Not Waving But Drowning...

...This just in from Bro. George, toiling as he ever does to keep afloat on the never-diminishing flood of command and control that our country's Great Leaders persist in swamping the weary, dazed, half-drowned world of public services with.

For it seems that some two years ago we - this great nation - were singularly blessed by the passing of an Act of Parliament, namely the 'Mental Capacity Act 2005'. (Have to say the whole thing passed my by; no doubt a terrible failing of my own cerebral capacity. H, though, similarly had not heard of it which was reassuring - not as in H must be gaga too, but rather as in had the thing been of note she would have noted the thing.)

The Act is - we are reliably informed by Bro. George - pretty momentous stuff with the potential to affect any poor sap whose marbles begin to drop out of the bag at some point. The whole motley crew then it must be owned, at some point.

It has taken a whole seventeen years from first report to final act - a measure indeed of the complexity of the matters under consideration. All of course dealt with happily by common and case law until now, but you know these New Labour bods - never more sunny than when passing an Act of Parliament to prescribe ever more closely how our lives are to be lived. Bless 'em. (Or hang 'em if you'd prefer. You won't find this meek parson complaining.)

At best the new statute might serve to protect such as lose the capacity to protest "Hang on a minute there, that's not what I want to happen in the slightest thank you very much." (A useful attribute you'll agree should any sawbones be thinking of hacking off a limb and shilly-shallying as to whether he might or he might not.)

At worst though it could give 'them' - including said sawbones - wide and near uninhibited licence to do what they please with us, in what is very loosely defined as our 'best interests'.

You'll not be entirely surprised to learn that both Bro. George and I sit on the more gloomy end of the line of thought. If a power exists it is used. And if a power is used it is inevitably at some point, by at least some coves, misused.

Be that as it may, and setting aside Orwellian fears that we could all be banged up for wrong thinking, he and I are loadly chuckling not moaning this evening.

And why so indeed?

For the very and single fact that, to accompany this Act - a nautical chart to plot the way through these deep waters - the beloved Dept. of Constitutional Affairs has produced a necessary and fulsome 'Code of Practice'.

That is amusing, you reasonably ask. Well no, not as such. What though has loosed the jowls of mirth is that when the Dept of Con. Aff. produced a draft version last year, a universal response was along the lines of "Great stuff chaps. Darn good page-turner and all that. But a bit on the long side at over 180 pages, what?"

Never one to cop a deaf 'un, the Con. Aff. folk agreed to go away and have another go. Which of course dutifully they have done. Trouble is, whilst they were engaged in a pruning exercise, along came another bunch of folk (many of whom would also have been found protesting the length of the thing) with scores, nay volumes of comment, concern, correction, debate and discussion - all being worthy of consideration by the Con. Aff. mob. "What about this case - you've not dealt with it properly," they were told. Or much "You've mentioned this, but not said how it relates to that." Or plenty of "This is frankly crazy. You must do better!"

Poor Con. Aff. boys and girls probably wished they'd never signed up for the task in the first place. But battle on they did, scribble away they have, until finally this week it is announced that the 184 page draft Code of Practice has been swept away with the tide to be replaced by the wonderful new, final Code.........THREE HUNDRED AND TWO pages long! (It weighs in - literally - at three and a half pounds, for those who prefer their numbers by mass.)

You have to sob with merriment. Truly you do. Especially if like Bro. George it's your paid occupation to read, understand and communicate the thing to the breath-bated waiting horde of health and social care professionals, who are now duty bound by law to put the 'practice' into the Code of P.

Oh and by the way, don't think you lot are exempt because your profession is other. This is Statute Law baby - it applies to every person in the land. So get reading!

PS - And why the two long years between passing and enacting the law?

Because - they said - it is so vast, so complex and so profound we needed two years preparation in order to have everything ready to go with one Big Bang in April this year.

Well, that's what they said in November last year. Only, in December they then quietly announced that they wouldn't be ready in time, so would we all mind very much if some of it came into effect in April and the rest in October? (The smart money is on a further six month's delay to be announced in July.)

Laugh? Why of course. What else is a man to do?

Sweet Molly..

...One's absence from this spot these past few days has not been some self-imposed Lenten penance (that by and large being encompassed by the sundering of self from alcohol for the duration), but rather an inability - not yet fully overcome - to put into words an event occurring at the very beginning of it all on the very Ash Wednesday.

As previously mentioned [See previous naturally], Robin's dictum about the unexpected twist being the real deal of the season hit home all too soon.

Lent properly encourages a radical review of existence, self, life, God, purpose, sin and redemption: the whole darn Xtian thing in fact. One's own sense of one's place in this scheme of things is never these days unaffected by having lived - and great thanks for the living of it - with a life-threatening illness [See much previous on sarcoma] these past six years. Not exactly an ever-present Damoclesian sword hanging over the head, more perhaps an enduring perspective that informs so much.

An aspect of that perspective has always been a sort of selfishness in that I grasp this thing to myself because I could not stand it if it had happened to another - especially someone close to me. It is my dread thing and I would not have it any other way.

But I have known too so many others who have not just lived with it but who have also died from it, and these are not all adults. I have been close to many mourning parents via Internet support groups and never is there a harder moment than opening - and seeking to respond to - that post that comes with news of a dear child's death. (I speak only as a reader - what can that moment by like for the bereaved parent who settles to write such a message?)

On Wednesday evening - I knew it was coming - there was a television programme called 'One in a Million' about two children with potentially fatal illnesses who were being treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital. From the pre-broadcast information it seemed all too likely that one of the children featured had an illness either the same as or comparable in process and effect to my own - it turned out the latter. But worse - it was a given that for one of the two the programme would end with bad news. I knew what that news would be and sadly I was right.

How can one watch such a programme knowing in advance that for one set of fearful, tearful, desperate parents the outcome would be the worst it could be? With that knowledge I very nearly couldn't, but I did.

One of the two was sweet Molly, aged just four years old. She had Wilm's tumour - an effect of pre-natal kidney cells that somehow genetically forgot to turn themselves off having first helped to shape the kidney in the womb. The result was a catastrophe of malignancy that had spread to great lumps in her lungs - her 'baddies' as she called them.

GOSH were not optimistic when they viewed these lumps on a PET scan. One was close to the heart, all three could be life-threatening if left alone; but then also surgery itself could be a killer if it went wrong. The scan only indicated what was to be faced by the surgeon. He would only know what to do for the best when Molly was on the operating table and under the knife. There would almost certainly have to be a balance between seeking to excise the whole of the tumours and risking an internal injury that could prove fatal.

Molly was wonderful throughout. Pert and bright - a natural for the cameras - dancing, skipping, playing, chatting with such glee about all and anything. Her mother - pregnant with her sister-to-be - wept as she narrated that Molly had told her she was glad there was another child coming, as that would be a comfort for her mother when she was gone away and that she (Molly) would always be looking after them from that far place. Molly was just four years old. Consider that and the wisdom and compassion of one so young.

