Due to insatiable public demand for my blog, Google is going to pay me for 'pop ups'. I get paid for every click on one. Please oblige and supplement my meagre student loan. Meanwhile, cheques, cash, food parcels and old clothes will be gratefully received as ever.
85. Away I go with the big leather satchel my wife made as a present for my fiftieth birthday, nearly eight years ago. Little did we know then that I would be returning to school. Tobias William Q.C. runs alongside the car to see me off. The new term begins.
The first session is a seminar with Uncle Joe. He is as jolly as ever and tells us he has had a good holiday: he wrote 14000 words on Dracula. It is comforting to realise that Bela Lugosi, who stood in for Dracula, never looked this jolly. Another hopeful pointer for the dozen maidens at his feet is that he is looking forward to indulging in chianti and lute music at his Tuscan villa in the summer. Every student knows that Bela Lugosi said I never drink …wine . Of course, Uncle Joe could be lying...
The session is on Tess. Uncle Joe is not interested in the poetry of rural life; if vampires are a passion, his King Charles’ head is the oppression of the workers by the ruling class. He sees oppression not just in the dark satanic mills of 'up north', but behind every
After the seminar I head for the SU for lunch. While I am enjoying an excellent egg on toast my friend Barney appears, fresh from her holiday in
86. The afternoon lecture session at the circus is about to take place. These days I sit near the back of the hall as Mrs Porridge glares at me if I happen to look her way, and naturally I find this hurtful. At the back of the stage is a big drum and to stage right we have an arbour entwined with ivy and a tent. We do not know why. Caliban leaps around Mrs Porridge. He is still on a high from his recent promotion. If you’ve ever seen a spaniel greeting his master in anticipation of a walk, you’ll get the picture. There is much wriggling, grinning and tail wagging. They look at their watches and laugh. At the side, Professor Plodder sinks into a doze in his pullover. I really must stop wearing one.
Meanwhile, we have Caliban, dancing, dancing, dancing*, until, at last, he steps forward to address us. He assumes a serious expression. No, he doesn't ask if we are sitting comfortably, but he begins. He is disappointed with us all for bunking off lectures at the end of last term. We must try harder.
Is it possible to be old, and to smile and sleep at the same time? From a glance at Professor Plodder, I think the answer must be 'yes'. He has heard it all before. In fact he was probably one of the undergrads to whom Q addressed a poem written back in 1892 which begins: I am not one who goes to lectures or the pow-wow of professors. Caliban's twenty minutes is about slavery in Jane Eyre. So that's what it's about! Oppression!
Now we come to Mrs Porridge's demi-lecture. Surely this won't be about oppression too. I can't tell you how relieved I am when she announces the subject. It's going to be about sewing! It seems that, long ago, men looked at women’s sewing skills as well as their cooking abilities when choosing a wife. And what's wrong with that, I ask myself? If there was anything else I surely would've found out by now.
Back in the old days, she says, women were forced to sew, day and night. They were oppressed! And when the revolutionary spirit finally inspired them to exchange needle and thread for a box of matches what do you think they burnt first? No, not the bricks and mortar, but the very curtains they had been forced to sew! Think of that!
Now, tell me honestly, ladies. If you wanted to burn the house down, where would you start? ...But I seem to have joined Professor Plodder in the
NOTES: *See Sir Henry Newbolt's poem Imogen
87. We are all enjoying the poetry seminar so much that we don't notice that two hours have passed by until the Head of Cr Wr barges in with a horde of students in his wake. It seems that he combines the bureaucratic life with a bit of teaching. 'Morning,' I say, in an attempt to cheer him up. But I don't exactly get a cheery response. 'Did you get my e-mail about your failed submission?' he says. 'I haven't been home. I've got my toothbrush... Good news, I hope?' But his look is implacable. 'Not exactly. You'll find out when you read it.' He reminds me of a statue of a Roman emperor I once saw. Now, which one was it? Diocletian? Tiberius?*
After walking round the lake, I am due to have a chat with the High Priestess. She has her office in the stable block. I learn, amongst other things, that she likes James Joyce and that she wouldn't be seen dead in a purple kaftan. I remember how cross the Dark Lady was that I described her bejewelled footwear as 'cowboy boots'. Women are so sensitive about their clothes! Other members of the staff come and go**. The Poet is quite a laugh, and the Booker-shortlisted X drops in to type a few words. Even Heathcliff puts in an appearance. I could get on with this lot.
