Al Desko Etiquette

With the deplorable habit of eating lunch at one's desk - eating al desko, as some wags call it - now firmly established in many a workplace, the BBC News website has taken the opportunity to unroll another of its endless Stories About Nothing, one that's almost up there with the legendary Cardboard Box epic ('We've all been there...'). The undoubted star of the al desko Story About Nothing is etiquette expert William Hanson, with his 17-inch-square linen lunch napkin at the ready, folded half-way with the crease towards him (rather than - heaven forbid - towards the computer screen). Good eating manners, he reminds us, 'could be the difference between getting a promotion [and what?], especially if your boss is watching'. Good thinking, Hanson...
Passing over the truly disgusting bulgar wheat recipe that follows, back comes Hanson in the next section with more sound advice about taking a break every four mouthfuls, resting your idle fork on your knife.Then it's on to the etiquette minefield of the after-lunch coffee - drunk, of course, in a demitasse. Whatever you do, counsels Hanson, put the sugar in the cup after the coffee, and don't stir clockwise only -  'coffee dissolves better if you stir backwards and forwards, 12 till 6'. Which sounds like rather a long lunch break to me.

More Sams

To mark Charles Dickens's birthday - 201 today - and to celebrate the arrival yesterday from his native New Zealand of my frankly adorable grandson Sam, here's another sample of young Sam's Weller namesake in full flow. This time, Sam Weller has decided to cheer up his distracted master with a blood-curdling anecdote...


They had walked some distance, Mr. Pickwick trotting on before, plunged in profound meditation, and Sam following behind, with a countenance expressive of the most enviable and easy defiance of everything and everybody, when the latter, who was always especially anxious to impart to his master any exclusive information he possessed, quickened his pace until he was close at Mr. Pickwick's heels; and, pointing up at a house they were passing, said—
'Wery nice pork-shop that 'ere, sir.'
'Yes, it seems so,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Celebrated sassage factory,' said Sam.
'Is it?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Is it!' reiterated Sam, with some indignation; 'I should rayther think it was. Why, sir, bless your innocent eyebrows, that's where the mysterious disappearance of a 'spectable tradesman took place four years ago.'
'You don't mean to say he was burked, Sam?' said Mr. Pickwick, looking hastily round.
'No, I don't indeed, sir,' replied Mr. Weller, 'I wish I did; far worse than that. He was the master o' that 'ere shop, sir, and the inwentor o' the patent-never-leavin'-off sassage steam-ingin, as 'ud swaller up a pavin' stone if you put it too near, and grind it into sassages as easy as if it was a tender young babby. Wery proud o' that machine he was, as it was nat'ral he should be, and he'd stand down in the celler a-lookin' at it wen it was in full play, till he got quite melancholy with joy. A wery happy man he'd ha' been, Sir, in the possession o' that 'ere ingin and two more lovely hinfants besides, if it hadn't been for his wife, who was a most owdacious wixin. She was always a-follerin' him about, and dinnin' in his ears, till at last he couldn't stand it no longer. "I'll tell you what it is, my dear," he says one day; "if you persewere in this here sort of amusement," he says, "I'm blessed if I don't go away to 'Merriker; and that's all about it." "You're a idle willin," says she, "and I wish the 'Merrikins joy of their bargain." Arter which she keeps on abusin' of him for half an hour, and then runs into the little parlour behind the shop, sets to a-screamin', says he'll be the death on her, and falls in a fit, which lasts for three good hours—one o' them fits wich is all screamin' and kickin'. Well, next mornin', the husband was missin'. He hadn't taken nothin' from the till—hadn't even put on his greatcoat—so it was quite clear he warn't gone to 'Merriker. Didn't come back next day; didn't come back next week; missis had bills printed, sayin' that, if he'd come back, he should be forgiven everythin' (which was very liberal, seein' that he hadn't done nothin' at all); the canals was dragged, and for two months arterwards, wenever a body turned up, it was carried, as a reg'lar thing, straight off to the sassage shop. Hows'ever, none on 'em answered; so they gave out that he'd run away, and she kep' on the bis'ness. One Saturday night, a little, thin old gen'l'm'n comes into the shop in a great passion and says, "Are you the missis o' this here shop?" "Yes, I am," says she. "Well, ma'am," says he, "then I've just looked in to say that me and my family ain't a-goin' to be choked for nothin'; and more than that, ma'am," he says, "you'll allow me to observe that as you don't use the primest parts of the meat in the manafacter o' sassages, I'd think you'd find beef come nearly as cheap as buttons." "As buttons, Sir!" says she. "Buttons, ma'am," says the little, old gentleman, unfolding a bit of paper, and showin' twenty or thirty halves o' buttons. "Nice seasonin' for sassages, is trousers' buttons, ma'am." "They're my husband's buttons!" says the widder beginnin' to faint, "What!" screams the little old gen'l'm'n, turnin' wery pale. "I see it all," says the widder; "in a fit of temporary insanity he rashly converted hisself into sassages!" And so he had, Sir,' said Mr. Weller, looking steadily into Mr. Pickwick's horror-stricken countenance, 'or else he'd been draw'd into the ingin; but however that might ha' been, the little old gen'l'm'n, who had been remarkably partial to sassages all his life, rushed out o' the shop in a wild state, and was never heerd on arterwards!'

Finnish fiddling

Here's something to get the toes a-tapping - a bit of full-on Finnish fiddling from the band called Frigg. Enjoy.

