Hooray, it's Playfair Day! (I mention it in this poem from "Momentary Stars".)

CRICKET BAG IN WINTER

It's ancient, stained and one strap's gone
- you'll never use it again, you know.
The pockets hold old bowling marks,
just flattened beer-tops, really,
though one is aluminium with a spike,
made by my elder brother
at Gravesend Art School, 1949.
There's aged tissue, different types -
and don't look closely at the pink protector -
a single bail, a ragged fixture list:
'Postponed, Lost, Abandoned, Rain'.
And one sweat-stained inner batting glove.
I must have scored a few, then.
Occupied the crease, more like.
It's gone, it's history, it's thrown
in the skip ... but to think never,
never more to know that lovely fear
when walking out and taking guard again!

And soon, very soon, when every day
we sniff the air and study the clouds,
when the Playfair Annual is just about
to bloom on the shelves of Smith's,
when buds on the rowan tree
are full and thick as a rainstorm
about to knock on my bedroom window -
let's think again when April's here!

Where’s the ‘L’ in Omost?

Keep hearing ‘omost’ - used to be almost - and wondering where it’s come from? It sounds rather odd to me but I guess my language must be somewhat old fashioned

What’s in a word?

Six year-old grandson, now reading all and sundry, wanted to know if there was a word which had all the vowels in. His Dad, after some thought, came up with ‘abstemious’ and Grandfather added ‘abstemiously’ suggesting the ‘y’ could also be used as a vowel - good thinking family!

Eldest grandson, now 12, is no. 4 in Under 13 England Table Tennis squad. His favourite words include ‘choi’ each time he does a good shot! Between Norwich & London he read half of Maggie O’Farrell’s memoir of near death experiences and is eager to discuss with his mother who has yet to read it. A wordy lot.

The two granddaughters, both younger siblings, love their words in both books and as song lyrics. Our older granddaughter is making comparisons with BrE and AmE while the 5 year-old is using phonics as she sounds out her words enthusiastically. She’s cracked it and is already experiencing the joy of reading.

Ind v Eng ODI - Sky Coverage

Phew! That ODI today reminded me of  this poem (in my 'Momentary Stars' collection):

Sky Coverage: Green Timepiece
(Self-regulating Cricket Model 5Day/T20)

White figures on a green ground,
the hours turn, the hours turn.
Some say it was designed
to give impressions of eternity.

Though slow, though very slow,
through orbits, spheres and time
it will come round, will come round,
though the end seems very far,
five hours, five days, five years.

Trajectories and paths are tracked
(fall of sparrows is not recorded)
under the all-covering sky.
Charted from above
the colours mark their value,
the highest by striking red.

Now everything turns again,
the figures change to red and blue,
the shadows grow.
Towards the end,
time is compressed,
seems to accelerate.

Now they swarm and run
and very soon it is the last.
Authority in black and white declares:
'Over - right hand!'

A lot is left to do
in little time and space
and it comes down to this:
'Twelve off six, twelve off six!'

The stars will rise, revolve and fall,
limited overs, timeless test.

Poems from Momentary Stars

Here's another poem from my "Momentary Stars" collection:

Another Life

Home past the house we lived in
what seems a lifetime ago.
The Japanese cherry I planted
almost overwhelms the front garden.
At the back a newish car
on a concrete driveways -
the grass and bushes
and old brick wall have gone.
But upstairs a young man stands
in the half-lit window
rocking a baby in his arms.

Different When Cycling (from Momentary Stars)

Here's another poem from my collection "Momentary Stars" (Clydesdale Jefferson Press 2016):

DIFFERENT WHEN CYCLING

"Slow down, they're green!"

Cycling you often see the lights
a long way ahead. If they're green,
you'll never make it. But relax
and time it nicely for the next phase.

"Speed up, they're red!"

Push on when they're against
and you should be there
for the welcome change.

Another Poem from Momentary Stars

 I'll post another poem from my collection "Momentary Stars" (Clydesdale Jefferson Press 2016) here soon:

Momentary Stars: Poems by Edward Vanderpump

  My poetry collection "Momentary Stars" is now available from Clydesdale Jefferson Press. It is a 72-page book with a lovely painting, "Flow", as the cover. This is by my daughter, artist and jewellery-maker Sally Vanderpump. I'll put a picture on Twitter. The poems range from those written this year back to 1962. There's family life, love, death, travel, art, current affairs (horrors included), but cats (sometimes sinister rather than cosy), and cricket (with astrolabes), too.

