Rainbow Over the Chim Chim Cher-ees

There was once a song from the wonderful Walt Disney film called, ‘Mary Poppins’ made in 1964. I was only 7/8 years old at the time. It was one of the amazing films, that as a child had waiting for the next song and of course that “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” moment. I don’t ever remember having one those. but then I did not understand the meaning of the word until today. Why? because I’d never thought to look it up, as I did not know how to spell it and being dyslexic it was always going to be of those with far too many syllables!

Now I have had the odd (thank goodness for copy and paste on our computers) Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious moment when I was loss for words. Those moment when I did not know what to write, for the day of a particular blip, at the moment of posting. I certainly had one on the sabbatical, when I picked up those postcards for the first time from the printers, seeing my art work in print for the first time. Prior to that, it was possible when I got my degree. Knowing that I had outsmarted all those school reports that said, “David could try harder.” There was never any expectation that I would.

Then there was this image of a rainbow towering over all these chimneys that are part of the Edinburgh skyline. The chimneys in themselves are worth a mention, because we have this architecture resting on the roofs of many city dwellings that are not seen or if they are, become invisible to the naked eye. How many of can remember seeing a chimney sweep, not so much someone arriving in a van looking all very clean these days, but someone who more often than not rode a bicycle with the brush and rods tied to the cross bar, as he moved from one house to the next. There is a song in the Mary Poppins film about a chimney sweep and his trade, with a couple of lines that go:

(v4) “Though I spends me time, In the ashes and soot, In this 'ole wide world, There's no 'appier bloke. (v8) Though I'm covered with soot, From me 'ead to me toes, A sweep knows 'e's welcome, Wherever 'e goes. (v9) Chim chiminey, Chim chiminey, Chim chim cher-ee! When you're with a sweep, You're in glad company.”
(http://www.fpx.de/fp/Disney/Lyrics/MaryPoppins.html)

I can only say that this film must have had some kind of impact on me, because when I see chimneys I think of Mary Poppins, watching the film more than once down at the Waverley Cinema in New Milton on a Saturday afternoon. Likewise, I known that when I see a rainbow, I remember that God will never flood the earth again, because he made a promise to his people and we will always know that this contract is binding whenever a rainbow appears in the sky. I have called into Edinburgh many times over the last ten years and I cannot help but feel the historical, cultural, and architectural influences plays its part on how I view the city and my faith through the lens of my camera.

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Oh my, isn’t copy and paste wonderful? Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was first added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1986, with this meaning attached: The roots of the word have been defined as follows: super- "above", cali- "beauty", fragilistic- "delicate", expiali- "to atone", and -docious "educable", with the sum of these parts signifying roughly "Atoning for educability through delicate beauty." According to the film makers, it is defined as "something to say when you have nothing to say".

Well, all I can say is this, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!