Colour

What’s the most popular colour in the world? I’ll come to that in a minute but I can reveal now that it is not a beigey sort of brown. No, that’s just mine. I met a Colour Therapist on a train journey many years ago who explained that the seven colours of the spectrum relate to the seven main chakras - or energy centres - of the body. Depending on your mood and physical health, she would use specific colours to treat the afflicted parts of someone’s body. I wonder now what she’d use beigey brown for.

But what is colour anyway? Well, it’s not actually a thing in itself. In physics, colour is associated specifically with electromagnetic radiation of a certain range of wavelengths. The visible light spectrum is the segment of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye can view. Typically, the human eye can detect wavelengths from 380 to 700 nanometres.

 

Our ability to distinguish colours is based upon the varying sensitivity of different cells, called rods and cones, in the retina to light of those different wavelengths. Rods are responsible for vision at low light levels, cones are responsible for vision at higher light levels. When light hits the rods and cones (termed photoreceptors) they turn the light into electrical signals. These electrical signals travel from the retina through the optic nerve to the brain. Then the brain turns the signals into the images we can see.

And what we see in terms of colour preferences according to Chris, the founder of The Organic & Natural Paint Co, is an astonishing range of opinions and emotions that are influenced by cultural, social, and personal factors. He is the one who has done the research to discover that favourite colour.

But before we come to that he also asked ‘What is the Most Humble Colour’? A question that had never occurred to me. He says that a humble colour can be described as one that evokes feelings of modesty, simplicity, and understatement. It is a hue that doesn’t demand attention but rather blends into the background, providing a subtle and calming presence. This is me.

And then ‘How Do I Choose My Favourite Colour?’ He says that one way to identify your favourite colour is to consider the feelings, memories, and associations that different hues evoke for you. For example, if the colour blue brings to mind happy childhood memories or feelings of tranquillity, it may be a strong contender for your favourite shade.

Pay attention to your emotional reactions when encountering various colours. If a particular hue consistently brings you joy or a sense of calm, it may be your favourite colour.

He suggests that your favourite colour may be influenced by the colours that dominate your surroundings. Take note of the hues that recur in your wardrobe, home décor, and other personal spaces. This may provide clues to the colours that resonate most with you. Well, the fact that my bathroom is red, my kitchen is blue and my lounge is brown has a resonance, but I’m not sure what it means. But my walls are a glorious shade of beige.

So, I’ll move on to the great reveal and let Chris explain:

With over 7 billion people on the planet, identifying the world’s favourite colour is no small feat. However, we’ve delved into the subject to uncover the most beloved hue across different cultures and time periods. The result? Blue emerges as the most adored colour by people across the globe.

Rothko 'Blue'

And just to show I’m with it and for your information British Vogue and Pantone declared ‘Mocha Mousse’ the Colour of The Year 2025 which ‘captures the global zeitgeist’ and answers ‘our desire for comfort’ in its references to chocolate, coffee and indulgence.

Well, I’ve been saying things about colour:

Once it was the Colour of Saying

Once it was the colour of saying
Soaked my table the uglier side of a hill
With a capsized field where a school sat still
And a black and white patch of girls grew playing;
The gentle seaslides of saying I must undo
That all the charmingly drowned arise to cockcrow and kill.
When I whistled with mitching boys through a reservoir park
Where at night we stoned the cold and cuckoo
Lovers in the dirt of their leafy beds,
The shade of their trees was a word of many shades
And a lamp of lightning for the poor in the dark;
Now my saying shall be my undoing,
And every stone I wind off like a reel.

                                                                    Dylan Thomas

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Tulips

The question I have to ask myself is whether I would sell my house for the bulb of a flower in the hope that in a few week’s time I could sell the bulb to buy a mansion. I’ll think about it.

In the meantime let’s have a look back to Holland in the early 1600s. The introduction of tulips to Holland in the latter part of the sixteenth century coincided with the fashion for the newly emergent middle and upper classes to keep gardens. Their gardens either adjoined town houses, or were in separate plots outside the city walls. This was a form of conspicuous consumption, a way in which the newly rich could display their wealth. Tulips were an exotic item from the East, newly imported at a time when global trade was just beginning to have an impact, of which the Dutch were leaders. In time other plants would be all the rage, but in the 1630s it was tulips.

