Now you see them, now you don’t….
March 14, 2008
Here are some more plant pics, all taken in 2003 or 2004. To me they’re pretty pictures; to the two roe deer we saw in the garden this morning (a doe and last year’s fawn), they would seem to be more of a menu….we watched them for several minutes before deciding enough was enough (the doe was munching her way through a rather nice shrubby dogwood, one of the coloured stem types….)
Hedgelands, August 2004.
Airy delights….grasses and grass-like foliage were Michele’s particular thing, and a big feature here….they still are, except now not always the pretty ones….
Helenium – don’t ask me which one….a tiny nursery just up the road has a big range, from which we supped well….
Neat contrast, but again I’ve forgotten which corydalis this is….everything planted was recorded in a big book, all seed sowings recorded in another, and I was rigorous about labelling; so if this little beauty ever resurfaces I’ll probably be able to identify it….
Colour clash….says it all….
Clematis “Fair Rosamond” [sic - picture label misspelled.] One of my favourites, and a great contrast squirming through a Cotinus. Fortunately these early- to mid-season Clematis cope well with neglect. Anyone who plants one of her close relatives, C “Nelly Moser” should be shot, though; it’s one of the few plants I loathe….
Late summer hot colours….
Carpinus leaves (I forget which species; it’s one of the more uncommon ones.) One of Michele’s “arty” pictures, taken in Autumn at Batsford Arboretum. She was looking for ideas to translate into stained glass.
March 15, 2008 at 12:04 am
What a packed garden. Some great-looking plants in there-time to get your trowel out again. Why did my kniphofias always fall over after two days? Got rid of them in the end.
March 15, 2008 at 2:52 am
Soon it will be well into Spring and what is still here, I will see; Emily recognised some of the leaves but some are more exotic than she remembers.
Melton,
What is more powerful – the spirit or the heart?
What is more important – the spirit or the heart?
March 15, 2008 at 11:51 am
Lovely. The Papaver Somniferum brews up into a lovely soothing tea, you know. I recommend drying them in a slow oven first, then all that’s left are the desirable complex alkaloids. Mother Nature knows best…
March 16, 2008 at 6:50 am
doggerelist,
The picture collection is so completely enchanting that I have the most intense longing to smell Hedgelands, not just look. . . I have in phases of my life lain awake planning gardens designed chiefly for the pleasure of my nose. Such a garden would, I suspect, have to be at least as large as yours to prevent unfortunate olfactory cocktails.
When you are back outside with your trowel as I hope you’ll be very soon, perhaps you can turn your mind to inventing a new hybrid. Something like, say, a strain of freesias (great favourites of mine) whose demotic name could be foo (in honour of doggy-roo)and Linnaean classification Doggimus Cynicalsteviana? . . . ? . . . Then if I were very good, and promised never to be rude to Mowbray ever again, you and Michele might perhaps consider letting me have a few starter bulbs?
March 16, 2008 at 6:51 am
Since my complaint about a certain chemise étoffée was, after all, in mere Franglais, I’d love to know what the closest equivalent in actual Français might be.
La Rochefoucauld, par exemple, a dit aussi,
‘L’amour-propre est plus habile que le plus habile homme du monde.’
. . . which would almost fit the bill, only it’s longer than a one-word equivalent. I am also sorely tempted by cette maxime du bon duc pour notre cher ballon (who followed me here, and would fall into the second of these categories – by dint of his otherwise unaccountable flashes of dazzling insight and wit):
‘La passion fait souvent un fou du plus habile homme, et rend souvent les plus sots habiles.’
March 16, 2008 at 9:34 am
Oh dear Wordy, I’m an English angel. So instead of French how about in English – A clever man can sosmetimes play something up that is nothing, for the entertainment of the masses.
March 16, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Babelfish renders wordnerd’s aphorisms thusly:
“The self-esteem is more skilful than the most skilful society man.”
“Passion often makes insane more skilful man, and often makes most stupid skilful.”
I can relate to the latter….
….and wonder whether I should appropriate angela’s “A clever man can sometimes play something up that is nothing, for the entertainment of the masses” as a blog motto….
