Yep,it's an actual news item, David.
Lemsip may now be printed with :'Warning- may cause poetry'.
Kind regards,
grasshopper
----- Original Message -----
From: "D.C Bursey" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 4:43 AM
Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion
> Grasshopper this may be very true, depressing, but true.
> david
>
>
> grasshopper wrote:
>
> > from the BBC:
> >
> > Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has admitted to using chemical stimulation
to
> > help him write poetry - a daily cup of cold remedy Lemsip, according to
> > reports.
> > The poet told the Daily Telegraph he had no idea how it helped -
although it
> > gave him the sensation of having "a mild illness".
> > "It works. I've been doing it for years and it's become habitual," he
said.
> > "Years and years ago, I read in a biography of AE Housman that he wrote
most
> > of A Shropshire Lad while he had a cold.
> > "And I thought, yes, I know about that - that sort of slightly
introverted
> > self-pitying mood that a mild illness can give."
> > "It is absolutely conducive to poems," he added.
> > Motion said that Lemsip, which contains a decongestant and well as
traces of
> > caffeine and paracetamol, allowed him to "fool myself into feeling a bit
> > ill".
> > The poet, who was born in London and educated at Oxford University,
> > published his first collection of poetry in 1977.
> >
> > He is an admirer of Philip Larkin, whom he has called "possibly the
finest
> > expository lyrical poet".
> > Motion won a Whitbread Award for his biography of the poet.
> > In 1995, he succeeded Malcolm Bradbury as professor of creative writing
at
> > the University of East Anglia and in 1998 he was appointed Poet
Laureate.
> > A number of 19th-Century poets, including Thomas de Quincey, Samuel
Taylor
> > Coleridge and Edgar Allen Poe, were known to use stronger substances to
> > encourage their creativity.
> > "It's my Lemsip-inspired trance, and I can only say thank heavens it's
not
> > laudanum or absinthe," said Motion.
> > A spokesman for Lemsip manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser reassured users:
"It
> > is fair to say that it doesn't cause poetry in most people."
>
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