Thursday extracts: a little grammar lesson

Abe picked up the yoghurt container and peered at the label.
"Non-fat shouldn't taste this good. You're sure it's non-fat?"
"That's what it says. And less calories too."
"Fewer calories."
"Less." Jack pointed to the bright yellow flag on the container. "Says so right there."
"I should accept a yoghurt label as my authority on grammar? Trust me, Jack, it's 'fewer'. Less fat - okay. But fewer calories."

F Paul Wilson
Conspiracies (A Repairman Jack novel)
2008

*********
Gotta love a thriller writer who makes space for an English lesson!

Thursday Extracts: Maureen Johnson, on not taking drastic measures

"What you don't realise at the time is that you're not seeing the full picture," Peter went on. "You don't think about the fact that things will change. Things always change."

*******

The Boy in the Smoke
Maureen Johnson
2014
Hot Key Books, London

Thursday Extracts: Philip Larkin. (Because Hull is officially cultured)

Friday Night At The Royal Station Hotel

by Philip Larkin

Light spreads darkly downwards from the high
Clusters of lights over empty chairs
That face each other, coloured differently.
Through open doors, the dining-room declares
A larger loneliness of knives and glass
And silence laid like carpet. A porter reads
An unsold evening paper. Hours pass,
And all the salesmen have gone back to Leeds,
Leaving full ashtrays in the Conference Room.

In shoeless corridors, the lights burn. How
Isolated, like a fort, it is -
The headed paper, made for writing home
(If home existed) letters of exile: Now
Night comes on. Waves fold behind villages.

 

*****

Don't you just love "the dining-room declares
A larger loneliness of knives and glass"

 

Hull yesterday won the title of UK City of Culture 2017.

 

Thursday quotes: Terry Pratchett on Books

“If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.”
― Terry Pratchett

*************************

It's not an extract. It's a quote.

Thursday Extracts: an Oriental viewpoint

In the third century AD was written the Lieh-tzu. In this book, Yang Chu says: ‘There are four things which do not allow people to have peace.
‘The first is long life, the second is reputation, the third is rank, and the fourth is riches.
‘Those who have these things fear ghosts, fear men, fear power, and fear punishment.’

Blade of Grass, the things you want are the things you do not want.
Hear the ancient story of the man who knew what he wanted.
He was walking by the riverside when he saw an Immortal. The man was very curious. He looked at the person from Heaven.
‘I suppose you want something special from me?’ said the Immortal.
‘Yes,’ said the man.
The Immortal touched a stone with his finger. It changed to gold. He said: ‘You can take.’
The man did not go. He stayed.
‘Do you want something more?’ said the Immortal.
‘Yes,’ said the man.
The Immortal touched three rocks nearby. They turned to gold. He said: ‘You can take.’
But the man still did not go.
The Immortal said: ‘What do you want? What is more valuable than gold?’
The man said: ‘I want something very ordinary.’
The Immortal said: ‘What do you want?’
The man said: ‘Your finger.’

The Feng Shui Detective
Nury Vittachi
2000
Allen & Unwin

Now that April's here........ (Thursday extracts)

Home Thoughts From Abroad

O, to be in England   
Now that April 's there,   
And whoever wakes in England   
Sees, some morning, unaware,   
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf            
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,   
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough   
In England—now!

Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)
Poem dated 1845

Thursday Extracts: Smile

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

*************************
Words by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, to a tune by Charlie Chaplin

If you'd like to listen to is sung by the great Nat King Cole click here

Not just for Valentine's Day

Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort
It is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home

Perhaps love is like a window
Perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer
It wants you to show you more
And even when you lose yourself
And don't know what to do
The memory of love will see you through

Oh, love to some is like cloud
To some as strong as steel
For some a way of living
For some a way to feel
And some say love is holding on
And some say letting go
And some love is everything
Others, they don't know

Perhaps love is like the ocean
Full of conflict full of pain
Like a fire when its cold outside
Or thunder when it rains
If I should live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

Thursday extracts: cormorant

The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag.
The reason you will see, no doubt,
It is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
Have failed to notice is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

 Anon

Thursday extracts: defined by your shape

The entire man was a grimace. A large head bristling with red hair; between his shoulders an enormous hump, with a corresponding prominence in front; legs and thighs so singularly crooked that they touched only at the knees, and, seen from the front, resembled two reaping-hooks united at the handle; broad feet, huge hands; and, with all this deformity, a certain awe-inspiring air of vigor, agility, and courage; strange exception to the rule which declares power, as well as beauty, to be the result of harmony,—such was the pope whom the fools had chosen to reign over them.

He looked like a giant broken to pieces and badly cemented together.

