An Ass

'Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?' said Brass, running his eye over the document. 'Very good. Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman say anything else?'
'No.'
'Are you sure, Mr Richard,' said Brass, solemnly, 'that the gentleman said nothing else?'
'Devil a word, sir,' replied Dick.
'Think again, sir,' said Brass, 'it's my duty, sir, in the position in which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal profession, the first profession in this country, sir, or in any other country, or in any of the planets that shine above us at night and are supposed to be inhabited - it's my duty, sir, as an honourable member of that profession, not to put to you a leading question in a matter of this delicacy and importance. Did the gentleman, sir, who took the first floor of you yesterday afternoon, and who brought with him a box of property - a box of property - say anything more than is set down in this memorandum?'
'Come, don't be a fool,' said Miss Sally.
Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally, again, and still said 'No.'
'Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr. Richard, how dull you are!' cried Brass, relaxing into a smile. 'Did he say anything about his property? - there.'
'That's the way to put it,' said Miss Sally, nodding to her brother.
'Did he say, for instance,' added Brass in a kind of comfortable, cozy tone - 'I don't assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask you, to refresh your memory - did he say, for instance, that he was a stranger in London - that it was not his humour or within his ability to give any references - that he felt we had a right to require them - and that, in case anything should happen to him, at any time, he particularly desired that whatever property he had upon the premises should be considered mine, as some slight recompense for the trouble and annoyance I should sustain - and were you, in short,' added Brass, still more comfortably and cozily than before, 'were you induced to accept him on my behalf, as a tenant, upon those conditions?'
'Certainly not,' replied Dick.
'Why then, Mr. Richard,' said Brass, darting at him a supercilious and reproachful look, 'it's my opinion that you've mistaken your calling, and will never make a lawyer.'

John Suckling (1609-1642)

More information here. I was already a big fan of his for being the author of one of my favourite little poems ('Love is the fart / Of every heart: / It pains a man when 'tis kept close, / And others doth offend, when 'tis let loose.'), but when I found out that he invented cribbage, I was lost.

Current Favourite Sentence

The grate, which was a wide one, was wound and screwed up tight, so as to hold no more than a little thin sandwich of fire.

Current Favourite Sentence

'I have been a liar, and among liars from a little child,' said the girl after another interval of silence, 'but I will take your words.'

Current Favourite Comparison

Past and present are hilariously, almost hysterically, linked in 'Rhampsenit'; in the moral (you get a security-conscious king if you appoint a thief) there is a touch of the grim irony which recurs irregularly but frequently in the poetry of Heine's later years - even when the mood is ostensibly gay there lurks a gruesome quality which finds a modern echo in some of the songs of Mr Tom Lehrer.

The thing about clichés...

Poundland!

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

Read more here.

Current Favourite Footnote

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- )

The Books I Read in 2011

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%