So Why Beltane?

Another year, another Beltane. Beltane began at 8.22 this evening here in the UK, and I lit my fire at about 8.30.

I was concerned that I might have to forego it this year, at least until tomorrow, because it came on to rain at eight o’clock and fires don’t light easily outdoors in the rain. But no, the rain stopped in time and the whole thing passed off well. And it struck me while tending the fire that even if my wishes had been thwarted, the rain would have been the greatest blessing Beltane could have bestowed.

Up until this past week the weather had been less than kind to the trees and growing things. We’d had several weeks of clear skies, bright sunshine, many freezing nights, and a generally cold airflow. The result was parched earth, young crops turning brown, and leaves shrivelling in the garden. And then we had a short period of rain followed by several showery days. Today we had the most showers of any day so far.

The result has been a marked change in the look and feel of garden and landscape alike. The new leaves appear to glow, and at the risk of sounding fanciful I have to say that everything rooted in the earth looks so much happier. And when I see the trees and growing things looking happier, I feel happier. While it might be overstating the case to say that I feel connected with nature, I certainly feel closer to it. But maybe the two things are actually the same, and that gives the clue as to why I have a fire at Beltane every year. It’s simply a matter of celebrating the richness and fecundity of nature and the cosmic forces which sustain life.

When people routinely and universally – at least in much of the world – celebrate Christmas, they’re celebrating the birth 2,000 years ago of a preacher about whom we know very little. Whatever Jesus actually said, whatever the root of his teaching really was (but which I suspect was misunderstood), and whatever the adherents of a religion founded in his name choose to believe, Jesus is a remote figure. Nature isn’t. Nature is what we’re all an individualised part of at this level of reality. Without it, we couldn’t be here. It seems to me, therefore, that Beltane is the best thing I could choose to celebrate.

Envying Shirley.

The postman brought me a present today – my second novel by Shirley Jackson. This one is called We Have Always Lived in the Castle. 

 

Consensus would apparently have it that it’s her best, and it was recommended to me by Mrs Nancy K of upstate New York. Thank you, Nancy (and I would be grateful if somebody would tell me whether ‘upstate’ should take an uppercase U when it’s part of the name of a region. My instinct suggests that it shouldn’t, but my instinct is based on the UK model and the American model might be different.) But back to the book:

I’ve only read the first few pages so far (because I spent some time counting the words on one page in order to calculate the word count of the whole book, the reason for which I needn’t go into) and I have a problem. My problem is that I get it too well. I understand the nuances; I see and feel the character of Mary Katherine Blackwood – presumably the main protagonist; I recognise the subtle undercurrent of dry humour. And then I begin to feel a mild and pointless sense of regret that I never wrote something like this. My fiction was always presented in the form of rich, descriptive, but conventional prose. My first aim was always to establish a sense of place, my second to emulate the tonal balance and flow of traditional English literature. The plot came third – and plot surely has its place – but there was never anything oddball about it. Shirley Jackson does oddball quite delightfully, and I’m a little envious. My blog occasionally slips into oddball mode (in fact, I’m reasonably sure that people reading it sometimes do so with a questioning frown and a shake of the head) but my fiction never did.

So is my sense of regret justified? Clearly not. We all have to have our own style and our own voice. Just because I can do oddball when the mood takes me doesn’t mean I was somehow deficient by not using it in my fiction. Somebody once said that if there’s one thread running through my stories, it is the normalising of the paranormal. It would be hard to imagine how oddball diversions would have accorded with such a process. And maybe Shirley Jackson knew more oddball people than I have; maybe she was more oddball than me; maybe the drawing of psychological aspects of character was more important to her. And the universal consensus would obviously hold that she was a better writer anyway.

That’s all fine. We use such talents as we have to the best of our ability, and the rest is the road not travelled. No such thing, so no regrets.

A Minor Apology.

I was intending to write a post tonight – or to be more precise, I was intending to make every effort to think of something to write a post about. (It would probably have been about how the blackthorn blossom has proliferated this year – great chunks of white splendour in field and hedgerow all over the Shire and beyond. I’ve lived here for fifteen years and never knew we had so much blackthorn. Now I’m becoming excited at the prospect of the hawthorn following suit next month. Small minds, and all that…)

In the event, I never got around to it because I was sidetracked into replying to an email from the priestess. Priorities are, after all, priorities.

I suppose I could briefly mention that a very small Chinese woman smiled at me in Sainsbury’s today. I like it when small Chinese women smile at me. It makes me feel that maybe I matter after all.

And the fullish moon tonight is one of those spooky yellow ones. It’s hanging low in the sky and peeking furtively through the branches of the tree at the back of my house. I never know whether to trust spooky yellow moons which peer furtively through tree branches. They have an aura of conspiracy about them.

But now I've arrived at that time of night when YouTube and a couple of barley juice nightcaps send me to bed better equipped to face the prospect of waking to another day. Maybe I’ll manage a proper post tomorrow if my spirit is still in the material world. (I’ve already listened to that one on YouTube. It takes me back to a time when photography was my monomania and I spent the wee small hours developing and printing pictures, accompanied by the likes of The Police, Bruce Springsteen, Wings and the Moody Blues, instead of sitting in front of a computer spouting mostly rubbish. I had a wife and a dog back then, and the days were fuller.)

Ads By Contrast.

