I knew exactly what I was doing
When I swapped places with the Baby Jesus/
In the Pro-Cathedral crib”
Mikuláš – a quirky Czech holiday with a long tradition in our country
June 1966
Lying flat in the bracken of Richmond Park
while the legs and voices of my children pass
seeking, seeking: I remember how on the
13th of June of that simmering 1940
I was conscripted into the East Surreys,
and, more than a quarter of a century
ago, when France had fallen,
we practised concealment in this very bracken.
The burnt stalks pricked through my denims.
Hitler is now one of the antiques of History,
I lurk like a monster in my hiding place.
He didn't get me. If there were a God
it would be only polite to thank him.
Mikuláš – a quirky Czech holiday with a long tradition in our country
'Explosion of fire' forced firefighters to flee in Sydney's south-west
Terrifying scenes have emerged from the Green Wattle Creek fire, which exploded out of the bush and roared up to engulf towering trees within seconds.
Homelessness is a main theme, casting dark shadows in manifold manifestations. One of these is an overarching feeling of alienation from mainstream society: “The greedy/ rub their hands/ with glee in much the same/ way now as/ they did back then. Over/ a hundred/ and seventy years changed/ nothing. The/ rich get richer and the/ poor grow more/ poor, and most of us have/ nowhere to/ live. For there ain’t no home/ in Dublin.” (Black 47 by Ross J Walsh)
32 UK Towns With Hilarious Names That Actually Exist Bored Panda. I lived for a couple of my years when I was a child on Shades of Death Road in Allamuchy, New Jersey (since bowdlerized to Shades Road). So I guess it’s no surprise I found these amusing.
'People are spoiling for a fight': France crippled over biggest strike in decades
A nation-wide walkout by French public workers will halt most trains and planes, close schools and could wreak havoc on the streets, as the government warns of violent infiltrators.
'I'd have to lie': How Woodman's lawyer avoided media questions over land deals
IBAC phone taps reveal John Woodman's lawyer and developer colluding to shut down journalists' inquiries and planning a fake community campaign.
Swiss High Court Approves UBS Disclosure of French Account Holders and Outlines Requirements
According to a Reuters report, Switzerland's highest court has outlined the requirements for foreign countries seeking Swiss assistance for tax related information: Swiss court outlines rules for helping countries chase tax cheats (Reuters 12/4/2019), here. Key excerpts:
Switzerland’s highest court spelled out the steps foreign authorities must take if they want legal assistance in chasing tax cheats as it released the written verdict on why it made UBS Group (UBSG.S) in July share client data with France.
The Federal Court ruled that Switzerland’s biggest bank must hand over historical data on more than 40,000 client accounts to French tax authorities in a landmark case keenly watched by other countries seeking similar information.
32 UK Towns With Hilarious Names That Actually Exist Bored Panda. I lived for a couple of my years when I was a child on Shades of Death Road in Allamuchy, New Jersey (since bowdlerized to Shades Road). So I guess it’s no surprise I found these amusing.
'We will come back together again'
A decade ago, Andy Serwer wrote a cover story for Time magazine
called “Decade
from Hell.” And now, as editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance, Serwer has
written about the decade that’s about to end. This one is about a decade
divided. Serwer looks into Donald Trump, Barack Obama and, of interest for
readers of this newsletter, media bias.
He writes, “Even an assessment itself of the decade must be,
well, mixed — and also oh-so carefully considered. Every sentence of this story
I write has the potential to be politically charged in a way that wouldn’t have
been the case previously. I know from experience. While there were all manner
of tough calls to make when it came to assessing a pretty ugly decade, in no
way did I feel the pressure of the piece being judged on a partisan basis that
I feel today.”
And if you’re looking
for hope, Serwer talked to Warren Buffett, who recently told him, “We fought
the Civil War and I would say we were more divided up in the Vietnam era too,
but we came back together and we will come back together again this time, too.”Who Actually Wrote, Or Wrote Down, The Epic Of Gilgamesh?
“The poem we call Gilgamesh is based on copies of a work assembled over a millennium after the earliest stories were written in Old Babylonian. … A specific scribe, editor, collator, poet is given credit for bringing it all together. He may also have been an exorcist, magician, diviner, priest or seer; or a combination of these not unrelated vocations. He was active between 1300 and 1000 BCE. … He goes by the name of Sin-leqi-unninni.” – Literary Hub
'A warming to us all'
On this date in 1981, Philip Larkin wrote one of his last published poems (it was printed in The Observer a month later). In it, he wittily mourns his own waning facility and generously celebrates the continuing, indeed unquenchable, poetic vigour of his friend Gavin Ewart.
Good for You, Gavin
It's easy to write when you've nothing to write about
(That is, when you are young),
The heart-shaped hypnotics the press is polite about
Rise from an unriven tongue.
Later on, attic'd with the all-too-familiar
Tea chests of truth-sodden grief,
The pages you scrap sound like school songs, or sillier,
Banal beyond belief.
So good for you, Gavin, for having stayed sprightly
While keeping your eye on the ball;
Your riotous road-show's like Glenlivet nightly,
Good for You, Gavin
It's easy to write when you've nothing to write about
(That is, when you are young),
The heart-shaped hypnotics the press is polite about
Rise from an unriven tongue.
Later on, attic'd with the all-too-familiar
Tea chests of truth-sodden grief,
The pages you scrap sound like school songs, or sillier,
Banal beyond belief.
So good for you, Gavin, for having stayed sprightly
While keeping your eye on the ball;
Your riotous road-show's like Glenlivet nightly,
June 1966
while the legs and voices of my children pass
seeking, seeking: I remember how on the
13th of June of that simmering 1940
I was conscripted into the East Surreys,
and, more than a quarter of a century
ago, when France had fallen,
we practised concealment in this very bracken.
The burnt stalks pricked through my denims.
Hitler is now one of the antiques of History,
I lurk like a monster in my hiding place.
He didn't get me. If there were a God
it would be only polite to thank him.
