The New Year's Eve Ramble.

2021 was the year in which being a recluse became boring. I thought about it a lot and in the end came to the same conclusion as Macbeth: Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

2021 was the first full year of Covid-19. Concern about contracting the condition was a constant, but what made it different from 2020 was the fact that the condition changed from being a novelty to something which felt like a pollutant.

2021 was a year in which I did nothing notably troublesome, nor anything notably pleasing.

2021 was the year when I stopped trying to kid myself that the process of ageing is a mirage. The gradual drip of physical and mental degradation was a little too insistent.

2021 contains digits which total 5, which is a neutral number to me. 2022 adds up to 6, which is my least favoured number. I choose to presume that there is no significance in the fact.

I wish I could think of more to say on the matter, but I can’t. Goodbye 2021, and thank you to everyone who visited my blog.

A Moment That Mattered.

I was walking past the library on my way back to Sainsbury’s in Ashbourne today. Light rain was falling from a leaden sky and the pedestrian areas were liberally scattered with puddles.

I saw a girl of around twelve or so sitting on one of the benches near the library steps, next to a long haired and bedraggled dog with floppy ears – a Cocker Spaniel I think, or at least a spaniel cross. As I approached, she took her raincoat and covered the dog’s back, and as I drew level she was busy pulling the hood over the dog’s head. I had to stop and watch, didn’t I? Of course I did.

I could have explained to her that the hair of a healthy dog is liberally oiled and so it doesn’t suffer from the rain quite as we do, but why spoil the moment? Here is a light spirit performing an act of self-sacrifice for an animal. It was a mild day and so the girl was in no danger, and she was probably waiting for a parent to collect her soon anyway. I wanted to speak to her but she seemed reluctant to engage, so I simply smiled broadly and thought ‘You’re OK, kid’ as loudly as I could. And then I walked on.

The thing is, you see, the dog was not the only recipient of her act of compassion. With all the darkness currently smothering the benighted earth and its human cargo, I get very few opportunities to smile the smile of a lifted spirit. And so the selfless action of a 12-year-old girl did me a great service, too.

A Source of Learning.

I mentioned recently that I learned from an MR James ghost story that in 1286 King Eric Glipping of Denmark was murdered by a man with a funny name. And I learned from another MR James ghost story what the Latin is for ‘if you won’t come to me, I will come to you.’ (I even used that one in a story I wrote about going to Philadelphia to meet a special lady.) Tonight I learned, from yet another MR James ghost story, that ‘puddock’ is an old English West Country dialect word for a toad.

‘What the hell’s a puddock?’ somebody might ask me one day.

‘It’s an old English West Country dialect word for a toad,’ I will reply nonchalantly.

‘My word, don’t you know a lot?’ my inquisitor will enthuse. And I shall be in the unaccustomed, but quite delightful, position of having received a compliment.

About Online Shopping.

I tried to buy an item online tonight from three major suppliers – Amazon, eBay and Argos. I aborted the attempt with all three because I discovered changes in their online systems. They’re using an increasing number of ruses to lure you through their maze until they have you trapped one way or another. And then they can know all about you, track you, bombard you with unwanted advertising, persuade you that it’s all for your benefit, and… I don’t want to play their game. I don’t trust them an inch and I don’t want to become the puppet of a giant money-making machine. I made the decision that, insofar as I’m able, if I can’t get what I want from an actual shop, I’ll do without.

If everybody took the same decision it would bring the corporate world to heel, but they won’t because the system has us increasingly conditioned to accepting that this is what you have to do in order to consume. Consumption is king now, and so the corporate world grows ever stronger in its aim of bringing the culture more and more under its control. I don’t intend to give in to it.

Sorry to be harking on so much lately about the direction I see the world taking, but it’s coming from various angles, it’s bugging me, and I see little point in having a blog unless you use it to say what’s on your mind.

Keeping the Shadows Dark.

I mentioned in a recent post that I was concerned at signs that there is a process of suppressing dissent going on around the world. I referred to Google’s removal of all ‘Dislike’ numbers on YouTube, but let’s widen it a little.

I read today that the Russian Supreme Court has banned Memorial, a civil rights group established to remember the victims of oppression during the Soviet era. And the Chinese government has a policy of removing, and presumably destroying, all monuments to the massacre in Tiananmen Square.

One of the things I find interesting about this is that Carl Jung wrote about the ‘shadow side’ of both individuals and states. The shadow side is the dark side of a person’s or state’s psyche, the one we don’t like acknowledging, sometimes even to ourselves. He argued that it is necessary to bring this dark side to the fore, to integrate it and thus make the personality more complete. Only then can we work to eradicate it as much as possible. Well, you don’t integrate something by burying it, do you?

And we shouldn’t forget here that the Russians and Chinese are not the only states with a shadow side. We British have the British Empire with its forced labour camps and the Amritsar Massacre. The Americans have their history of slavery and the treatment of indigenous peoples. France has its colonial policies in North Africa. Germany gave the Nazis to the world. We admit them and apologise for them, but now there are movements afoot claiming that we shouldn’t remember them. We should bury them and let them rest in the vaults of history. Is that integrating them?

But what of the possibility that there is a force in the world bigger than individual governments, a force working to suppress integration so as to facilitate greater control of the people by, and for the benefit of, the rich and powerful? Is this notion the product of a paranoid imagination? I don’t know, but it is certainly in the area of conspiracy theory, so let’s leave it there for now.

1984 Rising?

I’ve noticed something very interesting on YouTube. The videos still have Like and Dislike buttons, but all the Dislikes have been removed. Does this mean that we’re no longer allowed to have a negative opinion?

This is onerous enough in itself, but what’s really worrying is that it appears to be part of a general trend of suppressing dissent. I feel a suspicion that there is a darkly coercive movement going on around us, a movement towards Orwellian control, and I don’t like it at all. This is not paranoia because I’m not a paranoid person, but I’ll be watching for further evidence.

Notes on Personal Reality.

