Lines you wish you’d written, by Elizabeth Kay
When I started my MA in creative writing, I was asked who I
wanted to write like. I was immediately indignant – I didn’t want to write like
anyone else, I wanted to write like me. Then the question was rephrased – if you
wanted to write like a piece of music, what would you choose? There were a
number of different responses from the rest of the group. Smoky basement jazz,
a clarinet maybe, or a trombone or a saxophone. Someone else wanted a piece by Corelli,
there was Ravel’s Bolero and Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. I chose Danse
Macabre, by Saint Saens, long before it was popularised by Jonathan Creek. This
quickly established me as someone who went for something a bit different, due
to the necessity to retune the E string on the violin to E flat, which gives
the whole piece its unique flavour. So the lines I wish I’d written are always
a bit off-beat, and I am still in awe of the lateral thinking that creates
them.
First of all, somewhat bizarrely, I would like to offer this line on a T-shirt I bought my husband which, when posted on the WhatsApp group from our birdwatching holiday in The Gambia resulted in a request for the link. Most of the men in the group were of a similar age…
The most
evocative line a I recall was from Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. It’s when he’s
presenting the evidence of his trip to South America, and produces a hamper
which contains a live young pterodactyl. It escapes, obviously, but when the
hamper was opened… an insidious odour pervaded the room.
When at a
loose end for something to watch, especially in the hot weather when you don’t
want to go outside and there’s not much else to do other that eat ice cream and
sit in front of a fan, a film or a favourite TV series can come up with the
goods. Happy Valley is just so well-written that the humour can sit comfortably
with the violence because nothing its gratuitous. Catherine Cawood (Sarah
Lancashire) gets all the best lines. When treated like an idiot by two wet-behind-the-ears
detectives that don’t expect her to be capable of contributing anything she
lets them hang themselves for a bit, and then gives all the background
information they were unable to establish. Then she walks off and says over her
shoulder, “I’ll leave it with yer then.” And when asked why a woman is
repairing her Land Rover she tells them that the person concerned used to be a
farmer before she spent 8 years in prison. “What for?” asks someone. “Oh,
murder. She killed her son with a shotgun.” We, of course, know the background.
It was a mercy killing, when she discovered her son was a serial killer. He was
mentally retarded, the butt of every bully in the area, and she knew he wouldn’t
cope with prison at all. But the reaction of the person who asked the question is
absolutely priceless.
Another
favourite, which is timeless, is Yes Prime Minister. Everything changes,
but the Civil Service changes not.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Prime Minister, I
must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to a newly
instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the
ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and which will, in all probability,
should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a
constriction of the channels of communication, and culminate in a condition of
organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis which will render
effectively impossible the coherent and co-ordinated discharge of the function
of government within Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland.
Jim Hacker: You mean you've lost your key?
And then, of
course, there’s The Life of Brian. This is a bit longer, part of a whole
scene, but it still cracks me up. Brian is writing graffiti, not composing a
formal Latin text, but oh what fun with a centurion’s pedantic obsession with
correct grammar.
Centurion. What’s this then? Romanes
eunt domus? ‘People called Romanes they go the house’?
Brian. It -- it says ’Romans go home!’
Centurion. No it doesn’t. What’s Latin for ‘Roman’? Come on, come
on!
Brian. Ahh! Romanus?
Centurion. Goes like?
Brian. annus?
Centurion. Vocative plural of annus is ...?
Brian. anni?
Centurion. Ro ... ma ... ni. eunt? What is eunt?
Brian. ‘Go’!
Centurion. Conjugate the verb ‘to go’.
Brian. Uh, ire. Uhh, eo, is, it, imus, itis,
eunt.
Centurion. So eunt is ...
Brian. Uh, uh, third person plural, present indicative! ‘They go’.
Centurion. But ‘Romans go home’ is an order, so you must use the
...
Brian. Aaaaahh, the imperative!
The scene culminates in Brian being forced to write the
corrected phrase "Romani ite domum" a hundred times as punishment.
“He was going to live forever, or
die in the attempt.” - Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
And maybe the most famous speech
of all, from Monty Python (feel free to disagree)
“This parrot is no more! It has
ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot!
It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the
perch, it would be pushing up the daisies! It’s run down the curtain and joined
the choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!”
And as I don't have many pictures I can use to illustrate the rest of this post, due to copyright issues, here are some parrots I have met on my travels...
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