Flexigesis

Flexigesis is a multilayered performance piece that has started from a (very long) poem overlayed with a soundscape triggered live by Simon Waters. Simon has developed a continuous track but adds from a battery of specially prepared samples that he has constructed from life as well as electronically. We had a creative day recording sounds in the pouring rain and pounding wind along Swanage seafront. Somewhere in the recordings were some things that Simon could use.

The poem itself is many layered with recurring themes and echoes and free riffs of words by the performer. In performance even the microphone will be treated with effects used in the same way a guitarist in a rock band would.

The whole thing will last about 40 minutes and is guaranteed to blow your mind.

Flexegesis, Flexagesis, Flexigesis

My latest bit of work (a 40 minute performance epic with soundscape by Simon Waters) has been called "Flexegesis" for the last 6 months whilst I've been writing it. A sort of portmanteau of "Flexible" and "Exegesis"However, I find that this coinage crops up on a strange site already. So which variant do I choose - Flexigesis or Flexagesis?

Flexagesis could carry the suggestion of "Flexanimous" (having the power to bend the mind) whilst Flexigesis carries "Exigent" (urgent) and, perhaps, "Exiguous" (extremely small).

Twenty-first Century Banjo

Jimmy was very excited. It was his birthday. And he knew what he was getting as a present. When he was younger, back in the 20th century, he would have hated to know what his presents were before the great day; he loved surprises. But now he was older he had allowed his parents to tell him what he was getting. I n fact, he had chosen what he was to get. And he believed he had chosen well. His parents had allowed him to spend up to five credits and his choice cost just four and a half. That allowed a further half a credit for a couple of Saturn Bars.

He stood for a moment under the infra wash and dried himself quickly in front of the ultra vent. He slipped into his silver suit and ran downstairs. His mother and father were both there smiling broadly. “Happy Birthday, Jimmy” they chorused. And handed him a big card. The card had a 3d picture of the Nostradamus space cruiser on the front. And Jimmy was delighted. He was collecting pictures of space cruisers and the Nostradamus would complete the set. “Sit down, Jimmy, and have your breakfast and then we’ll be off” said his father. “It’s your favourite.” Said his mother and handed him a purple and green capsule. “Thank you, Mum” said Jimmy but he could hardly swallow the pill he was so excited. “Careful, Jimmy, you’ll choke.” She laughed handing him a tube of water. Jimmy chewed as slowly as he could but he hardly tasted the delicious breakfast in his excitement.

“Now, Are you sure you’ve made up your mind?” Said his Father.
“Oh, yes.” Said Jimmy, “I’m certain I j know what I want.”
“Very well, we’d better go or we’ll be late for your appointment.”
“Just let me set the Autovac going.” Said Jimmy’s mother and they headed into the street to climb into the hovercar. They set off for the other side of town down the long, empty boulevards and Jimmy’s heart began to beat in anticipation and, perhaps, just a little apprehension.
“Oh dear, do you think I should have put the autowash on?” Said Jimmy’s mother. There’s a whole pile of silver suits in the wash basket.”
“It’s Jimmy’s day,” laughed his father. “The housework can wait till this afternoon. Besides, you know those new silver suits are coated in Repello-stain and don’t need washing.”
“I know,” grumbled Jimmy’s mother, “But it gives me something to do.”
His father caught Jimmy’s eye in the driving viewer and winked. Jimmy felt very grown up.

