Mustique. Oh how my old housemaster would have loved it there, if only he could have curtailed his twice weekly felching trips to Soho. “Semper quivering, boy, semper quivering…never forget!” He’d whisper in the snug in the ‘Nanny and Spanker’ in rain soaked Windsor.
After the election, a jolly old bit of R and R in the sunshine has done me the power of good. Carrie made me put away the phone, and I did not bother with the papers or the Beeb. I was then able to relax, soak up the sun and think of new ways of using the broken dreams of stupid Northerners in my next campaign. My God you should have seen the beaches here…The problems of Workington are as welcome a thought as a festering polyp on my penis during the saturnalia festivities at the Bullingdon, so thank goodness I have…er, whose the Home Secretary? Patel?, to take care of things back home.
Now, to business. What’s occurring?
We have to get Brexit done, or some-such. I trust you’ve briefed the Cabinet on their roles? I want to reiterate my position on this. I am the figurehead, the lightening rod if you will. I will say what is required at times to the journos, but the detail I’ll leave to those who give a fuck.
I heard a whisper or something about Iraq? Iran? Raab is on it I trust? Keep an eye on him, he is as useful as a dead cat in a rusty fire bucket. I’d trust him about as far as I’d trust Jimmy Saville at a 1970’s children’s summer camp in Llandudno. Raab’s got the look of something sharp and pointy in the night about him. So, Iran or Iraq…or Indonesia? Let me know.
Saj is on top of the budget…so thats’s foreign, home and money taken care of.
I am apt to wonder what the fuss was about being PM. Being surrounded by the likes of the Saj, Raab and Priti “you looking at me?” Patel, makes the job a piece of piss actually.
What else is there? Gove? What is he up to? Polishing that arsehole he uses for a mouth no doubt. Mind, I mustn’t complain, I’ve got staff, advisors, the internet and Carrie and her ilk to ease the troubles of the day away. Life is quite peachy right now. We’ve killed socialism stone dead for a decade or perhaps permanently, we’ve got the yanks offering the greatest trade deal, ever. Oh, give H and M a call will you, give them my regards, Was rather fond of M, she was welcome in any of my ‘suits’ at any time.
So. Is that it? Anything else I should be taking a look at? Australia?
I have often wondered how I can make a few quid, legally. The obvious answer is to ‘flog my bottom’ to the highest bidder, to someone who promises to take good care of my buttocks and the associated orifice which, I should hasten to add, I would not include in the contract. Being a ‘man of means by no means’, I am open to selling my labour without access being granted to the aforementioned anatomical structure, which I like to refer to as “This precious hole set in the hairy sea, which serves it as the orifice of a wall”. The fact that I have the option to sell or not to sell my labour or ring, is a blessing of the magnitude that certain Jihadi terrorists must feel when contemplating their virginal welcome in Jannah upon pressing the button to send one testicle into orbit and the other into crow fodder.
There is a long and proud (?) tradition in this country of selling bits of one’s body, or the whole of it, to men of power, wealth and vulgarity. To men whose wives are bored, worn out or have discovered the joy of lesbianism; to men who have spent too much time at sea; to men late at night within the Palace of Westminster bars and to men who like to take a risk while wanking. There is an equally long tradition of men who like to use their positions of wealth and power to gain entry into the lost lives of young boys and girls, especially those whose relationship to the ‘means of production, distribution and exchange’ is one characterised by an imbalance of power. These unfortunates are born into a world in which not only are silver spoons missing, but so is the complete canteen of cutlery, the box it came in and the whole panoply of love and security. Not for them cosseted entry into ‘good schools’ and the opportunity to listen to old Dons in Oxbridge pontificating on about what some entitled thinker such as Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century thought about poor people’s lives while he dined on Quail gizzard and a decent Claret served in the hollowed out skull of a local peasant who died of a nasty, brutish and short infection.
