The Matter of Heels and a Hat.

There’s a man I often see tripping up and down the High Street in Uttoxeter. He’s middle aged, short, crowned with a mop of grey hair, and always neatly dressed in a black suit which suggests he’s something in the funeral trade. What I find most noticeable about him, however, is that he wears shoes with a raised heel.

Raised heels on men’s shoes went out of fashion over twenty years ago, and so, given his evident sense of sartorial correctness, I wonder why he does it. I assume it’s because he wants to appear taller than he is, but that raises a question:

If I find his heels the most noticeable feature about him, I expect other people must notice them, too. So is it not likely that people will think: ‘That man is wearing raised heels. He must be even shorter than he looks.’ In which case the wearing of the heels is counter productive, isn’t it?

It’s none of my business, of course. I’m only making the post because it’s the last day of the month and I thought 40 would look better than 39. I could go on to talk about another man who is also short, but he happens to be very wide and wears a broad-brimmed Homburg hat. It gives him the appearance of being square. He’s always accompanied by an aged and rather corpulent, short haired Corgi dog, and together they look like they’ve escaped from a Pixar movie. And then there’s the woman in the coffee shop with one eye much bigger than the other, and who appears to be trying to eat the glass mug when she’s drinking her cappuccino.

But I can’t be bothered. The next hospital visit is looming and my nerves are strained.

Fullsome Signs or False Dawns?

I seem to have lost the ability to write again. It happens occasionally. I know what I want to say but the words decline to flow smoothly. All tonight’s efforts proved fruitless.

But at least the butterflies were back filling my garden today, and the House Martins were back to their old numbers filling the summer sky, and the house plants that have been ailing for a couple of years are back to growing strongly again. Meanwhile, that wonderfully inspirational section called Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations is blasting out of my headset.

Does this mean something? I never jump to conclusions.

Being Idle.

The garden is celebrating today. Rain has been falling steadily for several hours, so not only is it getting a welcome drink, it’s also being spared my probably unwelcome attention.

Being kept out of the garden is a bit of a problem to me at the moment. I’ve cleaned up all the house, I have nobody to call and there’s no prospect of anybody calling me until tomorrow, I’ve long been deficient in the matter of attention span so reading is of no interest, I have DVDs to watch but that’s uncomfortable because my eyes get sore if I focus them on one plane for any length of time, I can’t go for a walk because my leg won’t permit it, and I have no accounts work to do until somebody brings me some. I’m at a loose end, and so I think.

The priestess said something to me in her last email which gave me pause for some difficult thought. It made me realise that I’m a fraud, or at least a chameleon which amounts to the same thing. In consequence, I feel that I’m now honour bound to stop corresponding with her. Whether I will or not, I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. Losing the priestess would open up yet another hole in my life, but I’m getting used to holes so it doesn’t bother me as much as it would have done at one time.

And it occurs to me that we are all chameleons, and therefore frauds, to some extent. It seems to be part of the human condition, and it doesn’t take much of a leap in imagination to suggest that the human being is the most fraudulent creature on earth. Maybe that’s why I like animals and children. I like authenticity.

And Boris the Mouth continues to cause me consternation. The unholy alliance of Trump and Johnson appears to be setting Britain on course to become America’s poodle again, which is what Noam Chomsky forecast would happen if we left the EU.

So I decided to make a blog post. This is it. I could go on but I won’t.

There are lots of young robins around this year. They’re cute.

On Ladies, Legs and Heart Malfunctions.

I was leaning on a lamp post at the corner of the street today in case a certain little lady came by.

Actually, that isn’t true. What I was actually doing was standing on a ladder trimming the top of a tall, broad hedge with a pole hedge trimmer – in case a certain lady came by. She didn’t, of course. Certain little ladies never come by when you’re up a ladder trimming a hedge (or even leaning on a lamp post for that matter.) The prospect is but a fantasy, and who could ever accuse me of being a fantasist?

Somebody did stop her car to talk to me, though. I had to climb down the ladder to talk back. She was little, but not exactly a lady. She said:

‘I haven’t seen you walking around the lanes for a long time.’

‘I know,’ I replied with suitably wan expression. ‘My left leg won’t let me.’

‘That’s a shame,’ she continued with the merest hint of concern. ‘Walking is what you like doing.’

‘I know. I think my body is finally breaking down. I’ve smoked all my adult life and drunk far more alcohol than I’m supposed to.’

‘Oh well, at least you’re blaming yourself. That’s good.’

And then she drove away.

Several people have said ‘but walking is what you like doing’ and I always reply ‘I know’, but my leg never takes the hint.

But I suppose I should be grateful for one thing. It was when I last trimmed that hedge back in June that I had the disturbing episode which might have been a heart attack. I had no heart attack today, and who needs little ladies when you can avoid having heart attacks instead?

Being No Harry Potter.

We all ask the question, don’t we? Well, we boys do:

‘Was I the Harry Potter of my school?’

I wasn’t. I’d say I was cleverer than Harry Potter, but I didn’t have his sort of throw-caution-to-the-wind courage. My courage was always of the defensive variety – standing my ground when the Mongol horde was charging with snowballs or the fire was burning out of control in a warehouse full of butane. You know, the sort of courage which saves face and the day. When it came to the matter of courage I was much more of a Ron Weasley than a Harry Potter. As such, I was more inclined to exercise discretion most of the time.

Maybe that was where I went wrong in life, but I think there might be a more telling reason:

We had no Hermione Granger at my school. If we had, who knows…

Seems the scotch is kicking in at last, just before bed time as usual. I think it’s too warm for bed time tonight.

Childhood Then and Now.

