Random Memory #5

A family friend was, for a short time, “bullfighting correspondent” for the Daily Telegraph. Although never taking part in bullfights himself, he was an aficionado and spent much of his time in the Camargue. He was friends with several cattle breeders, and owned a couple of Camarguais horses. He used to ride out with the local cowboys (gardians) when they were rounding up the cattle. Many of the bulls are exported to Spain as fighting bulls.

The 1974 film of Alistair MacLean’s Caravan to Vaccarès takes place in the Camargue, and features a Provençal-style bullfight. The part of the Westland Widgeon helicopter pilot in the film is played by Graham Hill...

From My Commonplace Book

He rode over Connecticut   

In a glass coach.   

Once, a fear pierced him,   

In that he mistook   

The shadow of his equipage   

For blackbirds.  

 

Wallace Stevens "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

 

[The picture shows "Homage to Wallace Stevens" - Sarah Doremus jewelry.]

 

From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue - D

DADDY. To beat daddy mammy; the first rudiments of drum beating, being the elements of the roll.
DAISY KICKERS. Ostlers at great inns.
DANDY PRAT. An insignificant or trifling fellow.
DARK CULLY. A married man that keeps a mistress, whom he visits only at night, for fear of discovery.
DARKMAN'S BUDGE. One that slides into a house in the dark of the evening, and hides himself, in order to let some of the gang in at night to rob it.
DEADLY NEVERGREEN, that bears fruit all the year round. The gallows, or three-legged mare.
DICK.  I am as queer as Dick's hatband; that is, out of spirits, or don't know what ails me.
DIDDLE. Gin.
DIMBER. Pretty. A dimber cove; a pretty fellow. Dimber mort; a pretty wench.
DIP. To dip for a wig. Formerly, in Middle Row, Holborn, wigs of different sorts were, it is said, put into a close-stool box, into which, for three-pence, any one might dip, or thrust in his hand, and take out the first wig he laid hold of; if he was dissatisfied with his prize, he might, on paying three halfpence, return it and dip again.
DISPATCHERS. Loaded or false dice.
TO DOCK.  Docked smack smooth; one who has suffered an amputation of his penis from a venereal complaint.
DOG'S SOUP. Rain water.
DOMMERER. A beggar pretending that his tongue has been cut out by the Algerines, or cruel and blood-thirsty Turks, or else that he was born deaf and dumb.
DROMEDARY. A heavy, bungling thief or rogue. A purple dromedary; a bungler in the art and mystery of thieving.
DUCK F-CK-R. The man who has the care of the poultry on board a ship of war.
DUDDERING RAKE. A thundering rake, a buck of the first head, one
DUTCH CONCERT. Where every one plays or sings a different tune.

Overheard Conversation #4

Overheard in a restaurant on Charlotte Street, two ladies chatting:

“You know that guy I was seeing? The guy who was a policeman? The guy who was, like, in the police?”

“No… Who?”

“The guy who was a policeman? Policeman guy?”

[shakes head] “No… Which guy was he?”

“Policeman guy? He was in the police?”

“Oh! Yeah! You mean policeman guy! The guy who was a policeman!”

Things I Miss #4

In the late 1960s and early 1970s I remember often in the UK seeing nodding dogs on the rear parcel shelves of Ford Escorts and Hillman Avengers. These were stylised figures of dogs sitting or lying prone, usually made of plastic with some plush-effect covering to simulate fur. The oversized head was separate, contained a heavy weight, and was attached to the dog’s body by a hook. The movement of the car would cause the head to nod and sway.

My maternal grandparents never owned a car but, for some reason, did own a nodding dog. This was kept on the windowsill in the bedroom, and fascinated me. The bedroom had red and pink flock wallpaper, and I remember how the slightly disconcerting feel of the flock was mirrored by the feel of the nodding dog’s “fur.”

I believe that the nodding dog has made a slight comeback as Churchill Insurance now offer a dog in the shape of their “mascot” Churchill, the bulldog.