At last they pulled up in front of a great shiny plexiglass and steel building with a large flashing red sign that said “United transplants” and underneath in blue neon tubes: “You will – we drill – you thrill.” Jimmy jumped out and rushed up the wide white steps towards the great polished steel doors. Inside the receptionist took Jimmy’s details and they were ushered into a small room at the side of the entrance hall. There were shelves and racks of bottles and flasks of all different colours. At last the door opened and a nurse in a starched white uniform buttoned up to the chin came in. She looked a little severe and Jimmy wondered if this was going to be as easy and painless as promised in the advertising.
“Good morning, young man,” said the nurse, smiling so much and so sweetly that Jimmy felt his fears melt away. “May I ask what you have chosen?”
“The banjo.” Said Jimmy quickly.
“The banjo!” What an excellent choice. “Not very popular but a good investment. You will be the life and soul of any party you go to.”
“Yes,” and I’m having a party tonight.” Said Jimmy.
“If I get the house cleaned in time.” Chimed his mother.
“It’s my birthday, you see,” said Jimmy quickly feeling that perhaps his mother ought to remember that it was his day, not hers.
“And do you have a banjo?” Asked the nurse going over to the shelves and taking down a red bottle.
“We’ve hired one for the week.” Smiled his father.
“Shouldn’t you think of buying one?” Said the nurse smiling back.
“We could never afford the top ups.” He grinned and made a little shrug of his shoulders.
“You wouldn’t want to hinder Jimmy’s musical education, would you? It would be so valuable to him in future life.” Smiled the nurse relentlessly.
“Perhaps we ought to think about it.” Jimmy’s father turned to Jimmy’s mother.
“I need a new Auto-vac first.” She said not smiling as much as the others
“Can we get on?” Said Jimmy just a little impatiently.
“That my boy. Always in a rush.” Grinned his father.
Jimmy’s mother said nothing and the nurse led the way through another door that swished open in front of them and swooshed shut behind.

They were standing in a larger room. Brilliant lights glared down from the ceiling. The walls and floor were shiny white tiles and round the edges of the room there were several gleaming silver and glass machines. Some on wheels, some larger and bolted to the floor. Long pipes and tubes and wires ran between them. In the middle of the room was a large, black chair that had an array of levers and buttons obviously to make it rise and lower and tip and tilt. Directly over the chair was another machine attached to the ceiling and made up of more glass tubes and pipes with a long, narrow drill bit extending down from the centre.

A short round doctor was standing by the chair fiddling with some of the controls. He turned when he heard the swoosh of the door and smiled broadly as they entered.

“Aha.” He smiled. “Welcome in….”
“Jimmy.” Said the nurse.
“Jimmy.” Grinned the doctor. Hop up here on the big chair and we’ll soon have you playing the…”
“Banjo.” Smiled the nurse.
“Banjo.” Went on the doctor. “Is this a permanent installation?”
The nurse shook her head slightly. She made a little face.
“Only temporary? You ought to think about going for permanent. It’ll work out better in the long run. Of course you don’t have to go right up to concert standard but he could make a decent enough living. It’s very economical really.”
“Well, we had been thinking…” said Jimmy’s father.
“No,” said Jimmy’s mother. “Temporary will do.”
“Oh please.” Jimmy turned to his father.
“”No, we’ll do what your mother says.”
“Well, we’ve got a few minutes while the machine warms up.” said the doctor busying himself with the apparatus. “If you want to consider what’s best for the boy.”
“We’ve decided already.” said Jimmy’s mother determinedly.
Jimmy’s father turned to Jimmy and gave him the same little wink that he had done in the hover car. Despite his disappointment Jimmy felt strangely proud and grown up.
“Come on, then.” Said the doctor. “let’s get it over with.”
The nurse helped Jimmy scramble up into the chair. The doctor adjusted the controls so that the chair tilted so that his head was directly under the drilling machine.
“Will it hurt?” said Jimmy slightly worried.
“No, I’ll be fine.” Said the doctor and everyone laughed. “Just keep still and you won’t feel a thing.”
The doctor had clipped the bottle of red liquid into the machine and a high pitched whine came from it as the drill started.
The nurse and Jimmy’s mother and father stood around and smiled encouragingly.
The doctor moved over to a bench at the side of the room, picked up a book and started reading.
“Shouldn’t the doctor be watching?” said Jimmy’s mother.
“Oh no. It’s all automatic from now on.” Said the nurse. We could all go and have a cup of tea if you wanted.
“We’ll stay.” Said Jimmy’s mother firmly.
The silver drill descended lower and lower and began to cut through Jimmy’s skull.
“Are you all right, Jimmy?” said his mother.
“I’m fine. I can’t feel a thing.”
“You see there are no nerve endings in the brain.” Said the nurse comfortingly. “It’s quite without feeling.”

