July 2008 - Posts
It is very sad how many town pigeons lack feet. Look around, it is a remarkably high percentage. Last week I saw a pigeon in London bravely coping with no feet at all. I feared that he would soon fall off his perch, if he managed to stay on it in the first place. I blame in on anti- pigeon spikes and the resulting crash landings. So the next time your ever helpful councillors begin a campagn against pigeons (nasty flying rats fouling the glorious town hall) ask them how they would like living without feet themselves.
Join me in celebrating the triumph of Max Mosley over the dark forces of the gutter press. I trust he will spend part of his £60,000 damages on a really good party, where I am sure the damage inflicted on Mr Mosley will, this time, be to his liking.
Has anybody noticed the remarkable resemblance of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Radovan Karadzic? Conspiracy theorists will point out that the men have never been seen together, so it is clear there is only one of them. A plausible theory which would explain Rowan William's erratic behaviour over the last few years. It is somewhat doubtful, however, that the Archbishop of Canterbury is really a Serbian mass murderer in disguise. But in the interests of all of us I do think the tabloid press should check it out.
I have a lot of time for Banksy. He says more than most modern artists and says it with skill, grace and humour. His gallery is the street (or was until he became a superstar) and good luck to him. However graffiti artists must work secretly and Banksy has gone to great trouble to conceal his identity. But the gutter press are on the case and, in the public interest of course, are hellbent on telling everybody who he is. No matter that poor old Banksy could end up with an ASBO and be driven off the streets by council Jobsworths. It is in the public interest to know who he is, even if we are deprived of his art.
This is the same public interest which resulted in Max Mosely being spied on at a private party, albeit a somewhat exotic one. I wonder if the destruction of his 48 year old marriage is really in the public interest or maybe, just maybe, is it about flogging more papers.
My ambition, in the unlikely of finding myself with a large sum of money to spend, is to have detectives check out the private lives of the editors of The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Express, The News of the World and The Mail on Sunday. These are honourable men and have nothing to hide but I am sure the public would like to have their total probity confirmed.
Titles are tricky. I have proved this, if it needed to be proven, by my failure to think of a title for Plan B. Although maybe, by a strange piece of serendipity, that has now become the title to use. I am not alone. Thomas Hardy lovers among you will have enjoyed Daughter of the D'Urbervilles. 'Whassat?' you ask. Check out Hardy's original manuscript in the British Library. He crosses out Daughter and as an afterthought writes Tess. Good thinking I reckon, as Daughter of the D'Urbervilles hardly trips off the tongue and could well have lost him a few readers.
I came across a remarkable piece of lateral thinking last week. "The exclamation mark looks like an anchovy and, like the anchovy, has many uses." I couldn't have put it better myself, in the unlikely event of making the connection in the first place.
I see that Midnight's Children has been voted Best of the Booker. I must get round to reading it, the trouble is it's long and about India. Cracking title though. The Booker winner I have most enjoyed is Possession, I love the cop-out ending.
Dear old Dimdima Magazine published another of my stories this month and asked if I didn't want to send any more, as they hadn't had any recently. I feel really bad about not keeping the connection going, so I'm putting Plan B on hold for a week and writing a story for Dimdima. They are such nice people.
Listening to that endangered species a song thrush, performing in my garden last night reminded me of the many poems about birds. The Darkling Thrush is a bit gloomy. I reckon An aged thrush, frail gaunt, and small, (Oxford comma) is about to fall off his perch. One of my favourites is Adlestrop:
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and around him mistier
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
It has the advantage of being short - four verses - and did you spot yet another Oxford comma?
The poor old knackered Darkling Thrush makes me think of traumatic verses in music. There are minor local difficulties in Madam Butterfly and La Boheme. Tosca is mildly depressing, but there is one song lyric that can make strong men weep. Written by the Beach Boys it sums up in twelve words the aspirations, vulnerability and ultimate defeat of the human condition. It was fun, fun, fun, 'til Daddy took the T Bird away.