Two 'Gs' In Biggest....

...Few will recall a highly successful television advertisement that featured a man diligently painting a slogan - the length of the pitch - at a football ground. As he beavered away to put the last letters in place a voice off could be heard crying plaintively "two Gs in Biggest."

Catching the sound, our hero glances back at his carefully scribed words only to read something like: 'Smetherswicke Tailors - the Bigest [sic] Tailors in Town'.

How quite the story ended - apart from his banging his head in frustration - or indeed what was precisely the product - an example, among many, in which the clever medium utterly over-powers the paid-for message - I cannot now recall.

Suffice to say it has remained as an exemplum of how wretchedly easy it is to forget the big things when one is so terribly focused on the small. A woods to trees thing altogether.

Came across one such today when out with E at a horse show. Glancing up at a leaving horse lorry, one could not help but notice that they had plain overlooked about the largest - one nearly said the biggest - of Double-Gs in the book.

For the rear tail end of the box was not secured as should be - must be, has to be the case - but was open and trailing on the ground as they drove! Poor horse was peering out the back as if to say 'Hmmmm, this is unusual to be able to see the road behind me as I travel. What should I do? Panic or continue munching hay?'

Well, the horse may not have panicked, but I as sure as heck did. For some odd reason one reached by instinct for one's mobile phone. To call the Police? To tell them there was a horse box travelling due East, that said horse box was in imminent peril of discharging its load from the rear? You can see the problem of explanation let alone effective response.

Mercifully, a proper reaction then set in and one leaped in one's new [more on that later] jalopy and set off in hot horn-honking pursuit. A jogging horse box being no match for a speeding car - albeit a diesel estate - I was able to flag them down by only the second turning.

Poor woman driver - mother I am sure of the equally shocked daughter rider - they could only gaze amazed and appalled when they stopped, looked and realised just what they had done - or rather had failed to do.

There is a routine one goes through for these horse show occasions - a doing and a checking to ensure that each and every last item of equipment is successfully stowed on board. It is an absolute beast - as has happened to us - to arrive at some show venue only to find the passport (horse not human) is still at home or else the new and necessary bit remains safe within the tack room at the yard.

A routine is required, but to date the confirmation that the back of the box has been raised prior to departure has not been one of them. From, however, now on it shall be.

As they say at all the best poker tables: "If it can happen, it just did."

National No Freedom Day...

...6.00 a.m. of a Sunday would normally see me still in bed. For what is a curate for - poor sap - if not for turning out early on the Holy Day to take Mattins?

New in town is Anthony, just graduated from seminary and still wet on his crown from the episcopal anointing. A keen lad, as they must be at that age, a bit right-of-centre for my liking - which must infer way, way right - though he will more than do. We've been lacking a decent - or indeed an indecent - curate these past four years, so he is very, very welcome indeed.

And terrifically welcome to early Mattins!

But anyways, I shall not be a dullard abed tomorrow. Up with one of the later larks rather and proudly - in the best and the worst of senses - parading the streets of our nook of The Wolds puffing on the hugest of fine Havana cigars this parish can, at a pinch, muster.

I doubt anyone will mind. I have made my views perfectly clear. A Christian at heart should be a libertarian in my book and the less rendered unto Caesar - and a Caesar who should preferably require the merest minimal of rendering unto - the better say I.

It will not be my intention to flout the law as such. You will not find me marching into our largely empty Church at that hour - Mattins usually inspiring no more than five of our usual and pious suspects - billowing clouds of nicotine.

Nonetheless it shall be my own particular and especial mark of and protest at 'National No Freedom Day'.

Morag Shedden Wilson RIP

"Morag faced the challenges of any head of department, but had not raised any concerns about the demands."

These the weasel words from the Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester following the suicide of Miss Wilson, a manager at that hospital, who stabbed herself in the chest then jumped to her death from the M60 where it crosses the Manchester Ship Canal.

And what drove this young woman of only thirty-two to her death? The pressures and strains of attempting to implement the Government's 'Agenda For Change' in the NHS.

A horrendously complex matter and merely the latest of a seemingly unending stream - torrent rather - of centrally imposed innovations in the health service, Miss Wilson had despaired of being seen as the ogress whose job it was given to impose on local people what the Department of Health dictated.

She was, it is said, shunned in the works canteen because she was 'blamed' for not providing certain health staff with the gradings to which they believed they were entitled. She was harassed over other matters, she was driven to end her young life.

That is a desperate sadness and my heart goes out to her grieving parents tonight.

Listen to the words of her father:

"They made her feel as if possibly she was to blame for them not being upgraded."

No, it was not one person; it was the way the system was instructed to behave. Caught in the middle with no comprehension from either side, Miss Wilson was left alone to do what she was instructed to do. Managers cared nothing for her and neither did the staff.

This was Blair's doing, truly it was. He set that agenda for incessant, endless change.

And now Gordon Brown walks into Number Ten promising 'Change, change, change.' No I am sorry Mr. Brown, what is needed is some much needed pause from change. Miss Wilson is dead because of change. Stability not change should be the tribute to her too soon ended life.

And let the Wythenshawe Hospital managers hang their heads in shame and let any staff who harassed her be equally ashamed of themselves and their actions.

The Coroner's measured words: "When people introduce these rules and systems, perhaps a bit more thought as to what effect they will have on people might be helpful."

Well, not so much 'people' in any general sense, but on persons. Unique, individual persons.

Miss Morag Sheddon Wilson was one such person.

Crime and Punishment...

...a wonderful and tormenting book by that tormented and wondrous novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. If you've not read it, then I can only say you should - at once, this minute. Dark tastes perhaps, but then one must be prepared to enter the darkness of mankind in order to be fully human. A part of this parson's credo in any case.

But leaving the book aside, a general reflection follows on punishment and crime and the necessity of the one fitting the other.

Parked yesterday outside a bank, like one does, I noticed - again as one does - a completely drop-dead gorgeous woman driving what could only reasonably be described as an equally drop-dead gorgeous car. Who the woman was I do not and never shall know, but the car was one of those magnificent Bentley sports numbers all sound persons would wish to own or at least to drive once in their lives.

So far so blameless - certainly crime free - even the parson's state being more one of simple, unavaricious delight and nothing more sinister. Certainly no 'neighing after one's neighbour's wife' - or car - as rightly is forbidden by the Good Book.

