Existential Choice

Tags

angst, bluestocking, divination, Flaubert, Gauloise, Hillary Clinton, Kate Moss, La Nausee, mauvaise foi, Narcissist, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, The Colony, The Sorbonne, The Woman Destroyed

We were seated at a table in Costamuchamoulah cafe, The Frog Prince

and I.  We were looking at the previous customers’ detritus, when a

waitress took an order at the adjacent table and walked straight past

our poubelle de la table, without engaging her brain cells to think about

efficiently clearing our empties on her perambulation back to the

kitchen.

Sacre bleu!  Would Simone de Beauvoir have let this pass, or would she

have whispered a smoke ring from her Gauloise and then blown a

gasket?  Would she have ordered pint-sized Sartre to take the debris

over to the counter?  The illogicality of the behaviour would undoubtedly

have annoyed such a bluestocking.  As an expression of mauvaise foi ,

would she have placed the unwanted crockery on someone else’s table?

Sartre criticised waiters whose movements were too waiter-esque.

Goodness knows what he would have had to say about those who neither

stand, nor wait, to quote a divine poet-philosopher whom I admire more

than the Existentialist. Maybe members of staff are asserting their choice

of not working at all.  (I wonder if my new neighbour Kate Moss worked

harder when she waited on tables at The Colony?)

So there we sat while my companion discussed the relative merits of the

solitary fading beauties in the café.  The éclat was when I realised that I

had a rapport with the authoress of The Woman Destroyed.  I realised that

I was not a Woman in Love whose identity was submerged by a male

object; neither was I a Narcissist who, according to de Beauvoir, would

construe myself as a desirable object.  Obviously, I am The Mystic, who

invests my freedom in an Absolute.

All too aware of the processes of growing older, my interests are more

focused on The Sorbonne than a sensually inviting sorbet.

The preface to Simone’s novel had proclaimed that she would deal with

the growing indifference experienced by the older woman. With critical

detachment, she would write a remarkably frank portrait, wreaking

revenge on the female predator.   All her female characters voice the

betrayals they have suffered from their husbands and children.

As Flaubert said:

The monologue is her form of revenge.

Mayhap I will take on her mantle.  Peut-etre, Hillary’s revenge

is political.

Simone’s character told us what it was like to lose one’s shadow,

one’s identity and mourned the loss of that

straightforward, genuine authentic woman, without mean-mindedness,

uncompromising, but at the same time understanding, indulgent,

sensitive, deeply feeling, intensely aware of things and of people, passionately

devoted to those she loved and creating happiness for them…

She went on:

I cannot see myself any more.  And what do others see?  Maybe

something hideous?

Is this angst?  Is it Hillary looking in the mirror?

I know how she felt.  Why is the Frenchman not paying attention

to me?  Am I now the safe, maternal escort?  I must check this with

friends, Brassie and Clammie, with the caution that when Simone

asked Lucienne how she would have described her, she received the

reply: idealistic.

Then Lucienne asked her: How do you see yourself?

As a marshland.  Everything is buried in the mud.

Eh bien,  I might as well have the mini-mince pie, or the full-size

version.  This frog companion is not going to turn into a prince,

though stranger things might happen in the next week in global politics,

though I doubt it.  The voters are about to cast their dice.  Alea iacta erit.

Eat the mince pies while you can.  La Nausee might ensue.  Next week

we will be divining entrails, but it will be too late to choose otherwise.

I suppose we always long retrospectively for the road not taken and that

is the human tragedy.

 

Chipping Snodbury

Tags

Absent Freinds, aperro, bachaqueros, Bolivar, Chipping Sodbury, Corbyn, Deist, Embers, Farrow and Ball, Ford Pinto, gloaming, Indian Summer, Malapropism, Pele Tower, River Camel, Sandor Marai, Snodland, The Cotswolds, Venezuela, Voltaire

Great-Aunt Augusta: RIP

 

Mrs Connolly, the housekeeper at Murgatroyd Syylk’s pele tower,

was exhausted.  She had overseen the triple marriages- well, dual

marriages and one re-espousal- of Augustus and Virginia, Drusilla

and Nigel and her employers: Diana and the aforementioned Murgatroyd.

She had given Dru a lace-trimmed hankie when her mascara had

threatened to run, as the bride had welled up at the thought that dear old

Aunt Augusta would not be with them.  The old curmudgeon had loved a

good wedding, funeral or general family crisis.  She had been sorely

missed.

Gus had raised a toast to ‘Absent Friends‘ at the end of his father-of-the-

bride speech, by way of respect.

Curiously a feather had floated down onto the top table at this very point.

It was black, but was nevertheless pronounced a good omen as it

appeared to be exactly like one from Aunt Augusta’s feather boa which

she always wore- even in Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry, at

‘aperro-time‘ as she was wont to call that crepuscular, inebriation

time-zone.

Clearly, she was with them in spirit, if not spirits.

They had left a place at the top table for her, or for The Grey Lady whom

she had conversed with, though nobody else had had direct

communication with the resident phantom.

Mrs Connolly had kept a lid on the petulant Mrs Milford-Haven, mother

of Nigel, who had been confused by her lengthy, Corbynesque train

journey from Cornwall.

She had scarcely been over The Camel in her lifetime, but was naturally

acquainted with the concept of a hump.  This was no crude allusion, but

merely indicative of her tendency to sulk when she was not the centre of

attention. Maybe it was some kind of physiological Radon effect.

Mrs Connolly had handled her robustly.

Whit’s the matter with yon wifie?  she had enquired.  Has she peed on a

thistle?

Soon she had calmed the situation down by introducing her to a Farrow and

Ball paint chart, which gave the peevish guest big ideas for Nigel’s post-

honeymoon guilt trip, to finish off the decoration of her bathroom.

