Epiblog for St Aidan's Day

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley, and one of those I hope never to see the like of again. We started the week far away from home, on the Western shores of the Isle of Arran. We finally got away on holiday, as you may have gathered from the fact of my witterings failing to appear in your inbox with monotonous regularity for the past two Sundays. We went via Walney Island, Mossburn, to Ardrossan and thence crossed to Arran. We were there three days when the steel hawser on the winch for the kayak rack broke, necessitating a two-day trip back to the mainland to get it fixed. Then back to Arran, basically because it was too late to go anywhere else by then, for the remainder of the second week. Kayaks were launched, porpoises and otters were spotted, and, although it was a very strange and a bitter-sweet experience being there without Tig, nevertheless I did get some rest, and I did spend some time looking out to sea, and I did spend some time writing.

This year, we’d decided to put Kitty in the cattery while we were away on Arran. I had written them a covering note, to be handed in with her, to the effect that she was an elderly, crotchety cat, who liked to drink lots, and eat little and often. A bit like me, in fact. After we had been away about four days, I had phoned the cattery and had been assured that she was fine, and not pining. We were due to come home on Tuesday 28th anyway, but the weather forecast for the Bank Holiday Monday was so bad that I’d wondered if we might get washed out and come home early, so I’d phoned the cattery again on the Saturday, just to check if they might be open on Bank Holiday Monday, if we got back a day early. She was fine then, too, or so I was assured.

So it was a shock for all sorts of reasons when my mobile went off at 9.16AM on the morning of Bank Holiday Monday, the cattery telling me that they were concerned about Kitty, she hadn’t eaten her tea the night before, and she was looking ill and unresponsive. I told them to take her straight to Donalsdons the vets. The best the vets would say was the prognosis was “guarded” – they thought her kidneys were finally giving out. We couldn’t get a ferry from Arran until 1640hrs, and even then the service was contingent on the ferries actually being able to sail in the gale force winds in the Firth of Clyde, and therefore on Monday night we only got as far as Dumfries, back to Mossburn again. The vets had her on a drip overnight Monday night, and they kept her in again Tuesday.

All day Tuesday, with Debbie driving the camper like the proverbial bat out of Hell, down the motorway, Kitty was like Scrodinger’s cat to us; the only way we knew if she was alive or dead was when we checked in by phone, the rest of the time she was in a strange, in between limbo.

By Tuesday night we were both shattered after two sleepless nights and pretty fragged. We’d got back to Huddersfield at about 2.30pm on the Tuesday and went straight to the vets, and they brought her through to us in one of their little consulting rooms. I got to hold her and stroke her for about three quarters of an hour, but most of the time she was sleeping, the vets were very good, though, and very accommodating of our needs.

The arrangement was that we were to ring them at 11AM on Wednesday and unless a miracle had happened, I expected the outcome would not be a good one. I duly phoned at 11AM and they said she was no better, if anything she was even a little bit worse, and the kindest thing to do was to let her go, so we did, we went down there at just after 12.30 and the vets were very good again and let me hold her, while Debbie was stroking her head, as she was actually put to sleep.

We’ve brought her home and we’ve buried her in the garden next to Dusty her (putative) sister, who died in 2008. So, there you are: sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Requies cat in Pace. At least she is at peace now, and in cat heaven with Colin, who will have her on his knee with Dusty and Cuddles. I said as much to Debbie, and she said, what’s Colin doing in cat heaven, and I said, well, perhaps cat heaven is just, well, heaven.

Of course, I prayed: I prayed to every manifestation of every deity that’s ever crossed my spiritual path. Starting with Big G and working downwards, Jesus, of course, St Francis of Assissi. St Jude, St Padre Pio, and St Gertrude of Nivelles, who is actually the patron saint of cats, and mental illness, so I reckoned I had at least two chances there. I imagined them all coming into God’s waiting room one by one, where he makes the saints queue up to do intercessions, and nodding in recognition at each other, and saying “You here about the cat?” and “Yep, me too.” I even chucked in a couple of pagan rhymes and a prayer to Bast, the cat-goddess of the ancient Egyptians. Nothing nada, zilch.

It shakes your faith when shit happens for no reason especially bad shit and you get no response to your prayers even though you do nothing else but pray, doze fitfully, and sip bottled water for two days. By Wednesday, I was ready to make a bonfire of the whole lot of it. The only thing that stopped me was that quotation from Playback by Chandler (Raymond, not the guy from Friends) which always gives me food for thought, and which I dug out and read again:

"There are grave difficulties about the afterlife. I don't think I should really enjoy a heaven in which I shared lodgings with a Congo pygmy or a Chinese coolie or a Levantine rug peddler or even a Hollywood producer. I'm a snob, I suppose, and the remark is in bad taste. Nor can I imagine a heaven presided over by a benevolent character in a long white beard locally known as God. These are foolish conceptions of very immature minds. But you may not question a man's religious beliefs however idiotic they may be. Of course I have no right to assume that I shall go to heaven. Sounds rather dull, as a matter of fact. On the other hand how can I imagine a hell in which a baby that died before baptism occupies the same degraded position as a hired killer or a Nazi death-camp commandant or a member of the Politburo? How strange it is that man's finest aspirations, dirty little animal that he is, his finest actions also, his great and unselfish heroism, his constant daily courage in a harsh world — how strange that these things should be so much finer than his fate on this earth. That has to be somehow made reasonable. Don't tell me that honour is merely a chemical reaction or that a man who deliberately gives his life for another is merely following a behaviour pattern. Is God happy with the poisoned cat dying alone in convulsions behind the billboard? Is God happy that life is cruel and that only the fittest survive? The fittest for what? Oh no, far from it. If God were omnipotent and omniscient in any literal sense, he wouldn't have bothered to make the universe at all. There is no success where there is no possibility of failure, no art without the resistance of the medium. Is it blasphemy to suggest that God has his bad days when nothing goes right? And that God's days are very very long?"