I think I mentioned recently that I’m currently watching the DVDs of an old British sitcom called Red Dwarf. It’s about four dysfunctional characters – only one of whom is actually human but they’re all humanoid – trapped together on a space ship travelling pointlessly through the cosmos. The theme music takes the form of a comic song which begins: 

 

It’s cold outside

There’s no kind of atmosphere

I’m all alone

More or less

It only just struck me that this accords quite closely with the way I feel at the moment – alone but not lonely, lifeless but not ill, walking through the days without point or purpose, disengaged from reality as it’s normally perceived but definitely not psychotic.

But then it goes on from there. Lately I keep remembering something the priestess once said to me: ‘Life is just the stories we tell ourselves.’ I sometimes struggled to know exactly what she meant by that, but maybe it relates to another feature of my perception which I’ve already mentioned: the occasional sense that nothing in my life ever happened, that all the feelings and the physical sensations were but constructs of my consciousness which is all I really am. This is a particularly difficult concept to hold down because it invites the obvious question: what about all the other people I’ve encountered and interacted with along the way? Were they merely my personal constructs too, or were we all some kind of communal construct?

So onto the big question: is this the beginning of true knowledge, a relatively minor mental disturbance, or a standard side effect of being reclusive? I very much hope to find out one day. In the meantime, I’ll carry on pretending it’s all real (because I can't think of a credible alternative) and hope to get my sense of humour back soon.

Desolation Day.

I went to Uttoxeter this morning to fill the car with petrol, and could hardly believe how nearly empty it was. There were few cars at the retail park because there were only three units open, and the town itself had only one – dear old Costa Coffee. (I didn’t go in because I don’t trust coffee shops while the Covid statistics are rising to the highest level since the pandemic began. And besides, ever since the unprecedented rise in electricity prices back in October, I’ve been trying to economise because absolutely everything in my house is electric.)

The thing is, though, Boxing Day has always been a big trading day in Britain. Going to the Boxing Day sales after a day spent idling and gorging used to be one of the favourite activities of the holiday season. Not this year, it seems. (I suppose it might have something to do the damn Yankees inventing Black Friday so that people could nearly kill each other over the acquisition of a half price TV set.)

*  **

Back in the Shire, the day can be summed up with a bit of my much-favoured alliteration: it’s dark, dripping, drear, dirty and somewhat desolate. Although the temperature isn’t particularly low by winter standards, the cold, clammy mist is doing a good job of making noses and figures tingle, and the lungs to rebel a little at the amount of water they’re having to absorb. At least mine are.

So that’s it for now. Time for a sandwich and a cuppa soup. I wonder whether I should throw economic caution to the wind and set the fan heater going in my cold living room.

Questioning Gender Denial.

The current fad for gender denial is beginning to confuse me. I gather we must no longer use gender-specific pronouns. Only ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ are allowable. But this goes to the very root of linguistic complexity in which ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ establish or relate to the distinction between singular and plural subjects. And they serve an essential function for so doing. To me, excluding singular pronouns is a complete messing up of a fine language. It’s pointless, crass and verging on the criminal.

And then there’s the insistence by the extreme wing of the liberal alter-establishment that the word ‘woman’ must be forbidden. Women must be referred to as ‘people who menstruate.’ Well, since only women menstruate, the two terms are entirely synonymous, so how can it matter which one you use? And isn’t it a little ironic that the term ‘people who menstruate’ simply affirms the fact that men and women are different?

But let’s move on to another possibility. What about familial nouns? Must there no longer be any mention of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts? They’re gender-specific, aren’t they? Must I now refer to my Aunt Alice as ‘my parent’s sibling, Alice’?

‘Which parent,’ you might ask. ‘Your father’s or your mothers?’

‘I’m not allowed to say.’

‘Well, was it your male parent’s sibling or your female parent’s? And was this sibling itself male or female.’

‘You must not use such terms. They are forbidden. The Reich has spoken and resistance is useless. But if you really must know, the parent was a person who did not menstruate and the sibling was one who did.’

And all I wanted to say was ‘I liked my Aunt Alice.’ Do you think we might have Gender Crime Gulags next? Looks like I’ll just have to take the risk.

(You know, I can’t help feeling that my heroes, the suffragettes, would be horrified if they knew that their sacrifices would lead to something as irrational, oppressive and unnatural as this. Must go up to Morpeth some time and see whether the soil on Emily Davison's grave looks disturbed.)

The BBC and Wonky Weather.

Today has been one of the gloomiest Christmas Days I ever remember – dark sky, raw easterly wind and occasional drizzle. But at least it didn’t snow, which is a blessing to me because I’m a miserable git who hates the white stuff.

*  *  *

I could do with going out tomorrow to give the car a run and fill up with petrol, so I took a look at the weather forecast on the BBC website. The main panel for tomorrow’s weather gave:

Light wind

Mild

Occasional light rain

But there was also a ‘weather warning’ flash which said:

Strong wind

Snow

Icy patches on roads

These highly contrasting forecasts come from the same source and cover the same area, so I wonder whether anybody from the BBC could tell me which one I should take seriously.

Becoming Bob.

I just asked myself why I haven’t made one of my customary Christmas posts today. The answer is simple enough: too many dolorous items of intelligence kept my spirits low and precluded any semblance of will to make them.

But the day was not entirely lost. This afternoon, it being a foggy Christmas Eve, I decided to finish the batch of book-keeping work I had left to do for my mechanic friend. I thought it a suitably Christmas Eve-ish thing to do, a Bob Cratchit thing to do. How better to evoke the Christmas spirit than by emulating one of its favourite creations?

I thought I might receive a visit from carol singers, or two men seeking alms for the poor, or my landlord’s nephew hoping to find him here so as to invite him to dine with them on the morrow. There were no visitors. And it is also a fact that I have no wife, no daughter called Martha, and I eat neither goose nor turkey. But otherwise, the simulation seemed apposite. My muse tells me that I may take the whole day off tomorrow.

