Of Quirks and Quinces - A Beaker Samhain Tradition

As this Halloween night drags on, we continue to scare small children with our "Robert Jenrick" masks.

To be fair, it's quite a terrifying experience. A small child knocks on the door of the Great House. 

To be met with someone wearing a mask that changes appearance. 

One minute it's the Euro-friendly, smiley face of one of the old-fashioned Tories that lives in the real world and wants the country to thrive.

The next, it's the red-eyed, dead-eyed visage of the dyed-in-the-wool Brexosexual that nobody expected, hanging flags from lamp-posts while hanging upside down like bats, and rarely checking whether the Union Jacks are even the right way up. 

Sometimes the kids need therapy.

The other thing we do, when not wearing our Jenrick masks, is leave out quinces for the little urchins that visit, if not too traumatised by the Jenrick lookalikes.

Have you ever tried eating quinces?  People just leave them lying around. It's a traditional fruit, but it takes some care in its preparation.

When someone gives you a ton or two of quinces, put them in a Brooklyn Lager box.

Then drink the lager.

Leave the box of quinces in your porch in the hope that trick-or-treaters will think they're giant sweets.

In the morning, throw all the quinces in the nearest ditch. You can use the box to light the fire.

Liturgy for the Death of Prunella Scales (1932-2025)

 Archdruid: Even in the midst of life we are in death.

All: Oh, I know... 

Archdruid: We will read from Psalm 23

All: Oh, I know... 

Archdruid: The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want.

All: Oh, I know... 

Archdruid: He makes me to lie down in green pastures.

All: Oh, I know... 

Archdruid: He leads me by still waters.

All: Oh, I know... 

Archdruid: He restores my soul.

All: Oh, I know... 

Archdruid: He makes me walk in the path of righteousness.

All: Oh, I know... 

(Continues for days) 

The Minister is Late for the 11 am

It happens. 

In multiple-parish Church of England benefices and Methodist Circuits where they try to get the most out of the available resources.

The Minister is late for the 11 am.

Worth considering, before you throw a strop (which, if it were an Olympic event, would be won every four years by Team GB) why the Minister is late for the 11 am.

It's unlikely they just didn't get up.

An 11 am suggests there is a 9.30 am somewhere else.

And possibly also a 8 am somewhere else again.

Or even, if timelines are tight, that the minister is legging it over from a 10 am.

In which case the potential issues for that minister become evident:

• The level crossing stays down for six trains to pass
• The motorway which cuts between two villages has roadworks
• Sheep are prancing around on a back road
• Someone has decided to preach a 20-minute reflection on the Nicene Creed under the pretence they're leading the intercessions 
• Someone had a personal crisis at the 10 am and needs care.
• Someone just wanted to have a go at the 10 am, and the minister has stopped off for a quiet cry.
• A blown tyre
• A peloton
• A tractor
• A horse
• All of the above

And check your phones. It's possible the minister has been phoning repeatedly. But - contrary to all experience - everyone in the senior team at your church is on "silent" like good boys and girls. Or your church is built from 3' thick stone walls. Go outside. You might get a clue.

If you're feeling keen, sing a few hymns.

If you're feeling super-keen, find someone who can preach a sermon.

Not Norman. For all that is holy, not Norman.

Best to sit and wait, thinking about it. Just because... you know... Norman. 

The minister is late for the 11 am.

It's not like the world is going to end.

Unless that's why they're late, obviously.

Putting the Clocks Back in the Church of England

And yes I suppose I'd better start by suggesting that the current position on LLF has put the clocks back to 2019.  Just for anyone who followed a link here on the assumption that's what the title means. 

But really I was talking about the real physical clocks in the C of E. And the real physical people who have the jobs of putting them back ready for Greenwich Mean Time tonight.

At 2 am the clocks go back. Which is great, if you're talking about a clock on a phone or computer, which does it for you automatically. Or even a church clock with a special mechanism that talks to a satellite. But not so great if it's a clock in a church tower with a big old mechanism that's been patched up for the last 200 years. 

And not if you have a very fastidious village that expects the clock to be right at all times. So what can you do?

You go over to the church tower at just before 2 am. You climb the tower, having used the key that fits upside-down into the clock and goes round backwards. You remember that the mechanism is so complicated that you only know how to change the clock forwards. You realise that moving it forwards 23 hours will take you a very long time and be extremely painful on your winding arm. And that you can't see from the inside what time the clock is showing on the outside.

