This is a word which has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in its June quarterly update. The OED says of it:
One surprise of this range was the fecundity of riff, n (and riff, v) in producing new nouns referring to the playing of catchy musical phrases. Besides riffage, this update also includes new entries for the whimsical riffola, n. and the retro rifferama, n. These words entered the English language amid an explosion of popular music journalism in the second half of the twentieth century, coined by critics who apparently felt limited by the staid predictability of riffing, n. The three new entries are only the tip of a neologistic iceberg: OED's files also contain examples of riffery, riffdom, riffmongery, and riffology, among others which may eventually be considered for inclusion in future updates.
I would never have thought of harmless little riff in terms of "the tip of a neologistic iceberg", and I daresay that neither would the great players of them (Buster Bailey, clarinet, for instance). I must let the editors know that in listing other derivatives for possible future inclusion they have failed to mention many important ones such as: rifflike, rifferoo, riffmanship, and of course the ever-popular if slightly vulgar phrase riff off, all of which have appeared in print and therefore qualify for an entry.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
One lovely black eye
It was not until I acquired this the other day (an accident: no other parties were involved) that I realised just how much amusement the sight of one of these evokes: half a dozen total strangers smiled at me when they saw mine and some ventured a friendly jibe such as "Auditioning for the panda role, are you?"; my retort in every case was the feeble "You should see the other guy".
I knew that two of these were the subject of a comic song made famous by Charles Coborn in 1886, Herman's Hermits, and others, and that the original tune was Italian, so I looked it up. It was called Vieni Sul Mar, and to my delight I found that there was a recording of it made by Tito Schipa, whose incomparable elegance and style made him my favourite tenor years ago. When you listen to a modern tenor (or three) giving his all you might well think "What a marvellous voice!", but when Schipa sings you think only "What a beautiful song!".
You can find the recording HERE, together with the Italian words, which make no mention of any lovely black eyes.
[Очи чёрные is sometimes translated as Black Eyes so this gives me an excuse for providing a link to a loud and passionate version of the song, in Russian with English subtitles, with an incomprehensible video in which a half-naked hussy prances about, putting a silly hat on one young man and then hitting another one in the face. It is sometimes described as a Russian gypsy folk song; in fact the words and music were written respectively by a Ukrainian poet, Yevhen Hrebinka, and a German composer, Florian Hermann. The poem was first published in 1843.]
I knew that two of these were the subject of a comic song made famous by Charles Coborn in 1886, Herman's Hermits, and others, and that the original tune was Italian, so I looked it up. It was called Vieni Sul Mar, and to my delight I found that there was a recording of it made by Tito Schipa, whose incomparable elegance and style made him my favourite tenor years ago. When you listen to a modern tenor (or three) giving his all you might well think "What a marvellous voice!", but when Schipa sings you think only "What a beautiful song!".
You can find the recording HERE, together with the Italian words, which make no mention of any lovely black eyes.
[Очи чёрные is sometimes translated as Black Eyes so this gives me an excuse for providing a link to a loud and passionate version of the song, in Russian with English subtitles, with an incomprehensible video in which a half-naked hussy prances about, putting a silly hat on one young man and then hitting another one in the face. It is sometimes described as a Russian gypsy folk song; in fact the words and music were written respectively by a Ukrainian poet, Yevhen Hrebinka, and a German composer, Florian Hermann. The poem was first published in 1843.]
Friday, 18 June 2010
Dream Couple
No 30 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century
August 1920 Annie sends this luxury tinted card with embossed borders from Hendon to Florrie Cowdery in Newport, Isle of Wight. I thought you would like this photo of M.P. and D.F. as you will see it was taken while they were here in London.
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were the great romantic stars of the silent screen and their marriage was made in Heaven and Hollywood. But they also knew how the business worked. They teamed up with Charlie Chaplin and the director of epics, D.W. Griffith, to form United Artists, a distribution company which has survived to this day as a major name in cinema. It was responsible in more recent years for the James Bond films.
Monday, 14 June 2010
The end of ties
We lay our railway lines on sleepers; over there they lay their railroad tracks on ties, while our ties are neckties to them.
But all this is now of no interest, if indeed it ever was, for at last the utter pointlessness of the bits of cloth we (and they) used to put round our necks has been realised, and the things are going the way of spats, turnups and shirts with tails.
During half a century of working life I put a tie on nearly every day (say, three hundred times a year) and until recently I somehow believed that I should keep them all, because occasions might arise when I needed to wear one again. However, I now see that my collection of a couple of hundred of them is a waste of space and two or three would be plenty, so a major cull is in hand.
Throwing away the wine- or gravy-stained ones was easy and I am left with those shown here. Sorting them out would have been a pleasant trip down Memory Lane, except that most of them carry no memories for me and with some exceptions they are an unappealing lot. I do not need to apologise for my taste, for few of them were actually bought by me. There are some lovely ones from my N & Ds, but most were gifts from sporting or business friends and colleagues. [A few nice Hermès ones came from Japanese contacts; as anyone who has visited Japan knows, gift-giving plays an important role in social intercourse there; apart from ties, there were watches and cameras, long since gone, and we have stored a great number of beautifully packaged knick-knacks in what we rather ungraciously call our Japcrap drawer.]
But back to ties. The sporting ones, Olympics apart, mostly commemorate transitory contacts with associations or visits to obscure events. I expect I had a good time at Asztalitenisz Budapest 1982, but I cannot recall the details; and how I acquired the ties of sports in which I never had any interest—Volleyball, Badminton, Pelota Vasca—I cannot imagine.
The business ties with their sad logos are the ones I am least likely ever to wear; the most outstandingly repellent is for an unidentifiable multinational and has motifs looking like festering sores on a background of pus. Others are subfusc and drearily discreet.
