Tag: ThreadZoomMash

Let Them Eat Cake & The Tennis Court Oath, ThreadZoomMash Performance Piece, 18 November 2021

A few weeks ago, I played an especially close and exciting real tennis tournament match at Lord’s, emerging victorious – in straight sets but by the narrowest of margins in each set.

Exhausted but happy, I stopped at Porchester Waitrose on my way home, to pick up bread and other comestibles for my supper.

But I discovered the in-house bakery covered in tarpaulin, with signs reading, “No Entry” and “Due to a leak in our ceiling we have had to close down this area…”

Opposite the bakery were mostly bare shelves, where normally the bread would be. But one shelf was fully stocked, bulging with packs of brioche loaves and brioche rolls.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”, I said to myself. In the circumstances; who wouldn’t?

The English expression. “let them eat cake” is, in fact, a loose translation of the phrase, “qu’ils mangent de la brioche”.

I don’t like the loose, English translation. Brioche is, in my opinion, a rich form of bread. Classified as viennoiserie, brioche is almost pastry, but not a piece of cake.

Bread, pastry, biscuit, cake; these distinctions might seem trivial or inconsequential. Yet, in the early 1990s case of McVities v HMRC,  the very VAT status of Jaffa Cakes hinged on whether that particular delicacy should be defined as a cake (zero-rated) or a chocolate-covered biscuit (standard rated). The tribunal ruled that the product had nine characteristics, some cake, some biscuit, but on balance determined it to be a cake.

Two hundred years earlier, Marie Antoinette’s place in history was determined, formally, at the hands of the French Revolutionary Tribunal. Unfortunately for Marie Antoinette, her informal reputation is entwined with the phrase “let them eat cake” or “qu’ils mangent de la brioche”, despite the fact that there is no evidence that she ever used the phrase and a great deal of evidence that she couldn’t possibly have originated it.

Marie Antoinette – say what?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau coined the phrase in his Confessions, attributing the anecdote to an unnamed “great princess”.  Rousseau wrote Confessions between 1765 and 1769, when Marie Antoinette was still a nipper and before she had ever been to France.

Rousseau might even have made up the anecdote. Another possibility is that the anecdote originated with Marie Theresa of Spain, about 100 years earlier.

Marie Theresa being “handed over” to Louis XIV

Marie Theresa was consort to Louis XIV, The Sun King, during an extremely lavish era – when Versailles was transformed from a hunting lodge into the opulent palace we now associate with Versailles.

Marie Theresa died in 1683, before the Versailles tennis court was completed, but her son, Louis, The Grand Dauphin, played an inaugural game on that court in 1686. 

Louis The Grand Dauphin

Roll the clock forward a hundred years again, to 1789. The Versailles tennis court played a crucial role in the French Revolution. In June 1789, the Third Estate or National Assembly of commoners, found themselves locked out of the chamber by order of the King.

Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, suggested that they congregate instead in the nearby Royal Tennis Court of Versailles, where they swore a collective oath, similar in style to the US Declaration of Independence, “not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established”. 576 of the 577 members of the assembly took the oath.

The Tennis Court Oath was a seminal moment in the progress of the French Revolution. Ironically, though, the tennis court oath neither benefitted the reputation of tennis nor that of Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

Jeu de paume, as the French call real tennis, virtually died out in France in the aftermath of the French revolution.  In tennis’s 17th and 18th century heyday, there were hundreds of courts in Paris alone. 

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a doctor who opposed capital punishment. He advocated the use of a quick, painless blade mechanism, but only in preference to the more torturous methods of execution commonly used.  It was much to the doctor’s chagrin that the deadly mechanism acquired his name. There is an urban myth that Dr Guillotin was himself thus decapitated during the reign of terror. It is true that A Dr Guillotin met that fate, but not Dr Joseph-Ignance Guillotin, who was imprisoned, but survived the reign of terror by the skin of his teeth.

I mused on all these matters that evening, a few weeks ago, while munching my brioche and reflecting on winning a tennis match by the skin of my teeth.

The oath I had heard on the tennis court that evening was the single expletive, “shit”, used by my opponent so many times, he got a warning from the marker (umpire).  I wondered how many of the 576 subscribers to the original Tennis Court Oath were reduced to such lesser, expletive oaths, soon after their revolutionary gesture.

Changing the social order, like brioche, is not a piece a cake.

Pas un morceau de brioche

All Mixed Up: Age Is Just A Number, ThreadZoomMash Piece, Performed 30 September 2021

My Grandma Anne died 40 years ago, just shy of 90. If you went to central casting to get a balabusta/babushka for the role of family matriarch…

…with her shock of jet black hair, presumably from a bottle for most of her life, plus her heavily-Russian-accented voice…

…Grandma Anne Harris would have fitted the bill perfectly.

Grandma’s outstanding involuntary comedy moment was in 1972, when she solemnly announced, as we drove on a family outing, away from Streatham, along Bedford Hill, that I shouldn’t play on the common any more, as bad things happen to people who go there. Someone had cursed the place. It took us a while to work out that she had heard a radio programme, not about Tooting Common, but about Tutankhamun, which was all the rage in London that year.

By 1981, Grandma Anne was in and out of hospital all too regularly. Her age had never previously been a topic of discussion. But my mum was concerned that every time Grandma was taken into hospital, the age she stated on admission was going down. 87…86…82…

…on what turned out to be her last admission to hospital, mum went ballistic when she first looked at Grandma’s notes.

“Look at this”, hissed mum to me, “72-dash-80-plus-question-mark. I’m going to get this put right straight away”. Mum was a numbers person and as far as she was concerned you don’t mess with numbers.

Don’t mess with numbers

A senior nurse assured mum that the hospital team was fully aware that Grandma Anne was in her late 80s, pushing 90, and that she was receiving appropriate care…

…which might well have been true, but sadly, Grandma Anne died in that hospital bed.

————————————————————–

Roll the clock forward 30 years. My mother was just shy of 90. Unfortunately mum’s grasp on numbers and much else was all mixed up by then.  The onset of dementia, which had been gradual for some time, kicked in and kicked on in a rush. Three months before her 90th, my mum went into Nightingale; the care home at which she had volunteered for many decades.

Janie and I made a big fuss for mum’s 90th birthday, inviting mum and the family over for an afternoon party at our house.

Mum, Angela, Janie and Me

Mum liked being the centre of attention and over the ensuing weeks talked a great deal about her big birthday event with her friends at Nightingale.

