CHARLESNEVIN

November 18I know: time for, yes, Some Old Thespian Stories (SOTS)!​1) AE Matthews, splendid character actor, adorner and enlivener of such as 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' and 'Around the World in 80 Days', answered the phone on stage, and couldn't remember his line; completely unflustered, he turned to his companion and said, 'It's for you'.​2) Tallulah Bankhead, larger than most lives put together, enough to make flamboyance blush, (in)famously 'more of an act than an actress',  having attended a screening of the adaptation of 'Orpheus Descending' by Tennessee Williams, told him, 'Darling, they've absolutely  ruined your perfectly dreadful play.'​3) Noël Coward took Laurence Olivier to a mountaintop near his beloved Jamaica home, Firefly, to see his favourite view. Surveying the magnificent terraces spread beneath him, Sir Laurence commented, 'It looks like rows and rows of empty seats'.​​November 17Another determined delve into the beguiling bran tub that is Funny Old Things comes up with this:Well, well: it seems that Goering never made the famous remark about reaching for his revolver at the mention of culture. The only recorded source approximating it is in a now much mercifully forgotten play by the Nazi, Hanns Johst, where a stormtrooper remarks: 'When I hear the word culture, I cock my Browning.' Remarkable: Did you know the Nazis were into panto?(After the war, in an excellent example of condign bathos, the only outlet Johst could find was writing poems under a pseudonym for a supermarket magazine. And while we're here, consider whether this was more bold in 1967 than it would be now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPXHRX8Q2hs)And, in the event that you might like to be cheered up even more in these troubling times, try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZIjtt5V3Es&t=14sNext!November 16Today is the anniversary of death by hanging of Jack Sheppard in 1724, a great blast from the roaring past that was early eighteenth-century London.Unusually for a villain of the time, Jack doesn’t appear to have killed anybody, which might explain his immense popularity, or not. Jack was an averagely gifted thief, but an escape artist of quite stunning brilliance, ensuring his fame by making each successive break-out more spectacular than the last. As is usual, he was young (dead at 22), fatherless, and fell away from an honest apprenticeship as a carpenter into bad company, a couple of doxies at the Black Lion in St Giles. You might judge their charms from their nicknames, Edgworth Bess and Maggott.Jack started robbing from the homes and businesses he was working in, and fencing the stuff through Bess and Maggott. Arrest came soon, and his first escape, through a roof. Although it never took long to capture Jack again, holding on to him was another matter. His next escape was from the New Prison, Clerkenwell, with Bess, sawing through an iron bar, descending 25 feet on a rope made out of a blanket, a sheet and Bess’s gown and petticoat, and then scaling a 22-ft high perimeter wall.His return to custody the next time was accelerated by making an enemy out of Jonathan Wild, the Mr Big of London organised crime. So organised, in fact, that Wild had semi-official status as a thief-taker and receiver of lost property (whose loss he had arranged in the first place). Those who refused to work for him found themselves arrested by Wild, who would then claim the reward.Jack’s refusal to share his profits with Wild argues either extreme foolhardiness or supreme confidence in his powers of escapology. He was arrested, tried and sentenced to hang. Four days before his appointment at Tyburn, he escaped from Newgate disguised as a woman. London, which has always liked a Jack the Lad, was agog with it.Recaptured yet again, he was put into solitary confinement in Newgate’s equivalent of a high-security block, four floors up, The Castle. Jack freed himself from his handcuffs, broke his fetters, climbed up the chimney into the room above and then cracked open six locked, bolted and barred doors on his way up onto the roof, sixty feet up. And then went all the way back again to get his blanket before returning to lower himself with it onto the house next door, climbing into the garrett window and making his way downstairs and out through the front door to freedom.How could Jack possibly follow that? Only one way, really. The next days were spent thumbing his nose at his fate. He mingled with crowds listening to ballads about his escape, had himself driven in a carriage past Newgate, robbed a pawnbroker’s, dressed finely, dined with the doxies, sent for his mother, promised he would flee the country, got more drunk, became incapable and was arrested in a brandy shop in Drury Lane.People flocked to Newgate to see him, paying the turnkeys for the privilege. His route to Tyburn was lined by weeping girls throwing posies at