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Eek

2012-02-14T13:48:00.000+11:00

I thought I was safe. I'd read things by Peter Robb before - while he can sometimes be a bit wordy, he did produce an interesting article about Marcia Langton and I very much enjoyed Midnight in Sicily (especially the bits about food). Although not hugely interested in things to do with fashion, I've got a daughter who is. Therefore, all things considered, Robb's article in the current issue of the Monthly about the designer called Akira Isogawa seemed like a reasonable choice to pass fifteen minutes with, while I waited for my mother at the doctor's. Probably not entirely gripping, I thought, but I'd be able to talk to Anna about it - maybe.

What I did not expect, sitting in a scruffy waiting room in Yass, New South Wales, listening to the receptionists discussing the baby shower they'd just attended and the extraordinary increase in the weight of the showeree, was a trip to the deepest darkest crevices (and I use the word advisedly) of Pseuds' Corner:

"Akira's dresses express a female eroticism unknown in the West since the end of the French dix-huitième. The ineluctable metaphor is the flower. The overlapping petals, the seductive colours, the opening outward around the central fleshly fact of sex.

The meticulour renderings of beautifully cut and exquisite fabrics remind me of shunga. Akira's eyes widen again: 'You mean the very detailed...?' Yes, I do. The erotic prints that show male and female genitalia vastly enlarged and maniacally detailed. Every fine black pubic hair, every little raised vein on a huge engorged phallus. The myriad folds of a moistly receptive vagina. Impeccable coiffures, the intertwined folds of rich silks. Sex as an expression of the social arts.

A deep eroticism is at the heart of Akira's dresses and their appeal for adult women. In one beautiful image from a follower of Hokusai, the woman is on all fours, seen largely from behind and her hindquarters are at the centre of the image. A mostly concealed man delicately probes the pleats of her vagina with his fingers. A commentary explains redundantly that 'the focal point of the scene is the female genital organ, re-echoed in the sexual symbology of the oysters next to the basket.'

This delicate and voluptuous image leaps to blazing life in its single piece of fabric, a shred of it still wound around the woman's waist, the rest cascading to the floor between the two bodies. It's a beautiful plain deep red, and its outline seems almost jagged because the fine material has been treated to create an expanse of tiny peaks in its surface, like a distant mountain range. I've just seen this colour and this material on one of Akira's racks.

Leaving Christiane in Akira's Woolahra shop one day, I find I want to wear a dress."

I, on the other hand, doubt if I will ever want to wear one again.

Confessions of a Visual Illiterate II (or Why I Want to Be the Queen of England)

2012-02-13T07:41:00.000+11:00

Look, I don't pretend for a moment that I would maintain as indefatigable and stolidly but politely unengaged a demeanour as the current occupant of the position manages, shaking hands with her three hundred and ninety seventh stranger for the day. In fact, I'm not even sure that I would actually be prepared to go through with every single one of the duties that come with the job - and I almost certainly wouldn't be up for many of those hats, (not that I don't like hats; it's quality control I'm after). The point is though that, despite these minor details, I do have to be made Queen of England soon, because I need this picture. As it belongs to the Queen of England, I suppose becoming Queen of England is the only way I can be sure of getting a look at it every day:

The reasons I need this picture - which was painted by the great George Stubbs in 1793 and is called William Anderson with Two Saddle Horses - are as follows:

1. I love it. I love the lonely silence of the landscape, the solitary figures of Mr Anderson and his horses, the almost dreamlike atmosphere that is created by the sight of the three of them moving through an otherwise empty universe.

2. I could spend forever puzzling about the expression on the face of the rider - is he a kind man or a tough one, is he friendly, hostile or slightly self-conscious at being given the painter's attention? I don't know. I find him entirely enigmatic, apart from one thing: it is absolutely clear that he is a master of the art of riding - he sits beautifully, he betrays no sign of tension as he rides along, the reins of one animal caught loosely in his left hand, along with his riding crop, his other hand holding the reins of the animal he is leading. His whole position is one of relaxed competence, which I admire greatly:

3. In the unlikely event that I were to lose interest in the rider, I would happily look at the horses forever. Stubbs has made them much easier to empathise with than he has made their master. Both have wonderfully expressive eyes, which meet the viewer's just as consciously as the rider's do. Both give the impression of having something sad and rather wise to say, but being poignantly aware that they will never be able to express it, and this is combined with a weary indulgence, like kindly mothers toward their children, a forgiveness for the indignities visited on them by man:

4. I like the slightly eery quality which is added to the scene by the empty saddle of the second horse, with the empty stirrups swinging beneath the girth bringing to mind - to mine, at least - the idea of a ghostly absent rider:

5. When I said I loved the peaceful, empty landscape, I forgot to mention that I love the sky above the landscape as well:

6.I also love the second horse's apparent weightlessness - Stubbs really did know horse anatomy, so presumably this is anatomically correct, but those hind legs floating above the ground, with the distant tranquil world in the background, adds some kind of extra magical element to the whole picture, for me at least:

7. All in all, I need to see this picture on a daily basis so that I can be soothed by its calm beauty. Perhaps, if she doesn't want to give up the job for the moment, the Queen might be prepared to lend it to me for the time being. I would look after it. I'd hang it in our bedroom so that I could wake up and look at it every morning. I know she has a lot of pictures so she'd probably barely miss it. I wonder then if we could work something out between us. I suppose, if she didn't make too much noise, or splash too much, I could, in exchange, sometimes let her use our pool.

Quite Funny

2012-02-12T15:56:00.001+11:00

Once upon a time (and, no, I am not ever going to start saying "back in the day"), the Canberra Times used to have consistently good cartoonists. There was Pickering, who perfected the fly-blown look for certain politicians, most particularly John Gorton. Then there was Geoff Pryor. After he retired, the standard of the paper's cartoons declined for a while, to the extent that at times their quality was even worse than that of the paper's written content.

But luckily David Pope took over. He now seems to be restoring the finer traditions of cartooning at the paper. For example, yesterday this example of his work appeared. (of course, if you are not a follower of Australian federal politics, it will mean almost nothing at all to you):

I shall think of the Speaker as Mr Sticklepomp from now on.

Money Can't Buy Me Talent

2012-02-12T10:49:00.001+11:00

According to Perth Now, Australia's wealthiest person has written this breathtaking poem:

OUR FUTURE

The globe is sadly groaning with debt, poverty and strife
And billions now are pleading to enjoy are [sic] better life
Their hope lies with resources buried deep within the earth
And the enterprise and capital which give each project worth
Is our future threatened with massive debts run up by political hacks
Who dig themselves out by unleashing rampant tax
The end result is sending Australian investment, growth and jobs offshore
This type of direction is harmful to our core
Some envious unthinking people have been conned
To think properity [sic] is created by waving a magic wand
Through such unfortunate ignorance, too much abuse is hurled
Against miners, workers and related industries who strive to build the world
Develop North Australia, embrace multiculturalism and welcome short term foreign workers to our shores
To benefit from the export of our minerals and ores
The world’s poor need our resources: do not leave them to their fate
Our nation needs special economic zones and wiser government, before it is too late.

If ever proof were needed that money cannot do anything except buy you stuff, this is it, surely.

The Holiday is Over

2012-02-12T09:32:00.002+11:00

At least it is for my Uncle Bertie. My grandfather will remain away for another few days.

It Was There All the Time

2012-02-10T13:04:00.000+11:00

Here I was, longing for mindless noise on the radio, and all the time those cunning Germans have been giving me what I want, only I wasn't listening. Until this morning that is, when I switched on Deutschlandradio Kultur - why, you ask, well someone has to - and heard this (I've only put up two minutes, but I've loads and loads more, [it's sound art apparently]):

White Noise

2012-02-09T12:43:00.000+11:00

While I was ill the other day, (yes, I was, as a matter of fact: I felt quite dreadful, thanks for asking, and for quite a few days I had a REALLY high temperature and you know I actually don't think I got anywhere near enough sympathy, but that's another story [the story of my life, possibly, blub, blub, blub]), I spent quite a lot of time in an odd state where I wasn't quite asleep but I wasn't in any sense sensible, (not unusual, some might say).

Anyway, I could vaguely hear the radio mumbling to itself in another room for a lot of the time that I was lying in this insensible - or semi-sensible - state, and I found the sound rather comforting. I wasn't up to listening to anything coherent but I liked hearing a soothing kind of burbling noise.

That led me to thinking about radio stations that I might set up, if I were rich, to serve a similar calming kind of purpose for their listeners. I decided that I would quite like the following sounds to be available on the airwaves at all times, just in case I wanted to switch them on:

Cricket commentary (well, we have that pretty nearly full time already, come to think of it);

The sea - for connoisseurs there could be sections of the day devoted to different seas and oceans of the world and people could form groups to discuss which they enjoyed most and why, (or not - they might prefer to continue with book clubs as usual; it was merely a suggestion);

Insect noise - that kind of background static that you get on a hot day in Victoria;

The distant, impossible to quite make out conversations you hear on telephone wires sometimes, while you are waiting for a number to connect - very often these seem to be quite vehement arguments being conducted by Chinese people, from what little one can tell;

Shipping forecasts - Dogger, Cromarty, Finisterre et cetera;

The applause of audiences following really superb concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic or the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra;

Football results, like the ones that seemed to run for hours on a Saturday afternoon on the television in my childhood: West Bromwich Albion nil; Westham Wanderers 2 et cetera et cetera, all in that slightly liturgical lilt, as if reading out a psalm;

Country auctioneers calling cattle sales;

Rain on a corrugated iron roof - again different times of the day could be allotted for different rain patterns and, possibly, for the true afficionadoes, for different qualities of corrugated iron;

School playgrounds - we used to live next door to a school and I enjoyed the way the day was punctuated with eruptions of shrieks and laughter and shouts. Mind you, just like a school day, the station should only broadcast such sounds at times that coincided with the school breaks themselves; the rest of the time listeners should be able to hear simply the noise of the streets around the school;

Country racecallers calling picnic races;

A full list of prices on the stock exchange for the day, with rolling updates, (just a continuing drone, in other words - not broadcast for the purposes of the information contained within the reports).

I look forward to many more equally tranquilising suggestions.

Why?

2012-02-08T21:35:00.000+11:00

That was the only thing that came into my head, when I read this piece of news:

"...Puffin's celebrations for Puffin Classics' 30th anniversary this year, with other 2012 plans including publication of actress Emma Thompson's The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit, which will see Beatrix Potter's character travelling to Scotland."

You take something that is quite perfect within its own terms, you add a celebrity who, as far as I know, has never been associated with either the writing or illustrating of children's books, you rub your hands together with glee at the thought of all those sales.

I suppose that's the answer.

If Only

2012-02-07T20:30:00.000+11:00

Today I was reading Charles Moore's Diary column in the UK Spectator of 28 January, which included this item:

"What terrible rents in our social fabric have been caused by the phone-hacking scandal. Last year, Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse gave a private dinner party in London, at which the guests included Rebekah Brooks, then still at News International, her husband the equestrian hero Charlie Brooks, and Lord and Lady Rothermere. In the good old days, the party would have gone with a swing, but the News of the World row has fostered bad blood between the rival gang chiefs, and Lady Rothermere launched into a passionate account of what a force for good the Daily Mail was and what an absolute disgrace was News International. Robust argument ensued, with Mrs Brooks suggesting that Lady Rothermere was not Mother Teresa. Poor Mr Dunstone tried to calm things down, but this failed, and the Rothermeres left early."

On this the 200th anniversary of his birthday, I think yet again, "If only Charles Dickens were here to do justice to scenes such as this". I know of no-one who writes a better satiric dinner party scene, (although would love to hear of any writer I have missed who does come near).

Here is the first of several wonderful examples from our Mutual Friend, (all of them set around the Veneerings' dinner table. [and surely a modern Veneering would be a Carphone Warehouse millionaire?]):

"Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they had set up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from the Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crown of his head.

For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairs again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings—the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.

There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blind confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. Being first cousin to Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent requisition, and at many houses might be said to represent the dining-table in its normal state. Mr and Mrs Veneering, for example, arranging a dinner, habitually started with Twemlow, and then put leaves in him, or added guests to him. Sometimes, the table consisted of Twemlow and half a dozen leaves; sometimes, of Twemlow and a dozen leaves; sometimes, Twemlow was pulled out to his utmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr and Mrs Veneering on occasions of ceremony faced each other in the centre of the board, and thus the parallel still held; for, it always happened that the more Twemlow was pulled out, the further he found himself from the center, and nearer to the sideboard at one end of the room, or the window-curtains at the other.

But, it was not this which steeped the feeble soul of Twemlow in confusion. This he was used to, and could take soundings of. The abyss to which he could find no bottom, and from which started forth the engrossing and ever-swelling difficulty of his life, was the insoluble question whether he was Veneering's oldest friend, or newest friend. To the excogitation of this problem, the harmless gentleman had devoted many anxious hours, both in his lodgings over the livery stable-yard, and in the cold gloom, favourable to meditation, of Saint James's Square. Thus. Twemlow had first known Veneering at his club, where Veneering then knew nobody but the man who made them known to one another, who seemed to be the most intimate friend he had in the world, and whom he had known two days—the bond of union between their souls, the nefarious conduct of the committee respecting the cookery of a fillet of veal, having been accidentally cemented at that date. Immediately upon this, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with Veneering, and dined: the man being of the party. Immediately upon that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with the man, and dined: Veneering being of the party. At the man's were a Member, an Engineer, a Payer-off of the National Debt, a Poem on Shakespeare, a Grievance, and a Public Office, who all seem to be utter strangers to Veneering. And yet immediately after that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine at Veneerings, expressly to meet the Member, the Engineer, the Payer-off of the National Debt, the Poem on Shakespeare, the Grievance, and the Public Office, and, dining, discovered that all of them were the most intimate friends Veneering had in the world, and that the wives of all of them (who were all there) were the objects of Mrs Veneering's most devoted affection and tender confidence.

Thus it had come about, that Mr Twemlow had said to himself in his lodgings, with his hand to his forehead: 'I must not think of this. This is enough to soften any man's brain,'—and yet was always thinking of it, and could never form a conclusion.

This evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in the Twemlow; fourteen in company all told. Four pigeon-breasted retainers in plain clothes stand in line in the hall. A fifth retainer, proceeding up the staircase with a mournful air—as who should say, 'Here is another wretched creature come to dinner; such is life!'—announces, 'Mis-ter Twemlow!'

Mrs Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr Twemlow. Mr Veneering welcomes his dear Twemlow. Mrs Veneering does not expect that Mr Twemlow can in nature care much for such insipid things as babies, but so old a friend must please to look at baby. 'Ah! You will know the friend of your family better, Tootleums,' says Mr Veneering, nodding emotionally at that new article, 'when you begin to take notice.' He then begs to make his dear Twemlow known to his two friends, Mr Boots and Mr Brewer—and clearly has no distinct idea which is which.

But now a fearful circumstance occurs.

'Mis-ter and Mis-sus Podsnap!'

'My dear,' says Mr Veneering to Mrs Veneering, with an air of much friendly interest, while the door stands open, 'the Podsnaps.'

A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, appearing with his wife, instantly deserts his wife and darts at Twemlow with:

'How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. I hope we are not late. So glad of the opportunity, I am sure!'

When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped back in his neat little shoes and his neat little silk stockings of a bygone fashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind him; but the large man closed with him and proved too strong.

'Let me,' says the large man, trying to attract the attention of his wife in the distance, 'have the pleasure of presenting Mrs Podsnap to her host. She will be,' in his fatal freshness he seems to find perpetual verdure and eternal youth in the phrase, 'she will be so glad of the opportunity, I am sure!'

In the meantime, Mrs Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake on her own account, because Mrs Veneering is the only other lady there, does her best in the way of handsomely supporting her husband's, by looking towards Mr Twemlow with a plaintive countenance and remarking to Mrs Veneering in a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears he has been rather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already very like him.

It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken for any other man; but, Mr Veneering having this very evening set up the shirt-front of the young Antinous in new worked cambric just come home, is not at all complimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who is dry and weazen and some thirty years older. Mrs Veneering equally resents the imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow, he is so sensible of being a much better bred man than Veneering, that he considers the large man an offensive ass.

In this complicated dilemma, Mr Veneering approaches the large man with extended hand and, smilingly assures that incorrigible personage that he is delighted to see him: who in his fatal freshness instantly replies:

'Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this moment recall where we met, but I am so glad of this opportunity, I am sure!'

Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble might, he is haling him off to present him, as Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when the arrival of more guests unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having re-shaken hands with Veneering as Veneering, he re-shakes hands with Twemlow as Twemlow, and winds it all up to his own perfect satisfaction by saying to the last-named, 'Ridiculous opportunity—but so glad of it, I am sure!'

Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, having likewise noted the fusion of Boots in Brewer and Brewer in Boots, and having further observed that of the remaining seven guests four discrete characters enter with wandering eyes and wholly declined to commit themselves as to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in his grasp;—Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds his brain wholesomely hardening as he approaches the conclusion that he really is Veneering's oldest friend, when his brain softens again and all is lost, through his eyes encountering Veneering and the large man linked together as twin brothers in the back drawing-room near the conservatory door, and through his ears informing him in the tones of Mrs Veneering that the same large man is to be baby's godfather.

'Dinner is on the table!'

Thus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, 'Come down and be poisoned, ye unhappy children of men!'

Twemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in the rear, with his hand to his forehead. Boots and Brewer, thinking him indisposed, whisper, 'Man faint. Had no lunch.' But he is only stunned by the unvanquishable difficulty of his existence.

Revived by soup, Twemlow discourses mildly of the Court Circular with Boots and Brewer. Is appealed to, at the fish stage of the banquet, by Veneering, on the disputed question whether his cousin Lord Snigsworth is in or out of town? Gives it that his cousin is out of town. 'At Snigsworthy Park?' Veneering inquires. 'At Snigsworthy,' Twemlow rejoins. Boots and Brewer regard this as a man to be cultivated; and Veneering is clear that he is a remunerative article. Meantime the retainer goes round, like a gloomy Analytical Chemist: always seeming to say, after 'Chablis, sir?'—'You wouldn't if you knew what it's made of.'

The great looking-glass above the sideboard, reflects the table and the company. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The Heralds' College found out a Crusading ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield (or might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan of camels take charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and kneel down be loaded with the salt. Reflects Veneering; forty, wavy-haired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy—a kind of sufficiently well-looking veiled-prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs Veneering; fair, aquiline-nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she might have, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory, conscious that a corner of her husband's veil is over herself. Reflects Podsnap; prosperously feeding, two little light-coloured wiry wings, one on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hairbrushes as his hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance of crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs Podsnap; fine woman for Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like a rocking-horse, hard features, majestic head-dress in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings. Reflects Twemlow; grey, dry, polite, susceptible to east wind, First-Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn in as if he had made a great effort to retire into himself some years ago, and had got so far and had never got any farther. Reflects mature young lady; raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when well powdered—as it is—carrying on considerably in the captivation of mature young gentleman; with too much nose in his face, too much ginger in his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects charming old Lady Tippins on Veneering's right; with an immense obtuse drab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon, and a dyed Long Walk up the top of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch of false hair behind, pleased to patronize Mrs Veneering opposite, who is pleased to be patronized. Reflects a certain 'Mortimer', another of Veneering's oldest friends; who never was in the house before, and appears not to want to come again, who sits disconsolate on Mrs Veneering's left, and who was inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend of his boyhood) to come to these people's and talk, and who won't talk. Reflects Eugene, friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the back of his chair, behind a shoulder—with a powder-epaulette on it—of the mature young lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice whenever proffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the company and possible accidents.

The Veneering dinners are excellent dinners—or new people wouldn't come—and all goes well. Notably, Lady Tippins has made a series of experiments on her digestive functions, so extremely complicated and daring, that if they could be published with their results it might benefit the human race. Having taken in provisions from all parts of the world, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the North Pole, when, as the ice-plates are being removed, the following words fall from her:

'I assure you, my dear Veneering—'

(Poor Twemlow's hand approaches his forehead, for it would seem now, that Lady Tippins is going to be the oldest friend.)

'I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest affair! Like the advertising people, I don't ask you to trust me, without offering a respectable reference. Mortimer there, is my reference, and knows all about it.'

Mortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens his mouth. But a faint smile, expressive of 'What's the use!' passes over his face, and he drops his eyelids and shuts his mouth.

'Now, Mortimer,' says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks of her closed green fan upon the knuckles of her left hand—which is particularly rich in knuckles, 'I insist upon your telling all that is to be told about the man from Jamaica.'

'Give you my honour I never heard of any man from Jamaica, except the man who was a brother,' replies Mortimer.

'Tobago, then.'

'Nor yet from Tobago.'

'Except,' Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly that the mature young lady, who has forgotten all about him, with a start takes the epaulette out of his way: 'except our friend who long lived on rice-pudding and isinglass, till at length to his something or other, his physician said something else, and a leg of mutton somehow ended in daygo.'

A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming out. An unfulfilled impression, for he goes in again.

'Now, my dear Mrs Veneering,' quoth Lady Tippins, I appeal to you whether this is not the basest conduct ever known in this world? I carry my lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition that they are very obedient and devoted; and here is my oldest lover-in-chief, the head of all my slaves, throwing off his allegiance before company! And here is another of my lovers, a rough Cymon at present certainly, but of whom I had most hopeful expectations as to his turning out well in course of time, pretending that he can't remember his nursery rhymes! On purpose to annoy me, for he knows how I doat upon them!'

A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins's point. She is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a little list of her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, or striking out an old lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book. Mrs Veneering is charmed by the humour, and so is Veneering. Perhaps it is enhanced by a certain yellow play in Lady Tippins's throat, like the legs of scratching poultry.

