The Mystery Deepens

Yesterday's intriguing RetroProgressive post by The Dabbler's style guru, the fabulous Susan, has given rise to a sparkling comment stream (on my head, by the way, I'd have the words May Contain Nuts). Among the comments is the Ineffable Malty on the great contemporary mystery of all those shaven heads everywhere. A still greater mystery is that a shaven head takes at least as long as a hair-covered one to deal with at the barber's, as I discovered this morning at my local barbershop - a Kurdish establishment, nice people ('Kurds. Good people', to adapt Jack's summing-up of Costa Ricans in Vexed). Next to me, and ahead of me in the queue, was a lightly tattooed thirtysomething man with a crop that a Prussian officer of the old school might have thought a tad harsh. When he took his place in the barber's chair, he issued some instruction to the barber which I didn't catch, but which I imagine were along these lines: 'Good day to you, barber. I grieve to report that a mutinous faction among my follicles have dared to raise themselves perilously near to the quarter-inch mark. Would you oblige me by hunting them down and putting paid to their presumption. Employ all weapons at your disposal, and by all means take your time about it. You may, if you like, converse with me the while about football and kindred matters...' And so began an agonisingly long wait while all manner of minutely detailed work was done with a range of electric clippers and even scissors, largely devoted to snipping thin air, followed by blow-drying and the application of unguents and gels. When the lightly tattooed fellow at length rose from the chair, looking just that little bit worse than before, my spirits rose as at least it would now be my turn - but not a bit of it: he had his son with him, a lad of about seven sporting a crop at least as severe as his papa's, and he too was to 'have his hair cut', a procedure that took very nearly as long as what had gone before and left him effectively bald but for a few tiny gelled spikes. The lad seemed well pleased - as was I to at last have my turn in the barber's chair. It might have been my imagination, but the barber seemed glad to have some actual hair to get to work on. He did a fine job (Kurds. Good barbers) and I emerged onto the street a happier, less shaggy man. Outside the shop I was accosted by my old friend, the one-eyed gentleman from County Galway, with the news that, as I had neglected the simple precaution of being born again, I was likely facing an eternity of roasting in the fires of hell. I bore the tidings with equanimity.

Born on This Day...

... in 1796 was Hartley Coleridge, the unfortunate son of Samuel Taylor. He inherited a good deal of his father's character and inclinations, but nothing like the full range of his talents. However, he was a dab hand at the sonnet form and wrote several that deserve to survive. Half a dozen are rounded up on Hartley Coleridge's page of Sonnet Central, a rather wonderful website devoted entirely to the sonnet form. Night seems especially well made, and November is the work of a man who has really looked and listened. I especially like that scentless rose...

Meanwhile...

Over at The Dabbler, I'm the 1p Book Review - Time Will Darken It, one from the archives.

Tillotson anyone?

The reference library in Croydon is part of this grand complex, a gloriously extravagant expression of Victorian municipal pride and aspiration. The last time I went in, I was pleased to find it quite wonderfully old-fashioned and unmodernised, complete with chained newspapers, wooden lecterns and dim book-lined galleries - but that was a long while ago, and I'm sure it's a very different story now. However the exterior survives unchanged, with its tall stained-glass windows and, above each, the names of various English worthies, literary and artistic, in threes on little scrolls - very Victorian. Mostly they are the names you'd expect - the likes of Shakespere [sic], Chaucer, Hogarth, Reynolds - but one trio is decidedly odd: Scott, Macaulay (with you so far) - and Tillotson. Who? And why? The only Tillotson of note I can unearth (apart from Johnny 'Poetry in Motion' Tillotson and it's unlikely to be him) is this 17th-century divine. Presumably he enjoyed a Victorian vogue - or perhaps he was a kinsman of the Mayor of Croydon. Who knows?

Alas Poor Jumbo

It was on this day in 1885 that the famous T.P. Barnum elephant Jumbo was killed, struck by a locomotive while crossing the tracks in a marshalling yard at St Thomas, Ontario. The collision derailed the train, and it took 150 people to haul Jumbo's body up an embankment. The melancholy scene is pictured above. Barnum of course couldn't leave it at that. In what was then the largest taxidermy project ever undertaken, he had Jumbo stuffed so that he could carry on touring with the circus. After four years, Barnum let Jumbo go, donating him to Tufts University, where he became the university's much-loved mascot - until he was destroyed in a fire in 1975. His ashes are now kept in a 14-oz Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter tin in the office of the Tufts athletics director, but his tail, which had been removed earlier, resides in the Tufts archives. That peanut butter tin troubles me - surely Jumbo deserves a more dignified resting place after all he's been through...

A Marvellous Thing

I'm just back from a rather wonderful weekend in Derbyshire, which was mostly about an unusual and unusually joyous family get-together - but, this not being That Kind of Blog, I'm not going to go into all that... Two beautiful, non-family-related images linger in my pleasure centres. One is the spectacular view from the tall gothick window of room 7 of the Temple Hotel in (but safely above) the curious resort of Matlock Bath - surely one of the best hotel room views in England (and the hotel itself is delightful, a nicely frayed-at-the-edges Regency house with none of the character-destroying horrors that afflict most modern hotels). The other lingering image is from Sunday morning, when the warm autumn sun broke through early and the late butterflies were flying and basking. On the remaining flowers of a large buddleia bush I saw a marvellous thing - a dozen and more small tortoiseshells feeding happily (along with a red admiral and a peacock). Not so long ago this would have been a common sight, but lately those of us who live in the southeast have been starved of tortoiseshells as their numbers fell steeply. The cause has still not been established, but the likelihood is that a parasitic infection is to blame, rather then the default culprit 'global warming' (in my experience butterflies seem to rather like warmth). This year there were encouraging signs that the tortoiseshell was rallying in the south. Perhaps a dozen of them on a buddleia bush will once again become a common sight - but it will still be a marvellous heart-lifting thing at summer's end.

Where There's a Will...

I'm developing one of my irrational loathings again - and, having asked around, I don't think I'm alone in this one. It's that Will Gompertz, the BBC's Arts Editor, i.e. spouter-in-chief of modish banalities about The Yarts (as Sir Les Paterson eloquently calls them). With his bald dome fringed by long hair (not a good look) and combination of very open-necked shirt, formal jacket and tight jeans (an even worse look on a middle-aged man), his appearance is so strikingly unpleasant as to distract the viewer from what he's saying - which might very well be a mercy but is hardly an advantage for a man in his job. He also likes to stride around self-consciously and chop the air with mannered hand gestures - and he's now adopted a conspicuous glottal stop. And who is Will Gompertz (apart from a former director of Tate Media, whatever that is)? He is, Wikipedia informs us, the third cousin of Simon Gompertz, a reporter on BBC2's Working Lunch. That is quite possibly the most obscure fact I have ever learnt about any living person. Hands up those who know who their third cousins are? Hands up those who even know what a third cousin is? Hands up those who would happily get through the rest of their lives without another report on The Yarts by Will 'Third Cousin of Simon' Gompertz...