Nobody thought of fasting here on any day except Good Friday; and fasting meant no more than eating hot-cross-buns in addition to the usual food. But whether it came as early as March 20 or as late as April 23, Good Friday was the great day for potato-planting. Whatever the season was, potatoes planted on Good Friday came up better than potatoes planted any other day--at least, that was the common belief here. There must have been a religious or superstitious base for this, and perhaps also for the custom of kicking a football round when the planting had been done. (In my early years a football was hardly ever seen here except on a Good Friday.) I have seen the sailors flogging Judas Iscariot on Good Fridays in Mediterranean ports, and I hear it may be seen on foreign ships in English ports. Judas Iscariot is there a dummy like Guy Fawkes and here, I think, he had become a football. But it is always hard to judge the meaning of such things. Some fifty years ago an acquaintance of mine, a midshipman, went up to Jerusalem with a lot of other midshipmen when the Mediterranean squadron was cruising off that coast; and they marched into Jerusalem singing a song (which then was popular) of Kafoosalum, ... the barber of Jerusalem, ... the daughter of the barber. And good Mahommedans were much impressed, thinking it was a holy song that these young angels sang so fervently. There is now a service of Three Hours at Lustleigh on Good Friday. I inquired what authority there was for this, and was informed (officially) that it was a service licensed by the Bishop under the Shortened Services Act. That was quite good as a bit of cynicism or a joke, but rather past a joke if one remembers how that Act was passed through Parliament. Its promoters said that it was only to be used for shortening the old services, not for introducing anything new. On the coronation of Queen Victoria there was a service in Exeter Cathedral and ‘rejoicings’ in the town; and my father’s diary finds fault--“the stupid dun of cannon, which even fired during the anthem, shaking the edifice and distracting everyone’s attention”--and so on for a couple of pages, finishing, “it seemed somewhat like a Good Friday: by no means a favourite day of mine.” There is no desire here for more Good Fridays or Ash Wednesdays, but only for Shrove Tuesdays at all seasons of the year; and these Carnivals are not followed by Lenten fasts. Carnivals are superseding Fêtes and Galas, here called Feets and Gaylers; but knowing that a Swarry (or a Soirée) consisted of a leg of mutton, I should say that every Carnival or Feet or Gayler consists of a brass band ‘with the usual trimmings’ like the leg. It seems perverse of people to speak of fêtes as feets when they invariably speak of beans as banes, and even more perverse to want these foreign words at all. This coast is getting known as a Riviera, which they pronounce Riveerer as if it were a German word.