A hundredweight of drivel

I think it was one of my now long-departed grandparents who said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Were they alive today, that same grandparent might also advise that "If you can't think of anything to blog about, then don't blog at all." Were I to follow this latter piece of advice, it's likely that this blog would be either very sparse, or (which is more likely) non-existent. The truth of the matter is that, over the last year and a bit, I've managed to say very little of consequence, but have said it a hundred times. This is indeed my hundredth post.

We've had to batten down the hatches here in Sussex over the last few weeks. The weather has been terrible, giving me an excuse to have a proper open fire in the grate, something that, coming from smoke-free London, still fills me with childish delight. The recent stormy weather has also resulted in a rather curious phenomenon. We inhabitants of Seaford found ourselves with a sandy beach. Seaford beach is usually resolutely pebbled, its mile or so of flint being marshalled and kept in place by an army of heavy bulldozers that fight to prevent longshore drift from scouring away the beach completely. But over the last couple of weeks, the storms washed away the shingle and left behind a beach that, although it didn't rival those of Thailand or the South Seas, would nevertheless have allowed the building of sandcastles. If anyone had been there to build them, that is.

It's been a funny couple of weeks. In one of my (thankfully) exceptionally rare visits to Tesco's, I saw a raincoated sixty-something man get increasingly frustrated with the self-service till. He'd bought a couple of small items, and, sensible man that he was, had decided to pay with some of those vouchers that the supermarket sometimes sends one through the post. Upon the appropriate prompt, he put the aforesaid voucher into the appointed slot. Nothing happened. Our friend then decided that the voucher must have become lodged in the machine. So, he grabbed a handful of leaflets from the counter (Clubcard application forms, I fancy they were), tore them into strips, and started to insert them into the voucher slot. Nothing happened. Then something happened; the machine disgorged the voucher. He put the voucher back in. Nothing happened. He inserted further bits of Clubcard leaflet. Out came the voucher again. By this point, I was both wearied and fascinated at the same time, so I had a discreet word with a nearby sales assistant, suggesting that the gentleman might need a little help. He was only about three feet from the assistant, but at no time did he ask for anything in the way of aid. Perhaps he was at a loose end that day and the whole thing afforded him with a little diversion. I'm not keen on those self-service machines. They always tell me there's an "unexpected item in the bagging area." That unexpected item always turns out to be my shopping. If shopping is unexpected, what would be an "expected" item? A set of false teeth, perhaps? A copy of Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy? Or maybe a sense of ennui? Whatever that is.

A few days after this, I saw Mr. Toad of Toad Hall fame, outside the station. Of course, it wasn't actually a toad; it was a man. But he was sporting the kind of garb Mr. Toad would have worn to drive his car - bright yellow corduroy trousers, lovat green jacket with a red check, peaked motoring cap of a similar material. It was with great difficulty I resisted the urge to say "poop poop!" before running away. Just thought you'd like to know.

This post is in danger of turning into stream of consciousness drivel, if it hasn't already. My initial purpose was to wish you all a very happy new year. I don't make new year resolutions, and the closest Mrs. H has come to one so far this year is when she said, "I think I'm drinking too much. I think I'll just have a couple of gin and tonics." (She doesn't drink too much, dear reader!) No; I think if you resolve to make some change to your life, any time is a good time. Why wait until January the first? However, if I were to make a resolution, it would be to get something written other than this humble blog. The pilot episode of Pardon my Jaguar, perhaps? Or some more of the perpetually unpublished Middenshire Chronicles.

I think I've already taken up far too much of your time. A very happy new year to all of you, my bloggy friends. I'll see you in 2010. Perhaps then I'll have something useful and/or interesting to say. It would make a change, wouldn't it?

A Christmas message (or Yule Blog, if you prefer)

Happy Christmas to one and all, and especially to you, my dear bloggy friends. I realise I'm probably not the first to wish you the compliments of the season, but this does not diminish the sincerity of my wishes.

