Clive James

[RED-DOG]

Do me a favour and say something about him or quote him or something.

[Tal]

(On Marilyn Munroe): "She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9347061/Clive-James-30-classic-quotes.html

[RED-DOG]

(On Marilyn Munroe): "She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9347061/Clive-James-30-classic-quotes.html

Lol. Some great ones in there.

On Barbara Cartland: “Twin miracles of mascara, her eyes looked like the corpses of two small crows that had crashed into a chalk cliff.”

[david3103]

Longer than would be normal as a quote, but for those of us who had a pram wheels and wood cart, or trolley as they were known in Northampton, this was memoir gold...


In this extract from his autobiography Clive James describes a go-carting disaster.

Go-carting

I could not build go-carts very well. Other children made superb carts with wooden frames and wheels that screamed on the pavements like a diving aeroplane. The best I could manage was a fruit box with silent rubber wheels taken off an old pram.

After school and at weekends boys came from all over town to race along our street. There would be twenty or thirty carts. The noise was incredible.

Go-carts racing down the pavement on one side had a straight run of about a quarter of a mile all the way to the park. The carts would reach such high speeds that it was impossible for the rider to get off. All he could do was crash when he got to the end.

On the other side of the road we could only go half as far, before a sharp right-angle turn into Irene Street. The back wheels slid round the corner, leaving black, smoking trails of burnt rubber, or skidded in a shower of sparks.

The Irene Street corner was made more dangerous by Mrs Braithwaite’s poppies. Mrs Braithwaite lived in the house on the corner. We all thought that she was a witch. We believed that she poisoned cats. She was also a keen gardener. Her flower beds held the area’s best collection of poppies. She had been known to phone the police if even one of her poppies was picked by a passer-by.

 It was vital to make the turn into Irene Street without hurting a single poppy, otherwise the old lady would probably come out shooting. Usually, when the poppies were in bloom, nobody dared make the turn. I did because I thought that I was skilful enough to make the turn safely.

But I got too confident. One Saturday afternoon I organised the slower carts like my own into a train. Every cart was loosely bolted to the cart in front. The whole thing was twelve carts long, with a big box cart at the back.

I was in my cart at the front. Behind me there were two or three kids in every cart until you got to the big box cart, which was crammed full of little kids, some of them so small they were sucking dummies.

Why did I ever suggest that we should try the Irene Street turn?

With so much weight the super-cart started slowly, but it sped up like a piano falling out of a window. Long before we reached the turn, I realised that I had made a big mistake. It was too late to do anything except pray. Leaning into the turn, I slid my own cart safely around in the usual way. The next few carts followed me, but each cart was swinging out ever more widely. Out of my control, the monster lashed its enormous tail.

The air was full of flying ball-bearings, bits of wood, big kids, little kids and dummies. Most terrible of all, it was also full of poppy petals. Not one flower escaped. Those of us who could still run scattered to the winds, dragging the wounded kids with us. The police spent hours visiting all the parents in the district, warning them that the carting days were definitely over.

 

[RED-DOG]

Longer than would be normal as a quote, but for those of us who had a pram wheels and wood cart, or trolley as they were known in Northampton, this was memoir gold...


In this extract from his autobiography Clive James describes a go-carting disaster.

Go-carting

I could not build go-carts very well. Other children made superb carts with wooden frames and wheels that screamed on the pavements like a diving aeroplane. The best I could manage was a fruit box with silent rubber wheels taken off an old pram.

After school and at weekends boys came from all over town to race along our street. There would be twenty or thirty carts. The noise was incredible.

Go-carts racing down the pavement on one side had a straight run of about a quarter of a mile all the way to the park. The carts would reach such high speeds that it was impossible for the rider to get off. All he could do was crash when he got to the end.

On the other side of the road we could only go half as far, before a sharp right-angle turn into Irene Street. The back wheels slid round the corner, leaving black, smoking trails of burnt rubber, or skidded in a shower of sparks.

The Irene Street corner was made more dangerous by Mrs Braithwaite’s poppies. Mrs Braithwaite lived in the house on the corner. We all thought that she was a witch. We believed that she poisoned cats. She was also a keen gardener. Her flower beds held the area’s best collection of poppies. She had been known to phone the police if even one of her poppies was picked by a passer-by.

 It was vital to make the turn into Irene Street without hurting a single poppy, otherwise the old lady would probably come out shooting. Usually, when the poppies were in bloom, nobody dared make the turn. I did because I thought that I was skilful enough to make the turn safely.

But I got too confident. One Saturday afternoon I organised the slower carts like my own into a train. Every cart was loosely bolted to the cart in front. The whole thing was twelve carts long, with a big box cart at the back.

I was in my cart at the front. Behind me there were two or three kids in every cart until you got to the big box cart, which was crammed full of little kids, some of them so small they were sucking dummies.

Why did I ever suggest that we should try the Irene Street turn?

With so much weight the super-cart started slowly, but it sped up like a piano falling out of a window. Long before we reached the turn, I realised that I had made a big mistake. It was too late to do anything except pray. Leaning into the turn, I slid my own cart safely around in the usual way. The next few carts followed me, but each cart was swinging out ever more widely. Out of my control, the monster lashed its enormous tail.

The air was full of flying ball-bearings, bits of wood, big kids, little kids and dummies. Most terrible of all, it was also full of poppy petals. Not one flower escaped. Those of us who could still run scattered to the winds, dragging the wounded kids with us. The police spent hours visiting all the parents in the district, warning them that the carting days were definitely over.

 

Well called them trolleys too Dave, ours had a rope, usually a bit of clothes line to pull it up th the hills with. The uninitiated thought that the rope was also for steering but no, we steered with our feet by turning the crossmember. The rope was used while riding, but only as something to cling onto as you battled huge G forces.

[TightEnd]

On Beyoncé at Glastonbury:

"Beyoncé and pathos are strangers. Amy Winehouse and pathos are flatmates, and you should see the kitchen."

[TightEnd]

in his book Sentenced to Life

"Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colours will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone."

[atdc21]

Hi Tom,
           We called them buggies. Easy to get yer feet trapped when steering, oouch.

[RED-DOG]

Hi Tom,
           We called them buggies. Easy to get yer feet trapped when steering, oouch.

We made them ourselves from scavenged wood and old pram wheels. Bent over nails to hold the axles in place and a red hot poker to burn the hole for the steering bolt.

We had Scottish friends who called the guiding bogeys.

[david3103]

Hi Tom,
           We called them buggies. Easy to get yer feet trapped when steering, oouch.

We made them ourselves from scavenged wood and old pram wheels. Bent over nails to hold the axles in place and a red hot poker to burn the hole for the steering bolt.

We had Scottish friends who called the guiding bogeys.