Not Going to Costa Rica

A Tale of Woe

Costa Rica 2021

Costa Rica

We had booked a Cuban trip for March 2020 but as departure approached, so did a new and as yet unnamed Corona Virus. I was expecting imminent government action that would cause a cancellation, but it didn’t come, so we went.

It came two days later. Our travel company wanted to bring us straight home, but I demurred and we eventually lost only one day of our holiday. The airline industry was shutting down and we had to fly Havana-Paris-Amsterdam-Birmingham, arriving home shortly after the first lockdown had started.

Where are they all?
Driving home from the airport after the start of the first lockdown. March 2020

By summer the prolonged lockdown had worked, the number of cases was much lower and stayed low even after restrictions were lifted. I was no Covidiot, unlike the Prime Minister, Lynne and I had obeyed the rules meticulously, but I was always a hopeless Covoptimist. By the end of August, I thought Covid was over and the world would soon start opening up. We booked a trip to Costa Rice for February 2021.

But of course, it wasn’t over, autumn came and cases rose. The Prime Minister promised a ‘normal Christmas’ even though he was in possession of the facts and projections, but he was, as usual, saying what he thought people wanted to hear. The second lockdown came, I contacted the travel company and we rescheduled for 2022.

Where Were We (not) Going?

Costa Rica has become a popular destination and I was surprised by how many people I have spoken to recently have been there. No doubt, they know where it is, but others seemed less sure. They know its not one of the Spanish Costas, so it must be across the Atlantic somewhere, but where? Confusion with Puerto Rico is common, and understandable, but Puerto Rico is an island, Costa Rica isn’t, it is a slice across central America.

Costa Rica's position in Central America

It is not large, 150 km from the Atlantic to Pacific coast and 400 km north to south. Our plan was to cherry-pick the best of Costa Rica, stopping at five locations across the country.

Flying Gatwick to San José, we would look round the capital and then journey by bus and boat to Tortuguero, a National Park on the Atlantic coast. It was the wrong season for the turtles (never mind, see Oman (2): Sur and Turtles), but we were guaranteed howler monkeys, sloths in the hotel garden and an early morning boat trip to see what we could find. From there we would travel to La Fortuna at the base of Arenal, an active volcano, for lava walks and a dip in a thermal pool.

Costa Rica with our intended stops marked in red

Stop 3 was at in the cloud forest at Monteverde, with walkways through the canopy – as featured in Paddington, even though it is not ‘darkest Peru’. Then down to the beach at Sámara on the Pacific coast before returning to San José and home.

Costa Rica in 2022

Little did we know it but the 2022 plan started unravelling in September 2021.

Tortuguero Canals
Sourced from Wikipedia, photo in public domain

Lynne was suffering from a persistent and very unpleasant cough and extreme tiredness. Coughing fits regularly left her retching, but when one brought up a little blood, it was time to consult the medical profession. A series of blood tests, an x-ray and an CT scan failed to throw light on the cough, which by January had gone away on its own, but they did flag up a potential heart problem. We were not worried, Lynne had open-heart surgery in 1954 and as the heart/lung machine was yet to be invented the surgeons had only minutes to perform the operation to avoid brain damage. Looking inside the chest now, is alarming – to those who understand these things - but the experimental operation was a complete success and she has lived a normal life ever since.

National Museum of Costa Rica by Eric T Gunther
Reproduced from Wikipedia under Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

We were to travel on Thursday Feb 24th. On the Monday evening a cardiologist phoned us, saying he needed to see Lynne immediately. She said we were going to Costa Rica in two days. He sounded sceptical. Lynne gave him a brief history and he asked if she had regular check-ups. She told him she used to, but was signed off in 2002. ‘They wouldn’t have signed you off if they had seen what I have just seen,’ he replied. And that finished Costa Rica 2022.

Arenal Volcano photo by Leonora (Ellie) Enking
Reproduced from Wikipedia under  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

A week or two later Lynne had an ECG and we walked into his consulting room. He looked surprised, I think he had been expecting an invalid. To be fair, he had been checking her history; we knew (and he discovered) that parts of Lynne’s notes have gone walkabout, but he had clearly done some extra digging and was well informed. He showed us the apparent massive pulmonary aneurysm, ‘larger than those we operate on’ on his screen. He listened carefully, asked a few questions and suggested Lynne have a MRI scan in a few months’ and if nothing had changed, he would accept it was stable, meanwhile he would support our insurance claim. In June Lynne had her scan, nothing had changed and she will have another in a year. Our travel insurance paid up in full and reinstated Lynne’s cover.

