A Veritable Treasure-Chest

Thus I have found the book - The Evening Colonnade - which I have mentioned twice on this blog already.

In the chapter entitled Little Magazines, Mr Connolly quotes what he refers to as "Hemingway's neo-Thomist *poem":

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,

Him for long.

Au moins un peu amusant n'est-ce pas?

I have only once attempted to read Hemingway: I tried For Whom the Bell Tolls and found it insufferably boring; why is it so difficult to appreciate writers (or for that matter artists) whom the high-brows - and others - find so great?  My feelings apply also to Shakespeare** who does absolutely nothing for me, likewise Dickens, and as I have said before, Henry James.

As for the artists, there are numerous examples: Picasso principally - at least for his more famous works - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, or Guernica for example - meaningless to me, though I shall never forget a small pencil still life drawing of his that I saw in a small gallery in the Rue de Grenelle (Paris VIIeme); similarly Jackson Pollock or Rothko - unintelligible.  Equally when I went to the National Gallery, I was utterly bored by the Titians and so on; how many times did those buggers paint the Madonna?  I was much relieved to see that day the work of some of the Dutch masters and the wonderful paintings of Turner and the breathtakingly beautiful work of Canaletto.  

Max Ernst in places is OK, Klimt and Schiele excellent, Edward Hopper yet another of my favourites.  Lyonel Feininger is superb, e.g. as in the example below.

Image source

Until the next time.
  

* I have added a link here because I had no idea what Thomism is; if any of you can understand it, good luck to you.

**The Sonnets excepted

From Persia Again

This time one that I have always found to be a true tear-jerker.

XVIII

I sometimes think that never blows so red
 The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
 That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
 Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head. 

Until the next time 

How To Write A Love-Letter

Once again, a little something found in Cyril Connolly's The Evening Colonnade.   This time, a review of Theodore Besterman's translations of Voltaire's love-letters to his niece.

This letter may have been written by the niece, Mme Denis; the text does not make it entirely clear (or maybe I am too thick to work out what's going on).

"You are the unique end of all my aims and I flatter myself that I shall soon  be happier.  You are my consolation, and I have no other desire than to make you happy during my life and after my death.  I will always love you tenderly until the day on which the law of nature separates what nature and love united.  Let us love until then.  A thousand kisses."

It is just possible that the letter may have been written to Walpole by Mme du Deffand...  I really don't know, but it doesn't matter for the purposes of this post.

It's a million to one that SHE will read this, but should she do so, then despite the fact that I am quoting from a book, she will understand perfectly my feelings for her and that as I quote I am thinking of HER.

Until the next time.

The Lacunae of Life

"At the age of thirty-seven,

She realised she'd never,

Ride to Paris in a sports-car,

With the warm wind in her hair."

How many times has one heard someone say "I wish I'd done XXX"? Edith Piaf famously sang "Non, je ne regrette rien" but I fear that if that were true, she was a rara avis indeed.

I am currently reading The Evening Colonnade, a collection of articles and reviews by the late Cyril Connolly; it has taken only a few pages to serve to remind me how appalling - how lacking - has been my education; this then is one of a number of lacunae in my own life.

I have previously (I am sure) quoted Mark Twain's famous dictum: "The classics: something everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read."  Well Connolly makes the classics, by which I mean such as Swift, Pope, Dryden, Voltaire and many others, sound so rich and rewarding.  Had I only the education to appreciate them; I know them only by name.  Perhaps the classics serve to illustrate to us certain eternal truths?  I have recently been quoting verses from The Rubâ'iyât of Omar Khayyám; now read the following from Jonathan Swift, quoted by Connolly in a review of a biography of Swift by Nigel Dennis:

"God in His wisdom, hath been pleased to load our declining years with many sufferings, with diseases, and decays of nature, with the death of many friends, and the ingratitude of more... with a want of relish for all worldly enjoyments, with a general dislike of persons and things, and though all these are very natural effects of increasing years, yet they were intended by the Author of our being to ween [sic] us gradually from our fondness of life, the nearer we approach towards the end of it."

