Living Water

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Argos Catalogue, Bethlehem well, boa constrictor, Consuelo, Hot Cross Buns, King David, Little Prince, Living Water, Midnight Mass, nard, Oliver Sacks, Parable of Vineyard, Prodigal Son, rag doll, Saint-Exupery, Samaritan woman, Wells for Africa

No, on a strict diet until Lent is over, Brassie said firmly, rejecting the proffered

Mocha.  I’ll just have a Suttonford Spring Water.  I’m parched actually.  All

that weeding at the weekend.  I was pruning some jagged rose bushes.

You sound like the aviator in The Little Prince, I commented.  Do you

remember when he said: This sweetness was born of the walk under the

stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms.  It was good for the

heart, like a present?

Not specially, Brassie said.  What was that about a pulley?

Well, he had been asked to draw water from a well in the Sahara Desert

for the Little Prince, just as the Samarian woman was asked to give

Jesus something to quench His thirst.

Oh, yeah.  And then He said he could give her water…

..and she’d never thirst again, I supplied.

That was beautiful, Brassie agreed.  I remember reading

Saint-Exupery to the twins when they were little. I like the point

about the effort one puts into the gift.  It refreshes parts that

other drinks don’t reach.

I think that refers to beer, I countered.

So much for self-denial.  She bit into a Hot Cross bun.

It’s good when you eat food appropriate to the season, I stated.

I hate to see Hot Cross buns on shelves at the wrong time of year.

St Exupery even covered the importance of ritual..

Oh, like the regulation of the lectionary? Brassie mused aloud.

Mm, she agreed, nodding with her mouth full.  I think Exupery

said something about half the pleasure of gifts is that they should be

given in a meaningful context.

Yes, he wrote that Christmas presents, for example, received after

Midnight Mass, in the bosom of a loving, smiling family were so much

more memorable.

Not like throwing an Argos catalogue at your carping kids out of

guilt, Brassie expanded.

I seem to recall that he gave an example of a merchant who could sell you a

thirst-quenching pill which would save you fifty three minutes a week.  The

Little Prince said that he would rather spend those minutes in drinking cool,

clear water.

All this brings to mind a story that we had at Sunday School when we were

little, Brassie enthused.  It was about King David craving a drink of water

from a particular well in Bethlehem.  Some of his brave, or reckless

henchmen risked their lives and stormed through the enemy to bring him

some.

I remember that! I interrupted.  Didn’t he pour it out on the ground as an

offering?

Yeah.  He felt it was too valuable to pour down his throat, given what

they’d risked. He returned the element to its source.

But Jesus allowed the woman to pour out the expensive nard perfume all over

His feet, remarked Brassie.  He accepted the gift.  It seemed excessive, a

waste to some, but he was okay with it.

That’s because He knew His own worth, I commented.  Also, the grudging

disciple was more intent on syphoning its value off for the purse he carried,

allegedly on all the disciples’ behalf.

Brassie mulled this over.  I might have been annoyed if someone had

poured out my gift after I’d put all that effort into getting it in the first place.

Hmm.  But The Little Prince said that it all depends on how you look at

things. Grown-ups couldn’t see that Saint-Exupery’s childish drawing of the

side elevation of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant was not a brimmed

hat.

There’s a book about a man who mistook his wife for a hat, she interjected.

Brassie wanders off the point sometimes.

Oh, have you got it?  I asked.  I would like to borrow it from you.  I seem to

recognise the phenomenon. But, no, I drew her back on track.  Some people

don’t understand why the workers in the parable who joined the day’s labour

in the vineyard after the work had been largely done in the heat of the sun,

should receive the same wage as those who turned up late.

Yes, that’s never made sense to me, she said emphatically.

Well, no one is worthy.  It’s like the Elder Brother syndrome.  He felt

overlooked when the Prodigal returned and received a warm welcome. 

The Father rightly reminded him that he had had the benefit of his 

company, riches and household, all the time the younger brother had

been sharing pig swill.

Someone said that gifts that cost you nothing are not worth giving.

Correct, I replied.  That’s why I give all those unwanted Christmas prezzies

to Help the Ancient.  But I also have to give meaningfully too and that is more

of a challenge.

You gave me a nice present for my birthday, soothed Brassie.  Wasn’t it a

Wells for Africa donation certificate?

It might have been, I answered.  I can’t remember.

You didn’t waste your money, she carried on.

No.  Exupery said that the time children waste on loving their rag doll is never

– well, wasted.  One of the characters says the responsibility the children took

showed that they were lucky.

I hope you don’t see me as some kind of rag doll.  I know I didn’t change out of my

gardening trousers today.. Oh, I remember now, Brassie became agitated.

There was something about looking after your rose and watering it and not minding

if you only had one to look after, even if it had thorns.

I think Exupery’s wife, Consuelo, was rather thorny, I explained.  I don’t think

she offered him much consolation, in spite of her name.  And yet he said thorns

weren’t grown for spite.  He suggested that roses were vulnerable, but beautiful. 

His rose was so vulnerable that a sheep could have eaten it.   Flowers need to believe

that they can protect themselves with their terrible weapons, but we shouldn’t listen

to them, he said.  We should just admire them.

