Complex Numbers

Murder Villages

How about a reading break?

https://crimereads.com/your-guide-to-not-getting-murdered-in-a-quaint-english-vi...

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village
You stay away from the village fete, do you understand?

It’s happened. You’ve finally taken that dream trip to England. You have seen Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Hyde Park. You rode in a London cab and walked all over the Tower of London.

Sure, one day, when we can travel again.

You’ll drink a pint in the sunny courtyard of a local pub.

Wait, we're still talking about England, right?

Unless you end up in an English Murder Village. It’s easy enough to do. You may not know you are in a Murder Village, as they look like all other villages. So when you visit Womble Hollow or Shrimpling or Pickles-in-the-Woods or Nasty Bottom or Wombat-on-Sea or wherever you are going, you must have a plan.

I'm pretty sure those are actual English place names.

Anyway, I'm not quoting more because it's absolutely worth the read. Just go to the link. Trust me on this.

I spent some time in a quaint English village once. The name of the village was, and I'm not kidding here, Hayfield. The house I stayed in, home to a friend I made here on WDC some years ago, was made of stone and it's older than my entire country. It's true what they say: The British think 100 miles is a long way, and Yanks think 100 years is a long time. And yes, they do use miles there. But they quote petrol prices in liters. I didn't ask how they compute mileage. Kilometerage. Efficiency. Whatever. Miles per liter? Kilometers per gallon? Furlongs per stone?

Anyway, whilst I was there (goddammit, I picked up some of the lingo and it won't go away), they had the village May parade. I sat on a low stone wall drinking actual British ale (Riggwelter - which is Yorkshire dialect for a sheep that's on its back and can't right itself) and enjoyed the spectacle.

As you can see, though, I wasn't murdered. Maybe next time. But first, Belgium. If I live long enough to be able to travel again, I'm definitely going there. Because beer.