"Oh, And Not Nut-Cutlets..."

...was the parting remark of our guest for the evening, as we concluded the telephone discussion about her dietary preferences.

Apparently everyone grabs a Tesco nut-cutlet from the shelves when faced with feeding a vegetarian. Honoured though I am to think that Miss Shanklin has higher than average expectations of her hosts - H and I - one can go slightly off people who, having rejected some ninety-five percentage of our ordinary table, then seek to impose further strictures on what may be served.

Cook, as anticipated, proved opposed to the notion in general and appalled in particular that 'foreign food' - as she deems it - was to be made available at such short notice.

All my clerical, pastoral subtlety of approach - having due and utter regard for the person as one does - was needed to move Cook from obstinate resistance to a state of sad acquiescence.

"There's always something," being my clue in her words that she was prepared to budge so far as not actually to bar the door to Miss Shanklin's arrival, nor to serve raw carrot and chips as a suitable supper.

That happy moment was, though, the next instant dashed from our discourse as Cook came on with "Well, I suppose nut-cutlets would do?"

"Nut-cutlets would be simply splendid," I at once lied.

"What though I did wonder" - more lies - "is that given that Patrick [Chef at the 'Dragon Inn' and keen rival to Cook] has taken to laying on the most ostentatious of vegetarian food these past months, ever since The Disappearance [See previous], you might fancy chancing your arm at something more adventurous."

Now Cook - like all good cooks - is extremely competitive, though unlike all other cooks I have come across - and for which great mercy - our current Cook is strictly TT, so there was little to no chance of her dropping into the Dragon to check Patrick's actual veggie menu, which from memory extends to no more than a cauliflower cheese or a green salad with an extra crouton.

Thus challenged Cook, thankfully, rose at once to the bait and promised something extremely exotic featuring - I recall - some fancy work with an aubergine, a courgette or two and some lemon zest.

She even left the room smiling!

Time now possibly to drop in on Isaac for one of his special shaves.

On Leaving Wyoming...

...A cheerful friend of mine who is a sound recordist for one of our treasured television channels once told me of his interesting visit to the United States in general and the State of Wyoming in particular.

He and the crew where there making a 'docu-drama' (as these curious hybrids of truth and fancy are known) concerning the rise and fall of a couple of English emigrants who, though but small fellows in their own homeland, rose through force of circumstance and personality - if not actually downright force - to become what was known in the Nineteenth century as 'Cattle Barons.'

Most of them eventually came to 'a bad end' in some shape or form, though generally still managing to quit this world - howsoever distasteful the actual event - with fortunes intact and with serious sums of cash to be passed down to descendants. (What in America is known as 'old money' one believes.)

My first meeting with Ronnie - our friendly sound recordist - came about because, it seems, one of these soi-disant nobles hailed originally from around these parts, and on discovering that one's humble self is somewhat of an amateur local historian, Ronnie was dispatched to see if I might have anything useful to contribute, either behind or before camera.

Sadly, it was eventually determined that there was little to gain for the programme from having me 'front a piece', as I believe the jargon goes, though Ronnie and I did strike a mutual chord which has, over time blossomed into said friendship. (He has even dangled before me the possibility of making an entire programme about the wonderful and changing life we lead in the Wolds. Kindly meant no doubt, but one was instantly reminded of that rock music joke - which has awful resonance regarding the place of sound recordists in the whole scheme of film making - "What was the last thing the drummer said before he was fired from the band?" "Hey guys, you wanna try one of my tunes?")

Anyway, cutting to the chase as one must. Ronnie had much to tell me regarding that magnificent, if utterly crazed, world of North America. Despite sound being 'his thing', he has a fine visual sense too and his descriptions of the landscapes of the 'Bad Lands' had me quite salivating with the prospect of venturing there one day with the large-view camera.

Of all that was told me though, this one point of his is much in my fretful mind this morning. They had been filming in Wyoming and adjourned for luncheon at a local diner. The menu was stark and reduced to its essentials - beef of any kind, cooked in any style involving naked flame and served either 'raw' or 'rare'.

Now Ronnie is a vegetarian. This is his creed and I have never cared to ask him for any rational explanation for this aberration. Vegetarians and Wyoming were not, it seems, a marriage made in heaven by any means. For enquiring of the waitress - a spitting image of Geena Davis apparently, which is nice - what she recommended for vegetarians, Ronnie was met with a thoughtful if slightly incredulous stare and the simple answer - "Leave Wyoming honey."

And so why am I minded of that tale at this moment? Because, as I feared, Cathy who is to be our guest at supper tonight is another such vegetarian, for whom not red or white meat or even indeed a piece of fish would do. At some immediate point, therefore, I shall have to inform Cook of this fact and ask her to prepare something Cathy can and will eat.

Our cook looks nothing like Geena Davis - sadly - but her views on non-meat eaters are no more tolerant of their right not to starve than Ronnie's Wyoming waitress.

Oh dear!

Fore!

An intriguing and unexpected footnote to the day - happened to mention, in passing like you do, to H that we really ought to ask that delightful new arrival Miss Shanklin round to share supper soon and, to my somewhat surprise, H - who normally is quite done with necessary hostings of ecclesiastical gatherings - at once proposed we should carpe diem and have her round tomorrow evening, that being convenient to our intended guest.

Must bone up on my paltry knowledge of just what titles that young 'Tiger' Woods fellow has won these past few years - Cathy (if I may make so bold) being quite a keen golf buff.

Might even see if I can squeeze in a visit to Isaac, barber to the menfolk, if I have an hour or so to spare in the morning. Mustn't let Miss Shanklin begin to think that we rural folk are all gone to seed after all!

Cook has long left for the night, but I shall telephone her first thing to sort out a decent menu. Does Cathy eat meat one frets? We all do round here of course, but then none of us has ever suffered the moral deprivation that living in London must entail.

Would ask H for advice on this tricky subject, but can sense that she has other, more significant, thoughts on her mind at present. The clue is in the fixed staring at some remote random object. Spotted that one some twenty years back. Held me in good stead ever since!

Election Fever II...

...H here with news from the frontline of campaigning.

As you will have gathered from dear PP, Mildred and I have spent much of the last two weeks in the War Room - as I tend to refer to the morning parlour at such times - planning our strategy for the impending Parish Council elections.

In due deference to PP's own position, 'Chinese Walls' - much favoured at present by the loathsome Ms Jowell for reasons too sordid to mention - have been erected between myself and caro mio for the duration of the battle. It would simply not do for the poor fellow to be informed of, let alone become involved in, the various machinations that must perforce take place at such a significant hour.

Whilst most angles - those one has become accustomed to encounter in this democratic conflict - have been covered (the baker squared as to who should have the contract for hospitality at any festal gathering, the builder assured that should the fund for the restoration of the roof ever be replete he alone would be expected to undertake the work - that sort of necessary thing) there is one deeply, deeply troubling and unexpected threat that has M and I burning more midnight oil than we could reasonably be expected to 'carbon offset.'

I refer to one Miss Shanklin who moved into the cottage of the late and much lamented teacher, Mr Sandown, last summer. My oversight no doubt - though at the time the saving of any plant in the garden was a necessary pressing priority in such a drought - but I did not take the required occasion to welcome Cathy into our fold, check her bone fides and ensure she could be relied upon to be one of us, as it were.

Nature and village life both abhorring a vacuum, it would seem that the dread Mrs J. took advantage of my absence to seduce the poor woman into her own fold. Cathy, being an 'outsider' (bred, born and raised in some desperate inner-London suburb, worked her short life in a lucrative but utterly unnecessary public post, determined now to 'get in touch with her roots' and thus moved to the Wolds whilst keeping feet in various metro-sexual doors) proved to be a complete ingenue, so anxious to be polite and felt wanted by the village as to fall straight into the noxious lap of Mrs J.

I do truly blame myself. (Just as well perhaps that dear PP declines to be my confessor on the grounds of possible 'conflict of interest.' If I were to tell him that - mea culpa - Ms Shanklin has 'gone astray' he would have been most stern in his reasonable rebuke of my failure properly to differentiate between local politics and mortal sin.)

