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CAT FOR SALE. Full working order. One owner from new. Insolence forces sale.

Ill-mannered cat keeping guard over rescued violin

Our cat Blackie has sorely offended me by objecting to my violin practice. Normally as soon as I open the violin case he leaves the premises at speed - which is rude enough you might think - but yesterday he got into a very disturbed state under the impression that I was viciously hurting some sort of wooden cousin of his who he must protect at all costs. To do so he carried out the following which I regard as a confounded cheek.
 
1. He jumped onto the narrow shelf where I prop up the music due to lack of music stand, and tried to interpose his own body between me and the music. Ha! I know the piece off by heart so that didn't silence me.
2. Then he knocked all the music and everything else off the shelf onto the floor. Let it lie there I said and continued scraping.
3. Next he climbed onto the back of a nearby chair and clawed at the bow. I kept practising, so he tried to knock the violin out of my hands. 'The dedicated violinist will stop at nothing,' I informed him, and refused to relinquish the instrument.
4. Thwarted, he tried to ascend my leg by means of digging his claws into me, which hurt quite a bit; but I played bravely on. 
5. As a last resort he bit me. It was a gentle bite and done out of despair, but the fact remains, he bit me - ME, who he dotes on. I do know it's really just my opposable thumbs which he dotes on and the ability they bestow to operate the tin opener, but even so...

6. Then the battle ended as I had other things to do and wines to drink. Later we found Blackie sitting beside the abandoned violin, balefully repelling all who approached (see picture).

It was touching that he seemed very concerned not only about the poor wooden kitten being cruelly tortured but also about me who (he thought) had gone completely mad. He was only doing his ignorant best... but yet he hath caused me grave affront. I was merely trying to play some exquisite Bach : it's not my fault if it sounded like a kitten being murdered. I'd like to see Blackie do it better, with his unopposable thumbs.

I did not even consider it a particularly bad practice session, unlike sometimes when it really is quite terrible believe me.

As a result of the incident I have realised cats are oblivious to the social niceties and as such they make their feelings perfectly clear no matter how wounding that might be to the recipient.
I have a very forgiving nature, but... Well, Blackie my friend - if you don't like my playing you know what you can do : find someone else blessed with pollical opposability to open your tins of catty chunks for you.

What does this look like? A lovely Bach Minuet, or the soundtrack to Death of a Kitten?
 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Sir J Betjeman : Some Literary Criticism

Indoor Games near Newbury    by Sir John Betjeman

 - a poem for Julia

 

In common with a strangely small number of people I dislike Betjeman's poems.

Here's a picture of the infernal John Betjeman laughing. How dare he?

Presumably it's because he has just inflicted another poem on the English-speaking peoples.

 

 

Indoor Games near Newbury :  this is the biscuit-taker among Betjeman's many unspeakably horrid poems. Quoting directly from it has long been banned here on pain of repercussions, but an oaf can destroy my day by merely alluding to the frightful work. Eg. yesterday during a pleasant walk in Culbone my son said "Look, Mother! Woodland Elf!" thereby causing me to spend the rest of the afternoon kicking the heads off daffodils and snarling at passers-by.

 

Though it pains me to sully G-AHLK with it, here is

Indoor Games near Newbury, with some comments by me added in red.

 

In among the silver birches,
Winding ways of tarmac wander  Rather laboured alliteration don't you think?

And the signs to Bussock Bottom,
Tussock Wood and Windy Break,  This annoys me. Surely anyone who lived in houses with these names would change them? If not then Power of Attorney should be activated and their finances looked after by persons with better judgement.

Gabled lodges, tile-hung churches,  Gabled lodges - not architecture's finest hour, and thus not something we want brought to our attention thank you.
Catch the lights of our Lagonda 

As we drive to Wendy’s party,
Lemon curd and Christmas cake.  Lemon curd? At that time of year?

Rich the makes of motor whirring,  Rich the makes of motor... hmm I bet he was thrilled with that line and thought it sounded tremendously poetic. Well done, Sir John.

Past the pine plantation purring  Alliteration again. I hate pine plantations, and rhyming couplets.

Come up, Hupmobile, Delage!

Short the way your chauffeurs travel,  Short the way... yes I thought as much. He was so pleased with 'rich the makes of motor' he's used the construction again.

Crunching over private gravel

Each from out his warm garage.  Out OF his warm garage please. You need a course of instruction at the G-AHLK Dept of Modern English.

Oh but Wendy, when the carpet
Yielded to my indoor pumps  Pumps, oh LORD... what sort of Little Lord Fauntleroy are you, Sir John? Proper men wear shoes.

There you stood, your gold hair streaming,  What's she doing - standing in a wind tunnel?

Handsome in the hall light gleaming

There you looked and there you led me
Off into the game of clumps.

