The Big Day

A toxic combination of overwork, a 'cold', hayfever and bad nights has left me in no fit state to do much blogging... However, I must mark the Big Day: the day on which, in 1863, the fascinating Alexandrian poet Constantin Cavafy was born - and the day on which, precisely 70 years later, he died. That doesn't often happen...
Oh all right, yes, it's also the day of the Royal Wedding, which is fine by me. I'm all for the monarchy (as against the alternatives) and William seems likely to be good news for the institution (unlike his father). And he and Kate seem a nice couple. It would be churlish - or republican - not to wish them well.

On the Dabbler...

The Dingy Skipper has landed.

Audubon: A Black Mark

The 226th birthday of Audubon is being marked today with a rather fine picture on the Google home page. No doubt he was a great ornithological artist - perhaps the greatest - but to those of us who love Keats, there will for ever be a black mark against his name for his treatment of George Keats, John's brother.
Early in 1819, George, who was in America hoping to restore the family's finances by profitable investment, naively purchased from Audubon (then based in Henderson, Kentucky, on the Ohio river) a boat laden with merchandise that he was assured could be sold downriver for a handsome profit. The catch - as George soon discovered - was that the boat and its cargo were at the bottom of the river. 'I cannot help thinking Mr Audubon is a dishonest man,' wrote John Keats, with commendable restraint, as a substantial slice of what little money the Keatses had disappeared into the pocket of the great bird man.

Butterfly Weather

I had meant to post my usual Happy Easter message - Urbi et Blogorbi - yesterday, but I had picture trouble (and what is an Easter greeting without a picture?) and gave up the unequal struggle with technology. I was also feeling a little stunned, having been out rather too much in the amazing summer-strength sunshine we've been having in the Southeast. It was grand butterfly weather though - Holly Blues, Orange Tips and whites everywhere - and on Good Friday, in a favoured spot on the Surrey hills, I had the pleasure of spotting my first Green Hairstreak, that emerald-underwinged beauty which is a regular on Nigeness around this time of year (though this sighting was certainly the earliest). I also saw several of another old friend, the Dingy Skipper - but that will be the subject of a forthcoming Dabbler Country post...

How Fairness Works

David 'very relaxed' Cameron has professed himself 'very relaxed' about giving out internships to people he happens to know, or their offspring. In response, the Today programme wheeled out a young man representing a pressure group called Intern Aware (I'm not making this up), who claimed that what Cameron is doing when he doles out these internships is not giving an acquaintance a helping hand but 'pushing down' all those hugely talented young people (they're everywhere - haven't you noticed?) who happen not to be personally connected to David Cameron. This is what happens when you take the initially attractive notion of 'fairness' and follow it to its logical (i.e. disastrous) conclusion. Bear in mind the logic of Intern Aware next time you help an old lady across the road. You might think you're helping an old lady across the road, but what you're really doing is grinding the faces of all those old ladies who happen not to be on that kerb at that particular time - and, still worse, all those old ladies who couldn't even make it as far as the kerb. Shame on you.

Enter The Sims

We've all been there. You post a perfectly innocent link to a piece on cardboard boxes, and next thing you know the Comments have taken on a life of their own. Enter the Sims.
I name this form - a kind of prose haiku in three sentences that must begin 'We've all been there', present a dilemma, and resolve in with 'Enter the...' - after its creator, the estimable Jenny Sims of BBC News Magazine. I think it is a form that - like the Izzard-Fry Rule - can be applied across the board, no subject too big or small. We've all been there. On all fours before the lamentable spectacle of the unknown. Enter God... Thank you, Jenny Sims, for your unwitting gift to the language.

Two Spencer Gores

This year's Wimbledon championship will be the 125th - a fact that will no doubt excite much brouhaha. It was back in 1877 that a fine all-round sportsman called Spencer Gore won the first All England Lawn Tennis Championship (lawn tennis, I should explain, is the new-fangled term for Sphairistike). This was a Gentlemen's Singles competition, and it was a leisurely affair, suspended at the weekend for the Eton-Harrow cricket match at Lord's (Gore was a Harrow boy), and the final was delayed for four days by inclement weather. In the end, Gore walked off with the 12 guinea prize money and a silver cup - a quite sufficient emolument, I'd say (even minus the guinea entry fee). Spencer Gore's other great achievement in life was to father the painter of the same name, a friend of Sickert's and founder member of the Camden Town Group. Sadly, this Spencer Gore died at the age of 35, of pneumonia, after being caught in a storm while out painting. The picture above is one of his.