Melissa Kite in The Spectator writes about how she is sometimes supposed to be listening to someone but is thinking about something else. I notice that in a lot of people. Perhaps it's me. Perhaps they are bored with me.
I don't really know why but a review of a new novel by a young woman was brought to mind. The novel is about a Professor who one day thinks his wife is not his real wife but someone else. Now how anyone can make a whole novel out of this premise is beyond me but - she must be a genius - she has.
The review started off by the reviewer saying the novel brought to his mind a joke (or maybe a non-joke) by an American comedian named Steven Wright. It was this:
I woke up one day and everything in my apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica. I said to my room-mate: "can you believe this? Everything in my apartment has been stolen and replaced with an exact replica." He said: "Do I know you?"
Wednesday 30 July 2008
Sunday 27 July 2008
Theatre Critics
Toby Young in The Spectator last week wrote about how some actors and directors respond rather violently to adverse criticism. He describes how a friend of his who had given an actor a bad review had a bucket-full of manure poured over his head while he sat in his open-topped BMW. On another occasion an actor whom Young himself had said nasty things about came up to him at a party and called him.... well, all sorts of nasty names.
I remember reading some time ago that a quite famous playwright had slapped Michael Billington about the head and face in the foyer of a theatre one night after Billington had slammed a play of his.
I was a theatre critic for some ten years here in Cardiff but was never actually attacked or called nasty names, though one performer was, I was told, "looking out for me" in Cardiff after I had slammed a panto he was appearing in.
And the nearest I got to a death threat was in a letter sent to the newspaper I worked for, which was sent on to me. I think it was a result of a review I had done of a play with Anna Neagle; I had the feeling that the writer of the letter might have been an ardent fan of hers. There was no written letter, only a cutting from a colour magazine which showed a plate of mashed potatoes with sausages inserted in it. Written on the picture in big letters were the words "Get Stuffed".
I remember reading some time ago that a quite famous playwright had slapped Michael Billington about the head and face in the foyer of a theatre one night after Billington had slammed a play of his.
I was a theatre critic for some ten years here in Cardiff but was never actually attacked or called nasty names, though one performer was, I was told, "looking out for me" in Cardiff after I had slammed a panto he was appearing in.
And the nearest I got to a death threat was in a letter sent to the newspaper I worked for, which was sent on to me. I think it was a result of a review I had done of a play with Anna Neagle; I had the feeling that the writer of the letter might have been an ardent fan of hers. There was no written letter, only a cutting from a colour magazine which showed a plate of mashed potatoes with sausages inserted in it. Written on the picture in big letters were the words "Get Stuffed".
Friday 25 July 2008
Essays
Paul Johnson, writing in The Spectator last week, refers to a book of essays he read when he was about 12 years old. It might be the same book we in grammar school read, indeed were forced to read since we were, come examination time, expected to produe a fairly competent essay on something or other ourselves.
A subject would be given and you then had to write about it. Sometimes you were asked to write a story on the given subject.
I don't know if this is done in today's schools but somehow I very much doubt it.
The essays in the book I mentioned were all written by famous writers. What famous writer today writes essays (except perhaps Paul Johnson himself who is very good at it)?
He mentions a famous essay, though it is more of a story, by Charles Lamb: "Dissertation on Roast Pork" - saying how marvellous it is and urging his readers to read it themselves.
I read it when I was in school at the age of about 12 or 13 and I have never forgotten it.
A couple of years ago I set about finding the essay but with no success for a long time until one day I came across it in a book by Frank Muir called "Humorous Prose". I immediately bought the book and devoured Charles Lamb's essay/story as ravenously as the two Chinese characters in the story do the accidentally roasted piglets. For by this firey accident they had discovered the pleasure of eating roast pork.
Hah! Those wonderful essays! The art has practically disappeared to be replaced by journalese, opinionated features, reviews and, yes, you have it - Blogs!
A subject would be given and you then had to write about it. Sometimes you were asked to write a story on the given subject.
I don't know if this is done in today's schools but somehow I very much doubt it.
The essays in the book I mentioned were all written by famous writers. What famous writer today writes essays (except perhaps Paul Johnson himself who is very good at it)?
He mentions a famous essay, though it is more of a story, by Charles Lamb: "Dissertation on Roast Pork" - saying how marvellous it is and urging his readers to read it themselves.
I read it when I was in school at the age of about 12 or 13 and I have never forgotten it.
A couple of years ago I set about finding the essay but with no success for a long time until one day I came across it in a book by Frank Muir called "Humorous Prose". I immediately bought the book and devoured Charles Lamb's essay/story as ravenously as the two Chinese characters in the story do the accidentally roasted piglets. For by this firey accident they had discovered the pleasure of eating roast pork.
