On The Frome Double
I
Was that the demon of Frome?
The Frome flyer? Robin-red John
In cricket whites? Or Lady Luck I saw
Walking across Shearwater Lake
While a kingfisher streaked
Out of Berkeley woods
As a bluebell in flight
Through a Mendip May morning?
And have all those legendary feet
Of ancient time returned
As Mark Salter, scorer of 37
Vintage first team goals
In Frome Town’s winging flight
From the Western League Premier
And into the heights
Of the Southern League?
No, no. This day dream was real.
It wasn’t Lady Luck
Or any of these ghosts,
It was: Richard Fey, Edward Quelch,
Adam Missiato, Paul Farrell,
Jonathan Crowley, Jamie Cheeseman,
Stewart Bryant, Jack Metcalf,
Daniel Harvey, Steven Hunt,
Leigh Burke, Alex Lapham,
Sam Duggan, Joe Gomes,
Simeon Allsion, Dean Caslake,
Liam Fussell, Ian Kennedy,
Shaun Percival, Mark Salter,
Matthew Rawlins, Danny Thompson.
II
A goal kick away
From Badger’s Hill, believing
In King Arthur and England’s quest
For a holy grail called the World Cup.
I learned to read from a football Book
Written by Kim and Tony, while
Alf the groundsman dubbined
That leather medicine ball we played with
In Rodden Estate fields
My mother washed the club’s ten red shirts,
One green, numbered 1-11
In big white numbers: the whole
Of Frome Town hung out to dry.
Now, forty years on, giant-killing Frome
Have their wings on the Somerset Cup
And a claw hold in the Southern league
And the whole Mendip valley is soaring.
Let’s paint the town robin red
And sing the names of local heroes
In a cider-summer glow.
Richard Fey, Edward Quelch,
Adam Missiato, Paul Farrell,
Jonathan Crowley, Jamie Cheeseman,
Stewart Bryant, Jack Metcalf,
Daniel Harvey, Steven Hunt,
Leigh Burke, Alex Lapham,
Sam Duggan, Joe Gomes,
Simeon Allsion, Dean Caslake,
Liam Fussell, Ian Kennedy,
Shaun Percival, Mark Salter,
Matthew Rawlins, Danny Thompson!
Note: I'm sick to death of England and its Premiership primadonna pantomime-booing carthorse carry-on and it's also a bit of a quiet, suck it and sneer time to be a Bristol City fan. So as the season kicks off, I'm defaulting all the way back to my Frome Town roots with a poem written in celebration of their great triumph the season before last. To all the Badger's Hill believers...
August 12, 2010
August 03, 2010
Ruby Wedding Red Plus Six
Forty years today, following the reds
From the Bristol derby at Eastville,
October 3 1964 (1-1, Bush) to
2-2 at Saltergate with ten men,
(Murray, Coles) usually at least one
Division below where, at our best,
We would grace the game, and you dare
To ask, would I do it all again?
Of course not! (All right then, yes.)
October 2 2004
And six years later, securely one division up on that, aged 54 and now a fan of forty six years it's still YES. The new season is sitting with the key in the ignition, after a false start that might be just nothing or might be a problem with fuel or carburettor or electrics, but the seat belt is on and we have the England number one in goal. Never saw that coming. Come on you reds.
From the Bristol derby at Eastville,
October 3 1964 (1-1, Bush) to
2-2 at Saltergate with ten men,
(Murray, Coles) usually at least one
Division below where, at our best,
We would grace the game, and you dare
To ask, would I do it all again?
Of course not! (All right then, yes.)
October 2 2004
And six years later, securely one division up on that, aged 54 and now a fan of forty six years it's still YES. The new season is sitting with the key in the ignition, after a false start that might be just nothing or might be a problem with fuel or carburettor or electrics, but the seat belt is on and we have the England number one in goal. Never saw that coming. Come on you reds.
June 28, 2010
My New Elizabethan World Cup Sonnets 4. V Germany
My New Elizabethan World Cup Sonnets 4. V Germany
The 'golden generation' fill their boots,
Those sponsored hospital slippers, with lead
And take the field Franz seeds - with golden shoots
Of 'here to win it' sweat - with wee instead.
Each grail-knight, like Midas in some yob's G
Grade essay into Greek 'Methodology'
On a Trojan carthorse, wins less than Greece
And Turkey have on none of the salary.
A Glazered-over Premiership-serving
Slave to loveless lucre's Un-manning debt,
Petrified Rooney absent as Scholes, King
Of England's nothing, dream-theatres shed.
Stuffed as 'bankers from the Thatcher Error'
Just less fit, and Fritzed by youth and terror.
Significantly, the only group winner not to go through so far (or probably
at all) is USA, who actually beat Slovenia and were - in terms of objective
position as well as spirit etc - better than us. So we were in the worst
group and couldn't win it. We are about as good as Ireland, on a par with
Greece and Turkey but with less success in tournaments since the immediate
post second world war period: ie 1966. Fact. The next time we should
regard ourselves as plucky underdogs and rejoice if we qualify, go berserk
if we top our group and faint if we get any further. Oh and draft in the
English Defence League as our defenders - do them good to get a kicking and a
reality check and probably still slightly improve our results too.
Note: Greedy King Midas was granted a wish and asked that everything he touched turn to gold - not working out in advance that would include food, drink, lover etc . Carol Ann Duffy has written a poem about it from the wife's angle. It would do as her official poem about England's traditional doomed tilt at the World Cup.
The 'golden generation' fill their boots,
Those sponsored hospital slippers, with lead
And take the field Franz seeds - with golden shoots
Of 'here to win it' sweat - with wee instead.
Each grail-knight, like Midas in some yob's G
Grade essay into Greek 'Methodology'
On a Trojan carthorse, wins less than Greece
And Turkey have on none of the salary.
A Glazered-over Premiership-serving
Slave to loveless lucre's Un-manning debt,
Petrified Rooney absent as Scholes, King
Of England's nothing, dream-theatres shed.
Stuffed as 'bankers from the Thatcher Error'
Just less fit, and Fritzed by youth and terror.
Significantly, the only group winner not to go through so far (or probably
at all) is USA, who actually beat Slovenia and were - in terms of objective
position as well as spirit etc - better than us. So we were in the worst
group and couldn't win it. We are about as good as Ireland, on a par with
Greece and Turkey but with less success in tournaments since the immediate
post second world war period: ie 1966. Fact. The next time we should
regard ourselves as plucky underdogs and rejoice if we qualify, go berserk
if we top our group and faint if we get any further. Oh and draft in the
English Defence League as our defenders - do them good to get a kicking and a
reality check and probably still slightly improve our results too.
