toofausn n ten innit

It`s my first posting of the New Year, so many Happy whatevers and so far it`s been cheery enough. Now most of the snow has turned to slush, the local `news` paper has reverted to its usual format of reporting only muggings and beatings and drug-addled burglaries. `High on a cocktail of drugs` must be the single most overused phrase in print. Usually this means the offender has had too much White Lightning and several joints, but anyway, this is not to condone drugtaking or robbery or anything remotely morally suspect, only to counter the newspaper`s unhelpful and unintelligent scaremongering.

My favourite drug story from last year was about a chap who broke into a pasty shop, `high on a cocktail of drugs`, who subsequently stumbled about a bit, rearranged the pasties on the shelf, then left. What a pleasant world that man must live in! We do get some upbeat stories, if it`s not stretching the definition too much to call them that, like the one featuring a cow in the road. The story centred on the fact that a cow ... had actually been seen ... o my the suspense!... in the road. The headline of this story was something like - WOULD YOU HEIFER BELIEVE IT? The reporter (is that the right title?), his/her determination never to be called a quitter certainly worth a story, interviewed a woman who had witnessed this cow, and she said "I was walking down the street when I saw this cow ... in the road! I called (who did she call? the social services? fire brigade? Samaritans? I cant remember) .... but when they got here, it had gone." That was the story. Brilliant!

Enough of that. I`ve been away with a Romantic poetess and here she is - Helen Maria Williams (1762 - 1827) -and we`ve had quite an interesting time. She showed me her poem addressed to her friend Dr Moore, and I made a few suggestions ... there was a bit of a scansion hiccough, I felt, at line 29, which needed attention.


This morning I was counting iambs and anapaests, hearing in my head at the time a great line I`d noted down previously from the tv news. (Seriously, it was really good.) A serendipitous occasion, as it was a near perfect prompt for me to write a poem, something I havent done for quite some time. I have the line, I have the form, I have the sense of where it`s going, but I still havent written it. What is that called? Is there a name for this condition of not quite writing it out? Is it laziness, fear, or ineptitude? Has my poetry muscle atrophied? This is what I do indeed fear. But as for this morning, sitting in bed next to VJB, tapping out metrical feet while naming them aloud, but quietly so as not to appear too entirely gaga, VJB ( he puts up with a lot to be honest) actually thought I was muttering the Sex Pistols, which is a weird enough idea in itself; mutter and Sex Pistols being unlikely bedfellows. But no weirder than me muttering `iamb, iamb, anapaest` and VJ hearing me doing an elders version of Anarchy in the UK. What he heard was `I am an antichrist`. Well my dears, I very nearly had a nasty accident. Toodlepip!