The First Hundred Years

as posted on... the Cheese Wall of America

mad dogs & other men

by TS Idiot 

I

when the soul of Hamlet's father

haunting the walls at Elsinore

told the prince of his murderer

what Tudor audiences saw

in that ancient tale of brother

hate was fable enshrined in law

Cain & Abel in other words

though Hamlet's vengeance is perverse

to be or not to be he hurls

equivocations at the curse

from Yorick's skull a flock of birds

flies out to stay his hand from worse

but the mad dog of revenge is no more

than brother Seti killed Osiris for

II

with the entry of the French Horns

in the scherzo of Beethoven's

Eroica the world was told

sit up & have a care to hold

on to your pants Napoleon's

armies will drain the swamp of crowned

heads & the dogs who scraped & fawned

but Ludwig scratched to a great MAN

on the manuscript's outer fold

where Bonaparte was once writ bold

for as emperor the new plan

was replaced by the old reformed

& still like men to hounds those horns are heard

wherever music lovers have gathered

III

they may not be the choicest words

used by an emperor elect

sorry scratch that for precedent

but the style of all his content's

appropriate in this respect

on TV nothing sounds absurd

pure & simple was the contest

arcane the process what the heck

goes with the territory learn

from his example the intern

has four years to triumph or wreck

& this candidate was the best

mad dog sir it was the name that swayed it

mad dog yes he's the best mad dog he's great

Down Boy!

Global Soothsayer

Jean Jacques Rousseau

That the authors of the American and French revolutions took many keywords from him does not mean Jean-Jacques would have approved their programmes. His own revolutions, converting (par example) from Protestant to Catholic - then back again, were expedient moves that harmed no one but himself. With the impunity of a true Swiss, he crossed the lines in wartime; and, despite wielding a seditious pen, managed his whole life to stay out of gaol, unlike his sometimes friend Denis Diderot. He was a polymath in all fields except of battle. (Like most gentlemen in those days, he set out on his wanderings with a sword, but pawned it at a tender age.) In his private life he was something of the Casanova (another contemporary), though the conquests he boasts of were of himself. Women - especially rich and powerful Madames - often took him under their wings, installed him in splendid cottages and brought him presents of honey and money. He was, in every sense, patronised by the glorious and great; yet he was not shy of writing to rulers – Frederick the Great for one – to give them a piece of his mind.

With the composition of a successful opera, he set himself apart from the other philosophers and earned their eternal disrespect. His enemies numbered almost as many as his former friends. He wrote books that were both wildly popular and burnt in public (we learn that the destruction of proscribed books was the executioner’s duty). The system of musical notation he devised anticipated sol fa (bringing him the dubious distinction of an association with Julie Andrews). He pontificated sensibly on the education of children, contributed to l’Encyclopedie, nailed inequality to the mast, put the state to rights, wrote novels (one hugely successful), botanised and even dabbled in chemistry. For his daily bread, he worked variously (and vicariously) as an engraver’s apprentice, a diplomat, estate manager and music copyist. He was a frequent guest in the top salons of the ancien régime. He declined to accept a pension from Louis XV, but was miffed when Madame Pompadour (the king’s official mistress) sang the lead role in his opera the Village Soothsayer - then neglected to honour the composer (all the more irritating since he had known the dame before she rose to glory).

So what are these Confessions for, besides providing a fount of opportunity for the artist to declare his genius? Most of us have committed shameful acts in our times, so what can this self-centred, vain hypochondriac gain from putting his hand up? His share of sins and omissions is just not all that. Actually, Rousseau spends much of the book telling - and retelling - us what a fine, decent fellow he is, every fifty pages or so confessing he is the only truly honest man of his acquaintance. So it's all the more shocking to discover the sly act he committed as a seventeen-year-old footman in the Vercellis household (in Turin). He filched a pretty ribbon, then passed off the theft on poor Marion - a cook of his own age. Admitting to his readers he’d been sweet on her, the treachery is doubled. Both of the youngsters are dismissed from their posts, the girl's only crime being to have thought better of him. Writing thirty years later, the shame of this memory still plagues him. It is an anecdote that comes early on, and would have been enough for me to curse the oaf and throw his book against the wall. But a token of Rousseau’s appeal is that I go on reading despite this, ashamed for him and trusting - as Marion might have done - he would somehow be redeemed.

