4.7.11

As Viv reminded me, today is 4.7.11 or 4711:

Guess the Germans should be celebrating too.

I first came across 4711 one summer as a young teen, when I and my little brother stayed with our big brother and his family in Germany.  Big Bro was stationed in Berlin, with the British army.  I saw the Berlin Wall, Berlin Zoo, the funny tower with the midday cross, the Brandenburg Gate (closed), the Reichstag, the Olympic swimming pool, drove past Checkpoint Charlie, and sat on a bench outside a German church.  I also discovered Sha Na Na on American Forces’ tv, for which I will be eternally grateful, as I was able to impress my friends when Grease came out the following year, and Sha Na Na played the band in the dance-off.  They were quite happy to let me talk all the way through the film about how great Sha Na Na were.  I’m sure.

We were in Germany for three weeks and I wanted to go to church.  There was one near the base, so I thought I’d pop along on Sunday morning.  It was only when I got there that I realised the service would be in German.  You may remember I was a wimp back then: I sat outside for an hour in the sunshine, listening to the singing, because I was too embarrassed to go back and say how daft I had been.

I’ve been to Germany three times, and I love it.  The public transport is efficient and clean, and the country is gorgeous.

The last time was a visit to a place near Iserlohne, where my brother was stationed.  We went Christmas shopping in the prettiest outdoor market and the Hub tried every German delicacy going.  It’s one of the reasons I married him: he never let a language barrier get in the way of a good sausage.

Happy 4th Of July

What does freedom mean?

It seems apposite to answer this prompt on this day.  A history of America, to illustrate:

• England is boss
• Taxes are high
• Representation is zero
• George Washington and something about a cherry tree…?
• Paul Revere buys a horse
• The British invitation to tea is politely rescinded; the event is a wash
• George III succumbs to porphyria and not madness, as everyone believes; he begins to write poetry: I’m not insane, me/The proof’s in my blue wee
• Team GB gets the hump
• The Colonies get humpier
• A slight disagreement occurs (relations are frosty until the Cold War, when everyone is united against a common foe because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Does that mean the friend of my friend is my enemy?)
• GIII talks to a tree
• Fireworks are the new black
• The television series Centennial comes out in the Seventies, shown on Sunday afternoons while my mother is chained to her ironing board
• The British suddenly get it, and forgive the Americans for not wishing to be yoked to their particular tyranny
• Paul Giamatti is John Adams
• Everyone eats hot dogs and gets fat
• Representation with taxation is universal: We, the People, pay you, the Government, to screw us over.  Hooray for democracy; you can’t buy that kind of freedom
• The day is rounded off with a nice cup of tea

Now I’m off to celebrate by watching Will Smith in Independence Day.

To My American Readers: Happy 4th of July! 

Okay, joke’s over: can we have our country back?

And by the way, it was us who invented apple pie.

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Joke 102

A police officer noticed an old lady driving and knitting at the same time.

He drove alongside her but she didn’t see him.  He put his hailer on and shouted,”PULL OVER!”

Surprised, she turned to him and shouted back, ”No; a pair of socks.”