I had an aunt who loved a plant, but you're my cup of tea

[sovay]

I was made aware earlier this evening that the current administration issued a proclamation on the 850th anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket celebrating his martyrdom in the cause of religious liberty with all the anti-abortion bullhorns and Christian hegemony to be expected from this dominionist crowd.

I prefer to remember that in high school I watched Becket (1964) with the friend who made my brain turn to lemon pudding with just the smell of her hair and that spring we lay freezing beside one another in a hastily pitched pup tent on the track field because the temperature had plunged below zero during a twenty-four-hour charity relay and despite what years later transpired to have been an extremely mutual interest we still didn't end up making out because neither of us had the gaydar God gave a rock to turn over in the dark and say, I'm cold, Thomas. I can still hear it in her voice. We'd quoted it all winter. A rock.

We wrote our first animal song about fifteen years ago, I suppose. We've written a great many more in the interim, which we find a very good place to work. We have recently embodied all these songs about animals in a new LP called The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann for Parlophone—BMC1164, actually. Very easy number to remember if you think of it as a date, 1164 being of course the date of the Constitutions of Clarendon at the time of Thomas à Becket, marking a very important stage in the quarrel between Anouilh and Christopher Fry.
—Michael Flanders and Donald Swann at the Haymarket Theatre, 18 October 1963

Comments

[skygiants]

You know, I would really love to know more about the centuries-spanning quarrel between Anouilh and Fry.

[selenak]

I liked this reminder of Thomas Becket's anniversary much better:

Let us remember Thomas Becket on his feast day at his best: smoking a cigarette and chatting with Elisabeth Taylor. pic.twitter.com/0IbPwdm1Ze

— Mateusz Fafinski (@Calthalas) December 29, 2020

[cmcmck]

Are people still using that well known transcription error, à Becket?

I still occasionally see Anthony à Wood too.

Both long dropped by academic historians.

I've been re reading Eliot's 'Murder in the Cathedral'.

[selkie]

Oh, I wanted to reach through the screen and thwap you both, and then hug you.

It’s a very pretty rock, though. Complex. *brushes leaves off it for you*

[larryhammer]

a very important stage in the quarrel between Anouilh and Christopher Fry

LOL. I was raised on Flanders & Swann, but somehow was never exposed to this classic Flanderism.

we still didn't end up making out because neither of us had the gaydar God gave a rock

Oh dear. That makes me want to reach back in time and give wee!sovay a warm cup of tea and a gentle, loving thwap! on the shoulder.

[ashlyme]

*debates getting their TARDIS, and leaving notes saying "she likes you too"* Just ignore the sudden memory of a narrowboat on the track field. It wasn't there for long. I'm just glad you found out it was mutual later on. *pops back and leaves greatcoats and duvets*

[coraline]

that paragraph about your high school friend is SO EVOCATIVE.

a rock. weren't we all at some level rocks. eesh.

[sillylilly_bird]

I grew up with F&S - I still have Mom's vinyl:)

She also had the Mozart concerto on vinyl that was riffed on in Ill Wind.

[asakiyume]

How presumptuous of the administration. Who the hell, in any corner of the world, wants to hear what a US administration has to say about a saint from ages past? Don't try and put your sticky fingers on this, Trump administration!

[viggorlijah]

the teenage romance wistfulness made me stop and go aww, thinking of my own lying next to someone unable to say anything!