Bunch o’ Killjoys!

Tags

Andrew Marr, Cnut the Great, England, Historic Royal Palaces, Lucy Worsley, Neil Oliver, Viking, Winchester Cathedral

Did the Vikings eat pizza or pasta?  Not that I know of, but  ask  Ask, the Italian restaurant which is well and truly ensconced in Godbegot House, High Street, Winchester.  This erstwhile manor belonged to Emma, our Saxon queen, who was married to Cnut, last of our Viking rulers, according to Neil Oliver.

This was the first English stone house to be built outside a religious community and it had glass windows and real chimneys, which, admittedly did not draw too well.  The solar, chapel, bedchamber and treasury room were upstairs.  Don’t tell Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, or she will be up there like a shot, dressed as Gunnhild, Emma and Cnut’s daughter.  Any excuse!

Oliver ranged around Scandinavia and Scotland, shedding light on our links with characters such as Harold Bluetooth, Swein Forkbeard, Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor and others.

He also went to a Viking restaurant and manfully admitted that testicles had never before passed his lips.  But our brave Jarl is no craven troll-like Andrew Marr, so down they went, along with liberal portions of air-dried, rotting offal and putrid, buried shark.

I was grateful that I only had to consume a modest portion of acceptable sea-bass at Ask.

Neil obviously takes his paternal role seriously and disciplines his children so that they will control any baresarker tendencies.  He commented that he always insists that his offspring try any new food, before being allowed to reject it.  This was his opportunity to demonstrate do as I do; not just as I say.  Poor guizer, he wasn’t even offered a Danish pastry for afters, for clearing his board.

Let’s face it, for anyone who has digested haggis, rancid blubber is a complete dawdle and any Viking brat would have been lashed to their high stuhl with elk sinews and have been force-fed northern lights* before they had a chance to utter the universal, complaining phrase:  I don’t want it.  It would have made the Diet of Worms-okay, I know this is nothing to do with anything culinary- appear like an enticing platter of amuse bouches.

More surprising was Neil’s admission, albeit accompanied by the slightest sardonic simper, that England-yes, ENGLAND, was far more progressive than the rest of Europe, owing to its advanced coinage and commercial organisation.  The man is turning soft and obviously opposes devolution.  Alex Salmond- isn’t that name of Norman derivation?-will have his guts for garters, let alone starters.

The next gobsmacking sight was Neil striding down the nave of Winchester Cathedral, in search of ossuaries which contain the scrambled relics of Emma, Cnut et al.  You’d have thought he’d be on the side of the Roundheads, who were responsible for the vandalism and general mayhem, but, instead we had a cavalier flick of the hair, an ironic twinkle to rival the Pole Star and his verdict on the Parliamentary iconoclasts:

Bunch o’ killjoys!

Attaboy, Neil.  Keep eating the testicles and see you at Up Helly Aa!

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

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Foibles and Fancies

Tags

Chawton, Hampshire, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Tournai, Winchester, Winchester Cathedral

The final -for now – utterance from Jane Austen’s  position under the floor of Winchester Cathedral.

Isn’t it incroyable that I can see the theme from one of my most famous novels visually sculpted on the face of the Tournai font, just opposite my place of rest?  Yes, dear Reader, it shows an impoverished nobleman who cannot afford to give his multiple daughters a grand dowry.  St Nicholas steps in and saves the day. (Not saves the bacon: that is shown on the other face, where the boys are preserved from becoming sausages, organic or otherwise.  I did not like to borrow that particular myth for any of my novels, however.)

I am aware that I have the best social position- a place that may not be recognised by the critical Mary Crawfords of this world, who know nothing of worship, who speak insolently of men of the cloth and who seat themselves prematurely during processionals.

I still scrub up well, as the Holy Dusters employ some vim and vigour in polishing my brass plaque with Duraglit and elbow grease.  Shadows of the clergy and laity cast their shades across my stone, revealing in their rites and rituals the universal foibles and fancies of humankind.  My joy in observing how we all rub along together has been passed down, along with my writer’s mantle to my handmaiden, Candia.  Hear her and follow her blog with due diligence and  enthusiastic approval, for I being dead yet speak!