No White Christmas in Oz.

The priestess has gone home to Australia for Christmas this year. I always found it quite inconceivable that the sun should be almost overhead on a day which is based on the midwinter festival to us northern Europeans. I just looked at the clock and realised that she’s only recently had breakfast on Christmas Eve, lightly clad and probably getting a suntan. 

  

It’s Christmas Eve in Sydney

The sun is burning hot

Old Santa’s in his bathing trunks

And doesn’t care a jot

 

No icy lanes or leafless trees

No reindeer pulling sleighs

What do they use for Christmas cards

On strangely summ'ry days

Coveting Tree Mind.

I woke this morning to find the Shire shrouded in a heavy, suffocating mist. No panoramic vistas across the valley to the high hills beyond, but only the vaporous half tones of silent, skeletal trees standing still and ghost-like a few short strides down the lea. The clammy air about them was suffused with a sense of patiently waiting for winter’s soporific presence to pass and allow them another rebirth. And so, I thought, must we all.

Tonight my mind afforded me a rare experience: a sense that something vibrant and exciting was about to happen. More commonly it gives me the opposite: a sense that something frightful and damaging is imminent. Rarely does either extreme become manifest.

The human mind is a restless, capricious faculty, isn’t it? I suppose it’s all to do with the need to peer into an invisible future in the hope of preparing for contrasting possibilities. I sometimes envy the tree’s ability to live in the now and nowhere else.

On Backing Wind and Bad Christians.

I was just looking at the clouds scudding across the moon and saw something a little remarkable. In the space of a single minute the direction changed from north westerly to westerly to south westerly. I don’t recall ever having seen such a rapid change of wind direction through 90° before.

It intrigues me to note, however, that this report affords me a problem: whenever I make a post about observing something of such little import, I feel a desperate urge to say something funny about it in order to make it worth reading. Unfortunately, I can’t. Sorry.

*  *  *

The only other matter of note today is that I read up on the Jesuits, the reason being that a character in an MR James story referred to them in pejorative terms. I’ve always been aware that both Catholics and Protestants view them with suspicion, so I thought I’d find out why and whether that attitude is justified.

Well, it seems they weren’t (aren’t?) such a bad lot after all, being relatively liberal, accepting of modern science and technology, and – most notably – being outspoken critics of both slavery and Nazi ideology. Quite a few of them were sent to the death camps during WWII, apparently, and it’s said that in the Americas they were all that stood between European colonial Establishments and the systematic enslavement of indigenous peoples. That doesn’t sound so bad does it, even if they would insist on aggressive proselytising which doesn’t really meet with my personal approval? (So what do I matter?)

Then again, the article was in Wiki, so it’s possible that it was a touch one-sided. Or maybe it wasn’t. How can any of us truly know anything which we don’t personally witness?

Adding a Little Spice.

I was just listening to an old favourite track of mine by the German band, Faun, called Adam Lay Ybounden. It occurred to me that it would be great fun to get together six pairs of young men and women from the village and school them in a pagan-style performance involving elements of procession, dance and simulated sex, to be given on the village hall car park during the annual garden show in the autumn. It didn’t escape my notice that there is a distinct whiff of The Wicker Man about it.

Imagine the reaction, eh? I know one elderly farmer’s wife who is quite unmovable on the question of propriety and moral rectitude, and I would love to see her face during the raunchy bits. It would be well worth the inconvenience of having a few hundredweight of cow dung deposited on my car by way of retribution, although the possibility of being driven to the local church and having my throat cut immediately beneath the east window might be problematical.

It won’t happen, of course, because I’m not a choreographer. But a chap has to dream when he has no credible aspirations left, and it would make a fine counterpoint to the Least Knobbly Potatoes competition.

But Which God?

Ever since I started this blog I’ve been taking a fairly keen interest in America, and I can’t help coming to the conclusion that the greatest God worshipped in America is money. That’s not to say that Americans as a people universally worship money above everything else, rather that those who do rule the roost over there and fix the cultural imperative. It’s why today it occurred to me that it’s maybe the reason for American banknotes having ‘In God We Trust’ printed on them.

And then I wondered whether, if there really is a God up there as commonly perceived, It doesn’t take kindly to being usurped and regards America as Sacred Enemy #1.

More Inappropriate Ads.

I currently have an advert on my inbox page from Dunelm (they’re a British retail chain which specialises in haberdashery.) One of the items they’re trying to persuade me to consider buying is a duvet cover with a rural snow scene on it. I swear that if I had one of those I’d be getting nightmares about being trapped in a snowy wasteland wearing only a T shirt and underwear and suffering the rapid onset of hypothermia. Am I untypical? Are there really people who would buy such a thing?

And yesterday I got another one with pictures of big women wearing the kind of bras and panties normally associated with small women. I’m curious to know whether their algorithms have got my size and gender wrong, or whether they’ve been reading my blog and it’s meant to be a lesson in not objectifying women.

Two Small Notes on Dead Things.

I saw something small and white lying on the rug in front of my old fireplace this morning. Being naturally intrigued, I picked it up and found it to be hard and of a size and shape approximating to half a pea. Being even more intrigued, I turned it over and discovered that the underside was unquestionably the underside of a wood louse. I never knew that dead wood lice turned white, just as we do. I suppose it could have been the ghost of a wood louse, but then it would have wandered around wailing plaintively, wouldn’t it?

And do you know what I discovered through the reading of an MR James ghost story? I discovered that back in 1286 at a place near Viborg, Denmark, some ne’er-do-well known to the good denizens of Denmark as Marsk Stig murdered King Erik Glipping on St Celia’s Day. And that, further, when the remains of the monarch were exhumed in the 17th century, marks were found on his skull indicating no less than fifty six blows from square-headed maces. Why did I laugh when I read that? Somebody please tell me.

On Hearts and Heroes.

