LanterneRouge

A limerick a week #52

Happy birthday ALAW & “Goodbye” Sir Peter Hall

The posting of ALAW #52 means that it is now a year since the first one was published (on 24 September 2016 to be precise). I suppose that is a modest achievement insofar as I managed not to miss a week. Some I thought good, some were make-weights, and some I was really pleased with. I think I shall carry on with them!

This week’s ALAW doesn’t celebrate the anniversary, instead it arises amidst a bit of a conundrum.

My profile on the blog says that I value decency over achievement. I do, but what if someone who has been described variously as controversial, vituperative, deceitful, detested, brutal, disloyal and embittered, and whose private life was unstable to say the least, had achieved something that gives you lasting pleasure? Is that to be valued? Well, I take the easy way out. “Yes”, it is to be valued, but with much less respect for the person whose achievement it was compared to the personal respect for someone that had achieved less but whose fundamental decency shone through in all things!

Sir Peter Hall, who died this week, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company. His obituaries tell of that and his many other accomplishments, with a couple reflecting on some of the adjectives listed above, but it is the RSC that does it for me thanks to the late John Kremer, an English Literature teacher who instilled his enthusiasm for the Bard into a fourteen year old rugby-playing, science-orientated schoolboy (one who, years later, ‘out-Shakespeared’ his more arts-inclined, academic and intellectual brother, much to the surprise of the said brother’s family!).

So, with whom did Hall fall out (apart from walking-out on three wives as soon as he had found ‘another’)? Well, Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Tynan, Jonathan Miller, John Osborne, Bill Kenright and Harold Pinter to name six from the top drawer of British theatre of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Quite a collection really.

Hamlet without the iambic pentameter. Sir Peter would not approve!

This is the RSC’s eulogy for Hall (a quote taken from Cassius’ lines in Julius Caesar):

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.”

which is a bit double-edged because Cassius’ words actually reflect his concern that Caesar had put himself above others and attained too much power (which, ironically, was a criticism of Hall made by his detractors).

And so to the limerick …

His theatrical nous and esprit
Gave birth to the famed RSC.
All the world was his stage
‘Till that terminal age
When, alas, he was then ‘not to be’!

Computer says “No”

Berger & Wyse produced this little gem, in the Graun, on the same day that I was trying to activate my digital subscription to that esteemed organ.

Did I succeed? Did I bollocks! My password wasn’t, er, recognised …

Quotes that made me laugh #42

No, Minister!

The Dutch reach has been in the news a lot recently, although cyclists have been aware of it for longer. It’s not a mis-translation of an Amsterdam ‘coffee shop’ special (Dutch roach) or a nauseous side-effect of hanging-out at such places (Dutch retch) or even a visit to a rather lewd nachtclub (Dutch raunch). It’s simply a way of making you look out for cyclists when opening a car door from the inside.

By reaching for the door with their arm furthest from the door, drivers and passengers are forced to swivel round, increasing the likelihood of seeing a passing cyclist. It’s been a part of Dutch driving proficiency for 50 years and its adoption is supported by the police and the cycling communities.

The idea hasn’t gained much traction with the Department of Transport though. I wonder why? Let’s ask the BBC …

“The Department for Transport previously dismissed the proposal – but that was just after the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was filmed having knocked a cyclist off his bike opening a car door.”

Laugh? I nearly fell off my bike!

A limerick a week #51

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!

So, Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston and its environs, Hurricane Irma, one of the strongest recorded and the longest lasting of that strength, has laid waste to a number of Caribbean islands (and Donald Trump’s mansion on Saint Martin) and is, in turn, being followed by Hurricanes Jose and Katia.

Meanwhile, as reported by LiveScience in early August, “NOAA recently predicted that the season would have between 14 and 19 named storms and between two and five major hurricanes. Already, the season has experienced six named hurricanes and 11 named storms. Hurricane season doesn’t typically reach its peak till September 10“.

While all of this is going on, Trump continues to reverse the previous US administration’s efforts to limit carbon emissions and forbids policy papers to refer to global warming or climate change.

Trump’s idiocy as viewed by the Graun’s Ben Jennings

So it comes to pass that the threat to Trump’s Caribbean mansion and Floridian properties and golf courses is down solely to ‘weather extremes’ or, as a recent Graun headline phrased it, “The Trump administration’s solution to climate change: ban the term“; something facilitated by its senior advisor to the US Department of Agriculture, Sam Clovis, a right-wing talk-show host with no background in science, who considers climate research to be junk science.

Back in the real world, a statement from the independent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reflects the reality of the past 30 years: “A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of extreme weather and climate events, and can result in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events.”

For a gabshite that’s so prone to blunder
Even Donald must soon start to wonder
If he’s wholly deranged
To think climate’s not changed
Now his home by the sea’s rent asunder.

A limerick a week #50

KEEP CALM
and
CARRY NAPPIES

It’s not always easy to think of something sensible to write on a colleague’s You’re leaving to have a baby card. So I wrote this instead:

On Parenthood

I’m sure (s)he will turn out quite sweet
(Despite all the things (s)he’ll excrete!)
But in time mum and dad
Will be driven quite mad
Watching kiddy-cartoons on repeat!

