This Charming Man

Tory leader David Cameron (pictured) appeared today on the classic (BBC) Radio 4 show, Desert Island Discs. Famously, Mr. Cameron is trying to revive the Conservatives by leading them away from the unfriendly opinions of their majority of "crusty old Majors" - into a land of hip, young families with windfarms on top of their affordable housing.

Mr. Cameron almost has my vote, after he selected several of my favourite songs as his favourite songs too...

A live version of "Tangled Up in Blue", The Smith's "This Charming Man", Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees", something by REM so obscure it must have been suggested by a spin-doctor, and a rousing anthem from the hot new Mormon-led band, The Killers.

He isn't much of a reader, though, as he selected a cook book for his one read (he already has Shakespeare and The BIble, though) - and his luxury, booze. Perhaps he should have selected The Collected Works of Rachel Carson, and a recycling bin, to really win us over.

Comments

Jack Ruttan said…

Don't trust them conservatives!

Wed May 31, 03:23:00 pm 2006

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

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"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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