The extent to which I dislike adverts must have become the stuff of legend on this blog by now, but here’s something interesting: I often watch a Chinese shuffle dance video on YouTube which is always followed by a Chinese ad, and not only do I find it bearable but actually like it. I’m sure the appeal has something to do with different cultural imperatives and the fact that I don’t know a word of Mandarin, but it’s still a nice surprise.

*  *  *

In stark contrast, there’s an ad for BMW which frequently appears on my Outlook email page. I can’t post it because there’s no option to copy and save the picture, but it’s easily described:

Two BMWs stand on the gravelly foreshore of a placid lake, and beyond the lake are statuesque mountains. I’ve no doubt that the message you’re supposed to take is that the car is the means by which you access a place of beauty, and is, therefore, an integral part of the experience. And the fact that there are two vehicles implies the likelihood of a romantic tryst to add further appeal.

What I see is a beautiful landscape polluted by the incongruous presence of two ugly metal boxes on wheels. And sanity re-asserts itself.

On Life and New Things.

I was going to make an extended post tonight around the question of ‘do people change?’ I got to musing about it when I heard Gregory House – or it might have been James Wilson – say ‘people don’t change.’ I told myself to think about it and subsequently came up with my version of the answer, and here it is:

Forty two. (Sorry, force of habit.)

Yes and no. It depends on the nature of the change and the agent that’s driving it. And that’s all I’m prepared to say because I’m not in the mood for extended rationale (and what the blip would I know anyway?)

Instead, I thought I might mention the fact that I bought two very stylish mugs today. (They really are very stylish, the sort you might find in some terribly urbane bistro in one of those smarty-pants cities where they have terribly urbane bistros.) I also started using my swish new electric kettle – only a Russell Hobbs, but it’s still swish and new and it wasn’t cheap.

Now, the first of these new diversions suggests I’m rather more sophisticated than I thought I was; that’s just about bearable. The second, however, might or might not reveal that I belong to this culture more than I thought I did, because the buying of swish new kettles which aren’t cheap is central to the ethos of a consumption-obsessed mentality which regards such practice as a defining marker of civilisation. That would worry me, but I only bought it because the switch was going wonky on the old one. So maybe I’m OK after all.

But here’s the irony: When I came to use one of my very stylish new mugs, the unconventional nature of its relative dimensions meant that my reading glasses steamed up when I blew on the hot beverage. Life will insist on playing practical jokes on you, won’t it, just when you’re trying your best to be neither more nor less than who you are.

More Sackcloth and Ashes.

I often watch or read things which cause me to re-appraise my perception of life. Tonight was no exception, but now I realise that the new leaf will soon whither and crumble to dust as leaves are wont to do. Tomorrow I shall go back to being the same old intelligent but confused jerk who never got to grips with life because he was too busy watching other people screwing it up.

(Do you want to know why I regard the priestess so highly? It’s because I’ve never known anybody get it so right the way she does. I feel much respect and fondness for the tryers of this world, but she doesn’t even seem to need to try.)

Contrasting Encounters of the Feminine Kind.

I went for a Covid injection today (which should surely be styled anti-Covid injection, but let’s not be picky) and what a lot of fun it was.

At every stage of the procedure I was attended to, spoken nicely to, asked questions of, and skewered painlessly by a whole battery of young women sporting various forms of medical-style livery, including my very own favourite: scrubs. The most notable of them was wearing a set in a fetching shade of light claret, and if there’s one thing that makes a trip to a hospital worth the effort, it’s a nicely constructed young nursing type clad in light claret scrubs. In fact, I would go so far as to say that scrubs are so damn sexy that I wonder why young women don't go to nightclubs in them. They’d never be short of a date, especially if they were light claret ones. What made the day all the more worthwhile, however, was being able to indulge in lots of (inoffensive) banter with my favourite form of human.

(It might surprise you to know that I’m quite good at banter when the mood takes me. It’s my third best skill after writing and annoying people.)

*  *  *

But the banter didn’t start there; it started earlier when I was out for a walk. As I was coming close to my house I saw approaching me a group of five middle aged women, not wearing scrubs but proper, scruffy walking gear. The leader smiled at me and offered a hearty ‘good morning.’ ‘Oh my giddy aunt,’ I found myself replying, ‘a veritable monstrous regiment of women. How exciting.’

A panic attack soon followed. It occurred to me that they might have been out on a lunchtime ramble from some nearby feminist convention. ‘They might be about to start steaming’, I thought, ‘and giving off noxious fumes. They might start hurling acorns at me, causing me to seek refuge in an adjacent hedge which will be very prickly and therefore injurious to my bodily condition.’

But the goddess smiled on me, and the five women merely laughed. So that was today’s lesson learned: If you encounter five middle aged women perambulating the countryside in walking gear, don’t mention the suffragettes. I did, but I think I got away with it.

*  *  *

The one regrettable part of the day was failing to wave or even smile at the Lady B’s Honourable Sister when she drove past me in the lane. I simply didn’t realise who it was because I haven’t yet got used to the fact that she’s the one who drives the white Volvo. I was really quite mortified, I can tell you, and nearly twelve hours later I still haven’t got over it. I’m hoping that scotch and sleep will assist me in the effort.

Dreaming.

It must be well known to everyone by now that I dream of the Lady B often, but last night I had the strangest Lady B dream ever. The Lady B wasn’t in it; it was totally dominated by her Dear Mama and Honourable Sister.