Hah! Those wonderful essays! The art has practically disappeared to be replaced by journalese, opinionated features, reviews and, yes, you have it - Blogs!
Tuesday 22 July 2008
"Destroy my manuscripts"
Just before Frank Kafka died he asked his friend to destroy all his manuscripts. His friend didn't. So we have the pleasure - or otherwise - of reading Kafka's works. "The Trial" is his most famous work, a novel about a man who is one day arrested but he doesn't know why. It's a strange book, later made into a film by Orson Welles, one of his lesser known films which never was popular.
Philip Larkin asked his biographer to destroy all his letters after he died. I am told that he did.
I'm not sure if it is a good thing to carry out the orders of great writers who demand such things as destroying their manuscripts and letters; maybe they are not in their right minds when they are about to die.
John Murray, the publisher, made a fortune by publishing Lord Byron's "Childe Harold" but when Byron offered him his autobiography Murray not only did not publish it but, since by then Byron had died abroad, accidentally drowning, felt it would not be beneficial to Byron's reputation so he burned it.
I read about this on the weekend, then oddly, yesterday I read something about Thomas Moore, an Irish poet who knew Byron; apparently he too was given a copy of Byron's autobiography by Byron himself and he too destroyed it. Two autobiographies by the same man given to two people both of whom burned them!
A friend of mine who is a good poet and used to write short stories and novels, none published, decided in his 70's that all his fiction was no good so he destroyed it all.
"Did you burn it?" I asked him.
"No, I put it to some good use," he said. "I put it in the trench ready for my kidney beans."
"Good crop?" I asked.
"One of the best I've ever had," he said.
Philip Larkin asked his biographer to destroy all his letters after he died. I am told that he did.
I'm not sure if it is a good thing to carry out the orders of great writers who demand such things as destroying their manuscripts and letters; maybe they are not in their right minds when they are about to die.
John Murray, the publisher, made a fortune by publishing Lord Byron's "Childe Harold" but when Byron offered him his autobiography Murray not only did not publish it but, since by then Byron had died abroad, accidentally drowning, felt it would not be beneficial to Byron's reputation so he burned it.
I read about this on the weekend, then oddly, yesterday I read something about Thomas Moore, an Irish poet who knew Byron; apparently he too was given a copy of Byron's autobiography by Byron himself and he too destroyed it. Two autobiographies by the same man given to two people both of whom burned them!
A friend of mine who is a good poet and used to write short stories and novels, none published, decided in his 70's that all his fiction was no good so he destroyed it all.
"Did you burn it?" I asked him.
"No, I put it to some good use," he said. "I put it in the trench ready for my kidney beans."
"Good crop?" I asked.
"One of the best I've ever had," he said.
Sunday 20 July 2008
Cinemas of old
In The Knowledge magazine of The Times yesterday was an article about The Electric Palace, a cinema in Essex which was there in 1911 and is still showing films today. When you go in it's a step into the past.
Similar to a step my wife and I took some 10 years ago in Ilfracombe.
We were there on holiday for a week (that's quite long enough for Ilfracombe) and turned up one night at a cinema in the centre of town. I don't know how old the place was but it was in the same style as The Electric Palace, pictured in The Knowledge.
We queued for a while to see "Mission Impossible". But nothing was happening, the cinema hadn't opened when it should have, no one appeared to open the doors. Then a solitary figure of a middle-aged man came round the corner on his bike, leant it against the wall and opened the doors of the cinema. But then he closed them behind him.
We stood there waiting for something to happen. Nothing did for a few minutes until the door re-opened and the man emerged, got on his bike and shot off down the street.
"What's going on?" I asked someone.
"O, he's forgotten the film reels," someone said. "Often happens. He'll be back soon, don't worry."
I wasn't particularly worried. Just felt like someone in a surrealistic play by, say, Pirandello: "Six queuers in search of a projectionist" or something.
Eventually he returned and soon we were on our way up the front steps to the ticket office.
There they still had an old fashioned ticket machine where tickets popped up when the girl pressed something.
"Up or down?" she said.
I said: "Ugh?"
"Up or down," she repeated. "Stalls or circle."
"Circle," I said, taking my little ticket.
We sat there in the dark until the film started. The screen was minute. May have looked good from the front seat of the stalls but from here at the back of the circle.....
Anyway, it took me back to my youth in Blackwood where there were four cinemas all like this. You could see eight films per week for a few pence.
And we never sat upstairs in the circle: too posh for us. And the cost then rocketed to shillings.
Similar to a step my wife and I took some 10 years ago in Ilfracombe.
We were there on holiday for a week (that's quite long enough for Ilfracombe) and turned up one night at a cinema in the centre of town. I don't know how old the place was but it was in the same style as The Electric Palace, pictured in The Knowledge.
