Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Katrina
There is always extra emotional pull when something bad happens to a familiar place. I've been keeping vigil while Katrina raged through Louisiana and its remnants headed up through Mississippi to my old stomping grounds in Tennessee. I lived in Memphis for a year in the seventies and still hear from one friend there. She says that the city is OK apart from some wind damage to buildings and trees.
We travelled a lot around the Southern states. Out into the Mississippi countryside, among the cotton fields, along country roads lined with shacks and one-pump gas stations. I remember a broiling week-end in Biloxi on the Gulf coast. That has taken a direct hit with a thirty foot wave surge and many fatalities. (One crazy family survived in an attic with their two dogs. They lashed their 5-year-old child to the rafters and stayed at home because 'shelters don't accept animals.')
We liked New Orleans very much and visited it twice. Once for my birthday, staying in some rather ramshackle old servants' rooms out back of the French Quarter's historic Cornstalk Hotel. We couldn't afford it, but we had dinner at Antoine's and I remember borrowing a red cocktail dress from my boss for the purpose.
But the greatest pleasure was in simply wandering about the old town under the iron lacework canopies, listening to amazing jazz for just the price of a beer, eating creole, cheap and hot. Many of the ephemeral music clubs were like small back-rooms where audiences sat packed tight, thigh to thigh, listening to blues, dixieland or modern cool. One afternoon we even saw a funeral pass in the street with trumpets and dancing mourners. I have had this tiny oil of the streetcar Desire, bought as my souvenir, on my shelf ever since.
So I felt enormous relief at news that the old town had not been decimated. That was much tempered by knowing of the human misery involved and later by reading a first-hand account at feral of the dreadful conditions that the residents are enduring now.
We travelled a lot around the Southern states. Out into the Mississippi countryside, among the cotton fields, along country roads lined with shacks and one-pump gas stations. I remember a broiling week-end in Biloxi on the Gulf coast. That has taken a direct hit with a thirty foot wave surge and many fatalities. (One crazy family survived in an attic with their two dogs. They lashed their 5-year-old child to the rafters and stayed at home because 'shelters don't accept animals.')
We liked New Orleans very much and visited it twice. Once for my birthday, staying in some rather ramshackle old servants' rooms out back of the French Quarter's historic Cornstalk Hotel. We couldn't afford it, but we had dinner at Antoine's and I remember borrowing a red cocktail dress from my boss for the purpose. 
But the greatest pleasure was in simply wandering about the old town under the iron lacework canopies, listening to amazing jazz for just the price of a beer, eating creole, cheap and hot. Many of the ephemeral music clubs were like small back-rooms where audiences sat packed tight, thigh to thigh, listening to blues, dixieland or modern cool. One afternoon we even saw a funeral pass in the street with trumpets and dancing mourners. I have had this tiny oil of the streetcar Desire, bought as my souvenir, on my shelf ever since. So I felt enormous relief at news that the old town had not been decimated. That was much tempered by knowing of the human misery involved and later by reading a first-hand account at feral of the dreadful conditions that the residents are enduring now.
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Croak
I am, as they used to say, indisposed; there's a virus stalking round here that steals your voice and makes your chest a raging inferno. My cough is deep and dramatic. But now I have antibiotics and I hope they'll see it off.
Oddly enough, I had the same thing at exactly the same time last year. I'm tucked up on the sofa; since yesterday I have read Alan Bennett's collected journalism Writing Home and started Ben Okri's Famished Road. I have ingested far too much daytime junk TV too. Those and breakfasts in bed are going a long way to make feeling rotten more tolerable. Plus, I am sky high on several tubes of Hall's mentholyptus lozenges.
Meanwhile:
When They Were Young: a Photographic Retrospective of Childhood
The Library of Congress
Some lovely images here.
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Ted
I went to the funeral today of a dear old gentleman who lived opposite. He it was who would come to Christmas lunch only on the understanding that he could have sausages or corned beef instead of turkey and could go straight home 'after the Queen'.
He was 94, still pretty sharp. Immaculate always, he wore plaid shirts and, endearingly, trousers held high by braces to mid-chest level. Post-stroke he created an arcane vocabulary that used to amuse and frustrate him equally. I shall always think of slippers as ploshfers now.
The vicar droning at his service failed to do him justice, he was, as is so often the case, just processing the ritual as quickly as possible. I longed to push him aside and properly celebrate a good man.