But mum became convinced that the birthday had been her hundredth, not her ninetieth.

On one occasion when mum was talking to me about her 100th party, I challenged her.

“You are 90, mum, not 100”.

“I’m 100. And I’m your mother. Don’t argue with your mother.”

On another occasion, after I’d taken mum back to her room, I was accosted by a brace of her friends.

“Your mum is driving us all mad. She keeps telling everyone that she is 100. There are quite a few people around here who really are 100. It’s not right. She’s just turned 90, hasn’t she?”

“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.

“Tell her”.

“I’ve told her…and she’s told me not to argue with my mother”.

“It’s wrong. Sort it out.” The Nightingale Mafia had spoken.

Mum in her role as Nightingale poster child

I discussed the problem with one of the senior care nurses, who patiently explained to me that people with dementia have their own subjective reality which might differ from our own reality and from objective reality. It’s better to join the loved one in their subjective realities rather than challenge them with our own realities.

This seemed a compelling and compassionate argument…

…until I thought about it a bit more and said…

…“I can roll with that…sort of…but what about mum’s friends’ realities. They want me to stop mum driving them potty with her nonsense about being 100. How do I deal kindly with those conflicting realities?”

After a momentary pause, the nurse said, “welcome to our world”, with just a modicum of compassion.

————————————–

Having reflected for the first time on these experiences jointly, my thoughts, like the age claims of both ancestors, are all mixed up.

The family legend about Grandma Anne was that her declining age claims were born of vanity and an unwillingness to accept her antiquity.

But possibly dementia had started to take its toll on Grandma at that age. In her own, disoriented way, grandma was subtracting 18 from her age; while mum added 10 in her confusion.

Should we have accepted Grandma Anne’s subjective reality that she was 72? Might that last hospital stay have gone better had everyone treated her as if she were a 72 year old, rather than a 90 year old? It couldn’t have gone much worse; Grandma Anne came out of hospital that time in a box.

Postscript: About The ThreadMash Evening

Just in case you don’t know what a ThreadMash is, yet want to know, this link (here and below) will explain it to you and link you to some other examples.

Threadmash 5, Rohan Candappa’s Thing Has A Birthday Bash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2020

Since the one explained/depicted above, ThreadMash has been ThreadZoomMash; a virtual story writing and telling club.

We had seven stories and one apology (from Terry), the latter being so detailed and heartfelt, Kay read the apology at the start of the evening. It was, in its own way, a ThreadMash story.

Jill’s story was really a piece of philosophical musing about technology, moral dilemmas, decision making with and without machines, governance, government…it was truly mind-blowing. I do hope Jill will allow us to publish her piece more widely soon. If/when she does, I’ll add a link here.

Then my story, echoing the moral dilemmas but not the technology.

Rohan’s piece also seemed to echo at least one of my themes; his distinct yet overlapping stories possibly being multiple realities about the same staircase.

After a short break, Ian T’s moving piece about an ill-fated meal of spaghetti bolognaise with his dad and (yet another strange echo) a central theme of parental dementia.

It really is quite extraordinary how such a simple, three word title, “All Mixed Up” with no further guidance from Kay, led to so many overlapping themes. This does tend to happen at ThreadMash and I find that aspect of the overlap fascinating.

Geraldine read us some fragmentary musings, which are on their way to being a set of elegiac meditations on her experiences during the pandemic.

Kay instead reminisced about her time in New York in the late 1980s. Part confessional…

Dorothy Parker
“Oh, gallant was the first love, and glittering and fine;
The second love was water, in a clear white cup;
The third love was his, and the fourth was mine;
And after that, I always get them all mixed up.” Dorothy Parker

…we learnt that it was Kay who has denied us UK citizens the Marathon Bar, helping rebrand that Mars product as Snickers. Kay is also to blame for M&Ms in the UK, apparently – I shall find forgiveness for Kay in my heart eventually – but not yet…

…partly an ode to Dorothy Parker and partly Kay’s own poetic efforts from that time.

Last but not least was David Wellbrook’s sprawling sequel to his previous post-modern story about a chancer named Myrtle (or is she named Candice?) about whom David is writing rather sordid stories…or is she writing David instead? We met some new characters this time, including Lady Kumquat, the infeasibly young wife of an elderly Knight of the Realm. We were also introduced to an infeasibly hilly part of Norfolk named Bishop’s Knuckle.

There was plenty of time for discussion of our various pieces and general chat too.

As always it was a superb evening. Whether virtual or face-to-face I always get a boost from these ThreadMash events.

And finally…

…just in case the trusty WordPress engine fails to connect my “forty years on” diary piece about Grandma Anne’s last few days and the aftermath of her demise, here and below is a link to that piece.

Twenty Days Of Summer Holiday Work During Which Grandma Anne Died, 10 to 29 August 1981

Hands Face Space: The Shaving Razor’s Old & It Stings, A ThreadMash Performance Piece, 16 May 2021

Rohan Candappa’s brief, for the May 2021 ThreadMash event, was as follows:

All being good, lockdown is scheduled to loosen its collar on Monday 17 May…

…I’m suggesting a theme that encourages us to reclaim some of the things that have been appropriated over the last year and a bit. Things like words. So I’d like you all to recover, repurpose and re-imagine the following words via the stories you write and share:

Hands, Face, Space

Strangely, the subject matter below was already forming in my mind as part of my “Forty Years On” series about my time at Keele.

The Six O’Clock Alarm Would Never Ring, Starting My First Keele Summer Term, 24 April to 9 May 1981

Rohan says, “never explain” and I have in part explained. Let’s allow my story to tell it’s own tale from here.

HANDS

I have two cack-hands.

Kind people, on observing that I play tennis off both arms, describe me as ambidextrous. But the word “dextrous” should not be used to describe me.

The truth is, I am ambi-cack-handed; neither dextrous with my right nor with my left hand. 

For most purposes where only one hand is involved, I use my right hand.  Writing and drawing for example. But I do those things cack-handedly.  Computers have saved me from a teacher-predicted lifetime of illegible handwriting misery.  

I have always brushed my teeth with my left hand. Some experts suggest this means that I am a natural leftie who mistakenly adopted right-handedness for most tasks. But concerted attempts to use my left hand as a child was a bigger disaster than my using the right hand…apart from the left-handed tooth-brushing.

Then along came the need to shave.

FACE

In the late 1970s, an American entrepreneur named Victor Kermit Kiam The Second announced that he was so impressed with the Remington electric shaver his wife bought him as a gift, he henceforward would eschew the use of the wet shavers he had used throughout his life and…

…get this…

…Victor Kiam bought the company that made Remington shavers.

