Concierge

Concierge (pronounced kon-see-airzh or kawn-syerzh (French))

(1) A person who has charge of the entrance of a building and is sometimes the owner's representative; a doorkeeper.  Historically, the role is most associated with residential buildings in large French cities but the role is increasingly common in both residential and commercial buildings in many countries.

(2) A member of a hotel staff in charge of certain services for guests including (1) those provided for a fee by third parties including securing tickets for the theatre, tours or other entertainment, taxis, airport transfers etc and (2) internal hotel matters such as baggage handling, delivering and collecting laundry, providing directions etc.  Many do offer certain services such as hire-cars (and most famously prostitution) on the basis of secret commissions.

(3) An employee stationed in an apartment house lobby who screens visitors, controls operation of elevators, accepts deliveries to the tenants, etc.

(4) A custodian or warden of a prison (obsolete).

(5) As concierge medicine (also known as retainer medicine), pertaining to or being medical care for which the patient pays the doctor an annual fee, either for special or additional services or to guarantee priority attention when required.

(6) A synonym of conciergerie or concergius (obsolete).

(7) As shopping concierge, a part of the gig-economy which offers personal assistance in shopping in a particular area, additionally providing services (such as international shipping) which may not be offered by a retailer.  Shopping concierges charge usually either by time or a percentage of the transactions effected (or a combination of both) and it's assumed secret commissions are also paid by retailers.  In an informal sense, the idea has been extended to the finance sector where concierge is sometimes used as slang to describe brokers.

1640-1650: From the twelfth century French concierge (caretaker, doorkeeper of a hotel, apartment house, prison etc; porter of uncertain origin.   It may have been from the Old French cumserges, which may be from the Vulgar Latin conservius, from the Latin conservus (fellow slave), an assimilated form, the construct being con- (from com-) (with, together) + serviēns, present participle of servīre (to serve) and related both to servius (slave) and the modern “serve”.  The con- prefix was from the Middle English con-, from the Latin con-, from the preposition cum (with), from the Old Latin com, from the Proto-Italic kom, from the primitive Indo- European ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).  It was cognate with the Proto-Germanic ga- (co-), the Proto-Slavic sъ(n) (with) and the Proto-Germanic hansō.  It was used with certain words to add a notion similar to those conveyed by with, together, or joint or with certain words to intensify their meaning.  Servus was from the Proto-Italic serwos (guardian), from the primitive Indo-European serwos (guardian) which may be related to ser- (watch over, protect); it was cognate with servō and the Avestan haraiti (he heeds, protects).  In Latin, over the years, servus (genitive servī, feminine serva) could be used to mean servant, serf or slave.  The suggestion, attributed to nineteenth century French novelists, that concierge is a contraction of comte des cierges (a servant responsible for maintaining the lighting and cleanliness of medieval palaces (literally “count of candles”) is considered a figment of the literary imagination.  Like English, some languages (such as German and Portuguese adopted the French spelling while others produced variants including the Catalan conserge, the Russian консье́рж (konsʹjérž), the Serbo-Croatian консијерж (konsijerž) and the Spanish conserje.  Concierge is a noun; the noun plural is concierges.

In historic documents, concierge appears sometimes to be a synonym for a number of roles but many of these are historically (and sometimes geographically) specific including castle-keeper, lodge-keeper of a château and jailor (or keeper) in a prison.  Even in modern use, there’s some overlap in function and a caretaker, custodian or janitor will perform some of the roles associated with a concierge but not all.  The greatest degree of overlap occurs in city hotels, the larger having clear distinctions between the duties undertaken by commissioners (doormen), porters and a concierge proper but these demarcations blur or disappear in smaller operations.  Concierge can be a concept as well as an individual, some hotels having concierge departments but staffing them without using anyone with the exact title.  In the France of L'Ancien Régime, the title was once attached to a high royal official of the household.  When the spellings (the original Latinized forms) were concergius or concergerius, the role was that of the guardian of a house or castle and in the later middle ages it came to be used for the court official who acted as the custodian of a royal palace.  In Paris, circa 1360, as the Palais de la Cité ceased to be a royal residence and became the seat of the courts of justice, the Conciergerie was turned into a prison, an institution for which L'Ancien Régime sometimes had great need. As late as the year leading up to World War I (1914-1918), in Europe it was common for a hotel's concierge to be referred to as a a "Suisse", reflecting the frequency with which men from Switzerland filled the role.