Ted had been a prisoner of war in Japan for three terrible years and had kept a sketchy diary of his war; this small book was handed to me today by his brother who said that he had wanted me to have it. He thought I would look after it and I had a few years to go. Lovely. For me, a legacy above rubies.
He was 94, still pretty sharp. Immaculate always, he wore plaid shirts and, endearingly, trousers held high by braces to mid-chest level. Post-stroke he created an arcane vocabulary that used to amuse and frustrate him equally. I shall always think of slippers as ploshfers now.
The vicar droning at his service failed to do him justice, he was, as is so often the case, just processing the ritual as quickly as possible. I longed to push him aside and properly celebrate a good man.
Ted had been a prisoner of war in Japan for three terrible years and had kept a sketchy diary of his war; this small book was handed to me today by his brother who said that he had wanted me to have it. He thought I would look after it and I had a few years to go. Lovely. For me, a legacy above rubies.
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Monday, August 22, 2005
Stay
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Sunday, August 21, 2005
Watched the Carlton remake of 'The Railway Children" this evening and found it almost too saccharin to bear. I really only stuck with it for the wonderful Gregor Fisher whose acting always has that RabC'ish air of slight danger. And I did like one of the boy Peter's lines; " When I grow up I want to marry a lady who has trances and only wakes up once or twice a month". I expect plenty of gentlemen would echo that.Here is Fifty People See a set of photographs created from multiple images, The result - soft, very desirable abstracts with the added significance of their provenance. (Via Watermark)
And echoing that, a more elaborate concept - 'a full colour portrait of the English language - The artwork is an interactive map of more than 33,000 words. Each word has been assigned a color based on the average color of images found by a search engine. The words are then grouped by meaning. The resulting patterns form an atlas of our lexicon.' Martin Wattenberg
(Via Lady Crumpet's Armoire)
In her fine, self-revealing post of August 6th, Natalie linked to her account of her mother Blanche's art and life. I have returned to it several times, attracted again by the colour of the personality and the paintings. A loving tribute from a daughter.
And finally, here is a link to an extraordinary night shot of the Niesen mountain taken by the Neffe - with an explanation of the effect and the exposure. Hope I won't be sued for using the portrait.| Permanent link
Friday, August 19, 2005
East-speak
I copied this great little send-up from a book on regional accents ages ago. Times are harder in the agri-business nowadays. The broad Norfolk dialect is a mite impenetrable.
Whoy's your coat rarted arf arn you, bor?
Why is the coat rotted off your back?
I bin wartchin the sprie pline.
I have been supervising aerial spraying.
Whass he a-sprying?
What is being sprayed?
Roundup, pair a quat, Igent Arange.
Glyphosate,paraquat,2.4.5.T.
Where's he a-sprying?
What is being sprayed?
Effin Iss iss iss eye.
Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Es that laygle?
is that legal?
Yes, thass laygle pinding dinegeld.
Yes, if you do it while the committee is deciding how much to bribe you.
Dare oh dare, thass hard, farming.
The plight of British agriculture is a sorry one.
Ah, tis. Hev a little cavyer?
Yes it is. A little caviare?
Noo, just parped in whoile they parlished the Rooler.
No. I only popped in while they were polishing the Rolls.
How's the boy?
How is your heir?
Hay's a carmunist.
The other day he spoke admiringly of Central Government.
Hay's a hoomersexal.
The other day he spoke admiringly of a hedgerow.
Hay's a dye boy now.
He commutes from Norfolk to Eton by helicopter.
Dew yew have a poile of land?
Do you have much land?
Thass 5000 acres.
Just the one large field.
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Thursday, August 18, 2005
ScotPics
Fringe posters - Edinburgh
It was a good trip apart from
- £1.95 for a motorway mall cup of tea
- the coach driver who said "...ping-pong, end of message," when he signed off on his mike. Probably two thousand times
- devoting a whole hour to two old duffers demonstrating model trains when we could have been on the way to crowded, exciting Edinburgh
- a loose seat on our bathroom lavatory that swung round unexpectedly, usually when in mid-stream
- queueing with twenty thousand people for 80 minutes to get into the Tattoo while every bag was searched by a triple line of police and military.
