I am Skeptical

It's the last day of January. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. As young Tantor said to his mother in Tarzan with regard to sanitary water: "It looks questionable to me!" I just know we are going to get hit with a weather whammy. The Real Spring better get here soon and relieve my inner pessimist.

KT Tunstall

Yesterday, a new friend, Neda, and I traveled to London on a very spur of the moment trip to attend a very interesting occasion. Neda is a huge fan on the Scottish singer/songwriter, KT Tunstall. Neda follows her on Facebook and a few days ago KT offered 10 pairs of free tickets to a live audience taping of the SkyArts television show Songbook in London. Neda replied and was selected to receive a set of tickets!!! We started messaging and I offered to go with her (hehe) and she graciously said yes.

We took the coach into London and spent an afternoon on the Tube, talking, eating and visiting the British Museum until it was time for the show. The show was taped at AIR studios in Lyndhurst Hall. The building which was originally a church and a missionary school was amazingly cool and the studio was small and intimate seating about 200 people max.

The show and KT Tunstall were even more amazingly cool. Firstly, because Neda had won tickets, we got to jump a fairly long queue and go right to the front doors. Then, we were escorted to front row seats. They weren't the best seats because we would mostly see KT's back during the interview portion, but we were so close we could touch her. Then the stage manager approached me and asked if we would be willing to move because the white turtleneck I was wearing was too white as a background - again we were seated right behind where KT would be. So we said yes and he moved us right in front of where KT would be singing!! Like dead center "oops I tripped and I am onstage" seats!! It was just about one of the best karma moments ever. KT Tunstall definitely has a new fan in me. She was fantastic live and her use of her voice and instruments and technology was incredible.
KT's guitars

It was also really interesting to see how a show is taped and how they fix mistakes.

We took a late coach home and I stayed in bed until almost noon the next morning.

Deerhurst Detour

This autumn, I drove to Tewkesbury every Monday to stitch in the Abbey, but the kneelers have been moved out of the Abbey for another month because it is too cold to stitch. On my drive, I would see signs for two places: Mythe Bridge and Odda's Chapel. Yesterday, I drove to Tewkesbury to preview items at a monthly auction I usually attend and I had some time, so I decided to take a detour to these two places.
I looked at the map and saw that the Mythe Bridge was very close, just outside of Tewkesbury. It is of significance because it was designed by Thomas Telford who is a bigwig in bridge and canal construction and he designed the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over which we traveled last summer while narrow boating. So I get to the bridge and realize driving over it wasn't the way to get a good view of the bridge's better qualities. It was chilly and starting to rain, so I didn't head back, but I might one day to get a better view. The Mythe Bridge link has a very pretty illustration.
Then I headed to Deerhurst which has the distinction of having two Saxon churches (really old stuff) within feet of one another. I drove down the one-lane road, parked and got out to explore. It was completely deserted. I spent time looking around The Priory Church of Saint Mary and snapping some photos. The church was pretty, very simple and well-restored which can be both a good and a bad thing, mostly good in this case. It was also freezing cold inside.
Unusual triangular windows in the bell tower
Beautiful carvings on the pulpit
Great metalwork
Carved angel
The squares next to the head are the angel's feathers.
Dedication to the pregnant Madonna
Nature's Rorschach Test
Lichen on gravestones is so cool.
This wins the day's "best gravestone" award.
I headed over to Odda's Chapel, which has a very interesting history, but I didn't go in because I want to return there with Craig and explore the surrounding area as well. Odda's Chapel is named for Earl Odda who dedicated the chapel to his brother, Ælfric, in 1056 upon Ælfric's death. In 1675, the dedication stone was found with this information chiseled into it, but the chapel was nowhere to be found. In 1885, repairs were begun at a nearby farmhouse and the chapel was discovered as part of the house! In the 1960's, the two structures were separated. This is a great blog note to read if you are interested: English Buildings.

Thought of the Day

I never thought a slice of toasted rye bread with cream cheese could taste so good. I love rye bread.