Cutting though to the chase as one must, it would seem that Mrs J has persuaded young Cathy to stand for election to the Parish Council, making much of her [Cathy's] knowledge of the 'bigger picture' and absolutely nothing of her [Mrs J's] more narrow aspirations to power.

My fear - and one much shared by Mildred - is that Ms Shanklin's obvious personal and personable qualities (slim, tall, elegant, good hair but not over done, a figure much suited to corduroys as to 'little black dresses') might - totally unknowingly of course - unduly influence the masculine vote of the parish in her - and Mrs J's - favour.

One can already sense a 'Mo' - momentum as they say in America - building. Even dear PP returned yesterday from his occasional round of golf to pronounce 'That Miss Shanklin you know, she really does have a darn good swing. Do you think we might invite her to supper soon?"

Worrying times ahead!

'The Massage is the Message'

...Rather disappointingly, considering one's hoped for eventual place as a footnote in literary history, one has discovered that the pertinent phrase 'The Massage is the Message' has already been coined.

Nonetheless, not having previously encountered this re-working of Marshall McLuhan's great dictum, I shall claim a certain originality of thought in announcing that that is precisely what one has come to realise is so prevalent - and so morally corrosive - in our public life.

This morning, on the Home Service, a Police Constable was reporting how 'The Massage is the Message' has become embedded in his service with terrible consequence. He said that he and his colleagues were 'not allowed' to arrest people (generally young men of course) for public order offences as these would count as 'violent crime' - a figure that must go down say the political masters. They were instructed that such persons should be arrested for being 'drunk and disorderly' instead, that not being classified as a violent crime and therefore allowable.

Similar instructions were to attempt, where remotely possible, not to report a break-in to someone's home as a 'burglary' - another figure that must not rise - but, instead, to stripe it down as 'damage to property', which is not a KPI. (If you are not aware of what a KPI is then I shall not blight your life by telling you, merely remarking that you should count yourself as one of the blessed.)

That there are person's brave and moral enough publicly to denounce this perverse tactic is a matter of some hope for the world. That though the system - Bro. Charles once more - demands it of them that they behave so badly, most certainly is not.

I have nothing against a good massage when delivered by a laconic Turkish specialist in the dread art - or even the lighter touch of the sort of New Age healer that H would prefer - but blowed if I'm content for massage to become the whole message.

Breast is Best?

...There were, at our school, certain axioms for living the good life - good in its moralistic rather than hedonistic sense.

There was no published list, nor were these axioms exactly taught in any explicit manner. One merely came across them and, somehow, absorbed them by osmosis as one went through the years, emerging with all safely and properly internalised.

Change would not be counted in a shop, seats would always be given up on public transport for a lady (doors similarly always opened), one might be cross but never angry, 'thank you' letters would be written and posted promptly...and so forth.

Possibly slightly mannered, but founded on the rock of manners.

I do not recall any hierarchy of expectation of behaviour - the whole package, as it were, being required of a gentleman - but there were two exhortations that, to me, stood out as having greatest significance, demanding complete adherence.

The first - as perhaps it should be - was a collation of strictures concerning sexual behaviour and the young woman: not to seek to intoxicate her with alcohol prior to any seductive assay; always stay for breakfast if invited but never if not; never pretend one couldn't remember one's telephone number or - worse - give a false one. Those sorts of things. (I would like to see that as a form of proto-feminism, though I'll not be checking with Ms. Greer for confirmation.)

Later, of course, one learnt deeper refinements such as that given in the excellent 'Zorba the Greek', whose eponymous hero rightly opined that God is a loving fellow who will forgive much, but He can never forgive a man who is summonsed to a woman's bed but refuses to go. That is true wisdom and charity.

The apogee of this whole approach to the 'woman question' - as given by Uncle Bertie at a Sixth Form seminar on life beyond the confines of the school gate - was 'Try not to get a woman preggars, but by golly if you do then stand by her. No bunking off into the night. Having lain in one's bed one must, perforce, stay and help make it.' (Sound if stern advice, Uncle Bertie.)

On another tack altogether - though each part playing a role in the whole - it was given as a complete must do - or rather a must not do: no gentleman should be spotted sporting a pen in the outside breast pocket of his suit jacket or blazer. Only pimps or bookmakers would be seen thus and, logically, it was argued that one would not wish to be mistaken for either - unless of course one were one, or indeed both, such.

What then should be made of the prominent fact that dear Gilbert & George - gentlemens to their very core - most often are to be viewed identically suited and both with the forbidden pen in the prohibited pocket?

Not being personally acquainted with either fellow - though I suppose knowing the one but not the other would, in their case, be an impossibility - I can only surmise that theirs is but one more tease, another railment against the world, such being the medium of their artistic work over the years. It can only be intended, I am sure, as an 'ironic statement' - and although irony, as a thing in itself, was one more matter one was taught to avoid as ungentlemanly, in their case I shall allow it.

I shan't, however, start being 'ironic' myself in this way. We tend not to do irony in the Wolds. Far too smart for the likes of us.

Global Warning...

....Someone asked me the other day for my views on 'global warming.' As it was a particularly dull, wet, damp day - when one recalled with some affection the endless summer's heat - I could only reply that by and large, taking all things into consideration, and quite fancying growing vines around the rectory walls etc., I was largely in favour of it.

This reasonable view, naturally, met with a certain sucking of teeth, concerned if not actually alarmed looks and a generalised tut-tutting in the room. I was sharply reminded that living, as we do, in the lowlands, any significant rise in tidal flows would inevitably lead to us having to seek higher ground, abandoning The Wolds to a watery fate. This indeed would be sad, though it would save the bother and expense of re-roofing the church and doubtless we would find safe and pleasant enough refuge in the Peak district.

Perhaps it is being of a faith that accepts without demur the notion that God once flooded the entire Earth, yet encouraged Noah - his family and the chosen multitude of animals - to embark on board the Ark for the duration that makes me so sanguine about the whole thing.

Whatever the cause of my views - or indeed the objective veracity of my thinking - I am thoroughly content that my only necessary line on the whole matter of weather and its effect on society should be remembrance of that great Victorian newspaper headline: 'Storms in the Channel - Europe Cut Off.'

Banged Up and Locked Out...

T E Lawrence in Search of Motor Insurance for his Camel

...Bro. Charles and I are one in decrying the miserable failure of modern systems to deliver what is wanted by the hapless individual, crushed as he or she is by the relentless, ruthless Juggernaut of modern 'customer-focused' processes.

He, perhaps, takes a more professional view of the matter, whilst I merely rail against the sheer absurdity of the matter.

The other evening, in search of the simple matter of renewal of motor car insurance - having checked that the quote offered by one's usual company was largely a good enough deal - one went on-line in order to complete the purchase, tempted by the possibility of a discount for transacting the purchase that way.

Not being entirely versed in the ways of the Web I found myself making several neophyte mistakes in entering my 'data'. This resulted in my being told that my putative account was 'locked' and further access would be denied for a short period of time. [What is it with me and locks at the moment? See previous.]

The imposition of this 'anti-custodial' sentence - being locked out rather than banged up - clearly had John Reid's fingerprints all over it, though maybe one should merely be grateful one was not thrown in literal chokey for failure to observe lawful Internet commands - a grave offence you will agree.

So abandoning the Internet with a certain regret - the loss of the on-line discount - I turned, as one does, to the telephone in order to conduct my business with a sentient Human Bean. Said sentient Human Bean was a flurry of helpfulness and within some fifty seconds or so our deal was struck: they - motor car insurance for the rector; me - payment for the purchase. Done deal and all that modern jazz.

Ah, but then it all came unstuck - there was a problem with my credit card. Not the usual sort of difficulty one can, with hideous embarrassment, suffer: "I'm sorry to say Sir, but your credit card appears not to have been accepted. Would Sir have an alternative means of payment? Or would Sir and Madam care to accompany my waiter into the kitchen for a couple of hours hard washing of dishes?" (That sort of frightful thing we all have nightmares about.)

