Magpie – the Reason Why
(with thanks to Alfred Lord Tennyson)
The magpie has a name for thieving, the jackdaw of Rheims got into deep water for swiping the cardinal’s ring. They like anything that shines or glitters – bottle tops, jewellery, pieces of glass – to steal and take back to their nest.
All these pieces have been ‘magpied’, one way or another, from books, people, articles, films, places seen, remarks or stories heard at any time, from fifty years ago to yesterday.
They are a medley, a rag bag, a patchwork quilt. There is no one ‘subject’ they are a compendium of things that have caught the eye, ear or fancy.
Their purpose, if any, is to amuse, inform, appall, delight, ridicule – interest. If they manage any of these, that would be fine.
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them ?
If any spirits appear, so much the better, what is done with them, is up to you. And if you’ve heard it before, remember:
‘Toutes choses sont dites déjà mais comme personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.’
‘Opinion’ has now become so endless it deafens. It is to strive for ‘judgement’ that all the writers that follow are summoned because they make their case well – or abysmally. There is no particular ‘view’ just as long as it avoids the ‘tyranny of the majority’ Alexis de Tocqueville warned of 175 years ago; while always trying to bear in mind Lord Melbourne:
“What all the wise men promised has not happened and what all the damned fools said would happen, has come to pass.”
Everything is taken from what is taught or thought about here – from language and writing, literature, history, film, music and art to business and current affairs. These fragment into a nebula of subjects, thoughts and impressions – and the countless bits that slip between. The magpie bits snatched from all the scribbling and cut-out articles that fall from books read long ago or a few days past:
‘Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume’ Alas, Postumus, the fleeting years are slipping by.
In the end the only judge is Time: for that you have to wait, that’s what age is for.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
‘Other Men’s Flowers’ Lord Wavell’s anthology of poetry has been a lifetime’s treasure. The title comes from Montaigne:
‘I have gathered a posie of other men’s flowers and nothing but the thread that binds them is my own.’
So it is with whatever follows.
Ave.
