Mothmatics

It all started very early one Sunday morning. The year was 1978. Many things happened that year.

In January the Dallas Cowboys won Superbowl XII scoring 27 points to Denver Bronco’s 10. February: The People’s Republic of China decided it was time to lift bans on the works of Aristotle, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens (those dangerous fire-starting ne’er-do-wells.) Zimbabwe, which was then called Rhodesia, attacked Zambia in March. On the 16^th of April the Grateful Dead played the Huntingdon Civic Centre. The ‘set list’ included the songs ‘Jack Straw’, ‘Sampson and Delilah’, ‘Iko Iko’ and ‘Sugar Magnolia’ (none of which I know.) It is now regarded as a “totally under-rated show” which “should be considered a classic”.

Charlie Chaplin’s coffin was found about 15km from the cemetery near Lake Geneva, from which it was stolen in May. June was a busy month. Not only was ‘Garlfield’ then created (my favourite cartoon cat), the Argentina football team also found time to beat their Dutch opponents 3-1 after extra time to win the F.I.F.A. World Cup. Louise Brown of Oldham, England, became the world’s first ‘test tube baby’ in July. In August Pope John Paul I succeeded the recently deceased Pope Paul VI. Only 33 days after taking the reins, John Paul died in September. In the U.S.A President Jimmy Carter pleased all lazy/immobile drinkers by signing a bill authorizing the home brewing of beer. Still in September, Pope John Paul II (lots of Johns and Pauls in the Catholic church, and not so many Derricks) took up the ‘holy reins’ in the Vatican.

I’m sad to report that November watched in horror as Jim Jones led 918 people, whom he’d swindled through his People’s Temple Cult, to take their own lives in an horrific mass suicide in Guyana. Officially, 270 of these were children. 1978 drew to an end in December with an ‘almost-war’ – Argentina’s planned invasion of Chile. After 6 years, during which some papal mediation took place (a busy time for the Catholic church), ‘The Treaty of Peace and Friendship’ was signed between the two countries.

The crazy events of 1978 would mean nothing to me were it not for a now demolished Hospital in Fulham.  In St. Stephen’s Hospital, at 2am on the morning of Sunday 16^th April of that year, I first set eyes on the big, bad world. That morning I cried what would prove to be the first of many nerve-jangling screams. I was now cut off from total dependence, via the umbilical cord, upon my mother. To optimists, I was a bird set free to fly, to add my unique melody to the chorus of creation. To pessimists, I was one day closer to death. To my Mum and Dad, I was Thomas Vincent: an unknown quantity (weighing precisely some unkown quantity of pounds).

The Bell by Iris Murdoch

I like a good read. I think some of the best books challenge, or provoke - tease you into considering viewpoints from a different slant. I have just finished 'The Bell' by Iris Murdoch. I found it on the bookshelves of a thrift store and liked the look of it. It's quite magnificent. It isn't long, perhaps 250 pages. What's great is the maze of personalities which unfold in due (not hurried) course. Michael Meade is one of the more interesting (not that any are vastly less so), with his background of denied admission to the priesthood - a trait I share - his intellectual, highly-strung and surprisingly passionate personality and his 'vices', which form a central thread of this delicate tale.

The bell which lends its name to the book's title plays an almost absent role in the novel apart from this: it is an old, medieval bell about which a myth has arisen of curses and witches and carvings and disappearence! In a way, the troubled life of the bell is a metaphor for the novel. Murdoch is less interested in creating a gripping yarn with twists and turns than she is in digging, like a voracious prospector, into the mind and hearts of her created characters. And what you may find as you travel in your minds eye alongside these people, is that your own heart and mind are being gently pricked by the searching light of Murdoch's thorough glance.

I really enjoyed this read. It ends really adequately well. Someone dear to me recently suggested a good ending separates the best books from their less worthy counterparts. To some extent I agree, and I think Murdoch does ok. Perhaps not exceptionally well, but then her tale really isn't about tying off loose ends and completing an unfinished saga. It's about the people, their unique curiosities, their flaws and imperfections, as well as their wonderful individuality. So unless the book carried on for the lifespan of a human, she had to end it somehow.

What's on your bedside table? Reading anything good?

my latest reading...

I love a good read. I'll happily not pick up a book for some time unless I know it is a good one that I'll enjoy. But when I get a good one, I tend to become slightly unhinged. A slightly viscious, ravenous spirit overtakes me until I have devoured every last narrative plotpoint (even if I have to skim over a few indulgant sentences here and there.)

