HOLDING NOSES, VOTING FOR A MAYOR

EYEWEAR'S CANDIDATE FAVOURS TAXATION OF ANYONE WHO DOES NOT READ POETRY

London may think of itself as the world's most important, powerful city - though New York, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo and several cities in China or India might say otherwise - but is surely top three, in terms of significance. So its mayoral elections matter - and they are today.

Some of the choices offered are colourful and absurd - there is a candidate whose platform is all about how marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, and a Polish prince who wants to fight a duel with Nigel Farage - and there are worthy candidates for parties like the Greens who won't win but maybe should - and then again the two front-runners.

Eyewear, the blog reminds you to vote today, and responsibly. You may have to hold your nose if you go with either of the main candidates - both their parties have lately seemed to play unwelcome race cards - but one of the candidates was born poor and stands for a very diverse platform - and the other is one of the richest men in the city and represents a party of the satisfied elites.

Democracy is not always best stewarded by the Sharpes of this world, but some high-born seats are just too comfortable to truly afford a view of ground realities.

Marijuana, anyone?

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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....

"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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