FRANK MCOURT REMEMBERED IN THE IRISH TIMES

@panzade,

I love it. Ive got no excuse for my drab life. I should really work harder on carving my butt's print into a Morris chair.

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@farmerman,

You might start with a slow and careful read of Gibbon's masterpiece old chap.

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@spendius,

Yeah well - don't forget to tell them about Castle Coomb:
and all the wonderful things you can find there:
* Arts and Crafts
* Equestrian
* Dog Friendly
* Strange Things
* Filming Locations

Quote:

In the County of Wiltshire Southern Cotswolds 15 miles north-east of Bath Access via M4
junction 17 or 18
The village of Castle Combe

Castle Combe Tourist Information Guide

Castle Combe lies in a valley and is considered one of the loveliest villages in the Cotswolds. It is one of the most visited and frequently finds favour as a backdrop for period television and cinema dramas.

and Laycock

And Box - where Peter Gabriel has a spread- although that's not officially in the Cotswolds- but near enough.

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@aidan,

How about some local colour about Castle Coomb and the interesting sounding Laycock Becksie.

A few snippets out of the Tourist Guide are unworthy of your literary attention.

I was stationed in Wiltshire for 10 months before they posted me out of sight. It was rather cold in winter.

I've already told the story of the NAFFI Club in Calne which is also where they make those world famous sausages which were on every breakfast menu along with the same firm's bacon.

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@spendius,

I could wax poetic about the southern Cotswolds/Bath and east into Wiltshire all night long.
As hour - long drives go - that's one of my favorites. It has everything to do with shadows and green melding into gold. It's all about shades and hues. Exactly like the blue/green of the ocean but on land.

Well what I've heard about Calne has all to do about music and less about meat. Apparently there's a wonderful music festival held there. Someday I mean to go.

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@aidan,

Poetry is about sex Becks. The rest is rhyming and scanning bullshit. How on earth can anybody "wax poetic" about the southern Cotswolds/Bath and east into Wiltshire?

Let us just take the southern Cotswolds/Bath and east into Wiltshire apart have we? The whole place is an industrial wasteland. There's GM crops changing colour as they ripen. There's load of other stuff too of a sordid nature. Fences for example. Barbed wire. Broken glass cemented into walls. CCTV. Property rights. Watch The News.

Have been on the red wine?

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@spendius,

Quote:

Have been on the red wine?

Do you mean to ask, 'Have I been on the red wine?'

No - I just had a cup of tea though. I have to stay up and awake and ready to drive so I can pick up my daughter from the Rooksbridge Harvest Home that she went to with her little friend Jemima. She should be calling any minute - and if she doesn't soon - I'm gonna call her. I'm ready to go to bed. I have to get up early.

Quote:

Let us just take the southern Cotswolds/Bath and east into Wiltshire apart have we? The whole place is an industrial wasteland

.
What are you talking about? Not in my experience- although I will admit- I don't know who owns the fields. Maybe it is all sowed and harvested by agribusiness. But it sure does look pretty.

Quote:

Broken glass cemented into walls.

I must have miss this.

Quote:

Poetry is about sex Becks.

Really? Is that it? How about Oristar's lonely swan poem? I thought parts of that were lovely, and I didn't detect very much sex among the rhyming and scanning at all.
You see what you see - I'll see what I see.

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@spendius,

Quote:

There's load of other stuff too of a sordid nature.

You're just jealous because you don't live here. I just read in the Times yesterday that the majority of people when questioned about what part of England they would choose to live in, if they could work from home via the internet - chose the southwest- which is where I live, not too far from Bath by the way.

And the majority of people who would change location to live in the southwest were from the Midlands. Is that where you live, by any chance?

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@aidan,

I never get up early. I don't see the point of freedom and democracy if you have to get up early. Any idiot can run a system where everybody is getting up early and putting their noses to the grindstone.

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@aidan,

No. I don't live in the midlands. I live where the Queen said she would retire to if ever she is called upon to do so which I sincerely hope she never is.

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@spendius,

Quote:

I never get up early.

That's too bad. The light is wonderful early in the morning. I like to get up early, take a walk, and on Monday when I don't have to work- I go back to sleep for an hour or two- then stay up late. When I retire - that's what I'll do every day.

Quote:

I live where the Queen said she would retire to

Where's that then? Scotland? That was the second most coveted spot people would choose to live in the UK. London was third.

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@aidan,

aidan wrote:

Quote:

I live where the Queen said she would retire to

Where's that then? Scotland? That was the second most coveted spot people would choose to live in the UK. London was third.

3rd down on the right - apt.6c

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/1a/00/f6/one-of-the-flats.jpg

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I checked it out--

Quote:

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

A literary man would gently close the book at that point and lay it to one side Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding.

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@spendius,

This is the one and only book that I read for a book club in my whole life, so it was the subject of the one and only book club discussion group I ever took part in.
And I was sitting in this very nice drawing room with a bunch of women in the suburbs and the entire conversation consisted of how the mother in this book didn't seem to get very upset when her babies died and they couldn't understand that.
It was as if, despite having just read the book, they pictured her as them and thought she should have cried more or something - just like they'd have done.

He seemed like a nice guy and told a good story, but after a while, the litany of miseries overwhelmed any of the literary merit.
But at least he lived through it - many of his siblings didn't.
I didn't read 'Tis' or the next one.

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FRANK MCOURT REMEMBERED IN THE IRISH TIMES

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