Le Mot Juste

Chanced upon the expression pity-fishing in the course of my reading today, and was mighty glad I did. I instantly recognised something I used to be extremely prone to, and still struggle to keep under control. A bit of googling just now led me to sadfishing, which is almost as good, and in Joycean style eschews the hyphen, adding to its expressiveness. 

Oddly enough I happened to be exposed to a particularly striking example of the phenomenon underlying both expressions this evening in relation to something going on In Real Life (as I believe people say, in these days of 'mixed reality'.) It's not pretty, is it?

Here's a thought, though not a terribly deep one. Is naming the thing a useful way of growing beyond it? (Nice to think so, but I doubt it. A bit like claiming that reading 'literature' makes you a better person.)

Pure Envy

Nothing frantic about the flowers, I rather pithily jotted in a notebook earlier today. Sounds a bit envious, no? And envious it most certainly is.

Yes, it was that kind of day.

Something Solid

Just finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. A bit sad that there was nothing of the wonderful surprise rendered by my first reading of the novel, but happy over being able to enjoy the brilliant construction of the tale. The edition I read featured a nice Postscript celebrating that feature of the work with the claim that a second reading is even more pleasurable when you know whodunnit. I wouldn't go quite as far as that, but there is much to admire, not least the unusual psychological depth involved in the characterisation of the killer. Normally you don't go looking for anything beyond the merely serviceable in Christie's representations of character, with the service in question being strict utility to the clever plots. But in this case the very cleverness involves a sleight of hand in relation to the killer's character that leads to a strange, bleak depth. (I won't say more for fear of giving too much away for those who've never read the book.)

I'm struck by the fact that I know three Singaporeans whose English, both spoken and written is excellent, who've told me that Christie was a key aspect of their reading as young teenagers. In so many ways she is the perfect writer for anyone consolidating their grip of the language. The style is always simple and sturdy, with no pretensions to literariness, yet that simplicity is perfectly achieved. And in Ackroyd it reaches remarkable heights in creating what is surely close to the perfect detective story of the old school.

A Bit Odd

A bit distressed at having to wear an odd pair of socks today. The Missus actually laughed when she saw the mismatch this morning, which was a bit thick as she was to blame for bundling the ill-suited pair together. And, before you ask, there was no alternative since clearly I must have been wearing a similarly ill-suited and incorrectly bundled pair to work in recent days and not realised it. 

Of course, the mismatch (in pattern, not colour) wasn't visible but that's not the point (as I made clear to an uncomprehending spouse, who continued to find the situation funny, to my chagrin.) I thought I was wearing my lucky socks, but wasn't, so you can imagine the impact upon my day. 

To be honest, the day went really well, so I suppose I'm grumbling over nothing. And the wearing of the errant socks came after the debacle of the Manchester derby. But part of me suspects the result might just be connected to the unassailable fact I wasn't wearing my lucky socks at some point before the weekend when I must have assumed I was. And with that, I rest my case.

A Drawback

The Missus filled me in on the big insect I encountered last Friday afternoon, explaining that she'd read my post about the occasion. It's the local version of a grasshopper, which I'd sort of guessed at the time. Indeed, Zahira said the same yesterday when I showed her the pictures of the fellow on my phone. But Zahira didn't go into the details of the edibility of grasshoppers. It seems they're a common delicacy, fried, in Thailand, according to Noi, who knows these things. I think I also knew this, but had chosen to forget.

It's a bit sad, I suppose, to think of someone munching on a creature that seems so completely right in its existence, if you see what I mean. But, of course, it's devastatingly hypocritical of a meat-eater like myself to even mention such a reservation. The problem of seeing the particular is the way it undercuts everything that's general about one's behaviour.

Various Mysteries

Picked up a copy of Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd from the library at work last week. Now halfway through and admiring the writer's craft. Sadly I know who did it having read the novel in my teens, so I'm not exactly in suspense. Hence there's only the craft left to draw this reader in - though I suppose there's an odd sort of entertainment value in Christie's assumptions regarding the English social hierarchy.

And, coincidentally, I've just borrowed another 'mystery' from niece Zahira. She was so sure of the brilliance of Five Total Strangers (according to the words on the cover: She never should have accepted that ride...) that I felt compelled to give it a go. Funnily enough I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to get more genuinely involved in this Young Adult novel than might be expected of a Very Old Adult. Certainly hope so. I'm a sucker for a well-told tale.

Even More Particular

I set myself a sort of exercise in observation today. I intended to take note of three 'particulars' in the course of the working day, these being defined by myself as observations of distinct aspects of the world as it presented itself to me of which I had never consciously taken note before.

I'm afraid the exercise proved a disheartening failure up to roughly 4.00 pm. From the workday's commencement at 6.30 am to that time I had nothing of genuine note to record. I'm just a hopeless observer, I'm afraid. And then came the moment of breakthrough.

There I was on the corridor leading to the office where I intended to drop off some keys before wending my weary way to the staffroom when I bumped into the fellow pictured below:

The day was happily transformed by the encounter, though, to be honest, I wasn't at all sure what exactly I was encountering.

The funny thing is that I was so taken by the moment that, having walked all the way to the staffroom considering my good fortune, I completely forgot to drop off the keys and had to wearily trudge back to the corridor to do so. By that time my companion of that brief, highly particular moment had gone off, possibly to avoid any further dealings with the big, ugly creature who'd stooped to record the occasion.

In Particular

Just now I found myself trying to remember what the cat says to Bloom in the Calypso episode of Ulysses. Google proved to be my friend, otherwise I would have been irritated in the extreme at not being able to remember and having no text here to look it up. In fact, the puss gets four lines of dialogue in this sequence: Mkgnao / Mrkgnao / Mrkrgnao / Gurrhr.

You hardly need the other (wonderful) details of the scene to be able to see and hear the stupid pussens across the century, like no other cat except its fictive self.

Oh, and by the by, wouldn't Ulysses make a great name for a dog? But it just wouldn't work for a cat somehow. Not to these ears anyway.

Keeping It Real - 3

I mentioned in a previous post my general dislike of jargon in education - of which there is a great deal, trust me. This relates to my similar distrust of any kind of theorising about teaching (which, I suppose, in its turn relates to my essential abhorrence of Literary Theory.)

Will this work on a rainy, windy Monday morning at 9.00 with a difficult class?; or a dull, warm Thursday afternoon when everyone just wants to sleep? And if it doesn't, what do you do to keep the wagon on the road?

That's what I needed to know when I started out as a completely hopeless, clueless teacher. It took me a couple of years to be able to frame answers that generally worked, and I never saw any particular reason to get beyond that. Still don't. My interest lies in the particular, not the general.

A Long Career

Not once but: again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

... with variations.