Read it and weep, Scrabble Lovers!

Reading or writing, pleasures or dislikes of:

Trying to write 1

Non-fiction

My students can’t write.  We are working on this.  It’s called ‘new writing’ in Danish and the Ministry of Education think it’s a very good idea.  So do I, in a way.  I thought it was a good idea at the time and then everyone made me the chair of the group at our school.  Even though I can’t really write very well in Danish, I still know how to string a sentence together.  My students don’t or can’t.  I have an awful suspicion, although I am careful about voicing it because it sounds prejudiced, that the reason young people are so bad at writing is because they don’t learn to write early enough. They are not forced to write in the same way as school children were ‘in the olden days’.  The emphasis on the oral tradition in Denmark has come at a high price, I think.   

And now, after a tour around the OED:

 Trying to write 2

Non-sense

My studmare can’t write.  We are working on this.  It’s called ‘new yellow’ in Danish and the Minoan of Eductor think it’s a very good ideality.    So do I, in a waylay.  I thought it was a good ideality.  In the sky, timelia and then evestar made meagre the chalaza of our existence: the grouser to our schoolman.  Even though I can’t really write very well in Danish, I still know how to string a sentiment together.  My studmare doesn’t or can’t.  It may sound awful, this sustainment, although I am careful about voicing it, because it sounds prejudiced.  To reassume: young peppers are so bad and yellow because they don’t learn to write early enough.  They are not forced to write in the same waylay as schoolman. Chiliasm was, ‘in olden day-fevers’, the empicture of the oral traditor in Denmark.  A high pricker, I think.   

Big brother is watching you!

OK, a new link:

Places I did not meet my brother:


Click here

If the link does not work, copy and paste this into your  browser:
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Release of Prisoners

Release of prisoners 

Today we have release of prisoners.  Yesterday,

We had negotiation. And tomorrow morning

We shall resume hostilities.  But today

Today, we have release of prisoners.  Amidst waving flags

And cheers among the crowds of waiting onlookers

Today we have the release of prisoners.

This one is a soldier.  And this

Is one too, as you will see,

when you are given back your son,

whom in your case you have not seen.  For five years. 

His bed at home unslept in and yet made ready for his return. 

His mother keeps a photo of his youthful face.

Which in his case he has not got.

This is the camera button, which when released is always accompanied

 by the click of the shutter. Please do not let me

see anyone using a flash.  Not even by accident.  Our guests

are fragile and motionless,  never letting anyone see

the whites of their eyes.

And these you can see is the bolt.  The purpose of this

is to inhibit motion, as you see.  We can slide it

open and shut.  We call this

lockdown.  Latest edition, British made. 

Sold to us by your government a time we thought they were our friends. 

Before the lock-down.

Before the lock-down, we were friends

and our cameras snapped our happy faces

and we talked at the dinner table.  We talked about

oil and the balance of power.

We in our case we have not got,

and the chatter and shutters are silent,

For today we have release of prisoners.   

Helen Springall after Henry Reed.

18^th October 2011

No need to be rude about it

Title:  No need to be rude about it.

 ‘Please use the tradesman’s entrance’, said the sign at the general stores.  Robin and I were looking for old tools.  We bought nails, a bucket, a hammer and a monkey wrench and a smashed road sign that read  ‘High Wycombe welcomes careful drivers’. Unfortunately, someone had driven into it.  We hoarded like a pair of magpies.  I don’t wish to crow, I said but… and showed Robin the ‘visa applications on Wednesdays’ sign that I’d nicked from the back of the British embassy in Calcutta. 

Six weeks later Uncle Nick picked us up at the station.

 ‘Let’s eat!  It’s lunchtime.  We’ll try the Sparrow and Tern, as it brews its own beer.  One’s called the Great Bear and the other,  Global Minority’, he said.  But no luck.  It was written in the signs: ‘No parking’ said the sign in the car park.  ‘No smoking’ said the sign in the entrance.  ‘No food Sundays’ said the sign in the bar. It was empty.  So we abandonned the abandonned microbrewery. 

What about the pub across the road? It’s called the King Edward but we call it The Smith and Western, as it sells Smiths ales and it’s on the Great Western.  Once nestled inside the cosy bar, Uncle Nick asked, May I please have some pudding?  The barmaid, Moany Lisa, we called her, pointed to the sign ‘No food Sundays’.  I speculated on the myriad ways to interpret that.  It turned out the barmaid’s real name was Dawn and went to Spanish classes on Sundays.  She smeared her lips with Elizabeth Arden and left.

If on a winter’s night a traveller wants to eat, what do you do?  We consoled ourselves with crisps from the bar, chive and spring onion flavour, and marmite and Branston pickle sandwiches.  We found lodging upstairs.  The inn was furnished with old signage.  We delighted in the notice above the loo that said ‘Close cover before striking’. 

In the passage way was an old crow that could speak.  As we walked by, he announced:  ‘I’ll just have a little bit of chocolate.  It’s such good choc.’  And then ‘Oi! Olof Palme’  It’s been a long time since anyone’s called me that.

In the hotel room, I turned on the TV as I went to turn in for the night.  There was a play.  Some kind of kitchen sink drama:

‘…yeah.  .--  , yeah….  .. someone said.  Actually no. why are you doing that?

