Christmas!

A Happy Christmas to everyone!.

I found this charming 15th century Nativity scene at the Petit Palais in Avignon.

Into the Wilderness: a dream

It was a bright sunny afternoon. Gerry was sitting quietly in the park when a young man, a complete stranger, walked up to him.
   "Are you ready to come with us?" he asked.
   "I'm waiting for my girlfriend", said Gerry.
   "She's with us. You'll meet her if you come with us. Are you ready?"
   "All right", said Gerry, at a loss for anything else to say.
   Immediately, everything went black. He felt that he had left the ground and was being sucked through a tight tube. When he opened his eyes, he was still in a park, but a different one, with trees and flowers that he could not recognise or name. A group of people stood around him. Their skins were somewhat darker than his, and they were dressed in white tunics.
   "Is this him?" one of them asked.
   "Yes: I chose him". Gerry recognised Anna, his girlfriend.
   "Will he do?"
   "He'll have to!"
   Gerry looked around. Behind him, where in his town there had been a railway station, there loomed an enormous building. It reminded Gerry of a French chateau, though it was built in an architectural style unknown to him.
   "Are we going there?" he asked.
   "Not yet. First you must enter the wilderness".
   Gerry wondered what could have happened. Was this time travel, a dimension-shift or a parallel universe? Or was it all just a dream? At any event, there seemed little option but to go along with what was required of him.  

The Library Van: a true story

Between leaving school and going to university, I worked for six months at the County Library in Carlisle. One of the duties was to go out on the travelling library van, which once a fortnight toured round some of the most isolated places in the country: the lonely villages and isolated farmhouses towards the Scottish border, where I encountered some unusual people. Aside from such standard library fare as the woman who used a kipper’s backbone as a bookmark, and the man who kept a book on archaeology out on loan for over a year because he found it was exactly the right size to prop up a broken leg on his table, there were customers who would rely on us not only to bring the books, but to select suitable reading material from our shelves for their tastes. The procedure of one woman was invariable. “I want 5 murders, 3 romances and a western”, she would say, and leave us to choose them for her. She would then cast her eye over our selection, discarding a few because “they didn’t look very good“, or because she thought she might have read them before. (other customers had their own systems for dealing with the latter problem; such as making a pencil mark on a certain page once they’d read one of our books). In cold weather she would bring us a mug of tea each, though since she invariably stirred in large quantities of sugar, I could never drink mine.
   She wasn’t the only customer who let us choose her books, and some of the choices we made must have caused some surprise. Harold the van driver once persuaded a lady at a remote farm to take home James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. “Is it a good book?” she asked. “It’s a very famous book”, said Harold. “I want something I can read in bed”, she said. “It’s probably best if you read this in bed”, Harold told her. I never found out what she made of it, since I don’t recall we ever saw her again.
    Harold explained to me the perils of engaging these people in conversation. They probably never saw anyone except us and the postman for weeks at a time, and they were often desperate for a talk, but we had a tight schedule to keep, and if we let them stay on the van for too long, we’d never get round in time. Harold’s policy was to agree with everything they said. “You can’t have a proper conversation with someone who always agrees with you”, he said. I witnessed this technique in action at a farmhouse up near Kershopefoot border; the home of an artist who appeared to be a Nazi. He clambered onto the van in his paint-stained overalls. “Things are bad!” he told us, “There’s Jews in high places bleeding this country white!” “You’re right there!” said Harold. The man soon went away. 
   I’m afraid I forgot Harold’s advice on one occasion, when once an old farm labourer got on the van and told us, without any provocation, that all farm land should be nationalised. “You’ll be a socialist then”, I dutifully said. Oh no, he always voted Conservative. I couldn’t retrain myself from asking why, and he told me this long story about how, when he was a boy on the Earl of Lonsdale’s estate back before the First World War, he once opened a gate for the Earl’s carriage to come through, and there sitting beside the Earl was the Kaiser, who had come to spend Christmas up at the castle. The Earl had given him half-a-sovereign and said, “You look a promising young chap. If you ever want a job, come up to the hall and see me“. But then he’d gone off to the trenches, and it was only in the 1920s that he’d met the Earl at a county show and the earl had said to him, “I recognise you! You’re the lad who opened the gate for me back before the war! Why didn’t you come up to the hall and take the job I offered you?” And ever since then he’d voted Conservative. Politics was still a bit feudal up on the Border. I’ve often reflected that my vote could be cancelled out by someone like that.

