Lookalike

Here's something new to me, which has apparently been in circulation for some time and is, indeed, 'an internet sensation'. It's an end-of-terrace house in the Swansea suburb of Port Tennant that looks slightly like Hitler:

                                                              Hitler (left) and haus (right)


For an even more amazing lookalike see here.

Hypocricy

Many years ago Playboy magazine used to publish essays and fiction by (among others) John Updike and Vladimir Nabokov. This, the owner Hugh Hefner believed, gave his monthly organ a cultural legitimacy that made his readers feel less embarrassed when splashing out (as it were) on the publication.

Likewise I manage to persuade myself that the Daily Mail website is among the best places to find traditional photojournalism, notwithstanding the newspaper's status as the house journal of Little England bigots. Anyway, the website recently published some images by the German photographer Michael Wolf which form part of a project he calls 'Architecture of Density'. Here, avoiding the Mail's coverage entirely, is a direct link to his website and his astonishing photographs of Hong Kong apartment buildings:

http://photomichaelwolf.com/#architecture-of-densitiy/1

George Jones

Here's my favourite song by the great Country and Western star George Jones, who died yesterday. If, as some wag once wrote, such music is jazz for poor white trash, George Jones is the genre's Duke Ellington. Never Been So Weary is sardonic, sentimental, truthful and with a tune that will stay with you all day. Turn up the volume. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzuBlGbGFU

The Devil is a Woman

Here's the fine scottish actress Siobhan Redmond as Mephistopheles in a production of Marlowe's Dr Faustus, currently running at the Glasgow’s Citizen’s Theatre.

Image © Glasgow Citizens' Theatre

What wonderful casting! I've been a huge admirer of hers since she appeared as Lucy McGinty, Don Henderson's droll sidekick in the 1980s television drama Bulman. That was over thirty years ago and she seems barely to have aged a day since. She's a marvellous actress, always thoughtful and always a good listener She's often described as 'steely' and I suppose this is because, as a strong, intelligent and independent woman she tends to play strong, intelligent, independent women. She is always and clearly herself and in life (one gets the impression) doesn't suffer fools at all, let alone gladly. She has a naturally dramatic look, and knows how to use bright red lipstick. 

We once fell into conversation one afternoon outside the National Film Theatre after a screening of Raoul Walsh's White Heat. This would be over twenty-five years ago and I expect, what with her busy career and everything, she may quite possibly have forgotten our brief encounter by now. I've also forgotten what we talked about (although we shared an admiration for Cagney's acting), but I can clearly remember her voice, which was very attractive. Film producers who favour Keira Knightley or Gwyneth Paltrow are unlikely to form a rowdy queue but unlike gurning Keira and peaky Gwyneth she can act her socks off. She has a marvellous way of looking utterly haggard and woebegone, then suddenly blazing back into life. She's done some very good theatre over the years - House of Bernardo Alba, Shakespeare and so on, not to mention lots of telly, from cop dramas to comedy, none of which I've seen. Not much in the way of films - was she ever in a Harry Potter? She'd make a terrific witch. She's keeping afloat, I think. I just wish she'd work more in London theatres.

Despite a degree of fame (not the same thing as celebrity) she maintains a Garbo-like privacy. I know very little about her and she keeps a low profile on the internet. Her private life is refreshingly low-key or possibly non-existent and, in an age of trashy and talentless celebs, that's very classy. She's a hard working and (I imagine) essentially good person. I'd be interested to see what she makes of Mephistopheles - not a role traditionally played by women, although I seem to remember that Shelley Winters played Lucifer in a 1970s horror film. Redmond's casting offers many intriguing opportunities - not least for the costume designer, who, it seems, has ransacked my dreams for ideas:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/citizenstheatre/8506645341/in/photostream/lightbox/

Sporting greats

Swansea, 1968, and a cricket match between the counties of Glamorgan and Nottinghamshire, the latter team captained by the great West Indian all-rounder Garfield Sobers. Television cameras were present as Sobers hit each of the six consecutive balls delivered in an over out of the ground, scoring the maximum possible number of runs for an over - 36. It's a thrill to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWA7wYKcPGo

I mention this because there are reports today that his record was equalled yesterday by Lancashire's Jordan Clark during a Championship Second XI game against Yorkshire. Clark is the first English player to do this - and only the fifth in history. 

The equivalent might be scoring consecutive holes-in-one during a game of golf. This feat was easily and repeatedly achieved by the late Kim Jong Il, the beloved leader of North Korea who, in 1994, scored 11 holes-in-one during his first ever round, coming in 38 under par. This naturally remains a world record and, in case you're sceptically tempted to scoff, his brilliant display was witnessed by seventeen bodyguards. 

