Ezra goes to the publishers

Harold Pinter: A visit to the Publishers

Isaac Hamilton's Curiosities of Literature

Extracts from the diary of Anchovey Hammiltonne
(Hammiltonne, an ancestor of mine, is undoubtedly the most minor of all the minor Elizabethans. His plays are well preserved, in good quarto and folio versions, but have been assiduously avoided by every literature department in the western world. The only exception is in France where he is considered the finest playwright of his day for reasons that French academics are unwilling or unable to divulge.)

March 02 1594
Wente too see Kyd, who is verey ille from a poxe whiche he caught offe a spanish whore. I declared itte to be a Spanishe Tragidee. Hea muste have been verrie ille, for he smilled not at the jeste. I wente home in ille tempre, but when I repeatted the jeste to mie courtesan she laughed verrie merrielie. I entered upon her with great haste. Afterwards I beat the eidle wontonne with my shoe, at felle asleape atte once.

March 03
Johnsonne has killed anothere mann, and no tavernne will give mee creditte. I wille go to visit Will Shaekespere.

March 04
Hadde a poore meal with Will. Only fisshe was served. I coulde notte understande why, and he woulde not telle me. Afterwards we went to the taverne. I drank greatly of sack, while Will tooke but littel. He seemed moste friendly withe a certaine Ethiopeianne servinge girle, and they exchanged much affecsionne at the tabel. We were home and in bedde earlie, but a greate hungere woake me fromme sleap. I creppte like a mowse to the kitchenne, and was shoakked to sea Mr Marlowe, who I hadde thoughte deade, eatinge heartily of breadde and wrighting atte the taebel. Itte seemes that a certainne madde Jesuitte seeks to kille Mr Marlowe as a spie. Shagespeare, who was the onlie manne to warne Mr Marlowe, offered his house as a refugge, untille the daunger should passe. Mr Marlowe has beene passing his workes to Sheeksbeare to bee performede. He askede mee with greatte eagernesse if I hadde seene hisse comeddie Titusse Andronicusse. I saidde no, but a plaiy of the same name bie Sheakspere had been moste popular. He looked most greene. We dranke much ale at the kitchenne, ande I retirede so drunkenne thate I trippelly befouled Master Will's seconde beste bedde.


Fig 1: The Frontispiece for Hammiltonne's final work - A Prettie Pottle Pot of Ha'Pennie Witte or I Hate Mye Bloodie Publisshere

Misery memoir fraud gets egg on face, mothers speak out, small children weep uncontrollably

Caveat emptor! The line between fiction and biography (auto- or otherwise) is one we should not fear to cross - at any time, without warning or respect for ordinary decency. Crappy hard-childhood memoirs are (to plagiarise Tom Lehrer - I don't think he'd mind) 'the particularly fashionable form of idiocy' among the young middle-class. Most people don't actually give money to charities, but they feel they're doing their bit to counter abuse, poverty and deprivation by reading about them in books and producing, on occasion, an earnest, charitable tear.

The only losers in the 'fraudobiography' debacle are those 'who associate authenticity with artistic merit'. If I thought it would boost sales, I would not hesitate personally to lay claim to all of the positive accomplishments of the characters in my books. Alas, when the best part of the subject matter comprises 8th-century Wendish seafaring exploits, the title Dogtooth: The Autobiography might arouse more than a little suspicion.

Chairman Mao: Hero of Harriet Harman

Chairman Mao, that gregarious Asian

Was skilled in the art of persuasion.

He said "wayward Tibet,

You will be my death yet.

The best form of persuasion's invasion."

In other news, a group of Jewish schoolgirls have completely missed the point.

Harriet Harmen: Hero of the Left

The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyr'd dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high,
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,
The sturdy German chants its praise,
In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung,
Chicago swells the surging throng.
It waved above our infant might
When all ahead seemed dark as night;
It witnessed many a deed and vow,
We must not change its colour now.
It well recalls the triumphs past;
It gives the hope of peace at last:
The banner bright, the symbol plain,
Of human right and human gain.
It suits today the meek and base,
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place,
To cringe before the rich man's frown
And haul the sacred emblem down.
With heads uncovered swear we all
To bear it onward till we fall.
Come dungeon dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn.