We queued for a while to see "Mission Impossible". But nothing was happening, the cinema hadn't opened when it should have, no one appeared to open the doors. Then a solitary figure of a middle-aged man came round the corner on his bike, leant it against the wall and opened the doors of the cinema. But then he closed them behind him.
We stood there waiting for something to happen. Nothing did for a few minutes until the door re-opened and the man emerged, got on his bike and shot off down the street.
"What's going on?" I asked someone.
"O, he's forgotten the film reels," someone said. "Often happens. He'll be back soon, don't worry."
I wasn't particularly worried. Just felt like someone in a surrealistic play by, say, Pirandello: "Six queuers in search of a projectionist" or something.
Eventually he returned and soon we were on our way up the front steps to the ticket office.
There they still had an old fashioned ticket machine where tickets popped up when the girl pressed something.
"Up or down?" she said.
I said: "Ugh?"
"Up or down," she repeated. "Stalls or circle."
"Circle," I said, taking my little ticket.
We sat there in the dark until the film started. The screen was minute. May have looked good from the front seat of the stalls but from here at the back of the circle.....
Anyway, it took me back to my youth in Blackwood where there were four cinemas all like this. You could see eight films per week for a few pence.
And we never sat upstairs in the circle: too posh for us. And the cost then rocketed to shillings.
Friday 18 July 2008
Margaret Price
My wife and I visited my Aunt Muriel when she was in hospital in Pontypool; she was not at all well and some days later she died. But we were able to talk with her. In the next bed to her was a lady named Price. Mrs Price was quite ill too but less tired than my aunt who kept dropping off to sleep while we were there, so we were able to talk at length with her.
It turned out that Mrs Price was the mother of one of the great sopranos of the last century: Margaret Price. She eagerly showed us photographs of her daughter in Germany where she was performing in grand opera.
I should have recognised her daughter because we lived quite close to each other in Blackwood, Gwent. She lived with her parents in a bungalow about a quarter of a mile from where we lived.
I had met her father a few times but did not like him at all (nor he me). He was a teacher in the local Technical School. Later he became the Principal of a College of Further Education where he ruled with a rod of iron, so to speak, and where he was not at all popular. I had the feeling that he didn't care about being popular.
But, apparently, he was instrumental in getting his daughter's career going, pestering opera companies to take her on (yes, he'd have been good at that!). Eventually she joined the Welsh National Opera Company and her career soared from then on.
She possessed one of the most pure soprano voices I have ever heard.
She retired in 1999 and has returned to Wales to live having lived many years abroad, especially Germany where she was exceedingly popular in her singing of Mozart, Wagner, Schubert and Richard Strauss.
I am reminded of her tonight having just heard Strauss's Four Last Songs at the opening prom in The Albert Hall. I heard Margaret Price sing them in Cardiff some years ago - wonderful.
It turned out that Mrs Price was the mother of one of the great sopranos of the last century: Margaret Price. She eagerly showed us photographs of her daughter in Germany where she was performing in grand opera.
I should have recognised her daughter because we lived quite close to each other in Blackwood, Gwent. She lived with her parents in a bungalow about a quarter of a mile from where we lived.
I had met her father a few times but did not like him at all (nor he me). He was a teacher in the local Technical School. Later he became the Principal of a College of Further Education where he ruled with a rod of iron, so to speak, and where he was not at all popular. I had the feeling that he didn't care about being popular.
But, apparently, he was instrumental in getting his daughter's career going, pestering opera companies to take her on (yes, he'd have been good at that!). Eventually she joined the Welsh National Opera Company and her career soared from then on.
She possessed one of the most pure soprano voices I have ever heard.
She retired in 1999 and has returned to Wales to live having lived many years abroad, especially Germany where she was exceedingly popular in her singing of Mozart, Wagner, Schubert and Richard Strauss.
I am reminded of her tonight having just heard Strauss's Four Last Songs at the opening prom in The Albert Hall. I heard Margaret Price sing them in Cardiff some years ago - wonderful.
Thursday 17 July 2008
Parents and Monsters
There was a piece in The Times today about pushy parents. "Look no further," it said, to find pushy parents, "than the touchline of your local recreation ground football pitches on a Saturday or Sunday morning."
"The spluttering, puce-faced parents.... the mob of parents storming the pitch to badmouth the referee...."
I've experienced this at first hand when I used to referee school rugby matches. Parents practically on the field of play telling me - no, ordering me what to do. Parents and teachers supporting the losing team cutting me dead after the game and giving me murderous glances.
But you can understand their feelings sometimes.
