Don't Take A Fence

'Don’t Take A Fence' by Paul Curtis.

Don’t Take A Fence

My uncle John the fence died

When I heard I felt quite sorry

It was poetic justice though

As he fell off the back of a lorry
Copyright © Paul Curtis. All Rights Reserved

This is a lovely little poem which may need some explaining for non-English readers. In Wales 'John the fence' would be a man who erected fences; in England and elsewhere it would be a man who received stolen goods.
And in British English (I'm not sure about elsewhere - please let me know), something that 'fell off the back of lorry' means it was stolen so I can sell it to you cheaply!

I'm listening to the wonderful John Prine singing his own song, the achingly sad, Hello in There. He was past his best in this live recording but still has the power to convey a moving story. You can listen here.

There are also good versions by Bette Midler and Joan Baez.

A Bit of Fun (2)

For the umpteenth time I have been listening to a fabulous recording by The Everly Brothers and The Beach Boys together singing Don't Worry Baby. Listen to it HERE

A Bit of Fun (1)

I am a moderator on a Facebook group that has 72,000 members. I offer here a sample of some of the things I have posted over the past few months:

I'm listening to Brinsley Schwarz, led by Nick Lowe, singing Happy Doing What We're Doing. Listen here.

Painting of the month (83) August 2018: Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is a photographer who specialises in female portraits emulating various iconic images of women. Her most famous work, Untitled Film Stills (1978-1980) is a set of 69 monochrome portraits based on Hollywood movie stills intended to subvert the role of women in the film world. Some of her other work includes fashion shoots, album covers and a few short films.

She has also produced images parodying historical portraits, centre-folds and publicity shots. They are deliberately clichéd. She is a true artist in the sense that she creates images which reflect the society we live in and holds up a mirror for us to examine our values.

In case you had not realised every one of these photos is a self-portrait of the artist!

REPOST: How Beer Saved the World

I am enjoying trawling through some of my favourite posts and publishing them again - I think it's better than posting nothing at the moment, (which would be the alternative)!

How Beer Saved The World

I'm here to defend the good name of beer and to tell you how it saved the world. Really.
Many scientists and anthropologists now believe that it was not the desire for bread that kick-started the agricultural revolution that ended hunter-gathering 9,000 years ago; it was the yearning for barley to make beer. This led to inventions such as the plough, the wheel, irrigation, mathematics and even led to writing! This cascade of world-changing innovations was brought about by the desire for beer.
In ancient Eygypt workers were paid in beer so we could say that we wouldn't have had the Pyramids without beer. There are those who claim it is one of the major food groups because of it's nutritional content.
In modern times it played an important role in refrigeration, the discovery of germ theory and modern medicine. 
However, in Medieval times when water was too dirty to drink, possibly it's most important function was to support the population. Beer was safe to drink and men, women and children drank it morning to night, certainly in England.
That possibly is still the case in some parts! Cheers.

I'm listening to Billy Joel's 

Say Goodbye to Hollywood

Listen here.

REPOST: E. Annie Proulx

THIS IS A FURTHER UPDATE OF A TOPIC I FIRST BLOGGED ABOUT TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO!

E. Annie Proulx (pronounced 'Proo') is a writer of wonderful fiction. Her densely written, observational style is packed with lots of detail and a very strong sense of place, such as the unfashionable parts of Newfoundland, Wyoming and Texas. Her descriptive writing always reminds me of John Steinbeck's work due to her obvious affection for the places and kinds of people who are not usually the heroes of modern fiction. She has a Dickensian knack of naming her characters in an outlandish way that very soon seems to be perfectly natural.