The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or

Escutcheon of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or.

The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or is the international organization of hotel lobby concierges.  Now with chapters in many countries, it was registered originally in Paris in 1929 as the Union Internationale des Concierges d'Hôtels (UICH) and this identity was maintained formally until 1995 when, at the 42nd International Congress held in Sydney, Australia, a resolution was passed changing the name to Union Internationale des Clefs d'Or (UICO).  The international membership now exceeds 4000.  Properly pronounced as lay-clay-door, the literal translation from French is keys of gold, reflected in their membership symbol, most frequently seen as the twinned lapel pins worn by members, something remarkably similar to the escutcheon of the Holy See and neither the Vatican nor the Les Clefs d’Or has ever denied that a relationship may exist.  To become a member of Les Clefs d’Or, one must be at least twenty-one years of age, of good moral character and active within their concierge community.  Additionally, they must be employed by hotels in the usual sense of the word (not corporate or residential buildings) and have been employed thus for a minimum of five years (two if that service has been under the supervision of a member).  Also, the desk at which they work must have a sign that includes the word “concierge.”  Approval of membership is subject to the provision of documents, sponsorship by two existing members and a formal interview process.

Promotional poster for Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter (1974)), directed by Liliana Cavani (b 1933).  Note the crossed keys of the Les Clefs d'Or or Bogart's lapel.

Novelists and film makers have often been fond of concierges, presumably because they can be used as a quasi-narrator or linkage device between protagonists, the dramatic and comedic potential frequently (though not always convincingly) explored.  The best film in this sub-genre remains the cult favourite The Night Porter (1974), set in the high cold war Vienna of 1957 and starring Dirk Bogarde (1921–1999) as former Nazi concentration camp officer and Charlotte Rampling (b 1946) who had been one of his youthful inmates and one upon whom he imposed a sadomasochistic relationship.  Although not without flaws in its editing, The Night Porter is memorably evocative of the era and is more highly regarded now than at the time of its release.  In 2018 it was one of the films included in the Venice Classics at the Venice International Film Festival.

Dirk Bogart in The Night Porter with the paired crossed keys of the Les Clefs d'Or on the lapels.

Most concierges aren’t sadomasochistic (as far as is known) but they can still be involved in bizarre stuff.  One former member of the secret society is Australian Elvis Soiza (concierge at 111 Eagle Street, Brisbane) who says he can procure anything (as long as it's legal).  No longer a member because the Les Clefs d’Or restricts its rolls to those working in hotels, he notes there’s remarkably little difference between what’s done in a corporate building and a luxury hotel, the concierge still the “human face to a property” and one there to “offer advice, sooth, inform, entertain and organise”.  He sums up such buildings as “a hotel without bedrooms” (although Elon Musk may have blurred things a bit).

Lindsay Lohan usurping the escutcheon of the Les Clefs d'Or (digitally altered image).

During his years in hotels, Mr Soiza had many interesting requests but the most remarkable came in London during the 1980s when a Middle Eastern sheik asked him to arrange a pink elephant as a birthday surprise for his wife.  Thinking he needed a large stuffed toy he began to peruse the Harrods’ catalogue, only to be told the sheik wanted a real elephant, painted pink.  It took some doing, requiring Mr Soiza to coordinate a local circus, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), local government (it's not clear which one, the Greater London Council (GLC, 1965-1986) was in 1986 dissolved by the Thatcher government with its responsibilities assigned to existing borough councils), the Indian High Commission and the Metropolitan Police but, within twelve hours, he’d secured an elephant, had it painted pink, obtained the required permit and, with a police escort, had the beast led to the hotel in time for the birthday party.  Quite remarkable.

The original image (left), the photoshopped fake (centre) and an actual African pink elephant (a form of partial albinism).

Pink elephants are of course hard to find in London but they're rare anywhere.  On the internet, there have been claims the creatures can be found in parts of India, the color the result of the red soil in the environment, the creatures spraying dust on their hides to protect themselves from biting insects.  However, it turned out to be fake news, the supporting evidence created with Photoshop and wildlife experts that while elephants cover themselves in mud, this doesn’t change the colour of their skin.  It's true there is a rare genetic disorder (technically a form of albinism) which can result in the skin of young African elephants displaying a slight pink hue but it's nothing like the vivid hot pink in the Photoshopped fake news.