Molly was also - as E was at that age - a complete 'Daddy's girl', so it was Dad who had to read her stories as she lay inside the scary PET machine and it was Dad who had to carry her, crying with fear, into the operating theatre. He too wept - not at those moments because he had to be strong for her - and this Dad wept too at what that must be like to endure.

Surgery - shown in all detail - was a far greater success than could have been expected. Not only were two of the tumours - including the one close to the heart - fully excised, but also later the parents were told that the histology was benign. No promises for the future, but at that moment great joy. Molly might live.

But she didn't. We last saw her on her first day at primary school. A big hug for the anxious Mum from the Headteacher and, as ever, a special Molly moment: she was yes thank you looking forward to school because she wanted to "learn to stand on my hands!"

Then that epitaph the whole programme had been anticipating: school was in August, by Boxing Day Molly was ill once more with new tumours and before the year was out she died, peacefully in her sleep at 3.00 a.m. on December 30th 2006.

Not two months later we were watching this all on television, a final brave - and it was brave - public farewell and tribute by her parents to her great life, and a thank you for the doctors and nurses who had tried to save her life.

May her dear soul rest in peace and may her grieving parents be comforted in their great loss.

...Those are the best words that I can find to express why the words are so hard to find.

These are other words, the closing words of T. S. Eliot's poem for the day 'Ash Wednesday'. Let the last speak for all.

"Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying,
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings.

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell,
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover,
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth.

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks,
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood.
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will.
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated.

And let my cry come unto Thee."

Fat Tuesday...

...or 'Mardi Gras' - as it is often known in more exotic climes - is upon us once more. All fatty food - the eggs, the butter, the cheese, the favourite marmalade [Frank Cooper's Vintage if you're asking] etc., etc., - to be consumed in one great, multi-layered feast, leaving the stomach somewhat bloated and the larder reduced to bare essentials.

Not of course how it tends to happen in practice, though pancakes are a reasonable symbolic offering in compensation.

Also of course Carnival Day. Could never understand why London should think August is the time for carnival - completely unliturgical!

And why 'carnival' today? Carne valle - 'farewell meat' of course! Not that one tends to do that either in total. (Whisper it not in Babylon, but even my old monastery did not dispense entirely with meat for the whole season!)

Faced with forty days of fasting I have to own that one wishes one could be like the lion and gorge oneself sufficient to last the time through. But sadly humans are not built that way. And more sadly, this particular human has a dodgy tummy [enough information] today and will therefore, perforce, be anticipating the fast by one day.

Nothing like a bit of practice before the off!

A Simple Twist of Fate...

...My late Abbot had many blessings that were apparent in his demeanour, temperament and spirituality. Being though half-German, a sense of humour was not one of them.

It was our custom at the beginning of the season of Lent for each monk to present to the Abbot a letter outlining his intended abstinences above and beyond those striped-down for the whole community.

As these latter were fairly rigorous in any case, younger monks were required to restrain from attempting anything too glorious - or indeed vainglorious - on top of the house norm. ('Singularity' is, perhaps, the worst of all that a monk living in community can be known for.)

My own offering, therefore, was modest - a commitment not to read 'The Times' for the duration, which in those days was penance enough. Father Abbot opined that such a course was indeed the beginning of the royal road to sanctity: monks should first quit the newspaper, then when sufficiently robust of spirit 'The Spectator' and finally when approaching the very gates of Heaven the 'Times Literary Supplement'.

On being asked where the Catholic in-house paper, 'The Universe', fitted into this ladder of holiness, he merely replied that he would not ever have it about the place lest it gave the brethren temptation against the Faith! (He had a strong point in those days when it was 'more Catholic than the Pope.' Sanctimonious twaddle by and large.)

The letter duly have been written I was on my way to see the old fellow, when our paths happened to cross in the cloister. "Ah, dear Dom. X. I see you have some post for me. Might I enquire what are your intended extra penances then?"

Foolish young monk as one was, with more than a dose of English whimsy, I jested - bad move - that my chosen offerings for this Lenten fast were to be quitting 'smoking and celibacy.'

Now to the right audience that would have been a cracking jape, one that would go down in the annals of local monastic legend. "Ah, dear Dom X. You remember him don't you?" they would have said in centuries to come. "How about that time he gave up smoking and celibacy for Lent? Managed it too, bless his sacred memory." And so forth.

Sadly 'twas not to be, for said half-German Abbot was not in the least minded to take the line that this was any self-aware, nay self-deprecating, sentiment on my part, with simply no intended disrespect for the great preparation of body, spirit and soul towards Eastertide.

He stared, he growled - neither a good portent. Somewhere between stalking and storming off he then went. Ooooops.

For condign punishment, later the order came: gated for a month. That is, no Thursday afternoon walks - the only time one was allowed out of the monastery grounds. Boy was that tough. Never mind forty days of no sugar with the cocoa, try thirty days of 'cabin fever.'

With then the shriving season once more upon us - H does a fine pancake I must say on the Tuesday - I shall as ever since that day refrain from sharing with anyone but the Good Lord (whose sense of humour is eternally wondrous) those particular penances to be undertaken.

And as dear, lamented Robin used to say: "It's never what you choose to happen in Lent that tests you. It is something the Lord has up his sleeve. Pray and watch therefore for a simple twist of fate." (Great Dylan fan was Robin. Jesters all.)

'American Beauty'...

...To the true believer 'American Beauty' is the finest album the Grateful Dead ever produced. (For a true 'Deadhead' that, therefore, must make it equally the finest album ever, period, etc.) Gentle, kind, lyrical, hopeful - all this and more, somewhat sadly ironic in the present circumstances of so much London pain that it was there that Robert Hunter wrote so many of its best songs.

There would, though, be those of a later - and more musically deprived - generation who would be thinking not of the album but of the film of the same name. Funnily enough so, today, am I. For on popping over to Isaac the barber yesterday morning - Saturday an unusual day to go - I found myself having an entirely Kevin Spacey moment.

There was a 'Saturday girl' to wash the hair, a luxury my reduced crown does not need. Dispensing, therefore, courteously with her offered service I was struck by two thoughts: what an entirely and utterly attractive young woman she was, and a strong sense that perhaps she was not entirely unfamiliar.

As it does not, by and large, do for a cleric of a certain age - even one in Saturday mufti - to be accosting entirely and utterly attractive young women with the hackneyed phrase "Haven't we met somewhere before?", I said nothing and sat down to be dry-trimmed as per usual.

On rising though to pay my way - a decent if not spectacular cut having been accomplished - it struck me that if I were not wrong in my presumption of prior acquaintance then the person would have been all too familiar from days gone by.

