...The title of a novel - part of the 'Dance' series - by the late and wonderful Anthony Powell with reference to a singularly unromantic figure who was reported - presumably by the lass herself for who else but she? - to have remarked that very thought in the very midst of intense carnal congress, the one with the other, in - where else - a library.
He had a point of course, though not probably the one the woman in question most wished or needed to hear at such a moment.
It might have been no more than one of those delaying tactics early feminists used to urge of the man about to 'arrive' (I shall speak no blunter) sooner than what he oughta: think of something other than the matter in hand - something altogether removed from the sexualised scene, in front, beneath or wherever - in order to keep the mind from that fatal 'bee-sting' moment, so rapidly followed by the "Better get some kip, got an early start" closing remarks of the spent fellow, much to the chagrin of the unfulfilled female.
Quite alone in one's library at this hour - free from the distraction of any such 'performance indicators' - one is left to reflect on the nub of the thought: books are indeed a fine furnishment of any room.
The difficulty is that, over time, said furnishings tend to take over the very room itself. Were I to dare to glance over a shoulder I would surely see - for I know having placed them there - several thousands of the things in question. Most are read - many oft re-read - though there are some uncut pages among them. (What is it with me and Dante I ask? He and I ought to be made for each other, yet somehow we've never quite travelled the route from Hell to Paradise together.)
Many years back I did attempt - feeling quite swamped - to rid myself of all but a 'Desert Island Seven'. The finest refinement of literature distilled into a portable supply for an island lifetime. Sadly I could manage no more (or no fewer) than a 'Desert Island Seven Hundred' - simply must have this, couldn't do without that, never read this and jolly well have to...etc., etc.
That failing, since that time I have continued to allow books to arrive, as if coming home where they belong, from many quarters. Gifts clearly - any festal day it is safe and fine indeed to give the Parson a book. Then oddments picked up by serendipitous chance in faded second-hand bookshops (Ezra Pound's 'Guide to Kulchur' being just the latest of a long, long line acquired that way.)
Sought for purchases next - perhaps a recommended title from an accredited source, or new offerings by an author one admires. The latter is more rare as there are few living writers I do admire - not that there are not many who are both alive and admirable, it's just that I prefer to let the judgement of some decades, or of centuries even, settle their lasting repute before committing myself an adherent.
A clear exception - you may find this remarkable though I don't - is Ian Rankin, whose 'Rebus' novels deserve to be and to remain among the very highest echelons of not merely 'detective fiction' but of any literary schema one cares to invent. Raymond Chandler the alpha and Rankin the omega? There are worse ways of viewing the world (I even typoed 'the Wold' which I will, in parenthesis, let stand as apposite.)
Pairings indeed - much as one might arrange a certain lamp in a room nicely to off-set a particular 'throw' by shape, form, substance, purpose, colour, texture et al. - of books is such fun. I would never dream of arranging books on shelves in order of alphabet or subject, it is so much more delightful to let a severe Russian novel sit next to a Japanese treatise on the medieval warrior spirit, or a perfect, perfect, chanced yet so right, neighbouring, that of Carmen Callil's 'Bad Faith' and Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain'.
You must forgive the precision, but there are precisely eighty-one books currently about the Parson's - admittedly large - desk that have been striped down for consumption in the very near future. These are but the most must-do numbers, ranging from the last two volumes of Sartre's 'Roads to Freedom' trilogy to the third in a series of authoritative tomes on the European Middles Ages, or a Yeats' biography to an Englishman's journal of a year spent in modern Siberia.
Too much maybe. In Holy Week all should be set aside for simply the Psalms and the Gospels. And they will be. But come the end of time, come eternity, I do so hope that in our Father's mansion of many rooms He has provided a darn good Library with all the books one could ever wish to read forever and forever Amen.
I do feel rather confident that He has.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
"Left...no, right...LEFT!
...You know how it is with women and maps. The one to be ever found on the fragrant planet of Venus, the other quite remote somewhere beyond Pluto.
H will not be gunning me down for the blatant sexist opinion, as she owns herself utterly unable to direct or guide me (one does not of course say 'navigate' as that is a purely nautical term!) by reference to any map when we two are out motoring.
She has learnt that "Turn!" is a pretty pointless command unless and until accompanied by some useful qualifier such as "Turn next left just after the windmill." Or again that "That way!" is equally hopeless, as my eyes follow the road and not the staring direction of her eyes.
We have, it must be allowed, over the years developed certain skills. I know now that "Ring hand!" refers to 'left' (wedding ring - left hand - turn left - geddit?). Though we are still searching for something less awkward for 'right', "Non-ring hand" being too cumbersome for practical use.
Not though that even such developmental attainment is much of a great help. Knowing left from right adds little if the knower still knows not which road to take to the left or to the right.
E on the other hand, though yet too young to drive, does ride of course, where some considerable prowess of direction-finding and steering is required to point horse towards the chosen goal thence to ensure it deviates not from that chosen line.
For if a horse has a mind for a leftish path, then mighty will-power, strong legs and a determined grip on the reins are necessary to keep it to the right if that is what the rider intends.
On the whole, E is rather skilled at this task, which is all to the good. Today, however, her innate SatNav singularly failed her when, in attempting to complete a rather significant dressage test - a last qualifier for a national competition - she inadvertently chose an 'change rein' manoeuvre instead of the scripted 'down centre line'.
For those of you who know of such things you can guess the next part. Judge's horn - or more strictly the horn of the car in which the judge was sat - immediately parped to announce a mis-move, E's hand flew to the heavens as if to curse the Almighty and all his wondrous creation - they do take it all so seriously - and in an instant all hope of qualifying appeared to have been dashed.
Darn shame as, up to that point, the test had been going rather well. Continued even to go well after the mishap, which was credit to horse and to rider.
But blow me down with a maniple - bit Tridentine for modern tastes though I, on occasions, will use one - even with that two-marks-deducted fault E and horse have just been awarded the coveted red rosette of best in class!
How very unexpected. How very joyous. And how now very costly - as we shall all have to be saving hard for a weekend's trip in the summer to the Grand Final. (Not quite sure why a weekend's riding should be so pricey, but last year's jaunt to same G.F. emptied the domestic purse a significant tad over the one grand mark!)
At least though we shouldn't get lost in the going. I know the route. I have the map. And the women-folk will be stuck in the back of the horsebox, where they can cause no harm yelling directions to the driver who can always pretend he can't hear them above the noise of the engine!
Post scriptum: Having attained first in her Novice class, E the following day managed a second in the Prelim. That really is quite stunning. So two qualifiers. Two days of competition. (Double the cost!) Blessed child. She really is a total star.
H will not be gunning me down for the blatant sexist opinion, as she owns herself utterly unable to direct or guide me (one does not of course say 'navigate' as that is a purely nautical term!) by reference to any map when we two are out motoring.
She has learnt that "Turn!" is a pretty pointless command unless and until accompanied by some useful qualifier such as "Turn next left just after the windmill." Or again that "That way!" is equally hopeless, as my eyes follow the road and not the staring direction of her eyes.
We have, it must be allowed, over the years developed certain skills. I know now that "Ring hand!" refers to 'left' (wedding ring - left hand - turn left - geddit?). Though we are still searching for something less awkward for 'right', "Non-ring hand" being too cumbersome for practical use.
Not though that even such developmental attainment is much of a great help. Knowing left from right adds little if the knower still knows not which road to take to the left or to the right.
E on the other hand, though yet too young to drive, does ride of course, where some considerable prowess of direction-finding and steering is required to point horse towards the chosen goal thence to ensure it deviates not from that chosen line.
For if a horse has a mind for a leftish path, then mighty will-power, strong legs and a determined grip on the reins are necessary to keep it to the right if that is what the rider intends.
On the whole, E is rather skilled at this task, which is all to the good. Today, however, her innate SatNav singularly failed her when, in attempting to complete a rather significant dressage test - a last qualifier for a national competition - she inadvertently chose an 'change rein' manoeuvre instead of the scripted 'down centre line'.
For those of you who know of such things you can guess the next part. Judge's horn - or more strictly the horn of the car in which the judge was sat - immediately parped to announce a mis-move, E's hand flew to the heavens as if to curse the Almighty and all his wondrous creation - they do take it all so seriously - and in an instant all hope of qualifying appeared to have been dashed.
Darn shame as, up to that point, the test had been going rather well. Continued even to go well after the mishap, which was credit to horse and to rider.
But blow me down with a maniple - bit Tridentine for modern tastes though I, on occasions, will use one - even with that two-marks-deducted fault E and horse have just been awarded the coveted red rosette of best in class!
How very unexpected. How very joyous. And how now very costly - as we shall all have to be saving hard for a weekend's trip in the summer to the Grand Final. (Not quite sure why a weekend's riding should be so pricey, but last year's jaunt to same G.F. emptied the domestic purse a significant tad over the one grand mark!)
At least though we shouldn't get lost in the going. I know the route. I have the map. And the women-folk will be stuck in the back of the horsebox, where they can cause no harm yelling directions to the driver who can always pretend he can't hear them above the noise of the engine!
Post scriptum: Having attained first in her Novice class, E the following day managed a second in the Prelim. That really is quite stunning. So two qualifiers. Two days of competition. (Double the cost!) Blessed child. She really is a total star.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
"Don't move, you're surrounded...
...by armed bastards!"
(For full effect the heavy emphasis must be delivered on the final word. Trust me it works best that way.)
H and I have both yearned for opportunities - rare you will rightly imagine in the Wolds - to employ this magisterially menacing command ever since we heard it first uttered in righteous anger by 'our hero' Philip Glenister, who - if you know not and you should - plays the part of hard-nosed, hard-headed, hard-everything DCI Gene Hunt in our favourite television programme 'Life on Mars.' (If Glenister/Hunt ever finds the acting life too slow for him/them then an alternative in politics would be a shoe-in. The public adore the man and the persona. Prime Minister by acclaim.)
And funnily enough just such an opportunity occurred at - or more strictly in the back garden of - the Rectory last night would you believe!
It was our lurcher - S - who first alerted us to the possibility of an intruder, by leaping to his feet during the late news and launching himself at the window of the back parlour in a frenzy of uncontrolled barking. Now this does need to be set in context. The lurcher will go through such a performance any time a fox is passing through the garden. Or even when a fox isn't; the lurcher thinking one might be or perhaps just should be.
So at first-phase frenzy we took little notice, remaining semi-glued to the latest bad news from everywhere, as one does. As, though, the lurcher maintained his horrid howling for some uninterrupted minutes, finally H turned to me remarking, as if not totally interested in the matter, "I wonder if there's someone out there."
This of course being understood domestic code for "On your feet dear PP. Do the manly thing and imperil yourself by investigating the cause of the disturbance, whilst I remain safely seated indoors with my cocoa."
Rising at once to this unstated yet clear instruction, torch was retrieved from under the stairs and, with robust walking-stick grasped in the striking hand, I ventured forth into the darkness.
Calling out as one never quite intends to for its very banality yet ever irresistability "Is anyone there?" I was totally astonished to hear the apologetic response from the shrubbery at the end of the garden "Well yes actually there is." Now this answer - more peculiar than the very question that prompted it - rather floored (or should that be 'lawned' as I was standing at the time on the grass) me.
What kind of fell intruder actually owns to his presence when asked to do so I had to wonder? Presumably not one of the fiercest, though perhaps the most brazen, was all I could reflect on for the moment.
Having though begun the dialogue with the unknown stranger this way, I was more or less compelled to continue in like vein. Being about, therefore, to invite the honest invader of our garden to show himself, I was abruptly forestalled by the lurcher who had slipped out the backdoor unnoticed clearly keen to lend a hand - or paw - to the whole situation.
(For full effect the heavy emphasis must be delivered on the final word. Trust me it works best that way.)
H and I have both yearned for opportunities - rare you will rightly imagine in the Wolds - to employ this magisterially menacing command ever since we heard it first uttered in righteous anger by 'our hero' Philip Glenister, who - if you know not and you should - plays the part of hard-nosed, hard-headed, hard-everything DCI Gene Hunt in our favourite television programme 'Life on Mars.' (If Glenister/Hunt ever finds the acting life too slow for him/them then an alternative in politics would be a shoe-in. The public adore the man and the persona. Prime Minister by acclaim.)
And funnily enough just such an opportunity occurred at - or more strictly in the back garden of - the Rectory last night would you believe!
It was our lurcher - S - who first alerted us to the possibility of an intruder, by leaping to his feet during the late news and launching himself at the window of the back parlour in a frenzy of uncontrolled barking. Now this does need to be set in context. The lurcher will go through such a performance any time a fox is passing through the garden. Or even when a fox isn't; the lurcher thinking one might be or perhaps just should be.
So at first-phase frenzy we took little notice, remaining semi-glued to the latest bad news from everywhere, as one does. As, though, the lurcher maintained his horrid howling for some uninterrupted minutes, finally H turned to me remarking, as if not totally interested in the matter, "I wonder if there's someone out there."
This of course being understood domestic code for "On your feet dear PP. Do the manly thing and imperil yourself by investigating the cause of the disturbance, whilst I remain safely seated indoors with my cocoa."
Rising at once to this unstated yet clear instruction, torch was retrieved from under the stairs and, with robust walking-stick grasped in the striking hand, I ventured forth into the darkness.
Calling out as one never quite intends to for its very banality yet ever irresistability "Is anyone there?" I was totally astonished to hear the apologetic response from the shrubbery at the end of the garden "Well yes actually there is." Now this answer - more peculiar than the very question that prompted it - rather floored (or should that be 'lawned' as I was standing at the time on the grass) me.
What kind of fell intruder actually owns to his presence when asked to do so I had to wonder? Presumably not one of the fiercest, though perhaps the most brazen, was all I could reflect on for the moment.
Having though begun the dialogue with the unknown stranger this way, I was more or less compelled to continue in like vein. Being about, therefore, to invite the honest invader of our garden to show himself, I was abruptly forestalled by the lurcher who had slipped out the backdoor unnoticed clearly keen to lend a hand - or paw - to the whole situation.
Now the lurcher is a simple soul. He hunts by instinct and breeding, and he is also beautifully protective of the entire family by habit; that latter I put down to a kind of angelic animal gratitude for having been rescued from a life of misery. (Which he was, but that is another story for another occasion.)
Instinct, breeding and habit melding into one pure force, the lurcher no sooner caught the stranger's weak words - yet being utterly oblivious to the non-threatening tone of the voice - than immediately set off full-pelt across the lawn, eyes blazing with righteous fury, barking the while most furiously in purest canine-speak "Don't move, you're surrounded by armed bastards." (The very words indeed I swear I heard in his voice.)