NOTES: *It was Frankie Howerd. **see T.S.Eliot.
88. When I get home, my post, or 'white mail' as I am told it is now called, is waiting for me. A letter from an old friend encloses a review from the Daily Telegraph of a novel by my former editor, Clare Chambers. The review is a good one. 'An envious fear smothers'*. She must be raking it in. But the photograph is even better. She hasn't aged a bit. She looks lovely, just as she did when we used to sneak out to that Chinese restaurant in
And then the e-mail. One awaits me from The Emperor Tiberius, telling me how to re-submit a piece. The Critical Commentary, entered for the Dark Lady's module, fell below the minimum mark required**. I've done all right in Eng Lit but apparently my Cr Wr is defective. My academic career hangs in the balance. The answer is obvious. Out with the Dark Lady*** and in with Clare Chambers! ****
NOTES: * Ivor Gurney. ** See entry 22. ***She cast me into limbo long ago anyway. ****ditto
Barney rings me and says she is having difficulty selecting her modules for next year. We have to do this by computer. Neither she nor I can get past page 3 of the 'program'. An antedeluvian like me has no hope if she can't handle it.
6 a.m. I grab my folders for the day and hurry to the car. It is Monday morning. I get lost somewhere near Chew Magna in an effort to find a short cut. It adds half an hour to the journey but I manage to get here just in time for Professor Plodder's seminar. But, damn it, I find I've picked up the wrong folder and have left his stuff at home. I say 'I'm sorry but...' 'I knew someone would be inefficient,' he snaps. But I am in no mood to be trifled with. 'Look,' I say, 'I had to leave home at six this morning. No doubt you were in bed dreaming of your pension...' 'I was awake,' he says, calmly, serenely. 'I wake at a quarter to six every morning. I think about death, eternity, the soul...' I capitulate immediately. The man must've been taught by Stephen Potter,* as well as Q.
As usual, Professor Plodder looks around the room before starting the session, and shakes his head, sadly. 'Who is the greatest satirist in English Literature?' he begins, and, for a moment, our eyes meet. I shrug my shoulders, modestly, and look away. A man of taste and judgement. At last! 'Without doubt it's Jonathan Swift.'
Caliban makes up for the lack of opportunity to display his dancing skills when he joins her at the side to watch the Blond Beast's performance. Caliban's seated body rotates back and forth, until it is, I swear, twice its normal length. Then he drapes his left arm over his head until the hand meets the other one as it rises from the depths. At last the two hands meet over his ear and he rolls back in utter contentment... He reminds me of a cat I once had... I was fond of that cat.
It is a hot day and, appropriately, The High Priestess is wearing a light summer shirt, complemented by a splendid necklace of horse teeth. She has arranged for some third-year students to join us and the time passes pleasantly enough until the door flies open and the Emperor Tiberius bursts in. This is becoming a habit. The bags under his eyes are as big as toads. He's been over-doing it. Have you ever seen Kingsley Amis doing his 'sex-life in Ancient Rome' face? He invented it with Philip Larkin, when they were students, and it improved with time. If you were in the room and haven't seen it, don't worry. You don't need to now.
I decide to look at my university e-mails. I have two invitations to meet Boris Johnson, M.P. who's coming to visit; one to attend a meeting on equality for lesbians, gay men and bi-sexuals aimed at improving the experience of staff and students; one to vote in the local council elections; and one to record my latest dream for a research project. I am also invited to a lecture on Druidry and Wicca, to give blood, and to a yoghurt tasting session. In addition, I can purchase tickets for a production of Dido and Aeneas. I think I'll try the last one. There'll be plenty of time for blood if I do Gothic Studies next year with Uncle Joe, and I can try yogurt tasting later, if I am spared. There is also one from a student, who is a Miss G.B. finalist, asking for my support in the competition. Unfortunately, Mrs Archy comes into the room and deletes it.
