Friday, 13 June 2014
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
The Bus 500 conversation: Of men, women and sticks
Yesterday in mid afternoon, Carole and I boarded a bus from Oxford, the Martyrs statue, to Water Eaton.
Me: "Oh we can't sit there. Those are for disabled people".
Looking further along the bus, there was a seat with an ideogram, an outline figure wearing a bowler, trousers, and a stick.
Me: "Oh if only I'd brought my stick, we could sit there. Pity. These seats are designated for men with sticks"
Personable, bearded, smartly dressed young man on seat on other side of the aisle, apparently also designated for men with sticks: "I'm only sitting here temporarily."
Me: "I thought you were reserving it for an imaginary friend".
Personable young man: "I wonder where women with sticks are supposed to sit?"
Me: "I don't think they let them on. Women with sticks are far more dangerous"
Gap of about 30 seconds.
Old woman with stick gets on. Sits in disabled seat. Fiddles with gloves money and bus pass, and then drops stick right across the bus aisle.
Me: "See what I told you. They're far too dangerous to be let on the bus"
Personable young man to no-one in particular: "I think I'll move further down the bus"
Personable young man to me: "Mind the stick when you get off".
Me: "I will. Thank you for your advice".
Bus departs, in series of rapid accelerations and jerky stops.
Me: "Just because the bus is red, there is no need for the driver to drive it like a Ferrari".
We pass the "Eagle and Child".
Me: "I think that's where Tolkien and C S Lewis used to drink beer and suck on pipes, thinking up cosy, unwitty novels."
Carole: "Didn't Evelyn Waugh go there as well?"
Me: "The trouble with Keble is it's so red brick"
Me: "I don't know. I associate him more with the "Eagle" at Thame.
We reached Summertown. Personable young man gets off the bus, saying: "Mind the stick". As he passes by on the pavement, Carole and I smile. He smiles back. I tip my grey fedora to him.
Me: "Oh we can't sit there. Those are for disabled people".
Looking further along the bus, there was a seat with an ideogram, an outline figure wearing a bowler, trousers, and a stick.
Me: "Oh if only I'd brought my stick, we could sit there. Pity. These seats are designated for men with sticks"
Personable, bearded, smartly dressed young man on seat on other side of the aisle, apparently also designated for men with sticks: "I'm only sitting here temporarily."
Me: "I thought you were reserving it for an imaginary friend".
Personable young man: "I wonder where women with sticks are supposed to sit?"
Me: "I don't think they let them on. Women with sticks are far more dangerous"
Gap of about 30 seconds.
Old woman with stick gets on. Sits in disabled seat. Fiddles with gloves money and bus pass, and then drops stick right across the bus aisle.
Me: "See what I told you. They're far too dangerous to be let on the bus"
Personable young man to no-one in particular: "I think I'll move further down the bus"
Personable young man to me: "Mind the stick when you get off".
Me: "I will. Thank you for your advice".
Bus departs, in series of rapid accelerations and jerky stops.
Me: "Just because the bus is red, there is no need for the driver to drive it like a Ferrari".
We pass the "Eagle and Child".
Me: "I think that's where Tolkien and C S Lewis used to drink beer and suck on pipes, thinking up cosy, unwitty novels."
Carole: "Didn't Evelyn Waugh go there as well?"
Me: "The trouble with Keble is it's so red brick"
Me: "I don't know. I associate him more with the "Eagle" at Thame.
We reached Summertown. Personable young man gets off the bus, saying: "Mind the stick". As he passes by on the pavement, Carole and I smile. He smiles back. I tip my grey fedora to him.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Sunday, 18 March 2012
The funeral service for my mother, Grace Moore
Words of Inspiration
These words are take from “So We'll Go No More a Roving” by Lord Byron.
As many of you know Lord Byron lived much of his life in Nottinghamshire, at Southwell, and more famously at his family's ancestral home, Newstead Abbey. Many of you will have heard of his reputation,“Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” according to Caroline Lamb. His letters, begging for money and excusing his own outrageous behaviour are as interesting and entertaining a read as his poetry. Grace loved the letters and the stories of this man who was about as far removed from her own husband, Bill, as anyone could be other than Bill and Byron's common interest in cricket and boxing. The poem reminded Grace of Bill's decline in the last year of his life, culminating in his early death at 56 of a heart attack in 1972. It was a consolation to her. There other tenuous link between her and Byron, was that her sister-in-law, Nell's cousin is Keith Barron, the actor. Keith once portrayed Byron in a television drama.
The poem was written in a letter to Byron's friend, the Irish poet, Thomas Moore. By coincidence Thomas was Bill Moore's middle name.