It’s turned exceedingly warm in our little corner of north western Europe. Today was the warmest so far (note: I’m not using the term ‘hot’, as the media and weather forecasters are, because this blog gets read by people from places like Egypt and India where hot really means hot) and there were no cooling breezes to take the edge off it. When I went outside at lunchtime the breeze was startlingly warm. (In fact, it was almost startlingly hot.)

And it brought me to thinking of childhood holidays, mostly in Devon because we went there four years in succession when I was aged 10-13. According to my infallible memory, it was always warm and sunny in Devon at the end of June.

I remember snorkelling in the sea, fishing off the breakwater at Brixham, watching from cliff tops as ships passed in the Western Approaches, taking Devon cream teas of fresh scones, fresh strawberries, and lashings of clotted cream (with apologies to those who shudder at the very thought of Enid Blyton.) I remember settling on a favourite cold drink as a theme for that year’s holiday – Coca Cola one year, Cidrax the next, and something else the year after that. I remember exploring ancient ruins and marvelling at the grandeur of stately homes and Exeter Cathedral. I remember the trips around junk shops, and I remember us driving our car through fords in quaint villages where I swear the men still had string tied around their trouser legs and pieces of straw sticking out of their mouths. (And maybe they did; maybe they were that old fashioned, or maybe they were put there to attract the tourists. I wasn’t cynical enough to think of such a thing at that age.) I remember sitting at wooden tables outside characterful country pubs through balmy twilights – my stepfather with his pint of beer, my mother with her gin and tonic, and me with my glass of lemonade and packet of crisps. And then it was back to the digs for a last cup of tea and a chat with the landlady before bed. And that brings me to the following morning. That’s what I remember most about childhood holidays.

I woke up early with a joyful heart and an eagerness to start the day, whatever it might bring. I got dressed quickly and skipped off along the back lane to the newsagent’s shop to get my stepfather’s daily paper. And then it was up to the table for a full English breakfast. Could any day start better than that? There was a spring in my step and a bagful of promise in my breast.

Compare that with how I wake up these days – mostly depressed, physically weak, often dizzy, frequently anxious, and always dysfunctional. How times do change as a life turns.

And how sad it makes me feel when I hear of children being mistreated, or being in families too poor to take holidays in sunny Devon, and maybe being even too poor to have breakfast at all, let alone a full English one. (You see, times have changed in Britain. When I was a kid even the poor families took an annual holiday because being poor in those days wasn’t the same as being poor has become since we embraced the free market economy. In all ways that matter, today’s poor are poorer than they were then, and the rich are considerably richer. And the poor kids often live in areas approximating to ghettos, which we also didn’t have in Britain back then. I suppose it’s all for the best in the best of all possible post-Thatcher worlds.)

And how angry it makes me feel when I hear of children as young as 6 and 7 being exposed to needless pressures forced on them by an insensitive educational system devised by politicians with hopelessly misguided notions of need. How dare those who rule our lives, and the vicissitudes of life itself, steal childhood from the children? What sort of a crime is that?

Now I find myself wondering how a fond ramble on the joys of childhood became an acidic rant on social injustice. I’m not quite sure; it just happened. Maybe I’m suffering from heatstroke, but I still might be right.

Another Failure.

I was just listening to Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country, and fell to musing again on the nature of the Romantic – he who is forever driven to search for that which he knows does not exist, and who is condemned never to find true consummation save oblivion. It got really complicated and eventually disappeared into a dark mist as the deepest musings always do, so I gave up and listened to something simple instead.

Democracy in the Doldrums.

Britain has a new Prime Minister. His name is Boris Johnson and there are serious doubts over whether he is qualified to be the most senior figure in British politics and the leader of the country.

He’s a clown, a chancer, an egoist and incorrigible self-publicist, and the sort of man who will make claims and promises which are quite untenable in order to further his interests. He’s also an Old Etonian, an elevated and outdated background which suited the job well two hundred years ago but which hardly accords with modern times. I have referred to him on this blog as ‘the British Donald Trump’, and sections of the media have recently done the same. He even looks a bit like Donald Trump.

So how did he become Prime Minister? Let me explain for those who are not fully au fait with the British political system.

Britain does not have a President. We’re a constitutional monarchy with the Queen as effectively the non-executive head of state, which means that the Prime Minister is not elected by a ballot of the British people. A General Election determines which political party has the greatest number of seats in Parliament and that party forms the Government. The leader of that party automatically becomes Prime Minister. At the moment the Tories are in power and the job of Tory Party Leader was recently vacated by Theresa May. Somebody had to fill the position and Boris got the job.

So if the British people did not elect Boris Johnson, who did? The rank-and-file members of the Tory Party did. They form a very tiny percentage of the British electorate, and I gather they are predominately male, ageing, highly conservative in their attitudes, and wealthy. In effect, therefore, Britain has been saddled with a leader chosen mostly by a bunch of rich old men with right wing values. And Boris has expressed his support for suspending Parliament so that those elected by the people can’t stop him taking Britain out of the EU without a deal. It all promotes the sense that democracy is dead in the water here in Britain at the moment.

I thought of including a picture of Boris at the head of this post, but chose not to because I have a strong aversion to pollution.

Millie Playing Cupid.

… well, not Cupid exactly. I came across a young woman (young by my standards) in Uttoxeter today, sitting where I usually take my lunch, and Millie the pigeon was wandering around close by picking up crumbs. And so I introduced them.

‘Hello, Millie,’ said the woman. Millie was too busy crumb-picking to do the decent thing and reply.

I then spent about twenty minutes with the young(ish) woman, talking largely of matters avian, while dear Millie picked crumbs contentedly in the sunshine. Eventually I said ‘it was nice talking to you’ and she said ‘you too’ and then I left. And this is a good thing because I’ve never been able to do long term relationships. Twenty minutes is quite something by my standards. But Millie brought us together, for what it was worth. And I never asked the young(ish) woman’s name, but she didn’t look like an Abigail so it didn’t matter.