Each nation has its own peculiar customs. By 'peculiar' I do not, of course, mean weird, odd, strange, call it what you will; but rather, 'singular'. It may be a particular mode of dress, a type of dance, a sport, or even a national characteristic. Most of our national customs seem to be crammed into a single day of the year - Christmas Day. It is, of course, customary for us to eat turkey (with 'all the trimmings', whatever they might be), Christmas pudding and mince pies. But there are so many other little bits and pieces associated with Christmas, and particularly Christmas dinner, that change what could be a simple meal at home with the family into a nightmare of complexity. You've got the turkey; now, what about stuffing? And those little chipolatas wrapped in bacon? Oh, and the cranberry and bread sauce that hardly anyone likes? And not forgetting the brandy butter for the pudding...

It fell to me to make the brandy butter. How hard could it be, I thought. Get some butter and mix it with brandy. But no, it isn't that simple. You have to stick sugar in it as well, and beat it until it attains a smooth consistency. So, I took equal amounts of butter and sugar, and combined them (the chefs love the expression 'combined', don't they?) in a bowl until, it seemed to me, they were of the smooth consistency aforesaid. At this point I tipped in some South African brandy (there was no expense spared in the Hale household, I can tell you!) and then whisked the agglomeration as if my life depended upon it. As indeed it might have. The resultant mixture very closely resembled the substance called brandy butter, that I had seen on sale in the various food emporia in the run-up to Christmas.

I tasted it. It tasted buttery and brandyfied, I grant you. But there was something curious in its consistency. It was not the smooth paste I had anticipated. It seemed...well...gritty. It reminded me somewhat of the sensation you get when you bite into a bit of seafood from which not all of the sand has been eradicated. This wasn't brandy butter. It was Sandy Brandy. Or possibly Sandy Butter. Of course, Mrs. H was supportive as always, saying that it didn't matter, but that next time I might try using icing sugar to reduce the...grittiness. Anyway, there being no time to experiment with alternative ingredients, the Seaford Shingle Butter, or Brandy Gravel, or whatever the heck it was, had a cooling session in the fridge and then was duly placed upon the Christmas table as the tradional accompaniment to the (sensibly) shop-bought pudding.

I noted that its spell in the cooler had changed my Sussex Brandy Pebble-dash. It had started to separate, and now looked suspiciously like a tub of value range humous, or that lumpy mix that forms in the cheese vat just after the rennet has been added. An hour in the kitchen's answer to the naughty step had only served to make it even more unpleasant than when it started out. I gave it a quick twirl with a fork, hoping to force the ingredients into some kind of homogeneity, but it was no good. There had clearly been a falling-out in that particular marriage.

As we ate our pudding, no. 1 daughter had pushed a spoon into the centre of the admixture, leaving a little depression. The brandy started to exude from the solids to form a little pool in this concavity. The thing now looked like some terrible medical emergency; a huge, suppurating wen, perhaps; or a long untreated bedsore. At daughter's behest I scooped out a tiny amount of the glistening, purulent liquid and tasted it. It was clearly a mixture of brandy and sugar that somehow managed to combine the worst characteristics of each ingredient, whilst eschewing anything good that might otherwise have been present. I couldn't bear to be it the same room as this creature any longer.

I was all for chucking it down the sink, but Mrs. H quite rightly pointed out that our drains are over a century old. So it went into a bin bag. It's been very quiet since.

The rest of the meal was fine, by the way.

Happy Christmas.

Imprecations on the A120

I have always loved the poems of John Betjeman. Even as a child, the Englishness of his work and the underlying humour in many of his poems captivated me. I remember seeing Sir John at Oxford Circus back in the late sixties or early seventies. I was wandering aimlessly round the west end shops (as was my wont), when I happened to notice the great man, wearing his trademark trilby and a rather shabby raincoat, making his way through the crowds with an other-worldy expression on his face. I like to think that I was the only one who noticed him.

I speculated here on the type of poem dear Sir John, were he alive today, might have written about our reliance on computers. But there are huge swathes of 21st century life -"reality" TV, recession, fears of global warming - that might well prompt him to put pen to paper. However, as I recently bought my first "satnav", I thought that ought to be the poet's next topic. It is loosely based upon Meditation on the A30, and I have attempted, as far as possible, to keep the original rhyme scheme. It is entitled Imprecations on the A120. I hope it will amuse!

A man on his own in a car
Is creating a terrible stink
His effing and blinding’s a product of finding
His satnav has gone on the blink

“She’s stopped telling me where to go,
She should have said ‘left’ at that fork!
This journey is going too slow,
I think I’ll just get out and walk

“Why can’t you just give me directions?
It is your damned job, after all.
My wife said today she’s been playing away
With Derek from near Coggeshall.