Well, whether our intruder had been watching the same television as ourselves, or else perhaps - less likely on the whole - was fluent in 'received lurcher', the effect of the impending onslaught was to propel the fellow - for such he was - out of darkness of the shrubbery and into the relative sanctuary of my torchlight.
"Good Lord," I exclaimed on instantly recognising him. "It's Young Tim! What on earth are you doing skulking in my shrubbery at this or indeed at any hour?"
Young Tim you must understand - son of Old Tim naturally - was not much known to me, he having departed for N as soon as his adolescent legs could carry him the distance. Not for him the quiet of village life, but what passes for the high-life of N. (Not that high I am informed.) I had heard rumour that he had joined the local Gazette as what I was brought up to call a 'cub' reporter - which turned out to be the fact - though what is undoubtedly now known as 'Deputy Assistant Under-Manager of Resources' or some such grandiose and empty title.
Even so as newshound in the making, what on earth was he doing in my shrubs in the dark I most urgently needed to know. The obvious and most alarming supposition that he had turned from innocent youth into maturing voyeur mercifully proved not to be the case. (Glad of that or else, with E about the place, would have been forced to have left him to the mercy of - or lack of - my canine Armed Bastard.)
The gabbled truth of the matter did leave me in hoots. Apparently the production company behind the new series of 'The Apprentice' - being ever vigilant to protect their wares - had picked up on Bro. George's spoof notion that a certain Beatrice Bowhandle [see previous] would be entering the show at some later point in broadcast and were determined to find out what, if anything, lay at the bottom of this jest. Passing on the gen to the Gazette and requesting investigation on the ground, poor Young Tim had been delegated the task of padding out to the Palladas residence in order to sniff out any facts in the case.
Not being entirely - or even remotely - versed in the matters of how to conduct undercover work of this kind, Tim could think of nothing else to do other than to lurk in the shrubbery in the deluded hope of picking up some inside info of use to his leonine masters back at HQ hovering over hot presses waiting for his exclusive story.
He did mention that he had considered a frontal attack: knocking on our door demanding to know what we knew and when did we know it - standard unsubtle but often effective hack practice; but that he had spotted H about the place and his courage had failed him. This last had such a ring of pure truth about it I had to believe the whole story, I can tell you! H can put the frighteners on people from a hundred paces, even when she is thinking of nothing more aggressive than wondering if Cook had remembered to order the fish for dinner.
The lurcher the meanwhile spotting most sharply that Tim and I were now engaged in most harmonious if still puzzled conversation, returned to join us and to greet Tim with a most fond look as if at a long-lost and now vouchsafed-returned cousin.
Tim, though, having noted the original 'armed bastards' motif behind the barking and the charging could not easily be persuaded that the beast was safe. (Though it were a chill night I could catch the sweat pouring in some residual fright from his fevered, fearful brow.) Seemed nothing less I could do than to invite him to join us inside for some late cocoa and a fuller chat about all the circs.
That offer, though gently intended to put him at his ease, clearly did not quite hit the emotional mark. One could see in his face the difficult urgings of his restless mind seeking to weigh the relative risks of remaining close to the Scylla of the lurcher or else confronting the Charybdis of H.
We would perhaps have made it inside the house - I could sense him leaning towards this option as acceptably safe - were it not for the unfortunate fact of H's choosing at that point to jump into the lit doorway of the kitchen seeming to be carrying something very like a sawn-off shotgun and shouting our very own catchphrase at full volume. At this poor Tim simply legged it raving into the night.
H later explained - due malt having passed both our lips Lent or no Lent - that becoming concerned by the lurcher's sudden silence she had decided that resting at ease with her cocoa was no longer the 'right stuff'. Clutching, therefore, a to-hand umbrella [the seeming shotgun] she had determined to race outside to face the foe and rescue the day - or night - and the Rector plus lurcher. (Probably more 'lurcher plus Rector', but best not to dwell.)
She simply swore - and I do believe her as I must ever for the sake of domestic peace - that she had had not the slightest intention prior to the point of delivery of adding to the power of her dramatic intervention by bellowing the fiercesome "Don't move...etc.,...armed bastards" number, but being so overtaken by the wonderful power of the words somehow they had just slipped out in the heat of the moment - or indeed of the night.
I am not, though, entirely convinced of this explanation. I have indeed heard her practising the very line in the back bedroom when she thought I was out of the house. Been saving herself, I reckon, for the first chance to use it. (An unduly unruly meeting of the Parish Council being prime suspect here. "Point of order Madam Chairman. 'Don't Move...etc., etc.'" One can picture it now!)
Doubt our neighbours would have heard it all which is a blessing, though Young Tim is no doubt, this very moment, scribing the most absolutely right headline for his piece:
Menace at Rectory. Reporter's life threatened. Police informed. Talkback planning a series on spree-killing Rectors' wives. Sir Alan Sugar possible narrator. Ralph Fiennes to play part of Rector. Nic Kidman probable wife lead. Phil Glenister to co-star.
Call 'y-double y-z-double z' to leave your thoughts and views. E-mail the editor in confidence if you've ever had an armed bastard in your family.
Monday, March 26, 2007
You Can't Go Home Again...
...the much quoted and still true for that words by Tom Wolfe to describe some essential alienation of the human condition: you grow, you leave, just don't ever try going back.
A thought in mind catching the latter part of a programme on modern child slavery tonight.
Cambodian children trafficked into prostitution once released - if ever sadly - are not returned home but sent to schools and foundations that can help them to recover from the physical and emotional scars of their terrible lives, on the simple pragmatic ground that all too often it was their families who sold them into prostitution in the first place and that, therefore, to send them home would merely result in too many of them being re-sold back to the brothels.
In India, on the other hand, children released from the slavery of the sari sweatshops are, as port of first call, sent back to the homes that sold them into illegal bonded labour. The result in one case - noted in the commentary as rather typical - was too painful to witness.
A young lad - no more than twelve years old - is met on his return to the house in which he grew up by his wailing, weeping, screaming mother.
Her tears and cries though are not from the joy of being re-united with her lost boy, but howls of disbelieving horror that he has come home to "add to my suffering." Poor child looks utterly bemused at having to act out this unhappy family scene for the benefit of the cameras. He tells his mother to "Shut up", but as he previously acknowledged what he was bringing back to the family was not a son, but merely yet another mouth to feed.
The Indian Government promises money to families whose children are returned to them from slavery. The money frequently fails to arrive.
Not all though is well either in Cambodia. Too many of the children - some no more than six or seven - are so severely traumatised that they simply cannot trust any adult who shows them real compassion and love.
Two out of ten flee back to the brothels. The place they have come to call home.
A thought in mind catching the latter part of a programme on modern child slavery tonight.
Cambodian children trafficked into prostitution once released - if ever sadly - are not returned home but sent to schools and foundations that can help them to recover from the physical and emotional scars of their terrible lives, on the simple pragmatic ground that all too often it was their families who sold them into prostitution in the first place and that, therefore, to send them home would merely result in too many of them being re-sold back to the brothels.
In India, on the other hand, children released from the slavery of the sari sweatshops are, as port of first call, sent back to the homes that sold them into illegal bonded labour. The result in one case - noted in the commentary as rather typical - was too painful to witness.
A young lad - no more than twelve years old - is met on his return to the house in which he grew up by his wailing, weeping, screaming mother.
Her tears and cries though are not from the joy of being re-united with her lost boy, but howls of disbelieving horror that he has come home to "add to my suffering." Poor child looks utterly bemused at having to act out this unhappy family scene for the benefit of the cameras. He tells his mother to "Shut up", but as he previously acknowledged what he was bringing back to the family was not a son, but merely yet another mouth to feed.
The Indian Government promises money to families whose children are returned to them from slavery. The money frequently fails to arrive.
Not all though is well either in Cambodia. Too many of the children - some no more than six or seven - are so severely traumatised that they simply cannot trust any adult who shows them real compassion and love.
Two out of ten flee back to the brothels. The place they have come to call home.
'I'm A Man of Constant Sorrow'....
...well you've heard that from Woody Guthrie, from Bob Dylan and any number of blues-based singers.
Actually you could and should go back the original blues singers who mourned what they really knew they'd lost. Sorrow was in the music of the sorrowful in order for them not to succumb to sorrow. Fidelio music from an enslaved people yearning to be free.
...Fear not though that this is to become some freedom rant at this late hour.
On the contrary, I am asking myself whether the ringing poignant phrase would have had half the force if it had been rendered 'pain' not 'sorrow.' It might have been for there was actual physical pain in that suffering and sorrow.
There is a reason why I have been reflecting on the matter, for it is now very nearly seven whole years that I have been in constant physical pain, the result of some significant and necessary medical past events. (Go look them up if interested. The cause though is not the purpose of this late musing.)
It - the pain - does become, in and over time, a bit like that funny clock in the parlour that ticks audibly all the time and then every once in a while lets out a mighty, yet random, great clatter. Sometimes nothing for a week, then days of clatter, clatter, clatter. The unpredictability of that can be so wearing!
When guests to the house fidget we know they are being distracted by the loud ticking. When seen to be leaping from their chairs in some alarm then we inhabitants know that they have heard - in every sense - the clatter. We, as we are so used to the thing, hardly hear it at all relying on the reaction of others to remind us that one day that clock must go!
I am somewhere between host and guest on this pain thing. Sometimes utterly oblivious in any conscious sense and other times all too acutely aware of both the 'tick' and the 'clatter'. Aware too, on reflection, that my particular clock is for staying not going. When it stops then so do I. That is a matter of some sorrow from time to time. So yes, I could write the new blues number 'Man of Constant Pain.' Wouldn't catch on though. I wouldn't even want to buy a copy.
We are taught to 'offer up' our pain and our sorrow to God the Father, as His Son once did in fulfilling His Will. Now there's a thought to put an end to pain and to sorrow.
Actually you could and should go back the original blues singers who mourned what they really knew they'd lost. Sorrow was in the music of the sorrowful in order for them not to succumb to sorrow. Fidelio music from an enslaved people yearning to be free.
...Fear not though that this is to become some freedom rant at this late hour.
On the contrary, I am asking myself whether the ringing poignant phrase would have had half the force if it had been rendered 'pain' not 'sorrow.' It might have been for there was actual physical pain in that suffering and sorrow.
There is a reason why I have been reflecting on the matter, for it is now very nearly seven whole years that I have been in constant physical pain, the result of some significant and necessary medical past events. (Go look them up if interested. The cause though is not the purpose of this late musing.)
It - the pain - does become, in and over time, a bit like that funny clock in the parlour that ticks audibly all the time and then every once in a while lets out a mighty, yet random, great clatter. Sometimes nothing for a week, then days of clatter, clatter, clatter. The unpredictability of that can be so wearing!
When guests to the house fidget we know they are being distracted by the loud ticking. When seen to be leaping from their chairs in some alarm then we inhabitants know that they have heard - in every sense - the clatter. We, as we are so used to the thing, hardly hear it at all relying on the reaction of others to remind us that one day that clock must go!
I am somewhere between host and guest on this pain thing. Sometimes utterly oblivious in any conscious sense and other times all too acutely aware of both the 'tick' and the 'clatter'. Aware too, on reflection, that my particular clock is for staying not going. When it stops then so do I. That is a matter of some sorrow from time to time. So yes, I could write the new blues number 'Man of Constant Pain.' Wouldn't catch on though. I wouldn't even want to buy a copy.
We are taught to 'offer up' our pain and our sorrow to God the Father, as His Son once did in fulfilling His Will. Now there's a thought to put an end to pain and to sorrow.
TTCSM at last...
...or should that be TTC-SM or even TTCM?
Not quite with me? No shame in that at this early point in the discussion.
Let me take you back some twenty-four hours from now. British Summer Time was about to be unleashed upon us and, hence, a myriad of domestic clocks, timing devices and assorted electronic machinery in need of moving the critical hour forward.
'Spring forward, Fall back' as we all know, even if the phrase be too American for my tastes. We 'do' Autumn over here not Fall. (Yes we know leaves 'fall' - barely needs remarking. But it's hardly sufficient cause to name a whole season after the obvious bio-mechanical fact is it? 'Season of mists and yellow fallingness'? Doesn't quite pack the punch of the original I think you'll find.)
Anyways back to clocks et al. There is, essentially, a binary choice here - either fix the clocks before retiring for the night or else leave it all until the next morning. The next morning has some advantages - not needing to wait up late being chief among them.
Actually, there is a third way, as so oft there is. My old monastery, when in the old days stuffed to the rafters with none but French refugee monks, simply refused to have anything to do with the - to them - nonsensical notion of moving clocks back and forth. They simply stuck with Parisian time throughout the year, ignoring what else was happening in their exiled land. (Simple for them of course, but played ruddy havoc with any taxi driver summonsed to attend at ten of the hour and finding he had arrived a whole hour too early or too late. Not good for business or for temper!)
The difficulty though - returning to the main sub-subject - in putting off the task is that other persons about the household tend to interfere, altering some clocks but not others, never actually saying which ones they have changed, leaving the whole matter a thing of pot-luck and random chance. (Dare one - and one does so dare - associate such fallibility with the female mind and will?!)
Not my bag at all - leaving things to chance - I imagine you would have readily grasped had you been keeping up with these scribblings of mine!
The chosen line then is to fix everything before retiring, simply announcing that all has been dealt with and kindly no questions on the matter.
So far so reasonably simple and sensible.
But then a snag. 'Tis virtually impossible to keep tabs on those devices that have an in-built 'Oh it's BST, better jump forward the hour' prompt and those that don't. Modern computers tend to be ahead of the game here - as, scarily, in most things - some boilers can cope and even the odd mobile telephone, if properly programmed, knows when to act. But many don't.
Grandfather clocks for example, that take several minutes alteration of pulleys and levers to change, most certainly are unable to attempt the task unaided.
Chief of all, of course, is the clock in the bell tower. Designed and built when a United Kingdom was hardly a glint in a Prince's eye, it never knew BST nor would have cared much to acknowledge it if it had.
There was a time when a local 'lad' could have been relied upon at the small cost of a proffered fiver to climb the rigorous steps to change the hour-hand when needed - as was last night.
Grimly, though, the Elven Safety people have decreed that no such lad may be lawfully employed for such a perilous purpose, unless and until he has attended five assorted training courses, been equipped with the latest thinking in hard hats by state registered and approved purveyors of said items, completed six risk assessments - three of which having to be signed off by separate departments within the Elven Safety Castle - passed a final examination and been declared a fit and proper person to undertake the task by authorities sacred and profane. (Not to mention been provided with all items of Elven Safety equipment considered necessary for such a purpose from the strictly limited parish funds!)
