It doesn't compare with Benny Hill's Ernie but it provided some diversion over the holiday period, following its fortunes, and it's not a bad result for something that some might say isn't humourous and I'm sure others would say isn't poetry.
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And so we can put that down as a qualified success even if I have to admit defeat this year with the Saturday Nap selections. We are left with The New One going to the Champion Hurdle as joint favourite but even winning that won't quite balance the Nap's books for 2013.
However, I'm not ready to resign as a pundit yet. The Ashes series might have prematurely ended the test careers of Graeme Swann and Jonathan Trott but the one figure who failed more spectacularly than any, having predicted 5-0 to England, is Ian Botham.
2013 remains a gambling Annus Mirabilis for me having shown a healthy profit (the first ever in a calendar year) even if that profit is below what it was in March.
How different things already are, though, with Sprinter Sacre and Simonsig suddenly no longer looking like banker bets for Nicky Henderson. I like Nicky Henderson a lot and wish him well. I just don't wish him any compensation via My Tent or Yours in the Champion Hurdle next year.
--
I read most of Donna Tartt's The Secret History over the last few days- and it is as good as it is reputed to be, I think- mainly because I thought I ought to know about that before moving on to The Goldfinch.
It is funny in parts, beautifully done and at times easily does enough to qualify for that category of novel that exists specifically to remind me never to try to write one myself, however much I'd like to write even an awful one- just so that I can say that I have.
In between times I had a last look at Fairford Church, and by far my most thorough look. Best known for its fine stained glass windows, it also has some choice graves surrounding it and is one of the best churches for providing that feeling of a piece of history, a corner of England and all those lives that have been and gone through it.--
And I caught up with some recent CD purchases which included the excellent L'Enfance du Christ of Berlioz in the recording by Philippe Herreweghe. Apart from being a marvellous account, the booklet includes the text in French, English and German. A line sung by Joseph, 'I am a carpenter', translates as
Moi, je suis charpentier
and
Ich bin Zimmermann
which appealed to me as a tremendous ambiguity in which he lays claim to having responsibility for Goodbye to Love, some gorgeous baroque music and If Not for You all at once.
--
And just in case that wasn't entertainment enough. I was impressed by John Milton's partisan thoughts on whether poetry should rhyme or not. This is, of course, a perennial subject for debate among poets of all sorts.
Explaining why Paradise Lost doesn't rhyme, he says,
that rhyme 'is the invention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame metre'.
The lack of rhyme may be seen as a defect by 'vulgar readers' and rhyme is a 'troublesome and modern bondage'.
So, there you are. I don't mind either way. It is just that I would never have wanted to be on the wrong side of an argument with John Milton.
A Happy New Year to you all.
We can but hope.