Scent in the garden used to be a factor here, btw….at one time we planted a number of old blowsy shrub roses (the ones with amazing French names, many commemorating otherwise forgotten Gallic notables)….although these were tremendous in their season, and their aromas heady, most have now been removed as they flowered all too briefly and the clean air here allowed blackspot to rampage….a few of the stronger remain, with “Commandant Beaurepaire” the best by far….I also had a soft spot for the amazing range of scents produced by the foliage of the shrubby salvias – although as many of these are native wildflowers of California and Mexico, you might see them as commonplace….one man’s weed is another man’s cossetted pride and joy….
March 16, 2008 at 4:32 pm
No, doggerel, I don’t think my “A clever man can sometimes…” applies to your poetry on this website.
Re translation of Wordnerd’s French “Passion often makes insane more skilful man, and often makes most stupid skilful” likely a more flowing interpretation could be undertaken however it is to the credit of Babelfish that the word ‘Passion’ is used and it is not translated -as – ‘Love.’ Perhaps the French see the difference more so than the English?
March 16, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Oh dear . . . doggerelist and Angela, the lovely roach maximes rubbished by Babelfish were not written to cs but to he whom Mishari will no longer permit me to address. (see last week’s discussion of Pedantry). . . Yes I know that this is going to be awfully confusing. Suggest that you complain to our pasha. (MaA is it alright to call you that?)
March 16, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I only translated them out of curiosity, but then rather liked babelfish’s syntangle, so posted the results….
March 16, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Has anyone here used “google earth”? I’m told there’s a good pic of our garden there, although I’m always wary of downloading big chunks of software onto our temperamental machine….
March 17, 2008 at 12:15 am
Actually,wordy, I think I prefer ‘Your Celestial Majesty’, but I don’t insist on it. I like to think I’m a man of the people.By the way, I did apologize for sounding a bit harsh on that blog. I didn’t mean to.
Steve, I recommend you go to http://192.co.uk
Unlike google, no dowload of software is necessary, (something you’re right to be wary of, by the way) at 192, you just type in your postcode. The satellite images on 192 are astonishing.I can count the rubbish bins outside my house.
March 17, 2008 at 12:16 am
Bloody phishing filter keeps checking this site every time I get here-takes hours. Google earth is fab: great for checking the neighbours’ gardens but also for planning walks in the country. And directions, of course: printed out maps of Exeter from it. My son got lost driving through Germany a couple of years ago: he called us, described the service station he was at and we could tell him where to go from GE.
Weather in Devon/Dorset was pretty awful on Sat. Thick fog on A35: d. insisted on taking the wheel which didn’t help. Could have done with some papaver somniferum.
Tempting though a LaRoche quotation table-tennis game with wn7 is, I’ll have to decline as I only know one (had to write it out 100 times at school).
Angela-in this instance I think ‘l’esprit’ translates as ‘intellect’ or something like that. I’m a brain man myself, probably because I’m a bit deficient in that dept.
March 17, 2008 at 12:28 am
Wordnerd,
Angels are not given to looking for ulterior purposes, they merely struggle to seek the heart of the matter and in certain cases to actually ascertain whether hearts exist.
Yet to formulate the question to ask of Mishari;
maybe not necessary.
Melton,
Ah! the mind of La Rochefoucauld is perhaps badly translated in English; however the art of side stepping may be more proficient in the home country.
March 17, 2008 at 12:31 am
ps Mishari,
I think if I were you, I would take any olive branch offered.
March 17, 2008 at 12:52 am
angela; Olive branch? That suggests a rift, but I’m unaware of any rift or any olive branch.Sure you’re not confusing me with someone else?
Steve, as mowbray says, google earth is great fun and the software is perfectly safe to downoad. however, 192.co.uk does exactly the same thing sans download. I’m pretty sure they cover the whole British Isles. If not, by all means give google a try.
By the way,mowbray, Vista has lots of perfectly useless security features that impede all progress. To turn them off, google ‘configure Vista the way you want it’, or words to that effect. You’ll find everything speeds up. Vista’s built-in anti-virus is worse than useless. I highly recommend Eset Nod32, costs about £35-40 but is the best in the world. Security specialists ran all the main anti-virus software including Vista’s against about 30 viruses.Nod32 was the only anti-virus to detect and stop every single one.
March 17, 2008 at 1:08 am
Just been looking at 192 (thanks, Mishari). Bit fuzzy, can’t quite count the molehills….in the summer we see a lot of low-floating hot air balloons over here, so maybe sometime we’ll try that for a better aerial view….phishing prohibited here, btw, although anyone who *really* wants to give me their credit card number is free to do so….
