The Songstone

Last night I dreamed I was the Pope And wondered how on Earth I’d cope with Heaven, cos it’s very far from condom use in Africa or buggered boys on Boston’s shore, crusades in Languedoc, and more But then I thought: I am the Pope, the heir to Peter, mustn’t mope To keep alive, that’s my mission, bulls of worn-out superstition If only there were more like me: (from Hitler Youth to Holy See is not a huge conceptual leap) To Britain! And its hungry sheep! © Simon M Hunter 2010

A bit of fun here for the polyglots: text to speech in 27 languages. I've tried it out on a few I know and I must say I'm quite impressed. (via John Wells's Phonetic blog )

Woe! For some time I have been scribbling away transcribing poems, happily using linking 'j' and 'w' only to be told that these are figments of the imagination , and that only a naïve transcriber would do such a thing! Naïve, moi? Back to the drawing board...

Posted together with some other much better translations of various poems at Perpwalk Who is more fair than she? She lives alone, an empty valley home. She was from a good family, but they’re gone since discord came to Kuan; her brothers killed; their high estate now dearth. It is a callous world that scorns distress! Hope gutters like a candle - her husband’s eyes have kindled on fresh-bought jade; as morning glory curls he sees new smiles, while old love cries unheard. The spring was pure in its mountain pools but darkened in descent. She waits – her maid may come from selling jewels with straw again for the roof She picks some flowers, no more for her hair The pine tree’s needles fall from her numb fingers. She forgets the cold - wearing a thin silk shawl she leans at sunset by a tall bamboo © Simon M Hunter 2010

An excerpt from Purgatorio with an interesting discussion below, including a few comments from yours truly.

We had driven all day from Budapest and arrived at Oradea (dubbed 'Oh dear' by one wit) well after nightfall. Not too late for the beggars however, who mobbed the coach demanding cans of /kəʊ::kə kəʊ::lə/. I convinced one particularly pressing lout that I hated coke and therefore had none, whereupon he offered me a wad of banknotes for my Instamatic. This was no use to me: in those days it was impossible to take Romanian lei out of the country and there was precious little to spend them on inside it. When we finally reached the hotel, which made a Barking doss house look like the Ritz, there was a wedding in progress; ever on the qui vive for a free drink, a group of us gate-crashed the party. The drink must have been good because I don’t remember much else, except that I got chatting to an extremely beautiful young woman and made a clumsy pass. She fended this off more graciously than it deserved and we ended up swapping addresses. I received a lovely letter from her