Salvator Mei

I'm only guessing, 'O' level Latin being now 46 years ago, that one can change 'salvator mundi', saviour of the world, to 'salvator mei', saviour of me. I once thought I had got 9 answers in The Times Latin crossword only to have at least three of them shot down so I don't try anymore. The usual cryptic completion was e-mailed in at lunchtime. They only have to give me the book token once and I'll stop entering.

But I was saved from the impending, enforced return to the Wake when, on returning the previous James Kirkup memoir, my friend abracadabra produced another volume. He is a great read, immediately and comprehensively dismissive of so many literary figures of his time but devoted to Ronald Firbank and Bertie Russell, amongst others.

I don't have much time for his poems but he got by. I do have a lot of time for his 'mis-fit' status, though, even if he connects with more than enough people in a contingent, fleeting way. I don't have much faith in the 'love' he summons for quite so many people when it happens quite so often but there's no point in anybody since thinking they lived in 'liberated' times after reading his stories. I thought the conditions were 'between consenting adults in private' but that doesn't include publishing so much of it aferwards.

But, yes, there might still be a way of getting by when you're not one of those the world has a place for but you do need some confidence in your own convictions, of which he had a few.

He might not have enjoyed it so much these days with so much righteousness on his side but still not making inroads into the supplicant attitude we all have to take towards money, pride and prejudice and the conflict they necessarily lead to. Maybe we could all live up to our radical ideals if we were allowed to but I'm not aware of anybody who does because we're not. 

We like to think we get away with it as best we can.