….and the A35 is notorious for fog. One time we returned from visiting my mother in Sussex and had to crawl through Dorset at around 20mph….couldn’t see a thing….
March 17, 2008 at 1:14 am
Mishari, ‘pasha’ not for pompousness (behaviour of which I think you are congenitally incapable, grace a dieu) — but because I think of pashas as beings who have more fun than most people . . . and even nerds.
Don’t worry, Angela, I was only teasing Someone, who knows perfectly well what I meant.
This worried me a little: ‘in certain cases to actually ascertain whether hearts exist’ . . . ‘Cold hands; warm heart,’ can also be a metaphor for what is spoken or written. But if that was impossible to see, as I’m afraid it might have been in something I’ve said somewhere — I’m not sure what — then will you please forgive me.
So sorry that you were given lines all those years ago, Mowbray, (why? how? since it is impossible to imagine you as anything other than a saintly child, head boy, cricket captain, etc. )and what a relief that you found your way out of that fog!
On the subject of languages and automatic translations, does anyone know why they kept chopping off thebookofsand’s Spanish translation of The Ribald at GU? Obviously the Google translator couldn’t pick up — what? some subtle obscenity introduced by clever tbos?
March 17, 2008 at 1:35 am
Mishari,
you enquire, could I be confusing you with someone else. Well angels do do a lot of work, sosometimes they get tired; though they particularly get tired of working around problems; then they go on strike.
March 17, 2008 at 1:59 am
Mishari,
forgot to add, I’m the angel that works with olive branches and I’m clean out at the moment, gave away the last one I thought to you; must have been mistaken; very tired at present.
March 17, 2008 at 2:55 am
….surely lucifers are the striking type, not angels….anyway, olive branches are well overrated; I do love watching a good feud….”good feud, good whine”; someone ought to have already written a book with that title, although staggeringly google begs to differ….*sigh*….oh well; doubtless someone will nick that title now, although remember you read it here first….
March 17, 2008 at 5:31 am
‘*sigh*….oh well; doubtless someone will nick that title now,’
fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzip!
I just did. . .
. . . and you’ll have to run rrrrreally fast to get it back . . .
‘Neil Stanley goes to bed each night knowing he will wake up a little richer. . .
Stanley is a trader in domain names, the addresses of websites which commonly follow ‘www’ and end with ‘.com’ or ‘.co.uk’. Once a banker at Goldman Sachs, he now has a different portfolio of lucrative investments including bridalfashion.co.uk, onlinecareers.co.uk, schoolguide.co.uk, sendingflowers.co.uk and impotency.co.uk.
He is one of a growing band of cyber-speculators able to make a living from buying and selling domain names at a substantial profit . . .’ (from last Sunday’s Observer)
March 17, 2008 at 9:14 am
“Good feud, good whine”; nay, think you’re on another page doggerelist.
Have seen lucifers of the striking kind; remember he was an angel too once.
‘Good angel’ strikes are when they down tools and decide they’re fed up helping humans who mess things up; though don’t think there’s been one in over 2,000 years.
March 17, 2008 at 10:55 am
Steve, consider your title nicked.
wordy, impotency.co.uk must be worth, oh, pounds. I hope the silly bastard loses every penny.
mowbray, whatever else you do, I implore you, disable Outlook Express. Here’s a cautionary tale. I downloaded a .pdf file this morning. Because I run Linux, when something tried to access my e-mail client, it was stopped and I was informed. Looking into it, I discovered a virus embedded in the .pdf file disguised as an image. It was designed to access Outlook’s address book and e-mail copies of itself to everyone in the address book. Had I been using Outlook Express and Windows anti-virus, it would have succeeded and I would have been no wiser until my machine had been well and truly screwed along with all my email contacts. So disable OE and download a free 30-day trial of Eset Nod32 @
http://www.eset.com/smartsecurity/
It’s £39.99 for a years license, (daily updates to the virus and spyware database). It’ll be the wisest £40 you’ve ever spent. No, I have no connection of any kind with Eset. It’s just the best.
March 17, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Bait? No, too tired!
March 17, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I was a bit puzzled when I started Vista since I couldn’t find Outlook: it seems to have metamorphosed into something called Windows Mail. I’m getting my mail through the ISP anyway. Thanks for the recommendations, Mishari: since I coughed up for McAfee I thought I might as well use it until my sub runs out. Do you get any extra security through the wireless box?