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Manners Makyth Man

Tags

Colin Firth, DVD, Elinor Dashwood, Jane Austen, John Keats, Occam's razor, Samuel Johnson, To Autumn, Winchester Cathedral

The third and possibly penultimate excerpt from Jane Austen’s musings from beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.

Today an insolent hussy stood on my stone and shrieked to her companion:

Wow!  Get a load of this!  We are standing on that woman whose book we had to read for GCSE.  Except that our teacher just let us watch the DVD.  We had to compare it with “Clueless”, to show evidence of certain assessment objectives, but I got mixed up and was marked down.  It was the teacher’s fault.  She shouldn’t have confused me. My mum appealed, though, and I re-wrote that bit where Mr Thingy exits the lake in a wet t-shirt.  Mum said it was really cool.  Later she came here to give thanks for my success and slipped in a couple of prayer requests to The God of Camelot and a personal one that she might meet Colin Firth, with or without his wet clothing.

All of this was expressed in spite of a metal contraption which was attached to her teeth, so that I was as showered with saliva drops and my stone wetted, as if the Bishop had sprayed me with the rosemary twigs he uses at baptisms.  It isn’t always the best spot here, near the font.

But, at least we haven’t sunk to those adult total immersions yet.

Then the young woman proceeded to light a candle for me, muttering about there being no vanilla or blueberry-scented ones available.

Before I could utter the immortal phrase: It is a truth universally.. she was off, determined to see the feretory, as she loved those furry little creatures- or were they meerkats?  Simples is not the word.

Sometimes I raise my eyes to the metal hooks on the vasty pillars whose original function was to display the nuptial banners of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain.  Since I cannot suspend myself thereby, I resort to turning over in my grave.  Someone should remind these youngsters of the motto of their local college:  Manners Makyth Man.  (And that is a generic, inclusive term.)

I try not to mind when tourists seem more interested in where Keats precisely commenced his walk to St Cross, before composing Ode to Autumn. 

I could easily interrupt the Blue Badge Guide and inform them that he first procured nuncheon and a pint of porter at The Wykeham Arms.  However, like my creation, Elinor Dashwood, I feel like commenting on his Romantic versification:

It is not everyone who shares your passion for dead leaves!

But, maybe this is somewhat scathing, even for me.

I still feel that a sermon well delivered is as rare as hens’ teeth.  The Evangelical varieties seem livelier, though hardly calculated to earn their exponents a succession to a stall in Westminster.

Some of the homilies could do with a firm shave by the venerable Ockham’s razor, since they can be as mangled as the regal bones in the choir ossuaries and as dusty as the said receptacles themselves.  They might do well to remember the less intellectually endowed Harriet Smiths of this world, who do not always decipher obscure riddles and charades.  As Fielding said, however:

Clergy are men as well as other folks.

Personally, I have been able to touch and affect a heterogeneous audience and consequently often have more than half a mind to rise and preach myself, though I heed Dr Johnson’s astute aphorisms regarding the fairer sex and sermonising:

A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs.  It is not done well: but you are surprised to find it done at all.

I know that I can be eloquent on points in which my own conduct would have borne ill examination.  However, greater opportunity for inward reflection has led me to direct more of my sense of irony towards my own failings.  As the good doctor also said:

As I know more of mankind, I expect less and less of them and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

However, I who have gently mocked the aspirations of others have been glad to be sheltered in the bosom of this place, as comfortably as Lady Bertram’s pug upon her chaise, but- prenez soin!  I am sometimes yet inclined to bare my needle sharp teeth and to sink them into some unsuspecting ankles- metaphorically, of course!

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Cathedral Whispers

Tags

Alan Bennett, Alan Titchmarsh, Hampshire, Jane Austen, Sandbanks, Winchester, Winchester Cathedral

(A continuation of our previous musings on Jane Austen’s eavesdroppings culled from her position beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.)

