Pests on the Road Network

Sporting Cyclists do not read this. I warn you.

Honest persons who use a bike in order to get about may read with impunity.

Yesterday I was delayed in a journey to work because the road was swarming with racing cyclists and I take this to be Nature's way of permitting me to make this blog entry.
 

A herd of deluded madmen.
Note silly attire. Note stream of delayed traffic behind.

I can not STAND the sort of cyclists who wear all that idiotic ugly lycra and preposterous helmets. They look horrible, they make it quite obvious that they are convinced of their own tremendous  superiority to other road users (who they arrogantly ignore), and they selfishly clog the road as if they had more right to be there than the cars - and all the while they are clearly going NOWHERE for any legitimate purpose whatsoever.

Now look. I am happy to share the road with people who are going by bike in order to get to somewhere where they need to be, eg work, or the pub, or their friend's house; and these people can be identified by the fact that they wear ordinary clothes, keep to the side of the road and do not go about in packs spread right across the carriageway. I like to see them, and I sympathise warmly with them when they are struggling up a hill into the oncoming gale. I have in the past cycled, myself, to many pubs etc. I admit that I did sometimes bicycle without a specific destination to get to, but only because I used to use 'going for a bike ride' as a way of blow-drying my hair. 

I have NEVER, though, biked like these modern fools do, in special outfits or just to race. If they want to do that they should do it in Velodromes, not on the narrow public roads around here. They are a confounded nuisance, and inconsiderate with it. The ones yesterday were so pompous that they were being preceded by a "Race Lead Vehicle". Where will it end.

This is what I have to say, and the 'Sports Cycling Community' ought to take note:

• There is no need to wear a special outfit; that is the advantage of cycling.
• As for the helmets... do they not realise what utter TURKEYS they look in them? And have they not noticed that when you fall off a bike, you get grazed knees or elbows? Your head is rarely damaged. And if it is run over by a lorry your turkey-helmet is not going to save it.
• Refusing to acknowledge other road users is one of their most serious mistakes. They do it in order to impress upon us how very important and difficult their task (they think) is. But eye contact with motorists is a useful communication tool. It also helps dispel some of the hostility. These things would be to the cyclists' own advantage so they aren't doing themselves any favours by being so standoffish. 

My policy is to wave cheerily at the dolts from my car, smiling friendlyly whilst saying "You really do look like a lot of complete twerps. Get out of my ruddy way, curse you," knowing full well that they are far too grand to bother doing any lip-reading.

Here is a picture from my early cycling career. You will notice that
 

i) my conveyance was an ancient tricycle handed down from generations of previous Smiths - not some £8million fancy-bike

ii) I was wearing "normal" clothes (normal for Smiths). Lycra had not been invented I admit but even if it had I would have shunned it.

iii) that's a sunbonnet in the picture, not a turkey-helmet.

iv) I had gumboots on. Sporting cyclists wear freakish shoes which can not be used for walking in when they get off their bikes.

v) I was confined to the yard - not allowed to wander willy-nilly about the highway.

vi) I was looking directly at the photographer with a genial expression. (aren't I charming). It is not the custom of sporting cyclists to offer even a flicker of recognition to anyone. 


All cyclists should be forced to study this picture, to embrace its tenets, and to have a proper justification for every journey.
Those refusing to comply had better stay out of my zone.



 

 

Two Paintings and what I think of them




Madonna con Bambino Benedicente
or, Madonna del Pollice
by Giovanni Bellini in 1460-1464

This is my favourite picture in the world. Available to view at the Accademia Gallery in Venice. Top quality workmanship with delightful Infant Jesus and engaging air of pensive melancholy shown by Mary. Highly conducive to holy contemplation.

 

 

And here is one by D Hockney called Mr and Mrs Clark and their cat Percy (painted in 1970-1971; now at Tate Britain Gallery). The cat wasn't even called Percy - its name was Blanche though speaking as one whose cat is called Blackie I can't really complain about a white cat called Blanche. However, the name Percy is the best thing about this painting in my opinion. I nearly called our son Percy but decided he might never forgive me so there was a fontside rethink. Now he is 15 and he regularly berates me for not calling him Percy as he would have liked it. He is lucky not to be still called G-AHLK actually so he should count his blessings. 

 

 

Here is what I object to about this painting:

1) General style. It is like one of the illustrations they used to have in Ladybird books - perfectly adequate in its way, but hardly great art. In fact the colours are rather less subtle than one would hope to find in a Ladybird book. The treatment is crude and undetailed.

See what I mean? Far better.

 

2) Composition. Vastly improved if a live figure stands in front of the painting. 
I can not understand why the telephone or the yellow book have been included. They are not things of beauty and their significance escapes me.

  

 

 

 

3) Figures: Has Mr Clark a club foot? It appears so. (His left foot). [One presumes his right foot looks peculiar because half of it is buried in the decadent thick carpet. It could be a homage to the fact that Bellini's Jesus' right foot seems only to have 4 toes, but I doubt it.] Also he might have had the good manners to sit up straight for the portrait.  It is unconventional anyway for a gentleman to be sitting down if there are ladies present who have not got a seat and this is a possible explanation for the peevish mood in which Mrs Clark is here depicted. Alternatively she may be looking cross because even though Mr Clark is a fashion designer (I looked it up) they have put her in an old sack for the occasion.