"Are you by any chance Miss A?" I had therefore to enquire. Well, yes indeed she was and is. Miss A attended a local primary school with my own E and, for a while, E and she were closest of companions. Their paths diverging at secondary school level I had not seen Miss A more than once or twice since that time. So here now was a pretty child - as she was - turned into a simply stunning young woman.

Mutual identity being thus established - she of course at once spotting E's pa and perhaps somewhat puzzled that E's pa had not instantly spotted her - I had to offer some form of apology for not entirely recognising her at first. There really was nothing for it but to acknowledge it was her maturing into said entirely and utterly attractive young woman - without either seeming to doubt that this would have occurred or indeed that it was something on which one wished too stridently to comment - that had thrown me off the scent. Anyways, news and pleasantries were duly exchanged before I left Isaac's in continuance of the day's activities.

From dim remembrance of the film itself I am tolerably confident I shall not find myself flipping burgers for a living, nor indeed end up with a hole in the back of my head having been shot by the irate father of the obscure object of Mr. Spacey's desire.

One is though left with a firm sense that whereas 'American Beauty' qua film does not and cannot match 'American Beauty' qua album, it has moved up the hierarchy of significantly apposite and interesting cinematic experiences.

Sweat and Toil...

...Exercise has, by and large, not been my thing. A decent country walk with the dogs is one thing, but pounding the beat whether on the road on or in the gym is another entirely. My body may be a temple as the Psalmist avers, but all the best temples are in a state of gentle decay - if not actually semi-ruinous - I think you'll find. (If you doubt me then consider the modern temples - sacred or secular - are they not essentially as empty as they are ugly?)

H on the other hand is a great one for the gymnasium: fleet of foot on the running machine, bench-pressing more iron than is strictly necessary, or else rowing half an Atlantic without actually leaving harbour as it were.

The benefits are no doubt many, though to my my idle mind not to compare with the luminosity of spirit a decent malt or Chablis confers.

Tonight, however, I must admit that all this sweat and toil has not been to waste. It would appear that Mrs. Colonel X is also in the habit of spending evenings lashed to some semi-devilish device as does H - I saw them once in a sports catalogue and marvelled just what the Inquisition could have achieved had they only had such instruments of torture to hand.

Over what I believe is known nowadays as a latte - in mine a milky coffee given to children - the two women had been comparing notes as one does. Mrs. Colonel X had, it appeared, been entirely in the dark regarding her husband's judicial forays against the Palladas family [See previous] and it would be fair to say was not overly impressed when she heard from H what had transpired.

Fulsome apologies for the poor fellow's actions were of course given and received with equal grace, and H was left in no doubt that Mrs. Colonel X would be returning home with the sole intention of making sure there would be no repetition of such unsavoury behaviour. (H recalled that Mrs. Colonel X had said that she 'took a dim view' of her husband's behaviour. This was strong stuff and we both agreed that the poor man was in for some sticky times!)

I shall endeavour, as I must, to rebuild relationships with the fellow - mustn't be seen in my position to relish the downfall of an opponent. He has, however, been beastly towards H and that, even if it is over, is not lightly forgiven or forgotten.

Perhaps, therefore, I shall not go out of my way to dis-abuse him of the notion that my witch finding powers are alive and ready to kick in just so ever when necessary! That should make him sweat a bit. Will do him the power of good: he's been looking a little over-weight and pasty for a while!

Love Was In The Air...

...H and I have been bonded long enough not to overboard on the "Get your coat, you've pulled" angle of love. We take the years together - not for granted, but as a sign that it works, that it was meant to be and that E herself [dau.] is affirmation of it all.

Nonetheless, we do our duty with cheerful heart in commemoration of St. Valentinus [perm one of three martyrs]. Cards of a playful kind are exchanged, chocolates are purchased for pleasure - though rarely hideously over-priced flowers. (Nick the News was prepared to offer a dozen roses for several dozen of Her Majesty's best pounds. I had to reply that as I didn't have a dozen women on whom to lavish such treasures I would pass the offer.)

Yesterday was no exception. Though both equally stirred but not shaken by Colonel X's extraordinary assault on our domestic castle (of which lots more to come I am certain), we had determined to spend the evening in simple domestic harmony, accompanied by a soppy film and a decent wine.

That was, though, to reckon without E. E being a mid-teen there are certain things one has had to learn to expect and others that come as a complete surprise. The surprise element was a totally genuine unconcern about whether or not she would be receiving her very own first Valentine's card from a boy who is somewhere between friend and beau.

It being half-term there was no question of a personal exchange, and as they haven't yet bothered to swop full postal addresses nothing could be expected to land on the morning mat. That time will no doubt arrive in due course and one hopes it will all work out as it should.

One's own experience of the thing is somewhat limited (not at all cool as a thing in itself and therefore to be avoided was the general sense when I was a single pre-Rector). The one occasion one can recall on which a genuine "I'm sending this anonymously because I really, really hope you feel as I do, but I'm not sure" card was sent, it was indeed reciprocated - which sounds on the face of it excellent. (There were, however, certain complications too private to mention, though not so imponderable as not to be undone - albeit temporarily - by mutual desire.)

That the result was a week away in a foreign country with a certain personage is a idyll never to be lost, though it also cannot be forgotten that tears on either side were later shed. As the film says "We'll always have Paris" and there are few of us who can quote that great line from 'Casablanca' and actually mean it as the literal truth. (Or as that great crooner Leonard Cohen once memorably sang: "I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm - your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm...")

Anyways, casting nostalgic remembrance aside as one must - the matter of E and the non-Valentine having been successfully negotiated, the little treasure blithely announced that she would awfully like to go to a local show-jumping competition that evening as one of her friends was competing on a new horse, and would we mind awfully not spending the evening in domestic harmony but instead run her out and back to the event?

And what do doting lovers do? Well naturally, accede to the request, abandon the champagne and chocs and toss a coin for who has the chore of going with her. H is left with travel jankers and I'm left with a night on the Internet playing poker. That E's friend came fourth in her class and I came third in my tournament is not quite consolation enough.

Romance is not dead as such - it is merely left pining in a horsebox near you.

Four Women of the Apocalypse

Hellish

Four women convicted of goading two toddlers - I believe a brother and a sister - into repeatedly hitting each other, whilst the women film the fight and laugh. Seven minutes of Hell.

God save us from the people we are becoming.

Sorrow and More Shame

And now a third child in as many weeks has been gunned down in South London, the second to be killed in his own home. Whether it is meaningful or useful to say, these killings are all being labelled 'black on black' murders. Street gangs, turf wars, 'respect' vendettas, drug related and/or drug fueled - this we are told is the context.

Teenagers variously described - by the same person who works with them - as 'psychopaths high on skunk' or 'boys for whom carrying a gun is a lifestyle choice.' Either thought is as wretched as the other with their different implications for the lives being led, and the lives being lost.

So sorrowful and so shaming.

HTML?

althouse rocks

...just to see if it works! And so it does!

Rector finally enters the wondeful world of hyperlinks! (We don't like to rush things round here.)