Oh, and I saw the Tea and Toast Lady in Costa Coffee again. She glanced at me and her eyes carried something approximating to interest. That was a little frightening, so I took my coffee outside and drank it there.

Beware the Itching Time.

A few days ago I got an insect bite on my arm when I was gardening. I didn’t notice it at the time and felt nothing all day, but then it started itching madly shortly after one o’clock in the morning. The following day I felt nothing again – until shortly after one o’clock in the morning. And the same thing happened on the next two successive days.

So why do insect bites only start itching after 1am? Is this something to do with the spirit of the wee small hours? And did Shakespeare commit a typo when he wrote Tis now the very witching time of night. Did he get bitten by an insect that day and intend to write Tis now the very itching time of night?

I have a theory. There is always a little alcohol in my bloodstream by one o’clock in the morning, whereas it’s very unusual for there to be alcohol in my bloodstream at any other time of day. In fact, Christmas is virtually the only time when I drink alcohol during the day, and biting insects are notable by their absence at Christmas.

I suspect the rationalists might hold their ground on this one.

Seeking the Night Garden's Secret.

‘Your garden is very beautiful,’ said Mel when she came over for a visit on Sunday. I explained that my garden looks at its best during the day when the sun shines, but it feels at its best during twilight when the polarity is switching from the yang of day to the yin of night – when the moths take over from the butterflies and bees, and the bats relieve the birds in the sky overhead.

Respect and adoration for the power of the night garden is nothing new, of course. Poets have written about it, singers have sung about it, and composers have serenaded it with beautiful music. But I still have to make my own sense of it.

It’s as though the plants are absorbing some natural energy during the day and exulting in their own rampant beauty, and then releasing it at night to wash the air with its essence. And maybe some of us are sensitive enough to feel that essence.

So am I being fanciful? It’s a question I ask myself often and I never know the answer. Maybe it’s all to do with carbon dioxide, or maybe it’s to do with something the materialistic discipline of science hasn’t quite got to grips with yet. How can I know? All I know is that it feels like magic to me.

The Question of Days.

I’m becoming a bit obsessed with days at the moment. I was sitting in the garden through this evening’s warm twilight and thought:

As long as the sun burns and the earth turns there will be days.

But to us life forms it’s a bit more urgent than that, and tonight I calculated how many days would be allotted to a person who lived to be seventy, the biblical three score years and ten. Depending on how the leap years fall, it would be about 25,566.

It sounds a lot, doesn’t it? But if you fall into the habit of thinking ‘that’s another day gone, I wonder how many I have left’ every evening at twilight, the day that’s ending seems to have been very short and 25,566 doesn’t seem so very many at all.

I think I need somebody to sit with. Or a dog. Or a length of rope.

I remember sitting in my garden one evening a few years ago, finger picking my guitar and singing Mr Tambourine Man to serenade the rabbits. Days never occurred to me back then.

An Alternative Reason to Weep.

I watched the closing ceremony and medals presentation from the World Netball Championships earlier. Everybody was smiling; everybody looked happy; the mood was one of congratulation for a job well done in showing what an international sporting event should be – a coming together of people of different colours and from different cultures in friendly competition, not a war with rules as some grizzled old football coaches would have us believe.

And then I watched an exhibition of Irish step dancing by a group of young Russian girls on YouTube. They were excellent, not quite up to Riverdance standards technically, but what little they lacked in that area (and it was only a little) they made up for with a bagful of proud attitudes and a mighty helping of Russian flare. And everything they did was in harmony with the music and each other.

So why did they both make me emotional? Could it be that I was seeing something right with the world for a change? Could it be that it further enhanced my understanding that Russia is not my enemy, Iran is not my enemy, North Korea is not my enemy? My enemies are people like Trump and Putin and Bolsonaro – people who would divide in order to rule, people who would wantonly engender hatred, division, misery and destruction in the name of personal and sectarian interest. And there are plenty more where they came from.

Maybe that was it, I don’t know. But something did.

Getting the Popular Vote.

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that I often put comments on YouTube tracks which are thoughtful, well reasoned (though I say it myself), incisive, subtly humorous, occasionally combative, and all written in my inimitable, generally flawless Brit style. And my comments rarely get even a single like. No matter; don’t care; not the point; I do it for my own amusement.

Tonight I re-visited a track I used to watch about four years ago and discovered that a comment of mine had been afforded 552 likes. I reckon that makes me quite a star in the thumbs up department, right? It does. And all I said was: That drummer is bloody brilliant.

On Mood and Sunshine.

I’ve noticed that when the sun shines, most people only seem to notice the sun. I don’t. I notice the condition of the sky giving rise to the sun. By and large there are three types:

There’s the clear blue sky with no cloud in sight, the mixed sky with mostly static blocks of white cumulus cloud resting easily among the blue, and the grubby grey sky with occasional patches of blue to give sunny periods. Each of them has a different character and produces a different response in me.

The clear blue sky is too hot, too yang, and therefore unbalanced and a little uncomfortable. The grubby grey sky often comes with a fresh breeze and usually produces sharp showers, so it can’t be trusted. The best of them is the middle one; this is the one which produces what we English regard as the perfect summer’s day.

And so my mood is not only influenced by the sunshine itself, but also by the atmospheric conditions behind it. And life is complicated.

Origins 2.

It’s only recently occurred to me how much I was drawn to water as a kid. Three of my favourite occupations were fishing, snorkelling and skimming pebbles. And even when I was much older and living on the fringe of the grey North Sea in Northumberland, I would walk into the surf every morning and put my hand in to acknowledge the spirit of the water.

