Disappearing Act

I wasn't sure how I would tackle this topic. I was favouring a piece about the mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie in December 1926. But then last week I got locked out of Facebook for days, and I knew I had my angle.

I've no idea why I was locked out. One day Facebook was working fine, the next when I put in my id and password (I was using my laptop by the way) I got a screen I'd never seen before, telling me that an access code was being sent to my WhatsApp account. I checked regularly for half an hour but nothing arrived. I tried logging into Facebook on my iPhone only to meet the same screen, promising a code to my WhatsApp account but again nothing arrived. I logged off from all applications, switched off laptop and phone, rebooted my router and tried once more a few hours later. Same issue, still no access.

I'm a patient sort of guy and I knew from my daily BBC newsfeed that Facebook was experiencing some problems with all the applications in its Meta platform, so I decided to leave it until the next day to try again. I met exactly the same result, or more accurately, lack of result. This time when the promised code didn't arrive to my WhatsApp account I logged off and on again and took Facebook's 'Try Another Way' option. The alternative they promised me was to send an SMS code to my iPhone... and guess what? Nothing arrived. 

Naively I thought I might have been locked out of my account for 24 or 48 hours. I've heard of this happening, but I believed people usually got some notification as to the reason for it happening. All I had was a faceless nothing.

However, when Facebook failed to rise again on the third day, I must admit I began to feel like a character in some absurd existential Kafkaesque nightmare who doesn't know what he's done wrong, doesn't have any way of contacting the authority responsible for excommunicating him, and has no idea if this state of affairs is temporary of permanent. I was trying, and failing, to deal with Facelessbook!

from Franz Kafka's sketchbook (1901-1907) courtesy National Library of Israel, Jerusalem

I know the use of the platform is not as common or fashionable as it once was, but I do use it regularly to communicate with my 1,400 Facebook friends on a personal level as well as acting as supporters' liaison officer for Blackpool FC and as admin for a few Facebook groups, including Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society, Fans United and Love My Greece. 

In fact I've been using it more, if anything, since I withdrew from Twitter/X (now Musk has made that such a toxic platform), so being 'disappeared' from social media was quite a serious issue. 

In a further bizarre twist, after I couldn't access my account for a few days I began getting emails from Facebook telling me that X people had liked certain posts, Y people had commented on others and that I had various messages waiting from friends - as though Facebook thought that I was neglecting it and was sending me gentle reminders not to forsake it - while still promising, every time I tried to log in, to send me an access code which simply never arrived!

On the evening of the third day, I decided to go the route of re-validating who I was. This involved logging onto a separate Meta application and uploading as proof of identity a scan of either my passport or my driving licence. I opted for the latter. It came back and told me that my ID could not be verified.

Of course I thought this was completely bonkers and began to contemplate the possibility of having to set up a brand new Facebook account from scratch for personal use - but then I didn't know where that would leave the groups and pages for which the 'disappeared'  Steve Rowland is supposedly responsible, and I even foresaw the possibility of being told I couldn't set up a new Steve Rowland account because one already existed.

I decided to give it one more day - and lo and behold on the fourth day when I tried to log onto Facebook I received the following screen:

All I had to do was click on 'Yes, This Was Me'  who had sent them the ID - that they said could not be verified - and I was back into all my Facebook accounts like nothing had happened, with no further explanation. 

Had some fiendish interloper really tried to log into my account? What made them think it wasn't me? Had they really locked my account? If so, why did they say (on several occasions) they were sending me access codes which never arrived, and why did they keep on emailing me about comments and messages they thought I would like to see? Finally, why did they tell me they could not verify the ID I sent them only to ask a day later if it was genuinely from me? None of it makes any sense, nor does it fill me with confidence that their security software actually hangs together. But what can you do (apart from write a blog about it)?

 

Those of you who know anything about Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and have maybe read any of his small but influential body of work (he destroyed 90% of what he wrote), will have understood why I used the term Kafkaesque in relation to my recent Facebook experience. His novels and short stories are pervaded by a sense of alienation and the absurd, of typically isolated, bemused and often terrified protagonists facing bizarre predicaments, often at the hands of some remote and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic power.

Of course I wasn't terrified by this recent disappearing act, because it posed no real existential threat, but it was mighty annoying. At least it gave me the idea for this poem as I wondered how Kafka might have handled the situation. Maybe the title is the best thing about it. Think of it as a first sketch that I will work up into something worthwhile in due course, given time.  

Franz Kafka's Facebook Meltdown

This is not felicitous.

I only do it to prove to myself

that I still exist but you have

plucked my wings

and my words go nowhere.

What was my misdemeanour,

the ugly truth of which I alone

am unaware? I sense cold flames

beneath the floorboards and

my empty hours feed paranoia.

Is this cyber Metastasis

or a singular targeted and

punitive privation? If so

who can I make my appeal to?

Is anyone investigating my case?

Vengeance is mine, says the void.

The rest is silence.

Thanks foe reading, S ;-)

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Disappearing Acts, 1970s Style

Let’s go back in time. Do you remember the TV series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin from 1976 to 1979, which starred the late and great comedy actor Leonard Rossiter? It was based on a series of novels by David Nobbs.

It was about a middle-aged man stuck in a dead-end job and a bland existence who daydreamed about his young secretary, was stuck in a rut in his relationship with his wife and who faked his own death by walking into the sea. The phrase, “do a Reggie Perrin” became a common phrase because of that series.

Leonard Rossiter as Reggie Perrin

In that decade, the seventies, there were indeed, men who disappeared by running away from their previous life – but their situation was far from bland, and both caused a media sensation.

The first that exploded onto the world in November 1974 was none other than the most famous murder mystery in the world, with a suspect literally disappearing into thin air.

Let us delve into the past, the protagonists and the elements that led to a catastrophic situation.

