wendy house

Lily Allen in concert   is Wendy-recommended for post-prubescent people who think swearing, mean-spirits and smoking on stage  are cool,  fans of ska music and fans of pretty white post-pubescent  girls.  

Ratings explained

Lily Allen is very pretty and vivacious.   The music accompanying her songs is heavily ska influenced,   upbeat fun.   Musically the songs reminded me of early Morcheeba and the sound of Lilys voice at the time of the album Big Calm.   The London accent sounded fake in the light of her private school education.   The blatant bitchy malcontentness of the lyrical content was more reminiscent of The Sex Pistols.   Inbetween songs Lily puctuated each sentence with an engaging girly giggle and words littered with profanities.   This  appeared to entertain the mainly male audience who shouted their ‘love’ for Lily.   For me her between song talk provided  a tired, unentertaining story that lacked talent depth or insight.   Smoking cigarettes on stage while singing publically demonstrated a lack of respect for her singing voice.   The ‘controversies’ section of the wikipedia article on Lily sums up her presence quite well.

Bopping around to the music and  enjoying the wit and passion of the lyrics and boyouncy of the music was good.    But I wont be buying her music until the girl matures a little assuming that age doesnt turn even  more sour.  

I could have gone to see James Morrison instead,   I definitely made the wrong decision.

According to the Mausolea and Monuments Trust (UK) a Mausoleum is:

A mausoleum is a house of the dead. Larger than tombs, these buildings are free-standing roofed structures erected to receive coffins. They take their name from one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, the vast tomb of King Mausolus of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor. Most British mausolea date from the 18th and 19th centuries. Symbols of dynastivc pride, pious respect and love, they stand in their hundreds in churchyards, cemeteries and parks. Many of Britain’s finest architects were involved in their design. Neo-classical, Egyptian or Gothic, they form a varied, emotionally charged, and irreplaceable part of the built heritage….

…   In law they belong to those that built them, but in many cases the families have died out or lost interest.   Parish councils, local authorities and cemetery companies must ensure the buildings do not become dangerous, but are not responsible for their upkeep. So, as private monuments in the public domain, they fall outside the normal patterns of care.

 I’ve seen, noticed, very few mausolea in English graveyards,   they are the exceptional grave style reserved for the Wealthy or well respected.   Thier predominance in the 18th and 19th century maps to the new wealth and changing lifestyles that came with the Industrial Revolution.  

In the many, mainly village,  graveyards that I visited during the Tea and Tombstone Tour I noticed only these 2 Mausolea.   Decaying,   broken,   headless gargoyles,  rotting wooden doors,  in the Trowbridge cemetery

twenty-fifth in a  clean series of  posts about taking tiffin with  (black) tea  in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #25: char people

I have not heard the phrase char lady or any politically correct variation thereof, such as char people, in the NW USA.   The BBC has used it to refer to an Amercian  and a contemporary website has it advertised as a job-type.   At my place of work there are char people.    They do not  wear beautifully tied headscarfs,  bring a tea trolley  passed your office at 3.30pm,   have cigarettes hanging out of the side of their mouth or provide snippits of wisdom disguised in a subversively surly, morose, wrapping.    This wrapping isn’t widely available in NW USA workplaces.     Sigh.  

Two  of the definitions of char from Allwords.com  

1. To do paid cleaning work in someone’s house, an office, etc. (noun);   Etymology:   Anglo-Saxon cierran.

2. Slang for Tea (noun); Etymology: from chinese cha (20th century)

thirty-fifth post in a Wednesday series detailing couture reasions  ”why wendy’s single”.

Reason # 35: the wrong trousers

  Apparantly I need to secure some boyfriend trousers before I can achieve a boyfriend.  

The trousers appear to be of a similar kind of that worn by many local USA males;   the pants of the cargo khaki.   Now that is actually rather scarey.

 I have developed an allergy to these cargo pants of the khaki.   I may have to seek out some form of therapy so that I can,   with an absence of bile or attitude, pick-up and embrace the pants of the cargo khaki.

I  said something stupid.

Your motionless face sang disdain.

In search of conversation,   I  ejaculated a purile triviality.

Your face wrote painful  tolerance.

Unrescued by the facially generous conversational cavalry

my lack of small-talk and I would prefer to be alone, or,

in the company of cats.

