Spontaneous Combustion

We hear a lot in these decadent, democratic, laissez-faire days, about spontaneity. There's almost a spontaneous religious movement, dedicated to the idea that anything planned is of its very nature oppressive and hierarchical - while anything spontaneous, flaky and thrown-together is good.

At its apex we reach the belief that prayers and sermons are only truly spiritual if they're extemporised and that God will always "give you the words".  That, in fact, to write out what you're going to say is a failure of faith. To anyone who believes this, I need only point out that this theory is often applied to speaking - which, in its basics, is fairly simple - and never to playing musical instruments. Nobody that I'm aware of has ever announced that they are going to play the bassoon, but they're going to skip any practice and just go straight to public performance because God will give them the notes.

Until today.  When Druzilla stood up in the middle of Pouring-out of Beakers  to announce that she had it on her heart to play the Clavinova. Druzilla has never had any interest in music before, and never touched a keyboard in her life. And when Dezmond, her partner, agreed to partner her on the double bass - again, something he has never attempted before - the result was the sort of musical carnage you might expect.

Now, I was busy wondering where Dezmond had managed spontaneously to obtain a double bass. When I should have been trying to stop Riseley giving what she called a "better interpretation of Jung's dream typology than you managed in the sermon, Archdruid". With Riseley shouting spontaneously over the musical mayhem (using Drayton's portable PA system which she had "spontaneously" borrowed), most Beaker Folk went into a state of complete cognitive dissonance and crawled under their chairs.

Again, I was too distracted trying to get enough stewards to carry Riseley out the Moot House. When I should have been intercepting Grigor, who had decided that he was going all spontaneous himself. At fire-eating. Before we could get there we'd lost another twenty feet of voile, and a number of Beaker People had acquired singed beards and kaftans. For the third time this week the sprinkler system cut in, and we all evacuated.

Look. I've gone all week with this spontaneity idea of Hnaef's. And I think, in its current format, it's gone far enough. But I don't want to be accused of stopping the wind of the spirit from blowing where it will. So I'm going to instigate a simple rule.

From now on, anyone wanting to be spontaneous must fill in a form to be presented at the meeting of the Moot, at least three weeks in advance - indicating where, when and in what form the spontaneity will take place. I only want a general indication of the kind of spontaneity you're planning - goodness knows I don't want to stifle creativity. I just don't want spontaneity to involve the unexpected again.