You should be able to check out my garden on GE, cs. I think the tree was still on it last time I looked. Ignore the stacks of RPGs and semtex: just doing a favour for a friend.
I hope you don’t work in HR, wn7, because if your insight into my good self is anything to go on you are employing some total wasters. I read it to my w. and d., who laughed heartily (and at quite unnecessary length, I thought: I have my pride).
March 18, 2008 at 12:56 am
Doggerelist, before I forget I love the Clematis “Fair Rosamond.”
Once in a body, for a while I worked with Jewellers in design. Michele I have a mental image of a leather cord (deeper colour like that at centre of clematis) with a ceramic type Clematis as pictured at one end, underneath the clasp which attaches to near other end of cord, where another flower rests at its end; did think of the blue poppy but likely too large so maybe smaller helenium flower if colour at centre similiar to centre of Clematis. This type of jewellery though, totally different to my previous involvement.
March 18, 2008 at 1:47 am
Mowbray, if you’ve configured your wireless router to use WPA-2, you’re safe. It can be cracked by a sophisticated hacker but it’s too time consuming to bother unless there is something really worth getting at. If, however, like %90 of the populace, you’re using WEP, you’re extremely vulnerable. Anyone with a wi-fi equipped laptop within range and a basic grasp of wi-fi protocols can crack it in anything from 2-48 hours, depending on traffic, (transmission traffic). For a more sophisticated hacker, like, say, me, using packet-injection to stimulate encrypted traffic, it can be cracked in about 2 minutes. Of the 28 wi-fi routers I can pick up where I live, 26 of them are using WEP and I cracked the encryption on every one of them, (just as an excercise, you understand. I did no snooping or prying, although everything on their hard-drives was mine for the taking). You’ve been warned.
March 18, 2008 at 8:43 am
The doggerelist hasn’t commented on my suggestion, Mishari, but I’m sure he could invent in his sleep irresistible domain names that would never occur to anyone else.
Btw, dgg, if you still read your blog . . . I wondered why ‘enchanting’ was the first word that came to mind about the pictures, and then it came to me. This is exactly the kind of garden that would have made me rapturous at seven. So many tall plants to hide behind, and I’d have immediately known that there would be secret paths to adventures no one else would ever know about . .. Nearly all rare flowers and plants, to my eye, anyway (was that part of your and Michele’s plan?). . . Would the Old Pond be what you can see at the centre, all the way at the back, from the picture of the entrance?
I am so very sorry, Mowbray. I can only imagine the shocking injuries their sniggering must have inflicted on your amour propre (see La R, above). Checked with my people and they admitted to getting one detail slightly wrong — captain of the second, not first XI, apparently. Hmm. Well if you want a different image where we mostly meet, how about some posts with a bit more sizzle? You could say, for instance, say that you wondered, reading the ghazal blog, whether its presenter should have sung those samples to us while belly-dancing? Or how about asking Mishari if his composition, violating the Sufi custom of addressing that style of poem to les femmes, is more correctly referred to as monosexual or onanistic? . . . See? A bit of cinammon and dried orange peel — not just white pepper and salt, . . . I hope that this doesn’t sound patronising . . .
March 18, 2008 at 9:26 am
My halo rearranged, apologies for yesterday.
Mishari of all those currently on the blog you most definitely qualify to show us the beauty of the ghazal.
I know very little about Ancient Persian History yet I have the belief that the culture from these old civilisations far surpass our modern entities and clearly your own ancestory is steeped in it; you are an excellent poet.
……
btw Wordnerd, not in touch with ‘base’ at the present; who are ‘your people?’
March 18, 2008 at 9:30 am
Oh, and Mishari, straighten us out; belly dancing, as suggested by Wordnerd? with ghazals? Seems very out of place to me.
March 18, 2008 at 10:21 am
‘My halo rearranged, apologies for yesterday.’
No, no, Angel, I’m not letting you off so lightly. Have worried a great deal about what we wretched humans are meant to have messed up, and dgg complaining about people who lack tickers . . . I am guilty of all sorts of infractions, all the time. And unless I’m told what I did wrong, I’m afraid I am liable to offend you again.
About the belly dancing . . . not an entirely serious idea, of course, but surely not impossible as _a_ _suggestion_ _for_ _Mowbray_, not me, to make — because he’s worried about seeming a bit too, you know . . . think dirigible.
