Tuesday, May 22, 2012

saxaphone pelargonium baby-talk























Sometimes you can hear music without seeing it and sometimes   hear what you see in a picture without sound. The saxophone echoes in the tunnel and the sound floats around for ever like the zither in  The Third Man.

Herb Robert us not I think for eating (CC, L de P and L). I can understand Lucy's amusement at the plant's human name. I too knew a Robert, not a person whose memory I  want or need to dwell on. But to progress from a member of the geranium family, like herb Robert, to a pelergonium.  (cultivated pelergonium's - the brightly coloured plants which are found in tubs and window boxes -  are often  wrongly described as geraniums by gardeners.)  The  root of the pelergonium  which I see advertised in the window of the health food shop in The High Street is however for consumption " A traditional herbal medicinal product used to relieve symptoms of  the upper respiratory tract infections such as the common cold, " it says. Some hope.  According to Geoffrey Grigson, by the way the name, herb Robert probably relates to St Robert of Salzburg. Just in  case someone asks.

"Oh my god!", says a child aged three or so. "You shouldn't say that," says its mother. Good for her I think. " Everybody says it. What does it mean?" insists the child. Good question.



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