There was though one aspect of the scene that not only dismayed but rather completely derided and detracted from the joy of it. Namely that said woman was chatting busily on her mobile telephone. A habit I abhor.

Now I am not one ordinarily to judge an action's rightness by its legality or no. There are plenty of illegal acts that are utterly moral in my semi-anarchic view, as indeed there are lawful acts that are fully abhorrent.

But I am as one with the law on this particular matter: driving whilst using a mobile telephone is a rank disobedience of the law and of all right and proper behaviour. It is selfish and it is dangerous. Persons who do so - knowing of course full well that they flout the law of the land on this - should be pilloried in the good old-fashioned sense: put in the stocks and subjected to the rancour of offended public opinion. A few rotten cabbages and or eggs thrown in would also be just the thing, tradition and condign punishment both demanding it.

So there I was distressed by what I saw, distressed that is until dismayed. For the car following the woman and her Bentley and her telephone was none other than a police car with two youngish - as they all are it seems this day - officers of the constabulary therein. Said officers, although plainly aware of the woman's criminal - one uses the word carefully - act took not one blind bit of notice and carried on chatting - as of course did she - with not an attempt at remonstration, reprobation or rebuke.

One could almost read their minds on this: posh car, big money, loads of clout, just don't go there. That is not 'without fear or favour' in my book - and it should not be in theirs. Worse even, from their combined demeanours it would seem that it hardly registered with either one that a criminal act was being committed before their very eyes. 'Woman driving while phoning? Big deal.' they seemed to be saying. Well, sorry boys it is a big deal and it is your paid employment to deal with it.

Very nearly nipped over and berated both car-fuls, and possibly would have done - to no avail one suspects - had not H suddenly reappeared from said bank all transactions duly completed. Left, therefore, doubly fuming and thoroughly off my game.

A plan though emerges from the frustration and the ire.

On Monday next I shall, laden with cameras and cigars, take up my place next this very road junction and photograph all persons I see driving whilst phoning. Shots will be taken so as to include their number plates and the date and time of the offence.

Prima facie - nay conclusive - evidence of crimes having been committed gathered, all images will be presented to the local head of constabulary with the express intent that prosecutions will follow.

I shall sit in his - or her - office puffing away on the largest of Havanas I can find, daring him - or her - to arrest me for smoking in a public place.

Cannot wait for my day in court!

Blair Liberation Day..

...It's over, it's finally over! And 'Huzzah!' for that we shout from the very rooftops.

Harry and his ringers have been practising a special change this afternoon to signal Blair's departure and the start of our Woldean Liberation Feast, so if you happen to be driving by us today and wonder if you are hearing Church bells to the tune of The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again' then fear not, you are not suffering auditory hallucinations merely witnessing the sweet sound of freedom.

The tempo of the piece will obviously need to be quite adagietto in comparison with the original, but, mefeels, a certain molto grave is perfectly in keeping with the solemn joy of the day.

H will no doubt be relieved no longer having to share a front parlour with a man who screams 'Liar, liar, pants on fire' every time T. Blair shows his grinning little mug on the television. I know it's totally juvenile, but then the sentiment is as sound as it is accurate - he is nothing more than a boy who tells lies.

Our Gordo of course is a far weightier matter and what could be the correct response to a dour Scot who has near emptied the Palladas pockets from years of grinding increases in personal taxation?

A 'Glasgow Kiss' is one option. Harder though to deliver to the television without risk of screen glass in the forehead.

But never mind for the future, its pains will come as they must.

Today simply we cheer and cry "It is over, it is finally over!"

Father Noah...

...Though low-lying our neck of The Wolds has escaped serious flood damage these past twenty-four hours. The odd house is soaked and some carpets ruined, but nothing more. There is a river not five miles away, though even the bursting of its banks could not affect us here. We can only pray and be on standby to assist as needed. Some of the farmers have gone off on their tractors lest they might be of any assistance anywhere and the Parish Hall is cleared for sleepers should that be wanted.

Our hearts go out to the dead and to their bereaved. That poor young man trapped in a storm drain with his foot caught fast in a grating as the waters surged over his head. There can be few more frightening deaths than that and one prays for his soul to rest now in peace after the agony of his dying.

Where does this weather come from and what does it presage? One does not have to be too literalist of a biblical scholar - or indeed better plain reader of scripture - to be fearful of more than a freak of nature.

Waste of Space...

...According to Bro. George, who deals with these things, most if not all of the paper emanating from the Government is so much waste.

I blame - as does he - T. Blair in general and the Internet in particular. T. Blair for being the control freak that he is needing ceaselessly to churn out orders, instructions, advice or guidances to all and sundry about each and every aspect of our lives.

Not a local service can be trusted to function on its own, merrily attending to its tasks and purposes, but it must be deluged with an unending torrent of utter guff about how to do its business; much of it also requiring said local services to produce an equal and equally unneeded or unheeded constant stream of reports, reviews or other rubbish that no one reads.

The Internet of course has merely allowed such nonsense to expand exponentially - ease of travel simply adding to the volume of traffic. Log-jam on the information highway.

So far, so plain ordinary rant.

Today, we hear of further delusional, irrational behaviour - as if we would be surprised.

A Government document comes belting down the tube, boasting on page one that it is made of 70% recycled paper. Well hurrah. On the last page there is also a cute logo urging us all to recycle the whole document once read. (Not one assumes 'file in the usual place' - i.e. the waste bin - but some more worthy cause such as...well I can't think of any this moment, but I am confident there are some somewhere. Cat litter trays perhaps?)

What renders the whole exercise so sadly pointless is that this very last logo-bearing page is just that - a page of paper with a 'recycle this paper' logo on it. Had the logo appeared at the bottom of the text of the thing that would have been one thing, but to waste an entire page of paper telling us - needlessly of course, either we recycle or we don't thank you - not to waste paper is plain bonkers.

The great sadness of course is the rank arrogance and deep stupidity combined that both encourages and permits such behaviour. That is what so rankles - arrogant or stupid one could live with either, but put the two together in one seamless whole and one is stymied!

So what can one do? Burn these ninnies as latter day witches? Tempting prospect. (Must somewhere to be found a National Strategy for Effective Witch Resolution Options or somesuch.)

