Beardsley Bemoans His Lack of A Tassel

Tags

Aristophanes, Beardsley, Christ, Jesus Christ, Lysistrata, Mantegna, Max Beerbohm, Menton, Satan, Tassel

I drew breath within days of Max Beerbohm;

by the age of seven, was out of it.

Consumption led to love of sumptuousness:

I posed with crossed legs and the steam engine

I imagined never ran out of puff.

Later I quipped that I had caught a cold

by venturing without my stick’s tassel.

I worked at night with my gold nib by light

of flickering ormolu candlesticks,

under my Mantegnas and crucifix.

I felt an irregular birth, a spawn

of Satan, unlike Mabel, the princess,

whose throat I felt like slitting in our plays:

the dramatics of decapitation!

Algolagnia was then just a word.

I was the Abbe- dandified hero,

who quelled the mutinies of my cravat

and jabot prior to entering portals

to Madame Venus’ boudoir kingdom.

I didn’t dream they would hiss of incest.

In Menton’s Hotel Cosmopolitain

I gasp my last at twenty six years old

under a hanging Christ and dear Wagner.

Bathyllus’ swan dance led to swansong:

my fin de siecle scenario.

Smithers, will you obey my last wishes

as Jesus Christ is my lord and my judge?

Destroy my priapic portfolios:

Aristophanes’ Lysistrata scenes.

I hope He will not judge in black and white.

A Heap of Broken Images

Tags

Alex Salmond, Andy Murray, Bradshaw's Guide, David Dinnie, Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Eurozone, Fifty Shades of Grey, Forth Rail Bridge, Highland games, Iron Brew, Isaac, Lysistrata, Merlot, Michael Portillo, Neil Oliver, New Orleans, Only Connect, Patrick Moore, Perlmutter, Scotland the Brave, The Sun, The Waste Land, Togo, Top Secret, University Challenge, Victoria Coren

Bank Holiday Monday

Someone sent me an attachment this morning which was headed Fifty Shades of Grey for Men.  It was a paint chart.  There is nothing remotely sexual about Elephant’s Breath, I think.

Tropical storm Isaac is heading for New Orleans on the 7^th anniversary of Katrina’s cataclysm.

The geographical feature that is characterised by cataclysm is deluge and not earthquake, as one panellist on University Challenge mistook tonight.

It was an evening of quizzes, with the return of a slightly more overweight Victoria Coren on Only Connect. Watching this programme, I feel like a character in The Waste Land:

I can connect

Nothing with nothing..

Victoria is like Madame Sosostris, the wisest woman in Europe, with a wicked pack of cards.  She apparently loves poker.  She stands by The Wall which is a heap of broken images and :

 uncorseted, her friendly bust

 Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

I wish that she had retained the Greek letters of the alphabet on the question choice blocks.  These were replaced through attacks on elitism.  Now, if the women of Togo read The Lysistrata, then why the general dumbing down in this country?  After all, the substituted hieroglyphics are just as refined, though pictorially evident, I suppose.  My favourite is horned viper.

Curiously, Victoria’s dresses are becoming tighter and tighter and her fantasies more curious too- she admitted to a desire to find a naked Michael Portillo in her dressing room, seated on a case of Merlot.  The Merlot you could understand… Personally, I would prefer to read Bradshaw through, cover to cover, in a single sitting.  Still, there’s nowt so queer as fowk.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo was next and the best bit was the drumming cohort from Switzerland, Top Secret.  I looked carefully but our friend, Roger, was not of their number. The second best bit was the mass formation for Scotland the Brave. You can keep all thon fancy film scorey type tunes and I think Alex Salmond would have been pretty annoyed at them playing There’ll Always be an England, unless it conveyed the proviso:  doon there and no’ up here.

The whole evening was devoted to tartan programmes about Highland Games all over the world, in places such as North Carolina. There are more games held worldwide than in Scotia itself.

The only interesting programme was Horizon with its explanation of the infinite expansion of the universe. If Scotland keeps expanding exponentially then it should be good for Pitlochry looms and kiltmakers in general.  As a nation it will grow vaster than empires and more slow, no probably even faster.  However, the programme stressed that we were all in this together and could not go it alone, as multiple galaxies are swallowed.  So, Alex, we need to remain united so that we can fight all the dark matter in the Eurozone and in other global economies together.

