JoeXP is using SimilarWorlds.
Join SimilarWorlds today »

This profile may contain Adult content.

32

JoeXP

56-60, M

United Kingdom

Straight

Discussion, Private Chat, Stories

Message Favorite

2575 views · 157 followers · Online: See Last Online »

Handsome, witty, debonair - just a few of the epithets nobody ever applied to me

Posts Photos Friends Forums Gifts Whiteboard

More Collections »

1-25 of 135

Walking on Water - true or symbolic?

I often wonder why the gospels say Jesus performed the miracles he did. Why on earth did he decide to walk on water. It seems to be such a strange thing to do. Is it really just that he had literally missed the boat? I am not any sort of biblical... See More »

Neglected Nineteenth Century Novels - Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant

Margaret Oliphant Oliphant (so good they named her twice) (1828 – 1897) was a highly prolific Scottish novelist, biographer, historian, and periodical writer of the Victorian era. Born Margaret Oliphant Wilson in Wallyford, near Musselburgh in East... See More »

(1)

The Beggar’s Opera

I love The Beggar’s Opera a 1728 ballad opera in three acts by English poet and dramatist John Gay satirising three separate things: • Italian opera (parodying its conventions such as three acts, a prison scene, rival “divas,” and a forced happy... See More »

(3)

Neglected Nineteenth Century Novels - The Heart of Midlothian

I love nineteenth century fiction and much of it is sadly neglected nowadays. How many of you have read Walter Scott I wonder? Yet at one time he was the most famous author in the world, so renowned that a massive 200 foot high monument to him can... See More »

Neglected Nineteenth Century Literature - Miss or Mrs?

I’m very fond of the lesser known works of Victorian fiction. Miss or Mrs?' is a novella by Wilkie Collins which poses a number of the sort of ethical and moral problems that Collins likes to tackle. The lovely and precocious Natalie has been... See More »

Why did Jesus curse a fig tree?

I’m no biblical scholar, I’m just taking a new look at things in the Gospels that I never understood as a child. I do believe that Jesus was a real person, but see no reason to believe in most Christian doctrine. Research for this and some... See More »

Forgotten Musicals - Arthur Sullivan and The Beauty Stone

You’ve probably only heard of Arthur Sullivan writing comic operas with WS Gilbert, but he also wrote a number of other works such as Haddon Hall with lyricist Sidney Grundy. One of the oddest and most controversial of these other works is The... See More »

(2)

Discussion of The Beatitudes

You are always taught the beatitudes from the sermon on the mount as children. You envisage Jesus standing there on what… a little mound or a rock or something so that everyone can see him telling the crowd what they have to do to see the kingdom... See More »

Forgotten Languages

Two songs in lost languages of the UK and Ireland. They are sung by people who have some remaining knowledge of the languages. Before I provide translations see if you can identify the languages and what they are singing about. 1. 2.

Wild Mountain Thyme

I always liked the song Wild Mountain Thyme. Like many folk songs it has a long and complex history. Its modern form is a mid-20th-century adaptation by Belfast musician Francis McPeake of an earlier Scottish song, The Braes of Balquidder, by the... See More »

A discussion of the wedding at Cana

I always thought the Wedding at Cana a very odd miracle. The story of Jesus’ first miracle appears only in the Gospel of John and is apparently unknown to Mark, who was very keen on miracles. It recounts Jesus attending a wedding in Cana of... See More »

Discussion of the Pericope Adulterae

Of the many events associated with the story of Jesus that of the woman taken in adultery, also known as the Pericope Adulterae, stands out as a quintessential example of his teaching. The Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery, citing the... See More »

Bernstein’s most personal musical - Trouble in Tahiti

Leonard Bernstein needs no introduction as a composer. Everyone knows West Side Story and Candide. Trouble in Tahiti is less well known. It is a one-act opera/musical/piece of musical theatre, in seven scenes for which he wrote both the music and... See More »

(2)

My Other Great Aunt

There were three sisters, all named after daughters of Queen Victoria, living in the big house. Beatrice was the eldest, born I guess around 1900 she would have been expected to get married in the 1920s, but blessed with an unprepossessing... See More »

Apocryphal Gospels

There are of course lots of non-canonical gospels. Some suppressed because they were regarded s heretical and some ignored because they were obviously unreliable. I rather like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas supposedly written by Thomas the... See More »

Wimbledon History

As Wimbledon gets underway I thought it would be interesting to remember the winner of the longest lady’s tennis final ever. Muriel Robb (1878-1907) was the only child of William David Robb and Ellen Mary Robb. She attended Cheltenham Ladies’... See More »

My Other Grandmother

I always thought of my family as boring. A boring middle class family in boring Middle England. Where were all those Celtic ancestors, fighting Slavs, romantic Frenchmen that everybody else seemed to be descended from. As far as I could see every... See More »

(1)

I remember my paternal grandmother. She died many years ago now at a great advanced age. A wrinkled, domineering old crone manipulating the family with talk of her share of the family fortune. The family had gone from pitmen to owners of the most... See More »

Trying to play the violin

I learned it at school but was chucked out the violin class after the first year for being totally useless. It looks so easy when you see people in the orchestra playing. But it’s really hard. Well, I found it hard anyway. So I’ve taken it up... See More »

Forgotten Musicals - Vivian Ellis and Bless the Bride

Vivian Ellis (1903–1996) was a prominent English composer, lyricist, and musician best known for his work in British musical comedy and light music during the 1920s–1950s. Born Vivian John Herman Ellis on 29 October 1903 in Hampstead, London, into... See More »

(2)

Paul Abraham's Roxy and her Wonder Team

Paul Abraham is one of my favourite composers of European musicals. I have written about him before, but with the World Cup coming up this summer I thought a look at one of my favourites - Roxy und ihr Wunderteam (Roxy and her Wonder Team). Who... See More »

(2)

Land of the Mountain and the Flood - Hamish MacCunn

And of course something to illustrate Scotland. Not Mendelssohn this time but the much neglected Hamish MacCunn. This is me in the north west highlands many a long year since.

The Banks of Green Willow - George Butterworth

I do love this piece so evovative of the English countryside.

Forgotten Musicals - George and Ira Gershwin and Of Thee I Sing

We all know about George Gershwin (born Jacob Gershwine in Brooklyn, New York, on September 26, 1898) who was the second son in the family. He began formal music lessons around age 12–13, left school at 15 to work as a “song plugger” (demonstrating... See More »

(2)

Forgotten Musicals - Alfred Cellier and Dorothy

Two works are considered to be the first examples of modern musicals as we know them today. Alfred Cellier’s Dorothy and Edward Jakobowski’s Erminie. I personally prefer Dorothy so I have chosen it for today’s forgotten musical. Dorothy is a music... See More »

(2)

1-25 of 135