My two most recent victims have been 'Human Traces' by Sebastian Faulks (pronounce that surname - go on, I dare you!) and 'The Pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follet. Mr Faulks has managed to carve out a niche characterized somewhat by a certain severity, if not sensationalism. That is not the prevailing style of his writing, which is otherwise perhaps a little unremarkable, but it is the thing which - I would suggest - defines him. He is willing to flirt with the almost pornographic, but not in order to be vulgar. It seems he likes to ground his characters in the 'earthiness' of reality (although you may here protest and say your 'reality' involves no pornography. If that is you, you may at least accept that a lot of pornography is viewed by many people.)

Faulks manages another subject in 'Human Traces' with some impressive delicacy. The inevitable approach of death. I'm sorry if this isn't cheery enough. Blame Faulks. But he manages the approach to death almost as well as Tolstoy handles the act of death itself (in a few of his books.)

'The Pillars of the Earth' is a somewhat longer book. A thousand pages may seem an unnecessary expanse of compressed tree on which to pen what is essentially the tale of a few families in 12th century England. Trust me, the pages run out too fast. That is, if you enjoy a good yarn. I do (depending on the yarn-master/mistress.) I really like the way Follet submerges his characters in the spoken style I presume was used all those years ago, and in the culture and geography, the work habits and clothing of 12th century english folk. I'm also left curious if there was in fact a cathedral town of Kingsbridge. Oh, and it seems the capital city was Winchester at that time. So, really engaging narrative, and I may or may not have possibly learned something that might be rooted in a certain amount of truth. Beat that!!

Piglet, Spidy and Cat.

This wild moggy is becoming a regular on my blog. He (i believe he is a he) becomes more weather-worn every time I see him. I try to resist stroking him because to do so is essentially to harvest fleas. I have nothing against fleas as long as they are not on me.

But I do love this cat. Quite a self-sufficiant air about him which is only proved hollow by his many returns home for food provided by humans.













The pic below is from a pub in Colchester. Can any of you guess which one? Brian was very lucky to come away with his dignity in tact after a close-fought pool match. He was unimpressed by this mammoth spider. I tried to take a pic on my camera but failed fairly badly. 'Macro mode' doesn't like me. Or I don't like it. Either way, we don't see eye to eye.

So perhaps you can see how productively I have spent my summer vacation: a new-found grasp of the essentials of biology, some musical mutterings here and there, and selling bricks and mortar on the weekends.

One last picture...

This is Piglet. He is probably well-known by all who read this blog. He is a friend of Pooh Bear. He has a timidity which masks his great loyalty and his desire to display some of Pooh's courage (which he rarely does). He has been my travelling companion for many years now. I have to say he doesn't like bathing. But I could stand it no longer. I forcibly dunked him, head to toe, beneath hot, soapy water and gave him a thorough bathing. I think there where moments, between the frantic squeeling, where i caught glimpse of a grin of delight trying to escape his mouth. The picture is not of his sad cremation. I had to dry the poor creature. The only way I could think was to warm him lightly in my new (not new) oven. Doesn't he look peaceful! He's good as gold now. Back to his chirpy self. I'm sure he lets out a little squeel every time I pass by my new (not new) oven (my landlord tells me it's new. If i were feeling like raining on his parade, I would politely point out it is obviously not new.)

I fell off my bike

There are a number of stages to falling off a bike. First, the moment of no return:

STAGE 1 - 'No Return'
I think this stage comes a very close second in terms of the most horrible bit about falling off your bike. Balance is a wonderful friend but he (or she) is ruthless if you neglect him (or her.) Balance lends a feeling of power and invincibility, but it is a lie. There is a critical point in losing balance, beyond which it will not be regained. Then, you must prepare yourself for the worst. There will be blood. There will be pain. Shame will hover in the shadows.
The airwaves will barely obscure a barrage of swear words and verbal violence waiting to take voice.

STAGE 2 - 'Touchdown'
This stage happens remarkably quickly and seems somehow to happen outside the realms of normal consciousness. It is, you may be surprisd to read, the least worst stage. It's nasty, but you only really grimace when you look back at it. This stage is the telling factor in what the result will be. Do you protect your head? Were you wearing a helmet? Do you go hands first? Perhaps you twist, or get stuck in the frame of the bike, or seperate from the frame of the bike altogether and hurtle towards the compacted (hardened) tarmac. This is the 'other wordly' stage. It will happen in a flash and you will then be ready for...

