Monday 27 October 2008

Cracow 1


The usual internet cafe, having picked up about 45 emails since yesterday, mostly Facebook invitations, plus some important stuff I have had to send two or three lines to.

Yes, Cracow is certainly beautiful, the old town round the market square at least. I woke early as ever, and after a quick breakfast (and not much sleep) ambled around the streets waiting for the sun to hit something so I could photograph it on my mobile phone, or, alternatively, a vehicle to hit me as I walked down the middle of the street waiting for the sun to etc etc... I take risks. I face the dangers. If it's not good enough you're not close enough. Why, I am practically Robert Capa.

Actually the traffic is slow. I would be run over very slowly, as in slow motion. I do however note there seem to be an inordinate number of police about for no reason I can see or hear of. I have seen more policemen in an hour in the market square than in four years in Wymondham. They drive like demons in Wymondham.

The Jagellonian University is gorgeous. The part where the conference is, is used entirely for meetings and ceremonial occasions so we felt spoilt. I have had three different interpreters in three different sessions, each brilliant. One was interpreting almost ahead of the speaker. Dazzling. Blinding. Blue blistering barnacles! (Or the same in Polish). My paper was third on the list and that went fine. It's not scholarly as such but sort of panoramic, driving two ideas as far into the distance as they will go. Enjoyed the other papers, so can't complain.

Opted for the full Polish at lunch. Soup with boiled egg and sausage (very nice) then a Polish version of ravioli (ravilovich?). Ela was teaching me a little Polish pronunciation as we were waiting for the food. I now know how to pronounce words of whose meaning I am entirely ignorant. Who was it talked of speaking accent without a trace of French?

On the other hand have read two novels in French - up to a point, I hasten to add - so I feel not quite such a dummy as I thought I would. But that's for Frankfurt.

Tomorrow I walk about a bit more.



3 comments:

Gwil W said...

Great time you're having there Comrade! Hope the weather stays fine for your next walkabout. A cold front is on its way via Scotia. Will reach Germany tomorrow. So make the most of any fine weather you have. It will soon break.
Budapest is the place for madcap drivers. I had to run across the road, dragging my beloved, more than once. Those Pest drivers are lunatics!
I loved the Budapest Workers Opera House! Great sandwiches. Took the full interval to eat one. Women, big as barn doors, tucked into them with gustovich!
I went up the hill and saw the view and why your dream grave is under the Buda cobbles. Throw mine off the iron bridge. The told me a Welshman built it. It's quite a bit like the Menai Bridge to Anglesey; so it could be true.

Coirí Filíochta said...

My deepest dearest darling PiR

please can you fix it for the spirit of SP to meet GS
in Frankfurt and make him sing of a book goin the printers Friday please, then - like the force
that through a fuse drives
the greening flower, tea-leaf

his talent and return it to US
rightful owners of mental rollers

skating on a page time knows
aint drivin our green blasted

roots of Liverpool la a ha
and gra agus siochain

of sheer rage against talented ppl
who fink PG tips users are flippin

ficks, comrade in lore that blasts
three routed triad dumb

who rose a destroyer s/he who comes
anonnymous for reasons

we are dumb to tell, but Rose
in youth crooked and wintry
bent with the same fever of Echo

Echo, echo for love and peace S
here is makin and which

you are trying to steal
as a force that drives

through rocks and water, our red
blood mouthing not dry in streams

our gob but waxes dumbly on about]
innit hey hey deepest darling Dylan monger daddio

mouthing from the mountain top
singing of freedom and which vein

of rock sprung a mouth to foam
same as that sucked our talent

and give george s a gra agus siochain hand, extended Dylans

tea and be to a water whirling
in the pool of life singing Echo,

Echo and Segais stirs, quick
rope the air Bob sung of when blowing daddio

wind this haul of verbal swag
a sailin naw Gwilym mah son

dumb to tell us men how it hung
clay lipped the leech of time,

head fountain botherer, the Gwilym
all Dylans love to gather

blather with when being the drops fallen of blood-wound weather

calm not sore at Szirtes for being
the George more talented than us

who all know and love.
Not at all, not at all

no bother because when
S's spirit on Samhian eve nicks
it, we win yah G, as tellers

of true wind time ticked and wound
heaven round the stars iambically wiv, innit? I mean, s/he aint

