Remember, remember the 5 of November
the Gunpowder Treason and plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
should ever be forgot.
It’s fall in Britain, November 5th just passed. We are approaching November 11th and poppies are beginning to show on the lapels of passersby. For several days after we arrived, each night was greeted with fireworks in the neighborhood. And, of course, Halloween occurred shortly after landing and settling in to our digs a bit to the south of the old city of Oxford on a road called Stanley. In the short/long week that we’ve been here we’ve started class on churches in England that are seven centuries old and older. We’ve gotten a bit more familiar with the bus schedules, been to three evensongs at various colleges, sat at the table where C.S. Lewis and Tolkien once frequented and have generally had a ball. The first part of the week was filled with the sounds of fireworks celebrating Diwali. During that celebratory time many thanks are given for good fortune, good family and to the gods.
Yet, what has been most apparent is that it is good to drastically change one’s local occasionally. It’s good to get out of one’s routine and fly to a new place, a different culture and get out of the comfort zone. In that refocusing, it helps one to understand what is important, to find out what makes a culture go, any culture, and to stop for a moment to take stock of those thoughts.
The rituals of life for us earthlings revolve, to choose the word deliberately, on the movement of our sphere through the heavens, to choose another word deliberately, and how long it takes. For we have another sphere in the revolution and another cycle to consider, the lunar one. All those spheres, the moon, the earth, the sun and the imagined one of the universe and whether it is boundless or a place inhabited by spirits cannot escape you in Oxford. Its very ways emit an aura everyone sees in many locals. Then, all those spheres revolving actually determine our calendars, as there are many-sidereal, lunar, a starting zero point for each religion, etc- not to mention what some being living on some planet in another solar system or perhaps in another verse in the multiverses has for its calendar. Celebrations are noted on calendars and this gives us critical information to inform who we are.
Last evening, we enjoyed yet again another Evensong. This visit was to Merton College and it was a very special one. It was commemorating St. Leonard’s Day and held in the Chapel of St. Mary and St. John, largely completed by 1294. In the year 1426, Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, commanded the college to change their chapel’s dedication day from January’s Day of the Epiphany to the one they now celebrate these past six hundred years. The choir was comprised on both genders, with the youthful and larger portion female, accompanied by some strong and deeper male students of the college. The hymns were from Elgar, Corelli, Haydn and Bach, and the service was of the kind most high…using incense and seemingly unaware that Henry VIII had changed the Anglican Church to its present form. It was our most favorite of the six we’ve so far enjoyed.
In Britain this year, 2019, the news is dominated by Brexit. They have passed the October deadline that Boris Johnson touted as the be all to end all and are now on to another date, the 12th of December. It is on that day that Great Britain will take its temperature and decide its fate for a long time to come. It will be one of those days in the future that will have a much greater significance than it does now looking ahead those six weeks and trying to understand the implications of it all. The Tories want this later date and will get it. Other parties wanted it earlier as the universities and colleges will be on winter break by the 12th and the disruption of travel and home stay it is hoped by the Tories will dissuade the youthful turnout, as the Millennials are most assuredly Remain in the Brexit decision.
What are those implications for those on the other side of the water from Britain? As Americans, you, too, know you are in campaigning mode there. The Democrats are trying to sort out who is going to oppose the Republican candidate. Many of us hope it is someone other than D.J.Trump, who will also take a special place in history once this is over. The “This” could be his term in power ended by a vote in 2020, or perhaps a successful Impeachment. (Wasn’t it great to wake up this morning and read about his rejection in Kentucky after visiting Lexington and pleading with the redhats to vote his preference….Trump went so far as to tell the crowd of supporters that a loss for Bevin would prompt people “to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can’t let that happen to me!” Hallelujah for those voters who presently have Bevin losing by a 1/2%tage point. Trump won Kentucky by 30 points in 2016.
History will certainly note if it is the latter option, his impeachment and removal. (Will the GOP Senators ever take the historical measure of the significance of what is going one?) This slot of time in our lives, those of us whose personal 20th and early 21st century lives are over the voting age, has shown us some strange times. But are these times the most depressing or the most inspiring? This depends on where you fit in the percentages- the 54% that now think the former and that he should be removed or the stubborn 40% that are causing all the harm to the world. The campaign that started some months ago in America will go on for what seems an eternity needs to address so many important issues. Of the first five candidates still in the running at this point, who will come out on top come November of 2020? History needs a wonderful solution. But that choice will depend on much that historians and world will remember for a long time, too, between now and next year. There is so much at stake beyond Trump’s ego and his tweets. Please, please.
For the Brits, who thankfully do not allow for such drama, such length, such costs, to be involved in choosing a new leader, they have six weeks to find a decision. There has not been a December election since the 1920s. The date for this one was agreed upon because of the system the Brits use for choosing a leader- the Parliament can call for a spot election if the majority agree. They have 650 constituencies in the country and run their politics by a parliamentarian system. This means the party who wins a majority, 326, gets to have their party leader as Prime Minister. It is doubtful any party will accomplish that. So a coalition will have to be built. But, British political parties are as fractured as ours, and with many more parties to consider. We could learn from the mess on both sides of the Atlantic….and also take into account what is happening in Baghdad, Dresden, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Kabul, Riyadh, Teheran, New Delhi, Beijing and other capitals as they try to sort out global and local issues. If the collective world will doesn’t make some good decisions soon, the Gretas of the present generation will be egregiously and maladroitly served. This has happened before.