The last man to discover a alien life-form

Magro looked across the greensward. It always reminded him of home, and it was hard to remember that this wasn't Earth, that the plants beneath his feet weren't grass, and that the trees in the distance were wholly foreign.  Amongst the trees stood one of the enigmatic buildings with which the expedition had become familiar: a cylinder of silvery metal, somewhat higher than a man, capped with a dome, without any visible windows or doors. None of the humanoid beings who inhabited this planet was currently in sight.
   As well as feeling nostalgic, Magro felt depressed. They had been on this planet for almost a hundred of its days, and yet they had discovered nothing useful at all; about how its climate might change with the seasons, about its ecology and geology, about its wildlife (if any), and least of all about its inhabitants. After endless tests, the air was finally recognised as breathable and the crew had been able to remove their helmets. But the water from the streams and the fruit on the trees were still out of bounds: they contained no obvious poisons, but it was feared that they might cause stomach disorders. Then there were the inhabitants ......
   The crew had met them soon after landing, but were yet to make any meaningful contact with them. Someone had christened them the "Noids", for they looked distinctly humanoid. They were about the same height as humans, and they were entirely hairless. It was impossible to distinguish betweeen men and women, and there were never any children on view. They all dressed alike, in a simple shift reaching to the feet, so they gave the impression of gliding as they moved. They had ever been heard talking to each other.
   Infuriatingly, they showed no interest in making contact with their visitors. They ignored the spaceship entirely, and when they encountered the crew they bowed slightly and then moved on. They appeared to walk around randomly, in ones and twos, never in groups. They were never heard to utter a sound, and were never seen eating or drinking. Whatever did these strange people do, Magro wondered, for perhaps the hundredth time.
   Azarin, one of the crew, came running towards him. "I've just discovered something!" he called, gabbling in his excitement. "I saw one of the Noids entering a cylinder!"
   "Go on!"
   "Yes! He walked up to it, and suddenly a door opened and in he went! And I looked, but I couldn't see any sign of a door at all! So I sat outside for ages, waiting for him to emerge, but he never did. What do you think's going on?"
   "How can I say? For all we know, it could just be a lavatory! They aren't very big, those cylinders: no room for more than two or three people inside."
   "No. Unless, of course, they contain steps going down underground".
   At this point Telemar, the commander of the mission, who must have been listening to the conversation after approaching unobserved, intervened to say, "Has it occurred to you that all this has been set up for our benefit? A scenario very close to life on earth has been specialy created here; only they haven't got it quite right.
   "Consider: the air is breatheable, but contains too many rare gases. The water has trace elements that make it unsafe to drink. These plants under our feet look like grass, but they aren't. The fruit on the trees could be eaten, but the chances are that you'd be spending a long time on the toilet afterwards. Then again: there aren't any animals or birds. There aren't even any insects! I haven't seen an insect. Have you? And as for the Noids... have you never suspected that they might be robots? They aren't the slightest bit interested in our spaceship. Can you imagine chimpanzees, or even cattle, completely ignoring a strange new object that suddenly appeared in their territory?
   "So: whoever might be in charge of this planet: how are they doing this? and even more importatly, why?" 
   "We could try forcing some truth out of them!" Azarin said.
   "How?"
   "Well, we could kidnap on ofthe Noids. We wouldn't hurt him: just take his clothes off, perhaps, and see what he'd got underneath. Anyway:make him communicate. Or we could blast our way into one of the cylinders. Or perhaps ignore the Noids entirely, setup the heavy digging equipment, and see if there's anything useful to be had here".
   Telemar shook his head. "No; for a variety of reasons. Firstly, because, as you well know, we're strictly forbidden to use violence towards indigenous inhabitants unless we're in serious danger. Which at the moment, we're not; though we might be if we followed your suggestions. Whoever set up this ridiculous planet for us must be extremely intelligent; extremely powerful. Who knows what might follow if we started to get aggressive? Intergalactic war maybe?"
   "Well,have you any bright ideas?" Magro asked.
   "None at all. And in any case, we'll be leaving this planet soon enough."
   "Leaving? whatever for? are we running out of food, or what?"
   "You don't understand the politics of it. Voyages like this are fantastically expensive. It was made clear that this was our last shot, and if we didn't discover something really profitable, that would be it. Even food for the trip was cut back, to save money, so we can't stay here much longer even if we wanted to. And what's happened? We've discovered a planet that makes no sense, inhabited by creatures (if they are really creatures!) which make even less sense. So we'll go home having achieved precisely nothing. And that will be that. Goodbye to any further explorations". 
 Magro looked across the grass that wasn't grass, through the trees that weren't trees. The spaceship stood there, shining and silent and redundant.