Take the time I allowed a penalty to be taken a couple of inches from the score line only for the boy to kick the ball an inch or two and touch it down. I had not realised he was practically on the score line as I ordered the opposing team to get back five yards, making it, of course, easy for him to score.
What did I do?
Taking my life in my hands, I ordered a re-take of the penalty.
Parents practically on the pitch shouting abuse. I smiled and said "Action replay."
That's the first time for there to be seen an action replay without a TV film unit to operate it.
And the last!
I gave up refereeing after that. Too dangerous. The river looked ominously close just then.
"The spluttering, puce-faced parents.... the mob of parents storming the pitch to badmouth the referee...."
I've experienced this at first hand when I used to referee school rugby matches. Parents practically on the field of play telling me - no, ordering me what to do. Parents and teachers supporting the losing team cutting me dead after the game and giving me murderous glances.
But you can understand their feelings sometimes.
Take the time I allowed a penalty to be taken a couple of inches from the score line only for the boy to kick the ball an inch or two and touch it down. I had not realised he was practically on the score line as I ordered the opposing team to get back five yards, making it, of course, easy for him to score.
What did I do?
Taking my life in my hands, I ordered a re-take of the penalty.
Parents practically on the pitch shouting abuse. I smiled and said "Action replay."
That's the first time for there to be seen an action replay without a TV film unit to operate it.
And the last!
I gave up refereeing after that. Too dangerous. The river looked ominously close just then.
Wednesday 16 July 2008
Believers and Non-Believers
I used to live close to The Arms Park, the famous rugby field; every year a function was held there of a religious kind. One year they had Billy Graham as guest speaker or sermoniser or whatever. Well, I'd be coming out of the block of flats where I lived, my eyes bleary from having just got up and from having had too much to drink the night before, my face the palour of someone with yellow fever, my tongue as dry as cork, when I'd be confronted by groups of people going their happy clappy way to the get-together at The Arms Park.
They were always so happy looking, so fit looking, so red cheeked and full of the joys of Spring and there I was miserable as hell and hangovered.
I thought: why don't I live the sort of life they lead?
I thought it for about ten seconds!
Then I looked at them again and what struck me most was that look of complacency bordering on arrogance. Why? Because they knew the answers to EVERYTHING. They knew the one and only truth.
Paul Johnson in The Spectator this week, writes about "militant atheism", how he despairs of these people (like Richard Dawkins) and despises them for their non beliefs.
Actually the believers and un-believers are similar in their complacency. The first lot believe that God exists, the second lot believe he doesn't. They are, if fact, both believers and they have the same kind of complacency bordering on arrogance.
They were always so happy looking, so fit looking, so red cheeked and full of the joys of Spring and there I was miserable as hell and hangovered.
I thought: why don't I live the sort of life they lead?
I thought it for about ten seconds!
Then I looked at them again and what struck me most was that look of complacency bordering on arrogance. Why? Because they knew the answers to EVERYTHING. They knew the one and only truth.
Paul Johnson in The Spectator this week, writes about "militant atheism", how he despairs of these people (like Richard Dawkins) and despises them for their non beliefs.
Actually the believers and un-believers are similar in their complacency. The first lot believe that God exists, the second lot believe he doesn't. They are, if fact, both believers and they have the same kind of complacency bordering on arrogance.
Monday 14 July 2008
6 characters in search.....
Pirandello's play fascinates me. "Six characters in Search of an Author". I recently wrote a short play in which a fictional character makes an appearance: none other than Lady Bracknell from "The Importance of Being Ernest." I wonder if my introduction of this character is anything like the surreal introduction in Pirandello's play of his six characters. Probably not. His play probably has more depth and meaning, mine was a bit of fun.
The Pirandello play is being staged at Chichester in their annual festival; I was all set go and see it, almost booked it - then I read the reviews. O my God! It seems it's pretty awful.
The director has gone and messed with it, done things to it that are not in the play, brought it up to date perhaps.
Not on.
When I see a classic I want to see the classic as written by the author not someone's interpretation of it.
So I won't be going to Chichester this year.
Went last year to see Patrick Stewart in "Macbeth". It had had good reviews. I thought it was dreadful (Stewart was good though). And d'you know what? Same director as the one for the Pirandello classic!
Incidentally, apropos "Macbeth" - are there any characters as boring in all theatre as the witches? In the Chichester production they were not just boring, they made you want to scream "Get me out of here!"
The Pirandello play is being staged at Chichester in their annual festival; I was all set go and see it, almost booked it - then I read the reviews. O my God! It seems it's pretty awful.
The director has gone and messed with it, done things to it that are not in the play, brought it up to date perhaps.
Not on.
When I see a classic I want to see the classic as written by the author not someone's interpretation of it.
So I won't be going to Chichester this year.
