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Here is a collection of notes to various really, really obscure references and puns and other stuff in the essays that, if either of us had a life, I wouldn't be writing and you wouldn't be reading.

-Enjoy! RHB


Hairimeraku
If you haven't already been put off the Hairimeraku, this should do the job:
    Hairimeraku
And if that doesn't, there's this:
    Hairimeraku Two
And of course this:
    Hairimeraku Trek III: The Wrath of Camus

The management accepts no responsibility for any physical, psychic or poetical damage done by visiting these pages.
Unheard of
1 Things to Come: Attack on the Moon Gun (now, there's a title you don't see every day!)
Foul
1 "Parlement of Foules": ll, 301, 310
The Court Historian


1 It's definitely worth quoting the whole poem...
The Court Historian by George Walter Thornbury
LOWER EMPIRE.
The Monk Arnulphus uncorked his ink
   That shone with a blood-red light
Just now as the sun began to sink;
   His vellum was pumiced a silvery white;
"The Basileus"— for so he began—
"Is a royal sagacious Mars of a man,
   Than the very lion bolder;
He has married the stately widow of Thrace—"
  "Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.

His palette gleamed with a burnished green,
   Bright as a dragon-fly's skin:
His gold-leaf shone like the robe of a queen,
   His azure glowed as a cloud worn thin,
Deep as the blue of the king-whale's lair:
"The Porphyrogenita Zoë the fair
   Is about to wed with a Prince much older,
Of an unpropitious mien and look—"
  "Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.
The red flowers trellised the parchment page,
   The birds leaped up on the spray,
The yellow fruit swayed and drooped and swung,
   It was Autumn mixed up with May.
(O, but his cheek was shrivelled and shrunk!)
"The child of the Basileus," wrote the Monk,
  "Is golden-haired—tender the Queen's arms fold her.
Her step-mother Zoë doth love her so—"
  "Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.

The Kings and Martyrs and Saints and Priests
   All gathered to guard the text:
There was Daniel snug in the lions' den
   Singing no whit perplexed—;
Brazen Samson with spear and helm—;
"The Queen," wrote the Monk,"rules firm this realm,
   For the King gets older and older.
The Norseman Thorkill is brave and fair—"
  "Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder.


2  See, for example:
  Byzantine Iconoclasm
  Albigensian Crusade
  Hussite Wars
  Seven Years' War
  Thirty Years War
  English Civil War
  The Troubles
    Etc.Etc.
Though to be honest, it's usually not just slight doctrinal differences that cause the mayhem.
cycle
1 See Letter to America: Beautiful Broads for a disquisition on this, and see the last few paragraphs to see just how rotten we were whilst doing it.

2 For more on this lovely and (currently largely) non-existent place see the essay Walk Awhile.

3 Claud Butler

4 Campagnolo

5 Brooks

6 Fixed-gear

7Post Mill

8 Did you know that spandex was coined as an anagram of the word 'expands'? Did you even care?

9 A not terribly veiled reference to the myth of lemming suicide perpetrated by Disney in a 1950's "documentary" and entirely staged, including the poor things being "thrown off a cliff by the Disney filmmakers"! [Grr!!]

10 Probably wouldn't work to say ampersand Ampersand Brewery. Sad.

Visual Aid
1


2


I think the Cartoon Syndicate is spying on me!
This appeared a mere eight days after my essay.


1 My ...um... 'complex' relationship with old Henry is explored in the notes to this essay, and here and, indeed, here.
As I say complex...
1 I mean yours
   American Civil War, 1861–1865
not ours, among which are
   Despenser War, 1321–1322
   Wars of the Roses, 1455–1485
   First English Civil War, 1642–1646
   Second English Civil War, 1648–1649
   Third English Civil War, 1650–16521a

2 Well the most significant figure changing is a big deal.

3 Beccles Camera Club

4 Drool!

5 Not to be confused with he phrase "long-time listener, first-time caller", mine is completely original.

6 Grandfather paradox

7 Texas Rangers Museum

8 Antiques Roadshow

9 Wogdon & Barton

10  Yup, it's one year older than America!



1a a.k.a. the Anglo-Scottish war of 1650–1652
1 Oh! I just remembered its amendments, though I won't bother to amend the essay.

2 Well I am a nerd, how else would you expect me to think of it?

3 And do note that my 'wrong' sort of person may not be the same as yours, and on reflection is quite possibly its diametrical opposite.

4 Things might change, you never know:



Comparison Shopping
You might want to compare this with my story.

Or this:

Or even this:


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