I have one tie which puzzles me. It has a picture of the door of No 10 on it and a facsimile signature of Margaret Thatcher. I have no recollection of the occasion when I received it; perhaps the whole shameful episode, whatever it was, has been mercifully blotted from my mind.
As I said, I shall keep just a few of the nicest ties and the rest can go to a boot sale, 3p each or 50p the lot. There is only one in the collection which I am likely to wear regularly in the future: it is the dark one lying across the middle of the picture,
But all this is now of no interest, if indeed it ever was, for at last the utter pointlessness of the bits of cloth we (and they) used to put round our necks has been realised, and the things are going the way of spats, turnups and shirts with tails.
During half a century of working life I put a tie on nearly every day (say, three hundred times a year) and until recently I somehow believed that I should keep them all, because occasions might arise when I needed to wear one again. However, I now see that my collection of a couple of hundred of them is a waste of space and two or three would be plenty, so a major cull is in hand.
Throwing away the wine- or gravy-stained ones was easy and I am left with those shown here. Sorting them out would have been a pleasant trip down Memory Lane, except that most of them carry no memories for me and with some exceptions they are an unappealing lot. I do not need to apologise for my taste, for few of them were actually bought by me. There are some lovely ones from my N & Ds, but most were gifts from sporting or business friends and colleagues. [A few nice Hermès ones came from Japanese contacts; as anyone who has visited Japan knows, gift-giving plays an important role in social intercourse there; apart from ties, there were watches and cameras, long since gone, and we have stored a great number of beautifully packaged knick-knacks in what we rather ungraciously call our Japcrap drawer.]But back to ties. The sporting ones, Olympics apart, mostly commemorate transitory contacts with associations or visits to obscure events. I expect I had a good time at Asztalitenisz Budapest 1982, but I cannot recall the details; and how I acquired the ties of sports in which I never had any interest—Volleyball, Badminton, Pelota Vasca—I cannot imagine.
The business ties with their sad logos are the ones I am least likely ever to wear; the most outstandingly repellent is for an unidentifiable multinational and has motifs looking like festering sores on a background of pus. Others are subfusc and drearily discreet.
I have one tie which puzzles me. It has a picture of the door of No 10 on it and a facsimile signature of Margaret Thatcher. I have no recollection of the occasion when I received it; perhaps the whole shameful episode, whatever it was, has been mercifully blotted from my mind.
As I said, I shall keep just a few of the nicest ties and the rest can go to a boot sale, 3p each or 50p the lot. There is only one in the collection which I am likely to wear regularly in the future: it is the dark one lying across the middle of the picture,
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Casanova in the Convent
It has always been widely believed that monks and nuns do not lead lives of consistent virtue, and thus their transgressions have frequently been portrayed in literature and art for the gratification of the prurient.
In literature there have been many great writers who have strayed near—or even crossed—the borders of pornography in recounting tales of goings on among the devout: Chaucer and Boccaccio (and Balzac who imitated the latter's style in Les Contes Drolatiques) are in an ancient tradition of story-telling of this kind. In art there are of course many illustrations of misbehaviour in the cloisters such as the erotic watercolours of a certain Viennese painter (I give no link to these: OMF is a family blog).
But in opera, improprieties committed by members of religious orders are seldom explicit: nun/monk love arias are rare and never sung in flagrante delicto. No doubt someone will remind me of exceptions to this, but I can think of only one example of a naughty musical nun, and even then she is probably only thinking about it, or trying not to. In an operetta called Casanova, written by Ralph Benatzky in 1928 to music by Johann Strauss II, there is a nun's chorus; the operetta is hardly ever heard, but a few years ago a recording of this chorus made in 1932 became hugely popular and after a period of deletion had to be restored to the HMV catalogue owing to public demand.
In literature there have been many great writers who have strayed near—or even crossed—the borders of pornography in recounting tales of goings on among the devout: Chaucer and Boccaccio (and Balzac who imitated the latter's style in Les Contes Drolatiques) are in an ancient tradition of story-telling of this kind. In art there are of course many illustrations of misbehaviour in the cloisters such as the erotic watercolours of a certain Viennese painter (I give no link to these: OMF is a family blog).
But in opera, improprieties committed by members of religious orders are seldom explicit: nun/monk love arias are rare and never sung in flagrante delicto. No doubt someone will remind me of exceptions to this, but I can think of only one example of a naughty musical nun, and even then she is probably only thinking about it, or trying not to. In an operetta called Casanova, written by Ralph Benatzky in 1928 to music by Johann Strauss II, there is a nun's chorus; the operetta is hardly ever heard, but a few years ago a recording of this chorus made in 1932 became hugely popular and after a period of deletion had to be restored to the HMV catalogue owing to public demand.
We first hear the nuns at their devotions; the music melts into a waltz rhythm, and presently a single nun (the one Casanova is after?) begins a seductive, swaying tune. As the others join in, she soars higher and higher in voluptuous ecstasy (though the words indicate that she is praying to the Virgin Mary) while a solemn bell tolls, until finally a prim chord on the organ reminds us that we are still in a holy place.
There is a later recording of it here by the Viennese soprano Hilde Gueden; others, including Gracie Fields and Joan Sutherland, have recorded this delicious piece of bad taste with varying degrees of reverence and sexiness.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Under surveillance
Why is Google spying on me?
Well, of course, Google spies on everybody in the known universe, and many outside it. But few people have a watcher as assiduous as the one who looks at Other Men's Flowers. My hit counter tells me that almost every day, and sometimes several times a day, someone in or near Mountain View, California (pop. 70,700), logs on to this blog and has a good read. In some cases he (or she) goes to only one page so it is not possible to tell how long he was logged on or to what pages, but at other times he visits several pages and is there for much longer.
For example, on June 1st he logged on to OMF half a dozen times, mostly short visits but including one of 25 minutes, looking at two pages, and one of 66 minutes, looking at seven pages. From the record of the entry and exit pages it looks as if this person is working his way through all the 1,093 posts currently in the blog, a substantial task.
