that's 64 years running i've missed the fallas in valencia ... maybe next year !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallas

window shopping in pimlico

billy bennett ... my role model for 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKhcQmIiJys


... and here are the words for you to learn by heart before you go to the pub

SHE WAS POOR, BUT SHE WAS HONEST

(aka IT'S THE SAME THE WHOLE WORLD OVER)

(Traditional - English Music Hall)

Billy Bennett - 1930

She was poor, but she was honest

Though she came from 'umble stock

And an honest heart was beating

Underneath her tattered frock

'Eedless of 'er Mother's warning

Up to London she 'ad gone

Yearning for the bright lights gleaming

'Eedless of temp-ta-shy-on

But the rich man saw her beauty

She knew not his base design

And he took her to a hotel

And bought her a small port wine

Then the rich man took 'er ridin'

Wrecker of poor women's souls

But the Devil was the chauffeur

As she rode in his Royce Rolls

In the rich man's arms she fluttered

Like a bird with a broken wing

But he loved 'er and he left 'er

Now she hasn't got no ring

It's the same the whole world over

It's the poor what gets the blame

It's the rich what gets the pleasure

Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?

Time has flown, outcast and helpless

In the street she stands and says

While the snowflakes fall around 'er

"Won't you buy my bootlaces?"

See him riding in a carriage

Past the gutter where she stands

He has made a stylish marriage

While she wrings her ringless hands

See him there at the theatre

In the front row with the best

While the girl that he has ruined

Entertains a sordid guest

See 'er on the bridge at midnight

She says "Farewell, blighted love"

There's a scream, a splash......Good 'eavens!

What is she a-doing of?

So they dragged 'er from the river

Water from 'er clothes they wrung

They all thought that she was drownded

But the corpse got up and sung

It's the same the whole world over

It's the poor what gets the blame

It's the rich what gets the pleasure

Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?

and my favourite ...

DON'T SEND MY BOY TO PRISON  performed by Billy Bennett (Almost a Gentleman)

The snow was falling 'orrid, the 'earth and 'ome was cold

To save his starving family, the sticks 'ad all bin sold

And when his poor old mother, she was a-stricken ill

He yielded to temptation, and, he rifled of the till.

Chorus: Don't send my boy to prison

It's the first crime wot he's done

'Six months.' replied his Lordship

'Oh Gawd 'elp my h'erring son.'

It was a simple h'action, to sneak another's wealth

But then 'e only done it, to save his family's 'ealth

Oh shed the tear of pity or quell an angry word

'E never knowed no better, Nor, voice of conscience served.

Chorus:

They shoved the irons across 'im, a-coming through the door

Says he, "I only done it because I was so poor"

The h'officer all a-trembling, he wipes away a tear

Says he, "I knows my duty, And, no more I mustn't hear."

Chorus:

The judge looks on in h'anger, and the prisoner hung his head

And then his poor old mother wot was with him upped and said,

"Don't send my boy to prison, It's the first crime wot he's done."

"Six months." replied his Lordship, "Oh, Gawd 'elp my h'erring son."

Chorus:

They takes 'im from the dock then, and carts 'im from the court

Not caring how his mother her poor home can now support

Thank God there's them in Marylebone who'll comfort her poor heart

And see her through her troubles, till they needs no more to part.

Chorus:

Deus, qui nos in tantis periculis constitutos, pro humana scis fragilitate non posse subsistere: da nobis salutem mentis et corporis ut ea quae pro peccatis nostris patimur, te adjuvante, vincamus. Per Dominum ... O God, who knowest that through human frailty, we are not able to subsist amidst such great dangers, grant us health of soul and body, that whatsoever things we suffer because of our sins, we may overcome them by thine assistance

it has been one of those mind-numbing weeks when letters go unfinished ...

joe hyam has embarked on a pub crawl around the galaxy ... missing you already, joe !

http://compasses-lucyandjoe.blogspot.co.uk/

the loved one procured this edition, re-printed in 1949, from a list of a hundred enjoyable books ... and indeed, the first few pages are a joy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bowen

and a little more information ...

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/07/elizabeth-bowen-charles-ritchie

here's alvi !

... and noa !

his mum can be trusted to ensure that no animals were harmed during the preparations for this portrait she just sent me ...

i can still spot a mermaid at two hundred paces ...

after visiting the national maritime museum, we took a long slow walk up to the old greenwich observatory ...

... where they've always been serious about astronomy

at last ... a boat i'll be proud to show off around the lagoon in venice ...