After a few minutes the drill seemed to slow and stop. Liquid moved through glass tubes and then the drill withdrew.
The doctor put down his book.
“There you are. All done.”
Jimmy hopped down from the chair.
“Is that it? Doesn’t it need a plaster or something?” Asked Jimmy’s mother looking worried.
“Don’t fuss.” Said Jimmy’s father.
“You can put a plaster on if you want.” Said the doctor doubtfully. “But it’s probably better not to. It will get stuck in his hair and might hurt when you pull it off. Just hold a hanky over it till it stops oozing.
Jimmy’s father found a big clean white hanky that he folded carefully and gave to Jimmy to hold over the hole in his head.
“Let’s all go home and get ready for the party.” Smiled Jimmy’s father.
“Don’t forget to pay at reception on the way out.” Said the nurse who kept smiling until the door shut behind them.

That evening, Jimmy was almost trembling with excitement. The party was in full swing. All the neighbours from both sides of the street were there as were some of his school chums. The neighbours had glasses of red, green and blue liquid and Jimmy’s friends were all drinking lemonola from squeeze bottles. Jimmy’s father stepped into the middle of the room and clapped his hands. “Attention everybody. Quiet please. It’s time for Jimmy’s birthday present.” He fetched a shiny black case from the side of the room and, laying it on the carpet, he unclipped the brass catches and let it spring open. “Here you are, Jimmy,” he said and he picked up the most beautiful chrome plated five string banjo. Jimmy held it lovingly. It felt so strange. He had never actually held a real banjo before. He had dreamt of this moment. He had imagined how the strings would feel beneath his fingers, how it would feel to be making glorious jangling, crashing banjo music. How his fingers would mover faster and faster as “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” neared its racing breakneck climax. How glorious it would be to hear the applause and shouts of praise. Especially from those of his chums.

His father placed a chair for him to sit on. He flexed his fingers and began to pick.

The neighbours shifted uneasily. Little smiles appeared on the lips of Jimmy’s school chums. Even his mother and father began to look anxiously at each other. Jimmy tried to make the music he had imagined in his dreams but all that was pouring from the banjo was a discordant muddle and jangle of notes. The noise was terrible. An elderly lady from two doors up clapped her hands over her ears. Neighbours put their fingers over their mouths. Jimmy’s chums were laughing openly. Jimmy tried desperately to make the music come but all that happened was that the cacophony grew louder and more awful. Neighbours began pulling on their silver coats and children began to jeer. Jimmy began to feel hot and awkward. He could feel himself going red. Tears began to prickle at his eyes. This was dreadful. This was the twenty-first century. It shouldn’t be possible to feel this amount of shame and humiliation. Not now. Not today. Not on his birthday. Suddenly he threw down the chrome and silver instrument and ran sobbing to his bedroom.

Later his father and mother crept up to see him.
“I rang the transplant place. They were very apologetic, of course. It was an easy mistake to make. The nurse just picked the wrong bottle off the shelf. You can’t really blame her.”
Jimmy’s mother made a little snorting noise.
“We’ll make it up to you somehow. Of course, they wouldn’t give us a refund because they said it would have worked perfectly well if we’d had a saxophone about the house.”
“All I can say is,” said Jimmy’s mother, “That it’s a jolly good job we didn’t go for the permanent option.” And they all laughed.

Donkeys

This is a wasted place, this blasted heath.
Here men have scraped and burnt and dug
For sand and clay and and stone while deep beneath
The ancient, roiling tropic nighttime swamp,
The Habitat of dinosaur and dragonfly,
Is soaked into the yellow sands of time,
The blackened blood from some- prehuman war.
But Now the grotesque scars are soothed and healed
And four brown donkeys work to tame this wilderness
Amidst the autumn warmth of Whin and gorse,
The Home of hare and deer and harrier.
They nod the power into light
And, by their tireless, ceaseless work,
The wilderness creeps out from underneath.