A Eulogy for Grace Moore
Grace was born on 19 April 1913, the fourth child of Percy Morris, and his second wife, Lilian Ludgrove. They were living in Sheffield with Percy's brother. Percy's profession was listed as second hand clothier, but his real skills were ducking and diving. He came from an ordinary family on Querneby Road Mapperley. Grace's family may have come far; but her son John still goes for a drink with his friend, Phil Lee, on Querneby Road.
Percy was a communist, but had no scruples about taking worker's money. He operated an illegal off course book, then absconded to Sheffield.
Percy had three children, Bert, Edie and Joe by his first wife. Their mother had abandoned them and run off with another man. Percy's mother said: “I don't blame her”.
Lilian was described by her eldest step-child, Bert as “an angel” and by Edie as “cruel”, a term Edie used for those who denied Edie what she wanted.
Percy and Lilian had one more child. He was called Albert. Grace became devoted to her younger brother, but he suffered from epilepsy.
Percy had a motorcycle. He kept tins of petrol for it at home. Paraffin was in similar tins. One time, Lilian was having trouble starting a fire in the hearth. She decided to add some paraffin, but it wasn't the paraffin. Lilian died in the explosion. Grace was 2.
Percy had 5 children and no partner. Percy did what he normally did when up against it. He left. He became a despatch rider in the First World War. Percy was a little man with a moustache who would do Charlie Chaplin impressions. On the German side was a little man with a moustache who also became a despatch rider. Later Chaplin did an impression of him. Percy had one up on Hitler. Percy had a motorcycle. Adolf had to pedal.
Percy survived the war, but his mother Hannah died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919,. One of Grace's earliest memories is of being taken by her dad in army uniform to see her dead gran.
In a more innocent age, children were allowed out to explore unsupervised. From the ages of seven and six, Grace and Albert went riding around on trams and trains for fun.
When Grace was about 14 Percy moved in with a new partner. She already had two daughters. Grace had to share a bed with them, but one of them wet the bed. Grace decided it was time to leave. So she did, via the bathroom window. She never lived with Percy again. She later moved in with Edie and her husband Alf, an engaging extrovert with a weakness for beer and buying dogs off men in pubs.
Grace left school at 14, but never lost her desire to learn
In his twenties, Albert had an epileptic fit at work, while sharpening knives. Sadly he died in the accident.
Grace worked as a pattern cutter in Nottingham's garment trade.
In 1936, Grace met a hard working, sports mad Ulsterman called Bill Moore. They had the same birthday, 19th April. At 2, Bill had lost his father, a ship's steward, in the First World War. Bill resembled Dick Powell, the dancer, and star of the film: “Gold Diggers of 1933”, which was Bill's favourite.
1939 came. Bill enlisted in the Navy. He was sent for training at HMS Arthur, better known as Butlin's Skegness.
Grace did war work assembling gas masks.
Bill was posted to Atlantic convoys. On his first trip, a torpedo ran right under the ship.
Bill married Grace in December 1940. They were separated for long periods. Once Bill was stuck in Algeria. Then he was posted to the Royal Yacht to work on Overlord. Military security prevented Grace and Bill being together. After the invasion Bill went to France. Hard work earned him a 'Mention in Despatches'.
In the late forties, Bill rented a house in Carlton. It would be Grace's home for the rest of her life. Bill's mother came to stay for '3 weeks'. She was carried out 7 years later.
By 1950 Grace was in her late thirties. Bill wanted children. They had John. His difficult birth prevented Grace from having more children.
Grace supported Bill and John and worked hard for them. The boy grew up hard working, and thorough like his dad, but with his mum's desire for knowledge. She did much to educate him. She began learning French with John.
Grace took John to see his father play cricket. Wives prepared cricket teas, but Grace took a stand. She was going to do sport as well. She took up tennis, and remained an avid follower of the game.
To his parents' delight, John won an exhibition to Cambridge, but while he was there his father suffered a heart attack playing cricket. This was in May 1972. He died in hospital the same day.
With quiet fortitude, Grace put her life back together. There would be no more husbands. There was only one Bill. She took courses in French, reading modern classics in the original language. She played the piano and loved Mozart's music.
Grace made friends with mothers of John's contemporaries, and wisely cultivated ladies with their own cars. She kept in touch with previous neighbours. She read, baked, gardened and grew roses and other colourful flowers and shrubs. She travelled to France with a new friend, Agnes, and to Greece with Esme Pearch. Grace enjoyed holidays in Cornwall with her sister-in law, Nell and her cousin, Mary Barron, who owned a cottage near her actor brother Keith's.
Grace kept her mind active by doing puzzles and excelling at scrabble. She learnt to use a computer for a first time in her nineties to play the game.
