Black Friday

Tags

Advent, Black Friday, Boudicca, Christmas pud, collect, Let it Go, pleb, Scotsquad, speed limit, Stir-Up Sunday, Tetanus

Diana was late in her production of the Christmas puds.  Somehow

she had forgotten to amass one or two ingredients and it was only

Stir-Up Sunday which had reminded her.  Guilt set in as she did not

usually overlook such things.

She had driven into the nearest town over the border and had been

hooted at by some ghastly woman in a 4×4.  Diana was worried that a

rear light was not working on the car.  Then she wondered if her tyre

was punctured.  She kept driving along the country roads, looking for

somewhere to turn off, so that she could check on the problem.

She looked in her mirror.  An angry, snarling face scowled over the

driving wheel of the vehicle behind her.  Then the harpy overtook

her. Amazingly, the wannabe Boudicca didn’t have knives protruding

from her wheels.  The number plate was not local.

Very soon Diana realised that the only problem had been that she was

observing the speed limit.  Charming!  How aggressive people were

becoming.

She parked near the store-its car park was full- and was surprised to

see a poster in the window, announcing that it was Black Friday and

some lines had a 20% discount.

She found the aisle with baking goods and dried fruit and was pleased

that there were orange stickers on the raisins, currants, mixed peel and

so on.  Three for the price of two-good!

Hmmm, I could do with three packets of mixed fruit, she mused.  Oh, must

stock up on glace cherries and ground almonds..

But there were no more packets of ground almonds.  There was only one

packet of flaked aforementioneds.  And there were only two packets

of dried fruit.

At the till Diana tried to compose herself by silently reciting last weekend’s

collect: Excita, quaesumus...or, for the ‘plebs’ (oops, got to be careful with

that appellation now.  Three million pounds is a lot of money!)  Which

being interpreted was:  Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy

faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,

may of thee be plenteously rewarded.  Inwardly, however, she was still

fuming and, even more so, when she spotted the woman in front of

her in the queue at the check-out.  Her laden basket contained most

of the packets of baking ingredients that Diana had been seeking.

The face looked familiar, but its expression was now that of

overwhelming smugness

Diana turned her head and then noticed miniatures of brandy in a

basket by the till.  As she reached out to add one to her basket, the

wretched woman had the same idea and they both locked horns

over the same bottle.  The woman scratched Diana’s hand with

her talons!

Enough!  This was a shameless display of greed and nothing to

do with the season of good will or penitential Advent.  She just

hoped that her Tetanus inoculation was up-to-date.

Diana put her basket down and stormed out of the shop.

She went to the butcher’s instead.

On the way home, she had the very pleasant experience of seeing

a 4×4 having been pulled in to a lay-by the police.

What a pity that the woman hadn’t been au fait with local knowledge,

to wit, that the Scotsquad, as everyone in Scotland seemed to be calling

the Caledonian Police, tended to lurk around that very corner on a

Friday morning.

Diana found herself humming Let it Go from Frozen.  Oddly, it seemed

just as effective as the collect.  She must discuss that with the vicar

next Sunday.

She sang out lustily:

…and it looks like I’m the Queen

la la la…

Be the good girl you always have to be…

Well, now they know…

No right, no wrong, no rules for me!

Here an inspirational thought came to her:

if the boys in blue were otherwise engaged, then-what the heck!-

She depressed the accelerator, was into fifth gear and off she sped

down those same lanes.

I’m free!

 

 

Printer’s Devil

Tags

alphabet, antimony, copybook, denouement, First Edition, fonts of matrices, ghost-written, glyphs, hellbox, lead type, Minoan logography, Phaistos Disc, printer's devil, tabula rasa, Titivillus, typecast

PRINTER’S DEVIL

So, you want to write me out of your life?

Your narrative version does not match mine.

I am not a character who is in search

of an author; I can write my own script.

I can type my own face, printer’s devil.

All those complicating events by now

should have been resolved through denouement,

but you seem to be a Titivillus,*

somehow willing me to make an error:

to blot my copybook.  Your fingertips,

indelible, are smudged over my life.

I will not allow you to typecast me.

There are omissions in my manuscript.

I admit my lead type is worn, broken.

My reprographic days are over, fading.

You want to throw me into a hellbox,

but I have submitted to my meltdown.

I am trusting that I can be re-cast

in a different matrix, my mould unlocked.

You pour your molten fury into me.

When I have cooled, I will compose anew-

over and over and over again.