Bro. George, being a less bloodthirsty fellow than myself, is minded to post the page back to the Government department that sent it. In principle a neat, ironic gesture. Sadly though one can be assured the recipients simply wouldn't understand his simple point. They lack the simplicity to be simple.

Settling Scores...

...One never knows when one's past generosity - or as H would call it rank softness - of heart will return to bite one hard.

Time out of mind, it seems, I have dipped into parish funds to provide essentially outdoor poor relief, as we used to call it. Ted needing a fiver to settle the gas people, Widow Thomkinson tipped the odd tenner for food, even shoes for farm labourers' children have, it appears, all been bought or paid for from funds strictly striped down for other purposes.

Worthy purposes in their ways, no doubt, such as the maintenance of the fading boiler in the Parish Hall or possible replacements for those wretched treble pipes in the Church organ that do play so horribly sharp from time to time, but lacking the urgency of real, immediate human need.

Not that rank fraud as such has been committed you must understand - not according anyway to Simon - Parish Council treasurer and confidant in troubled times, i.e. times just before an inspection - who avers that one - myself - has merely omitted to vire the money from one cost-centre heading to the required other. Robbing a Peter to pay a Paul indeed - and quite within my canonical authority it seems.

An easy task according to Simon, simply a matter of remembering and recording what has been shunted when, when and why. (Not sure we ever 'vired' anything at theological college or were inducted in the mysteries of cost-centre budgeting, though maybe these were classes I skipped in my innocence.)

It is, though, not just a case of accounting amnesia, but more that one has been hesitant to mark down in pen the precise purposes of these loans (gifts rather) lest public revelation embarrass the recipient. Does the world really need to know, for example, that the aforementioned Widow Thomkinson is far from the wealthy toff of local legend, being rather the toff quite on her uppers since that debacle with split cap shares some years back? I do know that she would not wish it so.

What is done is done is spent. Mouths - or at least one mouth - has been fed, certain feet shod and overbearing Gas Board personnel repelled. The choice now for myself is either the let it ride and beam haplessly when Father Bill's henchmen reveal one to be nearly a grand short of target revenue (see how rapidly one learns the lingo when necessary!), or else to pick over the doings of the past three years and, in effect, name and possibly thereby shame.

You'll be gathering I am sure that the latter option is not on - not even H would wish it - though playing the poor Franciscan innocent is not going to wash with Fr. Bill, of that I am equally certain.

Direct appeal, therefore, to the highest authority of all is being considered. Not God Almighty you must understand, although you may be surprised this coming from a clerk in holy orders. Forgive though the sleight on the Creator of all. In cases such as these even His omnipotence carries less weight than that of Sister Edwina Mildenthrope.

Who she you ask? No less a personage - and here there is none greater - than the Diocesan Treasurer herself. By repute a Royal Marine commando before finding God and the Sisterhood of Our Lady of Succour, Sister Eddie - as she is known with a certain over-familiarity throughout the diocese - is the ultimate keeper of all our purses, and a tougher keeper comes there none than she. (Even Bishop Tom, it is said, dare not lash out on new altar cloths for the Cathedral without her say so.)

She and I have not had many dealings over the years, front-line troops generally being beneath the piercing gaze of her fiscal radar. Quite how Eddie then may take my predicament is desperately hard to fathom. She might pat me on the head as a weak-willed yet sainted fool; alternatively she could order my head to be struck from my shoulders and piked above the Cathedral's West door as an example to other feckless parsons to mend their ways or else.

Can't see any other reasonable course of action, neither can Simon sadly. So it's off to the study for a swift malt or two then on to the blower to Eddie. ("Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall announce thy praise." - A suitable prayer in all the circs. methinks!)

Hoots Mon, It's The Sporran Police...

...Apologies if my Scottish accent is not up to much, but cannot resist commenting on the latest daftness and this time North of our borders.

For it would seem that from henceforth one will need an official Government licence in order lawfully to wear a sporran, to be produced - from within the thing one assumes - on demand of the Sporran Police.

One can only hope that the sight of said Polis (accent again I fear) bending to take DNA samples from law abiding sporran-wearing folk will result in proper accusations of public indecency!

As if then it needed saying - kilted persons with unlicensed sporrans especially welcome at the forthcoming Woldean Liberation Festival.

Three And A Half Days In June...

...Announcing a one-off special Woldean party to be held this coming week: commencing somewhen in mid-afternoon of Wednesday (the moment we are finally rid of T. Blair) and ending on the stroke of midnight on the Saturday when this country loses one of its last precious freedoms - that of smoking in public places.

As befits a celebration of liberty and liberation, persons attending must feel free to choose their own repertoire from the events to hand. H and cohort are promising a fine theatrical feast, loosely based on a Sixties Summer of Love theme, that will appear and disappear as the mood takes. George and Patrick at the Dragon will be providing a punk themed booze-up. (Licensing hours and rules are to be forgotten for the time, so please don't nark if you are not the liberal minded Englishman or woman you should be.)

Several local groups - Fred's Fly Fishing Folk for example - are to pose tastefully nude for next year's calendars. For oneself one has decided Roy Harper is a suitably madcap role model and, therefore, there will be renditions of 'Stormcock' and 'Come Out Fighting Genghis Smith' on street corners throughout the village.

Bro. George - the last and best of all libertarians - will be hunting cardboard foxes through lanes and dells, and there will finally be a 'Lady Godiva Rides The Wolds' competition open to adult male as well as female riders to be judged by Bishop Tom himself no less.

How all this quite squares with the impending parochial inspection I do not know - nor indeed at this hour at all care. It is entirely possible that Father Bill will take a complete dim view of all that we propose and do, but if so then all the more shall I be better pleased.

Vive Wolds Libre! That shall be our deserved rejoicing note. Better to fall down laughing than to live on our knees. That our motto of the days.

Tick-Tock...

...If there were to be a greater pleasure in life than drinking absinthe, it would have to be drinking absinthe whilst arm-wrestling.

This I can affirm having combined the two on an otherwise dull and blameless evening last week at the hotel. The drinking of the absinthe - the modern, safe if yet still highly potent variety - can of course be a solitary pastime, though logic dictates that it takes two to wrestle arms.

