Trunt, Trunt, and the Trolls in the Fells

The thing about clichés...

2012-01-24T22:01:00.000Z

Poundland!

2012-01-24T21:59:00.001Z

Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling

Read more here.

Current Favourite Footnote

2012-01-21T16:35:00.002Z

Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Dolgorukov (1797-1867), the son of the poet I.M. Dolgorukov, was at that time the secretary to the Russian Embassy in London. Dolgorukov became friends with Washington Irving in Madrid, where he was the attaché to the Russian Embassy. Before the beginning of his diplomatic career Dolgorukov had written poems and had been a member of the ‘Green Lamp’ literary society, where he met Pushkin. On 4 April 1820 Dolgorukov became attached to the Russian Embassy in Constantinople (along with S.I. Turguénev and D.V. Dashkov). In 1821 he returned to Petersburg. In a letter from Pushkin to S.I. Turguénev there is a reminiscence of Dolgorukov: ‘Give my regards to Chu [Dashkov], if Chu remembers me, but Dolgorukov has forgotten me.’ Dolgorukov’s letters from abroad were printed in the Russian Archive (1914-1915). They contain not a single mention of Irving, or of Pushkin.

I think it's the word 'reminiscence' that gets to me...

Oliver Julius Womack Via (2012- )

2012-01-08T12:53:00.003Z

The Books I Read in 2011

2012-01-01T11:04:00.004Z

My five favourites (in no order). [NOTE: for no good reason, this excludes books I've already mentioned here; if it doesn't seem too smarmy, I really do think one of the best books I've read this year is this one.]

Yevgeni Popov, Душа Патриота, или Различные послания к Ферфичкину.

Gillian Rose, Love's Work.

Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare

Luis de Góngora, Romances

Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

Percentage Breakdown by Country

British 43.6%
USA 23.6%
Russia 13.3%
Spain 7.3%
France 3%
Turkey 1.2%
Canada 1.2%
Slovenia 1.2%
Australia 1.2%
Israel 0.6%
Italy 0.6%
South Africa 0.6%
Argentina 0.6%
Greece 0.6%
Germany 0.6%
Mexico 0.6%

Percentage Breakdown by Genre

Novel, literary 25.5%
Novel, genre 25.5%
Essays 17.6%
Poetry 12.1%
(Auto)biography 6.1%
Short Stories 4.2%
History 3.6%
(Screen)plays 2.4%
Comic Books 1.8%
Travel 1.2%

Current Favourite Sentence

2011-12-29T08:57:00.001Z

The game can also be played as a children's party game, without the drinking.

George Allison (1883-1957)

2011-12-28T13:20:00.005Z

A curiosity: I was led to Mr. Allison via Philip Larkin (I'm reading the Letters to Monica at the moment, which are enjoyably tinned-sardiney), who asks Monica Jones on 12 March 1957 if she remember's Allison's 'football commentaries, in the old square-4 days? He was the most exciting one I ever heard: his "It's a goal!!!!" was the most abandoned shriek-roar we shall ever know.'

My search for the shriek-roar led me to this, a man who makes recordings of old vinyl records played on his gramophone:

The only goal comes at 3.30 on the video: some insight gained into Larkin's ideas of wild abandonment.

More information about Allison here: a career path that goes from sports journalism to football management is difficult to imagine nowadays.

I can't find an original eight-square commentary grid (as mentioned by Larkin and the gentleman with the gramophone), so here's a modern one:

And here, finally, is a truly abandoned shriek-roar:

John Brett (1831-1902)

2011-12-27T20:57:00.003Z

The Stonebreaker (1858). One of Philip Larkin's favourite paintings. More information about Brett here.

Caran d'Ache (1858-1909)

2011-12-27T11:15:00.005Z

Pseudonym of Emmanuel Poiré, cartoonist. His pseudonym comes from the Russian word for pencil, карандаш. I'd always thought that the etymology worked the other way round, and that Russians didn't have pencils until the mid-nineteenth century. A little reflection should have made me realise that this was a foolish notion. Карандаш comes from Turkic.

