Further Accomplishments

Three more scones, and an annual exchange of cards with the lady responsible for them, make this a day to remember.

Sometimes I think the only thing I ever got completely right in life is the only thing that matters. And most especially so on this day.

Accomplishment

A day on which one has eaten four scones of surpassing excellence cannot be considered wasted, all other evidence to the contrary.

False Advertising

Found myself chuckling over a daft little item in yesterday's paper about some ditsy - but extremely well-off - girl in Australia who is suing the prestigious school she used to attend for failing to get her into the university course of her choice. Must say, other folk didn't find it all quite so funny, with quite a few ranting over her sense of entitlement and seeing the egregious law suit as another sign of the end of civilisation as we know it - as opposed to a rather entertaining bit of daftness that confirmed that an awful lot of people are not too clever, including quite a few who have money and attend prestigious schools.

If anyone's thinking of suing me on similar grounds, let me just say I'll plead guilty as charged and throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Oddly what nobody seemed at all interested in with regard to yesterday's story is the kind of advertising the school puts out. (Though it's my guess the lawyers for the plaintiff intend to have some fun with this.) This is a wild guess, but I reckon they won't be saying things like, Well we really can't guarantee a genuine education for the kids we get because essentially that lies in their hands (or heads) and there comes a point at which there's not much you can do if they're not interested. But we'll make it as lively as we can to sugar the pill and there's enough money floating about to ensure they'll get the bells and whistles and teachers with a fair understanding of what they're talking about and not too many other young sharks competing in the same pool. After that, they're on their own really. But that's life, isn't it?

Funnily enough, if I saw that kind of advertising from a school I'd be quite keen to teach there.

Further Conclusions

Pleased to report finishing Walden today. It'll be good to get away from the Pond, though I must say the longer I stayed the more enjoyable the experience proved. By the time I reached the Winter sequences towards the end I was becoming a bit of a Thoreau fan. That's something I've found with other writers I've had to persevere with. Somehow you teach yourself how to read the blighters.

In fact, I was tempted to get going on the next work in the American Library edition I'm proud to own - an account of a trip, more than one, I think, to The Maine Woods. But I think it's time to get back to something that slips down with less of a struggle, and convince myself I'm still capable of reading at something beyond a snail's pace.

Coming To Conclusions

Got to the end of the BBC Little Dorrit this evening, and wasn't there a lot of end to take on board? Like many a lesser writer Dickens is better at creating mysteries than solving them, and tying together all of Dorrit's loose ends was never going to be easy. I'm not sure Dickens actually succeeds, but the resolution of the one storyline that matters, that of Amy and Arthur's sort of romance, makes up for everything else. The moment when Arthur is able to accept Amy because she is again penniless has a resonance that goes deep to the heart of the novel's thematic concerns.

This version opted, rightly I think, to give a fairytale sheen to proceedings thereafter. The Missus enjoyed that, which was justification enough. To have gone with the astonishingly downbeat ending, in the way Christine Edzard's movie did, would have been to alienate more than a few faithful viewers. But that brilliant final paragraph was in my mind, even as I smiled at the final images from Andrew Davies's version:

Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness. Went down to give a mother's care, in the fulness of time, to Fanny's neglected children no less than to their own, and to leave that lady going into Society for ever and a day. Went down to give a tender nurse and friend to Tip for some few years, who was never vexed by the great exactions he made of her in return for the riches he might have given her if he had ever had them, and who lovingly closed his eyes upon the Marshalsea and all its blighted fruits. They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar.

Going Cheap

Happened to do a bit a driving today, to a doctor's appointment and what-not, and found myself listening to music on tape, two tapes specifically, loaded from my cache in store at Maison KL. I'd completely forgotten I owned a copy of Miles Ahead, and, into the bargain, just how good an album it is. I reckon I prefer it to Kind Of Blue and Sketches From Spain, heretical as that may sound. The tape itself isn't of great quality - I think I picked it up cheap somewhere - but that just didn't matter somehow.

And then later in the day I was listening to some late Haydn symphonies on one of those old cheapo cheapo DG tapes they packed all sorts of goodies into, once upon a time. I don't even know what numbers the symphonies are - I just know I love them, memories of repeated listening from days of old flooding back to me.

Riches. For next to nothing.

Listless

Today marks the end of our term so I'm technically into what's known as a vacation. I've been thinking of drawing up a list of everything I need to do related to the Toad work. However, I'm conscious that the list will prove so depressing that the effort to produce it will prove ultimately counter-productive. There's an irony in all this, one so savage that it's impossible to enjoy.

Moondancing

We've not been watching this year's American Idol as assiduously as we've normally done in the past. The Voice became Noi's preferred viewing in that regard, which I also enjoyed, and I lost interest in Idol when Elise went. But we caught the semi-final, final and finale and generally quite enjoyed the end of the season. (Pity that Joshua was eliminated though.)

Having said that, the finale was, as usual, a mixed bag. I won't dwell on the more painful moments, but find something to praise instead, that something being the distinct sense that's been developed in recent seasons of a reasonably sincere celebration of the culture of popular music especially with the various worthies taking the stage. The worthiest of them all this year were Chaka Khan - her voice sounding in as good a nick as it was in the days of Chaka Khan and Rufus - and, gasp, John Fogarty. Never thought I'd see the day, frankly. Truth to tell, his voice didn't blend all that well with Philip's, but a bad moon rising is never a bad thing when the master lifts it himself.

All Done In

Now experiencing weariness - and not the Celtic Twilight variety. Just common or garden, tired to the bone, sick to the marrow exhaustion. No fun at all.

Getting It Done

Catching sight of the headline in yesterday's paper, Growing The Literary Scene, I falsely assumed it was going to be about some pointless official initiative concerning how to get the citizens of this Far Place reading. The article turned out to be far more interesting than that. It concerned a certain Fong Hoe Fang whose claim to fame is that he runs Ethos Books, a company who've published a fair amount of 'literary' material in recent years, lots of poetry especially. Basically he's done this making hardly a penny - the enterprise being financed by a rather more lucrative printing company he runs.

Now this really is how literary scenes (whatever they may be) grow (whatever that means.) Or rather, this is how people with something to say that's not necessarily of the mainstream find a means of saying it. And, as a result, have a chance of developing an audience, who themselves have an opportunity to grow in depth and understanding, and find their own voices. This is how things happen, when people do things.

As someone who has never done enough, my admiration for Mr Fong runs very deep. And I felt a bit petty, a bit snide regarding the mild sneering I'd indulged in when I first glanced at the headline. I felt a bit like doing something, in fact.