Owen's 'English' Homework

Last night, Owen was sat at the kitchen table with his English/Spellings homework in front of him. After about fifteen minutes, he came to us because he did not understand what he was supposed to do. He had already put a bunch of words into alphabetical order without fail but then there was a part two to the homework. He had to 'circle the unstressed vowel' in the words. Okay, easy enough, they are learning about primary and secondary stress in words. So I look at it and get immediately irritated because I figure that one must pronounce them in a English accent to get them correct. Craig goes in to look at it. It turns out that the task is not actually to mark stress on weak syllables, it is actually to mark the syllables that ARE NOT PRONOUNCED! What a bizarre homework assignment.
For example, in Brit-speak the word 'literally' is pronounced "litruhlee", deleting the 'e', so Owen had to circle the 'e'. Some other words were:
stationary - delete the 2nd 'a' to say "stationree"
immediately - delete the 'a' to say "immeejitlee"
February - delete the 'a' to say "februree"

It reminded me of how we say the days of the week in Baltimore even though it's a different process:
"Mondee, Tuesdee, Wenzdee, Thursdee, Friday, Saturday, Sundee, hon!"
But we don't teach this in English class!

So then I started thinking about the purpose of this homework assignment and I realized it wasn't a pronunciation exercise, it was actually a backward way to teach a child how to spell the words and realize (excuse me realiSe) that even though a sound isn't pronounced, it is there in the spelling and it is a pretty systematic rule, thankfully.

Then Craig and I started thinking about other dialectal rules that are not taught in Spellings class. Our favoUrite is the rule we call "extra r". If a word ends in a vowel, the English often add an /r/ sound to the end. For example, my friend Lisa's name is pronounced "Liser", 'India' goes to "injier", 'Alabama' is "ahlahbahmer" and pretty much my most fave word is 'dilemma' pronounced "die-lemmer". Lately Tunisia has been in the news and it is pronounced "toonisier". What we find the funniest is that if a word actually has an /r/ in it's spelling preceded by a vowel, the English DON'T pronounce it i.e., "dah-ling" for 'darling'. They do pronounce an "American" /r/ if it's in a blend, as in the word 'tree' or at the beginning of a word except some people pronounce the /r/ funny like they have an articulation issue (a funny w/r sound) when in reality they don't. That's a whole 'nother dialectal issue.

Then finally, Craig was talking about a meeting he attended yesterday and how the speaker kept saying the word "beeter" over and over again and how he had no clue what she was talking about until his mind clicked with an "A-HA!" moment. She was talking about a system that was labeled 'something something B'.
B = beta = "beeter" in Brit speak!
Now the Greek letters have been around for like ages, litruhlee, and the whole world pronounces them the same.
Except in Britain who dares to be different.
And they say WE talk funny!

I Like Commercials

This is my favorite advert here.

Busy Weekend

In our attempt to see parts of Britain that we haven't yet explored, we started with a drive to Shipton-under-Wychwood for a pub lunch at The Shaven Crown on Saturday.

We actually had already been to this pub in 2004 when the kids and I met Craig in London after a conference. The village looked pretty much the same as we remembered. The pub served Hook Norton ales which we have come to love, especially for their slogan:

We then drove to Banbury just because and looked around. There was an interesting church there. Nothing spectacular on the inside, but the architecture on the outside was noteworthy.
On Saturday night, we went our separate ways: I attended a previously scheduled bunco game and Craig went to a Burns Night celebration at a neighboUr's house a few houses down. We both had a fun night. For an explanation of Burns Night, follow the highlighted link.
Today, I helped my friend, Jane, who was hosting an Anglo-American event at her house. Every year, the American contingent sponsors an "American-style" breakfast complete with pancakes & syrup, sausage, bacon, egg bakes & muffins. This type of breakfast is uncommon in the UK. A typical English breakfast includes things like toast, beans, grilled tomatoes, eggs, sausage (fatter and different), and gammon (or rashers) which is sort of like bacon, but not bacon in the American sense. They do have a pancake day on Shrove Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday), but the pancakes are more like what we Americans would call crepes. I will blog about it on Shrove Tuesday AKA Mardi Gras which is 8 March.
Craig is keeping track of the developments in the Bears v. Packers NFL game. I'm blogging. The kids are in bed. End of weekend.