THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

On the last bank holiday weekend, the weather being glorious, we decided to go for a drive. Ideally, I'd have liked to go to the seaside - being a Cancerian, I always have the crab's desire to scuttle back to the sea - but knowing that the roads would be a town-to-coast traffic jam, we set off without any specific destination in mind.

Now, this not a first-choice type of excursion for someone who has never learned the - as our American cousins say - to 'hang loose', but as we were driving through Brenchley, near Tonbridge in Kent, I happened to spot a sign to Marle Place Gardens and we decided to stop by and take a look...

What a happy happenstance that was...

This surprising act of spontaneity (which, as I've indicated, is a quality in which I am sadly deficient) led to an idyllic afternoon wandering around, and photographing, one of the most satisfying gardens I've ever visited.

Marle Place has both formal and wild features, from the ordered serenity of the scented walled garden to the chaotic to kaleidoscope of colour in the poppy garden...

What was obvious at every turn was that this place had been created and maintained by people who love gardening...

Now, personally speaking, I've always loved gardens - whether in country cottage or great parks - but I've absolutely never been one for getting involved in the actual grubby, back-aching business of gardening. As a kid I used to make a vague attempt to help my parents but - probably due to early intimations of gayness - simply hated getting my hands dirty! Also there were worms and slugs other slithery and creepy-crawly creatures...

I did once attempt to make a model garden in one of my Mum's soup tureens (the unfortunate results of which you can read about, along with an account of one of my favourite parks, here) but, for the most part - well, for the whole part, really - I'm absolutely content to admire and enjoy the down-to-earth labours of others...

Still, I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt about my lack of green fingers (although from experience, as I say, I've always found the predominant colour to be black, rather than green!), especially whenever I read that wonderful patriotic ode to the joys of gardening by one of our great pop poets, Rudyard Kipling...

OUR ENGLAND is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing: "Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives

There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

My days of getting down on my knees are - with all due respect to God - gone with the wind, since, if I were to get down there, I'd quite simply never now get up again!

But I will go on glorying in the garden, acknowledging the craft and graft of all those gardeners whose work is truly never done and I'll continue to offer thanks and praise to whatever deity is responsible for the endless multiplicity of shapes, colours and fragrances that they contain...

You can see more of my and David's photos from Marle Place Gardens and other garden spots in my flickr album, Up the Garden Path.

And you can read buttons account of the trip here.

MY FIRST ABC

I was kind-of 'tagged' by Sibley-blog-regular, SCB (alias Where there are Meadowlarks), with a meme based on the Alphabet.

So, here's my ABC - which stands, in case you wondered, for Autobiographically Blogged Confessional...


A – Age: 59 --- for five more days only!

I will be, as the mathematicians amongst you will by now have deduced, 60 on 14 July.

In fact I've already received my application for my winter fuel allowance. Am I at all depressed? Well, what do you think?

B – Bed Size: Super King Size - and, even with all that room (as David will unhappily testify) I still take up more than my half!

C – Chore you hate: All chores! That's why they're called 'chores'! The clue's in the word!

D – Dog’s name: I've never owned a dog, probably because when I was a small boy, some friends of my parents had a poodle who mistook me for a tree (or, possibly, a lamppost) and peed up my leg!

Favourite fictional dogs (mostly - but not entirely - with Disney connections): Lady and the Tramp (and their canine companions), the One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Old Yeller, Greyfriars Bobby, Rin Tin Tin, Pluto, Toto and, obviously, Snoopy...

E – Essential start your day: Tea, toast and marmalade.

F – Favourite color: The fact that I can't instantly name a favourite colour means I probably don't have one - other than black, of course, which is what I wear most of the time under the misbegotten belief that it makes me look slimmer.

G – Gold or Silver: I don't have much of either and rarely wear what I have. I occasionally wear the gold signet ring with a blood stone that my parents gave me when I was 21, a gold bracelet that I bought with birthday money when I was forty and a silver cross given to me, a few years ago, by our friends on Kalymnos.