Just because his domain is googlebot.com and Mountain View is the home of Google does not mean that Larry or Sergey is taking a personal interest. It may be that a number of top Google operatives who are nearing retirement after years of undistinguished service have been formed into a team, the OMF Unit (or Squad), and given this tedious but very easy job as compensation for never having quite made it up the promotion ladder. This will keep them happily and uselessly employed for several years; their final report will, of course, be binned unread as soon as it is submitted.
Or perhaps this has nothing at all to do with dear old Google, but is the cherished project of some elderly resident of the Mountain View Sunset 'n Smiles Rest Home who works at it for hours every day and sometimes far into the night.
But what is his game? What does he want? Why has he never sent me a Christmas card?
Well, of course, Google spies on everybody in the known universe, and many outside it. But few people have a watcher as assiduous as the one who looks at Other Men's Flowers. My hit counter tells me that almost every day, and sometimes several times a day, someone in or near Mountain View, California (pop. 70,700), logs on to this blog and has a good read. In some cases he (or she) goes to only one page so it is not possible to tell how long he was logged on or to what pages, but at other times he visits several pages and is there for much longer.
For example, on June 1st he logged on to OMF half a dozen times, mostly short visits but including one of 25 minutes, looking at two pages, and one of 66 minutes, looking at seven pages. From the record of the entry and exit pages it looks as if this person is working his way through all the 1,093 posts currently in the blog, a substantial task.
Just because his domain is googlebot.com and Mountain View is the home of Google does not mean that Larry or Sergey is taking a personal interest. It may be that a number of top Google operatives who are nearing retirement after years of undistinguished service have been formed into a team, the OMF Unit (or Squad), and given this tedious but very easy job as compensation for never having quite made it up the promotion ladder. This will keep them happily and uselessly employed for several years; their final report will, of course, be binned unread as soon as it is submitted.
Or perhaps this has nothing at all to do with dear old Google, but is the cherished project of some elderly resident of the Mountain View Sunset 'n Smiles Rest Home who works at it for hours every day and sometimes far into the night.
But what is his game? What does he want? Why has he never sent me a Christmas card?
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Selection 32
More recycled posts from 2005:
hats
God bless her, and all who sail in her
words
Carelessness in the OED
personal
A happy parting in Manchester
hats
God bless her, and all who sail in her
words
Carelessness in the OED
personal
A happy parting in Manchester
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Anyone want a child's pushchair, needs painting?
Anyone who visits the internet knows that a large proportion of what you find there is garbage, and sometimes dangerous: get involved in it and you may be cheated, robbed, corrupted, or just waste a great deal of time. So it is pleasant to be able to note the existence of some enterprises made possible by the net which are in every way salutary and make all those who use them happy.
These are the sites for giving things away, things you no longer need but which you cannot be bothered to try to sell on eBay or take to a boot sale. The largest and most successful one originated in Tucson, Arizona (like many much less admirable ideas such as deep-fried peanut butter 'n jelly on rye): the Freecycle Network™ is now made up of 4,775 groups with 7 million members in over 85 countries. It is an entirely non-profit movement, run by volunteers, of people who want to give away and acquire things in their own towns. No money is involved.
It works like this: you email a description of something you want to get rid of, or that you want to acquire. If acceptable it will be published; you give only a nickname and your email address is not published but the group will forward replies saying "yes, please" or "OK, I've got one you can have" and you can make contact by phone or email, give your address, and arrange the collection (or, if you're polite, say "sorry, its already gone"). Should you suspect that they are coming to case the joint, you don't even need to let anyone into your house: you can simply tell them that you will leave it on your doorstep at a certain time.
My town has one of these groups with 5,291 members, and entries are currently being listed at the rate of around 250 a week.
The entries are moderated, of course. If you attempt to offer (or ask for) a Heckler and Koch MP5 in working order or a set of coloured photos of Ann Widdecombe in the nude (or clothed, for that matter), your entry will never appear. But offers of items that look as if no-one could possibly be bothered to drive over and pick them up will be happily published, for it is amazing what people might find useful: "two 6-foot planks with some nails and holes in them", or "bag of baby socks, clean, various colours" may well be taken up by someone who has a need for exactly those things.
There is an example here of the website of one typical local group in the UK
Over the last few months I have made a lot of use of a local group. I have replied to only one offer, and this was a mistake: it was a laser printer, and I found after a week or two that I didn't really want it, but no harm done: I put it back as an offer and someone was delighted with it. But I did offer the following:
A CRT colour monitor; 83 LPs; two hundred audiocassettes; a vintage wind-up portable gramophone with 38 78rpm records; a coal-effect gasfire; a scanner; a collection of software; a cast-iron firebasket; a videocassette recorder; 70 videocassettes; a box of electronic cables & connections; a 14" TV; a 22" TV and seven years back numbers of Private Eye.
For some of them I had half a dozen or more requests, and in nearly every case the items were taken up within a few hours, collected within a day or so and the takers expressed themselves very happy with what they got.
This has all been very rewarding but I still have a lot of things cluttering up the house which I don't need, such as two thousand books I shall never read again (or in some cases never have). But books look nice on the wall and I simply cannot give them away.
These are the sites for giving things away, things you no longer need but which you cannot be bothered to try to sell on eBay or take to a boot sale. The largest and most successful one originated in Tucson, Arizona (like many much less admirable ideas such as deep-fried peanut butter 'n jelly on rye): the Freecycle Network™ is now made up of 4,775 groups with 7 million members in over 85 countries. It is an entirely non-profit movement, run by volunteers, of people who want to give away and acquire things in their own towns. No money is involved.
