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| Yo-ho-ho, I've got loads of prezzies for you but you'll have to give me the shop they come from first. |
Lives of great men will remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And,departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Longfellow
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I saw a jolly hunter
With a jolly gun
Walking in the country
In the jolly sun.
In the jolly meadow
Sat a jolly hare.
Saw the jolly hunter.
Took jolly care.
Hunter jolly eager-
Sight of jolly prey.
Forgot gun pointing
Wrong jolly way.
Jolly hunter jolly head
Over heels gone.
Jolly old safety catch
Not jolly on.
Bang went the jolly gun.
Hunter jolly dead.
Jolly hare got clean away.
Jolly good, I said.
Charles Causey - (24 August 1917 – 4 November 2003) was a Cornish poet, schoolmaster and writer. His work is noted for its simplicity and directness and for its associations with folklore, especially when linked to his native Cornwall.
Fake Xmas.
ReplyDeleteTypical, his right foot is crushing Hereford. But then I always though he was a heavily disguised Metrocentric.
ReplyDeleteBC and RR - Thanks for your responses. Ok so I am boasting, but I thought this was one of my better efforts. Drawn by one of the professional cartoonists it may well have passed muster in one of the national dailies (well you know which one I really mean.) In these days of dwindling blog comments it is sad that there wasn't more reaction - I reckon the whole fiasco has found many people unable to take any more, (saturated solutions*) and switching off completely, and unfortunately that is how the bully-boys so often get their way.
ReplyDelete*RR - Perhaps "saturated solutions" could become companions to "pauper spirits"
As you know, i have been catching up on 1st C BC Roman politics recently - ours have nothing to compare with the vituperation and profanity of their electioneering and general manoeuvring - both in verbal and pictorial assaults - as well as literal ones (of which the Ides of March were but a trifling example, although with effects that reverberate down the centuries, of course) - nor of the C18 here - so fear not that you are overstepping the bounds of courtesy or even of lese majeste: I do wonder however which fiasco you are referring to - i imagine you must be referring to a certain fantasists who dabble in schoolboy politics in an adult world !
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of ‘impersonators’ around at the moment so it’s a full time job watching out for all of them. Happy Christmas Conrad.
ReplyDeleteAs for comments, I think you do well in that respect compared to many and those who do comment are, I think you’ll agree, people of taste.
Oh - i forget to mention - saturated solutions are very unstable and can lead to rapid changes of state when subject to shock or external nucleation ! Maybe that explains the changes to the state of politics here - and you have put your finger on the cause: i think it was Hogarth who likened them to a kettle on the hob and the futility of trying to suppress the will of the masses ! Burke too.
ReplyDeleteafoot - I presume you mean me receiving comments rather than giving. As for "people of taste" I am glad to read that you think so!
ReplyDelete--------------------
gimmer - I'm not sure about the masses - I don't think they were nucleated unless by a chain reaction from their antipathy to their erstwhile leader.
If Hogarth had still been around he might have made a better fist of my cartoon.
----- Thanks for the lunch and associated company today, 'twas a pleasurable lead up to the rest of the season.
Sir Hugh - since you mentioned ‘dwindling blog comments’, I assumed it was self evident that I was referring to comments made on your blog. Must improve my clarity!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your blog posts, your emails and kind words. Have a good Christmas and New Year. Sheila and I are off to Anglesey, back on Jan 4th.
ReplyDeleteHogarth would have definitely brought down a curse on both our fratching houses, although surely The Rake's Progress is an apt description of the way that released air balloon got to be our PM. But Hogarth also did The Shrimp Girl, one of my Top Ten Best Paintings of All Time and captures an optimistic view of what a human being can look like. Unfashionable in 2019? Perhaps, but where are the bell-bottoms of yesteryear?
ReplyDeleteRR - I was encouraged to appreciate Hogarth by our brutal germanic art master at Bradford Grammar School - I say brutal because he also took us for woodwork and after a term making a six inch squared dovetail jointed box he looked at mine and roared "You make fireVood" and hurled it across the room where it broke in pieces. My aptitude for practical art and the study of history of art was more vocational and I was always second in the class in those subjects making Mr. B show me a more considerate side of his nature.
ReplyDeleteThe Rake's Progress didn't influence me to adopt a less dissolute life after leaving school - that came much later. David Hockney was a contemporary at BGS (one year ahead of me I think) and he did his own version of The Rake - I wonder if Mr. B had any influence on him - more likely the other way round?
Jon Sopel, of whose political suasion i know not, made an aposite comment the other day in a piece about some Democrats' postures in current US politicking: he quoted Burke - an apparently well-known quote - (my paraphrasing): 'five grasshoppers under a fern may make a noise to fill the field, but the thousands of gentle cattle resting under the oak remain silent: don't imagine those that make the most noise are the only inhabitants of the field'.
ReplyDeleteHe was commenting on the lessons of our election for those Democrats filling the air with their playground visions - as true for Islington as Georgetown.
Aesop probably has a fable of the same sense.
Enlighten me.
gimmer - I suppose success in politics must hinge on finding some way of influencing The Silent Majority to give you their support.
ReplyDeleteSomething that seems to me unworthy is when a politician with his/her idealistic views and policies alters them to suit what they sense to be a majority who have a differing view so as to secure their own election. I suppose they would then argue that they were supporting democracy. Recent examples abound.
Does Gimmer regard the impeachment of Trump as a "playground vision"? He may be right, of course. I see roughnecks are now threatening physical harm to elected Democrats who vote to support this project. And after all, such threats aren't usually limited to a few playful taps on the head with a baseball bat; the next step frequently involves WIDs (weapons of individual destruction). Who'd think they were protected in the playground?
ReplyDeleteAs to the grasshoppers, their noise may dissuade cattle from sitting on them; can we grumble at that?
Talking of "roughnecks" RR or "rednecks" as we, my old mate, six foot three Tony and I recognised them. Sat in a bar near Lake Tahoe the room suddenly darkened as a giant of a man, as red-necked as they come, squeezed through - we stared into our beers hoping he wouldn't come our way. What hope Democracy.
ReplyDeleteBC - Just one wrong word...
ReplyDeleteRR - no, he was referring to their economic proposals - and how similar ideas have been given short shrift here by voters who disregarded the instructions of their betters . . . (oh I forgot - they won the arguments . . . )
ReplyDeleteI am as surprised at their impeachment activities as many observers - they seem to be setting the bar very low - which will, perhaps, catch other future, and would have felled many past, holders of the office, for behaviour which was almost the norm in other days - or maybe of which the culture of secrecy and confidentiality kept from the public eye in the pre-internet and electronic surveillance days!
As they have been scouring for a pretext since before the last election, it does appear to be rather synthetic, as some Democrats themselves have said - one may perhaps be justified in thinking they are risking a fall when the people themselves actually vote.
Although this was not Sopel's theme, it could be said to have similar characteristics - maybe my Roman studies are inuring me to today's delicate sensibilities. We will see.