Category: The use of Language
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The Parrot Takes New Bearings
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I’m thinking here of our sleek new Foreign Secretary’s recent comment, saying – as reported in the Guardian – that “relations with the EU will be ‘poisoned for many years to come’ if Brussels fails to budge in the Brexit talks.” In other words, says Mr Hunt, he of the bell which keeps breaking in…
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Boy Jez and the Die-Hards
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Jez seems to believe that The Many should be listened to, only so long as he is one of them. Now, as one of The Few, he weighs his words like all the other members of that club, and The Many have to look behind his words to decipher what he really means and then…
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The Maybot Crashes Yet Again
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On Tuesday night, St Valentine’s night, Theresa May and her government were defeated again in the House of Commons. Apparently she herself was not present. Soon after the defeat, Number Ten issued a statement : “While we didn’t secure the support of the Commons this evening, the prime minister continues to believe… The government will…
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The Parrot Speaks of Fre-dom
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In the fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer introduced Rhyme Royal to English poetry and all these stanzas of mine about Brexit share that long established rhyme scheme. And Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales and one of those is “The Franklin’s Tale” which I love. And that’s where this medieval word “fre” keeps appearing, later to become…
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The Parrot and the Lie
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This stanza was written late on the night of January 30th, when the Commons debated a series of amendments, at least one of which might have resulted in Parliament wresting control of the Brexit process from May’s Tory government. That result failed to materialise. Instead, the Tories enjoyed some rare moments of apparent unity. They…
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Plain Words from the Cage
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The balloons are a Bristol image, since hot-air balloons often appear above the city. I ought to say, though, that whatever fills the Bristol balloons does not appear to be foul.… continue reading
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Jez Labours
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Did the young see Jez aright ? Or, in their disillusion with the status quo, were they projecting all their hope onto a blank screen, seeing Jez wrongly as somehow an answer, seeing colour on the screen, which is actually not there ? For Jez is not very colourful. And perhaps he needs that status…