Sunday Drive: You'll Never Walk Alone

The Righteous Brothers sing the inspirational song from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel:

Waitin' for the Weekend

Brexit: A Comedy of Errors

Longtime readers of this blog will know that your Head Trucker is a thoroughgoing Anglophile who takes a continuing friendly interest in the scepter'd isle and its people, our not-so-distant cousins linked to us in all manner of ways, including law, language, literature, and custom, with amusing variations on both sides.  Not to mention all those fascinating BBC historical dramas we have loved so much over the years.

In just the last few weeks, I have become - most unexpectedly - engrossed in their newest historical drama, broadcast in real time, and it's a doozy.  I tell you what.  Not even ol' Will the Bard himself could touch this for intrigue, passion, plot twists, comic foils, drama queens, and bitter tragedy.  I won't spoil the plot for you - I can't, really, because there isn't one - but CBS Sunday Morning offers this helpful summary up through last weekend:



However, be advised that this summary is already clean out of date, events having moved so quickly over there in just the last four days. To give just one example: the well-starched Jacob Rees-Mogg, portrayed as one of the sternest champions of Brexit, has now done a complete 180 and is voting in Parliament for what he swore he never would, and encouraging others to do the same, whilst his boss, the embattled Theresa May, has promised (sort of) to step down as Prime Minister if only Parliament will pass her deal. Fascinating. This beats "Who Shot J.R.?" all to slap.  I tell you what.

The dizzying cast of characters and shifts of allegiances back and forth, and side to side, are guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat. Of course, it's hard to tell the players without a scorecard, but I can offer you this clue: it does seem to your Head Trucker that the Leave people are very like our current Republicans (Make America Britain Great Again); whilst the Remainers are rather like our current Democrats, and about as well organized, but great at coming up with clever posters and fun protest marches. Enuff said.

Although billed as a comedy, I do very much fear that it will all end in tears, and eventually, the collapse of Western civilization on both sides of the Atlantic, not just ours.  (Some people in Britain are stockpiling their closets with food and other essentials in case it all goes awry.)  But what do I know?

Perhaps you should just tune in and decide for yourself.  If you poke around in the Politics sections of the Guardian and the BBC, you will often find live broadcasts or blogs of the goings-on in Parliament, while Sky News usually has updates on the half-hour.  I offer these particular links simply because they are free and require no subscription to access; there are of course many other news sources in Britain that you can google up on your own.  The three I just mentioned are generally pro-Remain, neutral, and pro-Leave, respectively.

And for those few, those very few, of my fellow Americans who would like to hear a reasoned, impartial analysis of the Brexit mess, I recommend this lecture given two weeks ago by historian Vernon Bogdanor, one of Britain's foremost constitutional scholars, for your edification:

Sunday Drive: El Baile

For the first time this year, it's 80 degrees outside as I write, hooray!  Therefore, your Head Trucker is happy to report that winter is over and spring has sprung, and isn't that wonderful news?  As it always is, year after year--the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees turn our minds from the sordid and vulgar to the lambent and sublime.  As Emily Dickinson wrote:

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,—
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

And this:

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown,
Who ponders this tremendous scene—
This whole experiment of green,
As if it were his own!

And finally, this:

Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide,

But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview
With God.

And so, let us tend our gardens and take delight in the perpetual miracle of renewal and grace that is the divine gift of this glorious season.  Rejoice--lift up your hearts--drink deep of inward refreshment while you may--and dance with the bees who toil so happily upon the pretty flowers, though they last but a day.

For as someone else has said, There are just so many summers, babe, and just so many springs.

To put you in a terpsichorean mood, here is Juan Carlos Quintero with "El Baile"--The Dance:

Waitin' for the Weekend

The Pork Boys Do St. Pat's Day, 2019

M.P. got his Irish on for our St. Patrick's Day dinner, as the photos show.

M.P. worked for hours trying to get this shamrock fold to come out right, using an iron to set the edges just so.

The simple table scarf is several green bandanas ironed flat and folded together, bordered by green Mardi Gras beads.

At left, Irish soda bread; at right, pasties filled with meat and potato

A rarebit sauce to go on the soda bread

A luscious dark brown gravy to go over the pasties

Some tasty Guinness Draught Stout to accompany the appetizers

Our succulent corned beef, hot from the oven, glazed with mustard and brown sugar

M.P.'s renowned Truckstop Cabbage with red onions and carrots

Delicious potato pancakes topped with green onion bits and served with sour cream

M.P. takes particular pride in his scones, which are very tender inside, a real treat served piping hot with butter.

More stout to wash down the corned beef, potato pancakes, truckstop cabbage, and scones

Dinner left us so full we could hardly eat our delicious dessert, chocolate cake made with Guinness, topped with a frothy chocolate topping and shaved chocolate bits.  But we made a gallant effort.

I may update some descriptions with more details when I have a chance to double-check with the cook.  It was a scrumptious meal, though, and very filling.  We both conked out early afterwards and slept like babies.

The State of the South

It may come as a surprise to some folks that there's more to the South than pickup trucks, country music, and good old boys. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, located in Montgomery, produced this thought-provoking video last fall as part of its Southern Writers Festival of New Plays.



Your Head Trucker attended some plays at the ASF when it was brand new, back in the 1980s, and can highly recommend its beautiful lakeside campus and innovative staging. I'm sorry to have to report, though, that the cheap seats were rather uncomfortable for a long-legged man: my knees were jammed against the back of the seat ahead of me all through each performance. (This seems to be a universal problem in modern theaters.)  Still, it was an enjoyable experience overall.

In case any of y'all will be touring through Alabama this year, the Festival's 47th season will include productions of Hamlet, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Saint Joan, Our Town, The Sound of Music, and Steel Magnolias, along with newer works by contemporary playwrights.

Sunday Drive: The King of Love My Shepherd Is

For the victims of terror and violence in New Zealand and everywhere: based on the Twenty-third Psalm.

The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never,
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.

Waitin' for the Weekend

So They Loaded up the Truck and Moved to . . .

Far, far away in a never-never land of swimming pools and movie stars sits a fabled mansion long celebrated in song and story, which every American over fifty, say, will instantly recognize - and indeed, feel intimately acquainted with, despite never having set foot in it.  The name of the house - most incongruously to our British friends, I'm sure - is Chartwell, and it rises atop a bluff in Bel Air, commanding a breathtaking view from the mountains to the city to the sea.

And now this home of dreams, so well remembered, so fondly admired, can be yours - for only $245 million.  With 11 bedrooms, 18 bathrooms, and a 5-bedroom guest house, the property can easily accommodate you, your whole dadburn family, a passel of country cousins, and all the critters you can stand.  And rest assured that no element of comfort or convenience has been overlooked:  it comes complete with a 40-car garage, a 12,000-bottle wine cellar, a cement pond in the back yard, and a terrace big enough for hanging out your laundry and cooking up all the rhumatiz' medicine you require.

Unfortunately, there are no photographs of the interior in this presentation video, so you just might have to bring your own pot passers for the fancy eatin' room.




But the presentation is just not complete without the theme song, which starts at the :30 mark below:




If any of you peckerwoods do buy this place, you be sure and drop ol' Russ a postcard, and tell me all about it.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Bob Hager