I was wondering about a remark just a little bit outre but not too mad, for a versatile presenter, . . . you know, someone limber enough to stretch from pronouncing authoritatively Persian/Urdu poetry hard on the heels of opinionating about Bengali translation.
Btw, when you say ’straighten us out’ — are you an Uncle Sam seraph?
March 18, 2008 at 10:23 am
Oops, should have said, ‘you know, someone limber enough to stretch from pronouncing authoritatively Persian/Urdu poetry to opinionating about Bengali translation.’
The matter of who I am . . . erm, would you mind asking Mowbray?
March 18, 2008 at 10:48 am
Wordnerd – to-day is to-day; we won’t refer to yesterday, for that matter neither will we refer to to-morrow. Also don’t take everything personally!
I have no authority whatsoever and no one in the US, old relatives included, have ever sought my advice, though please note, my advice is quite often unsolicited.
Isn’t belly dancing Arabian? I don’t know, but doubt if it came from the Persian culture.
However I did not mean to imply you do not have a heart, that was a general statement. Wordnerd you, I’m struggling to find the word, until I do, I will simply say, you enjoy having fun.
Mind you I think you may also enjoy, just a teeny bit, making people slightly uncomfortable? Angel requests – desist; Angel btw, is totally immune.
Now about that question, briefly referred to at the end of your post, are you sidetracking and avoiding??
March 18, 2008 at 11:40 am
Where this blog leads, the GU follows, it would seem….I asked a while ago about less obvious rhyming schemes and lo! Carol blogs on the ghazal….leading to comments like this from Jane Holland: “What a saviour of the metrically inept free verse has been!” Meant ironically, I’m sure, as I don’t quite see her as a potential recruit to the cult of doggerel….not really sure what to say on that blog now; liked the ghazals themselves, but am strangely reluctant to make serious comment….
If Billy looks in btw, there’s a comment (#18) on the previous post (Pedantry (notes*)) for him….apologies if he’s seen it already and passed by….
wordnerd – yes, I still monitor this blog
but don’t always (or even often) have anything relevant to say….I try to avoid the extremes of those bloggers who never reply to those kind enough to read and comment, and their polar opposites, the cluckers….it’s a fine line….a pet peeve, btw: bloggers who present original work yet allow no comments….what’s the point?
You’re right that the garden here would be a great place for children’s hide and seek….although back in the day when, as an unashamed plant snob, I scoured the country for the rarest and best plants, I’d have lumped kids in with rabbits, deer and moles as pests to be actively discouraged….I mellowed eventually though….
March 18, 2008 at 12:50 pm
With you there, Steve. I won’t waste my time on a blog that doesn’t allow comments. Surely, dialogue is the whole point, else why blog?
Thanks for the kind words, Angela.
wordy, are still having goes at poor old mowbray? I warned you about that. Expect my belly-dancing enforcers at your front door, anytime now. I’m savage but fair.
March 18, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Is it my imagination or is GU becoming more preachy these days? (And no, that’s not a coded comment on Billy’s dogma jokes….)
Increasingly I sense virtual sniffs there as (some of) the published and those with formal literature qualifications bestow their wisdom on the merely enthusiastic….I can see it from their viewpoint: a scientific thread wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a crowd of unknowledgable commenters; and heaven knows I’ve often come across as irritating and naive as someone on a chess blog who asks “which way do the pawns move?”….but I invariably check out blogs and/or online works by these deities and am frequently unable to reconcile their omniscience with what I read there….exceptions abound, of course, and I continue to learn from and enjoy the GU blogs (and where else could I plug the doggerel blog?); I’d be disappointed though if GU became a writers only coffee room and amateurs were discouraged or disregarded in the same way as their opinions often are….
March 18, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Steve, in my experience, it’s the below the line crowd who make GU interesting. The deities may set the hare running but it’s the greyhounds racing around the track that are interesting. In general, I find the posters to be wittier, more literate, more articulate and more talented than the ‘deities’. I mean, Ryan Gilbey? John Keenan? Rob Woodward? They’d make a cat laugh. I know this for a fact, having read their work to a cat of my aquaintance, one Pongo, and he laughed, so there. Billy’s an exception.
March 18, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Mishari – by “deities” I didn’t necessarily mean the “above the liners”….some of whom are quite fun….I can see myself digging a bigger hole if I continue….but what the hell….let’s just say some people there seem to imagine their pronouncements unchallengable because of who they are, or think they are, rather than what they say….and it’s unnecessary to add I don’t mean Billy or Carol or you – or anyone likely to step here (although one never knows who lurks in the undergrowth….)
