1 EAGLETON NOTES: Adelstrop and Esso Blue

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Wednesday 25 July 2012

Adelstrop and Esso Blue

Any sane person would wonder why I am suddenly departing from my usually mundane types of post to embrace a poem and an ancient advert for a product which I don't even think exists today: Esso Blue Paraffin Oil. 

The answer lies in the fact that I cannot get either out of my head and CJ and I are having to endure me wandering around quoting bits of poem and us both singing the Esso Blue song. It's driving me bananas.

I seem to forget my posts within no time at all. So if I post these it follows as a logical syllogism that I shall forget them in no time at all.



ADLESROP

Edward Thomas

Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

8 comments:

  1. Having a tune in your head that won't go away can be quite annoying... especially if it is one that you don't even like (as it happens to me sometimes)! That's just one more example of what an odd device we have there inside our skulls. We can't remember things we want to remember, but something we don't want to think of keeps coming back unbidden.

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    1. It's good to know that I am not alone Meike.

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  2. I know what that's like walking around with a tune stuck in your head all day...but it eventually goes, and you won't even remember it in a few weeks time...until then try not to go crazy...

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    1. But perhaps I am a little crazy already. As my Mum used to say 'All the world's a little queer 'kept thee and me. And even thee's a little queer.'

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    2. Your mum sounds like my mum.....

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  3. Oh dear, it's certainly a VERY catchy jingle. If you have ever been to Walt Disney World (which doesn't sound like what I imagine as your sort of place) you would not thank me for mentioning "It's A Small World" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqTyBBit7NI (This is the French version - just a tiny bit better than American. If you can bear watching the whole clip you will find the song never leaves you ever again.

    Adelstrop is a wonderful poem. Absolutely catches the feeling of clacking slowly to a halt in a deserted little station. I wouldn't mind having it running through my mind. Unlike "It's a Small World".

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    1. I baled out half way through. I'd have topped myself if that had become indelibly imprinted on my little grey cells. I'll stick with the Esso Doo Blealer I think!

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  4. Aughhh! Jenny, don't mention that song! Riding around on the train with the kids at DisneyWorld Paris... All the little dollies singing it... it is our family's bane!

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