DNA

I wonder if the name Colin Pitchfork means anything to anyone reading my DNA blog. The possible early release from prison of violent offenders is a hot topic at the moment and although Pitchfork (now aged 66) was originally sentenced to imprisonment for 30 years in 1988, he is still behind bars 38 years after his conviction, and was last denied parole by a review board in 2025.

His crimes? The rape and murder of two schoolgirls, Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, in Leicestershire in the 1980s, plus two other counts of sexual assault on young women, and an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

The real significance of his case? It was the first ever conviction secured on the basis of DNA evidence.

Colin Pitchfork

He nearly got away with it, for when the police arranged for 9,000 men in the locality between the ages of 16 and 34 to report in and give blood for DNA sampling, he sent along a friend of his with a fake passport purporting to be Pitchfork, a ruse that was only discovered after an overheard conversation in a pub. When Pitchfork finally provided a sample, his DNA was a match for that found on both murdered schoolgirls. Professor (now Sir) Alex Jeffreys of Leicester University was the scientist who helped the police with that investigation and whose pioneering work on techniques for genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling became standard practice worldwide.

I was intrigued by a book review in New Scientist a couple of months ago. That book is 'The Secrets of Our DNA ' by Turi King. (It's currently on order.) One anecdote in particular intrigued me, so I will share it in full with you:

"In 1993, a 62-year-old woman in Idar-Oberstein in Germany was found strangled. DNA on a coffee cup suggested that two people were present besides the victim, and that one of the apparent killers was a woman. In 2001, the suspected female murderer's DNA turned up again in Germany, this time on the body of a 61-year-old man in Freiburg. Then her DNA started appearing at crime scenes in Austria and France as well.

"In 2007, the mysterious woman hit the headlines when two police officers were shot, one fatally, in their car in the German city of Heilbronn, and her DNA was found in the back seat. This sparked a major hunt for the 'Phantom of Heilbronn' as she became known. But the phantom proved elusive, despite being linked to forty-one crimes via her DNA. In some cases, her accomplices were caught, but they denied that any woman was involved. Police started to consider the possibility that the criminal was transgender.

swabbing for human DNA

"It wasn't until 2009 that the 'Phantom of Heilbronn' was finally identified - as a woman who worked in a factory that made swabs for DNA testing! Contamination in the production process had been the problem and the police had wasted years on the trail of a non-existent killer. The 'Phantom of Heilbronn' really was a phantom."

While the majority of convictions based on DNA are sound, the example above and a few notable miscarriages of justice mean that DNA 'evidence' has to be interpreted very carefully, as crime scenes are often complex and the process of collecting materials for DNA profiling can give rise to cross-contamination, the unintentional transference of DNA evidence from one item or location to another.  

DNA is omnipresent in the animal world. There is no living, reproducing organism that doesn't have DNA as the genome. In fact all animals share some DNA with human beings - probably dating back to the origins of animal life on earth in the hot vents of underwater volcanoes in the planet's oceans.

We know there were various versions of human beings (hominins) back along our evolutionary road, maybe as many as thirteen different types over eight million years since we diverged from chimpanzees (whose DNA is 98.4% identical to human DNA). Nowadays only one exists, Homo sapiens. We know about our ancestors mainly thanks to fossil remains and DNA analysis.

There are also only two types of alligators alive today of the ten species that are known to have existed, from fossil remains and DNA analysis, and one of those, the Chinese alligator, is on the critically endangered list. In the wild, it lives only in about a 5km square region of freshwater ponds in the Anhui province of south-western China. Its close cousin, the American alligator is in much better shape, being widespread though the freshwater wetlands of the southern United States. It is thought that alligators originated in North America some 37 million years ago and that the Chinese branch migrated to Asia across the Bering land bridge some 20 million years ago. They are, of course, the template for the Chinese Dragon of myth and legend.

swabbing for alligator DNA

Why did I want to introduce alligators into this blog about DNA? It's not as though they kill people and need tracking down. That's much more in the nature of crocodiles, who are vicious predators. Alligators by contrast are quite shy and peaceable creatures. No, I had a poem about alligators and thought I might as well use it here masquerading as a DNA piece.

Alligators

There are two types of alligators.

They are known as

type 1 alligators and type 2 alligators

and it is perfectly possible 

to catch either but not both of them.

Type 1 alligators can quite often

be caught during pregnancy

or at birth. DNA might suggest 

a pre-disposition for doing so,

and for type 1 alligators

life is fraught  from an early age

which seems particularly unfair.

For type 2 alligators, generally

caught later in life 

most often as a result of being 

somewhat fat and lazy

and having a sweet tooth

despite the warnings,

it ought to be an avoidable fate.

As a result of being caught,

both type 1 and type 2 alligators

are awkward customers

prone to spiky, insulting

and moody  behaviour and need

careful handling to keep them

from becoming a threat to life.

Wait. No. What am I saying?

Diabetes, Not Alligators.

That makes way more sense.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Compulsion

"Patient 'B' is an interesting case study," said my friend the psychiatrist over a pint of the finest and a large white wine at a pub near Lancaster Moor Hospital (formerly the Lancaster County Lunatic Asylum). I'd told her I was researching compulsion and she'd agreed to share some details of three individuals with me, in complete anonymity of course. This was back in the 1990s. Lancaster Moor Hospital closed before the millennium and my psychiatrist friend is no longer with us.

She was right. Of the three, Patient 'B' was by far the most interesting. A long term inmate since their teens, they exhibited multiple personalities, all of them obsessed in some way with the world of popular music, a condition which first manifested itself simply as a compulsion to invent names for rock groups (their school exercise books were covered in such inventions) but which proliferated remarkably within the confines of the institution.