Here's Terence Wade's Russian Etymological Dictionary on pencils:

КАРАНДАШ [karandáš] 'pencil'. 17th century, from Tkc., cf. Turk. qara 'black', taş 'stone', perhaps a reference to graphite shales or the gnesses from which graphite is mined (for increscent -н-, cf. каланчá 'watch-tower', also a Tkc. loan). Caran d'ache is used as a brand name by the well-known Swiss manufacturers of high-quality writing implements.

Wade doesn't mention the link between the cartoonist and the pencil company; the Wikipedia page for Poiré insists that the company was named after him. Anyway, here's a cartoon of his, sent me by my brother Ben:

In related (or almost related) etymological fun, here's Wade on railway stations:

ВОКЗАЛ [vokzál] 'mainline station'. From Eng. Vauxhall, a pleasure garden opened in 1661 and a favourite resort of the English metropolis until its closure in 1859. Similar gardens appeared in [the] 1770s in St. Petersburg and Moscow (as фоксал/воксал, with subsequent replacement of -с- by -з-, by analogy with зал 'hall'), described as 'illuminated garden[s] with pleasure pavilions, buffets, music, plays and comic operas', and later in the provinces. With the advent of railways the Pavlovsk terminus (вокзал) of the St. Petersburg-Pavlovsk line (opened in 1837) combined the functions of passenger hall and concert hall (with orchestra and gypsy singing and, from 1840, symphony concerts). As the prestige of вокзалы as leisure centres declined, the meaning 'railway station' (recorded in dictionaries late 19th century) emerged as the sole connotation of the word.

Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627)

2011-12-26T22:13:00.003Z

More information here. The following is a poem I am very fond of at the moment.

¡Que se nos va la Pascua, mozas,
Que se nos va la Pascua!

Mozuelas las de mi barrio,
Loquillas y confiadas,
Mirad no os engañe el tiempo,
La edad y la confianza.
No os dejéis lisonjear
De la juventud lozana,
Porque de caducas flores
Teje el tiempo sus guirnaldas.
¡Que se nos va la Pascua, mozas,
Que se nos va la Pascua!

Vuelan los ligeros años,
Y con presurosas alas
Nos roban, como harpías,
Nuestras sabrosas viandas.
La flor de la maravilla
Esta verdad nos declara,
Porque le hurta la tarde
Lo que le dio la mañana.
¡Que se nos va la Pascua, mozas,
Que se nos va la Pascua!

Mirad que cuando pensáis
Que hacen la señal del alba
Las campanas de la vida,
Es la queda, y os desarman
De vuestro color y lustre,
De vuestro donaire y gracia,
Y quedáis todas perdidas
Por mayores de la marca.
¡Que se nos va la Pascua, mozas,
Que se nos va la Pascua!

Yo sé de una buena vieja
Que fue un tiempo rubia y zarca,
Y que al presente le cuesta
Harto caro el ver su cara,
Porque su bruñida frente
Y sus mejillas se hallan
Más que roquete de obispo
Encogidas y arrugadas.
¡Que se nos va la Pascua, mozas,
Que se nos va la Pascua!

Y sé de otra buena vieja,
Que un diente que le quedaba
Se lo dejó este otro día
Sepultado en unas natas,
Y con lágrimas le dice:
«Diente mío de mi alma,
Yo sé cuándo fuistes perla,
Aunque ahora no sois nada.»
¡Que se nos va la Pascua, mozas,
Que se nos va la Pascua!

Por eso, mozuelas locas,
Antes que la edad avara
El rubio cabello de oro
Convierta en luciente plata,
Quered cuando sois queridas,
Amad cuando sois amadas,
Mirad, bobas, que detrás
Se pinta la ocasión calva.
¡Que se nos va la Pascua, mozas,
Que se nos va la Pascua!

Dolly Varden

2011-12-26T19:13:00.001Z

More information here. Presumably, the only fish named after a character from a novel by Dickens.

Igor Palmin (1933- )

2011-12-26T16:18:00.002Z

Chechnya, Shepherd's Son (1977). More information here.

Chocolate Money

2011-12-26T11:03:00.005Z

The (supposed) face of Juan Carlos I on a chocolate euro I got for Christmas. More unflattering confectionery is difficult to imagine. One to add to any collection of republican coinage.