Grace remained optimistic, adaptable, and hospitable. People remarked on how mentally acute she was, and how modern were her attitudes. A week before her death she had a cataract operation. The operation restored her sight in one eye, but the whole process was stressful. The following Saturday she told John she was feeling low and tired. He encouraged her to rest.
She said that she was not desperate to reach 100. Quality of life mattered more. Her diet of butter, full fat milk, fat cheese and red meat was cardiovascular Russian roulette. Her preferred way to die would be to go to sleep one night and not wake up.
She overcame many setbacks. She thought of others, and had great interest in the wider world.
Thanks for Grace Moore.
Closing Sentiments
These words are selected a verse from Fitzgerald's free and imaginative translation of the Rubaiyát of Omar Khayyám. To Iranians who love arts and science, poetry, universal fellowship and nature, Omar Khayyám is revered. People rally to his memory who oppose narrow fundamentalist Shia doctrine. Grace's brother Bert loved the Fitzgerald translation. Fitzgerald's home used to be opposite the chapel of King's College Cambridge. Grace loved roses, red wine, and sometimes, just to watch the river flow.
These words are take from “So We'll Go No More a Roving” by Lord Byron.
As many of you know Lord Byron lived much of his life in Nottinghamshire, at Southwell, and more famously at his family's ancestral home, Newstead Abbey. Many of you will have heard of his reputation,“Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” according to Caroline Lamb. His letters, begging for money and excusing his own outrageous behaviour are as interesting and entertaining a read as his poetry. Grace loved the letters and the stories of this man who was about as far removed from her own husband, Bill, as anyone could be other than Bill and Byron's common interest in cricket and boxing. The poem reminded Grace of Bill's decline in the last year of his life, culminating in his early death at 56 of a heart attack in 1972. It was a consolation to her. There other tenuous link between her and Byron, was that her sister-in-law, Nell's cousin is Keith Barron, the actor. Keith once portrayed Byron in a television drama.
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
The poem was written in a letter to Byron's friend, the Irish poet, Thomas Moore. By coincidence Thomas was Bill Moore's middle name.
A Eulogy for Grace Moore
Grace was born on 19 April 1913, the fourth child of Percy Morris, and his second wife, Lilian Ludgrove. They were living in Sheffield with Percy's brother. Percy's profession was listed as second hand clothier, but his real skills were ducking and diving. He came from an ordinary family on Querneby Road Mapperley. Grace's family may have come far; but her son John still goes for a drink with his friend, Phil Lee, on Querneby Road.
Percy was a communist, but had no scruples about taking worker's money. He operated an illegal off course book, then absconded to Sheffield.
Percy had three children, Bert, Edie and Joe by his first wife. Their mother had abandoned them and run off with another man. Percy's mother said: “I don't blame her”.
Lilian was described by her eldest step-child, Bert as “an angel” and by Edie as “cruel”, a term Edie used for those who denied Edie what she wanted.
Percy and Lilian had one more child. He was called Albert. Grace became devoted to her younger brother, but he suffered from epilepsy.
Percy had a motorcycle. He kept tins of petrol for it at home. Paraffin was in similar tins. One time, Lilian was having trouble starting a fire in the hearth. She decided to add some paraffin, but it wasn't the paraffin. Lilian died in the explosion. Grace was 2.
Percy had 5 children and no partner. Percy did what he normally did when up against it. He left. He became a despatch rider in the First World War. Percy was a little man with a moustache who would do Charlie Chaplin impressions. On the German side was a little man with a moustache who also became a despatch rider. Later Chaplin did an impression of him. Percy had one up on Hitler. Percy had a motorcycle. Adolf had to pedal.
Percy survived the war, but his mother Hannah died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919,. One of Grace's earliest memories is of being taken by her dad in army uniform to see her dead gran.
In a more innocent age, children were allowed out to explore unsupervised. From the ages of seven and six, Grace and Albert went riding around on trams and trains for fun.
When Grace was about 14 Percy moved in with a new partner. She already had two daughters. Grace had to share a bed with them, but one of them wet the bed. Grace decided it was time to leave. So she did, via the bathroom window. She never lived with Percy again. She later moved in with Edie and her husband Alf, an engaging extrovert with a weakness for beer and buying dogs off men in pubs.
Grace left school at 14, but never lost her desire to learn
In his twenties, Albert had an epileptic fit at work, while sharpening knives. Sadly he died in the accident.
Grace worked as a pattern cutter in Nottingham's garment trade.
In 1936, Grace met a hard working, sports mad Ulsterman called Bill Moore. They had the same birthday, 19th April. At 2, Bill had lost his father, a ship's steward, in the First World War. Bill resembled Dick Powell, the dancer, and star of the film: “Gold Diggers of 1933”, which was Bill's favourite.
1939 came. Bill enlisted in the Navy. He was sent for training at HMS Arthur, better known as Butlin's Skegness.