The Victim

The name of the murder victim was Sandra Rivett. She was twenty-nine, with a warm, engaging personality, the perfect companion for three young children for whom she was nanny while in employment for an upper-class, eccentric couple with a visceral hatred for each other and caught up in a custody battle.

The couple frequently changed nannies, which she may not have been aware of, and at the time of her death, she was the latest in a long string of employees.

The mother of two young sons herself, both were born out of wedlock, still something of a stigma at that time. Her eldest was brought up by her parents. The youngest she gave up for adoption. After this she married a Mr Roger Rivett, but the relationship broke up.

Sandra Rivett with her husband

While in employment, she had her fair share of attention from young men, among them, a Norwegian sailor, a man called Ray, someone she recently broke up with and a man called John Hankins.

Then, on 7th November 1974, in the evening, as she descended the basement cellar of the home she worked in, an assailant subjected her to a vicious assault resulting in her murder.

Callously, her murderer placed her body in a mail sack, then launched a vicious assault on the children’s mother.

The Father 

He was John Bingham, more popularly known as the Seventh Earl of Lucan. He had lost custody of his children after his wife revealed to a judge that he had a taste for dominatrix style sex. In his briefcase years after his disappearance, it was discovered that he possessed a cane and photos of women in black figure-hugging clothing.

Other than that, he was a professional gambler, called “Lucky” by his friends, had a power boat called White Migrant, a racing greyhound called Sambo’s Hangover and a friend Aspinall, who owned the club he frequently attended called The Claremont Club. Aspinall sometimes used to bring his pet tiger Tara to his club.

As a parent, John was very much hands-on and loved them very much. He could, however, not stand the sight of blood and once went queasy at the sight of his son’s bleeding knee.

Veronica (Countess of Lucan) and John Bingham (Lord Lucan)

The Mother

Veronica (nee Duncan) was a young woman with mental health problems, who did very little with her children and spent most of her time in her room watching television until she came downstairs late in the afternoon with a bottle of alcohol in her hand.

In childhood, a psychiatrist described her to her mother as “a problem child”, so she did not experience much empathy growing up.

The marriage to her husband was a disaster, with her running him down in front of other people and an ex-nanny claiming he was always criticising her as a mother.

A notorious snob, she loved being a Countess, but was volatile, once throwing urine at a reporter and a glass of wine over a woman she thought was making a play for her husband at the Claremont Club.

She refused to play the part of the hostess and fall into an old-fashioned role, saying it was boring.

Perhaps her husband did not realise that by employing a nanny they could ill afford, (they had trouble paying the milk bill), he was robbing her of the role of motherhood that was rightfully hers.

Both the pair tended to live in a previous age. The nanny was relegated to the servants’ quarters.

Lucan, before the murder, resembled a Regency gentleman, leading a homosocial existence around men of his class and did not understand women.

The official Lucan story is that Lucan intended to kill his wife and waited for her with lead piping in the basement to his house, but then realised he had struck the nanny instead and put her in a mail bag.

Thinking he had killed his wife, he left the basement only to be confronted with his wife, whom he then attacked, but then stopped.

They both went upstairs to her bedroom. He went into the bathroom to wring out a towel to put on her head, but she then made her escape, running towards the pub down the road crying, “Murder, murder!” then crying out in the the pub, The Plumbers’ Arms, "He’s murdered my nanny!” (She did not say who “he” was.)

There is no point in going into the whodunnit aspects of the case as this blog is called “Disappearing Acts”. Lucan, if he did not succeed in anything else in life, succeeded in being a fugitive.

When his wife made her escape into the street he rang a neighbour, Mrs Floorman, who lived nearby, asking her to take care of the children.

· Rang his mother telling her about an “awful catastrophe…”

· Asked his mother to pick up his children

· Got into a car borrowed from a friend

· Drove to a barrister friend in Sussex who gave him sanctuary

· Wrote to his brother-in-law asking him to care for his children

The friend was Susan Maxwell-Scott, a woman who had a fridge marked Dog and asked her overnight babysitter whether she would like cornflakes or sherry for breakfast.

His car was found at Newhaven, but no one knows if this was a red herring. His friend, John Aspinall said in 1976: “What I probably would have done if he had appeared here is anything that he wished. To break your friendship is even more serious than to break the law.”

It is known Lucan had friends abroad and foreign bank accounts in Switzerland and Africa. Undoubtedly, having friends of privilege, who count themselves as above the law, helped him remain a fugitive.

His brother Hugh has stated that Bingham died in Africa in 2004. Was Lucan lucky?

Yet only two weeks after Lucan disappeared, the police thought they had found their quarry.

A British man walked across the sands of Miami, undressed, left his clothes in a pile and ran into the waves. Back in Britain, his wife announced she thought he had drowned. A month later, in Melbourne, police were excited, thinking they had found Lucan.

No, it was the man from Miami, the Labour politician, John Stonehouse. Like the previous story, his existence was far from colourless.

John Stonehouse MP

Accused of spying for the Czech government, he was in trouble with money having made disastrous business decisions and had a wife Barbara and mistress, who was also his secretary, Mrs Sheila Buckley.

He had intended to leave his troubles behind and start a new life with her. Instead, he was arrested and sent to prison for seven years for fraud, theft and other crimes, including identity theft.

During his defence, he claimed a alter-ego called Markham, committed these offences. A Mr Markham, who had died, was the false identity he stole in his attempt to flee justice. It might have made entertaining listening but impressed no one. They thought it was balderdash. These shenanigans ended his role as a politician.

His prison sentence affected his health, though he married Sheila after his prison sentence, who does seem to have loved him. She did stand by him and support him through his disgrace. He must have found some solace with the birth of their child together.

Edwina Currie said in a TV interview that Stonehouse was the architect of his own downfall, a victim of his own arrogance. However, he did not do a Reggie Perrin. The fictional character of Perrin may have seemed to have been an inspiration for Stonehouse’s actions. However, it was coincidental. Stonehouse’s faked suicide was in November 1974 and Nobbs’ novel The Death of Reginald Perrin was  not published till 1975!