It’s been a generally sour sort of day today, culminating in a phone call from the hospital late this afternoon. I hate getting phone calls from the hospital:

‘We’ve now had a look at your heart scans. Your valves appear to be working properly (phew!) but there’s evidence of some deterioration elsewhere. We’d like to scrap your next scan and do a full angiogram instead.’

I know I mustn’t complain because these good people are doing their best and it’s all for my sake. I know that. And it’s all free because of our wonderful NHS. But I’ve had four years of being investigated for one thing or another and I’m thoroughly fed up with it.

I suppose it will at least be of some comfort to the residents of the Shire. If they really want to get rid of me, they won’t need to bother with the burning mill and pitchforks routine (I mean, who would want to burn a perfectly good mill?) All they need do is get somebody to don a Margaret Thatcher mask, climb up to my bedroom window at four o’clock in the morning, tap on the glass and shout ‘boo.’ That should do the trick. Much more Agatha Christie.

(Having said which, somebody did wave to me enthusiastically as they drove past me on the lane this morning. Does that mean somebody likes me? I’ve no idea who it was.)

But just to finish off a difficult day, I watched the rest of Suffragette all the way to the end. I wasn’t sure I’d make it since it was so harrowing, but I did. I felt shattered even before the credits rolled. Mel said that when she watched it she was in floods of tears at the end. Frankly, I know what she meant, and now I need a good dose of MR James to take my mind off it. And I still think it odd that I find the achievements of those I consider heroes far more moving than the more obvious sadness of tragedies.

On Refuse and Rumination.

My walk this morning took me past the gates to the big house where the landlord lives. He and his wife own most of the Shire and many of the houses in it, including the one in which I live. It was bin collection day and their refuse bin was standing on the verge opposite the gates ready to be emptied.

I noticed a gift-wrapped parcel on top of the bin and went over to take a look. There was a card with it on which was written a Christmas greeting to the refuse collectors. It struck me that here was a kind thought, and then it seemed a little odd – or at least interesting – that people who openly encourage the killing of birds in the name of recreation should have a kind thought for the men who collect the waste.

I try not to judge, but merely observe. I’ve speculated often enough that perception is the whole of the life experience, and I still believe that it is.

And then I remembered the Christmas when I left a small gift for the refuse collectors on my bin. When I went to collect it later I found the lid open, the gift taken, but the bin still full of refuse. I couldn’t decide whether to smile or scowl at the irony.

Em.

I’ve said often enough that I consider regret to be pointless and I still hold to the view, but there are times when it’s not so easy to let it go.

I once had a dog, you see, a lovely Border Collie called Em who loved me constantly and unconditionally. And I loved her back, but sometimes I got it wrong – remonstrating with her for things that weren’t her fault because I was too pig-headed to see beyond the obvious. I tried to control her because I was immature enough to believe that dogs are there to be controlled. And now I know that dogs are there to be loved with all the allowances and understanding that go with it, I can’t do anything about it. She died aged 4½ of a malignant tumour and it broke my heart. More importantly perhaps, or perhaps not, I bitterly regretted every cross word I ever aimed at her, and I still do.

And that’s why I hold to a fond dream that when I die she will be there waiting for me. We can tramp the lanes and fields again, she can chase after rabbits in the wood which was her favourite activity, and she can sleep close to me instead of being confined to a cold kitchen while I’m tucked up in a warm bed. I don’t care that it’s a silly dream. I like it.

Have I said all this before on the blog? I expect I probably have. But I think about her often; I feel that we missed so much and have a lot of catching up to do. The need to put it right is very strong in me, and saying so helps just a little.

 

On Ancestry.

Since I appear to be getting the odd visit from the Holy Ground lately (that’s Ireland in case you didn’t know), I thought I’d mention my apparent Irish ancestry again.

It’s not 100% proven, you see, but such documentary evidence as I’ve managed to find, coupled with some reliable anecdotal evidence, puts it pretty much beyond doubt. Accordingly, I’m given to wondering occasionally whether there’s anything particularly ‘Irish’ about me.

Well, my lower mind tends to work on three tracks: a fondness for pretty colleens, a fondness for alcoholic beverages, and a fondness for telling fantastical tales which I expect people to believe, at least until I can’t stop myself laughing. Sounds pretty Irish to me, so I’ll consider the matter closed.

(My higher mind is more suggestive of Tibetan ancestry, but my eyes don’t match.)

Sarah and the Suffragettes.

I started watching the film Suffragette tonight and made an interesting discovery. I never understood why I find the actress Carey Mulligan so compelling, and now I do: she has the same eyes as the Lady B. Fancy not noticing that before.

I only watched twenty five minutes of it before I switched it off. One of the things I find most disturbing about the human animal is the ease with which it stoops to being abusive and irrational as soon as its petty prejudices are subjected to scrutiny. Seeing it being laid out before me wasn’t doing much for my mood. I might pick it up again another day, or I might not.

The fact is, you see, the suffragettes have always been high on my list of Heroes of History, and I can add a little personal note to the story. Back in my photography days I was commissioned by a magazine publisher to research, photograph and write up a country walk for one of their issues. It followed a route around the town of Morpeth, close to where I lived in Northumberland, and when I walked into the churchyard on the hill above the town I was surprised to come face to face with the grave of Emily Davison. She’s the woman who died after being struck by the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913, as a result of which she became the most famous martyr to the cause. Her gravestone is inscribed with the motto of the movement – Deeds Not Words – and I found it surprisingly moving to be in the presence of her mortal remains.

Forbidden Truths.

I noted this week that Julian Assange has lost his UK court case and the way has now been cleared for his extradition to the US. Call me subversive if you like, but it seems to me that his only ‘crime’ was to take such steps as were necessary in order that the people should be given the truth to which he felt they were entitled.

 

And then, at the further end of the socio-political spectrum, I read today that a bishop in Italy has been forced to apologise for telling children that Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist, and that the image of the jolly old fat man in a red gown was invented by Coca-Cola for commercial reasons.

