Self-Winding · A Sort of Progression

Sunday, November 27, 2005

I'm doing some lazy blogging lately - no real writing involved. In mitigation, I have had a mad fortnight, finishing up with visitors both days of this week-end for nosh. Today, though, I was spoiled by the Colonel who brought and cooked steaks - garlicky-marinaded, delicious. All I had to do was provide spuds, salad and pud. He will be living in the little house down the drive for only two more weeks - the packing cases have arrived for the great USA return. As the days dwindle, I get more emotional about losing our good mate. He made my first experiment in being a landlady an entirely happy experience, I can't imagine being able to find anyone to follow that. But I must try.


There's a new series of ISIHAC on Radio 4. I try to include the re-definitions when I catch them - this is Sunday's collection.




Mish Mash - a drunk who is late for church
Muzzletoff - what to do to a member of the Countryside Alliance
Subdued - a less than cool person
Himalaya - a transexual rooster
Dynamite - take a flea out to lunch
Stalagmite - prison camp for fleas
Cursory - where young people learn to swear
Encyclopedia - a sexual attraction to small bikes
Urethra - soul singer who takes the p-ss
Jugular - busty vampire
Kingdom - a royal contraceptive
Randomize - squint
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Saturday, November 26, 2005

Windows 12






















Cedric HORNER Winter Evening Drive
This is such a clever painting, a favourite that captures a familiar view.
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Lente, lente

In a discussion on the shelving of the Turner Report on radio today, a great phrase came from the chairman of an earlier committee on the benefits system, "Well," he said, "the government's response is obviously designed to maintain the momentum of procrastination."
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Vital Statistics meme

I drive: a 1996 Rover 416 Sli - Honda engine, racing green with accents of rust; bought, truthfully, to oblige a suddenly widowed non-driving friend, but I have become fond of it. I do not like over-smart cars.

If I have time to myself: I play my unpopular music very loud; eat cold baked beans from the tin; daydream - or "moon about" as Mum put it; read whole books at a gulp; lie down and gaze at the sky; sleep.

You wouldn't know it but I'm very good at: arbitration - I can nearly always broker an agreement. Massage - my hands transfer heat - which some find healing.

I am no good at: anything to do with money - making it or managing it; timekeeping; visualisation; singing; flirting.

A book that changed me: The Epistles of St Paul (The great - "And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing." And the not so great - "Let your women keep silent in the churches...and if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home.") And, prosaically, Burnett's "The Secret Garden" that gave me my love of growing things.

Movie heaven: Queen Christina: Pather Panchali; Cool Hand Luke; Ben Hur and all Hollywood epics; Don't Look Now: In the Heat of the Night; Bladerunner; Gladiator.

Comfort eating: potato crisps; cheese; custard; peanut butter; Maltesers.

When I was a child I wanted to be: a dress designer; a journalist; a monk.

All my spare money goes on: house improvements; travel; books; music.

At night I dream of: being closed in and unable to breathe; clinging to a high platform through which I see the sea far below. An unseen man behind me in a crowd who clasps my shoulder - from which I know, with joy, that everything will now be alright. My father?


My favourite building: St Paul's: King's College Chapel; The Crystal Palace; The Forum, Norwich; Rennie Mackintosh's House for an Art Lover; Guggenheim NY: Tate St Ives; most Georgian farmhouses.

My biggest regret: persisting too long with a failed relationship; not having the courage to take two related, risky, important chances. My various unkindnesses.

If I wasn't me I'd like to be: For real - Helen Mirren; Jane Goodall; Kate Blanchett; Cleo Laine; Germaine Greer. For mad fantasy: Julie Birchill; Zandra Rhodes; Bjork.

My favourite artists: de Hooch; Ucello; Cassatt; Van Gogh; Samuel Palmer; Monet; Hopper; Freud; Moore; Frink.

The soundtrack to my life: Bach; Mozart; Schutz; Brahms; Mahler; Puccini; Elgar; Glass. REM; Brel: Paul Simon: Dylan; Pine; Miles Davis; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

The best invention ever: the printing press; the internet; the espresso coffee machine.


This has been doing the rounds for quite a while; Dick's and Sam's are among the most interesting.
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Wednesday, November 16, 2005


I came across this poem in a rather nice looking volume of Selected Verse by Alfred Noyes, published in 1922, that I picked up in a charity shop. For all its thees and thous, it spoke to me very directly and has gone into my bedside folder..



Distant Voices

Remember the house of thy father,
When the palaces open before thee,
And the music would make thee forget.
When the cities are glittering around thee.
Remember the lamp in the evening,
The loneliness and the peace.

When the deep things that cannot be spoken
Are drowned in a riot of laughter,
And the proud wine foams in thy cup;
In the day when thy wealth is upon thee,
Remember the path through the pine-wood,
Remember the ways of thy peace.

Remember - remember - remember -
When the cares of this world and its treaure
Have dulled the swift eyes of thy youth;
When beauty and longing forsake thee,
And there is no hope in the darkness,
And the soul is drowned in the flesh;

Turn, then, to the house of thy boyhood,
To the sea and the hills that would heal thee,
To the voices of those thou hast lost.
The still small voices that loved thee,
Whispering out of the silence,
Remember - remember - remember -

Remember the house of thy father,
Remember the paths of thy peace.
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Back ends of Derbyshire

Three bums
Each time I looked at that Christopher Wormell sheep print it reminded me of something. Now I remember, it was the three bums that caught my attention while walking somewhere in Derbyshire a couple of years ago.
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Monday, November 14, 2005

Windows. No 11.