March 18, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Just a thought doggerelist, you write:
“I can see it from their viewpoint, a scientific thread wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a crowd of unknowledgable commenters”,
I see a difference between literature and scientific studies. Science deals with known facts, the scientist is also the presenter. In literature you have the creator/author and the student; likewise can be contrasted the composer/musician, artist, etc.
March 18, 2008 at 5:10 pm
angela – I agree that there is a very real difference between scientific debates and literary ones: after many inactive years I’d have nothing relevant to say now on topics I wherein I once published original research. But we’re all readers of one stamp or another, and our collective opinions, as reflected in sales or blog hits, aren’t irrelevant, no matter our experience or our age; whether we’re also writers or not. (Which is not to say I wouldn’t be equally out of my depth in an analysis of (for example) the grammar of Beowulf – but such high-level criticism isn’t what these open blogs are primarily about, I suggest.) I’d as happily learn from a well-argued comment by a keen fifteen-year old as from a dismissive decree by a Nobel laureate. Indeed, most of the time I see little relationship between the quality of comment and the literary ranking of the commenter….which is why some of those who preface their comments with their past achievements (which often bemuse me) get on my tits….OK, I’ll shoulder my shovel now….the hole is plenty deep enough for a doggerelist or two….
March 18, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Steve, I quite agree. There’s nothing more irritating than a poster who prefaces a remark with,’ As a published poet’ or ‘as I made clear in my recently published collection’. Henceforward, I shall preface all my remarks with, ‘ As someone who once owned a book ‘. That should keep ‘em on their toes. There is, BTW, a cracking example from my bete noir anytimefarces on the ghazal thread that goes something like, ‘ as the winner of an A-level in English’ or words to that effect.
I kid you not.
PS angela, ghazals and belly-dancing? No,no,no.
March 18, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Mishari – it could well have been that A-level comment which tipped me over the edge into rant mode today….(although my first reaction was to chuckle)….maybe we could all preface our comments similarly: “as someone whose parents once read me to sleep…”; “as someone who once read an eye-chart…”; “as someone who has planted several trees which could conceivably one day be turned into the paper for a Booker Prize-winning novel…”
I’ve just realised that *technically* I could use the phrase “as a published poet…”: after all, I’ve published a fair bit of scientific stuff in my time (plus a few letters in the Indie & Grauniad, one of which I ought to dig up as it might amuse you); and I’m sure somewhere deep in the bowels of this blog there’s a piece I labelled as a poem…..so together, that makes me a poet who once published: ie, “a published poet”, right….? I must try that out in occupied territory….
March 18, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I like the prefaced remarks! btw doggerelist talking about 15 year olds, how about that then 14 year old, Superherosidekick, on Michael Rosen’s ‘Well Versed’; see his 975983 & 976375 posts; interesting young ‘em.
How about, what happens when a poem is planted, telling of its shoots, root structure etc. can see a good parody coming up?
March 18, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Dammit, the online Guardian Letters don’t go back far enough….so can’t find that letter….
March 18, 2008 at 11:34 pm
ps have car, must travel for some hours.
Wordnerd, where are you? I could not have offended!
March 18, 2008 at 11:42 pm
The posts angela mentions are here, to save anyone else searching:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_rosen/2007/12/well_versed.html
Which “prefaced remarks” do you mean angela?
March 18, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Dammit again: had to edit my comment #47 above as the loooong links messed up the formatting of the page….which means I’ll have to do the same in future should anyone else post long links….apologies in advance…. :->
March 18, 2008 at 11:52 pm
In post 43 doggerelist, but I’m sure you’ll do a good job thinking others up!
Must dash!
March 19, 2008 at 12:10 am
Yes, that Michael Rosen is pretty annoying. I can’t think of many others who fit into your category, apart from wn7 of course. You could squeeze me in, though I would advance the defence that my thoughts aren’t really my own. Long-ago columnist Harry Whewell wrote a piece in which he described how he would be talking to someone and suddenly all these opinions would start coming out of his mouth, a process which he found quite surprising since as far as he knew he had never given a moment’s thought to the subject under discussion. I know that feeling.