I see that there are to be seasonal floral displays in various churches in the Hampshire region, including St Cross.  The last word on flower arranging was probably given by Alan Bennett in his Talking Heads 1 monologue, Bed Among the Lentils, about Mrs Shrubsole and the precise placement of a fir cone in her floral arrangement, Forest Murmurs.

Nevertheless, again I can imagine Jane Austen tuning into covert cathedral discussions conducted while masked by arrangements of Venus Fly Traps and burgeoning bocage.

Flower Arranger 1:

I daresay floral occupations are always desirable in girls of your girth, as a means of affording you fresh air and more exercise than you would normally take.  A passion for agapanthus may be deemed somewhat amateurish, but Alan Titchmarsh may yet attend and then, who can tell where your newfound skills may lead?

Arranger 2:

Ah Pansy, you enquired as to when my grand passion first surfaced, so to speak.  It developed gradually, but particularly after my first visit to my paramour’s enormous estate in Eastleigh.  That is, East-leigh, as in “count-ee”; not as in “beastly.”

He is, sadly, a fit and extremely healthy older man, notwithstanding his vast cache of stocks and shares and general lack of penetration.  I could endeavour to live with him, however minimal his funds, providing that I should have access to them all.  I would prefer Winchester, but a villa in Sandbanks would, of course, be preferable and might prove an initial rung on the property ladder.

Arranger1:

Yes, it would be wrong to marry for money, but foolhardy to marry without it.

Jane Austen:

How I would love to expose those furtive rummagers in designer handbags who rapidly switch off their mobiles before the bidding prayers, lest their lovers interrupt their devotions, or who use their fumbling as an avoidance technique when the offertory bags circulate.

At some of the local school services, one often hears some young prodigy, called Alethea or otherwise, make a smug, sententious remark to her doting mater. Through over- attention, the chit’s natural self-confidence has been honed into haughty assurance.  Catherine Morland’s conviction still stands-ie/ that there is a violent and uncertain life which lurks under the veneer of society.

I am constantly privy to rehearsals of accomplishments and marvels of female students who all play musical instruments, achieve A*s and who compete in equine sports at the highest level.  Yet, I have never heard a young lady spoken of, for the first time, without her being lauded to the Empyrean.  Yet, deficiency of nature is often little assisted by education or society.  A greater influence seems to be perpetrated by the expectation of property, usually acquired through trade, or, dare I suggest, a lottery ticket.

Nowadays, such nouveaux positively display themselves in society magazines, besporting themselves at various charitable functions of questionable taste.  Their double-barrelled nomenclatures can scarcely be fitted into the copy without a prodigious profligacy of paper and ink.

Other self-appointed, knowledgeable women offer their medical knowledge to others, whether invited to, or not.  They remind me of Lady Catherine de Burgh:

Ah, yes, my experience of the lifelong care of my valetudinarian husband has led me to recommend Echinacea during the winter months and Glucosamine throughout the year.

Their nerves command a high respect, as they have evidently been old friends with whom they have been intimately acquainted for a number of years.  Truly these are women whom one cannot regard with too much deference.

And so we must leave Jane at the moment as she is a little fatigued by this peroration , but she promises to continue to amuse us on the morrow.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Eavesdropping with Austen

Tags

Anthony Gormley, Chawton, Izaak Walton, Jane, Jane Austen, Swithun, Winchester Cathedral

Schools in the north have had to be closed owing to flooding.  The temperature has dropped.  On Sunday morning the hands of the congregation felt cold when the Peace was shared.  As our own Hampshire novelist remarked, we can all go through the somewhat embarrassing motions of giving each other the Peace for a few moments at Sunday Eucharist, but it is keeping it throughout the week that is the true challenge.

Whenever I am in Winchester Cathedral, I am conscious that the Blessed Jane lies beneath our feet.  I mean, of course, Jane Austen and it is significant that she was not praised for her literary talents on her ledger stone, but rather lauded for her virtue.

Occasionally I fantasise that she is eavesdropping on snippets and gobbets of conversation that are echoes of those which formed the foundation to her writing at Chawton, where, in a more constrained square meterage, she still found plenty of grist to her mill.