As DJ Half Life they hosted a regular hits show on Radio Therapy, the pirate station founded and owned by another of their personalities, Ronan O'Reality, which broadcast nightly from a ghost ship moored somewhere off the Lancashire coast. DJ Half Life only played tracks by groups signed to SKL Records, the label of another of their personalities, rock impresario Stephen Kirkby Lonsdale, and published by More Than Songs. 

As John Lemon, one half of the famous and successful song-writing partnership Lemon & Lime (they were also Barry Lime), they wrote a constant flow of song lyrics for the SKL roster of groups to perform. The hits kept coming. There was even talk of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

In addition, as Stella North they acted as SKL publicist, writing sleeve liner notes, constantly drafting press releases, creating pen portraits of many of the group members in the various bands within the SKL empire, and even writing two full music biographies, one of Joe Cockermouth and the other of the pop combo Brian Blackpool & the Coasters.  

Finally, as Van Ordinaire, they were the visual artist for the constantly evolving and expanding roster of talent on SKL Records. They designed all the groups' LP covers as well as their tour posters and a variety of promotional materials, from badges to t-shirts. 

My psychiatrist friend showed me one sample, the latest LP from SKL's current most popular group.

Remarkably, patient 'B' couldn't sing (except out of tune) nor could they play a musical instrument, but that hadn't stopped them from concocting an alternative music industry reality within the confines of Lancaster Moor, the perpetuation of which imaginative feat took all of their waking hours and mental powers. 

I was impressed. I asked my psychiatrist friend if 'Patient B' understood they were mad (a clumsy question, I know), or if they might have been able to use some of their obvious talents in the music industry out in the real world. She said she didn't think so, on either count.

Here, my hearties, is a swashbuckling new poem (in progress) about compulsion... 

The Midnight Disease

Tossed for some time on a ship of dreams

I wake with a scream echoing in my head

as midnight chimes its dozen doomy bells.

'Pieces of fruit! Pieces of fruit!'  My parrot,

damnable bird, proposes a healthy option

as I walk the plank into insomnia, eyepatch

slipping, limbs shivering with nightmarish

sweat. I rip wide the fridge to plunder a tub

of rum and raisin Cornish ice-cream, salve

for yellow feverish thoughts. Xavier, pirate

cat, scrutinizes with a disdainful expression

as I gulp huge cooling spoonsful. Only then

can I settle to compulsive re-drawing of my

treasure map: the island to which you lured

me, the beach on which I was wrecked, the

shady grove wherein twin hearts lie buried,

marked, from memory, with a bright red X.

Every night the same, every night the same.

Thanks for reading, S ;-}

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Trial & Error

Not exactly trial & error on my part, but this is my third shot at today's Saturday blog. Take one was going to describe my ongoing attempts to painstakingly rebuild the complex decorative coving in Adele's front room ceiling. It had been hacked into by previous owners who had installed hardboard arches into alcoves. The restoration is nearly complete, though it has taken ages. You'd be bored.

Take two was inspired by my recent reading of 'The Amateur ' by Robert Littell. It's a literary cold war thriller about a backroom CIA cryptologist who turns rogue assassin to avenge the murder of his girlfriend by a red brigade faction in Europe, because the CIA refuse to act even though they know who the culprits are. The grieving cryptologist succeeds by trial and error, but that's only a fraction of the story. (You'll also find out how he discovered that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare.) If you like cryptology, espionage and brilliant writing, I highly recommend it.

Which leaves us with take three, all about fat narcissus and the reflecting pool, which also happens to be the title of my latest poem. (We'll get to that in a while.)

Donald J Trump is well known for wanting to put his odious and overblown personal stamp on various institutions and symbols of American civic life. First of all there is the ballroom under construction at the White House. Then he tried (and failed) to get both New York's Penn Station and Washington's Dulles International Airport renamed after himself. He did however succeed in getting Palm Beach International Airport renamed President Donald J Trump International Airport. Emboldened, he then renamed the US Institute of Peace the Donald J Trump US Institute of Peace and temporarily added his name to the Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts, though that has since been removed by order of the courts.

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

His campaign of tasteless self-aggrandisement didn't go quite so far as renaming the Lincoln Memorial after himself, though he did have plans for redesigning the iconic Reflecting Pool to his taste ready for the recent 250th Anniversary of US Independence celebrations.

The Reflecting Pool, which holds four million gallons of water and was last renovated in 2012 at a cost of $34m, was not to Trump's liking. Specifically, he didn't approve of the grey stone it was constructed from. In April of this year he commissioned a transformation. "The original gray stone was never good. It never had the color people wanted, but now it’s going to have a great color.” (People? What people?) That colour was going to be "American flag blue", like a Mar-a-Lago swimming pool.

The administration initiated a 'fast-track'  no-bid project to to drain the pool, seal seams and coat the basin bottom in “American flag blue”. The plan envisaged a one-to-two-week timeline and costs were estimated at $1.5m-$2m. Contracts went to companies whose owners were neighbours of Trump in Florida and donors to his presidential re-election fund.

Work was delayed while legal challenges were made on the grounds of lack of competitive tendering and concerns about historic conservation, but the project ground on through May. Once the blue lining was in place, Trump's motorcade even drove through the drained, coated basis to show off the magnificent new hue. The Pool was then refilled  with another four million gallons of water.

It wasn't long, however, before problems began to show themselves. The blue liner began to peel and bubble. Algae started to bloom and cloud the water. Maintenance crews poured in hydrogen peroxide to try and clean up the problem. A nanobubble ozone technology water purification system was installed. The costs of the makeover climbed to $16m (eight times the original estimate) and the water was still scummy green.

