...More from the madness that is North Wales.
Not the place or even the people of course, but the doings of the North Wales Police, who now have fined two teenage girls for drawing hearts and rainbows on pavements using nothing more lethal than pavement chalks!
The police rationale was that the nearby - not so nearby in fact - University had been suffering from gross graffiti vandalism and that, therefore, anyone doing anything remotely proximate in either place or deed must be punished with the full force of the law.
Total tosh of course.
There are two things that lie behind this. One is the revelation that police across the lands have been handing out fines all over the shop for non-events simply to boost their 'detection' rates. Not real crimes of course, but who cares when your performance related pay depends on your detection rate?
The other factor of course is the leadership of the force. The person who sets the direction and action of his or her police officers. And who do we have in North Wales? None other than Barking Brunstrom of course.
Nick, nick!
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
"Hail Hail Freedonia..."
...Has been too long indeed since one watched delightful 'Duck Soup' or indeed any of the Marx Brothers' films. (In the attic, though, there is still somewhere one's favourite political tee-shirt bearing the Godard slogan 'Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho'.)
Tonight one is entirely in the mood for a Marxist film, having been listening to George's latest great wheeze. This of course is George of Dragon Inn fame, an innkeeper of sound, traditional iconoclastic and anti-establishment views. He has been brooding, as indeed he would from a commercial as well as a political philosophy point of view, upon the impending wretched public ban on smoking in our supposed free kingdom.
Due credit to the man and his principles, George has been as much exercised by the offence to his belief in minimal government interference in one's life as by the potential dire effect on his takings of this perverse measure.
To thwart the ban in some measure has been his recent growing desire, for which I, as a smoker and free-thinker, thank him. He has given consideration to the building of outdoor shelters with suitable heating. Practical if too costly for consideration. An alternative, though, of knocking down three of the main walls of the pub to make it an open not enclosed space has been written off as simply barking, whereas conversion of the entire Inn into a lunatic asylum - where smoking must be permitted as it is someone's home - has of course been met with the reasonable observational jibe that we are all inmates of such an institution already.
The wireless today has given George a terrific idea and it is this we celebrate. For a pub, in Cornwall I believe, has come up with the splendid notion of seeking consular status with Peru! Should it be accepted for such an honour by that great nation, then smoking would have to be permitted therein as, of course, smoking must continue to be allowed on what is effectively foreign soil.
A merry evening has therefore been spent by we drinkers and free-thinkers trying to decide which would be an appropriate country to which to apply for similar consular status! Being of a literary bent as I am, I suggested Cuba from 'Our Man in Havana' - a way perhaps of returning the book's compliment. Sweden was naturally mentioned as there is such native blood in many a Woldean, from incursions across the North Sea. Turkey too was a favourite, it being the native home of our patron saint himself.
All in all the mood was for somewhere with a warm clime as well as loose temperament towards free spirited living, so Western Samoa was our near consensus choice. George is therefore, even as we speak, composing a letter to the country's head of state on the matter. (It would be slightly shaming, if honest, to admit that we had to look up his name - His Highness Tanumafili II - on the Internet.)
One hopes, of course for good things from this brave initiative. There is though in my mind fermenting an even more radical proposal, which is is this. If, say, we Woldeans were to declare independence - or perhaps simply our village of X - then, as the great sovereign nation of 'Freedonia' - naturally - we would grant consular status to every pub or club in the land that wished it!
Smoke gets in your eyes eh, T. Blair?
We would of course also take up the tax before the carpets naturally. Well you have to don't you! (Watch the film for answers.)
Tonight one is entirely in the mood for a Marxist film, having been listening to George's latest great wheeze. This of course is George of Dragon Inn fame, an innkeeper of sound, traditional iconoclastic and anti-establishment views. He has been brooding, as indeed he would from a commercial as well as a political philosophy point of view, upon the impending wretched public ban on smoking in our supposed free kingdom.
Due credit to the man and his principles, George has been as much exercised by the offence to his belief in minimal government interference in one's life as by the potential dire effect on his takings of this perverse measure.
To thwart the ban in some measure has been his recent growing desire, for which I, as a smoker and free-thinker, thank him. He has given consideration to the building of outdoor shelters with suitable heating. Practical if too costly for consideration. An alternative, though, of knocking down three of the main walls of the pub to make it an open not enclosed space has been written off as simply barking, whereas conversion of the entire Inn into a lunatic asylum - where smoking must be permitted as it is someone's home - has of course been met with the reasonable observational jibe that we are all inmates of such an institution already.
The wireless today has given George a terrific idea and it is this we celebrate. For a pub, in Cornwall I believe, has come up with the splendid notion of seeking consular status with Peru! Should it be accepted for such an honour by that great nation, then smoking would have to be permitted therein as, of course, smoking must continue to be allowed on what is effectively foreign soil.
A merry evening has therefore been spent by we drinkers and free-thinkers trying to decide which would be an appropriate country to which to apply for similar consular status! Being of a literary bent as I am, I suggested Cuba from 'Our Man in Havana' - a way perhaps of returning the book's compliment. Sweden was naturally mentioned as there is such native blood in many a Woldean, from incursions across the North Sea. Turkey too was a favourite, it being the native home of our patron saint himself.
All in all the mood was for somewhere with a warm clime as well as loose temperament towards free spirited living, so Western Samoa was our near consensus choice. George is therefore, even as we speak, composing a letter to the country's head of state on the matter. (It would be slightly shaming, if honest, to admit that we had to look up his name - His Highness Tanumafili II - on the Internet.)
One hopes, of course for good things from this brave initiative. There is though in my mind fermenting an even more radical proposal, which is is this. If, say, we Woldeans were to declare independence - or perhaps simply our village of X - then, as the great sovereign nation of 'Freedonia' - naturally - we would grant consular status to every pub or club in the land that wished it!
Smoke gets in your eyes eh, T. Blair?
We would of course also take up the tax before the carpets naturally. Well you have to don't you! (Watch the film for answers.)
Bring Me The Head...
...of John the Baptist is the most obvious reference. Or perhaps Alfredo Garcia among film buffs.
Today though we have another possibility. For Richard Brunstrom, the clearly deranged Chief Constable of North Wales and a complete zealot in his pursuit of motorists who speed, saw fit to use the image of a decapitated motorcyclist - killed some few years ago in a road traffic accident - in a presentation attended by journalists and others. (One could, apparently, see the dead man's head, severed from his body and still inside his helmet, with his eyes wide open in death.)
This Mr Brunstrom did - sick enough in itself - without the permission of the relatives of the dead man.
Shaming and shameful. Mr Brunstrom must resign forthwith.
Today though we have another possibility. For Richard Brunstrom, the clearly deranged Chief Constable of North Wales and a complete zealot in his pursuit of motorists who speed, saw fit to use the image of a decapitated motorcyclist - killed some few years ago in a road traffic accident - in a presentation attended by journalists and others. (One could, apparently, see the dead man's head, severed from his body and still inside his helmet, with his eyes wide open in death.)
This Mr Brunstrom did - sick enough in itself - without the permission of the relatives of the dead man.
Shaming and shameful. Mr Brunstrom must resign forthwith.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Bowled Over...
...Ordinarily you will find me generally well-disposed towards the Constabulary, as - by and large - decent men and women dedicated - on the whole - to the preservation of Her Majesty's peace and the safety of her subjects.
Not, however, this morning. The post brings an unusual letter bearing one's fullest of full names. Though expected that this should turn out to be a communication from one of the very few financial institutions with whom one has, for safe keeping, entrusted the meagre Palladas family jewels, expectation has been dashed on discovering it to be rather a speeding ticket for a motoring offence issued on behalf of our local Chief Constable!
Yes, bangs to right and all that of course. But what is the A1 for on a clear day if not for some fast motoring? For though it should not be, I have to own that it is one of my few pure pleasures in life to nip along roads at speeds suited to the occasion. Call me Mr. Toad if you wish, but unlike the beast I never drive dangerously, merely fast. Arbitrary speed restrictions are of no consequence. Should the road be bad or the weather poor you will not find me racing but rather travelling steadily. When, however, conditions permit, then bowling along is quite the thing.
Or rather it was. It is not so much the penalty that irks, but the thought that for the next three years - well perhaps only some weeks - I needs must keep the pedal quite off the metal, as dear Jeremy Clarkson would say. (If, therefore, you should spot in future days a singularly cross looking cleric crawling along at 70 m.p.h. on the inside lane of a deserted motorway, then yes it will be me!)
Bowled over, I must no longer bowl but pooter along! Vengeful perhaps, but that is the Chief Constable right off my list of public officers to be included in prayers for the day!
Not, however, this morning. The post brings an unusual letter bearing one's fullest of full names. Though expected that this should turn out to be a communication from one of the very few financial institutions with whom one has, for safe keeping, entrusted the meagre Palladas family jewels, expectation has been dashed on discovering it to be rather a speeding ticket for a motoring offence issued on behalf of our local Chief Constable!
Yes, bangs to right and all that of course. But what is the A1 for on a clear day if not for some fast motoring? For though it should not be, I have to own that it is one of my few pure pleasures in life to nip along roads at speeds suited to the occasion. Call me Mr. Toad if you wish, but unlike the beast I never drive dangerously, merely fast. Arbitrary speed restrictions are of no consequence. Should the road be bad or the weather poor you will not find me racing but rather travelling steadily. When, however, conditions permit, then bowling along is quite the thing.
Or rather it was. It is not so much the penalty that irks, but the thought that for the next three years - well perhaps only some weeks - I needs must keep the pedal quite off the metal, as dear Jeremy Clarkson would say. (If, therefore, you should spot in future days a singularly cross looking cleric crawling along at 70 m.p.h. on the inside lane of a deserted motorway, then yes it will be me!)
Bowled over, I must no longer bowl but pooter along! Vengeful perhaps, but that is the Chief Constable right off my list of public officers to be included in prayers for the day!