Was that his sexist view of women, then?  Brassie asked.

I think it was more subtle, I pondered.  He said people should think of the

affection behind the strategems and the inconsistencies of our loved ones.

In other words, forgive them..?

..as we ourselves are forgiven!

We flowers are complex creatures, as he said.

Thank goodness someone wastes time on us!

Would you like another bottle of water? I asked.

No, thanks.  I feel quite refreshed by our talk.  I’ll look out

that book for you tonight.

Oliver Sacks, I remember now.  Thanks, Brassie.

 

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Exo-and Endo-skeletons

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chrysalis, endoskeleton, exoskeleton, Goop, Gwynnie, Ouspensky, Parent Teacher Association, poodle moth, seamed nylon, stiletto

Gwynnie’s gurus explained the differences between exoskeletons

(Poodle Moths etc) and endoskeletons.

Virginia, the School Secretary was fascinated.  Insects, it appeared, had

their skeletons on the outside.  They would never change; they were

inflexible and at the mercy of their environments.  Was this a metaphor

for Augustus Snodbury?

She read on.  Someone called P.Ouspensky seemed to have said that

insects were Nature’s failed attempt to evolve higher forms of

consciousness.  Virginia could think of one or two males who fitted this

observation.  Was ‘P’ a woman with a hidden agenda?

However, she had to admit that, at least, Snod wasn’t spineless.  Should

the rest of the staff find themselves under the steel-tipped heel of a

stiletto, they’d be ground down.  But not Gus.  Not even if the shapely calf

above the said point of balance was encased in a seamed nylon.

Exoskeletons calcify and tend to rigidity, she read further. (Hmm..that did

sound more like Gus.) But vertebrates…

That’s me! she nodded.

..have a skeleton on the inside, lending itself to flexibility and adaptability.The

downside to this is a certain vulnerability and sensitivity to hurt.

Am I hurt? she questioned herself.  Maybe a little.

What was that about scars from the past? Regrets, she’d had a few,

but then again..No, stop!  She’d always hated that song.

The guru went on in a series of metaphors about the need to construct

an inner cathedral and said it was important to surrender one’s attack

modes.  Then one’s nurturing mode could rise to the surface.

Virginia appreciated the cathedral reference, but there was no way..!

Actually, maybe she could feel a tendernesss begin to seep through.

Suddenly she began to experience a warm, maternal glow.

The gossip was that Snod had been placed, well, dumped in St Birinus

Prep Schoolwhen the ink on his birth certificate had scarcely been blotted.

His mother had run off.  Poor little lamb, she whispered aloud.

Perhaps she could make it her life’s work to help him to achieve his

equilibrium and he might emerge from the chrysalis of his past destructive

relationships? That Fotheringay woman who partnered him at The Parent/

Teachers’ Association had looked positively entomological. Dragonfly, she’d

have called her.

According to the Gospel of Goop, if he could slough off his old skin then he

would be enabled to call in someone- herself?– who would reflect his new

world.  If she decided to remain in post, in the school family, and, goodness

knew her receding pension seemed to suggest that it was the only modus

operandi, then she might, in time, be able to persuade Snod to view her as

his teacher, or midwife, in an initiation into the Academy of Love.

 

Conscious Uncoupling

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a posteriori, Coldplay, conscious uncoupling, Dr Habib Sadeghi, Dr Shahizad Sami, Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lent, Love and Weight Loss, New Age, poodle moth

We haven’t had conscious coupling for some time, sighed Carrie.  Gyles

is so busy.  And I don’t want to know about teenagers’ unconscious coupling

either.  She sipped at her latte.

She was reading The Mail Online from her tablet in Costamuchamoulah must-

seen cafe where there is a WiFi connection.

I am always warning her that her bank details might be exposed in using

public sites for her iPad obsession, but she is reckless.

So this latest Paltrow phrase is a trendy euphemism for divorce? I queried.

Maybe their foreplay was all Coldplay.  I was proud of knowing the name of

Gwynnie’s ex’s band, for some reason.

It’s a load of Goop, Carrie replied.

Goop?

Oh, some site where Gwynnie’s gurus post New Age Lifestyle Advice.  In

relationships, people apparently play teacher and pupil.

Sounds a bit kinky, I commented.  You’d have thought it might have spiced

up their marriage.  Maybe she should have bought a gymnslip.  Or is that

non-PC nowadays?

Carrie scrolled down.  Every irritation and row is a trigger which flags up a

need to examine one’s psyche to locate negativity that requires healing.

Who are these people? I asked.

Dr Habib Sadeghi and his spouse, Dr Shahizad Sami.  They state that humans

are not wired to be with one person for decades.

I could have told them that, I said, munching on an almond croissant.  But

better the devil you know and all that..

**********************************************************

Virginia Fisher-Giles was reading The Mail in her brief break.  She recognised

this ‘Goop‘ argument a posteriori– to wit, that people in relationships begin to

smell less fragrant to each other after a while and the emotional protection of

the equivalent of a vinaigrette in plaguish times becomes a vital vade mecum.

What is all this about relationships between the sexes being like that

of a teacher and pupil? she pondered, while taking a tray into the study of

Augustus Snodbury (Acting Head).  She had only put a single biscuit on

his plate, as this 50% reduction was supposed to be Snod’s self-denial

for Lent.  No doubt there would be a Bourbon Restoration later in the year,

as there had been in 1814.