We walked in their garden, which had assumed the grandeur of a classic English Country House garden – massive, and replete with walls and fences and trees and a lake. I have no recollection whatsoever of what we talked about, but at least I felt welcome, the significance of which is probably obvious to everybody but me.

Be it known that I miss the Lady B greatly. My walks around the Shire lack sunshine now. And just when I’ve had a haircut for the first time in four months…

Not a Bargain.

Today I finally found a company who can supply me with a new blade for my lawnmower. I’ve been trying to find one since last summer. You wouldn’t expect it to be so hard to find a new blade for a lawnmower, would you, but when the machine is a basic model and ten years old, it is.

I was pleased, as you might expect, but with one reservation. I bought the current blade five years ago. It cost £9.99. Given the current rate of inflation I was expecting today’s equivalent to be around £12, but my little order cost £16.49. So does somebody not know what ‘inflation’ means, or is their arithmetical acumen a little suspect?

First Steps in Discovering Romania.

It’s interesting to note how Romania’s star has been rising in my life over the past few years. Up until about five years ago my image of Romania was the one donated to us west Europeans by Bram Stoker. Swarthy men shuffled furtively around seeking an opportunity to slit your throat for the gaining of your gold wedding ring, ravening wolves haunted the forests and byways seeking the opportunity to tear the same throat for the sake of filling their hungry maws, old women in shawls watched you from the shadows through acquisitive eyes set in bloated, leathery faces, and young women – if ever they came into the picture – auditioned to become undead girlies so they could drink the blood of children.

I exaggerate, of course, but not quite as much as you might think. And now I have to wonder why it never registered with me that sweet little Nadia Comănechi was Romanian…

All that changed when the splendid Medeea Popei became my dentist. And then there was the woman I encountered in an Ashbourne coffee shop, and the woman who worked on the tills in a Uttoxeter discount store, and the nurse who came to perform my preliminaries while I was prostrate in the A&E department of the Royal Derby Hospital. All friendly, smiley, chatty and light of demeanour, with not a hint of sharp knives, long teeth, leathery skin or ill intent in sight. And all Romanian.

Fast forward to the YouTube videos of people performing the Jerusalema dance challenge in Romanian cities and the Romanian countryside, and there I saw a level of sophistication, fine design, prettiness and good vibrations easily the match of my own little corner of Europe. Their bears are rather nice, too, as evidenced by this picture taken in the Carpathians:

 

 

Today I received a reply to one of my YouTube comments from a woman called Elena. It said ‘Agree 100%’ – in Romanian. And the world turns…

Dippiness, Dolls, Directions, and Short Days.

I’ve said often enough that I hate winter, but there's one thing I like about it: the short days. I like that point in the day when I can close the curtains and shut the world out, and the sooner it comes the better. The world and I aren’t getting on at the moment.

*  *  *

And on the subject of getting on, I watched an episode of House tonight which suggested that instead of having all those ill-fated relationships with women, I would have been better off buying a state-of-the-art sex doll. Quote:

‘She’s always there for me when I get home,’ says the patient (whose girlfriend is a state-of-the-art sex doll.)

‘So is the toaster,’ replies the more practically-minded Dr Adams.

‘But people don’t have meaningful relationships with toasters.’

This logic appeals to me, and I swear I would have been happier and better balanced if I’d followed it. Distress would have been caused to fewer people and my karma would have been better served. Too late now. ’Tis ever the way.

*  *  *

And on the subject of relationships, I’m currently engaged in discourse with two women on YouTube. One is the angry type who likes to tell me that I’m an idiot and my statements are stupid; the other is the dippy type who says ‘thanks for the lesson’, the lesson being that China is a much bigger country than Japan. I think I’ll stick with the latter. Dumb and dippy make an attractive combination.

*  *  *

Oh, and I’ve nearly finished reading The Haunting of Hill House. Eleanor is either finally going off the rails or finally finding her true place in life, depending on how you view the nature of life. I’m on her side.

On Vick and the Wigan Connection.

One of my many alter egos would like to make a simple comment:

Vick Hope is a helluva hottie

This particular little reprobate is the one I like to keep safely locked in the attic on those rare occasions when I’m in the company of discerning people. He’s an embarrassment. He’s sexist and shallow, has a taste for lowbrow, colloquial expressions, and objectifies women in the same way that foxes objectify pheasants.

I, the parent JJ, am ashamed of him, and yet I can’t help feeling a certain grudging fondness for the little scamp. He is, after all, the one who invented the character: Black Bessie the Wigan Vampire. Anyone who knows Wigan the way I mostly don’t will understand why that epithet is graced with a hint of comic genius, so he isn't always easy to ignore.

At this point I have to be frank and admit that I only ever met two people from Wigan (not that everyone I ever met told me where they came from, you understand, but those two did.) They were the two girls Barry Haynes and I took up with while we were on holiday in Blackpool when we were fifteen. The taller of the two was the one who made the comment about a pig with its throat cut. I remarked on it in a very early blog post, but different people were reading it then. I doubt that anyone reading the blog now will remember it. At least, I hope they won’t. It might offer some reassurance, however, to know that neither of the girls from Wigan looked remotely like Vick Hope. These are they:

 

 

And this is Vick Hope (Vick is short for Victoria, by the way. And might I just mention that I never, ever listen to BBC Radio 1. She just happens to be appearing every evening this week on a TV programme I watch. She has a brain as well as a face, a body, long legs, and… that sort of thing.)

