Today there are different Google Doodles for the UK and the US (I don’t know about other places). The UK Doodle, as pointed out by reader Dom, features a celebration of St. Andrews Day, but there’s an added reptile:
I wonder if the Scots like the addition of Nessie (a fictitious creature) to their celebration. The Google Doodle page simply says this:
Saint Andrew’s Day is a time to celebrate all things Scottish, with parties, kilts, and of course, the flying of the iconic blue-and-white Saltire. We went in search of one of Scotland’s most reclusive citizens this year and even they have come out to play today, as seen in our animated Doodle by Sophie Diao.
You can read more about St. Andrews and his Day at the Torygraph, and you can see past Doodles celebrating this holiday.
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Meanwhile, visible in the U.S. is this animated Doodle honoring Canadian author Lucy Maud Montogomery, born on this day in 1874 (died 1942), and famous as the writer of the Anne of Green Gables series. I believe there are at least three different Doodles.
I must admit that I know nothing about her books, but saw part of a dramatization of one of her AoGG books on public television last night. I thought it was set in Britain (Anne was a teacher in a girls school), as everyone had a British accent, but I now learn that most of the books were set on Prince Edward Island.
I also didn’t know of the books’ immense popularity—their fans included Mark Twain and Margaret Atwood—nor that copies of the books were given to Polish resistance fighters during WWII to inspire them. You can find a list of Fun Green Gable facts here.
Two alternatives:
Oh boy! Separate worlds for girls and boys of our generation.
Anne of Green Gables was a favorite for me and my friends in the fifties, in Swedish translation. My sons also know about her, and now my grandchildren enjoy the stories about the red-haired, imaginative orphan girl growing up in a foster home in a countryside village on Prince Edward Island. Yes, she became a teacher, but only in the third or fourth book of the series of eight.
You may be interested to know that t he UK google doodles appear here in Sweden today , too.
And Lucy Maud Montgomery was girlhood favorite for Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author of the books about Pippi Longstocking and so many others.
Oh, I loved all the Anne books and read and reread them regularly when I was a girl. Still have them, still remember the heady excitement when I got one just for me. When I revisited one of them as an adult, I was surprised at how well the writing and stories stood up. They’re sentimental, but good.
I was also a bit taken aback at the unconscious sexism, the religious content, and a rather weird view of human nature which casually assigned traits to entire families so that individual members were automatically assumed to be lazy or gossipy or clever or stupid because “that’s the way the Sloans are.” Folk genetic determinism. Life in a small town back then must have been hell if you really didn’t fit into one of the nice family categories (assuming there was any accuracy to that.)
I have some friends who purport to believe in the Loch Ness Monster. As expected, they make their feeble case and then have zero interest or curiosity about examining or delving into what might actually be the case. They don’t want to “get into an argument.” Like all people of faith, they seem to believe in belief, in love with the idea of establishing themselves as the kind of people who open their minds to weird and exciting “possibilities” — and close their minds to anything else.
It’s harmless, perhaps — but only because those who believe in the Loch Ness Monster don’t currently have any power involving that particular issue.
Not that I would deliberately rain on your parade wrt Anne of Greengables etc, we should all be aware that Prince Edward Island of all Canadian provinces is the one most in thrall to the RC Church and all that this entails including but not limited to interference in the government of the Province by the resident RC prelate, the treatment of woman specifically those seeking legal termination of pregnancy which is unavailable in PEI, due entirely to the RC influence.
Do not be fooled by this “chintzy’ image of PEI. I for one as a Canadian will not spend a single cent of my income in this province.
Good to know.
The religious content of Anne of GG is relatively low key compared to the suffocatingly sacharine piety of “Heidi” just about my least favorite children’s classic of all time.
Ah, I see that nobody ever introduced you to the “Elsie Dinsmore” series. Makes Heidi look like a slacker.
Not only are the piety and Southern black dialect (“Lawdy!”)laid on with a trowel, but as I recall the entire theme of the book involves learning obedience to God. I also think some of the discipline was laid on with a whip.
That mus be the individualization, I get the lowest of Jerry’s Lucy Maud Montgomery ‘goodles’, no doubt because I visit here so often.
Or is it ‘godless’ for us atheists?
“mus be” – must be.