Monday, April 23, 2007
"Cry Tom and St. Edmund..."
It would not have been politic down at the Dragon Inn, tonight of all nights, to make mention of my long held reservations concerning the official Patron Saint of England - St. George of course - whose feast day naturally has to be there celebrated with particular gusto, cheer and beer.
Patrick and the eponymous George [see many previous] are justly renowned for their especial efforts for this day. Guest ales from many sources - some one suspects quite unbeknownst by Her Majesty's revenue services - are ordered months in advance. George will even prepare a suggested route for drinking: from the lightest and most summery beers through misty autumn ales into wintry porters. (Few make it past December's 'Mother Miracle's Sock Warmer' - a pit-dark brew from some back-yard shed in Northumberland.)
Partner Patrick meanwhile labours to produce modern versions of obscure historical English dishes to match the beer. Rabbit with prune stuffing is a staple each year, whilst many wonderful things are achieved with a brace of woodcock and wild honey. ('Badger Broth' was on the menu one year, which was alarming and disconcerting both for its moral and literal taste until assured by Pat that he actually only used three-week hung beef as a reasonable and lawful substitute.)
The cheer of the place is long and loud, with mercifully little sign of xenophobia - leastways never in my presence - to tarnish the mood. We Woldeans seem to have successfully accepted that to be 'English' is to be a bit of a rag-bag of races in any case, so are not terribly prone to adopt a 'fortress island' mentality, having seen so many of our bloodline forebears sail across the North Sea to land and live on our shores.
"Cry Harry and St. George" is naturally something of a team song for the night, not to mention a way of thanking George - and Patrick - for their labours. This though is where I tend to come a little unstuck, for you see that I have never quite taken the the notion that St. George is best placed - as a Turk - to be the Patron of England, nor that skills in the slaying of dragons is the prime quality needed for the post. (Nor indeed have I ever been Prince Hal's greatest of fans - even when he became a mighty warrior King - ever since that rather nasty, if yes necessary, repudiation of his great fat jolly and so very English mentor Falstaff.
Having returned from the Inn - leastways I believe I have though one can never quite tell where one is after a second pint of 'Sock Warmer' - let me propose an alternative toast of the day: "Cry Tom and St. Edmund!" Now you'll not struggle with the latter, for clearly I am suggesting - as do many who are wise in these matters - that the Martyr King St. Edmund is a far more fitting - not to mention English - person to be Patron of the land.
But the 'Tom' element? Who this, I hear you ask. As you reasonably should. Well, this Tom I have in mind for a worthy rousing cheer is a certain Tom Hart Dyke, whose English enthusiasm, eccentricity, charm and personal and family history equip him most suitably to be all that a good Englishman should be. From decaying family seat, to captive of Colombian gangsters, to visionary creator of a 'World Garden', Tom's story - together with that of his family, friends, supporters and helpers - is about as quintessentially English in all its heroic, madcap yet magnificent endeavour as any I could conjure.
For more gen do visit first their website and then themselves at: Tom's World.
For a wonderful taster there is also a BBC 2 programme to be watched on a Monday evening. I saw it tonight at the Dragon. Well, I believe I did though, as I say, one can never be sure of anything when the Sock Warmer in in town!
Patrick and the eponymous George [see many previous] are justly renowned for their especial efforts for this day. Guest ales from many sources - some one suspects quite unbeknownst by Her Majesty's revenue services - are ordered months in advance. George will even prepare a suggested route for drinking: from the lightest and most summery beers through misty autumn ales into wintry porters. (Few make it past December's 'Mother Miracle's Sock Warmer' - a pit-dark brew from some back-yard shed in Northumberland.)
Partner Patrick meanwhile labours to produce modern versions of obscure historical English dishes to match the beer. Rabbit with prune stuffing is a staple each year, whilst many wonderful things are achieved with a brace of woodcock and wild honey. ('Badger Broth' was on the menu one year, which was alarming and disconcerting both for its moral and literal taste until assured by Pat that he actually only used three-week hung beef as a reasonable and lawful substitute.)
The cheer of the place is long and loud, with mercifully little sign of xenophobia - leastways never in my presence - to tarnish the mood. We Woldeans seem to have successfully accepted that to be 'English' is to be a bit of a rag-bag of races in any case, so are not terribly prone to adopt a 'fortress island' mentality, having seen so many of our bloodline forebears sail across the North Sea to land and live on our shores.
"Cry Harry and St. George" is naturally something of a team song for the night, not to mention a way of thanking George - and Patrick - for their labours. This though is where I tend to come a little unstuck, for you see that I have never quite taken the the notion that St. George is best placed - as a Turk - to be the Patron of England, nor that skills in the slaying of dragons is the prime quality needed for the post. (Nor indeed have I ever been Prince Hal's greatest of fans - even when he became a mighty warrior King - ever since that rather nasty, if yes necessary, repudiation of his great fat jolly and so very English mentor Falstaff.
Having returned from the Inn - leastways I believe I have though one can never quite tell where one is after a second pint of 'Sock Warmer' - let me propose an alternative toast of the day: "Cry Tom and St. Edmund!" Now you'll not struggle with the latter, for clearly I am suggesting - as do many who are wise in these matters - that the Martyr King St. Edmund is a far more fitting - not to mention English - person to be Patron of the land.
But the 'Tom' element? Who this, I hear you ask. As you reasonably should. Well, this Tom I have in mind for a worthy rousing cheer is a certain Tom Hart Dyke, whose English enthusiasm, eccentricity, charm and personal and family history equip him most suitably to be all that a good Englishman should be. From decaying family seat, to captive of Colombian gangsters, to visionary creator of a 'World Garden', Tom's story - together with that of his family, friends, supporters and helpers - is about as quintessentially English in all its heroic, madcap yet magnificent endeavour as any I could conjure.
For more gen do visit first their website and then themselves at: Tom's World.
For a wonderful taster there is also a BBC 2 programme to be watched on a Monday evening. I saw it tonight at the Dragon. Well, I believe I did though, as I say, one can never be sure of anything when the Sock Warmer in in town!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Eyeless in Gaza..
Henry's eyes have fallen out and H is insistent that I replace them at once, using 'super' glue if necessary. I demur as I believe Henry looks rather distinguished with just his sockets and anyway I am sure he sees perfectly well with his inner vision.
Are we both barking? Not as such. Henry is a metal dog gifted to me, by E naturally, as a Father's Day present last year. He has a large spring for a neck and seated on the terrace table nods wisely in the wafting breeze the day long. We exchange the odd little converse as I pass from kitchen to office and back again. I find his take on life just right - calm, unswerving, completely at peace with everything.
Quite suited to the outdoor life and far enough way from the 'real' dogs of the house not to scare them with concerns of an unwanted and unyielding canine competitor, Henry has survived four seasons unscathed. Apart that is from his glass eyes which have indeed fallen out. They lie at his feet - rather poignant really - as he gazes blindly and noddingly into the middle distance.
I shall do something to restore the full Henry. Henry's eyes must be returned him. Just not 'super' glue. Most undignified somehow.
Are we both barking? Not as such. Henry is a metal dog gifted to me, by E naturally, as a Father's Day present last year. He has a large spring for a neck and seated on the terrace table nods wisely in the wafting breeze the day long. We exchange the odd little converse as I pass from kitchen to office and back again. I find his take on life just right - calm, unswerving, completely at peace with everything.
Quite suited to the outdoor life and far enough way from the 'real' dogs of the house not to scare them with concerns of an unwanted and unyielding canine competitor, Henry has survived four seasons unscathed. Apart that is from his glass eyes which have indeed fallen out. They lie at his feet - rather poignant really - as he gazes blindly and noddingly into the middle distance.
I shall do something to restore the full Henry. Henry's eyes must be returned him. Just not 'super' glue. Most undignified somehow.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Sorrow...
...not everyone who appears on these pages is entirely real, though none are completely fictitious. I trust you realise this.
There is not, though, a one whose real name features - as a matter of due discretion and courtesy.
So let us call him Z.
Z is a madcap friend who sadly has gone quite mad. Z and his wife with two children - now it seems his soon-to-be ex-wife - are godparents to E, as I am a godparent to theirs. They have lived - emigrated - Down Under for more than a decade, having decided the good life was to be found there not here. And who could doubt the chances they were right?
Contact has been intermittent over the years - generally just a madcap Z card at Christmas, written in prose to make dear Eddie Izzard proud. Then the year before last there was news of dire if unclear events. Z's good job had vanished, and along with it came hints of more and fundamental distress. What quite that more was we could - and did - only speculate.
E-mails were sent but not replied to. Finally a postal letter to a given address has provoked a reply. Z is alone. Z is bereft of house, home, family, job and very sanity. He lives in a Catholic mission for the fallen; and far, far has he fallen. He rants like Lear and he raves quite like Job.
There is - just - enough of the gallows humour to his writing to give some hope that a mind is functioning at some recoverable level. But he is filled with pain and with a terrible rage. I pray he can let go of the anger to ease his pain. I wish I could fly to him for whatever comfort a man could bring. That only perhaps of a man who understands just how fragile is our hold on the life we have built and on the sanity to which we cling.
May hope be the dawn of healing for poor Richard.
There, you have his true name. Pray for Richard and his family if that is your way. My monks are praying for him. They too have his name.
As does the Lord. Ours is a Lord of sorrows and one acquainted with grief. He holds him now, I am sure, in the palm of his hand.
There is not, though, a one whose real name features - as a matter of due discretion and courtesy.
So let us call him Z.
Z is a madcap friend who sadly has gone quite mad. Z and his wife with two children - now it seems his soon-to-be ex-wife - are godparents to E, as I am a godparent to theirs. They have lived - emigrated - Down Under for more than a decade, having decided the good life was to be found there not here. And who could doubt the chances they were right?