League of Shame

1. Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Denmark
4. Finland
5. Spain
6. Switzerland
7. Norway
8. Italy
9. Republic of Ireland
10. Belgium
11. Germany
12. Canada
13. Greece
14. Poland
15. Czech Republic
16. France
17. Portugal
18. Austria
19. Hungary
20. United States
21. United Kingdom

...No, it's not our football team, our cricket team even, yet alone our chances of staging a decent Olympic Games, it's UNICEF's verdict on our ability to offer our children a decent start in life.

Of twenty-one industrialised nations surveyed, the United Kingdom was the worst of the lot. The saddest part of it is, perhaps, that I for one am not at all surprised.

Church Militant...

Scrub any positive remarks made [see previous] regarding the moral probity and personal courage of loyal law enforcement officers - just had Colonel X round wanting to arrest H for 'electoral fraud'!

You may recall that his ejection from the post of Treasurer following the recent Parish Council elections was sweetened by giving him the emeritus title of 'Constable-at-Arms'. This office is a throwback (as so much around here is) to late medieval days when the village needed someone - in the days long before Peelers - to act as official representative of the legal establishment. A position only less than social death when it became purely nominal, as you can imagine.

The powers vested in the office have long and reasonably lain dormant, though never - and this is the rub - formally deleted. Thus in a purely technical and utterly narrow-minded sense Colonel X has retained the authority to 'arrest and detain such villainous personages as he should see fit'.

The last time anyone tried to use this power was shortly after the War, when the then President of the Cricket Club sought to detain his reserve wicket-keeper who was about to move from the village to take work in Norwich on the eve of a singularly important match against a neighbouring and highly-fancied team. A worthy cause no doubt, but not one that cut the mustard with Mrs. Reserve Wicket-Keeper who threatened to streak naked across the pitch at some important juncture of the match unless her Charlie were allowed his liberty.

Mrs. Reserve Wicket-Keeper possessing not one of the less weighty figures in general or bosom in particular, the President had had no choice to give in to such blackmail. It was, apparently, all too obvious in his face that the words 'laughing' and 'stock' were stirring through his imagination in considering the possible consequences. Charlie duly departed to Norwich and the team lost by five wickets.

From that day to this there has been no more talk of detention from any office holder until this, aforementioned, fell moment. Naturally one's first reaction had been to assume that the Colonel had been at the sauce or been scolded by Mrs. Colonel for some domestic failing on his part (being at the sauce being one such) - both known to be frequent events in the X household, and cause each of a certain high irascibility.

No though it seemed. The Colonel was sober, unchastised and deadly in earnest. It had, he said, come to his attention that Mildred and H had had some telephone discussion on the very day of the election, in contravention of the electoral rules. (Trust the man to have a copy of these rules about his person to show me the exact paragraph listing forbidden practices on election day: 'Para. 19.7 - Candidates must not engage in private discussions that might have a bearing on the outcome of the voting.')

As for 'coming to his attention' there was no drawing the man on how he came to know that such an alleged dereliction had occurred. (The Mr. in the Mr. and Mrs. J combo does have a post within telecommunications and if I find that he has been involved in illicit wire-tapping of the rectory he'll not be long for this life I can tell you!) Prima facie evidence, according to the Colonel - who miraculously happened to have a copy of the governance of Constable-At-Arms in his other pocket! - was all that was needed for an arrest to be made, at his total discretion.

Now clearly the act behind which lay the intention was not going to occur. For one, H happened to be out at Ladies Darts, there being therefore no corpus for the Colonel to habeat. For seconds, over my dead body would any man be allowed to carry off my wife against her will - with her will would be another matter entirely, though one is not anticipating a late-night call from Brad Pitt.

Both these points were made with steely determination of debunking the whole madcap notion. Sufficient to quell the Colonel? Sadly not, the man has utterly 'lost the plot', as E would say, having been deprived of his Treasuryship. (One does wonder in review whether Mrs. Colonel had a hand in igniting this fever.)

A falling out between the clerical and the army cloth is not a happy state of affairs. Both have forces and powers at their disposal to make the life of each a misery. And indeed major rows in the village always end in tears for parties inevitably - and sometimes all too readily - caught up in the cross-fire.

An eirenic approach would perhaps have been for the best. But under the meek exterior of the clerical black lurks a heart as militant as any comparably skulking under best-issue khaki.

It is with no great personal pride or pleasure that I have to recount my chosen method of seeking to deter the man from his quest was far from turning the other cheek as taught, but rather fighting fire with fire.

"Oh," I said. "So you are intending to arrest my wife using your authority as Constable-At-Arms are you?" He replying firmly in the affirmative, I then weighed in with the killer blow.

"Well in that case my good fellow, I have to remind you that the post of Rector of this Parish has held in perpetuity from 1683 the diocesan responsibility of Friend of the Inquisition. It is, therefore, vested in myself as humble incumbent the right not only to arrest you for any heresy I care to name, but also thence to have you burned at the stake on the village green the following morning, there being no appeal against either my judgement or my sentence. Do I make myself clear?"

Not sure whether in military parlance this would count as a flanking manoeuvre or a frontal assault, but leaving aside the matter of strategic nomenclature you could say I hit the target in one. Colonel X, being the great traditionalist that he is would not dream of disputing a lawful power. Clearly not aspiring to star in any Joan of Arc remake he beat what he reasonably described to me as 'a tactical retreat' and left for the night.

This though clearly is not the end of the matter. The rancour within the breast went with him and I have no doubt that some later re-assault will result in due course.

Am tempted to phone H on her mobile telephone to give her advance warning of the threat. Dare not though lest it put her off her game. Ladies Darts being even more competitive than village cricket, I'll not be thanked for my bravery in seeing off the mad Colonel X if my telling her of it were to make her miss a crucial double in the deciding leg.

A certain extra anxiety also troubles me as I write and wait for H's return. I made apposite mention of the Colonel being a staunch traditionalist, as indeed he is. What though I am relying on for the meanwhile is that he is not the historian too. Entirely between ourselves, you must understand, my tale of being 'Friend of the Inquisition' with witch-burning powers was just that. Pure invention from start to finish. Have occasionally wondered if it might be a useful title to carry mind you. And wouldn't it be handy just now?

Oh dear!

True Poverty...

POTW this afternoon on the Home Service:

A woman with six children is explaining, via an interpreter, how she is intending to feed the family that day. (The seventh child - a boy of ten - is away with his father working in a city.) The woman shows a pot containing a muddy mix of grain. The interpreter explains that the woman - as is her custom - visited the local fields to glean what she could. Rat holes are a good place to look - the rats collect the grains and store them in their holes. So the woman digs down into these holes to recover the grain, and thus the mud which she will wash off before cooking the grains for herself and her family. On a really good day she may even catch a rat for them to eat.

21st century planet Earth. Let us consider this woman and her family next time we are making a 'life-style choice'.

