We read with due sadness of the death the other day of Josef Stawinoga, the Wildman of Wolverhampton.
Who he, you might be asking though if you were you'd clearly not be keeping up with the world of social networking, for this fellow - some thirty or more years a tramp living on a roundabout in said town - had become something of an Internet phenomenon because someone had chosen to create a Facebook page in his honour.
Unclear how the fellow would have regarded the thing itself. Possibly loved the attention, but somehow one so much doubts it. Marooned by self-imposed exile on his road-bounded island, this Josef seemed quite to be wanting nothing but isolation from everything and everyone.
A veritable hermit then it seems. And possibly so for a purpose. For a fellow Pole - for such was Josef - who did talk with him in early years said he believed Josef had been a Nazi - SS even - soldier in the War. Did he live then in solitude to escape or perhaps to face his demons?
Were there scenes of brutality, scenes in which he had been a player, haunting his mind and soul; driving him to flee other men from whom he was parted by the part he had chosen?
In truth such speculation is not kind to the man, as none of the above might be the truth or anything near it.
One can though imagine something of the kind, for it is said that the pilot of one of the planes that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, on being discharged from the forces, became a Carthusian monk to then spend his life in silent, separate prayer for the world and all its doings.
I have met and conversed with a Carthusian monk, who when asked would not speak on the matter, yet his silence was telling of a certain truth, that after the cry of battle and the rattle of so much cruel death, perhaps only the silence of the Charterhouse or the roar of the ringroad is the place in which to hear the small, still voice of the Lord.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Back To The Future...
...from the BBC tonight:
"Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years' time as predicted by HG Wells, an expert has said. Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge. The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said - before a decline due to dependence on technology. People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added. The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures."
Can't say I've ever checked what HG Wells had to say on the subject. Likeable fellow, but not desperately sound on humanity writ large has always been my view of the man.
Have even less idea of the bona fides of the above Oliver Curry cove and not, therefore, in any position to say whether he is or is not a priori talking nonsense. You could, though, imagine it couldn't you? Whether or not the actual mechanics of selection would finally effect a definitive line between two sub-species must be questionable, but the philosophical principle of the 'uppers' seeking to differentiate and distance themselves from the 'unders' sounds plausible. ('Little Britain' versus the rest? Don't we all instinctively assume we are all the latter and none of the former?)
But does not the very concept strike at the heart of the Golden Rule of evolutionary thinking - that the fittest alone survive and others to the wall of extinction they must go?
Why then should the 'unders' survive at all? Handy perhaps as gardeners in life or avant garde table-legs in death, but if truly trolls then evolutionary theory would have them die off surely, not survive because they might be of some use to others.
The assumption, of course, is that goodness will reside with the uppers alone, the unders mere bestial bad brutes. Take a squint through the columns of the newspapers and you might not dispute that assumption. But sometimes it takes a special kind of beauty to be truly ghastly and evil.
The 'unders' may forever be in search of nicking my wallet or gunning me down for the very fun of it; but perhaps only an 'upper' would want my very soul too. And are these not the greater enemy against whom our dear Lord warned us?
So who would be more pure than an angel yet more proud than a Lucifer?
Best not meddle in such things methinks. Social evolution may be heading that way, but not sure I want the biology of the thing to keep pace.
"Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years' time as predicted by HG Wells, an expert has said. Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge. The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said - before a decline due to dependence on technology. People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added. The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures."
Can't say I've ever checked what HG Wells had to say on the subject. Likeable fellow, but not desperately sound on humanity writ large has always been my view of the man.
Have even less idea of the bona fides of the above Oliver Curry cove and not, therefore, in any position to say whether he is or is not a priori talking nonsense. You could, though, imagine it couldn't you? Whether or not the actual mechanics of selection would finally effect a definitive line between two sub-species must be questionable, but the philosophical principle of the 'uppers' seeking to differentiate and distance themselves from the 'unders' sounds plausible. ('Little Britain' versus the rest? Don't we all instinctively assume we are all the latter and none of the former?)
But does not the very concept strike at the heart of the Golden Rule of evolutionary thinking - that the fittest alone survive and others to the wall of extinction they must go?
Why then should the 'unders' survive at all? Handy perhaps as gardeners in life or avant garde table-legs in death, but if truly trolls then evolutionary theory would have them die off surely, not survive because they might be of some use to others.
The assumption, of course, is that goodness will reside with the uppers alone, the unders mere bestial bad brutes. Take a squint through the columns of the newspapers and you might not dispute that assumption. But sometimes it takes a special kind of beauty to be truly ghastly and evil.
