The Last Word in Last Words

 

Last words.

Most of them litter History’s floor often bruised and buried beneath boots of victors. 

That is perhaps God’s gift to the soon to be departed. I imagine that when in the throes of dying, you do not do your best work. God understands that and spares you embarrassment.

Other last words are lost in the myriad of commonalities of surrounding words, particularly during war or natural disasters. For example, I am reminded of Napoleon’s Old Guard, his elite soldiers, when toward the end of the Battle of Waterloo and led by an ancestor of mine, they refused to surrender despite being the target of countless cannon surrounding them.  I can imagine the last words of those brave men as the canon ripped them apart: Oh merde!                       

 I don’t know what my last words will be. I want to think they will be something like “What are we doing tomorrow?” which would suggest that my death comes quickly and unheralded, in the company of someone I love, rather than suffering the slow degradation I deserve.

Some of the famous last words may or may not have been uttered by those to whom they are attributed. For example, who said “Et tu Brute”? Caesar or William Shakespeare?  

We can only imagine the last words of some others. It’s pure conjecture, but could they not have been for George Armstrong Custer at Little Big Horn: “Bloody hell! Where did they come from?”

My favourite actor is Jimmy Cagney. I don’t know what he said on his deathbed, but given the exasperation he had experienced during his life about what he did and didn’t say, he could be forgiven for saying, “Okay. For Fucksake!: You dirty rat. Satisfied?” You dirty rat was never said in any film in his lifetime.

We know the (almost) last words Oscar Wilde said on his deathbed in the Hôtel d'Alsace in Paris. Looking toward the grotesque wallpaper in his room, he turned to a companion and said, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death - one or the other of us has to go.”  It was Oscar who went, dying a few hours later; the wallpaper is still there.^⁠1

There are great last words everywhere. Let’s look at a few:

“Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? ‘French fries.'”— James French, convicted murderer (before his execution on an electric chair).

Similarly: “Bring me a bullet-proof vest.”— James W. Rodgers, convicted murderer (when asked if he had a last request before dying by firing squad).

“I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys… I think that’s the record.”— Dylan Thomas, poet.

“I should have never switched from scotch to martinis.”— Humphrey Bogart, actor.

“Gun’s not loaded… see?”— Johnny Ace, singer (while playing with a gun backstage during a concert).

“I’m bored with it all.”— Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister.

“This is no way to live.”— Groucho Marx, comedian.

“Turn me over — I’m done on this side.”— Lawrence of Rome, deacon (while being burned alive as punishment).

“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something important.”— Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary.

 “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”— General John Sedgwick during the American Civil War just before he was shot dead by a Confederate sniper:

Though not “last words” as such, it is typical of Spike Milligan that the epitaph written on his headstone is, “I told you I was ill.”

And the last word in last words for me was that of Joseph Henry Green: A surgeon, Green was checking his own pulse as he lay dying. His last word? 

“Stopped.”

¹ Incidentally, Oscar Wilde is buried within 500 metres of my aforementioned Waterloo ancestor, Marshal Ney. Ney’s final words were “Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you.” He was then ripped apart by a firing squad. Technically, therefore, his last word was “Fire!”

 

 

Absinthe without leave

As a collector and consumer of single-malt whiskeys I rarely turn my taste-buds to other drinks. I know what I prefer and I stick with it. But one drink, Absinthe, has always intrigued me. I first came across it when I read that it was the preferred drink of Oscar Wilde, of whom I have a life-long fascination. I have since learnt that Wilde shared that proclivity (as well as some others) with Zola, Hemmingway, Verlaine, Modigliani, van Gogh, Twain and, perhaps most infamously, Aleister Crowley.
Absinthe is purported to be a hallucinogen, though this effect may be more accurately attributed to the mind-blowing (literally) 70% alcohol by volume (ABV) that Absinthe can get up to; a single-malt by comparison is somewhere around 40—50%.  It is true though that it contains the chemical compound thujone which is considered both addictive and dangerous leading to Absinthe being banned in Europe and the United States for a time. The anise-flavoured spirit is however back on the market and can be bought in New Zealand, though not in Mataura where it is banned.
I have never tried it and perhaps never will. As I said at the outset I have my preferences, and my proclivities, unlike Wilde’s, don’t extend to experimenting.  But if you are tempted, one of the favourite ways to drink it is to place a sugar cube over a slotted spoon and pour water over the cube and into the Absinthe. The resulting liquid would be sweetened and turn cloudy. Be warned however: you do so at your own risk. Absinthe has been described thus:
“It (Absinthe) makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.”
Bit like Hamilton really.

