For Amy

Long-time readers will recall that Amy Winehouse featured regularly on ToE about five years ago. I championed her singing generally and her wonderful album Back to Black particularly - it was possibly the best pop record of the noughties. She made it big but her self-destructive years since have been painful to watch and on Saturday she died, at the age of 27. I pay tribute to her at The Dabbler.

Groovin' with William McGonagall.

Over at the Dabbler I contemplate the chillin'-loungin'-groovin'-funkin' spectrum. Yes, there's not a word-endin' 'g' in sight.

And there's a repeat of my post about the world's worst poet, William McGonagall.

Flashman

I write about Flashman over at the ST (that's the Sabotage Times, not the Sunday ones). Unusually, I do this under my real name and, watch out, there's a mugshot.

Since the Sabotage Times is James Brown's organ (others have included Loaded and GQ) I focus on the laddish elements of the series.

Two Tax Gatherers

And I've also written about a painting by Marinus van Reymerswaele.

Rupert Thomson

Tough few weeks lately, but I have managed to contribute to the Dabbler review of Rupert Thomson's excellent This Party's Got to Stop and also conducted a Q&A with the author.

Singular voices

My Lazy Sunday features two unexpected covers, a voice that can melt the wax in your ears and Tom Jones dancing like a maniac.

Spite

Interesting discussion about the game of Spite, over at The Dabbler.

Oh yes and on Monday I posted the extraordinary story of the Hobyahs.

The Return of Isner Mahut

ToE readers will not be surprised to hear that Isner and Mahut have been drawn together once again in the first round of Wimbledon.

Isner and Mahut are perfectly balanced yin-yang anti-doppelgangers who, since they 'found' each other in last year's impossible tennis match, have been living together in a wooden hut high in the Himalayas, where they spend their days playing out endless chess stalemates and drawn games of noughts-and-crosses.

According to The Times on Saturday, the odds on Isner and Mahut being drawn together again, taking into account Isner's seeding last year, were 1 in 13,871.

But on ToE, we know that the Fates do not play dice. The odds were, of course, 1 in 1.

Electronica

Yesterday I posted about electronic music at the Big D.

Double Dactyl - the next generation

Over at Nige's place I appear to have accidentally invented a new poetic form - the 'Double Dactyl Plus', with this poem:

Double Dactyl E-Coli Theory

Benedict Cumberbatch
brought a cucumber back
from his vacation
in Las Palmas de Gran.

Engelbert Humperdink
mugged him and nicked the thing,
Took it to Krautland;
That’s how it began.

(To explain: previous Double Dactyl poems had merely rhymed the last line of each stanza, whereas the new 'Double Dactyl Plus' form rhymes AABC, DDEC, where AA and DD are, at a minimum, dactylic half-rhymes, and rather than that business about single-word dactyls in the second stanza and nonsense first lines, there must instead be at least one mention of a cucumber.)

UPDATE: Here's another one, which abides strictly by the rules, including the cucumber one:

Incident at Blue Peter Presenters Function (Double Dactyl Plus)

Cucumber sandwiches
for high tea at Claridges!
All spesh’ly laid on for
the Blue Peter crew!

Valerie Singleton
burnt all her fingers on
a hot buttered crumpet,
And now she might sue.



FURTHER UPDATE: This one is a Double Dactyl Plus Plus, combining both the orginal Hecht/Pascal rules and my additional rules:

Boxing Commentator Salad Poem

‘Rumpeta rumpeta,’
said Harry Carpenter,
Making his way to
The greengrocer’s stall.

But then he was struck by a
cucumberphobia,
And now he can’t eat
any green things at all.


(Meaningless opening line: check.
Subject's name in second line: check.
Single word double-dactyl in second stanza: check.

Plus:
AABC DDEC rhyme scheme: check.
Mention of cucumber: check.)

Found poetry

Over at The Dabbler I expound on a topic previously explored on Think of England, namely Found Poetry.

Yes I know, I know, but look I can't keep coming with brand new topics all the time, dammit.

The Champion

I contribute to the Dabbler Book Club review of Tim Binding's novel The Champion here.

I alone praise it. Tough crowd, the Dabbler Book Club.

Geoffrey Boycott tattoo

On the Beeb's cricket text commentary today, the banter turned to tattoos, and some wag emailed in to suggest that if Geoffrey Boycott were to get a tattoo, it would be one of his own face... On his own face.

I found this idea both amusing and philosophically intriguing. I shall muse on it at length, and see what emerges.

Shane MacGowan

Over at the Dabbler I write about Shane MacGowan.

Gawd help us, another one!

Brit Jnr Minor is due on 29 November 2011.

Elif Batuman

I review Elif Batuman's fantastically entertaining book The Possessed here. If you're in the Book Club you can win a copy. I've exchanged a few emails with Elif (she's lovely and very, very smart) after getting her address from the inestimable Dave Lull, a fan of hers.

Via Elif I got in touch with her UK publicist, Henry Jeffreys, another lovely person whom I met in London last week at the inaugural Dabbler booze-up summit. Henry is now The Dabbler's wine correspondent, and Granta will be supplying monthly books for the club.

Thus the interconnections of the web and indeed, life. If you want to meet interesting people who might well change your life, you could do a lot worse than join the League of Dabblers.