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.

 

 

 

 

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Tags

Bourbon biscuit, Caracas, cri de coeur, Cumbernauld, De Sousa, Elastoplast, Gregory's Girl, Ipostel, lime tea, madeleine, Philately, seamed stockings, Telegraph, wyvern

Virginia Fisher-Giles, The School Secretary and PA to Acting Head,

Augustus Snodbury, was reluctant to sign for the rather shabby parcel.

It was postmarked ‘Caracas‘ and she didn’t recognise the name on the

sender label: Hugo De Sousa.  There was an Ipostel label still hanging onto

it.  Clearly addressed to Mr Augustus Snodbury, St Birinus School, Suttonford

etc., she decided that she had better take it in and check the list of new

boys’ guardians.

The postman said that he had rattled it and smelt it and it seemed all right.

Nevertheless, Virginia had read, only the previous week, about a nineteen year

old diplomat’s son in South London, who had innocently and altruistically signed

for a neighbour’s parcel, and who had ended up being arrested and his parents’

home and garden being turned over for several days by police in bio-hazard

suits, before being issued an apology.

The Head, who was on sick leave, never received odd mail such as this.  She

wondered what on earth Snodbury was up to.  Unless, of course, it was some

kind of jape organised by that pest, John Boothroyd-Smythe.  He had once

offered her a nut from his cylindrical tin and when she removed the lid, a cloth

snake on a spring had leapt out at her and had given her the shock of her life.

As for ‘Caracas’..wasn’t that the ultimate destination those two teenage idiots

had misspelled on their placard, when they were trying to hitch a

lift from rainy Cumbernauld, or wherever, to an exotic land of allegedly

compliant girls, in the opening sequence of that coming-of-age classic

Scottish film, Gregory’s Girl?

Virginia simply had to know everything that was going on in St Birinus.  After

all, she was the PA and this whole episode was too, too intriguing.

Gus had a free period and was opening his Telegraph, ready to dunk

his Bourbon biscuit into his tea, when he noticed the package in his in-tray.

His first emotion was pleasurable, as he realised that the stamps would be

educational for his lunchtime Philately Club.  But this was followed by

puzzlement.  He didn’t know anyone of the surname on the label, except for a

composer of brass music, which was not really in line with his preferences.

He held the box up to his rather hairy ear.  No, there was no ticking.  Gingerly,

he tore off a corner of the brown paper and shook the parcel over his tray.

No white powder came out.

He decided to live dangerously and ripped it open, in the way one deals

with an Elastoplast that simply has to come off.

A small box fell out onto his desk.  He opened it.  It contained a gold

signet ring with a strange crest.

Snod might as well have dipped a Madeleine into some lime tea, rather than

a Bourbon into his builders’ variety, for, all at once, the years rolled away

and he could remember things past.  The mythical winged creature depicted

a dragony-type beast with a barbed tail.

A wyvern! he exclaimed.  And he could see the hand that had worn the ring

in his infant memory.  A stab of emotion that he thought he had suppressed

for over fifty years clutched at his entrails.

There was an accompanying letter.  As he read its contents, his tea turned

cold and he forgot to eat the second Bourbon.  This, in itself, would have

enlightened any observer as to the significance of the impact he had

received.

However, there was no voyeur, except for Virginia, who, unable to contain

her curiosity, barged into the study, without the usual courtesy of a knock,

and interrupted with:

I say, Mr Snodbury, you haven’t drunk your tea!  Did you get your parcel? 

Was it anything of interest?

But Gus was sitting expressionless and scarcely seemed to hear her.

Virginia, brought up short, revised her behaviour and, apologising, merely

took the cup away, along with the first uneaten biscuit that she had ever

had to retrieve and prepare for disposal.

How very strange! And, like Mary, she pondered all these things in her heart,

as she bent down and followed the trail of rubber bands from the school foyer

to the spot where the mail van parked every day.

Really!  She was tired of picking up the detritus scattered by that buffoon

whose ridiculous semi-uniform of baseball cap and unseasonable shorts

was a disgrace to civilised society.  As for that trolley thing that he pushed,

it was completely wimpish.  How she longed for a real man that she could

respect.  But what was the chance of her meeting one in this limited scenario?