Note: Greedy King Midas was granted a wish and asked that everything he touched turn to gold - not working out in advance that would include food, drink, lover etc . Carol Ann Duffy has written a poem about it from the wife's angle. It would do as her official poem about England's traditional doomed tilt at the World Cup.
June 26, 2010
Rhetorical Question?
Here's one. Because we allowed the USA to pinch our place in the World Cup (as it has in the world), we now have to beat Germany, Argentina and Portugal to get to the final in a competition where France and Italy go out shockingly early. When has that ever happened?
I'll tell you when, Mr Rhetoric. 1966.
The one team we didn't beat then and the world said we needed to to really prove our case (flash in the golden pan winners 1958, 1962 and 1970) was Brazil, whom we will doubtless keep waiting in the rain this year before beating them 1-0. Just to put 1970 straight.
That's the way I'd write it anyway.
June 24, 2010
My New Elizabethan World Cup Sonnets 3. V Slovenia
The lazy lion lumbers into life
To cuff aside the mouse of fate, then roars
It to the corner’s sanctuary and strikes!
And strives - and fails - to pin its tiny paws.
The beast its leader ‘knows’ is in the field
And taking chances – one – and missing five,
A cat among the pigeons, roaring ‘Yield!'
'Fierce England, Fabio-faced, is still alive!’
The might and mane – a little balding, true -
Of Rooney moves in for the ruthless kill,
Our winter king, asleep since March (and June?)
To chew the post, and limp off, looking ill.
And so our doppelganger, Germany,
The old invasion game, then home for tea.
To cuff aside the mouse of fate, then roars
It to the corner’s sanctuary and strikes!
And strives - and fails - to pin its tiny paws.
The beast its leader ‘knows’ is in the field
And taking chances – one – and missing five,
A cat among the pigeons, roaring ‘Yield!'
'Fierce England, Fabio-faced, is still alive!’
The might and mane – a little balding, true -
Of Rooney moves in for the ruthless kill,
Our winter king, asleep since March (and June?)
To chew the post, and limp off, looking ill.
And so our doppelganger, Germany,
The old invasion game, then home for tea.
June 19, 2010
New Elizabethan Sonnets 2 v Algeria
“Inglorious and goalless Ing-ger-land”
The mourning papers Nayed in ‘66
In hopeless headlines that, like Ferdinand,
Stood not the test of time – but stand for this.
A team without a heart, a head, a smile,
A hurst, a moore, a charlton or a ball,
A drab grey outfit, no nobby yet no style,
The walk-on-waters sinking in the pool.
A sponsor-burdened team who could not play
A season with this globe like Germany
Because ‘our’ ball is some fat cat’s, and so are they
And paid each draw more than my salary.
We grub all week for victory’s floodlight
To stare down a black hole of endless night.
Note. Apparently we're not playing very well because the 'boys' are bored. They need more freedom.
They don't need more freedom. They need to grow up and start earning their celebrity lifestyles by winning a trophy for a change instead of going on a jolly and getting knocked out in the quarters and expecting us all to carry on cheering !
June 13, 2010
The Tony Hancock School of Football Management
I am posting this response from John H Davies (to my World Cup sonnet no 1) in full. John is remarkable man in many ways. I will list only four. He is convinced the 1958 England team would have won the World Cup but for the Munich air disaster (plausible enough) and believes the 1970 team - Charlton plus Mullery, before Ramsey took Charlton off and we never qualified again for the rest of the Seventies - was atually better than the 1966 one and would have beaten Brazil in the much predicted Final. As a nineteen year old, he was present at Wembley when we actually won the World Cup. He saw George Best in his pomp (ie his shins kicked to blue murder by 60s centre halves but still getting through and scoring). And he is a Manchester United fan who actually comes from Manchester. Here are his thoughts on the present England World Cup hopefuls...
"Thanks for the sonnet. Now Capello knows what it is like to have an interest in England's football team. Dragon-faced? Yes, I like that image. It is accurate and well-observed. However, he remains a Tommy Cooper look-alike, and the buffoonery that surrounds him may eventually be revealed to be of his own creation. Rio Ferdinand has been injured for two seasons. Why take him? Ledley King must have been a sop to political correctness for the inclusion of the chronically disabled. Why take him? John Terry seems to be as tactically and spacially confused as he is morally confused. No doubt he is quick at getting his kit off but he is slow on the turn and on the sprint, an ageing thug, a shadow of his former self, worn down by years of self-indulgence and belief in the hype and flattery of the John Motsons of this world, starry-eyed fat boys who were never able to do it themselves, but who revelled in fame-by-association and were, therefore, obliged to continue the cant well beyond Terry's sell-by date. Carragher, slower than a journey through the traffic lights in King's Lynn. Reliant on the scything tackle, the outstretched arm, the push in the back, but unable to deploy any of these normal Premiership devices in the absence of Premiership referees. Johnson, a man who runs forward very fast but who cannot run back to defend, who always stands in the wrong place and who is always totally unaware of the presence of the winger when a ball is crossed over his head from the other wing. Green, a goalie who can't catch. Heskey, a striker who can't strike. A damp match of a man, tried time and again but who refuses to ignite, but who is chosen time and again and again and....Lennon and Wrong-Phillips, both flatterers to deceive. Milner, a one-paced work-horse who has been unable to train for three days because of a bout of ague, chosen to mark the American's key player, Donovan. Lampard, scorer of thousands of goals in the Premiership where everyone and anyone can score (apart from Heskey), but who can't shoot for toffee in international matches, linked again with Gerrard, whose face has the tortured look of a man who has sold his soul and skills to the devil of Liverpool and who last season suddenly realised it, when every human being in the world - in the igloos of the Arctic, in the mud huts of Pygmyland , in the yurts of Mongolia and Thornham - knows that they cannot play together. Every mother in the world must have said at some time "You mustn't play with him. He'll end up getting you in trouble!". So why doesn't Capello say it? Capello's is the "Tony Hancock school of football management" - he who cannot head is picked as centre-half, he who is weediest is picked as mid-field enforcer, he who cannot catch becomes goalie, he who cannot shoot becomes Heskey. And Rooney is tired and frustrated and lonely and, sorry to say it, ineffectual. So Copello is Tommy Cooper after all, a Steve Mclaren without and umbrella, a Graham Taylor without a turnip. The USA, a team comprising of rejects from Watford and West Brom, journeymen from Fulham and American Soccer! leagues, and a star player who was dropped from the Everton team after a brief loan spell, were too good for us for long periods of the game. Oh dear oh dear oh dear! Roll on the next game. You have my full permission to turn this into a poem. Name it In Memoriam, or Lament For Alf And The Boys Of Sixty-six. Bobby Charlton was at yesterday's match. Why didn't Capello bring him on?"
