Exo-and Endo-skeletons

Tags

chrysalis, endoskeleton, exoskeleton, Goop, Gwynnie, Ouspensky, Parent Teacher Association, poodle moth, seamed nylon, stiletto

Gwynnie’s gurus explained the differences between exoskeletons

(Poodle Moths etc) and endoskeletons.

Virginia, the School Secretary was fascinated.  Insects, it appeared, had

their skeletons on the outside.  They would never change; they were

inflexible and at the mercy of their environments.  Was this a metaphor

for Augustus Snodbury?

She read on.  Someone called P.Ouspensky seemed to have said that

insects were Nature’s failed attempt to evolve higher forms of

consciousness.  Virginia could think of one or two males who fitted this

observation.  Was ‘P’ a woman with a hidden agenda?

However, she had to admit that, at least, Snod wasn’t spineless.  Should

the rest of the staff find themselves under the steel-tipped heel of a

stiletto, they’d be ground down.  But not Gus.  Not even if the shapely calf

above the said point of balance was encased in a seamed nylon.

Exoskeletons calcify and tend to rigidity, she read further. (Hmm..that did

sound more like Gus.) But vertebrates…

That’s me! she nodded.

..have a skeleton on the inside, lending itself to flexibility and adaptability.The

downside to this is a certain vulnerability and sensitivity to hurt.

Am I hurt? she questioned herself.  Maybe a little.

What was that about scars from the past? Regrets, she’d had a few,

but then again..No, stop!  She’d always hated that song.

The guru went on in a series of metaphors about the need to construct

an inner cathedral and said it was important to surrender one’s attack

modes.  Then one’s nurturing mode could rise to the surface.

Virginia appreciated the cathedral reference, but there was no way..!

Actually, maybe she could feel a tendernesss begin to seep through.

Suddenly she began to experience a warm, maternal glow.

The gossip was that Snod had been placed, well, dumped in St Birinus

Prep Schoolwhen the ink on his birth certificate had scarcely been blotted.

His mother had run off.  Poor little lamb, she whispered aloud.

Perhaps she could make it her life’s work to help him to achieve his

equilibrium and he might emerge from the chrysalis of his past destructive

relationships? That Fotheringay woman who partnered him at The Parent/

Teachers’ Association had looked positively entomological. Dragonfly, she’d

have called her.

According to the Gospel of Goop, if he could slough off his old skin then he

would be enabled to call in someone- herself?– who would reflect his new

world.  If she decided to remain in post, in the school family, and, goodness

knew her receding pension seemed to suggest that it was the only modus

operandi, then she might, in time, be able to persuade Snod to view her as

his teacher, or midwife, in an initiation into the Academy of Love.

 

Conscious Uncoupling

Tags

a posteriori, Coldplay, conscious uncoupling, Dr Habib Sadeghi, Dr Shahizad Sami, Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lent, Love and Weight Loss, New Age, poodle moth

We haven’t had conscious coupling for some time, sighed Carrie.  Gyles

is so busy.  And I don’t want to know about teenagers’ unconscious coupling

either.  She sipped at her latte.

She was reading The Mail Online from her tablet in Costamuchamoulah must-

seen cafe where there is a WiFi connection.

I am always warning her that her bank details might be exposed in using

public sites for her iPad obsession, but she is reckless.

So this latest Paltrow phrase is a trendy euphemism for divorce? I queried.

Maybe their foreplay was all Coldplay.  I was proud of knowing the name of

Gwynnie’s ex’s band, for some reason.

It’s a load of Goop, Carrie replied.

Goop?

Oh, some site where Gwynnie’s gurus post New Age Lifestyle Advice.  In

relationships, people apparently play teacher and pupil.

Sounds a bit kinky, I commented.  You’d have thought it might have spiced

up their marriage.  Maybe she should have bought a gymnslip.  Or is that

non-PC nowadays?

Carrie scrolled down.  Every irritation and row is a trigger which flags up a

need to examine one’s psyche to locate negativity that requires healing.

Who are these people? I asked.

Dr Habib Sadeghi and his spouse, Dr Shahizad Sami.  They state that humans

are not wired to be with one person for decades.

I could have told them that, I said, munching on an almond croissant.  But

better the devil you know and all that..

**********************************************************

Virginia Fisher-Giles was reading The Mail in her brief break.  She recognised

this ‘Goop‘ argument a posteriori– to wit, that people in relationships begin to

smell less fragrant to each other after a while and the emotional protection of

the equivalent of a vinaigrette in plaguish times becomes a vital vade mecum.

What is all this about relationships between the sexes being like that

of a teacher and pupil? she pondered, while taking a tray into the study of

Augustus Snodbury (Acting Head).  She had only put a single biscuit on

his plate, as this 50% reduction was supposed to be Snod’s self-denial

for Lent.  No doubt there would be a Bourbon Restoration later in the year,

as there had been in 1814.

Please don’t put that on top of these reports, snapped Snod.

She slipped out silently.  Actually, one Bourbon down was a strategy for

weight control, she thought, and it was in line with Dr Sadeghi’s Within:

A Spiritual Awakening to Love and Weight Loss, mentioned, or promoted in

the article.  All you had to do was release your weight.  She wondered

where it all ended up.  Maybe injected into some media type’s butt.

But this newly-displayed moodiness meant that her honeymoon period of

infatuation had run its course. Something had all too short a day, she thought,

and it wasn’t summer.  She was experiencing a seven year itch and she had

not even married him, let alone been out for a date.  So much for teacher/

pupil relationships.  She could teach the old boy a thing or two.