Poem inspired by  an evening of  gawkiness in the company of strangers, following an evening of inarticulateness in the company of friends.   Its an accident.   It’s predictable.   Like a broken finger-nail or a drip from the spout of a teapot.   Conversational gawkiness.   It doesn’t end,    teenage-hood stalks you throughout your life.

Many English churches  have a Lych gate at the entrance to the graveyard.   I have not yet seen a Lych gate in the USA.   The brief description of the gate I’ve found repeated across the web is:

a roofed gate to a churchyard, formerly used as a temporary shelter for the bier during funerals (noun)

The corpse waits in the Lych (Corpse) gate for the priest to come to it and start the ceremony.   I have not found any online  references to the ‘folk’ belief I somehow gathered as a child.   My folk belief is that placing the corpse down in the lych gate somehow stopped evil (pagan?) spirits riding the body into the concecrated grounds of the churchyard.

St. Mary the Virgin, Portbury’s churchyard Lych Gate, dustbin and daffodils:

 If you appreciate good dialog,   good acting in the storytelling of social-political change based on real events that can produce heated  post-viewing discussion  then you will thoroughly enjoy this film; “Amazing Grace”.  

Ratings explained

The film is part of the UK celebration of 200 years, 25th March,  since the Abolition of the slave trade (slavery was still legal) in the British Empire.   America was no longer a part of the British Empire at this stage and continued to trade in Slaves as did European powers such as France, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.   The  film follows the lead abolitionist’s,   William Wilberforce’s, efforts.   The title comes from a song whose original lyrics are attributed to John Newton a repentant master of slave trading ships and influential adult in William Wilberforce’s life.   For me the film compares favourably to, can be classed with,  the classic play  ”A man for all seasons“.    

Strengths:

• Story.   This is a story worthy of being made into a film.   It stands without explosions,   sex-scandals,   profanity,   nudity.   So few films nowadays are sufficiently brave to leave these components out of the screenplay.   What does it include?   Horror,   suspense, tension, pathos,  wit,  conversation as an art-form and fabulous scenery (parliament buildings, big wooden sailing ships etc).
• Cast.   For shere breadth of talent including Michael Gambon, Albert Finney, Ioan Gruffudd, Ciarán Hinds, Rufus Sewell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bill Paterson, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Jeremy Swift,  Youssou N’Dour.   The talent is doubley worth mentioning for their lack of conformity to the current  Hollywood standard of ‘beautiful’.   If you need a dosage of  current-standard pretty boys and this is not the film for you.   Hoorah!
• Scene details.   For example the unusual card-tables for the parliamentary card-clubs,   the kitchen crockery and utensils in the background of the kitchen scenes.   Ioan looked wonderfully sickly and ill in many of the shots where he is supposed to be so,  no holidng back on under-eye darkness,   sweat,   and unsightly body contortions.  
• rhetoric.   The parliamentary rhetoric was wondertful,  pressumably this was taken from original transcripts of parliamentary sessions.   The jibes are typically cheeky,   sarcastic,   cutting and yet the serve to reveal the weaknesses of the recipients position beautifully.   The rhetoric is not constrained to witty come-backs it includes some,   by no means all, of the arguments for Britian continuing to engage in  the slave trade.    The less positive reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes describe this tendancy as ‘Speechifying’ and ‘Talky’.   I like Speechifying when it isn’t lengthy  dull monolouges and I didn’t notice any lengthy dull monologues in this film.  

Areas for improvement:

• slavery arguments: given the film focus I was slightly suprised by the low-profile given to some of the topical arguments for slavery.   For example,   if evolutionary theory was mentioned in the debate I missed-it.   The notion common in Britain that people were born to a natural status,   aristocracy,   working-class,   black (US = People of color) divined by God was not mentioned.   This seemed odd,   I would have liked at least some passing reference to these beliefe systems more clearly evident within the film.   The nearest reference to the notion that every person is born to a position in life was the reaction of the opposition to a petition of the people,   why should they take notice of a petition of the people?   The portrayal simply makes them look arrogant,   evil,   as viewers we are not lead to understand that it was a common belief that people were born with different capabilities,   different values to society.   I would have valued a little more clarification of the depth of impact of the American Independance and French revolution on the priorities of parliament.   Though I suspect this would have made the film even longer and more ‘speechifying’ which would have irritated more viewers that aren’t me.
• slave trade is not slavery:   The film does not make it clear to the viewer that Slavery was still legal in the British Empire for a further 30 years.   This blog article by Louis Proyect points this out and provides an informative persepctive on a worthy storyline not tackled within this film.   The blog article includes details of   people portrayed in the film and cites a poem written by William Wordsworth dedicated to one of them.     Louis makes a convincing point  that William Wilberforce being portrayed as the lead role was perhaps not a good choice:

Every other abolitionist figure is subordinate to him, which is of course detrimental to the film since they are far more interesting than this bible-thumping prig.