- my blooming duff leg
There are quite a few images over at flickr
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Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Traindriver
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Thursday, August 11, 2005
Travelling
We are off early tomorrow for a long week-end in Scotland. The Colonel spotted one of those canned coach trips and fancied going. Hotel situated between Glasgow and Edinburgh, self-described as 'independant since 1982 with pool and sauna'. We have Saturday in Edinburgh at Festival time, evening at the Tattoo, Sunday in the Trossachs, Loch Katrine, 3 mile walk and a steamy train ride. Back on Monday via the Lake District with a call in at Kendal for lunch. Lots of bum-aching, which doesn't suit my leg and anyway I want to go further North, rather than pussy foot about where I have already been. Come on now, Anna, be gracious. Maybe I can
manage to twist the itinerary to see this exhibition.
By the way, driving through Culford village on the way to Bury St Edmunds this morning I passed two young men decked out in navy and pink lycra riding two enormous penny farthing bicycles hell for leather. I am still wondering if I was dreaming.
manage to twist the itinerary to see this exhibition.
By the way, driving through Culford village on the way to Bury St Edmunds this morning I passed two young men decked out in navy and pink lycra riding two enormous penny farthing bicycles hell for leather. I am still wondering if I was dreaming.| Permanent link
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
A name for Ivy's fawn
We think it's a female, about a week old. This is the first time Ivy has brought her fawn so close to us. I am toying with 'Hedy', for ivy = hedera, but if anyone has a better suggestion...?
Two more pictures at flickr
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Quotes
'Once you have slept in 1st Class you know you belong there.'
Valerie Miner in The Low Road
'That woman is suffering from elephantiasis of the temper!'
P.G. Wodehouse.
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Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Intake
Sometimes one is ashamed of living so long and remaining unaware of many simple facts and marvellous things. Work in a reference library endlessly confronts you with your own ignorance. The set of blogs that I read ensure cultural serendipity and being at home with the radio tuned to a permanent mutter I trawl in plenty of new stuff. For example, yesterday I heard a profile of Saint-Saens who is mostly a mystery to me. I really only know his Carnival of the Animals (Pavlova's Swan) and absolutely nothing about him; they played a movement from his Organ Symphony and it blew me away with its power and line and great melody.
Hailed by Berlioz as the great hope of French music, he was made bitter by being sidelined when the new wave of impressionistic music and the modern Russians arrived. He hated Stravinsky. I must get that symphony and some more of his orchestral work from somewhere soon, library, I think.
That last has given me the idea of re-reading Asterix; Googling idly I found this by Anthea Bell who did the English translations. A task indeed to transform French puns to English taste:
Hailed by Berlioz as the great hope of French music, he was made bitter by being sidelined when the new wave of impressionistic music and the modern Russians arrived. He hated Stravinsky. I must get that symphony and some more of his orchestral work from somewhere soon, library, I think.
We bought bottle of Pays d'Oc wine to take to a do, it occurred to me staring at the label in the car that I didn't know what 'Oc meant - Languedoc obviously, but why? I found this elegant French explanation which gave me the extra challenge of reading it aloud for practice. (Translation)
That last has given me the idea of re-reading Asterix; Googling idly I found this by Anthea Bell who did the English translations. A task indeed to transform French puns to English taste:'For Asterix, references have to be dredged up from elsewhere. There are the names in the French originals, about 400 in all, and only a very few, like Julius Caesar and Vercingetorix, are genuine. The rest are French compound phrases ending -ix for Gauls, -us for Romans, -os for Greeks and so forth, and they need rethinking in English. Asterix and Obelix, luckily, are no problem. But their chieftain Abraracourcix (literally, "with arms shortened", as in "ready to pitch in") is Vitalstatistix in English because of his girth.
Obelix's dog, Idéfix, turns into Dogmatix. A couple of minor Roman legionaries become Sendervictorius and Appianglorius. In the most recent book the French name of the high priest of Atlantis is Hyapados ( from "il n'y pas d'os", or "there's no snag"). In English he becomes Absolutlifabulos; even if the famous television series fades from memory, the name should still fit, since Atlantis really is a place of fable.'
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Monday, August 08, 2005
Prepared
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Saturday, August 06, 2005
Robin Cook
He had a valuable intellect and a courageous spirit that served us well on many occasions. His resignation speech, in which he spoke for a majority of British people, will not be forgotten. You may hear and read it here; it is well worth your time.
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John's joke
We spent the evening with a friend who has a good fund of funny stories - I like this:
A man was kept awake for several nights by a dog howling in the next door garden. "I can't stand this any more," he said to his wife one morning "I'm going to sort it out."
