Smoking on buses / The pull of sea & land / The displacement of desire

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I cannot now remember when smoking was banned on buses in England, but I do remember (as you may if, as the phrase goes, you are ‘of a certain age’) that in the 1940s and ’50s smoking was allowed on double–deckers (upstairs only). And – on Maidstone and District buses, at least – there was an additional sign at the front of the top deck: Expectoration prohibited. Such ponderous, near–euphemistic wording! Clearly, the members of the bus company board simply could not bring themselves to use the plain and common word, ‘spitting’ – presumably on the grounds that this would cause offence to passengers of a more delicate sensibility. Yet those most likely to spit had doubtless never come across this (strictly medical) term. Anyway everyone seemed to know what it meant, and perhaps in a certain sense it became as much ‘sign language’ as a word. Certainly I do not remember any conspicuous hawking among the ubiquitous cloth–capped smokers. Hawking has several meanings, and in the Urban Dictionary refers to the practice of girls or women who stare hard and persistently at a guy in the hope that they will ‘hook up’ with him (or ‘hook him’, perhaps!).

Hobby Horse

Trade–off

in the school yard –
soccer cigarette cards
equals five stones plus my sixer
conker.

Brian Strand

The subject of cigarette cards – which came ‘sight unseen’ with the packet bought – were many and varied. Probably footballers were the most popular, but others included aeroplanes, butterflies, flags, jockeys, kings and queens. Adults of course bought the cigarettes, but it tended to be children who collected them. The first were produced in 1875, and continued to be produced during the first three decades of the twentieth century, but post ww2 the practice dwindled. I remember finding some in my aunt’s house. They held a certain fascination for me, but that was all. However, thousands are extant in collections. They can still be collected via dealers, but it is now adults who collect them.  

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Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these
Indigestibles, the spars of purposes
That failed far from the surface. None grow rich
In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh
But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.

From Relic, Ted Hughes

Rock–o–Nore, Hastings Old Town

I’ve quoted these lines before, and I love this poem for its excoriating truth (even though the beach–loving child in me may be cut to the bone). Neither the calm nor the rough surface of the sea gives any hint of the predators that inhabit its depths (and its shallows). It is fortunate that our aesthetic and imaginative responses to seascapes (and landscapes) are not vitiated by these realities. And so strong is our attachment to certain land– and seascapes that we ought to better understand the plight of refugees. Even those who are eternally grateful for their freedom – from the fear, tyranny, and downright brutality of vicious regimes – will nevertheless very likely feel a deep and heartbreaking dissociation from the land that bore them. Family and place – oftentimes far from fortuitous – never leave us. That at least is my experience; and I guess that it is yours too.    

Once we had a country and we thought it fair, 
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there: 
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now. 

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew, 
Every spring it blossoms anew: 
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that. 

From Refugee Blues, W. H. Auden

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There are times when we do not have to work hard to understand either a poem or a painting. Below are examples from Shakespeare and Nicolas Lancret, both of which are – in a sense – perfectly interchangeable. Few are likely to misunderstand either . . .

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand! 
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back. 
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind 
For which thou whip'st her.

King Lear (IV, vi 157–60)

Les Lunettes, Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743). Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts

My first thought on looking at this painting was, “Why dedicate so much time to the depiction of a single subject?” After all, it is such that a Rembrandt, a Goya, or a Kollwitz could have drawn in the space of a day – and to equal effect. Yet it is beautifully painted. The whipping nun and the trussed youth both lean to the right – which movement is subtly countered by the gaze and shield–like habits of the group of nuns to the left. All directs our attention to the figure of the youth (whose red breeches provide the most important colour highlight).