The 'unders' may forever be in search of nicking my wallet or gunning me down for the very fun of it; but perhaps only an 'upper' would want my very soul too. And are these not the greater enemy against whom our dear Lord warned us?
So who would be more pure than an angel yet more proud than a Lucifer?
Best not meddle in such things methinks. Social evolution may be heading that way, but not sure I want the biology of the thing to keep pace.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Brothers In Arms...
...Of all the tales to emerge from the recent wondrous rugby World Cup is this inspiring story of two men separated by all that God could throw at them - the one French, the other an Englishman - yet united in a sporting brotherhood of the finest kind humanity can forge.
They met, these two great nationalists, in Toulouse at some stage in the tournament. They drank, they chatted, they shared their passion for their sport and their respective teams - as indeed rugby though not of course football fans can do in such circs.
And in the course of the conversation the Frenchman revealed that he had two treasured tickets for the final in Paris, much to the envy, naturally, of the Englishman who did not.
But then the Frenchman said "Now look here dear chap" - forgive me if I do not attempt either the accent or the style - "I assume - nay I am certain of it - that my great team will be a finalist and yours will not. That being so, you can imagine my sheer delight in being there to cheer my team to its pre-ordained victory. If, however, fate should fall the reverse and your heroes will be there whilst mine shan't - aha, aha, aha, - then I shall give [emphasis on the 'give'] you my tickets, as you are a fan of the sport and I shall know how much it would mean to you to be there in my place."
This generous offer - more perhaps within the realm of fantasy than imagination - led to the exchange of telephone numbers, though not, in the mind of the Englishman, would it result in more. But it did. For no sooner had England qualified for the final and France not, than the 'Jean de' Toulouse was on the blower saying he was on his way to Paris and would 'Jonny' Englishman care to meet him at a named bistro in order to take charge of the two promised tickets.
Tickets were duly handed over and no money, howsoever strongly pressed upon the good fellow by our boy, would be taken in return. Not one Euro, not one sous.
Pure, selfless, international, sporting altruism that was.
Hope for us all? Not necessarily, but if that can happen then pretty well anything else for the good might.
A 'Vive La France' may very well be in order here, and that takes some saying round these parts I can tell you!
They met, these two great nationalists, in Toulouse at some stage in the tournament. They drank, they chatted, they shared their passion for their sport and their respective teams - as indeed rugby though not of course football fans can do in such circs.
And in the course of the conversation the Frenchman revealed that he had two treasured tickets for the final in Paris, much to the envy, naturally, of the Englishman who did not.
But then the Frenchman said "Now look here dear chap" - forgive me if I do not attempt either the accent or the style - "I assume - nay I am certain of it - that my great team will be a finalist and yours will not. That being so, you can imagine my sheer delight in being there to cheer my team to its pre-ordained victory. If, however, fate should fall the reverse and your heroes will be there whilst mine shan't - aha, aha, aha, - then I shall give [emphasis on the 'give'] you my tickets, as you are a fan of the sport and I shall know how much it would mean to you to be there in my place."
This generous offer - more perhaps within the realm of fantasy than imagination - led to the exchange of telephone numbers, though not, in the mind of the Englishman, would it result in more. But it did. For no sooner had England qualified for the final and France not, than the 'Jean de' Toulouse was on the blower saying he was on his way to Paris and would 'Jonny' Englishman care to meet him at a named bistro in order to take charge of the two promised tickets.
Tickets were duly handed over and no money, howsoever strongly pressed upon the good fellow by our boy, would be taken in return. Not one Euro, not one sous.
Pure, selfless, international, sporting altruism that was.
Hope for us all? Not necessarily, but if that can happen then pretty well anything else for the good might.
A 'Vive La France' may very well be in order here, and that takes some saying round these parts I can tell you!
Monday, October 15, 2007
Disgusted of Maidstone...
...Well, you would be - disgusted that is - if you lived there. Not with the place itself, which though never visited is doubtless no better or no worse than it should be, but rather its hospitals.
You will, doubtless, have read of the recent appalling mortal brush with C Diff. there and, as have I and Bro. Geo alike, more or less gasped at the very shame of it.
What also you may have read is the very different experience of H's treasured mother when once a young nurse at Barts.
That story is buried somewhere in the archives though if I, as author, cannot find it there is little hope, expectation or requirement that you, dear reader, should.
So here once more is the tale of how once hygiene was done and done well in the early days of the NHS.
Some fifty or so years back, H's mother had opted for a nursing career as quite the thing for a growing gal of that time. ('Twas not finally to be, for she was eventually to ditch the nursing for the doctoring, ascending the medical professional scale to dizzying heights before retiring as Consultant Professor of Radiology. That though was for later.)