Before I forget, or pass out from drinking in order to forget, let me thank wn7 for the style tips. It’s difficult to express the emotions I feel being mentored by one of the acknowledged masters of the books blog. There will be lashings of orange peel, I promise. As for the belly dancing, I haven’t got the guts.
March 19, 2008 at 12:15 am
My Rosen comment referred to the cs/Mishari dialogue, not to Angela’s remarks. A strange coincidence.
March 19, 2008 at 12:33 am
I can’t believe no-one’s remarked on my rather ghoulish avatar. Am I the only one who can see it?
Re: Michael Rosen, he seems strangely mute on the one thread where one would think he’d be active as, you know, a ‘published poet’. Fear of being exposed, do you think?
March 19, 2008 at 1:19 am
Mishari – yes, I can see the avatar….although I shamefully admit I hadn’t noticed until you mentioned it….if it’s a recent portrait you need feeding up….
Funnily enough, Rosen wasn’t in mind when I was ranting….I’ve been mildly irritated by one or two of his comments previously, but nothing special….I checked out his website a while back, but didn’t find anything terribly exciting in his adult poetry….but I admire his enthusiasm and can imagine he’s very effective as the Children’s Laureate….
March 19, 2008 at 1:27 am
Granted, he’s not especially annoying, but still, I do find it a mite strange that while he comments frequently on other threads, he never appears on Carol’s. Perhaps he doesn’t wish to sully his Muse by getting down in the dirt with us riff-raff.
Re; the avatar, the diet’s been hell, but my clothes hang beautifully.
March 19, 2008 at 1:31 am
BTW, I recognize that gazelle verse you spoofed. Can’t remember what it’s from exactly. Read it somewhere long ago.
March 19, 2008 at 3:07 am
Rosen has I think appeared on PotW threads pre-Carol….he had a pop at me once,(mistakenly) thinking I was anti-free verse….and he’s been chatty with Carol on another thread tonight (Sutherland’s)….my impression has been whenever he’s commented that he hasn’t actually read whatever he’s responding to; but that’s not front page news on GU….the gazelle thing was by Thomas Moore….and was doggerel even before I laid sticky hands on it….also notably spoofed by Dickens & Carroll….
March 19, 2008 at 6:52 am
Angel-face, I am not offended. It’s just a busy week, that’s all.
Mowbray, ‘I would advance the defence that my thoughts aren’t really my own.’
What thoughts?
Now Mishari, before you bark, that _is_ a perfectly open-ended question. . . And I’ll have you know that your jelly belly enforcers threat was responsible for the first halfway decent official photograph ever taken of me. I thought of it just as the man pushed the button on the evil black box.
I had to refresh this page to appreciate your astonishing avatar. (Why wasn’t it there before?) Such bones, you lucky beast . . . Can’t say I’ve ever heard of a size zero pasha, but seeing’s believing.
March 19, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Just a note for Mishari – Moore’s gazelle was parodied by many other people than Dickens & Carroll….the funniest I’ve seen are by HS Leigh (about whom I know nothing, except for an unrelated piece of doggerel; he’s amusing though and obviously merits further research) who had two bites at the cherry; the second here is, I think, brilliant:
I’ve never had a piece of toast
Particularly long and wide,
But fell upon the sanded floor,
And always on the buttered side.
****
I never rear’d a young gazelle
(Because, you see, I never tried);
But had it known and loved me well,
No doubt the creature would have died.
My rich and aged Uncle John
Has known me long and loves me well,
But still persists in living on -
I wish he were a young gazelle.
Moore’s original, btw, is just so toe-curlingly bad that I can’t bring myself to type it out….
angela – Michele saw your earlier jewellery comment and will respond later….
March 19, 2008 at 6:21 pm
What, another ghost floating around! This one has some bones?
March 19, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Steve, I had a look at the Moore original, which I’d read years ago. It really is awful, isn’t it? I liked Dickens’ spoof:
I never nursed a dear Gazelle
to glad me with its soft black eye,
but when it came to know me well,
and love me, it was sure to marry a market-gardener.
March 20, 2008 at 12:21 am
It’s Rosen’s socialist worker historical inevitability laying down the law style that gets me down. I don’t even disagree with what he says, though I would really like to.
Still shellshocked by WN7’s flashing wit. A regular Oscar Wilde.
March 20, 2008 at 8:59 am
Ah, an equal-opportunity imagination, I see: thoughts for you and wit for me . . . _thank_ you.
Mowbray, do you know, I’m getting rather fond of you.