Rowan Piggott - Blog

The Parting Glass

Mon, 18 May 2020 19:51:45 GMT

My new trio, The Wilderness Yet, recorded this in lockdown for a friend's Facebook group. I was lucky enough to originally learn this from the Voice Squad and you can purchase a PDF of my three-part harmony arrangement using the PayPal button below. (£4)

The Path of the Gods – Il Sentiero degli Dei

Fri, 16 Feb 2018 20:01:52 GMT

We clamber through the rocky brush
And suck the pith of lemons,
To hear the bells of mountain goats;
The music of the heavens.
As dusk glows slowly on the sea
And shines a beacon yonder
Apollo races us to bed –
We've many miles to wander,
Passing thyme and rosemary
The dandelion and crocus
Turn their heads in worship high
His chariot their focus.
A wrinkled goatherd homewards plods,
With not a thought for flowers
Or the many paths of Gods
That we have tramped for hours...

Composed in my weird mind as we trekked along this magnificent path above the Amalfi Coast (Italy)...

Thomond Bridge

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 19:40:31 GMT

Here's a lovely hornpipe I just transcribed for a student. You can listen to this tune and The Earl of Thomond on my Soundcloud!

Vallåt efter Frisell, Mockfjärd

Mon, 23 Jan 2017 17:11:08 GMT

A vallåt (literally "valley tune") was often used to call the cows down from the mountain. This is a particularly beautiful example – you can listen to it here played by Pelle Jakobsson. Below is a transcription... You can find another vallåt in my book of Swedish Fiddle Tunes! :)

Femtifemti

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 17:56:24 GMT

Just transcribed this awesome polska by Anna Lindblad... You can listen to it here on Soundcloud!

The Humours of Lissadell

Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:51:20 GMT

I'd forgotten about this tune... I transcribed it from a recording of the lovely Oisín Mac Diarmada.

Jenny Ran Away In The Mud In The Night

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 17:42:08 GMT

Source: Marcus Martin (1881-1974)

I've been experimenting with different cross-tuning. Here's a tune I wrote out in AEAE... Please do not attempt to play it on a fiddle tuned GDAE – it'll sound awful after the first line!

The title is a mondegreen of the first line of the lyrics:

Jenny ran away in the middle of the night,
Jenny ran away in the moonshine bright;
Jenny ran away, combing up her hair,
Jenny ran away with the jockey to the fair.

Ducks On The Millpond

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 12:44:56 GMT

I've recently got back into old-time fiddling, so will be posting transcriptions of the tunes that I've been learning here. One of my favourite old-time players is the fantastic Rayna Gellert – I learnt this tune from her album The Ways of the World. There are also fantastic videos on her site where she plays her favourite tunes at slower speeds so you can copy her bowing...

The Hop Down Reel

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 15:11:50 GMT

Here's a transcription of Kevin Burke playing the Hop Down Reel in A mixolydian. There's a video of him below (the tune in question starts at 0:56)

Tennessee Breakdown Sheet Music (Fiddle Tune)

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:53:28 GMT

A friend posted this tune on my Facebook and I liked it enough to write it down.

Tune – Sugar in the Gourd

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:43:43 GMT

Below you'll find a transcription of a fiddle tune called Sugar in the Gourd. You'll also find a video of Ben Paley (whose version I transcribed) playing it with Tab Hunter - both phenomenal.

Appalachian Tune – Yew Piney Mountain

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:40:43 GMT

Below you'll find a transcription of an Appalachian fiddle tune called Yew Piney Mountain. You'll also find a video of Ben Paley (whose version I transcribed) playing it at the Lewes Folk Club.

Ars Memoriae: Memory Palaces, Brain Attics & Sherlock Holmes

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:41:21 GMT

Today, we are guilty. Western society is rapidly losing the ability to remember. The reasons are many but our loss of such an important faculty is mainly due to the accessibility of information - everything you could possibly ever want to retain is available at swipe of a smartphone. But that's not true is it? You still have to remember your appointments, your shopping list, perhaps names of people you have just met at a dinner party... Your smartphone may even serve you there with calendar alerts, notes and quick-searches of Facebook. In which case, your memory may be so useless that, if you don't write yourself a reminder, you're guaranteed to forget to pick up the kids.