I might add to Swift's tragic words, that with age comes regret and reflection - hence perhaps this piece.

The current UK eduction budget is £99 billions; in 2005 it was £65.7 billions.  Last week my mother was talking to a teen-aged girl who is to start at University this year; a pleasant girl etc., but my mother was staggered when she found that the girl had never even heard of the Second World War; "what's that?" she asked!  One might reasonably ask what those are like who fail to qualify for University; £99 billions - one cannot help posing the question.  I remember years ago feeling inadequate because I couldn't remember the ins and outs of Cobbett and the Corn Laws or the South Sea Bubble.

Yet I maintain that I have no education; this of course is far from being the only lacuna in my life; any regulars will of course know very well what the principal one is, or perhaps I should say "who she is." And of course, there are more.

I shall now return to The Evening Colonnade and depress myself further; so many books, so little time.

Until the next time.

Yet More Persian Wisdom

The Rubâ'iyât attributed to Omar Khayyám, is said to be in fact a collection of writings probably from Khayyám's time (12th century) to around the 17th century.

And as we know them they were of course the wonderful work of Edward Fitzgerald, who appears in places to have contributed a few lines of his own; he was entitled to: he was a genius.

So I wonder which wise man wrote the following stunningly beautiful and tear-inducing lines?

LXXIII

Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
 To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
 Would not we shatter it to bits---and then
 Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

Until the next time.

Double Standards Again

As my readers know I have a low opinion of the ill-conceived Euro.

The BBC reports that the new €5 note is to include a drawing of a Greek Goddess.  Fine,  but why does the BBC refer to "a goddess" when it calls actresses "actors" and uses the stupid expression "Chair" meaning "chairman"?

Double standards and stupid political correctness.

I hate it: grrrrrr

Until the next time.

Another Gem from Persia

XXXII

There was a Door to which I found no Key:
 There was a Veil past which I could not see:
 Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
 There seemed---and then no more of THEE and ME.

Some more another day. 

Until the next time 

I'll Bet You Weren't Expecting This

What? You ask.

The answer is a bouquet for Nick Clegg MP.  I am no supporter of the Ludicrous Democrats, or even democracy itself; I believe in minimum government - the less the better, hence my dislike/distrust of the super-layer at Brussels.

I have posted numerous times here about the government's plans to snoop on electronic communications; here's an example; search under "Big Brother" or "surveillance" for more.

However it seems that Clegg has put a spoke in the government's wheel on this business, so at least we are spared this awful business for a while.  I suppose if the socialists get in in 2015 we'll have it all again; socialists (actually like the Lib Dems) love ordering us about and interfering in our lives; telling us ridiculous lies about "global warming" "wind farms" and "passive smoking"; trying to make us eat disgusting vegetables and ride bloody bicycles etc.

I was born far too late.

Until the next time.

Wise and Beautiful Words

From Edward Fitzgerald's wonderful working of ancient Persian verses, known as The Rubâ'iyât of Omar Khayyám:

XLIX

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
 Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
 Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
 And one by one back in the Closet lays.

'Tis very likely that I shall be quoting again from this wonderful poem.

Until the next Time

Interesting Law Suit

There are those who consider that inflation is theft; certainly it is interesting that a Chinese woman is suing the U.S. Federal Reserve on the grounds that since it has a monopoly on printing money, its recent printing bonanza has devalued the woman's assets.

The picture below shows a Bank of England £10 note issued in 1934; never mind what the official statistics claim, I maintain that today the equivalent would be in the order of £700.

 Image Source

That should serve to show exactly what the Chinese woman is getting at.

Until the next time.

Rape

My contempt for rapists is equalled only by my contempt for islamo-fanatic terrorists.

I should like to see these violent rapist scum either hanged (my personal preference) or castrated - perhaps with a flogging for good measure.  We have just had a disgusting case in this country where two lives - a 12-year old girl and an 11-year-old girl - have been ruined - no doubt with catastrophic distress to their families.  Apparently the piece of shit who carried out the attacks was ordered to pay the staggering sum of £15 to his first victim, and left a meeting with his probation officer, immediately to carry out his second attack.