Then the new Victrola playing  ***Rhyming Couplet Alert***

And your funny uncle saying

“Choose your partners for a foxtrot!

Dance until it’s tea o’clock!

Come on young 'uns, foot it featly!”  Ought this man really to be at large?

Was it chance that paired us neatly,  Oh NO, it's a rhyming TRIPLET.

I, who loved you so completely,

You, who pressed me closely to you,
Hard against your party frock?  It's probably better if I keep my comments to myself here. The image is SICKENING.

“Meet me when you’ve finished eating!”  A proper trollop, that Wendy.
So we met and no one found us. 

Oh that dark and furry cupboard
While the rest played hide-and-seek!

Holding hands our two hearts beating  Well I should hope their silly hearts were beating. That's what hearts are for.
In the bedroom silence round us, 

Holding hands and hardly hearing
Sudden footstep, thud and shriek.

Love that lay too deep for kissing -

“Where is Wendy? Wendy’s missing!”  Yes well long may she remain missing.

Love so pure it had to end.  Ridiculous, and defeatist. This bloke is hopeless.

Love so strong that I was frighten'd  What a wimp! Brace yerself, man.

When you gripped my fingers tight and  If that isn't the most insufferable rhyming couplet ever written then I'm the King of Siam.

Hugging, whispered “I’m your friend.”  Oh for pity's sake. This is too ghastly to be borne.

Goodbye Wendy! Send the fairies,
Pinewood elf and larch tree gnome,  AUGHH. Metoclopramide, nurse... hasten.

Spingle-spangled stars are peeping  NO! NO! They aren't peeping. They haven't got eyes. People old enough to be conducting love affairs should know better than to use soppy verbs like 'to peep' anyway.

At the lush Lagonda creeping

Down the winding ways of tarmac
To the leaded lights of home.

There, among the silver birches,  ***Rhyming Couplet Alert***

All the bells of all the churches

Sounded in the bathwaste running  Distasteful reference to bath water represents more information than we can stomach. The word bathwaste offends me, as do many other words in this piece.
Out into the frosty air. 

Wendy speeded my undressing,  Here we go again. Rhyming Triplet Alert

Wendy is the sheet’s caressing

Wendy bending gives a blessing,  Wendy bending? What is this man ON?

Holds me as I drift to dreamland,
Safe inside my slumberwear.  Since we already know that the protagonist wears 'indoor pumps' at parties, I suppose we should not be surprised to find him later drifting to dreamland in slumberwear. But can any work containing the word "slumberwear" really be deemed poetry?

 

This poem may be skilfully executed, but it summons up an era and a milieu which are surely best forgotten. There isn't any benefit in portraying them, and it's unhealthy to dwell on them.
One can see that War Poetry, which also conjures unpleasant visions, does so with a purpose - to protest against the horrors of war - and so we must put up with it. But for Indoor Games near Newbury I can see no justification.



 

It puzzles me that Betjeman is referred to as a National Treasure. We should be lynching the brute, not lauding him.














Swear Words : the Cross Person's Lifeblood.

Journalists are to blame for the recently-invented system of referring to certain swear words as 'the F-word' and 'the N-word' etc. This is at once self-righteous, namby-pamby, and lacking in courtesy. The journalist thinks 'The readers will admire me and think I am very sensitive and caring.' The readers actually think 'Never again will I read a single word written by this smug tick who expects me to believe he can't bring himself to swear.' Advice, Columnists: If you can't talk plainly about it avoid the subject altogether.

 

Unfortunately, though, it seems that there are some people who have embraced the idea, and say 'F-word' etc. in common parlance. This is NOT GOOD. Euphemisms are a bad thing on the whole. If you write 'B*st*rd' in order to shield your child from accidental exposure to foul language, the conversation will follow these lines :

 

Child (looking at mother's diary): Mummy, what does B, star, saint, star, road mean?

Mummy (considers, then blenches): That's a rude word, dear. You mustn't use it. Please don't read my diary.

Child (later, addressing its baby brother): Give me that toy, you little B-star-saint-star-road.

 

and thus does B-star-saint-star-road become a swear word in its own right, though admittedly not a very slick one.

 

The name of a particular willow-grower has similarly achieved swearword status in this house because I have been supplied with poor quality willows. These willows when I used them caused me to cry out the willow-grower's name in a tone of, at first, reproach, and subsequently such fury that nearby children would whimper and run cowering to their mothers. The expletive is no longer confined to willow-specific anger and I now feel the same degree of reluctance to speak the name in decent company, as those journalists do concerning their F- and N- words.
You will understand that I can not write the new-born swear word here due to fear of being sued for libel. Otherwise I would use it liberally when complaining about things, which is the raison d’être of this G-AHLK blog.

Bolt of willow waiting to make me swear.