KazG

Probably a bit aslant of what you were hoping for Libby, but is the idea that stuck

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’

I guess you had to’ve been there, because even now,  months later, just thinking about it makes me smile. It was the usual semi-dormant Friday afternoon meeting, Anton, our boss, wanting us to brain-storm some sort of…[Read more]

I’m glad you copied this, Libby, because you saved me the trouble. Your comments should definitely be an integral part of this thread. And I’m glad, too, that the poem seems to have had much the same effect on you as it had on me.

There’s more, much more, than ‘yet another translation.’ There’s a page with over forty, ranging from Catullus’ Latin…[Read more]

Rather annoyingly, shortly after posting this I came upon another translation. Annoyingly, because its publication on a page headed ‘The Center for Hellenic Studies,’ its juxtaposition with the Greek, and most of all the clumsiness of its English suggest to me that it is the closest to a word-for-word rendition of Sappho’s original that I’ve yet…[Read more]

Great blog, Richard. Sadly I have very little internet right now. Will get back asap. Also, yikes! One of the updates has broken my menus (at least in mobile mode).

Not sure it meets the brief and it’s a bit on the short side, but it’s where the fancy took me, so…

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Nay. Thrice nay, unless that day be cold and dreich.

Then shall I liken thee to the first rose of summer? Nay, again, save that bloom be not perfect and proud but…[Read more]

Don’t ever cross a crocodile.

Back when Chubby was chubby and not six inches taller than me and good looking, his nan died, and he went to the funeral. Afterwards, we met up near his gaff and he was in a bit of a moody with me.

‘All your fault, Teabreak, you twat!’ he goes.

‘Woss that then,’ I say, and I offer him a Number 6 to make up f…[Read more]

“Season to taste”

I could say it started as a joke, except I knew, at that age, Suze and I were, a bit self-consciously, aiming to bridge the gap between our schoolgirl selves and the mysterious, scary-but-enticing grown-up world we were bracing ourselves to enter.

Both of us were in top English. Read our homework to each other, critiqued (a mor…[Read more]

Thank you for the challenge, Libby. And very well done to Terrie for another powerful piece of story telling.

Wow. Thank you Libby for this at-first-sight innocuous challenge. (I tried to resist the autobiographical, but in the end it was the only way for me to go) so thank you Terrie and Ath for such impactful alternatives; I’m glad I didn’t have the task of choosing between them.

Energy and shame

Understanding is a difficult word sometimes. We say, ‘I understand her,’ meaning that we know her reasons for doing something or other. It was as expected. Electricity feels rather different. Do I understand it? I mean, what is it? I was taught a load of rubbish at school about the movement of charged electrons. That isn’t elect…[Read more]

Electricity and us

Electricity has played a considerable part in directing  the path our lives have travelled, from the instant (if only sensory) flash of knowledge, at the end of our first date, that “This man is who I can safely be ME with!” to our fifty years of living in the North East.

At that time (5th April 1963) he worked for a comp…[Read more]

Thanks for the comp, Ath! Another opportunity to stretch myself ☺️

And congratulations to Libby for winning, and the rest of us for giving it a go ????

Thank you Ath, both for the competition and for your encouraging summing up. I certainly would’ve been hard-pressed to choose a winner, so congratulations and thanks to Libby, and also to Terrie and Seagreen.