The multi-lingual workplace...

For the convenience of my British staff I have taken the intiative of posting signs in multiple languages to ensure that everyone understands my ruthless demands.  The first sign is written in American while the adjacent one contains its English translation.

Feeling culturally enriched?  I thought so.

Dead Poets shall entertain you while I drink and watch a DVD (I will not be watching Dead Poets Society)

Dead Poets: *

Every now and then I will post a poem written by someone who is dead.  I do this for two reasons:  1) Even though poetry is often nonsense, some of it is brilliant.  2) The dead are not likely to sue me for copyright infringement (and hopefully their publishers will view such posting as free advertising).

I may even post some lines and poems from living poets safely, knowing that no one is reading this right now anyway and legal actions are not likely to be on the horizon.

*Remember when I said this blog would be educational?

And the first poem of this possible series is:

‘The Seven Sorrows’ 

The first sorrow of autumn

Is the slow goodbye

Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-

A brown poppy head,

The stalk of a lily,

And still cannot go.

The second sorrow

Is the empty feet

Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.

The woodland of gold

Is folded in feathers

With its head in a bag.

And the third sorrow

Is the slow goodbye

Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers

The minutes of evening,

The golden and holy

Ground of the picture.

The fourth sorrow

Is the pond gone black

Ruined and sunken the city of water-

The beetle's palace,

The catacombs

Of the dragonfly.

And the fifth sorrow

Is the slow goodbye

Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.

One day it's gone.

It has only left litter-

Firewood, tentpoles.

And the sixth sorrow

Is the fox's sorrow

The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,

The hooves that pound

Till earth closes her ear

To the fox's prayer.

And the seventh sorrow

Is the slow goodbye

Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window

As the year packs up

Like a tatty fairground

That came for the children.

By Ted Hughes

London Walks

A tough pitch for fat American tourists, but you New Yorkers may enjoy them; I did.  Take a light walk where you will see beautiful architecture and learn some history.  Genuinely friendly guides will entertain you with random historical trivia (you may call them facts) and at a fairly cheap rate too.  If you are in London for a few days it is worth trying one of the tours and you may find it is the only two hours of your stay where you are not completely lost. 

http://www.walks.com/

020 7624 3978