Joy And Fun Are Fucking Killing Me ✑ Act XIII

Michael Praetorius ✒ with the thirteenth act in his satirical series.

‘ollow, ‘ollow, ‘ollow, men ... what’s all this then ... ?

Here it is ... Jean’s ‘big' Christmas present to me.

What do we know for certain about Eliot ... ? Only two things: one, he didn't like Jews; two, he and Ezra Pound were fighting in the Captain's tower of the Titanic as she set sail, while calypso singers laughed at them and fishermen held flowers.

It's a bumper book ... amn't I the lucky boy ... ? Up to a point, Lord Copper. It has 1300 pages. 300 pages of poems. And 1000 pages of commentary on them.

You might fear this is a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. Far from it, boys. After my death, I am fully confident that the same treatment will be meted out to an edition of my collected Pensive Quill Blog columns.

Anthony McIntyre has agreed to edit the volume, and provide a detailed commentary which will illuminate the imaginative life of each column. Calling upon my critical writings, as well as drafts, letters and other of my original materials, the editor will illustrate the width of my interests, depths of my learning, and range of my writings.

Thanks to Jean who recognised my genius and preserved my writings from an early age, the archival record is exceptionally complete, enabling readers to follow in unique detail the progress of a mind that never ceased exploring.

Kneeling ‘neath your ceiling

6 30 am, a dark morning. I leaned on one of our front gate pillars, watching a pink haze deepen in the East.

It's now or never, I said to Miss Lotte Lenya who had initially disappeared into darkness in the wrong direction, people live and die, and behind everything, as Mr Graham Greene noted, there is a terrible sadness; so we must formulate some desperate hypothesis or other, so that we can ... er ... shout at the Devil, as it were ...

But over the years, Lotte has remained indifferent to existential analysis, preferring to concentrate on the grub and the walks. And to be fair, this approach to life has made her a more enjoyable companion than, say, Nietzsche, or even Sartre, would ever have been.

So I must look elsewhere for assistance in my crusade to articulate the default position of an authentic man hell bent on transcending his facticity. And, wouldn’t you know it, but, long ago and far away, the Nobel Laureate confessed he had been up all night leaning on a window sill, and was unable to buy a thrill.

Yes, I said to Lotte, when push comes to shove, it takes a lot to laugh, but it takes a train to cry ...

And as I moved off down the lane, the little bells on my elf's Christmas jumper jingled merrily.

I heard you talking to yourself again out there this morning, Jean said gravely later on, I do wish you'd at least think about seeing a doctor in the New Year ...

When I’m cleaning windows

My reckless machismo has caught up with me. Jean happened to find the jotter in which I keep a note of all the flirtatious, importuning comments women make when I'm busking.

Last Saturday, for instance, a red hot looking dame asked me how old Miss Lotte Lenya is. When I told her, she said, Oh, but it looks as if there's plenty of life in the old dog yet ... !

Now, I'll be a monkey's uncle if that wasn't the cutest ever hint that she had subliminally sensed the kind of fireworks certain to ensue when she and I hit the sack together.

On another occasion a real babe from the States asked me where the nearest McDonald's was. When I directed her, she said, Wow ... awesome!

Come on now. No-one's ever going to think a hamburger's awesome ... which means she can only have been referring to what is obvious from my demeanour i.e. a tantric sex technique and duration that are dynamite.

Anyway, when Jean had read through the stuff, she said grimly, You will never touch my mince pies or Christmas cake again ... !

Personally, I've never cared for that kind of coarse double entendre, but it shows you the way some women think ...

Reflections of my life

As I put away the Christmas cards I received (two: one each from Jean and Miss Lotte Lenya), I reflect on friendship in general, and on my lack of it in particular.

Perhaps you know an old codger like me, who, through no fault of his own, has no friends. I'm ready and willing to do anything for anybody, except, as is only fair, anything that will put me out, even slightly. But that's not good enough these days.

So, spare a thought for us at this time of year. It may well be the case that I have always seen, and will continue to see, the rest of humanity as a lumpen mass of undiscerning, undiscriminating, unreconstructed chavs and tasteless, tacky no-marks, whom rather than spend a second with, I would prefer to be buried alive.

But, let's face it, all that is perfectly justified, especially here in Armagh ...

Waiting for God ... oh, dear

There was a silver crescent slice of moon early this morning as I walked Miss Lotte Lenya. Not enough to give much light, so occasionally I wombled into Lotte or she wombled into me. Just remember, I said to her, we're so lucky to be wombling free ...

Mars was almost opposite, a bright orange button.

Try to make sense of anything, it unravels. Accept that nothing is revealed, it all falls into place. This is because the priests at St Colman's College allowed me to give up 'Science' (as it was all lumped together back then) at school, when I was just 14.

It's a quare conundrum, I said to Lotte, and a terrible hard pancake.

Suddenly, ahead of us a shadow moved. We stopped. A fox, initially unaware of us, was crossing the lane, beautiful brush swaying gently. Then it stopped too. Me, a fox, Miss Lotte Lenya, all stood in a lane on a planet orbiting the sun, itself in an outer arm of the Milky Way, orbiting a black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Earth orbits the sun at 66,600 mph, and the sun orbits the Milky Way at 514,500 mph, and our solar system's speed relative to the cosmic microwave background is about 827,000 mph, and if you zoom out further, our entire galaxy is zipping through the CMB at about 1.3 million mph.

And the three of us there, speeding frantically through space, but forever stock still, looked one to the other. A weighty sense of nascent significance loomed, an epiphany adding itself up, perhaps ...

But the Devil had to stick His hoof in, for Reynard suddenly bolted into the hedge, and the potential wave function equation collapsed. Later, on The Mall in Armagh, we came upon two squirrels. Old she may be, but Lotte lunged at one, which escaped. I know how she felt.

Send in the Priest

Another year gone. I wander my estate, lost in melancholic rumination. With winter, and finality, encroaching what doth it profit a man even to have a personalised number plate (B1G 0NE) that cost me nearly £2,900 .. ?

Anyone who knows me will testify that I am not the kind of person who will put 40 litre bin bags into my 30 litre kitchen bin. If Sainsbury's at Forestside don't have the proper size then I will try their store at Sprucefield. Someone told me that Tesco do 30 litre as well, so I have plenty of options.

My sole New Year’s resolution: when I am walking in the street I will strive, as best I can, to be no closer than about two metres from anyone else, so as not to invade their personal space, and thereby cause the kind of trauma that renders them unable to avoid falling into a life of idleness, or crime, or drug addiction, or prostitution.

As you can imagine, this endeavour will involve me constantly pirouetting, dodging, back tracking, side stepping, stopping, starting, speeding up, reversing, lunging unpredictably, slowing down, duking and diving, crisscrossing the street, and so on.

A small price to pay if it helps decrease today’s surplus population of victims of circumstance.

Happy New Year, you bastards

Since I lost all my money in a Bulgarian land scam a couple of years ago I've learned the value of having genuine and selfless friends, even though I myself don't have any.

Recently, when I was busking in Armagh, a woman stopped and asked me if I'd like a coffee.

It's cold, she said, and a man of your age must feel it.

I accepted her offer. But although this small gesture on the part of a simple member of the untutored classes was touching, it wasn't enough to alter my opinion that, just to take one example, they should never be allowed in the same carriage as me when I'm on the train.

And so, it is in this spirit of a necessarily selective dispensation of New Year greetings that I wish you all the very best for 2017, if you have good corroborative evidence to support the notion that you are the kind of person to whom I might make such a statement and actually mean it.

⏩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.