More Travels with Jean Hanuman: England
You may revisit Hanuman's
travels in France here.
Hanuman at Blenheim Palace
Hanuman in Sussex
Jean Hanuman, photographer
As you can probably understand,
I get about 2-300 emails a week from fans of Jean Hanuman, asking when on
earth he will be providing another fix of wisdom in his inimitable style.
For some time it saddened me to admit that Hanuman was in a deep funk, spending
most of his time laying around on a shelf. Although he did put considerable
energy into designing a networking tool to reflect his mood. He called it
“Footbook: An Anti-Social Networking Site.” After a while, he
realized there wasn’t much call for this kind of thing.
Things have changed, dear readers! Hanuman is with
us here at Oxford University in Oxford,
England, and is truly excited to share his knowledge of England with the world.
“I’ve got a lot to
do,” screeched Jean as he dug through his old things, unearthing a bowler
hat, a ‘brolly, an ascot, and a set of nickel-plated titanium darts (22
grams). “Here it is!” he shouted, as he unearthed a well-worn cricket
bat. “From my schoolboy days,” he said.
“Oh, and by the way,” he said, “can
you address me while in the Queen’s land by my schoolboy moniker. That’s
when I was known as Jack Hannon-Winslow. Oh course I won’t insist on the
full ‘Third Earl of Wichester’.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I said
to Jean, to which he responded with his trademark look, which told the whole
story.
“Jack, your iphone,” I shouted as we approached the flight gate,
seeing the phone laying on the chair where we had waited. “Jack!, then
louder, JACK!,” until it took a shove and a “Jack” to get
him to respond.
Later, after we arrived at Oxford and were traipsing
to the college (you might think that Hanuman has learned to travel light,
but you would be wrong. Just his assortment of dinner jackets filled one valise),
I was reminding him to look right for cars and buses. “Jack, remember
the traffic flows the other way here.” “Jack!” I yelled
as I grabbed his jersey just in time to prevent him from becoming minced Hanuman
at the hands of a double-decker.
“You know,” he said later, after
several other non-responses to his “schoolboy name,” “I’m
Jean Hanuman, and I think even here they know me by that name by now. Let’s
drop all this Hanson-Winston stuff and have a little fun.”
“You mean Hannon-Winslow, don’t
you, Earl of Colchester?”
That earned me another of Jean’s “looks.”
Jean H. on his favorite bench, rehearsing Marc Antony's address to the
Plebians.
"This was the most unkindest cut of all:
For when noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms,
Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompei's statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Ceasar fell."
As Jean H. concludes, a tear rolls down
his downy cheek, and tears from all who listened in the quad. Even a
student from Oklahoma, listening a his dorm window, wept to hear the
words of Shakespeare delivered by Jean Hanuman.
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Here is Jean with a few of his new friends. "Dear
new friends," he beseeches, "don't quibble over who gets to
spend time with me--I have time for all of you." The absence of Robert
may be explained by Hanuman's Bastille day performance, when he lustily
joined the French residents in the singing of "La
Marseillaise," and spent the evening speaking of wine, philosophy,
and l'amour in his perfect French. For some reason, Robert took
this as an affront--but he will get over it. |