...How far is it one wonders, pondering today the shame and scandal of Mid-Staffs Foundation NHS Trust, from the Boardroom at Stafford Hospital to the A&E Department? Fifty feet, fifty yards? A hundred perhaps at the outside.
How long then would it have taken a Board member (a non-exec doing his or her duty) to walk from the one to the other? Two minutes, maybe five. Hardly more.
Did any Board member choose to take that small walk to save, perhaps, a thousand lives by seeing the chaos for themselves? Doesn't appear so.
Why were phone calls not made to the Chief Constable of Staffordshire demanding that a criminal investigation begin under s.44 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 on the grounds of 'wilful neglect or ill-treatment' of people who lacked capacity to take decisions for themselves, as clearly was the case on some medical wards? (Perhaps they were, and if not then not too late to make that call now.)
How can Monitor now claim it didn't even know about the Healthcare Commission investigation when it approved Foundation status, or the Healthcare Commission not inform Monitor of their concerns?
How in any sense can the local PCT claim to have 'commissioned' this disaster if they knew nothing of what was happening?
Where was the relevant Local Authority charged with 'safeguarding' throughout its patch?
Can it really be true that the former Chief Executive of the local Strategic Health Authority is now to be the head of the new Care Quality Commission? (When did she last visit Stafford A&E or indeed any hospital ward?)
Why would the local coroner not co-operate with the Healthcare Commission investigation when asked to do so? ("We thought that information from the coroner would be useful for the investigation. We were disappointed that he declined to provide us with any information about the number or nature of inquests involving the trust." p.11 of the report.)
Why haven't Board members fled the country in shame taking with them the architects of this whole sorry mess - those in the Department of Health and their Ministers who designed the whole 'information managed' and 'target driven' monster they have created.
And where else is this happening right now in other hospitals? I would urge today all Trust (the very word makes one wince) Board members to take a few short walks about their respective hospitals. They might learn a thing or two, not to mention save some lives in the process.
Being there is what matters, not reliance on status reports, spreadsheets and data forecasts. Worked for Taiichi Ohno, and he was only making motor cars not preventing the slaughter of patients.
(It is mercifully infrequent that one's real day job intrudes into this pleasant, if imagined, place of respite from the rough and tumble of management consultancy. This time though one is so cross one must speak. There is another world - to be kept at thorough arm's length from the happy doings of my endearing if Pooterish alter ego - and if you must go in search of further unreality you may find it at http://www.hemina.co.uk/ I am hardly ever in. This place is so much nicer!)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 01, 2009
18 up....
...Cometh the hour, cometh not the baby. Appreciating the science to be imprecise, E's due delivery date - and hence this most especial birthday of hers - should have been a fortnight before it eventually came to pass.
'Twas indeed eighteen years ago this very day - that the speciality we celebrate tonight - at thirty-two minutes past midnight E was born. Expected a while earlier, she had kept us all waiting an age it seemed at the time.
The delay, though stressing, did prevent her from being a 'War Baby' for which I am glad. The first Iraq war may well have been a 'just war' in theological terms - I do believe it to have been so indeed - but it was a war in all regards and not the contextual stamp I had been desiring for my first born.
So she escaped that, but not so many other civil alarums and excursions. She nearly died on us, she could have been desperately disabled at birth. The umbilicus was - we discovered - wrapped round her neck, foetal distress was clear to see and but for an emergency Caesarean we would not have her now.
All laud and praise then to the fine surgeon who rescued her. All glory to the nursing staff who cuddled a desperate Ma and Pa through those horrid hours of fear.
But balance that paean I must with total astonishment that, when it was known there were problems within we yet still had to share a foetal monitor with another anxious mother because there were not enough such devices in the hospital for all who needed them. Turn and turn about it was for half-hour on and half-hour off.
That even when we had it, the machine was defective and like a pump sprung a leak needed me to crank some handle or other to make it work! That when the relief night midwife came on duty she knew nothing of our plight, had trouble configuring the monitor - could not even plug it in without assistance - and was clueless when it came to the twenty-four hour clock that was integral to how the machine delivered its news.
Cometh the hour, cometh the Pa. Bursting into the doctor's rest room I veritably screamed at them to sack the useless midwife and get their fucking arses over to my wife at once. To their credit they did all of that and more. The doctor just due off duty after a long, long day stayed with us all night long. He indeed who performed the Caesarean. (Had indeed E been a boy she would now be holding some complex Greek name, not the intended Samuel, that being the nationality of our saviour.)
Was that the note of the first of, doubtless, several posts concerning this magnificent anniversary I had intended? I doubt it was, though mostly one just sets off with a theme without clear sight of how it may develop. But say it I must, having now done so.
Before that night I would have counted myself among those who take what they are given and do what they are told by the NHS. But not from that time onward. That night I, in all probability, saved E's life. Some years later that same challenging attitude and approach to health personnel was to save mine as well.
A fig on the latter, but I will stripe down the first of many proud parent moments - what she has achieved not me - in this: that I acted out of character that night in order to do what was necessary for the life and well-being of my only and beloved child, now turned tonight into a fine young woman these eighteen years later.
It is, when all is said and done, a parent thing.
'Twas indeed eighteen years ago this very day - that the speciality we celebrate tonight - at thirty-two minutes past midnight E was born. Expected a while earlier, she had kept us all waiting an age it seemed at the time.
The delay, though stressing, did prevent her from being a 'War Baby' for which I am glad. The first Iraq war may well have been a 'just war' in theological terms - I do believe it to have been so indeed - but it was a war in all regards and not the contextual stamp I had been desiring for my first born.
So she escaped that, but not so many other civil alarums and excursions. She nearly died on us, she could have been desperately disabled at birth. The umbilicus was - we discovered - wrapped round her neck, foetal distress was clear to see and but for an emergency Caesarean we would not have her now.
All laud and praise then to the fine surgeon who rescued her. All glory to the nursing staff who cuddled a desperate Ma and Pa through those horrid hours of fear.
But balance that paean I must with total astonishment that, when it was known there were problems within we yet still had to share a foetal monitor with another anxious mother because there were not enough such devices in the hospital for all who needed them. Turn and turn about it was for half-hour on and half-hour off.
That even when we had it, the machine was defective and like a pump sprung a leak needed me to crank some handle or other to make it work! That when the relief night midwife came on duty she knew nothing of our plight, had trouble configuring the monitor - could not even plug it in without assistance - and was clueless when it came to the twenty-four hour clock that was integral to how the machine delivered its news.
Cometh the hour, cometh the Pa. Bursting into the doctor's rest room I veritably screamed at them to sack the useless midwife and get their fucking arses over to my wife at once. To their credit they did all of that and more. The doctor just due off duty after a long, long day stayed with us all night long. He indeed who performed the Caesarean. (Had indeed E been a boy she would now be holding some complex Greek name, not the intended Samuel, that being the nationality of our saviour.)
Was that the note of the first of, doubtless, several posts concerning this magnificent anniversary I had intended? I doubt it was, though mostly one just sets off with a theme without clear sight of how it may develop. But say it I must, having now done so.
Before that night I would have counted myself among those who take what they are given and do what they are told by the NHS. But not from that time onward. That night I, in all probability, saved E's life. Some years later that same challenging attitude and approach to health personnel was to save mine as well.
A fig on the latter, but I will stripe down the first of many proud parent moments - what she has achieved not me - in this: that I acted out of character that night in order to do what was necessary for the life and well-being of my only and beloved child, now turned tonight into a fine young woman these eighteen years later.
It is, when all is said and done, a parent thing.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Captain Ahab - Nineteen Years On
...'Tis now precisely nineteen years since last I read Melville's 'Moby Dick', the book I am now once more close to completing.
How do I know so exactly the date, when barely can I recall the events of last week?
It is this. When last I journeyed with Ahab and his crew on the Pequod's last voyage I could not have been a parent, else I would have only remembered this of him that he, so obsessive in his quest for the White Whale, could spurn the desperate plea of the Captain of the 'Rachel' to join in the search for a missing son, lost when their boat encountered that terrible beast.
The risk of his own crew, the terrible daring of his own life, the insistent demand to catch the terrible fate that awaits him - none of this now matters or signifies. Ahab spurned a parent in distress. That is all I know of him and all I need to know.
It is, of course, between then and now - those nineteen years - that I have lived as a parent myself and, as such, would give all and anything to a fellow parent in distress.
There is that bond of being, to which no other can compare. And thus, today, when Gordon Brown speaks of his sorrowful empathy with David Cameron and his family in their loss of their beloved son Ivan, I fully understand the parental empathy that impels his words. He lost his first child. He knows the hurt as no other can.
The Psalmist writes of 'the deep that sings unto deep.' There is no greater profundity than this.
How do I know so exactly the date, when barely can I recall the events of last week?
It is this. When last I journeyed with Ahab and his crew on the Pequod's last voyage I could not have been a parent, else I would have only remembered this of him that he, so obsessive in his quest for the White Whale, could spurn the desperate plea of the Captain of the 'Rachel' to join in the search for a missing son, lost when their boat encountered that terrible beast.
The risk of his own crew, the terrible daring of his own life, the insistent demand to catch the terrible fate that awaits him - none of this now matters or signifies. Ahab spurned a parent in distress. That is all I know of him and all I need to know.
It is, of course, between then and now - those nineteen years - that I have lived as a parent myself and, as such, would give all and anything to a fellow parent in distress.
There is that bond of being, to which no other can compare. And thus, today, when Gordon Brown speaks of his sorrowful empathy with David Cameron and his family in their loss of their beloved son Ivan, I fully understand the parental empathy that impels his words. He lost his first child. He knows the hurt as no other can.
The Psalmist writes of 'the deep that sings unto deep.' There is no greater profundity than this.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
'Lights, Camera, Action!'...
There are not a few who, somewhat in general scornfully, would compare the parsonic with the thespian calling.
There are some overlaps one must admit: an amount of dressing up for the occasion, the ability to hold an audience's/congregation's attention for more than the statistically average three seconds, a certain bravado in style and perhaps - dare one own for both callings - a love of being in the public gaze. Beyond that though I will not go.
An actor may well talk of his or her 'vocation', but though I doubt not the person's sincerity I will not take as comparable - certainly not equal in either merit or significance - the ploughing of the field for the Lord's harvest and the treading of any boards for an evening's entertainment.
Does that sound pompous tosh? Am aware it might, but let it rest as it is. Truth enough that the majority of the theatrical or the film crew - as it were - would merely and more humbly aver that they are simply doing what comes naturally. If I were to say, in any riposte, that my belief in my calling is doing what comes supernaturally, then that must be a matter to judge for Him and not for me.
'Tis entirely possible He held His head in His hands on His hearing of my intention to don the dog collar in His name. I cannot tell. One mustn't - as my late and dear Abbot once said - be constantly looking over one's shoulder at the shadow of one's vocation. Leave it alone and try not to fret was his wise advice.
But could the one have been the other? Had not the theological urge taken grip, would I now be lined up for some part in a desperately intense French film with acres of remorse, nudity and regret, or else some block-busting, Oscar-winning, dollar-minting Hollywood epic? Can't say for sure, but whichever would stand me in greater chance of snogging Nic Kidman on set would get my vote! (How venial is the man!)
Note carefully that there are few enough, if any, major filmic types who did not start young. Not necessarily professional and public performance, but an urge at an early age to don a costume or two from adult clothes to hand and thence to burst forth into the drawing room - or back parlour according to taste - with some skit or sketch to lay before the doting parents and the dozing relatives come Christmas or other festive family gathering.