94. We have a session on Tess with Uncle Joe and learn that he has milked a cow and that it was hard work for him, by gum! We will never know how the cow felt about it. This morning he wants to talk about the bit in the text where we come across a nasty threshing machine which threatens to change our idyllic rural world and brings oppression in its wake. Uncle Joe is puzzled when Hardy refers to its driver as having 'a strange northern accent'. 'What's strange about a northern accent?' he asks, innocently. 'Why are you laughing?' We all agree that there is nothing remotely strange about it.
'Would you like your tea now dear?' asks his wife, but as he doesn't answer, she turns over and goes back to sleep. Professor Plodder is imagining what it will be like in heaven.
He sits alone, in homely cell, a working copy of Pope's Epistle to Burlington scored and highlighted before him on the wooden table. His favourite pen is in his hand. In half an hour, the Angel Gabriel is coming for some close reading and he must get ready for the lesson: HE1003, it must be Thursday.
The walls are bare. Through the little window he sees the blue sky. Strange, picturesque fowl flit through the cool air. Scantily-clad maidens with timbrels quietly dance in the sweet Arcadian countryside. Behind them stands a charming Greek temple. To one side a long table is laid with delicious food. He knows that the golden jugs are full of Samian wine which is always kept at the right temperature. At the top of the steps, his Bechstein waits for him, with the score of Beethoven's Opus 109 in E major open at the right page. At six, his friend Schnabel will arrive, and, after some close reading, they will play it together. Perhaps dying won't be so bad, after all.
'Would you like your tea now dear?' asks Mrs Plodder for the second time this morning. She is a kind and patient woman. 'Don't forget to put your pyjamas in the drawer marked 'pyjamas'. I sometimes think you'll forget to dress before you go to work...'
Professor Plodder looks out of the window. Somewhere nearby, he thinks, a hearse is waiting to carry me away. He pictures that hearse as it rolls silently towards the crematorium. The wreaths of white flowers on the roof rack are arranged to display his name: PLODDER. He pictures his students and his colleagues weeping quietly as the coffin is carried into the chapel. He thinks of the statue he has always dreamed of, somewhere down by the lake, beside the Greek temple, and pictures his head carved in stone: the marble index of a mind forever voyaging over strange seas of thought alone. And underneath, on the plinth, carved into the stone will be his name: PLODDER .
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Now I have to crave your indulgence. I know this will come as a shock, O, Patient Taxpayers! but Tess Durbeyfield is not the only one who has been sported with by the President of the Immortals. I was once a postman! Yes! And do you know that I bore a grudge against my 'line manager' not only for his bullying manner, but because of the way he abused the English language. Early one morning, we were happily sorting our mail when his none too pleasant voice was heard above the usual intellectual banter of the Sorting Office: 'Gavver round, Team. You have all performed well over the last month (wiv the exception of Archy). But there are still some improvements that can be made. From today, we will be trialling some new procedures...' It was the use of that word (or abuse of it, as I felt it to be) that made me decide to come to 'The Groves' to study English. And it seems I was wrong all along! Yes, O Taxpayers, I am here under false pretences! And this is because my own Personal Trainer twists the sinews of our beloved language in exactly the same way as my line manager did. He too speaks of 'trialling'. How I will get through the rest of the term I do not know. Is this the tetelstoi** of my relationship with Academe? Time will tell!
Whilst on this knotty point, I must add that a friend who works 'in Education', reports that the new University league tables are out and that 'The Groves' scores only 51% (which is the same mark as I got for Cr Wr before it was reduced by Vanilla to 49%). This he says, makes it the Accrington Stanley of the Academic world. Cruel, that. Oh Dear, Welladay and Eheu! O Comforter, where, where is thy comforting? ***
I've been trying to send my 'submissions' to Minerva. It's hopeless. There is no standard format. Each tutor seems to be able to sport with us as he or she pleases. This strikes me as a bit unfair. We must strike back. Brothers and Sisters, rise up! Overthrow the tyranny of Minerva! And how unfair to choose the name of that goddess as an emblem to deify bureaucratic ineptitude. It reminds me of an old advert on TV for the Nuclear Industry. We saw green fields and woodland to the accompaniment of Elgar's pastoral music, welcoming us to a secure and hosted environment
M
I arrive half way through the poetry lecture and creep silently to a chair. Something is not the same. Our beloved High Priestess is sitting quietly at the side looking not unlike a Persian cat. The speaker today is Vanilla and she is telling us how to get our poetry published. Apparently it is a doddle. We will get rejections (even she has had rejections) but we must not despair. We must trust our gut, and we can pop her an e-mail anytime!