his open cart. He stopped, as was customary, for a final mug of ale at the Bowl Inn in St Giles, and a pint of sack (wine) in Oxford Street. There were said to be 200,000, a third of London’s population, out for the hanging. At Tyburn, his autobiograpy was on sale, which must make the event a unique book launch.Jack was a small, slight man and death by hanging was then a matter of slow strangulation rather than the later device of a sharp neck-breaking drop;  the crowd spared him by rushing forward to pull down on his legs to hasten his end.Jack was said to have told a visiting clergyman in Newgate that one file was worth all the bibles in the world. This didn't prevent another exhorting his flock to follow the example of this alternative Shepherd and ‘open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance, burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts, and mount the chimney of hope to the roof leads of divine meditation’.Excerpt from The Book of Jacks (see Books page)On!November 15​Getting a touch older? Worried that you're a little what we used to call 'off the pace' and 'out of the swing'? Relax, or, rather, key word, 'chill': simply follow these handy tips and people won't think of you as old at all!1) While walking around, play imaginary but vigorous tennis shots (a rush to the imaginary net to return a drop shot is particularly effective, I find).2) Drop some youthful catch-phrases casually into conversation. "Swinging" and "Dodgy" seem to provoke the strongest reaction.3) Not hearing quite as sharply as you did, just a little Mutt and Jeff? Develop a cool, enigmatic smile and if in doubt, use one of my all-purpose replies, such as, ‘Whatever,’ 'You wish', 'Tell me about it!' (but definitely not 'I should cocoa!').4) Don't wear your cardigan after March.5) Offer people your seat; but, on no account, hold open the door.6) No humming, particularly Beatles tunes.7) Ostentatiously bite into discreetly prepared apples.8) Talk about football a lot.9) Never, on any account, run (except for the last chocolate digestive, force majeure, obviously). Complete giveaway, even without the grimace. Instead channel your inner Bill Nighy and cultivate an insouciant (but wary) saunter, much kinder on the knees.10) Instantly convert that sad sigh whenever you sit down into an urgent relevant rap.11) Don’t sign letters 'Yours aye'.12) Actually, don’t write letters. 13) For goodness sake, do you want to be rumbled? Use those thumbs to text! Not one finger while peering anxiously through your reading glasses! And, please, no verbs! Cast aside your crossword, or worse, book: work on your emojis and txtspk, babes.​14) Nothing says old like not knowing your mobile's number: why not do as I have and get it put on the inside of your wrist? Sorry? Yes, of course it's a tat. Get with the beat, Daddio. Oh and really: a landline?! 15) Do not attempt a pleasantry with anyone under 30 (you must have noticed the dead look that comes into their eyes and, if you’re lucky, the automatic age-tolerant smile).16) Even more importantly, never, in any circumstances whatsoever, attempt a joke, as that requires  them to concentrate and unsettles their understanding of dementia.17) Never raise your baseball cap (or beanie) when meeting a lady.18) No hesitation, half-proffered hand, that sort of thing: get your hug in first, and squeeze!19) Carefully check those cultural references for anything before 1990: always ask yourself: would Richard Madeley understand this?​20) What do you mean there's no 20?​​Going off for a lie-down now.​​November 14​Welcome once again to another riproaring selection of my Oddly Fascinating Facts (OFF):1) The longest name on record in Britain is Major Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache-de Orellana-Plantagenet-Tollemache-Tollemache (1884-1917).2) The floor in the dance to 'I'll Be Hard to Handle' in the Astaire & Rogers musical, 'Roberta', was the only wooden floor in all of the their films. They both loved working on it because they could tap and actually make the sounds of the taps. In the other musicals, their taps were dubbed over, as they were too quiet.3) Mrs Simpson, later the Duchess of Windsor, mastered only four words in Chinese during her extensive time and travels in China and Hong Kong: 'Boy, pass the champagne!'. 4) Weight for weight, the Brussels sprout contains three times the level of vitamin C of an orange. 5) Male deep-sea squid mate indiscriminately with members of either sex because they can't see properly in the dark.More from OFF as I have it!