..This time it was trees. We lived in an avenue lined with towering trees that over-hung each house. In strong winds you could see them sway as if to break and crash down on us. I climbed one tree to test the strength of the wood and was not surprised to find that although it looked sound from the ground the tree was rotten and the wood broke easily.
T Blair passed by to inform us that there was absolutely no chance that any of these trees presented a danger to anyone. I told him that his assessment was flawed and contrary to empirical evidence. I also told him that he was a "git", which was woundingly satisfying!
Worse was to follow. It was New Year's Eve [it is] and H and I had a mighty row [has been known] about whether or not I had finished my cider [which mercifully I never drink in company].
Firm resolution at this point to keep very relaxed and properly sober this evening, as you never know when one of these bloody trees might come crashing down.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
1 + 70
BBC news tonight reports that about - and an approximation is all one ever knows - seventy Shias have died in Iraq today as the result of Sunni attack.
Perhaps these murderous car bombs would have exploded in any case, though it is rational to assume that they were made ready for the day that Saddam Hussein would die.
One dies and now so do seventy more. Call that peace on earth? No.
There is one name will be remembered and quoted in all the history books, but there are seventy unnamed others - men and husbands, women and wives, children too God forbid - who perished today who otherwise would have greeted the dawn of tomorrow. Each single one precious before God and man.
Did not Christ say that not a sparrow falls without God the Father's care and concern? These are seventy human lives wiped away. Never mind where Saddam Hussein is to be buried, I would have a memorial to each of these nameless seventy placed on the White House lawn.
I want someone to be arrested for reading out their names in Whitehall. Give me their names and I will do it.
Perhaps these murderous car bombs would have exploded in any case, though it is rational to assume that they were made ready for the day that Saddam Hussein would die.
One dies and now so do seventy more. Call that peace on earth? No.
There is one name will be remembered and quoted in all the history books, but there are seventy unnamed others - men and husbands, women and wives, children too God forbid - who perished today who otherwise would have greeted the dawn of tomorrow. Each single one precious before God and man.
Did not Christ say that not a sparrow falls without God the Father's care and concern? These are seventy human lives wiped away. Never mind where Saddam Hussein is to be buried, I would have a memorial to each of these nameless seventy placed on the White House lawn.
I want someone to be arrested for reading out their names in Whitehall. Give me their names and I will do it.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Death Dreams..
At the moment Saddam Hussein was dying I, newly retired to bed, was dreaming of another death sentence - my own.
On a trip to Ireland I had, my dream told me, failed to pay a parking ticket for which, I learned from a letter on my arrival home, the due penalty of the law was death. Even in the wild logic of dreams this seemed a tad harsh, but one's law-abiding self could only accept that this was proper and inescapable legal process, howsoever unpleasant the consequences in person.
The day of my execution dawning I noticed in the hall appointed for the matter three other people lined up for judgement. This judgement was the final of some reality television programme and - as ever with these things - the audience vote was the crucial decider. The compere duly with much exaggerated pomp announced who had won - or in this case most definitely lost - a mild looking man in the middle. He was called upon to be hanged at once and what struck the dreaming observer as most odd, was that the other two were required to remain and watch.
Someone then passed by to let me know that I would not - as this fellow - be hanged, but crushed between two huge blocks of stone, squashed flat indeed, reduced to but atomic thickness. It was this cruel method, rather than the fate itself, against which I immediately rebelled. Suddenly flight was not just an option it was an imperative. I would not be crushed alive. I would escape to the only possible place of refuge - back to Ireland!
Not, you might reasonably argue, the most obvious choice of sanctuary - to the one country that might reasonably be most interested in tracking one down. The border though was but a step or two through the woods and so off I shot.
Ireland as ever was wonderful, quite magical indeed in the dream: hotels full of dancing chambermaids, streets lined to cheer a Royal visit from Prince William, and a lake lying on the slope of a hill without over-spilling. One sensed one had to move fast to keep ahead of the invisible chasers bent on arrest in the name of a terrible law. But that hardly mattered as life that moment was such fun.
Awaking, the news comes through that Saddam Hussein has been hanged. He and his Maker have had then their meeting, and that is between the two of them.
Iraq, I and the rest of the world must now live with the consequences.
On a trip to Ireland I had, my dream told me, failed to pay a parking ticket for which, I learned from a letter on my arrival home, the due penalty of the law was death. Even in the wild logic of dreams this seemed a tad harsh, but one's law-abiding self could only accept that this was proper and inescapable legal process, howsoever unpleasant the consequences in person.
The day of my execution dawning I noticed in the hall appointed for the matter three other people lined up for judgement. This judgement was the final of some reality television programme and - as ever with these things - the audience vote was the crucial decider. The compere duly with much exaggerated pomp announced who had won - or in this case most definitely lost - a mild looking man in the middle. He was called upon to be hanged at once and what struck the dreaming observer as most odd, was that the other two were required to remain and watch.
Someone then passed by to let me know that I would not - as this fellow - be hanged, but crushed between two huge blocks of stone, squashed flat indeed, reduced to but atomic thickness. It was this cruel method, rather than the fate itself, against which I immediately rebelled. Suddenly flight was not just an option it was an imperative. I would not be crushed alive. I would escape to the only possible place of refuge - back to Ireland!
Not, you might reasonably argue, the most obvious choice of sanctuary - to the one country that might reasonably be most interested in tracking one down. The border though was but a step or two through the woods and so off I shot.
Ireland as ever was wonderful, quite magical indeed in the dream: hotels full of dancing chambermaids, streets lined to cheer a Royal visit from Prince William, and a lake lying on the slope of a hill without over-spilling. One sensed one had to move fast to keep ahead of the invisible chasers bent on arrest in the name of a terrible law. But that hardly mattered as life that moment was such fun.
Awaking, the news comes through that Saddam Hussein has been hanged. He and his Maker have had then their meeting, and that is between the two of them.
Iraq, I and the rest of the world must now live with the consequences.
Death of a Dictator...
Within a matter of days if not hours Saddam Hussein will meet his maker. For his soul, as for any other, I will pray that God can show him the mercy he never showed to his own people. (There is one good Catholic I know who every November asks the monks of Q to pray for the soul of Adolf Hitler. I thank him for that because I doubt I could do that which my faith teaches me I should.)
Do I wish though to see Saddam Hussein executed by hanging? Despite not being opposed to capital punishment, I fear his death is wrong in principle and dangerous in practice. There is clear evidence that he did not receive a fair and full trial and that matters despite his obviously over-whelming guilt as a man who brought death to many innocents. If Iraq is to have a future - and God knows that is far from assured - then true justice must be a foundation stone.
But setting aside all principle - which I know I shouldn't - my concern now is the impact and effect of his death on the people of Iraq. Is it likely that one more person will die as a result of this execution? Most certainly and very possibly hundreds if not more. The Sunnis will have their martyr and the Shias will not hold back in retaliation for more slaughter of their people.
Maybe the country is too far gone in the misery of schism and hatred for Saddam Hussein's death to make much difference. One can only hope for that, but what hope is that? That things are so bad they cannot get any worse?
What have we done and what are we doing? Kyrie eleison - Lord have mercy - on us all.
Do I wish though to see Saddam Hussein executed by hanging? Despite not being opposed to capital punishment, I fear his death is wrong in principle and dangerous in practice. There is clear evidence that he did not receive a fair and full trial and that matters despite his obviously over-whelming guilt as a man who brought death to many innocents. If Iraq is to have a future - and God knows that is far from assured - then true justice must be a foundation stone.
But setting aside all principle - which I know I shouldn't - my concern now is the impact and effect of his death on the people of Iraq. Is it likely that one more person will die as a result of this execution? Most certainly and very possibly hundreds if not more. The Sunnis will have their martyr and the Shias will not hold back in retaliation for more slaughter of their people.
Maybe the country is too far gone in the misery of schism and hatred for Saddam Hussein's death to make much difference. One can only hope for that, but what hope is that? That things are so bad they cannot get any worse?
What have we done and what are we doing? Kyrie eleison - Lord have mercy - on us all.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Boycott Bangs the Gong...
Seems that Geoffrey Boycott and I are of one mind regarding the perfidious role that T. Blair has played in the downfall of English cricket.
GB's line - among other reprobations for failure to bat, bowl or field with sufficient skill and fire, not to mention terrible selection decisions and woeful lack of pre-Test practice in Oz - is that the Lads, having been formally honoured with gongs after the last winning series simply sat back and thought they must be great 'cos T. Blair had said they were.
Sound man that Boycott fellow. I knew I was instinctively right!
GB's line - among other reprobations for failure to bat, bowl or field with sufficient skill and fire, not to mention terrible selection decisions and woeful lack of pre-Test practice in Oz - is that the Lads, having been formally honoured with gongs after the last winning series simply sat back and thought they must be great 'cos T. Blair had said they were.
Sound man that Boycott fellow. I knew I was instinctively right!
The Full Monty...
Glorious news reaches us - enough almost to dispel the gloom of our defeat on the field of play - Monty Panesar has just been awarded the much coveted 'Beard of the Year' award for 2006, beating such luminaries to the title as Fidel Castro, Bill Bryson and [oh horror!] George Galloway.
A worthy, nay heroic, winner our 'full Monty'. The prize is, it seems, in the gift of the self-styled 'Beard Liberation Front', a wheeze established by a disaffected Socialist in protest at the New Labour dictat that henceforth all party members must smarten up for the Meejah and whisk off the whiskers, as it were.
Now in general - and in particular - I am not a beard person, despite having sported the occasional and transient winter-warmer. My line on the matter of beards as a fashion and facial accessory was best given by the late, great Father G of Q, who on being asked if he had ever had a beard, replied after due consideration of the matter and a checking of the memory banks "Yes, but never for more than a day or two."
Monty of course wears his as a facet of his religion and is therefore exempt from the general sanction. In fact, would it not be helpful to the team effort as a whole if Capt'n Freddie et al. showed their utter distaste of and disdain for everything that New Labour stands for by growing a beard?
Indeed I see now why it is same T. Blair's fault that we have lost the cricket - I knew it would come to me - had he not insisted that the country go clean shaven, then eleven bearded W G Graces would have bestrode the Colossus of Oz, bringing home both the bacon and the Ashes.
A worthy, nay heroic, winner our 'full Monty'. The prize is, it seems, in the gift of the self-styled 'Beard Liberation Front', a wheeze established by a disaffected Socialist in protest at the New Labour dictat that henceforth all party members must smarten up for the Meejah and whisk off the whiskers, as it were.
Now in general - and in particular - I am not a beard person, despite having sported the occasional and transient winter-warmer. My line on the matter of beards as a fashion and facial accessory was best given by the late, great Father G of Q, who on being asked if he had ever had a beard, replied after due consideration of the matter and a checking of the memory banks "Yes, but never for more than a day or two."
Monty of course wears his as a facet of his religion and is therefore exempt from the general sanction. In fact, would it not be helpful to the team effort as a whole if Capt'n Freddie et al. showed their utter distaste of and disdain for everything that New Labour stands for by growing a beard?
Indeed I see now why it is same T. Blair's fault that we have lost the cricket - I knew it would come to me - had he not insisted that the country go clean shaven, then eleven bearded W G Graces would have bestrode the Colossus of Oz, bringing home both the bacon and the Ashes.
Did I Miss Something?
A solid start to the second innings: thoughtful defensive play where necessary, with the loose ball given the proper aggressive thwack. One could never be sure, of course, but having stayed with England long enough to steer them past the immediate post-prandial reefs and rocks it seemed safe to hove to, unfurl the hammock and leave them to it.
But Holy Flipper - not to mention Slider, Zooter and Wrong 'Un - what has the morning brought? An innings and 99 run defeat that is what one has woken to! Four nil down and the England team lining up to have the bucket of whitewash chucked all over 'em!
I blame Tony Blair naturally. He is, after all, the Shelob at the heart of the web of dissolution, degeneration and delinquency that haunts this country. Quite though the link between his miserable self and our abject defeat Down Under is something as yet with which I struggle. It will come to me I am sure of that.
Thank God for the well-named Barmy Army for whom a pre-match picnic is not complete without a drenching by hailstones, who will belt 'Jerusalem' all the louder as the sun sets on our team and who will positively burst with patriotic fervour when darkness falls finally in Sydney. Makes you proud to be English!
But Holy Flipper - not to mention Slider, Zooter and Wrong 'Un - what has the morning brought? An innings and 99 run defeat that is what one has woken to! Four nil down and the England team lining up to have the bucket of whitewash chucked all over 'em!
I blame Tony Blair naturally. He is, after all, the Shelob at the heart of the web of dissolution, degeneration and delinquency that haunts this country. Quite though the link between his miserable self and our abject defeat Down Under is something as yet with which I struggle. It will come to me I am sure of that.
Thank God for the well-named Barmy Army for whom a pre-match picnic is not complete without a drenching by hailstones, who will belt 'Jerusalem' all the louder as the sun sets on our team and who will positively burst with patriotic fervour when darkness falls finally in Sydney. Makes you proud to be English!
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Sleep Perchance to Dream...
The worst of the Fourth Test is that it starts at an hour when it is impossible not to begin to watch. 11.30 p.m. should not be anyone's bedtime and has not been mine for many a year. Thus one is caught up in at least the morning's play, though come half past one o'clock and luncheon is taken down under, the time comes when cheery English souls retire to bed relishing the prospect of a complete Australian batting collapse.
The night though is restless, filled with startling dreams of crashing, rushing trees beating a mighty path across the land, sweeping (not to mention fine-cutting and cover-driving) all before them. Not specifically willow trees, but the symbolism remains valid.
One wakes unrested to be greeted by headlines mourning England's woe. But surely one cries that must be wrong, that's what happened the first not the second day.
Sad to relate though the dreams were but a portent of the reality: mighty clubbing by Hayden and Symonds has gained Australia a terrible lead in this match.
Dare one sleep again before the Series is finally done with? What Jungian symbol would signify 'whitewash'? Too many obvious images spring at once to one's wearied, troubled mind!
The night though is restless, filled with startling dreams of crashing, rushing trees beating a mighty path across the land, sweeping (not to mention fine-cutting and cover-driving) all before them. Not specifically willow trees, but the symbolism remains valid.
One wakes unrested to be greeted by headlines mourning England's woe. But surely one cries that must be wrong, that's what happened the first not the second day.
Sad to relate though the dreams were but a portent of the reality: mighty clubbing by Hayden and Symonds has gained Australia a terrible lead in this match.
Dare one sleep again before the Series is finally done with? What Jungian symbol would signify 'whitewash'? Too many obvious images spring at once to one's wearied, troubled mind!
Good News About Ellie..
I learn tonight from Ellie May's family [see 'The Worst' previously] that her PCT has admitted their original decision to withdraw their OT support for her had been 'a mistake' and that all services will be resumed.
Too bloody true it was a mistake and it would be nice to think that someone, somewhere ripped out the guts and garters of whatever fool first made that 'mistake.'
