Tuesday, 1 August 2023

O England! model to thy inward greatness, like little body with a mighty heart.

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Wherever I wander, wherever I rove; the hills of the highland for ever I love.


HM King Charles III has a love and respect for tartan. The King regularly can be seen in Scotland wearing his kilt collection, including Hunting Stewart, Balmoral and until recently the Rothesay tartan. 

The Rothesay tartan technically belongs to the Duke of Rothesay which is a dynastic title of the heir apparent to the British throne (David Stewart, son of Robert III, became the first Duke of Rothesay in 1398 and was heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of Scotland). Between the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and Edward VIII’s time as heir apparent (1910 to 1936), the the style Duke of Rothesay was informally dropped out in favour of Prince of Wales, the premier British title for the eldest son. 

One cannot expect every attempt at poetry to rival Chaucer and Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, Whitman and Dickinson, Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane. But those poets, and their peers, set the measure: any who aspire to poetry must keep such exemplars always in mind.

Country things are the necessary root of our life - and that remains true even of a rootless and tragically urban civilisation. To live permanently away from the country is a form of slow death.

Oh, these nocturnal games and fancies -we should make them real,and try them in the day

The bikini is the most important thing since the atom bomb.


In 1946, Western Europeans joyously greeted the first war-free summer in years, and French designers came up with fashions to match the liberated mood of the people. Two French designers, Jacques Heim and Louis Réard, developed competing prototypes of the bikini. Heim called his the “atom” and advertised it as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.” 

French fashion designer Louis Reard was determined to create an even more scandalous swimsuit. Réard's swimsuit, which was basically a bra top and two inverted triangles of cloth connected by string, was in fact significantly smaller. Made out of a scant 30 inches of fabric, Réard promoted his creation as “smaller than the world’s smallest bathing suit.”

Fjords

Calming