What Makes Costa Rica Special

Costa Rica – The Rich Coast – was so called because the conquistadors claimed to be impressed by the gold ornaments worn by the natives. These claims turned out to be false.

From 1609 to 1821 Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Being a long way from the capital and forbidden to trade with its southern neighbour (Panama was part of the rival Viceroyalty of New Grenada) it was remote and sparsely populated. In 1719 a Spanish Governor described Costa Rica as the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America.

Coat of Arms of Costa Rica

At independence in 1821 the Captaincy General became the Federal Republic of Central America. Fighting between the constituent provinces doomed the Federation from the start. Costa Rica withdrew in 1838 and proclaimed itself independent, but by then it was unclear if there was anything to withdraw from.

One major reason for Costa Rica's early poverty was the lack of a significant indigenous population available for forced labour. In the mid-19th century this disadvantage turned into an advantage as the lack of a substantial oppressed community enabled greater social cohesion and political stability. Economic expansion loves stability and coffee, first planted in 1808, became, and remains the most important crop.

Laura Chinchilla President 2010-14
CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Being Latin American, Costa Rica had to have at least one military coup; in 1948 a disputed presidential election led to an armed uprising and a bloody 44-day civil war. The would-be military junta lost and to make sure it never happened again Costa Rica abolished its army. Since then, 18 presidents have served single 4-year terms and been replace in free and fair elections. President Laura Chinchilla, served 2010-14, was Costa Rica’s first female president.

Rodrigo Chaves, President since 2022
CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Costa Rica is today by far the most prosperous of the 5 republics that made up the Guatemala Captaincy, its per capita GDP is almost three times that of Guatemala the second most prosperous. Costa Rica’s Human Development Index, which takes account of life expectancy, education and income is rated 'Very High'.

Costa Rica 2023

We rebooked for February 23rd 2023 - surely nothing could go wrong this time. Early February all seemed well, but as departure approached that cough, the one that had led indirectly to last year’s problem, returned, but I convinced myself it would get better. 24 hours from departure I checked in and then we drove down to my sister’s in Sussex. She had generously offered to put us up for the night, provide car parking and drive us to and from the airport.

I was confident we were going when we sat down to dinner. Lynne ate, but did not really do justice to an excellent meal. She started coughing when we went to bed and coughed solidly all night. I might have had 60 minute’s sleep, or maybe less. At some time in the small hours she said quietly ‘I can’t get on that plane like this.’ My mind had been so set on going, that was the first time I realised the trip was in jeopardy.Removing my head from the sand I could see it was impossible.

Instead of being driven to Gatwick, I drove us home. Lynne went to bed and stayed there for most of the next fortnight. The cough subsided, but the tiredness still lingers.

Costa Rica 2024

The first cancellation was just Covid, it was not the only trip we cancelled that year. The second was, I am sure, unnecessary but looking at it from the point of view of the doctor I cannot see what else he could have done, and he left us with no real choice but to cancel. With hindsight it was clear that from the moment Lynne was sent for a chest x-ray the consequences had to play out, but instead of foreseeing the problem we just sleepwalked into it – and the timing could not have been worse. Cancellation three was just unlucky.

Will there be a fourth attempt? Who knows?

Statues Without Plinths

A Collection of Plinthless Statues, Starting in the Caribbean and Moving East to the Shore of the China Sea

Introduction

There was a time when effigies of ‘the great and the good’ stood on plinths so pigeons could perch on their heads and the rest of us could look up to them. The ultimate was Admiral Nelson whose plinth – or column - is 52m high. The figure itself is over 5m, but for the sculptor (Edward Hodges Bailey) it must be galling to have worked so hard on something that very few people ever see properly.

Nelson's column, Trafalgar Square, London in November sunshine

I don’t know where or when the fashion started but I think I first saw statues of normal sized people standing on the pavement (or, in this case, sidewalk) in Tacoma, Washington (the western US state, not the eastern city) in 1998. The next summer, in the south of France, we found them in several towns; whichever side it started the idea had already jumped the Atlantic. Over the last twenty years it has spread to most corners of the Earth.

