The nostrils of the poet

The cinnamon has, unfortunately, no smell at all, but to the nostrils of the poet.

- The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, on Robert Percival's An Account of the Island of Ceylon (etc.)

Importance of grammatical accuracy

The worst poem I have ever seen

'Bollocks'

On why the Aussie accent's the result of heavy drinking.

Or not.

Of course

Of course, you end up becoming yourself, even when you’re a journalist.

- Rebecca Mead, in The New Yorker

Literary failures

I expect you have heard that, having failed as (a) a civil servant, (b) a novelist, (c) an editor, (d) a publicist, I have now sunk to the last rung... — literary journalism.

- Leonard Woolf, to Lytton Strachey

Fun times

AS MOST PEOPLE KNOW, it’s not easy to make money writing. Young writers read of a mythical past when aspiring authors could work for “newspapers” in exotic locales like Kansas City, but even if there is still a newspaper operating out of some soon-to-be-abandoned warehouse on the banks of the Missouri, I bet it isn’t hiring. The BFA/MFA track has become one of the last refuges for young writers before they start fighting their way into the welfare state of grants and fellowships, and even if we remain undecided on the question of whether writing can be taught — if I have to read another essay asking that question I may run away to Kansas City myself — we have definitively declared that the teaching and learning of creative writing can be a good way to make money (or at least to postpone the need to do so).

- Johannes Lichtman, in the LA Review of Books

Books I've actually finished lately: 73

from 'Letters to a Translator'

There are many more modes of the past than those allowed by Imperfect, Perfect & Pluperfect!

I racked my brain for a better way of rendering "Wehswirtschaft" (p.14), but not to much avail.

I haven't had proofs from "Sprache im technischen Zeitalter" (what a stupid name for a journal)...

- WG Sebald, 'Letters to a Translator' in Little Star 5 (2014)

Books I've actually finished lately: 67

What enabled me to give up [smoking] was the realisation I could go on loathing the campaigners without continuing to damage my health.

- Wendy Cope

Books I've actually finished lately: 61

As inscribed by Dominic Scott Hilton, from his death-bed:

For the lowest life of them all. 

Love,
YOUR MUM's lover 

Wellington Hospital 25.11.14

Who guards the Guardian?

Before (Jeremy Brier's summary of Emily Thornberry's opinions...)

After (the Guardian's summary of Jeremy Brier's...)

Myleene Klass 'wipes the floor' with Ed Miliband

In which I initially thought The Telegraph had used inverted commas to denote that Ms Klass did not, in fact, actually use the would-be leader of the country to mop out her kitchen.

Alas (twice over)...

Books I've actually finished lately: 54

Big, hairy, and in your house

[photo by Patrick Belton]

'Thinking cannot be done without words.'

Therefore, grammar.

The translator's victory

Once, during work on Calvino's great comic novel If On a Winter's Night a Traveller, a running battle ensued over use of the word 'feedback', which Weaver repeatedly struck out of the typescript, and Calvino repeatedly re-inserted. (In the end, Weaver won: Calvino died before he was able to see the final proofs.)

- Ian Thompson, in his Guardian obit of the legendary William Weaver

"A passion for writing"

French man jailed for phoning and texting his ex 21,807 times

In which I particularly enjoyed the elucidatory photo of a man texting - rather politely, one might add - in English.

[with thanks to Frank MacMillan]

This page is not in Ukrainian.

Alas.

P'raps not...

[with thanks to Zach Smyth]