4) Other annoying things: Why is the telephone on the floor? What is that weird thing beside it? Why aren't either of these plugged in? The shadow under the chair does not look right. That picture hanging on the wall on the left is (I looked this up too) an etching by D Hockney so one can only admire the nerve of the artist in displaying such self-aggrandisement. The lilies are OK but I must point out that in real life people do not advisedly use narrow vases with high centres of gravity on low tables. That will certainly be knocked over when the cat gets off the bloke's knee.

 

Verdict: I'll have the Bellini. Julia can have the Percy one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cows 'are not Julia' says Expert

Cowkind - already reeling from
i) gross and widespread misrepresentation by hideous fibreglass effigies, and
ii) recent publication of a newly-discovered poem written by T S Eliot, sample lines of which include "Of all the beasts that God allows... I most of all dislike the cows,"  -

has this week suffered a further blow as members of the cow community were subjected to a horrifying serenade by a silly human dressed in what he imagined was a cow suit. The cow suit was actually an unconvincing costume incorporating a most indelicate udder which was embarrassing for everyone present. The event was being done as a publicity stunt to advertise a musical entertainment taking place in London. Needless to say, the cows failed to buy a single ticket. They just stared, bewildered, as one of their human masters behaved like an absolute imbecile. 

 

 

 

One can only hope that the poor creatures, pictured, later took matters into their own hands and stampeded, trampling the guitar-and-pretend-cow act to the ground.
 

It's time for Society to pause and take stock. When even the cows look aghast at our activities, we have surely gone too far. We owe it to the dumb animals who are at our mercy, to conduct ourselves with a modicum of dignity. Otherwise they feel terribly insecure, wondering what idiotic thing we might do next.

A bovine spokesperson and cow expert said yesterday, "Cows aren't Julia. They should not have to undergo this sort of distress."

 

Philip Larkin - A Psychiatric Appraisal

Patient Name: Larkin, Philip

DoB: 09/08/1922

Symptoms: Has written poem, Aubade, see below with doctor's responses and recommendations.

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.     I suggest patient should drink rather more; it will help him sleep better.

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.     Lucky him - AGES till the alarm goes off.

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.     Dawn! Don't knock it, friend. A lovely time of day.

Till then I see what's really always there:

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,     Oh come now old chap. Lighten up!

Making all thought impossible but how     All thought? really? What about "UGH NO - Monday again"?  

And where and when I shall myself die.     Don't dwell on it so. It does no-one any good.

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.     Golly. He must have been VERY BAD.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse     Perhaps if he did express a little remorse he might feel less doomed.

- The good not done, the love not given, time

Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to     You're jumping to conclusions here. The Pope of Rome (God bless him) disagrees with you.

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,     I'm not sure many of us are going to mind terribly much if you aren't here, you old misery.

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,     Yes it still does, and succeeds quite well in many cases.

That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,     "Pretend"? Dear me you are going to find the doorkeepers at the Gates of Pearl don't take kindly to that sort of talk.

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,     Well I do think you are worrying unnecessarily here. If there aint nothing there it aint nasty is it?

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.    Nice. Sleep after toil doth greatly please and death after life likewise. 

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,

A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill

That slows each impulse down to indecision.     Come on, man. Get a grip.

Most things may never happen: this one will,     That's the first thing he's said which I can't argue with.

And realisation of it rages out

In furnace-fear when we are caught without     Steady now! Calm down.

People or drink. Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave 

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.     Death may be no different, but you'd find life more agreeable if you would just RELAX about it a bit. Ignore it, do. Stop paying it so much attention.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.    OK; that's true.

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,

Have always known, know that we can't escape,

Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.     Eh? He'd feel a lot more composed if he would accept it, as everyone else does and gets on with living.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world begins to rouse.     Yes well I admit that is a bit grim.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.

Work has to be done.    Yes, in fact, very grim, specially if it's Monday.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.     "like doctors" : this simile reveals a preoccupation with matters of illness and mortality.

Conclusions:

This patient is morbidly obsessed with death, and it is making him miserable. It interferes with his ability to engage socially in a normal way and is affecting all areas of his life. 

Diagnosis: possibly Thanatophobia, but probably merely Existential Death Anxiety which the patient has failed to address by the normal mechanisms i.e. denial, religious faith, or blindly ignoring it.

Patient needs to be encouraged to think about other things and other people. Keep the fellow busy, and tire him out physically. He might benefit from reading Friends Beyond by Thomas Hardy who, despite being another old misery himself, here presented a more cheerful view, with the dead obedient to their fate and perhaps even grateful for some of Death's peculiar mercies.

Suggested treatment: 

?Confirmation Classes. I can refer him to Fr O'Hanrahan.

Dose of Voluntary Work.

Spell in the army (a tough regiment would be best).




A sensible well-adjusted person, unlike P Larkin, enjoying a pleasant chat with the Reaper.




 



CAT AVAILABLE

 

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.