#2

This piece came to mind during a cold, windy walk up a very steep hill in Gladstone Park, NW10. It was a couple of weeks ago when we were relieved to find that we still got a bit of cold weather in this country, and even dogs begged their owners for an overcoat, though perhaps not the ones they got. Roll on global warming, I thought, and why did I forget my scarf?


NECKROPHILIA

The neck has been neglected. Hearts and minds, limbs, organs and viscera all have their place in the sun, but the neck only features in the most grisly of circumstances: hanging, beheading and strangling. And yet it is a vital conduit, sheathing a number of tubes which carry food to the body (and occasionally back again), the blood supply to the head and brain, breath, and all the commands from HQ, and all the sensations we experience, travel this route. Not to mention allowing the head to traverse 180 degrees, and to nod agreement or discord. Yet with all this vital payload, it remains one of the most vulnerable parts of the body, only having protection at the rear, from the spine.

I came to appreciate the neck through the scarf. Late in life and long after most of the Northern Hemisphere, I discovered that the application of a scarf to the neck produced a totally disproportionate increase in warmth and comfort in the whole body, apparently. Not being a Creationist I tend to look for answers in evolution rather than any deity’s Grand Design.

Perhaps it evolved as a thermometer? It is like the face in that it is the only constantly exposed flesh through every season (when unscarved) which assesses the temperature immediately, and guides our conduct: that would explain why it is not covered in hair like the head. It quickly initiates an assessment of the ambient temperature: it is cold, I will put on scarf and wear down jacket not a t-shirt. (The exception to this is Geordie football fans who remove their shirts in Mid-February, regarding driving sleet and snow as an essential tribal cleansing ritual.) So, because it can influence our behaviour it becomes not just a thermometer, more like a thermostat. Dead clever the body, innit?

So the neck starts to assume a greater prominence, something much more important than just an M1 from body to head and back. And when we add in the presence of the thyroid gland whose ubiquitous influence can kill you if it goes awry, we begin to see the neck as more like an SSSI: Site of Special Scientific Interest. But in stead of celebrating the neck, our idioms are ambivalent or negative: brass neck, neck and neck, roughneck, pain in the neck – only necking gets a good press, but even that patronises teenagers, in a way, and seems to have fallen into disuse.

The Neck should be a prized icon, not a mere soft motorway. Neckrophilia should be cultivated, not despised. So, bring on the sharks! (Sorry, ignore that, I sometimes get iconography and oceanography a bit mixed up).

BRUVVAFROMANUVVAMUVVA

Private Eye used to run a regular feature called Separated at Birth: two (usually celebrity) people, who looked somewhat similar were featured side-by-side, usually with their names reversed. Maybe they still do. I am reviving this in a kind of hommage to the mother and father of contemporary British satire, without which we would probably still have Sir Alec Douglas Home as PM leading a Tory government approaching its 55th anniversary of taking office. Credit where it's due.

David Hockney

Alan Bennett

OK , so maybe it's just the
Yorkshire accent and the glasses. So what?

If you can think of other good candidates please write their names in the Comments section and I'll feature them.
No fee.







CUNNING LINGUISTICS:  a sideways glance at etymology

I don't know if this happens to you, but every so often I write or speak a word which doesn't feel right or as though it's not part of the English language. They may be perfectly commonplace, but for some reason the spelling seems wrong, or they don't sound right because they are outdated and have largely passed out of use.  I give you the example of 'pullover'. Not too hard to sort out the etymology, but it is weird because you don't call an overcoat a 'button-up' or a mitten a 'fingers-in-sock'. Sweater is a good alternative, but how often does it actually make you do that? Woolly is OK, but doesn't distinguish it from Woolly hat, tights or onesie. Jumper is perhaps the most common synonym, but where does that come from? Please don't tell me it comes from 'woolly jumper' a.k.a. sheep, because coy cuteness makes my toes curl.


ARTCHIVE



In the 60s Peter Blake produced this iconic image; you would encounter it time and again in student flats not only because it was a very compelling image, but also because, being screen-printed on aluminium, it was impervious to cigarette or dope smoke, splashed alcohol or projectile vomit, the raison d'etre of student parties in this era. I still like it despite those associations. Wipe-down art was a welcome development, but it never stuck.





QUOTE/UNQUOTE


"It's deja vu all over again".....Yogi Berra, legendary US baseball catcher and coach

"Bigamy is having one wife too many; monogamy is the same"    Oscar Wilde


IMAGINE

FIRST CLASS POST