Fonts of matrices will bless my re-birth

on a tabula rasa, my clean sheet.

You can still strike glyphs by your letter punch;

and you try to roll me out on wet clay.

Frankly, that’s a little out-of-date; a little crude,

your published version of me obsolete.

Your Phaistos Disc** no longer convinces.

in fact, it has been deemed a forgery.

Its insufficient context defies one

to make a meaningful analysis.

I have more letters in my alphabet,

so do not need your smoke proofs.

My type-height has grown with my confidence.

The new print run publishes my version.

It’s the First edition- not ghost-written.

You don’t know my type and you never will.

Love resided in the led, not false gold.

With tin and antimony it can move

to tears, rather than turning weaponry.

 

*Titivillus- a demon who worked on behalf of Satan,

introducing errors into the work of scribes.  He

presented his master with a bag of failings and typos

at the end of each day.

**Phaistos Disc- a Minoan spiral of stamped symbols,

thought to be a logography.

Cuphye-House

Tags

civet, coffee-housing, Country Life magazine, cuphye-house, etymology, Glasgow School of Art, Gorillas in the Mist, Kopi Lowak, Paradoxurus Hermaphroditus, printer's devil, Rwanda, toddy cat

Just leave her alone, Gisela.  You can’t make someone care about

you.  You have your own narrative and your own life to live.  It’s her

loss.

Brassie’s counsel was directed at the rather disconsolate parent of

Juniper Boothroyd-Smythe, who hadn’t contacted her mother once

since swanning off to study at Glasgow’s infamous School of Art.

We were sitting round a table at Costamuchamoulah’s caffeine

establishment.

One day she will wake up and smell the coffee, I ventured.  I

picked up an in-house copy of Country Life magazine and flicked

through its glossy pages.  Listen to this pretentiousness and have

a laugh!

What?

I quote: ‘What sort of coffee are you sipping….?  Does it sparkle on

the palate…or is it darker, earthier, with a suggestion of leaf mould?’

Oh, that’s nothing, sniffed Gisela, already brightening up.  Some

people drink civet…

Ugh!  Kopi Lowak!  grimaced Brassie.  Who wants to imbibe an

infusion of liquid produced from the defecation of the Asian palm

civet?

Thousands of connoisseurs, apparently, I informed them.  The

first cuphye-house in Britain was opened in Oxford, for the learned

community, apparently.  The intellegentsia, or so-called, can be most

impressionable, so they are probably guzzling weird concoctions 

in gallons up there, even today.

Let me have a look at it.  Brassie grabbed the article from me, rather

rudely.

I see what you mean by pretentiousness, she remarked after a few

seconds.  Hark at this! It says: a spokesman for coffee brokers says

‘entire countries unknown to the public, such as Rwanda, are coming

on-stream…’ As a member of the public, have you heard of Rwanda,

Gisela?

The latter was rhetorical and ironic.

We all saw ‘Gorillas in the Mist’, she replied.

Precisely.  How dare they assume that the public is geographically

ignorant!  Brassie’s fur was flying.

I seem to remember that the Asian civet, Paradoxanus..

Paradoxurus, corrected Brassie.

Hermaphroditus, I flyted.  I know.  I know…was known as a toddy

cat…

Puts one off a hot night-cap, Brassie broke in.  And we all know how

partial she is to her little snifter-and not just for dental or medicinal

purposes.  (She probably only knew the Latin derivation because her

twins were doing a biology project on large mammals.)

Well, I must be off, said Gisela.  I can’t stay around coffee -housing

any longer.  But thanks, guys, for cheering me up.

Coffee-housing? we both queried.

Oh, a hunting term which indicates unnecessary chatter, Gisela

explained.

And somehow we didn’t find this pretentious at all, but rather

informative.  But then we love etymology.

You know, I feel sorry for Gisela, I commented when she had left.

That girl of hers is the limit.  She edits her own version of events and

can be quite manipulative.

She is a little devil, agreed Brassie.

A printer’s devil, I found myself saying.  Wait!  I retrieved my notebook

and pen and started scribbling:

PRINTER’S DEVIL

So, you want to write me out of your life?