Unicorns

I would like to believe in unicorns
the swift form, silver as the moon,
shyly lurking in deep woodlands, seen by few

The horn like sparkling barley-sugar, the neat cloven hoof
and the dark unplumbable eye, speaking wisdom
from remotest ages.

Saying that romance and adventure live yet
and will return, in an enchanted world
undreamed of by science

Where visions can teach truth, and gods or demons
once more speak to men, and there is wild exaltation
or black terror

And reason will fall from its usurped throne
leaving faith and magic to point the way
incomprehensible and glorious.

Low Level Cricket: A True Story

For many years I took part in a "lads-and-dads" cricket team which played occasional matches in the evenings and at weekends. Some of the players were genuinely talented, others were not, and took part solely to make up the numbers. These, of course, are the ones I remember best.

We won a few matches; others we lost. Our most alarming moment came when we had a fixture at Keele University. We found the pitch occupied by a team of gigantic West Indians: one looked exactly like Clive Lloyd; another looked exactly like Charlie Griffith. They were hurling a ball around at 100 miles per hour and snatching it out of the air. They took one look at our motley crew and burst out laughing. "Oh, man, we're not playing you, are we?" they chortled in disbelief. It turned out they'd gone to the wrong pitch. We weren't half relieved. At the opposite level of ability, we once played against a team who did not possess the standard white kit. We never found out all their names, so our score-book contained entries like "Bowled Brown Trousers"

Aran, an Indian, impressed us at the start because he had an M.C.C. coaching certificate, but our favourable impression waned when we actually saw him play. For an enthusiastic sportsman, he was quite the slowest on his feet I have ever come across. Once when I was at the non-striker's end when he was batting, the ball eluded the wicket-keeper and I called him for a bye. He moved so slowly that fine leg had time to throw to the bowler's and and run him out. He was furious. "It is never the non-striker who calls for a run! It is always the striker!" he berated me, incorrectly. On another occasion he contrived to tread on his own hand whilst attempting a sweep shot and decided to retire hurt. He was scathing of the way I held the ball for bowling an off-break, telling me I'd never get it to turn. But the only time I saw him bowl was in a practice knock-around. Tony, who was a strong batsman, tended to dispatch anything on his pads into the trees; but when Aran bowled, Tony said the ball came through the air so slowly, and with so little rotation, that he could read the maker's name on it. Tony simply hadn't the heart to smash this bowling, and played every delivery with an exaggeratedly-correct forward defensive stroke. "Well, at least I kept him quiet!" said Aran afterwards.

My principle, when I was captain, was less to ensure a win than to make sure everyone who had volunteered to take part should get a chance to do something. Thus those who could bowl well might have to bat after the non-bowlers, and any volunteering would always be accepted. This sometimes led to odd results. Geoff had played very little recent cricket, but wanted to have a go at bowling. His first delivery, right-handed,was a wide. He then switched to the left hand: another wide. Finally he abandoned these attempts and said he would have to complete the over bowling underarm. Result: more wides! I don't think he played again.

Bill was no cricketer, but such an entertaining character when sober that it was always worthwhile picking him. He generally had difficulty in pushing up his batting average for the season to more than about 2. In one match he was told it was essential for him to defend his wicket as long as possible and not to bother about scoring runs. This suited Bill's unusual defensive procedure, which was to ignore any ball wide of the stumps; staying completely motionless at the crease and not even deigning to pick up his bat. He found this could be quite demoralizing for the bowler. On this occasion, Bill followed the instructions for some time, until eventually he received a ball which actually bounced twice before it reached him. Bill thought he was justified in having a swipe at it, and was duly caught. Once when Bill was bowling it occurred to him that the non-striker might have ventured out of his ground, and calculating there wasn't the time to turn and look, he held the ball behind his head and performed a back-dive into the stumps, driving them violently against the umpire's shins. Bill looked upwards amidst the wreckage with a smile on his face and enquired, "Oh, by the way, umpire: how's that?" First slip was so convulsed with laughter that he actually fell over. I used to have a photograph of Bill executing a square cut, which would not have been out of place in a coaching manual, so perfect was his position; but a spoilsport friend who also knew Bill asked whether there was any reason to believe that the bat had actually made contact with the ball. When I discussed this with Bill, he told me how he once overheard a conversation between two fielders while he was batting:- "He's only got one stroke". "He hasn't even got that!"