N.B.For the time being I propose to keep any further details to myself. After all, my life is in her hands.
I am now going to insert what Uncle Joe tells me is a mis en abyme.
(A group of intellectuals stands chatting on the steps outside the forum. The Emperor Tiberius looks through his window):
Myself (addressing a puzzled-looking Professor Plodder): ...but if we entered into a race to the crematorium and applied the analogy of Zeno's Paradox, perhaps we wouldn't get there at all.
Professor Plodder (with infinite patience): Surely Zeno was measuring distance, not time.
Borges: Every man runs the risk of being the first immortal...
Mr Porridge (running past in shorts): Let me finish, let me finish! (runs off and disappears from view).
Professor Plodder: (gazing longingly into the distance): I started first.
Zeno: You just can't win.
Uncle Joe (emerging from automatic door): Ey oop! There's a breathless hush in the close tonight! What's going on?
Myself: We're all taking part in a mis en abyme... you know. It's a race... to the finish.
Uncle Joe: So you are, by gum! Glad to be of assistance! Where's it going to end?
Myself : No-one knows... But here in Never-Never Land, anything can happen...
Came shining through the dusk an angel shape
Bearing a vessel on his shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas the grape!
Men are unwise and curiously planned.
They have their dreams and do not think of us.
(here our players wander off happily to join in the revels).
The Farmer's Wife, Uncle Joe, Caliban, the Blond Beast, Professor Plodder and two unfamiliar tutors each do a stint in an attempt to sell their wares. I am about to drop off. And then, and then, there is a special announcement. My PT is in Germany, but he has not forgotten us. We can watch him on film! Someone twiddles with the gadgetry. On the screen behind us a huge, and somewhat battered, image appears. A star is born. But the movie is silent. The sound isn't working. My PT blows kisses at us for five minutes, while some desultory twiddling goes on. Evidence of levity is apparent amongst the staff. Could the show have been sabotaged by a jealous rival? If so, who?
A good-humoured Caliban strolls on to give a few tips on our end-of-term submissions. We mustn't pass off other people's words as our own. This is plagiarism! We students furiously take a note of every pearl dropped from the lips of our mentors. He is not quite sure whether we should mark any such quoted by us with an asterisk and a note. I think we should. We wouldn't want our markers to think that some of the ideas we hear are our own, would we?
Uncle Joe strides on, in a black three piece suit with a gold watch chain suspended from his waistcoat pocket, his moustache bristling. He could've stepped straight out of The Railway Children. Yes, I think he has missed his vocation and the age for which he was born. Maybe in retirement he could be a volunteer on the Northern Heritage Steam Line. 'All aboard! Ey oop!'
The lecture is about Victorian attitudes to aspects of sex. We are reminded that some of our forefathers were advised to 'bathe the racial organ' and to avoid 'beastliness'. As Baden-Powell said, 'the seed is in trust for the Nation'. I am happily enjoying a trip down Memory Lane when, all too soon, he pulls out his pocket watch, reaches for his whistle and announces the departure of the 11.55... It is time to head for the buffet car.
106. Nearly 9 o'clock and time for poetry. Here comes our tutor, wheeling a shopping trolley along the pathway. 'Oh yes,' I say, 'I'll gladly carry it up the stairs for you'. By the time I get to the top of the stairs I feel the need to lie down in a darkened room. I am in luck. We are going to see a film! After some wrestling with the technology, Ted and Sylvia appear on the screen. This is like Saturday morning at the Regal used to be. Then we read a bit of Ted and Sylvia, who I am getting to like. This is much against my wishes, as I enjoy my prejudices. Perhaps I am 'The Groves' answer to Hilaire Belloc, who created a cage to live in out of his prejudices. But the High Priestess has begun to coax me out of my cage. I must be on my guard. My role as curmudgeon is threatened.
