I (rhymeswithplague, not Susan Boyle -- we’ll get to her in a minute) began this blog in September 2007 and subsequently posted about the summer solstice on, would you believe, the summer solstices in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Inexplicably (today’s five-syllable word), I did not post a single word about the summer solstice on the summer solstices in 2011 or 2012.
Here are those three posts from 2008, 2009, and 2010:
1. Get ready to party, people! (2008)
2. The long, hot summer approaches (2009)
3. What? Summer solstice already? (2010)
On the summer solstice in 2011, however, I posted Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar in which Mrs. RWP and I wished her brother a happy 80th birthday and I also mentioned the National Hollerin’ Contest in Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina.
And last year, on the summer solstice in 2012, I posted The vibrations of deathless music which included a video of Junior Brown singing “You’re Wanted by the PO-lice and My Wife Thinks You’re Dead” (3:36). Yes, it did.
These posts, taken as a whole, prove one and only one thing:
It is not just mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun.
If you don’t get that cultural reference, let me enlighten you. Here is Noel Coward singing his own composition, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Midday Sun” (2:30), which includes the line -- I do hope Yorkshire Pudding is in the house today -- “In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run.”
I do wish you a happy solstice or a merry solstice or a safe and sane solstice or whatever it is that you want to be wished. This year the summer solstice occurred earlier today (June 21, 2013) at exactly 1:04 am EDT (5:04 UTC), when Earth’s Northern Hemisphere reached its point of greatest inclination to the Sun. [Editor’s note. In Earth’s Southern Hemisphere, today is the first day of winter. --RWP]
Warning: Do not try to balance an egg on its end today. That is possible only on an equinox.
Finally, as Susan Boyle said on more than one occasion, “Thank you for your support.”
You have often referred to Susan Boyle. Perhaps this is a subconscious infatuation driven by the realisation that your intellects are probably on a par with each other. Happy Solstice Robert!
ReplyDeleteYorkshire Pudding, perhaps your comment is a subconscious but failed attempt to be funny and insulting at the same time. My reference to Susan Boyle was a conscious attempt to attract more readers to my blog based on the number of fans she has worldwide. I have seen no data regarding their intellects, or lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteI have been trying to get to your blog but what with my trips then trying to dig all my old slides for my current posts I am again way behind. I did not go out today to look at the sun but I did go out a little while ago and the moon is outstanding. Thanks for mentioning my blog a while back – appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteVagabonde, thank you for returning to me blog at all! I have been enjoying your posts about your earlier times in San Francisco and Great Falls, Montana. If you had gone out today to look at the sun, you would have been blinded as usual. The way you can tell it is the summer solstice is that sunrise comes earlier and sunset comes later than on any other day of year.
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