Please don’t put that on top of these reports, snapped Snod.

She slipped out silently.  Actually, one Bourbon down was a strategy for

weight control, she thought, and it was in line with Dr Sadeghi’s Within:

A Spiritual Awakening to Love and Weight Loss, mentioned, or promoted in

the article.  All you had to do was release your weight.  She wondered

where it all ended up.  Maybe injected into some media type’s butt.

But this newly-displayed moodiness meant that her honeymoon period of

infatuation had run its course. Something had all too short a day, she thought,

and it wasn’t summer.  She was experiencing a seven year itch and she had

not even married him, let alone been out for a date.  So much for teacher/

pupil relationships.  She could teach the old boy a thing or two.

A boomerang of a thought hit her with some force, provoking a suppressed

notion about males to emerge, blinking into the light.  She suddenly saw that

she was acting out a role that she had outgrown.  She was going to crush

any sense of personal injury.

She returned to the report.  It said that any ‘peeve‘-curiously colloquial, but

then it was reported in The Mail, was only evidence of an older emotional scar,

and she knew what that was all about, but she wasn’t about to open up old

wounds.

It was just as well that she had presence of mind and skills that were so

essential for a School Secretary.  They were evidence of her spiritual

evolution, naturally.

Suddenly the image of that squashed Venezuelan poodle moth came to mind.

It was an entomological symbol of the insignificance of her boss and his

retarded development, surely?

The bell rang.  She had to get on with sorting out parental envelopes, but at

lunch break she would read the rest of the article about insects and human

emotional development, according to Goop.

The Apprentice

Tags

Alan Sugar, Amish, apprentice wizard, besom, boot camps, dyslexia, Fantasia, given the sack, Goldberg, Harry Potter, internship, Lord Sugar, Mary Poppins, Mennonites, mysordering, Rechabites, Shakers, Sorcerer's Apprentice, The Apprentice, tough love, Ugg boots, University of York, You're fired!

 

Carrie sank into a leather sofa that was as distressed as she was.

What’s up now? I enquired, trying not to sound too unsympathetic.

Tiger-Lily is throwing her weight around, but because she is stressed

with exam preparation, we all have to tiptoe around her.  It’s like

walking on eggshells.

But she’s going to get A*s for everything, isn’t she?  So, what’s the

big deal?

She wants to make a good impression so that she can secure an internship.

Unpaid work, I sniffed.  It can be a con.  Anyway, unless she is going to

work for Alan Sugar for some astronomical sum, she’d be better just finding

her own feet in her own time.

But sometimes I fantasise about getting her out from under our feet for

a while, admitted Carrie.  She is driving her brothers mad.

That’s why young people used to be sent away, I said, browsing the

beverage menu and pointing out my tea of choice to a young girl who was

earning more in tips than any intern.

Sent away!  I wasn’t meaning anything too drastic, recoiled Carrie.

Well, in 14th century Florence, Paolo Somebody-or-Other said: ‘Give your son

to a merchant or a close friend.  He will not mend his ways while he is with

you.’  I read something about it on-line yesterday.

Hmmm. It’s probably true, Carrie granted, but who would take her in?

Don’t look at me!  I said.  It was somebody from the University of York,

possibly called Goldberg, who was saying that it used to be recognised

that people other than parents could teach unruly kids a thing or two.

Contracts were made with merchants and so on who would educate

youngsters and give them a trade.  If they didn’t behave, the training

period could be doubled.  It suited the merchants as they were being

paid and the kids were cheap labour. 

How long were they away from home?  Carrie looked interested.

Could be seven to fourteen years, it seems.

What kind of bad behaviour would lead to such a severe extension?

Gaming, cards, harlots and something vague called ‘mysordering’, I answered.

Carrie didn’t want to go there.  ‘Mysordering’ was probably dyslexia… 

..which apparently doesn’t exist according to the latest..I interrupted.

The firm line reminds me of boot camps on the telly- you know where druggy

brats are sent to live with Shakers- not movers and-..the other kind, in

America, Carrie expatiated.

The Shakers were kind to the kids they sent them as far as I remember,

I corrected her.  Some of the young people were attracted by firm

boundaries and tough love.  At any rate they respected their mentors. Maybe

their hosts were Mennonites, though.  Or Rechabites.  I can’t remember

the differences.

The thing is, excused Carrie, Tiger is hormonal.  If she didn’t have her home

comforts, she wouldn’t be able to cope.

Yes, but even boys in the 16th century were writing home to complain that

their washing wasn’t being done and the food was terrible.  One mother is

recorded as sending her son three clean shirts in a sack.  She suggested that

he should keep the sack to put his dirty laundry in.

I wonder if that’s where the expression ‘being given the sack’ came from?

mused Carrie.

What- being nagged by one’s mother?

No, being kicked out along with your laundry bag.

I think Alan Sugar would just point a finger at you nowadays and would utter

his immortal: You’re fired!

Carrie looked thoughtful.  Tiger had the most awful tantrum because her

favourite top hadn’t been ironed.  She’s a besom, as her Scottish grandmother

would say.