​​November 13Today, I note, is World Kindness Day. Ever eager to assist, might I suggest some random acts of kindness that will warm cockles, lighten the step and provoke one of those smiles where the eyes shine, the head goes to one side and a warm voice with a hint of a catch in it confides, 'Bless':1) Why not approach a stranger (who, after all, is only a friend you haven't made yet) and say, 'Cheer up, it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile!'2) Travelling on public transport? Whistling helps people with their day. I find that, out of my extensive repertoire, 'Colonel Bogey' and the 'Star Wars' theme go down best. Tne ones with the earbuds in never look happy, do they? Mime is the answer here, particularly anything involving a virtual sheet of glass.3) Pack your items very slowly at the check-out so as to give the hard-pressed operative a bit of a break.4) Drink an extra glass of water to help the hard-pressed shareholders in your struggling water company.5) Send that nice Mr Musk some hand cream, as his poor fingers must be worn to the bone posting all those helpful and rigorously researched posts on his platform.6) If you're in London, why not go and talk to one of the mounted cavalrymen at Horse Guards? It gets very boring for them, and they like nothing better than a chat about the political situation while you tickle the horse under its chin.7) When using roundabouts, ignore that bare minimum requirement to give way to the right and opt for the far kinder approach of waving everyone through irrespective. I can hear the appreciative honks already!8) Send poor Mr Farage a stick of Clacton rock as an aide memoire.9) Don't forget that people really enjoy a detailed description of television programmes you've been watching,10) And always remember that if in the unlikely event you have any enemies, kindness can be really irritating!More Happiness tips very soon!November 12As the firm smack of authority seems increasingly popular currently, I thought I would supply my working list of overworked words, inelegant constructions and stale phrases that should be banned forthwith from public discourse and discussion, with penalties ranging from being forced to write them out 100 times or listening 200 times to comments and analyses prior to and following sporting contests; repeat offenders will be examined at length on the declarations and writings of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson or Fred Sirieix.There are, of course, some offences which are so endemic that rooting them out would prove prohibitively expensive, such as 'At the end of the day', 'level playing field', 'So...', 'like', or 'I'm glad you asked me that'. Others are a touch niche, and possibly pedantic: 'fulsome' to mean 'great' when it actually means 'insincerely flattering', or 'enormity' for enormous when it actually means 'enormously bad'. These are not hills to die on.Others, though, be warned:1) Unnecessarily inelegant images, what my distinguished former editor JWM Thompson used to describe as 'infelicitous': 'Suck it up,' 'Nailed it', 'Smashed it,' 'Grilled', 'Call out,' 'Hold his/her feet to the fire,' 'Firm smack'.2) The lazy abandonment of accuracy and imagination displacing the original and useful meaning. Prime example: 'They' for his or her, whether it agrees with the verb or not. No one is arguing about the need; but please invent a new word. Please.3) Prepositional abuse in the mistaken belief that it makes for more vivid language: 'Around' for 'About'; 'Ahead of' and 'In advance of' for 'Before'; 'Off of,' 'Back in the day'. And while we're on 'immediacy,' 'relevancy; and 'accessibility', the new historic present, where nothing happened, it's all happening now: 'Henry is born,' 'It is very much an age...' Grrrr!4) Old images: 'Drawing Board', 'Blue Print,' 'Letting off steam'; Alien images: 'Stepping up to the plate,' a baseball expression when we have 'Stepping up the crease'. And what about 'Stepping up to the oche?' Of course!5) And just because: 'Niche,' 'Not the hill to die on,' 'It is what it is,' 'The right thing to do,' 'remains to be seen,' 'The rest, as they say, is History,' 'You know, there's an ancient Chinese curse,"May you live in interesting times,' 'iteration,' 'cusp,' 'holistic,' 'existential,' 'surreal,' 'storied,' 'interrogate,' 'curate,' 'inhabit','tick the box,' 'Everything ok for you, Guys?'. And how many more people, do you think, are going to go on a journey?My goodness, that's better! You should try it!Next!November 11Remembering all who have been engaged by war, by choice or by order, and all shades between; heroes and cowards, and all shades between; fallen or survivors, and all shades between.Represented by:1) Jack Harrison, a thrilling rugby player of the great game, Rugby League, symbol and cypher for all the pride, wit, skill, belligerence and bloody-mindedness of the North of England.Jack's searing speed, grace and sudden swerve had already gained him 90 tries in three seasons when he scored the winner for Hull FC against Wakefield Trinity in the 1914 Challenge Cup Final. The next year, he volunteered for France, and was commissioned temporary Second Lieutenant in the 11th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment.In March 1917 he was awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry. One