But who’s to blame? Whose fault is it that Kitty died? I can't help feeling that it's all my fault, for putting her in that stupid cattery in the first place, I should have just given up the idea of going off on holiday, and we could still have gone off for days, then she wouldn't have stressed out and got dehydrated and got kidney trouble - anyway, if wishes were fishes, none of us would ever go hungry. Well, only the vegans and veggies, I guess. I made a stupid mistake, because I wanted us to have a holiday, and started off an inevitable chain of events. Cat goes to cattery, cat gets stressed, cat gets dehydrated, cat gets kidney disease, cat dies. I can’t understand how all of that happened in the space of 14 days, but it did, and as with computers, fatal errors are irrecoverable.

We talked about all sorts of things in that mammoth three hour drive from Dumfries to Huddersfield, including whether, if Kitty were to die, we should get another cat. At one point, Debbie said

“Get two cats, then if you kill another one, you’ll have a spare!”

To her eternal credit, she is possibly one of two or three people in the whole wide world who could have said that to me on that day, in those circumstances, and raised the first, albeit wan, smile of the week. We smiled through the tears, then went back to being misty-eyed again.

Anyway, that was the demise of Kitty. During our second visit to the vets, I had made a point of noting down the phone number from an advert taped to the door of the surgery, from someone who was trying to re-home a dog called Max, who is 7 years old, and looks like a slightly chunkier version of Zak. Deb had noted this the previous day, and although she’d said she wasn’t interested I thought I’d just take a note of the number anyway, in case Debbie changed her mind. So I trundled over there, while I was waiting for Deb to take Kitty back to the camper van and then come back for me, and noted down the mobile phone number.

I was suddenly aware that there were other ads stuck to the back of the door. Lots of them in fact. One caught my eye. It said something like 8 year old torty cat desperately needs re-homing, ask at reception for details. Ever since the late lamented Dusty (RIP) I have always fancied having another torty cat, mainly because they are all totally bonkers and it’s never a dull moment. Dusty, for instance, used to object to my having pens of any sort on my desk, and would jump up and widge them all onto the floor with her paw, even while I was working. I spent much more time picking up pens than writing with them, while Dusty was alive.

Dusty’s other habit was to invade the duvet in the middle of the night, wriggle her way down to about crotch level, and then curl up and go to sleep. Of course, as she got warm and happy and started purring, like all cats, she would start to stretch out her claws and “make bread” on the nearest object, which was frequently my scrotum. I don’t recommend it, as a way of being awakened at 4AM.

You don’t often see torty cats in the sanctuaries and shelters, so the word caught my eye. So I asked at reception for details, like it said on the handlettered notice, fully expecting to be told that the cat was at such and such an animal centre, here’s the web site and phone number, phone up and make an appointment, etc.

“Oh yes, we’ve got her out the back, would you like to meet her now?”

Stunned, I nodded, thinking “Debbie is going to be so furious about all this.”

While they were fetching the cat (apparently called Betty) out of the storage area at the rear of the surgery, Shona, the young vet who had helped us with Kitty, came back out to talk to me.

“Listen, you really don’t want this cat, believe me, she’s a horrible old beast, she’s really crabby and bad tempered. She hisses and growls all the time. The family that owned her brought her in a month ago to be put to sleep because she kept biting their children.”

This was an immediate point in Betty’s favour, in my book. My eyes lit up. I can think of several children that I would cheerfully bite, if only I could catch the little buggers, so I was with Betty on that one. What this world needs is fewer, and better, children, and if it was up to me, I’d probably have kept the cat, and had the children put down.

“Why is she here?” I asked.

All the shelters are full, apparently, and if no home could be found for Betty by this Friday, she would have to be put down anyway. Nobody wants her, because she’s old (9 years) and bad-tempered, and crotchety. Well, we had just lost an old crotchety cat. By this time, Betty had been brought through, and plonked onto my lap. Christ, she was a size. She’s like a small sandbag and about the same size and density, but beautifully coloured, torty, black and cream, with large luminous eyes. Instead of hissing and growling, she settled herself down tucked her head in, and started purring. By now, the various nurses, vets and receptionists were all gathered round in a half-circle, saying things like “amazing” and “is it really the same cat?” and stuff like that. At this point Debbie returned.

“I can explain everything.” I said, and did. Eventually, Betty had to be prised off my knee, where she had clearly settled for the remainder of the day, and taken back to her little cage out the back. We said we would go home and sleep on it. To be honest, emotionally, neither of us was in a logical or level headed frame of mind to think about anything, with Kitty’s funeral, in the garden next to Dusty her secret sister, to be organised.

The next day, Thursday, we called back and I asked a few more questions about Betty. She is neutered, and microchipped, but that could easily be changed to our address, they added hastily. She had the equivalent of a cruciate knee ligament operation on her right hind leg three years ago and she might walk with a limp. Old, irritable, gammy legs, unwanted by everybody. But that’s enough about me, back to the cat. I asked again what would happen to her if we couldn’t take her. The answer was that nobody else was interested, with the best will in the world, they were a vets not an animal shelter, and no shelter could take her, because the shelters are all full. They’d already kept her a month, and if they hadn’t found a home for her by next week, she’d be put down. At this point, Debbie broke into the conversation to say we’ll have her. We’re due to pick her up on Monday 3rd September.

The shelters are all full, because, of course, in hard economic times, for many people, pets are the first to go. The hard economic times are the fault of The Blight, but I wouldn’t expect anything else from a Junta that is quite capable of accepting ATOS of all people, as sponsors of the Paralympic Games, a move of breathtaking hypocrisy comparable to putting Dracula in charge of the Blood Transfusion Service. But whatever the cause, the system for rescuing stray and unwanted and abandoned animals in this country is under strain like never before. The shelters are all full.

The shelters are all full. Same with dogs. I hope somebody can take Max, and I hope someone can take Brian, the cream lurcher cross we were looking at before we went on holiday. Unfortunately, because we’ve taken on Betty, we’ve set back our own plans to get another dog now, because it would be unfair to Betty, at least in the short term. If you can help Max, the number off the poster is apparently 07789 712945.

We need to do something about this appalling situation where several thousand abandoned dogs and cats are being put down every year simply because nobody wants them. Given the relatively small cost (in political budget terms) of the government acting as the “owner of last resort” to ensure a “no kill” policy, which could anyway be funded from the revenues of a reintroduced dog licencing/microchipping scheme, it ought to be possible for the lives of these animals to be saved. All that is lacking is the political will, and something needs to be done to drive the issue up the political agenda.