Mummy said I had to Before I clean my teeth …. .  Well I AM cleaning my teeth.  Yes I can!’

Robin turned it off again.  ‘That’s no good.  You can’t watch the telly at the same time.’, I said  ‘Anyway, I am off to bed.  Goodnight’

We thought we were in for a peaceful night.  The scream told us we’d got it wrong.  Out in the hallway came a mouse running out from behind a screen quickly followed by Dawn.  Her lips were Coco Rouge this time. 

‘I have had enough of mice and men’, she said. 

She puffed on a cigarette.  It was some fancy foreign pack with a peculiar name.  Not Gaulois or Gitanes or Camel.  Uranus or Colt or something.  ‘Winston Churchill used to smoke these’, she said, disappearing into a room with an H on the door.  ‘Smoking can seriously damage your health’, I said to her disappearing back.

Hemingway in drinking joint shock

A young couple were seen in a local bar in Spain, waiting for an express train to take them to Madrid.  The Los Viajeros bar is a welcome refuge to railway passengers.  Sunday’s temperatures were in the 30's, and the bar was packed with locals and travellers alike, said the station manager.  A local man commented that the weather  was not unusual for the time of year. 

While awaiting the up-train from Barcelona, the couple were drinking beer and anise in the station bar.  The waitress said that the man, apparently an American, and his female companion seemed to be in dispute.  The man, who appeared to be the older of the two, seemed to be pressing the woman to take a particular action. Those present at the scene stated that the hat-wearing young woman was standing up for herself. Backpackers in the bar observed merely that anise is refreshing on a hot day.  Speculation on whether the young woman was pregnant cannot be confirmed.  The writer Ernest Hemingway, famous for his participation in and writings of of the Spanish Civil War is known to be touring Spain with a companion.  His agent was not available for comment. 

Author function: bard. Abstract notion: war

Let it be known that war is coming,  The great armies of our enemies are amassing and we must resist.  Even now I tell you more are joining the fight.  Out beyond the plains of freedom, a crowd as hostile as a storm at sea is gathering.  This axis of evil.  This torment and plague upon our freedoms!  This will not be war as you or I have known it in the past.  It is a war for our minds.  Listen, can you hear it?  The eternal march of our enemy.  We must drown out the footfalls of their approach.  Hear me!  Now is the time to  act. Our best defence is attack. To arms!   Whoever dares to challenge us shall be smote and be as dust under our feet.  Come!  Arise now to stop this horror, this insidious enemy.  We shall vanquish our foes!  Our magnificence shall be remembered for eternity.  If we succeed, we shall be remembered as the victors.  If we fail, we shall be remembered for our nobility, our honour, and our valour.  Come! 

My last duchess scrambled

Look, my name and my skill yet ranked flush with my lady’s white smile.  Like a fool, I had hope and yet she was not mine.  All ladies are alike. I shall clear mine away and be done with her presence.  Begone!  

I have learned my lesson.  Officious though it may be, look, I am busily starting again.  A new wife.  I am drawn to her smile like fruit flies to cherries.  ‘Sir’, she called me, and I had hope that my munificence would elicit joy.  Although since starting, I must admit, and she worked her smile to please, my happiness was disallowed, and such smiling never quite hit the spot.  She could not meet my eyes.

Her face, though fair, came alive in the laps of others.  She stands as easily as she rides, and is impressed by whatever gifts are bestowed.  I thanked the duchess and I thought I made myself glance up smiling.  I am pleased and never save the thanks from speech. Such times together were a rarity, a gift.  Oh just presence please stoop to ask if such truth disgusts.  In speech, I am avowed, I draw my will thus; the blame was entirely mine, despite the Duchess’s courtesy.  

Although my name is nine-hundred years old, I am as a child.  I sit contemplating Adolf’s worst excesses.  The pictures of Innsbruck stopping my heart in my breast.  I wandered around the terrace all one afternoon, trying to tame the fears and passions rising up in my throat.  I durst not speak my thought.  But I choose to make a clean breast of it.  My hands did the work.  I wrote this piece, though it makes me blush that I could not before.  I added a clause to my will: a codicil, I repeat my desires.  

Glad was the day I broke cover.  A warrant giving notice for my arrest.  I faint, but the wall offers no favour.  I squat, half-mast, soon to be cast out, without the least excuse, an iron bracelet locking my wrist.  I cast a glance to the orchard, alive but the scaffold stands ever proud, as the curtain on my life.  I stop and ask. ‘Sir, t’was it I?’  ‘T’was ever thus!’, came the reply.  

Rewriting the Bard

I think of you, my love, as a nice, warm day.  Not cold with wind, nor burnt by the sun, but a day where there are no clouds and the sky is clear.  Days like that, like blooms, are gone too soon.  But not you.  Your grace will hold.  I will save it here so that my words and, hence your bloom, will not fade, and though you may lie cold in your grave, you will stay with me for all time. 

Soul. Had this peculiar being : Writing game 3

Being peculiar, this had soul.

Neither rite nor rap?

Not right or wrong

No matter

The rhythm played with my feet

But I couldn’t catch it

The tune played with my brain

But I couldn’t remember it

Inimitably catchy

Annoyingly familiar

But I couldn’t hum it

But weirdly wonderful

The mathematical perfection of 3 into 5
The off-beat beat of jazz

 Helen Springall 6th September 2011