As everyone has a blog these days, and since I enjoy spouting rubbish, and since my best friend has a superior make-up/fashion blog I decided to start one of my own.
And what might it concern, I asked myself. Well, Alice, I said (to myself) what are your hobbies? Smoking, eating, and reading, I answered.
So, books it had to be. I have a degree in English and I read rather a lot, so it was my natural choice. Be warned, however, my other hobbies (as above) may well make an appearance.
I'm about to start teacher training, so some of my choices may, by necessity, be absurd or predictable.
I'll start with what I'm currently reading:
'Collected Poems' by Roger McGough.
Despite always loving English at school, poetry has never really done it for me. Oh how I dreaded poetry lessons, and later lectures and seminars. To be technical, I always saw it as a load of wank. I put it down largely to my poor attention span: no plot makes poetry harder to follow and understand and my lazy-arse mind just wasn't getting it.
I certainly haven't had a brain-revolution where poetry is concerned, but I think I've finally found a poet I can truly say I enjoy (actually, not quite true, I enjoyed Blake in the past). Roger McGough is on the English National Curriculum and I can certainly see why. His poems are witty, original, accessible and are placed in a context to which I can easily relate (despite being born 50 years and 250 miles apart from him).
As the book I have is a collection from various other collections, the one thing it really lacks is a clear theme or direction. This is an advantage in some ways if you're new to his poetry (as I am) as it gives a comprehensive oversight. However, it does mean that the index/contents are bewildering- there must be two or three hundred poems in there. Some of them are also a little..(forgive me, Roger) filler-ish. But these are relatively minor concerns. When Roger is good (I'm sure he won't mind me calling him Roger) he's really, really good. He seems to write a lot about old age, and these poems are some of my favourites, despite my tender(ish) years. I think perhaps my Grandfather's recent decline means they are striking more of a chord with me than might be usually be the case.
The poems also seem to be quite Liverpool-centric, unsurprising when you consider this is where Rog comes from, and is a place with which he is inextricably associated. This might be offputting to some, I suppose, since some of the place names or turns of phrase might need referencing. For me, though, that's all part of the fun. I'm fascinated by my national Geography in particular and can now say for certainty where one might find Bootle.
I'll finish by relaying one of my favourite Roger McGough poems for my as-yet-non-existent readers to give anyone unfamiliar with him a taste of his style and concerns.
Near to You
America's the land of milk and honey
Australia's healthy and continually sunny
The living in Sweden is clean and sleek
The food in France is gastronomique
Japan's got geishas and the fastest train
China's got oodles of chicken chow mein
If you want noodles you can't beat Hong Kong's
Brazilian's samba on beaches in thongs
Africa looks to a future exciting
Spain's got sherry, el sol and bullfighting
Eskimos are tough and used to roughing
Turkey is full of chestnut stuffing
The Belgians invented the Brussels sprout
Germans lieben lederhosen und sauerkraut
Greece abounds in classical ruins
Russia's violinists play the loveliest tuins
In Bermuda it's swaying palm trees and foam
In Switzerland it's gnome sweet gnome
Italian girls make a di fantastic lovers
Danes are mustard under the covers
From old Hawaii to New Nepal
Foreigners seem to have it all
So if everything abroad is as good as they say
Why do we Britons in Britain stay?
The answer is (and I'm sure it's true)
That all of us want to be near to you
