Literary endeavours

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.

Since the rise of the environmental movement, Chomsky's "green ideas dream furiously" has lost its perfection as a meaningless sentence that is correct in grammar and syntax. But this is a wonderful replacement. On top of that it is a perfect palindrome, which makes it just superlative. OK, there are other palindromes, too many and too boring to enumerate, but this one is great, a magnificent achievement, as perfect as one of Michaelangelo's sculptures or Gauss' theorems, if not on the same scale. Hats off to its creator, or creators, who, according to Google, is or are anonymous. 

How did they do it? Inspiration? Hard work? Or with a search algorithm? A really clever algorithm, if it was that, too clever to be plausible. The simplest explanation is that it is a work of art, and a sublime one.

Update: alert reader Ms Scarlet points out a dropped aspirate in the label: eroicus was indeed wrong. I shall borrow Arlington Hynes' spellcheck in future.

Updated update: and there shouldn't be an et there. As any fule kno.

My most embarrassing record

is that I was arrested sooner than anyone else (3 weeks) my first year at university. For stealing a traffic cone. So unimaginative, I cringe still.

Tough guy

"Daddy, can you make me pancakes? Please?" Huh? Never had this before. At this time of the evening (8-30, dinner was ages ago) she often wants cereal or porridge, which are easy. Pancakes are trickier, because the effing whisk devotes its contemptible existence to hiding from me. Sometimes behind the dogfood, sometimes not.

"Tell you what, I'll make you pancakes after you've finished your homework, walked your dog and practiced your clarinet."

"I've done all that, so will you make pancakes?"

["Since your negotiating position is now so lousy, why should I?"] "Oh, OK then." 

God, I'm such a wimp.

More help wanted

Mme Inkspot's birthday approaches. Yes, I do know what to get her, because she's told me: Black Orchid, by Tom Ford. (Duh, it's a perfume.) But frantic googling (is there any other kind?) reveals the existence of two sub-species: Voile de Fleur, and, well, it seems to be Not Voile de Fleur. FFS, which do I choose? Look, I'm used to parfum vs. eau de parfum vs. eau de toilette, but why must these manufacturers, sorry, parfumeurs or whatever, have to make a chap's life even harder? Especially as it's chaps who buy so much of their stuff; it's not in their interests to make us think, sod this for a game of soldiers, I'll get her a welding torch. Nor ours, come to that.

Update: further googling has contradicted the first googling: Voile de Fleur is not a sub-species of Black Orchid. Phew.

I am sure the world needed re-assurance on this point.

Of categories

Arlington Hynes deleted one of my comments at bogol. Since this is only the world's best blog I was crushed into a nadir of worthlessness. His explanation was that he wanted no politics; fair enough, it's his blog. But he made an error of category. My comment concerned Sarah Palin, who has already reached that zone, inhabited by the late President Eisenhower and Dan Quayle, of being above politics during her own political career. "Disjoint from politics" would be more accurate, but it's still a remarkable achievement. Can anything similar be done in other walks of life? Music? Medicine? Ten pin bowling?

selecta

Pics are too hard, but here are 6 non-random things ("facts") about me.

1. I spent several years in Chicago. Its beauty is astonishing; visit if you do not know this. But not in winter, which is indescribable by ordinary standards.

2. The one woman who broke my heart was an accountant.

3. Good writing demands the extermination of adverbs.

4. Yeats is a dreadful poet. This has nothing to do with his adverbs.

5. English boarding school food is horrible. Unfortunately there are worse cuisines.

6. This blog is an outlet for sarcasm and inconsistency.

Election update

No, not those tiresome goings-on in the US. They will result in either 4 more years of exactly the same, or 4 more years of almost exactly the same. Foreign policy (slavish support of whatever Israel does, plus starting wars without having a clue of how to finish them) will be particularly the same. Economic and financial policy will continue to ignore my suggestions of arbitraging the helium market if you can't corner it and securitizing commercial sex.

I'm talking about the election, by examination, of prize fellows at All Souls, that Oxford centre of the exquisite. Oh, "provided that candidates of sufficient merit present themselves". Plonkers.

The procedure has three parts. The first is a series of 3-hour written exams, including an essay on a one-word topic ("Crevices" this year) and papers on your chosen special subject. This was classical sociology for me, so I had to confront things like "What does contemporary historiography tell us about STDs in 4th century Athens?" The short answer here happens to be the right one, but you have to choose your moments.

The second, for chosen candidates only (including your correspondent), is a viva, where they interrogate you on what you wrote. ("Tell us, Mr Inkspot, what tool would you use if your crevice is not flexible?") I have to say, since false modesty is repellent, that I aced the papers and wiped the floor with them in the viva. I gave them Saussure, I gave them Plato, I gave them Derrida ("Se naitre, ce n'est qu'entrer dans le neant.") Well, possibly it wasn't Derrida, since I had just made it up, but I could get away with it because, it was clear, none of those smug feuilletonistes had read Derrida either.

The third was last night. They invited the surviving candidates to dinner, gave us cherry pie to eat, and judged us on what we did with the pips. Now Beast had made this fabulous suggestion of turning them into anal beads for the Warden, and that was my plan.

Before dinner they gave us champagne, Joseph Perrier '96. This is a small house, but the champagne was just fine. Yeasty rather than grassy, I had lots. The other candidates included a couple of striking young men in Armani. To cope with them, I flashed a twenty at a passing waiter and told him to make sure that they got champagne cocktails rather than straight champagne, and lots of them. He promised that an extra twenty ("for the butler") would ensure it.

And so to dinner. You'll want to know what we had.

Potage des tourterelles. Yes, I know, eating turtles is frowned upon these days, or even illegal, but nobody's told All Souls. They raise them for the table in a private underground aquarium. [Filthy sherry of some kind. I left it alone and had more champagne.]

Tourbot, sauce merluche des branleurs. The fish you get in this country can't touch what you get in Bombay, and this was good without being special. [A boring Chablis. Waiter! More champagne! By now I'd noticed a honeyed taste to the champagne, but I put it down to the sauce, not having full confidence in the kitchens' interpretation of dried codfish. Anyway, I had another glass or two to make sure I still liked it.]

Tournedos Rossini des flaneurs. Properly hung fillet steak, with real foie gras, of course, and cooked to perfection. [Some sort of Crozes Hermitage. I forget what exactly, but, boy, was it good. I filled my boots.]

Tarte aux cerises des suceurs. The cherry pip anal beads were a howling success; they delighted the Warden, to judge by his "Ooh, wait till I show the Dean!" [Ch. Suduiraut '88. I cannot resist Sauternes, and this was delicous.]

Le dessert. Grapes and bananas from the college's own hothouse and cheese from one of its farms. [Ch. Leoville-Las Cases '82 and Graham's '55. Oh my fucking god. The '82 Las Cases has 100 Parker points. Yes, read'em and weep, one hundred, the perfect score, the full monty. And I had heard of, but never encountered, the legendary Graham's. Go and look them up, I can't describe them.]

Today brought a polite note containing the Warden's regrets, etc. So where did it go wrong? Well, another time I wouldn't have stood on the table and used one of the bananas to conduct the company in a rousing chorus of the college song ("His swapping tool of generation..."), but at the moment it seemed so right.

Bastard double-crossing butler. Still, there's always next year.