When I saw that t-shirt in a catalog last night my reaction was, “Yes!!”
It refers to the British World War II phrase,
Keep calm and carry on.
And it adds a reminder that if we want to lead rich, meaningful lives we have to be creative as things change. That means keeping our bodies calm so our brains can work.
I taught classes and led groups in stress-hardiness and emotional aikido for about ten years after I retired 26 years ago, so resilience is a hobby of mine. And the “keep calm and carry on” reminds us that our situation isn’t nearly as bad as the WWII British with the bombs raining down on some of their heads and the German U-boats trying to cut off their supplies, including food.
The mustache and term “little grey cells”, of course, refers to Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgium detective in many Agatha Christie mysteries. I’m presently subscribed to Britbox so after I saw the t-shirt I watched an hour-long documentary about Christie. Her last Poirot book, Curtain: Hercule Poirot’s Last Case was written during WW II. According to the documentary, Christie was convinced she wouldn’t survive the war so had the book put in a vault, to be published after her death. She did survive, of course, and the book was published in 1975.
I’ve recently watched a lot of crime/detective programs on Britbox: Vera, Inspector Morse, Shetland, and Death in Paradise, and now, thanks to the t-shirt, I’m starting to watch Poirot for the first time. Fun stuff. 🙂
November 29, 2020
you will LOVE Poirot! (only as David Suchet plays him.)
he and Miss Marple (Joan Hickson) are just the BEST!
and … what a great t-shirt!
XOXO
Yes, I watched the documentary first to see which Poirot I should watch. 🙂
I have not seen any of these shows. But for sure the World War ll people had it so much more frightening than we do now. All things must pass.
Yes. Patience and fortitude. 🙂
Jenny and I wonder all the time why people are making such a fuss about a few basic virus precautions, when people living through WW2 had to deal with blackouts, bombs, demolished houses, rationing, military casualties, and much worse restrictions than face masks and distancing.
We love Shetland. Also The Valhalla Murders (now on BBC4) and the Undoing (now on Sky Atlantic).
Apparently The Vahalla Murders are on Netflix, which I’ll subscribe to for a month after my Britbox subscription expires on Dec 3. It has the latest season of the Great British Baking Show…called a bake off where you are I think. I love that program because it’s so friendly. Here cooking/baking competitions emphasize the big prizes at the end and try to stir up competition and even hard feelings. That’s so sad. 🙁
I’ve never watched any of those. Thats a great shirt
Yes, I love the shirt. 🙂
I should get that shirt for my son! He practically defines ‘cool’ … and, in fact, is fond of advising me to “embrace the chaos.”
For me it was “What’s the opportunity here?” About 27 years ago both my and Andy’s divisions were having financial problems and it looked as if we both might be out of jobs. I asked that question and said, “I can become an expert on stress management!” So I did.
Actually I need that tattooed on me somewhere that it couldn’t be erased because I definitely do not keep calm most of the time. And I have never learned to embrace the chaos like what Myra said her son does. The virus makes me anxious and worried and I want to hide my head in the sand but I have a husband who watches news all day everyday so it can never get away from it. Yes I agree the war was a whole lot worse than the virus
That’s not a fun way to live, but there is plenty of help out there if you want it. One recent article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/well/mind/election-anxiety-stress-relief-calm.html
I hadn’t read the whole thing before, but it has a cute video I’ll post about in a couple of days. You might skip today’s (Monday, November 30) post.
I have watched all those…have you watced Endeavour? Not sure if it is on Britbox or anywhere….but it is Morse when he was young. It is one of our favorites. And watch Foyle’s War if you can find it. It is about a detective during WWII. It is so well done…I have so many to tell you to look for. but have to leave now…
Yes, I love Endeavor even better than Morse, which is how I got started with E. I watched Foyle’s War on Netflix years ago and I love him. I’ll probably rewatch the series again some time if I can find it.
There are a lot of “keep calm and…” memes on the web. I have not seen this one.
This is the first time I’ve seen it, and it resonated.
ALL wars are worse than any pandemic…in my opinion. As for Britain being bombed, Churchill became a hero & legend in his own time. But, that has nothing to do with Britbox…all the commercials look great, but, we won’t spend money to watch
Do you have over-the-air TV or cable? I started with Netflix years ago, when they were still using disks, not streaming. I used to love walking and took a long one every day. Then I had trouble with a foot and had to stop. Instead of getting depressed and not exercising I invested in Netflix videos and exercised at home in front of them. It was a great decision…the more I watch, the more exercise I get and the better I feel.
As much as I love murder mysteries, especially British ones, I never liked Poirot – either in books or films…Britbox and Acorn are great. We’ve had them both since they became available – at one time we were watching so much British TV we started to acquire accents LOL tho Scottish and Geordie accents still elude us, I have to turn on the caption feature for those.
Apparently Christie didn’t like him either. According to Wikipedia,
How funny is that? In the couple of episodes I’ve just watched he isn’t that bad, but I don’t like him enough to watch much more. At the moment I’m going back to history lectures on The Great Courses Plus.
I’m not sure we can compare the “war times” with the “pandemic times” – as both have difficulties depending on how you “had lived before either” – in this new time period, a lot of people seemed to be “travellers” – they cruised, the were digital nomads, lived on the road, bunny hopped from country to country – and NOW they are stuck – some more than others…
Whereas in the “war times” probably not a lot of people travelled much further than their local workplace, went a 100 miles to a seaside town, if they could even get there easily…and there probably wasn’t as much panic buying as we have seen almost everywhere in the world, and that might have had a lot to do with less communication tools that a “shortage might incur” of course the shortages did occur, but there seemed to the resilience that CM is talking about…
I know at the beginning of our lockdown, it never occurred to me that my usual online avenue to acquiring food would disappear – and it took a few weeks to work through “how to have said food here…” and that to some degree changed as well. But I survived…
I’m afraid people in Europe in the midst of WWII would have loved to have changed places with us. I keep thinking of The Diary of Anne Frank and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.