So there one inadvertently was in the position of a quasi Captain Marvel called upon as the only one fit and willing to do all the daring and required deeds.
...That was but a brief introduction to the topic in hand. Back therefore to 'TTCM' and/or 'TC-SM' and/or TTCSM.
The really, really smart ones among you may have this sorted by now. All it takes is a tolerably simple trail to follow.
Part the first - Rector has decided he needs must stay up late in order to resolve the whole BST/clock thing. Part the second - some activity is required to keep him awake and fixed to the task unto 2.00 a.m. Part the third - let's have a look at what's on the television.
Well! One hardly dare describe the options available at such a late hour. A dozen or so idiotic 'reality' - how unreal, how unreal - shows, the occasional alluring repeat of a 1970s drama one had forgotten had ever been made, some semi-decent - if one were awake enough to be concentrating - history documentaries...etc., etc.
Actually the 'etc., etc.' is discreet code for some pretty ropey soft pornography, freely available into the small hours on even the most tame of channels. And when one says 'ropey', what one largely means is that it is awfully off-course in a strictly physiological sense.
On the whole - though not of course an expert in such matters I must insist you accept - 'soft' pornography is far more sensuously erotic than the 'hard' version with its constant and unvaried diet of genitalia mixing most frantically - and so loudly, they all seem to have to shout with fake delight! - with other of the similar or like kind.
A fellow seminarian once wisely remarked that should one ever be tempted into the bleak world of 'hard' porn - as viewer no more! - all that were need to extricate oneself from such a sinful snare would be to play the whole thing at twice the intended speed. The net result most assuredly would be complete collapse of any improper lust as one wept with laughter watching human bodies 'at it' like so many frantic turtles praying to be ahead of the incoming tide.
'Soft' - not the word you would really be wanting to over-emphasis in front of the 'leading' as it were man - pornography can be (on the other hand one is reliably informed) rather stimulating, as in "I do somehow wonder what circumstances could lead one to have such revelatory bonding moments with a total stranger and were one to find oneself there how might one behave?"
But where it fails is in attempting to show what it cannot show - actual genital contact. The end result would often seem to be a woman somehow latched on to a man's penis that must be located, implausibly, somewhere on his lower abdomen, rather than the groin where it most properly and exclusively belongs.
A good school chum of mine once did remark that his whole sexual career had been horribly set back some considerable years having feasted on such misleading stuff. It was not, he said, until he went back to the 'drawing board' as it were of plain, simple anatomy that he figured he had been all innocently setting sail for the entirely wrong harbour. (No Nigel, the umbilicus is not the target drop!)
We are - I admit - not yet on top of (how the metaphor sustains) of the real subject here. To cut right away to the chase, waiting for the late hour, avoiding the reality and unreality of most of the available programming, one stumbled across a late showing of that seminal (sex again I fear!) film 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'.
Note the purity of the reference. The original film was called precisely and no less that. Chain and Saw were given as two separate words: not hyphenated, not conjoined. (Bear that in mind the next Pub Quiz night!)
Now this film had long been a boogie monster waiting to be confronted. I have always loved horror films in equal measure to detesting ghost films. Real ghosts do scare me, as in my belief that they must at heart be sad spirits not yet able to seek their rest and that so saddens me.
But TTCSM was, one was informed, just too awful for even the most ardent of horror fans. Barbaric beyond relating, a must-avoid.
Having now, after so many years of avoidance, actually seen it I must though most heartily disagree.
Plainly played for laughs, with completely improvised dialogue throughout, an utterly implausible re-enaction of a terrible true event - Ed Gein - with endless, endless screaming from the [spoiler coming!] one surviving female, unreal chases where the chaser has to keep falling over in order not to catch the chasee, a side-splitting scene in which a semi-mummified gran'pa is unsuccessfully urged to relive his personal apotheosis as a serial killer and strike down the girl with a hammer he can barely hold....one can barely continue for the tears of laughter.
Even the actual visible gore is slightly less gruesome than a bog-standard modern police drama. It's a great, great film. But horrifying? Not a chance!
Apparently the idea for the film - the use of chain saw as a weapon of death - came to the Director fellow when he found himself trapped inside a heaving hardware store. Glancing over at the machines on offer and reflecting on the easiest way to carve a passage through the madding crowd, his eye and inspired mind rested on the chain saws for sale.
That actually is quite creepy.
The 'Upper Slaughter Garden Centre Chain Saw Massacre' - a film crying out to be made!
Not quite with me? No shame in that at this early point in the discussion.
Let me take you back some twenty-four hours from now. British Summer Time was about to be unleashed upon us and, hence, a myriad of domestic clocks, timing devices and assorted electronic machinery in need of moving the critical hour forward.
'Spring forward, Fall back' as we all know, even if the phrase be too American for my tastes. We 'do' Autumn over here not Fall. (Yes we know leaves 'fall' - barely needs remarking. But it's hardly sufficient cause to name a whole season after the obvious bio-mechanical fact is it? 'Season of mists and yellow fallingness'? Doesn't quite pack the punch of the original I think you'll find.)
Anyways back to clocks et al. There is, essentially, a binary choice here - either fix the clocks before retiring for the night or else leave it all until the next morning. The next morning has some advantages - not needing to wait up late being chief among them.
Actually, there is a third way, as so oft there is. My old monastery, when in the old days stuffed to the rafters with none but French refugee monks, simply refused to have anything to do with the - to them - nonsensical notion of moving clocks back and forth. They simply stuck with Parisian time throughout the year, ignoring what else was happening in their exiled land. (Simple for them of course, but played ruddy havoc with any taxi driver summonsed to attend at ten of the hour and finding he had arrived a whole hour too early or too late. Not good for business or for temper!)
The difficulty though - returning to the main sub-subject - in putting off the task is that other persons about the household tend to interfere, altering some clocks but not others, never actually saying which ones they have changed, leaving the whole matter a thing of pot-luck and random chance. (Dare one - and one does so dare - associate such fallibility with the female mind and will?!)
Not my bag at all - leaving things to chance - I imagine you would have readily grasped had you been keeping up with these scribblings of mine!
The chosen line then is to fix everything before retiring, simply announcing that all has been dealt with and kindly no questions on the matter.
So far so reasonably simple and sensible.
But then a snag. 'Tis virtually impossible to keep tabs on those devices that have an in-built 'Oh it's BST, better jump forward the hour' prompt and those that don't. Modern computers tend to be ahead of the game here - as, scarily, in most things - some boilers can cope and even the odd mobile telephone, if properly programmed, knows when to act. But many don't.
Grandfather clocks for example, that take several minutes alteration of pulleys and levers to change, most certainly are unable to attempt the task unaided.
Chief of all, of course, is the clock in the bell tower. Designed and built when a United Kingdom was hardly a glint in a Prince's eye, it never knew BST nor would have cared much to acknowledge it if it had.
There was a time when a local 'lad' could have been relied upon at the small cost of a proffered fiver to climb the rigorous steps to change the hour-hand when needed - as was last night.
Grimly, though, the Elven Safety people have decreed that no such lad may be lawfully employed for such a perilous purpose, unless and until he has attended five assorted training courses, been equipped with the latest thinking in hard hats by state registered and approved purveyors of said items, completed six risk assessments - three of which having to be signed off by separate departments within the Elven Safety Castle - passed a final examination and been declared a fit and proper person to undertake the task by authorities sacred and profane. (Not to mention been provided with all items of Elven Safety equipment considered necessary for such a purpose from the strictly limited parish funds!)
So there one inadvertently was in the position of a quasi Captain Marvel called upon as the only one fit and willing to do all the daring and required deeds.
...That was but a brief introduction to the topic in hand. Back therefore to 'TTCM' and/or 'TC-SM' and/or TTCSM.
The really, really smart ones among you may have this sorted by now. All it takes is a tolerably simple trail to follow.
Part the first - Rector has decided he needs must stay up late in order to resolve the whole BST/clock thing. Part the second - some activity is required to keep him awake and fixed to the task unto 2.00 a.m. Part the third - let's have a look at what's on the television.
Well! One hardly dare describe the options available at such a late hour. A dozen or so idiotic 'reality' - how unreal, how unreal - shows, the occasional alluring repeat of a 1970s drama one had forgotten had ever been made, some semi-decent - if one were awake enough to be concentrating - history documentaries...etc., etc.
Actually the 'etc., etc.' is discreet code for some pretty ropey soft pornography, freely available into the small hours on even the most tame of channels. And when one says 'ropey', what one largely means is that it is awfully off-course in a strictly physiological sense.
On the whole - though not of course an expert in such matters I must insist you accept - 'soft' pornography is far more sensuously erotic than the 'hard' version with its constant and unvaried diet of genitalia mixing most frantically - and so loudly, they all seem to have to shout with fake delight! - with other of the similar or like kind.
A fellow seminarian once wisely remarked that should one ever be tempted into the bleak world of 'hard' porn - as viewer no more! - all that were need to extricate oneself from such a sinful snare would be to play the whole thing at twice the intended speed. The net result most assuredly would be complete collapse of any improper lust as one wept with laughter watching human bodies 'at it' like so many frantic turtles praying to be ahead of the incoming tide.
'Soft' - not the word you would really be wanting to over-emphasis in front of the 'leading' as it were man - pornography can be (on the other hand one is reliably informed) rather stimulating, as in "I do somehow wonder what circumstances could lead one to have such revelatory bonding moments with a total stranger and were one to find oneself there how might one behave?"
But where it fails is in attempting to show what it cannot show - actual genital contact. The end result would often seem to be a woman somehow latched on to a man's penis that must be located, implausibly, somewhere on his lower abdomen, rather than the groin where it most properly and exclusively belongs.
A good school chum of mine once did remark that his whole sexual career had been horribly set back some considerable years having feasted on such misleading stuff. It was not, he said, until he went back to the 'drawing board' as it were of plain, simple anatomy that he figured he had been all innocently setting sail for the entirely wrong harbour. (No Nigel, the umbilicus is not the target drop!)
We are - I admit - not yet on top of (how the metaphor sustains) of the real subject here. To cut right away to the chase, waiting for the late hour, avoiding the reality and unreality of most of the available programming, one stumbled across a late showing of that seminal (sex again I fear!) film 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'.
Note the purity of the reference. The original film was called precisely and no less that. Chain and Saw were given as two separate words: not hyphenated, not conjoined. (Bear that in mind the next Pub Quiz night!)
Now this film had long been a boogie monster waiting to be confronted. I have always loved horror films in equal measure to detesting ghost films. Real ghosts do scare me, as in my belief that they must at heart be sad spirits not yet able to seek their rest and that so saddens me.
But TTCSM was, one was informed, just too awful for even the most ardent of horror fans. Barbaric beyond relating, a must-avoid.
Having now, after so many years of avoidance, actually seen it I must though most heartily disagree.
Plainly played for laughs, with completely improvised dialogue throughout, an utterly implausible re-enaction of a terrible true event - Ed Gein - with endless, endless screaming from the [spoiler coming!] one surviving female, unreal chases where the chaser has to keep falling over in order not to catch the chasee, a side-splitting scene in which a semi-mummified gran'pa is unsuccessfully urged to relive his personal apotheosis as a serial killer and strike down the girl with a hammer he can barely hold....one can barely continue for the tears of laughter.
Even the actual visible gore is slightly less gruesome than a bog-standard modern police drama. It's a great, great film. But horrifying? Not a chance!
Apparently the idea for the film - the use of chain saw as a weapon of death - came to the Director fellow when he found himself trapped inside a heaving hardware store. Glancing over at the machines on offer and reflecting on the easiest way to carve a passage through the madding crowd, his eye and inspired mind rested on the chain saws for sale.
That actually is quite creepy.
The 'Upper Slaughter Garden Centre Chain Saw Massacre' - a film crying out to be made!
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Gentlemens of the Road...
"Hector's back," H informed me this morning. "He appears to have survived as ever."
The news of Hector's return to our midst is always to be welcomed, both as a thing in itself as he is an interesting fellow and also as a sure sign of returning Spring.
Quite where Hector goes to sit out the cold winter months remains a mystery. There has been talk of an aunt in N., though I have only ever heard him remark that family and he have not been close for some many long years. He will merely talk of 'going South', as if a migrating bird which in some ways he is.
Actually getting 'close' to Hector can be a significant trial I am told, though one as a heavy smoker with minimal sense of smell I am largely spared. Clothes do vary seasonally as offers are made by the good people of the parish; but one strongly suspects from the anecdotal evidence of others with more keener nostrils than my own that no form of bathing ever interposes these changes of apparel.
On, however, the level of person-to-person contact there are no such concerns. Hector's conversation is both interesting and entertaining. There is generally some hint - from odd lapses in concentration or abrupt changes of subject matter - that the cerebral processes within Hector's mind can fall outside of the generally accepted norm for such things; but setting that aside - and does not H not infrequently berate me for similar failings? - time spent with Hector is never time wasted.
There are some - there always will be - who metaphorically 'draw in their skirts' when speaking of the man. They question rather unseemingly, indeed unfeelingly, why socks are not pulled up, residences sought from the authorities or gainful employment undertaken at a decent day rate. They may have a point regarding certain feckless folk who seem content to spend their lives taking not giving. But Hector is not one such.
He is a good and a gentle soul - a true gentleman - whose life as a free-wheeling mendicant was not one he was born to but one thrust upon him by force of many circumstances. That he has both accepted and adapted to that difficult life with charm and grace is a tribute to him and a shame on any who scorn it or him.
The occasional homily on the 'There but for the Grace of God...' theme is sometimes called for when too much harrumphing is heard about the place; and when called for is delivered with a certain steely voice, as if the parson were - as he is - fully aware of just how close to certain financial and domestic winds some people are sailing that might just tip any one of them out of soft furnishings and onto hard roads.
The news of Hector's return to our midst is always to be welcomed, both as a thing in itself as he is an interesting fellow and also as a sure sign of returning Spring.
Quite where Hector goes to sit out the cold winter months remains a mystery. There has been talk of an aunt in N., though I have only ever heard him remark that family and he have not been close for some many long years. He will merely talk of 'going South', as if a migrating bird which in some ways he is.
Actually getting 'close' to Hector can be a significant trial I am told, though one as a heavy smoker with minimal sense of smell I am largely spared. Clothes do vary seasonally as offers are made by the good people of the parish; but one strongly suspects from the anecdotal evidence of others with more keener nostrils than my own that no form of bathing ever interposes these changes of apparel.
