Blaming and Practice

I've just started reading Elizabeth Taylor's last novel, Blaming, which was published posthumously. It's a good thing she didn't live to see the publisher's blurb on the back of the paperback, which begins 'While on holiday in Istanbul, tragedy strikes...' One can almost visualise Taylor, a fastidious stylist, wincing at the dangling participle - though it's the kind of thing we've now learnt to expect, in this age of semi-literate publishing. Something that makes me wince is the use of 'practice' as a verb. This often occurs throughout 'English' editions of American books - presumably as a result of a computer programme substituting 'practice' for 'practise' throughout, regardless of whether the word's being used as a verb or a noun. Whatever happened to copy editing?

And...

for reference - and because I can't resist it - here's a White Admiral.

Yes, It's That Time of Year Again...

My last day as Nature Boy before Nigecorp reclaims me - and the sun's shining brilliantly, so what's a Nature Boy to do? I made my familiar beeline for the oakwoods and grassland of Ashtead Common, and soon found myself among those spectacular beauties, the Silver-washed Fritillaries - my first of the year, and they were out in force, fresh and lively, rarely settling as they flew by with that characteristic combination of powerful forward strokes and long gliding swoops. At one point a pair locked in flagrante delicto flew heavily past and landed with the butterfly equivalent of a thump amid the brambles - that's something I've never seen before... It seemed at first that I was not going to spot my favourite, the White Admiral, but evenutally I was rewarded with a tally of half a dozen or so swooping by, again very lively and disinclined to settle - though one, flying so close I could feel and hear the swish of its wings, very nearly landed on my shirt... But the most dramatic moment came when I glimpsed what might - I say might - have been a Purple Emperor. All I can say for certain is that it was something lepidopterine, dark and improbably large, flying at formidable speed, hurtling high up through the oak canopy and disappearing from view in a second. I wouldn't claim it as a positive sighting, but I think it very probably was that fabled beauty (more elusive than actually rare), the Purple Emperor.

Lost In Wales

Well, I am back from Wales. My general thoughts on the Principality remain unchanged from what they were two years ago. This time we also had rain - a steady Welsh rain - and we got lost. It was one of those walks that look fine on the map, but on the ground... Oh dear, another story altogether. Our misadventures began with a well maintained stile that led directly into an impenetrable thicket of brambles, nettles, hawthorn etc that there was no getting through. A long detour through swampy, boot-sucking, undrained fields culminated in a rather desperate breakout, via a barbed wire fence with a deep ditch on the far side and barely penetrable growth around a lost hollow way, back onto the route, along a footpath that crossed a muddy, meandering river. Except that it didn't. Where two paths met from either bank, there was no crossing. The nearest was a mile or so further along, where a footbridge was clearly marked. Already sodden to the knees and above, we wet off to find that bridge. This involved getting over a tributary stream by means of another long, muddy detour, followed by another, worse commando-style assault on a barbed wire fence, more barely penetrable undergrowth, the stream itself, and much mud - in the course of this assault, all but one of us (me, by sheer luck) fell over, either in water or mud. When our bedraggled, torn and mud-spattered crew eventually hauled ourselves out of the wood and into an open field, we realised, having got our bearing, that this gruelling detour had gained us perhaps 30 yards of progress along the river. However, we were nearing that footbridge - that much was certain.
At this point, a tractor appeared, accompanied by three excited sheepdogs. Aboard the tractor was a farmer - the first human being we had seen since the walk began. He steered towards us and stopped, and we realised with relief that he was amiably disposed and not about to order us off his land. We inquired about the footbridge. He thought a moment, then 'No' he said, 'there's no bridge. There was a bridge, but it got smashed up.' Another pause for thought. 'A tank went over it in the war and smashed it up.' So much for the Ordnance Survey map, updated 2007 - and so much for our hopes of getting across that river without having to wade it (and it really didn't look very wadable).
At this point, our walk turned into a Famous Five adventure, as the kindly farmer offered to ferry us across the river in his tractor. It was an old Massey Ferguson, with just room for two to perch beside the driver, hanging on to whatever was at hand. And so this providential farmer took us across that river, two by two, and we, tired, wet, muddy but very very grateful, resumed - and replanned - our walk. What were the lessons of this experience? That even up-to-date OS maps should be taken with a pinch of salt - at least in wild west Wales. That it is amazingly easy, in this overcrowded country, to find yourself seriously lost and up against seriously difficult terrain - and not to see a single human soul around - even when you are ostensibly quite close to human habitation. And that there are nice, helpful farmers - yes, even in Wales.
You're probably wondering about the picture. That's from St Teilo's Church, reconstructed at the superb outdoor museum at St Fagan's, which we visited on our return journey. The church has not only been rebuilt on the museum site but restored to the kind of painted polychrome glory in which it would have appeared around 1520. It works wonderfully well. There is more about it - and more images - here.

And Now...

I'm off walking for a couple of days. Normal blogging will resume on Sunday or Monday.

Wrestling with Scott Walker

My old friend down in Devon, a never-faling source of enlightenment, has sent me some recordings - on those dear old familiar old tape cassettes, naturally - including one of Scott Walker's 2005 album The Drift. Walker, of course, is famous for having given up (or rather fled from) being a teen idol, becoming a great balladeer and interpreter of Jacques Brel among others, then, having spent long year staring into the abyss and cultivating an exquisite blend of pain and paranoia, becoming a cult artist - no, the cult artist's cult artist, releasing a tortured and inaccessible album every decade or so. Somewhere along the way, I lost, as it were, the drift - but now I have The Drift. This is an album that makes the bleaker moments of Winterreise sound like a Chas & Dave singalong. It is so punishing in its demands (and often in its assault on the ears) that I can only handle one track at a time. Having negotiated Cossacks Are - a kind of cut-up of found phrases chanted against an alienating soundscape - and the truly nightmarish Clara (Benito's Dream), about Mussolini's mistress and her grisly fate, I have just managed Jesse, a terrible lament built around Elvis Presley talking to his stillborn dead twin. If - and only if - you're feeling strong, you can experience that one here. There is no doubting that this is amazing stuff - dark beyond dark, histrionic beyond histrionic. Magnificent? Absurd? Both? Treading a fine line between the two? I don't know, and I rather doubt I ever will - but I'm glad, in a stunned, shellshocked kind of way, to have had the experience. One track at a time, I carry on...

Bitter Bierce

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Positive, adj: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Present, n: That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

Perseverance: A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

Patriotism: Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

Just a few entries under the letter P in that sardonic masterpiece The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce - 'Bitter Bierce' - who was born on this day in 1842, the tenth of 13 children, on all of whom their father (Marcus Aurelius Bierce) bestowed names beginning with A. In 1913, while travelling with Pancho Villa's army in Mexico, Bierce became one of very few authors to disappear without trace. How we wish there were more...