Two wrongs absolutely do make a right

This post will attempt to combine mathematics, grammar and naughty school boys in a seamless and educative fashion.

Here goes.

I once brought my mathematics teacher close to a nervous breakdown. (At least that's what he said to my mother at parents' evening.)

Mr Kilburn had spent weeks explaining the concept of negative numbers. In one particular lesson, I must have snorted loudly or made some other indication of disdain.

'What was that, Moptop?'
'Nothing, Mr. Kilburn, Sir.'
'Were you sniggering?''
'Not exactly, Sir. It was more of a sigh.'
'A sigh? Why?'
'Well, it's these negative numbers, Sir. I don't believe in 'em.'
'You don't believe in them?'
'No, Sir.'
'But, Moptop, if I gave you an apple and you ate it, you would have minus one apple.'
'No, Sir, I'd have an apple core.'

And so on. The battle over the existence of negative numbers ran three times a week for two years and goes a long way to explaining the Unclassified mark in my Maths 'O' Level.

Today, in a moment of rare joy and rapture, I stumbled across a copy of The Best of Jennings by Anthony Buckeridge. (I stumbled in all senses of the words as it was a pile 'em high, sell 'em low book shop - only the staff had Spoonerised this instruction.) I've been reading it tonight and am half way through Book One.

For most of my childhood, Jennings was my hero - along with Nigel Molesworth and William Brown. (Yes, I've always had a penchant for naughty boys.) In the local library, there was a row of Jennings' books which I worked my way through (1 - 23*) and then started from the beginning again. Tonight, I am beginning to understand that Jennings was clearly a very bad influence on an innocent and impressionable young mind.

Stop laughing.

Jennings has an answer for everything, using an admirable form of logic. For example: instructed to label his gym shoes he writes his name in one shoe and 'ditto' in the other. Half way through Chapter Six tonight, I realised that Jennings is the reason I argued with Mr. Kilburn. He is the reason I failed Maths 'O' Level. He is the reason my bank account likes negative numbers - which I still don't believe in.

I should sue that library.

It was odd that I couldn't bring myself to believe in something that wasn't there (not least because for several years I harboured ambitions to be a missionary). Odd, because I had very much taken to heart William Brown's assertion that 'Two negatives make a positive.' In one** of the Just William  stories, he asks his mother, Mrs Brown, whether he can have a party whilst she is away. 'No, William, you may not,' is the reply. William takes the double negative to mean that, yes, he can have a party - a technique I employed several times myself during my teens.

A double negative in English works thus: No, I do not agree becomes I certainly agree.

Therefore No, you may not have a party becomes Of course you can have a party. Please blow the dust off the Créme de Menthe and make a lethal punch that will bring most guests to their knees after three sips. Also, refilling the whiskey bottles with cold tea and the vodka  bottles with water is absolutely fine by me.

I recently applied the double negative rule to a double double entendre using the logic that one cancelled out the other.

It doesn't.

And neither does eating two apples result in minus two apples, but rather plus two apple cores.

Still, none of this is my fault as I was brainwashed as a child. That's mine, Jennings', William's and Nigel's story and we're sticking to it.

* Books 24 & 25 were written in 1991 & 1994 when I was going through my Virago Modern Classics phase.

** A Question of Grammer is in Just William (1922)

An excellent start to the day

O, what joy! What delight! Though doubtless not in Tunbridge Wells where they are easily offended.

During this morning's BBC Radio 4 Today programme, presenter James Naughtie said a very 'naughtie' word in relation to Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary. Although, it must be said, someone else suggested it first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS5mVoqJpUk

Warning! Do not click on this link if you reside in Tunbridge Wells. Naughty Naughtie has been inundated by emails from your compatriots. Please do not add to the gentleman's distress.

Naughtie was guilty of a Spoonerism, although many more tongue-tangles were attributed to the Revd. Spooner than he unaged to matter. I wish the Revd. really had said: "Three cheers for our queer old dean!" mostly because I'm hoping to use the line myself - fully credited - in the near future. (Spoonering soon.)

Count Arthur Strong also appears - though it is beyond me how anyone can 'appear' on the wireless - on BBC Radio 4. He could spoon for Britain. I expect it's a Desirable/Essential quality for employment by Auntie. Still, here's a thought: a new Olympic sporting category that we'd have a sporting chance of winning - Spoonerisming . As long as we didn't meet Finland* in the final.

So, with 2012 looming/bearing down fast/hurtling towards us, we - as in The Nation not just the select band who visit Chez Moptop - must get behind the soon-to-be-announced sport of Spoonerisms. Let us start with a warm up exercise. All together now:

I am not the pheasant plucker,
I'm the pheasant plucker's mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
Cos the pheasant plucker's running late.

I am not a pheasant plucker,
I'm a pheasant plucker's son.
I am only plucking pheasants
Till the pheasant plucker comes.