Grace did war work assembling gas masks.
Bill was posted to Atlantic convoys. On his first trip, a torpedo ran right under the ship.
Bill married Grace in December 1940. They were separated for long periods. Once Bill was stuck in Algeria. Then he was posted to the Royal Yacht to work on Overlord. Military security prevented Grace and Bill being together. After the invasion Bill went to France. Hard work earned him a 'Mention in Despatches'.
In the late forties, Bill rented a house in Carlton. It would be Grace's home for the rest of her life. Bill's mother came to stay for '3 weeks'. She was carried out 7 years later.
By 1950 Grace was in her late thirties. Bill wanted children. They had John. His difficult birth prevented Grace from having more children.
Grace supported Bill and John and worked hard for them. The boy grew up hard working, and thorough like his dad, but with his mum's desire for knowledge. She did much to educate him. She began learning French with John.
Grace took John to see his father play cricket. Wives prepared cricket teas, but Grace took a stand. She was going to do sport as well. She took up tennis, and remained an avid follower of the game.
To his parents' delight, John won an exhibition to Cambridge, but while he was there his father suffered a heart attack playing cricket. This was in May 1972. He died in hospital the same day.
With quiet fortitude, Grace put her life back together. There would be no more husbands. There was only one Bill. She took courses in French, reading modern classics in the original language. She played the piano and loved Mozart's music.
Grace made friends with mothers of John's contemporaries, and wisely cultivated ladies with their own cars. She kept in touch with previous neighbours. She read, baked, gardened and grew roses and other colourful flowers and shrubs. She travelled to France with a new friend, Agnes, and to Greece with Esme Pearch. Grace enjoyed holidays in Cornwall with her sister-in law, Nell and her cousin, Mary Barron, who owned a cottage near her actor brother Keith's.
Grace kept her mind active by doing puzzles and excelling at scrabble. She learnt to use a computer for a first time in her nineties to play the game.
Grace remained optimistic, adaptable, and hospitable. People remarked on how mentally acute she was, and how modern were her attitudes. A week before her death she had a cataract operation. The operation restored her sight in one eye, but the whole process was stressful. The following Saturday she told John she was feeling low and tired. He encouraged her to rest.
She said that she was not desperate to reach 100. Quality of life mattered more. Her diet of butter, full fat milk, fat cheese and red meat was cardiovascular Russian roulette. Her preferred way to die would be to go to sleep one night and not wake up.
She overcame many setbacks. She thought of others, and had great interest in the wider world.
Thanks for Grace Moore.
Closing Sentiments
These words are selected a verse from Fitzgerald's free and imaginative translation of the Rubaiyát of Omar Khayyám. To Iranians who love arts and science, poetry, universal fellowship and nature, Omar Khayyám is revered. People rally to his memory who oppose narrow fundamentalist Shia doctrine. Grace's brother Bert loved the Fitzgerald translation. Fitzgerald's home used to be opposite the chapel of King's College Cambridge. Grace loved roses, red wine, and sometimes, just to watch the river flow.
While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyám the ruby vintage drink;
And when the Angel with his darker draught,
Draws up to thee - take that and do not shrink
Saturday, 27 August 2011
Dialogue Fragments
“Apparently one of the difficulties of depicting dialogue is that the two participants not only interrupt,..”
“And finish each others sentences” said my companion.
‘They are often in competition with each other’
‘You mean, you talk about the history of the Second World War, the English Reformation, and I talk about holidays, garden plants and design’
‘Yes. But I was thinking more that you talk about your state of health, and your difficulties with Anna, your job share, although I feel that you do have a lot to complain about her’.
‘Yes but you complain about your work colleagues too – Simon’s continuous and noisy eating, and the way he manages to turn his desktop into a compost heap of rotting banana skins, orange peel and apple cores, and Geoff Munday, even I can hear him on the phone, when I ring- talking about nothing relevant to his project to foreigners in the reclaimed oil business throughout the globe, all of whom are apparently deaf, and in need of his peculiarly annoying brand of hearty bonhomie. How is the weather in Cairo? As though it changes very much. How are your babies? Did you enjoy the kebabs last night to the computer illiterate from Istanbul?’
“Well I am glad you seem as immune to his charm as well, and you scarcely have any contact with him. If he makes any more business contacts he will be able to fulfil his ambition of spending the entire office day, in noisy and banal conversation with foreigners, without doing any work at all. For the integrity, security and maintainability of company software, this may be a good thing. I think he got into that position at Hewlett Packard. They made him redundant when functionally he was demonstrating the true meaning of that word. Any way let’s change the subject back to the subject of changing the subject. Who do we know who is the past master?”
