From Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man :

– To return to the lamp, he said, the feeding of it is also a nice problem. You must choose the pure oil and you must be careful when you pour it in not to overflow it, not to pour in more than the funnel can hold.

– A tundish, said the dean reflectively. That is a most interesting word. I must look that word up. Upon my word I must.

Some further anecdotes about my Auntie Dot who was brought back to mind thanks to the information delivered by my newly discovered cousin Brendan Daly.

As I described her she was a lady of a certain age who couldn’t drive but did.

My cousin Alan Fleischmann describes her crashing a red light at the Colliseum junction in Cork. When she noticed that he was sitting in the passenger seat with his eyes tightly closed she reassured him saying that he must remember that the purpose of traffic lights was to speed up the movement of traffic not to slow it down.

On another occasion she was driving in her Morris Minor down Mc Curtain Street in Cork when she decided to put out her left indicator to go up Summer Hill. (In the Morris Minor this took the form of a small lit up wing which would project from the car behind the top of the front door.)
Unfortunately she had forgotten to retract her right indicator.
Apparently a Garda, who must have had a dry sense of humour flagged her down and, pointing out she she was inticating both left and right said “I presume Madame is intending to take off ?”

Previously unknown second cousin Brendan Daly arrived yesterday carrying sheaves of information about my mothers family ; The Dalys.

Most of the information has been gathered by our mutual cousin, Alan Fleischmann who lives in the USA.

I am having a fascinating morning discovering who shadowy figures from my youth actually were :
People like my Auntie Dot who couldn’t drive but did, and my Auntie Snow, so called because she had ash blond hair and another Great Aunt ; “Lady” Barton who was haunted by the ghost of Warren Hastings in India.

Great Stuff !

There is a little “Lost in Translation” here as the English word Chandelier means a candle holder in French, what we call a chandelier in English the French call a Lustre.
The English Tundish (on the other hand)is in fact etymologically identical to the French Entonnoire.

For many years I have been collecting glass funnels in various sizes and in various parts of France- some were expensive, some extremely cheap (they range in price from €40 to 50cent, irrelevant of size.

Shortly after I came out here I saw, in a French interiors magazine, someone had turned them upside down, wired them and was using two as lights over a dining table.
Impressed I took my collection (in fact only 11 were suitable) to my great friend and master of design Clive Nunn and asked him to come up with a light over my dining table using the funnels (which for some reason I have always called by their old-fashioned name as Tundish).

Clive arrived last week, having spent some time mulling over the problem, with the wonderful solution pictured above.
The Chandelier of Tundishes fits impeccably into the Presbytere, I couldn’t be more pleased and now think I must gather together more tundishes for the orders Clive is sure to get immediately !

M y last entry reminded me of this blog I wrote in 2006.

I have loved this song of Jacques Brel’s since I first heard it last year and have tried on various occasions to translate it.

Here is the original with my various attempts at translation from 2006

Le Plat Pays
Avec la mer du Nord pour dernier terrain vague
Et des vagues de dunes pour arrêter les vagues
Et de vagues rochers que les marées dépassent
Et qui ont à jamais le cœur à marée basse
Avec infiniment de brumes à venir
Avec le vent de l’est écoutez-le tenir
Le plat pays qui est le mien

Avec des cathédrales pour uniques montagnes
Et de noirs clochers comme mâts de cocagne
Où des diables en pierre décrochent les nuages
Avec le fil des jours pour unique voyage
Et des chemins de pluie pour unique bonsoir
Avec le vent d’ouest écoutez-le vouloir
Le plat pays qui est le mien

Avec un ciel si bas qu’un canal s’est perdu
Avec un ciel si bas qu’il fait l’humilité
Avec un ciel si gris qu’un canal s’est pendu
Avec un ciel si gris qu’il faut lui pardonner
Avec le vent du nord qui vient s’écarteler
Avec le vent du nord écoutez-le craquer
Le plat pays qui est le mien

Avec de l’Italie qui descendrait l’Escaut
Avec Frida la Blonde quand elle devient Margot
Quand les fils de novembre nous reviennent en mai
Quand la plaine est fumante et tremble sous juillet
Quand le vent est au rire quand le vent est au blé
Quand le vent est au sud écoutez-le chanter
Le plat pays qui est le mien.

I see it as a love poem which Brel wrote to his native land, and, as a poem it is beautifully written.
It has a wonderful sonorous music with its rolling “Rs” and sibilant “Ss” to suggest the tides and winds which batter Belgium.
When recited aloud or chanted, which is the treatment Brel gives the poem himself in his recordings, it sounds both mellifluous and dark.
It also has a meticulous structure with the four stanzas representing the four winds and the four seasons.

When our book club, in 2006, decided that the next meeting should be that we each pick and recite our favourite poem there was no choice for me but this poem.
The only problem was a suitable translation.
The only English versions which I could find were not at all to my liking so I set about working out my own.
My first attempt was a literal and faithful translation:

The Flat Land

With the north sea as the last abandoned post
The lines of sand dunes stand to break the waves
But still the tide comes in and bares the rocks
Which show their naked blackness to the sea
And then the endless mist drops down
With the east wind , which grasps
The flat land which is my own.