(I’ll finish it tonight and you can have it later on this week…)

The Sycamore Sings

Tags

autorotation, Beaumont Hamel, Bois des Fourcaux, Bois l'Eveque, calvaire, Cambrai, Craiglockhart, del Gesu, Delville Wood, Dufay, dunnock, Hebuterne, lynchet, Mametz, mandrakes, Maricourt, Napier University, Queen's Hall, remblais, Sassoon, Somme, St Quentin, Steve Burnett, sycamore, The Branch, The Last Tree, Wilfred Owen

Brassica told me about an amazing radio programme about Steve Burnett,

in Edinburgh, making a Wilfred Owen violin from a fallen branch from a

sycamore tree from Craiglockhart Hospital, now Napier University,where

Sassoon and Owen met and discussed their poetry, before Owen

returned to the trenches and met his untimely death.

I listened to the programme and then felt compelled to write the

following piece:

 

The Sycamore Sings

Shall life renew these bodies?  Of a truth

All death will he annul…

(amended words from his poetry on Wilfred Owen’s gravestone)

 

Where a mother muted her offspring’s ire,

deleting his line’s interrogative;

where Dufay scored his music at Cambrai;

St Quentin’s corpse loomed from the Somme marshland,

to hallow the grandest basilica;

where guillotines did their grisly work,

fog lifted from shattered Bois l’Eveque-

new dawn drawing back night’s curtain of war.

 

On a towpath, a twenty five year old,

tried not to fret how he would cross the bridge.

Mesmerised by the autorotation

of seeds, he foresaw his own slow spiral,

where magpies croaked in blasted canopies.

 

Dark, stark poplars had been lopped long before;

the copses razed; the rides and lynchets scarred.

Mametz, Maricourt and Bois des Fourcaux:

sweet chestnut, lime, beech, hazel, oak, hornbeam-

mad mandrakes uprooted; bi-furcated trunks.

Sad remblais of Hebuterne (No Man’s Land)

absorbed shrill batteries near sunken lanes.

Calvaires bowed before continuous suffering.

 

In Beaumont Hamel, a single tree remains,

petrified.  In Delville Wood, The Last Tree

stands like a gibbet.  Sycamores survive.

They grow where other trees give up the ghost.

 

One such, at Craiglockhart, he could recall.

Again he heard the dunnock’s douce refrain,

singing for dear life, from lush foliage,

before its notes were silenced, once for all.

Fragments of father’s sermon rose to mind-

about The Branch, hope, regeneration.

 

Now, while still green, a supple slice is bent

into a tongue which will tell of all loss,

tears oozing like resin from a wounded bark:

man and nature in divine harmony.

In Queen’s Hall, it will sob and it will sing

of the pity of war- the air fleshily weeping.

And, one being dead, yet will be speaking

through a universal language of peace,

from a pattern once conceived by Gesu.

You can still listen to the BBC programme on I-Player for another

3 weeks.

 

 

Skeleton Crew 2

Tags

archers, Ave, bosun, bowmen, Captain George Carew, David Austin roses, Durham University research, Grenville, King's College Dental Institute, Mary Rose rose, Master Carpenter, Paternoster, Portsea, powder monkey, ratter, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, sea dog, skeleton crew, Solent, The Mary Rose Trust, University of Portsmouth, weevil

Okay, so The University of Portsmouth has now revised its declaration

re/ the gender of the skeleton of the dog on The Mary Rose.  It kind of

spoils the poem I had published previously, so I have re-written two of

its lines, taking into account work by The Royal Zoological Society of

Scotland, King’s College Dental Institute, The Mary Rose Trust and

Durham University.

I was looking round Brassica’s garden and we were discussing whether

the roses had finished for this year.

I always have David Austin roses, she commented.  They are so much more

subtle- unlike some of our friends.

What do you mean? I asked.  It wasn’t like Brassie to be so prickly.

Well, one of our so-called bossy acquaintances said my Mary Rose would

never flower in a tub and it excelled itself this year.

It does look a bit pot-bound now, though, I pointed out.

Yes, but I daren’t move it, as I enjoyed seeing her reaction when it was

in full bloom.  Hopefully it will do the same next year and I can prove her

wrong again!

I thought this was cutting off her nose to spite her face, but it is her business,

I suppose.  She likes being a thorn in people’s sides!

Changing the subject, I asked if she had taken her twins, Castor and Pollux,

to The Mary Rose Exhibition in Portsmouth, since they have built the new

centre.

Yes, we went almost as soon as it opened, before it became too busy over

the school holidays. They loved all the bows and arrows and the wax figures. 

Have you been, Candia?

