Thought For The Day

Tags

aigret, Bad Hair Day, Barbara Cartland, davenport, dawn chorus, evil eye, fallaid, Farming Today, hammer drill, Harper Beckham, insomnia, John Humphrys, Land of Nod, lemming, Lionel Blair, Lionel Blue, Mary Wollstonecraft, Monty Panesar, Monty Python, murrain, National Anthem, Prayer for the Day, Rip Van Winkle, Sailing By, sauna, Shipping Forecast, struan, terminal moraine, Thought for the Day, World Service

(Mary Wollstonecraft: Wikipaedia.)

Carrie wandered into Costamuchamoulah must-seen cafe just as I

was ordering.

What’s that you are having?  she asked.

Struan nouveau, I replied.  Do you want to share?

It rings a bell.  What’s in it?

Cranberries, bilberries and caraway seeds.  It’s traditional-from

Scotland, you know.

Oh, it’s that thing the eldest daughter used to have to bake in the

Hebrides.

I’ll have a piece myself. Hi! I’ll have what she’s having.

(The latter was addressed to the baristress, who tried not to

laugh.)

What about fallaid? Do they serve that?  Carrie followed the counter with

her eyes.

No.  That was the meal leftovers which were put into a footless stocking

and flicked over the flocks to ward off the murrain.

Murrain.. Such a pretty name.

No, Carrie.  Don’t get broody now that you have got them all off to school.

Anyway, murrain was a kind of plague.  It was an animal disease.  In fact,

etymologically, it meant death, literally.

Like terminal moraine?  We did that in geography many moons ago.

Yes, well, fallaid also helped to protect you from the evil eye.

It would come in handy when you have to run the gauntlet of collecting your

kids from the school yard, Carrie remarked.  Actually it sounds like some kind

of subjunctive of the French verb falloir.  You remember: il faut etcetera?

Actually, I can’t think very clearly at all just now, I sighed.

What’s wrong?

Well, I am not sleeping.  Once I waken at about four, that’s it.

Do you get up?

I used to listen to The World Service and half doze off, but now they have this

really annoying clattery jingle thing before the news items.  It is so

raucous and repetitive.  It gets into your brain like a hammer drill.  I don’t

get back to sleep sometimes until Farming Today.

They should realise that nocturnal listeners are just wanting to have a gentle

white noise to lull them back into the Land of Nod, agreed Carrie.  Do you get

off to sleep all right when you retire?

Oh, The Shipping Forecast is brilliant for that.  I don’t like Sailing By and

 The National Anthem is a bit military, but you kind of respect that and it gives

you a Pavlovian emotional closure, I dare say.

You should write in and complain about the awful racket.

Well, I like Thought for the Day and Prayer for the Day and somehow, when

you wake up to John Humphrys, you feel soothed, even as you fall off a fiscal

cliff along with all the other lemmings.

I bet his wife doesn’t feel like that, retorted Carrie.

What? Like a lemming? She doesn’t have to see him first thing in the

morning, so it probably saves their marriage.  He looks like the antithesis of

Rip Van Winkle- ie/ as if he hasn’t slept for seventy odd years.

Thought for the Day represents people from all the different religions,

doesn’t it? Carrie said.

Oh yes.  (I am beginning to sound like that Churchill dog)  They had Lionel

Blue, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs too, I confirmed.

Hmm, I used to like Sikhs until that Monty Python guy, the cricketer,

urinated inappropriately.  I think he was a bad role model, though I think

those turbans would be brilliant for a Bad Hair Day.

Panesar. Don’t overgeneralise, I cautioned her.  We have had Black Swan

conversations before.  Anyway, I agree that the turbans might have their

uses.

Yes, agreed Carrie.  They’re very now.  Celebrities put them on their babies.

I bet Harper Beckham has quite a few to choose from.

I don’t think they’d suit me, I reflected.  Too Alexander Pope-cum-Mary

Wollstonecraft.

But you remind me of her, Carrie said.  Actually, turbans were very

Barbara Cartland too.

Well, I am not about to attend an Assembly Room any time soon,

complete with nodding aigret feather, swaying to the beat of a

chamber orchestra.

You, or the feather?

Oh, shut up!

So, what have you got against turbans?  I thought you could wear one and

cultivate that dreamy, faraway look, sitting poised with a quill in your hand,

composing a proto-feminist treatise at your davenport.

Well, it’s not my headgear of choice, ever since I came across an old dear in a

Leeds sauna, saving on her central heating and sweating it out, stark naked

except for her turban.  She actually accused me of sitting on her heart pills.

It was probably a shower cap, anyway.

And were you?  You know, sitting on them? Carrie enquired, a tad

aggressively, I thought.

No!  I’d have felt them under my folded towel, surely?

Depends.  If you were a princess, or not.  Also if you were less pneumatic

than you are now.

