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Country Life
May. 3rd, 2014 09:26 amA bashful young policeman rings the doorbell at 8.00 am (approx) and wants to know (a) if we're a working farm and (b) whether we know anything about the cows that are wandering down the road...
May. 3rd, 2014
The Cuckoo She's A Pretty Bird
May. 3rd, 2014 04:02 pmThis afternoon- just now- I not only heard but saw the cuckoo. She was moving between the trees at the far side of Lee's field. Then she took off in my direction and passed right overhead, singing as she flew- just as it says in the song.
The Bulpington of Blup: H.G. Wells
May. 3rd, 2014 10:03 pmSilly title, lively book.
Theodore Bulpington is a fantasist- a Billy Liar avant la lettre- who comes up against the 20th century- its philosophies and horrors- is repeatedly defeated and after each shaming episode reimagines its history to his advantage. This is late Wells- and quite surprising in the liberties it takes; it has nocturnal emissions, whores, the Great War and a character called Wimperdick who is an unfriendly caricature of G.K. Chesterton.
If the critics hadn't decided to ignore everything Wells wrote after about 1920 this would be counted among his masterpieces.
Theodore Bulpington is a fantasist- a Billy Liar avant la lettre- who comes up against the 20th century- its philosophies and horrors- is repeatedly defeated and after each shaming episode reimagines its history to his advantage. This is late Wells- and quite surprising in the liberties it takes; it has nocturnal emissions, whores, the Great War and a character called Wimperdick who is an unfriendly caricature of G.K. Chesterton.
If the critics hadn't decided to ignore everything Wells wrote after about 1920 this would be counted among his masterpieces.