Sentient and swift Human Bean asked me if I had been on the Internet but a short while before. I could see at once where this was leading: the 'lock out' activated on-line applied - according to their inflexible system - to any contact between the prisoner and the public for the duration of the sentence.

Swift and sentient apologies were offered by the Human Bean for the madness of it all. There was, however, no appealing the judgement of the system or of the machine. Options offered were to re-transact the entire process in half an hour, pass over my details to the 'back office' for later processing, or, finally, for super Human Bean to undertake the task on my behalf - once I was released back into the community - and thence to phone me to tell me it was job done.

One knows from experience that the last option is, indeed, the choice of last resort for the enslaved Human Bean, who will lose Brownie points for having to work twice a contact rather than striping it down as one more 'contact closed' case, moving thence swiftly on to the next call. Decent then of him to offer - an offer I had no hesitation in accepting, as it caused me minimum of extra effort plus optimum assurance that my insurance would be guaranteed.

And thus we progressed. A hour or so later - clearly then no remission of sentence for good behaviour on my part - excellent Human Bean telephoned to inform me that all was accomplished.

I blame the system. (So does Bro. Charles. He always does blame the 'system'. It's a management consultant thing apparently, though it does tend to make him come across as a particularly paranoid anarchist from the late Seventies.)

But I also blame New Labour in general and John Reid in particular for creating this terrible mess in the first place. No more lock-outs Mr Reid if you please!

Picture This...

There have, it seems, been a number of requests for a revealing image to accompany this 'blog' [still dread word]. Possibly a burgeoning fan base, though as like as not fellow clerics / Woldean parishioners keen to identify - and thence either laud or vilify - the anonymous author.

Not wishing to disappoint either faction - though of necessity choosing not to satisfy the intents of the latter - above is a symbolic representation of one in one's meditative Hellenic mode. Greece being a country one adores and Greeks, both ancient and modern, being close to one's heart and ways of thinking.

Further icons will be forthcoming from time to time. An early front-runner is dear T E Lawrence looking as if he is wondering just where he left his camel.

Post-haste, Bro. Charles has requested whether he too might find a space here, though whether in satisfaction of an equally burgeoning fan base or merely to tout for trade one is not sure. (Motives are so always mixed, I shall not mind.) This is he then:

(Should, however, Nic Kidman's people wish to get in touch, a true likeness would, naturally, be made available for the dear lady. I believe I can speak on behalf of Bro. Charles too in this regard.)

Locked In and Out...

...A handy marker of personal maturity is that of being able to recognise behaviours in one's self that signal the onset of potentially damaging (to self and/or others) emotional meltdowns.

Taking oneself off to the garden shed in order to set the finest of cutting edges to the axe can indeed be a useful early warning sign of homicidal feelings. Or contrariwise, pondering just the length of hosepiping required to connect from the car exhaust through the rear window would equally indicate suicidal urges brewing.

Fear not though good people. We are in the Wolds not The Shining. I merely cite these as egregious examples to make the point. There are though more subtle clues - straws stirring in the wind to indicate the onset of a storm - that one learns through life to recognise and respond to.

In my own case I have discovered through experience that having difficulty with locks is a sure and certain sign of stress levels approaching crisis point. A car key - one of those auto-devices - is pointed at the front door to make it open. The backdoor to the house - ever open - is tried to be locked by the office key. Doors left securely locked are found to have been open all the time, and open doors are not. Keys also go missing: horsebox keys that are always kept on the second shelf down from one's collection of commentaries on the works of St. Augustine in the library are retrieved from behind the spice rack in the kitchen. Coats that have not been worn for six months are found to contain keys that were last used yesterday. And so forth.

As each and every one of the above incidents have occurred this past seven days and nights, I am firmly of the opinion that the Divine is sending a clear message that must be heeded. Rest and recreation would be the common prescription in the circumstances, but sadly one has not time for the one or inclination for the other. An alternative sport would be to consider if there is any significant psychological truth seeking to reveal itself in the particular difficulty encountered. Were these dreams events then the territory is wide open for Freudian interpretations of the childhood trauma of having been excluded from one's parents' sex life (and thank goodness one was!) or Jungian concern for locked-in emotions one dare not encounter (far more plausible and humane).

But being true life incidents one is puzzled that the manifestation of stress occurs in this and only in this way. It is not as if books also go missing, or telephone calls go unanswered, or other examples of mildly forgetful, deviant behaviour. The rest of the working, waking world appears to function as it should. If one wants gravy one doesn't make custard and so forth.

It seems to be something between selective dyspraxia and localised poltergeist activity - internal and external. Not even sure if one must first discover what the 'it' is as a thing in itself before seeking the meaning of the it, or whether a revelation of the meaning will inform the matter of the substance.

A meditative pause has thrown up this tentative notion: as a clergyman [or indeed as one's own Bro. Charles the management consultant] one essentially has to be 'open all hours' to all and any who come seeking advice, consolation or forgiveness [Bro. Charles's territory] or else to demand an instant response to the latest strategic initiative from the centre [my own role in relationship to diktats from Bish Tom and his crew].

One's spirit is perhaps rebelling against - or indeed even buckling under - this constant strain of instant availability to the demands of others. One yearns for a moment or two to lock them out, or alternatively one desperately wishes to escape to a place they cannot enter.

That is it. QED and so forth. If so, then perhaps time to change all the locks. Which island was it Gauguin ran away to in order to paint? Bet there were no locks on Tahiti in his day.

Election Fever...

...It's all hotting up with candidates declaring themselves available for office on an almost daily basis.

Most of the front-runners' hats have already been so tossed into the ring and not a few utter unknowns with weird and fanciful notions of 'social justice for all or failing that a year's supply of Jammy Dodgers'.

Bad mouthing stories are beginning to emerge of how one contender's primary school once had a headmaster's cousin who was a driver in the Great Train Robbery of '63 (so clearly very nearly a terrorist then), which other camps are fretful to deny ever originated from them.

Urgent debates are beginning as to whether the left-leaning Mrs C can be manufactured into something of less a Stepford wife and more a good time gal. The right's Col. Z, equally, has somehow to learn to sound more thoughtful and less gleeful when debating the merits of hanging over lethal injection.

Rubbish bins are being emptied in search of inflammatory material, such as subscriptions to 'Bondage is the New Black' (which H assures me most insistently it isn't!) or, even worse, cardboard packaging that could and should have been recycled.

Generous and utterly vague, if not actually spurious, promises are being made to rid the world of cancer/war/poverty/Noel Edmunds by 2012 or thereabouts.

Above all covert fundraising and overt meejah presence are driving the bandwagons from standstill to at least second gear by the weekend:

"Why of course Parky/Oprah/Mr Humphries I've always considered myself a man/woman of the common people. Let me tell you my own upbringing was far from the modest position of untold wealth and power I now enjoy..."

"It's their hearts not their wallets I want. My good friend Alexa has set up a website where you can donate pledges, cash or blood right this minute."

...You thought I was referring to the Parish Council elections as aforementioned? Steady on folks! We're good, but not that good. America goes to the polls in two years. It's non-stop from here.

At least we'll be done with it all by weekend after next. Can't wait myself. (When I were a young and reckless curate I used to bear the badge reading "Don't vote, it only encourages them." Must be somewhere in the loft. Must dig it out!)

Time to 'Fess Up...

...on reflection one ought really to own to the time one was a 'hoodie' oneself.

This was long before the wearing of garments with a hood was either commonplace or considered a marker of anti-social intent. There were at the time a few left-overs from CND days for whom a Duffle coat complete with hood was a uniform of pride, but on the whole it was only we monks who then wore hoods of any type.

Ours were of the traditional plain design, which those of a different persuasion [the English Benedictine Congregation] who wore a style with long open fronts that we, in retaliation, named 'Basset hound ears', would refer to as 'jelly bags.'

The EBC mob (our nickname for them being 'Every Bodily Comfort') liked to insist that their design was closer to the authentic medieval style, but though they might have a point regarding early-English headwear, we were content that our hoods more accurately symbolised the sacramental intention of obscurity and anonymity than their more fanciful dress code. Also ours were far less likely to blow around in high winds!