Hang the bastard.

And now a case in India has come to light: a five-year-old for God's sake, left for dead in a locked room.  I hope that finally the Indian justice system will show proper robustness in dealing with the vermin who carried out this revolting assault - a great deal more robustness than is generally shown in this country.

I do not wish to hear any claims for "human rights" in connexion with these appalling people; their dreadful crimes put (or should put) them entirely beyond the pale.

There are seven billion people on the planet - at least thirty percent too many; do we need these awful criminals?

Finally before you protest, pause a moment to consider your own children.

Until the next time

A Grim Prognosis

Regulars will have noticed my references to the excellent site Zerohedge.com.

Today there is an excellent article with rather a grim prognosis for the economy of the USA.  Here's an extract:

The following issues prevent a recovery:

• No economy can prosper without a strong middle class. They are the productive class in society. They are the small businesses and job creators. Without them, society does not produce. Without production, there is only poverty.
• Inflation, the cruellest tax of all, is driving up prices while wages and salaries do not keep pace. For those without wealth, there is no way to protect against this theft. For those with wealth, they can rearrange investments to take advantage of inflation, particularly if they are privy to what is coming next.
• The economy is dysfunctional. It no longer functions efficiently as a result of the burdens it is forced to labour under. The price system has been made less efficient as a result of inflation, manipulated interest rates, subsidies, penalties and other impediments. It no longer provides the information needed by economic actors to make proper decisions.
• Regime uncertainty discourages action. When economic actors are unable to judge the future, they pull back. Money goes to the sidelines or out of the country.
• US economic policy and the uncertainty of what comes next has been a great job creator for other countries.
• Economic growth cannot be forced by central diktats. It occurs only in a climate that is receptive and friendly to risk-taking. It is hard to imagine a worse environment than the current one. That is why there is no investment and no hiring.

Zerohedge's articles tend - arguably reasonably - to be very critical of the present policy of money-printing, which is seen to be the route to financial or fiscal damnation.  Perhaps they are correct?

Until the next time 

Exotic Experience

This afternoon, having as usual, very little to do and the weather being fine, I strolled across a local park. There was a patch of ground, normally grass, that had been dug over - presumably by contractors in the process of some project or other, as there were various types of plant and machinery parked around.

Wearing old shoes and for no reason at all, I decided to walk over the bare earth that had been turned over.  Somewhere in the middle, I stumbled over something hard; cursing, I looked down expecting to see a stone or a brick but instead found a metal object.  This I picked up, and found it to be an ancient brass lamp of Roman (or perhaps Arabic) pattern. Inevitably I rubbed away some of the damp earth that was clinging to it and inevitably again was astounded to observe the appearance of a small and emaciated genie.

The genie (as genies do) then spoke: "Thank you" he said, "You have released me from more than 2000 years of captivity; I was imprisoned when quite young hence my diminutive stature.  My powers are limited, but in gratitude I will try to grant you the fulfilment of two of your wishes." Unsurprisingly, I was very happy about this, but the genie made it clear that I must be very, very quick about it.

I asked that SHE would come to her senses and restore herself to me.  The genie thought for a while and said "I am terribly sorry, but as I said, I have only limited powers, I am unable to grant you this wish - and further, can grant you only one more."

So I said, "Then please let me die in my sleep; grant me oblivion." At which point he disappeared.

One lives in hope of course.

Another Mass-Murderer...

... protests his innocence.  Of course we all know that it is most likely that the opposition movement in Syria has been infiltrated by the towel-headed, Koran-bashing, Allah-bothering fanatics, but that rather misses the point doesn't it?

The fact remains is that Bashar's military has been murdering Syrian civilians - including air-strikes and possibly chemical weaponry (à la Saddam - remember?).

Perhaps Bashar can tell us why he is doing that before blaming other countries.  Perhaps he might blame Saudi-Arabia from whence it is said Al-Qaeda's money comes?

