"Like many nursery rhymes, "Jack Sprat" may have originated as a satire on a public figure. History writer Linda Alchin suggests that Jack was King Charles I, who was left "lean" when parliament denied him taxation, but with his queen Henrietta Maria he was free to "lick the platter clean" after he dissolved parliament—Charles was a notably short man.An alternative explanation comes from the popular Robin Hood legend, applying it to the disliked King John and his greedy queen Isabella.
The saying entered the canon of English nursery rhymes when it was printed in Mother Goose's Melody around 1765, but it may have been adopted for use with children much earlier.
Here's the 1639 version:
Jack will eat not fat, and Jull doth love no leane. Yet betwixt them both they lick the dishes cleane.
And today? The Jack Sprat diet plan uses a guided day-by-day approach geared to gender, size and physical activity level...yes, it is a low-fat diet.
Wellington, Edward and Annie lived a quiet life. It would be considered very confined, really, in their small place. While there were lots of people around, they didn't get to go lots of places. They were stuck where they were because where they were was the Chicago Shedd Aquarium.
Then the pandemic came. Living in an Aquarium, it was suddenly quiet, and it was really isolated. The caretakers thought that Wellington and his friends might take a field trip through the aquarium. And this would give some publicity to the aquarium during the quiet times of 2020. It turned out to be tremendously popular, and Wellington, the penguin, became a star.
There are a number of YouTube videos and Wellington with the Beluga whale and the otters is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAEu8DPq2-YThere's another episode of the three of them walking through the theatre aisles. Penguins are really fun to watch. Everything they do is cute.
It turns out that Wellington may be the oldest living penguin at over 33 years, and that he's distinctive for contributing to medicine having had cataract surgery. Here are a few screen shots that show what made this so compelling to us - pandemic or no pandemic, this is photogenic material.
I also saw a subsequent episode with them visiting Soldier Field, and running through the grass. Given that was 2020, I would expect there might be well over a dozen now. How many places has Wellington been now?
Our picture of the day is a pastel Calla Lily portrait.