Most cricket is played at a much higher level than this, but we could hardly be bettered for entertainment value. 

Saint Ethelbrugha

Ethelbrugha has never been officially recognised by the Papacy as a saint, and it is doubtful whether she actually existed. Her legend is as follows:-
   Ethelbrugha was the daughter of an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. Even as a young girl, she would berate her parents' relatives and guests for the immorality of their lives. This often led to her being spanked or caned, but she was in no ways deterred; and later she behaved in the same way towards prsoective husbands chosen by her father. Finally he gave up the struggle in disgust and sent her off to be a nun.
   There she soon gathered round her a community of likeminded sisters, but even when she was an abbess she would still allow herself to be beaten, as a token of humility. How she died is not known.
   In the 13th century an order of nuns who claimed Ethelbrugha as their inspiration was suppressed by order of Pope Innocent III because of the "scandalous" lives of its members.
   Ethelbrugha is commemmorated in a handful of chaurches. She is depicted in just one late-Victorian stained-glass window, bearing her symbol, a cane. It is believed that the donor was the poet A.C.Swinburne. 
   A few years ago an extraordinary earthernware figurine was discovered, dating from the early 16th century. It shows Saint Ethelbrugha with her bottom bared. Scholarly debate continues on whether it was a devotional object, or the work of a Protestant artisan ridiculing her cult.
   Ethelbrugha has recentlybeen hailed as the patron saint of flagellants, spankers and BDSM enthusiasts. The Vatican has yet to pronounce on the matter. 

Kardashia Stories part 1

 One of the oddest Kardashian legends is that they were the only country in the world to have been invaded both by the Swedes and the Chinese. For a long time this was dismissed as a mere folk-tale, but recently dramatic new evidence has emerged suggesting that the story may well be true, for D.N.A. sampling amongst Kardashians has revealed both typical Swedish and Chinese genetic profiles.Kardashia is a small state with a chequered history. Its language is unique,and unintelligible to outsiders. The early history of its peoples is little known.  In early modern times it formed part of the Ottoman Empire, though the Sultan in Istambul rarely exercised much direct control there. It achieved independence in the late 19th century, when a more-than-usually obnoxious German prince was imposed as its monarch. In the Second World War it was occupied by the Nazis, and then disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. It has recently reasserted its independence of both East and West, though it is noticeable that the same government leaders appear to be in control as in the Communist days. The Swedish link must come from remnants of Charles XII's army fleeing southwards after their disastrous defeat by Peter the Great at Poltava in 1709. The source of the Chinese link is less obvious; one guess is that when Mongol forces pulled back from central Europe following the death of Ogdei Khan in 1242, certain Chinese units serving with the Mongol army decided to branch out on their own account.

(More episodes from Kardashian history will follow)

Emily

Emily sprinkled the chocolate shards on her breakfast cappuchino and wondered what picture the random blotches would conjure up in her mind today. But she had no time to waste daydreaming, so she took a quick snap of it with her mobile and then slurped it down before hurrying off to work. Later on, she could observe it at leisure, or even discuss it with her friends to see what they made of it.

Sometimes it was a fish, and once it was a rodeo rider whirling a lariat, but most often it was a dog. Emily loved dogs. Yes, this one was a dog: a short-legged, flop-eared little mutt, standing on its hind legs and looking straight at her. A dachshund or terrier of some kind; how cute!

Examining the photo again before she went to bed, Emily noticed that the dog appeared to be wearing glasses, and carried a bag or basket in its left paw. So, a cartoon dog. Perhaps the pictures she’d seen on previous days had been cartoon creatures too. Now that was an idea: stories about cartoon animals and people that came to life on a cup of cappuchino! She could become a famous children’s author! Emily was confident that she might have the ability to do this, but doubted whether she would have the time or the energy. She enjoyed her job, which was an important and responsible one, and well remunerated, but it was very exhausting, and often she felt completely drained when she came home. This was one of those evenings. As she sat slumped in her chair, she wondered what was in the dog’s bag, and the answer came into her head, “Cocaine”. Now that would make it something very different, she mused: a cartoon for adults, dark and probably violent …..

In bed, waiting to go to sleep, she wondered; Why did cocaine suddenly occur to her then? Was it something to do with that colleague at work, a senior director, no less, whom they suspected of being a user? And didn’t he once hint to her that she might like to visit him and try some? But Emily didn’t want to go there, and she had avoided the issue by pretending that she hadn’t understood the hint.