Hoods all round are something of an anachronism - they are simply there and hardly ever called into use other than to keep one's ears warm on a cold day or occasionally for the Lenten liturgy.

Wonder if nuns who must wear their equivalent wimples in season and out of season ever ponder this essentially sexist divide. Sure they have better things to be doing.

But there you have it. "I was a mid-twenties hoodie!"

Hidden Crimes...

...We, mercifully, are not much touched by crime around here. It might be that we have little enough to steal, or that being so essentially isolated few outsiders would think to come our way with bad intent. Those living here, even if tempted to raid or rob, would resist knowing they would be found out all too easily as, really, everyone does tend to know everything about everyone.

There is still poaching, though that tends to be thought of - except of course by the Colonel or other landowner facing depredation of their birds - as a form of 'poor relief.' Similarly the odd job done by someone 'on the sick' passes without question or answer.

Assault against the person is normally confined to the rugby field, though sad enough to say domestic violence is not. The tense and difficult lives of farmers can and does lead to fractious stress and wives who are hurt. H is a great help in such situations, acting the role of peacemaker or else involving the police as the situation seems to require. (Ours has been a 'safehouse' from time to time, a refuge and a sanctuary.)

Yobbery, with or without violence, plagues us less than perhaps it might. Sound local parenting would seem to have ensured that no youth thinks he - generally - can be rude, cantankerous, obnoxious or dangerous without being held to account within his own household.

Thus we tend to jog along - sinners all of course, just little actual sinning that is also illegal.

But in the wider world there are certainly greater terrors to behold and to ponder. Tonight two 'hidden' crimes have come to my attention. The first involved a two and half year old toddler. So young to be a criminal you cry! Well fear not. The boy himself has committed no offence. His grandfather had, it seems, taken him into a shop in one of our more troubled metropolises wearing, as it was a cold day, a hooded coat.

The shop owner - oft beset by the very yobbery we escape, and clearly robbed of any sense or perspective - demanded of the grandparent that the toddler's hood must come down as he had a 'no hoods' policy from which there could be no deviation or exemption. Grandfather reasonably told the man he was a complete twit and left the shop rather than comply.

And down London way comes a equally ridiculous tale - though one with, so far, a far happier conclusion. A District Judge has ruled that the police's removal of Brian Haw's posters - which they claimed provided the perfect hiding place for terrorist bombs - was illicit in intent, unlawfully enacted, oh and also plain bonkers in reasoning.

Mr Haw has my enduring regard for his near six years now vigil outside Parliament protesting about the war in Iraq, first trying to stop it happening and then continuing to denounce its continuation. I have to say the odd tenner from the Palladas coffers has gone his way on the few occasions I have passed that way over the years, just to show solidarity by refreshing the supply chain as it were. Can't see the crime in that.

GP targets....

...GPs have been quick to defend their high pay saying, not wrongly, that they are being paid to detect hitherto hidden diseases. Indeed, thanks to their financially incentivised activity we now realise there is far more hypertension than previously known.

What, though, is lacking from this explanation is that GPs have focused on those conditions that generate income. Wouldn't you?

Sadly, depression in older people - so prevalent and so costly to the private soul as to the public purse - is not an income generating target, with the totally predictable consequence that it is no more diagnosed or treated now than ever it was.

(That's what Bro. Charlie tell me anyways.)

Elvis Alive and Well...

"One of the main bookstores in central Cairo is prominently featuring posters for an instant book declaring that 'Saddam was not executed' - it was all an American hoax. The guy who hanged was actually one of Saddam's doubles - the author compares a bunch of pictures of Saddam in power with pictures from the trial and execution, and declares that they are obviously not the same man. It's a nutty book in every sense of the word... I don't know how many people (besides me) have bought it, but I saw the poster in a few places."

...This from a blog in another place. Yet again something this razor-sharp rural mind predicted [see previous somewhere] that hanging one man would not end the life of Saddam Hussein.

Elvis has been spotted from Memphis to Mars and so will Saddam Hussein. Who knows even, maybe one of his doubles will seize the opportunity to announce himself the real man?

Real Madrid - 1 : Surreal Madrid - Fish.

19...

...is not an easy age. Technically an adult, but not in truth really grown up.

My own nineteen was not a bad time: cosily ensconced in University, a recently de-flowered virgin, pep full of life and a terrible sense of certainty. (One could even listen to Dylan's line - "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" - and think how right he was without blushing for the very presumption of it.)

Two nineteen year olds have come to my attention this evening. A Chinese snooker player reduced to humiliated tears because he could not comprehend how partisan a crowd could be, cheering and hooting when he missed a shot. Deeply offensive yes, but hardly life-threatening.

Another, a Royal Marine, who flew on the wing of an Apache helicopter - never designed for such a passenger - under fire into a Taliban stronghold to rescue a fallen comrade.

Funnily enough - and this is not to do with dreams of military heroics of which clearly I have few if any - I could the more picture myself, then or now, attempting the latter not the former.

Yes, the appeal of saving a life is potent, the face of real personal danger to achieve a goodly deed is one to confront, the notion of true sacrifice for a fallen brother-in-arms is magnificent. But yet it is not even that. I could so the more easily attempt something essentially private - just something between a few close friends bound to a cause - than stand alone in a public arena and battle it out with an anonymous crowd.

So brave both for doing so young what so few of any age could endure.

As I Said...

...from today's 'News of the World' entirely as predicted by yours truly (and, no doubt, by several million others):

"And today we print the hard-hitting interview all Britain has waited for after voting out the foul-mouthed housemate by a landslide on Friday night."


Most of Britain appears to reject Ms Goody by voting her out, yet it would seem - at least according to the 'News of the World' - those very same people can't wait to read what she has to say. Something not right about that, though undoubtably perfectly true.

Nice touch giving her interview fee to charity. (Rehabilitation starts here folks. The Priory next for some 'anger management' training? A relaunch in the Spring hugging some unwilling Indian babies and dedicating her life to 'bringing people closer together'?)

What charity might be suitable - apart of course from our roof restoration fund, which would on principle refuse the donation! - or indeed would any charity wish to be seen accepting the money?

No doubt PR people have already negotiated that in advance. Though in her case perhaps not: as Max Clifford so painfully pointed out, the risk of putting Ms Goody back into the same world that created her was compellingly obvious. What were her people thinking of he wonders?

They should have remembered their Tom Wolfe - 'You can never go home.'

But enough of this. One is in danger of buying into the very damaged product we all claim to abhor. ("No of course I never watch these things - but did you see that moment the other night when so-and-so did such-and-such? Oh darling, wasn't it so frightful!)

Time to reach for a favourite book and once more savour its wisdom: 'They Speak by Silence' - reflections on the still world of the Charterhouse. Written by an anonymous monk naturally.

Manners Maketh Man...

...that was the motto of our (Charlie and I) school. At the time it seemed of little import - it was just there - but over the years one begins to fathom that in that seemingly trite statement lies so much that is precious to our being.

One is naturally not referring to the mannered manners that require one to know precisely which fork to use with which dish, the correct address to employ with the second son of an Earl, or how to crack a lobster without imperiling one's neighbour - that is merely a form of modern idolatry - but rather that inner warmth of soul that shows itself by being courteous and kind to anyone one meets.

A 'Campaign for Real Manners' would be far too strident and indeed the very antithesis of the thing it seeks to promote. Let though the notion take hold. Latterly we have rather grandiosely begun to talk of 'emotional intelligence.' A simple 'please' or 'thank you' would suffice to cover that ground.

Is that, after all, not the basis of every good prayer we know?

Deo gratias

A Bit Jaded...

...The downfall and departure of Ms 'Jade' Goody from the 'Big Brother' house is naturally to be welcomed as a demonstration of the British public's disavowal of an overtly racist woman.

Would though it were that simple. There are some points from the perspective of The Wolds one would wish to make.

First, that howsoever snobbish this may sound one totally deplores the transition in the national psyche of the very phrase 'Big Brother' from the savage and still highly relevant book that inspired it and its significance - George Orwell's '1984' - to a totally trivial television programme. (There is a comparison here with the generational difference of reply to the question 'Who got shot in Dallas?' JF Kennedy or JR Ewing would have been the answers given, totally dependent on the age of the respondent.)

