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.

Negative Discrimination

Tags

archangel, Catch a Falling Star, daucus carota, discrimination, Domhnach Curran, Hebrides, John Donne, Last Judgement, mandrake, mattock, medieval wall paintings, Michaelmas, root vegetable, Uist

Of course , you’ve left something out, said Carrie.

What do you mean? I replied, ordering a refill of my previous

drink.

Well, you’ve rabbited on about blackberries and Michaelmas, but you

didn’t mention Domhnach Curran, Carrot Sunday.

Are you having me on? I asked suspiciously.

No-not at all.  My Scottish granny told me all about the traditions in

the Hebrides where the wild carrots were gathered on the Sunday before

Michaelmas.

And…?

..and the carrots were brought in on the Eve of St Michael, having been dug

out of triangular holes, representing the shield of the saint, by three pronged

mattocks, making a reference to the Trinity, or in pagan times to the three

stages of womanhood.

Who brought the vegetables in- the men?

No, the lassies, who tied the bunches up with red thread.  If they found

one with a forked root, it was considered lucky.

A kind of fertility symbol?

I suppose so.  Remember the poem ‘Goe and Catch a Falling Star’ by John

Donne?  We studied it at Uny.

Oh yes: ‘get with child a mandrake root’.  I suppose root vegetables can

be rather phallic.

Yes, hmm… Anyway, there is a special carrot on Uist, the daucus carota..

Look, why am I getting into all this?  You can Google it on www.

carrotmuseum.com….The women would chant something about their progeny

being pre-eminent over every other progeny.  It reminded me of the

belligerently aspirational yummie mummies around here.

The ones who only want carrots for their kids, but no sticks?

The very ones.

  That sort would probably hope that St Michael would oversee their little

darlings being weighed in the balances and would ensure that they were not

found wanting, I laughed, remembering having seen medieval wall paintings

on a similar theme.  They’d probably start arguing with the Archangels of

Heaven and Hell, wanting favourable outcomes for their special offspring. 

They’d complain to God Himself if they didn’t get their way.

Yes, Carrie grinned, enjoying the scenario.  But the angel from Hell leaned on

the scales to tip the balance in his favour.  Negative discrimination!  That’s

why St Michael had to supervise the operation of the Last Judgement.

So, cheats never win! I cheered. Well, maybe next year I can write a poem

about all that.  By the way, I like the look of that cake you just had.  What

was it?

Carrot, said Carrie.  I hope it doesn’t promote fertility.

No.  In that case, I’ll have the courgette and lime slice. 

Old Michaelmas Day 2

Tags

Banda machine, blackberrying, Dabitoff, Dunsinane, Heaney, Jackson Pollock, Lady of the Lake, Lydia, Maud Gonne, methylated spirits, Michaelmas, Ophelia, Plath, Polonius, Porphyria, spirit duplicator, spirit master, Stain Devils, Vanish, Yeats

Okay, okay, so I went out and did it!

I can see that, Carrie remarked, looking down at my nails with a

disapproving glance. You’ll need to make an appointment with

‘Beauty and The Beast’ to sort you out with acrylic falsies.

Not me.  I’ll just cut them down and file them.  I’m a hands-on kind of

girl and couldn’t bear to have lily white fronds for hands like a Lady of the

Lake, or a drowned Ophelia.  I used to have digits like this when I started

teaching, back in the days of the spirit reproductive Banda

machine!  Oh, the smell of methylated spirits!  It gives me quite a

Proustian flashback to the classrooms of the Seventies.  So poetic too-

spirit duplicators, or spirit masters.  Sounds like the muse of Yeats or

some such bard.

Yeah, agreed Carrie.  And if he’d copied his lines for Maud Gonne:

‘Tread softly for you tread on my dreams’ and left them out in the

sun, then posterity would never have had them.

How’s that? I asked, not normally so obtuse.

Because the ultraviolet light used to fade anything produced in that

antiquated way, so the aniline dye of the reproduced type would have

been ‘mauve gone’.

Very funny, I muttered.  I don’t like her taking over my comic role.

Anyway, you got in before the Devilish deadline, said Carrie, referring

to our prior conversation (see previous post).

I did.  All are safely stowed, like Polonius behind the arras.  Well,

at any rate, they are in the freezer.

Ah, you are an inspiration to us all, Candia.  And no doubt..

Yes, I did write a poem about it, I interrupted her.  Here!

And I flicked a Jackson Pollock-stained sheet of A4 across the table,

but its patterns were fruit juice thumbprints and nothing more

sinister.

Carrie read it silently while I sipped my well-deserved coffee.

Blackberrying

I’ve been told: poetry isn’t worth it

and neither is gathering blackberries.

It’s impossible to preserve Autumn,

or capture experience in a poem.

Yet I find one or two juicy morsels,

simmering away on my mental back burners.

Lately I have looked madder and madder.

Wood pigeons witter away suddenly.

I destroy a few spider artefacts,

thumb and finger poised; then quite dizzy,

I step back and squelch in a rabbit corpse.

Maybe it isn’t worth it after all.

Blood-red clots trail from the tail of my car,

to my front door and the hall becomes

a purple passage. My bag sags with gore.

Have I perpetrated a massacre?

I look as guilty as a chamberlain

in a castle, somewhere near Dunsinane,

with my clothing liberally spattered

by inedible, indelible stains.