Collar

Collar (pronounced kol-er)

(1) The part of a shirt, coat, dress, blouse, etc that encompasses the neckline of the garment and is sewn permanently to it, often so as to fold or roll over.

(2) A similar but separate, detachable article of clothing worn around the neck or at the neckline of a garment.

(3) Anything worn or placed around the neck.

(4) In law enforcement, a slang term for securing an arrest.

(5) In metalworking, a piece rolled to wrap itself around a roller.

(6) In biology, a marking or structure resembling a collar, such as that found around the necks of some birds.

(7) In engineering, a section of a shaft or rod having a locally increased diameter to provide a bearing seat or a locating ring

(8) In butchery, a cut of meat, especially bacon, from the neck of an animal.

(9) In ancient chivalric orders, a symbol of membership.

(10) In jewelry, an ornament for the neck, a variant of which is the choker.

(11) In rehabilitative medicine, a device worn around the neck to support the head.

(12) In architecture, a variety of beams and ties which are structural elements in roof framing between rafters.

(13) In baseball, a slang term for a player getting no hits in a game.

(14) In plumbing, a type of sleeve used to join two tubes.

(15) In industrial power generation, a piece of hardware used on power transmission devices as a mechanical stop, locating device, or bearing face.

(16) In the profession of the hangman, the knot of the noose (archaic).

(17) In extractive underground mining, a curb or a horizontal timbering around the mouth of a shaft.

(18) In botany, the neck or line of junction between the root of a plant and its stem.

(19) A ring-like part of a mollusk in connection with the esophagus.

(20) In nautical architecture, an eye formed in the bight or bend of a shroud or stay to go over the masthead; also, a rope to which certain parts of rigging, as dead-eyes, are secured.

(21) In financial market jargon, a trading strategy using options in a ways that there exists both an upper limit on profit and a lower limit on loss, constructed through taking equal but opposite positions in put and call options with different strike prices.

1250–1300: From the Middle English coler from the Anglo-French colier & Old French coler, derived from the Latin collāre (neckband, collar), the construct being coll (truncation of collum (neck)) + āre (neuter (as noun) suffix of āris).  Ultimate source was the primitive Indo-European kwol(o) (neck) which entered both the Old Norse and the Middle Dutch as hals (neck), literally "that on which the head turns" from the root kwel (move round, turn about).

The meaning "border at the neck of a garment” emerged in the fourteenth century and all meanings since are in some way analogous.  Collier exists in Modern French, again from the Latin; cognate with the Gothic hals, the Old English heals and the Spanish cuello.

Collars

Noted for slogans rather than imaginative linguistic flourishes, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister since 2018), a confessed meat-eater, was so shocked at the tactics some rabid vegans had used to disrupt the slaughter industry's supply chains, he was moved to describe the protesters, inter alia, as “green-collar criminals”.  He’d likely have preferred to label them eco-terrorists and have them locked-up somewhere but may have been advised that might be unlawful or at least hyperbolic.  Interestingly the phrase “green-collar crime” is used both to describe some of the actions of activists and the environmental damage against which they’re protesting; it’s not clear which meaning will prevail and it's an amusing if confusing co-existence.

It’s among the most recent of the “collar” words, all variations of the old white-blue collar delineation (except the ecclesiastical dog collar which is from the nineteenth century).  Blue collar worker was used first in 1924 to describe the working class, an allusion to the hard-wearing blue denim they stereotypically wore.  White-collar worker was coined in the 1930s by US writer Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) in connection with those absorbed in clerical, administrative and managerial functions.  Used mostly in economics and sociology, the collars have been handy (if imprecise) definitional shorthand in both academic and other writing.

Blue collar:  Originally, a member of the working class who performs manual work and earns either an hourly wage or is paid a piece rate.  The labor market in recent decades has changed so much that for economists it may now be a useless or al least misleading term although culturally, it is still of real utility.   

White collar:  Historically, salaried professionals, office workers and management; ie clean, safe jobs in pleasant physical environments although for many, salaries were low.

