The ingratitude of youth

Djangolina is struggling with her English homework, and making unhappy noises.
"Daddy, can you help?"
"Depends. What's the problem?"
"We're studying Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott', and have to write a stanza in that form. I can't do it."
"Well, let's have a look..."
We analyze the form a bit. After cogitating for a while, I come up with the following:

He ready put his sharpest knife
For dinner - ordered by his wife - 
By cooking would avoid he strife 
In many-towered Camelot
Once gnocchi pot was on the boil
And sea-bass fillets wrapped in foil
He chopped, and fried in olive oil
The ladle of shallots.

"Er, thanks, but I think I'd better do my own. Properly."

A counterblast to Amanda Palmer

Many people - rightly - have been substantially offended by a toe-curlingly awful 'poem' on the fate of Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by a lady named Amanda Palmer (whom I freely confess I was hitherto unaware of). Some have felt moved to hurl abuse at her via twitter, or mocked her unmetrical, non-rhyming glurge via Facebook. Fair enough.

I feel stung into responding with a proper poem about the event, in a proper verse-form, and staying somewhat closer to the known facts. I stand by it on the grounds of accuracy, and stress I mean no offence to anyone in Boston or otherwise affected by the terrible events of last week (the only word I have reservations about is the 6th line, but the form demands a 6-syllable double-dactyl at that point and I couldn't think of one which better reflects the courage and tireless devotion to duty of the Boston PD). I merely wish to provide a literary alternative to Ms Palmer's poem which avoids being overlong, sloppily written, vomit-inducingly self-regarding and misplaced in its sympathies.

A Poem for Tamerlan
Higgledy piggledy
Tamerlan Tsarnaev
Set off a bomb
At the finishing line

Afterwards uniformed
Overenthusiasts
Shot him.
Bostonians felt that was fine.

The dishonesty of literature

Poets are not famous for writing what's actually in their heads. The chief function of poetry being for bespectacled geeks to get off with girls, they write what they think people want to hear. Take Yeats, for instance, who famously wrote:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

One knows in one's heart that the reality would be, rather:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would sell them to a market trader of dubious repute
Spend all the money on beer and then
Lie down to recover under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my head.

The Battle of Richard III - a brief summary

Since no normal person would want to have to read all the media coverage of the current row between the cities of York and Leicester over the reburial of Richard III, I here provide an accurate, impartial and - most importantly - concise summary of the whole rigmarole so far:
-----------------------
Leicester: I say minister, we're getting rather bothered by this mad woman from the Richard III Society who's convinced Richard III is communicating with her not merely from beyond the grave, but from under a council car park. And she's offered to fund a dig, and the archaeology department look like they could do with a day or two in the fresh air.
HM Government: Righty-ho. If you do find any bodies, bury them again as close as is reasonably possible. In any case, wasn't Dicky dug up and chucked in a river?
Leicester: Quite possibly.
------------------------
Leicester: Well bugger me - look what the spade's hit! WE'VE FOUND HIM LADS! Except for the feet. And look at that - he was a hunchback!
R3S lady: Shite.
------------------------
York: 'Appen lads - Leicester ave found t'tourist attraction. Could be brass in that t'muck!
Leicester: Fuck off.
York: As t'name 'Richard of Gloucester' suggests, 'e were a Yorkshire lad!
Leicester: Fuck off.
York: And you lost him for 500 years
Leicester: Fuck off.
York: And some folks as says they is related to 'im want 'im in t'Minster.
Leicester: Fuck right off.
York: And us beloved Minster, jewel of t'North and spiritual 'ome of t'Northernness should rightly 'ave 'im.
York minster clergy: Actually we think he should stay in Leicester.
York: DIE, SOUTHERN PONCE!
York MPs: And we wants talks with t'Leicester MPs in t'commons.
House of Commons: Fuck. Off.
York: And talks with t'mayor of Leicester.
Mayor of Leicester: FUCK OFF!

[To be continued...]

I suggest we settle the issue in a way which Richard III himself would have understood and approved - York and Leicester councils should send out commissions of array, gather their forces, and do battle at a convenient mid-point (say, Mansfield - where any collateral damage would barely be noticed anyway). Not only that, but we'd probably end up with some spare feet to donate to his Majesty's remains. You know it makes sense.

The Curse of Byard

I have, as some of you may know, recently returned from a business trip to Egypt. When I landed the country was a little on edge because of the unpleasantness on its northern border; by the time I left a week later the president had assumed dictatorial powers, Tahrir Square reeked of teargas and quite a lot of things were on fire.