That though not for me. There were but two moments in early life when the 'bug' might have taken hold, but for obvious reasons to be revealed it did not. The first - and so very precious memory - was the time that the late and wonderful Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's fame of course), I and a few school mates staged a sound recorded recreation of some of the very earliest moments from the original Dr. Who series.
All, naturally, wished to be the Doctor as such, only as PNMJ - check the book for the reference to 'worst poet in the galaxy' and I can assure you he was! - owned the tape machine his was first refusal on the star part. Douglas got to voice a Dalek, rather well as it turned out, and I but the poor fellow who screamed a lot before falling to his death in some implausible studio chasm.
The second - as memorable but for more painful reasons - was a staged school French play, in which I was to be the night porter whose entrance temporarily disturbed the dastardly deeds of a pair of burglars. The plot - such as there was one - required one of the burglars to thwack me about the head with a mallet, thus rendering me silent.
Now even in those pre elven-safety days it was not quite the thing to brain a child with a solid lump of wood. (Some masters may well have employed such disciplinary measures in the privacy of the classroom; but that was a different matter and not something we all felt - both victims and abusers alike - to lay before any wider, less comprehending audience.)
As, therefore, a protective measure - and adding to the visual fun of the thing - I was to be equipped with a WW2 Tommy helmet. The blow was to descend downwards and the padding to absorb the impact. That of course was the plan not - it transpired - the execution.
On the night, 'Robber Two', somewhat carried away with the excitement of the occasion, dealt me a mighty blow to the side of the head, where the usefulness of the helmet was strictly limited. Determined not to cry in pain and thus ruin the whole performance, I could not but somewhat actually pass out. The rest is a blur.
Seeing my collapse, the master/director hovering in the wings apparently had to rush onto stage, swoop me in his arms and carry me off to Nurse who, as ever, was on stand-by for any eventuality.
The audience - parents mostly - apparently howled their delight at this. Not as collective sadists as such - though the point is moot given that they all had dispatched their 'precious' off-spring into the maw of fell boarding school life - but in reasonably assuming this all to be a part of the proceedings. Well it jolly well wasn't!
So what, by a tender age, had I learnt of the acting craft? That he who owns the kit - 'The Producer' - calls all the main shots. Check. That 'The Director' of the whole piece may think he's in charge but isn't. Check. That metaphorical death or, worse, actual physical pain was all that I, as 'Actor', could expect for an outcome. Checkmate.
Not, on the whole, what these psycho-babble coves call 'positive reinforcement' all told vis a vis life in the limelight. No, sadly, were any snogging of the always fragrant Nic K ever to occur - and of course it will not - it will have to be for real and not for film. I can live with that premise.
There are some overlaps one must admit: an amount of dressing up for the occasion, the ability to hold an audience's/congregation's attention for more than the statistically average three seconds, a certain bravado in style and perhaps - dare one own for both callings - a love of being in the public gaze. Beyond that though I will not go.
An actor may well talk of his or her 'vocation', but though I doubt not the person's sincerity I will not take as comparable - certainly not equal in either merit or significance - the ploughing of the field for the Lord's harvest and the treading of any boards for an evening's entertainment.
Does that sound pompous tosh? Am aware it might, but let it rest as it is. Truth enough that the majority of the theatrical or the film crew - as it were - would merely and more humbly aver that they are simply doing what comes naturally. If I were to say, in any riposte, that my belief in my calling is doing what comes supernaturally, then that must be a matter to judge for Him and not for me.
'Tis entirely possible He held His head in His hands on His hearing of my intention to don the dog collar in His name. I cannot tell. One mustn't - as my late and dear Abbot once said - be constantly looking over one's shoulder at the shadow of one's vocation. Leave it alone and try not to fret was his wise advice.
But could the one have been the other? Had not the theological urge taken grip, would I now be lined up for some part in a desperately intense French film with acres of remorse, nudity and regret, or else some block-busting, Oscar-winning, dollar-minting Hollywood epic? Can't say for sure, but whichever would stand me in greater chance of snogging Nic Kidman on set would get my vote! (How venial is the man!)
Note carefully that there are few enough, if any, major filmic types who did not start young. Not necessarily professional and public performance, but an urge at an early age to don a costume or two from adult clothes to hand and thence to burst forth into the drawing room - or back parlour according to taste - with some skit or sketch to lay before the doting parents and the dozing relatives come Christmas or other festive family gathering.
That though not for me. There were but two moments in early life when the 'bug' might have taken hold, but for obvious reasons to be revealed it did not. The first - and so very precious memory - was the time that the late and wonderful Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's fame of course), I and a few school mates staged a sound recorded recreation of some of the very earliest moments from the original Dr. Who series.
All, naturally, wished to be the Doctor as such, only as PNMJ - check the book for the reference to 'worst poet in the galaxy' and I can assure you he was! - owned the tape machine his was first refusal on the star part. Douglas got to voice a Dalek, rather well as it turned out, and I but the poor fellow who screamed a lot before falling to his death in some implausible studio chasm.
The second - as memorable but for more painful reasons - was a staged school French play, in which I was to be the night porter whose entrance temporarily disturbed the dastardly deeds of a pair of burglars. The plot - such as there was one - required one of the burglars to thwack me about the head with a mallet, thus rendering me silent.
Now even in those pre elven-safety days it was not quite the thing to brain a child with a solid lump of wood. (Some masters may well have employed such disciplinary measures in the privacy of the classroom; but that was a different matter and not something we all felt - both victims and abusers alike - to lay before any wider, less comprehending audience.)
As, therefore, a protective measure - and adding to the visual fun of the thing - I was to be equipped with a WW2 Tommy helmet. The blow was to descend downwards and the padding to absorb the impact. That of course was the plan not - it transpired - the execution.
On the night, 'Robber Two', somewhat carried away with the excitement of the occasion, dealt me a mighty blow to the side of the head, where the usefulness of the helmet was strictly limited. Determined not to cry in pain and thus ruin the whole performance, I could not but somewhat actually pass out. The rest is a blur.
Seeing my collapse, the master/director hovering in the wings apparently had to rush onto stage, swoop me in his arms and carry me off to Nurse who, as ever, was on stand-by for any eventuality.
The audience - parents mostly - apparently howled their delight at this. Not as collective sadists as such - though the point is moot given that they all had dispatched their 'precious' off-spring into the maw of fell boarding school life - but in reasonably assuming this all to be a part of the proceedings. Well it jolly well wasn't!
So what, by a tender age, had I learnt of the acting craft? That he who owns the kit - 'The Producer' - calls all the main shots. Check. That 'The Director' of the whole piece may think he's in charge but isn't. Check. That metaphorical death or, worse, actual physical pain was all that I, as 'Actor', could expect for an outcome. Checkmate.
Not, on the whole, what these psycho-babble coves call 'positive reinforcement' all told vis a vis life in the limelight. No, sadly, were any snogging of the always fragrant Nic K ever to occur - and of course it will not - it will have to be for real and not for film. I can live with that premise.
Veni, Trimbli, Vici...
...Have you been caught up in the whole 'Trimble Nation' phenomenon, the swaying tide of opinion regarding the fragrant and achingly bright Miss Trimble?
We in The Wolds are fairly phlegmatic folk all told and not prone to easy adulation of transient celebrity types. But even here, and certainly within the Rectory, of late there has been much crying up of she who has - finally and dare one say it barely? - led her Corpus Christi team to victory in this season's 'University Challenge.'
Sad to see and read that some mean types have taken to deriding, nay scorning, Miss Trimble's special charism of being smart and knowing stuff. In spades it must be said. I'll have none of it. Lord alone knows how invested in pig ignorance are far too many of our young people. I will have an example of good learning applauded.
And thus one announces an eponymous neologism in honour of a fine young woman and a tightly-fought, near-lost contest:
'To trimble' v.i.: to cause or to suffer anxiety by hesitating on the very verge of much deserved victory.
'Much Trimbling in the Marsh' one recalls from the days of wireless. Keats' 'trimbling heart' is another literary reference.
Paramount though, as we classicists will know, is the maxim ascribed to the warring yet uncertain Caesar, J.: 'Veni, Trimbli, Vici.'
You carry on banging that button dear lady. When you know - and who should not in an educated country? - that the chap in the picture can be none but Dante, then you sing out loud and proud. Put a smile on Paxo's grim face and be assured The Wolds is on your side.
We in The Wolds are fairly phlegmatic folk all told and not prone to easy adulation of transient celebrity types. But even here, and certainly within the Rectory, of late there has been much crying up of she who has - finally and dare one say it barely? - led her Corpus Christi team to victory in this season's 'University Challenge.'
Sad to see and read that some mean types have taken to deriding, nay scorning, Miss Trimble's special charism of being smart and knowing stuff. In spades it must be said. I'll have none of it. Lord alone knows how invested in pig ignorance are far too many of our young people. I will have an example of good learning applauded.
And thus one announces an eponymous neologism in honour of a fine young woman and a tightly-fought, near-lost contest:
'To trimble' v.i.: to cause or to suffer anxiety by hesitating on the very verge of much deserved victory.
'Much Trimbling in the Marsh' one recalls from the days of wireless. Keats' 'trimbling heart' is another literary reference.
Paramount though, as we classicists will know, is the maxim ascribed to the warring yet uncertain Caesar, J.: 'Veni, Trimbli, Vici.'
You carry on banging that button dear lady. When you know - and who should not in an educated country? - that the chap in the picture can be none but Dante, then you sing out loud and proud. Put a smile on Paxo's grim face and be assured The Wolds is on your side.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Thousand Yard Stare...
"Gentlemen of the jury, the interest aroused by this case and the lobbying that has taken place over it are presumably well known to you."
Dear Demosthenes, up to his old tricks from the outset. Of course politically founded lobbying was paramount within an Athenian trial - before, during and afterwards - but Demosthenes would merely wish gently to remind the jurors that he knew it to be so, not in any way seek to make an alienating fuss in his opening speech.
The contextual clue of course is in the opening phrase, for where now would one hear reference to an all male jury? Would Demosthenes indeed have managed a 'Ladies and Gentlemen...' with a perfect Rumpolesque warmth, positively welcoming on board representatives of the 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' species?
I suspect he might, with perhaps some practising first. For is that not the mark of the true - if slightly slippery - orator that he (or indeed she) can make a compelling case out of any old set of materials to hand?
A backhanded compliment to the historian A J P Taylor was that he could successfully argue any case of historical causality before a band of eagerly scribbling students, only to return the following day to lecture quite the opposite with equal weight, thus causing consternation and dismay to same scribblers? His entire intention no doubt, and no bad thing for their independent intellectual development would be my view on the matter.
By why he - Demosthenes not AJP - tonight? 'Tis this. If I have regrets in life, one would have to be not ever grasping the ancient Greek tongue. We at school were, fairly arbitrarily, divided into Greeks and Germans. My lot falling to the latter, I can now reasonably enquire of any Herr or Frau the whereabouts of the nearest pharmacy should one ever be needed when out and about in Bavaria. I am, however, by consequence entirely reliant on translations when it comes to making my way through the delights of Herodotus or the difficulties of Aristotle. I do not feel, in that, I have had the greater part of the bargain.
Leaving though behind the regret of not being able to grapple with the original texts, there is little I find more soothing after a hard day's rectoring than to settle down with an ancient Greek author's thoughts on the world as it was, is or might yet be.