Pink collar: Now probably obsolete, it described a member of the working class in the service industry in occupations such as waiters and retail or other roles involving relations with people.  Origin of the term was the need to describe the rapidly expanding employment in service industries during the 1990s and its overwhelmingly female demographic.  Now treated as sexist, there were suggestions it could morph into something gender-neutral but it didn’t work as well and is now close to extinct although the companion pink collar crime endures and remains a descriptor of white collar crimes committed by women where the loot stolen is of relatively low-value.

Gold collar:  A highly skilled multi-disciplinarian who combines the intellectual and practical skills of both white & blue collar employees.

Red collar:  Government workers of all types.  In China, it refers also to Communist Party officials working in private companies, the implication being they’re placed there for some party purpose; similar in both function and ultimate purpose but different in ideology to the old party commissars.  

Grey collar: Skilled technicians, typically someone whose role is a mix of white and blue collar (although some say the distinction between grey and gold is a bit vague; notion is that gold are higher paid than grey).  Like gold, grey collar is a recent invention which seems not to have caught on; both may die out.

New collar:  Jobs said to require the technical and soft skills needed to work with contemporary technology industry; often associated with a non-traditional education path.  Cynics suggest it’s there to describe university drop-outs whose start-ups work out ok.

Happy times in dog collars.  Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023, left) with his predecessor as Archbishop of Melbourne, Sir Frank Little (1925–2008, right).

Dog collar:  Christian clergy (although, technically, only a sub-set of the whole); now rarely seen outside of churches and courtrooms.  In the public consciousness, such is the association of the male clergy with pedophilia that the clergy, when out and about, usually do so in disguise (mufti).  That's actually not new.  One of the (many) reasons Jesuit priests were once so mistrusted was that they tended not to wear clerical garb, claiming the wearing of everyday clothes permitted them to be closer to the people.  Actually, it was just a trick so they could spy on them.

No collar:  Artists, the precariously employed and others who tend to privilege passion and personal growth over financial gain.

Orange collar:  Prison laborers, named for the orange jumpsuits most associated with inmates in the US prison system.

Green collar:  Workers in a wide range of professions relating to the environment and renewable energy.  Confusingly, green collar crime is used by both sides to describe the actions of their opponents in that activists refer to those accused of causing environmental damage as green collar criminals whereas the slaughter industry uses the same label for the radical vegans who disrupt their production or distribution.

Scarlet collar:  Prostitutes and ancillary staff (brothel receptionists et al included in an example of the way the "collar" labels are sometimes applied to industry sectors as well as specific occupations).

Black collar:  Originally used to describe manual laborers in jobs when workers habitually become very dirty although it has been extended to those working in the illicit black economy.  Of late it’s been applied also to (1) the pro-gun movement in the US, (2) artists who have adopted black clothing by choice and (3) those in insecure, low-paid employment.  The meaning may now be too diluted to be of much use.

Virtual collar:  Robots performing manual repetitive tasks, both physical and virtual but has been used also to describe the cheap, mobile technology capital uses as a tool of control.

Rainbow collar:  Workers in industries which serve or are most identified with the LGBTQQIAAOP community.  This was once a largely volunteer movement but increasing has a paid-labor component.  The adjectival rainbow, in polite society, has now wholly supplanted pink (eg the earlier pink dollar), partly because of the historical use of pink labels or descriptors by repressive régimes.  Pink collar was never linked with the LGBTQQIAAOP community and the earlier lavender collar enjoyed only a brief linguistic career.

Lindsay Lohan in army green, fur-collared jacket over blouse with metal studded collar, New York, March 2014.

Piste

Piste (pronounced peest)

(1) In skiing, a downhill trail or run.

(2) In competitive fencing, the internationally recognized regulation-size strip, 2 m (6’ 6”) in width and 14 m (46’) long.

(3) A track left by somebody riding a horse (archaic).

(4) A spoor made by a wild animal.

1727: From the Old French piste (beaten track of a horse or other animal) from the Italian pista (via (a beaten track)) a variant of pesta (footprint).  Pesta was a deverbal of pistare & pestare (to pound, crush) a Vulgar Latin frequentative of the Latin pīnsere, pistus the past participle.  Other languages picked up piste from the French.  Like English, Lithuanian, Dutch and German used the same spelling (the Germans capitalizing the noun) while there’s also the Catalan pista, the Greek πίστα (písta), the Persian: پیست‎ (pist) and the Turkish pist.  The alternative spelling pist is now rare.  Piste is a noun; the noun plural is pistes.