Nodding dogs are not to be confused with American “bobblehead” dolls or “wobblers”.

Neglected Authors - CLR James

“Our house was superbly situated, exactly behind the wicket. A huge tree on one side and another house on the other limited the view of the ground, but an umpire could have stood at the bedroom window. By standing on a chair a small boy of six could watch practice every afternoon and matches on Saturdays. From the chair also he could mount on to the window-sill and so stretch a groping hand for the books on top of the wardrobe. Thus early the pattern of my life was set.”
 
So begins CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary, possibly the finest book on cricket ever written.
 
James was born on the island of Trinidad in 1901. In 1932 he moved to Nelson in Lancashire, where his friend Learie Constantine (later Baron Constantine of Maraval and Nelson) was playing in the Lancashire Cricket League. James had two manuscripts in his luggage – the autobiography of Constantine, and The Case for West Indian Self Government. With the help of another great cricket writer, Neville Cardus, he obtained work as a cricket reporter on the Manchester Guardian. He also joined the Labour Party and became a leading Marxist theorist, later changing to Trotskyism, finally describing himself only as “a Leninist”.
 
During the 1930s James wrote some of his best-known works of non-fiction, including World Revolution (a history, praised by Trotsky, of the Communist International), and The Black Jacobins (an account of Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Haitian revolution).
 
James later moved to the United States where, despite his disapproval of American lack of sportsmanship and fair play, he stayed for twenty years until deported in 1952. In a vain attempt to remain he wrote a study of Herman Melville and had copies of this privately-published book sent to every US Senator. He then lived in Trinidad and Ghana (becoming involved in the Pan African movement) before returning to England, dying in Brixton in 1989.
 
But it is for Beyond a Boundary that James will be best remembered by cricket aficionados. The book's key question is: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?". James uses this challenge as the basis for describing cricket in an historical and social context, its psychology and aesthetics, the strong influence cricket had on his life, and how cricket meshed with his role in politics and his understanding of issues of class and race. Written with great lyricism, it is full of shrewd analysis, forthright opinions, and fascinating snippets of autobiography.
 
Later James intended to expand these ideas in another book built around an interpretation of photographs of cricketers in action. He wished to investigate here the sculptural dimensions of the game, approaching the player in action as a form of public art, where “man is placed in his social environment in terms of artistic form”; and he was concerned to situate him within a historical tradition which began, in his view, with the shift from sculpture to tragic drama in early Greece.
 
(A version of this post first appeared in The Chap magazine.)

Overheard Conversation #3

On a night bus: "My charity looks after small animals with problems.. like if a duck has neurological problems." 

Random Memory #4

Walking into a bar in St Augustine one twilit July with my friend Gavin and noticing a pool table with Florida's answer to Fast Eddie Felson knocking balls around the baize. I asked if he'd care to shoot a stick with me, and, without looking at me, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and said, "Cost you twenty." I shrugged nonchalantly, resigning myself to losing $20, and rolled a cue off the rack on the table as if checking it was “true.” We lagged for break and I lost, and he then potted 6 of his 7 balls in a few seconds, didn't have a clear shot on his 7th, so snookered me. I thought, "In for a cent, in for a dollar," and played the riskiest trick shots I could legally get away with. They all came off. (All the time I was thinking of a line of Paul Newman’s in The Color of Money: “Pool excellence is not about excellent pool;” so I walked the table as if I was bored to be playing some hick in a Hawaiian shirt.) As I was lining up for an easy shot on the 8 ball, my opponent picked the ball up, slammed it into the pocket, flicked a $20 bill onto the table, and shouldered his angry way out of the bar. Gavin and I then "owned" the table for the rest of the evening. Walter Tevis' epigraph in 'The Hustler' is from Andrew Marvell's ' The Garden': "... a green thought in a green shade."

From My Commonplace Book

"I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard." - Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life.