My dad was way ahead of Victor Kiam in switching from blades to Remington electric shavers; by the late 1970s, dad had several of them. Two at the house, plus one at the shop, where dad’s routine required a five-o’clock shave, removing shadow ahead of late afternoon customers (or mostly lack thereof, by the late 1970s). Dad was not ahead of Victor Kiam in the matter of entrepreneurship. 

In my early days shaving, I used dad’s spare Remington at home to remove the odd visible patch of dark fluff from my face.

Vintage Remingtons are still available for purchase, e.g. on e-bay

When I set off for Keele University in autumn 1980, dad lent me that spare Remington, plus lotion bottles (pre shave and after shave) plus an old spare illuminated art-deco-style shaving mirror. The makeshift electrical wiring and plugs for that paraphernalia looked like a physics experiment.

But whereas prior to Keele, my facial hair only became visible once every few days, I soon started to notice daily patches of hair and started to shave regularly.

Increased Remington use combined badly with regular intake of beer, cigarettes and the rest. My face and neck became sore losers of facial hair; itchiness and blotchiness abounded. 

For my second term at Keele, Dad switched my loan from the old Remington to a more modern foil-headed electric shaver…

Another style of vintage Remington still available e.g. on ebay.

…but the skin irritation persisted; possibly it even got worse.

Thus, over Easter 1981, contra-Kiam as it were, dad and I agreed that I would switch from electric to wet shaving. Dad rebundled my loan, replacing the Remington with the Rolls Razor he had used as a young soldier during the war.

Dr.K. 02:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0
Rolls Razor Pictures by Dr.K. 03:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0

This contraption, which they stopped making before I was born, was a metal box containing a strop and a re-useable safety razor. You would sharpen the blade on the strop, then detach the razor for your wet shave. Eventually you would change the blade, which, if memory serves me well, required a screwdriver and a fair bit of dexterity.

The other thing that needed dexterity was the safe use of such a safety razor.

We could not buy the company that had made Rolls Razor – it had gone bust by then – but we should have invested in the makers of styptic pencils and sticking plasters.

Styptic Pencil –  Anhydrous aluminium sulfate seeing as you (didn’t) ask
Photograph by Rama, CeCILL

I recall seeing several horror films towards the end of my first year at Keele; The Amityville Horror and The Shining spring to mind, so I had plenty of suitable similes to describe the bloody bathroom scenes of my early Rolls-Razor efforts. I did eventually get the hang of it and wet-shaved for the next 25 years. Left-handed.

SPACE

But why did a long-haired ha’porth of a student, with two cack hands and a skin-sensitive face even bother with shaving?

The answer lies not in the facial hair itself, but in the space between the patches of facial hair.

It was OK for the youngsters who were blessed with a full growth of facial hair at the age of 18. Simon Jacobs, for example, had five-o’clock shadow from the start at Keele.  But most of us looked ridiculous with sparse facial hair.

I recall Richard Van Baaren naming our Lindsay F-Block corridor’s five-a-side football team ‘Tempted ‘Tache, in honour of fellow undergraduate males’s failed attempts at moustaches.  No, I didn’t play for that team; I have two left feet as well as two cack-hands.

Inadequate facial hair was like a flashing neon sign saying JUVENILE…BOY…NOT YET A MAN.  That tell-tale wispy, fluffy face space had to go, even if the result was bloody carnage, born of cack-hands.

The King Cricket List, A Story For ThreadZoomMash, Performed 1 April 2021

The above logo used with the kind permission of King Cricket

For many years I have written occasional guest pieces for the amusing cricket website, King Cricket. Most pieces are written by webmeister Alex Bowden; a fine writer and good bloke.

My contributions tend to be in the following, especially whimsical, King Cricket categories:

  • Cricket paraphernalia in unusual places;
  • Animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket;
  • Cricket match reports, which must meet one of two strict criteria:
    • if it’s a professional match, on no account can the writer mention the cricket itself,
    • if it’s an amateur match, the author is expected to go into excruciating detail about the cricket.

I realise that I have just generated a small list; a list of King Cricket categories.

But that is not the list I want to talk about today. No.

I keep a list of my submissions; I call it my King Cricket Article Log.

That’s the list I want to talk about. There are 83 articles on the list at present; 75 published and eight pieces awaiting publication.

I could simply cut, paste and read all the article titles…but I don’t think that would be much fun for you, or me.   

Instead, I have written a highlights list, with explanations, which might be an entertaining story in its own right:

Alex Bowden often publishes my pieces “fashionably late”; not knowing when they’ll be released is part of the fun for me. That’s why I keep a canonical list of my King Cricket submissions.

Review Of The Evening

As the brief for this ThreadZoomMash was to write a story based on a list, I think I owe it to the evening’s central conceit to review the evening in the form of a list:

  • Rohan introduced the evening with some thoughts on what lists are in the grander scheme of things and how they might become central to our stories;
  • Julie read a truly brilliant short story about a very short-lived romance in the form of a series of daily do-lists;
  • Geraldine had us in stitches with story named Stitches, about a trip long ago with her baby and an infeasibly long packing list for an activities weekend;
  • Then I performed my King Cricket piece;
  • Ian Theodoreson then recited a very poignant and thought-provoking piece about to do lists with items crossed off, which was in some ways a stroll through the different types of to do lists that have been relevant throughout his life. Ian has upped his piece, The List, to his own website, Living In Hope – click here ;
  • Jill’s list story was very imaginative; based on the idea that all the things she (or her character in the story) had done to escape an unsatisfactory employment were in the form of theme park activities, which she explored as a list of such things;
  • Jan talked about her love of lists, discussing several different types of list before settling on her “Grumpy List”, a surprisingly short list of highly amusing bugbears. So, we then moved on to…;
  • …Kay, who opened with a Dorothy Parker quote, which led in to her list of the men/boys for whom she has strong and poignant memories of why she was attracted to them. It was a wonderful mixture of charming, funny and dark;
  • Terry’s piece was called The Gratitude List. It mostly comprised a list of the people he’s been closest to and to whom Terry is perennially grateful. It was a very touching piece.

We had a great chat about each other’s pieces after the readings, which made for a very enjoyable gathering, as always.