There is a natural sequence as well as a pairing here, for one cannot imagine a group of arm-wrestlers suddenly saying "Hey chaps, let's wreck our minds as well as our bodies with a spot of serious sauce."

That, though, a group of absinthe drinkers might take it into their befuddled heads to decide, after the third glass of the jolly green stuff, that a dash of arm-wrestling was just the ticket is entirely plausible if not totally rational. ('Post-absinthe rationality' of course being something not even the most tortured of French philosophers could invent. Existentialism, why not especially if you are French? Post-structuralist modernism - or minimalism - I forget which - one might at a pinch. But P-AR, not a hope.)

Though you would be forgiven for not noting it from the external frame, the Rev. Palladas - my own good self even - is a nifty wrestler of the upper limb. Certainly not in muscle strength do I claim to excel, though perhaps in technique not a dullard. It is simple, sheer bloody-minded determination not to lose that sees me through on most if not all occasions.

Show me an arm-wrestling table and watch a beserker appear - especially of course when fueled with said absinthe, the veritable 'angel dust' of the alcohols. Eyes will pop, bones even will snap before I concede defeat. Odd perhaps, but there you have it. A 'Red Line' I cannot cross - unlike of course that craven-to-the-last T. Blair, who will swear red is green if it helps the cause of the moment!

Concentration is key. Let slip for a moment one's focus on the job - quite literally - in hand and one is doomed. Being distracted is most definitely not the thing. And yet that night, though winning hands down (you see how rich in arm-wrestling imagery is our language) I could not be but seriously thrown off course by the most peculiar sight imaginable: that of dear Graham Norton, the charming Alice Cooper and the much-admired [See several previous] Miss Sandi Toksvig seated together on a sofa, having what was clearly a darn good friendly chat.

Was I mad? Had the absinthe - though not of the wormwood type - mashed my mind utterly? No, not as such. For it was on the hotel bar television that one saw this happy trio. As the sound was turned off one could not say what was their merry subject of conversation, though clearly all three were having a hoot. You can see why even: in their respective ways they have cornered much of any market of human whimsy you might care to conjure.

So although technically their presence was a potentially fatal distraction, the very surreality of it was such as to add yet further fuel to the already blazing fighting fire. World gone mad indeed, but precisely as I would wish it to be: a most happy and gracious insanity that if adopted as a world programme would restore peace, harmony and good nonsense to suffering humanity in a trice.

One, though, must keep a balanced view here as with so much. I am, as said previously [See indeed several previous] among the foremost of Miss Toksvig's admirers. Today, however, I do find myself a little let down by the lady - though it must be said in a way that has me the more chortling. For she writes in the column of the day - the Sunday Telegraph - of a certain stressful situation that has left her with an involuntary tick [sic] in her eye.

I have had even to write in person to admonish this particular and peculiar error - probably occasioned by the modern illiterate sub-editor rather than by the author herself one imagines. For the notion of something akin to a captive flea - for how else might one interpret an 'involuntary tick'? - trapped in the Toksvig line of vision is just too, too bizarre to countenance.

Almost as daft a supposition even as absinthe drinking arm-wrestlers, I am sure you will agree.

Behind You!

Another day, another rant? Does somewhat seem like it at the moment I fear.

Might be all this unseasonal rain so putting me on edge, though one is told that actually a sodden June is far more the norm than a flaming month. Perhaps then the sullen farmers habitually groaning about how their crops are drowning do have a point.

Nonetheless, whether weather-induced or no, one is perfectly entitled to be dour on this occasion. When out driving, as one frequently does, there are norms of conduct it simply assists all to observe. Not that one expects perfection on the roads more than in any other aspect of our imperfect world. Dodderers who hog middle lanes, the lightly crazed who turn right without warning, the overly-aggressive who simply cannot wait - such things one can generally take in one's stride.

But whether true courtesy can be expected from all, what is plain mandatory is to make way for an ambulance racing with lights and horns on to the aid of some sick or injured person. Rear view mirrors can be urgent aids to spotting one such coming up from behind. At once one pulls across to let the speeding vehicle through. Of course one does. Is there an alternative?

Well, apparently there is. For having today executed one such manoeuvre for one such purpose at a crowded set of traffic lights, what did I find but that five cars having pulled over the sixth decides to jump the queue that has parted like the proverbial Red Sea and plonk himself smack bang in front of the lights and the ambulance, blocking all traffic.

Hapless, helpless fool. A cacophony of horns from we five plus the ambulance was at last sufficient to shift the dolt. What though was he thinking of and about? I cannot fathom, though I can and do rant at the feckless nonsense served up by too many of my fellow men.

The one saving grace - and it is not small - the chap was not from our village. I think I'd resign the incumbency had that been so!

Bird In The Hand...

...Completing - one so fervently hopes - the tale of the rental car I must first once more give vent.

Whilst away three phone calls received from 'Rara Avis'.

The first to ask whether I should be wanting the vehicle for more than the two courtesy days. A reasonable question except that that one had already been asked and fully and twice answered. A third bite at the same matter was as ineffectual as irksome. This point was soundly made.

Ah then, in which case a credit card number would be needed to secure payment. That too perfectly acceptable had not such a number already been provided to the chap who delivered the first and defective car. [See as ever previous.] That point was made with a certain greater vigour.

Second phone call was from another wing of the company demanding to know why I had returned a defective vehicle less than two hours after taking charge of it. What! A complete misreading of their own paper work and I'm now suddenly seen as the villain of the piece.

Some singularly trenchant verbal admonition had to ensue. Apologies offered by them for their misunderstanding and none by myself for the rant.

Then we arrive home having confirmed by a third phone call that the car would be picked up on the Saturday morning. "What time would suit you Sir?" they properly asked. Ten of the morning was my reply. So naturally by the half past ten and no sign of the arrival of men needed to retrieve the thing I was on the blower once more.

No reply to first call. Second attempt and one did get through. "Oh well," they said. "We can't be sure when we're going to be coming, except to say it won't be today!"

More rant. Loud, long and rather ripping.

Just leave the key under a stone or something, no need to be there in person I was informed. Well yes there was, not least to confirm no damage to vehicle whilst under my care and that it was being returned with contractual full tank of fuel.

And if it were stolen? Oh that would not be Sir's liability. Why? Because I'm telling you so. (This coming from a company whose word to date has been as trustworthy as snake oil!)