Particularly after today and, thus this evening, in especial Demosthenes. There are folk enough gifted at the the full art of public oratory, but I am not one such. Addressing a steaming conference horde on such a topic as 'The Rural Rector - a resource for troubled times?' is neither my choice nor my delight. The question is properly moot - these are troubled times and Rectors do have work to do therein - but I much would rather be out being as resourceful as I might than standing before several hundred of the steaming conference types trying to put that into words.
"Watch out for the thousand yard stare," has been Bro. George's advice on the matter. "If you see that in their faces you know you've lost them." He, being the sort of professional cove whose life is oft wrapped up in such matters, knows full well his onions here. You can sense yourself flying with the sheer wonder of your rhetoric, but when you glance down at the assembled steamers and see their eyes lost into some remote middle-distance, utterly oblivious of your presence and totally deaf to your implorings, well then it is time to wind up and to sit down.
Not saying it was quite that bad today, but in truth not that far off. So no Demosthenes me that for certain. Do I read him then, the assured and smooth speaker whose words echo down the centuries, with some envy? Not at all. I relish the charism he had, rather than growl for that which I do not.
But more on this, for yes my key consideration is that debate is but the beginning; perhaps not even a necessary matter and for certain not a sufficient. For my reading this evening has been interrupted by a woefully distressed telephone call from the wife of one of my farming parishioners. I knew he had been suffering down the years from the financial pressures of his life - little enough money in pigs at the best of times, and these are pretty well the worst of them - so I was not surprised, though of course saddened, to hear her tell me he had broken down completely and been taken away for some much needed medical treatment.
What shook me though from any post-conference blues were her words to describe his pre-admission state. "I knew I'd lost him, Rector, when I looked in his eyes and saw the thousand yard state." It was only then that I recalled the true and desperate origin of that phrase. Not dull conferences, but shell-shock in the trenches during the First World War gave rise to it. That was when they knew a soldier was down - his eyes fixed into some far-distant horror, unable to let go if it.
So are we now come to this, that men - and women too - are to be so crazed by the strife and strain of seeking to survive in the bedlam of economic meltdown that they too will crash as war-torn soldiers once did? Yes they are, is all that need be said. What then the totally average rural Rector is to do to help is not something I'll be asking dear Demosthenes to consider, howsoever an accomplished orator in matters of state. Higher forces for invoking tonight in something so personal and so pressing.
Dear Demosthenes, up to his old tricks from the outset. Of course politically founded lobbying was paramount within an Athenian trial - before, during and afterwards - but Demosthenes would merely wish gently to remind the jurors that he knew it to be so, not in any way seek to make an alienating fuss in his opening speech.
The contextual clue of course is in the opening phrase, for where now would one hear reference to an all male jury? Would Demosthenes indeed have managed a 'Ladies and Gentlemen...' with a perfect Rumpolesque warmth, positively welcoming on board representatives of the 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' species?
I suspect he might, with perhaps some practising first. For is that not the mark of the true - if slightly slippery - orator that he (or indeed she) can make a compelling case out of any old set of materials to hand?
A backhanded compliment to the historian A J P Taylor was that he could successfully argue any case of historical causality before a band of eagerly scribbling students, only to return the following day to lecture quite the opposite with equal weight, thus causing consternation and dismay to same scribblers? His entire intention no doubt, and no bad thing for their independent intellectual development would be my view on the matter.
By why he - Demosthenes not AJP - tonight? 'Tis this. If I have regrets in life, one would have to be not ever grasping the ancient Greek tongue. We at school were, fairly arbitrarily, divided into Greeks and Germans. My lot falling to the latter, I can now reasonably enquire of any Herr or Frau the whereabouts of the nearest pharmacy should one ever be needed when out and about in Bavaria. I am, however, by consequence entirely reliant on translations when it comes to making my way through the delights of Herodotus or the difficulties of Aristotle. I do not feel, in that, I have had the greater part of the bargain.
Leaving though behind the regret of not being able to grapple with the original texts, there is little I find more soothing after a hard day's rectoring than to settle down with an ancient Greek author's thoughts on the world as it was, is or might yet be.
Particularly after today and, thus this evening, in especial Demosthenes. There are folk enough gifted at the the full art of public oratory, but I am not one such. Addressing a steaming conference horde on such a topic as 'The Rural Rector - a resource for troubled times?' is neither my choice nor my delight. The question is properly moot - these are troubled times and Rectors do have work to do therein - but I much would rather be out being as resourceful as I might than standing before several hundred of the steaming conference types trying to put that into words.
"Watch out for the thousand yard stare," has been Bro. George's advice on the matter. "If you see that in their faces you know you've lost them." He, being the sort of professional cove whose life is oft wrapped up in such matters, knows full well his onions here. You can sense yourself flying with the sheer wonder of your rhetoric, but when you glance down at the assembled steamers and see their eyes lost into some remote middle-distance, utterly oblivious of your presence and totally deaf to your implorings, well then it is time to wind up and to sit down.
Not saying it was quite that bad today, but in truth not that far off. So no Demosthenes me that for certain. Do I read him then, the assured and smooth speaker whose words echo down the centuries, with some envy? Not at all. I relish the charism he had, rather than growl for that which I do not.
But more on this, for yes my key consideration is that debate is but the beginning; perhaps not even a necessary matter and for certain not a sufficient. For my reading this evening has been interrupted by a woefully distressed telephone call from the wife of one of my farming parishioners. I knew he had been suffering down the years from the financial pressures of his life - little enough money in pigs at the best of times, and these are pretty well the worst of them - so I was not surprised, though of course saddened, to hear her tell me he had broken down completely and been taken away for some much needed medical treatment.
What shook me though from any post-conference blues were her words to describe his pre-admission state. "I knew I'd lost him, Rector, when I looked in his eyes and saw the thousand yard state." It was only then that I recalled the true and desperate origin of that phrase. Not dull conferences, but shell-shock in the trenches during the First World War gave rise to it. That was when they knew a soldier was down - his eyes fixed into some far-distant horror, unable to let go if it.
So are we now come to this, that men - and women too - are to be so crazed by the strife and strain of seeking to survive in the bedlam of economic meltdown that they too will crash as war-torn soldiers once did? Yes they are, is all that need be said. What then the totally average rural Rector is to do to help is not something I'll be asking dear Demosthenes to consider, howsoever an accomplished orator in matters of state. Higher forces for invoking tonight in something so personal and so pressing.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
The Right Kind Of Snow....
..."The worst snow for eighteen years" they have been telling us, and they are correct.
Not that, ordinarily, I am much moved by the weather as such. It more or less just is, and whatever it is one must do what one must do. Not a terribly Wordsworthian approach to the whole 'grandeur of nature' thing I own, nor indeed the type of 'take it or leave it' approach that would find much favour with dear David Attenborough true enough.
But there it is, the wheels of the parish must turn in rain, wind or shine. A pity of course for any wedding occasion marred by monsoon downpours. My own expressed line on this - that in China such a day would be seen as the Gods raining down blessings on the happy couple - is not one that, all in all, cuts the celebratory mustard I do find. (H has indeed strongly suggested I refrain from such a 'damp' remark, though habit tends to overcome sage advice.)
I even recall a fellow seminarian who let it be known that he was rather keen on 'clouds'. Not in any old hippie way - 'Wow clouds man, they're amazing' - which at least would have been acceptable from a certain class of aspirant: the older convert from paganism so oft found abroad nowadays. No, this chap actually meant that the physics and the chemistry of clouds held a special place in his view of the world and, as such, was worthy of both deep study and endless mention. (Should you ever need someone to empty a room or to close a party on time, then hire Rev Dave X to come and start talking on the particular - nay unique - structure of the cumulus cloud in Spring. Works every time believe me.)
But on this 'worse for eighteen years' thing I am totally on top of my facts here. I do speak though not as a meteorologist but as a parent, or rather at the time as a parent-about-to-become. For it was this season and time some eighteen years ago the we [H and I] were waiting for dear E to decide it was time to be born.
There was a mutually acknowledged concern that a certain Wednesday was the projected 'D' for delivery day, Wednesdays belonging to 'Morse' of course in those days and neither of us terribly keen to miss an episode! But more than that, come the appointed time came also the snows in huge drifts and flurries. The blocking of roads, the inability of hospital staff to reach their places of gainful employment or of ambulances to get outside the gates of their yards - all these were truly and personally troublesome matters.
Staring outside at four feet and more of the white stuff had me gasping at the thought that a home birth, entirely unaided but by self and a manual, was a distinct possibility. ("Just get ready to catch - might shoot out like a lemon pip" was the not so supportive advice of the midwife on the end of the telephone.)
Given then the strong possibility that any travel to the appointed hospital would need to be a self-help affair, it did strike me to check the car was as prepared as it could be for such a difficult journey. Well need I say, it wasn't. The battery proved as dead as all dead things heaped together in a large pile in a dead end going nowhere. Like the car.
This then was the Tuesday evening gone eight o'clock. Morse was not due for another twenty-four hours, but H was strongly intimating that E was on her way!
This then is the nub of it - if you have kept pace - only the local garage could possibly supply a new car battery at this point, and that garage was long shut for the evening with proprietor John Boy (one of those lovely English nicknames completely mis-naming the great, ugly, but sweet gentle giant of a man he was) long gone to his home some many miles away. Many miles away in the snow, of course.
But cometh the hour had to cometh the phone call to John Boy. Nor else a choice. Circs explained, to his everlasting glory the man said at once he would borrow a tractor from his Bro. John Boy down the lane, and drive in through drift, flurry and the freezing night in order to find and fix me the battery I, the car - and H and E - needed.
The story's climax should have me driving through blizzard storm to get H to the hospital on time. Truth though is rather the more mundane. E - a lifetime habit - showed no interest in being timely, rather waiting a whole further two weeks to show herself to the waiting world and the expectant parents both. By which time all snows had gone, roads were clear and the weather utterly unremarkable.
John Boy's kindness and selflessness though have not be forgotten these eighteen years. When the time shortly will come to buy E her first car it will be from his lot we choose. (Might even suggest she gets herself a spare battery. You never know when you might need one!)
Not that, ordinarily, I am much moved by the weather as such. It more or less just is, and whatever it is one must do what one must do. Not a terribly Wordsworthian approach to the whole 'grandeur of nature' thing I own, nor indeed the type of 'take it or leave it' approach that would find much favour with dear David Attenborough true enough.
But there it is, the wheels of the parish must turn in rain, wind or shine. A pity of course for any wedding occasion marred by monsoon downpours. My own expressed line on this - that in China such a day would be seen as the Gods raining down blessings on the happy couple - is not one that, all in all, cuts the celebratory mustard I do find. (H has indeed strongly suggested I refrain from such a 'damp' remark, though habit tends to overcome sage advice.)
I even recall a fellow seminarian who let it be known that he was rather keen on 'clouds'. Not in any old hippie way - 'Wow clouds man, they're amazing' - which at least would have been acceptable from a certain class of aspirant: the older convert from paganism so oft found abroad nowadays. No, this chap actually meant that the physics and the chemistry of clouds held a special place in his view of the world and, as such, was worthy of both deep study and endless mention. (Should you ever need someone to empty a room or to close a party on time, then hire Rev Dave X to come and start talking on the particular - nay unique - structure of the cumulus cloud in Spring. Works every time believe me.)
But on this 'worse for eighteen years' thing I am totally on top of my facts here. I do speak though not as a meteorologist but as a parent, or rather at the time as a parent-about-to-become. For it was this season and time some eighteen years ago the we [H and I] were waiting for dear E to decide it was time to be born.
