[blogfocus sunday] potpourri of musings

As the title suggests, this is a varied collection today.

1 It takes an immense effort for one in Dymphna's position to come out and post. I hope it's not too disrespectful to my departed parents to say that … well … perhaps it was close to time. Not so here and each May, Dymphna and the Baron must remember:

We, Shelagh’s faithful remnant, gathered by her burial place to talk about our memories of the funny, wicked person who was my daughter. Having forgotten to bring the Book of Common Prayer, devotions went unmentioned. Just as well... they have become a background hymn, played in a minor key, to the march of days that carry me further and further from the real, living, breathing and spirited girl who was my only daughter.

And then May 9th arrived as usual -- I never believe it will. The sun came up, the coffee was made and gratefully consumed, and I arose as though I had moved past a physical barrier and returned to the land of the living.

It is truly good to be back.

2 Now this is truly weird. Shani has either been seeing things or else … or else [drum roll] …

6.30 ish I was awoken yet again - exactly the same feeling of someone staring at me, really peeved and put out by my being there.

I gave up then with any pretence of sleep and decided it was something to do with the wind, life, planet, whatever.

We told the lady the next morning who was in charge of breakfast, and apparently there have been a number of "incidents" in the room - none like mine, but a picture developed by another client showed a mist (which when I took a similar picture I could see might have been a flash back from the glass of the picture frame).

A cleaner had seen a baby (this was no baby) and the room had been part of the private dwellings before the refurb.

3 Mutterings and Meanderings [oh why does she have to have such a long moniker?] is at her best when things get violently horsy:

I have been dropped on top of post and rail fencing, I have been concussed, I have slammed flat on my back on the road, winded and shocked, so that when I managed to stand up, I vomited. I could go on …

The air ambulance visits these parts at least once a year. Whenever I see its collecting box on a shop counter, I put my change in. I see it as investing in my future.

My friend was lucky today: she escaped with bruises and got back on the horse. You have to. It’s a bit like life.

4 Chicken Yoghurt brings us the warning just in time to get outta here quick:

Public pronouncements by the Home Secretary have, in the past, been harbinger of dark tidings. Who can forget his ‘let us be very slow to condemn our troops‘ plea on the eve of video being released of British troops beating Iraqi teenagers? Or the bleak warning that we must ‘modify some our own freedoms in the short term‘ just before the airline ‘bomb’ ‘plot’ was unmasked?

And so it is with real trepidation that we read these words. You may need some clean underwear to hand: "Home Secretary John Reid has called for human rights laws to be rewritten to protect people against terrorism."

5 Notsaussure is, thankfully, back with a most important point about Britain's oldest ally:

Our dear leader told us: "I decided we should stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally. I did so out of belief."

I thought he must, if he meant anything, mean by this Portugal, and I’m pleased to have my recollection of O level history confirmed by ‘Guano’ that England signed a treaty with Portugal in 1473, I believe, 19 years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Ever determined to seek further and better particulars, I asked a dipolomatic historian friend of mine whether Portugal’s neutrality in WW2 counted against her. Appararently not, since it wasn’t mutual defence treaty.

Someone (in a spirit of accuracy) should point out that a) we have never been at war with Portugal and b) we have several times been at war with the USA!!!

grrrrrrrr

6 The Russian Wolfhound isn't Russian at all, as you'll see from his unique defence of Tony's accession:

Ace of Base got to number one, we were all wearing Global Hypercolour T-shirts (remember, the ones that changed from luminous pink to luminous green as your body temperature increased) and the England football team was a real shambles (yes, even worse than now). Here's a documentary (about an hour, watch it tonight with a glass of wine) that reminds us of the bad old days. Under Blair, we never missed a World Cup. Under Major, and this man, we never made one.

7 OnethingIknow reflects on huckster preachers and the trouble they cause:

People with less ethical standards can and do take advantage of those who sincerely desire healing in their lives or in the lives of those they love.

My list of these modern day hucksters would include Pat Robertson, who loves to tell his TV viewers that there is someone out there in TV land with this or that specific illness or problem,’and that even as he squints his eyes in prayer, God is in the process of healing them. And then there’s Benny Hinn.

As you can see from the photos, if there is anyone out there with a worse haircut than mine,that person would be Benny Hinn.

8 Finally, to that master of the long post, Theo, whose pieces demand intense concentration and deliberation. Here he covers the imminent departure of Cherie. For those who feel there might be a slight Rightist bias on this blog, I invite you to send your Leftist pics and I'll work them into the Focus:

[john reid] red dawn, red face

Was this woman touched up by John Reid? Benedict White speculates on the fallout.