Even Gus had been a tad emotional about his more-or-less step-brother,

Hugo, who was stranded in Venezuela.  He had been unable to leave the

country to take up his proffered teaching post at St Birinus Middle, even

after all the hard work Virginia had put in with visa application and so on.

A black market hawker was unlikely to be able to afford a trip to The

Borders.

Bachaqueros was a romantic collective noun, but everyone knew that it was

euphemistic.

Dru had been exasperated: Why doesn’t he just add billions of zeros to a

Bolivar note and turn up at the airport with a wheelbarrow of them?

It’s not that simple, darling, sympathised Diana.  We should have opened a

‘Generosity’ site to raise funds for him, I suppose.

Oh, I hadn’t thought of crowd-funding, Dru sighed.

Or he could have sold his Ford Pinto, muttered Gus.  Though we have lived to

see Voltaire’s comments on paper currency come true.

The Rev Finlay Armstrong had been aroused at the mention of this notable

Deist.

Yes, it returns to its intrinsic worth, Snod explained, as if he was back in the

classroom.

Flickr-Voltaire (marble) by Houdon. Nat Gallery Art, Chester Dale,

  1963)

Author: Sarah Stierch

 

But he was not back in the classroom.  He was now to be a married man

and Virginia had suggested that he burn all his old teaching notes in the

new trendy, fire pit which Murgatroyd had installed so that his guests

could sit al fresco in the midge-ridden gloaming on the few Indian

summer evenings which were dry.

That was quick! she had remarked.  There was a few singed curls of paper.

Where is all the rest?  Had you shredded them?

No, Snod replied.  I am of the old school.  All my lessons were, and indeed still

are, in my head.

At least she was assured that there had been no incineration of erstwhile

love letters.  She still had a little explorative rake-through with

Murgatroyd’s self-wrought poker.

She was right about the non-incineration of the amatory epistles. Diana

still possessed them- including the Valentine card which had gone astray

like many a Messianic sheep, all those years ago and which had led to the

current denouement.

But this seemed to be all in the past.  Virginia had been reading Sandor

Marai’s book Embers and an apposite quotation from it had come to mind:

Time is a purgatory that has cleansed all fury from my memories.

We shall subsequently see whether this is indeed the case.

Meanwhile Mrs C was showing her fatigue in her usual Malapropistic

manner: So, when will you be back from Chipping Snodbury? she asked

Murgatroyd and Diana, who had planned a little antique-hunting

expedition in The Cotswolds.

Sodbury! they had exclaimed.

 

 

 

Chinese Restaurant Think Tank

Tags

Buddha, edible snake, Longevity, proverb, think tank, traditional Chinese restaurant

(Table Setting 5/10/12: photo by micah sittig

flickr.com/photos/msitttig/4675623306)

 

 

If you want to be a nine hundred year

old fish, then stay at the back of the tank,

our guide quipped.  A proverb?  But I heard fear

from a not too distant past, when some sank

without trace.  Huge frogs with bulbous eyes

hunkered behind smaller fry: plump Buddhas,

withdrawing from contact, like all the wise-

too intellectual for consumption. As

we eschewed the coiled snakes and frilled reptile,

we saw longevity and survival

was to become what others revile:

thus to outlive an attractive rival.

 

Snod’s Law

Tags

Attila the Hun, Bonnard, causality, context sensitivity, Copernican mediocrity, Genghis Khan, infant sauvant, IQ score, irritable bowel syndrome, laws of thermodynamics, Marthe, Pilate, reflexive verb, Sods' Law, William the Conqueror

(Tete de Bonnard)

 

Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master at St Birinus Middle School peered

into his fogged up shaving mirror in the manner of Bonnard, but sans

le Maitre’s obsession with la salle de bain.  Was it just the bain– or the

occupant thereof?

He drew his razor across his chin.

Merde!   Marthe.  Strange coincidence that the two words are so similar. 

Bien sur, Marthe is a proper noun and merde is …well. merde is…  Cela ne

fait rien…

(He only swore in foreign languages- usually of the moribund  variety.

Mehercule! was another well-favoured expletive…)

It was Sod’s Law that he should nick himself just before Parents’ Evening.

Au contraire- it was, en effet, Snod’s Law- absolument typique.

There seemed to be some underlying thermodynamic law which ensured

that every literal slice of toast that he would ever drop in his allotted

threescore years and – hopefully plus- would land sunny side down on the

fluffy lino of his kitchenette.

Once he had tried to fathom out the underlying principle, but he had grown

exasperated by the philosophical discussions re/ context sensitivity and

causality.  He usually just scraped the spread off and hoped for the best.

If the odious mater of the dreaded Boothroyd-Smythe boy should smell

blood, she would, no doubt, be after his teacher like a pack leader at a

drag hunt. She would want to ‘discuss’ her infant sauvage/ sauvant’s

penultimate ink exercise-at length.

Each parent/ guardian had been given a four minute and forty nine

seconds’ window of opportunity.  There were others to be seen-and heard-

so Snod had planned his personal defenestration technique, which

involved a pre-set travelling alarm clock.  The previous time he had tried

to utilise the device, it had been confiscated by the school caretaker, who

said it might be mistaken for an incendiary device.

 I mean-mehercule!- Snod had remonstrated- do I look like a terrorist, man?

The caretaker had not ventured an opinion, other than to reinforce that

it was against ‘Elf and Safety.