• shift girl focus from love interest:    Barbara Wilberforce (Romola Garai) wearing pink lipstick and lip gloss just didn’t ‘feel’ right though I realise the ladies of the day did have access to powders and creams that they used to change their lip colour.   Her wig was also suspicously  perfect and an unusual colour (redhead).   She sported the modern fashion for a voluptious top lip,   though not Scarlett Johansen proportions.    It was challenging to discern her talent from the odd accessories.   Hannah More is present in some scenes and even has some lines,   I was disappointed that her role was not more significant.   The cynic in me thinks the small contribution  her role in the film  might be because she was not young,   beautiful and married.     I visited Hannah’s birthplace while in Bristol last week:

Niece (teenage):   “I HATE YOU”

Bros: “do you know how to say that in French?”

Niece: “Je tu deteste”

Bros: “shouldn’t that be Je  vous deteste?”

Neice: “NO, you are tu and I hate you”

By this stage I’ve fallen off my chair giggling and started dribbling tea on my woolly jumper (It was cold in England).   During my 4 day stay I managed to avoid my niece’s wrath without ducking or walking into any nearby walls.

“I don’t know the way to wiggle”

this statement was made by a very vertically challenged young boy probably as short as 4yrs old.   A person that short really should know the way to wiggle.   I gave him a demonstration,   he wasn’t amused.

“why have you got a handbag?”

Asked the father of above short person and friend since we were both 4 years short.   He and said young wiggle-free-youngster failed to refrain from laughing when asking this question.   I explained that I was in training to be a real woman and that this involved taking a handbag everywhere.   I only managed 2 days in the England before I gave up on the handbag thing,   too many short people surrupticiously  giggling at me.  

“you should be able to climb an E2 without any trouble based on your build and fitness”

 I took another swig of wine and grunted.   In the UK I only climbed  to S (Severe).    In the US on indoor walls  at 5.8 (equivalent of UK VS, Very Severe).   This climber was telling me the only obstacle to my climbing a higher grade was my attitude.   Plausible.

“we recognised you from a distance  despite the blue hat”

A  friend that has known me since I was 5yrs short announced ebulantly.   Despite the blue hat?   I’d been labouring under the misaprehension that my hats were my most distinguishing feature.   Apparantly it’s actually my skinny legs and deportment (wiggly walk).   I’d already given up on the handbag thing by now.

“Please kill my fish”

short person while jumping up and down and wringing her hands together.   The conversation quickly went down hill from here.

Has curry ever killed anyone?  

This excellent question came from my niece and  left me picturing people drowning in curry,   curry pans falling on people’s heads,   people exploding from eating too much curry etc  

“I am tall, blonde and tanned”

Having not met or seen photographs of said fellow I was anticipating short and bald with the pants of Khaki Cargo.   I made the most of this rare opportunity to feel short again.

“is wearing kharki cargo pants and  dark blue t-shirts Microsofts uniform?”

asked by a person unaware of my blog who worked with Microsoft Reading.    I replied that its not limited to Microsoft employees….     …I suspect it’s a viral disease…   …like overuse of ellipses…

“would you like another cup of tea?…       ………..silly question really.”

An old friend who had temporarily lost the plot then regained it after a liberal dose of ellipses.

The wealth of the county town of Wiltshire, Trowbridge, came from the making of cloth from wool,   dating back to the 14th century.    

Spinning is one step in the process of making cloth from wool.   Prior to the  invention of the Spinning Jenny people who had not successfully secured an income through either a husband or fathers income, spun wool.  

Spinsters.  

twenty-fourth in a  rosey series of  posts about taking tiffin with  (black) tea  in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #24: almost there; bar the roses

Elizabeth and Alexanders  is where I first encountered The Red Hat Society having an ‘event’ on a busy Saturday morning.   The tea rooms bustled as the serve staff quickly moved between customers and the kitchen.   Thank goodness that the  cackle in the red hats were ushered into a separate room.     Elizabeth and Alexanders is closer to my experience of standard tea rooms in the UK though still overdosing on ‘pink’ and ‘roses’ with an  all female clientelle.    

