Thursday, December the 18th, 2003
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Mention of an “intense mangle” in the Amazon.com review (see below, 16th December) reminded me of a similarly infelicitous phrase I came upon recently. When George W Bush made his state visit to Britain, The Guardian invited the usual suspects to write open letters to him for a special edition of the G2 supplement. The so-called “Poet Laureate” Andrew Motion contributed a poem, the first stanza of which is:
The child who has lost his arms
thought he was catching a ball
when the bomb his enemies dropped
bounced through his dapper hall.
This titanic piece of versifying repays considerable attention. Just one point to ponder—in the fourth line, why is the boy's hall “dapper”? Is he in the hall because it rhymes with ball? Have you ever visited someone's house and, looking around admiringly, announced, “My, isn't this dapper?” No, you have not. Nor has anyone else. Ever.