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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Tag Archives: Sassenach

Ice Bucket Challenge

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by Candia in Celebrities, Education, Family, Humour, Music, News, Politics, Religion, Romance, Social Comment, Suttonford, Writing

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barmkin, Better Together, Cunning Little Vixen, First Minister, Flower o' Scotland, Flower O'Scotland, Ice Bucket Challenge, Kelvingrove, mote and beam, Oh Scotland, Pele Tower, Purgatory, Sassenach, Scotland, Scottish Play, Snodland, snowploughing, sporran, Trident, Wee Eck, Wyvern Mote

Murgatroyd and Diana settled down in the barmkin to watch The Debate.

Murgatroyd sensed that there were many diasporan Scots- was that the

same etymological root as ‘sporran‘?- who felt somewhat aggrieved that a

Sassenach such as himself could vote on their country’s future, so he

wanted to be fully informed and astute in his response.  He had tried to

follow some of the arguments on his tablet, but found that he kept

re-playing The First Minister’s Ice Bucket Challenge instead.  He liked it

when Wee Eck said, Dae it again!  No doubt that would be his cry if the

result in September didn’t please him.

Mrs Connolly came in with a tray of salmon sandwiches.  Murgatroyd

felt ashamed that he had ever suspected her good self, or her son, of

theft.  Forced bonhomie led him to ask her how she intended to vote.

Oh, Scotland!  Scotland! she quoted.

Again, Murgatroyd was impressed by the standard of the natives’

education.

..nation miserable

with an untitled tyrant,

when shall you see your wholesome days again?

He thought that this might be from that Flower O’ Scotland song. He

hummed a few bars to show solidarity.

No, Mr Syylk!  It is your own National Bard.  The Scottish Play.

She went on:

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself.  It cannot be called our mother, but our grave;

where nothing is, but who knows nothing..

I didn’t think Alistair did too badly, Murgatroyd remarked, trying to be

impartial and failing.

If that’s the best they can do, Mr Syylk, I intend to emigrate, like past

millions.

Fare thee well!

These evils thou repeatest on thyself

have banished me from Scotland.

Yet my poor country

shall have more vices than it had before,

more suffer and more sundry ways

by him that shall succeed.

Surely not, Mrs Connolly.  Murgatroyd was at a loss to reply to such

moving rhetoric.  Maybe she should have been representing the

‘Better Together‘ campaign at Kelvingrove.

Diana just thanked her and took two generous-sized sandwiches

from the tray. Mad!  All of them.

But, it was only a few weeks since Diana would have thought a barmkin

was some kind of Scottish oatcake.  It was amazing how she had been able

to see Murgatroyd more clearly, the scales having dropped from her

over-prejudicial eyes.  What was all that about motes and beams?  Maybe

her stay in The Tibetan Centre had helped her to move on.

They were going to have a trial reconciliation. (Sonia had said that she

had seen it coming.)  She always said that.

Anyway, it seemed fortuitous that Dru had accompanied Great-Aunt

Augusta back to Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.  That

meant Nigel was able to give Sonia a lift home in the hired van.  Dru had

decided to leave her harp at the Pele Tower, so there was room for

Sonia’s luggage.  In fact there was plenty of room for a dismantled Trident,

if Alex and Co had wanted to send it down south.

Nigel’s concentration was being hampered by Sonia’s inquisition on his

relationship with Dru.  How could anyone be more intrusive than his own

mother?

Diana and Gus were already back at school, fielding disgruntled parents

and snowploughing their enquiries, to grit the path for the incoming

Headmaster.  The term stretched before them like a path through

Purgatory.

Gus was annoyed as he had been sent a postcard from Wyvern Mote,

from Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe, commenting on the wonderful concert

and praising Dru’s musicianship.  Snod knew, with that unerring classroom

intuition developed over decades, that the missive meant that Dru had

taken him there.  He had seen them, tete-a-tete, during the interval, no

doubt arranging to meet up after Dru had dropped Aunt Augusta back at

the care home.  Musicianship?!  Hah!  Cunning Little Vixen!

Gus did not approve of her having led Nigel on.  His own past

experiences returned to haunt him.  He had seen the look in

Nigel’s eyes as he sang some of the more romantic ballads. Poor

fellow!  His vocal timbre was developing, but his charisma was,

like the proverbial gas, at a peep.

Furthermore, there was an issue which now loomed larger than the

outcome of a referendum: if Dru were to strike up a liaison with

Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe and it should become permanent, then-

Heavens forfend!!-he might end up step-grandfather to that bolshie

Juniper and her odious younger sibling, the biggest bete-noire of St

Birinus’ Middle.

He would like to empty a bucket of something else over that

particular parental head.

 

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Immortal Memory

26 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by Candia in Education, Humour, Literature, Romance, Suttonford, Writing

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Auld lang Syne, caber, Clyde, Cutty Sark, First Lady, Gay Gordons, haggis, Holy Willie, Immortal Memory, John Barleycorn, Red Rose, Sassenach, Selkirk Grace, Sevres vase, soor ploom, Steinway, Strathspeys, Strip the Willow, Tam O' Shanter, tea clipper

PG 1063Burns Naysmithcrop.jpg

Aye, hullo there!  It’s Candia again, dear devotees.  I’m

just recovering from delivering The Immortal Memory speech at

the PTA Burns Supper at St Birinus’ Middle School.

