what are you reading now?

[luka]

Provided you could make it interesting, sure. There are no facts on Shakespeare in any case so you have room to manuvere.

 

[Corpsey]

What I mean is I think he just kind of knocked it out, it’s not the best - if you want a decent Shakespeare book then Will in the World or Shapiro’s books do a better job. Or Frank Kermode or Jonathan Bate...or anyone who actually did a bit of proper research.

Well, I enjoyed it, in blissful ignorance of the facts.

In his defence, Burgess makes it quite clear that he's speculating/making stuff up a lot of the time. And he writes brilliantly.

But it would be interesting to know the real deal.

 

[Corpsey]

Can't quite believe how Jenks just levelled me there.

"Not exactly a towering academic achievement, are you, Jack?"

 

[Corpsey]

Provided you could make it interesting, sure. There are no facts on Shakespeare in any case so you have room to manuvere.

When are you going to do your Wiley biography?

 

[Corpsey]

I am slightly ashamed (as I should be) of reading Burgess on Shakespeare instead of Shakespeare himself.

It's the usual deal - trying to work myself up for the main event, forever foregoing the main event as a result.

 

[luka]

You should try and forego this biography habit. It's a very bad one. Worse than me taking up smoking at the age of 41. (I'm going to stop this, it's ridiculous and embarrassing)

 

[IdleRich]

Probably "forgoing" as in to go without, rather than "foregoing" to go before, a common mistake - although foregoing does almost work here too.
Also forebear and forbear.

 

[luka]

I might do a pedantry thread. People with Telegraph-dads always become pedants. It's a perpetual strain of the English menagerie, reproducing itself each generation.

 

[luka]

Edmund drives me up the wall with it. Takes me to the very brink of uncontrolled violence.

 

[subvert47]

Kenneth O. Morgan - Labour in Power 1945-1951

He uses the word "centrist" quite a lot.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Provided you could make it interesting, sure. There are no facts on Shakespeare in any case so you have room to manuvere.

He was in direct cerebral communication with the Arcturians, much like Tesla, centuries later.

 

[Corpsey]

"It is nonsense to suppose that high art needs high learning... The plays of Shakespeare, through the trickery of the artist, give the illusion that their creator has traveled widely... the artist does not have to be a courtier, traveler, or scholar, though it may be his task to create such men out of his imagination. “A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles”—that is Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale; it is also Shakespeare and, indeed, any writer of drama or narrative fiction. What no amount of academic training can bestow on a potential writer is the gift of words... it cannot teach the fundamental skill of putting words together in new and surprising patterns which, miraculously, reflect some previously unguessed truth about life... it could only be fostered by the use and observation and love of English, a subject not taught in the schools."

 

[shiels]

I might do a pedantry thread. People with Telegraph-dads always become pedants. It's a perpetual strain of the English menagerie, reproducing itself each generation.

I saw a guy with a goatee on the tube last year with a tshirt that said ‘I am silently correcting your grammar’ and I’ve never wanted to hurt a stranger more. I wanted to stand on his neck and hear him Yelp and plead

 

[IdleRich]

It's brought me a lot of grief that shirt.

 

[jenks]

I saw a guy with a goatee on the tube last year with a tshirt that said ‘I am silently correcting your grammar’ and I’ve never wanted to hurt a stranger more. I wanted to stand on his neck and hear him Yelp and plead

they do a mug with that on - very popular gift for English teachers. I am glad I have never been given one

 

[Mr. Tea]

I saw a guy with a goatee on the tube last year with a tshirt that said ‘I am silently correcting your grammar’ and I’ve never wanted to hurt a stranger more. I wanted to stand on his neck and hear him Yelp and plead

I bet the sort of person who'd wear that shirt is the sort of basic bitch who thinks the apostrophe in a road sign saying "NO HGV'S" is incorrect.

I also like the detail about the goatee. Just to help us build up a mental picture of the guy.

 

[Corpsey]

I'm getting one that says "I'm silently browsing Dissensus."

 

[shiels]

It’s not really on sharing his picture in public is it but the face is cropped

and also it’s only just, this reversal of shame

 

[Corpsey]

Poor guy probably just means it as a light-hearted joke.

Perhaps it's even self deprecating.

Have a heart you harpies.

 

[shiels]

Young skins by Colin Barrett. Short stories about repressed young men acting hard in west Ireland. Very good. Put onto it after watching Calm with horses on Netflix