More responses like this please. Let's live while we can.
"Thanks for the sonnet. Now Capello knows what it is like to have an interest in England's football team. Dragon-faced? Yes, I like that image. It is accurate and well-observed. However, he remains a Tommy Cooper look-alike, and the buffoonery that surrounds him may eventually be revealed to be of his own creation. Rio Ferdinand has been injured for two seasons. Why take him? Ledley King must have been a sop to political correctness for the inclusion of the chronically disabled. Why take him? John Terry seems to be as tactically and spacially confused as he is morally confused. No doubt he is quick at getting his kit off but he is slow on the turn and on the sprint, an ageing thug, a shadow of his former self, worn down by years of self-indulgence and belief in the hype and flattery of the John Motsons of this world, starry-eyed fat boys who were never able to do it themselves, but who revelled in fame-by-association and were, therefore, obliged to continue the cant well beyond Terry's sell-by date. Carragher, slower than a journey through the traffic lights in King's Lynn. Reliant on the scything tackle, the outstretched arm, the push in the back, but unable to deploy any of these normal Premiership devices in the absence of Premiership referees. Johnson, a man who runs forward very fast but who cannot run back to defend, who always stands in the wrong place and who is always totally unaware of the presence of the winger when a ball is crossed over his head from the other wing. Green, a goalie who can't catch. Heskey, a striker who can't strike. A damp match of a man, tried time and again but who refuses to ignite, but who is chosen time and again and again and....Lennon and Wrong-Phillips, both flatterers to deceive. Milner, a one-paced work-horse who has been unable to train for three days because of a bout of ague, chosen to mark the American's key player, Donovan. Lampard, scorer of thousands of goals in the Premiership where everyone and anyone can score (apart from Heskey), but who can't shoot for toffee in international matches, linked again with Gerrard, whose face has the tortured look of a man who has sold his soul and skills to the devil of Liverpool and who last season suddenly realised it, when every human being in the world - in the igloos of the Arctic, in the mud huts of Pygmyland , in the yurts of Mongolia and Thornham - knows that they cannot play together. Every mother in the world must have said at some time "You mustn't play with him. He'll end up getting you in trouble!". So why doesn't Capello say it? Capello's is the "Tony Hancock school of football management" - he who cannot head is picked as centre-half, he who is weediest is picked as mid-field enforcer, he who cannot catch becomes goalie, he who cannot shoot becomes Heskey. And Rooney is tired and frustrated and lonely and, sorry to say it, ineffectual. So Copello is Tommy Cooper after all, a Steve Mclaren without and umbrella, a Graham Taylor without a turnip. The USA, a team comprising of rejects from Watford and West Brom, journeymen from Fulham and American Soccer! leagues, and a star player who was dropped from the Everton team after a brief loan spell, were too good for us for long periods of the game. Oh dear oh dear oh dear! Roll on the next game. You have my full permission to turn this into a poem. Name it In Memoriam, or Lament For Alf And The Boys Of Sixty-six. Bobby Charlton was at yesterday's match. Why didn't Capello bring him on?"
More responses like this please. Let's live while we can.
My New Elizabethan World Cup Sonnets 1. v USA
By a spooky mis-chance, though I watched all four on TV I managed to be out of the room for all four goals previous to the first England game. Not having HD, I didn't miss -
And so the first two goals I do not miss
In this World Cup both come from Eng-ger-land,
The first from Gerard, like a lover's kiss
Sudden, sweet - the second, Green's self-fumbling hand.
The night was African but winter chill,
The kind we like to get our kit on for,
And get our balls across, and shoot to kill
As Stevie did, and then that Green barn door.
The date was set as Lady Luck's perfume
Filled all our heads, our white knight stormed the keep
Capello's dragon-face burst open in a plume
Of wizard glee, our Green knight...made her weep.
At least we scored, that grey suit seems to say
Slumped, solo, on Green's dirty sheet next day.
And so the first two goals I do not miss
In this World Cup both come from Eng-ger-land,
The first from Gerard, like a lover's kiss
Sudden, sweet - the second, Green's self-fumbling hand.
The night was African but winter chill,
The kind we like to get our kit on for,
And get our balls across, and shoot to kill
As Stevie did, and then that Green barn door.
The date was set as Lady Luck's perfume
Filled all our heads, our white knight stormed the keep
Capello's dragon-face burst open in a plume
Of wizard glee, our Green knight...made her weep.
At least we scored, that grey suit seems to say
Slumped, solo, on Green's dirty sheet next day.
June 11, 2010
My World Cup Dream
I mean - literally - the dream I woke up with this morning. I was on the touchline for the US game and Beckham was there in an enormous othopaedic boot. It was about a foot high. When I queried his presence in that condition, he grinned cheerfully and said in that boyish twang,'I've been selected for senior field duties. Anything to help out.'
'What - you're actually playing - but you're injured?'
'Yes.' said Emeritus Golden Balls,' with a likeable shrug.
'But that's incredible!'
What didn't seem incredible - in the dream - was that I was also about to go on as sub. No, I'm not injured - well, that football-related injury down a railway embankment en route to a Bristol City game which left put me out for the rest of the 2008 season still troubles me - but I'm 53 and have no experience of football above a village green standard.
And it seemed perfectly natural when Beckham long-balled me soon after from midfield with an inch-perfect assist which I scuffed-tripped over past the keeper with all the grace and assurance (don't knock it - it works) of an accidental Crouch deflection. In most dreams, especially mine, the ball just won't go in. This did. It was wonderful.
Back to reality. I woke to a newspaper picture of a third choice English captain who can't speak and a singularly ugly and unprepossessing team in grey Marks and Spencers drill looking very ordinary there (with the exception of Rooney, already booked in a friendly for swearing at the ref, who looks like a potato but who in form, a genuine great and the heart and lungs of the side ) among the galaticos of Brazil, Spain and (maybe) Argentina.
Ah yes,but it's chilly in South Africa this time. For once, we have the weather on our side. And a fierce Italian manager who can out-think tricksy Latin tacticians because he is one. And a dead ball specialist who can come on for 'senior field duties'. (No, that was just the dream.) If only we had a few foreign players as well, we might still do it...
