The Songstone

There was n old windbag called Shuttle who wasn't particularly subtle. N 'actual poet' by name though her oeuvre was lame; her verses were worth fully fuck all.

Where is Neruda now to sing of you,  Comrade Vallejo? His would be an apt  voice to ennoble, know your fire, as few others could (I am not one, wrapped in cotton wool of Art for its own sake, without the balls to brave the Fascist cannons as you have done). They'll kill you, Comrade, make an icon of resistance, buy you - Mammon's clutches of billionaires: the stooge Piñera! (a parasite from this, or any, era), sucking the weal, and old spiders who brood  voraciously. The darkness of a day elapsed, a day nourished with our sad blood, concludes the desperate struggle of decay.

Returning every day from court, I pawn spring clothes. The river sees my drunken mien; my boozing debts mount up all over town. Men do not often live three score and ten. The butterflies go deep into the flowers, the dragonflies on wing among the drops. The passing time is always rushing hours; no time to know you: separation stops. 朝回日日典春衣 每日江頭盡醉歸 酒債尋常行處有 人生七十古來稀 穿花蛺蝶深深見 點水蜻蜓款款飛 傳語風光共流轉 暫時相賞莫相違

Whilst you were riding with Rebekah, Cam You never thought to ask about the scam? A dimwit or a crook, which is it to be? Before you answer, best think carefully.

One of the joys of living in another place is the local food, so I am amazed when I see other expats purchasing flabby farmed salmon; there are excellent barracuda steaks right next to them  at half the price and  with twice the taste. My barracuda recipe for 2 Two barracuda steaks Yoghurt Mustard (wholegrain works best) Chives, roughly chopped Garlic, finely chopped Salt and pepper Gently fry the steaks (about 5 minutes each side depending on thickness) in olive oil and the garlic. Mix the yoghurt and mustard and add salt and pepper to taste. About 3 minutes before the steaks are done pour the mix over them and let it heat through. Sprinkle the chives over the top and serve on a bed of rice or with mashed potatoes and wilted spinach. Nothing to do with fish, but Old Actress has made a lovely recording of Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite . I have a vested interest here, as it was my suggestion she do it.

By popular request, Betjeman's Myfanwy :

I have decided to make use of the technology and record myself. Here is Autumn Birds . Thanks to Audacity for the wonderful free software and Tony Northrup for the photo. If people like it I shall do it again. and why's she wrong...

Off again to Mubarak's for dinner, bearing a dozen bottles of the finest Scottish mineral water. He picks me up himself and en route we stop off at an Exchange shop from where he sends money to his Filipina friend in Bahrain. I express surprise that he should have to travel to Bahrain, given the availability of Filipina friends in Doha. We then have a jolly five minutes discussing Arabic equivalents of the phrase 'never shit on your own doorstep'. "We're having fucker for dinner, Mr. Simon." "Pardon?" "Fucker, it's very good. My cousin found a good amount in the desert last year." The light dawns. He is talking about faq'h , the desert truffle, which we had discussed in class a few weeks before, and which grows only where lightning strikes... Voiceless uvular plosive, not velar. We sit in the مجلس sipping the mineral water. Mubarak's son is going to France this morning for a football tournament, and I discuss the delights of

A certain lady poet has declared that chavs can't vote, because we're too impaired: distracted by the 'Sun', by beer n fights to know the difference 'tween 'trician n 'phile 'Bollocks!' I say, they're paedos, n it's right to treat 'em all as though they're fuckin' vile. We see that votes from crumbly citizens put in the Tories, time and time again, thereby denying us a decent future through education, art, museums, culture. So wild we are, n beastly chippy too, don't give a fuck, n quite determined to crush, to the best of our ability, snaggletoothed legions of senility.

Another oldie, this time from about 2007 and the infamous Paddy Field, Guangzhou: 'Nnnerrr,' said Roger, like old Wilfrid Bramble 'Grammar schools, nnnerrr, hanging. South Africa used to be great, that’s where I would ramble when the ni-nnnerrr were down, in the sixties. Pah! It’s no good today, crime and disorder. Nnnerrr, I was apprenticed, kids now no plan. Even the beer don’t taste like it oughta...' 'G’night,' I said quickly, and fled from the man

Funny thing happened the other day. I was on Skype and the ex was wittering on about something while my son sat there, sighing. Suddenly he put out his hand and clapped it over her mouth. 'Shut up, mummy; my turn now!' She was furious!  'How dare you!' she rasped, while my son blinked, demure and innocent. 'Are you going to do it again?'  He shook his head and she flounced off. 'Now, dad, tell me more about Odysseus.' I had to protest, a little, 'Harry, are you being naughty?' He stuck his tongue into his cheek and grinned, 'Odysseus, dad.' I'll give him one thing. He managed to keep her quiet for five seconds, which is more than I managed to do in five years. Kids these days...

