Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Free British Birds Poster With This Blog
The blog silence surrounding the vexed (or vexing) question of the Salman Rushdie knighthood is entirely understandable, in every way, and a fine thing. The award is a mysterium profundum, of which the less said the better. But does anyone remember a rather fine shaggy dog story I once heard, about a friendly, poetry-writing salmon called Rusty who was inspired by the wreck of the Titanic? The punchline, inevitably, was 'Surely you've heard of Salmon Rusty's Titanic Verses'... Superb. Oddly it wasn't mentioned in the Pakistan parliament yesterday.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Was the fish knighted?
ReplyDeleteNo, Duck, just an OBE.
ReplyDeleteBritish Birds posters don't have the pulling power they used to...
ReplyDeleteNever you mind, Nige. All those folks in the post below are just being childish.
ReplyDeleteHave you thought of trying: "Science, Religion and British Birds"?
Excellent idea, Peter - I'll slip that one in when they're least expecting it...
ReplyDeleteBryan, Nige, this post strikes me as the perfect one with which to lure those coveted hits to the blog. Words such as bird, chick, leg or breast, ducky, tit (great), tit (blue), tit (crested) etc… Twitching, binoculars, hide… well, I could go on, but I don't want to b e accused of childishness.
ReplyDeleteJ Cheever Loophole
The nearest I've come to chatty salmon is this:
ReplyDeleteI'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street
I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
...
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming
And the deep river ran on.
Which I've always found a little easier to get on with than SR's novels. That mention of geese, though ... birds again ... just as you thought it was safe to come out. In the light of comments elsewhere on this blog, I now see this poem in an even more ominous light.
Oh. That's brought a tear to my weary eye...
ReplyDeleteJCL
Does anybody know anybody who's read one of Salmon's books - never mind enjoyed it?
ReplyDeleteThis knighthood business reminds me of Alexander Pope's remark:
'You can tell what God thinks of money when you see who he gives it to.'
If the Queen will knight a fish, she'll knight anything.
ReplyDeleteNot to criticize Mr. Rushdie, but it seems he's being knighted for being a high profile victim. He deserves protection, yes, but is victimhood an accomplishment?
I enjoyed The Moor's Last Sigh quite a lot, Philip. As for knighthoods themselves though, what an inflated notion of themselves human beings often have, and I'm thinking especially of the people giving out the honours. As if their judgement meant f all.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they actually saw the movie.
ReplyDeleteVictomhood can be an accomplishment. But you really must want it badly.
ReplyDelete