Snod wiped the condensation away with his pyjama sleeve and applied

pressure to the little bleeder (not the caretaker, you understand.  We are

back in the privacy of the lavatory.) However, the flow was not to be

easily stemmed.  Neither would Mrs B-S ( ‘Irritable Bowel- Syndrome’ was

how he thought of her)…neither would the aforesaid indignant parent

tolerate any hypothetical exploration of her son’s behaviour.  She also

was difficult to staunch.  Snod wondered if her ex-husband had found

the same difficulty in dealing with her when she was in full spout.

Counter factuals interested her as little as the laws of thermodynamics,

or grammar, for that matter, he considered.

Well, we are living in an age where no one cares about the subjunctive, he

mused, so why would anyone contemplate the ‘what ifs’, or the hypothetical

‘other’?

Who do you think you are, Mr Snodbury? she had written in a note delivered

to his poste restante, ergo his pigeonhole in the staff-room.  How could you

give my gifted son such a discouraging assessment when he has an IQ of

160, which is, no doubt, sixty points above most of the masters’ scores in this

establishment?

He could predict that she would bang on about some theory of Copernican

mediocrity, ad tedium.

But the initial interrogative got beneath his skin, just as his rasoir had.

After some meditation, he considered that her opening gambit was not

so much a rhetorical question, but rather, a declaration of war.

He stuck a shred of toilet paper over the wound.  But maybe she had a

point…

Who am I? he asked himself, while recognising the reflexive modal aspect

of the verb. ( I don’t mean the verb ‘to be‘; I refer to his self-examination.)

He had never felt the need of a gap year, to go off and find himself, but a

sabbatical would have been nice.

That genealogy programme was popular, he knew: the one where

celebrities discovered that their direct lines went all the way back to

William the Conqueror.

Whose didn’t? he thought.  We are all five handshakes from…whom?  Am I

really descended from Genghis Khan, or Attila the Hun, as the boys suspect?

Well, so long as I am not related to Boris Johnson, in spite of our shared

love of the Classics!

He had always felt that he was the terminal bud on a twig which had been

grafted onto someone else’s native tree.

Maybe he should exhibit some natural curiosity and find out the truth of

his generation- etymologically-speaking.

Whatever truth is, as Pilate once so eloquently said, he mused aloud.

It seems to have stopped haemorrhaging now.  I can’t be haemophiliac, so

my blood-line can’t be true blue.

 

 

Cupcake Fascism

Tags

Alresfordism, cupcake fascist, dog to its vomit, fenestration, gentrification, George Formby, Gregory's Girl, Harry Potter, Huffington Post, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Macchiato, New York Times, No True Scotsman Fallacy, one swallow doesn't prove summer, paradoxical analogy, passive-aggressive, Plato, provinciality, pseud, Republic, Socrates, The Guardian, Tom Whyman, twee, ukeleles, Wilde, yummy mummy

(Mindmatrix 21/5/2010 (UTC) uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot)

Brassica was devastated.

I was just reading ‘The Hamster Chronicle’ and came across some

philosopher guy who has just taken a sledgehammer to the values

of the inhabitants of a town not too far from here.  It is linked to a

2014 article in ‘The Guardian’ and  I found it a terrible excoriation of

market town mentality.  He’s called  Tom Whyman and he has denounced

all we Suttonfordian-types as ‘cupcake fascists.’

I didn’t even vote ‘Leave.’  And, if I order a ‘nice cup of tea’, he says it

will only go to show that I have a stiff upper lip which is, ‘dialectically

speaking’ a sign of cowardice.

Well, have your usual Macchiato instead, I advised.  Look, in all the

years we have been convening in Costamuchamoulah must-seen

cafe, we have never once digested a cupcake.  You would never allow

one to pass your stiff, or otherwise, upper or lower lips.

That’s because it is yummy mummy fodder, she smiled through

watery tears. And we could never be accused of being in that

particular category.

And to what category do we belong?  Remind me.

Passive-aggressive, twee, retrospective diehards who lisp while

strumming along to ukeleles- according to him.

Her lower lip wobbled.

I took the article from her and skim-read it.

And have you ever taken up such an instrument?

Of course not.

Was that because you found such an activity incompatible with

your  desire to impose your bourgeois values on all and sundry, as

this postgrad Whyman suggested-nay- stated?

No!  It’s because that odious little man gave me a window

cleaners’ complex.

Which odious little man? Formby?

Yes, every time our window cleaner arrives unannounced, I have to

run upstairs and close all my curtains, in case he is a voyeur.  That film-

‘Gregory’s Girl’- didn’t help.  You remember that bit when the premature,

but sexually mature school leaver who has a lucrative job to do with

fenestration pronounces: ‘ If I don’t see you next week, I’ll see you through

a windae’?

Oh, well-pronounced.  You sounded nothing like a Suttonfordian.  Your

gentrification slipped as easily as a window cleaner falling off his ladder,

I snorted.

So, you think Suttonfordians should not worry about being

stereotyped by a Harry Potter lookalike, even if he did have an article

accepted by ‘The New York Times?’

I think that the brutality of your perceived ‘niceness’ should see off a

pseud like him with one flourish of your vintage pashmina.  We could

compose a salvo and have it published in ‘The Huffington Post.’  So what?

We have better things to do.

Hmm, you know I am going to have a cupcake just to prove that

I can and that it has nothing to do with how I voted.

(Brassie was defiant.)

Personally, I can’t stand the sickly sweetness of the butter cream

icing, but I will join you in an act of radical point scoring against

anyone who could foul his own nest, as he seems to have done,

considering he was brought up in the hated location.

The thing that really got to me was that he said he was a

philosopher, Brassie persisted.  And I didn’t think his argument

was very logical.

Hah!  I laughed, selecting the gooiest sweetmeat which contained

the greatest density of food colouring and the vilest polka dot paper

case.  It is all an exemplifiacation of ‘The No True Scotsman Fallacy.’

