Shakespeare: sonnet 99

Quiz question: Which Shakespeare sonnet has 15 lines? We’d better make it a tie-breaker. Nearest one to it.

Answer: Number 99.

The froward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.

The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair;
And roses fearfully in thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both
And to his robb’ry had annex’d thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee.

As you’d expect literary critics spend time arguing about whether it was just a draft that Shakespeare would have ‘corrected’ if he’d got round to it. As far as I’m concerned it’s a finished poem and if Shakespeare wanted to add a line, why not? He was Shakespeare. In fact, the sonnet proper begins at line 2, line 1 being a mere introduction or title.

The poem is a conventional comparison of the loved one’s beauty to that of flowers. The original conceit, if original it be, is that the flowers have themselves stolen the attractive qualities of the loved one.

Thus the violet has stolen the sweet smell of the lover’s breath (that must have been a rare quality in Shakespeare’s time), and its complexion pilfered from her/his own blood; the lily has purloined the white hands, and marjoram the hair (it might help if I knew what marjoram looked like). Roses are burdened with guilt for their crime; one has even been condemned to death for it.

I don’t think it’s one Will’s best. It’s a bit contrived and repetitive, and it’s basically a rewrite of Henry Constable’s sonnet, 'My Lady’s Presence'. You can read that one here:

http://www.dindragoste.ro/love/my-ladys-presence-makes-roses-red.php

For a more detailed analysis of Shakespeare's technique, try this:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/4081/99c.html

Boo-boo-bi-doo!

I heard once that Tim Rice, lyricist and cricket-lover once quoted as his favourite line in popular music: ‘I’d like to help you, son, but you’re too young to vote.’

That’s from Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues and I was reminded of it the other day when I heard Leonard Cohen on the radio talking about songwriting. He claimed that his own favourite line was ‘The moon stood still on Blueberry Hill.’ And who was it who said that the best line in all popular music was Johnny Cash’s ‘I killed a man in Reno, just to see him die?’

Naturally this led me to start jotting down some of my own favourites.

The first that came to mind was a line I’ve quoted before here is the one from Hank Williams’ I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry, namely ‘The moon just went behind a cloud to hide his face and cry,’ which I find terribly sad and evocative. To me, it’s all the more so, because Hank Williams does not strive to be ‘poetic’, in the way that Cohen himself, say, or Bob Dylan could be accused of doing.

I always liked Dylan’s line from Don’t Think Twice – ‘I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul.’ As for Cohen, he wrote, in Bird on a Wire, about being like ‘a drunk at a midnight choir’ and ‘I have tried in my way to be free.’ That in turn reminds me of Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee with its wonderful line, ‘Nothing ain’t worth nothing, but it’s free.’

There was a time when I was always quoting Kristofferson. Sunday Morning, Coming Down is an all-time favourite, for I’ve endured many a long, lonely empty Sunday myself. And I wasn’t even ‘coming down’. ‘The beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad; so I had one more for dessert.’

I’ve realised that this exercise can be very revealing. Not just that I don’t go for rock music, but that I seem to be stuck in the 1960s, nursing a rather pessimistic approach to life. What does it say about me when I cite Cohen again? ‘I was looking for someone with lines in her face.’

So, what about favourite lines that are a little more positive? How about:

‘I love a good bum on a woman. It makes my day.’

Thus Jake Thackray opens one of his wittiest songs, On Again. He goes on to use the expression ‘a posteriori’ to provide a very clever rhyme and pun. That sort of thing impresses me, simple soul that I am.

I’ll get round to being positive in a moment, but allow myself one more snatch of misogyny, namely ‘Why can’t a woman be more like me?’ Actually, that’s irony, not misogyny.

It’s always worth checking out ‘The Great American Songbook’. Before I do, though, I’ll mention the song I’m listening to at this very moment, ‘Je ne regretted rien', by Edith Piaf. How can you not respond to that voice, its tremulous strength and desperate defiance? They say the film about her, La Vie en Rose, is a disappointment, by the way.

