I tried the first line of A Tale of Two Cities after it pronounced the first line of Pride and Prejudice to be my original work but it was taking too long so I gave up. By the way, what the heck is a "dangling modifier" when it's at home? It sounds a bit Kenneth Williams doing Rambling Sid Rumpo to me!
Oh, yes - I've looked up Foyle's War on Wiki and found the guy you mean, a nasty piece of work played by Henry Goodman. There will be 3 new episodes next year. Interested to note that you probably saw them in hourly episodes where we have 2-hour episodes. I really like settling down for 2 hours of that sort of drama.
At the moment we have The Killing (3) on Saturday nights and 2 x 1-hour episodes.
Yes, the American Indians were appallingly treated. I sometimes think that the US will really have moved forward when they have a Native American president. Even when I was a child, I was always on the Indians' side when westerns were on TV.
Another film for your Netflix "fix" is Last of the Dogmen (Barbara Hershey) about some Cheyenne who live in a hidden valley and know nothing about modern American life.
You are right about being overly-sensitive; it does become patronising. Glad you like Foyle's War (still being repeated here on ITV3). Foyle is coming back, post-war, soon.
I think your grandfather was right, by the way. But sometimes it's good to be reminded that it hasn't just been the Welsh that have been marginalised. Yesterday I was reading about the people of the South Tyrol; Mussolini moved a lot of Italian people up there and more or less said that everyone had to speak Italian or they could move away. Now the people of that area are saying that they are Austrian, not Italian, and there might be problems there.
Also, on an episode of Inspector Montalbano, he said that many years ago in Germany (Stuttgart to be exact) there were signs up saying "No Sicilians" (rather, I would imagine, like the 1950s in England when there were "No Irish" signs up at guesthouses etc.).
I take it the commentator was American herself? How on earth did she get a job like that when she was clearly a sandwich short of a picnic!
It reminds me of the recent series The Wartime Farm; they mentioned that "African-American" GIs were segregated from their non-A-A colleagues when they came to Britain in WWII and the locals did not take kindly to that. Everyone, whatever colour, was invited to local parties and dances. I also remember the same issue coming up in an episode of Foyle's War and Foyle having to explain to the mystified American officers that the local people wouldn't have that sort of thing.
The position can only be held by a person who is an Alderman of the City and has been a Sheriff of the City. At Michaelmas, the Mayor summons the Common Hall (a group of liverymen from the City's Livery Companies) who then vote for the person they want. The position is unpaid and very hard work but of course also very prestigious. www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-the-city/who-we-are/lord-mayor-and-chairmen/the-lord-mayor-of-the-city-of-london/Pages/default.aspx
Yes. If I remember correctly, I think they had to do that when the Queen was doing her Jubilee tour of London. She also has to seek permission to enter the Commons, of course!
The Lord Mayor of London (since 2006 Lord Mayor of The City of London) is a position that should not be confused with that of Mayor of London (currently Boris Johnson).
The Lord Mayor's position has been in existence since the year 1189; Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonstone (not one of the Welsh ones, I think!) rather greedily occupied the mayorship for 24 terms. These days, the tenureship is for one year only. In those days (and for a long time afterwards) London comprised what we now know as The Square Mile, ie: the financial centre of The City. What we think of as London these days was a series of small villages outside London proper. Very possibly, even the non-Brits amongst us will have heard of Dick Whittington who was mayor 4 times (and, to his credit, introduced public loos to the populace).
On Friday, The Silent Ceremony takes place with the current mayor handing over his insignia to the new mayor. On Saturday morning, the Lord Mayor's Show takes place ( www.lordmayorsshow.org ) with great ceremony, floats, and all kinds of fun going on. The mayor will ride in his magnificent 18th century coach to take the oath of allegiance. It really is a wonderful show; one year I was invited to watch it from an upper window on Ludgate Hill and it was a marvellous sight. There are usually fireworks in the evening but apparently it's thought that there have been so many fireworks this year with the various celebrations and the Games that they've decided not to do it.
The Mayor of The City of London is one of the most important people in the country, after HM the Queen and the Prime Minister; it's his job to promote London as a financial centre on the world stage. On a daily basis, he's a member of the City Corporation which looks after the city in the same ways as a local council does.
There have been 8 Welsh Mayors, according to the information I've read, the last being Sir David Lewis (2007-2008) who is the grandson of a sheep farmer in the Cothi valley, Carmarthenshire. He has since moved back to Wales. I haven't been able to ascertain which of the others were Welsh as yet but it will be interesting to see when the first one was, given the enmity between Wales and England over the centuries.
Does that mean that you can't drive them in the rain?
Once again, Carmarthen Council has appeared in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs column. This time it's to do with the Wilfred De'Ath issue. Those of you who follow @Caebrwyn on Twitter will know that she requested an explanation from the Council as to why no one had Googled the man before offering him a free holiday on the ratepayers of Carmarthenshire; they replied that they didn't have the time to check out every journalist. A Google search would have revealed in seconds just what sort of man he is.
I've now lost track of the number of times CC has appeared in Private Eye. They carry on regardless.