'I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him out of my Cupidon (my name for my Ledger, my dear,) this very night. But I am resolved to have the account of the man from Somewhere, and I beg you to elicit it for me, my love,' to Mrs Veneering, 'as I have lost my own influence. Oh, you perjured man!' This to Mortimer, with a rattle of her fan.

'We are all very much interested in the man from Somewhere,' Veneering observes.

Then the four Buffers, taking heart of grace all four at once, say:

'Deeply interested!'

'Quite excited!'

'Dramatic!'

'Man from Nowhere, perhaps!'

And then Mrs Veneering—for the Lady Tippins's winning wiles are contagious—folds her hands in the manner of a supplicating child, turns to her left neighbour, and says, 'Tease! Pay! Man from Tumwhere!' At which the four Buffers, again mysteriously moved all four at once, explain, 'You can't resist!'

'Upon my life,' says Mortimer languidly, 'I find it immensely embarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me to this extent, and my only consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins in your secret hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the man from Somewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by fixing him with a local habitation, but he comes from the place, the name of which escapes me, but will suggest itself to everybody else here, where they make the wine.'

Eugene suggests 'Day and Martin's.'

'No, not that place,' returns the unmoved Mortimer, 'that's where they make the Port. My man comes from the country where they make the Cape Wine. But look here, old fellow; its not at all statistical and it's rather odd.'

It is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that no man troubles himself much about the Veneerings themselves, and that any one who has anything to tell, generally tells it to anybody else in preference.

'The man,' Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, 'whose name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust.'

'Red velveteens and a bell?' the gloomy Eugene inquires.

'And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, or by others, he grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived in a hollow in a hilly country entirely composed of Dust. On his own small estate the growling old vagabond threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and its geological formation was Dust. Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, crockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust,—all manner of Dust.'

A passing remembrance of Mrs Veneering, here induces Mortimer to address his next half-dozen words to her; after which he wanders away again, tries Twemlow and finds he doesn't answer, ultimately takes up with the Buffers who receive him enthusiastically.

'The moral being—I believe that's the right expression—of this exemplary person, derived its highest gratification from anathematizing his nearest relations and turning them out of doors. Having begun (as was natural) by rendering these attentions to the wife of his bosom, he next found himself at leisure to bestow a similar recognition on the claims of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his own satisfaction and not in the least to hers, and proceeded to settle upon her, as her marriage portion, I don't know how much Dust, but something immense. At this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfully intimated that she was secretly engaged to that popular character whom the novelists and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriage would make Dust of her heart and Dust of her life—in short, would set her up, on a very extensive scale, in her father's business. Immediately, the venerable parent—on a cold winter's night, it is said—anathematized and turned her out.'

Here, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a very low opinion of Mortimer's story) concedes a little claret to the Buffers; who, again mysteriously moved all four at once, screw it slowly into themselves with a peculiar twist of enjoyment, as they cry in chorus, 'Pray go on.'

'The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, of a very limited nature. I believe I am not using too strong an expression when I say that Another was hard up. However, he married the young lady, and they lived in a humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamented with honeysuckle and woodbine twining, until she died. I must refer you to the Registrar of the District in which the humble dwelling was situated, for the certified cause of death; but early sorrow and anxiety may have had to do with it, though they may not appear in the ruled pages and printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with Another, for he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he outlived her a year it was as much as he did.'

There is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if good society might on any account allow itself to be impressible, he, one of good society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he here relates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy Eugene too, is not without some kindred touch; for, when that appalling Lady Tippins declares that if Another had survived, he should have gone down at the head of her list of lovers—and also when the mature young lady shrugs her epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidential comment from the mature young gentleman—his gloom deepens to that degree that he trifles quite ferociously with his dessert-knife.

Mortimer proceeds."

If, by chance, you are still with me, you may enjoy this, from Little Dorrit, as well:

"The famous name of Merdle became, every day, more famous in the land. Nobody knew that the Merdle of such high renown had ever done any good to any one, alive or dead, or to any earthly thing; nobody knew that he had any capacity or utterance of any sort in him, which had ever thrown, for any creature, the feeblest farthing-candle ray of light on any path of duty or diversion, pain or pleasure, toil or rest, fact or fancy, among the multiplicity of paths in the labyrinth trodden by the sons of Adam; nobody had the smallest reason for supposing the clay of which this object of worship was made, to be other than the commonest clay, with as clogged a wick smouldering inside of it as ever kept an image of humanity from tumbling to pieces. All people knew (or thought they knew) that he had made himself immensely rich; and, for that reason alone, prostrated themselves before him, more degradedly and less excusably than the darkest savage creeps out of his hole in the ground to propitiate, in some log or reptile, the Deity of his benighted soul.

Nay, the high priests of this worship had the man before them as a protest against their meanness. The multitude worshipped on trust—though always distinctly knowing why—but the officiators at the altar had the man habitually in their view. They sat at his feasts, and he sat at theirs. There was a spectre always attendant on him, saying to these high priests, 'Are such the signs you trust, and love to honour; this head, these eyes, this mode of speech, the tone and manner of this man? You are the levers of the Circumlocution Office, and the rulers of men. When half-a-dozen of you fall out by the ears, it seems that mother earth can give birth to no other rulers. Does your qualification lie in the superior knowledge of men which accepts, courts, and puffs this man? Or, if you are competent to judge aright the signs I never fail to show you when he appears among you, is your superior honesty your qualification?' Two rather ugly questions these, always going about town with Mr Merdle; and there was a tacit agreement that they must be stifled. In Mrs Merdle's absence abroad, Mr Merdle still kept the great house open for the passage through it of a stream Of visitors. A few of these took affable possession of the establishment. Three or four ladies of distinction and liveliness used to say to one another, 'Let us dine at our dear Merdle's next Thursday. Whom shall we have?' Our dear Merdle would then receive his instructions; and would sit heavily among the company at table and wander lumpishly about his drawing-rooms afterwards, only remarkable for appearing to have nothing to do with the entertainment beyond being in its way.

The Chief Butler, the Avenging Spirit of this great man's life, relaxed nothing of his severity. He looked on at these dinners when the bosom was not there, as he looked on at other dinners when the bosom was there; and his eye was a basilisk to Mr Merdle. He was a hard man, and would never bate an ounce of plate or a bottle of wine. He would not allow a dinner to be given, unless it was up to his mark. He set forth the table for his own dignity. If the guests chose to partake of what was served, he saw no objection; but it was served for the maintenance of his rank. As he stood by the sideboard he seemed to announce, 'I have accepted office to look at this which is now before me, and to look at nothing less than this.' If he missed the presiding bosom, it was as a part of his own state of which he was, from unavoidable circumstances, temporarily deprived, just as he might have missed a centre-piece, or a choice wine-cooler, which had been sent to the Banker's.

Mr Merdle issued invitations for a Barnacle dinner. Lord Decimus was to be there, Mr Tite Barnacle was to be there, the pleasant young Barnacle was to be there; and the Chorus of Parliamentary Barnacles who went about the provinces when the House was up, warbling the praises of their Chief, were to be represented there. It was understood to be a great occasion. Mr Merdle was going to take up the Barnacles. Some delicate little negotiations had occurred between him and the noble Decimus—the young Barnacle of engaging manners acting as negotiator—and Mr Merdle had decided to cast the weight of his great probity and great riches into the Barnacle scale. Jobbery was suspected by the malicious; perhaps because it was indisputable that if the adherence of the immortal Enemy of Mankind could have been secured by a job, the Barnacles would have jobbed him—for the good of the country, for the good of the country.

Mrs Merdle had written to this magnificent spouse of hers, whom it was heresy to regard as anything less than all the British Merchants since the days of Whittington rolled into one, and gilded three feet deep all over—had written to this spouse of hers, several letters from Rome, in quick succession, urging upon him with importunity that now or never was the time to provide for Edmund Sparkler. Mrs Merdle had shown him that the case of Edmund was urgent, and that infinite advantages might result from his having some good thing directly. In the grammar of Mrs Merdle's verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one mood, the Imperative; and that Mood had only one Tense, the Present. Mrs Merdle's verbs were so pressingly presented to Mr Merdle to conjugate, that his sluggish blood and his long coat-cuffs became quite agitated.

In which state of agitation, Mr Merdle, evasively rolling his eyes round the Chief Butler's shoes without raising them to the index of that stupendous creature's thoughts, had signified to him his intention of giving a special dinner: not a very large dinner, but a very special dinner. The Chief Butler had signified, in return, that he had no objection to look on at the most expensive thing in that way that could be done; and the day of the dinner was now come.

Mr Merdle stood in one of his drawing-rooms, with his back to the fire, waiting for the arrival of his important guests. He seldom or never took the liberty of standing with his back to the fire unless he was quite alone. In the presence of the Chief Butler, he could not have done such a deed. He would have clasped himself by the wrists in that constabulary manner of his, and have paced up and down the hearthrug, or gone creeping about among the rich objects of furniture, if his oppressive retainer had appeared in the room at that very moment. The sly shadows which seemed to dart out of hiding when the fire rose, and to dart back into it when the fire fell, were sufficient witnesses of his making himself so easy.

They were even more than sufficient, if his uncomfortable glances at them might be taken to mean anything.

Mr Merdle's right hand was filled with the evening paper, and the evening paper was full of Mr Merdle. His wonderful enterprise, his wonderful wealth, his wonderful Bank, were the fattening food of the evening paper that night. The wonderful Bank, of which he was the chief projector, establisher, and manager, was the latest of the many Merdle wonders. So modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the midst of these splendid achievements, that he looked far more like a man in possession of his house under a distraint, than a commercial Colossus bestriding his own hearthrug, while the little ships were sailing into dinner.

Behold the vessels coming into port! The engaging young Barnacle was the first arrival; but Bar overtook him on the staircase. Bar, strengthened as usual with his double eye-glass and his little jury droop, was overjoyed to see the engaging young Barnacle; and opined that we were going to sit in Banco, as we lawyers called it, to take a special argument?

'Indeed,' said the sprightly young Barnacle, whose name was Ferdinand; 'how so?'

'Nay,' smiled Bar. 'If you don't know, how can I know? You are in the innermost sanctuary of the temple; I am one of the admiring concourse on the plain without.'

Bar could be light in hand, or heavy in hand, according to the customer he had to deal with. With Ferdinand Barnacle he was gossamer. Bar was likewise always modest and self-depreciatory—in his way. Bar was a man of great variety; but one leading thread ran through the woof of all his patterns. Every man with whom he had to do was in his eyes a jury-man; and he must get that jury-man over, if he could.

'Our illustrious host and friend,' said Bar; 'our shining mercantile star;—going into politics?'

'Going? He has been in Parliament some time, you know,' returned the engaging young Barnacle.

'True,' said Bar, with his light-comedy laugh for special jury-men, which was a very different thing from his low-comedy laugh for comic tradesmen on common juries: 'he has been in Parliament for some time. Yet hitherto our star has been a vacillating and wavering star? Humph?'

An average witness would have been seduced by the Humph? into an affirmative answer, But Ferdinand Barnacle looked knowingly at Bar as he strolled up-stairs, and gave him no answer at all.

'Just so, just so,' said Bar, nodding his head, for he was not to be put off in that way, 'and therefore I spoke of our sitting in Banco to take a special argument—meaning this to be a high and solemn occasion, when, as Captain Macheath says, "the judges are met: a terrible show!" We lawyers are sufficiently liberal, you see, to quote the Captain, though the Captain is severe upon us. Nevertheless, I think I could put in evidence an admission of the Captain's,' said Bar, with a little jocose roll of his head; for, in his legal current of speech, he always assumed the air of rallying himself with the best grace in the world; 'an admission of the Captain's that Law, in the gross, is at least intended to be impartial. For what says the Captain, if I quote him correctly—and if not,' with a light-comedy touch of his double eye-glass on his companion's shoulder, 'my learned friend will set me right:
"Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others as well as in me,
I wonder we ha'n't better company
Upon Tyburn Tree!"'

These words brought them to the drawing-room, where Mr Merdle stood before the fire. So immensely astounded was Mr Merdle by the entrance of Bar with such a reference in his mouth, that Bar explained himself to have been quoting Gay. 'Assuredly not one of our Westminster Hall authorities,' said he, 'but still no despicable one to a man possessing the largely-practical Mr Merdle's knowledge of the world.'

Mr Merdle looked as if he thought he would say something, but subsequently looked as if he thought he wouldn't. The interval afforded time for Bishop to be announced. Bishop came in with meekness, and yet with a strong and rapid step as if he wanted to get his seven-league dress-shoes on, and go round the world to see that everybody was in a satisfactory state. Bishop had no idea that there was anything significant in the occasion. That was the most remarkable trait in his demeanour. He was crisp, fresh, cheerful, affable, bland; but so surprisingly innocent.

Bar sidled up to prefer his politest inquiries in reference to the health of Mrs Bishop. Mrs Bishop had been a little unfortunate in the article of taking cold at a Confirmation, but otherwise was well. Young Mr Bishop was also well. He was down, with his young wife and little family, at his Cure of Souls. The representatives of the Barnacle Chorus dropped in next, and Mr Merdle's physician dropped in next. Bar, who had a bit of one eye and a bit of his double eye-glass for every one who came in at the door, no matter with whom he was conversing or what he was talking about, got among them all by some skilful means, without being seen to get at them, and touched each individual gentleman of the jury on his own individual favourite spot. With some of the Chorus, he laughed about the sleepy member who had gone out into the lobby the other night, and voted the wrong way: with others, he deplored that innovating spirit in the time which could not even be prevented from taking an unnatural interest in the public service and the public money: with the physician he had a word to say about the general health; he had also a little information to ask him for, concerning a professional man of unquestioned erudition and polished manners—but those credentials in their highest development he believed were the possession of other professors of the healing art (jury droop)—whom he had happened to have in the witness-box the day before yesterday, and from whom he had elicited in cross-examination that he claimed to be one of the exponents of this new mode of treatment which appeared to Bar to—eh?—well, Bar thought so; Bar had thought, and hoped, Physician would tell him so. Without presuming to decide where doctors disagreed, it did appear to Bar, viewing it as a question of common sense and not of so-called legal penetration, that this new system was—might be, in the presence of so great an authority—say, Humbug? Ah! Fortified by such encouragement, he could venture to say Humbug; and now Bar's mind was relieved.

Mr Tite Barnacle, who, like Dr johnson's celebrated acquaintance, had only one idea in his head and that was a wrong one, had appeared by this time. This eminent gentleman and Mr Merdle, seated diverse ways and with ruminating aspects on a yellow ottoman in the light of the fire, holding no verbal communication with each other, bore a strong general resemblance to the two cows in the Cuyp picture over against them.

But now, Lord Decimus arrived. The Chief Butler, who up to this time had limited himself to a branch of his usual function by looking at the company as they entered (and that, with more of defiance than favour), put himself so far out of his way as to come up-stairs with him and announce him. Lord Decimus being an overpowering peer, a bashful young member of the Lower House who was the last fish but one caught by the Barnacles, and who had been invited on this occasion to commemorate his capture, shut his eyes when his Lordship came in.

Lord Decimus, nevertheless, was glad to see the Member. He was also glad to see Mr Merdle, glad to see Bishop, glad to see Bar, glad to see Physician, glad to see Tite Barnacle, glad to see Chorus, glad to see Ferdinand his private secretary. Lord Decimus, though one of the greatest of the earth, was not remarkable for ingratiatory manners, and Ferdinand had coached him up to the point of noticing all the fellows he might find there, and saying he was glad to see them. When he had achieved this rush of vivacity and condescension, his Lordship composed himself into the picture after Cuyp, and made a third cow in the group.

Bar, who felt that he had got all the rest of the jury and must now lay hold of the Foreman, soon came sidling up, double eye-glass in hand. Bar tendered the weather, as a subject neatly aloof from official reserve, for the Foreman's consideration. Bar said that he was told (as everybody always is told, though who tells them, and why, will ever remain a mystery), that there was to be no wall-fruit this year. Lord Decimus had not heard anything amiss of his peaches, but rather believed, if his people were correct, he was to have no apples. No apples? Bar was lost in astonishment and concern. It would have been all one to him, in reality, if there had not been a pippin on the surface of the earth, but his show of interest in this apple question was positively painful. Now, to what, Lord Decimus—for we troublesome lawyers loved to gather information, and could never tell how useful it might prove to us—to what, Lord Decimus, was this to be attributed? Lord Decimus could not undertake to propound any theory about it. This might have stopped another man; but Bar, sticking to him fresh as ever, said, 'As to pears, now?'

Long after Bar got made Attorney-General, this was told of him as a master-stroke. Lord Decimus had a reminiscence about a pear-tree formerly growing in a garden near the back of his dame's house at Eton, upon which pear-tree the only joke of his life perennially bloomed. It was a joke of a compact and portable nature, turning on the difference between Eton pears and Parliamentary pairs; but it was a joke, a refined relish of which would seem to have appeared to Lord Decimus impossible to be had without a thorough and intimate acquaintance with the tree. Therefore, the story at first had no idea of such a tree, sir, then gradually found it in winter, carried it through the changing season, saw it bud, saw it blossom, saw it bear fruit, saw the fruit ripen; in short, cultivated the tree in that diligent and minute manner before it got out of the bed-room window to steal the fruit, that many thanks had been offered up by belated listeners for the trees having been planted and grafted prior to Lord Decimus's time. Bar's interest in apples was so overtopped by the wrapt suspense in which he pursued the changes of these pears, from the moment when Lord Decimus solemnly opened with 'Your mentioning pears recalls to my remembrance a pear-tree,' down to the rich conclusion, 'And so we pass, through the various changes of life, from Eton pears to Parliamentary pairs,' that he had to go down-stairs with Lord Decimus, and even then to be seated next to him at table in order that he might hear the anecdote out. By that time, Bar felt that he had secured the Foreman, and might go to dinner with a good appetite.

It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one. The rarest dishes, sumptuously cooked and sumptuously served; the choicest fruits; the most exquisite wines; marvels of workmanship in gold and silver, china and glass; innumerable things delicious to the senses of taste, smell, and sight, were insinuated into its composition. O, what a wonderful man this Merdle, what a great man, what a master man, how blessedly and enviably endowed—in one word, what a rich man!

He took his usual poor eighteenpennyworth of food in his usual indigestive way, and had as little to say for himself as ever a wonderful man had. Fortunately Lord Decimus was one of those sublimities who have no occasion to be talked to, for they can be at any time sufficiently occupied with the contemplation of their own greatness. This enabled the bashful young Member to keep his eyes open long enough at a time to see his dinner. But, whenever Lord Decimus spoke, he shut them again.

The agreeable young Barnacle, and Bar, were the talkers of the party. Bishop would have been exceedingly agreeable also, but that his innocence stood in his way. He was so soon left behind. When there was any little hint of anything being in the wind, he got lost directly. Worldly affairs were too much for him; he couldn't make them out at all.

This was observable when Bar said, incidentally, that he was happy to have heard that we were soon to have the advantage of enlisting on the good side, the sound and plain sagacity—not demonstrative or ostentatious, but thoroughly sound and practical—of our friend Mr Sparkler.

Ferdinand Barnacle laughed, and said oh yes, he believed so. A vote was a vote, and always acceptable.

Bar was sorry to miss our good friend Mr Sparkler to-day, Mr Merdle.

'He is away with Mrs Merdle,' returned that gentleman, slowly coming out of a long abstraction, in the course of which he had been fitting a tablespoon up his sleeve. 'It is not indispensable for him to be on the spot.'

'The magic name of Merdle,' said Bar, with the jury droop, 'no doubt will suffice for all.'

'Why—yes—I believe so,' assented Mr Merdle, putting the spoon aside, and clumsily hiding each of his hands in the coat-cuff of the other hand. 'I believe the people in my interest down there will not make any difficulty.'

'Model people!' said Bar. 'I am glad you approve of them,' said Mr Merdle.

'And the people of those other two places, now,' pursued Bar, with a bright twinkle in his keen eye, as it slightly turned in the direction of his magnificent neighbour; 'we lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner;—the people of those other two places now? Do they yield so laudably to the vast and cumulative influence of such enterprise and such renown; do those little rills become absorbed so quietly and easily, and, as it were by the influence of natural laws, so beautifully, in the swoop of the majestic stream as it flows upon its wondrous way enriching the surrounding lands; that their course is perfectly to be calculated, and distinctly to be predicated?'

Mr Merdle, a little troubled by Bar's eloquence, looked fitfully about the nearest salt-cellar for some moments, and then said hesitating:

'They are perfectly aware, sir, of their duty to Society. They will return anybody I send to them for that purpose.'

'Cheering to know,' said Bar. 'Cheering to know.'

The three places in question were three little rotten holes in this Island, containing three little ignorant, drunken, guzzling, dirty, out-of-the-way constituencies, that had reeled into Mr Merdle's pocket. Ferdinand Barnacle laughed in his easy way, and airily said they were a nice set of fellows. Bishop, mentally perambulating among paths of peace, was altogether swallowed up in absence of mind.

'Pray,' asked Lord Decimus, casting his eyes around the table, 'what is this story I have heard of a gentleman long confined in a debtors' prison proving to be of a wealthy family, and having come into the inheritance of a large sum of money? I have met with a variety of allusions to it. Do you know anything of it, Ferdinand?'

'I only know this much,' said Ferdinand, 'that he has given the Department with which I have the honour to be associated;' this sparkling young Barnacle threw off the phrase sportively, as who should say, We know all about these forms of speech, but we must keep it up, we must keep the game alive; 'no end of trouble, and has put us into innumerable fixes.'

'Fixes?' repeated Lord Decimus, with a majestic pausing and pondering on the word that made the bashful Member shut his eyes quite tight. 'Fixes?'

'A very perplexing business indeed,' observed Mr Tite Barnacle, with an air of grave resentment.

'What,' said Lord Decimus, 'was the character of his business; what was the nature of these—a—Fixes, Ferdinand?'

