Reductio ad Absurdam

Tags

Alan Titchmarsh, Alice Cooper, Baal, Babylon, Belshazzar's Feast, blobfish, Brutal Assault Tour, Bryn Terfel, C S Lewis, cosmic laugh, Cumberbatch, Donald Duck, Eurovision Song Contest, Fanny Craddock, farmor, Harry Enfield, Hatefest, James May, Kathy Burke, L'Inviti, Leipzig, Lindt cafe, Lordi, Mammon, Marduk, Meat Loaf, Mick Jagger, mormor, Nykoping, Ozzie Osborne, Pandemonium, Paradise Lost, psychrolutes micropons, reductio ad absurdam, St Augustine, Sydney Kingsford Smith, The Inferno, Transformer, Ugg slippers, Uriel, Walton

Candia Dixon-Stuart was about to encounter Sydney Kingsford Smith.

Sounds romantic, eh?

Actually, all it meant was that I was about to touch down at the New

South Wales airport.

I’d just finished reading the Weekend supplement of an Aussie

newspaper, with its very interesting article on blobfish, when the

seat belt sign was turned off and I thought I saw one of those

psychrolutes micropons thingies trying to retrieve its amorphous

cabin luggage from the overhead locker, having a guttural exchange

with the stewardess.

At first it seemed to morph into a member of that Finnish group,

LORDI, who won The Eurovision Song Contest in 2006, but then

I listened intently and discovered that it probably spoke Swedish

and had momentarily broken out of its Transformer costume.

Maybe Security wasn’t having any of it and Passport Control had

asked it to remove its latex mask, or accept consignment to the hold.

(By the way, why do all those intent on ‘shocking’ their fellows have to

resort to blasphemy and childish usurpation of religious names and

terms?  I mean, one such band member is called Amen. Get your

own language, losers.)

Anyway, I was given a death-stare and didn’t see him again until Baggage

Claim, when I tried to discern his group’s name from his promotional t-

shirt.  Marduk.

Sounds like a kid’s cartoon character.  Love-a-duck!  Donald Duck?!

Later I Googled their current tour. So, they are a Satanic band with ‘Evil

be thou my good’ no doubt their watchword.  Yawn!

His promotional photo showed something streaming down his head as

if a seagull had perched on a municipal statue.  Or was it a merde-duck?

The thing about these ageing rockers is that they seem to be frozen

in some kind of time warp.  Ozzie Osborne and Mick Jagger are

Establishment now.  Why keep flogging a dead horse?

Alice Cooper was aeons ago.  Meat Loaf is probably past his

sell-by date. Sounds like a recipe by Fanny Craddock. Things

move on.

Even James May has had a tidy up.

And it really is poor taste to be claiming affiliation with evil when the

real stuff is being enacted all round the globe, or had been enacted in

the Lindt cafe, not so far away from the airport.  It’s not about

banging your head like a toddler having a tantrum in its cot.

Of course, it could all be an act.  Probably my subject is capable of being

as polite as the Harry Enfield character Kevin’s chum, played by Kathy

Burke, when speaking to someone else’s mother.  Life is a stage and we

all play different parts, don’t we?

Maybe the scowling rockster went on to buy his aged granny, Inge Soda-

Stream, a nice souvenir pair of Ugg slippers- often reduced, I noticed in

Sydney shops. The devil allegedly likes a bargain, so his spawn would

hardly be averse to one.  He probably made plenty Mammon at the

Melbourne gig beforehand.

I expect he did probably send his  mormor/ farmor a nice postcard of the

harbour so she could put it up on the mantelpiece of her Nykoping

nursing home and tell the carers that he is such a nice boy and that he

used to relish her meatballs.  Really?  It seems so.

Evil always looks a bit sheepish to me.  Satan had to disguise himself

as a cherub to ask directions from Uriel, in Paradise Lost.  A she-devil

wouldn’t have been so reticent.

So, Marduk refers to Baal, god of Babylon.  There’s been a lot of music

created about that deity.  Think Belshazzar’s Feast and, if you listen

to it, I am sure you’ll find it a lot more sophisticated than anything this

Scandinavian -collective term for a gang of demons??- will produce.