I suggest that here and now, we start a campaign where people print out a picture of their pet, and post it to David Cameron at 10 Downing Street, or send it as an email attachment, with the following form letter:

Dear Prime Minister. This is my pet [insert name of pet]. Just to let you know, at the next election, I will be voting for the candidate that I judge has his/her[delete as applicable] best interests at heart.

There is a precedent for this. Apparently, back in the 1950s there were a couple of occasions where Eisenhower was thinking of taking action against the Chinese, and there was a famine in China at the time. Peace organisations in the US started sending in little bags of rice in the post to the White House with a similar agreed form of words, urging President Eisenhower not to bomb the Chinese, but to feed them instead. They also attached a specific verse from the Bible, about feeding your enemies. Perhaps our verse could be Matthew 10:29: Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

In Eisenhower’s case, apparently he asked if “those little bags of rice” were still coming in, one day when he was about to press the nuclear button, and when they said “Yes Mr President, thousands of them”, he took his finger away.

Maybe in our case, while we can’t hope for anything quite so dramatic, Cameron will pass them on to the people concerned with formulating animal welfare policy in his so-called apologetic shambles of a government, with a well deserved rocket up the arse telling them to sort something out before the next election. We can only hope.

Meanwhile, for ourselves, we must now face the prospect of an uncertain future, and a winter without Kitty. Close ranks, and carry on. Fare forward, keep her head into the wind, and ease her when she pitches. Caistermen never turn back. My main reservation about Betty is that it all seems so quick, there hasn’t been any time for a decent period of mourning for Kitty. There is precedent, of course, back in that abysmal howling year of 1992, Nigel arrived the very day Sylvester was killed. But even so, I feel that not only have I killed Kitty by my hubris in wanting a holiday, but now I’m also ratting on her memory by installing another cat in her place far too quickly. The problem being, of course, that if we didn’t, Betty would be Dead Betty.

Whatever happens with Betty, I know I will never forget Kitty. Like Russell before her, she wasn’t a good cat, and that was precisely what made her such a good cat. She wasn’t even good at cat things, things other cats are supposed to do. I don’t think she ever caught a mouse, and she had been known to fall off the settee in the midst of one of her energetic catlick washing sessions, then try and pass it off as if that had been what she’d intended all along, like one of those gymnasts dismounting from the horse with a somersault.

This morning, when I was getting up, the wind round the side of the house blew the cat flap and it click-clacked just like it did when she used to come through it, and my heart lurched with renewed grief. I will so miss her clambering on my knee when I was trying to light the fire, actually hindering me from doing the very thing she was trying to urge me to get on and do.

She will be sorely missed, also by her legions of fans on the Internet, who used to look out for the pictures of her on the settee next to the stove, and send me emails asking where she was if I didn’t post them early enough in the day! I will so miss her little face in the mornings, peering round the edge of the door to see if I was coming through to feed her, and answering my question of whether she wanted to be fed later, or “naow”.

Obviously God wanted her “naow”, rather than later; alas, my cat, so mote it be, so mote it be.

Epiblog for St Morwenna's Day

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. To be honest, I didn’t expect to still be here today, writing this, on a Sunday teatime; I thought I would be away somewhere, on holiday by now. But getting everything together and organising things, with both of us in our current state of mental and physical exhaustion and apathy, has been such a massive and overwhelming task that, to be honest, as I sit here today, I’m not sure if we will even go, in the end. I’ve already said, more than once, in the preparation and run-up to our supposed departure, that if the only reason we’re contemplating going anywhere is solely for my benefit, then forget it. Whatever is on offer, if its not freely offered, then I don’t want it.

So much of the burden falls on Debbie’s shoulders these days, with me being a completely useless appendage in a wheelchair, that it would actually be much less hassle for her if we didn’t go at all. I will admit, I was looking forward to the idea of maybe seeing Arran again, though this will be the first time we have been there without a dog, if indeed we go. I also think, though, that despite her protestations (or at least misgivings) Deb would find herself wishing, come September and the start of term again, that she had gone, after all; but there comes a point where the hassle of getting everything together and actually organising it far outweighs the benefit of going on the holiday itself. What happens is you go on holiday exhausted and ratty, and by the time you’ve finally got all of the kinks out of your system and you’re just about feeling like enjoying yourself might one day be possible, it’s time to come home again! And, of course, coming home means getting on with the task of becoming exhausted and ratty once again. And so it goes…

So, we might not yet get away on holiday. Which will be good news for Kitty, who I am sure has managed, by some act of divination, some second-sight cat sorcery, that we were planning to send her to the special cat hotel, otherwise known as the c.a.t.t.e.r.y. We were having a discussion (in muted tones, in case she overheard us) about that self-same venerable institution, only the other day, because I couldn’t remember if their thing was that you paid in advance, or afterwards, when you picked your cat up. Deb said that she thought the latter made more sense because that way, if you didn’t pay, they could just keep your cat until you brassed up. It only occurred to me afterwards what a counter-productive strategy that could become, because of course they’d still have to feed the thing, and I did wonder if somewhere the cattery had a cobwebby cupboard, full of querulous moggies whose owners still had to settle their accounts, a sort of Feline equivalent of The Marshalsea Prison in Dickens.

I don’t blame Debbie, by the way, for not having the energy or the motivation to go. That last year of teaching, especially teaching GCSE, has really taken it out of her, and even if we had another dog, right now, I have to accept that, for all sorts of reasons apart from my own incarceration in this mobile birdcage, those old carefree days of just bundling ourselves into the car and going off to (eg) The Lakes for the day, are long, long, gone, and will come again no more. Anyone who thinks teaching is an easy job a cushy number, should try it sometime. They’d soon change their tune.

So no, I don’t blame Debbie. I do blame all sorts of other people, though, for my inability to go on holiday because we are both skint and knackered. I blame the plumbers who have cocked up fitting the new boiler and whose concept of “aftercare” is so howlingly abysmal that there are just no words to describe their utter, utter, cack-handed crapness. I blame the garage, who have taken thousands of pounds off us this year to keep the van on the road, and yet, somehow, unaccountably, we still have an oil-leak, and fuses blowing left right and centre. I blame my former colleagues (I use the word loosely) for rejecting me when I was ill and placing us in this parlous financial malaise. I blame Barclays Bank PLC for their unfailing unbending ungrateful greed, which constantly adds to the pressure. I blame Randstad PLC who are arguing the toss about paying Debbie for some study mentoring work she did back when I was in hospital, because she didn’t fill in some of their tedious paperwork at the time, because she was being run ragged by having to keep everything going single handed because I was in hospital almost dying, see above. I blame the bookselling chains who buy books in October but don’t bother paying for them until the following July. The list goes on; government agencies with their repetitive, meaningless, garbled, gobbledeygook forms, for instance, and on top of all that, we’ve got to endure the bloody Olympics!

