Boring Financial Services

We were all glued to the news that Aviva's Chief Exec has resigned. I'm sure "hissy fit" is not the way to describe it, no matter what Young Keith said. And I'm getting most amusement from suggesting to Burton that the problem was their buses didn't arrive on time. He hates jokes about public transport - says it's not a laughing matter. And I am inclined to agree, if I ever catch a train.

But it's part of a theme of the world not being how it was. When I was young, banks were hushed, almost ecclesiastical places. Bank Managers were there to look solemn and lend you money under absolutely no circumstances.

In those days, Fred the Shred would never have been imagined.

An advert featuring Howard surfing would never have been imagined.

A serious bank, like Barclays used to be, having a service called "Pingit" would never have been imagined. Seriously. Never.

Banks, along with those institutions formerly known as Building Societies, insurance and assurance companies, went from being scary, to exciting, to pushy, to broke, to clingy. From feared to loathed. From receiving respect, to begging for money while even then paying their executives too much.

Once the Church, Medicine, Banking were all institutions accorded instant, if grudging, respect. We don't trust any of them any more. Spineless bishops moving dodgy priests around, Harold Shipman, Fred the Shred have between them given us a feeling somewhere between  the benefit of the doubt (doctors) and loathing (bankers and their ilk). We don't trust authority any more. I wonder if we ever will again?

Wassail

An enjoyable evening in the Orchard wassailing. Only three cases of temporary deafness, which is a vast improvement on the last time we did it. Young Keith fell over the cider bucket, but then he does that every year.

It makes me ponder. We enjoy the Olde-Englishenesse of it all. We remember that "wassail" comes from wæs hæl - "Good Health" as we would say these days, as in Hale 'n' Hearty.

To us, it's all a bit of Merry England fun. The thought of the smock-clothed yokels, out in the trees letting off shotguns in random directions while singing a toast that may go all the way back to the people of Avalon of the Apple Trees itself - makes you as warm spiritually as the mulled cider makes you physically. You imagine the community joining together in their age-old celebrations, invented when Pomona was a girl, and enjoying their community life, simple, home-spun wisdom and earthy humour.

Of course, those apple trees were taking up valuable space that would otherwise be useful for growing food crops. Cider was a thirst-quencher, sure - but presumably also a pain-killer when you were out in the fields all day. When unfortunately brought in contact with lead, it could do some awful damage. The lives of the wassailing throng would have been hard, and often tedious and dull - only church services, the odd saint's day and cider to lighten their loads, with births bringing a mixture of joy and, dread and deaths only bringing dread. For a second time in a couple of days I'm led to think that history would have been a great place to live if it weren't for practically everything that took place in history.

Complaints Flood In

I've been receiving a number of complaints about Thomas Leaf's behaviour on Christmas Night. I blame myself really. After all, we'd explained to him how important it is that we celebrate tradition. Unfortunately, in direct contrast to all the other Beaker People, he chose to follow his own tradition rather than somebody else's. In 19th Century Dorset, his behaviour would have been regarded as a traditional and rather charming Christmas activity, probably entitling him to a few bob. These days it's just called wandering around  the village with a jug of cider, singing loudly outside people's windows. And at 2 in the morning, that's not allowed. The children of some of the families he woke up were convinced that Santa had arrived, so there were some bad nights all round.

Metrical Psalms are back

If I may quote the Master for a moment:

On afternoons of drowsy calm
We stood in the panelled pew,
Singing one-voiced a Tate-and-Brady psalm
To the tune of "Cambridge New."

Reinstated West Gallery, Stinsford Church

Let's leave aside the whole question of why you'd want to sing "Cambridge New", which has a nice fugue effect, one-voiced -  and instead consider that what Thomas Hardy (for it is he) is reflecting fondly on is the singing of a metrical psalm to a set tune.

With the advent of the Victorian hymn-writing plague, singing the old psalms the old way went away. But you can't keep a decent tradition down. So the church musician and serpent-player Kathryn Rose (aka blogger "The Artsy Honker") has set up Psalter Commons. You can find psalms, contribute (old, out of copyright) ones - or write your own.

So come on, get down there and let's re-invent a genuine tradition!

Feast of Transferred Festivals

To allow us to focus on my sermon series, "What is the Song of Solomon about?" next week, we celebrate today the Feast of Transferred Festivals. We're taking Lammas Day and the New Moon, the Nativity of Fred Quimby, the birth of the emperor Claudius and of Herman Melville and Lionel Bart and we're celebrating them all at once to get them out the way.

