Why Michael Flatley’s “art” reminds me of Tony Hancock’s in “The Rebel”

Michael Flatley, of Riverdance fame, has a new career as an artist, and it is giving me considerable entertainment. According to the Irish Times, Mr Flatley “creates his paintings by dancing on canvases (strips of marley – a type of linoleum floor covering used on stage by dancers)”.  We learn that “At least 12 of the paintings sold, for an average price of £52,000 (€74,000). Negotiations are continuing regarding further sales”.

You couldn’t make it up.  Truly, life is imitating art – in this case the amusing 1960 film “The Rebel”, starring the late comedian Tony Hancock.  To quote from Wikipedia:

Hancock plays a downtrodden London office clerk who gives up his office job to pursue full-time his vocation as an artist. Single mindedly, and with an enthusiasm far exceeding any artistic talent (his ‘art’ has a ‘childlike’ quality – to put it mildly), he sets to work on his masterpiece Aphrodite at the Waterhole, moving to  Paris where he expects his genius will be appreciated….. The film explores existentialist themes by mocking Parisian intellectual society and portraying the pretensions of the English middle class…. The film also includes scenes parodying modern art. The scene showing Hancock splashing paint onto a canvas and riding a bike over it is a lampoon of the work of Action Painter, William Green while the childlike paintings of Hancock, referred to as the ‘infantile school’ or the ‘shapeist school’ parody the naïve style.

Alternatively, I hope Mr Flatley, with his “art”,  is having a good old-fashioned piss-take – otherwise known as “mocking … intellectual society and portraying the pretensions of the … middle class”.  Good for him if that is the case.

Surely he doesn’t actually believe his offerings are worth €50-100,000? No, it is no doubt a wonderful leg-pull on his part, at the expense of those blinded by fame into laying out large sums of money on unattractive and random smears of paint.  This must be the case, as Mr Flatley is a clever fellow.  Maybe he has even seen “the Rebel” and is carrying out his own experiment, testing the limits of art buyers’ gullibility!

Or perhaps he has seen the wonderful recent Italian film The Great Beauty (La Grande Belleza), in which a young child creates highly-prized “art” by having a temper tantrum and flinging paint at a large canvas (YouTube link here). Yes, that must be the case……

[More on the madness of modern/conceptual art here, here, here and here].

My cunning plan to solve the Eurozone crisis (cont.)

Six months ago I revealed my plan to resolve the Eurozone crisis: all German workers would be given a 30% wage increase by their employers.  This would, I said, “at a stroke, level the competitiveness playing field within the Eurozone while, at the same time, putting lots of new Euros into the hands of Germans to spend on Greek holidays, Spanish wine and Italian shoes.”

Bizarrely, I have seen no evidence that my plan has been taken up by European leaders.  My phone has not exactly been hopping with calls from Berlin and Paris, expressing gratitude for my brilliant insight into how to solve the major economic crisis of our times.  Sarkozy, at least, will now have plenty of time to repent for his lack of action.

But at least one solid citizen (of the USA as it happens) has taken up the cudgels and written a letter to the Financial Times  (3rd May) promoting the very policy I suggested here.  Take a bow, Raul Elizalde, of Path Financial, Sarasota, Florida:

It’s time to recognise that Germany reaped enormous gains from the creation of the common currency. If it is really committed to the eurozone’s survival, it will have to give back some of those gains, not only by providing bailout money or booking private sector losses, as it is doing, but also by surrendering some of its relative competitiveness. The most direct way is by running a higher inflation than the periphery ……. recent German unions’ demands for higher wages present just the right opportunity. Conceding higher pay could ease some built-up political pressures brought about by austerity, reward the long contribution to competitiveness made by German workers, and make the periphery’s relative adjustment easier to achieve.

Plus ça change….

This cartoon was reproduced in The Irish Times on 25th April 2012.  It was originally published in Punch in 1909.