I worked out that we probably need to get past Serbia in the Last 16, France in the quarters and Italy in the semis (the newspaper says Brazil) to lose to Spain in the final. We can't meet Portugal until the final this time and I don't think they'll get there anyway, or possibly even out of a group containing Brazil and Ivory Coast. Simple as that.
And then I really woke up?
June 10, 2010
June 2006 v Portugal
Er Indoors had gone to Barcelona so not only did I have nothing to distract myself from forty years of hurt, I also had to cook my own meals!
I went for a 36 mile cycle ride– a 5 hour pub crawl either side of a pub lunch - to ‘take my mind off it’. Apart from a team weakness on the left side (the feminine side?) that cried out like a lost childhood for Ryan Giggs, this surely was the best England side - since 1998… 1996… nay, that Mullery-graced 1970 team that was even better than 1966...
I cooked dinner. In stages. I ate my veg in the doorway so I could keep an eye on the meat between eyefuls of Ronaldino, Rooney and red wine. ‘We can win this. Beckham don’t get sent off. Rooney don’t get crocked…’
Something exploded in the kitchen. I swear left the boys for no more than a second. By the time I came back, Rooney was injured, Beckham sent off...
No. The other way round.
Another ‘last chance’ of seeing 1966 come to the finest generation of English footballers for a generation - in the bin with my dinner.
And we all know -deep down - it's all going to happen again.
May 05, 2010
It's Got To Be (The Real) Gordon
Remember that New Labour May in 1997? Oh what bliss in that dawn to be alive. To be ten (as our daughter is in the picas and I was in terms of political naivety ) was very heaven. So where are we, exactly 13 years later?
Well the polling booth pictured has long since moved, replaced by a tick box jury. And the last two elections I've found it hard to summon up any interest at all let alone the enthusisam I felt for Obama's historic marathon to the White House. And to complicate matters further the Labour condidate for North West Norfolk has mixed his manifesto up with the BNP's and called his party leader the worst PM in history so it's all a bit weird.
But suddenly it does seem to matter. Not just because it's close but because it's got real.
Accepting that we all see the narative we want, in football as in elections, and in my case through rose-tinted specs, I have been struck by the contrast in energy projected by David and Gordon so far this week. David is buzzing round all over the surface of the country like a blue arsed fly with his sleeves neatly rolled up for the camera 'ready to clear up the mess' (oh please!) while Gordon's lumbering volcanic energy seems to have come from a sudden deep taproot in the man himself, the social justice socialism of his chapel soul, born of hurt and humiliation and some healthy self-accusation. The former is much nearer to the media witch Blair, the latter more like Old Labour.
In that long lost May of 1997, I fancy both flash and reality were at work but I reckon, back against the wall and at media bay, this at last is the real Gordon, warts and all.
I'd like to see him elected as such and governing like it too.
May 02, 2010
Burkes, Bantams and Ballast
I see from my drive across Norfolk to its fine city capital yesterday that once again large empty fields (some of them full of impressive bulls) are declaring their timeless political allegiance for the Conservative Party. I didn't catch their bullish candidate's name - Oxy Moron was it? - but he's pledging himself as he has since the Normans ( Tebbit, La Mont, St John Stevas) for conserves that change. Or is it change that conserves?
'Change that ye may conserve' as some Burke once said.
But what's this - an energetic young puppy is bouncing onto the scene as I cross North Norfolk. The Strange Rebirth of Liberal England. Will he turn the tables of government or just knock them over?
Only in the fine old city itself do some Labour posters appear. Old Labour as in poor old Labour.
A funny thing happened on our way to in the city centre. Cockerels crowing and sheep bleating. There was a mini farmyard outside the forum. Is it another media circus carefully upsetting Gordon's campaign? Infamy! The media have all got it in for me.
So if I was interviewing the three candidates for the job, who would get it? Certainly not someone whose central defining slogan sinks millions of pounds on a slogan that conveys the inability to think in a straight line and whose concepts of change and conservation don't add up. Can this Tory team think? Will the detail of 'Honest' George Osborne's gambler budget add up any more than that slogan?
So you're faced with someone who has energy and enthusiasm and youth and may well be a big hit when he gets his feet on the ground and his hands on the wheel. Young Nick. Or the old guy who everyone is jeering at but who kept us afloat when the waters got really choppy. A man carrying a bit more substance than is strictly healthy but what labouring been-there battleship doesn't?
April 08, 2010
To My Beloved Godson On His Marriage
The last time we shared a church occasion,You were naked and a little bit sloshed,
And had to be carried home by a woman
And fed through a dummy and washed.
Remember your wife is not your mother!
And you will have saddened, stunned and shocked her,
If you mix up your mate with your madonna
Your angel or nurse, she’s only your doctor.
I’ve little knowledge of the married state,
Your funky uncle only married once
And stayed so through the good times and the great
But here for what it’s worth is my advice:
When Love makes an offer you can’t refuse
Embrace it thorn and rose, win as you lose.
Chris and Tanya's big big day April 10. And I mean big. Let them church bells ring out. She's a doctor, his mother's a nurse. As long as he doesn't go into teaching everything should be hunky dory. Seriously though, they're young, they're brilliant, they're utterly head over heels and life stretches before them like a highway of diamonds. Nice day for a...Welsh wedding.
April 03, 2010
Let The Good Times Roll
Standing behind the Wedlock goal,
watching the barcodes in soft yellow in the rain
like they don’t want to get their kit dirty
against our red-blooded last-ditch knights
(until we let them back in at 2-1)
my daughter said it was the best game
of football she'd ever seen –
all four goals right in our faces,
smell of the turf, rage of the crowd,
ever-changing, undetached narrative
and the world at stake along the white line
for 90 minutes. Can't beat it.
Then alone by an internet radio for Barnsley,
hearing an early lead crumble to 2-1
and then surge to 5-2, the wish to be there
almost as strong as the old dread
that returns – albeit briefly - at 5-3,
I think ‘we’re staying up then’.
And now behind the goal at Peterborough, from top
to bottom in one week, on terraces
built fifty years before the Taylor report
and a thousand years before civilisation,
remembering nine bleak years in the small time,
recovering from the optical illusion of Maynard
in long shorts and socks rolled up in the warm up
as the red tights of a Prem primadonna,
watching a grey game burst into brief red life,
the players larger than life and closer than TV,
as Clarkson nods, winks and ghost-smiles at Hartley
and points at a spot the Posh can’t see
I say to the stranger next to me: ‘Clarkson to score!’
and he does, like it’s my birthday (which it is)
and like we’re too good for places like this (which we aren’t yet)
and start to dream again.
