[lit-ideas] Sunday Wotsit
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 11:13:06 -0700
In the air above the pond I read the Financial Times which is a much better
paper than I remember. The writers seemed to want to find interesting ways to
say things. Not "believers," but "god-botherers." Imagine that in your paper!
An ad copywriter, for a company that "hunted profits," described the prey's
skeleton, "skull, neck vertebrae, bendy bit, spine, ribcage, pelvis, hip, even
bendier bit, tail, end of tail." Brits like bits; orange juice is marketed,
"with bits." There were theories, "We are 'aquatic apes'," one writer
explained, "who--some scientists claim--evolved not for the savannah, but for
the shallow coastal waters where our brains grew large and thoughtful on the
fatty acids of shellfish." And ghost headlines--beneath a tale of
Bannockburn's modern politics was the story of challenges to Prizer's Viagra
patent. Neither headline writer mentions rising again, but they were tempted.
I learned that Albania's prime minister was being challenged in an election by
a modernist painter. And the letters page revealed that the British Library is
to get copies of recording of 200 voices of the common soldier from 1916 to
1918, ones made by two German academics visiting P.O.W. camps. These will
become an auditory cenotaph. Finally there was this, from an American
contributor: the gentleman sitting opposite Queen Salote of Tonga in the
rain-soaked open carriage at the coronation of 1953 was not her husband but, in
fact, His Highness the Sultan of Kelantan. Who knew? Safely home, I wrote in.
A caption attributed a 1918 painting to David Nash. *The* David Nash was born
in 1945. I said there may be a brother, a painter I've not heard of, but it
was more likely they meant Paul or possibly John, brothers and official war
artists.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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