Christmas in the heart
What would you like for Christmas? asked Jean.
Strut, fret, and delude ourselves as we may, I replied, our lives are of no significance, and it is futile to seek or to affirm meaning where none can be found.
Send me a list of things you'd like, she said, and I'll surprise you.
Both religion and metaphysics are simply results of the fear of death, I added.
We're running out of time to buy presents, Jean said.
There is no justification for life, I told her, but also no reason not to live. Those who claim to find meaning in their lives are either dishonest or deluded. In either case, they fail to face up to the harsh reality of the human situation.
You'll end up getting nothing on Christmas morning! she snapped.
You know, I said, before I met you, darling, my life was wholly devoid of sense and significance, a mere catalogue of fleeting sensations with no rhyme, or reason, or destination beyond oblivion.
And now ... ? she asked.
Still the same, I replied, but at least that shows I was right all along. I'd like a swimming pool for Christmas ...
Some day I’m going to write ...
It's official. I'm writing a book. Finding my voice. Years ago I heard Maeve Binchy, at the height of her bestsellerdom, opine that everyone has a book in them. I very much doubted this, and certainly could see no evidence of it whatsoever in her case.
What held me back all this time was the old writer's adage - write about what you know. Not knowing anything for sure left me little elbow room. Things have changed though. The less you know now the more you have to say, and the greater the need to say it. It used to be only George Harrison was like that.
The book is a searing indictment, or maybe a wise, valedictory reflection, or perhaps even a clarion call to enforce compassion from others for something or other I know they should feel strongly about but are too insensitive, and just plain thick, to realise. I'll keep it straightforward; I wouldn't want the folks back home to get the impression they're too stupid to understand it. Though many of them are.
I’m a believer
As a lapsed Catholic I remain deeply religious, but irretrievably atheist. This is because of the priests at St Colman's College, Newry, who made me play Gaelic 'football', and laughed at me for thinking Donovan was a new T S Eliot.
So it's difficult for me to walk down the lane in simple, unadorned pleasure. For I am condemned to be free and therefore, in my case anyway, to desire pattern and shape and meaning and purpose behind it all, yet find nothing more than a random blizzard of partially sensed electromagnetic waves.
That's why I never go with you, said Jean, you can't even take a walk down the lane without turning it into a terrifying footslog through some alien wasteland ...
Last train to Merritville
Grand day out ... !! Off we went to Belfast sur le train.
This is such a chore, moaned Jean.
No way, I replied ... this is getting us smack dab in the middle of the Yuletide groove ... we might even meet a few people ...
I reflected on that prospect.
Although I hope we don't have to talk to any of them, I added. I didn't get where I am today by talking to people.
Jesus, Mary and Josef K, though ... that Christmas Market at City Hall. If the women stallholders had been topless it could be called Tat For Tit.
After that, the buskers. Things have changed. Some of them manage to make me look good. Or else I've got better. That’s not likely.
Nothing in the shops worth buying. Couldn't even find a decent Christmas card ... I wanted something edgy and subversive, but all I could find was Happy Christmas To My Son And His Beautiful Girlfriend. Surely she'd want a card of her own, Ma.
Right, said Jean, lunch in the Europa.
This was real class, NI style. In other words, not.
I'd like my fried egg with the yolk broken, I told the waitress, and cooked firm.
I'll ask Chef if that's possible, she replied.
All he has to do is nick it with his knife, I said, chances must be good Chef can manage that ...
Stop it, said Jean.
The goalkeeper’s unfounded fear of the penalty kick
Few, if any, outside the world of football will understand the Mariana Trench of despair that Sir Harry of Kane-Galahad falters through right now. To know that you will always be remembered as the man solely responsible for knocking England out of the World Cup they would have won, by launching a penalty into Row Z, is more than flesh and bone can bear.
Open the gates, for fuck's sake ... ! I heard Lord Waistcoat of Southgate cry in abject misery, as the spot-kick
It reminded me of my time as an apprentice at Newry Town FC. In my third game the Boss said to me at half time, Begging your pardon, Michael, and I hope it won't discommode you unduly, if I ask you in the second half to, just for once in your life, Tackle fucking back You Lazy Pudknocker . . . !!
When I did so, I brought down their big no. 9 just inside our box. It was 1 - 1, until he elbowed me covertly in the goolies, then stepped up to blast the resulting penalty, and our keeper, into the back of the net, Gorgeous Gus style.
So they won 1 - 2, and I sat on the bench for the rest of my time there.
Many years later I met the Boss in the Quays Shopping Centre.
That was the worst fucking tackle I ever saw, he reminded me.
Love minus zero/no limit
Sub-zero temperatures this morning, I said to Miss Lotte Lenya as we headed out. The lane was mesmerisingly still. Birds silent. Ivy and her filly gone.
All the neighbours' curtains and blinds were still closed.
They're probably all shagging away like mad, I said later to Jean, people are bonking mad, always at it like rabbits.
You're 70 now, said Jean, so I think it's safe to assume that mentally, with regard to sex anyway, you'll never escape this repressed, voyeuristic, sniggering school boy stage; it's rooted so deeply in there ...
As the Bishop said to the Chorister ... I replied.
An old person’s guide to the Cosmos
Having a dog means being up and on the road by 6 30 am, like it or not. So it was that Miss Lotte Lenya and I strolled up and down the lane this morning. All was dark, all was still.
High in the Western sky was red Mars, a bright red button. When God made the Solar System, He programmed it so that a few days ago (1st Dec), Mars would be at its closest to Earth this year - 4.5 light-minutes away. Like, that's only about 140 million miles.
