Critic Cal

Quite what the professional (ahem) activities of Karren Brady  had to do with the anticipated proceedings of an away match in the West country remain a mystery to me even now. Nonetheless, defamatory speculations on this particular theme, resounding to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus, comprised the central substance of the prologue to Swindon vs. Leyton Orient , which I attended, in great earnest, earlier this month. Once the action centre stage kicked off, the accompaniment subsided into the popular and versatile refrain most famously exampled by the 1998 classic Vindaloo : "Ori-urrrgh ... Ori-urrrgh ... Ori-urgh, Ori-urgh, Ori-urrrgh ... Ori-urrrgh ... Ori-urrrgh ... Ori-urgh, Ori-urgh, Ori-urrrgh". I must confess I'm not entirely certain of the spelling. There followed a relatively uneventful twenty minutes or so, but for some mildly rankled recitative between a polite young lady spectator who wished to be seated, and a row of youths in front of her who preferred...

There's this great bit in Brave New World where Helmholtz inadvertently re-invents the lost art of poetry. In a lecture 'On the Use of Rhymes in Moral Propaganda and Advertisement', he introduces a technical example of his own: 'Pure madness, of course; but I couldn't resist it.' He laughed. 'I was curious to see what their reactions would be. Besides,' he added more gravely, 'I wanted to do a bit of propaganda; I was trying to engineer them into feeling as I'd felt when I wrote the rhymes. Ford!' He laughed again. 'What an outcry there was! The Principal had me up and threatened to hand me the immediate sack. I'm a marked man.' 'But what were your rhymes?' Bernard asked. 'They were about being alone.' Bernard's eyebrows went up. ( Aldous Huxley , Brave New World , 1931) Being alone -- or feeling any type of mental or emotional 'excess' -- is some achievement in Huxley's imagined world of r...

"Who here is bad ?"... The speaker surveyed the congregation with spoof solemnity. It was a typical Sunday morning, the "bit before the kids go out" at church. I must have been about 6. "Who here is  bad ?"... I knew all about sin. I'd had it explained to me, and everything, and quite frankly it seemed to make a lot of sense. Disobedience, lies, unkindness; I could think of lots of things that I had done which would make me sad if someone else did them to me. And it made me sad that I had done them, and I imagined it would make God sad too, going by what I knew of God. So, naturally, I raised my hand. And everybody burst out laughing. "Oh, dear, dear", chuckled the speaker, "I'm sure you're not bad  -- maybe naughty occasionally, but not bad ". But nonetheless he summoned me up to the front, where I was made to hold a piece of paper emblazoned with that word in bubble letters as part of his interactive family-friendly warm...

sonnet_cxvi_v2_cw2013 Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it finds weetabix-encrusted bowls, Nor bends, when bending to remove socks from the bedroom floor. Oh no! It is an ever-fixèd mark, much like the one left on the wall by that ham-fisted DIY attempt, That looks on tempests, and does not excuse itself from taking out the bins. It is the GPS to every long car journey back from stressful family events, Whose worth's unknown, although for goodness sake, don't leave it on the front seat to get taken. Love's not time's fool, though time-worn jokes may fall within the compass of a scathing glance; Love alters not with lengthy working days and weary weeks, But bears it out, and even finds the energy, come Saturday, to hoover to the edges of the living room. If this be error, and myself accused, Will never writ, nor I his words abused. (cf. an earlier draft ) Bearing with one another doesn't ...

"How is being a Christian like being a pumpkin?", my Facebook newsfeed prompted me: "God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. Cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc...and then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see." Underneath were lots of awws, and 'likes', and general indications of approval, many from dear friends whom I should possibly be more reluctant to offend. But I couldn't help but think – "hang on a sec – have none of you ever actually seen a jack-o-lantern?" Picture CC from Handtwerk on Flickr Wow, that's, erm, really something to aspire to, hey. In fact, I worry that we Christians have  gained a reputation for certain pumpkin-like tendencies, along rather less flattering lines of comparison: permanently, determinedly, grotesquely, smiley; little going on b...

First Witch When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won. Third Witch That will be ere the set of sun. First Witch Where the place? Second Witch Upon the heath. Third Witch There to meet with Macbeth. (Shakespeare, Macbeth , Act I, Scene I) That fateful meeting on the heath plants the seed of a dark ambition: Macbeth is to be king of Scotland. He eagerly believes the witches' prophecy -- though not quite enough, it seems, to prevent him taking matters into his own hands. Spurred on by Lady M, he murders the visiting King Duncan as he sleeps, and frames his servants in the morning. Duncan's sons flee in fear, and Macbeth assumes the throne. And then, objective ostensibly gained, all manner of madness proceeds ... Macbeth, remembering the witches' other prediction that his friend Banquo would be father to a line of kings, is racked with anxiety at this thr...

Sonnet Hating   Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? You wince at all things metaphorical; Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May -- Just like they shook it into you at school. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, Too many iambs make you lose your cool, And every fair from fair sometime declines, While you decline all rhyme and metric rule. But thy eternal summer shall not fade -- The heat of your disdain is turned up full; Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade -- For you, that's too anthropomorphical. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, You will remain averse to poetry.  (Sorry Will ). No time for rhyme? Averse to verse? Incensed by cadence? I feel patronisingly sorry for you, but you're not alone. Especially not if recent poetry sales are anything to go by -- according to a Guardian article earlier this year, the total value of the market has dropped from £8.4m in 2009 to just £6.7m in 2012 -- a massive 20% declin...