I ordered a “Ploughmans Lunch”   that arrived without  cheese,   chutney, ham or bap.   Uh?   Way too girly for any self-respecting ploughman,   tasty nonetheless.   The server had an English accent and found it  appropriate  to be way more tactile than I’m accustomed to in the US:

Wendy; I’d like the 6 cup pot of….
Server:   Assam? (touching my shoulder)
Wendy: Yes   (smiles)
Server:   With milk (smiles and rubs my arm)
Wendy:   Yes, please!

This is an ideal unpretentious place to stop by with a friend or two for peaceful conversation over a good cuppa (and get your arm felt-up).

thirty-fourth post in a modular Wednesday series detailing “why wendy’s single”.

Reason # 34: active sarcasm module

My niece wrote this on her white board.  

The co-existing contradictions in her  statement and action  induced a bout of dizziness.  

I had to set-down my cup of tea lest I fall over.  

If her whiteboard had been a blackboard I may have anticipated and read  the word ‘black’ instead of ‘blank’ and  missed the subtle genious  of her creation.

The graffiti in Bristol provided a pleasant surprize, especially this humerous piece by Banksy.  I am completely soppy  about Banksy’s work.

In some crowded church graveyards the old stones  are moved from thier original positions to edges of patchways or the yard.   I have no idea where the original graves are.    This is an  example from the 15th Century  St. Andrew’s church in Ashburton,   Devon.    The church normally keeps records of the grave-plots.  

Notice that the walkway is also lined with Yew trees.   Despite their amazing lifespan (4,000 yrs?) the Yew tree is poisonous and  known as the ‘Death tree’,    it  

“has a tight-grained wood, tough and resilient, used in the past for spears, spikes, staves, small hunting bows and eventually the famous longbows of the Middle Ages. The arrows were tipped with poison made from the Yew. “

The Yews may have predated the placing of the  Chrisitain church indicating a pre-christian sacred site.   Placing the yew trees within the church yard or the Church within the Yew-tree site prevented local animals from eating the Yews and gave the religious group control of a core source material for weaponry.

 All examples here use a teabag in a mug with hotwater poured onto the bag.   The first photograph is in the kithcen of  a Portsmouth home.   Using a pint of semi-skimmed milk from Asda and a mug featuring St Georges cross in front of a glass electric kettle.

 This is on a beach in Cornwall near Cawsand.   3 mugs of tea and two mugs of chocolate for the short people.   An  inovative  water-boiling-on-the-beach contraption helped ensure the water was the right temperature for tea brewing.   Once the tea had brewed sausage sandwiches were made then we finished off with another cup of tea.   The perfect way to start and wrap-up a hike to the beach.

 This is from home in Bristol.   It’s the pre-breakfast table at 7am,   my first, second and third  cuppa of the day normally come from this productive little pot.   That is cup number 2 and I’m about to refill the pot with fresh tea for the biddies as they start to wake up and potter about.

UK court verdict on US shooting of UK soldier:    unlawful,   avoidable killing.   A US plane twice fired on a convoy of UK troops whose vehicles were marked with the pre-agreed orange fabric.  The BBC reports a transcript from the US plane crew:

“At the start of the attack, one pilot notices orange panels on the vehicles and asks whether there could be any friendly units in the area… …Pilots open fire but soon the error is realised and they are informed that friendly units were in the area“

There are lots of disturbing threads to the stories as published in the British press.   I hear them daily on  radio, TV,  internet and newspapers.  The most disturbing, unexplicit,  storyline is that the US conduct their internal investigations to find themselves innocent.    For the USA it is  reasonable that they ignore the standard NATO symbol  for identifying NATO vehicles.   For the USA it is reasonable  to make  sure evidence is not made available to NATO allies by lying,  denying the existence of the cockpit tapes.    

The crux of the different verdicts are reported as based around  a difference in the UK and the USA ‘rules for engagement’ without these rules of engagement explicitly being reported,  a British soldier comments that:

“the incident would not have happened if American troops had as strict rules as the British on opening fire.”  

This is not a unique verdit,   where the US has been (ir)responsible for the death of UK soldiers.     The incident has an analogous dynamic to many USA’s engagements with other Nations and Nationals.   The USA look gun-happy in so many ways,   internal laws,   internal crime statistics, international diplomacy  and even in its dealings with its allies.  