 

Out of the Mouths of Babes and Furry Things.

Let me say at the outset that I’m not generally a controlling type as the concept is normally perceived. In fact, I regard those who are controlling types (as normally perceived) with scorn and not a little loathing. And yet…

…and yet…

A squirrel taught me today that my response to being challenged with regard to control over my personal environment is rather stronger than I feel it ought to be. Did I say a squirrel? Yes, I said a squirrel. (I never realised just how much attitude those cute little guys with the long bushy tails have. They’re combative creatures, and they don’t care how big you are.)

So I thought about this and soon realised that the need to control your environment is an expression of fear. Fear of what, I asked myself. Well, fear of losing control I suppose. That wasn’t sufficient because the next question was: ‘why should losing control – or even having it challenged – be something to fear?’ Simple answer: because losing control leaves you vulnerable to life’s vicissitudes, and life’s vicissitudes are unpredictable and therefore potentially dangerous.

You must admit, that makes a certain sense and is, perhaps, not so unreasonable (even though the Taoists would say it’s pointless.) Nevertheless, being handed this lesson by a squirrel (rather than a Taoist) seemed a little odd. But maybe we would all be happier and less stressed if only we could stop fearing the loss of control.

And I do know that I’m not the first person to come to this realisation. I’ve heard it come out of the mouths of young people a few times, but because they were young I mostly ignored it. So the next time I hear this bit of worldly wisdom come out of the mouth of a young person, I must remember to ask them whether they’ve had any encounters with squirrels lately.

On Sarahs and Smiles.

I was out in the garden at twilight this evening, contemplating the trees, the birds and bats, the local little people, my navel, that sort of thing, when I suddenly felt the urge to say: ‘Where is Sarah? I want Sarah.’ And so I did (say it, that is.)

Of course, only I know which of the three notable Sarahs I had in mind. You don’t, which seems fair enough to me. (Clue: the one with the loveliest smile. Does that help?)

The thing is, though, I then remembered an episode of Inspector Morse. (My favourite cop show, and the episode in question was one of the best. It was the only one in which the word ‘metempsychosis’ was used. Such matters are memorable to me.) There’s a point at which our intrepid Oxford detective is feeling spaced out and paranoid on account of having been tracked and toyed with by an ingenious adversary, and has more latterly succumbed to smoke inhalation courtesy of the bad guy’s nefarious activities.

‘Where is Lewis?’ he asks while the paramedic is trying to get him into an ambulance. ‘I want Lewis.’

In Morse’s case, the plea derived purely from the fact that he was feeling spaced out and paranoid, and Sergeant Lewis was the only person in whom he placed any degree of trust. Such is not the case with Sarah, whichever one I had in mind. I don’t trust Sarah (any of them) any more than I trust anybody else. I don’t do trust for the same reason that I don’t do religion. I just wanted to see her smile at me, because when Sarah smiles at me it takes my mind off the health issues for all of sixty seconds (approximately.) I just thought it an odd coincidence, and I’m sure that’s all it was.

So then I watched an episode of House in which the patient’s troubles – everything from vomiting blood to wetting himself to seeing double to having his skin turn yellow – all derived from low testosterone; and they mentioned that men experience a drop in testosterone when babies arrive on the scene. I made a post once about the fact that I’d suddenly started noticing babies, didn’t I, so maybe all things really are connected in this best of all possible worlds. Wouldn’t that be nice?

So should I now go on to talk about the latest development on the health issue front? No, I’ll read some more of my book instead.

Postscript:

After writing this I realised something:

I’ve noticed that some attractive people look less attractive when they smile, while some unattractive people become attractive when they smile. But the really lucky ones are the attractive people who become even more attractive when they smile. I never belonged in any of these categories. I’m one of the rare exceptions who simply go from bad to worse, in consequence of which they need to develop permanent frown lines if they’re to have the confidence to hold their heads up in public.

On Purity and a Fail.

For several hours today there’s been a post I’ve wanted to make. It seemed important and I did try, but the words wouldn’t come. Every attempt at phrasing was awkward and inadequate, and the elements of logical expression so necessary to effective communication declined to coalesce into an acceptable form. I found it most frustrating and gave up.

It was about the search for purity (I’ve touched on it before in this blog) and after much reasoning it came to an impenetrable barrier when I tried to find the ultimate definition of the term. I could see it flitting about behind a diaphanous screen, tempting me to reach through and grab it, but it remained elusive and vague and I decided that I’m not yet mature enough to be ready to know it. It seems I am but a minor knight searching for the Holy Grail, and therefore destined to die a lonely death on some blasted heath without ever finding it.

And do you know what started all this? Spending 2½ hours this afternoon cleaning the car inside and out. It’s often said that great oaks from little acorns grow, so maybe the biggest questions can also sprout from the most mundane of activities. For the time being, however, it seems my own oak is still a long way from bearing leaves.

The Twilight Swing.

I often wonder why twilight is so important to me; why the ambient condition at that time of day affects my state of mind more than at any other.

I think it’s because twilight is the fulcrum of the diurnal round, the point at which the head of the boat swings through the prevailing wind in order to change tack, the nether world in which the mind is eased away from obeisance to the god and led unerringly to veneration of the moon. As the light sinks at twilight we experience the essence of flux, which is the only constant of material existence. I suspect that’s what gives it its subtle power to generate a surprisingly profound change in perception.