What about the child-like exuberance of ‘You make me want to go and bounce the moon Just like a toy balloon’ from You Make Me Feel So Young; or, ‘I’ve got you under my skin;’ or ‘Pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.’

All of those are remarkable for their artful simplicity. Phrases that are used as clichés every day are made, with the aid of music, fresh and full of delight. In popular music, love is so often a meaningless concept, or a reason for despair, but here it’s fun and happiness. ‘Ho, ho, ho! Who’s got the last laugh now?’

Think of the sincerity in ‘Ah, but you’re lovely, Just the way you look tonight’; and ‘You look wonderful tonight. Even ‘I believe in miracles – you sexy thing,’ and ‘You’re simply the best.’

And, as I think of someone now, all I can say is, ‘Isn’t she lovely?’

A Bowl of Cherries

I started this last week.

The first thing I heard on the news this morning was that some government watchdog had banned the proposed re-showing of the ‘Go to work on an egg’ adverts with Tony Hancock, first shown 50 years ago, because they ‘don’t promote a balanced diet.’ As a lover of eggs, as well as Tony Hancock, I was moved to publish a rant about the idiocy of the judgment and the fact that we’ve actually got a body that has the authority to make such judgments.

Read about it here:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23401245-details/'Go%20To%20Work%20On%20An%20Egg'%20advert%20banned%20for%20failing%20to%20promote%20balanced%20diet/article.do

I shall make a mess of hiding that link. So I won’t try.

But I decided not to. Rant, that is. I’ve been doing too much moaning recently. I must stop getting wound up by split infinitives and the European Union, by Islam and women wearing flip-flops, by people ordering hot chocolate in the pub and God’s botched attempt to create a universe.

Morning

Today I’m going to list all the things that have made me happy. And the first, believe it or not, was waking up at 5.30 am. I love that time of day. It’s quiet and peaceful, and after last night’s thunderstorm – something else I revelled in, even though I was out in it – the air was fresh and cool. The birds were singing outside with tremendous exuberance. I can’t recognise the individuals’ songs, but no matter. Together, they form some spontaneous and accidental choir, singing hymns to who knows what. The romantic in me says it must be more than territory and mating. But then the romantic in me – no, I’m not going there.

I wonder if my thrushes are out there waiting to say good morning. But before I go out, I shall watch those old adverts on the Egg Information Board’s website. They don’t come much better than Tony Hancock, even though he was a grumpy old soul.

The ‘Listen Again’ facility is one of the best things about owning a computer, and I used it earlier to hear Round Britain Quiz on Radio 4. The BBC website even lists the questions in case you want to have a go at them yourself.

Now that’s a quiz I’ve always liked. I suppose it is the kind of thing that appeals to a cruciverbalist and general knowledge magpie.

As I walked to the bus stop, I stopped to look at the thrushes, at least three of them. They flew off, not far, just enough to feel safe. I notice they fly close to the ground as a rule, but swoop up to the top of a wall when they want to keep an eye on me. A blackbird was sitting on the highest part of the roof, singing his heart out.

I like travelling by bus. I know buses are a source of much complaint (I’ve an unpublished blog somewhere which catalogues the sins of passengers, subdivided by age, sex and socio-economic group), and I know I should walk more, but on the bus I get the chance to read. It’s amazing how much I get through on my daily journeys. I’ve laughed out loud at Tom Sharpe, spluttered angrily at Guardian leaders, sighed more in sorrow than anger at the idiocies of the local paper. I’ve been had to wipe away a furtive tear, but I forget what caused that. I’ve just finished Violet Bonham Carter’s biography of Churchill, and started Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is next.

It’s only 11 am and already a lot to be cheerful about. Wait till I get to the pub.

Afternoon

The wine festival is over, but that’s not a complaint. I find wine – red, full-bodied and fruity preferred – a great pleasure, but only if it’s occasional. I’ve recently been drinking a rather nice Rioja as well as my usual favourite, Chateau Neuf du Pape, but they are best accompanying food. In fact I’ve suggested to the pub that at the next festival they should sell some decent cheese – Stilton – and crusty bread to go with such wines. I’ve found Villa Maria is a good red wine to drink unaccompanied.