On, however, the level of person-to-person contact there are no such concerns. Hector's conversation is both interesting and entertaining. There is generally some hint - from odd lapses in concentration or abrupt changes of subject matter - that the cerebral processes within Hector's mind can fall outside of the generally accepted norm for such things; but setting that aside - and does not H not infrequently berate me for similar failings? - time spent with Hector is never time wasted.
There are some - there always will be - who metaphorically 'draw in their skirts' when speaking of the man. They question rather unseemingly, indeed unfeelingly, why socks are not pulled up, residences sought from the authorities or gainful employment undertaken at a decent day rate. They may have a point regarding certain feckless folk who seem content to spend their lives taking not giving. But Hector is not one such.
He is a good and a gentle soul - a true gentleman - whose life as a free-wheeling mendicant was not one he was born to but one thrust upon him by force of many circumstances. That he has both accepted and adapted to that difficult life with charm and grace is a tribute to him and a shame on any who scorn it or him.
The occasional homily on the 'There but for the Grace of God...' theme is sometimes called for when too much harrumphing is heard about the place; and when called for is delivered with a certain steely voice, as if the parson were - as he is - fully aware of just how close to certain financial and domestic winds some people are sailing that might just tip any one of them out of soft furnishings and onto hard roads.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Sorcerer's Apprentice...
Bro. George can be so naughty at times! As well you can imagine he is a great fan of 'The Apprentice', revealing as it so unintentionally does so much that is wrong in business and in society.
Important to add though that Bro. is SAS's number one fan. [SAS if you are not up on the lingo stands for Sir Alan Sugar himself - and an apposite moniker indeed you'll agree for such a driven man.] For Bro. Geo SAS is that very rare creature in business, someone totally straight and true. His [SAS's] values may not be the Bro.'s - far from them indeed - but there is no pretence to the man and for that small mercy great thanks say we all these days.
One - leastways Bro. does - gloriously recalls SAS addressing a group of suits some years back when 'Mission Statements' were all the rage. SAS said simply "We've got a Mission Statement at Amstrad - 'We want your money.'" No highfalutin nonsense about saving mankind through ice-cream with silly new names, no elegant yet empty prose about how love of whales sustains us in our darkest hours - just plain old-fashioned manufacturing business: I make. I sell. You buy. You use.
The hoot of course of the whole thing is to see this stout and stern fellow pitched against a dozen or so wannabe imitators, who all strive so desperately hard to be like 'Master', yet who collectively cannot work out that you don't actually need to order a whole chicken for every chicken pizza you make. [See Series Two passim.]
Watching their little faces crumple when SAS draws their attention to such basic failings, after they've all cried to camera how effing brilliant they each one are, is always the main treat of the thing.
Sadly of course success has - to date - bred nothing but failure. Series One was solid with dear Tim Campbell most worthily emerging the worthy winner. (The one scandal that did rock that first boat was the improper and loaded sacking of Miriam [aka 'She' to Bro. Geo for reasons he never has quite revealed], which caused a furore of protest leading very nearly to questions in the House.)
Series Two on the other hand was an utter travesty. The Apprentice for Dummies - and I mean real dummies - with only one bright star in the sky, none other than the soi disant 'The Badger', who should have won but who did not.
Series Three is now almost upon us and, it seems, already has Bro. George in an utter lather. Needing - as is the way with these things - to up the ante, the BBC has published a ridiculous set of candidates' CVs making each one sound like Klingon warrior captain, armed with two MBAs, raging bad toothache and a persona to be avoided as the plague.
Go take a look at the website if you fancy and have a chortle with Geo. and me. Lest, though, none of them strike you as worthy winners, Geo. has sent me through - under strictest seal of confidentiality - a thirteenth and surprise entrant who - a la 'Big Brother', which this show more and more resembles - will be sprung on the housemates in Week Seven.
It is, therefore, my very special privilege to introduce you to: Beatrice Bowhandle, Queen of the Night and soon-to-be crowned Sorcerer's Apprentice 2007...
Beatrice Bowhandle began her thrusting career at the age of three, selling bits of string stolen from her father's workshop to passing strangers in the street.
Investing her profits in cans of paraffin, she sold these at extortionate rates to housebound pensioners before securing a prime management position with a national retail organisation on the strength of her one GCSE in map-reading. During her first six minutes with the company, turnover increased three-fold and seven new operating sites were opened in the Ukraine.
Rapidly rising through the promotion ranks leaving others trailing in her wake, Beatrice was eventually seconded to the Argentinian wing of a Mafioski company specialising in people smuggling. Taking time off to have a number of babies, Beatrice soon realised there was money to be made hiring out her cute infants to beggars on the London Underground.
Harvard beckoned next, where Beatrice outshone an entire generation of American scholars. Returning to the UK last year, not quite having completed her studies, in the hope of reconnecting with her children who had mostly been taken into care, Beatrice has turned down the chance to guide Gordon Brown through the first crucial 100 days of his forthcoming Premiership to appear on The Apprentice.
'If there's one word that sums me up,' said Ms. Bowman 'It's utterly ruthless, a warrior, a princess, a not so much go-getter as got-getter and, essentially, a poor excuse for a human being.'
Beatrice intends to win the Apprentice by the Week Ten using insider knowledge of Amstrad accountancy practices down the years.
In her spare time, Beatrice spies on her neighbours and has successfully shopped three illegal immigrants, seven single parents who hadn't paid their TV licence and fourteen ASBO absconders.
Her final great aim in life is to be reconciled with her father. He hasn't spoken to her since he found out about the string.
Important to add though that Bro. is SAS's number one fan. [SAS if you are not up on the lingo stands for Sir Alan Sugar himself - and an apposite moniker indeed you'll agree for such a driven man.] For Bro. Geo SAS is that very rare creature in business, someone totally straight and true. His [SAS's] values may not be the Bro.'s - far from them indeed - but there is no pretence to the man and for that small mercy great thanks say we all these days.
One - leastways Bro. does - gloriously recalls SAS addressing a group of suits some years back when 'Mission Statements' were all the rage. SAS said simply "We've got a Mission Statement at Amstrad - 'We want your money.'" No highfalutin nonsense about saving mankind through ice-cream with silly new names, no elegant yet empty prose about how love of whales sustains us in our darkest hours - just plain old-fashioned manufacturing business: I make. I sell. You buy. You use.
The hoot of course of the whole thing is to see this stout and stern fellow pitched against a dozen or so wannabe imitators, who all strive so desperately hard to be like 'Master', yet who collectively cannot work out that you don't actually need to order a whole chicken for every chicken pizza you make. [See Series Two passim.]
Watching their little faces crumple when SAS draws their attention to such basic failings, after they've all cried to camera how effing brilliant they each one are, is always the main treat of the thing.
Sadly of course success has - to date - bred nothing but failure. Series One was solid with dear Tim Campbell most worthily emerging the worthy winner. (The one scandal that did rock that first boat was the improper and loaded sacking of Miriam [aka 'She' to Bro. Geo for reasons he never has quite revealed], which caused a furore of protest leading very nearly to questions in the House.)
Series Two on the other hand was an utter travesty. The Apprentice for Dummies - and I mean real dummies - with only one bright star in the sky, none other than the soi disant 'The Badger', who should have won but who did not.
Series Three is now almost upon us and, it seems, already has Bro. George in an utter lather. Needing - as is the way with these things - to up the ante, the BBC has published a ridiculous set of candidates' CVs making each one sound like Klingon warrior captain, armed with two MBAs, raging bad toothache and a persona to be avoided as the plague.
Go take a look at the website if you fancy and have a chortle with Geo. and me. Lest, though, none of them strike you as worthy winners, Geo. has sent me through - under strictest seal of confidentiality - a thirteenth and surprise entrant who - a la 'Big Brother', which this show more and more resembles - will be sprung on the housemates in Week Seven.
It is, therefore, my very special privilege to introduce you to: Beatrice Bowhandle, Queen of the Night and soon-to-be crowned Sorcerer's Apprentice 2007...
Beatrice Bowhandle began her thrusting career at the age of three, selling bits of string stolen from her father's workshop to passing strangers in the street.
Investing her profits in cans of paraffin, she sold these at extortionate rates to housebound pensioners before securing a prime management position with a national retail organisation on the strength of her one GCSE in map-reading. During her first six minutes with the company, turnover increased three-fold and seven new operating sites were opened in the Ukraine.
Rapidly rising through the promotion ranks leaving others trailing in her wake, Beatrice was eventually seconded to the Argentinian wing of a Mafioski company specialising in people smuggling. Taking time off to have a number of babies, Beatrice soon realised there was money to be made hiring out her cute infants to beggars on the London Underground.
Harvard beckoned next, where Beatrice outshone an entire generation of American scholars. Returning to the UK last year, not quite having completed her studies, in the hope of reconnecting with her children who had mostly been taken into care, Beatrice has turned down the chance to guide Gordon Brown through the first crucial 100 days of his forthcoming Premiership to appear on The Apprentice.
'If there's one word that sums me up,' said Ms. Bowman 'It's utterly ruthless, a warrior, a princess, a not so much go-getter as got-getter and, essentially, a poor excuse for a human being.'
Beatrice intends to win the Apprentice by the Week Ten using insider knowledge of Amstrad accountancy practices down the years.
In her spare time, Beatrice spies on her neighbours and has successfully shopped three illegal immigrants, seven single parents who hadn't paid their TV licence and fourteen ASBO absconders.
Her final great aim in life is to be reconciled with her father. He hasn't spoken to her since he found out about the string.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Whither the Wolds?
..Some of you have been asking and no doubt many more of you been pondering, what news of the Wolds? We - you say - have heard little indeed nothing of the intriguing, peculiar doings of Woldean folk these past weeks.
Not indeed from the time of the momentous Parish Council elections, when we all waited with breath a-bated to discover if Cathy had won her seat, or indeed since Colonel X took most strange umbrage and action at his un-seating, has a word passed on parochial matters.
This indeed is true and time to 'fess up to its truth.
There are a multitude of factors that need to be considered here. The first is that, yes, in truth there is an ursine quality to village life in winter, in that by and large we do hibernate as the bears waiting for Spring to warm and call us back to more active existence.
The rhythm of the seasons does urge us to rise with the sun and to bed with the setting of it. Shorter days do lead to shorter doings and, given the enormity of what too many folk do with their days, I may opine that such abstinence of action has its virtuous merits.
The second prevailing wind has been that of another 'season' - though not one in nature - that of Lent. I have never regarded my words here as gossipy or demeaning of a village people or their doings. But a small voice inside has questioned whether even the straight public telling of essentially private deeds risks exposing to unseemly interest - though not ridicule for there is nothing ridiculous in our ways of being - people who would not imagine what passes here could or indeed should be passed on elsewhere.
Added to that is my flock's own particular - if not peculiar - presumptions as to the nature and content of a parson's observance of the season of fasting and abstinence. They - bless 'em for their innocence - seem to presume that I have entered some ecclesial purdah, as if on retreat from all that matters in human life.
The butcher will cease his tale of funny doings at the Hall on my entrance to his shop, as if Lenten clerical ears should not be enchanted by such nonsense. People in the street adopt a serious downcast eye approach as we pass, as if in acknowledgement that somehow one is set-aside (like a field?!) from ordinary life.
'Tis most strange this feeling of separation. I needs must live with it as, if nothing else, it seems to spare others from feeling they ought too to be a bit more sackcloth and ashes and a bit less "Pint of the usual is it Tom?" (I believe, on reflection, that I have, thereby, some considerable insight into how the scapegoat must have felt on being driven out from the herd as a sacrifice for all others.)
No harm indeed to the Lenten soul in living the outcast life - the refugee, the fleer of oppression, the stateless, the homeless - though one should not over-egg this. The Rectory is still there for refuge and the garage/office its inner sanctuarious sanctum.
The more narrow and apposite effect of all of this is that people tend not to 'keep me in the loop' as Bro. George and his crew would say. H of course knows everything as ever she does, but even she seems to hold fire in passing on the best lest I should be deflected from my True Path.
All so utterly wearing!
But behind this lurks something far more compelling, nay sinister. All inner and outer energies, all resolves and reserves of strength and fortitude are needed elsewhere other than in whimsical public musing on Woldean life.
H does not know it yet - I must soon summons the courage to tell her - but a letter was received some three weeks ago from that awful prig of a diocesan secretary, Father William, announcing that the formal annual episcopal Visitation would be commencing the Wednesday following Low Sunday.
If any of you are ignorant of 'Low Sunday' you are naughty yet spared, and if any of you know not what a 'Visitation' should be I can only inform you that it has nothing to do with some celestial event, such as the BVM's image appearing on the Colonel's morning toast or being visible upon the clock-tower's clock-face.
No, this Visitation is one's being called to ecclesial account by the See's overseers. Spanish Inquisition? A mere bagatelle in comparison. You shall hear and you shall witness.
No wonder then that I've been keeping stumm. Can't afford any untoward info seeping back towards the Palace at this juncture. So if you know anything about anything then mum is indeed the unspoken word all right? That stranger down at the Dragon Inn, reputedly just stopping over while his great-aunt passes on to glory? Give him the widest of berths. Bound to be one of Father William's advance spies.
You think me paranoid? Ha! Been there, done that, worn the tee-shirt bearing the truthful legend "Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Not indeed from the time of the momentous Parish Council elections, when we all waited with breath a-bated to discover if Cathy had won her seat, or indeed since Colonel X took most strange umbrage and action at his un-seating, has a word passed on parochial matters.
This indeed is true and time to 'fess up to its truth.
There are a multitude of factors that need to be considered here. The first is that, yes, in truth there is an ursine quality to village life in winter, in that by and large we do hibernate as the bears waiting for Spring to warm and call us back to more active existence.
The rhythm of the seasons does urge us to rise with the sun and to bed with the setting of it. Shorter days do lead to shorter doings and, given the enormity of what too many folk do with their days, I may opine that such abstinence of action has its virtuous merits.
The second prevailing wind has been that of another 'season' - though not one in nature - that of Lent. I have never regarded my words here as gossipy or demeaning of a village people or their doings. But a small voice inside has questioned whether even the straight public telling of essentially private deeds risks exposing to unseemly interest - though not ridicule for there is nothing ridiculous in our ways of being - people who would not imagine what passes here could or indeed should be passed on elsewhere.
Added to that is my flock's own particular - if not peculiar - presumptions as to the nature and content of a parson's observance of the season of fasting and abstinence. They - bless 'em for their innocence - seem to presume that I have entered some ecclesial purdah, as if on retreat from all that matters in human life.