I thought this was the Atyeo?
March 11, 2010
Real Wife
We're not the teen-dream lovers of the songs
And films n’ soaps n’ mills n' boons n’ ads,
The 'hunters' living with their mums and dads,
The twenty-something dramas, dinging-dongs,
The sizzling catalogues of straps and thongs,
The Darcys, Juliets and golden lads
In modern strip from tales in which the cads
Are forty odd like us and cause all wrongs.
Our story didn't end like these above
In frozen celebrations, wedding-deaths;
We've raised a daughter into Now and Next,
We're grown ups grown together, more or less,
Our romance is a realistic text:
A dangerous, married, grail-quest of true love.
This was for an anniversary a few years ago. We've clocked up thirty years since and we're fifty somethings in this picture though forty something in the poem. I always visualise the Norwich City kit in line 7 (because of the golden lads). But for fidelity through better and worse, Ashton Gate is more like it. I shared a long Indian train journey with a Sikh once who told me that you don't get married on your wedding day - it takes at least ten years. We're getting there.
February 04, 2010
Breathless on a peak in Venezuela
To our daughter on her 23rd Birthday
and her imminent departure for Venezuela
So once again, my love, we have to let you go,
Our Spanish sunshine woman, our child of English snow.
The rosebud has to petal, the flower has to bloom,
The young heart has to open and love must let you go.
In realms of gold or breathless on a peak in Venezuela
May that flower of peace you chase within you grow.
These hands that used to be your anchor, wave you farewell now:
Love’s imprint travels with you, and everywhere you go.
O parent, what a burden a beloved child is on the heart:
What chords and strings are plucked, what music wherever she goes.
Dec 28 2009
Note: a bit late posting this but I've been closeted in a room with Oscar Wilde (writing a 100 page study guide on the Canterville Ghost) all day every day since. Our daughter is still in Venezuela, the next beach from Norfolk albeit over thousands of miles of Atlantic and Caribbean water. On the phone her voice sounds simultaneously far away and shockingly close.
and her imminent departure for Venezuela
So once again, my love, we have to let you go,
Our Spanish sunshine woman, our child of English snow.
The rosebud has to petal, the flower has to bloom,
The young heart has to open and love must let you go.
In realms of gold or breathless on a peak in Venezuela
May that flower of peace you chase within you grow.
These hands that used to be your anchor, wave you farewell now:
Love’s imprint travels with you, and everywhere you go.
O parent, what a burden a beloved child is on the heart:
What chords and strings are plucked, what music wherever she goes.
Dec 28 2009
Note: a bit late posting this but I've been closeted in a room with Oscar Wilde (writing a 100 page study guide on the Canterville Ghost) all day every day since. Our daughter is still in Venezuela, the next beach from Norfolk albeit over thousands of miles of Atlantic and Caribbean water. On the phone her voice sounds simultaneously far away and shockingly close.
December 03, 2009
Pearly Gates
Thirty years ago, a boy and a girl
Put their No’s to the grindstone, their Yes to the world.
Thirty years ago, two lovers’ true minds
Got some grit in their oyster and started a pearl.
Thirty long years with ‘the right bloody woman’
Hatching a love-shelled and rock steady girl.
Thirty years gone, two half-hearts gambled
A whole heart for love and lost a half-world.
Glimpsed through that dazzle of church wedding glass,
Seen face to face now - the sun’s winter pearl.
Dec 1 2009
My Uncle Riley famously greeted his sixtieth wedding anniversary with 'Aye, sixty years with the wrong bloody woman.' I do not envy him his marriage but I do envy his laconic power.
Intertextual note: I read Shakespeare's sonnet 'Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True (Two?) Minds/ Admit Impediments' at our wedding reception and meant it.
My playout features Shelley's rendering the Corinthian spirit of (formerly Saul and later St) Paul as sourced via the Stones's greatest hits LP 'Through The Past Darkly'. (1969) Even the devil (now Sir) Jagger knew his Bible in those days.
Put their No’s to the grindstone, their Yes to the world.
Thirty years ago, two lovers’ true minds
Got some grit in their oyster and started a pearl.
Thirty long years with ‘the right bloody woman’
Hatching a love-shelled and rock steady girl.
Thirty years gone, two half-hearts gambled
A whole heart for love and lost a half-world.
Glimpsed through that dazzle of church wedding glass,
Seen face to face now - the sun’s winter pearl.
Dec 1 2009
My Uncle Riley famously greeted his sixtieth wedding anniversary with 'Aye, sixty years with the wrong bloody woman.' I do not envy him his marriage but I do envy his laconic power.
Intertextual note: I read Shakespeare's sonnet 'Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True (Two?) Minds/ Admit Impediments' at our wedding reception and meant it.
My playout features Shelley's rendering the Corinthian spirit of (formerly Saul and later St) Paul as sourced via the Stones's greatest hits LP 'Through The Past Darkly'. (1969) Even the devil (now Sir) Jagger knew his Bible in those days.
November 04, 2009
September 30, 2009
An Ode To Danny Haynes
D aring runs into dangerous areas, deft passes
A ttacking balls aiming for the top where the Premiership class is.
N ew boy coming fast out of the blocks in a reconditioned team,
N ew ambition and nous re-igniting the old big City dream.
Y oung, gifted and laughing at risk
H ell forward leathering the ball here, held back at Ipswich,
A ngular artistry, a Giggs on grass, identical scars above each eye,
Y ES-yelling walker in da Ashton park, Danny never-say-die,
N ever underestimates the need to nail his place in the side,
E very Friday’s an audition for a part in his favourite film:
S torming through the opposition like a red sail on the Caribbean.
Notes during recent matches at 'Fortress Ashton' I have been carrying a thumb injury. This is partly the reason why during the Scunthorpe home draw I have misfired texts as follows:
'cuntsthorpe are bringing on a bus!" to the editor of a large international publishing company instead of to my mate 'cabby'
'peedo' (as the crowd was yelling in wild abandon at the time) to the head of a Welsh secondary school, instead of to my mate Tom.
The other reasons for the mistake - drunkenness, schoolboy excitement/terror and the sheer amount of noise and jostling in the East End - did not make the cold Monday morning retractions and apologies any easier!
Here, though, as published in the Middlesbrough programme earlier this season, is a 'text' suitable for anyone who receives it - especially anyone cheered by the young hero's match settling goal for City last night.
A ttacking balls aiming for the top where the Premiership class is.