'Oh, it's a good story, as a story,' returned that gentleman; 'as good a thing of its kind as need be. This Mr Dorrit (his name is Dorrit) had incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy came out of the Bank and gave him his fortune, under a bond he had signed for the performance of a contract which was not at all performed. He was a partner in a house in some large way—spirits, or buttons, or wine, or blacking, or oatmeal, or woollen, or pork, or hooks and eyes, or iron, or treacle, or shoes, or something or other that was wanted for troops, or seamen, or somebody—and the house burst, and we being among the creditors, detainees were lodged on the part of the Crown in a scientific manner, and all the rest Of it. When the fairy had appeared and he wanted to pay us off, Egad we had got into such an exemplary state of checking and counter-checking, signing and counter-signing, that it was six months before we knew how to take the money, or how to give a receipt for it. It was a triumph of public business,' said this handsome young Barnacle, laughing heartily, 'You never saw such a lot of forms in your life. "Why," the attorney said to me one day, "if I wanted this office to give me two or three thousand pounds instead of take it, I couldn't have more trouble about it." "You are right, old fellow," I told him, "and in future you'll know that we have something to do here."' The pleasant young Barnacle finished by once more laughing heartily. He was a very easy, pleasant fellow indeed, and his manners were exceedingly winning.

Mr Tite Barnacle's view of the business was of a less airy character. He took it ill that Mr Dorrit had troubled the Department by wanting to pay the money, and considered it a grossly informal thing to do after so many years. But Mr Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently a weighty one. All buttoned-up men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are believed in. Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of unbuttoning, fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to condense and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned; it is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the buttoned-up man. Mr Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to his white cravat.

'May I ask,' said Lord Decimus, 'if Mr Darrit—or Dorrit—has any family?'

Nobody else replying, the host said, 'He has two daughters, my lord.'

'Oh! you are acquainted with him?' asked Lord Decimus.

'Mrs Merdle is. Mr Sparkler is, too. In fact,' said Mr Merdle, 'I rather believe that one of the young ladies has made an impression on Edmund Sparkler. He is susceptible, and—I—think—the conquest—' Here Mr Merdle stopped, and looked at the table-cloth, as he usually did when he found himself observed or listened to.

Bar was uncommonly pleased to find that the Merdle family, and this family, had already been brought into contact. He submitted, in a low voice across the table to Bishop, that it was a kind of analogical illustration of those physical laws, in virtue of which Like flies to Like. He regarded this power of attraction in wealth to draw wealth to it, as something remarkably interesting and curious—something indefinably allied to the loadstone and gravitation. Bishop, who had ambled back to earth again when the present theme was broached, acquiesced. He said it was indeed highly important to Society that one in the trying situation of unexpectedly finding himself invested with a power for good or for evil in Society, should become, as it were, merged in the superior power of a more legitimate and more gigantic growth, the influence of which (as in the case of our friend at whose board we sat) was habitually exercised in harmony with the best interests of Society.

Thus, instead of two rival and contending flames, a larger and a lesser, each burning with a lurid and uncertain glare, we had a blended and a softened light whose genial ray diffused an equable warmth throughout the land. Bishop seemed to like his own way of putting the case very much, and rather dwelt upon it; Bar, meanwhile (not to throw away a jury-man), making a show of sitting at his feet and feeding on his precepts.

The dinner and dessert being three hours long, the bashful Member cooled in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with food and drink, and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus, like a tall tower in a flat country, seemed to project himself across the table-cloth, hide the light from the honourable Member, cool the honourable Member's marrow, and give him a woeful idea of distance. When he asked this unfortunate traveller to take wine, he encompassed his faltering steps with the gloomiest of shades; and when he said, 'Your health sir!' all around him was barrenness and desolation.

At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to hover about among the pictures, and to cause an interesting speculation to arise in all minds as to the probabilities of his ceasing to hover, and enabling the smaller birds to flutter up-stairs; which could not be done until he had urged his noble pinions in that direction. After some delay, and several stretches of his wings which came to nothing, he soared to the drawing-rooms.

And here a difficulty arose, which always does arise when two people are specially brought together at a dinner to confer with one another. Everybody (except Bishop, who had no suspicion of it) knew perfectly well that this dinner had been eaten and drunk, specifically to the end that Lord Decimus and Mr Merdle should have five minutes' conversation together. The opportunity so elaborately prepared was now arrived, and it seemed from that moment that no mere human ingenuity could so much as get the two chieftains into the same room. Mr Merdle and his noble guest persisted in prowling about at opposite ends of the perspective. It was in vain for the engaging Ferdinand to bring Lord Decimus to look at the bronze horses near Mr Merdle. Then Mr Merdle evaded, and wandered away. It was in vain for him to bring Mr Merdle to Lord Decimus to tell him the history of the unique Dresden vases. Then Lord Decimus evaded and wandered away, while he was getting his man up to the mark.

'Did you ever see such a thing as this?' said Ferdinand to Bar when he had been baffled twenty times.

'Often,' returned Bar.

'Unless I butt one of them into an appointed corner, and you butt the other,' said Ferdinand,'it will not come off after all.'

'Very good,' said Bar. 'I'll butt Merdle, if you like; but not my lord.'

Ferdinand laughed, in the midst of his vexation. 'Confound them both!' said he, looking at his watch. 'I want to get away. Why the deuce can't they come together! They both know what they want and mean to do. Look at them!'

They were still looming at opposite ends of the perspective, each with an absurd pretence of not having the other on his mind, which could not have been more transparently ridiculous though his real mind had been chalked on his back. Bishop, who had just now made a third with Bar and Ferdinand, but whose innocence had again cut him out of the subject and washed him in sweet oil, was seen to approach Lord Decimus and glide into conversation.

'I must get Merdle's doctor to catch and secure him, I suppose,' said Ferdinand; 'and then I must lay hold of my illustrious kinsman, and decoy him if I can—drag him if I can't—to the conference.'

'Since you do me the honour,' said Bar, with his slyest smile, to ask for my poor aid, it shall be yours with the greatest pleasure. I don't think this is to be done by one man. But if you will undertake to pen my lord into that furthest drawing-room where he is now so profoundly engaged, I will undertake to bring our dear Merdle into the presence, without the possibility of getting away.'

'Done!' said Ferdinand.

'Done!' said Bar.

Bar was a sight wondrous to behold, and full of matter, when, jauntily waving his double eye-glass by its ribbon, and jauntily drooping to an Universe of jurymen, he, in the most accidental manner ever seen, found himself at Mr Merdle's shoulder, and embraced that opportunity of mentioning a little point to him, on which he particularly wished to be guided by the light of his practical knowledge. (Here he took Mr Merdle's arm and walked him gently away.) A banker, whom we would call A. B., advanced a considerable sum of money, which we would call fifteen thousand pounds, to a client or customer of his, whom he would call P. q. (Here, as they were getting towards Lord Decimus, he held Mr Merdle tight.) As a security for the repayment of this advance to P. Q. whom we would call a widow lady, there were placed in A. B.'s hands the title-deeds of a freehold estate, which we would call Blinkiter Doddles. Now, the point was this. A limited right of felling and lopping in the woods of Blinkiter Doddles, lay in the son of P. Q. then past his majority, and whom we would call X. Y.—but really this was too bad! In the presence of Lord Decimus, to detain the host with chopping our dry chaff of law, was really too bad! Another time! Bar was truly repentant, and would not say another syllable. Would Bishop favour him with half-a-dozen words? (He had now set Mr Merdle down on a couch, side by side with Lord Decimus, and to it they must go, now or never.)

And now the rest of the company, highly excited and interested, always excepting Bishop, who had not the slightest idea that anything was going on, formed in one group round the fire in the next drawing-room, and pretended to be chatting easily on the infinite variety of small topics, while everybody's thoughts and eyes were secretly straying towards the secluded pair. The Chorus were excessively nervous, perhaps as labouring under the dreadful apprehension that some good thing was going to be diverted from them! Bishop alone talked steadily and evenly. He conversed with the great Physician on that relaxation of the throat with which young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means of lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church. Physician, as a general rule, was of opinion that the best way to avoid it was to know how to read, before you made a profession of reading. Bishop said dubiously, did he really think so? And Physician said, decidedly, yes he did.

Ferdinand, meanwhile, was the only one of the party who skirmished on the outside of the circle; he kept about mid-way between it and the two, as if some sort of surgical operation were being performed by Lord Decimus on Mr Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and his services might at any moment be required as Dresser. In fact, within a quarter of an hour Lord Decimus called to him 'Ferdinand!' and he went, and took his place in the conference for some five minutes more. Then a half-suppressed gasp broke out among the Chorus; for Lord Decimus rose to take his leave. Again coached up by Ferdinand to the point of making himself popular, he shook hands in the most brilliant manner with the whole company, and even said to Bar, 'I hope you were not bored by my pears?' To which Bar retorted, 'Eton, my lord, or Parliamentary?' neatly showing that he had mastered the joke, and delicately insinuating that he could never forget it while his life remained.

All the grave importance that was buttoned up in Mr Tite Barnacle, took itself away next; and Ferdinand took himself away next, to the opera. Some of the rest lingered a little, marrying golden liqueur glasses to Buhl tables with sticky rings; on the desperate chance of Mr Merdle's saying something. But Merdle, as usual, oozed sluggishly and muddily about his drawing-room, saying never a word.

In a day or two it was announced to all the town, that Edmund Sparkler, Esquire, son-in-law of the eminent Mr Merdle of worldwide renown, was made one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office; and proclamation was issued, to all true believers, that this admirable appointment was to be hailed as a graceful and gracious mark of homage, rendered by the graceful and gracious Decimus, to that commercial interest which must ever in a great commercial country—and all the rest of it, with blast of trumpet. So, bolstered by this mark of Government homage, the wonderful Bank and all the other wonderful undertakings went on and went up; and gapers came to Harley Street, Cavendish Square, only to look at the house where the golden wonder lived.

And when they saw the Chief Butler looking out at the hall-door in his moments of condescension, the gapers said how rich he looked, and wondered how much money he had in the wonderful Bank. But, if they had known that respectable Nemesis better, they would not have wondered about it, and might have stated the amount with the utmost precision."

And in case I haven't made the point often enough, I don't think much of the beauty of either of those scenes can be conveyed by television adaptations. The book's the thing, and Dickens was the man who did it best. What a pity he's no more.if Mr Darrit

Awards for Hawkers' Cries

2012-02-06T15:01:00.001+11:00

I don't know where I came across this list but there are books on it that I resent having been persuaded to shell out money for, because they are actually rubbish. I suppose, if you are their publicist, that means you have done a good job.

Somehow though getting a prize for flogging dead horses to gullible fools like me, while getting paid, seems wrong, especially at a time when publishers are crying poor. I wish they would stop lavishing money on publicity and spend it instead on providing books I might actually enjoy reading. After all, there are plenty of really clever bloggers who are already doing their publicity for them without being paid for it: they write about what they read, usually with far more insight and wit than any publicity agent could muster.

Nowadays, if a book hasn't been recommended by someone I know and trust or by one of the many excellent intelligent bloggers I read, who operate independent of the professional publicity mill, I am reluctant to pick it up. This could be one way in which blogs - not frivolous unfocussed ones like this one, but the kind that devote themselves to one field only - might change things for the better.

I don't suppose it will happen though. There are far too many people with too much invested, (namely, their careers), in keeping things just the way they are. The young man in Caught on a Train, with his 'important work' in Linz, in preparation for the Frankfurt Book Fair, was an early embodiment of the type I mean:

A Bumper Crop

2012-02-05T12:56:00.001+11:00

You know you've grown too many beans when you start using them as bookmarks:

And don't get met started on zucchini (courgettes, to English readers). The annual glut is upon us, and their charm appears to be lost upon my husband, who can spot them, no matter how carefully concealed, in any dish, but particularly objects to them turning up in chocolate ice cream.

Words and Phrases that Annoy Other People

2012-02-04T08:03:00.007+11:00

In this case a man called Scott Stein - and the word he objects to is 'Nazi', when used in contexts other than the most extreme. I agree totally and also wish 'Fascist' would be used less liberally.

The article is funny, including the comment at the bottom, where yet another pedant cannot resist getting out the editor's pen.

Things Ain't What They Used to Be

2012-02-03T15:35:00.000+11:00

I'm driving a lot at the moment, which means I'm listening to the radio quite a lot. Unfortunately, as my older daughter remarked after accompanying me on quite a lot of this driving, 'The radio here leaves just about everything to be desired.' She may have gone on to spoil this quite amusing observation by adding, 'In fact, the radio here is shit.'

Anyway, let's not go into how I failed to bring up my children to be polite young ladies, (I don't have any sons, I should add - I wouldn't suggest trying to bring up boys to be polite young ladies, although I suppose an argument could be made for the idea; it's possible the world would be a better place if young men went around aspiring to behave like polite young ladies. But I digress, and anyway I've failed at the more basic task of persuading young women to behave like polite young ladies, so I doubt I'd be likely to manage any more complex task in that domain).

The point is, yesterday I actually heard something quite interesting on the radio: a programme about Ewan McColl, (from which I learnt that a) he knew an enormous about folk music, b) he was a Stalinist and c) he wrote "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"). As well as those basic facts, I also heard this clip from a tape of a meeting at his place in which he describes one of the folk clubs he used to sing in. Listening to it almost made me a convert to the doctrines of Health and Safety:

Should I become a disciple, or am I giving in too easily to the forces of bland?

What He Said

2012-02-02T11:08:00.000+11:00

Here's someone else talking about tennis, far more eloquently than me (it's a great article, but I particularly like the phrase, "Roger is so cool and frictionless", which refers, of course, to Federer; and the description of Nadal's forehand: "you know, the one where he swoops the racket all the way around his head like he's whipping the team pulling his chariot.")

I didn't know which player I wanted to win in the Djokovic-Nadal Australian Open final - Nadal is the one I had a soft spot for, but I couldn't help admiring Djokovic's self-discipline and the apparent disappearance of some of his earlier more unattractive mannerisms. However, after seeing Djokovic tear off his shirt and strut about in victory, I knew Nadal would remain my favorite. In the article I've linked to above, Brian Phillips mounts a convincing case for why.

One other admirable thing about Nadal is that, apparently - I'm relying on a Twitter source for this one - he used to be a right-handed player but, having damaged his shoulder, he taught himself to be left-handed. Now that takes guts, if true.

So yes, to put it in a nutshell: after all these years, I'm once again experiencing the sensation I had when the Beatles arrived upon the scene, (and yes, I am a Tintin/Beatles wimpy kind of person, not an Asterix/Rolling Stones cool individual, but that was probably obvious already). Once again I'm enjoying understanding just what it's like to be a fan.

My Favourite Reality TV

2012-02-01T15:50:00.000+11:00

According to the New Yorker, researchers at the National Institute of Health have discovered that "diazepam - more commonly known as valium - has no discernible effect on anxiety unless a person knows he is taking it."

I read this odd little piece of information just after I'd written about the steps I climb most days and the odd fact that, were I to encounter them at a different point on my walk, I might find them very much harder to bear. Shortly afterwards, I heard Ricky Ponting say this, in answer to a question about his long period of poor performance on the cricket pitch:

"It's amazing when you're going through a lean trot, how many little things creep into your head and get in the way of what you're trying to do."

"How strange a thing is the human mind," I thought, "sometimes it is unable to recognise that a chemical is at work on it, unless it is told that that is what is happening; in certain circumstances it is happy to put up with something that at other times it would find unendurable; if not watched carefully, it is more than capable of undermining a considerable talent like Ricky Ponting's with creeping, slithering, self-perpetuating fears ."

Then came the annual feast of wall-to-wall tennis that is the lead up to, and then the actual, Australian Open. We saw Samantha Stosur, (who, in beating Serena Williams to win the US Open, proved she knows all there is to know about technique, when it comes to playing tennis), lose a "battle with mental demons", as one newspaper put it. Despite facing a far less daunting physical opponent than Serena Williams, she went down 6-2, 6-4. The only explanation she could offer was this:

"I think the whole emotional side of things really took over today ... I certainly didn't handle that side of things at all well."

Ponting, I suspect, would understand.

A week or two later, we saw Kim Clijsters damage her ankle during her fourth round match against Li Na but continue playing, eventually prevailing, despite considerable pain. This is how the Australian reported her triumph:

'"I have no idea how I won," Clijsters said ...The drama began when Clijsters went over on her left ankle, serving at 30-30 and 3-3 in the first set. Incredibly she got off the floor and finished the point after her ankle gave way. Most thought she would be lucky to see out the set as the WTA trainer applied three layers of different tape to support the ankle. Clijsters also gulped down two painkillers. "It definitely crossed my mind a couple of times," Clijsters said referring to thoughts of retirement at that stage. "But I knew if I could just try to kind of let the medication sink in or, if I could get through the first 20 minutes, half hour, you know, I think the pain would go away a little bit ... and I did and I'm happy that I didn't give up."'

Even more spectacularly, a few days after that Lleyton Hewitt came from being ranked 181 on the eve of the open, only allowed in on a wildcard, to reaching the fourth round where he gave Novak Djokovic, the world number one, a reasonable run for his money, despite being riddled with injury.

"A couple of months ago I didn't know if I would be able to play," Hewitt was quoted as saying, again in the Australian, which went on to report that the player has 'more crook joints than Dodge City...Wonky hips, knee and toe have required five significant surgeries" (and I have also read that one of his toes no longer has any cartilage and causes him constant pain).

It is this that makes me love watching tennis - the way it reveals so starkly the influence of the mind. For the successful players are not the ones who possess physical skill alone but those who also embody a tough unneurotic sense of endurance, an untiring persistence which carries them through to either win or at least to have the tenacity to return again to the arena following defeat. It is the only sport I know where what you come to see is not only a physical battle but also a test of an individual's mental strength. Out there, alone on the court, the scene is almost gladiatorial - the two combatants pit themselves against each other, and the skills they need are often more to do with mental state than technical or physical prowess. They have to conquer their opponent's merciless backhand, but they must also overcome the little things Ponting described that 'creep into your head'.

And that is why I believe that telecasts of live tennis tournaments are the only true reality TV. While in theory Big Brother reveals a lot about human nature, relaying what happens when random people are forced to coexist, what it presents is actually a fair way from the truth. In reality, (as opposed to reality TV reality), crafty editors transform the events in the 'Big Brother household' into a kind of unscripted fiction; they shape our understanding of the personalities involved and allow us to see only a fraction of what really takes place.

On the tennis court, by contrast, there is no opportunity for manipulation. Nothing can be edited out. What is presented to viewers is as close as it can be to an unfiltered record of what is actually happening. The struggle between two individuals unfolds before us, and in the few hours it takes to reach a conclusion we see more real human behaviour than in months of what is designated as 'reality tv'. Instead of false emotional crescendoes, manufactured through tampering with the flow of scenes, we witness displays of ambition, fear, tenacity or ingrained pessimism, as each player's true nature is revealed. The way each one masters or lets their emotions get the better of them makes all the difference to the outcome. The power of the mind is vividly on display.

As a result, the game often delivers huge surprises. For example, halfway through the match between Birdych and Nadal, it seemed certain that Birdych would overcome the Spaniard, who seemed to have no answer to the other man's relentless aces. However, somehow, as we watched, Nadal found reserves of energy and hope and intelligence, and eventually, largely through pure determination, managed to win through.

Similarly, I remember sitting through that long and astonishing Wimbledon final between Federer and Roddick some years ago, a match which Federer won, seemingly entirely by dint of being determined to do so, despite at moments looking as though he had not a single chance (and, incidentally, the most disappointing thing about that game was the fact that, although we were given long interviews with the victor, we had no chance to hear Roddick's side of the story - I would love to have been given some insights into what it felt like to have fought so hard and come so tantalisingly close to victory and then to have had it slip from your hands).

Even the extraordinary struggle that took place between Djokovic and Nadal on Sunday evening, in which the power seemed to move almost tidally between the two of them, may ultimately have come down to psychology rather than technique. After all, according to the commentators, this was Nadal's response to a question after the US Open about whether Djokovic had somehow psychologically mesmerised him:

"You all know, I know, he knows, that he has got inside my head."

Could the thing finally have come down to this one factor - a mental chink of weakness, of lack of self-belief that dictated from the first moment that Nadal was heading for defeat?

Of course, there is always the criticism that this is all nonsense, that tennis is merely a few silly - or greedy - people running about hitting a round thing with a an odd shaped loop that's been threaded with strings. While that's true on one level, I still think the game represents more than that. Patrick Smith, a journalist at the Australian, appears to agree with me when he speculates about whether we can learn from Lleyton Hewitt's example on the tennis court:

"Have you ever thought what our lives might have been, or might be, if we were Little Lleyton? Not our tennis game, forget the lob and the volley, but our lives themselves ...It doesn't matter what we do, how we make a quid, run the household or maybe play the piano. Journo, accountant, carpenter, musician, mother, partner. Whatever. If Little Lleyton was the voice inside our head there would not be one part of our endeavours that was not pushed, probed, stretched or pulled apart to see if one more morsel of success could not be unlocked ... If all of us chased our dreams with the commitment Hewitt practises, prepares and plays his tennis, we might write a better story, build a better house, play a better tune."

I can't add a thing to that except, 'Roll on Wimbledon.'

Ooh Look

2012-01-31T09:59:00.000+11:00

Some excellent drawings by my favourite illustrator.

This Island Race

2012-01-30T17:25:00.000+11:00

On the way home yesterday, I heard this fascinating recording of Australian youth being interviewed in 1976:

More About Mince

2012-01-29T16:52:00.000+11:00

My childhood was not like today's childhoods - gosh, no-one's ever said that before, I'll bet. Still, I never said I was going to be original - and, in any case, however cliched, in my case the statement is absolutely true.

The reason for this is that, unlike their modern counterparts, my parents did not exert themselves to conjure up diversions and entertainment for their offspring. Instead, they devoted most of the little attention they gave to us to trying to offload us onto someone - well, anyone, actually - else.