There was a mutually acknowledged concern that a certain Wednesday was the projected 'D' for delivery day, Wednesdays belonging to 'Morse' of course in those days and neither of us terribly keen to miss an episode! But more than that, come the appointed time came also the snows in huge drifts and flurries. The blocking of roads, the inability of hospital staff to reach their places of gainful employment or of ambulances to get outside the gates of their yards - all these were truly and personally troublesome matters.
Staring outside at four feet and more of the white stuff had me gasping at the thought that a home birth, entirely unaided but by self and a manual, was a distinct possibility. ("Just get ready to catch - might shoot out like a lemon pip" was the not so supportive advice of the midwife on the end of the telephone.)
Given then the strong possibility that any travel to the appointed hospital would need to be a self-help affair, it did strike me to check the car was as prepared as it could be for such a difficult journey. Well need I say, it wasn't. The battery proved as dead as all dead things heaped together in a large pile in a dead end going nowhere. Like the car.
This then was the Tuesday evening gone eight o'clock. Morse was not due for another twenty-four hours, but H was strongly intimating that E was on her way!
This then is the nub of it - if you have kept pace - only the local garage could possibly supply a new car battery at this point, and that garage was long shut for the evening with proprietor John Boy (one of those lovely English nicknames completely mis-naming the great, ugly, but sweet gentle giant of a man he was) long gone to his home some many miles away. Many miles away in the snow, of course.
But cometh the hour had to cometh the phone call to John Boy. Nor else a choice. Circs explained, to his everlasting glory the man said at once he would borrow a tractor from his Bro. John Boy down the lane, and drive in through drift, flurry and the freezing night in order to find and fix me the battery I, the car - and H and E - needed.
The story's climax should have me driving through blizzard storm to get H to the hospital on time. Truth though is rather the more mundane. E - a lifetime habit - showed no interest in being timely, rather waiting a whole further two weeks to show herself to the waiting world and the expectant parents both. By which time all snows had gone, roads were clear and the weather utterly unremarkable.
John Boy's kindness and selflessness though have not be forgotten these eighteen years. When the time shortly will come to buy E her first car it will be from his lot we choose. (Might even suggest she gets herself a spare battery. You never know when you might need one!)
Thursday, January 29, 2009
"And Now We Rise...." John Martyn In Memoriam
http://viewfromthewolds.blogspot.com/2007/02/solid-air.html
...do revisit, as I have just done, these words of mine from some two years past regarding the great and now sadly the late John Martyn.
I add only this. The grave of his dear friend Nick Drake has its epitaph, a line from one of own his wonderful songs. It is now a fitting memorial for them both, reunited once more in eternity:
"And now we rise, and we are everywhere."
Go in peace dear John, play sweet duets with Nick, and thank you so much for all you gave of yourself.
...do revisit, as I have just done, these words of mine from some two years past regarding the great and now sadly the late John Martyn.
I add only this. The grave of his dear friend Nick Drake has its epitaph, a line from one of own his wonderful songs. It is now a fitting memorial for them both, reunited once more in eternity:
"And now we rise, and we are everywhere."
Go in peace dear John, play sweet duets with Nick, and thank you so much for all you gave of yourself.
Monday, January 26, 2009
On Holding The Front Page...
...well perhaps more an inside page than the cover itself, but the principle is the same.
Just settling down this afternoon for the traditional 'power nap' that falls upon one so readily at this lowering time of year, when who but H should bean her way through the very closed study door to announce in high and strident tones that to the devil with a nap, 'Horse and Hound' had just been on the blower wanting a word with our E.
Hard, if you are not a riding family to put quite into words how potent a sentence that is if you are. How can one compare? Say then that motor cars are your thing and young Clarkson, J. should ring up for a chat; or else when scrivening away over some legal tomes as part of your student studies, the Lord Chancellor should happen to stroll round for tea and a chinwag.
That order of magnitude, I trust you see.
But why her and why they I mused to H? Not the sharpest - not nearly half as sharp as required for sure - response I fear. "Stupid man," sighed she. "It's about that dressage competition she won yesterday." Well, of course what else should it have been but that? Just so indeed.
Wasn't going to indulge in any proud parent crowing by mentioning it, but yes she did come a fine first at a show yesterday, and newsworthy enough it seems it is for H & H to want to conduct the smallest no doubt of interviews with her on her victory.
E, at work when the phone rang, could not reply at once. I trust though she bothered to return the call and, equally, assume her acceptance speech was suitably honed - "I owe it all of course to my horse, my trainers and above all my ever wondrous parents, without whose enduring support and endless cash I would not be standing here now." (Hope at least she remembers our names, unlike the overwhelmed and undone Miss Winslet the other night!)
I may have missed my nap, but I shall not miss a discreet note to Bessy at the Post Office requesting her to order an extra dozen or so of the magazine for next week, in order that they may be casually distributed around the parish for all to read and admire.
Probably won't leave them open at the relevant page, but will have to give some thought to that matter: discretion vs. direction. A tricky dilemma you'll agree.
Just settling down this afternoon for the traditional 'power nap' that falls upon one so readily at this lowering time of year, when who but H should bean her way through the very closed study door to announce in high and strident tones that to the devil with a nap, 'Horse and Hound' had just been on the blower wanting a word with our E.
Hard, if you are not a riding family to put quite into words how potent a sentence that is if you are. How can one compare? Say then that motor cars are your thing and young Clarkson, J. should ring up for a chat; or else when scrivening away over some legal tomes as part of your student studies, the Lord Chancellor should happen to stroll round for tea and a chinwag.
That order of magnitude, I trust you see.
But why her and why they I mused to H? Not the sharpest - not nearly half as sharp as required for sure - response I fear. "Stupid man," sighed she. "It's about that dressage competition she won yesterday." Well, of course what else should it have been but that? Just so indeed.
Wasn't going to indulge in any proud parent crowing by mentioning it, but yes she did come a fine first at a show yesterday, and newsworthy enough it seems it is for H & H to want to conduct the smallest no doubt of interviews with her on her victory.
E, at work when the phone rang, could not reply at once. I trust though she bothered to return the call and, equally, assume her acceptance speech was suitably honed - "I owe it all of course to my horse, my trainers and above all my ever wondrous parents, without whose enduring support and endless cash I would not be standing here now." (Hope at least she remembers our names, unlike the overwhelmed and undone Miss Winslet the other night!)
I may have missed my nap, but I shall not miss a discreet note to Bessy at the Post Office requesting her to order an extra dozen or so of the magazine for next week, in order that they may be casually distributed around the parish for all to read and admire.
Probably won't leave them open at the relevant page, but will have to give some thought to that matter: discretion vs. direction. A tricky dilemma you'll agree.
Friday, January 23, 2009
As A Matter Of Fact, I Do Know Of A Better Hole...
If you don't then you won't know that our neck of The Wolds is more hilly than not. Visitors oft remark that they had expected a Cowardesque landscape of unrewarding flatness only, of course, to note on arrival and local exploration the unending undulations of it all round here.
Geology not being a lengthy suit of mine I cannot give account of why this should be, but take it from our newly enlightened visitors it is. That being so, The Wolds could well be the sort of place panicky folk would tend to aspire to when the cry goes out - as soon it must - 'Head for the hills!'
Take it from me, though, that - to paraphrase the old World War One cartoon - there are better hills to whence you should go and thus go to them you must. Why do I say this? Is it concern for your best interests that I should urge you to the Chilterns or the Cheviots rather than The Wolds when in flight from the coming doom? Could rather it be a more selfish desire on my part not to have our small space clogged with indigent incomers?
The latter I fear and also own. But why the jeremiad tone, you reasonably ask? Have I spotted something of such tremendous terror that, like the eponymous OT prophet and all round gloom-merchant, has me tonight so assured of impending disaster I must prepare myself and yourselves for the very worst?
Well, yes sadly I have. Just been listening to this knowledgeable cove on the wireless who told it straight. For, it seems, to buy now insurance against GB plc going bust - that is, to insure against the failure of British Government bonds - not only costs more than the price of the bond itself, but is also at the same rate that would be asked for insurance against the smashed RBS going down the pan.
This is truly chilling. These insurance fellows are not the crazed 'Masters of the Universe' financial types, whose deluded desires for untold wealth have hatched this whole horrid mess. No, these types are the calculating actuaries who know how to call the right odds in any bet. (Handy to have one by your side for a day at the races of course.)
So if they say that we, as a country, are heading for bankruptcy, then you'd be a foolish reader who wagered to the contrary.
We shall all be heading for the hills soon I fear. By all means do so, but just not our hills if you wouldn't mind. We'd hate to be seen as inhospitable and all that, but be advised barricades are in the making, road signs are already disappearing and our ex-SAS chemist [see much earlier] is starting survivalist evening classes.
Just off to the first one now, if you'll excuse me. 'How to cook up a nourishing broth of nettles whilst keeping a lookout for approaching strangers'. Most useful.
Geology not being a lengthy suit of mine I cannot give account of why this should be, but take it from our newly enlightened visitors it is. That being so, The Wolds could well be the sort of place panicky folk would tend to aspire to when the cry goes out - as soon it must - 'Head for the hills!'
Take it from me, though, that - to paraphrase the old World War One cartoon - there are better hills to whence you should go and thus go to them you must. Why do I say this? Is it concern for your best interests that I should urge you to the Chilterns or the Cheviots rather than The Wolds when in flight from the coming doom? Could rather it be a more selfish desire on my part not to have our small space clogged with indigent incomers?
The latter I fear and also own. But why the jeremiad tone, you reasonably ask? Have I spotted something of such tremendous terror that, like the eponymous OT prophet and all round gloom-merchant, has me tonight so assured of impending disaster I must prepare myself and yourselves for the very worst?
Well, yes sadly I have. Just been listening to this knowledgeable cove on the wireless who told it straight. For, it seems, to buy now insurance against GB plc going bust - that is, to insure against the failure of British Government bonds - not only costs more than the price of the bond itself, but is also at the same rate that would be asked for insurance against the smashed RBS going down the pan.
This is truly chilling. These insurance fellows are not the crazed 'Masters of the Universe' financial types, whose deluded desires for untold wealth have hatched this whole horrid mess. No, these types are the calculating actuaries who know how to call the right odds in any bet. (Handy to have one by your side for a day at the races of course.)
So if they say that we, as a country, are heading for bankruptcy, then you'd be a foolish reader who wagered to the contrary.
We shall all be heading for the hills soon I fear. By all means do so, but just not our hills if you wouldn't mind. We'd hate to be seen as inhospitable and all that, but be advised barricades are in the making, road signs are already disappearing and our ex-SAS chemist [see much earlier] is starting survivalist evening classes.
Just off to the first one now, if you'll excuse me. 'How to cook up a nourishing broth of nettles whilst keeping a lookout for approaching strangers'. Most useful.
Monday, January 12, 2009
"...And Not A Penny More!" (How to thrive in a time of recession)
Odd news just in from the rather lovely Borough of Poole. (Second largest natural harbour in the world and all that jazz.)
For it seems a thriving 'Every Item A Pound' store there has been forced to close after a rival shop opened opposite selling the same wares but for a penny less.
Can't imagine it's much fun working the till at such a place, not to mention the cash-up at the end of the day. That though is by the by, for the Great British Public has spoken - "Show us a penny and we're for taking it."
Is this then the dreadful measure of the depth of the recession that people will literally cross the road just to save a penny? Seemingly so on the evidence. (Would that some feral youths of this parish would cross the road to spend a penny at the local public convenience designed for that very purpose and absolutely - despite the metaphor - free at the point of delivery, as it were, rather than simply urinating where they stand on their side of the street. But that is another matter for another time.)