N ew boy coming fast out of the blocks in a reconditioned team,
N ew ambition and nous re-igniting the old big City dream.
Y oung, gifted and laughing at risk
H ell forward leathering the ball here, held back at Ipswich,
A ngular artistry, a Giggs on grass, identical scars above each eye,
Y ES-yelling walker in da Ashton park, Danny never-say-die,
N ever underestimates the need to nail his place in the side,
E very Friday’s an audition for a part in his favourite film:
S torming through the opposition like a red sail on the Caribbean.
Notes during recent matches at 'Fortress Ashton' I have been carrying a thumb injury. This is partly the reason why during the Scunthorpe home draw I have misfired texts as follows:
'cuntsthorpe are bringing on a bus!" to the editor of a large international publishing company instead of to my mate 'cabby'
'peedo' (as the crowd was yelling in wild abandon at the time) to the head of a Welsh secondary school, instead of to my mate Tom.
The other reasons for the mistake - drunkenness, schoolboy excitement/terror and the sheer amount of noise and jostling in the East End - did not make the cold Monday morning retractions and apologies any easier!
Here, though, as published in the Middlesbrough programme earlier this season, is a 'text' suitable for anyone who receives it - especially anyone cheered by the young hero's match settling goal for City last night.
June 27, 2009
Good day Sunshine
June and sunny. So unless you're reading Summer Moonshine by PG Wodehouse (in which case go back to it immediately) get your old copy of Sergeant Pepper out, put Side 2 on the turntable (if you don't know what a turntable is, stop reading now, there's no hope for you) and read this extract from my forthcoming novel Rubber Soul.
Lennon-McCartney wrote some of the most revolutionary music ever written. And the happiest. And, with Harrison, the loveliest. Love songs. They all believed in it, devoutly composed in it, still do on the quiet, the two that are left. Love as a political liberation (“say the word and you’ll be free”), love as personal revelation (“the movement you need is on your shoulder”) love as a mystical force (“with our love we could save the world”.) Pope John-Paul-George, the accidental divines. John’s direct hits, Paul’s plucked heartstrings, George’s blaze of inner Light worried from dark grumbles. Ringo’s floor spot at the steelworker’s social that was good enough to join the band.
They did not set out to be Shakespeare. But then neither did Shakespeare. They set out with a popular instrument in their hands, to make great popular culture for their own time. But Beatle Studies will replace Shakespeare as the definitive English heritage–high art for generations of school children. Shakespeare will move upstairs into Chaucer’s position as the Father of English Literature (and finally stop tormenting fourteen year olds who can hardly read modern pidgin with his sophisticated Elizabethan verse.) And Chaucer will move further upstairs to become the timeless classic of an earlier civilisation and language, like Homer. And Homer will stay where he is, like God.
They set out to be the toppermost of the poppermost. And they were. They made peerless end of the pier entertainment for their peers.
Yet there is a hole at the heart of even the happiest Beatles record. In the end, it was the bullet hole that found Lennon’s heart. And it was there long before that. It was there on I Am The Walrus, the B side of a McCartney carol John’s raspberrying backing vocal and rhythm helped rasp into irresistibility on 8 December 1967. It was there through all the late head-down Lennon B sides – Rain, Revolution, Don’t Let Me Down, Come Together – as obscure as any Beatle millions seller could be. It was even there at the ultimate orgasm: that windblown peak of the Summer of Love, the climax of their great signature album, which ends… after all the fuss …in a crescendo of nothing. A space ship storming an Albert Hall sized Black Hole. A hole. It was there at the end; it was there at the beginning.
It was always there.
Lennon-McCartney wrote some of the most revolutionary music ever written. And the happiest. And, with Harrison, the loveliest. Love songs. They all believed in it, devoutly composed in it, still do on the quiet, the two that are left. Love as a political liberation (“say the word and you’ll be free”), love as personal revelation (“the movement you need is on your shoulder”) love as a mystical force (“with our love we could save the world”.) Pope John-Paul-George, the accidental divines. John’s direct hits, Paul’s plucked heartstrings, George’s blaze of inner Light worried from dark grumbles. Ringo’s floor spot at the steelworker’s social that was good enough to join the band.
They did not set out to be Shakespeare. But then neither did Shakespeare. They set out with a popular instrument in their hands, to make great popular culture for their own time. But Beatle Studies will replace Shakespeare as the definitive English heritage–high art for generations of school children. Shakespeare will move upstairs into Chaucer’s position as the Father of English Literature (and finally stop tormenting fourteen year olds who can hardly read modern pidgin with his sophisticated Elizabethan verse.) And Chaucer will move further upstairs to become the timeless classic of an earlier civilisation and language, like Homer. And Homer will stay where he is, like God.
They set out to be the toppermost of the poppermost. And they were. They made peerless end of the pier entertainment for their peers.
Yet there is a hole at the heart of even the happiest Beatles record. In the end, it was the bullet hole that found Lennon’s heart. And it was there long before that. It was there on I Am The Walrus, the B side of a McCartney carol John’s raspberrying backing vocal and rhythm helped rasp into irresistibility on 8 December 1967. It was there through all the late head-down Lennon B sides – Rain, Revolution, Don’t Let Me Down, Come Together – as obscure as any Beatle millions seller could be. It was even there at the ultimate orgasm: that windblown peak of the Summer of Love, the climax of their great signature album, which ends… after all the fuss …in a crescendo of nothing. A space ship storming an Albert Hall sized Black Hole. A hole. It was there at the end; it was there at the beginning.
It was always there.
May 06, 2009
The Return Of King Arthur (Again)
No, I'm not referring to the druid John Rothwell (goddess bless him) but to the original May King. I'm teaching a children's reading workshop on him at the Writeaway Conference Something Old Something New at the University of London on 22 May. King Arthur for the 21st century.. So Poem of the Month on the main website is The May King. This chimes pleasantly with my sight today, in a rare break from the PC, through a proper window, of my first swallow of the year. Add this to my first ear full of cuckoo a week ago and I think we can with cautious optimism begin to talk about the onset of summer. Let's hope it lasts a bit longer than it did last year. Meanwhile, here on the sister site blog, and staying with the original May King, or his Queen anyway, here's an old favourite of mine from Coming Home - Lady Guinevere.
Lady Guinevere (c. 13th century
Belle ami, si est de nous, ne vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous.
Let them play at boyish games round
A table. Though walled up, bound,
In an unpublished garden, stone
Tower with window, all alone,
This court still revolves around me.