To be honest, this is also at least partly because of the "Lammas" problem. We know it's got to do with bread, it's traditional and it's very important. But once we've made and baked the Giant Loaf, carried it around ceremonially and sung theme from "Bread", what else is there to with it? Other than make toast.
So today instead we have two Beaker people dressed as Tom and Jerry to act as loafifers. Charlii will of course be introduced as Jerry's pal, the visiting red squirrel.

As the loaf is carried to its place as the Worship Focus, the Whale Choir will sing "Food, Glorious Food". Then the Palace Guard will announce that Nero is dead and Claudius will announce, in a stunning piece of historical inaccuracy, that we need Bread and Circuses.

Thankfully, given we have a team of people dressed as cats, dogs, whales and a squirrel, the Circus will be easy enough to arrange. After which we will carry the Great Loaf up to the paddock, to the strains of the Largo from Dvorak's "New World Symphony". From there on in, the liturgy is to be conducted in fake northern accents (clue - pronouncing "the" as "t" and "grass" as "gr-ass" will make you sound convincingly Yorkshire).

We will close the Ceremony by eating the Giant Loaf. When all that's left is the crumbs, we will join in the Lammas New Moon Declaration: "The Loaf is gone - just like the moon". At this point the Moon Gibbon Folk will run screaming into the woods.

Obviously, given the deep spiritual significance and degree of technical excellence required today, spontaneity is strictly forbidden. We don't want to take any chances.

Also, can Beaker People please note that, to liven up the Children's Area / Holding Pen, someone has filled it with coloured plastic balls, and added a spiral slide and climbing frame. This has made the whole concept of a Children's Area more interesting. But has shifted the effect from being a place where parents dump their kids so they can go off and worship, to that of a place to dump your kids while you go off to have a drink. Afraid this whole "children's activities" concept is still very much a work in progress. We may have to get Charlii the Red Squirrel more involved in this whole area.

The Morris Miners

For the final Extreme Morris event of the day we thought we'd go for pot-holing.

There's always been a rumour that the trap-door in the cellar is the entrance to a tunnel that leads all the way to Woburn Abbey. Some say the Dukes of Bedford used to use it when "visiting" village girls in the old days. Some say it's not a real tunnel - just a folk memory of the Mids Beds branch of the Walsingham to Glastonbury Ley Line (calling at Bedford, Oxford, Wayland's Smithy Parkway and Stonehenge Central). While everyone else just says it's dark and they're sure there's spiders down there.

Be that as it may, with torches strapped to their hats among the rosebuds they set off, trembling slightly but determined. They reappeared ten minutes later, white faced and screaming. As they fled, from far off down the tunnel we heard howling. Well - how was I to know that Mrs Rochester was taking my brother and Rosebud the dog for a walk?

It's a shame the Morris People have gone, really. In the way that they have invented a tradition and declared that it's hundreds of years old, they kind of remind me of the neo-pagan movement. Or do I mean the Baptists? No - it's the Oxford Movement. Or the Folk movement. Or maybe it's us...

On the horn of a dilemma

See, they don't listen, Morris Dancers. I clearly told them 'unicorn riding', but for some reason they assumed I meant unicycle. What's Extreme about unicycles?

Word of advice re riding unicorns. If you're going to go for the flashy and foolish method of vaulting onto their backs, ensure you approach from the right end. That's one Morris won't be dancing for a while.

An Ancient and Evocative Art Form

Yes, I admit it. I've had the odd run-in with Morris Dancers over the years. But, insisting that they are partakers in an ancient and evocative art form, and not just some weird gets in bells and stupid hats, they came round last night asking if they could have just one day when they could interact with our Community without us throwing rocks at them.

So, old softie that I am, I've said yes. But I've made a few stipulations. So I'm actually looking forward to today's "Extreme Morris".

However, still some reservations. They claim to be in a long fertility tradition. Call me picky, but they're a bunch of overweight middle-aged real ale drinkers with bells on their ankles. I don't know what maidens are gonna be feeling in the mood for traditional fertility with something like that.

Making things up for Easter

I think Hnaef may have missed the point on this one.

