No 'chuntering' allowed on the House floor

One of my favorite bits of TV occurs early each Wednesday at 4 a.m. (Pacific Time) while I am still sound asleep. Across the Atlantic, eight time zones away from California, as London's Big Ben strikes noon (British Time), it's time for Prime Minister's Questions. Thank goodness for my DVR.

You just never know what you might learn from the British.

Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster,
home of the British Parliament.
(Photo: Michael Dickens, 2005.)

Each Wednesday, when Parliament is in session, Prime Minister's Questions (PMQ) takes place on the floor of the British House of Commons, and it is broadcast live in the United States by C-SPAN2 (7 a.m ET/4 a.m. PT). If you've never seen PMQ, it can be best described as a verbal boxing match, full of high drama, that lasts for about 30 minutes and allows for the opposition leader and other members of Parliament of all parties to grill the Prime Minister with questions on important matters of state and foreign affairs.

PMQ also serves its American audience with an up-close, yet entertaining, look at the art and style of British political culture.  Perhaps, our politicians could learn a thing or two from their British counterparts.

My favorite part of PMQ happens early on when David Cameron, the current prime minister, goes face-to-face with the opposition leader.  Until earlier this year, Mr. Cameron was the opposition leader, and believe me, he found utter joy in sparing with former prime minister Gordon Brown. Often, the lively and passionate Cameron got the best of the droll Brown in these exchanges of spirited oratory and debate. Most weeks, Brown looked like he would rather be anywhere than on the floor of the House being put to task by the Tories. Before Brown, Tony Blair took great delight in being quick-witted with his answers and defending the dignity of the Labour Party.


Last week, Mr. Cameron faced new opposition leader Ed Miliband for the first time.

http://www.newsonnews.net/parliament/5033-prime-ministers-questions-october-13th.html (PMQ starts on the video at 12:00:00).

While this first exchange between the leaders of the Conservative (Tory) and Labour parties wasn't particularly memorable ~ in fact, Mr. Miliband appeared a bit nervous ~ what struck me as funny, and got my attention, was when the Speaker of the House, John Bercow, used the power of the English language to defuse the cantankerous cat calls coming from Tory MPs, who were trying to fluster the young Mr. Miliband, while also lecturing them on decorum.

While PMQ isn't quite a no-holds-barred exchange, there's plenty of partisan bantering, whistling, shouts of "Hear, hear" and, occasionally, laughter.  For a moment, you might have thought you were taking in a night of British theater in the West End.  

Thank goodness, the Speaker, who presides over PMQ and determines which members may speak, steps in from time to time to maintain order and civility during the debate and lecture the MPs on courtesy and manners.  This week, not only was Bercow a master thespian, he also played the role of college professor very well, indeed.  To wit:

http://www.newsonnews.net/parliament/5033-prime-ministers-questions-october-13th.html (Fast forward to 12:10:40).

Mr Speaker: "Order. The Leader of the Opposition will be heard, and if there are colleagues chuntering away who then hope to catch the eye of the Chair, I am afraid they are deluded."

Immediately, I made a mental note to myself:  "Need to look up the word 'chunter' and find out what the Speaker was lecturing the MPs about."  Sure enough, I typed the world "chunter" into the search engine for dictionary.com and here's what I found:

chun·ter:

Verb (used without object) British Informal; to grumble or to grouse mildly, or tediously.

Origin: 1590-1600;  original dialect (Midlands, N. England) chunter, chunder, chunner;  cf. Scots channer in same sense; expressive word of obscure origin.

So, there you have it, a new word for the day: chunter.  It rhymes with punter. Now, if only I can find a way to work chunter into a proper conversation among friends.

Yes, you just never know what you might learn from our friends across the ocean.

Validating our travel experiences

The 19th Century Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, himself a travel writer, once penned: "For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.  The great affair is to move."

And, if digital cameras had existed during Stevenson's lifetime, perhaps, he would have added to his travel experience by taking pictures, too.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris
2004

Like Stevenson, I enjoy travel for travel's sake.  Europe fascinates me and I can't wait to revisit Chicago and New Orleans, two of my favorite American cities.  There's always a discovery, or two, awaiting me on each trip.  As someone who particularly loves urban travel, I look forward to seeing iconic landmarks ~ not just to admire and learn about them in detail, but to photograph them, too. Up close and personal, they are amazingly larger than life not to mention extremely photogenic, too.

Big Ben in London
2005

For me, documenting iconic landmarks validates my travel. Just a few "icons" I've been fortunate to see and digitally document include:  The Eiffel Tower in Paris, Big Ben in London, and closer to home, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Last weekend, perusing hundreds of digital travel photographs stored on my MacBook Pro reminded me of countless pictures I've shot of the Space Needle in Seattle, both during daylight and at nighttime. Because we have long-time friends living in the Emerald City, Seattle is a frequent and enjoyable travel destination for us ~ and the Space Needle, that iconic landmark of the Pacific Northwest, always is there to welcome us.

Bumbershoot:
The Space Needle
at twilight, 2006

Although I've lost count, we've probably made at least 20 visits to Seattle over the past 15 years.  It's a relative short flight from the Bay Area to Seattle ~ about 90 minutes ~ and, a route well travelled by both Alaska and Southwest airlines. Many of our visits have coincided with attending Bumbershoot, Seattle's annual music and arts festival, held over Labor Day weekend on the Seattle Center grounds where the Space Needle prominently resides.

The Space Needle:
Seattle's iconic landmark
after dark
at Bumbershoot, 2009

Thus, photographing the Space Needle, which was constructed for the 1962 Seattle's World's Fair, is a long-standing tradition of mine whenever we visit.  It doesn't matter that the appearance of the Space Needle, whose top floor observation deck is 520 feet above ground (an antenna extends the height to 605 feet) and provides beautiful views not only of the downtown Seattle skyline but also of Mount Rainier, the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges and of Elliott Bay and the surrounding islands, hasn't changed much.

A difference of 40 years:
The Experience Music Project
and the Space Needle, 2008

What does matter and makes a difference to me is this: There are so many different and interesting angles and locations to frame a shot of an iconic landmark, like the Space Needle.  Standing in line to enter the Sky Church of the Frank O. Gehry-designed Experience Music Project remains one of my favorite shots because of how it captured in one frame a difference of 40 years of Seattle architecture, the compression of space, and the appearance of a wisp of a cloud ~ and I decided to tilt the camera (something I don't often do) for a different effect.  That's what makes the discovery, and documenting it with a photograph, fun for me.

While a picture may be worth a thousand words, sometimes, it's the touch of a colorful, personal photograph that speaks more eloquently than any picture postcard can.

All photographs by Michael Dickens, copyright 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009.