BBC report

Until the next time

Nigel Farage: Another Sound Man

Zerohedge.com today reports a speech in the European Parliament from Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party.  "Common criminals" he called them.  Robust I think.

Here's the link.

I should be interested to hear anyone's attempt to refute the substance of this speech.

Until the next time

Lady Thatcher's Funeral

As I wrote last week, thousands of words will be written and spoken on this subject.  I have raised it solely because I was pleased to see that the Viscount Carrington was present.

I mentioned him in a post here in 2008; (I am sorry that half the text in the original has disappeared; blame it on HTML. The second gentleman in this article was a French banker who though entirely innocent, resigned immediately following the appalling acts of certain of his staff). 

Lord Carrington was for me, the epitome of the disinterested aristocrat, a type which  thanks to disastrous experiments with taxation, democracy and socialism, now is more or less extinct.   Look on, Mandelson, Blair & co. and weep.

Sic transit gloria I say.

Afterthought:  I noticed that Mrs Blair has finally found some manners and managed to wear a hat.

Until the next time

Frank Davis Again

This man speaks to me and for me.

Here.

A very sound chap indeed as I remarked before.

Until the next time

More Poetry

Or in this case, Poëtry.  I have expressed elsewhere my admiration and respect for poets, and here bow before one of the masters of the art and shamelessly quote him for my own base ends.

I have restored the correct spelling and capitalisation, because I am a pedant, and that would go down well if shee were stalkinge here (or at least would have...)

The Triple Foole

I am two fooles, I know,

      For loving, and for saying so

          In whining poëtry;

But where's that wiseman, that would not be I,

          If she would not deny?

Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes

    Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my paines

    Through Rime's vexation, I should them allay.

Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,

For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

      But when I have done so,

      Some man, his art and voice to show,

          Doth Set and sing my paine;

And, by delighting many, frees againe

          Griefe, which verse did restraine.

To Love and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs,

    But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.

Both are increased by such songs,

    For both their triumphs so are published,

And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fooles be. 

By John Donne of course, written some time between 1593 and 1601. 

   And here's something which is possibly even older; it perhaps comes from Persia but not from the famous Rubâ'iyát, but is quoted in the introduction to the edition I have by Professor Reynold Nicholson; I have not been able to locate the origin:

How tyrant-like doth Destiny disdain,

To stretch a pitying hand to helpless pain,

But when she stumbles on a bleeding heart

Stabs deeper yet and slays once more the slain.

Until the next time 

(Sorry about the bizarre format of this post, but HTM 'Ell is totally beyond me: if it plays up, there's not a damned thing I can do about it).

Another Reprise: Infinity + 1.1

I warned the other day that I might be re-cycling poetry.  Here's another.

The Hill

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, and birds sing still,
When we are old, are old...." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips" said I,
"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!".... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
—And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Rupert Brooke

It's just that the damned poets have that infuriating knack, talent, ability; but not always only the poets; she was much more succinct:  "Infinity +1"  she said.

Until the next time

Where Do They Find Them?

I found this gem on ZeroHedge.com under the heading "The North Korea Missile test Launch."

Nothing like laughing at them is there? 

Even though the threats continue; this one posted on The Guardian website today:

Until the next time

More Nonsense in the Far East

God knows how many times I have written about the utterly bizarre "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" - North Korea to you and me.  Certainly it is a republic - of a sort, though as the ruling dynasty has now reached the third generation, one might be forgiven for viewing it as a sort of monarchical banana-republic.  It is not democratic of course (though I should add I am not much of an enthusiast for democracy, taking as I do the Marquess of Salisbury's view on the matter) and it is definitely NOT "the people's."  It is in the Korean peninsula however, making the name about 25% accurate I suppose.