‘Sue, despite her Oxford education and famous but disreputable relations’
“What! all those admirals – I thought you’d admire them”
“No I like them. They sound very brave and very modest. No it’s the other Lyons, although they’re not the real baddies, its the Saxe-Coburgs and Battenburgs, the Huns as Elizabeth Bowes Lyon used to call them, or as I would put it: ‘over-Saxed and over here.’ Then in spite of having more choice of partner than royal ever, they end up with a chinless army officer, a dippy blond who struggled to hold down a job as a nursery assistant, a polo players’ slapper straight out of Jilly Cooper, and a public relations consultant whose skills in the field were less than those of her most celebrated client.”
“Who was that?”
“Mr Blobby”
“You wouldn’t have said all this about the Royal Family in front of my mother”
“I wouldn’t mention the Royal Family in front of your Mother - it would give her a lead into the conversation, which she would not let go, before subsiding into a heap and having to be taken home. You know that she could not abide being anywhere but the centre of attention”
“Well it comes from the competitiveness of being in the middle of five sisters”.
“My point about Sue, is that in spite of her obvious intelligence, and privileged upbringing, if the topic turns away from pedigree west highland whites, plants, Iceland, physical geography volcanoes and soap opera, she says she’s not interested until she can get back to one of those things”
“How are your prawns?”
“This one seems to have been ‘with child’ – actually a couple of hundred of them, and their feet and shells are very crunchy The smoked salmon is good. How’s your lasagne?”
“Filling. What did you say al Forno means?”
“I think it means ‘in the oven’ the same as al horno in Spanish, but I may be wrong I have never made any pretence to learn Italian”.
“I remember the giggles you gave that waitress on Mallorca when you asked for the Polo al horno. You thought you were asking for roast chicken. She thought you were asking for a horny pole”
“What would we do for amusement, if it were not for foreigners with an uncertain grasp of the Lingo”.
“Yes and where would we be if we had no sense of humour?”
“Germany”.
Pause
“Have you had any success at overhearing other peoples conversations for your homework. Yes I overheard that man at the next table since the pub is empty. He seems to have recently returned from Botswana.”
“Yes I thought he had a bit of a South African accent”
“Yes and went on like unreconstructed colonial. Did you hear his story about booking a table for six in the best restaurant of the best Hotel in Botswana”.
“Well it seems that the booking clerk couldn’t understand his clipped speech and booked him 6 tables for 3. He then seems to have got very officious and demanded to see the manager immediately, when it seems that all they had to do was push the tables together. In spite of this, he somehow ended up having waiter service and free wine in the self-service cafeteria; not a triumph for diplomacy, more an own goal for patronising and inflexible colonialism. To listen to him you’d think he’d gained revenge for the Boer war. Well his story about the trivial incident went on for longer than the siege of Mafeking. How much do you bet he’s said “This country’s going to the dogs”
“Would that be in South Africa or here?”
“He probably says it about every country he visits”
“Don’t you think that too?”
“No, but I do think that deregulation of the media, and the growth of commercial broadcasting, has produced a climate in which television and newspapers pander to what they think are the tastes of young people, in the hope of securing an audience into the future, and because advertisers can make spurious claims which the young will believe, but the old won’t. In a sense Thatcher’s deregulation, which she saw as both democratic and wealth enhancing, has resulted in dumb down. It is up to us to turn off the radio and TV, cancel the broadsheets and get back to books”
“How’s the writing course going?
“It’s difficult. I don’t do vernacular. I don’t do ordinary. I may have trouble convincing the teacher”
“Is he OK?”
“I thought he was the first week, but last lesson he mentioned “Gritty and Northern” in the same phrase 4 times”
“Yes its an awful cliché, and offensive to people like us from Nottingham and Burnley.”
“If he uses it again, the Stan Barstow’s going to find himself floating down the Humber in Billy Elliott’s tutu, his blood sucked by Ken Loaches, and an Alan Sillitoe sticking out of his back”
“Wouldn’t it be crueller and far more appropriate to force him to spend his Saturdays and Sundays at a Colin Welland Weekend Workshop in Worksop”
“What would be the theme?”
“How about John Prescott – syntax on the edge”
“Talking of Sillitoe, he didn’t write Saturday Night and Sunday Morning sitting in a Radford district back to back. He started it on the beach at Deya in Mallorca, which is about half a mile from where I started my semi-professional writing research. Apparently he’d gone to visit the writing guru Robert Graves, who suggested he write about something he knew: Nottingham, course fishing, cross-country, beer, borstal, national service, and adultery. It was what people knew about and liked, particularly the adultery. In those days it was grim ‘oop Noorth. People had to work in mines factories or mills. They’re lucky now globalisation has moved all the mines, factories and mills to Africa and Asia”
“Now they have cars, gardens, central heating and hot water, even bidets fixes and indoor badinage. They work at supermarket check-outs, and run D H Lawrence theme weekends, with a chance to meet a real ex-miner, or perhaps even an ex-gamekeeper. The North is now classed as part of our heritage, which means people aren’t really doing anything worthwhile. It’s catching up with Cornwall”
“And finish each others sentences” said my companion.