In one sense, it will be a pity if we don’t go, because up until today, when the enormity of it all has daunted us, and crushed our spirits, I think she, too, was looking forward to it.

Anyway, I’m still here, still typing away, still plodding my furrow, just as I may be found for the remaining fifty weeks of the year. Although it’s been dominated by the preparations for our (so far) stillborn holiday, there have been other matters to attend to, brief chinks of reality piercing the gloom, although not all of them have been welcome, or have made much sense, to be honest.

This week has seen the anniversary (and therefore the closing) of the petition I started on the UK Government petitions web site, about using brownfield sites to build prefabricated housing. The idea eventually gained 34 signatories! Yet, surprisingly, it seems, I am not alone: Mary Dejevsky, writing in The Independent, is apparently a late convert to the idea: I’ve linked to the article, rather than quoting from it, and of course, in her article, she links it to The Olympics, because it’s obviously the law these days that anything you write anywhere about anything must contain statutory references to The Olympics (although be careful not to infringe the rights of the sponsors, or they will be after you quicker than you can say “rooftop missiles”.) Still, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, etc.

The other story that has been relatively sidelined in the media this week (although perhaps this is one where we should be grateful to the Olympics) is the sad, sad death of Tia Sharpe. It is very easy, if you aren’t actually involved in a dysfunctional family, one which has social problems, to be judgemental about these situations, but nobody stops to ask why people like (for example) Karen Matthews end up like they do in the first place.

I’ve used the example of Karen Matthews, a case which has been over and done with and through the legal system and everything, rather than talking about the Tia Sharpe, because I am anxious not to comment on a case which is currently developing, for fear of committing contempt of court or similar.

This concern was foremost in my mind when I saw that groups had been formed on Facebook to hunt down and string up Tia’s supposed killer. One of the accused in the Rochdale “grooming” trial is currently appealing (although I must say “appealing” is not the word for him that immediately springs to mind) because he claims that the jury discussion over his original conviction was compromised because (his legal team claim) one of the jurors must have been feeding details of their deliberations to Nick Griffin, no less, who then “tweeted” them on Twitter. Apparently, the sentencing in the Joanna Yeates trial was also made more difficult because of comments which had been posted on Facebook.

Now, what do you think our protagonist did, dear reader? Did he say, “Oh well, someone else’s problem!” or did he see a potential problem with the administration of justice and (despite his complete lack of interest – in any sense of the word – in the case) jump in with both wheels? It must have been the wonky genes in my body, thrumming with the Fenwick war cry and the creed of the Rudds:

And this shall be our creed - as I will say to you
For faint cries in the distance
to a cause that needs assistance
against all wrong that needs resistance
we shall stand forward
and do all that we can do.

So I stood forward, and did what I could do. It was a similar act of blundering, well-meaning self-damage to the time I tried to explain the Wars of the Roses to two drunk blokes in the bar at the Regis Centre in Bognor Regis who’d been arguing about whether “the English Rose” as they called it, was red or white. As Marlene Dietrich might say, when will he ever learn, when will he e-ever learn? That time, I was rescued by the folk band on stage striking up “Lamorna”

“It was down in Albert Square,
I never will forget
Her eyes they shone like diamonds
And the evening it was wet, wet, wet” [no, not Marty Pellow]

Anyway, I posted a brief message to the effect that by posting such things as “they have caught her murderer” and “string up the [asterisked out profanity]” on Facebook, these people were making justice for Tia Sharpe much less likely, because these sort of comments could be used by an unscrupulous defence legal team (whoever heard of such a thing, eh) to get the defendant’s sentence mitigated or reduced on appeal, and in extreme cases, may even prejudice a trial.

I pretty soon wished I hadn’t. Even allowing for the fact that some of the people on the Facebook pages were perhaps neighbours of the missing girl or people who’d helped in the search, the sheer force of the vitriol and hostility to my attempt to warn them that their action was probably less likely to achieve justice for Tia Sharp, that it would have exactly the opposite effect to that expressed in the emotion of their postings, was breathtaking.

Among the less extreme reactions were things like “fruitcake” and “bollocks”. “How would you feel if it was your daughter?” someone asked, missing the point by a cubic mile. Eventually I gave up, and left them to their pitchforks and fiery torches. Today, I have been through my spam email folder (where my Facebook notifications go automatically these days) and deleted 161 messages notifying me that various would-be “pedo burners” [sic] had called me everything from a rather silly chap to an asterisked out profanity-ing female part. There were rather more of the latter sort. I really think people who are going to post on Facebook should have to pass a simple test first, aimed at identifying and excluding those who were abandoned at sea by their birth parents and brought up instead by plankton.

What with the baying mob on Facebook wanting to lynch the “murderer” of Tia Sharpe before anyone had been arrested or charged, let alone tried and convicted, and the constant stream of compulsory “patriotism” being pumped out by the media and The Blight over the Olympics, it’s been a pretty depressing week.

One of the most sickening things about the Olympics is of course the hypocrisy of the politicians of all parties who are attempting to appropriate the Olympic bandwagon and steer it in their own direction. Sometimes this is merely obvious, crass, goonish waffle, such as John Prescott’s suggestion of painting the Humber Bridge gold to mark Luke Campbell’s victory in the boxing, or politicians queuing up to be seen congratulating the likes of Mo Farah – Muslims are fine, apparently, when they are running the 10,000 metres, wrapped in the Union Jack, but if they’re running in another direction, away from tyranny and war, running to jump on the back of a lorry outside Sangatte, they are not so fine, then they somehow morph into the hated “asylum seekers” who seem to exercise the Daily Mail’s collective addled brain cell on a regular basis. Talking of exercise, sometimes political meddling is more insidious, as in Boris Johnson and Cameron trying to vault over each other with increasingly tedious suggestions about whether it should be two hours of compulsory sport per week or two per day, larded with pejorative references to “Indian dancing”. It can only be a matter of time before The Blight makes it compulsory to practice archery for an hour a day, as they used to have to do in the middle ages. You will, I am sure, be familiar with the statute of Edward III and his declaration of 1363:

"Whereas the people of our realm, rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practise archery – whence by God's help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises... that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows... and so learn and practise archery."