Postscript: Some folk made cake for the pre-maternity leaving do; I made tiffin …

Crumbled digestive biscuit and chopped raisins and glace cherries

Butter, cocoa powder, golden syrup and caster sugar

Forever Jung …

Berger and Wyse made me laugh this week with this offering:

Postscript: B&W’s moth and psychiatrist cartoon reminds me of a moth and podiatrist shaggy dog story that turned up on YouTube a couple of year’s ago. It made me laugh as well and seems now to be known simply as ‘Norm Macdonald’s moth joke’. You can find it here.

A limerick a week #49

Lies, damned lies, and linguistics!

A friend recently asked whether I treat the word data as singular or plural; is it data is or data are? It seems an innocent enough question doesn’t it, but oh boy, does it not half stir passion in the hearts of traditionalists versus modernists in the world of pop-linguistics!

Indeed, having spent some time researching the differing views, it’s clear there are unresolvable differences between the extreme singularists and the extreme pluralists (although it does look as if the latter are increasingly in the minority).

I’m a pluralist, but not an extreme one since I long ago dispensed with my antagonism towards those of a singular disposition (unless they are deserving of a wind up!). After all, it is the quality and interpretation of data that ultimately matter:

My friend says she is inconsistent in her approach to data’s plurality, but, as with language in general, she feels that if it sounds okay then it is acceptable. I think that is a pragmatic and sensible view, and, if it sounds okay to one but not t’other then we have simply to ~~punch the other’s lights out~~ accept the plurality of perspectives. Even ones like this:

“Singular data annoys the same people that find split infinitives objectionable – pedants with no understanding of linguistics.”

… so that’s me told, but at least the UK Office of National Statistics is on my side:

“The word data is a plural noun so write “data are”. Datum is the singular“.

Amen to that, and …

To me, it’s singularly bizarre
That scoundrels linguistically spar
And deny the reality
Of data’s plurality
‘Cos data ain’t ‘is’ – they just ‘are’!

That’s what dads are for!

I just loved Firstborn’s Instagram post last week …

Quotes that made me laugh #41

Scientific illiteracy – it’s bad for your health

It never ceases to amaze me that the more dogma-driven of politicians rarely follow the adage that if you’re in a hole, stop digging! That’s especially true if you’re Jeremy Hunt, the UK Health Secretary, and your excavations undermine the tenets of science-based policy.

Professor Steven Hawking has accused politicians of ‘cherry picking’ evidence to impose new contracts on medics in the National Health Service. The Health Secretary’s response was to argue that he couldn’t ignore the evidence and then to accuse Hawking of peddling pernicious falsehoods.

Hawking’s concern is that four of the eight papers cited by Hunt in support of his actions had not been peer-reviewed and that 13 papers that contradicted the government view had been ignored.

Hawking further stated that:

“Speaking as a scientist, cherry picking evidence is unacceptable. When public figures abuse scientific argument, citing some studies but suppressing others, to justify policies that they want to implement for other reasons, it debases scientific culture”.

And that is not just Hawking’s view. According to other reports:

“… the editor of the British Medical Journal, statisticians and the BMA council chair, amongst others, said that [Hunt] had misrepresented research to support his claim …“.

So, despite such a depressing farrago of fact and fiction, what was the quote that made me laugh? ‘Twas this …

“Professor Hawking has given us answers to many of the universe’s most challenging questions, and even he can’t work out why Jeremy Hunt is still in his job.”

A limerick a week #48

Imbibo ergo sum!

I searched my wallet in vain for a few coppers this morning and surprised myself by finding a scribbled limerick that I penned ages ago and had quite simply forgotten about.

I can’t recall what inspired it; possibly some reflections on getting merry along the lines of Shakespeare’s let my liver rather heat with wine or perhaps I was thinking of a line from Bruce’s Philosophers Song, I drink therefore I am. Anyway, whatever it was, here’s the result:

Whether you rest in the Fields of Elysium
Or want for a grand mausoleum,
Live a life full of mirth
For your tenure on earth:
Carpe diem! Carpe noctem! Carpe vinum!

Postscript: The faux Latin phrase used in the title of this post is a modified version of the correct Latin: bibo ergo sum – I drink therefore I am. I just think imbibo sounds more ‘Latin’ than bibo!

I don’t need to tell you that it’s a play on René Descartes proclamation: cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) and, although its quotation in English is sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde, the earliest known printed source of the phrase in Latin is found in A New Philosophy of Man’s Moral Nature as defined by The Ancient and Honorable Order of the Priests of Bacchus in Cornell University’s yearbook (The Cornellian) of 1886:

“Our dictum, for a philosophy without a dictum is not worth much, is—Bibo Ergo Sum. It will be urged, no doubt, that this is an adaptation from Descartes. We frankly admit that it is, but we maintain that while Cogito Ergo Sum” is good, Bibo Ergo Sum is inﬁnitely better”. [See the original citation and web link here www.barrypopik.com]

In fact, as Dr Google tells me, bibo ergo sum refers strictly to the biological need to drink to sustain life. If the phrase is meant to reflect one’s need for alcoholic refreshment, then the correct Latin would be poto ergo sum. It looks like Cornell’s bacchanalian students of the 1880s got their Latin wrong!