Kay Scorah’s Love Letter, From ThreadZoomMash, 4 March 2021

My explanation of the March 2021 ThreadZoomMash, along with my own piece and review of the event can be found by clicking here or below:

The Love Letter, ThreadMash Performance Piece & Review, 4 March 2021

With thanks to Kay Scorah for permission to publish her love letter as a guest piece here on Ogblog:

February 2021

Before we go any further, there’s something I need to tell you.  

I’ve never been in love. 

Yeah, of course, I’ve been in lust. And I’ve been in-fatuated, in-appropriate, in-secure, in-toxicated.

All those other “ins” made me think I was in love. But I wasn’t.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to work this out, but lately love has taught me that I have never been in love. 

You see, the love I feel is overwhelming, and year by year it gets more so. 

The narcissi, the daffodils, the crocuses are just opening up in Vicky Park. I looked at them the other day and I began to cry. 

I love them.

Then there’s those 3 little kids that race their scooters down my street every day after school. There they are now as I write, yelling, screaming and laughing.. my heart is ready to burst with love for their voices. 

The café owner up at Dartmouth Park yesterday, she just couldn’t stop talking about the trip she took to South America when she was 21. The sparkle in her eyes when she remembered the fear and the beauty of it all; I can’t get it out of my mind’s eye. 

I love it. 

The opening bars of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”; I have a physical love reaction to them. Can’t help but move. 

And that’s before I even get started on the love I feel for my son. Looking at a picture of him when he was small or seeing him walk towards me across the park, even writing about him now...

So, the idea of being in love with someone, that I’m supposed to love them more than anyone or anything. Well, that’s too much for me. It’s frightening. 

If I were to fall in love with someone, would that mean that my love for them would be bigger than all the love I already have? If so, then we’d both be overwhelmed. We wouldn’t be able to handle it. 

On the other hand, if falling in love with one person meant that I had to take my love away from the flowers, the children, the music, my son - I would be so sad, and so dependent on them to give me everything that the rest of the world had provided until then, it just wouldn’t be fair. They could only disappoint me. 

My love is such that if I fell in love, in the way I think it’s supposed to be, neither of us could possibly survive the intensity.

So, when your smiling but serious face pops up on the zoom screen, and your soothing voice washes in through my headphones, I love you like a crocus, like a kid on a scooter, like Tamla Motown.  And that’s huge.
Victoria Park
Smiling But Serious Faces From December’s ThreadZoomMash

The Love Letter, ThreadMash Performance Piece & Review, 4 March 2021

I chose to write and recite an impressionistic memory story, in the form of a love letter, about a night at Keele; 6 March 1981 to be precise.

The ThreadMash brief was simply to write a love letter. The resulting writings from the group were varied to say the least. Here is mine.

Dear Nina

It’s been a while since we met. Forty years, to be precise. 

It’s time I wrote to you. Letter writing was my thing back then…but I didn’t write to you…then.

A lot has happened since that night, in March 1981, when Anna encouraged you to spend the night with me. 

That was weird. 

I wonder what Anna was playing at? Just being playful, probably. The way she’d always be sluttishly playful in the refectory whenever she ate…or more accurately…whenever Anna fellated…and then ate…a banana.

Anna might have set us up for effect, of course. Anyone who roller-skates around the campus all the time, the way Anna used to…is prone to doing weird things for effect.

I don’t think she ever fancied me, Anna. I know she liked me, but I don’t think she fancied me. Actually that evening, while the three of us were sitting in the Union, talking about Bobbie Sands and Troops Out…I thought Anna fancied you, Nina. Perhaps she did. I was a terrible judge of signals back then. Probably still am.

Anyway, we can’t revert to Anna and ask her what was going on. Anna died in in 2012. I don’t suppose you knew that. I didn’t learn that news until a few years after the event. I didn’t keep in touch with Anna. But some of my friends did…or at least reconnected with her before the end. Lung cancer, it was. 

In truth, I was a little confused that night. Confused about love. 

I had been carrying a torch for Mandy from Manchester for months. One passionate December night. Agreement to progress. Several love letters…from me to Mandy. Nothing in return. I didn’t understand. 

I understand more now. I know more now. Letters are not always the medium they are cracked up to be. There’s ample opportunity for delay, for mislay, for tapping, for tampering…

…anyway, some three months after that night in Manchester, still I was, emotionally speaking, bearing that torch, for Mandy.

But the flame was flickering, fizzling by then, so the torch I was still bearing, utterly in vain, for Mandy, was not sufficiently hot for me to resist you. The flame was just warm enough to keep me confused.

As with Anna, I can’t revert to Mandy for her side of the story. She died in 2020, having been ill for some time. Cancer, I believe. I had reconnected with and am still in touch with Mandy’s brother.

Who were you, Nina? Who are you?

At one point, in the early hours, you toddled out of my pokey, student room, down the corridor, to the loo. 

You had just a small bag with you. You left the zipper open, with your Irish passport on the top.  

I must admit, while you were out of the room, I had a quick nosey at the passport.

The photo didn’t look like you at all…wait a moment, yes it did. It’s just that you had a shock of platinum blond hair in person, whereas the passport photo was a dark-haired version of you. 

But the name…I couldn’t begin to discern it. 

The forename was one of those bizarre Irish names; I can’t even hazard a guess at what it was. Perhaps it was L-A-O-I-S-E [Laoise], pronounced Lee-sha; or C-A-O-I-L-F-H-I-O-N-N [Caoilfhionn], pronounced Kay-lin. Anyway my young, ignorant eyes merely discerned an unpronounceable, supremely Irish name, the forename being nothing like Nina, the surname seeming like nothing earthly.

When you left, a few hours later, you sweetly but firmly made clear that you were just passing through and that we wouldn’t be keeping in touch or seeing each other again. Just a parting kiss.

No letters. No words. Until now.

Who were you, Nina? Were you simply, as advertised, a visiting political ally of Anna’s; through the student SWP & Troops Out alliance? Or were you Sinn Fein, Nina? Were you IRA, Nina? 

And who are you now, Nina? 

How are you now, Nina? Are you still alive? I do hope so. 

Anna’s gone. Mandy’s gone. But you?

I hope you are alive and well and thriving. 

Wherever you are. 

Whoever you are. 

Whatever you are called.

The story of that night, 6 March 1981, is in some ways a companion piece to the tale of a different kind of all-nighter, a couple of nights earlier:

A Five Day Marathon To Produce Concourse With Dave Lee, The Result Being A Student Union Lock-In & Near Death Experience, Late February/Early March 1981

The Love Letters ThreadZoomMash

Moving swiftly on to the night of 4 March 2021, Rohan Candappa curated and introduced the event. We had all sent our letters to another ThreadMasher, drawn at random. One or two people (David and Adrian) had chosen to write fictional love letters to the actual person whose name they had drawn, while the rest of us did not do that.