Every now and again I wear my mother's wedding ring on a gold chain which was a birthday present from my friend Dave, twenty years ago.

And, of course, I constantly wear my white and yellow gold partnership ring - which matches David's and came from Athens...

H – Height: 5′10.5″ I fervently believe I used to be taller but have, in keeping with my advancing years, now started to shrink - except, needless to say, around the waist!

I – Instruments you play(ed): The recorder, tambourine and triangle - at school and badly!

If the human voice counts, I sang as a Policeman (in a papier mache helmet and with a rubber truncheon) in a school production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance ("Tarantara, tarantara!") and almost sang the role of Captain Corcoran in G&S's H M S Pinafore - until the music mistress had a breakdown and never came back!

Many years later - I sang and (sort-of) danced in To Sea in a Sieve, a musical play based on the life and verses of Edward Lear (right) written with my composer friend, Dave Hewson, and performed with Polly March (playing everyone except Edward Lear, including Queen Victoria and a parrot!) at the Edinburgh Festival and then at the Westminster Theatre, London.

I also sang a bit - in a Rex Harrisonesque fashion - in a show entitled, England, Our England, compiled and presented with my friends Ms March and Tony Miall which opened the St James's Arts Centre in Malta. The description 'international singer', would, therefore, not be entirely unjustified!

J – Job title: 'Writer'. It used to 'Writer and Broadcaster', but since I hardly ever get to do the latter nowadays, it seems a bit presumptuous.

K – Kid(s): None. Though, happily, quite a few of my grown-up friends fall into this category!

L – Living arrangements: Flat but the word 'arrangement' really does not apply to the constant muddle in which we live!

M – Mom’s name: Doris. As a young woman she was very handsome and my first memories are of her looking very much like this...

She died 10 years ago, but I still wish I could pick up the phone and talk with her...

N – Nicknames: At school I was 'Sibbers' (which I never liked but had to get used to) and, to a few people, 'Bri' (which I've always hated). More cruelly, I was 'Frog's-eyes' (because of their prominence) and, when I started wearing specs, inevitably, 'Four-eyes'.

Occasionally, people have jokingly called me 'Brain'! In fact, when I was born, my Mum misspelled my name thus in announcing my arrival to my paternal grandparents. Nowadays, it's only my magician friend, Fay Presto, who uses that moniker.

My mate, Dave (collaborator on the aforementioned Lear musical) used to call me 'Brisy' which was a bit camp - even for me - and, thankfully, never really caught on!

O – Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Major internal operation, aged 3 or 4, performed in the early hours of morning. Being in the days before parents were allowed to stay with their children in hospital, I was alone except for my white polar (teddy) bear, Brumas (see later under 'Z' for 'Zoo'), and was utterly terrified! I carry the physical and psychological scars to this day.

I had a duodenal ulcer, aged 21 (cured with several weeks of bed rest and a liquid diet - yuck!); and, rather more recently, a few heart-scares. Undoubtedly (and unfortunately) there's more to come...

P – Pet Peeve: Waiters (and other people in the so-called 'service industries') who tell me that something I've requested is "No problem!" Also most other debasements of the English Language!

Q – Quote from a movie: "Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

Said by Clarence Oddbody the Angel (Henry Travers) to George Bailey (James Stewart) in Frank Capra's 1946 film, It's a Wonderful Life.

Or...

"If you can't say nuffin' nice, don't say nuffin' at all!"

Spoken by Thumper (quoting his father's advice) in Disney's 1941 animated feature, Bambi.

R – Right or left handed: Right. Always thought it would be cool (and occasionally useful) to be ambidextrous but have never seriously tried and am terrified of breaking my right arm!

S – Sports: Er... No!!

T – Time you wake up: Depends how bad a night I've had. Usually around 7:00-7:30 am, but I'm frequently having a cuppa and doing correspondence, writing blogs and playing Bejewelled at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning.

