Category Archives: books

books, quotes, science, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

It’s been an odd week, apart from the fact I’ve been ill, with not many good quotes which are short enough for here, but lots of long ones. Maybe I’ll blog the long quotes in separate posts later, meanwhile here are a handful of short ones.

James Joyce fans in Dublin spend up to 36 hours reading Ulysses aloud every year on June 16.
[Times; 29 September 2010]

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
[Isaac Asimov]

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.
[Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]

Life is change that we don’t attend to.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]

Our experience of sexuality is inseparable from our experience of life.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]

books, people, personal, pleasures, quotes, topographical

Tube Strike Poetry

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It’s an ill wind … at least today’s tube strike in London means Noreen is at home (albeit working) on her birthday. Mind, she is currently out taking Harry the Cat the the V E T again. And it’s wet here which is unusual for Noreen’s birthday.

On the subject of the tube strike I just have to repost this from the BBC News website. I love the Liverpool poets, especially Roger McGough.

Poet Roger McGough has written two poems in response to Sunday and Monday’s London Tube strike to mark National Poetry Day.

Millions face disruption during the 24-hour strike, which is in protest at plans to cut ticket office staffing.

The theme for Thursday’s poetry day is home, and McGough suggests his lines may help commuters see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Liverpudlian poet presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please.

He was also a member of The Scaffold, which topped the charts in 1968 with Lily the Pink, and was an uncredited writer of some of the humorous dialogue on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film.

Along with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, McGough was one of the Mersey Poets and they published two best-selling volumes of verse during the 60s and 70s, having started out giving readings in Liverpool’s clubs and cafes.

Here are his two poems:

A Striking Soliloquy

tu be

or not

tu be

Tube strike Haiku

trains that are side-lined

idling in rusty sidings

fear the knacker’s yard

* * *

tunnels empty now

can see the light at both ends

birds risk a short cut

* * *

rails sleeping, dream of

a parallel universe

a new perspective

* * *

platforms yawn and stretch

enjoying the holiday

mice minding the gap

I must look at the Liverpool poets again; haven’t read them for ages. They’re brilliant!

amusements, books, history, music, topographical

The Millipede Brothers

It always surprises me what the brain does and the associations it makes.

Like many here I have been extremely bored recently by the charade the Labour Pain Party have been going through to elect a new leader – well at least it didn’t provide the expected result for once, which is perhaps one advantage of a transferable vote system – and the follow-on shenanigans.

My boredom has however been in part alleviated by the fact that I can’t help but think of the two main protagonists as The Millipede Brothers.  A somewhat amusing, if slightly droll, piece of mental gymnastics.

But of course The Millipede Brothers do sound rather like an act from some Victorian Circus. Perhaps they were a star turn promoted by Barnum and Bailey. Or more likely they were part of Pablo Fanque’s Fair, featuring Mr Kite, a poster for which so inspired John Lennon and the Beatles to produce Sgt Peppers.

I wasn’t even sure Pablo Fanque was real – he was! Fanque, born plain William Darby in Norwich as early as 1796, was not just a circus performer but, more importantly, Britain’s first black circus impresario.

Pablo Fanque, began as a famous circus performer in his youth but became the proprietor of his own circus company. His earliest known appearance in the sawdust ring was in Norwich on 26 December 1821, as ‘Young Darby’, with William Batty’s company. His circus acts included horsemanship, rope walking, leaping and rope vaulting. In 1841, aged forty-five and living in Oxford, he left William Batty to begin business on his own account, with just two horses. The towns of Lancashire, Yorkshire and adjacent counties became Fanque’s favourite venues and it was his visit to Rochdale on 14 February 1843 which produced the poster (above) that inspired John Lennon’s lyric For the Benefit of Mr Kite. Fanque died in Stockport in 1871 and is buried in Woodhouse Cemetery, Leeds next to his first wife Susannah Darby.

Much more interesting than Labour Party politics!

books, history, people, photography, topographical

Edith Nesbit Grave


Edith Nesbit Grave, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Another snap from our recent break in Rye.

Children’s author Edith Nesbit is buried at St Mary-in-the-Marsh and the grave marked by this simple wooden marker. Actually this isn’t the original – that fell apart some years ago and was replaced by Edith Nesbit’s family. The remains of the original are in the church along with a memorial plaque.

