Personal Blogs

(As grammar geeks do) I was reading a history of punctuation past and present, and it pointed me to Padgett Powell's remarkable novel The Interrogative Mood.

I took a quick Look Inside, and found an irresistible Buy with 1-Click.

Every sentence in the book is a question, but they are not random; each is a sort of surreal reflection that glues itself to your mind and makes you think what your answer is, or could be, or might be. 

The questions are grouped in sections, within those paragraphs, and there is a kind of elusive logic that binds each to its neighbours.

For example

"Do like it when your body is sore? Had you the opportunity, would you attend clown school? Will you linger to see a sunset more readily than you might get up to see a sun rise?"

(ME: Sorta. Yes. Yes.)

"Do you have a specific length shorts must be? Is Santa Claus in your view essentially a pedophile? How long would it take you to get over a house fire that destroyed everything you owned and thought dear to you?"

"Would you rather have a swimming pool or a small private gymnasium? Do you have any experience that that suggests there was a higher water table when you were a child than there is now?"

200 pages. 2000 questions. I don't know what to make of this book but I'm glad it exists. Are we in agreement on this point or would you rather read about ways of attracting woodland birds in larch forests, without employing any artificial aids?

Q. What do frogs eat their dinner off?

A. Croakery!

Down the pub with some crockery experts. WELL we got smashed!

Down the pub with some builders. WELL we got plastered!

Down the pub with some blacksmiths. WELL we got hammered!

You get the idea.

Everyone at the reception was sipping sherry. Except Oona.
She was knocking it back by the schooner.

Everyone at the wedding was sipping champagne. Except Dale.
He was drinking it out of the pail.

Everyone at the salon was delicately sipping pink gin. Except Rose.
She was snorting it up her nose.

Everyone at the tasting was sipping Sauternes. Except Wayne.
He was puking in the lane.

In my day all schools had a whistle blowing policy, although it applied mainly on the playing field.

Apparently some drivers without GPS use a compass instead. Don't try it, if you're caught using a compass behind the wheel that's four points on your licence.

The Neanderthals fascinate us; they were close enough to interbreed, but we know so little of them. Could they talk, for example? No-one can say.

The name is from the Neanderthal, a German valley (thal, tal in modern German, the same word as English dale or dell). I always imagined it was named for a river: 'the valley of the Neander'.

But not so; the valley is called after a local 17c pastor. His family name was Neumann, but being a scholar he translated it into Greek, Neander.

So in a wry twist, the valley where the bones of our old relatives were first found is literally 'New man's dale'.

I'm reading The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher and he quotes this German proverb

"Keeping order is a crutch for those who are too lazy to search for things …" ("Wer Ordnung hält ist nur zu faul zu suchen").

I couldn't help feeling a lot better about my desktop when I read this (similar to the feeling I get when I see a photograph of Francis Bacon's studio).

Relationship guidance. Stick to Sudoku. That way you'll have fewer cross words.

Swans bittern twite shrike

Doctor Blunder went down under
On a tourist plane;
He died in combat,
With a hairy-nosed wombat,
And never returned home again.