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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Tag Archives: London Bridge

Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by Candia in Architecture, History, Humour, Literature, Poetry, Social Comment, Theatre, Writing

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All the world's a stage, Bankside, bum bags, Don Paterson TS Eliot prize, groundlings, Hercules, Hermione, Isle of Wight, Jeffrey Archer, London Bridge, plague, Reeboks, Shakespeare, Sir Smile, Southwark, Thames, The Globe, The Wooden O, Winchester geese, Winchester Palace

 

Forgot about this poem which appeared in the Spring Issue of

Poetry Life magazine, 1998.  It was printed on the back cover and

the front cover had a picture of Don Paterson who had just won the

TS Eliot Prize.  So, I was in good company!

With the current Shakespeare celebrations taking place, I thought

I’d better give it another airing.

It was written in July, 1997.

 

TOTUS MUNDUS AGIT HISTRIONEM*

 

(The Globe, July 1997)

 

No kite-picked, severed heads on London Bridge;

no barge with poop of beaten gold, or sails

of purple on the River Thames.  No screams

of baited bears at Bankside, nor whipped whores,

nor the crude cackling of Winchester geese**

by Southwark Bridge- perhaps the stink of drains.

No risk from rat flea plague.  No sign of swans.

But there’s that octagon, that wooden O,

with its fantastic gates and bearded thatch.

I cannot see that flag with Hercules

bearing the world upon his able back.

But, no doubt it is there, or it will be.

No Spaniards landing on the Isle of Wight,

and another Elizabeth still reigns.

It is required that we awake our faith,

for, down below, I see the lineaments

of that first audience, now in Reeboks,

sporting bum bags: a modern cod-piece? No?

It is the heretic that burns the fire;

not she that burns in it, Hermione

instructs the crowd who hears the Irish news.

Helicopters whirr and obscure some lines,

while programme sellers interrupt: Two pounds!

where a penny once secured standing room.

Thousands will trample Jeffrey Archer’s name;

his stone his hope of immortality.

The selfsame sun that shines upon his court

shines on our cottage, but now the dampness

releases the strong smell of new hewn oak.

I think I sense Will’s ghost behind my bench

and trace his footsteps in the dried blood sand.

There’s laughter at the antics of Sir Smile:

hundreds have the disease and feel it not.

The rain falls on the just and the unjust ,

but, as ever, mostly on the groundlings,

who hide their peccadilloes under macs;

on the surface, behave impeccably,

while the elevated in the tarrass

miss the jokes and fall asleep in Act 4,

proving that all is as it was before.

 

*All the world’s a stage

** Prostitutes associated with the area around Winchester

Palace, near The Globe

 

Shakespeare.jpg

 

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The Sincerest Form of Flattery

02 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Candia in Arts, Celebrities, Humour, Social Comment, Suttonford, Writing

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Bianca Bosker, Bianca Jagger, copycat culture, duplitecture, Eiffel tower replica, Hallstatt, Hamlet, Izaak Walton, J S Mill, London Bridge, Long Beach, pushpin, Queen Mary, Terracotta Army, Thames Town, Tony Mackay, white peony tea, Zaha Hadid

Baimudan.JPG

Brassica and I were catching up and I said that I’d have a cup of White

Peony and Rose tea for a change.  It can be irritating when someone else

jumps on your raft of choices.  Yes, Brassie thought that she’d like the same,

please. This drew us into a conversation about copycat culture and whether

it was a compliment or an irritation, not to say, theft, to adopt someone else’s

mores.

Apparently, in China there are replica Cotswold villages, a Thames town

with half-timbered houses, cobbles and olde worlde pubs.  In other regions

there are counterfeit Eiffel towers and Tower Bridges.

Hah! I scoffed.  They even have a Stonehenge and a Hallstatt. Mind you,

the Americans have our Queen Mary at Long Beach and didn’t someone

transport the original London Bridge to Arizona and rebuild it over the

Colorado River in 1971?

Oh yeah, Brassica said.  I don’t think she’d heard of Hallstatt, so she

by-passed that topic.  I read about an architect called Tony Mackay who

criticises the pastiche effect, where the wrong building materials are used and

they get proportions wrong, creating a film set rather than authentic

buildings.

There’s a book called Original Copies, or something like that, I added, having

read the BBC News reports online the day before.  I think the author is Bianca..

Jagger? interrupted Brassie-Know-It-All.

No, I gave her a withering look.  Bosker.  She postulates- I deliberately used a

long word here to deter any further interruptions- that the Chinese regard

imitation as the sincerest form of flattery.  It is their original concept of

takeaway.

Well, who’s to say which is superior: pushpin or poetry?  Brassie was showing

off her ancient residual knowledge of JS Mill from her degree, many Chinese

lanterns ago.  It was hardly likely to ignite a conversational conflagration and

anyway, nobody ever knows what pushpin is and it’s a bore having to explain,

like trying to clarify why a joke is funny, or not.

PSM V03 D380 John Stuart Mill.jpg

But they do like innovation too, don’t they?

Brassie was determined to score one over me. ( Advantage.)

Zaha Hadid is a British architect, isn’t she?  Brassie looked triumphant and

somewhat flushed.  It wasn’t the tea. 

British-Iraqi, I countered.  Advantage Dixon-Stuart.

Isn’t she designing some ultra- modern project in Beijing which is meant to

look like three fish-like forms emerging from a stream?

Hey! I squealed.  I’ve just had an idea!  Why don’t we get the Town Council to

invite some Chinese VIPs over here to see if they’d like to buy Suttonford,

lock, stock and barrel.  We have half-timbered cottages and period houses and

original characters.  Or, they might build us in duplitecture.  I’m sure they’d

love Costamuchamoulah must-seen cafe and A La Mode.

You mean Suttonford with a Chinese skin?  Brassie’s eyes were wide.

Actually, then we could ask Zahid to design some fish buildings for us.  After

all, we have the trout and the chalk streams, so they would fit in well with

our environment.  We could offset the cost by selling off the Suttonford

Kebab van, complete with its fairy lights and noisy generator…We could pull

in more tourists with an Izaak Walton custom-built museum to fishing flies

and all things piscatorial.

And we could have a Terracotta Army on the roundabout, gushed Brassie.

No, that would be naff, I cautioned her.  After all, I am the arbiter of taste

around here.

So should we attend the next Council Open Meeting?  Brassie asked

circumspectly.

Possibly.  But don’t say anything to anyone meanwhile.  We don’t want anyone

copying our ideas.  Hmm… I don’t know what to cook tonight.  Oh, I

know-we’ll just have a Chinese, though it’s nothing like the real thing.

Oh, we can do that too, said Brassie.  Cosmo and the boys like one once

in a while.

Why, oh why does she not get her own ideas!  If I change it to an Indian,

she’ll follow my choice.  I suppose it is a compliment, but if I said nay, it’s

very like a cloud then she’d agree and then if I changed it to but very like a

camel, she’d be right behind me.  Irritating!  I’m with Hamlet on this one:

get your own ideas and stop jumping on my band waggon, whether you are

Chinese, Danish, or home-grown.

 

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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