I remember one occasion when I was on holiday with my parents at around age 10 or 11. I went snorkelling as usual and swam way out to sea and rounded a rocky headland, then found a sea cave and sat in it for ages just to be alone with the water. And when I got back it seemed my parents hadn’t noticed that their kid had swum out to sea and disappeared for an hour. It’s hardly surprising that I was ready to leave home by age 12, is it?

Two Visitors.

I was standing on the lane at the bottom of my garden this evening when a badger appeared from the hedge on the far side of the lane, crossed it and went into my garden. A few minutes later it came out of the garden, re-crossed the lane and went back through the hedge. A mere two minutes after that, a fox came trotting down the lane and went through the same gap in the hedge which the badger had used.

It was all most unusual, not to say intriguing, because I haven’t seen either a fox or a badger for several years anywhere in the Shire. I’ve also never seen a fox this close to the house, or a badger run into my garden. I have four theories:

1. The wildlife is coming closer because it senses a kindred spirit living here.

2. Since my leg won’t allow me to ramble the lanes and fields of the Shire at the moment, the wildlife is coming to me.

3. Today is some kind of festival in the twilit world of foxes and badgers, and the gap in the hedge opposite my garden is the way to the gathering.

4. Seeing a fox and a badger together is an omen of some sort. I never research omens these days, since the last time I did so the omen was bad and proved disturbingly prophetic.

Probably not the same badger and fox,

but you never know 

There were also two snails on the path at the side of the house, one with a brown shell and one with a white one. I've never seen a snail with a white shell before. The plot thickens.

Origins.

I looked at the clock earlier to see whether I had time for something. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘I have oodles of time.’ And then I thought: ‘I wonder who the first person was to use the word “oodles” in that way.’ It would be very interesting to find out, wouldn’t it?

But then I realised you could go much further back than that and wonder who first coined a word for the wheel. And further back still, how did the humanoid species begin to use language in the first place? Was there a time when they communicated by grunts, pointing and general hand gestures? And if so, who was the first person to come up with the concept of using a specific word to describe something? Was there a person way back in the mists of time who realised that if he or she used different kinds of grunts, they could communicate without going to the trouble of pointing and waving their hands about? Is that how it worked? Does anybody know?

And then I thought what a shame it is that the person who effectively invented literature is completely unknown and therefore uncredited.

Headwear.

I never cease to be fascinated by the fact that the thing you wear on your head – be it your hairstyle or your hat – completely changes the appearance of your face. I suppose it’s why I’m so attracted to women wearing cowls, and why Buddhist monks all look the same.

On Being Surprised.

I just watched Tom Shadyac’s filmed essay I AM and discovered that I’m more natural than the normal folks are. Science proves me right, apparently.

I learned, for example, that the heart exerts far more influence on the mind than the mind does the heart. I also learned that my mood influences everything around me, as I’ve long thought it did. And I learned that my faith in the power of one is neither misguided nor ineffective.

And there was me thinking I was weird. Instead, it turns that I’m connected but different by virtue of the fact that I stopped believing the lie quite a long time ago.

Should I say ‘Damn!’ Not this time. Being told by the experts that I’m getting it right was both refreshing and a little moving.

Retrospective Judgement.

Imagine trying to sell a movie on the basis of this image these days. I saw the DVD in a charity shop recently:

Imagine how blue the air would become with shrieks and imprecations from a more liberally minded society. And rightly so in this case, even though I think the liberal alter-Establishment is sometimes so outrageously silly that they merely attract understandable mockery and weaken a worthy cause in so doing.

There’s an old British supernatural film, now regarded as something of a classic, called The Halfway House. It’s about a group of travellers unwittingly lodged in the ghost of a hotel due to a time slip, and was made in 1944. It includes a scene in which a husband takes his wife over his knee in the bathroom and spanks her bottom. The other guests stand outside the door listening to the commotion and laughing because it was considered entirely proper in those days for a masterful husband to visit corporal punishment on his wife for any act or attitude which he deemed wrong or undesirable, especially when his outrage was supported by general societal consent.

And therein lies the point. The attitudes which people hold to what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, acceptable and unacceptable, proper and improper, are largely conditioned into them by the culture in which they live. And most people naturally accept that conditioning because society does not teach its subjects to question its mores, even though a few of us are inclined to do so and our numbers appear to be swelling. They change over time through a natural process of evolution.

So how should this inform the modern trend for bringing to book those guilty of historical misdemeanours? In some cases it’s entirely justified, but maybe not all. And so we owe it to common reason to ask whether it is right to punish somebody for an action which was widely agreed to be acceptable at the time. Is that justice or disconnected judgementalism?

The Tea and Toast Lady.

OK, so let’s talk about the Tea and Toast Lady of Uttoxeter as promised in my last post. (It wasn’t actually a promise, I know, but I suggested I might and that’s almost the same thing. And I always keep my promises. And I have nothing else to do at the moment now that I’ve reached the end of  Mel's David Mitchell’s Soapbox DVDs and I don’t start watching YouTube until midnight.)

So, there’s a man and woman who come into the coffee shop in Uttoxeter every week while I’m taking my relaxation after I’ve trudged around the charity shops and discount stores, eaten my lunch, and chatted with Millie the Pigeon. I would say they’re both probably in their mid-seventies.

He is the very model of ageing conformity in all matters of dress and bearing. If you passed him in the street I doubt you’d notice him at all, much less give him a second glance. His wife – and I assume she is his wife because their interaction has that curious quality of looking bound together but with an undercurrent of distance which characterises the long term married couple – is rather different. She’s fascinating, not least because she bears more than a passing resemblance to Dame Edith Evans in the old British sub-classic movie The Whisperers, a still from which is appended here:

 

So why is she so fascinating that I can’t stop watching her? (And I think she’s noticed since I’ve been doing it once a week for several weeks.) This won’t be easy, but here goes:

She’s a small, slightly built woman who looks as though she fidgets but actually doesn’t. Only her head fidgets. She’s constantly moving it to look at people passing the shop, people in the shop, the décor on the shop wall, the tables and chairs in the shop, the lights hanging from the ceiling of the shop, and the people who work in the shop. And when she’s had enough of that she stares at random empty spaces, no doubt seeking variation to add interest to her observations and meaning to her day. She rarely talks to her husband, nor he to her.