Archive footage © British Broadcasting Corporation / Hulton Getty Picture Library

On private parts

An endless source of amusement and instruction is W. H. Auden's commonplace book, A Certain World (London, Faber and Faber, 1971). On page 269 he lists some euphemistic terms for the genitals:

Male 

Bald-headed hermit

Dr. Johnson

Fiddle-bow

Silent (one eyed) Flute

Gosse's Neck

Hampton Wick

Jack-in-the-cellar

Ladyweave

Nimrod

Stargazer

Tackle

Titmouse

Donkey

Giggle-stick

Impudence

Power

Rector

Female

Ace of Spades

Almanack

Cabbage

Fart-Daniel

Fig

Front-Attic (or Front Garden)

Fumbler's Hall

Garden gate

Goldfinch's Nest

Grotto

Gyvel

Jacob's Ladder

Leather Lane

Lobster Pot

Mother of St. Patrick

Milliner's Shop

Jack Nasty-Face

Oyster

Penwiper

Purse

Receipt of Custom

Regulator

Hans Carvel's Ring

Saddle

Sportman's Gap

Teazle

Growler

Many of these have an eighteenth century feel and most are now, alas, obsolete. Only 'Hampton Wick' - rhyming slang for prick and usually shortened to Hampton or Hamptons - is still in circulation (at least in the chortling context of Carry On films).

In 1989 a young Toby Litt (not yet an acclaimed novelist) contributed an excellent article to The Auden Society Newsletter about the poet's appearances in the Oxford English Dictionary (of which there are over 700). Here's an extract:

Among Auden's more notable citations are: the first pejorative use of "queer", the first printed use of "ponce" to designate an effeminate homosexual, of "toilet-humour", of "agent" in the sense of a secret agent or spy, of "dedicated" to mean a person "single-minded in loyalty to his beliefs or in his artistic or personal integrity", of "shagged" meaning "weary, exhausted", and of "stud" for a person "displaying masculine sexual characteristics". Further curiosities are the first printed appearance in English of the surrealist term "objet trouvé" and the first printed use of "What's yours?" as an invitation given by the person buying the next round of drinks.

Toby Litt

You can find Toby Litt's article here http://audensociety.org/04newsletter.html#P25_2800

Auden was also, according to Edward Mendelson in his introduction to The Prolific and the Devourer,  the first person to use the word 'apolitical' in print. Where would we be without him?

Extract from A Certain World © The Estate of W. H. Auden

Oi Yoi Yoi

More about a favourite artist, Roger Hilton, prompted by Friday's blog about David Brown, who was a close friend of his.

In 2008 I remarked to a friend, the art historian and critic Andrew Lambirth, that the logo for the Beijing Olympic Games seemed to owe something to Hilton's painting Oi Yoi Yoi. I was less than half-serious, and therefore surprised to read, in Andrew's excellent catalogue essay for a 2009 Hilton show at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, that there may have been more to my off-hand comment than I thought.

Roger Hilton Oi Yoi Yoi (1963)

Beijing Olympics logo (2008)

The Beijing logo of a running figure (above) was designed by Guo Chunning, and is a stylised calligraphic rendition of the Chinese character 京 (pronounced jīng, meaning 'capital', from the name of the host city). The logo represents both a dancing figure and a runner crossing the finishing line. It's not just the shape, and the way the limbs seem to extend beyond the frame, but the abstract blocks of red that serve to outline the figure which reminded me of Hilton's painting. Andrew suggested in his essay that Hilton may indeed have had a Chinese ideogram in mind when he created the original painting - his wide-ranging interest in other cultures would support such a view.

Oi Yoi Yoi is a really great picture, and makes me happy whenever I look at it or think about it. It's all about life. Hilton said the subject was 'my wife dancing on a verandah, we were having a quarrel. She was nude and angry at the time and she was dancing up and down shouting 'oi yoi yoi''.  This was on the balcony of their remote French home, and the pair had been guzzling rum. What Hilton didn't include in the picture, apparently because he didn't notice it at the time, was that the local fire brigade were tackling a blaze in a field nearby.

Hilton made a second version that year (below) which is every bit as good. I'm not sure which one I like best. The title of the first is better. The second image is more bouncy, and especially the breast.

Dancing Woman (1963)

Hilton, à propos, pioneered the admirable practice of drawing nudes in motion by encouraging Rose, his wife, to walk around as he sketched her. Good work!

Images © The Estate of Roger Hilton; Tate Gallery