The Dutch East India Company earned huge profits and their shares increased greatly in value. The demand for tulips soared, and in response the number of tulips available for sale rose accordingly; by the mid-1630s there were more than 500 varieties. Some perspective is given to the Dutch craze by the fact that France had already experienced its own tulip mania, where prices reached similarly unfeasible heights.

England did not experience a craze for tulips, but there are parallels with other fashionable plants in England, not least the orchid, for which there were weekly auctions in London in the Edwardian period. The author Rider Haggard tells of a Mr. Tracy, who was offered and refused seventeen hundred guineas for an Odontoglossum Crispum “Think of it! He refused the value of a good sized farm for that one frail and perishable plant!”

Tulip Mania - Jan Brueghel the Younger, 1640

The phenomenon later described as Tulipomania arose in the autumn and winter of 1636-37 when, according to the best evidence, very small offsets increased in price between four and ten times in the last three months of 1636 and large bulbs increased in price five fold. The demand for the tulip trade was so large by the end of that year that regular marts for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam in Rotterdam, Haarlem, and other towns.

It was at this time that professional traders got in on the action and everyone appeared to be making money simply by possessing some of these rare bulbs. It seemed at the time that the price could only go up, that the passion for tulips would last forever. People had purchased bulbs on credit, hoping to repay their loans when they sold their bulbs for a profit.

However, the bubble had burst by the end of 1637. Buyers announced that they couldn't pay the high prices previously agreed upon for bulbs and the market fell apart. It wasn't a devastating occurrence for the nation’s economy but it did undermine social expectations. The event destroyed relationships built on trust and people’s willingness and ability to pay.

It should be said that there were no discernible bankruptcies amongst the participants and little or no effect on the wider economy. Remarkably, also, considering the scope for fraud, there seems to have been little or no criminal activity.

The Tulipomania story became notorious upon the publication in 1846 of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, which has never been out of print. His source was a series of three propaganda leaflets published anonymously in the aftermath of the events, in particular one entitled Dialogue between True-mouth and Greedy-goods. As the title suggests, it is a satire, and as it is in the very nature of satire to exaggerate to make a point, it would be unwise to rely on it as being necessarily true.

Much of the information above comes from articles by Jonathan Denby, Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Tulipmania: About the Dutch Tulip Bulb Market Bubble by Adam Hayes (Investopedia) and Doug Ashburn (Britannica Money).

No, I wouldn’t sell my house as I like my house and the area I live in. Anyway, if I had a mansion just think of all the cleaning.

I couldn’t resist this poem by Dylan Thomas:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Villanelle for Mum

Writing a Villanelle isn't easy. I can give you some basic tools such as the rhyming scheme;

A1-b-A2 / a-b-A1 / a-b-A2 / a-b-A1 / a-b-A2 / a-b-A1-A2 which looks simple enough.

I can tell you to make your 'b' an easy to rhyme ending 'such as the 'ay' ending chosen by Dylan Thomas in his remarkable Villanelle, "Do not go Gentle into that Good Night."

I can post that poem for you here;

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

 

Unfortunately, what I can't do is to teach you how to write a Villanelle with that much power. The power of a poem belongs to the writer.  As with any other act of creation, it begins with an idea, requires mood, dedication and vocabulary to express the required emotions. 

 

I have tried on a number of occasions to write a Villanelle. The rhyming scheme is technical and doesn't easily lend itself to creativity except when the mood is right. I have failed in the past to write in this form with any impact. 

 

This week I have been making preparations for my Mum's funeral and decided to honour her long and mostly happy life with a poem, to read during the church service. While caring for her at home towards the end of her life, I had little time and the poems that I managed to cobble together were in the moment and as a result, would be quite traumatising for a congregation assembled to see delivered safely to her maker. 

 

The poem I have dedicated to her is a Villanelle and I hope that it successfully reflects the sadness that we, her family, feel her loss and my own concerns for our own future. 

 

 

 

 

 Villanelle for Mum

 

This day begins our mourning, now at last we cry.

Laid in a simple casket, you take your last repose.

Daffodils will bow their heads as your cortege goes by.

 

Tonight there’ll be another star to light up heaven’s sky

The angels caught your gentle spirit as it rose.

This day begins our mourning, now at last we cry.