Just been watching 'Shawshanks Redemption' - like you do - so it's good to find real confirmation that there can be hope!
Too bloody true it was a mistake and it would be nice to think that someone, somewhere ripped out the guts and garters of whatever fool first made that 'mistake.'
Just been watching 'Shawshanks Redemption' - like you do - so it's good to find real confirmation that there can be hope!
Monday, December 25, 2006
Dressed for the Occasion...
Church jankers over one can turn to the main matter of the day, what to wear for Christmas luncheon; which in our house is taken late in the Day owing to the need to attend to the horse both ack and pip emma.
Family communion passed off rather well this year I have to say. M and M sat together singing appropriately lustily. Quite a decent tenor is M; and Maurice is not bad either, though inclined like most untrained male voices to pitch flat. Choir itself was in exceptionally good nick this year and their Agnus Dei quite sent shivers up and down the spine.
Didn't help that the roving microphone packed up in mid Eucharistic prayer, but one merely barked the words not intoned them as preferred, and justice and mercy rained down from the heavens as they should at such sacred moments. The thurifer was suffering from a dose of PBSD [Post Bishop Stress Disorder] with barely an added snuff-pinch full of incense, which was a shame as I rather like a cumulus cloud effect hanging over the altar.
The heating of course played up - though not as usual by refusing to play ball. This year we were treated to great waves of near suffocating warmth flooding from under the gratings. The in-the-know wise ones who had clamoured to get seats above the gratings in the hope of sucking in all the heat, found they were having to shed clothing throughout proceedings to avoid hyperthermia.
Colonel X was not having a good time of it either. Glancing over I spotted him fuming and glowering in best regimental style. Couldn't see what was distressing him, until I noticed that seated immediately behind was a family of chatterers. Colonel X - and I am with him on this - does not much care for chattering in Church at the best of times. For him - and for I - the conversation of a Mass should be with God and not one's neighbours. And as the choir were giving it large I could fully appreciate his not wanting to miss their finest notes because of a murmured haze of chat from the rear.
Oddly enough, although I would far from wish to be generally seen in the same corner as the Colonel - whose views on scoundrels, vagabonds and vagrants of any class, type and nationality are completely predictable - he and I do share certain liturgical dispositions, the above being one.
In addition to that, we are both of a single mind that the Kiss of Peace should have remained a symbolic verbal exchange between priest and congregation, and not become this wretched modern habit - nay compulsion - to grab near and far by the hand giving it a mightily shake and them a volley of goodwill accompanied by a beatific smile. (If you've never been hit amidshps by a fair sized nun wishing to embrace you in her love of the Lord yet in the manner of a decent rugby centre half determined to make a try-saving tackle, then I can only say you have been spared.)
I have proposed on occasions that - as with restaurants who wish to provide sanctuary for the non-smoking among its clientele - any Church should be divided and signed according to 'Shaking' or 'Non-shaking.' Any who wish positively to salivate their love for all human kind would be reserved in the former; whilst the latter would be a refuge for those who prefer not to intimidated in such a distressing and disturbing manner.
The other matter concerns the whole language of the liturgy. Colonel X may not have exactly said that 'if Latin were good enough for Jesus Christ, then it's good enough for him', but that is his essential sentiment and it it also one I most heartily share. I always like to keep half an ear open for him harrumphing the Proper of the Mass in the linqua sacra and wish I could join him, instead of being forced to utter such inanities as "...who died in the hope of rising again", as if somehow to imply that had the deceased not aspired to rising again, then by and large they would not have chosen to die in the first place. ("He went to Norwich in the hope of finding his tailor at home." No hope of tailor being in, no journey to Norwich. You get the idea I'm sure.)
But back to the luncheon and the dressing therefore. It has become our habit over recent years of rush and turmoil trying to balance horse and hearth, not to bother to dress overly formally for even this most solemn occasion. (Enough really that no one at table actively reeks of horse pee!) From that we have progressed - though some might argue degenerated - to the wearing of slogan bearing tee-shirts befitting the person.
For E, who has become a thoroughly full-on teen as well as excellent horsewoman and thoroughly wonderful daughter, we have this year presented her with a simple yet striking number with the legend "Nag, Nag, Nag" emblazoned on it. H's tee-shirt sports the appropriate admonition "My way or the highway!", whilst I am torn between a new creation with an a la mode message - "Bankruptcy? Been there, done that, had the tee-shirt re-possessed!" - and an old favourite which has the entire Simpsons family out in a car, with Homer driving, much like that icon of 1950's clean-cut American photograph but with the slogan "As far as anyone knows we are a nice normal family."
Decisions! Decisions!
Family communion passed off rather well this year I have to say. M and M sat together singing appropriately lustily. Quite a decent tenor is M; and Maurice is not bad either, though inclined like most untrained male voices to pitch flat. Choir itself was in exceptionally good nick this year and their Agnus Dei quite sent shivers up and down the spine.
Didn't help that the roving microphone packed up in mid Eucharistic prayer, but one merely barked the words not intoned them as preferred, and justice and mercy rained down from the heavens as they should at such sacred moments. The thurifer was suffering from a dose of PBSD [Post Bishop Stress Disorder] with barely an added snuff-pinch full of incense, which was a shame as I rather like a cumulus cloud effect hanging over the altar.
The heating of course played up - though not as usual by refusing to play ball. This year we were treated to great waves of near suffocating warmth flooding from under the gratings. The in-the-know wise ones who had clamoured to get seats above the gratings in the hope of sucking in all the heat, found they were having to shed clothing throughout proceedings to avoid hyperthermia.
Colonel X was not having a good time of it either. Glancing over I spotted him fuming and glowering in best regimental style. Couldn't see what was distressing him, until I noticed that seated immediately behind was a family of chatterers. Colonel X - and I am with him on this - does not much care for chattering in Church at the best of times. For him - and for I - the conversation of a Mass should be with God and not one's neighbours. And as the choir were giving it large I could fully appreciate his not wanting to miss their finest notes because of a murmured haze of chat from the rear.
Oddly enough, although I would far from wish to be generally seen in the same corner as the Colonel - whose views on scoundrels, vagabonds and vagrants of any class, type and nationality are completely predictable - he and I do share certain liturgical dispositions, the above being one.
In addition to that, we are both of a single mind that the Kiss of Peace should have remained a symbolic verbal exchange between priest and congregation, and not become this wretched modern habit - nay compulsion - to grab near and far by the hand giving it a mightily shake and them a volley of goodwill accompanied by a beatific smile. (If you've never been hit amidshps by a fair sized nun wishing to embrace you in her love of the Lord yet in the manner of a decent rugby centre half determined to make a try-saving tackle, then I can only say you have been spared.)
I have proposed on occasions that - as with restaurants who wish to provide sanctuary for the non-smoking among its clientele - any Church should be divided and signed according to 'Shaking' or 'Non-shaking.' Any who wish positively to salivate their love for all human kind would be reserved in the former; whilst the latter would be a refuge for those who prefer not to intimidated in such a distressing and disturbing manner.
The other matter concerns the whole language of the liturgy. Colonel X may not have exactly said that 'if Latin were good enough for Jesus Christ, then it's good enough for him', but that is his essential sentiment and it it also one I most heartily share. I always like to keep half an ear open for him harrumphing the Proper of the Mass in the linqua sacra and wish I could join him, instead of being forced to utter such inanities as "...who died in the hope of rising again", as if somehow to imply that had the deceased not aspired to rising again, then by and large they would not have chosen to die in the first place. ("He went to Norwich in the hope of finding his tailor at home." No hope of tailor being in, no journey to Norwich. You get the idea I'm sure.)
But back to the luncheon and the dressing therefore. It has become our habit over recent years of rush and turmoil trying to balance horse and hearth, not to bother to dress overly formally for even this most solemn occasion. (Enough really that no one at table actively reeks of horse pee!) From that we have progressed - though some might argue degenerated - to the wearing of slogan bearing tee-shirts befitting the person.
For E, who has become a thoroughly full-on teen as well as excellent horsewoman and thoroughly wonderful daughter, we have this year presented her with a simple yet striking number with the legend "Nag, Nag, Nag" emblazoned on it. H's tee-shirt sports the appropriate admonition "My way or the highway!", whilst I am torn between a new creation with an a la mode message - "Bankruptcy? Been there, done that, had the tee-shirt re-possessed!" - and an old favourite which has the entire Simpsons family out in a car, with Homer driving, much like that icon of 1950's clean-cut American photograph but with the slogan "As far as anyone knows we are a nice normal family."
Decisions! Decisions!
Peace on Earth?
Funny how sometimes one catches the mood of the land - some kind of spiritual synchronicity one assumes.
One's own 'prayer for the day' [see previous] has oddly been echoed by the presider of both the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's [see slightly more previous] and of Midnight Mass at the local Cathedral.
The latter - a real Bish Tom unlike my own fanciful creation - rather wonderfully invoked the image of the parent who pretends to be asleep when the new-born infant howls in the night hoping that other parent - slightly over-optimistic I own for him to assume these days there will be the standardised two of them to hand - will get up to attend to the needs for feeding, burping, changing et al.
We should not, urged the real Bish Tom, let others do these caring deeds, but must ourselves leap out of our beds to bring aid, succour and comfort to the lost, the lonely, the hurt and the sick. "I was a stranger...etc" as the Good Book says. A good thought to carry with one.
Tonight, though, I particularly fear for a local outbreak of decidedly non-peace on earth and not-so goodwill to all. E reports that her stable yard is riven with contention it having been revealed that some of the inmates - human as opposed to horse - have been compiling a 'Book of the Biatch' and that this slanderous - if totally typically teenage - occurrence has been brought to the attention of the doting parents of the delinquent teens.
Already, it seems, parent A has opined she will have a swing at parent B on behalf of her beloved off-spring, whilst parent C has withdrawn the offer to share a pony with the daughter of parent D.
As I have to attend with E at nine of the morning sharpish today in order to turn out our precious bundle of horse flesh, I am somewhat concerned that all eyes will turn my way for judgement and reconciliation when all I'm wanting to focus on is the correct temperature and duration for the cooking of the luncheon family goose!
Peace on Earth? Not this year I fear. Christians awake it seems. What a shame as I was so looking forward to a lie in!
One's own 'prayer for the day' [see previous] has oddly been echoed by the presider of both the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's [see slightly more previous] and of Midnight Mass at the local Cathedral.
The latter - a real Bish Tom unlike my own fanciful creation - rather wonderfully invoked the image of the parent who pretends to be asleep when the new-born infant howls in the night hoping that other parent - slightly over-optimistic I own for him to assume these days there will be the standardised two of them to hand - will get up to attend to the needs for feeding, burping, changing et al.
We should not, urged the real Bish Tom, let others do these caring deeds, but must ourselves leap out of our beds to bring aid, succour and comfort to the lost, the lonely, the hurt and the sick. "I was a stranger...etc" as the Good Book says. A good thought to carry with one.
Tonight, though, I particularly fear for a local outbreak of decidedly non-peace on earth and not-so goodwill to all. E reports that her stable yard is riven with contention it having been revealed that some of the inmates - human as opposed to horse - have been compiling a 'Book of the Biatch' and that this slanderous - if totally typically teenage - occurrence has been brought to the attention of the doting parents of the delinquent teens.
Already, it seems, parent A has opined she will have a swing at parent B on behalf of her beloved off-spring, whilst parent C has withdrawn the offer to share a pony with the daughter of parent D.
As I have to attend with E at nine of the morning sharpish today in order to turn out our precious bundle of horse flesh, I am somewhat concerned that all eyes will turn my way for judgement and reconciliation when all I'm wanting to focus on is the correct temperature and duration for the cooking of the luncheon family goose!
Peace on Earth? Not this year I fear. Christians awake it seems. What a shame as I was so looking forward to a lie in!
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Prayer for Christmas
As the light of Christmas begins to dawn for this we pray:
For the hurt and the homeless, for the ill and the suffering, for the destitute and the desperate.
For the lonely and for the lost. For the mourners and for those about to mourn.
For the fearful whose fear turns them to hatred of others. For the angry whose anger turns in on themselves.
For the tormented and for the wounded. For the tormenters and for the wounders.
For the penitent and for the unrepentant. For all.
Come Emmanuel. Ransom us, redeem us.
For the hurt and the homeless, for the ill and the suffering, for the destitute and the desperate.
For the lonely and for the lost. For the mourners and for those about to mourn.
For the fearful whose fear turns them to hatred of others. For the angry whose anger turns in on themselves.
For the tormented and for the wounded. For the tormenters and for the wounders.
For the penitent and for the unrepentant. For all.
Come Emmanuel. Ransom us, redeem us.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
On Being Maurice
I have just proposed to Maurice and he has said 'yes'!
But before you go imagining newspaper headlines 'Gay clergyman weds his verger' I must haste to point out that my role has been simply and exclusively to act as a proxy go-between for divorcee of this parish Mildred, who via H the Beloved, requested of me that I should ask M whether he would or would not take M as his lawful etc.
All very trying in the preparation, but actually quite simple in the execution. Maurice's reputation and image of a ladies' man is both renowned and well-deserved. Far be it from me to reveal any quasi-confessional secrets or associated gossip, but if there is a household in the village that has not at some time, in some way, been caught up in an M intrigue I've yet to be offered tea there within.
Thus it was with complete disregard for any hope in the matter that M might be interested in surrendering his wayward ways to take up domestic fidelity with the other M in question that I began the interview with the man. (Whether M [latter] is persuaded that her task in life is to show M [the former] the errors of his past ways and to return him to the right royal road, is entirely her business and going concern. One gathers though that this is not an entirely uncommon female take on the rogue male.)
M [former once more] proved, however, to be the open door at which barely a push was required. In terms hardly romantic - if reasonable and true - when asked if he might just happen to be wondering if possibly he could be interested in a match with M [latter] simply replied "Why, yes indeed. I'm rather tired of having other men's wives. I rather fancy one of my own."
If on this basis the pair of them can make a go of it then bravo say I. What though wondrously strikes me about the whole matter is that, as M and M [now both former and latter] are to become husband and wife, then it would be clear impossible for them to be combatants in the Feud [see previous] and that their juncture will be the ending of the thing altogether for thence the two families will be one.
But before you go imagining newspaper headlines 'Gay clergyman weds his verger' I must haste to point out that my role has been simply and exclusively to act as a proxy go-between for divorcee of this parish Mildred, who via H the Beloved, requested of me that I should ask M whether he would or would not take M as his lawful etc.
All very trying in the preparation, but actually quite simple in the execution. Maurice's reputation and image of a ladies' man is both renowned and well-deserved. Far be it from me to reveal any quasi-confessional secrets or associated gossip, but if there is a household in the village that has not at some time, in some way, been caught up in an M intrigue I've yet to be offered tea there within.
Thus it was with complete disregard for any hope in the matter that M might be interested in surrendering his wayward ways to take up domestic fidelity with the other M in question that I began the interview with the man. (Whether M [latter] is persuaded that her task in life is to show M [the former] the errors of his past ways and to return him to the right royal road, is entirely her business and going concern. One gathers though that this is not an entirely uncommon female take on the rogue male.)