The types still exist with their universal foibles and characteristics and you could deem her to have an excellent position from which to amass fragments for her personal notebook.  Her neighbours are interesting too.

Jane’s internment took place early in the morning, perhaps to avoid comment from the faithful on the rectitude of a resting place having been given to one whose relation had been imprisoned for petty theft and whose cousin’s husband had been guillotined.

I wonder what our novelist would have made of discussions on women bishops and gay marriage.  Would she still count eighty seven women passing by, without there being a tolerable physiognomy among them?  (Some people are worth seeing, but not worth going to see.)  However, as stated, she does not have to move at all.

To be the unseen guest at baptisms, ordinations, weddings and confirmations must delight her.  Even those alliances which are the triumphs of hope over experience must provide entertainment enough for any spinster.  The voice of the people is the voice of God, said Alcuin – vox populi vox dei.

Being witness to so many unions, does she ever regret turning down Harris Bigg-Wither?  Nay, she was delighted to have spared herself any lifelong conjunction with that particular large and awkward youth.  Whenever she had experienced a broken engagement, failed seaside romance or unsatisfactory flirtation, she consoled herself in her sister’s company and they shared a game of rubbers, or played a few duets.  Next to being married, a girl liked to be disappointed in love a little, now and then.  It gave one a sort of distinction among friends and one’s mother an opportunity to remedy the situation.

When a baby grizzles during the Intercessions, does it irritate her?  No, not at all, for Jane was the seventh child of eight and loved boisterous games of baseball and cricket.  She does not mind the troops of schoolchildren, brandishing clipboards with attached worksheets on Global Warning and St Swithun, who mark their territory by expelling curious deposits of masticated material on the ancient stones.  She is amused when itinerant latter-day pilgrims are riveted to the spot.

Teacher:  Well done, Merlot!  Now that you have ticked all the boxes we can enter you for the Win a Cathedral Roof Tour on a Windy Day prize draw.

Rinaldo, why don’t you go down to the crypt and see if you can spot the virtual angel?  Don’t hurry back.

That was quick!  No, that wasn’t the angel.  It was the sculpture by Anthony Gormless.

No, children do not bother her, but she is disturbed and aggrieved by members of the congregation who show no discretion in the timing of their personal coughs and who would be ideal members of the cast of some stage representation of Great Expectorations. Perhaps they could be induced to retire to the Fisherman’s Chapel to meditate on the Izaak Walton stained glass injunction contained therein, whose injunction is:  Study to be Quiet.

Now a restoration appeal for £19 million has been launched and so Jane hopes that the ancient roof will no longer threaten to tumble around her ears from the vibrations of deaf loops, microphones, county brayings and excessive campanology.

Her single regret may be that she misses her dear sister’s company. As Mrs Austen once said:

If Cassie were to have her head cut off, you would insist on joining her.

Yes, Jane’s father often quoted Pope:

The proper study of mankind is Man.

So, here she is dignified with as much learning in the University of Life as her brothers experienced in their various careers.  Persuasion, pride, prejudice, sense and sensibility are paraded over these flagstones every day, in as compressed a social milieu as any novelist could desire to inhabit.  Henry Tilney once observed:

The Close is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies.

Certainly, its grapevine is as efficient a system of instant gratification as the pew sheet or Internet, whatever that organ of gossip may be.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Sex and the City

Tags

Amanda Barrie, Andrew Marr, Antony and Cleopatra, Carry on Cleo, Chichester Festival Theatre, Dan Snow, Hilary Devey, History of the World, Janet Suzman, Kim Cattrall, Lord of the Rings, Neil Oliver, Shakespeare, Smeagol

Yes, the rain is back with a vengeance.  The average monthly rainfall in the UK was expected over a few hours.  A thirty two year old New Zealand woman was killed by a falling branch at Kew Gardens yesterday – but hey!- all those drivers who cut down the narrow roads through the villages in our part of the country still want to force you into the roadside hedges while they spray you with a mini tsunami.