Griffins

2011-12-25T09:59:00.003Z

From the etymological dictionary:

grifo (animal fabuloso), s. XIII. Tom. del lat. tardío gryphus, y este del gr. gryps, grypos, id. En la acepción 'llave de cañería', 1884, se explica por la costumbre de adornar con cabezas de personas o animales las bocas de agua de las fuentes.

That is, 'taps' in Spanish are called 'grifos', which is also the word for 'griffin'. This name arises because of the custom of decorating the mouths of springs or public fountains with ornate heads of people or animals.

Happy Festive Etymology to you all!

Cesare Reggiani (1949- )

2011-12-25T09:58:00.002Z

More information here.

Iain Lom (c.1625-c.1710)

2011-12-21T11:34:00.002Z

Scots Gaelic poet, author of the the resonant description of wicked John Menteith, the 'stripped tree of the false apples, Neil’s son of woeful Assynt'. More information here and here.

Elizabeth Kata (1912-1998)

2011-12-20T19:44:00.003Z

Author of Be Ready with Bells and Drums (1961), which was the basis for the film A Patch of Blue (1965). More information here.

Yuri Irsenovich Kim (1941-2011)

2011-12-19T23:43:00.003Z

Born on the mystical slopes of Baekdu Mountain, under an unprecedented double rainbow, his birth was indicated by a new star forming in the heavens. Died in a train.

Batter my Cod, three-personed cart...

2011-12-15T13:12:00.001Z

It's bad pun day.

Fascinating Fact of the Day!

2011-12-04T10:05:00.003Z

Benzocaine, a local anaesthetic used in a number of over-the-counter remedies such as cough drops (and also used in the lubrication for certain types of condom, as it desensitises the nerve endings in the penis and therefore, in theory, helps prevent premature ejaculation) is one of the major substances employed by abalone farmers. It is difficult to shift your adult abalone because of his tenacious grip on the rock beneath him, so you give him a bit of Benzocaine and his huge muscular foot relaxes enough for you to move him around the aquaculture tank.

Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva (1926-2011)

2011-12-04T08:14:00.002Z

Not one of the shock workers or propaganda chicks of the ancien régime, but even sadder. The closer you get to the centre, the sadder it all becomes. The photo is a perfect illustration of Larkin's 'Something is pushing them / To the side of their own lives', but Larkin was talking about children pushing their parents, which seems somehow healthier. More information here

Colocynth

2011-12-04T07:17:00.002Z

Also known as the bitter cucumber, or vine of Sodom. 'The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.' (Othello i, iii). More cucurbitous information here.

Christopher Logue (1926-2011)

2011-12-03T21:34:00.000Z

More information here.

Christa Wolf (1929-2011)

2011-12-03T21:32:00.002Z

More information here.

Santiago Paulós (1983- )

2011-12-03T20:12:00.004Z

Abuela II con derrame (2003). More information about the artist here. I translated a text for a catalogue of his paintings, which I at first thought was a favour, but now I see was an honour.

Marie-Noëlle Drouet (1947- )

2011-11-11T20:15:00.002Z

'Tous les enfants ont du génie sauf Minou Drouet', as Cocteau said. More information here.

Engelsina Sergeyevna Cheshkova (1928-2004)

2011-11-10T18:58:00.001Z

The youthful face of the Buryat-Mongol ASSR. More information (in Russian) here.

Mamlakhat Akberdyevna Nakhangova (1924- )

2011-11-10T18:52:00.002Z

Shock-worker of the Tajik cotton harvest. More information (in Russian) here.

Sean Bonney

2011-11-05T08:17:00.003Z

He's coy about his age (early forties?). A wikipedia page is here. The reason I like him this morning, an interview, is here.

There are Men Outside my Window

2011-11-02T08:26:00.002Z

My work accompanied by the surprisingly melancholic sound of spoken Romanian.

José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913)

2011-11-01T12:36:00.002Z

More information here. A little belated, but, ¡Feliz Día de los Muertos!

Yeah, William Empson, I'm talking to you. Outside, now.

