Celebrations!

Every year the same ritual. I know there is something being celebrated on the 4th July, and something on the 14th July, but I can never remember in what order. Was it on the 4th July that the French started chopping heads off American aristocrats, or was it the 14th July that the Americans decided to try the same thing with the British aristocrats?
Who knows, and who cares. Both events had the same effect, a lot fewer of my co-aristocrat brothers, a drop in the cultured manner of living, the uprising of fast food with baked beans (this last was an invention of the poorly armed American revoltants, who could use the "natural sound effects" to create an almighty fear in the hearts of the colonial powers, who beleived that this "poop-poop-poop" represented small arms fire from a distance, with an occasional cannon "boom").
Such respect was given in France and in America to "madame la Guillotine" that they turned it into miniature, pocket sized versions, and used it for various purposes, like cigar piercing, and occasionally a quick (almost painless) tool for those poor young Jewish boys! Handy thing to have in your pocket!
Anyway, I will no doubt be obliged to listen to revolting peasants, singing revolting songs all day long, whilst trying to force ice cubes through the too narrow neck of the Pastis bottle. "Vive la Republique" will hale through the streets of Washington (or is it Paris), and yours truly will have prepared the welcoming refreshments - buckets of hot melted tar!

14 July