As it happens, I was first up, which possibly makes me “top billing” or possibly “the warm-up act”…or possibly just “first up”.

Geraldine went next, with a moving paean to spring.

Jill’s love letter was to her husband, telling the tale of their near separation by circumstances.

David’s was to Terry, who he fictionalised as his own former lover Teresa whom he was now stalking, having rediscovered them in the form of Terry.

Jan wrote a letter of devotion to the theatre, which certainly resonated with me, both when I received it through the post and when I heard Jan perform the piece.

Rohan feigned profound hurt at the idea that his wife of 25+ years chose to write her letter of devotion to the theatre rather than to him. During the ensuing interval, Rohan could been be seen trying to sneak out of the Candappa house with a suitcase and a hat to lay elsewhere. Fortunately, he and Jan were reconciled in time for the start of the second half.

Terry’s letter (which Rohan read well in Terry’s work-induced absence) was a testimonial to abstinence and its close relative, addiction.

Flo’s letter appeared to be a confessional love letter about a rollicking love affair, until “the big reveal” that the object of her passion is the London Fields Lido.

Julie’s love letter was very creepy, starting off sounding like a declaration of love but soon turning out to be the ramblings of a stalker to their stalkee.

Ian T’s letter was a eulogy to his former tribe, London cyclists, which evoked Ian’s memories of his regular two-wheeled commute.

Kay’s covered several things she loves, including Victoria Park, Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine and her family, concluding deftly that she would struggle to compromise any of those loves for romantic love.

Rohan declared his love for “the wide world”, which I’m sure sparked the desire to travel again in many of us.

Adrian concluded the evening with a bravura piece, which I can only describe as an hilarious homoerotic slapstick [did you see what I did there?] fantasy in which he and David were central characters. Most if not all of us were in stitches. Adrian’s performance was a great climax [did you see what else I did there?] to the evening. A real tonic as we start to emerge from this strange and difficult winter.

As always, it’s not just the stories, it is also the company of this wonderful group of people that makes the evening so special. Viva ThreadMash.

Ian Theodoreson’s The Unexpected Visitor From ThreadZoomMash, 28 January 2021

Photo by Don Stouder on Unsplash

With thanks to Ian Theodoreson, I am delighted to host his story entitled The Unexpected Visitor

The estate agent blurb described the house as ‘A substantial Victorian property carefully restored by the present owners, preserving many of the original features. It is located on one of the town’s premier roads overlooking the golf course’.

What the write up didn’t describe was the fact that the basement displayed yet more original features as it hadn’t been subjected to the same ‘careful restoration’ the rest of the house had.  Indeed it had not been subject to any restoration as the Browns had run out of steam. They had devoted five years of their lives and all of their savings doing up the main house and had decided that enough was enough. The basement became the repository for all those things that will be incredibly useful one day and, amongst the piles of boxes, crates and a well-stocked wine rack, a family of mice installed itself. On the whole they kept themselves to themselves, only occasionally encroaching upon the main living area, and regular assaults with a variety of mousetraps by Mr Brown helped keep their numbers to manageable levels.

A neighbour down the road, sensing Mr & Mrs Brown needed a new diversion from decorating, suggested he introduce them to the golf club, at which point they hung up their paint brushes and instead attempted to master the art of hitting a small ball in a straight line, without much success.  Gary Player once famously said of golf ‘The more I play, the luckier I get’: if he meant that as a generally applicable aphorism then he was wrong with regard to the Browns.  

Their efforts at golf were a disappointment both to the Browns themselves and to the more conservative members of the club, who viewed them with some suspicion.  Not only did they not master the technical aspects of the sport, but they didn’t really fit in with the social elite who commanded the club house either.  The club secretary was a particularly pompous man, Jack Cuthbert who, in his spare time, doubled up as their local Councillor.  His wife Heather, by contrast, was a rather timid woman whose presence merely served to amplify her husband’s sense of superiority.

After a number of years the time came to sell their ‘substantial Victorian pile’ and to move to something smaller. Mr Brown had something of a love/hate relationship with older properties – there was a sense of grandeur living in them but it was constantly tempered with the knowledge that at any moment the decorative ceiling might crash down around ones ears.  Consequently, once they decided to sell, the need to do so became urgent, before some further defect revealed itself that would take time and energy to address. 

A number of prospective buyers looked around but no offers were forthcoming.  The Browns decided that the agent wasn’t doing a good enough job at explaining the potential benefits of living in the house so they decided that they would show the next people around themselves: maybe give prospective buyers a sense of the genteel lifestyle Mr Brown felt the house projected.

It was with a heavy heart therefore that they learned from the agent that ‘a lovely couple, a local Councillor and his wife’, had booked to see the house.  Jack Cuthbert was every bit as pompous looking round the house as he was propping up the bar in the club house however, not deterred, Mrs Brown had arranged to serve tea and cake in the living room after the ‘tour’.

In actual fact the Cuthberts were showing some interest in the house not least, Mr Brown suspected, because its imposing bulk could be seen from the nineteenth green. It was however, at this moment, that an unexpected visitor made his presence known.  During a lull in the conversation Mr Brown heard the unmistakable ‘snap’ of a Little Nipper mousetrap springing into life.  It had been hidden beside the log basket, just out of sight and he had completely forgotten it was there.

Generally when a mousetrap activates, the kill is swift and clean.  Occasionally however it catches the mouse a glancing blow and traps its victim without finishing it off.  This was one such occasion and the unfortunate animal, its head firmly caught but still able to move its hind legs, leaped into the air and onto the carpet directly in front of Mrs Cuthbert’s feet.  There was a moment’s silence as everyone contemplated the vision before them, broken by Mrs Cuthbert’s scream as she threw the piece of cake she was holding into the air and rushed out of the room.  ‘How dare you’, shouted Jack Cuthbert, his face red with rage, ‘my wife is a vegetarian’.

It was at this moment that Mr Brown’s calm demeanour finally deserted him – all the tension of the sale, his general distaste for the Cuthberts and the preposterousness of the situation overwhelmed him.  ‘Well, we were not expecting her to eat it!’ he shouted sarcastically after their retreating forms and watched them storm up the driveway.

‘Well, that went well’ said his wife, calmly. ‘I suspect they won’t be making an offer on the house though’.