Reflecting Pool after Trump's 'Renovation'

Trump was furious and pilloried mercilessly by his detractors. He blamed 'vandals' for the shocking state of the Reflecting Pool, even citing one individual, 67 year old former US Olympian canoeist David Hearn, as being a ringleader. Hearn was arrested and charged but pleaded not guilty.

As Independence Day celebrations approached, anti-algae and clean-up efforts continued apace but the problems persisted. In the event, soon after the July 4th celebrations, the Pool was emptied again and then it was revealed that the root cause was  “a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool”. (Read for that - a cost-cutting project with inadequate materials and sub-par contractors.) The government conceded that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by the interior department. 

It is a huge embarrassment for the administration. The Reflecting Pool remains unfinished, the costs continue to rise, and attorneys for Hearn have said the government “owes Mr Hearn an apology” for falsely accusing him of criminal damage. As for Donald J Trump...

Trump plumbing the metaphorical depths

... here's that poem, based on a Greek myth, by way of Ovid, in which Narcissus fell in love with himself on seeing his reflection in a pool of water, giving us narcissism - a self-centred personality disorder, marked by grandiosity, excessive need for attention and admiration, and an impaired ability to empathize. I've subverted, obviously.

Fat Narcissus And The Reflecting Pool

Oi Ovid! Some modern metamorph this is.

See fat narcissus, more bloated ogre 

than handsome toga'd praetor, kneeling

by his scummy algae-covered pool, cursing

vandals or goths - he doesn't know

the difference, doesn't care - for a loss of face.

Of course the restoration

which was meant to glorify Trump

and the Nation on its big anniversary

was a dumb, cheapskate plan

given without tender to a bunch 

of his out of state cowboys, 

riding roughshod over all concerns,

executed without due diligence 

and ending in expensive disaster.

Yet all the orange buffoon can make out,

as his simple brain tries to plumb

the metaphorical depths 

of his repair gone wrong,

is that someone, not him, 

must have fucked up and yet

he's the one looking like a clown 

in the ripples of green scum.

It's been a giant cock-up for the Pres.

and it's being whispered 

in the corridors of the Capitol

by senators of a back-stabbing bent

that he's less Narcissus poeticus

and more Amorphophallus titanum, 

one of the smelliest plants on Earth -

also nicknamed the corpse flower

for its stench of death.

Thanks for reading, keep resisting. S ;-)

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Abracadabra!

It's a mystical phrase, a magical incantation beloved of conjurers and illusionists the world over, but what is its true origin? Nobody actually knows. There are theories, claims and counter-claims, but nothing definitive. Let's look at a few possibilities.

There was a suggestion that it might derive from Aramaic (a Semitic language that originated in Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, Levant, Sinai, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Arabia), meaning "I create like the word" (אברא כדברא).However, that is refuted by Aramaic linguist Steve Caruso.

Claims have been made for it stemming from Greek, where ΑΒΓΔ (alpha-beta-gamma-delta) are the first four letters, or from Greek language Gnostic Christian bible texts, where Abraxas (Ἀβράξας) is a term for the great creator of the universe. There might be something in that.

Then there is the theory that it might stem from the Latin word abecadarius (itself derived from Greek), essentially meaning “alphabetical order,” in which case it might once have implied putting everything magically back in its correct place. Ingenious but contrived?

However, I think the likeliest source, based on sound alone, is Hebrew. Historian Don Skemer suggests that it might originate from the Hebrew phrase "ha brachah dabarah" (name of the blessed). I'll go with that, but feel free to take your pick.

What is certain is that it was an incantation with supposed magical properties. The first accredited appearance of the word  abracadabra is in the writings of the second century AD Roman physician Serenus Sammonicus in his book 'Liber Medicinalis ', where it appears in connection with treatments for fever (most likely malaria). He prescribed the wearing of an amulet with the word written as an inverted triangle (see below), to ward off the sickness - and by extension, many other afflictions, palsies and plagues.

Quite how abracadabra came to be used by magicians is as shrouded in mystery as the origins of the word itself. They appear to have adopted it by the early 19th century, as an aid to their art, invoking abracadabra to magically assist them in their tricks, in much the same way that a feverous patient would once have called on it to assist them in their recovery.

For evidence, I cite a play by W. T. Moncrieff that was being staged at London's Olympic New Theatre in 1819. In act two, scene three of 'Rochester; or, King Charles the Second's Merry Days ' we find the following: 

"Well then, if you won’t tell our fortunes for us, suppose we tell you yours, our art is very potent - we've studied under Zoroaster and Agrippa! Hey presto pass! Abracadabra!—By the lines of your face, I can perceive... [etc.]"

Used by conjurors and magicians as an exclamation imparting supposed magical power, as when performing a trick, it has come more generally since to be used as an exclamation accompanying any seemingly remarkable feat or occurrence. So there you have it. 

And finally, I'm sure you're expecting a magic new poem. So.... "Abracadabra!" I create like the word...😉

Disillusionist

Wonder while you can.

Once you know it's sleight of hand

Innocence is damned.

Thanks for reading, Steve :-)

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Birdspeed

Squawk. Vroom. What's the fastest bird in the world? 

That's not the lead in to a joke, by the way. And the answer is not the swift, for that doesn't even make the top five, despite its impressive maximum airspeed of 100 miles per hour (or 160km/h if you prefer). 

When it comes to  birdspeed , the accolade goes to the peregrine, a falcon which is capable of speeds in excess of an astonishing 240mph (or 385 km/h). That's faster than the quickest F1 racing car (233mph or 375 km/h) and only slightly slower than the WWII Hawker Hurricane, the first RAF plane to fly in excess of 300mph (480 km/h). Some physicists have calculated that theoretically the peregrine might be capable of even higher speeds at altitude, of up to 380mph (608 km/h). That's simply mind-boggling. 

