Friday: Hili dialogue

March 11, 2016 • 6:15 am

It’s Friday, and the sensible folk will have their own Bank Holidays tomorrow. Thanks to the several readers who expressed concern over my insomnia; I’m happy to report that it seems to be abating. And it had better be: I’m off to India next Wednesday.

It’s March 11, a day on which the Daily Courant, England’s first daily newspaper, was first published in 1702.  On this day in 1851, the first performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto took place in Venice and, exactly sixteen years later, Don Carlos debuted in Paris (did Verdi have a lucky day on March 11?). In 1918, the first case of Spanish flu occurred, beginning a horrible worldwide pandemic that killed 50-100 million people, including my paternal grandmother, leaving my father motherless at the age of only a few months. In 2004, the Madrid train bombings occurred on this day—remember them?  Notable births on this day include Lawrence Welk (1903), Antonin Scalia (1936, who died just a short while ago), and Alex Kingston, my hearthrob from ER (1963). Deaths on this date included Alexander Fleming (1955), Roy Chapman Andrews (a hero of my youth, died 1960), and Slobodan Milošević (2006). And it’s Johnny Appleseed Day in the U.S.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Cyrus is taking care of The Princess:

Hili: I think that something is over there.
Cyrus: I will see to it in a moment, just let me check something.

P1030926 In Polish:

Hili: Tam chyba coś chodzi!
Cyrus: Zaraz zobaczę, tylko muszę coś sprawdzić.
Lagniappe (h/t jsp):
12799350_591115881037048_5755509385648205422_n

9 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Alex Kingston may be better known to younger viewers as River Song on the rebooted “Doctor Who” 🙂

    2. That happily puts me in the de facto younger viewer category because that’s the role I know and love her for!

      When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can’t run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies. And nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment accepts it.

  2. My paternal grandfather, a pharmacist, died from the spanish flu too – his drugstore was sold by my grandmother just before the WW2. It still exists, the oldest pharmacy in Geneva, still the same with dark wooden counters and arrays of old china jars with latin names on them, but unfortunately it is now specialised in homeopathy and similar crap…

    1. I always look for the jar of Laudanum when I see a Pharmacy set up in a museum. It’s usually there.

  3. The juxtaposition of insomnia and your upcoming trip in the first paragraph reminded me of my favorite ever coffee cup saying,
    “Drink your coffee! People in India are sleeping!”

    Not sure if younger readers will get this humor.

  4. Wow! Two opera date references. Great! Tomorrow’s (Saturday) Met Opera matinee radio bdcst is Don Pasquale. 1 pm Eastern. Hopefully, on a station near you.

Comments are closed.