As a student nurse one of the requirements of the post, apart from doing everything required at once and perfectly, was to reside in the nurses' home of Barts. There at rest one night after a day's ceaseless and dedicated toil, she was woken from her slumbers around midnight with a call that Matron wanted to see her at once on the Ward.
Fearing the worst - that a minor oversight on her part such as forgetting to plug in some hapless patient to their saline drip had resulted in a slow agonising death - she dressed furiously and legged it at once to the Ward to be met by the fierce and unrelenting face of a Matron on a mission.
Matron had, indeed, been on a mission: to make a sudden, unannounced swoop on her - very much 'her' - Wards at the midnight hour just to make sure that her - again very much 'her' - usual daytime high standards of conduct (staff and patient alike of course) were being kept in her nocturnal absence.
Sure enough she had spotted a gross lapse and one that merited instant attention and rectification. H's Ma thence as she entered the Ward, wondering who on earth she might have inadvertently slaughtered, found Matron positively incandescent with silent rage pointing at a most awful sight.
For there at the end, as it were, of the point, was a bread bin in the Ward kitchen and outside of, instead of its only rightful place inside, said bread bin was a loaf of bread. Few words were needed: yes the Ma had been the last to use the bread in preparing a late-evening snack for a hungry patient - a good and terribly outmoded thing in itself of course - and yes, she had omitted to replace it in the correct and hygienic repository of the very bin appointed for the very purpose and no, she couldn't fathom what had caused her to be so remiss, foolish and unheeding of proper process.
Two persons that night caught it severely in the neck from Matron. The H's Ma for one naturally, but so too the Ward Sister who had not spotted and rectified the thing herself as she as 'manager' - a word not then known - oughta.
Condign punishment, therefore, was something like thirty lashes for the nurse, but a round fifty for the Ward Sister for her even greater failure of duty. (We are, of course, talking tongue lashes rather than the more literal cat o' nine tails variety, though by report Matron's tongue in such matters was far sharper and wounding than any knotted cord.)
That was infection control in the health service fifty years ago. A loaf of bread not properly stored was such a terrible breach of hygiene that it brought down the wrath of the God or - worse - His plenipotentiary on Earth of the time Matron.
Come a long way down since then I fear and what a desperately long way back up again it is.
You will, doubtless, have read of the recent appalling mortal brush with C Diff. there and, as have I and Bro. Geo alike, more or less gasped at the very shame of it.
What also you may have read is the very different experience of H's treasured mother when once a young nurse at Barts.
That story is buried somewhere in the archives though if I, as author, cannot find it there is little hope, expectation or requirement that you, dear reader, should.
So here once more is the tale of how once hygiene was done and done well in the early days of the NHS.
Some fifty or so years back, H's mother had opted for a nursing career as quite the thing for a growing gal of that time. ('Twas not finally to be, for she was eventually to ditch the nursing for the doctoring, ascending the medical professional scale to dizzying heights before retiring as Consultant Professor of Radiology. That though was for later.)
As a student nurse one of the requirements of the post, apart from doing everything required at once and perfectly, was to reside in the nurses' home of Barts. There at rest one night after a day's ceaseless and dedicated toil, she was woken from her slumbers around midnight with a call that Matron wanted to see her at once on the Ward.
Fearing the worst - that a minor oversight on her part such as forgetting to plug in some hapless patient to their saline drip had resulted in a slow agonising death - she dressed furiously and legged it at once to the Ward to be met by the fierce and unrelenting face of a Matron on a mission.
Matron had, indeed, been on a mission: to make a sudden, unannounced swoop on her - very much 'her' - Wards at the midnight hour just to make sure that her - again very much 'her' - usual daytime high standards of conduct (staff and patient alike of course) were being kept in her nocturnal absence.
Sure enough she had spotted a gross lapse and one that merited instant attention and rectification. H's Ma thence as she entered the Ward, wondering who on earth she might have inadvertently slaughtered, found Matron positively incandescent with silent rage pointing at a most awful sight.
For there at the end, as it were, of the point, was a bread bin in the Ward kitchen and outside of, instead of its only rightful place inside, said bread bin was a loaf of bread. Few words were needed: yes the Ma had been the last to use the bread in preparing a late-evening snack for a hungry patient - a good and terribly outmoded thing in itself of course - and yes, she had omitted to replace it in the correct and hygienic repository of the very bin appointed for the very purpose and no, she couldn't fathom what had caused her to be so remiss, foolish and unheeding of proper process.
Two persons that night caught it severely in the neck from Matron. The H's Ma for one naturally, but so too the Ward Sister who had not spotted and rectified the thing herself as she as 'manager' - a word not then known - oughta.