Yes, I went years ago, before they built its new accommodation. We returned

to see everything so beautifully displayed. It made an impact on me- especially

the skeleton of the dog trapped in the cabin.

The ratter?  The boys were fascinated by it too.  You didn’t..did you?

What?  Write a poem?  As a matter of fact, I did.  Do you want to read it?

Send it to me tonight, if you remember.

So, I did.

Carew: Wikipedia

SKELETON CREW

The Master Carpenter left it ajar.

I think he’d gone on deck to take a leak.

I’d done my job and couldn’t smell a rat,

let alone catch one.  On his wooden chest

I’d spied some hard tack crumbs- just what I liked.

See, unlike me, he hasn’t got the teeth,

but biscuits, weevil-free, were quite a draw.

I’d checked the cauldron, but the lousy cook

was otherwise engaged, so no pig bones.

And though the bosun whacked me with his stick,

I had the balls to stand ground on my pitch.

In those days I still had my little prick-

no researcher mistook me for a bitch.

Grenville clyped me his feisty little cur,

which wasn’t the compliment one might think:

fisting connoting closely with a stink!

He didn’t give a fart that I’d just killed

some skulking ratbags that had chewed a rope.

I was two years old and had near forgot

the Portsea farm where I had been whelped.

My four sea legs were not so firm quayside;

my gait was rolling, like the scurvy crew’s

(and that included Captain George Carew’s.)

The Master Carpenter was unlike Christ:

he’d built a cage to keep me cribb’d, confin’d,

where I would sit, watching him roll his dice,

playing backgammon, to while away dock time,

his back bent, black eyes like dull peppercorns.

Sometimes I would hear the gunner’s whistle

and his powder monkey would chuck me scraps,

but woe betide me if I crossed the bowmen-

tense archers- they were always highly strung

and wouldn’t spare you a nit from their combs.

The door slid shut and, trapped in this space,

I yelped and sensed the whole hull start to tilt;

sink faster than a merchant telling beads,

from the first Ave to Paternoster.

I hope the Master Carpenter escaped,

even though he’d skelped me with his holey shoe.

After four centuries in Solent silt,

it’s odd to be a sea dog on dry land.

Then only rats could leave the sinking ship.

 

The Absolute Camel

Tags

'Ern, Ali Baba basket, Berenice of Cilicia, Bosphorus, cakes and ale, Dadaism, Dickinson, dodecagon, Existentialism, fat, Garden of Remembrance, hairy legs, Herod, Iznik, Kristin Scott-Thomas, l'enfer c'est les autres, Metropolitan Archbishop, mince pies, Morecambe and Wise, mulled wine, Osman, ouzo, Play by Beckett, Pointless, Racine, Raymond Chandler, Samuel Beckett, short, Snodland, Snodland and Ash, Suetonius, Surrealism, The Absolute Camel, tribute act, urns, Who Do You Think You Are?, William the Conqueror

Great-Aunt Augusta was studying the newly photocopied programme

published by The Snodland Players, an amateur dramatic ensemble

who took their peripatetic programmes around nursing homes and

inflicted their rudely mechanical performances on captive audiences.

At least it is somewhat more challenging than one of those Primary

School variations on the nativity, combined with excruciatingly jolly

Yuletide ditties, opined the grumpy nonagenarian.

In actual fact, she had just asked to be wheeled out to the

recreation room as she could have sworn that she had smelled

mulled wine.

‘Play’ by Samuel Beckett, she read.  She liked Beckett.  What was

that play she had once seen with her sister?  Waiting for Ouzo?

Henry, I saw the film years ago.  It had that Kristin Scott-Thomas

woman in it.  You know, the one that Jeremy Fisher salivates over.

Jeremy Fisher? 

The one on that car programme.  Top Notch, or something.

Oh, Top Gear.  Clarkson.  Terrible man.

And Henry turned off his hearing aid and settled down to wait for

the hot toddy, given that his interest in hot totty had diminished

over the years, along with his driving skills.

I suppose they don’t need much scenery, Augusta commented to

another female resident.  And it’s only a one-act play, so there won’t

be an interval.

Pity, replied Madge. That’s the bit I  usually enjoy. Do you think there

will still be mince pies?

Oh, I doubt it.  We’re no longer virtuous, so they’ll probably cut back

on cakes and ale.

Matron was trying to be helpful with the logistics.  She scurried

around and came back with a trolley which bore three urns.