During the last few centuries in civilised nations such as Great Britain, extracting rent literally from the bodies of the poor has been a defining feature. In this endeavour we have been an ‘equal opportunity’ employer. Babies, toddlers, children, teenagers (if they got that far) as well as women, men of all colours and none, have been in ready supply to offer all manner of services. All of them need a roof over their heads and so owning little in the way of receptacles in which to piss, when inheritance means passing on a genetic defect and poor personal hygiene, they have to come to the ‘market’ in order to offer anything at all. Anything.
Spare babies were sold off as food for the foxhounds, toddlers were sent into small dark cramped places which needed cleaning…that included u bends in toilets, cottage chimneys and the underpants of the local land owner, often while he still wore them. Children and teenagers kept the Royal Navy afloat by working in the gundecks supplying gunpowder to gun crews; they kept the spinning jenny’s, er, spinning and with their bare hands picked up the dung deposited by pit ponies in Welsh coal mines while all of the time singing in close harmony “All things bright and beautiful” in an attempt to keep their spirits up. They were glad of the work, for without it their grandparents (at this time aged about 32) would die slow lingering deaths of black tooth rot, syphilis and fear.
Adults knew that the five giant evils stalked the land. Squalor, Ignorance, Want, Idleness and Disease, all 5 of them embodied in the local magistrates, land and factory owners, and Members of Parliament who all could extract any amount or type of rent they required due to the festering desperation of the smelly, diseased, emaciated huddled masses. If you happened to be blessed with the ‘fat gene’ as a dairy maid and thus avoided the emaciating ravages of hunger, you could find yourself a nice little sideline in the local town plying your ‘wares’ for gentlemen of leisure. In return for a penny, after dark one could offer exotic services behind the stables at the local inn, the ‘Cock and Spanker’, in such diverse places as Whitby and Chislehurst or under the pier in Wigan. A Gentleman could also buy services in quaint country villages such as ‘Little Bottom, Big Bottom’ and ‘Much Probing’.
In the 1950s the practice was updated a little. Exploitative renting out was given a new twist by such landlords as Peter Rachman, whose practices were so deplorable that his name was used to describe them. ‘Rachmanism‘ was born, although in truth it had existed for centuries. This ‘enlightened philanthropist’ owned dilapidated and slum property in Notting Hill, London, and used intimidation to drive out any sitting tenants that had a low rent. He embodied ‘laissez faire’ capitalism in all of its glorious guises – little regulation, no rent controls, absent inspection, no recourse for appeal. Rachman subdivided properties and let them out for prostitution. No doubt certain MPs cheered him on based on the theory that regulating the housing market would remove properties from availability, pointing to Rachman’s subdivisions being an example of increasing the number of rental accommodation.
circa 1960: Peter Rachman, a London property owner who made a fortune as a slum landlord of West Indian immigrants in West London, pictured at his desk. (Photo by Paul Popper/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)
It is an argument not unlike having a systematic programme of killing old people in care homes during a shortage of funeral directors in order to entice new entrants into the market. The alternative of course is to provide more positive incentives for trainee undertakers so that your Gran doesn’t fear a knock at her door at midnight by a black hooded scythe wielder.
The housing charity Shelter polled 4,000 private renters. They concluded that private renting is making millions of people ill with almost half of England’s 8.5 million renters experiencing stress or anxiety and a quarter made physically sick as a result of their housing. This is being put down to unaffordable rents, poor living conditions and the risk of eviction. About 2.7 million people feel hopeless while more than 2 million have been made physically ill. The Health Foundation estimated in 2017, that 1 in 5 houses doesn’t meet decent standards in England. Hovels have a place of course, they act as incentives for ‘Top Cornflakes‘ to rise, and if people are too stupid to get on in life, well that is just Darwinism in action. “Hitler was not wrong about everything” said Sir Edward, Charles, Alexander Boris deCuntface Avarice-Coming of Fuckemall Castle, “cleansing the gene pool is of course desirable, but we just have to be careful of the methods”.
Perhaps if more selling of one’s bottom was encouraged (other bodly entrances are available upon request) and was undertaken by the poor, then they would be able to afford a decent property. They have only themselves to blame. Many are the ‘worse idlers in the world’ or lack aspiration and drive , they are ‘drunk, criminal and feckless‘, ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate‘. “And that is just their good points” said a billionaires’ flaxen haired spokesperson while sipping piña coladas in Mustique.