Fierce scratches indicate a struggle.  Heave!

I’ll shove this in the freezer and then think

what I’ll do with it.  I survey my hands.

All the perfumes of an airport will not..

What? Will all the multitudinous seas

incarnadine et cetera? They won’t.

I regret time spent on all this fieldwork-

to produce the definitive poem

on blackberrying.  Heaney, Plath did it.

I’ve spat out phrases not pithy enough;

I cannot find a rhyme to match ‘maggot’

in a poem that isn’t about sex,

or the nostalgia of a butcher’s shop.

Gather ye brambles while ye may– that’s good,

but I could murder a cup of coffee.

Reviewers, like thorns, will rip me to shreds.

If pricked, I will bleed- through my gabardine.

Yet greed makes me garner all the pickings.

Lack of appreciation will sting me,

like all the nettles I had to wade through.

I’ve spent a King’s ransom on Vanish and

Dabitoff and Stain Devils; also on

opaque nail varnish, so I won’t have hands

like Lydia, that seller of purple,

or a sufferer of Porphyria.

My cuticles will not be underlined.

My children will rise up and call me sad,

for wearing magenta, indigo and

violet, when heliotrope is out.

Trying to sum up Mother Nature’s not

all it’s cracked up to be, like rotten cobs.

Ideas should be on a rolling boil,

if they are to come to a setting point.

Maybe then hues will glow through verse’s glass,

well-labelled, stored in the mind’s dark pantry

until they are taken out and savoured

on the raw, grey days of freezing winter.

Old Michaelmas Day 1

Tags

acorns, Blackberry, brambles, cornucopia, divination, foraging, gambling, goose, Guinness Book of Records, Michaelmas, Premium Bond, Satan, sin of commission, sin of omission, sloe gin, St Michael, William Hill

Let’s go for a walk and get some blackberries, l suggested to Carrie.

With all her kids to feed, she should be able to freeze quite a few

fruit crumbles, what with the glut of apples too.

Okay.  We’d better get them in before the 10th or 11th,

I suppose.

Why then?

Oh, because you must pick blackberries by Old Michaelmas Day,

which is either on the 10th or on the 11th- there is some dispute about

it.

What happens if you break the rule?  I asked, always the maverick.

Something apocalyptic, since Satan was apparently banished from

Heaven on that day and he fell to Earth and landed in a blackberry

bush. 

He cursed the brambles and either spat on them, or in a Yorkshire

version, urinated on them.

Gross. I expect you would wash them, anyway.

We could always look for acorns, or haycorns as my children

always call them.

What can we make with these?  I looked sceptical.

No, we could lay a bet on a white Christmas and might do better than

the lottery, she elaborated.  If there are a lot of hay..ay-

Bless you! I thought she was about to sneeze..

acorns, there will be snow in December, she elucidated.

I never get lucky that way, I sighed.  Mind you, I don’t buy lottery

tickets. When I was a child, gambling was seen to be as cursed by

the devil

as..

Blackberries, she laughed.  But you are still prepared to eat those. 

Anyway, you’ve got to be in it to win it.

(Sometimes Carrie speaks in the most appalling cliches.)

Mmm...I mused.  It was tempting, but we know where temptation

springs from.  Curiously, I have a different take on Premium Bonds, but

then mine never come up, so the sin is never actualised.   Is that a sin of

commission, or omission?   Either way, will I get away with it? I thought

Michaelmas was last Sunday, though?  I changed the subject- always a good

diversionary technique if something was challenging me ethically.

Oh, that was The Feast of St Michael and All Angels.  Didn’t you have goose

for dinner?  It’s so traditional?  We had one, but they cost a fortune now.

Rats!

What? I enquired. Was there another anecdote about folklore and rodents?

I’ve just realised that I forgot to check the colour of the breastbones.

As...?

‘Cos if they are brown, then we will have a mild winter and if they are white

or bluish white, we can anticipate a severe one.

I have never spent time examining the bones of my Sunday dinner that

closely.  Maybe William Hill had to – that is, if there ever

was a William Hill.  I could imagine him taking his wife to task for throwing

the giblets and carcase into the stock pot before he had done his domestic

divination and calculated the odds.

Was there a real William Hill? I asked aloud.

Why are you asking me that?  she looked confused and exasperated.  Do

you mean the bookmaker?

Yes.

Well, I think he operated in Yorkshire..

Where the devil was once supposed to have…

Don’t say it, she cautioned.  He was the guy who called legal betting

offices a cancer on society.

A case of the stockpot calling the kettle..

Look, we’d better get going, before the rain arrives and spoils our spoils, as it

were, Carrie interrupted my mercenary meditation on how I could sin and

avoid the consequences.  A world-first in the Guinness Book of Records,

probably, in spite of what Satan whispers.

Okay.  Do you want a plastic bag? I rummaged in my wicker basket.

She looked at me as if I was sporting horns and carried a trident.

I don’t tend to use them any more.  Carrie can be so sanctimonious

sometimes.  She just likes to save five pence.

Well, just this once, see it as a supermarket- sponsored receptacle for

nature’s cornucopia, saved from the devil’s contamination.

Well, if you put it like that, she said.  Let’s go a-foraging!

I’ll see if I can find some sloes for Ginevra’s gin, I remarked.

Drink of the devil, Carrie added.  Anyway, come on!