The Pink Flamingo :: Why I Never Seem To Be Able To Accomplish Anything

The following dramatic photos, taken this afternoon, will provide The Pink Flamingo reader with evidence as to why I am never able to accomplish anything! The working conditions with which I must deal are deplorable. My working associates annoying and are only interested in having a good time. They have no respect for my work-space.

Nothing is sacred to them. There is a vast inter-species rivalry that sometimes breaks out in open hostility. I am caught in the middle. No one should be forced to deal with conditions like this. No cats or poodles were injured in the process of these dramatic photos. The only renumeration provided was a can of salmon flavored Fancy Feast.

Michael Medved came up with something very interesting. Newt Gingrich would make a great RNC Chair! I like it.

One of the uses for Stonehenge was asa burial site.
A new scorpion species has been discovered.
The Mud Volcano in Java is on the verge of something catastrophic?
How flying reptiles ate dinosaurs
The Leaning Tower stabilized
Viking DNA
THE CHAMBERS BOOK OF DAYS

Born: Charles II of England, 1630, London; Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, 1660; Louis Daubenton, 1716, Montbard; Patrick Henry, American patriot and orator, 1736, Virginia; Joseph Fouche, police minister of Napoleon I, 1763, Nantes.
Died: Cardinal Beaton, assassinated at St. Andrew's, 1546; Stephen des Courcelles, learned Protestant divine, 1658, Amsterdam; Dr. Andrew Ducarel, English antiquary, 1785, South Lambeth; Empress Josephine, 1814, Malmaison; W. H. Pyne, miscellaneous writer, 1843, Paddington; Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., miscellaneous writer, 1848, Edinburgh.

Feast Day: St. Cyril, martyr (3rd century?); St. Conon and his son, martyrs, of Iconia in Asia (about 275); St. Maximinus, Bishop of Tiers, 349; Saints Sisinnius, Martyrius, and Alexander, martyrs, in the territory of Trent, 397.

CHARLES II's RESTORATION

It is a great pity that Charles II was so dissolute, and so reckless of the duties of his high station, for his life was an interesting one in many respects; and, after all, the national joy attending his restoration, and his cheerfulness, wit, and good-nature, give him a rather pleasant association with English history.

His parents, Charles I and Henrietta Maria (daughter of Henry IV of France), who had been married in 1626, had a child named Charles James born to them in March 1629, but who did not live above a day. Their second infant, who was destined to live and to reign, saw the light on the 29th of May 1630, his birth being distinguished by the appearance, it was said, of a star at midday.

It was on his thirtieth birthday, the 29th of May 1660, that the distresses and vicissitudes of his early life were closed by his triumphal entry as king into London. His restoration might properly be dated from the 8th of May, when he was proclaimed as sovereign of the three kingdoms in London: but the day of his entry into the metropolis, being also his birthday, was adopted as the date of that happy event. Never had England known a day of greater happiness. Defend the Commonwealth who may—make a hero of Protector Oliver with highest eloquence and deftest literary art—the intoxicated delight of the people in getting quit of them, and all connected with them, is their sufficient condemnation. The truth is, it had all along been a government of great difficulty, and a government of difficulty must needs be tyrannical. The old monarchy, ill-conducted as it had been under Charles I, shone white by comparison. It was happiness overmuch for the nation to get back under it, with or without guarantees for its better behaviour in future. An army lately in rebellion joyfully marshalled the king along from Dover to London.

Thousands of mounted gentleman joined the escort, brandishing their swords, and shouting with inexpressible joy.' Evelyn saw the king arrive, and set down a note of it in his diary. He speaks of the way strewed with flowers; the streets hung with tapestry; the bells madly ringing; the fountains running with wine; the magistrates and the companies all out in their ceremonial dresses—chains of gold, and banners; nobles in cloth of silver and gold; the windows and balconies full of ladies; ’trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking even so far as from Rochester, so as they were seven hours in passing the city, even from two in the afternoon till nine at night.' 'It was the Lord's doing,' he piously adds; unable to account for so happy a revolution as coming about by the ordinary chain of causes and effects.

It belongs more particularly to the purpose of this work to state, that among the acts passed by parliament immediately after, was one enacting 'That in all succeeding ages the 29th of May be celebrated in every church and chapel in England, and the dominions thereof, by rendering thanks to God for the king's peaceable restoration to actual possession and exercise of his legal authority over his subjects,' &c. The service for the Restoration, like that for the preservation from the Gunpowder Treason, and the death of Charles I, was kept up till the year 1859.

THE ROYAL OAK

The restoration of the king, after a twelve years' interregnum from the death of his father, naturally brought into public view some of the remarkable events of his intermediate life. None took a more prominent place than what had happened in September 1651, immediately after his Scottish army had been overthrown by Cromwell at Worcester. It was heretofore obscurely, but now became clearly known, that the royal person had for a day been concealed in a bushy oak in a Shropshire forest, while the Commonwealth's troopers were ranging about in search of the fugitives from the late battle. The incident was romantic and striking in itself, and, in proportion to the joy in having the king once more in his legal place, was the interest felt in the tree by which he had been to all appearance providentially preserved. The ROYAL OAK accordingly became one of the familiar domestic ideas of the English people. A spray of oak in the hat was the badge of a loyalist on the recurrence of the Restoration-day. A picture of an oak tree, with a crowned figure sitting amidst the branches, and a few dragoons scouring about the neighbouring ground, was assumed as a sign upon many a tavern in town and country. Some taverns still bear at least the name—one in Paddington, near London). And 'Oak Apple-day' became a convertible term for the Restoration-day among the rustic population. We thus find it necessary to introduce-first, a brief account of the king's connexion with the oak; and, second, a notice of the popular observance still remembered, if not practised, in memory of its preservation of a king.

Dime con quien andas y te digo quien eres.

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