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Tourists going battle class

6th September 20236th September 2023 funtime65

Pitched fights were what passed for live sport back in the day (well, there was no football) with tourists going battle class.

And as is the way with big entertainment, America led the way.

Well, there was the coming ‘attraction’ of the American Civil War.

No seriously for the Great and Good of the capital the first skirmishes of what they never conceived would last four years were seen as a glorious day out.

Ready for battle: The American Civil War

And the grand ladies got their picnics out and their maids to take them down to within view of Manassas in Virginia, 32 miles from the capital.

Alas, this was not the derring-do of frontier adventures but bloody carnage and the tourists even had to hot-tail it back to Washington DC when the fighting got too close.

These days they make capital out of the battle with history tourists able to get up close and personal to the likes of Stonewall Jackson.

And interact with guides dressed up as soldiers.

War, this is what it’s good for

The excitement of close-up coverage of a real-life battle caught on and there were spectators too at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Though we can’t imagine that there had ‘come to dedicate a portion of that field’ to the tourists.

And here in Europe at the Franco-Prussian War, following in a rich tradition where tourists, celebrities including Robert Southey among them, visiting battlefields, post-killing.

Thomas Cook got in on the act too promoting travel out to the Boer War.

Old Boers: At a Boer graveyard in South Africa

All of which is still on the tourist map when you’re down there as I was in the Eastern Cape. And some towns don’t look to have changed since then.

Now thankfully, and again we probably have football to thank for this, real-life battles are no longer spectator sports.

In their place though are recreations, and there’s a classic every year in our favourite region of Greece, Attica.

Where the locals have been refighting the pivotal naval Battle of Spetses, or Armata, from the Greek War of Independence in 1822.

The Armata

Of course you know but just a reminder that Spetses was where Captain Andreas Miaoulis and the captains of Spetses, Hydra, and Psara islands fought against the Turkish naval forces.

While Kosmas Barbatsis from Spetses set fire to the enemy flagship, making the Turks retreat.

The climax of the island’s festivities which take place in the second week of September commemorating the battle on the 8th is the burning of a model of the Ottoman flagship.

But, of course, there are fireworks, concerts, plays and church services with the Virgin Mary to the fore with her birthday also on the 8th September.

Helpfully too and my schoolboy Greek is sketchy, and is only useful 2,500 years ago, they have translations from the Greek into English.

And for tourists going battle class, my Greek odyssey was courtesy of Lufthansa… and quite an odyssey it was too.

America, Countries

Still only a pawn in their game

27th August 202327th August 2023 funtime65

And as we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington it is worth reflecting on power… that we are still only a pawn in their game.

And that it is barely two and a half years since a very different march on Washington, an attempted coup.

When five people lost their lives.

If Dr Martin Luther King had a dream back then, America had a nightmare that day.

Alongside Dr King in the capital on August 28, 1963, were a line of Civil Rights luminaries and protest musicians.

Including Bob Dylan who sang the Medgar Evers tribute Only A Pawn In Their Game.

And Joan Baez who led the chorus of We shall overcome.

The Mississippi King

Today’s protests: And Black Lives Matter

Evers, of course, should have been up there alongside Dr King at the Lincoln Memorial, before the quarter of a million flanking the Reflecting Pool.

But he had been shot down just two months before in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

Five years later Dr King would be dead too.

Evers’ death would ignite the Movement.

And you can be part of a living, growing movement with those who have curated Medgar’s house for future generations.

Or more precisely the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.

Myrlie’s story

Myrlie, Medgar’s devoted wife, is as much part of the Evers story as the king of Mississippi.

And still at 90 she is championing the struggle which is still real and still now.

And still unfinished as evidenced by the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial on the National Mall.

Not even started though is the statue to Medgar Evers because we are still only a pawn in their game.

America, Countries

Douglass’s 4th of July appeal for the ages

4th July 20234th July 2023 funtime65

And for the day that’s in it, a look back at Frederick Douglass’s 4th of July appeal for the ages.

As HBO and Sky Documentaries’ emmy-nominated retrospective showcases Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches.

And one of the actors who recites one of his oratories asks… why do people not know more about this man?

We here on this site, of course, know him as more than that guy with the crazy big hair in the background in the film Harriet.

Crazy would be about right, you would feel ticked off too if you’d been born into and lived your young life a slave.