... and not a loose screw in sight !

ta-ran ta-ra !!! lord nelson by spode, dating from 2005 via a charity shop in reigate

co-incidentally, we took a trip down the river this morning to the national maritime museum at greenwich and were able to study nelson's trafalgar over-coat, complete with fatal bullet hole on left shoulder

catch a falling star and put in your pocket, save it for a rainy day ...

some say that memory rot sets in earlier than you thought .... but i wonder if early memories are just buried under the avalanche of subsequent experience

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2013.854806

http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=88905

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Sforza_(il_Duchetto)

... kidnapped at the age of nine and never returned

and after the compulsory hoovering, you can polish my jewellery

looks like it'll be another wasted weekend of reeling and writhing

i've just discovered BBC radio 3's essay archive

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x3hl/episodes/player

any old irons ? i'd quite like one of these 2500 year old bronze wine jars for my own dionysiac revels ...

http://inha.revues.org/3976

if you are interested in this spectacular relic, it is well worth downloading the pdf of beryl barr sharrar's essay with its fabulous pictures, via the above link

georgians revealed, at the british library ... loads of stuff, almost too much, but great fun !

http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/georgiansrevealed/index.html?ns_campaign=georgians&ns_mchannel=bl_website&ns_source=carousel&ns_linkname=more_link&ns_fee=0

and whilst we're on the topic of genome archaeology ... here's some recent stuff about the truly ancient origins of native americans, north and south

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2014/clovis-genome-settles-debate-on-indigenous-american-lineage

there's a fairy at the bottom of my garden ...

art amplifying human knowledge

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/foreign-bodies-common-ground/the-artists/katie-paterson.aspx

http://www.katiepaterson.org/fossil/Katie_Paterson_Fossil_Necklace_Drawing.pdf

and whilst we're thinking of beads, let's note that anne frank's tin of marbles has only just been handed in by a childhood friend who was asked to guard them ..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2551751/Tin-marbles-belonging-Anne-Frank-turn-Amsterdam-70-years-gave-neighbour-safekeeping.html

notes on how to watch television from the other room ...

in mid-week, the loved one likes to catch up with the popular television drama, "call the midwife"

she watches it whilst curled up on the sofa with her laptop and just when i'm creeping off to bed in preparation for an early alarum

i find there is almost always an opportunity before i sleep to pretend to share her fascination by calling out, "is someone in labour ?" in an anxious sort of tone at the appropriate moment

i hope it doesn't annoy her

an unexpected almost-nearly-juxtaposition last week in lyme regis ... flags on the stern of a beached fishing boat beside the harbour, the sticker perhaps only a hundred yards away on marine parade

http://antifalausitz.sytes.net/

yayoi kusama

http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/yayoi-kusama/survey-selected-works/image/page/35/

http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/_31/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama

roy hewish aged 85 rampaging in the welsh mountains

alvi and his new torch ( part ii )

the opening paragraph of james stephens' crock of gold ...

IN the centre of the pine wood called Coilla Doraca there lived not long ago two Philosophers. They were wiser than anything else in the world except the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into which the nuts of knowledge fall from the hazel bush on its bank. He, of course, is the most profound of living creatures, but the two Philosophers are next to him in wisdom. Their faces looked as though they were made of parchment, there was ink under their nails, and every difficulty that was submitted to them, even by women, they were able to instantly resolve. The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath asked them the three questions which nobody had ever been able to answer, and they were able to answer them. That was how they obtained the enmity of these two women which is more valuable than the friendship of angels. The Grey Woman and the Thin Woman were so incensed at being answered that they married the two Philosophers in order to be able to pinch them in bed, but the skins of the Philosophers were so thick that they did not know they were being pinched. They repaid the fury of the women with such tender affection that these vicious creatures almost expired of chagrin, and once, in a very ecstasy of exasperation, after having been kissed by their husbands, they uttered the fourteen hundred maledictions which comprised their wisdom, and these were learned by the Philosophers who thus became even wiser than before.

friends in high places ( part ii )

noa with his new hair

alvi with his new torch

i resisted reading this airport-blockbuster out of sheer snobbery ... and now its keeping me awake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zafon

i can still spot a mermaid at two hundred paces ... an optician's sign at lyme regis

... although it doesn't say so, most likely painted by linzi ...

http://www.mermaid-at-the-tudor.com/

http://www.linziwest.co.uk/illustrations.html