Last night the first programme in The History of the World by Andrew Marr was broadcast.  It was a choice between that and Dragons’ Den.  Since I didn’t want to induce scary nightmares to my slumbers, I  decided to give Hilary Devey a miss.  I gave Marr the benefit of the doubt.  (His wife has been doing that quite a bit recently.)

I don’t know who provided the graphics, but they were very reminiscent of those in Lord of the Rings.  The crumbling stone arches which homo sapiens had to traverse in order to leave the African continent led the tribe to vaster territories in which to spread their DNA.  I half expected Andrew to materialise as Smeagol, crying:

Come on, Hobbits.  Long ways to go yet.  Smeagol will show the way.

At that point a horde of marauding Orcs would have eaten him and spat out his bones.

I couldn’t take the commentary seriously as I kept thinking about how the presenter himself has not revealed himself to be highly evolved in any ethical sense.

This tiny genetic mutation- yes, red hair is the result of a recessive gene, and I can say that as I have the same colouring- pointed out that 27,000 years ago, our ancestors left handprints on the walls of caves.  Okay, Andrew, but they did not leave them beneath the waistbands of jeans worn by female colleagues outside bars in Fitzrovia, before rushing off from the family home to interview US presidents.

I can’t imagine what Michelle’s reaction would be if Barack started misbehavin’.  I think she would be more than cross and might leave something larger than a handprint on his backside.

Marr then waxed lyrical about the invention of the needle which enabled mankind to wear clothes that actually fit properly.  Try telling that to weather girls.

Since then the tie has been invented, but quite a few trendy tribes of politicians seem to think that they can wear a suit and omit the aforementioned item of neckwear.  They belong to the type that has to continually apologise and I personally do not trust Neanderthal, retrograde informality- except in Neil Oliver.  Maybe they will be eaten by their successors.

Marr then popped up in Egypt with a dramatic representation of what happened to the hooligan elements who de-stabilised society by sleeping around.  This took place in the first towns and he commented that the behaviour reminded him of Eastenders.  Would that have been plebeian conduct, Andrew?  No, he just put it down to an outbreak of Wild Nile Naughtiness but he explained his own misadventure as being the product of overindulgence in alcohol- a few too many glasses of Cobra, maybe?

Or maybe he has been carried away by the Janet Suzman production of Antony and Cleopatra at Chichester Festival Theatre, with Sex and the City actress, Kim Cattrall trying to outdo Amanda Barrie in carrying on.  Ah, Andrew, well might you exclaim:

Infamy, infamy – they’ve all got it in for me

But you deserve it!

There are no final victories over the darker side of human nature, he said.

So, what could it possibly be that attracts women to very well-paid presenter and interviewer Andrew Marr?

If you are looking for good genes, why not make eyes at Dan Snow?  Now that’s a colossus, or would he just be pleased to meet me?!

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Noisy Neighbours

Tags

Archbishop of Canterbury, Bing Crosby, boobs, catwalk, Christopher Robin, Duchess of Cambridge, husband, Mark Tully, Piglet, Prince William, Rowan Williams, Something Understood, St Andrews University

There is something funny going on here!  I have just remembered that Kate Middleton paraded down a catwalk at St Andrews University, wearing a transparent dress, possibly to deliberately attract Wills’ attention.  So should she turn on the coyness now?  Or is it suddenly immoral for journalists to intimately reveal her to the world since she has acquired an elevated status? Maybe it is all to do with the timing of disclosure being down to an individual’s personal choice.  (see Gottes Zeit below.)

Anyway, there is nothing worse than people becoming bored with your boobs.  Unless it is becoming incensed with noisy neighbours.  Now the two topics in this paragraph should be great tags for anyone’s blog!

I’m only getting round to discussing the latest Something Understood, presented by Mark Tully, on Radio 4, as it has taken me nearly three days to recover from the emotional wreckage and sleep deprivation inflicted by my noisy neighbours in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The theme of the programme was based on the quotation: Is Discretion the Better Part of Valour?

This struck a chord as I deliberated whether to simmer once again with suppressed rage at anti-social nocturnal activities.

Yes, dear readers, even in sleepy Suttonford where the local rag will report a missing budgie on the front page and scintillating evening classes may revolve around the crocheting of loo roll holders, there is still a serpent in Eden.