Contact has been intermittent over the years - generally just a madcap Z card at Christmas, written in prose to make dear Eddie Izzard proud. Then the year before last there was news of dire if unclear events. Z's good job had vanished, and along with it came hints of more and fundamental distress. What quite that more was we could - and did - only speculate.
E-mails were sent but not replied to. Finally a postal letter to a given address has provoked a reply. Z is alone. Z is bereft of house, home, family, job and very sanity. He lives in a Catholic mission for the fallen; and far, far has he fallen. He rants like Lear and he raves quite like Job.
There is - just - enough of the gallows humour to his writing to give some hope that a mind is functioning at some recoverable level. But he is filled with pain and with a terrible rage. I pray he can let go of the anger to ease his pain. I wish I could fly to him for whatever comfort a man could bring. That only perhaps of a man who understands just how fragile is our hold on the life we have built and on the sanity to which we cling.
May hope be the dawn of healing for poor Richard.
There, you have his true name. Pray for Richard and his family if that is your way. My monks are praying for him. They too have his name.
As does the Lord. Ours is a Lord of sorrows and one acquainted with grief. He holds him now, I am sure, in the palm of his hand.
The Pit..
"It satisfies a rather seedy bloodlust among people who often feel disenfranchised and alienated from society..."
A comment from an 'expert' concerning a case today of a man imprisoned for running a dog-fighting club within his house.
A true point perhaps, though I would prefer to see it applied to those appalling women who used their own children as gladiators.
They did not receive a custodial sentence.
I hate that as much as I hate them. Would be nice to see the unrepentant grandmother pitted against one of the dogs. Not a very clerical notion I own, but I would pay to watch that fight.
A comment from an 'expert' concerning a case today of a man imprisoned for running a dog-fighting club within his house.
A true point perhaps, though I would prefer to see it applied to those appalling women who used their own children as gladiators.
They did not receive a custodial sentence.
I hate that as much as I hate them. Would be nice to see the unrepentant grandmother pitted against one of the dogs. Not a very clerical notion I own, but I would pay to watch that fight.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Thousand Mile Stare.
...that is how Kurt Vonnegut describes a real 'Billy Pilgrim' in Dresden, who simply could not cope with the horror and the pain. He slumped down, looking so far away way he had the 'thousand mile stare'. Then he gave up and died. Well you would. So it goes.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Habour Heads
The demise of the Kate & William thing has set me thinking of my own time up North in - or rather near - dear St. Andrews.
It is a grand place to be if you can abide the cold - you'll come South for Christmas and wonder why everyone is wearing an overcoat when it is so mild - and the hordes of Beatrices and Benedicts doing anthropology or other harmless degrees prior to ascending to a position in Daddy's Bank or somesuch. (No talk there of 'loo vs. toilet'. One either has a 'gud shite' or one says nothing.)
Locals were largely tolerant of these generally fairly toffee-chinned English invaders, though it did not do to be much out on Burns Night if you could not pass for a convincing Scotsman. ('Air Hair Lair' might work for a greeting most days of the year, but not then.)
Golf is not a must, but if it is your idea of not spoiling a good walk then there is no better place on God's earth to play the game. Conquer the 17th and you are a man for all seasons.
Not that we - certainly not all - were actually at the University itself, rather just living in villages on the Firth of Forth some ten or so miles from the place. Some were 'up' - Cyril the atheist studying theology - and around them gathered a loose federation of people for whom soft Southern living was just too unchallenging.
Not quite survivalism, but then again not that far from. Out of any mainstream one could think of - conventional or not - encamped in rooms or cottages (ours most splendidly by the Cellardyke harbour) we would by and large have been content for known civilisation to have vanished altogether: a Southern irrelevancy in our Northern fastness.
Trips to the town itself were infrequent. Winter days and nights - cold, loud and raw - cottage, pub, harbour wall to watch the mast lights of the returning fishing fleet, little else was needed.
It could have been Hallowe'en though possibly St. Valentine's night - either works - we would trip to The Pends, the gates to St Andrews old monastery.
The legend was thus: a local pretty maid, a great beauty, had been promised marriage by a laird's son. He though decided to drop her for not being quite good enough. In despair she slashed her lovely face with briers - if he would not have her then no other would.
Soon dying of grief her ghost would wander the grounds of the monastery, lamp in her outstretched hand, her ravaged face veiled. Men spotting from afar the approaching lone woman and wondering how to seduce her would be drawn towards the mysterious, alluring figure.
As they approached close she would lift her veil revealing by lamplight the ghastly wreck of her face. The men would flee in terror never to dare to look at another woman.
Our Kate is made of sterner stuff of course.
It is a grand place to be if you can abide the cold - you'll come South for Christmas and wonder why everyone is wearing an overcoat when it is so mild - and the hordes of Beatrices and Benedicts doing anthropology or other harmless degrees prior to ascending to a position in Daddy's Bank or somesuch. (No talk there of 'loo vs. toilet'. One either has a 'gud shite' or one says nothing.)
Locals were largely tolerant of these generally fairly toffee-chinned English invaders, though it did not do to be much out on Burns Night if you could not pass for a convincing Scotsman. ('Air Hair Lair' might work for a greeting most days of the year, but not then.)
Golf is not a must, but if it is your idea of not spoiling a good walk then there is no better place on God's earth to play the game. Conquer the 17th and you are a man for all seasons.
Not that we - certainly not all - were actually at the University itself, rather just living in villages on the Firth of Forth some ten or so miles from the place. Some were 'up' - Cyril the atheist studying theology - and around them gathered a loose federation of people for whom soft Southern living was just too unchallenging.
Not quite survivalism, but then again not that far from. Out of any mainstream one could think of - conventional or not - encamped in rooms or cottages (ours most splendidly by the Cellardyke harbour) we would by and large have been content for known civilisation to have vanished altogether: a Southern irrelevancy in our Northern fastness.
Trips to the town itself were infrequent. Winter days and nights - cold, loud and raw - cottage, pub, harbour wall to watch the mast lights of the returning fishing fleet, little else was needed.
It could have been Hallowe'en though possibly St. Valentine's night - either works - we would trip to The Pends, the gates to St Andrews old monastery.
The legend was thus: a local pretty maid, a great beauty, had been promised marriage by a laird's son. He though decided to drop her for not being quite good enough. In despair she slashed her lovely face with briers - if he would not have her then no other would.
Soon dying of grief her ghost would wander the grounds of the monastery, lamp in her outstretched hand, her ravaged face veiled. Men spotting from afar the approaching lone woman and wondering how to seduce her would be drawn towards the mysterious, alluring figure.
As they approached close she would lift her veil revealing by lamplight the ghastly wreck of her face. The men would flee in terror never to dare to look at another woman.
Our Kate is made of sterner stuff of course.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Kiss Me Kate...
...Is it newsworthy that Prince William, our likely future King, has parted from his 'girlfriend' Miss Kate Middleton?
Put like that of course it is. One suspects she would have made a fine modern Queen, but 'tis not to be.
One says 'girlfriend' because of course she was far more than that. They were lovers of a live-in variety. They were married before the fact. One or the other - possibly both, though the money this evening is on him alone - has called for, effectively, a divorce. ("I dump thee, I dump thee, I dump thee" is, I believe, how the ceremony goes.)
Did a third person enter the 'marriage'? So we are led to believe, but then we would be wouldn't we? So much the more salacious.
And what now for Miss Middleton? All cachet evaporating as so much Scotch mist, there is of course still the option of the cash. The top side of a million or more? Sealed bids only. That sort of thing.
Oh how one hopes not. (Taking the cash that is; the offers are already in the post no doubt.) No good would come of it, not least for the young woman no longer in the question.
All in all, I hope she dumped him - preferably for another beau - not vice versa. (Far less likely to want to 'tell her story' or to wonder how and why she gave some of the best years of her life for something not to be. I believe I feel a little cross with young William this evening.) And I wish I were never to find out. But I shall be told, of that I'm sure. At least seventeen versions - from a hundred or more sources - three of which may be close to the 'truth' of the matter.
E is devastated. Poor thing thought the 'Kate dumped' line was in reference to Miss Kate Moss, current and enduring squeeze of that ghastly Doherty creature E so worships!
William 4 E? E 4 William? Why not? A better bet than some dissolute singer surely?
Well, then again perhaps not. My shrubbery would never survive the invasion.
Put like that of course it is. One suspects she would have made a fine modern Queen, but 'tis not to be.
One says 'girlfriend' because of course she was far more than that. They were lovers of a live-in variety. They were married before the fact. One or the other - possibly both, though the money this evening is on him alone - has called for, effectively, a divorce. ("I dump thee, I dump thee, I dump thee" is, I believe, how the ceremony goes.)
Did a third person enter the 'marriage'? So we are led to believe, but then we would be wouldn't we? So much the more salacious.
And what now for Miss Middleton? All cachet evaporating as so much Scotch mist, there is of course still the option of the cash. The top side of a million or more? Sealed bids only. That sort of thing.
Oh how one hopes not. (Taking the cash that is; the offers are already in the post no doubt.) No good would come of it, not least for the young woman no longer in the question.
All in all, I hope she dumped him - preferably for another beau - not vice versa. (Far less likely to want to 'tell her story' or to wonder how and why she gave some of the best years of her life for something not to be. I believe I feel a little cross with young William this evening.) And I wish I were never to find out. But I shall be told, of that I'm sure. At least seventeen versions - from a hundred or more sources - three of which may be close to the 'truth' of the matter.
E is devastated. Poor thing thought the 'Kate dumped' line was in reference to Miss Kate Moss, current and enduring squeeze of that ghastly Doherty creature E so worships!
William 4 E? E 4 William? Why not? A better bet than some dissolute singer surely?
Well, then again perhaps not. My shrubbery would never survive the invasion.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
So It Goes...
Poor E. There she is deep into revision for what these days passes - or fails - as 'O' Levels, when her doting father lands her with another 'must-read' book.
