Only in France

Here's an amusing story from France - booksellers are refusing to sell a runaway bestseller, and on principled grounds. Only in France... Indeed the whole story is an 'only in France' one - right through from the wildly improbable elevation of the plainly hopeless Hollande to the Presidency, the catastrophic reign that has seen his popularity plummet to levels almost impossible to measure, certainly way below ISIL - and, on top of that, the tumultuous (and even more improbable) love life, which truly does not bear thinking about, but has now been laid bare for all to read by the vengeful fury Valerie Trierweiler. Well, 'chapeau' to those booksellers, I guess - it's hard to imagine anyone publishing a bestseller so deplorable that British booksellers would refuse to stock it.

Rivers on the Radio

Sad news that Joan Rivers has died, though she was a good age and working to the end. I always had a soft spot for her - not least for the memorable occasion on which she took on the appalling Darcus Howe. I should perhaps explain for American readers that Darcus Howe is a former (British) Black Panther whose sonorous tones, physical presence and 'dangerous' political past made him a great favourite of the metro-liberal chattering classes. He seemed to work on the assumption that white people are innately racist - music to the ears of the metro-liberals, who would eagerly roll over to have their little guilt-racked tummies tickled. But not Joan. When Howe made the mistake of casually accusing her of racism - on the usually innocuous Radio 4 talk show Midweek (where Howe was promoting a film he'd made about his relationship with his son) - all hell broke loose. Joan was seriously riled and let rip at him. It was electrifying radio...

Howe: Since black offends Joan I will make it..
Rivers: Wait. Just stop right now, Black does not offend me. How dare you, how dare you say that. Black offends me? You know nothing about me, you sat down here. How dare you.
Howe: The use of the term black offends you.
Rivers: The use of the term black offends me? Where the hell are you coming from? You have got such a chip on your shoulder. How dare you say that to me.
Howe: I think this is a language problem.
Rivers: No I don't. I think this is a problem in your stupid head. You had a child, you left them, your wife said you weren't there. You married a woman, you deserted her, now your son comes back he's got problems. Where were you when he was growing up, until he was eight years old?
Howe: May we continue?
Rivers: How dare you. Please continue, but don't you dare call me that. Son of a bitch.
Purves (Libby, the host): Right Darcus, can we just say you don't think Joan is a racist and then perhaps we can move on?
Howe: I don't know whether she is a racist or not. I don't care.
Rivers: You just said the word black offends me. That's the stupidest thing I ever heard.
Howe: Normally I wouldn't ever meet you in my life.
Rivers: No normally would I meet you, nor would I choose to meet you.
Howe: No she's not a racist.
Rivers: OK please continue about your stupid film.
Purves: Right can we talk about your tour Joan?
Rivers: Talk about anything you want.
Howe: I don't think you brought me here to be insulted.
Rivers: No I don't think I was brought here to be insulted by someone, to be called a racist.
Howe: Let's go on with my film please?
Rivers: Please go on with your film.

Purves: Well we have to move on for time reasons...

   

Environmental Crime Scene

On my way to work this morning I passed an Environmental Crime Scene. Admittedly anyone who works in London is liable to pass one or two of these every day, mostly committed by the planners - the City skyline itself increasingly resembles one vast environmental crime scene. But this was in a sidestreet in (largely) unspoilt Kensington, where every prospect pleases. The Environmental Crime Scene was, in fact... a bag. It was a plastic bin-bag, apparently containing some kind of builders' waste, and it was propped up against a wall. Someone had bound said bag tightly from top to bottom and left to right with wide sticky tape bearing the legend 'ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME SCENE'. I have never seen such a thing before. Was it, I wonder, the work of some kind of activists - or the heavy hand of the municipal authorities? The latter, I suspect, determined to make their point.

Over there...

Over on The Dabbler, I pay due homage to a giant of comedy...

Quardle Oodle Ardle Wardle Doodle

Radio 4's marvellous Tweet of the Day, having brought us the various songs of every British bird species, has now gone global. This morning's Tweet, introduced by David Attenborough, was the extraordinary 'carolling' of the Australian Magpie. This bird - not a corvid like our native Magpie but a Butcher Bird - is something of a vocal virtuoso and is a highly regarded songbird in Australia, where standards (let's be honest) are not terribly high. The 'carolling' sounded to me like some kind of avant-garde experimental jazz, but it was very early in the morning...
 The song of the Australian Magpie has, however, given us what Wikipedia and Attenborough describe as 'one of the most famous lines in new Zealand poetry' (and I'm in no position to argue). The line is as follows:

'Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle.'

And here it is in context, in Denis Glover's poem The Magpies, a kind of Antipodean take on Thomas Hardy:

'When Tom and Elizabeth took the farm
The bracken made their bed
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.


Tom's hand was strong to the plough
and Elizabeth's lips were red
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.


Year in year out they worked
while the pines grew overhead
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.


But all the beautiful crops soon went
to the mortgage man instead
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.


Elizabeth is dead now (it's long ago)
Old Tom's gone light in the head
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.


The farm's still there. Mortgage
corporations couldn't give it away
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies say.'

Betjeman Again: 'a whim of iron'

Watching last night's BBC4 documentary Return to Betjemanland, I was struck by a phrase used by Antony Powell to describe Betjeman: he had, said Powell, 'a whim of iron'. It's just the phrase to describe the mix of cuddly insouciance and steely purpose in Betjeman's personality - and, by extension, the tension in his verse between whimsy and something very much darker. No doubt Powell thought of the phrase himself, but it seems it was in circulation, having been attributed to Oliver Herford, 'the American Oscar Wilde', who is supposed to have said that his wife 'has a whim of iron'. Curiously the phrase also crops up in a song by the contemporary American folk singer Slaid Cleaves: 
 'She had a whim of iron.
 You couldn't tell her no.
 And if you did she'd prove you wrong
 And say - I told you so!'
Anyhoo, Return to Betjemanland was a solid job, presented by the ever more parsonical A.N. Wilson in a brown three-piece tweed suit of antiquated cut. He took us on a pleasing tour of the familiar landmarks, aided by dips into the extensive Betjeman TV archive, and it was all very enjoyable. Only towards the end did the tone darken, and Wilson was unflinching in exploring the dark underside of Betjeman's glittering surface - the well earned guilt, the secrets, the self-doubt, the literary and social insecurity, the complicated love life... The very things, I suppose, that put the iron in his whimsy.

In the Slow Lane

I was delighted to learn that the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources has finally been completed, a century and a year after the great project was launched. I don't suppose it will be joining my reference collection, but I love the fact that there are still such glacially slow academic projects coming to their belated ends even in these high-speed digitised times.
 When it comes to Latin, sales too can be equally slow. The record is held by David Wilkins' translation of the Coptic New Testament into Latin. Published by the Oxford University Press in 1716 in an edition of 500 copies, it remained in print until 1907. I guess they didn't sell off remainders in those days.