The art of memory is a lost one, and one in dire need of a revival. Secret societies like KL7 (oops - just gave that one away!) treat it as a sub rosa skill of which they are the protectors. In truth, we all have the potential (a ~10TB human brain – apologies if you don't!) to remember vast quantities of information. All we need is a bit of practice - methods to make accurate memory a habit... and luckily there are a veritable plethora of them! Usually associated with training in logic and rhetoric, mnemotechnics have been around since the first millennium BCE, with early texts by authors such as Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian. However, the one text from which we have gleaned the most is Rhetorica ad Herrenium (here credited to Cicero though of unknown authorship) – the first record of the "loci method", or architectural mnemonic. This technique relies on our inherently strong visual and spatial memory (see theory of natural selection for reasons why we didn't need to remember phone numbers but most definitely needed to remember locations of food, resources, shelter and a route home) and even boasts its own creation myth which is worth recounting here in brief. Supposedly, the poet Simonides of Ceos was the sole survivor when a dining-hall collapsed sometime in the fifth century BCE. He was asked to record who was buried beneath the rubble and when he closed his eyes to reconstruct the crumbled building in his imagination, he had an extraordinary realisation: he could remember exactly where each of the guests at the tragic meal had been sitting. Even though he had made no conscious effort to memorise the layout of the room, it had nonetheless impressed itself on his mind. Simonides recognised that if, instead of guests sitting about a banquet table, every great Greek dramatist had been seated in order of birth — he would have remembered them instead. He proposed that just about anything could be imprinted upon our minds, and kept in good order, simply by constructing a building in the imagination and filling it with imagery of what needed to be recalled. This imagined edifice could then be walked through at any time in the future and its contents would act as triggers.
The concept has cropped up time and time again in popular culture, from such varied sources as Hannibal to Sherlock Holmes, and has been known by several different names; whether memory palace, mind attic et cetera...

The Method of Loci may use an aedificium as described above, or may be a well-known route that you walk to your local station, supermarket or, god(s) forbid, church. Whatever space you use, you'll need to reinforce your memory of it by visualising it whenever you get the chance. You also need "pegs" or distinguishing features of that locus and, of course, a ton of data you want to memorise - whether that be the poems of Walter de la Mare, the capitols of every country in the world or indeed your Chopin Liszt. It is time to firstly find an order for these items (this is vital - if it's a phone number it's obvious!), and then relate them to your pegs using strong visual links. For more detailed instruction see the texts linked above or read up on the methods utilised by memory "champions". I employed quotation marks there not because I lack respect for such dedicated practitioners but because I didn't want to give the impression that they were in any way special – anyone can improve their memory with a little effort!

I would recommend having a sprawling "palace" for those memories you want to remember permanently, with many wings, corridors and rooms to categorise different subjects (so you may have a poetry wing with a room for each poem) and a short sojourn around your house or somewhere you know very well to act as your slate to remember things in a more temporary fashion (with bizarre images of your groceries doing unspeakable things in the kitchen). Personally, I have opted for the British Museum for the former as I am familiar with it but don't go as often as I used to so my images are not in danger of being scrambled. This can also act as a visualisation of one's mind at work and I particularly enjoy the open 'reading room' as my mapping of conscious thought. It enables meditation at a moment's notice and indeed, such spatial techniques are used by those seeking to focus their minds in this way.

As a last word, I would like to recommend another book, namely Mastermind by psychologist Maria Konnikova. It is a very informative read and will enlighten you to the great number of experiments that go on involving memory skills and those parts of the brain that contribute most significantly spatial learning: the medial parietal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and the right posterior hippocampus. Also, as is to be expected there are several practical step-by-step guides on Lifehacker for anyone who's interested.

Monty Python: Philosopher's Song Sheet Music

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:21:49 GMT

Here we go! A free download of a transcription of the chords, melody and lyrics of Monty Python's Bruces' Philosopher Song! I had a look online and there was none so I wrote it out... Sorry about the clumsy anacruses and look out for the cheeky chromatic basslines in the chorus bit! Also, sorry if the key isn't the original, the YouTube video I transcribed it from wasn't in any key (it had been slowed or sped up - probably to avoid the evil people who patrol copyright thangs).

The Philosopher's Boozy Song

Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:19:32 GMT

Throw It Away – Abbey Lincoln

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:23:38 GMT

Celebrating the fact that I've just acquired a double bass, here's a song by Abbey Lincoln:

The Architect's Argot

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:13:54 GMT

A not-so-recent read of a magnificently illustrated vade mecum on the topic of architecture inspires this entry. Matthew Rice’s primer on the subject was a monumental eye-opener for me to the wealth of technical jargon afforded buildings around the world and I feel I should share a brief digest and perhaps a little of the content.

