The Last Samurai

I turned again to Iliad 6 and in two minutes Baby Driver was back. He said he was going to colour in the names of people because he could read them & he was not finding very many words to colour. I said that was a very good idea & he went away & I turned my attention to Hector & Andromache & he was back again. He said θεος looked like θεν and could he count it because he was not finding many words to colour.

I was not looking forward to simplifying and explaining even the simplest points of grammar to a 4-year-old & I can’t say I am looking forward to going through it all again now but I said I would so I

HEKkaiHEXeKONtapus HEPtakaiHEXeKONtapus OKTOkaiHEXeKONtapus

will.

I am finding it rather hard to concentrate however so may salve conscience by just touching on highlights like Sound of Music cutting from Doe A Deer to seven-part harmony or heptaphony as some people (naming no names) would probably call it.

I said Yes you can and I said Do you remember what θεν meant and he said Of gods, I said Right, well θεος means to gods or by gods & do you remember what ρων and νδρν meant & he said Of heroes and of men & I said But there’s no separate word meaning ‘of’, is there, it’s all in the word so there must be a bit of the word that means ‘of’ & what do you think that would be & I don’t know about you but I am about ready for The hills are alive (A-a-a-ah).

heptakaihebdomekontapus

[Ah. Forget it]

Another day on the Circle Line, house too cold to stay in. An icy rain sweeps the city, underground it is warm and dry.

LIVERPOOL STREET ALDGATE TOWER HILL MONUMENT

Far too young

CANNON STREET MANSION HOUSE BLACKFRIARS

Etymology so helpful

TEMPLE EMBANKMENT WESTMINSTER and around and around

At St. James’s Park a woman gets on and sees the tiny head bent over a book, pudgy fingers dragging a blue Schwan Stabilo highlighter across the page. Twinkling eyes share the joke, she longs for adult bonding. He looks up & gives her an enchanting smile, all chubby cheeks and sparkling black eyes & tiny milk teeth. He says: I’ve almost finished Book 15!

She says: I SEE you have! You must have been working very hard.

Another Shirley Temple special for the nice lady. L: I only started it yesterday!

Isn’t He Adorable: Did you REALLY?

Adorable: Today I read this and this and this and this and yesterday I did this and this and this and this and this and this! [tiny fingers flip back through pages covered with fluorescent pink and orange and blue and green]

Isn’t: Isn’t that wonderful!

Wonderful: I’ve read the Iliad and De Amicitia and three stories in Kalilah wa Dimnah & one Arabian Night and Moses & the Bullrushes and Joseph and his Manycoloured Coat and now I have to read the Odyssey and Metamorphoses 1–8 and the whole Kalilah wa Dimnah and 30 Arabian Nights and I Samuel and the Book of Jonah and learn the cantellation, and do 10 chapters in Algebra Made Easy.

Slightly Taken Aback: Why do you have to do that?

All Innocence: Sibylla says I have to.

Appalled: Isn’t he rather young etymology so helpful of course for spelling inflected language so helpful of course for grammar not taught in schools but classics after all part & parcel of old divisive educational system wouldn’t he really be better off playing football I think you are making a terrible mistake.

Standard reply.

SLOANE SQUARE SOUTH KENSINGTON

Four hours have gone by. We have taken the Circle Line around four times. We have been to the toilet twice; L has hopped the length of the platform at Mansion House on one foot and back on the other foot; we have left the train each time at Tower Hill to make faces at the video camera & watch ourselves making faces in the banks of TVs. Or rather—you see yourself in one TV. In the others you do not appear—they show sometimes an empty platform, sometimes a platform with a few people, sometimes a platform with a train pulling around a bend. I think these are images from cameras further down the platform, but they look like glimpses into possible worlds, worlds where the sun rises and the trains run without you. There are pushchairs to be pushed but not by you, bad memories to be dodged but not by you.

2

99, 98, 97, 96

12 December, 1992

My name is Ludo. I am 5 years and 267 days old. It is 99 days to my sixth birthday. Sibylla gave me this book today to write in because she said I should practise writing because my handwriting is atrocious, and they will not let me write on a computer all the time at school. I said I didn’t know what to write and Sibylla said I could write about things I liked so that in later years I would be able to see what I liked as a child. Also I could write about interesting things that happened so that in later years I would be able to remember things that had happened.