My grandfather used to tell me how, in WWI, when communications in the trenches were at their most primitive, information would be passed by word of mouth down a long line of soldiers who whispered the message into the ear of the man standing next to him. He would in turn pass the message on to the next soldier.  We also played this game in school where it was sometimes used as a language teaching method. To preserve the message without distortion was never easy and there were some spectacularly garbled mix- ups.

This is one of the most famous ones, though whether it was apochryphal or not, I cannot say.  However, I can say that, as schoolboys, the story was related to us as if it were true. I guess it was an object lesson in don’t believe everything you hear and double check your facts. Anyway, the message starts out as “Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance” and ends up as “Send three and four pence, we’re going to a dance.” True or not, it serves three purposes: (1) it is quite funny in itself,  (2) it introduces us to the now vanished English monetary system of pounds, shillings, and pence, and (3) it initiates the theme of reinforcements.

So happy have I been with my mini carnation pinks that when I saw some on sale yesterday, I immediately bought them. “Saw some equals awesome”. Well, it as awesome for me because I was not sure what these flowers were. I am not a flowery person, in that sense. I don’t know if these new flowers will last 23 days, like the old lot, but whether they do or don’t, I have put some together in one jar on the kitchen table and mixed in the rest with the best of the survivors from the earlier bunch. I placed those on the cabinet in the room where I surf the net. I guess I’ll follow their progress and we’ll see how they do. They are a much deeper shade of pink than the originals and it is easy to spot the old and the new in the photo. Also, the sun has gone, turned the corner, and walked to the other end of the house. Tomorrow, I’ll see them in full sunshine. That will also be fun.