 

You leave us, dearest mother, though we feel you ever nigh,

We’ll catch your scent in summer’s sweetest rose.

Daffodils will bow their heads as your cortege goes by.

 

Adrift without our anchor, we are caught up in a sigh

of anguish for the family bonds you chose.

This day begins our mourning, now at last we cry.

 

Geography may part us and as the years pass by,

No lynch pin now can hold us close.

Daffodils will bow their heads as your cortege goes by.

 

Our mother, friend, our counsellor, for you, I know we’ll try.

The Carleton garden will soon bear your sweetest prose,

Today begins our mourning, now at last we cry

Daffodils will bow their heads as your cortege goes by.

 

Written 28^th February 2018 (In preparation for the funeral of Dorothy Ada Robinson who died on 

18^th February 2018 (aged 97 and a half!)

 

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Winter Ghosts - just beyond the veil.

The winter months are  a reflective time for me - tinged with sadness. The long dark nights make me want to snuggle down early with a good book.  Too much time sitting alone at night allows me to dwell and get down. Keeping busy at home helps.  The ghosts that haunt me, although kindly, make my heart sad.  They haunt my home.  I miss them.

I miss Dad.  His birthday was 13th December - so this month was always a celebration when he was alive. I remember the care he took with decorating the pubs he ran.  At The Everest, he made Santas on sleighs to fly among the climbing gear and mountains on the walls.  There was always a huge welcoming Christmas tree at The Eagle & Child and the restaurant would be filled with people on works Christmas parties, enjoying the seasonal cheer. My father was a generous man. Giving brought him (and us) such joy.

My Godmother Mavis died on 19th December. She had sent a beautiful Christmas card with a tiny angel made from wine and feathers on the front. That night it fluttered to the ground.  As I picked it up, I actually asked it what it was trying to tell me. Her death was unexpected.  Her gifts to us were under my tree until I took it down. They were always so beautifully wrapped, with bows and bells. The contents were secondary to the care and attention she gave to the excitement of the parcel. I bought a pair of black dressy shoes with the money that she had slipped into the box of Swiss chocolates.  The shoes are past their prime but I still wear them.  I can't bear to part with them.  Every year, when I decorate my tree, I get out the box of baubles and there is her angel. My Winter Ghost.

There was Dad's friend Kenny.  So full of fun.  He always called to see us at Christmas. Gone now. 

My Grandmother Phyllis, who hid all her Christmas gifts under her bed. We always found them.

There are my own traditions. Rituals played out each year. Home made soup, mulled wine and Christmas strudel on Christmas Eve after church. Eggs benedict for breakfast.  Mum watching the Queen's speech before we eat lunch. My only wish for Christmas is that I can share it with her at least one more time before she too becomes a Winter Ghost.

When you love someone deeply - they never leave you. They are as much a part of you as the next generation. When they pass - love stays and keeps you strong until another Spring. We miss them but they have passed on the baton: We have no choice but to live up to their expectations of us. 

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion. 

Dylan Thomas.

Thanks for reading.  Adele                        

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A Tragic Year

As Adele quite rightly pointed out yesterday, a tragedy is an event that causes suffering, destruction and/or distress.

Quite frankly, for many people, this year is turning out to be a tragic one indeed. Our "adopted" family, the people we hold in high esteem; be they musicians, actors, composers, directors, playwrights, authors, designers, philosophers, footballers ... The list of names of note that have departed this mortal coil since Christmas 2015 is quite staggering. But of all the names on that list, all much loved, there are two that hit me hardest .... Alan Rickman and Victoria Wood. I first saw Alan Rickman in Die Hard and didn't think much of it (action films are ok, but not my favourite films). However, watching him in Love Actually hurt. I mean really hurt. How could he cheat? The sense of disappointment was palpable. Then came Snape in the Harry Potter films and my heart was hardened altogether on a character who, I thought, was a bad'un .... then shattered into a gazillion pieces on finding out the truth when he died. A talented actor who could draw you in and immerse the viewer totally. As for Victoria Wood, well who couldn't love a true northern lass who was funny ... And I mean FUNNY! Lord knows, we need more laughter in this world. I loved the sketch shows, the stand up shows, but most of all, I loved Dinnerladies.

Now bearing mind that this post is written in April ... This may need updating before the year is out.