The first chapter is titled “Grammar” and as this suggests Mr Rice takes us through the basic elements and unspoken rules beginning with the five Roman orders of Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite, each of which consist of a particular column (complete with specific capital and foot) and entablature (comprising of a cornice, frieze and architrave). He then goes on to complicate things further by adding three rogue Greek variations on the Doric, Ionian and Corinthian and progressing to the naming of parts; rolling off the labels of smaller constituents such as the apophyge, torus, fillet and scotia. Details of proportion and intercolumniation are identified ranging from pycnostyle to areostyle and terse words are given on pilasters, voussoirs, tympana, volutes and vitruvian scrolls. Here, one may imagine a horrifically dull publication amounting only to a lexicon of useless descriptors, but I haven’t yet reached the best part; the illustrations. They are so much more than mere visual aids - Matthew Rice is a true artist. This archiophile’s bible must contain thousands of original paintings all presented in a beautifully chronological order. Which brings us to chapter two.

This 152-page instalment entitled “Vocabulary” chaperones us through the Medieval, Late Medieval, Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Georgian, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian and Modern trends in architecture with more of the same intricately labelled prints cataloguing the tendencies and variations of every architectural facet under the sun. Following sections include examples, source of materials through the ages, lists of famous architects and the ruling monarchs of each era. As much as I would love to spill the entire contents of this superb miscellany all over the surface public domain, I fear I shan’t do it any justice and you should just go out to your nearest bookshop and buy a copy.

Edit: Having just read the “Thanks” page at the very back of the book (something one never normally does due to the fact the very aura of the page is overly-intimate in nature and has no meaning to anyone except the author or those contributors concerned), I am pleased to reveal that Matthew is married to Emma Bridgewater (y’know! The spotty designer for John Lewis!?) Just thought you should know... Nobody else will.

Thanks to: my parents, all past english teachers, the Apple corporation, Matthew Rice and the Bloomsbury Publishing group without whom this web-log would never have been written.

The Good Book(s)

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:10:34 GMT

It may have occurred to you by now that I have developed an acute interest in the language we use, which is to say I have become (as put so deprecatingly by Alan Bennett) one of those who “claim to have a love of lit-rich-cha, or speak of the lure of language, and their love of wuurds.” I thought that in today’s post I would present a critique of three of the most inspiring books that deal with various offshoots of the english language. I will tell you before I begin that all of these volumes are “★★★★★” and so these reviews are more of an order issued rather than an issue ordered - that is to say they are my most recommended of reads. Go away and do it (imperative!) - it’ll be worth your while/weight in gold (well... if taken literally that one’s a little more subjective as it depends how much gold you acquire the books/ebooks for set against your current body mass index or something like that...)

The Ode Less Travelled - Stephen Fry
No-one teaches poetry better than Mr Fry in this most accomplished, amusing and unabridged guide to the lost arts of rhyme, metre and form. I can guarantee you that anything you learnt at school concerning verse is a mere slither of knowledge compared to this fantastic wealth of information. It is as though when taking their PGCEs, all 21st English teachers were sworn to silence - forbidden to mention any other metre than the overused and well-advertised iambic pentameter (thanks Bill). How were we to know of trochees, spondees or pyrrhic feet? Well, Stephen has leapt to the rescue and sculpted this unrivalled companion with which to journey into the treacherous waters of Milton or Auden.

The Language Instinct - Steven Pinker
A biologist, cognitive scientist, and linguist, our author is one of the most innovative writers in the arena of language. His theories on how we first learn to communicate and the way the brain processes our conversation are enthralling. Even if, in 50 years time when humankind has discovered much more about the way in which our brains function, some of Dr Pinker’s arguments are refuted or his ideas belittled, this will stand as a pioneering linguistic enchiridion. Utterly engaging and concise it presents some of the most original concepts in its field.

The Etymologicon - Mark Forsyth
The author, fellow blogger and “inky fool”, has always had an obsession with etymology and this book offers a major ramble (in the best sense of the term) detailing the most interesting and astonishing origins of hundreds of words. His style and fluidity in the subject makes this a thrilling read that you just can’t absorb fast enough - you’ll want to endlessly revise each ‘chapter’ so as to remember the genesis of each and every term mentioned. Truly addictive and massively enriching.