And every clear night you can see Jupiter, brighter than any star. Get out the binoculars and spot its four Galilean moons. Low in the south west, just after sunset, is Saturn, glowing gold.
But, I said to Lotte, He didn't get everything just right, so the secret of believing in Him is to have manageable expectations.
How do you mean ... ? she asked.
Well, for example, I replied, while Earth's axis is tilted about 23 degrees, Uranus tilts almost 98 degrees; so tilted, it actually looks like the planet is rotating on its side. No other planet in our system is like that. So while God wasn't looking, a big rock about the size of Earth must have smashed into it at some stage and knocked the bugger over.
[It seemed unlikely to me that Miss Lotte was smart enough to get this bon mot. But the rest of you know what buggery is, and, of course, that the correct pronunciation of Uranus is 'your-anus' ... !]
Your point being ... ? asked Lotte.
It's obvious, I said, that God occasionally comes up short: that's why the children starve and the rich get richer.
Sentimental real estate
Miss Lotte Lenya owns a little field to the side of our house. Occasionally she allows sheep to graze here, just to keep the grass down. But other than that, she keeps it to herself, and – even at her advanced age - be it on your own head, should you enter, especially if you're a rabbit or grey squirrel.
However, in the small paddock behind the house, there is a hay shed and what I hadn’t realised is that it's owned by a robin ... !
Obviously its nest is in there somewhere, for every time I go in to cut up logs, this boy or girl, flutters around me, hops about from log to log, heads up to the rafters and down again, all over the place busily, not overtly aggressive, but definitely in a most proprietorial manner. As if to say, Right, get that done, and then get off my pitch ...
On one occasion I went outside to see where Lotte was, and when I came back the robin was perched on the chainsaw handle, preening itself. At that moment I realised I was in the presence of the hay shed owner.
A life of service
Jean went into an antiques shop recently to buy a Christmas brooch. The owner, when it emerged in conversation that Jean is a nurse, insisted Jean take the brooch free, as a thank you for all that care staff did in the pandemic.
Miss Lotte Lenya and I were waiting in the car, but when Jean told me what had happened, I went back to the shop. In the window were two, now out of print, but quite expensive books that I'd spotted earlier and rather fancied having.
I mooched around for a bit, then went up to the counter with the books.
That will be £20, said the woman.
Cutely, I began a bit of banter in the course of which I discreetly let her know I was a reference librarian for many years, charged with the grave responsibility of collating and disseminating accurate and bias-free information so that people might make, often life-changing and/or life-saving, decisions from a properly informed standpoint.
Very good, she said.
I waited.
£20, she said.
Hats off to luvvy-extraordinaire, Sandi Toksvig ... !
She says that any biological male who identifies as a woman is a woman. And she has her own political party which agrees with her, so that proves it.
Meanwhile, here on Terra Transphobe, as Sandi knows it, the folks back home, who don't go to her classy dinner parties, are still under the impression that a woman is an adult human female.
To be honest, I'm not surprised; I always found her to be about as funny as bamboo under the fingernails, and less attractive ...
Old codger totalled ... !
We dedicated cyclists usually have a 'winter' bike. This is so as our main bike doesn't get dirty in bad weather. Heaven forbid. Yesterday was so calm and sunny here I took mine to the bike shop, got the derailleurs adjusted, and before long was tearing through the Armagh countryside in my natty, Swedish made cycling gear and red, urbane urban helmet.
I was marvelling at the advantages of my Shimano gears' trim function as, thanks to it, I pedalled silently uphill on a narrow little country road. Suddenly, over the brow of the hill sped White Audi Man ... !
Usually, in this situation, a driver will slow, and pull over somewhat to allow the cyclist safe passage. Not this one. He hurtled on, practically skinning me. So close that me and the bike ended up in the hedge, head first, well before my life even had the time to flash before my eyes. Audi Man careered on, heedless.
At my age, after this kind of thing, and if you're still alive, your first question will be, Is there anything not broken ... ? In the wake of running various tests, and finding no significant failings, I unravelled me and the bike from the hedge, and plodded up the rest of the hill, despondently.
I think this kind of outrage is down to God punishing me for not believing in Him ...
There’s no success like failure ...
An Amazon delivery man stopped at the gate of our field. He asked directions, then got out of the the van to admire the view.
You're a lucky man, living here, he said.
What he doesn't realise is that all the bare frosted trees and fields say to me, At the going down of the sun, we will remember that you have achieved nothing ...
They're right, and wrong, however, for I'm not necessarily a failure for all that.
You could have fooled me, said Jean.
What Jean, and the trees and fields, have forgotten is that my main ambition in life has always been to do the absolute minimum I can get away with. And, even if I do say so myself, I've managed to do extraordinarily little. In many respects I've never actually done anything at all. ‘Achieving' doesn't even come into it.
So being bone idle for 70 years is now a triumph ... says Jean.
A Protestant essays a joke
Some friends from down the lane are dropping by for a drink at Christmas.
You know, I've been thinking, I said to Jean, I could entertain them with a few tunes on the guitar ...
Well, Jean replied, if you're absolutely sure you don't want them ever to come back again, fair enough then ...
[If I have any readers out there, a Merry Christmas to you ... !]
⏩Michael Praetorius spent his working life in education and libraries. Now retired, he does a little busking in Belfast . . . when he can get a pitch. He is TPQ's fortnightly Wednesday columnist.
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