Library gives lonely book a day out and about.

Sometimes the most forgotten things are suddenly remembered.

Looking over their database for the most-borrowed book of 2019, the Royal Halloway Library in Egham, England, stumbled upon one bit of sad news: The one book that had gone the longest without being loaned out.

So, they changed that.

The book--There and Back by George MacDonald, originally published in 1891--was given a whirlwind tour, which they detailed on their Twitter account.

Loyal followers. We bring sad news.

As part of our research into the Top 5 Most Borrowed Books 2019 we found that one book hadn't been borrowed for a very long time. It's just been there, collecting dust, staring out the window at other books achieving their book destiny. pic.twitter.com/K8mnzAkxCo

— RHUL Library (@RHUL_Library) January 15, 2020

This could not stand. So we did the right thing, the honourable thing, and took the book out on loan for a day that it would never forget.

Here's what we got up to on our book date with 'There and Back' by George MacDonald. pic.twitter.com/dBvgNbsJ9m

— RHUL Library (@RHUL_Library) January 15, 2020

We took it to all the best spots in the library: the Mezzanine, the Feature Wing. We settled down for a good read on the bridge in the Atrium. You can't say we don't know how to show a book a good time.

It's also a prime spot for keeping an eye on the queue for coffee. pic.twitter.com/eMpiBpSBSx

— RHUL Library (@RHUL_Library) January 15, 2020

The staff became quite smitten with the book during the day with There and Back. And like any true love that develops, it's what's on the inside that matters most:

We used sticky notes to highlight our favourite bits in the book. NOT PEN 😠 as we all know how to be respectful to books.

Whilst the cover is nice, the content is what really makes this book beautiful.

This particular chapter, a triumph! pic.twitter.com/FxoZLo7A8Z

— RHUL Library (@RHUL_Library) January 15, 2020

After a while, they even did a quick twirling video that channeled everything glorious about the Mary Tyler Moore Show intro.

It might be bold, but at the end of the day, we weren't ashamed to admit that we would have made room on the raft for this book. pic.twitter.com/3tXVpYmj9T

— RHUL Library (@RHUL_Library) January 15, 2020

Of course, like most whirlwind relationships, their time together came to a close:

We'd had a great day together and after REMOVING ALL STICKY NOTES 🤨 we put the book in the automatic returns machine.

Speaking for ourselves, we'd certainly be happy with a second borrow. pic.twitter.com/6l8iqD8WYR

— RHUL Library (@RHUL_Library) January 15, 2020

Obviously, now that There and Back was everywhere and back, this means there's a new book that holds the title of going the longest without being borrowed at the Royal Holloway Library.

Sadly, they never mention that book.

Sometimes the most forgotten things remain forgotten.

Randomness Corner: Europe is running out of butter, panic to ensue.

Soon to be a mythical thing to tell your grandchildren about.

Grandmothers in the remote, bucolic countrysides and elitist chefs at fine dining establishments across Europe are sharing a similar panic this week.

A report from the Federation des Entrepreneurs de la Boulangerie (that's French for bakery somethingoranother) says global demand for butter has skyrocketed, while supply in Europe has dipped, creating a butter shortage crisis.

"Butter shortages appear to be a real threat by the end of the year," said the Baking Homeboys, noting that brioche buns, tarts, and croissants might see prices drastically increased. That's right. That sound you just heard was a grown Parisian man crying in the streets. The daily habit of smoking filterless cigarettes and having a croissant at the corner cafe will cease to exist possibly. The French economy will single-handedly be more crippled than during World War II.

Remember the good ol' days when butter was in abundance and on crystal trays.

The European Commission's Milk Observatory (a real thing, I promise) claims that butter stockpiles in Europe have dropped 98% in the past year, all while Europeans have increased their annual intake of butter by a half-pound in the past half-decade. Saturated fat in stick form has never been as alluring.

Meanwhile, Peder Tuborgh, the CEO of U.K dairy megapower Arla, recently told the BBC that there might not be enough milk and cream come Christmas.

First the French are taken out on croissants, and now the Brits won't have custards and puddings come Christmas. Thank God the Germans are alcoholics and only focus on beer. If they had a butter and milk fetish like the rest of Europe, the entire European continent might crumble soon.