In fact, talking of the middle ages, I sometimes think that England, my England, is falling back eight hundred years through time and becoming an ugly, dysfunctional, lawless, medieval country, peopled by baying mobs of vigilantes, where bad things happen, power is exercised without responsibility and with arbitrary outcomes, and no-one cares. It’s like the Reformation and the Enlightenment never happened, some days. We’ve still got dog-fighting and if The Blight have their way, fox-hunting will be legalised again. Next stop, witch-burning, bear baiting and trial by ordeal. I’m sure Cameron would have it in the manifesto if he thought there were enough votes in it.

And you can also forget the argument that apparently the “success” of the likes of Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah is somehow a validation of, a green light for multiculturalism, and one in the eye for the likes of the BNP, UKIP and the EDL, because the sort of people who support those organisations don’t regard “mixed race” Britons as “British” anyway. They also have difficulty distinguishing them from economic migrants and/or asylum seekers.

But never mind! The Olympics has been a “success”, apparently. Obviously I am glad for all the athletes and amateur hobbyists whose long hours of training and effort have been, in their own terms, validated on some sort of international forum – they come out of it very well in comparison with professional footballers, for instance; what I object to, and have objected to all along, is the mob mentality that forces compulsory patriotism on people and treats with derision those who raise questions about (for instance) what all this is costing, in an age of austerity, what the implications are for security, and whether the whole thing is just a massive distraction from things we should really be concentrating on, and what the hell are we going to do with all these stadiums now? I suppose they will give Cameron and Boris Johnson somewhere to herd all the dissenters if things go really badly. But we should remember that “success” is a relative term, it does not come free of any price tags, and the pressure to conform, to cheer on “Team GB” (or “Our Boys”, who were forcibly drafted in to help them) brings with it a mob mentality disturbingly similar to the Tia Sharpe forums.

I should really never have started typing this Epiblog. When I am angry about potentially missing out on a holiday, and angry about the mess the country has become, I am not a nice person to know. Some would say I never am. In fact, more and more I experience life in general, the more I feel completely disconnected from the rest of the world at large, and I sometimes wonder if it might be possible to achieve an even greater degree of detachment – if not physically, by moving to some godforsaken place at the arse end of nowhere and then pulling up the drawbridge after me, and/or mentally, spiritually, by practising the Zen maxim of “let it go with both hands”, whether “it” is the memory of carefree days in the Lakes with Deb and Tiggy, or the idea of going on holiday in the camper, or even, in extremis, on days like today, life itself.

Today, for what it’s worth, is St Morwenna’s day. Little is known of St Morwenna, though she is responsible for the place name of Morwenstow in Cornwall (= Morwenna’s place) and she was one of the daughters of Brychan of Brycheiniog. She must’ve been rather homesick, as Saints go, because one of the few things she is known/famous for is for asking her brother, St Nectan, to lift her up on her deathbed so that she could see her Welsh homeland. She also had a holy well, one of many in the British Isles of course, though the majority of them are usually dedicated to St Bridget (St Bride) or St Helen. The holy well at Morwenstow is rather inaccessible, I hear, despite being owned by the National Trust. And it no longer has water in it. Apart from that, though…

Morwenna is also associated with Lamorran and Lamorna, other places in Cornwall, one of them being the inspiration for the song which saved me from a duffing-up in Bognor Regis. She’s also known for teaching children to read, and being a virgin. I guess they had them in Cornwall in those days. Actually, Lamorna is quite a “bookish” place, because apart from being a centre of some of the Newlyn group of artists, Minack, nearby, was the home of Derek Tangye, who wrote dozens of books about living there, in his little cottage, up on the cliffs, with ducks, cats and donkeys, not to mention his wife, Jeannie. I especially like the story of Monty the cat, who started out being only allowed in the kitchen and ended up sleeping on the bed. Now doesn’t that just sound like every cat you’ve ever known?

Anyway, unlike the late Derek Tangye, and much as I feel like going to one right now, I’m unlikely to find myself the proud possessor of a Cornish cottage without electricity, and with only earth floors, or, indeed a donkey any time soon, so I will just have to carry on writing my usual drivel from here. I know very little about Cornwall, actually, when it comes to Cornwall, in the words of Lee Harvey Oswald, “I’m just a pasty”. Please feel free to correct. I do like the Lamorna song, though.

So, goodnight, America, wherever you are. This time tomorrow, I might be on holiday. Or not. Who knows?

Epiblog for St Afra's Day

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. We’re still theoretically getting ready to go off on holiday, although it’s anybody’s guess, as I write this, when we will set off, indeed, whether we will actually go anywhere, or stay put. The problem is that it means so much extra hassle for Debbie now I am in a wheelchair, and she is still absolutely shot after her winter and spring of teaching, I don’t know, as it stands, if either of us can actually raise the energy. However, I hope we can; the sun is sparkling on Kilbrannan Sound, and I don’t know how many more summers I will have – none of us does, of course, but perhaps I have more of an inkling than some, of time slipping soundlessly through the neck of an hourglass – so I would like to see it again, if possible.

Meanwhile, the weather here has moved to cool days of sunshine and showers, which is good for the garden, but it doesn’t help when I see pictures that people have posted online, of sunlight on Goatfell or on the Cuillins and I suddenly yearn to be there, because “my heart’s in the Highlands”.

At the moment, I am still proceeding as if we are going, and trying to get as much stuff done as I can. This includes getting caught up on a number of tasks of stupefying boredom, such as the meaningless jumble of accounts. If there is ever a national shortage of horse-tranquilisers, we could just give each neddy a calculator and ask them to do a trial balance. The tasks I have to accomplish before I can go on holiday anywhere with a clear conscience are many and legion, and vary from making sure my standing hoist is charged up to loading products onto Sage, to potting-on my radishes.

