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BACK NEXT Summer 2008 Issue 45 Letter from the Editor Grand Lodge News News and Views On The Level International News Beyond the Craft Perambulating the Lodge Masonic Dining and Celebration Interview: The Grand Chancellor The Orator Walking the Way of Saint James Abd el-Kader: Algerian Nationalist and Freemason Province of Cambridgeshire Library & Museum Brother Lightfoote's Journal Review: Committed to the Flames Review: The Mythology of Secret Societies Review: The Dawn of Astrology Letters to the Editor Internet Library & Museum of Freemasonry Grand Lodge Quarterly Communication Convocation of Supreme Grand Chapter RMBI Masonic Samaritan Fund Grand Charity RMTGB Canon Richard Tydeman: Looking unto the Rock Copyright 1997-2008 Grand Lodge Publications Ltd Designed and Maintained by: Cyberpoint Limited

MASONIC HUMOUR Stiletto Stiletto Museums these days are so keen to count their clientele and steer them shopwards that an army of lackeys are employed to propel them through the portals; not so the Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum, Queen Street, Edinburgh. After a brief and solitary loiter on the step, I passed on the two moribund-looking bells in the wall and went for a newer one set in a brass door panel. Its distant ring was followed by a friendly click. I chose one of the three sets of imposing doors and happily the handle gave under my hand. Safely inside I climbed the stairs and found myself ... Stiletto Try to picture the scene, please. Old friend is draped over pink sofa with restorative glass of wine. She is in the throes of a sobering and maturing task, the clearing out and disposing of the contents of a house, her parents-in-laws’ house, who, after celebrating their diamond wedding, had died romantically within a week of each other. “You’ll never believe what we have found. There’s all this stuff. Masonic stuff. John’s brought it back here. I can’t think why. It’s filled half the spare room. What can we do with it? There are books, papers, er.. and an apron.. in a box… with a fur lining ... Stiletto Stiletto is so anxious to pick up curious information about Freemasonry that she is reduced to asking unsuspecting men about the origins of their cufflinks. This has proved so far fruitless, in that as yet it has only yielded a number of wordy expositions on the founders, mottos and coats of arms of various Oxford colleges. (One friend confided her husband insisted on changing his socks immediately before meetings, but hopefully this practice is not specifically related to Freemasonry.) I asked my mother. She, usefully, has lived all her life alongside Freemasons ... Stiletto In Edinburgh we are enjoying the sort of weather that lends itself to stravaiging. That means aimlessly wandering the streets to catch the whisper of pre-festival hype. The pavement artists have not yet established their territory, but the jewellery sellers are here, the bars are moving into a higher gear and the junk-shop; oops, antique shop proprietors are doing the same, bringing their wares onto the pavements under the glare of the police and sitting on their own furniture to smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and bask in the rare sunshine ... Stiletto Were the plans for the New Town of Edinburgh based on the same principles as the Temple of Solomon and the Great Pyramid? See The Eye, Spring issue and note that the distance from the vestibule of the current Royal Bank of Scotland building in St Andrew’s Square and a point near the corner of Charlotte Square and Glenfinlas Street, if divided by the distance between Prince’s Street and Queen Street gives something near the value of pi. (No calculators, please). Snippets of information of this sort merely confirm the view of those who live here that the city is on a par with ... Stiletto Forty-something, dressed tidily in grey and white, sinks into her booked seat on the Edinburgh to London train. It’s heaven. No-one can ring me up – (no mobile, no intention of having a mobile). I may well have left something cooking unattended in the house but I am not there to man the fire extinguisher. If my loved ones return to a smouldering heap it will be six whole hours before I hear about it. Meanwhile I have an ever-changing view, a packet of cashew nuts to nibble and a copy of Malcolm Gray’s The Highland Economy, because I’m researching a book ...   Stiletto © Grand Lodge Publications Ltd 1997-2008