[australian football] eat your heart out, rugby

[eurovision] more interest at the bottom

20 Spain (43 points)
21 Lithuania (28)
22= France (19)
22= UK (19, pictured)
24 Ireland (5)

Ireland last?

[james thurber] memories of a humane writer

Jonathan Yardley reviews "My Life and Hard Times" in the Washington Post and introduces Thurber thus:

Probably it's difficult for readers today to understand just how much Thurber meant to readers then, even though many of his books are still in print and enjoy respectable sales.

Thurber in my youth wasn't something you went to the bookstore for -- though of course you could -- but something that came in the mail almost every week, as regular and reliable as the clocks of Columbus, Ohio, which he wrote about in the pages of the New Yorker.

Today the New Yorker still comes in the mail, but it isn't the same magazine.

One does indeed turn to Thurber for the drawings, but the great glory is his prose. Whether he was the funniest of all American writers can be debated to the end of time, but he was much more than funny. Like his friend White he was wise, and there was a soft spot to him. As John K. Hutchens writes in his introduction to this book:

"He loathes cruelty. His sympathy for the out-of-luck man is as intense as his contempt for the pretentious and stupid one. He sees that children, being closer to the natural world than their elders are, have more true wisdom than adults. He finds the family life of dogs to be more rational than that of humans, and their courage and loyalty generally superior."

Two pieces by Thurber I particularly like include The Catbird Seat, which begins like this:

It was just a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows. The term “rub out” pleased him because it suggested nothing more than the correction of an error – in this case an error of Mr. Fitweiler. Mr. Martin had spent each night of the past week working out his plan and examining it.

As he walked home now he went over it again. For the hundredth time he resented the element of imprecision, the margin of guesswork that entered into the business. The project as he had worked it out was casual and bold, the risks were considerable. Something might go wrong anywhere along the line. And therein lay the cunning of his scheme.

… and The Little Girl and the Wolf, here in its entirety:

One afternoon a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother.

Finally a little girl did come along and she was carrying a basket of food.

"Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother?" asked the wolf.

The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.

When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on.

She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.

(Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.)

One of his most famous cartoon captions was:

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

[camp life] doing the dirty work

What was it Pooh once said?

When you are a Bear of very little Brain and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it. [Milne's use of capitalization was inspired]

No matter, it's cathartic to get it all off the chest, the 2nd previous post and this one too. This episode from my youth shows even better than the other one the mindset of the people I target:

When I was in secondary school, every so often the masters would encourage us to apply for Lord Raincliffe's Camp [name changed to protect the guilty], a seaside summer camp for bringing together boys from industry and … well … us.

The theory was that by putting boys into a situation of adversity and the common pursuit of overcoming obstacles, throwing them together as it were, bonds of camaraderie would develop and class barriers would be broken down.

It was a laudable aim but had some unfortunate implications. For a start, there could only be camaraderie of this kind if there was first some common adversity and the only real adversity at a seaside camp was human and the only human adversity was a common adversary or to be precise, 20 of them.

In other words, it was necessary to create an "uber-class" of 20 hated bastards who would do what is variously called bullying, bastardization and I think hazing, as the Americans refer to it. It was a thinly veiled "Prefect" class, with one difference:

The traditional roles were reversed.

This class were known as "Skivvies" and they did all the work - the kitchen work, the cleaning, the wood chopping, the upkeep of the camp - these 20 did it all.

The 100 boys, on the other hand,arranged in 5 huts, each colour coded, were known as "Groupers" and they did nothing but play games, swim, eat and suffer bastardization on occasions.

Refer to the diagram at the foot of the post for the camp layout.

The camp was situated at the end of a three mile track, which itself came off a long highway back to one of our main cities. It had no fences or gates, just a huge archway and a "common green" in the centre, around which were arranged the kitchen/dining, the huts and the Skivvie HQ.

The worst moments were at night and at mealtimes. With all boys seated at the long Viking tables in their groups and the Skivvies wearing black shorts and footwear and sitting cross-legged on the floor down the main isle, 10 on either side, a horn would blow and in would come King Skivvie,[some years older than anyone there], with his two henchmen either side. He'd be wearing the mayoral chain of office and hat.

All would rise until he motioned them down again in a casual gesture. Then he'd go through a catechism with his offsiders:

"Have we the name of the offending toady who failed to help his fellow Grouper today at 07:20?"

"Yes, your Highness."

Then the boy's name would be read out, ten Skivvies would leap upon him and drag him out before anyone could utter a sound and we heard he'd been thrown, fully clothed, off the wooden bridge into the stream which led down to the sea.