M [former once more] proved, however, to be the open door at which barely a push was required. In terms hardly romantic - if reasonable and true - when asked if he might just happen to be wondering if possibly he could be interested in a match with M [latter] simply replied "Why, yes indeed. I'm rather tired of having other men's wives. I rather fancy one of my own."
If on this basis the pair of them can make a go of it then bravo say I. What though wondrously strikes me about the whole matter is that, as M and M [now both former and latter] are to become husband and wife, then it would be clear impossible for them to be combatants in the Feud [see previous] and that their juncture will be the ending of the thing altogether for thence the two families will be one.
The Thought Police
It is the dream of all dictators - and the nightmare of his oppressed people - to make bad thinking a crime.
To speak or act in any way contrary to the often arbitrary and shifting ideology of the dictator is, of course, observable and dangerous.
But better for he who would control all, is to make people so cowed, so beaten, so corrupted that they dare not think a single thought that is not totally owned by those in power. (East Germany under the Stasi, USSR under Stalin and the KGB, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea under the Kims, father and son - some modern examples.)
And so it would seem we have finally achieved such a dictatorship in this country, for two old people who believe homosexual practice, as a thing in itself, to be "morally wrong" were interrogated by the police and quizzed for over an hour about the possible criminality of their beliefs.
They had made no comment or complaint about the actions of an individual, they had used no intemperate or threatening language, but had merely informed their local council that they wished to be allowed to distribute some leaflets outlining their view - based on their understanding of Christianity - that homosexual practice was morally wrong.
Not only did the Council refuse their request but then also it reported them to the police, who commenced a criminal investigation resulting in these two people being formally interviewed about their morals in their own home by two uniformed officers.
It matters not that the couple have received an apology and an out-of-court settlement, which they have donated to charity. What matters is that this could and did happen in this country today.
I, like many, abhor 'homophobia', though not for the same reason as people who say they detest the thoughts and beliefs of others with whom they disagree. I cannot stand the word itself. It is a rubbish word, a philological abomination and a neological nonsense.
'Homophobia' has two possible meanings - depending on whether 'homo' is from the Greek or the Latin root - and neither bears any relation to its usage in practice to mean 'being anti-gay.'
If from the Greek - which is linguistically correct and one can tell it is being used correctly by the short 'o' sound of the first syllable - then it means merely "fear of sameness." If from the Latin - incorrect and voiced with a long 'o' - then it means "fear of mankind."
Now I can perfectly understand anyone who fears people in general, for the human race can be a very dangerous species to itself and to the rest of creation. But I am not aware that being frightened of one thing being the same as another thing is a commonly encountered pathological state of mind. (One also allows that where there is fear there is often then hatred - Hunter S Thompson nailed Western paranoia perfectly with his "Fear and Loathing in/at/of..." books.)
The word people should be using in such circumstances - if they must attempt a single word at all to describe a thoroughly complex and difficult subject - is "heterophobia", a 'fear of difference.'
That's what they say they mean - and it is still a very presumptuous ascription of hostile motive or intent to someone who does not approve of what you do - so why not say what they mean!
To speak or act in any way contrary to the often arbitrary and shifting ideology of the dictator is, of course, observable and dangerous.
But better for he who would control all, is to make people so cowed, so beaten, so corrupted that they dare not think a single thought that is not totally owned by those in power. (East Germany under the Stasi, USSR under Stalin and the KGB, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea under the Kims, father and son - some modern examples.)
And so it would seem we have finally achieved such a dictatorship in this country, for two old people who believe homosexual practice, as a thing in itself, to be "morally wrong" were interrogated by the police and quizzed for over an hour about the possible criminality of their beliefs.
They had made no comment or complaint about the actions of an individual, they had used no intemperate or threatening language, but had merely informed their local council that they wished to be allowed to distribute some leaflets outlining their view - based on their understanding of Christianity - that homosexual practice was morally wrong.
Not only did the Council refuse their request but then also it reported them to the police, who commenced a criminal investigation resulting in these two people being formally interviewed about their morals in their own home by two uniformed officers.
It matters not that the couple have received an apology and an out-of-court settlement, which they have donated to charity. What matters is that this could and did happen in this country today.
I, like many, abhor 'homophobia', though not for the same reason as people who say they detest the thoughts and beliefs of others with whom they disagree. I cannot stand the word itself. It is a rubbish word, a philological abomination and a neological nonsense.
'Homophobia' has two possible meanings - depending on whether 'homo' is from the Greek or the Latin root - and neither bears any relation to its usage in practice to mean 'being anti-gay.'
If from the Greek - which is linguistically correct and one can tell it is being used correctly by the short 'o' sound of the first syllable - then it means merely "fear of sameness." If from the Latin - incorrect and voiced with a long 'o' - then it means "fear of mankind."
Now I can perfectly understand anyone who fears people in general, for the human race can be a very dangerous species to itself and to the rest of creation. But I am not aware that being frightened of one thing being the same as another thing is a commonly encountered pathological state of mind. (One also allows that where there is fear there is often then hatred - Hunter S Thompson nailed Western paranoia perfectly with his "Fear and Loathing in/at/of..." books.)
The word people should be using in such circumstances - if they must attempt a single word at all to describe a thoroughly complex and difficult subject - is "heterophobia", a 'fear of difference.'
That's what they say they mean - and it is still a very presumptuous ascription of hostile motive or intent to someone who does not approve of what you do - so why not say what they mean!
Friday, December 22, 2006
The Worst...
Two summers ago a couple took their baby daughter to hospital worried about a fever and sickness. They pointed out that her nappy was dry - which if you know these things is worrying.
I've been there with E when she was less than a year old, and I have never had such a desperate night as the night I spent with her in a hospital before they were able to confirm that she did not, as we feared, have meningitis. Inability to pass urine is one of the early signs of the illness, and it was only after E passed water near dawn that we knew we were likely to be spared this terrible affliction.
For this family though, the outcome was not good or right. The hospital said they could find nothing wrong with her and sent her home. She continued to be ill and when the parents noticed the tell-tale mauve spots on her back that would not go away when pressed with a glass - the standard test - she was rushed back to the local hospital and thence to St. Mary's Paddington to their specialist meningitis unit.
The doctors and nurses there were able to save her life but at a terrible cost - she developed septicaemia in her limbs and in order that she might not die her arms were amputated below the elbows and her legs above the knee.
Our local paper carried the most heart-rending of photographs of her recovering in hospital after surgery, sitting up and smiling but with bandages where her limbs should have been.
The NHS, though saving her life finally - and who knows whether earlier intervention might have saved her ravaged body - were not able to provide her with the prosthetics that she needed to learn as much mobility and facility as she might. All that they could offer were rigid prosthetics, whereas what she needed were specialist flexible artificial legs and arms that could help her achieve her potential and give her the best quality of life.
Local fund raising has enabled her family to buy these limbs privately and you may have seen her beautiful shining face in the newspapers the other week as she took her first steps.
Bad enough you might think that the NHS was not prepared to provide these necessary and higher-cost artificial limbs and that her parents - who have paid their taxes all their lives - had to rely on charitable fund raising.
But worse, far worse, was yet to come. Her local PCT has just announced that because she has privately supplied prosthetics they are no longer under an obligation to provide her with physiotherapy and support, and have withdrawn their services.
I cannot think of anything more sickening, immoral and disgusting than this action. I loathe the people who have taken this decision and I pray God her family and campaigners will force them to change their wretched Godless minds.
If you want to know more about this then link to:
http://www.elliemay.info/
It's not up to date - as of today - with the latest developments, but it is there to read.
I've been there with E when she was less than a year old, and I have never had such a desperate night as the night I spent with her in a hospital before they were able to confirm that she did not, as we feared, have meningitis. Inability to pass urine is one of the early signs of the illness, and it was only after E passed water near dawn that we knew we were likely to be spared this terrible affliction.
For this family though, the outcome was not good or right. The hospital said they could find nothing wrong with her and sent her home. She continued to be ill and when the parents noticed the tell-tale mauve spots on her back that would not go away when pressed with a glass - the standard test - she was rushed back to the local hospital and thence to St. Mary's Paddington to their specialist meningitis unit.
The doctors and nurses there were able to save her life but at a terrible cost - she developed septicaemia in her limbs and in order that she might not die her arms were amputated below the elbows and her legs above the knee.
Our local paper carried the most heart-rending of photographs of her recovering in hospital after surgery, sitting up and smiling but with bandages where her limbs should have been.
The NHS, though saving her life finally - and who knows whether earlier intervention might have saved her ravaged body - were not able to provide her with the prosthetics that she needed to learn as much mobility and facility as she might. All that they could offer were rigid prosthetics, whereas what she needed were specialist flexible artificial legs and arms that could help her achieve her potential and give her the best quality of life.
Local fund raising has enabled her family to buy these limbs privately and you may have seen her beautiful shining face in the newspapers the other week as she took her first steps.
Bad enough you might think that the NHS was not prepared to provide these necessary and higher-cost artificial limbs and that her parents - who have paid their taxes all their lives - had to rely on charitable fund raising.
But worse, far worse, was yet to come. Her local PCT has just announced that because she has privately supplied prosthetics they are no longer under an obligation to provide her with physiotherapy and support, and have withdrawn their services.
I cannot think of anything more sickening, immoral and disgusting than this action. I loathe the people who have taken this decision and I pray God her family and campaigners will force them to change their wretched Godless minds.
If you want to know more about this then link to:
http://www.elliemay.info/
It's not up to date - as of today - with the latest developments, but it is there to read.
The Best...
Twenty-five years ago this winter month the eight-man crew of the Penlee lifeboat in Mousehole responded to a ship in distress, on a night when hurricane force seas were battering the coast of Cornwall. So bad were the conditions that the Coxswain that night refused to allow more than one member of any family, among all the men who turned out for the call, to come with him.
Four men were plucked from the the doomed ship, but then in mid-transmission the lifeboat's radio went silent. No one knows to this day for certain what happened. Parts of the wrecked lifeboat were eventually found as were some of the drowned missing crew of both the ship and the lifeboat. In all sixteen lives were lost and there were no survivors.
The courage and the selflessness of the men of the Solomon Browne, volunteers all, is testimony to the best that mankind can be. But not just then, now the son of one of the men who died that night - the son having to be turned away because his father had been chosen to go - is Coxswain of the current Penlee lifeboat.
Could any greater sign of human love be found? I doubt it could.
For those in peril on the sea we pray tonight.
Four men were plucked from the the doomed ship, but then in mid-transmission the lifeboat's radio went silent. No one knows to this day for certain what happened. Parts of the wrecked lifeboat were eventually found as were some of the drowned missing crew of both the ship and the lifeboat. In all sixteen lives were lost and there were no survivors.
The courage and the selflessness of the men of the Solomon Browne, volunteers all, is testimony to the best that mankind can be. But not just then, now the son of one of the men who died that night - the son having to be turned away because his father had been chosen to go - is Coxswain of the current Penlee lifeboat.
Could any greater sign of human love be found? I doubt it could.
For those in peril on the sea we pray tonight.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
We The Jury...
Stephen Wright has been charged with the murder of the five women from Ipswich.
Already there is speculation concerning the murders of three prostitutes in Norwich, who used a pub that he ran at one point - though not one gathers at the time that these women were killed.
What else do we know about Stephen Wright from the newspapers? That he is believed to have known Suzy Lamplugh, that he was a user of prostitutes in both Norwich and Ipswich and, according to the women there, was in the habit of cross-dressing when looking for women for sex, that he 'gave them the creeps' and that some of them at least refused to trade with him. It has been suggested by at least one of the working girls in Ipswich that he took prostitutes home - a house close to the red-light district - when his partner was out working at night. The perfect murder scene? That is an implication.
Newspapers have also said that his arrest followed the finding of DNA evidence at the scene of the findings of at least two of the women - where their bodies were found though not believed to be the murder scene itself.
A newspaper photograph shows Stephen Wright standing behind a woman with his hands round her throat. This photograph has probably been supplied by an ex-wife or girlfriend.
If there is the evidence in court to convict "beyond reasonable doubt" then pray God justice is done. But do I sit here tonight thinking "innocent until proven guilty"? Yes I do, but I am struggling with another voice that says "Looks like it to me. All adds up. Got to be him."
But then wasn't that what we were all thinking two days ago with the first suspect arrested, Tom Stephens, who has now been released on police bail pending further enquiries?
We - and it will be some of us - the jury decide.
Already there is speculation concerning the murders of three prostitutes in Norwich, who used a pub that he ran at one point - though not one gathers at the time that these women were killed.
What else do we know about Stephen Wright from the newspapers? That he is believed to have known Suzy Lamplugh, that he was a user of prostitutes in both Norwich and Ipswich and, according to the women there, was in the habit of cross-dressing when looking for women for sex, that he 'gave them the creeps' and that some of them at least refused to trade with him. It has been suggested by at least one of the working girls in Ipswich that he took prostitutes home - a house close to the red-light district - when his partner was out working at night. The perfect murder scene? That is an implication.
Newspapers have also said that his arrest followed the finding of DNA evidence at the scene of the findings of at least two of the women - where their bodies were found though not believed to be the murder scene itself.
A newspaper photograph shows Stephen Wright standing behind a woman with his hands round her throat. This photograph has probably been supplied by an ex-wife or girlfriend.
If there is the evidence in court to convict "beyond reasonable doubt" then pray God justice is done. But do I sit here tonight thinking "innocent until proven guilty"? Yes I do, but I am struggling with another voice that says "Looks like it to me. All adds up. Got to be him."
But then wasn't that what we were all thinking two days ago with the first suspect arrested, Tom Stephens, who has now been released on police bail pending further enquiries?
We - and it will be some of us - the jury decide.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Waiting for God...
From the BBC website I learn tonight of a wondrous tale of an eccentric and faithful Christmas tradition - people who queue for up to three days and nights in the cold and sometimes rain in order to gain a seat in the chapel of King's College Cambridge for their famous festival of 'Nine Lessons and Carols' on Christmas Eve.
Patiently they sit and wait as others scurry by in their frenzied search for that last special purchase, simply in order to hear one of the great choirs of the land herald the arrival of God made man - Emmanuel - in word and music.
Like all good British queues there is total decorum and manners - no one pushes in, no one loses their place for taking a 'comfort' break. Some pilgrims are even so tired after their vigil they fall asleep once inside the warm chapel as the divine music wafts to the heavens, though that hardly matters as they are there in spirit as well as resting body.
Most - as you would expect of eccentrics - are from this country, though there is one American who saves all year long just to be able to fly in for this especial moment. Pray the Lord he is not stranded by the fog tonight!
Patiently they sit and wait as others scurry by in their frenzied search for that last special purchase, simply in order to hear one of the great choirs of the land herald the arrival of God made man - Emmanuel - in word and music.