Until he effected his own escape from Baltimore, disguised as a sailor, and fled to New York to put his stamp on his times.

A world statesman

Another actor speaks of Douglass as a figure who spanned the 19th century.

And the most famous black man of his time.

And not just in America but in Britain and Ireland where he took refuge after he wrote his Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

And who bought him his freedom.

Douglass’s Edinburgh

Big screen: Douglass in the Harriet movie

Not that it’s obvious as it should be but Douglass lived in Edinburgh in 33 Gilmore Street.

Douglass instantly fell in love with Scotland’s capital (well, you would) and Scotland Douglass.d

And he waxed lyrical about ‘the Carlton Hill, Salysbury Crags and Arthur Seat” for giving Edinburgh “advantages over any city I have ever visited.”

He was less fond of Scotland’s newly-formed Free Presbyterian Church which took money, £3,000, from Deep South slaveholders.

And wrote to his friend William Lord Garrison back in America of ‘Scotland being a blaze of anti-slavery agitators.’

Man of the people

The only evidence that Douglass was ever in Scotland is in the records of his speeches and the tireless work.

Of the Frederick Douglass in Britain and the Historic Environment Scotland sites.

The mural of Douglass only put up this decade on the Edinburgh street where he lived.

And tour guides such as Hannah Mackay Tait who will help you walk in the great man’s footsteps.

Better still as I did find yourself in Washington DC and visit Douglass’s house Cedar Hill looking down the hill on the capital.

For a taster, of course, watch the excellent Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches

Where you’ll hear how Douglass challenged the good people of Rochester, New York in an American Independence Day in 1852 to consider this question…

On a pedestal

‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

The people of Rochester took his words on board and before the end of the century had erected a statue to him.

The first to a black-American in the country.

No such statue exists in Edinburgh although his influence would be as high as Dr Martin Luther King.

While slavery apologist Lord Dundas still looks down on us all from 150ft in the Edinburgh sky.

Erected in 1827, Frederick Douglass would, of course, have passed it regularly.

Echoes from history

One can only imagine what he thought but we can assume that he would have much to say about the direction of this island.

And for the day that’s in it I’m again listening to his, and Dr King’s orations.

And suggest you too take in Douglass’s 4th of July appeal for the ages

America, Countries, UK

The real King’s Speech

7th May 2023 funtime65

I have a dream, and more later, but there is a leader for the ages who stood for equality and bottled it in the real King’s Speech.

That King, of course, is Dr Martin Luther King, who 60 years ago this year held a million people in the National Mall in Washington spellbound.

When he referenced the struggles of the disadvantaged…

‘Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered.

‘By the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.’

Our civil rights

You’d be forgiven for thinking that his message was focused on a divided America.

But his words rang around the world.

And that it was set in the Civil Rights struggles of the Sixties.

But there were echoes of state suppression this weekend.

In the shutting down of protest, random arrests and removal of anti-monarchist leaders around the Coronation.

For the impertinence of hollering ‘Not My King’.

Of course, in a democracy, government by the people, of the people, for the people is the standard we should all live by.

Our dream

And the symbolism of MLK delivering his I Have A Dream speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial passed nobody by.

Make then what you will of the hundreds of thousands of subjects who happily surrender their equality.

To support a bloodline, unelected royalty.

There is no denying that British tourist chiefs have been salivating at the millions coming into the coffers.

From tourists from the Commonwealth, North America and even countries who were never even in the Empire.

And we will no doubt be reminded in the days to come that the moneys coming in from tourism.

Despite historic palaces elsewhere in the world still a money-spinner.

And from a consumerist mini-boom from members of the public.

Suspending their cost of living concerns to spend money they don’t have.

Of course, for those of us living in the UK it all plays into the narrative.

Of the post-Brexit Promised Land we were all promised.

New British Empire

Or New British Empire, if you will.

None of which this citizen of this septic isle voted for.

Taking shelter as I was in the Republic of Ireland.

Where there was healthy respect given to the head of state, the President.

Who, of course, not for a minute claimed a divine right to govern.

Which has throughout history has been used.

By kings and queens and their lickspittles to justify their tyranny.

Conveniently ignoring that when Pontius Pilate asked Christ if he were the King of the Jews he replied: ‘It is you who says it.’