How very dare you! I swatted her with a Suttonford Weekly.

Anyway, Carrie laughed, surely the World Service is preferable to your

husband’s snoring.

Just give me the dawn chorus, I agreed.

But not too many aigrets, Carrie quipped.

Precisely.  I haven’t heard Rabbi Lionel Blair for a while, come to think of it.

Blue, corrected Carrie.

I can’t think straight.  It’s my insomnia, I yawned.

Head of Cosmic Intelligence

Tags

Alex Salmond, Bake-Off!, Billy Connolly, boutique gin, DeborahMeaden, fallaid, Ginevra, James Bond, Michaelmas, quern, reeve, Sean Connery, sloe, South Sea Island cotton, spaewife, struan

Carrie dropped in on her mother-in-law, the gin-swigging nonagenarian,

Ginevra Brewer-Mead.

So, what is my son up to at the moment?

Your son, Gyles?

Is that his name?  Ah, yes, him.

He’s filling out some tax forms.  He said he feels like a reeve.

Reeves used to have to do the accounts before Michaelmas Day

and, if there was a shortfall, they had to make it up from their own

resources.

I expect no one wanted that job, pronounced the sharp old lady.

I didn’t want this job, muttered Magda.

Candia sent you some sloes, for your boutique gin, said Carrie,

handing a bag to Magda, Ginevra’s Eastern European carer, along

with a pot of Michaelmas daisies.

How you do? said Magda.

I think we’ve met, Magda, Carrie replied, puzzled.  She thought the

girl’s English had improved recently, but..

No.  How you make?

Ah- thirds.  One third gin, one third sugar, one third sloes.

You’re supposed to wait until the first frost before you pick them,

complained Ginevra.

Oh, I didn’t know that, Carrie sighed.

Weel, ye ken noo, as the Scots Worthy famously said.  Sit ye doon,

commanded the old curmudgeon, patting the sofa beside her.

Carrie connected with something hard and cold which had been secreted

under a cushion.

Candia and I were discussing folklore to do with St Michael, Carrie began

as a conversational opener.  I used to think that he was the patron saint of

underwear, as his label was on the back of my vest and South Sea Island

cotton knickers when I was at school.

Ach no.  He’s the Head of Cosmic Intelligence, stated Ginevra.  A kind of

angelic James Bond.  The Real One. Sean Connolly.

Sean Connery; Billy Connolly.

Aye, well don’t get me started on him.  He needed a good haircut.

I bet you don’t know some of the Scottish versions of the folktales, Ginevra

cackled, like an old spaewife.  Your grandmother- Jean Waddell, as she was

before she married into the Pomodoro family, could reel all the old tales off,

nae bother, as she used to say.  God rest her soul!

She shifted the tartan blanket over her knees and tried to conceal the

aluminium hip flask under it.

Is that a new tartan? Carrie asked.

Trust you to notice.  Magda got it for me on that Internet thing. It’s ‘Made in

China’ actually.  It’s the same tartan as that fishy guy, Alex Salmon, ordered

at the taxpayers’ expense when he forgot his trews, or breeks, as your granny

would have called them, for some function over there.  He had them made

up.

Like his policies, Carrie thought, but did not continue the metaphor, rich

though the ore of satire might have been.

Magda came in with a wee cuppa, as she had learned to call refreshments

other than the alcoholic ones.

Your grandmother was a dab hand at making the struan, Ginevra continued,

her eyes searching for shortbread.

Struan- what was that? Carrie was intrigued.

It was a cake which had to be ground in a quern-

Quern? asked Magda.

I’ll tell you later-in three equal parts-of bere, oats and rye.  The eldest

daughter had to make it and woe betide her if it broke in the baking.

Quite a responsibility then? sympathised Carrie.

More than in yon Bake-Off rubbish, said Ginevra.  This could be Life and

Death.

Changing the subject and getting back to reeves, directed Carrie, did you watch

Strictly?

How does that link to reeves?

Well, I was thinking of financial wizards and wondered if you liked Deborah

Meaden?

Not as much as Robbie, her partner, Ginevra pronounced.  I suppose he’s like

St Michael.  He’s taming the old Dragon!

And yet again, Carrie was impressed at the old biddy’s mental acuity.

Have you seen my winter fuel allowance? Ginevra asked.

She means this, said Magda, holding the hip flask out of reach.

It isn’t winter yet, said Carrie firmly.

But the nights are drawing in, protested Ginevra.

I’d better be off, Carrie said decidedly.  I’m meeting Candia in

Costamuchamoulah, for a coffee quite soon.

Cheerio! Ginevra trilled, quite happy as Magda had handed over the flask.

I’ll tell you all about fallaid next time.

I can’t wait, replied Carrie, exiting right, but thankfully not pursued by a

bear.