It works like this: you email a description of something you want to get rid of, or that you want to acquire. If acceptable it will be published; you give only a nickname and your email address is not published but the group will forward replies saying "yes, please" or "OK, I've got one you can have" and you can make contact by phone or email, give your address, and arrange the collection (or, if you're polite, say "sorry, its already gone"). Should you suspect that they are coming to case the joint, you don't even need to let anyone into your house: you can simply tell them that you will leave it on your doorstep at a certain time.
My town has one of these groups with 5,291 members, and entries are currently being listed at the rate of around 250 a week.
The entries are moderated, of course. If you attempt to offer (or ask for) a Heckler and Koch MP5 in working order or a set of coloured photos of Ann Widdecombe in the nude (or clothed, for that matter), your entry will never appear. But offers of items that look as if no-one could possibly be bothered to drive over and pick them up will be happily published, for it is amazing what people might find useful: "two 6-foot planks with some nails and holes in them", or "bag of baby socks, clean, various colours" may well be taken up by someone who has a need for exactly those things.
There is an example here of the website of one typical local group in the UK
Over the last few months I have made a lot of use of a local group. I have replied to only one offer, and this was a mistake: it was a laser printer, and I found after a week or two that I didn't really want it, but no harm done: I put it back as an offer and someone was delighted with it. But I did offer the following:
A CRT colour monitor; 83 LPs; two hundred audiocassettes; a vintage wind-up portable gramophone with 38 78rpm records; a coal-effect gasfire; a scanner; a collection of software; a cast-iron firebasket; a videocassette recorder; 70 videocassettes; a box of electronic cables & connections; a 14" TV; a 22" TV and seven years back numbers of Private Eye.
For some of them I had half a dozen or more requests, and in nearly every case the items were taken up within a few hours, collected within a day or so and the takers expressed themselves very happy with what they got.
This has all been very rewarding but I still have a lot of things cluttering up the house which I don't need, such as two thousand books I shall never read again (or in some cases never have). But books look nice on the wall and I simply cannot give them away.
Monday, 24 May 2010
Shameful
One of the nastiest columns in the increasingly rabid Sunday Times is written by one Rod Liddle and consists mainly of cheap sneers targeted at anything he dislikes. This week, however, he was replaced by A. A. Gill, another hack in the Jeremy Clarkson mould, whose piece has outdone Liddle in offensiveness.
In a feeble piece sniping at the Olympic mascots, which are named Wenlock and Mandeville, Gill writes: "...Stoke Mandeville, the hospital where drunk ex-motorcyclists go to get fitted with head wands and bibs".
Anyone who knows what is done at Stoke Mandeville will find this an utterly despicable jibe. Gill should be ashamed of writing it, and the Sunday Times of publishing it.
In a feeble piece sniping at the Olympic mascots, which are named Wenlock and Mandeville, Gill writes: "...Stoke Mandeville, the hospital where drunk ex-motorcyclists go to get fitted with head wands and bibs".
Anyone who knows what is done at Stoke Mandeville will find this an utterly despicable jibe. Gill should be ashamed of writing it, and the Sunday Times of publishing it.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Well done, Craig lad!
It is difficult to see why the faithful are so unhappy about Dr Craig Venter's attempt to play at God by creating life. I mean, anyone who takes a good look at the range of life forms currently cluttering our planet—wombats, vultures, squids, Tories, tapeworms and all the rest of his unsavoury creations—must see that the first (and only, until now) holder of the top life-creator's appointment made a complete hash of the task; it is clear that it is time for someone else to be given a chance to have a go, and a top American geneticist with a neat and modest moustache/beard combo is just the sort of chap who is likely to come up with some much superior life forms, particularly with the financial support that he has secured from ExxonMobil; just think what God could have done if he'd had that kind of backing!
And, of course, he has made a much more sensible choice of raw material; God's attempt to create life "in his own image" was a no-no from the start, as he didn't actually have much of an image at the time. So it is not surprising that he finished up with the jumbled mess that we call Life on Earth. Dr Venter wisely chose to start with a common bacterium, synthesize its DNA, insert the strands into yeast and then into E Coli to make a synthetic genome, add a quotation from James Joyce and transfer the whole thing into an existing bacterium that causes mastitis in goats. It's obvious now, a child can see that this is the way to go, but conceiving it from scratch must have taken great imagination.
Anyway, bingo! We now have a synthetic life form with which we can do wondrous things, in all probability. And of course the boys at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, will be taking precautions to make sure that their little fellows can't get out and cause a nasty outbreak of goat mastitis; still, even this would be less of a menace than the frog infestations, swarms of gnats, festering boils, locusts and all the other horrors which the original creator used to keep his creations properly grateful for his infinite mercy.
And, of course, he has made a much more sensible choice of raw material; God's attempt to create life "in his own image" was a no-no from the start, as he didn't actually have much of an image at the time. So it is not surprising that he finished up with the jumbled mess that we call Life on Earth. Dr Venter wisely chose to start with a common bacterium, synthesize its DNA, insert the strands into yeast and then into E Coli to make a synthetic genome, add a quotation from James Joyce and transfer the whole thing into an existing bacterium that causes mastitis in goats. It's obvious now, a child can see that this is the way to go, but conceiving it from scratch must have taken great imagination.
Anyway, bingo! We now have a synthetic life form with which we can do wondrous things, in all probability. And of course the boys at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, will be taking precautions to make sure that their little fellows can't get out and cause a nasty outbreak of goat mastitis; still, even this would be less of a menace than the frog infestations, swarms of gnats, festering boils, locusts and all the other horrors which the original creator used to keep his creations properly grateful for his infinite mercy.
An early (unsuccessful) experiment at the J. Craig Venter Institute
Monday, 17 May 2010
She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed
This is how Horace Rumpole referred to his wife (she called him 'Rumpole'); John Mortimer took the title from H. Rider Haggard's She, serialized in The Graphic magazine from 1886 to 1887 and then published as a novel in various revisions up to 1896. With over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages it is one of the best-selling books of all time.
