Sunday 19 May 2013

How-To-Write... a Cheque

...or: cheque this art...

Americans will flinch at the "que" on the tail of this old literary curio. Notwithstanding "diner’s checks” scribbled on napkin by aspiring waiters, or those national-stereotype “Czechs” whose Lightness of Being is Unbearably Not Slovakian, the grand Olde English Promissorie Note has lost much of its currency - and not a few of its currants.
How To Write a Cheque
Biro on Bog Roll
A flashed wad of cheques is a rare sight indeed these days of Stephen Fry-by-night, elf-publishing and other stabs of pen. Whether copper-plated on mock vellum or crudely tattooed across the arse of water-buffalo, the original cheque is nothing less than a literary means of conveying value between parties. Except on bank holidays, it may be seen hovering over pools of stagnant syntax, or drowning in the phlegm of newspaper touts.
How To Write a Cheque
Echo! Echo!
Letraset on tin foil, Biroed on bog roll, Chinese woodblock printed, iced in cochineal on retirement cake or scratched with blue-black ink from the dregs of Bob Cratchit’s well, all that really matters is latex plays no part in its manufacture. Beware the crossed words “Acc. Payee Only”, which deal a severe blow to a cheque’s social mobility; as do frankings of less than fifty smackeroos by your Flexible Friend. A truly great cheque will have digits running into seven figures proclaiming, for Pity’s sake, the latest Lottoman Empress. In addition to its face value, such a cheque, cleared by the banks, may be framed and flogged off at Sodabuy’s in aid of the smiling polio victim.
How To Write a Cheque
Letraset on Tin Foil
Even a cheque contaminated with derivatives of hevea brasiliensis (rubber tree) may have intrinsic value; when, for example, its dodgy payer is a household name. Again, any bone-fed auction house may be contacted to assess the potential. Other examples of unkind payment: shiploads of rotten spuds delivered our way under the Marshall Plan, Confederate Dollars, fake chocolate money, misspelt innuendoes (“earos” for “euros”, “ponce” for “pence” & etc.) and the absolute vanishing of inks.
How To Write a Cheque
Tattoo on Buffalo 
Let us leave, buy the bye, the How-To-Writes of "cheque's-in-the-post", "Travellers' Cheques" and "chequebook journalism" for other, more fastidious correspondents to sign off on.
How To Write A Cheque
Chinese Wood-Blocked
And proceed, not before meantime, to the "post-dated cheque" so beloved of impoverished students and the absolute bane of slum landlords. Do be careful when passing these delicate notes, if Referred to Drawer they may easily turn to Cack-in-the-Attic.
How To Write a Cheque
Never Sign!
poetry republic
poetry republic 3 members
welcome readers/writers/critics

Books we've read





View this group on Goodreads »

Wednesday 8 May 2013

A Shipping Forecast

A Shipping Forecast

It's not as though we've never been here before. First there was the opera, then the T-pot (which I bought and broke the handle), and most recently the Netflix mini-series with Gary Oldman and Emma Thompson's cat. No apologies for any lack of origination, except to say, this fanhood has been lifelong; that despite living ex-patria for two decades, I've listened in as regularly as allowed on UK holidays and local Internet speeds.
A Shipping Forecast
Only circumstances have changed. Back when, in Blighty, I most recently remember waking up early, damn early, after late-night drinking bouts, listening to the broadcasts between draughts of water, stupefied, head pounding, eyesore, red-nose, sneezing, coughing, scratching arse, praying, Arglwydd Melys, never-again. With warnings of gales in Chromarty, Dogger and German Bight, intestines churned, war having broken out amongst those that suffer on the sea, crying to be heard by Thee.
A Shipping Forecast
Nowadays, of course, such blasted drunks are less frequent because of age and pressures of parenthood, living in lands without proper pubs and two hours before Greenwich Mean Time means times are called while England is still in the throes of night rages, late revellers rolling home. At seven AM local, Internet-tuned to Radio Four's anschluss with the World Service, followed at five-twenty GMT by the morning's Shipping Forecast.
A Shipping Forecast
I crane with an actor's ear while the weatherperson - a cross between scientist and thespian - delivers the ten minute set piece either as a promising drama school audition or syllable-perfect Gielgudian unflap. On another level, the SF is like playing a hand of patience. Will the reader stumble or fall at those guttural Scottish place names?
A Shipping Forecast
Will the numbers, the repetitions, the monotonies and threnodies breakdown in coughs, splutters and over-apologetic frogs-in-throat? Is the reader a young, inexperienced, angst-ridden tenderfoot too eager for a clear round? Is precipitation in sight, or is s/he a case of the aloof, urbane, RP pooh-er of visibility?
A Shipping Forecast
A few years back, I stoop to recall, the SF was under threat. It was one of those periodic shake-ups the Beeb goes through when Auntie clears out the cupboards and consigns a new generation to grow up without bloop-eaters. Unlike Mrs Dale's diary or Jack Demanio's clock, The Shipping Forecast sailed on beyond its natural retirement age. Now, even in the age of GPS, we still get our daily fix of solo yachters pouring over their charts in heavy seas while tuned in to the Home Service. Long may she sail.
A Shipping Forecast
Hoop-La!





poetry republic
poetry republic 3 members welcome readers/writers/critics

Books we've read





View this group on Goodreads »