Located in St. Laurence’s Church in The Moor, Hawkhurst, is what I considered to be this rather intriguing grave which was starting to be consumed slowly, but surely, by a tree.
Author: admin
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Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 193
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Loll
This is a more upbeat (he often talks about all manner of negative and offensive terms) definition from Grose which is “mother’s loll; a favourite child, the mother’s darling”. I have no idea why the word would come to mean this, it’s from the word ‘lollen’, or to act in a lazy manner. I would have said that this has fallen out of usage, but I have heard children being referred to in this manner, so somehow this word has lingered on….
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Warsaw – Caffè Dell’Amore
Looking for a little cafe in Warsaw last week, this one was well-reviewed and is located between the central railway station and the Old Town.
The fridges in the cafe with the cakes looking rather sparse, although they were reasonably priced.
It’s not perhaps the most sophisticated of interiors, but it’s clean and organised with an Italian feel to the whole arrangement.
The latte really was rather lovely, a richness of taste and at the appropriate temperature, ie, one which isn’t so hot it burns the mouth. The meringue was light and probably far too sugary for my health, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The environment was comfortable and relaxed, although not particularly busy. It’s larger than it looks from the front, as there are some seats at the rear, as well as the outside seating.
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Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 192
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Lobscouse
This word is defined by Grose as “a dish much eaten at sea, composed of salt beef, biscuit and onion, well peppered, and stewed together”. It has a greater importance though in etymological terms because it became a word used to describe those who ate this lamb or beef stew, who were mainly sailors. The shortened version of the word, which is ‘scouse’ became used to describe the workers at the docks in Liverpool and later became used as a nickname for all Liverpudlians.
And the evolution of the two words over time.
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London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Warsaw Uprising Graves)
Returning to my little theme of the wonderful on-line photo collection of the Imperial War Museum….
© IWM HU 105736
This is quite a raw photo, showing a little girl in what was likely late 1944 and she’s passing by a number of graves. There were hundreds of these plots of graves in Warsaw as people didn’t know what to do with the number of dead. It was only after the end of the Second World War that they were mostly exhumed and moved to the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery.
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Warsaw – Holiday Inn Express Warsaw Airport
I stayed in Poland for ten nights on this trip and this was the only one not in an Accor hotel. This hotel isn’t the easiest to get to from the city centre, but it was cheap, coming in at under £25 for a room and breakfast. I had quite low expectations for the hotel, primarily as I don’t often stay in Holiday Inn Express hotels and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
My first impressions weren’t marvellous as there was no-one on reception, but everything was clean and organised. And when the receptionist came along, she was friendly and helpful, so my general impressions were restored.
The room was better than I had expected, all clean and sufficiently large. The desk is bigger than it looks in the photo and there were no noise issues either internally or externally.
The welcome drink voucher.
Unlike a few Accor hotels, there was no issue here with me having Zywiec Porter. I was now very impressed at this hotel, a reminder of just how easily pleased I am…..
The breakfast in the morning was still self-service, the first one I’ve had since March, as other hotels have had staff serving customers. I liked the set-up and it was nice and quiet, so I felt it was all still safe.
They’ve made the process safe by removing the serving spoons, which I’m not entirely sure is the best solution here, but there we go. There was a sufficiently wide selection to chose from, including cold meats, cheeses and best of all, hot dogs. And I’ve missed those, they were a staple of mine when I went to the Ibis Budget in Torun earlier in the year.
The reviews for the hotel are generally very positive, although someone was livid earlier this year:
“I chose the HIE since I love the IHG brand. The night prior i stayed at the Intercontinental in Budapest and had an incredible experience. I stay in IHG hotels 60+ nights a year. I rarely if ever complain but in this case, I have no choice and I must alert other business travelers to this hotel. I will also send a certified letter to the CEO of IHG it was so bad. Once I landed at the WAW Airport, I called the hotel to have a pick up at the airport.”
The problem was that the shuttle wasn’t there and the receptionist insisted it was, so there was a misunderstanding. I’m not sure that the CEO of IHG would be too concerned at the misunderstanding, but there we go…..