Person at the Window: Salvador Dali. 1925
The artist's sister Ana Maria. The colour in reproductions is so varied that it's hard to know the real painting. Has anyone seen it in the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, Madrid?
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Saturday, November 12, 2005

The art beneath my hand

Christopher WormellThere's a new kitchen and wine shop at Holkham Hall on the North Norfolk coast, very swish it is too. Adnams, the Suffolk brewers and wine specialists are well represented there; wine by the case, crowded bins of desirable, expensive vintages. So, what did I buy there? A mouse mat.

Ah, but not just any old one - this was "Umbrellas" - one of the clever series of adverts for Adnams created by the artist Christopher Wormell. He's a self-taught engraver with a style all his own. His wonderful lino-cuts use strong primary colour, defined and emboldened by black emphases. They have a thirties feel to them.

I love the punch of his work that grabs attention, the satisfying way he gets in close to his subject, filling the frame. His wood engravings are so self-assured, they have all the elegance of Thomas Bewick with whom he feels kinship. An interesting man with a very individual approach to graphics - Wormell's commercial work is witty and seizes the spirit of the product. The fine wines and the Beer from the Coast are tasty items, but my £3.50 mat will give me more enduring pleasure.

By the way, for the artists and creative souls who read this blog sometimes - if you could find a use for a handy grand, you might like to try the Adnams Flying Egg Competition. Right up Natalie's street, I should think.
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Thursday, November 10, 2005

Which Action Hero Would You Be?

You scored as William Wallace. The great Scottish warrior William Wallace led his people against their English oppressors in a campaign that won independence for Scotland and immortalized him in the hearts of his countrymen. With his warrior's heart, tactician's mind, and poet's soul, Wallace was a brilliant leader. He just wanted to live a simple life on his farm, but he gave it up to help his country in its time of need.


Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com




William Wallace - 54%
Maximus - 50%
Batman - 48%
The Dark Knight - 46%
Captain Jack Sparrow - 46%
El Zorro - 46%
The Terminator - 42%
The Amazing Spiderman - 38%
Indiana Jones - 33%
Neo, The One - 28%
James Bond - 25%
Lara Croft - 21%

How predictable, I'm the good guy again - I was vainly hoping for Lara Croft. I hadn't noticed before, Mel has very hairy arms. Reminds me, when we visited Edinburgh Castle one of the guides said scathingly "Mel Gibson, pish, he's tha puny he couldn'a even lift Wallace's sword.")
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Dusk comes early now

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Skiving

I haven't been online for four days. No email, no blog reading. Night is my internet time and every evening has been busy with something or other until late. A caller who came just to return a book stayed for supper and a TCM movie. Col Jim brought down a friend, visiting from the States; between them they convinced us that we will have to visit their beautiful rural Idaho. We are promised white water, mountain train rides with dinner laid on, treks to see breathtaking mountains and a unique Shakespeare experience.

The village fireworks last night were terrific, several of us went down to the sports field to find a fair in full swing, music, crowds and a huge bonfire. Looking round the hundreds of young families, I had a bittersweet realisation of being part of the older generation here now; this community is renewing itself vigorously and most of the young parents are active and involved. It was so pleasant to listen to laughter, to the cheers as the rockets went up and to be part of a good-natured, happy crowd. After reading the gloom and pessimism about current social ills in the Sunday papers, it was highly therapeutic.
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Simplicity


The wonderful Vashti Bunyan, of whom I wrote a while ago, has had a triumphant return with her new album Lookaftering. Media interviews, excellent reviews. It was selected as The Times' Big CD -('Here is the voice that still stops you dead in your tracks. Fragile as ever, yet sculpted by the weather of life. There would have been a million ways to get a project like this wrong, perhaps only one way to get it right. Which makes Lookaftering little short of a miracle.') My copy arrived from Amazon last week and I have played it constantly since, finding it more enchanting each time.
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Thursday, November 03, 2005

Prone to small misfortunes.


"Blast it, look what I've done", said Anna Scott today as she missed her mouth with her breakfast coffee, staining her clean shirt. She dabbed quickly with the unrinsed dishcloth that her partner, G, had just used to wipe a jar of mustard. "Ugh, well it can go in the wash," she said, "I've got the whites to do again anyway since I left in the black sock."

Next she walked full tilt into a cabinet door and a brand new jar of cinnamon fell to the stone floor. "A lovely smell in a kitchen,' she consoled herself as she removed slivers of glass from her thumb, wiping blood on the second clean shirt.

Where's Sunday's crossword?" asked the now unpopular G. "Oh I chucked it away, I'll get it out of the rubbish." Anna dodged through the rain to the bins, treading all unaware into a large chicken mess that would subsequently pattern carpets throughout the house. Her just-blown-dry hairdo caught a branch full of raindrops as she stepped backwards into the ducks' water bowl. "Oh, sh-t," she cried with unconscious irony.

It did not end there. As she went floor-dusting backwards, a chair-arm poked itself with strange accuracy up her rear; full-blast U2 on the radio masked a vital call from the boiler-man who then vanished from the universe. Lunchtime featured an exploding tomato and a random water-spraying spoon under the sink tap. At hen feeding time, the bottom fell out of a damp paper sack full of corn. Reading a book over dinner she somehow set a paper napkin on fire with the table candle. At this stage G suggested counselling.

At close of what had been a fairly typical day, Anna dozed in bed, dropping down to oblivion, her much-bent spectacles were still on her nose, a small brush in her hand and a bottle of red nail varnish stood perched, topless, on her open paperback.

(Meme contribution)
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