St Mary-in-the-Marsh is a lovely little country church, almost in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by the fields of the Romney Marsh.  As well as the memorial to Edith Nesbit it contains a memorial plaque to Anne Roper, one of the earliest and still foremost historians of the Romney Marsh. The village itself, just a few miles inland from New Romney, is little more than a dozen houses, the church and a pub. It really is in the middle of the country and still filled with summer birdsong – a delightful place for a quiet half hour or so.

books, quotes

Why I like Dance

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As many of you know I’m a devotee of Anthony Powell‘s 12 volume novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time (thanks, Jilly, for the total restructuring of my life almost 30 years ago!) and you may also recall that Audible have recently released a complete audiobook of Dance.

Recently therefore I have been listening, here and there, to the audiobooks and it was yesterday I spent some time on The Military Philosophers (book nine of the sequence) which covers the second half of WWII. As well as longer sections of beautiful prose it is full of entertaining little snippets, for example:

‘Hullo, Nicholas. I hope my dear old Finn is not still cross with me about Szymanski ?’
‘There may still be some disgruntlement, sir.’
‘Disgruntlement’, one was told, was a word that could be used of all ranks without loss of discipline.

Our billet was a VIP one, a requisitioned hotel presided over by a brisk little cock-sparrow of a captain, who evidently knew his job.
‘We had the hell of a party here the other night,’ he said. ‘A crowd of senior officers as drunk as monkeys, brigadiers rooting the palms out of the pots.’

Finn pushed back his chair. He spoke slowly.
‘Borrit told me when he was serving on the Gold Coast, one of the Africans said to him: “What is it white men write at their desks all day?”‘

‘ Look at this,’ he said.
He spoke indignantly. I leant forward to examine the exhibit, which was in Pennistone’s handwriting. Blackhead had written, in all, three and a half pages on the theory and practice of soap issues for military personnel, with especial reference to the Polish Women’s Corps. Turning from his spidery scrawl to Pennistone’s neat hand, two words only were inscribed. They stood out on the file:
Please amplify. D. Pennistone. Maj. GS.

Our billet was a VIP one, a requisitioned hotel presided over by a brisk little cock-sparrow of a captain […]
‘We had the hell of a party here the other night,’ he said. ‘A crowd of senior officers as drunk as monkeys, brigadiers rooting the palms out of the pots.’

Not long before the Victory Service […] Prasad’s Embassy gave a party on their National Day […] Gauthier de Graef, ethnically confused, had been anxious to know whether there were eunuchs in the ladies’ apartments above the rooms where we were being entertained.

‘Not all the fruits of Victory are appetising to the palate,’ said Pennistone. ‘An issue of gall and wormwood has been laid on.’

It is these small amusements, just as much as the excellent prose, which makes Powell so wonderful to read.

arts, books

Shakespeare's Globe

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Shakespeare’s Globe, originally uploaded by kcm76.

On Tuesday evening we took a group of Anthony Powell Society members and friends to see Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe Theatre in Southwark. Fortunately we had seats under cover for it was a horrible wet evening – it tipped it down with rain throughout the first half and everyone standing in the Yard got well and truly soaked, as did some of the actors.

Notwithstanding the play was excellent, as one expected of the much acclaimed 2008 production by Christopher Luscombe. It was a most excellent romp and the cast gave every impression of thoroughly enjoying themselves too.

Not having been to the Globe before, I was surprised at how attractive a theatre space it is and it certainly works well for the dramatic sweeps of Shakespeare. I had been warned that the seating was just traditional wooden benches and to take a cushion. However I didn’t find the benches uncomfortable even without a cushion, although I did hire a back-rest which was for me more uncomfortable than not having one – the angles were all wrong for me and I discarded it in the interval.

The only thing which was slightly irritating were the students continually wandering in and out of the Yard – however authentically Elizabethan that may be. And a couple of roast chestnut sellers in the Yard would have made the experience complete!

The Globe is not a cheap evening out (what theatre is!) unless one chooses to stand in the Yard, but it is well worth going to as it does work pretty well for Shakespeare and is an experience worth having at least once. Despite not being a great theatre-goer I’m certainly glad I went.

