After the Ball is Over

That was a real shock for Drayton Parslow. He was walking from his cottage down to Bogwulf Chapel for his regular morning's period of smug repentance when something fell out of the sky and landed on his head. Knocked him out cold for a while. A Beaker person found him and called me and, fighting back the urge to draw a beard and moustache on him, we helped him come round.

Drayton was aghast. He was convinced that he had incurred an immediate 10 Wrath of God points and been struck, so to speak, by a warning thunderbolt across the bows. But a bit of a search around the place, and the discovery of the round object responsible, meant we were able to put his mind at rest. It was just Charlie Adams' penalty finally coming to earth.

Pilates

Yes, well you get to a certain age, don't you, and you get the odd twinge in the back and the occasional ache down the side and you think to yourself - why don't I try some trendy exercise techniques that might make me feel better?

So I've tried Pilates, but frankly it's rubbish. Two hours of washing your hands - how's that going to help?

Another Marie Curie Joke

Of course, Marie and Pierre Curie were involved in the development of X-ray technology. Bad news when Pierre staggered back from the pub swearing blind he'd been working late. She could see right through him.

Invisible Forces

Google's doodle today celebrates the great scientist Marie Curie.

She and Pierre, her colleague and husband, first got to know each other through a shared interest in the powers of magnetism. Which I suppose goes to prove that magnetic Poles attract.

Realised Escapology

Can everybody please get out and help me extract today's visiting speaker from the duck pond? I don't think he's going to get out of the sack on his own.

A silly mis-hearing on my part. Turns out he was offering to share his expertise in Eschatology.

These are not the Roundheads You're Looking For

It's always nice, at autumn half term (or as I think of it - Agincourt Half-Term) to have a few special events about the place. But still, that was a dreadful booking error on Big Meadow.
I mean, fancy double-booking the Sealed Knot with the Star Wars Appreciation Society. After that clash with Prince Rupert's Regiment they're busy trying to revive the Ewoks - but I think it's a bit of a forlorn hope.

No, no, no, no, no

When I said I wanted someone to arrange for a Prayer Station in the Moot House for this evening's Creative and Not Even Slightly Odd Worship, I was thinking maybe an icon, or a nice big unbleached candle or arrangement of beads in chamomile-scented spring water.

I did not mean St Paul's Underground. I don't care how you got it here - it's got to go back. And claiming "nobody's using it anyway at the moment" is not going to change my mind.

Realising about Eschatology

OK, you're all still here.

And I'm still here.

Again.

So you've not departed.

Again.

Now can you all stop trying to recalculate a new End-day. Learn your lessons. There's a gigantic store of wood needs chopping and the Courgette Patch needs digging over. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest will still continue, and there's a real world to live in.

And will you all stop moaning. I know that the latest failed rapture means you've all got more work to do. But it's not the end of the world.

Windows Litehouse

Had terrible problems with my PC. Generally running slow, overheating and the disk light flashing on and off at a strangely regular rate. But on running some analytics, turned out the computer was getting clogged-up with low grade muppets. Trying to deal with their amusing and wistful daily adventures was putting a lot of extra load on the CPU.

Young Keith helped out and it's all fine now. Just needed a de-Fraggle.

Musical Interlude at a Humanist Funeral

It's always embarrassing when a phone goes off during a religious ceremony.

And particularly when it's actually... not a religious ceremony as such. An atheist funeral. Not a gig I'd normally pick up, but all the Secularist celebrants (is "celebrant" the right word in this case?)  happened to have their anoraks in the dry-cleaners on the same day. So what the heck. A religious ceremony with no religious content - that can always be arranged for suitable expenses.

And of course, it's even more awkward when the ringtone comes out of the large pine box at the front. Apparently it had been left in his best suit and nobody thought to check.

But still - "We're on the Road to Nowhere" did seem quite appropriate.

St Michael's Day (2)

And can all Beaker Folk please stop wishing Daisy a "happy birthday"? The joke's starting to get tiresome now.

St Michael's Day

It's an awful late post today, I know. But we've spent the day celebrating in Marks & Sparks.

This may be almost incomprehensible to the 30% of our readers who are from the former colonies, I realise.