In Dutch, a piste (diminutive pistetje) is (1) a downhill ski run, (2) a track used in competitive athletics, or (3) a ring in a circus.  In Finnish, piste was originally a synonym of pisto (sting; prick, puncture).  In examples of linguistic innovation it was used in typography to mean "period, full stop, dot", use later extending to the sense of “mark or stroke above a letter” and a “unit of font size or spacing”.  In geometry it meant "point", thus the general sense in mathematics of it being the representation of a dimensionless object in space and thus a specific location and in figurative (though obviously inaccurate) use, piste came mean “tiny; something infinitesimally small”.  The idea of small was picked up in the scoring systems of various sports, a piste being (in the familiar sense of “a point”) the smallest unit a team or player could be awarded.

In French, the phraseology provides the descriptive nuances which indicate whether piste is being used in the literal sense of physical geography or figuratively thus: Une piste automobile dans le desert (track left in the desert sand by a car); piste cyclable (a bicycle path); La police est sur la piste d’un complot (the police are following a lead in their investigation of a conspiracy); piste d’atterrissage (an airport runway); piste de danse (a dance floor).  English adds modifiers to trail, track etc in the same manner.  In the sense in which piste is used in English, the French also use it to refer to ski slopes in general but also in more elaborated forms to differentiate where necessary: piste de ski (ski slope, ski trail); piste de luge (sled or sledge track).  Use in Italian follows the French but, noting the quality of snow as a white powder, imaginatively adds piste as the street slang for a line of cocaine and it’s a word which in this sense might see a goodly amount of use because the 2019 Global Drug Survey identified Italy as the world’s second largest consumer of the narcotic.

On the Piss

Piste is pronounced peest and the usual phrase when speaking of skiing is “on the piste” so care must be taken it’s not confused with another phrase, often used in parts of the English-speaking world, the operative word there pronounced pis.

On the piss: Crooked Hillary Clinton enjoys a quick belt of Crown Royal Bourbon Whiskey, Bronko's restaurant, Crown Point, Indiana, Saturday 12 April, 2008.

On the piss: Boris Johnson enjoying champagne, port and a pint.  It's not known if these photographs were all taken the same day.

On the piste

On the piste: An assured Lindsey Vonn (b 1984), four-time World Cup alpine ski champion and Olympic gold medallist.

In pink, on the piste: A less assured Lindsay Lohan, on skis during filming of Netflix’s Falling for Christmas.  The pink jumpsuit and pink fluffy vest are available on-line.

Strudel

Strudel (pronounced strood-l or shtrood-l (German))

(1) A pastry, usually consisting of a fruit, cheese, or other mixture, rolled in multiple layers of paper-thin sheets of dough and baked.

(2) In the slang of computing, the “at” symbol (@).

(3) In oceanography, a vertical hole in sea ice through which downward jet-like, buoyancy-driven drainage of flood water is thought to occur.

(4) In engineering and graphic design, a general descriptor of spiral shaped objects.

1893: From the German Strudel (literally “eddy, whirlpool”), from the Middle High German strodel (eddy, whirlpool), from the Old High German stredan (to bubble, boil, whirl, eddy), from the Proto-Germanic streþaną, from the primitive Indo-European verbal stem ser- (to flow) from serw (flowing, stream).  The dish was so-called because of the way the pastry is rolled.  Strudel is a common dish throughout European and languages as diverse as the Norwegian Bokmål, Polish and Portuguese borrowed the German form directly.  In Hebrew colloquial speech, the @ symbol (famous from the use in email addresses) is known as the שטרודל (shtrudel), an allusion to the traditionally spiral form of strudels.  Hebrew is a centrally controlled language and the official word for the @ symbol is כרוכית (keruchith) which is used for the pastry although the loan-word from German is not uncommon in colloquial speech.  To a pâtissier, a strudel is something quite specific but to the less skilled the word is often applied to a variety of cakes, filled croissants, phyllo creations, pies & dainties, patisseries, tarts, turnovers, éclairs and panettone.  The noun plural is strudels. 