They say that fact is stranger than fiction!

Thank you for reading, 

Anne G Dilley

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Disappearing Act

A few months ago I mentioned the act of going to the cinema involves surrendering a belief in the here and now and disappearing into another world that almost seems real from the time the lights start to dim.

Most of the time when going back out through the foyer it only takes minutes to be back in Preston and walking along the river path home.

But occasionally (very) there is a film that stays with you. You can remember when and where and what your feelings were long after it is over.

Off the top of my head the first film that affected me like that was 2001: A Space Odyssey. The second was Heaven’s Gate. I don’t want to go into the whys and wherefores of those as they don’t involve the actual topic of Disappearing Act.

For this I would like to look at another film where I can’t recall coming out of the cinema or walking back along the Bournemouth beach to Boscombe. I can’t even remember much about the film’s content now as it was back in about 1977 but what haunted me was the atmosphere that it created for me at that time.

The film was Picnic at Hanging Rock an Australian film directed by Peter Weir and based on the 1967 novel Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. I can’t actually remember much of the plot now as I saw it in about 1997 so I’ve just refreshed my memory.

As the story opens, it’s Valentine’s Day, 1900, and the young women of Appleyard College for Young Ladies are setting out on a picnic, chaperoned by two teachers. It’s a hot day, and their destination lies hours away by horse-drawn carriage. After the excitement of receiving Valentine’s cards, emotions are running high. The girls are eager for adventure, yet must always remember the expectation that they behave like proper young ladies.

After a picnic at the foot of the towering Hanging Rock, as it’s almost time for the return journey, a few girls beg permission to take a short walk along the stream…and never return. Hours pass and finally one of the party returns in terror, but with no explanation of what’s actually happened. No sign can be found of the three missing girls, and what’s more, it’s discovered that one of the teachers has also vanished. As night approaches, there’s no choice but to return to the school. An intense manhunt follows, and while one girl is eventually found but again, with no memories of what happened to her or the others.

That’s as far as I’m going on the plot.

Critics wrote in terms of:

Its beautiful cinematography

It gives us the materials to fashion our own work of art, it performs a function given only to the highest art: it makes us think as it fills us with awe and wonder.

It's an arty film... and like the artist, Weir insists on layering colours and depth to his mystery ever so slowly and deliberately, adding a stroke of character here and a brush of suspense there.

It is a film of haunting mystery and buried sexual hysteria.

It had an approval rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 48 reviews, with an average rating of 8.5/10.

I’d just add that whilst I was looking for the information on the film I found that a number of people have recently seen the film and it still retains its magic.

As for the poem I’m going to go back to my mention of Heaven’s Gate above. I’d like to mention it again as it is one of my favourite films and this poem could be seen as a bit of me has performed a disappearing act over the years.

The poem mentions ‘French review’ which is true of the French critics at the time but also relates to an article by Philip French, a British critic, one of the few British or Americans who praised it at the time.

Heaven’s Gate

I was wondering
how Isabelle Huppert still
looks like Isabelle Huppert

when I don’t look like me
though I did
when I looked like Kris Kristofferson

and walked home
overwhelmed
not realizing I’d seen
the worst film ever made

which when I looked like me
was confusing

until I saw Masterpiece
in a French review
and kept the beard
became fluent in sub-titleeze
grateful for someone who knew
what they were talking about.

First published in the French Literary Review, 2017.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Disappearing Acts: Magicians Past and Present

"…making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back." 'The Prestige', Christopher Priest

The human fascination with things magically disappearing and then reappearing has been going on for millennia. This article is a quick romp exploring the concept of ‘disappearing’ through historical research and correspondence with contemporary magicians.

The performance of magic as we know it today began in the 1800s with thanks to innovative creative practitioners like the French clockmaker Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin.

Robert-Houdin known as ‘The Father of Modern Magic’ opened a Parisian magic theatre in 1845, making the art of illusion an entertaining spectacle, something worth paying for.

A growing hunger for all things magic spread like wildfire. Across the Channel, London performers included John Henry Anderson who opened the New Strand Theatre in 1840. In the latter part of the 1800s, partners John Nevil Maskelyne and Cooke performed mind boggling tricks at the Egyptian Hall for decades. Take note of the disappearing man in the poster.

Mahatmas Outdone! Maskelyne and Cooke (Poster courtesy of the British Library - EVAN331)

Heading west, over the Atlantic and into the 20th century, the trend for Illusionary entertainment continued. One of the most well known practitioners at that time was American-Hungarian illusionist and escape artist Erik Weisz (1874- 1926), better known as Harry Houdini; and yes, he did pinch his stage name from the French legend Robert-Houdin (as mentioned above), paying homage to his hero.

On the 7th January 1918 Houdini famously performed the ‘Vanishing Elephant’ trick in New York’s Hippodrome Theatre which involved a huge cabinet, a ‘disappearing’ elephant and twelve hefty men.

Harry Houdini, 1910 (Photograph courtesy of the British Library - 080404)

A hundred years later another American magician Ricky Jay (Richard Jay Potash) was interviewed by Tom Zito and asked what he thought about the 2006 film The Prestige, based on Christopher Priest’s novel focussing on two Victorian competitive magicians battling it out in the public arena.

Ricky Jay responded in part discussing the three acts of a magic trick:

1) The magician shows you something ordinary, like a dove.
2) The magician takes the dove and makes it do something extraordinary, like disappear.
3) The magician tops that disappearance and makes the dove reappear.

He went on to explain that "magic is all about structure…you’ve got to take the observer from the ordinary, to the extraordinary, to the astounding".

Jumping forward into the present, I recently contacted magicians actively performing. I found it enlightening to receive thoughtful insights from Martin Price (MP) and Scoop Magic (SM). Both have over 50 years-experience as illusionists and work in the North West of England. Here are highlights:

1) What and/or who inspired you to become a magician?

