Older blog entries for marnanel (starting at number 920)

"The Aristocrat" - G K Chesterton

Like much of Chesterton's (and Belloc's) work, this starts in a fluffy manner but becomes very serious at the end. The inimitable Sydney Smith apparently characterised some people's view of heaven as "eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets". Chesterton points out that this will become its own kind of hell.

One point of explanation is necessary: "the blues", depression, was originally "the blue devils" (see OED). So "and that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird" means approximately "what was once happiness becomes depression".

The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky,
And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery
The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf;
But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself.

O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door,
Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more,
Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird;
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word.

Syndicated 2012-02-27 10:38:17 from Monument

Sitting at the bottom of the swimming pool

When I was a child, I read this somewhere in a magazine: I forget where, or I'd send the writer my thanks. It's one of those offhand things which become part of my mental furniture for the rest of my life.

The writer said that when she was a little girl, she used to go with her friends to the swimming pool. And her friends would end up splashing around and making a lot of noise, which is fun for a while. When she got tired of it, though, she would take a great lungful of air and make herself sink to the bottom of the pool, and there she would sit happily beneath it all in the calm, looking up at the sunlight and the chaos above her, beneath it but not part of it.

And one day she learned that she could do the same thing anywhere. No swimming pool was necessary.

Syndicated 2012-02-24 10:04:41 (Updated 2012-02-24 10:06:49) from Monument

A week of picking on trans people

It's hardly unusual for trans people to be picked on by the rest of society, but this week has been egregious.

Firstly, there was the news story of the five-year-old child who was born male but wants to be a girl. Several national newspapers saw fit to publish not only this child's name but also the name of her school, some of them on the front page.

Secondly, the bookmaker Paddy Power ran a campaign which invited people at a racing meet to judge whether women were transgendered or cisgendered (the bookmaker asked people to "spot the stallions from the mares").

Thirdly, after a transsexual man reportedly recently gave birth in the UK, the Sun set up a hotline for its readers to tell its reporters where he lives. Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton, is to be commended for tabling an early day motion in the Commons condemning this behaviour.

And fourthly, the charity Plan UK decided to make a bus shelter advert that was visible only to female observers. This worked by using facial analysis software, and was apparently 90% accurate. It seems that nobody thought of the dangers inherent in having a machine declare a person's observed gender to the rest of the bus queue. (If the machine had a 10% false positive rate, can you imagine what a gift it would be to a bully waiting for the school bus?) Sarah Brown gave this device the wonderful name "Out-o-tron". Plan UK are not apologising and have permanently lost my support.

Syndicated 2012-02-22 12:40:34 (Updated 2012-02-22 13:08:29) from Monument

Apaches

I can honestly say that being made to watch this film in school was one of the most horrifying half-hours of my life. Did any of the rest of you have to watch it?

Syndicated 2012-02-15 22:51:29 from Monument

The message

I was looking through the files for an official letter and started giggling. Kit said, "What is it?" I said, "I found a letter from the bank, and there's a message I don't recognise on the back in my handwriting."

The message says:

I'm a little teapot, brave and bold,
Leave the tea until it's cold.
When a fortnight's passed, I'm filled with mould.
Don't pretend you were not told.

Syndicated 2012-02-12 22:55:20 from Monument

Thurman Reads it All



In the room where I'm sitting are perhaps a thousand books.

I have read many of them, but not most of them.

This should change. Therefore, I am going to try to read through a random unread book every week and to blog about it.

Want to join me in this adventure?


You might well enjoy following my rather embryonic reading blog, Thurman Reads it All .

Syndicated 2012-02-11 20:36:21 from Monument

Dear Mr Johnson

This morning a song to the tune of "Lili Marlene" floated into my head:

Dear Mr Johnson, you want to have a loan?
We took your information on the telephone;
make sure your passport's duly filed
and promise us your first-born child;
an easy monthly payment
till twenty ninety-three.


I suspect something can be made of this.

Syndicated 2012-02-11 12:21:07 from Monument

an interesting thought

the thing about squirrels
that nobody sees
is how their affection
for climbing up trees
is just like a spider's,
and so (I suppose)
they're really arachnids
with not enough toes.

Syndicated 2012-02-08 21:48:28 from Monument

"The Giveaway"

Since it's St Bridget's day, here's "The Giveaway" by Phyllis Mcginley:

Saint Bridget was a problem child.
Although a lass demure and mild,
And one who strove to please her dad,
Saint Bridget drove the family mad.
For here the fault in Bridget lay:
She would give everything away.

To any soul whose luck was out
She'd give her bowl of stirabout;
She'd give her shawl, divide her purse
With one or all. And what was worse,
When she ran out of things to give
She'd borrow from a relative.

Her father's gold, her grandsire's dinner,
She'd hand to cold and hungry sinner;
Give wine, give meat, no matter whose;
Take from her feet the very shoes,
And when her shoes had gone to others,
Fetch forth her sister's and her mother's.

She could not quit. She had to share;
Gave bit by bit the silverware,
The barnyard geese, the parlor rug,
Her little niece's christening mug,
Even her bed to those in want,
And then the mattress of her aunt.

An easy touch for poor and lowly,
She gave so much and grew so holy
That when she died of years and fame,
The countryside put on her name,
And still the Isles of Erin fidget
With generous girls named Bride or Bridget.

Well, one must love her. Nonetheless,
In thinking of her Givingness,
There's no denial she must have been
A sort of trial unto her kin.
The moral, too, seems rather quaint.
WHO had the patience of a saint,
From evidence presented here?
Saint Bridget? Or her near and dear?

Syndicated 2012-02-01 11:32:58 from Monument

Puppy dreams

My puppy always starts to growl as soon as he's asleep:
"I've caught a hundred waterfowl and killed a thousand sheep;
I felled and ate a buffalo, then swam across the sea,
And when I found where squirrels go, I chased them up the tree."
And though his dreams are not the truth, who'll wake him up? Not I!
I've firmly held it since my youth that sleeping dogs should lie.

Syndicated 2012-01-31 14:14:56 from Monument

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