As well as being the fastest bird, the peregrine (the falcon part is optional) is also the quickest of all animals on the planet. No wonder then that it was revered by the Ancient Egyptians as the god Horus.

a peregrine soaring

The peregrine (Falco peregrinus) is a raptor, or bird of prey. It is the second most widespread bird species on earth, being found everywhere except in the polar extremities and New Zealand. Before you ask, the most widespread bird is the pigeon - which is good news for the peregrine, because its diet consists almost exclusively of birds, and pigeon makes up the majority of its food, though it will also eat any other medium-sized birds it can get its claws on (waterfowl, game birds, seabirds, songbirds, waders, the lot).

The peregrine has a body length between 12 and 24 inches (34 to 58cm) and a wingspan from  29 to 47 inches (74 to 120cm). The male and female have similar markings and plumage but, as with many birds of prey, the peregrine displays marked sexual dimorphism in size, the female being up to 30% larger and heavier than the male. Peregrines can live for up to twenty years in the wild, though mortality rates are high in the first few years (50 to 75% of birds don't make it to two years old). 

As mentioned, the peregrine subsists mainly on other birds. It catches most of its prey on the wing, which is where its diving skills and incredible airspeed come in. It will hover above and then swoop.  With a force of up to 25g acting on its little body, it's amazing it doesn't black out or get shredded by the buffeting air as it descends. It clips its prey in one wing, to minimise the force of impact.

a peregrine diving

The fact that it remains intact is down to its incredible aerodynamic efficiency, its very powerful beak and the streamlined shape it maintains in the dive. Its nostrils are protected by small bony tubercles which guide the powerful airflow away from the intakes, enabling it to breathe more easily by reducing the change in air pressure. In addition, it uses a third eyelid to spread tears and clear debris from the eyes while maintaining vision. And the peregrine has a flicker fusion frequency of 129 Hz (cycles per second), which is very fast for a bird of its size, and much faster than mammals. All of which makes it the perfect hunting bird. And it is no coincidence that the most modern American stealth fighter plane mimics the peregrine's aerodynamic lines. The B-2 Spirit has an airspeed of 628mph (1010 km/h)

American B-2 'Spirit' stealth fighter

Just for the sake of completeness, the other four birds that have recorded a faster airspeed than the swift are the saker falcon, golden eagle, grey-headed albatross and the gyrfalcon. But bear in mind that all of the above achieve that remarkable velocity while diving. The record for the fastest confirmed level flight by a bird is 69.3 mph (111.5 km/h) and that is held by the common swift.

If you want to read a poem about a falcon, I refer you to Gerard Manley Hopkins' brilliant 'The Windhover', though the "dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon" of his poem was actually a kestrel. 

My new poem takes an altogether different approach to the week's theme, and it comes with the usual caveat about it being a first draft/work in progress. It's a narrative poem based on a true event, the night I didn't get to see Josef K's London debut at a Camden music venue...

Birdspeed

Dim lights,  black walls,  a DJ in thrall

to the high water mark of sixties jangle

as prologue to the new sound  in  town.

There's a buzz in the club for these four

Scottish lads and I stand, beer in hand,

when one of their tribe, by the sound of

her slurred brogue,  engages me in talk

about how your boots stick to this floor 

and do I have their album? Do I like it?

She says how great they are live, more

potent in  person, loud,  raw, sexy, and

poised to conquer. I might smile at her

monologue, cannot recall later if I gave

any  other  signs of encouragement, but

suddenly  I'm  pinned to the wall as she

presses her body up against mine hands

either side of my face kissing, with her

tongue probing my mouth. I'm shocked.

Is this Scottish for seduction? She's not

unattractive, but that's not the point. I'm 

locked in an embrace with someone I've 

only just met, don't even know her name 

yet and it feels presumptuous, predatory,

feral, as if I've been swooped upon from a

great height by a bright-eyed bird of prey

and it's not at all a turn on, I can tell you.

I squirm out of her clutches, mutter about

needing to do something and head for the

gents, buy time buying condoms, think...

She'll have eyes on the door for sure and

though I've never done so before, out by

the window seems the best bet, a tight fit

but I drop into the yard, breathing hard on

cold night air, then up over a wall to slip 

off into the safety of Camden, taste of her

Southern Comfort still on my bruised lips.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Picnic On The Grass

The latest Penguin Classics newsletter dropped into my mailbox this week, reminding me that "Picnic season has arrived. The countryside is alive with creaking hampers, popping Tupperware and clanking bottles. The usual rules of etiquette relax at a picnic, which allows for childish fun, young love and sometimes exquisite embarrassment."

It goes on to cite a series of literary picnics through the ages from Goldsmith's 'The Vicar of Wakefield', Jane Austen's 'Emma',  Tolstoy's 'Childhood' and Lewis Carroll's 'Alice...', to Joyce's 'Ulysses', even Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and Nabokov's 'Lolita'. 

I've read all of the above, and I must say those picnic episodes are not particularly firmly embedded in memory. So thank you, Penguin Classics, but I will be pursuing a more visual approach to the week's theme, taking Edouard Manet's famous 1863 composition 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' (Luncheon on the grass) as a starting point to examine, in pastiche art representations, how the world and picnicking have changed through the years.

the original Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, painting by Edouard Manet, 1863

Manet's painting was rejected by the Paris Salon which refused to show it at their annual summer exhibition at the Académie des Beaux-Arts on the grounds of poor taste. They called it "scandalous", a ruling that merely served to generate interest in the painter and his painting, which considerably enhanced Manet's reputation. 