The Director picked one up.  Gosh, that’s really heavy.  I can see why

you needed the trolley.  Thanks, but I’m afraid they are too small and

they seem to be full of something rather weighty.

Yes, said Matron.  They are surprisingly heavy, considering that Ethel

was only about six stone and Oscar was about eight and a half…  Maybe

that’s why the rellies didn’t bother to pick them up to take them to The

Garden of Remembrance.  They probably thought that we would scatter

them, but some of the Eastern European staff are a bit superstitious about

that sort of thing, so we just put them on the shelves in Reception.  They

look pretty much like vases and the cleaning staff don’t knock them over

so easily.

Emmm, the Director was thinking rapidly on his feet, a thespian skill

which he tried to transmit to his rather slower colleagues.  Have you

got any of those Ali Baba laundry baskets?  They might do.

I’ll just have the girls wipe them down.  You never know what’s been

in them, Matron said helpfully.

Ta-da! she flourished some a few moments later.

The Director cut his introductory speech.  Some of the audience were

already asleep and it didn’t look as if anyone had a mobile phone on

them.

Augusta was waiting for the half-line about Snodland and Ash.  Apparently,

Beckett had once been in Kent, marrying one of the corners of his love

triangle.  Hence the references.  Ash/ urn…hmmm..

Something in the town had struck him, but when he had been asked

to explain its existential relevance, he had clearly taken the hump and

merely replied enigmatically: The Absolute Camel.

So, the choice of production was clearly topical.

One of the characters suddenly addressed the favoured coterie with

the philosophical question: Why am I dead?

Join the club, muttered Gerald, who was tired of waiting for the mulled

wine. He was also agitated at the thought of missing Pointless, which,

in his opinion was a cheerier form of Surrealism.

Madge interrupted with the following: I thought you said it had an ‘Ern in

it. I thought it was a tribute act to Morecambe and Wise.  But I don’t see

anyone with short, fat, hairy legs.

Augusta patted her knee.  No, darling.  I said ‘urns’.  Honestly, the

uncultivated company that she was obliged to keep nowadays!  L’enfer

was definitely les autres.  Didn’t they know that what they were watching

was Beckett’s response to a five-act play by Racine?  Furthermore, Racine

had swiped the concept from Suetonius’ scribblings about a love triangle

involving Berenice of Cilicia.

And the reason that she was aware of that was that her younger sister

was called Berenice and their mother had had love dodefayeds– nay,

dodecagons with various Oriental types, before she had settled down with

her erstwhile nomadic, but newly-domesticated rug-seller from The

Bosphorus.

Yes, both Berenice and her mother had been the types of blondes that

Raymond Chandler had said would have caused an Archbishop-

Metropolitan, or otherwise- to have kicked a hole in a stained glass

window.

Maybe it was the Herodian tendencies that had caused the members

of her family to be so ruthless in love.

So, life was somewhat surreal.  She granted that.  She’d never really

thought about her father.  She and her sister had the maternal surname:

Snodbury.  She supposed that her pater’s name must have been

something like Sirdar, or Osman.  But that rather sun-tanned antiques

quiz guy’s surname was Dickinson and, according to the telly programme

Who Do You Think You Are? he was of Iznik extraction and came from a

family of carpetbaggers- or was it ‘sellers‘?

At any rate, she was beginning to yawn.  That quiz programme would be

on tonight- the one they all liked with that rather aristocratic chap who

was related to William the Conqueror. (Weren’t we all?)

But she did find the other chap rather amusing.  What was his name?

Ah, yes: Osman.

Wonder if he is any relation? 

If so, that would surely be Dadaism, not Surrealism, or Existentialism.

Dadaism would probably be a very low score under the Philosophy category.

Fill me up, dear!  At last- the mulled wine had arrived.  You can have two

glasses of that.  It’s not as strong as Dewlap Gin for the Discerning

Grandmother.  And, on cold nights like this, it’s the absolute camel!

Requiem for D-Day

Tags

Brahms, bugle, choral twinning, commemoration, der geist spricht, German Requiem, Great Soul, Lisieux, Pegasus Bridge, reconciliation, Resurrection

Around this special time of commemoration and reconciliation, I thought

I’d reblog one of my war poems…

Clammie commiserated:  I can see that you are affected by your friend’s

demise, Candia.  He seems to have been a marvellous character.