And let’s continue the head theme because it’s a very interesting head, at least the front of it is. Her eyes droop slightly as eyes usually do with advancing age, and yet there’s still a keen interest there which belies the impression that there’s little or no mind behind them to process the information. Her jaw recedes quite noticeably, but above it her rubbery mouth has a permanent pout. And when she opens it, the front upper incisors are seen to protrude noticeably more than their companions. So now I’m coming to the interesting part:

You might remember I mentioned the author who claimed to know which animal or animals had been the repository of a person’s soul in a previous life. Well, this woman has the body type and head movement of a fretful bird, the lips of a fish taking flies from the surface of the water, and the front teeth of a rabbit. And that’s what holds my interest – speculating on the question of which order they came in. I intend no disrespect, really I don’t, just the admission of being fascinated.

So that’s why I watch her almost constantly. I stop when she turns her stare on me because that’s a little unnerving.

And why do I call her the Tea and Toast Lady? Because every week the nondescript husband goes to the counter and returns with a tray bearing a cup of Americano for him, a pot of tea for her, and four slices of buttered toast. That’s two each. Every time.

A Soul in Stasis.

It’s a common belief in several spiritual traditions that the soul is immortal and merely inhabits a body for a short a span of time before moving onto another one. And some claim that souls begin their existence in something inorganic before moving upwards through various levels of complexity and consciousness until they arrive at the human stage. I read one author once who claimed to know that his first incarnation was as an amethyst. (This actually raises an interesting point of logic to which the answer appears to be ‘nuclear fission’, but I know nothing at all about nuclear physics so I won’t even begin to go there.) I’ve often wondered whether this explains the old Sufi saying:

God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man

And maybe it has some bearing on what I wrote instinctively to somebody in an email a couple of nights ago:

‘Of course you’ll never meet me in this life. There’s nothing to meet. I don’t exist any more.’

That’s how I feel these days, like a premature ghost hanging around in the dreaded Limbo state with only dark prospects for companions. And that’s no condition in which to meet a priestess, is it?

*  *  *

And talking of the author who claimed to have once been an amethyst, he also claimed to have a good idea as to what animal or animals somebody had been in a previous incarnation from the way they looked and behaved as a human. Maybe that should be my cue to write a post about the Tea and Toast Lady I encounter every week in Uttoxeter. Maybe I will. Soon.

Being Revealed.

I’m sorry but I really do have to post this YouTube clip again. I do, I do…

…because the more I watch it, the more I realise that every single clip says something about my proclivities, especially the last one. I swear the man who constructed it is my secret twin brother, and his purpose in so doing was to say:

‘You think my twin brother is weird? Take a look at this. This is who he is. Steer clear.’

Bob's Words.

I've been having a Bob Dylan night tonight - searching the memories and reminding myself of why he was such an influence on my life and how he came to be my only musical role model. And I remembered a well known poetry critic on British TV once denigrating Dylan's lyrics and complaining that he wasn't a real poet because he didn't write like John Keats.

How the denizens of the groove do love to howl at those who climb out to search for meaning in the  infinite space beyond the horizon. And how better I do feel about having nobody to sit with while I watch the process of life and the people who prosecute it.

And I expect the track appended below would have been perceived by the many as being un-American at the time it was released. But isn't that just the problem with the very concept of 'un-American?' Not only is it meaningless in a supposed democracy, it's also a moveable feast.

Light Over DC.

Trump’s latest attack on the four-congresswomen-of-color is quite encouraging. It’s so mind-bogglingly absurd that it suggests he’s finally losing touch with reality. We know his grip on reality has been somewhat strained for a while, but maybe this is the road of no return and the more discerning Americans will soon be able to have him committed and do the world a favour. Please carry on without undue delay. You owe us.

Trump and the Goblin Theory.

I find the current spat between Trump and the four congresswomen-of-color quite interesting. On the surface it appears to be just another of those bits of small-minded invective by which he routinely trashes America’s reputation in the world, but now I’m not so sure. We all know that Trump is an idiot, but even I didn’t think he was quite this big an idiot. So now I have a theory.

I’ve occasionally wondered how such a presumably busy man as a US President could spend so much of his precious time sitting in front of a computer twittering inanely, so maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he has an entourage of grizzled little goblins sequestered in a secret place deep below the oval office (or should that be the Oval Office? If so, apologies for any unintentional disrespect visited upon the flag or political institutions of the good old US of A – which actually isn’t so very old at all, but let’s leave that one for another time.) Or maybe they live in subterranean caverns deep beneath the mountains of West Virginia and travel to the White House along secret passageways every time the Great Thatched One calls. And maybe it’s the goblins who write the tweets.

You see, what Trump apparently said in that seemingly outrageously stupid tweet is actually quite clever. It delivers the kind of message in the kind of language that would naturally appeal to his fan base, and in so doing ingratiates him into their affections even more than he is already. It’s just that the goblin who wrote it was presumably somewhat inept (or maybe dysfunctional) by goblin standards and went a bit too far this time.

If that is the case, then the really frightening fact for Americans of sense – and even the rest of the world over which Trump claims proprietorial rights – is that Trump even has a fan base.

The Message of the Birds.