Condign punishment, therefore, was something like thirty lashes for the nurse, but a round fifty for the Ward Sister for her even greater failure of duty. (We are, of course, talking tongue lashes rather than the more literal cat o' nine tails variety, though by report Matron's tongue in such matters was far sharper and wounding than any knotted cord.)
That was infection control in the health service fifty years ago. A loaf of bread not properly stored was such a terrible breach of hygiene that it brought down the wrath of the God or - worse - His plenipotentiary on Earth of the time Matron.
Come a long way down since then I fear and what a desperately long way back up again it is.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Iron Man...
...there we were, the two of us, closely scrutinising the wares on offer, handling the goods, testing the machines. Finally, independently, our respective choices were made.
"Oh," said the young lady shop assistant. "You both want the same one do you? I'd better see if we have two of them in stock."
And off she went with a soft, yet giggling, smile as if humorously struck by the sight of the pair of us among her electricals, as it were.
A tense moment indeed! For what if she were to return announcing she had but the one? Would we two men have to go head-to-head in contest for the right to buy our new iron?
For the new iron was our mutual intent, and who said men hate shopping? (What we men actually despair of are the women folk who destroy irons by using them at too high a setting when ironing synthetics, thence depositing sticky nylon goo all over the blade of the thing!)
Ever eirenic and wanting to establish a situation-defusing human rapport with my fellow hunter-gatherer of steam irons, I turned to ask him if he too were the ironer in his household. He - a youngish, if overly portly, Asian gentleman - raised up his face in sad empathy: "Ah, yes. My wife says she cannot iron and when she does have a go makes such a terrible mess of it I have to agree with her."
The very words that would have come from my own lips had the question been posed to, rather than by, myself. For H has long professed utter ignorance in the ironing department, and whenever pressed - as it were - to prove her mettle by having a bash makes a complete hash of the thing. On purpose of course, of that I am as sure as doubtless my companion of the moment is of his own dear spouse.
Not exactly a clever trick by any measure of subtlety - not at a level of chicanery that could convincingly throw a horse race - but an effective one for all that. Five minutes of watching a treasured shirt suffer the indignity of H's feeble, yet disastrous, attempts to knock it into any wearable shape - cuffs all over the place and the front a corrugated mass of cloth - and I'm back on the case at once, with H bowing to, and bowing out before, the mighty male. (The bow hides the self-satisfied smirk, but none too well!)
Mercifully, for the sake of peace on earth and within departmental stores in N., our young lady helper was spotted returning with a pair of the chosen irons.
"There you are boys. Happy ironing," she said.
And I could tell from the knowing voice that here was a third cunning female who practiced the same dark art at home: "But Kenneth, you know you're so much better at it than I am."
A moment of some personal humiliation you might ask? Not at all, either of us would have replied. There had been a fine passage of masculine bonding 'twixt the two of us, for we knew - though unspoken - that we had each chosen the particular iron we both had because, as seasoned experts in the field, we had spotted the neat and nifty shape of the thing - simply perfectly crafted for those tricky cuffs. That was our silent pride in our art.
H would never understand either the shape or the pleasure in it we men enjoy. It's primoridial and quite gnostic. It's an iron man thing.
"Oh," said the young lady shop assistant. "You both want the same one do you? I'd better see if we have two of them in stock."
And off she went with a soft, yet giggling, smile as if humorously struck by the sight of the pair of us among her electricals, as it were.
A tense moment indeed! For what if she were to return announcing she had but the one? Would we two men have to go head-to-head in contest for the right to buy our new iron?
For the new iron was our mutual intent, and who said men hate shopping? (What we men actually despair of are the women folk who destroy irons by using them at too high a setting when ironing synthetics, thence depositing sticky nylon goo all over the blade of the thing!)
Ever eirenic and wanting to establish a situation-defusing human rapport with my fellow hunter-gatherer of steam irons, I turned to ask him if he too were the ironer in his household. He - a youngish, if overly portly, Asian gentleman - raised up his face in sad empathy: "Ah, yes. My wife says she cannot iron and when she does have a go makes such a terrible mess of it I have to agree with her."
The very words that would have come from my own lips had the question been posed to, rather than by, myself. For H has long professed utter ignorance in the ironing department, and whenever pressed - as it were - to prove her mettle by having a bash makes a complete hash of the thing. On purpose of course, of that I am as sure as doubtless my companion of the moment is of his own dear spouse.
Not exactly a clever trick by any measure of subtlety - not at a level of chicanery that could convincingly throw a horse race - but an effective one for all that. Five minutes of watching a treasured shirt suffer the indignity of H's feeble, yet disastrous, attempts to knock it into any wearable shape - cuffs all over the place and the front a corrugated mass of cloth - and I'm back on the case at once, with H bowing to, and bowing out before, the mighty male. (The bow hides the self-satisfied smirk, but none too well!)