Beer, of course, is the thing. You know where you are with a pint of beer. Spirits go down too quick, and unless you want to get drunk in a hurry, are an expensive brevity. Rather like Lord Chesterfield’s comments to his son about sex. Actually, not like it at all.

Lingering over a few pints and doing The Times crossword is a civilised way of spending an hour or two, or three, because some crosswords are a three-pint problem. Solved in partnership – the only way for me – they lend themselves to conversation, interspersed with long pauses for thought and observation of the passing world. ‘Quinquagesima’ was one of today’s answers, a word I know only because of being sent to confirmation classes many years ago. Parents today send their children to a family planning clinic or MacDonald’s, but I was learning the difference between Quinquagesima and Quadragesima. Not for the C of E things like irresistible grace and justification by faith, just Quinquagesima and the difference between a bishop and a deacon.

I had to persuade my companion that there is such word as ‘brouhaha’, but we were both proud of guessing correctly that there is such a word as ‘esurient’, later confirmed as meaning ‘greedy’.

Evening

The best reason of all to be cheerful, tonight, but that’s my business.

Apart from that I’ve pondering all the cheery things I haven’t done today. No Jerry Lee Lewis, no John Wayne, no steak and chips, no cat, no poetry read or written, no Sopranos or Prison Break. I wonder if I turn all these treats into a personal version of Reasons to be Cheerful.

And to finish the day, a large meal of toast and scrambled eggs.

Letters to my MPs

For the second time in my life I have received a letter bearing the distinctive portcullis crest of the House of Commons.

When I arrived home yesterday I was told that there was ‘an official-looking letter’ awaiting me. Now, a pessimist would think that the Child Support Agency or the DWP had finally caught up with him, but, ever the optimist, I naturally assumed that one of my Premium Bonds had at last won me a million pounds.

But no. Instead this was the second time in my life that I have received a letter bearing the distinctive portcullis crest of the House of Commons.


THE FIRST TIME was a reply from Richard, later Sir Richard, Body, MP for Boston. It was around the time Edward Heath was traitorously doing what Napoleon and Adolf Hitler had failed to do, namely hand over UK sovereignty to a European empire. Strong words, I know, but I feel strongly about it.

I wrote to Body, MP for Boston and therefore mine, who was one of the few anti-Common Market MPS on the Tory benches, encouraging him to stand firm.

By this time I was a regular voting Conservative supporter, but in 1974 I voted Labour purely on the basis of their promise to hold a referendum on continued membership of what was then called the EEC, or maybe the EC. The name kept changing in order to downgrade the economic element of the ‘project’.

It was never just economics, of course, whatever Ted Heath and the eurofanatics would have us believe. Two things have stuck in my mind from all the arguments in the early 70s about Europe. One was Ted Heath patronisingly telling us that we would still be able to drink tea. And saying that sovereignty was worth ‘sharing’ – ‘shared sovereignty’? Now there’s an oxymoron, and as daft an idea as a shared bank account – in order to gain some sort of commercial advantage. In other words, sell your birthright for a mess of potage.

And here we go again. The perfidious constitution is likely to be slipped in through the back door, disguised as ‘an amending treaty’. We are told that the ‘constitutional elements’ will be dropped, namely the anthem, the flag and the motto. They’ll all still be used, as they increasingly have been, but it won’t be written down anywhere. I think we’re back to tea-drinking here, because it appears that a log-term president, a foreign minister and an extension of qualified majority voting and a reduction in the right of veto will be there. And by this sleight of hand we will be denied a referendum, which would undoubtedly be negative.


MY MORE RECENT LETTER was from Douglas Hogg, whom I e-mailed about the old Ghurkha VC who wished to resettle in Britain and benefit from better medical attention. I wrote to protest at the Foreign Office’s denial of his request. As it happened, the FO recanted pretty quickly.