You mean like ‘One swallow doesn’t prove that the summer has

arrived?’

Brassie actually gets to the nub of things fairly quickly sometimes.

Yes, we live in Suttonford and we are the exceptions to the rule.  Yet we

are probably still reactionary bitches in his view.

But he doesn’t know us.

True, but, if he did, it would only confirm his worst opinions.  But, once

he is older and wiser and re-reads ‘The Republic’, he may be reminded

that the visible world is the least knowable and the most obscure,

according to Socrates.

I thought Plato wrote….

He did.  Oh, never mind.  Here!  Get your teeth round this one.  Have

another cup of tea.

So, Suttonford is an example, like Alresford, of a paradoxical

analogy?

Precisely.  And you have to have left the cave of provinciality in

order to attain the ability to rule and to see clearly. He keeps climbing

out, but returns, like a dog to the vomit, to quote a Biblical simile,

to plumb the provincial depths, with a frequency that suggests that

he is a secret speleological lover of all the things he pretends to hate.

Like cupcakes?

Yes, probably even cupcakes.  He’s possibly a closet cupcake fascist.  He may

be a ‘Krispy Kreme’ doughnut man in the city and a cupcake lover in

the country.  How very Wildean!

I’d call that hypocritical, Brassie averred.

You’re not the only one, apparently, I observed, taking a look at some of

the replies and comments on Social Media.  But I like his neologism

‘Alresfordism.’  Maybe it is akin to Suttonfordianism.

Yes, but which is the easier to pronounce?

The one you form with your mouth untainted by cupcake crumbs.

 

 

 

 

Suspended from school- the ultimate sanction

Tags

Amanda Holden, biological warfare, Bomb Disposal, bubonic plague, Career Advice, Catcher in the Rye, Daesh, davenport, David Cameron, eNatalNNatttck stills thout, foreskin, GCSE, hitf it about in The Boer War it abouta, Kleenex, Latin conjugation, Paracetamol, Rorke's Drift, Stoics, The Classics Quarterly, y by the collarssmetaphorical etaphoricaletaphorical collaretrrin a strnn a strhholdoeueheadlocktheae., Zeno of Citium

The Dairy of John-Boothroyd-Smythe-May 24th, 2016

(well, he is dyslexic: Editor)

 

Okay, Mum is going ballistic.  No one has a sense of humour

nowadays.  I only tied my old mobile to the pipes in the boys’

bogs for a laugh.  Mrs Fisher-Gyles should have recognised my

voice.  My Middle East accent isn’t that good and I said,’Dash‘,

instead of ‘Daesh.’

So now I am suspended- not literally, from the flagpole, but as

good as.

Snod wants to see me before Mum has to collect me, but the old

fart has flu.  Apparently it is the first time he has been off since

Rorke’s Drift, or something.

I hope I don’t catch something from him- apart from an ability

to memorise Latin verb tables, which could prove handy for

GCSE.

May 25th, 2016

Had to hand in an overdue essay to Mr Milford-Haven on the

subject: Does Art imitate Life, or vice versa?

How should I know?  I haven’t lived long enough to work it out.

Except, there was something weirdly familiar when I went up

to have my interrogation with Old Snod.  I mean, we had just

been reading ‘Catcher in the Rye‘ in English- I mean in class- and

the whole episode was a bit of a re-run of Chapter 2, when

Holden goes to call on his old History teacher who has the grippe,

but who still finds the strength to grip his student’s metaphorical

collar in a headlock manoeuvre.

The minute I knocked on his door, I wanted to leave.

He barked: Come in boy! and started to cough.

Snod was propped up on some old sofa, with his horrible white feet

with their yellow soles, right in my line of vision.

I mean, in some cultures it is rude to show the soles of your feet.

I wondered if I should tell him, but he just scowled: Sit Down! and

started coughing again.

If I catch this lurgy I am going to get my parents to sue the school,

but technically I might not be a pupil at the moment.  It depends when

the suspension- or, is it expulsion?- dates from.

I had to move a box of Kleenex off a stool before I could sit down.  There

was no hand sanitiser around, and I was getting worried, as I probably

don’t have immunity to all the shit these old guys got in their long-

distant youth.  Bubonic plague and stuff.  Lot of it about in Natal back

then.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the monogram, logo thing on his manky old

towelling dressing gown.  Sad!  It was the school crest.  It must have been

a thousand years since any of that nightwear shit was regulation uniform.

He probably nicked it from Lost Property a millennium ago.

So, you finally got the axe?  was all he said.

I was a bit taken aback, as I was sure this was a re-enactment of the

Holden interview- and I don’t mean Amanda.  I mean, he has probably

never heard of her.  Even Dad hasn’t.

(Holden in London, 2014.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photoday 2008/15537332380/)

 

I’m talking to you, boy!

Yes, sir!

What was your game?

Just larking around, sir!

Snod trumpeted into a Kleenex and examined the effluent.  Gross! 

(Mental note: Avoid shaking hands with him at the termination of the

interview.)

He threw the rolled up tissue across the room and hit the waste paper

basket, demonstrating his famed skills as a bowler, which I personally

witnessed at last year’s Staff v Pupils match.  We still won, though.

Good aim, sir!

Snod sat bolt upright and chucked a copy of The Classics Quarterly- the

boring magazine he always tries to add to our end-of-term bills for

‘Extras’ –off his bed thingy and onto the floor.

And what exactly is your aim in life, boy?

I looked rather blank.

Because I have had to fail you on so many occasions for not making the

slightest attempt to learn any of the conjugation tables.  Amavi…he

commanded.

Eh, amavisti, amavit…

So you’re not quite as stupid as you look, he said.

I don’t think they’re allowed to say things like that now, but I took

it as I kinda respect the old buffer.  He tells it like it is.

