SPAR-tan Measures

 The self-styled Spartans of the ERG have finally won their long battled-for Brexit, and the UK has left the European Union. 

But not all of it.  

In short, because of the historic sensitivities around the border between Eire and Northern Ireland, the Withdrawal Agreement committed to maintaining a open border between the EU and Northern Ireland, allowing for the free-flow of goods, service and people between the two.  Essentially, Northern Ireland remains in the EU, whilst still being part of the UK, whilst the rest of Great Britain is a non-EU country.  This, effectively, puts a border down the Irish Sea.  Although the government claims that none exists.  Indeed, only three days ago, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Brandon Lewis, a man suited to High Office in a very specific and limited way, said Brexit had "not created a border in the Irish Sea". 

Because there is no border, anyone now wishing to ship a product containing any animal part from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and vice versa, must now fill out an Export Health Certificate for each product. Every time that product crosses the Irish Sea. These certificates have to be completed by specialists.  Such as vets.  They cost up to £150 per certificate. 

Because there is no border, the government has set up a scheme to compensate anyone who now has to fill out Export Health Certificates.

Because there is no border, Sainsburys has entered into a deal with Henderson Wholesale, who supply the SPAR grocery chain and have distribution centres across Ireland, to stock some SPAR branded products on shelves in their Northern Ireland stores so customers aren't faced with empty shelves. 

Sainsburys reckon they will 'lose' around 700 products from their shelves - bacon, sausages, pasta sauces, deli products, dairy items, ready-meals, desserts, etc. - due to Brexit.  The measure is a temporary one until such time as local replacements can be sourced and/or "border arrangements are confirmed". It's unprecedented, certainly in the UK, for a major supermarket chain to be stocking branded products from a rival chain on its shelves.  

Leonidas would be so proud.

What A Difference A Day Makes ...

 

Compare and contrast ...

You Say Po-tay-toe

 

We are in the midst of a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic to really hit the UK.  Medical staff are reporting that hospitals in London and the South East are overwhelmed, with ICUs running, in some cases, at 137% capacity and patients having to be transported by ambulance as far away as Bristol for treatment. And yet none of the media are showing anything of the over-crowded wards, the NHS staff struggling - this time, largely without the moral support of the weekly 'Clap for Carers' that was such a feature of the first wave.  It was fine, seemingly, to have shown us the fleets of mortuary vehicles arriving at night in Spainish and Italian cities to remove the dead when the pandemic first hit Europe.  It was equally ok for us to be shown the piles of coffins and the temporary mortuaries at the back of New York hospitals when America was first hit.  But it's a feature of the UK experience that has been curiously absent.

Absent, too, is the media coverage of the nonsense Covid 'deniers' such as those filmed gathered, maskless, outside St Thomas' hospital on New Year's Eve, chanting "Covid is a hoax".  Although I can quite see why one might not wish to give them the oxygen of publicity, I'm at a loss to really understand why there is no factual reporting on the conditions inside British ICUs to counter these baseless conspiracy theorists.  One theory is that it is insensitive to the feelings of those whose relatives are currently in hospital being treated for Covid, and that it would make the stress and the fear so much worse for them.  Hmm... we weren't so concerned about their sensibilities before.  Indeed, reporting rarely is.

There are suggestions that individual medics have been threatened with dismissal, and entire NHS Trusts threatened with having their funding cut, should they allow journalists to see what is really going on in hospitals right now.  It's a theory that more than holds water when you know respected journalists have been struggling for weeks to get access.

So one does have to ask oneself just what kind of government would suppress the media in such a fashion?  One answer might be that of a Banana Republic, but I can't quite see the UK in that light.  Bananas are, after all, foreign, exotic things.  No, we're more at home with the humble British spud.  So a Potato Republic, then?  There's certainly more than a whiff of vodka about the place ...

I came across this on Twitter today and very much suspect, for the hard-core Brexiteers, this to be the case.

England remains stubbornly hostage to an unwillingness to disengage with the idea that past glories are just that: past. We choose to bathe in of the glories of Agincourt, when our superior English longbowmen stuffed one up the Frenchies, ignorant of the fact that many were, in fact, either French or Welsh, and that the longbow was only elevated to a weapon of prestige by our Norman (French) conquerors after the Welsh gave such a good account of themselves using it. We are stirred by the nonsense tale of Good Queen Bess riding to Tilbury to fire up the troops in the face of the Spanish Armada; and the utter lie of plucky little Britain standing alone in Europe against the Nazi threat. And for all the good they do, you might at well genuflect to Lego Windsor as the family Windsor.

Film Review: Stan and Ollie

Not a fan of Laurel and Hardy, and can only endure limited doses of Steve Coogan. BUT have just seen 'Stan & Ollie' and high recommend it. A sensitive portrayal of the nuanced light and dark within a flawed partnership heading towards joint and individual sunsets. Probably Steve Coogan's finest performance and well worth seeing.