month later, he took off on the run of his life, across no-man’s-land, towards the German machine gun pinning down his men. He is reported as moving at speed, swerving between barbed wire, dodging shell holes, through enemy fire.Then Hull’s Hero went down, never to be seen again, not there, or at the Boulevard, or Fartown, or Belle Vue, or Knowsley Road, or at any of the other great rugby league grounds, flying down his wing to the roar of the crowd, not guns. But he was carrying a grenade and the gun was destroyed; it was Jack’s last try, for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.He was a man of imagination, a schoolteacher: who knows what thoughts, what comparisons, went through his head on that final lung-bursting swerving, sprinting run; who knows what the Germans made of this lone figure racing for their line out of the dark with the guile and balance and bravery learnt on Yorkshire mud. He was 26. The one complaint about Jack as a rugby player was that he was a touch timid. ‘Before the beginning of next season,’ wrote a reporter in the Hull Daily Mail in 1914, ‘I am more than confident that the East Hull lad will be found in a more fearless mood.’ Indeed. And his son, also Jack, a Captain in the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, was killed at Dunkirk in 1940.2) Major Allison Digby Tatham-Warter, of the 2nd Parachute Batallion, who could be seen during the height of the Battle of Arnhem carrying an umbrella. This was because, as he explained, he could never remember passwords and the brolly would make it perfectly clear that he was British. He also used it on one occasion to disable a German armoured car by thrusting it through a slit and poking the driver in the eye.When German tanks began to cross the Bridge (Too Far), Tatham-Warter led a bayonet charge against them with his pistol in one hand, swinging his umbrella above his head with the other and wearing a bowler hat.He was injured, but escaped, made contact with the Dutch resistance, survived any number of encounters with the Germans, including helping them get a staff car out of a ditch, and organised the escape of around 140 stranded Parachute Regiment soldiers, 10 British and US pilots, two Russians and 15 Dutch across the Rhine.After the War he ran safaris in Kenya. Also present at Arnhem was Father Bernard Egan, chaplain to the Battalion, who was taking shelter from mortar fire when the major came to help him cross the street; Father Egan mentioned the mortars: the major replied, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got an umbrella.'3) Jack Nevin. They also served; afterwards, some cope with it in silence, and some by making light of it. My father's account of service life between 1939 and 1945 was not a routine one, despite an unswerving admiration for Churchill and ‘Monty’, and distinguished service in Egypt and Europe. After they had died, I found a letter from him to my mother which describes being under German shell fire in France shortly after D Day. He never mentioned it; the only shot of any significance he claimed to have fired, for example, seemed to have gone through a wall at the Rose and Crown, Colchester, nearly killing an American officer in the next bedroom.Otherwise, by his account, he managed to rise quite peaceably from private to major in the Royal Army Service Corps (Run Away Someone’s Coming, as he loved to put it) because his superiors decided, rightly as it turned out, that a Lancashire grocer would be rather better at supplying the Eighth Army than any of their regular chaps. The high-ups, he said, seemed to think a Lancashire accent the outward sign of an inward trustworthiness. This belief proved particularly useful during their visits to his depots, which tended to involve groups of men moving the same stock to different points on the inspection route to disguise irregularities (not of his making, I stress). And he never did get to go back to the Western Desert to find all that sugar they had stored there, under the sand, away from Rommel, and which, he claimed, seeing as it was uncontaminated by Hiroshima, would now be worth a bloody fortune, if he could remember where he put it.His memories of all this, including the Indian Army CO sitting down to lunch in a tent in the middle of the desert and sending the plates back because they hadn’t been warmed, would more often than not lead to the set piece of his war time: the embarkation from North Africa of 500 Italian prisoners of war followed by their immediate disembarkation and re-embarkation when he mistakenly counted only 499.I can see him now, hugging his small but generously sized self over this, feet up, whisky in hand, and hear his chuckling exclamation at the daftness of it all: ‘Oooh, bloody hell!’, or, as he elided it, ‘Oooh, bloody’ell!”Thank you, all, that there is a: Next!November 10Today, an exclusive sample from the News Department of Old Nevin's Unusual Trivia Selection (ONUTS)! :1) April,1999: Sophia Hadi drove all the way from Leeds to Washington, County Durham, after a friend there reported hearing a rare song thrush, only to find it was, in fact, the noise made by a forklift truck reversing at the local Asda.2) June, 2013: A German bank clerk who fell asleep in mid transfer of 62.40 euros while his finger was on the "2" key ended up transferring 222,222,222.22 euros instead. 