'Must-read' books are exactly that, books that a growing child must read in order to be properly equipped to face the world. These naturally would be books I over time have read myself, striping them down as significant sources of moral wisdom rather than intellectual fodder.
Presumptuous no doubt that my choices of what are 'good' - in the moral sense - books should be somewhere between offered to and imposed on E; but it is parent thing - a parent legacy thing - and I doubt much harm will come of it.
Not that the poor thing is force fed these books. One does not stand over her watching her have a go at something too soon for her growing senses. They are merely mentioned in passing, pointed out on shelves, or occasionally purchased for birthdays as a true gift.
When - perhaps if, though one hopes not - the time is right she will read them for at least the interest of knowing her Pa more, what formed and forms his moral - if it is that - code.
Funnily enough - well it seems sufficiently peculiar to a Rector to reflect this point - one is simply not talking formal religious texts in general or Xtian ones in particular. These too will come, one trusts, in due mature time.
What rather one has are secular - though still intensely sacred - flashes of the human spirit, in both fact and fiction. You ask for examples naturally. I give you such things as 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'If This Is A Man' - goodness facing and facing down evil essentially. Some are horribly difficult to face - 'An Evil Cradling' - and some are intensely moving to both tears and laughter - 'An Evil Cradling' again.
Another is to be added to that list today, nudged by the news of the death of its author Kurt Vonnegut. 'Slaughterhouse 5' to myself and to many of our generation was a first introduction to the global horror of world war. We of our time had largely - and rightly - been brought up with a simple binary code: Allies of good; Axis of evil. (Funny how terms come round.) But there was more, there always is.
If I knew - and I doubt I did - of the Dresden firestorm it would have been as a meteorological fact rather than as a matter of deep moral concern. From Kurt one learnt of that concern and of so many other ambiguities that challenge established lines of thought.
So there you have it E. 'Slaughterhouse 5' is now added to 'The List'. One should - and one does - say rest in peace Kurt. Though also one adds his very own line on these and many things - 'So it goes'.
Happy final note - E is currently re-reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Would be nice to think she had been inspired by her Pa on this. It is, however, a 'must-read' simply because it is a GCSE set book for the year!
So it goes.
'Must-read' books are exactly that, books that a growing child must read in order to be properly equipped to face the world. These naturally would be books I over time have read myself, striping them down as significant sources of moral wisdom rather than intellectual fodder.
Presumptuous no doubt that my choices of what are 'good' - in the moral sense - books should be somewhere between offered to and imposed on E; but it is parent thing - a parent legacy thing - and I doubt much harm will come of it.
Not that the poor thing is force fed these books. One does not stand over her watching her have a go at something too soon for her growing senses. They are merely mentioned in passing, pointed out on shelves, or occasionally purchased for birthdays as a true gift.
When - perhaps if, though one hopes not - the time is right she will read them for at least the interest of knowing her Pa more, what formed and forms his moral - if it is that - code.
Funnily enough - well it seems sufficiently peculiar to a Rector to reflect this point - one is simply not talking formal religious texts in general or Xtian ones in particular. These too will come, one trusts, in due mature time.
What rather one has are secular - though still intensely sacred - flashes of the human spirit, in both fact and fiction. You ask for examples naturally. I give you such things as 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'If This Is A Man' - goodness facing and facing down evil essentially. Some are horribly difficult to face - 'An Evil Cradling' - and some are intensely moving to both tears and laughter - 'An Evil Cradling' again.
Another is to be added to that list today, nudged by the news of the death of its author Kurt Vonnegut. 'Slaughterhouse 5' to myself and to many of our generation was a first introduction to the global horror of world war. We of our time had largely - and rightly - been brought up with a simple binary code: Allies of good; Axis of evil. (Funny how terms come round.) But there was more, there always is.
If I knew - and I doubt I did - of the Dresden firestorm it would have been as a meteorological fact rather than as a matter of deep moral concern. From Kurt one learnt of that concern and of so many other ambiguities that challenge established lines of thought.
So there you have it E. 'Slaughterhouse 5' is now added to 'The List'. One should - and one does - say rest in peace Kurt. Though also one adds his very own line on these and many things - 'So it goes'.
Happy final note - E is currently re-reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Would be nice to think she had been inspired by her Pa on this. It is, however, a 'must-read' simply because it is a GCSE set book for the year!
So it goes.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Gerald's War...
...The rather unseemly selling of 'war stories' - actually neither a war as such nor most certainly any kind story at all - this week has set me in mind of Gerald, who had charge of the Dragon Inn before the later onset of our beloved Gilbert & George combo.
Gerald - as a man of his generation, my own father one other such - had fought for his country in the Second World War. Unlike though Palladas Senior, whose combat was in Europe alone, Gerald had been posted to the Far East thence to become a prisoner of the Japanese for four years before release more dead than alive.
More than that few people knew, it not being Gerald's habit or disposition to comment on past times. With firm gaze his eyes always seemed to point to a future and not a past. Not that the future beckoned necessarily with any great allure, just simply better not to look back.
The one small clue to those before times were on the rather rare occasions that Japanese tourists came to the Dragon seeking pie and a pint. In no single way or manner did Gerald ever intimate any hostility to his foreign guests. Just perhaps by an extra precision of bearing, an acute formality of service, would Gerald make his personal discomfiture known to any who knew him well. If there were agony it was in hiding it from any view.
Such small parties would inevitably contain a man of Gerald's age. Their greeting was utterly ceremonial - stiff, precise, with handshakes of subdued acceptance. They though - these two men of a shared intense past - would never talk much one to the other from the greeting to the leaving.
It was more than a lack of a common language. Gerald did have several words and phrases of Japanese he had absorbed. Mr Suzuki - if such he were - would also have a limited English he might have offered. Neither though would attempt any fluency in the other's language. Whatever it was that either might have wished to say to the other could not be communicated verbally.
I believe Gerald could forgive, but he could never forget. Remembrance Sundays were hard for Gerald.
"That Burma bloody thing," was all he ever said on the matter. Royal Navy personnel take note.
Gerald - as a man of his generation, my own father one other such - had fought for his country in the Second World War. Unlike though Palladas Senior, whose combat was in Europe alone, Gerald had been posted to the Far East thence to become a prisoner of the Japanese for four years before release more dead than alive.
More than that few people knew, it not being Gerald's habit or disposition to comment on past times. With firm gaze his eyes always seemed to point to a future and not a past. Not that the future beckoned necessarily with any great allure, just simply better not to look back.
The one small clue to those before times were on the rather rare occasions that Japanese tourists came to the Dragon seeking pie and a pint. In no single way or manner did Gerald ever intimate any hostility to his foreign guests. Just perhaps by an extra precision of bearing, an acute formality of service, would Gerald make his personal discomfiture known to any who knew him well. If there were agony it was in hiding it from any view.
Such small parties would inevitably contain a man of Gerald's age. Their greeting was utterly ceremonial - stiff, precise, with handshakes of subdued acceptance. They though - these two men of a shared intense past - would never talk much one to the other from the greeting to the leaving.
It was more than a lack of a common language. Gerald did have several words and phrases of Japanese he had absorbed. Mr Suzuki - if such he were - would also have a limited English he might have offered. Neither though would attempt any fluency in the other's language. Whatever it was that either might have wished to say to the other could not be communicated verbally.
I believe Gerald could forgive, but he could never forget. Remembrance Sundays were hard for Gerald.
"That Burma bloody thing," was all he ever said on the matter. Royal Navy personnel take note.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The Man Who Fell To Earth...
...Could they pull it off we all were asking? And by golly didn't they just tonight!
I refer not - though one easily could - to Our Team's stuffing of Roma by 7 [yes - SEVEN!] to 1, but rather to the finale of 'Life on Mars'.
Some whimsical playing with the real and the unreal was to be expected, a first kiss between our hero and the luscious Annie a requirement, the ultimate vindication of Big Gene Hunt a must.
But how could all of that be wrapped up and neatly packaged according to the demands of narrative integrity, given that - I am convinced - when they set off they simply had no idea journey's end?
A neat touch that, giving the Test Card Girl the last 'word' in turning off the screen once Sam had driven away - now firmly, finally fallen to Earth in 1973 - with the gang, Annie duly kissed, to capture more baddies the Gene way.
Slightly spooky in a 'Don't Look Now' way that final flourish. Actually the whole thing could be seen as a John Fowles / Michael Ondaatje cross-over tribute. Did it all spring from that one Bowie line 'Take a look at the lawman, beating up the wrong guy'? Quite possibly, though when did our Gene ever do that? A few beatings yes for sure, but always well-deserved.
An exercise in pointless nostalgia? 1973 the 'New Black'? But why not? I'd rather a police force intent on harming real villains [not the whole story of course] than the one we have now where children can be warned they face prosecution for drawing hopscotch grids on pavements [true].
The one awkward note - a purely personal thing - Sam throwing himself off a building in order to escape from unreality to reality. Too close to home that one. Had a friend many years back who decided the only way he could free the soul was to destroy the body by jumping off the roof of an Amsterdam hotel. Not a good move for an eighteen year old too in love with Platonic philosophy. 1973 he fell to earth.
I refer not - though one easily could - to Our Team's stuffing of Roma by 7 [yes - SEVEN!] to 1, but rather to the finale of 'Life on Mars'.
Some whimsical playing with the real and the unreal was to be expected, a first kiss between our hero and the luscious Annie a requirement, the ultimate vindication of Big Gene Hunt a must.
But how could all of that be wrapped up and neatly packaged according to the demands of narrative integrity, given that - I am convinced - when they set off they simply had no idea journey's end?
A neat touch that, giving the Test Card Girl the last 'word' in turning off the screen once Sam had driven away - now firmly, finally fallen to Earth in 1973 - with the gang, Annie duly kissed, to capture more baddies the Gene way.