U – Underwear: Have you read my blog?!

One thing I know: underwear advertising has certainly changed during my lifetime...

Er... Just a little...

V – Vegetable you dislike: Aubergine, which is a pity, because, uncooked, they look so beautiful.

That said, Irene Glinatsi at Artistico (in Emporios) serves them thinly sliced, battered and drizzled in Kalymnian honey. Sensational!

W – Ways you run late: Believing that David is really ready to go when he says he's ready to go! Believing I'm ready to go, when I've yet to locate my keys, watch, phone, credit card or brain...

X – X-rays you’ve had: Chest, hips, feet, knees and (using a long tube with a camera on the end) boomp-sa-daisy.

Y – Yummy food you make: Never cook these days, but I used to make a mean cottage pie and a rather good strawberry fool-type desert with semi-frozen Muller Light.

Z – Zoo favorite: I vividly remember my first visit to the London Zoo as a child (age 2 or 3) having a ride on an elephant and seeing the polar bear, Ivy and her cub, Brumas, who had been born four months after me in November 1949.

I was re-introduced to the zoo by a zoology-mad school chum and, a few years later, became a member of the Zoological Society of London going there at least two or three times a month.

I still love all zoos (if they're well run) and most of their inhabitants - except reptiles and insects. Particular favourites: bears and elephants (of which - quite rightly - there are now fewer or none in zoos), giraffes, hippos (the one below lives in Amsterdam zoo), red pandas, otters, penguins and pelicans.

So, that's it: ME from A to Zee!

Now, let's see...

I'll tag... Sharon M, Bitter Animator, Good Dog, Susan D-L, Diva of Deception, the blog-less Roger and/or Sheila (send your entry as a comment) and anyone else who fancies a challenge!

Quite a few of the images were uploaded via flickr.

S.W.A.L.K.

Today is NATIONAL KISSING DAY - a bit inconvenient, being a Monday, but maybe it will bring a bit of unexpected enjoyment to your journeys to and from work or, indeed, at work...

Of course, there are kisses and kisses...

And, as I'm sure you know, they're not all Romeo-and-Julietesque...

Nevertheless, here are a few interesting facts about kissing...

The 'science' of kissing is called philematology

A one-minute kiss burns 26 calories!

The average person spends 20,160 minutes of their lifetime kissing,
which amounts to two whole weeks!

Some people say that when you smooch a person with
the same hair colour, it results in a more passionate kiss

Of course, our imaginings (and, perhaps, our expectations) of kissing have been heavily influenced by the movies, and film stars have been puckering-up pretty much from the start of the industry. In fact, the first-ever on-screen kiss was in one of the earliest films to be commercially shown.

The Kiss (also known as The May Irwin Kiss, The Rice-Irwin Kiss and The Widow Jones) is a 47-second-long piece of 1896 actuality, recreating a scene from the New York stage comedy, The Widow Jones, starring May Irwin and John Rice.

According to Edison film historian, C Musser, the actors staged their kiss for the camera at the request of the New York World newspaper. The resulting film (directed by William Heise for Thomas Edison) was the most popular Edison Vitascope film in 1896, whose catalogue advertised it thus:

"They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss and kiss and kiss in a way that brings down the house every time."

However, the film scandalized kinetoscope-goers in some places where it was screened and in some cities it was greeted with outraged newspaper editorials and calls for police action from high-minded moralists. One appalled critic spluttered: "The spectacle of the prolonged pasturing on each other's lips was beastly enough in life size on the stage but magnified to gargantuan proportions and repeated three times over it is absolutely disgusting."

In 1999, this shocking piece of footage was deemed so "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress that it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

And, after all that, here's what's left of the original footage that caused all that fuss...

After that, the cinema got down to the serious business of snogging and here's a rather good montage of some (but, by no means, all) of the best of the screen kissers at work...