 - though - PLEASE - do not practise in Tunbridge Wells. I'm on their list as it is.

* If you are troubled with insomnia, you might care to read this article about how Finns spoon.

Other people who purchased this also purchased ...

This time last year I was going a bit banonkas in the Border's Closing Down Sale. Six new bookcases later, I decided not to buy any more books until I'd read all the books I had already.

Cue hollow laughter.

So now, with Christmas looming, what do all the newspapers publish?

Great, long, four-page spreads of the 'Best Books of 2010'. Now I realise there is 'you-scratch-my-back' collusion between authors, and some publishers' puffery, but still ... there are many interesting books that I really didn't know I was interested in until I read about them in the Books of the Year features. For example, the history of the finger. If you'd asked me which body part I'd most like to read about in an historical treatise, the finger is the last thing I'd have pointed at.

But now it is my finger that is doing the most damage. Time was when I'd read all these Books of the Year lists, think 'Ooh, I'd like to read that', take myself off to a bookshop some days later and stand there stupidly blank thinking 'What was the name of that book I wanted to buy?' (Please note, for the sake of keeping Broken Biro quiet, I do the same stupid, blank stare in libraries.) Now I think 'Ooh, I'd like to read that' and click, click, click I've bought it on Amazon. And it doesn't help that Amazon then helpfully suggests a whole shelf of other books I might enjoy.

Look, I had no no little trouble smuggling vast quantities of books into the house after the buying spree in Borders (at one point I took to tucking them into my socks) but when the postie leaves great big day-glo labels that proclaim 'YOUR HUGE PARCEL OF BOOKS TOO NUMEROUS TO LIST HERE ARE HIDDEN BEHIND YOUR GREEN BIN. OW! MY BACK HURTS. DOUBTLESS I'LL BE CRIPPLED FOR LIFE. THAT'S THE SEVENTEENTH PARCEL THIS WEEK' then it's not so easy to explain away.

Which books have made it onto your Christmas list? I'm asking because if they match any of mine, I can pretend I've bought them for you. Anyone pining  for the recent unexpurgated Mark Twain autobiography? (she asks hopefully).

The Students Are Revolting ...

Location: a crowded bus
Characters: a Banshee (quite obviously 17 years old); a Boy (even more obviously 16 years old).

Boy: How did the protest go today?
Banshee: It was too cold.
Boy: Yeah, but all that marching keeps you warm.
Banshee: No, it was too cold to go.
Boy: They protested in London.
Banshee: It's warmer in London.
Boy: It's not tropical.
Banshee: The policehorses and riot shields create a wind break, that's why it's warmer.
Boy: Ohhh ... (BEAT). Anyway, I agree with everything they're doing.
Banshee: Why aren't you protesting then?
Boy: It's too cold. (BEAT). But I didn't agree with them throwing paint up Nelson's column.
Banshee: There are always a few idiots. Last week I stopped one girl egging the former Tory party office. Former!
Boy: It's not as if Nelson Mandela's ever done anything to students.
Banshee: What?
Boy: Nelson Mandela. He's on the side of the oppressed.
Banshee: What's Nelson Mandela got to do with it?
Boy: There was no need to throw paint up his column - that's all I'm saying. He sits at the top, cross-legged holding his hands out, all peaceful -
Banshee: No, he doesn't!
Boy: I mean his statue does, not Nelson himself. I'm not stupid.

Roll credits

Ma Cherie Amour (Four) by Antonia Cartland Blair

The story so far: Our hero - O! Can I be bothered explaining? Just read the damn thing. The life of a romatic novelist is hardly that ... And so it continues.

Chapter MCXXVI

The parchment crackled in my strong, masculine grip; a hand-written epistle from my arch enemy, the evil, wicked, and nefarious Baron Brown.

My heart fluttered in my chest like a wren trying to escape from a birdcage made of ribs. I slumped against the Ottoman – the Ottoman Ambassador, that is, who made his excuses and left with a quite unseemly haste and an even more unseemly slamming of my beautifully carved and gilded door.

I charged into the morning room, my coat-tails flittering like pennants behind me in the swift speed of my entrance. “Cherie, what should I do?”

My beloved looked up from the slim volume she was perusing. “Antonio? O, I shouldn’t do anything until Carole’s communed with Aquarius.” She yawned prettily and turned a page with a languid finger.

Our parlour maid, Carole, had recently become enamoured with a mountebank astrologer and was taking every opportunity to influence Ma Cherie with the frequent application of scented oils, candles and drawer-liners whilst I concerned myself with the vitally important business of ruling the country.

“Petros!” I called in my manly baritone.

Mendlesohn who, as was his wont, lurked in the shadows beyond the door, answered my summons. “Sir?” His dark hair flopped loosely over his brow in a most ungentlemanly way.

