Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now
Having tried to write for the last few weeks with builders - however lovely - in the house, I'm wondering whether behaving like this crocodile might just do the trick in getting some much needed peace. I would like to find out, though, how they know he's called Brutus.Et chew Brutus
A crocodile in northern Australia has chased a storm-clearance worker up a tree and made off with his chainsaw. The 4.4m (14.5ft) saltwater crocodile called Brutus apparently took exception to the noise of the saw.
The worker was clearing a tree that fell on the crocodile enclosure at the Corroboree Park Tavern, 80km (50 miles) east of the northern city of Darwin.
Brutus chewed on the chainsaw for 90 minutes, reducing it to pieces. Neither man nor beast was injured.
Worker Freddy Buckland was cutting a tree that had fallen as a result of a recent tropical cyclone. Peter Shappert, the tavern's owner, said the crocodile jumped from the water and sped 20ft to the tree.
"It must have been the noise... I don't think he was actually trying to grab Freddy, but I'm not sure. He had a fair go at him... I think he just grabbed the first thing he could and it happened to be the chainsaw."
Tavern co-owner Linda Francis said: "Fred virtually gave him the chainsaw, shoved it at him. "It was still going and he took the chainsaw onto the ground and proceeded to smash it and it stalled. The crocodile didn't cut himself, just broke a few teeth."
Mr Shappert said the saw was destroyed. "He chewed on the chainsaw for about an hour-and-a-half, then we finally got it out."
Saltwater crocodiles are known to attack small boats, apparently disturbed by the sound of outboard motors.
The Ten Commandments
I. -Have thou no other gods but me,
II. -And to no image bow thy knee.
III. -Take not the name of God in vain:
IV. -The sabbath day do not profane.
V. -Honour thy father and mother too;
VI. -And see that thou no murder do.
VII. -Abstain from words and deeds unclean;
VIII. -Nor steal, though thou art poor and mean.
IX. -Bear not false witness, shun that blot;
X. -What is thy neighbor's covet not.
-These laws, O Lord, write in my heart, that I,
-May in thy faithful service live and die.
Just had a lovely day browsing at an antiques fair with a friend, and although I failed completely to buy anything, I got so many ideas for stories... a painting of a wonderful male nude in a life-drawing situation ... the antiques dealer who had fallen asleep on the sofa he was selling ... a live greyhound surrounded by stone greyhound statues ... a mirror on a stand jointed to go round corners ... collars from fighting dogs ... and a wooden hand holding a bible that was a bookshop sign. But a true writer at heart, I'm always amazed how, in the middle of so much visual pleasure, I'm still drawn to words. A great friend of mine has a poster of the sign above in her kitchen, but one of the wartime originals was for sale which I was very tempted by. In fact, there were signs for everything - from confessional booths, schools, shops ... although my favourite was the very firm CHILDREN FORBIDDEN. Now that could really come in useful.
From August 28 - September 2nd this year, I'm going to be teaching a week's writing course on Exploring Fiction with the writer, Jim Friel, at Ty Newydd, Lloyd George's old home in Wales. This will be my FOURTH visit to Ty Newydd, but the first as 'teacher'. Can't wait - the sitting room above is the library and you can see the sea from the windows. The last time I went was during the petrol crisis so there were very few cars, and it really did feel like we'd all found ourselves in a forgotten world. This is a description of the course: Through workshops and tutorials this course explores the techniques of writing fiction, including structure, voice, characterisation, place, purposeful description as well as generating creative ideas for getting started, keeping going and, even, getting to that finishing line.More details are on the Ty Newydd website.
So there I was, yesterday morning, teaching at the University, and speaking with students about how the characters we all wrote about need to move between the 'ordinary world' and the 'special world', terms taken from Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey. We talked about space, not least because I'm obsessed at the moment with The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, and I used as an example the way we'd just moved back into our house after major building work and - for the sake of our sanity - needed the little pockets of order we created amongst the mess. I was thinking particularly about my sitting room - the one room in the house which wasn't full of boxes or 'things to do', and so has become a sanctuary. Imagine how much it hurt then to find a phonecall waiting for me at lunchtime to say that the ceiling of the sitting room had just fallen in and water was pouring down my newly painted walls. Arrgh. Great structure though - the house is very old and this ceiling almost seems original - you can see the horsehair, straw and, is it, can it really be, yes it is, dung, holding it all together! It's just a pity about the dung stains on my absolutely brand new carpet ... and the fact the builders are now going to be around for a little bit longer.
There's something about why a man or woman would encourage bees to swarm around their face that has always fascinated me. I was thinking about it last night - about all the good and bad things coming with Summer - and when I googled bee beard images I couldn't believe how many they were. What must it feel like? How could you resist the urge to scratch, because it must tickle. I wonder if there are women who have real bee hair-styles, not content with the beehive. 'Your hair is smelling like honey tonight .... oh wait, it's even tasting like honey. Owwwww....' But thanks for writing
The letter Rep. Jo Ann Emerson sent to one of her constituents read like any other a 20-year-old legislative correspondent might prepare for a member of Congress: Thank you for writing, your concerns are important to me, blah, blah, blah. Then came the kicker: "I think you're an asshole."