Fetch me your mock paper!  It’s on the davenport.

I didn’t have a clue what a davenport was, so I just followed

his gaze.

Bloody h… He had looked out all my past papers, since

Transitus A.

Thirty eight percent.  What was going through that brain of yours?

I couldn’t help it, sir.  It was all the drawings.  They distracted me.

What drawings?  Do you mean the illustrations in your textbook?

Yes, sir.  I learn visually. I really liked that drawing of the retired

guy who left his plough and came back to govern after he’d retired.

 I can imagine you doing that, sir.  I thought a bit of flattery might

distract him.  I continued to gabble:  And I liked the guy who put

his hand in the fire and kept it there.  And all those guys who put baby

foxes down their togas and let them gnaw at their vitals– I said ‘vitals‘

as I wasn’t sure if ‘privates‘ was a term to use in front of one’s

Senior Master.

(Zeno of Citium, Stoic school.  Shakko-own work

pushkin.jpg ; Jan 2008. Pushkin Museum cast. Original: Naples)

 

Stoics, boy!  And it wouldn’t harm you to develop some discipline.

And perseverance, endurance…

He always goes on about that when it’s his turn to take Assembly.

Even I know he pinched it from the Apostle Paul telling everyone

that, even if you have a shitty time, it is good for you- ultimately.

Fruits of the Spirit they are called, I think. Fruits of the loom are on

a t-shirt logo and I think they represent a cornucopia.  See, I’m not

that bad at vocab.

Guys still put ferrets down their trousers, I ventured.

Nothing to do with it!  he snorted.  What I am saying is that even

when philosophers did apparently stupid things, they had some

methodology to their behaviour.

Madness, I interrupted.  Method in their madness.

He looked as if he was going to explode, but it was maybe just his

high temperature.

No.  I am wondering why you never seem to have any rationale to

your acts of random folly.

I didn’t know if this was a declarative or an interrogative.  I wondered

if I should ask him and he might be pleased that I had been listening

in English Language.

Sir?

Forethought!

Never heard of it.  Foreskin, maybe.  Hoped this wasn’t going to

become a sex talk about pubes and shit like that.

These ancient stalwarts of the Classical World did not go around playing

silly games with mobile phones, he splurted.

That was only because they didn’t have the technology, sir.

I thought he’d be pleased that I was aware of anachronism.  That

was another thing we learned in English recently.

He swallowed one Paracetamol after another, in rapid succession.

I was going to tell him that taking too many can give you liver

failure, but I reckoned his liver was probably on its way out anyway.

Do you think we all enjoy seeing you fail?

Not a lot, sir, I suppose.

The army.  That’s where you’d do well. Knock the insubordination

out of you.  Might be the making of you.  I’ll suggest the cadets to

your mother.  Bomb disposal.  Hmmm.  You might enjoy that.  You

certainly have a nerve, if not the nerve for it.

Thank you, sir.

I think the old boy still has the intuition in Career Advice.  He’s

not too wide of the mark.  I hope Mum agrees.  Dad will be pleased

that someone has an idea of what to do with me.

And it can’t be more dangerous than being in a stuffy room,

breathing in the same fug as a viral schoolmaster.

I stood up and forgot to avoid shaking his hand.  Yuck. Where’s the

nearest sanitiser?  But at least I had my revenge by touching the whole

banister and every door handle on the way down.  Biological warfare.

Revenge is sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lacrimae Rerum

Tags

Apostle Paul, Botox, Ede, hagi-yaki, kintsugi, lachrymatory, lacrimae rerum, lustre pottery, Milliput, mono no aware, mushin, Nigella, Perseid, Silas Marner, stretch marks, wabi sabi, wasabi

(Perseid Image by Brocken Inaglory)

Brassica and I were sipping tea in her kitchen.  She’d put a

tea-bag into the mugs, but I couldn’t help noticing that she

had a rather fine teapot sitting on her dresser.

Why don’t you use that? I asked, gesturing towards it, with a

mouth full of biscuit.

Oh, I can’t.  It’s only decorative.  Look!

It had staples holding it together.  No one surely spends the time

on such repairs now; strong adhesives probably can do the

job.

The iron in the kettle makes it sing, they say, she remarked.  Actually,

I am annoyed with Cosmo.  He’s been watching the Perseid showers

for several evenings now.  He barged into the kitchen in his excitement

and knocked over my favourite vase, ironically inscribed with the immortal

phrase: ‘Love is as strong as death.’  I can tell you that my affection for him

was truly tested.  He’s so heavenly-minded that he’s no earthly use at times.

It’s only a pot, I observed.

Yes, but it was precious and I had great difficulty in piecing it together with

Milliput.

Beauty in brokenness; what’s been shattered makes it stronger… lalala,

I reminded her.  Kintsugi- its life of service may not be over.

It would have been just the right size to hold his ashes, she added,

a trifle heartlessly, I considered.  I could have had it re-fired and had

his remains used to make a lustre glaze.  People have their loved ones’

ashes made into diamond rings. Similar principle.

No, although bone meal may be in some glazes, I think he would probably

explode in the kiln, if my chemistry recollection serves me well.  Anyway, maybe

you’ll go first.

Hmm…, she mused, looking determined not to accede to that idea.

Well, it’s worthless now.

Have you heard of wabi sabi?

Emm, is that the horseradish stuff Nigella used to bang on about?  Shouldn’t

think that would hold anything together- not even her marriage!

(Flickr- image by EverJean from Nishiki-ichiba, Kyoto)

No, Brassie! I expostulated, impatient with her as usual.  It’s the Japanese

appreciation of transience and imperfection.  Too often we seek a dead

perfection.  Buddhists, as you know, believe suffering is good.  Nothing

lasts; nothing is perfect; nothing is finished.

