A most successful national treasure of the last century was John Betjeman, whose genial, bumbly appearances on television overcame the handicap of his being a poet. Someone like Betjeman's contemporary Evelyn Waugh could never have become a treasure: too rude, too openly contemptuous of those whose opinions he despised. Postulants for treasuredom are allowed to have political views, but must never appear angry, or self-righteous, or superior. In recent times the two writers to attain unarguable NT status have been Alan Bennett and the recently deceased John Mortimer: both old-fashioned liberals, but managing to exude the sense that if confronted by a rabid crypto- fascist Little Englander, they would offer a glass of champagne (in Mortimer's case) or a steaming mug of cocoa (in Bennett's) and then search for common ground in uncontentious topics."

More British mores as reported by Martin Amis and Howard Jacobson in the UK Guardian

"To the University of Manchester, where Martin Amis and Howard Jacobson were discussing literature and Britishness last week. "You see before you the last two comic British novelists," Amis announced. "If I had to pick three pieces of prose to make you laugh," Jacobson said, "one would be by Martin and the other two would be mine." Professor Murray Pittock, the chair, tried to bring the debate to order, but the novelists just wanted to talk about sex. Why are Welsh women so sexy, demanded Jacobson as he remembered the sexual revolution of the 1960s - in Wales towards the end of 1971. Amis told a funny anecdote that ended with the punchline "When I came across the word 'schadenfreude', I thought it was Welsh."

The home of the stiff upper lip, Jacobson said, has become the nation of the wet trembling lip. The British can't stop crying. "They're sobbing because they've lost a talent show, because they have no talent." Their dream has been shattered. Even the meaning of the word "dream" has changed. We have imported the American sense. But, Amis asserted, we have to "plagiarise American society. Just as a Pakistani in New York will say, 'I am an American', a Pakistani in Bradford should be able to say, 'I am British.'" Questions from the floor prompted Jacobson to remember enjoying being the butt of antisemitic jokes at Bernard Manning's Embassy Club. Both writers argued for the right to offend. "I don't think you can have a decent life unless somewhere decency is being trashed," said Jacobson. "A culture loses its nerve if it doesn't believe it has a centre. You can't have margins without a centre."

The long running British television program, University Challenge, has seen some prodigious talents, but non more so than Gail Trimble from Corpus Christi College who answered correctly most of the questions during the series on behalf of her team. Corpus Christi ultimately won the contest. However she did cop some flak for being too clever- we never criticise sports people for being too good! Double standards?

How many of the starter questions for University Challenge as listed by the UK Guardian could you have answered?

Q: What everyday concept did Iris Murdoch describe as "… the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real"?

A: Love (in the essay: 'The Sublime and the Good', 1959)

Q: An unattested language from which a group of attested languages, in this case those of the Germanic, Slavic, Romance and other families, are thought to be historically derived, for what do the letters P I E stand?

A: Proto-Indo-European

Q: If a tap leaks a millilitre of water every second, how many 10-litre buckets will it fill completely in a day?

A: Eight (8.64)

Q: Giving its name to an early form of capacitor, which city to the south-west of Amsterdam is home to The Netherlands' oldest university, founded in 1575?

A: Leiden (the leyden jar)

Q: Which of Shakespeare's plays is the only one to be set in Vienna and concerns the city's Duke adopting a disguise in order to observe the actions of his subjects, including his deputy Angelo?

A: Measure for Measure

Q: A taco terrier is a cross between a toy fox terrier and which other breed of dog, originating in a country of Latin America?

A: Chihuahua (from Mexico)

Q: Which French obstetrician, who died in 1957, gave his name to a method of childbirth involving exercises and breathing control designed to give pain relief without drugs?

A: Fernand Lamaze (the Lamaze Technique)

French Bibliophiles at work and play

A CBS six minute video is well worth a watch according to the book blog Bookride.

"On e wonders whether the Great Gatsby than John Baxter holds to camera is the real thing, if it is he can take a couple of years off - it was mint. This CBS six minuter also has Martin Stone -a legend in his own lunchtime - and various bouquinistes , wheelers and dealers and some good stuff on French pulps and series noirs........by the way --that's Martin on the left in characteristic pose... amor librorum nos unit..."

The Bookride also comments on the recent California Antiquarian Book Fair and second hand book trade trends

"Surprisingly it was fairly reasonable with dealers still buying from one another, something I had feared might be completely curtailed; even the public showed some enthusiasm and produced cash, cards and cheques. True, everybody wanted deeper discounts than ever, anything that was ambitiously priced was ignored unless it was God's own copy, breathtakingly desirable, ballsachingly trendy or in effulgent condition.

Some higher end dealers sold very little but there were also reports of a few very high takes. Ephemera seemed to be doing well, prints less so. Some optimists said during the last recession that the book trade was the last to be affected and the first to recover; this time there have been signs that the more modest and user friendly end of the trade is weathering the storm or even profiting by it. The jury is still out but meanwhile here are some interesting but contradictory lead indicators, straws in the wind (no green shoots though!)...