3) October, 2013: In Cornwall, Ontario, Donald Johnson, a lawyer, discovered the burglar in his home was a man he was representing on a burglary charge.4) November, 2010: Matthew Nieveen (no relation) of Nebraska tested positive on his way home from a fancy dress party dressed as a breathalyser.5) January, 2011: Andreas Mueller, 39, of Sachsen Anhalt won a Mini in a radio show contest by having the word "Mini" tattooed on to his penis.More from ONUTS very soon!November 9At the end of a challenging week, I have some quotations to aid your pensive ruminations on Life and Stuff:1) 'Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.' AJ Balfour, UK Prime Minister, 1848-1930.2) 'I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6/5 against.' Damon Runyon, 1880-1946, writer of fine stories and creator of such as Sky Masterson, Nathan Detroit, Nicely Nicely Johnson and Harry the Horse.3) An admirer who spent the afternoon with Lord Tennyson in his garden reported only three remarks: 'Coals are very dear'; 'I get all my meat from London'; and 'It's those cursed rabbits!'4) 'Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of Man.' Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900.5) 'I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly,' Peter Cook, satirist, 1937-1995.6) 'If the aim of medicine is by drugs to alleviate suffering, the question forces itself on one: why alleviate it? In the first place, they say that suffering leads Man to perfection; and, in the second, if Mankind really learns to alleviate its suffering with pills and drops, it will completely abandon religion and philosophy, in which it has hitherto found not merely protection from all sorts of trouble, but even happiness.' From Anton Chekhov's short story, 'Ward 6'.7) 'Most people are bastards, and everything is bullshit,' George Black II, father of newspaper magnate and prison inmate, Conrad Black, Lord Black of Crossharbour.8) 'There is an art of sophistry by which men have deluded their own consciences by persuading themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them.' Dr Johnson sets us right.9) 'I was lying tenth and had a 35 foot putt. I whispered over my shoulder, 'How does this one break?" And my caddie said, "Who cares?"' Jack Lemmon, actor, 1925-2001, whose gravestone reads, 'In'.10) 'On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.' Epitaph for himself proposed by WC Fields, 1880-1946.On!November 8A crank of the miscellany handle, and we come up with...Towards More Colourful English!And today, a few Lancashire phrases with which to enrich your already sparkling repartee:1) 'I'm drawn to you. It's like magnetism. I'm a little nail and you're a big lump of iron.' (Lancashire is the county of romance.)2) 'Give him a chance? I wouldn't give him the steam off my tea.'3) 'Ooh, look what next door's cat's dragged in.' (A typically warm Lancastrian welcome.)4) 'I've seen more meat on a butcher's apron.' ('You're very slim, aren't you?')5)'They say the midwife who delivered him is still looking for the scissors.' ('He may be untrustworthy')'6) 'He'd skin a flea then sell it a vest.' ('He is mean and untrustworthy.')7) 'I can do owt except wheel myself in a barrow.'8) 'I thought you had more oil in your can than that.'9) 'Who's pissed on your chips?'10) And finally, for a far superior euphemism to 'passed away', or, heaven forfend, 'passed', I would suggest this typical example of local delicacy and sensitivity: 'He/She has popped his/her clogs'.Next!November 7Leonard Cohen, the Troubadour of the Age, died on this day in 2016. Poet, composer of plaint and anthem, lover of women, admirer of religions, blessed with an unique gift of echoing melancholy, the killer line, and self-wry wit.Some of the things he sang and said:1) 'I wish I could say everything in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.'2) 'It's been a long time since I've stood on a stage in London. Was about I 4 or 15 years ago. I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Ritalin, Focalin. I've also studied deeply in the philosophies and religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through.'3) My page was too white, My ink was too thin, the day wouldn't write what the night pencilled in.'4) 'Everybody know the boat is leaking, everybody knows the captain lied.'5) 'Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he'll never need to deal another. He was just some Joseph looking for manger.'6) 'I was born with this gift of a golden voice.'7) Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost.'8). 