Personal Blogs

"Welcome to Swifty Towers". Tom spoke in a lofty manner.

Red Kites were common in London when Shakespeare lived, and valued, because carrion eaters kept Elizabethan streets clean of offal.

But later kites were persecuted and became extinct in most of Britain, certainly where I live. But protected, encouraged, and reintroduced they have gradually found their former territory.

Yesterday to my joy, I saw one in the village where I live. I'd heard they were again, but this was my first sighting.

My latest startup is haymaking. We're raking it in!

Doctor, I said, I keep thinking I'm explosive cardboard tubes with presents in. She said, You're crackers.

Today I read that a rare 1946 film poster for Casablanca is likely to sell for nearly £300,000.

This made me think of other objects from the past that must once have been throwaway, but now are exceeding rare and sought after.

In order of rarity I thought of

Roman underpants -- when I last looked somewhere between 0 and 4 pairs were known.

Trenchers -- a trencher was a medieval wooden plate, typically made of elm (possibly because elm once seasoned did not warp much and perhaps this also accounts for its former popularity in dartboard manufacture until Dutch Elm Disease blew in), rectangular and between A5 and A4 size-wise, with a dimple at top right (for the salt). You've heard of a 'trencherman' as a word for a stout eater. I think only 4 trenchers survive.

Favours -- If you went to the races in Victorian times people gave out 'favours' - small paper decorations you could stick in your jacket lapel or hat brim. I guess these were inspired by the sprigs of plants * that people did and still do put in these places.

We know these favours existed and they can be seen in paintings of the time. Number known to have survived is 0.

I sometimes torture myself with this. Millions existed at one time; how can every single one have been thrown away? Somewhere in an old attic a favour must be lying asleep waiting to be rescued. This is why we need hoarders!

* Why were the Plantagenet dynasty so called?

lonely man

i heard the bottles

clanking in your bag

There was an old fellow called Tryg,

Who swore he would not wear a wig.

He said, my head's bare,

But why should I care?

And he went off and danced a fierce jig.

Now in my thinking and my thought

It's still better and I ought

To take the long way back through the all rain

Even as I know, I shall not visit here again.

It's love that makes the world grow round.

Bumble bees

It's a one-way street.

You've learned nothing from me.

"Ding-Dong! Avon Calling!", said Tom in a withering manner.

Literally. My father had an old banjo and he liked to strum and sing. Some of the songs he sang were versions of well-known folk songs, although I didn't know it at the time, or even that there were such things as folk-songs.

A song I particularly remember is "Barbara Allen". 

This is a melancholy story, of love unrequited, and repentance come too late. Our own family version ends

There is real poetry there I think.

Although I had no idea about it back then, the song is in the famous collection of ballads assembled by Francis Child. The first known publication is from 1740, but Samuel Pepys in his diaries mentions what looks to be the same ballad. The Wikipedia article is very informative.

Later in my early twenties I heard Joan Baez sing the song, and I still love the way she does it. But she (and many others) add a final consolatory verse, in which the sad pair are in the end united, a rose and a briar that grow from their respective graves, and intertwine. I don't like that. It is a sad poem and best kept so.