Tenor Madness Sonny Rollins' Solo

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:01:56 GMT

A transcription of Sonny Rollins' solo in Tenor Madness. Does what it says on the tin.

Typographic Map of UK

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:22:58 GMT

Because I have too much free time...

The Speakers (by Rowan de la Mare)

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:50:52 GMT

I'm sure that everyone has read "The Listeners" by Walter de la Mare (if you haven't, click here) and I'm sure that you, like me, have always loved it. Have you noticed though how we never find out anything about the traveller? Where is he? What's he doing? Why did he have to "keep his word"? Well... I wrote this tongue-in-cheek sequel to give you none of the answers...

“It isn’t bloody fair!” said the Traveller,
Walking on the moonlit moor; 
His voice was hoarse, his hair was greasy  
And his feet were bloomin’ sore. 
And a bird flew down out of the sky, 
Above the Traveller's head: 
And he yelled at the fowl and threw a stone;
“Would you bugger off!” he said. 
But the bird followed the Traveller;
It really wouldn’t leave him alone,
It just flapped along and twittered 
No matter how many rocks were thrown. 
“What do you want?!” he said, at last,
Flopping down on the boggy peat, 
And wasn’t he surprised when the bird hopped up 
And said in an awkward tweet; 
“I was that bird the other day 
That flew up above your head, 
You know… when you were knocking on that tower door…
I heard every word you said.”
“Oh brilliant!” said the Traveller, 
“A bloody talking bird!” 
And up he got and squelched away
Without another word. 
The bird caught up and spoke  in its annoying little trill,
“If I were you I’d have worn a coat, 
You’re sure to catch a chill.”
The Traveller traipsed on  In his exasperated state, 
Not looking at the bird, 
Waiting for his anger to abate. 
“I thought you had a horse,”
It said, unable to take a hint. 
“I did,” muttered the Traveller, 
Glaring up with a hostile squint, 
“But when I left that bloody tower,
The stupid ruddy colt, 
Got scared of nothing, threw me off, 
Like a damned catapult!
And now I’m lost in a marshy fen 
With a nocturnal talking bird, 
And the situation seems to me
To be a tad absurd.”
“Well, I would have helped you,
If you’d been more polite, 
But I’m nocturnal for a reason, 
And now I’ll bid you goodnight!”
“No! Wait!” yelled the Traveller,
And then, thereupon,
The silence surged softly backward, 
And the flutter of wings was gone. 
The Traveller regretted
Being nasty to the bird, 
As he stood knee-deep in marshwater, 
His cries quite unheard. 
The phantoms had followed him
Into the morass,
They echoed his words 
And swarmed him en masse. 
The Traveller spun around, 
And the noiselessness he heard 
Sent shivers down his spine,
He was suitably deterred  
That the Listeners were now sure
That he never would go back,
To that turret in the forest 
Down that muddy little track.
They’d taught him his lesson; 
That it wasn’t any good 
To yell at leafy sills,
In the middle of a wood.

The Dodo's Tale

Wed, 14 Jan 1998 17:17:43 GMT

The house was quiet as despair. Leaving the lightswitches untouched, Childe Dodgson poured himself a scotch in the dark and peered up through his front window towards an unsatisfactory moon which was perched atop the building opposite. His mind grasped at any distraction to be had. Squinting, he unfocused his eyes until it morphed into a more romantically rotund halo of silver. He tried to keep his mind on the beauty of this contrived scene before the pale goddess could regain her subtle flaws.

Finally, he broke his gaze to look down into his empty glass, and made his way clumsily up the stairs (his limbs groping about in the unlit well like a labour of moles) to his room where he collapsed on his bed, still trying to barricade his senses from her lashing waves. He tired after several minutes and the dam burst, flooding his mind with a muddle of memories and fantasies. Her gossamer hair falling in the sun, playful laughs in an Oxford meadow... Plucking a weathered book from the shelf, he flicked a clasp with his thumbnail and pulled from its hollowed innards a sheaf of photographs. His gaze roamed the glossy prints, taking in her glowing form, admiring the diaphanous dresses which hung loosely from her petite frame. Leafing slowly, he came upon a pale pure snapshot he had taken many years ago and, though he felt his body leap to attention, he moved quickly on, looking for that image which was already emblazoned onto his retina; the image that haunted his Cartesian theatre, projecting itself unexpectedly onto the tapestry of his mind at any mention of her.
Alice is gathered in his arms, her lips slightly parted as she seeks his affection, her hand caressing his collar. She breathes gently and her sweet exhalations make him shiver. He grasps her slender waist, but casts his eyes downward as if to shield them from her beauty. He suddenly realises how fleeting this moment is, and how everything must end. The thought reaches his face and the camera clicks.
The sorrow that had sat idly for years – that had grown obese and threatened to overburden his already heavy heart – had begun here in the very moment this photograph had been taken. Now it plagued him. It was no longer a mere worry, but a ruthless reality which threatened to consume him. So it was that Mr. Charles Dodgson did what he always did when desolation struck. He began to write...