You’ll have heard it said that there is no rest for the wicked, but this has been amended to simply: there is no rest.

The rasping cackle of a female laugh which resembled the onomatopoeic rapid rifle’s rattle from the trenches, as described by The War Poets, cut through glazing and blinds and permeated the bedroom as noxiously as a gas attack.

I had been listening to Tully discussing whether Falstaff’s discretion was in fact comic cowardice.  This query was juxtaposed alongside the lyrics of a song:

You can stand me up at the gates of hell:

I wouldn’t back down.

I won’t be turned around;

Gonna stand my ground.

Thanks for that, I thought.  Go, girl, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Different camps had either criticised or praised Archbishop Runcie for being indecisive.  Sometimes, he had seemed to think, it could be helpful to nail one’s colours to the fence.  Compromise is not necessarily weak.

Personally, as I flew out of the back door into the garden, I must confess that I felt like nailing some people to the fence, possibly with a staple gun.

In the past I had been indecisive. I’d compromised. Okay, so President Kennedy had avoided a Nuclear Armageddon by masterly indecision.  Elizabeth I’s foreign policy had been marked by procrastination.  But one day she decided to cut off her cousin’s head.

Bing Crosby smarmily sang: I surrender, dear. I could still hear it in my mind.  I immediately repulsed the thought and replaced it with a reminder of the philosophy of Pooh and Friends. Even Piglet did not avoid confrontation and he was accorded the highest praise for his bravery.

Pooh:  Did Piglet tremble?  Did he blinch? [sic]

Piglet:  I-I thought I did blinch a little.  Just at first!

Pooh: You only blinched inside, and that’s the bravest way for a very small Animal not to blinch..

So, I went out into the garden and I tried not to blinch. I bellowed as if I was a very big Animal. I told them to behave themselves in no uncertain terms.

Rowan Williams spoke next.  No, not in my garden.  He wasn’t behind a bush, burning or otherwise.  He had been on the programme too.  I could still hear his voice:

Don’t lose touch with both sides in the conflict, so people keep speaking.

Would he mediate?  I couldn’t imagine him approaching the rowdies in his mitre and dalmatics.  Presumably, at that time of night even the Archbishop of Canterbury would wear pyjamas.  Mind you, they would probably take as much notice of him as if he was wearing the invisibility cloak we have discussed in previous posts.

Rowan had said that one should never be tempted to be seen to be doing something decisive in order to gain approval.

No, I think I am safe there.  Approval is not going to be an outcome.

Then The Archbishop chided with a caveat:

Who carries the cost of what I say or do?   

a)   Others.  Well, they don’t seem to be affected at all, so that is that.

b)  Myself.  Yes, the Husband knows that I won’t be able to sleep for the rest of the night as I will be emotionally wrecked.

But, Rowan is encouraging here.  If I alone am to bear the cost of any decision to stand up and be counted, then, what is there to be afraid of, so long as I can cope with myself afterwards?

I can cope.  I can cope.

So, BELT UP, WILL YOU?!

Tully inserted an interesting little poem at this juncture about a cautious man whose relations made some kind of life assurance claim on his demise.  However, they were told that they were due no payout, as, since he had never lived, he could not have been considered to have died.

Vivamus, mea  Lesbia , vivamus.  Let’s live then, baby.

Shuddup!

Rowan counselled that the fear of God was the beginning of wisdom.  There is a proper fear which acknowledges that you know to whom you are answerable.  So… forgive me, God, but, I mean it …  Shuddupayaface!

In Zimbabwe, eight years ago, a Harare bishop proved his loyalty to Mugabe.  Why hadn’t Archbishop Rowan DONE SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

Ah, said Rowan, because if I had denounced him, it would have handed him a weapon.  So, instead I listened to J S Bach’s Gottes Zeit – God’s Timing.

Okay, I have listened to the noisy ones for twelve years, off and on, so now seems like a pretty good time, deo volente, of course…

Quiet!

Were they?  Yes, eventually.  After making the point that it was in their own time.