Originally titled 'Le Bain' (The Bath), Manet's provocative composition went on to become both critically acclaimed and world famous among the ranks of impressionist paintings. Some even see it as the beginning of Modern Art. He rendered several copies of it. The original is in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris but there is also a version in London's Courtauld Gallery if you're interested.

Of course, cars didn't exist when Manet painted his picnic tableau. In those days, journeys to the Bois de Boulogne, supposedly where his scene was set, would have been by horse-drawn carriage (not shown). The first automobiles didn't materialise until the tail-end of the 19th century. However, by the 1930s they were a fairly common sight and so Robert Doisneau who, along with Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the leading photographers of the inter-war years, was happy to feature a couple of cars in his witty 1936 photo-homage.

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, photograph by Robert Doisneau, 1936

No nudity this time, no lake and not a trace of bohemianism. Instead, a couple of happy and wholesome bourgeois families (with child) enjoying seemingly affluent times and a picnic of good wine, cheeses, bread and quiche on the grass in the woods near Paris. It is no coincidence that the car most obviously featured is a Renault, for among his other portfolio clients, Doisneau was the in-house photographer for the Renault car company. 

In hindsight, that image of peaceful prosperity and contentment gains a degree of ironic resonance for its naive innocence, given that within three years France and Europe would be plunged into the most destructive and terrible war. Doisneau unwittingly captured the calm before that storm.

After the war, Alain Jacquet (who had been born months before the outbreak of hostilities) emerged in the 1960s as a leading artist of the Nouvelle Figuration school in France, a movement that was allied to the US Pop Art brigade. Jacquet divided his time between New York and Paris and taught at the latter's École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. He was married to Sophie Matisse, great-granddaughter of the artist Henri Matisse.

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, painting by Alain Jacquet, 1964

Jacquet was well-known for using motifs from older, famous paintings as a starting point for his subversive creations. He is perhaps most famous for his 'camouflage' series of pop art depictions of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus', but he also chose to paint a mid-20th century take on Manet's famous outdoor luncheon party. 

It is much more precisely mannered than many of his paintings, closely reproducing Manet's posing of the three figures in the foreground. Of course, they are by a swimming pool, a fake lake, and any trees are relegated to the background, for this industrial-era American Dream is an altogether more sterile pastoral. Does it help to know that the two men featured are the Italian painter Mario Schifano and the French art critic Pierre Restany? Possibly not. Just for the record, the woman is Restany's wife, Jeannine de Goldschmidt, and the girl on the far side of the pool is her sister. For the picnic there is fruit, a knife and bread, but no wine. That loaf of sliced bread is in a packet bearing Jacquet's name.

The artist was an habitué of the bohemian Chelsea Hotel during his early stays in New York and left the owner a copy of the painting as settlement for his hotel bill.

Manet's painting continued to intrigue and inspire artists well into the 21st century. There are many picnic parodies and pastiches out there, cartoons, collages, film clips, paintings, photographs, even sculpted recreations. It's probably the second most re-invented image after the Mona Lisa. 

What is the abiding attraction? Is it the incongruity of the clothed and the undressed? That's possibly the strongest trigger. As for what the various depictions tell us about how civilisation progresses, I found this final image, a photographic representation from the covid years, quite a telling and rather depressing take.

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, photograph by Le Tondeuse, 2020

It's almost a composite of 'Le déjeuner sur l'herbe' and the 'Birth of Venus' as Le Tondeuse (the lawnmower) presents a rather trashy take on theme. That's not much of a luncheon or picnic, mostly beer and coca cola and some cuts of cold meat. Two of the company are smoking and look bored, and two others are looking slightly uncomfortable, as if they are all trying to ignore the naked Venus posed behind them. Is this a picture of 21st century ennui and disconnection? At least there are trees. Thank goodness for the trees.

I really wanted to write a new poem to accompany today's blog but I'm down in London celebrating my oldest daughter's 40th birthday. We went to Vauxhall Park, though we didn't take a picnic. The ground is baked hard and the grass is a dried beige. So in lieu of something by me, here's another picnic poem by renowned American poet Amy Clampitt.  

A Hermit Thrush

Nothing's certain. Crossing, on this longest day,

the low-tide-uncovered isthmus, scrambling up 

 the scree-slope of what at high tide 

will be again an island, 

 to where, a decade since well-being staked 

 the slender, unpremeditated claim that brings us 

 back, year after year, lugging the 

 makings of another picnic— 

the cucumber sandwiches, the sea-air-sanctified 

fig newtons—there's no knowing what the slamming 

seas, the gales of yet another winter 

may have done. Still there, 

 the gust-beleaguered single spruce tree, 

 the ant-thronged, root-snelled moss, grass 

 and clover tuffet underneath it, 

 edges frazzled raw 

but, like our own prolonged attachment, holding. 

Whatever moral lesson might commend itself, 

there's no use drawing one, 

there's nothing here 

to seize on as exemplifying any so-called virtue 

(holding on despite adversity, perhaps) or 

any no-more-than-human tendency— 

stubborn adherence, say, 

to a wholly wrongheaded tenet. Though to 

hold on in any case means taking less and less 

for granted, some few things seem nearly 

certain, as that the longest day 

will come again, will seem to hold its breath, 

the months-long exhalation of diminishment 

again begin. Last night you woke me 

for a look at Jupiter, 

that vast cinder wheeled unblinking 

in a bath of galaxies. Watching, we traveled 

toward an apprehension all but impossible 

to be held onto— 

that no point is fixed, that there's no foothold 

but roams untethered save by such snells, 

such sailor's knots, such stays 

and guy wires as are 

mainly of our own devising. From such an 

empyrean, aloof seraphic mentors urge us 

to look down on all attachment, 

on any bonding, as 

in the end untenable. Base as it is, from 

year to year the earth's sore surface 

mends and rebinds itself, however 

and as best it can, with 

thread of cinquefoil, tendril of the magenta 

beach pea, trammel of bramble; with easings, 

mulchings, fragrances, the gray-green 

bayberry's cool poultice— 

and what can't finally be mended, the salt air 

proceeds to buff and rarefy: the lopped carnage 

of the seaward spruce clump weathers 

lustrous, to wood-silver. 