The thing never stated but always rewarded was teamwork. Any individualism in the form of not supporting your group was punished in some way or other.

The Groupers were never told what was right and wrong - they soon worked it out for themselves and woe behold any boy who stepped out of line in this way. It was the only rule in the camp - help your fellow Grouper.

One night our group had had enough and we planned a breakout. Though our money had been taken for "safe keeping", we thought we'd successfully bribed one of the Warders … oops … Skivvies … to give us enough to get home.

The notion that there might not have been a bus available at 02:00 had not crossed our minds.

Came the big night and it worked a treat. We'd left bolsters in our beds, everything had been planned to a T and we slipped out of the camp. Fearing the worst and expecting the alarm to be given at any moment, we moved in military formation [the independent school boys had had officer cadet training at school].

Nothing happened.

The money had not been forthcoming and we decided to get even with the "non-traitor" who had failed to meet us and hand over the dosh and it was a combination of that motivation and the realization of the futility of the whole thing that made us turn around and go back to camp.

You can imagine our shock when next morning,the Skivvies all sported broad grins when they woke us but not one word was ever said about the breakout. There were no punishments. Nothing.

Not so for one boy.

I remember he was always a bit of a malcontent who told us he'd had enough and was leaving the next night. We heard he'd made it a good long way before the Skivvie Van picked him up and he spent the rest of the night at Skivvie HQ.

The following day and for the rest of the camp, he said not a word about that experience. It was only the following year, when I became a Skivvie myself that the secret was out.

That was an experience.

We were only there because we'd been invited from the previous year. What the quality was which they were looking for I still, until recently, didn't know. Now I do.

The hazing was quite scientifically applied, was not random in the least and was designed simply to reinforce the rule of camaraderie in the camp. That doesn't excuse it but that was why.

The trouble was, certain of the Skivvies took to the hazing with relish and I confess I was one. I won't say the cruel streak was positively encouraged but let's say I was only once warned by a Senior Skivvie that I might have gone too far and that was for operational reasons and for deviating from The Plan.

In other words, one must never be an individual.

Each of us had a whistle hung around our neck and we were advised never to remove it for any reason. At the least sign of trouble, it was to be blown and all 20 skivvies, even if asleep, were to wake and rush to the aid of the whistleblower [interesting employment of the term].

It certainly kept the plebs in line. One evening I unwisely found myself isolated and surrounded by seven Groupers. Whether their intentions were evil I know not because even as I reached for the whistle, they scattered.

As for our individualist friend from the previous year, we had one of his type this year as well and he was manhandled into a closed room deep in Skivvie HQ and "re-educated" for a few hours by Senior Skivvies who took it in turns. [To become a Senior Skivvie, one had to attend the camp a third year.]

Effectively, he was shown the Grand Plan, if he promised never to divulge it. The consequences of divulging it were made clear. He was shown why they were doing as they did, that it was for the greater good of the camp, that there was nothing personal in it and so on.

It always finished with King Skivvy coming in about 03:00 and having a cuppa tea and a personal chat with the miscreant. I never saw the method not work.

What was never said, seen or even thought about was who was actually behind the Skivvies. Well, we did know that - the Senior Skivvies, of course. And behind them - King Skivvie, who was basically a fourth year camper.

But who was behind him?

We found that out each camp when we were visited by what I'll carefully term the Queen's representative, our actual Queen Elizabeth II. It was true. And not only that but - can you believe it - chariots, resplendent in livery, were brought in from a shed and this man actually stepped into one of them with one skivvy beside him - me on this occasion - and the chariot was pulled by a car driven by King Skivvy.

All groupers were lined along the circular ring path and the Skivvies near the end.

Other men had arrived by now from the city and I recognized one of them, vaguely connected with my father and the Masonic Lodge. He recognized me and came over for a few words. I have to say it was one of my proudest days ever in my life. Even now I think that.

They were met by some others - all were suited - and they first went into Skivvie HQ, where we were all lined up and the Oueen's rep offered us some words of advice, one or two homilies and some humour and we couldn't help but be impressed by the easy grace and gentlemanliness of them all.

Quite frankly, we were in awe.

We spotted them at different places around the camp, dirtying their polished shoes and then they seemed to disappear. These were the men who ran the camp [not the Queen's rep of course].

Far cry from my savage depiction in the previous post.

That's because that's what I knew then and the previous post was what I know now, having first grown into one of them and then eventually finding myself cut adrift from them all and their society. You see, I'd transgressed.

I'm a miserable sinner, you know, a bad'un and we all know what happens to such as I, don't we?