‘And you better deal with that’ she said pointing to the writhing body on the floor, still trapped in the Little Nipper, ‘I think it’s got breathing problems’.

The following day the Browns resigned their membership of the golf club.

Auslösen einer Mausefalle

The Unexpected Visitor, ThreadZoomMash Piece, Performed 28 January 2021, Plus A Brief Review Of the Evening

ellenm1, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

David Wellbrook curated this edition of ThreadZoomMash. The brief was to write a piece of fiction, 800-1,000 words, entitled "The Unexpected Visitor". I submitted and performed the following piece.

“What the blithering fuck are you doing here?” said Martin, in a daze-like state, having been disturbed from his intense concentration, staring at nothing much, on his remarkably cluttered coffee table.

“I thought I’d surprise you”, said Mary. “You knew I’d be back”.

“Did I fuck”, exclaimed Martin. “This is totally unexpected. The last thing you said to me, as you left, was that you were never, ever, ever, ever…EVER going to come back.”

“But that was months ago”, Mary whispered, coquettishly, “and it was hardly the first time I walked out on you swearing that I was walking out for the last time.”

“Months! At least 18 months. I thought I was shot of you. I thought I was over you. I mean, I am over you. It’s too late. I’ve moved on. I’ve got a new life. I’ve got a new relationship….”

Mary smiled and chided Martin gently. “No you haven’t Martin. I know you haven’t. You’ve been waiting for my return. And now I am back.”

Mary surveyed all around her in the living room of the pokey Deptford flat that had, for several years, been her home. Martin had lived there for many more years than Mary. Before Mary came on the scene, Martin had been with a woman named Peggy for years. Peggy had broken his heart. That’s all Martin would say about Peggy.

It was impossible to believe that Martin had, in any way, moved on. Apart from an increased amount of dust and general untidiness, the place looked entirely unchanged.

Mary smiled. “Let me tidy up and clean up a bit…”

“…oh no you don’t”, yelled Martin, “you can’t just stroll in as if you’d never been away and take over my life again. Leave me alone!”

Tenderly, Mary coaxed him, as she started to tidy up, “you can’t carry on living like this Martin. Look at the place.” 

Mary tidied for a while, then took out a dress from the chest of drawers, admiring and imagining herself wearing it.  “It’s that second hand Versace dress you bought me. I’d forgotten…it’s so beautiful.”

“Cost me a bloody fortune, that did”, grumbled Martin, “hundreds…”

“…but they cost thousands new, Martin. You were so thrilled when you found it and ordered it on-line. And I was so excited when it arrived. Do you remember?”

“Of course. You looked lovely in it.” Martin’s anger was subsiding.

“Shall I try it on?” asked Mary.

“I suppose so. If you like”, said Martin, quelled. Once Mary had put on the dress, Martin added, “give us a twirl”,

“Let me see if I can find some suitable shoes,” said Mary, rummaging at the bottom of the wardrobe, turning out pairs of shoes, “I don’t think I ever had a pair that quite went with this dress…I don’t suppose you could find a pair of second hand Jimmy Choos on-line to go with my second hand Versace, Martin?”

“Fucking hell, don’t start all that again”, said Martin, the anger welling up inside him once again, “that’s what we rowed over the last time. I was always shelling out money I don’t have, on clothes that you don’t need. I can’t afford you, Mary. I can’t fucking afford you”.

“Oh don’t be like that, Martin”, said Mary in her girlie voice, likely to make Martin even more angry. “I’ll pay towards them if you like”.

“Stop talking rot, Mary. You’ve got no fucking money. We’ve neither of us got any money. You’ve got all these clothes and now you’re talking about buying a pair of Jimmy Frigging Choos. You make me so angry.  You always do this. I want to fucking murder you and then kill myself.”

Martin was really wild with anger now. He started hurling clothes around, stomping around the flat and continuously threatening and hurling abuse at Mary. Mary, for her part, was soon reduced merely to sobbing and pleading with Martin to calm down.

Many minutes into the row, came a knock at the door. “Open up! It’s the police! What’s going on in there? Open up!”

“Now look what you’ve done”, said Martin, “the neighbours have set the police on me. This is all I bloody need.”

Martin opened the door. “Good evening officer…officers”.

Two policemen. One looked about fifteen. The other a bit older.

“May we come in please? The neighbours have reported a domestic incident in this flat and we’d like your co-operation.”

“Yeh, whatever”, said Martin.

“Shall I search for the victim, Boss?”, said the younger cop.

“No, wait a bit, Dan…now, what’s been going on, Mr…”

“Martin…”, blurted Martin, before he started weeping uncontrollably.

The flat was strewn with women’s clothes. Martin was on his hands and knees, wearing a Versace dress, leaving blue mascara tear pools on the formerly oatmeal-coloured carpet.

“You’d better sort yourself out, Martin”, said the older policeman, “because if we get called out here again, we’ll have to charge you and you’ll likely end up with a CBO. This is an informal warning, not a formal caution, but you take it seriously, mate”.

“What about the victim, Boss, the woman?” persevered the inexperienced young copper.

“Martin’s on his own here, Dan. Look at him. What a state. Let’s go.”

“I need help”, said Martin.

Review Of the Evening

There were eleven of us reading on the night. David Wellbrook, ever the soccer football fan, liked the idea of associating us all with members of the recently successful England World Cup winning side (1966). This triggered a memory wave from me earlier in the day, as I know what I was up to on that auspicious day:

The Day The England Football Team Won The World Cup Final, Nunu’s House, 30 July 1966

My memory piece also elicited a memory from Kay, which I felt upstaged my story in drama and brevity:

Your delicious Ogblog has reminded me that Uncle Bob came to watch the match at our house. Drink was taken. Bob was holding my baby brother on his lap for that last 30 minutes. The goal was scored. Bob leapt to his feet and threw baby brother in the air.
Luckily, dad caught him.

For his part, David allocated roles to each of us, in diagram form, which indicated the running order.

I was delighted to be cast as the controversial, hat-trick scoring No 10. Wikipedia introduced me to the juicier elements of that goal-scoring, but it wasn’t my new-found knowledge that amazed most of the group but fact that I didn’t know every detail of those controversial goals in the first place.

Jill, who might be forgiven for not knowing anything about the topic at all given her relative youth and the fact that she was raised in China, turns out to be one of the world’s leading experts on Bobby Moore. OK, I exaggerate for effect, but she had learnt about him as part of her UK citizenship programme, which is clearly oriented towards the really important stuff. Rohan should really write a book about that sort of thing.

