Nanette Newman

            On Wednesday morning I almost had all the chords worked out for “Sparadrap" (Plaster Wrap) by Serge Gainsbourg. There were just a few instrumental parts to understand. 

            It was so hot in the apartment with the heat blasting that I did song practice in my bare feet. 

            At 11:00 I logged on for my British Literature tutorial. 

            Alexandra reminded of us that we have the option of filling out the form to get a week’s extension on our second assignment. I plan on trying to meet the deadline but might fill out the form just in case. 

            I asked if Aemilia Lanyer is in love with the countess. The metaphor of intercepting the kiss that the countess gave to the tree seems pretty erotic. At least one other student read it that way as well. Alexandra said she didn’t know about this case but that some erotic metaphors are about something more than sex. 

            We discussed Lanyer’s “Defence of Women” and how she changes the accepted interpretation of Biblical history. 

            I said that she effectively uses textual evidence from the Bible to argue that Eve was not to blame for sharing the fruit with Adam. Alexandra asked if we think Lanyer is addressing women. 

            I think she is more interested in women but I don’t think she would resent men being swayed by her argument. 

            The rhymes of “Defence of Eve” are more complex because it’s a more complicated argument. I said I found her rhymes for “Description of Cooke-Ham” very tedious. 

            She mentioned an earlier French poem called City of Ladies. I told her that Fellini’s City of Women is based on it. She said she hadn’t known that and hadn’t seen the movie. I told her it’s a great film. 

            We did a close reading of John Donne’s “A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day”. I thought Lucy was a person he was in bed with. I got a lot of stuff wrong about this poem. 

            Enjambment is when a fragment of an idea from a previous line continues on the next. In this case Alexandra said it was in the first two lines: “T’is the year’s midnight, and it is the days, / Lucy’s …” She said it’s not a very good example though. 

            When he says, “Study me then” he is using imperative. A command. 

            “Love did express a quintessence from nothingness …” and he uses other words to say the same thing for the rest of the stanza. Repetitions of abstraction. 

            For lunch I had saltines with five year old cheddar and for dessert a toasted chocolate chip waffle with yogourt and honey.

            Around that time my wifi went off. I took a ninety minute siesta and when I got up the internet was still down and Shankara’s network wasn't even showing up on the list on my PC. My phone however was connected and so I tethered for half an hour or so until the network appeared again on my computer. 

            I answered the weekly tutorial question for Canadian Literature. This one was on the topic of David Chariandy’s Brother: 

            When Michael rejects the idea that his mother’s erratic behaviour is the result of "complicated grief" he is showing symptoms himself of another stage of grief known as denial. Aisha’s suggestion of a type of social therapy to help Ruth to remember is exactly what she needs and this is proven with the get together of talking, reminiscing and listening to music that Aisha organizes. It is only when Michael breaks up the party and tries to force his mother back into withdrawal that she becomes further stressed (96). Michael only begins to realize this after he himself has relived the experience of his brother’s death (159) and funeral (163). He then begins to accept that his own grief has been attempting to contain his mother’s grief inside of a co-dependent time capsule of his own refusal to move forward. It is then that he returns to thinking of his mothers complicated grief, this time without containing the phrase in sceptical quotation marks(175). Once he has worked things through and arrived at acceptance he allows Aisha and Jelly and the music and memories that they bring, back into their lives to help both himself and his mother to heal (177). 

            I re-read the parts of The Fairy Queen that feature sexual deception and then I made a couple of pages of stream of consciousness notes on the topic. 

            I made pizza on the last two slices of the round loaf of fruit and nut bread. Since these were the smallest slices I figured two wouldn’t be too much but they were more than substantial. I had the pizza with a beer while watching Interpol Calling. 

            This story is called “White Blackmail” but that’s only because it takes place at a ski resort. The resort, run by Ingrid Hoffman is a front for a blackmail ring. Attractive women are hired to flirt with wealthy men until they can be photographed in compromising positions and then blackmailed. Interpol learns of two suicides at the same Swiss resort and so Duval decides to investigate by posing as a wealthy guest. He takes the identity of the Count De Ranier because the real count hasn’t been in Switzerland for years. A pretty young woman named Hannah attaches herself to Duval, pretending to hurt her ankle while skiing in order to draw him closer. A young man named Fawley stays at the hotel more to flirt with women than to ski but he also knows that the Count de Ranier is a former champion skier and while Duval is not bad he isn’t anywhere near an expert. After secretly observing Duval sneaking downstairs one night to look through the hotel register, Fawley assumes he is a criminal and reports him to Ingrid. Ingrid realizes that Duval must be a cop and she tells Hannah to leave as soon as possible. But while Hannah is packing Ingrid comes and kills her with her own gun, then she puts the gun in Hannah’s hand to make it look like a suicide. But Duval doesn’t buy the suicide angle since suicides rarely pack their bags before killing themselves and also he finds footprints in the snow on Hannah’s balcony that don’t match her shoes. Duval discovers that every room has a music box with a hidden camera that is activated when the box is opened. He develops the photos from Hannah’s room and finds that when Ingrid shot Hannah she hadn’t noticed that when she fell she knocked over and opened the music box, causing the camera to take a picture of Ingrid standing with a gun. 

            Ingrid was played by Mary Morris, who had a long and distinguished career as an actor in all the mediums. She co-starred in “Pimpernel Smith” and “Undercover.” She played Professor Madeleine Dawnay on the two Andromeda TV series. She played Queen Margaret in “An Age of Kings” and Cleopatra in “The Spread of the Eagle”. She played the shaman Panna in a 1980s Doctor Who episode.

            Hannah was played by Nanette Newman. Early in her career she was sent to work on a film by director Bryan Forbes but when she got there it had already been shot. Forbes offered to drive her home and they ended up getting married for the next more than fifty years. She starred or co-starred in nine of his films, including The Raging Moon, Deadfall and International Velvet. She is famous for a series of Fairy Liquid dish detergent commercials in the UK. She was a regular panellist on the BBC version of What’s My Line? She has written thirty children’s books and nine cookbooks.