A Certain Saint

[steepholm]

I hardly need remind you that today is the feast of St Joseph of Arimathea - also known as Joseph of Glastonbury, the first ever saint of Britain. So, don't forget to wear those giant inflatable thorns and speak like a pirate - after all, everyone's from Somerset on St Joe's Day! Have a good time - but do go easy on the cider.

Comments

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I often wonder why Universal Pirate equate more or less to British West Country. I mean, obviously the south-west was a haven for smugglers and so on, but SOME pirates must have been from elsewhere... Is it Stevenson who starts it?

(I am in bed sipping pink gin, humming Elgar, and doing service to Irish literature).

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think I knew and have since forgotten this. Wasn't it a particular Hollywood actor who founded the whole pirate=worzel idea? It may come to me - or to someone else.

You sound wonderfully decadent, in a hard-working way - composing in bed like Rossini (if we substitute The Barber of Seville for The Dream of Gerontius - but what's the diff?)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Oh yes - Robert Newton's the name I was looking for.

[sovay]

Oh yes - Robert Newton's the name I was looking for.

He played Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island (1950), which I suppose a whole generation grew up on. I prefer to remember him as someone like Bill Walker in Major Barbara (1941)—I just rewatched it last night (finally on DVD from Criterion, not scratchy library VHS) and he's terrific. I wish William Wyler had been able to get him for Wuthering Heights (1939).

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Pirates are from the West Country, Puritans are from East Anglia, and engineers are from Scotland. It's the law.