“Prepare my carriage. I have been invited to dine with the Baron in Vauxhall Gardens. ”

Mendlesohn was immediately alert – there was a definite erectness in his stance. The Baron had this disconcerting effect on us all. I fixed him (Petros not the Baron) with my uncommonly piercing blue eyes. “You shall accompany me, disguised as my valet. Breathe not a word to McAllister. We travel alone.”

~*~

Vauxhall was a cacophonic symphony of smells and colours. The bright, cheap dresses of les demoiselles de la nuit; the frivolous, surging swell of the orchestra; the platters of pork pies and wet nellies – all converged in a sensational dizziness. O, if only I was an ordinary man, with ordinary responsibilities and ordinary needs! But – no! – I was destined for greatness and being a slave to my destiny I must but accept my lot with the humble humility for which I was rightly famed the world over.

“You’ll take an ice?” My dining companion growled at me, one dark eye twitching slightly under ungroomed brows.

“O, well, mmm, my tailor –“. My carefully polite hesitancy fell on the Baron’s barren ground.

“It wasnae a question.” He grunted at the hovering waiter and almost immediately a crystal bowl of iced cream appeared before me. It was dusted with sherbet and crowned with an impressive log of dark chocolate. Was this a subtle indication? A codified message of his intentions towards me? But, still - the rare cocoa bean! I licked my lips like a snake that had last caught a mouse many months past.

“My Lord.” Mendlesohn was at my elbow, hissing in my ear.

“What is it, Petros?”

His breath was warm against my cheek. “You must not eat the chocolate, my Lord.”

“Good heavens!” I was suddenly unnerved. My linen napkin came adrift from my collar and floated to the floor.

The Baron stooped to retrieve it then fixed me with his one good dull almost beige brown eye.

I feigned a cough and, whilst my hand covered my mouth, directed a question at my Camp Aide. “Is it poisoned, Petros? Have you uncovered yet another vile plot?”

Petros shuffled closer and mimed wiping a spot of gravy from my cravat. “No, my Lord,” he muttered under his breath. “You cannot eat the chocolate because it will appear greedy.”

“What? No chocolate with my iced cream? But I always have chocolate with my iced cream!”

“No, Sir. You are amongst common people. You must live like common people, do whatever common people do.” Mendlesohn stepped back from my chair and imperceptibly nodded towards the neighbouring tables, which were at that very moment in time filled with the chattering classes of the City.

I looked at my dining companion. The waiter had brought another bowl of iced cream and set it before the Baron. His portion was decidedly more prudent, one scoop, uncrowned by sherbet or chocolate: a very plain – nay, Presbyterian - iced cream.

I had been fooled by his kindness, tricked into accepting his hospitality and now I was in a supremely awkward position. The chocolate log lurched backwards, whilst iced cream melted like so many tears of frustration, disappointment and betrayal. The scheming Scotch scoundrel! The wily, plotting Caledonian!

I pushed back my bowl and rose from the table. The battle lines were drawn. Now, may the best man win.

To be continued ...

Guess Who?

The Lost Leader

JUST for a handful of offices he left us,
Just for a deputy's badge to pin to his coat—
Found the one bloke who we'd trust to protect us,
He'd rein in th' Tories as they went for our throat;
They, with the gold to give, dol’d him unemployed coppers,
So much was theirs - but no sharing's allow’d!
How all our ballots had gone for his service!
Liberals in Government - our hearts had been proud!
We that had lov’d him so, follow’d him, honor’d him,
Liv’d in his mild teenage arsonist's eye,
Trusted his promises (made in fake Yorkshire accents),
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Charles Kennedy is of us, Shirley Williams was for us,
Asquith, Jenkins, were with us,—they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the students, campaigners,
He alone sinks to the rear - Tory slave!

Song of the City

I’ve breathed the stink of slums,
              held the thin bones of poverty,
hungry men lined my docks,
                       I am stained by slavery.
Storms smashed my jetties,
                 Depression emptied factories,
                        bombs flattened masonry –

                                      Nothing can crush me.

For every injustice,
        I give you someone who’ll fight,
                  shout for truth and liberty, sing, strike.

Roscoe roared for abolition,
      Kitty called for public baths,
        Josephine caught the fallen women,
Rathbone fought the rotten votes,
       James Clark taught me how to swim,
                Rushden how to see –

Idealists, pragmatists, they had dreams –
                                    their dreams made me.

I honour them in bronze, glass,
               in social housing, hospitals,
galleries, libraries, schools and missions,
                museums, clean water, a string of parks.

Their names are my history
and those of my children who –
                       quietly, namelessly –
worked extra shifts and donated their pay,
sailed to fight Fascism,
                 showed solidarity,
marched for the freedoms

we wear now so easily.

Social reformers, preachers, and teachers,
         politicians, comedians, poets and schemers,
playwrights with angry pens,
                  radicals, dreamers,
                     mothers granting forgiveness, union leaders,

chanting Equality!
      campaigning tirelessly -

                   These are my people, our common humanity.