I twist them all round my pretty
Little finger, a studded ring:
The champion knight, the poor king,
Modred, Gawain, my Lancelot.
It’s the only power I know.
He comes through enchanted forests,
Rough-horses, haunted castles, mists;
From slaying giants, big bad knights:
Barons with feudal appetites;
Impossible quests for Our Lady,
Sowing wild seeds Love meant for me;
Obsessed so with courtly sin and
Confession – Indulgence’s twin;
Greets Artos, old friend – clash of mail
(So grieved his crown still lacks a graal,
So tedious!) He comes to me
Who waits… and do not wait to see
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.
I have a heart, self-determined
Core of I Am, God-underpinned,
Won on the Cross, for me. It can
Choose a beloved, a ‘husband’
The church would make him. But marriage
On earth’s not as it is (a rich
Royal land transaction) as one
With my Lancelot – in heaven.
Lady Guinevere (c. 13th century
Belle ami, si est de nous, ne vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous.
Let them play at boyish games round
A table. Though walled up, bound,
In an unpublished garden, stone
Tower with window, all alone,
This court still revolves around me.
I twist them all round my pretty
Little finger, a studded ring:
The champion knight, the poor king,
Modred, Gawain, my Lancelot.
It’s the only power I know.
He comes through enchanted forests,
Rough-horses, haunted castles, mists;
From slaying giants, big bad knights:
Barons with feudal appetites;
Impossible quests for Our Lady,
Sowing wild seeds Love meant for me;
Obsessed so with courtly sin and
Confession – Indulgence’s twin;
Greets Artos, old friend – clash of mail
(So grieved his crown still lacks a graal,
So tedious!) He comes to me
Who waits… and do not wait to see
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.
I have a heart, self-determined
Core of I Am, God-underpinned,
Won on the Cross, for me. It can
Choose a beloved, a ‘husband’
The church would make him. But marriage
On earth’s not as it is (a rich
Royal land transaction) as one
With my Lancelot – in heaven.
April 15, 2009
Dave and Helen's Wedding
“The best wedding since ours, “ I say, and I mean it.
Even a breakdown and a lift home on a truck with an AA angel
Called Dave (was it you I wonder?) could not stop us.
A union of high theatre and real marriage.
Out of a cloudy April, a sudden brilliant summer
Falls straight from heaven onto Bishamption
And lasts all day and all starry evening,
(For one day only!)
The perfect lighting for the tulip-brilliant dresses
And beautiful costumes of all these people
Who have made up your amazing elusive life.
The high church vicar who started in the army
And then went into marketing and then found the church
(Cheerfully counting out fivers into his pocket from yours
Just before the holy starts rolling)
And now combines high humour with pointed, solemn
Endearingly detailed interpretations of the stage set.
Then the casually tip-top professional music concert as you exit
Into the vestry to sign the papers; then the Irish jig
That had us crazily clapping you out of church,
The sense of an entire village (with a Jane Austen church at the heart)
Revolving around your modern love story and its happy ending,
The sixth formers handing out canapés and smiling
Like these first sixth formers, your peers, I’m meeting again
From my first school at the other side of a dead career.
Your lucky streak continuing like the complete croupier you once were
To include every aspect of the meal and venue
And indeed half of Worcestershire by the time it ended;
The brilliant soul band with 1930s mikes and Aretha-red suits.
Even as I use my index finger as a temporary hinge
In a slammed door jamb of pain beyond pain (or any sensation
For the following days) I can’t help laughing.
We all got married with you two, those words come true
And everything with them, when the bride and groom mean them.
Everything organised to perfection to appear effortless,
Like the best poetry.
Even the accidental riverboat sailing under Eckingham Bridge
And over its brilliant sun-painted reflection
Joined in: its shining swan-white prow and name:
Welded Bliss. I gave my heart
- We all did – to the bride, but, ludicrously,
It was the groom I actually dance with.
All of us are dancing with both of you now
I think we may be dancing forever.
Even a breakdown and a lift home on a truck with an AA angel
Called Dave (was it you I wonder?) could not stop us.
A union of high theatre and real marriage.
Out of a cloudy April, a sudden brilliant summer
Falls straight from heaven onto Bishamption
And lasts all day and all starry evening,
(For one day only!)
The perfect lighting for the tulip-brilliant dresses
And beautiful costumes of all these people
Who have made up your amazing elusive life.
The high church vicar who started in the army
And then went into marketing and then found the church
(Cheerfully counting out fivers into his pocket from yours
Just before the holy starts rolling)
And now combines high humour with pointed, solemn
Endearingly detailed interpretations of the stage set.
Then the casually tip-top professional music concert as you exit
Into the vestry to sign the papers; then the Irish jig
That had us crazily clapping you out of church,
The sense of an entire village (with a Jane Austen church at the heart)
Revolving around your modern love story and its happy ending,
The sixth formers handing out canapés and smiling
Like these first sixth formers, your peers, I’m meeting again
From my first school at the other side of a dead career.
Your lucky streak continuing like the complete croupier you once were
To include every aspect of the meal and venue
And indeed half of Worcestershire by the time it ended;
The brilliant soul band with 1930s mikes and Aretha-red suits.
Even as I use my index finger as a temporary hinge
In a slammed door jamb of pain beyond pain (or any sensation
For the following days) I can’t help laughing.
We all got married with you two, those words come true
And everything with them, when the bride and groom mean them.
Everything organised to perfection to appear effortless,
Like the best poetry.
Even the accidental riverboat sailing under Eckingham Bridge
And over its brilliant sun-painted reflection
Joined in: its shining swan-white prow and name:
Welded Bliss. I gave my heart
- We all did – to the bride, but, ludicrously,
It was the groom I actually dance with.
All of us are dancing with both of you now
I think we may be dancing forever.
March 29, 2009
29 March 2009
On His Birthday
“You cannot live in the present.
At least, not in Wales.” RST
“The rhymer in the long-tongued room
Who tolls his birthday bell
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds.” DT
All those years ago, I was in a tatty Welsh classroom
Studying Poem On His Birthday by Dylan Thomas
And now here I am in a tatty Norfolk classroom
Teaching Poem On His Birthday by Dylan Thomas
(Same textbook, newer edition). I’ve got nowhere
Very slowly and now the clock on the wall (essentially
The same wall) ticks up thirty nine instead of seventeen
As I fidget and fill in time as artfully as possible -
Subconsciously still waiting for teacher to come.