Slightly spooky in a 'Don't Look Now' way that final flourish. Actually the whole thing could be seen as a John Fowles / Michael Ondaatje cross-over tribute. Did it all spring from that one Bowie line 'Take a look at the lawman, beating up the wrong guy'? Quite possibly, though when did our Gene ever do that? A few beatings yes for sure, but always well-deserved.
An exercise in pointless nostalgia? 1973 the 'New Black'? But why not? I'd rather a police force intent on harming real villains [not the whole story of course] than the one we have now where children can be warned they face prosecution for drawing hopscotch grids on pavements [true].
The one awkward note - a purely personal thing - Sam throwing himself off a building in order to escape from unreality to reality. Too close to home that one. Had a friend many years back who decided the only way he could free the soul was to destroy the body by jumping off the roof of an Amsterdam hotel. Not a good move for an eighteen year old too in love with Platonic philosophy. 1973 he fell to earth.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Highs and Lows...
...Funny really that they call this 'Low Week' when everyone is on such an Easter high. But there you have it.
Have to admit I have been feeling somewhat low about this particular Low Week. Regular readers - there are about three it seems - will recall that last month I mentioned in passing Fr. William's intention to hove into view this coming Low Wednesday to begin the annual Inspection. Very lowering all round.
Pretty poor timing on his part, it struck me at the time. We clerics never actually have 'time off' - once a cleric always and every day a cleric. Nonetheless, when a fellow has put his heart and soul into making Easter as liturgically passionate as it ought, he is entitled to have a few days of if not exactly rest and recreation then light duties.
Hard indeed it has been to marry the necessary preparations for an Easter - do all the altar youth know precisely who does what, when and to whom? - and squaring the books, plus other vital data needed to demonstrate compliance with current ecclesial standards and targets.
Devils and angels do indeed dwell in the details of both. Nothing more irksome for all if one's left without the requisite prayer sheet mid-Mass simply because young Eric thinks slightly less young Sheila has been striped down for that duty, whilst all the while slightly less young Sheila knows full well that her roles and responsibilities are bounded by ensuring all furniture and fittings - chalices, patens, wines and wafers et al. - are to hand as required, it being a clear young Eric thing to attend the Rector with apposite texts.
There are two Golden Rules of assisting at the liturgy. Rule the First: if you know what to do then do it; if you don't then do something else. Rule the Second: if something comes your way then catch it. Above all make it look as if what is happening is intended and not a Keystone Cops farrago.
Old hands - deacons of great vintage - are much valued in liturgical circumstances. They have a gift - it is a pure charism - of looking utterly dignified and in control even when it should be obvious that all Hell - as it were - has broken out. Youth, by and large, lacks the gravitas to carry off confusion with aplomb. They do tend to giggle, which does not do.
Vintage deacons do not giggle when things go wrong, they merely look the more severe yet serene. It's a great blessing and one which many a hapless priest has praised his Guardian Angel for supplying. Cometh the troubled hour, cometh the deacon and all that jazz.
Patron Saint of this wondrous guild is no doubt Deacon W of blessed memory who, one Mass, was called upon to extinguish a small yet not insignificant fire ignited by Bishop [one simply cannot say] whose exuberant, yet thoughtless, delight with the thurible had spilt sufficient live coals on the altar linen to set it alight.
Batting not an eyelid, nor missing a beat, Deacon W calmly reached for the aspergill, dousing the gathering flames for all the world as if it were an integral part of the ceremony. (Bit Masonic the fire and water thing, but then the laity is generally as ignorant of the Xtian rite as that of the Apron adherents.) Dear Bishop [...] quite never noticed!
H, whom Heaven preserve, is the great instructress of my servers. No drill sergeant ever held such hold over his squaddies as does H over her cadets. With gimlet eye and strident voice H marshals every last one of them into every last smooth detail of their varied and respective duties. They perform on the day as clockwork. Pure precision. Thank you H.
Telephone numbers are scrawled on envelopes making entire sense at the time, though but a short week later one simply has no idea whose number it is. Tricky really to phone on spec and ask the answerer who and why they are. Awkward in the extreme when person replies "Well it's me Vicar. Doris whose husband died last Wednesday."
Receipts too suffer likewise. Though there is but a single and unvaried journey of receipt into wallet, thence from wallet into second drawer down in the study desk to wait entry into the accounting system, somehow too many seem somehow to get lost en route. Totally baffling when one simply knows that the receipt for the new lectern ought to be to hand, yet simply isn't when needed to affirm the not inconsiderable expenditure.
This evening though I am not fretting over how to present the best of all fronts to the Episcopal Inspectorate, but relaxing over a large post-Lent malt with not a care to hand.
The cause? One mustn't smile though one does, for it seems that during the Bishop's own Easter Vigil Father Henry somehow managed to trip over a box of hymn sheets in the Vestry that were somewhere they shouldn't be (clearly not a mob trained by H!) and put a knee most fully out.
Whilst one naturally wishes no harm to a fellow cleric, the upshot has been wondrous. Dear Hal had been due to be Diocesan lead on the forthcoming Lourdes pilgrimage, but needing now to travel more as a supplicant than an attendant the Bish has decided that Father Bill must go in his - Hal's - place and not head for the Wolds. Inspection postponed sine die!
Good for Bill's soul no doubt and one great mercy for me. (Result! As they say in footballing circles.)
Have to admit I have been feeling somewhat low about this particular Low Week. Regular readers - there are about three it seems - will recall that last month I mentioned in passing Fr. William's intention to hove into view this coming Low Wednesday to begin the annual Inspection. Very lowering all round.
Pretty poor timing on his part, it struck me at the time. We clerics never actually have 'time off' - once a cleric always and every day a cleric. Nonetheless, when a fellow has put his heart and soul into making Easter as liturgically passionate as it ought, he is entitled to have a few days of if not exactly rest and recreation then light duties.
Hard indeed it has been to marry the necessary preparations for an Easter - do all the altar youth know precisely who does what, when and to whom? - and squaring the books, plus other vital data needed to demonstrate compliance with current ecclesial standards and targets.
Devils and angels do indeed dwell in the details of both. Nothing more irksome for all if one's left without the requisite prayer sheet mid-Mass simply because young Eric thinks slightly less young Sheila has been striped down for that duty, whilst all the while slightly less young Sheila knows full well that her roles and responsibilities are bounded by ensuring all furniture and fittings - chalices, patens, wines and wafers et al. - are to hand as required, it being a clear young Eric thing to attend the Rector with apposite texts.
There are two Golden Rules of assisting at the liturgy. Rule the First: if you know what to do then do it; if you don't then do something else. Rule the Second: if something comes your way then catch it. Above all make it look as if what is happening is intended and not a Keystone Cops farrago.
Old hands - deacons of great vintage - are much valued in liturgical circumstances. They have a gift - it is a pure charism - of looking utterly dignified and in control even when it should be obvious that all Hell - as it were - has broken out. Youth, by and large, lacks the gravitas to carry off confusion with aplomb. They do tend to giggle, which does not do.
Vintage deacons do not giggle when things go wrong, they merely look the more severe yet serene. It's a great blessing and one which many a hapless priest has praised his Guardian Angel for supplying. Cometh the troubled hour, cometh the deacon and all that jazz.
Patron Saint of this wondrous guild is no doubt Deacon W of blessed memory who, one Mass, was called upon to extinguish a small yet not insignificant fire ignited by Bishop [one simply cannot say] whose exuberant, yet thoughtless, delight with the thurible had spilt sufficient live coals on the altar linen to set it alight.
Batting not an eyelid, nor missing a beat, Deacon W calmly reached for the aspergill, dousing the gathering flames for all the world as if it were an integral part of the ceremony. (Bit Masonic the fire and water thing, but then the laity is generally as ignorant of the Xtian rite as that of the Apron adherents.) Dear Bishop [...] quite never noticed!
H, whom Heaven preserve, is the great instructress of my servers. No drill sergeant ever held such hold over his squaddies as does H over her cadets. With gimlet eye and strident voice H marshals every last one of them into every last smooth detail of their varied and respective duties. They perform on the day as clockwork. Pure precision. Thank you H.
The dear woman - H that is of course - attributes her skills as altar youth trainer-in-chief to a spell spent in 'corporate hostility' in years before she opted for the cleric's wife's role. In such circs. - the ensuring that the show must be flawless - preparation is all. Plan, plan some more, rehearse, then rehearse again was her motto. Anticipate anything that could go wrong - the band going to Rochester rather than the required Rotherham lives large in the annals of corp. host. - and make it clear to all that should anything actually fail on the day then persons responsible would have her to whom to answer. (Scary or what?)
Anyways, there we are with a fine server crew yet all the while here was I with more than half a mind on the paperwork necessary to lay before the Inspectorate. Nothing wrong, of course, with paperwork - what is Saint Peter's Book of Life if not paperwork? - but somehow it has never been my entire strongest suit.Telephone numbers are scrawled on envelopes making entire sense at the time, though but a short week later one simply has no idea whose number it is. Tricky really to phone on spec and ask the answerer who and why they are. Awkward in the extreme when person replies "Well it's me Vicar. Doris whose husband died last Wednesday."
Receipts too suffer likewise. Though there is but a single and unvaried journey of receipt into wallet, thence from wallet into second drawer down in the study desk to wait entry into the accounting system, somehow too many seem somehow to get lost en route. Totally baffling when one simply knows that the receipt for the new lectern ought to be to hand, yet simply isn't when needed to affirm the not inconsiderable expenditure.
This evening though I am not fretting over how to present the best of all fronts to the Episcopal Inspectorate, but relaxing over a large post-Lent malt with not a care to hand.
The cause? One mustn't smile though one does, for it seems that during the Bishop's own Easter Vigil Father Henry somehow managed to trip over a box of hymn sheets in the Vestry that were somewhere they shouldn't be (clearly not a mob trained by H!) and put a knee most fully out.