(MP) My parents gave me a box of magic, [a] Peter Pan set and I was hooked.

(SM) It was a combination of my dad making a coin disappear and reappear behind my ear and Paul Daniels being one of the biggest TV stars in the country when I was growing up. I was also painfully shy as a child so learning a few magic tricks helped make up for my lack of social skills, something which is common among magicians.

2) What do you think the fascination is with making things disappear, then reappear?

(MP) A magical experience.

(SM) Makes people question what is real and what is possible. If something tangible and undeniable can cease to exist in the blink of an eye, that's a real shock and it's almost a relief when it reappears. Maybe it also speaks to the knowledge we all have deep down that existence is fleeting and we are all going to disappear one day.

3) What do you think are your audience’s top favourite ‘Disappearing Acts’ that you perform?

(MP) The vanishing rabbit.

(SM) I make a dove disappear from a cage and reappear in a sweet tin held by a spectator (that always gets gasps).

4) What are your top favourite ‘Disappearing Acts’ that other magicians perform?

(MP) Lions and elephants disappear as seen in Vegas.

(SM) Paul Daniels' disappearing TV camera and his disappearing elephant are great!

Houdini's (original) vanishing elephant (Magazine courtesy of New York Public Library - b15181992 

5) Any other thoughts about being a magician magic and or the concept of ‘Disappearing’ in your profession?

(MP) Sadly many pros in the business have died or too old to perform hence they disappear only to be replaced by mainly one night wonders or Britain’s got talent folk but they don’t have the wealth of experience.

The answers to the questions speak volumes.

In researching the performance of magic, its history past and present, it is apparent that we are forever watching in wonder and baffled when something disappears - when something then reappears it has the ‘Wow!’ factor and surely that's what keeps an audience on the edge of their seats and coming back for more. Long may it continue.

"A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you are going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first." Louis L’Amour

To wrap it up, a random fun fact: 926 words can be made out of the word ‘Disappearing’. And now my brain has been filled, my heart is full and my eyes remain wide open. Enjoy the approaching magical festive season.

In the Magic Hat

Now you see it
Now you don’t
Now you see it

Thank you for reading! 

Kate  J 

Sources

Alta, 2018. The Pledge. The Turn. The Prestige. 

https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a4688/the-pledge-the-turn-the-prestige/ Accessed 6 December.

American Museum of Magic, 2024. The Birth of Modern Magic. https://americanmuseumofmagic.com/history-of-magic/ Accessed 7 December.

Bookroo, 2024. Disappear Quotes. https://bookroo.com/quotes/disappear Accessed 6 December.

British Library, 2024. Poster Image. https://imagesonline.bl.uk/asset/11637/ Accessed 7 December.

Goodreads, 2013. Louis L’Amour >Quotes> Quotable Quote. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/794880-a-writer-s-brain-is-like-a-magician-s-hat-if-you-re

Accessed 6 December

Price, M., 2024. Email to Kate Eggleston-Wirtz 8 November.

Scoop Magic, 2024. Email to Kate Eggleston-Wirtz 19 November.

Wordmaker, 2024. Disappearing. https://wordmaker.info/how-many/disappearing.html Accessed 9 December.

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Mondegreen

I knew when I nominated this theme of Mondegreen that it would prove a tricky customer. I'm starting with a visual pun. What do you see in the image below? I'll caption it for you...

"I, Mondegreen"

But seriously, what's this really all about? Well, it began with Sylvia's mother. Not the one made famous in the lyrics of a song by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show in 1972, though lyrics are central to the theme of today's blog, rather the one who used to read poetry to her daughter, Sylvia Wright. 

Young Sylvia, who in a later age might have been dubbed 'Little Miss Hearing' by Roger Hargreaves, grew up to be a freelance journalist and author. She was born during WWI, attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and after graduating became an editor of books and magazines, most notably Harpers Bazaar, for which she also wrote regular columns, some of which articles were gathered together in the 1957 collection 'Get Away From Me With Those Christmas Gifts'. She also wrote one novel, 'A Shark Infested Rice Pudding'. (I've not read it.)

And it was one of her pieces for Harpers, in 1954, that gave rise to the whole mondegreen thing. In it she recounted a memory from her childhood of her mother reading poetry to her from 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry', specifically a 17th century poem titled 'The Bonnie Earl o' Moray'. (Never mind that it was Scottish!) It included the couplet "They hae ta’en the Earl o’ Murray/ And laid him on the green", which Sylvia misheard as "They hae ta’en the Earl o’ Murray/ And Lady Mondegreen".

Wittingly or otherwise, Sylvia Wright had given a name to a phenomenon we are surely all familiar with, the act of mis-hearing a spoken or sung word or phrase and mistakenly believing it says something else, even going so far as to say or sing the incorrect version ourselves repeatedly. 

Sylvia Wright mis-hearing

Mondegreen, a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning, soon entered literary parlance and various linguists have collected famous mondegreens and analysed how the phenomenon may have helped shape the written versions of lyrics that for generations were passed on as part of an oral tradition. There have even been attempts to 'reverse engineer' some phrases, to suggest their original pre-mondegreen form.

However, it took the best part of fifty years for Sylvia Wright's neologism to get formally accepted in the likes of Webster's College Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary.

In the mid 1970s I was doing a postgraduate course at Exeter University and shared a flat for a while with a friend who was particularly prone to the mondegreen effect, especially when it came to the lyrics of Bob Dylan, whose masterpiece LP 'Blood On The Tracks' had recently been released. We indulged in many lively debates/ disagreements about several of the songs on that album. Mind you, Dylan's enunciation has always favoured mis-hearings, and this was in the days before the words to songs were routinely provided as part of the package. 

