the Words Made Flesh

If you have a bee in your bonnet about something, you are obsessed with it and can't stop thinking about it. This phrase is often used when you are worried or angry about something. The word 'bonnet' refers to a kind of hat that covers the ears and is tied under the chin, worn by babies or, especially in the past, by women.You are Preoccupied or obsessed with an idea. E.g: The council wants to close down our local library. I've got a bee in my bonnet about it! Mum's got such a bee in her bonnet about the wedding. I keep telling her that it will be fine, but she's very worried. This phrase clearly alludes to the state of agitation one would be in when finding a bee inside one's bonnet. It follows on from the earlier expression 'to have bees in one's head', which had much the same meaning. This is recorded from the 16th century, for example, in Alexander Douglas's Aeneis, 1513: Quhat bern be thou in bed with heid full of beis? Bee-keep...

Katherine of Aragon's window in St George's Chapel To the right is a wooden oriel window in St George’s Chapel, Windsor that looks onto the Quire. Was originally built for Katherine of Aragon, whose pomegranate emblem is still present. This is where Katherine Parr sat and watched Henry VIII’s funeral service and burial that occurred below. To the left is a stone window that opens into the raised chapel of Edward IV's Chantry. Catherine of Aragon Catherine was born near Madrid in December 1485. She was the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, whose marriage had united Spain. At three years of age Catherine was betrothed to King Henry VII's oldest son Arthur, only a year younger than her. Catherine was tutored in religion and classics by Alessandro Geraldini, a clerk in Holy Orders, and remained a devout Catholic throughout her life. Marriage to Prince Arthur In 1501, at the age of 16, Catherine arrived in England after a treacherous three-mont...

Rolling hills, sandy beaches, fossil cliffs, medieval towns, and moorland—the English county of Devon has it all. Deriving its name from the ancient Dumnonii tribe of Brittonic Celts, Devon is thought to mean “deep valley dwellers”. Devon is the only English county with two separate coastlines—the ruggedly beautiful rural north, with its dramatic cliffs rising 1000 ft from the sea, and the gentler rolling hills of the south, dotted with pretty towns and seaside resorts. Lashed by the Atlantic ocean, North Devon’s coastal swells draw surfers from far and wide. Inspiring Britain’s writers for centuries, Devon has featured in many famous works, including Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, RD Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, and a host of Agatha Christie murder mysteries. Source: http://britainandbritishness.com/2017/11/dreaming-of-devon.html

Hoist with one's own petard/ be hoisted with/ by your own petard (formal): to suffer harm from a plan by which you had intended to harm someone else; victimized or hurt by one's own scheme. The phrase comes from William Shakespeare's Hamlet: "For 'tis the sport to have the enginer/ Hoist with his own petar" Hoist in this case is the past participle of the verb hoise, meaning, "to lift/ raise" and petar(d) refers to an explosive device used in siege warfare. Hamlet uses the example of the engineer (the person who sets the explosive device) being blown into the air by his own device as a metaphor for those who schemed against him being undone by their own schemes. The phrase has endured, even if its literal meaning has largely been forgotten. The phrase 'hoist with one's own petard' is often cited as 'hoist by one's own petard'. In the USA, 'hoisted' is preferred so the alternative forms there are 'hoist...

" Toil and moil " is an idiomatic collocation meaning hard work, drudgery, labour. Both toil and moil individually allude to the same notion, i.e. that of heavy, hard labour. In particular: toil: hard work, especially work that makes you physically tired, to work hard/ to move in particular direction, slowly and with great effort. E.g Lindi has achieved her comfortable life only after years of hard toil. After toiling away at work all week, it's good to relax. Toil Thesaurus a long way to go, to be snowed under(with sth), break your back, beaver away, to break your back, bandh, buckle, buckle down, burn the candle at both ends, to burn the midnight oil, caseload, chore, do (all) the donkey work, drive/ work yourself into the ground, drudgery, errand, flog yourself to death, get/ pick up steam, get/ set to work, go into sth, go/ jump through hoops,graft, grind, groundwork, hammer away at, hold down a job, hot-desk, hot-desking, in the line of duty, keep/ put your nos...