He frequently admits the embarrassments of his youthful exploits, for example, passing himself off as an Englishman to impress a faux widow. With a return bout on offer, his feet grow cold and he runs in fear of being found out. Such accounts, though qualified by their incomplete exposition, persuade me of Rousseau’s ultimate sincerity. For it’s hard not to have sympathy with the basic misfortunes of his life. He lost his mother days after birth, and had nothing to remember her by but his father’s rose tinted reminiscences. This same father then farmed him out long before he had grown up. Which goes some way to explain all the romantic attachments to matronry beauties, in particular Madame de Warens – the lover he calls his Dear Maman. Timid he must not have been, bold enough to leave his native Geneva at a young age and take to wandering the country lanes of Savoy and straying into Italy. But sensitive to an excruciating degree, he writes page after page complaining of the sleights upon his person in people’s behaviour. And content with a peasant’s fare at the dinner table, he nevertheless judges those he considers his peers by their manners towards him. I take it, Rousseau was easy to please but the very devil to cross. On the other hand, he was as prone to sulks of self doubt as to piques of chagrin.

Women feature as guides and counterparts throughout the Confessions, as we have said in likely recompense for his having known no mother; but what of Rousseau's philosophy do we see in his relations with the opposite sex? Though he is not numbered amongst proto-feminists (what men were in the eighteenth century?), I don't see his reference to Madame Pompadour as Prime Minister of France as a flippant jest. He shows us the considerable power wielded by figures such as the Madames Luxembourg, d’Epinay and Dupin. Even the young Venetian prostitute he visited (the one time in his life he claims he ever paid for sex) is both fabulous and real. After his handling of her - so he tells us – the enterprising girl hardly knew whether to cry or laugh, and the scene is transformed from a smutty story into piece of reportage. BTW, this lapse into one convention of male behaviour, we are to surmise, is a case of, When in Rome... But I think Rousseau's fondest moment with women came very early on. Out for a stroll one Sunday, he bumped into a couple of fine young ladies who bade him join them on their picnic. The day he spent romping with them in the meadows, though entirely innocent (he has us believe) is the simple pastoral idyll he will strive for in female company for the rest of his life. One assumes, he and Thérèse Levasseur (his common-law wife) shared a stock of sweet nothings (though less refined) that kept him happy enough. Too bad, even those simplest pleasures had the tendency to spoil.

Misfortune, he never tires of moaning, was always waiting round Rousseau's corner. Does he exaggerate these? Well, while his book probably contains no downright lies, I doubt if we should take many episodes as literally true. More than once the contrariness of grand dames forced him to up sticks; he was stoned in the streets (and out of his home) while supposedly living under the protection of Frederick the Great. But professing himself to be a humble music copyist is ingenuous. It’s hard to believe that at the height of his fame as author, composer and star guest at salons, he spent the daylight hours laboriously copying out other people’s scores for casual clients. At the same time, he brags of the handwritten copies of his books he had made to give as presents to friends and patrons. I suspect the truth is that Rousseau exchanged copies of his own music for coin and other emoluments. These documents would doubtless have had more than just sentimental value at the time. And when he took to wearing Armenian dress (actually, something like a fez and kaftan) and began greeting people with Selaam haliakum! (sic) - he remained a welcome visitor at rich folks’ homes, not shunned as an infidel. Though at times he was unlucky in his choice of friends, on balance he led a charmed life, enviable by the standards of his days and well above the station of a watchmaker’s son. Even when his compatriots turned on him, he was offered sanctuary in England.