Retail price is £10 but I have copies, so discount at readings or in person - and postage and packing free in the UK if you send me a tenner or a cheque (payable to me, Edward Vanderpump). DM me on Twitter or Facebook if you'd like one. Half the first edition has now sold so let me know if you'd like a copy, signed or unsigned.

He, Cromwell

 I enjoyed the BBC's "Wolf Hall" in the end and went back and got into "Bring Up the Bodies" - even finished it. Mantel and publishers took note of criticism and made it a lot clearer, at the cost of having "He, Cromwell" on nearly every page. (They might almost use it as a subtitle in the reprint.) It was obvious ("clunky") - and annoying when it wasn't inserted but was still needed. And why not just "Cromwell said..." or whatever? It smacks of crisis or even panic editing or revision.

 Mantel reminds me of a neighbour who talks about her many friends as if I know them and thinks I understand their backgrond and histories as well as she does. I'm sure Mantel knew who she meant and identified with Cromwell but why not write it as him, in the first person, if "he" is (nearly) always "he, Cromwell"?

  I enjoyed Rylance's performance but he had to go with the overdone hagiographic line on Cromwell. The evidence, including Holbein's portraits, suggests that he was much nastier - cunning, ruthless, very hard-bitten. I disagree that Rylance gives a minimalist performance. For me, he overdoes the eye movement, the surprised or fearful looks. I imagine the real man was much tougher and stony-faced. But that wouldn't be so theatrical or televisual - or interesting, perhaps.

  Rylance is made to call himself  explicitly "a banker", rather than a lawyer. The parallels are obvious but wouldn't it have been interesting to emphasise also the medieval mindset, rather than the modern British sensibility and idiom? And more emphasis on the religious fanaticism of the times might have tolled a dreadful bell and added significant depth, with continuing topical relevance, unfortunately.

Why Wolf Hall?

 As my friend and follower here and on Twitter @IvorSolomons has pointed out, not a single wolf has yet been seen in this series. But watch this space.

Wolf Effingham Hall

 There's been discussion online about the language of the BBC's "Wolf Hall". Not, mercifully, about the headache-makingly unclear pronouns of the book (who he?), but about the very modern style. This extends into body language and attitudes. When the king, with power of life and death over his subjects, asks Cromwell why he called a French town "a dog hole", Thomas almost shrugs and says with a rising intonation, like an offensively casual teenager, "Because I've been there?" Also at Sir Thomas More's dinner table he asks if his host had become Lord Chancellor by "fucking accident". It sounds like a very modern and aggressive usage quite out of character for the cool, cautious Cromwell.

It has been pointed out, btw, that the f-word does appear in a 16C manuscript. But there it is a monk saying factually what the abbot was up to and is not used as an intensifying adjective. This latter usage may not have come in till the 19C, it seems. (Thanks to world expert on slang Jonathon Green @MisterSlang and to @LoisMcEwan on that.) Although they are often referred to as Anglo-Saxon, several four-letter swear words were not used as such until modern times.

I suppose the orthodoxy is to make historical figures human and, indeed, modern. Wouldn't it be more interesting, though, if they were strange and different, weird even, almost from another planet? After all, these were very superstitious people who believed in all sorts of supernatural and miraculous things and who thought hanging, drawing and quartering and burning alive were suitable judicial punishments. It is a bit like saying if you are teaching inner-city kids, you should read stories and poems about their type of lives and environment. But perhaps they would prefer something rich and strange? Philip Pullman novels come to mind.

Just Reasons

 There are no excuses for terrorism, by individuals, by armies or by states. But there must be reasons. It is not acceptable to be an apologist for murder. But it is legitimate and, indeed, important to discuss the reasons.

This poem of mine was first published in The Rialto, Number 70, Autumn 2010. Thanks again to the editor, Michael Mackmin. Maybe worth repeating.

JUST REASONS

The women shot in the back of the neck
and pushed into ditches.
Persecution organised,
genocide industrialised.

The bombs on buses,
in restaurants,
the children blown to pieces
on the beach.

Victimisation, apartheid, the wall,
the bulldozed homes, the olive groves.