(The metaphors I’m using are a little fanciful, I know, but the fact remains that there is always something tantalisingly mysterious about nether worlds.)

I suppose the early risers – to which august company I certainly don’t belong – might find the same to be true of the dawn. I find the contrast interesting because it means that their mysterious nether world leads them into the light, whereas mine takes me drifting into darkness. It probably explains a lot.

On Age and Envy.

There are many things I envy about the young, not the least being their eyes.  Bright, clear, replete with the energy and optimism of a road yet to be travelled… And if the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the souls of the young must also be bright, clear, energetic and optimistic, at least in most cases. No drooping lids here; no deeply ingrained and deforming lines; no creeping dampness and paleness as the energy of mind and body runs, like the sacred river, down to a sunless sea.

And that’s why I told the young woman in the pharmacy today that one of the benefits of wearing a face mask is that it highlights the eyes, and that hers were very lovely. Indeed they were. She was obviously of South Asian origin, and inveterate observers like me are prone to noticing that South Asian eyes, especially in women, exhibit a level of power and the ability to compel unparalleled in other races.

I wouldn’t have said it ten years ago because it would have sounded creepy, but that’s no longer a worry because I no longer have anything to gain from the approbation of young women. And so telling a young woman that she has lovely eyes is no different than telling a man that I admire his sturdy and handsome dog. I notice everything and I comment on everything, so why should the loveliness of eyes be an exception?

I was pleased that I’d said it. It’s pleasing that I can now have the courage to say it. And the young woman herself seemed pleased; she said ‘thank you’ and sounded genuine. So maybe I’ve now found something that the young can envy in the old.

Another Excuse.

I’ve been less than attentive to my blog again lately, haven’t I? It had nothing to do with black dogs this time, but rather the boringly mundane matter of being busy. I heard a mellifluous voice drift on the wind from the garden a few days ago. It said:

‘Excuse me, Mr JJ, but you do know what time of the year it is, don’t you? I realise that the air is rather colder than one might reasonably expect this far beyond the equinox – we are plants after all, and so are in the best of positions to notice such a phenomenon – but the spring is springing, you see, and we are united in feeling that you should, perhaps, pay us some attention.’

I was chastened, of course, and so I have been paying my green friends the attention they undoubtedly deserve. I’ve also finished and fitted the new bird table, but have since noticed that I must have suffered a loss of concentration at one point. One of the side panels is a whole centimetre out of proper position, and so the whole looks unbalanced and is causing me some distress. In consequence, attention is needed and will be paid. And then there’s the house to keep in order, and a significant plethora of other things vying for appropriate action. It’s all rather tedious, but that’s how things are at the moment.

Today my mind has been oft distracted by thoughts of the Lady B and the priestess, which is verging on the incomprehensible since I’ve never met the priestess and probably never shall, and my last sighting of the Lady B was around two months ago when she was jogging down my lane accompanied by some bloke who I assumed to be connected with her in some way (her husband, I expect, but how would I know?)

But maybe that gives the clue as to why my thoughts have been oft distracted. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, don’t they? Can’t say I’ve ever much subscribed to the view myself, but I have been known to be wrong.

Being Normal for Once.

What I find strangest of all about YouTube ads is this: Nearly every video you set playing runs for about ten seconds and then a banner ad appears on the screen, partially obstructing whatever it is you’re trying to watch. That’s pretty irritating, right? So surely, everybody but everybody must rush for the little cross in the corner and switch the damn thing off.

That being the case, why do advertisers pay money to have their ad presented that way? Am I to believe that there really are people out there in the world who will forego their chosen video and click on the ad instead? If that is the case, I defy anybody to seriously claim that I’m the weird one around here.

A Bloke Called Philip.

I went through to the living room earlier to watch the only programme I regularly watch on the TV. I got a talking head with subtitles informing me that Prince Philip had died. Well, I already knew that because both the national news and world news pages on the BBC website had screamed it at me in big letters as soon as I’d booted up the computer this morning. I checked the listings to see whether my programme was still due to be shown at the appointed time. They read:

BBC2. 4pm – midnight. A Tribute to Prince Philip.

I checked BBC1 to see whether it had been transferred over there:

BBC1. 4pm – midnight. A Tribute to Prince Philip.

I wondered what on earth was going on here. How can you justify giving over the whole late afternoon, evening, and night time schedules on the two flagship channels to the death of one 99-year-old man, even if he was a member of the royal family? What on earth can you find to say in eight freggin’ hours?

So I decided to work out what I would say if I had the misfortune to be interviewed on the matter. I came up with the following eulogy:

He offended a lot of people with injudicious and insensitive comments.

Some of them were quite funny, so he gave us a few laughs down the years.

He lived longer than most people do.

Cheerio Prince Philip.

But you see, the real problem here is that I don’t understand why some people take the royal family so seriously. It seems to me that if life for the rest of us is a dour, occasionally dangerous, often disreputable and dysfunctional drama, the royal family is basically the sanitised cartoon version. As such, it’s occasionally entertaining but little else.

Meaningful Comparisons.

I read today that Beijing has now taken over from New York with regard to the number of billionaires who live there. The combined wealth of the Big Apple billionaires, however, still exceeds those in the Big Noodle. Don’t you just love statistics like that? Isn’t life wonderful?

What I’m curious to have now is a comparison of the number of homeless people who die of hunger and hypothermia in frigid alleyways on cold winter nights. I do so like balance, you see, especially when it’s amusing.

