Sunday, May 31, 2009

Moping melancholy and moon-struck madness

I started to write about Armando Ianucci’s television programme about Milton and Paradise Lost, but after the first paragraph realised that, like said poem, the resulting text was much too long.
Here are the edited highlights.
The programme was average. It did not encourage me to read Milton.
There were too many changes of venue for someone who was just talking to camera.
Most annoying bit was when he compared Horton (check spelling, I can’t be bothered) in Buckinghamshire to Florence. Horton has changed a lot since Milton’s time, otherwise he would have mentioned the bloody M4 and being on the Heathrow flight path in one of his poems.
He might have mentioned the bloody M4 for all I know. I haven’t read his stuff. Don’t wanna, ain’t gunna.
Close ups of Armando were too close up. At one stage you could see right up his nostril and out of his left ear.
I don’t like poetry much. The only serious poem I really like is Gray’s Elegy. Don’t see the point of the rest. None of these guys have anything worthwhile to say. If Keats was writing a blog today no bugger would read it.
Perhaps I am Keats.
The programme failed to convince me that I should read Milton, despite the great regard in which he is held by Armando.
When people move home or job, 70% of them are moving to “pastures new”. This is Milton’s fault. Bastard.
Milton was a republican. There was a need for reform but what we got was a load of uptight god-bothering dickheads. When they turned out to be uptight god-bothering dickheads that nobody liked much, we got a return to the house of Stuart, a load of stupid dickheads, and we are still lumbered with their inbred descendants.
It should be noted that the current economic climate makes political upheaval more likely. If that happens, godelpus, we are likely to finish up with an intolerant rightwing coalition, in which the BNP is included. As with the interregnum, lots of people will dies, lots more will suffer, and we will be no better off at the sorry end of it. You may say that Bill Cash and his friends are a bunch of sleazy, disreputable, bone idle, incompetent tossers (I couldn’t possibly comment), but they are likely to be slightly better than having Kilroy Silk as prime minister.
I bet you are glad I didn’t publish the full article, aincha?

11 comments:

Dave said...

I'm glad life isn't getting you down.

KAZ said...

"Bill Cash and his friends are a bunch of sleazy, disreputable, bone idle, incompetent tossers" and can never be followed by the phrase 'better than' even if the sentence ends with mention of a unicellular invertebrate.

Geoff said...

I judge people by their blog or Twitter nowadays and Armando's Twitter is very dull.

Milton was one of the writers we studied at school. Of course I have since gone back time and time again to the texts and I find more and more meaning in them as I head towards death. And for this I have only one person to thank. Mr Powell, my wonderful, enthusiastic, incredibly incisive English teacher who instilled in me a love of words and the way they have been put together by the great writers of the past 600 years.

Dave said...

So Geoff, can you explain why you keep coming back to this blog?

Vicus Scurra said...

Thank you Dave. I refuse to be intimidated by ancient old-fashioned wordsmiths with an arcane agenda. But I still welcome your comments.
Kaz. Mark my words.
Geoff. Bugger me, you spend thousands of words pouring scorn on everything and everyone, and then spring to the defence of Milton. As writers go, I prefer Iannucci to Milton. Not that Milton is without merit - I just don't see what is changed by his putting his ideas into verse form, and don't think he had anything important to say. The longer version of my article talked about incisive and inspiring presenters - Armando did not fall into this category. He was almost dull. And thank you for the compliment, although it does seem as if I have been writing for 600 years.
Dave. Beats me too. Perhaps he wants to have a little magic rub off.

Geoff said...

Oh shit, I was only joking. My English teachers were pretentious tossers and didn't turn me on to anything, especially not Milton.

Shall I bugger off to Twitter now?

Vicus Scurra said...

No, Geoff, I would miss you. I don't go onto twitter, as I don't want to be judged by you.

Tim F said...

Milton did have an original idea: that God is a bit of an arse, frankly.
Well, it seems a bit commonplace now, but back in the old days it was terribly risqué, like when Graham Norton talks about rimming on the telly.

Richard said...

I wasn't around yesterday so I'm coming to this a tad late. I would have agreed with Dave anyway. As for Milton, I know very little of his poems but we used his sterilising fluid when the kids were babies.

You're not in the library

Romeo Morningwood said...

This is all quite fascinating and clearly presents itself as a case of Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder...
the most recent brain illness proposed by the Psychiatric Association..
along with Internet Addicion Disorder.

PTED is a pathological reaction to a single negative life event which people view as a violation of their basic beliefs. They feel wronged, humiliated, and are subjected to intrusive negative thoughts.

Mr Milton, and Blake who did the drawrings for the book, give us a clear picture of Mr Satan's state of mind. Obviously Mr Satan is suffering from PTED for his ill fated rebellion. Unfortunately GOD had not yet created Psychiatrists and look at how mankind has suffered because Mr Satan was unable to receive any treatment.

I hope this helps.

I, Like The View said...

no, I would have been interested in reading the full article