Two hours later call comes through they are on their way. They come. Car - duly inspected - goes.

Two entire levels of being here. One, the fantasy world that managers about the place believe to be occurring because that's what should be happening. Two, the real world of actual delivery of service bearing no more resemblance to the theory than Tony Blair to a decent human being.

And on that last point, had Father Joshua over for supper last week. A kindly man and a welcome visitor, despite - or perhaps because - of his being of the Papish persuasion. "If that lying bastard Blair becomes a Catholic then I'm going to demand of the Vatican that I'm excommunicated forthwith!" I doubt the theology is sound or the adherence to canon law precise in word or spirit, but one does so take his point.

(H pops in to say that preparations for the End of Blair party are in full swing and did we want a brass band playing for the stroke of midnight? Excellent notion as ever from the beloved!)

Noises Off...

...Ordinarily when I'm standing in for some absent cleric, I will stay in his - or sometimes of course these days her - manse, rectory, cottage, shed, what have you.

On this occasion, though, that was not the option, as said cleric [he] was on leave caring for his wife [she] who sadly was horribly ill at home [theirs]. She is better now which is wonderful.

So it was to the local, semi-decent hotel one adjourned. A handsome place, though not in totally tip-top condition it must be said. Lumpy mattresses are not a problem but chef's undercooked tuna most certainly was!

Not wishing to venture out, evenings were spent quietly reading in the bar. Well, quietly actually was very much not the thing.

For there was a party of persons dispatched for some - doubtless - worthy secular work project, who insisted on flooding the place with wall-to-wall noise. Of particular note was a young - the youngest of the group - woman whose voice was as loud as her opinions were tedious.

How one growled as one tried to concentrate on a decent claret plus compendium of Orwell's novels!

Retiring to bed one evening, one's ears were further assailed by the very sounds of the most urgent of wails emanating from a neighbouring room. Not panic, not pain, but - how one suddenly noted - the very purest of pleasure! 'Twas indeed most certainly that very same loud young woman giving vent to the most breathless of carnal delights.

So what in such circumstances does one do, apart from nearly choke from embarrassment? An unintended sight of sexual congress in an open space, as can so easily happen in rural areas, is readily managed by an aversion of one's eyes or a change of direction. But a sound is far less easily obliterated.

One could hum 'Jerusalem' terribly loudly, one could turn up the volume on the television to its highest, but nothing really fully takes away the hearing of the climactic thing.

Then it struck me. This noise - joyous, totally unrestrained and completely abandoned to the pleasure of the moment - was simply youth's delight in everything it does and is. No qualms, no cares, no thoughts of anything but being alive and giving thanks for that living. Pure grateful, noisy being.

So, irksome still when one is trying to read dear George Orwell in peace, but empathetic now to a young person giving strident voice to life and to living.

There is a lot of shouting in the Psalms - bang loud the drum and cymbal - and so now I realise why there should be.

Life is to be lived loud and proud. Let the Amen resound, not indeed be muttered sorrowfully as if an apologetic murmur.

More Rare Birds...

...Well here we are in the frozen North. I jest naturally as I've yet to leave home even.

When the hire car did finally arrive at midday two hours behind time - driven by a courteous (as always) young Pole who lives on the northern coast of that country, who reads dense books on neuro-linguistic programming, who is not terribly impressed with English efficiency, whose girlfriend is studying in this country, which is why he is working here though both are intending to return home soon.......

....But hang on you say. Surely, you ask, you did not glean such level of personal detail from a casual chat such as takes place when completing necessary formalities on receipt of a hire car?

And you would be correct. This more intimate information would have been revealed only maybe during a chat over a coffee in the Rectory parlour whilst, for example, we both await a replacement vehicle, the first being dangerously defective by reason of a screw stuck right through the nearside rear wheel!

Two and a half hours late thanks to Rara Avis.

Rara Avis...

...not sure how good your Latin is, but allow me a cautionary tale about a certain well-known car rental company.

Replacement vehicle booked on the Saturday to arrive before [note the clear, unambiguous prepositional use!] 10 ack emma today. Most important as am due for a meeting in the frozen North this afternoon.

As a third party [the AA] had made the booking I took it advisable to confirm with the car hire people yesterday that all was in order with the order.

Most assuredly it was and car would be arriving before [note again] the appointed hour today.

Soon after nine the manager of the hire branch telephones to enquire whether I shall be needing the car for more than the free two days. Indeed I shall. Home collection on the Saturday. All sorted. "Car will be arriving shortly," he says.

Fifteen minutes past the hour of ten and no car. A further ten minutes and one phones to ask what, where, when and why, etc. Yet another ten pass before they can call back with some news. And not very good news at that!

"We've had problems with drivers this morning. Expect car by 11.00"

Well we rant don't we.

"Ah, but the manager phoned to let you know it would be late."

Liar, liar, pants on fire he did. That really annoys the heck out of my annoyed heck. Being late is bad enough, being told total porkies is quite another matter.

Hertz for me next time.

Four Last Things...

...so often placed in quite the wrong and misleading order you will find.

Correctly it is thus: Death, Judgement, Hell and then Heaven - not the last two reversed as commonly said. Had once even to admonish the Cardinal for writing it about face. He had the courtesy to reply accepting his error, bless him. (One does though of course now expect Papal saboteurs to arrive at any moment, Cardinals not on the whole being noted for their forgiving temperament.)

And of the four, although all are in their way last things, which ones are truly 'outcomes'? Why, only the latter two points of arrival and not the way-stations of death and judgement. (A Cardinal - not mine - once remarked that though he obviously preferred to end his days in Heaven, he was rather relaxed about how it might turn out as "I shall have friends in either place." Such clearly is the complex life of a Prince of the Church at the court of sinful mankind.)

So why this mention of last things then? Am I planning on pegging out soon? Is this merely this week's sermon's subject? Neither - certainly not the latter and one hopes not the former though one can never tell these things. (Death the thief in the night - and so forth.)

No, it is rather regarding an advance 'paper' sent by Father William in preparation for his dread impending inspection. The theme this audit round is to be - how wondrous - 'outcomes'. The difference we make to people's lives and not whether have met our 'process targets' - whatever they might be.