[*By the way, why was Rider Haggard?]
I have a copy of the 1888 New Edition. I do not know how I came by it, but I must have been quite young because I remember being very impressed by some of Maurice Greiffen's 32 illustrations; Ayesha, as She was known to her friends, was a great unveiler and the pictures were mostly Victorian soft porn.
It was pretty good value for 3s 6p, with 277 closely printed pages, some featuring translations of the inscription on a fictional Sherd of Amenartas into Greek, both uncial and cursive, mediaeval black-letter Latin and black-letter English, as well as the thirty-two illustrations. It's a great story, and you can download the whole text from Project Gutenberg here, sadly without the illustrations but with the translations; some modern readers may want to skip these.
It has a tremendously plotty and complicated plot with some splendid passages: my favourite describes Ayesha's sad end. She was two thousand years old, you see, but having bathed in the flames of the Fountain of Life back then her appearance has never changed.
When a young Cambridge man, Leo Vincey, arrives with a friend in the African kingdom she has been ruling, Ayesha believes him , probably mistakenly, to be the reincarnation of her prehistoric lover Kallikrates (I said it was complicated) and urges him to to bathe himself in the flames so that he can join her in eternal bliss. Understandably nervous, he is persuaded to do so only when she demonstrates that it is really fun and quite harmless by bathing again herself. This turns out to be a very bad idea, for a second flamebath reverses the effect of the first so that, like Dorian Gray, the years catch up with her.
After much unveiling, "...she stood before us as Eve might have stood before Adam, clad in nothing but her abundant locks...". The flames envelope her, discreetly arranged, and then—ah, then (I abbreviate):
"The smile vanished, and in its place there came a hard dry look.....she stepped forward to Leo's side and stretched out her hand to lay it on his shoulder... Where was its wonderful roundness and beauty? It was getting thin and angular. And her face—by Heaven!—her face was growing old before my eyes! ...She put her hand to her hair and oh, horror of horrors! it all fell to the floor".
And so it went on.... "skin turned dirty brown and yellow", "... no larger than a big monkey...", "shapeless face with the stamp of unutterable age..." The fearful spectacle is described with a wealth of detail: no wonder the whole party swooned (the Victorians were great swooners) as the poor old thing died. Their servant Job also dies, of a fit brought on by terror, but the other two shake his cold, dead hands and then, understandably a bit fed up, strike out for the Zambesi and home, which they reach eighteen months later after incredible privations and suffering.
No wonder She hasn't been out of print since it was first published. The novel—or something like it—has been filmed at least nine times; the first version was in 1899. In 1965 Hammer Horror had Ursula Andress in the role.
[* Because he couldn't Marie Corelli, of course.]
.
[*By the way, why was Rider Haggard?]
I have a copy of the 1888 New Edition. I do not know how I came by it, but I must have been quite young because I remember being very impressed by some of Maurice Greiffen's 32 illustrations; Ayesha, as She was known to her friends, was a great unveiler and the pictures were mostly Victorian soft porn.
It was pretty good value for 3s 6p, with 277 closely printed pages, some featuring translations of the inscription on a fictional Sherd of Amenartas into Greek, both uncial and cursive, mediaeval black-letter Latin and black-letter English, as well as the thirty-two illustrations. It's a great story, and you can download the whole text from Project Gutenberg here, sadly without the illustrations but with the translations; some modern readers may want to skip these.
It has a tremendously plotty and complicated plot with some splendid passages: my favourite describes Ayesha's sad end. She was two thousand years old, you see, but having bathed in the flames of the Fountain of Life back then her appearance has never changed.
When a young Cambridge man, Leo Vincey, arrives with a friend in the African kingdom she has been ruling, Ayesha believes him , probably mistakenly, to be the reincarnation of her prehistoric lover Kallikrates (I said it was complicated) and urges him to to bathe himself in the flames so that he can join her in eternal bliss. Understandably nervous, he is persuaded to do so only when she demonstrates that it is really fun and quite harmless by bathing again herself. This turns out to be a very bad idea, for a second flamebath reverses the effect of the first so that, like Dorian Gray, the years catch up with her.
After much unveiling, "...she stood before us as Eve might have stood before Adam, clad in nothing but her abundant locks...". The flames envelope her, discreetly arranged, and then—ah, then (I abbreviate):"The smile vanished, and in its place there came a hard dry look.....she stepped forward to Leo's side and stretched out her hand to lay it on his shoulder... Where was its wonderful roundness and beauty? It was getting thin and angular. And her face—by Heaven!—her face was growing old before my eyes! ...She put her hand to her hair and oh, horror of horrors! it all fell to the floor".
And so it went on.... "skin turned dirty brown and yellow", "... no larger than a big monkey...", "shapeless face with the stamp of unutterable age..." The fearful spectacle is described with a wealth of detail: no wonder the whole party swooned (the Victorians were great swooners) as the poor old thing died. Their servant Job also dies, of a fit brought on by terror, but the other two shake his cold, dead hands and then, understandably a bit fed up, strike out for the Zambesi and home, which they reach eighteen months later after incredible privations and suffering.
No wonder She hasn't been out of print since it was first published. The novel—or something like it—has been filmed at least nine times; the first version was in 1899. In 1965 Hammer Horror had Ursula Andress in the role.
[* Because he couldn't Marie Corelli, of course.]
.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Letters from Stu Pidd-Guise
Towards the end of last year there was a letter published in Private Eye with the writer's name adding a final note. This has evoked a flood of letters of the same kind; they now appear in every issue in a section entitled Pseudo Names. Here is a selection:
We feel there should be a Pseudo Names song—perhaps to the tune of one of those 1960s novelty numbers.