Instead of John Redmond, just substitute David Boyd Barrett or Joe Higgins or any multi-purpose rabble-rouser, and instead of Saxon tyranny let’s think of the “oppressors” in the ECB or the troika.  We want their money, but they can keep their policies.

AAAAAA revisited

In 1999, The Economist started to get worried about the proliferation of acronyms, particularly TLAs (three-letter acronyms).

The Economist would like to draw attention to a new shortage: of acronyms and abbreviations. So great is the demand in a world where new organisations spring up almost daily, and firms are increasingly known only by strings of initials, that there are simply not enough to go round….

The nasty truth is that there are only 17,576 different permutations of three letters. That is not enough, when a multi-national organisation such as the ECB requires no fewer than five sets of abbreviations in the languages of the EU. Add one more letter and the permutations number almost 457,000. Yet even this does not solve the dilemma. Is the CBOT the Chicago Board of Trade or the Central Bank of Turkey?

This is a clear market failure. In the market for cabbages or computers, prices would rise, encouraging greater supply or choking off demand. But the supply of abbreviations is fixed—and the price is stuck at zero. Demand cannot be satisfied. Yet multiple use of an abbreviation only creates confusion. The solution is simple. A new organisation is needed to tax and control the proliferation of initials. It might be called AAAAAA (the Association for the Alleviation of Absurd Acronyms and Asinine Abbreviations).

This article prompted a reply which struck a chord.

SIR—I am writing to complain about your misuse of one particular acronym.  AAAAAA is already allocated to the Association for the Abolition of Appalling Arbitrary Application of Apostrophe’s, of which I am an activist.

NICK KAY Derby

And that was in 1999, before the use of redundant apostrophes in plural nouns (the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe) became as prevalent as it is today.  Not to mention the new and horrific variant, the use of an apostrophe in the third person present tense of a verb, which I flagged here,  here and here.

Since 1999, we have seen the establishment of  The Apostrophe Protection Society, a small step towards sanity and integrity in written English. Ans in 2009, there was a fascinating article in the Daily Telegraph on 29th August:  ”Councils issue crib sheets to prevent grammatical howlers on signs”.  Here is a flavour:

Council staff are being issued with an “idiot’s guide” on how to use apostrophes and other punctuation marks correctly in a bid to stem their misuse in street signs and official notices.  Local authorities around the country have now resorted to issuing GCSE-style crib sheets to their staff in a bid to raise standards of grammar in their organisations.  Guidance for staff at Salford council states: “Do not assume that if you don’t know whether to use an apostrophe, then most of your readers won’t either.  Many of your readers will notice, and they will infer that you did not learn to write correctly. If a reader notices that you have used incorrect grammar, you will instantly lose credibility.”

I couldn’t agree more.

My cunning plan to solve the Eurozone crisis

It’s simple really.  As John Maudlin says: “… the money to solve the crisis does not exist. The only way to find it is for the ECB to print money and print in size, enough to lower the value of the euro and make exports cheaper (which gives southern Europe a chance to grow out of its problems).”

That’s step one.  But there would remain the problem of the relative uncompetitiveness of the peripheral countries, especially Greece.  So here is my cunning plan, worthy of Baldrick at his best: all German workers would be required to be given a 30% wage increase by their employers.  (Same would happen in quasi-German satellites such as Finland, Austria, Netherlands.)

This would, at a stroke, level the competitiveness playing field within the Eurozone while, at the same time, putting lots of new Euros into the hands of Germans to spend on Greek holidays, Spanish wine and Italian shoes.

You’ve heard of Godwin’s Law; here’s PuckstownLane’s Law

Mike Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and/or the Nazis.  His law has become an established part of modern media and Internet culture.

I would like to propose a new law which states that, given enough time, in any discussion about Irish nationalist or Republican issues, someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by calling its proponent a “West Brit”. And just as with Godwin’s Law, the use of this term means (a) the discussion has come to a conclusion and (b) the person who uses it has ipso facto lost the argument.