Hogg’s full title is ‘The Right Honourable Douglas Hogg, QC, MP, and Viscount Hailsham.’ This was on the compliments slip attached to his letter and reminded me of the days when I first became interested in politics. This was 1963, (as it happens also the year when one of my greatest friends was born), when the Conservative government was not only tottering with fatigue and scandal but also found itself without a leader.

Douglas Hogg’s father, Quintin, took advantage of the new law allowing him to disclaim his peerage, so that he could run for the Tory leadership. It didn’t do him any good, because the Earl of Home ‘emerged’ as the new and short-lived Prime Minister. He waited until he succeeded before giving up his peerage. A more circumspect character, it would appear. I rather think that Quintin’s action counted against him, because it wasn’t really the done thing to run quite so blatantly for office.

However, he went on to sit in the Commons and, when he was appointed Lord Chancellor, he had to be given a life peerage because a peerage, once renounced, is lost for your lifetime. I always thought it was gone forever, but not so. It is revived for your heir. Douglas, himself an MP when his father died in 2001, succeeded as the third Viscount but was able to remain an MP because by this time a peer no longer had the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. I suppose if Douglas is ever rewarded with a seat there when he retires he will have to be made a Life Peer and end up with two titles.

Another point of interest, to me at least, is that the Hoggs rotate christian names - Douglas, Quintin – as the Churchills alternate Winston and Randolph. Nice idea.

Available for Comment

I see that Tony Blair, obviously de-mob happy, has launched an assault on the media, calling them a pack of feral animals, or some such. The fact that he was guiltier than most of news management and the curse of the sound-bite does not alter the fact that he’s damned right. If politicians had any guts they would not give a fig for the newspapers, because no-one with any intelligence takes any notice of them. (Aye, there’s the rub).

I have often criticised the media, both TV and newspapers, but the comedy show Broken News did it best. They hardly needed to exaggerate to lampoon the relentless trivialisation and sensationalism that we have to suffer when all we want is a briefing on the day’s important events.

It’s a salutary lesson to satirists, unfortunately, that such programmes have no effect. Producers, presenters and reporters continue blithely churning out superficial material, mixing news and comment, begging questions and constantly taking the adolescent attitude that the only way to show independence is criticism and carping.

Why does TV news have to have two presenters, pronouncing one sentence each, the authoritative elder man and the adoring bimbo – look at camera, look at partner, look at notes, speak . . . and again.

Why did something happen ‘back’ in 2006. Why is the Gordon Brown ‘down’ in Devon today or ‘up’ in Scotland, and if I want more information, why is it ‘over’ on BBC2, or obtainable by pressing ‘that’ red button. We don’t have mothers; we have ‘mums’, whose babies ‘weigh in’ at ‘just’ five pounds. Snooker players ‘crash out’ of the World Championship or win it at the ‘first time of asking’. And so on.

But what has been amused irritation became such anger yesterday that I stormed out the house and slammed the door.

I was watching ITV’s Six O’clock News. I should have known better. Even Mark Austin’s ill-fitting suits annoy me and why the hell can’t Mary Nightingale stop walking about? The lead story was, as it should be, the murder of PC John Terry. A simple statement of the facts would have been adequate, but instead we ‘go over to our reporter in Luton,’ who delivers a clutch of clichés designed to end in the words ‘a broken family’, so that – bang – they can appear on the screen as a title: A BROKEN FAMILY. And then there are ten minutes of flowers and widow’s tears. Who advised that poor woman to appear at a press conference just hours after her husband’s death? To these media ghouls, it’s just another story, for all their cant about human interest and the public’s right to know.

Bugger the public.

'Educational Apartheid?'

MY CURRENT READING matter for bus journeys is Violet Bonham Carter’s memoir of Winston Churchill. Lady Violet was a friend of Churchill and, as the daughter of Prime Minister Asquith, knew just about everybody who was anybody at the time.

Apart from having an insider’s view, she brings a good understanding of the issues and intrigues of what were turbulent political times. And she writes extremely well too. In those days people who did write, always wrote well.