There are times when one would like one’s partner to take a little bit more notice. Everyday life is full of the mundane, and the necessary, and often with very little glamour. There might be something important going on but the drudgery and the distractions of little things are apt to blind us to realities. Getting attention these days is not easy unless you are the President of the United States who has cornered that market. Glitz or Celebrity is possibly the way to go, if you wish to avoid the Trumpian method of bombast and narcissistic stupidity.
I have tried cooking breakfast wearing a tutu, a leopard skin thong and a little bit of glitter glued to my nipples, while also dancing around to the sound track of Mama Mia! on a cold drizzly Sunday morning, in an attempt to inject a little of the ‘Strictly’ magic, and to draw her gaze up from the ipad. This was as successful as fishing for compliments about one’s new Sassoon haircut during the Poll tax riots.
“Darling, the kitchen’s on fire!” I’d joke as the bacon spittles in the frying pan. This comment was greeted by a wall of silence that could block out the sound of a nuclear explosion.
“Chicken lickin has just told me the sky is falling in, there is a pus pox pestilence ravishing the countryside and the powers of Mordor have found the ring”.
Silence.
However, just mention the goings on in the House of Windsor and suddenly attention is turned to 11. The current spat concerns a millionaire couple’s decision to move to Canada and to stop playing at dressing up and burning the prols. The new story has taken the heat off a certain Prince’s prediliction for self absorption and a little light hymen stretching in dimly lit but opulent New York apartments, once owned by the sort of man who ruled countries or who ran large multinational corporations whose business model involved child slavery, sex trafficking and peddling propaganda.
The story is so serious that the whole of the UK press and broadcast media have gone into meltdown trying to cover every single angle possible. We have a bit of casual racism, tenderised with misogyny, spite and obnoxous obseqiousness. We have been told there is something called Frogmore House, a ‘cottage’ paid for by the tax payer with enough bedrooms to house the residents of Grenfell Tower. Remember them? No, of course not because they have all been rehoused in happy luxury in Henley-on-Thames and other nice home counties towns as the largesse of the State has been poured in their direction. They will be reading their morning papers, sipping freshly squeezed orange juice at breakfast while their staff do the cleaning. They’ll be warning their teenage daughters about the dangers of either marrying princes or being left alone with one after a line of coke and a bottle of fizz in Mustique or the 30 room Royal Lodge in Windsor.
Harry has had the temerity to marry a woman who might want to have a say in her life. Fancy that! Oh, and she is a bit…you know…well, let’s just say “American” shall we?
There must be absolutely fuck all happening elsewhere in the UK or the world as the journalists vie with each other to discuss the finer points of Royal protocol and history. It is as if they are trying to distract us from something, or to fill our heads with so much trash as to elbow out any critical thinking about the baseless anachronist nature of Monarchy in the first place.
‘Monarchy’. Yes…it is 2020. You’d think? An institution as much revered by the proletariat as it is by the chinless wonders of the denizens of Downton Abbey and their numerous illigitimate offspring now living in Hamstead and Kensington. I’d have thought that by now we would have grown out of our childish habits and interests in the same way we gave up sucking at mother’s breast, pulling the legs off spiders and exploring the deeper, dark, hidden parts of our bodies with small household objects and vaseline. Just me?
I’ve as much interest in the intra-familial squabblings goings on of millioniare landowners and their sprogs as I have in the spring mating rituals of the common or garden earthworm. I do want to know how much wealth they have, how they got it, who protects it, what justifies it and how many animals die in the process. It might be of interest to know if the Queen is still alive or if a body double has been recruited just to piss off Charles, or whether Philip is planning to emulate Mountbatten in organising a coup against anyone with a funny northern or foreign accent and vaguely dark skin, or how many sixth form precosiously matured schoolgirls have been invited to tea at Andrew’s without their fathers’ knowledge.