Mercifully, for the sake of peace on earth and within departmental stores in N., our young lady helper was spotted returning with a pair of the chosen irons.
"There you are boys. Happy ironing," she said.
And I could tell from the knowing voice that here was a third cunning female who practiced the same dark art at home: "But Kenneth, you know you're so much better at it than I am."
A moment of some personal humiliation you might ask? Not at all, either of us would have replied. There had been a fine passage of masculine bonding 'twixt the two of us, for we knew - though unspoken - that we had each chosen the particular iron we both had because, as seasoned experts in the field, we had spotted the neat and nifty shape of the thing - simply perfectly crafted for those tricky cuffs. That was our silent pride in our art.
H would never understand either the shape or the pleasure in it we men enjoy. It's primoridial and quite gnostic. It's an iron man thing.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Signs and Portents...
This from the Beeb today. (Official health warning yet to arrive from Diocesan HQ. Bit odd, when you consider how swift them Elven Safety folk ordinarily are to act.)
Dog collar clergy 'risk attack'
Members of the UK clergy are being advised to take off their dog collars when they are on their own, to reduce the risk of being attacked.
National Churchwatch, which provides personal safety advice, says vicars are attacked more often than professions such as GPs and probation officers. The organisation's Nick Tolson said all clergy should consider the advice, including the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The group also produces security advice for churches and churchworkers. Mr Tolson said: "When they are on their own, and when they are off duty - for example when they are doing their shopping in Tesco on their own - there is no need for them to wear their dog collars.
"All that does is to attract people who see the dog collars, and if they are motivated towards violence, it puts them [clergy] in a very difficult situation."
...not sure the Bearded Bard (Arch of C.) himself ever ventures into Tesco as such for the week's shopping. See him more as a farmer's market sort of green cove if and when attending to his own domestics.
Leaving though that aside, the advice is probably sound in as far as it goes - which is not very far indeed. Forsooth, it's hard enough encouraging chaps and chappesses to wear the badge of trade in the place of work itself - Church, Chapel or how so you - so anything that further tends to advocate mufti is not that welcome.
Are we really to beat the retreat for fear of a sound beating? I hope not, though owning that clerical assault is rare not rife in The Wolds.
But then again, were one blind or sight impaired - as one now says - one wouldn't here not carry a white stick for fear of it drawing down violence.
And could that be, you ask, anywhere? Well, sadly yes. Two young feral thugs have just been sentenced for murdering a disabled man. They beat and kicked him to death. (Hardly news anymore - and how wretched is the world become that one can say that?)
The victim, who was partially sighted, was asked by one who came to help him after the attack that was the next day to be the cause of his death from brain injury, why he didn't carry a white stick.
'Tried that,' he said. 'But had to stop because people took it as a signal to hit me.'
No, I shall not be desisting from the dog-collar out of fear, and should someone wish to pick a fight on that basis then they will be learning hard and fast the true meaning of 'muscular Christianity'!
Saturday, October 06, 2007
"Suicide Is Painless..."
...as the song goes. From the 'M.A.S.H.' theme tune if you recall. Not a sentiment I would ordinarily accept or embrace.
Yet a dream has me pondering.
I'm in a hospital, a patient clearly so something must be wrong. Drastic action required. In this case - or at least in this dream - suicide by self-shooting is the great leap forward.
Have to be careful - as one does in such circs. - that no one else should be hurt, so can't hang around with loaded pistol in the ward as such, but must seek unoccupied corridor.
A crowd gathers - as it would these days - to enjoy sight of man blowing his brains out.
There was a droll cartoon some many years back of a chaplain attending a possible 'jumper' - man threatening to hurl himself off a high building roof. Police say to chaplain 'Talk him down Vicar!' As man comes flying down to his doom chaplain cries out through the megaphone 'Left leg up a bit!' Not hugely amusing if you've ever known a friend - as I have - die this way, but you see the essential humorous intent: it just wouldn't happen that way, therefore it's funny. What sadly these days wrecks the humour are reports - not infrequent - of people yelling 'Go on, jump then you saddo' and other such heartless comments.
Anyways, so there I was in the dream attempting to inform the voyeuristic mob why self-immolation was the way to be - or rather essentially to cease to be.
A rank failure all round it seemed, as people just drifted off leaving me alone with an absolute peach of a young woman. Someone one knew, someone one didn't quite remember ever having understood until this moment how much one desired this gorgeous creature, but now indeed a woman perfectly prepared and willing to be so desired.