Whilst one naturally wishes no harm to a fellow cleric, the upshot has been wondrous. Dear Hal had been due to be Diocesan lead on the forthcoming Lourdes pilgrimage, but needing now to travel more as a supplicant than an attendant the Bish has decided that Father Bill must go in his - Hal's - place and not head for the Wolds. Inspection postponed sine die!
Good for Bill's soul no doubt and one great mercy for me. (Result! As they say in footballing circles.)
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Zimbabwe - the cost of death
...I have - or rather had - cousins in Zimbabwe. They fled their homeland some ten years ago in fear for their livelihoods and their lives. Descendants of white settlers perhaps, but generations of farmers dedicated to making the country what it once was - the breadbasket of the African South.
There is too much horror in that land right now to laugh - yet how can one not laugh at this:
A family is to bury a darling Uncle. The funeral parlour tells the family that it cannot give an estimate of the cost as inflation is so out of control. The family agree to take a price on spec - they, after all, have an obligation to the revered and cherished dead man.
At the gates of the crematorium the cortege is met by the funeral director, who tells them that the cost of the ceremony is to be Z$ 1.5m (about ten shillings - all right I exaggerate the exchange rate, but not by much). The family agree and the funeral service is held.
As the grieving family leaves, the same funeral director comes to tell them that, regrettably, whilst they were inside the Banks have announced a new rise in prices and that, therefore, he must charge them an extra Z$ 0.5m.
What can they - and we - do but laugh and pray for better times?
There is too much horror in that land right now to laugh - yet how can one not laugh at this:
A family is to bury a darling Uncle. The funeral parlour tells the family that it cannot give an estimate of the cost as inflation is so out of control. The family agree to take a price on spec - they, after all, have an obligation to the revered and cherished dead man.
At the gates of the crematorium the cortege is met by the funeral director, who tells them that the cost of the ceremony is to be Z$ 1.5m (about ten shillings - all right I exaggerate the exchange rate, but not by much). The family agree and the funeral service is held.
As the grieving family leaves, the same funeral director comes to tell them that, regrettably, whilst they were inside the Banks have announced a new rise in prices and that, therefore, he must charge them an extra Z$ 0.5m.
What can they - and we - do but laugh and pray for better times?
"I Know...
..That My Redeemer Liveth."
Thus spake Job. I know how he felt!
Happy Easter to all. To all especially who grieve today, for whom despair is closer to their heart than rejoicing.
Urbi et Orbi. Wise, sad and yet hopeful words from the Pontiff.
Thus spake Job. I know how he felt!
Happy Easter to all. To all especially who grieve today, for whom despair is closer to their heart than rejoicing.
Urbi et Orbi. Wise, sad and yet hopeful words from the Pontiff.
Friday, April 06, 2007
The Grief of a Mother...
For all mothers (and fathers) who have known that greatest of unending sorrows - the death of their child; for the parents of Iraq whose children were used as a bomber's decoy; for the parents of the British soldiers killed in Basra yesterday; for all who mourn this terrible, personal, nameless loss: be close to Mary now as she watches in silent agony the cruel death of her son, flesh of her flesh, hung to die upon a Cross.
Her great heart could bear that agony of witness, and in that God-given, Son-given strength she will help guide us from Crucifixion's sorrow to Resurrection's triumph.
Stabat mater dolorosa
iuxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.
At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.
Cuius animam gementem,
contristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.
Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has passed.
O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta,
mater Unigeniti!
O how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.
Quae maerebat et dolebat,
pia Mater, dum videbat
nati poenas inclyti.
Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying glorious Son.
Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?
Is there one who would not weep,
whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?
Quis non posset contristari
Christi Matrem contemplari
dolentem cum Filio?
Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?
Pro peccatis suae gentis
vidit Iesum in tormentis,
et flagellis subditum.
For the sins of His own nation,
She saw Jesus wracked with torment,
All with scourges rent:
Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriendo desolatum,
dum emisit spiritum.
She beheld her tender Child,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.
Eia, Mater, fons amoris
me sentire vim doloris
fac, ut tecum lugeam.
O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord:
Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
in amando Christum Deum
ut sibi complaceam.
Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.
Sancta Mater, istud agas,
crucifixi fige plagas
cordi meo valide.
Holy Mother! pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Savior crucified:
Tui Nati vulnerati,
tam dignati pro me pati,
poenas mecum divide.
Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all my sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.
Fac me tecum pie flere,
crucifixo condolere,
donec ego vixero.
Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live:
Iuxta Crucem tecum stare,
et me tibi sociare
in planctu desidero.
By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.
Virgo virginum praeclara,
mihi iam non sis amara,
fac me tecum plangere.
Virgin of all virgins blest!,
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;
Fac, ut portem Christi mortem,
passionis fac consortem,
et plagas recolere.
Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.
Fac me plagis vulnerari,
fac me Cruce inebriari,
et cruore Filii.
Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;
Flammis ne urar succensus,
per te, Virgo, sim defensus
in die iudicii.
Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.
Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
da per Matrem me venire
ad palmam victoriae.
Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
by Thy Mother my defense,
by Thy Cross my victory;
Quando corpus morietur,
fac, ut animae donetur
paradisi gloria. Amen.
When my body dies,
let my soul be granted
the glory of Paradise. Amen.
Her great heart could bear that agony of witness, and in that God-given, Son-given strength she will help guide us from Crucifixion's sorrow to Resurrection's triumph.
Stabat mater dolorosa
iuxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.
At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.
Cuius animam gementem,
contristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.
Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has passed.
O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta,
mater Unigeniti!
O how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.
Quae maerebat et dolebat,
pia Mater, dum videbat
nati poenas inclyti.
Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying glorious Son.
Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?
Is there one who would not weep,
whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?
Quis non posset contristari
Christi Matrem contemplari
dolentem cum Filio?
Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?
Pro peccatis suae gentis
vidit Iesum in tormentis,
et flagellis subditum.
For the sins of His own nation,
She saw Jesus wracked with torment,
All with scourges rent:
Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriendo desolatum,
dum emisit spiritum.
She beheld her tender Child,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.
Eia, Mater, fons amoris
me sentire vim doloris
fac, ut tecum lugeam.
O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord:
Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
in amando Christum Deum
ut sibi complaceam.
Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.
Sancta Mater, istud agas,
crucifixi fige plagas
cordi meo valide.
Holy Mother! pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Savior crucified:
Tui Nati vulnerati,
tam dignati pro me pati,
poenas mecum divide.
Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all my sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.
Fac me tecum pie flere,
crucifixo condolere,
donec ego vixero.
Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live:
Iuxta Crucem tecum stare,
et me tibi sociare
in planctu desidero.
By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.
Virgo virginum praeclara,
mihi iam non sis amara,
fac me tecum plangere.
Virgin of all virgins blest!,
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;
Fac, ut portem Christi mortem,
passionis fac consortem,
et plagas recolere.
Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.
Fac me plagis vulnerari,
fac me Cruce inebriari,
et cruore Filii.
Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;
Flammis ne urar succensus,
per te, Virgo, sim defensus
in die iudicii.
Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.
Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
da per Matrem me venire
ad palmam victoriae.
Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
by Thy Mother my defense,
by Thy Cross my victory;
Quando corpus morietur,
fac, ut animae donetur
paradisi gloria. Amen.
When my body dies,
let my soul be granted
the glory of Paradise. Amen.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Waiting and Watching...
"Wait here and watch..." This commandment - or rather plea - from our stricken Lord facing the great agony of the loneliness of Gethsemane is one that nuns of Perpetual Adoration never forget or fail.
In the busy heart of London - at Tyburn Convent near Marble Arch - nuns kneel in prayer before the Christ in Communion night and day, day and night, year following year following year in an unbroken chain of devotion.
Well, that's nuns for you. Beat the male monks into so many cocked hoops in this and in so many other matters of sanctity. But even we mob tried to make a go of it for the night of Holy Thursday. From Compline to the following Vigils monks were striped down in a half-hour rotating rota, as it were, to maintain a presence before the Presence.
The darkest hours - from two until four - would be taken on demand by the regular insomniacs. (Quite how you can be an insomniac and a monk all in one lifetime defeats me. Not to have slept the allotted eight hours from nine at night until five the next morning would have broken me, that I know.)
Juniors were forbidden such rigour, though that didn't stop us sneaking down during the night for a spot of illicit prostration. On the whole, all prostration was considered if not illicit then certainly not sufficiently licit to be encouraged. It smacked of a certain over-exuberant enthusiasm and considered potentially spiritually harmful in the long run.
Not my thing at all, I must say, this spread-eagling on the very stone floor, face-down and arms outstretched as if in homage to the very Crucifixion itself. Well, not my thing if you'd have asked me about it. (Not that you did of course, we not having then met!) But that night - the night when Our Lord faced his darkest hours of sorrow - there was a complete compulsion to do what one could to be there with Him and for Him.
So, yes, we juniors were there in silent - and not forbidden yet not encouraged - show of some solidarity. (The trick of the thing - in the complete dark - was not to tread on the outstretched hand of a fellow prostrate. Undignified squeals of pain were so just not the thing!)
And so we did watch and we did wait. And sometimes I do allow myself to be slightly uncharitable to those who never do either:
Question: Who are the Faithful?
Answer: The Faithful are the people of God who assemble every Sunday to hear Mass and to receive communion.
Question: And who are the Faithful Departed?
Answer: The Faithful Departed are the same people of God, some thirty seconds after the end of Mass exiting the Church in a mighty roar as if unable to get out of the place quick enough!
...Extract from my version of the Catechism I fear!
In the busy heart of London - at Tyburn Convent near Marble Arch - nuns kneel in prayer before the Christ in Communion night and day, day and night, year following year following year in an unbroken chain of devotion.
Well, that's nuns for you. Beat the male monks into so many cocked hoops in this and in so many other matters of sanctity. But even we mob tried to make a go of it for the night of Holy Thursday. From Compline to the following Vigils monks were striped down in a half-hour rotating rota, as it were, to maintain a presence before the Presence.
