On my travels examward, I recently learned a new word: "zeugma". It's a classical rhetorical device whereby a word (usually a verb) is made to refer to two or more disparate things. Anyway, this welcome addition to my vocabulary reminded me of an old Flanders & Swann song - containing the best uses of zeugma in the English language (he suggests provocatively)?
"He said, as he hastened to put out the cat, the wine, his cigar and the lamps..."
"She lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes and his hopes"
And best of all
"When he asked 'What in heaven?' she made no reply, up her mind and a dash for the door"
I've got a lot of time for Michael Flanders. A great wordsmith with an equally masterful delivery, he was also (I recently learned) an early champion of rights for the disabled, and his was probably the first wheelchair to make an appearance on the West End stage. Had I been 20 in 1967 when the above footage was filmed I would (I hope) have been hanging out with the hippies, and I suspect Flanders & Swann would have seemed a throwback to an outdated tradition of light entertainment - the sort of thing your parents and their friends would like. But from the standpoint of 2009, the two stances fortunately aren't mutually exclusive. (And actually, maybe they weren't then either: the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band were a kind of sillier, more psychedelic Flanders & Swann; Paul McCartney and Ray Davies both had/have music hall in their blood)
This is pretty funny, though:
Sunday, 10 May 2009
A sideburn aside
Dear hypothetical blog-readers,
I do apologise for the long expanse of dead air since my first tentative postings. The fast-approaching exams, it would seem, have robbed me of (a) spare time and (b) any interesting thoughts with which to fill it. It’s a measure of my sorry existence that the most exciting thing that’s happened to me recently is that I have grown some rather puny sideburns.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so modest. These babies are my first vaguely successful foray into the manly territory of facial hair growth and I’m pleased with the results. I sang at a black tie event last night and they really set off the whole look quite nicely. And the process has also let me in on some insights about the whole thorny issue of facial hair.
Firstly, I’ve discovered that there is a huge disparity between facial hair as viewed by the wearer and the observer. The process of growing and lovingly sculpting these things has been a huge emotional investment for me. You noticed the use of the word “babies” in the last paragraph? It wasn’t casual. As a man this is as close as I will get to childbirth. Two hairy little runts of twins whom I love, disproportionately to any real merit or beauty they may possess, but simply because I brought them into the world. And there’s no bond stronger than that.
It’s been a painful process: not just because shaving around them blunts my razor blades even quicker than usual and I am even more of a bloody mess after shaving, but also because the precarious task of evening them up has made me painfully aware of how asymmetrical my face is. What do I use as a guideline? My slightly lopsided ears? It’s a nightmare.
But of course, no-one who sees these paltry pillars of fuzz could suspect that they have been the focus of so much angst. To an outsider they are just sideburns, the most routine and unremarkable of all facial growths. Richard Herring, who has shaved himself a Hitlerian toothbrush moustache for his new stand-up show, recounts in his blog the emotionally turbulent experience of walking around London sporting the most inflammatory facial hairstyle of the 20th century. He found, however, that people (especially Londoners) don’t really care. To him it’s a Hitler moustache, an embarrassingly sixth-form pseudo-“statement”; to the general public it might equally well be a Chaplin or Ron Mael. And if Herring’s Hitler can’t raise more than a shrug, what chance do I have of setting the world alight?
And indeed, since growing my sideburns precisely TWO people have commented on them: my ex-girlfriend, and one of my oldest and closest friends (who is also, coincidentally, this blog’s only known reader. Hi Richard.) Both, in their way, experts on my face. Anyone ranking below an expert is unlikely to notice; or if they notice, to care; or if they care, to comment. It didn’t help that I had my first haircut in months around the time I started growing them, so the haircut has tended to act as a smokescreen, and people comment on that instead, either taking the facial hair as part of the overall package or perhaps assuming that some of the hairdresser’s trimmings simply got stuck to the side of my face.
I’d like to close with a rather out-of-date observation on that Joaquin Phoenix appearance on David Letterman that set the internet abuzz back in February. Surely the most implausible aspect of the whole business is the fact that when Letterman compliments him on his enormous beard (in the first 45 seconds or so), he seems totally nonchalant about it.