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107.
Sunday morning. I sit in front of Dell Boy, and update my blog, wearing a rather fetching scarlet nightshirt, made by Mrs Archy, who lies in bed at the side reading some worthless tome. 'You should be reading this,' I say, 'not that rubbishy William Boyd'. 'Yes, dear', she answers, but I know she won't bother. Samuel Pepys didn't want anyone to read his journal and went to great lengths to make it indecipherable. But then he had that attractive maid living in the house. His wife caught him with his hand in her cunny... Some hacks don't have these delights to distract them. We struggle on, in the vain hope of pleasing someone, somewhere.
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108.
May 23rd, and England never looked lovelier. Grass stands high in the meadows, some has already been cut and rowed; the banks are waving with cow parsley; buttercups smear gold over the pasture; the map-like frisian*(1) grazes as I rumble over the cattlegrids in the heap, and here waiting for me is Academe; a fat and lazy mistress*(2). I park at the far end of the furthest car park and walk down to the lake through the wood. This is the part of 'The Groves' I like best: thick with birdsong; deep and green, so very deeply green*(3).
Uncle Joe is hosting a seminar on our forthcoming exam. I learn that the secret of success is to avoid lemons*(4). This is followed by a solitary picnic outside the SU. Not far away, the High Priestess sits like a mother hen with her chicks, who cluster around her, crossed-legged on the grass; spiritually she is back at the Isle of Wight all those years ago, sitting amongst the hippies in the summer of love. I am just the same, she thinks, as when our days were a joy and our paths through flowers*(5).
A few yards away, the media dept is up to something: a furry mike and a camera are wielded, someone directs, others change position. Heathcliff sulks by with two ladies in attendance on their way to get some non-alcoholic refreshment; it is summer at 'The Groves'. I head for the circus, but am disappointed. No-one is there. I should've known: but for Uncle Joe's exam the shooting match is over for the year. Soon I will no longer be a fresher. But Peter Pan is not the only little boy who refused to grow up. I like being a student, and I want to stay in Never-Never Land forever and a day.
NOTES: *(1) See Auden's August. *(2) I sometimes think that purple is my true colour. *(3) try Lorca *(4)This seems to be north country dialect for types who hang around the examination room shaking their heads and saying 'ey oop, I don't fancy your chances much...' *(5)Hardy, of course.
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109.
To students who pay no income tax, two things are inevitable: death and exams. It is best to be prepared for both. Few of us have the benefit of knowing when we will die, but my 19th Century Studies exam takes place on Wednesday and during the vicar's sermon on Sunday I had a look through the hymns in the hope that they may be relevant. This got me thinking about my funeral. I found a verse in The English Hymnal which I thought would be just right for such an occasion. Mrs Archy, who you may remember is an organist, later suggested that we sandwiched it between two verses from Be thou my Guardian and my Guide, which is better known. She seems keen to get it all sorted out, too keen perhaps. But I feel that I need Professor Plodder's opinion before coming to a final decision. After all, I don't want him to think that I am stealing a march on him.
Tune: ABRIDGE (In moderate time)
The world the flesh and Satan dwell
Around the path I tread;
O, save me from the snares of hell,
Thou quickener of the dead.
Our lady sings Magnificat
With tune surpassing sweet;
And all the virgins bear their parts,
Sitting about her feet
And if I tempted am to sin,
And outward things are strong,
Do thou, O Lord, keep watch within,
And save my soul from wrong.
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110.