The darkest hours - from two until four - would be taken on demand by the regular insomniacs. (Quite how you can be an insomniac and a monk all in one lifetime defeats me. Not to have slept the allotted eight hours from nine at night until five the next morning would have broken me, that I know.)
Juniors were forbidden such rigour, though that didn't stop us sneaking down during the night for a spot of illicit prostration. On the whole, all prostration was considered if not illicit then certainly not sufficiently licit to be encouraged. It smacked of a certain over-exuberant enthusiasm and considered potentially spiritually harmful in the long run.
Not my thing at all, I must say, this spread-eagling on the very stone floor, face-down and arms outstretched as if in homage to the very Crucifixion itself. Well, not my thing if you'd have asked me about it. (Not that you did of course, we not having then met!) But that night - the night when Our Lord faced his darkest hours of sorrow - there was a complete compulsion to do what one could to be there with Him and for Him.
So, yes, we juniors were there in silent - and not forbidden yet not encouraged - show of some solidarity. (The trick of the thing - in the complete dark - was not to tread on the outstretched hand of a fellow prostrate. Undignified squeals of pain were so just not the thing!)
And so we did watch and we did wait. And sometimes I do allow myself to be slightly uncharitable to those who never do either:
Question: Who are the Faithful?
Answer: The Faithful are the people of God who assemble every Sunday to hear Mass and to receive communion.
Question: And who are the Faithful Departed?
Answer: The Faithful Departed are the same people of God, some thirty seconds after the end of Mass exiting the Church in a mighty roar as if unable to get out of the place quick enough!
...Extract from my version of the Catechism I fear!
The Christ Denial: The Luke Version
"And the Lord turned and looked at Peter." [Luke 22:61]
Do you see the full horror in Luke's version of Peter's denial of Christ?
Jesus had predicted that Peter would deny Him that fateful night before the cock crowed thrice. Peter, of course, had most passionately sworn eternal loyalty, yet when the time of testing came failed so miserably.
The other Gospels concentrate on the actions and reactions of Peter as the cock crows and he denies. But not Luke. Luke's Christ - knowing that the third cock crow signals the predicted denial - turns his merciful, sad gaze to his chosen 'rock'. In judgement? Matthew perhaps thought so - there is no more mention of Peter from that moment.
But not Luke. Luke's Christ is weeping for the sorrow of the moment and for the weakness of the man, knowing that he - Peter - will never, never forget or forgive himself that betrayal. (This Peter also weeps for his many and enduring betrayals.)
"Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam..."
Now what faith was in that? Man to trust God - so simple. But God to trust in a man - how wondrous it is.
Do you see the full horror in Luke's version of Peter's denial of Christ?
Jesus had predicted that Peter would deny Him that fateful night before the cock crowed thrice. Peter, of course, had most passionately sworn eternal loyalty, yet when the time of testing came failed so miserably.
The other Gospels concentrate on the actions and reactions of Peter as the cock crows and he denies. But not Luke. Luke's Christ - knowing that the third cock crow signals the predicted denial - turns his merciful, sad gaze to his chosen 'rock'. In judgement? Matthew perhaps thought so - there is no more mention of Peter from that moment.
But not Luke. Luke's Christ is weeping for the sorrow of the moment and for the weakness of the man, knowing that he - Peter - will never, never forget or forgive himself that betrayal. (This Peter also weeps for his many and enduring betrayals.)
"Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam..."
Now what faith was in that? Man to trust God - so simple. But God to trust in a man - how wondrous it is.
Going Solo...
...Solos are absolutely not the thing generally within monastic liturgy. The very notion that one voice should be heard above or beyond others is pretty close to anathema.
Cantors assigned to keep the rabble of choir in some kind of decent order are permitted to crank up the volume if the occasion demands to quell or drown a voice manifestly off-key, but that is about all.
There are rare exceptions, one being the chanting of the Lamentations during Tenebrae in which a single monk will step forward to keen solo. (The 'Exultet' for the Easter Vigil is another - and a rank beast of a tune to hold let me tell you. About as enviable a task as being asked to sound 'The Last Post' at Remembrance Sunday.)
Now the Rector has a passing tenor voice; generally on or abouts key, if having the traditional male vice of heading towards flat if not properly held to correct pitch. Not though an absolute cracker, just decent enough for a monastic choir doing plainchant.
Knock me down with a scapular, therefore, when one year I found myself striped down to sing the Lamentations for Holy Thursday Tenebrae! Some mistake surely on Hebdom's part (he the week's ring-master). But no, there it was on the board for all to see and me to cack myself at: 'De Lamentatione' - Dom. PP.
Days mercifully to prepare and to practice. The practising element was, in itself, a bit tricky by reason of the fact that monastic liturgy is essentially 'prayer in action'. You don't 'practice' praying: you either are praying or you are not praying. One simply didn't 'rehearse', one simply did.
But for something as daunting as standing before one's assembled, cowled community, in the half-dark with the literal and metaphorical spotlight upon one, on a most sacred evening in the liturgical year, simply bashing it out - hoping for the best on an 'all right on the night' principle - was just not on.
So off to the woods it was, armed with text, tune and tuning fork for some serious practice. Far better to accept that there was a certain personal vanity in not wanting to make a hash of it, than hearing the dread 'Harrumph' of a displeased Abbot when one did!
Now 'tune' is most certainly not the apposite word for Gregorian chant. There are modes and there are tones. There are incipits and there are cadences. There is rhythm of a free nature, but most certainly not is there measure as in two-four, four-four et al. All written in square neumes on four lines with never a sharp and rarely a flat in sight.
Daunting? Well not really. True it is the saying that when two or three monks are met together then are found four or more 'experts' in the chant, but more that of the dear Abbot who opined truly and wisely that the chant is a wonderful way for ordinary people to make extraordinary music.
If you can breathe, then you can do-re-mi sing; and if you can do that then you can sing Gregorian chant.
Well you can in choir, which entirely is not the same as standing solo and unaccompanied - that last the last great test! - before fifty or so chant 'experts', a few of whom who would be allowing themselves the perfectly traditional monastic vice of hoping you make a complete dog's dinner of the whole thing!
Went it then well, you will be asking. Vainglorious of me would it be to say it was a belter: the monk was inspired, on fire, the voice splitting the gathering shadows with a poignant lament for the horror of the Crucifixion to come.
You can see why solos are not the monastic thing. Vanity all is potential vanity!
Cantors assigned to keep the rabble of choir in some kind of decent order are permitted to crank up the volume if the occasion demands to quell or drown a voice manifestly off-key, but that is about all.
There are rare exceptions, one being the chanting of the Lamentations during Tenebrae in which a single monk will step forward to keen solo. (The 'Exultet' for the Easter Vigil is another - and a rank beast of a tune to hold let me tell you. About as enviable a task as being asked to sound 'The Last Post' at Remembrance Sunday.)
Now the Rector has a passing tenor voice; generally on or abouts key, if having the traditional male vice of heading towards flat if not properly held to correct pitch. Not though an absolute cracker, just decent enough for a monastic choir doing plainchant.
Knock me down with a scapular, therefore, when one year I found myself striped down to sing the Lamentations for Holy Thursday Tenebrae! Some mistake surely on Hebdom's part (he the week's ring-master). But no, there it was on the board for all to see and me to cack myself at: 'De Lamentatione' - Dom. PP.
Days mercifully to prepare and to practice. The practising element was, in itself, a bit tricky by reason of the fact that monastic liturgy is essentially 'prayer in action'. You don't 'practice' praying: you either are praying or you are not praying. One simply didn't 'rehearse', one simply did.
But for something as daunting as standing before one's assembled, cowled community, in the half-dark with the literal and metaphorical spotlight upon one, on a most sacred evening in the liturgical year, simply bashing it out - hoping for the best on an 'all right on the night' principle - was just not on.
So off to the woods it was, armed with text, tune and tuning fork for some serious practice. Far better to accept that there was a certain personal vanity in not wanting to make a hash of it, than hearing the dread 'Harrumph' of a displeased Abbot when one did!
Now 'tune' is most certainly not the apposite word for Gregorian chant. There are modes and there are tones. There are incipits and there are cadences. There is rhythm of a free nature, but most certainly not is there measure as in two-four, four-four et al. All written in square neumes on four lines with never a sharp and rarely a flat in sight.
Daunting? Well not really. True it is the saying that when two or three monks are met together then are found four or more 'experts' in the chant, but more that of the dear Abbot who opined truly and wisely that the chant is a wonderful way for ordinary people to make extraordinary music.
If you can breathe, then you can do-re-mi sing; and if you can do that then you can sing Gregorian chant.
Well you can in choir, which entirely is not the same as standing solo and unaccompanied - that last the last great test! - before fifty or so chant 'experts', a few of whom who would be allowing themselves the perfectly traditional monastic vice of hoping you make a complete dog's dinner of the whole thing!
Went it then well, you will be asking. Vainglorious of me would it be to say it was a belter: the monk was inspired, on fire, the voice splitting the gathering shadows with a poignant lament for the horror of the Crucifixion to come.
You can see why solos are not the monastic thing. Vanity all is potential vanity!
Kenning...
...Kind of H to step into the breach. Still here - or thereabouts.
As suitable distraction from the difficult days ahead, a few hours of early Spring gardening today has me reflecting on kenning and kennings.
A fine poetic conceit of early Western literature akin to the marvellous 'One Song To The Tune Of Another' game - see Humphrey Littleton passim.
'Whale-road' for sea, 'blood-worm' for sword, or 'spear-din' for battle. That sort of thing.
Generally, it must be said, somewhat too bloodthirsty (a modern kenning in its own right of course!) for our refined tastes; as the scops - or minstrels - tended to concentrate their efforts on crowd-pleasers (ditto) which - the crowd mainly comprising warriors - were mostly of the derring-do, derring-done of war variety.