Slàinte, sonas agus beartas

Oscar Wilde said of the United States and the United Kingdom that they had everything in common except language. He was right of course. In their land of excess, Americans have paradoxically opted for minimalism in language. They have dropped more letters than a disgruntled south Auckland postie on P. And rearranged more letters than a Mt Eden prostitute on a good night. Color=colour, flavor=flavour, meter=metre, etc. Which is why I find it surprising, musing on this over the Christmas break, that in one area dear to me Americans have elected to add a letter, the letter E to whisky. They spell it whiskey, which is the way the Irish spell it and that in itself may be an explanation, given the Irish influence in early America. There are almost as many American whiskies as there are Scotch whiskies (in the plural both countries employ the E) and the distinctions are many. In the interests of robust research I have sampled—and will continue to sample—as many as I can. Scotch is the form and firm favourite for me though. Helensville is the site of the only successful Scotch invasion since Braveheart and will, hopefully, last a lot longer. There is little more enjoyable to me than the big blustery, take-no-prisoner single-malts from Islay (pronounced Eye-Lah) and the favour of friends. With that in mind and glass in hand I raised a few drams to you this happy Hogmanay. Allow me to do so again with a Scottish greeting I like, plus, appropriately, a translation for all my Fryday friends: May the best ye hae ivver seen be the warst ye'll ivver see. May the moose ne'er lea' yer girnal wi a tear-drap in its ee. May ye aye keep hail an hertie till ye'r auld eneuch tae dee. May ye aye juist be sae happie as A wuss ye aye tae be. The above, in translation, reads: May the best you have ever seen be the worst you will ever see. May the mouse never leave your grain store with a tear drop in its eye. May you always stay hale and hearty until you are old enough to die. May you still be as happy as I always wish you to be. Slàinte, sonas agus beartas (Health, wealth and happiness) Fyday.

Ridge Line

I am not going to join those criticising and ridiculing The Ridges. I didn’t see the inaugural programme and have no intention of seeking out and seeing any in the series. I am simply not interested in a contrived insight into the self-perpetuating B-List celebrity ilk that ilkees and a largely slavering media are trying to foist upon us. I have seen bits of Keeping up with the Kardashians with the horribly disfigured Bruce Jenner and the KKK (note no African Americans) and that’s enough. This is not “reality” television, there is more reality in The Simpsons, this is Junk television and whilst I am no cultural snob, I have better things to do with my time. Or at least I thought I did until I realised what proportion of my evenings was spent on Facebook. Now, here again, I won’t join the critical mass. Facebook has its critics. I am not one of them; I see its uses and its benefits though I worry sometimes that it is now the preferred method of communication for many, supplanting the phone and even emails. It is also highly addictive and has all the intellectual majesty of Mitt Romney. Nevertheless it has presented me with some new “friends” and restored others and that is something no other medium could do. It has also, this week, informed me that Bob Dylan has a new studio album, The Tempest, and that it may be his best ever. I bought it. It is. Facebook tells me that all three of my sons are doing outstandingly well in their respective careers and there is an adhesive love within a geographically fractured family. Facebook delivers on the impossible, giving us Oscar Wilde’s opinion of Fifty Shades of Grey: “There is no such thing as a moral or immoral Book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” And such it is with Facebook. Facebook is not moral or immoral. It is what is: a service, to amuse and abuse. And if it is overly replete with teenagers making silly hand signals to the camera, and too many inspirational motifs, it is still a warmly embracive community and, like it or not, it is the modern reality. Whereas The Ridges…?