Barbara's Blog

  More fun with research. In the betting book at Brooks' Club in London, in 1785: "Lord Cholmondeley has given two guineas to Lord Derby, to receive 500 guineas whenever his lordship f***ks a woman in a balloon one thousand yards from the earth." (The original did not use asterisks). Origin of the Mile-High Club? In 1774, Brooks had to outlaw betting on other peoples' premature deaths. From the book, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, by Karl Shaw. And I'm only in to Chapter 2. As my friend Laurie says, "You can't make this shit up."

And here we are, at my new blog. The website is yet to come, and for the first couple of weeks I'll be buried in a deadline: Benjamin January # 19, Death and Hard Cider , which takes place against the background of the 1840 Presidential election. I thought about calling it, "Tippecanoe and Murder, Too," but realized that a lot of people won't understand the reference to the campaign of William Henry Harrison. That was the first "modern" style Presidential campaign, with songs, rallies, women's auxiliary organizations (even though women couldn't vote - the guys found them convenient for providing refreshments at the rallies, and Harrison's opponents railed against those hussies for handing out leaflets and reading newspapers and having opinions about the politics of their betters). In a couple of weeks (so my website builder assures me) my new website should (at last!) be up and running, and this blog will be linked to it. I will double-post - tri...

 This is an experimental new post, to see if this works. Can I put in a picture? Can I change the font ? We seem to have a small number of available. Can I change this after it's uploaded? Let's see .

Click on your picture. Click on the B logo in the upper left of the screen. The 3 horizontal lines icon is called the hamburger and is the universal symbol for a hidden menu.  Click the hamburger. Select "New Post". Write your entry and Press publish. We can chat about this tomorrow at your leisure <g>. —There is a lot you can do with this blog software. Whatever you may conceive is probably possible. Write and publish is pretty basic. You can have separate pages, membership requirements, groups, links, email posting, moderating...it's all here when you want it. You can also ignore all that stuff.— eb  

     A girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her, and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things.      He said to her, "What will you call me?"    " Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.      He said, "You must call me master of all masters . And what would you call this?" he said pointing to his bed.      "Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir."     " No, that's my barnacle . And what do you call these?" said he, pointing to his pantaloons.     "Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please, sir."     "You must call them squibs and crackers . And what would you call her?" he said pointing to the cat.     "Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir."     "...