We will not be told, because they want us watching a soap opera instead.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen I finally got her attention by popping the cork on a bottle of fizz, a sound her ears are finely attuned to.
Radio 4 is a channel on the BBC which features a relatively wide variety of mainly talk programmes. I assume it had its origins when the BBC took seriously its remit not only to entertain, but also to educate and inform. It is a channel one switches to when one reaches the age at which Radio 1 becomes far too shouty, and plays the type of music your mum and dad complained of, involving comments about it being too much about sex and “you can’t hear the words”. This is a phrase which entered the lexicon of musical critique in 1954 and is repeated every decade by those whose teenage years are but distant memories and whose prostates are larger than their willies.
Radio 2 is a gateway channel between the two, and carries its own risks. At first one may tune in to Radio 2 once a day at breakfast time, but if the move to Radio 4 is not quickly made, one is liable to be trapped within its soul sucking vortex of the Jeremy Vine show, the anodine ‘Pop Masters’, which features questions about ‘popular music’ that only the institutionalised in secure units of a psychiatric or care establishment can answer, and endless traffic reports about sheep pile ups on the M6 in Cumbria.
Aficionados of the Vine show will know that ‘topical’ issues are discussed. I say discussed, I don’t think there is a word in English that adequately captures the full level of the depth of ignorance, ill thought through opinion, bluster and stupidity that passes for comments on periennial topics such as the Royal Family, Boris Johnson’s hair and the price of biscuits. The sort of people who phone in might well be honing their skills, insularity and middle england, middle class prejudices in order to promote themselves onto Radio 4 programmes such as ‘Any Answers’.
Local radio, in my case Radio Cornwall, boasts its own ‘talk shows’ on which any number of slack jawed yokels, inbred slope browed countryfolk – the pride of ‘rural idiocy’ – and the retired gentlefolk of the Tory Shires, bored with spouting boorish comments at any passing tradesman in the Home counties and so moved West for a fresh less critical audience, feel entitled to drivel banality upon cliche upon shit. This is the lower leagues of stupidity, whose players lack the ambition, or the energy or the ability to piss straight enough to move into the Championship League of Vine on Radio 2.
An average Radio Cornwall phone-in features calls from neurotic cat ladies who think they are being spied on by the Chinese, a goat hugger from Tintagel and ex farm labourers who can still remember the horse and plough but not what they had for breakfast. Presenters, for what reason I know not, often give them 10 minutes to say something that could be said in 10 seconds or preferably not at all. I would not dare to bore a sharp clawed tom cat with the complaints that issue out of the radio. Many of these folk cannot progress to Vine let alone Any Answers, they are the sort that gives Norfolk its reputation.
And yet.
On Any Answers today, within 5 minutes, the quality of call from three ‘listeners’ was poor enough to cast any residual doubts I had about humanity’s right to continued existence, into oblivion. The level of deference to Authority would make a Feudal Lord blush and his peasants mutter ‘have some respect for yourselves’. The presenter made it known that the majority of callers wanted to discuss the goings on of a millionaire couple whose lives resemble their own as much as a skipful of dead kittens resembles a toddler’s ball pit.
On Iran, basically the call was “meh, nuke the fuckers”. When asked why by the presenter, the answer was a different version of “meh, nuke the fuckers’, all said in the sort of no nonsense northern accent of a middle manager of a pie factory in Wigan. Knowledge of geopolitics, history and diplomacy is seen as a distinct disadvantage for this type of caller who suspects only the ‘liberal lefty pooftahs down in the smoke’ need recourse to such. Why bother with reading anything when you have nukes? A Mrs Trellis of North Wales phoned in to say that “If that nice Mr Trump wants to bomb Iran, I would be willing to polish his missile to ensure maximum penetration, and thats something the late Mr Trellis always talked about.”
Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher who perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners to be ignorant and superstitious. He also distrusted democracy which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. Radio 4 phone in shows would only confirm him in his prejudices. In 2020, we do not have to look very far, just tune in any day to hear English bourgeoie commentators blathering on about civilising the fuzzy wuzzies by bombing them, English aristocrats dribbling about tax while clubbing fox cubs into furry red soaked pulp and the commoners asking to ‘get Brexit done’ by kicking out the foreigners and force feeding fish and chips to the French.