Bang To Rights...

Whilst on the subject of crime, though in a lighter mode that befits a Sabbath afternoon, dear Sandi Toksvig has posted a charming tale of the merits of owning up to one's offences.

One says the 'dear' Ms Toksvig partly because of her always enjoyable performances whether in writing or on the wireless - a veil being drawn over her alleged participation in some skating affair on television, which naturally one didn't watch - and partly I am sure as we both share Scandinavian blood. Again, when one says 'share' I am not aware that there is any common ancestry between us, I merely aver that our roots are each in that northern fastness of clean snow and largely clean living - one can tire of both of course.

Anyways, Ms Toksvig writes of a prison visit by Frederick the Great who found himself surrounded by inmates all pleading their innocence with appropriate vehemence, apart from one fellow who sat quietly at back of the cell. Questioned on his silence the man owned that he had been found guilty of a crime which he had indeed committed; that, therefore, he deserved to be incarcerated and no more to be said about the matter.

Frederick the Great at once ordered the release of this man saying it would not be right for all these 'innocent' prisoners to risk being corrupted by being forced to remain in the company of a real villain.

Bingo!

'Ten Four'

...Not entirely sure the meaning of the police call-sign 'ten-four' - and neither are, it seems, the American police who apparently have different meanings for the lingo dependent on the State in which they operate. Bit awkward if you take a call sign to mean "All back to the station lads, Henry's got the beers and the DVDs", when in fact the caller is wanting to say "For Heaven's sake get down here ASAP - this is 'Precinct 13' with nobs on."

But anyways, there I was late this evening standing in the queue at one of the more - if not the most - safe mini-supermarkets in Christendom waiting patiently to top-up on the cigars. Why so safe you reasonably enquire? Because, I answer, it is bang next-door to the local and not tiny Police station. Foolish in the extreme the robber who would seek to harass the place when there are normally at least three or four Police officers on hand waiting to buy their late-night refreshments.

In recent years at least I have yet to see one not wearing their regulation stab-jacket. This may be just professional bravado such as medics who are never seen without a stethoscope, or newscasters whose make-up is never entirely absent. Somehow, sadly one doubts it is. I am persuaded that the Elven Safety mob insist they wear the thing even on visiting the lavatory, let alone appearing in public.

So tonight I was aware of the police radio crackling behind me as we queued. Loads of indecipherable stuff about '10-4's or '16-2's and so forth. Then suddenly as clear as a bell a quiet female voice urging urgent assistance at an address not far from where we stood. Then the blood-chilling addendum..."All officers approach with extreme caution. Suspect believed to be armed with a rifle."

There was something about the precision of the warning - not a 'firearm' or even shotgun, but a kill-at-a-thousand-yards rifle - that was especially scarifying. One could just picture some hapless Constable caught in the cross-hair night-sight and clipped through the heart at a hundred or more paces.

Couldn't help but turn and comment to the officer behind me "That sounds a bit scary" to which came the hardened reply "All too common I'm afraid mate."

And unlike such ordinary work-related banter about the hard lot of the working man or woman - usually uttered with cheery if resigned pessimism - he literally and really meant what he said: cometh the shout, cometh the knife or the pistol.

I wanted to add "You're all bloody heroes for doing this." But somehow you don't - not in a Tesco queue. I did though that moment appreciate and understand just how much danger each police officer can be called upon to face at the drop of helmet.

This can of course - though you may doubt it - apply to clerics as well. We do not on the whole bolt out of a night to commit acts of daring-do whenever some heinous crime is afoot. But in our fragmented society, where often the mad or the bad or both have nowhere to go for refuge but the rectory door, not a small number of stab-jacketless clergy have met their end answering the nocturnal bell.

Who Dares Wins?

We were chatting - like you do - about the war in Iraq the other day and someone asked me if I were "pro- or anti-war."

Now I am not a natural or even a supernatural (in the theological sense) pacifist. Should anyone threaten my nearest and dearest - and I would count the horse, plus dogs, cats, friends, family H and E (even my sister-in-law!) with violence I would without qualm rip them asunder with my bare hands. That much I know of myself.

I am even content with the notion of the 'just war' and believe my own father fought one such in resisting the evil of Hitler.

But when it comes this terrible, unnecessary - not to mention probably illegal - war in Iraq I am reminded of my cousin - a keen beach athlete - who used to sport a tee-shirt with the proud, loud inscription 'SAS'. As I had always taken him for more of the hippie type than fighting material I was drawn one day to ask him if he really were a fan of our special army forces.

Why not at all he at once cried. 'SAS' stands not for behind-the-lines daring-do but 'Surfers Against Sewage'.

Well I could see where he was coming from - must be pretty ugly to cruise the waves only to find one's way barred by a floating turd or two. But given the nature of the tee-shirt comment I had to enquire "So there are surfers who are actually in favour of sewage then?"

God save any member of the SAS or any other service man or woman from death or wounding in Iraq, but I could be no more 'for' this war than my cousin - or any sane person - 'for' turds on the ocean

Rejoice...

...that was the simple, one word answer the somewhat fierce and occasionally barking Apostle Paul gave when asked what folk should do whilst awaiting the Second Coming of Christ.

I doubt even the foresighted saint would have imagined that his glorious injunction might apply to a cricket match some two millennia later - but today I do believe it is not theologically inappropriate to greet the news that England have triumphed in the first of the one-day finals against Australia with the simple exaltation - Rejoice!

Analyse That...

...you remember that wonderful scene in 'Analyse That'? Psychiatrist Billy Crystal urges gangster Robert de Niro to take out his frustration on a harmless cushion. "Hit it" he cries. So de Niro does - he whips out a Magnum pistol and blows six shots into the furniture. Great stress-buster he agrees to an astounded, disbelieving Crystal as feathers fly about the room.

Cushions beware Bro. George tonight is all I can counsel. On the blower again this evening, positively ranting about the soul-corrupted state of our public services. Blaming - as one does - T. Blair for these ills, it would seem to have reached the stage that only pig-farming / intensely moody landscape photography / even more intense and moody novel writing is a sufficiently therapeutic alternative to carrying on doing what he does. (Whatever quite that is!)

Have tried explaining that the life of a small-holder is one of unrelenting toil and hardship from dawn to dusk and from one year's end to the other, but to little avail. 'Twould seem even that this notion of 'real' sweat and labour is so the much the more to be preferred to the twilight ur-welt of social care. (Something of the Cistercian emerging here - hints of dear St. Bernard of Clairvaux, an admirable if not utterly daunting figure and role-model.)

He has though minded me to spend some hours listening to plainchant from these good fellows. Perhaps, indeed, he has a point. Can't see him hacking the celibacy angle mind you.

A La Recherche...

...time is not, pace Proust, ever actually lost. It is there, somewhere, waiting to be found.