2011-10-30T15:57:00.001Z

Transhumance

2011-10-30T15:16:00.006Z

Jesús Garzón, an environmentalist, has spent a lot of effort reviving the old custom of transhumance (moving flocks from summer to winter pastures) in Spain. One of the traditional transhumance paths runs, funnily enough, through the centre of Madrid (when I say 'traditional', I mean, dating back to 1250 or so, when running sheep through the centre of Madrid wasn't as odd as all that). The shepherds pay 25 maravedíses (the word has three plural forms; I am using the one the RAE judges 'most vulgar'; the others are maravedís and maravedíes) for the privilege. More information here. The upshot of this is that the centre of Madrid was today filled with livestock. I was too lazy to follow the sheep droppings and horse dung all the way to the Plaza de Cibeles, so I set up shop outside the Plaza Mayor, and waited to see what came past. What came past was, mostly, sheep:

Here's a separate section on what we might call 'brand identity', if we were less funny than we in fact think we are:

And here are two photos of shepherds on horseback using mobile phones:

And finally, a horse:

All in all, a fun way to spend a morning.

Wombat News

2011-10-25T22:33:00.003+01:00

Ridiculously cute baby wombat footage. Even as a baby, he's quite a chunker.

Poetry Reviewed

2011-10-25T22:25:00.001+01:00

Oh look! I'm going to be famous and have groupies and live in a bathtub full of champagne!

Current Favourite Sentences

2011-10-25T09:52:00.003+01:00

Fourthly, without regard of them, or of us, I say, that even in regard of Himselfe, Hoc erit Signum. Would there be a proportion between the Signe and the Signatum? There is so. This, holds good proportion with the ensuing course of his life, and death. And, (all considered), it is even Signum adaequatum. We may well begin with Christ in the Cratch: We must end with Christ on the Crosse. The Cratch is a Signe of the Crosse. They that write de rusticâ, describe the forme of making a Cratch Crosse-wise. The Scandal of the Cratch is a good preparative, to the Scandal of the Crosse. To be swadled thus, as a Child, doth that offend? What then, when ye shall see him pinion'd and bound as a Malefactor? To lye in a manger, is that so much? how then, when ye shall see Him hang on the Crosse? But so,-primo ne discrepet imum; that His beginning and His end may suit well and not disagree; Sic oportuit Christum nasci, thus ought Christ to be borne and this behoved to be His Signe.

Via a Friend of a Friend

2011-10-23T11:15:00.001+01:00

Enlarge Your Vocabulary

2011-10-22T13:32:00.001+01:00

ca' canny v.i. move cautiously; n. extreme caution; limitation of output by workmen; a. cautious; mean.

Current Favourite Sentence

2011-10-22T13:23:00.002+01:00

I shall therefore continue my account of the Clyde Valley experiment now; and shall later deal with the collapse of civilisation in England.

Look What the Postman Brought

2011-10-21T17:37:00.000+01:00

Small Goya-esque Dog

2011-10-21T17:32:00.002+01:00

But much more affectionate and presumably happier than the dog in Goya's amazing picture. I don't put the actual image up here out of deference to members of my family who find it particularly distressing.

The Green Green Glass of Home

2011-10-21T17:27:00.002+01:00

They've put up scaffolding outside our flat because they're filling in the cracks on our façade (which I imagine is also the chorus to a particularly double entendre-ridden Victorian music-hall song.) There is a fairly subaquatic feeling about my study at the moment.

Flora and Fauna of Madrid

2011-10-09T17:30:00.002+01:00

Tomas Gösta Tranströmer (1931- )

2011-10-09T17:24:00.002+01:00

More information here. I'm a little disappointed that 'Gösta' doesn't turn out to mean 'The Ghost', like a Swedish wrestling nickname, but is in fact a version of 'Gustav'.

More Phantom Limbs

2011-10-09T17:14:00.004+01:00

We went back to the ultrasound chamber, which seems more and more like something left over by the production designers for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Notwithstanding its connection with the lamest of lame science fiction films (I've never read the book, it might be brilliant, but the film is only at all redeemable for its willingness to give the great Leonard Rossiter about three minutes of screen time), we got some pleasant images. Ribs;

face;

face;

right hand.

Log-Rolling My Own Trumpet

2011-09-14T18:06:00.001+01:00

This was a pleasant surprise.

