Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Pete Doherty and my mum
What, you might ask, could Pete Doherty and a 60-something literary biographer who hates pop music possibly have in common?
The answer, I have discovered, is that poetry is now cool.
When I read in the Guardian a few weeks ago that Pete Doherty was a big fan of 'fuckin' hardcore' poet Emily Dickinson, I sent a link of the article to my mother, an Oxford academic who is currently writing a biography of Dickinson. In the article, Doherty explains he has borrowed lines from Dickinson's poetry for his songs: '"Aargh, she's outrageous man! She's fuckin' hardcore! Can't ignore her." What did he pinch? "I took one draught of life, paid only the market price," he quotes from his At the Flophouse. "I added, 'and now I'm estranged.'" He sings, "Wow, wow, wow - oh, look around it's so true," impersonating first an electric guitar and then Lou Reed. "I took one draught of life, paid only the market price, now I'm estranged." '
I thought Doherty's interest in poetry and literature in general boded well for authors of literary biographies. It's hard to get publishers really excited about classic literature and those who write about it, as opposed to commercial fiction.
And I was intrigued as to the reaction of my mother, who doesn't know the difference between Pete Doherty and the Spice Girls, and has barely heard of rap or hip-hop, Madonna or Michael Jackson, let alone ever listened to them (she says the 'rhythms' of pop/rock music go against her own inner grain).
So yesterday I was delighted when mum told me she was herself quite excited about Doherty's love of Dickinson. 'Poetry is dying on the page,' she said, 'But as a spoken form I understand there's quite a buzz about it. Musicians are using poetry. I'd like to know more about this Pete Doherty.'
She was also admiring of Doherty's admission to stealing a copy of Crime and Punishment from the prison library. 'I think it's quite the right thing to do,' she said, in a rare moment of anarchism.
So perhaps there will be a new wave of romanticism in which young, rebellious musicians and artists take over poetry and reinvent it. Perhaps it's already happening. And perhaps that will help literary biographers rule the world at last.
The answer, I have discovered, is that poetry is now cool.
When I read in the Guardian a few weeks ago that Pete Doherty was a big fan of 'fuckin' hardcore' poet Emily Dickinson, I sent a link of the article to my mother, an Oxford academic who is currently writing a biography of Dickinson. In the article, Doherty explains he has borrowed lines from Dickinson's poetry for his songs: '"Aargh, she's outrageous man! She's fuckin' hardcore! Can't ignore her." What did he pinch? "I took one draught of life, paid only the market price," he quotes from his At the Flophouse. "I added, 'and now I'm estranged.'" He sings, "Wow, wow, wow - oh, look around it's so true," impersonating first an electric guitar and then Lou Reed. "I took one draught of life, paid only the market price, now I'm estranged." '
I thought Doherty's interest in poetry and literature in general boded well for authors of literary biographies. It's hard to get publishers really excited about classic literature and those who write about it, as opposed to commercial fiction.
And I was intrigued as to the reaction of my mother, who doesn't know the difference between Pete Doherty and the Spice Girls, and has barely heard of rap or hip-hop, Madonna or Michael Jackson, let alone ever listened to them (she says the 'rhythms' of pop/rock music go against her own inner grain).
So yesterday I was delighted when mum told me she was herself quite excited about Doherty's love of Dickinson. 'Poetry is dying on the page,' she said, 'But as a spoken form I understand there's quite a buzz about it. Musicians are using poetry. I'd like to know more about this Pete Doherty.'
She was also admiring of Doherty's admission to stealing a copy of Crime and Punishment from the prison library. 'I think it's quite the right thing to do,' she said, in a rare moment of anarchism.
So perhaps there will be a new wave of romanticism in which young, rebellious musicians and artists take over poetry and reinvent it. Perhaps it's already happening. And perhaps that will help literary biographers rule the world at last.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Life continues
I felt so sorry for the PRs at the press party I went to last night. They had to try to sell the idea of a feature on a catheter for stress urinary incontinence to me and about 50 others. Pointing to the catheter, the PR tried to be serious but I couldn't help recoiling very slightly as I reached out to touch it and we all laughed.
On the upside though, I got a test to see how bad my skin's sun damage is. Ever since I started getting wrinkles a couple of years ago, the horrific realisation of just what I did to my skin as a teenager has dawned...the many days spent age sixteen ladling cooking oil over my flesh and lying in the South African sun trying to burn because that is the only way freckly people like me get a smooth tan rather than more freckles. So I was expecting to be told my skin is beyond saving. But I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that the damage is not too bad in my case - 4 out of 10 where 0 is zero damage and 10 is severe. I am sure there has been a mistake!
These musings were interrupted by a terrible conversation with Network Rail. We have been waiting for months for them to consent to us cutting down the trees causing subsidence to our home. Just now I was rung by someone I have spoken to before when I chased this up about a month ago, but he had no memory of me. His entire function seemed to be to drown the whole project in years of bureaucracy. There was no question of any work being arranged, of course not.
No, instead he proposed he writes a letter to our insurers' agents, in which he would ask them to tell him who their clients are. I said, 'But we are the clients, can I not just tell you that right now? Why do you need to write a letter when my neighbour's flat is growing cracks every day and she's scared there's going to be a gas explosion from the pipes under so much pressure from the tree roots?'
'We are quite busy, I don't have much time to spend on this today,' he whined.