Issues

London Underground has come up with a new form of words to explain (or not) 'minor delays' on its lines: they are invariably 'due to operational issues'. You don't say so! The phrase really doesn't add an awful lot to our understanding of the situation, does it - indeed, you might well say that the 'minor delays' are themselves the 'operational issues' here. 'Issues' is invariably a word used to - well, actually, to dodge the issue. 'Issues' sound somehow easier to deal with than problems or difficulties or (often the reality) cockups; issues can be 'addressed', they can be 'explored', and they have that endearing habit of clustering 'around' things. I find it's a sound rule that, whenever you hear someone using the phrase 'issues around', they have nothing useful to say on whatever those issues are so companionably surrounding. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone would feel they had been short-changed if London Underground were just to report that there are 'minor delays' and leave it at that.

Reg and Chip

The sad news of the death of Reg Presley, lead singer of The Troggs, has led to much playing of Wild Thing in (well deserved) radio and TV tributes. Wild Thing was one of those hair-raising, pulse-racing singles that came thick and fast in that golden age of the mid-60s, each one sounding like nothing you'd ever heard before, like something that might change the world. Innocent times... But Wild Thing was, and is, one of the greats, and until recently I had cheerfully assumed that it was a Reg Presley song - which just goes to show that I don't do enough pub quizzes. Wild Thing was in fact written by Chip Taylor, who also penned the couldn't-be-more-different Angel of the Morning. An interesting character, Chip Taylor - brother of Jon Voight, uncle of Angelina Jolie, and successful country and pop songwriter, he threw it all up in the mid-70s to pursue a career as a professional gambler, specialising in blackjack and the geegees. Then, in the mid-90s, he returned to music, teaming up with fiddler Carrie Rodriguez and others to explore a rootsier realm of Americana and alt country. There's plenty on YouTube if you're interested - including Chip and Carrie performing Wild Thing. It's, er, different...

Some Kind of Masterpiece: Machine Dreams Re-reread

I first read Jayne Anne Phillips' Machine Dreams when it came out, in 1984. In those days I used to waste much good reading time on new fiction - but the time spent reading Machine Dreams was most definitely not wasted: this novel grabbed me from the first page (indeed the first sentence: 'It's strange what you don't forget' - indeed) and left me at the end deeply moved, shaken, and quite amazed by the power and range of this phenomenally gifted debut novelist.
On the face of it, it's a simple enough tale of a family - mother, father, son and daughter - told in a series of snapshots at various points in time, from 1946 to 1972, reaching back a generation or so and out into the community of wider family and friends, but essentially focused on these four. Each section of the book sees events through the eyes of one of them, sometimes in first person, usually in third, and often their dreams are woven into the narrative. Such is the power of Phillips' characterisation that each of them (and several less central figures) comes fully to life almost from their first utterance. By the end they feel, indeed, like family - which makes the denouement all the more shattering...

Machine Dreams was widely praised when it was first published, and great things were predicted for its author, though in the event she has published sparsely and seems to be thought of chiefly as a fine short story writer (which she is). Of her later novels (they are few and far between), I read Shelter when it came out and remember being dazzled by much of it but in the end it somehow didn't work for me. I haven't tried the later novels - perhaps I should? But I have reread Machine Dreams, the first time about ten years ago, in some doubt as to whether it could have been quite as good as I remembered it being - it was, though it didn't hit me with quite such an emotional hammerblow. And now I have reread it again, and I come away more impressed than ever. This time the architecture of the book was more apparent to me - in particular the author's subtle use of recurrent images and scenes, often far distant in time, that echo and illuminate each other. The story had still deeper resonance, the characters seemed more real and present than ever, and the closing pages as moving as they were first time around. I believe Machine Dreams really is some kind of masterpiece. If you haven't read it, I'd urge you to seek it out.

A Poem for the Turn of the Month

February already - a new month! This calls for a seasonal poem.
Here is John Clare, sharp-eyed as ever, in The Shepherd's Calendar, enjoying the effects of a February thaw, though he knows it will not last...

The small birds think their wants are oer
To see the snow hills fret again
And from the barns chaff litterd door
Betake them to the greening plain
The woodmans robin startles coy
Nor longer at his elbow comes
To peck wi hungers eager joy
Mong mossy stulps the litterd crumbs

 Neath hedge and walls that screen the wind
The gnats for play will Hock together
And een poor flyes odd hopes will find
To venture in the mocking weather
From out their hiding holes again
Wi feeble pace they often creep
Along the sun warmd window pane
Like dreaming things that walk in sleep
. . .

The hedghog from its hollow root
Sees the wood moss clear of snow
And hunts each hedge for fallen fruit
Crab hip and winter bitten sloe
And oft when checkd by sudden fears
As shepherd dog his haunt espies
He rolls up in a ball of spears
And all his barking rage defies

Thus nature of the spring will dream
While south winds thaw but soon again
Frost breaths upon the stiffening stream
And numbs it into ice—the plain
Soon wears its merry garb of white
And icicles that fret at noon
Will eke their icy tails at night
Beneath the chilly stars and moon
 Nature soon sickens of her joys
And all is sad and dumb again
Save merry shouts of sliding boys
About the frozen furrowd plain
The foddering boy forgets his song
And silent goes wi folded arms
And croodling shepherds bend along
Crouching to the whizzing storms


A 'stulp' is a short, stout post.
'Eke' here means lengthen or increase.
Best of all, 'croodling' means to 'cower or cuddle together, as from fear or cold; to lie close and snug together, as pigs in straw' - thus Webster, with this supporting quotation:
'A dove to fly home to her nest and croodle there.' - C. Kingsley.
A word to remember, I think...