Which was why we were regularly sent to spend holidays with a large family of cousins, all of whom we loved dearly but whose nanny was so utterly dreadful that whenever we returned home we would beg our parents never to be sent there again.

We were wasting our breath, of course. They took no notice and, sure enough, a day or two after school was next over for the term, we'd find ourselves hurtled off into the terrifying arms of the starched old bag once more.

One blogpost - indeed, one lifetime's entire blog - would not really provide enough space in which to describe that woman's horribleness. Suffice to say, it came as an enormous surprise when, one wet afternoon, rather than forcing us all out of the house into the rain in insufficient clothing and then berating us for getting wet when she finally permitted our reentry, she told us all that we were going to be allowed to watch television.

It must be a trick, we all agreed, but that didn't mean we were going to argue. We arranged ourselves in a dutiful row on the green ivy printed white chintz of the drawingroom sofa and waited for the set to warm up. The film we then saw was so striking that I have never forgotten it. It was called Carve Her Name with Pride, and told the story of Violette Szabo, to whom a memorial has recently been erected near Lambeth Bridge.

I have no idea why Nanny allowed us to watch it - at the time, I assumed she was hoping to pick up a few techniques from viewing the Gestapo torturers at work (in which case, she would have been disappointed by the lack of explicit detail [but more of that later]). Whatever her thought processes were - and I have no doubt they were weird and twisted - it is the one thing that, despite all her iniquities, I'm grateful to her for.

Mind you, I'd forgotten all about the film until I went for a swim this morning and listened to Simon Heffer talk about it with what I thought was rare insight.

Just before the swim, I'd read a comment by Frank Wilson that yesterday's post wasn't "really about censorship" (or indeed organic minced beef) , "but about prudence and taste" .

He's right of course, and this was only reinforced by Heffer's observation that, were Carve Her Name with Pride ("the French are magnificent, of course, but they have to be organised"), to be made today, the film makers would be unable to resist showing the full details of how exactly Violet Szabo was tortured, sparing the viewer nothing. That's almost certainly true, but just as I can't see any useful purpose for much of the sensational information that is served up to us daily, I doubt the addition of more graphic scenes would have made a more moving or memorable film.

In Praise of Censorship

2012-01-28T13:58:00.000+11:00

As I was bicycling back to Canberra's pathetic attempt at a Chinatown, (when I went there the other day, I couldn't get what I wanted as the markets in Cabramatta had been closed for Chinese New Year and so supplies were delayed - boring explanation, but I wouldn't want anyone thinking I'm easing off on my attitude of haughty contempt towards the place and becoming a fan who can't keep away), I noticed this in the gutter:

For those who can't zoom in and see the detail, it is a pristine packet of Cleaver's 'Healthy Organic' beef mince, priced at a healthy - one might even say hefty - $8.74.

My initial reaction was to think, 'Oh, some poor person has ridden home from the shop, imagining they have a lovely mince-based meal ahead of them, (if it's possible to have a lovely mince-based meal, which is debatable), and then they've got home and found that somehow - oh dear, could it be the onset of ... no, don't even tempt fate by mentioning it - although they thought they went to the shop and bought the stuff, it turns out they only imagined doing so, in which case what precisely did they do during the past forty-five minutes, (and what's the betting that that leads to a quick slug from the vodka bottle and from there it's all downhill?)'

And then I thought, 'But, no, wait a minute, what if, in fact, that organic mince has been put there deliberately to trick us into thinking that, but really a maniac has taken an incredibly fine needled syringe, which can penetrate the plastic covering while leaving it apparently unperforated, and - in the hope that a passer-by might pick up the packet, thinking, "Oh, jolly good, here's a free meal someone's dropped", and take it home, cook it and die - has injected into the so-called 'healthy organic' mince a terrible toxin that will kill in minutes.'

And then I thought, 'Hang on, where did that incredibly mad idea come from?'

And then I thought, 'It came from having all sorts of idiotic so-called news stories, about maniacs injecting food in supermarkets and stuffing jars of baby foods with ground glass et cetera, shoved at me by the media over the decades, so that now I can actually imagine that there are people out there who might possibly be nuts enough to do weird things that I previously could not have come near imagining.'

And then I thought, 'How utterly useless it is to know that kind of thing, how unnecessary it is to be told such stories, how irresponsible it is of news services to provide information about things that are so rare and aberrant that they are never ever likely to affect most people and yet once most people are given information about them they will never be able to get rid of that information or the possibility that such things could happen. Their minds will be cluttered up with lunatics lurking with poison and grisly details about murderers who boiled up their victims or kept them in bits in office fridges or buried them under the paving of people they were working for, things that offer no enlightenment but merely terrify and leach away trust between human beings. Furthermore, having been introduced to the knowledge that certain individual human beings can behave in extraordinary and terrible ways, they inevitably are forced - by virtue of being robbed of their innocence, of no longer not knowing that such things are possible - infinitesimally closer to being able to actually commit such acts themselves, because they have gone beyond the initial utter shock and reached the point of acceptance that such things occur.'

And then I thought, 'Do newspapers and reporters ever ask themselves what good it actually does, when they decide to tell us many of the things that they do decide to tell us, usually without ever being asked to tell us?' Do they wonder to themselves about what exact important purpose is served by providing us with all the prurient details of individual acts of gory madness?'

(On a separate note, I also think it's unforgiveable to insist people watch horrible things, just because you either like them or, more likely, want to spread around the trauma [and don't get me started on the night my friend went to see Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover and I said I wouldn't go because it looked too revolting and then he came home in a state of utter traumatised shock and insisted on cornering me and describing every scene in minute detail, thus ridding himself of his own horror and passing it straight on to me {I think what he did's called the talking cure, except that usually people pay - and did that really happen with the ... no, actually I really don't want or need to know}]. And, by the way, the mince is still there - in the gutter on Cowper Street, just after the intersection with Macarthur Avenue, should anyone be in the market for a free feed - although you might want to check the use-by date [and the possibly perforated cellophaned]).

Confessions of a Visual Illiterate I

2012-01-27T14:30:00.003+11:00

There is a poem I like by Marianne Moore about looking at pictures:

When I Buy Pictures

or what is closer to the truth,/
when I look at that of which I may regard myself as the imaginary possessor,/
I fix upon what would give me pleasure in my average moments:/
the satire upon curiosity in which no more is discernible/
than the intensity of the mood;/
or quite the opposite – the old thing, the medieval decorated hat-box,/
in which there are hounds with waists diminishing like the waist of the hour-glass,/
and deer and birds and seated people;/
it may be no more than a square of parquetry; the literal biography perhaps,/
in letters standing well apart upon a parchment-like expanse;/
an artichoke in six varieties of blue; the snipe-legged hieroglyphic in three parts;/
the silver fence protecting Adam's grave, or Michael taking Adam by the wrist/.
Too stern an intellectual emphasis upon this quality or that detracts from one's enjoyment./
It must not wish to disarm anything; nor may the approved triumph easily be honoured –/
that which is great because something else is small./
It comes to this: of whatever sort it is,/
it must be "lit with piercing glances into the life of things";/
it must acknowledge the spiritual forces which have made it./

I too, I'm sorry to say, 'fix upon what would give me pleasure in my average moments' when I look at pictures, although, unlike Moore, who remains concentrated on discovering the paintings' essences, the way in which they are, "lit with piercing glances into the life of things", I fear my love of narrative often distracts me from the paintings I'm looking at, diverting my attention toward speculation about their subjects and the stories behind them.

In order to illustrate or give a clearer picture of - and isn't it funny how the language of visual art seeps into writing - what I mean, here is a description of what happened when I visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales the other day.

I started by looking at a portrait by a painter I'm fond of called Moroni, (I am fairly sure he came from Bergamo, which always makes me think of Earl Grey tea, [because it is flavoured with bergamot], such is the trivial nature of my thought processes):

Dragging my mind from the possibility of going to the cafe and ordering a hot drink, I was soon leaning in a little closer toward the canvas, not in order to look at the painting as such, but rather because I was trying to imagine what the person who sat for it was like when he was alive. What was his story, I wanted to know, and what would he be like, if I were to meet him:

The caption beside the painting urged me to notice the way the light flickers over the man's facial features, lending them vibrancy, but I was too busy trying to work out how Moroni had managed to control his brush in order to create the illusion of ruff and hairline and beard and skin:

I moved on to the neighbouring painting but was unable to take it in at all. Any thought of what it looked like was driven out of my head by my outrage at its donor and her absurd sense of what appears to be cultural cringe:

"What was she thinking?" I asked myself, feeling quite baffled.

Unfortunately, my mind was still on such matters - in this case what the sitter was thinking, rather than the donor, (but still, alas, I was not considering the painting itself) - when I shifted my gaze to the next work, by Elizabeth Donche, a diptych of Cornelius Duplicius de Scheppere and his wife, who was the object of my focus:

I'm convinced her main thought is, "Bloody Cornelius, I wish we'd got Holbein - it might have cost a bit more, but you get value for money with Holbein."

I imagine her spending the rest of her life looking at this picture and trying to persuade herself that it's okay, while all the time noticing that the fabric of those cuffs doesn't glow the way Holbein's would have:

and that, although her skin's not badly captured, the eyes Holbein would have given her might have been filled with sparkling life:

The more I looked at the picture the more certain I became that every time Mrs de Scheppere looked at Donche's attempt to render the gauze underlay and fur edging of her garment, all she could see was how exquisitely Holbein would have managed them:

The painting, in fact, probably ended up in an art gallery purely because Mrs de Scheppere couldn't stand having the wretched thing in her house a minute longer.

By now I was beginning to realise that, as well as wanting a hot drink, I was getting hungry. As a result, instead of looking at the whole of the next work I came to:

my attention was drawn to one particular detail - the ham. This led me off into quite irrelevant thoughts about what the book Beatrix Potter wrote about two mice who get into a doll's house was called (because I seem to remember a scarcely less well-painted ham in that):

I focussed on the oyster in the same painting after that. I do like oysters but I couldn't help wondering whether this one would give me food poisoning, supposing I were able to actually reach out and grab it from its place among the grapes, (my mother, after all, has always claimed that you should never trust a European oyster, as she got terribly sick after eating some on one long gone occasion, although my father always counter-claimed that that was only because she ate nine dozen at one sitting [such helpful interventions may have contributed not a little to their eventual divorce]):

"Is being fascinated with an oyster on a par with Moore's interest in the 'artichoke in six varieties of blue'?", I asked myself as I stared out the picture's window (no, not the picture window, the window in the picture, although it might in fact be a picture window, for all I know - I've never been clear what the phrase 'picture window' actually means), my eyes drawn, inevitably, by the distant landscape in the background. What is it about background scenes glimpsed through openings in paintings - they almost always fascinate me more than the foreground I'm supposed to be looking at. I think it is their mysterious quality, the hint of other lives going on just out of view:

Karel Dujardin's 'Italianate Landscape with Shepherd and Peasant Woman' was next on my unscholarly agenda. Instead of appreciating the colour and composition, I found myself speculating, as I looked at it, on whether Dujardin, unable to find a female model at short notice, painted a bloke and added a phwoar kind of cleavage to him, in the hope of deflecting viewers' attention from the creature's manly stance and face. The peasant woman reminded me somehow of the Little Britain performer, David Walliams:

Similarly ignoble thoughts afflicted me when I turned to Blanchard's painting of Mars discovering a sleeping vestal virgin, (an event that the caption explains, opaquely, resulted in the birth of Romulus and Remus). Yet again I failed to consider the painter's method of paint application, his sense of colour or general composition, puzzling instead about whether or not what the caption coyly describes as 'the sensuousness of Blanchard's art', might not also be classifiable as high-class soft porn. Certainly, the virgin's face is not what Mars appears to be mostly interested in:

Out in the Australian section of the gallery, I came next upon Eugene von Guerard's 1865 painting of Sydney Heads:

In my philistine way, it was again the 'odd thing' that attracted me, the detail of the scene rather than the quality of the work of art - really, I suppose, a photograph would have suited my purposes equally well, since what intrigued me was looking at this now transformed but still familiar landscape and seeing all the vanished details, captured by von Guerard, of the pristine nature of the North Shore of the time:

The next canvas I came to was a painting of Milford Sound, which tured out also to be by von Guerard, even though I'd always believed it was by Caspar David Friedrich:

As usual, my mind quickly began trying to transform the thing into a narrative. Instead of absorbing the whole work as a visual object, I was soon dividing it up, as if it were one of those medieval religious story paintings, into little sections, finding small pieces within it that each had the potential to produce a story of its own.

I discovered a section depicting a bunch of people about to launch onto the water in a small boat:

and another section showing a similar vessel already floating out upon the water:

Meanwhile birds could be seen, flying above the water, unaware of the human activity beneath:

and over on the right of the canvas a mysterious steamer with unknown passengers was moving slowly across the lake's glassy surface (is Milford Sound a lake?):

while a waterfall thundered in the distance:

beneath a livid sky:

Is it all right to do this, to wander around galleries in such an ill-informed way, enjoying and admiring the displays but understanding practically nothing? I worry that the manner in which I approach these outings - outings that I love, I should point out - is the incorrect manner. I'm concerned that really I ought to be doing serious preparation. I fear I should be more intent on discerning 'piercing glances' and 'spiritual forces', rather than treating the whole visual experience with as much respect as I might the unfolding vista glimpsed through a car window on a long journey.

I worry, in short, that I'm a visual illiterate. But then I comfort myself with the fact that the New South Wales Art Gallery's curators appear to be linguistically illiterate, which, in my world, is just as bad.

Ashamed

2012-01-26T10:11:00.002+11:00

I know Canada has one too, but most self-respecting countries don't have a day on which they celebrate being them. We do though, and it's today - we call it, unsurprisingly, 'Australia Day' and it makes me uncomfortable.

The thing is, I love this country but we are already revoltingly smug, (with undertones of anxiety that we're not actually quite as great as we think we are). Rather than self-congratulation, self-criticism - not self-hatred, but a proper sense that, while we have achieved a lot and created a very nice place to live, there are still plenty of things we could improve, (as there always are, everywhere) - seems to me to be the healthy option. Instead, we have our immigration minister today stating, if the Sydney Morning Herald is to be believed:

"We say without a shred of arrogance or parochialism that Australia's the best country in the world."

This government inspired 'celebration of a nation', (actually I think that phrase was for the bicentennial, to be completely fair), has, as do most government inspired nation building exercises, a faintly North Korean tinge about it, in my view, (although - and perhaps this is one of the areas we could reflect on as we indulge in the self-criticism I recommend - we're not self-disciplined enough to do the synchronised displays they are so fond of.)

(If there are no more blog posts here in the next few days, it will mean I have been kicked to death by a crowd of green-and-gold, (dreadful colour combination), wearing Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-Oy-Oy-Oy zealots.)

Works for Me

2012-01-25T21:08:00.002+11:00

Sometimes I feel in need of something to lift my spirits and I find this rarely fails.

Respect

2012-01-24T17:34:00.000+11:00

Just now, in the short street that has been rather imaginatively renamed Canberra's Chinatown, (it's not a town and it's not enormously Chinese [although I have to admit that it is probably more Chinese than anywhere else in Canberra]), I was locking my bike to a bike rack when I became aware of a person standing rather close to me.

What made me become aware of this person was, I suppose, the fact that he suddenly bellowed, 'It's a pity you have to lock up your bike', right beside me, in a Scottish accent. I straightened up and looked at this person, whose voice I didn't recognise but who nonetheless appeared to be addressing me. The main thing I noticed was that he was a man who had quite a few teeth missing and that his face was rather closer to mine than I might have liked. 'It is a pity,' I agreed and bent down again, to extract my key from its padlock.

'I went to Japan once,' the man yelled down at me, as I did this. I glanced up and gave him what I thought was an unencouraging nod. 'They don't need to lock up their bikes there,' he continued, clearly too entranced by his subject - or perhaps the sound of his Scottish lilt - to notice encouragement or the lack thereof.

'Oh yes,' I said, straightening up again and putting my key away in my pocket.

'Do you know why they don't need to lock up their bikes in Japan?' he demanded, shoving his mug so forcefully into my vision that there was room for nothing else. I inched away, shaking my head. 'Is it because no-one steals bikes over there?' I ventured. 'Yes, but do you know why they don't?' he asked.

He didn't wait for my answer - which was lucky, as I didn't have one - but went straight on. 'I asked them why, you know, and they told me. They said it was respect that stopped them doing it. They have respect in Japan, you see, but we've lost it.'

Before I could argue - or agree - with this statement, he turned on his heel and marched off.

I looked after him. What he'd said was not totally uninteresting, even though he was probably fairly mad. I didn't really have any particular objection to his diagnosis - I did wonder though if the loss was entirely a bad thing. After all, could it not be argued that an excess of respect led to no-one challenging authorities with sufficient vigour to prevent the building of nuclear power plants along an earthquake fault line?

If it's a choice between the odd stolen bike or a nuclear catastrophe, I think we may have got the better part of the bargain. On the other hand, it would be nice to never lock things up.

Stratford's Sayyid Qutb

2012-01-23T13:11:00.000+11:00

I suppose everyone else in the world is already aware of this latest piece of evidence that the world has gone stark raving mad - somehow The Tempest has fallen foul of a law that is designed to prohibit teaching that promotes the overthrow of the United States:

Any education system that promotes the avoidance of discussion of any topics is a faulty education system, I reckon. Of course, 'discussion' is the operative word - that is, all possible points of view should be aired, rather than simply one doctrine. Rather than banning things, however, wouldn't it be better if the authorities involved ensured that the teachers they employ are dedicated to seeing that issues are discussed in a thorough, uninhibited, unbiased way?

Never Ignore the Short Form

2012-01-21T14:15:00.001+11:00

Someone told me the other day that Alfred Hitchcock said films should not be made from novels, but from short stories - novels were too complex to be distilled into a feature length form. As I've pointed out (at great length) before, I think the novel form should not be tinkered with at all - if you want to put something on the screen or the telly, make up your own stories.

Anyway, before I go off on another 19,000 word rant about that, let me explain the actual point of this post: after puting up all those pictures (or rather all those potential Trollopian novels), yesterday, I realised that I'd left no scope for those who do not want to embark on such a large undertaking but may, like Frances's little sister Gloria with her string beans (from that great Russell Hoban work, Bread and Jam for Frances) -

- wish to practise with a short story (whether for potential adaptation by Mr Hitchcock's disciples or simply as a narrative in its own right).

So, not wishing to leave out this category of hopeful writer, I am adding this picture to yesterday's offerings :

Needless to say it is, once again, taken from Yass District Hospital, (this time circa 1915). To me it seems full of Chekhovian possibility.

"Creative Writing" - Exercise II

2012-01-20T09:54:00.000+11:00

In "Creative Writing" - Exercise I of the famous ZMKC online "Creative Writing" course, readers were offered the opportunity to craft stories based on the scraps of overheard conversation I picked up while walking up my local hill (and, by the way, I forgot to include the one that I think may in fact offer the most dramatic potential: "It was only afterwards that we realised they were Japanese.")

Now, in Exercise II, I offer you these photographs, taken at Yass Hospital, where I've been spending a lot of time lately, (long, boring story), and challenge you to conjure full-length period novels from them. You have the choice of a couple of early 20th century settings, or the 1950s. Your cast of characters is large and varied. Doubtless, most of them had friendships, difficult families, disappointments, complicated lives. All you have to do is imagine the details (and I'm even giving you the names, to make life easier).

In the first group, you see the staff circa 1910 (back row, "Nurse, Matron, AB Triggs, AC Wood, front row, Dr Doolan, Dr J English, 'unknown', Dr Thane, Mr W Thompson, Nurse, Mr Griffin, [wonderful how the women have no names recorded]):

In the second group, we jump forward to 1957, where women get names and everyone seems the happier for it, (back row: Mick Nash, Ray Hammil, Bill Cook, Joe O'Connor, Lloyd Parker, Front row: AJ Shannon, Naomi Oxley, Matron Besley, Ken Hartigan):

Then back we go again to 1925, which looks oddly more remote than 1910 and where again, despite their numerical preponderance, the women remain nameless (Dr J English on the right, and Dr Colquhoun on the left):

Finally, we go right back to 1895, when the hospital was only a twinkle in the planning committee's eye (BA Nichols, W Thomson, A Wood, T Comins, Dr English, AW Thomson, T Colls, AB Triggs, TJ Sheekey, Dr Doolan, THF Griffin, J Waddell, EJ Howard, G Bates):

They were a rum looking lot, but I think what their efforts produced was beautiful:

Once More, with Pictures

2012-01-19T16:58:00.001+11:00

Sometimes, when you have been ill and are now better but somehow cannot quite shake off the last traces of the germ you had, the only thing to do is to go on a trip. If you don't have much time and you live in Canberra, then the closest place to go is Sydney and, since we do live in Canberra, Sydney is the place to which we have just been.

And while we were in Sydney, among the many things we did, one was to revisit St James's Church, which I wrote about some time ago. This time I took my camera with me on the visit, so now I can repost my earlier post, but this time including photographs of some of the things I saw inside the church:

"Miss Marsh, our school scripture teacher, had two catchphrases. She began each lesson with one - 'Pull up a pew, girls', (bellowed as she strode into the room) - and wound things up with the other, which was delivered as part of a slowly swelling valedictory sermon, intended to sustain us through the days until she saw us again. Its subject was the virtues of the bible, which she claimed was jampacked with excitement. Within its pages we could find everything, she told us - adventure, romance, tragedy, history, madness - if only we would just 'dip in.'

I thought of Miss Marsh's advice when I went into St James's Church yesterday morning. Built in 1819 and intended as a courthouse, it is Sydney's oldest church now. It stands opposite the lovely Hyde Park Barracks and, like them, was designed by Francis Greenway, of whom more another time (he needs at least a post to himself). Whereas the bible, upon being dipped into, has not always fulfilled Miss Marsh's promise of excitement, it turns out that the walls of St James's certainly do.