The 2016 Starlight Parade:

In December 2015, the Grim Reaper declared
All out war on "celebrity".
Enough was enough, the scales had tipped,
Burning on his scroll, too many names awaiting eternity.
He sharpened the blade of his iconic scythe
'Til it hummed and sang with each stroke of pumice stone,
Sparks spitting, sulphurous fumes emitting,
It was time to call some legends to a new home.
The first name to appear quite fittingly was
Lemmy - a hell raiser indeed!
But it was not just rockers who would fall to his blade,
But any public figure held in high esteem.
So far we have lost musicians and playwrights, 
actors, directors, conductors and more ...
Not only they ... but designers, composers,
philosophers, footballers and authors.
Individually we will remember those we held close to our hearts,
And thank them for their talent, their gift to us all,
Look to the night sky and marvel anew,
The Starlight Parade growing in a bid to enthrall.


I can't make all their names fit into this poem,  although I did try. So below in no particular order, is a list of the majority of people who have passed this year. I apologise if I missed anyone.

Lemmy, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Victoria Wood, Terry Wogan, Ronnie Corbett, Paul Daniels, David Gest, Doris Roberts, Prince, Guy Hamilton, Actor Gareth Thomas, Sir Arnold Wesker, David Swift, Merle Haggard, Leandro "Gato" Barbieri, Patty Duke, Gary Shandling, Jim Harrison, Ken Howard, Phife Dawg, Rita Gam, Cliff Michelmore, Frank Sinatra Jr., Sylvia Anderson, Asa Briggs, Anita Brookner, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Keith Emmerson, Ken Adam, Sir George Martin, Michael White, Pat Conroy, Tony Dyson, Tony Warren, George Kennedy, Louise Rennison, Frank Kelly, Tony Burton, John Chilton, Johnny Murphy, Douglas Slocombe, Umberto Eco, Harper Lee, Geroge Gaynes, Daniel Gerson, Dan Hicks, Maurice White, Joe Alaskey, Initzar Hussain, Frank Finlay, Paul Kantner, Chyna, Signe Tole Anderson, Abe Vigoda, Colin Vearncombe, Jimmy Bain, Glen Frey, Dale Griffin, Clarence Reid, Dan Haggerty, Robert Stigwood, Vilmos Zsigmond, Natalie Cole, David Margulies, Richard Davalos, Johan Cruyff .... Rest In Peace all.

By losing these names, we lose a part of our youth. So, to other celebrities I say it brings to mind a poem by Dylan Thomas ... Do Not Go Gentle Into That Dark Night ...

Thanks for reading. x

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Essence and Inspiration

An interview with Cath Nichols, extended from one previously conducted by Deborah Swift (novelist) at: www.deborahswift.co.uk

1. What is it about poetry that makes it essential to you?

Something about the reading of poems makes me go into a different space/time experience – whether that’s reading them in my head or hearing the poet read them out loud. It’s not usually the ‘story-telling’ space (which I think of as a kind of escapism, or learning, or forward momentum) that I get from reading prose. It’s more like meditation or a quality of attention. If prose is forward momentum, poetry is circular; it ripples out from the centre. Certainly when I’m writing poetry, too, there is a sense of ‘tardis space’ – time spent ‘in’ poetry is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!

2.Tell me about the themes that most excite you at the moment, or structures in poetry or prose that make your eyes light up.

I have been preoccupied with the sea for years and with various myths. Also hybrid people and characters: for example, mermaids, and over the last couple of years the Procne and Philomela, a myth where both women are turned into birds. I’ve noticed that I often get hooked on material that was someone else’s first. The hook is where my mind keeps going back to a thing that I disagree with strongly (such as Hans Christian Anderson’s use of the little mermaid and how she has to work to earn a place in heaven - yuk). It’s the gritty irritation than later develops into something, a percieved injustice in the older writing that needs re-writing for today (in my opinion). Philomela (the nightingale in various odes) had real appeal: why should she turn into a nightingale and sing a sweet sad song having been raped by her brother-in-law? It made me furious! So, I wrote a poem and later a play (set in the present and involving an Asian family in Manchester) to work out a different approach.