Besom?  Isn’t that an old-fashioned word for a broom?

Yes.  Maybe I should get her to sweep the patio for her impertinence.

Ah! recollections of Fantasia, I smiled.  Maybe the brooms would subdivide and

youth and inexperience would be taught a lesson, as in The Sorcerer’s

Apprentice.

A bit like Harry Potter being an apprentice wizard who can’t control the magic,

I warmed to the theme.

Agreed, nodded Carrie.  These kids still need their elders and betters to take

charge, no matter how sophisticated they THINK they are.

So, you’ll  ignore her slamming the doors?

Just until the exams are over, Carrie said, and then I will be slamming some

myself and if she doesn’t wisen up, she’ll be visiting Amish for a long vacation.

Is that her Scottish uncle? I wisecracked.

No, you know what I mean perfectly well, Candia.  I mean that she’d better

not be getting too big for her Ugg boots, because she’s about to find out, in

the words of Lord Sugar: Mary Poppins I am not!

 

 

Bingo!

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Andrew Graham-Dixon, Baltic cruise, Basingstoke, Beam me up.., bingo, Bradford on Avon, Bridge, Bridge Mints, Catherine the Great, cribbage, Dame Edna, David Cameron, deviation, Estonia, Faberge, fly fishing, geophysicist, George Clooney, George Osborne, hesitation, Inner Hebrides, ISA, Jeremy Paxman, Kit-Kat, Knights in White Satin, Lamborghini, Madge, Martini, Missing Amber Room, Neil Oliver, Nick Clegg, pasty, Poleconomy, Potemkin, Putin, religious affairs broadcaster, repetition, St Petersburg, Tallinn, The Hermitage, Tuck shop, Waldemar Janusczak, White Nights, Winter Palace

Diana Fotheringay-Syylk was feeling like the fishy guest who putrefies after

three days.  Not that Sonia had hinted that she had a sudden need to reclaim

her spare rooms, but it was just that both women required their own space.

Diana felt that it was a bit like sharing The Winter Palace with Catherine the

Great, and it sometimes felt like a similar temperature too.

Diana’s estate agent was frantically sending her texts, reporting on the

positive viewings on her cottage in Bradford-on-Avon.  Prospective buyers

adored the quaint windows- as far as she could recall there were none.

Couples loved its tranquil position in a quiet village.  ‘Bustling town‘ was how

she would have described its location.  And why did they mention the river

after the worst flooding in a century?  She was in an elevated position and

hadn’t had a teaspoonful of groundwater in her cellar.  So far there had

been no second viewings.  Still, it wasn’t Easter yet.

Sonia kept wanting to play Cribbage, Bridge or a variety of Bingo every

evening.  Diana didn’t care for these games and would have been happy to

provide the canapes for the occasion, if only George Osborne, or

Nick Clegg could have dropped by, so that she could sit the session out, like

some kind of Madge to Edna’s grande dame.  She had a sneaking

suspicion that Sonia would have eaten the politicians up as efficiently as

she disposed of a box of Bridge Mints and that she would probably have

preferred Potemkin to drop by unannounced for a game of Poleconomy.

Apparently the Chancellor and the Deputy PM love Bingo– so much so that

they were right behind tax reductions of 50% on the game. (David Cameron

was less enthusiastic. He prefers a night in with a pasty.)

Just as well that Sonia had given up driving, after she embedded her car in the

frontage of Costamuchamoulah, must-seen cafe.  Otherwise she might have

been tempted to cash in her annuities to purchase a Lamborghini to roar up

High Street.

Diana could imagine other old biddies, such as Ginevra, being all too keen to

make a black hole in their pension funds in order to subsidise a Martini habit,

or worse.

It wouldn’t take too many cashed-in ISAs to buy a toy boy and it would

probably be more short term fun than having to fund an Eastern European

carer.

Diana was beginning to realise that she wasn’t as young as she had been.  She

had been planning a Sagbag cruise to somewhere culturally interesting, such as

St Petersburg.  It would have been something to look forward to after the

house sale and removal stresses.  She quite fancied listening to some minor

celebrity rabbiting on about Faberge eggs, or leaning over the deck rail with a

George Osborne lookalike..(No, she meant Clooney, surely?), night after White

Night, or Knight after White Knight, not necessarily in white satin, or even

statins.

Now Putin had put paid to that Baltic fantasy.

Really someone should put the ‘Ras‘ back into his name.  She held him

personally responsible for preventing her from viewing The Hermitage.  How

one small man could spoil everything was very irritating.  If he had been a

pupil in her class, she would have told him not to be so greedy.  The lion’s

share was not his to grab.  She would have made him put it back and go to

the end of the queue.

He would have to have said, Thank you, Mrs Fotheringay-Syylk, with no

repetition, hesitation, or deviation.  And if she had detected any hint of

sarcasm or impertinence in his tone, then he would have been the last to

leave the classroom and may have even had to stay behind to help her

tidy up Lost Property. (But how do you tidy up Crimea?)

Sanctions!  She knew all about them.  Charging round the hockey pitch

twenty times would have sorted him out.  As for the Tuck Shop– out of

bounds till the end of term!  Or maybe till the end of time.