STAGE 3 - 'The Dawn of Pain'
By far and away the worst stage. Here begins pain. First, It dawns on you: you just crashed. Oh S***. Then, you realise your leg shouldn't be where it is - caught halfway up the shin in the bicycle frame (I'm being specific for a reason). The momentary gladness you feel that your head is unhurt evaporates like steam on the surface of the sun as the first wave of pain prods you on the hands and says, "welcome to my world"! Then, and I always hate this bit, adrenalin's effect starts to wear off and your stomach joins in with the sick, heady concoction of shock, agony, anger, distress, etc. Now, you carefully (and thinking all the while you have CERTAINLY broken bones) remove your leg from the unyielding metal frame of your stricken bike. Someone always seems to come over at this point. They are always welcome (unless they came to laugh, which has happened to me in the past) and are semi-angelic in their compassion, but you can't - as victim of this crash - be nice. You have pain and distress on your mind. Best you can do is not swear at them (something I once failed to do).

The crash is over. It happened about twenty minutes ago in Colchester Institute car park. I was multi-tasking. I got cocky. I fell. After, I wandered into the library loo and attended to my minor wounds. I expect to survive this trauma. I have no doubt I will fall off again sooner than I'd like. I can only recommend you don't try, with your right hand, to hang your now removed bike helmet by the straps on the left handlebar. It's much harder than you might think.

Electrically Charged Music

I am looking into the history of Concertos. They tend to be a showcase of a particular instrument acoompanied in various ways by an orchestra. (That's an original sentence. you can borrow it, but i expect to be credited!)
 Today I've looked a little at a work by on of Bach's sons featuring the Harpsichord, another by Josef (I don't know why he isn't called by his first name - 'Franz) Haydn featuring the Cello and, just now - because I often end up coming back to this piece - Elgar's Cello Concerto. The link below is recording of it featuring the now deceased Jacqueline Du Pre (I don't know how, but the 'e' on Pre ought to have an accent.) I encourage you to have a listen. If you've not much time, start with the first few minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=681NvqpO2eU

I have to say, it is utterly stunning. It is electrically evocative. It is inescapably British but not (in my view, and perhaps with the benefit of the passage of time) patriotic, or nationalistic. Jacqueline made the cello fizz with energy and power. I find it interesting how the orchestra play in time, but not in time. They play phrases, or snatches of melodies in time, but with the freedom to include almost invisible pauses and lilts - like breathing, if that makes sense. This performance has a certain solidity, or unity between performers, so that throughout the many variations and changes of mood and volume, etc. the overall sound is completely together. That last sentence was a little boring, but there's something in a group of musicians who are really well rehearsed and are on completely the same wave-length. they can make something more than the notes on the page.

anyways, someone is walking around closing all the blinds on the library windows. It's making me think I ought to wind things up here... hope you enjoyed elgar. Let me know what you thought.

The Dutch Venture

 

 

 40 years ago, a man from the Dutch Antilles drifted silently into Wivenhoe under the cover of darkness. No one noticed his arrival. His name was Fars Linker. He had good reason to leave his distant atlantic home in search of pastures new.

In 1999, this boat, the "Dutch Venture" was auctioned to an anonymous bidder for the staggering sum of £16,000,000. It had been docked as long as anyone could remember in the same spot in Wivenhoe harbour without once setting sail. No one boarded it, no one knew anything about it. Eventually the authorities took matters into their own hands and entered the vessel into auction. It was described in the brief catalogue entry as 'A boat of unknown origin, sold as seen, including all contents'. But no one could examine the contents. The hull was sealed by three gigantic padlocks connected by bulky, rusted chains. There was no key.

The New owner was an elderly gentleman whose face was never completely displayed. He retained some measure of privacy behind impenetrably-mirrored sunglasses, a large-rimmed had and an unshaven face. He spoke to no one as he made his way from the Auction processing office to Wivenhoe harbour. No one followed him but many eyes tracked his progress.

As he approached, and boarded the "Venture", this mysterious gentleman almost imperceptibly slipped his left hand into his trouser pocket and removed it, now apparently wrapped around some small object. Still, hidden eyes peered from behind curtained windows. Now he knelt down. Only the top of his hat was visble. Wivenhoe was now unusually silent. Only the tiniest clink of metal cut through the stillness. Twice more, the enigmatic owner rose to his full height, moved a few paces, and dropped down below sight. Each further clink of metal instantly reverberated over every stilled surface in Wivenhoe, stone and flesh. Now the man disappeared completely from view. No more than ten seconds later, an ear-piercing screech of Iron against stone shattered the silence. Curtains all accross Wivenhoe harbour flew open, no longer interested in concealing hidden watchers. All accross the harbour people now openly stared as Fars Linker emerged from the hull onto the deck, as the boat steadily cut through the gentle waves. He turned to face the dwindling shoreline. He removed his hat, then his glasses and stood watching, a small grin turning up the corners of his closed mouth. An hour later he was gone, the same way he had arrived. Where to? who can say. His secrets are now safe, somewhere in the Atlantic ocean, hidden in the dark, brooding hull of the Dutch Venture.