Saturday, March 31, 2007
Talking of sonnets...
...Shakespeare's sit on my bedside table. The bookmark's currently at Sonnet 37, whose progressive phrasing is assembled with sweet dexterity:
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
There are two utterly different performances that please me no end. Number 116 read by Eleanor, the sort of lady I'd like to spend time with on her sofa beside Finlay the beagle. And Chocolate Voice gives Number 130 the full works and some more.
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
There are two utterly different performances that please me no end. Number 116 read by Eleanor, the sort of lady I'd like to spend time with on her sofa beside Finlay the beagle. And Chocolate Voice gives Number 130 the full works and some more.
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Friday, March 30, 2007
I could write a sonnet....
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Thursday, March 29, 2007
Regeneration
When we have the sort of visitors who might be interested, we always take them to the little church of St Mary the Virgin at Houghton on the Hill, Norfolk. Tucked away up a muddy track are a small church with a unique pedigree and the man who rescued it from decay, devil-worship and destruction. Bob Davey, its saviour and churchwarden, has brought it from an ivy-covered ruin to a preserved and valued church protected by English Heritage for its intrinsic historical importance. From under damp plaster there eventually emerged wall paintings of great significance, dating from the 1st to the 11th centuries.
The story of the saving of St Mary's is now well documented - it has its own website. Another, created by its friends in Canada, introduces St Mary's in this way:
The church of St. Mary the virgin has been a place of worship for well over 1,000 years and is one of three area churches thought to have been founded by St. Felix circa 630 AD, the other two are at Cockley Cley and Caldicot. This early church is estimated to have been rebuilt between 950AD and the early 11th century. These three churches were all situated upon evidence of Neolithic finds and geographically form a straight line which, if extended, align with the standing stones of Avebury and Stonehenge. It is not the purpose here, however, to speculate upon the existence of ley-lines although there would have been a motive to Christianise local sites that had long been associated with heathen worship or activity by surmounting them eventually with a church. This practice very much ties in with the advice from Pope Gregory the Great to St. Augustine that "the fanes (shrines) of the idols should very seldom be destroyed" so that the converts "can assemble at the places which they are accustomed to come to". Today, St. Mary the Virgin stands alone on top of the hill at Houghton but it was once at the centre of a settlement, which had its origins in the late Stone Age. The present church has been built on top of Roman foundations, under which have been found evidence of a Neolithic line of huts. The Roman road, the Peddars Way, passed very close to this site and there is a large quantity of Roman brick that has been reused in the present church that may have come from a known nearby villa.Bob Davey literally dug it out, cleared the ground, spent most of his waking life on his project. He did it for love, faith and out of obsession.
He is a Christian, a Bible scholar, now erudite in the history of his discovery. He achieved the miracle of jointly sharing a prestigious RIBA award with the restorers of Windsor Castle after the fire. Prince Charles & Princess Margaret came to see him; he acquired an M.B.E. He looks lovably Tolkienesque, has a keen wit and endless patience in interpreting the church to visitors. He's always there, planting, mowing, cleaning, chatting; "Come when it warms up and bring a picnic," he said on Sunday, "It would be nice to see you all enjoying the garden." Wonderful church, wonderful man.| Permanent link
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Meme Mania
Visual DNA
Via Space Cat Rocket ship
Via Space Cat Rocket ship
Wikipedia
Via Zhoen.
1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday, month and day only.
2. List events that occurred on that day that interest you.
1296 - Battle of Dunbar: The Scots are defeated by Edward I of England.
(With the help of Mel Gibson)
1667 - The blind, impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.
(About £1300 in today's money)
1749 - First performance of Handel's Fireworks Music in Green Park, London.
(Played to celebrate the end of another commercial tussle with our friends acrosss the Channel)
1805 - First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The "shores of Tripoli" part of the Marines' hymn).
(I admit that I had no knowledge of this war, an utterly fascinating affair of pirates and extortion - with real reverberations of today's terrorism)
1941 - World War II: German troops enter Athens.
(My ex-husband, a fair-haired teutonic type, was spat at by an old Greek lady, guardian of a small church, who took him for a German. When Britishness was revealed, she embraced him. It was a scary demonstration of enduring hatred.)
1974 - 10,000 march in Washington, D.C., calling for impeachment of US President Nixon.
(I remember this riveting episode in an unequalled political scandal)
3. List a few birthdays.
1737 - Edward Gibbon, English historian (d. 1794)
1891 - Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (d. 1953)
1916 - Enos Slaughter, American baseball player (d. 2002) (Love that name)
1927 - Coretta Scott King, American civil rights activist (d. 2006)
1957 - Eric Bristow, English darts player .....(from the sublime to the ridiculous)
4. List a death.
1521 - Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese explorer (b. 1480)
5. List a holiday/observance.
South Africa: Freedom day
Feast of St Zita (She cleaned)
6. Tag - Everyone and Marja-Leena if she's not up to her neck in collotypes.
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Sunday, March 18, 2007
Ear Candy
Bien Culturel - Les Radios Blog - Jazz, Pot Pourri and Dark. There are some very good things here. Including Keith Jarrett among the Pot Pourri.
Old Friends. 'Time it was and what a time it was....' Affecting.
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Saturday, March 17, 2007
Hitting the fans
We have been out for a couple of evenings (mercifully, it turns out); coming in late yesterday, I switched on the TV and caught a bit of the annual Children in Need charity show. Within five minutes Jonathan Ross had lined up a deep stack of crummy innuendos, multiple projectile vomiting, two references to blow-jobs, a couple of four letter words and an exhortation that we should all help them raise money by getting off our b----- arses. Wow, that made me want to give until it hurt. As an interviewer Ross has now become an embarrassment, though capable of of brilliant repartee and intelligent comment, he regularly demeans his guests by his lazy shock tactics.