Like all good British queues there is total decorum and manners - no one pushes in, no one loses their place for taking a 'comfort' break. Some pilgrims are even so tired after their vigil they fall asleep once inside the warm chapel as the divine music wafts to the heavens, though that hardly matters as they are there in spirit as well as resting body.
Most - as you would expect of eccentrics - are from this country, though there is one American who saves all year long just to be able to fly in for this especial moment. Pray the Lord he is not stranded by the fog tonight!
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The H Version...
Bish Tom [see previous] having given me the lowdown on and the highlights of his involvement in the Feud, has also kindly sought to provide me with a few pointers on how best to proceed from this point. Admittedly we are all in a somewhat 'if it were up to me we wouldn't be starting from here' position, but one must play the cards one is dealt one supposes, and lemons having been distributed all round then lemonade it must be we make of it.
Tom's main thrust and tactic - how typical of the office of the man - is that I should wrap up the iron fist of some personal and private info he was able to supply me with on both warring-to-be parties [Mildred and Maurice] in a soft glove of Xtian 'forgiveness is all' charity, thereby both scaring and seducing the pair into submission and a calling off of the fight.
No hint of the facts of past mis-living that Tom shared with me concerning M 'n' M will be here noted, save to say that I had never thought either capable of such extremes of uninhibited and so out-of-character behaviour. One wonders indeed if one will ever be able to look either square in the eye without giggling and enquiring of the one their views on nude sunbathing in St. James Park or of the other their thoughts on what sort of 'blue' joke The Princess Royal might have found amusing if told during the course of a county social evening say about some thirty years ago. (Amazing just what the Bish does know about folk. Bit alarming all round the very notion indeed!)
Nonetheless I am not yet totally convinced this line of attack would actually prove a success, nor indeed that I am the ideal cavalryman to lead such a charge. Blackmail - for it is no less than this, even though for completely honourable purposes - is not my forte, hardly even my piano. That is, never having resorted to it I doubt I have either the calling or the character to pull it off.
Now Old Horace, who minded gardens and had enjoyed a thoroughly good War as a thoroughly bad spiv would have been an ideal choice for such a mission. Sadly though Old Horace is lately the late Old Horace having taken a fatal tumble into Colonel X's ha-ha whilst on a moonless midnight patrol seeking to snare some of same Colonel X's prize partridges.
Time to take stock of options and a moment's muse over an early malt.
Musing and malt done only one thought emerged intact: cometh the hour, cometh the woman. H would have to be co-opted into my strategic planning exercise. This, of course, would be one's ordinary course - would indeed have occurred whether bidden or not! - but up until now I had wanted to leave her out of consideration in consideration of the sensitivity of the affair. Not that I have had any doubts regarding H's keeping properly discreet - though I could imagine her honking with laughter at the weirdness of it all - rather a concern that she might simply take a robust and Knot of Gordius approach, demanding of M and M that they get a grip, get a life, get a copy of the Guardian and get reading about real people with real problems. (Couldn't see this whole 'Gotcha' angle working with either - and most certainly not Maurice and the Guardian, oh dear me no!)
But being in quite extremis there was naught else to do but to approach the lioness in her den - H in the morning room - and lay it all before her for pertinent advice.
"I've been meaning to have a word with you about Maurice and Mildred. I'm rather at a loss to suggest what to do for the best and thought it sensible to pick your brains on the matter."
Imagine my total shock and awe on hearing - yes hearing not speaking - these words. By what extraordinary powers of transference had my problem become hers? Was this the ultimate test of bonding between two persons that we had become but a single entity with just the one mind? Well not quite it seemed.
H's tale was, if anything, more extraordinary than mine own. She and Mildred have been abiding chums from more or less the moment we landed. 'Indispensable' is the general word on Mildred around these parts - not easily dispensed with certainly in my experience! - and it was a part of her self-selected mission to ensure any new vicar's companion-in-residence [be they female or male, espoused or merely partnered - or indeed any of the now vast range of domestic set-ups one could and often does find] had all the - and more - support and guidance they needed to settle in.
How not to make a complete nag's arse of one's first sortie among the village elders, or to ensure that the Church flower patrol was appropriately unfairly divided as to labour and honour - that general sort of thing. H had been naturally somewhat chary of being so completely taken under a wing thus. Not being naturally disposed to such a passive nestling, nor indeed entirely convinced that being under any one wing might not put other wings badly out of joint to her detriment.
Her fears though on both counts had been readily discounted, as M proved not only to be an utterly invaluable source of info, gen and other briefing materials, but had also been quite totally in control of her ground. M having established her position of authority in the village over many decades of careful campaigning, it had come to the pass that hers was the only nihil obstat in town worth having. If M said you were a 'good sort' then a good sort you were and - worryingly - vice versa. (There may have - must have indeed - been rebellious factions who would have wished to seize the M crown, but they were not yet of a size or maturity or confidence to utter an unspoken, let alone a spoken, challenge.)
Tom's main thrust and tactic - how typical of the office of the man - is that I should wrap up the iron fist of some personal and private info he was able to supply me with on both warring-to-be parties [Mildred and Maurice] in a soft glove of Xtian 'forgiveness is all' charity, thereby both scaring and seducing the pair into submission and a calling off of the fight.
No hint of the facts of past mis-living that Tom shared with me concerning M 'n' M will be here noted, save to say that I had never thought either capable of such extremes of uninhibited and so out-of-character behaviour. One wonders indeed if one will ever be able to look either square in the eye without giggling and enquiring of the one their views on nude sunbathing in St. James Park or of the other their thoughts on what sort of 'blue' joke The Princess Royal might have found amusing if told during the course of a county social evening say about some thirty years ago. (Amazing just what the Bish does know about folk. Bit alarming all round the very notion indeed!)
Nonetheless I am not yet totally convinced this line of attack would actually prove a success, nor indeed that I am the ideal cavalryman to lead such a charge. Blackmail - for it is no less than this, even though for completely honourable purposes - is not my forte, hardly even my piano. That is, never having resorted to it I doubt I have either the calling or the character to pull it off.
Now Old Horace, who minded gardens and had enjoyed a thoroughly good War as a thoroughly bad spiv would have been an ideal choice for such a mission. Sadly though Old Horace is lately the late Old Horace having taken a fatal tumble into Colonel X's ha-ha whilst on a moonless midnight patrol seeking to snare some of same Colonel X's prize partridges.
Time to take stock of options and a moment's muse over an early malt.
Musing and malt done only one thought emerged intact: cometh the hour, cometh the woman. H would have to be co-opted into my strategic planning exercise. This, of course, would be one's ordinary course - would indeed have occurred whether bidden or not! - but up until now I had wanted to leave her out of consideration in consideration of the sensitivity of the affair. Not that I have had any doubts regarding H's keeping properly discreet - though I could imagine her honking with laughter at the weirdness of it all - rather a concern that she might simply take a robust and Knot of Gordius approach, demanding of M and M that they get a grip, get a life, get a copy of the Guardian and get reading about real people with real problems. (Couldn't see this whole 'Gotcha' angle working with either - and most certainly not Maurice and the Guardian, oh dear me no!)
But being in quite extremis there was naught else to do but to approach the lioness in her den - H in the morning room - and lay it all before her for pertinent advice.
"I've been meaning to have a word with you about Maurice and Mildred. I'm rather at a loss to suggest what to do for the best and thought it sensible to pick your brains on the matter."
Imagine my total shock and awe on hearing - yes hearing not speaking - these words. By what extraordinary powers of transference had my problem become hers? Was this the ultimate test of bonding between two persons that we had become but a single entity with just the one mind? Well not quite it seemed.
H's tale was, if anything, more extraordinary than mine own. She and Mildred have been abiding chums from more or less the moment we landed. 'Indispensable' is the general word on Mildred around these parts - not easily dispensed with certainly in my experience! - and it was a part of her self-selected mission to ensure any new vicar's companion-in-residence [be they female or male, espoused or merely partnered - or indeed any of the now vast range of domestic set-ups one could and often does find] had all the - and more - support and guidance they needed to settle in.
How not to make a complete nag's arse of one's first sortie among the village elders, or to ensure that the Church flower patrol was appropriately unfairly divided as to labour and honour - that general sort of thing. H had been naturally somewhat chary of being so completely taken under a wing thus. Not being naturally disposed to such a passive nestling, nor indeed entirely convinced that being under any one wing might not put other wings badly out of joint to her detriment.
Her fears though on both counts had been readily discounted, as M proved not only to be an utterly invaluable source of info, gen and other briefing materials, but had also been quite totally in control of her ground. M having established her position of authority in the village over many decades of careful campaigning, it had come to the pass that hers was the only nihil obstat in town worth having. If M said you were a 'good sort' then a good sort you were and - worryingly - vice versa. (There may have - must have indeed - been rebellious factions who would have wished to seize the M crown, but they were not yet of a size or maturity or confidence to utter an unspoken, let alone a spoken, challenge.)
There was also, as it turned out, a sympathetic meeting of minds on key matters that helped to seal their partnership. This was less a matter of agreements in principle or practice regarding political or social outlooks on life, and more a question of both having strong and complementary views on which end of a line of resistance would be and was their default position on any 'issue'. (You will not need my prompting to gather that their end of that line was never the least.)
This delight in controversy could, naturally, be extremely wearing for all: for any whose strong resistance they sought to wear down or subdue in some other more direct way; for myself as one oft called upon to hear of and bear witness to the rectitude of any campaign; for even themselves too, worn down and sometimes nearly out fighting the good fight of the week. But what is life if not a struggle!
Over time - some years now - their campaigning partnership has turned to a friendship with more personal sharing of thoughts than merely how to thwart Mrs J's nomination for WI presidency. Thus it was - to cut finally to the chase - H came to learn from M that her heart - long assumed by all to be in her sole and undivided possession - belonged to another and, what's hugely more, belonged to Maurice!
Given the equally long established public antipathy between the two of them this not much beggars belief and strips it naked and parades it down the High Street for all to mock! But there it is apparently, according to H - and if you have been following the above you will understand that she is ideally placed to make cogent comment on the matter - and what's more Mildred is now at such a point of pining for 'her' Maurice that she must, metaphorically, do or die.
H's take on this is as ever profound in its considerations and most certainly alarming in its implications for myself. I, it seems, have been chosen by H - with Mildred's blessing - to do the 'go-between' number with Maurice and attempt to assay whether there is any 'hope', as one generally expresses these things at such a moment.
Were it not for the fact that a resolution between M and M on the other matter of the Feud were not so forward in my present thinking, I might just have had to tell H that in this - her own pursuit on behalf of her friend - a 'no' would have to be taken for her answer, will she or indeed nil she. (Hartley's past may well be another country, but this is Eliot's here, now in England and anyway M is not a patch on dear Miss Julie Christie!)
That Feud fact though is most certainly there being thence the catalyst and cause of my - still with considerable trepidation - agreeing to her request/command.
It may be an hour or two before sundown, but another medium malt is called for at this point, to be followed by a significant lie down in a darkened room to ponder just how best - or if not that then at least not worst - to carry this one off!
Margaret Beckett: Poor Memory or Bad Faith...
Let us see if this necessary rebuttal of miserable Margaret Beckett's poor recall of facts - or simple bad faith - takes its proper place in tomorrow's newspapers:
Sir,
The Foreign Secretary, Mrs Margaret Beckett, this morning told the 'Today' programme with regard to the assertion that Saddam Hussein was capable of ordering WMDs to be used within 45 minutes "... it was a statement that was made once and was thought to be of such little relevance, and perhaps people began to quickly think 'I'm not sure about that'. It was never used once in all the debates or questions in the House of Commons."
Permit me to jog her failing memory by quoting, from the Hansard record of Tuesday the 24th of September 2002, the words of the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair in addressing the House of Commons:
"The intelligence picture that they [the security services] paint is one accumulated over the last four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative. It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability."
Would she care to retract or preferably resign herself to caravaning for a living?
Yours faithfully,
Peter P
The Wolds etc..
Sir,
The Foreign Secretary, Mrs Margaret Beckett, this morning told the 'Today' programme with regard to the assertion that Saddam Hussein was capable of ordering WMDs to be used within 45 minutes "... it was a statement that was made once and was thought to be of such little relevance, and perhaps people began to quickly think 'I'm not sure about that'. It was never used once in all the debates or questions in the House of Commons."
Permit me to jog her failing memory by quoting, from the Hansard record of Tuesday the 24th of September 2002, the words of the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair in addressing the House of Commons:
"The intelligence picture that they [the security services] paint is one accumulated over the last four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative. It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability."
Would she care to retract or preferably resign herself to caravaning for a living?
Yours faithfully,
Peter P
The Wolds etc..
Times Lost and Found
Down Southwark way the Bish, it seems, is still proclaiming he cannot recall the night of recent events and that whatever the truth his being drunk was not a part of it. Tricky, of course, if one has no recall to be so certain, but then proving a negative never was easy. Bish Butler points to strong circumstantial evidence - personal history of sobriety, ability to travel by public transport - as backing his thesis, though one gathers the police are maintaining yet their stance that a mugging as such is not the matter in hand.
Can't blame the fellow above all for being concerned about the amnesia. Tests of a neurological sort are, we are told, being carried out and one hopes naturally that there is no lasting damage to the mitred head or the grey matter therein.
For myself, I have one such recollection of an amnesiac moment - some lost hours - following a failed teenage stunt on a bicycle. We lived atop of a steep hill and the stunt was to attempt to cycle to the bottom without using one's brakes during the descent.
That, on this occasion in question, I failed in the enterprise altogether is clear from my waking in a hospital bed with a heavily bandaged face and torn shoulder. To this day though I have no memory of the doing of the thing, which - according to witnesses - involved me losing control on a sharp bend, flying over the handlebars and landing, face first, on the road. (Lucky indeed - and later much thanked by me - these persons were present to summons an ambulance in the first instance and my parents in the second.)
According to the medics, the shock and pain of the moment of impact was too much for my emotional and psychological memory to bear and - with the help of not a little concussion - the cerebral slate was wiped clear of the whole event. Boy starts descent, boy wakes in hospital - the rest is a perennial blank.
What though the boy does recall as a man was the moment of waking in hospital to be greeted by an intolerably jovial nurse enquiring how were "we" feeling. Temper sharpened by the severe pain, my response was to utter a string of profanities and oaths of a personally intimate nature, the main thrust of which being that howsoever fine a fettle the nurse might be in, I was far from well and in deep distress. So could the nurse kindly 'F Right Off' and leave me in such peace as my pain would permit.
She, of course, being made of stern professional and charitable stuff, did not take over much offence at my rebukes, merely pressing on with an offer for us to have "our" injection. Once again this notion that she and I were somehow partners in the experience of my individual agony was too much to take and more oaths ensued - to no effect of course as the needle shot into my arm with no further by or with one's leave.
The soothing drug taking near instant effect I began at once to drift back off into unconsciousness, pausing only then to notice Ma and Pa sitting either side of my bed with looks of equal parental anguish at my plight and embarrassment at the words they had not known lay within my linguistic store.