“If I had a Garmin, let’s say
Or Tom Tom ‘Go’ with Lane Assist
I’d find Derek’s lair straight away
And introduce him to my fist.

“This satnav is trash, and a waste of my cash, and
I will bin you, God knows I will!”
As he pokes at the screen, he hasn’t yet seen
The DAF truck closing in for the kill.

Cloth encounters

It's now three weeks until Christmas Day, and the tills are ringing with all the gusto of yuletide bells. Except that tills don't ring any more; they kind of spit and splutter and refuse point blank to do anything without a barcode. And it seems that I always manage to choose the one item on the shelf that doesn't have a barcode. But it was fine. John Prescott, the former deputy Prime Minister, was on the till at B and Q in Eastbourne, and he seemed more than equal to the task of keying in the product information manually, thus enabling me to take home, and install, a brush-type internal letterbox flap to keep the sea breezes at bay. Strange how these celebrities keep appearing in the shops of East Sussex.

Eastbourne was rather crowded on Wednesday. I'm not sure why, but I always feel somewhat resentful about this. What are all these people doing, taking my parking spaces and filling the shops? I enquired aloud. Haven't they got jobs to go to? Why are they there during the day? But I was quickly reminded by Mrs. H that I was, of course, part of the problem. In an attempt to engage my interest in something other than the crowdedness of the shops, she took me to a linen emporium.

In truth, it was a linen shop, rather than an emporium. And it wasn't crowded. I very quickly discovered why. There are very few shops (other than those selling commodes or surgical supports) that are as stultifyingly dull as linen shops. The shop window display indicated that it was, indeed, Christmas by displaying novelty yuletide tea towels featuring the Jolly Old Gent, snowmen, reindeer, and all manner of other seasonal motifs. There was also a smattering of Christmas stockings, ready to be filled with oranges, nuts and...aww, who am I kidding! But the best bits were inside the shop...

The place was full of curtain poles and blinds, tie-backs, tea cosies, bedding, net curtains; in fact, just about everything linen-y. But tea towels seem to be the staple of this particular shop. There were large metal cages full of them, all at extraordinarily low prices. Perhaps tea towels will have some sort of role to play if ever nuclear war threatens, and the government advises us to wet them and use them to cover our heads. If so, I'll be there to avail myself of their three for a pound offer. Further cages were dotted about the shop, containing towels, duvet covers, and something called a 'Jane Rug'. Jane Rug seemed to me like a marvellous name. Stick another 'g' on the end and it becomes a Dickens character! Persuade the Americans to use Jane Rugg instead of Jane Doe in their cop programmes! I told Mrs. H as much, but she was preoccupied with an orangey-red throw that she'd taken a fancy to. Not for herself, you understand, but for a friend's Christmas gift. Now, I'd always thought of 'throw' as a verb, and here they were, this linen shop, using it as a noun. But this use of nouns as verbs and vice versa seems to rear its head quite a bit at this time of year. Which of us hasn't heard someone say, 'I'm going to marzipan the cake tomorrow', quite oblivious to the fact that marzipan is a noun? I decided to keep these particular thoughts to myself. Until now, that is.

Boredom does strange things to a man. So, in the listlessness of despair (this phrase copyright Jerome K Jerome) I started to use the objects in this shop as puns in song titles...

Duvet know it's Christmas?
A Question of Valance (alright, so it's an album title - but this is my game!)
Nice day for a white bedding
I'm linen on an lampost
Long Towel Sally
Sheet Child of Mine
The Throw must go on
Anything by Curtains Mayfield

Probably just as well I didn't start on film titles. After all, who could forget The Towelling Inferno? Or The Counterpane of Monte Christo? Or GI Jane Rugg? Or even Who Shot Liberty Valance? Sorry; the last one was just too far-fetched.

My frankly rather pointless reveries were brought to a close when Mrs. H decided that The Throw wasn't quite the thing, and determined to take us off to Debenhams where, I believe, these items are called bedspreads.

An encounter with a retired politician; twenty minutes of punning; a look at some of Eastbourne's finest bedding. I can't remember when I had a better day...