So here we are living in a world in which truth has become a major casualty of the times, a world in which all manner of influential people from politicians to Establishment figures to the burgeoning army of social media users routinely lie as a standard requirement of their stock in trade. But if you tell a simple truth, you’re in trouble.

A Peek at My World.

Since I don’t have anything to rage at, reminisce about, cast aspersions towards, or simper over at the moment, I thought I’d take a few minutes to enumerate the contents of my personal manufactured landscape, aka the room in which I spend most of my time when I’m not asleep in bed (the only other thing I do in bed these days is have breakfast during the warmer months when there’s no prospect of the milk on the cereal freezing) and in which I’m ensconced at this very moment (not that there’s any such thing as a moment, you understand, but you know what I mean.) OK then, here goes:

Lots of books (including six by Shirley Jackson), a box of chocolates (which are rather splendid considering how cheap they were), a postcard of the Buddha known as Amitabha (or Opagme in Tibetan – isn’t this impressive?), hordes of box files, manilla folders, ring binders and document pockets (most of which serve no useful purpose whatsoever but I can’t bring myself to throw them out),a pile of magazines and other publications which have photographs of mine in them, a small pile of DVDs (the rest being in a box somewhere else), eight pictures of various sizes on the walls (many of which show women in various guises including stylistic, romantic and Romantic, although the most prized picture shows some ancestors of mine standing in front of the pub which they kept in the town of my birth), a circular wall clock in a light wood frame, light wood furniture on which is perched my computer equipment, a desk lamp, a temperature and humidity device, a landline phone and an old red mug with pens in it (there’s always an old mug with pens in it, isn’t there?), five house plants including a yucca that’s been cut down to size twice since I’ve lived here, a dangly gong thing which looks vaguely Chinese and which I clang every morning just because I can, three pairs of shoes (two for going out in and one for walking when the exterior landscape isn’t muddy (the wellies which are mostly used at this time of year are relegated to the kitchen along with my gardening boots), an uplighter, two alabaster figurines (one of the laughing monk and one of the three witches to add balance and hedge my bets), a little red vase with some red ting in it, an old audio system dating back to the mid-90s, and my trusty backpack which goes everywhere with me because it’s my only companion, and that’s about it.

It isn’t much, but it’s home. (Actually it isn’t. It’s the place where I take shelter from the rain, but I do like to quote my near-namesake, young Mr Weasley, occasionally – you know, like ‘Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?’ – which, by an odd coincidence, is exactly what I thought when I saw the first picture of Emma Watson appear on a magazine cover after the HP franchise came to an end. I should really have a picture of dear Hermione on my wall – she being my idea of the perfect woman – but I can’t because it would be impossible to divest myself of the constant, irritating knowledge that it’s actually Emma Watson, and I’m most diligent in avoiding the trap of confusing actors with characters. Characters are real, you see; actors aren’t.)

Strangely Triumphant.

I’ve mentioned before that just about everybody in the Shire seems to know my name, but I know hardly any of theirs. I put it to the test by working out how many people’s names I know. It amounted to eleven. And then I searched the population of the Shire and discovered it to be around two hundred and eighty. A sudden reverie entered my mind…

I’m woken from my sleep by a knock on the door. Irritated, I go downstairs and open it to find a man who I recognise but whose name I don’t know. He’s standing there, smiling a disingenuous smile.

‘Hello, Jeff,’ he says in a wheedling sort of voice.

I have no idea what to make of this, and so I simply ask ‘What the hell do you want?’

‘Tonight is the night of celebration,’ he intones, ‘fifteen years of work come to fruition at last. Follow me and see the honour that awaits you.’

I follow him around the side of my house to find the whole population of the Shire standing on my lawn with hands clasped firmly together in front of their chests. A great cry goes up as each man, woman and child calls my name in a tone of exultation. The man who knocked speaks again.

‘For fifteen years we have been diligently learning your name so that you may be subsumed into the midst of our community. This day will be enshrined in the calendar as Jeff Day, and our descendants will celebrate it henceforth every year on the anniversary.

‘Are you all nuts?’ I will ask incredulously.

‘Nuts? Certainly not. We are come to take you not only into our community, but also into our bodies. We are going to eat you so that your presence will remain here forever as the provider of sustenance, the founder of the feast as it were.’

And then the assembled throng will move aside to reveal a bonfire, as yet un-kindled, with a roasting spit, replete with handle, arranged across the top. I think quickly.

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I know some of your names, too.’

I pick them out, all eleven of them, and address each one by their forename. A low murmur begins to swell in the night air, the eyes of the multitude begin to rotate in their sockets, and each mouth opens wide in preparation for a concerted scream. Only their jaws fall off instead. And then they begin to dissolve and sink to the lawn as a green and luminescent slime. I hope that it will do no damage as it seeps into the earth and disappears, and then I go back to bed.

I did say that I’m finding it difficult to think of things to say, didn’t I? And it’s long been known that my mind works a little oddly sometimes.

A David and Goliath Tale.

OK, after the last post which was a bit downbeat (not to say turgid even), let’s have something of little consequence but a bit lighter:

I always thought that squirrels were vegetarians which lived on nuts, berries, acorns, and birds’ eggs. It surprised me, therefore, when I read recently that they will sometimes kill and eat other rodents including rats. So how much more surprised was I when I witnessed – three times no less over the past couple of days – a juvenile rat not much bigger than a house mouse chasing an adult squirrel away from areas of ground where bits of food occasionally drop from the birds’ feeding table? The squirrel fled and the baby rat continued to scavenge.

Should I cheer?

Contrasting Roads.

I just watched an episode of Red Dwarf, a British sitcom which was a favourite of mine back in the early nineties. It was made in 1991, just thirty years ago, shortly before the theatre years replaced the photography years, and were to be followed in turn by the writing years. And when the episode finished, the lights in my mind went down, the reels on the projector began to turn, and the silver screen showed image after image of the following fifteen years: the people, the pleasures, the pains, the adventures, the journeys, the romances, the colours, the sights and sounds, the gains and the losses. It was a vibrant and colourful time.