Bryn Terfel was on the award-winning Walton CD  in which Yours Truly sang

the L’Inviti part.  I am sure he could have personally taken on all minor

demons of that particular region with a Welsh rugby tackle and could

have shown Marduk how one blast from his lungs would blow them all

off the concert stage into the pit- not necessarily The Inferno.

But, you take my point: the writing on the wall must surely come for these

guys, in spite of their Brutal Assault Tour, 2015.

The Devil steals all the best tunes and they are advertising their steel-

armored (sic) death choir, which they are going to ‘unleash‘.

Puh-lease!  Have they ever attended a cathedral choir rehearsal when

the solo snippets are being assigned?  They don’t know what malice is!

In that context, it is serious internecine warfare, which would reveal

any spite that Marduk would exhibit as kittenish.

They’re even going to perform a selection of what they call hymns

from their current album.  They could ask Alan Titchmarsh to present

them.

They’re going to have a Hatefest in Leipzig.  Surely, it’s not that bad a

venue?  Mind you, it is probably preferable to that out-dated love-in!

Sorry, guys, but I can’t take you seriously.  Good is the new sexy, in

case you hadn’t heard.  Everyone loves Cumberbatch et al.

As C S Lewis showed, Satan is a mere parody of God.  I think he

pinched that from St Augustine- and he was a reformed

hell-raiser.

When confronted with ranting devils in Pandemonium, God actually

laughed.  A cosmic laugh. And it did not reflect amusement, so much

as true power.

Laughter puts an end to debate.  So, I bite my thumb at you.

Suits You, Sir!

Tags

Celia Imrie, Cheeky Girls, Down By Salley Gardens, Duchess of Cambridge, Fast Show, George Alexander Louis, Harry Enfield, Harry Potter, Imelda Staunton, Jennifer Saunders, Kathleen Ferrier, Lembit Opik, Maggie Smith, Mark Williams, Ron Weasley, Steve Bell, Suits you, The Cheeky Girls

Brassica e-mailed me.  Candia, I really think you should approach Mark

Williams and ask him if he’d play the part of Augustus Snodbury in the

film of your Suttonford Chronicles.

Mark Williams-basketball player?  Welsh Snooker player?  I Googled him

and, oh yes, he played Ron Weasley’s father in the Harry Potter series.

He also represented the butler in Blandings and was in The Fast Show

with Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield.

Actually, I could see what she meant.  Williams was educated at Brasenose

and the role of the pedantic Gus Snodbury, Senior Master at St Birinus

Middle School, would not be a dramatic bridge too far to cross. In fact, I

discovered one of the thespian’s comments from an interview, where he

revealed: If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be a teacher. 

Apparently he had been deeply affected by his English master, in his own

early days.  And he loves the contralto, Kathleen Ferrier, whose crackling

vinyls Snod is sure to play in his grace and favour flat-a favourite being

I Know That My Redeemer Liveth and, in more poignant secular moments:

Down By The Salley Gardens.

However, I don’t think that he would consider himself as ever having

been ‘young and foolish‘- Snod, that is- not Mark Williams.  Let’s not confuse

the two.  Yet.

He loves satire, as in Steve Bell cartoons and so I reckon he would

appreciate my candour and sarcasm. Snod would definitely suit him,

sir.

Actually, Brassie might have prompted a train of thought.  I can see Celia

Imrie as myself and Maggie Smith as Ginevra, the gin drinker

extraordinaire.

Jennifer Saunders would be useful as one of the yummies and

Imelda Staunton could be the cleaner, Mrs Hatch-Warren.

Either, or both of The Cheeky Girls could be useful for the au-pairs,

Magda and Ola.  And, yes, I know that they are Romanian, but anything

of an Eastern European flavour should do, as Lembit Opik once reputedly

said.

Which reminds me- Ola, whose pregnancy followed the Duchess of

Cambridge’s, or MC, as she is now called by her own Royal family,

has now sprogged, or frogged, her firstborn with the encouragement

of her French widower, whom she met on the last occasion of

Suttonford’s twinning exchange with Bric-a-Brac (Normandy).

The conjugal jumelage has resulted in a little dauphin called

Georges Alexandre Louis and Ginevra, her erstwhile employer-

cum- patient has already wetted its little head in her usual fashion.

Brassie, you are an inspiration and I owe you a latte in

Costamuchamoulah must-seen cafe very soon!

Any suggestions for Nigel Milford-haven?