She absent-mindedly bent down to pick up the mail from the doormat.

There were two letters, both addressed to herself.

There was an envelope stamped with the estate agent’s logo.

She ripped it open. She was being offered a record price for the cottage!

Bingo!  Drusilla had been right.  It had flown away.

She opened the other missive.  It was from Sagbag Cruises and included a

published list of floating lectures.  Geophysicists, Religious Affairs

Broadcasters….

Where was Bendor Grosvenor?  That was what she wanted to know.

Maybe he didn’t do Sagbag. What about Neil Oliver?

Oh, wow!  Waldemar Janusczak on The Missing Amber Room.  A cruise to

Tallinn. Sign me up, Scotty! she screamed.  I’m definitely going for that one,

whether he was born in Basingstoke, or not.  I must ask Drusilla if she wants

to go too.  I mean to Estonia, not Basingstoke.  Imagine sailing round all those

roundabouts!  You’d feel seasick!

I can’t understand why Dru prefers Andrew Graham-Dixon.  He showed himself

up on University Challenge.  No, even Jeremy Paxman giving his fly-fishing tips

on a nautical jaunt round the Inner Hebrides isn’t as good as Waldemar on a

Kit-Kat wrapper.

And by the look of the price offered for my erstwhile humble abode, I can

treat my dear daughter too.

By George-bingo!

The First Cuckoo?

Tags

Birdsong, Bradford, Delius, Desert Island Discs, First Cuckoo, garden warblers, Gaugin's Nevermore, Grainger, Grez-sur-Loing, Grieg, Jelka Delius, Lark Ascending, laughing thrushes, Messiaen, orchard orioles, Philip Hobsbaum, Quartet for the End of Time, Richard Hickox, River Test, Skylarks, Solano, Stalad VIII-A, T S Eliot, Vaughan Williams, Yorkshire Post

Birdsong, Brassica said,  It’s so lovely to hear the wildlife out and about,

making their nests.  I could have sworn that I heard a cuckoo when I was

out walking Andy with Castor and Pollux at the weekend.

(The dog has the more sensible name.  Mythology only affected her

twins.  Badly, some might say, as their nicknames at school are Bastard

and Bollocks!)

People were always competitive to report the first time a cuckoo was heard in

a given year, I remarked.  I saw a posting on YouTube which demonstrated a

very early instance on the first of March this year.

Isn’t there a piece of music about skylarks which was voted the most

popular choice for the nation’s Desert Island Discs? mused Brassie,

nibbling a watercress scone.

Yes, The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams, I informed her.  But I

once sang a lot of Delius under the baton of Richard Hickox and it stirred

my interest in the latter composer.  Of course, he was not the only

musician interested in birdsong.  Messiaen was the one who most obviously

springs to mind, with his precise references to garden warblers, orchard

orioles and laughing thrushes.

Wasn’t he the one who was able to have his work performed in Stalag

VIII-A camp, near Dresden?  Brassie asked.

Yes, under the auspices of a sympathetic guard.  But we were talking of

Delius, I reminded her.  I was so surprised to learn that he had been born

in Bradford.

A lot of people are, Brassie munched on.

She is incredibly fatuous at times!

Anyway, when I heard a cuckoo the other day, it reminded me that I

had..

written a poem about one, said Brassie laughing and showing that she

is fairly perceptive after all.  E-mail it to me later tonight if you want. 

I haven’t read one of your poetic compositions for a while.

Okay, I promised. I had the idea when I was walking by The River Test

one day a few years ago.  Just to let you know: his wife was called Jelka.

My Lit Theory teacher, the great Philip Hobsbaum, would have challenged

that the poem should be clear in its meaning without notes, Brassie

teased.

Well, that writes off T S Eliot then, I countered.  So, I will just have to be of

the devil’s party!

On Hearing My First Cuckoo in Spring

 

Two notes transported me to Picardy,

for this birdcall, with its insistency

was a clarinet conceptualised

by a syphilitic man, who, near-blind,

was propped in his wheelchair in Grez-sur-Loing.

His Gaugin Nevermore had then been sold;

Grieg’s Scandinavian scenery mere

pointilliste impressions.  Now sound was all-

the lapping of the river at the end

of his garden; his giggle at the church

when he broke out at his confirmation;

the rhythms of his poet friend, Verlaine;

those Negro spirituals he’d overheard

through the cigarillo smoke in Solano,

when the grove could have been a kind of grave;

Grainger’s laugh; Heseltine’s accusation;

Fenby’s chords; a populous city’s noise;

the barking of the dachshund he once gave

to a favourite sister those years ago;

the rustle of his father’s Yorkshire Post:

(I see that Fritz has given a concert);

the sound of spiteful stones smashing shutters

and soldiers’ boots searching out their wine hoard.

In the New Year they made his cuckoo sing,

but by Autumn it sang over his plot,

laurel-lined in Lingfield.  Jelka heard it,

tumour-riddled, from the nursing home.

That day they sent her a boxed-set greeting

on a gramophone recording, but found

she’d already heard it; flown to meet him.

Now as I walk along this river bank,

the trite threnody does not interrupt

the inexorable ongoing flow

of Life itself.  This is what makes us rapt:

what Delius sensed, and helped us to know-

that two notes must not usurp the whole scale.

