j5cochran

Week thirty-seven: one of five with an asterisk. I knew Liszt, and I knew Beatrice and Benedict, but I misspelled it, too.

Week thirty-six: three of five. I have a bad cold. Apparently prednisone does very weird things to my brain. I'm going back to bed.

My friend Tim and I were discussing James' mad buzzer skillz. We decided that he's actually an android, powered by ChatGPT!

When my kin discuss our genealogy, we say that "our family tree does not so much branch as twine". To tie this back to the show, I'd love to see a Woodstone family tree, just to see how Hetty and Sam are actually related.

If you don't want to punch Blifil, then the actor is doing his job!

Week thirty-five: four of five with the asterisk! I never heard of the book from Monday, but the rest of the week was a piece of cake. I'll have to find some kind of yummy cake to bring to the table for four!

Week 34: two of five, without an asterisk. Now I'm jonesing for some KFC!

Week 30: two of five with one asterisk. Week 31: three of five with one asterisk. Week 32: three of five with no asterisks. Week 33: four of five with three asterisks. My apologies for the late reporting. In the last month, I've been to three funerals. I've lost my cousin's wife, my former roommate's husband, and this past week, a friend I've known and loved for fifty years. Dave and I joined the West Virginia University Marching Band together in August of 1972, and we've been dear friends ever since. April is definitely the cruelest month.

I suspect that Seven went to the Star Fleet equivalent of Officer Candidate School. In the current US Navy, it's a 13-week program for those with prior enlisted experience in the Navy. Seven's experience on Voyager, as well as her work with the Fenris Rangers, counted as that prior experience.

If I remember my nobility lessons correctly (learned in the school of Downton Abbey), Lady Susan must be the daughter of a member of the nobility, as she is Lady "Firstname". Lady Denham married into the nobility (Lady "Lastname"), so she would lose her title if she married again. Lady Mary Crawley was Lady Mary as a single gentlewoman, and kept that title when she married the untitled Matthew. When she later married the untitled Henry Talbott, she became Lady Mary Talbott.

Week 28: one of five - I'm definitely less than the rest of you. Week 29: one of five - I'm beginning to feel trapped at the table for one. Swedish meatballs, anyone?

I am, once again, irritated by the facial hair on some of the men. Beards were rare at this time, but no gentleman would ever appear in public with a three-days growth. Even a middle-class man would shave daily. Argh!

Week twenty-seven: four of five, with both asterisks! I'm not up on my beat poets. But the rest of the week hit my good categories. I, too, play Globle and knew about Mongolia, I've seen the Night Watch by Rembrandt in Amsterdam, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of my favorite movies, and my dad was born in Wyoming!

Week twenty-six: three of five, with the first asterisk! I guessed that the second asterisk was Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Week twenty-five: two of five, Sudan and the Civil Rights Act. Thursday, I sat there going "Karl Marx.... Karl Marx' book...." End of music. Argh!

Week twenty-four: three of five. I need to pay closer attention. I called the answer to Tuesday as Marcos, not realizing that they were going for the country rather than the ruler of the country. D'oh!

Week twenty-three: two of five, Monday and Friday, tank and Yellowstone.

Week twenty-two: three of five. I don't have a barbed wire mantra.

Aachen was an instaget for me, because I play the online game Forge of Empires. One of the structures that you can build, for lots of extra goodies in the Early Middle Ages, is the Cathedral of Aachen!

Any idea what date we are up to in this week's show? Mrs. Hall's son Edward is apparently a sailor on the HMS Repulse, and it's scheduled to sink in December 1941, just a few days after Pearl Harbor. It appears that about half the crew survived, so I suspect that Mrs. Hall has much more drama in store, about season five or six or seven!

Week twenty-one: four of five with one asterisk! I missed the passion on Monday (my, that sounds like a Regency Romance novel!), but the rest of the week was well within my wheelhouse. With the cold weather throughout the eastern half of the country, I'd better bring a pot of five onion soup. The original recipe is from one of the great resorts in America - the Greenbrier - and this creamy soup is properly poured into your bowl from a silver pitcher and then topped with crispy fried shallots and chopped chives. This is a very blurry shot of me being served my five onion soup ten years ago. We took my mom to the Greenbrier to celebrate her 90th birthday!

Week twenty: two of five, without the asterisk. It's a Capricorn Kremlin week for me -- like @Toothbrush, I'm also a Capricorn! The neighbors brought my Mom a big pan of cornbread, but I'm not sharing. It's delicious!

I'm a little late, too, but I think Troy looked like Crispin Glover, as George McFly in Back to the Future.

Week seventeen: four of five, no asterisks. Week eighteen: two of five, no asterisks. Week nineteen: three of five with the asterisk for Arkansas. That's assuming that I get credit for answering the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula for the Tower of London. That's actually where the three queens were buried. It's one of the creepiest parts of the Tower tour - they mention that their heads were placed at their feet in the coffin! My apologies for being so late in reporting. My 99-year-old Mom woke up with severe stomach pains recently and ended up in the hospital for a gallbladder removal. I stayed in the hospital with her, so I had limited access to the internet. Though Mom and I continued to watch Jeopardy every night. She's a big fan! (and she's healing nicely)

Week sixteen: three of five.