For a start we have history in the plaques to Ensign Henry Middleton Blackburn, Captain John Shaw Phelps and Lieutenant George Philpotts, all of whom died in the Maori Wars - an episode most of us barely realise Australia ever took part in, (it certainly wasn't mentioned in any school history I did.)

Then there are the the inscriptions, such as the one praising Commodore Sir James Brisbane for his efforts in 'the submission of the Burmese empire'.

Such a confident phrase that, expressing an unquestioning belief in European cultural superiority - although not quite as astonishing as the one we saw in a Belgian town called Chateauneuf: it was on a memorial to soldiers who had died in the Belgian Congo, and read, quite simply: 'Morts pour la civilisation'.

The fairly casual view we once took of foreigners and their rights is also on display in St James's in the form of a framed bit of mosaic tiled floor, which, according to the inscription, the desert mounted corps helped themselves to in August 1918, when they 'discovered' an ancient church near Jericho, in which the tiled floor lay.

The plaque 'To the memory of the Reverend Richard Hill, the first minister of this church, who expired suddenly in the performance of his duty within its walls,' brings us the drama that Miss Marsh promised.

The mind boggles at the thought of what that service must have been like. Did he lean out of the pulpit and drop like a stone or was he administering Holy Communion when he 'expired', the goblet flying from his hand, wine splashing across the lace fronted panelling of some pillar of the community's best Sunday frock?

There's tragedy in the plaque 'In memory of Robert John Birch, who was accidentally drowned at Clontarf, Middle Harbour, Dec 7th AD 1865, aged 8 years'.

The poignance of this incident is increased by the fact the plaque was erected by his playmates 'in affectionate remembrance of their beloved school fellow.'

More tragedy follows in the commemoration of 'James Green, Commander of the ship Dunbar, who perished with all his passengers and crew save one by the wreck of that vessel at the Sydney Heads in a fearful gale on the night of 20th August 1857.'

This event, sometimes referred to as 'Australia's Titanic', shocked Sydney at the time. According to marinewatchnsw.com, after an 81 day voyage, the clipper was driven into the reef at South Head and began to break up immediately. Only one able seaman survived, by clinging to a cliff face for 36 hours. A mass funeral was held for the victims and a monument to them can still be seen in Camperdown in Sydney.

Finally, there are the several plaques which refer to conflict with the original inhabitants of the land. There is one that is 'Sacred to the Memory of Capt Collet Barker, of His Majesty's 59th regiment of foot, who was treacherously murdered by the Aboriginal natives on the 30th April 1831 while endeavouring in the performance of his duty to ascertain the communication between Lake Alexandrine and the Gulf of St Vincent on the South West coast of New Holland.'

Another pays tribute 'to the memory of Lieutenant Edward Murray Tupper Rn Aged 22 years and William Kennedy Seaman aged 43 years, both of HM Ship Iris who were killed by the natives of Tana on the 1st July 1858 whilst on service on shore.'

A monmument headed 'Dulce et decorum est pro scientia mori' hangs near the door. It is dedicated to 'John Gilbert, ornithologist, who was speared by the blacks on the 29th of June, 1845, during the first overland expedition to Port Essington by Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt and his intrepid companions.'

Beside it a tablet with a carved scene of Aboriginals with spears in the background and a dying man being held in the arms of another in the foreground tells a wild story from which some of the subtle complexities of white Australia's relationship with the original dwellers of the land emerge.

Erected 'in testimony of the respect and gratitude of the inhabitants [of New South Wales]' it 'commemorates the active service and early death of assistant surveyor Edmund Besley Court Kennedy who after having completed the survey of the River Victoria was chosen by the government to conduct the survey of York Peninsula, where, after the most patient and persevering exertions to overcome the physical difficulties of the country, and the destructive effects of consequent disease, by which the expedition, originally consisting of thirteen persons was reduced to three, he was slain by the Aborigines in the vicinity of Escape River on 13th December 1848, falling a sacrifice in the 31st year of his age to the cause of science, the advancement of the colony and the interests of humanity.' So far the dividing lines between natives and settlers seem clear and undeviating, but the tablet goes on to memorialise a survivor of the expedition, 'Jackey Jackey, an Aboriginal of Merton district, who was Mr Kennedy's sole companion in his conflict with the savages and though himself wounded tended his leader with a courage and devotion worthy of remembrance, supporting him in his last moments and making his grave in the spot where he fell.'

Aside from the very touching story this tells, which gives us a glimpse of a less simple world than the usual one we are taught about, in which whites oppressed blacks and blacks hated whites, it is interesting that only in this final passage, in which they are actually praising an Aboriginal individual for his - to western eyes at least - noble behaviour, do the writers of the inscription stray from neutral terms such as 'blacks' or 'natives' and describe the Aboriginal attackers as 'savages'.

Sometimes it seems to me that it is no easier to see into the past with any clarity than it is to look into the future. Certainly, the story of Kennedy and Jackey Jackey indicates that history - especially Australian history - is never as straightforward or clearcut as we're sometimes led to think."

Let the Right One Out

2012-01-18T16:54:00.002+11:00

Sometimes on the television I glimpse trailers for a very unattractive looking programme called The United States of Tara, which, from what I can glean, tells the story or stories of a person who believes she contains within herself several other personalities, most of whom appear to be rather ghastly.

I can't compete with the cast of thousands summoned forth by "Tara", but I do have to admit that, while I usually present the outward appearance of a perfectly normal, (well, all right, fairly normal), person, there is lurking in my psychological basement a raving pedant, who insists that I allow her out from time to time.

On those rare occasions, my alter ego, who seems to spend most of her hours of incarceration combing through newspapers and magazines with a manic glint in her eye, (she only has one), bursts forth and goes wild on my other blog, which is here.

I'll have to go now - I need to get the mad harpy back under lock and key before she heads for the fruit and vegetable section at the local supermarket. If she catches a glimpse of "Tomatoe's - cheaper prices here", who knows what might happen..

Losing Patients

2012-01-17T13:07:00.001+11:00

Dear 'Health Professional'
If you want to make life more pleasant for your patients as they wait endlessly to be granted a brief moment of your time, perhaps you might like to consider purchasing some slightly more appealing reading matter for your waiting room. While I'm sure leafing through the pages of the only volume you offer is nowhere near as boring as writing and researching it must have been, when you're feeling less than 100 per cent it's quite nice to have your attention diverted by something mildly interesting:

You are after all supposed to be healing us, not boring us to death by proxy.

I Thought You Had to Be Over Sixty

2012-01-12T11:33:00.001+11:00

It turns out there's too much to do to allow for full-blown, lying-in-bed sickness, so, after a couple of days sleeping, I stoke up with pills and stagger up to the local shops. Apart from anything else, I'm worried they'll all close down unless I hurry back to ply them with my trade.

When I get there, I realise I may have exaggerated the importance of my custom. There's no sign that the brief loss of it has made any difference to anyone. This should make me happy, although really it makes me feel depressingly expendable.

Then, as I come round the corner by the pub, I see two young men approaching. One is talking on his mobile phone. When he finishes his conversation, he shakes his head, as if someone had punched him. 'She wants me to give up bowling', is all he says.

Bowling? Young men, (presumably he's not in it just for the free carparking)? Either I've still got a fever, or else the world has changed while I've been away.

Gah

2012-01-08T08:37:00.000+11:00

Despite all precautions, I have caught my husband's flu, (although not nearly as badly as him, apparently). No blogging until further notice.

Planet Paprika

2012-01-07T08:48:00.000+11:00

Extra-terrestrial travel would be much more appealing, if one could be certain that there was a cafe serving Dobos Torte at the other end:

"In wartime Los Alamos, there was a conversation piece known as the Fermi Paradox, posed by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi. Given the high overall probability that intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe, why hadn’t the extraterrestrials made contact? ‘They are among us,’ Leó Szilárd replied, ‘but they call themselves Hungarians.’ The story was told by the Hungarians themselves and it went like this: the Men from Mars were a restless sort and, in search of new worlds to colonise, they long ago came to Earth, landing on the banks of the Danube. They had effectively concealed their true identity, but there were several signs that could give away their Martian origins. One was their wanderlust: they loved to travel and they readily upped sticks; second was their language, which had no known earthly relation; and third was their supernatural intelligence – they knew things, and could think in a way, that no other people did. One could add a corollary: though they often had a profound understanding of the whole spectrum of mere earthly culture, they seemed to understand it, as it were, from the outside."

The major flaw that I can see in this theory is the notion that Hungarians have a sense of wanderlust. They seem to me - and this is borne out by the fact that it was Poles in large numbers, rather than Hungarians, who took the opportunity to move to Britain and work, when EU regulations made it possible - fairly resistant to leaving their homeland, unless they have to. Not that I blame them.

(From a review of a book about Michael Polanyi in the London Review of Books)

Battered Penguins XVI

2012-01-06T12:08:00.001+11:00

Prater Violet is Christopher Isherwood's novelised account of his time working with an Austrian film director who he calls Friedrich Bergmann, a character believed to be based on Berthold Viertel. The novel is set in London in 1934 and, in telling the story of his time as a scriptwriter for a film called Prater Violet (the film he actually worked on was called The Little Friend), Isherwood highlights the almost wilful complacency of pre-war Britain, while providing a vivid portrait of his central character and juxtaposing the increasingly serious political situation in the wider world with the frivolity of the movie that is being made.

At the start of the novel, Isherwood, rather endearingly, presents himself as a hopelessly blinkered prognosticator pompously explaining to his mother and brother how unlikely it is that the rise of Hitler will ever lead to war. He goes on to describe the mood in Britain in that pre-war interlude:

"The newspapers were full of optimism. Things were looking up: this Christmas was to be the greatest ever. Hitler talked only of peace. The Disarmament Conference had broken down. The British Government didn't want isolation: equally it didn't want to promise military aid to France. When people planned their next summer's holiday in Europe they remembered to add: 'If Europe's still there.' It was like the superstition of touching wood."

Against this backdrop, he presents the film director, Bergmann, who we are encouraged right from the first moment to see not only as an individual but as a representative of a whole culture and territory. When Isherwood meets him, he explains:

"There are meetings which are like recognitions; this was one of them. Of course we knew each other. The name, the voice, the features were inessential: I knew that face. It was the face of a political situation, an epoch. It was the face of Central Europe."

Luckily, Isherwood does not merely assert Bergmann's emblematic quality but also provides many of his features, however' inessential' they may be. A vivid figure is created whose 'head was magnificent, and massive as sculptured granite', whose 'stiff drab suit didn't fit him' and whose 'shirt-collar was too tight', his 'tie ...askew and clumsily knotted', his face 'the face of an emperor, but [with] ... the dark mocking eyes of his slave - the slave who ironically obeyed, watched, humoured and judged the master who could never understand him; the slave upon whom the master depended utterly - for his amusement, for his instruction, for the sanction of his power, the slave who wrote the fables of beasts and men."

Through Bergmann, Isherwood is given a new perspective on his own home:

"Bergmann showed me London: the London he had already created for himself in his own imagination - the dark, intricate, sinister town of Dickens...He was always the guide, and I the tourist...We visited the Tower, where Bergmann lectured me on English history, comparing the reign of the Tudors to the Hitler regime...I had some difficulty in getting him out of the Bloody Tower, where he was inspired to a lurid reconstruction of the murder of the LIttle Princes, amazing the other visitors, who merely saw a stocky, shock-headed, middle-aged man pleading for his life to an invisible assassin, in German, with theatrical falsetto accents...In the National Gallery he explained, with reference to the Rembrandt portraits, his theory of camera-angles and the lighting of close-ups, so loudly and convincingly that he drew a crowd away from one of the official lecturers, who was naturally rather annoyed."

Also through Bergmann, Isherwood discovers the world of movie-making:

"'You see, the film-studio of today is really the palace of the sixteenth century'", Bergmann tells him, "'There one sees what Shakespeare saw: the absolute power of the tyrant, the courtiers, the flatterers, the jesters, the cunningly ambitious intriguers. There are fantastically beautiful women, there are incompetent favourites. There are great men who are suddenly disgraced. There is the most insane extravagance, and unexpected parsimony over a few pence. There is enormous splendour which is a sham; and also horrible squalor hidden behind the scenery. There are vast schemes abandoned because of some caprice. There are secrets which everybody knows and no one speaks of. There are even two or three honest advisers. These are the court fools, who speak the deepest wisdom in puns, lest they should be taken seriously. They grimace, and tear their hair privately, and weep.'"

Bergmann's mood regarding the film they are working on oscillates between a fierce desire to maintain his artistic integrity - he insists at one point that the flimsy love story is not silly but "political", a "symbolic fable" - and a despairing contempt for the whole enterprise - "Yes, by all means. Let us shoot it again. Perhaps we can achieve something worse," he cries, "I doubt it. But let us try". Simultaneously, his view of what is going on in the world outside the studio becomes gloomier by the day. He regales Isherwood with "apocalyptic pictures of universal doom" and when a journalist tells him that the Austrian civil war and the resulting political changes in Austria are not "our affair. I mean you can't really expect people in England to care -", he transforms into a terrifying oracle:

"His fist hit the table, so that the knives and forks rang. He turned scarlet in the face. He shouted: 'I expect everybody to care! Everybody who is not a coward, a moron, a piece of dirt! I expect this whole damned island to care! I will tell you something: if they do not care, they will be made to care. The whole lot of you. You will be bombed and slaughtered and conquered."

Hindsight tells us that Bergmann was very nearly right. Millions were slaughtered and much that was wonderful was swept away and destroyed. Whether things would have been different had the voices of Bergmann and others like him been heeded sooner is a question that Prater Violet does not attempt to answer. What it does do is provide a fascinating and often amusing reminder of a period of equivocation, as well as a wonderful picture of a wild, lonely, enormous personality who for a brief period came into Isherwood's life, impelling him with the force of his own character to question the way in which he had:

"always done whatever people recommended. You were born: it was like entering a restaurant. The waiter came forward with a lot of suggestions. You said: 'What do you advise?' And you ate it, and supposed you liked it, because it was expensive, or out of season, or had been a favourite of King Edward the Seventh. The waiter had recommended teddy bears, football, cigarettes, motor-bikes, whisky, Bach, poker, the culture of classical Greece."

At the end of the book, the reader knows that the war will soon be coming and any remaining certainties will also be swept away. The minute concerns of the various characters - the actress who offers her face to the make-up man "as impersonally as one extends a shoe to the bootblack; this anxiously pretty mask, which is her job, her source of income, the tool of her trade"; the technician, Teddy, who is delaying marriage for five years until he has a better job; Roger, the sound man, for whom the best things in his life have been "Good unexpected lays" - appear silly when set against the huge political convulsions that are already rolling towards them. Yet, in the end, Isherwood tells us, all that matters is love. For him, Bergmann transcends the events that are coming. "He was my father", Isherwood tells us, "I was his son. And I loved him very much".

Storytime

2012-01-05T11:40:00.003+11:00

It's a bit too hot for climbing up the mountain at the moment and so I am swimming for an hour each day instead, an activity I enjoy far more, partly because, for some reason, I don't feel any compunction about listening to the radio while swimming, whereas, although I don't know why, I refuse to allow myself any audio entertainment while trudging uphill. Maybe I concede myself this pleasure when swimming because I am so amazed it's possible - to be able to listen to MP3s underwater is so miraculous and I am so lucky to be living in an age when it can be done that I have a duty to make the most of the opportunity.

Anyway, as I have been listening to the radio and not climbing up the mountain, I haven't been hearing the snatches of conversation of those passing me in the opposite direction that are about the only thing that provides any respite from the tramp tramp tramp of my weary feet. I miss them and I think when I do go back to the mountain I will start to collect the best ones and post them here, so that aspirant writers, unable to get themselves started, will be able to pick up one or other sentence and use it as a hook on which to hang a whole new work of fiction.

The ones I did pick up before the advent of proper summer weather seemed to be dominated by talk about job applications - 'They said I didn't have the right skillset', 'They only told me too late that I needed three referees, not two', 'I didn't realise when I applied that you had to stay on the ship the whole time' - but there were a few that offered possibilities to anyone with a speculative turn of thought. Here are the ones that I thought had the most promise:

"It's just habit though, isn't it? It's always just habit."

"My parents loved India. Well, mum did anyway."

"I don't think I should have asked him now."

"I really wish I'd never bought those little red boots."

Chiz Triple Chiz

2012-01-04T15:08:00.002+11:00

My brother telephoned last night to tell me that Ronald Searle had died. He also told me that, without Searle's drawings of Nigel Molesworth and St Custards, his time at prep school would have been even more unpleasant than it actually was. Given what this man says about that same school and its longlasting effect on him, I'm not surprised.

In 2003 Searle once again provided some kind of comfort - both for my brother and for me - after our father died suddenly. We flew to London together in time for his funeral but, heartbreakingly, too late to say goodbye. During the days we spent wandering dazedly around the city after our arrival, I remember only one cheerful interlude - a morning spent at Chris Beetles's gallery in Ryder Street, (from the doorway of which we could see one of our father's favourite places in the world - Brooks's), looking at an exhibition of Searle's work.

Sadly, there was no chance of buying any of the pictures on display, as they had all been snapped up long before we turned up, (we probably couldn't have afforded them anyway), but I did keep the catalogue of the exhibition. It contained this account of Searle's remarkable life:

Click to enlarge for reading

and this - I suspect typically - self-deprecating note from Searle himself:

and pictures from every period of his life, starting with pen and ink drawings from the POW camps he endured in the 1940s:

Left: Tent Life and Emaciation, pen and ink on tinted paper, 6.5 x 4.25" Right: Rock Breaking, pen and ink on tinted paper, 6.75 x 4.25"

Left: A Burial, pen and ink on tinted paper, 6.75 x 4.75" Right: Freight train to Thailand, pen and ink on tinted paper, 6.75 x 4.75"

progressing through the 1950s:

The First Night Scene, pen and ink, 10.5 x 12", Punch, 23 April, 1952

The Modern Olympus, the Gods being Entertained by the Muses, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 18 x 29.75" Punch 27 November 1957, Key, l to r, with last four figures reading downwards: THE MUSES - Calliope (Epic Poetry)-Situation Vacant;Melpomene (Tragedy)-Sir Donald Wolfit; Thalia (Comedy)-Joyce Grenfell;Clio (History)-Arnold Toynbee; Urania (Astronomy)-The Astronomer Royal;Euterpe (Lyric Poetry)-John Betjeman;Erato (Erotic Poetry)-Tommy Steele;Polyhymnia (Sublime Hymns)-Vera Lynn;Terpsichore (The Dance)-Dame Margot Fonteyn. THE GODS - The Church-the Archbishop of Canterbury; Pulchritude-Sabrina;Education-Sir John Wolfenden;the Trade Unions-Frank Cousins;The Press-Sir William Haley;Science-Sir William Penney;The Law-Lord Goddard;Politics-Aneurin Bevan;Campanology-Lord Hailsham

The Tragedy Queen, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 14.5 x 12.75", Mr Rothman's New Guide to London. Together with a Guide to some Londoners of the Eighteen-Nineties, Rothman's of Pall Mall, 1958

The Actor Manager, pen ink and monochrome waterolour, 14.25 x 9.75", as for preceding picture.

Miss Jennings: Two Thousand Thimbles Worn Out in the Interests of Male Vanity, pen and ink, 11 x 14.5", News Chronicle, 15 May, 1953 (Ronald Searle and Kaye Webb, Looking at London)

Mr Hansen, Head Porter of the Savoy Hotel, London, pen ink and bodycolour with pencil on tinted paper, 12 x 9.75", inscribed: "John Hansen, Head Porter of the Savoy Hotel controls the staff of porters and doormen from his cubby hole between the revolving doors. He has six telephones on his desk."

Jack Warburton, Carriage Man at Claridges Hotel, pen ink and bodycolour on tinted paper, 11 x 9", inscribed with title, plus: "has saluted more kings than many prime ministers. Top hat, black tie and tails."

On the Road: Herbert Morrison Electioneering, pen and ink, 13.5 x 14", signed, inscribed 'Lewisham' and dated 1951, News Chronicle, 18 October, 1951

Have a Good Rum for your Money, pen and ink, 15 x 10", designed as advertising for Lemon Hart Rum, 1950s

Agatha Christie's Bathtub, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 7.5 x 10", Life Magazine, 14 May, 1956

Perdu dans le Labyrinthe Londonien, pen and ink, 12 x 13.5", Figaro, 18 February, 1955

Design for Licking, pen and ink, 10 x 14.5", 1953

A Hubbub of Music, pen and ink, 9.25 x 6", Night in a London Coffee House, The Big City, Perpetua, 1958

What Calm and Pleasant Seclusion the Library Presents, pen and ink, 8 x 5.5", drawn for but not illustrated in Holiday, November 1952

Wimbledon, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 20.5 x 12.5", News Chronicle, 26 June, 1954

'I Say - I Think it's Going to Clear ...' Summer Holidays, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 20 x 12.5", News Chronicle, 7 August 1954

Detail of preceding picture

Office Duo, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 15.5 x 18.5", Punch, 12 January, 1955

I'm Afraid it's the Weather, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 22 x 14", News Chronicle, 14 August, 1954

The Guest Book, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 22 x 15", News Chronicle, 23 August, 1954

Detail of The Guest Book

The Spirit of Autumn, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 22 by 15", News Chronicle, 25 September 1954

Street Scenes, pen and ink, 22 by 14.75", News Chronicle,19 September 1954

- an era that saw the birth of Nigel Molesworth and his world:

We Mite Get a Rusian Master, pen ink and blue crayon, 12 x 9.5". Whizz for Atomms, 1956

That's Enuff of that for the Moment. In the Meantime this Should Constitute a Provocative Action, pen an ink, 13 x 9.5", Down with Skool, 1953

The Molesworth Production Line for Latin Sentences, pen and ink, 14 x 10". Whizz for Atomms, 1956

Gosh, Chiz, This is Molewsorth 2, My Bro, He is Uterly Wet and a Weed, it Panes Me to Think I Am of the Same Blud, pen and ink, 9 x 7.5", Down with Skool, 1953

Cad with an Ancestral Conker, pen and ink, 11.25 x 8.5", How to be Topp, 1954

It is by Such an Example as I, Like Those Other Brave, Clear-Eyed Workers in the Documentary Films, that Britain Will Win Its Export Battle, pen and ink, 13.25 x 10.25", Whizz for Atomms, 1956

but in which Searle also turned his attention to more serious subjects:

Anna Barth and Leonard Hess, Camp Laschenskyhof, Salzburg, pen and ink, 15 x 21.25", Punch, 30 December, 1959: "Anna Barth, the woman in this picture, is 45 years old. She comes from Yugoslavia. In the last war she and her crippled husband were told to hand over German soldiers who were billeted with them. They refused, and so the partisans murdered her husband. At war's end she and her four children were taken to a prison labour camp. Her young son was beaten to death by guards and two of her daughters died of starvation. She then had 12 of her teeth pulled out and gave the gold fillings to pay for bread for the last child. 'But she was too weak. She died holding the loaf in her arms.'"