Gosh and all that jazz. Was the chance of some carnal congress with such a one, skin as smooth as glass, a better bet than instant annihilation? One should jolly well cocoa!
That premise though firmly established, Miss Smooth-As-Glass promptly announces she fancies - nay definitively intends - visiting said hospital Chapel ante the carnal congress thingy.
Bit of an unwarranted distraction from the the main event, who would not dispute; but, ever the gen'leman, one must but oblige. So we swing open the door of what proves to be a tiny room, though gloriously furnished with all sensual trimmings even - I kid not - a couch avec shedloads of the most softly seductive cushions...and so forth.
Not so much too much information, as too many radical contradictions even for a dream. Surrealism is all very well in its place (Real Madrid - 1 : Surreal Madrid - Fish... and so forth) but this was way pushing it.
I make my excuses and flee - as it says in all the best tabloid headlines. Dreams? I'd rather face French rugby's Chabal homme-de-homme, as it were, than such febrile nonsense.
Herr Freud, you may have the night off!
Yet a dream has me pondering.
I'm in a hospital, a patient clearly so something must be wrong. Drastic action required. In this case - or at least in this dream - suicide by self-shooting is the great leap forward.
Have to be careful - as one does in such circs. - that no one else should be hurt, so can't hang around with loaded pistol in the ward as such, but must seek unoccupied corridor.
A crowd gathers - as it would these days - to enjoy sight of man blowing his brains out.
There was a droll cartoon some many years back of a chaplain attending a possible 'jumper' - man threatening to hurl himself off a high building roof. Police say to chaplain 'Talk him down Vicar!' As man comes flying down to his doom chaplain cries out through the megaphone 'Left leg up a bit!' Not hugely amusing if you've ever known a friend - as I have - die this way, but you see the essential humorous intent: it just wouldn't happen that way, therefore it's funny. What sadly these days wrecks the humour are reports - not infrequent - of people yelling 'Go on, jump then you saddo' and other such heartless comments.
Anyways, so there I was in the dream attempting to inform the voyeuristic mob why self-immolation was the way to be - or rather essentially to cease to be.
A rank failure all round it seemed, as people just drifted off leaving me alone with an absolute peach of a young woman. Someone one knew, someone one didn't quite remember ever having understood until this moment how much one desired this gorgeous creature, but now indeed a woman perfectly prepared and willing to be so desired.
Gosh and all that jazz. Was the chance of some carnal congress with such a one, skin as smooth as glass, a better bet than instant annihilation? One should jolly well cocoa!
That premise though firmly established, Miss Smooth-As-Glass promptly announces she fancies - nay definitively intends - visiting said hospital Chapel ante the carnal congress thingy.
Bit of an unwarranted distraction from the the main event, who would not dispute; but, ever the gen'leman, one must but oblige. So we swing open the door of what proves to be a tiny room, though gloriously furnished with all sensual trimmings even - I kid not - a couch avec shedloads of the most softly seductive cushions...and so forth.
Not so much too much information, as too many radical contradictions even for a dream. Surrealism is all very well in its place (Real Madrid - 1 : Surreal Madrid - Fish... and so forth) but this was way pushing it.
I make my excuses and flee - as it says in all the best tabloid headlines. Dreams? I'd rather face French rugby's Chabal homme-de-homme, as it were, than such febrile nonsense.
Herr Freud, you may have the night off!
Friday, October 05, 2007
Remembering Rosemary...
Some modern scientific cove has just demonstrated what the Ancients knew all along - not to mention The Bard's poor, dear doomed Ophelia - that if you need a little boost in the flagging memory department then a dose of rosemary is quite the thing for you.
No doubt this modern scientific cove has found some wondrous chemical process to account for the marvel, using properly rigorous experimental techniques - RCTs and all that jazz. Impressive those these experiments are for proving this and proving that, personally I've always been more impressed by the older heuristic model of learning, which boils down to the 'suck it and see' approach. (Rather bold this really, and not just 'hit and hope' as oft mooted by the unwise - "Go on Dave, you eat that strange new berry and if you're not dead within the hour we'll know it's safe to eat." "Right ho captain!")
You do ponder how such a generic, observational method worked in practice regarding our rosemary.
Cue the Agora, circa 445 BC:
"You seen old Damocles," they'd say. "Anyone else noticed his memory has sharpened shedloads these past months? Used to be quite incapable of carrying two thoughts in his head at any one time and now he's reciting whole chunks of Herodotus with no effort whatsoever."
"Well, yes indeed, now that you mention it I have. He was round the other night to give me news of the latest ideas coming from that dangerous chap Socrates. One to watch I must say! Quite a corrupter of the young in my book - Socrates not dear Dam of course. And yes, there he was - Dam not Soc - giving it large on some of the most convoluted concepts this side of the Peloponnese, when I can recall at school he could barely function without wax tablets to remind him what day it was. Wonder what's going on here?"
