It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. I am beginning to think that maybe we are
through winter after all. Certainly the coming of the lighter nights makes a
big difference, at least to me it does, although I haven’t quite come to terms
with it yet – I tend to be working away, thinking it’s about 4.30pm, and then I
look at my watch and find it’s almost time for The Archers!
Misty and Matilda are now becoming more used to the
conservatory door being open and thus allowing them to wander back and forth at
will. Matilda has also taken to using her cat flap again, a fact which I
discovered when I went through to my downstairs bedroom and heard her mewling
behind the lobby door to come in. She must’ve gone out of the conservatory,
round the side of the house, and in through the cat flap, only to find the
inner door shut. God alone knows how long she’d been sitting there, but the
idea of going back out of the cat flap, retracing her pawsteps, and coming back
in through the conservatory had obviously never occurred to her.
Misty has been in the doghouse once or twice, notably on
Monday. I was talking to Granny and Grandad, who had brought her back from her
walkies, and during the course of the conversation I noticed that Misty was
pushing something round the kitchen tiles with her head, pausing only to stand
on it while she licked it furiously. What the hell was it? Closer inspection
revealed that she had helped herself to the remaining butter, still in its
paper, which had been in the butterdish on the front of the cooker. It was my fault, I suppose, in that I had
left it within reach of the dog, but I had no idea she’d nick it. By the time we’d noticed what she was doing,
most of the butter had gone and what remained was largely smeared across her
snout. She retreated behind the settee to wash herself until not a speck of it
remained.
Other than that little gem, Monday was a thankless day.
Misty was about the only person who was happy with my efforts that day, and
even then it was only because of an oversight on my part rather than anything
consciously attempted. As I recall saying at the time, it was the sort of day
when you could crap out a golden egg and someone would complain it wasn’t
silver. If the highlight of the day was the dog stealing the contents of the
butterdish, you can pretty much guess what the rest of it must have been like.
Then the weather decided to turn weird on us, and we
descended into a sort of semi-permanent “foggy day in Olde London
Town, gor blimey guv’nor
it’s a pea-souper and no mistake”. This got the TV weathermen very excited,
because apparently it was all to do with dust being blown up from the Sahara. So much so that, whichever side you watched, they
were there, wittering on about the Sirocco and unusual atmospheric conditions
when all you wanted to know was “will it rain?” In the midst of all this
autumnal gloom, the printer cartridge died unexpectedly, so Debbie had to leave
for Dewsbury stupendously early, not just because of the fog, but also to allow
time for her to print out the stuff for her class at college beforehand.
It had been quite promising up to the point where someone
turned the sun off. The air felt warm around me as I went down my ramp, though
it had been windy enough to knock a scatter of catkins off the trees outside,
and strew the decking with them.
Thursday also dawned grim, grey and grotty, but at least Thursday
morning brought a courier with a jiffy bag of ink jet cartridges, so we were
back in business again. The fog was not only depressing, but cold and clammy,
though. I frowsted by the fire with the
animals, awaiting Deb’s return. Freddie was visiting, and I could see Matilda
coveting his warm, soft, fluffy, comfy bed on the carpet in front of the stove,
and it was obvious there was a massive internal debate going on in her crinkly
little walnut of a brain about whether or not to invade it and settle down next
to him.
Brenda (or whoever it is that comes n the middle of the
night and eats the food I put out) continues to grace us with her presence. I
have taken to scouring the house now each evening, in search of potential
badger food, and I was trundling through the kitchen with two fairly manky
bananas on my wheelchair tray, when Debbie accosted me and said “I’m not eating
those!” to which I replied that this was correct, she was not eating those,
unless she had a stripey head, powerful claws, and spent long periods
underground.
We did, however, find one thing that the badger refused to
eat – Lloyd Grossman Balti Sauce. This is not surprising, because it is truly
foul. Generally speaking I prefer to
build curries from scratch, but because
I was pushed for time on Wednesday I made use of a jar of this stuff, which we
had somehow misappropriated from somewhere. After a few tentative mouthfuls I
found myself saying, in my best Lloyd Grossman voice “what sort of person,
would make a sauce like this…” The substantial leftovers went in Brenda’s dish,
and were all still there untouched, the next morning, so eventually, I spread
them on the garden, saying to myself, in true hippy mantra fashion “we give
this food back with thanks to the earth which bore it” and vowing never to
touch the stuff again. Sorry,
Lloyd. I don’t know what it is with
these “celebrities” and sauces and dressings. Paul Newman thinks he can do
salad cream as well.
By Thursday, the printer was working again, as I said, and
Debbie was up and about betimes, churning out stacks of handouts before setting
off for Dewsbury. She left the house in her customary “Tasmanian Devil” whirlwind
of activity, balancing rucksacks, carrier bags, lanyard and badge, mobile
phone, and packet of sandwiches made by yours truly the night before. I heard
the accelerating roar of the camper engine grow fainter as she disappeared down
the road towards Lockwood, and eventually silence reigned. Ten minutes later
she was back, blustering in, flinging the door back on its hinges, and cursing
the garage in a spectacular and inventive way that made me want to cover
Misty’s ears. Matilda hid under the
table as Debbie rampaged about, looking for the multi-tool. She’d tried to wind
the window down, briefly, while driving along, and the winder had come off in
her hand, leaving the window half-way.
