Phones, Poetry, Predictions & Purgatory

Sunny Sunday morning and I awake to the sounds of a starling outside the bedroom window doing phone impressions (that's the bird, not the window). I wonder if there really is a phone ringing inside the house somewhere but there isn't. I ignore the bird and wait for it to switch to the answering machine but it doesn't. The starlings in temporary residence in the ivy outside the window here are a constant source of entertainment to us. Some are given to serenading with long drawn-out upward rising whistles and then back down again, much like that novelty wind instrument that looks like a bicycle pump and has a pitch variation depending on how far you have pulled or pushed the plunger.

I read an interesting snippet about the late Brendan Behan, famous Irish writer (and drinker). He was once asked by a literary lady to define the difference between poetry and prose in his work. He replied:
There was once a young man called McFee
Who worked for Accles and Pollocks,
He went for a walk by the sea
And the water came up to his knees.
"That's prose, Missus," says Brendan, "but another few inches of water and it would have been poetry."

The race for the US Presidency is providing much interest and excitement and I feel that we are being treated to a higher-quality range of candidates than was the case the last time around. But that's not making it any easier for me to adopt a preference on the outcome. (Not that I have any say in the matter, being English. The outcome, however, is still important to people outside of the USA because of that country's power and influence for good or for evil.)

Of course, anything or anyone is going to be better than the small shrub currently occupying the White House. Although my heart and soul resides more naturally within the philosophies of the Democratic Party I am not awe-struck by either of the two front runners. Is it going to be America's first black President or America's first female President? I am neither influenced by colour or gender in this matter .. although I might sit up and take notice if there was the possibility of a first black female president. Come to think of it, perhaps that would be the dream ticket - President Hillary Clinton and Vice-president Barak Obama (or vice versa).

But in all honesty I do not find Barak Obama to be the charismatic orator that some claim he is, nor can I find it in my heart to actually like Hillary Clinton. As for the Republican candidates I find myself strangely drawn towards John McCain. I like his style, his depth of experience, his sense of humour and his preparedness to cross party lines where necessary and his unwillingness to feel constrained by the dogmas of his own Party. I think he's in with a chance.

So my predictions are as follows: Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic candidate; John McCain will be the Republican candidate; and the next President of the USA will be John McCain.
(You heard it here first, folks!)

One side of my face has been on fire for a week (notwithstanding a cocktail of antibiotics and pain killers), and so I am actually looking forward to visiting my dentist tomorrow. I have a bridge supported at one end by a tooth that has given up the will to live and which will need, in all probability, to be extracted. This means the bridge will first have to be demolished .. sounds like a job for the Royal Engineers. With the bridge gone and the tooth gone there will be a huge space.

Watch this space.