Having visitors who read the Hereabouts is becoming so common an
occurrence I’m wondering if there’s some kind of promotion being slipped into
the missives, “Read beyond sentence one and you may win a free weekend’s
accommodation.” Seems unlikely, but so are chickens.
Apart from the fun of company, the upside to a more crowded house is
that there were witnesses to this week’s exchanges on the enduring power of
Romanticism. The episode began with mishearing, which in the animal world is
more common than you might imagine. To our ear birdsong sounds very precise,
and it is—how else to tell a suitable mate from an unsuitable one, and so on?
But bird *gossip*? Less so. Hence Pecorino’s impression that Longview in
Washington voted against Coleridge, the poet.
“I quite like Kubla Khan. It gets you through that awkward period when your
brain thinks there may be predators in the neighborhood.”
“Because there are,” said Mimo, who is the only one of the three who has slept
outside. “They do exist, you know.”
“Says you,” says Appenzeller.
“May you never have to find out.” Mimo was in a placatory mood. “Anyway what’s
this about Coleridge?”
“They rejected a Coleridge terminal,” said Pecorino. “Somewhere near Longview.”
“That’s probably where he died,” said Mimo, nodding. “Someone will have wanted
a memorial plaque.”
“Why reject that?”
“Health and safety,” said Appenzeller, who had recently first heard the term.
“What’s unhealthy or unsafe about a memorial plaque?”
Mimo quoted, “‘With walls and towers…girdled round.’ They’re probably worried
about anti-fascist demonstrators.”
“Never thought of that,” said Pecorino.
“Bollocks,” said Appenzeller.
When I heard that they’d been discussing the Romantics, on a whim and
because the sun was shining and my coffee was providing a jolt, I asked whether
they prefer Burns to Byron, or the other way round.
Pecorino, “Burns…ooh no, don’t like the sound of that.”
“I believe,” said Mimo, on a roll, “that a Byron is a strong version of a byre.
So we’re back to walls and towers are we not? Keeping predators out.”
Appenzeller wanted to know whether predators travel in caravans. “I’ve heard
there’s hundreds of them approaching the border. With teeth.”
Pecorino, “What’s a border?”
Mimo, “The edge of our realm.”
Pecorino, “When you went over the fence did you see caravans?”
“Oooh yes,” said Mimo. “We should build a Byron.”
“Or,” said Appenzeller, “we could have a ditch with something the gods could
set fire to. That might be efficacious.”
“Efficacious,” said Mimo, in incredulous tone, “what kind of word is that?”
“A big one,” said Appenzeller, proudly.
“Batrachoidal,” said Pecorino, not to be outdone.
“What one earth does that mean?” I asked.
Pecorino, “It means I’ve remembered a long word.”
Thinking it was time to change the subject, Pecorino said she also likes
Tennyson.
Mimo, “What’s Dennis got to do with anything?”
“You need better hearing,” said Pecorino, “Sunset and evening star, And one
last call for me! And may there be no moaning at the bar, When it comes time
for tea.”
“Pub talk,” said Appenzeller, “Utter rubbish.”
Cold arrived this week, a chill sufficient to make closing of the inner
door at Fort Squawk necessary.
“Darkness seemed a bit deep,” was Mimo’s comment first thing as they waddled
toward the food.
“‘Blackness,’ I prefer to call it,” said Appenzeller, who is black.
“It has a mottled aspect,” said Pecorino, who is that way herself.
“I’m not in favor of darkness,” Mimo is always first to the food. “It’s the
lurking.”
“Predators,” spat Appenzeller.
“A woman wailing for her demon-lover,” said Pecorino.
The others looked at her, first with one eye and then t’other.
“Maybe you should have first go at the food this morning,” said Mimo.
“We’ll just step over here and regard the light on the trees,” said Appenzeller.
“Batra…wotsit,” said Pecorino, forgetfully.
I looked it up. It means, “frog-like.” Alan Bennet used the term to
describe Nigel Farage.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
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