RIGHT THOUGHTS, RIGHT WORDS, RIGHT ACTION?

Today is a day for British citizens - and I am one of them - to pause, and reflect on what their politicians have done in their name. For this morning, Britain is - depending on your politics of war - either a seriously diminished, paltry thing, isolated and deflated - or a nation that has shown it is nobody's lapdog, and that parliament is indeed in charge. This is the day that lays to rest Labour's sins under Blair, and that dodgy dossier - or, makes Ed Milliband the new Neville Chamberlain. For make no mistake, yesterday's vote against the PM's declared aim to take Britain into war against the Assad regime is historically momentous - never before has a British Prime Minister had their war plans kiboshed in such a way. It is, depending on your view, a humiliation or a triumph, or maybe both.

Eyewear's view is that it is a potential tragedy, for the following reasons: while it is good that the primacy of parliament was upheld, it is not clear such a domestic aim is so noble when one considers what has been voted against - a plan to aid allies to punish a terrible war crime - a gas attack that killed 1,000 people a few weeks ago, many of them children. Should this vote change minds in Washington - and this could still happen - and no attacks occur against the depots and soldiers who deployed the terrible chemical weapons - then a very evil group of men has got off Scott free. One can't give too many blank cheques to wicked people before ever worse crimes against humanity occur.

Syria, that great nation, currently facing so much hardship, is likely no better off this morning. And Britain? She has a strong democracy. And a weak foreign policy.

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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. What do I mean by smart?

"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...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise

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

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