Oh for crying out loud!

[nineveh_uk]

“He had once owned the finest lyric soprano in Europe” does not refer to Peter Wimsey’s having been a particularly gifted boy treble. Not even as a pun.

Meanwhile, the WIP is still being recalcitrant. Fine, Troy, if you don’t want to be snogged senseless by Mr Scotland Yard 1938, back in the queue you go. I have therefore started proper work on the infamous Wimsey/Potterverse Mpreg, though don’t expect it any time soon. For one thing, it may take me a little while to recover from the horrors of the research.

Still a few of the prompt-based drabbles to go, but nearly there. This prompted me to think (via circuitous neural pathways) first how much Thrones, Dominations might be improved by zombies, and then how much Thrones, Dominations might be improved by almost anything.

For example, from p. 305:

‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,’ said Peter, returning to her half-an-hour later. ‘You were quite right, Harriet; it is surprisingly easy to solve things by a little straight talking between intelligent adults if one can only throw off the shackles of tradition. Bunter has agreed not to get married and to stay, and I have agreed to the occasional threesome.’

Finally, George Galloway praised in traditional Bedouin verse (and remarkable Grauniad spelling):

George the intrepid, that symbol of pluck

Comments

[azdak.livejournal.com]

George the intrepid, that symbol of pluck

Wow! I was halfway through that article before realising that it probably wasn't a joke. I suspect The Unknown Poet has been done a major disservice by his translator - given that Holes is capable of translating the strictly constrained forms of Bedouin poetry into the much more accessible "if Ah'm the ruttin stallion - they're the hairs on mah testicles!" (George W. of the Arab leaders), why on earth did he opt for such dreadful doggerel in Galloway's case? "Pluck", forsooth! It sounds like a parody Kipling/Enid Blyton crossover from line one.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I do suspect "pluck" of being a bit of (rather supercilious) mischief on the part of the translator, who knows how his English audience will instinctively try to rhyme it. Though my general impression of that sort of Arab poetry is that it rhymes a lot, and even Tennyson could only manage a decent English language equivalent for about six lines.

(The whole of the Bush poem is here (http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_releases_for_journalists/080212.html).

To sum things up, Ah rule the roost, with power presidential!
Ah say! Ah do! And with mah shoe, Ah kick ass – that’s essential!”)

[azdak.livejournal.com]

my general impression of that sort of Arab poetry is that it rhymes a lot

Lots of poetry rhymes a lot, but that still doesn't mean you have to translate it as ghastly doggerel. Actually, the Galloway poem translation reminds me irresistibly of Shelley on Wordsworth:

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat;
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote.

Same beat and everything.