Little is certain, other than the tide that 

circumscribes us that still sets its term 

to every picnic—today we stayed too long 

again, and got our feet wet— 

and all attachment may prove at best, perhaps, 

a broken, a much-mended thing. Watching 

the longest day take cover under 

a monk's-cowl overcast, 

with thunder, rain and wind, then waiting, 

we drop everything to listen as a 

hermit thrush distills its fragmentary, 

hesitant, in the end 

unbroken music. From what source (beyond us, or 

the wells within?) such links perceived arrive— 

diminished sequences so uninsistingly 

not even human—there's 

hardly a vocabulary left to wonder, uncertain 

as we are of so much in this 

existence, this botched, cumbersome, much-mended,

not unsatisfactory thing.

                                                          Amy Clampitt (1920-1994(

a detail from Raphael's Judgement of Paris, 1510

By the way, even Manet's composition for 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' is based on a section in the bottom right hand quadrant of Raphael's 'Judgement Of Paris'. 

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Moustaches

By the summer of 1966, the Beatles had grown weary of the worldwide phenomenon they had become, the claims that such unprecedented levels of fame made upon them, and the dehumanising effects of touring in particular. They played their last live concert on 29th August 1966 in San Francisco and vowed never again.

Tired of being four fresh-faced mop-top caricatures to be screamed at, chased, mauled and treated like public property everywhere they went, following their return to England they decided to disappear for a while, distance themselves from the maelstrom of Beatlemania, and reset.

Step one was to grow moustaches (see below). Acquiring facial hair was a straightforward and symbolic move away from their cute boyband image. They were all in their mid-twenties by now anyway, and the current interest in and vogue for Edwardiana clothes and styling made the adoption of this more mature look an obvious one. 

moustaches on parade

It's telling that all four of them made the same move, as did many in their close support group, and then many of their male fans. It became a badge of Beatle brotherhood for a period of a few months in 1966 going into 1967.

Step two was to pretend - at least to themselves - that they weren't The Beatles anymore but an entity that became known as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, based on the brass bands that had played at weekends and on special national occasions in those municipal bandstands that had sprung up in Britain's parks through Victorian and Edwardian times.

The new LP was to be a concept  album of sorts, a very loose one in musical terms, allowing Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey to adopt personae, literary and musical masks that freed them to an extent from what had gone before. In reality, only the title track, its reprise and a few connecting snippets lived up to that initial vision. 

They were photographed for the album artwork in March 1967 decked out in band regalia and sporting moustaches just as their Edwardian musical predecessors may have done (though The Beatles had longer hair). They appeared on the front cover of the LP not as The Beatles but as members of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, clutching a variety of appropriate brass and woodwind instruments. There was even a sheet of cardboard cut-outs included with the LP that fans could snip round and put on, including badges, epaulettes and a moustache. (Its tabs got rather soggy after a couple of wears.)

part of a photoshoot for the Sergeant Pepper LP cover

The LP was released at the beginning of June. For a brief, shining moment in the summer of 1967 we could all play along with the game. It was the Summer Of Love and happiness reigned all around. 'Sgt. Pepper...' was hailed as a revelation and a revolution. It was proclaimed a masterpiece. It went on to become one of the most famous and iconic records of all time. It certainly freed The Beatles from their past - though I still prefer its predecessor 'Revolver' for sheer ground-breaking genius.

What is interesting to me is that by the time of the press launch party for the album, at Brian Epstein's London mews flat in May, weeks before the LP hit the shops, Paul McCartney had already shaved his moustache off (see below). He had been the first to grow one (ostensibly to hide a scar from a riding accident he had in1966) and then to encourage the others, for reasons explained above. But why to jettison it so soon while the other three retained theirs for months? Maybe Jane Asher held the key.

May 1967 Pepper press launch party

John was the next to shed his and by the time of filming Magical Mystery Tour that autumn, only George and Ringo were still sporting the moustaches to which they'd obviously become very attached.

After the four of them went to India in 1968, then there was stubble and beards - but that's another story.

While I've been working on this blog, my lovely eight year old Dell Inspiron laptop has been encountering problems: no space left on the C drive even after I've moved all my pictures and documents to detachable pen drives and run disk clean-up and space optimisation software. I put it down to all the increasingly complex functionality that has been arriving in recent Windows updates.

Anyway, long story short (and nothing to do with moustaches), I decided to turn to the wisdom of the interweb to see if there were any other tricks to identify and then uninstall unnecessary files. I typed into Google 'How to get rid of...' and before I'd got any further it bounced straight back with what are clearly the top two searches, in a kind endeavour to save me typing anything more.

Those top two searches?  1. How to get rid of cellulite and 2. How to get rid of your wife.

I thought wow! There's a poem in that. And here it is. I nearly called it 'Trouble And Strife' but it's now:

Meet The Googles*

Want to know the main concerns

of modern married folk in their forties?

Same as always, it seems.

I typed 'How to get rid of...'

into my trusty search engine and presto...

the top two most frequent requests are:

'How to get rid of cellulite'

and 

'How to get rid of your wife'

If ever there was a contemporary 

encapsulation

of that age old divide

the battle of the sexes

and how it's plied,

you have it right there.