Let us though pursue the thought and in so doing make our fortunes. For if 99p pricing can wipe out a pound, then let us at once pool our resources (in Poole naturally) and chance our arms with a 98 pence a throw model of sales.
Bound to work - for a while - until some dastardly cove comes in at 97p, to be further undercut by the 96'ers. And so forth, thence finally reaching the point of absurdity where someone actually pays you to take the goods away.
Granted then there are limits to the 'pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap' way of doing business. But it will be the richest fellow in town who can chop in at the absolute rock-bottom price with yet a margin of profit howsoever small.
Sets you thinking don't it?
For it seems a thriving 'Every Item A Pound' store there has been forced to close after a rival shop opened opposite selling the same wares but for a penny less.
Can't imagine it's much fun working the till at such a place, not to mention the cash-up at the end of the day. That though is by the by, for the Great British Public has spoken - "Show us a penny and we're for taking it."
Is this then the dreadful measure of the depth of the recession that people will literally cross the road just to save a penny? Seemingly so on the evidence. (Would that some feral youths of this parish would cross the road to spend a penny at the local public convenience designed for that very purpose and absolutely - despite the metaphor - free at the point of delivery, as it were, rather than simply urinating where they stand on their side of the street. But that is another matter for another time.)
Let us though pursue the thought and in so doing make our fortunes. For if 99p pricing can wipe out a pound, then let us at once pool our resources (in Poole naturally) and chance our arms with a 98 pence a throw model of sales.
Bound to work - for a while - until some dastardly cove comes in at 97p, to be further undercut by the 96'ers. And so forth, thence finally reaching the point of absurdity where someone actually pays you to take the goods away.
Granted then there are limits to the 'pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap' way of doing business. But it will be the richest fellow in town who can chop in at the absolute rock-bottom price with yet a margin of profit howsoever small.
Sets you thinking don't it?
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Shaggers Bottom - A Brief Defence...
...What correlation is there, one wonders, between the utter savage wretchedness of the world and the rising tide of priggish officialdom? The more, for example, feral youths run riot causing mischief, mayhem and indeed sadly sometimes murder, the more does the Constabulary of this land appear to spend its time nicking plain folk for putting jokey advertisements in shop windows or else carving their hedgerows into amusing if mildly erotic shapes.
Most likely said Constabulary, as I fear so many of us, have simply given up on the big things, because they are truly monstrous and largely untouchable. How much easier is it to harass a poor pensioner for cluttering up a shopping centre or the child chalking hopscotch on a pavement, than to tackle the Mad Max gangs that terrorise whole neighbourhoods?
This though is not a rant about policing in its narrow sense, but of the latest Town Hall nonsense that would seek to sanitise our cherished street names. For way down South - not here mercifully - one reads that Lewes Council is to take arms against 'Juggs Close' and to prevent any 'Typple Lane'.
Pompously declaring they will not countenance names that are "capable of deliberate misinterpretation", the local Council sets its silly Puritan hat against fun in any guise. (More cakes and ale cried Falstaff and so do I!)
The worst of it is that in so po-facedly deciding, they are at war with our heritage, history and tradition. The 'jugg' that so titillates - or not - the modern ear is, for example, the name of the basket in which fish was carried in that once great port of Lewes.
We too here have our ancient names for ancient ways, 'Shaggers Bottom' being but the best of them. Yes it is amusing in all so many silly ways, but it is also a remembrance of the valley in which rough woollen cloth was woven in centuries past. A light-industry long gone maybe, but I would as soon lose that connection to our Woldean history as I would see an Elizabethan house torn down for being equally archaic.
Now for myself - as Rector - I own I do prefer not actually to live in Shaggers Bottom as such. There would be complications, it is true, I could and do well live without. But H and E have already heard from their stern and committed master that should come the day our local Council looks askance at the name we'll be moving there the very next day and hang the lot of them say we all. (Well, do I say anyways.)
Is there a New Year equivalent for Yuletide 'Bah Humbug'? There jolly well should be!
Most likely said Constabulary, as I fear so many of us, have simply given up on the big things, because they are truly monstrous and largely untouchable. How much easier is it to harass a poor pensioner for cluttering up a shopping centre or the child chalking hopscotch on a pavement, than to tackle the Mad Max gangs that terrorise whole neighbourhoods?
This though is not a rant about policing in its narrow sense, but of the latest Town Hall nonsense that would seek to sanitise our cherished street names. For way down South - not here mercifully - one reads that Lewes Council is to take arms against 'Juggs Close' and to prevent any 'Typple Lane'.
Pompously declaring they will not countenance names that are "capable of deliberate misinterpretation", the local Council sets its silly Puritan hat against fun in any guise. (More cakes and ale cried Falstaff and so do I!)
The worst of it is that in so po-facedly deciding, they are at war with our heritage, history and tradition. The 'jugg' that so titillates - or not - the modern ear is, for example, the name of the basket in which fish was carried in that once great port of Lewes.
We too here have our ancient names for ancient ways, 'Shaggers Bottom' being but the best of them. Yes it is amusing in all so many silly ways, but it is also a remembrance of the valley in which rough woollen cloth was woven in centuries past. A light-industry long gone maybe, but I would as soon lose that connection to our Woldean history as I would see an Elizabethan house torn down for being equally archaic.
Now for myself - as Rector - I own I do prefer not actually to live in Shaggers Bottom as such. There would be complications, it is true, I could and do well live without. But H and E have already heard from their stern and committed master that should come the day our local Council looks askance at the name we'll be moving there the very next day and hang the lot of them say we all. (Well, do I say anyways.)
Is there a New Year equivalent for Yuletide 'Bah Humbug'? There jolly well should be!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Dear Diary...
...no busy priest can afford to be without his diary - or should the stipend stretch that far his diary secretary. H would of course, if asked, perform that latter function without demur or complaint, but the fear of creating another angle for rank wifely nagging has always deterred me from hinting let alone asking.
"You know you should be setting off for N now. You can't keep +Tom waiting and you never have change for the car park. So drop the homily notes. That can wait for this evening. Honestly!"
You can imagine the scenes as they unfold, neither to my delight nor to my peace of soul.
Mind you being at the right place at the right time for the right hatch, match or dispatch is no light matter. Well being there is, it is the not that isn't.
Just the once, relying on but memory unaided, have I pitched up at an assembly of godly folk expecting to promote to glory one gone shortly before, only to find I was actually being expected to bind a Betty to her Dave.
Entirely the wrong vestments on board of course - not that they would have noticed, possibly even remarking how 'cool' I looked and that black was quite the colour perfectly to offset the bride's somewhat disingenuous virginal white.
Mercifully, all necessary textual matter was to hand in the vestry and if the intended homily on the beauty of aged wisdom - interspersed with fond remembrances of dear Gladys in India before the War - had to be dropped in favour of an extempore rant on the wonder of fecund creation in a sometimes spiritually sterile world, then it did them no harm to hear it.
Too close a call for comfort mind you that. From that time to this there has been a self-imposed strict inscribing of each minute detail of who goes where, when and why.
That said, that has tended to be the limit of my diary keeping and with the diary itself kept firmly on the desk where it belongs. Can't be doing with these clerics who carry round their leather-bound Filofax numbers under their arms as if it were - though most certainly it were not - Holy Scripture.
This 'blog' - still dread word - then must serve as necessary and sufficient recall of events through the ages. Not by any means a full record but, shall we say, serving as handy marker buoys on the sea of personal amnesia.
And thus one does occasionally turn back the pages for recall and review. The time of year being now to be doing that for the year gone by. And thus, as I read past posts, I come across my first thoughts of 2008 on the whole utter ghastliness of New Year's Eve and the sheer sinking dread it brings.
By golly though, if I thought that then shan't we all be thinking it next week? Can we stand the expectation and anticipation of just how wretched 2009 is likely to be?
I doubt we can any of us. You should see my wine cellar overflowing with intemperate volumes of fine wines and spirits to deaden the impending pain. I won't be alone in this, of that I am certain.
"Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow........."? Will I be here to write it as well as survive it? Watch this space if you care or dare.
"You know you should be setting off for N now. You can't keep +Tom waiting and you never have change for the car park. So drop the homily notes. That can wait for this evening. Honestly!"
You can imagine the scenes as they unfold, neither to my delight nor to my peace of soul.
Mind you being at the right place at the right time for the right hatch, match or dispatch is no light matter. Well being there is, it is the not that isn't.
Just the once, relying on but memory unaided, have I pitched up at an assembly of godly folk expecting to promote to glory one gone shortly before, only to find I was actually being expected to bind a Betty to her Dave.
Entirely the wrong vestments on board of course - not that they would have noticed, possibly even remarking how 'cool' I looked and that black was quite the colour perfectly to offset the bride's somewhat disingenuous virginal white.
Mercifully, all necessary textual matter was to hand in the vestry and if the intended homily on the beauty of aged wisdom - interspersed with fond remembrances of dear Gladys in India before the War - had to be dropped in favour of an extempore rant on the wonder of fecund creation in a sometimes spiritually sterile world, then it did them no harm to hear it.
Too close a call for comfort mind you that. From that time to this there has been a self-imposed strict inscribing of each minute detail of who goes where, when and why.
That said, that has tended to be the limit of my diary keeping and with the diary itself kept firmly on the desk where it belongs. Can't be doing with these clerics who carry round their leather-bound Filofax numbers under their arms as if it were - though most certainly it were not - Holy Scripture.
This 'blog' - still dread word - then must serve as necessary and sufficient recall of events through the ages. Not by any means a full record but, shall we say, serving as handy marker buoys on the sea of personal amnesia.
And thus one does occasionally turn back the pages for recall and review. The time of year being now to be doing that for the year gone by. And thus, as I read past posts, I come across my first thoughts of 2008 on the whole utter ghastliness of New Year's Eve and the sheer sinking dread it brings.
By golly though, if I thought that then shan't we all be thinking it next week? Can we stand the expectation and anticipation of just how wretched 2009 is likely to be?
I doubt we can any of us. You should see my wine cellar overflowing with intemperate volumes of fine wines and spirits to deaden the impending pain. I won't be alone in this, of that I am certain.
"Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow........."? Will I be here to write it as well as survive it? Watch this space if you care or dare.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Saint Thomas Lord...
...if you think you missed the announcement of the canonisation of this new Saint of ours - patron of cricket and clean whites naturally - fear not for the Vatican has yet actually formally to pronounce Ex Cathedra as it were.
I am, I own, thus being somewhat premature - not to mention singular - in bringing this wondrous news to the attention of the Faithful.
But bring it I must, for it must be true. No sooner have I averred that prayers to the - as yet unsainted - Thomas are to be invoked against the wretched ECB and all their demonic works, than word comes from HQ that finally - a mere fifteen years having slowly passed - MCC are offering the ultimate glittering prize of Full Membership.
Well huzzah and hurrah, as Sir Percy would say. Not perhaps the cure for all the world's economic, social or spiritual ills - though close enough to trouble the scorer - but to me the veritable glimpse of heaven on earth; a Wordsworthian moment when - if one were - being young would be truly spiffing and uplifting and all. (Lapsing into a benign Blackadderish / Woosterian combo mode seems irresistibly apposite in the circs.)
Funnily enough - and this a part of the English joy of the thing - accession from Associate to Full MCC membership is barely, if at all, visible to the naked eye. True one may now harrumph at meetings or seek to vote down contrarian motions, and one may doze after luncheon at each and every match not just most of them. But one wouldn't harrumph or vote in any case, and there are only so many afternoons in any one year one can dedicate to doing nothing but napping
The great unwashed might reasonably assume that The Tie ['Rhubarb and Custard' or 'Bacon and Eggs' according to taste] and other trappings of office are but newly granted. But not so. All comes with Associate. There is no new mark one can adopt outwardly to show the distinction.
