Tuesday, 2 June 2009

A Hardy Titbit

As today is his 169th birthday, I pass on this titbit about the great Thomas Hardy (greater as poet than as novelist, in my estimation). It seems that Hardy had the true countryman's gift of being able to urinate while walking, without so much as breaking stride - and would unabashedly do so in male company. Enviable - and probably best not attempted by the non-countryman.
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17 comments:

  1. Brit2 June 2009 at 13:49

    Britain's got talent!

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  2. Nige2 June 2009 at 14:47

    Ah yes - he was born too soon....

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  3. R/T2 June 2009 at 14:54

    Now, armed with that new tidbit about special talents while walking, I can give students in my literature classes at least something to smile about when they take on a writer they otherwise generally regard as boring, old-fashioned, sombre, and not worth their time--those are their assessments, not mine. Now, while I am sorely tempted to attempt Hardy's feat, I lack neither the isolated countryside nor the coordination and physical wherewithal, so--to protect my feet as well as my dignity--I shall adjourn to elsewhere in the house. Bottom line: thanks for sharing--I needed to smile about something this morning.

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  4. kenny8blog2 June 2009 at 14:56

    Everyone ponged more in those
    pre Daz days,so I guess he'd get
    away with it.Surprised he was not
    laid back enough to pause.No doubt
    his oratory was non stop.

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  5. Susan B.2 June 2009 at 15:04

    Ewwwww!

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  6. Gareth Williams2 June 2009 at 15:52

    The capabilities of a good, thick tweed - the countryman's secret weapon down the ages - continue to impress.

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  7. jonathan law2 June 2009 at 16:14

    That dour fellow the Revd R.S. Thomas is also said to have been a spectacularly adept and uninhibited alfresco pisser. By all accounts, this scandalized the visiting literati far more than his parishioners -- so perhaps it is indeed a country thing.

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  8. Nige2 June 2009 at 16:34

    Aha - I didn't know that, Jonathan - thanks - I'm seeing R.S. in a new light already... Something tells me that this art is widely practised in rural France too...

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  9. Susan B.2 June 2009 at 16:43

    This art is definitely widely practiced in France. Many years ago, on a long trip with French friends (from Burgundy to Normandy), we finally arrived at our destination. I raced for the bathroom (my friends had already said of me, "Suzanne a la vessie d'un petit pois"), while the males loudly and lengthily relieved themselves against a hedge. Soon I noted French men p*ssing all over the place outdoors, in the countryside but also in cities (note the urine reek of many an alley wall). It's a national pisstime. I mean, Pastime.

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  10. Dave Lull2 June 2009 at 17:35

    In a letter included in R.S.Thomas: Letters to Raymond Garlick 1951-1999, RST said 'In Greece we pursued God up Olympus, but he vanished, as always, into thin air. The burned-up landscape did make me realise how we malign our own climate. We did have one downpour on Olympus. Perhaps God is a monkey after all. They like to urinate at strangers.' (First quoted, I believe, in Byron Rogers' very interesting book The man who went into the west: the life of R.S. Thomas (Aurum, 2006), page 311.)

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  11. Dave Lull2 June 2009 at 17:45

    About info. about The man who went into the west see here from Google Books.

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  12. malty2 June 2009 at 20:15

    Probably how he got the idea for Jude, pissed all over the pavement, pissed over, ain't life a pisser, life's pissing all over me, word association you see, how the great literary minds work, ain't that a pisser.
    Right bloody miserable sod at times, our Tom.

    At the back of Mont Blancs Grand Mulets refuge near the top of the Bosson glacier is a pair of unisex netties, built out over a 500 ft drop, quite an airy position, consisting of grab poles and a hole in the floor. Quite odour free, as you can imagine.
    What was I saying again, oh yes, one of life's true pleasures is watching ones widdle soar through space, turn into ice particles and cascade onto the glacier, poetic really, transcendental even, unique, without parallel.

    Perhaps Tommy was making patterns on the side walk, the face of Tess maybe or the Mayor, who knows.

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  13. Gareth Williams2 June 2009 at 21:42

    'There flew an irised rain...and purples prinked the main'.

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  14. Levi Stahl3 June 2009 at 04:43

    Always very glad to gain a new bit of Hardy trivia, Nigel, however scatalogical--thanks for sharing.

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  15. Dave Lull4 June 2009 at 20:06

    "English brewery O'Hanlon's last week announced it would no longer be brewing Thomas Hardy's Ale . . . ."

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  16. NigelBeale5 June 2009 at 04:35

    Now that we're at it: once when visiting the Eiffel tower I happened to notice an enormous penis sticking out from behind some nearby bushes, its owner happily wanking away...I've been told that this public exercise is also somewhat of a national pastime...

    unfortunately I've been unable ever since to separate these twin towers in my mind.

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  17. Nige5 June 2009 at 11:33

    Good grief - a mind-boggling comment strand there - thanks everybody.

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