THE GOLDEN AGE IS NOW When we were very poor I took a part-time evening job behind a bar in a Tottenham pub. After three nights I resigned. Incompetence was the main reason but, also, for the first time I had to remain clear-eyed while others lapsed into crapulousness. Oh what a (badly put-together) piece of work is man.
These were pre-decimal days. To price “a brown and mild” I had to halve a pint of mild beer (at 1s 11d) and add it to a bottle of brown ale (1s. 3½d) – in my head. And there would be equal gymnastics concerning a gin and tonic or a port and lemon. When I resigned the landlord’s wife told me I wasn’t cut out for this work. In the words of Paul Simon “I took some comfort there”.
Nowadays bar-tending is a doddle. The cash register works it out and for the innumerate touch-key icons augment mere figures. If I were wiped out financially I could present myself for duty at The Dog and Duck, confident that technology would be my crutch. But being able to watch bright-eyed, shouty young men wheedling drinks out of the local second-hand car dealer (a roll of tenners in his back pocket) would be another matter.
WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART
Eclogue 46: English is a plum pudding of different words.
Example: Cyrano: So, insult me. Intellectually inadequate aristocrat: You have… a big nose. Cyrano: Ah, what could you have said? When it bleeds… a river (steps over imaginary river). When it’s blown, a hurricane. Etc, etc.
These were pre-decimal days. To price “a brown and mild” I had to halve a pint of mild beer (at 1s 11d) and add it to a bottle of brown ale (1s. 3½d) – in my head. And there would be equal gymnastics concerning a gin and tonic or a port and lemon. When I resigned the landlord’s wife told me I wasn’t cut out for this work. In the words of Paul Simon “I took some comfort there”.
Nowadays bar-tending is a doddle. The cash register works it out and for the innumerate touch-key icons augment mere figures. If I were wiped out financially I could present myself for duty at The Dog and Duck, confident that technology would be my crutch. But being able to watch bright-eyed, shouty young men wheedling drinks out of the local second-hand car dealer (a roll of tenners in his back pocket) would be another matter.
WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART
Eclogue 46: English is a plum pudding of different words.
Example: Cyrano: So, insult me. Intellectually inadequate aristocrat: You have… a big nose. Cyrano: Ah, what could you have said? When it bleeds… a river (steps over imaginary river). When it’s blown, a hurricane. Etc, etc.
Caution: Go out there and delight in “jejune” and “mellifluous” while simultaneously exploring the one short step into pretentiousness.
6 comments:
Well, I was as cranking as I've ever been yesterday! I'd like to start over.
One of the things I enjoy about reading your blog, Friend BB, is that I always learn (or start down the road to learning) something new each time I visit.
When I go to google an unknown word or unfamiliar expression I find here, I end up taking numerous delightful side-trips.
:)
I see you removed what you regard as self-accusatory footsteps in the snow. I'm often tempted to do the same but in your case it was unnecessary. I recall you were brought up short by "eclogue" but it was a word picked out of the sky and used incorrectly. Apologies for its misuse appeared in other episodes of "Writing: Art not craft" until Lucy finally - sort of - granted me absolution for this act of literary vandalism.
Sometimes - too frequently, to be honest - I speak/write the first thing that comes to mind: sometimes, that's okay; other times, I could use a filter to edit out the half-formed thoughts that, upon re-reading, make me think, "What the heck?!?"
Yesterday was one of those days.
About eclogue: I didn't know what it meant, but that's the fun of visiting here - a bit of a treasure hunt each time.
I'd love to write poetry, because I enjoy reading it so much, but I accept that I'm not very good at it. However, I have learned/been exposed to more on the craft of writing poetry than was taught in school by visiting you here.
Some of the best teachers I've ever had, and whom I treasure most, have been those who weren't trying to teach, but were explorers themselves.
There - now that's what I intended to write yesterday, but it didn't come out that way.
And that's supposed to be "cranky," not "cranking." Fingers couldn't keep up with the brain. Hey, it happens.
PS: reading this bit, "being able to watch bright-eyed, shouty young men wheedling drinks out of the local second-hand car dealer (a roll of tenners in his back pocket)," put me smack-dab in the middle of the scene. I love when that happens!
:)
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