I'm sure that Mouse is right, and the link of Easter to the alleged goddess Eostre is a pile of foetid dingo's kidneys. Frankly, it's just as likely that it was named after Estragon from Waiting for Godot. This is the way that back-creation of religious explanations tends to work. Let me give you an example.  And remember this is just a bit of fun - no Celts were decapitated in the production of this blog post.

There is a real tradition that people roll oranges (or at least did when I was young) down Dunstable Downs on Good Friday. A steepish, concave slope called Pascombe Pit, to be precise, that haven for young courting Dunstablians.
People notice that Pasc- as a prefix is a bit like Pasch-. So there you go, there's the rock-solid religious connection (and it is combe-shaped, since you mention it). And the oranges are clearly the stone that was rolled away from the Tomb.

Except, that's clearly just a Christianisation of a pagan ritual. But of course, oranges are - as the name suggest - orange. So clearly they represent the sun. Pascombe Pit orange-rolling was therefore a place where you rolled oranges downhill to represent the sun er... getting stronger in the summer. And Dunstable Downs faces West, and that's the way the sun sets. And so the oranges are rightly going down in a westerly direction. It's all coming together.

Until you remember that the orange hasn't been in these isles that long and was probably unknown in prehistory. So any claims of a long tradition are in a bit of a state.

But then you remember that there used to be a gallows on top of Dunstable Downs. And there are Five Knolls (actually, there's seven barrows, but that's another story) and Elizabeth Pratt was arrested on the Five Knolls and charged with witchcraft and died in Bedford Jail (at the same time that John Bunyan was in there, although there's no evidence she influenced Pilgrim's Progress).  So there's a death link, and there's a witchcraft link.
So clearly in the old days they didn't used to roll oranges down Pascombe Pit. No, they rolled the heads down. After all, to Celts the head was the source of the soul, and heads would roll quite nicely. So the Celts would decapitate their victims at the top of the hill - probably criminals, because let's face it those Celts were basically nice, decent types. Probably be keen on a game of cricket if they were around these days. Probably better at cricket than England, at any rate. So they'd execute their criminals, unless there was a real criminal shortage. Then they'd roll the heads down the hill, as a sacrifice to the setting Sun. Goodness knows what they did with the rest of their victims, unless there was a kebab van up at the picnic site in ancient times.

And Vitamin C, like religion, is good for the soul.  Which is why in more modern times they used oranges. Although last time I heard, even using oranges was banned for Health 'n' Safety reasons, so goodness knows what Central Beds Council would make of using heads. Unless you could persuade them it was a genuinely neo-pagan ritual, in which case they might give you a grant.

And that's how you get from an innocent Eastertide tradition to a story of decapitation and sun-worship. I'm sure we all feel better for that.

And, if nothing else, I'm getting a worried feeling about why that orange I rolled down Pascombe Pit when I was a child felt so heavy.

---

Dunstable Downs image from Wikimedia Commons, original uploader Infors. Author Thomas Ormston.

Abseiling down the Moot House

This is ridiculous.

We are a young community, it is true. We don't have hundreds of years of incremental accretion of tradition to follow on to. Except the long line of Beaker saints, whose names we don't know. And whose teachings we don't know. And who left nothing in writing. But that doesn't stop them following in their Christian footsteps. No. It's the fact that they lived before Christ that does that. But we like to think we follow them as they would have been, had they lived in the light of the Gospel but not wanted to go overboard on it.

But I digress. My point is - tradition is good. And when you're new kids on the block, inventing traditions is pretty cool.
But abseiling off the Moot House to greet the rising sun dressed in the regalia of a Cardinal is just silly. Young Keith says he's celebrating the new, healthy, de-coked lungs that he's acquired since giving up smoking yesterday. But I reckon he's just showing off. It's never going to take off.

On Twelfth Night

Yes, we celebrate Twelfth Night the traditional way around here. No taking the bling down early. It stays till Twelfth Night.

And we celebrate in the traditional way. We burn the Christmas Greenery on the last of the Yule Log.

But please, not the plastic Christmas tree. Not again.

New Year Traditions

There's nothing Beaker Folk like so much as a New Year. Indeed, we celebrate New Year at Halloween, then again at Winter Solstice, Chinese New Year, Orthodox New Year - I tell you, if we have a week without a New Year we don't feel like we're trying

But this is the English Secular New Year, so we're not going to miss this one. I'm glad to share with you a selection of our New Year traditions.