Film Review: All Is True

All Is True. Meh. Pleasant enough, I suppose - certainly quite pleasant to look at - but not very interesting and struck me as being a big old dollop of self-indulgence on Brannagh's part, with a portion of mawkish nonsense regarding Hamnet. Nice scenery, though.

Film Review: Green Book

An engaging story that skates across the thin ice of America's 'Jim Crow' era. Whilst the subject matter certainly has room for more weighty treatment than this, 'Green Book' nevertheless delivers in spite of its simplistic 'broad-brush stroke' portrayal of the rampant prejudice of the 1960's.

The redemptive nature of the relationship between the two leads is obvious from the outset but the film contains enough twists to upset the most obvious of expectations.  But it is the performances from both Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen that lift it above what might otherwise have been leaning too far towards the 'Jim Crow LIte'.

Mortensen's appears the bigger role: he more obviously to fill the screen with his portrayal of the overweight, uncooth, mouthy Italian American thug Tony Lip (he put on over 3 stone for the role!). But it's Ali whose portrayal of tightly controlled emotion - often in the face of brutality on many levels - who steals the film. Highly recommended.

Film Review: If Beale Street Could Talk

At it's heart, a story as old as time - deep, unbreakable bonds of love - but viewed through the prism of an African American experience that has been replayed a thousand million times: racially motivated police brutality and a system stacked so far against them as to be impossible not to fall foul of.

Exquisitely sensual - at times almost overpoweringly so - there is a sense of the unreal, the mythological, about Beale Street. It relies, largely, on delicately nuanced body language and subtle facial expressions, rather than physical action, to portray emotion. Long takes allow the viewers to immerse themselves in each scene, to soak up the atmosphere - the clothes, the details of the interiors, the colours - and every shot is carefully composed down to the smallest detail. The cinematography is exquisite and the score elevates the visuals to something almost ethereal. Key scenes relieve what might otherwise be an almost suffocating, lotus eater-like experience and whilst here and there a jarring note might sound, overall Beale Street is achingly beautiful. Sublime. Heartbreaking.

The Wrestling Poet

I'm back to pub titles as post titles!  Not that I wrestle on any kind of professional or amateur basis, you understand.  Well, not often anyway.

No, it's just that I've at last managed to finish a piece of work that I've been wrestling with since NaPoWriMo back in April.  It's been through five different drafts, plus a lot of editorial 'fiddling' to reach something approaching a finished version.  I ended up cutting the two lines I loved the most about it, in order to achieve a finished product.  Funny how that goes.  And it does hurt to do it - cut out something you personally think is really great.  But then I've still got the lines to use in something else.

Alphabetti Poetti

I'm a day late with this, but here's a little piece of nonsense that in no way reflects the greatness of the lady involved.  In fact, as tributes go it's seriously shabby.  Nevertheless, it's the best I've got.

C IS FOR CLERIHEW

In Rosa Parks case
being asked to make space
caused an almighty fuss
over a seat on a bus.

Bonfire Night Of The Vanities

Well it’s all very exciting!  I’ve known for a little while that two online poetry journals have each accepted a poem of mine for publication.  I’ve had notification today that both are going to publish in the week of 4^th November. Quite appropriately, I shall be as giddy as a Catherine Wheel!

What joy is joy if Sylvia be not by?

My mentor has sent me off to read, and more importantly listen to, Sylvia Plath.

I've bought ‘Ariel’ and today listened to her reading Lady Lazarus and The Birthday Present and one other from Ariel (which evidently made a huge impression as I can’t remember the name of it). So what do I think of her?

She's sharp, clipped, controlled, brittle and about as empathic as obsidian.  I have no sense, from listening to her read, of there being any softness or compassion about her: for others or for herself.  It's a very carefully constructed and presented persona that I don't think we are supposed to like. But then that would just feed into her negative feelings of self-worth, so it figures.  Leaving aside the fact that she’s clearly developed in a cultured and educated environment, there’s a sense of superciliousness about her; a sense of superiority and coldness, particularly in Lady Lazarus.  Maybe it’s the quality of the recording, but I think not.  I accept that it may well be deliberate.  I hear also a rather self-centred core: one that craves love and admiration and yet despised both those that offer that and the self for wanting it. 

And yet, when she took her life, I believe she was quite careful to ensure that her children would be as safe from the immediate physical effects of her actions as she could make them.  So not all bad, then. 

How much of her writing was a simple expression of the mental anguish and pain she lived with, and how much shock tactics designed to elicit sympathy in the reader is very hard to determine.  It’s almost impossible to separate one from the other in someone suffering severe, long-term mental illness. 