There was a rage and a sadness in the book and in the reader that a world might exist where every action of all citizens would be watched, monitored and controlled, in which even one's thoughts were not one's own. This largely though is the world in which we now live and, it would seem, we have come to accommodate and accept it without protest or even comment any longer.

Ms Goody and her cronies no longer even seem to notice, let alone care, that they can be in an environment in which cameras record their words and their deeds, yet happily utter rampant racist remarks without any hesitation or pause for reflection that they are broadcasting to the watching world.

Ms Goody has made her fame and her fortune on the back of being found to be pig-ignorant, and this very trait may now be the cause of loss of both through the same medium of limitless television exposure. That there is some no little irony in this hardly matters. By acquiescing to the world of 'unreality television' and 'celebrities' - who have nothing in their personality or their lives we would truly wish to celebrate - 'Jade' Goody is our creation. We, collectively, howsoever much we might disclaim individual accountability, are the Drs. Frankenstein who have called this monstrosity into being.

Embarrassed silence, a goodly amount of gazing eyes-downcast dumbly at our shoes, would be the best response at this point. Let Ms Goody return to the obscurity from which she came and let us rather re-affirm a commitment to private and to public good manners.

Will any of that happen? Not a chance. One little doubts, though one deeply regrets, that even now her 'agents' are negotiating a fat fee for an exclusive interview, as well as planning her rehabilitation from fallen star to re-risen ugly angel.

We should walk away from all of this. Take a walk in the Wolds ladies and gentleman. Do it today. It will clear and cleanse both hearts and minds.

On The Stump...

...Eyes still watering from one's own last post - not to mention mind still reeling as to 'how' and 'why' and 'please tell me that did not happen, please tell me that was just an urban myth' - one returns to the slightly less surreal world of campaigning for local Parish Council elections, which is underway in earnest and with due ferocity of course.

H will no doubt interject with some legally privileged musings at some point as she and Mildred are, naturally, one of the main 'parties' in this election. One does use the phrase 'political party' with a certain caution here, as technically everyone is meant to be an independent and howsoever blue or red might be their national affiliation or their private leanings, neither is supposed to be the flag under which one steers one's ship when it comes to the Parish Council.

The differentiations of 'left' or 'right' or 'wobbling in the middle whilst trying to be understanding of all reasonable views' (H's take on my own fence-sitting position!) are, indeed, of little relevance here. Ours is a more antique aggregation of forces, more akin to Italian renaissance family power struggles, or perhaps - sticking to one's own local land for an exemplum - the Iceni versus the Mercians. (Another long-lasting feud that was 'put to bed', as it were, through an alliance by marriage. King Anna, one recalls, being one of the more bellicose of the combatants around that time: much, one assumes, as the eponymous hero of Johnny Cash's song 'A Boy Named Sue' forever doomed to squabble and fight because his Papa named him after a girl.)

What we come round to then are strong local magnetic forces of power - sometimes located within a family though often just within a single, powerful individual personality - that compel or repel adherence among any who come within their range of attraction.

Simple adherence to one or other such forces is, understandably, the line of least resistance most often and more easily followed by the many. Never let it be said that the Swiss or the Swedes have it easy in sticking to a global policy of neutrality! Only by openly or tacitly owing allegiance to one of the competing power bases are you allowed to rest in peace. Acts of active conversion, though, are rare - Mildred may not delight in knowing that Peggy is of the Mrs J camp, but she will rarely seek to mount a raid on her loyalty in the hope of carrying off the prize of altered allegiance.

We who, however, whether by nature or - as in my case - by the nurture of our position in local society, are seen as not 'belonging', are open season prey for persuasion, seduction, exhortation, berating - or any other means of inducing - to take the shilling of one of the competing Kings or Queens (Queens mostly it has to be said and of these mainly though not exclusively of the female gender).

In this regard I was much struck by a comment a frail yet elegant old lady made in a television programme regarding village life the other week. She talked of her relationship with her faith - that of Roman Catholicism - and remarked that she had spent many years questioning some tenets of the required beliefs and also many shaming aspects of her Church's behaviour. (One thinks - as she did - of paedophile priests and hangs one's head and weeps for the very shame of it.)

Finally though she had achieved a personal reconciliation that I, for one, applaud. She might not 'believe' - she said - but she did 'belong' and that was in the end such a comfort and so good a place to be. We all crave belonging - whether the womb, the job, the club or the faith - and this all the more makes one's necessary stand of so publicly 'not belonging' to any local power group so taxing and so wearing.

My own parents told me - and I vaguely recalled the matter - that as a child I would take all the election posters that came through our letter box and paste each one in my bedroom window. Thus South-East I was a Conservative, East you would find me a Liberal, and by the South I was turned to raw, radical (as it was in those days) Labour.

Quite sweet really, if totally barking. No wonder one became a vicar. Though one who would happily take a fortnight's retreat at the Abbey of Q during local election time!

Must pause here - the telephone is ringing once more. Will doubtless by either Mildred or Mrs J wanting a quiet word!

Losing it...

I'm not usually a great fan of 'cut & paste' blogging, but this just has to be shared in all its gothic horror:

"An angry Romanian doctor has cut off a patient's penis during surgery and chopped it into small pieces.

Surgeon Naum Ciomu was operating on patient Nelu Radonescu, 36, to correct a testicular malformation when he suddenly lost his temper.

Grabbing a scalpel, he sliced off the penis in front of shocked nursing staff, and then placed it on the operating table where he chopped it into small pieces before storming out of the operating theatre at Bucharest hospital.

They said he had been under stress and had lost his temper after he accidentally cut the man's urinary channel and "overreacted" to the situation. He told the court it was a temporary loss of judgement due to personal problems."

Heart of Darkness...

Stand aside Joseph Conrad. Forget 'Apocalypse Now.' The true heart of darkness in the NHS has just been revealed in this item heard today on the wireless.

A Nursing Sister telephoned a 'call-in' programme to say that in her Accident and Emergency unit it has become common practice to keep people waiting on hospital trolleys, prior to agreed admission to the hospital, for hours on end in order to achieve the wretched Government target of no one waiting for more than four hours in said A&E.

How, you might reasonably ask, is the deliberate withholding of appropriate, agreed admission a way of achieving a target to reduce waiting time? It works - if one can call such perversity 'working' - like this:

If there is a shortage of hospital beds - as there often is - to permit the steady admission of patients from A&E to hospital wards then inevitably a number of people will have to wait for said admission. So far, so simple. What though can and does happen is that a number of these pre-admission patients slip over the four hour threshold. Bad news for the target figures and not good news for them naturally.

What though next occurs is utterly reprehensible.

If there are other people who later are waiting for admission, when a bed becomes available they are given preferential admission, because their admission - prior to the four hour cut-off point - will count as a unit towards the target. Those people who have exceeded the four hours are essentially dead meat: who cares from the perspective of statistical returns whether they wait five or fifteen hours?

Please don't let Bro. Charles read this or he may end up in intensive - and as H rightly points out intensely expensive - care!

Et Cum Spiritu Tuo...

A certain happy thought tonight - a reasonable counter-balance to the grim news from the Metropolis [see previous] - dear Shelina (to be found at www.spirit21.co.uk/) has returned to the fray after a considerable period of absence.

One can understand that we all need time away from the all-consuming, all-demanding world of the 'blog', that perpetual insistence from others to speak out on significant matters can be wearing, that the ink of inspiration may occasionally run dry in the pen of creation - and so forth - but now that she has had her sabbatical I, for one, greet her return with some discreet joy.

There are a number of factors to this sense of personal pleasure. The woman in question is bright and lively in what she says, she is of more than comely appearance (though naturally that is of absolutely no significance whatsoever if you are reading this H!) and - truth be told - she opens a perspective on the world that is largely lacking in my own life.

The Wolds - or at least this particular stretch of it - is largely not inhabited by many, if any, Muslim families. Multi-culturalism has, by and large, not caught up with us as yet, or we with it.