Tar barrels - At this end of the Old Year and start of the New, we like to have something to set fire to. So we saw some barrels in half, stick in some tar, set them on fire and float them out on the Duck Pond. We have no idea why we do this.

Firth of Fifth Footing - everybody tries to dance to Genesis's 1973 classic, Selling England by the Pound.  It's not natural, especially with Battle of Epping Forest, but it's tradition so we have to do it.

Throwing the Pumpkin - since we still unaccountably have some pumpkins left over from Samhain, we have the "throwing the pumpkin" competition. Although most marks are awarded for height and distance, you do get bonuses for landing them directly on some-one's head.

Going downhill in a bathtub In this of all years, to celebrate the passing of The Last of the Summer Wine, we will push the Oldest Man in the community downhill in a bathtub one extra time. Since it's dark, we will decorate the bathtub with sparklers. It looks lovely, although sometimes his bobble hat can catch fire. By the way - well done to Burk Kwouk on the OBE.

Rolling about talking gibberish - This tends to happen if we can't keep Hnaef away from the Waggle Dance.

Appling for Bob - we send Bob down the other end of the Orchard and then throw apples at him.  Bob is generally less keen on this than other members of the Community. But he lives with it because taking this part in affairs gets him out of the following tradition.....

...the choosing of the scapegoat - we look for someone a bit weird, ideally a bloke with an anorak, who's never had a proper girlfriend. Then we tell the Daily Mail where he lives. Conviction for something or another is almost inevitable before the next year's end.

Hot Cross Buns Galore

It's a tradition with us that we eat a special luxury hot cross bun each on Good Friday.  And this year as usual we'd ordered fifty or so in specially from our favourite local baker.  I say local, of course, being the English countryside the "local" baker's is miles away.
Anyway, the delivery arrived this morning and there's just me.
I know it's a tradition, but I've still only managed to get through twelve so far.

It's gonna be a long day.

The traditional Boxing Day

It has been nice to celebrate "Boxing Day" or "The Feast of Stephen" in the traditional way.  Which, needless to say, has pre-Christian pagan origins.

The original Beaker People celebrated Boxing Day by traditional pursuits such as building massive boxes from wicker and daub*.  Why they did this is beyond us, but we like to think it was a prehistoric version of "cage fighting".  Our surmise is that they would put two of the rowdier Beaker Folk into the boxes and leave it to them to battle it out.  The winner would be named the "Stephen" as he would generally spend the rest of the day getting stoned.  It was a simpler time, before Christmas health warnings about binge drinking** and what to do with Turkey fat***.  In fact, there was no problem for the Beaker Folk because they had no turkeys.****
As time went by, this primitive Beaker ritual evolved into the sports we now know as boxing (hence the names), wrestling*****, and basketball.

So this year we shut Drayton Parslow and Burton Dasset into a large wicker hamper, and left them there while we went off down the White Horse.  By the time we got back, Burton's drivelling on about the Community's P&L (whatever that is) had driven Drayton so insane with boredom that he had gnawed his way through the wicker to escape.  Drayton's not too bad for the experience, except that he keeps finding bits of willow in his teeth.

We have of course also engaged in our other traditional Boxing Day activities.  The Boxing Day Hunt, for example.  It used to get round the ban on hunting with hounds by using a couple of wolves they borrowed from the Safari Park, but then the people at Woburn found out about it and banned hunting with wolves as well.  So now the Beaker Hunt ride around Aspley Heath on mountain bikes chased by Stacey Bushes.  Stacey puts a set of authentic vegetarian reindeer antlers on her head in an attempt to make herself look like Hern the Hunter.  And being a fit lass, she normally manages to catch one or other of the male Beaker Folk eventually.  Personally I think it's a cruel sport and ought to be banned like hunting with hounds.  But Stacey assures me that it's all natural, that it's a tradition in her part of Dorset, and that deep down the blokes she's chasing enjoy it, and feel no real pain.

* There's no archaeological evidence for this, but it seems like a reasonable guess.  None of the other explanations make much sense either.  Apart from the theory that people were so hung-over from their Solstice celebrations that they just wanted to crawl into a box.
** Don't, apparently.  Or if you do, try not to get into any fights with policemen or cross-dressing cage fighters.
** Don't pour it down the sink.  Nor should you put it out for the birds.  I realise this information is not much use to you now, on Boxing Day, as you are charged triple-time for unblocking the neighbourhood sewerage system and dead starlings are falling out of the sky and landing on the people from Dyno-Rod.  But if you've a good enough memory you might benefit from it next year.
**** Or possibly they ate them all, which is why they had to be re-imported from the New World 4,000 years later.
***** Not Graeco-Roman wrestling, which as the name suggests was invented by the Graeco-Romans as a way of occupying whole days of boredom at the time of Winter Solstice.  Imagine - all those dark evenings and no X-Factor or Celebrity Big Brother.