Should I be concerned that there’s little ‘emotion’ in her reading, especially in the case of something like Lady Lazarus?  I’m not particularly.  Mental illness can give people an interesting perspective on their own behaviours, often being deeply and overly analytical or distancing themselves emotionally (others, of course, are wracked with overbearing guilt, but she doesn’t strike me as falling into that camp).  Actually, that’s not true.  There is emotion in her reading, just not a kind that I find particularly appealing.  Affective, yes.  Attractive, no.

A...aa..and SHE'S BACK!!

Greetings, one and all.  Well, mostly one really widely read blog that this is.  *Waves at Steven*

Yes, I’ve been away far too long.  Busy getting a life and a job and some money and stuff.  Ok, so not that busy really.  But I can’t post from work, so …

Anyway …

… was at the Garden Centre yesterday (see what an exciting life I’m now leading?) and for a brief moment thought Ann Summers had finally infiltrated our sleepy corner of the Cotswolds when I saw a large banner advertising ‘SHAG WEAR’*…

*It’s a Canadian company that make purses and stuff.  If you’re interested.

Fantastic Ekphrastic ...

Oh, how I wish it had been!

Already you know my two day Ekphrastic workshop experience was somewhat underwhelming.  Maybe I didn’t read the publicity properly.  Or perhaps I didn’t do enough research into the person leading the workshop.  Either way, it was all a bit bollocks, to be honest. 

I should maybe have been alerted when I received the programme for the two days and read the phrase: “Psychological Induction for exploring the museum with a poet’s eye”.  Hypnotic Induction is really not my cup of tea and whilst it was not compulsory to take part (and I didn’t) I do rather think people should be told, clearly, what’s going on.  Not have it dressed up in Jungian psychobabble.  But then there was a lot of that!

I also have to take issue with anyone opening a workshop on poetry by denouncing most modern poetry as being largely rubbish and dismissing the use of Free Verse in favour of Iambic Pentameter.  That’s to rather exclude a huge number of work(s) before we’ve even got started, and it’s personal opinion.  And whilst anyone is entitled to their opinion, it’s not especially helpful to express such a proscriptive opinion to a group whose members you don’t know and who were, largely, new to writing poetry or Ekphrasis.  

If this had come from someone whose own work stood head and shoulders above the majority, I might be prepared to give a little more credence to the views expressed.  But I don’t think anyone is going to be offered the post of Poet Laureate by including the phrase ‘satanic mills’ in a poem on Jerusalem, even when referencing William Blake.  And don’t even get me started on the levels of courage and skill required to produce a phrase as original as: “So far and yet so near”.   

So, the first day was a bit of a write off for me, largely due to my own reaction to the psychological induction shenanigans.  It put me in a bad mood.  And I chose to stay there.  Day two, however, was an improvement.  Nothing to do with any real improvement in the quality of the workshop, more my own attitude.  Still, I finally got the poem down about the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A that’s been swilling round my brain since January, so that was good.  And I met some nice people, including a member of the poetry society I belong to (but who hasn’t come to any meetings since the beginning of the year).  That was nice.  And *may* give rise to a mixed media collaboration at some point, which would be fantastically good fun.  If nothing else, I shall go on one of her workshops to learn how to make myself a book!

There’s something about silver linings and clouds there.

Post (Without) Haste

I've been neglectful of posting recently.  (And I'm going on 'Mastermind' next week: specialist subject will be stating the bleedin' obvious!) Thing is, after two and a half years of not working, I went and got a job which has taken up most of my energies whilst I get used to getting out of my bed at some ungodly hour of the morning again, and having a routine!  Still, I'll (eventually) have a salary coming in again, so it's all good.

Anyway, on to the business of poetic ramblings.  Despite the stresses and strains of being a wage-slave again, last week in particular was a high productive week, poem wise.  I knocked out four completely new pieces; finished two poems I've been struggling with for a while; re-jigged two that some nice people at the writing group I go to kindly critiqued for me; and produced something from notes made at a recent workshop on using the second person.  Some of them are even good.  Go me!  With knobs on!!!

More importantly, several of them are not of the 'prancing around the countryside with a flower behind my ear' variety.  My mentor is encouraging me to move outside my safe zone (writing about how lovely the countryside is that I prance about in) and explore one of the other 'voices' that have percolated up: a political voice.

It's an interesting change.  When I'm in my safe zone, I know when I've got something 'good' or at least something that has potential.  Writing in another vein is slightly disturbing in that I don't feel I have any anchors to cling on to, or reference points by which to plot my course.  Still, it's a challenge and one that I'm rather enjoying.

I'm off to a two day workshop on ekphrastics at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, later this week - writing poetry about some of the exhibits.  Obviously, it's something I've done before at Swindon Art Gallery, but the Ashmolean is going to offer a whole bewildering range of lovely things to choose from.  More another day.  Probably.