First of all they failed to be born to very rich parents. I don’t mean the sort of ‘rich’ people who can shop in Waitrose…I mean the sort of rich people who probably own Waitrose and most of Argyll and Bute. The sort that call their personal concierge doctors ‘staff’, the sort who enjoy burning £50 notes in the faces of children dying of cancer in hospital and think nothing of spending a £1,000 on diamond encrusted loo rolls made of paper that wipes your arse for you.
Secondly, they failed at going to a ‘good’ school aka Eton, Winchester and Harrow and then failed to get into an ‘elite university’ such as Oxbridge. They instead were part of the common herd relegated by successive Tory and Tory lite governments to an education in which success is measured by getting to the sixth form without being buggered by the Gym teacher while retaining some semblance of self esteem after years of acne filled self abuse. They failed at getting into a school which will fast track one’s opportunity to run the country by providing you with an ego in inverse proporation to ability while fashioning some facade of competence onto an otherwise incompetant smug but smooth face.
Thirdly, they failed at getting a FTSE 100 Chief Executive Officer’s job in which they receive, not earn, over £3 million per year in salary alone. This failure to sharp elbow their way into positions of executive power has meant for most of them, they have to forego the agonies of finding tax accountants and corporate lawyers in which to hide their wealth offshore in tax havens. They then have to forego the pleasure of whining about how much tax they do pay, bleating on about themselves being ‘tax heroes’ while pleading a poverty that reduces their consumption of quails eggs and caviar to the barest minimum so that at their dinner parties the Saudi Prince has to send out for a KFC instead (Goat salad with an eyeball side being a firm favourite I hear).
Many have failed to be born a upper middle class white man, and instead chose to be born female and some of them even choose to be an ethnic minority! This results in the failure to easily accumulate wealth because the work they do either pays little or nothing at all. Child care, cleaning, cooking, catering, and caring for older people are all jobs many of them ‘chose’ without realising the absence of holiday pay, a decent pension and decent hourly rates made them the original gig economy and zero hours workers! Losers! Instead, they get to revel in clearing up the faeces produced by the owners of the very mouths they fed earlier in a never ending circle of hell that cannot be easily outsourced except to other poorly paid women who pay more in tax than their CEO does.
Then, oh the shame, they failed at becoming ‘celebrities’ – they have avoided becoming known for doing something quite well, something that we might like to (and often can) do ourselves, like singing a bit, dressing up on stage or running fast. They failed in even trying to be the best, and then in forgetting that for every Ed Sheeran, Jennifer Aniston or Usain Bolt, there are thousands of ‘failures’ who either missed being picked up by the music industry, fail to get ‘the’ part due to the enormous competition or are just a second slower.
One thing my friends do share is failure to be total c*nts (well, a few are and they know who they are !) But, ‘failure’ to be wealthy, famous and socially connected is very very common, it is everywhere and is to be embraced. Failure is not to be measured by wealth, schooling, or visibility. Failure is to be found in not sharing our common humanity, in not realising our common purpose, in not understanding or caring about others’ hurts and personal failures. Failure is being surrounded by great wealth while nurturing a self absorbed, narcississtic, arrogant poverty of spirit that stigmatises, blames and shames those less ‘successful’. Failure is relegating compassion and care to be of secondary importance to accounting for the bottom line.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esq, owner of Wessex and the little village of Much Smattering in the Cotwolds, has announced that the annual thrashing of the peasantry working on his estate, will now take place in full public view on Much Smattering’s village green. To date this little known event has been unreported save for a short sentence after the obituaries and the ‘jam for sale’ advertisements in the village paper, ‘The Smattering Local’. Sources close to the Rees-Mogg’s personal computer have let it be known that since the Johnsonian Westminster coup, toffs all over England have been celebrating with Gin and Insouciance, and now feel emboldened enough to resurrect old feudal traditions such as hanging, flogging and touching up the village maidens. The tradition of ‘droit de siegneur‘ has also been spoken of in the quiet of club bars in London and in the old shire country houses. Shares in companies producing genital wart cream, luxury ribbed condoms and gimp masks have soared at the news, resulting in a bump in GDP by 0.1%.