‘They are often in competition with each other’
‘You mean, you talk about the history of the Second World War, the English Reformation, and I talk about holidays, garden plants and design’
‘Yes. But I was thinking more that you talk about your state of health, and your difficulties with Anna, your job share, although I feel that you do have a lot to complain about her’.
‘Yes but you complain about your work colleagues too – Simon’s continuous and noisy eating, and the way he manages to turn his desktop into a compost heap of rotting banana skins, orange peel and apple cores, and Geoff Munday, even I can hear him on the phone, when I ring- talking about nothing relevant to his project to foreigners in the reclaimed oil business throughout the globe, all of whom are apparently deaf, and in need of his peculiarly annoying brand of hearty bonhomie. How is the weather in Cairo? As though it changes very much. How are your babies? Did you enjoy the kebabs last night to the computer illiterate from Istanbul?’
“Well I am glad you seem as immune to his charm as well, and you scarcely have any contact with him. If he makes any more business contacts he will be able to fulfil his ambition of spending the entire office day, in noisy and banal conversation with foreigners, without doing any work at all. For the integrity, security and maintainability of company software, this may be a good thing. I think he got into that position at Hewlett Packard. They made him redundant when functionally he was demonstrating the true meaning of that word. Any way let’s change the subject back to the subject of changing the subject. Who do we know who is the past master?”
‘Sue, despite her Oxford education and famous but disreputable relations’
“What! all those admirals – I thought you’d admire them”
“No I like them. They sound very brave and very modest. No it’s the other Lyons, although they’re not the real baddies, its the Saxe-Coburgs and Battenburgs, the Huns as Elizabeth Bowes Lyon used to call them, or as I would put it: ‘over-Saxed and over here.’ Then in spite of having more choice of partner than royal ever, they end up with a chinless army officer, a dippy blond who struggled to hold down a job as a nursery assistant, a polo players’ slapper straight out of Jilly Cooper, and a public relations consultant whose skills in the field were less than those of her most celebrated client.”
“Who was that?”
“Mr Blobby”
“You wouldn’t have said all this about the Royal Family in front of my mother”
“I wouldn’t mention the Royal Family in front of your Mother - it would give her a lead into the conversation, which she would not let go, before subsiding into a heap and having to be taken home. You know that she could not abide being anywhere but the centre of attention”
“Well it comes from the competitiveness of being in the middle of five sisters”.
“My point about Sue, is that in spite of her obvious intelligence, and privileged upbringing, if the topic turns away from pedigree west highland whites, plants, Iceland, physical geography volcanoes and soap opera, she says she’s not interested until she can get back to one of those things”
“How are your prawns?”
“This one seems to have been ‘with child’ – actually a couple of hundred of them, and their feet and shells are very crunchy The smoked salmon is good. How’s your lasagne?”
“Filling. What did you say al Forno means?”
“I think it means ‘in the oven’ the same as al horno in Spanish, but I may be wrong I have never made any pretence to learn Italian”.
“I remember the giggles you gave that waitress on Mallorca when you asked for the Polo al horno. You thought you were asking for roast chicken. She thought you were asking for a horny pole”
“What would we do for amusement, if it were not for foreigners with an uncertain grasp of the Lingo”.
“Yes and where would we be if we had no sense of humour?”
“Germany”.
Pause
“Have you had any success at overhearing other peoples conversations for your homework. Yes I overheard that man at the next table since the pub is empty. He seems to have recently returned from Botswana.”
“Yes I thought he had a bit of a South African accent”
“Yes and went on like unreconstructed colonial. Did you hear his story about booking a table for six in the best restaurant of the best Hotel in Botswana”.
“Well it seems that the booking clerk couldn’t understand his clipped speech and booked him 6 tables for 3. He then seems to have got very officious and demanded to see the manager immediately, when it seems that all they had to do was push the tables together. In spite of this, he somehow ended up having waiter service and free wine in the self-service cafeteria; not a triumph for diplomacy, more an own goal for patronising and inflexible colonialism. To listen to him you’d think he’d gained revenge for the Boer war. Well his story about the trivial incident went on for longer than the siege of Mafeking. How much do you bet he’s said “This country’s going to the dogs”
“Would that be in South Africa or here?”
“He probably says it about every country he visits”
“Don’t you think that too?”