Rimnasium 7

There is no way of laughing at his with your own cock

This is Bat Country

An evening spent in the company of my university's union representatives is an evening I shan't get back. My misfortune at wandering into the post-election-results-party meant that I hobnobbed with the great and the good; ranging from the bizarrely amalgamated 'Medical & Postgraduate Students' Officer' to the curiously titled 'Pre-Clinical President' not to mention the ubiquitous 'Anti Racism Officer'.

The evening was of some benefit (I've given sufficient reason for my train of thought) - upon returning home I happened upon this article concerning some really rather groovy sounding psychedelic drugs. I have a particular interest in getting my hands on 70mg of 'dipthong'. Ultra-sensitive canine hearing? Yes please.

Remember to chase the rainbow!

I was in the reception area of a local hotel yesterday, waiting to meet an elderly couple of my aquaintence, and I saw a discreet door marked library. I stepped inside to find that the room had one bookshelf, taking up rather less than half a wall, and even this was very far from full. These were its contents:
A complete edition of the Waverly novels
About 35 percent of an editions of Dickens
A number of leather bound works by Burgess and Maclean (dissapointingly I'm talking about Alan Burgess and Alastair Maclean)
Two copies of Home Doctor
A work designed to help those seeking to defend themselves in court
An illustrated atlas of the British Empire
A handfull of travel guides

Clearly nobody will ever read any of these books, apart from possbly the travel guides, although I do like the idea of taking a holiday in order to spend long hours by the fire identifying symptoms in the Home Doctor or planning subtle legal defences to get you off your latests public decency charges. I think it is clear that the patrons of this hotel, like so many students of my aquaintence, find an area called 'Library' a congenial place to shout loudly down their mobile phones and drink carbonated beverages.

Afterwards we took a turn round a nearby cathedral, and I read a number of charming epitaphs and inscriptions, including the grave of a young chap killed by greek brigands and a monument to the coal miners of the area. This cheered me up considerably. Remember, there is always someone worse off than yourself, and that person is very often a miner.

Pro patria mori

I do not favour the fence; but I think in the case of Kosovan secession from Serbia, it is dangerous, at least at this early stage, to relocate. While the Albanian cause may be worthy, their majority unquestionable and their solution practical (and certainly, with regard to their mud-slinging, violence and in-some-cases combative supremacism, they give no worse than they get), two things bother me about Kosovan independence: 1) The use of international muscle to facilitate Kosovo's secession in spite of the wishes of democratic Serbia, a country that is still trying to find its feet after several decades of absolutist rule, bloodshed and unpredictable political geography, seems only to have consolidated the USA's already damning reputation for flouting UN consensus - one cannot help feeling that Russia's legally-grounded objections are more than reasonable; 2) What of the not-inconsiderable Serbian population of the new Kosovo? 10%, at a glance, which is actually more than I originally thought. It seems only fair that as most of this number is concentrated in the northern part of the country, they should be allowed, if they wish, to secede and/or be reunited with Serbia. After all, why sympathise with one manifestation of nationalist idiocy and not another?

I am, as I say, on the fence, waiting for rain. On a lighter note, I enjoyed this stock limerick:

There once was a [person] from [place]
Whose [body part] was [special case].
When [event] would occur,
It would cause [him or her]
To violate [law of time/space].

Isaac Hamilton's Curiosities of Literature

- An Almanace fore the Unwarie

On this day in 1994 V.S. Naipul loaded a leatherette bound collector's edition of A Dance to the Music of Time into the great Western Cannon, and aimed it at Paul Theroux. Fortunately a quick-witted Derek Walcott distracted him with a well timed display of avarice and sloth, giving just enough time for Chinua Achebe to aproach the great novelist in a canoe, and throw a spear at him. A fine day for postcolonialism!

Word of the week - Ernsugir: (n) eagle-sucking; the noise made by an eagle's wings in flight. Derived from, and confined to, Old Iclandic.