One man's morris

On the 26th December 1899, Cecil Sharp, a forty year old composer, was dining with his wife at the home of his mother-in-law, Mrs Dora Priestley Birch, in Headington, Oxford. At some point during the day, a rag-tag group of men betook themselves Mrs. Birch's home to perform a traditional dance. The leader of this group, William "Merry" Kimber, a bricklayer by trade, was hoping to make a bit of extra cash during a slack period in the building trade. Kimber and his men were morris dancers. Sharp had never seen anything like them before, so he asked Kimber and his fellow dancers to return and perform the following day so that he could make a proper record of the tunes to which they had danced. This event marked the start of Sharp's interest in, and his attempts to, keep the tradition of morris dancing alive; a tradition that would almost certainly have died without his intervention.

So, why am I telling you this? Because I have recently decided to do my bit to ensure that morris dancing doesn't fade forever into the mists of history...I've joined a morris dancing side. Long Man Morris, to be precise.

Long Man Morris were formed in 1978 to perpetuate the traditions of Cotswold morris. Most of the dances they perform were collected by Cecil Sharp from Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire. Warwickshire and Northamptonshire in the early years of the 20th century. Within those counties, village morris sides had their own traditions and styles of dancing; thus, the morris dancers of Adderbury would have performed different dances to those in Bampton, Brackley or Upton upon Severn. Long Man have also started their own form of dance (which they call the Wilmington tradition), some of which I'm currently attempting to learn!

To the uninitiated, morris dancing looks like a load of old men waving hankies or sticks around. But to dismiss it as such is to do it a grave disservice. Each morris "side" has a repertoire of dances, each dance having its own accompanying tune, its particular footwork, its pattern of dance (heading up, heading down, back to back, hay), and any number of peculiarities to confuse or confound the novice dancer (ie me!) A dancer of many years standing recently told me, "You wait till your first dance in public. There'll be lots of people watching you. Most will be watching you wave your hankies; they're the public. A few will be watching your feet; they're the off-duty morris dancers." And it's getting the feet right that's currently occupying my efforts at our Friday night practice sessions, a two-hour workout that leaves me exhausted, with aching knees and a terrible thirst that can only be slaked by a pint of Harveys best bitter.

Although I'm not yet proficient enough to "dance out" with the side, I trundled off to Hailsham last night to watch Long Man dance. They were accompanied by a couple of "Border" style sides; Hunter's Moon and Old Star Morris. Take a look at Hunter's Moon here. They are an extraordinary bunch of people, with blacked up faces, tattered coats, and an exuberant dance style that is quite fascinating. Towards the end of the evening, Mrs. H made a rather interesting observation. She said, "Just about all of the audience have gone home. They're just dancing for themselves." And she was right. Morris dancing isn't about putting on a display for the public (although this does help to raise a fair bit of cash for local charities), but it's rather about a bunch of like-minded people getting together to keep a tradition alive. At least, that's how it appears to this particular novice.

In his novel Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy introduces his readers to a group of mummers; purveyors of simple, traditional plays acted out on village greens from time immemorial. He notes that genuine mummers can be distinguished from modern revivalists in that the former perform their plays with a sense of gloomy obligation, whereas the latter will appear to be enthusiastic. Under Hardy's rule (if it can be applied to morris dancers), I'm afraid you'd have to mark us down as revivalists!

It isn't a speedy process, becoming a morris dancer. One of the most recent recruits took around three years to become a "full" member of the side, and he probably didn't have two left feet like me. It seems to be a matter of constant practice and repetition, until the moves become second nature and you suddenly realise that you're keeping up with everyone else. When this is going to happen to me is anyone's guess!

At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, traditional Chinese folk dances were much in evidence, both during the opening and at presentation and award ceremonies. There are, apparently, no plans to feature morris dancing, or any other traditional form of English, Scottish or Welsh dance into the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London. Cecil Sharp, where art thou?

