sans pantaloons: January 2009

Gratuitous Butt Shot.

I'm off my trolley again.

A Peerage.

In recognition of his superb performance during the current Economic Storm, and for saving the World, Mr. Dick Small is now Lord High Lotus of Hemp, Keeper of Bear and Knight Garter of the Watercannon.

My Lord, I am your humble servant. I lay my prostate before you.

Anyone For Tanneis?

This picture was part of the blooper reel on a guest post for Jen. I thought I would give it a re-spin.

A Peerance.

Life's Twists And Turns.

Something has happened. Dramatic. Future changing.
No, not really.
Have you ever had a love from your past life come up behind you and tap your shoulder?
It can be disturbing, especially when you can't remember the moves you made, only glimpses of fast moving vital turns and twists.
You take hold of her again, gripping hard, trying to start from where you left off, so many, many years ago.
Twisting, turning, shifting weight and position, teasing, tempting, trying to recapture all those lost years.

But, to no avail. The spark is gone; lost in the great gap of frustration that is life past.

The need is to recharge, to re-acquire the light than once shone bright.

Practice makes perfect.

Okay, not perfect, but satisfactory. And this is the story since Christmas, my story.

My great neice got a Rubik's cube for Christmas, and to my everlasting shame, I could not solve it for her. My memory had failed me in a crucial algorithm. This simply will not do I thought.

On return to my Pantalunatic cave I searched high & low, and finally in box #137 I found the previous loves of my life. I am now hooked again, fully algorithm restored and nearly back to three minutes. Blogging may be taking a back seat for a little while.

Everybody.

Text link is here.

When Is A Meme Not Not A Post?

This is my response to a meme set by Julia. It bears little relation to the original meme, but I ask that you accept that I am not perfect, but flawed.

The meme Julia has set me, is to list the 2009 resolutions that I am NOT going to carry out this year.
This is opportune in that I was already contemplating a post to list all the posts that I am currently tardy with, a to do list if you like, and discuss exactly why I am tardy.

When is a post not a post? - When it's this post: talking about posts that may, or may not, come to publication.

In order to satisfy the meme criteria then, the following list will be topics that I will NOT not post this year.

Background information. When I read an article I find interesting, I often think of a question. I expect the author to have thought of the same question and to provide me with the answer in the following paragraphs, or at the very least tell me they have thought of the question, and explain where I can find the answer. If the author does not do this, I feel annoyed, and begin to question the integrity of the author.

If I can think of this question, why hasn't the author already thought of it? Or subthink 'Am I being stupid asking this question?' then decay into self-questioning mental loop.

Anyway, ranting aside, when I am preparing a post and find myself asking a question that I cannot answer, the post is set aside until I can answer the question.
When I find the answer, I resume writing the post, until - you guessed, I think of another question: why? where? , and the whole process repeats ad infinitum.
Add to this the field trips these posts entail, where I may return two or three times to obtain all the information and photographs I require as the post takes shape, it is a time consuming process.

The posts I am referring to are the Hamilton Palace and associated history posts, upon which I am truly and firmly hooked.

This then is the rub, mostly, all my information is gained from the web. I am not a scholar, nor do I really want to go sit in a Library for weeks and read all that has been written. I much prefer to do my own Sam Spade-work, even though someone else may have already found the answers to the questions and published them in a book whose contents are not listed on the web.

The ePIC posts are not intended to be historical documents, and I'm sure much of it is inaccurate, but there are one or two points that I have concluded for myself which have not been made previously.
I have always been cursed. It has never been sufficient for me just to know. I need to know why.

The Meme.
The list of topics currently under construction that I am Not not going to post this year, in post order:
1. Chatelherault Hunting Lodge and Cadzow Castle. Unwritten but essentially complete, one or two more photographs to obtain before I feel happy to write it up.

Teaser Pic of Chatelherault Hunting Lodge.

2. Paying my respects to the Good Dutchess Anne and the rest of the Hamilton family interred at Bent Cemetery in Hamilton. Unwritten but essentially complete.

Teaser Pic of Hamilton Family plot at Bent Cemetery.

3. Visit to the site of the Hamilton Collegiate Church. I think I have located the site where the Collegiate Church stood, in particular the north transept where the Hamilton family vault was. The final picture of this post showing the vaulted cellar uncovered during excavations for Strathclyde Country Park in 1974 is, I am now 90% sure, the roof of the Hamilton Family vault under the Collegiate Church north transept. I will visit the site and take some photographs of the Mausoleum to see if the angles line up between the photographs.
This field trip is scheduled for Monday 19th January 2009, access and weather permitting.

Teaser Pic of Collegiate Church location.

4. Visit to Bothwell Parish Church, Bothwell. The Good Duchess Anne had commissioned a monument to her husband William, the 3rd Duke of Hamilton the year after his death. The Monument was installed within the north transept of the Collegiate Church, starting in 1696 with extensive alterations being made to accomodate it. The Good Duchess Anne died in 1716, four years after her son James, the 4th Duke of Hamilton was killed in a duel.

James's son, also James, succeeded as the 5th Duke of Hamilton and in 1732 he wanted to continue with the Grand Design plans his grandmother had for the Palace. This extension of the Palace would mean the Collegiate Church building coming within 20 feet of the Palace. This would look silly, so James the 5th Duke, had the south transept, the steeple and the west nave demolished.

He could not do anything with the north transept as it housed the monument to his grandfather placed there some 36 years earlier, and the vault where his family were interred.

He had William Adam design and build a new parish Church to replace the now half demolished Collegiate Church. When the crypt below the 10th Duke's Mausoleum was secure enough to accept the family, around 1842, the rest of the Collegiate Church was demolished after removal of the Monument to the 3rd Duke to St. Bride's Parish Church in Bothwell, some 3 miles north west.
St. Brides is now no longer used for worship, but is attached to the newer Bothwell Parish Church. Unwritten and in progress. Unfortunately it looks like I may have to wait until April before I can view the Monument to the 3rd Duke. There are two anomalies with the Monument that I cannot answer until I see it up close.

Teaser Pic of Bothwell Parish Church.

This meme is turning into a bit of a post. This was not intended, but I'm using it for notes it seems. It's getting late and I need my beauty sleep. If you have seen pictures of me, you know this is true.