Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Ups and downs in the queen business
Dear Matt:
My boss says that Queen Victoria died by being crushed by a horse in an unusual kind of "riding accidentl" He says she had a stallion rigged up I some kind of a hoist for Her Majesty's personal pleasure; apparently the hoist broke, causing the horse to fall on the queen. I can't find any historical reference to this incident, and an English-born lady in the department thinks he made it up. Is it true?
-- Mr. Ed, La Jolla
In that little ménage a trios, Ed, you seem to be the only one with his hoist rigged up right. Your boss finishes out of the money, and so does your English friend. The story is a old standard. Been around for decades. Maybe centuries. He did take some liberties with the case of characters, though. For Queen Victoria of England, let's substitute Catherine the Great of Russia. Now at least we have the correct rumor, but the facts in the story aren't any more true.
Not that Catherine didn't have a legendary love life. She is even said to have had a squad of, well, ladies-in-waiting, I guess, who auditioned potential boyfriends for her. When she got bored with one she'd bounce him out of the palace and send for a new recruit. But this was just a relaxing pastime ad a break from the pressures of life as a land-grabbing 18th-century czarina.
Catherine died at 67 of a stroke, apparently unrelated to suitors or stallions. Victoria was 82 when she succumbed to the general infirmities of old age-- in continual pain, unable to eat, barely able to breathe, with bouts of facial paralysis and too weak to sit up. Hardly in a mood to entertain herself with a bedroom full of exotic hardware and farm animals.
Victoria was pleasant, if a bit dim. Catherine was a tough-minded, clever, feisty, and powerful woman, just the kind most likely to become the subject of outlandish rumors. A king could be as bawdy and imperialistic as he liked and people thought nothing of it. But a queen like Catherine would inspire rude stories that would live two centuries beyond her. That's life in the queen business, I guess.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Ups and downs in the queen business
Ups and downs in the queen business
Dear Matt:
My boss says that Queen Victoria died by being crushed by a horse in an unusual kind of "riding accidentl" He says she had a stallion rigged up I some kind of a hoist for Her Majesty's personal pleasure; apparently the hoist broke, causing the horse to fall on the queen. I can't find any historical reference to this incident, and an English-born lady in the department thinks he made it up. Is it true?
-- Mr. Ed, La Jolla
In that little ménage a trios, Ed, you seem to be the only one with his hoist rigged up right. Your boss finishes out of the money, and so does your English friend. The story is a old standard. Been around for decades. Maybe centuries. He did take some liberties with the case of characters, though. For Queen Victoria of England, let's substitute Catherine the Great of Russia. Now at least we have the correct rumor, but the facts in the story aren't any more true.
Not that Catherine didn't have a legendary love life. She is even said to have had a squad of, well, ladies-in-waiting, I guess, who auditioned potential boyfriends for her. When she got bored with one she'd bounce him out of the palace and send for a new recruit. But this was just a relaxing pastime ad a break from the pressures of life as a land-grabbing 18th-century czarina.
Catherine died at 67 of a stroke, apparently unrelated to suitors or stallions. Victoria was 82 when she succumbed to the general infirmities of old age-- in continual pain, unable to eat, barely able to breathe, with bouts of facial paralysis and too weak to sit up. Hardly in a mood to entertain herself with a bedroom full of exotic hardware and farm animals.
Victoria was pleasant, if a bit dim. Catherine was a tough-minded, clever, feisty, and powerful woman, just the kind most likely to become the subject of outlandish rumors. A king could be as bawdy and imperialistic as he liked and people thought nothing of it. But a queen like Catherine would inspire rude stories that would live two centuries beyond her. That's life in the queen business, I guess.
Comments