A flaming good time

Question. Where can you see, all in one place, Vikings, smugglers, Siamese dancers, a samba band, and a bunch of Zulu warriors? Disneyland? Wrong, I’m afraid. What if you add a torchlit procession complete with fiery crosses, the burning of a Pope, some blazing tar barrels and a dyslexic pirate? The set of some British low-budget cult film? Wrong again. In italics. All these curious characters and props can be seen every year at the bonfire night celebrations in Lewes, the county town of East Sussex. And it was to Lewes, despite the exhortations of the local law enforcement agencies that ‘outsiders’ should stay away, that my family and I, and several thousand other curious visitors betook ourselves on November the fifth.

When, on the 5th November 1605, the ‘Popish Plot’ to kill King James and his parliament was discovered, the day was declared to be ‘a holiday for ever in thankfulness to God for the deliverance and detestation of the Papists’. Officially, the day was celebrated with a church service of thanksgiving, but in the seventeenth century and earlier it was traditional to mark significant events with the lighting of bonfires, so it is quite likely that an ad-hoc bonfire party was held in Lewes, as well as many other towns and villages, on the 5th of November 1606. Now, you have to bear in mind that, in the absence of councils, police, health and safety officers and a whole host of EU regulations, these celebrations were nothing like the well-ordered, all-ticket affairs we have now, and were probably more like drunken riots. Little wonder, then, that Oliver Cromwell sought to ban these and all other similar ‘celebrations’ when he came to power.

When Charles the Second ascended the throne, Cromwell’s ban was rescinded, and bonfire celebrations in Lewes resumed and continued haphazardly until the 1820s, when semi-organised groups of ‘Bonfire Boys’ lit fires and set off fireworks, but these were still riotous affairs. In 1838 a magistrate who remonstrated with the boys was unceremoniously chucked into the River Ouse, and in 1847 a contingent of a hundred Metropolitan Police officers were drafted in to prevent disorder, the riot act was read and a good number of police officers were injured in the ensuing fight with the ‘boys’.

It was clear that this sort of thing couldn’t carry on. And so it was that, in 1853, the Cliffe and Town (now Lewes Borough) Bonfire Societies were established. Other societies were established later, and the night took on a rather more orderly air. On the night of the fifth, these societies, whose members wear amazing and elaborate costumes, march through the town carrying flaming torches (and fiery crosses in memory of Lewes’ Protestant martyrs), throwing firecrackers around, and throwing blazing tar barrels into the Ouse. The Cliffe Society displays flaming banners, proclaiming ‘No Popery’ (I’m amazed some over-zealous individual hasn’t tried to ban this!) and ‘We Wunt be Druv’, reflecting the determination of Sussex people not to be pushed around by the self-appointed or over-zealous individuals aforesaid. According to one very nice lady to whom I spoke, there is intense rivalry between the societies. I’m afraid I put my ‘London head’ on at this point, suspecting all manner of incidents such as drive-by shootings, kidnaps and knee-cappings. I suspect, however, that a little good-natured ribbing about the merits of their respective societies is as far as it goes! And here's a small aside...I managed to spot, and greet, a fellow Twitter user (@_Flik_) who was part of the South Street procession. Who says social networking is a waste of time?

One of the high points of the evening is the burning of effigies. Of course, Guido Fawkes and Pope Paul the Fifth are regulars. But each year the societies also choose a number of ’hate’ figures who are also consigned to the flames. This year, they torched a very realistic effigy of former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and some other politician, sailing in a gravy boat with a pig for company. The banking fraternity, symbolised by a massive Fat Cat, was given similar treatment.

I have to say that Bonfire was a most amazing night out. It’s the type of festival I thought had been legislated out of existence years ago, but, thankfully, it has survived. Despite the presence of all those flaming torches, bonfires and fireworks, there were (as far as I’m aware) no major incidents or injuries. I saw no violence, no disorder, and the police were at their unobtrusive best in letting everyone get on with enjoying themselves. I’m pretty sure the worst casualties were (like me) just a little over-zealous with the local brew.

What I’m going to say now is likely to upset both police and council…don’t listen to their pleas for you to stay away! If you find yourself anywhere near Lewes on the next November the fifth, do yourself a favour and trundle along to the Bonfire celebrations. I guarantee you an amazing experience. I’ll be there, so tap me on the shoulder and I’ll buy you a pint of Harvey’s Bonfire Boy. Maybe even two pints.

Oh, I nearly forgot about the dyslexic pirate. He had a carrot on his shoulder...