Now that is special. I challenge you to name any slightly nuanced gradation in ecclesial status that does not have its concomitant and showy sign. That which delineates a second sub-deacon from a first may not be much in the hierarchy of heaven, but in stripes on a surplice believe you me it matters. (Try calling a consultant surgeon 'Doctor' and you'll get my drift.)
So tonight then I salute our new Saint and offer him as patron not only of all things cricket - including clean whites - but also of subtle, gentle good English manners.
And by Glory don't we need a stout measure of that in these somewhat desperate times?
I am, I own, thus being somewhat premature - not to mention singular - in bringing this wondrous news to the attention of the Faithful.
But bring it I must, for it must be true. No sooner have I averred that prayers to the - as yet unsainted - Thomas are to be invoked against the wretched ECB and all their demonic works, than word comes from HQ that finally - a mere fifteen years having slowly passed - MCC are offering the ultimate glittering prize of Full Membership.
Well huzzah and hurrah, as Sir Percy would say. Not perhaps the cure for all the world's economic, social or spiritual ills - though close enough to trouble the scorer - but to me the veritable glimpse of heaven on earth; a Wordsworthian moment when - if one were - being young would be truly spiffing and uplifting and all. (Lapsing into a benign Blackadderish / Woosterian combo mode seems irresistibly apposite in the circs.)
Funnily enough - and this a part of the English joy of the thing - accession from Associate to Full MCC membership is barely, if at all, visible to the naked eye. True one may now harrumph at meetings or seek to vote down contrarian motions, and one may doze after luncheon at each and every match not just most of them. But one wouldn't harrumph or vote in any case, and there are only so many afternoons in any one year one can dedicate to doing nothing but napping
The great unwashed might reasonably assume that The Tie ['Rhubarb and Custard' or 'Bacon and Eggs' according to taste] and other trappings of office are but newly granted. But not so. All comes with Associate. There is no new mark one can adopt outwardly to show the distinction.
Now that is special. I challenge you to name any slightly nuanced gradation in ecclesial status that does not have its concomitant and showy sign. That which delineates a second sub-deacon from a first may not be much in the hierarchy of heaven, but in stripes on a surplice believe you me it matters. (Try calling a consultant surgeon 'Doctor' and you'll get my drift.)
So tonight then I salute our new Saint and offer him as patron not only of all things cricket - including clean whites - but also of subtle, gentle good English manners.
And by Glory don't we need a stout measure of that in these somewhat desperate times?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
ECB - Lord Save Us!
Intercessory prayer to the Saints is my common practice. There may be some low churchers who care not for it, but I care not for them uncharitable though that thought may be. (Many a lost car key or somesuch precious domestic item has been restored courtesy of dear Saint Anthony. Try it. Works every time.)
The accredited Saint does of course have the ear of the Almighty. That goes with the badge as it were. But what of the regular soul? Can one be so assured? Possibly not, though there is little lost in trying.
Hence tonight my prayer is for the intercession of Thomas Lord in the case of Regina vs. ECB and all its dark ways. Good egg certainly. Saint not noted in the calendar as such, but the man who gifted the land that now is the HQ of cricket must deserve some small place in Paradise surely?
And on that premise I invoke his heaven sent assistance to thwart the fell desire of the ECB (and all its very dark works) to rob Lord's of its two Tests a year, guaranteeing only - can one imagine the very idea - no more than two Tests every five years!
This - for those who know not these things - is a bit like saying that Wimbledon can host the All England Championship every once in a while, or Twickenham the odd game of international rugby!
Dear Thomas Lord I beseech thee thus....
The accredited Saint does of course have the ear of the Almighty. That goes with the badge as it were. But what of the regular soul? Can one be so assured? Possibly not, though there is little lost in trying.
Hence tonight my prayer is for the intercession of Thomas Lord in the case of Regina vs. ECB and all its dark ways. Good egg certainly. Saint not noted in the calendar as such, but the man who gifted the land that now is the HQ of cricket must deserve some small place in Paradise surely?
And on that premise I invoke his heaven sent assistance to thwart the fell desire of the ECB (and all its very dark works) to rob Lord's of its two Tests a year, guaranteeing only - can one imagine the very idea - no more than two Tests every five years!
This - for those who know not these things - is a bit like saying that Wimbledon can host the All England Championship every once in a while, or Twickenham the odd game of international rugby!
Dear Thomas Lord I beseech thee thus....
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Bricking It....
...One must and one does have a certain deal of sympathy with the neighbours of Mr Martin Solomon in the West Country town of Stroud, who have long tired of his late night drunken tirades.
For it would seem that Mr Solomon is often much taken with drink and, as oft, much ill taken with the rubbish to be found on his television. Neither in and of themselves of course offensive, but it seems Mr Solomon's loud swearing rants at what he sees and hears have caused distress and disturbance, not least to the young children in the adjoining households.
There can be no excusing the last, and one is glad that the Courts have taken a firm line in this matter. Nonetheless who can not have but some empathetic understanding of Mr Solomon's plight? Who indeed has not - drunk or sober - yelled the foulest and most impotent of abuse when creatures such as Lord Slime of Slime opines on probity in public life, or cast swearing slander at the total drivel that constitutes much of the televisual offerings on any channel?
There is though a cure should it be wanted. Not watching is not the option. An Englishman pays his licence fee and is, thereby, perfectly entitled to watch and scorn.
The trick is this, a device long in circulation. An auto-changer disguised as a soft furry brick. When endurance is beyond bearing and Lord Slime must be assailed and assaulted mid-waffle, the to-hand 'brick' is wellied at the screen with full force of personal venom. The channel changes and the rage subsides leaving the Mr Solomon's of this world equally content that they have made their point. And, what's more, made it silently.
Bro. Charles would call this a 'win-win scenario' bless him.
For it would seem that Mr Solomon is often much taken with drink and, as oft, much ill taken with the rubbish to be found on his television. Neither in and of themselves of course offensive, but it seems Mr Solomon's loud swearing rants at what he sees and hears have caused distress and disturbance, not least to the young children in the adjoining households.
There can be no excusing the last, and one is glad that the Courts have taken a firm line in this matter. Nonetheless who can not have but some empathetic understanding of Mr Solomon's plight? Who indeed has not - drunk or sober - yelled the foulest and most impotent of abuse when creatures such as Lord Slime of Slime opines on probity in public life, or cast swearing slander at the total drivel that constitutes much of the televisual offerings on any channel?
There is though a cure should it be wanted. Not watching is not the option. An Englishman pays his licence fee and is, thereby, perfectly entitled to watch and scorn.
The trick is this, a device long in circulation. An auto-changer disguised as a soft furry brick. When endurance is beyond bearing and Lord Slime must be assailed and assaulted mid-waffle, the to-hand 'brick' is wellied at the screen with full force of personal venom. The channel changes and the rage subsides leaving the Mr Solomon's of this world equally content that they have made their point. And, what's more, made it silently.
Bro. Charles would call this a 'win-win scenario' bless him.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Redressing The Balance Of Army Compensation - A Modest Proposal
...there will be not a few who are aghast that Bombardier Kerry Fletcher has won a one hundred and eighty six thousand pounds payout from an Employment Tribunal because she suffered harassment - largely by text message it would seem - on account of her sexuality.
There will, doubtless, be more people aghast that this award is greater than that available to other serving soldiers whose bodies and lives have been ripped apart by injuries sustained in the battlefield.
Examples as:
I have a modest proposal.
Bombardier Fletcher should naturally donate her entire payout to a charity or other body that cares for disabled ex-servicemen. That goes without saying.
Beyond that personal gesture though the Army itself must not shy away from a more systemic fix to the whole difficulty.
It runs thus.
Whenever a gravely wounded soldier is being evacuated to a military hospital the attending paramedics should read this pre-scripted message to him or her:
"Dear soldier X. We are here to save you and to care for you. We hate that you have been so grievously hurt and we know how much you must be suffering at this moment. Be assured that you have all our dedicated professional skills at your disposal. Be confident that you will receive the finest medical treatment we can give. If it is within our powers you will live.
But please also note - for reasons of compensation only - that we regard you as 1) a degenerate homosexual, or 2) a person of an ethnic minority we despise, or 3) someone we would like to shag given half or no chance. [Delete as necessary for the purpose].
Please understand that we do not do this from any motive of any personal malice, or that we actually mean what we say. This is purely an artificial device to enable you to sue the Army for harassment and to ensure that your eventual compensation package is adequate to your needs and commensurate with your real injuries."
What you reckon?
There will, doubtless, be more people aghast that this award is greater than that available to other serving soldiers whose bodies and lives have been ripped apart by injuries sustained in the battlefield.
Examples as:
- Marine Ben McBean, who lost an arm and a leg in a blast in Afghanistan, has been offered £160,000.
- Lance-Bombardier Ben Parkinson received £150,000 after losing his legs also in Afghanistan.
- Private Jamie Cooper benefits from just £57,000 for terrible injuries to his arm and stomach sustained whilst fighting in Iraq.
I have a modest proposal.
Bombardier Fletcher should naturally donate her entire payout to a charity or other body that cares for disabled ex-servicemen. That goes without saying.
Beyond that personal gesture though the Army itself must not shy away from a more systemic fix to the whole difficulty.
It runs thus.
Whenever a gravely wounded soldier is being evacuated to a military hospital the attending paramedics should read this pre-scripted message to him or her:
"Dear soldier X. We are here to save you and to care for you. We hate that you have been so grievously hurt and we know how much you must be suffering at this moment. Be assured that you have all our dedicated professional skills at your disposal. Be confident that you will receive the finest medical treatment we can give. If it is within our powers you will live.
But please also note - for reasons of compensation only - that we regard you as 1) a degenerate homosexual, or 2) a person of an ethnic minority we despise, or 3) someone we would like to shag given half or no chance. [Delete as necessary for the purpose].
Please understand that we do not do this from any motive of any personal malice, or that we actually mean what we say. This is purely an artificial device to enable you to sue the Army for harassment and to ensure that your eventual compensation package is adequate to your needs and commensurate with your real injuries."
What you reckon?
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Deeply Shocked...part the second
Serendipity, unlike good cheer (see previous), is not dependent on the stability or otherwise of the global financial markets. Indeed, it is in the very nature of the thing to pop up where and when least expected.
H and I were on a rare day out, taking in a neighbouring town and its delights. Though as befits a man and a wife our lives are joined at more than the odd hip, what we respectively look for in such a place must differ.
For she it will be a more than decent little Italian restaurant in which to take a fine luncheon, or a shop piled high in pastel household goods of great appeal and little practical purpose. Self will, naturally, nose out the local Church or Chapel for a particular memorial or architectural quirk, but other than that I am not much moved unless I spot an inn with a fair sized pool table and a gang of players who appear to know their game. (Few if any indeed spot the hustler behind the dog-collar as I seemingly fluke the black off three cushions and clean up the cash. No word to H or the Bish I beg!)
But as we strolled down the High Street a marvel came upon us both. For there, in a dusky courtyard corner, was one of those fine old music shops bursting with CDs of the music of our youth. Hard ever to know whether these fellows are in it for the trade as such. Mostly seems more a case of shifting a private collection into a public place for admiration and delight rather than for monetary gain.