The seamed stockings that she wore were a cri-de-coeur.  If the true princess

could spot a pea, then, surely, a real prince would notice her stockings!  And,

oh, how she longed that one day he would come!

Che sera, sera

Tags

Alan Bennett, dwarf planet, Ginevra, Gregory's Girl, linguine, porcini, psi field, Sandy Island, Stone tape theory, Tiger-Lily

In the kitchen, Tiger-Lily was rummaging in a box of old photos while her mother was tossing some dried porcini into a pasta sauce.

Mum, how did you meet Dad?

Oh, it’s a long story.

Tell me anyway.  I need to know the details for my combined History and Increased Self-Awareness project.

Carissima sighed.  Well, in 1990 I was eighteen and I met your father that Autumn in Leeds, when I was looking for student accommodation.  He was my landlord.  He was working for a brewery. His father had left him some property and so he took in students.

Tiger stared hard at a coloured wedding photo which was fading.  Hah! Look at Dad’s hair.  He had a lot more then.   Hey! He was wearing a kilt!

She stared at the image. They must have married in rainy Glasgow, as mum’s bridesmaid, Aunt Victoria, was holding an umbrella over her and the bride was wearing white wellies!

Did Grandma Morag mind you going out with an older man?  He must have been only about ten years younger than she was.

Carrie’s glasses were steaming up as she stirred the linguine.  No, remember that she had known Grandma Brewer-Mead since she and Great-Grandma had worked together in Glasgow in the ice cream parlours and fish and chip shops.  Ginevra- I mean Grandma Brewer-Mead- had even looked after Grandma Morag when she was little and the shops had been busy.  They’d all kept in touch with Christmas cards and so on ever since, so dad and I meeting was a bit of a coincidence, but a happy one.  He was a known quantity, so to speak.

Che sera sera, sang Tiger. It was the only Italian that she knew, unfortunately- a bit like Gregory in the film Gregory’s Girl, who said that he knew a couple of words in Italian and, when his teacher asked him to demonstrate his knowledge, he had sheepishly said bella and eh…bella.  Maybe she could take it up as a supplementary AS?

The only thing that Grandma Pomodoro insisted on was that I should finish my degree.  We were married in 1995, in Glasgow, and then we moved to Weetwood.

That’s a funny name.

Oh, it was very close to where Alan Bennett- you know the man who wrote those monologues you have been studying in Theatre Studies- lived when he was a boy.

Our teacher said his father had owned a butcher’s shop.  Tiger was good at remembering details.

Yes, it had been close to Weetwood Lane, in Far Headingley, but we had moved to Suttonford by the time you arrived. Grandma Brewer-Mead, Ginevra, moved to be with us, as Grandpa Brewer-Mead had left her on her own.

Did he run away from her?  Tiger thought it might have been a good idea and she might have done so in his position.

No, he died in 1996, so she was lonely.  When Aunt Victoria moved to France, she only had your father.

I suppose that’s when she started drinking all that gin.

Carrie gave her daughter a warning look.

Where did you go on honeymoon, mum?

Tiger!  This sauce is going to be overcooked if you ask any more questions.  She turned the gas down to what would be described as a peep in Glasgow..

We went to Lucca, to see the village that the Pomodoros had originated from, but there was nothing left.  It was a bit like that island which was on the news- Sandy Island- it was on the map but it did not exist.

But it had existed at one time, whereas Sandy Island had never existed, corrected Tiger.  There was no getting away from it: the girl was smart.  Have you heard of Stone Tape theory, mum?  Places and objects absorb energy forces. Sonia told me all about it.  A psi field can have memories attached to it and people can pick up on the auras and if they hallucinate, they might think they have seen a ghost.

Did Sonia tell you that last part?

No, I worked it out.  So, it was just like a dwarf planet?

Carrie was now draining the linguine.  A dwarf planet? What are you on about?

Oh, Cosmo says they have no atmosphere.

Right!  Go and call your father and brothers to the table, Tiger, or this meal is going to be cold.

Tiger ran into the hall.  Her project was going to be an A* for definite- especially if she scanned in the photo of her dad in a kilt.  It was going to be-like-a-ma-zing! She was sure to get a higher grade than Scheherezade Percival!  Che sera sera!