Crown of Thorns

All of which went through my mind when my Ghanain priest challenged our congregation in oh-so-royalist North Berwick in Scotland.

To pray for the King and that his rule was by divine intervention and that it was all our Christian duty to be royalists.

When I was hoping for something akin to the real King’s speech,

All under a cross with my saviour mocked on a cross with INRI, translated as Jesus King of the Jews.

And wearing a crown of thorns, not the best stolen jewels of Empire.

So rather than watch obsequious so-called rad musicians fall over themselves to pledge allegiance to Charles.

I’ll be replaying the real King’s Speech and girding myself for his Promised Land.

And if you want a truly spiritual and egalitarian experience channel MLK in any of the places he walked.

From Atlanta, Georgia to Selma, Alabama, from Washington DC to Memphis, Tennessee.

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

Dragging up the statue debate

9th April 20239th April 2023 funtime65

News that 70,000 fans have signed a petition to have an erection of Paul O’Grady (he’d appreciate that) put up in his hometown Birkenhead sees us dragging up the statue debate again.

Whether the proposed O’Grady statue over the Mersey from Liverpool would be of pets’ pal Paul with a beloved pooch.

Or his beloved alter ego, Lily Savage, a celebration of this towering figure would be most welcome.

We make no apologies for dredging up this contentious subject again because simply put statues are a fixture of every tourist’s city break trip.

And it is our mission to redress the balance.

By putting up more cultural figures on pedestals to match, replace or overtake the mystery military statues that look down on us.

Who’s a hero?

A horse, a horse: Stonewall Jackson at Manassas

Statues was all the talk in of all places Barbados a few years ago.

When the Ski Club of Virginia made their annual pilgrimage down to the Caribbean.

And our new friends from the Deep South were alerting us to the gathering storm.

Over the statues of the Confederate leaders proliferating there.

Which I saw for myself when I went out to Virginia.

And visited Manassas, site of the first fighting in the Civil War, and home to Stonewall Jackson.

And alas the fighting was to resume not long after on the streets again.

I was fortunate to illicit the opinions of those on both sides of the divide through further adventures in the Deep South.

And meet the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and his unfinished statue in Washington DC.

And Fannie Lou Hamer, the little big woman who got tired of being tired in Mississippi.

The extraordinary ordinary

In the name of dog: Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh

Of course for every celebrated soldier, conceited king or quaffed queen there are real heroes and heroines who have rightly been placed in marble and stone.

Such as Anne Frank in Amsterdam, Workers’ champion Jim Larkin in Dublin or devoted doggie Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh.

Ah yes, you’ll see the message we’re sending out here, more children, women, working-class heroes and animals.

Gay giants

And LGBTQ+ champions and more drag queens.

Our trawl of statues turns up unexpectedly and disappointingly precious few of either.

Again our beloved Ireland leads the way somewhat and in spite of its repressive Catholic past.

With the louche and lounging statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square.

While he is lauded and lipsticked in his gravestone in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, his last resting place.

Where Wilde led, the likes of Harvey Milk, the ‘Mayor of Castro Street’ in San Francisco.

Whose bust smiles at us from its plinth in City Hall, followed.

And Greenwich Village in New York, spiritual home for the Gay Liberation Movement, made a statement with a bust to Marsha P Johnson.

All of which makes the case for more statues which truly represent the people who live among them and represent them.

Redressing the balance

Alas, here in the UK as in most places representation is in short supply.

With only Alan Turing, the decoder who helped defeat Hitler, represented long after he was vilified and criminalised for his homosexuality.

So let’s hear it for the real heroes and heroines of our society.

Those we can identify with and look up to.

And that’s who I want to be looking at it on my city breaks.

And why I’m dragging up the statue debate again.

Africa, America, Countries, UK

Get Black History Month

8th October 20228th October 2022 funtime65

He’s a bit of a forgotten Commander in Chief but he is the US President who did get Black History Month… he brought it to the masses

Gerald Ford officially recognised the programme in 1976, the bicentenary of the USA.

When he called on the public to: ‘seize the opportunity to honour the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavour throughout our history.’

Of course theirs is February to mark the birthday months of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Ours in Britain is October and dates back to 1987 to mark 150 years of emancipation in the Caribbean.

Of course black history isn’t and shouldn’t be restricted to either February or October.

