The Pubs around Nunhead: 5

He got back into the little Fiat and drove away along the Grove and up to the Common where he parked outside the Rye... and entered the saloon bar...

He walked across to the White Horse and drank one bitter. Next he visited the Morning Star and the Heaton Arms.  He finished up at the Harbinger.

               (From the first page of The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Muriel Spark, (1960))            

As noted elsewhere, the Heaton Arms is now demolished, the Morning Star is now the Nag's Head, the Rye Hotel is now simply the Rye and the Harbinger is probably a composite.

 

(Note however that  this reference is wrong on other details.  The Clock House also overlooks the Rye and - re note [4] - Kings on the Rye/The King's Arms was demolished around 10 years ago, so it would have been around in Muriel Spark's time).

Poem of the Week

Porphyria's Lover
Robert Browning

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me--she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time by shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!

Bad Ideas Courtesy of the Tories

Yes, the election proper has started.  So far we have:-

- Wealthy business people telling us that they don't want their businesses to pay more tax - so everyone else will have to instead;

- Peter Gershon suggesting a range of cost-control measures in the public services that in many cases are already in place - and claiming reidiculous savings from them;

- A proposed reintroduction of the regressive 'married couples tax allowance'

Marvellous.  This will get much worse.

Spring Garden

So it is finally a day that feels like Spring in the garden.  Things are growing.

The pond is full of little creatures wriggling in the frogspawn.

The rosemary is flowering.

Poem of the Week

Twickenham Garden
John Donne
Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with tears,
Hither I come to seek the spring,
And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,
Receive such balms as else cure every thing.
But O ! self-traitor, I do bring
The spider Love, which transubstantiates all,
And can convert manna to gall ;
And that this place may thoroughly be thought
True paradise, I have the serpent brought.

'Twere wholesomer for me that winter did
Benight the glory of this place,
And that a grave frost did forbid
These trees to laugh and mock me to my face ;
But that I may not this disgrace
Endure, nor yet leave loving, Love, let me
Some senseless piece of this place be ;
Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here,
Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.

Hither with crystal phials, lovers, come,
And take my tears, which are love's wine,
And try your mistress' tears at home,
For all are false, that taste not just like mine.
Alas ! hearts do not in eyes shine,
Nor can you more judge women's thoughts by tears,
Than by her shadow what she wears.
O perverse sex, where none is true but she,
Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me.

No Romana

Yesterday I noted that IMDb claims Lalla Ward had an uncredited role as Romana in The End of Time Part 1 - the first section of the two-part episode that ended David Tennant's time as the Doctor.

Later on that day we all watched it on BBC3.  Nope.  No Romana.  Just checked it on i-Player and she still isn't there.

Now, I have found a geeky blog from a while ago that was speculating on what would be in the episode when it broadcast.  It was known that the Time Lords would return, but the blog implied that Romana II would be the President during the episode.  Maybe that is where IMDb got it from - the rumours that preceded the show.

Either way, I don't think she was in it.

The DNA of Dr Who

A nice, if navel-gazing, piece on BBC Radio 4 just now.  About Douglas Adams' time as a writer and then script editor on Dr Who.  Introduced by John Culshaw who slipped from time-to-time into Dead Ringers mode to impersonate Tom Baker.  (Adams was part of the show during the tenure of the Fourth Doctor).

Several good stories, including John Lloyd remembering that DNA had asked Tom Stoppard to write an episode of the show - apparently he gave a very short reply.  Lloyd describe it as one of the few times that Stoppard turned down a commission from a writer better than he is.

Mostly sycophantic responses about what a wonderful writer Adams was, and ending with a puff piece for the more recent (2005 onwards) sequence, which was claimed as being in the mode of City of Death. That is, with a strong leavening of humour.  Stephen Moffat was very happy with the idea.  However it was also said that Adams did something only he could get away with - he broke a cardinal rule, allowing a funny Doctor in a funny situation.

One piece of information I hadn't known: Lalla Ward (Romana II) is married to Richard Dawkins, after meeting him at a party thrown by Adams. (Something like "He and Stephen Fry were having a head-in-the-clouds conversation two or three feet above our heads, so I had to talk to him"). 

More famously - not mentioned on the radio she was also briefly married to Tom Baker.

So anyway, I looked on the InterWeb which confirmed the story, also stating that it was Adams' 40th birthday party, and that Dawkins and Ward were the only ones who only turned up on time. 

And IMDb asserts that she had an uncredited part as Romana in The End of Time: Part 1.

Sigh.