ANNIE TZIBITZI
DEAN E. WEANEY
E. LO POLKER
DOT B. KEANEY
Please do not stop the silly names correspondence. Man, it rocks!
STU FORDER-SHOW
FREDA GETREADY
ANNA GOKATGO
Would you consider reviving the full column in time for Easter?
THERESA GREENHILL
FARAH WHEY
Only one Pseudo Name in the current Eye; the end of this juvenile rubbish is in sight—heaven be praised!
HAL A. LOOYER
Please don't leave the Pseudo Names feature without a home this Christmas.
A. WAY
IAN A. MANGER
NOAH CRIBB-FAWE
A. BED
Will there be a special Christmas edition of Pseudo Names? We certainly hope so.
DEE
HOLLY
ANDY
IVY
Pseudo Names will not be over until the fat lady has sung the last carol.
CY LENT-KNIGHT
HOLLY KNIGHT
ALISSA CALM
ALICE BRYTE
I was delighted to see Pseudo Names published in your Christmas edition. For me it was the icing on the tree.
MICK SMETAFORS
Pseudo Names, along with Malapropisms and Spoonerisms, should be consigned to the garbage can of history.
LYNN BINER
We were wondering if earlier correspondents could ever have imagined that their letters would result in such a long-running and popular feature.
LUKE WATT
HUGH STARTED
Being German, your English humour I find hard to understand. I hope that there are no hidden meanings that would trigger litigation.
ALICE INORDNUNG
Here in Ulm, I am one of the few people to understand your English way of thinking.
COUNT von SELF-LUKKI
Though I love it to bits and look forward to its appearance, I'm not at all sure what the highly cultured Chinese would make of your Pseudo Names section.
RHODA BORROCKS
Do you think it is due to state censorship that we haven't received Private Eye for two months here in Beijing?
Y.R. WEE-WEI TING
We heartily approve of Pseudo Names going international.
STEPHANIE WRIGHT
DEREK SHUN
It has been a very cold winter here. I should have stayed at home.
S. KEYMOE-NELLE
Of course, it is universally recognised that German Pseudo Names are the best.
DOT SCHLAND
HUGH BERALLES
Re the claim that German Pseudo Names are the best, is it not just typical of the Boche to claim superiority?
ALAIN ZONFONT
DELLA PAT RHEA
We do hope that you will not allow correspondents using false names to slip in subliminal political messages, thus undermining your tradition of political independence.
DAVE SAWINNER
GORDON MUSSGOE
Some say that we need a leader who combines the best qualities of Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher.
BRUNHILDE
We feel there should be a Pseudo Names song—perhaps to the tune of one of those 1960s novelty numbers.
ANNIE TZIBITZI
DEAN E. WEANEY
E. LO POLKER
DOT B. KEANEY
Please do not stop the silly names correspondence. Man, it rocks!
STU FORDER-SHOW
FREDA GETREADY
ANNA GOKATGO
Would you consider reviving the full column in time for Easter?
THERESA GREENHILL
FARAH WHEY
Only one Pseudo Name in the current Eye; the end of this juvenile rubbish is in sight—heaven be praised!
HAL A. LOOYER
Please don't leave the Pseudo Names feature without a home this Christmas.
A. WAY
IAN A. MANGER
NOAH CRIBB-FAWE
A. BED
Will there be a special Christmas edition of Pseudo Names? We certainly hope so.
DEE
HOLLY
ANDY
IVY
Pseudo Names will not be over until the fat lady has sung the last carol.
CY LENT-KNIGHT
HOLLY KNIGHT
ALISSA CALM
ALICE BRYTE
I was delighted to see Pseudo Names published in your Christmas edition. For me it was the icing on the tree.
MICK SMETAFORS
Pseudo Names, along with Malapropisms and Spoonerisms, should be consigned to the garbage can of history.
LYNN BINER
We were wondering if earlier correspondents could ever have imagined that their letters would result in such a long-running and popular feature.
LUKE WATT
HUGH STARTED
Being German, your English humour I find hard to understand. I hope that there are no hidden meanings that would trigger litigation.
ALICE INORDNUNG
Here in Ulm, I am one of the few people to understand your English way of thinking.
COUNT von SELF-LUKKI
Though I love it to bits and look forward to its appearance, I'm not at all sure what the highly cultured Chinese would make of your Pseudo Names section.
RHODA BORROCKS
Do you think it is due to state censorship that we haven't received Private Eye for two months here in Beijing?
Y.R. WEE-WEI TING
We heartily approve of Pseudo Names going international.
STEPHANIE WRIGHT
DEREK SHUN
It has been a very cold winter here. I should have stayed at home.
S. KEYMOE-NELLE
Of course, it is universally recognised that German Pseudo Names are the best.
DOT SCHLAND
HUGH BERALLES
Re the claim that German Pseudo Names are the best, is it not just typical of the Boche to claim superiority?
ALAIN ZONFONT
DELLA PAT RHEA
We do hope that you will not allow correspondents using false names to slip in subliminal political messages, thus undermining your tradition of political independence.
DAVE SAWINNER
GORDON MUSSGOE
Some say that we need a leader who combines the best qualities of Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher.
BRUNHILDE
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Insomnia and the OAB syndrome
I sleep very well, on the whole. When anxious, or dreading the next day, I can usually do as Winston Churchill recommended: "Turn out the light, say 'bugger everyone,' and go to sleep". But sometimes I suffer from Overactive Brain Syndrome, which happens when I cannot keep pleasant thoughts from going round and round in my mind.
In the days when I used to Do It Myself, I would start happily planning something I was making and thrash about sleepless for ages: "I know! I could make a frame of four by two, cover it with chipboard, and..."
Another time, looking forward to going to dinner with some agreeable people, I might think: "I wonder if Ginette is going to give us one of her sensational ragouts de gibier", but in a case like this I would soon drift off in gluttonous anticipation.