The Exam looms. In a few hours I will be setting off with my toothbrush and satchel to stay with friends in the big city. I am following Uncle Joe's advice. Travel up the day before, he said. If you should break down ring the university. If you have a heart attack en route it is the first thing you should do. Special arrangements could be made. I asked if he would travel with me in the ambulance. Could we do the exam orally? He would say 'Tess of the...?' and I would answer 'D'Urbervilles' before sinking into a coma. Then I might pass this exam, which does not count towards a degree anyway. Assuming I arrive at the right place and at the right time, my main problem is tweaking the memory which can be sluggish. I am particularly bad at remembering names and numbers. We are not allowed to take notebooks into the exam room. Do I have to put my Student Number on the paper? What is it? If I write it on the back of my hand, will I be disqualified? And what books are we doing anyway? Tobias William QC offers advice on cheating. 'You can borrow my periscope, dad. Only £2 a day'.
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111.
The day of the examination is here. It will be the first one I have sat in thirty-five years and I am nervous. At times of stress I like to stick to routine, and am alarmed when I can't park in the usual spot at the far end of the furthest car park. An enormous marquee is being erected. What can this be for? Is it for Speech Day? Is my Personal Trainer about to receive another award? Questions, questions, questions. They always begin by asking questions.
As I walk down the dark wooded slopes towards the lake, the air is heavy with the scent of elderflower. Who cares about 19th Century Studies now? But I pull myself together. I must get the right balance between calm and anxiety if I am not to be referred in this module as I have been in Cr Wr, although perhaps it would be for the best anyway; the Dance dept has its attractions... but then the automatic door flies open and I'm here, on stage, in the home of the English dept. It's too late now. 'You're the last one, Archy!' 'Archy's decided to come!' They laugh. They are a good humoured lot. I am last in line as we file slowly up the stairs to the Star Chamber. Uncle Joe stands before me, wearing a dress shirt. His thumbs push steadily back and forth inside his braces. 'Hey,' I say, 'Where are we? Oxford,1950? Mods and Greats?' He shakes his head and gives no clue... Life is incorrigibly plural, as Macneice told us all those years ago... The exam paper is already on the table, face down...
Soon the allotted span of two hours is over and I wake up. The students are smiling! Here comes Elijah, first out, then the two lovely Victorian girls, then Steph, and the naughty one... They all seem happy. Some of them embrace. Outside I have a late lunch with my usual bottle of wine for company, and I feel happy too. The day is perfect. And I have changed my mind about something. I have always felt that given the chance I wouldn't want to have my life to live again. There were just too many wrong turnings, too many embarrassments, betrayals, horrors... But now, here on this sunny day, if Mephistopheles came along and said 'Look Archy, you can be eighteen again and starting at 'The Groves' next term as a new boy', I'd take it, I really would. And I'd stay here for ever. If I was eighteen, Mrs Archy would be only seven! I could wait a few years before accepting her firm but just rule once more, oh yes...
As I drive towards the gate with the lush green fields on either side, I see that the young heifers are being moved.
And I know that I too, was once in Arcady.
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112.
And so my first year draws to a close. I picture the empty yellow buses rumbling by, the deserted house, the lake and the temple as they wait for another term to start. The learned doctors and the serious students have gone. The gardeners are still around with their noisy machines, but they are not working too hard. They like having the place to themselves... The gravel paths are silent; books wait unread in the library; an army of computers stands idle...
And what of these others who have been summoned into being? Caliban; the farmer's wife; genial Uncle Joe with his moustache and braces; thundery Heathcliff; all, all are gone. And the Dark Lady, with her nose-ring and tattooed dragon; the Emperor Tiberius with toads under his eyes; the blond beast with his Raybans and post-colonial burden; Vanilla, with my re-submission still unmarked; Mr and Mrs Porridge, with each other; the old fakir; the haunted Poet and the Booker shortlisted X; they too have become formless, like Minerva and the Student Portal. At this moment, in a dwelling somewhere near a famous spa town, perhaps Professor Plodder's strict and adult pen hovers over my brilliant (though somewhat discursive) essay on James Joyce, the notes to which are a disgrace. He shakes his head sadly and thinks of Beethoven for consolation, and of mortality. Yes, all of them, and the High Priestess with her shopping trolley; and my Personal Trainer, are melted into air, into thin air. For the time being, at least, our revels are ended, and we, the young and the not-so-young have drifted away and gone to other worlds... Did I imagine the whole thing? Was it real, or was it a dream?
