So quiet you could hear a pun drop

I love Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books. They are probably the best historical novels ever written.

As well as being an extremely agressive and successful naval officer he is not averse to giving the world some of the most terrible puns ever uttered. This one is from the sixth Aubrey-Maturin outing The Fortune of War:

Jack Aubrey:"Do you see those two weevils doctor?"

Stephen Maturin:"I do."

JA:"Which would choose?"

SM:"Neither. There is not a scrap a difference between them. They are the same species of curculio."

JA:"If you had to choose. If you were forced to make a choice. If there was no other response..."

SM:"Well then if your going to push me, I would choose the right hand weevil. It has significant advantage in both length and breadth."

JA:"There! I have you! Your completely dished! Do you not know that in the service, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!"

So there you have it!

Another Birth

Another Forough Farokhzad poem. Read by Parvaneh Farid. I came across Farokhzad by accident only recently. Her life was cut short in a car accident in 1967. She was just 32. I can only imagine what she would have produced had she lived.

The Wind Will Take Us

In my small night, ah
the wind has a date with the leaves of the trees
in my small night there is agony of destruction
listen
do you hear the darkness blowing?
I look upon this bliss as a stranger
I am addicted to my despair.

listen do you hear the darkness blowing?
something is passing in the night
the moon is restless and red
and over this rooftop
where crumbling is a constant fear
clouds, like a procession of mourners
seem to be waiting for the moment of rain.
a moment
and then nothing
night shudders beyond this window
and the earth winds to a halt
beyond this window
something unknown is watching you and me.

O green from head to foot
place your hands like a burning memory
in my loving hands
give your lips to the caresses
of my loving lips
like the warm perception of being
the wind will take us
the wind will take us.


By Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967)

Are we really that lazy?

This item in today’s Independent perhaps should not have surprised me but it still annoys.

Apparently oranges are declining in popularity in Britain. This is not because we've gone off the taste, but because we find them too difficult to peel. It's pathetic but true. Compared with the easy-peel, lighter-weight satsuma and tangerine, the orange is considered too big, too messy and too inconvenient to denude with your human fingers. A spokesman for Fruitmann, importer and exporter of fruits, explained that consumers just don't feel it's worth the bother taking the skin off an orange

I am in full agreement with the writer of this article when he says “broaching an orange isn't a chore; it is, or should be, a pleasure, because it connects you with the complicated texture of the fruit world, and it repays your assault on its packaging by the freshness of its interior, the astringent fizz of zest, the tart sweetness of its secret, liquid heart.”

The not-wife and myself work full time so we would find it hard to be exponents of slow cooking etc (we don’t want to eat dinner at 1am!) but even we can find time for an orange! Don’t get me wrong. I love the convenience of our modern world – I like being able to use the computer to communicate (a positive blessing for recipients given that my handwriting would shame a four year old!) and so on – but some things are beyond the pale even for us! I wonder how long it will be that we Britons will become so lazy that we will demand core-less apples, clip-on ties and toilets that wipe our arses for us...

A fitting tribute to Lorenzo Odone

I don’t usually bother with columnists or leaders but this one in today’s Guardian is a fitting tribute to Lorenzo Odone, a man who defied medical expectations and lived for over two decades after being diagnosed with an awful genetic condition. Moreover it is a tribute to a mother and father who devoted their lives not only to his care but the search for a cure. In the latter they were not successful but Lorenzo’s Oil does help prevent the onset of the condition. Here’s to the power of love.

“A kind of life came to an end last week, when Lorenzo Odone died the day after he turned 30. It was a peculiar life because, since childhood, Lorenzo had been ravaged by adrenoleukodystrophy, a genetic disorder which stripped him of hearing, sight and movement, and left him confined to bed. But it was a life nonetheless, and it lasted as long as it did only because of the extraordinary way his parents cherished it. When, as a sparky, trilingual six-year-old, Lorenzo was diagnosed, doctors told Augusto and Michaela Odone their child would not reach age eight. But Augusto refused to accept that nothing could be done, and he resolved to change the science. He lacked any qualification to do so, and yet remarkably he succeeded. By ploughing through the journals, he made himself an expert and was soon convening meetings of specialists from around the world. Thanks to his drive, the plodding pace of research was stepped up to a march, and within three years he had patented Lorenzo's oil. A Hollywood film of the same name presented it as a miracle cure; the truth is that it did, miraculously, prevent others from becoming sick, but it could not reverse the damage already done to victims such as Lorenzo. What allowed him to cheat death for so long was not medicine. Michaela, who died in 2000, reordered the family's existence around his care. Their sacrifices kept him safe, and his expression responded to the attention he received. The last 22 years of Lorenzo's life are proof of the power of love.”

WW - Cephalaria bud II

This week's entry for teh Tuesday and Wednesday edition of Wordless Wednesday.

Why Robyn Hitchcock loves De Chirico?

Maybe not a great likeness between the photos but Imagine Robyn a decade or two younger and with sunglasses. . The De Chirico painting is in the Modern Art collection at the Pompidou centre in Paris. See yesterday's Seven Songs post for a version of Robyn's wonderfully surreal song De Chirico Street

Cephalaria Bud

Seven Songs

Bob From Brockley me tagged me for the Seven Songs meme a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't had the chance to do it until now. Sorry for the delay Bob!

For this meme you are asked to list seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

So here goes. I am (almost) taking a break at the moment from my usual Hawkwind/Robyn Hitchcock fare.

1 Ofra Haza - Im Nin'Alu



I know I've posted this song before but I love this simpler version of this song much more than the version that reached the charts in the late 80s.


2 Darya Dadvar - Dokhtar Shirazi



Okay so it is a medley rather than one single song but what the hey! I have just spent a wonderful week in Paris in the company of some hugely talented and utterly charming Iranian artists. What better than the songs of a hugely talented Iranian singer who lives in France.

3 Dead Can Dance - Cantara



One of Australia's greatest exports.... Right up there with Cooper's Sparkling Ale!

4 Robyn Hitchcock - De Chirico Street



Well I can't go far from Robyn even for seven songs. There is a De Chirico painting at the Pompidou in which a figure looks eerily like Robyn

5. The Cure - A Forest



A song from my teens that I put aside for a time but I always come back to it sooner or later.

6. Super Furry Animals (Drawing) Rings Around the World



The great lost Beach Boys/Hawkwind collaboration! Definitely a song for sunnier weather.. Okay so it's grey and overcast today but what the hell!

7.. Finally The Eurovision song that made all others obsolete



France Gall singing Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son.

McGonagall and Sunlight Soap

SUNLIGHT SOAP
by William McGonagall

You can use it with great pleasure and ease
Without wasting any elbow grease;
And when washing the most dirty clothes
The sweat won't be dripping off your nose
You can wash your clothes with little rubbing
And without scarcely any scrubbing;
And I tell you once again without any joke
There's no soap can surpass Sunlight Soap;
And believe me, charwomen one and all,
I remain yours truly, the Poet McGonagall.


Yet another poetry gem from William Topaz, the Tayside Tragedian. I am sure that sales of Sunlight soap skyrocketed as a result. Any excuse to put up a William Topaz poem!