Betty and the Real World

 No Need to Say Goodbye:

Iceberg roses are like an Araminta--low maintenance.

Aldo knows his rose varieties.  He points out an 'Iceburg, two Super Star, a Queen Elizabeth and a Wendy Cussons'.  (Here's the rundown: The Iceberg is a 'trouble-free rose', the Wendy Cussons is susceptible to diseases and pests, the Super Star succumbs occasionally to blackspot but gets this rating from a fan "I don't see why people complain so much about this plant, it's gorgeous!" and the Queen Elizabeth is also susceptible to pests.)  Portland, OR (where I live) is known as the City of Roses (Take that, Anaheim!).  We have a Rose Queen and a Rose Festival every year and if you came to visit me around June, I would drive you up to the Rose Test gardens overlooking the city and you would drink deeply of the gorgeousness.

Our protagonists travel to the Firth of Forth to visit an old patient.  Besides having the best place-name outside of Walla Walla, Washington (the town so nice they named it twice), here's what else I learned:  The Firth of Forth is a fjord.  (Say that 10 times fast.)  The Firth of Forth is mentioned in Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck in a rejected version of the original script of episode 1 and was the cause for a McDuck not being declared the king because of a lisp. He had to proclaim the birth of Scotland including the girth of all earth north of the Firth of Forth. 

Never the Time and the Place:
The hero quotes Shakespeare: 'There is a divinity which shapes our ends....(Rough-hew them how we will.)' and I dug around a little to find out where. Hamlet is addressing Horatio and tells him how he sealed Guildenstern and Rosencrantz's eventual deaths.  (Not exactly love-poetry...)  The fellows have a movie of their own:
Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: England.
Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

Jo plays the piano quite well.  At the party she plays Handel's Water Music, Cats, Tales from the Vienna Woods, and Chopin.  I've always vaguely wondered why the Water Music was called Water Music (but clearly didn't wonder hard enough to find out).  Betty to the rescue! 

The Water Music is a collection of orchestral movements, often considered three suites, composed by Handel. It premiered on 17 July 1717 after King George I had requested a concert on the River Thames. The concert was performed by 50 musicians playing on a barge near the royal barge from which the King listened with close friends.
  
Why does that make him sound like the musical director of a Carnival cruise?