Christo Bogaitziev, Bulgarian Aged 26, Seven Years in Camps, Lavrion Refugee Camp, Greece, pen ink and pencil, 15 x 11 inches, Punch, 30 December, 1959: "Christo Bogaitziev escaped from Bulgaria to Greece when he was 19. He is now 26. He has twice been accepted for emigration overseas, but both times excitement affected his reason, and so he lost his visa. Although he has been stable for more than a year, he no longer hopes for a third chance and would be content to be allowed to work. In his seven years of waiting he taught himself Italian, Russian, French, Greek, and English. Now he wants only a room of his own, books to read, and a positive future. 'What I can't endure is this in-between state'."

Wash House, Camp Lexenfeldstrasse, Salzburg, pen ink and monochrome watercolour on tinted paper, 15.5 x 21.5", Refugees 1960: "a washroom in camp Lexenfeldstrasse, Salzburg is typical of those in every official refugee camp. At the end of a long dismal corridor and unpainted gloomy room with basins of either stone or galvanised metal. It was constantly in use, for washing or ironing seemed almost the only occupation for women refugees. Although this was, in a sense, the only communal room in the camp, there was very little conversation or friendliness between the women who used it. They had lived together so long, and so little had happened to them, that there was nothing left to say. They had no homes to be proud of, no work to grumble about, and no news to engage."

the 1960s:

Nikita Khruschev, pen ink and watercolour, 15.75 by 12", Holiday, February, 1961

Bedtime Reading, pen and ink, 11 by 15.5", Which Way Did he Go?,Perpetua, 1961

C Northcote Parkinson, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 15.5 x 13", Punch, 29 August, 1962

Benjamin Britten, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 14 x 13", Punch, 23 May, 1962

Ivy Compton-Burnett, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 15.75 x 14.5", Punch, 7 March, 1962

Iris Murdoch, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 16 x 16", Punch, 21 March, 1962

Alfred Hitchcock, pen ink and monochrome watercolour, 15.5 x 13", Punch, 6 June, 1962

the 1970s and 1980s, (a period that seems to have included the advent of the famous Searle cats):

Family Photograph, pen ink, pencil and watercolour, 8 x 5.5", 1982

Crackers, watercolour, pen ink and crayon, 12 x 9.25", Design for Christmas card for Camden Graphics, London, 1982

A Bigger Slash, Homage to David Hockney, lithograph with crayon and watercolour, 25.5 x 20", 1984

Whither the Pound?, pen ink, pencil and monochrome watercolour, 16.5 x 12", 1983

A Clash of Symbols, pen ink and watercolour with bodycolour, 14.5 x 17.5", drawn for Anglo-American company report, 1987

Cutting Costs, pen and ink, 18 x 12.5"

The Babysitter, lithograph with pencil, watercolour and coloured chalks, 20 x 26", 1976

Breakfast TV, pen ink and watercolour with crayon, 14 x 12", TV Guide, 1983

Nice Set, but one Volume Missing, pen ink and watercolour, 12.5 x 10", drawn for Slightly Foxed

Outwardly Cracking, pen ink, watercolour and crayon, 12 x 9", Slightly Foxed

Savile Row in All its Glory, pen ink and watercolour, 19.25 x 16", Town and Country, April, 1989

Tea Shoppe, pen ink and watercolour with crayon, 15 x 15.5", Conde Nast Travel Magazine, April, 1990, 'London', by David Mamet

Numerous Headpieces, pen ink and watercolour with crayon, 12.5 x 9", Slightly Foxed

Knit to a Harmonious Whole, pen ink and watercolour, 12.75 x 9", The Illustrated Winespeak, Souvenier Press, 1983

Film Publicity - Welcome to a Film Person, pen ink and watercolour with crayon, 14 x 12.25", TV Guide, 1984

The Briefing, pen and ink with monochrome watercolour, 12 x 11.5"

arriving at last at the 1990s and then the new century:

Synchronised Ratting, pen ink, watercolour and coloured crayon, 11.25 x 18.75", Delta Sky Inflight Magazine, 1996

The Rendezvous, watercolour, pen ink and crayon, 17.5 x 12", 1990

Christmas Presents, pen ink, watercolour and crayon, 18.75" x 14.25", Design for a Christmas card for Married Women magazine, 1993

Brief Encounters: Gertrude Stein Meets Spectre de la Rose Rose Rose, pen and ink, 13 x 11.75", New Yorker, 1990

Girl Power!, pen and ink, 15.5 x 13", International Herald Tribune, 16 March, 1996

Gettin' the Bird, pen ink and watercolour, 14 x 10", 1991

Cloning, pen and ink, 12 x 19", New York Times, 4 February, 1994

Fast Food, pen and ink, 13.75 x 15", International Herald Tribune, 14 October, 1995

Waiting for Walkies, pen and ink and watercolour, 12.25 x 18", International Herald Tribune, 13 January, 2001

Alice in No-Man's Land, pen ink and crayon, 12.5 x 16.75", 1990

Butler School, pen ink, watercolour and coloured crayon, 19 x 16", Forbes FYI Magazine, November , 1992

I am very sad that Searle has gone, but I will always be grateful he has left Nigel Molesworth behind to cheer us up forever. If the chips were down and all other literature had to go on the bonfire, I'm afraid I would, with regret but no real hesitation, pass over many, many great books, including Middlemarch, much as I hugely love it, and even the entire works of Dickens, in order to retain The Compleet Molesworth, which contains too many wonderful moments of satire and other more gentle forms of humour - and too perfect an understanding of humanity in all its absurdity - to be given up.

To conclude, I can only borrow the words of Twitter member @Skool_Dog, who tweeted thus this morning, adapting the immortal words of Auden into the even more immortal language of Geoffrey Willans:

"Stop ol the cloks, cut off the telefoan / Privent the DOGG from barkin with a joosy BOAN" (peotry) RIP Mr SERL"

Another Sentimental Bloke

2012-01-03T07:57:00.000+11:00

As well as the famous Sentimental Bloke, creation of CJ Dennis, (also author of the wonderful Book for Kids), there are many other, less celebrated, but equally sentimental, blokes scattered across our nation.

In our household, we have one whose sentimentality applies particularly to the Austro-Hungarian empire during the half century leading up to the First World War. In that period, he believes, the Austro-Hungarian empire was, despite its faults, a remarkably successful multi-national state - and also very successful in spreading civilisation, (opera houses, theatres, cafes, fine municipal buildings), to all the exotic corners of its territories.

This, I imagine is why, when it was his turn to set up our two cribs this Christmas, (which, as I mentioned the year before last come respectively from Austria:

and from Hungary):

he decided not to separate them, but to put them all together in a reenactment of the Austro-Hungarian empire's glory days:

Perhaps he was thinking of Otto von Hapsburg and his reply, when asked whether he'd watched the Austria-Hungary football match (and, on that note, thank you Australian Broadcasting Corporation for forgetting in your round-up of deaths in 2011 not just Hapsburg but, even more shockingly, Vaclav Havel - unlike Amy Winehouse, who did get a mention, they weren't what you regard as celebrities, I suppose).

Words and Phrases that Annoy Don Watson

2012-01-02T07:52:00.000+11:00

I haven't been posting about the words and phrases that annoy me lately, even though 'skillset' has been slowly driving me up the wall. Instead, I've been reading a book called Bendable Learnings in which Don Watson, formerly Paul Keating's speechwriter, lays out in masterly detail just how clogged with jargon and verbal piffle public life has become. Here are some examples from the chapter on education:

Watson has also just written an excellent article in The Monthly on the damage this kind of language is doing to education in this country. Read it and weep.

The Year of Living Unneurotically

2012-01-01T12:58:00.000+11:00

'Begin as you mean to go on,' the head of the Russian department told us, on the first day of our three-year university course. I assumed he meant by this that we should all work frantically, applying ourselves feverishly from the first moment and continuing in that vein for the entire degree. I decided, based on his advice, that I should learn a page of the dictionary daily and then fill every other waking minute with grammar exercises and wild efforts to read everything ever written in Russian. Needless to say after a matter of weeks - oh, all right, days (okay, a day) - my admirable plans collapsed.

What he actually meant, I now suspect, was 'Go steadily.' I suppose I might have been a reasonably good student, had I understood this sooner. Instead of beginning each year with mad intensity and then collapsing into exhausted torpor until a few days before the panic of the final exams, I might have made gradual, incremental progress, moving imperceptibly forward in the pursuit of knowledge, day-by-day. But I was in the grip of a dream of self-improvement - a dream that contained the idea that only by giving oneself a pretty tough time could one achieve anything good.

The concept of self improvement is still very much with us, even if its form is not always punishingly severe. After all, it is chiefly by stimulating the desire for self improvement that advertising has its effect. The parade of perfect families we see in the ad breaks on television - breakfasting in pristine, gleaming kitchens, strolling along empty beaches in honey-coloured evening light et cetera - is designed to make us feel inadequate, while offering us the opportunity to buy our way to redemption.

While in actual fact everyone in my family looks perfectly attractive, (even if, these days, when I glimpse myself in the bathroom mirror, I can't help recalling Paddington Bear's thoughts, when confronting a failed attempt at DIY*: "there was still a nasty sag in the middle, and even with the curtains drawn and the light out it was obvious something was wrong"), somehow after seeing the family that has Coco Pops or Nutrigrain or whatever it is for breakfast, it is easy to believe that we aren't quite making the grade. My hair doesn't swing like the mum's in that house, my husband's shirt doesn't gleam quite so dazzlingly, my children aren't as neat and easygoing. But I can make myself better. I can purchase my way into this world of youth, good looks and eternally spotless work surfaces. All I need is a packet of Special K (or was it Weetabix?)

For obvious reasons, new beginnings are often triggers for the self-improvement impulse - a fresh start, a clean slate, a new dawn, et cetera. Of these, none is better than the initial day of a new calendar, the first day of January, today, aka New Year's Day. This is the day people resolve to stop drinking or smoking or being mean to the hamster, to start listening to their spouses, to bicycle to work. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, this is also the day I look back on regretfully, realising in late November that it is too late to fulfil my promise to read Finnegan's Wake or relearn latin or get up each morning to exercise at five a.m.

Which is why today I've decided to take my Russian professor's advice in the way I believe it was meant to be taken. I'm not going to make some extreme, unkeepable vow. I'm not going to resolve to be tidier, when I know I will never be tidy. I'm not going to resolve to be less clumsy, particularly as the first thing I did this morning was break a wineglass, (by mistake, you understand - and no, I wasn't lying in bed, feeling about on the floor beneath, in the hope of finding the dregs of last night's revelries; I was tidying the kitchen at the time). I'm not going to resolve to remember to take notice of where I put my keys down, so that I don't waste half the year looking for them. Instead, I'm going to resolve to accept that I do all these things, that I am untidy, clumsy and forgetful. My new year's resolution is to stop worrying that I am me.

* Paddington Helps Out, published by Collins, 2nd edition, February 1963, page 51

Progress Visualised

2011-12-31T13:00:00.000+11:00

After looking at yesterday's post, my brother reminded me of Osbert Lancaster and the town he invented called Drayneflete. Lancaster made detailed drawings of this imaginary place, chronicling how it changed through the ages:

As well as illustrating his own fictional town, Lancaster also made drawings showing what he thought might have become of other artists' fictional places:

These pictures all come from a catalogue by John Murray, produced to coincide with an exhibition of Osbert Lancaster's work a year or two ago. It is a lovely book and well worth searching out on Abebooks.

Progress

2011-12-30T10:10:00.000+11:00

"You can't stand in the way of progress". This, I suspect, was the guiding principle of town planners all over the world in my youth. It was their justification for sweeping away many fine old buildings. On the whole, I think that they were wrong.

This is partly because I believe that buildings that were put together largely by craftsmen, rather than machines, provided greater satisfaction to their makers and somehow pass on the pride and pleasure that went into their creation to the people who use them or look at them today. I also think such buildings are the result of a way of life that was more nourishing to the human spirit than are many of the ways of life on offer in our more automated world.

While being freed from the demands of relentless backbreaking work has to be a good thing, being freed from the demands of skilful labour may not be so great. Michael Innes, as I mentioned the other day, described - with great prescience, since he was writing way back in the 1930s - some of the problems that result from suddenly having a lot of time on your hands:

"Appleby drew deep breaths of June air as he went briskly down the drive. The summer was advanced in this southland country; from somewhere came the scent of the first hay and already the oak-leaves were darkening. Over his left shoulder he looked up at Horton Hill. Across the crown there must be some right-of-way, for no attempt had been made to eject the people gathering there. It was quite a crowd now: idlers in the neighbouring towns, reading the stimulating news in their morning paper, had hurried to get out the car and motor over to see what they could. And soon there would be similar arrivals from London; people 'running down for the day'. And portents these, thought Appleby, of a society running down in another sense: clogged by its own mass-production of individuals who, let loose from a day's or a lifetime's specialized routine, will neither think nor read nor practise any craft, but only gape."

On the other hand, I have gradually learned to admire, in lieu of minute craftsmanship, the astonishing skill that must be needed to organise an airport, (I may be alone in this, but I'm rather fond of airports), and, indeed, that must be needed to design the engine of an aeroplane. Reading Clive James's new collection of essays, taken from the BBC radio programme Point of View, I realise he would understand this.

In one of the essays in the book, he talks about his longstanding admiration for the beauty of technology. He suggests that we should not object to all modern architecture but instead should reject "Le Corbusier's horrible plans for a modernized Paris", while recognising more worthy designs.

James though is commenting on the battle between those in society who favour the built world and all the advances that go with it and see "planes, trains and automobiles" as "human creations ... as interesting as poems, paintings and pieces of music" and the Rousseauesque others, who "hanker... for a return to nature".

My concern is slightly different. I am not against comfort; I don't want to live in a mud hut with no running water. All the same, I want to be certain what exactly 'progress' brings. Aside from the puzzle of why it makes sense to liberate people so that they have nothing to do, when that only makes them feel worthless (oh yes, I forgot, it saves their employers money), what I am very unsure about is whether replacing something beautifully-made is ever a good idea.

Technological advance may be useful, but is it better? Is there really any justification for replacing a handbuilt structure that exhibits everywhere the signs of individual craftsmanship with a piece of sturdy but impersonal engineering, whose concrete, steel, glass et cetera components are produced in a factory and slotted together without the need for really fine artisanship - particularly as the change in method is largely the product of economic imperative rather than any aesthetic belief, (whatever supporters of Modernism may say, the fact that their mad theories also led to lower costs was of the greatest assistance in their achieving success)? I recognise that the skills of the design engineer are enormous and extraordinary but I feel somehow that, with the disappearance of much handcrafting in the making of buildings, we have lost more than we realise.

As a result of my conflicting feelings about these things, I find myself, whenever I go to the State Library of New South Wales and look at the two panoramic photographs they have on display, showing central Sydney in 1904 and then again a couple of years ago, unable to decide what I think about the changes that have taken place in the interval between the two:

I usually tell myself that the city would look odd and false if the streetscapes had stayed as they were. Then I think of Vienna and Budapest, where very little has been altered since the nineteenth century. I don't feel the lack of shiny skyscrapers there. However, the surviving buildings in those cities do tend to be of a grander scale than those in the early Sydney picture, so perhaps scale is the important factor here. Three-storey terraces in the centre of a city, however pretty, might look silly in the modern age. Perhaps, if they had all been preserved, central Sydney would have the air of an odd little toy town. On the other hand, the streets in the area called The Rocks, where the buildings have been allowed to remain standing, is absolutely lovely and full of real character.

The CBD, with its soaring glass and steel constructions is impressive, but it could be in Canada as easily as Australia. The buildings that confront people as their ferries berth at Circular Quay create no dialogue between us and the individuals who put them up. They bear no trace of a particular human being's patient skill and craftsmanship. Their scale is so inhuman and their style so impersonal that it would be easy to believe they were made without the aid of any human hand at all. Having been constructed using methods that were automated rather than individual, their character seems largely to be missing. Their facades are smooth and featureless. They exude no sense of personality. They lack warmth. They are not unique. They are simply the products of machines.

Strains of Christmas

2011-12-29T08:22:00.001+11:00

At the local shop yesterday, I was on my knees, hunting on a low shelf for some soft food for the stray cat we look after, (she recently seems to have mislaid all her front teeth in some late night feline punch up - or perhaps just through old age).

Over my head, two women discussed their Christmas.

'We had mum to stay,' said the first one, 'it was hard going.' 'Was she here long?', asked the other. 'A week and a half. She was very demanding.'

Neither of them spoke for a moment and then the first one began again. 'I love my mother,' she said, 'but I don't like her. That's what I realised while she was here.' 'Oh,' said the second one, 'I feel the reverse about mine.'

It All Depends Where

2011-12-28T09:54:00.000+11:00

On my walk each morning, I have to climb a set of steps - 39 of them, incidentally, such an odd number that I am convinced the designer was a fan of John Buchan, although others in my family say it's pure coincidence:

Although I am not keen on step climbing, (unlike the sweaty figures who run up and down these four times, while I am plodding up them only once), this particular staircase provokes not only dread but joy in me.

My reaction would be different if the staircase was positioned right at the start of my journey. In fact, if it were there, it might serve as a disincentive, looming large in my mind as I lay in bed trying to persuade myself to get up and go out. Similarly, if it were plonked right in the middle of the climb, I might hate it bitterly, regarding it as the worst bit of the whole enterprise.

As it is, because it is positioned at the very end of my walk, while it still represents a steep upward slog, it also signals that the pain is almost over. Therefore, although I still don't exactly leap for joy when I see the thing rising up before me, I do feel happy, because it means I'm almost at the end.

What's in a Name

2011-12-27T12:49:00.000+11:00

Ages ago, I mentioned a poem by AD Hope that featured Australian place names. Now I've discovered another, on a similar theme, this time by John Manifold:

The Map

Devil take our city-minded, imitative gran'dads who
Saddled us with Warwick, Ipswich, Bloomsbury, (near Yalbaroo),
Surbiton on Belyando - names like these will never do!

Mount Mistake, The Risk, The Blunder, Wilson's Downfall make a change,
But the names I like are those that show a sense of somewhere strange -
One Tree Hill and Wild Horse Mountain, Razorback and Nightcap Range -

And at sundown, when the hills are monstrous and the bunyip stirs,
I am pretty sure the native names are what the land prefers:
Murderer's Flat was our invention, but Eurunderee was hers.

Jundah, Thunda, Nocatunga, Thargomindah, Gunnewin,
Tarrewinnabar, Canungra, Tabragalba, Coolwinpin,
Ulandilla by the Maranoa where the songs begin.

Binna Burra, Bindebango, Mullumbimby - these belong! -
Bunya, Quinalow, Nanango, Tallebudgera, Durong
Xylophones among the timber,
Bellbirds in the border mountains,
Wallangarra, Woodenbong.

Lessons of Christmas

2011-12-26T12:00:00.000+11:00

1. Always tip well in restaurants - cooking is very hard work.

2. Nigella Lawson, annoying though some people find her, (not me - I love her), has made at least one major contribution to modern life - namely, recommending that you should use foil baking trays, so that you can throw them away instead of having to wash them all up.

3. Cooking is exhausting - oh, did I mention that already? Well, it's worth mentioning again. It strikes me as a form of brinksmanship, if that's the right word - to be fresh and delicious and hot and so forth, most food has to be prepared right at the last minute, leaving no room for mistakes or complete stuff ups - which reminds me, obliquely, of the story my friend's aunt, a Sydney girl who married a New South Wales farmer, used to tell:

In her effete urban manner, she'd prepared for the first Sunday lunch after their marriage - the first she'd prepared for her country relations - some kind of light first course, (cold consomme, possibly), and then a roast chicken, plus salad and a scattering of roast potatoes and pumpkin. She'd planned to offer fresh fruit after that, but, as the meal proceeded, it became clear to her that she hadn't cooked nearly enough meat or roast vegetables and that, even if she had, this particular mob regarded a hearty pudding as the only fitting end to such an occasion - or indeed to any meal.

She wanted to make a good impression, but she had no pudding - what was she to do? Finally, she came up with a plan that, while not actually providing a pudding, would go a long way to saving her reputation as someone who knows how to plan - if not execute - a decent feed.

Jumping up from the table, she hurried into the kitchen, turned on the gas flame and poured sugar over it. As the smell of burning sugar began to spread through the air, she dashed back to the dining room, tea towel in hand. 'I'm terribly sorry,' she cried, 'I completely forgot to keep an eye on the pudding - it's burnt to a cinder.' While they all went away a bit hungry, at least they didn't go away believing her to be a woman who didn't understand the importance of pudding.