I wrote this the day after seeing 'Antichrist', about 18 months ago, and read it at the Poet's Café in Reading that night. Let us say the applause was more 'Thank God he's finished!' than 'Encore!'. I publish it now as an appropriate beginning to Holy Week. for Lars von Trier   The maenad cuts Her clit with scissors, pulls  blood from His prick. Tiresias nods and laughs  at agony in woody places, full  of nothing new. The gynocide is crafted  by three beggars, and Satan’s church is nature.  Grief is a Deer, her stillbirth hanging aft.  Pain is a Fox that gnaws its belly – state  of chaos. Despair’s a Crow that never ends  until the maenads climb a lonely hill to rend

I've been invited to Mubarak's house for lunch on Friday. He will send his driver to collect me and I am to admire his date trees and meet his family. I know this is unusual in Qatar, where male guests usually stay in the مجلس, and do not see the women of the house. I am in a quandary though: what do I take? A bottle of wine is obviously out of the question, and flowers for the lady of the house almost certainly unacceptable. I am told that to bring sweets could be insulting, meaning that I did not think my host's hospitality would be sufficient, but just to turn up with nothing seems wrong; if anyone has any suggestions I'd be glad to hear them. Mubarak clearly has plans for me. He was horrified to learn that I do not have my own vehicle, and has offered to give me one: "I have six, Mr. Simon, and my favourite is the BMW 528, though my wife likes the Land Cruiser." He also wants to take me to Morocco: "The best girls in the world - Arab looks and Frenc

The Indian barber takes great care to snip and clip my scanty hair. He stares amazed at my blue eyes, chats to his neighbour, who's surprised. 'I've made a bet they're real. Oh, sir, don't disappoint!' I don't demur: afraid to risk his mood being uglier, with cutthroat razor at my jugular.

The memoir of Sir Edmund Trelawney Backhouse, 2nd Bt. (Backhouse /bækˈʌs/, which is appropriate) will be published this week , and a cracking good read it looks, even if it is a load of old cobblers. I wouldn't be so sure though. Reading the review I was reminded of my own time in China; if I published a memoir of life in Guangzhou in the mid-noughties no-one would believe it. I could tell of the divorcée who invited me to move in and offered to sweeten the deal by installing a concubine or two. The girlfriend who came over one night with her 17 year old, uninitiated, eager cousin. The unspeakably depraved practices of Mystic Meg from Hiroshima. T he policewoman who, upon discovering the effects of black resin on the male member, ensured that there was always a ready supply on the bedside table. T he millionaire's daughter who drove me to a nightclu b with one hand on the wheel of the Merc and the other not, at every traffic light her head bobbing down for a quick... As I s

Exam resit week for the employees. The 'excellent' have passed and gone; the 'no-hopers' who cannot pass have also gone; I am left with the middling rump, who can still pass if they get off their Blackberries and do some work. The class is now fragmented, with the students  all  having different modules to get through, which means more work for yours truly in preparing separate materials for them. In the midst of the hurly-burly comes a call from the bank. "Mr. Simon, sir? It's X here from Al Khaliji." "Yes, yes, what do you want?" "Mr. Simon, sir, your new card is ready. Are you free to come to the bank to pick it up? "No, I'm busy. Call me at 1 o'clock." (fawning) "Yes, Mr. Simon, sir." 1pm : "Mr. Simon, sir?" "Yes, I have no time to come to the bank." "Where are you, sir?" I tell him. "So I will come there at 2 o'clock to give you the card. Is that OK for you, Mr. Simo

For the land claimers by Gerrard Winstanley You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now, You noble Diggers all, stand up now, The wast land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name Your digging does maintain, and persons all defame Stand up now, stand up now.  Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,  Your houses they pull down, stand up now.  Your houses they pull down to fright your men in town  But the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown.  Stand up now, Diggers all.  With spades and hoes and plowes, stand up now, stand up now  With spades and hoes and plowes stand up now,  Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are bold  To kill you if they could, and rights from you to hold.  Stand up now, Diggers all.  Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now, stand up now,  Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now.  Since tyranny came in they count it now no sin  To make a gaol a gin, to starve poor men therein.  Stand up now, Diggers all