I like these statues. Most (but not all) are light hearted, and I appreciate being able to look a statue in the eye. So here is a selection of writers and musicians, ordinary people and eccentrics, cats, dogs and more. My (arbitrary) rules for inclusion accepts a pedestal up to knee height, but the figure must to be roughly life size. I also feel free to bend my rules whenever I want.

Cuba

No doubt I took some photos in Tacoma in 1998, but prints are so much easier to loose than digital photos, so I will start in the Caribbean, in Cuba to be precise.

Havana
(visited March 2020)

When not physically looking up at a sculpture, there is no pressure to metaphorically look up to the person portrayed, you just have to enjoy their company.

El Caballero de Paris outside San Francisco de Asís

El Caballero de Paris (real name José María López Lledín) stands outside the former Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi. Brought to Havana from Spain by his parents aged 11, he had mental problems in later life and lived on the street while believing he was a French aristocrat. Despite his loose grasp of reality, his charm and education made him a well-known and popular figure. He died in 1985 aged 85. Such statues, appreciate being touched and Lynne earned good luck, as many had done before, by stroking his beard.

Ireland

Dublin
(visited 25 June 2014 - Joyce and Famine Memorial)
24 June 2014 - Oscar Wilde)

The Prick with the Stick (more formally, James Joyce) is arguably the foremost writer in a city of writers, though he spent most of his adult life on the continent of Europe. I am overlooking his plinth as it is (just) below knee high.

Lynne and James Joyce, Earl Street, Dublin

His statue is one of four with rhyming nicknames. The Queer with the Lear is Oscar Wilde who sits on a slab of quartz (not a plinth) in Merrion Square Park opposite the house of his father, an eminent Dublin surgeon.

Lynne and Oscar, Merrion Square Park, Dublin

We missed The Tart with the Cart (Molly Malone) as she had been temporarily removed to allow for the construction of a tramway, and The Floozie in the Jacuzzi (Anna Livia Plurabelle, James Joyce’s personification of the River Liffey) due to my poor research.

The Famine Memorial stands beside the River Liffey. Most of the statues in this post are light-hearted, but not this one. The group of ragged people and their equally thin dog stand on the quay, almost staggering to the point of embarkation. Dublin has plenty of public art, much of it very good, but this is at another level. You can almost feel these people's misery as they embark on a journey they may well not survive. For some it will be the gateway to a new and better life, but as they stand here, on the very edge of Ireland, they have few dreams and little hope.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

And here is a photo from behind - I felt the sculptor wants us to see them this way, too. They stand facing the sea with their backs to their old lives knowing there can be no return as the cringing dog realises that he will be left behind.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

Galway
(visited Jul 2016)

Meanwhile, over on the west coast, the city of Galway also has an Oscar Wilde. He shares a seat with his Estonian contemporary and near namesake Eduard Vilde. They never met and as far as I have been able to ascertain, their lives had little else in common. The sculpture was a gift from the people of Estonia when they joined the EU in 2004.

Lynne with Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde, Galway
The original (minus Lynne) is in Tartu the 'intellectual capital' of Estonia

United Kingdom

I have a 2013 post entitled Commemorating Comedians in Caerphilly, Morecambe and Ulverston - which I whole-heartedly recommend (well I would, wouldn't I). It consists of statues of four comedians and their background stories. One of them has a plinth, the others would be appropriate here but I don't wish to repeat myself, so please click on the link.

Edinburgh
(Visited July 2021)

Greyfriars Bobbyis by far the oldest work in this post. He has stood patiently, with an ever-shinier nose, atop a substantial plinth since 1873. Only it isn’t really a plinth, it’s a double drinking fountain, people at the top, dogs at the base. As Bobby is a small dog, he needs a plinth or passers-by would trip over him.

Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh

Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier. After his owner died in 1858 the dog kept a vigil at his graveside in the nearby Greyfriars Kirk cemetery, until his own death 14 years later. This demonstrates the heart-warming loyalty of man’s best friend - or perhaps the pathetic neediness of dogs; a self-respecting cat would have raised its tail and stalked away

Burwash, East Sussex
(Visited Sept 2021)

For most of his adult life Rudyard Kipling lived in house called Batemans (currently owned by the National trust and open to the public) just outside the village of Burwash. He now sits in perpetuity on a bench beside the main road through the village.