* in the honourable tradition of Meet The Beatles, Meet The Fokkers etc.

As a musical bonus, here's a link to a Beatles song that might have been on the Pepper LP except it got released as a single. Of course it references barbers and shaving and the video has those moustaches. . Just click on the song title: Penny Lane

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Dad Jokes

Oh dear, has it come to this? My own dad didn't really do jokes. He wasn't exactly humourless, for he loved the films of Norman Wisdom which had him laughing out loud, but he rarely told jokes. Maybe his sense of humour was more visual than verbal - not something I've considered before -but joke telling wasn't his forté. 

I can only recall one joke that he ever told (and I must have been about ten at the time). It went like this: A trio of West Indian brothers opened a fish & chip shop in south-east London. When they applied to the GPO for a telephone number they were assigned BLAckfriars 123. That made him fair hoot. 

For younger readers I should explain that prior to the mid-1960s introduction of automated Standard Trunk Dialling (with all digit phone numbers), callers would dial a manned telephone exchange using the numerical equivalent of the three-letter id of the exchange and then ask the operator to connect them with the local customer number. A ghostly remnant of the time when telephone dials carried letters equivalent to numbers can still be seen on smartphones today. BLA would have been represented by the digits 252 (should you care to check). By the way, the joke falls down on a technicality because the customer part of the number was always four digits, not three. WHItehall 1212 (the original number for Scotland Yard) is perhaps the most famous example.

What then is the essence of a Dad Joke? It's usually quite short. often in the form of a question and answer, and is frequently based around aa bad  pun or similar dubious play on words, the whole delivery being a tease designed to elicit groans from the hearer for it being 'corny', rather than any appreciation for its wit. 

One thing that did surprise me was to learn that the label Dad Joke is relatively recent (1987 - happy 40th birthday), though the style clearly goes way back to a time when hippos ruled the world.

a hippo dad

At which point, let me regale you with twenty of the  worst 'hippo' dad jokes (though some are not half bad):

01. What do you call a hippo with one leg? - A hoppo.

02. What do you call  hippo with no hips? A potamus.

03. What do you call a lame hippo? A limpo.

04. What do you call a lame hippo who inhabits the Limpopo river? A limpopotamus or limpopopopotamus
05. What do you call a hippo with no legs? It doesn't matter, as he can't come when you call him.

06. What do you call a hippo with a cold? A hipposnotamus.

07. What do you call a hippo that can rap? A hiphopotomus.

08. What role do you give to a hippo that can act? Hippolyta (in A Midsummer Night's Dream).

09. What do you call a hippo with Tourettes? A hippopottymouth.

10. What do you call a hippo who never follows his own advice? A hippocrite.

11. What do you call a non-existent hippo? Hippothetical.

12. What do you call a hippo with no legs swimming in a river? Bob (or clever Dick)...think about it.

13. Why is a hippo wearing speedos like an elephant? They both have large trunks.

14. Hippos can run and swim faster than human beings. Your best chance in the triathlon is the bicycle race.

15. What do you get if you cross a hippo with Snoop Dogg? A smokealotapotamus. 
16. What's the difference between a hippo and a zippo? One's heavy, the other's a little lighter.

17. Where do hippos go for a grand night out? To a hippodrome. 

18. Where do brainy hippos go to university? The hippocampus. 

19. Why do hippos hate the cold? Because of hippothermia.

20. Why don't you ever see hippos hiding in trees? Because they're really good at it.

Or course I've written a bit of a fun poem for today's blog. When reading it, you'll need to put the stress on the fourth syllable of hippopotamus, making it either a short ä (first verse) or a long ā (pronounced like an r, last verse), hence the diacritic marks. Don't worry, the rhymes in the poem will keep you on track.

Hippopotämus <> Hippopotāmus

Hippopotämus

Don't try to frame us

Defame or fat shame us

Certainly don't blame us

Sad ignoramus

It's Greek of course, for river horse

And we're much better sports

Than any phoney water polo pony

<>

OK, we understand that reprimand

Dismiss what we've been taught

Take this chance to change our stance

He don't alarm us

Delights to charm us

Won't never harm us

No one's as calm as

Hippopotāmus

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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I'm Printing

Let's call it a happy accident that this week's blog theme is imprinting. With some judicious editorial licence, I've chosen to reinterpret it as I'm printing, in recognition of my second poetry collection getting published. Of course I'm excited. I hope that's excuse enough to devote today's blog to 'Tangerine '.

Those of you who were at the book launch on a sweltering night in Preston on Wednesday will have heard me explain that tangerine is the colour of happiness. In the foreword to the collection I was a bit more expansive: "It's the colour of happiness and a symbol of good fortune. The world needs a lot of both, right now."  

'Tangerine ' has been two years in the making. It runs to 120 pages and brings together the best poems I've written in the last few years. Naturally, as many and more again didn't get a look in, because I like to think I'm quite strict on quality control.

now in print: my second poetry collection 'Tangerine '

Lots of the poems appeared in their original form on the Dead Good Blog, the majority have been road-tested at open mic nights or stanza evenings, and all of them have changed (for the better, I trust) as a result of being out in the world for a while. I hope this collection presents and preserves them as their best selves.

I'm primarily a 'page' poet, rather than a 'spoken word' performer, which is why I'm so pleased to have these 90 poems in print for people to enjoy. There's something aesthetically pleasing about a physical book. That said, I do perform my poems, obviously. They are short, mostly one page, sometimes two.

I recall going to one open mic night and asking what the form was only to be told "everybody gets to do one poem." Because I was a newcomer, I was given the honour of opening. My 30 line poem took less than a minute. I was followed by a succession of spoken word declaimers, ranters and rappers, none of whose poems clocked it at under seven minutes. All fine, just a different aesthetic. I didn't go back.