Yukinori Yanagi (1959- )

2011-09-13T16:04:00.002+01:00

A Japanese artist who lives in America. His most famous artwork is a large network of connected perspex boxes, each filled with coloured sand to make a picture of a particular country's flag. This being done, Yukinori let loose the ants, turning the installation into a vast ant farm. The sand carried from box to box, the flags broken down, the metaphor clear.

I like more, I think, the series of Wandering Position drawings (I think this one's from 1996, but it might be 1998) in which Yukinori locked himself for several hours each day in a large perspex box in the company of a single ant, whose movements he followed with a red crayon. Surprisingly, the ant didn't draw the flag of Japan. Wahay, capillaries! More information here.

Look what I found!

2011-09-11T19:33:00.003+01:00

A dictionary of French argot. It came up when I was looking for the definition of sous-maquecée, a phrase that appeared in a book I was reading. Who says you learn nothing from Eric Ambler?

Correspondences

2011-09-10T14:03:00.002+01:00

I was boiling myself some pasta tubes for lunch, and they came out a bit crunchy.

Lithotripsy

2011-09-05T15:24:00.004+01:00

Back again to the hospital for a lithotripsy, to have shockwaves spacked at my groin in order to dislodge or shatter or otherwise incommode the grumpy kidney stone that dwells there. This time the machine didn't work: the nurse tried turning it on and off again, and it still didn't work. It is not a pleasant feeling, when attached to a drip and stark naked under a few tonnes of x-ray / ultrasound machine, to see the operator remove her shoes, stand on a revolving office chair so that she can reach the top of a filing cabinet, and take down the instruction manual. A feeling of general unease only heightened when she then blows the dust off it. But all was well, and I had time to think about what the sound of the shockwaves was actually like. The rather Gogolian simile I came up with was that they sounded rather like a self-willed child hammering nails into a tin tray in order to create some form of art which you will then, as a parent, have to accept with a smile and display in a prominent position, even though it ends up resembling not anything close to art, but rather your best tin tray with a bunch of 6d casing nails hammered into it in seemingly random positions. But then again, the drugs were pleasantly strong.

The Visiting Card

2011-09-03T18:18:00.006+01:00

An absolutely fascinating and evocative small exhibition (one fairly cramped little room) of nineteenth-century Spanish visiting cards at the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, which we visited for the first time today and which represents the current maximum comfortable walking distance for the three of us. If other points on the circumference of this circle are as enjoyable, then we're in for a treat. Although, I imagine, the diameter of the circle will gradually decrease over the next few months.

Current Favourite Artist

2011-09-03T18:03:00.001+01:00

The Master of the Large Foreheads (fl. c. 1500)

Banel Nicolita (1985- )

2011-09-01T14:50:00.003+01:00

Slightly out-of-date information here. The interesting thing about him is that he's one of the very few professional footballers with a Roma background.

Beauty and the Beast

2011-08-30T16:31:00.000+01:00

Paparazzo

2011-08-30T16:19:00.002+01:00

Catwalk

2011-08-30T16:14:00.003+01:00

He's OK!. He's still a little bit twisted in the middle, like a crumpled cushion, but he's walking and a bit happier now.

Big in Japan

2011-08-29T11:26:00.004+01:00

Little over a year to go until I publish a collection of poems, but amazon.co.jp are jumping the gun a little. Will it be worth more than 1500 yen?

More Ghosts in the Machine

2011-08-28T14:30:00.004+01:00

I particularly like this last one where, channelling his mother and father already, he ('it' is now definitely 'he') turns away with an almost visible groan and mutters: 'Let me sleep! For goodness sake, just let me sleep!'

Samuel Menashe (1925-2011)

2011-08-23T18:08:00.002+01:00

More information here. Picture copyright Matt Valentine.

Inside Job

2011-08-20T21:15:00.003+01:00

Images from the emergency room. Points of interest that don't involve the shadow of his beautifully involuted guts:
1. The nubbly bit is his heelbone, and the last long bone before the toes is his Beckham-esque metatarsal;

2. The hips are, apparently, meant to be about one vertebra-length lower down. He's a compacted cat;

3. The bright white patch at the top left of the picture is his locator chip, so that if we lose him at a point when he has any mobility in his back legs (i.e. if finding him is slightly more complicated than looking out of the window and screaming), then the chip contains information for the international veterinary database.