More pictures from Wytch Heath

At the risk of becoming a camera bore, here are some more snaps taken in the chill of a Sunday morning in winter.

Winter Sunrise

For reasons which I shan't go into here, last Sunday the 18th December at five o'clock on a very chilly morning, I found myself wandering about Wytch Heath on the edge of Poole Harbour. I'd been lent a digital camera which I had no idea how to work but I took a few snaps of the sunrise. See what you think.

The Sound of Summer

Those who have been waiting for the first day’s play in the Ashes Test Series against Australia were not disappointed. It was so dramatic I had to keep switching the radio off. For some of us, however, the summer game will never have quite the same resonance since John Arlott handed over his microphone for the last time. For thirty years Arlott’s warm Hampshire burr was the very sound of summer. His commentaries were more than about cricket. They were about the very essence of what it is to be human. One of his favourite quotations: “Who knows of cricket who only cricket know?” But many listeners who remember his sharp, rich and humane words may not have been aware of his other contributions to the worlds of poetry and the anti-apartheid movement. Arlott was an accomplished poet whose work reflected the man. But his lasting legacy was that of the radio producer who discovered, developed and provided work for the young Dylan Thomas. John Arlott and Dylan Thomas were great friends and John realised that he had to do everything in his power to keep the poet functioning even to the extent of loaning him money from his own pocket (and which, he later confirmed, was all paid back).
He was brought up in Basingstoke. The family lived in the gatehouse of the Holy Ghost Chapel (in the graveyard of which the unfortunate May Blunden was buried alive - twice). He attended Fairfields School (since the Basingstoke Drama Centre) and worked as a special constable in the town. He was a great connoisseur of fine wine. He later moved to Alresford and, finally, to Alderney where he died. He was a true liberal (with a small “l”) although he did once stand as a Liberal candidate.
John worked for the sporting boycott of South Africa and was instrumental in bringing the Cape Coloured Cricketer Basil d’Oliveira to England.
John Arlott was the greatest sports broadcaster ever, he was a fine poet and an important contributor to the world as a whole. And although he died in 1991 and his last broadcast was as long ago as 1980 we still miss him .
If you want to hear his voice click here and download the brief audio cliphttp://www.radioacademy.org/halloffame/arlott_j/index.shtml

More Summer Lightning

Whilst I recognised the actual line about Byron in the previous post, I couldn't recall the whole poem. This one is much more the image I was after. Although, who Edward Carpenter was, I quite forgot (I have printed a wickipaedia biography at the end of the poem)

The World-Spirit
By Edward Carpenter (b. 1844)

LIKE soundless summer lightning seen afar,
A halo o’er the grave of all mankind,
O undefinèd dream-embosomed star,
O charm of human love and sorrow twined:


Far, far away beyond the world’s bright streams,
Over the ruined spaces of the lands,
Thy beauty, floating slowly, ever seems
To shine most glorious; then from out our hands

To fade and vanish, evermore to be
Our sorrow, our sweet longing sadly borne,
Our incommunicable mystery
Shrined in the soul’s long night before the morn.

Ah! in the far fled days, how fair the sun
Fell sloping o’er the green flax by the Nile,
Kissed the slow water’s breast, and glancing shone
Where laboured men and maidens, with a smile

Cheating the laggard hours; o’er them the doves
Sailed high in evening blue; the river-wheel
Sang, and was still; and lamps of many loves
Were lit in hearts, long dead to woe or weal.

And, where a shady headland cleaves the light
That like a silver swan floats o’er the deep
Dark purple-stained Aegean, oft the height
Felt from of old some poet-soul upleap,

As in the womb a child before its birth,
Foreboding higher life. Of old, as now,
Smiling the calm sea slept, and woke with mirth
To kiss the strand, and slept again below.

