Lockdown shelf porn ( not *actual* porn )

During this lockdown we've all become accustomed to seeing newsreaders, celebrities and the like on our televisions, broadcasting from their homes, often with some ostentatiously-positioned books on their bookshelves behind them. These bookshelves often look unbelievably tidy and organised and, in reaction, some ( ordinary ) people have taken to posting photos of their untidy, un-posed shelves too. Never one to miss a pointless trend, I've jumped on the shelf porn bandwagon and so here are just some of my books, with some random Doctor Who DVDs thrown in as a bonus.

Can you spot any of your favourites?

In Flanders Fields

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae, May 1915

 

"In Flanders Fields" is one of the most poignant and iconic poems to come out of the mud, misery and mayhem of the First World War. It's certainly one that I always recall on Remembrance Sunday. I've also found out today that its author, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, was an ancestor of MD Jackson  -  hugely talented artist, writer, blogger and friend of TGWS. Mike told me that, as a child, he used to read this poem at school Remembrance Day assemblies, because of his family connection. Then, as today, beautiful works of literature or art such as this poem were and are  indispensable means of connecting our modern world, however briefly, to past generations and their unimaginable sacrifices. We must never forget...

Happy St. George's Day!

St. George he was for England

And before he killed the dragon

He drank a pint of English ale

Out of an English flagon.

For though he fast right readily

In hair shirt or in mail,

It isn't safe to give him cakes

Unless you give him ale.

St. George he was for England

And right gallantly set free

The lady left for dragon's meat

And tied up to a tree;

But since he stood for England

And knew what England means,

Unless you give him bacon

You mustn't give him beans.

St. George he is for England

And shall wear the shield he wore

When we go out in armour

With battle-cross before.

But though he is jolly company

And very pleased to dine,

It isn't safe to give him nuts

Unless you give him wine.

This witty insight into the English character, heroic or not, comes courtesy of this blog's patron "saint", the mighty GK Chesterton, author of The Glass Walking-Stick ( the original, that is ), The Man Who Was Thursday, The Flying Inn and many, many more works of wonder.

Oh, and the painting is St. George Slays The Dragon by Fortunino Matania from the cover of a 1962 issue of that fondly-remembered magazine, Look & Learn...

A word from our sponsor

"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow."

~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Lewis Carroll

Jabberwocky

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“

”

from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There(1872).

Lewis Carroll ( the Revd. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson )

27th January 1832 - 14th January 1898

Artwork by Sir John Tenniel

GK Chesterton

A word from our founder:

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;

For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.

( From "The Secret People" by GK Chesterton, 29th May 1874 - 14th June 1936 )

Are you listening David Cameron?

Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam

'Tis all a Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

According to the oracle Wikipedia, today is the birthday of the great 11th century Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer, Omar Khayyam. Above is my extremely battered 1941 American edition of Fitzgerald's translation of Khayyam's famous Rubaiyat. The introduction by American poet Louis Untermeyer claims the poem's philosophy is "a vigorous, free-thinking hedonism, a casual but frank appeal to enjoy the pleasures of life without too much reflection."

Sounds good to me!

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness -

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Spike: Goon but not forgotten

There are holes in the sky

Where the rain gets in,

But they're ever so small

That's why rain is thin.

I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree.

I must go down to the sea again,

To the lonely sea and the sky,

I left my vest and socks there,

I wonder if they're dry?

Spike Milligan - author, actor, reluctant soldier, Goon, conservationist, poet, comedy genius.

16th April 1918 - 27th February 2002.

Jerusalem by William Blake

I quoted a couple of lines from "Jerusalem" in an earlier post but here's a fuller version, illustrated by Breughel. Today, it is sung as a hymn in British churches ( even at our wedding! ) but it was originally a bitter attack on repression and a plea for deliverance from outdated thinking.

For those who don't know of William Blake, he was a poet, painter, engraver, visionary ( literally - he saw angels at the bottom of his garden ), and religious iconoclast. And for an eighteenth-century Englishman his politics were amazingly progressive: he spoke out in favour of equality of the sexes, he opposed slavery and, although religious, he attacked organised religion ie the Church Of England. He also supported the French and American revolutions, a dangerous stance at the time.

I read Blake's Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience at A-Level, and his work made a lasting impression on me. His was a unique talent which, as usual, was barely appreciated in his own lifetime.

( This one's for Mickey Glitter. )