Renowned for its exquisite architecture, Gothic cathedral and tangle of quaint cobbled streets, historic York is the setting for a perfect romantic retreat. But as old meets new, the city also has many surprises in store as vibrant cafés, colourful street entertainers and boutique shopping lie waiting to be discovered.

Red ceramic poppies fill the moat of the Tower of London to commemorate every British or Commonwealth soldier killed during the war offering an Incredible Bird's Eye View of the Tower Of London. Artist Paul Cummins named the installation “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red”. The 888,246 poppies around the Tower are ceramic, and each represents a British military fatality in World War I. "Where Tommies Go, The Poppies Grow" by Jacqueline Hurley WW1 Remembrance Day Painting British Soldiers from The War Poppy Collection 1914-1918

The origin of the idiom "Off the Cuff" traces back to the year 1936 and it was first used in the United States. It comes from the image of an actor reading lines from the sleeve of a shirt, rather than memorizing them. "Off the Cuff" means to do something on the spur of the moment. If you speak "off the cuff", you say something without having prepared or thought about your words first. Not prepared in advance, spontaneous, informal E.g. "The actor hadn't rehearsed a speech, as she didn't think she'd win, so she had to come up with something off the cuff". "I hadn't prepared a speech, so I just said a few words off the cuff". "An off-the-cuff remark" (as an adverb). Thesaurus immediately, instantaneously, instantly, offhand, off the bat, thereupon, directly, at/in one fell swoop, forthwith, a stitch in time saves nine, in a flash, no sooner said than done, then and there, ad hoc, ad-lib, extemporaneous, e...

The Queen's Guard on Horseback The Household Division is made up of Seven regiments of the Household Cavalry, The Life Guards and the Blues and Royals and Five Regiments of Foot Guards. Horse Guards Arch, Whitehall The Queen's Household Cavalry is the mounted guard at the entrance to Horse Guards Arch, which is located east of St. James's Park. It is the official main entrance to both St. James's Palace and the Buckingham Palace. The Guard Changing Ceremony takes place daily at 11 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Sundays, and lasts about thirty minutes. The mounted sentries, who change every hour, are on duty each day from 10 a.m until 4 p.m at which time there is a dismounted parade of the Guard. Thwo dismounted sentries remain on duty until the gates are shut at 8 p. m when only one sentry is left on guard until 7 am, when the second sentry returns on duty. References http://projectbritain.com/royal/lifeguards.htm

Broad Sky Blog : Over 1,000 of the most common fixed expressions an... : This list has been compiled of the most fixed expressions and idioms in the English language--with 1,157 items. The reason that we have post...

Most of his famous speeches came within a few months of each other. Churchill took over as prime minister in May 1940 after a disastrous start to World War II in which Nazi Germany conquered much of Europe. A master orator, he did his best to rally the nation in the face of near-certain attack, giving six major speeches in four months. During the first of those, he told Parliament that he had “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. Early Formative Background Winston Churchill, in full Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born in November 30, 1847 in his grandfather’s home, Blemheim Palace, Oxfordshire and he was of rich, aristocratic ancestry. Through his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the brilliant Tory politician, was directly descended from John Churchill, the First Duke of Marlborough. The Conservative leader’s mother, Jennie Jerome, a distinguished beauty was the daughter of a tycoon, New York Times financier and horse racing enthusiast, Leonard W. Jero...

Canterbury (/ˈkæntərbri/ (About this sound listen), /-bəri/, or /-bɛri/)[3] is a historic English cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion owing to the importance of St Augustine, who served as the apostle to the pagan Kingdom of Kent around the turn of the 7th century. The city's cathedral became a major focus of pilgrimage following the 1170 martyrdom of Thomas Becket, although it had already been a well-trodden pilgrim destination since the murder of St Alphege by the men of King Canute in 1012. A journey of pilgrims to Becket's shrine served as the frame for Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century classic The Canterbury Tales. Canterbury is a popular tourist destination: consistently one of the most-visited cities in the United Kingdom,[4]...