There is too - logically - a nil return on Muslim adherents among the local Anglican clergy with whom one professionally mixes. One of course can never be definitive about this. Take Canon Michael, for example, who is proud to proclaim that he is a practising Buddhist. Bish Tom of course being perfectly happy for him [Can. Michael] to be one such, though just slightly wishing he weren't so public about this interesting mix of faiths. 'At least,' says BT with some reason, 'He believes in something, which is more than can be said for a number of his clerical brethren!'

One does occasionally have the interesting opportunity to meet people of other faiths and to explore their respective views on the world at some ecumenical shindig, but as Rabbi Lionel Blue once remarked these meetings infrequently get beyond the basic and repetitive level of 'How nice that you're a Christian' or 'How nice that you're a Jew' etc., etc.

So to have the opportunity to be in touch with an intelligent young Muslim woman via this weird world of 'blog' - to listen to what she has to say, to ponder and reflect on her words - is a bit of a treat.

And just to re-iterate for the Parish record, the gossips of the village pump and H's lawyers: the fact that said Shelina is a beautiful young woman as well as a pleasant companion in words, is entirely a matter of accident not substance!

Final Report...

Dear Bro. Charles [see previous] is clearly undergoing the kind of breakdown that can affect men - and women - of the cloth from time to time; when they feel their endeavours to stem the rising tide of human sin and despair are but wasted breath, when they yearn to buck it all and take to running a brothel instead, on the simple grounds of 'If you can't beat 'em, you might as well cash in.'

Dear R of Q used to say that his idea of the perfect life would be - for fifty weeks of any one year - to live a life of the most back-breaking and soul-testing penitential rigour: fed on a diet of ground brick dust, made to chant 18 hours a day, flogged regularly and - above all - be the perpetual Guestmaster of the Abbey. For the remaining two weeks, however, he would be granted a season-ticket to a New Orleans whorehouse, thence of course back to the brick dust et res alia. You could see how a fellow might keep going with such a rich and varied life, the perfect balance between sin and salvation.

Back to Bro. Charles who is clearly bone and soul weary of the mad, manic world of management consultancy in our ever declining health and social care services. (You may have read earlier that my one remaining life's ambition is to give T. Blair a public slap in the face. One suspects Bro. Charles now harbours similar apotropaic fancies. You can hear the headlines now: 'T. Blair attempts to turn the other cheek only to receive a further slap from Palladas Minor. MI5 apologise to nation for gunning down the Palladas Two. State funeral announced by Queen.')

Anyways, as a therapeutic exercise doodled in whatever restful, restorative clinic he now resides Bro. Charles has sent me the following poem expressive of his pain and torment. (Certain phrases have been altered to protect the guilty. You know who you are!)

THEY’VE GOT IT WRONG. The consultant’s final report

I'm a consultant from Bow:
And there’s not a lot I don’t know.
I’ve got graphs, I’ve got plans;
I’ve got books and fancy diagrams.

I’ve read my Demming, my Peters, my Porter,
I can quote from all the books I oughta.
I’ve read reports with long, strange names,
I know the tricks. I know the fucking games.

But my doctor says I’ve got a fatal condition.
He thinks I’ve failed in my mission.
He says I’m a twat and a jerk,
That the time has come to give up work.

He says the mess in our once great NHS
Is causing me too much distress.
And as for all that stuff in social care
He says I shouldn’t go there.

My doctor’s clever and I think he might be right,
But I’ve got plans to read and reports to write.
I’ve got policy, data and gumpf to analyse,
Tenders, contracts and project plans to finalise.

But perhaps I’ve lost the plot, perhaps he’s right.
Perhaps I shouldn’t give a fucking shite,
If what I do makes so little sense,
And when it all compounds to one great offence.

It’s time to get a life and do what I want
Breed pigs, write a book, open a restaurant,
Forget all I have learnt and all I’ve taught
And so to my last and greatest report :

I’ve call it “THEY’VE GOT IT WRONG”
Because they’ve got it wrong
Why? How? and Who?
I haven’t got a fucking clue
What? When? and Where?
I really couldn’t care . . . .

Poor fellow. He has a case of that I am sure. H too agrees of course, though as ever being the cautious companion she urges I should check whether Bro. Charles has the wherewithal to fund perpetual residence in some fancy, costly clinic as she's blowed if she'll stand by and see me spend the Church roof restoration fund on a futile attempt to find a cure!

Priming the Pump...

...The reason I did not much keep up with the, truth to tell, hilarious television comedy 'Vicar of Dibley' was not through lack of delight in the programme or ability to set time aside to enjoy the romp, busy life though indeed one leads.

Whilst in real life I am much of the same opinion as Ronnie Knox [see earlier] on the matter of joshing priests - not caring for priests who attempt to prove they are 'men of the people' by telling rude jokes - as a piece of enlightened escapism I thoroughly enjoyed what little I allowed myself to see of the Rev. Grainger's salty take on life and the libidinous forces that do and will pulse under the cassock.

My self-imposed exile was largely prompted by the select and potent local worthies in The Wolds who, though applauding the vicar's role in the proceedings, took great exception to the depiction of the local Parish Council as a mob of inbred lunatics, with not a complete brain between them. These same worthies being the constituents of our own Parish Council, you can see how they might thus have been affected.

I rapidly learned that any mention on my part of 'Did you see the larrikin nonsense young Hugo got up to last night?' or similar was a belter for raising hackles and tempers in any meeting we might be about to commence. Maurice, in particular, as Chair of Council (in perpetua it seems, the post essentially having been inherited from his late father Stanley) took deepest umbrage at any hint he might share some of the stiff-neckedness of his virtual counterpart David Horton.

Any hint of a hint would result in us all being detained after hours by some invented, yet crucial, debate on the proper voting protocol that should pertain during British Summer Time or some such. On one particularly vicious occasion when someone had had the temerity openly to suggest that said David Horton would make a better Chairman than he, we barely crept away at dawn after a fierce, protracted and largely unresolved debate as to whether a particular item of expenditure (a new kettle for the village hall) could be VAT deductible if its usage were not restricted to elected officers and their immediate families when carrying out official duties.

It became, therefore, so much the easier for me not to have watched the programme lest I let slip any reference to jolly, though dangerous, comparisons between it and us. A rather charitable act of self-denial on my part I largely have felt over the years.

That these thoughts are before me - and thus by extension you - at this juncture is the realisation that the dread time is nearly upon us once more to hold elections to the very Parish Council at the heart of the matter. This is never a happy time, redolent with occasion for re-vitalising any discord or worse that oft silently lurks in the bosoms and waistcoats of my beloved and largely belovable flock.

Were it just a matter of leaving them to it and just being handy in case the umpiring hand of a clergyman were needed to call halt to exigent hostilities, I would not overly much mind. But, naturally, it is never as easy as that, for camps and proponents of candidates will constantly seek to curry favour or confirm voting intentions on behalf of so-and-so standing for election. For weeks I am assailed from every side and quarter by hectoring or subtle souls seeking info on my thoughts or proffering quasi-bribes. (Mercifully there have never been grounds for any incident on my part to be used for blackmail in this regard, though I have no doubt that should there ever be any such, it would be done in a trice. The Wolds not Watergate is where one should seek dirty political tricks these days!)

In some ways I have compounded my own difficulties in seeking to enlarge both the electorate and the pool of candidates by actively promoting the work of the Parish Council across the piste as it were. My view is that village life needs a Council reflecting the diversity of its changing community and not a cabal of 'usual suspects' controlling affairs in a manner not much deviating from the feudal days of yore. Needless to say this same cabal is not similarly minded and makes my life sometimes quite unpleasant as I endeavour to bring on board fresh blood.

David - sorry I mean Maurice of course! - is particularly adept at seeking to undermine my efforts by pointing out to any who might be tempted by my urgings to 'give it go' and stand for elections, that there are terrors ahead for the unwary, the naive or the not entirely straight personage. He refers of course to the dread and dreadful Statutory Instrument of torture known as 'The Parish Councils (Model Code of Conduct) Order 2001', which has been the bane of the lives of any who would otherwise wish to participate in local democratic government.