I am, though, of the view that dear T S Eliot had it spot on when he wrote "If all time is eternally present, All time is unredeemable" and later "Footfalls echo in the memory..." and so forth.

But then, to be fair, the much-haunted Marcel was referring to 'times' - people, places, events, loves and loses - not 'time' as a thing in itself - the fell mistress of Fate and eventual teller of our mortality. (Not quite sure why Australian Shiraz always makes one so maudlin but, there you have it, it does.)

Even so, such 'times' are never truly lost as in obliterated or forgotten. For any but the dullest of souls, epiphany moments of love (to take one example of significant human life) rest forever in some part of one's remembrance and heart. The people (the lovers) may be long gone and removed from active contact, but their imprint remains - they have marked the soul and the spirit in some measure and that sign is indelible.

The pair of us (Bro. and I) happen to have near photographic memories and can still visibly picture particular intimacies from many years past - certain smiles, caresses, a look in the eye, a moment of ecstasy or of privacy. This is not to overburden such moments with more import than human kind wishes them to have - it is merely to report that the human archive is by that much the more enriched.

I am minded of this for Bro. Charles telephoned this evening to report that he had, by felicitous chance, at some peculiar gathering these management consultants attend ('Partnership Now: the New Imperative' - or some such nonsense) bumped into a woman long-ago loved and seemingly lost.

It was with a certain awe that he recounted how his once paramour now had grown-up children with careers of their own. (Tempus fugit not half - as dear 'Fluff' would have said.) When he had known her there were no children. He had sufficiently kept up over the years to know that she had had babies, but to be told (a check on the calendar would have been sufficient confirmation, of course) that these infants were now themselves fully-functioning adults, was a shock to the system requiring at least a half-bottle of good malt. (On that Bro. Charles and I are agreed - when the chips are down, or up, or even half-way to somewhere, there is nothing beats a good malt.)

Skipping the details and cutting to the chase - as we both prefer - Bro. Charles informed me that said personage from the past is now living semi-detached [vis a vis relationship] in a detached [vis a vis residence] cottage, with but two cats and a half-envisaged garden for company.

Should he - he had to enquire - consider abandoning all for a fervent yet fleeting reunion with this wondrous past? Wise counsel, of course, was for the no. (There is a reason that ships pass in the night - generally that they are heading in different directions. They have a course that each has chosen and to which each must accede.)

There was though - and hurrah for that - a part of this sensible cleric that would urge Charlie to fire up the soul, fuel up the 4x4, and drive like the wind through the night to take one more moment from the past for the present and no matter what is or is not unredeemable.

Not Better But Worse...

...The cry - often heard locally - "Things were different in my day" is a sad if frequent lament. Sad if only because the speaker, though alive, clearly accepts that his or her day is essentially over. A form of spiritual defeatism not far short of the mortal sin of despair.

The speaker inevitably makes unfavourable comparison between the Elysian days of yore and the modern decline of all and anything that could remotely resemble civilised living and/or manners.

Although instinctively of this very party myself - a fully paid up and founding member of the school of grumpy old clerics - I tend to bite my tongue from speaking thus howsoever tempted by, for example, E's dire taste in music or the absence of a decent parsnip from the local store (all the best are shipped from field straight to London, though if we're very good and lucky a few may return to the local supermarket a week or so later).

There are fundamental changes for the good that must be acknowledged whenever the tale turns to haranguing the present - real rural poverty is now largely gone (though we do all now tend to suffer from the opposite ill of 'affluenza' - a title I approve of if deploring the thing itself), most of our youth can have an education (even if too many spurn the opportunity), there is far less housing tied to jobs (all right, so no one can any longer afford to buy a house!)...etc., etc.

A story though that is horribly shocking in its own right has made me desperately yearn for times when such things could not and did not happen. I refer to the shooting dead of a sixteen year old child at Streatham ice rink. The death is appalling, the age of the victim is shocking, the callous public killing so awful. But it is the very location of the crime that has made me pause.

Streatham 'Silver Blades' - as it was in those days - was a teenage haunt of mine. We were never great skaters, but we whizzed round well enough. Attempting to chat up girls whilst struggling to maintain balance as well as poise was an invaluable lesson in life - do that successfully and the rest is a doddle believe me.

The most offence any caused in those days was to form a chain of skaters whipping round the rink with, inevitably, the one on the outside being shot from the chain on a bend being thus catapulted into the crowd. Stern admonition to desist or to depart immediately followed, but at no point did anyone ever fear assassination, nor were there notices displayed 'Caution: crazy people with guns operate in this area."

I mourn for the boy and his family and I do truly yearn that what we once had is now lost - probably forever.

Getting Better All The Time...

...H here in exultant mood.

The results are announced and Mildred is triumphant! Cathy shamed us all by publicly announcing her change of allegiance, but to no bad effect mercifully. On the contrary, all the men of the village got the message and whatever their previous intentions - or orders from above [their women] - voted for M and her in droves, thus securing their elections by margins that defy belief.

That Mrs J. herself managed to cling on to her seat is perhaps no surprise, and a prepared for fly in any ointment, but her party is by and large routed. Colonel X no longer holds the Treasury portfolio - no one could have predicted this! - being reduced to the merely ceremonial 'Constable-at-Arms'.

His compensation is that technically he can arrest any citizen of his choosing for any alleged offence, though I seriously question whether even he would be so foolish as to seek to exercise this medieval throwback authority.

Cathy becomes 'Partnership Co-ordinator' - whatever on earth that could possibly mean, whilst dear Mildred takes over 'Forward Planning and Governance' - a vital role I'm sure you'll agree.

Maurice remains Chairman as is his semi-feudal right [See previous on this] and I am happy to retain my function as Disperser of Posts - actually nothing more than arranging the Church flower patrol, though a function of considerable weight if little obvious import.

Dear PP remains oblivious to the whole thing. All day he has been humming 'May you never lay your head down without a hand to hold...etc'. Utterly impervious to my own delight in how the night went, he is quoting Shakespeare and beaming. Daft as a brush, bless him.

Chimes at Midnight...

..."Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

Falstaff had his midnight chimes and Sir Toby Belch his 'cakes and ale.' John Martyn - continuing the previous post - has had both I should imagine.

So were we at a rock concert or a dinner party? An odd question you might have thought, as the matter is self-evident. Not so, though, it would seem to one of the audience - a smart powder-blue jumper, neat grey hair, clipped accent and clipped wife - who was profoundly garrulous when someone had the effrontery to light a cigarette (such a wanton criminal act) then loudly remonstrating with the culprit - "I say, don't you know smoking is forbidden here?"

Poor guy was stunned to be hectored thus, not least considering half the crowd had lit a spliff or three to enhance the mood. "Wow man, sorry. Wow." was all he could muster in reply.

Later Ol' Powder-Blue was even more vehement with a young fellow whooping and hollering his enjoyment of the music - "I'm really not able to enjoy this with you shouting so much you know." Tempting was it to turn to him with ready cash and reply "Look, here's twenty quid. Go buy the CD and piss off home."