Went last year to see Patrick Stewart in "Macbeth". It had had good reviews. I thought it was dreadful (Stewart was good though). And d'you know what? Same director as the one for the Pirandello classic!
Incidentally, apropos "Macbeth" - are there any characters as boring in all theatre as the witches? In the Chichester production they were not just boring, they made you want to scream "Get me out of here!"
Sunday 13 July 2008
The Bull Fight
I have just been reading something about "The Bull Run" which takes place in a town in Spain: crowds gather in the streets, then the bulls are let free and a chase takes place in which the men (mostly men and boys I believe) run like hell to get away from them and the bulls run like hell to catch them and gore them if they can.
What great fun!
Apparently Hemingway was fond of this "game"; he is supposed to have had tickets for the event in his pocket when his body was found after he had committed suicide.
He was, of course, very fond of the bull fight; he wrote a lot about it and attended regularly.
I attended two bull fights some years back. The first had a couple of famous torreodors fighting bulls, the second didn't, ordinary fighters who were often booed.
I can't think why I went a second time, the first was gory enough.
The best part of the bull fight is when the bull is let out into the ring: he is hurt and he is savage; he runs but at the same time he is looking for someone to gore. You wish there was someone for him to gore. You're on his side.
I was anyway.
What great fun!
Apparently Hemingway was fond of this "game"; he is supposed to have had tickets for the event in his pocket when his body was found after he had committed suicide.
He was, of course, very fond of the bull fight; he wrote a lot about it and attended regularly.
I attended two bull fights some years back. The first had a couple of famous torreodors fighting bulls, the second didn't, ordinary fighters who were often booed.
I can't think why I went a second time, the first was gory enough.
The best part of the bull fight is when the bull is let out into the ring: he is hurt and he is savage; he runs but at the same time he is looking for someone to gore. You wish there was someone for him to gore. You're on his side.
I was anyway.
Saturday 12 July 2008
Economics
I once started a correspondence course to study English, History and Economics for A levels. I never finished the course, got bored I think; I was doing reasonably well in the first two subjects but Economics was virtually a closed book to me. I don't think I ever achieved more than 5 out of 10 for any of my exercises.
It still is a closed book. Possibly because I was educated to be a mathematics person that the subject is so difficult for me. It isn't the exact science that, well, science is - or tries its best to be. I think it would like to be a science because in many texts there are big calculations of this and that and they look mathematical. But it isn't an exact science.
And there are so many factors working against its being able to fortell what might happen to the economy: things change in the world's markets, oil prices go up and then fall for no apparent reason. Indeed, reason doesn't appear to account for much in the world of economics.
Professor Evans who used to take an extra mural class I attended for a few years, said he was completely dim where the subject of economics was concerned. This was probably because his subject was philosophy where reason, of course, plays a large part. "Economics is mainly guess work," he used to say. "One economist will say this, another will say the opposite."
He also told us that he had once had his IQ tested and he scored 80!
It still is a closed book. Possibly because I was educated to be a mathematics person that the subject is so difficult for me. It isn't the exact science that, well, science is - or tries its best to be. I think it would like to be a science because in many texts there are big calculations of this and that and they look mathematical. But it isn't an exact science.
And there are so many factors working against its being able to fortell what might happen to the economy: things change in the world's markets, oil prices go up and then fall for no apparent reason. Indeed, reason doesn't appear to account for much in the world of economics.
Professor Evans who used to take an extra mural class I attended for a few years, said he was completely dim where the subject of economics was concerned. This was probably because his subject was philosophy where reason, of course, plays a large part. "Economics is mainly guess work," he used to say. "One economist will say this, another will say the opposite."
He also told us that he had once had his IQ tested and he scored 80!
Thursday 10 July 2008
Subsudised art
Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph wrote about the arts being subsidised. He was against it, not surprisingly. Most people in the arts world are for it - not surprisingly! I am ambivalent about it. As Heffer says there is still the question that nags at you: why should the ordinary tax payer who is not in the least interested in, say, opera, have to cough up with hard earned money to suvbsidise people who are fairly well off who like going to Covent Garden operas?
What Heffer does not like, and here I can't help feeling he has a good point, is the government in the shape of Arts Councils having fingers on the purse strings.
I am reminded of what Kingsley Amis had to say about the subject in a letter to The Times in 1981:
"The way an artist is paid profoundly affects his product. To susidise him, to give him other people's money on request and unconditionally, disrupts the all important relationship between him and his audience. A composer under no pressure to attract ordinary concertgoers, in other words non-specialists, is evidently under a kind of pressure to attract specialists, critics, experts, even trendies, perhaps to be self-indulgent. Subsidy maintains or erects barriers between the composer and those who could be his public, with the result that most new works played at concerts have to be sandwiched between familiar works, otherwise nearly everyone either arrives late or leaves early."
