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Wednesday, 19 September 2007

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As a child of the 50s myself, I am often struck by how old fashioned the 50s and indeed the 60s and 70s were, and how easy it is to forget that. But Hassan in the 50s, I'm astonished!

Indeed, ancient though I sometimes feel, the 1920s is before my time. It was revived in London sometime in the 1950s.

Indeed there's a Caliph, an important but not the leading figure - though I fear he is cruel and fickle. The play must have lasted longer than I thought if you saw it - I had presumed it a short lived thing, old fashioned when produced and out of favour before the 1920s were out - obviously not!

Hassan! That brings back a few memories. I saw the play in London when I was but a small child -- my father was in it -- as the Caliph? is there such a person? and my mother designed the costumes which were very beautiful, all based on Persian miniatures. The film actor Laurence Harvey was in it and I had a childish crush on him.
I remember one bit of the play:
At the [something] of the day
When all to Mecca turn to pray
And I towards thy bed, Yasmin.
That sent shivers down my spine just thinking about it!

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Quotidian

  • Nothing is of greater consolation to the author of a novel than the disovery of readings he had not conceived but which are then prompted by his readers. (Umberto Eco, Reflections on The Name of the Rose)
  • ... relatively few persons in London ... can afford the luxury of one or more servants. No fewer than 3,700,000 have no servants at all, and of the half million that have servants 227,000 have only one. (The Times, 6 June 1895)
  • Standing among savage scenery, the hotel offers stupendous revelations. There is a French widow in every bedroom, affording delightful prospects. (Tyrolean inn brochure, according to Gerard Hoffnung)
  • (A doctor is at an elderly relative's deathbed) "The old sawbones, eh?" he bellowed ... "Just in the nick, perhaps. Haul the old girl back by the short hairs, if you ask me. Devilish smart at his work ... Always take a fence with more confidence when I know he's out with us."
  • Too often, when a man of Monty Godkin's mental powers is plunged in thought, nothing happens at all. The machinery just whirs for a while, and that is the end of it. (P G Wodehouse, Heavy Weather)
  • ...the breed that take their pleasures as Saint Laurence took his grid (Kipling, The Five nations)

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