So, was valour the better part of discretion, or vice versa?

Ask me next weekend.  Otherwise I send in Piglet, aka the Husband.  That’ll make ‘em blinch.  (Not)

Husband is like Christopher Robin:

What I like doing best is Nothing….just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.

Bother.

So, Husband, dear, what are you going to do?

Oh, nothing.

He is for Discretion and I am for Valour.

But I am his Better Half, so:

Shurrup!!!

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Green on Blue

Tags

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Camp Bastion, Philip Hammond, Saturday, Scotland, Second Battle of Ypres, Stirling Castle, Trojan War, Yorkshire Regiment

On Saturday two young men from the 3^rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, were shot and killed by an Afghan soldier who pretended to have an injury and who then turned on them.  This is known as a green on blue attack.

The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, said that he would not allow Allied strategy to be de-railed, but stressed the pain for all concerned by insider killings.  Henceforth, joint operations are to be greatly curtailed in number.

I mentioned dissimulation in an earlier, somewhat jocular post last week, but there is nothing more sinister than treachery and deception in the serious theatre of war, or indeed in any real life encounter.

Yet there is nothing new under the sun, and pretence has been practised on the perceived enemy, ever since the Trojan War and even since Jacob and Esau.

I visited the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Museum at Stirling Castle last week, to see if I could discover anything more about my grandfather, who served with the regiment in 1914-18.  The gentlemen on duty were very helpful, but it was later that I determined his precise engagement in the Second Battle of Ypres, after reading on-line descriptions of what the 1/9^th had experienced after being heavily shelled and gassed.  They attempted to flush out some of the enemy from a broken trench and then were stunned to see a line of what appeared to be Camerons approaching through the gas and smoke, wearing the kilt.  They ceased their machine gun fire and hesitated before the deadly realisation dawned that it was the enemy who had requisitioned the clothing from their dead Scottish comrades.

There is nothing fair in love and war.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Match Point

Tags

Andrew Fairlie, Andy Murray, Chronicles of Narnia, Church of the Holy Rude, Dunblane, Dunblane Cathedral, Dunblane Hydro, Gleneagles Hotel

St Ninian’s Day.

Ninian died on 16^th September, 432 AD.  He was the Apostle to the Southern Picts.  The cathedral in Perth is named after him, but I do not think Andy had time to leave Dunblane to light a wee tea-light in gratitude.  He had his own St Blane to attend to. Draped in a Saltire, the Muzzard was mobbed by local fans who had waited in the rain for him, perhaps hoping for a couple of years to be knocked off their personal purgatories.  He signed a few indulgences for his primary school followers.

I wonder if he went up to Dunblane Hydro, so disappointing now that it has had the Hilton chain treatment, with piped-and I don’t mean bagpiped- muzak-in its public lavatories.  The makeover style is nineties corporate, so I do not think that they will get the wedding booking.  Serves them right.

I expect that Andy’s moody black and white photograph will join the other portraits of Famous Scots in the bar. The Husband and I relaxed on some very comfy, squidgy sofas in the said area and waited, almost as long as it took Andy to win his first Grand Slam, for a coffee and hot chocolate.  The latter (no, I meant latter, not latte) arrived with marshmallows-a kind gesture-, but, believe you me, if you want mallows, haste ye back to The Gleneagles Hotel and Andrew Fairlie will convert you for life.  Anything else is a Marshwiggle (see Chronicles of Narnia).

Dunblane Cathedral would be the perfect second best option to The Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling (as mentioned in previous postings), for Andy’s Coronation. Sorry, I meant marriage.  Friends of Dunblane Cathedral could add a new misericord to the fantastic set that they already have there.  Since there is a quirkily carved bat on one, why not have a modern racquet on a commemorative seat, specially carved for Andy to sit on whenever he visits to take up his Freedom of the City?  If Kim needs to sit beside him, they could always get a local craftsman to carve a cute little Border terrier for her particular throne.  Maybe they would need three extra seats, if mummy always comes along, so she could have a raven or a dagger on hers.