British people I meet wonder how I can stand to live in the USA,   they variously  refer to  the USA  as an immature, ignorant, greedy, fat,  dishonest,  sick, bully.  

March 15th 1984

It  will take several months to read the varied  scrawl of miss-spelt ramblings in my early diaries.    Mumzie recently  discovered these diaries in a  dark corner of her home.    The diaries stop in 1984 when I switched to letter writing…

A second sheet was added to this  1984 entry during my first year at University.     The day went something like this:  

A morning of contemplating whether  a fascinating but somewhat screwed-up boy  should have the benefit of my influence in his life.    

An  afternoon  sketching portraits of 2 handsome boys while they supplied me with lots of tea.   The tea taking isn’t explicitly mentioned because it is  understood as a part of  the ‘spending an afternoon with a handsome fellow’ process.   The boys  had the afrontary to  keep the sketches.   Sadly,   I don’t actually have copies of any of the portraits I used to produce.   I was fairly prolific with my sketch-book as well as in my diaries.    

The evening involved drinking ‘side cars’ in a disco and  helping a girl-friend disrupt the dancefloor during some of those slow girl-boy cuddling dances by jumping around between the soppy-people.    

A  fabulous day indeed.

twenty-fourth in a  pumped-up series of  posts about taking tiffin with  (black) tea  in the NW USA Bath UK.

Thursday Tiffin #24: Bath pump rooms

Outstanding tea experience without a sniff of a rose on the table,   table-cloth, wall-decorations or  wait-staff.   Live music from the grand Piano,   quiet conversation.   Scones with real clotted cream.   An extra pot of hot water,   refilled 2 times, 2 extra pots of tea suggested and bought by the wait-staff at no extra cost.   Nothing at all disrupted my first tea-out in the UK.    Built in 1785, Jane Austen lived in Bath and possibly took tea in the pump rooms.

thirty-third post in a Wednesday series placing “why wendy’s single”.

Reason # 33: miss placed attachments

Apparantly I put more effort into maintaining favoured articles of clothing than maintiaining boy-naughtiness activities.   For example,   I annually re-darn, similar but different, holes in these two jumpers:

On the way to Cornwall I stopped for Tea and a Pasty on the edge of Dartmoor.   Everything was comfortably as expected.   Pot of hot water,   pot of tea,   milk,   cup without any roses or pink on it,   see:
 

affection after death

there’s a strange mix of neglect and care evident in the rural graveyards.   The grass is recently mowed,   graves more than 300 years are often collapsing and neglected.   In thier collapse they gain a beauty beyond that the Mason’s originally planned for them.    A clear reminder of our transient role in the universe.  

A  survey  of 28,000 people from 27 countries  conducted by the BBC World Service asked respondents  to indicate  whether each of 12 countries had either a negative or positive influence on the world.      The USA is perceived as having a negative influence on the world.   NPR prints an Associated Press news release on the survey results,   in rank-order for perceived negative influence:

1. 56% perceive Israel having a negative influence & 17% a positive influence

2. 56% perceive Iran having a negative influence & 18% a positive influence

3. 51% perceive United States having a negative influence &  30% a positive influence.

When ranking by positive influence Canada is ranked highest (54%) followed by Japan and France.    The article cites Prof.  Steven Kull hypotheizing the reasons for this result “people around the world tend to look negatively on countries whose profile is marked by the pursuit of military power… …Countries that relate to the world primarily through soft power, like France and Japan and the EU in general, tend to be viewed positively”  

soft power (information as arguments) as opposed to hard power (weapons as arguments)  

replace the US euphemism restrooms with  a word the English  bastardized from the lyrical  toilette.   Knowledge of this word and its proper use in England is essential if you are caught short after a couple of excellent sized real Ales,   as indeed I may well have been when I took this photograph:

Visitors to the USA, like myself, cannot leave until they have given their fingerprints and proven this with a finger-print receipt.   At Seatac airport S terminal they have 4 automated finger-print capturing machines.   Today they also had four attendents to help me incase I had trouble following the instructions.

twenty-second in a  trendy series of  Thursday posts about taking tiffin with  (black) tea  in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #22: Remedy Teas.

Make sure you memorise the name otherwise you might end-up in the nearby  Teapot by accident.      Remedy Tea  is the best tea place I’ve visited in Washington State and, as you’ve noticed,   I’m Mrs Fussy McFussy when it comes to tea.