And while I’ve had to seek out black history myself around the world thankfully it is taught now in schools.

And, of course, it isn’t a black and white issue, these black icons should be everyone’s icons.

We share your dream

Dr Martin Luther King: A leader for the ages and how we could do with his like today.

You can follow in Dr King’s footsteps throughout the Deep South from his birthplace of Atlanta, Georgia.

Through the bridge protest in Selma, Alabama to his final days in Memphis, Tennessee.

And his memorial in the unfinished statue in Washington DC, unfinished because it can’t be completed until the struggle is.

Sweet Harriet

Harriet Tubman: And even before the film of her life Harriet was immortalised in song in Swing Low, Sweet Harriet.

And you thought it was an England rugby song…

No, she was coming for to carry me home (the black slaves of the Civil War era, that is).

And you can see how she did it at the Slave Haven in Memphis.

Rightly now she stands proud on pedestals in the modern-day Oo Es of Eh, and most poignantly in her home state of Maryland.

The long march

Nelson Mandela: Mandela’s status and reach marks him out as the only statesman icon of our age.

With nearly 300 locations named after the first post-Apartheid President of South Africa.

Of course there were those, take a bow Glasgow who would rename the street on which the SA embassy was after Mandela.

So correspondence would be delivered to Nelson Mandela Place.

Mandela rests for eternity in his native Eastern Cape in inland in Qunu where they still speak his gullet-clicking Xhosa language.

Redemption Song

Bob Marley: And while there are other deserving black legends of music none pioneered black political empowerment quite like the King of Reggae.

Marley emboldened black people through his musical message at a time when racism was institutionalised throughout the UK and the world.

Of course pilgrims pay homage to Bob in his native Caribbean at mases (concerts) like the One Love gog I attended at Barbados Crop Over.

But most especially in his native and much-referenced Kingston in Jamaica.

Sweet Mary

Mary Seacole: Much though still needs to be done to level up with those we put on a pedestal.

And it is instructive that when the British government set up their emergency hospitals during Covid they called them Nightingales.

After Florence, whose harsh matronly rule of the hospitals out in Crimea are now being revisited by historians.

While Jamaican-born Mary is only recently being studied in schools.

Flo, we should remember, also turned Mary away, probably on account of her race, but she went on to set up her own hospital.

But Flo gets her own museum and gentle Mary must make do with a reference in the London Museum.

All something then to explore as we get Black History Month.

America, Asia, Countries, Europe, Food & Wine, Ireland, UK

Win win on Ginoisseur Day

11th June 202211th June 2022 funtime65

Now, just to prove there’s no such thing as a new idea I can’t claim to have coined this… but it’s still win, win on Ginoisseur Day.

I came to gin late in life, piqued by the mid-2020s craze for the juniper.

And the row of gins and their fancy tonics laid out in front of me at Teach Aindi in Monaghan in the Irish Midlands.

They have 101 although time constraints limited us to six.

Not the Grapey One’s drink of choice you understand, though for research purposes, she mineswept the bar.

Unbeknownst to me, but logical as we invented everything else, it was a Scot behind the G&T.

Gee, G&T

Gin & Tonic: Doctor George Cleghorn explored in the 19th century if quinine could cure malaria.

The quinine was drunk in tonic water but proved too bitter and so army officers added water, sugar, lime and gin.

Now as my own paper the Daily Record is my go-to for reference I checked out what they recommended.

Although they could have asked me to roadtest them!

But the top three are Arbikie Nadar Gin in Arbroath, Tayside, the Isle of Harris and Kintyre Gin.

Dry and high

Dry Martini: And James Bond’s classic drink of choice before Daniel Craig rebranded him.

We first meet Bond at Casino Royale, or more accurately at the Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary, Czechia.

Of course the Dry Martini is gin, vermouth, and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist… and shaken not stirred.

The Tom Tom Club

Tom Collins: And an example of transatlantic co-operation between the UK and USA.

With Jerry Thomas, ‘the father of American mixology’, chronicled the gin, lime juice, sugar and carbonated water drink.

Of course with every British convention that crosses the Atlantic it has lost something in location and John became Jim became Tom.

The Italian Twist

Negroni: And few things disappoint when given the Italian twist.

And grazie to our amici for their one part gin, one part vermouth rosso and one part Campari, garnished with orange peel.