Jay-Z says Coldplay's Chris Martin is a modern day Shakespeare.

When offered the chance to to praise someone in measured tones, Jay-Z decided to go big instead.

"I have been in the industry long enough to know when I’m in the presence of a genius and Chris Martin is just that," said the rapper. "In years to come, Britain will look back at him as a modern day Shakespeare."

Personally, I see the similarities, too. Who can forget Shakespeare's catchy pop tunes written for the lute and harpsichord? Timeless stuff.

It's a good thing you never had the chance to debate James Baldwin.

He'd own you. He'd own me. Because he owned everyone when it came to debates.

As it is the 93rd anniversary of James Baldwin's birth, here is possibly his most famous debate. It occurred in 1965 at Cambridge University with noted conservative William F. Buckley as the opposition. The debate centered on one question: "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?"

Simply said, Buckley had his share of victories in life, but the day he met Baldwin was not one of them.





The debate is an hour long, so odds are you won't watch it all in this modern day age of quick cuts and short attention spans. If needed, jump ahead and listen to any portion of Baldwin's eloquence, his patience, his ability to craft empathy out of knowledge.

Then click to 45:54 of the video and witness Baldwin's eyes lit afire, the gears turning internally while listening to Buckley's sanctimonious argument in a slick, syrupy, southern drawl.

British book thieves are abundant, quirky.

Some people steal cars, others jewelry. But the inner geek in some thieves has them gravitate toward their local bookstore for a little bit of Freddy Fast Fingers action.

According to The Guardian, British bookstores report that theft hasn't abated despite security measures, but yet they also accept book loss as a way of life. "[The thieves are] simply reselling them on eBay," says James Daunt, the chief executive officer of Waterstones.

Daunt believes Waterstones kleptomaniac clientele tends to be the high-minded, intellectual type, as they tend to steal the textual works of philosophers. "Whenever I’d go past Kierkegaard I’d make sure they and Wittgenstein were all there, but often the odd one or two would be gone and it always made me smile."

Elsewhere in the country, tastes vary. In the small industrial town of Walsall at Southcart Books, it's Anton LeVey's Satanic Bible being pinched as some light reading. In Oxford at Blackwell's, it's J.R.R. Tolkien (he taught at Oxford University after all) and George R.R. Martin's works going out the door unpaid. And at The Beckenham Bookshop in Beckenham along with City Books in Hove, both notice Beatrix Potter is a favorite freebie to be snatched.

But John Clepp of the London Review Bookshop recounts one thief who asked for some understanding for their thieving ways:

"We caught a gent last Christmas with £400-worth of stolen books in his trousers and elsewhere. We grabbed all of the bags back, but he returned about half an hour later to reclaim a half-bottle of whisky and his dream journal, which had been at the bottom of one of the bags of stolen books. As we showed him the door he told us: 'I hope you’ll consider this in the Žižekian spirit, as a radical reappropriation of knowledge.'"

If it was quality whisky, can you blame him?

Jane Austen is all over English currency now.

Queen Liz getting the shaft.

July is a big month for famous writers, and this year more than ever. Last week celebrated the 200th birthday of Henry David Thoreau, and this week celebrates (mourns?) the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death.

For a country that arguably has the most famous literary tradition in the western world, England is obsessed with Jane Austen more than any other writer these days. Case in point? The Bank of England has placed Jane Austen on not one, but two different pieces of currency. Even Queen Elizabeth has to be feeling the heat these days. She's getting bumped after all.

Apparently that's Jane Austen's profile. ((shrug))

Today, a £10 note featuring the writer was revealed. It'll go into wide distribution in mid-September. This follows the Bank of England also placing Austen on its £2 coin, which they've already released, but only in Winchester and Basingstoke, which have connections to the author. Like the £10 note, the coin will gain wide distribution in the months to come.

Poor Shakespeare, though. The guy is possibly the world's most famous writer and he can't even get his mug on a five pence coin.

Jane Austen was tight with cash.

Maybe you're that type that watches CNBC, Fox Business, or Bloomberg all day and can't get enough talk about investments. Maybe you're just an inquisitive, nosy type about other people's finances. Either way, there's good news for you.