You OK with that, Martin McGuinness?  No, I didn’t think so.  (See this report.)

Dispatches from the Frontline of Idiocy

The following examples of illiteracy or barbarism were all encountered in the past two weeks.  I wish I could stop noticing such things.  Or even, dare I say it, stop getting bothered by them.  But I say, old chap, WE MUST HAVE STANDARDS!

First up is a stand at the Irish Antique Dealers’ Fair.  Presumably a Mr Yeat is somehow involved, but I’m not sure why he claims to own the country.  They surely don’t mean W.B. Yeats, and the part of Sligo associated with him?

Next is a greeting (sic) card, of the smutty variety.  The humour is somewhat spoiled by the failure to distinguish between “effect” and “affect”.  This is a common enough howler, I suppose, although it’s slightly depressing to see it writ large on a product which presumably went through many hands and took a lot of effort in its production.

Similarly, another blogger called Pencil&Spoon did a posting on a beer bottle label which was full of spelling and punctuation errors.  I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting liberally, as what he has written echoes my thoughts on such matters.

“What makes these mistakes especially frustrating is that the front of the label has obviously been well-designed and lots of effort has gone into it …. Even the paper it’s printed on is of a high quality. For this level of design and detail it must have passed by a few people and for none of them to spot those errors is just not good. As the front …. looks bold and well designed, I feel some confidence that the beer will also have had the same effort put into it. The shoddy spelling on the back makes me think again. ….I know some people aren’t good with spelling and grammar, I understand that, but there’s always someone around to take a look at it and check it…..Breweries: please try not to make spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes on your beer labels. …Even a small typo can send the message that you are sloppy and careless.”

Next up, when I saw the mass of warning signage and verbiage on a simple pool air mattress (we used to call them “lilos”), I became all nostalgic for the good old days when we were not treated like idiots and when judges didn’t entertain ridiculous personal injury claims by people who obviously qualify for the Darwin Awards (which “salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it).

Note to waiters/waitresses: stop saying “no problem”

You know the scene.  You are sitting in a restaurant, giving your order to the otherwise pleasant waiter/waitress and, after each dish you specify, he/she says “no problem”.

I know that I am a bit grumpy, but I find this particular usage irritating.  Where did it come from?!  Is it an Americanism?  Or maybe a result of watching too many Australian soaps?

I feel like saying “It’s good that you have assessed my request and on balance you feel able to accede to it, as it apparently does not cause you a problem. The message I’m receiving is that if it did cause you a problem, you would probably be unable to grant me my request. That sort of  conditionality as regards your establishment’s service policy is not to my taste”.

What’s wrong with a simple “Certainly”, or a “Yes sir/madam”, or a repetition of the order by way of confirmation that it has been understood and registered?

I am frankly not that interested in whether, or the extent to which, my order causes a problem for the restaurant in which I am spending my hard-earned money. If what I have ordered is by some chance unavailable on the day in question, then simply advise me of this, with an appropriate apology for my disappointment. Otherwise I’m frankly not interested in your problems, or lack of same. I come to restaurants to get away from everyday problems.

To quote a fellow blogger:  “By saying it in response to your lunch order, the waiter is suggesting that, by ordering, you are annoying the waiter, and that a lesser waiter might have walked off in a huff, but that he will graciously bear the inconvenience of having you around.”

So come on, waiters and waitresses of the world: watch your language!

Airline joke

A guy is sitting in the bar in departures at Heathrow. A beautiful woman walks in and sits down at the table next to him.

He decides that because she’s got a uniform on, she’s probably an off duty flight attendant.  So he decides to have a go at picking her up by identifying the airline she flies for thereby impressing her greatly.

He leans across to her and says the Delta Airlines motto: “We love to fly and it shows”.   The woman looks at him blankly.

He sits back and thinks up another line.   He leans forward again and delivers the Air France motto: “Winning the hearts of the world”.  Again she just stares at him with a slightly puzzled look on her face.