This Code of Conduct demands more active proof of personal probity both before and after the fact, than is ever actually demonstrated by our own national Government or its iniquitous members. Its strictures are legion and as mad as the Gadarene swine said legion of devils once inhabited. Any remotest connection between a person and a vote that could possibly in any way intimate a bias or preference must be ruthlessly sought out and destroyed at source, no matter how absurd the consequences.

I myself found I had to be barred from assisting to debate or decide whether to substitute bingo with a whist drive for last year's autumn fete on the grounds that my great uncle Neville had once held a post with the Rank organisation. Seeking to redress any suggestion of undue leaning towards bingo by noting, for the record, that I have a cousin who once met John Aspinall, the legendary lord of the casino world - who if he had been required to express a preference would most certainly have come down on the side of whist - merely gave Maurice, who was in a foul mood that night, the opportunity to opine that the very whiff of corruption was palpable in any room I might be in whilst voting was underway! (I did later get some measure of revenge in having him excluded from discussions about restoring the village fountain, as he owned two shares in the local water company - but that is only to acknowledge the dire effect of these ridiculous regulations on otherwise gentle and well-meaning souls. Much like, of course, the impact of NHS targets on the behaviour of nurses - see earlier.)

All in all a tempestuous and fraught few weeks ahead. Campaigning begins in earnest tomorrow and voting for the Council at the end of the month. (Perhaps the time to rent out a 'Vicar of Dibley' DVD or two. Though better slip off to Norwich for that, just in case I'm spotted!)

Feeding One's Head...

http://althouse.blogspot.com/

...The admirable and beauteous Prof. Althouse has drawn my attention to the present doings of dear Grace Slick. Shame on you if you're not aware she was the singer for Jefferson Airplane and later Starship, via briefly Spaceship. "Let me tell you about a man I knew who rode the breadth and the depth of China..." Now that was some ride!

Our Gracie is, it would seem, stuck in a kind of time-warp forever re-visiting the self-same White Rabbit that made her and her band so famous, if not actually infamous. I'm not really sure I wish to learn that my rock heroine has come to selling her paintings in a shopping mall, though any remembrance of that great time is good enough for my emotional synaptic purposes.

There was the Boy, some several months into his University life, tripping big time on acid and not entirely convinced he would survive the day. Salvation was found in the jukebox of the campus coffee-bar, where a nugatory coin or two delivered seven back-to-back renditions of 'White Rabbit.' Being not a slow learner, by the fourth time of instruction he was happily in touch with Grace's firm admonition to 'feed your head.' He was safe and he was secure. Life was good.

Then there was the Man some twenty years later, driving like the wind to visit a glorious dear friend who was dying of the very cancer that he had survived. For hour upon hour of that desperate drive he listened to nothing but the same 'White Rabbit'. He was not safe, he was not secure, but life and death were both good.

"Sin is behovely, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." Not Grace Slick but Julian of Norwich. There is a connection though, of that I'm sure.

Charlie is my Darling....

...well brother really, so not as such darling but certainly someone held dear. Charles - or Charlie after a beer or two - is not terribly proximate either in home or trade. Whilst I am content to earn a secular crust or two - with the promised final dividend of eternal salvation, quite a perk you'll agree - buried deep in the rural heartland of The Wolds, Charlie plies his trade as a 'management consultant in health and social care' in the dark confines of the Metropolis.

Now one advantage I have over Bro. Charles is that I am able to reveal my occupation - should not the dog collar be sufficient clue - at parties without, by and large, much antagonism on the part of any strange interlocutor. Does rather spoil any chances of 'scoring' - as I believe the phrase to be - with winsome females attracted to the not unhandsome visage and can lead to some awkward moments when lively persons wish of a sudden to unburden themselves of whatever dark moral secret they hide within their hearts and from - mostly - their wives.

Equally, devout humanists may seize the moment to bore on the whole subject of faith and religion, though they are soon silenced with appropriate putdowns or dismissals. (If Pascal's Bet is not enough to deter them, then a few whispered oaths generally cause them to flee the field.)

But on the whole being blameless, if rather undesirable, is preferable to said Bro. Charles in comparable situations.

If there is a hierarchy of opprobrium then you will generally find management consultants consigned to the same circle of Dantesque Hell as estate agents and lawyers. Slightly above perverts, but then slightly below pond life.

Charlie is, on the whole, resigned to this fate, sometimes it must be said revelling in the Dostoyevskian glamour of being both a man outside and also underground. He does have a certain licence it is true to rage against the system without fear of being reeled in - much as do many monks. I could almost envy him that freedom, living as I do in constant fret as to what Bish Tom will next impose or condemn.

There is though something of the Ancient Mariner about Bro. Charles, forever tempted to detain any passing stranger and implore him to comprehend that management consultants can and do do much that is valuable and purposeful. It is, naturally, a doomed enterprise.

There are far too many of his kind who are worthless interlopers, weaving their spells of delusion, spinning yarns of how if you were but to introduce such-and-such a way of working the sunny uplands of exponential profitability are yours for the asking. (People who, on the whole, relax selling time-shares in non-existent Spanish villas.)

There is too much tar on that particular brush for some of it not to rub off onto dear Charlie by association. As well, you'll not find a public sector manager worth his or her salt these days, who is not prepared on an instant to moan about the iniquitous waste of money that is spent on mancons when people are crying out for their thirteenth hip replacement operation. That said mancons might have something useful to contribute in questioning why people need hips replacing at all (mostly older people who have had preventable falls) let alone a dozen or more of the same at vast cost to the public purse, is a matter conveniently overlooked by said pubsec managers.

That is not even to mention the unhappy elision in people's minds of management consultant and ICT consultant. 'Look at all that money wasted on computer systems that don't work and when they do work at all don't do what we need them to do because no one asked us what we needed of such systems. Must be the fault of management consultants.' Well, no actually dear that has nothing to do with mancons, it is totally to do with ICTcons. Bit like blaming an orthopaedic surgeon for not fixing your eyes.

Well anyways that's what Charlie says and who am I to doubt my Bro?

Charlie indeed has had much to say to me on the blower these past couple of nights. He, like I, has been glued to Gerry Robinson's fascinating foray into the weird and wired world that is our beloved NHS.

Sir Gerry has - according to Charlie - just given a masterclass in all that a good management consultant should be and do. He has been passionate about what matters to ordinary people, he has acted as a catalyst and conduit of change, he has brought people together to make things happen, he has understood the complex inter-actions of systems and behaviours, he has encouraged leadership from Chief Executive through to front-line nurse, he has brought smiles to people's faces with the simple joy of knowing that things are going to get better.

And yet how does your man end his television series? By advocating the sacking at once of all management consultants! The man is a genius and a fool. No wonder Charlie has taken to drink tonight.

C&B Sting In The Tail...

To Bart's today for due ENT appointment. Horrid place - no not the hospital at all, the corridors this time were near pristine if the signage was largely lacking - London I mean. The less and less frequently I go the less and less I like it when I do. Dark, devouring town all round.

Having circumnavigated almost the entire site in search of my allotted clinic - signs pointed then vanished at crucial junctions, first one name was used for the place in question and then another, directions given were but loosely tied to the actual route, etc., etc. - and survived the creaking, lurching lift, I duly and somewhat proudly presented myself to the cheerful countenance at the reception desk.

Said cheerful countenance began by apologising that my Choose and Book referral letter had not yet 'appeared on the system.' This in itself caused me no concern, as I could not see the relevance to the present circumstances. There I was present before him clutching my letter of appointment from Bart's, the prescribed consultant sitting breath bated in his office to receive me but five yards from where I was stood. All seemed in order from my perspective.

Not, however, from cheerful countenance's, who informed me that access to breath-bated physician was entirely and exclusively contingent on the 'system' throwing up the necessary letter from Choose and Book. Four days of endeavour had apparently failed to achieve this end so far, though he was cheerfully confident I would not be kept waiting terribly long. (Perhaps, one thought, four days in a reception area is not considered 'terribly long' in our modern NHS.)