I have also phoned the “cat hotel where special catties go on their holidays” and told them they might be getting a special guest in the form of Kitty at some point next week. She’s been quite active over the last few days, sitting out with Deb on the decking when the sun shines, and soaking up the warmth, then coming back in to sleep on Zak’s chair, which she seems to have adopted of late. Zak and Freddie haven’t been around much this week, so the squirrels have been making the most of their absence, getting rowdy and throwing the dishes on the bird-table around when they have emptied the contents into their furry little tumjacks.

Speaking of furry little tumjacks, Deb is, as I said, completely exhausted and she’s been sleeping a lot lately, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, but if she goes completely into hibernation and doesn’t make the effort and go on holiday somewhere, for her sake, more than mine, I just know she is going to regret the decision during the long dreary weeks of winter stretching ahead. I know I will, also, but that’s sort of not the point. If anyone’s earned a holiday over the last academic year, she has.

I’m also feeling constantly tired, so I’m no help, really, and I have been railing against my condition (yet again) this week. As I said above, it may be a cliché, but I can feel the sands of time running out, and I don’t want to vanish into oblivion having achieved absolutely nothing of any lasting value or worth by my standards. I can hear my ancestors banging on the sky, some days, telling me to get a move on.

So I am going to devote the remainder of this Epiblog to ottering on about my favourite causes and pet hobby-horses. Well, not so much pet hobby-horses as pet dogs. Once more, we’ve been looking at the web sites of various pet sanctuaries in the faint hope (in my case) that we might be able to find a dog in time to take it on holiday with us to Scotland. I also have two other ideas I’d like to run by you. That makes three ideas in all. I hope you like them. I got them from the “three ideas or less”* queue at the supermarket. [*Yes, I know it should be “fewer”]. As Groucho Marx once said, these are my principles, if you don’t like them, I have others.

Anyway, these dogs. In perusing one of the many web pages and Facebook pages of the various sanctuaries, I came across a shocking photograph. A shot of the interior of a kennels with a row of black plastic doggy body-bags (occupied) all lined up neatly in a corridor, awaiting disposal and incineration. Just some of the 7000 unwanted dogs which are put down in the UK every year. It shocked me, because it brought home to me the reality of the situation in a way in which my own imagination had hitherto failed to do, and all kudos to the animal centre concerned for having the guts to put it up there. It certainly galvanised me into action. What can we do to stop 7000 dogs a year being put down for no reason other than lack of space and resources to keep them?

There is currently a consultation going on with regard to The Blight’s idea of compulsory micro-chipping of dogs. This could entail compulsory microchipping for all dogs within a set time period of their birth or acquisition. So in other words, it would be for the person acquiring a dog from whatever source to ensure that it is microchipped, or if not, to have it chipped. If you make it so that dogs have to be microchipped from birth, and back that up with punishment, however, this may lead to greater quantities of dogs being abandoned or even killed rather than incurring the cost of chipping say a large and unexpected litter so care must be taken in ensuring that in solving one problem, you don't create another, different, problem.

Care needs also to be taken when framing any legislation also not to disadvantage the homeless, many of whom have companions in the form of dogs, the disabled, and people who are suffering from the Government's cack-handed economic policies by being made unemployed and forced onto benefits. There should be a recognition that chipping is a social good and a willingness by the Government to "chip in" and underwrite the cost of chipping in such cases…

Microchipping will not make dog owners more responsible in itself, or prevent people or animals from being attacked, but it does provide enforcement agencies with a tool to identify owners who may have been irresponsible or cruel to their pet. Unfortunately it will do nothing to deter the people who will dump their pets on the roadside, or worse, in order to escape having to have them chipped in the first place, which is why there needs to be a “social chipping” exemption, see above.

Compulsory microchipping alone will not hold owners to account and if this is to be effective then it must be part of a wider annual dog registration scheme where owners’ details be centrally held in an up to date database. However, the construction and upkeep of such a database should not simply be handed by The Blight to an "outsource" agency such as Atos or Capita, for several reasons, but chiefly if The Blight is going to give out large amounts of public monies for creating and maintaining this database it would be better being run by the three major animal welfare charities with an interest in dogs in the UK, the RSPCA, the Dogs' Trust, and Battersea Dogs' Home, with government financial support. Not only would this be a better use of any funding, but also it would ensure that the scheme is run by people with an interest in animal welfare rather than a multinational PLC who just treat it as a cash-cow.

This licensing scheme could then provide money so there are proper resources for local authorities and the police to support those owners trying to do the right thing and target those irresponsible ones who cause the majority of the problem. Although of course, it could be argued, that local authorities and the police should have the resources to do this in any case, and indeed would do so, but for The Blight's unequal apportioning of rate grant cuts to Local Authorities.

Any excess money made from microchipping should be ploughed back in to local communities to improve dog welfare through an annual dog registration scheme so that local authorities and the police have the resources to tackle irresponsible dog ownership. As well as funding the "social" microchipping of dogs for those who can't afford it, the money resulting from this scheme, assuming it is cash-positive, should be hypothecated towards dog welfare and not swallowed up in the general "tax take" and used to buy missiles to fire at Libya, Iran, Syria or whoever. We do not want to see the situation degenerate into that akin to the Road Fund Licence for cars, which was originally supposed to be for the upkeep of the UK's roads but which is now swallowed whole by the treasury.

Dogs who will never be returned to their owners, or are unsuitable for re-homing, for example those used in dog fighting, should be allowed to be put to sleep only as a very last resort and then only if it is in their own best interests to do so. It is well known that in some cases dogs can be kept in kennels for years. The impact on that animal’s welfare and the seizing authority’s budget can be enormous, but the focus should always be on the animal's quality of life, with a presumption against their being put to sleep unless there are very good reasons. I repeat, 7000 unwanted dogs a year die on "death row" in local authority sanctuaries, and this legislation - indeed all animal legislation - should aim to reduce this not increase it. At the end of the day The Blight could end this scandalous waste of animal life simply by acting as an "owner of last resort" allowing many animals that are currently put down for no other reason than lack of a suitable owner, to live out their lives in peace in an animal sanctuary. The Blight already acts as a "banker of last resort" and an "insurer of last resort" to the financial industry, and animals are a much more deserving case than bankers and hedge fund managers.