A boomerang of a thought hit her with some force, provoking a suppressed

notion about males to emerge, blinking into the light.  She suddenly saw that

she was acting out a role that she had outgrown.  She was going to crush

any sense of personal injury.

She returned to the report.  It said that any ‘peeve‘-curiously colloquial, but

then it was reported in The Mail, was only evidence of an older emotional scar,

and she knew what that was all about, but she wasn’t about to open up old

wounds.

It was just as well that she had presence of mind and skills that were so

essential for a School Secretary.  They were evidence of her spiritual

evolution, naturally.

Suddenly the image of that squashed Venezuelan poodle moth came to mind.

It was an entomological symbol of the insignificance of her boss and his

retarded development, surely?

The bell rang.  She had to get on with sorting out parental envelopes, but at

lunch break she would read the rest of the article about insects and human

emotional development, according to Goop.

The Missing Years

Tags

Bourbon biscuit, David Dickinson, El Sistema, GovUk, Gustavo Dudamel, Lent, Los Angeles Philharmonic, marimba, poodle moth, Sexagesima, Shostakovich, St Birinus, wyvern

The school chaplain was banging on about Lent in Assembly.

What are YOU prepared to give up for Lent? he had asked the

congregation.

Augustus Snodbury looked at his school calendar surreptitiously.

Last Sunday had been Sexagesima.  Well, there was no issue in

abstemiousness in that line, as he had not had relations with a

woman for thirty years or so.

Maybe he could cut down his Bourbon biscuit intake.  Yes, he would

tell the School Secretary to bring a single biscuit at elevenses for the

next forty odd days.  That was a 50% reduction.  Time off for good

behaviour in Purgatory?  No, that was the opposition’s belief, surely?

His mind wandered to his ‘to do’ list.  It was more than a week since

he had received the Wyvern signet ring from his step-brother in

Venezuela.  He ought to reply and thank him.

After the boys had filed out, he sat at his desk and began to draft a

letter.

St Birinus Middle School,

Suttonford etc

27th Feb., 2014.

My Dear Hugo,

I am writing to confirm receipt of the signet ring on our mother’s instructions.

I realise that finding the cost of its postage must have been challenging for

you at this time of rampant inflation in your country.

I enclose a photograph of your niece, Drusilla, and myself, standing outside

Wyvern Mote.  The lady in the wheelchair is your Aunt Augusta- Berenice’s

sister.

Augusta oversaw my education when our mother- he was going to write

‘scarpered‘, but Tippex-ed it out and replaced it with ‘left for warmer climes.’

The news did not come as too severe a blow to Augusta, as she had

believed her sister had been disappeared years previously.  We did not go

into too many details anyway, as the old dear is now in her dotage.

Wyvern yielded some of its secrets on our visit.  Drusilla spotted a photograph

of the tutor in an old schoolroom and his facial features betray my origin.  Not

yours, of course, dear boy.  Perhaps you have inherited Berenice’s genes in

the appearance department.  In that case, you may resemble Aunt Augusta,

who is said to be her ‘dead spit‘, as some would crudely put it.  Judge for

yourself.

Perhaps you would find it in your power to send us a photo of yourself-

possibly in revolutionary garb, manning barricades or indulging in some

such activity.  That is, unless your post is censored.

Dear old St Birinus must have been watching over us, as my mother

remembering the name of the school led to our successful contact.  An odd

thought came to me in Assembly.  Apparently Birinus could also be spelled

‘Bernius’.  Was our mother given the saint’s nomenclature by a dyslexic

registrar?  What connection did her parents have to the school, or to the

saint?  Our grandmother was Augusta too, if I recall correctly and our

grandfather was a rug merchant, and probably a rogue trader too, by all

accounts, from somewhere in the Bosphorous.  I saw a photo of him once

and he bore a striking resemblance to David Dickinson, that antiques

chappie.

I would love to come and visit you, dear brother, but GovUK advises against

it at present. The site informs me that you have been experiencing heavy rain

and road conditions are poor.  We have a similar situation in Surrey,

Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset.

No doubt your passport has been suspended.  We are concerned

when we read of famous beauty queens and boxing champions being

killed.

Our peripatetic marimba teacher commented that El Sistema, the universally

famous Music Education programme should speak out about your political

situation.  He is disappointed that Gustavo Dudamel, Music Director of the

Los Angeles Philharmonic, has not taken a stand.  But he cannot embed

secret messages in his music, as Shostakovich did, as he is only a conductor

and not a composer, as I tried to point out.

Thank you also for the inadvertent gift of a poodle moth which somehow got

into the packaging of your communication.  The Biology teacher was thrilled.

He posed me a riddle: What is fuzzy, adorable and terrifying all at the same

time?

(He had read this sub-title in one of our staffroom magazines: The Week, as it

happens. Not a publication with which you may be familiar, but no matter…)

I don’t like riddles in general, but I immediately replied, John Boothroyd-

Smythe.

He is a bete-noire of mine.  The correct response should have been Poodle

Moth, naturally.

Take care, little brother.  One day we shall meet and discuss the missing

years.

May St Birinus protect you.

(He scribbled ‘Gus‘) and then signed off with a flourish:

Augustus Snodbury (Acting Head)

Then he crossed out the parenthesis and sealed the personal letter in

a school envelope. The School Secretary could work out the international

postage and use the office franking machine.  There was no fraud involved.

He was, after all, saving the school catering budget a fortune on biscuits for

the foreseeable future.  Or so he rationalised.