The Goldmine.
  • Spy vs Spy
    • At Fox River
    • Patty and the Tet Offensive
    • Pale and Interesting >
      • More pale and interesting
      • Older, still pale, possibly only interesting to a couple of people
    • The Heckler and Koch Affair
    • Spy vs Spy
  • Peeling the Onion
  • Old unhappy far-off things
    • Wipers and the Ypres League
    • Fanny and Cobber.
    • In Memoriam
  • Slightly Saltirical
    • A Dexter Hand
    • The Boar-Worshippers
  • Taken by the Hand
    • Geranium Days
    • The Lockhart Papers
    • A Martial Aspect
    • O Perfect Love >
      • Sonnets Unplugged
      • Stout Cortez
    • Tea and an Ascot
  • Childe Harold
    • Monikers >
      • The Sandman and Sleipnir
    • Bos Indicus
    • Three things in a field >
      • Dance With A Bull
  • Eureka (Stockade)
    • Two for Joy
    • At the Bottom of the Garden >
      • Coins of the Realm
  • Superstitious Nonsense
    • Leaves of Tea
  • The Best of Times
    • The Space Race >
      • C.P.Snow
  • Sorry luv, I missed that.
  • Valley Girls
    • Britten, B et al >
      • Gammon and Spinach
      • The Blue Flowers >
        • The Beautiful People
        • The girls from 9DY Rangi Ruru >
          • The Fires of Hell and other Works of Art
        • The Cat's Paw and other Feline Fables
        • Flowers in Bloom
      • The Moon and Daisies
      • Snowmaiden Revelry
  • Sitting on Custard
  • The Long White Grass
    • Somewhere...
  • I have pictures
  • The Queen's Cake
  • A Portrait by Hoppner
  • The Iron Fist.
    • Slow twitching gams.
  • Whips and Whatnot
  • Showering with Friends

A chronicle of small beer.

2/18/2011

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Things bubble up and stick in my head sometimes. I don't know if it is meaningful in any way. But I keep seeing myself as a small child in the country, all unknowing, being driven off to church on a Sunday morning along dusty roads. It was largely wasted on me though I think the message 'you are your brother's keeper' got stuck in there, more or less permanently. I also keep remembering being at King's Cross, in the early hours of the morning, in the company of friends and strangers. There was no message there, the whole thing was totally devoid of content. I wasn't in the least bit comfortable with it.
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Oval or Intelligent?

2/17/2011

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Sir,
A little light may be shed, with advantage, upon the high-handed methods of the Passports Department at the Foreign Office. On the form provided for the purpose I described my face as 'intelligent'. Instead of finding this characterization entered, I have received a passport on which some official utterly unknown to me, has taken it upon himself to call my face 'oval'.

Yours very truly,
Bassett Digby

February 17th, 1915.

From The First Cuckoo: Letters to The Times since 1900 (1976)
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The Man of Few Friends.

2/12/2011

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'Rameau was personally known to all the great literary men of the age, Voltaire, Rousseau, and many others whose writings still endure, but though many mention him, his art, his musical reforms, his influence upon French music, there is not one who says a good word of Rameau the man. The kindest of them say nothing. The others, such as Piron, Diderot and Grimm, have bequeathed this unprepossessing picture. The best that can be said is that at a time when principles tended to be lax, he was scrupulously honest, as particular in meeting his own obligations as he expected others to be in meeting theirs, a good and respectable citizen, a wise, if strict father, and a man whose repute could not be impaired even by his enemies. In short, a dour but just man, scarcely fitted to be the hero of a romance, but probably a very good husband, except for that rather repellent trait, his inordinate love of money.'

By Edwin Evans in Music of All Nations, Vol. 5, ed. Sir Henry J. Wood (date unknown).
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Dans le fond des forets votre image me suit. (Racine)

2/7/2011

1 Comment

 
That's the sort of thing I don't like to say. (And yes, there should be a circumflex in there. I don't know how to do that on here).
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'There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.' (Sterne)

2/5/2011

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I mentioned new babies yesterday. Today, because of a little coincidence with a name I remembered something. After my third child was born (not much fun because the anaesthetists were on strike) my obstetrician kissed me with quite astonishing fervour. I was quite startled even though I was still under the influence of some powerful narcotic. Funnily enough I really wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing.
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"Mammy, Mammy, look at me..." (Al Jolson in 1918)

2/4/2011

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Everybody needs a(n) URL, so I'm told. This feels a bit like getting used to a new baby without having episiotomy stitches and hot engorged breasts.
(Some times I talk like that).
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    Peeling the Onion

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