Bro. Charles (a late stand-in for H, who preferred to remain home keeping an eye on the election count - now that is deeply, deeply sad) had revenge for us all a while later. Ol' Powder-Blue having quelled and silenced the crowd around him to his entire satisfaction then began chatting to his wife just as your man was in the middle of 'Go Down Easy.'

Not missing the moment, Bro. Charles turned to him and bellowed in his ear for all to hear "Do you mind not talking whilst he's playing." That shut him - Ol' Powder-Blue not John Martyn of course - up for the night and we all rocked on in peace and harmony.

Now that is my kind of management consultant - crisp and dry, and giving the punter just what they want.

Solid Air...

...To London's Roundhouse this evening to watch the venerable John Martyn, once the skipping imp of English folk music; now an old sweet giant, with growling voice and a look as benevolent as an ageing Orson Welles in touch with his inner child.

Wheeled on (leg lost to a burst cyst some years back), mimicking a drowsy Falstaff by the inn fire the music begins around him as he leans back in his chair no more than tinkering with the guitar on his lap. Then mid-song he cuts in with a searing, swooping solo, looking at his hands with a half-amused smile as if to question whether it's really himself that's playing so bright and so fine.

The voice is now a growl - half Van Morrison, half Alvin Youngblood Hart - over a jazz backing out of mid-career Joni Mitchell ('Hissing of Summer Lawns' meets 'TB Sheets' via 'Fightin' Hard'). The speaking voice is even odder than the sung - pure stream-of-consciousness Les Dawson.

The electric set comes first. It works well, but I'm wondering where will be the necessary lightness of touch for the inevitable and much longed for acoustic set. The spirit of the young imp is still there, but will the weight of the older flesh be able to let it fly as it must?

Oh most certainty it can and did. If the album and the song 'Solid Air' moved you then, it would have done so again tonight. 'Over The Hill', 'May You Never', 'Go Down Easy' and of course 'Solid Air' itself.

A certain nostalgic tear might even have been seen spotting the clerical cheek as one stood there wearing one's favourite Nick Drake tee-shirt, enraptured by the song of the moment and memories of the years. (They were good friends and 'Solid Air' was and is John's song for Nick.)

"You've been taking your time and you've been living on solid air.
You've been walking the line and you've been living on solid air.
Don't know what's going 'round inside,
And I can tell you that it's hard to hide when you're living on solid air.

You've been painting the blues and you've been looking through solid air.
You've been seeing it through and you've been looking through solid air.
Don't know what's going 'round in your mind,
And I can tell you don't like what you find when you're moving through solid air.

I know you, I love you,
And I can be your friend. I can follow you anywhere,
Even through solid air.

You've been stoning it cold, you've been living on solid air.
You've been finding it cold, you've been living on solid air.
I don't know what's going on inside,
I can tell you that it's hard to hide when you're living on solid air.

You've been getting too deep, you've been living on solid air.
You've been missing your sleep and you've been moving through solid air.
I don't know what's going on in your mind,
But I know you don't like what you find when you're moving through solid air.

You've been walking your line, you've been walking on solid air.
You've been taking your time but you've been walking on solid air.
Don't know what's going on inside,
But I can tell you that it's hard to hide when you're living on solid air."

Dear Nick, genius and quite a lost soul, and thank you John for still being here to sing of and for him.

Pure Janus...

...H here on a quick luncheon break from the rigours of polling day.

The Cathy question has indeed become fairly complex, though not in the way that dear PP had envisaged. There is no going back to the Mrs J. camp for her, which is all to the good, but there then remains that matter of Mrs J. being informed [not good] or finding out [double-plus ungood].

Cathy herself, being too young easily to dissemble, is all for letting Mrs J. know that should she [Cathy] be successful in her candidature then Mrs J. could no longer rely on her support on crucial voting matters at the Council. Were that to happen, of course, Mrs J. would be ripping through the town ticking off her supporters - and they are not an insignificant cohort - not to vote for her.

Keeping absolutely silent on the matter - my initial thought - would equally lose Mildred the votes of the Cathy supporters [most of the village men under 97 and active] who would be following her into what they assumed to be still her chosen party - that of Mrs J.

Spreading the word among the menfolk that Miss Shanklin's allegiance had now shifted would not affect their attraction for the creature, of that I'm sure, and they would as happily follow her to Timbuktu as anywhere. The slightest slip of a hint though would instantly result in Mrs J.'s mob discovering the 'treachery' as they would define it, as gossip of this magnitude could not fail to be around the pub and out the door within minutes, if not sooner.

I do still blame myself. If only I'd paid more attention to the woman when she first arrived I am sure all of this could have been avoided. No going back though. We are, as poor MacBeth, half-over our bloody crossing and must press onward and upward.

A telephone call to M for advice would perhaps - on the strictest reading of the rules for local elections - be outlawed on polling day itself. Other choices are, however, strictly limited at this juncture.

Pause for sandwich, glass of beer and a good think.

Flu Bird Blues...

...H5N1 has arrived. Turkeys have it at Holton - not a long crow's flight from us - and just when it seemed the world could not get worse, it has in spades. This is not bubonic plague, but the fear of it is. The contagion may be controlled, though if it isn't it will spread faster than a Tasmanian bush fire.

Death is a possibility - mortality perhaps (one prays not), certainly demise of many small poultry farmers whose margins are tight, whose cashflows are at best a tiny trickle.

Will we, for example, continue to eat poultry in general or turkey in particular? I'm afraid we shan't. Reassurances from DEFRA that cooked meat is 'safe' may well be true, but they hold no weight or credence. Cows were also 'safe', the consequence being new variant CJD.

The day is dark.

On-Side

H here in reasonably crowing mood.

You may have gathered from dear PP's earlier that he felt a certain underhand - if not actually illicit - tactic had been adopted by myself last night in securing dear, dear Cathy's vote for Mildred to the Parish Council in tomorrow's election.

Whilst not dissenting from the view that there was a certain 'spinning' in the line taken to prise Miss Shanklin away from the false party of Mrs J. into the true faith of M (perhaps not much far short of Shane Warne's bowling of Mike Gatting that very first ball so many departed years ago), the cause was most worthy and the deceit quite within the established parameters of local politics.

Dear PP is far too the dove to comprehend the necessary wiles of the counter-balancing serpent. This innocence has been - I believe - the fundamental cause of the failure for his Church career to blossom as it ought. Do not mistake me, I am not wishing I had married my way into the Bishop's Palace - great draughty thing that it is - though I've always felt he would have made the finest of Cathedral Canon's with myself holding some vital, if unofficial, role in conducting the business of the place to the discomfort of any (and they all are) overbearing Dean.