But what if Kim wants to wed down south, in Wimbledon, or Surrey?  What if she judges Andy to be a bit of a skinnymalinkylonglegs for a kilt? Pity, as a sporran would be just the job for him to keep a couple of tennis balls to the ready, for throwing to his retinue after the service.  Kim might have to realise that she is marrying a legend (You’re epic, Andy, the banners read.)  Like Ruth in the Old Testament, his people might have to become her people.  Certainly his god has already had to become hers.

So, she’d better have a sprig of white heather in her bouquet and sport a Murray tartan garter.  Maybe she will be drummed through Dunblane and chained to the railings with a chamber pot placed in front of her, to pick up a nuptial collection, in the auld tradition.  Or she may simply lodge her wedding list at Jenner’s, Edinburgh:

2 gold feeding bowls with Olympic rings (engraved) – presumably for the dogs

Saltire champion-sized duvet set

Gold frame for Lendl photo

American fridge filled with Irn-Bru

Deep fat fryer for Mars Bars

Judy annexe

Kim annexe

New DVD player..

I wonder if Andrew Fairlie will be asked to do the catering?

Fairlie: and how do you like your deep fried Mars Bar?

Andy: Saignant, I think..  No, a point.

Fairlie: For you, Andy, it will be match point.  Eh, and how do you like your Border terrier?

Andy: Medium rare, I think.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

I Am What I Ate

Tags

Andrew Fairlie, Commonwealth Games, Cullen Skink, Glasgow, Gleneagles Hotel, Irn Bru, Jammie Dodgers, Loch Fyne, Rab C Nesbitt, Scotland

The Commonwealth Games are coming to Glasgow in 2014 and more than 2 million meals will have to be prepared for athletes, officials, staff and spectators.  However, Ah hae ma doots that the 100 plus tonnes of fruit and veg that are being ordered will necessarily go doon a treat.

Save the Children co-ordinator, Malcolm Clark, has been reported as saying that there should be a junk food ban.  Many will respond:  Ach, away an’ bile yer heid.

Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead said: 

There will be unprecedented opportunities to showcase the magnificent produce Scotland has to offer.

There will be a Food and Drink AGM in Perth, so close to Andrew Fairlie’s eponymous restaurant at The Gleneagles Hotel. However, I don’t think his signature lobster dish- its shell smoked in whisky, as if you didn’t know, will be featured in the biodegradable cardboard takeaway dishes of the Games themselves.  Nor do I see Celtic Fish and Game and all things feathered and sustainable being up there in the hot desires of Rab C Nesbitt and Co.

Candia was once a student at a Scottish University, in the gloaming of time and so she can recall seeing some graffiti sprayed on the exterior of the students’ refectory and it read:

You Are What You Eat

And that is a very frightening concept.

Just over a week ago now, I was contemplating a journey north and felt compelled to express in verse my anticipation of the culinary delights of Alba.

I Am What I Ate

I’m returning to the land of shortbread-

(Petticoat Tails, the Peek Frean Custard Cream)-

where, for many years I had ingested

more Jammie Dodgers than in sweet-toothed dream;

Lorne sausage, Stovies, Co-op jam

stirred into semolina, mutton pies,

mince n’ tatties, neeps, pan peeces, flaccid Spam,

school custard, tablet- then, to appetise,

Black Bun.  If I felt a wee bit faddy;

Barr’s Irn Bru, a Paterson oatcake

with a Loch Fyne kipper; a Finnan haddie

gar’d me grue. Bottles of ginger would slake

my thirst and, if I was in a paddy,

you could shut me up wi’ a soor green ploom.

On Fridays we had something Ruskolined,

Cock-a-Leekie, Clootie Dumpling, sheep’s womb,

Tunnock’s wafers, Lees’ Snowballs, but now weaned

off those pokes of chips, black pudding slices,

I spread my Low Fat Flora very thin.

Childhood diet no longer entices,

yet I am what I ate- there’s nae denying

the place the skillet had in all our hearts.

Arteries were clogged through constant frying

by strangers to the culinary arts.

But Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled don’t shrink

fae food wae names like bannock, Cullen Skink.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012