Words and phrases such as 'farce' and 'from beginning to end' and 'wretched Choose and Book' rang out across the reception area. A near Gallic shrug was the best cheerful countenance could offer in recompense, followed up by some pertinent and also impertinent questions regarding my identity, position in life, marital status and home telephone number. (If he'd been keen on a date the questions would have been apposite, though the manner of asking lacked a certain seductive quality.)

Most distressing of all - as I felt it - was that howsoever much I harrumphed and protested, the cheerfulness of the countenance shifted nor fell one iota. If one is going to let rip on the idiocy of the modern world, one at least expects one's audience to react in some manner or way - whether in agreement or with disfavour - and not to carry on being implacably cheerful, as if one's words were but water to a duck's back. True professional grit no doubt on his part, but serving only to add fuel to the fire of ire on mine.

The lift broke down whilst I was waiting. Baskets of necessary files were left stranded and frail, elderly types were nearly cleared from the list by having to climb four flights of stairs. The door to the clinic declined to be left on the latch, resulting in every arriving, breathless patient having to bang on the door for admittance. As the door was out of sight of the desk it was left to us patients to admit them, though with due hesitation should their presence not be entirely legitimate. One 'care in the community' refugee did thereby gain admittance, though with swift and practiced strokes he was efficiently ejected once more.

An engineer was duly summonsed to attend to the lift and swiftly arrived - to fix the door. The lift started working on its own again, though the door remained obdurately locked.

"Rev. PP" eventually came the call - the system having eventually coughed up the so vital letter - so in one trooped to be greeted by a charming and terribly young doctor. A consultant at his age? How very precocious! Turns out not, as my notes had been placed at the wrong door. Ergo junior registrar and not the imposing and properly mature looking consultant one finally saw after a further wait.

"I see from the Choose and Book referral letter that you have come to see me about condition X?"

"Well, no actually it's about condition X but also about the significantly related condition Y," I replied.

"Ah, that does make a difference then."

Well, yes it did and so much for the oh so necessary yet ill-informed chitty from Choose and Book!

Not wishing to overburden with too much information on the actual medical aspect of the matter, one moves swiftly on to departure; having been tested, examined, explored and recommended for further tests of a somewhat lengthy nature. (All of which old-fashioned aspect of the medical exchange having been entirely conducted with poise, skill and charming diligence. Options had been thoroughly explained and next steps clearly identified.)

Not daring to risk being trapped in a malfunctioning lift to the stairs I headed. At the top of the stairs was a largely untouched vessel of antiseptic fluid attached to the wall, with a notice strongly urging patients and staff alike to freshen their hands before entering the unit. Sound anti-MRSA tactic of course.

Trouble is the vessel was in the one place that few entrants would use - indeed would only use when the lift was broken. Was there then a similar device by the lift for the overwhelming majority of people who would enter the unit that way?

I need not dignify that question with an answer. You will know what I would say. Of course there wasn't!

Waiting for Cash...

...Having missed Round One of Gerry Robinson's fight with the NHS tonight I caught up.

Got to love the man for so wanting change to happen, for upping the morale and status of front-line staff with good ideas to offer, for lamenting the endless wordiness, for challenging managers and clinicians alike to do stuff to make the best happen, for being prepared to hector surgical consultants and Chief Executives about their behaviour.

Got to thank him then for acting as a true management consultant - a breed he claims to hate and despise.

However - back to the main premise of why he was there in the first place. This was made shockingly explicit. Because 'Payment by Results' - which is not that at all but merely cash per input never mind the outcome - is the lifeline of revenue that keeps any hospital financially viable these days, it has become the business imperative to move people through hospital ASAP and in as greater number as possible. More operations, more cases, more cash. That simple.

Yes, it is good if someone with a cataract does not have to wait a long time to have it removed. But by simply speeding the flow through one part of the health system in order to make money for that particular service - and possibly bankrupting the PCT in the process - you cannot say you are achieving the best outcome for people, for patients or the NHS.

Hospital managers at war with hospital consultants - that's just one battle to fight. The linkage between primary and secondary medicine - that's a far more significant concern that this series is ignoring.

But letting go of the carping - important context though it is - a hat or two off to a man who can tell a Chief Executive it simply isn't acceptable or even remotely human for his front-line staff to be able to say they wouldn't recognise him if they saw him as they never had.

The Ohno Circle - look it up. It's brilliant. It's simple and it's so, so right.

Life On Mars?

A question David Bowie asked as did NASA.

It, however, now seems that not only did NASA look for the wrong kind of life - assuming water to be the main liquid constituent as on Earth - but they may also very well have destroyed any Martian life they encountered with their un-manned probes in the Seventies.

By first watering, then baking, soil samples it is possible that hydrogen peroxide based life - which is now a strong working hypothesis - would have drowned or fried!

Imagine then the last living molecules of Martian life, struggling in an increasingly hostile environment to survive, clinging to existence when suddenly - ZAP! Death by NASA probe. End of life on Mars!

One shouldn't laugh, but it's terribly tempting.

Waking Man's Dead

One hopes and expects that Gerry Robinson's television foray into the NHS will prove fruitful, offering genuine insight into what can be done to improve the management of the service for the benefit of people and patients.

His previous outings in "I'll Show Them Who's The Boss" were entertainingly full of pertinent - not to mention on occasions wonderfully impertinent - apercus regarding small businesses that were heading for big falls. Not quite in the hectoring class of a Gordon Ramsey but equally nailed-on revelations of where people were going wrong.

But will he do it this time? The portents are not good, though one ought in fairness to wait for the show before final judgement is given. The pre-broadcast blurb and the early Telegraph interview are not encouraging. 'Fix the NHS' is the headline. Well, no it is not the 'NHS' as a whole he is looking into, just one example of a hospital offering secondary medicine to the already sick.

And is it to be management and leadership of the whole of the hospital? Not apparently. The task - whether given or self-selected - is to reduce waiting times, which is known not to be the heart of the matter. Good outcomes for patients is what is required and the length of wait, though important, is but a too readily visible sign and symptom of a wider, deeper problem.

Even allowing waiting times to be the chosen focus, is it just surgical through-put that counts here? Not at all. Opening operating theatres on a Friday afternoon will have implications for the whole system, both pre- and post-operative that will need to be managed. No point at all in increasing the numbers of operations if there are not the staff and other resources to help complete the entire patient journey.

Will there be extra physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses and even beds to take the extra load? No value in pushing through half a dozen more fractured neck of femurs if the nurses and allied health professionals are not on hand to optimise recovery and rehabilitation.

Let us follow this thought further. Orthopaedic surgery is mainly mend and repair. It's bust so it needs fixing. There is more of course, but that is the bulk of that work. And so who are the people most in need of fixing? Mainly older people who have fallen and fractured a leg or hip. Would it not be better if they didn't fall in the first place? Clearly so. So what might be done to prevent such occurrences: is it possible to reduce the numbers of people who end up in theatre? You betcha. More chiropodists for better more stable feet, more district nurses to manage troublesome leg ulcers. More dietitians detecting diabetes, more GPs with a grip on depression in older people.

But even more. If one is going to indulge in a little light 'root cause' analysis of the problem of high demand for orthopaedic services, why not ask older people themselves what they consider to be the greatest risk to their health. 'Broken paving stones' was the answer they gave when polled some few years ago. Trip hazards in the street - that's what they knew from experience was the most common cause of their literal downfall. Deal with those and the wards begin to empty. The well-ness system as a whole needs more than health or sickness services.

By all means, Gerry, let's have a leader supreme in a hospital who can boss the doctors around, who can tell the politicians to take a hike and who has the proper care and welfare of hospital patients at the very heart of their every waking moment. We used, indeed, to have such a person in every hospital and we called her Matron.

As for kicking out all management consultants - many of whom are actually ICT consultants and a very different kettle of fish altogether - that's a bit rich coming from a man who has just spent six months working as a pro bono publico management consultant himself!

I'd love to find out what he has to say, but sadly I shan't as I'll be on the other side with my favourite 'Waking the Dead.' Now DI Boyd - he'd be a great boss.