And in a strange reversal, Young Keith was escorted out of the shopping centre after comparing a shopping assistant to a dragon. Well, we may be a religious community but we're not all angels.

Sum enchanted evening

I've just been enjoying terrifying Hnaef. If there's a one in 60 chance of being hit each day by this satellite, I told him, then surely that's only one in 30 during the night-time? As clearly the satellite won't crash to earth in day light as it's a space object - and space things only come out at night.

In fact, as I pointed out, he's lucky we're still the sunny side of the Equinox. As there's more night than day after that, and so more chance of the satellite falling.

You see, this is why it was so important to me to get Burton in as a proper Financial Accountant. When Hnaef was Treasurer, nothing ever added up - and not in a good way. It was my own fault for misunderstanding his qualifications - when he told me he was good at Numbers I thought he meant he was qualified in Maths. Not that he was referring to his specialism in Old Testament studies.

From Genesis to Revelation

I am afraid I have been absent from the Beaker Community today. Although by using the word "afraid", dear readers, I may be implying that I was sad to be absent. Not so. There is nobody that likes Enya as much as I do - apart from everybody else in the whole world. I say there is a lack of mathematical rigour about her - and Eileen says I am a philistine with no soul.

Be that as it may, I have just returned from a pilgrimage to Royal Leamington Spa, to watch the inestimable G2: Definitive Genesis. A marvellous re-creation of the later early years of the wonderful original, G2 do an excellent job. Well worth a visit to their next concert, and I always try to watch them at Wavendon as well, when they are just on our doorstep -  accounting duties permitting.

Before the concert I took the opportunity to avail myself of Mr Wetherspoon's very generous offer - £5.99 for a curry and a pint. I always appreciate good value, and this was indeed. However you can take prudence too far. Seeing that the korma only had a one-chilli symbol, while the chicken vindaloo had six chillis against its description, I assumed that the latter must be better value for money so I went for it. Six times the chillis for my money, I thought. And when it arrived, in the words of the Masters, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins themselves, I declared "Supper's Ready".

It was only later I realised I was going to Dance on a Volcano.

Noah Fishing

You've gotta feel sorry for Noah.

All that time on the Ark. All that time free for fishing.

But by the time he'd caught two fish, he'd run out of bait.

Hanging limply in the breeze

I had my evening check up with Burton this evening. Today's Semaphore Service was a bit of a disappointment. Shame really - a great idea, to have all the responses in semaphore rather than spoken.  But it was very humid and they had to cut it short. Burton said they were all flagging.

Swimming against the Tide

I have suffered somewhat of an embarrassment today. I don't remember the last time I was so embarrassed, at least since that time I had a column of figures fail to add up at an end-of-year audit and found I had misread a "4" as a "7".

It being a dull and damp day, Dear Readers, I felt the urge to go swimming after work. I knew I would not get my normal evening exercise, as it was too wet even for Archdruid Eileen to expect us to do any digging in the garden. And as I quitted the changing room and entered the pool area I, noticed a sign saying "Please inform attendants of all medical conditions".

Well, naturally I did as requested. I started with acne, arthritis and asthma. And I had reached as far as dandruff when the lifeguard explained that I only had to tell her about conditions from which I was actually suffering.

I feel such a fool.

Quick Web Joke

I was hoping to have a bit of a refresh of the look and feel of the site. But our web designer's had some trouble with a cascading style sheet.

To be exact, it's fallen on her. Her own silly fault - I told her not to keep it on the top of the cupboard. Clue's in the name.

Quick Pagan Solstice joke

Traditionally, the Piper at the Gates of Dawn turns up an hour late for Summer Solstice. Being a Graeco-Roman folk memory, he can never get his head around BST.

But this morning, we got back to the Great House to find he'd cooked us all breakfast while we were out. Bacon, eggs, black pud - even a bit of toast for the vegetarians.

We were hoping to thank him for all his work, but found he'd slipped off. He never stays in one place long. I guess he's a non-stick frying Pan.

We're here all week...

Some complaints about this evening's Prog Rock tribute to the future destruction of the world.

In particular they're moaning about Young Keith's performance of that piece by John Cage - using the silence to represent the sound of the sea at Lulworth, after all the water has boiled away into space.

We're making no apologies, though. This is what it sounds like, when Coves dry.