This isn't the first time I have done this to an unsuspecting country. I visited Uzbekistan, and shortly afterwards Andijan erupted into large-scale unpleasantness. I visited the Caucasus and the Russians and Georgians marked my departure by kicking the crap out of each other.My visit to Bangladesh heralded a major mutiny of the country's border force, in their barracks just down the road from the office in which I had been working. When I left Thailand a few years ago, all hell broke loose on the street between red- and yellow-shirted partisans of assorted political factions.

The evidence is in - whenever I leave a country, chaos ensues. As yet, Gyppologists are unable to say whether this is the soul of a nation pining for me as I flit away, or whether the removal of a critical quantity of existential lucky heather tips the balance, but a causal link is now hard to deny.

I am now willing to offer governments and regional organisations two ways in which they can benefit from this unusual talent of mine:

1) Any country wishing to avoid unrest may pay me an annual retainer not to set foot in it. I suggest a graduated pay scale depending on population, say £1 per year per thousand inhabitants.

2) Any country wishing to stir up trouble in someone else's patch can give me a return first-class air ticket and an all-expenses paid fortnight in a five-star hotel in the capital of whichever nation they wish to destabilise, except in the case of the UK wishing to safeguard the Falkland Islands (or, for readers in Argentina, THE FALKLAND ISLANDS!) by messing up Argentina, in which case my patriotic sense of self-sacrifice will prompt me to lower the rate to business-class and one week in a four-star hotel).

Serious offers from cabinet-level ministers only please. Leave a private contact in the comments...

Surrealism at home - 4

"Help!"
"What is it Guthlac?"
"I'm slipping down the stairs." (I can believe this. Moments earlier he had been lying full-length on them.)
"I'm sure you'll be alright. In any case, it'll have to wait until I've finished shaving."
"Help!"
"Look - I have to finish shaving. You're not in any real danger. If you were, for example, being pursued by a hammerhead shark armed with a crossbow, I would rush to your aid."
"Am I?"
"No. And here are three good reasons why not: Reason number 1 - Hammerhead sharks cannot breathe out of water. Reason number 2 - Hammerhead sharks haven't got hands and would therefore find picking up, aiming and shooting a crossbow difficult. Reason number 3 - Their eyes, being at the extremities of their eponymous heads, are ill-placed for aiming correctly.
"What's reason number 4?"
"Are the first three not enough?"
"No."
"OK, reason number 4 - to span the crossbow requires that one puts one's foot in the stirrup, another movement which hammerhead sharks find bafflingly difficult owing to a lack of feet."
"How about reason number 5?"
"Hammerhead sharks have delicate skin which would be terribly chafed by the taut string of a crossbow."
What's reason number 6?"
"I've finished shaving now."
"Awwwww...."

My daily walk of shame

From Monday to Friday each week, I accompany Guthlac on his five-minute walk to school, where he is currently in 'Foundation 2' (or 'Reception' as it was until recently. Or 'infants' as it was back in my day.) I then depart for work.

Guthlac and his classmates are not allowed to bring toys into school. However, they all interpret this rule to mean that they can bring toys to the playground and then hand them over to their accompanying parent or carer when summoned inside.

Thus it is that from Monday to Friday each week, I am compelled to walk though the streets of my neighbourhood, a solitary middle-aged man dressed more-or-less respectably for work, trying to look normal while carrying in his hand a bizarre toy of some description. As many of those who will see me are similarly encumbered parents I know I have some degree of understanding. But there are always non-parents about who will notice and start constructing narratives inside their own heads as to how this state of affairs has come to pass. I imagine, in my more paranoid moments, that many of these narratives feature phrases like "care in the community" or "predatory".

I now have, in my head, an elaborate hieararchy of toys categorised by public shame coefficient, running something like this:

Category one: Small transformers, toy cars, superhero figurines: Fine for cold weather as they can be concealed inside a coat pocket. In warm weather, can be largely hidden with sleight of hand.

Category two: Scooter or bicycle. Awkward to carry and impossible to conceal about one's person, but obviously the burden of a school run and therefore no cause for public shame.

Category three: Marvel comics. Hard to conceal other than during overcoat weather, and open to non-school run interpretations from passers-by including sad geek's reading material and child-molestor's conversation starter.

Category four: Light-sabres, game consoles etc. Too large to conceal, too embarrassing to carry openly, these are the stuff of overly self-conscious adult nightmares. Only this morning, a request to take one of these and the inevitable response led to a toddler-like temper tantrum, with screams, flailing fists and hot salty tears. But after a while I calmed down and took Guthlac to school anyway.