I think I'm in love with the BBC.
For those of you who live outside the UK, we citizens pay 148 a year for a television licence fee. This money goes towards funding the BBC (incidentally, it amuses me that you can still get a black and white licence for 48 per annum - just how many of those get bought?). It funds their television channels, the radio stations, orchestras, events, and internet services. There is a lot of argument at times about the value for the price paid, and whether we should pay for it at all, or just let the market decide. But I'm not going to get into that.
Instead, I'm going to tell you about my drive down to London on Tuesday for a couple of day's work away from home. Now, my musical tastes are not particularly mainstream. So it's not the radio I usually turn to in the car for music; I just cart loads of CDs around. But on Tuesday, I had Radio 4 on to listen to the news. And the next item was the first of the annual Reith lectures.
It was delivered by Professor Michael Sandel, who runs the justice course at Harvard. And his first lecture was entitled Markets and Morality. So I spent the next 45 minutes listening to a fascinating talk and discussion on what the limits of market forces should be, whether they undermine genuine altruism, and what can and cannot be commodified. It was enlightening, thought provoking and occasionally humurous too. If you have the time and the interest, I thoroughly recommend you making use of the link above. And stick with it. The final audience question is fascinating!
But I thought, just how many radio stations can you tune into and hear something like that? Not many, I daresay. On the way home, I listened to a very funny play called Puddle, which kept me entertained too.
And, a few nights ago, I sat up and watched an Arena documentary on TS Eliot, which was mesmerising. 90 minutes of fascination on arguably America's (and Britain's?) greatest poet. It is filled with wonderful archive footage, a bit of Bob Dylan, and the most beautiful quote from Ted Hughes on what is was like when Eliot looked at you. It is worth watching for that moment alone, and for the poem he wrote for his wife. This is television at its very best - challenging, informative and magical.
Eliot represents for me the limit of my intellectual ability. I remember a friend who had studied philosophy saying he found his intellectual limit in the face of Wittgenstein. Well, I founder badly in the face of The Waste Land, and mentally kick the limits of my ability. Which frustrates me immensely, because I believe in a world driven forward by a ferocious, radical intellectualism. But I love poetry, and I admire Eliot's Four Quartets, of which I have a very battered copy which once cost five shillings.
My favourite poet is WS Graham, of whom Eliot wrote "some of these poems - by their sustained power, their emotional depth and maturity and their superb technical skill - may well be among the more poetical achievements of our time". And yet he is so little known now.
Yet, like Harold Pinter, I too feel his song is an inspiration. I'm careful about putting poems on the web. Poets make little enough money without people further undermining them by copying their works and sharing them widely. If you like them, go buy a book and keep them in business. But, if a poem is already officially published on the web, or free from copyright, I think it's permissible to share it.
So, I think you will like this one. Graham wrote it for his wife, Nessie Dunsmuir, a talented poet in her own right. I love its tenderness, its excusing of his late, drunken return with 'slaked steps'. This is a love song....
I LEAVE THIS AT YOUR EAR
For Nessie Dunsmuir
I leave this at your ear for when you wake,
A creature in its abstract cage asleep.
Your dreams blindfold you by the light they make.
The owl called from the naked-woman tree
As I came down by the Kyle farm to hear
Your house silent by the speaking sea.
I have come late but I have come before
Later with slaked steps from stone to stone
To hope to find you listening for the door.
I stand in the ticking room. My dear, I take
A moth kiss from your breath. The shore gulls cry.
I leave this at your ear for when you wake.
W.S. Graham
One day, soon, I will tell you how I discovered him. Because that story has its twists too.
For those of you who live outside the UK, we citizens pay 148 a year for a television licence fee. This money goes towards funding the BBC (incidentally, it amuses me that you can still get a black and white licence for 48 per annum - just how many of those get bought?). It funds their television channels, the radio stations, orchestras, events, and internet services. There is a lot of argument at times about the value for the price paid, and whether we should pay for it at all, or just let the market decide. But I'm not going to get into that.
Instead, I'm going to tell you about my drive down to London on Tuesday for a couple of day's work away from home. Now, my musical tastes are not particularly mainstream. So it's not the radio I usually turn to in the car for music; I just cart loads of CDs around. But on Tuesday, I had Radio 4 on to listen to the news. And the next item was the first of the annual Reith lectures.
It was delivered by Professor Michael Sandel, who runs the justice course at Harvard. And his first lecture was entitled Markets and Morality. So I spent the next 45 minutes listening to a fascinating talk and discussion on what the limits of market forces should be, whether they undermine genuine altruism, and what can and cannot be commodified. It was enlightening, thought provoking and occasionally humurous too. If you have the time and the interest, I thoroughly recommend you making use of the link above. And stick with it. The final audience question is fascinating!
But I thought, just how many radio stations can you tune into and hear something like that? Not many, I daresay. On the way home, I listened to a very funny play called Puddle, which kept me entertained too.
And, a few nights ago, I sat up and watched an Arena documentary on TS Eliot, which was mesmerising. 90 minutes of fascination on arguably America's (and Britain's?) greatest poet. It is filled with wonderful archive footage, a bit of Bob Dylan, and the most beautiful quote from Ted Hughes on what is was like when Eliot looked at you. It is worth watching for that moment alone, and for the poem he wrote for his wife. This is television at its very best - challenging, informative and magical.
Eliot represents for me the limit of my intellectual ability. I remember a friend who had studied philosophy saying he found his intellectual limit in the face of Wittgenstein. Well, I founder badly in the face of The Waste Land, and mentally kick the limits of my ability. Which frustrates me immensely, because I believe in a world driven forward by a ferocious, radical intellectualism. But I love poetry, and I admire Eliot's Four Quartets, of which I have a very battered copy which once cost five shillings.
My favourite poet is WS Graham, of whom Eliot wrote "some of these poems - by their sustained power, their emotional depth and maturity and their superb technical skill - may well be among the more poetical achievements of our time". And yet he is so little known now.
Yet, like Harold Pinter, I too feel his song is an inspiration. I'm careful about putting poems on the web. Poets make little enough money without people further undermining them by copying their works and sharing them widely. If you like them, go buy a book and keep them in business. But, if a poem is already officially published on the web, or free from copyright, I think it's permissible to share it.
So, I think you will like this one. Graham wrote it for his wife, Nessie Dunsmuir, a talented poet in her own right. I love its tenderness, its excusing of his late, drunken return with 'slaked steps'. This is a love song....
I LEAVE THIS AT YOUR EAR
For Nessie Dunsmuir
I leave this at your ear for when you wake,
A creature in its abstract cage asleep.
Your dreams blindfold you by the light they make.
The owl called from the naked-woman tree
As I came down by the Kyle farm to hear
Your house silent by the speaking sea.
I have come late but I have come before
Later with slaked steps from stone to stone
To hope to find you listening for the door.
I stand in the ticking room. My dear, I take
A moth kiss from your breath. The shore gulls cry.
I leave this at your ear for when you wake.
W.S. Graham
One day, soon, I will tell you how I discovered him. Because that story has its twists too.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
I was so moved by your kind and thoughtful words, they really gave me comfort, and they were really quite spot on, in many ways. Yes, i think the panic was just that, the future is all in my hands, what a responsibility! but, i have learned, that it's also exciting...
B x
but i love at least attempting to reach beyond my limits. i remember being so afraid of foucault as an undergrad, because all of the people i'd try to read who used his stuff were so incomprehensible. but he's actually a beautiful writer, and shockingly simple. well, perhaps not simple but you know what i mean.