Poetry versus Push-pin

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adjectival phrase, amaryllis, Beethoven, Belladonna, Bentham, Beyonce, Bishop of Durham, Borgia, Bridge Mints, C of E, ceteris paribus, Chirpa chirpa cheep cheep, conversazione, Country Life magazine, debutante, dehydration, hip flask, Jenkins, Liverpool Pathway, Mayfair atelier, Mozart, noumenal realm, Pele Tower, poetry v push-pin, Poundland, Pushkin, veg-tan, wassail, York Minster

Drusilla had a precious free weekend before Christmas

and had selflessly decided to motor down to visit her

Great-Aunt Augusta in Snodland’s Nursing Home

for the Debased Gentry.

Great-Aunt Augusta had pronounced herself a little under the

weather and had decided not to make an unseasonal journey

northwards to the draughty pele tower in the Borders, to join

the rest of the extended ‘family’ for the celebrations.  In any

case, she didn’t want to miss the Residents’ Wassail Evening.

Dru had wrapped a generous bottle of Dewlap Gin for the Discerning

Grandmother and some Bridge Mints and also took along some back

numbers of magazines which the school library had been about to

shred.

The old virago was rather rude.  She immediately started reading a

copy of Country Life magazine (October 2014), leaving her great-

niece to engage a doddery old man in what could only

optimistically be called conversation, or conversazione, by

pretentious writers in similar publications.

Ha!  Hark at this!  Augusta screeched, causing several biddies in

proximity to adjust their hearing aids.  These estate agents are

the limit.  They’re offering property in York for cultural aficianodos and

the best adjective they can employ to modify the Minster is:

‘pretty’ cathedral.  They’re fortunate that their offices are not struck

by a bolt of lightning for committing a bigger faux pas than the Bishop

of Durham once did. Ha! That showed that The Almighty was not

housed in man-made constructs and is not necessarily C of E.

What do you mean? Dru asked.  Her aunt was referring to something

beyond her personal ken.

Just that God is no respecter of persons and does not dwell in buildings

made of stone.  I remember how we all marvelled at the cathedral being

struck by a coup de foudre after Bishop Jenkins’ trendy pronouncements.

Let’s play a game, she continued.  Who would you like to see being

struck by lightning?

No, Aunt.  That is not a very Christian idea- especially at this time

of year.  (Dru was shocked that certain colleagues came

immediately to mind.)

Oh, you young people have no sense of fun.

She flicked a few more pages, slightly in a huff.  Then she brightened

considerably.

Can’t I  propose people who exhibit portraits of their debutante

daughters while slipping in an advertisement for their own atelier

businesses in Mayfair?

No.  Have a Bridge Mint.

Augusta took two.  She didn’t offer one to Dru, or to the doddery

cling-on.

I see poultry prefer Beethoven to Beyonce, she mused.  She felt

she was on safer ground.  Not a terrain that usually attracted

her footfall.  However, the noumenal realm was still in her mental

grasp and she liked to show her powers of acuity. It’s a bit like

Bentham saying poetry is no better than push-pin, she pronounced.

Or was it Pushkin?  I can’t recall. Ceteris paribus, I don’t see any

reason to prefer one over the other.

She read a little more of the article….

There’s something called ‘Top of the Flocks’ that you

can play in your chicken run.  Hens lay 6% more eggs if you play

Mozart.

They’d lay 7% if you played Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, the

doddery old man piped up as he leaned toward the open box.

Clearly he was not aurally challenged, or socially reserved.

Chirpa, corrected Aunt Augusta, moving the box of mints closer

to her sphere of jurisdiction.

Do open one of your small prezzies, Dru invited her, in a vain

attempt at distraction.

Augusta put the bottle-shaped one under her chair in a

particularly acquisitive gesture.  She looked at the label

on another, smaller parcel.  Hmm, from Gus.  It feels

like a flower pot.  I hope it’s not one of those veg-tan

leather articles shown in here, starting at £130, she

scowled.  I’m not leaving my estate to a spendthrift!

Aunt, it’s an Amaryllis bulb from Poundland, Dru sighed.

Ah, I can see my childhood training has paid off,  Augusta

beamed, carefully rolling and conserving the ribbon and

folding the wrapping paper for another occasion.  She

set her lips in a Borgian smile when she saw the

designation: Belladonna.  Might come in useful.

At least they still allow us flowers in here. Not like in that

hospital ward where floral tributes were banned in case

patients drank water from vases on their bedside lockers.

Shocking! Who drinks water nowadays? That’s why, my dear-

she paused for maximum effect and then produced her hip

flask from somewhere under her clothing- I always have a

stand-by.  I don’t intend to let the beggars do me down through

dehydration.

I’ll come back tomorrow morning, Dru promised.  She was

worried that someone would think she had given Augusta

the hip flask.

Don’t look so anxious, her aunt responded.  We all have

them in here.  How do you think we survive on the Liverpool

Pathway to nowhere?

And Dru had to admit that it didn’t seem to do them any harm.

Quite the reverse.

 

Bingo!

Tags

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!