And Dylan himself famously had been guilty of mis-hearing a Beatles lyric back in 1964. When he first met them in New York that year and offered them some prime cannabis, he was surprised to learn they'd never tried it before, because he'd always assumed that in 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' they were singing "I get high", when in fact they sang "I can't hide", proof, if it was needed, that one aspect of the mondegreen phenomenon is that one often hears what one expects to hear. 

Bob Dylan

I'm not including a new poem today as I've been churning out haiku daily (as part of a musical advent calendar project on Facebook). Instead, I'll regale you with snippets of some of the lines we disagreed over, and about which he was incorrigibly in the wrong - because that's often another aspect of the mondegreen phenomenon. Mis-hearings are hard to shift.

From 'Tangled Up In Blue':

"split up on the docks that night, both agreeing it was best"; correct version goes "split up on a dark sad night".

"every one of them words rang true and quoted Leonard Cohen"; correct version goes "glowed like burning coal".

From 'Idiot Wind':

"said beware of lighting up a Lucky Strike"; correct version goes "of lightning that might strike".

From 'You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go':

"mine have been like the lanes and rambled"; correct version goes "like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's."

Sylvia Wright died aged sixty-four in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is not recorded if her tomb states "Here Lies Lady Mondegreen."

Thanks for reading, have a good week. S ;-)

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Mondegreen

I had no idea what a mondegreen was before starting this blog and when I did find out via google then I was surprised that it was such a recent addition to the English language. It was introduced into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002 after first being created in 1954 by the American writer Sylvia Wright who recalled a childhood memory of her mother reading the Scottish ballad 'The Bonnie Earl o' Moray', and mishearing the words "laid him on the green" as "Lady Mondegreen".

James, Earl of Moray

So, it is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.

Just think about how we hear and understand all the noises we are hearing at any one time. I’ve just heard a car go by, some people are talking quietly as they pass my front door, there is a slight hum of traffic in the distance. Those noises are sound waves entering my ear and into the auditory cortex of my brain. There the sounds, which are just noise at the time, are separated into sounds that are meaningful to me. That sound of the car is not the sound of a bird. Considering all the information that is being processed at any one time it is truly amazing that we can make sense of the world.

However, very occasionally we can be misled by the context, the simplest cases occur when we just mishear something: it’s noisy, and we lack the visual cues to help us out (this can happen on the phone, on the radio, across cubicles, basically anytime we can’t see the mouth of the speaker).

One of the reasons we often mishear song lyrics is that there’s a lot of noise to get through, and we usually can’t see the musicians’ faces. Other times, the misperceptions come from the nature of the speech itself, for example when someone speaks in an unfamiliar accent or when the usual structure of stresses and inflections changes, as it does in a poem or a song. What should be clear becomes ambiguous, and the brain must do its best to resolve the ambiguity and choose the meaning that makes the most sense.

When I was looking up examples that resonated with me these two sprang out:
“There's a bathroom on the right" for "There's a bad moon on the rise" in 'Bad Moon Rising' by Creedence Clearwater Revival and “'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" for the Jimi Hendrix lyric "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" in 'Purple Haze'.

Jimi Hendrix

Mondegreens aren’t limited to modern music. One of the more common ones is hearing “Gladly the cross-eyed bear” for the line “Gladly the cross I’d bear” in the hymn 'Keep Thou My Way'. In fact our brains are exceptional creators of logical meaning, even when it’s not quite the intended one. Some mondegreens are so plausible that they can become the real thing. “Spitting image” was once a mondegreen, a mishearing and improper syllabic split of “spit and image.” (Spit is another term for likeness.) When you eat an orange, you’re actually consuming “a naranj” (from Persian and Sanskrit). Your nickname is, historically speaking “an ekename,” or an additional name.

To repeat what I’ve said above, mondegreens are funny, give us insight into the underlying nature of linguistic processing and how our minds make meaning out of sound. It comes naturally, easily, effortlessly at which point we can consider the problems of speech-recognition software, which, despite recent improvements, still usually generate a mix and muddle of whatever a user was trying to say.

Some of the above is from an article by Maria Konnikova in The New Yorker.

As Mondegreens are an audio effect, it is hopeless to find a visual equivalent so I’m reproducing the poem that Sylvia Wright heard:

The Bonnie Earl o' Moray

Ye Hielan’s and ye Lawlan’s,
O, whaure hae ye been?
They hae ta’en the Earl o’ Murray
And laid him on the green.

He was a braw callant
And he played at the ring,
And the bonnie Earl o’ Murray
He might hae been a king.

O, lang will his ladie
Look frae the castle doon,
Ere the bonnie Earl o’ Murray
Comed soondin’ through the toon.

O, wae betide ye Huntly
And whaurfore did ye sae?
I bade ye bring him tae me
And forbade ye him to slay.

He was a braw callant
And he played at the ba’,
And the bonnie Earl o’ Murray
Was the flooer amang them a’.

                                (author unknown, 17th century)

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Reading

Just the day for staying inside, away from storm Darragh, curled up warm with a good book. In my case its 'If He Hollers Let Him Go' by Chester Himes, his ground-breaking debut novel from 1945 about what it was like to be black in America during WWII. It was re-published in Penguin Modern Classics just last month, and I bought it (along with 'The Crazy Kill', same author, same imprint) from my local Waterstone's, when I ought to have been addressing other priorities, as will become clear later on.

Anyway, reading. I've covered this topic a few times down the years on the Dead Good Blog. Link here to the one where I recounted my memories of not being able to read and what prompted me to learn: Be More Book . It also lists my favourite twenty novels, if you're interested.

I devoured books as a child (we had no television until I was ten), loved English at school, took English Literature for A-level and went to Warwick University where I read English and American Literature. Professor Bergonzi in his inaugural lecture let it be known that the primary purpose of our being there was not to pass exams, get a degree and a good job, but to acquire a deep love of literature that would make us voracious (but discerning) readers for our lifetimes. Talk about preaching to the converted.    