Bookride cites an article in 'The Daily Telegraph' of 10 January 2009 - "Frugal readers give second-hand bookshops a lift. The thrust of the article was that booksellers had a bumper year in 2008 'as cost-conscious readers cut back on buying new titles.' One shop, Barter Books in Northumberland, reported a 10% rise and Richard Booth in Hay reports an 'excellent year.' (One caveat to bear in mind is that turnover in second hand bookshops very much depends on the quality of books bought; I know of a seller who took £40K in 2007 and £150K in 2008 because he hit a stunning collection in his area, if the economy had been more buoyant he could have taken more.) Booth even supplies a slightly risible list of the Top Ten Used Books:

1. Kilvert's Diary 1870-1879, by Francis Kilvert

2. On the Black Hill, by Bruce Chatwin

3. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

4. Self-Sufficiency, by John Seymour

5. The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin

6. The Famous Five, by Enid Blyton

7. The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest

8. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

9. Food for Free, by Richard Mabey

10. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac"

The UK Guardian lists the top ten funerals in fiction

The Iliad by Homer

Those Homeric warriors loved their funerals. When Patroclus, Achilles's best mate, is killed by the Trojans, he gets the full works: manly dirges, a funeral feast and then ritual immolation. Hunting dogs, war horses and 12 Trojan captives are also tossed on the pyre. The cremation is followed by funeral games, with big prizes for the top athletes.

Antigone by Sophocles

Creon, King of Thebes, has decreed that the rebel Polynices cannot receive a ritual burial and must lie on the battle? eld, "a morsel for the birds of heaven". His sister, Antigone, contravenes the edict and gives him the proper funeral rites. Infuriated, Creon orders that Antigone be buried alive, but is punished by the gods when his son and then his wife kill themselves.

Beowulf

The earliest classic of Eng lit ends with a heroic funeral. Beowulf saves his tribe by killing a marauding dragon, but is himself killed by its venom. The story ends with his subjects burning his body on a huge pyre. "The roar of the ?ames mixed with the sound of weeping." They then bury his ashes and a good stash of treasure in a barrow with a sea view.

More here

The Barnes and Noble Review has an interview with American fiction author T.C. Boyle

"T. Coraghessan Boyle tells Cameron Martin that his writing career has gradually consumed his life to the exclusion of almost everything else:

Like many of my fellow novelists, I am a very competitive person. I cannot enjoy being an amateur at anything. I don’t play tennis or golf or cards or chess or anything of that kind. Why? Too obsessed. And, of course, I don’t like losing. Thus, my activities have dwindled to these: writing, teaching, performing my work (I am a ham, I admit it), strolling in the woods and along the beach, cleaning up after my wife, walking the dog. What I’ve given up is music - singing and playing the saxophone. I just can’t imagine starting again and being godawful and then not having the time to practice and develop. Sad, sad, sad. I hardly even sing along with records anymore, let alone with real live people. Woe is me." More here

Crick eting frauds

The New York Times has an interesting piece by John Burns who reports "on the allegedly fraudulent financier Robert Allen Stanford’s deep ties in the cricket world. It sounds like something straight out of Joseph O’Neill’s acclaimed novel “Netherland,” in which a charismatic Trinidadian businessman of uncertain connections named Chuck Ramkissoon dreams of creating an American cricket league, centered on a grand pitch built in the wastes of New York City’s Jamaica Bay. ..

Now that Stanford has brought shame and significent deficits on the league, Burns writes, “emboldened traditionalists have demanded that the game, at least metaphorically, burn Mr. Stanford in effigy, and rediscover its old values and rhythms.” Michael Henderson, the cricket correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, bemoaned Stanford’s depredations, writing that cricket played properly “attracts good people” and “reveals human character” like no other sport.

Chuck couldn’t have said it better himself.

(Note to literary cricket watchers: Lopwitz, the ostentatiously anglophile chief of Sherman McCoy’s firm in “Bonfire of the Vanities,” was also a cricket man. Don’t any of these Master-of-the-Universe types enjoy jai alai anymore?)"

Oxford University has an onlines debates page, 'Oxford Online Debates'. Check out the latest one, which debates the proposition that 'Poetry is beautiful but science is what matters."

Quote of the Week - for the Senior Staff of DEEWR

"Happiness is no laughing matter." Archbishop Richard Whately of Dublin

Odd Book Title

Robert Winson and Miriam Sagan. Dirty Laundry: 100 days in the Zen Monastery. Alburquerque, La Alameda Press 1997

Libraries Australia records two copies: one at the NLA and the other at the University of Western Sydney.

Pun of the Week

If you want to crash a houseboat party, just barge in.