Monday 19 October 2015

"... did not some idle fellow such as I put them down..."


I have noticed that the shorter the post and the longer it stays up before a new one, the more comments I get and the more people seem to get involved. The reasons are obvious of course. Most people - myself included - just cannot be arsed to read through 3 A4 pages of someone else's boring reflections on life.

Well you would think that this post is going to be short after the above, but you would be wrong. I am at home with a severe bout of man-flu, not much to do which doesn't require physical effort, no animals to feed or clear-up after, nobody to cook for, no deadlines to achieve that haven't already been broken, and only half of the comic novel left to write. If I had spent as much time on that as I have on this, it would be well done by now.

I have no desire to boost the abusive comments hits by giving you the benefit of my analysis of dimly-understood world politics, and I am fed up with expressing my disgust and horror at ISIL (so is everyone else it seems) because I have other, more tangible things to fatigue me right now. My last dream before I returned to reality at dawn this morning was that I was caught in bed by and with my best client's wife, and we were both smoking cigarettes. I tried to explain that it was entirely innocent, but you should have seen the look on his face!

This family are now many times richer than the Queen, who I also dream about on a regular basis. I bumped into a mutual friend of theirs at the Saturday Flea-Market last week, and she asked me if I still did work for them. Luckily, I was able to say 'yes', but if the above had not been a dream, then the answer may well have been different.

When I ran into her some years ago (this time in a different market), I happened to make some passing reference to their success and consequential wealth, and she said, "I NEVER mention money with them or even discuss it when they are not around". Well, that told me and I felt very vulgar indeed - this time for different reasons than the usual.

On Saturday, she said, "I have known them since I felt sorry for them". How times change.

This post has a slight hint of delirium about it, and there is a reason for this - I am slightly delirious. Years ago - about 2,300 posts ago - when I first entered the glittering world of blogging obscurity, I confessed that my literary hero was a man who live here in the 17th century, called John Aubrey. If you think I have a butterfly mind, then try him.

I say 'hero', but I think he is more of an anti-hero, really. These are some of the reasons why I identify with him:

He was an appalling court gossip and snob.
He was hopeless with money.
He was highly opinionated but seldom judgmental.
He was one of the first amateur archeologists.
He treated his friends very badly and regularly lost them as a result.
He was highly enthusiastic about every short-lived fad and project.
He had many short-lived fads and projects.
He was a strange blend of infuriating and captivating.
He did not let facts get in the way of a good theory.
He was a self-publisher.

Anyone who has someone (who has been dead for about 400 years) with the above qualities as a hero, cannot be considered overly ambitious, I suppose.

Me, aged 21. Not dissimilar...

29 comments:

  1. Did you mention he was an antiquary? (I looked him up.)
    I understand man flu is exponentially worse than flu.

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    1. I did years ago, yes. Man-flu is exponentially worse than an ordinary cold in a woman.

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  2. I only know of Aubrey as an Archaeologist; good to know he has other qualities..

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  3. You didnt ramble too much
    Your temperature must be normal

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    1. If I thought I was rambling, then that must be a sign of mild delirium.

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  4. Replies
    1. I think some people found it very slappable.

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    2. See the above photo - another slappable face...

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    3. Too right...my bitch slap muscles are flexing

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    4. Don't give me that... oh no, I forgot. Anyone who fancies Russell Crowe would want to slap me there.

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  5. I like the picture of you. I didn't read the post in its entirety, my eyes glazed over when i got to the word wrong so i skipped to the picture. You looked a bit like Peter Frampton.

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    1. Funny that I was only thinking of Freddy Frinton the other day - he was the one with the dangly cigarette wasn't he. The other person I was thinking of was that man who used to hit himself over the head with a tin tray to the tune of Mule Train - funny what things used to amuse us in the olden days.

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    2. Yes, that was an actor who died of a brain haemorrhage, but he has a son who is also an actor with the identical name. I forget what that name was.

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    3. Roy Kinnear. I just remembered.

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    4. I've just found him on YouTube - his name was Bob Blackman.

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    5. I think one of the Kinnears did it too...

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  6. Polymaths are a rare breed these days as the specialist has superceded the generalist. Isaiah Berlin once wrote that foxes know many things whereas hedgehogs know one big thing. The foxes used to roam free across the hills. Today the hedgehogs rule. The risk of aspiring to be a polymath is that you end up a dabbler.

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    1. I have always been a dabbler and proud of it. It has kept me one step ahead of all the idiot polymaths at every dinner party I have ever attended. The one big thing that hedgehogs know is that Reliant Robins have three wheels, and only one headlight.

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  7. God you were a gorgeous young man. There is an almost feminine beauty to your young face.

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    1. It's still in there somewhere, but I think you may have sucked the last of it out... (only joking!). I have the face I deserve now, and I know how I got it - as does Jeffrey Bernard.

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  8. I loathe being sick; fortunately, i'm rarely ill.

    I suppose i'm a polymath, too. I think it comes from being curious about disparate things.

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  9. I thought Reliant Robins had two headlights...

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    1. I'll have to check, but if they have, this must be even more confusing, as they only have one, central front wheel. This I know for sure.

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