An arrogant and depraved body of (wo)men…
“Blather is here.”
“As we advance to make our bow, you will look in vain for signs of servility or for any evidence of a desire to please. We are an arrogant and depraved body of men. We are as proud as bantams and as vain as peacocks.”
“Blather doesn’t care.” A sardonic laugh escapes us as we bow, cruel and cynical hounds that we are. It is a terrible laugh, the laugh of lost men. Do you get the smell of porter?’
– from the original Blather, issue 1, published in 1934 by Brian O’Nolan a.k.a. Flann O’Brien a.k.a. Myles na gCopaleen.
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More on the original Blather »
Related: Veritable Streaming Bloody Cunts of Information »
Blather doesn’t care (slight return) as Jimi Hendrix would say…
Then later today…
Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
Thursday, December 11, 2003:
Ancient Javanese coins wash up in London
Archaeologists in London have found a bundle of 17th century coins from Java buried in mud on the banks of the River Thames.
The 90 copper alloy coins are pierced with hexagonal holes and inscribed in Arabic with the words ‘Lord King of Bantam‘. Bantam, also spelled Bantan, was an important trading post in the East Indies in an age when the British and Dutch were competing for monopoly of the valuable spice trade.
How the coins got to London remains a mystery.
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Which lead Barry to point out this Blake quote on the front page of our other site…
“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God” – William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
hellshaw.com »
holy god – do you have a copy of the original?
No, *sobs* alas. I must go see if they have any in the National Library.
maybe cathrach books – Myles’s bother bought a 1st edition An Beal Bocht from under my nose in there once. I haggled with him in the shop, explaining all the cool bookbinding niceties i was going to do with it but no! the selfish hoor took it for himself. Begads, you’d swear he was related or something
That was in there for ages. I’d be more after something I’ve not read tho. Can’t remember where I pulled that quote from, whether it was a biography or what.
It might have been from “Myles Before Myles”, which reprints content from “Blather”. I have this book and would have lent it to you.
I have Myles Before Myles, couldn’t remember which book that the Blather stuff was in…
thanks
Unless it prefaced one of The Cruiskeen Lawn anthologies.
Anyone read Dead as Doornails by Anthony Cronin – got the distionct impression Cronin never really got over his jealouy of O’Brien, Behan et al.
Yeah, Cronin makes himself sound like an also-ran, bitter about his lack of success. Didn’t entirely enjoy that book.