A programme on the Highland Games showcased David Dinnie who had been the world’s most renowned athlete in times gone by.  Women used to faint away at the sight of his torso, in much the same way as they do now when they see pictures in The Sun of every Tom, Dick and Harry letting their hair down. (Not.)  Leave the hair business to Neil Oliver, I say.

Anyway, Dinnie used to endorse Iron Brew, as I think it was spelled back then- (Scotland’s other national beverage- made frae girders.)  He looked as if he had licked the Forth Rail Bridge.  Maybe a wee taste of A G Barr’s fizzy drink’s 0.002% ammonium ferric citrate was what Andy Murray had doped himself on before winning Olympic gold.  Aye, Alex Salmond, ye can take the man oot o’ Scotland, but ye cannae tak’ the iron oot o’ his soul.

Alba gu brath!

Tuesday 28^th

My scientific observations seem to be confirming Professor Perlmutter’s Nobel prizewinning research about exponential expansion of the Universe.  I am quite taken with cosmology now.  I noticed a very large, docile dog on a lead at the local Lavender café.  It was very like a lurcher, but much larger.  I asked its owner what breed it was and she said, A fat greyhound.  Also there are all these sightings of lions in Clacton-on-Sea etc which turn out to be large feral cats.  Some can be four foot in length so you could be mistaken for thinking that they are pumas, especially if you have been on the old Merlot for the evening.  Stick to Irn- Bru, I say.  It puts hairs on your chest and dampens down the Portillo fantasies.

Anyway, everything is becoming larger- Patrick Moore, Victoria Coren and the whole Universe.  No wonder I can’t get into my favourite jeans.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Not Bovvered

Tags

Anglo the Musical, Anglo-Irish bank, Bargain Hunt, Canada geese, Danny Boyle, David Barby, David Cameron, Elysian Quartet, FT, House of Lords, House of Lords Reform, Ian McEwan, Lysistrata, Mastermind, MI5, Nick Clegg, Pointless, Stockhausen, Togo

Saturday, 25^th August

Pouring.  Stayed in and read Lunch with the FT.  Ian McEwan has brought out a new book, so he was being wined and dined. On a previous occasion, he remarked, he married his interviewer.  No pressure then.  He explained that he had once applied for a job with MI5, online, and ended up by having to answer questions on the migratory patterns of Canada Geese.  I became over-excited as this is a topic I have mentioned before in my blog and so I might have been in with a chance. It is another topic useful for Pointless or Mastermind general knowledge section.

(I really must apply to be a contestant soon.  Once I met David Barby, entirely by accident, I hasten to add, and he commented that I would be good on Bargain Hunt, but I told him that I thought the mandatory fleeces were a bit last century.)

The frequency of spotting helicopters in the skies might not have been anything to do with Prince William after all.  It might have had everything to do with rehearsals for Stockhausen’s Mittwoch aus Licht, even if I hadn’t necessarily only seen them on a Wednesday.

We have had to wait seventeen years for a full premiere.  Four members of The Elysian Quartet- well, there would be four in a quartet, wouldn’t there?-went up singly, in separate helicopters, and made a scraping noise which was beamed down to four screens at ground level.  Nine soloists played on trapezes.  There were long periods of silence and nothingness which puzzled the audience, just as had been a feature of the Olympic ceremonies.  It was meant to be an outpouring of the ego on an intergalactic scale.  So, something in common with Danny Boyle productions, then?

Remaining on the musical theme, I see that Dublin theatregoers are buying tickets for Anglo: the Musical, which is about the Anglo-Irish Bank and its role in boom and bust.  The tagline is: because all it takes is a few muppets to screw an entire country.  We have to wait till November for the opening, and I expect they will be able to add a few more song and dances numbers to the show by then.

I see that women in Togo are denying their men sexual favours, in order to encourage reform.  Maybe they read the Lysistrata over there.  Already Nick Clegg is being inspired and is refusing to get into bed with David Cameron, metaphorically speaking, unless he is granted House of Lords reform.  Unfortunately, Cameron is so not bovvered.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012