For example “That Old Ace in The Hole” (2002) features, among others, Jerky Baum, Pecan Flagg, Blowy Cluck, Coolbroth Fronk, and Waldo Beautyrooms. It’s the story of Bob Dollar, hired by Global Pork Rind to buy up small farms, in the Texas panhandle town of Woolybucket, so that they can be turned into hog farms under the guise of buying land for luxury housing. The book touches on the larger issue of pollution and depletion of the water table as a background. The story is fairly thin on plot but rich in character and anecdote.
“Accordion Crimes” (1996) lovingly tells the story of a succession of owners of an accordion. Annie Proulx is a dispassionate observer of life but she does not shy away from unpleasant scenes and can be brutally honest in her depiction of those who are the losers in life’s lottery.
“The Shipping News” (1993) is a magnificent novel that demands a lot from the reader, whose attentiveness will be richly rewarded. At the start of each chapter a picture of a different type of knot is shown and this turns out to have a metaphorical reference to the content of that chapter. It was turned into a successful movie with Kevin Spacey in 2001. In a similar way “Postcards”(1992) showed a drawing of a postcard at the start of each chapter with a message that was sometimes directly relevant to the story and sometimes just added background colour. In 1997 she wrote a short story which was published in a collection of her work called "Close Range: Wyoming Stories" (1999) which was filmed in 2005. That was the very successful "Brokeback Mountain", in which she typically tackled a subject that had hitherto been taboo in mainstream literature.

Since I first wrote this (1996) and updated it on this Blog (2013) Annie Proulx has continued to publish and is still among my favourite writers. At the age of 82, she is still working!

I am continuing to repost earlier efforts due to a lack of time. Back to normal with some new stuff soon..... I think. .

REPOST: Little known facts!

All of these facts must be true because I got them from the Internet - except for the one that I made up! Can you spot my one?

Can you spot the made up fact?

• Japanese research has concluded that moderate drinking can boost IQ levels.
• The fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth is called Arachibutyrophobia.
• Macadamia nuts are not sold in their shells because it takes 300 pounds per square inch of pressure to break the shell.
• Florida: An elephant tied to a parking meter must pay the regular parking fee.
• In Samoa, it is illegal to forget your wife's birthday.
• In Alabama it is illegal to stab yourself to gain someone's pity.
• In the UK it is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• London taxis (black cabs) must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats.
• Descendants of Sweeney Todd, the cannibalistic barber, founded a sausage factory in Somerset, England after the First World War.
• The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
• Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain

Answer is now in the comments section!

I'm listening to Candy Says by The Velvet Underground with the late Lou Reed on vocals. Listen HERE. It's a very sad song about Candy Darling who was the person he sung about in Walk on The Wild Side.

REPOST: Flowers by Wendy Cope

Reposted from February 2013.
This post is especially for All Consuming. But of course anyone is very welcome to comment!

Wendy Cope. Born England 1945.(www.goodreads.com)

Flowers

Some men never think of it.
You did. You’d come along
And say you’d nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts —
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.
From Serious Concerns, Faber & Faber, 1992

Wendy Cope, born 1945, is an English poet, the kind of whom it is easy to dismiss as lightweight or superficial but I would like to make the case that she is neither of those things. Although clothed in humour and wit, her words carry the weight and gravitas and of more serious matters. She cleverly uses the easy appeal to make a point, often about men: Men are like bloody buses-/ You wait for about a year/ And as soon as one approaches your stop/ Two or three others appear.
The poem centres around the themes of remembrance and intentions that were never carried out and there is a deep underlying sadness present. I think it is saying that the thought counts as much, or more, than the deed. The last stanza is heart-breakingly poignant.

I am listening to the late Kevin Coyne's brilliant recording of Blame it on The Night. He was a bit of a wild child who had been a psychiatric nurse and he sang about mental illness with deep insight. Listen here.

The Riddle Solved.

The solution to the Old English Riddle of my last post is, of course 'A Bookworm'. Hels's analogy with dementia also perfectly fits the description as does Arleen's ageing poet; so everyone was right!