He's still a bit pissed off, but we don't have to take him back to the vet till Monday. In the meantime, antibiotics every eight hours: 1pm, 9 pm and yes, the other one. Marian's turn tomorrow, hooray.

Freefall Cat Syndrome

2011-08-19T20:48:00.004+01:00

Yesterday Marian and I were in my study (oh, I like having a study), when we heard a strange noise in the street outside. I said to Marian: 'That's the noise that kept waking me up last night, that sounds like a cat. I thought that Blini had fallen out of the window.' Marian said: 'It must be someone else's cat.' The noise came again. 'It really sounds like a cat, close by.' Stricken by sudden panic, we both rushed to look out of the window. Blini was in the street, having fallen off the windowsill. Havoc, running, panic. We got him back to the flat. The last time he fell out of the window was from a first floor flat and he chipped a tooth and hurt his nose and serve him right. This was a second floor flat, and it was immediately clear when we put him on the floor that he couldn't walk, his back legs were twisted and he was clearly in pain, hissing and yowling. The emergency clinic is the other side of town. Town was closed because of our historic visitor. The taxi had to take a detour. Our sang-froid took a beating.

The emergency clinic. They took him in, sedated him, X-rayed him and came to the conclusion that he had no broken bones, but a blockage that was paralysing his back legs (a slight pulse in one, no pulse in the other, the one that was hit by a car when he was a kitten). They checked to see if there was circulation by cutting off one of the claws on each back paw (checking for sensation by pulling out fingernails - seems a little brutal to me, but cats can't say why they say 'ouch'). The vet said that they would keep him in for twenty-four hours, but that there was only a 1% chance that he would show any improvement, and that we should be prepared to have him put down the next evening. We paid (roughly 50 cents for every day we've owned him) and left. We did not sleep well.

This morning we went back. Different vet, who suggested that there was improvement, and said, to our surprise and suspicion and joy and relief, that we could start to think about taking him home. The prognosis was bad, and we would probably have to put him down in the next few days, but he could leave.

This afternoon we went back to pick him up. Different vet, who told us that he was very aggressive (they had written ¡¡MUY AGGRESIVO!! [sic] on his chart, but if I were in pain and in a strange place and being manhandled round the clock by people I didn't know, I think even I might lash out a little), but that he had a pulse in both back legs.

This evening we went to our local vet, who ho-d and hummed and said he didn't want to question a colleague's diagnosis, but that the X-ray evidence (he took another X-ray) suggested that Blini was badly bruised and that his hips had been pushed up by about the length of a vertebra (X-ray evidence coming as soon as we get the CD back from the vet), but that he had sensation and reflexes in both legs and that essentially this was something that could be cured and that would, inshallah, cure itself with time. This is a diagnosis we are happier with.

So, Blini, stupid, soft, adventurous, brave and, yes, pretty aggressive at the moment is now under house arrest: he doesn't want to and shouldn't move, and can't really walk at all at the moment, and he will need to be taken to the sand tray personally and sleep on nappies for a week or so, but, but, but... we hope he'll be better soon.

Bapi is showing solidarity, which is touching.

He'll be stevemcqueening before long.

Memorabilia

2011-08-18T20:45:00.001+01:00

Old Jokes' Corner

2011-08-15T15:04:00.001+01:00

W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911)

2011-08-13T08:29:00.002+01:00

'Twas on the shores that round our coast
From Deal to Ramsgate span,
That I found alone on a piece of stone
An elderly naval man.

His hair was weedy, his beard was long,
And weedy and long was he,
And I heard this wight on the shore recite,
In a singular minor key:

"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig."

And he shook his fists and he tore his hair,
Till I really felt afraid,
For I couldn't help thinking the man had been drinking,
And so I simply said:

"O, elderly man, it's little I know
Of the duties of men of the sea,
But I'll eat my hand if I understand
How you can possibly be

"At once a cook, and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig."