The projector slowed when it arrived at the move to this house fifteen years ago. The colours and sounds faded as the landscape grew bleak and became dominated by a winding road of uncertain footing. Here was the start of the health issues and the growing sense of disenchantment with the human condition. The picture was now fringed by a dark mist which occasionally encroached further onto the road, a road on which the late lamented Lady B would sometimes approach with a candle to remind me of what had gone before. And then she walked out of the picture and headed for pastures new, and the road was empty of all but the search.

The search for what, you might ask. Meaning, I suppose; the truth about the state of being. What else is there when the baubles have fallen dull?

Plot Hole Party Pooping.

I had another one of those days today when my habitual musing gave me ideas for blog posts, but I’d forgotten them all by the time I sat down after dinner (and washing up and vacuuming.) The only thing that came into my mind was the notion that all copies of A Christmas Carol should carry a warning saying ‘Not suitable for vegetarians.’

But then I took to wondering about the scene in the book where the reformed Scrooge tells the little boy to go and buy the biggest turkey in the butcher’s shop and take it to the Cratchit residence, and the boy replies: ‘What, the one as big as me?’ I asked myself:

How long would it take to cook a turkey as big as that? Would it cook in time for the Cratchit family to eat before bed time? I had an experience along those lines once and I know that big turkeys take a very long time to cook if you’re to avoid the risk of contracting salmonella. And the turkey in my case was nothing like as big as a little boy.

Would the kind of range they had in Victorian terraced houses be big enough to accommodate such a bird? I just looked at my own range (which remains a notable, if impractical, point of interest in my office, this room having been the kitchen when the house was built) and I doubt it.

Would Mrs Cratchit own a roasting tin big enough for the job? Considering how poor the Cratchits were, it’s most unlikely. I suppose they could have used the family tin bathtub, but that certainly wouldn’t fit in the oven. (‘Maybe they had a spit over the fire,’ you might suggest. ‘They lived in a hovel in Victorian London,’ I would reply, ‘not Downton Abbey.’)

So there you have it – how the rational half of my brain works when it decides to make its presence felt. Always looking for plot holes, you see. Such a shame. Now I have an image of a downcast Bob throwing the great dead bird out into the street to the delight of the local feral cats. Rather spoils the story, doesn’t it?

The Mystery of Perception.

I passed a woman walking with a little girl up my lane today. We exchanged the usual polite greeting and I was struck by the fact that there was something about her which seemed not quite human – by which I imply neither sub-human nor angelic, just different in some indefinable way.

There was nothing on the surface to explain it. She appeared to be maybe in her late twenties, slim, normally formed, normally dressed, and even moderately pretty. I watched her as she walked away and there was nothing odd about her walk. And yet the impression remained, and quite strongly so.

This is a little frustrating. I’ve never seen her before and I don’t expect ever to see her again, so the mystery will have to remain. Unless, that is, she turns up in one of those odd videos on YouTube about people switching dimensions, and then I can say ‘Ah, so that’s who she was.’ (But then I would have to consider whether it was I who had switched dimensions. Making sense of reality is never easy, is it?)

On Montague's Enduring Appeal.

I’m starting to get the urge to read the short stories of MR James again. I have an anthology containing nearly all of them and I must have read every story at least five times, probably more, and yet their appeal never dies. I know the plots, the characters and the dénouements well enough by now, so why do I never tire of them?

I’m sure it’s all to do with the sense of place and period they evoke, generating settings which are almost palpable. They were mostly written early in the twentieth century before the two world wars turned European civilisation on its head, and most of them are set in rural England where moody hills, mysterious woods and the cold Saxon shore of eastern England provide fertile ground for strange happenings. There are gothic churches, modest stately homes, dusty public schools and the stuffily self-conscious halls of academe. And even the few which are set in foreign locations retain references to mediaeval mysteries and unsavoury characters (Montague Rhodes James was an eminent antiquary by profession who spent his working life ensconced in universities and schools for the gentry, and in whose knowledge of ancient texts the reader can have full confidence.)

And so I think the root of its appeal is the opportunity it provides to escape into an alternative world which is never fantastical, but yet pregnant with paranormal possibility. When I’ve finished my latest Shirley Jackson novel, therefore, I think it will be time to dust off the great MR James tome again.

Incidentally, I made brief reference to the man and his work in a previous post and quoted a line from one of his stories:

Si tu non veneris ad me, ego veniam ad te.

I trusted the reader to know that it was Latin, and to Google a translation if they were sufficiently interested. Maybe I should save current readers the trouble by giving Montague’s own translation:

If you will not come to me, I will come to you.

Think of the possibilities which that seemingly innocuous little statement opens up.

A Preview of the Lady Yu.

I’ve had a day of negotiating fast moving traffic in fast moving lanes on busy, fast moving main roads, much of it in an urban landscape of brick and tarmac and concrete and steel and glass – all the things I want to leave behind me now. It just doesn’t fit with who I am any more.

And so tonight I found a video clip of the Japanese lady Yu who I mentioned in a recent post, the lady who dances with shadows and connects with the stuffy old German negotiating his own road of discovery following the death of his wife.

This lady is very much me. I’ve said often enough that I don’t generally connect with people. I observe them. But here is a rare creature with whom I’m sure I really could connect. That’s what makes her so special.

Excuse me being self-indulgent again. Why would anybody out there be interested in a fictional character illustrating my taste in people? No reason at all, but it’s my blog and I have to write something to it or it will become yet another loss in a life growing bleaker. Here is the lady Yu, just in case:

 

Robin Friends and Warm Flannel.

No encounters with unexpected humans today, just an uneventful walk in the teeth of a wind that was colder than I was expecting (which caused me to rue having failed to don my beanie hat.) But I did go out later (with woolly hat this time) and finish off the last of the autumn clearance jobs in the garden. Only the Himalayan honeysuckle left to prune now, and she isn’t ready yet because she still has fresh leaves and black pearls hanging from her green branches.