Anyway.

The stories were diverse as always, despite the seemingly straightforward title. Several of the pieces had animals as the unexpected visitor; we had a spider, birds and a mouse, in Ian Theodoreson’s story, guest published separately on Ogblog here:

Ian Theodoreson’s The Unexpected Visitor From ThreadZoomMash, 28 January 2021

Jill’s story appeared also to have a mouse, but it turned out to be a visitor from four-dimensional space who figured that a small talking mouse-like manifestation might be less scary to humans than the alternatives.

There were several stories that revolved around death, including a murder and one story which included a birth. Covid was only mentioned a couple of times in the evening.

We went into extra time to arrange the next event, which includes a slightly convoluted “shuffling of the pack” which seemed to be confounding everyone until Jill turned out to be an expert on Google Docs as well a leading authority on Bobby Moore and four-dimensional space.

8-cell-simple

ThreadCrushes, My Turn To Curate ThreadZoomMash, I Chose The Topic “Crushes”, 16 December 2020

This ThreadZoomMash is dedicated to the late Professor Mike Smith

Part One Introduction: Medieval Crushes

I chose the topic “crushes” by happenstance. Just before lockdown 2.0, while I was pondering my choice of topic, a couple of old friends and acquaintances, out of the blue, unprompted, confided in me about crushes they’d harboured when we were all a lot younger.

The topic of crushes resonated with me as a rich source of story telling.

It also resonated with my love of medieval music. Without going into too much detail as to why and wherefore, most medieval secular love songs are about unrequited love. The story formula is a simple one – as my music teacher Ian Pittaway puts it – “she is perfect…; I am hopelessly in love with her; she doesn’t want me; I am heart-broken”.

Here is a song I am working on at the moment: Puis Que Je Suy Amoureux. A late 14th century song attributed to Richard Loqueville of Cambrai. Allow me to sing you the first verse and then translate it.

Since I am in love
With you, gracious, gentle one,
I never feel pain
I am so blissfully joyful.

Thus I wish to continue dreaming
Of serving you according to my design
Since I am in love…

[Love gives to lovers
Hope, sweet and pleasant.
Now my heart is waiting
For your gracious glance,]
Since I am in love…

Translation by Asteria – below I have embedded their delightful, professional rendering of this beautiful song:

Part Two Introduction: Primary Crushes

It was not my intention to write a crush story myself. That is not normally the way with the role of ThreadMash curator. But events since I set the topic of crushes have led me to a memory flash of my very first crush.

Here’s the story of how the memory flash and that primary crush came about.

Very sadly, my friend and work colleague of more than 25 years, Professor Mike Smith, died suddenly and totally unexpectedly on 12 November. It was Mike who, six years ago, encouraged me to start playing the four-string guitar. Janie and I had formed a bond with Mike and his young family over the years.

On the last day of Lockdown 2.0, we went to Mike’s funeral. We learnt for the first time many things about Mike’s earlier life.

I knew that Mike originally came from Montgomery Alabama and I knew that Mike had very strong views against prejudice. But I didn’t know that, in the late 1960s, pint-sized Mike had tackled the racist bullies at Alabama State University, befriending black people and bravely taking on the segregationists.

I also didn’t know that, as a youngster, Mike had liked the song Red River Valley, which the celebrant at the funeral then duly played to the congregation of mourners.

At the sound of that song, I was transported back to the late 1960s myself, to when I was seven; thoughts of my fourth year primary school teacher, Miss Brown.

I loved her and she was clearly very fond of me. I did extremely well that year in school. Miss Brown introduced me to Tudor history, a subject that has fascinated me since. She encouraged my writing.

By the time you get to your fourth year of primary school, you have got used to the idea that you will move on to a different class with a different teacher the next academic year. But Miss Brown dropped a bombshell towards the end of the summer term that year; she was going to be leaving the school altogether.

I was devastated. I wasn’t merely going to be in another class. I wasn’t going to see her again. I felt abandoned.

That year, I had been given as a present a small collection of remaindered records, known as Beano Records. Most of the records are dramatised stories for children with famous English theatrical performers peppered with classical music to provide additional dramatic frisson to the stories. But one of the records, incongruously, is a collection of Cowboy Songs.

One of those cowboy songs is Red River Valley, which had caught my ear around the time I learnt that Miss Brown was to abandon me. I played that song over and over, wallowing in the sentiment of it. I became determined to learn Red River Valley and sing it to Miss Brown on the last day of school.

Eventually I told mum about my plan. Mum gently dissuaded me from that particular idea. I think she encouraged me instead to take a small gift together with a note of thanks and farewell to Miss Brown. I expect mum maintained strict editorial control over the content of the note.

With the benefit of hindsight, that might have been the one occasion in my life when mum’s intervention in my romantic ideals was unquestionably for the best.

There are many versions of Red River Valley, but one of the most charming verses (absent from the rather corny Beano recording, which you can hear through the sound file below)…

Red River Valley, performed by an uncredited “real Texas cowboy”

…is an unrequited love lyric, the third verse of the version I’m about to play. Very similar to the Puis Que Je Suy Amoureux unrequited love lyric, written some 500 years earlier.

It’s 50 years since I learnt, but didn’t sing, Red River Valley for Miss Brown.

It is now time.

It’s easy to play on the four string guitar, which Mike Smith encouraged me to play.

So, this rendition is for Miss Brown and for Mike Smith:

Red River Valley

Oh they say from this valley you’re leaving
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile
And they say that you’re taking the sunshine
That has brightened our pathway a while

Won’t you think of the valley you’re leaving
Oh how lonesome, how sad it will be
And remember the Red River Valley
And the grief that you’re causing to me

For a long time my darling I’ve waited
For the sweet words you never would say
Now at last all my fond hopes have vanished
For they say that you’re going away

Come and sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
Just remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy that loved you so true

Postscript: The Evening

Ten of us gathered. Eight contributors, me in my capacity as curator/master of ceremonies, plus Rohan Candappa.

The Part One running order was:

  • Jan
  • Adrian
  • Jill
  • Geraldine

The Part Two running order was:

  • Coats Bush (Terry)
  • Auntie Viral (Kay)
  • Fabian Tights (David)
  • Arfur Pig (Ian T)

(The nicknames is a long story. Ask Rohan).

We had a good 30 to 40 minutes after the readings to discuss the contributions and all sorts of other stuff.