"All seemed to start," someone would note, "after he inherited that rosemary farm from his uncle. Keeps going on about how this mere herb can transform one from a dullard to a maestro. I had assumed this was all just a rather vulgar sales pitch, but now I wonder if he's actually on to something. Apart from a cornered market in rosemary of course."
Get that reported in the Athenian Times and sooner or later some reader will write in with a tale of how his cousin Paulinus wouldn't have made it through the Academy without daily doses of said herb to help him memorise all those endless rules of rhetoric or reams of dusty grammar. A body of evidence grows, success is the key - it actually works - and thence it becomes a known thing. Rosemary for memory. QED. (Or the Greek equivalent, which at this early hour quite escapes me!)
Well, anyway, howsoever we came to figure the thing, I can only aver that my chum Cedric must have been weaned on the stuff from early infancy and now a grown man can only surely feast on it twice daily.
For Cedric runs one of those tele-communication retail premises, so handy when one has forgotten how to access one's messages or else dropped the wretched mobile device down some passing well or other accident. A quick pop in to see young Cedric and all is sorted in a trice, with a smile, a chat and a whoosh as the next imbecile is helped to connect to the world.
Now one was chez Cedric's the other week in search of a new machine for the missus. Not that H, as such, was in need of an upgrade or whatever the term is, but rather that dear [!] E having been lent said H's phone for the duration of a music festival came home blithely announcing "Oh, and mum's phone's been stolen." Meaning of course nothing more than that she's lost it somewhere, somehow. Put it down and forgot to pick it up again. (Not enough rosemary in that one's diet clearly!)
Had the man himself have been there, then there would have been no problem striping this one down on the insurance. Rules may be rules, but our Ced knows ways of circumventing them in order to keep the customer satisfied and solvent. 'Gave it to your daughter, who promptly loses it 'cos she's a divvy teenager and you come in here hoping to claim on insurance, no frigging chance' the rule book would have said. (As indeed it did.)
To Ced that though would have been but the beginning of a process of negotiation on one's behalf with the suits at head office, the upshot of which would doubtless have been self leaving the shop with state-of-the-art, best-in-show, free new phone and the suits routed.
Trouble was that day our man was not there! He'd been summonsed for some management shindig - I trust to something like early rounds of the 'Manager of the Year' roadshow - leaving a worthy, but by no means adequate, staff officer in charge for the day and one by no means a match for the suits. 'New phone wanted? Then in the circs that's fifty quid to you and no arguing.' That sort of thing. With no Cedric to assist no other choice was there but tearfully - well not literally of course - to pay up.
In passing - and as well as parting with fifty of Her Majesty' finest banknotes - I also bought myself a cheap yet handy device, namely a wind-up phone charger. Can you believe it? First the wind-up radio and now the phone charger. Brilliant for those awkward, nay near desperate, moments when one is trapped half-way down a cliff having toppled over the edge for some obscure reason and mighty, mighty keen to summons help via the phone only to find the battery is dead and not a three-pin socket with charger to hand. Could happen any day one reckoned.
So the gadget was bought - and duly found to be broken! The crank handle had fallen off just from looking at it! Must return it of course, though not today let's wait until Cedric is back with us once more. (Funnily enough, whilst I'd been waiting for the suits to speak two other customers came in asking "Where's Cedric then?" and on being told he was away for the day opined that that was a shame as he was so kind and helpful etc.)
And so then yesterday one did return to said Cedric's place happily to find the man at home once more. Explained the circs., said casually yet truthfully "Wouldn't have happened if you'd been here" to which, mirabile dictu, said Cedric said: "That's very kind of you [one's name given!] to say so."
Now pause a moment to reflect. This fellow must see a hundred or more people in a working day and our meetings are but twice or thrice a year. All right, one might reasonably expect one to be recognised and recalled as a general type or even as a person in one's own individual right. But for him to have my name to hand that way!
You don't get that from a bucket of rosemary. That comes with class.
No doubt this modern scientific cove has found some wondrous chemical process to account for the marvel, using properly rigorous experimental techniques - RCTs and all that jazz. Impressive those these experiments are for proving this and proving that, personally I've always been more impressed by the older heuristic model of learning, which boils down to the 'suck it and see' approach. (Rather bold this really, and not just 'hit and hope' as oft mooted by the unwise - "Go on Dave, you eat that strange new berry and if you're not dead within the hour we'll know it's safe to eat." "Right ho captain!")
You do ponder how such a generic, observational method worked in practice regarding our rosemary.
