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The Wool-gatherer is the pseudonym of Hugh Parry. I have taught literature courses in adult education for around 30 years. A few of my victims have been with me for much, or even all, of that time. Leaving aside the personal pleasure of this, a professional advantage is that I have always needed to look …

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED, PART 1

Praed seemed to have it all, and do it all. Eton; a dazzling academic career at Cambridge; the Bar; Parliament, where he represented three different constituencies. He was liked and respected. He also established a reputation as a writer of clever light verse, although he did no more than dabble, confining himself to pieces for …

THE WEIGHT OF CHEESE

At first glance, it looks like all of the entries on this blog are from learned (Homer Simpson's pronunciation optional), literary types.  It's a fair assumption, I think, that the majority of readers are similar.  If so, prepare to look away now - I never got beyond O-level English. So - Piers Ploughman.  Or is …

W.M. THACKERAY

Thackeray (1811-63) may be best-known as a light-heavyweight Victorian novelist, but he was also a hard-working journalist, turning his hand to (amongst other things) comic verse for various journals, but especially ‘Punch’. Too much of this can make one’s hair fall out (I saw the evidence on my comb this morning), and the cod-Irish, cod-Cockney …

FROM ‘THE HAWK’S MEWL’ (2007)

VIDEO DAD  ... and you appear in the room as though a dozen absent years have passed in a moth’s wing dither and your face no older, smiling from that cuboid chesterfield, your heart glistering on your lips, whetted eyes hunting the conversation like a Wimbledon buff black shoes polished, tie plumb, hands with nowhere …

LEWIS CARROLL, PART 2

Dodgson, in his persona as a humorous versifier, was principally a parodist. A reliable target for comic drollery in the 19th century was the age’s enthusiasm for all things Medieval. Cod-Chaucer, or cod-Spenser (with his use of archaisms, Spenser seemed to be writing decorative cod-Chaucer himself) seems to have tickled people greatly, hence this poem, …

HAY-ON-WYE LITERARY FESTIVAL 2007

The Festival is normally held within a canvas complex in fields on the outskirts of the town. From a distance it’s somewhat reminiscent of a small agricultural show without the animals and implements. In the year I’d been invited there to read (just the one poem I hasten to add from an anthology produced by …

LEWIS CARROLL, PART 1

We must congratulate him on his prescience. ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ subtly but clearly foreshadows our very own Cabinet, with a disparate crew united in their acceptance of the far-seeing, benevolent autocracy of their great Leader, the Bellman, in tireless pursuit of certain nebulous goals. “Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried, …

LLAWR SGLEFRIO CAERSWS (CAERSWS ICE RINK)

Gwerddon yn yr anialwch iâ Cymreig (An oasis in the Welsh ice desert) Leaflets have been everywhere in Aberystwyth advertising the new Caersws Ice Rink. We decided to go one night with our Dutch cleaner Grietje1 as they had a promotion offering half-price entry and a free advocaat for Dutch people. All the way there on …

W.S. GILBERT, PART 2

Two vignettes with (unusually for me) a cinematic connection. a)   As a dewy-eyed teenager, I was enormously taken with Joseph Losey’s film of L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between. In one delicious scene set at a village-hall supper-concert, the sort of social intermingling that the English perform with such exquisite awkwardness, the daughter of the Lord of …

W.S. GILBERT, PART 1

This posting is dedicated to the select audience at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre’s programme of comic verse, ‘LOL’ (one of its last productions, post-Covid’s arrival but pre-shutdown). One piece by Gilbert was included – ‘The Disagreeable Man’ – but the following was rightly excluded on the grounds of excessive length (you can decide on its …