Unpublished in his lifetime, these Confessions (like others of his books in print) were banned all the same. At least, he was warned to stop giving private readings from them. The interest and notoriety the manuscript generated shows just how big he was in his day: stirring up storms of adoration and hate, turning the heads of kings and queens, and being a prime mover across multiple fields (music, politics, literature, education & etc.). I still find them fascinating today, four decades since I first read them. There is something in the man’s voice that draws me to him. It’s a pity he stopped writing them when he did, long before his misfortunes were over. To find out what happened when he finally landed in Britain – and why he didn’t stay long - I have to look elsewhere (and learn he made the crossing during a storm, remaining out on deck the whole way and exhibiting a surprising degree of physical stoicism). Few people get to write their own eulogy.

Postscript: I’ve always assumed Voltaire’s Candide to be a parody of Rousseau. Now that I look into the matter, I can’t find anyone who shares that notion. At least I am reminded here that Rousseau was convinced of it. But the Confessions make few references to his great rival. Perhaps because Voltaire published a pamphlet exposing the unwanted babies he and Thérèse had dumped on a foundling home? The author of a book on educating children could never really live down that disgrace. And yet, do we not detect a degree of envy in the portrayal of Candide? Is not the simpleton who ends up urging us all to "dig the garden" somehow divinely inspired? Although it seems rather hard on Voltaire that the piece he is chiefly remembered for (at least, outside of France) is a backhanded tribute to his greatest rival, I wonder if to mock Rousseau isn’t somehow to fall under his soothsayer’s spell?

trying it on

fake news quiz

fake news quiz #1

who has crossed the purple line again

spoken out & interposed his views

point the moving finger down with him

grumps in the house

now that Lady Gaga sports a flob

half a mind to let my tummy out

state the type of Nachos she has gobbed

plump's in the house

whose address in Stoke-on-Trent inspired

hate mail bi-election fraud & worse

nutty-ash die-backs if it transpired

Wump's in the house

will the Sleaford Mods' Carnegie Hall

Ukip benefit be sold out or

will the boys be left to foot the bill

chumps in the house

name the former barrow boy who flogged

throw-bananas outside footie grounds

then went on to pen the viral blog

Trump's in the house

celebrating the 1^st 100 days  

Trumpy McTrumpetface

Trumpy McTrumpetface

in auguration of

when he frowned it was upon some frogs

not his friends for he was mean with odds

demanded loyalty from bed nobs

give him a chance

he's the people's choice their homey voice

karaoke's turn to run the place

listen to sense so what if there's vice

give cheese a chance

from beauty pageants to golf resorts

thru malls bouncy castles & now walls

Trumpy McTrumpetface pulls in hordes

save him this dance

on the scaffold he makes a great face

if he's the last trump what's all the fuss

did we kill the first who made a fist

send him to France

no let's give him an auspicious launch

listen to the band enjoy the lunch

there'll be time to cheer & time to lynch

given the chance

(Archie Locost)