Then he gave a hitch to his trousers, which
Is a trick all seamen larn,
And having got rid of a thumping quid,
He spun this painful yarn:

"'Twas in the good ship Nancy Bell
That we sailed to the Indian sea,
And there on a reef we come to grief,
Which has often occurred to me.

"And pretty nigh all o' the crew was drowned
(There was seventy-seven o' soul),
And only ten of the Nancy's men
Said 'Here!' to the muster-roll.

"There was me and the cook and the captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig
And the bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig.

"For a month we'd neither wittles nor drink,
Till a-hungry we did feel,
So we drawed a lot, and accordin' shot
The captain for our meal.

"The next lot fell to the Nancy's mate,
And a delicate dish he made;
Then our appetite with the midshipmite
We seven survivors stayed.

"And then we murdered the bo'sun tight,
And he much resembled pig,
Then we wittled free, did the cook and me,
On the crew of the captain's gig.

"Then only the cook and me was left,
And the delicate question, 'Which
Of us two goes to the kettle?' arose
And we argued it out as sich.

"For I loved that cook as a brother, I did,
And the cook he worshipped me;
But we'd both be blowed if we'd either be stowed
In the other chap's hold, you see.

"'I'll be eat if you dines off me,' says Tom,
'Yes, that,' says I, 'you'll be,' -
'I'm boiled if I die, my friend,' quoth I,
And 'Exactly so,' quoth he.

"Says he, 'Dear James, to murder me
Were a foolish thing to do,
For don't you see that you can't cook me,
While I can - and will - cook you!'

"So he boils the water, and takes the salt
And the pepper in portions true
(Which he never forgot) and some chopped shalot,
And some sage and parsley too.

"'Come here,' says he, with a proper pride,
Which his smiling features tell,
' 'Twill soothing be if I let you see,
How extremely nice you'll smell.'

"And he stirred it round and round and round,
And he sniffed at the foaming froth;
When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals
In the scum of the boiling broth.

"And I eat that cook in a week or less,
And - as I eating be
The last of his chops, why, I almost drops,
For a wessel in sight I see!

"And I never grin, and I never smile,
And I never larf nor play,
But I sit and croak, and a single joke
I have - which is to say:

"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig!"

'The Yarn of the Nancy Bell' (1866)

Current Favourite Sentences

2011-08-12T02:18:00.002+01:00

He translated Ulysses and Gulliver's Travels into Polish, he was the only person in the world to translate all the works of William Shakespeare. His translations of Shakespeare were, however, subjected to critique for the lack of clarity, faithfulness to the original or any literary value.

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915)

2011-08-12T02:09:00.001+01:00

More information

Hans Beck (1929-2009)

2011-08-12T02:05:00.001+01:00

The father of Playmobil. More information here.

Enrique Serpa (1900-1968)

2011-08-12T02:01:00.002+01:00

More information (in Spanish) here.

Aleksandr Fomich Veltman (1800-1870)

2011-08-12T01:55:00.001+01:00

The Russian Sterne. More information here.

Baton Round

2011-08-12T01:52:00.000+01:00

More information here.

Antanas Sutkus (1939- )

2011-08-12T01:41:00.001+01:00

The Mother's Hand (1966). More information here.

Rimaldas Viksraitis (1954- )

2011-08-12T01:36:00.002+01:00

Slaughter (1982)

Current Favourite Sentence

2011-08-04T11:55:00.000+01:00

Bad luck relies absolutely on perfect timing.

Current Favourite Sentence

2011-08-01T19:18:00.001+01:00

Even today, if a little person is the only dwarf in the immediate family, which occurs in about 80% of cases worldwide, popular Filipino legend dictates that the mother must have been watching "dwarf TV" while she was pregnant.

Current Favourite Sentences

2011-08-01T07:19:00.000+01:00

Previously, such out-there thought-riffing led Hilton to suggest the use of nascent "cloudbusting" technology to create longer summers – no, really – and more famously, to dream up the "big society". Frustratingly for Hilton's critics, who like to paint him as a sort of misguided guff engine, the big society has been a resounding, concrete success. From the weeniest village to the hugest metropolis, there's a solar-powered big society community hugspace on every corner, staffed by volunteers in unicorn costumes.