Coming up this week on the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, there are a million different angles being taken to commemorate her. One is the Bank of England of all places, which is putting on a year-long exhibition where you can see Austen's ledger and how she computed interest on her deposits. You can also see how other writers like Charles Dickens and George Eliot invested their money.

I don't know about you, but I'm just fanning myself in excitement to learn about that 4% interest Austen earned on her £15 deposit.

Perfect attendance award? Not for this kid if his mom has anything to say about it.

Remember being in grade school as a child, and there was always that one kid who went to class regardless if they had a fever, cough, or were in the throws of an epic flu that would have killed a water buffalo? As if this kid was a superhero? No one liked that kid, least of all me, because I inevitably became sick from that kid.

But the following story isn't quite the same.

Rachel Wright is a U.K. author and mother of a young child who has been lucky enough to actually have good health. As a result, her 10-year old son, JJ, has never missed a day of school, for which the school wants to award him. Rachel Wright, though, refuses to allow her son to be bestowed for such an honor.

In a blog post, Wright explains her rationale and why she's denying the award ceremony:


"In this family you are not shamed for ill health, vulnerability or weakness. In this house you are not encouraged to spread germs when you are not well. In this house we look after ourselves and the weakest amongst us.

Can you imagine a work place that at the end of each week marked out all the people who hadn’t been sick? Where all the departments with the least number of people off were rewarded – in front of everyone else? It happens in schools all the time.

Can you imagine what kind of atmosphere that would create with people who had days off because of bereavement, mental health problem or chronic conditions?

What on earth are we teaching our kids about value and worth? What are we teaching them about looking out for each other and looking after the sick or disabled in our community?"


The whole matter of being lucky enough to have good health is further compounded because JJ's brother, and Wright's other son, 11-year old Sam, was born with cerebral palsy.

Wright told ABC News the meaning behind the blog post. "I was trying to spark a conversation about what 100 percent attendance teaches our children about health, values and those who suffer long term conditions."

Now, if only this resonated with parents who had a kid with a cold and kept them at home, those who only value praise and adoration over health and wellness, we all might be healthier and happier. Water buffaloes included.

Agatha Christie was kind of a grouch.

Shocking news that a woman who largely only wrote about murder and death was not a lighthearted soul, but letters on display reveal Agatha Christie was generally irked by life.

The letters, which will be on exhibition at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival held in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, show Christie was annoyed by most anything, like over the covers of her books.

According to The Guardian, for her 1947 book The Labours of Hercules, a Pekingese was featured on the cover. Harmless, you might say. Her family found laughs in it, but Christie was furious and wrote her publisher:

"The wrapper design for Hercules has occasioned the most ribald and obscene remarks and suggestions from my family – All I can say is – Try again!!" (sic).

Another time, she complained the cover of another book made the main character look like he was "going to a funeral and dressed accordingly."

In 1967, she apparently found out her latest book was already released without her receiving an advanced copy. She was in a "fury" when she found out the book was already on sale in Helsinki, of all places.

"It’s usually [available] in November and then it comes in very handy for sending to friends at Xmas time – but one can hardly send it as that now? I do think it’s treating your authors disgracefully."

More than anything, Christie was annoyed by aging. As a 59-year old, she wrote to a friend, Bertie Meyer, who was staging a play based on one of her books. "I've had letters now from different fans expressing surprise that I am 'such an old lady'," she wrote, adding about pictures of herself:

"Nobody likes [the photos], possibly, perhaps, because they don’t seem to have been touched up at all? All lines and wrinkles – and dash it all, I'm not 70 – not yet 60."

If you want to read more of Christie's moaning and complaining (so, you know, you feel like a cheery lad by comparison), the festival will be held July 20-23.

Two hundred movie theaters showed '1984' last week as a protest to the government.

According to the website United State of Cinema, two hundred art house cinemas showed the dystopian movie 1984 last week, which is based on George Orwell's novel of the same name.

Over 184 cities and 44 states had a showing, while locations outside the country--five in Canada, and one each in England, Sweden, Holland, New Zealand, and Croatia--also joined in.

The collected group of theaters decided the week of April 4th was timely, as the protagonist in the book and movie begins his diary on that day.

The theaters' goal?


"The endeavor encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as 'alternative facts.'"


Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming--all states with their fingers on the pulse of the excitement--were the six states that didn't have a single cinema in their entire state show the film. By comparison, California had 28 locations. Even Alaska and Alabama had a single location feature the film.

Delaware has a history of never involving itself in anything. It's like the agoraphobic of American states, the geographic and political equivalent of a pasty man with no calf muscle definition who enjoys white rice, low sodium saltines, and the smooth, smooth taste of filtered water.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a bad sign when even Alabama outdoes you.

Report: Nearly half of London's students have not been to a theater or seen Shakespeare.

Despite living in the same city that William Shakespeare wrote many of his plays and saw them enacted, a new report from London's Social Mobility Commission says that almost half of London's students haven't been to a theater to see a play, never mind The Globe Theater reconstructed to showcase the Bard's work.

In the past decade, The Globe Theater--through donations by Deutsche Bank--has had 150,000 London students see a Shakespeare play free of charge, with 20,000 alone visiting in the past year treated to see The Taming of the Shrew.

The study showed that specifically 44% of students had never seen a theatrical performance. Indeed, Georghia Ellinas, head of learning at Globe Education, told the BBC, "We hear from teachers that some London school students who come to the Globe, living only two or three miles away, have never seen the Thames before."

The reason seems to stem from an income gap, where poorer students and their families can't afford the discretionary income required to see the theater, never mind the cost of traveling public transportation for the six mile round trek.

The Social Mobility Commission looked into various activities and income gap issues, and found it wasn't just the theater, per BBC:


"It found that trips to the theatre, galleries, the cinema or the zoo were all more likely for wealthier families - with the likelihood of such visits rising and falling in a way directly linked to family income."


I'm not sure how Shakespeare would have taken this to know seeing a hyena exhibit or checking out the next Fast and Furious entry are as difficult for many to see than one of his plays.

Does this mean Vin Diesel = Shakespeare?

At least in one sense.

The Weird History of College Mascots, No. 1: Tufts University, P.T. Barnum, and Jumbo the Elephant

Some colleges have perfectly boring mascots with no history outside a public relations-approved cartoon character. Other colleges have histories--often weird--behind their mascots. This is where we recount the oddities.

Today:  Tufts University and the circus

On one side we have a fledgling Tufts University prior to its 1852 opening looking to add individuals to its Board of Trustees.

On the other side we have P.T. Barnum, one half of the famed Barnum & Bailey Circus, who was looking to be philanthropic.

Here the two shall meet.

P.T. Barnum looking for another sucker.

Tufts was looking to add board members, and turned to the wealthy and famed showman to help prop up their institution. Barnum didn't want to leave a legacy of simply being an entertainer, so he happily obliged, donating $50,000 (more than $2,000,000 in today's money) to the school to have a museum and hall for the Department of Natural History.

Meanwhile, in 1860, purportedly on Christmas day in what would be modern-day Sudan, an elephant was born. After its mother was killed by hunters, the elephant was sold to an Italian animal dealer. The young elephant made its way to Trieste, Italy, then stops in Germany and a French zoo, before landing at the London Zoo in England.

It was at the London Zoo that the elephant gave visitors rides, mainly children. Seeing how smart, docile, yet large, the elephant was, the keeper, Anoshan Anathajeyasri, gave the elephant the name Jumbo. The name potentially has roots in Swahili, maybe "jumbe," which means "chief."

In 1881, Barnum & Bailey Circus purchased Jumbo from the zoo for a then-$10,000. So distraught were the children of London at the thought of losing Jumbo, Queen Victoria received over 100,000 letters asking for her to intercede.

She did not. Jumbo headed to America.

Jumbo late in life.

For the next four years, P.T. Barnum showcased Jumbo in order to make his investment money back. Jumbo (and other elephants) were paraded over the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge to show it was strong enough. Jumbo also was featured at Madison Square Garden. People flocked to see the famed "biggest elephant in the world."

In the end, Jumbo's time in America was short-lived, even if his history has been long-lasting. On tour with the circus in St. Thomas, Ontario, in 1885, while moving the elephants across a rail yard, Jumbo died. The reasons are varied and vague, filled with as many facts as there is dramatic fiction. Most sources agree Jumbo tripped crossing some tracks, and probably impaled himself on his tusk, killing himself instantly. To further compound his death, a locomotive came down the track and couldn't stop in time, hitting his seemingly lifeless body.