But you can see the cracks, she sighed.

Yes, but they let the light through.  Its history is written into it.  The

Japanese restore their damaged pots by filling the fissures with lacquer

and gold dust, paradoxically drawing attention to the repair…

Like wrinkles showing how we have lived?

Precisely.

You don’t believe in face lifts, or Botox then…?

It’s said we have the face we deserve by forty.

I suppose you…I mean we do, she commented, but we

are better than…

Don’t go there, I admonished.

And stretch marks!

Hush!

Some people even have tattoos over their scars.  But the thing

is, Candia, I don’t like losing my treasures.

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be, I said

sanctimoniously.  But, you know, once I was teaching ‘Silas Marner’

to an Adult Education class and we discussed the bit where Silas has

his gold stolen and he goes into a decline.  However, when he leaves

his door open and enters a kind of trance, his true treasure

appears.

You used to be able to leave your door open round here, but you can’t

now, she lamented.  What a talent Brassie has for the tangential.

(She didn’t take my point that human relationships are valuable.)

Well, no one is saying that you should deliberately leave yourself

unprotected.  No one is advocating hagi-yaki…

Wasn’t that a nuclear bomb?

No, it is the practice of deliberately smashing tea bowls and ceramics,

in order to liberate yourself from the material world.

Like the Greeks going in for plate smashing?

Look, I don’t know... I become exasperated sometimes.  Maybe it’s like

misinterpretations of the Apostle Paul which foolishly advocate sinning

as much as you like so that grace will abound.  No, you- one- has to

develop a kind of mushin, or equanimity.  In the Ede period there was a

concept of ‘mono no aware’.  Yes, we feel pathos at the passing of things

and yet that  fits into the general sublunary…

Darling!

Cosmo charged into the kitchen, carrying a box.  He glanced at me

and then directed his attention to his wife: I hope I’m not interrupting,

but I just saw this in the local gallery and I thought you’d like it…

Brassie’s eyes lit up.

It was an iridescent glass bottle, with a stopper, in the shape of The Shard.

(Colin/ Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-SA-4.0)

It’s for storing all your tears, he announced.  A lachrymatory.

Thank you, darling.  It’s beautiful.  Just what I always wanted.

I made an excuse and left.  She seemed to have forgiven him.

I just hope she puts it in a safer place.  He IS terribly clumsy.

Otherwise, there could be tears before bedtime.

Poem for Jenny

Tags

allegory, Aslan, Charn, CS Lewis, Edgeware Road, Emily Watson, Jadis, Jenny Nicholson, London Bombings, Magician's Nephew, multiverses, Rev Julia Nicholson, The Deplorable Word, Tube, Underground, Vale of Tears

(Photo of Edgware Road Tube Station by Sunil 060902)

Brassie was reminding me that it had been the tenth

anniversary of The London Bombings.

Be careful if you are going up to London, she cautioned.

It’s okay.  I’m aware of it.  It was all over the news.

I also watched the drama about Jenny Nicholson, the girl

who was killed in the Edgware incident.  I was deeply moved

by the fact that she had been reading the novel ‘The

Magician’s Nephew’ by C S Lewis.  I had to re-visit

the book to remind myself of its depiction of Aslan and

the triumph of Good over Evil.  The fact that her mother-Emily

Watson in the film-was a priest only led pathos, but veracity to the

fact that Evil can affect anyone and one’s religious profession offers no

immunity to being a member of the human race and therefore subject

to the seemingly random events that perplex us all in this sublunary

Vale of Tears.

That’s pretty deep, Candia.  No doubt you dealt with it in your

usual way?

Yes, I wrote a poem, but was unsure as to whether to call it

‘Poem for Jenny’ or ‘The Deplorable Word’.  In the end I settled

for the former as I wanted to give Good the foregrounding…

POEM FOR JENNY

(Photo by Kevin Pluck: The King)

The Deplorable Word was uttered

some time around nine o’clock that morning.

The girl had just been reading about it-

how witch Jadis ‘owned’ the people of Charn,

though her powers did not work in England.

She must have touched the magic yellow ring,

for suddenly the prequel of her life

ceased and she was translated to a wood

between multiverses. Her watch then stopped.

And, not having the two green rings with her,

she couldn’t return.

She thought she could hear a low, growling sound,

not threatening; quite musical, really:

nothing like the noise of the Underground.

She was looking down at the Tube carriage;

she was looking down now on the carnage.

Someone was using her book to prop up

a stranger’s head.  She was glad they took it.

She had no use for it now, but she knew

she was a protagonist in its plot.

Those pages would never close; her story

would continue, not in allegory,

but as a dark, complicating event,

part of the concatenation before

the revelatory denouement.

Some worlds begin and others end like this:

not with a bang and a whimper of pain,

but with a story that can’t be untold;

part of the greatest narrative ever.

She looked into a pool and was surprised

to see the reflection of a lion

in a tranquil surface, with no shock waves.

The music seemed to emanate from him.

In the beginning was his word

and now she knew he would have the last one.

Permission Granted

Tags

BIrnam Wood, Browning, Dickens, Dunsinane, Gove, Hamelin, Human Rights, in absentia, mojo, Moselle, Musicians of Bremen, Narrative Verse, Pied Piper, Poldark, radon, Riesling, Rip Van Winkle, Schlachte Embankment, Scrooge, scything, St Birinus Middle School, Va-va-voom, Weser

Mr Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master at St Birinus Middle, opened the parental

letter which he had insisted should be sent.

Mum will send you an e-mail, sir, Peregrine Willcox Junior had simpered.

Paper notification is what I require, child, Snod underlined.  I don’t trust

new-fangled technology for record-keeping.

