2007-01-01T17:46:00.001Z

Another year. Mixed feelings as always. Thoughts of all the things I'd like to do, but didn't. Some through indolence, some through self-indulgence (too much hard work), others through not realising what it was I wanted. I'm not sure that resolutions help. I was asked what I wanted to do next year at work. I said work better. No this isn't about working more, but achieving more.
I'd like to read better certainly. Not just read better books, though that's always a good aim. And what constitutes a good book, and what doesn't is subjective. But I mean more that my act of reading shoud be better done, not that I read better books. I love all sorts of books, they feed and nourish all sorts of different appetites that I have. Fantasy, crime, literary fiction, children's even chick-lit (though not much of a thriller reader).
How do I do this? Read less passively? Or just think while I'm doing it?

Anyway, resolutions for the year:

Listen to more music.
Go to more gigs.
Spend less, enjoy more.
Be less self-absorbed.
Read better
Live better.

all getting a bit vague isn't it? What does it mean to want to live better? That I want my life to be better? The unexamined life is not worth living. Oft-quoted (mis-quoted?). But it is the hub really of so much.

2006-12-12T23:37:00.000Z

Just found this greatish link to Poems on the Underground, though it doesn't seem to have any of the ones that I spent a good train journey reading...

2006-12-12T22:16:00.000Z

I'd like to think that I'm pretty well-read, and sometimes I have to admit that I read something just for the sake of it. I don' t get much out of it, but at least I can say I've read it. Neither good nor clever is it. I read all sorts of stuff - everyone does - but one of the things I really like doing is to read poetry. I just have a bad memory for remembering words and specific things. I can remember the texture of a book, and my emotional response but that's as far as it goes. The Guardian's Nick Seddon is trying to learn/learning an hundred poemsoff by heart. Boris Johnson and a chum did something similar a few years ago. I've tried similar stuff in the past, and just gave up.

But you do get so much out of a poem by learning it, which then leads to knowing the poem. A lot of people have suggested other poems that Nick might like to learn, and they all seem great (I did skip over some of the suggestions and will have missed some corkers). I think one of my favourite is the one I'm going to cut and paste from the above link because it's so great:

Valentine

The things about you I appreciate
may seem indelicate:
I'd like to find you in the shower
and chase the soap for half an hour.
I'd like to have you in my power
and see your eyes dilate.
I'd like to have your back to scour
and other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
to chase you screaming up a tower
or make you cower
by asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I'd like successfully to guess your weight
and win you at a fete.
I'd like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders
falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I'd like all your particulars in folders
marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
the neat arrangement of your teeth
(half above and half beneath)
in rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk
I like the way your elbows work,
on hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I'd like to teach them how to count,
and certain things we might exchange,
something familiar for something strange.
I'd like to give you just the right amount
and give some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them,
even in trousers I don't mind them.
I'd always know, without a recap,
where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I'd like to cross two hemispheres
and have you chase me.
I'd like to smuggle you across frontiers
or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I'd like you to embrace me.

I'd like to see you ironing your skirt
and cancelling other dates.
I'd like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I'd like to soothe you when you're hurt
or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I'd like you even if you were malign
and had a yen for sudden homicide.
I'd let you put insecticide
into my wine.
I'd even like you if you were the Bride
of Frankenstein
or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian's
Jekyll and Hyde.
I'd even like you as my Julian
of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.
How melodramatic
if you were something muttering in attics
like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean
Mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I'd like to find a good excuse
to call on you and find you in
.I'd like to put my hand beneath your chin,
and see you grin.
I'd like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I'd like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I'd like to make you reproduce.

I'd like you in my confidence.
I'd like to be your second look.
I'd like to let you try the French Defence
and mate you with my rook.
I'd like to be your preference
and hence
I'd like to be around when you unhook.
I'd like to be your only audience,
the final name in your appointment book,
your future tense.

I'll be honest. I doubt I'll ever manage to learn the whole poem. But I will come back to it often. And maybe along the way I'll become more familiar with it. I also get off on just the fun of what he's saying - there are some dark notes, God yes! But wouldn't it be great to be given a poem like this.

Which reminds me there is a bookshop - which has a great campaign Give a Poem for Christmas, so why don't you!

Confessions of an Idle Reader