The photo is a panorama of several shots I took during the interval from our seats.

amusements, books, food+drink, thoughts

Squashed Buttered Nuts

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Noreen bought a book yesterday.  I stole it.  I stole it because it contains such twinkly brilliant gems as:

Bottled at Source. Abbey Well, Highland Spring, Glenpatrick, Ty Nant Welsh Spring, Pennine (bottled at source in Huddersfield) … Apparently, you can’t walk more than a hundred yards in the UK without falling into a natural spring, an Ice Age glacier, a gushing source of healing, sparkling spring water or a 400-year-old magical fairytale wishing well with purifying pixies, adjacent sandstone filter, bottling plant and market-research department.

Mozzarella. Mozzarella cheese comes in Silly Putty-shaped shiny balls … It tastes of nothing. Mozzarella is stored in those unsettling little water-filled tubs – displayed like some sort of soft-cheese Petri-dish specimen …

Muffins. Since when did it become acceptable to eat fairy cakes for breakfast? … You can keep the modern breakfast muffin. I’ll take the fairy cake any day. Not one of those chi-chi chain coffee shop cupcakes; a proper fairy cake, one with icing and those edible rice-paper cake-toppers in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s face, that crab thing from The Little Mermaid, the Wuzzles or the Popples.

Pacific-Rim Cooking. More fucking mangoes.

At several chuckles, sniggers or snorts a page Sausage in a Basket: The Great British Book of How Not to Eat by Martin Lampen is a must. If, like me, you loathe false food or if you just desire an amusement for that transatlantic flight, then this book will not disappoint.

books, history, medical, science, topographical

Capital Cures

Browsing Shakespeare’s London on 5 Groats a Day by Richard Tames the other day I came across the following remedies.

Loss of hair. Try doves’ dung, burnt, failing that the ashes of a small frog

Nits in the hair. Comb with mercury ointment and pig fat
Yep that should see off the nits, if it doesn’t see you off first

Head colds. A sliver of turnip in the nostril

Tinnitus. Oil of hempseed in the afflicted ear, followed by hopping on that side

Retention of urine. Three large lice inserted in the penis
Hmm, I can imagine that might work too; not sure I fancy the side effects though

Asthma. The lungs of a fox washed in wine, herb and liquorice
OMG

Tuberculosis. Incurable, but for relief try asses’ milk and snails in their shells

I think on balance I’m glad I live in the 21st century!

books, history, people, photography, pleasures, topographical

Hut, Rye Harbour


Hut, Rye Harbour, originally uploaded by kcm76.

We’re just back from spending a week in Rye, East Sussex with a friend and her three children.  The children were a delight: great fun and very amusing if a bit noisy at times. Everyone seems to have had a good time. Amongst other things we got in: the late Derek Jarman’s cottage at Dungeness; several Romney Marsh churches; Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway; some bookshops; a couple of trips to the beach; as well as lots of Rye itself and too little sleep because we sat up talking until late. We could easily have stayed another two weeks and still not run out of interesting things to do. Many thanks to Katy, Tilly, Tallulah and Oscar!

More photos on Flickr as I get time to do post-processing.

books, food+drink, history, topographical

1599 Huguenots

More from Richard Tames’s, Shakespeare’s London on 5 Groats a Day which depicts the eccentricities London life in about 1599 in the words of the people of the time.

LONDON LIVING

Huguenot habits are catching on with other Londoners. Because weavers have to spend all day at their looms they brighten their workrooms by growing fragrant flowers in wooden boxes which they hang at the windows and keep caged canaries by them for the sweetness of their singing.

Thrifty Huguenot housewives have shown their neighbours that the tail of an ox should not be thrown away as useless but can be braised to make a hearty stew and the bones and leftovers rendered into a delicious soup.

They also gather scraps of meat to make a spicy, scarlet sausage called a saveloy. This can be eaten hot or cold and has become a great favourite with those whose work compels them to eat on the streets or on the move, such as porters and carriers. It is said that the main ingredient that gives the saveloy its distinctive flavour and texture is brains, but this may be only a rumour.

Love the bit on saveloy; clearly the MacDonald’s of its day.