Bombard a drab mob
Mar. 7th, 2012 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyI am still walking along the beach every morning. It's now dark when I start out, which is something of a damper. There have been race horses at the end of the beach ever since I started; some are tied to a row boat and made to swim while others are just walked through the shallows. This last week, they've also been on the beach itself, ridden by jockeys with flashing lights on their hats. That's a good look. I wonder if there is some sort of regulation where they have to stay out of the way during summer, but come 1 March, they can have the whole beach?
Anyway, this morning it was still black when I got there, and the horses were galloping up and down the length of the beach. I decided I didn't want to be trampled, so I walked along the walkway instead, past the surf club where there was a boot camp group running up and down the stairs. The walkway runs alongside the beach, twisting along a path hacked through the scrub, which is still on either side, dense and dark and taller than a person for long stretches. There were a few other people around, but I felt isolated and vulnerable, which I never have on the open beach. So today I am thinking that over the cooler months I will walk on the beach on weekends and days off, when I can go later after the horses are finished; work mornings, I will stick to the streets. That means an extra fifteen minutes in bed, since I won't have to drive to the beach and back. So that will be nice.
A question from the trivia quiz in this week's medical newspaper:
Who won a gold medal in the 1912 Olympics for his poem, Ode to Sport?
I said Ezra Pound, not because I thought it was right, but just to have a stab. No-one else tried. The answer? Pierre de Coubertin
As in, the chap who started it all? Right. It turns out he submitted the poem anonymously, under two noms de plume, in both French and German. Here is the original; here (pdf) is an English translation. I mean: The meaning of all muscular effort can be summed up in the word 'dare', what? I say: either (a) they saw through his cunning use of pseudonyms and gave it to him because they knew who he was, or (b) the other poems were even worse. What do you think?
Anyway, this morning it was still black when I got there, and the horses were galloping up and down the length of the beach. I decided I didn't want to be trampled, so I walked along the walkway instead, past the surf club where there was a boot camp group running up and down the stairs. The walkway runs alongside the beach, twisting along a path hacked through the scrub, which is still on either side, dense and dark and taller than a person for long stretches. There were a few other people around, but I felt isolated and vulnerable, which I never have on the open beach. So today I am thinking that over the cooler months I will walk on the beach on weekends and days off, when I can go later after the horses are finished; work mornings, I will stick to the streets. That means an extra fifteen minutes in bed, since I won't have to drive to the beach and back. So that will be nice.
A question from the trivia quiz in this week's medical newspaper:
Who won a gold medal in the 1912 Olympics for his poem, Ode to Sport?
I said Ezra Pound, not because I thought it was right, but just to have a stab. No-one else tried. The answer? Pierre de Coubertin
As in, the chap who started it all? Right. It turns out he submitted the poem anonymously, under two noms de plume, in both French and German. Here is the original; here (pdf) is an English translation. I mean: The meaning of all muscular effort can be summed up in the word 'dare', what? I say: either (a) they saw through his cunning use of pseudonyms and gave it to him because they knew who he was, or (b) the other poems were even worse. What do you think?