Sunday, 26 September 2021
Lament in the Queue at a Motorway Services Petrol Station
Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Lament for the death of Robert Fyfe ("Howard" in Last of the Summer Wine)
The last of the summer's gone
A little chap, all woebegone
Whose bike was always out too long
in search of summer wine.
Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Liturgy for the Last Day of Summer
Hymn: Summer Night City
Archdruid: Nights are drawing in.
All: Yeah, we did that already.
Archdruid: We consider the lost dreams of Summer.
All: We started it hoping we didn't all die of Covid. We've ended it hoping we don't all starve due to lack of CO2.
Archdruid: So, at worst, a mixed result?
All: The worst summer in history.
Archdruid: Worse even than last summer.
All: Last year we at least accepted we had a problem. This year we have to pretend everything's normal.
Archdruid: Tim Martin's not happy.
All: Yeah, there is that.
Archdruid: Liverpool top of the league.
All: That is also good.
Archdruid: Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness coming up?
All: What?
Archdruid: All the joys of autumn.
All: Giant spiders, gas shortages, no gifts for Christmas.
Archdruid: These are a few of my favourite things?
Hymn: Last Day of Summer
Archdruid: Soon be Christmas.
All: Yes, we did that.
Thursday, 16 September 2021
Noah's Ark - A Children's Tale
At "Little Pebbles"
Archdruid: ...and so the Lord put a rainbow in the sky. To tell Noah that he would never judge the earth in that way again. And Noah...
Little Eric: So that's it?
Archdruid: Sorry, Little Eric?
Little Eric: So that's it? God killed everyone....
Archdruid: Apart from Noah's family.
Little Eric: Apart from Noah's family.
Little Angelica: And we don't even get to hear what their wives were called. Don't you think that's a bit patriarchal?
Archdruid: Well, of course it was patriarchal. It was in patriarchal times.
Little Angelica: So what was Noah's wife's name?
Archdruid: Nelly.
Little Angelica: Is that in the Bible?
Archdruid: It's in... later translations, let us say.
Little Eric: Forget Noah's wife! She's not important!
Little Angelica: She's very important!
Little Eric: Not to my point! So God puts a rainbow in the sky. And he's killed literally everybody apart from Noah, his sons...
Little Angelica: ... and four nameless women.
Archdruid: Well, yes. But they were bad.
Little Eric: How bad?
Archdruid: Well-bad.
Little Eric: That bad?
Archdruid: Yep. So you can see God was well within God's rights to...
Little Eric: Wipe out the entire human race without giving them the chance to repent.
Archdruid: I'm sure he warned them.
Little Angelica: Where does it say that?
Archdruid: Well, the Bible is silent on that.
Little Eric: And then having killed an entire species
Archdruid: Apart from Noah.
Little Angelica: And his sons. Who have names, I notice. And all their wives. Who don't.
Archdruid: Apart from Nelly.
Little Angelica: Which is made up.
Archdruid: Well, let's face it, this is all made up.
Little Angelica: WHAT?
Archdruid: Nothing. Nothing. Yes. God killed everybody except 8 humans and either 2 or 7 of every other species, except the unicorns. Because God hates bad people.
Little Eric: And the eunuchs.
Archdruid: What?
Little Eric: Nothing. Just something I heard.
Little Angelica: And Methuselah drowned.
Archdruid: What?
Little Angelica: Do the maths. Methuselah - the granddad of Noah, who lived to be 969 - died the year of the flood. So he must have drowned. What sort of man must Noah be to let his gramps drown?
Archdruid: Maybe God waited for Methuselah to die of natural causes and then sent the flood?
Little Angelica: So God's great plan to annihilate all the evil people had to be delayed because Methuselah had stayed on the high-fibre diet and kept off the lager?
Archdruid: I don't know. I guess.
Little Eric: So God put a rainbow in the sky - which, being a natural phenomenon, was probably happening all along. And what did he achieve?
Archdruid: There was no more sinful behaviour.
Little: Eric: Apart from Noah promptly got totally plastered, and Ham saunters in and goes, "Oh look at Dad in the nud" and everything's back to square one?
Archdruid: Good point. Didn't really work, did it?
Little Angelica: So the eunuchs died for nothing?
Archdruid: Look - is it song time?
Sunday, 12 September 2021
We are the Winter People
I only do plugs for selected people. So here's a plug for friend of the Beaker Folk Jenny Rowbory, and the YouTube launch for her book of poetry - "We Are the Winter People" - in aid of her hoped-for treatment in the USA.
Saturday, 11 September 2021
A Warning on "Ride and Stride" Day
The sad case of Cycling Cleric of Maxey.
Be careful out there.
"Henry Horne Selby Hele. Cl. He was instituted to the Benefice of Maxey by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough at the private Chapel of the Palace on Friday 31st May 1901. He was inducted by Canon James, Rector of Peakirk in St Peters Church on Saturday 15th June 1901. Rev Hele left home early in the morning of December 31st 1901, cycling through Barnack and Wansford falling in a fit of apoplexy at the foot of Ailesworth Hill. A subsequent inquest determined the cause of death as accidental. "