 

A Fish Called Steve

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Ananias and Sapphira, Aquatic Centre, Bearnaise, casting bread on water, Compleat Angler, exemption clause, Feeding Five Thousand, Granny Smiths, hog roast, joint and several liability, Kirstie and Phil, Land registry, Lulu Guinness, Make Poverty History, Nicola Sturgeon, Parson's nose, Pharisee, Romsey, St Birinus, Steve the sturgeon, tithe pig, Wallbank case, widow's mite

I was just finishing off regaling Brassica about Steve, the fish who went

missing from the Aquatic Centre in Romsey during the February floods.  The

metre long sturgeon has now been discovered in a deep puddle in a car

wash and has been repatriated.

It’s a parable for our times, I quipped.  What about that fishy pair up north-

Nicola (surely related), and Alex the Salmon?  They’re both about the

same length and will surely end up in a deep muddle, up the political creek,

without a paddle.

Very droll, Candia, smirked Brassie.

Chlamydia looked pale and drawn as she flopped down at the bistro

table outside Costamuchamoulah, the must-seen cafe.  What are you

two laughing about? she inquired.

Oh, just matters piscatorial, I joked.  After all, we are in Compleat Angler

territory. Have you heard of a fish called Steve?

No, said Clammie and didn’t appear to want to discuss him.

See you later.  Must go!  Brassica breezed off.

What’s up? I asked. (Note that I didn’t say, Whazzup?)

Look at this!  She took a letter from her Lulu Guinness handbag and cast

it across the table.  Read it!

It was from the Land Registry and its gist was that she was to be

appraised of her liability- joint and several– for repairs to the chancel of

Suttonford Parish Church.

I don’t understand, I said.  How can you be responsible for financing

maintenance and repair work to an ecclesiastical building?

Apparently it is an ancient law which can force home owners to pay if they

live in the parish of a church built before 1536, she sighed.  You live in the

Parish of St Birinus, so you are okay.  This will finish Tristram off, she groaned.

He’s already stressed over the twins’ school fees.  We might have to cancel

our sailing holiday to Sardinia at Whitsun.

It’s just as well that you were gazzumped over that 8 bedroomed Nemesis

House that Kirstie and Phil tried to encourage you to bankrupt yourselves

for, I remarked.

Maybe you’d have to pay the PCC proportionately, according to the size of

your property.

I have spent the whole morning Googling, Clammie moaned, as if she hadn’t

heard my observation.  They say that the clause doesn’t even have to show

up in your title deeds.

Sounds like hogwash to me, I tried to mollify her.  It’s probably just that the 

government has told the Church that they have a fixed period of time to

clarify stipulations on their title deeds- you know, for their charitable status,

or something.

No. No.  It’s all about precedent, she said knowledgeably.  I read about the

Wallbank case.  A couple had to sell a farm they had inherited in Warwickshire,

as they found out that they were responsible for maintenance and repairs to

the church, incidentally, where Shakespeare’s parents married.

Theoretically, I suggested.

Theoretically married?

No, theoretically pay, I elucidated.

No. She wrung her hands.  Actually pay. They lost £250,000 in legal fees.

I’m sure they could have bought an insurance premium, I said.  Maybe they

just opposed the principle and got lawyers involved..

I think they were willing to pay something, she answered. I think you can pay

£50 for an exemption clause, though.

Well, there’s your answer, I said, pouring her a second cup of tea.  It’s nothing

new.

In days of yore, people had to support their vicar with a tithe pig.  The

parson’s nose was reserved for him, probably, too.  We should all support the

heart of our community.  The Husband and I were giving our vicar bushels of

our windfalls last Autumn in lieu of spiritual comfort.

Why didn’t you give me some? she demanded.  You know I bought a new

juicer.

You don’t bring me spiritual comfort, I sparred.

She changed tack. It is just the fact that they can extract money from

you, she complained.

Well, they have to.  Very few people give anything freely now. If people

gave their tithe..

Tithe?

Ten percent, I clarified, then there would be little poverty.

Oh, like ‘Make Poverty History’ she cottoned on- slowly.  I prefer the

widow’s mite.  It’s not as much.  Nice story. But I suppose not so appealing

if you are a Pharisee.

Precisely, I directed her.  And remember: the widow’s mite was

proportionately her all.  If you want to take things further, don’t emulate

Ananias and Sapphira. They promised and didn’t deliver.  That was the

worst kind of behaviour of all.

We stopped in front of the Parish Notice Board.  There was a bright

poster inviting the purchase of tickets for a hog roast in the vicarage

garden, in aid of the stretched middle income bracket.

I can relate to that, Clammie nodded. Someone must have donated their

tithe pig. I bet it wasn’t that miserable farmer. If we go, I suppose what goes

out comes in.

What?  Explain yourself, please.

If someone donates something, then more people benefit, including the

giver. A bit like the feeding of the five thousand.  Clammie was getting the

point.

Which takes us back to fish, I agreed.  And I think the practice is called

casting your bread on the waters.  It returns to you- sometimes after a long

while. Sometimes tenfold.  Or a hundredfold.  When you least expect it.

Think of Job.

