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Tag Archives: sin of commission

Sin of Presumption

10 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Candia in Arts, Bible, Education, History, Humour, Literature, Nostalgia, Poetry, Relationships, Religion, Romance, Suttonford, Writing

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Tags

Alice in Wonderland, Bathsheba, Boldwood, builders' tea, David Cameron, hagiography, Lucozade, martyrology, misogyny, Neutral Tones, Proust, Prufrock, sin of commission, sin of presumption, Sods' Law, St Brigid, St Patrick, Thomas Hardy

Thomashardy restored.jpg

Fortunately Snod had a double free period before Lower Five and so

he slumped into his favourite lumpy chintz armchair and waited till

he could be sure that the rest of the staff were in Lesson One.

Virginia came in sheepishly, carrying a tray with some builders’ tea

and a plate with two Bourbon biscuits.  He was allowed two since it

was not every day that one became affianced.

He didn’t look up at first.  He felt that she had committed a sin of

presumption, or at least commission, but he wasn’t going to split

theological hairs at this point.  Taking  a sledgehammer to break

a walnut came into his mind too, but he felt that was a violent

metaphor.  Still, he probably would never have succumbed to a

more gentle persuasive technique.

Yes, he had heard of St Brigid and her relationship with St Patrick.

He simply didn’t want Virginia to activate any of the ideas that the

female saint of yore had favoured, such as giving away all her

counterpart’s worldly goods and so on.  Virginia would probably never

understand the vital importance of his oiled cricket bat, or piles

of Wisdens.  He wasn’t swayed by aspirations to a ranking in the

hagiography through denial in any shape or form, and, if he was

to wed, then it might be more appropriate to consider an entry

in a martyrology.

He looked at the cup of tea.  There was no such thing as a free drink.

He felt like Alice, in Wonderland– a novel concept.  The eponymous

heroine had been confronted with a phial which was labelled: Drink Me.

If he accepted the bone china mug and its contents, did it imply an

acceptance of the proposal?  Was he about to drain hemlock?

He risked a sip.  Aaah!  Just the way he liked it: slightly stewed.

He swirled it round his mouth in a Proustian reverie.  It wasn’t too

disagreeable, after all- the whole idea and not just the cuppa.  It

took him back to reminiscenses of past times of security, as when

Matron had brought him just such a beverage when he was in San with

measles.  She had warmed his jammies on the radiator and had

given him Lucozade.  He remembered looking at the confines of

his life through the orange cellophane, which he picked off the bottle,

and feeling that life was still an adventure, if only for Boys’ Own

readers.

Virginia tiptoed out, knowing that he needed a little space.

He gazed at the poster of Thomas Hardy alongside the English

Department noticeboard.  That wretched man had caused him a

lot of trouble over the years.  (see the original misdirected Valentine

which had ended up between the underlay and the carpet of a boarding

house-mistress’ apartment, many moons previously.)

And now he had to ask himself a typically Hardyean question:

Was he, like Boldwood, being set up by a teasing woman?  Virginia

did have some Bathsheban tendencies.  He tried to resist thinking of

her in a state of deshabillement for the moment, as it distracted him

from the thrust of his current thought processes.

Then Hardy came to the rescue.

How so? you ask, Dear Reader.

Boldwood gave him the idea.

Gus took his hymnbook from the side table and threw it into the air.

Virginia came into the room again, having given him what she

considered was sufficient time- to hang himself, some would have

added.  She carried some correspondence as justification.

What are you doing with that book? she reprimanded.  You’ll break its

spine!

Snod inwardly whispered, Open-to wed; Shut-to…

Sods’ Law: it fell open.  Or was it Snod’s Law?

Virginia picked it up and placed it in his pigeonhole.

Then she came over and took his plate and mug, spat on her

hanky  and wiped an indeterminate stain from his tie.

So, that’s settled then, she pronounced.

And he knew that it jolly well was. But a quote from Neutral

Tones,  one of Hardy’s finest, suddenly sprang to mind:

The smile on [his]mouth was the deadest thing

alive enough to have strength to die…

No, although he felt chidden of God, it couldn’t be as bad as all

that, surely?

Could it? Happy misogyny, here we come, he mused.

He had measured out his life, unlike Prufrock, in oxymorons,

rather than coffee spoons.

 

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Old Michaelmas Day 1

06 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by Candia in Humour, Nature, Religion, Social Comment, Suttonford

≈ 3 Comments

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.

Mikharkhangel.jpg

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!

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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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