eventually even the local estate agents refused to return their calls.
Finally, unable to wait any longer for a purchaser, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place.
Then the ex-wife called the man and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely and said that she missed her old home terribly and would be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for having the house.
Knowing she could have no ideas how bad the smell really was, he agreed on a price that was only one tenth of what the house had been worth.....but only if she would sign the papers that very day.
She agreed, and within two hours his lawyers delivered the completed paperwork.
A week later the man and his girlfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home....and to spite the ex-wife, they even took the curtain rods!

Communal Cabbing

I came across this picture in the on-line BBC news magazine. The caption refers to the two-day London tube strike, and the suggestion that people should share taxis. At the same time posing the question. Why save it just for crisis days!

A Big Thank You!

And finally today, I would like to say a very big thank you to all those Journal readers who send in pictures, stories and jokes, usually by email, which make a massive contribution to the Blankney Journal content. Since the Journal started on 1 January this year, this thank you is post number 831. That represents a tremendous amount of material, an average of over 5 posts per day, every day since the blog began. I am currently publishing 7 posts each day. Your contributions are invaluable. Any readers who have not previously sent in material, please feel free to do so, I would love to hear from you. The content can be on any subject under the sun, providing it is not abusive or offensive. If your contribution makes just one person somewhere smile, it will have been worthwhile. The email address is garlant@btinternet.com .

The Edwardians

Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, her son Edward (pictured right) came to the throne. Despite the fact that Edward VII only reigned until 1910, when he was succeeded by George V, the Edwardian era is generally considered to have ended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, As Prince of Wales Edward was regarded as a playboy and a gambler. Following his marriage in 1863, he continued his frivolous lifestyle, and it was common knowledge among the aristocracy that he kept numerous mistresses. During his reign much of his time was spent hunting, shooting and yachting, and spending time on the continent, before returning to London for the Season.

By the end of Edward's reign, the British Empire was already in decline as both Germany and the United States challenged the hitherto dominance of Britain's major industries, coal, and iron and steel.

The Edwardian era brought with it great change, previous Victorian values were cast aside as more modern lifestyle emerged in Britain. Whilst Victoria had shunned society, Edward led a fashionable elite with few responsibilities and even fewer morals. The British class system was very much in evidence, and it was very much a period personified by the upstairs, downstairs, way of life. The upper classes embraced leisure sports, which led to the rapid development of new fashion. Whilst the lower classes were segregated from the aristocratic and mercantile society, with few luxuries afforded to them.

The period was characterised by its own unique architectural style, fashion and way of life, and was strongly influenced by Art Nouveau. In literature novels and short stories became very
popular whilst musically phonographs, playing waxed discs, became available to the better off. There was an increasing interest in watching live performances. The lower classes were able to listen to military bands, who played in public parks in the summer. The old Victorian Music hall remained popular, but found itself in competition with New Drama in the theatres.

It was also a time of innovative technology. The first transatlantic wireless signals were sent by Marconi, the Wright brothers took their first flight, and by the end of the era Louis Bleriot had crossed the English Channel by air, and automobiles were common. First Roald Admundsen and later Scott's teams reached the South Pole. In 1908 the Summer Olympics were held in London. Sport became immensely popular during Edwardian times, tennis and yachting with the wealthy, and soccer with the lower classes.

Also at this time women began to gain more recognition. Emmeline Pankhurst political activist and leader of the British Suffragettes movement was recognised as having achieved women's suffrage in Britain. On 4 June 1913 another British suffragette Emily Wilding Davison, fanatically dedicated to her cause, staged a dramatic protest at the Epsom Derby, throwing herself in front of the King's horse, Anmer. She was very badly trampled and died four days later on 8 June.

The Edwardian period is often regarded as a romantic Golden Age of long summer afternoons, garden parties and big hats. Later the Edwardian age was viewed with irony, as a mediocre period of pleasure between the the great achievements of the Victorian age, which preceded it, and the great catastrophe of the war which was to come after. Which view you took no doubt depended, to a large degree, on whether your were wealthy or poor.

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To watch a video clip of late Victorian and Edwardian times click the link below;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_4170000/newsid_4170900?redirect=4170925.stm&news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1
(Launch in stand alone player and full screen mode)

Poem - Diary Of A Church Mouse

A week ago today I began a series of poems by John Betjeman. Below is the second poem in the series, entitled 'Diary Of A Church Mouse', with an introduction that explains the sentiment behind the verse

The church mouse is one of the most charming and lovable of all John Betjeman's characters. She has a simple but shrewd outlook on life, living humbly in a forgotten junk cupboard, and getting little to eat except once a year at Harvest Festival. But how unfair it is, she thinks, that rats and mice from all around, who are never seen near the church the rest of the year, should come at Harvest Festival and greedily eat the food they have no right to. Some, she knows, have no religion at all, and some are quite different religions, yet that does not stop them coming to steal the Church of England's festive food.
The little mouse is quite sure that human beings wouldn't behave so badly. Yet on second thoughts, perhaps she's wrong? For who are all those people who fill the church on Harvest Festival Sunday whom she's never seen before? Are humans as bad as the animals and come to church only on the big festivals, but not on all the other Sundays of the year?

Diary Of A Church Mouse

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Here among long-discarded cassocks,

Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,

Here where the vicar never looks

I nibble through old service books.

Lean and alone I spend my days

Behind this Church of England baize.

I share my dark forgotten room

With two oil-lamps and half a broom

The cleaner never bothers me,

So here I eat my frugal tea.

My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;

My jam is polish for the floor.

Christmas and Easter may be feasts

For congregation and for priests,

And so may Whitsun. All the same,

They do not fill my meagre frame.

For me the only feast at all

Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,

When I can satisfy my want

With ears of corn around the font.

I climb the eagle's brazen head

To burrow through a loaf of bread.

I scramble up the pulpit stair

And gnaw the marrows hanging there.

It is enjoyable to taste

These items ere they go to waste,

But how annoying when one finds

That other mice with pagan minds

Come into church my food to share

Who have no proper business there.

Two field mice who have no desire

To be baptized, invade the choir.

A large and most unfriendly rat

Comes in to see what we are at.

He says he thinks there is no God

And yet he comes ..... it's rather odd.

This year he stole a sheaf of wheat

(It screened our special preachers seat),

And prosperous mice from fields away

Came in to hear the organ play,

And under cover of its notes

Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.

A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I

Am too papistical, and High,

Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong

To munch through Harvest Evensong,

While I, who starve the whole year through,

Must share my food with rodents who

Except at this time of year

Not once inside the church appear.

Within the human world I know

Such goings-on could not be so,

For human beings only do

What their religion tells them to.

They read the Bible everyday

And always night and morning pray,

And just like me, the good church mouse,

Worship each week in God's own house.

But all the same it's strange to me

How very full the church can be

With people I don't see at all

Except for Harvest Festival.

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John Betjeman

A Ring Of Bells