So you disconnect the mechanism or switch off the electricity supply, according to preference and clock type. And wait an hour.

It's a little known fact* that all over England between the hours of 2am and... erm.... 2am on the last Saturday of October, there are people brushing bat droppings out of their hair, and shivering up village church towers.

And it gets worse. Because stopping the time in the middle of the night in the week leading up to Halloween has a terrible effect on the local spiritual wildlife.

I'm not talking about the young people Uber-ing back from the nightclubs in the nearest town, wondering whether their parents will still be up. But you go messing with church clock time in the middle of an autumn night, you can get who-knows-what rocking up in the tower. 

Take Sir Hemsby Buttercliffe. For the last 200 years, he was walked from his crypt every night at 3am to go to his old Manor House and demand to know why his widow remarried. You stop the clock at 2am and his shade is on tenterhooks. He's likely to stomp up the tower and start pointing at his pocket watch. Not least because he's never really understood BST, and he can't remember whether to go forwards or backwards.

And then any local Black Shucks are going to be fretting about how long it is till daybreak. And Herne the Hunter and the Wodewose are going to be there, offering to give you technical advice. 

Never take it. Wodewose's technical advice only every consists of telling you to hit things with wooden clubs.

So should you wake in the night, around 2.30 am, before you roll over and go back to your extra hour's sleep, consider the clock-minders of England. It's gonna be a long night,

---

* because it's not true, I just made it up for an amusing (hopefully) post 

Saint Crispin and Ian Day

Happy 25th October

! Today we remember a number of feasts. It is the Nativity of St Wellington the Perisher. And the feast of St Crispin and his brother, Ian.

Crispin and Ian were shoemakers in ancient Thrace. They converted to Christianity, and enthusiastically proclaimed their newfound faith.

But they only attracted adherents from their own profession. So when they knocked on doors or stood on street corners to share their beliefs, people would say, "it's just a load of cobblers."

Eventually Crispin and Ian were pushed out to sea in a giant boot as a form of random attempted martyrdom. Having sailed across the Med, up the Channel and then along the Nen to Wellingborough, they shared the wonders of shoes with the natives, who up to then had wrapped cabbage leaves around their feet in cold weather.

A very happy Northamptonshire Day to all that celebrate it. And don't fret missing Agincourt.

Exact Date the First Snow Will Fall in Every British Town

 

Please let us know when it happens.

We've got no idea.  Some time in December, I expect.

Wine, Women and Song

 Fascinating little article about how the Kenyan Catholic Church has banned a brand of wine from being used for Communion, because it was popular in bars.

Now, I know some churches in England that use port - just what you need at 8.20 am in a cold building in the countryside, apparently. Some that have been known to use a rather nice Chablis. Some English sherry. All these are legitimate, apparently. I know some alt-worship types use grape juice, blackcurrant juice or somesuch. But to each their own. And the source of supply is in the hands of the end-consecrator.

But there appears a blatant conflict of interest in a Church deciding its only supplier. I'm not saying there is any money resting in accounts. But it would be easier to achieve.

And the justification seems like drivel. Jesus didn't select a special Nazareth brand of wine for the Last Supper. Any more than the fish for the loaves and fishes came from Zebedee and Sons as far as we're aware. It was just the simple drinking wine of yer Judean diner - maybe a slightly posher brand for Passover?

The whole point is - it's just wine. I mean, wine is bad enough in this country, what with the former association with the upper classes (and modern association with Prosecco) - but the Mass takes something ordinary and makes it special. If the rest of the world is all drinking the brand - so what? It's like deciding we'll have a Petrus because everyone drinks Zinfandel at home.

Let priests be priests, and let ordinary bread and wine become spiritual food and drink. That's how the wonder gets in.

Nativity of Kirsty MacColl (1959)

In an alternative universe where rich Mexicans don't drive speedboats like muppets, today would be Kirsty MacColl's 66th birthday. Making her eligible for her pension.

Lie all working UK women of her age, she would have been expecting to receive it aged 60, and watched it slip away like a bad boy on a Saturday night.

In fact you could say, if she'd rocked up to the Department of Work and Pensions and demanded it before now, the response she'd have got from the guy who looked a bit like Elvis would have been...

"You Just Haven't Earned it yet, Baby".