Me being a smart arse

I read the latest article by A L Kennedy in her series of monthly pieces in The Guardian.  My smart arse comment is below.  (I didn't know until I checked that Tennyson gave us "Nature, red in tooth an claw".  It's in his poem In Memoriam A H H)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson has a lot to answer for. In this instance it's his reference to "Nature, red in tooth and claw". That should scare the Bijesus out of any reclusive or patronised worker with imagination such as ALK.

I would encourage you to relax about those nocturnal noises. They are probably indications of possums caught (or catchable if one insists) in flagrante delicto. 

Nature's dangers are real but over-stated. I live in a country with more than 150,000 saltwater crocodiles, the largest of which can grow to 7 metres in length. Visiting a Queensland croc pen once, a croc keeper pointed out that more people in Australia are killed each year by vending machines than crocodiles. So, Ms K, unless there's a cigarette or a coke dispenser in your neck of the woods I think you can sleep safely in your idyllic-sounding bed and, more importantly for us readers, write.

Waiting for Guinness

Caught one of Spike's favourites, Waiting for Guinness, at Herman's Bar in (what I was surprised to see was) an almost deserted University of Sydney campus.  There wasn't a huge crowd, which means there was plenty of room for dancers to express themselves.  They did.

We took buses there and back.  Hassle free, on time (even the 00.26 back home, more or less) and quick.  Hip, hip, hooray for wheelchair accessible public transport.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature

I'm not quite sure why but I've taken to the idea of reading the entire two volume set of the Norton Anthology.  I've had the sixth edition for maybe thirty years (since my first year at Stirling University).  I've dipped into it from time to time, as required by course reading lists.

So I started today with the introductions and the Venerable Bede (of whose work I've had to read before).  The Norton begins with Bede's account of the Caedmon Hymn.  There is something fascinating about the idea of me, sitting in our modern apartment block in Sydney, reading the account written more than 1,300 years ago of the only surviving work one of only 12 Anglo-Saxon poet's identifiable by name, Caedmon.  It's the earliest work of Anglo-Saxon poetry known to us.

Part of what fascinates me is this.  There is an historical figure, Bede.  He was probably 63 when he died.  He may have been Christened Bede because his wealthy, possibly aristocratic, family intended from Bede's birth that he should enter the service of The Church.  This is a real man, speaking to us down through history, of another real man, Caedmon, who started life as a herdsman and ended it as the English language's earliest recorded poet.  Thirteen hundred years ago.

Nu scylun hergan    hefaenricaes uard,

metudæs maecti    end his modgidanc,

uerc uuldurfadur,    sue he uundra gihuaes,

eci dryctin,    or astelidæ.

He aerist scop    aelda barnum

heben til hrofe,    haleg scepen.

Tha middungeard    moncynnæs uard,

eci dryctin,    æfter tiadæ

 firum foldu,    frea allmectig.

Now we must praise     the Protector of the heavenly kingdom,

the might of the Measurer     and His mind's purpose,

the work of the Father of Glory,     as He for each of the wonders,

the eternal Lord,      established a beginning.

He shaped first     for the sons of the Earth

heaven as a roof,     the Holy Maker;

then the Middle-World,     mankind's Guardian

the eternal Lord,      made afterwards,  

solid ground for men,     the almighty Lord.

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We'll see

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to the CAL Scribe Fiction Prize 2011. Your entry is complete: we have processed your $40 entry fee and look forward to reading your work.

Another email will be sent to all entrants when the longlist is announced, which will probably be in December. Please let us know if your contact details change in the meantime.

Best wishes,

Ian See
Editor
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Breakfast with Lauri and Sharon

It's the day of my Council's monthly meeting so I enjoyed breakfast (as usual) with Lauri Grovenor (Council member) and Sharon Smith (wicked witch and maker of potions ... the most recent of which, to aid my skin allegedly, looks like a worm farm sitting on our kitchen shelf ... and taste's a bit worm-farm too).  Spike wasn't free to join us this month.

Our meeting took place at the offices of Accessible Arts NSW.  We found a decent (dare one say, trendy?) cafe at the Sydney Dance Company.  I failed to notice when ordering that my veggie breakfast was bereft of eggs.  So much for brain the size of a planet but it was a pleasant enough meal.  Shazza is feeling delicate and re-introducing solids to her diet after an unfortunate few days.  Her choice of savoury muffin with spinach and cheese was, how can I put it on the basis of tasting one mouthful ... interesting.  Lauri, wise woman that she is, choose bacon and eggs.  Not much but excellence there.

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Kaboom

I submitted my manuscript today to the CAL Scribe Fiction Prize 2010.  The first prize if $15,000 (half of which is an advance on the book deal the publisher signs with the winner).  I spent last night and all of today revising the text yet again.  I've no idea if it's a prize-winning novel.  That's for the judges to decide.  I don't even know if it's a publishable story.  But I read it again as I fine-tuned the draft.  It stands up.  It's a decent first work of 91,300 words.  Here's how it now starts:

To tell you the truth I have no idea where a man in my condition should start.  But I know this much.  It’s no surprise to wake up here; no surprise at all.  In fact it’s something of a consolation.  A long time ago I was warned that I would end up here, in a place like this.  I was told that I would come to no good, which is exactly what I’ve come to.  Mind you, there’s a perverse pleasure in having confirmed through experience something my elders and betters foretold would be mine if I did not mend my wasteful ways.  I hate to disappoint people.  So here I am, as predicted.

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Buttock report

Progress.  There's no hole in my right buttock any more.  This evening's visit by a nurse is (I hope) the last one.  I tried to sit on my cushion afterwards but the sweating returned almost immediately.  Progress then but not as fast as I'd like.  I try to look at it this way: no hole is better than the alternative.
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