He was, I affirmed.  We really got to know each other when we went to

Normandy as part of a choral group, in order to join forces with a French

choir and the Orchestra of Basse-Normandie, in 1994.  It was to

commemorate D-Day and we ended up singing The Brahms Requiem in seven

towns, over a week.  Then the French choir returned with us and we sang it in

England for an eighth time.  We performed it in German as a symbol of

reconciliation and the congregations and audiences gave us standing ovations,

with tears streaming down their faces. Sometimes the concerts were in

buildings which had been bombed and were partially re-built, as in the case

of the church in St Lo.

Didn’t you say that he took you to Pegasus Bridge?

He did.  We arrived at the bridge and he couldn’t believe his eyes as

Major John Howard was sitting at the cafe, having a beer.  We joined

him.  What a legend he had been.  He’s dead now, of course.  My friend

recognised the old hero immediately, as he was a military historian.

Didn’t you write a poem about your trip?

Oh yes.  I have already posted the one I wrote about Pegasus Bridge,

but I will post another one now, if you like.  It tried to sum up my

emotions when we sang in Lisieux.  That thrilling phrase: Ja, der Geist

spricht still creates shivers down my spine.  I suppose it speaks of the

Spirit of Man, as well as the Holy Ghost.  My friend emanated a vital

force of that Great Soul and, since he had been a brave soldier himself,

here is my poem, in his memory.

Photos: Wikipaedia

EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM FUR D-DAY

The breath of that great soul speaks in hushed tones,

soothing survivors of Allied assaults-

Brahms bathing the buttered Normandy stones:

tinting kaleidoscopic windows.  Vaults,

in cross-ribs, soar to swelling resonance;

reverberate sharp reminiscences

of those who suffered in this audience.

Choral voices soften dissonances.

Ja, der Geist spricht.  No permanent abode

can house indomitable souls on earth.

When Destruction came, still sweet music flowed,

inspiring creativity where dearth

had reigned before.  The youthful soldiers sleep,

lullabied to lilt of liberation:

seeds watered by grief of those who now weep.

They’ve passed beyond that twinkling of an eye

and rest, sung heroes.  Heartfelt ovation

from grateful present shows they’ll never die

in memory, or appreciation.

And when that final bugle sounds, they’ll rise,

as one, not knowing discrimination,

to jointly celebrate War’s own demise.

Related archive post on P

White Gold

Tags

Alex Salmond, Aljaz, androstenol, Anton de Beke, Boar's Head Carol, Ferraro Rochers, Limousin cattle, Pasha, Perthshire, pig in a poke, Plutarch, poo, Strictly male professionals, there's brass, Thornton truffles, truffles, tuber maculatum, where there's muck

Murgatroyd was becoming over-enthusiastic.  He had just purchased

some hazel saplings which were impregnated with truffle sporelings.

He had been assured that the spores originated from the hooves of

Limousin cattle which had come from a truffe-producing region.  Ca

marche, surely?

There was something magical about truffles.  Even Plutarch had

postulated that, though made of muck, they had been formed when

a lightning bolt had hit the ground.  And Murgatroyd had had a coup

de foudre idea when he had suddenly surmised that where there was

muck, there might be brass. He seemed to remember having read

about some schoolchildren in Perthshire who had discovered white gold,

or tuber maculatum, in their playground.  Children loved anything that

resembled poo, but they loved hard cash even more.  Apparently, they

were unbelievably, but altruistically donating the proceeds to their school

funds, to build a new kitchen.

Children seemed to be different nowadays.

But, at £2,800 per kilo it seemed a brilliant idea to seek

them out- the truffles, not the children, especially as he now had a

pig that he could train.

Diana dampened his enthusiasm.

It has to be a female pig, darling, she advised. The scent comes from

androstenol, a sex pheromeme found in boar saliva, so The Emperor

would not be attracted to the smell, unless he bats for the other team.

But we can get a sow, Murgatroyd pointed out.  I want to breed for

sausage production anyway.

Yes, well, I read that you’d hardly harvest any, as the beast eats most of

them and, if you try to take them from her, you will fall into the category

of truffle hunters who do not have a full complement of digits.  Also, I

seem to recall that someone said that even if you did find truffles in

Scotland, they wouldn’t taste of much.

That wouldn’t have been Alex Salmond then, he quipped.

Murgatroyd looked crestfallen. He had hoped to supply that canteen-

style restaurant that Dru had been harping on about- the one owned

by that Hugo Frondley-Whittingstall chap.

Have you told Aunt Augusta that The Emperor is male? Diana asked.