Now it’s been a year and a half since I was last in il bel paese and every drink tastes of a memory.

And mine is Bergamo Citta Alta, the high town in the Lombard city.

Taking the Rickey

The 47th President of America: In Washington DC

Gin Rickey: And being Washington DC this is obviously a capitol drink.

But did you know that it originated in Shoomaker’s Bar in the 1880s by bartender George A. Williamson?

Purportedly in collaboration with Democratic lobbyist Colonel Joe Rickey.

The bartender is said to have added a lime to the Civil War veteran’s ‘mornin’s morning.’

It is a daily dose of Bourbon with lump ice and Apollinaris sparkling mineral water.

The gin twist? Well, that came from the popularity of the Chicago Exposition of 1893.

And in particular the Japanese rickshaw… and then the gin rickey with gin growing in popularity.

And that means it’s a win win on Ginoisseur Day.

America, Caribbean, Countries, Europe, Ireland

Five republics to escape the Platinum Jubilee

2nd June 20222nd June 2022 funtime65

And continuin our series, and because we’re not all pliant subjects, here are five republics to escape the Platinum Jubilee.

There are 159 republic in the world and only 43 sovereignty ikstates with monarchies. Go figure.

Vive La Republique

France: Mais oui, there were republics before the French, only they shout Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité a little louder.

So much so that the French are onto their fifth since We the First in 1792, followed we should remember by Emperor Napoleon.

And there is more than a touch of the regal about the French President’s official residence, the Élysée Palace in Paree.

The Battle Hymn

Mr President: Issy Conway, George Washington and the Pres’s right-hand man

America: And some 16 years before the then-royalist French helped the colonies form mthe Republic.

George Washington and his Vice-President John Adams had discussed how the new Pres should be addressed.

Adams had leant towards His Excellence but Washington insisted on just Mr President.

And he rejected his pal jGeneral Lafayette’s idea to erect an ornate monument in DC to him complete with horses.

Instead he had an obelisk, the Washington Monument installed instead. Pure class.

Italy’s republics

The holy of holies. At the end of the Francigena in Rome

Rome: Now La Citta Eterna is credited as the cradle of Republics although Athens might have something to say about that.

We all associate Classical Rome, of course, with the Caesars, but the Republic ran Rome’s affairs from 509BC to 27BC.

While the lyCaesars looked down from their plinths from 46BC-476AD.

YNow I was more a Latin student than a maths expert but that seems roughly the same and the Republic won out in the end.

The Irish Republic

On a pedestal: With Charles Stewart Parnell in Co. Wicklow

Ireland: And because the Free State didn’t scream self-determination (OK, it was a bit more complicated) they became a republic in 1949.

They had formed an ya constitution in 1937 with an elected non-executive president before breaking with the crown in 1949.

After a fractured relationship in the 60-odd years after the Irish brought back the Queen… but only for a visit in 2011.

Barbados, the new Republic

Barbados: And on November 30, 2021, Barbados took the momentous decision to replace the uQueen with a Bajan, President Sandra Mason.

Y the After 396 years, although Barbados had taken the first step with independence in 1966… and I even saw the seal in the Archive Offices.

The date, November 30, was arbitrary but in my wee country it is our national day, named for St Andrew, our patron saint.

Just returned from a third visit to Barbados I reacquainted myself with our joint heritage which includes a region of the island called Scotland. I

We sang Scots and Soca songs, ceilidhed and jumped and toasted the Barbados republic with rum and whisky.

My reason for going, well I didn’t need one, but it was to celebrate the renewal of the Barbados Celtic Festival.

And thought dreamily of a Scotland having their day one day.

America, Countries, Culture, Europe, UK

Five films to escape the Platinum Jubilee

31st May 20221st June 2022 funtime65

And because we’re not all pliant subjects here are five films to escape the Platinum Jubilee.

And other ideas will follow through the week.

Historical

Cabaret: And because it’s only the best film ever made.

Daddy’s Little Girl was my proxy in Berlin this past week where she partied at the KitKat Club, named for the Cabaret burlesque club.

From the opening credits of the MC and Sally Bowles singing Wilkommen you will be drawn into 1930s Nazi Berlin.

It is musical, historical, tragic and comic. In a word it is Magic.

Comical

The talk: Jim and his Dad in the Great Lakes

American Pie: And this is like having to choose your favourite child (btw, it’s the one who buys you the biggest gift).