Overall, I was suitably impressed at this hotel and thought it represented excellent value for money given the price being charged. I wasn’t going to or from the airport when I stayed, but it is conveniently located for that and I think that there’s a free shuttle available (although it might be late judging from the above review). I’d certainly stay here again, my initial low expectations were certainly surpassed. Very lovely.
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Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 191
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Little Ease
Grose defines this as “a small dark cell in Guildhall, London, where disorderly apprentices are confined by the city chamberlain. It is called Little Ease from its being so low that a lad cannot stand upright in it”. Today, the phrase is perhaps better known for a similar room located underneath the White Tower in the Tower of London, although there’s not a great deal of evidence to show that it was used to hold prisoners.
Walter Thornbury wrote in 1878 about the cells at the Guildhall:
“On brackets to the right and left of the balcony were the gigantic figures of Gog and Magog, as before-mentioned, giving, by their vast size and singular costume, an unique character to the whole. At the sides of the steps, under the hall-keeper’s office, were two dark cells, or cages, in which unruly apprentices were occasionally confined, by order of the City Chamberlain; these were called ‘Little Ease,’ from not being of sufficient height for a big boy to stand upright in them.”
It doesn’t sound ideal….
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Warsaw – Warsaw Zoo (Jan Żabiński and Antonina Żabińska)
This house at Warsaw Zoo is where the head-keeper and his family used to live, an otherwise unassuming building. But, during the Second World War, this is where Jan Żabiński and Antonina Żabińska hid Jews to save them from being killed or sent to concentration camps. Jan Żabiński served as the Director of the Zoo between 1929 and 1939, when he was given the role of looking after the city parks. This gave him access to the Warsaw Ghetto and he helped many Jews escape, placing himself in huge danger.
Some of the Jews were hidden in the cages where the animals were once held, now most of them had been killed by the Nazis for fear that they would escape. A few Jews were also hidden in the cellars of Żabiński’s house and there was a cellar which linked to a tunnel. This tunnel came out in an area of trees, so if the Nazis raided the house then the Jews could escape and hide above aground.
Both Jan and Antonina were later awarded the huge honour of Righteous Among the Nations, those who had taken a substantial risk to try and save members of the Jewish community. Jan returned to his role as Director of the Zoo in 1945, where he continued until 1951. The regime of Józef Cyrankiewicz saw an end to that, Jan who had fought courageously with the Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising was fired from his role because of that loyalty to his country, which conflicted with the communist influence from the Soviet Union.
However, the bravery of Jan and Antonina came to the attention of the world primarily after the publication of the Zookeeper’s Wife, which was turned into a film in 2017.
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Greater Anglia : London Liverpool Street to Norwich
This was the 22:30 back to Norwich from London Liverpool Street and it again had Stansted Express branding on the carriages and there were no tables, which isn’t exactly ideal.
The train wasn’t particularly busy and there was plenty of space, making social distancing easy. The guard was clearly fuming at a group of lads who had walked down the train without masks on. She made that very clear with her lengthy announcement and she used some rather direct language to tell “the children” what she thought of them. And then there was soon another announcement telling the same group to get their feet off the seats as she could see them on CCTV.
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s exciting to have a little drama and I was pleased that she was paying so much attention to what was happening on the train. It would have been easy for the guard to just ignore the situation of people not wearing masks and it must be hard at the moment as they’re not meant to walk up and down the train. The train was relatively clean, although it didn’t have First Class or a buffet car, which would be annoying for those people who had upgraded their tickets and now had to claim a refund back.
Anyway, for £10 I got back from London to Norwich safely and on time, so it’s hard to complain too much about that.
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Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 190
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Lingo
I had thought (and this is another thing that I haven’t really given much thought to) that this was a newer word than it is, with Grose defining it as “language, an outlandish lingo; a foreign tongue. The parlezvous lingo; the French language”. The word actually seems to date from around 1700, probably from the Portuguese word ‘lingoa’ or the French ‘lingua’.
The word has remained in relatively constant usage over the last two centuries, with an upturn over the last few decades.