Most associated with sweet fillings, most famously apple and cherry, there are also savory strudels which have always been especially popular in Eastern Europe, constructed often with a heavier pastry.  Although the name strudel has been recorded only since 1893, it’s an ancient recipe which has probably been used since thin bread or pastries were used to encase and cook fruit, probably sweetened with honey.  Recipes from the seventeenth century still exist and historians have noted the cross-cultural exchanges with the cuisine from West Asia and the Middle East, such as the influence of the baklava and some Turkish sweets.  Early in the eighteenth century, strudels became signature items in many Vienna pâtisseries and from there became popular throughout the Habsburg Empire and beyond, noted particularly in the north of Italy.  In addition to apples (often with raisins) and cherries (sour, sweet & black), other popular fillings include plums, apricots and rhubarb, the French and English making a specialty of the latter.  Many strudels, especially the apple-based, are also augmented with a variety of creamy cheeses.

Toaster Strudel is a packaged convenience food, prepared by heating the frozen pastries in a domestic toaster, the icing included in a separate sachet.  There were in the 1950s attempts to create pastries which could be frozen and heated by consumers in toasters but it wasn't until the 1980s that advances in the manufacturing equipment and techniques used in the industrial production of food made mass-production and distribution practical.  Toaster Strudel is marketed under the Pillsbury brand operated by private equity investment house Brynwood Partners and has been on sale since 1985.  The core flavors are the original three, strawberry, blueberry and apple but twelve are currently on sale including a popular chocolate variety and from time to time, Pillsbury have offered different blends.  In the movie Mean Girls (2004), it was fictitiously claimed Gretchen Wieners' (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)) family fortune was due to her father's invention of Toaster Strudel; it was one of the script's running gags.

Still pink after all these years: Lacey Chabert.

In 2020, Pilsbury released a promotional version of Toaster Strudel, promoted by Lacey Chabert who is depicted reprising the famous line: “I don't think my father, the inventor of Toaster Strudel, would be too pleased to hear about this” although on the actual product it’s written as “…very pleased to hear about this", a change which seems not significant.  The limited-edition release came in Strawberry & Cream Cheese and Strawberry, the icing (of course) pink and the day of release (of course) a Wednesday.  As part of the promotion, Pillsbury announced The Most Fetch’ Toaster Strudel Icing Sweepstakes, in which contestants created a design on their toasted strudel using the pink icing and there were three grand prize winners, each of whom received a personalized video message from Ms Chabert, a year’s supply of Toaster Strudel and some Mean Girls merchandise.  The list of winners was announced on Twitter (#FetchSweepstakes) and Instagram (@ToasterStrudel) on 3 October 2020 which was (of course) National Mean Girls Day.

Black Cherry Strudel

To ensure the finest product, pâtissiers often insist on using only fresh fruit but canned or frozen black cherries work equally well in strudels and can be much easier to work with because there’s no need to macerate the fruit which may instead immediately be cooked.  This recipe can also be used with sour cherries in which case the lemon juice is omitted in favor of 150 g (¾ cup) of sugar.  It can be served warm or cold according to preference and the variations are many; the cranberries and almonds can be replaced with other dried fruits and nuts and there are the purists who insist on nothing but black cherries (although a few do add apricot brandy).  Traditionally, it’s served with a dollop of thickened cream.

Ingredients

800 g (3½ cups) fresh black cherries, cleaned and pitted
100 g (½ cup) granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A dash of cinnamon
Juice and zest of 1 organic, un-waxed, scrubbed lemon
60 g (½ cup) dried cranberries
50 g (½ cup) slivered almonds
6 large sheets strudel or filo pastry
1 egg whisked with 1 tablespoon milk or water for brushing
Icing sugar for dusting

Instructions

Preparation: Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).  Line a baking tray (or sheet) with baking (parchment) paper.

Cook cherry filling: In a small bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons of sugar and cornstarch until no lumps of cornstarch remain.  Add the cherries and the remaining sugar into another bowl and allow them to let macerate for an hour (it will take this long for the sugar to draw some liquid from the fruit).  Add the cherries, cranberries, almonds, cornstarch mixture, vanilla extract, cinnamon, lemon zest and juice into a saucepan and simmer over medium-high heat until the mixture starts to thicken, which should take 7 to 10 minutes.  Set the mix aside to cool to room temperature.

Roll strudel (pastry): Place the sheets of strudel or filo pastry on a clean, dry tea-towel (one with some embossing does make rolling easier).  Arrange the cherry filling lengthwise on the pastry leaving a 25 mm (1 inch) border along bottom and sides and then fold in the edges.  Use the tea-towel to lift and roll the pastry tightly, enclosing all the filling.  Tuck the ends in and transfer the strudel seam-side down onto the prepared baking tray.  If using filo pastry, brush each sheet with melted butter to prevent it drying out during the cooking.