Nowadays I sometimes draft posts for OMF in my head when I wake during the night. If I think it is going to be a good one I get deeply absorbed and spend what seems to be hours drafting and re-drafting it. I am never wide awake or energetic enough to write it down, so as with dreams much of it is gone in the morning and the sleepless hours were mostly wasted.
On the other hand, if after a bit I realise that the post is not going to be at all interesting to anyone, sheer boredom will soon send me back to sleep. This happened last night when I was drafting this post. I did remember much of it, so I am publishing it; sadly, it might have contained some good bits that I have forgotten.
In the days when I used to Do It Myself, I would start happily planning something I was making and thrash about sleepless for ages: "I know! I could make a frame of four by two, cover it with chipboard, and..."
Another time, looking forward to going to dinner with some agreeable people, I might think: "I wonder if Ginette is going to give us one of her sensational ragouts de gibier", but in a case like this I would soon drift off in gluttonous anticipation.
Nowadays I sometimes draft posts for OMF in my head when I wake during the night. If I think it is going to be a good one I get deeply absorbed and spend what seems to be hours drafting and re-drafting it. I am never wide awake or energetic enough to write it down, so as with dreams much of it is gone in the morning and the sleepless hours were mostly wasted.
On the other hand, if after a bit I realise that the post is not going to be at all interesting to anyone, sheer boredom will soon send me back to sleep. This happened last night when I was drafting this post. I did remember much of it, so I am publishing it; sadly, it might have contained some good bits that I have forgotten.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Unprecedented for decades, mould-breaking...
...and into uncharted waters, I shouldn't wonder. Anyway, it might be worth watching tomorrow. Usually we get bored with election night after a few results are in, but for this one we have bought a new TV for the bedroom and intend to take a bottle of some modest claret to bed with us and and make a night of it.
We have a very good friend from New Zealand staying with us at present and we (well, I) thought of asking her to join us, but to be honest I don't think I could cope with a threesome nowadays. Ah, if only I were sixty-five again!
.
We have a very good friend from New Zealand staying with us at present and we (well, I) thought of asking her to join us, but to be honest I don't think I could cope with a threesome nowadays. Ah, if only I were sixty-five again!
.
Saturday, 1 May 2010
The Stupid List
Here is an update to two earlier posts: Sugar Pills and Magic Water on the NHS, in which I described the Early Day Motion proposed by the MP for Bosworth, David Tredinnick, and Jackson's crazy ideas, which questions whether a distinguished actor is in full possession of her senses.
Seventy-three MPs originally signed the EDM. Five of these realised that in doing so they were supporting the daft notions of a crackpot and have withdrawn; many others will not be in the new Parliament.
But this still leaves many idiots who admire Samuel Hahnemann's 200-year-old homeopathic cult and are demanding that the NHS should spend money on such quackery. You can look up the names here.
Everyone can decide whether they really want to be represented in Parliament by an MP who is convinced that if a 'medicine' consisting only of water and no active ingredient is 'succussed' (struck a sharp blow) it will 'remember' what it formerly contained and have a beneficial effect on you when you drink it. If any of those listed are standing in your constituency you might write to them to express your contempt for their superstition and at the same time make sure that all your friends and family know just what they will be getting if they elect someone so simple-minded.
Seventy-three MPs originally signed the EDM. Five of these realised that in doing so they were supporting the daft notions of a crackpot and have withdrawn; many others will not be in the new Parliament.
But this still leaves many idiots who admire Samuel Hahnemann's 200-year-old homeopathic cult and are demanding that the NHS should spend money on such quackery. You can look up the names here.
Everyone can decide whether they really want to be represented in Parliament by an MP who is convinced that if a 'medicine' consisting only of water and no active ingredient is 'succussed' (struck a sharp blow) it will 'remember' what it formerly contained and have a beneficial effect on you when you drink it. If any of those listed are standing in your constituency you might write to them to express your contempt for their superstition and at the same time make sure that all your friends and family know just what they will be getting if they elect someone so simple-minded.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Selection 31
More re-cycled posts from 2005:
religion
Every picture tells a story; this one’s a lulu
personal
The most honorific of all my titles
people
Tony Blair has five wives
religion
Every picture tells a story; this one’s a lulu
personal
The most honorific of all my titles
people
Tony Blair has five wives
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Display of humour deficit
A nice change from the Three Caballeros doing their respective unfunny stand-up routines was provided this week by the leaking of a Foreign Office memo suggesting ways in which the Pope might be encouraged to improve his image during his visit to England—marketing a range of own brand condoms, opening an abortion clinic, spending a night in a Council flat, apologising for the Armada and other ingenious ideas hardly likely to be acceptable to the top brass at the Vatican, let alone the old boy himself. Much huffing and puffing from those who thought this bit of drollery was a shameful attack on a much-loved institution.
It was even said that the authors were ridiculing Catholic teaching. This would surely be an act of supererogation: I mean, it would be like throwing mud at a sewage farm, wouldn't it?
It was even said that the authors were ridiculing Catholic teaching. This would surely be an act of supererogation: I mean, it would be like throwing mud at a sewage farm, wouldn't it?
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Large ones all round in Bodbury
It seems very likely that on the morning of 7th May almost no-one will be happy with the results of the election. This does not often happen; back in the sixties Michael Frayn noted that after the bye-election in Bodbury all three candidates were celebrating:
F. Muncher (Lab.) 14,931
J.P.R. Cramshaw-Bollington (Con.) 8,101
S.W. Dearfellow (Lib.) 7,123
Labour majority 6,830
General election:
Lab. 23,917
Con. 16,023
Lib. 9,980
Lab.majority 7,966
F. Muncher: "It's a wonderful result. Not only have we held the seat, but we have increased our share of the poll—a real smack in the eye for the Government. The voters of Bodbury have told Mr Macmillan and his friends in no uncertain terms what they think of the Government's record on such things as the Common Market (or will have done, as soon as we have actually decided which policy on this question it was that our supporters were voting for). And if you take our vote in conjunction with the Liberal vote, it's clear that there is an over-whelming anti-Tory majority in Bodbury".