When this species of Cyclop appeared upon the threshold of the chapel, motionless, thickset, almost as broad as he was long, “the square of his base,” as a great man once expressed it, the people recognized him instantly, by his party-colored red and purple coat spangled with silver, and particularly by the perfection of his ugliness, and cried aloud with one voice:—

“It is Quasimodo, the bell-ringer! It is Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame! Quasimodo, the one-eyed! Quasimodo, the bandy-legged!

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Victor Hugo

Thursday extracts: weather

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.   London Snow
Robert Bridges 1844–1930

*******************

Seemed fitting. Although the most we've had overnight is three inches. And I'm nowhere near London.

Thursday extracts: James Stephens on women's difficulties

In the centre of the pine wood called Coilla Doraca there lived not long ago two Philosophers. They were wiser than anything else in the world except the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into which the nuts of knowledge fall from the hazel bush on its bank. He, of course, is the most profound of living creatures, but the two Philosophers are next to him in wisdom. Their faces looked as though they were made of parchment, there was ink under their nails, and every difficulty that was submitted to them, even by women, they were able to instantly resolve. The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath asked them the three questions which nobody had ever been able to answer, and they were able to answer them. That was how they obtained the enmity of these two women which is more valuable than the friendship of angels. The Grey Woman and the Thin Woman were so incensed at being answered that they married the two Philosophers in order to be able to pinch them in bed, but the skins of the Philosophers were so thick that they did not know they were being pinched. They repaid the fury of the women with such tender affection that these vicious creatures almost expired of chagrin, and once, in a very ecstacy of exasperation, after having been kissed by their husbands, they uttered the fourteen hundred maledictions which comprised their wisdom, and these were learned by the Philosophers who thus became even wiser than before.

The Crock of Gold
James Stephens
1912

Thursday extracts: Yorkshire politics

Religion, when we were kids, was all about control. It was about the ruling classes being hand-in-glove with the church to keep ordinary, hard-working people terrified of having a mind of their own.

Sally Wainwright
Last Tango in Halifax
(BBC drama. Delivered by the character Alan, played by Derek Jacobi.)

Thursday extracts: Wrong time of year

I walked about on my own, a bit lonely.
Suddenly I saw a whole lot of yellow flowers with long stalks.
They were right by a pond under some trees and the wind was
blowing them about a bit.
They seemed to go on and on, great rows of them.
I realised with one look there were masses of them all
moving about on the wind.
Now, when I'm lying on my bed, with nothing to do or feeling
a bit low, I think about those yellow flowers and it sort of
cheers me up, like.

Jill Streatfield
With apologies to Wordsworth

***********
OK - so I know it's the wrong season. But it's funny. Right? 

Thursday Extracts: spoilt for choice

What do Hoagy Carmichael (1899),  Benjamin Britten (1913),  George Eliot - real name Mary Ann Evans (1819),  Robert Vaughn (1932) and Tom Conti (1941) have in common?

Those brackets  might give you a clue. Nov 22 is/was their birthday. So do I give you some George Eliot? A bit of Silas Marner, perhaps. If I could find it, I might quote some lines from Terence Frisby's play Rough Justice, which I saw earlier this year, starring Tom Conti.

But I decided to go with this. The lyrics aren't great - but the music is wonderful. (It's written by Hoagy Carmichael, of course.)

Thursday Extracts: On the way to winter

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

From : That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73) by William Shakespeare 

Thursday Extracts: Out for blood

Thanks to Google for the hint!

Today is Bram Stoker's 165th birthday. So I couldn't really give you anything else could I?

I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)
I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then.

Dracula
Bram Stoker
1897

Thursday extracts: not Nano

My Aunt Julia was a remarkable woman.  She was my father’s younger sister and, although I hardly remember the two of them together, the way she always talked of him suggested that they were fond of each other. He was the practical one but she was born with the brains, she said. She outshone him at school and was always destined for a career but surprised everyone when, after A levels, she touted her skills around all the local newspaper offices until she was taken on as a trainee reporter on a weekly near Manchester.

**************

It'll be a long while before this sees daylight in print. It's an extract from my current work in progress. No, it's not even slightly autobiographical.

Thursday extracts: Kenneth Grahame would probably have objected to a badger cull

When at last they were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them to the table, where he had been busy laying a repast. They had felt pretty hungry before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was spread for them, really it seemed only a question of what they should attack first where all was so attractive, and whether the other things would obligingly wait for them till they had time to give them attention. Conversation was impossible for a long time; and when it was slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of conversation that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into Society himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the things that didn't really matter.

The Wind in the Willows
1908
Kenneth Grahame

Thursday Extracts: National Poetry Day

It Was One of Those Fine October Days

It was one of those fine October days
free from summer’s heat and haze
but not yet gripped by autumn chill.

It was one of those fine October days
when the sky’s so clear
you can see the moon
through the atmosphere
at midday.

It was one of those fine October days
when the trees sport yellow and red
instead of everyday summer green.

It was one of those fine October days
when one draws a deep breath
and is grateful
to be resident on Earth.

Richard Greene