Just reason, justice, just excuses.
Executions. Terror. Exile. Torture.
Just reasons. No excuse.

Potterisation II - cliché becomes history

 Some people have said they can notice the inaccurate language and anachronisms while still enjoying films like, for example, "The Imitation Game". I can to some extent but I get annoyed because the language is just a symptom of the Potterisation syndrome. This goes deeper and involves over-simplification, sentimentalising, stereotyping and making crude.

 In this film it leads to a falsification of an important part of British and computer science history and, as several articles have pointed out, does not do justice either to a great mathematician or, indeed, to the whole Bletchley team.

Potterisation - The Imitation Game

 Why did "The Imitation Game" make me cross? I was looking forward to it and I find Cumberbatch a compelling actor. It was the American English that (no - correction) which (BrE) alerted me to what I will call the (Harry) Potterisation of British culture.

One of the Turing character's first lines is: "I could really use (something) right now." Oh no, here we go. Soon we have schoolboys at Sherborne School in the 1920s talking American English: "We are the smartest students in the math(s) class." (Ok, they drew the line at calling it "math" there and throughout.) But soon we have Keira Knightly's character saying: "I'm not going to be home all day fixing (yes, fixing!) your lamb"!

The saddest thing is (is) that most people loved it and didn't even notice that the characters spoke in a modern, americanised way in the 1920s-1950s setting. Globalisation seems to mean americanisation, starting with English-speaking countries. Vive la French attitude to culture and language: they may hold out longer.

In Our Time - more on Melvyn

 Might have to give IOT (In Our Time) more thought. It is an important programme and MB deserves a lot of praise, in my book, for what he does. But science and maths don't really work on radio - still, history next week. Thanks for trying.

So Desperate So

  Give credit to Melvyn Bragg - he tried. To kick off the new series of "In Our Time" (BBC Radio 4) he tackled "e" or "Euler's Number". And he had three women mathematicians on his panel. But it proved only one thing to me: you can't really do maths on radio. You need a black- or whiteboard at least.

 He bravely tried to pin them down as to what "the number represented by e" was. The more they tried to explain, the more they introduced new ideas, complexities and longer equations, which we couldn't follow on radio. To cover this, they used "So" more and more often, sounding more and more concerned, if not desperate, to get the idea across and to pretend to logical argument.

 But - aha! moment - what came out was that it is all a pretence. You have to pretend certain things for maths to work. 1/3 seems exact but you can't represent it in an exact decimal: 0.333 recurring for ever! Or any number to the power of zero is one - what? Not in the real world, but you need to pretend it is true for maths to work: remember Lewis Carroll's having to practise believing impossible things before breakfast, almost like his creed?

When I suggested at school that maths might be based on pretence, I got a clip round the ear and a detention. Bertrand Russel got awed praise and a university maths professor brought in for him as a private tutor!

 Still, well done Melvyn. You did your best.

Reading Allowed

  Reading and its university must be the venue for many conferences. If there was ever one for newsreaders, I think it should be there and could perhaps be called "Reading Aloud", or "Allowed" à la BBC R4's "Thinking Allowed". I put down the poor reading for sense, and particularly word stress, to reading aloud more or less being outlawed in schools.

Reading Geographies

  Just re-Reading my friend Michael Cullup's poetry collection, "Reading Geographies". It is excellent and should be more widely known. I hope, at the very least, that every library and bookshop in Berkshire will order copies. And then beyond, the world!

Reading Poetry Festival (well, what else?)

  My nicest English teacher at school had BA (Reading) after her name. Why haven't the others got that, too, I wondered? And I applied to go there - should have, probably - they had some good lecturers, I believe.

Recently on Twitter there have been a few jokes about it and about the Reading Poetry Festival. I thought of , affectionately, starting a hashtag #universityoflyingaboutalldaywithabook. Sounds good to me but could be taken the wrong way.

#DudPoetsSociety

  I was quite pleased with that new hashtag. But it was late at night, a dangerous time to tweet. Poets, and many artists, are notoriously severe critics of their peers, or their rivals, rather. Like batsmen in cricket, they usually want their teammates to be out, unless they are in a partnership with themselves at the time.

 So, I was commenting on the excoriating (that word is on promotional special offer this week) criticism on Twitter by poets of other poets. But be as coruscatingly witty as you like - I love it all, really.