The woman who was caught on video either beating her child, or whaling on the back of the seat (emotional abuse, probably) is an "Irish Traveller", they say. I've never heard of these. They are described as grifters. I listened to someone come up with the cant greeting, and I heard "Romani" in it. It would seem that Irish Travellers are pretty much the same as Eastern European Gypsies. Hey, my Mom's favorite Hallowe'en costume for me was a Gypsy one. Is that an insensitive term nowadays? Sorry.

When we were in England, we did see a horse-drawn caravan once, and thought they were Gypsies. The Brits called them Gypsies. However, now that I know more about it, I guess they were Irish Travellers.

Ah, the Irish. There was a commune in the village. I was attracted to the hippies who lived there. Think about it, there I was, very traditional, with three small children, and there they were, fancy free. One child, Brendon, was a classmate of Roni's, and he was American. His mother played the guitar and taught the class "Old Dan Tucker" one time. They lived in a great old farmhouse. In the 400-500 years this house had stood, there were many additions, so you could get lost getting from here to there. (England is where I got interested in architecture). The people in the commune were friendly, though I think part of my appeal to them was they thought I would buy them stuff from the base exchange. No. One day I was at home and Tom, one of the Irish communards, came by. I offered him a cuppa, and I thought then and still think now that he'd have been happy to take more than that.

After we left, the hippies set fire to the roof of the shed close to the road. This because they planned to show off the reeds they were growing to thatch with, but unfortunately they never actually got around to rethatching, so when I went back in 1977, it was a sodden mess. The commune had, go figure, arguments and political differences, and split up and changed, but there is still a commune there. They've aged and mellowed. My Brit friend had a "boyfriend" there, but she wasn't comfortable with the communal life.

Well. The other thing, besides the Gypsy caravan, that we saw that was sooooo typically British, was a coach pulled by four horses on a London street. I dunno who it was, but I was prop'ly impressed.

How to get out of Jury Duty (I don't approve.)

Big S fisks the Mirror.