J.P.R. Cramshaw-Bollington: "I am absolutely delighted with the result. At a time when the pendulum traditionally swings against the party in office, we've slashed the Labour majority in this Labour stronghold. I take this as a most encouraging vote of confidence in the Government—a message from the people of Bodbury to Mr Macmillan urging him to carry on with the good work, whatever it may be. And taking the increased Liberal vote into account, it is evident that there is a definite anti-Socialist majority in Bodbury".
S.W. Dearfellow: "The result couldn't be better. Our share of the vote is up sharply, while the numbers of votes polled by both the Labour and Conservative and Conservative candidates have slumped heavily. This is Bodbury's way of saying "a plague on both your houses—we want to have it both ways with the Liberals." And if you take the Liberal vote in conjunction with either the Labour or the Conservative vote, you can see that either way we've got a clear anti-extremist majority".
F. Muncher (Lab.) 14,931
J.P.R. Cramshaw-Bollington (Con.) 8,101
S.W. Dearfellow (Lib.) 7,123
Labour majority 6,830
General election:
Lab. 23,917
Con. 16,023
Lib. 9,980
Lab.majority 7,966
F. Muncher: "It's a wonderful result. Not only have we held the seat, but we have increased our share of the poll—a real smack in the eye for the Government. The voters of Bodbury have told Mr Macmillan and his friends in no uncertain terms what they think of the Government's record on such things as the Common Market (or will have done, as soon as we have actually decided which policy on this question it was that our supporters were voting for). And if you take our vote in conjunction with the Liberal vote, it's clear that there is an over-whelming anti-Tory majority in Bodbury".
J.P.R. Cramshaw-Bollington: "I am absolutely delighted with the result. At a time when the pendulum traditionally swings against the party in office, we've slashed the Labour majority in this Labour stronghold. I take this as a most encouraging vote of confidence in the Government—a message from the people of Bodbury to Mr Macmillan urging him to carry on with the good work, whatever it may be. And taking the increased Liberal vote into account, it is evident that there is a definite anti-Socialist majority in Bodbury".
S.W. Dearfellow: "The result couldn't be better. Our share of the vote is up sharply, while the numbers of votes polled by both the Labour and Conservative and Conservative candidates have slumped heavily. This is Bodbury's way of saying "a plague on both your houses—we want to have it both ways with the Liberals." And if you take the Liberal vote in conjunction with either the Labour or the Conservative vote, you can see that either way we've got a clear anti-extremist majority".
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Terrorism, a hundred years ago
No 29 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century
January 1911 The caption reads 'THE BATTLE OF STEPNEY: Mr Winston Churchill surrounded by Detectives and Armed Police'.
Anarchist was the sort of trigger word that terrorist is today. Churchill as Home Secretary puts on his top hat and rushes to Sidney Street where the police and Scots Guards are laying siege to the anarchist hideout. A fortnight later Bert in W.Hartlepool writes to Lil Briggs in Perry Hill: PPC and letter to hand thanks for same. Havn't got any W. Soon be with you just about frozen Love XX
January 1911 The caption reads 'THE BATTLE OF STEPNEY: Mr Winston Churchill surrounded by Detectives and Armed Police'.Anarchist was the sort of trigger word that terrorist is today. Churchill as Home Secretary puts on his top hat and rushes to Sidney Street where the police and Scots Guards are laying siege to the anarchist hideout. A fortnight later Bert in W.Hartlepool writes to Lil Briggs in Perry Hill: PPC and letter to hand thanks for same. Havn't got any W. Soon be with you just about frozen Love XX
Monday, 19 April 2010
The spirit of Nelson flashes forth
Rejoice, rejoice! The long decline of the British Empire has been halted; we are no longer a laughing stock among the nations, sunk in nostalgia, currying favour with Johnny Foreigner in the hope of being asked to once more to play a part in world affairs. We have been uninvolved too long in great events and no-one has expected us to act decisively to show our mettle in a crisis.
And what is more, we didn't wait to be asked; after only four days we took the kind of action— brave, wise and above all firm, which used to be typical of us and which made us universally admired and respected.
We sent, not one but THREE gunboats. At this moment, they are in all probability steaming at full speed, ensigns flying, to remote spots to collect thousands of British subjects who might otherwise have had to remain in tropical hell-holes for several days, missing the start of the school term and incurring heavy expenses. Arrangements are being made to welcome them on board Her Majesty's warships (including the Ark Royal, no less; now there's an Imperial echo); wardrooms are being quickly converted into buffets, junior officers are rehearsing their stand-up routines and the Marine bands are getting ready to switch from hornpipes to Tunes from the Shows.
"Hello, sailor!"
"You'll find the ballroom just abaft the mizzen tops'l, madam"
And what is more, we didn't wait to be asked; after only four days we took the kind of action— brave, wise and above all firm, which used to be typical of us and which made us universally admired and respected.
We sent, not one but THREE gunboats. At this moment, they are in all probability steaming at full speed, ensigns flying, to remote spots to collect thousands of British subjects who might otherwise have had to remain in tropical hell-holes for several days, missing the start of the school term and incurring heavy expenses. Arrangements are being made to welcome them on board Her Majesty's warships (including the Ark Royal, no less; now there's an Imperial echo); wardrooms are being quickly converted into buffets, junior officers are rehearsing their stand-up routines and the Marine bands are getting ready to switch from hornpipes to Tunes from the Shows.
"Hello, sailor!"
"You'll find the ballroom just abaft the mizzen tops'l, madam"
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