Oh, Babe, What Would You Say

I gave up reading Oliver Kamm in The Times on Saturdays quite some time ago, abandoning the self-congratulation I had once delighted in at the thought that I was appreciating informed views on grammatical finer points and no longer able to reconcile the apparent tautology involved in liberal pedantics. I need to arrive at the higher form of self-congratulation of finishing the crossword, and that came early last Saturday, recovering from the early error of mis-spelling 'Lusitania'..
But I saw he began with a reference to George Orwell last Saturday and so proceeded, with care. But Orwell seemed only like an attention-grabber in his first line and none of the rest of his latest complaint had anything to do with either Orwell's writing or the several set-piece ideas that have been lifted from Animal Farm or 1984. But of course, my intellect rates at less than the square root of Oliver's so I may have missed the point.
Certainly, there are some who can't identify the passive voice and charge writers with having used it when they haven't and, by all means, there is much to be lamented about grammatical standards these days, which includes most days on Radio 5 sports reports and further afield at the BBC. But Newspeak wasn't about the passive voice and none of Oliver's complaints are about linguistic misuse either diagnosed or satirized by Orwell. For one who sets such store by the precision of his analysis, he looked alarmingly loose to me last week and so ought not to be finding fault with others. I think he is beginning to struggle and if next week he invites us in by citing Camus, I'll be more wary.
-
The TLS can also seem a bit too pleased with itself and complacent. Wendy Cope expressed dissatisfaction with their survey of the New Elizabethans on the letters page, where anybody worth being appears once- and hopefully only once- in their life, on the grounds that it drew attention to a few at the expense of the many. Well, yes, of course it does, as does any other mention of anybody. It might not be fair, or right, or proper but it is what happens.
I should have read Ali Smith before but I hadn't. The results from their questionnaire decided me to require of a friend a borrow of anything by her and Autumn is confirmed herewith as a tremendous book and Ali is up for paperback bargain-grabbing henceforth.
I'm sure I'd prefer to line up with Wendy rather than the TLS but on this occasion can't.

and I was also grateful to them for their belated review of Rory Waterman's new-ish book of poems, Sarajevo Roses.
It seems longer than it should have been since I added anybody to the list of contemporary poets I'm seriously interested in and, born 1981, he might be the youngest yet. If I allowed it to, I might find the Faber Modern Poets volume that I bought when it was new, featuring selections from Andrew Motion, Craig Raiue, C.H. Sisson, Tom Paulin, Robert Wells and Andrew Waterman (and I'm sure no such exclusively male book could be envisaged now), making me feel older than I want to be because Andrew was Rory's father.
I'm not sure that it does, though, and I enjoy the continuity, which made me try to think of poetry being handed on a generation, perhaps in not such a dissimilar style. Thinking of two or three generations of footballers, cricketers or horse racing people is easy and the Scudamores and D'Oliviera dynasty are ready examples. But if there's Freida, daughter of Sylvia, I reckon I could cause ambulances to come running over the fields if I knocked on the door of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and said that William Davenant was son of William Shakespeare. They don't take kindly to such treason but the only reason I decided against it was that it looks too much like a publicity stunt by Davenant, otherwise I like the idea.
There must be others but books by the Watermans are on their way here and anticipated with some, erm, anticipation. And so with Sean O'Brien's Europa due any day, racing to get here before About Larkin ft. Move Over, Darling, The Perfect Book very grateful for all the politeness with which it is being received, the poetry year, which rarely gets off to a quick start, is underway with some prospects.