Ventiak - an island somewhere in the brain

McEgg on the Boil

10 February 2007

This blog certainly took a sharp turn for the worse with the rebellion of 4 February. Still, however upset I was at that unhappy event, I would've simmered in silence. But it was Amanda who brought McEgg to the boil. Could she not see the irony in criticising Chris for being "gratuitously offensive" and in the same breath characterising me as "this strange friend of his with a name like a cheap burger"?

Well! In the words of my irascible Scottish father recounting a stoush with a brother cleric at Presbytery, I hit the roof! It's quite one thing to have one's name maligned, but to have my very existence questioned (as Amanda went on to do) is an insult too far. The existence of a putative entity like God is fair game, but when these soi-disant 'friends' doubt the existence of one of Chris' oldest, and may I say, truest, friends, one really has to wonder about their own grip on reality.

So let me say quite unequivocally, bloggo ergo sum. These Johnny- and Janicey-come-latelies may have been present at the launch of Chris' latest book, but I was present at the very conception of his first published work. I remember, as if it were yesterday, sitting with him in the offices of the Bradford Street Numismatic Society, beguiled by a tale in an exercise book penned in his green biro (as we called ballpoints in those days), a tale that would eventually be published as 'Rocket' in Dreams of Pythagoras.

For more evidence of my existence - indeed our mutual existence - I take from my shelves Whitcombe's Farmer's Diary of 1964. The 'Cash Account' pages for each month carry Chris' meticulous records of our nightly chess games, played in a haze of cigar smoke and whisky (note spelling) fumes. I was ever the loser, I fear. "Average Score", I read for June, "McE 23.2 C 26.1". But I count it no shame to have been bested by one of the best.

I see that I later used the 'Notes' pages in the back of the diary for some idle verses of my own. Curiously, one of them might have been composed in response to this blog's 'Literary Challenge' of 28 January - it's a serious limerick (entitled 'Song of a disillusioned old New Frontiersman, Oct. 1968') and I offer it as my vote for Felix’s campaign to have this site dedicated to the Muse:

 So Jackie has married Onassis,
 A guy with a eye for the lasses.
  I hope they'll not rue it -
  But why did she do it?
 Is it love, or the wealth he amasses?
 
Serious? Oh yes. Cynicism's certainly a serious matter. Ridiculous, too, perhaps, and Chris was spot on when he spoke of McEgg as one who "appreciates that the most important things in life are the most ridiculous (and vice versa)". It's only fair to say that Chris helped me to that appreciation. Beside me on the desk as I write (or rather, tap) is Tristram Shandy, ready for relishing as a necessary respite from the travails of technology. For me, for ever, it's enveloped in a luminous mantle of Chris' infectious enthusiasm for this most ridiculous of tales. Is it too fanciful to see something of Uncle Toby in Kit Wallace? I can't say. I haven't yet read the book. I hourly await the knock of the courier with my copy. Exspecto ergo sum.

Felix Speaking

9 February 2007

Amanda and Rupert are talking rubbish. The answer to the World’s ills is not politics or science but poetry. Only poetry has the power to lift the human spirit beyond the mundane and the vicious and translate us into that sublime state where peace and harmony will rein over the whole World. So henceforth, I predict and declare that, if I have anything to do with it, this site will be dedicated to the Muse. Let passions surge! Let eagles soar! Let Poetry reign!

And as a token and, I sincerely hope, a foretaste of what is to come I offer the following modest contribution to the great enterprise – a humble verse that describes not the New Dawn but the Darkness before it, the misery that derives from the loss of soul, the poverty of mind, the hatred and the violence that beset the time we live in.

Too Long Dead

The World is so unhappy.
The World is full of pain.
I have to go to Wellington.
I think I’ll take the train.

The sky is blue above me.
The sun is bright and hot.
But inspiration’s left me.
How can I stop the rot?

For I’ve lost all my money.
I’ve almost lost all hope.
I ought to go and hang myself
But I can’t afford a rope.

 

Felix Malaport,
The Bard of Holloway Road

Trevor Speaking

8 February 2007

Why would I want to say anything?

signed,
Agent of the Devil, The

Janice Speaking

7 February 2007

Well, it’s my turn at last (Janice here, by the way). I’ve been really desperate to say my piece because I want to talk about Chris’s latest review that came out in the Dominion Post on Saturday. Nobody here seems to care much about it but it’s really got up my nose (a bit, anyway). It’s by somebody called Nicholas Reid who they all say is an intelligent bloke and good reviewer. Well, he may be intelligent but he’s also pretty dumb, as far as I can see. I mean, I never went to uni or anything but even I can tell that some of the things he said are just plain wrong.