Was more than ten years before I had the nerve to mount another bicycle and I never did find that half a tooth left embedded in the tarmac, despite hours of hunting for it as a trophy and as necessary aide memoire.
Can't blame the fellow above all for being concerned about the amnesia. Tests of a neurological sort are, we are told, being carried out and one hopes naturally that there is no lasting damage to the mitred head or the grey matter therein.
For myself, I have one such recollection of an amnesiac moment - some lost hours - following a failed teenage stunt on a bicycle. We lived atop of a steep hill and the stunt was to attempt to cycle to the bottom without using one's brakes during the descent.
That, on this occasion in question, I failed in the enterprise altogether is clear from my waking in a hospital bed with a heavily bandaged face and torn shoulder. To this day though I have no memory of the doing of the thing, which - according to witnesses - involved me losing control on a sharp bend, flying over the handlebars and landing, face first, on the road. (Lucky indeed - and later much thanked by me - these persons were present to summons an ambulance in the first instance and my parents in the second.)
According to the medics, the shock and pain of the moment of impact was too much for my emotional and psychological memory to bear and - with the help of not a little concussion - the cerebral slate was wiped clear of the whole event. Boy starts descent, boy wakes in hospital - the rest is a perennial blank.
What though the boy does recall as a man was the moment of waking in hospital to be greeted by an intolerably jovial nurse enquiring how were "we" feeling. Temper sharpened by the severe pain, my response was to utter a string of profanities and oaths of a personally intimate nature, the main thrust of which being that howsoever fine a fettle the nurse might be in, I was far from well and in deep distress. So could the nurse kindly 'F Right Off' and leave me in such peace as my pain would permit.
She, of course, being made of stern professional and charitable stuff, did not take over much offence at my rebukes, merely pressing on with an offer for us to have "our" injection. Once again this notion that she and I were somehow partners in the experience of my individual agony was too much to take and more oaths ensued - to no effect of course as the needle shot into my arm with no further by or with one's leave.
The soothing drug taking near instant effect I began at once to drift back off into unconsciousness, pausing only then to notice Ma and Pa sitting either side of my bed with looks of equal parental anguish at my plight and embarrassment at the words they had not known lay within my linguistic store.
Was more than ten years before I had the nerve to mount another bicycle and I never did find that half a tooth left embedded in the tarmac, despite hours of hunting for it as a trophy and as necessary aide memoire.
Monday, December 18, 2006
The Tom Version...
Bishop Tom did duly pop over for Vespers on Sunday evening, bless him and his silken official socks. Ordinarily such a visitation would have been an occasion for considerable soul searching - are the numbers [see very early on this] up to the mark and on target, is there anything in one's recent behaviour that might have caused remarks to have been passed over Episcopal sherry, does the petty cash square, etc., etc?
A good Bishop - as a literal 'overseer' - is supposed to be like a good manager: one is never quite sure that they are watching, but by golly one soon finds out that nothing has passed them by without due notice. If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then trepidation as to what precisely one's Bish has on one is certainly within the coaching manual for phase two of the play.
This time around, though, one's own thoughts were too much pre-occupied with matters concerning the upcoming Ceremony of the Blood Letting to be overly-concerned about what Tom had to report or say.
Vespers it must be said passed largely without incident, though I would comment in passing that I have my doubts as to whether the appointed thurifer was not in panic mode when he laid the incense upon the charcoal, there never having been before such a billowing cloud of dense, aromatic material filling the entire Church. Eyes were watering not so much from the emotion of the thing ('Pange lingua glorioisi', et cetera) as from the stinging assault to one's visual organs.
"Never known such tear gas since my army days in Aden," was all that Tom said afterwards, which was generous. He even condescended to bless the genuflecting thurifer when all was done - as is customary - though in truth the manual touch on the head was more a swipe than a paternal patting.
Anyways, safely back in the rectory - with H at the sharp end of six hours of food preparation in next door's borrowed kitchen [see earlier for reasons for re-location] - Ol' Tom and I sat down in my den for a glass of malt and a conflab on why he had come over to see me now. (Not that I am suggesting that a Bish is not welcome at any moment he should just so ever decide to drop in on one of the front-line troops, but he and I both know that there is little he does by accident [unlike his peer over in Southwark!] and that his arrival in the middle of a frantic Advent season had a proper and a particular purpose.)
"This matter of the blood letting," he began. "What's your take on this whole peculiar business?"
Well that threw me for a start as I had no idea he was aware of, let alone up to speed, on the matter. I'd dared not mention it to him once it hove into my view and I had simply assumed it to be beneath the dignity of his notice. So to find Ol' Tom asking me what I thought without any preparatory insight into his own views was entirely disconcerting!
"I um, I ah," was, therefore, about as far as I managed before, mercifully, I was interrupted with a regal raising of the Episcopal hand and an interjection from on high.
"Been giving it a lot of thought these past few weeks - knowing it was coming up fast upon you for the first time - not wanting to interfere in local matters of course [perish the frigging thought, thought I!] but there is some background and some personal [a not so humble cough] interest I felt it useful to share with you at this juncture."
"Share away," I offered in my best 'unconditional positive regard' counselling voice!
Well, the upshot of all of this was that it transpired Ol' Tom not only was fully in the know about feuds in general and the letting of local blood in particular, but also he himself - Ol' Tom in person no less - is actually a family member of one of the warring parties! (This of course, it goes without saying, must go no further - though I season my own qui vive with the remembrance of the late-medieval saying "He who would keep a secret must keep it secret that he has a secret to keep.")
Further, Bish Tom - this cannot in any circumstances be repeated even to the most pressing of enquiries from the Spanish Inquisition or their descendents - has been in the past an actual combatant, a chosen champion of the cause and a shedder of blood!
[A due pause in recounting whilst one downs an appropriately large malt!]
Suitably refreshed and recovered to continue: Mildred and he are, it seems, cousins of a removed variety Ol' Tom the elder by some spare decade. When the time came for blood to be let in the late 1970s, Tom was deep in his intellectual and spiritual studies at one of our more significant Universities. Though not entirely unaware of the whole history of the thing, he had not for a moment imagined he might one day be caught up in the actual doing of the thing until, that is, he had received a telephone call from Uncle Charles - a pretty over-bearing and oppressive fellow by all accounts - to tell him that he must abandon all consideration of the relevance of Early Fathers to the modern social milieu for a weekend and come home to do battle on behalf of the family!
Poor Tom was not so much - as his Shakespearean namesake - a-cold as a-flummoxed. He had always assumed that a far more suitable champion would be found on any single occasion for him never to be called into the lists. His own elder brother for one was not known to be shy with the wooden sword from his days in the nursery and, surely, would be the man to step into this particular bellicose breach? Sadly, though, as oft the case despite the willing spirit the same elder brother's flesh proved the weaker, he having fallen from a horse that very week before quite busting his wrist and his head.
In such a crisis Uncle Charles - in his aforementioned over-bearing and oppressive manner - had decided that push had come to shove and Student Tom must be summonsed as a late substitute [that being clearly within the Rules it seems]. Tom had, naturally sought to decline the honour in part from principle though also - he owned to me - rank fear of being pierced with a sword. (And on that, if little else, I am entirely in agreement with Bish Tom on the matter of the fear as much as the principle!)
Uncle Charles did not, it seems, intend to take any no for any answer, re-affirming that as it was he who paid all Tom's college bills - both regular and irregular - either Tom did what 'Nuncle C deemed 'the right thing' and fought or he [Tom] would be cut adrift without a penny more to his purse.
We must not - howsoever tempted - judge Tom harshly if his decision to abandon principle and overcome all fear for the sake of a student pension would not have been ours. Leaving, as essentially not pertinent, any such consideration of scruple the fact of the matter is - or rather was - that one moment Bish [to be] Tom was basking in the sunny uplands of collegiate studies, the next in the dark vista of a duelling ring! (For any pedantic historians - and there are some left -who wish to know the outcome of this particular encounter I merely say 'pish' and 'hard cheese' and 'that's for me to know and you not to be informed.' Safe and necessary only to say - obviously - that Bish Tom survived the day.)
[More pause for more malt.]
Having therefore - as we have established - fought and lived to fight another day, Tom had returned to his studies a wiser (as in more enlightened into all that might befall a man on the rocky path of life) fellow than the weekend preceding. From, however, that moment forth until our encounter in my den over a more than decent malt he had not whispered a word to man nor wife. You can, of course, imagine that a bloody conflict is not something one would ordinarily wish to see appear on one's CV when seeking - as dear Tom was always bound to do - ecclesiastical advancement. (In the days of the Crusades perhaps skill with a sword would be considered an essential attribute for a coming cleric, but less so nowadays by a long, long chalk!)
Conscience though is a funny, nagging cove. An in-built - hard wired as it were by the Almighty Himself - device to point us to heaven, howsoever we misdirect or ignore its still, small voice until we are so inured in sin as to be deaf to all its remonstrances, it will still keep harping to our heart or chipping away at our stony spirit. Thus it has been with Bish Tom. Safe now in his Episcopal Palace uneasy rested the head that wore the Mitre, until the day came - as surely it must - when he would recount his tale of involvement in the mortal matter in the hope of ending, for all time, the feud. [Let though one be clear here - I am not Tom confessor nor would wish to be. There are no 'sacred seals' being broken. I have been a sounding board and that is all.]
The totality of the revelation having exceeded the time for supper - not to mention the near exhaustion of my better malt - the moot and significant point is whether Bish Tom, having cleansed his breast of the festering sore within, was able to offer some insight into how our hero - for such is I - should approach the present champions - Mildred and Maurice as aforementioned - with a view to calling a halt 'ere proceeding have begun this time around.
For that though one [i.e. you] must wait for further news. There are deep discussions to be had and diplomatic lines to be opened and explored. Sufficient for the day are the tales thereof!
A good Bishop - as a literal 'overseer' - is supposed to be like a good manager: one is never quite sure that they are watching, but by golly one soon finds out that nothing has passed them by without due notice. If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then trepidation as to what precisely one's Bish has on one is certainly within the coaching manual for phase two of the play.
This time around, though, one's own thoughts were too much pre-occupied with matters concerning the upcoming Ceremony of the Blood Letting to be overly-concerned about what Tom had to report or say.
Vespers it must be said passed largely without incident, though I would comment in passing that I have my doubts as to whether the appointed thurifer was not in panic mode when he laid the incense upon the charcoal, there never having been before such a billowing cloud of dense, aromatic material filling the entire Church. Eyes were watering not so much from the emotion of the thing ('Pange lingua glorioisi', et cetera) as from the stinging assault to one's visual organs.
"Never known such tear gas since my army days in Aden," was all that Tom said afterwards, which was generous. He even condescended to bless the genuflecting thurifer when all was done - as is customary - though in truth the manual touch on the head was more a swipe than a paternal patting.
Anyways, safely back in the rectory - with H at the sharp end of six hours of food preparation in next door's borrowed kitchen [see earlier for reasons for re-location] - Ol' Tom and I sat down in my den for a glass of malt and a conflab on why he had come over to see me now. (Not that I am suggesting that a Bish is not welcome at any moment he should just so ever decide to drop in on one of the front-line troops, but he and I both know that there is little he does by accident [unlike his peer over in Southwark!] and that his arrival in the middle of a frantic Advent season had a proper and a particular purpose.)
"This matter of the blood letting," he began. "What's your take on this whole peculiar business?"
Well that threw me for a start as I had no idea he was aware of, let alone up to speed, on the matter. I'd dared not mention it to him once it hove into my view and I had simply assumed it to be beneath the dignity of his notice. So to find Ol' Tom asking me what I thought without any preparatory insight into his own views was entirely disconcerting!
"I um, I ah," was, therefore, about as far as I managed before, mercifully, I was interrupted with a regal raising of the Episcopal hand and an interjection from on high.
"Been giving it a lot of thought these past few weeks - knowing it was coming up fast upon you for the first time - not wanting to interfere in local matters of course [perish the frigging thought, thought I!] but there is some background and some personal [a not so humble cough] interest I felt it useful to share with you at this juncture."
"Share away," I offered in my best 'unconditional positive regard' counselling voice!
Well, the upshot of all of this was that it transpired Ol' Tom not only was fully in the know about feuds in general and the letting of local blood in particular, but also he himself - Ol' Tom in person no less - is actually a family member of one of the warring parties! (This of course, it goes without saying, must go no further - though I season my own qui vive with the remembrance of the late-medieval saying "He who would keep a secret must keep it secret that he has a secret to keep.")
Further, Bish Tom - this cannot in any circumstances be repeated even to the most pressing of enquiries from the Spanish Inquisition or their descendents - has been in the past an actual combatant, a chosen champion of the cause and a shedder of blood!
[A due pause in recounting whilst one downs an appropriately large malt!]
Suitably refreshed and recovered to continue: Mildred and he are, it seems, cousins of a removed variety Ol' Tom the elder by some spare decade. When the time came for blood to be let in the late 1970s, Tom was deep in his intellectual and spiritual studies at one of our more significant Universities. Though not entirely unaware of the whole history of the thing, he had not for a moment imagined he might one day be caught up in the actual doing of the thing until, that is, he had received a telephone call from Uncle Charles - a pretty over-bearing and oppressive fellow by all accounts - to tell him that he must abandon all consideration of the relevance of Early Fathers to the modern social milieu for a weekend and come home to do battle on behalf of the family!
Poor Tom was not so much - as his Shakespearean namesake - a-cold as a-flummoxed. He had always assumed that a far more suitable champion would be found on any single occasion for him never to be called into the lists. His own elder brother for one was not known to be shy with the wooden sword from his days in the nursery and, surely, would be the man to step into this particular bellicose breach? Sadly, though, as oft the case despite the willing spirit the same elder brother's flesh proved the weaker, he having fallen from a horse that very week before quite busting his wrist and his head.
In such a crisis Uncle Charles - in his aforementioned over-bearing and oppressive manner - had decided that push had come to shove and Student Tom must be summonsed as a late substitute [that being clearly within the Rules it seems]. Tom had, naturally sought to decline the honour in part from principle though also - he owned to me - rank fear of being pierced with a sword. (And on that, if little else, I am entirely in agreement with Bish Tom on the matter of the fear as much as the principle!)
Uncle Charles did not, it seems, intend to take any no for any answer, re-affirming that as it was he who paid all Tom's college bills - both regular and irregular - either Tom did what 'Nuncle C deemed 'the right thing' and fought or he [Tom] would be cut adrift without a penny more to his purse.
We must not - howsoever tempted - judge Tom harshly if his decision to abandon principle and overcome all fear for the sake of a student pension would not have been ours. Leaving, as essentially not pertinent, any such consideration of scruple the fact of the matter is - or rather was - that one moment Bish [to be] Tom was basking in the sunny uplands of collegiate studies, the next in the dark vista of a duelling ring! (For any pedantic historians - and there are some left -who wish to know the outcome of this particular encounter I merely say 'pish' and 'hard cheese' and 'that's for me to know and you not to be informed.' Safe and necessary only to say - obviously - that Bish Tom survived the day.)