[/\

Miss Alice Liddell whirled across the stage, playing a caricature of her former self. She skipped and let slip a three-note giggle before engaging in a long soliloquy on the absurdity of imaginary numbers. Though very much a woman now, she had the entire audience riveted and convinced of her childish age. Dodgson sat in the auditorium, outwardly pulling taut an engaged smile at what he hoped were the right moments, but inwardly fighting his own ghastly Jabberwocky. He told himself that the surges of pride, threatening to make waterfalls of his eyes, were for the play – an adaptation of his own chef-d’œuvre – and that the anger and frustration, betrayed by the white knuckles of his clenched fists, had been brought on by the scriptwriter’s insolence and insensitivity in the handling of his precious story. Glancing down at the programme he spotted the culprit’s name – Pat Marvin – and made a mental note to seek him out later. How anyone had managed to twist such a tale to allude to the suffragettes, whilst amputating all his carefully constructed mathematical fancies, was utterly beyond him.
Of course, he wouldn’t really seek out Marvin – mainly because he couldn’t care less about this amateur production. The pride he was feeling was for Alice Liddell, the star of the show, and the one person he thought he still knew. So great was the anger and frustration which now overwhelmed him that he thought he might get up and leave. It was too hot. He tugged at his collar and tried to shrug off his tweed jacket, but the punter on the bench beside him gave no room to manoeuvre. It struck him that the actress who now pranced about on stage was no longer the sweet and thoughtful girl he had once adored – still adored – which made her character all the more cruel.
Miss Liddell was being hoisted aloft by two other members of the cast who were visibly melting under the fresnels and Dodgson began to feel sick as the room began to swim. He tried to focus his vision elsewhere, but their hands on her bare thighs drew his eyes like moths to a flame. The theatre was sweating; he was burning inside and out, and he feverishly surmised that he might have tumbled headlong into Hades. The inferno was upon him, and his eternal punishment was to watch as she drifted further from him, spiraling down the rabbit hole.
He was glad when it was finally over. The house lights came up and the audience erupted into applause as he struggled towards the bar. There, he would exchange necessary (if irritating) pleasantries with a few past acquaintances he had spotted and keep his dark thoughts at bay with a schooner of some dreadful spirit. At least, that was the plan...

[/\

A distant bell tolled midnight as Dodgson made his way slowly up the hill towards his house. Most of the street lamps were broken and the moon was far from gibbous, casting its lacklustre glow weakly towards a dark world. He tapped his umbrella on the tarmac as he walked and leaned on it heavily from time to time for seemingly no reason at all. The umbrella had been useless, as had the tweed jacket which he carried now under one arm; it had been the hottest day of the year. Tap, tap, ta-tap, tap, ta-tap, tap, ta-tap. A pattern emerged and rang out along the muffled street, and Dodgson began to hum a tune which wasn’t to be composed for another fifty years.
He contemplated the meaning of his life, the supposed existence of his God, the Stygian afterlife he might expect… then became bored. How did any of this matter when she did not care for him? How could one ponder the great mysteries of existence with half of their fragile identity missing? Perhaps a part of his being was forever lost, preserved only in his written reflections from all those years ago. She had grown so fast; eat me. He smiled bitterly to himself and realised he had stopped walking. Tap, ta-tap, tap, ta-tap; he clicked half a league onward, muttering Tennyson under his breath in a vain venture at diversion. The dactylic rhythm lulled him into a madman’s respite, and for the first time all evening he felt safe from himself. The valley of death could wait. A sigh escaped his lips as he swung open the gate to his humble abode and resigned himself to living.