For example, he says that the main character, Kit, has an indigenous mistress. Really? That’s not the book I read. Rayette is Kit’s friend and if Nicholas Reid thinks that sleeping with a bloke once in 280 pages makes you his mistress then he’s way out of line. If I were Rayette, I’d be feeling like a very indignant non-mistress after reading that.

And another thing, right at the end, he asks one of those rhetoric question things about whether the writer intends ‘a major irony’. It’s a bit hard for me to explain but it boils down to the question of if the islands are invented, the book may not really be a political satire about the Pacific after all. Well, spotted Nick. That’s the whole point. If you started your review from here rather than finishing it you might have got somewhere.  

Anyway, I don’t want to go on and on, this is a much better review than the last one (and smarter too) although it does sound as if Nick's scared to say whether or not he likes the book in case he gets it wrong. I'm not sure what Chris feels about it. I think he’s a bit fed up to be honest which is a terrible shame because he’s such a lovely man.

Love,
Janice

PS Don’t tell his wife I said he was lovely. I think she’s a bit jealous.       

Rupert Speaking

6 February 2007

Amanda's right. I too have been feeling frustrated by what's been going on in this blog. I don't mind lending my expertise to the settlement of frivolous disputes but it would nice if there were also the possibility of a more significant contribution. I'm not one to preach but I do feel I have useful things to say.

This question of the troubles that beset the World, for example. In my view, attempts at political solutions will only ever meet with limited success. The problem, at root, is human nature. The psychological traits that our ancestors developed in the Pleistocene, while well adapted to our lives as hunters and gatherers, do not stand us in good stead now we are faced with the complexities of modern life. The best attempts of our diplomats and politicians are all too likely to be derailed by some semi-rational impulse grounded in our biology.

The only hope for the world, I fear, is a thorough committment to the completion of the Biological Project. We must understand our genetic make-up in sufficient detail for us to ensure that our political institutions, national and international, take full account of all our hard-wired tendencies so that we can take advantage of our instincts and not be crippled by them. Not a moment is to be lost.

In the meantime, of course, we must keep working as hard as we can with the inadequate tools currently at our disposal. We cannot afford to delay action on global warming. Nor can we ignore the possible implications of political instability in the Middle East. Even though progress may be difficult in solving these deep-seated problems we must keep at it. If Amanda and I can make some small contribution by turning this blog from its throughly silly and inconsequential path then we will not shirk from the responsibility.

Rupert Flattenhammer

Amanda Speaking

5 February 2007

I feel a bit awkward about the way we took over this blog yesterday. It seems a rather heavy handed thing to do. Janice is absolutely right, though. If Chris is to get anywhere with this pathetic literary career of his he has to stop making disparaging remarks about the movers and shakers in the cultural scene, especially round about now when his new book is coming out. I’m no advocate for sucking up to people but there is no point whatsoever in being gratuitously offensive. Save it for a situation where it can make a difference. Of course, he doesn’t see it that way. He can be quite thick at times.

Take his whole attitude to this blog for example. I know I've seemed completely indifferent to it but that's only been to keep my temper under control. It’s been so frustrating reading it over the past couple of months and seeing what a complete hash he’s making of it - rabbiting on about whether or not he’s a gardener or if this strange friend of his with a name like a cheap burger is actually real. And then when he does get serious for a moment it’s only about some abstruse point of philosophy that makes the number of angels on a pinhead seem rivetingly significant. Part of the problem is that he just doesn’t appreciate the power of the Internet. I mean, he’s so pathetically proud of the fact that he got 33 visitors in 31 days. It wouldn’t surprise me if 31 of those were his wife, Barbara, take a daily peek and the other two were a couple of surfers who blundered in from nowhere. And I doubt Barbara’s really interested anyway. She’s probably just checking up on him.  

The trouble is he has this weird sense of humour – somewhere between Lewis Carol and Monty Python with a dash of Wittgenstein thrown in. I like that stuff (although you can hold the Wittgenstein) but you can’t let it run your life. You can’t go chasing after every opportunity for a new irony as if there was nothing else worth doing. Think of global warming. Think of the threat of nuclear war. (And those two things are connected, of course. A nuclear war’s most likely to happen because of the Middle East and what’s that about but the American’s trying to control the World’s oil so they can keep blowing off tons of carbon dioxide from their enormous motor cars.) Meanwhile, on this blog, all we can think to worry about is whether God’s an it or the order in which you see car number plates.

Anyway, I’d better stop there. I’ve kind of wasted my opportunity with this, which is a bit stupid, but I just had to get it off my chest. Oh, and incidentally, this whole gardening thing is a complete joke. He’s deeply embarrassed at the moment because the zucchini he was so proud of turned out to be cucumbers.

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