Category Archives: Personal commentary

Susette speaks

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Patrick Miles

For the context of this poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, see here © Patrick Miles, 2024 ADVERTISEMENT SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS ‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged 'If from this distance', Aether, Alcaic metre, beyond the grave, death masks, dialogue, dreams, Friedrich Hölderlin, German literature, life after death, logosphere, love, lovers, madness, mistresses, paradise, poems, poetry in translation, Susette Gontard, translation, Wenn aus der Ferne | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 28

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Patrick Miles

11 February 2024 Do not be put off trying an ‘Escape Room’ because you fear claustrophobia: you aren’t actually locked into it, you simply have to solve a series of problems (often involving locks) in order to complete a narrative … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Aleksei Navalnyi, androconia, Armageddon, asteroids, birds of prey, Brimstone butterflies, butterflies, catacomb Christians, Christ's Harrowing of Hell, counterpoint, Dmitrii Medvedev, Dmitrii Peskov, drones, E.B. Ford, escape rooms, games, German language, Green-Veined White, Hölderlin, icons, Ivan Turgenev, metres, Petr Tchaikovsky, puzzles, resurrection, Sam&Sam, Sam2, scents, science fiction, space station, The Cleopatra, The Myrrh-Bearing Women, The White Bow:Ghoune, Twitter, verse translation, Vladimir Putin, Vlamiri Nabokov, Wenn aus der Ferne | 1 Comment

George Calderon: A complete new work surfaces

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Patrick Miles

Garry Humphreys, author of a forthcoming book on Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), and I have now received from the archives of the Royal College of Music a link to the score of Somervell’s music for George’s ballet libretto The Blue Cloth (which … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged Arthur Somervell, ballet, ballet libretti, Ballets Russes, Garry Humphreys, George Calderon, Heathland Lodge, Kittie Calderon, manuscripts, Martin Shaw, Michel Fokine, Moscow Art Theatre, Moscow Arts, musical score, Royal College of Music, stagecraft, The Blue Cloth, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, The Red Cloth, Well Walk, William Caine, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

Very Old Cambridge Tales 5: ‘Stone’s Story’

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Patrick Miles

‘Will you be going to Russia again?’ I asked Stone as we arrived back at his rooms from the college dinner he had stood me. ‘Not if I can help it!’ he retorted, unlocking the door and walking straight across … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged aesthetics, Alexander III, bookplates, British Academy, Cambridge, death, Intourist, Lenin's Tomb, Moscow, Nerl, Red Square, Rumyantsev Museum, Russia, Sparta, Very Old Cambridge Tales, Wales | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 27

Posted on February 5, 2024 by Patrick Miles

16 January 2024 I translated a few poems as a teenager and student (Rilke, Brecht, Hölderlin, Pushkin, Tiutchev, Mayakovsky, Yevtushenko, Brodsky), but bothered to see only a couple published. The fact was, I didn’t take verse translation very seriously. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged afterlife, Alcaic metre, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekhov, appeasement, BASEES Conference, Belarus, Belorussia, Bertolt Brecht, Brest, British Rail, Christian era, death, Diotima, Estonia, Fedor Tiutchev, Flavinus Stone, Friedrich Hölderlin, Henry Vaughan, Hexham, Hexham Abbey, Joseph Brodsky, Jürgen-Joachim von Sandrart, Kaliningrad, Latvia, Leonid Brezhnev, Lithuania, memorials, Munich Agreement, NATO, Old Cambridge Tales, poetry, pronunciation, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rightmove, Russia, Sam&Sam, security messages, St Wilfrid, Susette Gontard, Suwalki Gap, train travel, translation, Ukraine, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Putin, Winston Churchill, Yevgeny Yevtushenko | Leave a comment

A stunning discovery

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Patrick Miles

Mr Garry Humphreys is writing a major book about the English composer Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), as well as compiling a catalogue raisonné of Somervell’s compositions. On 6 September last year he emailed me to ask whether I thought a typescript … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Scheherazade', Abu Nâsi, Arthur Somervell, ballet, Ballets Russes, biographies, biography, cartoons, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Garry Humphreys, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Heathland Lodge, Islam, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Michel Fokine, Middle East, mimodramas, Moscow Arts Theatre, The Blue Cloth, The Great War, The Red Cloth, Third Battle of Krithia, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Well Walk, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

NEW YEAR

Posted on January 1, 2024 by Patrick Miles

Whether you are stalwart subscribers to Calderonia since 30 July 2014, or casual callers from across the globe to posts on, say, limericks, John Hamilton, paradoxes, the Third Battle of Krithia, dogs or Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I wish you a … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged archbishops of Canterbury, BASEES Conference, biographies, biography, blog announcement, Book of Revelation, Calderonia, chrysanthemums, comments, freesias, freshness, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, King Lear, Kittie Calderon, Michael Ramsay, New Year, newness, oldness, Osip Mandel'shtam, publishers, Rowan Williams, Russia, Sam&Sam, sermons, Ukraine, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Short story: ‘Crox’

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Patrick Miles

… Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged adolescence, Crocs, Crox, fashion, half-term, love, mothers, rules, schooldays, sex, shoe shops, shop girls, short stories, smoking, taste, teenagers | 2 Comments