He knocked on his neighbour, Walter's door and asked him if the dog was for sale. "Well, yes, I suppose so, how much are you willing to pay?"
"Twenty five pounds OK?"
"Not half, you can have him straight away."
The man took the dog home and later on shut him out in the garden for the night. As he closed the door he said to his wife, "Serve old Walter right, now let him have a taste of his own medicine."
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Friday, August 05, 2005
Herbs
Bay, basil, fennel, oregano, thyme, tansy, borage, chamomile, sage, mint, camphor, rosemary, lemon balm, chives, welsh onion, chicory, feverfew, lavender, evening primrose, rue, catmint, savory, angelica, coriander, comfrey, wormwood, pot marjoram and, unfortunately, pennyroyal everywhere. Most of them are flowering now and full of bees.
The eclectic gardener from Oregon has a more compact idea.
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Thursday, August 04, 2005
Random
What is it about blokes and talcum powder? All the ones I have had the chance to observe have used the same method; throw large quantities of it up in the air and catch what you can on your feet coming down. Thus leaving the bathroom looking like an asbestos factory in the bad old days.
Today we had a pressure-washer on the go, cleaning stone areas round the house, it had a special attachment with ball-bearings in the nozzle which focuses the water into an incredible jet. Addictive, moss flew everywhere, mould and ugly old circles of grey lichen that I couldn't move for love nor money by hand flicked away like talcum off a bath-mat. I can't get over the difference, dingy black turned to lovely pale stone. I, on the other hand had turned black and my boots were full of muddy water. Luvvly jubbly.
My eyesight is getting a bit dodgy, this morning I picked up half a broken wooden clothes peg on the kitchen surface and bit it. I thought it was a bread crust. Mind you, it may just be daftness; I chatted amiably to the cat for ages once until I realised he was outside and I was addressing my handbag under the table. I do so miss having cats, here's the one in question, long lost Tim asleep in his duvet:
Talking with an old library colleague today, she told me of a student's book reservation that they had taken recently for Pascal's Ponces. Almost as good as the old favourite, Tolstoy's Worn Piece.
I voted in R4's "The Greatest Painting in Britain"; just let my mind open and picked the first that floated to the top when I thought of that phrase. It's a pretty stupid task given the thousands of possibilities, and I'm surprised that something earlier, more classical didn't arise. But it's not a bad choice.
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Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Seeing things
In the post-Victorian enlightenment of journalism, which restrained public taste for ghoulish detail, people were assaulted or murdered, not gang-raped, tortured, gouged, burned alive, garrotted, or multiply-stabbed.
The usual sober news broadcast on Radio 4 today referred to "Anthony Walker, the teenager who was hacked to death". Another, a few days ago, mentioned a woman being "throttled to death". When this radio station, which trades on its gravitas, starts upping the ante on its news vocabulary it rings bells. They must feel that that they are lagging behind in the hyperbole stakes. One wonders if some editorial stiffening is being allowed and reports will now progress to the full verbal delineation of severed limbs, crime-scene photographs and pathological detail that is now common in most of the press and on TV.
We can stand a lot more than we did in terms of the description of human atrocities, but there is a definite sense of drama affecting reportage now. The hours and hours of almost disgustingly prurient broadcasting that attends any disaster begins to sicken me. I don't want an itemised report of the precise acts that a paedophile has committed on some poor child, nor the number and location of stab wounds, bruises or mutilations. A broad indication is sufficient to give the gravity of the crime. The rest is part of the the current and growing tase for shock.
I once came across a terrible thing that has haunted me since. I stood among the shelves of a public library behind the 'true crime' section of books. Anyone who has looked through this genre recently will realise that files of police photographs have been opened for publication. There lie the Ripper's bloody victims, poor sad faces contorted; here you can read about Frederick (Fred) West's perversions and visit his house in sickest detail. There are literally miles of the stuff published.
Two young girls were at these shelves with a child of about two in a push chair, they had opened a book with murder pictures and were gleefully, and that is exactly the word for it, making him look at them. They pushed them under his nose and said "Look, look, look, lots of blood, look." They were laughing. I couldn't leave it, I exceeded my brief and took the book from them and gave them a good rollicking. I saw there a taste being passed on, a desensitising process beginning.
I so wish that we could, in all media, draw back from the mad race to push down every barrier that shields us from our inner delight in the awful. Canute had similarly vain aspirations.