I saw a few House Martins for the first time yesterday afternoon, hunting over the garden in the sunshine. Where have they been since May? It used to be a favourite occupation of mine to sit in the garden all summer long watching a flock of 15-20 martins swooping, wheeling and riding the air currents in their quest for insects. Their grace, speed and agility used to keep me enthralled from the middle of May to the middle of September. Yesterday there were three of them; today there are four.

What I did see a couple of months ago was a single swallow hunting in the field behind the house. Swallows are more about power than grace, so watching them is just as fascinating but in a slightly different way. What was unusual was seeing only one. When they did venture this far down the lane, they used to come in small groups and mingle with the martins. To see one hunting alone on successive days was odd. And the swifts I used to see hunting high over the river valley in the distance disappeared about five years ago. I suppose it’s all due to climate change.

You know, I remember with much fondness and self-envy my youth when I was fit, supple and strong; when I could wrestle bigger men than me to the ground on a rugby pitch, when I could walk thirty miles a day in hill country carrying a heavy pack, when I could run 100 metre races in high school and compete with the best. But if I were offered my youth again now, I don’t think I’d take it.

The combination of climate change, the rise of the right, the continuing predominance of elderly male psychopaths in positions of power, and the real threat of economic meltdown suggest a future of dire turbulence. And if my faith in today’s young women turns out to be misplaced, I don’t think I could be bothered to play the role of a latter day Noah.

Music and Illusion.

Now here’s an interesting fact. I’m currently watching a compilation of Harry Potter clips on YouTube, all set to the title track of Mamma Mia! And liking it.

Imagine that: Me – a slightly oddball, reclusive and mostly depressed English fruitcake who is (or so I’m told) a rare example of one who perceives the mystical quality in the music of Vaughan Williams and whose only musical role model was Bob Dylan.

I suppose it just goes to show that it’s possible for a generally refined taste to enjoy crap music – and a second hand version at that – as long as it’s accompanied by images of worthier note, in this case the sheer irresistibility of Hermione Granger aged 11 – 21.

I never found my own version of Hermione, you know. I came close once but it was a bit like looking at Orion in the night sky. The stars might look as though they’re all on a flat plane up there, but in fact some are about 50 billion light years further away from us than others.

Last Words and Testament.

One of Britain’s more lauded actors, Freddie Jones, died a couple of days ago. He came from my home town and was 91. Among the predictable array of comments cast into the plaudit pot was one which said ‘He had a great zest for life.’

Well, I don’t think I’m being unduly cynical when I question why such a propensity should be considered a recommendation. I’m sure that a zest for life is a good thing to have since it no doubt makes you happier and bestows a good sense of wellbeing, but surely its value is limited to the individual. It’s like saying ‘He was a very generous man, always ready to help others, and he liked porridge.’

*  *  *

I sometimes wonder what people will say about me when I die. I wondered it about half an hour ago. I doubt there is very much to say, really. And if it comes to saying it in public, I can think of only one person among the very few who are likely to attend my funeral who would have the courage and confidence to do so.

Not that it matters. I’ve always said that I intend to be present in spirit at my funeral, but I’m not sure that I do now. Funerals are, after all, for the benefit of the bereaved not the deceased. But if anybody does want to say something in my absence, I think I would be happy with ‘He spent the first half of his life doing some pretty bad things, and the second trying to be better.’

Tea on the Terrace.

I was walking along Mill Lane today when I spied the Lady Bella’s mother working in her garden. We had a brief conversation, and then she said ‘I was just about to make some tea. Would you care to join me?’

I was naturally put on my guard immediately. I know of the gravitas which people of the more elevated class attach to the ritual of afternoon tea, and I was aware of the fact that my dress was hardly up to the occasion. I said so.

‘Why should that be a problem?’ she asked.

‘Well,’ I began, feeling slightly discomfited, ‘you are a bit posh, and I am aware that posh people attach some importance to such matters.’

‘What on earth makes you see me as posh?’

‘Your big house, your bearing, your mode of dress, your dulcet tones, and most of all your public school accent.’

‘I see. I think perhaps your perceptions are a little awry, Jeff. Or perhaps you’re joking. In either event, you’re welcome to take tea in your present attire.’

‘Do you have any muffins?’

‘No.’

‘Very well, then. I think the lack of muffins on your part might excuse the lack of a cravat on mine. I went to Dartmouth, you know. I understand these things.’

‘Very good. Come on, then.’

And then she smiled and led the way. She has a very nice smile, the Lady B’s mother. I think it’s the main reason I like her, in spite of the fact that I always feel guilty for no longer having a forelock long enough to tug in meaningful manner.

And none of this happened, of course. I haven’t walked along Mill Lane in over a year, and my left leg wouldn’t allow me to venture that far at the moment even if I wanted to. The little tale related above is a mere example of the untrodden tracks along which my mind wanders when it isn’t busy worrying about something. It’s why I began a career in writing seventeen years ago when all else had failed. And it gives my fingers good exercise when I’m unable to exercise much else.

Avoiding the Great Taboo.

Here’s a question to consider: what do you do if you find that there are some perforations missing from the toilet roll? It happens, you know. It does. It’s one of life’s little imperfections. So here’s the thing:

When you bought that pack of four you took them to the self-service till to pay for them, right? You didn’t take them through a regular checkout where some pretty young thing is sitting pertly and giving you her undivided attention. That would be like wearing a tee shirt printed with…

I use toilet rolls and I don’t care who knows it

… because you do care who knows it. You don’t want anybody to know it, least of all a pretty young thing giving you her undivided attention. Even the more hardened members of society who dare to buy packs of twelve (imagine what that must do for your reputation) and who do take them through the regular checkouts look the other way and whistle while they’re being scanned. Or at least they should if they have even a modicum of decorum. They’re one of life’s great hidden things, one of the very few things about which it is right and proper to be in denial. It’s even occurred to me that very old ladies who no longer care about their image could make quite a business out of standing by supermarket entrances offering to acquire the offensive commodity for people who are still young enough to care.