This was followed by a letter from Lady Borham:
"Voltaire, Rousseau and even Shakespeare would have had a hard time surviving without patronage."
That's what artists should have - patrons not handouts.
What Heffer does not like, and here I can't help feeling he has a good point, is the government in the shape of Arts Councils having fingers on the purse strings.
I am reminded of what Kingsley Amis had to say about the subject in a letter to The Times in 1981:
"The way an artist is paid profoundly affects his product. To susidise him, to give him other people's money on request and unconditionally, disrupts the all important relationship between him and his audience. A composer under no pressure to attract ordinary concertgoers, in other words non-specialists, is evidently under a kind of pressure to attract specialists, critics, experts, even trendies, perhaps to be self-indulgent. Subsidy maintains or erects barriers between the composer and those who could be his public, with the result that most new works played at concerts have to be sandwiched between familiar works, otherwise nearly everyone either arrives late or leaves early."
This was followed by a letter from Lady Borham:
"Voltaire, Rousseau and even Shakespeare would have had a hard time surviving without patronage."
That's what artists should have - patrons not handouts.
Tuesday 8 July 2008
Two regrets
I was teaching a class of sixth formers mathematics. One day, after the end of year exam, a young Iranian or Iraqian (can't remember or didn't know) asked me how he had done in his exams; I told him he had failed. He said that failing might mean he would have to go home and there he would probably have to fight in the war going on between Iran and Iraq. I told him I couldn't do anything about it, the result was there and I couldn't change it.
Now I think I might change it if the same problem came up again.
Earlier I was teaching a class of thirteen year old boys one of whom, I knew, did a milk round before he came to school. I happened to mention that he seemed rather tired that morning "probably due to the milk round he does," I said. The Welfare Officer or whatever he was called - the fellow who looked into the attendance of pupils - pricked up his years. "He shouldn't be doing a milk round," he said. And lo and behold the boy did not have a milk round anymore.
Now I think I wouldn't have told the Welfare Officer.
The Welfare Officer, a decent fellow, whose job it was to bring back kids to school who had taken days off without permission, was not popular with those kids (naturally) or with staff who didn't want those kids, usually problem kids, brought back. One day I said to him: "I have a good idea for a crime novel; a Welfare Officer is killed but they don't know who has done it, a pupil or one of the teachers."
He grinned. "Yeah, I get it," he said.
Now I think I might change it if the same problem came up again.
Earlier I was teaching a class of thirteen year old boys one of whom, I knew, did a milk round before he came to school. I happened to mention that he seemed rather tired that morning "probably due to the milk round he does," I said. The Welfare Officer or whatever he was called - the fellow who looked into the attendance of pupils - pricked up his years. "He shouldn't be doing a milk round," he said. And lo and behold the boy did not have a milk round anymore.
Now I think I wouldn't have told the Welfare Officer.
The Welfare Officer, a decent fellow, whose job it was to bring back kids to school who had taken days off without permission, was not popular with those kids (naturally) or with staff who didn't want those kids, usually problem kids, brought back. One day I said to him: "I have a good idea for a crime novel; a Welfare Officer is killed but they don't know who has done it, a pupil or one of the teachers."
He grinned. "Yeah, I get it," he said.
Monday 7 July 2008
Gardens
Paul Johnson, writing in The Spectator, mentioned how gardening in this country was something so very English. He had visited a small village where 15 or so gardens were open to the public and said how magnificent they were in their various ways.
I passed a garden the other day that was magnificent: it had well mown lawns surrounded by well tended flower beds; there were hanging baskets ablaze with blooms and a water feature which the owner was seeing to.
"Lovely garden," I said.
"Thank you," he said with an Italian accent.
Here in deepest Wales there are wonderful gardens; here in Cardiff there are gardening competitions, fought hard and sometimes unfairly too.
I spoke to a man who had a beautiful garden with the greenest lawn I have ever seen, except for a patch that seemed burnt at its edge.
"Vandals?" I said.
"Competitors," he said.
I only half believed him. Then I thought back to that wonderful cauliflower I had grown in my allotment. It was bigger and better than anything I had grown before. One day I went to pick it to find it had gone, slashed expertly off at the stem.
I spoke to another allotment gardener nearby, one who had been there for years, not months like me. "What do you think of that?" I said. "The vandals!"
He shook his head. "No, one of your fellow gardeners here, I'm afraid. Jealousy."
How very English!
I passed a garden the other day that was magnificent: it had well mown lawns surrounded by well tended flower beds; there were hanging baskets ablaze with blooms and a water feature which the owner was seeing to.
"Lovely garden," I said.
"Thank you," he said with an Italian accent.