The idea of a sort of monarchy without any aristocratic principles is depressing; the results speak for themselves.  A tragic (for the people there) situation where a substantial part of the population are near to starvation, whilst the state is ruled by a stupid, inexperienced fat boy, desperate to establish himself as a "strong man" in front of all those silly be-medalled (what for?) generals and the vast ill-equipped army they command.  To this end, the state persists, in the face of universal opposition, in developing missiles and attempting to develop viable nuclear weapons.

Now the silly clown is ranting about making "thermo-nuclear war" something he is of course unable to do; he is able only to upset Mr Ban ki-Moon at the UN and annoy his erstwhile friends, the Chinese. 

There is a nicely-contemptuous article on ZeroHedge.com which suggests that after months of ranting from  Pyongyang, the yawn factor has begun to come into operation.

Hardly surprising - even the silly boy must know that if he were to be foolish enough to try anything, it would most likely be the last time he did.  It reminds me of that famous James Cagney film, where we see Cagney standing on top of a gasometer shouting "Made it Ma - top of the world!" at which he fires his revolver into the gas-holder with predictable results.

Finally, there's usually some interesting information to be had on the Deep Black Horizon blog.

Until the next time

Infinity + 1 (Again)

Yes, yes, I know I posted this a month ago; it's too good and too important to let it disappear into the past where nobody ever looks, so expect to see it here again.

 ****************************************************************************

Rupert Brooke's the man right now for me - or so it seems. Here he writes about eternal love.

    "One mote of all the dust that's I
  Shall meet one atom that was you. "

Beautiful


DUST

When the white flame in us is gone,
   And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
   To crumble in our separate night; 

When your swift hair is quiet in death,
   And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath---
   When we are dust, when we are dust!--- 

Not dead, not undesirous yet,
   Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
   Around the places where we died, 

And dance as dust before the sun,
   And light of foot, and unconfined,
Hurry from road to road, and run
   About the errands of the wind. 

And every mote, on earth or air,
   Will speed and gleam, down later days,
And like a secret pilgrim fare
   By eager and invisible ways, 

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,
   Till, beyond thinking, out of view,
One mote of all the dust that's I
   Shall meet one atom that was you. 

Then in some garden hushed from wind,
   Warm in a sunset's afterglow,
The lovers in the flowers will find
   A sweet and strange unquiet grow 

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
   So high a beauty in the air,
And such a light, and such a quiring,
   And such a radiant ecstasy there, 

They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,
   Or out of earth, or in the height,
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,
   Or two that pass, in light, to light, 

Out of the garden, higher, higher. . . .
   But in that instant they shall learn
The shattering ecstasy of our fire,
   And the weak passionless hearts will burn 

And faint in that amazing glow,
   Until the darkness close above;
And they will know---poor fools, they'll know!---
   One moment, what it is to love.

Those damned poets; they really do understand don't they?

Until the next time

The Baroness Thatcher R.I.P.

There will be many thousands of words written and spoken following the announcement today of the death of Lady Thatcher and there is not much for me to do in this regard but to express in a few words, my view.

She was certainly the greatest peace-time British prime minister of the 20th century (though not the most stylish - an accolade I bizarrely award to Sir Arthur (later Earl)  Balfour) having restored to Britain a degree of self-esteem following the appalling 1970s.

I of course am old enough to recall the union-induced miseries of that time: the three-day week, the uncollected rubbish in the streets, the farce at British Leyland  with "Red Robbo" and his appalling chums, the green "black" bags, the "nuclear-free zones", the unburied dead, the innumerable absurd strikes, loss-making nationalised industries, the government of the time cap-in-hand to the IMF and on and on.  And later, Derek Hatton and his corrupt friends in Liverpool, the militant Tendency.  Then there was that clown Livingstone in London, with "Babies against the Bomb" (£50,000) and his Lesbian Workshops, his handshakes with the disgusting IRA terrorists, and all the rest of the ratepayer-funded ideological rubbish that he was able to invent.

Mrs Thatcher as she then was, put an end to that nonsense.  There was damage done undoubtedly, but heartless as it may sound, it is my view that the longer one delays treatment for a disease, the more powerful must be the medicine; I have reservations about some of the "treatment" meted out...