Lynne and Rudyard Kipling, Burwash

Kipling had the instincts and attitudes of any man of his class born in the latter half of the 19th century. As an unabashed imperialist and the Poet of Empire, he should be out of fashion, but isn’t. He cannot be blamed for the circumstances of his birth, but he should be celebrated for the humanity which shines out of so many of his works. People may argue about his qualities as a poet, but he was undoubtedly one the greatest versifiers in the English language.

Portugal

Loulé
(Visited Oct 2022 and many times previously)

We have been frequent visitors to the Algarve, and for many years Loulé market was our first stop, directly from the airport. In 2006 and 2007 we found the market closed. When it reopened the familiar handsome neo-Classical/Moorish façade fronted a bright, clean and airy new market. Everything was back as it was, only its soul was missing. Revisiting Loulé in 2023 for the first time for several years we found a market trader from the old days, sitting on the steps outside, wondering what had happened to it all.

Bewildered market trader, Loulé

North Macedonia

Stepping lightly from one side of Europe to the other we arrive in a land that was once part of Yugoslavia.

Skopje
(visited May 2015)

Nikola Gruevski (Prime Minister 2006-16) initiated the‘Skopje 2014’ project and ‘Antiquization’. These were exercises in nation-building, promoting a Macedonian identity with unbroken continuity since antiquity and involved, among other things, the building of many large, nationalist statues and memorials. There were two problems. The Macedonia of antiquity, the land of Alexander the Great, was Greek and modern North Macedonians are mostly descended from the Slavic tribes who settled here some 900 year later. Secondly, he spent a great deal of money the city did not have. He resigned after riots in 2016, was subsequently charged with corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. He fled to Hungary and claimed political asylum.

Gruevski’s statues have enormous plinths, but Skopje also has several plinthless statues. A necessary antidote to Gruevski’s bombastic monstrosities, they exemplify a pleasanter and more approachable side of the Macedonian character. The Musicians can be found near ‘Warrior on a Horse’ (under an agreement with the Greeks it is not called ‘Alexander the Great’)

The Musicians, near Macedonia Square, Skopje

While The Divers are on one of the piers of Skopje’s 6th century Stone Bridge. Not great sculpture, perhaps, but it makes you smile, and that is good enough for me.

The Bathers, Stone Bridge, Skopje

Lithuania

Vilnius
(Visited July 2011)

I am always surprised how far east the Baltic States are. Vilnius is actually east of Skopje, but never looks it on a rectangular 2-D map.

After achieving independence from the USSR in 1990 Lithuania had a wealth of statues it no longer wanted, so Lenin and friends were retired to a park near the Belarus border. New statues were raised to various medieval heroes and, in a car park beside an anonymous apartment block in a residential area near the city centre, to Frank Zappa. The bust was erected in 1995 after funds were raised by civil servant Saulius Paukstys. A man blessed with an individual world view and a keen sense of irony, Paukstys commissioned the sculptor of many of the Soviet heroes, to produce the bust. Zappa has no connection with Lithuania, has never visited and before the bust was largely unknown, but the project caught people’s imagination as a wryly ironic gesture in a country that had seen enough of political monuments. (Rough Guide)

Frank Zappa,Vilnius
I know he has a plinth (or column?) but, like Greyfriars Bobby, he would be a trip hazard without it

Armenia

Yerevan
(Visited July 2003)

Mesrop Mashtots (Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց) (362 – 440CE) sits outside the Matenadaran (Մատենադարան) at the top of Mashtots Avenue, one of Yerevan’s main throughfares. The positioning is appropriate, the Matenadaran is a museum and research institute specialising in ancient Armenian manuscripts, and Mashtots is the man credited with inventing the Armenian alphabet (examples above). The (rather weathered) 36 letter alphabet is engraved on the stela to his right.

Mesrop Mashtots, Yerevan

The Fat Cat. I am breaking my own rules here, the plinth is small enough, but the figure is many times life size, but if you are going to portray a Fat Cat it has to be a very large and very fat cat. I hope this is a political statement, but I don't know if fat cat has the same meaning in either the sculptor's native Colombia, or Armenia.

