A note on the title Veloren Hoop
"Veloren Hoop Fancy" I really like my titles, I often think that they are by far the best part of the essay, and that often the only justification of the essay is that it supports a good title. But they do tend to be just a little obscure---like this one. There was a tune in the early C17th called 'Forlorn Hope Fancy' by the famously miserable composerJohn Dowland which title itself derived (by popular, or false, etymology) from the Dutch verloren hoop or 'lost troop'; an advance force, perhaps you should rather call them a suicide squad, in an army, and made up of presumably rather patriotic folk.

¹ Jocelyn of Furness
"... Jocelyn of Furness reported it in the 12th century" I cant find anything about him online apart from some of his saints lives, for example St Kentigern.

² St Patrick
"... an amalgam of several different people" Apart from the Confessio there is nothing really known about him. He is probably at the very least made up of Palladius and the Patricius of the Confessio, and it may be that even his Patrick part can separated further into British and a Gaulish bits!

³ Lent
"... it was Lent (or not...)" Accepting the usual, though suspect, date for St Patrick's birth (around 410), and further, accepting (purely for this argument) that he's a he rather than a them, then if he did happen to be about forty at the time, then Pope Leo probably had changed Easter---maybe (or maybe not). Anyway this set up a divergence in timing between the Roman and Celtic Churches that wasn't settled until the Synod of Whitby in 664. Pat missed it by a mere 200 years.

¹ Gesture
"... exhibiting the form of an extremely rude gesture" I've dealt elsewhere with the relative enormity of gestures in a human context though never before in a nebulous one.

² £1.20
"... £1.20 right away" However it took them till the 5th of April to cash the bloody thing---I suppose it isn't worth their while to nip down to the bank until they've collected a few hundred thou.

¹ Poor gantelope* it got gotted by gauntlet and now, according to the OED

Now rare exc. in the more corrupt form

GAUNTLET². (these links work, but only if you have a subscription to OED)

Forms: 7-8 gant(e)lop, 7 gantloop, 8 gauntlope, 7- gant(e)lope. [corruptly a. Sw. gatlopp, MSw. gatu-lop (f. gata lane, GATE n.² + lopp course).
ON. had gtuiófr, explained as a thief punished by running the ‘gantlope’. The Sw. word prob. became known in England through the Thirty Years' War; the equivalent gassenlaufen is found in Ger.]

A military (occas. also naval) punishment in which the culprit had to run stripped to the waist between two rows of men who struck at him with a stick or a knotted cord. rare exc. in to pass, run the gantelope.

1646 SHAFTESBURY Diary 11 Apr. in W. D. Christie Life (1871) I. 34 Three were condemned to die, two to run the gantelope. 1656 BLOUNT Glossogr., Gantlope (Ghent Lope), a punishment of Souldiers, first invented at Ghent..and therefore so called. 1706 LUTTRELL Brief Rel. (1857) VI. 90 The regency of Saxony..caused..400 to run the gantlope, for not doing their duty. 1749 FIELDING Tom Jones VII. xi, Others [said] that he deserved to run the gantlope. 1756-7 tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) I. 175 In the Piedmontese service, every offence of this nature is punished with the gantlope. 1807 J. MILNER Martyrs I. ii. 51 They were ordered to run the gantelope between the hunters..and were severely lashed.

transf. and fig. 1649 T. FORD Lus. Fort. *2 Being now exposed to run the Gantelope of the Worlds censure. 1655 FULLER Ch. Hist. X. i. §25 This Petition ran the Gantlop throughout all the Prelaticall party. 1662 PETTY Taxes 55 When a new Invention is first propounded..the poor Inventor runs the Gantloop of all petulent wits. a1694 TILLOTSON Serm. (1742) III. 140 We cannot but wonder..that in running the gantlope of a long life..we have escaped so free. 1747 Gentl. Mag. 233, I ran the gantlop thro' a number of soldiers to an obliging landlord. 1754 RICHARDSON Grandison VI. xxv, To run the female gauntlope. 1785 DRINKWATER Hist. Siege Gibraltar (1786) 329 They were in this manner obliged to pass the gantlope of our fire. 1804 J. LARWOOD No Gun Boats 8 We must re-run the gantelope of our Bounties and Recruitings. 1836 Edin. Rev. LXIV. 71 No doubt he ran the usual gantelope of jokes.

It should be noted that the 'broad' in the title is a (very) vague reference to my home in England, which is in the Norfolk Broads.
Which reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago showing two bemused and disappointed* American servicemen standing in the middle of Norwich Railway Station asking "So where are all these beautiful broads^† we keep hearing about?"

______________
* I've spent time in Norwich Railway Station and I know just how disappointed they must have been.

† The Broads in question are not guys-n-dollish nubile women, but shallow lakes---and they are indeed quite beautiful.
The station was once (and possibly still is) considered a "Gateway to the Broads".

¹ D.S.O. Distinguished Service Order (established 1886) 1887 Times 21 May 15/3 Brevet Major Archibald Hunter, *D.S.O., from Supernumerary Captain, to be Captain. 1901 ‘M. GRAY’ Four-Leaved Clover i, He's got a D.S.O. You've got to deserve a D.S.O., mind you, before you get it. a1917 E. A. MACKINTOSH War, the Liberator (1918) 100 If you want a D.S.O. Or a small M.C. or so Don't go crawling rashly out When there's nobody about. 1930 N. & Q. 4 Oct. 245/2 There was a good sprinkling of D.S.O.'s and O.B.E.'s.

V.S.O.P. very special old pale (brandy) 1907 Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 99/2 J. and F. Martell's..*V.S.O.P. 1951 R. POSTGATE Plain Man's Guide to Wine ix. 125 Five Stars should indicate a good brandy; higher-up the various firms have their own indications: X.O., V.S.O.P., Cordon bleu, and so forth.

UK ARTIST EATS FOX IN POLITICAL PROTEST
December 01 2004 at 12:45PM London - Forget the soiled bedsheets and pickled animals, British art has taken another outrageous turn in an example of the unspeakable swallowing the uneatable. Performance artist Mark McGowan, who counts among his feats pushing a peanut along the road to Tony Blair's Downing Street home with his nose, has eaten a fox, in protest at the public fixation with a government ban on fox hunting. He described the roast fox, which he ate in public, as quite tasty, although he admitted to nearly vomiting at times. "It was a bit like rack of lamb," he said on Wednesday. "The trouble was the retching noises from the other people in the room." Too much attention is paid to fox hunting, he believes. "One million people marched against fox hunting and another million marched for it. The housing estate where I live is full of crack-heads but no one marches to help them," he said. "Everyone gets really worked up about a furry animal, but no one cares about each other." McGowan plans to repeat the performance at an exhibition in London's Docklands on December 15.