I must confess I did read off piste quite a lot, like the complete works of Nabokov when we were only supposed to read 'Lolita'. Ditto Thomas Mann when all that was prescribed was 'Buddenbrooks'. The same with George Eliot when all that was required was 'Middlemarch'. And everything by Kurt Vonnegut, who wasn't even on the syllabus. I could go on... I ran with authors I enjoyed (Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Zola, Hardy, Huxley, Kafka, Pynchon, Updike, Austen) sometimes to the detriment of writers I should have been reading but didn't much like. It was probably the precursor of binge watching TV series (not that I do). I'm sure Bergonzi would have understood.

I haven't even mentioned poetry, but that was an abiding love over those three years as well, especially Keats, Blake, Donne, Yeats, Eliot  and of course Homer, Dante and Shakespeare..

John Keats enjoying a good read

In no time at all I had graduated, gone off to Exeter University to learn how to teach and then to a comprehensive school in North London where I set to, enthusing children to be as excited about reading as I had been at their age.

Those of you who've bought my recent poetry collection 'From The Imaginarium' will know from the foreword that I was shocked to find some of the kids in my classes were illiterate, fourteen and fifteen year olds who couldn't read. It's the reason why I'm donating some of the proceeds from sales of the book to the National Literacy Trust. For those few years that I was a teacher, I read a great deal of children's and teenage fiction that hadn't been around when I was young, by the likes of Richard Adams, Joan Aiken, Susan Cooper, Helen Creswell, Alan Garner, SE Hinton, Gene Kemp, Judith Kerr, Ursula Le Guin and Mildred Taylor. You might recognise some of the names if you have children of a certain age. Of course we read to our own children when they arrived and encouraged them to love books in the way we did.

Curiously, my father-in-law who taught English at Durham University made a proclamation on the day that he retired that he would never read another novel as long as he lived, which was a good few years and he stuck by his decision. I could never understand that. It seemed like such self-deprivation to me and there were so many great novels published in his retirement years.

After moving out of teaching, I worked for Kodak until I too retired. Along the way I picked up various long-service awards and for one I elected for a complete set of Arthur Ransome's classic  children's novels in hardback, all dozen of them from 'Swallows And Amazons' through to 'Great Northern'. I'd read them all as a boy and re-read them when my own girls were young. So now I'm reading them for a third time, one every year or so, and will pass them on to my grandson (who's not even one yet) in the hope that he may enjoy them in turn..

I suppose nowadays I read approximately a book a week. You won't be surprised to hear that I keep a 'reading record', have done for years, just the title, author and date when read. Some of my favourite books I've read several times, Hermann Hesse's 'The Glass Bead Game' being a good example. 

The pile of books waiting to be read doesn't seem to grow smaller, but I don't have a problem with that, and I'm sure Penguin Books doesn't. Reading has been (and long may it continue) one of the greatest pleasures of my life, so Professor Bergonzi was spot on. Sadly he died in 2016. He wrote over thirty academic books, including one about his friend David Lodge (whose humorous novels I love), and he wrote one novel himself. 'The Roman Persuasion' which I really ought to add to the waiting pile I suppose.

there is no shame in piles of to-be-read books

Reading is such a wonderful activity to be able to engage in, almost anywhere. And what a communication process it represents - the ideas from the mind or imagination of one person captured in coded signs pressed in ink onto pieces of pulped tree (I don't do e-books) so that the experience can replicate and resonate in the mind or imagination of another person. Fabulous. If that's not a kind of magic, I don't know what is.

The other week I went into Blackpool town centre on a particularly frustrating shopping expedition to buy myself a new pair of jeans. It used to be so easy, lots of shops, lots of brands, plenty of choice and everything fit comfortably - not the case anymore, on any count. Walking back from town I thought that buying jeans was comparable in a sense to Eliot's measuring out life with coffee spoons - and this poem was the result. It's in here by virtue of it mentioning books, those novels of Chester Himes I named earlier. And just to avoid any ambiguity (because some were confused when I first shared it), the numbers refer to waist sizes, not ages.😉

In Which The Poet Goes Shopping For Jeans But Buys Books
Just part of the index 

by which I measure life -
shopping for jeans.

I remember 30 

studious Warwick University
ditched the velvet loons
for some rivetted Lee Coopers
from C&A then coffee in the round
at the Lady Godiva café
nights of sex and essays

I can recall 32 

wedding bells impending 

fatherhood a decent job

high-waisted Hard Core denim
from that shop on the ramp
between the florist and vintner
days of wine and roses

I revisit 34 

cool black Levis
from an American store
in a US mall man of substance
wife and kids along
road-tripping California
evenings round the pool

Oh but 36 is a shock 

the weight sits on 

and nothing quite fits right
I end up buying an LP
(they call them vinyls nowadays)
and two new books instead
I may look for jeans online

I'll sign off with a musical bonus from 10,000 Maniacs, a song about illiteracy. Just click on the title: Cherry Tree

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Reading

So, you’re waiting at a Railway Station and realise that you’ve forgotten to bring a book to read for the four hour journey you have ahead of you. You go to the station booksellers and to your dismay all they have for sale are posh magazines, expensive hardbacks of fiction or non-fiction or shoddy discounted books discarded by their publishers. Doesn’t sound very realistic for today’s market.

And you’d be right as this was back in the autumn of 1934 when, as the story goes, a certain Allen Lane had been a weekend guest at Agatha Christie’s and was faced with the above dilemma at Exeter Station. I would probably bought a shoddy discount book but Lane didn’t. He got on the London train and spent his time thinking about what had just happened.

