A jester in the court of Queen Elizabeth

I wonder what it'd be like to be regressed under hypnosis. A sceptic such as me would scoff that it was all a load of old bollocks; people revelling in the attention and putting on a performance while pretending to be a little girl who died horribly in a Victorian workhouse fire, or somebody famous from history. People who claim to regress have never had normal past lives; there's always some tragedy or infamy associated with their former incarnations.

"Well, I could sense I was wearing a corset, so that probably means it was Edwardian times at the latest."

"And when I came to, they said I'd been dancing around the room, pretending to bash people on the head with an imaginary bladder on a stick. Turns out I used to be a jester in the court of Queen Elizabeth!"

Anyway, I've been stepping back in time and looking at some documents relating to this lass:

This is a photo of my mum's mum, Lillian White (nee Crane). It's quite weird holding birth and death certificates relating to a grandmother who I never met. I also find it a little disturbing that she looks a bit like me, or me like her. I too enjoy nothing more than wandering the streets, dressed in a frilly confirmation dress, pushing what looks like a hand plough. Spooky!

One thing I've noticed about these sorts of certificates is that every single registrar in the UK has exactly the same handwriting. It all looks very neat and nice to look at, but on the whole, it's pretty indecipherable.

Of course, the government wants a new form of "E" registration to go with barmpot plans for ID cards. Instead of getting a certificate, all new UKplc citizens will be barcoded at birth and their details will be scanned into the National Inventory for Population Evaluation (NIPplE). Kind of takes the excitement out of finding and deciphering sixty year old bits of paper.