Regular readers will know that until relatively recently I lived in France for a number of years.  France is a deeply conservative country, heavily unionised and also has long-established monopolies - the taxis in Paris, the Tabacs, the pharmacies.  There is also the national characteristic of burning motor-cars for the slimmest of possible reasons.  Any time a large company there wishes to reduce its workforce in the face of falling sales etc., there is nearly always an enormous strike, threats to the directors etc.  All in all reminiscent of Britain in the 1970s.  M. Sarkozy was supposed to change all that, but he was no Thatcher I'm afraid; I foresee a grim future for La Belle France.

Meanwhile, when Volkswagen was "up against it" a few years ago, the company approached the union telling them that in future for the good of the company, each worker must do four hours more - unpaid - per week.  The union, I.G. Metall agreed; Germany (suffering much opprobrium from certain spendthrift southern European countries) goes from strength to strength.

It is extraordinary that certain political types seem unable to grasp the simple lesson.

Lady Thatcher did; we should be grateful.

Until the next time.

Could Do With A Good Belly-Laugh

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my views on the last Stalinist state in the world: North Korea.  Mind you, North Korea is Stalinist only up to a point; they would have to work very hard to achieve Uncle Joe's levels of mass-murder, torture and cynicism.  They are however doing rather well in terms of paranoia and famine.

For the "laugh" referred to in the title of this piece, do visit this site.  The site, with a Japanese domain suffix, is the KCNA - the Korean Central News Agency of the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea."  Reading the drivel there, one is apt to miss the terms "fascist lackeys" and "imperialist running dogs" that we used to hear from the crackpots that once upon a time dominated China and Vietnam; we do however get "imperialists," "warmongers," and "traitors," so it's not all bad.

Here's an extract giving a fair example of the dramatic, powerful and convincing prose which may be found on the site.

"The Young Red Guards will turn out in the just struggle to annihilate the U.S. imperialists and south Korean puppet traitors with high spirit to defend the country and hostility as the youngsters in the 1950s who defended the country and villages devoting themselves did.

Discharged soldiers will rejoin the KPA as those during the last Fatherland Liberation War did and turn out in the war for national reunification to destroy the hotbeds of evils as they can never revive again.

The speakers stressed that if the U.S. imperialists and south Korean warmongers ignite a nuclear war, all the people of the DPRK would never miss the golden chance and annihilate all the enemies so that even an enemy might not survive to sign the surrender document.

The meeting was followed by a mass demonstration to achieve a victory in the all-people final decisive battle against the aggressors including the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean group of traitors."

And:

"Anyone who goes reckless, hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership and the social system of the DPRK, will never be pardoned but they will be destroyed as the first target as had already been declared.

The DPRK's army and people are compelled to take notice of the ever stepped-up anti-DPRK invectives by the puppet group instigated by the venomous swish of skirt of the owner of the inner room of Chongwadae.

The group of traitors pointing their fingers at the sky will never be able to evade punishment."

And finally:

Meanwhile, the U.S. deputy secretary of Defense flew to south Korea to finally examine the preparations for a nuclear war against the DPRK and openly said that the U.S. military attaches top priority to the second Korean war, giving green light to a nuclear war.
Accordingly, the commander of the U.S. forces in south Korea and the south Korean military chief drafted a "plan to jointly cope with local provocation". The main point of it is to start a total nuclear war involving the U.S. forces in the U.S. mainland and the Pacific region after the south Korean forces touch off a conflict.
The south Korean warmongers, elated with the backing of the U.S. master, are threatening punishment to "provocation" of the DPRK and even seeking to mount precision missile strikes on the statues of the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, symbol of the DPRK's dignity.

I love the bit about the precision missile strikes on the statues; I am certain that this mission has been on top of South Korea's list of strategic priorities for some time.

I should add that elsewhere, we are told that the DPRK's forces will wipe out all the US bases in the Pacific...  Very probable I must say!

One does wonder what these people have been smoking...

Until the next time.