Internal Memo of the Week: The Visum et Repartum, an early eighteenth century governmental report on the exhumation and disection of a graveyard of Serbian Vampires.

Place Your Bets.

Apparently comparisons can be made between the rogue trader, Jerome Kerviel and Kurtz from Heart of Darkness, according to an interesting article at marketpsych.com.

It also demonstrates the similarities between "rogue" traders and trading geniuses. If the only difference between the crazies and the geniuses is success, then our view of success at least in the professions of chance is flawed. Using the often fallacious proof by abduction we interpret success that could have been random as the result of skill.

My point is, Jerome Kerviel may make a fantastic story and skapegoat, the root problem is how we view and reward success(and therefore incentivise behaivour) in environments such as the markets.

This post borrows heavily from Taleb's Fooled by Randomness- a very good book.

Ubuntu: An African Tale

On the advice of my attorney, The London Prodigal, my long, largely cryptic and possibly defamatory post on Google vs. Gates has been shelved in favour of some coverage of the unsung heroes of the software world. The Africans.

Together, they collaborate to create Ubuntu. An operating system whispered from the reeds of the Okavango. A “software ecosystem” if you will, in fact just by using it another child lives.

Unfortunately Africans have neither demonstrated the skills nor possess the infrastructure to actually do this. So the concept of African software innovation can be used solely for marketing copy by Mark Shuttleworth. The great African patriot.

Rowan Williams in Sharia Law Outrage!

Buggers for the Bottle: Part VII, in which Aristotle is shown to possess little capacity for reason

Yesterday afternoon I laboured until close of day to translate the final instalment of my Wendish seafaring discourses from the Anglo-Saxon. I donned my best gloves and made for the Muted Slughorn. Seeing, as I crossed the heath, that January 26 was not long for this world and that night was surely in the offing, I resolved to make it a brief visit. When I arrived the front room was deserted, but from the furthest recesses of the building I could hear distant shrill voices, the tinkling of martini glasses and animated conversation. Not wishing to disturb the barman, snatches of whose velvet baritone rose, unmistakable, above the fervent offerings of the live Jazz band, I went behind the bar and poured myself a few gentle measures of spiced rum and ginger wine. I shuffled over to a table, and had barely raised mug to lip when the door flew open and Hamilton tore in, making a beeline for the bar. Clearing the counter in a single leap, he proceeded to mix and drink all manner of frantic concoctions, not stopping to consider whether the bottles he was grasping – albeit with commendable suction – were spirits, culinary lubricants, bathing unguents or domestic cleaners. Knowing from experience that intervention was futile, I returned to my drink without a word. After a short time he relented and joined me at the table with a small wooden breadboard of single malts. Knowing that it would very soon fall to me to make some sort of enquiry in respect of his behaviour, and though he was still livid and flushed from the ordeal, he pre-empted the overwhelming interrogative and, fixing me with a look of combined alacrity and rage which only the most hardened insomniac could have mustered, articulated with superlative cogency, given his weakened state, that for all the damned good it did, one might very well dismiss the entire corpus of literary critical theory! Not wishing to seem timid in the teeth of such an astonishing claim, I laughed a careless, ‘might-one-indeed?’ sort of laugh; but really I was paralysed with terror. I straight returned and reeled into bed. I slept badly and woke with a headache. Two Anadins later I was feeling better, though still quite weak. I took up a book of Aristotelian political conjectures and read:

“Those who live in a cold climate and in Europe are full of spirit, but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they retain comparative freedom, but have no political organisation, and are incapable of ruling others. Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive, but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic race, which is situated between them, is likewise intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also intelligent.”

The simplicity of the author’s argument, and the gleeful, contrafactual abandon with which he presented it, soothed my troubled mental state and fortified me sufficiently that I was able to take a little breakfast.