Undeterred, he tries again, this time saying the Malaysian Airlines motto: “Going beyond expectations”.

The woman looks at him sternly and says: “What the f**k do you want?”

“Ah!” he says, sitting back with a smile on his face, “Ryanair”!!!

Husbands vs wives

A friend told me a story which (I claim) illustrates the difference between men and women, at least in a middle-aged, married context.
He and his wife were passing a shop window which showed off beautiful high-end kitchens, and in which a young couple were being shown what was on offer.  His wife said to him: “Lucky them, buying a new kitchen”.
The husband claims to have replied: “But no, lucky us, we already have a kitchen which works very well and which, moreover, is fully paid for. Those poor young people are probably going deep into debt to acquire a fancy kitchen beyond their needs.”   The wife’s response was not supplied.   I think my friend tells the story to show himself in a good light: we are to be impressed with his maturity, common sense and frugality.  I fear not everybody will go along with this.

No I won’t pay for your holiday, even if I’m giving part of the money to charity

The other day, I was prevailed upon to give a tenner to “sponsor” an acquaintance who is undertaking a mountain biking, trekking and rafting trip to Tibet and the Himalayas next August. Now I don’t usually pay for holidays for people who are not members of my immediate family (and not always then either), but this was in a Good Cause as the “proceeds” were going to the Irish charity, Concern.

Ever since I was parted from my hard-earned money for this “Tri-Adventure Challenge”, a niggle of resentment has been afflicting me.  Not because I have anything against giving money to charity – in fact, I give rather a lot – but because I am simply browned off at being asked to pay for exciting trips for people to far-flung destinations, with an unspecified (and probably negligible) quantum of the money eventually finding its way into the coffers of the charity itself. 

I want all of any donation I might make to go directly to the charity, and not to have most of it spent in flying (with attendant carbon footprint) an army of under-occupied do-gooders to the ends of the earth, where their energies will be dissipated in pointless activities that serve no purpose, and where no doubt many a pleasant evening will be spent relaxing and socialising, all at my expense.

I was musing on this last Saturday when I opened the travel section of the Irish Times and found an article entitled “Charity begins away”.  Here I read that “It’s supposed to begin at home but charity can also take you abroad to some of the world’s most exciting places. It’s the ultimate win-win so Sandra O’Connell rounds up some great holidays for worthy causes”. 

At least the article doesn’t pretend that the trips are not holidays.  Here is a sample of the sort of trips somebody with time on their hands could undertake under the guise of charitable endeavour [my comments added]:

Walk the Great Wall  Easily one of the wonders of the world, the 6,400km Great Wall of China stretches from the Gobi Desert to the mountains of Korea. Happily, you’ll only be taking in a tiny bit of it [must leave enough time for sightseeing, after all]……Once you’re off the wall there is a guided tour of Beijing, including Tiananmen Square, the Olympic Park and the Silk Market, as well as free time to undertake your own excursions [that’s more like it].   Charity: Irish Cancer Society. Event:Great Wall of China Trek. Date: October 14th to 23rd, 2011. Sponsorship required: €4,500.

Grand Canyon trek   Children’s charity Barnardos already has a full quota for its big trip this year [I’m not surprised] but if you fancy giving yourself plenty of fund raising time for next year, check out its Grand Canyon Trek which takes place in June 2012.    Fly to Las Vegas [party!], transfer over the Hoover Dam into the Lake Mead National Park for an acclimatising walk. By day three you’ll be spending your first full day on the trails, with an early start [not too early, I hope] into the Hualapai Indian reserve and a trailhead that overlooks the Grand Canyon.  From there you begin your descent along remote paths past waterfalls with the Colorado River snaking far below. You continue down the canyon, crossing creeks and waterfalls and pitching your tent at night.  Expect to walk around 15km a day [OK…but let’s not overdo it], taking in highlights such as the “wet route” to Beaver Falls, swimming through to a subterranean cavern under the first tier of the waterfall, before jumping 5m into a frothy pool below.   Charity: Barnardos. Event:Grand Canyon Trek. Date: June 2nd to 9th, 2012. Sponsorship required: €4,600.

