Inquiring minds will want to know if one can be further fathered. The question
may seem amusing, but before we get to comedy I might mention that I’ve been
thinking about some pretty awful fathers. In the Fatherland.
Also a man who has been “further arrested.” It’s a legal term.
We know Hitler’s father, Alois, was illegitimate, and so could have, like
Werner Herzog, taken his mother’s name Maria Anna Schicklgruber. After Alois’
birth, Johan George Hiedler married Maria Anna and so Alois became a Hiedler,
also a Hüttler, Huettler and Hitler, all probably references to little huts.
Very Tyrolean. Adolf, son of Alois, was the fourth of six children born to his
third wife. There were other children from the earlier mothers. Several died
in childhood. It was rough, as was much of mountain living. As my own father
used to say, “You can’t eat scenery."
Adolf and Alois did not get along. To forge a separate identity from a father
who thought of himself as Austrian, among friends Adolf took to using the
German greeting “Heil.”
Werner Herzog would be horrified to be mentioned so close to Hitler, I’m sure.
All he had in common with that man is Bavarian birth and a change of name. His
father left early on and so he lived with his mother’s name, Stipetich, until
he began to make movies. Then his father’s name, German for “duke,” seemed
more cinematic.
Klaus Barbie’s father was wounded in the neck at Verdun, captured by the
French, and though probably descended from French people named Barbier, hated
that nation. The father’s drunken violence came out in his son.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-60202000 ;
<https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-60202000>
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/231395/can-a-person-be-further-arrested
<https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/231395/can-a-person-be-further-arrested>
Lighter thoughts. I learned this week that a protector protects a protectee,
and that this nation’s Vice President is one such person. Similarly, if there
are investors, it follows there are investees. And, of course, procrastinators
beget procrastinatees, editors (for example) waiting with near-infinite
patience for manuscripts from writers who wile away the hours, wondering.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/kamala-harris-january-6-2021-democratic-national-committee/index.html?utm_content=2022-01-31T11%3A15%3A04&utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNN
<https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/kamala-harris-january-6-2021-democratic-national-committee/index.html?utm_content=2022-01-31T11:15:04&utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNN>
Word comes from David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed, that Newark was
originally called the New Ark of the Covenant, and that the early elite of
Massachusetts were in the majority East Anglian. Some came from what Fischer
calls, “fat marsh” country, which “ran many miles across east Lincolnshire from
the Humber to the Wash.” (p.40) The question arises…flippantly…which is a good
way to arise from a marsh…how anything that runs so many miles remains fat?
Maybe it should be getting pre-cooked meals from someone who trained at Le
Manoir aux Quat’Saisons across the way in Oxfordshire?
https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/luke-shaw-physique-body-chef-jonny-marsh-977602
<https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/luke-shaw-physique-body-chef-jonny-marsh-977602>
The Fens, I read, are an NCA, a National Character Area. There are 159 of
these, defined by a non-departmental public body, which is sponsored by the
Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Some sentences begin,
“it is no stretch of the imagination,” which implies that imagination is
stretchable and that the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
could have had a role in Noel Coward’s, “Brief Encounter.” Probably Myrtle
Bagot, played by Joyce Carey. Remember her?
Myrtle Bagot <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0136983/?ref_=tt_ch>: [smacks her on
the backside] Albert Godby, how dare you!
Albert Godby <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0391361/?ref_=tt_ch>: I couldn't
resist it!
Myrtle Bagot <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0136983/?ref_=tt_ch>: Oh, well,
trouble you for keeping your hands to yourself!
Albert Godby <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0391361/?ref_=tt_ch>: Oh, you
blushing - oh, you look wonderful when you're angry... just like an avenging
angel.
Myrtle Bagot <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0136983/?ref_=tt_ch>: I'll give you
avenging angel!... Coming in here taking liberties!
Albert Godby <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0391361/?ref_=tt_ch>: I thought last
Monday, you said you wouldn't object to a friendly little slap.
Myrtle Bagot <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0136983/?ref_=tt_ch>: Never mind
about last Monday... I'm on duty now. And I should think to what would happen
if Mr. Saunders should be looking through the window.
A script from another era. For the record, my next deadline is still a long
way off.
So, do carry on. Hamish and I are off, up the road.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
