Monday 17 May 2010

Elevation


I have been elevated to the peerage by no less an organ than The Independent. To cite:

Nigel Forde's poetry is, as the Hungarian-born peer George Szirtes says, "deeply English". These poems are mostly in a supple blank verse, sometimes decorated with rhyme; there are allusions to Shakespeare, Hardy, Keats and Herrick; and they are filled with images of the English countryside: streams, woods, owls, blackbirds, buddleia, moths, squirrels, rivers, moons and stars – lots of stars.

See! Hungarian peer! I always knew it. Blue blood will out. (It couldn't possibly be 'Hungarian 'pier', could it?)

Link later (now provided)



4 comments:

Padhraig Nolan said...

Possibly peeer? If they're taking the p*ss.

dana said...

And maybe you get mail addressed to Dr. S, since you work at a university? We all call each other Dr. here, to avoid confusing the postal workers.

Billy C said...

They missed two commas out in the first sentence? I reckon you're a capital letter away from blue-blood, George. :)

Anne said...

You know why the Duke of Edinburgh keeps his chamber pot on top of the wardrobe?
He's the highest peer in the realm.

And of course he's a Greek-born peer, which is something else.

I reckon spellcheck is to blame. I bet the journo wrote "Hungarian-born poet" or, more likely - because journos are frazzled and careless - "peot" and spellcheck's first prompt wasn't "poet". (Yeah, maybe he had to scroll through pear, peas, peat ...)

But Lord Szirtes of Budapest: it's not a bad idea, is it - if we are still going to have lords at all?