I’m condensing the next bit but during that journey and during subsequent conversations with his two brothers they realised that the rapid expansion of the middle class in the time up to the 30s had created a very large group of people with the money to spend on books and the leisure time in which to read them. Basically the people who now commuted to work.

world famous Penguin Books logo

The three Lane brothers had all been born with the family name Williams, the sons of Samuel Williams and Camilla Lane, who was a cousin of the London publisher John Lane senior, the managing partner of The Bodley Head who had married late in life and had no children; in 1919, he therefore invited Allen Williams, then aged 16, to join the Bodley Head, on the proviso that he changed his name to Lane. Consequently, the whole Williams family changed their name to Williams-Lane in April 1919. Allan Lane was invited to join the board of The Bodley Head in 1924 and he gradually took control of the company. The two younger Williams-Lane brothers also eventually joined The Bodley Head.

Apparently the normal routine at the house they shared in Talbot Square, London was that the brothers had a morning ritual of sharing the bathroom. Allen in the bath while Richard shaved and John sat on the toilet seat and chatted, before they rotated.

But in 1934 Bodley Head were in financial difficulties so when they did get to work in The Bodley Head’s office in Vigo Street, they needed to come up with a plan to save the company. The brothers had been aware of the successful Albatross imprint of paperback books, printed in English, that had been established in Hamburg in Germany in 1932. The Albatross books were for sale to English language readers in continental Europe, and were designed to be attractive, partly due to their meeting the ‘Golden Mean’ ratio defined by Leonardo da Vinci, (they measured 181 x 111 mm), were colour-coded for content (green for travel, red for crime, orange for fiction, etc) and were sold in covers designed with a logo and typography.

After much discussion the brothers, together with a few of their Bodley Head staff, came up with the idea of Penguin books, learning and borrowing much from the Albatross imprint. They copied the use of colour coding, plain typography and an avian logo on the cover of the books. Their code was orange for fiction, green for crime, blue for biography, cerise for travel, red for plays, grey for world affairs, yellow for miscellaneous, and violet for essays and ‘belles lettres'.

evolution of the Penguin logo as first devised by Edward Young

It is also not clear precisely who came up with the choice of ‘Penguin’ as the imprint title; some say that it was Allan Lane’s secretary. It is clear that one of the staff, Edward Young, who was to become the first production manager at Penguin Books, was dispatched to London Zoo in Regents Park to sketch the penguins in their relatively new enclosure and to come up with a logo. On his return, he said the penguins were rather smelly.

The big idea was to go big or go home. They would produce a new series of affordable, nicely produced paperbacks that contained high quality literary works, and they would aim to sell enough of them that the price could remain low without the series making a loss. Allen was absolutely committed to the cover price being only sixpence, believing that a good book should cost the same as a packet of ten cigarettes.

Penguin Book dispenser

Richard Lane did the arithmetic and came up with a formula that worked at a royalty of one farthing per copy to the copyright holder. With an initial print run of 20,000 copies, the enterprise could break even at 17,000 copies sold at 6d., assuming the production and distribution costs remained stable at about 2 1/2 d. With the book retailer getting 2d per book, Penguin books would receive just over 1d per book sold. Further impressions (reprints) of each book would yield greater profits, because much of the cost of production had been covered by the first 17,000 copies.

One of the key aims was to sell the books in places that hadn’t sold books before. For example. Woolworth’s but its chief buyer Clifford Prescott, an American, was not impressed by Lane’s initial pitch. Their meeting was interrupted by Prescott’s wife who saw Lane’s Penguins spread across the table. She said she’d buy a couple each week when they cost just six pence each. Prescott listened to his better half and ordered 63,500 books from Penguin.

The first ten Penguins were 6 orange novels, two green crime books (a Dorothy Sayers and an Agatha Christie) and 2 blue biographies. The original Agatha Christie title “The Mysterious Affair at Styles“, had to be replaced by “Murder on the Links” due to a misunderstanding over copyright ownership.

Ariel was Penguin Number 1. The English copyright was already conveniently held by The Bodley Head. The copyright of six of the ten first Penguins was held by the publisher Jonathan Cape, a good friend of Allen Lane. He is famously quoted by his biographer Michael S Howard as saying that he was certain that the Penguin venture would fail, and so thought that he would take 400 pounds from Allan Lane for the copyrights, before Penguin was declared to be bankrupt.

Within a year, Penguin had sold 3 million paperbacks and it was split off from the Bodley Head to be its own standalone publisher.

Some of the above information was gleaned from the very, very wonderful BBC radio series ‘Shedunnit’ by Caroline Crampton. You’ll find it on BBC Sounds. A treasure trove of information about the Golden Age of Crime. Here’s a link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0c3gky2

I mentioned at the start about the shoddy books being dumped. This week, a poem about how they were sometimes used.

Derek’s Bookstall, Preston Market

New York from Liverpool
with a mixed cargo
dirty November weather
and orders from the owner
for a quick turn round

Stevedores take cover
in the empty hold
jabbing points about
Dempsey’s next fight
till an agent calls a load
to make the tide.

From his bridge of books
another Derek ends the tale
a sharp wind ignored
as a flask is raised
to the Derek that started it all

more than eighty years ago
just a man passing
the Albert Edward Dock
as a ship discarded Atlantic weight
a man who had the wit to know
that books could be more than ballast.

First published in Orbis, May 2012

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Reading - I Love Books

 

This is a favourite poem by Julia Donaldson,

I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

                                           Julia Donaldson

I spent yesterday afternoon reading a book, an actual book with paper pages. I found a quiet corner, made myself comfortable and escaped into a gentle Josephine Cox. She could weave a good yarn and I found this one to be an excellent page turner. I’m often reading, but this was a bit different. I was out of the comforts of home to the clinical, basic décor of a hospital waiting area. My husband was having a procedure and needed a responsible adult to take him home and stay with him afterwards. That’s me, then. In sickness and in health. With him safely delivered to the appropriate department, I wandered off to find some lunch. I’m very familiar with our hospital, but new bits keep being added and I was thrown off course for a few minutes, until I recognised something. I’d gone the wrong way, so about turn, and quickly found where I wanted to be. Soon, fed and watered, I was back in the correct waiting room, ready to read for hours on end, which I did.

