Re: Trivialities

From: Stewart Stansfield <stu_stansfield_at_Hp1dapSf36EioBELr2JEu7nBnaQTEZAQrIoMTee_le6wRP7_jzuatj-EYuKzZ>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 11:02:13 -0000


Servus!

Keith and Chris slander my honour:

I should stress that the sepia-toned mpeg doing the rounds at the moment--of me with mutton chop whiskers, sitting stoicly while listening to the Blue Danube Waltz and getting covered in llama spittle--is a fake.

I only ever do that kind of thing to 'The Radetzky March'. Eurgh. That last image is remarkably vivid.

Can't help it, I'm afraid. I've always been drawn to the ludicrous in history, and us Habsbies (like Furries, but festooned in evening wear with Military Maria Theresa Orders instead of gorilla suits. Hmmm. Speaking of which, some of us here...) find they pander to it quite well.

Facing a six-hour coach journey in an hour or so, I popped into a shop to buy a crap fantasy book and instead went straight to the history section. It took all my powers to resist Frederic Morton's 'Thundner at Twilight' and 'A Nervous Splendor'. Anyway, I thought 'Rupert of Hentzau' would be more amenable. But I can always go back...

> Did you know Professor Slottman at UC Berkeley?

Sadly no! Though he sounds a great chap, and a fine fellow to share a Hennessey with. There are many more of his fine example on HABSBURG, on H-Net...

http://www.h-net.org/~habsweb/

There should be a Lhankor Mhy subcult or herocult dedicated to Gloranthan versions of Habsburg fetishists, methinks. The beard must be cut in a regulation Franz Josef style, and concern itself with old Heortling/Vingkotling etc. regalia. Spending all day drinking cognac in Nochet cafes and then falling into apoplexy at the ignorance of society to the old days. There's the life.

Austriae est imperare orbi universo, as they say in Bolton.

Stu.

[And a damned happy one at that, as in a great Space:1889-based VSF PBEM he's playing at the moment, the German Empire has just fractured, and the Habsburg Monarchy is allied with the Sueddeutsche Fuerstenbund--please excuse my German if that's incorrect--being just one step away from reforging the Holy Roman Empire and reasserting rightful Habsburg hegemony in Germany. Ah, there I go again...]            

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