A Reason To Be Pleased.

I mentioned recently that I’d bought the timber to make a new bird table. Previous examples of my art and ingenuity were made with pieces of old timber I found lying about the place when I moved here (I did say I was poor, didn’t I?) I wanted this one to be strong enough to stand the test of time and the weight of two or three cock pheasants, and that’s why I decided to spend the money and do the job properly.

But the timber wasn’t the only thing I spent money on. I also bought a good quality, fine cut wood saw to replace the old one I found hanging in the shed (also when I moved here, and also because I was too poor to buy a new one. Did I mention that I was poor? Oh.)

Today I did the first half of the job – measuring, cutting and marking the materials for size and positioning. Unfortunately, the cold, strong wind kept making my eyes water so I couldn’t see properly. And the pencil and note pad kept trying to escape in the direction of the boundary hedge, which is why I only did half the job. Removing the old one and fitting the new can wait for a warmer, calmer day.

The real – and very pleasing – revelation, however, was the new saw. Cutting across a piece of timber which used to take five minutes with the old one only took about thirty seconds today. When I’d finished, my heart and lungs said ‘thank you’ and my right arm said ‘let me know when you’re about to start.’

And so a good time was had by all, and then I celebrated with a mug of tea and a custard cream biscuit. Celebrations are rare these days, and even simple ones are welcome.

Describing the I.

I’m going to do something about which I feel reluctant, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to quote somebody else’s writing just because I admire it, and because the chosen passage might explain why I admire it.

The four ‘house guests’ of Hill House – being the dreamy Eleanor, the urbane Theo, the opportunist Luke, and the psychologist Dr Montague – are relaxing after dinner in the house’s only comfortable room. Dr Montague has just related what he knows of the history of the building, and there’s a fire burning in the grate. During a lull in the conversation, the narrative continues:

Eleanor found herself unexpectedly admiring her own feet. Theodora dreamed over the fire just beyond the tips of her toes, and Eleanor thought with deep satisfaction that her feet were handsome in their red sandals; what a complete and separate thing I am, she thought, going from my red toes to the top of my head, individually an I, possessed of attributes belonging only to me. I have red shoes, she thought – that goes with being Eleanor; I dislike lobster and sleep on my left side and crack my knuckles when I am nervous and save buttons. I am holding a brandy glass which is mine because I am here and I am using it and I have a place in this room. I have red shoes and tomorrow I will wake up and I will still be here.

‘I have red shoes,’ she said very softly, and Theodora turned and smiled up at her.

What a splendid way to describe a shy, insecure and splendidly oddball character. Am I so taken with it because I see a part of myself reflected here? I think I do in a way, but it’s only a small part. Reality is far more complex than that. Suffice it to repeat that I admire the style.

A Rare Experience.

I’m getting into my new book now – the paranormal/psychological drama, The Haunting of Hill House. And here’s an interesting fact:

I’m hardly ever spooked by stories which fall within the genre labelled ‘horror.’ A few Japanese films have come close, but that’s about it. I don’t recall any film, book or short story having made me reluctant to go upstairs at dead of night. (The three films I remember scaring me witless were Jaws, Alien and Life of Pi, none of which had anything paranormal about them. The Ghost and the Darkness – which has lions but no ghosts in it – was another one until I forced myself to watch it to the end, at which point I realised that it was effectively a remake of Jaws. The previous sense of spookiness was immediately dispelled and replaced by self-congratulation at what I regarded as a mildly adroit observation.)

But after reading most of chapter 2 last night, I did feel slightly reluctant to go upstairs. It made a refreshing change, and has to stand as some level of commendation.

Simon and Sarah: the Name Issue.

Simon, Sarah and their little boy, Stanley, were sitting at their dining table eating their evening meal. Stanley, who was unusually conscientious for a boy of his age, was concentrating hard on holding his knife with the handle underneath the palm of his hand, rather than over the top where it would mimic the appearance of a pencil.

His mother had taught him to hold it that way. She’d said that it didn’t really matter how a knife was held, but that there were people in polite society who took such matters seriously, and that if he were ever to mix with them he would feel more at ease if the ‘correct’ holding of table utensils was a matter of practised ease. Sarah was currently following received form as she cut the components of her meal into small pieces, before placing them demurely into a mouth opened only so far as was necessary to allow comfortable access.

Simon, on the other hand, was holding the leg of a large, roasted bird in the manner of a club, and biting unduly large chunks off the thigh while concentrating on the stutterings and shriekings emanating from some lurid game show on the television.

‘Dad,’ said little Stanley.

‘What?’ said little Stanley’s dad.

‘Why is my name Stanley?’

Simon paused in his chewing to guffaw at the ravings of a curiously-shaped, middle aged woman in a floral dress who had just guessed that Mozart had been responsible for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A few morsels of roasted bird thigh landed on the carpet in consequence.

‘What’s wrong with Stanley?’ replied his father eventually, while eagerly watching for the latest score to be flashed up on the big screen with the flashing lights.

‘I’m the only boy in my school called Stanley. Craig Johnson says it’s a silly name.’

‘Craig Johnson’s a prat,’ said Simon with commendable certainty. ‘You’re called Stanley because your granddad was called Stanley. It’s traditional to call boys after their granddads.