'Follow me, said the wise man, but he walked behind.9) 'A million candles burning for the help that never came'.10) That last came from the song released to mark his 82nd birthday, earlier in 2016, and written amid the ascent or Donald Trump, 'You want it darker'. Worth a listen in these newly dark days:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0nmHymgM7YNovember 6Aarrgghh! The people have indeed spoken. And here are some other famous mistakes history:1) Croesus, the rich one, King of Lydia, asked the Oracle at Delphi if he should attack Persia. 'Cross the river Halys and a great nation will be destroyed,' intoned the Oracle. So Croesus did, and did: his own.2) Macbeth, who, you will remember, had a bit of a research error over the exact circumstances of Macduff's birth.3) Richard the Lionheart stopped to applaud the shot that killed him at the siege of Chalus.4) Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden (1594-1632) refused to wear body armour at the Battle of Lutzen, declaring, 'God is my armour!'. Yes, the Battle of Lutzen was indeed in 1632.5) Lord Chelmsford, who opined before the Zulu Wars that the only worry was whether the Zulus would fight. Rorke's Drift, Isandlwana, enough said.6) Peter Crawford's self-defence in a New York court suffered a little when he asked a key witness in cross-examination: 'Did you get a good look at my face when I snatched your bag?'7) Rommel decided Normandy was so quiet in June 1944 that he could afford to go home and celebrate his wife's birthday.8) The chap who left Canada to escape the threat of nuclear war and settled in the Falkland Islands.9) The Toronto lawyer demonstrating the safety of the windows in his office with his shoulder who plunged 24 floors to his death.10) Those who use the expression 'shot themselves in the foot' are shooting themselves in the foot, as it derives from the First World War and was a deliberate method of escaping the trenches.What a happy post!Next four years, quickly!November 5Presidential elections, commemoration of potentially explosive high treason, exciting Conservative shadow ministerial appointments: today, prompted by the 113th anniversary of the birth of Roy Rogers, the singing cowboy, we celebrate the real star of his act: his horse of course: Trigger!Trigger (real name, Golden Cloud) got his big break playing Maid Marian's horse in that splendid swash, buckle and bow extravaganza, 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' (1938), also starring Errol Flynn and the incomparable Claude Rains (did you know he was born in Camberwell?). He (Trigger, not Claude) was snapped up in 1943 by Roy (whom, shallow fellow that I am, I might have been rather less impressed by in my youth if I'd known his real name was Len Slye. Ditto, for another random example, the alluring Cyd Charisse, real name, Tula Ellice Finkel. Diana Dors' real name, Fluck, would probably have worked today; then, not. A friend of mine remembers his father confiding to the family over Sunday lunch that Diana's real name was Clunt.)But, Trigger: some horse. He could walk 50 feet on his hind legs, sit on a chair, and sign his name (admittedly only an x). He toured extensively, including in Britain, where in 1954 he was presented with a kilt in Dress Stewart Tartan on stage at the Glasgow Empire. (As you ask, it was Roy/Len's proudest boast that he had house-trained Trigger.) After his sad demise in 1965 at the venerable age of 31, Roy had him stuffed, and he can still be seen at the headquarters of the Cowboy Channel in Fort Worth, Texas.Trigger was, of course, just one of many famous horses in television and film, including the Lone Ranger's Silver, Gene Autry's Champion the Wonder Horse, and possibly the most distinctive, Mr Ed, who talked. Legends about them abound, not least the often repeated claim that Mr Ed was, in fact, a disguised zebra. Allow me to settle the matter with this official statement from the programme's makers: 'A zebra was briefly used in several scenes in the series when Ed was unable to do some difficult stunts, but there's no truth to to the myth that a zebra was used the whole time. Ed was definitely a horse!' So there.Coming soon: The real truth about Lassie.And finally, a quote that might help the loser in the big election cope with his disappointment. It comes from Dick Tuck after he failed to be elected to the California Senate in 1966: 'The people have spoken, the bastards.'Until tomorrow?November 4Writers! Struggling with the old creativity? Staring at the blank page? Pencils all sharpened? Wordle all done? Not staring out of the window so you will have something to do this afternoon? Here is some advice, and consolation, from the experience of others.1) Victor Hugo used to take off all his clothes, using the cold and discomfort as a motivation to just get on with it so he could put them