Having spent just too many hours today seeking to cleanse the front lawn - which suffers terribly from the eternal shade of over-hanging trees - from its winter coating, I can say that these scop fellows missed a trick in not turning their attention and songs to more peaceful pastimes as gardening.
Behold therefore, I give you a new and precisely tuned kenning: 'moss-breeder' for lawn!
As suitable distraction from the difficult days ahead, a few hours of early Spring gardening today has me reflecting on kenning and kennings.
A fine poetic conceit of early Western literature akin to the marvellous 'One Song To The Tune Of Another' game - see Humphrey Littleton passim.
'Whale-road' for sea, 'blood-worm' for sword, or 'spear-din' for battle. That sort of thing.
Generally, it must be said, somewhat too bloodthirsty (a modern kenning in its own right of course!) for our refined tastes; as the scops - or minstrels - tended to concentrate their efforts on crowd-pleasers (ditto) which - the crowd mainly comprising warriors - were mostly of the derring-do, derring-done of war variety.
Having spent just too many hours today seeking to cleanse the front lawn - which suffers terribly from the eternal shade of over-hanging trees - from its winter coating, I can say that these scop fellows missed a trick in not turning their attention and songs to more peaceful pastimes as gardening.
Behold therefore, I give you a new and precisely tuned kenning: 'moss-breeder' for lawn!
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Feed Your Head...
....H here!
Yes, there has been some silence the distaff end for a while. A bit bruised certainly from the whole Parish Council vs. Colonel X and his 'arrest the Rector's wife' endeavour.
Time indeed to keep one's head below parapet level for a while it best seemed. PP and I did discuss this and, though of course not bound by the masculine imperative, I have to admit that there has been more gold in silence than silver in speaking out.
But here we are again as stand-in. Reason being poor dear PP has spiritually departed into his traditional complete panic and pandemonium over that most sacred festival of Easter.
When I say 'panic and pandemonium' I am not referring to any fundamental anxiety about just what to preach on an Easter Sunday, or how to handle seasonal converts to the Faith who clearly are seeking nothing more than securing a primary school place for their second youngest.
No, nothing so easy or profane as that. Poor - nay wondrous - fellow, he simply cannot publicly cope with the sheer horror then magnificence of first death on a Cross then the Resurrection.
You can't really fault him. Stop a moment - dare one? - to consider that terrible moment, that fearful death, the empty despair of the Apostles, the wretched pain of Mary - 'Good' Friday (we must call it that or else we would never stop weeping for its terrible agony) - the silence of that first dawn of the Sabbath with all hope gone, then strangely, unbelievably sudden good news ('gospel') of the Risen Lord.
No wonder perhaps one could hear him now up in the study, head buried deep into a St. Bernard homily yet also with Jefferson Airplane blasting mega-loud (beyond E even) from the stereo.
If Easter doesn't scare you witless then nothing could or should.
I can see his point. In fact, there is no other point.
Yes, there has been some silence the distaff end for a while. A bit bruised certainly from the whole Parish Council vs. Colonel X and his 'arrest the Rector's wife' endeavour.
Time indeed to keep one's head below parapet level for a while it best seemed. PP and I did discuss this and, though of course not bound by the masculine imperative, I have to admit that there has been more gold in silence than silver in speaking out.
But here we are again as stand-in. Reason being poor dear PP has spiritually departed into his traditional complete panic and pandemonium over that most sacred festival of Easter.
When I say 'panic and pandemonium' I am not referring to any fundamental anxiety about just what to preach on an Easter Sunday, or how to handle seasonal converts to the Faith who clearly are seeking nothing more than securing a primary school place for their second youngest.
No, nothing so easy or profane as that. Poor - nay wondrous - fellow, he simply cannot publicly cope with the sheer horror then magnificence of first death on a Cross then the Resurrection.
You can't really fault him. Stop a moment - dare one? - to consider that terrible moment, that fearful death, the empty despair of the Apostles, the wretched pain of Mary - 'Good' Friday (we must call it that or else we would never stop weeping for its terrible agony) - the silence of that first dawn of the Sabbath with all hope gone, then strangely, unbelievably sudden good news ('gospel') of the Risen Lord.
No wonder perhaps one could hear him now up in the study, head buried deep into a St. Bernard homily yet also with Jefferson Airplane blasting mega-loud (beyond E even) from the stereo.
If Easter doesn't scare you witless then nothing could or should.
I can see his point. In fact, there is no other point.
Dream On...
...More from life on planet Mars:
Gene is on the run, as a murder suspect. He takes refuge in Sam's flat. Sam asleep on the chair has a typical scary nightmare and wakes up screaming.
"What the heck was that?" Gene demands.
"It was a dream," says Sam.
"Rubbish mate. My idea of a screaming dream is Diana Dors and a bottle of chip oil."
Nice one Gene.
Gene is on the run, as a murder suspect. He takes refuge in Sam's flat. Sam asleep on the chair has a typical scary nightmare and wakes up screaming.
"What the heck was that?" Gene demands.
"It was a dream," says Sam.
"Rubbish mate. My idea of a screaming dream is Diana Dors and a bottle of chip oil."
Nice one Gene.
Rant On Bro....
Not perhaps the most pertinent of remarks for Holy Week, but this just in from Bro. George: more rant on the inanities of 'customer support' failures.
Geo. had recently set up a new Business Account with his esteemed bankers - no doubt some cunning tax wheeze, but best not dwell - and had been sent not merely written details on accessing info on-line, but also a cunning little code box machine to fool the phishers. (Easily confused with a car key fob if you ask me.)
Not needing to activate said account for a spell - perhaps no tax to dodge! - Geo. had not bothered so to do. (Customer choice!)
His silence was met with a pained e-mail or two from said esteemed Bank urging him to activate his account. These he ignored on the same customer choice principle that this was not something he needed right now. As and when he did he would. That sort of thing.
Thence came a third missive announcing out of the blue that as he hadn't complied with the activation request [command] he was to be de-activated forthwith! Harsh punishment indeed, though one could see where the Bank might be coming from on this. Just about, if being generous.
So a phone call was made to 'customer services' just to check the state of play. Customer services were all too happy to urge him not to panic (a thought far removed) and simply to activate as and when he felt the need. Nothing else changed? No, came the reply.
Well today, finally, the Bro. did decide the time was right, so armed with all reference numbers, account info, activation codes, plus fond memory of his dear departed Mother's maiden name, he sought to have a go.
No go, said the machine. Activation code now no longer active, as it were. Fair enough maybe, but not what he had been told.
Website info in such circs. was to telephone a number (more 'customer services') for guidance on how to proceed.
First word from customer services was not to ask it for guidance as guidance was not theirs to give, but reference back to same website to a sub-menu within another sub-menu.
Right ho. Thence to a form to be completed and faxed back. "Don't do faxes," Geo. informed them. "Fax was all right for The Ark and Noah plus assembled crew and passengers, but not for the sort of modern thrusting business that I run." (Deluded boy! But again customer choice.)
The not-doing-faxes remark was not well received by customer services. Plainly persons not doing faxes were not persons that they held in high regard, being clearly rank deviants.
The usual punishment for not doing something required of the system is to be 'put on hold'; meaning anything from ten minutes silence followed by an answer, to ten minutes silence and then being cut-off without an answer.
Lucky to receive only the former for so grave a misdemeanour, Geo. was finally asked if he had received his activation code by e-mail. Well yes he had. In which case a further code would be similarly dispatched within the hour. (Clock is running on this.)
Not particularly seismic in the scheme of things - very much in the 'Small Earthquake in Chile' quartile, but irksome enough for Geo to rant to me.
Deep breath Geo!
Geo. had recently set up a new Business Account with his esteemed bankers - no doubt some cunning tax wheeze, but best not dwell - and had been sent not merely written details on accessing info on-line, but also a cunning little code box machine to fool the phishers. (Easily confused with a car key fob if you ask me.)
Not needing to activate said account for a spell - perhaps no tax to dodge! - Geo. had not bothered so to do. (Customer choice!)
His silence was met with a pained e-mail or two from said esteemed Bank urging him to activate his account. These he ignored on the same customer choice principle that this was not something he needed right now. As and when he did he would. That sort of thing.
Thence came a third missive announcing out of the blue that as he hadn't complied with the activation request [command] he was to be de-activated forthwith! Harsh punishment indeed, though one could see where the Bank might be coming from on this. Just about, if being generous.
So a phone call was made to 'customer services' just to check the state of play. Customer services were all too happy to urge him not to panic (a thought far removed) and simply to activate as and when he felt the need. Nothing else changed? No, came the reply.
Well today, finally, the Bro. did decide the time was right, so armed with all reference numbers, account info, activation codes, plus fond memory of his dear departed Mother's maiden name, he sought to have a go.
No go, said the machine. Activation code now no longer active, as it were. Fair enough maybe, but not what he had been told.
Website info in such circs. was to telephone a number (more 'customer services') for guidance on how to proceed.
First word from customer services was not to ask it for guidance as guidance was not theirs to give, but reference back to same website to a sub-menu within another sub-menu.
Right ho. Thence to a form to be completed and faxed back. "Don't do faxes," Geo. informed them. "Fax was all right for The Ark and Noah plus assembled crew and passengers, but not for the sort of modern thrusting business that I run." (Deluded boy! But again customer choice.)
The not-doing-faxes remark was not well received by customer services. Plainly persons not doing faxes were not persons that they held in high regard, being clearly rank deviants.
The usual punishment for not doing something required of the system is to be 'put on hold'; meaning anything from ten minutes silence followed by an answer, to ten minutes silence and then being cut-off without an answer.
Lucky to receive only the former for so grave a misdemeanour, Geo. was finally asked if he had received his activation code by e-mail. Well yes he had. In which case a further code would be similarly dispatched within the hour. (Clock is running on this.)
Not particularly seismic in the scheme of things - very much in the 'Small Earthquake in Chile' quartile, but irksome enough for Geo to rant to me.
Deep breath Geo!
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