Sarah, being entirely devoid of any desire to watch glitzy game shows, began to search her mind for another example among the boys she’d known of one who had been named after his grandfather. Having failed with the first five which came to mind, she gave up and cut a rather large piece of potato into two halves. She said nothing. Stanley, on the other hand, wasn’t finished yet.

‘So was your granddad called Simon?’ he asked.

‘Will you shut up,’ his father replied, the merest hint of aggression being apparent in his tone. ‘I’m trying to watch a programme on the TV. You should watch it, too. You might learn something.’

‘Your dad’s right,’ said Sarah unexpectedly. ‘It is true that it’s a convention in his family to name boys after their grandfather. His grandfather was called Theophilus, but he could never get the spelling right, so when he was old enough he changed it to Simon. Easy to spell, see?’

‘What the hell would you know?’ said her husband, finally taking his eyes from the glitzy game show in order to fire a little venom in the direction of his wife. ‘Where the hell did you get that from?’

‘Your mother told me,’ said Sarah

Little Stanley giggled.

Exercising Reason, Llama-Style.

My old friend, the llama, dropped in on me today. When I say ‘dropped in’, maybe I should be more specific. I was sitting at my computer savouring my new, grade 6, high roast coffee, when my peripheral vision was suddenly flooded by something which hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier. Being naturally intrigued, I turned to ascertain its identity.

‘Hello,’ said the llama.

‘Hello,’ I replied, striving to maintain an air of nonchalance as one does when confronted by llamas. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages. Where’ve you been?’

‘I haven’t been anywhere,’ replied the llama.

‘You must have been somewhere,’ I countered.

‘Why?’

‘Everybody has to be somewhere,’ I reasoned hopefully. (The application of reason is always accompanied by an unaccountable hint of uncertainty in such situations.) ‘You’re here now, aren’t you? Here is somewhere.’

‘Am I? Is it? On what basis do you hold to such a presumption?’

‘On the basis that I can see you and hear you and I’m talking back to you.’

‘And you trust the apparent evidence of your eyes, ears and brain, do you, in spite of your being aware that the organs to which you ascribe such unquestioned validity are far from infallible?’

‘Ah, I see; we’re back to that one. You’re suggesting, not for the first time, that you’re a figment of my imagination, a hallucination even.’

‘Well, shiver my Peruvian timbers all the way down to the tip of Tierra del Fuego,’ he said, feigning great surprise. ‘Am I really? That’s a lot of mountains you just covered.’

‘You know what?’ I offered, suddenly feeling emboldened. ‘Sometimes you don’t make sense.’

‘You may say that,’ he replied ruefully. ‘I wouldn’t care to comment.’

And then he cocked his head to one side and looked, apparently with some degree of purpose, into my eyes. I began to feel that I was once again sliding down that long, dark tunnel, the one down which I slithered after encountering the woman with amazingly dark eyes in Tesco. I shook myself and came back to the here and now, only to see him still staring at me but with an unmistakable look of smugness and mischief in his eyes.

‘On that note, I think I should leave,’ he said. ‘But before I go, there’s something I’m curious about.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That story you wrote, about the ghost called Mr Jonathon.’

‘You’ve read it?’

‘Of course. Would you rather I hadn’t?’

‘No. I just didn’t realise you paid me that much attention.’

‘You don’t realise very much most of the time, do you? I’ve noticed that about humans. Actually, I was going to ask you the question at the time, but that dark stuff hanging around you didn’t smell at all pleasant, so I changed my mind.’

‘I was depressed.’

‘I know. I sympathised.’

‘Did you?’

‘No, I decided to be facetious for a change. But anyway, the question I have is this: At the end of the story, the little girl – I don’t remember her name – says to her mother that Mr Jonathon instructs them to get a dog. Why?’

‘I don’t know really. It just came to me. I suppose I felt that it introduced a note of uncertainty – you know, left a question mark in the mind of the reader.’

‘I see, so one small part of your brain does work after all. That’s encouraging. I'll probably visit you again one fine day, or un-fine day, or whatever... Who can tell? Goodbye.’

And then he disappeared. What is one to make of it all?

A Matter of Pride.

‘I know I did wrong and I’m very sorry. Please forgive me.’

Please forgive me? Isn’t that a terrible thing to say? The wronged person will forgive you anyway if you’re worth it, and won’t if you’re not. All you have to do is accept the consequences of whatever you did wrong if the fates so decree. Asking for forgiveness is craven, cowering and pointless.

It seems to me that the only time you should beg forgiveness is in the most extreme of circumstances, such as when the king has just sentenced you to be hanged, drawn and quartered and you don’t much fancy the idea. (And I doubt there would be much chance of it working even then.)

A Coincidence of Shirleys.

I have to make mention of the American novelist, Shirley Jackson. I’ve just finished the first chapter of her novel The Haunting of Hill House, and so far I’m impressed. Her writing skills have all the qualities which the writing of the American novelist Dan Brown lack. They’re deeply insightful, imaginatively descriptive, and loaded with unflinching accuracy of observation. I’m lapping it up eagerly like a cat with a saucer of warm milk.

In the first chapter we sit with the character of the repressed and insecure Eleanor as she drives the 120 miles from her uncomfortable home to the eponymous house where she hopes to enter a more meaningful and sympathetic world. We listen to her inner conversations with herself as much as we listen to her verbal and curiously oddball conversations with the two strangers she meets along the way. And through her brief actions and extended imagination we learn all that’s worth knowing about poor Eleanor. The surface plot is so perfunctory as to be almost non-existent; the power is in the personality and what it says about one variation on the human condition. A lot of well known writers could learn a lot from one chapter of Shirley Jackson.