4. Once a year is often enough for Christmas and, having done it and got it out of the way for this year, I can only quote TS Eliot's typist (while acknowledging that she was referring to an utterly different circumstance):

'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'

Gone Cooking

2011-12-24T07:27:00.000+11:00

This year, more than most, the lead up to Christmas has been about the hard scrabble of making ends meet and keeping the wolf from the door:

(And, among the many questions raised by the new economic situation is this: just how many foam reindeer antlers can one city actually absorb?):

I hope though that, when the big day arrives at last, it will be okay to relax and forget the troubles of the world for a few hours, to copy these boys and go for a surf, (and possibly then have a beer against a background of tinsel - that would be a perfect Australian Christmas, surely):

Whoever reads this, wherever you are, I wish you a very happy Christmas. I will be attempting to cook lunch for 21 brave people. Unusually, (five years ago, in the midst of drought, I would never have predicted this), my biggest concern - apart from justifiable doubts about my competence in the kitchen - is the possibility it may rain.

Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year.

It's in the Name

2011-12-23T06:56:00.000+11:00

One of the papers - possibly the Australian - has a column where they interview a new person each week. The people they interview are selected on the grounds that they have an unusual job. The other day the turn came for a stamp designer for Australia Post.

She told the paper that she was busy producing 'three secular Christmas stamps'. There was a picture of them. They showed a wrapped present, a Christmas tree, (looking a lot classier than any we've ever managed in this household), and some kind of bauble for hanging on a tree.

The designer explained, 'We have to be mindful that not everybody will like the one definition of Christmas.'

So, although we are all being given a holiday as a result of a religious festival, we should avoid mentioning the religious element, it seems.

I don't think you have to be a wild-eyed Bible-basher to object to this. While I would never argue that anyone should have to go to church or pray or pretend they believe in Christianity, I think it is basic good manners to acknowledge the underlying reason that we are celebrating Christmas. We may well have got the date wrong, but everything we are doing - getting time off, giving presents, putting up trees - is done as a way of celebrating the birth of Christ. That's why it's called Christmas - the clue is there, in the first syllable of the holiday's name.

So who exactly does Australia Post think will not like this definition of Christmas. Who do they imagine is going to storm out of the post office, when offered stamps showing a manger and three wise men? If they are worried about giving offence to people of other faiths, I think this letter demonstrates that that is a silly and pointless effort:

More Bush

2011-12-22T11:31:00.000+11:00

When we were in Sydney the other day we took a walk from Manly Beach to the North Head. As we plodded along, I found myself thinking about the late Alan Clark and his highly successful diaries.

This might seem surprising, since Alan Clark was a rather sleazy old snob whose private jottings are principally of use in revealing to any outsider the impossibility of ever being accepted by the upper middle classes in England. Clark's comments on the events of his life and the people he meets are infused with an understanding of - and devotion to - an unspoken and exclusive code that dictates what is correct behaviour in every area of human activity.

The best illustration of the kind of thing I mean is Clark's dismissal of Heseltine as a man who bought his own furniture, (rather than inheriting it, presumably). While I don't think I could ever find it in my heart to feel sorry for Heseltine about anything, I do think being criticised for one's choice of parents is a bit unkind.

Anyway, the reason Alan Clark and his diaries came to mind was that he also noted, disparagingly, of someone or other, (possibly Heseltine again, come to think of it), that, when he visited them, they had no flowers in the house. Looking around at the bush we were passing through, I thought how hard it would be to please Alan Clark in this regard, if he were visiting you in Australia.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are plenty of flowers and pretty things in our landscape, but they do not leap out at you - nor (apart from the good old wattle, which, as we all know has basically been put on earth to be shoved into a bottle) would they be easy to gather into a bunch and use to decorate your house.

To demonstrate what I mean, here are some of the blooms I spotted on our route. Some might be chivvied into a tiny posy, but none, I think, would be effective as a genuine, Clark-pleasing 'floral display':

A Small Hiccup

2011-12-21T06:25:00.000+11:00

Having just read the response to the death of Vaclav Havel in the Guardian's Comment is Free section, I'm at a loss to know what to think. The paper itself does often have good and interesting reviews on its arts pages, but the fact that it even considered publishing this article on Havel - let alone actually accepted it - suggests that the the editorial staff believe that the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe was just a small hiccup in the advance of worldwide socialism, a little glitch in the march to victory for the one true faith. Consider this excerpt:

"No one questions that Havel, who went to prison twice, was a brave man who had the courage to stand up for his views. Yet the question which needs to be asked is whether his political campaigning made his country, and the world, a better place.

Havel's anti-communist critique contained little if any acknowledgement of the positive achievements of the regimes of eastern Europe in the fields of employment, welfare provision, education and women's rights. Or the fact that communism, for all its faults, was still a system which put the economic needs of the majority first."

That leaves me gasping. I wonder if the person who wrote it (who lists Pravda as one of his former employers, for goodness sake) has ever read with any concentration any of the great essays by Havel. One thing I can be almost certain of - he must never have visited any of the countries of the former Soviet bloc, while the Cold War was going on, let alone had any relatives who had to survive in those places.

Three Guesses

2011-12-20T07:04:00.002+11:00

When I was in Budapest, I saw some interesting signs, including one or two that struck me as surprisingly explicit. I am more used to the discretion of Canberra's designers. I wonder if anyone who does not live in Canberra can guess what these two are showing the way to:

(A clue - Alexander Maconochie has nothing to do with increasing the popularity of Scottish dancing).

The Annual Dilemma

2011-12-18T13:46:00.002+11:00

It's that time of year when the newspapers fill their pages with lists of perfect Christmas presents for family and friends. My husband, for instance, has been convinced by the Sydney Morning Herald that the only thing guaranteed to make me happy on 25th December is a 'gift-wrapped' tube of 'self-tan lotion'. I suppose that at least it's a cheaper option than this:

Four hundred and ten Australian dollars! And for something that, so far as I can see, has absolutely no function! Am I out of touch or is that completely outrageous?

Neither of these possibilities - nor any of the others I've come across in the weekend broadsheets - appeals to me at all. Which is why I decided to make my own list, which did start off longer, but has unfortunately gone missing, so that now I can only present a list consisting of the two things I still remember from it. If I ever come across the scrap of paper on which all my other brilliant ideas were scribbled, I shall add them to this post.

In the meantime here are the items that I think will bring happiness to people if you buy them as presents. As further recommendation, I should point out that neither of them costs $410, which has to be a positive. The fact that both of them are books will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. Here they are:

1) For novel readers, I would buy The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. None of Eugenides's books has ever appealed to me before, but this story about three young university graduates in the 1980s is really enjoyable, even though I think Madeleine, the character Eugenides describes as the heroine of the book, is by far the least well-developed or interesting of the three protagonists and even though his proposition - that the marriage plot, (exemplified presumably by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice), is, (since i. women attained equality - if indeed we have - and ii. divorce became easy), a form that is dead - is patently ludicrous. What is Bridget Jones's Diary, for instance, if it isn't a classic example of a marriage plot?

Nevertheless, the book is written beautifully, pulling you into a wholly believable universe, creating, through the character of Leonard, a really moving portrait of a brilliant, neglected, mentally fragile young man, raising, through the character of Mitchell, some deeply unfashionable but, to me, fascinating questions about religion and the best way to live, and providing a hilarious and depressing account of the insidious spread of the doctrine of Derrida et al through the academic world.

While none of this might sound, on the face of it, particularly entertaining, the book is very entertaining - partly because the marriage plot is still a very entertaining form. Above all, what made the novel so appealing, for me, is that it achieves that all too rare feat of managing to be simultaneously thought provoking and ultimately serious, while being enjoyable - not merely easy to read but hard to put down.

2) For poetry lovers, provided they are fit and healthy, (the book is extremely large and heavy), you cannot go past Australian Poetry since 1788, edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray. There are so many great poems in this volume that it will keep its lucky owner happy for years - even decades. Just as an example, opening it at random, I find this lovely one, by Jamie Grant: depending on your precise menu, it may serve as an ideal companion to anyone cooking Christmas lunch:

Social Behaviour of Minted Peas

Contradicting a proverb, the pot
I am watching boils, and resembles
the pool beneath a waterfall.
Then I pour in the frozen peas
an avalanche of green stones, and at
that the pan no longer trembles.
For a while the peas lie as still
as the stony floor of the sea,
or else like a mountain of skulls
in South East Asia; they wait as
rigidly as an audience
with numbered seats, afraid to move.
Then one pea, on an odd impulse,
breaks away, and, with a skater's
motion from side to side, ascends
to ride the surface far above
the others, a non-conformist
with a notion all its own.
Another, hesitant at first, glides
up to join it, and others still,
one at a time, cannot resist
the temptation to follow on,
behind the first one who derides
the common and conventional.
And then it is clear there's a trend,
and all those peas who had hung back
now clamour to be allowed in.
Anxiously they jostle and sprint,
needing to belong in the end
among the upward-mobile pack,
elbowing each other, crowding
up to the air which smells of mint.

The Wisdom of the Helpdesk

2011-12-16T13:43:00.000+11:00

Our telephone hasn't been working properly. As I can't make outgoing calls on it and do not want to waste time and money using my mobile telephone to ring, I sent the internet company that provides the telephone an email, explaining what the problem was. They replied to me today, suggesting I call them. Their analysis of the situation was as follows:

"With this issue, the problem could lie somewhere."

You can't argue with that, I suppose. It was only wild optimism that led me to expect anything more.

Unusual Occupations

2011-12-15T15:58:00.003+11:00

I've been reading Dubliners and, among all the other peculiar aspects of the stories, one I hadn't noticed before is Joyce's fondness for giving his characters unusual occupations. This intrigued me because, ever since my first child was born and the woman I shared a ward with in the hospital told me confidentially that, although her husband was doing carpetlaying at the time, his dream was, as she put it, 'to break into the lawnmowing world', I've been interested in alternatives to the unexciting office jobs that until then had framed the horizons of my employment ambitions.

Of course, in that case, it was the phrasing, rather than the occupation itself, that lent an aura of glamour to the way of life that was being aspired to. In the same way, when Joyce mentions that a character is 'in the church decorating business', I don't actually immediately think, 'Ooh that's what I want to do' (apart from anything else, I am still harbouring residual gargoyling aspirations) . What I do think is, 'Ooh, I suppose that must be an actual thing - I'd never really thought about it before, but I guess someone does have to do that.'

Then, in the story called The Sisters, Joyce includes this detail: '...a notice used to hang in the window, saying: "Umbrellas Re-covered"'. Again, here is a way of earning money that is new to me. Mind you, while I assume church decorators are still needed, I suspect umbrella recoverers are all but vanished - and, in fact, Joyce was probably implying that they weren't exactly thriving even when he was writing, before the advent of two bob umbrellas, or of umbrellas given away with evening papers (and, of course, any occupation involving evening papers or newspapers of any kind - but this sentence is getting much too long.)

Anyway, from now on I'm going to collect odd occupations that crop up in fiction, in the hope that one day I'll have a long list that I can put on this blog. That's one of the problems with blogging (which is, when you come to think of it, among the very oddest of all odd occupations [and unpaid, to boot]) - you have to keep stoking the thing, feeding it more and more delicious and tantalising bits and pieces. I didn't realise that when I started. At the time, I challenged myself to do it for a year. Then I read about Mark Watson and his vow to blog every day for a decade. After that I thought I'd maybe set the bar too low. It's a pointless activity, of course, but I'm hoping (as I suspect Mark Watson may also be) that in some obscure way it's good for my soul.

Mind you, ten years? And every day? I can only say I take my hat off to young Watson. What a plucky lad.

Ely Loons

2011-12-14T16:10:00.002+11:00

When I was very young, we spent a particularly happy summer in a cottage in Suffolk. I don't know if that part of England is generally sunny but, at least in my memory, for the weeks we were there it seemed to be always bright and warm. It also seemed to be wonderfully empty, its flat golden landscape quite undisturbed by traffic, unless you counted the Massey-Ferguson combine harvesters that moved steadily across the fields.

I divided most of my time between a) bicycling to the local village shop to buy boiled sweets and toffees, b) lying on my bed and reading while sucking the boiled sweets and toffees and c) developing a peculiarly intense relationship with the cottageowners' hamster, until he escaped my over-zealous attentions by disappearing down a burrow in the garden, (and was replaced by another rather more likeable and therefore less interesting specimen, bought from a stout woman with bad teeth who sold all kinds of vermin from a stall in Ipswich market).

There is no such thing as paradise on earth, of course, and therefore I was dragged away from sweets, books and furry animals from time to time, in order to be taken on 'excursions'. One of these was to Ely Cathedral.

I remember the place as very beautiful. Strangely, I don't any more. Nothing has actually changed in the intervening years, except that the Church of England has become revoltingly rapacious. Therefore, instead of entering the cathedral and being struck by the loveliness of the building's interior, you walk in and find yourself face-to-face with a large wall-mounted flat screen TV.

On the television, the absurdly large prices the church now charges visitors who want to enter the cathedral are displayed, together with information about the gift shop (which has been slotted into a space that I suspect was once a pretty chapel for private prayer). Somehow, this ugliness took the gloss of Ely's flying buttresses when I visited a couple of months ago, even though they're really just as lovely as they ever were.

And, in fact, even the tackiness of the interior redesign couldn't dim my enthusiasm for one aspect of Ely Cathedral - the gargoyles. They were the first gargoyles I'd ever noticed, and I remember thinking as I gazed up at them, 'Ah, at last I understand what I was put on earth for - to be a gargoyle-maker'. Sadly, it didn't take long to discover that I'd been born far too late. Never mind - sometimes dreams are better than reality: I'd probably never have been able to match the sheer character of some of the works that adorn Ely now:

Mine Wouldn't Dare

2011-12-13T09:13:00.002+11:00

Every morning when we lived in Vienna, I would take my younger daughter to school on the bus. And for many months, when we got off the bus we would be confronted by a huge campaign billboard on behalf of the Freedom Party, which at the time was run by Mr Jörg Haider (who has since come to a sticky end.)

The poster on the billboard featured an enormous picture of Mr Haider, surrounded by adoring peasant types. Their ruddy, open faces were all turned toward him, but he looked beyond them, staring out instead at passers-by, displaying his dazzling white teeth in an alarming grin.

The slogan beneath the picture of Mr Haider read, simply, 'He says what you only think.'

If Mr Haider was the brave articulator of the peasants' most secret thoughts, then I suspect Lesley Beckhouse's daring husband in Queanbeyan performs a similar function for my husband - and perhaps for many other husbands around the world:

Make Copies

2011-12-12T09:16:00.001+11:00

In an article by Peter Robb I read the other day there was a reference to a friend of his called Paul Hoffmann, who held the chair of German at Cambridge University. Robb mentioned that Hoffmann gained a doctorate from the University of Vienna although his 'original doctoral thesis for Vienna, having been sunk at sea on its way to New Zealand in 1940, he'd written another on a different subject after the war.'

When I read this, I'd just watched the first episode of Simon Russell Beale's television series on the development of the symphony. In it, he mentions that Haydn lost a symphony in a similar kind of accident to Hoffman's, although the ship was travelling different seas. According to Russell Beale, Haydn also sat down and wrote a completely new piece of work to replace the missing one. This started me wondering whether this losing and then just whipping up a quite new work is a more common occurrence than I'd realised.

I know TE Lawrence lost his manuscript for Seven Pillars of Wisdom by leaving it behind on a railway station platform or, in the manner of modern-day British intelligence officers, in a train compartment - I don't remember which - but, as I understand it, Lawrence merely set about rewriting the original text, so his experience was a) less dramatic than loss at sea, as it left open the possibility that the original manuscript might eventually be returned intact and b) less extraordinary than the others, since they cheerily started all over again, creating something entirely new, whereas he just tried to remember what he'd written the first time.

Patrick Leigh Fermor had his notebook stolen in Vienna and left one behind at someone's house. While the one he left behind eventually found its way back to him, I still wonder what became of the one that was stolen. Is it possible it still exists, hidden away in someone's attic?

Are there other famous examples of similarly miserable losses - or, more sadly, are there many other unknown instances, which have put paid to potentially great artists' careers? Have countless gifted people, having poured their souls into great works they have lost subsequently, given up forever in complete despair?

There may well be more, for already, after only half a minute's thought, I've remembered another - I'm not sure of the details but didn't Thomas Carlyle's maid use a huge book of his, the product of years of labour, to light the sitting-room fire one afternoon? I have an idea that that happened and that, like Lawrence, Carlyle rewrote the thing, which also seems sad in the context of today, since so few people read anything he wrote anymore.

Beautiful Sydney

2011-12-11T11:19:00.001+11:00

My Australian family come from Victoria and therefore I was brought up to believe that Sydney was a place not to be admired. Since I've got to know Sydney for myself, I've been forced to recognise that this attitude must in large part have been fuelled by jealousy.

There is so much to love about Sydney. To start with, there is its old domestic architecture:

(all these just within one block in Newtown).

Then there are the countless little reminders of forgotten histories, like this one commemorating a 'prince of charity organisers':

The harbour, of course, is magnificent and what better form of transport can there be than the ferries, named after the ships of the First Fleet (and, when those ran out, the wives of the governors of New South Wales)?

Perhaps my favourite is the Manly Ferry whose original slogan - 'Five miles from Sydney and 1,000 miles from care' - is a rare example of truth in advertising. Half an hour from the city you step off into another, calmer world::

Mysteries of the Post Communist World

2011-12-08T06:45:00.001+11:00

Wherever you walk in the cities of post-Communist Europe, you pass buildings like these, where great chunks of the stucco have fallen off the facades:

Yet you never see any of it falling. You never come round the corner to find chunks of stone hurtling toward unwitting pedestrians. You never discover flattened citizens lying under lumps of carved ornamentation that have crashed down onto the pavement. Is this just luck or is the stuff disappearing invisibly, draining away somehow, like sand?

Why Do We Do It

2011-12-07T08:15:00.003+11:00

I took the train from Vienna to Budapest last month and, as generally seems to happen when I take that train by myself, I met an extraordinary person. This time it was a 21-year-old girl from Koblenz in Germany who was travelling back to Csikszereda in Romania (also knowns as Miercurea-Ciuc and, sometimes - or formerly - as Seklerburg). She was spending a year there, taking care of disabled people. She'd already spent six months doing this but had had to return to Germany because of the death of her grandmother - her journey, sitting up in what was, I'm sorry to say, a rather rackety Romanian compartment, had already taken nine hours when I got on at Vienna at about seven thirty in the evening and was going to continue until afternoon tea time the following day. We talked until I had to leave her at Budapest and, when she asked me for my email address, I gave it to her with pleasure. I have rarely met anyone so young who was so unselfconsciously good and thoughtful - and wise.

Anyway, the other day she sent me an email which had attached to it a little report she'd written about her time thus far in the part of Romania where she lives. I showed it to my husband and, in his usual alert way, he said, after reading it, 'How odd it is that non-English speakers so rarely change their language to fit in with political fashion.' When I asked what he meant, he pointed out that the German word my friend used to refer to her charges, 'behinderte', doesn't really beat about the bush in its meaning. There is no equivalent, as far as I can tell, in German usage, of our new phrase, 'differently abled'.

Then my husband pointed out that non-English speakers also don't change their language when it comes to place names in the way that we so slavishly do whenever political circumstances faintly suggest it*. If you read Le Monde, for example, you will find no references to Beijing. While we retain the word Peking when referring to the delicious duck dish, they retain Pekin in every context.

Why do we English speakers so readily alter our language to suit the demands of others - or to cloak the meaning of what we are expressing, in a way that slightly reminds me of the unpleasant habit of spraying air freshener about in a house? Does it indicate something good about us, or is it a sign that we confuse language with what it stands for?

*In this context, my husband also points out, it was interesting to observe Hillary Clinton on her recent trip to Burma. Presumably not wishing to appear to support the current regime, she avoided 'Myanmar' wherever possible, while also steering clear of the old name, 'Burma', which is considered to exclude other constituent nationalities, in the way 'England' does when referring to the whole of Great Britain. Clinton did this, apparently, by using vague phrases, such as 'your beautiful country' et cetera, wherever possible).

From the Past

2011-12-06T09:24:00.002+11:00

For months now I've been resisting the impulse to give Les Murray another airing, but after coming across this photograph the other day, while looking for something to do with my grandfather's diary, I think I've found the perfect excuse:

It's 1960, just around Christmas, and, okay, that car probably isn't a Rolls Royce. Same diff, though. It still qualifies, I think, as an example of what Murray describes as 'sprawl':

The Quality of Sprawl

Sprawl is the quality
of the man who cut down his Rolls-Royce
into a farm utility truck, and sprawl
is what the company lacked when it made repeated efforts
to buy the vehicle back and repair its image.

Sprawl is doing your farm work by aeroplane, roughly,
or driving a hitchhiker that extra hundred miles home.
It is the rococo of being your own still centre.
It is never lighting cigars with ten dollar notes:
that's idiot ostentation and murder of starving people.
Nor can it be bought with the ash of million dollar deeds.

Sprawl lengthens the legs; it trains greyhounds on liver and beer.
Sprawl almost never says, Why not?, with palms comically raised
nor can it be dressed for, not even in running shoes worn
with mink and a nose ring. That is Society. That's Style.
Sprawl is more like the thirteenth banana in a dozen
or anyway the fourteenth.

Sprawl is Hank Stamper in Never Give an Inch
bisecting an obstructive official's desk with a chain saw.
Not harming the official. Sprawl is never brutal,
though it's often intransigent. Sprawl is never Simon de Montfort
at a town-storming: Kill them all! God will know His own.
Knowing the man's name this was said to might be sprawl.

Sprawl occurs in art. The fifteenth to twenty-first
lines in a sonnet, for example. And in certain paintings.
I have sprawl enough to have forgotten which paintings.
Turner's glorious Burning of the Houses of Parliament
comes to mind, a doubling bannered triumph of sprawl -
except he didn't fire them.