Blimey! thought Peregrine-or something to that effect.

And so it was that a letter, curiously addressed in childish,

round cursive script, landed on the form desk.  There was no

accompanying apple, with, or without a resident worm.

Once the bell had rung and the boys had filed out to Assembly,

Snod took a closer look.  You will have detected a reckless dismissal

of his need to attend such ritualistic gatherings.

At least the missive did not terminate in the infamous:

Signed,

My Mother.

So… Mrs W was in the travel business.  Might be good for an upgrade.

He had heard of teachers who had taught boys who had become pilots.

Such students frequently proved to be good contacts when a favour was

required from the airlines.  He was short on such sources of beneficence.

But, no-this mother was complaining about the Gove effect.  She could not

comprehend why she could not take her offspring on holiday during

term time.

(OGL image)

Nothing much gets done in the last couple of weeks, she observed.

In your opinion, thought Snod, but in the case of your bratlet, nothing

much gets done all term.

Mrs W went on to recognise that she could face a fine of £60 per day.

She made the point that she would be saving that amount (and more)

by travelling off-peak.  She did not fear the Birnam Wood of prosecution,

nor the Dunsinane of incarceration.  She seemed to fear no man of woman

born.

Aha! reflected Snod.  Never underestimate the power of metaphor.  A wood

did come towards Dunsinane!

He anticipated the appeal to Human Rights and was not disappointed.

She quoted the CEO of a Cornish tourist board who advocated family

enrichment weeks.  Cornwall- that was where that wretched Milford-Haven

hailed from.  The Junior Master didn’t seem to have been enriched by his

upbringing down that neck of the woods. Perhaps it was the radon that

had affected him.

This woman seemed to think that Snod should turn up to teach whether

her child was in absentia or not.  She suggested that staggering the school

holidays might be a good idea.

I would be the one who would be staggering, fumed Snod.  I’m practically

a stretcher case by the end of June as it is.  When am I expected to re-

charge my batteries?  I will not utilise the ghastly phrases about losing my

mojo, or va-va-voom.  I just need to vamoose.  Preferably for eight weeks.

This out-dated long summer break is tied to our agrarian past, continued Mrs

W.  It might have made sense when children were needed to bring in the

harvest.  Things have moved on.

I wouldn’t agree with you there, Snod scowled, though mollified that she

had used a Latin based adjective.  The only interest the children of today

have in land management is an unhealthy curiosity in scything, as

demonstrated in Poldark.  It would do them a lot of good to bring in the

hay, whether the sun shone, or not.

He suddenly remembered how he had assisted the groundsman in his

school  holidays, when no one had collected him and he had not been

invited home with any chums.  He had felt abandoned like the youthful

Scrooge in Dickens’ heart-rending tale.

The summer holidays had stretched out forever.  How bitter some of his

experiences had been back then.

Suddenly he felt quite benign.  A snatch of that awful song from a

Disney film came to his mind.  Let it go!  It will be one fewer ink

exercise to mark.  He, or she, who pays the piper calls the tune.  And,

yes, Mrs W pays the school fees, whether her son attends or not.  It is

just a pity that a greater proportion of that payment doesn’t filter down

to the rats who, as in my case, are contemplating leaving the sinking

ship of Education anyway.

And was he a piper then?  He had no intention of leading his students

into a Rip van Winkle cavern.  Maybe he did induce sleep in some, especially

on a Monday morning.  That would be his drone.  Piper…drone!  Puns had

always amused him.

No, the boy could go.  What did he care?

Felicitously, Snod didn’t have to worry about what to teach in Period

One.

The woman had jolted his memory of how successful a source

Browning’s poem could be.  Now where was that copy of Narrative Verse

through the Ages?

Maybe his tolerance and compliance might be good for an upgrade after

all.  Hamelin– he didn’t think he had been there.  Maybe he and Virginia

could take a river cruise down the Weser?  He wondered if that might tie in

with the consumption of some fine German wines.  He would ask Mrs W for

advice.

No problem, Mr Snodbury.  We can arrange a Hanseatic cruise for you with

a two day Schlachte Embankment break.  Tell you what- we will throw in a

complimentary Musicians of Bremen beer garden experience at no extra

charge, in view of all that you have done for Peregrine since last year.

It wasn’t exactly Moselle and Riesling, but at least that was some of

the school hols sorted.

THE BALLAD OF JUDAS ISCARIOT

Tags

ballad, de-cluttering, Field of Blood, Forgiveness Window, Judas, Judas tree, Lord's Supper, Monk Pear tea, Robert William Buchanan

THE BALLAD OF JUDAS ISCARIOT.

How are you getting on with clearing out your cellar,

Candia?

Brassica and I were in our favourite haunt, sharing

a Monk Pear tea.

It takes hours to throw away a few sheets of paper,

I admitted.  I keep wondering if I might need all the

notes for future reference.  Then I come across old

school anthologies of narrative verse and feel compelled

to read the less familiar poems.

You’ll need to be more ruthless with yourself, advised

Brassie.

Hmmm, that’s not a problem normally, I replied.  Anyway,

you know how I have been banging on about Judas since

Lent and even before…

Yes, we have all read your poems on your WordPress site,

Brassie interrupted.

Well, I discovered a ballad I had been unaware of by a poet

called Robert Williams Buchanan on the subject and I am going

to publish it on my site so readers who enjoyed my ‘Judas

Tree’, ‘The Forgiveness Window’ and  so on can continue to

develop their thoughts and join me on my theological journey-

dreadfully cliched metaphor, though that is!

Good idea, said Brassie, but don’t get too sidetracked.  Your

husband will be fed up with your rate of de-cluttering.