But 'twas not to be and anyways we seem to be rather good at managing the front-line the pair of us. Parish life does mirror the world and The Wolds is its microcosm. (My God, I'm beginning to sound as Pooterish at my dear husband! Must just nip down to the polling booths to ensure that young Betty is true to her promise and brings her essentially dotty sister to vote for the cause! Voting ceases at 9.00 p.m. tonight. The count we are told should take no more than a few hours. Mildred and I are quietly confident.)

Animal Magic...

...Apart from the horse, which understandably doesn't actually live with us but in its own five-star stable at a livery yard up the hill, there are two dogs and a cat about the place, each of whom could be considered formally insane - assuming there is any objective test to validate such an assertion about non-human creatures.

G - a 'borderline collie' - was never much made of stern stuff. Although bred through ancestry to be a robust, working animal, this one of ours - a rescue creature as they all are - has proven a decadent, bi-sexual, hyper-neurotic - though utterly charming - companion, much given to licking the ear of S the lurcher. (One is told that ear-licking is a sign of a dominant animal, though if so it is the sole self-assertive act this fellow seems capable of.)

S - the other dog - is a pronounced penis/ball licker when stressed. Not of himself but of G the other dog. Whether this is sexually submissive behaviour perhaps only God or Freud could confirm. The lurcher is large and powerful - in his heyday a match for any speed merchant - though a bit dumb, if sweet. Lost half his tail crashing through a fence in an attempt to chase a cow. (Cow was not overly impressed, nor were we on viewing the vet's bill for semi-amputation.) Generally has a look that says "I may not know precisely what I am about to do, but I am sure you will love me for it anyways." And by and large we do.

M, the cat, is now completely barking. Sleeps on my pillow of a night licking my head. By day rips with her claws into a passing bureau or chair as she sees fit. Not to mention mousing - dumping headless carcases as trophies on the beds. All within the standard range of feline behaviour no doubt, but you've only to watch the manic look in her eye, or spot the bolting change of direction or activity, to realise there is considerable madness in her method.

As no 'baseline' sanity-quotient test was ever undertaken when these dear creatures arrived, one-by-one, into our household, it would be an imprecise science which concluded that living with us had driving them all nuts.

That though probably is the right reading of the spirit of the place, and under that spell they appear to have all fallen. They seem perfectly happy about their fate though, which is reassuring.

Affirmative Action

I won't say that my time this morning under Isaac's keen eye and keener razor was not well spent. A good trim and shave does wonders after all for lifting the spirits and ennobling the soul. Had though there been any suspicion that I taken steps to impress our guest this evening - Miss Shanklin - with the handsomest visage one could muster for the occasion, I can merely record that any such effort would, in any truly libidinous sense, have been so much to waste.

One has learnt over the years that when a woman, of no obvious attachment, makes more than a couple of generalised references to her 'friend', with no further details as to gender, age or any other identifiable facet of the 'friend's' character, personality or disposition - in such circumstances the woman is inevitably choosing subtly to refer to her female lover/partner.

This social courtesy is intended to let frisky rectors and others off any hook on which - or down any hole in which - they might otherwise find themselves. A dampener no doubt, generally a somewhat deflationary moment - we all have our vanity, howsoever misplaced - but nothing a third glass of decent Chablis can't cure. (One could spot H noting the whole familiar narrative with a faint but discernible smirk, mixed mercifully with a certain silent sympathy for the gentle demise of the male ego once again.)

Leaving though that silent comedy of manners to one side, went on the whole the evening well. Cook had indeed achieved something quite tasty and appetising from the vegetative ingredients to hand. Won't be quitting meat this side of Lent myself, but the dishes were both novel and interesting. Cathy's compliments to Cook sounded perfectly genuine and, of course, received with a purr of pleasure.

The discourse was wide-ranging and generally sympathetic ground was established on most topics. Miss Shanklin's view on the war in Iraq proved sound, which thankfully minimised opportunity for any great falling out. Not of course that I would have dreamt of airing, let alone imposing, my take on the whole thing. We had merely been touching on some of the local difficulties observable in the modern health service, when Cathy let slip the stinging rebuke: "Well what do you expect from such a pile of sh1tes?" - referring of course to T Blair and his cronies.

This unloosed opinion naturally was met with empathetic murmurings on our parts and we were soon all ripping into the whole sorry mess dumped on our land by the current - and no doubt in too soon a future time by his hapless, dour successor - occupant of Number 10.

One cannot, on the whole, afford in one's parochial position to be seen to be too partisan - pro or contra - a national political party or even movement. (We in the Wolds do not by and large do 'worker priests' or any such.) This evening though there was an instinctive trust in the air that inflammatory words spoken across the dinner table would not be repeated beyond the rectory front door.

At what point in the proceedings H began to weave her magic on the subject of the forthcoming Parish Council elections and the place of her rival Mrs J. in the matter I cannot say. I had been focused on a particularly fine soft-fruit sorbet - our Cook does sorbet even! - served for pudding, when I caught up with H's happening to mention that Mrs J. had some peculiar - idiosyncratic I believe was H's word - opinions regarding the place of Third-world debt in the God-given scheme of things.

Personally I had no idea that Mrs J. had such views, or indeed any thoughts on a subject so far from the proximity of the Wolds. (I have only ever heard her hold forth on matters affecting no further than ten miles from the village pump.) One did begin to suspect that H was winging the whole thing, which was at the very least a bit naughty and making me once more ever glad that I am not her confessor.

Be that as it may, the shot, howsoever random or fanciful, hit home at once. One could see Miss Shanklin's face twitch with ire at the thought that her erstwhile guide to and mentor in the ways and means of our village life could be anything other than a 'Fairtrader' through and through. Deeply painful though it was - nay nearly nauseating - to hear 'Sir' Robert Geldorf praised to the height of the dining room ceiling by the pair of them, in what was little less than a love-fest for the man and his self-adopted mission, I could but only marvel at H's perspicacity in sensing rightly that Miss Shanklin could and would be thus so easily turned.

Seeing my discomfort and fearing an interjection on my part that might spoil the whole show, H peremptorily dispatched me to the library to search for a book on local life that she felt sure Miss Shanklin would positively love to see and perchance to borrow. Naturally not rushing to fulfil this command I was able to delay my return sufficiently for the whole business of 'conversion' to be completed.

H's quite naked beam of delight as I re-entered the dining room was sufficient to inform me that from henceforth Cathy was now 'one of us' - meaning Mildred and her - and no longer 'one of them' - Mrs J. and her cohort.

I am not convinced that what - from my perspective - was such a facile if not actually fraudulently based conversion would necessarily last. It might even rebound, should Cathy later discover that Mrs J. was but a Mother Teresa in waiting. She probably won't however from what little one does actually know of Mrs J. and her version of Christian charity - beginning but also ending as it does at home. (So sad that misunderstanding of fundamental precepts of the faith and all too common one finds.)

H was in too chipper a mood after our guest had departed for any remonstration on my part to be wise. Action has been taken and the consequences must wait for the morrow.