Have they read the poems?

Nicholas Hughes, son of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, killed himself in Alaska. The New York Times asked a few old boilers and a couple of nonces to react. Two (one boiler, one nonce) rehashed the old chestnut that Hughes drove her to her death. Two others (boiler/nonce) wrote quite well about death and suicide. Most surprisingly one of the best pieces was by that aged boiler, Erica Jong. Wow, she must have improved since she feared flying and had sex with many dirty footed freaks. One boiler was so far up her own intellectual fundament she seemingly forgot the topic and babbled on in praise of Plath’s poetry, not even mentioning Nicholas. Read them if you must, but better yet, read the poems.

I defy anyone who has read The Bell Jar to conclude anything other than that Plath was (a) barking mad – hell, barking, flea scratching and butt sniffingly mad; (b) obsessed with her dead father well beyond healthy bounds; (c) severely depressed and (d) as far as it is ever possible to be, destined to suicide.

But it’s too easy to resort to that collection. Instead, try these for size, from Ariel (1965).

From Lady Lazarus:

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me.

And I am a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

Would a quote from Death & Co help? No need when there’s this, from Daddy:

I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

And from Edge:

The woman is perfected.
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment…

Nearly every poem in the collection features, death, skulls, bones, blood and blackness. She was married to Hughes at the time, so the charge could be that he made her this way, but Daddy, at least, suggests a pre-existing malaise.

The Birthday Letters (1998) does nothing to contradict this opinion as when Hughes writes of making a writing table for his wife (The Table):

…With a plane
I revealed a perfect landing pad
For your inspiration. I did not
Know I had made and fitted a door
Opening downwards into your Daddy’s grave.

Ted could be a miserable git too – his Crow poems are so depressing as to be almost unreadable. But, for this reader, The Birthday Letters most powerful message is that Ted Hughes loved Sylvia Plath.

The only people who know what goes on in a marriage are the parties to it. The rest is gossip and arid speculation. So, boilers and nonces, hold your tongues and judgment and revel in their language.

Perhaps the third boiler got it right after all.

The minutes of that MEETING OF THE MINDS, not in full

The President of the United States has engaged in a Vulcan-like mind meld with Prime Minster Kevin Rudd. Here, in a world exclusive, Gliberty reproduces the last couple of pages of the Australian delegation's meeting minutes. Sadly, the rest is badly stained (mayonnaise?) and illegible. The good news is that the lost pages seem to relate to matters of protocol.


Mind 1: Wow, there’s a lot more room in here than I was lead to believe.

Mind 2: Oh boy! Mmmmm! MMMMMMmmmm!!

Mind 1: Hey, can you knock that off, it’s freaking me out.

Mind 2: Sorry.

Mind 1: It’s OK. Let’s stay focused.

Mind 2: Yes sir. First, I’d like to say, welcome aboard!! It’s great to have you in here and back in synch.

Mind 1: Whassat?

Mind 2: You’ve come back to the fold and I welcome you.

Mind 1: Look, buddy, did anyone tell you how this mind meet works?

Mind 2: Well, I just assumed we’d meet, in the mind, so to speak, and have a bit of walk around each other’s, you know, oohing and aahing at each others great stuff and you’d see that a lot of your stuff is much like mine…

Mind 1: Whatever. Can you just keep it down while I have a look? I want to be in and out of here as fast as I can and you’re kinda distracting me.

Mind 2: Oh. Ok. Can I just point out this idea over here? It’s one I had about isolating toxic debt. And over here is one I had about the need for better Australian like world wide financial regulation and this one is an idea I had that neo-liberalism and greed and a whole lot of other bad stuff, which are not my ideas, ha ha, caused the crisis. And here’s a beauty I had about Australia having a seat on the Security Council and that one over there is about China getting us out of this mess…

Mind 1: Look, I’ll say it one more time. Be quiet. Whoa! What’s that!?

Mind 2: I have no idea. I don’t know where it came from.

Mind 1: She’s pretty good looking. And she’s American! Where’d you see her? Looks like the inside of a club.

Mind 2: I have no recollection.

Mind 1: Sure. Do you know, surprisingly, I do have one question. Why are there no other women in here? I mean we’re both married but we all carry around a memory or two.

Mind 2: Um. Well. Here’s an idea I had for Australia being really very important in the Asian region and here’s an idea I had about me being Secretary General of the UN, after I’ve stopped being president of The Republic of Australia (that’s one of my ideas too). Hey, why are you squeezing your fingers on my neck…

Mind 1: I’m out of here.

(POTUS releases subject from Mind Meld)

VP Biden: Send in the next one?

POTUS: Sure. Anyone but Brown.