Who can pass Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Some Like It Hot, Gregory’s Girl, Monty Python and The In Betweeners?

But on the grounds that there are three of these.

Then the classic coming of age trilogy on the Great Lakes will keep you occupied, smiling and gorging in American Pie. Whisper it but Los Angeles doubles for East Great Falls.

Mysterious

Kathy’s no clown: Fried Green Tomatoes in Georgia

Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe: And the title lives up to its billing in this Deep South Classic from Juliette, Georgia.

Juliette, 56 miles from Atlanta, is where the action takes place and you can still visit The Whistle Stop Cafe.

And no, they don’t put on a barbecue.

Feelgood

A Street Cat Named Bob: Now we’ve all binged on movies on transatlantic flights… and often fallen asleep during some.

And a tip here… if you’ve worked out that you can fit in three movies, always pick the one you least want to watch as the last in case you do nod off.

I’m glad to say that I picked A Street Cat Named Bob as my first movie on the way over to LA… and cried.

It is set around Covent Garden in London and deals with a drug addict homeless man who is saved by a stray cat. And it proves that cats really are better than humans.

Scary

It’ll make you cross: The Exorcist in DC

The Exorcist: And scarier still than the cutesie little girl who turns evil, spins her head and chucks priests down stairs with the power of her mind, is that its true.

The author William Peter Blatty agreed with the family to change the child’s sex from male to female to defend their anonymity.

There are tales too that the actress Linda Blair was psychologically damaged by playing the part.

You can visit the area where it was shot in Washington DC. Head for Georgetown.

So that’s five films to escape the Platinum Jubilee, and we’ll come up with another listicle to plan your altenative Platinum Jubilee weekend.

America, Countries

For Dog, For Country and For Yale

28th April 202228th April 2022 funtime65

Yale’s Handsome Dan XIX is the best date I’d been on for years which is why I say For Dog, For Country and For Yale.

In fact I didn’t even know I was on one.

Handsome Dan has been the prestigious Connecticut university‘s sports mascot since at least 1890.

And before you start doing the math, Dan is, yes, the 19th Old English Bulldog mascot at the Ivy League University.

And he is the nephew of Dan XIIX who has decamped to New York.

Puppy love

HD XIX is still at the puppy stage, born a year last month, during Covid.

And he is making up for lost time by licking everyone he meets.

Either around the campus in New Haven or on the seat where we find him on the green.

A seat of learning if you will.

Animal magic

Hero: Yale alumni and Revolutionary martyr Nathan Hale

Yale, which dates back to 1701, boasts the oldest live collegiate mascot in the world.

Fair play though to fellow Ivy Leaguers Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, from where I’ve come.

They would have a job bringing a live bear to their events.

Ivy League

A word now on Ivy League universities…

There are eight across the north-west universities.

And the ivy comes from ivy-planting class days at Harvard in the 1800s.

While the Ivy League dates back to 1935 when it was picked up by a sports writer to explain the inter-universities rivalries.

Bulldog Day

Handsome Dan may not be the only Bulldog when we visit, it is Bulldog Day, but he is the most important.

If you’re imagining a dog show of jowly-hounds in the hallowed halls of Yale then it’s a nice thought.

But it is the raft of lucky students who have been accepted as the next intake of students.

And who bunk down with current students while they give the university which was founded in 1701 a recce.

We’ll return to Yale when they realise that I would be enhance the pantheon which has included the Bushes and Clintons.

And thanks to our guide, senior Aidan from Arizona, who is off to Washington, for suggesting it!

Cost it up

I’m sure Yale could waive the $79,370 costs of attending a university which opens doors to the best positions in life.

Although with aid it’s estimated at $17,549.

And for that you get to… well it would take longer than we have here but check out their prospectus.

I guarantee you’ll be taken by a church building where it’s all educational symbolism and secular stained-glass windows.

And a cathedral to the body, yes a many/floored gymnasium.

Not that we’d want Yale’s Handsome Dan XIX go on the treadmill.

We love him the way he is, cuddly and waddling around campus.

And so, I say again and with apologies for playing with your motto…

For Dog, For Country and For Yale

Alas, though, I have to give Dan a big slobbery kiss goodbye.

I’m back on the Amtrak to Boston. Huzzah!