Here in deepest Wales there are wonderful gardens; here in Cardiff there are gardening competitions, fought hard and sometimes unfairly too.
I spoke to a man who had a beautiful garden with the greenest lawn I have ever seen, except for a patch that seemed burnt at its edge.
"Vandals?" I said.
"Competitors," he said.
I only half believed him. Then I thought back to that wonderful cauliflower I had grown in my allotment. It was bigger and better than anything I had grown before. One day I went to pick it to find it had gone, slashed expertly off at the stem.
I spoke to another allotment gardener nearby, one who had been there for years, not months like me. "What do you think of that?" I said. "The vandals!"
He shook his head. "No, one of your fellow gardeners here, I'm afraid. Jealousy."
How very English!
Sunday 6 July 2008
Bores
I have just seen a film - well, actually only the first hour - called "He was a Quiet Man". It had a good cast, there was a good idea struggling its way through and there were indications that in charge of the whole production was someone of intelligence. But there was a big flaw in it that made it, to me, unwatchable. This had to do with the main character who was an absolute bore. After a while I gave up thinking "surely, something's going to happen that will change the character of this guy"; but it never did (well, it might have in the last half hour of the film but not in the first hour which is the part I saw).
I think this is a most difficult thing to do in story telling: how to manage to portray a bore without him being boring?
I thought of this when I was reading "Emma" by Jane Austen. She should have succeeded in presenting us with an entertaining bore by the quality of her writing - but even that, to me , was insufficient to allay that gut feeling of depression whenever the character appeared.
I have known a few bores in my time but the greatest (i.e. most boring) of these was a man I worked with. He could have bored for Britain. One day I made the mistake of asking him if he was recovering well from his operation. 15 minutes later his story had got as far as him leaving the house to get into the ambulence to go to the hospital.
But, unbelieveable as it seemed, he was a very good actor. We put on a panto every Christmas for the children of the staff. He, the bore, was always a main comic character. And he was brilliant.
I think he must have succeeded because being on stage he was not then himself but someone else, be it the villain in "Aladin" or the giant in "Jack" or Cinderella's step-mother; now he was a person who made people happy. He was not a bore any more.
I think this is a most difficult thing to do in story telling: how to manage to portray a bore without him being boring?
I thought of this when I was reading "Emma" by Jane Austen. She should have succeeded in presenting us with an entertaining bore by the quality of her writing - but even that, to me , was insufficient to allay that gut feeling of depression whenever the character appeared.
I have known a few bores in my time but the greatest (i.e. most boring) of these was a man I worked with. He could have bored for Britain. One day I made the mistake of asking him if he was recovering well from his operation. 15 minutes later his story had got as far as him leaving the house to get into the ambulence to go to the hospital.
But, unbelieveable as it seemed, he was a very good actor. We put on a panto every Christmas for the children of the staff. He, the bore, was always a main comic character. And he was brilliant.
I think he must have succeeded because being on stage he was not then himself but someone else, be it the villain in "Aladin" or the giant in "Jack" or Cinderella's step-mother; now he was a person who made people happy. He was not a bore any more.
Friday 4 July 2008
Friday Poem
WE'RE ON THE EURO GRAVY TRAIN
Nothing like it in the world
Than being MEP's;
No need to do what we've been told
'Cos we are MEP's.
We're on the Euro gravy train
Heading we don't know where,
As long as we get all the perks
Then why in the world should we care?
We pocket all the cash we get -
Expenses for staff and such -
Dine out at restaurants, you bet!
Only the best for us.
What are the Irish peasants doing
Voting against The Treaty,
Trying to wreck the party here
When we're having things so easy?
We're on the gravy train, you see,
And it's partying all the way,
Reporting back is just a farce
And it's fun, fun, fun all day.
Nothing like it in the world
Than being MEP's,
No need to do what we've been told
'Cos we are MEP's.
Nothing like it in the world
Than being MEP's;
No need to do what we've been told
'Cos we are MEP's.
We're on the Euro gravy train
Heading we don't know where,
As long as we get all the perks
Then why in the world should we care?
We pocket all the cash we get -
Expenses for staff and such -
Dine out at restaurants, you bet!
Only the best for us.
What are the Irish peasants doing
Voting against The Treaty,
Trying to wreck the party here
When we're having things so easy?
We're on the gravy train, you see,
And it's partying all the way,
Reporting back is just a farce
And it's fun, fun, fun all day.
Nothing like it in the world
Than being MEP's,
No need to do what we've been told
'Cos we are MEP's.
Thursday 3 July 2008
The Unanswerable Question
When I was doing National Service in the army we used to get talks by vicars on religion. One of these was a drunken Welsh padre who, as early as 10 in the morning had had, you could tell, a few too many. So he stood there and swayed and gave us "the stuff" that was supposed to improve our moral well-being.
