Despite the postal strike, which I fully support (damn you Mandelson, you sounded almost like a Labour Party minister for a few weeks, but bad will out), I've received a couple of interesting things - a photographic (stressing the graphic) catalogue of Eric Gill's sculptures and engravings (ranging literally from the sacred to the profane, with a fair amount of crossover), the new Kings of Convenience album and Yo La Tengo's Popular Songs. I'll listen to it once I manage to stop playing Nancy Elizabeth's Wrought Iron, which is a more sensual cousin of P J Harvey's bleakly beautiful White Chalk.
I also accidentally bought a couple of books in Manchester yesterday - Amis's Money (for work purposes) and the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, which is fascinating though rather venerable, having been published in 1951.
Is that the Iona and Peter Opie one? I've got a copy of that. It is great but you do find yourself thinking "no, no, no, it's..."
ReplyDeleteI suppose it is all down to regional variation on what are essentially part of the last great European oral tradition - the schoolyard chant.