And then you find yourself holding a toilet roll with missing perforations. All that care and effort gone to waste because now you’re faced with the prospect of brazenly approaching the woman on the service desk and saying ‘Excuse me. This toilet roll has some perforations missing. May I have a replacement please?’ It would be one of those moments which occasionally happen in life, moments when the air turns dark and the nerve ends freeze. You’re straining all appropriate muscles to avoid wetting yourself while the poor woman the other side of the counter is so scandalised that she loses the ability to speak. You consider claiming that you’re doing this on behalf of your bedridden granddad, but you know she won’t believe it because that’s what everybody says. And you’ve already tried to find a wizened old lady to whom you could offer a week’s pension to do the job for you, but there aren’t any around just when you need one.

And so you don’t return it. You curse your cowardice and pull further paper off the roll until you find some perforations a little further along. And all you want it for is to blow your nose before going to bed. No wonder I have bad dreams and wake up stressed.

Support Your Local Ambassador.

It was great fun hearing that the British Ambassador to the US called Trump’s administration inept and dysfunctional. And it was even more fun reading the British government’s official response which tried to tread a careful, diplomatic line while indicating beyond reasonable doubt that they agreed with him. Best of all, though, we’ve been treated to Trump’s juvenile and histrionic mindset becoming ever more desperate as the days pass:

Day 1: We don’t like this man

Day 2: We’re not speaking to him any more

Day 3: He is a very stupid guy

And now even the doubters out there in the wider world can see Trump for what he is. Nice one, Sir Kim.

Shame About Egypt.

This blog is suddenly getting a rash of visits from Egypt by somebody using an iPhone. My first thought on noticing this was to be surprised that people in Egypt have iPhones

That’s quite absurd, obviously. Of course people in Egypt have iPhones. I’ve never been there but I have no doubt that Egypt is a modern country possessed of all the paraphernalia of life in the modern world. It’s just that we don’t think of it that way.

We don’t associate Egypt with iPhones; we associate it with pyramids, pharaohs, Queen Cleopatra and vengeful mummies. Of all the civilisations in all the world, none has quite the enduring sense of mystery and romance as ancient Egypt, at least to the western mind. Which leads me to suggest that maybe Egypt’s history is jut too good for its own good.

Touching the Mystic's Mind.

I stood for a while in my garden at twilight tonight. The air was mild and there was no sound of traffic on the lane to pollute the peace, the pleasure and the sense of wonderment.

Such a cocktail of awareness there was in that little spot deep in the heartland of an English shire. The taller plants and the smaller tree branches were dancing dreamily in a gentle breeze. The multi-hued flowers were settling slowly through the gathering gloom into a colourless sleep. Intermittent grey clouds drifted languidly across a sky of darkening blue. The moths and bats were taking eagerly to the wing, while the land and all things inorganic remained resolutely still. And the waxing crescent moon hung proud and remote above the old sycamore tree.

I stood and questioned, as I have many times, what I should make of this sense of wonderment. How should I explain it to myself in rational fashion?

I don’t think there is any rational explanation to be found, and maybe it’s right that there isn’t. This is something which can only be felt, not reasoned. I assume it has something to do with the relationship between consciousness and perceived reality at this level of existence, and maybe it tugs the mind towards some deep yet unresolved knowledge to which only the heart has imperfect access. Maybe this is the beginning of the answer to the great existential question, and maybe it’s why the concept of God is so misunderstood and misrepresented by mortal man.

What would I know? I’m not qualified to be a mystic yet, merely a mortal man entranced by the mystery of an unidentified scent.

On Legs and Being Laughed At.

I’ve been doing some jobs in the garden today and it’s set off my aching left leg. I don’t even have to walk now; it aches when I’m sitting down.

I thought of getting a walking stick, you know. They have adjustable black ones in a shop in Uttoxeter for £10. I rather liked the look of them and wondered whether I could get…

Property of Princeton-Plainsboro. Please return.

… printed on the side. It occurred to me that if I held it close to my hip and wore my shirt outside my jeans, which I often do, I might get mistaken for the great man and asked for my autograph. Then again, my admirers might be a group of women, and the ones in the background might start whispering things like ‘I thought he was a lot taller than that’ and ‘I suppose he was wearing a wig when he was on the telly’ and ‘hasn’t his beard gone pale?’ And then I’d get very embarrassed and have to admit that I’m a fraud. So I think I’ll wait to see whether the hospital has any suggestions regarding the cause and possible remedy first. Meanwhile, it continues to make me miserable.

And I’m waiting for the day when some denizens of the Shire spot me at the bottom of the garden, and come over to say:

We haven’t seen you walking around the lanes lately.

‘No. My bad leg won’t let me.’

What’s wrong with your leg?

‘I don’t know.’

So how do you know it’s bad?

‘It hurts when I walk.’

Have you been to the doctor?

‘Yes.’

And what did he say?

‘He thinks my veins are silted up with tobacco residue and cholesterol.’

OOH… Sounds nasty. Can they be un-silted?

‘I’ve no idea. He’s referred me to the vascular surgery clinic at the hospital, but the waiting list is a long one.’

Oh well, we just wanted to tell you that we miss you. There’s nothing to laugh at any more.

And then they’ll run away tittering, and their little dogs will bounce after them with wagging tails because running away with tittering humans is such fun. And dogs and denizens alike will be confident in the knowledge that I’m quite unable to chase them waving the walking stick which I haven’t got yet.

And it really isn’t funny, you know.

Rapinhoe and Respect.

Congratulations to the US team on winning the Women’s Football World Cup (or soccer if you’re American.) It was hardly a surprise. From what I saw of the tournament, it was evident that the US women were in a league of their own.