 Attentive knowledgeable service. I ordered Earl Grey tea and the waitress described the different  Earl grey options (black, red, green and white)   ‘What’s the difference?’   ‘Caffiene levels’   Now this I understand,   though I’ve forgotten which colour had more.   In the panic of too much choice I opted for the familairty of  black Earl Grey.    With over 150 different types of tea on offer their choice was impressive.    The venue had a very  modern stlysh ambience,  it fitted my stereotype of  YUPPY.    There were girls and boys here,   they looked NORMAL not just elderly women in silly hats,   I was probably the oldest person there and the only person in a silly (not red)  hat.

Bodum produced glassware with an insulating air layer  in the handleless cups.   The experience included  digital timers  to avoid stewing the tea and tea-lights to keep the unstewed tea warm. Heavenly.    Rows of test-tube containers that you could use to smell each tea before choosing what to purchase lined one wall.   The test-tubes were displayed in a decorative manner,   function and form combined stylishly ….mmmMMMMmmmm…..

We sat outside  without coats in January the week after ground snow.    I couldn’t use the traditional method of judging the tea’s temperature “can I hold the cup?” through the insulated cup  or use it to warm my hands.  ‘Cold finger!’.   After two cups  we went inside.  More wussy customers  wore scarves and coats on inside and were dressed in a stylish shade of black.

As standard in the US they didn’t offer milk.  I forgot to ask.   FORGOT.    I think I’m getting Americanized…..  oh my…  …need my trip back to the UK NOW*…    

Remedy teas recommended for a quality well delivered experience to people  under 60 of all genders  wearing black in a modern relaxed environment

*I am actually currently drinking tea with Mumzie and Dadsy at an undisclosed celebrity hide-away in England as I  start a rigorous re-English-ification course.  

The order of events upon arrival:

1. tea
2. pick-up hire-car
3. tea
4. drive to parents home
5. tea
6. walk mumzie around the local church, Holy Trinity,  graveyard before dusk claims the light for the day
7. tea

thirty-second post in a Wednesday series of the inevitable “why wendy’s single”.

Reason # 32: the way things are

Roger McGough’s explanation  draws the context well.

Conversation in the currency exchange shop:

manager:   are you a city fan?

Wendy:   city?

manager: Manchester

Wendy: I’m a Pompey fan (sniggers)

manager:   I don’t like Zidane

Wendy:   he’s French

Algerian Customer: he’s Algerian, Like I’m Algerian,   though I am an American citizen and I drive a Mercedes that’s my Mercedes there (points out of un-treated window)

The conversation rapidly went down hill from here on with the Manager admitting that he’d never heard of David Beckham and the Algerian describing how football (US = Soccer) had changed his life.   Meanwhile I swapped my US Dollars for  English, not Scottish,   pounds and compared the design properties of the 5 and 20 denominations:

Differences:

1. irrespective of the denomination US dollars are all the same size.   There is no way for a blind person to distinguish between denominations by touch alone.   English notes are all unique sizes,   smaller sizes = smaller values.
2. US notes have the denomination displayed on all 4 corners,   on both sides.   This supports visual search to identify the amount.   For something as commonly used as currency a single location should suffice because people will learn where to look.   English pounds use the top 2 corners  to print the amount.
3. The English notes have a distinctive colour that marks the denomination.   Above you can see that the £5 is green and the £20 is purple.   US dollars appear to be all the same colours.   People who cannot read the numbers on the notes (normally very short people) can learn the value of each note based on ints size and colour.   This helps ensure the illiterate are not discriminated against when attempting to purchase something.
4. The Queen’s image is on all English legal currency.  US notes normally have a president (i.e. lots of elected  men)  here its  Lincoln ($5) & Andrew Jackson($20).
5. On the reverse side the English pounds  are culturally significant contributors;  Elizabeth Fry  ( £5) with some dudes and girls doing good deeds,   Edward Elgar ( £20) with Worcester Cathedral and St. Cecilia.   The US dollar reverse sides  show presidential related buildings;   the Lincoln Memorial ($5) and the White House ($20).
6. The US notes have the phrase “In God We Trust” on the back.   English notes do  not mention  the relationship to the State recognised God.
7. Clear oval area for viewing the intricate water mark (oval area with no print) and silver threaded through the English notes.