She’ll be so disappointed.

I’ll send her one of our Photoshop-ed calendars for 2015, said

Murgatroyd.  The Emperor looks so noble in December, with his crown

of mistletoe, surrounded by carol singers with the Boar’s Head Carol

on their music stand.  It was such fun producing it.  I hope we sell

loads.  The roof funding is really coming on nicely.

Well, she might not want a reminder of Time’s Winged Chariot and all

that, Diana said firmly.  After all, she might not get the full use of a

calendar.  I suspect she’d rather have a semi-naked portfolio of ‘Strictly’

male professionals.  However, I don’t want to raise her blood pressure, so

I’ll send her a box of Ferraro Rochers, or Thornton truffles instead.  I

expect they would be to her liking, unless you can source any truffle-

infused vodka.

As you wish, Murgatroyd conceded.  But I’m still going to get a sow.

Whatever, Diana replied. I just hope that it won’t be a pig in a poke, like

a lot of your ideas.

What do you mean by that? asked Murgatroyd.  It was going to be one

of their first arguments for a long time.

Nothing, she muttered enigmatically.  Nothing at all.

But she knew what he was like- of old.

Now, where could she buy some of those calendars with Pasha,

or Aljaz?

Tastier than some mouldy old lump of…She wished Dru could get a hold of some

of his spores.  Even Anton’s would do.  It was time that she was a

grandmother.

Pig-hoo-o-o-oey!

Tags

Berkshire pig, Blandings, chitterling, choir stall, Common Entrance, Compline, Earl of Emsworth, Evensong, faggots, Farmers' Markets, Happy Hour, husbandry, Master Butcher, Middle White pig, misericords, non-sequitur, P G Wodehouse, pig-hoo-o-o-oey!, Pigling Bland, pizzle, pork scratchings, The Emperor, Thomas Hardy, Timothy Spall, Vietnamese Pot-Bellied pig

Great-Aunt Augusta was thrilled: she placed the photograph of her namesake

in its silver frame on her bedside table, beside her bottle of Dewlap Gin for the

Discerning Grandmother.

She had always meant to write to the company to protest that elderly maiden

aunts also appreciated the tipple, but she was too pre-occupied in imbibing its

mellow liquefaction to bother with the correctness of its appellation.

She didn’t mind at all that Murgatroyd had named his new porker after her.

Like the ninth Earl of Emsworth, Lord Clarence, Syylk had just taken charge of

a wonderful Berkshire sow, or it had taken charge of him.  Owing to some

marked physiognomical resemblances and similar traits of flightiness, he had

awarded his summer guest the accolade and honour of having her Christian

name bestowed on the worthy animal.  And, having no natural offspring of her

own, she anticipated the birth of piglets with as much eagerness as she looked

forward to Happy Hour at Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.

Augustus Snodbury, her adopted nephew, was less impressed.  In fact, he

considered it an impertinence.  He expressed as much to Virginia, the School

Secretary and his daughter in the new canteen-style, Hugo Frondly-

Whittingsty’s informal eatery.

Virginia had persuaded father and daughter to come out on a Friday evening

as the interminable term was leaching their zest for life.

Drusilla was tucking into some parsnip shavings and multi-coloured beets;

Gus was demolishing some moist roast gammon.

Dad!  You’ll never guess what?!

Gus continued to trough and grunted like a pig in clover, or Timothy Spall

in a Margate boarding house.

He knew she would tell him anyway.

You know Murgatroyd’s sow…?

Augusta? replied Virginia, though no one had addressed her.

Gus threw her a warning look- the one he utilised for The

Lower School and which had caused some chitterlings as they

were called to blub, or wet their shorts.

Virginia was made of sterner stuff.  She was interested in all

varieties of husbandry.

Yes, answered Dru.  Except that the vet came round yesterday

and re-sexed it.  So, you know what I’m going to say…?!

Don’t! spluttered Gus, choking on a morsel of rind.  He was

outraged at the thought of the name being transferred into its

masculine form.

It won’t be having piglings bland, or even piglets Blandings,

continued Dru.  It has a pizzle.  Wonderful Thomas Hardy word

that!  Anyway, they’re calling him The Emperor instead, with a nod

to P G Wodehouse, or Beethoven.  Great-Aunt will be disappointed,

but a few gins should dull her disappointment.