From my point of view it was a great evening and I thoroughly enjoyed the role of curator. Not that i would want to curate the evening every time, but my hand is certainly up to curate again.

ThreadZoomMash Celebrity Edition, Siddharta by Hermann Hesse In My Case, Plus Lots More Fascinating Contributions, 16 November 2020

Tonight, another of Rohan Candappa’s left-field ideas. Choose one page from any book of your own choosing; explain your choice and read out that page.

I railed against the Desert Island Discs idea a few months ago…

Desert Island Diatribe, A Performance Piece For ThreadZoomMash, Plus A Review Of the Evening,29 July 2020

…do I even need to explain that “choose just one page to read” meets a similarly febrile emotional push-back in my mind.

But I quite quickly settled on Hermann Hesse as my choice of author. George Elliot and Hermann Hesse are the only authors about whom I decided, on reading one novel, that I simply must try to read everything this person wrote.

Hesse’s novels are extraordinary and quite exceptional. I commend all of his novels to you. Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game are mind-blowing, but possibly not the place to start with Hesse’s work.

My first Hesse read was Demian. I picked up that novel, pretty much by chance, in a remaindered bookshop on the Charing Cross Road in the mid 1980s. Some of the fictional conversations in that book reminded me of conversations I’d enjoyed with Anil Biltoo, the school pal with whom I went to Mauritius in 1979 and through whom I met Fuzz, the subject of my first ThreadMash piece.

The Rohan Thing, My Short Performance Piece As Part Of Rohan Candappa’s Inaugural Threadmash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2019

Hesse’s evident fascination with Eastern philosophies and my desire to read more about them took me next to Siddharta. There are two parts to the book; I am going to read you the few hundred words that conclude Part One; a point at which Siddharta reaches a spiritual awakening such that he is, in a sense, reborn in Part Two.

I don’t personally believe in reincarnation, but I did feel a shiver down my spine while researching this preamble, when I read Hermann Hesse’s Wikipedia entry. Hesse died on 9 August 1962. That was the day that Anil Biltoo was born.

Anil Biltoo. Click here or the picture for the Project Gutenberg public domain version of Siddhartha in English

The Events Of The Evening

I went first, so (apart from a short introduction by Rohan before I did my bit), this piece is sequenced in running order sequence.

Kay went next. She read The Owl-Critic by James Thomas Fields, reading from a charming anthology she has kept from primary school. Kay might chime in with the details of the anthology, but I’m guessing it is out of print and hard to find. She had peppered the poem with musical notation as a child, which was a charming additional detail.

Flo read Last Of the MetroZoids by Adam Gopnik. It is a very moving piece about the art historian, Kirk Varnedoe, coaching a boys football team while dying of cancer. It is a very moving piece, which Flo read beautifully.

Next up was Jan, who (Rohan suggested) wanted to style herself as Constance DeVereaux this evening…perhaps an in-joke between “spice”. Anyway, Jan read from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (another book available in the public domain through Project Gutenberg). She read the bit where Jo sacrifices her glorious head of hair to raise money for the family.

Ian Theodorson read a passage from East Of Eden by John Steinbeck (link is to Wikipedia entry, as the book is still in copyright). Ian preambled his reading by explaining some of the biblical references/allusions involved, not least the Cain & Abel story from the Old Testament.

Then a brief half-time discussion. The topic that got the most coverage was about Little Women and books of that kind, specifically whether there is an equivalent literary genre that helps young men to understand their romantic emotions. We concluded that there is seemingly no such genre.

We then had an actual half-time break, but there was no evidence of anyone eating cut up pieces of orange. Nor, mercifully, did Rohan try to motivate us with glib words and phrases such as “momentum”, “play as a unit”, “give it 120%” or “leave it all out there on the Zoom screen”.

There was then a euphemism-fest, using terms such as “recharging my gadget”, when it was clear that people wanted a toilet break.

I used that time as an opportunity to show those who remained my proud collection of decomposing Pooh.

When it comes to decomposing Pooh…if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Rohan kicked off the second half by reciting the lyric of What A Fool Believes by Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins. There’s a bit of involuntary threading in there, as Kenny Loggins also famously produced Return To Pooh Corner, including Loggins song House At Pooh Corner. It’s a fabulous lyric which I looked at a year or two ago with a view to giving it the troubadour treatment; I might just about be able to sing it now.

John read a nerve-jangling passage from Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. It is a heart-stopping true story about a pair of mountaineers in the Andes who survived a disaster in almost-impossible circumstances. It was made into a much-lauded documentary film some years after the book came out.

Jill read a passage from The Book Of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith. She read the piece about amae, a Japanese emotion which is hard to translate into English. “It means something like the pleasure that you get when you’re able to temporarily hand over responsibility for your life to someone else”, to quote Tiffany herself from this rather fascinating interview with her about the book.

Adrian read an hilarious piece from March Of the Lemmings: Brexit In Print & Performance 2016-2019 by Stewart Lee. The passage Adrian read was a sequence of thank you letters to brexity aunts for their brexity Christmas presents. I learnt that we should all have an Anderson shelter for Brexit; who knew?

Terry read a passage from The Big Book: Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, explaining after his reading, in no uncertain terms, that this book saved his life.

Geraldine read us three Robert Frost poems. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it has dawned on me the morning after, that The Road Not Taken, one of Frost’s best known and most debated poems, is a fascinating echo of the East Of Eden “free will” debate regarding the Cain & Abel story from Ian T’s reading. Geraldine read one other poem the title/detail of which has escaped me (she might chime in with the title), plus The Gift Outright, which Frost recited in person at John F Kennedy’s inauguration.

Perhaps they should book Stewart Lee to recite some fitting words for the outgoing president at Joe Biden’s inauguration, if the narcissist-in-chief bothers to show up.

After the event, a few of us stuck around for some further discussion, although it soon descended into weird debates about matters such as the relative merits of Michael Mcdonald & Malcolm MacDonald, two people who are surely very hard to distinguish from one another.

I have had this problem myself in my time. Who hasn’t?

Just one more parting thought, brought to mind by the thought of stories we loved as children and our parents’ influence. I am blessed to still have many recordings of my parents reading to me. I have several still to go through and upload to Ogblog, but one in particular, from when I was five, remains charming and is a complete story. I uploaded it a few years ago and several friends told me that they have played it many times over to their children. Hare And Guy Fawkes by Alison Uttley:

Hare And Guy Fawkes, Daddy Reading To Me, 5 November 1967