Nothing so dangerous as a keyboard

Dedicated to all those I have
unwittingly – and wittingly – hurt, insulted,
misunderstood, put down or passed by

This is a modern type of dance: we sway,
With thoughts engaged but hands that never touch.
Our partners may be half a world away,
Unheard, held only in the pixel’s clutch.

Words normally succumb to charm and style
On television and in politics
But here they’re all we are - no frown, no smile,
No waving hand, no nervous facial ticks.

Consider now that oh-so-witty phrase
Launched nude, destined for distant scrutiny,
Mere words that lacked the normal artifice
Of gesture, tone or personality.

Arriving, frozen, in its shorn-lamb form
The letters fixed, the burden divergent,
A dozen novel voices in a swarm
Of unintended causes for dissent.

Misread, the words return as bleak response
Like local wine they have not travelled well
The wit that wore such nonchalance
Is now dull-voiced, a melancholy bell.

I could be bland for blandness rarely hurts
And many people search out Mother’s Pride*.
There’s comfort in a cliché as it flirts
With what is known, well-worn or lately died.

I could attach a photo of my face
Its drooping gauntness admirable proof
That age and underlying lack of grace
Are reasons why my prose can sound aloof.

To blog – that ugly word – is idle fun
With answers that supply a rich reward.
But oh the flaw of simple words alone
Without the aid of physical accord.

For what is said and what we want to say
Bestrides a gap as wide as any wound
It is the price that intellect must pay
When our humanity has run aground.

* Thermometers thrust into mouths
sometimes break and fragments are
swallowed. As antidote, sufferers were
made to eat cotton-wool sandwiches.
Technology has moved on and Mother’s
Pride sandwiches, lacking cotton-wool,
do just as well.

Save the BBs from poisoning

Any ideas? The upper surface is sticky, possibly even slimy.

Why I never invaded anywhere

Lee Enfield .303 rifle. The original design dates back to the turn of the century. But then the RAF was primarily into bombs.

Bren gun, known in the RAF as an LMG or light machine gun – so christened by some brass hat who never had to carry one.

Before the RAF capriciously decided I would be taught to repair radio equipment I underwent basic training - squarebashing (UK), boot camp (USA). I was warned about lying with loose women, about not brushing my teeth and about espousing the teaching of Bertrand Russell rather than those of the RAF’s Yahweh.

More important were: obedience to orders (including those requiring me to go out and get killed by the enemy) and killing skills. I’ll forgo the hysterical yet comical bayonet training and concentrate on the three loaded guns I discharged.

The first was a .22 rifle on a 25-yard range. One instructor got into position on the ground and another bawled explanations. When the prone instructor took aim silence descended and nervous anticipation rose. The discharge was like the tiniest of farts. Suppressing a snigger (which would have been unpleasantly punished) caused my sternum to ache.

I then shot a .303 Lee Enfield rifle on a 200-yard range. Did I hit the target? It didn’t matter. For me an enemy 200 yards away was a notional enemy, a mere theory. With the Bren gun we reverted to 25 yards. A burst required squeezing the trigger during the time taken to say “A thousand and one”. There was a caveat: “Don’t count to a thousand and one,” screamed the instructor.

Two bursts and the paper target tore apart, then – to my delight – detached itself from the holder and flew into the air. For the first time I had an inkling of why some men get addicted to shooting guns. Soon, however, I was wielding a soldering iron. Haven’t squeezed a trigger since.

Grips aren't really needed

In a recent comment Lucy mentioned “getting to grips with MP3 technology” as if it were quantum theory. This from someone who paints walls (and grouts them!), paints sellable pictures, has a black belt and two dans in cooking, is presently aborbing Proust by osmosis and uses a camera as a brain/eyeball accessory. I’d say MP3 technology isn’t rocket science if she didn’t also eschew clichés.

Lucy owns LPs illustrative “of a wasted youth”. Transferring their contents to CDs or DVDs is tedious and time-consuming (see The slob’s guide to LP – CD transfer). But not difficult. The silvery disc is then slipped into the computer and recorded on to the hard disc. Thereafter to the MP3 player.

Transfer software comes on a CD with the player. Because the original music occupies an enormous file it is subjected to a process called RIP emerging in slimmed-down MP3. Transfer is thus many times faster than real-time. I chose to edit down the info identifying each track (Who cares what key the Emperor’s third movement is written in?) but this is only for nit-pickers.

My Zen Creative Touch was bought for its (then) huge 20 GB capacity and for its 24-hr battery life. But note that word “touch”, think instead “horribly over-sensitive”. Precise track selection is an acquired art. However the 30 composer folders each contain a selection of works, some whole operas. Plus various collections. Several days’ continuous playing and I’ve only used one-third of the Zen’s capacity. Go on Lucy, bite the techno-bullet and view the Rosy Granite Coast while listening to Spem in allium.

Into the mindless world

The inset shows (imperfectly) the door to discomfort – discomfort that must be endured for six more weeks.

Presently school children are at a loose end. Their parents take them to swimming pools where they mess around, taunting adults engaged in length swimming. As a result I have temporarily withdrawn my labour from the South Wye Leisure Centre in Fownhope. But I need some form of mindless physical activity so it’s back to the exercise bike which I keep in the garden shed.