A big-hearted girl in year 8 has just tidied up
My slagheap of a desk because she “couldn’t stand it anymore”
And Caroline next door has crammed my pigeonhole
With a big red balloon and put HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Over the staffroom noticeboard. When I slip home
For lunch, I’ll get all my cards, a request to record
My not-so-slim-as-it-used-to-be volume onto tape for America
And the annual rejection from a Welsh publisher.
Then I’ll ease on the moccasins Melanie bought me
Which make me feel like a New Man. But I’m not.
I’m an Old Man, a Boy, enjoying his birthday
Up the Mountain, playing truant from everything
With my dog, Tan, running at my heels.
March 29 1995
Notes: Moccasins? That's so last decade darling.
A Good Friday
Blood-orange sun lazing down into the sea,
Full moon ghosting up the other side of the sky.
All down the sun-slackened tarmac to the woods,
Finches fleece hedgerows like there’s no yesterday
And no tomorrow. Round the graveyard walls
Like over-bred mothers, the fields have ploughed
Through yet another winter, lie back in the sun.
Mozart plays somewhere on a holiday radio,
Notes a tossed incense of joy so alive
It is almost beyond living. The sky
Is full of larks and I’m full of Real Ale
And full of myself anyway: it’s my birthday.
At the foot of a wall of crumbing stone -
A Victorian relic of ivy and railings -
D-A-D stands over a grave in flowers.
“Look, love, I chuckle, they’ve left out the E.”
This tickles my daughter as much as me
And we splutter until I am out of breath…
I am about to meditate on mutability
When her miniature copy of my hand
Hoists me homeward, impatient, a daffodil chill
On the air. Her face is a tiny March leaf,
Her "snuggle-riding" featherweight on my back
Fresh as the daisy that hasn't quite sprung,
A summer in bud. I'm the finished version.
I guess they'll be carving my dates clear as Spring
On one of these stones eventually (paying
The sextons double because of the chalk)
But all in good time. Carpe Diem.
Days like these are worth dying for.
Sedgeford, March 29 1991.
Notes: I was 35, then 39 and now I'm 53. The daughter described is now 22. We change, we stay the same. It's brilliantly sunny here. Happy birthday everybody!
“You cannot live in the present.
At least, not in Wales.” RST
“The rhymer in the long-tongued room
Who tolls his birthday bell
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds.” DT
All those years ago, I was in a tatty Welsh classroom
Studying Poem On His Birthday by Dylan Thomas
And now here I am in a tatty Norfolk classroom
Teaching Poem On His Birthday by Dylan Thomas
(Same textbook, newer edition). I’ve got nowhere
Very slowly and now the clock on the wall (essentially
The same wall) ticks up thirty nine instead of seventeen
As I fidget and fill in time as artfully as possible -
Subconsciously still waiting for teacher to come.
A big-hearted girl in year 8 has just tidied up
My slagheap of a desk because she “couldn’t stand it anymore”
And Caroline next door has crammed my pigeonhole
With a big red balloon and put HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Over the staffroom noticeboard. When I slip home
For lunch, I’ll get all my cards, a request to record
My not-so-slim-as-it-used-to-be volume onto tape for America
And the annual rejection from a Welsh publisher.
Then I’ll ease on the moccasins Melanie bought me
Which make me feel like a New Man. But I’m not.
I’m an Old Man, a Boy, enjoying his birthday
Up the Mountain, playing truant from everything
With my dog, Tan, running at my heels.
March 29 1995
Notes: Moccasins? That's so last decade darling.
A Good Friday
Blood-orange sun lazing down into the sea,
Full moon ghosting up the other side of the sky.
All down the sun-slackened tarmac to the woods,
Finches fleece hedgerows like there’s no yesterday
And no tomorrow. Round the graveyard walls
Like over-bred mothers, the fields have ploughed
Through yet another winter, lie back in the sun.
Mozart plays somewhere on a holiday radio,
Notes a tossed incense of joy so alive
It is almost beyond living. The sky
Is full of larks and I’m full of Real Ale
And full of myself anyway: it’s my birthday.
At the foot of a wall of crumbing stone -
A Victorian relic of ivy and railings -
D-A-D stands over a grave in flowers.
“Look, love, I chuckle, they’ve left out the E.”
This tickles my daughter as much as me
And we splutter until I am out of breath…
I am about to meditate on mutability
When her miniature copy of my hand
Hoists me homeward, impatient, a daffodil chill
On the air. Her face is a tiny March leaf,
Her "snuggle-riding" featherweight on my back
Fresh as the daisy that hasn't quite sprung,
A summer in bud. I'm the finished version.
I guess they'll be carving my dates clear as Spring
On one of these stones eventually (paying
The sextons double because of the chalk)
But all in good time. Carpe Diem.
Days like these are worth dying for.
Sedgeford, March 29 1991.
Notes: I was 35, then 39 and now I'm 53. The daughter described is now 22. We change, we stay the same. It's brilliantly sunny here. Happy birthday everybody!
January 09, 2009
A Reader's Letter
I've recently received this from one of the fifty people who attended the launch of River Deep Mountain High in February 2008. It's the most economically expressed and still among the most comprehensive comments I've had.
"I have had a conscience about failing to write to you before this about your book that we all greatly enjoyed reading, though the bureaucratic jungle that enveloped the aspirations of your youth were horrifying to read of, despite the lightness of your touch. Your fame has spread to Cyprus..."
All right, I've left the Cyprus bit in just to show off but I am genuinely and deeply gratified (and humbled) by the care and attention of the previous sentence. It's worth all the writing when someone reads this receptively. Why isn't this woman running the education ministry? Ah? she failed the entrance exam - she got far too many marks...
"I have had a conscience about failing to write to you before this about your book that we all greatly enjoyed reading, though the bureaucratic jungle that enveloped the aspirations of your youth were horrifying to read of, despite the lightness of your touch. Your fame has spread to Cyprus..."
All right, I've left the Cyprus bit in just to show off but I am genuinely and deeply gratified (and humbled) by the care and attention of the previous sentence. It's worth all the writing when someone reads this receptively. Why isn't this woman running the education ministry? Ah? she failed the entrance exam - she got far too many marks...
December 17, 2008
Gareth Calway (And All His) Works Social
My works Christmas social/office party has been arranged to coincide with my wife's. She is joining dozens of colleagues in a swanky hotel near Norwich for a seasonal lunch. I and all my staff will be calling in - toil permitting - at the Gin Trap in Ringstead for a club sandwich and a pint of Wherry. "Table for one, please landlord."
Happy Christmas everyone!
Happy Christmas everyone!
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