Politically Correct Mumming

In keeping with the Thomas Hardy school of spirituality, we thoroughly enjoyed the Mummers' play last night.  Still, in these days of treading on the eggshells of sensitivity, we thought it was best we made a few changed to the tradition.
"Father Christmas" is emblematic of the patriarchal society crushing dissent and differance, especially when waving that very phallic club around.  We replaced him with "Mother Yule", a much gentler and kinder figure who would bring consensus rather than confrontation.  However, in the interests of discipline I still felt it was necessary to equip the character with a pointy stick, to ensure that I - I mean she - was taken seriously.

"St George" is no longer regarded as a bona fide saint, and has been to an extent appropriated by such undesirable elements as the BNP.  In the interests of harmony, therefore, I thought it was better to replace him with "Mother Gaia", a much gentler character with the interests of all at heart.  Except when she's burning the planet up to kill us all and replace us with aardvarks.

"The Doctor" is an interesting character, but in these days of doubt about science I thought it would be better to replace him with the "Homeopathist".  Equally effectual in healing, but in a much gentler, less invasive way.

Finally - "The Turk".  Well, obviously he can't be killed at the end.  In order to make him more sympathetic, we recast him as "the Kurd".  In the interests of diversity, we felt it better that he and Gaia come to a peaceful resolution, although as you will see things didn't quite work out...   At the end, the cast joined in the singing of "Merry Christmas, War is Over".  This was somewhat drowned out by the cries of "boring" from the audience.  However I still feel the evening was a success.



Mummers

We are the Beaker Mummers
We'll play you an old tale
Which you will think quite funny
if you've drunk a lot of ale.

Mother Yule: 

I stand here with a "Ho ho ho"
My rhyme is short and quick
Be sure to give us lots of dough
Or I'll poke you with this stick.


Enter Piotr


Piotr: 
My name is Piotr 
I'm the newest Mummer
I come from Poland
and I'm a plumber.
If I can find St George tonight
I'll happily give him a fight.

Mother Yule:
St George can't be here tonight
A dragon gave him quite a bite
At first we thought 'twas septicaemia 
but now it's probably anaemia
To give him a nice healing draught
We really need a homeopath.

Homeopath
I live for homeopathy
I can cure your son and daughter
Although I say it's a remedy
It's really only water.

It's good for itch, 
malaise and stitch,
and people with bad back
But for heart disease and swine flu
You're better off with a real quack.

Piotr: 
Oh, my back.

Homeopath: 
What's amiss with thy back, Piotr?
Slipped disk?  You need a doctor.

Enter Gaia
Here am I, Mother Gaia, 
But I'm feeling pretty strange
My temperature is getting higher
And they're telling me it's the Change.  


(Well, I am 4 billion years old)

Gordon Brown:
Here I am, a noble Scot
Come to save the world with my ditty.
If you've got money I'll take the lot
and give it to those in the City.


I am a noble champion bold;
I'd never tolerate crime
I took ten billion pounds in gold.  
And sold it at the wrong time.

Gordon Brown throws a bucket of water over Gaia to cool her down.  Gaia hits him where it hurts.  In the polling booth.


Enter the Kurd

Kurd:
Here I am, a Turkish Kurd
Afraid to stay at home
With children four I've swum the Channel
And to Bedfordshire I've roamed.
Surely there is room for me at the inn?

Border Control Officer:
In days of old Kurds came to stay
and we just watched and stood
but there's an election due in May
so you're going to Yarl's Wood.  (He hasn't even got an Identity card...)

The Border Control Officer drags the Turk and his children off.

Mother Yule:
Now the Kurd is locked up for the country's weal
And all of his kith and kin.
For twenty months he will fight his appeal
But we'll leave him to it and sing.

Mummers:
Happy Xmas - war is over 
Not really, we're just deluded - la la la la.

The verse is repeated until all the Mummers have gone and the door is closed.

With thanks to the Christmas Time website, whose play was used for the outline.