Make for the Cape   A much gentler option open to volunteers of all fitness levels [now you’re talking] is a nine-day meander [a good stress-free word, that] through South Africa, helping to raise funds for people with disabilities back home.  The walking tour of Cape Town and the surrounding countryside includes treks through the Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens and the Silvermine Nature Reserve, enjoying views out over both the Atlantic and Indian oceans on the Cape of Good Hope peninsula [mustn’t forget my camera].  Equally unmissable is the panoramic views of Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain [wonder what the suckers back home are up to?] , a visit to the penguin colony at Boulders Beach and an exploration of Stellenbosch in the country’s winelands [yes!].  You’ll also get to take a boat over to Robben Island for a guided tour of the former prison Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in [can I skip this bit? –  sounds boring], now a Unesco World Heritage site.      Charity : Rehab. Event: South African Challenge. Date: November 2011. Sponsorship required: €4,950.

If I’m going to subsidise somebody to take part in a trip or an event, I want the sponsored efforts to have tangible beneficial results in themselves, and not be just a diversion or holiday for the participants.   Why not a sponsored clean-up of Dublin parks and canals?  A sponsored cook-in for homeless people? A sponsored house clean for sick and elderly people?  A sponsored day out for handicapped children?

In the Sunday Times, Daisy Waugh has similar feelings:

…. I’ve made it a rule never to contribute to fundraising efforts where fundraisers are simply finding a moral high ground from which to bore us all about a new personal hobby.  So: premenopausal ladies struggling with weight issues, wanting sponsorship to run half-marathons: forget it.  Ditto middle-aged fathers demanding money for week-long bike rides in exotic and manly places.  Not a chance. In fact, now I think about it, any begging communication at all which uses the words “challenge” or “fun” – or which suffixes their named endeavour with a facetious “athon” – doesn’t even make it to my Maybe One Day pile.  No matter what the cause.  It goes straight in the bin.

Her article appears under the headline “Nobody’s having fun at my expense”.  Join the club, Daisy.

Ministers don’t focus on their core executive duties

Quote of the Day  is courtesy of Jason O’Mahony.  I don’t know Jason, but his blog (mainly, but not exclusively, on Irish politics)  is always worth following. 

…….. we have a bizarre means of measuring successful leaders in Ireland. It’s like saying “How do we pick good brain surgeons? Well, first of all we see if they can get us a good parking spot near the hospital.” 

His comment is prompted by a very good piece by Dan O’Brien in the Irish Times here.  It deals with “the lack of focus of ministers on their core executive duties” and attributes this to our daft system where government ministers spend too much time on constituency issues for fear of losing their seat.

In Ireland, the Constitution demands that all ministers are members of the Oireachtas. In other words, there is a constitutional obligation to double-job. Doing one big job is hard enough even for talented people. In a world that is increasingly complex and fast- moving, doing two enormous jobs well is nigh on impossible.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, ministers are further distracted from their executive duties by having to operate in the most competitive electoral system in the world. Their incentives are stacked towards keeping voters in one of 43 constituencies happy, by fair means or foul.

Being an effective minister for all 43 constituencies counts little at election time. Is it any wonder that the phenomenon of the two-day-a-week minister exists?

The manner in which the 1937 Constitution collapsed the executive and legislative branches of government into each other has led to a weak parliament and ministers who are usually under-qualified and almost always overworked.

Prohibiting TDs from holding ministerial office would force professional politicians to focus on being parliamentarians or wielders of executive office. Reforming the executive branch of government should be high on the constitutional convention’s agenda.

Dan O’Brien has dealt with this problem before (see here) and it’s not going away.  I have had my tuppence worth also, for instance here and here.

The bottom line: either we change our electoral system to allow TDs be elected from national panels, or we select all or most of our ministers from outside the Oireachtas.