You’re fooling no-one, Joaquin, least of all me. I know there’s an ecstatic, breathless voice in your head crying: “YESSS! He noticed!”
I do apologise for the long expanse of dead air since my first tentative postings. The fast-approaching exams, it would seem, have robbed me of (a) spare time and (b) any interesting thoughts with which to fill it. It’s a measure of my sorry existence that the most exciting thing that’s happened to me recently is that I have grown some rather puny sideburns.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so modest. These babies are my first vaguely successful foray into the manly territory of facial hair growth and I’m pleased with the results. I sang at a black tie event last night and they really set off the whole look quite nicely. And the process has also let me in on some insights about the whole thorny issue of facial hair.
Firstly, I’ve discovered that there is a huge disparity between facial hair as viewed by the wearer and the observer. The process of growing and lovingly sculpting these things has been a huge emotional investment for me. You noticed the use of the word “babies” in the last paragraph? It wasn’t casual. As a man this is as close as I will get to childbirth. Two hairy little runts of twins whom I love, disproportionately to any real merit or beauty they may possess, but simply because I brought them into the world. And there’s no bond stronger than that.
It’s been a painful process: not just because shaving around them blunts my razor blades even quicker than usual and I am even more of a bloody mess after shaving, but also because the precarious task of evening them up has made me painfully aware of how asymmetrical my face is. What do I use as a guideline? My slightly lopsided ears? It’s a nightmare.
But of course, no-one who sees these paltry pillars of fuzz could suspect that they have been the focus of so much angst. To an outsider they are just sideburns, the most routine and unremarkable of all facial growths. Richard Herring, who has shaved himself a Hitlerian toothbrush moustache for his new stand-up show, recounts in his blog the emotionally turbulent experience of walking around London sporting the most inflammatory facial hairstyle of the 20th century. He found, however, that people (especially Londoners) don’t really care. To him it’s a Hitler moustache, an embarrassingly sixth-form pseudo-“statement”; to the general public it might equally well be a Chaplin or Ron Mael. And if Herring’s Hitler can’t raise more than a shrug, what chance do I have of setting the world alight?
And indeed, since growing my sideburns precisely TWO people have commented on them: my ex-girlfriend, and one of my oldest and closest friends (who is also, coincidentally, this blog’s only known reader. Hi Richard.) Both, in their way, experts on my face. Anyone ranking below an expert is unlikely to notice; or if they notice, to care; or if they care, to comment. It didn’t help that I had my first haircut in months around the time I started growing them, so the haircut has tended to act as a smokescreen, and people comment on that instead, either taking the facial hair as part of the overall package or perhaps assuming that some of the hairdresser’s trimmings simply got stuck to the side of my face.
I’d like to close with a rather out-of-date observation on that Joaquin Phoenix appearance on David Letterman that set the internet abuzz back in February. Surely the most implausible aspect of the whole business is the fact that when Letterman compliments him on his enormous beard (in the first 45 seconds or so), he seems totally nonchalant about it.
You’re fooling no-one, Joaquin, least of all me. I know there’s an ecstatic, breathless voice in your head crying: “YESSS! He noticed!”
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The soundtrack to our lives
Funny, isn't it - the arbitrary way in which certain songs lodge themselves deeply in the consciousness while others of no less quality prompt an apathetic shrug. Having thoroughly psychoanalysed myself, I'm convinced that one of the main reasons I so adore The Divine Comedy's song "Our Mutual Friend" is that it reminds me of a much-loved childhood audiobook of Roald Dahl's The Minpins (deliciously narrated by Joss Ackland).
There are, of course, other factors. The song tells a story to which we can, surely, all relate: boy meets girl, boy and girl get along like house on fire, get drunk, dance, kiss, pass out. Boy wakes up; girl is in the arms of boy's friend. But the brilliance of the song, as suggested in the line "it's like the soundtrack to our lives", is the way in which this humble little narrative is blown up onto a cinematic scale, complete with bombastic orchestral arrangement. There's something wonderfully, naively romantic about the effect these events have had on the narrator: "No matter how I try / I just can't get her out of my mind / And when I sleep / I visualise her".