Lord Codpiece of Fuckthemall Castle, a dear friend and supporter of working class disenfranchisement, was particulary delighted to hear of the more public events planned by ‘The King of Wessex’ as Rees-Mogg is affectionaly known by his mum, and sarcastically known by the lumpen proletariat, although he was just a little disappointed that crucifixion was to be delayed pending further research on its benefits to the Treasury. “I have a big bag of nails and quite a few thorn bushes on my land, should the call come” Codpiece tweeted “so bring ’em on…any contempt or lack of humility and deference will be met with buckshot and whips #Imacunt #Poshprivilege #GodisEnglish”
A lady loves a box of chocolates, it is said. Aristocrats and wannabee toffs are queueing up to offer any available Lady (or boy, or pig) the benefit of their felching attentions knowing that resistance from the pretty yet poor maidens in Northern Towns is now at an all time low. All feminine ‘ports’ are now ‘free ports’ and any entrance is accessible to those blessed with money, entitlement and recourse to a good lawyer in case of any #metoo resistance. Even those ugly enough to scare a wart hog away from his rooting or a dog from his vomit, will benefit. Sir Rees-Mogg’s public thrashing of the peasants will serve to remind the horny handed sons and daughters of toil where exactly their place is.
Boris Johnson, when informed of Sir Rees-Mogg’s intentions, issued a statement “Ah, yes..um…indeed it is so…’Gloriana in Semper Rectum’ as my old housemaster used to say in the snug of the ‘Spanker and Sphincter’ in Windsor. Hurrah!”
In a surprise move today the inhabitants of St Micheal’s Mount have declared Independence from Cornwall, in what they call a Kerexit. The new country of ‘Kernow-on-Sea’ will be created and passports issued to those citizens that have sentience, a bit of cash stashed away, and all of their toes.
It is rumoured the passports will have the Cornish tartan on their covers and in no way, said a spokesperson, do they resemble the Devon and Cornwall railcard, only with the words ‘Devon’ and ‘Railcard’ replaced with a sticker which says ‘Passport’.
There will be a dry hard border on the causeway when the tide is out and a moist wet border when it is in. They have yet to decide what sort of border will exist between the tides. Frictionless trade is planned for the importation of pasties and clotted cream, but other ‘English’ foodstuffs will have a tariff imposed, except for beer. And pies. They like pies. There might be a further period of negotiation to decide what else is enjoyed on the island. This could take ages, perhaps even up to next Thursday.
Foreign relations have not been decided upon, but Denzil Penperthy (the interim Island Prime Minister) after consultation with Trevor, Nigel and Demelza in the Kings Head in Marazion, said…”the English can definitely f*ck off…the Yanks need not apply but we are happy to greet our Celtic cousins from the Atlantic Fringes as long as they bring cider, pork and wenches”. At this news, a cheer could be heard in a few bars in Roscoff. An application has been made to rejoin the EU “but only the nice bits, with sunshine and chips…not those places serving foreign muck” affirmed Denzil.
The move was a result of Cornwall voting leave in the EU referendum, with the final straw being the election of English Tory MPs throughout the county. To the proud islanders (Denzil and his mates at least) this results in Cornwall being a vassal state of England, a complaint with a long history ever since old Trelawney lived or died*.
“Tiddint right, tiddint proper..all these bleddy English coming down and voting, then think they own the bleddy place”. When it was pointed out that actually they do, that St Ives is wholly owned by a family from Chelsea, and that Camborne and Redruth were part of a ‘buy one get one free’ deal involving Padstow, a low murmuring could be heard in the snug at the King’s Head.
“oh, bugger off will ‘ee, and fetch me a pasty from Philps…whose for cakey tea?”
*we can safely say now that he did indeed die. Eventually.