Sprawl gets up the noses of many kinds of people
(every kind that comes in kinds) whose futures don't include it.
Some decry it as criminal presumption, silken-robed Pope Alexander
dividing the new world between Spain and Portugal.
If he smiled in petto afterwards, perhaps the thing did have sprawl.

Sprawl is really classless, though. It is John Christopher Frederick Murray
asleep in his neighbours' best bed in spurs and oilskins,
but not having thrown up:
sprawl is never Calum, who, in the loud hallway of our house
reinvented the Festoon. Rather
it's Beatrice Miles going twelve hundred ditto in a taxi,
No Lewd Advances, no Hitting Animals, no Speeding,
on the proceeds of her two-bob-a-sonnet Shakespeare readings.
An image of my country. And would thatit were more so.

No, sprawl is full gloss murals on a council-house wall.
Sprawl leans on things. It is loose-limbed in its mind.
Reprimanded and dismissed,
it listens with a grin and one boot up on the rail
of possibility. It may have to leave the Earth.
Being roughly Christian, it scratches the other cheek
And thinks it unlikely. Though people have been shot for sprawl

Fill in the Dots

2011-12-05T11:58:00.001+11:00

Early each morning, I trudge up the small mountain near my house. I do this partly for the pleasure of reaching the top and stopping, (yes, the old head-banging motive), and partly because I've been brainwashed by the health fanatics whose mission in life is to plague us with 'information' about 'heart health' and 'aerobic capacity' and so forth and so on.

And, of course, steeped as I am in the self-punitive pleasures of Protestantism, I do not take an MP3 player or any other kind of listening device to ease my journey. Instead, I stagger along, my face growing progressively redder, contenting myself with any crumbs of entertainment that may come my way.

Sadly, there are usually only slim pickings. I mean I suppose it is mildly thrilling the first time you hear desperate wheezing gasps behind you and then see some poor soul, who has made the - in my view foolish - decision to run rather than plod up the slope, lumber past in a blur of sweaty Lycra. It is not long though before even this ultra-modern spectacle loses its power to excite*.

All that is left then is the hope of picking up some snatch of conversation and, on this front, today I was lucky. Two women, on their way down, came hurrying past me, and, as they did so, one said to the other: "We have stacks of money but ..."

It was all I needed. I spent the rest of my walk trying to imagine the end of that sentence. Of course, I admit, it may have been a statement complete in itself; that 'but' may have been an example of one of my favourite usages - the Australian redundant 'but'- but I don't think so (but). It wasn't spoken with quite the right intonation, (but). There was more about to be said, just out of my earshot, I think, (but). These are some of the things I think I may have missed (but):

"...we're still not happy."
"...we took it all from the Monopoly set."
"...we stole it all."
"...we think it will give us germs if we touch it."
"...that's only because we haven't paid a bill since 1965."

Any other suggestions will be accepted with interest. But.

*Oh who am I kidding - it's not exciting, even the first time.

Whoops, I've Done it Again

2011-12-03T14:34:00.003+11:00

Got an attack of pedantry while reading the newspapers, that is.

Styles of European Art

2011-12-02T17:36:00.001+11:00

Children seldom show much compassion for their teachers, possibly because they rarely recognise them as fellow humans at all. This was certainly the case at the boarding school near Sydney that I went to. Mind you, many of the teachers there were, if not subhuman, certainly extremely odd.

There was Miss F-, the French teacher, who smelled of fags and whisky and regularly wore her dresses inside out (and also had a bristly upper lip and an exceptionally lavish but slapdash hand with makeup and usually snored throughout assembly, except on one famous occasion when the headmistress was listing the attractions of a planned fundraising fete – "Tombolas, apple bobbing, bring and buy and raffles", she was telling us, when suddenly Miss F-'s head jerked up and her scarlet slashed mouth opened to utter three words: "and mulled wine").

There was Miss S-C-, the choir mistress, who had spectacles like the bottoms of bottles, a wart on her nose and thick down like a duckling's all over her face, (her claim to fame was that, astonishingly - to me at least - she played the piano with her legs crossed.)

There was Mr B-, the history teacher, who confirmed all our prejudices about the English and the best place to hide money from them, by wearing the same clothes daily, growing progressively smellier as the term dragged slowly on, and who could be made to turn an eternally fascinating and increasingly brilliant beetroot colour, if skilfully needled over the course of a 45-minute lesson.

There was Miss G-, the drama teacher, who covered everything in her living quarters, including the lavatory paper holder, with bright pink frills. We knew this because she regularly washed all the different varieties of frill and hung them out to dry behind our boarding house - that is, until the day the whole lot got eaten by a gastronomically adventurous goat that had escaped from the nunnery down the road.

There was Mr H-, the science teacher, whose outward appearance was almost normal but who nursed a special gory obsession - resulting from an oft-recounted 'personal trauma'. The subject was one he unhesitatingly returned to in conversation and during lessons, no matter what starting point he launched from. I'm not actually going to go into any detail about what it was exactly he could not leave unsaid; it really was fairly sordid and I would not only be taking up his flame and running with it, were I to divulge any more than that, but also betraying other people very close to him. Oddly, my first ever visit to Sydney was made in the company of Mr H-, who took our class on a bus to the blood bank, where, inevitably, we watched him donate a pint or two of his own, (which, equally inevitably, led to him recounting, yet again, the story of - well, never mind, you really don't want to know, and we most definitely didn't either, although, sadly, we were very much a captive audience.) Luckily, the experience did not colour the city for me.

There was, originally in joint pride of place, although latterly solitary - her friend having died shortly after my arrival at the school, (although in no way as a consequence, so far as I know) - the school's co-founder, Miss C-. Reportedly, Miss C- was genuinely amazed when my best friend's mother, glimpsing her in Sydney called out, 'Hello, Miss C-', without a moment's hesitation, even though Miss C- was standing with her back turned toward my friend's mother at the time. 'How on earth did you know it was me dear?' my friend's mother claimed Miss C- demanded in response. She was hard-pressed to think of a reply that would not seem hurtful. After all, it would have been impolite to point out that a diminutive woman with a man's haircut, a hacking jacket, jodhpurs and well-polished riding boots was not a common sight in the ladies' section of Sydney's biggest department store.

Not all the teaching staff were, to put it kindly, eccentric, though. One - or possibly that should read, 'The one' - who wasn't was the art teacher, Mrs Chr-, a soft-spoken American, with shining, long, fair hair. Apparently she had once been married to a hotshot American art historian. At some point in the past though, he'd abandoned her – the rumour was that it had happened in the South Pacific, although, as he was an authority on European art, this didn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, wherever it was and whatever had been the cause of his departure, Mrs Chr- and her two fine-boned, blue-eyed, blond-haired children - who drove her to despair by huddling over her collection of slides of old masters, giggling pruriently whenever they found a nude - had washed up eventually at this snobbish unintellectual New South Wales school for girls.

Our lessons with Mrs Chr- always took place on Thursday afternoons. Sadly for her, our weekly trip to the tuck shop also always took place on Thursdays, immediately before her lessons. It was the highlight of our week - tuck shop that is, not art, (although I suppose you could argue that art benefited a little from tuck shop's reflected glory - we certainly hated it less than many other classes).

Directly from lunch, we would rush to the tuck shop staircase and there we would form a long and impatient queue. Eventually, a wizened member of the kitchen staff, (all of whom, as a result, presumably, of a collective rush of blood to the head, made the extraordinary decision to stage Salad Days one year - the resulting performance was one of the odder theatrical experiences I've ever had), would throw up the shutters that protected the tuck shop and we would instantly surge forward, jostling to hand over our sweaty coins and receive paper bags filled with sugar-based products in return.

Only then, once we had loaded up with our cloying booty, did we start to move in the direction of the Art block. Staggering under the weight of our purchases, (actually that's a bit of an exaggeration), we trudged up the steps of the building and into the airy wooden-floored studio where Mrs Chr- spent her days. Crunching on freckles (large chocolate buttons covered in hundreds and thousands) and nibbling at milk bottles (no, not the glass kind), we would find our places at the big paint-splattered work tables, taking our time to arrange our delectables and make ourselves comfortable, too drugged by sugar to realise how rude we were being to our teacher, too thoughtless to see that our behaviour betrayed our lack of respect for her.

Finally, either once we were settled or when she ran out of patience, Mrs Chr- would get going, each week making a fresh assault on our indifference to European artistic achievement. She never seemed to lose faith that one day we would ignite with excitement, provided she reminded us often enough about the engineering feats of Brunelleschi, (wow, those hidden chains), and the wonders of Ghiberti's dazzling gates. Sadly for her, though, that never happened, at least not in my time. Week after week our attention was exclusively directed not to the marvels of the Renaissance but to the contents of our bulging paper bags.

In our defence, I should point out that we were at least a docile audience. We never interrupted Mrs Chr-, which was, I hope, a small comfort. I admire her now for keeping going, when the only response she ever got was the sound of munching. She might as well have been preaching to a dairy herd - albeit one that that subsisted, judging by the mingled scent of licorice and something more sickly, on a diet of musk sticks and Choo-Choo bars.

I presume Mrs Chr- escaped eventually. I hope she did and that she did not regard her time at the school as entirely wasted. While the fascinating information on Fantale wrappers did occupy almost all of my curiosity during her lessons (to the extent that I somehow missed the information that Florence was a Renaissance city, leading me to ask my mother after a trip to England during which I went to a dance and met several girls who said they were going to Florence after their O levels, 'Is Florence a finishing school?' [to which my mother replied, correctly, 'Sort of']), thanks to her I discovered for the first time the artistic styles called Baroque and Rococo.

I'd never heard of either of these until Mrs Chr- introduced them into one afternoon's eating, I mean lesson. Perhaps that is why, even to this day, they've stuck in my head exactly as she said them. Even now, even though I have been told countless times - mainly by my mother, through clenched teeth - that this is not the correct way to pronounce them, in my mind they remain Baroque as in Coke and Ro-co-co, as in the first syllable of rowing plus cocoa with a final stress. Meanwhile 'genre', whenever I encounter it on the page, will always sound exactly as Mrs Chr- first introduced it to me - like jeneer, (pronounced to rhyme, more or less, with Vermeer)* .

I wonder if Mrs Chr- is still out there somewhere. I think she was only in her thirties then so by rights she should be. I hope she doesn't think that during her time at that school she achieved absolutely nothing. After all she left this lasting, if not entirely satisfactory, legacy with me.

*Now I come to think of it, could these little habits of pronunciation provide the key to her husband's mysterious disappearance - did his exasperation lead to the downfall of her marriage? Is the puzzle solved at last?

Battered Penguins XV

2011-12-01T16:41:00.002+11:00

I am always happy to read books that tell of murders in English country houses. I understand that the current theory has it that country houses are symbolic of Eden and stories that present the reader with murders that take place in them, complete with investigations leading to the murderer or murderers being brought to justice, are soothing to the spirit, because they suggest that order has been reintroduced into a briefly unstable world. By the end, all is restored to calm, and God - in the shape of the detective - is taking care of things once more.

Possibly that theory does go some way to explaining why I find these kinds of books pleasurable. However, after reading Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes, I realise that, while it is satisfying to see God put back in charge in the final chapter, I also like to get to know a few appealing human characters along the way.

Michael Innes was an English Literature scholar at Oxford University, and I suspect that Hamlet, Revenge! reveals an extraordinarily neatly devised Hamlet-related structure, if you are familiar enough with the play to recognise that it is there. Certainly the setting of the book, a huge house called Scamnum, in which an amateur production of Hamlet is being mounted, is presented from the perspective of a person steeped in literature: "Mr Pope though he went away to scoff in twenty annihilating couplets, came secretly to admire; and Dr Johnson, when he took tea with the third duke, put on his finest waistcoat ... Thirty years before the birth of Shakespeare " et cetera et cetera.

The book only really gets going when a murder occurs during the first performance of Hamlet at Scamnum. From that moment on, Giles Gott, a writer of murder mysteries, joins forces with Innes's trademark detective, Appleby, to solve the mystery. Sadly, to my mind, the introduction of a writer of detective stories into a novel that is a detective story, a device that I suspect Innes thought was marvellously clever, is just one of the ways in which the book fails through being too clever by half.

For Innes's concoction is utterly brilliant, in the way that a really clever chess game is brilliant, but the dazzling ingenuity of its construction, the (quite possibly to others) glitteringly witty ploy of having a mystery writer within a mystery novel - and characters who make veiled references to other fictional detectives as if they were actual: '"... in my opinion the Duke should send for a detective." "A detective?" said Noel politely from across the table. "You mean a real detective - not like the police?" "Exactly - a real detective. There is a very good man whose name I forget; a foreginer and very conceited ..."' - such things do not provide enough sustenance to make the reader feel especially warmly toward the novel, in the absence of rich characterisation.

The book does have some quite funny moments - one about advertising, the other about the usual readers at the British Library - and is full of insights and lovely descriptions, such as the ones that follow:

"Moving about Scamnum ... was like moving in a dream through some monstrously overgrown issue of Country Life"

"Some unidentifiable South London common was slipping past, at once banal and mysterious under the garish London sky. Far to the east a train whistled - the profoundly disturbing whistle of a train in the night."

"'Quite so,' said Gott - and assumed that charming, charmed and tentatively understanding expression which is the Englishman's defence .."

"In the farther park two textures of moving grey were sorting themselves out: mist drifting, eddying, dispersing; sheep beginning to move in the dewy feed. Already the day declared its season; already the scent of the syringas, heavy as orange-blossom, was blowing up from the gardens. The hubbub dawn-chorus had tuned to distinguishable notes: willow-warblers montononously tumbling downstairs, chaffinches as unvaryingly revving-up, and suspense provided only by the wrens, who pleased themselves as to whether or not they should add answer to question."

It also includes one passage of such amazing prescience that it is difficult to believe it was really written as long ago as 1937:

"Appleby drew deep breaths of June air as he went briskly down the drive. The summer was advanced in this southland country; from somewhere came the scent of the first hay and already the oak-leaves were darkening. Over his left shoulder he looked up at Horton Hill. Across the crown there must be some right-of-way, for no attempt had been made to eject the people gathering there. It was quite a crowd now: idlers in the neighbouring towns, reading the stimulating news in their morning paper, had hurried to get out the car and motor over to see what they could. And soon there would be similar arrivals from London; people 'running down for the day'. And portents these, thought Appleby, of a society running down in another sense: clogged by its own mass-production of individuals who, let loose from a day's or a lifetime's specialized routine, will neither think nor read nor practise any craft, but only gape."

What it doesn't have though is characters one can care much about. The Duke and Duchess are not merely cardboard, but rice paper, the young female love interest appears to have barely any interior life and the cast of extras are caricatures mainly. Of the two male leads, one couches a lot of his interpretations of what he sees within the framework of the ballet he'd been watching before being called back to work, (which, as I hate 'dance', is not a trait that endears the man to me), and the other is perfectly nice but lacks any especially charming or interesting trait, (unless you count the writing of detective mysteries), that might give the reader an insight into his soul or a reason to feel some sympathy with him.

Where Albert Campion, in Margery Allingham's books, remains constantly intriguing and Gervase Fen, in Edmund Crispin's, is consistently absurd, Gott, although somewhat worried about whether he will get the girl he wants to marry, is essentially unneurotic and very self-confident and Appleby seems to be equipped with few emotions. As a resul,t it is hard to feel particularly involved with either of them. Consequently, the book gives readers the sense that they are observing a pretty puzzle clicking neatly into place, a puzzle devised by an academic mind that hopes to entice with country house furnishings but is unable to bring the puppets he's invented into true, lovable life. The repeated arch references to fictional detective novels within this detective novel, although perhaps intended as some kind of mirror to the play within a play in Hamlet, do nothing to add to the work's charm. Although there is a great deal to like and admire in Hamlet, Revenge! - the plotting, in particular, is immensely clever - what is slightly lacking, sadly, is the warmth that might bring such a well-engineered machine to life.

My Taxes at Work

2011-11-29T11:48:00.001+11:00

Canberra and the Australian Capital Territory had a local government foisted upon it, despite, when asked to vote to decide whether it wanted one, responding with a resounding 'No'*

Since receiving the gift of our own local government, we have had plenty of opportunities to recognise how right we were to say, 'No', but Saturday's Canberra Times unveiled possibly the most vivid demonstration of our good sense yet:

The only silver lining to this nuttiness is the effect the news may have on the attractive, non-criminal classes. Possibly, on learning that tattoos are so eagerly sought among the inmates of penal institutions, they may reconsider their own aspirations to have their bodies covered in indelible daubings. Instead of defacing themselves, they will seek other avenues of pleasure, such as helping their elderly parents to do the washing up.

Actually, now I think about it further, perhaps I should support Ms Gallagher's initiative, for, if it does result in non-criminals eschewing tattoos, tattoos may soon become exclusive to the occupants - or former occupants - of jails. This could, in fact, turn out to be an extremely good thing: in the future, thanks to the ACT Labor Government, it will become extremely easy to work out exactly who is who.

* Here's the history, from Wikipedia: "In 1978, the Australia Capital Territory voted at a referendum on whether the ACT should be granted self-government. Voters were given the choice of becoming a self-governing territory, a local government or continuing with the Legislative Assembly being an advisory body to the Department of the Capital Territory. 63.75% voted to continue with the then current arrangement.[3] Despite the outcome of the referendum, the Parliament of Australia passed the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act in 1988 and the ACT became a self-governing territory in 1989."

Easily Missed

2011-11-28T06:26:00.001+11:00

If you walk up the Duke of York steps,

ignoring the sight which always makes you wistful - policemen on horses, the job you dreamed of as a child (you saw a television programme about it once - it appeared to involve cleaning tack all morning, plus grooming, then ambling around London's streets on your gleaming horse for the whole of the afternoon):

Look at them, lucky sods - living the dream.

Anyway, as I said, if you ignore the mounted policeman and also don't get distracted by heading off toward Admiralty Arch and the poignant statue of poor old Captain Cook that stands down there on the right, hidden by those trees:

but instead climb the Duke of York Steps:

and turn sharp left at the top, you will see some railings:

and behind those railings you will find a tiny tombstone:

which you might easily have missed, if I hadn't pointed it out to you. And, if you do find it and you want to know what its story is, you can find out here - where you will also see some fairly startling photographs of a 1936 funeral - although not of the funeral of Giro.

Expectations

2011-11-27T07:30:00.000+11:00

I blame my father for the negligible impact I have had on the world so far. He called me Mrs Mop throughout my childhood - and, indeed, throughout that part of my adult life that he survived to see. The reason he called me Mrs Mop was because, he said, he believed that I would grow up to become the cleaning lady in the public lavatories at Waterloo Station.

I remembered his prediction when I saw a cleaning lady in the window of a smart shop in Mayfair, animatedly advising the girl who was laying out the wares:

Imagine the pride in my father's eyes, if I'd managed to transcend the transport system and landed a post wiping down surfaces at Lalique.

Speaking as a Sog*

2011-11-25T12:23:00.000+11:00

Sometimes there is an attempt to argue that Canberra is no longer a public service town but actually a vibrant artistic hub or a centre of enterprise (or even of excellence - but not a multi-function polis, that much beloved chimera of the late 1980s).

I don't believe such nonsense, nor will I - not while it is still possible to turn on the local radio, as I did just now, and hear exchanges like this one:

"Interviewer: 'Do you think there's a need for more APS* 4 and 5 positions?'
Person being interviewed, after a gasp and a pause: 'Gosh, that's a big meaning of life sort of question.'"

As long as anyone exists in this city who regards that as a 'big, meaning of life sort of question', Canberra will continue to be, warp and weft, a public service town.

*A SOG is an acronym for some kind of public service position - as you walk the streets of Canberra (provided you don't get certified - it is a town where you are allowed to jog or drive [or drive somewhere to jog {or even, if your car has a bike carrier, to drive somewhere to bicycle while wearing lots of lycra, an activity that always puzzles me - surely it would be better simply to bicycle somewhere, without first transporting your transport in another dirtier, noisier bit of transport?}], but strolling is regarded as evidence of mental instability) you will often hear snatches of conversation that go something like this, 'He's a SOG B, but he's only acting up,' or 'She's hoping to get a SOG C position in Defence' or 'They're both SOGs in PM&C', et cetera et cetera. I haven't actually ever been a SOG, perish the thort. I think I was once a Clerk Class 4, which sounds quite Dickensian, but, disappointingly, lacked any of the grotesque semi-Gothic splendour that I associate with the great man's writing. In fact, I would have to admit that from what I can remember it was uninterruptedly dull. Perhaps that's why the designation was deleted - it was probably deemed misleading under the Trade Practices Act, or maybe it caused problems with recruitment, attracting all sorts of wild-eyed fans of Bleak House and Nicholas Nickleby et cetera, eager to scratch out their livings perched on high stools in dimly lit offices or hoping to emulate Melville's Bartleby Scrivener, literature's most enigmatically heroic clerk.

*Australian Public Service

Overnight Conversion

2011-11-24T09:51:00.000+11:00

We are meeting friends we haven't seen for ten or twelve years and suddenly Islamic head-to-toe covering seems a highly appealing idea. Greying streaks of hair, forehead criss-crossed with two-inch deep indentations (also known as wrinkles), all rendered invisible by forgiving folds of hijab, (or burqa or whatever the correct term is - I'm sure I've got it wrong, but I don't really care), only the ever youthful personality still on view.

What lies beneath the intriguing layers of fabric can still be constructed by the imagination of the viewer, who one hopes will be kinder than daylight. Mind you, it is that element of Islamic garb that always seems to me to defeat the thing's purpose - my impression is that, in earlier days, when women's dress was much more modest than it is now, almost anything became erotic, because forbidden. I suspect there is something far more alluring, tantalising and all round exciting about a woman's form that you can only picture in fantasy than there is about one whose body - or reasonably large expanses of it - is revealed for all to see.