The Book of Exeter is the oldest extant collection of Old English literature. The copy in Exeter Cathedral was made after the year 975; so it's well over a thousand years old. Some of the poems it contains have been dated back to the seventh century. It was presented to the the Cathedral by Bishop Leofric who died in 1072.
It contains religious verse's and many riddles, some of which are full of cheeky double entendres that would make you blush so it's a strange mix of the spiritual and the secular side-by-side!
Here's one more:
I am a wondrous creature for women in expectation, a service for neighbours. I harm none of the citizens except my slayer alone. My stem is erect, I stand up in bed, hairy somewhere down below. A very comely peasant's daughter, dares sometimes, proud maiden, that she grips at me, attacks me in my redness, plunders my head, confines me in a stronghold, feels my encounter directly, woman with braided hair. Wet be that eye.

Scroll down for the answer!

Answer: An onion!

An Old English Riddle

AN OLD ENGLISH RIDDLE

A moth, I thought, munching a word.

How marvellously weird! A worm

Digesting a man’s sayings –

A sneak-thief nibbling in the shadows

At the shape of a poet’s thunderous phrases –

How unutterably strange!

And the pilfering parasite none the wiser

For the words he has swallowed.

This was published in The Book Of Exeter over one thousand years ago.

I will tell more about that when I give the answer to the riddle in a few days.

REPOST: from 2011 Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon, Sir William Russell-Flint, 1909

It is not generally realised how much the Old Testament's Song of Solomon pervades modern culture. It contains some of the most beautiful love poetry ever written:

The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is an ointment poured forth; therefore do the virgins love you.

Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee: we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me: they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.

Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, wherefeedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feedthy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.

Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.

We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.

While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard (1) sendeth forth the small thereof.

A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire (2) in the vineyards of Engedi.

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast dove’s eyes.

Behold; thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant; also our bed is green.

The beams of our house are cedar and our rafters of fir.

 (1)  Spikenard is an aromatic herb and a member of the ginseng family.

(      (2)  Camphire is an archaic name for henna.

It is important to know that this is just the first chapter and that the 'voice' of the poem switches from person to person. Biblical scholars argue whether or not this was written by Solomon or for him. Here are just a few of the references that have been made:

•  Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy's 1985 song Kiss Me quotes directly from the Song of Solomon.
• ·      Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon was instrumental in her winning a Nobel Prize.
• ·         Chapter 2, verse 15 (not reproduced here) provided the title for Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play Little Foxes.
• ·         Also the opening line of Chapter 2 provides the name 'Rose of Sharon' used by Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath.
• ·         Countless number of (mostly obscure) rock groups have taken their names and song titles from Song of Solomon.
• ·         One of Kate Bush's songs from The Red Shoes  is Song of Solomon
• ·         In his poem When I Hear You Sing, Leonard Cohen refers to the Song of Solomon.
• ·         Many writers and composers through history have taken inspiration from this work. They include Geoffrey Chaucer, JS Bach and up to Steeleye Span and Neil Diamond (in Holly Holy).

I find it amazing how these ancient lines reach out across the millennia and still have resonance today. Be inspired by this poetry and remember that love is better than hate!

Painting of the Month (82) May 2018: Sisley

Alfred Sisley, 1839-1899, was an Anglo-French impressionist painter who pretty much stuck to impressionist landscape painting for all of his career. His was much over-shadowed by some of his contemporaries, especially Manet and I think, with justifiable reason. Seen together his output is a magnificent collection of his depictions of the countryside in the suburbs of Paris although he also produced some important work in England. He worked 'en plein air' (outdoors) through a longer period than the other impressionists. 

I sometimes get the feeling that everything he shows us is 'from a distance' so to speak both emotionally and physically. This doesn't affect the quality clearly evident in his pictures.

 Sisley, Snow at Louveciennes, 1873

People were mostly adornments to his paintings, not the subjects.

Sisley, Riverbank at Mammes, 1880

I'm listening to one of my very favourite classical pieces: The Polovstsian Dances from Borodin's Prince Igor. Listen here!