The minimum wages of sin

Having now been officially 'retired' for over a year, and looking to fill my waking hours with something other than decorating, I have recently turned my attention to the thought of work. This isn't just a whim, dear reader. Having been fully employed for the last thirty plus years, and now getting to the stage where I have started looking over Mrs. H's shoulder at Dulux colour charts and thinking, 'hmm...Dusted Damson looks nice...', I find that, contrary to my pre-retirement expectations, being 'work-free' is not all it's cracked up to be. I have decided that I need to get some kind of job.

I always fancied a career to do with books and, as if by magic, a number of local library jobs appeared, both full and part time. Undaunted, I applied for one of them, and, wonder of wonders, I was called in for interview. At a local library, three very nice ladies quizzed me for around twenty minutes as to what skills I possessed, whether I was IT literate, whether I was confident handling money, and how I would deal with difficult customers. Now, the police service, although it doesn't take money over the counter in the same way as ASDA, likes to think of itself as having 'customers' (by which it means arrested people, victims of crime, casual callers to the station, etc.), so I had no problem in explaining how I dealt with 'difficult' customers, since I had encountered more of these than the average librarian could shake a stick at. Imagine my surprise when, a week or so later, I was notified that the job had gone to someone else. I was advised that I was 'a very good interviewee', but that I had not demonstrated my skills with sufficient vehemence to justify entrusting the job to me. I felt rather peeved at this. Had I not spent the last thirty years honing my inter-personal skills, organisational abilities and leadership qualities? Had I not dealt with incidents that the average library assistant might only have read about between the covers of a racy detective novel? Was I really not good enough to stamp library books and collect fines? You see, this is what being 'management' for nigh on twenty five years does to you; it gives you an exaggerated sense of your own importance. How could there possibly be a better candidate than me?

A few weeks later, another library job hove into view, and off went my application. Back came the invite to the interview, and this week saw me, hair combed and beard trimmed, in front of the same three ladies. Now, I had learnt from the first interview (you see - another skill!) and spent far more time talking about my all-round qualities that would make me an ideal assistant in the busy world of the public library. The ladies were very kind. They nodded. They smiled. And one of them even said, 'very interesting' after I had regaled them with a police-related example of my ability to multi-task. But, a few hours later, I received the familiar phone call. This time, apparently, I had been pipped by someone with 'a background in retail' - someone who had worked in a pub, it appeared. Perhaps working in a library has more in common with pulling pints and retailing bags of pork scratchings than I had thought.

So, dear reader, what am I to do? Would I be correct in thinking that spending thirty years in a responsible job is not what the modern employer is looking for? Would I have been better to flit, butterfly-like, from job to job? Does my three-decade career simply demonstrate that I am unable to embrace change? Should I get a job as a part-time barman to make myself more attractive? In an employment kind of way, I mean.

This afternoon I was flicking idly though lists of jobs on the internet. A few things struck me about the way these job ads are written. A job isn't just a job, it's 'an exciting opportunity,' or even 'an exceptional opportunity'. And a company isn't just a company, it's an 'exciting and innovative company', or a 'cutting edge organisation'. And what about the ideal candidate? He or she should, it appears, be 'dynamic', 'possess excellent communication skills and the drive, determination and resilience to succeed', or, in one notable instance, have the ability to 'make a good time great.' Now, I may have been unlucky in my choice of shopping venues over the years, but just where are all these dynamic communicators whose sole purpose in life would seem to be to enhance my Retail Experience? I haven't met them yet. Or perhaps I have. The liveliest, most dynamic people on the High Street are the charity muggers who are constantly attempting to separate me from my bank sort code. But maybe they've been sacked from their retail jobs for being just too dynamic; for 'high-five'-ing each other after every sale of family-sized washing powder, or imprisoning elderly customers in clothing stores for hours until they give in and buy a comfy cardigan in taupe. The ones that are left to man the tills look at me with heavy-lidded eyes as the pass my groceries over the scanner, barely acknowledging my presence...except in Morrisons. They're OK in Morrisons. Oh, I almost forgot. The other interesting point about these jobs that are looking for a candidate who is a cross between Lord Sugar and the Messiah? Almost all of them are offering the minimum wage.

It's Friday tomorrow. On Fridays I go morris dancing. They don't expect me to be dynamic. Just good with a stick...