The butcher will cease his tale of funny doings at the Hall on my entrance to his shop, as if Lenten clerical ears should not be enchanted by such nonsense. People in the street adopt a serious downcast eye approach as we pass, as if in acknowledgement that somehow one is set-aside (like a field?!) from ordinary life.
'Tis most strange this feeling of separation. I needs must live with it as, if nothing else, it seems to spare others from feeling they ought too to be a bit more sackcloth and ashes and a bit less "Pint of the usual is it Tom?" (I believe, on reflection, that I have, thereby, some considerable insight into how the scapegoat must have felt on being driven out from the herd as a sacrifice for all others.)
No harm indeed to the Lenten soul in living the outcast life - the refugee, the fleer of oppression, the stateless, the homeless - though one should not over-egg this. The Rectory is still there for refuge and the garage/office its inner sanctuarious sanctum.
The more narrow and apposite effect of all of this is that people tend not to 'keep me in the loop' as Bro. George and his crew would say. H of course knows everything as ever she does, but even she seems to hold fire in passing on the best lest I should be deflected from my True Path.
All so utterly wearing!
But behind this lurks something far more compelling, nay sinister. All inner and outer energies, all resolves and reserves of strength and fortitude are needed elsewhere other than in whimsical public musing on Woldean life.
H does not know it yet - I must soon summons the courage to tell her - but a letter was received some three weeks ago from that awful prig of a diocesan secretary, Father William, announcing that the formal annual episcopal Visitation would be commencing the Wednesday following Low Sunday.
If any of you are ignorant of 'Low Sunday' you are naughty yet spared, and if any of you know not what a 'Visitation' should be I can only inform you that it has nothing to do with some celestial event, such as the BVM's image appearing on the Colonel's morning toast or being visible upon the clock-tower's clock-face.
No, this Visitation is one's being called to ecclesial account by the See's overseers. Spanish Inquisition? A mere bagatelle in comparison. You shall hear and you shall witness.
No wonder then that I've been keeping stumm. Can't afford any untoward info seeping back towards the Palace at this juncture. So if you know anything about anything then mum is indeed the unspoken word all right? That stranger down at the Dragon Inn, reputedly just stopping over while his great-aunt passes on to glory? Give him the widest of berths. Bound to be one of Father William's advance spies.
You think me paranoid? Ha! Been there, done that, worn the tee-shirt bearing the truthful legend "Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Ecce Homo...
...'Behold the Man' as Pilate truly, if not understanding fully by a long shot, spoke. Was he to know who Christ was - the scorned, spurned, beaten yet majestic and awesome figure standing before him - that fateful night and dawning day?
The Gospel accounts seem to intimate that indeed Pilate had some inner awareness of soul the true being and nature of Jesus, though if so his ultimate decision to permit the Crucifixion was the more damning of him.
Setting though aside such largely unnecessary speculation the words - a challenge, an admonition who can tell? - 'Ecce Homo' have echoed down the centuries as an insistent call to all to gaze on that bruised and bleeding face, a head crowned with mocking thorns and a body cloaked in false imperial purple, and to require of all of us to answer truthfully as to what we see there: a broken man about to die, or the Redeemer of the world?
That He was both - the moribund man and the risen Lord - is indeed the great 'scandal' as Saint Paul called it of the Christian faith. Not for us a triumphant warrior king, sweeping all earthly enemies aside in a rush to victory, but a 'was crucified, dead and was buried' man and Son of God both.
This 'scandal' is too much for many and not just those who reject the Christian faith. There are many who say that they are Christian and yet have not the heart or the stomach to face the true, cruel and monstrous reality of the Cross and the dying Jesus hanging there in mortal agony.
Why this thought tonight when one avers that this place is not the place for sermonising?
It is because I have been reading a biography of William Wilberforce of late and have come across this telling tale.
Wilberforce was on the stump, travelling the length and the breadth of the land in order to drum up odium for slave trading and support for its abolition. There were many who instantly accepted his message, whilst there were not a few who opposed it most vigorously.
There was though one whose concern was not for the debate itself but for the very unseemliness, as he perceived it, of a wealthy Evangelical Christian - and Wilberforce was all of these - putting himself at so much risk of political and social opprobrium by supporting black slaves against white masters.
This man, a Bishop in the Church of England, remonstrated with Wilberforce when they met pointing to a painting on his study wall and crying out "If you're not careful, you'll end up like him!" The subject of the painting to which the hapless Bishop was pointing and declaring a thing most not to be like, was of course Christ Crucified.
'Ecce Homo' was saying, once more, the poor uncomprehending Bishop Pilate, who could not see or accept that 'death, even unto death on a cross' is the true calling of all Christians if it be God's will.
The Gospel accounts seem to intimate that indeed Pilate had some inner awareness of soul the true being and nature of Jesus, though if so his ultimate decision to permit the Crucifixion was the more damning of him.
Setting though aside such largely unnecessary speculation the words - a challenge, an admonition who can tell? - 'Ecce Homo' have echoed down the centuries as an insistent call to all to gaze on that bruised and bleeding face, a head crowned with mocking thorns and a body cloaked in false imperial purple, and to require of all of us to answer truthfully as to what we see there: a broken man about to die, or the Redeemer of the world?
That He was both - the moribund man and the risen Lord - is indeed the great 'scandal' as Saint Paul called it of the Christian faith. Not for us a triumphant warrior king, sweeping all earthly enemies aside in a rush to victory, but a 'was crucified, dead and was buried' man and Son of God both.
This 'scandal' is too much for many and not just those who reject the Christian faith. There are many who say that they are Christian and yet have not the heart or the stomach to face the true, cruel and monstrous reality of the Cross and the dying Jesus hanging there in mortal agony.
Why this thought tonight when one avers that this place is not the place for sermonising?
It is because I have been reading a biography of William Wilberforce of late and have come across this telling tale.
Wilberforce was on the stump, travelling the length and the breadth of the land in order to drum up odium for slave trading and support for its abolition. There were many who instantly accepted his message, whilst there were not a few who opposed it most vigorously.
There was though one whose concern was not for the debate itself but for the very unseemliness, as he perceived it, of a wealthy Evangelical Christian - and Wilberforce was all of these - putting himself at so much risk of political and social opprobrium by supporting black slaves against white masters.
This man, a Bishop in the Church of England, remonstrated with Wilberforce when they met pointing to a painting on his study wall and crying out "If you're not careful, you'll end up like him!" The subject of the painting to which the hapless Bishop was pointing and declaring a thing most not to be like, was of course Christ Crucified.
'Ecce Homo' was saying, once more, the poor uncomprehending Bishop Pilate, who could not see or accept that 'death, even unto death on a cross' is the true calling of all Christians if it be God's will.
Dropping the Pilot...
...You remember that great cartoon by Sir John Tenniel - he indeed of the 'Alice' drawings - entitled 'Dropping the Pilot' to mark the deposition of Bismarck by Kaiser Wilhelm II? Well, no of course you don't strictly 'remember' the event itself, as it took place in 1890, though you would recall the cartoon had you done modern history at a date when significant historical moments were actually a part of the curriculum. Sadly no longer the case, it would seem, to judge by E's textbooks on the subject, which merely ask her to 'imagine' she was a Native American squaw and to say how she would have 'felt' when General Custer hove into view.
As best one can recall oneself - the teaching of history to self being some decades gone - the Iron Chancellor had done little to deserve his fate other than to have the temerity to be old whilst the new Kaiser was very much on the young side. In these more modern and enlightened times, the I.C. would no doubt haul his erstwhile boss before a self-important Employment Tribunal and urge the case for his reinstatement on the grounds of improper 'ageism'.
The defence of the right of absolute monarchs to sack whomsoever they chose whensoever they chose to would, of course, cut no proper and lawful procedural ice with those fierce advocates of universal love and justice for all it must be added, though the argumentation back and forth across the Tribunal table would be fascinating to observe.
But howsoever sympathetic to Bismarck one may tend to be in having been so rudely 'dropped' this way, on the whole one is thoroughly in favour of dropping pilots of any description - 'pilots' that is as in 'pilot projects'.
Bro. George and I are as one on this, both of us abhorring the lazy launch of 'pilot projects' as an excuse to let slip half-baked, half-considered if not darn right ill-conceived ideas on the public simply because 'project designers' can't be bothered to come up with a rock-solid design empirically evidenced and soundly based in theory, lacking all but the most rudimentary methodology of enactment or method of testing through analysis of outputs and outcomes.
Forgive the managerialist language - one so easily lapses into Bro. George speak - but if one were to recast the contention into one's own sphere of influence it would be a bit like Christ saying "Well, let's give these Beatitudes a go guys. You've given me some good ideas and though I've not yet worked them through entirely let's pilot them on this mob of folk and see what happens. We can always amend them later depending on the feedback we get."
Well no. Our Saviour said what he meant and he meant what he said. No dithering with 'Beatitudes; draft 7 for internal distribution only' for Him.
So that being so, when one reads on bottles of carpet cleaning fluid that one should test an unobtrusive bit of the material first lest something dire occur, one spurns this as being awfully 'pilot projectish'.
Empty the room and lash away is the order of the day. 'This is your Captain speaking. All decks cleared and ready for action. All pilots dropped and here we go.'
Worked a treat. Carpets near enough pristine and all visitors to the office now required to de-boot or de-shoe on entry. (If it weren't Lent it would be time for a large celebratory malt. But it is, so it isn't.)
As best one can recall oneself - the teaching of history to self being some decades gone - the Iron Chancellor had done little to deserve his fate other than to have the temerity to be old whilst the new Kaiser was very much on the young side. In these more modern and enlightened times, the I.C. would no doubt haul his erstwhile boss before a self-important Employment Tribunal and urge the case for his reinstatement on the grounds of improper 'ageism'.
The defence of the right of absolute monarchs to sack whomsoever they chose whensoever they chose to would, of course, cut no proper and lawful procedural ice with those fierce advocates of universal love and justice for all it must be added, though the argumentation back and forth across the Tribunal table would be fascinating to observe.
But howsoever sympathetic to Bismarck one may tend to be in having been so rudely 'dropped' this way, on the whole one is thoroughly in favour of dropping pilots of any description - 'pilots' that is as in 'pilot projects'.
Bro. George and I are as one on this, both of us abhorring the lazy launch of 'pilot projects' as an excuse to let slip half-baked, half-considered if not darn right ill-conceived ideas on the public simply because 'project designers' can't be bothered to come up with a rock-solid design empirically evidenced and soundly based in theory, lacking all but the most rudimentary methodology of enactment or method of testing through analysis of outputs and outcomes.
Forgive the managerialist language - one so easily lapses into Bro. George speak - but if one were to recast the contention into one's own sphere of influence it would be a bit like Christ saying "Well, let's give these Beatitudes a go guys. You've given me some good ideas and though I've not yet worked them through entirely let's pilot them on this mob of folk and see what happens. We can always amend them later depending on the feedback we get."
Well no. Our Saviour said what he meant and he meant what he said. No dithering with 'Beatitudes; draft 7 for internal distribution only' for Him.
So that being so, when one reads on bottles of carpet cleaning fluid that one should test an unobtrusive bit of the material first lest something dire occur, one spurns this as being awfully 'pilot projectish'.
Empty the room and lash away is the order of the day. 'This is your Captain speaking. All decks cleared and ready for action. All pilots dropped and here we go.'
Worked a treat. Carpets near enough pristine and all visitors to the office now required to de-boot or de-shoe on entry. (If it weren't Lent it would be time for a large celebratory malt. But it is, so it isn't.)
Carpe[t] Diem...
...Do you watch 'Grand Designs' on the television?
H does as if religiously compelled, and even I have sat down with a certain fascination as couples - mostly - embark on hare-brained schemes to convert some derelict building into a castle of their dreams generally with insufficient money, skill, nous or time to complete the task.
The dour presenter positively delights in continually pointing out their manifest failings on all counts: remarking in asides to the camera his grave reservations about their budgetary deficits, their lack of understanding of the limitations of non-load-bearing walls or even their very sanity.
There are common threads - apart from the stark unreality of it all - that run throughout the programmes. One such is that whilst oft it is the man who proposes ["Let's go live in a barn and re-create the feel of an RAF encampment during the Battle of Britain"] it is the woman who disposes ["Terrific idea my darling, though perhaps the look of a villa in Provence would be more the thing"].
You can guess who inevitably prevails in this atavistic struggle of the sexes. Last week we had some poor fellow all bent on making of a grand dome his great library, only to find on completion that it had metamorphosed into a cute galleria with not a book in sight. He wimped to camera how some shelving would eventually emerge, though it took but a side-ways look from the woman at this vestigial assertion of manly control to understand that even that last fading dream was futile.
Thus it was in the Palladas household some years back when mutual agreement was readily reached that some investment in the upkeep of the place would be required; resulting though in a complete overhaul, with an entire new kitchen, the building of a pleasing yet unneeded conservatory and enough granite surfacing or rare stone flooring to enable half a dozen quarrymen to retire at once to Marbella.
One moment one had a more than decent, if faded, house with perhaps too much of a 1970s feel about it than strictly tasteful - floral carpeting throughout - the next a showpiece residence destined to appear in the 'Hello' equivalent of property.
An item that particularly irked me was the prevalent use of 'distressed' wood throughout the bedrooms. 'Distressed' is merely code for 'second-hand' goods given a hugely expensive make-over and a cute title to hide the cost behind some false notion of styling.
Something though that did please at the time - and largely still does - was the conversion of an unused double garage ['Life is too short to...park cars in garages overnight'] into a study/den/office/sanctuary for the parson of the place.
Safely removed from the rest of the law-abiding, quiet household I am unleashed to rant at Gordon Brown, smoke my cigars and generally conduct my business in peace without disturbing H or frightening the horses.
To call it my 'home from home' would be too much to imply a wide degree of domestic separation. Nonetheless the place is replete with most if not all necessities of manly living - sofa for 'power naps', books for browsing, CDs and DVDs for one day intending to play/watch, the wherewithal for studio photography if only one had the time, a dartboard even to show one has not lost contact with the common man...etc., etc.
One factor though that was not 'designed into' the whole process was taking account of the more than unfair wear and tear on the carpet; it being necessary for access to leg it from the kitchen door over the patio, round the path and into the 'office', bringing with it far too much muck, damp and odd bits of the garden than is strictly for the good of something intended purely for indoor usage.
Over time, therefore, the once faultless beige has taken on a darker hue of mud, highlighted with occasional spots of some more solid detritus. The resulting speckled effect is not unpleasing, it is however not sustainable.