While I was working at the bottom of the garden I was visited by the robin which always comes to investigate the plant detritus for signs of fresh food. He comes a little closer every time, and today he was right up to my foot. I get such a thrill when a wild creature trusts me like that.

On the downbeat, my kitchen is almost frighteningly cold tonight, and the disturbing dreams are back. On the up, the bed is now in winter rig – heavy flannel sheets and a 17 tog duvet. As Macbeth almost said: Blow wind, come wrack, at least we’ll die with flannel on our back.

*  *  *

And to reprise last night’s post, I found the music which aptly defines the film Cherry Blossoms. The lovely Yu (who isn't illustrated, unfortunately) has been invading my thoughts all day.

 

A Break in the Reel of Film.

I’ve fallen prey to a strange mental phenomenon tonight. I have the unsettling sense that my life has stopped.

I’m still breathing, I’m still conscious and thinking logically, and my heart is still beating. I have no money worries; I have a couple of unwanted prospects but nothing I haven’t faced and dealt with before; my house is cold tonight but it hasn’t collapsed. And yet I have the sudden sense that the progress of my life has come to a halt. I’m in a barren wilderness with nothing to do and nowhere to go, but I’m sitting at the computer typing this post.

This is interesting and worthy of observation. I ask myself whether it is a known condition. I have no idea, but I fully expect that tomorrow morning I will wake to another day and the feeling will be gone. So what’s the explanation?

Being Popular and a Dream Manifested.

I seem to be popular today. This morning I received two emails – which is two more than I usually receive – both of which began ‘HaHaHa.’ (Actually, they didn’t. One began ‘HaHaHa’; the other began ‘HaHa’, but who’s counting? It is at least gratifying to know that some people occasionally find me funny.)

And then I went out for a walk before lunch and met four different people who all wanted to stop and chat. I did my duty and stopped and chatted. It seemed churlish to point out to them that at lunchtime I would much rather be eating my lunch than being unexpectedly popular. Besides, the four humans were augmented by a horse who likes me (apparently) and she’s excused.

*  *  *

Tonight I watched a German film called Cherry Blossoms and was utterly captivated by its beauty and poignancy. I have no hesitation in recommending it most highly to anybody with a heart, a soul, or anything approximating to either. And to anybody who does watch it, or already knows it, I would say:

Yu

Is my dream

Come

True

She’s exactly what I ache for every day of my life. One day, perhaps. And hopefully I won’t have to go to Japan to find her.

The Mystery of Ms Rachel.

I had another email from Rachel tonight. Remember Rachel? She was the friendly customer service assistant at my energy supplier who picked up my last few email enquiries.

I don’t know how she’s always the one to pick up my messages, or how I can be so lucky as to keep picking her out of the bran tub. She always responds so quickly, and talks to me like you would an old pal from high school.

You must admit, that’s most unusual for a representative of the corporate world. They usually connect you to a robot schooled in the list of FAQs and possessed of a minimal range of stock replies such as ‘I am unable to answer your query’, ‘resistance is useless’, and ‘you will be exterminated’ if the FAQs won't do. If you’re really lucky and get a friendly one, you might get a simple GOODBYE in big red letters.

So where did Rachel come from? If she’s a robot, she’s certainly a very advanced one from some superior civilisation far from planet earth. My growing conviction, however, is that she was my mother in a previous life and hasn’t moved on to a higher plane yet.

A Birthday Non-Post.

I was going to write a post tonight but I’ve been busy answering emails (and watching an episode of Doctor Who.) It’s my birthday, you see, and three people remembered. Getting three emails in one day is very rare.

It snowed heavily this afternoon to augment the cold, stormy winds we had over Friday and Saturday. I’ve been going frantic trying to provide the birds with food, while they’ve been trying frantically to get at it before the cruel snow covered it over. Did I say I hate snow? I do, with a passion.

Maybe I’ll think of something to say tomorrow.  

Arriving Early at the Underworld.

We had the first snow of the winter today and tomorrow is my birthday. The significance of the coincidence is simply that it’s most unusual to have snow in the UK before my birthday. The last time it happened it was followed by a miserable 5-month winter and most of my bat friends failed to reappear the following spring.

The sub-zero wind continues to bellow around my house and find access by unidentified means, which isn’t conducive to a comfortable evening. I decline to don a coat just to leave the confines of my office because such an action would merely accentuate the psychological impact of living in a fridge.

The supplementary heating I have in said office is struggling to make much of an impression on the temperature tonight. Unfortunately, it still costs the same amount to run.

The priestess has written me a number of deep and meaningful emails recently, but my replies have been taciturn and a little sharp in consequence of a sombre mood. It occurred to me that she might now be reluctant to write to me at all, and so I considered initiating an email back to say: ‘Please don’t be reluctant to write to me if such be your wish. Though my replies be disappointingly brief, I do still enjoy receiving them and take full note of everything you say.’ But it seemed like begging, so I didn’t.

OK, now I’ve got that off my chest I can return to the business of waiting patiently for bed time. I’m constrained from going to bed when the fancy takes me because I have a panel heater in the bedroom which is timed to work between 1am and 8am when the electricity is cheaper. I’m not a rich man, you see, and if the only point of being rich is to have a warm house in the winter, I see little reason to aspire to the condition. There isn’t really anything else I want for myself which requires money.

Mind Matters.

The wind is howling with great gusto around the house tonight, the mysterious creature which inhabits the roof space above my kitchen is knocking and scraping around, and I just watched a Doctor Who episode about a werewolf. It’s all making me feel curiously unsettled, as though the enemy is at the gates and I can hear them digging a tunnel under the walls. Did you know that fear and loathing of invasion is at the root of most of my neuroses? I suspect it’s a past life thing.

*  *  *

There’s a motivational video which occasionally shows up on my YouTube recommendations. It says something like: As soon as you stop wanting something, you will get it. What kind of motivation is that? If you’ve stopped wanting something, what’s the point of getting it? The question here, of course, is whether wisdom is all the wiser for being irrational.

