amusements, books, pleasures, ramblings, words

Book of Gloria

1 Comment

I posted about this on Facebook earlier, but it’s so brilliant I have to say more here.
Earlier today on the intertubes I came across the Bible in Polari. Those who know Polari, or are old enough to remember Julian and Sandy from the radio show Round the Horne, will guess how much of a hoot it is. Here, for example, are the first five verses of Genesis …

1 In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was nanti form, and void; and munge was upon the eke of the deep. And the Fairy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas.
3 And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle.
4 And Gloria vardad the sparkle, that it was bona: and Gloria medzered the sparkle from the munge.
5 And Gloria screeched the sparkle journo, and the munge she screeched nochy. And the bijou nochy and the morning were the first journo.

And here, the Immaculate Conception from Luke 1:26-35 …

26 And in the seyth month the fairy Gabriel was laued from Gloria unto a smoke of Galilee, named Nazareth,
27 To a nanti charver espoused to a homie whose name was Josephine, of the lattie of Davina; and the nanti charver‘s name was Mary.
28 And the fairy trolled in unto her, and cackled, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Duchess is with thee: fabed art thou among palones.
29 And when she vardad her, she was troubled at her cackling, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
30 And the fairy cackled unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with Gloria.
31 And, varda, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and parker forth a homie chavvie, and shalt screech her name Josie.
32 She shall be dowry, and shall be screeched the homie chavvie of the Highest: and the Duchess Gloria shall parker unto her the throne of her Auntie Davina:
33 And she shall reign over the lattie of Jacob for ever; and of her kingdom there shall be no end.
34 Then cackled Mary unto the fairy, How shall this be, vardaing I know not a homie?
35 And the fairy answered and cackled unto her, The Fantabulosa Fairy shall troll upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that fabulosa fakement which shall be born of thee shall be screeched the homie chavvie of Gloria.

Brilliant isn’t it?!
Incidentally it’s worth downloading the PDF version, even though it is big, as it contains some wonderfully captioned “old style” images (“Gethsemane had always been a notorious cruising ground”) and a huge dictionary of Polari.
What I find interesting is how much Polari has passed into modern parlance (possibly as some was stolen from existing dialect like Cockney and entered the modern English from there). Just in writing this I’ve noticed acdc, troll, barney, butch, drag … the list goes on!
This is what I find so entrancing about language: not just the fun but the interplay between language, dialect, argot and idiolect. And I love it when something in one form is translated into another, but remains amusingly intelligible to speakers of the original – as here and as with the Pidgin of Papua New Guinea for Prince Charles: nambawan pikinini bilong Mises Kwin.
Just excellent!

beliefs, current affairs, sexuality

Message Getting Home

At long last a few UK politicians are getting the message about the need to decriminalise sex work. This is from the Independent a few days ago.

Liberal Democrats move to quash all historical sex-work convictions
of prostitutes and punters


What I find especially interesting, and slightly surprising, is that ex-senior policeman Lord Paddick is in favour. The police aren’t generally considered to be forward thinkers, but then Paddick has always been an outlier.
Now to get the message home to the rest of our politicians that New Zealand seems to have the best model.

ramblings

Test Post 5

Another test post. Apologies. I’m trying to figure out the best way to get stuff automatically from my WordPress blog to Facebook and Twitter. But none of the methods seems to be reliable. I am removing these posts as soon as they are redundant.

ramblings

Test Post 4

Another test post. Apologies. I’m trying to figure out the best way to get stuff automatically from my WordPress blog to Facebook and Twitter. But none of the methods seems to be reliable.

books, history

Book Review: Map Stories

Francisca Mattéoli
Map Stories: The Art of Discovery
(Ilex, 2015)
bookThis is, in the words of the Preface, “a book that invites the reader on a journey from map to map, to let their imagination run free”. It is a curious collection of historical maps, around which the author tells the stories the places and voyages which gave birth to the maps.
Now I love maps, and I love stories of history and the discovery of new worlds. However I found this a very difficult book to engage with, for a number of reasons.

  1. While I love maps I do find old, multi-coloured, shaded maps with tiny print/calligraphy difficult and off-putting.
  2. The stories I dipped into didn’t engage me; I found them dull; which is in part down to the author’s style.
  3. The stories major heavily on the Americas and SE Asia. Europe hardly gets a look in.
  4. This is a large, oversize, atlas-sized book; and quite heavy. It needs to be to make the most of the maps. But this does make it almost impossible to read in bed.

As a consequence I did no more than leaf through the book and dip into it from time to time. I just found it was asking too much of me, especially when I was reading it late at night in bed. I’m sure I’m missing a lot, and I may well return to it in due course – it would be a shame not to.
Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆

arts, medical, sexuality

Femina ars [NSFW]

Here’s one for all of you who engage with art, body positivity, female anatomy or just pure eccentricity.
Artist’s Unapologetic Vagina Paintings Are A Force Of Body Positivity
and
Jacqueline Secor Art – Diversity of Nature
Enjoy!