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August 2, 2009 · 2:26 pm

Watch out! There’s a Sting in the tale

Warning: only play this video if you think you can stand it. Srsly.

Bear with me, children. Regular readers will have been through all this before, either of the times I got made redundant and had to do lots of life-stuff. Once I get my website, PR blog, freelance career, personal finance, personal prospects and poetry workshop sorted out, I promise I’ll see a movie, go to an exhibition, read a poetry book, really get irritated about a news story, watch some reality TV with the kids, and report back to you on ALL those things.

I was at a wonderful dinner party last night with some old friends I don’t see enough of, and we talked about all kinds of fun and scurrilous things. It was just like Baroque Mansions! Everybody was shouting at once. We talked about Oxford Poetry-gate, “personal branding,” Gwyneth Paltrow’s website GOOP, how Gwynnie is like a female Sting (I laughed inordinately at that one, why did I not see it before), the web of special interest that connects Goldman Sachs to the US treasury department (did you know it was nicknamed Government Sachs?), reality TV, Twitter, iBook batteries, and finally the ridiculously amusing iPhone app Smack Talk… Must download it. And there was me thinking I needed a cat. (That is clearly not a hamster though, as you can see. It is a guinea pig.)

The only thing we didn’t get onto that could have been really good fun was the Fourth Plinth. (I haven’t even had a chance to follow that up. Well, I suppose there’s still time.)

Got home far too late, far too full of Punk IPA (yeah, we did listen to the Ramones a bit) and with a swollen foot, which has now been up all morning & seems a little better, but had a VERY nice time. Thank you, Mr & Mrs Goodcopybadcopy!

Er, and now I must do something useful. Where to start. It’s not all quite as lurvely as it seems once you’re faced with a bag of empty lever arch files and a sinkful of dirty dishes.

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Filed under coffee, food, happy, Life, money, music, parties, pigs, pseud's corner, TV

Tagged as beer, blogging things, dinner parties, fourth plinth, goldman sachs, gwyneth paltrow, iphone, recession, sting

April 29, 2009 · 8:44 am

poetry and science: the lowdown

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“Is it beer yet or can I still have a raisin?”

Okay, here’s something you don’t see every day.

As you may know, we here in Baroque Mansions are just crazy about science. There was that day I compared myself to a nematode, to quite good effect I thought in fact. This was more appropriate than you might think. I actually have a species of trilobite named after me. Yes, I do. It has lots of spikes and a cute bum, apparently, and it took a very long time indeed to find the right one. And, er… there was something else, too.

See, the thing about science is, it’s about how things work, exactly the same as meta-pscience (i.e., poetry) is. It is about owning not only the world but our perceptions of it and the stories we tell about it.

Now, as you may also know, writing instructions is one of the hardest things to do well. For one thing, it requires a highly methodical mind, with the power to observe closely, break the observed action into component elements, and describe concisely. (Er – I think that’s it…) To create an image in the reader’s mind of the thing just described, using correct, evocative language. To omit anything that doesn’t contribute to either the image or the effect the image may have.

And who has these skills? Besides poets, I mean?

Scientists, my dears. They have ’em in spades. And I have found where they hang out.

You may also have wondered where you could find Bonehenge. Well, wonder no more, for it is with the scientists.

And if you ever wanted to know how to brew beer in a coffee pot, using only materials commonly found on a modestly sized oceanographic research vessel, your search is over! The answer is at hand. (N.b.: A handy tip for next time you are packing to go aboard an oceanographic research vessel: “The hops are the hardest, and you may have to forgo their goodness. Alfalfa or some other green roughage may work, but a clever biologist will bring their own hops on board.”)

Like everything else, you can treat that as a metaphor if you like.