We had AoGG in NZ. (Yes, had, it’s mid-morning Tuesday.)
I was going to note that same fact. I have no idea what Anne of Green Gables is and not a clue why we should get a Canadian doodle. I know far more about Nessie, fictitious or otherwise. And given South Island’s Scottish heritage I would have thought the Scots/Nessie doodle would have been far more appropriate.
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cr
I feel the same. I was a bit miffed when I saw some people got Nessie today!. I don’t usually read Jerry’s google doodle posts because the doodles are over in NZ by the time he writes them, so I’m glad I as least got to see Nessie here.
As you say, NZ has very strong connections with Scotland and much as I like Canadians, Canada is a much less appropriate connection. Anne of Green Gables was a TV series when I was a kid, but I never watched it (I much preferred Dr Who, and still do!) and I never read any of the books. One of my sisters had them I think, but they never appealed.
Also, my ancestry is mostly Scottish, so I’m biased.
I never liked the books either and I too was watching Doctor Who and reading science fiction or science books. My female friends liked it though. I also don’t like The Sound of Music, to my mother’s dismay. I’m probably not a very good female and was a horrible female child if one likes stereotypes.
We should have been friends when we were kids! Heather’s always reading my mother would say, in the most dismissive tones.
My life improved a bit when I got a brother, because he got blocks and Meccano and stuff for me to play with, though he tried to keep me away from them as much as possible.
The Anne of Green Gables books are also quite popular in Japan. The one summer I was in PEI, the island was flooded with Japanese tourists. Apparently it’s a popular honeymoon destination because of that.
Why shouldn’t the Scots like the Nessie reference. It’s apparently part of culture now, like Paul Bunyan and other mythical and semi-mythical figures.
Lots of people have fun with these things without being believers–my wife loves all things bigfoot (and Bigfoot ale is awesome).
Anne of Green Gables!! I don’t believe I ever read the book, but I watched the Canadian mini-series over and over as a child. I believe I felt a bit like Anne, and I know I’m not the only girl who swooned with her over Gilbert Blythe. Her hitting him over the head with the slate for calling her Carrots and them finally falling in love. Sigh. At nine, I thought that’s how love would be.
There’s apparently a major annual Anne of Green Gables festival on Prince Edward island, including stage productions of the stories.
Unlike Louisa May Alcott’s extended “Little Women” series, the Anne books maintain their quality all the way to the last volume.
@Jerry: I’ve never heard a man admit to watching anything Anne of Green Gables-related, so you win for doing so. Not sure what you win, maybe the charm quotient for the day.
Most Scots people, including myself, don’t have any objection to Nessie. We know that it is all a load of bunk, like haggis hunting, but it is fun and part of our national mythmaking.
Pretty much what I was going to say :).
LMM’s books are Canadian icons. But I must say I have never read any; I did see the CBC version of one or two of them, though, as a child – hardly remember them. (I do remember seeing Colleen Dewhurst later in a B&W film from the 50s or something about Bigfoot, of all things. Does this tie into the Nessie topic? ;))
Why does young Anne turn green in the #2 version? Part of a story?
BTW, repeated trips to Google.com will bring you all the pictures, in random(?) order.
It’s probably a reference to a scene in I think the first book, where Anne tries to dye her hated red hair a beautiful raven black and it comes out green.
I think it’s from the book (first? second?) where she tries to bake a cake and uses salt instead of sugar or something like that, which made her (and everyone else) sick. I did love the books as a child, and appreciated her rebelliousness and lack of adherence to gender roles, though that had its limits. I remember being a bit disappointed when she gave up working after she got married.
“I wonder if the Scots like the addition of Nessie (a fictitious creature) to their celebration.”
I’m sure they do. Nessie is even winking at the camera.
Do you suppose the Welsh don’t like the Welsh Dragon? Or the English, King Arthur?
Do kids like Santa Claus?
cr
I love it!
I avidly watched AoGG. Actually, many of the characters had Canadian accents.
Here’s part 1 of the continuing story when she was all grown up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtfefd3s_ko
Part 2 is available too on youtube.
I loved the Anne of Green Gables books as a child. I thought a lot of the situations were quaint and old-fashioned, but I loved that Anne was a problem-solver who made things work out. My dad would take me to a used book store, and I think I collected most of the books from there over the course of a few years.