So, here is the poem:

’Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Lay in the Field of Blood;
’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Beside the body stood.

Black was the earth by night,
And black was the sky;
Black, black were the broken clouds,
Tho’ the red Moon went by.

’Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Strangled and dead lay there;
’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Look’d on it in despair.

The breath of the World came and went
Like a sick man’s in rest;
Drop by drop on the World’s eyes
The dews fell cool and blest.

Then the soul of Judas Iscariot
Did make a gentle moan—
‘I will bury underneath the ground
My flesh and blood and bone.

‘I will bury deep beneath the soil,
Lest mortals look thereon,
And when the wolf and raven come
The body will be gone!

‘The stones of the field are sharp as steel,
And hard and cold, God wot;
And I must bear my body hence
Until I find a spot!’

’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot,
So grim, and gaunt, and gray,
Raised the body of Judas Iscariot,
And carried it away.

And as he bare it from the field
Its touch was cold as ice,
And the ivory teeth within the jaw
Rattled aloud, like dice.

As the soul of Judas Iscariot
Carried its load with pain,
The Eye of Heaven, like a lanthorn’s eye,
Open’d and shut again.

Half he walk’d, and half he seemed
Lifted on the cold wind;
He did not turn, for chilly hands
Were pushing from behind.

The first place that he came unto
It was the open wold,
And underneath were prickly whins,
And a wind that blew so cold.

The next place that he came unto
It was a stagnant pool,
And when he threw the body in
It floated light as wool.

He drew the body on his back,
And it was dripping chill,
And the next place be came unto
Was a Cross upon a hill.

A Cross upon the windy hill,
And a Cross on either side,
Three skeletons that swing thereon,
Who had been crucified.

And on the middle cross-bar sat
A white Dove slumbering;
Dim it sat in the dim light,
With its head beneath its wing.

And underneath the middle Cross
A grave yawn’d wide and vast,
But the soul of Judas Iscariot
Shiver’d, and glided past.

The fourth place that he came unto
It was the Brig of Dread,
And the great torrents rushing down
Were deep, and swift, and red.

He dared not fling the body in
For fear of faces dim
And arms were waved in the wild water
To thrust it back to him.

’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Turned from the Brig of Dread,
And the dreadful foam of the wild water
Had splashed the body red.

For days and nights he wandered on
Upon an open plain,
And the days went by like blinding mist,
And the nights like rushing rain.

For days and nights he wandered on,
All thro’ the Wood of Woe;
And the nights went by like moaning wind,
And the days like drifting snow.

’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Came with a weary face—
Alone, alone, and all alone,
Alone in a lonely place!

He wandered east, he wandered west,
And heard no human sound;
For months and years, in grief and tears,
He wandered round and round,

For months and years, in grief and tears,
He walked the silent night;
Then the soul of Judas Iscariot
Perceived a far-off light.

A far-off light across the waste,
As dim as dim might be,
That came and went like the lighthouse gleam
On a black night at sea.

’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Crawl’d to the distant gleam;
And the rain came down, and the rain was blown
Against him with a scream.

For days and nights he wandered on,
Push’d on by hands behind;
And the days went by like black, black rain,
And the nights like rushing wind.

’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot,
Strange, and sad, and tall,
Stood all alone at dead of night
Before a lighted hall.

And the wold was white with snow,
And his foot-marks black and damp,
And the ghost of the silvern Moon arose,
Holding her yellow lamp.

And the icicles were on the eaves,
And the walls were deep with white,
And the shadows of the guests within
Pass’d on the window light.

The shadows of the wedding guests
Did strangely come and go,
And the body of Judas Iscariot
Lay stretch’d along the snow.

The body of Judas Iscariot
Lay stretched along the snow;
’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Ran swiftly to and fro.

To and fro, and up and down,
He ran so swiftly there,
As round and round the frozen Pole
Glideth the lean white bear.

’Twas the Bridegroom sat at the table-head,
And the lights burnt bright and clear—
‘Oh, who is that,’ the Bridegroom said,
‘Whose weary feet I hear?’

’Twas one look’d from the lighted hall,
And answered soft and slow,
‘It is a wolf runs up and down
With a black track in the snow.’

The Bridegroom in his robe of white
Sat at the table-head—
‘Oh, who is that who moans without?’
The blessed Bridegroom said.

’Twas one looked from the lighted hall,
And answered fierce and low,
‘’Tis the soul of Judas Iscariot
Gliding to and fro.’

’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Did hush itself and stand,
And saw the Bridegroom at the door
With a light in his hand.

The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he was clad in white,
And far within the Lord’s Supper
Was spread so broad and bright.

The Bridegroom shaded his eyes and look’d,
And his face was bright to see—
‘What dost thou here at the Lord’s Supper
With thy body’s sins?’ said he.

’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Stood black, and sad, and bare—
‘I have wandered many nights and days;
There is no light elsewhere.’

’Twas the wedding guests cried out within,
And their eyes were fierce and bright—
‘Scourge the soul of Judas Iscariot
Away into the night!’

The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he waved hands still and slow,
And the third time that he waved his hands
The air was thick with snow.

And of every flake of falling snow,
Before it touched the ground,
There came a dove, and a thousand doves
Made sweet sound.

’Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Floated away full fleet,
And the wings of the doves that bare it off
Were like its winding-sheet.

’Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door,
And beckon’d, smiling sweet;
’Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Stole in, and fell at his feet.

‘The Holy Supper is spread within,
And the many candles shine,
And I have waited long for thee
Before I poured the wine!’

The supper wine is poured at last,
The lights burn bright and fair,
Iscariot washes the Bridegroom’s feet,
And dries them with his hair.

(This version of the poem from:

http://www.robertbuchanan.co.uk/html/sel4.html)