Waiting for the train

I was waiting for the train the other day. It was early afternoon and I thought it wouldn't be too busy, but there were lots of people milling about and chattering. With a few minutes before the train was due, I found a seat and made some notes, and for some strange reason, Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade popped into my head. Perhaps the galloping rhythm reminded me of the train's movement. Anyway, here's the result.

French to the right of me,
Italian to the left of me,
a loud guy on his mobile on the edge of the platform.
Travellers tugging wheelies,
passengers pushing buggies,
a disembodied voice echoes from the speakers.
Footsteps, laughter, chatter.
Backpacks, bum-bags, handbags.
A humming train pulls in, sighs, stops. I push on.

Learning how to be independent and how to recycle

Stig of the Dump takes me back to when it was read out in my junior school class. I was probably the same age as Barney, the boy who was told, "If you went too near the edge of the chalk pit the ground would give way". Barney wanted to see if what the adults said was true, and of course, "the ground gave way." He "felt his head going down and his feet going up" as he fell into the world of Stig, a stone-age character who speaks no English, and who uses discarded rubbish to make useful implements. Barney returns to the pit to see Stig whenever he stays with his Grandmother in Kent.

Figure out where you're going before you go there

I decided to read Rabbit, Run after seeing it included in a couple of listings of great literature of the 20th century. It's about Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, the most selfish, self-centred, tin-eared, immature character that I've ever encountered.

Just how lucky we'd been

I picked up Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go because it was described as a dystopian story. The events take place in 1990s England, but it's not quite the place and time that I remember. Kathy narrates the tale. She tells us about her relationship with Tommy and Ruth, her friends at a school called Hailsham.

Uptight women, Chanel suits, fluffy little handbag dogs?

I went to the Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair in April 2024, looking for options for self-publishing. Meandering through the stalls, I spotted a book with a jacket that looked like the flag of Monaco; red strip at the top, white strip at the bottom. On closer inspection, I discovered it was a novella titled Monaco, by Juliet Jacques. Well, I know a bit about the Principality, so of course I bought the book.

Change is inevitable

Isabel Colegate's The Shooting Party gives away the end of the story on the first page: "It caused a mild scandal at the time, ... an error of judgment which resulted in a death." The book then describes events leading up to the incident, which takes place a few months before the outbreak of WW1, when Sir Randolph invites a group of privileged people to take part in a shoot at Nettleby Park. The old-fashioned peer has "all but bankrupted the estate" to entertain the late King.

It's Friday, it's five to five...

I must have been watching BBC's Crakerjack! aged six or seven, but all these years later, if someone says "It's Friday", my next thought is always, "It's five to five". So here's Friday's verse a triolet celebrating a kids' telly programme.

It's Friday night, it's five to five,
it's Crackerjack!
Oh what a time to be alive;
it's Friday night, it's five to five,
and on TV, a party vibe.
Hear that 'crack'-ing word? Shout back!
It's Friday night, it's five to five,
it's Crackerjack!