[More pause for more malt.]
Having therefore - as we have established - fought and lived to fight another day, Tom had returned to his studies a wiser (as in more enlightened into all that might befall a man on the rocky path of life) fellow than the weekend preceding. From, however, that moment forth until our encounter in my den over a more than decent malt he had not whispered a word to man nor wife. You can, of course, imagine that a bloody conflict is not something one would ordinarily wish to see appear on one's CV when seeking - as dear Tom was always bound to do - ecclesiastical advancement. (In the days of the Crusades perhaps skill with a sword would be considered an essential attribute for a coming cleric, but less so nowadays by a long, long chalk!)
Conscience though is a funny, nagging cove. An in-built - hard wired as it were by the Almighty Himself - device to point us to heaven, howsoever we misdirect or ignore its still, small voice until we are so inured in sin as to be deaf to all its remonstrances, it will still keep harping to our heart or chipping away at our stony spirit. Thus it has been with Bish Tom. Safe now in his Episcopal Palace uneasy rested the head that wore the Mitre, until the day came - as surely it must - when he would recount his tale of involvement in the mortal matter in the hope of ending, for all time, the feud. [Let though one be clear here - I am not Tom confessor nor would wish to be. There are no 'sacred seals' being broken. I have been a sounding board and that is all.]
The totality of the revelation having exceeded the time for supper - not to mention the near exhaustion of my better malt - the moot and significant point is whether Bish Tom, having cleansed his breast of the festering sore within, was able to offer some insight into how our hero - for such is I - should approach the present champions - Mildred and Maurice as aforementioned - with a view to calling a halt 'ere proceeding have begun this time around.
For that though one [i.e. you] must wait for further news. There are deep discussions to be had and diplomatic lines to be opened and explored. Sufficient for the day are the tales thereof!
Got Him?
Has there ever been such media coverage of a man's arrest as for that of Tom Stephens today? Recorded interviews with the man given last week still being played on the BBC? Details of his 'MySpace' profile shown on television, reporters allowed to stand by the back garden fence just yards from his house while police carry out their work, his street already being described as perhaps "destined to become one of the most notorious in Britain"?
This is very peculiar stuff and concerns me. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law is so vital a principle for our entire justice system in this country; it is the foundation upon which all else rests. So have the police sanctioned this broadcasting of his name and details to this extent, or are the media simply ignoring requests to be cautious? The latter is unlikely, so the former seems credible - which is near incredible.
What if it comes to trial and the case should be thrown out because of pre-trial prejudicial reporting and revelation? That would be calamitous if he is the murderer.
And if he is not the killer, then what does life hold for him now? Perhaps he has already confessed and there is incontrovertible objective evidence to back this up, but if he is just some attention seeking loon - standard behaviour in such murder cases for fakers to come forward claiming to have done the deed/s - the potential for tragic farce is there.
I hope they have 'got him', because if so then women of Ipswich are safer tonight. But I am still very uneasy about this unprecedented public exposure of a murder suspect.
This is very peculiar stuff and concerns me. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law is so vital a principle for our entire justice system in this country; it is the foundation upon which all else rests. So have the police sanctioned this broadcasting of his name and details to this extent, or are the media simply ignoring requests to be cautious? The latter is unlikely, so the former seems credible - which is near incredible.
What if it comes to trial and the case should be thrown out because of pre-trial prejudicial reporting and revelation? That would be calamitous if he is the murderer.
And if he is not the killer, then what does life hold for him now? Perhaps he has already confessed and there is incontrovertible objective evidence to back this up, but if he is just some attention seeking loon - standard behaviour in such murder cases for fakers to come forward claiming to have done the deed/s - the potential for tragic farce is there.
I hope they have 'got him', because if so then women of Ipswich are safer tonight. But I am still very uneasy about this unprecedented public exposure of a murder suspect.
Clean Sweep...
The myth is that men are hopeless at cleaning. As with all myths there is a foundation of truth in the story, though not the one most commonly attributed to the legend - that we can't or won't do it.
That is not the matter at all. The truth rather is that men clean too well for their or anyone else's good. Let this tale illuminate my meaning:
Having spent most of Friday night in prayerful and penitential vigil - i.e. howling at the television screen as one watched the England cricket team cast away their wickets and the Ashes with seemingly glad abandon - I awoke late [not far short of mid-day] to be greeted by H in stern mood.
Her take on the whole thing was that one had simply sought avoidance of Saturday chores, a failed quest in that one was being asked [aka 'ordered'] to clean the kitchen properly prior to next week's feast of frenzied cooking. Being too broken in spirit from what one had witnessed to protest that she would, as ever, regret this imposition I merely meekly assented and set to work.
The result of course is entirely as should have been predicted: the kitchen is now an exclusion zone, no person permitted therein, whilst I seek out and destroy every speck and spot of dust, dirt, grease or other alien life form. Eight hours of toil and one had managed three cupboard plus all the glasses therein, two drawers and one of the major surfaces. By estimation this is but one third of the task, two days more required for completing the whole mission.
This is not obsession or mania. It is rather rational thoroughness. Cleaning is a purely binary proposition: something is either clean or not-clean and compromise is not an option.
H should have had the sense to anticipate from experience how the whole thing would pan out and, if some sentence for over-sleeping were required, assigned me to the ironing where I could happily have pressed on with no hindrance to the rest of humanity in the back bedroom until every last scrap of cloth were neatly folded and piled.
Worse from the 'humanity' angle, having put my back out reaching for the most inaccessible of ceiling flecks of dust I am now needing to adjourn further progress on the Herculean endeavour until Tuesday at the earliest, resulting in everyone having to eat take-aways for the duration.
Men do not clean because we are not good enough. We do not clean because we wish in charity to spare others from our goodness.
That is not the matter at all. The truth rather is that men clean too well for their or anyone else's good. Let this tale illuminate my meaning:
Having spent most of Friday night in prayerful and penitential vigil - i.e. howling at the television screen as one watched the England cricket team cast away their wickets and the Ashes with seemingly glad abandon - I awoke late [not far short of mid-day] to be greeted by H in stern mood.
Her take on the whole thing was that one had simply sought avoidance of Saturday chores, a failed quest in that one was being asked [aka 'ordered'] to clean the kitchen properly prior to next week's feast of frenzied cooking. Being too broken in spirit from what one had witnessed to protest that she would, as ever, regret this imposition I merely meekly assented and set to work.
The result of course is entirely as should have been predicted: the kitchen is now an exclusion zone, no person permitted therein, whilst I seek out and destroy every speck and spot of dust, dirt, grease or other alien life form. Eight hours of toil and one had managed three cupboard plus all the glasses therein, two drawers and one of the major surfaces. By estimation this is but one third of the task, two days more required for completing the whole mission.
This is not obsession or mania. It is rather rational thoroughness. Cleaning is a purely binary proposition: something is either clean or not-clean and compromise is not an option.
H should have had the sense to anticipate from experience how the whole thing would pan out and, if some sentence for over-sleeping were required, assigned me to the ironing where I could happily have pressed on with no hindrance to the rest of humanity in the back bedroom until every last scrap of cloth were neatly folded and piled.
Worse from the 'humanity' angle, having put my back out reaching for the most inaccessible of ceiling flecks of dust I am now needing to adjourn further progress on the Herculean endeavour until Tuesday at the earliest, resulting in everyone having to eat take-aways for the duration.
Men do not clean because we are not good enough. We do not clean because we wish in charity to spare others from our goodness.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Touching Evil...
We are but half a petrol tank away from Ipswich, close enough to feel the fear as well as to share in the sorrow. Two chilling moments have brought the fear stark before our faces today.
E returns home from school to announce that they have been warned that a man has been attempting to lure school-girls into his car as they leave. Police are posted at the gates and girls are warned not to go home alone. As E is picked up every night by either H or myself so as to have her to horse and thence, one hopes, to homework in good time the actual peril to her is minimal yet still chilling.
Sadder too in its revelation of our all too familiar communal apathy when others are at risk, is a story in the local newspaper of a teenager, in a nearby town, who was attacked by a man who tried to drag her into his van as she passed a row of shops. She, mercifully, screamed and fought until her assailant - would be rapist or killer - let go and fled. But did anyone from any of the shops even come out to see what was going on, let alone help her? No, not one person came to her aid or even showed interest.
When interviewed, one shopkeeper said he was always hearing shouts and screams so why should he care if he heard one more?
And this now of all times? I rage and I mourn.
E returns home from school to announce that they have been warned that a man has been attempting to lure school-girls into his car as they leave. Police are posted at the gates and girls are warned not to go home alone. As E is picked up every night by either H or myself so as to have her to horse and thence, one hopes, to homework in good time the actual peril to her is minimal yet still chilling.
Sadder too in its revelation of our all too familiar communal apathy when others are at risk, is a story in the local newspaper of a teenager, in a nearby town, who was attacked by a man who tried to drag her into his van as she passed a row of shops. She, mercifully, screamed and fought until her assailant - would be rapist or killer - let go and fled. But did anyone from any of the shops even come out to see what was going on, let alone help her? No, not one person came to her aid or even showed interest.
When interviewed, one shopkeeper said he was always hearing shouts and screams so why should he care if he heard one more?
And this now of all times? I rage and I mourn.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
The Albert Version...
I have been over to see ancient Canon Albert in his nursing-home fastness, in the hope of prizing out of him some useful tips regarding the aforementioned Ceremony of the Blood Letting - and to enquire as to why there was no reference to it at all in the, again, aforementioned Book of Record he so otherwise diligently furnished me with when I arrived to take over the pastoral baton.
Taking everything all in all, I found the place itself - St. Martha's - less lowering than I had anticipated it to be. True, there were a goodly number of elderly coves whose grip on reality as ordinarily taken was somewhat remote, but as these fellows seemed exclusively to be found among the patients - the staff being to a woman cheerful, kind and caring - I minded little being mistaken for a couple of nephews and the odd father by some of the inhabitants.
Canon Albert himself was introduced to me as having 'one of his better days', which did make me wonder the deep patience and skill required of the good nursing nuns on any day less than better. Nonetheless, with a certain occasional side-step down a by-way of misplaced memory, we did manage between us to cut to the chase on the matter of family feuding and the non-noting of it.
Re-hashing his tale in line with more traditional narrative protocols - leaving out then asides on the devilish behaviour of some of his neighbours past and present, etc., - this is the Albert Version:
Albert was posted to the Wolds in the late 1960s - which in local time would have been nearer to the early 1950s for the rest of the country. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll may have been big in the outside world, but over here - apart of course from sex, we being a farming community well versed the in functional breeding if not the recreational pleasure aspect of the matter - the lives followed a pattern and a rhythm laid down over centuries and not much altered by developments elsewhere. ('Orgasmic' would have been confused with 'organic' - and each treated with equal deep suspicion as something invented by ignorant townies.)
'If it moves you milk it; if it doesn't you reap it' more or less summed us up, with the occasionally interspersed festival to liven the mood. These festivals, as Albert soon discovered, had their roots - and sometimes their very branches and twigs - nourished as much by ancient pagan fancies as by traditional theological imperatives. For the Church this was not on the whole unduly problematic: a convivial 'hunting parson' - as incumbents mainly were - neatly bestriding this duality with a foot in either stirrup as it were.
For Albert though this matter was not quite so simple, he being of the Old School - or rather perhaps the new school - of true believer for whom no compromise with the profane could be easily or readily countenanced. Albert had served in the War as a paramedic and had been present when Belsen had been liberated. He had seen pure evil and knew in his heart that only pure good could withstand that sight yet maintain hope for human kind.
It had, therefore, been a struggle for Albert working in what one could best describe as a 'mixed-faith' community of believers, who happily kept penates corn dollies for harvest home next lares Crosses for eternal salvation. Early evangelism vigour had enjoyed a limited success among a few, but had in at least equal measure caused friction and ruction with many of his flock. Over time his innate goodness had won many to accept him for his well-meant kindness, his material generosity to the labouring poor also contributing to the high-regard in which ultimately he was held in the village.
The matter of the Feud though remained for him an indelible stain on the fabric of local life, with no amount of spiritual scrubbing on his behalf able to transform it into the wished-for, prayed-for, white wool of the Lamb. The particular dilemma for Albert was that the Church had already become caught up in this whole matter as an accomplice, being the party as it were that held the ring to ensure that none should actually come to harm therein and equally that the inter-family violence should be quarantined to that narrow sphere.
To wash, therefore, his hands of the matter in the manner of a Pilate was not an Xtian option as Albert saw it. His endeavour rather was to attempt further diminution and entropy until - as he hoped - the ghost could could be laid to rest for lack of energy for the continued haunting. It was he who had introduced the notion of mutual thumb-pricking to lessen the opportunity for real harm, but also with a view to making the whole thing seem so trivial as to not to be worth the effort.
He sought further to dampen the fires of retributive vengeance - which were indeed by then burning low - by loading the whole Ceremony with such a lengthy liturgical burden as to seek to bore the combatants into submission. (A standard clerical device which we are all taught in Year Three of the seminary curriculum!) Thus it was that his choice for 'prayer for the day' at his last hosting of the Ceremony had been the entire contents of Psalm CXVIII, a fine vehicle of prayer in its way but at 176 verses not usually recited all in one go by even the most devoted of monastic houses let alone lay clergy.
For Albert this final tactic appeared to have worked. There was an ennui about the whole affair that he hoped might be the much desired - by him at least - coup de grace of the warring and the feuding. It was, therefore, for that reason - a hope that the last had been heard of the matter - that he had chosen not to include any mention of blood letting in his otherwise masterful Book of Record duly completed for yours truly on my arrival.
I have no doubt the Good Lord loves his good Albert, but clearly He felt that one more test of his faith was needed finally to purify the soul within. How else to explain that, yes the Ceremony would have been finally laid to rest were it not for the new life breathed into it by the respective representatives of the two families due to engage in combat this time - Mildred and Maurice - who were now positively relishing the prospect of being met at almost literal 'daggers drawn' as they have been metaphorically for too many of their years?
This sad news it seemed not fit to pass on to Albert to spoil his final days ('months maybe' thought Matron) so I admit I lied to the old fellow and told him my only interest was purely historical not current, and that I had only heard mere mention of the matter over a pint at the Dragon.
I have enough I deem of the background to the whole thing to be going on with for now. There are but a few days left to plan a strategic campaign and to assign tactical disposition of one's forces. To horse! Or rather, in my case, to bicycle!
Taking everything all in all, I found the place itself - St. Martha's - less lowering than I had anticipated it to be. True, there were a goodly number of elderly coves whose grip on reality as ordinarily taken was somewhat remote, but as these fellows seemed exclusively to be found among the patients - the staff being to a woman cheerful, kind and caring - I minded little being mistaken for a couple of nephews and the odd father by some of the inhabitants.