“No, but I do think that deregulation of the media, and the growth of commercial broadcasting, has produced a climate in which television and newspapers pander to what they think are the tastes of young people, in the hope of securing an audience into the future, and because advertisers can make spurious claims which the young will believe, but the old won’t. In a sense Thatcher’s deregulation, which she saw as both democratic and wealth enhancing, has resulted in dumb down. It is up to us to turn off the radio and TV, cancel the broadsheets and get back to books”
“How’s the writing course going?
“It’s difficult. I don’t do vernacular. I don’t do ordinary. I may have trouble convincing the teacher”
“Is he OK?”
“I thought he was the first week, but last lesson he mentioned “Gritty and Northern” in the same phrase 4 times”
“Yes its an awful cliché, and offensive to people like us from Nottingham and Burnley.”
“If he uses it again, the Stan Barstow’s going to find himself floating down the Humber in Billy Elliott’s tutu, his blood sucked by Ken Loaches, and an Alan Sillitoe sticking out of his back”
“Wouldn’t it be crueller and far more appropriate to force him to spend his Saturdays and Sundays at a Colin Welland Weekend Workshop in Worksop”
“What would be the theme?”
“How about John Prescott – syntax on the edge”
“Talking of Sillitoe, he didn’t write Saturday Night and Sunday Morning sitting in a Radford district back to back. He started it on the beach at Deya in Mallorca, which is about half a mile from where I started my semi-professional writing research. Apparently he’d gone to visit the writing guru Robert Graves, who suggested he write about something he knew: Nottingham, course fishing, cross-country, beer, borstal, national service, and adultery. It was what people knew about and liked, particularly the adultery. In those days it was grim ‘oop Noorth. People had to work in mines factories or mills. They’re lucky now globalisation has moved all the mines, factories and mills to Africa and Asia”
“Now they have cars, gardens, central heating and hot water, even bidets fixes and indoor badinage. They work at supermarket check-outs, and run D H Lawrence theme weekends, with a chance to meet a real ex-miner, or perhaps even an ex-gamekeeper. The North is now classed as part of our heritage, which means people aren’t really doing anything worthwhile. It’s catching up with Cornwall”
An old lady a literary muse
“So I’m the plaything of your imagination now, am I?” she said. “Alan Bennett’s used me and discarded me like a a…”
“Lothario?” I suggested.
“Don’t be dirty, young man, that’s not what you call that nice Mr Bennett. I meant like a plastic cup?”
“Well I shall do my best with the dry brown spots and runnels, the sides torn into stripes like the spikes of a lost and rolling coronet”. I lapsed into fanciful metaphor.
“Yes but no-one will no-one pick me up and set me on Stanley Baker’s Welsh head, crowned King in a muddy Leicestershire field, as he ushers in the drama and glory of Tudor England” replied my cinematically versed muse.
“Well” I said, “We writers use people worse than philanderers. They only use people’s bodies before discarding them, we seek out souls, expose and destroy them. We are inquisitors and furies, and people would do well to deny us intimacy. Not only do we take others’ souls, we sell our own to Mephistopheles, take Marlowe for example”.
“Are yes” she said “Down these mean streets a man must sometimes go. But in my case I only get mean streets to walk down, and to stand and wait at ruined bus shelters. It is then I feel at odds with Milton, that they also serve who only stand and wait for a 42 to Camden Town. I have aspirations to heroism. Dad I think Ibsen called it”.
“No not Philip Marlow, Christopher Marlowe”, said I sounding exasperated, perhaps unfairly.
“And did he come to a sticky end?” she said
“Oh frequently.” I said, “But it’s said the devil’s dog died a dastardly death, dug deeply by a dirty dagger in Deptford”
“Oh its rough round there” she said “My late husband Sid, was a taxi driver and he would never go sarf of the river after 10 pm - all of the them yardies”
“Well Chris was more into back alleys than yardies, but he certainly liked a bit of rough”
“Was he in debt, behind with the rent?”
“No. More behind with the rent boy, I would say. Although some say Marlowe did not die, he re-invented himself. He acquired a provincial background, fake Brummie accent and baldy wig, calling himself William Shakespeare, although how Mr Fakespeare was supposed to have acquired his brilliant education and knowledge of the customs and mores of court life has never been adequately explained. Some say he got this knowledge from his patron, the Earl of Essex”
“And what happened to Essex?”.
“After going up an down in royal favour faster than his girlfriends’ knickers, the queen had him executed for his for his failed policy of compromise in Northern Ireland, his over familiar demeanour, and for flaunting his purple furry dice at her fainting ladies in waiting”
“So he lost his head for a disastrous accommodation with violent Catholic rebels in Northern Ireland. Does that mean that Mowlam, Mandelson and Reid will suffer the same fate?”
“Let’s not be too political or too hopeful” I said. “Anyway this piece is supposed to be literary and about you, can I give you a name?”