I also believe my poems are well-enough fashioned as to repay being read and re-read, to tease out meanings and moods, and are not just words to be heard once (perhaps imperfectly) and then they're gone. 

If I have a 'style', it's what I term contemporary lyricism, meaning the poems have a flowing rhythm built on lots of assonance and internal rhymes, but not so many end rhymes. I've only ever written one poem in rhyming couplets - though it's in this book (and it's about Ken Dodd's Dad's Dog).

There are poems of love enjoyed, lost, regretted, social satire, ecological concern, political commentary, humour, pathos, wild imaginative leaps (plenty of them), madness, murder, music and much more. And yes, there is a poem about tangerines, which has given the collection it title.

cover art and design by myself

'Tangerine ' is published by the imprint  of Three Piers Publishing. It only comes in physical book form (because I don't much like e-books) and is not available on Amazon, because Jeff Bezos is quite wealthy enough. 

So until I can get it into bookshops (if ever I manage that), it's only available from me, priced £10 - plus packaging and postage of £2.99 within the UK, if you're not local to Blackpool. And what's £10 these days? It's a pint-and-a-half of beer.

Of course, I hope you'd like to purchase a copy (autographed at no extra cost). I accept payment by online bank transfer or PayPal. Email me at: steveg.rowland@btinternet.com and we'll work something out. One day I might even be able to afford a rug for the floor of my garret. 😉

And if you run a poetry night (in person or online) I'd be happy to get a promotional spot if possible.

There's no fresh poem from me this week, as I don't want to detract from the new publication.

Thanks as ever for reading, and thanks for your continued support S ;-)

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Celebrity

Some call it popularity, some call it celebrity, some call it fame. They are all pretty much the same thing, aren't they? And wasn't it Andy Warhol who first said "In the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes"? Well no, not quite. Let me unpack it for you, as the trendies say nowadays.

True, that quote did appear back in 1968 in a catalogue for a Warhol exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. It had also appeared after a fashion a year earlier in a 1967 Time magazine article about artistic trends in the Sixties: "Whole new schools of painting seem to charge through the art scene with the speed of an express train, causing Pop Artist Andy Warhol to predict the day 'when everyone will be famous for 15 minutes'." 

Andy Warhol

However, there are other claimants. Art critic Blake Gopnik suggests it could have been the Swede Pontus Hultén, curator of the afore-mentioned Moderna Museet, who actually coined the phrase. Then there are some who think it originated with New York painter Larry Rivers, habitué of the Chelsea hotel and godfather of Pop Art. Others still credit the photographer Nat Finkelstein, including Finkelstein himself, who insisted that he made the remark during a photoshoot with Warhol in 1966. In reply to a comment Warhol made about everyone just wanting to be famous, the photographer is supposed to have quipped, "Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy."

Regardless of the truth (or otherwise) of any of the above, Warhol by popular consensus has come to be the 'owner' of the quote - even though he seemed to deny responsibility in a 1980 interview. But unpack a little more from the annals of yesteryear and you'll find that it was an expression in use in France at least a century earlier.

The phrase "quart-d'heure de popularité" (fifteen minutes of popularity) appeared in 1821, in 'Histoire de l'Assemblée Constituante ' by Charles Lacretelle. And then there was Alphonse Daudet, who in 1879 in an article about the recently deceased journalist Jean Hippolyte Auguste Delaunay de Villemessant, used the variant "quart-d'heure de célébrité" (fifteen minutes of fame). I quote: "de braves garçons [...] ont eu, pour une heureuse trouvaille de quinze lignes, leur quart-d'heure de célébrité"; "some young fellows have had [...] thanks to fifteen cleverly-written lines, their fifteen minutes of fame".

Et voila! Popularity, celebrity, fame are all pretty much the same thing, the words interchangeable even in translation. And the rather dismissive implication all through is that they are also fleeting accolades, here and gone just like their objects. That quarter-hour though. Fifteen minutes sounds better.

Slightly ironic then that Warhol should have managed to be famous, celebrated and popular for decades, as have been many of the figures he chose to depict in his iconic pop art paintings, the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Jacky Kennedy, Mao Tse Tung, Elvis Pressley, Mick Jagger and Elizabeth Taylor.

Liz Taylor by Andy Warhol

The Hippocratic aphorism "Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή" that we know most commonly in its inverted and translated Latin form as "Ars longa, vita brevis" was supposed to mean art takes time but life is short, i.e. it takes a long time to acquire artistic skill and a lifetime is hardly enough. Maybe since the Pop Art Sixties  it has started to be interpreted somewhat differently in the sense that life is short but art endures. 

It's almost as though Warhol has pulled a trick on us in using the Pop Art medium (trashy, immediate, mass-produced, disposable) to confer on his celebrities a kind of lasting fame through the act of painting them.

Here's the first draft of a new poem (a work in progress) for today's theme.

15 Minutes

Who was it first declared

"Fame is a whore"?

It could have been 

one of the dramatic Elizabethans

or a cynical wit of a Metaphysical

or Oscar Wilde even.

We just don't know. 

The recording angel 

was a bit hit and miss that day, 

mind probably elsewhere. 

On what to have for tea for instance, 

supposing recording angels need to eat. 

Or maybe stealing a sneaky

quarter of an hour

away from what (s)he considered 

the frankly thankless task 

of keeping score regarding

catchy things people say

for posterity,

simply to snort a few crystal lines

in the lavatory.

Whatever the excuse 

for this unfortunate lacuna,

clearly some perceptive soul

had got it spot on

only to suffer the devastating irony

of their name and hence claim to fame

getting missed along the way.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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