H, rather waspishly, opines they would be such things as numbers of gay parishioners as a proportion of the total land density. Not like her that. Must have had a falling out with George down at the Dragon Inn has put such bitter thoughts in her head. Will check with Patrick - George's 'partner' (hate the word outside of the Wednesday Bridge Cub!) - if this be so.

We shall not, in any case it seems, be required this year to provide statistically valid and reliable data on who did what to whom and when; but rather, as per Bill's paper, evidence to what effect was all this activity.

Now I can see by and large the sense in all of this. Purpose the thing not process. I rather like the idea. There is, however, a teensy sticking point here. For if we clergy have a purpose in life - and the floor is open for general comment on the premise - it is to shepherd the good and the not so good sheep through the narrow gate that leads to salvation; shooing meanwhile simple rams and ewes - not to mention these days too many wayward lambs of either sex sadly - who would rather stray to the wider way leading to perdition.

If that then is - and it is - the prime directive, how in God's good name am I to evidence its accomplishment! I am to ask the dead? I am to organise census survey seances? "Come in the Heavenly host of this Parish. Your Rector needs you!" You can see the problem.

Dear Father Bill. Come when you must and ask what you need, but please don't expect me to fathom Hell and Heaven this side of my grave!

High Days and Holy Days...

June 16th:


'Bloomsday' if you know it, being the day on which is set James Joyce's great if unreadable novel 'Ulysses'. All right not totally unreadable, my having read it twice. It just feels unreadable as one reads it, if that makes sense. The day then of generalised Joycean frolics in and around Dublin. Recitations, rehearsals and refreshments abounding from Howth Castle through the City and out once more to Dun Laoghaire. And so forth.

Been there, had fun, did eventually get home via a Joyce-inspired pub that had a different name depending on whether you came in by the front or by the back door. Truly, I tell no tale.

Also the day on which I celebrate - if quite the word - the anniversary of my being formally informed that I had sarcoma [See many previous]. Seven years and counting; not bad on an initial prognosis of around six months give or take a day or two.

So a day for some reflection, pause for grateful remembrances etc., etc? In principle yes, in practice not yesterday as such. Wretched jalopy broke down flying from one visit to the next. AA were, as ever, terribly on the case. This time though they did take more than three hours to attend; not entirely helped by the recovery ace being given a duff location - by the AA I add not by self.

John the Garage was long home by the time we finally arrived, so must wait until Monday for sucking of teeth and shaking of head from him. My fear is that this time his mournful demeanour will be horribly apposite. Methinks the gear box is done for and in. Oh mercy the cost of it all. Special collection at Vespers today? Have to admit sorely tempted!



June 17th:


What else but Father's Day. Day of universal indulgence of male parent, utter idleness and pampering? You jest of course. Day of frantic catching up from yesterday's undone tasks, not to mention horse-minding as E is at an all-day and evening (even worse) popular music concert at a distant urban (even much worse) park. H, therefore, is soundly fretting the day through as, I own, am I.

E is not due home until the midnight hour at the earliest. Self is due to depart for a week's stand-in duties at a distant parish some five hours later. Oh mercy, the worry of it all. Special prayers at Vespers today for Fathers - that is a shoe-in.

And then too an especial prayer for Gerry McCann, on this day when being a father is so lovely and so awful both and always at one and the same time.

Mild Or Bitter?

News just in from Q and very not good news at that. They have strangles.

Need I say more? Well, perhaps if you are not a person of horse. To the non-equestrian let me explain then.

For a livery yard to have to announce to the world - and telling the world is the only choice - that it has strangles among its horses is equivalent to a shopkeeper needing to inform his customers that, regrettably, bubonic plague has been discovered about the place, and would therefore all persons mind awfully keeping their considerable distance for the foreseeable future. Hoping to re-open for business in a few weeks, Yours etc....

Strangles is indeed the equine world's bubonic plague - a fast-spreading and generally lethal contagion of the airways and, when advanced, quite literally strangling the life out of the beast. (Not then the most imaginative of names, but like so much in the world of horse direct, blunt and straight to the point.)

The strictest isolation of the horse and quarantine for the yard: immediate treatment given to the infected animal, vaccinations for the rest and no one in and no one out for weeks. Prayers and curses in equal measure will be heard from behind the barricades.

Any vague association with a yard that has had strangles say any time since the ending of the Civil War and people are likely to step swiftly back and away: "Dinner next Wednesday? How perfectly splendid. Sadly rather booked for about the next three hundred years. Ciao."

We, it must at once be said, have never been to Q; though we were due there next weekend for a show. (No show, no how, not now, no fear.) But we do know someone who has been but some two weeks ago. We will telephone them to warn them of the risk. They will not need further advising that their mare is not to come within a mile of ours until she has been vaccinated and shown symptom free for at least three months.

One does of course feel desperately sorry for Q and, as the plague-cursed shop, one wishes them well in recovering their business in time. They say their strangles is 'mild'. Oh dear no. Try saying 'a mild dose of plague' and you will see how bitter is the sound.

Cometh The Hour...

...cometh it now seems the dread presence of Fr. William and his cohort of Inquisitors. Had rather hoped that when the planned and dreaded Diocesan Inspection had to be postponed following that nasty yet blessed leg injury to Fr. Henry at Easter, requiring Fr. Bill to divert to Lourdes not The Wolds (far better for his soul and my spirit), I should be spared until the next roster of DIs would be drawn up.

Even hoped that that itself might not be until just before the sudden, unexpected - though not unanticipated - sounding of the Last Trump, whence all would be called to account for far greater matters than merely the audit of the parish coffers. Sadly though 'tis not to be, so unless Our Blessed Lord sees fit to end this temporal world by Friday the week following next - and who knows? - that day will see Bill and his sharp cronies swarming all over us, with the eager ears and eyes spying on our every little move.

H is none too thrilled either as she and E have open-ended summer plans to shop and party - respectively - now that the end of dread GCSEs are but a day away. Both, however, will be needed as stout labourers in the vineyard of probity as I seek to lay my - our - hands on all the requisite paper work.

'Tons of paper, my boy, begin with tons of paper. That'll keep 'em quiet for the first day or two.' Thus wisely spoke Old Father Timothy, first PP when self just a green cleric in harness. He would open the very rectory door carrying several pounds of heavy files as a welcoming gift to the intruding inspectors.