A phenomenon which I have often observed

An Encounter With Ferpection

I was awakened early this morning by the ringing of the doorbell. Pausing only to drape my form in a Russian infantry officer's topcoat which I keep near to the bed for that purpose, I stumbled to the door. Outside was a man of Arabic appearance, holding a large bag in one hand and a trowel in the other. 'I've come to do your tiles' he said. Remembrance hit me like a well-aimed potato. Last night, in a drunken and self-important mood, I had made wild and extraordinary claims about the quality of my bathroom tiles to some of the Muted Slughorn's most august patrons, including a well known airline pilot and the wife of a local Tory councillor. Later, in a panic at the thought of my lies being discovered, I had begged the barman for the number of his own decorator, who enriched the lavatories of the Slughorn with fantastical and intriguing tessellations. The barman had smiled in a manner which I am coming to recognise, and told me that it would be arranged.
I showed the artisan to my bathroom, and helped him spread some old sheets over the floor. In no time at all he had my old avocado tiles pulled of the wall, and began to apply his own. As I watched him build up complex and wonderful patterns out of tiny tiles which he pulled casually from his open holdall, skilfully wielding his trowel with the confidence of a true master, I began to suspect his true identity. 'Are you, by any chance, a master tiler from medieval Morocco?' I asked him. He mutely nodded that this was true. Shaking my head at the vagrancies of fortune, I left the room, retiring to my study with a sheaf of periodicals and bottle of sherry.
I was still engrossed in the study of these papers a few hours later when I heard a cry of horror. Rushing to my bathroom, my topcoat flapping around my naked knees, I saw my decorator crouched outside the door in fear. I pushed to door open to see, to my surprise, the bathroom was decorated from floor to ceiling in tile work of the most extraordinary complexity and grace. 'Bravo!' I cried. 'You've done it! My bathroom will be famous from Swansea to Crewe.' He glared at me in anger. 'Foolish boaster' he hissed, 'do you not see? This bathroom is tiled so perfectly, so flawlessly, that it is an affront to God himself. Only he may create perfection.' As he spoke he pulled a tiny brass hammer from his overalls, and approached the polychromatic mosaic work around the base of my bath. He deftly tapped upon a tiny blue tile, as perfect as a jewel, and by bending over and peering at it I could see that he had mazed it with hairline cracks, invisible to all but the closest observer. This action calmed him somewhat, and we knelt to pray together on the dusty sheets. He left very soon after, and would take no money for his work.

Lux be lux

Help! If you make any attempt to reduce your energy consumption you will end up stubbing your toe in the dark, before succumbing to poisoning. Who will save us from energy efficient lighting? I hope this isn't the 'scaremongering' that spiked professes to despise so.

Confused young man: 'But it's useful...'

Tom Hodgkinson's critique of Facebook was replete with all the accoutrements of the worst kind of Guardian journalism: paranoia, misguided poetry, neanderthal anti-capitalism and total ignorance of subject matter. Calling it an 'ideologically motivated virtual totalitarian regime' as well as a 'takeover bid for the world', Hodgkinson champions in its stead 'real-world concepts such as art, beauty, love, pleasure and truth'.

'If I want to connect with the people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology,' crows the Idler sarcastically. 'It's free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it's called talking.'

Further to that: The Idler, the blog of the magazine, edited by Hodgkinson, looks like a reasonably worthwhile state of affairs. Wallpapered with snails and containing some humorous anecdotes about pigs, it's definitely worth a visit. Unfortunately, the bolshy, stuffy PCness-gone-mad rubbish sours the sanguine charm of his writing. See, for example, the long complaint about not being allowed to slaughter his own pigs. It desperately wants to be a glorious panegyric to personal liberty, but it wanders into confusion after only a few sentences. A level attack against abattoirs would have been palatable. Not, however, feigned incredulity that the law chooses to intervene in the slaughtering of animals, which is clearly consistent with the existing laws against animal cruelty. Many people, perhaps not Hodgkinson, would botch the execution and cause the pig needless suffering.

Evidently, the man is an able raconteur and possesses a pointy wit. But in light of his total unwillingness to engage with his environment, choosing instead to scoff, Boris Johnson-style, at the unfamiliar and the innovative, I can only assume he comes from the 17th century, and has got lost.