John McIntyre on “Teaching the Controversy”

My quote of the day comes from John McIntyre of the Baltimore Sun:

Mentioning Tennessee brings to mind that they have another moronic legislator attempting to smuggle creationism into the science curriculum under the guise of “teaching the controversy.” You’d think that after the Scopes trial the state would be a little more jealous of the tattered remnants of its reputation. But if they think “teaching the controversy” is such a fine idea, let them dictate that Marxism and Fascism be taught alongside capitalism and democracy.

Reminds me of the The Onion’s unbeatable version of this point:-

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory…. As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.      

“Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, ‘God’ if you will, is pushing them down,” said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.   Burdett added: “Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, ‘I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.’ Of course, he is alluding to a higher power.”     

Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world’s leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.

To whom is DAA talking with their creepy ad?

At the cinema the other day, I again saw the expensive advertisement created by Dublin Airport Authority for their new Terminal 2.  You have probably seen it several times.  If not, you can see it on YouTube here.

My reactions were the same as it was the first time I saw it.  Firstly, that it’s smug, self-regarding and creepy.  Secondly, that only a state-owned body with an effective monopoly in its sector could and would produce such an expensive, gold-plated offering.

Thirdly, and the main question that puzzles me: from a business perspective, what’s the point of the advertisement, beyond using up the DAA’s advertising budget for the new terminal?  Are we all going to rush out and book flights through the new terminal on the strength of seeing the ad?  Will it add a single Euro to DAA’s bottom line?  I don’t think so. 

While you are working out this conundrum, have a look at the spoof version of the ad here.  It’s terrific.

Here’s something for all good Catholics out there…..

On the first anniversary of its appearance, I thought I would re-run what was one of the most startling and amusing letters published in the Irish Times.

Knock apparition gatherings

Madam, – I’m a little confused that the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, is discouraging people from gathering at Knock to witness apparitions which he believes “risk misleading God’s people and undermining faith”.

This is the same “faith” that believes that a cosmic Jew who was his own father by a virgin can enable you to live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from something invisible called your soul that is present because a woman made from a rib was convinced by a talking snake to eat an apple from a magical tree.

Yours, etc,

LIAM MEEHAN, La Vista Avenue, Killester, Dublin 5.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

 Can anybody tell me whether this is an original formulation by Mr Meehan, or is he quoting/paraphrasing somebody else?

My (doomed?) general election manifesto

I was thinking of running for the next Dáil with the following manifesto.  It seems bonkers, of course, as I would be promising not to do all the things that have become de riguer if one wants to have a hope of election as a TD.

1. I will not put purely local constituency interests before national interests.
2. I will not help you to jump a queue for spurious reasons.
3. I will not help you get something to which you are not in principle entitled.
4. I will not hold “clinics” – here are my contact details – please make an appointment to see me, or send me an email,  if it’s important.
5. If you want assistance on a purely local government matter, well here’s a list of all the local government representatives.  Don’t bother me about it…..

Nice work if you can get it………..

In the most recent edition of the Sunday Tribune, I found some extremely useful information. Their travel correspondent Lizzie Gore-Grimes was “smitten” with the Villa Feltrinelli  (or to give it its proper title, the Grand Hotel Villa Feltrinelli) which apparently “is the perfect base for loved-up couples to explore stunning Lake Garda”.

Tribune readers now know, thanks to Lizzie, that “the hotel boasts so many exquisite details you could never list them all….. imagine an octagonal bathroom’s deep purple marble bath, the kaleidoscope effect of the tower room’s round windows, chandeliers dripping with Murano glass, hand-painted ceilings (crafted by the Lieti brothers in 1890), gleaming gilt mirrors and wonderfully friendly staff all gliding about in their starched whites.…. We settled in with a white peach bellini out by the water before retiring to the pergola for dinner.”