these lies are true

by TS Idiot

trumped-up round-up

divorcees reconciled during

first nude attempt on Everest

workers on Pacific tunnel

eat lead in Mariana Trench

snowflakes found on Venusian moon

not fake though out of sell-by date

Brexit menu signed by Farage

finds no bidders at Sotherbys

Dem Libs merger with UKIP goes

live on Black & White Minstrel Show

mad dog appointed United

States Secretary of Defence

& Europe awards fried Mars Bar

controlled appellation status

let nothing ye dismay

should Christians take it lying down

or hanging up for all to see

god rest ye merry gentlemen

go carol singing round the town

or voice dissent on live TV

god rest ye merry gentlemen

should Christians wear judgemental frowns

or smile in bland hypocrisy

god rest ye merry gentlemen

for shame should Christians play the clown

& hang out round the Christmas tree

god rest ye merry gentlemen

or swop their scarlet caps & gowns

for plastic bags like refugees

god rest ye merry gentlemen

alt empire

as the Democracy Show goes into

its millennial season who else but

Boris is chortling over Winston's grave

hand out the Victory Scotch & cigars

grill some of that fat Welsh rabbit

& while you're at it stick Irish online

git the owl gang round the Brexit table

kick your shoes off boys time to celebrate

& let the whole world know the search is on

for stars anyone willing & able

to make with the lingo can do just great

from Skid Row to the Mars Hotel kiddo

this here's yr chance to stand up to the crease

show the good folks the state of your Plato

though seriously folks

what isn't cricket Gunga Din

ain't the colour of your foreskin

but of the team you supporting

for in the words of Fu Manchu

Confucius met his Waterloo

on the back route to Kathmandu

hauling that South American

dreamboat up the magic mountain

took more than lateral thinking

yr grandma knows how to tango

& decode calls made in bingo

halls by sheiks like Ali Bongo

but you'll only get the rules of the game

when your coat is on & you've left the room

a cheap petty Osiris

CPO Gadfly was no more Arab

than Mr Trump a card-carrying scab

neither had their nobs robbed by a scarab

old Gads was in fact on a hush-hush job

when he came neck-to-neck with a carob

tree whose juice those days would rush you ten bob

switching from Judas to Colonel Cobweb

he took out a dealership in Red Leb

to Mick & the Stones he was known as Zeb

while the real Zebedee strummed in a club

he troubadoured to Bombay flogging dub

reggae but got throttled in the hubbub

which was how Gadafy twigged the whole fib

painting his own as the true face of lib

not the last trump!

Trump l'oeil

Trump l'oeil

Wink! Wink!

Click for Video

ye shall go to the ball

strike my overweight gambler's ass

just admitted to a love for

crass & out pops true blue Buttons

no use denying that mutton

dressed as lamb ain't back it's over

due a Casey Jones' freight train crash

Cinders fetch your sisters' sashes

Prince is risen white bejabbers

old Aunt Twacky's' cure for bunions

2 hot dogs in glassy onions

socks it to rubber soled slippers

we'll show them who's got the most class

grand folks of good European

stock make all the world a difference

Not Titus Oats?

review

Rise & Fall of the Demagogues

a soapbox opera in three acts

explores the trope that demi-gods

rule the world in post-Warsaw packs

rated less for its music than

sexplicit narco violence

& a plot like a mugger's plan

the piece requires an audience

stand & deliver disbelief

their utter credibility

screeched in descants of leitmotif

until starved of tragic relief

they choke on the tricky candy

of a not divine comedy

Drop In, Tune Out

one great hood to another

aboard the admirable Kuznetsov

let's shoot the breeze on deck before take off

with a heart to heart in white noise old sport

all this putting to sea in jerrycans

& flying off by the seat of one's pants

tut-tut Squire warplanes do get broken

yes kill the dirty rebs but civilians

will pay top zealotys for protection

that said with deep respect you know the art

of war like charity begins at home

from Chagos to Ascension foreign ports

cost ten times more to insure than to own

so keep afloat & leave less dudes wrapped in

concrete overcoats on the ocean floor

* Super Bonus Pome *

great tits

dwelling in a grey area right now

not just because the harvest's done & pairs

of them come popping through the morning light

they forage in our rusting foliage

their yellow throats left open in blue black

overcoats as the browned off fig leaves fall

been some days since I posted the t-word

as much for a rhyme as any sense made

when I've heard some folks find tits offensive

it's not a term I choose to utter much

would prefer she's got great ones only meant

there are wonderful birds in her garden

well here's my Donald Trump for exposing

mine on a striptease sonnet so sorry

Sock Puppets Now In Slippers

a dog's brexit

Click here for Video Version.

all but one man cried

there at Upper Creek

not a paddle to your name

Montage of Chuck Connors in “Branded” (1965)

brexit

branded a lad insane

what can you do with your brexit

when your life will remain

you were put in charge

of the cavalry

but you had no horse to ride

Traditional May Dance

brexit

fed up with foreign food

what can you have for your brexit

when you're not in the mood 

in your neighbourhood

you had many friends

now you are on your own

Cordial Intent?

brexit

shunned by the rich & poor

what can you say when your brexit

is a warning to all

now your former friends

have forgotten you

no more partying with them

Brexit at Hopper's?

brexit

drinking alone at the bar

what will become of your brexit

when they know who you are

Get Yr Coat!