Something must be done. And that something has been the purchase of an not entirely cheap machine designed for the very purpose of restoring such carpets to a condition approaching pristine.
Trouble is, now that one looks closely at the thing, one can hardly see the thing. The floor is strewn with not only copious amounts of necessary furniture - said sofa for power napping et al. - but also accumulated oddments such as suitcases once used and never properly restored to the attic, spare saddles for E, putative studio equipment largely unpacked, chairs that were not wanted in the house yet too good to throw away, the last generation of computing equipment and - most strange of all - more wine and beer bottles than one can strictly account for from personal consumption.
Very odd that last one, and something not to left on view should the Bishop pass by. ['Been a bit too much on the sauce' would be his unspoken remark were that to happen and not a mental note any parson would be wishing his ecclesial superior to make.]
Reminds me of my dear monasteric brethren who - for reasons that remain hidden - never disposed of any of the bottles used for communion wine (at fifty plus communicants a day over seventy odd years simply vast in number) but stored them all in one of the vast cellars beneath the place.
Stumbling on them all one day - a vast acreage of dusty glass stretching beyond sight into the gloom of that cellar - it was wonderful to wonder just what a passing stranger would have made of what would have appeared to be irrefutable evidence of global, sustained monastic inebriation.
Leaving though that aside to one side, the task of the day is to get to grips with this whole matter of the dirty carpet. The day has even been properly entered into the diary - 'Friday - clean carpet. Forget weekly sermon preparation and fix the carpet!'
A small voice of doom, though is heard as one begins to begin. Among all of the manifold and manifest failings of the above mentioned 'grand designers' was an almost universal failing properly to allow sufficient time for the whole thing, thereby giving the sad presenter the chance to announce with great glee: "It's November and already the work is two months behind schedule. Now that winter is just around the corner, unless they can secure the roofing by next week the whole project seems doomed."
So Carpe[t] Diem and fingers-crossed a day is sufficient time for the grand sub-design!
H does as if religiously compelled, and even I have sat down with a certain fascination as couples - mostly - embark on hare-brained schemes to convert some derelict building into a castle of their dreams generally with insufficient money, skill, nous or time to complete the task.
The dour presenter positively delights in continually pointing out their manifest failings on all counts: remarking in asides to the camera his grave reservations about their budgetary deficits, their lack of understanding of the limitations of non-load-bearing walls or even their very sanity.
There are common threads - apart from the stark unreality of it all - that run throughout the programmes. One such is that whilst oft it is the man who proposes ["Let's go live in a barn and re-create the feel of an RAF encampment during the Battle of Britain"] it is the woman who disposes ["Terrific idea my darling, though perhaps the look of a villa in Provence would be more the thing"].
You can guess who inevitably prevails in this atavistic struggle of the sexes. Last week we had some poor fellow all bent on making of a grand dome his great library, only to find on completion that it had metamorphosed into a cute galleria with not a book in sight. He wimped to camera how some shelving would eventually emerge, though it took but a side-ways look from the woman at this vestigial assertion of manly control to understand that even that last fading dream was futile.
Thus it was in the Palladas household some years back when mutual agreement was readily reached that some investment in the upkeep of the place would be required; resulting though in a complete overhaul, with an entire new kitchen, the building of a pleasing yet unneeded conservatory and enough granite surfacing or rare stone flooring to enable half a dozen quarrymen to retire at once to Marbella.
One moment one had a more than decent, if faded, house with perhaps too much of a 1970s feel about it than strictly tasteful - floral carpeting throughout - the next a showpiece residence destined to appear in the 'Hello' equivalent of property.
An item that particularly irked me was the prevalent use of 'distressed' wood throughout the bedrooms. 'Distressed' is merely code for 'second-hand' goods given a hugely expensive make-over and a cute title to hide the cost behind some false notion of styling.
Something though that did please at the time - and largely still does - was the conversion of an unused double garage ['Life is too short to...park cars in garages overnight'] into a study/den/office/sanctuary for the parson of the place.
Safely removed from the rest of the law-abiding, quiet household I am unleashed to rant at Gordon Brown, smoke my cigars and generally conduct my business in peace without disturbing H or frightening the horses.
To call it my 'home from home' would be too much to imply a wide degree of domestic separation. Nonetheless the place is replete with most if not all necessities of manly living - sofa for 'power naps', books for browsing, CDs and DVDs for one day intending to play/watch, the wherewithal for studio photography if only one had the time, a dartboard even to show one has not lost contact with the common man...etc., etc.
One factor though that was not 'designed into' the whole process was taking account of the more than unfair wear and tear on the carpet; it being necessary for access to leg it from the kitchen door over the patio, round the path and into the 'office', bringing with it far too much muck, damp and odd bits of the garden than is strictly for the good of something intended purely for indoor usage.
Over time, therefore, the once faultless beige has taken on a darker hue of mud, highlighted with occasional spots of some more solid detritus. The resulting speckled effect is not unpleasing, it is however not sustainable.
Something must be done. And that something has been the purchase of an not entirely cheap machine designed for the very purpose of restoring such carpets to a condition approaching pristine.
Trouble is, now that one looks closely at the thing, one can hardly see the thing. The floor is strewn with not only copious amounts of necessary furniture - said sofa for power napping et al. - but also accumulated oddments such as suitcases once used and never properly restored to the attic, spare saddles for E, putative studio equipment largely unpacked, chairs that were not wanted in the house yet too good to throw away, the last generation of computing equipment and - most strange of all - more wine and beer bottles than one can strictly account for from personal consumption.
Very odd that last one, and something not to left on view should the Bishop pass by. ['Been a bit too much on the sauce' would be his unspoken remark were that to happen and not a mental note any parson would be wishing his ecclesial superior to make.]
Reminds me of my dear monasteric brethren who - for reasons that remain hidden - never disposed of any of the bottles used for communion wine (at fifty plus communicants a day over seventy odd years simply vast in number) but stored them all in one of the vast cellars beneath the place.
Stumbling on them all one day - a vast acreage of dusty glass stretching beyond sight into the gloom of that cellar - it was wonderful to wonder just what a passing stranger would have made of what would have appeared to be irrefutable evidence of global, sustained monastic inebriation.
Leaving though that aside to one side, the task of the day is to get to grips with this whole matter of the dirty carpet. The day has even been properly entered into the diary - 'Friday - clean carpet. Forget weekly sermon preparation and fix the carpet!'
A small voice of doom, though is heard as one begins to begin. Among all of the manifold and manifest failings of the above mentioned 'grand designers' was an almost universal failing properly to allow sufficient time for the whole thing, thereby giving the sad presenter the chance to announce with great glee: "It's November and already the work is two months behind schedule. Now that winter is just around the corner, unless they can secure the roofing by next week the whole project seems doomed."
So Carpe[t] Diem and fingers-crossed a day is sufficient time for the grand sub-design!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Jaded and Junked
After the last, what could possibly follow? That is not something one can just say and then pass by. It remains forever present as the mark of a before and an after time.
There was a time before one heard that children had been murdered as decoys for a bomber, and there is now only time after one knew it had occurred. It is as if there is, for the human race, more than one expulsion from the Garden of Eden, more than one fatal apple consumed and innocence lost in eating from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. A terrible 'Groundhog Day' of sin and sorrow, ever repeating itself time after time after time.
I wish I knew their names - the murdered children - I wish I had some other knowledge of them other than as terrified, desperate infants. Pray God they did not know what was about to happen, nor had time in that moment of explosion to suffer.
Nothing can follow that, and therefore this is a nothing simply because stasis would lead to despair.
Today the post duly arrived with its predictable mix of entirely unwished-for junk letters, largely undesirable if inevitable bills plus other formal demands on one's time or purse, and - rarely - delightful personal correspondence from people wishing to communicate with people.
The junk mail is the easiest to manage. One simply sweeps it into the rubbish bin without a further thought.
This morning, however, as the kettle seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time boiling I chanced to open - out of the mildest of curiosities - a printed envelope containing no clue of the cold-calling company that sent it. It must have been its very anonymity that sufficiently intrigued.
It was bulky, it was stiff and on opening a startling surprise. For inside the one envelope was another, rather grandiosely marked 'Disguised Mail.' From my Bank with the latest credit card inside. How very sad to think that such subterfuge is considered necessary to deter fraud and pilfering en route.
Almost even - until one reflected on the matter for a moment - quite cunning.
Reflection though gave another view to the matter. Had not the kettle been performing below par, the seeming junk letter would have passed unregarded straight into the bin and out onto the municipal rubbish heap. And not just in the Palladas household; one imagines something entirely similar in most homes in the land: junk - bin - sorted.
Had my Bank the foresight to warn me to expect some cunning stunt a la Spooks it might make sense. That lacking though, one can only picture that there are alert and well-briefed fraudsters lurking in sorting offices and on rubbish heaps to spot what they would quickly pick up on as 'disguised' credit card bearing envelopes.
No doubt it has seemed a good idea at the time - to send in effect an Inspector Clouseau mouse to catch a Russian Mafia cat - to some group of middle-managers all wishing they had joined MI5 and not HSBC. Secretly seeing themselves as that Craig chappie - the new James Bond I am informed and rather good at the role it seems - not wasting their lives in some safe and deadly dull position within banking, but out on the streets of Monte Carlo by night setting evil in its place and a good gal in hers.
Do wish though they had thought through the consequences. Should have asked Bro. Charles - he majors on organisational consequences apparently.
....And there you have it. Some light words wrought with unease and almost distaste, simply to try not to re-write what one had the day before. Because that before is all that seems still to matter.
I do now though, after some thirty years study, fully undertand the words of T S Eliot in the first stanza of 'Burnt Norton' - "If all time is eternally present / All time is unredeemable."
Redeem us from this terrible present I pray thee O Lord.
There was a time before one heard that children had been murdered as decoys for a bomber, and there is now only time after one knew it had occurred. It is as if there is, for the human race, more than one expulsion from the Garden of Eden, more than one fatal apple consumed and innocence lost in eating from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. A terrible 'Groundhog Day' of sin and sorrow, ever repeating itself time after time after time.
I wish I knew their names - the murdered children - I wish I had some other knowledge of them other than as terrified, desperate infants. Pray God they did not know what was about to happen, nor had time in that moment of explosion to suffer.
Nothing can follow that, and therefore this is a nothing simply because stasis would lead to despair.
Today the post duly arrived with its predictable mix of entirely unwished-for junk letters, largely undesirable if inevitable bills plus other formal demands on one's time or purse, and - rarely - delightful personal correspondence from people wishing to communicate with people.
The junk mail is the easiest to manage. One simply sweeps it into the rubbish bin without a further thought.
This morning, however, as the kettle seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time boiling I chanced to open - out of the mildest of curiosities - a printed envelope containing no clue of the cold-calling company that sent it. It must have been its very anonymity that sufficiently intrigued.
It was bulky, it was stiff and on opening a startling surprise. For inside the one envelope was another, rather grandiosely marked 'Disguised Mail.' From my Bank with the latest credit card inside. How very sad to think that such subterfuge is considered necessary to deter fraud and pilfering en route.
Almost even - until one reflected on the matter for a moment - quite cunning.
Reflection though gave another view to the matter. Had not the kettle been performing below par, the seeming junk letter would have passed unregarded straight into the bin and out onto the municipal rubbish heap. And not just in the Palladas household; one imagines something entirely similar in most homes in the land: junk - bin - sorted.
Had my Bank the foresight to warn me to expect some cunning stunt a la Spooks it might make sense. That lacking though, one can only picture that there are alert and well-briefed fraudsters lurking in sorting offices and on rubbish heaps to spot what they would quickly pick up on as 'disguised' credit card bearing envelopes.
No doubt it has seemed a good idea at the time - to send in effect an Inspector Clouseau mouse to catch a Russian Mafia cat - to some group of middle-managers all wishing they had joined MI5 and not HSBC. Secretly seeing themselves as that Craig chappie - the new James Bond I am informed and rather good at the role it seems - not wasting their lives in some safe and deadly dull position within banking, but out on the streets of Monte Carlo by night setting evil in its place and a good gal in hers.
Do wish though they had thought through the consequences. Should have asked Bro. Charles - he majors on organisational consequences apparently.
....And there you have it. Some light words wrought with unease and almost distaste, simply to try not to re-write what one had the day before. Because that before is all that seems still to matter.
I do now though, after some thirty years study, fully undertand the words of T S Eliot in the first stanza of 'Burnt Norton' - "If all time is eternally present / All time is unredeemable."
Redeem us from this terrible present I pray thee O Lord.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Unforgivable Sin
"Iraqi police confirm that [two] children were used as decoys in a car bombing over the weekend. They say the driver gained permission to a busy shopping area because the children were visible in the back seat. The account appears to confirm one that was given yesterday by a U-S general who said children were used in a bombing in northern Baghdad. The general says the adults fled the car, and it was blown up with the children still inside."
This possibly is the most wretched single act of pure evil committed by any human being from the beginning of time, and I cannot see - I pray it cannot happen - how there could be a worse until the end of time.
My faith teaches me that there is but one unpardonable sin - to sin against the Holy Ghost. We know this, as these were Christ's own words.
As given in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew:
"Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not he forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come."
Theologians have wrestled with the full meaning and import of this down the centuries. Saint Thomas Aquinas - in my book at the very top of the theological tree in this and most, if not all, matters - wrote of three connected variants of interpretation:
First, there is the direct attribution of malice to the Divine Spirit itself. Second, it is the final perseverance of lack of repentance for sins unto the moment of death. Third, it is the malicious, wilful commitment of a sin against the stirrings of the Divine Spirit: sins against the Father can be forgiven on the grounds of frailty, those against Christ on grounds of ignorance; but against the spirit of grace, truth and love stirring in the soul then no.
The bombers who deliberately used, then murdered, children to deliver a bomb were not frail, nor were they ignorant. They planned what they did and they understood precisely the consequences. They knew how offensive to man and to God that was. They spat in the very face of the Almighty - be that the One God of Islam or the Trinity of Christianity. They were not frail, they were not ignorant. They were malicious.
I will not, therefore, pray for them. Their souls are doomed to burn forever in Hell, wracked by unending pain, torment and sorrow. I am taught not to judge lest I in my turn be judged; to forgive that I myself may be forgiven. But in this I do judge. I cannot and I shall not forgive.
That the adult bombers have lived is a mercy. They will, in time one hopes, face human justice for their crimes against all that is human. They may even live long enough to repent of their crimes, if they have not already. But can there be repentance for the unforgivable sin?