I have and I always wondered what he could have done with all that excess

stuff at the end. But, seriously, if everyone buys a £50 exemption clause…?

It helps to save an ancient building and the heart of the community.

Well, if we pay up, what will you do, other than donate your bruised

Granny Smith rejects? she asked me confrontationally.  After all, you

have no compulsion in your parish.

The left hand won’t know what the right hand is doing, I reproved her.  If I

told you, I would have my reward on Earth.  I prefer to invest in the Heavenly

Kingdom more discreetly.

Well, are you going to support the hog roast then?  Clammie challenged me.

Depends who else is going, I replied. Since the poor we always have with us,

I suppose I’d better support the extended middle.  That fish in Romsey was

lucky. One of those yummy mummies who push husbands’ credit to the limit

might have tickled him- I mean Steve- and served him up with a Bearnaise for

one of her ladies-who-lunch events.  Everyone knows how there are fewer and

fewer of these gatherings in our cash-strapped times.

 I don’t think Steve is a very credible name for the spouse of a yummy

mummy, Clammie objected.

I meant the sturgeon, silly. I ground my teeth in exasperation.

Sometimes Clammie simply doesn’t concentrate.  I don’t think I could take

a whole evening in her company, so I’ll give the event a miss and just make

a donation.  Maybe ten percent of the ticket price?  After all, it’s a worthy

cause and I suppose they think they’re worth it!

Jaw, Jaw-better than War, War

Tags

Browning, Churchill, Gotterdammerung, Guermantes, Hague, jaw, jaw better than war, Kaiser, Levite, madeleine, Malvolio, Nobel Prize Psychology, passeggiata, poker, Proust, Putin, retro sunspecs, Russian Roulette, St Loup, Victoria Coren-Mitchell, Wagner

The sun had brought out all the Suttonfordians, and Brassie and I

were included in that grouping.  We were sitting outside

Costamuchamoulah must-seen cafe, watching le monde entier, or,

at least, what could be termed its microcosm.  It was interesting to

lay bets on who would acknowledge us in the course of the

passeggiata, and who would walk on by like a selfish Levite,

avoiding a mugging victim.

Isn’t it amazing..? I commented, sipping my lime tea, but eschewing

an accompanying Madeleine, as sugar is the new fat.

What? enquired Brassie.

Amazing that people can be read so.. well, readily.  Psyches haven’t

developed significantly since Proust exposed them in all their

ambivalence of motivation.

How so? Brassie was looking around brightly and frankly.  In other

words, she was simply asking to be snubbed.

Well, I am reading Chapter Two of The Guermantes way at present..

Is that by Proust?

Yes, I sighed.  Proust masterfully expands on how some people look at

you in a certain way which is intended to let you know that they have

seen you, but that they have also not seen you.

He would have had a whale of a time sitting here, Brassie laughed.

No, seriously, he said that they pretend to be embroiled in a deeply

important conversation with a companion so that they do not have

to acknowledge you.

You don’t have to have a Nobel Prize for Psychology to work that

out, Brassie remarked.

No, but the thing about Proust is that he always presents the

converse too.  He says some of those types actually go over the top

and greet you with excessive fervour when you hardly recognise them,

but, the instant they see someone they know observing their

behaviour, they ‘cut’ you.

I can’t stand artifice, Brassie agreed.

Proust announced that he eventually grew beyond the desire for a

relationship with Mme Guermantes, as she had been repelling him.

Perversely, when he no longer cared for her recognition, she started to

gush all over him at some party.

Watch out! Brassie signalled, not too subtly.  She immediately donned her

over-sized retro sunspecs.  She’s coming!  That awful woman..

I rummaged in my bag, as if looking for my keys. ( I wouldn’t look for a

mobile, for I never carry one.  Hate them.)

Once La Bete Noire had passed, all was right with the world.  Now I am

channelling Browning!  But to return to good old Marcel..

What I found highly significant, I continued, was that Proust reports a

conversation with St Loup, where the Kaiser is discussed.  He says that the

latter only wants peace but tries to convince the French that he wants war,

in order to make them comply with his wishes over Morocco.

Do you think that sounds like a parallel with Putin?  Brassie latched on.

Hmm, St Loup says that if they were not to give in, there wouldn’t be a

war, in any shape or form.

I don’t know if I would have agreed, Brassie frowned.

Quite, but the chilling thing was that St Loup added that one has only to

think what a cosmic thing a war would be -and this was more than a century

ago-I stressed.  He said it would be a bigger catastrophe than the Flood and

Gotterdammerung rolled into one.  Only it wouldn’t last so long.

Oh, that’s just Proust taking the proverbial out of Wagner, Brassie smiled.

Some of his operas are interminable!

But you take the more sinister point, surely?  St Loup likened these games of

brinkmanship to bluffing as in a game of poker.

In that case, politicians could hire someone like Victoria Coren-Mitchell as a

diplomat. She plays poker in her spare time, doesn’t she?  I can’t imagine she

would stand any nonsense.  She could stand up to a game of Russian

Roulette.  Whereas, ‘Don’t be vague, ask for Hague’, doesn’t really cut the

mustard any more. does it?  Victoria is way more scary.

But, the current situation’s not funny, is it?  I persisted.