So, from of old, o’er Athens’ god-crowned steep
Or round the shattered bases of great Rome,
Fleeting and passing, as in dreamful sleep,
The shadow-peopled ages go and come:

Sounds of a far-awakened multitude,
With cry of countless voices intertwined,
Harsh strife and stormy roar of battle rude,
Labour and peaceful arts and growth of mind.

And yet, o’er all, the One through many seen,
The phantom Presence moving without fail,
Sweet sense of closelinked life and passion keen
As of the grass waving before the gale.

What art Thou, O that wast and art to be?
Ye forms that once through shady forest-glade
Or golden light-flood wandered lovingly,
What are ye? Nay, though all the past do fade

Ye are not therefore perished, ye whom erst
The eternal Spirit struck with quick desire,
And led and beckoned onward till the first
Slow spark of life became a flaming fire.

Ye are not therefore perished: for behold
To-day ye move about us, and the same
Dark murmur of the past is forward rolled
Another age, and grows with louder fame

Unto the morrow: newer ways are ours,
New thoughts, new fancies, and we deem our lives
New-fashioned in a mould of vaster powers;
But as of old with flesh the spirit strives,

And we but head the strife. Soon shall the song
That rolls all down the ages blend its voice
With our weak utterance and make us strong;
That we, borne forward still, may still rejoice,

Fronting the wave of change. Thou who alone
Changeless remainest, O most mighty Soul,
Hear us before we vanish! O make known
Thyself in us, us in Thy living whole.

Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was a socialist poet, anthologist, and an early homosexual activist.
Born in Brighton, Carpenter attended Trinity College, Cambridge before joining the church as a curate. He was heavily influenced by the minister at his church, the leader of the Christian Socialist movement. Carpenter left the church in 1874 and became a lecturer in astronomy. During this period, he moved to Sheffield to live fairly openly in a same sex relationship with George Merrill. A visit by E.M. Forster to the couple inspired Forster's novel Maurice. Carpenter was also a significant influence on the author D.H. Lawrence.
In 1883, Carpenter joined the Social Democratic Federation, and in 1885 he left to join the Socialist League. After dabbling in the Labour Church movement, and achieving growing acclaim for his Whitman-esque poetry, he became a founder member of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. His pacifism led him to become a vocal opponent of first the Boer War and then the First World War.
In the 1890s, Carpenter began to campaign against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. He strongly believed that sexuality was innate. In 1908, he wrote Intermediate Sex, an important though at the time highly controversial book on the subject.
His groundbreaking 1908 anthology of poems, Iolaus - anthology of friendship was a huge underground success, leading to a more advanced knowledge of homoerotic culture. It went to a second British edition in 1906 and a third edition in 1927. The New York 1917 edition is now available as a free online e-book.
Carpenter was an infuence on photographer Ansel Adams. In his early manhood Adams was... "devoted to the comparative-religious poetry of Edward Carpenter, who had close links with the Theosophical community of Halcyon, in Southern California" (Anne Hammond, Ansel Adams: Equivalent as Expression.).

Summer Lightning (An answer)

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.V. University Journalism.§ 1. Calverley.
THE man in the train has settled habits and views, definite experience of life, its problems and difficulties. The undergraduate changes yearly, and is in the tentative period of youth, though the influence of his school and his restricted atmosphere (in England, at any rate) keep him fairly constant in type. He has much of the freedom of manhood without its responsibilities. For him, life is a comedy, or, at most, a tragi-comedy; he has not begun to understand. He writes, if he writes at all, at leisure, and the product of idle hours beneath the shade, as Horace hints, is not often destined to be remembered beyond the year. Horace, who owed his success largely to a good schoolmaster and the university of Athens, is in tone and form, the ideal poet of university life. He is halfserious, half-sportive, with an exquisite sense of form and metre, and he has more university imitators than a dozen good prose writers can boast. These imitators have a zeal for form due to their reading. The study of the ancient classics gives a sense of conciseness, and a detestation for the mere verbiage which is frequent in ordinary journalism. University journalism thus follows a great tradition, but it does not start a new one.
1
An anarchic age like the present is inclined to underrate the sense of tradition, which does not, perhaps, foster the most seminal minds; but modern masters of prose and verse have mostly been trained in it, and the maxim, “the form, the form alone is eloquent,” is worth remembering. In particular, the sense of comedy which comes from playing at life has found expression in classical parody and light verse. Here, Cambridge can show a long line of masters whom she has trained, from Prior and Praed to Thackeray, Calverley and J. K. Stephen. Oxford, more in touch with the world, has been more serious and more prolific in prophets, but can claim a first-rate professor of the sportive mood in Andrew Lang. Calverley, however, is the leading master and his inimitable short line has had many disciples:

The wit of smooth delicious Matthew Prior,
The rhythmic grace which Hookham Frere displayed,
The summer lightning wreathing Byron’s lyre,
The neat inevitable turns of Praed,
Rhymes to which Hudibras could scarce aspire,
Such metric pranks as Gilbert oft has played,
All these good gifts and others far sublimer
Are found in thee, beloved Cambridge rhymer. 1

Garble from Google

I thought I would make lots of money from this site by having a Google Adsense link on my page. At the beginning of the process I was invited to choose an appropriate language for the wording and I selected "English (UK)". The paragraph that followed contained this sentence: "...you'll finally have a way to both monetise and enhance your content pages."
The split infinitive made me shudder enough but it was the "M" word that had me racing for the Escape Button. I thought the whole point of language was to communicate not to cause choking and nausea. I might try again and select Mandarin Chinese to see if that's any more comprehensible.

Wodehouse

Hacking about in the undergrowth looking for "Summer Lightning" clues, I happened upon this site. No help in my quest but quite a good appreciation of the man and his works.
http://www.pgwodehousebooks.com/aboutus.htm

Summer Lightning

Summer Lightning
Over the summer I have been re-reading some of the great books by P.G. Wodehouse. It is a great pleasure to renew acquaintances with Psmith, Ukridge Wooster and the rest of them. I hadn’t realised that, in the early days, Wodehouse collaborated with George Grossmith; himself the co-author of one of the great comic books of the English language - “The Diary of a Nobody”.
However, one of the titles in the Blandings series has stuck in my mind and has been nagging away like an old tooth. It is “Summer Lightning” and it’s a quotation but I can’t remember from where. It could be A.E. Housman or Rupert Brooke or even Wordsworth but it just won’t come to mind. I’ve scoured all the reference books I can find and I’ve searched the web but drawn a complete blank. There are one or two modern uses of the phrase but they’re obviously long after Wodehouse. So, anyone got any suggestions?

TED

The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) 2005 conference in Oxford has just drawn to a close. Did anyone reading this attend? Anything to share?http://www.ted.com/conference/flashpage.cfm?conferenceKey=TG2005

Stay out of the sun

During these long, hot sunny days we don't want to be out in the garden getting burnt and watching the roses wilting under the heat. We want to be inside with the blinds drawn scouring the intenet for excitement. But the heat does turn your thinking processes to "Dead Slow". So for those of you who can’t be bothered trawling the net for anything more titillating, I can recommend the slightly interesting http://www.dullmen.com/home.html. For those of you with a more restless intellectual nature there is http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/home/ Most of the ideas seem to be a bit old hat but none the less worth exploring. Incidentally, there is meant to be a prize of £1,000 for best new idea here somewhere but I can’t find it.