And of course it should always be remembered that this proposed approach is not a panacea, because there will still be a hard core of animal abusers who ignore it just as they ignore any other existing animal welfare legislation. The only answer to that is stricter sentencing including custodial sentencing and the use of lifelong bans on animal ownership for the worst offenders.

Gandhi said, somewhere along the line, that the barometer of the health or otherwise of a society is measured by how it treats its animals, and if that truly is the case, then society in the UK is currently in a very bad way indeed.

I wrote some time ago that since society seems to be breaking down under a relentless attack from various factors, many of them stemming from our economic woes or from the lack of respect and spiritual leadership in society, we need some sort of informal networks of support to replace what has been lost by the demise of (for instance) the extended family, local communities, and cutbacks affecting more formal sources of help. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. This is the second of the three ideas I want to witter on about today. I call it “I got your six”.

The idea is as follows:

The phrase “I got your six” comes from military radio communications jargon. What it actually means is “I’m watching your back for you” – six o’clock is right directly behind you, on the geographical “clock face” method of notating direction.

What I had in mind is a network of people who’ve all pledged themselves to keep open a channel of communication with six other people. It’s sort of based on the idea of “six degrees of separation” that each of us is only six steps away from someone famous.

In this case, we are only six steps away from help – or rather, six of us are only ONE step away.

So, basically, choose up to six friends to whom you would answer your mobile in ANY circumstances. This is very important – in ANY circumstances. So if they ring you at 4AM saying they are feeling like ending it all, you MUST answer your mobile. Then text, FB personal message, or Tweet these people, and say “I got your six” – They in turn must do the same to their friends – and so it spreads. Choose your six people carefully, and be scrupulous – think: if this person really DID wake me up at 4AM, would I answer the phone? It’s a serious commitment. If you had a baby, and it woke up in distress at 4AM, you wouldn’t turn over and go back to sleep, would you? You would sort it. If your sixee rings you in that desperate last chance saloon, remember, at that point they’re feeling as helpless as that baby, and you will need to take the call.

When you text/email/PM/inbox them for the first time with “I got your six” they must reply either “accept” or “decline”. Just those words. No explanation, and no argument. If they decline, fine. No saying “What do you MEAN, you don’t want my help?” and going off in a huff. Choose somebody else, don’t ask why, and don’t think badly of them for declining or arguing or anything

No payment, either in money or in kind, is expected or accepted for being somebody’s sixer or sixee. You offer this out of the goodness of your heart. This is NOT and never shall be in any way a scheme to make money. I don’t want to see any “IGYS Brokers” springing up!

The offer is not time-limited. It can only be ended if BOTH parties agree, so THINK before taking on this commitment.

The sixee should not abuse this offer. It’s intended to be your ace in the hole, not your joker in the pack. Having said that, if you need to use it several times in a row, the sixer must accept that and not gripe about it. Sixers, see above about commitment.

I’m assuming close family is already taken as read, so your six special friends, your sixees, would be on top of that existing commitment to any family ties – but there are no rules, and I am not precious about it, though I am assuming here that if your wife/partner/husband/spouse/brother/sister/mother or father called at 4AM you’d pick up anyway, otherwise what kind of person are you??? – at the end of the day, what matters is that everybody ends up with at least two or three phone numbers - preferably six - they can ring in the darkest deepest times.

Sixers – you don’t HAVE to stop at six people, but just think what the commitment entails before you offer it to 27 passing acquaintances.

Sixees: - you can also be someone else’s sixer, if you feel up to the commitment

It’s an idea. Like it or loathe it. If you like it, please pass it on/share. Even if it only ever “works” once, it will have been worth all the effort of telling people about it. Thanks.

Yes, I realise you can do the same thing by ringing the Samaritans, but they aren’t your friends, are they? Anyway, why does it have to be either/or? Also, I know about ICE (in case of emergency) but the idea is to sort it BEFORE it gets to the stage of doctors and nurses ringing up your contacts from your phone to say you are in ER.

Is there a web site you can log on to for more information? No. It’s a simple enough concept, either do it, or don’t do it. No blame.

Yes, there is a jar of pickled onions on my desk. And?

Then, for my closing idea this evening, ladies and gentlemen, there’s the issue of social housing, which has long been one of my bugbears.

Prefabricated modern timber-framed buildings, perhaps built on the Walter Segal principle, could indeed be a significant factor in transforming the social housing market in the UK, and transforming the supply vs demand issues around housing.

There are many “brownfield” sites which are in public ownership and could be utilised for the purpose. Some of these (derelict hospitals and old MOD sites) are already owned by us (ie the taxpayer) and are actually costing us money at the moment, in the form of security patrols and maintenance of the sites.

What is needed is a government with the guts to commandeer these sites, clear them, and/or incorporate any existing structures on the site into something that can be re-used as social housing, then rent them out to groups who would help to self-build their own dwellings. The result would be self-contained, self-sustaining communities with an interest in making the arrangement work for all of the tenants. Any spare land in each development could be put to communal allotments. The dwellings created would remain on the national asset-register.

This will a) reduce the problem of homelessness b) increase the stock of affhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifordable housing generally c) provide a much needed stimulus for the construction industry d) teach people valuable skills or crafts they can use in employment elsewhere and e) create self sustaining mini-communities on each site fostering the spirit of neighbourliness and community respect.

I even went so far as to create a petition to this effect on the government’s e-petitions web site a year ago – it expires on 9th August, so there is still (just) time to affix your name to this admirably sensible idea. If, however, you think it’s mawkish sentimental twaddle, don’t bother. It’s still a free county (just).

The reason why the animal shelters are full, with more and more animals being turned out of doors because of what the re-homers euphemistically refer to as “a change in home circumstances” is because of the dismal state of the economy, exacerbated by The Blight. The reason why the homeless are growing in number, and people are now shoplifting food on a regular basis in order to live, is the dismal state of the economy, exacerbated by The Blight. The reason why so many people are teetering on the edge of despair and worry, causing us to even consider having an unofficial network of mobile phone contact friends who we can call if we’re contemplating suicide, is the dismal state of the economy, exacerbated by The Blight. And if you doubt that, pause to consider the following letter from the correspondence pages of “The Independent”:

At a time when those on benefits are being pilloried for being lazy, feckless scroungers lacking the motivation to get employment, it's rather telling that recent statistics show that as a result of Government policies, the benefit bill has risen to £22m an hour.