REPOST: The Royal Parks of London (1) St James Park

I've been a bit busy lately so I'm re-posting this from five years ago. It's one of my favourite places in London.

The Royal Parks of London (1) St James Park

A magical view  across the lake in St James Park, London

St James Park is the second smallest of London's eight Royal parks at 57 acres. These parks were originally owned by the Crown and used for sport, mainly deer hunting. In 1532 Henry VIII purchased some marshland owned by Eton College in an area that had formerly consisted of a female leper colony and pig farms and he enclosed it to create a hunting park on his door-step. Successive monarchs improved the park until Charles II, upon the restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil War, had the park laid out in the way he had seen in France during his exile. Today the park is pretty much as improved by the architect and landscape designer John Nash in 1827. It's full of the most charming range of trees, shrubs, flowers and wildlife.

In 1664 the Russian Ambassador presented a pelican to the Court of St James (any Ambassador or High Commissioner to the United Kingdom is officially "Ambassador to the Court of  St James") this began a tradition of presenting pelicans as gifts and today there is an island of rocks in the lake, especially for them. There are also Egyptian geese, Greylags, Wood Ducks and many other beautiful birds. At one end of the park is Horse Guards Parade famous for the ceremony of Trooping the Colour and at the other end the best view of Buckingham Palace is to be seen.

My Heroes (43): Sir Roger Bannister

The passing away of Sir Roger Bannister last month has recalled a time when post-war Britain was very different than it is today. The breaking of the four-minute mile barrier was as much psychological as it was physical. The whole event, which took place at the Iffley Road track in Oxford where Sir Roger was a student doctor, was very low-key in a way that would seem amateurish today. Sir Roger had specifically targeted breaking the four-minute barrier. Seven athletes were scheduled to race but one of the runners forgot his shorts so could not take part in the race! 

The concept of breaking that barrier was challenged by some who said no human could do it. However, Roger Bannister thought "why not, why would the barrier be at exactly four minutes?"

He ran a mile in three minutes and 59.4 seconds and, as if to prove his point, the record was quickly broken again by Australia's John Landy and then many times over the next few months. It seems that once the psychological barrier was broken, it became relatively easier. He had been assisted in his efforts by his two pacemakers, Christopher Chataway and Chris Brasher who both became very successful middle-distance runners themselves.

I love this charming quote from Sir Roger on his retirement: "I'd rather be remembered for my work in neurology than my running. If you offered me the chance to make a great breakthrough in the study of the automatic nerve system, I'd take that over the four minute mile right away. I worked in medicine for sixty years. I ran for about eight."^[

I'm listening to Dion singing one of my favourite rock songs, Ruby Baby. Listen here.

Painting of the Month (81) April 2018: Peter Blake

Peter Blake, born 1932, is a British artist who was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement in the 1960's. He is most well-known for co-creating the sleeve design for The Beatles album Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 and this post is really about that.

 Blake's iconic sleeve design for Sgt Pepper

Probably the most well-known album design ever made.

Io Herodotus's explanation of the people featured on the sleeve. 

Here is a list of those people followed by a list of some who were left out. You may notice that there is not a perfect correspondence between the two pictures because changes were constantly being made:

Top row

(1) Sri Yukteswar Giri (Hindu guru)

(2) Aleister Crowley (occultist)

(3) Mae West (actress)

(4) Lenny Bruce (comedian)

(5) Karlheinz Stockhausen (composer)

(6) W. C. Fields (comedian/actor)

(7) Carl Jung (psychiatrist)

(8) Edgar Allan Poe (writer)

(9) Fred Astaire (actor/dancer)

(10) Richard Merkin (artist)

(11) The Vargas Girl (by artist Alberto Vargas)

(12) Leo Gorcey (image was removed from cover, but the space remains between "The Vargas Girl" and "Huntz Hall")

(13) Huntz Hall (actor)

(14) Simon Rodia (designer and builder of the Watts Towers)

(15) Bob Dylan (singer/songwriter)

