1914. Award 23: The Aqueduct Plugger Award

Just when I was beginning to doubt the existence of any sort of Higher Being, The Dumbest Blog Ever nominated me for The Adequate Blogger Award. Thank you Dumbest Blogger – it is indeed a thrill. This exemplary award was created by James of James Proclaims. Thank you, James. James not only has interesting postings but he makes pithy and/or sharp-eyed comments here and there. James thinks that answering the questions of this award is “really just a box ticking exercise”. Well James, get yourself a coffee and make yourself comfortable, because I’m about to tick (check) a few boxes regarding The Dumbest Blogger’s complex queries about the meaning of life.

Yipee!

The Dumbest Blogger’s Stupid Questions:

1. Do you like birds?

I am a bird freak – just chickens and ducks. The ducks will have to wait another time because I want to tell you about my Faverolles. Faverolles are a breed of chicken that have an extra toe on each foot. The males have gallant beards and the females have gorgeous ear muffs. They are the quintessence of what the carol Twelve Days of Christmas sings of on the third day when the gift was “Three French Hens”. Faverolles are French! I don’t have them for eggs or meat. I have them for style.

Incidentally, even one bird is a Faverolles – it still has the S on the end. Isn’t that classy? Sort of like a double small “f” starting a surname. Here is a photo of a couple of French Ladies – they are definitely a class act of ffaverolles.

Below is a photo of my rooster who was once King of the Fowl Yard. He looks vicious, but Faverolles have the loveliest of characters. So if you have little kids and you want a couple of pet chickens, get Faverolles. They are child friendly and won’t attack and claw and peck like other beastly breeds. They are a large breed although apparently there is a bantam variety. I’ve never seen the bantam variety so don’t know if they’re as child-friendly as the larger Faverolles.

This particular rooster teamed up with the dog. Every day together they would patrol the garden. No other member of the poultry establishment was allowed over the fence to scratch about. A stray hen would be chased by dog and rooster back to safer ground. The dog and the rooster were inseparable for about three years. The best of friends!

One day an up-and-coming young rooster challenged this big rooster to a fight. The big rooster came off second best. He was no longer in charge of the harem. Mortified he came into the garden to patrol with the dog, and the dog bit the big rooster’s head off.

2. What is your favourite movie?

My favourite movie is Babette’s Feast. If you haven’t seen it don’t expect an action-packed experience. It’s a couple of hours about a woman cooking dinner.

The lead character in this marvelous 1987 film is Stéphane Audran. (The film got an Oscar – if you think that’s important). It’s a brilliant movie.

I have seen this movie twice which is twice more than I have seen The Lord of the Rings. I have also seen The Dam Busters twice – back in the late 1950s – but it’s not as good as Babette’s Feast. As you can see, I’m not that big on going to the pictures. I’ve made three or four attempts to watch Gone with the Wind, the last time being just the other day after they threatened to ban it. The video began and I awoke from a deep sleep on the sofa three hours later and everyone else had gone to bed.

3. When was the last time you used a pencil?

Gosh! It must be years. These days they have medication.

When I was a kid, before the Internet and before TV, my first cousin Bert Worsnop and me (we were the same age) collected coloured pencils. You registered somewhere, and every now and again you’d get some coloured pencils in the mail. Each was a different shade. I think there was something like 180 different shades in the collection. They were fantastic. Of course they were so precious that we kept them in a cabinet and took them out simply to look at but never use.

4. What would you do for a Klondike bar?

My maternal grandmother’s brother, Uncle Herbert (Charles Herbert Lightoller – the highest in command saved off the Titanic!) joined the gold rush in Canada’s Klondike in his earlier days. No doubt it was hard work, and he unquestionably would have killed for a Klondike Bar to quench his thirst up there in that wilderness.

Charles Herbert Lightoller

To get a modern Klondike bar I would have to buy a ticket to North America because I’m not sure that they have them where I live. My passport died years ago, so no Klondike bar for me unless a Klondike bar gets mailed over. We have Eskimo Pies – although the name has recently been changed I believe to something less systemically racist.

Incidentally, I have a letter (in my possession) from Great Uncle Herbert written to my grandmother in which he says “Imagine Doreen expecting her fifth. It must be something in the weather”. That fifth was me! So I was almost famous (of Titanic fame) even before I was born.

I took my mother to see the Titanic movie and all she said at the end was “All that money and he wasn’t the slightest bit like Uncle Herbert.” (She also insisted – family tradition – that the captain of Titanic was drunk).

5. What is the biggest problem facing the human race at this moment in history?

The artistic world is ruled by rules. Publishes and marketers determine what is good and what is bad. This book won’t sell so it’s bad. AND never start a sentence with an “And”. And you use the passive voice. And… And you should do this. And you should do that. This is the way to paint and write and compose. The artist’s world can’t change the world because it’s hidebound by the world.

Anyone who steps out of the established pattern is a nobody.

It’s like lab technicians claiming to be scientists. They’re not scientists; they’re technicians. They put stuff into beakers according to how they’ve been told.

Einstein played the violin. Newton sat in the apple orchard.

Bring back creative people and stop telling everyone how things should be done! Yeah – the bees are in my bonnet.

Newton, Beethoven, Einstein
If you want to employ a genius you have to put up with the hair

6. If James has 42 pieces of chocolate, and Joe has 37 pieces of chocolate, and both James and Joe give 3 pieces of chocolate to Susan, then what is the moral significance of James having 42 pieces of chocolate to begin with?

Clearly Susan had secretly given James the 42 pieces of chocolate in the first place for “favours received” – possibly one on each occasion. Bad luck, Joe. I doubt whether this snippet of unethical behaviour could be classed as having “moral significance”.

When I went to boarding school (in my teens – we weren’t rich and snobby we just lived too far from a high school so we had to go to a boarding school) a dining table sat eight students: seven plus a “table prefect”. Everyone had their set table and chair. There were about 450 students. The small daily slab of butter was in a dish on each table, undivided and uncut. Turns were taken each day to divide the butter into eight equal parts. The person doing the dividing would get the final piece – just to make sure it was divided evenly. Oh the care taken over a quarter inch butter cube!

James and Joe and Susan and others can stick their chocolate or butter where-ever. Personally, I’m off to grab an Eskimo Pie before they go the way of Gone with the Wind.

The Rules – see Question 5 above!

My Nominees:

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t nominate but I recommend. This is NOT because I’m lazy but because I’m lazy. It’s also NOT because I’m afraid of hurting those who miss out because they haven’t been nominated but because I’m afraid of hurting those who miss out because they haven’t been nominated. If I may – just this once – take the easiest way out and suggest clicking on the icons of those who give this a like. That way you’ll be taken magically to their site where there’s so much to discover!

Thanks for reading and thanks again to The Dumbest Blogger and James Proclaims.