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Here is a Sup—I mean repository of the texts of my together with some readings of them. The essays were broadcast by WXXI 91.5 Classical of Rochester, NY on Salmagundy each Saturday at 9:35am Eastern Time, from the beginning of time (1985) till May 2009 when Entropa (evil Goddess of Change-for-the-Worse-or-Possibly-the-Worst) troubled the minds of the WXXIites and they retired Simon and Salmagundy, and Rochester went into a terminal decline---for ever.
I continued on that brilliant bastion of all that's good and kultured, WCLV's syndicated Weekend Radio on many (mainly NPRish) stations traditionally on the first and third weekends of the month, though weekendage varied, till the horror crept ever onward and that too was devoured (in August 2023, a date which will live in infamy or at lease mild irritation)... and only I remain, defiant though wimpering.
Richard Howland-Bolton
There are pop-up pics and links all over the place here. In text they are indicated by a double underline like this:
mouse-overing brings the pop-up up and clicking (usually) goes to the link |
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It has been said, by presumably humorous persons, that the camel is a horse which has been designed by a committee, but this is surely complete nonsense for the camel is clearly an elegant and well rounded beast, showing consistent adaptations to its arid environment from the closeability of its nose right through to the consistency of its dung. Why, one might as well reverse the claim and say that the horse is a camel designed by a committee of Midwestern irrigation and lawn-care specialists ...or maybe of avid rose growers.
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Oh! The amazing power of the media...
Blaah! Let's not have any of this false modesty, I of course mean 'Oh! the amazing power of the me! Me!! ...and we can forget that superfluous "-dia"!
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They're gone!! Gone!!! ... Gone and I never got to say goodbye! ...
They're gone, and never even called me (with apologies to Mrs Henry Wood and her 1861 melodrama East Lynne) "Mother!" 1 |
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This very year we in England have been celebrating two immensely patriotic and significant anniversaries: the four hundredth of the Gunpowder Plot and the two hundredth of the Battle of Trafalgar. These two events (not to mention the fact that we still celebrate them, so I won't---so forget I said what I just did), these two events are absolutely vital to understanding the English, so, in spite of the fact that for many reasons it's probably not a good idea for you to understand us, possibly even being bad for your health if not ours, and that it's almost certainly disastrous to England and everything English for anyone anywhere to lessen the delightful mystery that is us, let me just foolishly blunder ahead and spill the beans. |
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Many of you no doubt wonder why, since England and I are so well suited both being so cultured, so noble, so absolutely wonderful and groovy, I now live here in dull old Plano. Well (and I should point out how difficult it is for a person like me to tell you this) it was the embarrassment that drove me away.
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| Lord, if I should die today, Let it be at close of play.
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I suppose you'll say it's just typical of me, but my favourite walk doesn't exist.
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I suppose that patriotism is not inherently evil, though it does share with religion that unsettling tendency to become what one might call an 'unregulated amplifier' or even in one's more nervous moments a 'wild intensifier'. And I should, therefore before plunging into the raging torrents of my subject this week, paddle my in some quieter waters (if waters they surprise us and turn out to be; and if paddle, against all expectation, we chance to have) for some practice in not tipping over: so take, as an example of what I mean, a brief look at a less provocative area of wildly unregulated intense amplification, and look at the sort of person (or if we must get technical, fan) who spends, I dunnow, years learning to speak Klingon so that they can dress up in funny imaginary costumes and go to StarTrek conventions where they can then not be understood by others who have mastered Romulan or Reman or whatever it is. From the outside all we can do is to look on with compassion and ask "Why?"
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"Oh!..." as the poet so sweetly has it
"...To be in England
"Now that April's there,
"But whoever goes to England,
"in March or Februar-,
"-Y probably needs his head looked at,
"And a large fur coat..."
or something equally and really heartfelt like that. And since I am now back from what turned out to be the land of the ice and snow and I'm busily un-lagging my jet and un-freezing my..., well..., just about everything, I can start to forget its hellweathers.
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English writers seem to have a predilection for living abroad and lamenting the fact. For example think of Robert Browning writing ‘Home Thoughts from abroad’ while living in Italy,
O, to be in England now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!
though, of course, we know full well why they are abroad: I mean, England’s not the best place for writers with names like Browning - it’s too full of conversations like:
“I say do you like Browning?”
“I don’t know I’ve never browned, we just don’t have the weather for it”.
Same thing with Kipling who’s another Englishman most renowned for ex-patriot writing.
“I say do you like Kipling?”
“I don’t know I’ve never kippled”.
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