Armund

I’ve been out on my Suzuki Bandit. It’s the 600cc in-line four version. It is 22 years old so considered a veteran even though it looks two years old. It is a for-pleasure thing, not for commuting. I enjoy the freedom motorcycling gives and the feeling of independence. It has an element of danger that makes it so exciting. I drive very carefully and am always fully aware of my surrounding. The distance travelled is not great at the moment. It can’t be, there is nowhere to go until C19 is over. I simply circle the city with the odd glide out on the B-roads. Things may change soon; this imprisonment of the world can’t last much longer.

My good friend, Liz, has gone off to visit relatives. It has been a long wait for her. They live in the countryside so she will be taking the dogs over the fields and along lanes. The hedges will be in bloom with various blossoms overhanging wildflower verges. In my garden, my favourite blooms are out now. Bright red Crocosmia Lucifer. Like the hedge blossoms, the fronds arch out over the other flowers three to four feet above the ground. They look like a frozen firework display, Beautiful. There are other beautiful flowers to admire but the timing of the Lucifer, coming in mid-July, heralds the beginning of the summer holidays. That is, they did every other year, but not this one as no one is going anywhere.

I have taken delivery of a beginners’ Clarinet. The stand I bought for the Saxophone has a peg on one leg to place a Clarinet on. The clarinet was bought off eBay and cheaply. It has a plastic body with silver scaffold-work. The plastic is blue and it counterpoints the antique brass saxophone. They both make a wonderful ornamental feature when not in use on the stand. It took half an hour to put it together. Fortunately, I have cork grease for the sax so the clarinet did slide together smoothly in the end. I spent another half hour messing about trying to get the Clarinet sound out of it. I only seemed to create a squeak most of the time. Relenting, I read the booklet that came with it. It would seem that I put the reed too far into my mouth as I do for the Sax. That’s wrong, you only put the tip in for a clarinet. That made all the difference, I got the correct sound then. That finished my practise, “always stop at a success” is good advice.

July 2020

Things are changing very fast for me these days. I seem to have climbed out of the depression of the loss two years ago. The constant metronomic swing of sadness to managing has run down and left me feeling as I always used to be. The social club I joined was a great help. The people who established it and run it are all strong and capable, most of them women. All members are expected to suggest things and arrange trips out. I arranged a meetup for a jazz concert. It was by a Cuban band that plays the Buena Vista music. Ten of us bought tickets for the night. Sadly, it is a victim of Covid19 and has been postponed until next September.

Life began to return to normal this week on the 4^th of July. Pubs and restaurants are now open albeit with restrictions. I went out for a walk around the city with Liz and as we walked past her favourite place, we decided on impulse to see if they had a table not booked. They had several and so we went in and enjoyed a meal. The staff all had masks except the waiting staff. They all wore full-face visors. The meal over and enjoyed, we continued our walk. When we were almost at her home, we decided to visit the local pub, The Black Swan. It, like all the other pubs, has been closed for weeks. We had to sit at a table and have waiter service but it was a good feeling to be there at last.

We went back to her house for coffee before cycling home myself. I am only about 20 minutes away on a bicycle and it is good exercise. I never often used my bike before this Covid19 lockdown but having to stay isolated made it popular with me and many others. It is so convenient that I intend to keep using it in future. To be sensible, winter may break my will about that but it’s a long way off.

I have recently bought myself a Saxophone, an inexpensive one I hasten to add. I have never played any musical instrument before so it is a little difficult. I bought a book and it is very good. It included instructional discs and they are brilliant at confirming I’m doing it correctly; or not. No, I can’t play a tune on it yet but I can play four notes. More about that next time.

The Bellot and Mountjoy court case is a curious thing. Bellot was suing Mountjoy, his father-in-law, for not paying him the promised dowry after the marriage in 1604.

The discussions of marriage and dowries took place in Mountjoy’s house in Silver Street, London. This was a minor civil court case in which a “Willm Shanks”  gave evidence, and clearly signed as such on his witness statement.

It has been claimed for over 100 years that the signature on this legal document is “Shaks“. An uncalled for abbreviation of Shakspere; the Stratford man’s real name. It is the only one of six claimed Stratford-Shakspere signatures that has him, supposedly, living in London.

I cover the miss-allocation of this signature in detail in my book.

Most people are sure that they know who London’s William Shakespeare was.

Almost all of us have been told, all of our lives, that it was a man from Stratford-upon-Avon named William Shakspere. It is claimed that he went to London and wrote as London’s William Shakespeare.

The name, Shakespeare, appears in London but not in Stratford.

The man Shakspere, appears in Stratford but not in London.

It is rarely mentioned that William Shakespeare is (supposedly) William Shakspere’s pen-name. But it has to be if it was him, because his name was Shakspere (pronounced Shack-Spur). So, Wil Shakespeare was, by that fact itself, a pen-name. But whose pen name was it really?

The Stratford man’s real name, ‘Shakspere’, was well known, referenced and recorded as his name in Stratford until about seventy years ago. At that point, Stratford’s William Shakspere began to be referred to only as ‘Shakespeare’.

He, London-Shakespeare, the actual person; is not in London’s historical record. No one says that they met him. No one says that they saw him act anywhere, No one wrote any letter mentioning anything at all about him. This man, the most famous playwright of the times, does not exist in the records as a living, breathing, person.

Stratford’s William Shakspere did not leave Stratford-upon-Avon to move to live in London. The Stratford man had no connection to the Shakespeare plays and poems. London’s Will Shakespeare, was someone’s pen name.

These posts are about who wrote as London-Shakespeare. I believe I have proved it was Anthony Munday, but comments about that and comments about proofs for any other candidate are welcome.

This blog will  remain silent for the time being.