And yet the strength of emotion, however apparently disproportionate, achieves its own validity. It helps that there is always a knowing twinkle in Hannon's writing and vocal delivery, a hint of self-parody (which, by the way, is notably missing from Daisy Chapman's beautiful cover - see below). Behind the lushness and pomp are occasional reminders of the everyday nature of the source material: the reference to Tom Jones, the word "settee". I love the way the phrase "above the beat" cues the tympani and sleigh-bells - suddenly a sweaty nightclub becomes an enchanted ballroom.
It probably helps that I first fell in love with this song as a melodramatic adolescent. But I still have no trouble really, really caring about the outcome of this mini-tragedy. I hold my breath when the narrator tries to hide his excitement with a casual "Cool - the feeling's mutual"; my heart leaps when Hannon rapturously sings "and then we kissed..."; I share in his indignation as he spits out "WRAPPED around another lover". The lyric ends with a neatly dovetailed twist, as the mutual friend of the title is reintroduced, bringing all the satisfaction of a great short story. But it's also a great piece of music - and no matter how I try, I just can't get it out of my mind.
(NB the album version is far superior)
There are, of course, other factors. The song tells a story to which we can, surely, all relate: boy meets girl, boy and girl get along like house on fire, get drunk, dance, kiss, pass out. Boy wakes up; girl is in the arms of boy's friend. But the brilliance of the song, as suggested in the line "it's like the soundtrack to our lives", is the way in which this humble little narrative is blown up onto a cinematic scale, complete with bombastic orchestral arrangement. There's something wonderfully, naively romantic about the effect these events have had on the narrator: "No matter how I try / I just can't get her out of my mind / And when I sleep / I visualise her".
And yet the strength of emotion, however apparently disproportionate, achieves its own validity. It helps that there is always a knowing twinkle in Hannon's writing and vocal delivery, a hint of self-parody (which, by the way, is notably missing from Daisy Chapman's beautiful cover - see below). Behind the lushness and pomp are occasional reminders of the everyday nature of the source material: the reference to Tom Jones, the word "settee". I love the way the phrase "above the beat" cues the tympani and sleigh-bells - suddenly a sweaty nightclub becomes an enchanted ballroom.
It probably helps that I first fell in love with this song as a melodramatic adolescent. But I still have no trouble really, really caring about the outcome of this mini-tragedy. I hold my breath when the narrator tries to hide his excitement with a casual "Cool - the feeling's mutual"; my heart leaps when Hannon rapturously sings "and then we kissed..."; I share in his indignation as he spits out "WRAPPED around another lover". The lyric ends with a neatly dovetailed twist, as the mutual friend of the title is reintroduced, bringing all the satisfaction of a great short story. But it's also a great piece of music - and no matter how I try, I just can't get it out of my mind.
(NB the album version is far superior)
Aha! The solution to the worldwide blog shortage!
OK, so the internet isn't exactly gasping for another blog. Who in their right mind would care about my views on anything, except possibly my friends, who could just ask me in person?
Well, quite. So by way of excuse: firstly, I do have an awful lot of twaddle in my head, and it has to go somewhere; secondly, and boringly, I do quite want to eventually make a career out of writing twaddle, and it's probably as well to get some practice in.
So this is primarily a cyber-void for me to scream into - but never fear, I'll keep it on matters I think might be of (some) general interest, rather than the cringe-inducingly personal. Contents may vary.
Well, quite. So by way of excuse: firstly, I do have an awful lot of twaddle in my head, and it has to go somewhere; secondly, and boringly, I do quite want to eventually make a career out of writing twaddle, and it's probably as well to get some practice in.
So this is primarily a cyber-void for me to scream into - but never fear, I'll keep it on matters I think might be of (some) general interest, rather than the cringe-inducingly personal. Contents may vary.
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