The scourge that is rail yards strikes again.

The romanticized version of the story is that a small elephant named Tom Thumb was lingering on the tracks. Jumbo, being the bright animal he was, hustled to push Tom Thumb out of the way as the locomotive burned down the track, and that Jumbo tripped in front of the train saving the smaller elephant. Is there any validity to the story? It was 1885 after all, and P.T. Barnum was involved. Barnum always loved a good story.

To benefit a bit more by Jumbo's death, Barnum had the elephant's corpse separated. In time, the skeleton ended up at New York City's American Museum of Natural History, while the heart went to Cornell University. The hide was stretched and stuffed to try and mimic the original Jumbo, and it was donated to Tufts University.

Stuffed Jumbo years before the fire.

A fire at Tufts in 1975 destroyed the hide, but they had already adopted Jumbo as their mascot by then. Ashes believed to be the hide of Jumbo were placed into a peanut butter jar, where they remain today in the athletic director's office. Only a piece of Jumbo's tail, which was taxidermied when Barnum separated Jumbo, remains in a display case at Tufts.

Today, Barnum Hall still exists on campus, while a monument of Jumbo was erected at the St. Thomas, Ontario, rail yard in 2006, 121-years after his death. New York City's American Museum of Natural History maintains Jumbo's skeleton to this day as well, a donation from Barnum they have never parted with.

And Tufts University has fully embraced the image of an elephant, of Jumbo, as their mascot.

Tufts University campus today.

It is not the most common of mascots to be had for a modern day university, but the common denominator is Jumbo's impact. The bright, docile, fantastically large animal that made children beg a queen, that drew crowds around the world, that made a wealthy P.T. Barnum even wealthier--the giant that spent its life in captivity--remains in the consciousness of those his path crossed 132-years later.

If anything should be a mascot, if anything should represent a school, it should have meaning. And few mascots have the meaning quite like Jumbo the elephant.

What was up with C.S. Lewis loving Turkish Delight so much?

Turkish Delight is a confection of starch and sugar, coated in powdered sugar, and flavored with rosewater, lemon, Bergamot, pistachios, or any other variety of options.

And it is very, very difficult to make. Your lack of culinary skill suggests you can't pull it off, my friend.

C.S. Lewis, the author most famous for the Chronicles of Narnia series, was obsessed with Turkish Delight--to the extent he ate it habitually and often mentioned it in his books routinely. Even the character of Edmund in Narnia asks for Turkish Delight from a witch. For a relatively obscure candy (to western audiences), Lewis seemed quite smitten to it. But why?

The Daily Jstor dove into the matter and posits a theory with a systematic analysis.

Turkish Delight was created in the 1700s, and popularized in the 1800s. English tourists to Turkey came across it and fell in love. The problem is that the candy was--and is--very difficult to make and has never been successfully recreated en masse in Europe, even now in our modern age. It involves painstaking patience and an avoidance of sugar crystallization, which apparently Europeans and the western hemisphere are incapable of accomplishing to any great degree. Yet, Europeans loved the treat whenever it could be imported from Turkey.

Try as you might, you probably can't make this.

Lewis began making notes on Narnia in 1939, just as World War II caused England to start rationing food. Lewis was also enamored with the nation of Turkey. For example, the hero character of Narnia, Aslan, is named after the archaic Turkish word for lion. (Pssh. Like, who doesn't know ancient Turkish words?)

In 1942, as the war raged on, confections were added to the list of rationed food. One had to use ration coupons, along with money, and register at the shop selling candy to purchase sweets--and then wait in massively long lines, just to add insult to injury. Turkish Delight became the rarest of rarities. Indeed, it wasn't until 1953 that confections were finally removed from the ration list, eight years after World War II ended.

Even Christmas trees were rationed during the war. Considering Narnia is heavily influenced by the holiday, or lack thereof, Lewis seemed to be hinting at a desire for normalcy in a time of the chaos of war. Turkish Delight was a holiday treat at a time when war dictated there could be no normalcy and surely no treats.

Lewis possibly loved Turkish Delight not just because it was a sweet treat or an exotic snack from the edge of Asia. Lewis potentially just wanted the normalcy of life, of holidays, of England to come back from the depths of death, of hell, of war.