Fat Cat, Yerevan

Georgia

Tbilisi
(visited August 2014)

The Tamada.

Modern Georgia includes the ancient land of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts rowed to steal the Golden Fleece.

The myth of the Golden Fleece has historical origins. Many of the streams flowing down from the high Caucasus bear gold, and it was traditional extracted by damming the flow with fleeces so the shiny metal adhered to the sticky untreated wool. This practice may date back to the 3rd millennium BCE, and archaeologists have found huge quantities of golden grave goods, many of which can be seen in the National Museum in Tbilisi. Among them is a seated figure, less than two centimetres tall, holding a drinking horn.

Tamada and us, Tbilisi

The supra (feast) is an essential part of Georgian culture and every supra need a tamada, (toastmaster) who proposes toasts for others to elaborate upon and so keep the wine flowing. Cast in bronze, many times the size of the original, the little fellow has become Tbilisi’s permanent honorary toastmaster. Every visitor to the city poses with him, those small enough sitting on his lap.

China

With a long eastward leap we reach the final country of this post, and two very different cities.

Pingyao
(visited Sept 2014)

600km southwest of Beijing, Pingyao is an old, walled Qing/Ming city, an artfully pickled oasis among the usual Chinese urban sprawl. We visited during the mid-autumn holiday when the town was packed and the Chinese tourist machine was turned up to eleven.

During our perambulation on the city wall we met the night watchmen…

The Night-watchmen, Pingyao city walls

…and the city governor holding a writing brush and about to get down to work. Nothing is taken too seriously here.

The city governor gets down to work, Pingyao

Hangzhou
(visited Nov 2016)

200 km southwest of Shanghai, Hangzhou is the centre of a metropolitan region of over 10m inhabitants. It is the home to Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies and the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. If Pingyao is China’s past, Hangzhou is its future. Street statues here are not primarily to amuse, though they may make older people smile.

Workers, Hangzhou

For many they are images of a past they do not remember.

Street market, Hangzhou

I have more, but this as probably as much (or more) than most would want at one sitting, so I shall stop. I do like these statues, I like to see who or what the locals wish to commemorate, or how they view their past. Most are not intended to be taken too seriously while one is very serious indeed, but all add to the interest of the towns or cities they call home. And can I have a bonus point for for a post which references Greyfriars Bobby, Frank Zappa and Alexander the Great?

Possibly also of Interest

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

Sculptors and Dates of Installation (when known)

Liverpool
Duke of Wellington by George Anderson Lawson, 1865
Havana
El Caballero de Paris by José Ramón Villa Soberón, 2001
Dublin
James Joyce by Marjorie Fitzgibbon, 1990.
Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne, 1997
Famine Memorial by Rowan Gillespie, 1997
Galway Wilde and Vilde by Tiiu Kirsipuu, 2004
Edinburgh
Greyfriars Bobby by William Brodie, 1873
Burwash
Rudyard Kipling by Victoria Atkinson, 2018
Loulé
Market Trader by Teresa Paulino and Pedro Felix
Vilnius
Frank Zappa by Konstantinas Bagdonas, 1995
Yerevan Mesrop Mastots by Ghukas Chubaryan, 1968
Fat Cat by Fernando Botero
Tbilisi
Tamada by Zurab Tsereteli, 2013

Christmas Post 2022

My (almost) All New Christmas Post for 2022

Some Christmas Heroes (no Villains this Year)

With Covid on the wane I hoped 2022 would be better. Fat chance; it was a third bad’un in a row.

When we lived in the USA in 1983-4 neighbours and colleagues occasionally talked about food banks. I was appalled that in a wealthy country the responsibility of feeding the poorest in society was delegated to volunteers who had the conscience (and the time) to act. We needed nothing like that here! Now every other week or so I drive over to the Newcastle-under-Lyme transporting the donations of the concerned citizens of our village. I make deposits at food banks not withdrawals, but that is a matter of  good luck - there but for fortune……

Hero No 1

Good King Wenceslas (907-935ish) was not actually a king, but the Duke of Bohemia. He became Duke aged 13 under the tutelage of his Christian paternal grandmother. His pagan mother took over after brutally disposing of her mother-in-law. Aged 18 Wenceslas removed his mother and became ruler in his own right. Despite a less than ideal upbringing he was a good man and although history had yet to reach the ‘food bank’ stage, he did (according to the song) go forth and provide vitals and warmth to those in difficult circumstances at a time when the snow was deep and crisp and even. He had the right idea.