Most private soldiers like myself would take the opportunity to take a few much needed "40 winks", but there were others, corporals mostly, who listened attentively to the intoxicated Major.
At the end of the talk the major would make a big mistake; he would ask "Any Questions?"
Then it was that a certain corporal from HQ, a tall, scruffy-looking individual, would rise to his feet and say: "Yes sir, I have a question. It's this...."
At which point I would be in such a cringe-like state of embarrassment that I would try to pretend I was not hearing properly or pretend I was somewhere else, for the question the corporal always asked - to any visiting padre be it the drunken Welshman or the perfectly sober Scotsman - was unanswerable.
It was this: "As you know, sir, there are many religions in the world - Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and so on - well, sir, which is the true one?"
I cannot remember what any of the answers were or if indeed there were answers at all because by this time I felt so sorry for the padre under interrogation that I was incapable of listening.
I wish I knew the answer to this question but I have the feeling that if I did I would then know the purpose of life in which case I might be disappointed.
When Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he found that after he had died he was faced with God. "I would say," said Russell, "why did you not reveal yourself to me before now?"
Most private soldiers like myself would take the opportunity to take a few much needed "40 winks", but there were others, corporals mostly, who listened attentively to the intoxicated Major.
At the end of the talk the major would make a big mistake; he would ask "Any Questions?"
Then it was that a certain corporal from HQ, a tall, scruffy-looking individual, would rise to his feet and say: "Yes sir, I have a question. It's this...."
At which point I would be in such a cringe-like state of embarrassment that I would try to pretend I was not hearing properly or pretend I was somewhere else, for the question the corporal always asked - to any visiting padre be it the drunken Welshman or the perfectly sober Scotsman - was unanswerable.
It was this: "As you know, sir, there are many religions in the world - Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and so on - well, sir, which is the true one?"
I cannot remember what any of the answers were or if indeed there were answers at all because by this time I felt so sorry for the padre under interrogation that I was incapable of listening.
I wish I knew the answer to this question but I have the feeling that if I did I would then know the purpose of life in which case I might be disappointed.
When Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he found that after he had died he was faced with God. "I would say," said Russell, "why did you not reveal yourself to me before now?"
Tuesday 1 July 2008
The Soliloquy
There was a series of programmes on Radio 3 a while ago about musicals; the man was argueing that there was more social comment of a controversial kind in Broadway musicals than in operas. Take "Showboat" about racial prejudice. Take "South Pacific", again racial prejudice. I can't recall if "Carousel" had any social comment in it of any substance but it did have a strong plot with a socially disfunctional character as the "hero". What a charmer but what a nasty piece of work he is: always down on his luck, according to him; boastful without much to boast about; conceited and brutal.
But he knows all this and when his big song comes, his soliloquoy, he admits it all, how dreadful a person he is.
I was listening to this sung by the man who did the most recent London show (don't know his name, great singer) while chewing on a sandwich; when he got to the end - "I'll make it or steal it or take it - or die!" I very nearly died. The emotion in the song had welled up in my throat to such an extent that I could not swallow and, as a result, had the mouthful caught so that I could hardly breath.
I survived. Just.
The song is one of Rogers and Hammerstein's greatest pieces, and one of the hardest they had to compose I am told. I used not to like it at all: I found it highly sentimental and mushy. Then I heard a version (the fiilm's) by Gordon Mackrae and I fell for it.
This version was said, by two knowledgeable men on Radio 3, to be "the definitive version".
Mark Stein in his song of the week on his website reckons that the Frank Sinatra version is unbeatable.
I prefer the unknown guy from the London show. Tremendous delivery, great emotion..... but I won't be eating sandwiches if and when he sings it again.
But he knows all this and when his big song comes, his soliloquoy, he admits it all, how dreadful a person he is.
I was listening to this sung by the man who did the most recent London show (don't know his name, great singer) while chewing on a sandwich; when he got to the end - "I'll make it or steal it or take it - or die!" I very nearly died. The emotion in the song had welled up in my throat to such an extent that I could not swallow and, as a result, had the mouthful caught so that I could hardly breath.
I survived. Just.
The song is one of Rogers and Hammerstein's greatest pieces, and one of the hardest they had to compose I am told. I used not to like it at all: I found it highly sentimental and mushy. Then I heard a version (the fiilm's) by Gordon Mackrae and I fell for it.
This version was said, by two knowledgeable men on Radio 3, to be "the definitive version".
Mark Stein in his song of the week on his website reckons that the Frank Sinatra version is unbeatable.
I prefer the unknown guy from the London show. Tremendous delivery, great emotion..... but I won't be eating sandwiches if and when he sings it again.
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