More Sex , please : we're English speakers

The English language is infinitely variable and adaptable. That’s what makes it so useful for speakers and writers in the twenty-first century when language has to work hard to keep up with an ever changing world. However, there have to be some agreed principles and definitions otherwise there would be an almost instant meltdown of understanding. Communication would no longer be possible as the language became balkanised, just as in the aftermath of the Tower of Babel incident. That’s why old gits like me try to keep some of the old rules alive. Not out of some outmoded colonial or imperial yearning but in the spirit of true universal communication. Let me illustrate: The word “gender” has a particular meaning to us oldies. It is a grammatical term to do with the grouping of nouns and for many languages it prescribes the endings that follow on adjectives. Languages may have two or more genders (French has two, German has three). These genders have little to do with sex. Thus Table in French is feminine, Madchen in German (a little girl) is neuter. Recently, however, the word “gender” has been appropriated for use in place of “sex”. Sex is a good old word and it certainly hasn’t gone out of fashion. Sex is what distinguishes men from women not gender. And yet gender is everywhere. Gender studies, gender awareness, the gender gap. I remember gender studies - hot afternoons in ancient stuffy classrooms wrestling with Latin nouns and adjectives. Lack of gender awareness meant a clip round the ear in Latin translation. It seems to be another example of using a longer, pseudo scientific word when a plain simple one will do perfectly well. So please, for my sake, use the word sex when you mean sex and release me from memories of the gender gap in the Lower Fifth.

Jasper Fforde

I’ve been enjoying reading Jasper Fforde’s novels - The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, and The Well of the Lost Plots. He starts out somewhere East of Michael Moorcock and west of Terry Pratchett but heads south through Lewis Caroll’s tulgey wood with distant views of sixties cult writers like Richard Brautigan. He emerges on the Marlborough Downs somewhere above Swindon from whence the reader can see the plot unfolding through a fog of allusion and obscure references . Probably best appreciated by those who like words and writing but terrific fun. I expect Jasper Fforde is a cult already but I’m always last to catch up with these things. Let me know what you think.

Revenge of the Squish

My family were surprised and horrified when I elected not to go to the first night showing of Star Wars episode XXVllCl. The tickets had been booked months ago and were for the very best Pullman seats with waiter service. (They had no problem finding someone more interesting to accompany them) The fact is: I’m bored with Star Wars. I loved it when it first came out because the whole concept was completely daft. And we love silly stuff. The idea of remaking a Saturday Morning serial for the 1970s when the rest of the world seemed so grim was inspired. We fought enormous duels with our lightsabres during coffee breaks. We were kids again. (Actually those of my generation never grew up in the first place but that’s another story.) The first Star Wars was an adventure yarn, a space western but as the series progressed (or regressed, rather) the idea grew thinner and the scripts clunkier. By episode l there was a distinct sense that George Lucas was beginning to take himself seriously. (There also seems to be a rule that the fatter the CGl budget the thinner the film. cf Troy, Titanic).
Anyway, the Family were happy enough when they got back. I waited up and made them hot drinks after their gruelling night out and they were full of it. So I’m not going to share my thoughts with them at this time. I pass them on to you for your comments. Are my advancing years telling? Have I finally become a curmudgeonly old git? Should I have attended the screening just to be able to discuss the matter fully and in depth from a position of knowledge and authority?

GQT Again

That damn programme keeps nagging away at me like a broken tooth. Can anybody explain this entry I found on Google at the University of Bolton (?) philosophy Research Seminar (??) list for 2001:
December 1st : Dr Nicholas McAdoo: (Open University) “'Gardeners' Question Time' Comes to Königsberg: Kant on Dependent Beauty”

Guardian Short Stories

An old and dear friend of mine has pointed out the work of Dave Egger and the Guardian short story writing competition. Read and enjoy.

Italian Rhyme Schemes

I must be stupid or something. I've been writing libretti and poetry for years and I've never been able to fathom how the great opera librettists of the eighteenth century working with composers like Handel and Mozart could churn out yards of the stuff at the drop of a tricorn hat. It didn't occur to me that there was something specific about the Italian language that made this possible. I found this on several sites (original on Wikipaedia, I think):
"In English, highly repetitive rhyme schemes are unusual. English has more vowel sounds than Italian, for example, meaning that such a scheme would be far more restrictive for an English writer than an Italian one - there are fewer suitable words to match a given pattern. Even such schemes as the terza rima verse form with a rhyme scheme: ("aba bcb cdc ded..."), used by Dante Alighieri to write The Divine Comedy, have been considered too difficult for English."
There you go, the Italian librettists had it easy.