Clouds of billowing white steam engulfed the stoically waiting passengers standing on the platform, as the black face of the engine emerged through the swirling mists and smoke. The loud hissing accompanied by short squeal of metal brake on metal wheel sliding the whole train to a gentle stop. The 1930’s was the golden age for steam railways in Britain, unsurpassed for spectacle, romance and of course coal dirt. Today, being Wednesday, witnesses the approach, the flash by and the disappearance of the Gravy Train Express at Camborne.
The 1930s. We thought we were special back then. Turns out that was our apex, our summit, our ultimate before the slow descent into neo-feudalist dystopia in which arrogant, ill educated toffs – the products of elite schools and universities – not only ride the gravy train, they are guard, driver and fireman giving not a toss for the speed of the approaching buffers and caring not which terminus they arrive in. Towns like Camborne and Redruth are not even on the timetable.
As the sun sets slowly over the clear sea blue horizon in the West, the tin mine faeries emerge from the inky blackness of the old worn out shafts of Penwith, blinking into the twilight. They hold candles powered by starlight, and they dance as light as a dragonfly’s wing from one fern to the next along the hedegrow. Hedgehogs and the badgers note their passing in the form of a shadowy presence while the Barn Owl knows not to mistake them for tonight’s meal. His keen eye sees them, but sees them not. This does not bother the Owl, used as he is to nature’s magical ways. The gibbous moon lights the country lane in its silvery sheen but the faeries know the way even on the darkest of nights.
They sing softly to each other as they dance along, and the big people may hear this as the song of the nightingale, or the fluttering of a bats wing, or the breeze in the tree tops. Some who train their ear to listen, hear the songs as poems in their imaginations, unaware that their art is faerie inspired.
One couple suddenly break away from the others and head towards the coast. They have only one mission and they are determined to achieve it. They float upwards towards the evening star as it twinkles as a beacon calling them ever onward. Leading the way, the faerie queen sparkles, her beauty unmatched except for the moonlit diamond crested waves upon the darkened sea below. Suddeny, she stops and pointing downwards towards the lights from the old Cornish pub on the coast, she turns her head and smiles, “Whose up for a pasty an’ a pint of Spingo?”
“Geddon…I’m as dry as a sand ant’s wrinkled ball sack”
This was the Queen’s butler, Toadflax Cloverleaf also known as Timothy who was well known for his love of a flagon of ale, especially on the full moon.
“Righton, Pard, last one in does the magic!” Queen Bess shouted, but you’d hear that as a one of the distant swifts flying up into the high swift haven.
As darkness fell, the light of the moon and the hand held starlit candles floating along the hedgerow tops mimicked the star strewn black canopy above as if in mirrored reflection. The faeries could read the clusters of stars, as if they were words in a sacred book, telling the secrets of the universe, which in a way they were. The seven stars of the plough told of aeons of old beginnings, while the three stars of Orion’s Belt, the hunter constellation, pointed downwards in a line towards the windows of the pub. It was a seventeenth century, whitewashed, thatched squat building whose granite walls were three feet thick. They needed to be as it faced south west directly into Atlantic gales. Tonight though there was hardly a breeze to disturb a faerie wing.
Queen Bess and Timothy were first to alight upon the window sill to peer through the window into the log fire lit, public bar. The room’s low black beams often caught the head of the tall, unwary or the tipsy as much as they caught the flickering shadows of the fire.
“Whose in tonight then, Bess?” Although officially a Queen, there is little formality in the faerie world, and despite his formal title of ‘Butler’ Timothy was more of a drinking buddy whose flair for mischief magic tickled Bess in places where the King no longer tickled her. The King preferred to stay at home, drink beer and play chess with his old mate ‘Rufus’ who lived in the banks of the Red River just as it reached the sea at Godrevy. The Queen preferred a bit more excitement, hence tonight’s venture.
“Well, of course there’s Jinks Nankervis at his post at the bar pulling the pints, Wendy is clearing the tables, and there’s the old fart Farmer Pascoe boring the bull’s bollocks off someone I’ve not seen here before.”