[/\

He stood, drink in one hand, umbrella in the other, trying to look nonchalant and suave all at once. He waited to congratulate his starlet (not his) on her performance. After several minutes of awkward glances at her fellow troupers and muttered congratulations which sounded lame even to his ears, Alice appeared. She waltzed by as if he were not there, but took the drink he proffered as if he were one of the theatre’s many ushers.
Dodgson stood at the edge of the room, shrinking with embarrassment as he tried not to be noticed; drink me! He downed the foul firewater that clung to the belly of his glass and left it on a windowsill. Waiting was a game he was well-acquainted with, though he didn’t much care for it; he preferred a game of riddles any day. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before one of the young thespians at the bar took an interest in the odd tweed-trussed fellow who leant upon his umbrella like a cane and, having graciously donated another dram of liquor to The Dodgson Maudlin Charity upon discovering his nom de plume, was demanding to know the answer to a nonsensical conundrum which had survived the adaptation.
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”, the Transfigured Hatter asked. He thought he knew the answer. Is it perhaps that they both have inky quills? No? Maybe that some macabre American wrote on both? Oh, what a pity… He was out of guesses, though clearly more chuffed with his own attempts at a solution than interested in the Creator’s. Dodgson recalled Alice’s tireless interrogation upon hearing it for the first time; she too had missed the allusion, thinking there to be an answer. Finally, her eyelashes had coaxed one (improvisation) from his lips.
“A raven is like a writing desk, my dear, because it may bring forth a few notes (though they are very flat) and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front.” This latter half had puzzled her for long enough – though his clever nymph twigged at once when it was written down. She thought it silly though and soon had erased it from her memory.
That was a talent of hers. Young Alice relished control, not recognising her complete lack of it, and strove constantly to “be herself” – as if their were other options! So much did she rein in her identity, she might almost be thought incurious. Curiouser and curiouser grew he; Dodgson was dangerously curious. Nothing could blunt the edge on a curiosity like his, and it glinted now, his eyes like daggers dripping with his own hamartia. He had to know her. He had to know love.

[/\

He stepped closer to the edge, floating across the yellow line towards the void. His body felt light and flimsy as he listened to the train gliding along the track. It would be so easy… It was only the guilt inspired by a glance at the driver that stopped him. Through the murky windscreen the weathered old face grew and grew (eat me!) as the locomotive slid alongside the platform, evoking a haunting melancholy in Dodgson, almost as though the ghoulish operator had known his thoughts in moments previous. Two doors soundlessly slid apart in an alarming fashion and he stepped aboard.
In fact, everything around Dodgson was utterly alien to him, but he seemed to take no notice, examining a brightly coloured plan of the train’s stops and working out the quickest route home, away from all this – away from her. He walked a way down the carriage and sat down opposite a pretty businesswoman in a slate-grey suit. His eyes wandered vacantly over her face and the pulp paperback she held in her delicate hands before she looked up and he was forced to avert his gaze.
The eerie sound of train on track and the low hum of the engine combined to produce a sinister minor third which niggled into Dodgson’s psyche as he journeyed onwards in the dark. He noticed only when the train slowed and the rumble dropped, creating a tritone which raised hairs on his neck and turned his knees to gooseflesh. Checking his watch to cover his shivers, he realised he wouldn’t be home for a long while and hopelessness overwhelmed him. Suddenly caught up in a net of lassitude, he was left slumped in the arms of Morpheus to be carried through the night by the otherworldly vehicle.

[/\

He rounded the corner and was sick into a gutter. Late-night revellers looked at him with a mixture of disgust and pity as he sat down against a wall to collect his bearings. He was glad that she could not see him now – that she was out of sight. Couples sat on the opposite side of the street, nuzzling each other’s necks and preening each other’s hair. Ornamented soprano giggles rose over dull baritone murmurs, and for an instant Dodgson made out their song. He listened for a while, trying to think of nothing. Finding that a more difficult subject than he had supposed it might be, he stood and walked unsurely towards the end of the road. She was quite an actress and he supposed she always had been. He silently gave thanks that the moving picture business wouldn’t take off until the next century, as he reckoned if it had he would only ever see her in two dimensions (and he rather admired her third). That might not be such a bad thing, but Dodgson was broken, stuck going around and around trying to impress a faded memory of Alice. A memory which was incandescent with disaster. He knew nothing could change now. He looked about for a bridge to hurl himself from. He saw the station. He made for it with a new swiftness and surety. This time – this time he would do it.

Dodgson died of pneumonia (or heartbreak) on the 14th of January, 1898.