I of course have vast quantities of paperwork about the place. Can't hardly move for boxes of the stuff - all terribly relevant to someone, somewhere, somehow no doubt - just can't at this precise point be confident I know what is where. Simply can't afford to find one's hilarious pastiche of Bishop Tom's stuffy sermonising popping out of a bundle of receipts for roof repairs for them to spot and, worse, report up high.

Winston Smith, of Orwellian '1984' fame, knew that he was doomed. O'Brien and death were surely coming, only he didn't quite know when. My state is worse then that even poor Winston's. I not only know they will come. I know when. Friday the 29th it is then. Doomsday of a kind.

Rats! As Winston would say!

Monsoon Mayhem...

...There is something especially satisfying in standing at the door of one's study that leads onto the garden watching and indeed listening as ferocious rain simply crashes down as if imitating a Somerset Maughan monsoon. Pleasure is enhanced from the very sense that such a tumultuous downpouring is almost too much slightly indecent to be true English rain. A dangerous and alluring foreign import that popped over, say, from Borneo's darkest, vibrant jungle wakening our small spirits to the proper furore of nature. Thunderous clashes too and sky-cleaving lightning. Darkness at noon sort of territory. Now that is weather to talk about.

The chemist and the baker are mildly flooded even. This news reaches me when H telephones to ensure I have remembered to close the conservatory windows, my affirmation to that point only shortly proceeding my doing of it.

Pipe in hand and from the dry fastness of the doorway one reflects on the mild irony of having spent much of the previous evening watering the precious [see previous] front lawn. One purrs in the knowledge that hedge-trimming will have to wait once more. One almost basks in the very sodden wetness of it all.

All then is good, until H returns to observe sharply that the rooflight on the jalopy is open as is the back window. Ah! How swiftly falls the man and the spirit. The seats are soaked and the boot some five inches under water.

On the whole then Borneo is better kept for the Borneans.

Mappa Mundi...

...Geography and I have never been close. As an academic discipline to be studied at school, well quite frankly I could not see the point.

One knew where France began, one had a generalised sense of Europe sufficient for the purpose and as for the rest it was all pretty plain sailing: Japan somewhere above Australia, Russia fast behind the Iron Curtain with all its allied satellites, China where she was - very east, India quite obvious on any map, Canada the home of cousins, Africa below Europe, America due west and South America well south. That sort of thing. Should the time come one needed more precise information then a good guide book would do the necessary trick.

All the natural features of these foreign places were of course terribly relevant to those who lived there, but not of great interest to oneself from any purely physical perspective. Mountains, lakes, rivers, plains - terrific stuff in their own right, but really only in any way of significance for locals.

A narrow perspective one might argue, but a reasonably pragmatic one one might riposte. Arts and science had clearly universal application, but the precise make-up of the sub-Saharan climate, for example, was not to a schoolboy with no great yearning for foreign adventure desperately a matter of particular relevance.

So it came thus that Geography was never a subject taken to examination level at school, and if I have suffered from not having that 'ology' it has never knowingly affected or afflicted me. When later in life - and I admit it has been rare - I have ventured east of Dover a stout Blue Guide has kept me completely well informed.

E too is more or less of that same persuasion - blessedly wise child - and would not have been taking Geography at all as a GCSE subject had her school not forsaken her preferred option of Sociology (a true - the true - 'ology'!). I did warn her not to expect any factual information to be forthcoming, merely endless slanted guff about 'global warming'.

I was not wrong. Two years of indoctrination on how beastly men [mostly] have been to dear Planet Earth and how we all need to hug a dolphin if we are to be redeemed from our sin of very existence. Two largely wasted years it must be said, as one can lead a teenage daughter to political correctness but this one will wrinkle her pretty nose at anything that is not about glamour, fashion or - in her special case - concerning horses.

Well, cometh the hour cometh the examination. Not being a studied or a star pupil at this one subject - no shame or her for that perhaps quite the contrary - she is entered into the 'foundation' examination. Simple questions for easy minds.

But even I could not, in my darkest - and they can be very dark - hours of despair at the corruption of the modern educational system (all of course the fell workings of that shithead T. Blair and associated cronies) and the downgrading of examination standards in order to prove - as only George Orwell could have predicted - that things not only can but are getting better all the time - have dreamt of the bathetic, puerile drivel that constitutes a test of geographic knowledge in this country in this year of Our Lord 2007.

Believe this if you are able:

Question 1: Does 'conservation' mean a) helping to protect species that are in danger of extinction or b) talking to a friend?

Question 2: When somewhere is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest does that mean that a) it is an important natural habitat worth preserving for the future or b) it's a place to be careful of lest you might fall into a swamp?

If Christ - and he did - wept for Jerusalem, then I in turn weep for my country and my people. The only geography lesson I ever needed and never wanted.

Darkness Visible...

...that was how William Styron, borrowing from John Milton, described his bleakest hours of depression and despair. A palpable blackness, more than an absence but an awful, terrifying, crushing presence.

"In the first few weeks when I slipped into dark moments of despair I was finding it quite easy to emotionally switch a light back on, but I've been finding it increasingly difficult to do. More importantly, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be able to grieve and let those emotions out."

These words now from Gerry McCann are darkness visible once more. As one father to another I pray the Lord will preserve you in that awful place and bring you once more into the light - when you can bear to face what you might have to see there.

World Going Mad...

...some will say even - and who am I to argue - that it is more gone than going mad this world of ours. But ever hopeful, as befits a clerk in holy orders, I will merely opine we are on our way to lunacy, rather than that we have arrived finally and irrevocably at the doors of that particular asylum.

One does though rather steam - and perhaps resistance is a healthier sign of struggle against the tide than abject acceptance - whenever one comes across an example of worldly - often political or corporate - insanity.

Shaking one's head in disbelief is hardly a sufficient response; sucking one's teeth in annoyance doing poor justice to the rank insult to sense or intelligence. Barking rage achieves nothing for resolution or repose; cackling laughter - though oft mooted - risks incarceration in the very place one seeks to avoid, white coated men arriving on the instant.

Announcing, therefore, the creation of an intended self-therapeutic series of 'WGM' posts with exigent examples given, as found, of the type of implausible yet rampant nonsense we all suffer.