Bobby D, Sinead Lohan, or JFK
singing Ramona,

so Gwilym come closer,

shut softly your watery eyes.
The pangs of your sadness
Shall pass as your senses will rise


...dumb lover wiva sheeted tome goin to the printer's when Friday
comes, so there's no need to type

you, no need top hype you, for
being aware of this

the crooked same source
worn by us all, of gra agus siochain,

happy S is in da home near
to were uncle Eddie's father

was born. the Czech republic
from where granpaps in law

took flight to Canada, marrying
Winifred - an Achill Masterson

William my mate, and tragically
dying, leaving Eddie with his widow

mother who married grandpa, Con
Con Desmond - Eddies step son,

who fell from scaffold to his
death before i was born

who sang like a bird in flight whirring through air

honey mouthed rock 'n roll
ballad man whose

"..cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss,
As to be under the strength of your skin.


Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in.
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this"
...Williams, Gwilym, come, come, let us mouth our words and whisper what will pass

gra agus siochain - love and peace
both bards, Dylan be and tea sung
for comrade. coz s/he has been
to the promised land of Annwyn,

and when Sylvia's spirit takes
GS fizzy, too fizzy to run back and moan, when Sylvias spirit there, nicks his magic and sends it on Samhain eve, when liminal the Sziertsean syzygy will align, hope, history and humanity, to us my deepest darling Williams, what Platonic chime will bring back to you Gwilym, said Spoils from Annwyn's cauldron of song studded with pearls as per Taliesin my deepest dearest darling GS is holdin, so GW - gwimmie gimmie gimmie that ole time rock 'n roll ballad sing comrade, appropriate Szirtes clear ability at bein happy, and s/he will personally allow you to feel good about yersen mah pet...why eye if it aint tha nee news in the nuddie like, from Newcastle bridge where i'm gonna gaw oot and toss meself off, if ah doont get George's talent baa Freedee neet like, d'yis know wharra mean there Gwil la?

You didn't win the five shillin Liverpool Echo poetry competition all those yrs ago, it shoulda been me, shoulda been and you know it comrade on the demo, c'mon, admit it, you nicked my talent innit?

love

sed

head hob nob and SP tips addicted to PG - poetry gas..gra agus fanx love and peace, siochain G.

pirriste - is the sequence in the word verification, PiR rise T..who is tee but Thomas, Dylan Thomas and the whole notion of bardic Talent been loved above here..spooky la..

nut Livepool, 1 - 0 the blue psychology of dominence in tatters, away, not even at the Kop, a ha..

i love you Williams.

Gwil W said...

Thank you for that jeu d'esprit. Did salivating sartorial Szirtes experience satisfying satiety? Was the full Polish lunch that was served even beyond the measure of the fullest Irish sausage bacon and egg breakfast on the pancakes and honey sagging room-filling table of Mrs Mary Robinson ,85, with giant teapot snug on hearth overlooking gentle Galway lapping Bay and its rainswept environs? Nyet! And why not? Was not that Polish lunch not polished off with ease of belt and buttons and the loosening sigh of a trouser clip before the wodka schnapps and the cool cigar...
But greetings and tip o' the wink to you and the Isle of Emeralds Comrade Background Artist, not in GS trochaic; but let it be said with yer celebrated more than passing train window comments. Salutations to and your Shelbourne Park wolfhounds from the land of the brown snow and the whitewash brush. But we don't look back in anger. We all have our crosses. And apropos I fear that GS's Uncle Gabriel may soon be aneroid: Bordeaux 1-0 Cluj. What group are you? UG is 'O'.