Canon Albert himself was introduced to me as having 'one of his better days', which did make me wonder the deep patience and skill required of the good nursing nuns on any day less than better. Nonetheless, with a certain occasional side-step down a by-way of misplaced memory, we did manage between us to cut to the chase on the matter of family feuding and the non-noting of it.
Re-hashing his tale in line with more traditional narrative protocols - leaving out then asides on the devilish behaviour of some of his neighbours past and present, etc., - this is the Albert Version:
Albert was posted to the Wolds in the late 1960s - which in local time would have been nearer to the early 1950s for the rest of the country. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll may have been big in the outside world, but over here - apart of course from sex, we being a farming community well versed the in functional breeding if not the recreational pleasure aspect of the matter - the lives followed a pattern and a rhythm laid down over centuries and not much altered by developments elsewhere. ('Orgasmic' would have been confused with 'organic' - and each treated with equal deep suspicion as something invented by ignorant townies.)
'If it moves you milk it; if it doesn't you reap it' more or less summed us up, with the occasionally interspersed festival to liven the mood. These festivals, as Albert soon discovered, had their roots - and sometimes their very branches and twigs - nourished as much by ancient pagan fancies as by traditional theological imperatives. For the Church this was not on the whole unduly problematic: a convivial 'hunting parson' - as incumbents mainly were - neatly bestriding this duality with a foot in either stirrup as it were.
For Albert though this matter was not quite so simple, he being of the Old School - or rather perhaps the new school - of true believer for whom no compromise with the profane could be easily or readily countenanced. Albert had served in the War as a paramedic and had been present when Belsen had been liberated. He had seen pure evil and knew in his heart that only pure good could withstand that sight yet maintain hope for human kind.
It had, therefore, been a struggle for Albert working in what one could best describe as a 'mixed-faith' community of believers, who happily kept penates corn dollies for harvest home next lares Crosses for eternal salvation. Early evangelism vigour had enjoyed a limited success among a few, but had in at least equal measure caused friction and ruction with many of his flock. Over time his innate goodness had won many to accept him for his well-meant kindness, his material generosity to the labouring poor also contributing to the high-regard in which ultimately he was held in the village.
The matter of the Feud though remained for him an indelible stain on the fabric of local life, with no amount of spiritual scrubbing on his behalf able to transform it into the wished-for, prayed-for, white wool of the Lamb. The particular dilemma for Albert was that the Church had already become caught up in this whole matter as an accomplice, being the party as it were that held the ring to ensure that none should actually come to harm therein and equally that the inter-family violence should be quarantined to that narrow sphere.
To wash, therefore, his hands of the matter in the manner of a Pilate was not an Xtian option as Albert saw it. His endeavour rather was to attempt further diminution and entropy until - as he hoped - the ghost could could be laid to rest for lack of energy for the continued haunting. It was he who had introduced the notion of mutual thumb-pricking to lessen the opportunity for real harm, but also with a view to making the whole thing seem so trivial as to not to be worth the effort.
He sought further to dampen the fires of retributive vengeance - which were indeed by then burning low - by loading the whole Ceremony with such a lengthy liturgical burden as to seek to bore the combatants into submission. (A standard clerical device which we are all taught in Year Three of the seminary curriculum!) Thus it was that his choice for 'prayer for the day' at his last hosting of the Ceremony had been the entire contents of Psalm CXVIII, a fine vehicle of prayer in its way but at 176 verses not usually recited all in one go by even the most devoted of monastic houses let alone lay clergy.
For Albert this final tactic appeared to have worked. There was an ennui about the whole affair that he hoped might be the much desired - by him at least - coup de grace of the warring and the feuding. It was, therefore, for that reason - a hope that the last had been heard of the matter - that he had chosen not to include any mention of blood letting in his otherwise masterful Book of Record duly completed for yours truly on my arrival.
I have no doubt the Good Lord loves his good Albert, but clearly He felt that one more test of his faith was needed finally to purify the soul within. How else to explain that, yes the Ceremony would have been finally laid to rest were it not for the new life breathed into it by the respective representatives of the two families due to engage in combat this time - Mildred and Maurice - who were now positively relishing the prospect of being met at almost literal 'daggers drawn' as they have been metaphorically for too many of their years?
This sad news it seemed not fit to pass on to Albert to spoil his final days ('months maybe' thought Matron) so I admit I lied to the old fellow and told him my only interest was purely historical not current, and that I had only heard mere mention of the matter over a pint at the Dragon.
I have enough I deem of the background to the whole thing to be going on with for now. There are but a few days left to plan a strategic campaign and to assign tactical disposition of one's forces. To horse! Or rather, in my case, to bicycle!
Preacher Man Blues...
...Having just about recovered from the shock of discovering that my memory has been playing up and tricks on me for assuming Mgr. Knox [see below] to have been a Jesuit, I can now though safely recount a tale once heard concerning a certain 'Very Famous Preacher', who most assuredly was a J and, therefore, in equal measure very clearly not our Knox fellow.
This VFP was renowned the length and the breadth of the ecclesial land for his endless stream of rousing and pertinent homilies on all and any subject under the Creator's sun. Possessing a gift - or indeed truly a charism - which he refined over many years, our fellow was something of a super-star among preachers and from one pressing engagement to the next hardly able to draw breath.
Back at HQ, his 'diary secretary' and lay brother helper toiled with equal diligence to ensure that VFP always arrived at the right place at the right time, replete with appropriate text for the occasion. Theirs was as fine a combination of the dove and the serpent at work in harness as you could ever wish to meet.
Sad to relate, though, like many fine duos this one came eventually to an end with the demise of the lay brother. As he lay dying our VFP naturally broke off his current tour to return to HQ to take his farewells and to thank said lay brother for all the help and support he had given him over the many years.
"I always knew you were praying for my good work," said VFP. "And it was that humble prayer that has sustained me in my mission."
"Oh but Father," replied the lay brother with his last breath. "I never prayed that you would do good with all your words. I merely asked the Lord that you would not do too much harm!"
Score one for Golden Silence perhaps. Though think about who would have reported this conversation. Could only have been the VFP himself, in due humility reflecting on the pertinence of the remark.
Much in a way like the remark Saint Thomas Aquinas is reported having said on waking from a revelatory dream of the glory of God - "All I have written is as so much straw compared to this!" But then as old Father P of Q would remark - "Straw maybe, but such fine straw!"
This VFP was renowned the length and the breadth of the ecclesial land for his endless stream of rousing and pertinent homilies on all and any subject under the Creator's sun. Possessing a gift - or indeed truly a charism - which he refined over many years, our fellow was something of a super-star among preachers and from one pressing engagement to the next hardly able to draw breath.
Back at HQ, his 'diary secretary' and lay brother helper toiled with equal diligence to ensure that VFP always arrived at the right place at the right time, replete with appropriate text for the occasion. Theirs was as fine a combination of the dove and the serpent at work in harness as you could ever wish to meet.
Sad to relate, though, like many fine duos this one came eventually to an end with the demise of the lay brother. As he lay dying our VFP naturally broke off his current tour to return to HQ to take his farewells and to thank said lay brother for all the help and support he had given him over the many years.
"I always knew you were praying for my good work," said VFP. "And it was that humble prayer that has sustained me in my mission."
"Oh but Father," replied the lay brother with his last breath. "I never prayed that you would do good with all your words. I merely asked the Lord that you would not do too much harm!"
Score one for Golden Silence perhaps. Though think about who would have reported this conversation. Could only have been the VFP himself, in due humility reflecting on the pertinence of the remark.
Much in a way like the remark Saint Thomas Aquinas is reported having said on waking from a revelatory dream of the glory of God - "All I have written is as so much straw compared to this!" But then as old Father P of Q would remark - "Straw maybe, but such fine straw!"
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
On Cheers and Choice...
...A warning though from history of the necessity of exercising due caution in the matter of monastic tippling.
It was my pleasure - as well as rare privilege - to be in conversation with a Carthusian monk some years ago. Those of you who know this strictest of all Orders will appreciate how infrequent it is for such coves to be found chatting to outsiders, it hardly being their habit to speak to each other from one year's end to another.
This fellow, finding as one does the whole experience rather testing, had been allowed out for a sabbatical to recover his wind and his nerve. A sensible and a humane approach of course. He talked of many aspects of his rigourous life, but one in particular struck me with regard to the subject of a monk and his drink.
The very first day he was in his hermitage, shortly before luncheon the shutter of his cell flew open to reveal the stark eyes of his lay brother helper who asked in simple and direct terms "Beer or cider?" Assuming, correctly, that this was his being offered a choice of beverage to take with his potage, it being an unusually hot day our Carthusian novice opted not for his customary preference of beer but ordered cider instead.
When, later, the meal was thrust through said shutter by said stark-eyed lay brother there duly was a large pitcher of cooling cider. The next day though, it turning chilly, our intrepid seeker of salvation mused that this time he would be returning to ale and awaited the arrival of Ol' Stark Eyes to take his order for the day.
This same pre-prandial exchange though did not occur and luncheon arrived - more or less the same dish of potage - with more cider. The next day the same and for the following days, until it dawned on our not dull friend that day one had been his one and his only opportunity to make a choice for life, and that from here on in cider was to be his drink, will he or nil he, until the end of time!
For nigh on thirty years Brother X has been quaffing cider to his eternal dismay. Poor man, it felt only right whilst under my hospitality to offer him a trip to the Dragon Inn for some alternative refreshment. Never have I seen a man so tearfully happy as this fellow when taking his first sip of Firebreath Ale!
It was my pleasure - as well as rare privilege - to be in conversation with a Carthusian monk some years ago. Those of you who know this strictest of all Orders will appreciate how infrequent it is for such coves to be found chatting to outsiders, it hardly being their habit to speak to each other from one year's end to another.
This fellow, finding as one does the whole experience rather testing, had been allowed out for a sabbatical to recover his wind and his nerve. A sensible and a humane approach of course. He talked of many aspects of his rigourous life, but one in particular struck me with regard to the subject of a monk and his drink.
The very first day he was in his hermitage, shortly before luncheon the shutter of his cell flew open to reveal the stark eyes of his lay brother helper who asked in simple and direct terms "Beer or cider?" Assuming, correctly, that this was his being offered a choice of beverage to take with his potage, it being an unusually hot day our Carthusian novice opted not for his customary preference of beer but ordered cider instead.
When, later, the meal was thrust through said shutter by said stark-eyed lay brother there duly was a large pitcher of cooling cider. The next day though, it turning chilly, our intrepid seeker of salvation mused that this time he would be returning to ale and awaited the arrival of Ol' Stark Eyes to take his order for the day.
This same pre-prandial exchange though did not occur and luncheon arrived - more or less the same dish of potage - with more cider. The next day the same and for the following days, until it dawned on our not dull friend that day one had been his one and his only opportunity to make a choice for life, and that from here on in cider was to be his drink, will he or nil he, until the end of time!
For nigh on thirty years Brother X has been quaffing cider to his eternal dismay. Poor man, it felt only right whilst under my hospitality to offer him a trip to the Dragon Inn for some alternative refreshment. Never have I seen a man so tearfully happy as this fellow when taking his first sip of Firebreath Ale!
A Fluid Measure...
...Returning for a moment to the proper measure of drink for imbibing clerics, the thoughts of two other good Catholic writers occur to me as essential guidance in this delicate matter.
Mgr. Ronald ('Ronnie') Knox opined that should a priest ask himself at a meal if it were wise for him to be taking more wine, then that point had already been passed and he must lay down his glass at once. A man of great natural whimsy as well as deep spirituality, Mgr. Knox's near aphorism here is a fair statement of the good use of an astute self-awareness (or as he himself would more likely have called it - an examination of conscience) to avoid breaking the bounds of either decorum or clerical discipline. As a J [Jesuit] his fine sense of what stands which side of the permissible [Jesuit casuistry in action] can hardly be faulted. [You will see below that I have been properly and promptly chastised for assigning J status to the good Mgr. Good to know that there are whole cyber-societies dedicated to the man's memory and mission. Who can say in years to come, will there be a comparable www.rev.palladas.org gathering? One can but so grandiosely dream!]
Acutely aware of human fallibility, in himself not least, he had a host of correct behaviours he believed would keep a man the proper side of rectitude. One such - his own invention to manage an abiding personal temptation - was to allow that as it was impossible for him to forsake the Times crossword completely during Lent, he would chastise himself for this weakness by only completing all of the Across clues before attempting the Down clues. Such heroic asceticism would surely have met with deep approval by the early desert fathers attempting such comparatively minor feats of holy endurance as standing on one leg on a pillar for endless years.
There is though another school of Xtian spirituality to which I feel far more drawn than that of the J's; it is that of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the founder of Western monasticism. There were, of course, monks before St. B arrived on the scene - mostly these top-of-a-pillar athletic sorts - but it was he who gave the world the great Rule for monks by which, by and large, all since have lived.
Within this Rule there are many examples of St. B's tender regard for those attempting what he called 'this little school for beginners.' Apposite to the matter in hand, are his comments on the amount of wine a monk may drink a day. Naturally St. B wished monks to abstain from all intoxicants, but accepting in humility the feebleness of mankind he allowed that up to but no more than a "hemina" of wine could be a daily portion.
And what, I hear you ask, is a hemina? Well, that precisely is the generous point. There simply is no knowing how much a hemina might be. Some argue it is nearly a pint, others take it for a greater or a smaller amount. The upshot of this uncertainty is that, to this day, each monastic house has been able to provide sufficient wine to satisfy the respective thirst of its community, yet remain true to the letter and the spirit of the Rule.
Raise a sensible glass then to Saint Benedict and his fluid measure!
Mgr. Ronald ('Ronnie') Knox opined that should a priest ask himself at a meal if it were wise for him to be taking more wine, then that point had already been passed and he must lay down his glass at once. A man of great natural whimsy as well as deep spirituality, Mgr. Knox's near aphorism here is a fair statement of the good use of an astute self-awareness (or as he himself would more likely have called it - an examination of conscience) to avoid breaking the bounds of either decorum or clerical discipline. As a J [Jesuit] his fine sense of what stands which side of the permissible [Jesuit casuistry in action] can hardly be faulted. [You will see below that I have been properly and promptly chastised for assigning J status to the good Mgr. Good to know that there are whole cyber-societies dedicated to the man's memory and mission. Who can say in years to come, will there be a comparable www.rev.palladas.org gathering? One can but so grandiosely dream!]
Acutely aware of human fallibility, in himself not least, he had a host of correct behaviours he believed would keep a man the proper side of rectitude. One such - his own invention to manage an abiding personal temptation - was to allow that as it was impossible for him to forsake the Times crossword completely during Lent, he would chastise himself for this weakness by only completing all of the Across clues before attempting the Down clues. Such heroic asceticism would surely have met with deep approval by the early desert fathers attempting such comparatively minor feats of holy endurance as standing on one leg on a pillar for endless years.
There is though another school of Xtian spirituality to which I feel far more drawn than that of the J's; it is that of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the founder of Western monasticism. There were, of course, monks before St. B arrived on the scene - mostly these top-of-a-pillar athletic sorts - but it was he who gave the world the great Rule for monks by which, by and large, all since have lived.