Not only was it unpleasant driving along in the cold smoggy fog with
your window open, but there was also the larger problem of security parking at
the other end. So she had no option but
to turn round and come back for the wherewithal to fix it. Fifteen minutes of
cursing and swearing, f-ing and blinding at the garage later, and she was on
her way again. How long the temporary repair will hold is anyone’s guess, so
that’s another job for my list next week, to get the garage to look at it
properly. I had, meanwhile phoned the
college to say she’d be late, and the ABE department was on voicemail. I waited
until just after nine and phoned them back. A person answered this time, and I
passed on the message, adding that this was probably already in hand, as I had
left a voicemail message earlier. “Oh, we never play them back”. Right. Fine.
Good. So that was a complete waste of dog-farts, then.
As indeed is much of my dealings with the college these
days, who still owe Debbie some back pay, going back to September 2013 in some
cases. Fine, no problem, we’ll just fund
Kirklees College for nine months to the tune of
several hundred pounds. Apparently “it is not the business of the payroll
department to chase up missing or delayed pay claims forms” or so I have been
told, in no uncertain terms. So, that’s all clear then. And here was me thinking that the word
“payroll” was significant. I heard this
week that Michael Schumacher had been showing occasional flashes of
consciousness and rousing himself briefly from his comatose, vegetative state.
Whatever they are giving him for it, they need to administer some to the
payroll department of Kirklees
College while they are at
it.
Talking of Mr Schumacher veering off piste and ending up in
the doo doos, George Osborne, who has done more or less the same thing with the
economy, announced a goal of “full employment”, this week. I am not sure if it
was actually announced on April 1st, but it might as well have been,
in a week which saw the announcement of the closure of the remaining deep coal
pits in Yorkshire. As I said last week, Thatcher is dead, but
Thatcher-ism, sadly, lives on. Cameron promised to look at the situation, but
also cautioned against using “taxpayers’ money” as if the miners who will be
thrown on the dole are not themselves also taxpayers, who will then be forced
to claim JSA, which is also “taxpayers’ money”.
Taxpayers’ money is actually a curiously elastic concept,
the morality of which changes depending who it is who’s spending it and what
they are spending it on. If you are Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, it’s
fine to fill your boots with taxpayers’ money to the tune of £45k or so, while
claiming for a second home that actually isn’t actually er a second home, and
when you are found out, you can employ every bullying, delaying tactic to
obfuscate the enquiry, and then you can repay just £4800, make a 30-second
apology to Parliament, and that’s alright then, everything’s ticketty-boo. If you are Robert
Barlow, of Merseyside, who died last November aged 47 while suffering from a
heart defect and brain tumour, clearly you are
welfare scrounger, leeching on the taxpayer. After all, that can
surely be the only explanation why he was deemed fit to work by benefits
assessors Atos, despite doctors at the time urging him to have a heart
transplant. Either that, or Atos are a
bunch of incompetent uncaring compassionless swine, I suppose. That might also
explain it.
Talking of incompetent, uncaring,
compassionless swine, except that I quite like pigs, actually, DEFRA announced
this week that the badger cull would not be extended, owing to the dismal
failure of the pilots. It has also been
claimed, though I have been unable to verify this independently, that none of
the 2000 or so badgers killed in the culls last year actually had the m.bovis virus. Just when it seemed at last that an outbreak
of common sense was taking place, however, up popped Princess Anne to suggest
that badgers should be gassed, because it’s a “nicer” death than being shot. I
speak as a supporter of the Royal Family here, when I say that Her Royal
Highness has definitely got her string bag inside out.
Firstly I take issue with the
concept of a “nicer” death (I wonder if Harry Fenwick, who was gassed at Ypres
in 1917 and died a lingering death at Etaples base hospital a few days later,
thought that this was a “nicer” way to go than a bullet through the brain? Both
sound pretty horrific to me.) Secondly, culling just one species in an attempt
to eradicate a virus which is present in other significant reservoirs in the
wild (and now also in some domestic cats) and which has a very complex method
of transmission and infection dependent upon a number of variables, does not
work. It wouldn’t work even if you killed every last badger in the UK. It’s just the government thrashing around,
desperate to be seen to be dong something, however ineffectual because there
are lots of landowners and farmers who vote Tory. Sorry, but there you have
it. If gassing is a “nicer” death,
perhaps we should test it out on freeloading MPs and minor Royals.
Badger culling is not the only
area where the government is shamelessly pandering to a populist agenda based
largely on myth and anecdotal propaganda. There’s also immigration, as was
shown this week by the forced deportation of Yashika Bageerathi on Wednesday. She
was sent back to Mauritius
with two guards because her claim for asylum was denied. As a striving, popular
and talented A-level mathematician, she was supposedly on the “good” side of
the immigration ledger – not that I personally acknowledge the “deserving and
undeserving immigrant” divide, any more than I do the deserving and undeserving
poor. But given that each case is decided on its merits, one would have hoped
for a bit more in the way of common sense from the Home Office. Air Mauritius, too,
are entirely culpable, having refused to fly her the previous Sunday. I would
love to know what made them change their mind, 72 hours later, what deal went
down, and how much “taxpayers’ money” was involved. In 2010-2011 the UK Border
Agency spent £28million on repatriating failed asylum seekers.