Cue the Agora, circa 445 BC:
"You seen old Damocles," they'd say. "Anyone else noticed his memory has sharpened shedloads these past months? Used to be quite incapable of carrying two thoughts in his head at any one time and now he's reciting whole chunks of Herodotus with no effort whatsoever."
"Well, yes indeed, now that you mention it I have. He was round the other night to give me news of the latest ideas coming from that dangerous chap Socrates. One to watch I must say! Quite a corrupter of the young in my book - Socrates not dear Dam of course. And yes, there he was - Dam not Soc - giving it large on some of the most convoluted concepts this side of the Peloponnese, when I can recall at school he could barely function without wax tablets to remind him what day it was. Wonder what's going on here?"
"All seemed to start," someone would note, "after he inherited that rosemary farm from his uncle. Keeps going on about how this mere herb can transform one from a dullard to a maestro. I had assumed this was all just a rather vulgar sales pitch, but now I wonder if he's actually on to something. Apart from a cornered market in rosemary of course."
Get that reported in the Athenian Times and sooner or later some reader will write in with a tale of how his cousin Paulinus wouldn't have made it through the Academy without daily doses of said herb to help him memorise all those endless rules of rhetoric or reams of dusty grammar. A body of evidence grows, success is the key - it actually works - and thence it becomes a known thing. Rosemary for memory. QED. (Or the Greek equivalent, which at this early hour quite escapes me!)
Well, anyway, howsoever we came to figure the thing, I can only aver that my chum Cedric must have been weaned on the stuff from early infancy and now a grown man can only surely feast on it twice daily.
For Cedric runs one of those tele-communication retail premises, so handy when one has forgotten how to access one's messages or else dropped the wretched mobile device down some passing well or other accident. A quick pop in to see young Cedric and all is sorted in a trice, with a smile, a chat and a whoosh as the next imbecile is helped to connect to the world.
Now one was chez Cedric's the other week in search of a new machine for the missus. Not that H, as such, was in need of an upgrade or whatever the term is, but rather that dear [!] E having been lent said H's phone for the duration of a music festival came home blithely announcing "Oh, and mum's phone's been stolen." Meaning of course nothing more than that she's lost it somewhere, somehow. Put it down and forgot to pick it up again. (Not enough rosemary in that one's diet clearly!)
Had the man himself have been there, then there would have been no problem striping this one down on the insurance. Rules may be rules, but our Ced knows ways of circumventing them in order to keep the customer satisfied and solvent. 'Gave it to your daughter, who promptly loses it 'cos she's a divvy teenager and you come in here hoping to claim on insurance, no frigging chance' the rule book would have said. (As indeed it did.)
To Ced that though would have been but the beginning of a process of negotiation on one's behalf with the suits at head office, the upshot of which would doubtless have been self leaving the shop with state-of-the-art, best-in-show, free new phone and the suits routed.
Trouble was that day our man was not there! He'd been summonsed for some management shindig - I trust to something like early rounds of the 'Manager of the Year' roadshow - leaving a worthy, but by no means adequate, staff officer in charge for the day and one by no means a match for the suits. 'New phone wanted? Then in the circs that's fifty quid to you and no arguing.' That sort of thing. With no Cedric to assist no other choice was there but tearfully - well not literally of course - to pay up.
In passing - and as well as parting with fifty of Her Majesty' finest banknotes - I also bought myself a cheap yet handy device, namely a wind-up phone charger. Can you believe it? First the wind-up radio and now the phone charger. Brilliant for those awkward, nay near desperate, moments when one is trapped half-way down a cliff having toppled over the edge for some obscure reason and mighty, mighty keen to summons help via the phone only to find the battery is dead and not a three-pin socket with charger to hand. Could happen any day one reckoned.
So the gadget was bought - and duly found to be broken! The crank handle had fallen off just from looking at it! Must return it of course, though not today let's wait until Cedric is back with us once more. (Funnily enough, whilst I'd been waiting for the suits to speak two other customers came in asking "Where's Cedric then?" and on being told he was away for the day opined that that was a shame as he was so kind and helpful etc.)
And so then yesterday one did return to said Cedric's place happily to find the man at home once more. Explained the circs., said casually yet truthfully "Wouldn't have happened if you'd been here" to which, mirabile dictu, said Cedric said: "That's very kind of you [one's name given!] to say so."
Now pause a moment to reflect. This fellow must see a hundred or more people in a working day and our meetings are but twice or thrice a year. All right, one might reasonably expect one to be recognised and recalled as a general type or even as a person in one's own individual right. But for him to have my name to hand that way!
You don't get that from a bucket of rosemary. That comes with class.
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