Mind your language
Fleck
Thu 19 Jun 2014 16:00
|
Thursday 19th June 2014
Position 35:25N 54:50.8W
All well out here, a sparkling sunny but cool day,
and a freshening breeze from behind, starting to seriously roll us around, but
we are used to that!
So sorry to hear that poor Heidi's spell in the
wind hole has cost them dearly in race places. Races always seem so
unfair!
Perhaps by now England supporters are feeling the
rather the same way about their nation's progress or lack of it, in
the World Cup. So thanks for the news Geoff, but the football is bad enough, you
might skip the World politics: it is just too depressing. I'm still sleepwalking
into WW1 with Christopher Clarke. He's good. Here he is dissecting a bellicose
letter from the Emperor to the Kaiser, just after Franz Ferdinand gets it in the
neck: What strikes the present day reader about this communication is the
panicky lack of focus, the preference for swollen metaphor over clear
formulation, the employment of histrionic devices to achieve an emotional
leffect, and the juxtaposition of different perspectives in the absence of a
unifying meta-narrative. Now I wish I could write like that. Where I quibble
though is in his prefixing remark, as language today is so debased that I don't
think that for one moment the present day average reader would pause to consider
the sort of critique that Clarke has very accurately undertaken here.
I suspect that if you turn to either the front pages, or the back pages of
today's Daily Mail, you will see exactly what Clarke is writing about. This way
lies WW3 friends!
I'm missing my pilot whales, but at least I have my
Tom Tom!
Yours, Grumpy from Tunbridge
Wells.
|