The hypocrisy of this particular
case astounds me: we can fly Malala
Yousafzai half way round the world and throw all the resource of the NHS at her
to uphold the principle of “education” in the fight against the Taliban, but
when it comes to someone in this country fearing for their well-being if
deported, all the concepts of the importance of education go out of the window.
But, nevertheless, deported Yashika
was, in the teeth of opposition from 178,000 people who signed a petition
against it, to an uncertain future, as a purely symbolic gesture to assuage the
Daily Mail white van man brigade, on a day which once more made me feel ashamed
to be British. Presumably her only way
back now would be to get herself shot in the head by the Taliban. I think
Facebook correspondent Andrew Moore summed it up neatly when he posted about
the effect it was having on further education for foreign students.
Slow hand clap
time...Well done uk
government your moron pandering to the anti-immigration lobby has made you an
unpleasant place and wrecks a global mega brand. This along with a dull
overtone of "we don't want you", even the legitimate immigrants (me!)
feel uncomfortable eg when the "go home" wagons are the best you can
do... You stupid stupid buffoons.
Given Mr Farage’s tone in the
recent TV debates and the way in which immigration is set to become a hot
football and a political potato in the 2015 campaign, it can only be a matter
of time until Princess Anne advocates gassing immigrants. Many a true word spoken in jest.
And so we came, reluctantly,
limping slightly and feeling tired and shivery, to Sunday, the fifth Sunday in
Lent, and, as it happens, my 59th birthday. According to the
Lectionary, the readings for today are:
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
So I went and looked them up. I was pleasantly surprised by
the Ezekiel, because it turns out to be about dem bones dem bones dem dry
bones:
The hand of the Lord
was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in
the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by
them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and,
lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones
live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me,
Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of
the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause
breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon
you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath
in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I
prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and
behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
And when I beheld, lo,
the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above:
but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind,
prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith
the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon
these slain, that they may live. So I
prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived,
and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
Pretty good stuff. Whatever
Ezekiel was on when he wrote that, I wouldn’t mind a pinch of it right
now. Psalm 130 is about calling from the
depths, and the Romans passage is about the difference between the carnal life
and the spiritual life. But the passage from John is possibly the most famous
of the four – the raising of Lazarus from the dead:
Jesus said, Take ye
away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord,
by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith
unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest
see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the
dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of
the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent
me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come
forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes:
and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him,
and let him go.
So, two weeks before Easter we are already foreshadowing
someone being raised from the dead. It
is inevitable, I suppose, given my situation and the fact that I am now in my
60th year (which somehow sounds so much older than merely being 59)
that both Ezekiel connecting the dry bones and Jesus raising Lazarus from the
dead should both have resonances for me. It’s an inevitable progression, as you
get older and bits start to wither and drop off. What am I, anyway? Am I just
dry bones, sinew and flesh, that will stink after four days. Or is that just
the shell, the husk that I inhabit, and the real me, the essential me, will be
elsewhere? Why did nobody ask Lazarus what happened when he died?
The dry bones of Ezekiel have inspired both poets and
painters. In 1855 Henry Alexander painted “Shall These Dry Bones Live” in the
Pre-Raphaelite style, a painting which I have reproduced at the top of this
blog. And T S Eliot (who else?) alludes
strongly to the passage in Ash Wednesday:
And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject.
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject.
On that crucial question – shall these dry bones live? - hangs the faith of many people. Once again
I find myself in a position of unknowing. It’s a question which is fundamental
to our perception of our own reality. I have been alive now for 59 years inside
this mobile hamburger that trundles round each day, gratifying its desires. But
is that me? And if not, then what is?
The grim reaper cut a swathe through the lives of my friends
last week. Two people that I know both lost folk who were close to them, in one
case even kin. I feel it behoves me to comfort them tonight, even though I am
not much good at comforting myself. So I fall back on my old reasoning, which
is that this thing we call reality is no more real than any other flickering
mage made entirely of electro-magnetism, and
- as Bob the wizard once said, no doubt unconsciously channelling
Juliana of Norwich – we are all one, and we are all contained in a point of
light. Or putting it another way, if nothing is real, then everything is
unreal, and, my friends, you will see your Mum again and you will see your
friend again, in fact they are probably here, all around us in some dimension
we can’t perceive, watching over us and wishing us well, because heaven knows no time.
Somehow, it’s 10 o’clock and almost the end of my birthday.
It’s already tomorrow in Australia,
and tomorrow is another day. Misty’s asleep on the settee, Matilda’s giving
herself an extended wash in the armchair next to the TV, Debbie’s working on
her marking and I am just about to do the washing up before Match of the Day 2. So I’m going to leave it there tonight.
Shall these bones live? Who knows. Shall my soul live? I hope so.
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