Bake strudel:  Brush the top of the strudel with egg wash and bake for 25-35 minutes, until the pastry has become golden brown and obviously flaky.  Slice the strudel while still warm and dust with icing sugar; it’s traditionally served with custard, ice cream or a dollop of thickened cream.

Rainbow

Rainbow (pronounced reyn-boh)

(1) An arc-shaped spectrum of color seen in the sky opposite the Sun, especially after rain, caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight by droplets of water suspended in the air.  Secondary rainbows that are larger and paler sometimes appear within the primary arc with the colors reversed (red being inside). These result from two reflections and refractions of a light ray inside a droplet.  The colors of the rainbow are violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.  

(2) A similar bow of colors, especially one appearing in the spray of a waterfall or fountain.

(3) Any brightly multi-colored arrangement or display.

(4) A wide variety or range; gamut.

(5) A visionary goal, sometimes illusory (as in “chasing rainbows”).

(6) In diversity politics, as a modifier, of or relating to a political grouping together by several minorities, especially representatives from multiple identity groups, as those identifying variously by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.

(7) The flag of the LGBTQQIAAOP movement.

(8) In zoology, a descriptor used in some species (rainbow lorikeet, rainbow trout etc).

(9) In baseball jargon, a curveball, particularly a slow one.

(10) In the slang of poker (Texas hold 'em or Omaha hold 'em), a flop that contains three different suits.

(11) In the UK Girl Guide Association (as the Rainbow Guides), the faction containing the youngest group of girls (aged 5-7 years).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English reinbowe & reinboȝe, from the Old English reġnboga & rēnboga (rainbow), from the Proto-Germanic regnabugô (rainbow; literally rain +‎ bow (arch).  It was cognate with the Old Norse regnbogi, the West Frisian reinbôge, the Dutch regenboog, the German Regenbogen, the Danish regnbue, the Swedish regnbåge and the Icelandic regnbogi, all of which translated as “rainbow).

The Rainbow Flag

The rainbow flag is more commonly known as the gay pride or LGBTQQIAAOP (usually truncated to LGBTQI+) pride flag although it has been co-opted for other purposes.  It was designed in 1978 by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) using eight colors but has long been displayed with six stripes, red at the top as it appears in a natural rainbow.  The original colors were assigned thus:

Hot pink: Sex
Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Turquoise: Art
Indigo: Harmony
Violet: Spirit

However, for technical reasons, hot pink proved difficult to produce in volume and was deleted, the first commercial release having seven stripes but within a year it was again modified.  When hung vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's Market Street, the centre stripe was obscured by the post and changing to an even number of stripes was the easiest fix.  Thus emerged the final version: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

On its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2003, Gilbert Baker advocated the original design be restored but there’ was little support, the six-stripe standard clearly having reached critical mass although there have been one-off variations such as the addition of a black stripe symbolizing those community members lost to AIDS.  Aged sixty-five, Baker died in New York City on 31 March 2017.

Unfurling the flag: Emperor Dale on the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands.  The plaque in the sand contains the words of the kingdom's  declaration of independence.

In June 2004, activists from the G & L factions of the LGBTQQIAAOP collective sailed to Australia's almost uninhabited Coral Sea Islands Territory and proclaimed the now liberated lands independent, calling it the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (GLK) with the rainbow flag its official standard.  It was a symbolic gesture with no validity in domestic or international law, the declaration in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognize same-sex marriage.  Undeterred by such tiresome details, the GLK immediately issued stamps, the official website listing tourism, fishing and philatelic sales as its only economic activities but that swimming, reef walking, lagoon snorkeling, bird-watching, seashell-collecting, and shipwreck-exploring were all GLK sanctioned non-economic activities.

The then Senator Eric Abetz.