Since there wasn't so much as a single same-sex kiss in that reel, here's Jake and Heath (aka Jack and Ennis) getting to grips with a few manly kisses on (and off) Brokeback Mountain...

And two more, strangely overlooked, kisses that are among my favourite silver screen smackers, the first of which is one of the hottest (and wettest) clinches ever filmed: Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the 1953 drama, From Here to Eternity...

"How did you plan the famous kiss scene?" I once asked the film's director, Fred Zinnemann. "Oh," he replied casually, "I asked Deborah and Burt to lie on the beach and we just waited for the tide to come in..."

And, finally, one of cutest cinema kisses: though it's scarcely more than a nuzzle of the muzzle, it's part of one of the most romantic - and, OK, kitchiest - love scenes in the movies. Yes, it's that dinner-date from Disney's 1955 animated feature, Lady and the Tramp...

Incidentally, that night of discreetly depicted canine bliss in the park is the reason why, in the film's final scene Lady and Tramp are seen as having been blessed with puppies!

Anyway, I hope you get a least one kiss today - even if it's from the dog!

Images: arty kisses by Auguste Rodin, Gustav Klimt and Frank Dicksee.

WONDERING IN WANDERLAND

Apologies in advance to Sharon, Andrew and any other Alice-phobes, but as well as being American Independence Day - Happy 4th July to all my friends in the USA - today is the 147th anniversary of the day, in 1862, on which a character called Alice exerted an independence of her own, broke free of the imagination of a young Oxford don named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and - like a handful of other literary characters - began living an immortal life in her own right.

I have written previously on my blog about the events of that famous day and you can read some of those stories hither, thither and yon!

Alice and the denizens of Wonderland have been envisaged by literally thousands of artists (above right is Arthur Rackham's 1907 interpretation), sculptors, theatre and ballet impresarios and, of course, film-makers beginning in Britain in 1903 with a film by Cecil Hepworth...

What I love about the Alice books is their ability to spawn any number of enterprises from high art to low porn - and just about everything in between.

One of the most recent extrapolations on the Alice myth is a engaging graphic novel, Wonderland, by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew.

Based (loosely) on the Disney characterisations, Wonderland takes up the story of what happened after Alice left that country - or, as the author would have us believe, she woke up.

What, for example were the ramifications of the King and Queen of Heart's courtroom being invaded by a child who was practically a mile high and who insisted on telling them that they were nothing but a pack of cards?

In Wonderland, suspicion of an anarchist plot arises (largely due to mischief-making by the Tweedle Twins) which is then focused on the supposed treachery of the royal herald, the White Rabbit, and his maid, Mary Ann (a character referred to but never encountered in Lewis Carroll's book), who has the misfortune to bear a superficial resemblance to the troublesome Alice.

The wittily illustrated tale (originally published in parts) hovers somewhere between the Carrollian and the Disney versions of Alice's dreamworld and features the Jabberwock who didn't manage to whiffle his way into the film, members of the other royal suites of cards (ignored by Disney and Carroll) and those three little sisters - Elsie Lacie and Tillie - who, according to the Dormouse, lived at the bottom of a treacle well...

You probably need to have a rough idea of Carroll's book and the 1951 movie version if you're going to fully enjoy this diverting entertainment, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of - or affection for - Alice's Adventures will be intrigued to see yet another original (if curiouser-and-curiouser) take on this childhood classic.

By the way (as the Cheshire Cat might say), who were Elsie Lacie and Tillie?

Well (and, as you may recall they were "well in"), they represented Alice Liddell and her two sisters Lorina and Edith to who Carroll first told the story: Lorina was 'Lorina Charlotte' or 'LC', hence 'Elsie'; Edith's family nickname was 'Matilda', thus 'Tillie' and Lacie is, obviously, an anagram of...

ALICE!

And here they are - Edith on the left, Lorina in the middle and Alice on the right - photographed by Lewis Carroll...

I'm wondering where your wanderings will take you today...

Images uploaded via flickr.