I begin with not the worst, but one merely to hand today courtesy of Our Tel [World's Greatest Living Irishman] writing in The Sunday Telegraph. This may serve as a marker of what is to come. Readers of a nervous disposition may wish to look away now.

Man phones the Premium Bond people to inform them that he has moved address. (Well you would wouldn't you lest that precious life-changing cheque never reach you?)

He is, however, at once smartly told that 'for security reasons' [note that] said PB people cannot take such sensitive information over the telephone, but must do so using only the correctly sent and returned written form.

"But I have moved, that's the whole point. So how can you send me the form if you don't know my new address?" says the man. "Fair point well made," admits the PB person. "So will you tell me then your new address in order that I can send you the correct form?" (Thud! - a sound oft heard in this series - of head striking the desk in studied disbelief.)

More, much more, to come. It will make me feel better, I know it will.

The Last Waltz...

...Today, possibly, I have bought the last book I ever shall. Does that seem strange? Well, naturally there never could be a point - outside of a novel by dear Jorge Luis Borges - at which one could announce one possessed every book in the known universe, when one would have no choice but to cease. So what then drives this peculiar thought?

'Tis the arrival of the final three volumes of the Folio Society's edition of Anthony Powell's 'Dance to the Music of Time' series. Not entirely sure I share their choice of division of the twelve original volumes into a set of four seasonal triplets, though I can see the commercial sense. Nonetheless what could be more perfect than a perfect set of the finest sequence of English novels? Where could indeed one go from here but backwards and down?

In truth my intention has already been overturned by my action of purchasing but a few hours ago a faded yet first edition - was there one wonders ever a second? - of a volume of photographs of England in the early 1970s with an introduction - this was the selling point - by that other great English writer of that time Angus Wilson.

There is then no literal truth in the above assertion - books will continue to be shepherded in somehow - yet if there were ever to be a final last waltz then 'Dance' would be it.

All one needs now is the time to disappear for some weeks back into that sublime, touching, hilarious and often deeply sad world of Moreland, X Trapnel, Widmerpool, Erridge, Quiggin, Pamela Flitton, the Tollands et al., and - for me - above all poor, lost Charles Stringham.

Now there was a man who could dance.

Madeleine's Missing Month...

...Today is the calendar month's marking of Madeleine McCann's abduction. We pray for her safety and well-being. We pray for her distraught parents.

And yes we also pray for all families in crisis and who mourn loss and bereavement. We pray for all the unheard, those who suffer and die with no one to notice or to care. We pray for the children who have suffered and died in the time it has taken me to write these words. We pray for the whole of mankind.

But in a special place in my heart I do pray for the McCanns. Out shopping yesterday I overheard two grannies of the parish comparing notes: "You can't help but think about that poor child every minute of the day. Morning, noon and night I keep wondering what's happening to her. It's on my mind all the time."

H understands that I am on the Internet constantly and when she asks, as she always does, "Any news?" I know what she, as a mother, is asking and why.

Kate wept today when she was kissed at Mass by a village child. No greater prayer can there be than a mother's tears. This Our Lady knows.

Top Boy...

...noting that the aforementioned Sgt. Pepper had topped Rolling Stone's Top 500 all time great albums - a place not deserved - one had from curiosity to trawl the entire list to see what was there and - more significantly - what not. (So little Van Morrison. A public scandal! And not enough Dylan.)

From, though, a swift view of all 500 emerges a sweet Trivial Pursuit question: which artist's entire output features in the list? An artist who in his own lifetime was little known and whose albums sold despairingly few?

Answer?

;-)

It Was Forty Years Ago Today...

...Well, tomorrow really as it was the Saturday that Sgt. Pepper was released. There must have been some considerable advance publicity for, though more a Stones than a Beatles boy, I dashed from the house early sans breakfast in order to be outside the one and only record shop in town prompt at nine ack emma in order to be the first kid on the block with the album. (Did we not call them 'LPs' in fact in those distant days? 'Album', I suspect, being a later American import.)

Bedroom windows thrown wide open in order that the neighbours should not escape the honour of hearing this strange new music - and strange we knew it would be - I belted through the whole album (let us stick to modern terminology) time and time again. Actually it was as much the sleeve that first drew the studied attention: did I know who all these people were - I doubt I did - but the Beatles' clothes, oh my weren't they wonderful?

Psychedelia and Surrey met face to face. In fairness then I should blame the Beatles and not my juvenile desperate taste for the subsequent flood of crushed velvet loons or flowered shirts with wing collars borrowed from a Jumbo jet. (The wearing of a black velvet suit to the funeral of a senior family member was not well received, though one suspected Granny would have understood - she was always the subversive one.)

But though 'Day in the Life' did signify, Sgt. Pepper was not the turning point. That point had been turned and with far more vigour by others already. There was something of the 'us too' about the album. The Beatles showed they could do white magic. How clever of them. But then came the Maharishi and all that silly nonsense with a palpable fraud.

For some of us had already heard Frank Zappa's 'Freak Out!', which came out just as The Beatles started recording Sgt. Pepper. So too had they it seems. Canny lads. Typical Scousers.

**** and Bull!

Yes it is 'political correctness' gone mad, or rather perhaps simply that the whole world is now irremediably insane.

One may not, it seems, on the RSPB website refer to a male bird as a 'cock'. One cannot rather in a literal sense, for any attempted use of the word is at once replaced with "****". Mustn't frighten the horses apparently, so the software hacks it out automatically. (Presumably a ****erel is a complete avis non grata!)

We also read that the firemen of Greater Manchester are to be disciplined for choosing not to rest on health and safety approved chairs that they find uncomfortable, preferring a sleeping bag on the non-risk-assessed floor!

Children - there is no escape at any age - have been banned from playing in a quiet cul-de-sac in Leicestershire because...well, because they have by the Council.

One cannot work, rest or play without the fell hand of officialdom bearing down upon one. That - never forgetting Iraq - is T. Blair's 'legacy' to an ungrateful and increasingly unhappy nation.

(You will be, no doubt, delighted and reassured to learn that I have, today, been approved as a Fellow of the Society of Great Grumps.)

Oh and, by the way, one may talk of 'tits' though not ****s when speaking of birds say the RSPB. Discrimination upon absurdity!