Emma and the Banana.

Having typed a short blog post and watched an episode of Inside Number 9 on DVD, I found myself at a loose end and becoming bored. I decided it would be interesting to get hold of Wiki, type in ‘Emma Watson’ to discover when she was born, and then try to work out where I was and what I was doing at that most propitious of moments.

Why Emma Watson, you may ask. Well, I always think of her every time I write anything about the Liberal Alter-Establishment, especially since I have fond recollections of the time when she was effectively indistinguishable from Hermione Granger. That was before she became a professional actor, caught the popularity bug, and decided to prove to the world that she really did have breasts just in case any of us were wondering. And there was also the fact that, for all her fabled beauty – and I would be the last to deny that she was and still is extremely physically attractive – I always found her nose slightly irritating and wished they would avoid photographing her in profile.

But then I decided that my present needs would be better served by having a banana, so that’s what I did instead. (It had a black bit at the bottom, you know. I swear bananas never had black bits at the bottom when I was a lad.)

So here I am, having eased back the habitual depression a notch or two, having come a little closer to accommodation with sitting in a cold old house on a frigid November night, and having managed, in consequence, to make a silly and utterly pointless blog post. Hoorah for that, I say. I expect I’ll still be scared to get out of bed tomorrow morning because I always am, but that’s in the future.

(So should I now consider writing that post I’ve had in mind for a while, about the notion that time doesn’t exist, and if it doesn’t exist does it mean that there’s no such thing as past and future, and if that’s the case does it indicate that life is a matter of each individual’s fragment of consciousness travelling through a fixed tableau? Erm…)

Questioning the Gagging Orders.

I gather that in some conservative Islamic cultures a person can be sentenced to death for using words which are deemed to be insulting to the Prophet, even if unintentionally.

Meanwhile, the liberals in Australia are up in arms over a new law which allows members of religious faiths to offer a derogatory opinion of homosexuality based on the teaching of their holy book.

Does this amount to a sublime irony, or just another example of the world becoming sillier and sillier?

(And at this juncture I have to say that I view with extreme disquiet the notion that an honest expression of opinion can ever be deemed a ‘crime’. Are we not all free to simply disagree?)

Re-Writing the Folk Tale.

I think I’ve mentioned that I did some damage to my right arm during the autumn clearance work in the garden. After two months it continues to be painful, and in the interim I’ve been transferring as much duty as possible to my left hand. Now I seem to have overdone it because my left hand and wrist have started hurting as much as my right arm. It seems the story of Rapunzel need re-writing:

‘I say, beautiful lady, your singing has brought enchantment to my heart. May we meet?’

‘Yes, yes, we may, fair princely being. I will let my long, luxuriant hair down so you may climb up it and we can be together.’

‘Well, actually, I can’t.’

 

'Can't what?'

 

'Climb up it.'

‘Why not?’

‘My right arm and left hand both hurt. Can’t you come down?’

‘Of course I can’t, you idiot. The witch has locked me in up here. That’s the point.’

‘Oh I see. Oh well, can’t be helped I suppose. Bye, then.’

Standing Back.

Someone I know is currently being driven by the powerful winds of passion onto a course which I fear will drive her onto the rocks. So should I advise caution? No, for several reasons.

Firstly, I don’t give advice because I consider it presumptuous. Secondly, it isn’t really any of my business. Thirdly, I might be wrong. But the main reason is the fact that I know her to be an experience junkie, and experiences come in all forms, some good and some bad. That’s life and it’s her right to experience it warts and all.

If I’m right, perhaps I will still be around to help her patch up the ship. Or maybe I won’t.

*  *  *

I’m currently being wowed by Shirley Jackson’s masterful skill at drawing a character by the classic expedient of showing, not telling. I’m actually quite pleased that I never discovered this woman before. I think she would have slipped by unnoticed, and that would have been a shame.

Down But Not Quite Out.

So, what does a writer write about when the will to write is weak and there’s nothing to write about anyway?

That sentence jumped into my head two nights ago after I wrote the post about not being as good a writer as I used to think I was. And still there isn’t much to write about, although I suppose I could mention a couple of things in passing:

I read two reports this morning which left a strong feeling that I no longer wish to be a member of the human species. The first pushed my depression to an even deeper state, and the second opened the tap for a few minutes. It’s just that the dark magma which lies at the base of the human psyche, and which threatens to erupt only too readily and too often, is not to my taste. Reclusiveness seems to be the only way forward.

I discovered yesterday that John Fowles (author of The French Lieutenant’s Woman among other works) and I have certain notable character traits in common. If only I had an Elena van Lieshout to keep me company as winter approaches. Maybe I would if I’d begun to write earlier in life and taken it more seriously, but who knows where the road not travelled would have led?

Talking of winter, my house has now developed its characteristic winter chill. It’s probably no coincidence that my angina has also become more uncomfortable. The taking of walks around the Shire is now just another chore.

I wonder how long it will be before I think of something else to give me an excuse to exercise my fingers at the keyboard.

(I don’t much like being as self-indulgent as this, but I haven’t much else to do during the long, dark evenings. The priestess said to me last night: ‘I know we’re worlds apart at the moment.’ She was right.)

Re-Appraisal.

I’ve just started reading one of Shirley Jackson’s earlier novels, The Bird’s Nest, and it’s teaching me something important:

I was never as good a writer as I thought I was.

Not that I ever had a particularly high opinion of my writing you understand, but I did have a vague notion of occupying a certain – albeit undefined – position on the spectrum of Very Good to Very Bad. That’s changed and so I’ve demoted myself.

I am in awe of this woman’s skill and mental energy. And if that means my self-perception pales further in comparison, I consider it a good thing because knowing myself is one the two biggest preoccupations I have. (The other is knowing the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything, but that line of enquiry never fails to offer many disparate paths in a fog-shrouded wilderness. Knowing how good or bad I am at something is much easier.)