She was still picturing the little dog with the mysterious basket when she fell asleep.      

Granny's Adventure

(Recently, a group of friends had a discussion lamenting the fact that adventure stories all featured young men, and there was never a central role for adventurous grandmothers. We resolved to remedy the situation. This is the start of my Granny story …)

When Eva Mansfield dropped the third stitch she cast her knitting aside in disgust. At this rate she was never going to get the jumper finished in time for her youngest granddaughter’s birthday. Besides, what was the point? The child would have grown out of it in six months; and anyway, with the cost of postage to Australia, it would be easier for them to buy her something out there.

She felt only blank despair. It’s as though someone was squatting on top of me, sucking all the life out of me, she thought. I can’t concentrate, I’ve got no energy, nothing gets done.

“Oh, Tiddles!” she said to the large black and white cat which lay sprawled on the hearthrug, “Whatever am I going to do, Tiddles?”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep calling me that”, the cat replied.

“I mean, it’s not a very dignified name, is it?” he continued, as Eva gawped, “But I suppose it’ll have to do for the moment. We haven’t much time. You want to be rid of this black oppression, right?”

“How … how do you know about that?” Eva quavered.

“Well, you’ve told me about it often enough! Now, there is a chance for you to escape, but it’ll involve you making a journey: quite a long journey; and meeting certain people. There are dangers involved, but I think you should take the risk”.

“Should I get my things together?” she asked, hesitantly.

“There’s no need. But you’d better take that knitting needle. It’s quite sharp: you might need it”.

“You mean as a weapon?”

“It’s all we’ve got; it’ll have to do for now”.

Suddenly Eva was transported back to her childhood, when she had loved the stories of Tolkien and C.S.Lewis and had dreamed that one day she too could go on a journey to a land of magic and wonder. But that had been years and years ago, before her Troubles had begun…

Quickly, she dismissed the last thought from her mind. With a greater sense of resolution than she had felt for many years, and without even bothering to get her coat, Eva Mansfield strode to the door and stepped out across the threshold.  

Fragment of a Border Ballad

Having been brought up in the Lake District, I've always loved the Border Ballads; those anonymously-composed tales of the turbulent, lawless world of the Scots-English frontier in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, featuring the deeds of the Rievers; the clans of Grahams, Nixons, Eliots and others who terrorised the  villagers and farmers on both sides of the border. No doubt this was the reason why one morning, awaking from a dream, I found I had the following lines of verse in my mind:-

"Young Jamie Hepburn was a braw lad,
He thought the Kirk ould no' do wi'out him.
He went to Bothwell Brig with a feather in his hat
And the Covenant lords all about him".

I tried to construct how these lines had come about. The start was easy enough: I once knew someone called Jamie Hepburn, and the Hepburns, Earls of Bothwell, were a powerful Borders family, the lords of Hermitage castle; their most notorious member being the lover of Mary Queen of Scots. I also knew that the Kirk was the Scottish Presbyterian church. But what was Bothwell Brig, and how did it link to what followed? This remained mysterious until I learned from Walter Scott's historical novel, "Old Mortality" that Bothwell Brig was a battle in which in 1679 the government forces under the Duke of Monmouth and James Graham of Claverhouse crushed the Covenanters; the extreme Presyterian rebels following the outlawing of the Kirk after the restoration of the monarchy. This accounted for the references to the Kirk and the Covenant Lords. Now I suppose I must have come across the story of Bothwell Brig some time earlier, but if so, I had totally forgotten it. 

Of course, my fragment won't really do as a proper Border Ballad. The Border was pacified after the union of the Scots and English crowns under James I in 1603, and although the violent world of the ballads overlapped with the establishment of the Presbyterian Kirk in the 16th century, it was long past by the time of the Covenant and Bothwell Brig. Furthermore, the Border Ballads are notorious for their lack of any trace whatsoever of Christianity, whether Catholic, Anglican or Presbyterian. They are entirely pagan in spirit; telling of raids and feuds, heroism and betrayal, and the heroic deeds of men who were really no more than thieves, cut-throats and cattle-rustlers ("Ma name is little Jock Eliot; Wha dares to meddle wi' me?"). Their values and virtues were pagan ones: principally physical courage, followed by promise-keeping and generosity: their vices cowardice, followed by faithlessness towards one's overlords or retainers. In fact it was a world-view scarcely different from that of the Viking sagas, or even of Homer. 

(The story of the Borders and their violent history can be found in "The Steel Bonnets" by George MacDonald Fraser)