But now the serious bit of the post – a message to Megan Rapinhoe. Now that you’ve won the highest honour in the women’s game, you have to respect the flag, OK? And the best way to do that is to keep your promise – stay well clear of the White House and kick Trump’s ass. Let standards win the day off the field as well as on.

An English Lesson.

Here’s an interesting little note on the subtlety of the English language:

Take the question posed by the prisoner in the last post:

‘We don’t have to eat here, do we?’

By slightly changing the relative stresses in the phrase ‘eat here’, you change the meaning of the question completely. One means ‘Now that we’re here, we no longer have to eat.’ The other means ‘We don’t have to eat in this place; we can eat somewhere else.’

And this is important because it reveals why the written form of English can be such a minefield of misconception. What I should now do is go back and edit that question, removing the ambiguous one and replacing it with one that leaves no doubt. That's what I would do if it were intended for publication. In this case, however, I'll leave it as it is because it demonstrates a point nicely to anyone learning my language.

Just Desserts.

There was once a state ruled over by a cruel, megolomanic President who had devised an unusual and vicious way of executing those he considered undesirable. The prisoner would be placed in a cell separated into two compartments with retractable iron bars between them. The prisoner would occupy one half, and in the other was a tiger which was never fed.

The two of them were left there for three days. The prisoner was fed a meagre ration of meat and a few potatoes once a day, but the tiger received nothing. When the three days were up, the iron bars would be lifted and the tiger would be free to kill the prisoner and get a meal. And so for three days the tiger would pace back and forth becoming hungrier and more desperate, while the prisoner became ever more terrified of the fate that awaited him.

But one prisoner was different than most. He felt sorry for the tiger, and so he ate the potatoes but gave the meat to the animal. When the appointed time arrived and the bars were lifted, the tiger walked over to the prisoner, lay down beside him and rested his head on the man’s lap. The prison guards were watching this unexpected turn of events through the grill in the door, and when they saw what was happening they hurried to tell the President.

The President was furious with both the man and the animal, and ordered that toxic gas should be pumped into the cell to kill both of them. This was done and the two innocent creatures died side by side.

When the prisoner woke up, he found himself lying beneath the broad canopy of leafy trees in the dappled sunshine. He sat up to see the tiger reclining nearby and looking at him with a peaceful expression.

‘We don’t have to eat here, do we?’ said the prisoner.

‘No,’ said the tiger.

‘And so there’s no reason to kill me.’

‘No.’

And then they walked together to a placid lake a little way beyond the wood and swam in the cool water, knowing that in their next lives they would be born as brothers.

The fate of the President was rather different, and entirely of his own making.

The Pigeon, the Jewel, and the Money Mystery.

Uttoxeter is not a prosperous town. It shows in the predominating demeanour of its inhabitants, the almost total lack of anything you might call ‘stylish’, and the growing paucity of sustainable businesses. There’s a small parade of two-storey shop units which leads from the town’s main car park to the high street, in which only seven of the twenty five units are occupied.

And yet facing the top of this denuded and crumbling edifice to the free market principle is one of the town’s smartest buildings, a three storey Georgian house in near-impeccable condition. On the front of it, in big letters, it says:

RBA Wealth Management

In all the years I’ve been making regular shopping trips to Uttoxeter I’ve only ever seen one person go in there, and she looked like a member of staff. And so I’ve often been tempted to go in and ask just what it is they manage exactly. Maybe I will one day, but I doubt the place would have the sort of atmosphere I would be comfortable breathing.

*  *  *

I was sitting opposite it today when I spotted a group of three people crossing the high street. One was an old man who had so little control over his bodily movements that I imagined he was in the final stage of Parkinson’s. The walking stick he was carrying in his right hand was of no use at all, since he couldn’t hold it still for long enough to provide the necessary support. His support came from a young woman walking alongside him holding his hand, and I assumed she was his granddaughter or even his great-granddaughter. She was probably around twenty and unprepossessing to the casual observer, being devoid of make-up or any sense of style in hair or dress. And yet she was naturally attractive enough, and it occurred to me that she could have been surfing the mall with her friends in the city centres of Stoke or Derby instead of helping poor old granddad get about in little Uttoxeter.

I wanted to go over to her and say ‘Do you realise you’re something of a jewel?’ I didn’t because she was engaged in conversation with a middle aged woman on her other side, and my intervention would probably have embarrassed her. It seemed a shame because she probably didn’t realise that she had a laudable quality which had been noticed by at least one stranger. It’s been my experience in life that jewels rarely recognise their own glister. It’s mostly slithering invertebrates like Trump who think they’re something special.

*  *  *

Shortly afterwards I met Uttoxeter’s second pigeon. I’d seen two of them together earlier, and the one hanging around the benches clearly wasn’t Millie. No yellow leg ring.

‘Hello,’ I said. She strutted a few paces and then gave me a suspicious sideways glance. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Dolores,’ said the pigeon.

‘That’s a nice name. Would you mind if I called you Dolly?’

Well, of course, we all know that birds are incapable of frowning, but she certainly sounded as though she was frowning when she replied:

‘What’s wrong with Dolores?’

‘Nothing at all. It’s just that we humans are lazy and prefer to cut out a syllable if at all possible. And it sounds friendlier, less formal. And it matches your friend Millie, with whom I saw you perambulating earlier.’

‘Oh, OK then. Have you got any food?’

‘Sorry, you’re too late. I ate it all earlier. But watch out for me next week and you’ll be welcome to share my lunch.’

‘OK.’ And then she wandered off down the high street.

‘Bye,’ I called after her. She didn’t reply.

And it’s all true. I don’t make any of this up, you know. And I never tell lies on my blog unless they’re sufficiently transparent as to be obvious.