Closing Remploy factories, cutting Connexions advisers, making tax inspectors redundant and slashing services which push people out of jobs is not the way to get Britain out of the economic crisis. It is rank hypocrisy that the Government then blames the very people it's forced on to the dole for the Coalition's failures to get a grip on economic policy. With 23 people going for every vacancy, surely it's time the Government invested in creating new jobs. Our MPs have voted these policies through; our MPs have voted to put people on the dole rather than create employment – our MPs should be called to account.

Jo Rust
King's Lynn, Norfolk

Well said, Jo Rust of King’s Lynn, whoever you are. Actually, we didn’t need Jo Rust to tell us how bad things are; one of my correspondents in Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire, an area which has never really recovered from the pit closures and is now in the process of being demolished and rebuilt from the ground up, writes to tell me of the “rag shops” which are now springing up. There are two in Goldthorpe, and one in Thurnscoe. These are shops where you can take your old rags and they pay you 50p a kilo for them – presumably they then bulk them up and sell them on for Mungo or Shoddy or something. As if that were not bad enough, there are some people there whose lives are so desperate that they’ve been going round stealing clothes off other people’s washing lines to sell them to these rag shops for the money. I don’t know which shocks and saddens me the most – the implied poverty, taking us back to the 1930s or the Victorian era, lacking only a contemporary Priestley or Orwell to chronicle it in detail, or the implied destruction of what had once been cosy, close, tight-knit mining communities where people were, historically, more likely to take in your washing for you if it rained, as an act of neighbourliness, than to steal it and sell it for rags.

Of course, it is impossible to have such a debate (or indeed any debate) about these issues against the background of the Olympics. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the games, it is difficult to get any sort of news about anything that actually matters, what with the BBC, and indeed all of the media, acting as cheerleader for compulsory patriotism to take our minds off the meandering blunders of The Blight: the flatulent flabby arse-end of a rancid and corrupt junta that constantly quacks out new and ever more inane, contradictory absurdities on a daily basis.

Today is St Afra’s day, apparently, an event which has hitherto passed me by, so I looked her up, and was surprised to find that she’s yet another reformed prostitute, something the Catholic Church seems to specialise in. See also under St Mary Magdalene.

Summarising her life and death (in 304AD) from various sources, it seems that she travelled to Augsburg, in what is now Germany, from Cyprus, some sources even connecting her to the Cypriot Royal Family of the time. She became caught up in the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian in Roman Augsburg.

Such sources as exist agree that Afra possibly operated a brothel in Augsburg or served as a prostitute in the temple of Venus, living with her mother, Hilaria, and serving women Eunomia, Eutropia, and Digna. When the persecutions started in Augsburg, Bishop Narcissus of Girona, Spain, arrived in the city and took lodging with Afra and Hilaria, not knowing their profession. (A likely story. See under Father Ted - “the money was just resting in my bank account”). His holiness attracted the women, whom he succeeded in converting. When officials came looking for the bishop, Afra hid him under a pile of flax. Afra and her household were baptized, and her uncle Dionysius was ordained as a bishop.

From then on, it was all downhill, however; having been arrested, Afra was burned to death, apparently while tied to a tree, on the small island of Lech. She was buried in Augsburg and her mother erected a chapel for her tomb. Soon after, Hilaria and her serving women were also burned alive, in their house. Afra's remains were buried in a church named after her.

All of which is very interesting, but doesn’t really tell me much other than that there were lots of dubious saints in the early years of Christianity, and that the Romans persecuted Christians, often quite brutally, as indeed they did with all supposed enemies and opponents of the Pax Romana. Another source for St Afra notes that:

They were arrested eventually, and brought to trial. Afra faced a judge who had once purchased her favours. She was ordered to sacrifice to the gods, but cleverly debated with the judge, somewhere along the line saying, "My body has sinned, let it suffer. But I will not corrupt my soul by idolatry." The judge, however, was not moved by her debating. He ordered her burned to death. Her mother and three servants carried away the body and gave it a proper burial, for which they were put to death.

Apparently this earned her a position (quiet at the back!) in the holy hierarchy of saints as the patron saint of fallen women, which I suppose was always a bit of a slam-dunk, from a study of her life to date, she was unlikely to have become the patron saint of crochet. I have to say though, without getting into a totally feminist schtick here, if she was morally fallen, what about the men who sat in judgement on her? If history was not largely written by dead white men, she might have stood a better chance of emerging with her reputation, if not her virginity, intact. As it is, it seems rather judgmental to say that you have to be either/or a fallen woman or a holy saint. I am sure some fallen women do good works (oh do stop it!) just as I am sure some saints have nights when they go out and really tie one on, waking up in a strange bed with a hangover and having to do the celestial equivalent of the walk of shame.

So far in the last three weeks we’ve had saints’ days for three saints who have been variously morally lax and/or corpulent to boot, so who knows, maybe even I might be in with a chance. It would probably all come down to good works done after my death, not to mention miracles. Actually, I already do miracles in some areas, as my accountant will undoubtedly eventually attest to the Inquisition, or Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise, as we call them these days. I bet you didn’t expect that.

So, one day, eventually, if and when the news reaches you that the grim reaper has finally cut my useless legs from under me, and I shall trundle no more, remember me how you want to, or forget me if you will, after your own fashion and beliefs, but set down this, think on this. If anything is remembered of me, I’d like it to be that I was a man with three ideas - I tried to set up three things – a scheme for public housing, so that everybody who needed one could have a home to call their own, and nobody had to sleep out in the cold; an idea to make sure that if everybody took some responsibility for the emergency emotional welfare of, say, six of their friends, then they would at least know that, in theory, they would never lay their head down, without a hand to hold; and finally, a campaign to ensure that unwanted, stray and abandoned dogs (and cats, for that matter) were no longer killed just because no-one wanted them.

And if you’ve ever enjoyed any of my hard-won words, often quarried late at night when the rest of the house, or indeed the world, was sleeping, I hope you’ll remember them, if one day you see some poor, abandoned, frightened hurt animal needing help, or some poor, abandoned, frightened, homeless human being, for that matter, and that you’ll try and help them. Don’t do it for my sake; don’t do it for your sake; but do it, for God’s sake!