The green police, they live inside of my head The green police, they come to me in my bed The green police, they’re coming to arrest me

A UK public company dismissed Mr Nicholson from his position as an environmental policy officer. But Mr Nicholson, who doesn’t fly, eat much meat or buy foreign food and spends a lot of time worrying about his waste, wasn’t taking this sitting down. He sued and at a preliminary hearing successfully argued that he can bring an action under the UK’s Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 on the basis that his conviction that climate change is the world's most important environmental problem was a “philosophical belief” under the legislation.

It’s being hailed as a victory for a “green martyr”, a label which reveals another worm at the heart of the environmentalist bud. However, any green group claiming this as a victory is mistaken.

In the kind of delicious irony that the law occasionally produces, Mr Nicholson had to argue against the company’s submissions that his conviction was based on fact and science and therefore did not amount to a philosophical belief.

Mr Nicholson’s argument is consistent with believers of a religious stripe. You can’t use science or logic to criticise my position because it’s a belief. You see, belief has faith at its centre and faith is impervious to empirical ammunition.

Mr Nicholson, who sounds like my kind of bloke, hopes the decision sets a precedent that will support anyone who shares his views on climate change and the environment. But it looks like he didn’t read to the end of the regulations. The UK Equality Act of 1996 which amended the regulations to ensure that they were not confined to religious beliefs, also amended the definition of belief to include lack of belief. So, the law equally will protect from discrimination those who do not believe in climate change.

Mind you, if the funsters holding a conference at the University of the West of England have their way it won’t matter because unbelievers will be in the loony bin. Oh to have been a fly on the wall. Oh to have experienced the trio of Glastonbury based poets, Strange Sisters (do check them out, you won't be disappointed), who “attempt through … poetry to take you on a journey through fears, resistances and courage to the visions of hope that will sustain us”, all the while enjoying my locally produced or Fairtrade tucker. Resistances? What about courages? Who cares? At least I can draw comfort from the fact that my journey will sustain them.

If ever there’s a movement that’s captured the intellectual low ground, it’s one which resorts to faith for protection and attacks opponents with charges of psychological disorder.

The 80s. Or was it the 70s?

There’s a lot of misplaced nostalgia for the 80s. Some elements were fantastic but, like any decade, there was a lot of shite. Do you who were there really miss any of the following?


Flaming drinks and the inevitable droplet shaped facial scabs.

Winged collars for black tie.

Young women’s hair sculpted into the shape of the male glans. Misogynist homosexual hairdressers chortled as they were paid to create a sea of bobbing knobs.

Any film with “Any Which Way” in the title.

Bob Hawke’s hair.

Bob Hawke.

Body shirts.

Nancy fucken Reagan.

The mere thought of Reagan fucking Nancy.

Taffeta gowns.

Oaked chipped chardonnay.

The beer strike.

Ian Chappell (a shite feature of any decade).

Smokey, the band.

Smokey the Bear.

Smokey and the Bandit.

Indeed, any 80s film starring Burt Reynolds.

Joh Bjelke Petersen. What a c**t!

That girl Deborah with the mind boggling over bite. Yikes.


So what’s the point of this? It’s a reminder that it’s what’s going on now that matters. Go forward. Move ahead. Try to detect it. It’s not too late.

Nostalgia sucks (as The Scotsman says) and seeking comfort in it is unwise because it's susceptible to the frailty of memory. Hell, it's quite possible half the things listed occurred in the 70s.

Nostalgia should be reserved for quiet nights at home in the company of a few old friends, a bottle of Sambuca and a lighter.

Dear MB

Dear Merely Being,

As you built your reputation on quality, impartial advice and have inside access to the sage of the age, The Glibertine, you’re ideally placed to offer advice on the GFC and other confusing aspects of the modern world.

Will you, please?

Yours ever,

Rachel


Dearest Rachel,

You are right. I’ve eaten a lot of chicken.

I will.

Swooningly yours,

MB


Dear MB

When interviewed, why do pollies say, “Good to be with you”?

Regards

Leigh Sales


Dear Leigh,

It’s an abbreviation. The missing words are “Jeez it’d be…”

Yours,

MB


Dear MB,

Please ask The Glibertine what’s his current tipple.

Love,

Kingsley Amis


Kingsley, darling,

How sublime to be consulted by you on the topic of tipples. And from beyond the grave! It’s a thrill.

When flush and not banned from the venue, you can’t beat a Negroni from Will at the Bayswater Brasserie. He makes it with Punt e Mes. When you’re super flush, get him to make you one with Antica Formula Carpano.

By the way, you’d hate it around here. It’s all anti-booze, smokes and women loving blokes.

Glib


Dear MB,

My boyfriend has trouble communicating his feelings.

Yours sincerely,

Lady


Dear Lady,

Lady? Check his mouth for massive oral trauma or a gag.

Yours sincerely,

MB