Calling All Geographers...
I've already consulted Dr K on this, but the other week one of the Guinness crew offered a moment akin to the moment a scientist reads Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and says, no, that's not what happens when you introduce a filament of platinum into a chamber containing sulpherdioxide and oxygen (Eliot claims sulpheric acid is produced - presumably by some alchemical process which craps on his metaphor about the writing of poetry):
Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
I've always assumed that a coastal shelf is a sudden drop - hence "deepens" - and that the misery increases precipitously, maybe even geometrically.
But coastal shelves are flat - or at least so slightly inclined that deepens seems too strong a word.
Next: how invisible worms fly.
Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
I've always assumed that a coastal shelf is a sudden drop - hence "deepens" - and that the misery increases precipitously, maybe even geometrically.
But coastal shelves are flat - or at least so slightly inclined that deepens seems too strong a word.
Next: how invisible worms fly.