It should have been a Middle White if they were referring to the

latest tv series, Virginia added.  Then, as a non-sequitur, she

said meditatively,  Pigs can be very intelligent, you know.  A neighbour

of mine once had a Vietnamese Pot-Bellied variety and we used to keep

our veggie peelings in a swill bin for it.

She tried to avert her gaze from Gus’ midriff.

They’re probably brighter than some of the young porkers I have in

my Common Entrance group, scowled Gus.  I’d rather have one than

a silly toy dog.  He brightened up.

What are you thinking about, Father?  Dru could tell he was about to

share some porcine anecdote.

Oh, just The Very Rev. Wykeham Beaufort.  He was the School Chaplain

when I was a chitterling myself.  He used to walk through The Cathedral Close

to Evensong with his pet pig on a string.  It used to enjoy a pint of Hogsback

with him after Compline.  Fully House-of-God trained, it was.  Used to lie

continently in the choir stalls, under the misericords, but The Dean

excommunicated it and forbade it entry after one Advent, when it made

itself comfortable in the crib’s straw.  You can see its portrait on its

master’s headstone.

But why is Murgatroyd raising a pig? Virginia asked.

He is building a smoke-house and has consulted with a Master Butcher.

He’s going to produce quality meat products, once his breeding programme

gets under way.

Sausages? Gus perked up considerably.

Yes.  He and Mum intend to take a stall at some Farmers’ Markets.

He’s not so dense after all, approved her father.  Well, who would have

thought it?  Pigs might fly yet!

And he shovelled a forkful of pork scratchings into his capacious mouth.

Next to faggots, sausages were his favourites.

He must take a trip north very soon.

 

 

Conflict at Craiglockhart

Tags

Antaeus, Augustus Snodbury, Captain Rivers, Colinton, Craiglockhart, Frise, Graves, Holyrood, Hydra magazine, Napier University, No Man's Land, Overton House, Pat Barker, Regeneration, Salisbury Crags, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfrid Owen, Ypres

My final re-blog of older poems associated with World War 1…

So, you are off up north, Candia, for a couple of days?  Brassica looked

curious.  We were sipping cold drinks in Costamuchamoulah’s courtyard,

as it was such pleasant weather.

Yes, Carrie wanted me to go and see her relations in Glasgow, but it is

always hectic when you are only there for a few days.

So, what will you do?

Scout around Edinburgh, probably.  There is plenty to research. Last time I

went into Napier University, as I discovered that it was the original hospital of

Craiglockhart, where Wilfred Owen and Sassoon were rehabilitated. In the film

of Pat Barker’s novel, ‘Regeneration’, they made Overtoun House near

Dumbarton the setting instead. That interested me as I was born in that

house- in the Angel Ward- naturally.  It was a maternity hospital in the

1950s. 

I suppose it was giving life, whereas Craiglockhart was dealing with those

whose lives had been taken from them in many ways.

Wow!  Brassica was genuinely interested.  We had  been to see the film

together. Yes, it was spine-tingling to have access to the archives.  When I

signed in, the name previous to mine on the signature list was Pat Barker’s

herself! I expect she was researching Captain Rivers’ work with the

shell-shocked and traumatised.

So, this visit had an impact on you, Candia?

Yes, I will send you a poem that I wrote about it and you can share it with my

readers.  It will keep everyone interested till I return and let everyone know

what happened to Augustus Snodbury!

Note from Brassica: here is Candia’s poem:

CONFLICT AT CRAIGLOCKHART

Gales bombard barred windows.  Down the line,

Ypres to Frise, they ask why I am warm,

wrapped in best British buff while they chitter

with Christ in no-man’s land. Blunt bayonets

are rusted by His tears, which trickle down,

augmenting quagmires. Celestial spires

could be seen from Salisbury Crags today:

Holyrood nimbused in a golden haar.

Over Colinton meteor showers

blaze like shells, or comets auguring death.

Soldiers have to learn to live with their dreams,

as do poets, who paeon ploughshares.

Now pale spirits make their way to my bed

past padded cells of wretches who inhale

corpse stenches, retching with no catharsis

in this decayed hydro, with trench fever.

I can’t subdue hydras any more.

Like Antaeus, I am strong just as long

as I keep my feet solidly entrenched.

It is time to return to my platoon

before my name is mud; my verse bare bones,

putrefying in Graves’ pre-planned rut,

with stammerers, neurotics with trench foot,

gangrened privates, nervous tics, the mute.

Now it is time to go over the top:

not a moment too soon, Siegfried Sassoon.