Tanked Up

Went shopping on Saturday.  Wow!  I know!  Hold the front page!!

Perhaps I should clarify it a bit and say I went to a large shopping mall on the outskirts of Bristol where I mooched through the Ladies Wear department of a large chain store beloved of the middle classes.  And me.  Except I may have stumbled upon a small spot of blight in the heart of the rose (ooo, look at me gettin' all poetic!)

There was a jumper.  Quite a nice jumper.  A deep coral pink verging on the red type of jumper.  It was £150.  Yes, that's right.  Somebody somewhere thought that it was acceptable to charge £150 for a jumper.  ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY QUID.  FOR A JUMPER!  And it didn't even have sleeves!!!

Voicing My Opinions

I don't usually watch talent shows but I make an exception for 'The Voice' - well it's singing! Watching the live final tonight, if Leah McFall doesn't win ... I think questions should be asked in the House (of Commons) - they ask less contentious, crappier questions on a daily basis.

However, for Matt Henry to be first of the finalist out is a complete travesty. His staging, performance, emotional engagement with his song, vocals - just everything - was brilliant.  I'm struggling to find an explanation as to why he didn't apparently garner enough votes to keep him in the final three.  Other than the explanation given by someone on twitter: that the British public wouldn't know talent if it set fire to its arse.

Honest to God, however good Andrea and Mike are (and they ARE good), would the majority of people really prefer to pay good money to go see a Country and Western singer (albeit probably the first British one) or an Irish Eva Cassidy-alike, both of whose performance styles are predictable and non-physical, or a soul man who lives every note with passion and physicality or one of the most unique voices you're likely to hear?

Up Pompeii

I've just been to see 'Pompeii Live', the British Museum's live broadcast event from their current exhibition 'Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum'.  Excellent.  Several of my favourite people gathered together in one place at one time and being fascinating.  Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes ... even Georgio Locatelli, who had baked a loaf of bread based on a carbonised one found at Pompeii.  Not only did he explain the 'name stamp' on the Pompeiian one as being similar to the identifying marks found on loaves baked even today in public ovens in Sicily, but he also came up with an explanation for the shape of the Pompeii loaf.  It was like a very large 'cottage loaf'': round, and seemingly made in two parts with the lower half larger than the upper and a kind of groove around the middle.  His interpretation?  The groove was there to tie a piece of string around the loaf once cooked in order to carry it home more easily.  Genius!

It's a strange thing that the everyday lives of these people who lived almost two thousand years ago seem so similar to our own, and yet so very different.  The commonplace ownership of other human beings as slaves, and their background omnipresence in every aspect of the life and activity of the family and household.  And yet, unlike other slave owning cultures, Roman slavery was surprisingly fluid and mobile, with former slaves rising to high ranking positions in society once freed.

It was also, at times, a very moving experience.  Having examined in great detail the wall paintings, from the garden room in The House of the Gold Bracelet at Pompeii, we then met the family who had lived there: parents and two children who died together hiding under the stairs as the pyroclastic flow of superheated gases hit the town.  Finally, we were shown the gold bracelet found with the remains of the woman and after which the house is named.  Whilst I'm sure that the connection between all three will be clear in the exhibition, somehow I doubt that it will be as evocative and emotive as live transmission managed to convey.  Really very touching.  And a poignant reminder, if  we still need it after two major tsunami events in the last few years, that a rich (on many levels) society can still be wiped out in a matter of a few hours.

Anyway, loved the live event and the way the experts, including the exhibition's curator, fleshed out the bones (quite literally, in the case of the skeletons and body casts) of so many of the items on display.  Looking forward even more than ever now to seeing it all in person in a couple of weeks!

Target Practice

There's a woman on the television using air quotation marks.

I want to shoot her.

Advertising Standards

Here's one of those annoying 'targeted' adverts that sully the right-hand margin of your FaceBook page.

Is 60 the new 30?

   What is she on? You will never guess the crazy trick that makes her look half her age.





Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a picture of Geri Halliwell, formerly Gobshite Spice or something?  She's only about 40, surely?  Perhaps it's someone's idea of quasi vigilante justice for having given her daughter a name like Bluebell.

The utter bollockness of those adverts, though, never ceases to amaze me.  One memorable one was claiming to have a 'cure' for belly fat, and advertised using a picture of a young woman in a leotard and leggings with a very big belly.  It was a lady doing yoga and she was clearly  heavily pregnant lady, and not fat at all!  How do they get away with it?

They also seem to think for some reason that I live in Milton Keynes.  I don't, dear reader.  I don't. Heaven only knows how they came up with that notion.

But, more important that any of that ... how to I get my left-hand margin back to where it aught to be???