Happy Birthday, Bill and Miguel!

[akicif]

Time for a spot of Chesterton:

St George he was for England,
And before he killed the dragon
He drank a pint of English ale
Out of an English flagon.
For though he fast right readily
In hair-shirt or in mail,
It isn't safe to give him cakes
Unless you give him ale.
St George he was for England,
And right gallantly set free
The lady left for dragon's meat
And tied up to a tree;
But since he stood for England
And knew what England means,
Unless you give him bacon
You mustn't give him beans.
St George he is for England,
And shall wear the shield he wore
When we go out in armour
With battle-cross before.
But though he is jolly company
And very pleased to dine,
It isn't safe to give him nuts
Unless you give him wine.

ETA: Connections - Chesterton wrote about Lepanto, at which Cervantes fought, and Carlos Fuentes - who should surely know better - speculated that Shakespeare and Cervantes were the same person, ignoring the fact that while they shared birth dates, they didn't share calendars (iCal presumably not having been invented).

Comments

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Well, we've often speculated that Richard III, Cesare Borgia and Vlad Tepes were either the same person or clones. And I persist in my belief that Rasputin was actually Frankenstein's monster...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's a shame that (if I recall correctly) that otherwise excellent poem comes from one of the silliest anti-Moslem books ever written.

[camies.livejournal.com]

well yerrs, but it's really anti kneejerk politics (cf. banning things because it's a vote winner) and the chief culprit isn't a proper Muslim, but a jumper on bandwagons.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

It's a very silly book¹ in a lot of ways, but I think the target wasn't so much muslims ("moslem" is considered offensive, btw) as - for want of a better word - the banner chasers, the people with a cafeteria approach to faith, who pick and chose from here and there to build their own all-you-can-eat/home-brew spirituality.

I think if he was writing today he'd have picked on the New Agers.

1: I like silly in some circumstances and there's something in the hero that I rather like - he reminds me, too, of Adam Wayne in The Napoleon of Notting Hill.