And he found that normalcy in a candy.

British teenage boys are sweaty, fashionable.

There's a 95% chance that wherever you are reading this in the world your body is slowly devolving into a gelatinous puddle from the summer of 2016. Teenage boys in Great Britain feel you. Or they would, that is, if they didn't feel like they were going to keel over from heatstroke first.

Uniforms are required at the Longhill High School in Rottingdean, East Sussex, which led to nearly twenty boys swapping out their long, heavy pants for their school gym shorts after a recent heat wave.

This is England though, where a love of elderly women wearing tiaras is only matched by a national sense of schadenfreude--so the shorts-adorned boys were told to wear pants, sent home, or kept in isolation all day at school.

According to the BBC, the boys were told that they needed to "wear any part of the agreed school uniform." In a genius move, four boys came to school the next day wearing the school approved skirts for girls, which flummoxed Kate Williams, the head teacher. She allowed it. As a result, ten additional boys joined in wearing the school approved skirt the following day in an act of solidarity and/or cooled gams.

The Argus, a local newspaper, quotes Williams' subtle displeasure. "Students have access to water in order to keep themselves hydrated," she said. "We have made reasonable steps to ensure that classrooms are as comfortable as possible."

Hydration = Least enthusiastic air conditioning method ever. Remember that, kids. Don't start asking for ice now or whatnot. This isn't France.

Napoleonic war diary found in secondhand bookstore in Tasmania.

That's how humans used to write.

Royal Engineer John Squire was a noted soldier for the king's military, a learned man of good standing with a penchant for fine handwriting. This led to a diary detailing his stops in battle during the crown's fight with Napoleon's war across the continent. Any sort of diary two centuries old is valuable, never mind one of an officer from the Napoleonic War.

Fast forward 200-years, and Squire's diary was discovered in a cupboard--stacked amongst old, dusty books--in the back room of  bookstore in Tasmania of all places. And no one knows exactly how it ended up there.

According to the BBC, the bookstore owner believes "the journal could have been in the shop for 20 years, but no-one [know's] how it arrived. A working theory is that it arrived with the colonists who established Van Diemen's Land." Van Diemen's Land was the former name of Tasmania shortly after it became known to Europeans in 1642.

Squire was no slouch, with a military resume that saw him at British campaigns in Egypt, including being present when the Rosetta Stone was handed over to the crown. He later spent time in South America, Sweden, and Portugal, where he eventually died of a fever.

Yet, strangely enough, his long lost diary might have been a better traveler than he ever was--however it was that it traveled.



FUN FACT!: After being discovered in 1642, Tasmania was thought to be part of mainland Australia. Somehow, despite a settlement long established on the southeastern tip, it took until 1798 for an explorer to circumnavigate the island and realize, you know, duh.


Photo:  abc.net.au

Spain sort of shoulder shrugged their way through Cervantes' own 400th anniversary.

Cervnates is so sad, even his
mustache and eyebrows are frowning.

Not only does Spain contrast with England in weather, food, and attractiveness of its citizenry, it also contrasts in how they venerate their nation's most famous writer.

This weekend England nearly ground to a collective halt in adoration of their dearly departed Shakespeare for the 400th anniversary of his death. The Royal Mint released a coin commemorating him, monarchy praised him, and every cultural and public institution seemingly held an event to honor him. Things were as Englishy as England gets outside of a Monty Python sketch in the rain.

But just south, in Spain, the nation had to be tapped on the shoulder to be reminded that the 400th anniversary of Cervantes' death was occurring, too.

How badly was Cervantes ignored? Arturo Pérez-Reverte, one of Spain’s best-selling novelists, wrote online that the Spanish government's response was "the international embarrassment of the year of Cervantes." No major celebrations, no cultural standstill. An annual book award in his name was given out, but that's done every year with a collective yawn from the populace.

Admittedly, Spain is in the fifth month without an elected government, but there is a government nonetheless. That government simply just didn't make much ado about anything. Proof in point: A little over a year ago, Cervantes' body was discovered in a convent. Yet, according to the historian who led the search, Fernando de Prado, Spain has done "absolutely nothing" to promote the burial site.