I’ve reached the point where Churchill has left the Conservatives and thrown in his lot with the Liberals. His reward after a couple of years is a Cabinet post, namely President of the Board of Trade.

Lady Violet quotes extensively from a speech Churchill always considered one of his best. I particularly like this passage:

‘Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty [I guess Toryism just wanted things to stay the same]. Socialism would destroy private interest; Liberalism would preserve them . . . by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue it from the trammels of privilege. Socialism assails the pre-eminence of the individual . . . Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man . . .’

THESE WORDS CHIMED with my reaction to an item on the increasingly tabloid Today Programme. The presenter talked of ‘educational apartheid’ in relation to a recent report by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies. Now, there’s a name that evokes navigation, but whether the CLS knows where it’s going is a moot point.

It has come up with the startling fact that children from ‘disadvantaged’ families get off to a worse educational start then those from ‘privileged’ backgrounds. It seems a bit vague on detail when defining ‘disadvantaged’, which can mean having ill-educated parents, or ‘poor’ parents, whatever that means.

It’s just the way these things are reported that irritates me. For example, this stark division between disadvantaged and privileged – ‘apartheid – as if there’s no gradation between the two. And no mention of the many exceptions, the father who wants his child to do well at school and not spend his life in a routine job; the mother who works to pay for piano lessons. And what about the families which are poor despite being well-educated?

What I dislike most of all, though, is the use of this word ‘privileged’. It’s a loaded word. We are conditioned to believe that privilege is unfair, as indeed it is in so many cases. But it is hardly unfair that one’s parents don’t have a lot of money. Unlucky maybe, but not unfair.

The expression ‘middle-class’ is bandied about more often these days, it seems to me, with all its negative connotations. I’ve never really understood why being middle-class is so despised. In fact, I’ve never really understood exactly what is meant by it. Is it money? So an illiterate plumber on a hundred grand a year qualifies but an unemployed graduate doesn’t? The type of job? So a librarian is in and a Premiership footballer isn’t? Education? Moral standards? Does believing in marital fidelity and opposing divorce make a Roman Catholic bricklayer middle-class? Does the fact that he is a Maoist make a brain surgeon working-class?

IT'S ALL NONSENSE. And so is the insidious campaign to make people feel guilty because they want to improve themselves and the lot of their families. The real division is not between those parents who are privileged and disadvantaged, but between those who care and those who don’t give a damn. People shouldn’t feel bad because they talk to their children as if they are intelligent beings, instead of telling the ‘little ****s to shut the **** up. They shouldn’t be seen as villains because they tell their children that porridge comes from oats or that Paris is the capital of France.

The guilt is on the heads of those who abuse their children with lack of discipline, lack of encouragement, and lack of ambition. Those are the sins which are visited on the children even to the seventh generation. And there’s not a thing the government can do about it.

And now I shall go to the pub and indulge in the appalling middle-class habit of drinking wine and, like a good bourgeois, do the Time crossword.

The Logo

So this is what all the fuss is about.

Just to be awkward, I rather like it. It does its job. It's immediately identifiable, memorable and conveys the right information. Using the figures '2012' is a simple and effective idea.

Obviously, it's ludicrous that it cost £400,000 and took a year to produce, and you can argue that it's unnecessary in the first place. You can also argue that the Olympics shouldn't be coming to London at all. More than that you can argue that the Olympic Games themselves are a monument to human wishful thinking.

The criticism was so, so predictable. People are even complaining that looking at the logo is causing epileptic seizures. God, give me strength! There is something in our national psyche that expects and I think even wants things to go wrong. Every news item seems to be not so much about disasters, but perceptions of disaster and prophecies of doom.

Even now, as I write, I'm listening to a lot of moaning about the NHS. Yesterday, 'experts' were fretting that children were not playing outside enough and that the 'middle classes' were drinking too much. England, of course, are going to play badly tonight - they haven't trained on the Tallyn pitch, a matter of great concern to the pundits.

Not to mention the new Cold War.