He was a big friend of my professor of literature at UCD, the late Gus Martin. The James Joyce thing. That's 30 and more years ago. Only in the last 2 months have I started reading Anthony Burgess. When I watch this and read his books and amble about I hear only Dublin and its friendly, happy-go-lucky but hard-bitten chaws. I met one today in London while sitting on a bench under a tree sheltering from a squall and gave him 5 fags and £30, a Scotchman, but the same ilk as these cards. Its odd to think that such thinkers and talkers walked among us, and still do.

Honestly, I feel that his towering intellect rightly overshadowed his dodgy comb-over 😂😂

A toupée surely? I've always wondered...too luxuriant a thatch to be a mere comb-over. But, whatever it is you're right-a godlike rug.

Really? That sucks.

The term was 'Running fights': fights that spread from bar to bar over months, over some long-forgotten reason. TV and central heating in the early 1960s put an end to that, as men could stay home: before that the pub was the only warm place you could go. Paul Johnsons autobiography 'Brief Lives' refers to one of Londons great 'Running fights' with a reference to one at a dodgy Irish pub down the sidestreet of what is now the awwwwfully grand Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. The aristocrat he refers to is quoted as saying "It seems I had a slight difference with friend Paddy". Different times, different folk.

Try Earthly Powers. His most ambitious and arguably his best book.

@@CartoType Seriously? Among his best? I will definitely check it out. Thanks.

I've been in both. He's right.

America was not England

Pubs are infinitely more pleasurable.

Some of us try,

@@WazHaz-gf2bk That's a bit cynical, but it could be true. If the pen is mightier than the sword then I can see the establishment not minding too much about giving the lesser paid people blunt pens.

I think the negative effects of smoking became publicly known by the mid-60s or so, but it seems to have been common to smoke on television up to the late 70s or early 80s.

Sithara Sivaji The I’ll effects of smoking have been known for hundreds of years.

The US Surgeon-General's report, which led six years later to health warnings on cigarette packaging, was issued in January, 1964. More than 10 years before the S-G's report, Reader's Digest had published an article titled, "Cancer by the Carton", which did for the anti-smoking movement what Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" did for environmentalism, meaning it gave the issue national exposure in the US and eventually internationally (pre-internet era-news travelled more slowly). Court cases eventually led to "fair time" on US TV networks being given to anti-smoking public service announcements, which were ended when Congress banned cigarette advertising on TV and radio (because "airwaves" are owned and licenced by the US government) in 1969. The last cigarette ad on US television appeared on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" just before midnight on Dec.31, 1969. It was for Virginia Slims, a brand targeted towards women.

in early '50s journalist George Seldes and his wife were publishing a subscription newsletter called "In Fact" that consisted of news stories reporters submitted to Seldes for publication because their own papers refused to publish them. Seldes's newsletter reported that medical journals had been publishing research demonstrating correlations between smoking and various medical conditions, lung cancer especially, and that newspapers and magazines had been refusing to report that research for a decade or so. The result was the FBI started going door to door, telling In Fact's subscribers that being a subscriber would get them marked as communists on FedGovt lists. This was during the McCarthy era, whose red-baiting consequences continued even after McCarthy had been hooted off the stage. So many subscribers cancelled based on the threat that the Seldes's shut down the newsletter for economic reasons. While they were still making a go of it, they wrote about the FBI threats, were sued by the FBI for libel, and the Seldes's won the case. People knew about the ill effects of smoking because so many people were experiencing them. The medical research was reported in multiple journals in the late '40s. Socially Distant gave us dates the FedGovt admitted it. The tobacco Corps continued to deny it for decades afterwards; and movies & TV continued to advertise tobacco use by featuring stars who made smoking look sexy or soothing or whatever as part of story lines in film, as is still done frequently with alcohol. I was 7 when my dad's mom died of lung cancer she'd suffered from for 2years and the whole extended family knew it was cigarette smoking had killed her, even tho' she managed to stop when diagnosed. It took each of her 3 kids a while to begin to try to stop. I watched my dad quit 3 times during my teen years, for more than a year the first 2 times before he caved in, the second time on an all day drive on a biz trip with a chain smoking friend. He finally managed it.

p.s. I believe Nicolas Martin is entirely correct.

Jane Fonda

I was curious about that also. Here's the whole show... kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hr9ghdurms7IhXk.html

You’re right. Judy Collins.

Interesting! What do you think about the Francis Bacon theories?

@@deirdre108 I'm not convinced that Bacon did or could have written the 'Shakespeare' works. Edward de Vere wrote them, writing them at a time when his peers were Lyly, Kyd, and Marlowe, back in the 1580s and '90s -- after having written earlier versions of some of them (i.e. The Famous Victories of Henry V, etc.), his later re-written versions benefiting from his monumental 16-month travels on the Continent -- primarily in Italy, when he was ~ 25 years old. So much of his own life is dramatized in the plays that either HE wrote them AUTObiographically, or somebody else (with the same flair for language he had) wrote them ABOUT OXFORD. Bertram, in ALL'S WELL, is based on De Vere's marital situation with Anne Cecil. Bacon probably was one of those 'in-the-know' who kept the Secret of Oxford's authorship of the 'Shakespeare' plays & poems -- and he might've had a hand in helping to get them published in the 1623 Folio -- because De Vere and Bacon were both 'fellow travelers' in the proto-Rosicrucian/Freemasonic brotherhood to which John Dee also belonged . . . but Bacon's writing style is not like Oxford/Shakespeare's. Bacon's an important figure, but he wasn't the scandal-plagued aristocrat who lamented in the Sonnets that his own name had to be buried. Check out Alexander Waugh's KZfaq page for excellent videos proving that it was De Vere -- and he alone -- who wrote the Shakespeare canon.

⁠@@patricktilton5377Thank you for replying especially as my comment was two years after yours! You make a good case. I’m going to look for the books you cited in your original comment as this is a subject in which I’m interested. Again, I appreciate your reply. EdIt: Was it DeVere’s coat of arms that depicted a hand “shaking” a spear? Some where I read that and wondered if you also had.

@@deirdre108 In 1578, Gabriel Harvey, writing in Latin, said of Edward de Vere (among other things) that ". . . vultus tela vibrat . . ." -- which translates in English as ". . . thy countenance [or 'will'] shakes a speare . . ." The word 'vultus' [= 'voltus'] is defined in Cassell's as "the expression of the face, countenance, look, aspect; the face, the look, appearance" from 'volo / velle / volui' = "to be willing, to wish" (related to the English word 'volition' : "the act or the power of making a choice or decision : WILL"). The word 'tela' comes from 'telum -i, n. "a missile, dart, javelin, spear," etc. The word 'vibrat' comes from 'vibro -are : "to cause to vibrate, move rapidly to and fro, brandish, shake" etc. There are lame attempts by Stratfordians to claim that "vultus tela vibrat" means something other than "thy will shakes spears" but they're all full of hooey. Among other things, Oxford was a champion jouster in the tiltyard, and Harvey's comment is metaphorically stating that Oxford's very facial expression -- his will or willingness to engage in such combat -- "shakes spears" i.e. brandishes lances, just as effectively as his right arm-and-hand does during a jousting match. It's like saying that Mike Tyson could knock you out just by LOOKING at you. As for a coat-of-arms depicting a spear, one of Oxford's titles was Viscount Bulbeck, and a heraldic image or crest of such depicts a Lion holding a broken spear.

@@patricktilton5377Absolutely fascinating. Perhaps you should write a book too. Do you have any ideas concerning who might be “the dark lady of the sonnets?” Again, your comments are much appreciated!