THE NEW ENGLISH HISTORY SYLLABUS
a very dull title
cheap gags can be most very effective
and this is one of my cheapest
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“THE NEW ENGLISH HISTORY SYLLABUS”
one thousand years of glorious history ingloriously distilled
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from last summer’s show
a performance on Gabriola Island
as part of the Gabriola Island Theatre Festival
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enjoy
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this is an old poem
i did for almost twenty years
from 1994
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i must have done it hundreds of times
and reprised it for last summer
as i thought the hour show needed something
SHORT FAST LOUD FUNNY AND MAD
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in other news
i just invented an ancient legend
You Cannot Leave Split Until You Have Been Everywhere Twice
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for i’m in Split
in Croatia
an imperfectly horrible day
in this fabulous city
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the rain belting
the air cold, the wind colder,
the sky a grey slab
and all extending through the daylight hours
with my long glamorous walk round the westward head
Marjan Park
uneversetoutfor
due to the unwelcoming and unforgiving grimness
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while
if you haven’t been to Split
the Old City is actually the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Palace
become, over the slow changes of centuries
the stari grad, the old town
so the alleyways and squares and unseen lived-in rooms
are the old halls and passageways and quarters of the ancient palace
which lay empty for centuries
until the Slavs who would become the Croats moved in
making it possibly the most successful “squat” in history
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its fabulous
it even has two sphinxes
and while it might have been a big palace
its a small city
so, last time i was here, 2008
i worked out the best way to go anywhere in Split is
to head in entirely the wrong direction
with conscious counter-intuitivity
because
here its much better to travel, to walk, than it is to
arrive anywhere
so if you head straight there then you are there immediately
which is much too soon so...
you...
head...
the wrong way and
delay arrival as
long as possible
by reversing
and right-angling
and left-angling
to go down those gorgeous
and fascinating
alleys
and head round those corners
and past those stones
and up those steps
and then, quite possibly, why-not
you do the same thing all over again
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so i just invented an ancient legend
about Split
a.k.a. Spalato
which says
You Cannot Leave Split Until You Have Been Everywhere Twice
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while the Old Town
where i’m currently sheltering from the battering downpour
just west of the Old City
and stretching towards Marjan Park
is also gorgeous for the idle wander...
the oblique corner turns
the old stone, the old walls
the Dalmatian restaurants
the back-tracking
the alleyways off alleyways
the downsteps, the upsteps
so, at some point
i’ll have to brave the
teeming downpour
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in Other News
Zagreb tomorrow, 5th
to fly Mumbai, 6th
after which plans get progressively more ill-defined
while, down in Maharashtra
Ratnagiri beckons
yet its a complete unknown
i don’t know if beach life is
possible
and i’ll be by myself and i’ll know
no-one
?
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in other news
i finished this post
while eating to easy repleteness
a really rather excellent Dalmatian meal of
best tomato soup ever
and
cuttleflish [squid?]
small broad beans
and best polenta ever
all paid for
hurrah
by the proceeds of
international poetry
i.e. The Bucket, this
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so here i go
next step the next step
next stop the next stop
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