The coincidence is contained within the name. Regular readers will know of the high regard in which I hold the English novelist, Charlotte Brontë, and her novel Shirley. I wonder whether Jackson knew that Shirley was almost exclusively a male name until Charlotte’s novel was published in 1847. I imagine she probably did.

On Being Sidetracked.

Today I was thinking back to the 2½ weeks I spent in Toronto doing a travel shoot for a publisher. I remembered having the same problem as I had whenever I was confronted with the need to photograph any strange town or city: I found it hard to concentrate on the reason for being there.

I would walk the streets, or the precincts of a museum or art gallery or shopping mall – whatever was on the publisher’s list of required locations – and my mind would be constantly consumed with the need to bypass the physical surface of the place and instead search for the sense of it. Photographs don’t reveal the sense of a place – its essence or energy or call it what you will – any more than a snapshot of a person reveals that person’s inner self. Getting to grips with the sense of a place requires a perceptual faculty far subtler than mere physical observation.

Eventually I would realise that I had entered a kind of reverie and pull myself out of it, and then I could use my eyes and the viewfinder to find the shapes and colours and interrelated forms which the average tourist would find attractive. And the concept of gainful employment would reassert itself.

Simon and Sarah.

It was Sunday afternoon on a cold and dismal day in January. Simon, Sarah and their little boy, Stanley, were settled in front of the TV watching the 1942 film version of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, each fortified with a mug of steaming cocoa expertly made in the old fashioned way by a mother who knew about such things.

‘What’s the little boy’s name?’ asked the even littler Stanley.

‘Mowgli,’ replied his father, who was competitive by nature and had to be the first to answer any generally directed question.

‘That’s a funny name,’ said Stanley.

‘His real name was Taboo,’ continued the irrepressible Simon. ‘That’s even funnier.’

‘It would be if it were right,’ interjected Sarah.

Simon stole a glance at his wife and aimed an irritated frown in her direction.

‘Taboo means forbidden, by convention or edict,’ she continued. ‘He was actually called Sabu. S.A.B.U. Sabu.’

Simon said nothing, while little Stanley directed a questioning look at his mother. Sarah returned it with a motherly smile utterly devoid of triumph.

*  *  *

Simon and Sarah might become a series. Then again, they might not.

Not Noticing Being Noticed.

I was going through some old documents and general paperwork with a view to consigning it to the recycling bins, when I came across a leaving card I was given when I left the theatre to take up a new job. It’s a big card covered in messages, and somebody had even bothered to enclose a separate insert to take the overflow.

I found the discovery quite moving because I was the most minor of cogs in the theatre machinery, and I don’t recollect being particularly noticed by anyone other than the few people with whom I came into close contact. And the best of it is that most of the names on the card are now a mystery to me. No, the best is the nature of the messages contained therein. They include:

Jeff  

Best wishes for the future. Good luck in all you do

Mandy xx

(Who was Mandy?)

 

Jeff  

Good luck! Thanks for all the chats.

Love and best wishes

Nic x

(Chats? And who was Nic?)

 

All the best Jeff. 

We will miss you.  

Janet xx 

(Why would they miss me? And I don’t remember a Janet.)

 

I don’t think we will find another one like you! Good luck? 

Rebecca. 

(I think I know who that was, but was she kidding?)

 

Best wishes. 

Our loss, Derbyshire’s gain.

Pauline B

(I remember one Pauline B, but there are two on the card.)

 

All the very best for the future.

We’ll miss your calm manner about the place.

Candida x

(How could I possibly forget somebody called Candida?)

 

To Jeff

Will miss working with you.

Thanks for everything.

Enjoy the countryside.

Love Sarah x

(I assume this was from my young manager who has received honourable mention on this blog. She’s the one in the pale blue dress below.)

 

 

Dear Jeff 

It will be strange not to see you around the place.

Good luck in whatever you do.

Sharon.

(Will it? At least I remember Sharon.)

And so it goes on. I haven’t counted them, but there are a lot more than I would have expected. Does it mean I was popular there without ever knowing it, or are they just being polite? And does it matter?

I’ve saved the best to last. This one’s from Russell, who was easily the most eccentric person there. I remember him well because I got on with him. He wrote:

Good luck to you Jeff. Even the frogs have commented on your leaving (the theatre grounds were a minor nature reserve, and there was a pond in the top corner.) Shape-shifting has been rife on the car park. See you around.

It seems that even insignificant cogs get noticed while they’re looking the other way, and maybe that’s how it should be. And the theatre was the closest I ever came to being part of a community in my adult life. It’s just a memory now, of course, and that’s also how it should be.

The April Plummet.

Spring isn’t springing at the moment here in Blighty; it’s swinging like Donald Trump trying to understand the question. For most of this week the weather would have done full justice to June, but now we’re heading down into the January average. Swings are to be expected at this time of year, but not quite as extreme as that.

The warm weather brought the bats back to grace the balmy twilight, which is always a thrill to me because I love bats and I worry about them during March when they need to get back into the air to feed after five or so months in hibernation. So what will they do now that we have sub-zero nights in prospect? Go back to sleep? Shiver? Worse? I don’t know, but it’s the kind of thing that worries me. Lots of things do.