“Sonia Lannaman sleeps with the fishes tonight”
– Whiteness Thy Name Is Meltonian
So… what do we know about Sonia Lannaman?
The A to Z of HMHB
The A to Z of HMHB
“Sonia Lannaman sleeps with the fishes tonight”
– Whiteness Thy Name Is Meltonian
So… what do we know about Sonia Lannaman?
this leaden paul
Does not actually sleep with fishes. Would have been more famous had she been competing with better ‘medical assistance’; ‘born at the wrong time’, to quote Kathy Cook.
2 December 2016
dr desperate
While we’re on the subject of sleeping with the fishes (well we are now) the ‘Sicilian message’ may have been quoting from Homer’s Iliad, in Book 21 of which Achilles kills Lykaon, son of Priam, and throws him in a river. Achilles taunts him as he dies: “Make your bed with the fishes now.”
Herman Melville uses the same image in ‘Moby-Dick’, having second mate Stubb muse: “When Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.”
2 December 2016
EXXO
Other way round for me; these are cases of genius poets picking up on fairly universal metaphors and making them their own, but the sayings were surely there first from the earliest times of littoral civilisations.
Lannaman’s son (nippy Gillingham left back Bradley Garmston) has inherited his parents’ pace (both sprinters) but seems to get injured a lot considering his pedigree (dad head Olympic physio and that)
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/bradley-garmston-of-west-bromwich-albion-celebrates-his-goal-that-picture-id525819666
Lannaman was electric and I think we can be sure she’d have won major golds but for ye olde SSD (which I vaguely remember used to stand for ‘state sponsored doping’ before Sly Sponsored Doping came along, allegedly).
2 December 2016
eXXO
Where is everybody?
I just did metaphorical/littoral thing that i was quite pleased with and nobody noticed.
It’s like I said to Paul Parsfan at the Wakefield gig: I post the right amount of stuff, it’s everybody else that doesn’t.
2 December 2016
spt
I got her autograph at an athletics meet in Loughborough in the late 70s/early 80s. Doesn’t seem to have a road named after her in the estate off Wandsworth Road that is excellently made up of black UK athletes. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/London+Borough+of+Wandsworth/@51.4676774,-0.1474752,19.25z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x48760589ff8fea83:0x37252c9ca56f68d2!8m2!3d51.4570716!4d-0.1817824
4 December 2016
dr desperate
Can’t speak for everybody, @Exxo, but I’ve been in Swindon for the weekend, visiting my daughter. Good pun, for shore.
4 December 2016