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 26

Posted on December 5, 2023 by Patrick Miles

7 November 2023 Ukraine must win. There is no alternative, because Putin will never offer a true peace, only a breather before making another attempt to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state then torture, murder, deport and imprison its people. … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged Alexander Lukashenka, Anton Chekhov, Berkers, Brest, Cambridge Young Chekhov Company, comments, Crocs, Crox, dedicatees, Donald Trump, Edinburgh, Fathers and Children, Garry Kasparov, gene pools, George Calderon, glasnost', Gothic, Ivan Turgenev, Jane Austen, Jonathan Routh, Kaliningrad, Matt Dimmick, NATO, Nicolson Square, old age, Olga Knipper-Chekhova, pavements, perestroika, Remembrance Sunday, Rob Roy, rubber bands, Russia, Scotland, Scott Monument, Scottish Rationalism, shop girls, short stories, Stephan Roman, Taiwan, The Great War, Ukraine, USA, Ventnor, Vladimir Putin, Volodymr Zelensky, Walter Scott, Wilfred Owen, World War I, Xi Jinping | Leave a comment

Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Patrick Miles

… Continue reading →

Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged black ties, brain haemorrhages, Cambridge, Cambridge Tales, college life, Dante, funerals, Jonathan Palmer, Mikhail Bakhtin, mourning, Peter Cathercole, postgraduates, student pranks, The Divine Comedy, The Iliad, The University Arms, undergraduates, undertakers, wakes | 2 Comments

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 25

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Patrick Miles

27 September 2023 There can be no surer sign of age than picking up litter on the way to buy the daily newspaper… I have done this for the last four mornings, including a banana skin. 2 October I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Adolf Hitler, Alexander Pushkin, Angela Merkel, Anton Chekhov, bananas, BASEES Conference, biographies, C.F. Clay, Cambridge University Press, chrestomathies, Clays of Bungay, Death of a Poet, English literature, Finland, First Love, George Calderon, Greater Russia, John Clay, Kittie Calderon, literary criticism, litter, Mikhail Lermontov, New York Times, newspapers, Percy Lubbock, poetry, prosody, readers, Richard Clay II, Russian Empire, Sauli Niinisto, short stories, To the Slanderers of Russia, Very Early Cambridge Tales, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment

Very Old Cambridge Tales 3: ‘Reflected images’

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Patrick Miles

It was the Saturday of the fourth week of the Michaelmas Term. Half Term. As he stepped purposefully from the steakhouse on Trinity Street, where he had feasted on the 10/6d gammon menu, Roger Johns suddenly realised that he had … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Boots, Cambridge Market Square, Cambridge Tales, Cambridge Union Society, Cambridge University, Che Guevara, clothes, glasses, hats, History Today, Leon Trotsky, Louis Philippe, mirrors, opticians, Oxfam, pith helmets, Raffles, reflected images, reflections, Rose Crescent, self images, semiotics, Sherlock Holmes, shop windows, spectacles, students, Trinity Street, undergraduates, W.H. Smith, young men, young women | 2 Comments

Guest post by John Pym: One of my first Communists

Posted on September 11, 2023 by Patrick Miles

Patrick Miles named me the dedicatee of his story My First Communist published here in two parts in the spring, so let me return the compliment with this ‘sketch from memory’ of the redoubtable Yvonne Kapp – one of my own … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary, Uncategorized | Tagged Bertolt Brecht, biography, Central Books, Claire Tomalin, Communism, Communist Party of Great Britain, Diana Pym, Dorothea Gough, East Germany, Edmond Kapp, Edward Aveling, Edward Wolfe, Eleanor Marx, Eric Hobsbawm, Frederic Raphael, Gustave Flaubert, Gwyn A. Williams, Highgate, Jack Pym, Janna Kapp, Jenny Marx, Jenny von Westphalen, Karl Marx, Lady Gough, Madame Bovary, Margaret Mynatt, Marx Memorial Library, Michael Blakemore, Michael Foot, Nazis, refugees, The Internationale, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Time Will Tell, Vizetelly & Co., William Rothenstein, Yvonne Kapp | 4 Comments

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 24

Posted on August 28, 2023 by Patrick Miles

29 July 2023 As followers may recall, I always believed that the Russian Army was less than enthusiastic about Putin’s war — which is one reason he and Shoigu had to use private armies — and that eventually military opposition … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged 'My First Communist', Alexander Pushkin, archives, As You Like It, British North Borneo, butterflies, Charles Fernyhough, Crox, Damian Grant, ephemerality, Evgenii Prigozhin, evolution, haiku, John Pym, Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, letters, Malaysia, memory, palace revolutions, Parthenos sylvia lilacinus, publishers, Raffles Museum, RSC, Russia, Russian Army, Sabah, Sergei Shoigu, shaiku, short stories, silent majority, Singapore, sonnets, sub-species, The Clipper, the past, treason, Ukraine, Valerii Gerasimov, Vladimir Putin, war, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Cambridge Tales 6: ‘The Tower’

Posted on July 3, 2023 by Patrick Miles

A small brown-man had a narrow bedroom, a spacious living-room, and a gyp-room (more like a galley) at the top of a Gothic quadrangle. The living-room contained a fluted white mantelpiece with a gas-fire, a moth-eaten charcoal grey sofa against … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged bowler hats, brown-man, Cambridge colleges, Cambridge Tales, Franz Kafka, paranoia, persecution mania, towers, writer's block, writers | 5 Comments

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 23

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Patrick Miles

16 May 2023 The suspense about the Ukrainian ‘counter-offensive’ is terrible. I hope it will last. It winds the Russians up and keeps them guessing. Moreover, except at Bakhmut, Russian forces have been in deep defensive positions for months now, … Continue reading →