“Amanda she said – I loved Noel Coward’s plays, so witty, and urbane. He had heroines called Amanda, but all I really wish is that you keep me alive and stop me being mundane. Stop me ending up in a mawkish Ralph McTell song. You can abuse my Rubenesque body until its Baroquen! Make me run through your text, ‘Naked as Nietzsche Intended’, and have Friedrich, Julie Andrews and me climb every mountain of metaphysical expression, although I have no preference as to whether my mensch is ueber or unter, so long as he’s witty and gentle”
“Sturm and Drang!” I replied.
“I ain’t having any of them Sturmtruppen” – she said “Conformist Nancy boy skinheads”
“No I mean ‘struggle and desire’, the essence of Nietzsche”, I said “just like I go through to finish an essay”
“No SA. No Brownshirts”, she persisted, “and what happened to Nietzsche,-remind me?”, she enquired.
“He went sick, mad and eventually died from syphilis.”
“Does it always drive you mad”, she said.
“Nearly always, but Julie Andrews advising him to think of his favourite things made it certain. His brain rotted second. It was his second favourite organ”
“Lothario?” I suggested.
“Don’t be dirty, young man, that’s not what you call that nice Mr Bennett. I meant like a plastic cup?”
“Well I shall do my best with the dry brown spots and runnels, the sides torn into stripes like the spikes of a lost and rolling coronet”. I lapsed into fanciful metaphor.
“Yes but no-one will no-one pick me up and set me on Stanley Baker’s Welsh head, crowned King in a muddy Leicestershire field, as he ushers in the drama and glory of Tudor England” replied my cinematically versed muse.
“Well” I said, “We writers use people worse than philanderers. They only use people’s bodies before discarding them, we seek out souls, expose and destroy them. We are inquisitors and furies, and people would do well to deny us intimacy. Not only do we take others’ souls, we sell our own to Mephistopheles, take Marlowe for example”.
“Are yes” she said “Down these mean streets a man must sometimes go. But in my case I only get mean streets to walk down, and to stand and wait at ruined bus shelters. It is then I feel at odds with Milton, that they also serve who only stand and wait for a 42 to Camden Town. I have aspirations to heroism. Dad I think Ibsen called it”.
“No not Philip Marlow, Christopher Marlowe”, said I sounding exasperated, perhaps unfairly.
“And did he come to a sticky end?” she said
“Oh frequently.” I said, “But it’s said the devil’s dog died a dastardly death, dug deeply by a dirty dagger in Deptford”
“Oh its rough round there” she said “My late husband Sid, was a taxi driver and he would never go sarf of the river after 10 pm - all of the them yardies”
“Well Chris was more into back alleys than yardies, but he certainly liked a bit of rough”
“Was he in debt, behind with the rent?”
“No. More behind with the rent boy, I would say. Although some say Marlowe did not die, he re-invented himself. He acquired a provincial background, fake Brummie accent and baldy wig, calling himself William Shakespeare, although how Mr Fakespeare was supposed to have acquired his brilliant education and knowledge of the customs and mores of court life has never been adequately explained. Some say he got this knowledge from his patron, the Earl of Essex”
“And what happened to Essex?”.
“After going up an down in royal favour faster than his girlfriends’ knickers, the queen had him executed for his for his failed policy of compromise in Northern Ireland, his over familiar demeanour, and for flaunting his purple furry dice at her fainting ladies in waiting”
“So he lost his head for a disastrous accommodation with violent Catholic rebels in Northern Ireland. Does that mean that Mowlam, Mandelson and Reid will suffer the same fate?”
“Let’s not be too political or too hopeful” I said. “Anyway this piece is supposed to be literary and about you, can I give you a name?”
“Amanda she said – I loved Noel Coward’s plays, so witty, and urbane. He had heroines called Amanda, but all I really wish is that you keep me alive and stop me being mundane. Stop me ending up in a mawkish Ralph McTell song. You can abuse my Rubenesque body until its Baroquen! Make me run through your text, ‘Naked as Nietzsche Intended’, and have Friedrich, Julie Andrews and me climb every mountain of metaphysical expression, although I have no preference as to whether my mensch is ueber or unter, so long as he’s witty and gentle”
“Sturm and Drang!” I replied.
“I ain’t having any of them Sturmtruppen” – she said “Conformist Nancy boy skinheads”
“No I mean ‘struggle and desire’, the essence of Nietzsche”, I said “just like I go through to finish an essay”
“No SA. No Brownshirts”, she persisted, “and what happened to Nietzsche,-remind me?”, she enquired.
“He went sick, mad and eventually died from syphilis.”
“Does it always drive you mad”, she said.
“Nearly always, but Julie Andrews advising him to think of his favourite things made it certain. His brain rotted second. It was his second favourite organ”
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