AWE NOT

I ordered tea and toast in a café the other morning and the waitress' response was "Awesome!"

Awesome? It was tea and toast, for pity's sake!

What the hell would she have said if I'd ordered the Full English Breakfast??



For details of the Toaster Teapot, shown above (yes, it's a real gadget and just £29.85!), check out The Uber Review: Gadgets and Wired Madness.

A VERY MERRY BIRTHDAY, ALICE!

Mentioning Walt Disney's original Alice in Wonderland yesterday, put in mind of that song lyric from the film that begins...

Now, statistics prove, prove that you've one birthday.
Imagine, just one birthday every year!
But there are three hundred and sixty four unbirthdays!
Precisely why we're gathered here to cheer...

However, as it happens, today is the real (as opposed to un-) birthday of my good friend, KATHRYN BEAUMONT, the voice of Disney's Alice...

Click on image to go to my flickr album for the option to view at a larger size

I love the enterprise of the Hollywood (or, in Disney's case, Burbank) studio: in addition to providing the voice for Alice and acting out the entire scenario of the film in live-action for the animators' reference, Kathryn was also photographed posing with the film's merchandise!

Not only that, she also provided Alice's voice in a couple of TV commercials, including this one for Jello featuring two Carrollian characters who never made it into the film - the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. As you will see, the child in the opening shot who is about to consume an entire plate of Jello is not Kathryn, but she is the one extolling the product's virtues to the two Wonderlanders and the voice-over narrator is none other than Sterling Holloway, who gave a memorable vocal purr-formance in the film as the Cheshire Cat...

I can't help thinking Tim Burton missed a trick in not giving Kathryn a cameo role in his film of Alice's newest exploits!

Anyway...

VERY MANY MERRY RETURNS, KATHY,
today and on all your unbirthdays, too!

To read more about Ms Beaumont and her roles for Disney (she was also the voice of Wendy in Peter Pan) click on the 'Kathryn Beaumont' tag below.

Image via Disney History uploaded using flickr

ALICE IN BURTONLAND

When Walt Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland, was first released in 1951, the film critics in Alice's homeland gave it a pretty hostile reception.

How times have changed!

Fifty-eight years on, the British press are enthusiastically greeting the early press releases and photos from Disney's latest foray into Lewis Carroll's nonsense realm with Hollywood's resident enfant terrible (though he's hardly an enfant any more), Tim Burton as tour guide.

Of course, unlike Walt and his 'fifties artists and story men who attempted to follow the Carroll text while giving it Disney-appeal, Burton - aided and abetted by screenwriter Linda Woolverton (who penned the scripts for Disney's animated features Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Mulan) and, naturally, his joined-at-the-hip composer Danny Elfman - are using the original as an inspiration for what probably ought to be called Alice's NEW Adventures in Wonderland.

The premise is that Alice (now aged 17) revisits the dreamworld of topsy-turvydom where she find that she is not the only one who has changed during the years since her last excursion...

Anyone familiar with the look of such previous Burton films as Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, most recently, Sweeney Todd, will not be phased at the brooding, gothicky settings depicted in the artwork which has gone on show...

Click on images to go to my flickr album for the option to view at a larger size

As for the cast, there are some predictable presences notably Burton's leading leading man, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter - and judging by the eye make-up that is even more excessive than Jack Sparrow's - mad certainly seems to be the word...

Nice liquorice All-Sorts bow tie, though...

Burton's real life leading-lady, Helena Bonham Carter appear (despite the accompanying heart motif) as The Red Queen, who seems to be a cross between the strict-but-benign Looking-glass monarch and Wonderland's blood-thirsty despot, the Queen of Hearts, resulting in a somewhat pinker version of the Wicked Witch of the West...

Maybe the taste for butchery that she picked up in Mrs Lovett's pie shop has equipped her for all those essential beheadings...

Other players who have been shown in costume include Anne (The Princess Diaries) Hathaway as Glinda the Good --- sorry! The White Queen...