Rarely, if ever, do I enter such a shop - we will call it that - in search of a particular song. It is much more a matter of relishing the prospect of being confronted with an album one had long forgotten existed. They really are the best of memories - those that are absent until of a sudden reappearing. Totally Proust really.
So we wandered and gazed therein, meandering through the racks of disks and the years gone by. Look, 'The Housemartins' before they became urban legends. Ah here, Jerry Garcia's first solo album! See, 'Bird On A Wire' never bettered. And so forth.
Then a little humming tune began to come before me. Simple strumming guitar and soft melody, sweet female voice and a half-recalled lyric. "Anchored down in Anchorage Alaska" it alliteratively went. Dum dum dee dum, dum dum dee dum (but with more gentle bounce than the words can convey of course).
The joy of such a place is that one can take such a fragmented tale to the counter and, with but a very brief sucking on teeth, the hairy being who holds sways gets it first time. "Michelle Shocked, that's who you mean. Album 'Short, Sharp, Shocked'. Haven't got it in at present. Shall I order it?"
Well, yes of course he shall. The song and the singer were precious enough to want to repossess, but it was more than that. For some many summers past, when H and I were first as one, we had been venturing for a day's pleasure into N and happened to spot, as we strolled, that Miss Shocked - whose music appealed to us both - was appearing that one and only night at the local theatre. But oh grief following sudden joy, all tickets were gone! We locked out, as the jargon of the day went.
Was it that that had triggered the nascent memory? All very possible. Sufficient possibility for me later that evening to take a Google check on the fate, fortune and forthcoming tour dates of Miss Shocked since that long ago time.
Deeply shocked to report - no avoiding the pun, in fact relishing it - the dear woman is to be performing once more in N but a few weeks hence! This time there will be no missing her. Two tickets are duly purchased courtesy of the modern miracle of online booking and we are set fair to attend.
I am already humming quite my favourite of all - 'Memories of East Texas'. The tune is in my head and most of the lyrics are re-emerging. "piney green rolling hills", "...and I mean to tell you my friends they weren't no easy roads", "...down by Kelsey Creek and detour through something something something". It's coming. I'm getting there.
Could look it up I guess, but I prefer to let the memory surface as it will. That's the beauty of serendipity.
H and I were on a rare day out, taking in a neighbouring town and its delights. Though as befits a man and a wife our lives are joined at more than the odd hip, what we respectively look for in such a place must differ.
For she it will be a more than decent little Italian restaurant in which to take a fine luncheon, or a shop piled high in pastel household goods of great appeal and little practical purpose. Self will, naturally, nose out the local Church or Chapel for a particular memorial or architectural quirk, but other than that I am not much moved unless I spot an inn with a fair sized pool table and a gang of players who appear to know their game. (Few if any indeed spot the hustler behind the dog-collar as I seemingly fluke the black off three cushions and clean up the cash. No word to H or the Bish I beg!)
But as we strolled down the High Street a marvel came upon us both. For there, in a dusky courtyard corner, was one of those fine old music shops bursting with CDs of the music of our youth. Hard ever to know whether these fellows are in it for the trade as such. Mostly seems more a case of shifting a private collection into a public place for admiration and delight rather than for monetary gain.
Rarely, if ever, do I enter such a shop - we will call it that - in search of a particular song. It is much more a matter of relishing the prospect of being confronted with an album one had long forgotten existed. They really are the best of memories - those that are absent until of a sudden reappearing. Totally Proust really.
So we wandered and gazed therein, meandering through the racks of disks and the years gone by. Look, 'The Housemartins' before they became urban legends. Ah here, Jerry Garcia's first solo album! See, 'Bird On A Wire' never bettered. And so forth.
Then a little humming tune began to come before me. Simple strumming guitar and soft melody, sweet female voice and a half-recalled lyric. "Anchored down in Anchorage Alaska" it alliteratively went. Dum dum dee dum, dum dum dee dum (but with more gentle bounce than the words can convey of course).
The joy of such a place is that one can take such a fragmented tale to the counter and, with but a very brief sucking on teeth, the hairy being who holds sways gets it first time. "Michelle Shocked, that's who you mean. Album 'Short, Sharp, Shocked'. Haven't got it in at present. Shall I order it?"
Well, yes of course he shall. The song and the singer were precious enough to want to repossess, but it was more than that. For some many summers past, when H and I were first as one, we had been venturing for a day's pleasure into N and happened to spot, as we strolled, that Miss Shocked - whose music appealed to us both - was appearing that one and only night at the local theatre. But oh grief following sudden joy, all tickets were gone! We locked out, as the jargon of the day went.
Was it that that had triggered the nascent memory? All very possible. Sufficient possibility for me later that evening to take a Google check on the fate, fortune and forthcoming tour dates of Miss Shocked since that long ago time.
Deeply shocked to report - no avoiding the pun, in fact relishing it - the dear woman is to be performing once more in N but a few weeks hence! This time there will be no missing her. Two tickets are duly purchased courtesy of the modern miracle of online booking and we are set fair to attend.
I am already humming quite my favourite of all - 'Memories of East Texas'. The tune is in my head and most of the lyrics are re-emerging. "piney green rolling hills", "...and I mean to tell you my friends they weren't no easy roads", "...down by Kelsey Creek and detour through something something something". It's coming. I'm getting there.
Could look it up I guess, but I prefer to let the memory surface as it will. That's the beauty of serendipity.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Deeply Shocked...part the first
Good cheer is, it must be acknowledged, somewhat lacking for most if not all in these troubled times. Although we in The Wolds are hardly banking folk by and large, with City positions to take and maintain, we do still fear for our rural livelihoods, our homes and our pensions as we helplessly watch the meltdown of financial institutions the world over.
Indeed, the only broad grin to be seen in the streets abroad these days has rested on the otherwise unappealing face of Farmer Burdock. Not one of nature's charmers, Farmer B makes it clear from one year end to the other that he cares as little for the company of others as he does about their respective fates and fortunes. (There was, long ago, a Mrs Farmer Burdock about the place, but she scarpered with an itinerant harvester - man not machine - preferring, it seems, the uncertainty of a traveller's life to the dread certainty of living with her grim husband. I judge not. Our Lord did not and nor shall I.)
Anyways, not ever disposed to group-hugs, spontaneous love-fests or other charismatic signs of bonding with his fellow creatures, it can be reasonably assumed that the desertion of his wife merely served to confirm Farmer Burdock in his distrust of humans and all their dark ways.
Among such dark ways he would pour particular and regular scorn on banks qua banks and on bankers qua bankers. "Rogues and thieves the lot of 'em," he did aver if - or indeed if not - asked, and though at the time his admonitions might be thought a bit strong it might be allowed that his is perhaps currently the majority view.
I do indeed feel quite sorry for poor Mr Potter, who holds sway at our one and only local banking emporium. A figure more particular in his probity one could not imagine. Imagine a Captain Mainwairing preserved in aspic and you have some idea of the man. No 'Master of the Universe' he, just a decent cove doing a difficult job in hard times. To see now, almost, skirts being drawn in and eyes of babes sheltered as he passes - mournfully - down High Street of a morning is as great a sorrow to witness as it must be to bear.
Needless to say perhaps that Burdock and Potter would never have batted for the same team. Farmer B has indeed long boasted that his cash - rumoured by many to be not an insubstantial pile - would as soon be cremated on an open fire as buried in the vaults of Potter's bank. Potter for his part has kept his counsel: the bank door stands open ready to receive Burdock's doubloons, but he - Potter - will not demean himself by touting for their trade.
Long years this stand-off has maintained, and of little note or consequence to any has it been. The Wolds moves on - albeit slowly - and if Farmer B's millions (the rumour would but grow of course over time) did not move with them then that was not our business or concern.
Hence of course the recent, rather unlovely, grin adhering to the Burdock countenance. Not one he to suffer with his fellow men; whilst we fret and stew that our pounds in Potter's place might just vanish overnight, Farmer B has been smirking - no other less hostile word will suffice - at our dismay. "Mine be safe if'en yourn be not" he positively crows.
Safe quite where we cannot but begin to wonder? Under the proverbial mattress seems hardly sufficient for such a mountain of moolah. Buried ten paces from the equally proverbial old oak tree is a goer. One has, it must be 'fessed, occasionally idly speculated.
Deeply shocking though now to reveal, some villains about the place have passed from probing thought to plundering act. For message comes today that Farmer Burdock's remote gaff has been burgled in the night, and he bound and bundled into his cellar as the thieves rampaged through the farmhouse in search of illicit booty.
Constable Tim, who brought this dreadful news to the Rectory, was quite unable - or perhaps professional lips were sealed - to say what precisely has been looted or who were the prime suspects in the case. He did though - the reason for his call - say that the 'old goat' (his phrase not mine naturally!) had been quite shaken up by his ordeal and that perhaps a soothing parsonic visit might be just pick-him-up required.
Hmm I briefly pondered. That duty called was not in doubt, though the efficacy of the purpose most certainly was. Not once in my twenty year tenure has Farmer B illumined Saint Dominic's with his presence, and although no firm word had ever been uttered by him on the subject it has been my reasonable opinion throughout that he holds clerics as a life-form no worthier or loftier than oft-abused bank managers.
But loins girded off I naturally set to administer such succour as I might to a fellow creature, expecting largely to be greeted with both a low and a dismissive countenance by my beloved parishioner. Wonder then my surprise when Farmer Burdock greeted my arrival with the broadest of broad grins and a fine indeed welcome to his humble home.
Odd or what? Yes, he said, he had howled at the moon for the very temerity of the rogues who had disturbed his night, his home and his person. But the humour of the man, not merely robust enough to survive such a multiple trespass was positively chuckling.
"Be like this Vicar. Mayhap I don't care for Potters and their Banks. Why should they make money from my money after all? 'Tis me that earned it and if there is gain to be had from the having of it, I'll make that my gain not their. But I ain't silly in the head. There is growth to be had and I have ensured it be the very first growth indeed. Come see."
So the old man - for such he is - led me down to his captive cellar and by torchlight showed me his vast and unraided treasure house. Rack upon rack of the finest vintage wines from around the world lay before me. Dusty dozens of bottles of golden and of crimson liqueur within startled my very being. Line upon line of the heavenliest harvests entranced my soul.
"No malts I fear Vicar, though I know that be thy tipple." (Canny goat then as well as an ancient!) "They do nicely from time to time, but the real return on investment has always been from wines. Was my father returning from the War who brought some Chateaux Petrus with him that started this business. He didn't know what he had, but I looked it up and bided my time. Thirty years gone and the wine not drunk, the selling of it paid for that lower meadow I bought from Widow Milner after her husband fell into the timber shredder never to be seen again."
The remembrance of Farmer Milner's awkward funeral filled my mind for a moment. There really hadn't been anything discernibly human left to bury. Such corpse as there was to be found had been spewed onto and into the woodchip pile. More pagan souls than mine had suggested to Widow Milner that she burn the lot as a magnificent sky cremation. Indeed, had not Tom the Bish interposed with a strict 'Non est', I might have been moved to agree to the solemn beauty of the thing. Unorthodox maybe, but a neat solution to a tricky matter. But no, we had to shovel - no other word - a representative sample of chip and bone and blood into a coffin for a proper church affair. The rest of the pile was indeed burnt - no other course considered - so Farmer Milner had a double send off really.
Burdock's voice cut through the remembrance. "So when them buggers came pounding through my door and threw me down into my cellar I nearly rocked with laughter. Let them rampage through my pots and pans I thought. If they want my old spoons and that dreadful painting by Great Aunt Maude that has haunted my parlour these decades, let 'em have 'em. I was safe guarding my real treasures!"