Jinks looked the part. Try to imagine a landlord in an old cornish country pub who has run the place since Queen Victoria died. Someone who was fond of his pie and ale, someone who thought exercise meant strolling to the pasty shop, and someone who though that a balanced diet meant eating the same amount of meat every day. His fashion sense was set in concrete about the middle of the 19th century when only tweed was available to accompany the obiligatory shirt and tie. He owned only three pairs of trousers, all brown corduroy, and seven silk waistcoats one for each day of the week. Each paisley patterned vestment was a different colour of the rainbow and just about stretched about his rotundity. The luxuriousness of his corkscrew grey beard was matched inversely by the amount of hair not on his head. His shiny bald pate could double up as a beacon to guide aircraft into land should the light catch it.
Wendy was what some called a ‘comely wench’. There was no mistaking whose daughter she was. Apples, they say don’t fall far from the tree, and no one doubted which orchard this one came from. Her dress sense meant she could blend in with the farming crowd on Market Day save for a penchant for the display of cleavage that her father did not discourage her from showing. He had done his sums and gathered the data. With Wendy on display serving the pints, it could be guaranteed that the second or third, or more probably the fourth pint would be purchased. It was simply a matter of good business thought Jinks.
“Wendy? Got her tits out again has she?” Timothy said this more as statement of fact than a question, “..and is Pascoe falling for it?”
“Well, going by that large scotch he has just ordered, I’d rather say so”.
The faerie pair floated through the window glass and into the warmth of the bar. They could seemingly defy the laws of physics in this manner because they lived in a different dimension of space and time, in which the normal laws of physics did not apply. You see, the big people lived in the dimension known as Newtonian physics in which mass, velocity and energy are relatively simple, all held together by gravity. It explained such phenomena as the rate of descent of a cannon ball dropped from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa, why your buttered toast always landed buttered face down and why a kick in the bollocks with a steel toe capped boot always hurt. Solid things like wood, bricks and bone tend to be rather solid in this world, as was glass.
Not for the faerie folk. They lived in a Quantum world in which the spaces between the atoms could open up in a vast expanse, between spinning blasts of energy. Theirs was a world in which cats in boxes did and did not exist at the very same time! It all depended on whether you looked at it or or not. Glass was nothing more than light held together with more light and a bit of string, and it all worked if you thought about it. If you didn’t think about it, it ceased to exist. So all Bess and Timothy had to do was not think about the existence of glass et voila! they could pass through. Mind, Bess had to remind Timothy from time to time to think about the glass that held his beer, otherwise spillage could occur should it disappear due to his lack of attention.
As they entered the pub and flitted between the atoms on their way to the bar, unnoticed by the ragged company therein, the log fire became just that little bit warmer, the colours in the room just a little bit more vivid, the shadows darker and Wendy’s bouncy blouse just that little bit more bouncier. They had brought just a teeny bit more energy into the place. The pub dog opened one eye, but for why he did not know. He just sensed something. Pascoe could feel warmer inside and just that bit more relaxed. He felt like singing a sea shanty, but ordered another scotch instead.
It is a universal experience often shared in jest that, after the first pint of Spingo, the world seems to be a better place and to make sure it is, a second and perhaps a third pint should be ordered. Some who are literally minded put this down to the scientific formula that governs the relationship between yeast, sugar and alcohol in cooperation with pork scratchings, the talking of bollocks in the company of buxomness, should that be available, and time. This is the universal appeal of a country pub and real ale across the decades. In the Newtonian world, all of that is true.
But what is also true is that there is another unseen dimension where the faerie folk dispense their magic, as they dance among the stars softly singing the song of the cosmos in a never ending elegy of joy. They bring the extra colour, light and warmth to the pub and so by doing, enhace everything they touch. This is really the magic of a pint of Spingo. The next time you sip an ale, look out for Bess and Timothy. You will not see them of course, but that warmth you feel inside is down to them. They see you and they are laughing and playing as they sup from the faeire cup before catching the faierie express back home at the dawn’s first light.
Looking After Your Ring. 