Within this Rule there are many examples of St. B's tender regard for those attempting what he called 'this little school for beginners.' Apposite to the matter in hand, are his comments on the amount of wine a monk may drink a day. Naturally St. B wished monks to abstain from all intoxicants, but accepting in humility the feebleness of mankind he allowed that up to but no more than a "hemina" of wine could be a daily portion.
And what, I hear you ask, is a hemina? Well, that precisely is the generous point. There simply is no knowing how much a hemina might be. Some argue it is nearly a pint, others take it for a greater or a smaller amount. The upshot of this uncertainty is that, to this day, each monastic house has been able to provide sufficient wine to satisfy the respective thirst of its community, yet remain true to the letter and the spirit of the Rule.
Raise a sensible glass then to Saint Benedict and his fluid measure!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Serial or Spree?
Offering prayers for the people of Ipswich as one does, I learn tonight that we may be mistaken in referring to a 'serial' killer - someone who is usually very controlled in his [generally] actions - killing regularly but not predictably, striking only when he believes he is safe. What we may have rather is a 'spree' killer - someone totally out of control and bent on as much rapid slaughter as he can before he is caught - a literal frenzy of death.
This is a dark and an evil time for Suffolk people. May this demon of evil be quelled and light return.
This is a dark and an evil time for Suffolk people. May this demon of evil be quelled and light return.
On Brewing and Bishops..
Poor old Bishop Butler down Southwark way seems to have landed himself in a bit of a pickle in the matter of being 'mugged' by some drink taken at an Irish reception. Witnesses report said swaying Bish climbing into the back of a car - most certainly not his own - thence throwing some toys out of the window before falling out of said vehicle and bashing his head on the pavement.
The Bish himself, replete with black eye and sore head, says he has no recollection whatsoever of the incident, which if nothing else pays due tribute to traditional Irish hospitality. One gathers his flock are by his side and that nothing but acute embarrassment and the generation no doubt of yet another euphemism for being intoxicated - 'throwing one's toys out of the car - as lasting effect.
There are not too many tee-total clergy in my neck of the woods and, to be honest, I am for that glad. It was G K Chesterton who wonderfully wrote that we give thanks to God for Burgundy wine by not drinking too much of it, and I much prefer such a sensitive approach to out-right abstinence carrying, as inevitably it does, a certain 'more righteous than thou' aura.
Mind you, it was the same Chesterton who also wrote: "A hangover is one of the minor proofs of the existence of God." Bishop Butler is no doubt feeling the full force of that sage notion right now!
The Bish himself, replete with black eye and sore head, says he has no recollection whatsoever of the incident, which if nothing else pays due tribute to traditional Irish hospitality. One gathers his flock are by his side and that nothing but acute embarrassment and the generation no doubt of yet another euphemism for being intoxicated - 'throwing one's toys out of the car - as lasting effect.
There are not too many tee-total clergy in my neck of the woods and, to be honest, I am for that glad. It was G K Chesterton who wonderfully wrote that we give thanks to God for Burgundy wine by not drinking too much of it, and I much prefer such a sensitive approach to out-right abstinence carrying, as inevitably it does, a certain 'more righteous than thou' aura.
Mind you, it was the same Chesterton who also wrote: "A hangover is one of the minor proofs of the existence of God." Bishop Butler is no doubt feeling the full force of that sage notion right now!
Monday, December 11, 2006
On Blood Letting and Other Sicilian Matters...
On the whole the 'handover' I received from my predecessor, Canon Albert, was frank, full and fair. Parishioners across the land may be faintly shocked to learn that it is a clerical habit to keep a Book of Record that is prepared for the eventual time of one's leaving a post, in order to inform the incomer of the likely pitfalls and challenges he (or now she) may face.
Be not though too alarmed, this B of R is not a list of misdemeanours or worse committed by one's flock - a prelude to that we all shall face when St. Peter calls us to hear him read from one's own Book of Life - it is more a 'map' to guide the novice and to steer him/her from gross error:
Colonel X - good charity giver, but avoid Seamans' Missions as his father had an unfortunate and fatal encounter with a pedalo when taking a dip at Scarborough
Mrs B - will always volunteer to do the baking. Never in any circumstance accept her offer, but steer her towards tea-making instead. Her 'salmonella slices' are legendary and lethal!
Young M - too pious for his own good. Tell him he should get out more.
...That sort of thing. Infused, actually, with Xtian charity aimed at saving people from themselves and, therefore, entirely congruent with one's main duties as a parson. Much like a doctor's first rule of thumb: do no harm. (A somewhat ironic metaphor in the current circumstances you'll shortly be discovering.)
Imagine then my surprise when good Doctor Thompson telephoned last evening to enquire whether I would be attending next week's Blood Letting ceremony, and did I have any thoughts on suitable prayers for the occasion as Canon Albert's rendition of Psalm CXVIII - all 176 verses of it - had been thought a trifle over-bearing last time!
Now I may not be the shiniest apple in the cart, but I did read the aforementioned B of R with due diligence - twice in fact in my first three months just to be sure I had it all to hand as needed - and could recall no mention of anything to do with Blood, let alone the Letting of it! As the old fossil is now semi-gaga in St. Martha's Rest Home for Retired Clergy, there doesn't seem much chance I can ask him why the silence on this critical matter.
I will attempt to pop over to try and grill him for some gen before next week, but I doubt my visit will be fruitful and in the meanwhile I shall have to rely on my native wits and such briefing as Doc T was able to provide. Doc T, mercifully, is apparently an old Blood Letting hand and has the whole thing at his command.
From his telling of it this is more or less the full SP on the matter:
Slightly over a hundred years ago - quite recent by our slow-moving rural take on time - there was a particularly nasty falling out between local two families involving the title to some land, a pair of 'star-crossed lovers' and a brace of pheasants - reared by one family and shot by the other. (Pheasants that is not lovers.) Quite typical of its kind and generally nowadays no more than a fond memory.
This particular falling out, though, had evolved into a full-blown feud with recorded poisoning of wells, at least two crimes of arson and, sadly, the death of no fewer than four of the principals in circumstances deemed at the time highly suspicious.
The lay authorities and the civil courts proving incapable either of imposing peace or of catching let alone condemning the culprits, finally turned the whole thing over to the Church to resolve as best it could. Endless sermons on the general theme of 'Love - or if not that then not slaughter - thy neighbour' were preached to little avail; cohorts of clergy were dispatched as flying emissaries between the warring factions but with no good outcome; anathemas, even, were invoked on both sides yet no change in behaviour.
And thus it continued unabated for decades, until at last some bright spark came up with the notion that, as it was impossible to stop the two families taking retribution upon retribution, the better option would be to seek rather to keep the whole thing within tolerably acceptable levels of violence that would allow them to get on with it without burdening the parish or the coroner with extra fret or duties.
This solution, it appears, was acceptable to both parties. They had themselves become wearied of losing sleep and relatives over this matter and were perfectly content to agree that the actual fighting should be reduced to a symbolic act of violence once every four years. This path permitted each side to continue to pursue their eternal feud, to which they were bound by familial allegiance, without actually interfering with their daily lives. (A proper English compromise and much like, it must be said, most people's ordinary relationship with the Church as a whole!)
The Ceremony of the Blood Letting - as it became known - was to occur in the third week of December. Hardly conducive to a good Advent spirit of course, but chosen because it was the anniversary of the death of patriarch D, whose fatal fall from his horse was attributed either to the dodgy Dutch gin he had been sold by an adherent of the other side or by simple witchcraft. (The coroner's verdict on that occasion had left both options open, simply recording that patriarch D had died from 'a surfeit of bad spirits.')
Early versions of the Ceremony had involved padded fighters poking each other with swords until one or other of the contenders had drawn blood, at which point honour was deemed to be satisfied and all repaired to the Dragon Inn for rabbit pate and rum. (Seems they took their keynote for this from duelling German students of the time - though I'm not sure rabbit pate is big in Bavaria.)
Latterly even this level of assault was allowed to diminish, until the present ritual was established that a pin should be used to prick the thumb of each fighter, a drop of blood was drawn from both and the duel declared a tie. (This of course is where Doc T came in to be of service with his sterilised needles and to perform this little surgical act on behalf of the two families. Plain against his medical ethics and likely to be taken a dim view of by the GMC should they ever find out, but again a working and a safe compromise.)
My role as representative of the Church is to invoke a blessing on the whole affair - a sort of holy amnesty from sin - and to judge that blood having been given for blood peace once more should reign in all our hearts for the next four years. Nothing in my seminary training has prepared me for this I can assure you! My instincts are all against this and the possibility of a stand being taken is with me. Time to ponder and reflect on the most effectively eirenic, yet conscience salving, approach to take.
Who, I finally enquired of the good Doctor, are the actual combatants this time? His answer came as a shock but, on consideration, no great surprise. Maurice and Mildred are to be the chosen champions! I should have guessed, there has always been an underlying tension whenever the two meet and it has been noticeable that if ever one is for a particular course of action then the other is inevitably implacably opposed.
There is no sign of personal animosity in this, however, and you couldn't ask for a couple to be more socially charming each to the other. But there beneath it all lies - as I now know - a great rural tradition of civil strife, feuds held dear and cherished over generations, and now the prospect of actual physical conflict of a kind between them.
Time for a singularly large malt and a re-read of Canon Albert's prompts for clues as to what best to do!
Be not though too alarmed, this B of R is not a list of misdemeanours or worse committed by one's flock - a prelude to that we all shall face when St. Peter calls us to hear him read from one's own Book of Life - it is more a 'map' to guide the novice and to steer him/her from gross error:
Colonel X - good charity giver, but avoid Seamans' Missions as his father had an unfortunate and fatal encounter with a pedalo when taking a dip at Scarborough
Mrs B - will always volunteer to do the baking. Never in any circumstance accept her offer, but steer her towards tea-making instead. Her 'salmonella slices' are legendary and lethal!
Young M - too pious for his own good. Tell him he should get out more.
...That sort of thing. Infused, actually, with Xtian charity aimed at saving people from themselves and, therefore, entirely congruent with one's main duties as a parson. Much like a doctor's first rule of thumb: do no harm. (A somewhat ironic metaphor in the current circumstances you'll shortly be discovering.)
Imagine then my surprise when good Doctor Thompson telephoned last evening to enquire whether I would be attending next week's Blood Letting ceremony, and did I have any thoughts on suitable prayers for the occasion as Canon Albert's rendition of Psalm CXVIII - all 176 verses of it - had been thought a trifle over-bearing last time!
Now I may not be the shiniest apple in the cart, but I did read the aforementioned B of R with due diligence - twice in fact in my first three months just to be sure I had it all to hand as needed - and could recall no mention of anything to do with Blood, let alone the Letting of it! As the old fossil is now semi-gaga in St. Martha's Rest Home for Retired Clergy, there doesn't seem much chance I can ask him why the silence on this critical matter.
I will attempt to pop over to try and grill him for some gen before next week, but I doubt my visit will be fruitful and in the meanwhile I shall have to rely on my native wits and such briefing as Doc T was able to provide. Doc T, mercifully, is apparently an old Blood Letting hand and has the whole thing at his command.
From his telling of it this is more or less the full SP on the matter:
Slightly over a hundred years ago - quite recent by our slow-moving rural take on time - there was a particularly nasty falling out between local two families involving the title to some land, a pair of 'star-crossed lovers' and a brace of pheasants - reared by one family and shot by the other. (Pheasants that is not lovers.) Quite typical of its kind and generally nowadays no more than a fond memory.
This particular falling out, though, had evolved into a full-blown feud with recorded poisoning of wells, at least two crimes of arson and, sadly, the death of no fewer than four of the principals in circumstances deemed at the time highly suspicious.
The lay authorities and the civil courts proving incapable either of imposing peace or of catching let alone condemning the culprits, finally turned the whole thing over to the Church to resolve as best it could. Endless sermons on the general theme of 'Love - or if not that then not slaughter - thy neighbour' were preached to little avail; cohorts of clergy were dispatched as flying emissaries between the warring factions but with no good outcome; anathemas, even, were invoked on both sides yet no change in behaviour.
And thus it continued unabated for decades, until at last some bright spark came up with the notion that, as it was impossible to stop the two families taking retribution upon retribution, the better option would be to seek rather to keep the whole thing within tolerably acceptable levels of violence that would allow them to get on with it without burdening the parish or the coroner with extra fret or duties.
This solution, it appears, was acceptable to both parties. They had themselves become wearied of losing sleep and relatives over this matter and were perfectly content to agree that the actual fighting should be reduced to a symbolic act of violence once every four years. This path permitted each side to continue to pursue their eternal feud, to which they were bound by familial allegiance, without actually interfering with their daily lives. (A proper English compromise and much like, it must be said, most people's ordinary relationship with the Church as a whole!)
The Ceremony of the Blood Letting - as it became known - was to occur in the third week of December. Hardly conducive to a good Advent spirit of course, but chosen because it was the anniversary of the death of patriarch D, whose fatal fall from his horse was attributed either to the dodgy Dutch gin he had been sold by an adherent of the other side or by simple witchcraft. (The coroner's verdict on that occasion had left both options open, simply recording that patriarch D had died from 'a surfeit of bad spirits.')
Early versions of the Ceremony had involved padded fighters poking each other with swords until one or other of the contenders had drawn blood, at which point honour was deemed to be satisfied and all repaired to the Dragon Inn for rabbit pate and rum. (Seems they took their keynote for this from duelling German students of the time - though I'm not sure rabbit pate is big in Bavaria.)
Latterly even this level of assault was allowed to diminish, until the present ritual was established that a pin should be used to prick the thumb of each fighter, a drop of blood was drawn from both and the duel declared a tie. (This of course is where Doc T came in to be of service with his sterilised needles and to perform this little surgical act on behalf of the two families. Plain against his medical ethics and likely to be taken a dim view of by the GMC should they ever find out, but again a working and a safe compromise.)
My role as representative of the Church is to invoke a blessing on the whole affair - a sort of holy amnesty from sin - and to judge that blood having been given for blood peace once more should reign in all our hearts for the next four years. Nothing in my seminary training has prepared me for this I can assure you! My instincts are all against this and the possibility of a stand being taken is with me. Time to ponder and reflect on the most effectively eirenic, yet conscience salving, approach to take.
Who, I finally enquired of the good Doctor, are the actual combatants this time? His answer came as a shock but, on consideration, no great surprise. Maurice and Mildred are to be the chosen champions! I should have guessed, there has always been an underlying tension whenever the two meet and it has been noticeable that if ever one is for a particular course of action then the other is inevitably implacably opposed.
There is no sign of personal animosity in this, however, and you couldn't ask for a couple to be more socially charming each to the other. But there beneath it all lies - as I now know - a great rural tradition of civil strife, feuds held dear and cherished over generations, and now the prospect of actual physical conflict of a kind between them.
Time for a singularly large malt and a re-read of Canon Albert's prompts for clues as to what best to do!
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