The Enid Blyton Society

Ach, whilst I could grasp a few parts of the poem, I'm afraid that I could only identify a small number of the Deutscher words without reaching for my trusty Langenscheidt.

Those of us who, sadly, only know one language face certain limitations.

'Aurélien Arkadiusz'

I had to think of the following lyrics due to the recent activity of the "What Are You Doing Now?"-thread.

"Sideshow" by John Lees

I have seen the streets and alleyways
Of a million faceless towns
The camera comes, the camera goes
Filming our blues for the late night news
We gather round
Never searching for our innocence
Our faith, our truth, our love
They're only there when things go wrong
Filming our blues for the late night news
We gather round

Show us peace and understanding
Brother love for fellow man
Cure us, we are sick from violence
In your sideshow of life

Impartiality is like
A coin they have to spend
The currency of the chosen few
They place their bets
Switch on your sets

There's world disasters by the minute
They tell us on the hour
And when we think we've paid our dues
They've filmed our blues for the late night news
We gather round

Show us peace and understanding
Brother love for fellow man
Cure us, we are sick from violence
In your sideshow of life

Sideshow of life

When it's late at night and you're all alone
With the one you love
Turn on the late night news and cry
Tears for all the lost and lonely people
Innocents in prime time

(Tragedies) of our life

Very relevant in these times.

Another John Lees' song, banished from the BBC because it were in favour of violence...

Cheap the bullet

The streets run red with the blood of the innocent
Why, why, why?
We stab our knives in the back of humanity
Why, why, why?
There's never peace just a spiral of violence
Why, why, why?
We'll shoot you down for a difference of opinion
Why, why, why?

Cheap the bullet, easy the gun
Sons and daughters, lost and gone
Cheap the bullet, easy the gun
No talk, no thought, just shoot and run

Our children wake to the bomb and the bodysearch
Why, why, why?
We fill their ears with the drums and the battle cries
Why, why, why?
They burn your car when you stray it's a game they play
Why, why, why?
They're fed on hate it's a circle we don't want to break
Why, why, why?

Cheap the bullet, easy the gun
Sons and daughters, lost and gone
Cheap the bullet, easy the gun
No talk, no thought, just shoot and run

I'm baptised in your prejudice
I'm confirmed with your hate
I'm ordained into violence
I'm a child of the modern world
Of the media world
Of the TV world
Of the modern world

Cheap the bullet, easy the gun
Sons and daughters, lost and gone
Cheap the bullet, easy the gun
No talk, no thought, just shoot and run

I hadn't heard about the ban but I can't see how the song is promoting violence. It seems to be doing exactly the opposite!

They had produced a video for that song, and the record company (according to John) thought it was a good idea to send someting in the form a bullet with the title inprinted on it (or something along that lines) to the BBC officials as a kind of promotion.

Thanks, Wolfgang. Sounds like a storm in a teacup!

Now here's an interesting quiz I just stumbled across on the Oxford Dictionary website: What kind of poem are you?

Some of the questions I could have given more than one answer to, but according to my results, I'm an epic! Probably has something to do with being too wordy, mind you...

I came out as a sonnet:

You are a sonnet! With your mix of iambic pentameter, rhyme, and deep feeling, you offer an exceptional balancing act of emotion and structure.

• TOMORROW NEVER COMES
  by Garth Brooks and Kent Blazy

• Sometimes late at night
  I lie awake and watch her sleeping
  She's lost in peaceful dreams
  So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark
  And the thought crosses my mind
  If I never wake up in the morning
  Would she ever doubt the way I feel
  About her in my heart

• If tomorrow never comes
  Will she know how much I loved her
  Did I try in every way to show her every day
  That she's my only one
  And if my time on earth were through
  And she must face this world without me
  Is the love I gave her in the past
  Gonna be enough to last
  If tomorrow never comes

• 'Cause I've lost loved ones in my life
  Who never knew how much I loved them
  Now I live with the regret
  That my true feelings for them never were revealed
  So I made a promise to myself
  To say…

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

Lovely lines Pete. I remember watching the play "Blue Remembered Hills" by Dennis Potter on TV many years ago.

I was flicking through an old poetry book the other day (Out of School) and came across the following poem by Rachel Field which made me think of Kirrin Island etc:

If Once You Have Slept on an Island

If once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,

You may bustle about in street and shop;
You may sit at home and sew,
But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.

You may chat to the neighbours of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.

Oh, you won't know why, and you can't say how
Such change upon you came,
But - once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same!

That's lovely, Anita, though aren't we all (at least those of us in Britain) sleeping on an island tonight?

True! I imagine Rachel Field is referring to an island which is so small that you're aware of being surrounded by water. There's something special about that, as Anne says in Five on a Treasure Island when she talks of Kirrin Island: "It's just small enough to feel like an island. Most islands are too big to feel like islands. I mean, Britain is an island, but nobody living on it could possibly know it unless they were told. Now this island really feels like one because wherever you are you can see to the other side of it. I love it."