Joe Hargan (1952- )

2011-07-28T19:30:00.003+01:00

Jenny (N.d.) More information here.

All the Better...

2011-07-22T15:25:00.002+01:00

Blue-Ringed Octopus

2011-07-22T12:14:00.002+01:00

More information here.

Caroline Blackwood (1931-1996)

2011-07-22T12:04:00.003+01:00

Portraits by Walker Evans, roundabout 1958. More information here.

Lucian Freud (1922-2011)

2011-07-21T21:57:00.002+01:00

Girl with a White Dog (1952). More information here.

George Chinnery (1774-1852)

2011-07-21T13:46:00.002+01:00

Mr and Mrs Richmond Thackeray and their Son, William Makepeace Thackeray (1814). More information about Chinnery here.

Cartography!

2011-07-19T07:49:00.002+01:00

A Flat Earth map of the world, a birthday present from my friend Daniil Aleksandrov.

Current Favourite Sentence

2011-07-18T18:52:00.001+01:00

The title of Pijade's novel, first published in 1921, and republished in 2001, is Strast (Passion), and it is the romantic, tragic, and rather gothic tale of unfortunate love between two nuns.

Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942)

2011-07-18T17:18:00.002+01:00

Portrait By Valentin Serov, 1905. More information here.

Constantin Noica (1909-1987)

2011-07-18T17:07:00.001+01:00

More information here.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933- )

2011-07-18T10:05:00.001+01:00

Born 18 July 1933. Happy Birthday! More information here.

Nabil Shaban (1953- )

2011-07-17T21:47:00.002+01:00

I think this must be a picture from when he was playing Volpone in Fleshfly (1996). More information here.

Current Favourite Sentences

2011-07-17T21:26:00.001+01:00

Thank you for taking the time to go through this FAQ. It was created in light of the realization that for someone with a "round-Earth" (RE) background, the FE theory would appear at first glance to have some glaring holes.

In fact the whole website of the Flat Earth Society is lovely; maybe this is my favourite bit instead:

Q: "Why do you believe the Earth is flat?"
A: It looks that way up close.

Ruth Harriet Louise (1903-1940)

2011-07-17T21:13:00.002+01:00

Buster Keaton (1929). More, slight and general, information here.

Alberto Giacometti, Woman With Her Throat Cut (1932)

2011-07-17T20:22:00.001+01:00

William Frederick Yeames (1835-1918)

2011-07-10T23:51:00.002+01:00

And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1878). More information here.

Eduardo Rosales (1836 -1873)

2011-07-10T23:44:00.001+01:00

Juan de Austria se presenta a Carlos V (1870). More information here.

Leonardo Alenza (1807-1845)

2011-07-10T23:39:00.002+01:00

Sátira del suicidio romántico (1839). More information, although some of the dates are a bit iffy, here.

A little island...

2011-07-06T19:27:00.000+01:00

Get Thee Behind Me, (Mrs.) Satan! (1872)

2011-07-06T18:03:00.000+01:00

Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927)

2011-07-06T18:02:00.002+01:00

More information here.

Current Favourite Sentence

2011-07-06T17:54:00.001+01:00

In 1872 she published the first English translation of the Communist Manifesto and tried to persuade Karl Marx that the goals of Spiritualism were the same as those of the International Workingman's Association.

Current Favourite Sentences

2011-07-06T17:53:00.000+01:00

In fact, Bergman was a voracious film watcher. Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, author of the Wallander novels and married to one of Bergman's daughters, was also in Fårö, and he told me about the screenings his father-in-law would host every day at 3pm in the state-of-the-art cinema he had built in a converted farmhouse (I saw a movie there later: Bergman's front-row chair, complete with cushion and foot stool, is left reverentially unoccupied). Mankell remembers the director's special fondness for the remake of Ocean's 11 – "Jesus!" said Bergman as the credits rolled, "we need to see this again next week."

Cy Twombly, Jr. (1928-2011)

2011-07-05T20:35:00.002+01:00

The Bay of Naples (1961). More info here. A good example of nominative determinism: could this picture be any more twombly?

Paintings on Glass

2011-07-05T15:20:00.002+01:00