And what a night it was!  Snodbury did fairly well as Master of

Ceremonies, considering he’s a Sassenach.  The School Chaplain

stuttered over The Selkirk Grace, but by then he’d already had a

wee dram.  Or two!

I sat on the top table, next to the School Secretary and Diana

Fotheringay, who seemed to be the partner of The Acting Head.  I

don’t know how she knew him. She seems to be rather an efficient

social climber.  She may have been discomfited by the secretarial

attentions directed at her beau during the evening.  However,

they were probably professionally-motivated.  (Perhaps that’s

the excuse Hollande gave to his First Lady before she took herself

off to hospital, allegedly smashing a Sevres vase or two on the way.

Sèvres Clodion vase.jpg

Anyway, Snodbury looked like a floribunda between two thorns.

One of the Junior Masters got up on his hind legs and sang A Red,

Red Rose, to continue the botanical metaphor.  He was accompanied

on the school Steinway by the choirmaster.  It was quite a poignant

rendition and the tenor seemed greatly affected until he had difficulty

with the top note and blushed at his underachievement.

Consequently the choirmaster could not help his facial expression,

which was akin to that of a disgruntled man who had just peed

on a thistle.

Frankly, he should have transposed the key for an amateur performer.

The local publicans had been grouped together on The John Barleycorn

table and members of the clergy were drumming their toasting glasses

on their Holy Willies table.  By the time they were hauled up to their

feet by Sixth Form girls who had waited on their table, to tapselteerie

some Strathspeys, they had managed to steady themselves, under

the vigilant gazes of their soor ploom wives.

I enjoyed stabbing the haggis, though I shall be sending the school

my dry cleaning bill.

Tam O’ Shanter went down well and at least everyone now knows that

Cutty Sark is more than an eighteenth century tea clipper built on The

Clyde.  The Sixth Form girls adequately demonstrated this sartorial

point in their dress code for the evening.

Cutty Sark

I observed a flash of seamed stocking in The Bluebells of Scotland.  The

School Secretary was ubiquitous and strategically placed herself next to

Snodbury for Auld Lang Syne.  It annoys me when people ignorantly add for

the sake of  to a perfectly crafted line.  Still, they don’t know any better.

Curiously, Diana Fotheringay didn’t seem too concerned.  Mind you, with

legs like that on display, I could see the attraction would wear off. I’m

referring to Snodbury’s hirsute limbs, of course.  Cabers don’t come into

it!

Poskett, the choirmaster, walked out at The Loyal Toast.  He fancies

himself as a Republican!  Or he just fancies himself, full-stop!

I saw that he had to be partnered by the songster in The Gay Gordons,

but I doubt this had any sexual significance.

Well, Rabbie, we did you proud.  The staff didn’t seem to fraternise with the

parents over much, however.  One father seemed very much out on a limb

until that rather heavily-jowled Housemistress from St Vitus’– no doubt

released on good behaviour for the evening, scooped him up to Strip the

Willow. He wasn’t a bad looking chap.  I sneaked a look at the name on his

place card- it was Maxwell, or Boothroyd-Something.  Maybe he’s responsible

for that infamous troublemaker in Castor and Pollux’s class.

The last sighting I had of the deflated songster was of him hanging around

the fringes, like a knotless thread on a tartan travelling rug.  His eyes were

fixated on the Housemistress as she whirled around the floor with Poskett,

the choirmaster.

I should think that he has no chance and no worries regarding Poskett.  Her

gaze was continually resting on that Maxwell fellow.

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Aside

Season of Mists

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Candia in Poetry, Social Comment

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Tags

Germany, Gleneagles Hotel, Golden Spurtle Award, Keats, Peebles, Porridge, Sassenach, Scotland, St Cross, To Autumn, Water Meadows, Winchester Cathedral

World Porridge Day.

You’d better get out there and sow some oats.

Was horrified to learn that The Golden Spurtle Award  for the best porridge in the world has been won by Benedict Horsburgh, an Englishman who now lives in Germany.  This was the 19th Championship and it is only the second time that it has been won by a foreigner, or Sassenach. Gleneagles’ Head Pastry Chef, Neil Mugg, was one of the judges and he should know a thing or two about that important first meal of the day, as his hotel won Breakfast of the Year Award (Large Hotel), 2012.

Benedict has graciously acknowledged that he is descended from Scottish roots- so that’s all right then!

I can trace my family back to the 1390s to the Peebles area,

he assured journalists.

Illustration of poem by John Keats by W. J. NeatbyAnd you certainly needed something warming for breakfast these last few misty mornings.  The cathedral near Suttonford felt distinctly chilly on Sunday morning and the walk through the Close reminded me of Keats and his poem: Ode to Autumn, which was inspired by his constitutional through the Close and all the way down the water meadows to St Cross.

Some years ago there was a competition to write a poem inspired by Keats and his walk and I felt the Muse nudge me into this mellow entry:

IF FOR A SEASON

Autumnal infernos blaze through the Close;

crimson creepers lick lintels like tongued flames.

Mellow masonry supports one last rose.

Choristers discover old conker games.

You can’t enjoy such salamandrine shows:

except from your grim ward, through heavy panes.

So many youths ago, Keats waxed verbose

about St. Cross, these misty college lanes.

You yearn for those, but Life has reached the sere,

the burnished leaf, and I suspect you know,

so squeeze your hand and try to transmit cheer:

your shrivelled face flushes a phoenix glow.

Portrait of romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821).

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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