This possibly is the most wretched single act of pure evil committed by any human being from the beginning of time, and I cannot see - I pray it cannot happen - how there could be a worse until the end of time.
My faith teaches me that there is but one unpardonable sin - to sin against the Holy Ghost. We know this, as these were Christ's own words.
As given in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew:
"Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not he forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come."
Theologians have wrestled with the full meaning and import of this down the centuries. Saint Thomas Aquinas - in my book at the very top of the theological tree in this and most, if not all, matters - wrote of three connected variants of interpretation:
First, there is the direct attribution of malice to the Divine Spirit itself. Second, it is the final perseverance of lack of repentance for sins unto the moment of death. Third, it is the malicious, wilful commitment of a sin against the stirrings of the Divine Spirit: sins against the Father can be forgiven on the grounds of frailty, those against Christ on grounds of ignorance; but against the spirit of grace, truth and love stirring in the soul then no.
The bombers who deliberately used, then murdered, children to deliver a bomb were not frail, nor were they ignorant. They planned what they did and they understood precisely the consequences. They knew how offensive to man and to God that was. They spat in the very face of the Almighty - be that the One God of Islam or the Trinity of Christianity. They were not frail, they were not ignorant. They were malicious.
I will not, therefore, pray for them. Their souls are doomed to burn forever in Hell, wracked by unending pain, torment and sorrow. I am taught not to judge lest I in my turn be judged; to forgive that I myself may be forgiven. But in this I do judge. I cannot and I shall not forgive.
That the adult bombers have lived is a mercy. They will, in time one hopes, face human justice for their crimes against all that is human. They may even live long enough to repent of their crimes, if they have not already. But can there be repentance for the unforgivable sin?
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sleep Perchance To Dream...
...How very odd and something of a coincidence that these two stories should emerge on the same day. (We of the Jungian persuasion would consider it synchronicity of course!)
First of all one hears of a poor Mr. Rodgers who turns from a mild mannered Jekyll by day into a raging Hyde when asleep. "He has destroyed furniture, attacked his wife and injured himself during the night - but remembers nothing." Medication mercifully has resolved his and his wife's difficulties.
Then there is the story just in from Australia of people who 'sex sleep': drop off to sleep as loyal, faithful spouses only to rise up in the middle of the night - still fast asleep - and shoot off to have nookie with strangers. (That goes by the grand name of 'REM behavioural disorder'.)
Well attested by science it would seem, though tricky to pass off as a convincing excuse one would imagine: "Oh that stranger in my arms? Gosh and there was I dreaming of having sex with you my darling hubby! Think no more about the matter I urge you."
Does rather sound somewhat on a par with the "I'm really sorry I'm late boss, but I fell into a tiny but significant hole in the time-space continuum on the way to work only to find myself stranded on a small planet off Andromeda. Anyone made the tea yet?"
First of all one hears of a poor Mr. Rodgers who turns from a mild mannered Jekyll by day into a raging Hyde when asleep. "He has destroyed furniture, attacked his wife and injured himself during the night - but remembers nothing." Medication mercifully has resolved his and his wife's difficulties.
Then there is the story just in from Australia of people who 'sex sleep': drop off to sleep as loyal, faithful spouses only to rise up in the middle of the night - still fast asleep - and shoot off to have nookie with strangers. (That goes by the grand name of 'REM behavioural disorder'.)
Well attested by science it would seem, though tricky to pass off as a convincing excuse one would imagine: "Oh that stranger in my arms? Gosh and there was I dreaming of having sex with you my darling hubby! Think no more about the matter I urge you."
Does rather sound somewhat on a par with the "I'm really sorry I'm late boss, but I fell into a tiny but significant hole in the time-space continuum on the way to work only to find myself stranded on a small planet off Andromeda. Anyone made the tea yet?"
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Arse!
...Well, yes, I'm afraid dear and sensitive reader you just saw me swear. Or rather, you saw me, quote another most amusing fellow.
Apparently it would seem, farmers have grown tired of crop circles and have taken to cutting corn or ploughing furrows so as to leave messages for any any passing ET that can be seen from space - or at least to be visible on Google's 'Earth Map'.
Thus a Yorkshire farmer has left a simple, direct, single word message 'Arse' in a corn field.
Do go see, if that is your desire, at Profanity .
If only Tony Blair were an alien - which clearly he is - I'd love to carve a 'T. Blair - Why?' motif in a Wiltshire hillside.
Apparently it would seem, farmers have grown tired of crop circles and have taken to cutting corn or ploughing furrows so as to leave messages for any any passing ET that can be seen from space - or at least to be visible on Google's 'Earth Map'.
Thus a Yorkshire farmer has left a simple, direct, single word message 'Arse' in a corn field.
Do go see, if that is your desire, at Profanity .
If only Tony Blair were an alien - which clearly he is - I'd love to carve a 'T. Blair - Why?' motif in a Wiltshire hillside.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Up For The Cup...
...Had any of you managed to place a bet, on the advice of my suggestion, for Our Vic to win the Gold Cup yesterday and lost your money, then blame the bookie not me!
For at the last hour the horse was withdrawn from that race in order to run in another. Thus only a thoroughly dishonest bookmaker would have taken your money but to keep it. (He - horse not bookie - did manage a creditable second in his chosen race, though sadly as the Palladas pennies were only on for a win we did not score.)
You will be though delighted on my behalf to hear that my final choice of horse for the Gold Cup - and heavily (think three figures and then some) backed each way at the mighty odds of 100-1 - itself came in second to the supreme Katuo Star.
I do not, however, this very instance announce my immediate retirement from daily toil, departing for Monaco in order to lead the high life.
Why so not, if so well endowed in the moolah department?
Well, sadly the clue is in my exact choice of words. My quote-unquote horse did indeed pass the post just behind the winner, but sadly my horse's jockey was at that moment still some two miles behind his mount, having been chucked out of the saddle when two other nags collided at an early fence the one bouncing off the other into mine, throwing my hapless jock to the ground through utterly no fault of his own.
My horse - Idle Talk - clearly had it in him to run the race without any difficulty and had only he been accompanied by his rider throughout then tonight one's fortunes would have been made.
But 'twas clearly not to be. Providence has - no doubt wisely - arranged otherwise. (Never have come across a bookmaker called 'Providence', but if I do I shall steer well clear!)
Oh and, by the way, E indeed does not know who St. Patrick was. Having just returned from picking her up and quizzing her reluctant self on the way home I can aver that she is ignorant not only of any detail of the life and times of the Patron Saint of Ireland, but also is equally clueless as to who St. George might have been other than our own patron saint.
As for who is the patron of either Scotland or Wales she has not the foggiest. Well she does now because she has been told, but it does not bode well for the future well-being of our United Kingdom if a tolerably well-educated teenage specimen is so far from this basic knowledge of what historical ties identify and bind us. I blame Tony Blair of course.
For at the last hour the horse was withdrawn from that race in order to run in another. Thus only a thoroughly dishonest bookmaker would have taken your money but to keep it. (He - horse not bookie - did manage a creditable second in his chosen race, though sadly as the Palladas pennies were only on for a win we did not score.)
You will be though delighted on my behalf to hear that my final choice of horse for the Gold Cup - and heavily (think three figures and then some) backed each way at the mighty odds of 100-1 - itself came in second to the supreme Katuo Star.
I do not, however, this very instance announce my immediate retirement from daily toil, departing for Monaco in order to lead the high life.
Why so not, if so well endowed in the moolah department?
Well, sadly the clue is in my exact choice of words. My quote-unquote horse did indeed pass the post just behind the winner, but sadly my horse's jockey was at that moment still some two miles behind his mount, having been chucked out of the saddle when two other nags collided at an early fence the one bouncing off the other into mine, throwing my hapless jock to the ground through utterly no fault of his own.
My horse - Idle Talk - clearly had it in him to run the race without any difficulty and had only he been accompanied by his rider throughout then tonight one's fortunes would have been made.
But 'twas clearly not to be. Providence has - no doubt wisely - arranged otherwise. (Never have come across a bookmaker called 'Providence', but if I do I shall steer well clear!)
Oh and, by the way, E indeed does not know who St. Patrick was. Having just returned from picking her up and quizzing her reluctant self on the way home I can aver that she is ignorant not only of any detail of the life and times of the Patron Saint of Ireland, but also is equally clueless as to who St. George might have been other than our own patron saint.
As for who is the patron of either Scotland or Wales she has not the foggiest. Well she does now because she has been told, but it does not bode well for the future well-being of our United Kingdom if a tolerably well-educated teenage specimen is so far from this basic knowledge of what historical ties identify and bind us. I blame Tony Blair of course.
The Day...
...or rather perhaps the night of St. Patrick's Day. A mighty day, or night.
For 'twas on that very night some 'x' years ago that H and I first met at an Irish pub in South London.
You'll be wondering at that I'm sure, neither of us striking the regular reader as soi-disant wild Irish rovers in sentimental alcohol-fuelled search of our ancestral homeland - the only sorts ordinarily drawn to such a place at such a time. And you would not be wrong.
H is about as pure bred English as they come - generation unto generation of Woldean ancestors with a direct line back to King Canute on the distaff side. My own lineage is more mixed - a large portion of English, but with some Scots and Swedish thrown in to liven the mix. Not though a drop of the Irish (or even the Oirish) to be found anywhere in our bodies or souls.
So why 'The Swan' at Stockwell, that most Irish of Irish pubs, that night? From the simple cause of a mutual friend - my Great Irish Mate - asking us, separately, to join him and others there for the mighty craic. Happy was I - and it seemed H too - to comply.
It being though a time of history for there to be terrible tensions between England and Ireland [see The Troubles passim] I was heavily briefed in advance as to how to 'protect and survive' the night.
On no account go to the bar and order "Three light ales my good man and look lively about it." Just point to the Guinness tap holding up the requisite number of fingers denoting the pints required. (All that most people were capable of doing, it transpired anyways, the dark side of nine pip emma.)
Keep a low profile throughout, but for the love of God and the safety of one's life stand up when everyone else did - 'twould be and 'twas for the Irish national anthem. On no account attempt to fake knowledge of the words, as that inept Tory chap down in Wales those years ago. A stiff, silent stare into the middle-distance, as if in wonderment of all that Ireland might mean to one of its dear own sons would suffice - though a tear or two in fond recall of 'Mammie, God save her good soul' would be the icing on that particular cake.
Loo breaks were acknowledged as being particularly perilous. Away from sight and safety, any intimation of English pee descending from the English parson would at best be met with a wet pocket (if you don't know you don't need to) and at worst a smacked head.
Not that there would be any danger of my initiating conversation in such circumstances naturally - it is not what one does in that or in any other public convenience - but should a befuddled soul opine there that the evening was a fine one or the Pope a genius, no verbal response at all could possibly be allowed lest covers be blown and consequences occur.
A slurred sub-lingual 'Ershallyer', or somesuch muttering, might be assayed if a response was clearly expected, though safer perhaps - and entirely in accord with the established mood of the night - would be launching into the fellow with a great sobbing hug as if overcome by the emotion of it all. (You can see quite how far one was from one's comfort zone here, being urged to hug strange men in strange toilets for the sake of one's well-being!)
Above all one was cautioned about not being noticed by - and Heaven forefend intruding upon - any table where The Man might be holding court with his family, friends, cronies, supplicants and simply massive bodyguards as courtiers. (The latter indeed were a mighty and handy clue as to which tables to be giving a wide berth.) The Man was as like as not to be retired, and most certainly Official not Provisional, but even if the blood on his hands were dried not fresh, it wouldn't be doing for any insane English dolt to be asking "And so what do you do for a living?"
There was - one now recalls - another evening at a Parish Dance elsewhere when one was actually invited to meet THE Man. He was terribly elderly - went right back to the Easter Uprising - as harmless as a flea and as charming as a potentate in touch with his inner child. Dear Father X, of the Papist persuasion, had asked one to attend the 'do' as an ecumenical touch to the occasion, though reckoning not that THE Man was to be there too.
On principle one did though spurn the invitation. Each table in turn being requested to pay homage, when my turn came I simply declined. Not perhaps a wise move, and certainly one not unnoticed. There are though times when one must make a stand by remaining seated.
If this all sounds a little over-wrought, teetering even on the racist, all I can say is that that is how it was back then. No Englishman was particularly welcomed in an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Night, nor indeed would any Irishman have enjoyed a pleasant pint or ten in, say, The King's Arms, The George Inn, or other such spot.
And returning to the very night in question, did H and I, as it were, immediately spot each other across a crowded room and so forth? Hardly, as we were seated next the one to the other, albeit that the smoke laden atmosphere made even such proximity appear pretty distant. But peering through the fug and bellowing above the din we must have made some kind of contact. We danced, we chatted, we drank in tolerable moderation.
Then, for the moment at the end of the night, we parted. All persons seemed somehow miraculously to disappear leaving good self to act the Good Samaritan for the Great Irish Mate, who could do little more for himself at that point than be draped semi-comatose over a low wall, singing all the while sentimental tribal lyrics.
H and her crew simply legged it into the darkness leaving just the one to manage the matter. GIM and I did eventually make it back to my place, though details of the journey were vague even then and totally beyond recall now. Not being an entire ingenue in these matters, I do remember finally placing GIM in the standard 'recovery position' - draped over a low loo still singing sentimental tribal lyrics - whilst I passed out on the sofa, not bothering to move the cat beforehand. (Some short hours later, as dawn pierced the sky, the cat was still seething and GIM was still singing, which were both of them positive and sufficient signs of having survived the night as a whole.)
And thus we have the essential tale of how PP met H, or H met PP. Some months passed before any further assignations were considered, but something must have clicked and here we are some 'x' years later still celebrating St. Patrick's Night together.
Not quite though with the same liberality of place or spirit mind you. E is out at a St. P's party, H is weary and taken to watching home designs programmes, whilst I am reduced to essential sobriety waiting the midnight hour to fetch E home. (Must check with E later if she even knows who St. Patrick is. Apparently few do these days, which is both shocking and sad.)
For 'twas on that very night some 'x' years ago that H and I first met at an Irish pub in South London.
You'll be wondering at that I'm sure, neither of us striking the regular reader as soi-disant wild Irish rovers in sentimental alcohol-fuelled search of our ancestral homeland - the only sorts ordinarily drawn to such a place at such a time. And you would not be wrong.
H is about as pure bred English as they come - generation unto generation of Woldean ancestors with a direct line back to King Canute on the distaff side. My own lineage is more mixed - a large portion of English, but with some Scots and Swedish thrown in to liven the mix. Not though a drop of the Irish (or even the Oirish) to be found anywhere in our bodies or souls.
