UKHamlet's Blog

Beryl Bainbridge

Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was, my favourite English language writer from the second half of the Twentieth Century. Although the great and the good (The Times greatest British writers since 1945) have her at number twenty-six behind such luminaries as Muriel Spark, Martin Amis and Penelope Fitzgerald. Ah well, so much for the great and the good.

Her creative period extends from 1967 to 2005 and includes eighteen novels, four non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories.  She also wrote the screenplay of her novel “Sweet William”. Perhaps she kept the best until last: her final novel, published in 2001: “According to Queeney” is a masterpiece and worth its place on the bookshelf of any discerning reader. A fictionalised account of the life of Samuel Johnson through the eyes of Queeney Thrale, eldest daughter of Henry and Hester Thrale, it received wide acclaim throughout the literary world.

Although nominated five times for the Booker, she never won the award, but collected the Whitbread twice and is rightfully described as a national treasure.

She died from cancer aged 75 on 2^nd July 2010. I will miss her words.

Why has “yours” in the phrase: “yours is no disgrace” no apostophe? After all, it’s possessive. In fact “yours” is the second person possessive pronoun – it replaces “your” plus a noun. The reason some people think it might need an apostrophe is virtually every other word, ‘s indicates possession, so English speakers sometimes think yours should be spelled your’s. However, this is always incorrect – yours is the only correct spelling.

It is perfectly permissable to punch someone in the face if they’re found writing “your’s” and if they add an “e” on the end as in “your’se” you can kill their entire family. I hope that sorts out that little quandary. Next week, we’re going to learn to use “I”, “me” and “you” instead of “myself” and “yourself”, plus we’ll have a general discussion of the argot of the call centre generation and why a split infinitive could mean a split lip.

The Six Nations Championship is upon us again. Speaking as a Welshman, the first game is absolutely critical this time. Talk about your whole season hanging on one game. If we win at Twickers – which would be a mighty task given the history of this game – we will be on a roll. History is against us though. Not only will it be our 4th Six Nations win against the English in a row but it includes back to back wins at Twickers . We’ve done it before, but not very often – certainly not in the last thirty years :

• 1950 & 1952 (4 win streak ’49-’52)
• 1970 & 1972 (5 win streak ’69-’73)
• 1976 & 1978 (5 win streak ’75-’79)

In our first golden era we had a 10 game unbeaten run (1899-1909). In our second golden era we had only lost once (1974) to England in the period 1969-1979.

Can this team do what the Golden Era boys did?

We are 8th in the IRB table, only Scotland and Italy are below us, with England, France and Ireland 2, 3 and 4 places above us respectively. We have just come off the back of a pretty dire autumn series, our regional teams are stuttering and our management seems bereft of new ideas.

So far has the stock of our coaches fallen, that the Irish are suggesting that they’re glad they sacked him. Obviously, their Grand Slam is worth both ours. Now, it would be churlish to suggest that they only got theirs courtesy of a missed game winning penalty by Stephen Jones, but no more so than the implication that Gatland is an Irish hater. He probably has a gripe about the IRFU, but who wouldn’t given his treatment? They are lucky they have a great coach in Declan K – who has turned a team of honest plodders into a tenacious fighting unit. He took one season to do that.

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