A few people came and went, though it seemed to be a quiet department. Patients had a minder to accompany them, sitting in pairs. Conversation was whispered. Occasionally, a phone rang at reception or a mobile phone trilled. I seemed to be the only person reading. Most people had their phone out. A sign of the times, I suppose. I like to do a quick ‘Wordscape’ or remind myself of something I’ve forgotten on Google. Of course, they could be reading on their phones. I have Kindle on mine. It’s not the same as turning real pages. I miss that. I soon stopped people-watching and continued with Josephine’s novel.

Before Covid restrictions put an end to it, waiting rooms everywhere had a pile of well-thumbed magazines spilling off a table. I would fish out the most interesting problem pages in Woman’s Own. It was better than getting called into an appointment mid-way through an absorbing read of a riveting article, disturbed from and never to return.

I’ve always been a bookworm. As soon as I learnt to read, and I was a keen pupil, I was off into wherever stories could take me. I would get into trouble many times for continuing to read in bed after ‘lights out’, sometimes with a torch under the covers, which really angered my mother. She would threaten to take my book away, but she never did.

As a volunteer at primary school, I’ve enjoyed listening to children read aloud and praising them for an excellent effort. Now, based in the library I’m happy to help them to choose a book and give encouragement to read for themselves. I used to tell my own children that if they can read, they can do anything. Here’s a quote from Ricky Gervais, in his support of keeping public libraries open,

“I had no money growing up. My dad was a labourer and my mum did everything to make ends meet. Men worked hard. Women worked miracles. But education was free. As was the local library. I knew books were my passport to a better life.”

I agree, and Roald Dahl must have thought along the same lines. His ‘Matilda’ is terrific.

By the way, all went well at the hospital. We were there for hours, but those hours of waiting gave me a perfect opportunity to enjoy reading without feeling guilty that the kitchen floor needs mopping.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Primal

I wasn’t feeling so well when I started on this blog. The last thing I needed was to have to sit down at a keyboard for however long it would take to write. So, then I came across a Wiki synopsis of an Australian film from 2010 entitled ‘Primal’ with the following as its first paragraph:

A group of friends—Anja, Mel, Dace, Chad, Kris, and Warren—embark on a journey into the Australian outback where Dace, an anthropology student, aims to study ancient symbols outside a mysterious cave. They are soon attacked by a bizarre, aggressive rabbit with sharp teeth, which injures Kris before the group manages to kill it. Bewildered, they return to their camp.

The whole film sounded bonkers so my first thoughts were cut and paste the whole Wiki page into the blog and see if that will do. And it nearly did but it was a bit boring after a while and there must be something else that Primal can signify.

According to the texts it can be used to describe emotions, instincts, or behaviours that are thought to be innate or deeply ingrained in human nature. For example, one might say that fear is a primal emotion, referring to the idea that the feeling of fear is something that is hardwired into human biology. If I see a snake I run away.

In the context of psychology it may be used to describe the earliest and most basic part of the psyche, that is thought to have been formed in the earliest stages of human development i.e. The id. It is the part of us that wants immediate gratification. If I see some cheese I run towards it.

In Anthropology, primal societies are those that are thought to have existed before the development of modern civilization, often characterized by simple social organization and a way of life that is closely connected to nature.

In general, primal refers to something that is basic, fundamental or essential, often associated with a primitive or ancient origin. I’m sure there’s a link to slippers somewhere but can’t find it.

Going back to the movies. There is an animation film called Primal described as: A caveman and a Tyrannosaurus Rex end up forming an unlikely bond and work together to survive in a dangerous prehistoric world. It seems very, very popular.

I followed this up today and hadn’t realised that the film was by Russian-American artist, director Genndy Tartakovsky who is also responsible for 2012 Hotel Transylvania.

Reviewers say: ‘This time the director brings us this primeval brutal, savage, magnificently, helmed spectacle.’. ‘You don't need a single finished sentence of dialogue to tell a brilliant, edge-sittingly fascinating story’.

Then there is the 2019 film Primal where the hero seems to be a big game hunter (Really?). Rotten Tomatoes says: ‘Chiefly of interest to Nicolas Cage completists and hardcore B-movie fans, this action thriller suffers from an unfortunate lack of Primal energy’.

Primal Scream are a Scottish rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow. I’ve just watched a few of their videos and songs and they don’t do anything for me. Can’t understand a word they’re singing for a start.

I haven’t any Primal poems so I think this one by Tracy K. Smith will suit.

The Universe as Primal Scream

5pm on the nose. They open their mouths
And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.
First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,
They both let loose at once, and I think
Of putting on my shoes to go up and see
Whether it is merely an experiment
Their parents have been conducting
Upon the good crystal, which must surely
Lie shattered to dust on the floor.

Maybe the mother is still proud
Of the four pink lungs she nursed
To such might. Perhaps, if they hit
The magic decibel, the whole building
Will lift-off, and we'll ride to glory
Like Elijah. If this is it—if this is what
Their cries are cocked toward—let the sky
Pass from blue, to red, to molten gold,
To black. Let the heaven we inherit approach.

Whether it is our dead in Old Testament robes,
Or a door opening onto the roiling infinity of space.
Whether it will bend down to greet us like a father,
Or swallow us like a furnace. I'm ready
To meet what refuses to let us keep anything
For long. What teases us with blessings,
Bends us with grief. Wizard, thief, the great
Wind rushing to knock our mirrors to the floor,
To sweep our short lives clean. How mean

Our racket seems beside it. My stereo on shuffle.
The neighbour chopping onions through a wall.
All of it just a hiccough against what may never
Come for us. And the kids upstairs still at it,
Screaming like the Dawn of Man, as if something
They have no name for has begun to insist
Upon being born.

Copyright Credit: Tracy K. Smith, "The Universe as Primal Scream" from Life on Mars. Copyright © 2011 by Tracy K. Smith. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press. www.graywolfpress.org
Source: Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011)

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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