I am building up a novel now which is a response to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Again deep outrage that Imogen’s husband agrees to a bet to test his wife’s faithfulness. She is put at great risk; he believes she has been unfaithful and sends someone to kill her; and then at the end of the story they reunite to live happily ever after! Aargh! The gall of it. Of course, I realise in those days women had to put up with a great deal and possibly marriage was the best protection available, so you’d do all you could to make it work, and forgive all kinds of crap. But not now.
Investigating structures: now I’m doing longer works I am fascinated by links between poetry and prose or plays – it’s something about rhythm and alternation, I think. In prose it seems to be to do with suspending the revelation of plot and creating recurring motifs; and in a poem it’s to do with the tension in enjambment, and repetition of words or sounds.

3. You are interested in radio and the aural experience of words. How has this influenced your work?

It was a big part of my PhD research. I’d noticed that many poets write for radio as dramatists, docu-drama writers and sometimes as poets. I love Michael Symmons Roberts work (he used to be a BBC documentary producer and later Head of Religious Broadcasting before becoming a full-time poet and academic). Paul Farley and Simon Armitage too have done a lot. Way back you have Dylan Thomas and in fact almost every poet based in London in the forties did some work for radio as an actor, writer or producer. Samuel Beckett did some innovative stuff (he did the first really radiophonic play All that Fall – using sound in a distorted way for atmospheric effect). Joan Littlewood and Charles Parker valued working-class history and experience. With Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger they made the Radio Ballads series: this pretty much invented documentary without commentary – people were heard in their own voices for the first time, instead of transcribed interviews being read by actors! That followed on from the invention of new technologies that made recording equipment portable – writers and producers could get out and about.
Kathleen Jamie did a wonderful radio play in the 90s that had imagined characters from Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings talking about their lives since the great Whitsun train ride. Their stories were interleaved with Larkin reading the poem. You can listen to it in the British Library if you go to the sound archive there. All of it is just so inspiring.

I’ve done some local BBC radio short drama and poetry but I’m still trying to crack Radio 4 drama. New writers have to go via the Afternoon Play slot which is pretty pedestrian. Only the famous get asked to do docu-drama stuff, which would be more up my street. So, watch this space!

4. Which other writers have made a lasting impression on you and why?

For novels, Shani Mootoo’s The Cereus Blooms at Night. Fabulous, surprising novel set in the Caribbean with race, sexuality (as in queer as well as straight) and gender issues seamlessly woven through a great story set in the past and present.
Anne Carson, a Canadian poet and Classics professor who writes book-length poems or sequences. The Autobiography of Red (Red is a little ‘creature’ from a Greek myth alive in the present day), and Glass and Gods. The sequence where the narrator goes home to Mum after heartbreak, but re-investigates Emily Bronte and the moors, sums up a particular kind of sadness and detachment. It is sometimes shocking when it describes certain acts of desperation, but it’s so truthful as to how humans can be with each other. The Beauty of the Husband is another book-length poem of hers (subtitled ‘a fictional essay in 29 tangos’!). It won the T.S. Eliot Prize a few years ago). Carson also does translations of Greek drama and writes fantastic essays.

5. Tell me about your publications or scripts-in-progress.

Pamphlet, Tales of Boy Nancy (Driftwood, 2005). This is being re-issued soon by erbacce press (Driftwood having closed) with a group of new poems, ‘Distance’.
Collection, My Glamorous Assistant (Headland, 2007).
I’ve poems forthcoming in Poetry Wales and The Stinging Fly and, I found out last month that I’ll be in 2012’s Lung Jazz: Young Poets for Oxfam. I’m not that young, but the line was drawn at 40 years old at the time of sending in work last year.
I’ve a couple of plays doing the rounds at the moment (i.e. being sent to theatres and companies), so look out for them, or if you’re part of a theatre group you can request to read them. They all have very strong parts for women. Drowning Meirion Evans – set around 1915, Woolworths, the Lusitania and with lots of magical business. Birdie – the Philomela myth re-written for an Asian family in Manchester. And there’s Ada – a take on Phaedre where an older married woman falls for a young lad with dire consequences. I took inspiration from the Iris/ Peter Robinson affair in Northern Ireland (she was sixty and had an affair with a nineteen year old, yikes!), but also gave it a twist: she is ardently religious and finds out that the lad thinks he might be gay – so she’s trying to ‘help’ him be straight. It all takes place in a country on the brink of civil war, and Ada is married to the country’s president.

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