Wednesday, March 26, 2008

reflections, daffodils persist, ITMA

The reflections of passers-by in shop windows seem in some ways more interesting and worth exploring than the passers-by themselves.

Daffodils and other spring flowers, which appeared earlier than usual this year, have, perhaps because of the cold weather, lasted longer than usual. That other daffodil poem - by Robert Herrick - which begins "Fair daffodils we weep to see you haste away so soon," is thereby contradicted. I shan't be so sorry this year when eventually they haste away.

In the window of a charity shop is a little piece of history. It is a faded box of old, 12-in records of ITMA, the radio show which nearly everyone in the country listened to during World War II. The dates 1939 -1949 are given and there is a drawing of the star of the show Tommy Handley on the label. I don't know what such things are worth, but for a collector, it strikes me that the price, £50, would not be a lot to pay.

4 comments:

vicki johnson said...

You Brits amaze me... you decry a climate that so many of us who live in harsher places truly envy, and one that allows you to become so jaded that you are glad to see daffodils waste away. Come live in a desert for a while...without the ability to come and go as you please...and perennial hose pipe bans...where a precious few narcissus dwell for very few days...Or, come live where it is too cold for camellias to survive and roses disappear beneath a blight of fungus and spring lasts two weeks before baking hot, dry summer descends.

i guess it will always be true: "the grass is always greener in the other guy's pasture."

Anonymous said...

"The reflections of passers-by in shop windows seem in some ways more interesting and worth exploring than the passers-by themselves."
And so often events seem more interesting in retrospective than they did when the were happening. But I would chalk that up to habits of inattention, I think.

Rashmi said...

I was in a flea market in Tel Aviv last week, and spent quite a few minutes thumbing through world war II memorabilia - old newspapers, uniforms, revolver caese, letters, badges... Reading it in a history book is so different, so impersonal, but when you see stuff from that era, and realise that this particular newspaper was something an entire city read on that particular day... well.. it's quite a feeling!

Unknown said...

It's been a brilliant year for daffodils and we should be grateful for them. You're quite right Zephyr.
You're right Dave. It's like holding a drawing, which you have just worked on up to a mirror and seeing it differently, and usually with all its faults.
Good to hear from you Rashmi. I was five when the war began, so much of it is in my memory span.