The OuseburnValley separates East Newcastle from the rest of the city and acts as a natural barrier between the cheap(ish) and cheerful Heaton and the expensive and dour Jesmond, which skulks fearfully behind the ranks of the Residents’ Association.Four great bridges span the valley but at one point no bridge is necessary.It’s been filled in.
For years I wasn’t aware of it.I knew, of course, that the valley was not continuous but I had assumed that the blockage was natural and geographical.The adjective igneous doubtless came into it somewhere I thought.Then I found out that no, it had actually been filled in and again I vaguely assumed that this would be with rubble from the railways or some such Industrial Revolutionary source.Again no.Two months ago, almost to the day, I found out that the valley was, in the early twentieth century, filled in with rubbish. That's rubbish. Garbage. Detritus. Not the sad but necessary spoilage from the engine that drove the empire but just rubbish.Now I’m as proud as any Geordie of having won life’s lottery by being born in Newcastle upon Tyne but there are times when your local pride takes a knock and this discovery was one of them.Apparently the mayor and corporation decided they’d had it with building bridges across the valley and so decided to fill it in and then build housing on top.Not surprisingly, once the rubbish had reached the requisite level it was found that it was not suitable for building housing on so it was grassed over and is now a pleasant green space. The '60s visionary nutter, corrupt vandal and, oh the sorrow to us, council leader, T Dan Smith, whose dreams for Newcastle remain current nightmares, decided to build a stadium there but that wasn’t on either.It’s still marked on the maps as ‘City Stadium’ but all that’s there is a solitary running track which I think is a touch misleading.Now while all this makes for a good sermon (for lo your stadia are built on garbage) or metaphor, it is mildly embarrassing for a proud northerner like myself.You can just hear the southerners telling each other: ‘No point in giving them valleys up there, they’d just fill them with rubbish.’Still, at least we didn’t stick a railway platform over Boudicca’s grave so I suppose it all evens out in the end.
A genuinely odd conversation the other day. It was one of those situations I’ve never actually heard of in real life but which pops up now and again in rather forced ‘comic’ writing, you know, the sort of writing by people who you suspect got their sense of humour by attending an accredited course and will show you a certificate to prove it. Anyway, the set-up was as follows. I thought we were talking about my friend’s new hair style, she thought I was talking about the branch of Asda we happened to be outside of. This Asda is built on stilts so that cars can park under it.
Her: So what do you think? Me: It looks great! Her: Really? Everyone I know thinks its rubbish. Me (genuinely startled by the forthrightness of her friends and her sang froid in the face of their disapproval): Really? Well, I like it. Her (seemingly surprised): Well, I don't. It shakes in high winds, because it’s on pillars. Me: Does it? Oh well in that case I suppose...
At this point I was at a total loss as to what to say other than a vague panic as I wondered when hairdressers starting using pillars and, indeed why, along with a slight sense of relief that this at least explained her remarkably laid back attitude. I mean no new hair cut is any good if it quivers in a breeze. Then at last, and a tad too late, the penny dropped which was just as well.
As usual yesterday, St George’s Day (23 April), saw a bit of chatter about how sad/bad/mad (political correctness for the use of) or indeed good it is that we don’t celebrate it which was odd because every year we do celebrate it with a plethora of articles etc whinging or cheering about how we don’t celebrate it. In a way I rather like that, it seems somehow English.
Now personally I’m all for having a bank holiday as
a)I think we need more public holidays, my understanding is that we have the least of all in all of Europe, and;
b) the 23rd of April is also, by tradition, Shakespeare’s birthday and the day of his death (there was a gap between the two) and this fits my secularist instincts.
Here’s a few clips to remind us why Shakespeare’s birth/deathday should be a national holiday:
and
I chose Mark Antony’s speech from Julius Caesar as we are in an election and Henry V’s speech as it does reference St Crispin and it might annoy the French.
Actually I think we should have a new patron saint. St Edmund, as in Bury St Edmunds, is sometimes mentioned in this context, though I would go for either the Venerable Bede or St Cuthbert, partly for reasons of regional pride, though St Cuthbert doesn’t come across as someone you’d like to have a drink with. Perhaps St Hilda then? Personally my favourite English saint is St Dunstan who was tempted by the devil in the form of a comely wench while he, St Dunstan, was working in a smithy’s forge. Noticing that goat’s hooves were peeking out from under said wench’s skirt, St Dunstan saw through the disguise and so grabbed the devil’s nose with some red hot tongs he had to hand. The devil ran off and cooled his nose in a nearby spring which tastes of brimstone to this day. Now there’s a saint I can do business with. Not sure what day is officially his. Just a sec…ah, May 19th (all hail Wikipedia).
But of course, the saint who really should be our patron saint is that old friend of me and mine, St Chad. So next year let’s all have a proper early spring holy day on the second of March, the day of St Chad.
Listening to a topical satire programme on the radio a couple of weeks back, I was surprised to hear a comedian doing a routine on Dick van Dyke’s accent in Mary Poppins.
Now I know what you’re expecting and doubtlessly a smile is reaching across your features as you prepare for the chucklesomeness that comes from observing the failure of an actor to master an accent. But first consider this. Mary Poppins was released in 1964, which means that we’ve been chortling over Dick van Dyke’s accent for 46 years. That’s close to half a century. People, I put it to you that this joke is old and maybe it’s time to move on. I know it’s a bad attempt at cockney and while I didn’t notice it when watching the film as a child, it was genuinely startling the first time I heard it as an adult.