With the tall churches as the only mountains
With black steeples like the masts of ghostly ships
With their stone devils piercing the clouds
And only the turning days to mark their passing,
And only the falling rain to bid them “god speed”
And then the west wind, listen to him steal
The flat land which is my own

With a sky so low that a canal lies hidden
With a sky so low it instils humility
With a sky so grey the canal ceases flowing
With a sky so grey that this must be forgiven
With the North wind which rips us asunder
With the north wind, listen to its whiplash
On the flat land which is my own

Then when Italian warmth falls on the rivers
Winter’s Frieda becomes summer’s Margot
And the beats of November become the rhythms of May
When the land steams and trembles in July
When the wind laughs, when the wind bears fruit
When the wind is in the South listen to it sing
To the flat land which is my own

This was all fine in its way but where was the music which was so integral to Brel’s original?
I decided that I would have to try and sacrifice the literal translation to get back to Brel’s musical rhyme.
This leads to my second version, a bit free, and not a patch on the original but I hope it conveys a little of my admiration for the poem.:

The Flat Land.

With the north sea as the last abandoned post
The lines of sand dunes stand to save the coast
But still the tide comes in and bares the stones
Which show the cold North sea their blackened bones
Then, as the endless mist the land enfolds
Then comes the east wind , the wind that holds
The flat land
Which is my own.

Where tall churches are the only peaks
With black steeples like the ghostly beaks
Of stone devils piercing through the fog
With only the turning days to mark their log
And only the falling rain to bid “god speed”
And then the west wind, listen to his need
Of the flat land
Which is my own

With a sky so low the canals lie hidden
With a sky so low sorrow comes unbidden
With a sky so grey the canals cease flowing
With a sky so grey even this is forgiven
Then comes the North wind which rips all asunder
In comes the north wind , roaring like thunder
On the flat land
Which is my own

And then warm Italy blows up river
And the seeds of November make May quiver
And winter’s Frieda make Junes’s Daisy
Then July is steaming , and trembling and hazy
Then the wind laughs, then the wind is ripe
Then the wind is in the South listen to its pipe
In the flat land
Which is my own

A little windy on Valras Plage this morning

You know that winter is coming when the savage pruning starts on the trees in the Place de l’Eglise outside our front door.

Unbelievably they all recover, perfectly, in the Spring.

Discovering that my sling was called a Napoleon sent me back to the huge debt I have to the man, which I wrote about on my blog seven years ago.

The young Napoleon

My son-in-law, Aonghus, once kindly said something to me that particularly pleased me.
He said “ Martin, the thing about you is that you have interests”

Of course my family would have corrected him and told him that what I am is obsessive, I get an interest in something and don’t rest until I have gotten all the information I want about it.
There have been times when this compulsion has paid off in spades.
My teenage obsession on Napoleon Bonaparte is a case in point.
It all started with my banning from reading all books for a year (see previous words)
As soon as I started to read again I started to read with a savage avidity.
I started with all the books I could find in the house.
Neither of my parents were wide readers but both, in those pre- television days would always have a novel on the go.
The house was full of Nevil Shutes, Ian Flemings,and for my mother Georgette Heyers and , her personal favourites, the romantic Irish novels of Maurice Walsh.
I read my way through all these and many more.
I even read my way through the books my father kept underneath his clean shirts in his large mahogany chest of drawers.
I enjoyed then all equally, even the Heyers, these giving me a taste for historical novels which I still have.
I struck pay dirt though when I started to read a book by Annamarie Selinko, called Desireé.

Queen Desireé of Sweden

This was a novelisation of the truly fascinating Desireé Clary, a daughter of an old Irish family of silk merchants in Marseille.
She was one time flame of Napoleon, her sister Julie married his brother Joseph, she was to marry one of his generals; Bernadotte who, in turn was offered, and accepted the Swedish throne and so she became the mother of the modern royal family of Sweden.
Not bad for a descendant of the Clearys from Wexford!
Is it any wonder (I can feel my curiosity rising once more) that I decided I wanted to find out as much as I could about her, and not just her (there was very little information about Desireé that I could find) but about her old flame, his family and the entire shanigans of the Bonaparte family.
There was loads available about them.
I found a sympathetic librarian in Cork Library who was only delighted to order books about Napoleon for me. I got the titles from the simple expedient of looking up the books referenced in the books I was reading and ordering in the ones I thought I would find interesting.
This way I became quite knowledgeable about him and all his family, his rise, his reign as Emperor and his decline, defeat and exiles.

After about a year the interest died down but remained in there on the back boiler in my mind.
It was to resurface when I was sitting my finals for my BA in history in UCD about seven years later.
I was not an ideal student, in fact my student career would best be glossed over.
However in preparation for my History finals I decided to have I go through past papers and discovered that if I was lucky and careful I could answer all the European section on Napoleon and his wars.
I was lucky.
The right stuff came up and I got my degree in history based on the work I had put in in the library in Cork when I was 14.
Sometimes it’s great to have interests!

As I left the surgeon a few days ago I remembered that the chemist had told me that I needed an ordinance for the echarpe/sling from him. I explained and he looked confused for a moment and then his face cleared and he said Pour Le Napoleon? Oui! So there I had another (and excellent) word for the sling: un Napoleon but then, on the ordinance itself he wrote Une Epauliere so it seems that I now have un embarrasse of terms for the thing.