José María Lassalle, state secretary for culture, explained to the New York Times the laissez-faire attitude to the anniversary as an attempt "to break with the philosophy" of the 1980s and 1990s when socialist governments heavily subsidized celebrations and strictly directed them. In 2016, it was supposed to happen organically.

Lassalle forgot that even organic things sometimes never grow.

Queen Elizabeth was short and to the point with her letter writing as a child.

To celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday, the public relations arm of the British monarchy has taken to social media to get hip with the kiddos and bombarded sites like Instagram with throwbacks to the Queen's glory days. Those being when she was a kid.

Take the following post, showing the very first letter Queen Elizabeth (known to family as Lilibet) wrote to her grandmother, Queen Mary.

This is the first letter ‘Lilibet’ as Princess Elizabeth was known to her family, ever sent to her grandmother, Queen Mary. #Queenat90 #fromthearchives

A photo posted by The British Monarchy (@the_british_monarchy) on Apr 19, 2016 at 4:40am PDT

You're supposed to read this in your head as if one of the daughters from Downton Abbey is speaking.

How extensive a doll house is it that it's taking ages for the kid to unpack? Is it life-sized? It's possible that every time we look at Buckingham Palace we're just seeing at a really grandiose dollhouse. Is Prince Philip really just an elaborate Ken doll? Potentially.

Poll: 4 in 10 Brits don't like or understand Shakespeare.

60% approve. That's a passing grade, Bill!

18,000 people from 15 nations responded to a poll for the British Council to determine the Bard's economic impact in his homeland and abroad, and it found that English people, much like English weather, are sort of damp. Somehow, the world's most famous writer homegrown in their own land is disliked by 40% of the population.

A collected response from the 15 polled nations shows that 76% of respondents like Shakespeare's sonnets or plays overall.

Countries like India, China, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa have higher approval rates than England in the end.

What country is least favorable to Shakespeare though? That would be Germany, where only 44% replied they like his work and 42% said it was worthwhile.

Germany's hatred actually makes total sense in that Shakespeare often left at least one or two people alive at the end of his dramas, and no German wants that.

Randomness Corner: The scourge of illicit delectable meats and cheeses!

Grandma's ham cartel strikes again.

Over a nearly seven month period at Manchester Airport, the U.K.'s third largest, highly trained drug-sniffing dogs never found a single source of class-A drugs like cocaine and heroin, but they found a delightful array of artisanal meats and cheeses brought back by local Brits on holiday.

Does this mean an elderly British grandmother is a hardened criminal if she's hauling back some jamón ibérico in her carry-on from a week in the south of Spain? Fido seems to think so, and would like to take it off her hands.

The dogs cost the airport £1.25 million to train and house, but authorities claim the dogs also detected over 40,000 smuggled cigarettes.

Cheese. Meat. Cigarettes.

Add a full-bodied red wine and candles to this list and Fido will have created a sophisticated romantic evening.

Tiny London bookstore supplies to the whims and quirks of the average and elite.

Heywood Hill is tiny in size, but mighty in scope. The venerable 80-year old London bookstore eschews the trappings of modern retail book buying, the conveyor belt of mass production, and instead focuses on one major aspect: individualized attention. Their attention to detail is so renowned that the Queen--yes, that one--has someone shop for her at their store.

Looking for a collection of books regarding Dadaism? Need some advice on engaging reads about The Crusades? Thinking a wide array of material on Australia's involvement in World War One is key to any well-rounded intellectual conversation? That's where Heywood Hill lends a hand.

But what if you're opening a fashionable hotel and looking to supply varied reading material to worldly clients? Does your private jet need some tomes to accompany guests on long flights? Have that vacation home in the Hamptons or on Nantucket, and are just tired of coffee table books you see at your competition's friend's place? Heywood Hill finds the perfect collection to suit any taste or situation--for a price.

As the New York Times reports, Heywood Hill's assistance can cost into the six figures. If you still haven't hit the lotto despite your dogged determination and want to have a respectable collection of books, their program called 'A Year in Books' supplies a book-a-month based on your tastes for roughly $515.

But back to the Queen. Everyone wants to know what's on her reading list--so what does she fancy? Histories? Biographies? Harlequin novels?

"We don't really talk about her," said store manager Nicky Dunne to the Times.

So, Harlequin novels it is then.




photo: publishingperspectives.com