So why 'The Swan' at Stockwell, that most Irish of Irish pubs, that night? From the simple cause of a mutual friend - my Great Irish Mate - asking us, separately, to join him and others there for the mighty craic. Happy was I - and it seemed H too - to comply.
It being though a time of history for there to be terrible tensions between England and Ireland [see The Troubles passim] I was heavily briefed in advance as to how to 'protect and survive' the night.
On no account go to the bar and order "Three light ales my good man and look lively about it." Just point to the Guinness tap holding up the requisite number of fingers denoting the pints required. (All that most people were capable of doing, it transpired anyways, the dark side of nine pip emma.)
Keep a low profile throughout, but for the love of God and the safety of one's life stand up when everyone else did - 'twould be and 'twas for the Irish national anthem. On no account attempt to fake knowledge of the words, as that inept Tory chap down in Wales those years ago. A stiff, silent stare into the middle-distance, as if in wonderment of all that Ireland might mean to one of its dear own sons would suffice - though a tear or two in fond recall of 'Mammie, God save her good soul' would be the icing on that particular cake.
Loo breaks were acknowledged as being particularly perilous. Away from sight and safety, any intimation of English pee descending from the English parson would at best be met with a wet pocket (if you don't know you don't need to) and at worst a smacked head.
Not that there would be any danger of my initiating conversation in such circumstances naturally - it is not what one does in that or in any other public convenience - but should a befuddled soul opine there that the evening was a fine one or the Pope a genius, no verbal response at all could possibly be allowed lest covers be blown and consequences occur.
A slurred sub-lingual 'Ershallyer', or somesuch muttering, might be assayed if a response was clearly expected, though safer perhaps - and entirely in accord with the established mood of the night - would be launching into the fellow with a great sobbing hug as if overcome by the emotion of it all. (You can see quite how far one was from one's comfort zone here, being urged to hug strange men in strange toilets for the sake of one's well-being!)
Above all one was cautioned about not being noticed by - and Heaven forefend intruding upon - any table where The Man might be holding court with his family, friends, cronies, supplicants and simply massive bodyguards as courtiers. (The latter indeed were a mighty and handy clue as to which tables to be giving a wide berth.) The Man was as like as not to be retired, and most certainly Official not Provisional, but even if the blood on his hands were dried not fresh, it wouldn't be doing for any insane English dolt to be asking "And so what do you do for a living?"
There was - one now recalls - another evening at a Parish Dance elsewhere when one was actually invited to meet THE Man. He was terribly elderly - went right back to the Easter Uprising - as harmless as a flea and as charming as a potentate in touch with his inner child. Dear Father X, of the Papist persuasion, had asked one to attend the 'do' as an ecumenical touch to the occasion, though reckoning not that THE Man was to be there too.
On principle one did though spurn the invitation. Each table in turn being requested to pay homage, when my turn came I simply declined. Not perhaps a wise move, and certainly one not unnoticed. There are though times when one must make a stand by remaining seated.
If this all sounds a little over-wrought, teetering even on the racist, all I can say is that that is how it was back then. No Englishman was particularly welcomed in an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Night, nor indeed would any Irishman have enjoyed a pleasant pint or ten in, say, The King's Arms, The George Inn, or other such spot.
And returning to the very night in question, did H and I, as it were, immediately spot each other across a crowded room and so forth? Hardly, as we were seated next the one to the other, albeit that the smoke laden atmosphere made even such proximity appear pretty distant. But peering through the fug and bellowing above the din we must have made some kind of contact. We danced, we chatted, we drank in tolerable moderation.
Then, for the moment at the end of the night, we parted. All persons seemed somehow miraculously to disappear leaving good self to act the Good Samaritan for the Great Irish Mate, who could do little more for himself at that point than be draped semi-comatose over a low wall, singing all the while sentimental tribal lyrics.
H and her crew simply legged it into the darkness leaving just the one to manage the matter. GIM and I did eventually make it back to my place, though details of the journey were vague even then and totally beyond recall now. Not being an entire ingenue in these matters, I do remember finally placing GIM in the standard 'recovery position' - draped over a low loo still singing sentimental tribal lyrics - whilst I passed out on the sofa, not bothering to move the cat beforehand. (Some short hours later, as dawn pierced the sky, the cat was still seething and GIM was still singing, which were both of them positive and sufficient signs of having survived the night as a whole.)
And thus we have the essential tale of how PP met H, or H met PP. Some months passed before any further assignations were considered, but something must have clicked and here we are some 'x' years later still celebrating St. Patrick's Night together.
Not quite though with the same liberality of place or spirit mind you. E is out at a St. P's party, H is weary and taken to watching home designs programmes, whilst I am reduced to essential sobriety waiting the midnight hour to fetch E home. (Must check with E later if she even knows who St. Patrick is. Apparently few do these days, which is both shocking and sad.)
Friday, March 16, 2007
Father Paul Bennett RIP
"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." - My own thoughts some month ago.
"Father Paul Bennett, 59, was killed at St Fagan's Church in Trecynon, near Aberdare, on Wednesday afternoon." - The sad news that came through whilst I was away.
God grant eternal rest to his good soul and may light perpetual shine upon him. May his dear family be comforted in their terrible time of sorrow and loss.
And pray for his assassin; for Father Paul would not want it any other way.
And cry, my beloved country.
"Father Paul Bennett, 59, was killed at St Fagan's Church in Trecynon, near Aberdare, on Wednesday afternoon." - The sad news that came through whilst I was away.
God grant eternal rest to his good soul and may light perpetual shine upon him. May his dear family be comforted in their terrible time of sorrow and loss.
And pray for his assassin; for Father Paul would not want it any other way.
And cry, my beloved country.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Sublime Or What?...
..The Good Lord has spared me the urge ever to quit gambling during Lent, bless Him, which is just as well as the Cheltenham Festival is always slap bang in the middle of the season of abstinence. (The better Festival will manage to wrap itself around March 17th - St. Patrick's Day - and the best of the best will cause the Gold Cup to fall on that very sacred day.)
I am not a hunting parson - not through any overwhelming objection in principle, more from a knowledge that any fall would shatter my rib cage like so much bone-china crockery - but I am a punting parson. (Even have the boots, if that analogy means anything to you.)
Shocked you may be, but there it is. Anyways as one of the great Irish trainers said only yesterday "Cheltenham's just like going to Church - you get on your knees and pray!" Or to re-phrase an old Benedictine catechism: "Do you bet when you're praying?" "Certainly not, but I always pray when I bet!"
But do I attend the Festival itself, do I so always order my parochial diary as to be free for these special four days? Sadly not, one is too hooked on duty to leave the place to fend for itself even for a brief spell, and as year follows year I find myself wondering if I shall ever be there in person as well as in spirit.
Mayhap in compensation for this enduring self-denial, the same Good Lord has vouchsafed for me to be a pretty good shot at spotting a winner or three each year. (Time was indeed when one's tip for the Gold Cup was counted the best advice a parson could give his flock in any one calendar year. Been a bit quiet on that front for a spell mind you.)
So once again with the scent of Spring and fresh hope in one's nostrils and the distant sound of stirring equine voices and hooves in one's ear, one turned this morning to the racing pages of...The Sun! Well yes, I would blush for the shame of it had it been mine own purchase. Only I shan't as someone, oddly, had left a copy in the Vestry after Mattins, so skipping - as one must - every so swiftly past the Third Page I had a peek at the form as presented to the common man.
And who should one find but dear Clement Freud sounding forth on possibilities. ('Possibilities' is a great approach for a tipster - they require no solid evidence or indeed any shame in their not being actual winners, merely the opportunity for a good crow should they succeed.) You can probably guess where this is all heading and you would not be wrong.
Herr Freud's great descendant happened to mention in passing that he had a fond eye for a horse called Sublimity for the Champion Hurdle today. That was more than sufficient for self to entrust a goodly portion of the month's stipend into the hands of Old Vic, who runs a small emporium off the High Street. (There may not be much science in my method, but there is some sense: Sublimity is known to prefer the firmer going over many of his rivals. I reasoned that this drying weather would therefore favour him and I was not to be proven wrong!)
Fine place Vic's - not much more than his front parlour made available for reclining punters to pass some several lazy hours chatting and writing the odd betting slip, just to show willing. (Not entirely sure what Old Mrs Vic. makes of her house being thus used, though the steady stream of income he inevitably can offer to the domestic economy must be appreciated I am sure.)
One didn't have the time to spare to stay for the race itself - there being official visits to be made etc., - but on returning some hour or so after one could tell immediately from Old Vic's facial expression that, by the most happy happenstance, one's chosen nag had sailed home at 16-1, some several lengths in front of one of the well-backed chancers.
You might imagine I am alluding to a thunderous countenance here, but no Old Vic is actually rather pleased when a client pulls off a Big 'Un. True generosity of human spirit mixed with a well-founded knowledge from experience that winnings paid out are generally mainly at worst extended loans, about accounts for the cheery grin that greets the winning punter.
The actual moment of the awarding of a sizable pay-out is always conducted with a certain severe understatement on the recipient's part. It would not be seemly to seem too, too pleased to be so many quids in, nor indeed would it be nice to rejoice too openly in front of other players who have not been so fortunate. Nonetheless it would have been equally ungracious - nay plain pretentious - to pretend that such an amount was but an every day occurrence.
So a few jocular remarks were allowed to play back and forth, all more or less along the lines of "Need help carrying that then Parson?" or "You'll not be minding my being a bit behind with the tithe money now?" or - genuinely alarming requiring a good laugh-off - "How much not to tell the Mrs?" (Not that H entirely objects to gambling as a thing in itself, though she can fret when sums the sharp end of between three to four figures are involved, which is utterly understandable of course.)
And what, I hear you asking nay pleading, do I therefore have to say on the subject of the Gold Cup itself? Well, funnily enough I shan't be here to predict the winner on the day, having agreed to act as stand-in for the neighbourly Vicar of S (who tells me he has a sick great-aunt to visit - bet she lives in Cheltenham or environs!), so all I can tell you by way of a clue at this juncture is that this year there is a fancied outsider called 'Our Vic', generously priced at between 25 - 40/1 at present.
Old Vic - Our Vic - geddit? It's got to be a possibility. Only a possibility mind!
So fingers crossed and happy punting.
I am not a hunting parson - not through any overwhelming objection in principle, more from a knowledge that any fall would shatter my rib cage like so much bone-china crockery - but I am a punting parson. (Even have the boots, if that analogy means anything to you.)
Shocked you may be, but there it is. Anyways as one of the great Irish trainers said only yesterday "Cheltenham's just like going to Church - you get on your knees and pray!" Or to re-phrase an old Benedictine catechism: "Do you bet when you're praying?" "Certainly not, but I always pray when I bet!"
But do I attend the Festival itself, do I so always order my parochial diary as to be free for these special four days? Sadly not, one is too hooked on duty to leave the place to fend for itself even for a brief spell, and as year follows year I find myself wondering if I shall ever be there in person as well as in spirit.
Mayhap in compensation for this enduring self-denial, the same Good Lord has vouchsafed for me to be a pretty good shot at spotting a winner or three each year. (Time was indeed when one's tip for the Gold Cup was counted the best advice a parson could give his flock in any one calendar year. Been a bit quiet on that front for a spell mind you.)
So once again with the scent of Spring and fresh hope in one's nostrils and the distant sound of stirring equine voices and hooves in one's ear, one turned this morning to the racing pages of...The Sun! Well yes, I would blush for the shame of it had it been mine own purchase. Only I shan't as someone, oddly, had left a copy in the Vestry after Mattins, so skipping - as one must - every so swiftly past the Third Page I had a peek at the form as presented to the common man.
And who should one find but dear Clement Freud sounding forth on possibilities. ('Possibilities' is a great approach for a tipster - they require no solid evidence or indeed any shame in their not being actual winners, merely the opportunity for a good crow should they succeed.) You can probably guess where this is all heading and you would not be wrong.
Herr Freud's great descendant happened to mention in passing that he had a fond eye for a horse called Sublimity for the Champion Hurdle today. That was more than sufficient for self to entrust a goodly portion of the month's stipend into the hands of Old Vic, who runs a small emporium off the High Street. (There may not be much science in my method, but there is some sense: Sublimity is known to prefer the firmer going over many of his rivals. I reasoned that this drying weather would therefore favour him and I was not to be proven wrong!)
Fine place Vic's - not much more than his front parlour made available for reclining punters to pass some several lazy hours chatting and writing the odd betting slip, just to show willing. (Not entirely sure what Old Mrs Vic. makes of her house being thus used, though the steady stream of income he inevitably can offer to the domestic economy must be appreciated I am sure.)
One didn't have the time to spare to stay for the race itself - there being official visits to be made etc., - but on returning some hour or so after one could tell immediately from Old Vic's facial expression that, by the most happy happenstance, one's chosen nag had sailed home at 16-1, some several lengths in front of one of the well-backed chancers.
You might imagine I am alluding to a thunderous countenance here, but no Old Vic is actually rather pleased when a client pulls off a Big 'Un. True generosity of human spirit mixed with a well-founded knowledge from experience that winnings paid out are generally mainly at worst extended loans, about accounts for the cheery grin that greets the winning punter.
The actual moment of the awarding of a sizable pay-out is always conducted with a certain severe understatement on the recipient's part. It would not be seemly to seem too, too pleased to be so many quids in, nor indeed would it be nice to rejoice too openly in front of other players who have not been so fortunate. Nonetheless it would have been equally ungracious - nay plain pretentious - to pretend that such an amount was but an every day occurrence.
So a few jocular remarks were allowed to play back and forth, all more or less along the lines of "Need help carrying that then Parson?" or "You'll not be minding my being a bit behind with the tithe money now?" or - genuinely alarming requiring a good laugh-off - "How much not to tell the Mrs?" (Not that H entirely objects to gambling as a thing in itself, though she can fret when sums the sharp end of between three to four figures are involved, which is utterly understandable of course.)
And what, I hear you asking nay pleading, do I therefore have to say on the subject of the Gold Cup itself? Well, funnily enough I shan't be here to predict the winner on the day, having agreed to act as stand-in for the neighbourly Vicar of S (who tells me he has a sick great-aunt to visit - bet she lives in Cheltenham or environs!), so all I can tell you by way of a clue at this juncture is that this year there is a fancied outsider called 'Our Vic', generously priced at between 25 - 40/1 at present.
Old Vic - Our Vic - geddit? It's got to be a possibility. Only a possibility mind!
So fingers crossed and happy punting.
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