And Little Britain's Matt Lucas is doubling-up as Tweedledum and Tweedledee...

It is pretty much de rigueur that every Alice-in-Wonderland has to be played by an actress who has been selected after a long, world-wide search that is the casting office's equivalent of the Quest for Holy Grail. In her latest incarnation she is portrayed by (if the picture is to be believed) a very small Mia Wasikowska, who comes from Australia or, as Alice once said, the "Antipathies"...

Yet to be revealed are the likenesses of the ubiquitous Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit (Brian Clough via David Frost and Tony Blair out of Kenneth Williams? Yes, I can, sort of, imagine that) and Alan Rickman (last seen chewing the scenery as Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd) as the Caterpillar that, despite the passage of time, seems to have avoided turning into a butterfly.

Then there's the newly elevated Sir Christopher Lee to look forward to as he comes whiffling through the Tulgey Wood as the Jabberwock - will he, I wonder, be sporting even longer fangs than those he used to bare as D******?

And it might also be fun to watch the omnipresent Stephen Fry in his feline persona as the Cheshire Cat disappearing - momentarily at least - from sight!

However, we've got to contain our enthusiasm - or, as the case may be, our skepticism - for over nine months until 5 March 2010, when the film opens. In the meanwhile, you can visit the official website and, by clicking on the price-tag attached to the Hatter's topper, you can register for updates...

There's a lot more Burton-Alice news, gossip and some additional pix to be found on Tim Burton Collective News.

Images uploaded via flickr.

And my thanks to Good Dog for the heads-up (as opposed to the heads-off) on this fascinating farago...

PASS THE FIXODENT

Would you, honestly, let these people anywhere near your teeth?

Photo: © Brian Sibley 2009

WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WORD

I'm still recovering from the huge let-down over the revelation of that one millionth word.

Since Master Wm Shakespeare was vaguely implicated in the hoop-la surrounding what was, as it turned out, a non-event, it's worth remembering that the Bard of Avon coined (or, at least was the first to use in writing) a number of common-or-garden words (perhaps as many as 1,500) including abstemious, alligator, bedroom, eyeball, farmhouse, jaded, label, marketable, obscene, sanctimonious, tranquil and zany.

Personally, I doubt he actually 'made up' some of those. I mean, if he had, how would anyone in the audience at the Globe have known what Romeo was referring to when he talked about an apothecary in whose "needy shop a tortoise hung, / An alligator stuff'd, and other skins"; or what Prince Hal meant in calling Falstaff a "whoreson, obscene, greasy, tallow catch," although, in that instance, they'd probably have got the general drift!

However, the fact remains that Will's the lad to whom we can trace back the use of such words as 'employer', 'manager', 'investment', 'retirement', 'negotiate', 'petition', 'protesters' and 'violations'.

And he gave us such useful phrases as 'not budge an inch', 'green-eyed jealousy', 'eaten out of house and home', 'neither here nor there', 'to play fast and loose', 'to be tongue-tied', 'to be a tower of strength' or 'to knit your brows'.

Not to mention such everyday expressions 'a method in my madness', 'insist on fair play', 'make a virtue of necessity', 'stand on ceremony', 'too much of a good thing', 'seen better days' and 'living in a fool’s paradise'.

When we describe someone as 'a laughing stock', say something is 'a sorry sight', that we are 'in a pickle', or 'in stitches' and that something happened 'in the twinkling of an eye' we are, whether we know it or not, quoting Shakespeare.

He was even the man responsible for the phrase (spoken by Jack Cade in Henry VI) 'as dead as a doornail', that, centuries later, prompted another of Britain's great wordsmiths, Charles Dickens, to write...

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

It's also worth noting that - for such an oft-quoted writer - Shakespeare was the first person to use the word 'misquote'!!

Cartoons: Court Jones and Cox & Forkum

SOUP D'JOUR

One man's meat is another man's poussin...