Tonight when I switched on, Dame Edna Everage had been interviewing an American starlet and Sigourney Weaver. Cut to Edna's beauty clinic where Nancy Dell'Olio was being given - ah yes - an enema; Mr. Bean arrived by the bedside, grimaced and pulled out the tubing. A torrent of chocolate liquid drenched the set. Nancy lay smiling serenely - demonstrating that any publicity is good, even if involves a public shower of one's own pretend excrement. Watching this, the Americans' faces were set in rictus grins that barely hid their distate and amazement at this piece of stylish British broadcasting.
I love a bit of gentle scatological humour, expect the F word, enjoy edgy comedy and erotic interlude. But what is happening now is the escalating pursuit of a crudeness that begins to shame us. To shock takes greater and greater use of the blunt instruments of humour. Once-respected comedians and comperes are pushing further out into blatant vulgarities, just because they may. Rowan Atkinson & Barry Humphries have always produced quality writing, witty, wicked pastiches and characters. They, and so many others, are worth more than the crap, both literal and metaphorical, into which they are wading.
Tonight when I switched on, Dame Edna Everage had been interviewing an American starlet and Sigourney Weaver. Cut to Edna's beauty clinic where Nancy Dell'Olio was being given - ah yes - an enema; Mr. Bean arrived by the bedside, grimaced and pulled out the tubing. A torrent of chocolate liquid drenched the set. Nancy lay smiling serenely - demonstrating that any publicity is good, even if involves a public shower of one's own pretend excrement. Watching this, the Americans' faces were set in rictus grins that barely hid their distate and amazement at this piece of stylish British broadcasting.
I love a bit of gentle scatological humour, expect the F word, enjoy edgy comedy and erotic interlude. But what is happening now is the escalating pursuit of a crudeness that begins to shame us. To shock takes greater and greater use of the blunt instruments of humour. Once-respected comedians and comperes are pushing further out into blatant vulgarities, just because they may. Rowan Atkinson & Barry Humphries have always produced quality writing, witty, wicked pastiches and characters. They, and so many others, are worth more than the crap, both literal and metaphorical, into which they are wading.
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Thursday, March 15, 2007
Haven't written much this week, I have been working on a couple of projects. I finished and celebrated my little book and found a new friend for an old friend. Not that riveting, dealing as they do with age and a certain degree of worthiness. One uses the material to hand.
I watch out for an elderly lady who lives alone, has a failing memory and is very deaf. Socially, an horrendous combination that leads to chronic loneliness. My patience is not great and I must listen to the same story hundreds of times, repeat everything I say. I am eased by her residual intellect, for she can still take shorthand, do tough crosswords, play Bach on her piano. But I have not been able to ease her long hours of isolation. Till now.
With some trepidation, in view of her age, I took her to the local Dogs Trust and found them sympathetic; if they could find the right dog for her they thought she would be OK as an adopter. A week later we went to collect Shemar, a miniature dachshund who ticked all the boxes. But first, four of us mucked in at the week-end to put up a secure panel fence across her garden, stapled three rolls of chicken wire to other fences and re-fitted gates. We found a dog bed, toys and dishes. Shemar is divine, sweet-natured, bit of a wuss, they already adore each other. I have noticed a change in my friend already - she is lighter, alert, interested. I think I may have done the right thing for both of them.
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Friday, March 09, 2007
Bryan covers Bob
I was doubtful, but after listening to the iTunes samples I bought the album and it's really very good.
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Charlotte's Airing Cupboard
I saw the spider immobile on the door to the airing cupboard and thought nothing of it. Two days later she was in exactly the same place. Two weeks later she was in exactly the same place. I got out the magnifying glass, tickled her until she moved and saw a neat mound of eggs. It's now 28 days since she started, she has apparently eaten nothing, has hardly moved and has done her bit for the spider world. She will die soon. Who but a chronic arachnophobe could bear to disturb such a process unfolding in full view? Not us; visitors think us mad when they read the post-it notes, but I love spiders and will do them no harm.
Wilbur: Are you writers?
Charlotte's daughters: No, but we will be when we grow up.
Wilbur: Then write this in your webs, when you learn: This hallowed doorway was once the home of Charlotte. She was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. Her memory will be treasured forever.
Charlotte's daughters: Ooh, that would take us a lifetime.
Wilbur: A lifetime. That's what we have.
E.B. White: Charlotte's web
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Monday, March 05, 2007
The Faces of Daniel
With the new PC, I acquired the Windows Movie Maker software and have been itching to have a bash at putting something together with it. I am only able to handle still photographs at the moment, having no video technology other than a rubbish phone. My idea, eventually, is to make some narrated family history videos.
I wanted something to start with that was fun. You mustn't laugh at my idea of fun. Since developing a bit of a pash on D. Craig I have gradually collected most of his movies and a goodly number of downloaded images. When I pash, I pash comprehensively; after all this is only the second one since James Dean, and if it makes an old gal happy....
So I made a little presentation to upload to YouTube with the pictures and music I had to hand. It's not as easy as you might think - as some of the carelessly cobbled stuff on there shows. First you need to get a pleasing compatibility in size & quality of photos and, as in any essay, plan some sort of theme and progression. Then you have to marry it to your soundtrack and time your transitions and fades to the storyboard. It took me quite a while, but it's not too bad. It has attracted quite a good rating at YouTube so far.
I'd be really interested to get your reactions (especially Director Dick's). Not to D. Craig, you understand, though feel free, but to the quality of my first try at cinematography.