The main issue locally in Britain is Brexit. It will be the major deciding factor in December. But there are dozens of more local issues that will be discussed and positioned for the voters to consider as they determine whether to get to the polls and vote in December. It will be cold, dark and gloomy when that day arrives. Will they turn out their constituencies? Which party will get the greatest percentage of those who think their party has the best answers? Parties are not like they are in the States. 
Many vote for a constituent without even being a member of a party for their entire lives. They just move the political needle on the British Ouoji board of elections as they choose which issue is most important to them. The coalition of what coagulates on December 12th will see which of the multiple parties coalesce to compose the magic 326 votes to gain the majority. It may not be either Boris or Jeremy who get the to lead the country and claim dominion along side the royal arms of her majesty.
Boris Johnson has hopes that there are enough disgruntled Brexiteers to pull the Conservatives, Unionists of Northern Ireland and disaffected citizens who previously chose Labour, Liberal or other in the last election into his camp. Jeremy Corbyn, the problematic leader of Labour, likes his chances, too. Labour and the Tories will be the two largest parties. But, that 326 for either? Unlikely either of these two will have power outright. How many of you know Jo Swinson? She wants to be PM. She is another harbinger of politics in Great Britain. A Scot, but not part of the SNP. The SNP is led by Nicola Sturgeon. If Brexit does happen, she may lead Scotland out of the United Kingdom. If Brexit happens, the Unionists of Ireland, now supporting Brexit, may also leave the United Kingdom. Hmmmm.
And, what about the other more than two dozen parties and what they will be offering? Will they get representatives sent to Parliament. Most assuredly a dozen or so will. What direction will they choose in the end? Will Brexit be the most important factor in the multiple issues confronting all Brits. Mary and I will be back in the States by the time that is decided, but it is interesting to be in the maelstrom as it is happening and to know….and appreciate…that their method of dealing with politics is just as messy as the other side of the water.
Here locally, for the Millers abiding for the next week on Stanley Road in Oxford, it is blessedly Guy Fawkes, Evensongs, and Poppies
that are more in focus. As an art historian and an aging historian who often looks backward to get forward, the two of us are in that celestial sphere of academics and of the old and ancient that have pulled us along for most of our lives. Our lode star has always been the cultural accomplishments and high points of history. There have been so many to weigh against the big mistakes we have made.
The First World War. Now there was a big mistake. We are nearing another November 11th, and we must also note that on that day in 1918 it was 11 AM when the war stopped. That was six hours after the armistice was signed in the railway car in Compeigne at 5 AM that morning. We are still reeling from the dozen of so rulers who messed up the decision to go to war more than four years earlier. So, as we look back from the century since it ended, plus that one year afterwards when the leaders of the world descended upon Versailles to sort out what to do next in January of 1919, I would like to consider the life of George Edwin Ellison. He was the last British soldier to die in the Great War. He joined in his late thirties and fought at the Battle of Mons in 1914 and again at 
Mons in 1918, where he was killed with only ninety minutes to go before all the shooting stopped. In between he saw battle at some of the worst World War One could throw at a human being. There was a poem composed nearly a hundred years later to commemorate his life. He is buried coincidentally just a few feet from the first British soldier killed in the war, John Parr (who was only sixteen at his death).
Goodnight Kiss
‘FIVE strides apart, five summers past, I saluted you and the old sweats riding to War.
I fell first. And waited: while you mined the frozen mud. Ducked into crump holes.
Pinched lice from your seams. Felt the pear drops’ sting at Wipers. You drink Hannah’s words from home; Jimmy’s walking now.
Then you’re following the tank tracks from Cambrai. The chase draws you to Mons, where your War began.
In the woods on the eleventh day, a goodnight kiss. Ninety minutes to Armistice. My wait ends.
First and last in a bunker for pals, we lie five strides apart.’
So, as Mary and I wonder the city, read the walls and what is said on them dating back centuries upon centuries, we reflect. We appreciate that Stanley Road is now in a neighborhood that has a mosque at the end, a Sunni one I believe. There are many greetings of لسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ As-salamu alaykum heard on the streets. Cowley Road, just on the other edge of the neighborhood, has Moroccan, Hungarian, Polish, Tibetan, Indian, Chinese and other restaurants to tempt us. We had breakfast this morning at a Palestian place with low cushions for seats and Shakshoukeh for my meal and a flatbread with yogurt and pomegranate seeds for Mary. The local pub, The Rusty Bicycle, is a gem. It is one of the Dodo pubs. We love all of it.
Dodos are ubiquitous in Oxford thanks to Lewis Carroll. Alice and the Inklings have also caught our attention this past week. The pub Eagle and Child (aka The Bird and the Baby) is where the Inklings often drank. We occupied their table and tried to imbibe and soak up suds and whatever essences of their presences might still be present. We were not the first to do so.
On several nights we have been to Evensong at one of the colleges. This is a special event for us. As it is during the time of All Saints and All Souls, remembrances for those of importance in ones’ lives are noted at services. Mary and I were at St. Giles, a church founded outside the city walls in the 12th century. 
At that time Oxford only had a thousand inhabitants and the church was a short walk away from the northern gate. It was for those individuals who were not allowed to live inside Oxford and there were few structures between the church and the town’s gates at the time. Mary and I attended a remembrance service where the local chorus sang Faure’s Requiem Mass. Special it was.
Keep looking back to you dear friends and also be able to clearly look forward. لسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ
Maine Musing 