back on as soon as possible.2) Virgil wrote one line a day.3) When Edmund Gibbon presented the second volume of 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' to The Duke of Gloucester, George III's brother, his grace graciously responded, 'Another damn'd thick square book! Always scribble, scribble, eh, Mr Gibbon?'4) Publishers? Schmublishers! You must remember the one who told F Scott Fitzgerald 'You'd have a decent book if you got rid of that Gatsby character.'5) 'Dubliners', James Joyce's wizard-like book of short stories, was rejected 22 times and then only sold 379 copies in its first year, 120 of which were purchased by James Joyce.6) George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was rejected by TS Eliot at Faber & Faber.7) Rejection letter to Marcel Proust (translated): 'My dear fellow, I may be dead from the neck up, but, rack my brains as I may, I can't see why a chap needs 30 pages to describe how he turns his head in bed. I clutched my head.'8) Proust and Beatrix Potter (not a coupling you will often come across) were forced to self-publish.9) Chill. It is a fact universally acknowledged that no book will be universally acknowledged. This, for example, is Mark Twain on Jane Austen in a letter to a friend: 'I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so much that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice', I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shinbone.'10) Or, indeed, JRR Tolkien. Another reading from an early draft of 'The Lord of the Rings' to his literary group, The Inklings, was greeted by one of a fellow member thus: 'Oh no, not another fucking elf.'Next!November 3Today, some of my acclaimed nature notes:1) Research into bats has shown that the bigger the testicles, the smaller the brain.2) Kangaroos can't walk backwards.3) Giraffes can't cough.4) Pigs have corkscrew penises which operate with a right hand thread.5) Snails have a homing instinct, eventually.6) Most humans drown before being dismembered and eaten by a crocodile. Most.7) The Romans grew 37 distinct types of pea.8) You should run away from a moose but stand your ground with a bear. If the bear makes 'contact' you should play dead.9) But - and it's an important qualification - 'if the attack is prolonged, change tactics and fight back vigorously.'10) And another, I'm afraid - if you play dead, the bear may carry you off to its food store.11) There are also suggestions that you should run and lure the animal to a slope. Because a bear's front paws are considerably shorter than its back ones, it will most likely go head over heels if it charges down after you.12) When hunting, polar bears have been observed to stand very still and place a paw in front of their noses to camouflage themselves against the snow.Finally, I have some unconnected advice should you encounter parents who are wont to elaborate extensively on the brilliance of their offspring. Today is the 1,622nd anniversary of St Rumbold of Buckingham, who, as soon as he was born, declared, 'I am a Christian' three times, and the next day preached a sermon on Christian virtues and the Trinity.(NB. Verb Sap. The writer advises that it might be unwise to rely too heavily on nos 8) to 11.)(Correction: pigs: left hand thread.)Next!November 2Today, some of my favourite, if overworked, lines from the movies:1) 'It's a long shot, but it might just work.'2) 'You'll never get away with this, you know.'3) 'All right, I'll tell you. What harm can it do? You're going to die anyway.'4) 'I think I've heard just about enough.'5) 'Cover me and I'll circle around behind them'6) 'It seems we had old Jim figured all wrong.'7) 'Guards!'8) 'Now try and get some rest.'9) 'Listen! ...'No, you listen!'10) 'I'll see myself out.'Watching my first Bond movie in a long time recently, I also much enjoyed it when, after they had survived any number of explosions, bullets, crashes and general mayhem, the girl greeted our hero's latest plan with, 'No, James, it's too risky!'More great movie quotes very soon!November 1LS Lowry was born this day in 1887. Keith Waterhouse, the much-missed novelist, playwright, columnist and slight curmudgeon - he was from Hunslet - told this: 'Many years ago, the late L S L had an exhibition, which most unusually for this master of crowded street scenes, was dominated by single figures, including the famous one of a man lying on a wall with a bowler hat on his chest. The critics made much of this development, and saw the artist homing in on the essential loneliness of his characters.'At the opening night party, Lowry provided me with his own interpretation: 'Y'see, Keith, I had a ten by eight to do for Merthyr Tydfil Corporation, but at the same time I'd this exhibition coming up and I'd promised them at least half a dozen new pictures. But with this big job on, the best I could do was dash off some of what I call me ones.'https://www.lslowry.org.uk/lowry-manonawall.html