No, I 'm not busy either, I thought. And we've only been chasing you guys for the last two months just asking if it's OK to cut down a few trees, how bloody hard can it be for you to put an agreement in place?
We went round in circles for about fifteen pointless minutes until I got him to agree to put us in touch with an administrator for Network Rail's treecutters, since he doesn't seem to be too pleased with the plans submitted several months ago by the treecutters our insurers put on the project (but of course, he had done nothing about this).
I have no idea how we ended up in this situation where we, the landowners, pay rent to Network Rail to lease a tiny strip of land that is actually part of our own garden and contains basically a line of trees by the railway. Our lease's absurd terms state that although NW owns the trees, we are responsible for maintaining them and thus, now they need removing, we have to pay for it!
Luckily, our building is made up of a lovely sprinkling of professionals - a city lawyer, three journalists, a corporate accountant and two engineers by my last count - and so we might think of legally challenging the lease.
The worst bit is he is insisting there needs to be a railway possession to cut the trees safely, which will cost us thousands....aaargh....
On the upside though, I got a test to see how bad my skin's sun damage is. Ever since I started getting wrinkles a couple of years ago, the horrific realisation of just what I did to my skin as a teenager has dawned...the many days spent age sixteen ladling cooking oil over my flesh and lying in the South African sun trying to burn because that is the only way freckly people like me get a smooth tan rather than more freckles. So I was expecting to be told my skin is beyond saving. But I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that the damage is not too bad in my case - 4 out of 10 where 0 is zero damage and 10 is severe. I am sure there has been a mistake!
These musings were interrupted by a terrible conversation with Network Rail. We have been waiting for months for them to consent to us cutting down the trees causing subsidence to our home. Just now I was rung by someone I have spoken to before when I chased this up about a month ago, but he had no memory of me. His entire function seemed to be to drown the whole project in years of bureaucracy. There was no question of any work being arranged, of course not.
No, instead he proposed he writes a letter to our insurers' agents, in which he would ask them to tell him who their clients are. I said, 'But we are the clients, can I not just tell you that right now? Why do you need to write a letter when my neighbour's flat is growing cracks every day and she's scared there's going to be a gas explosion from the pipes under so much pressure from the tree roots?'
'We are quite busy, I don't have much time to spend on this today,' he whined.
No, I 'm not busy either, I thought. And we've only been chasing you guys for the last two months just asking if it's OK to cut down a few trees, how bloody hard can it be for you to put an agreement in place?
We went round in circles for about fifteen pointless minutes until I got him to agree to put us in touch with an administrator for Network Rail's treecutters, since he doesn't seem to be too pleased with the plans submitted several months ago by the treecutters our insurers put on the project (but of course, he had done nothing about this).
I have no idea how we ended up in this situation where we, the landowners, pay rent to Network Rail to lease a tiny strip of land that is actually part of our own garden and contains basically a line of trees by the railway. Our lease's absurd terms state that although NW owns the trees, we are responsible for maintaining them and thus, now they need removing, we have to pay for it!
Luckily, our building is made up of a lovely sprinkling of professionals - a city lawyer, three journalists, a corporate accountant and two engineers by my last count - and so we might think of legally challenging the lease.
The worst bit is he is insisting there needs to be a railway possession to cut the trees safely, which will cost us thousands....aaargh....
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
A stitch in time
Oh dear, my life as a blogger seems to have fallen by the wayside in recent weeks. First I spent a week in Lithuania for a travel feature, and then I have had to get to grips with starting my part-time MA on top of my usual work as a journalist. The MA is brilliant and I know I should give it my all. The bare minimum required involves writing 15 pages every three weeks, plus regular presentations, reading, essays and a dissertation.
Having so much to do is threatening to paralyse me. Every moment I should be (a)meeting journalism deadlines, (b)selling more journalism to keep money coming in, (c)writing my 15 pages for three weeks' time and doing associated reading, (d)sorting out all the endless household and car rubbish like taking the car for its MOT and buying toothpaste and orange juice, and (e)working out at the gym. But all I am doing is short spurts of work, heavily interspersed with surfing Journobiz, emailing and now, writing this. And typically, the still-grinding ear-shattering screech of the chainsaw on the building site outside my study is seeping under my skin. I just can't seem to focus.
It's not really that I have too much to do, because I tend to work quickly and never miss deadlines (too scared of failure). I just keep thinking there is too much to do, and the factI am not getting on with it, calmly ticking off task by task, but rather oversleeping and changing into pyjamas before sunset, is getting me more and more grumpy.
Having so much to do is threatening to paralyse me. Every moment I should be (a)meeting journalism deadlines, (b)selling more journalism to keep money coming in, (c)writing my 15 pages for three weeks' time and doing associated reading, (d)sorting out all the endless household and car rubbish like taking the car for its MOT and buying toothpaste and orange juice, and (e)working out at the gym. But all I am doing is short spurts of work, heavily interspersed with surfing Journobiz, emailing and now, writing this. And typically, the still-grinding ear-shattering screech of the chainsaw on the building site outside my study is seeping under my skin. I just can't seem to focus.
It's not really that I have too much to do, because I tend to work quickly and never miss deadlines (too scared of failure). I just keep thinking there is too much to do, and the factI am not getting on with it, calmly ticking off task by task, but rather oversleeping and changing into pyjamas before sunset, is getting me more and more grumpy.