The Swill is a journalist, of a sort, best known for stuffing his face on an expense account and writing about it. In a long and unvaried career he has managed to offend the Welsh - "loquacious, dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls", the English - "a lumpen and louty, coarse, unsubtle, beady-eyed, beefy-bummed herd", the Manx - "hopeless, inbred mouth-breathers known as Bennies" and Clare Balding - "a dyke on a bike".  Our hero has been married twice (once to a Tory MP), shot a baboon whom he wasn't married to and is an alcoholic. Worryingly, he has also sired four children and, like Hitler, is a failed artist. Restaurant reviews don't interest me; restaurant reviewers still less, and in the normal way of things the Swill's vapid meanderings would have passed me by, but when a man who makes a small fortune from modest talent has the cheek to call expats in the Gulf    " parasites a

Getting my students off their Blackberries and iphones is a never-ending struggle. I've given them an utterly fascinating exercise on memo-writing and what do you know? Half the ingrates are surreptitiously tapping away, hoping I won't notice. Sometimes I pretend not to, but it amazes me how wedded they are to the wretched things. I have visions of them waking up in a cold sweat at 3am, anxious in case they've missed the latest tweet. Anyway, during a break yesterday I heard an appalling screaming coming from a student's phone. I looked up; naturally it was Abdullah .  "What on earth is that noise?" I said testily. "Nothing, teacher, just a video of a girl." I looked askance. "Surely you're not watching naughty videos again, Abdullah? There's a time and a place you know." He looked chastened. "Oh no, teacher. It's not that. This is a girl being buried alive." "What?" "In Iran," he said helpfully.

I could give you a list of the cognitive associations that led me to choose these three clips, in this order, but I shan't: with thanks to John Wells : and from the 2nd Red Scare :

There we were, last class of the day, and I've made the students work like slaves for four hours. Time to ease up a bit, so we sit round in a circle and they tell some anecdotes. Abdullah, who owns six Arabian geldings, and has a penchant for taking photos of his innumerable Filipina girlfriends, regaled us with this story, which I shall share with you. "Fifteen years ago a friend of mine, who was 14 at the time, drove out into the desert with a guy who had promised to let him drive his pickup. He was a beautiful boy: long hair, smooth face, and the guy wanted to fuck him. "No, no," said my friend, but the guy was drunk on whiskey and had a gun and his way. When he stopped the pickup to have a pee my friend grabbed the gun and shot him five times, then ran over the body. He came back to Doha in the pickup and with some of his friends went back, drove the body to a remote spot and buried it in the sand, throwing the whiskey bottle into the grave with a curse. Unfo

That instead of this tawdry little story , Sky News ran something like this: The producer of the long-running TV series hit Midwonder Blunders has been commended after saying part of the show's appeal is an absence of Tories. Brian False-Gay, the drama's co-creator, who has been with it since day one, said in an interview that the shows - which have run for 14 series - "wouldn't work" if there were any Tories in the village life. "We just don't have Tories involved. Because it wouldn't be the English village with them. It just wouldn't work. Suddenly we might be in Old Amersham. "Ironically, Boreston (one of the main centres of population in the show) is supposed to be Old Amersham. And if you went into Old Amersham you wouldn't see a human face there. "We're the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way," he added. ITV was quick to praise Mr False-Gay's remarks. "We are delighted and eu

I have been looking at Google Labs and their NGram viewer , which allows you to research the use of any word or phrase in the book corpora of (so far) English, French, Hebrew, Russian and Spanish from 1800 to 2000 and spot trends. I have been playing with this and offer one example . 'You' fell from a peak of over 2 instances per 1000 printed words in 1900 to just over 1.2 per 1000 in 1965 (a 40% drop!) before rising again over the past 40 years. Why did 'you' fall so dramatically out of favour? Why has it revived? Was 1965 a particularly selfish year? Are we now writing about others more than about ourselves? Perhaps not . Certainly the long-term trend for 'I' is quite similar to 'you' with a peak at about 1900 and a steady decline thereafter (although since 1980 and the rise of the New Right it seems to be on the increase again). Even so, at 3.5 per 1000 it is still twice as common as 'you' and more common than any other pronoun. Our favouri