As the Associated Press reports, Emerson, a Republican from Missouri, says she has no idea how the insult made its way into her letter to a Centerville, Mo., resident named Bill Jones. "We cannot determine whether the addition to the letter was made by someone within the office or by someone with access to the office, but it is on my letterhead and the responsibility for it lies with me," Emerson says. "A valuable lesson has been learned, and new procedures will be adopted as a result."
So at fifteen, spread belly-down upon the floor, a black sheet hunched over me and candles at my foot and head, my lips pressed on stone, litanies in my ears, as the priest broke and entered my shocked fist to slide the ring on my finger, I promised to take no other husband than Christ. I almost meant it. In that heady moment the vow itself seemed no great sacrifice: I'd never known a man, but I had tasted chocolate.
Gripping and grimy, September 2, 2005
Reviewer: J. Cotton (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This one's even better than 'Carnevale', her last, and just as flavoursome! The action switches between Venice, where a daughter of the aristocratic Venier family is confined to a convent, very much against her will, and London where later Valentine Greatrakes' quack-remedy and 'importing' business is stuck a blow as his partner is killed in Venice. There will be more murders, lies, romance, sex and travel before the plot to this one plays itself out. There's also much vivid description of the streets and low life of the Thames Bankside and dank Venetian canal sides - The Remedy gives good 18th Century Venice and London, with descriptions you can almost taste, and not just of the food. The hint of decadence in the writing and nastiness in the plotting I find much to my taste too. And if you want to know how you can use any peacock dung, faeculae of cuckow and ox galls you might have about the place in remedies and other useful potions this book will tell you, with handy recipes at the start of each chapter. Gripping stuff!
I knew there was a good reason for needing my internet to be reinstated quite so badly - I have been watching the video of this dog skate-boarding again and again. He's so organised and careful about it all.Belloc, in On Something: "Dedication to Somebody."
"I dedicate this book to those who drank coffee with me in the smoke room of the Mauretania - CCC, MRC, JCB Jr., RHC and GWB. To the first three my friendship; To the fourth and fifth, my apologies as well. To the fifth a request that he show mercy to all slanderers, that he report me and my cause aright with Veronica and a dozen Georgian widows."
A book about Gregory Dexter: "To the memory of my Father because he would have liked Gregory, and to my Mother, because every book needs one reader who is going to like it anyhow."It makes me think about the time when my son was learning to skateboard and was very very bad at it, so he came and asked if we were going to see my mum soon because 'Granny will think I'm brilliant at it'.
'After we'd finished our very good and buttery steaks and cleared away the large pile of scraped artichoke leaves, I sat down to write. I made a witticism or two about artichokes - 'this was my first time with artichokes, and more than liking or disliking them, I am mostly just impressed with the poor starving prehistoric bastard who first thought to eat one' - and then posted a few short parragraphs onto my blog.
The next day I got thirty-six hits. I know I got thirty-six hits because I went online to check twelve times that day at work. Each hit represented another person reading what I'd written. Just like that! At the bottom of the entry there was a spot where people could make comments, and someone I'd never even heard of said they liked how I wrote!
I was going to eat lots of French food, and write about it, and get compliments from total strangers about it. Eric was right. This was going to be brilliant!'
A friend of mine sends details of her new book. I haven't read it, but it sounds intriguing. Can't wait.
As if I asked a common alms- when I went for a swim and found the pool completely empty, so I could just go up and down revelling in being in the water on my own. I find doing anything repetitive - walking, swimming, even ironing - good for my creative thinking, but this had a special quality. I managed to sort out a number of plot problems I just hadn't had the space to even begin to cope with before. And it got me thinking about space - how it's not just about taking a month off for writer's retreat, but finding time and aloneness in the day. Somewhere where you can go without others people's chatter breaking through, or to-do lists crowding up your brain. And how I haven't had much of that recently but how much I needed it. So part of my plan is to build in a time in every day when I can be by myself to think, away from mobile phones, computers, other people. Here's a photo of my beautiful swimmming pool to show just how lucky I was.
And in my wandering hand,
A stranger pressed a Kingdom
And, I, bewildered, stand.
Edwin Morgan's 'Gorgo and Beau', a poem commissioned by BBC Scotland (Radio), is in the form of a conversation between Gorgo, a cancer cell and Beau, a healthy cell. They debate human suffering. Gorgo is taunting and full of bravado: he doesn't know the meaning of pain. Beau, with all Morgan's experience of a cancer ward, knows suffering only too well:
'The ward lay awake, listening, fearful, impotent,
Thinking of death, that death, their own death to come.
The sobbing ended; time for sleep, and nightmares.'
But Beau is not without his weapons:
'In Celtic tradition, poets had the power
(It is said) to rhyme an enemy to death.'