Second row

(16) Aubrey Beardsley (illustrator)

(17) Sir Robert Peel (19th century British Prime Minister)

(18) Aldous Huxley (writer)

(19) Dylan Thomas (poet)

(20) Terry Southern (writer)

(21) Dion DiMucci (singer/songwriter)

(22) Tony Curtis (actor)

(23) Wallace Berman (artist)

(24) Tommy Handley (comedian)

(25) Marilyn Monroe (actress)

(26) William S. Burroughs (writer)

(27) Sri Mahavatar Babaji (Hindu guru)

(28) Stan Laurel (actor/comedian)

(29) Richard Lindner (artist)

(30) Oliver Hardy (actor/comedian)

(31) Karl Marx (political philosopher)

(32) H. G. Wells (writer)

(33) Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (Hindu guru)

(34A) James Joyce (Irish poet and novelist) – barely visible below Bob Dylan(34) Anonymous (hairdresser's wax dummy)

Third row

(35) Stuart Sutcliffe (artist/former Beatle)

(36) Anonymous (hairdresser's wax dummy)

(37) Max Miller (comedian)

(38) A "Petty Girl" (by artist George Petty)

(39) Marlon Brando (actor)

(40) Tom Mix (actor)

(41) Oscar Wilde (writer)

(42) Tyrone Power (actor)

(43) Larry Bell (artist)

(44) David Livingstone (missionary/explorer)

(45) Johnny Weissmuller (Olympic swimmer/Tarzan actor)

(46) Stephen Crane (writer) – barely visible between Issy Bonn's head and raised arm

(47) Issy Bonn (comedian)

(48) George Bernard Shaw (playwright)

(49) H. C. Westermann (sculptor)

 (50) Albert Stubbins (English footballer)

(51) Sri Lahiri Mahasaya (guru)

(52) Lewis Carroll (writer)

(53) T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia")

Front row

(54) Wax model of Sonny Liston (boxer)

(55) A "Petty Girl" (by George Petty)

(56) Wax model of George Harrison

(57) Wax model of John Lennon

(58) Shirley Temple (child actress) – barely visible behind the wax models of John and Ringo, first of three

ppearances on the cover

(59) Wax model of Ringo Starr

(60) Wax model of Paul McCartney

(61) Albert Einstein (physicist) – largely obscured

(62) John Lennon holding a french horn

(63) Ringo Starr holding a trumpet

(64) Paul McCartney holding a cor anglais

(65) George Harrison holding a piccolo

(65A) Bette Davis (actress) – hair barely visible on top of George's shoulder

(66) Bobby Breen (singer)

(67) Marlene Dietrich (actress/singer)

(68) Mahatma Gandhi was planned for this position, but was deleted prior to publication

(69) An American legionnaire^[2]

(70) Wax model of Diana Dors (actress)

(71) Shirley Temple (child actress) – second appearance on the cover

People excluded from the cover

(12) Leo Gorcey – was modelled and originally included to the left of Huntz Hall, but was subsequently removed when a fee of $400 was requested for the use of the actor's likeness.^[5][6]

(54A) Unidentified laughing figure - barely visible

(56A) Sophia Loren (actress) - behind the Beatles waxworks

(57A) Marcelo Mastroianni (actor) - behind the Beatles waxworks

(65A) Timothy Carey (actor) - was modelled and originally included but largely obscured by George Harrison in the final picture

(68) Mahatma Gandhi – was modelled and originally included to the right of Lewis Carroll, but was subsequently removed According to McCartney, "Gandhi also had to go because the head of EMI, Sir Joe Lockwood, said that in India they wouldn't allow the record to be printed".

Jesus Christ – was requested by Lennon, but not modelled because the LP would be released just over a year after Lennon’s Jesus remark.

(C) Adolf Hitler – was modelled and was visible in early photographs of the montage, positioned to the right of Larry Bell, but was eventually removed when his inclusion was considered offensive.