No, Brassie agreed.  Maybe it all comes down to Putin feeling snubbed.

Feeling rejected is a powerful emotion.

So maybe we should say ‘hello’ to You Know Who next time, I suggested.

Internecine warfare is mutually destructive.

I suppose so.  So let’s practise smiling at everyone who walks past, Brassie

nodded.  Even though we will probably look like a couple of Malvolios.

So, maybe Churchill was right, I commented after quarter of an hour.

Jaw, jaw is better than war.

It’s a pretty good insurance, Brassie nodded, just like that annoying

dog in the advert.

 

The Missing Years

Tags

Bourbon biscuit, David Dickinson, El Sistema, GovUk, Gustavo Dudamel, Lent, Los Angeles Philharmonic, marimba, poodle moth, Sexagesima, Shostakovich, St Birinus, wyvern

The school chaplain was banging on about Lent in Assembly.

What are YOU prepared to give up for Lent? he had asked the

congregation.

Augustus Snodbury looked at his school calendar surreptitiously.

Last Sunday had been Sexagesima.  Well, there was no issue in

abstemiousness in that line, as he had not had relations with a

woman for thirty years or so.

Maybe he could cut down his Bourbon biscuit intake.  Yes, he would

tell the School Secretary to bring a single biscuit at elevenses for the

next forty odd days.  That was a 50% reduction.  Time off for good

behaviour in Purgatory?  No, that was the opposition’s belief, surely?

His mind wandered to his ‘to do’ list.  It was more than a week since

he had received the Wyvern signet ring from his step-brother in

Venezuela.  He ought to reply and thank him.

After the boys had filed out, he sat at his desk and began to draft a

letter.

St Birinus Middle School,

Suttonford etc

27th Feb., 2014.

My Dear Hugo,

I am writing to confirm receipt of the signet ring on our mother’s instructions.

I realise that finding the cost of its postage must have been challenging for

you at this time of rampant inflation in your country.

I enclose a photograph of your niece, Drusilla, and myself, standing outside

Wyvern Mote.  The lady in the wheelchair is your Aunt Augusta- Berenice’s

sister.

Augusta oversaw my education when our mother- he was going to write

‘scarpered‘, but Tippex-ed it out and replaced it with ‘left for warmer climes.’

The news did not come as too severe a blow to Augusta, as she had

believed her sister had been disappeared years previously.  We did not go

into too many details anyway, as the old dear is now in her dotage.

Wyvern yielded some of its secrets on our visit.  Drusilla spotted a photograph

of the tutor in an old schoolroom and his facial features betray my origin.  Not

yours, of course, dear boy.  Perhaps you have inherited Berenice’s genes in

the appearance department.  In that case, you may resemble Aunt Augusta,

who is said to be her ‘dead spit‘, as some would crudely put it.  Judge for

yourself.

Perhaps you would find it in your power to send us a photo of yourself-

possibly in revolutionary garb, manning barricades or indulging in some

such activity.  That is, unless your post is censored.

Dear old St Birinus must have been watching over us, as my mother

remembering the name of the school led to our successful contact.  An odd

thought came to me in Assembly.  Apparently Birinus could also be spelled

‘Bernius’.  Was our mother given the saint’s nomenclature by a dyslexic

registrar?  What connection did her parents have to the school, or to the

saint?  Our grandmother was Augusta too, if I recall correctly and our

grandfather was a rug merchant, and probably a rogue trader too, by all

accounts, from somewhere in the Bosphorous.  I saw a photo of him once

and he bore a striking resemblance to David Dickinson, that antiques

chappie.

I would love to come and visit you, dear brother, but GovUK advises against

it at present. The site informs me that you have been experiencing heavy rain

and road conditions are poor.  We have a similar situation in Surrey,

Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset.

No doubt your passport has been suspended.  We are concerned

when we read of famous beauty queens and boxing champions being

killed.

Our peripatetic marimba teacher commented that El Sistema, the universally

famous Music Education programme should speak out about your political

situation.  He is disappointed that Gustavo Dudamel, Music Director of the

Los Angeles Philharmonic, has not taken a stand.  But he cannot embed

secret messages in his music, as Shostakovich did, as he is only a conductor

and not a composer, as I tried to point out.

Thank you also for the inadvertent gift of a poodle moth which somehow got

into the packaging of your communication.  The Biology teacher was thrilled.

He posed me a riddle: What is fuzzy, adorable and terrifying all at the same

time?

(He had read this sub-title in one of our staffroom magazines: The Week, as it

happens. Not a publication with which you may be familiar, but no matter…)

I don’t like riddles in general, but I immediately replied, John Boothroyd-

Smythe.

He is a bete-noire of mine.  The correct response should have been Poodle

Moth, naturally.

Take care, little brother.  One day we shall meet and discuss the missing

years.

May St Birinus protect you.

(He scribbled ‘Gus‘) and then signed off with a flourish:

Augustus Snodbury (Acting Head)

Then he crossed out the parenthesis and sealed the personal letter in

a school envelope. The School Secretary could work out the international

postage and use the office franking machine.  There was no fraud involved.

He was, after all, saving the school catering budget a fortune on biscuits for

the foreseeable future.  Or so he rationalised.