Swimming offers certain incidental aesthetic pleasures; the ex-bike none at all. Besides, it’s surrounded by garden tools, links with another alien world. As a very minor act of revenge I clip my MP3 player to the blade of a hanging spade, stick in the ear-plugs and pedal away on a sweaty, dusty journey that goes nowhere.

The MP3 player contains over a thousand tracks varying in length from a Schubert lied to a Bruckner symphony movement. But alas the ex-bike imposes its own cultural environment. Try as I might I cannot listen to, say, Quartet for the end of time while fake pedalling. So my huge repertoire is reduced to four collections (say sixty tracks) of the only pop songs I regard as worth listening to, most MoR and most at least twenty years old.

Yesterday I concluded with The Pogues’ The band played Waltzing Matilda, the best anti-war song I know of. This afternoon I’ll resume with Barbra Streisand’s Don’t rain on my parade. It’s OK but I’d rather be swimming.

Enough of tin-snips for the moment

Strong winds do shake…
Can beauty last or is its brevity
The thing which matters most? When badly sung
Is Cosi’s trio ruined fatally,
Its throb dispersed, its close-linked pearls unstrung?

The menace of a changing point of view;
Can Constable survive the biscuit* tin?
Is Waste Land’s stoic wisdom cast askew
When found in advertising’s rubbish bin?

Peugeots corrupt the valley of the Lot,
Displacing oaks with their unnatural sheen.
Yet cars depart, their sound a passing blot,
And succulence assumes its old routine.

Beauty - or art (he shrugs) - is form and place
Harmonic with apparent destiny,
A bell that rings and makes some sense of space,
A new yet old familiarity.

But I’m the filter of this quality,
I set the seal on what I recognise;
A week ahead I may disqualify
That judgement taken by my younger eyes.

And others share my infidelity
By ripping out that planted boundary fence,
Allowing torpor, whim or emnity
To muscle in on beauty’s permanence.

Time’s the villain for us all; it ordains
Our lives as well as that of beauty’s span,
Which comes and goes, diffuses and regains
A moment’s power, fading, soon outran

*Cookie for US readers

NOTE (1) This was to have been a sestina
until I checked out the sestina’s rhyme
sequence. Not for me. Like doing a 100 m
dash in diver’s boots.

(2) Incorrect verb tense in last line. But what
the hell.

For Marja-Leena - a nosegay

European ablutionary facilities (AF) – a very quick guide.

HOME Chateau Bonden has four bedrooms, was built in 1998 and represents enlightened British AF practice. Disregarding the kitchen (main sink, ridiculously small rinsing sink, rarely used dishwasher) and utility room (sink, washing machine) guests may choose from three comfort rooms: (1) downstairs loo comprising seat of ease, tiny wash-basin, (2) main bathroom comprising bath, SofE, wash-basin, (3) “en suite” attached to main bedroom comprising shower stall which gathers dust, SofE, wash-basin.

So far so (almost) North American. However Ch. Bonden fails to accommodate guests’ toilet bags, etc. In cases (1) and (2) the token window-ledges are mainly devoted to books. The “en suite” (horrible but concise phrase) has a mirror ledge but this holds the hosts’ toiletries. At its price range and within its owners’ income, Ch. Bonden is about as good as it gets. Comparable older houses often have fewer SofEs.

HOTELS, etc. Improved during the last twenty years but lagging NA practice. Most true hotel rooms include at least an SofE and a wash-basin. Beyond that, notably in older hotels, tariffs may force guests to pay more for a shower (popular with hoteliers because of its small footprint) and quite a bit more for a bath. Incorporating these improvements, especially in France, has meant some incredible architectural contortions leading to weirdly shaped rooms.

B&Bs are often no more than slightly modified private homes and there are still places where bathrooms (ie, rooms with baths) and, more horrific, SofEs are shared. The better ones will say (smugly) “all en suite”.

The above, a mere 260 words, can be regarded as a discussion document.

Faces, hedges and metal-cutting

FULL FACIAL Visitors to Chez Bonden get a whole bathroom (English not American meaning) to themselves but males were previously required to shave standing over the loo since that’s where the mirror is. Now, thanks to this addition to the facilities, they may use their razor over the sink. This double-sided mirror brought back childhood memories about how strange my magnified face looked in a similar device at my grandparents’ house. Some people have even stronger feelings and fear seeing their face larger than life. Not just vanity (warts as big as golf-balls, etc) but genuine fear.

A QUESTION OF TEETH The hedge-cutting saga a week or so ago (High price for hating soccer) continues. To create a straight face of greenery it was necessary to cut back on branches that had virtually become trunks. My lopper, a word I have only just become cognisant of, lacked power and forced the acquisition of a pruning saw. Such saws, unlike those used on timber, have irregular tooth patterns. I would welcome an explanation as to why this is supposed to help.

OLD SNIPS BETTER I used tin-snips for cutting sheet metal during my RAF national service. A simple tool, resembling a looser, truncated pair of scissors, it worked well. Needing to cut sheet metal recently I bought what I fondly imagined to be a modern, state-of-the-art version. Despite its visual pretensions its performance was way down on the 1956 tin-snips; it haggled the metal. But it could have been me. Taking small bites I know about but is there an established technique?