writing and writers – Page 125 – don't confuse the narrator

little red books

I’ve said before that this is not a political blog, but today I was saddened to hear of the death of Tony Benn, one of the great politicians of my youth. Ed Miliband has apparently paid homage, saying:

[Tony Benn] will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, a great parliamentarian and a conviction politician.

I’m not sure what a conviction politician is, but I suspect the world might be a better place if a few more politicians were convicted.

In 1990, I was given four of Benn’s Diaries, all autographed in red pen.

I admit I haven’t read them, although the earlier – and shorter – Arguments for Socialism does look well-thumbed. I have, however, been happy to know they are there on the shelf.

I’ve just checked to see that the damp hasn’t got to them (it hasn’t), and find them suitably placed alongside Prince Peter Kropotkin, Engels and E.P. Thompson. (All of them little read books.)

If I believed in such things, I would probably be hoping that Mr Benn might find himself in such company tonight.

multitasking

I seem to have as many things on my “to do” list as the neighbour’s azalea has flowers at the moment. Sadly, none of my projects are likely to be so attractive when completed.

clichés and home-comings

I’m currently taking a poetry class where many of the students are from overseas. They know England from their reading – many have studied English Literature – but this is their first personal experience.

Knowing the country and its culture as well as they do, it must feel like a sort of home-coming. It certainly provokes such delightful situations as when one asked about the flowers on the secretary’s desk: “Are those daffodils? Like Wordsworth’s daffodils?”
Continue reading “clichés and home-comings”

resisting temptation

Single tree in field — outstanding in the field

I have a difficult few days ahead, working on a translation dealing with geotechnical investigation surveys. The difficulty is not the translation, but the temptations involved: I must not talk of experts in the field using cutting-edge technology to lay the foundations for success.

And I probably shouldn’t complain that the work is boring. (Though it certainly isn’t earth-shatteringly interesting.)

walk on by

In Spain, I lived for many years in a house where the main heating was provided by a log stove, so whenever I went out walking, I was always on the look out for fallen pine cones. When dry, pine cones – or, perhaps, fir cones – are highly combustible and make it so much easier to get a fire started. Now, although I’m living in a house with central heating, the instinct to gather kindling and cones remains, and the recent storms have strewn much temptation in my path.

Today I succumbed.

Well, OK, it isn’t quite a pine cone, but I reckon it would burn just as well.

I should have resisted, but I’m afraid my attention was snagged by all those prickly wooden “petals” and it was impossible to walk on by. So now there’s a rather glorious branch of a monkey puzzle tree about three foot long standing in the corner of my room.