Raeburn at The National Gallery of Scotland

Tags

Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh Festival, Enlightenment, General Assembly, Kirst Wark, Lallans, New Town, phizzogs, Princes Street Gardens, Raeburn, Rev Robert Walker, Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, The Mound, Whigs

You didn’t go to The Edinburgh Festival this year?

Brassica enquired.

No, too busy moving house.  But I will never forget the year I

went to the big Raeburn exhibition.

Why is that in particular?  I mean, I know he was a brilliant portrait

painter…

Because, when I came out, I could recognise all those faces, or phizzogs,

in Princes Street Gardens…I wrote a poem about the experience, as I

recall…

I started to declaim it, but Brassie protested that she didn’t

understand Lallans.  For all you linguists ‘oot there’, as it

were, ‘read oan‘.  See if you can get the gist:

(Kirsty Wark- crop image by Frank Wales.

KW at Innovate ’08 Conference, London)

 

Raeburn At The National Gallery of Scotland

 

A’ they pitten-oan, pauchtie Whigs appear

oan the Mound, or even wi’ Kirsty Wark,

debating devolution. Tartan-trewed

museum staff hae a look o’ Sir John

Sinclair of Ulbster and the Kirk still skates

oan wabblie ice – no oan Duddingston Loch,

but at its ain General Assembly.

Next thing they’ll be a’ wearin’ pink trappins

as they tapsalteerie roon key issues.

Slidderie, crabbit, towtie judges

aye hae glancy nebs, and advocates

gaither airt traisures. Quate, lang-drauchit wives

keep oan winnin’ their marital chess games;

take mair to theirselves than thir marrow’s queen:

wummen catch oan fast tae Enlightenment.

Braw, harp-playin’ sirens still turn hoose-ends,

musickers are forespoken by thir world;

bairnies crack thir thoums, so ye gie yir tent;

chiels forget thir first wives efter echt days.

The high heid yins adopt designer cloots

tae hide the fact they are debt-bedevilled.

They sappie, pairted lips warsle tae rede

themsels. We can hear them bairge in New Town,

spoat thir reflections in Jenny a’ things.

Thir portraits can be traced aff Princes Street:

there’s that carnaptious phizzog, they chollers:

a’ they bachles oan erstwhile buckled feet.

 

Blobfish etc

Tags

blobfish, Donatella Versace, Edinburgh Festival, Facebook, foreskin, International Ugly Animal Preservation Society, Jabba the Hutt, John Prescott, leftvent angler fish, Mr Blobby, Philistines, Reduced Shakespeare Co, Rollinng Stones, Samson, Tasman Sea, trout pout

(Drawing by Alan Riverstone McCulloch)

 

They come from the Tasman Sea and ichthyologists

say they are the ugliest fish in the seas.

Well, my granny used to tell me there were plenty

more of them in that particular element. But I do

wonder how they manage to attract the opposite sex and

propagate, when they look like Mr Blobby in the act of

frowning.

They have been likened to Donatella Versace, Jabba the

Hutt, John Prescott and a beardless Col. Sanders.

The male becomes a big bag of testes and that’s his sole use

in life.

Which reminds me of a joke delivered by The Reduced

Shakespeare Company, in Edinburgh, at The Festival, some

years ago.  They were producing The Bible on stage, in a rapid

series of sketches, as was their wont.

One of the actors, wearing an animal skin, rushed towards the

audience and boasted:

I took the foreskins of the Philistines!

His sidekick queried this utterance by asking:

What’s a foreskin?

It’s that useless bit of flesh that hangs on the end of a penis,

said Samson.

Oh! rejoined the stooge.  I thought that was a man!

Cue for hysterical feminist guffaws.

Anyway, why does the blobfish expand in such a manner?

Apparently it is a strategy to ensure that sex happens in a

big environment.  It is one way of being noticed.

Maybe they could sign up to Facebook, or a fishy dating agency?

Yes, blobfish are arguably uglier than the naked mole rat, which

is the mascot of the International Ugly Animal Preservation

Society.

However, they are not so desperate as the male leftvent angler

fish, which may fuse himself, along with other males, onto the

female, and, in the manner of Hamlet’s aspirations, thaw and resolve

themselves into a dew, melting the skin of their mouths and the

female flesh until they absorb blood vessels and the two, or twenty

two, become one.

Cue for further feminist reaction.

I mean, sometimes a girl just wants to go shopping without a male

being joined to her hip, monitoring her spending.

I only saw one example of an even uglier specimen on my travels

Down Under.  It was on a Rolling Stones comeback poster and I’m

not saying to which member of the band I am referring.

But think Trout Pout.

 

 

Phizzogs

Tags

Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh Festival, Henry Raeburn, Jack Vettriano, Kenneth Currie, Kirsty Wark, Lord Braxfield, Princes Street, Robert McQueen

Brassie rushed in.

Hi, guys!  Just back.

She placed her ridiculously unstable table number stand

next to ours.  Now we had two numbers.

Spoke to Clammie earlier, she gushed.  But how was Edinburgh,

Candia?  You missed the Festival.

Yes, but I gained the weather, I said.  I did manage to catch the

Kenneth Currie exhibition at The Portait Gallery on the first day.

Is that the guy who paints butlers on wet beaches? Clammie asked.

No, that’s Jack Vettriano, I corrected her.  Currie is a tad more

macabre. He is interested in how age affects the body.

Aren’t we all?! agreed Brassie, ruefully. What else did you

see?

Latter day examples of the Raeburn portraits mobilised on

Princes Street, I observed.  Leopards don’t change their spots.

Here, I wrote a poem about the sense of deja vu.  You can read

it with your latte.

Gee thanks, Candia, said Brassie.  Give me a break.  I’m just

back.

I’ll read it, said Clammie.  Pass it over.  What language is this?

You’ll need to translate!

Raeburn on the Streets of Edinburgh

A’ they pitten-oan, pauchtie Whigs appear

oan the Mound, or even wi’ Kirsty Wark,

debating devolution. Tartan-trewed

museum staff hae a look o’ Robert

McQueen, Lord Braxfield and the Kirk still skates

oan wabblie ice – no oan Duddingston Loch,

but at its ain General Assembly.

Next thing they’ll be a’ wearin’ pink trappins

as they tapsalteerie roon key issues.

Slidderie, crabbit, towtie judges

aye hae glancy nebs, and advocates

gaither airt traisures. Quate, lang-drauchit wives

keep oan winnin’ their marital chess games

and take unto themselves mair than thir marrow’s queen:

wummen catch oan fast tae Enlightenment.

Braw, harp-playin’ sirens still turn hoose-ends,

musickers are forespoken by thir world;

bairnies crack thir thoums, so ye gie yir tent;

chiels forget thir first wives efter echt days.

The high heid yins adopt designer cloots

tae hide the fact they are debt-bedevilled.

Thon sappie, pairted lips warsle tae rede

themsels. We can hear them bairge in New Town,

spoat thir reflections in Jenny a’ things.

Thir Portrait Gallery’s oan Princes Street:

there’s that carnaptious phizzog, they chollers:

a’ they bachles oan erstwhile buckled feet.