And it’s not even as though it’s the only bad accent out there. James Doohan’s Scottish accent as Scotty in Star Trek springs to mind (a tradition kept alive by Simon Pegg in the latest film version) as does Sean Connery’s attempt at Irish/American in The Untouchables and there are others including, I’m told, some remarkably odd attempts at Mancunian in an episode of Frasier. Yet still it is almost impossible to talk or write about Mary Poppins without referencing the accent. The Times recently printed a list of top children’s films, and even though only fifty words were allotted to each one, the accent was commented on. When Mark Kermode discussed the film in an article a few Christmases back it was startlingly noticeable that he did not mention it at all.
So why this defensive kneejerkery whenever Mary Poppins is mentioned? We are all aware of van Dyke’s deficiency in the cockney accent department and it’s not as if a new adult British viewer is liable to miss it. There really is no longer a need to point it out and, quite frankly, riffing about it on a topical comedy programme is downright bizarre. Come on Marcus Brigstocke, why not really stick it to Palmerston while you're at it and Mitch Benn can do a funny song about the charge of the Light Brigade. This is moving away from being humorous and drifting into the realms of OCD. Are we so desperate to reserve our cool in the face of an openly sentimental children’s film? Is it because it is cockney he cocks (sorry) up? Had it been Somerset or Geordie would there be such a fuss? I suspect not.
So here is my clarion cry, and I’m surprised how nervous I am making it. As John Cleese once commented, an Englishman would rather be told that he is a bad lover than that he has no sense of humour, but I shall be bold. Leave it people. The joke’s old and obvious and it’s time to move on. Let’s laugh at James Cameron’s name for the ultra-rare substance the humans are looking for in Avatar, ‘unobtainium’. Now that really is funny.
An article about fairy tales appeared in the Guardian the other Saturday with the writer, Bidisha, commenting on how marvellous it is that they’re being re-written as subversive stories. Here's the link:
I can’t say I entirely agreed with her and I posted a comment that, with your forbearance, I shall repeat here:
Bidisha falls into the trap that a lot of political minded people do of assuming that stories are actually about something else, a Dan Brown style code to be deciphered by the wise. But sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a story is not necessarily a fable and it is, I think, the stories that just are stories that survive to following generations. ‘Eric or Little by Little’ anyone? Popular enough in its day, now pretty much forgotten as opposed to 'Wind in the Willows' or 'The Railway Children' which don't really say anything beyond how cool it is to live near a river or a railway.
Eric, or Little by Little by Frederick W Farrar, for those who do not share my interest in the history of children's books, is in the words of the author ‘…the history of a boy who, in spite of the inherent nobleness of his disposition, falls into all folly and wickedness, until he has learnt to seek help from above.’ I have not read it and although that precis makes it sound rather fun, I gather that it is not.
Anyway, to return to the morals or otherwise of stories. It is, of course, not as simple as I make out above but forgive me, I was writing for Guardian readers and they can be simple souls, bless. C S Lewis’ Narnia books are an obvious exception by my overarching rule and Charles Dickens wrote Nicolas Nickleby partly to expose the dodgy boarding schools of his day. But I still hold that it is possible to read too much into a story in many cases and that in our utilitarian age we sometimes try too hard to identify something that simply isn’t there and forget that the story can be its own sole reason.
PS That was weird. Blogger decided, for reasons best know to itself, to translate the title and labels into Hindi without so much as a by your leave. Odd that.
What follows is something I wrote for an application to join a database of freelance writers. I don’t know what got into me. They asked for 150 words on what constitutes good writing. For reasons that now escape me, this is what they got:
The usual suspects shuffle to the fore, ashamed and shy, avoiding each others’ glances. Of course we must have accuracy, flexibility, a knowledge of what we are trying to achieve and who the reader is going to be. Of course we must have reliability and punctuality. Douglas Adams could get away with missing deadlines, the majority of us cannot. Being an established bestseller can excuse a great deal, guaranteed sales soften late submission. Spelling and grammar must be tools we are comfortable with while remembering always David Crystal’s dictum that the only true crime against grammar is ambiguity. And at all times we must be mindful. Mindful of the requirements of the client, the requirements of the piece and above all else, our own limitations. What makes a good writer? Honesty? Maybe. So it is with that thought in mind that I give my true answer: Damned if I know.
I don’t think they’ll be asking for my services in the near future. I particularly like the Delphic remark about grammar which I have attributed to David Crystal who never did me or mine any harm. I have no idea what got into me.
On the other hand, it is exactly one hundred and fifty words.
I haven’t seen the new Alice In Wonderland film yet and don’t really intend to. Not that I’m against the idea, I’m just a bit Depped and Burtoned out at the moment.
Now you’re all probably aware that the film is in fact an original story featuring characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and, What Alice Found There (credits for getting the titles pedantically correct please) but which picks up when Alice is nineteen and under pressure to marry someone she does not love.
And here’s the odd thing (note also the scrupulous avoidance of the word ‘curious’). Tim Burton’s film has been described as a re-working or a re-imagining but never as what it actually is, a sequel. I assume that Disney did some research and found that the word ‘sequel’ did not sit well with their target audience, or something equally odd. However, it does seem appropriate that the latest and most anticipated version of the Alice stories should come with a confusion over what to call it. Apparently for Tim Burton and the Disney Corporation, like Humpty Dumpty, words mean what they want them to mean.