St Wenceslas (borrowed from Wikipedia¹)

No good deed goes unpunished, and in 935 (or maybe 929) Wenceslas the Good, was assassinated by his brother Boleslas the Cruel. Having been martyred, he duly became a saint and is buried in St Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

Heroes No 2.

Sarina Wiegman and her Lionesses

Sarina Wiegman²

The Lionesses, England's women’s football team, swept all before to win the 2022 Euros (held over from 2021 because of you know what). Not only did they do it in style, they filled huge stadiums, with enthusiastic crowds entirely lacking in the unpleasant aggressiveness that too often surrounds the men’s game.

A word, too, for Gareth Southgate’s men; they may have gone out of the World Cup in the quarter finals but the game could not have been closer, and the players comported themselves on and off the pitch with a dignity and maturity beyond their years (says this old git). They were and are a credit to the country and their manager.

The England Women's Football team before a game against Czechia in October²

The sportsball side (as my daughter would say) closest to my heart is the Wales Rugby Team: oh dear! If anyone can turn this around then Warren Gatland can.

Hero: No 3

St Nicholas/Santa Claus/Father Christmas. Three cheers for St Nicholas, the original Santa Claus/Father Christmas. Little is known about the historical Saint Nicholas, but he is said to have lived from 270-343, was of Greek descent and became Bishop of Myra (modern Demre, near Antalya on the Turkish holiday coast). His reputation as a secret gift-giver clinched him the Santa Claus gig. He is the patron saint of children, but also of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, prostitutes, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, and students, so all of us at some time or another!

Icon of St Nicholas, Jvari Church, near Mtskheta, Georgia

We found this St Nick in the Jvari Church on a hill above Mtskheta, the 'Canterbury of Georgia' just north of Tbilisi. It has featured in my Christmas Post for several years, partly because I like the concept of a universal, undeclared giver of presents, and partly because its my photo, hence my copyright and I don't have to apologise to anyone for pirating it. I could add, that the whole concept has been tarnished by commercialism and the inevitability of.....  but everybody knows this.

Heroes No 4, includes a very special award for adding to the gaiety of the nations³. My Heroes are....

The British Conservative and Unionist Party

The party that ‘Got Brexit Done’, then realised they hadn’t, then discovered they didn’t know what to do with it anyway and are now trying to blame everyone else for it being a disaster.

They have spent a year driving their clown car round and round in ever decreasing circles and in that time they have had:
three drivers (laughably called Prime Ministers)
four Chancellors of the Exchequer
four Home Secretaries (two of them the same person)
but only Two Foreign Secretaries (such stability!)

Those are the 'Great Offices of State'. Less important ministries have circulated faster than a port bottle in the Officer’s Mess; one Education Secretary was in post for slightly less than 36 hours.

What amazes me is that anyone ever thought that:
Boris Johnson
Liz Truss
Kwasi Kwarteng
Gavin Williamson
Priti Patel
Nadine Dories
Jacob Rees Mogg
Suella Braverman
Matt Hancock
And several more, were ever suitable candidates for high office - and two of them have been prime minister!

At this point I intended to include some photographs, but the only shots available that do not raise copyright issues were their official government mugshots. They have been photoshopped like models on the cover of vogue, not the hint of a skin blemish or a hair out of place (except for Johnson’s artfully tousled locks). I won’t be promoting such vanity, and anyway they all really look like this..

And how they have made the whole world laugh!

Except, of course, those of us who live here, to whom they may appear more like villains than heroes

Which just leaves me just to wish….

A Merry Christmas to All
and
A Happy and Prosperous (good luck with that) New Year

¹Borrowed from Wikipedia: The owner of the copyright (if any) is unknown
²Borrowed from Wikipedia: Photos by James Boyes reproduced under under 'Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic' license
³I am using this term much as Samuel Johnson did in 1779 in his obituary of David Garrick. In those days gaiety had nothing to do with sexual orientation, and according the the OED it still doesn't!.