Fearing it’s assertion of independence seemed not to be making much impression on the former colonial oppressor, on 13 September 2004 the GLK declared war on Australia.  Neither the declarations of statehood or war attracted much attention until February 2017 when, in a Senate estimates hearing on finance and public administration, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania (Liberal) 1994-2022) objected to the GLK's flag being hung in the Department of Finance’s building on the grounds that (1) government departments should take a neutral stand on political debates and (2) it was wrong to hang in government buildings the flag of an aggressive, hostile state (the GLK) which had declared war on Australia, the comparison presumably that the swastika wasn't hung in the White House or Downing Street during World War II (1939-1945).  The finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann (b 1970; senator (Liberal) for Western Australia 2007-2020, minister for finance 2013-2020, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2021) agreed, assuring Senator Abetz he would ensure “…there are no flags of hostile nations anywhere in any government building.”

Stamps of the GLK authorized for issue by the edict of Emperor Dale Parker Anderson (b 1965).

Self-described as a "gay 22×-great-grandson of King Edward II (who was also born gay)" and a direct descendant of all English kings & queens down to King Richard III, the emperor traces his family back to the fifteenth century marriage of the Earl of Huntington to Princess Catherine of England.  Despite the emperor's illustrious lineage from an age of absolutism and the divine right of kings, the GLK was established as a constitutional monarchy.  While the GLK never released details about the extent to which it could be considered a democracy with institutions such as a representative & responsible legislative assembly or an independent judiciary, the spirit seemed not to be despotic.  As a new state, the GLK might even have appeared with a system as genuinely novel as monarchical anarchy.    

Fobbed off.

While no governments granted recognition to the GLK as a sovereign state or established diplomatic relations, the chief of staff in Queensland's Department of Premier and Cabinet did in 2004 write to Emperor Dale Parker Anderson which suggested at least a tacit acknowledgment of the existence of the GLK which sat off Queensland's east coast.  There's no record of further communication between any level of Australian government and the GLK and nor does it appear the GLK made any attempt to secure even observer status in any international bodies.  Following the Australian government voting to legalize same-sex marriage, the GLK was on 17 November 2017 dissolved and the state of war officially lapsed.  There were no casualties.

Slender rainbow: Lindsay Lohan in a vintage Hervé Leger bandage dress at the Gansevoort Hotel, NYC, May 2007.

The distinctive colors of the rainbow flag and their simple, geometric deployment in stripes have made the flag a popular design.  At the human scale it can be applied to just about any article of clothing and worn as a political statement either of self-identity or an expression of inclusiveness and although the motif can exist at the level of fashion, regardless of intent, the design is now so vested with meaning that probably it's always interpreted as political.

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, bathed in a rainbow flag projection during a vigil for victims of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, June 2016.

Bold, horizontal stripes on a rectangle are perhaps uniquely suited to being deployed at scale and can thus be an aspect of representational architecture but even structures in the built environment with little relationship to the straight lines and right angles of the rectangle offer a suitable canvas.  Because the stripes can flow across and around even the most complex curves and there's no inherent hierarchy in the significance of the colors, if a treated shape emphasizes some and minimizes others, it matters not because the meaning is denoted by the whole.

The progress flag

The concept of the rainbow flag continues to evolve.  Although the text string has been appended as the factions in sexual politics achieved critical mass in acceptability, while the "T" in LGBTQQIAAOP included the trans community, their flags and banners had been separate.  One suggestion to achieve more inclusive vexillological recognition was the "progress flag" (sometimes with initial capitals) which in its latest form is defined:

Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: New Ideas
Green: Prosperity
Blue: Serenity
Violet: Spirit
Black & Brown: People of Color
White, blue & pink: Trans people
Purple circle on yellow: Intersex

The intersex component was in 2021 interpolated by Valentino Vecchietti, an activist with the UK’s Intersex Equality Rights movement, building on the original progress flag designed in 2018 by US graphic artist Daniel Quasar who had added the five-striped chevron.  The element Vecchietti used was the intersex flag, first displayed in 2013 by Australian bioethicist Morgan Carpenter, the design rationale of which was the purple and yellow being positioned as a counterpoint to blue and pink, traditionally binary, gendered colors, the choice of the circle being to represent “…being unbroken, about being whole, symbolizing the right to make our own decisions about our own bodies.”  Carpenter has noted that statement is not an abstraction, non-consensual surgeries still being performed in many places.  The new design reflects recent internal LGBTQQIAAOP politics which have for some time focused on inclusivity underneath the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella, the feeling being intersex people have long been not only underrepresented but also visually undepicted in the Pride imagery ubiquitous in clothing, events and publicity materials.