Tom Roper's Weblog

Town and country

I left London this evening with the free newspapers displaying lurid headlines about a gang-fight in Trafalgar Square; I arrived home to be greeting by a newspaper placard outside the station warning about sheep-worrying.

Dogs and vapour trails

I ate my lunchtime sandwich in the park on a sunny October day. As I finished and prepared to go back to work, a young man appeared, accompanied by a slatterny girl. He led two Staffordshire bull terriers on leads, their bodies encased in elaborate leather and brass harnesses. The girl had another, smaller beast with her. This part of London seems to lead the capital in fierce dogs: see Andy Beckett in the Guardian a few weeks ago: Andy Beckett investigates the rise in rough-looking mutts on Britain's streets

The young man hailed me. His eyes were wide and his pupils wildly dilated. I had not seen such pupils since the night Colin, Nigel and I took acid outside the Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1972 or 1973. He waved at the clear sky. Did I know what those are, he demanded, pointing at some fluffy vapour trails? They're condensation, left by aeroplanes, I replied. He shook his head. The girl was expressionless.
'They're chemicals, man, look it up on the Internet', he said.
'I certainly shall,' I said, as I moved towards the park gate, watching the dogs closely.
'It's on the Internet, man, chemicals'.

A la recherche du Tom perdu

As country mouse, I went to town today, to two exhibitions, both highly evocative of my childhood, the Royal Society of Medicine's Treasures from the Libraries and Collections of Gentlemen’s Clubs and Learned Societies in London at which I saw the Emperor penguin (Aptenodites Forsteri) pictured here. This penguin is on loan from the Army and Navy Club where, I was pleased to learn, he is looked after by his own veterinary officer, Major P N Skelton-Stroud, late of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. As a small boy, living on the same street in Cambridge as the Scott Polar Research Institute's museum, I often admired their stuffed Emperor penguin who, when I first saw him, must have been about as big as me. To my over-literal child's mind, the statue of a naked man in front of the building, intended to convey Scott's self-sacrifice, made me wonder why he had gone somewhere so cold without any clothes. There are many treasures to be seen in the exhibition, which runs until 25 October. I very much enjoyed the exhibits from the Athenaeum and the Travellers' Club, and some mementoes of Alexis Soyer from the Reform Club, where he was chef, and whence comes the name of the dish, lamb cutlets reform. Then I went to the Royal Academy to see the tercentenary exhibition of the Society of Antiquaries, Making History: Antiquaries in Britain 1707-2007, an impressive study of the importance of physical evidence in history, of objects and their interpretation through art. This stirred childhood memories too: in the very first room was a copy of Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia or Urn Burial, as well as works by Camden and Aubrey.; When I was about eight or nine years old I found in the attic of my childhood home a 1686 edition of Browne's complete works, and would spend many afternoons up there reading. I think my favorite was Pseudodixia or vulgar Errors. How could one not enjoy a chapter called Of the pissing of Toads, of the stone in their head, and of the generation of Frogs? There is plenty here to please the heraldically minded schoolboy, for, like many at that age,; I was fascinated by and studied heraldry, even, when I had exhausted what the public library could offer me on the subject,; pestering my father to take me with him to Cambridge's University Library so I could consult their collection.; The start and finish of the Neolithic marathon that I ran earlier this year are well represented here, for both Stonehenge and Avebury were popular objects of study for antiquaries. The final room is particularly impressive, concentrating on Stonehenge and showing it as portrayed by artists such as Turner and Constable, as well as Inigo Jones. There are also some illustrations of the site for children's books from the 1950s on display, by Alan Sorrell, which seemed very familiar; I wonder if they might have appeared in Look and Learn, which I read voraciously as a boy. There's also an impressive genealogical scroll, tracing the lineage of Henry VI back to Adam, and Eve; there are brass-rubbings, studies of burial mounds, cathedral drawings, a copy of the Bayeux tapestry, much on Maiden Castle including some film of Mortimer Wheeler's excavations, and a room devoted to Pugin, Morris, and Burne-Jones, for the Society owns Kelmscott Manor.

Technorati Tags: antiquaries, clubs, penguins, avebury, stonehenge, puppy, puppy

Technorati Tags: antiquaries, avebury, clubs, penguins, puppy, stonehenge

Smoking and the British Library

Today I visited London and used the Northern line, the underground line that I associate so much with my first days in London when, fresh from university, i lived in Golders Green. In those days it was possible to smoke on the tube.
If I recall correctly, the second and penultimate carriages were the designated smoking carriages; I was an enthusiastic smoker in those days, and the most significant memories of my first few years in London are from the smoking carriages of the Northern line.
Later in the day I went to the British Library and though I should be used to what a library can do, I'm still amazed. I wanted to listen to some 78 rpm records made for Linguaphone of classical Greek pronunciation by W H D Rouse, headmaster of my school, correspondent and collaborator with Ezra Pound and innovator in classics teaching (see Stray, Chris The Living Word: W.H.D.Rouse and the Crisis of Classics in Edwardian England Bristol Classical Press 1998 1853992623)
They had one of them, and had transcribed it to CD for me. Rouse uses a version of the tonal accent, and in the background one can hear boys at play.These recordings must have been made in the school. They didn't have a copy of the other, though they had the accompanying booklet, so I'm still on the tracks of      Linguaphone Passages from the Greek Classics  (pp. 10. Linguaphone Institute: [London, 1935?])