We emerged back into the kitchen. Farmer Burdock set me down for one last discourse. "Don't 'ee Vicar be telling folk of my tale. This is a matter of importance and due secrecy between a man and a man of God."
Assuring him of total and proper discretion I made to leave. Thrusting one dark bottle which he had carried up from the cellar into my hand - Tokay Essencia no less, a dessert wine as rare as wondrous and true Godly nectar - old man Burdock bade me farewell.
A bribe for my silence? A gift for my troubles? Uncharitable to say I couldn't tell which it might be. But as I sip a little of this perfect wine tonight I thank him for the deed, whatsoever the motive.
I have also checked the price of the thing and I tell you straight I am shocked, deeply shocked. Have you seen what a small bottle of Essencia will fetch on the open market? Well if you haven't I have and I am stunned. That last sip alone accounted for a parson's monthly stipend I reckon.
Will talk to Potter tomorrow about moving the Palladas Pension Pot, such as it is, out of bonds and into wines. He, solid fellow he is, will doubtless advise against anything so reckless. But I shall insist I believe. I shall say to Potter that I am seeking 'future liquidity'. I expect him to be impressed with my newly found financial nous, if never learning from whence it has come.
Indeed, the only broad grin to be seen in the streets abroad these days has rested on the otherwise unappealing face of Farmer Burdock. Not one of nature's charmers, Farmer B makes it clear from one year end to the other that he cares as little for the company of others as he does about their respective fates and fortunes. (There was, long ago, a Mrs Farmer Burdock about the place, but she scarpered with an itinerant harvester - man not machine - preferring, it seems, the uncertainty of a traveller's life to the dread certainty of living with her grim husband. I judge not. Our Lord did not and nor shall I.)
Anyways, not ever disposed to group-hugs, spontaneous love-fests or other charismatic signs of bonding with his fellow creatures, it can be reasonably assumed that the desertion of his wife merely served to confirm Farmer Burdock in his distrust of humans and all their dark ways.
Among such dark ways he would pour particular and regular scorn on banks qua banks and on bankers qua bankers. "Rogues and thieves the lot of 'em," he did aver if - or indeed if not - asked, and though at the time his admonitions might be thought a bit strong it might be allowed that his is perhaps currently the majority view.
I do indeed feel quite sorry for poor Mr Potter, who holds sway at our one and only local banking emporium. A figure more particular in his probity one could not imagine. Imagine a Captain Mainwairing preserved in aspic and you have some idea of the man. No 'Master of the Universe' he, just a decent cove doing a difficult job in hard times. To see now, almost, skirts being drawn in and eyes of babes sheltered as he passes - mournfully - down High Street of a morning is as great a sorrow to witness as it must be to bear.
Needless to say perhaps that Burdock and Potter would never have batted for the same team. Farmer B has indeed long boasted that his cash - rumoured by many to be not an insubstantial pile - would as soon be cremated on an open fire as buried in the vaults of Potter's bank. Potter for his part has kept his counsel: the bank door stands open ready to receive Burdock's doubloons, but he - Potter - will not demean himself by touting for their trade.
Long years this stand-off has maintained, and of little note or consequence to any has it been. The Wolds moves on - albeit slowly - and if Farmer B's millions (the rumour would but grow of course over time) did not move with them then that was not our business or concern.
Hence of course the recent, rather unlovely, grin adhering to the Burdock countenance. Not one he to suffer with his fellow men; whilst we fret and stew that our pounds in Potter's place might just vanish overnight, Farmer B has been smirking - no other less hostile word will suffice - at our dismay. "Mine be safe if'en yourn be not" he positively crows.
Safe quite where we cannot but begin to wonder? Under the proverbial mattress seems hardly sufficient for such a mountain of moolah. Buried ten paces from the equally proverbial old oak tree is a goer. One has, it must be 'fessed, occasionally idly speculated.
Deeply shocking though now to reveal, some villains about the place have passed from probing thought to plundering act. For message comes today that Farmer Burdock's remote gaff has been burgled in the night, and he bound and bundled into his cellar as the thieves rampaged through the farmhouse in search of illicit booty.
Constable Tim, who brought this dreadful news to the Rectory, was quite unable - or perhaps professional lips were sealed - to say what precisely has been looted or who were the prime suspects in the case. He did though - the reason for his call - say that the 'old goat' (his phrase not mine naturally!) had been quite shaken up by his ordeal and that perhaps a soothing parsonic visit might be just pick-him-up required.
Hmm I briefly pondered. That duty called was not in doubt, though the efficacy of the purpose most certainly was. Not once in my twenty year tenure has Farmer B illumined Saint Dominic's with his presence, and although no firm word had ever been uttered by him on the subject it has been my reasonable opinion throughout that he holds clerics as a life-form no worthier or loftier than oft-abused bank managers.
But loins girded off I naturally set to administer such succour as I might to a fellow creature, expecting largely to be greeted with both a low and a dismissive countenance by my beloved parishioner. Wonder then my surprise when Farmer Burdock greeted my arrival with the broadest of broad grins and a fine indeed welcome to his humble home.
Odd or what? Yes, he said, he had howled at the moon for the very temerity of the rogues who had disturbed his night, his home and his person. But the humour of the man, not merely robust enough to survive such a multiple trespass was positively chuckling.
"Be like this Vicar. Mayhap I don't care for Potters and their Banks. Why should they make money from my money after all? 'Tis me that earned it and if there is gain to be had from the having of it, I'll make that my gain not their. But I ain't silly in the head. There is growth to be had and I have ensured it be the very first growth indeed. Come see."
So the old man - for such he is - led me down to his captive cellar and by torchlight showed me his vast and unraided treasure house. Rack upon rack of the finest vintage wines from around the world lay before me. Dusty dozens of bottles of golden and of crimson liqueur within startled my very being. Line upon line of the heavenliest harvests entranced my soul.
"No malts I fear Vicar, though I know that be thy tipple." (Canny goat then as well as an ancient!) "They do nicely from time to time, but the real return on investment has always been from wines. Was my father returning from the War who brought some Chateaux Petrus with him that started this business. He didn't know what he had, but I looked it up and bided my time. Thirty years gone and the wine not drunk, the selling of it paid for that lower meadow I bought from Widow Milner after her husband fell into the timber shredder never to be seen again."
The remembrance of Farmer Milner's awkward funeral filled my mind for a moment. There really hadn't been anything discernibly human left to bury. Such corpse as there was to be found had been spewed onto and into the woodchip pile. More pagan souls than mine had suggested to Widow Milner that she burn the lot as a magnificent sky cremation. Indeed, had not Tom the Bish interposed with a strict 'Non est', I might have been moved to agree to the solemn beauty of the thing. Unorthodox maybe, but a neat solution to a tricky matter. But no, we had to shovel - no other word - a representative sample of chip and bone and blood into a coffin for a proper church affair. The rest of the pile was indeed burnt - no other course considered - so Farmer Milner had a double send off really.
Burdock's voice cut through the remembrance. "So when them buggers came pounding through my door and threw me down into my cellar I nearly rocked with laughter. Let them rampage through my pots and pans I thought. If they want my old spoons and that dreadful painting by Great Aunt Maude that has haunted my parlour these decades, let 'em have 'em. I was safe guarding my real treasures!"
We emerged back into the kitchen. Farmer Burdock set me down for one last discourse. "Don't 'ee Vicar be telling folk of my tale. This is a matter of importance and due secrecy between a man and a man of God."
Assuring him of total and proper discretion I made to leave. Thrusting one dark bottle which he had carried up from the cellar into my hand - Tokay Essencia no less, a dessert wine as rare as wondrous and true Godly nectar - old man Burdock bade me farewell.
A bribe for my silence? A gift for my troubles? Uncharitable to say I couldn't tell which it might be. But as I sip a little of this perfect wine tonight I thank him for the deed, whatsoever the motive.
I have also checked the price of the thing and I tell you straight I am shocked, deeply shocked. Have you seen what a small bottle of Essencia will fetch on the open market? Well if you haven't I have and I am stunned. That last sip alone accounted for a parson's monthly stipend I reckon.
Will talk to Potter tomorrow about moving the Palladas Pension Pot, such as it is, out of bonds and into wines. He, solid fellow he is, will doubtless advise against anything so reckless. But I shall insist I believe. I shall say to Potter that I am seeking 'future liquidity'. I expect him to be impressed with my newly found financial nous, if never learning from whence it has come.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Tattoo You Sir...
One's generally esteemed colleague, the Rev. Mullen, has gotten himself deep into some pretty hot water for 'injudicious' (if you accept the "only joking" excuse offered) or downright awful (if you take him straight - as it were!) remarks about the efficacy of tattooing male homosexualists' bottoms with dire warnings concerning the health risks pertaining to the act of sodomy.
We have been, of course, historically a society that has not shunned from branding certain classes of criminals with a palpable and everlasting mark of their offence. ("Oh you mean Jones the Burglar? Fat bloke, hangs round the village pump most days. Got a dirty big 'B' branded on his forehead. You'll not miss him.)
Not, overall, conducive to rehabilitation that one I would have thought, but no matter now. We are done with it and for better no doubt. But are we in danger of missing an important trick here? Seems we might. For story just in of perhaps the most hapless criminal loon of the year, who was caught nicking cars by a CCTV camera that had little difficulty in homing in on his neck on which the man's name and date of birth had been largely and visibly tattooed!
An elective act presumably, handy perhaps even for assuring oneself of one's identity at an amnesiac drugged or drunken moment. Useful at parties too, for avoiding those awkward moments of trying to pretend you can recall the name of the newly arrived, dimly but very distantly remembered, guest who hails you as the best of friends.
Think of the possibilities. Would save a fortune on ID cards or DNA databases. Being 'collared' - that once popular name for being arrested by a member of Her Majesty's finest constabulary - would take on fresh meaning and legs. ('Scuse me Sir. May I just turn down your shirt collar for a moment to confirm whom I am arresting for littering the Queen's highway?)
H, mind you, has always banged on about how I should have my name and number embellished on the old dog-collar lest I get lost far from home. Have assumed 'til now she to have been jesting. Must re-visit that premise!
We have been, of course, historically a society that has not shunned from branding certain classes of criminals with a palpable and everlasting mark of their offence. ("Oh you mean Jones the Burglar? Fat bloke, hangs round the village pump most days. Got a dirty big 'B' branded on his forehead. You'll not miss him.)
Not, overall, conducive to rehabilitation that one I would have thought, but no matter now. We are done with it and for better no doubt. But are we in danger of missing an important trick here? Seems we might. For story just in of perhaps the most hapless criminal loon of the year, who was caught nicking cars by a CCTV camera that had little difficulty in homing in on his neck on which the man's name and date of birth had been largely and visibly tattooed!
An elective act presumably, handy perhaps even for assuring oneself of one's identity at an amnesiac drugged or drunken moment. Useful at parties too, for avoiding those awkward moments of trying to pretend you can recall the name of the newly arrived, dimly but very distantly remembered, guest who hails you as the best of friends.
Think of the possibilities. Would save a fortune on ID cards or DNA databases. Being 'collared' - that once popular name for being arrested by a member of Her Majesty's finest constabulary - would take on fresh meaning and legs. ('Scuse me Sir. May I just turn down your shirt collar for a moment to confirm whom I am arresting for littering the Queen's highway?)
H, mind you, has always banged on about how I should have my name and number embellished on the old dog-collar lest I get lost far from home. Have assumed 'til now she to have been jesting. Must re-visit that premise!
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