I’m glad to see that The Sunday Tribune, in these days of hardship and cutbacks, is still prepared to treat its correspondents properly. In the Villa Feltrinelli, the cheapest room (if that’s your thing) between May and September is a snip at €1,200 per night, and seeing as how that includes breakfast, a selection of house wines, free soft drinks and beers in the room bar, personal laundry, valet service and use of their on-site recreational facilities, you have to admit it is exceptional value.   I lost no time in booking a week in one of their Premium Junior Suites for Lady Puckstownlane and me, at the really very reasonable rate of €2,650 per night.

Tribune Newspapers plc, which publishes the Sunday Tribune, incurred a loss of over €5 million in 2008; its revenues shrank by 15.7 per cent.

Memo to Sunday tribune editor: I am available to undertake similar arduous assignments, in the event that Ms Gore-Grimes is indisposed.

Lost in fog (part 73)

I note that the Irish Times obtains its weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, whoever they are.  As I have already observed, they seem to think that we are an incredibly foggy country.  Almost every day, we are led to believe, starts with Ireland shrouded in fog.  Today is typical.

 

“It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world.

Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed,

warm fog.”    –  Joseph Conrad

.

Conquest’s Limericks

I am currently devouring Christopher Hitchens recently-published memoir “Hitch-22”, of which it can truly be said (unlike so many other alleged examples of the characteristic) that there is something to interest or amuse one on every page. 

I hope I am permitted by copyright law to quote from the footnote on Page 174, which expands on the tendency of those attending the now-legendary Friday lunches of the late 1970s London literary set (Hitchens, Kingsley Amis , Martin Amis , Robert Conquest, Clive James, Craig Raine, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes to mention a few) to indulge in word games and compose witty poems.

Insistence upon the capacious subtleties of the limerick was something of a hallmark.  Once again [Robert] Conquest takes the palm: his condensation of the “Seven Ages of Man” shows how much force can be packed into the deceptively slight five-line frame.  Thus: 

Seven ages: first puking and mewling,

Then very pissed off with your schooling,

Then fucks and then fights,

Then judging chaps’ rights,

Then sitting in slippers, then drooling.

 This is not the only example of Conquest’s genius for compression.  The history of the Bolshevik “experiment” in five lines? Barely a problem:

There once was a Bolshie called Lenin

Who did one or two million men in.

That’s a lot to have done in

But where he did one in

That old Bolshie Stalin did ten in!

The first Limerick cleverly condenses the “All the world’s a stage” monologue from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” which can be found in full  here.

It’s my religious duty to hold my wife, when we are in public, by a rope tied around her neck

You see, I have converted to the one true religion of Meshugism and I sincerely believe it is my duty to adhere to every written precept of this great movement, and to fight with every fibre of my body any unbeliever who seeks to roll back or interfere with the inevitable completion of our victory over other unworthy religions and over people of no religion. 

For it is written in our Holy Book, revealed to our holy prophet Al-Dawkinsii, that men shall keep women in their appointed place and shall not fail to curtail their corrupting tendencies by appropriate instruments of restraint.  And verse 37 of tract 13 of the Holy Book, as interpreted by our beloved seventeenth century high priest Wuddi-alaan, instructs us to fashion a rope from the finest hemp, and to attach this rope to the neck of a woman before allowing her to be present in a public place, the better to ensure her safety and to enforce on her the standards of decorous behaviour prescribed by our holy religion.

I insist on my right to practice my religion freely, and to treat my woman as the Holy Book prescribes.  I reject all oppression by so-called “liberals” who scandalise our faith by promoting equal standing for women.  I tell you that our women are happy to be subject to the norms of our one true religion, and rejoice in the safety and certainty that it brings to their troubled existence.  I give this warning: non-believers interfere in our right to exercise our religious beliefs at their peril.  Your objections on supposed grounds of “equality” and “civilization” are an offense to all of us who are prepared to make any sacrifice, even the ultimate sacrifice, to secure our religious rights and to ensure the ultimate victory of Meshugism throughout the world.