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113.
For the sake of poetic effect I decided to leave out asterisks from the last entry. It makes the scene more mellow, don't you think, and may give you all something useful to do in the holiday when I am short of copy. Isn't it frightful that autumn will be upon us when we return to 'The Groves'? And some of us may not return. The third years will have left. The High Priestess moved us all to tears when she said in class that she didn't want any of her students to leave; she wants to keep them all, she said. This is a comfort. From the maternal instinct all human goodness flows. Discuss. But Professor Plodder and I will, I ASSURE YOU, be back to continue our race to the crematorium, whilst applying the analogy of Zeno's Paradox. Here are the notes. Insert the asterisks yourself. *(I) Auden's August again. *(2) I couldn't decide if we were in Old Familiar Faces, The Tempest, or Mellstock Churchyard. You decide.
Whilst here in front of Dell Boy, I thought you might like to know that I have just discovered a Borges poem about Buenos Aires and Bishop Berkeley. Borges argues that if the latter is right and things have to be perceived in order to exist then there could come a time, say just before dawn, when no one is thinking about Buenos Aires and it would cease to exist. Now what do you think? Could we try this out on 'The Groves' and then re-constitute it, subtly changed, in the morning? Altogether now! I'll leave you with that thought.
Tirra lirra for now, m'dears... 25th JUNE 2007
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THE LONG VACATION
.114. 18th July 2007: Tomorrow we get our results. And then I will have to decide whether the future is Cr Wr and Eng Lit or... Dance. I have been practising my high kicks, just in case. My essay on James Joyce (in the hands of my hero Professor P) is a cracker, but I don't think I did too well in the 19th Century Studies exam, ey oop! I should've been consulted before the questions were set, or perhaps I should've feigned that heart attack ... Call the Ombudsman!
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19th July 2007: Here they are, straight from the horse's mouth. It is only right that you, O patient Taxpayer, should know whether your money is being wasted. And it looks as if it is! Woe! Eheu! Ailinon!
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2006/7 S1 CS1001
GENERAL CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP
49% QF D
2006/7 S1 EN1005
WRITING AND THE SELF
65% B P
2006/7 S1 EN1025
CRITICAL READING 1
65% B P
2006/7 S2 CS1005
INTRODUCTORY LEVEL POETRY
65% B P
2006/7 S2 EN1026
CRITICAL READING II
56% C P
2006/7 S2 EN1032
NINETEENTH CENTURY STUDIES
68% BP
This means, I think, no change on the Cr Wr. My second attempt at a Crit Comm which I left with much ceremony in the big house and for which Miss Meredith gave me a receipt all those months ago has produced a nil response. Ploughed in Cr Wr!
And what about my brilliant, though somewhat discursive, essay on James Joyce? It must have been a disaster as I got 64% for my rotten close reading paper and the average has gone down to only 56%. Useless!
At my age what is there left for me? I am too old to join the Foreign Legion. It's too late to become a male model. Perhaps I should sail round the world in a sieve. And the wretched blog has decided of its own accord to give me double spacing. My life (or what's left of it) is out of control. The stern voice of the Emperor Tiberius sounds in my ear: 'You sir have tasted a whole worm (three whole worms in fact) and must leave by the town drain...' Nemesis!
LATER THE SAME DAY:Down to the Weir I went, to play with mortality and to weigh things up. I have suffered. Yes, how I have suffered, O patient Taxpayer. No doubt I deserve to suffer. Pride goeth before a fall. But I have a surprise for you. I am now going to publish the results of the examination which my tutors have been subjected to during the last academic year.They may not know it, but I have been scrutinising them very carefully. Here come the results, oh yes! and in the same order as shown above! Oh, I am looking forward to this. ALL MARKS ARE OUT OF 100. CHIEF EXAMINER: Aunt Ada Doom, M.A. (Oxon), Phd, DD. etc. etc. (available on the 19th Sunday after Lent if there is an R in the month to discuss any problems you may have with this process. Please submit problem electronically first.)
THE DARK LADY: ***!!!
UNCLE JOE (EN1025): 100
THE HIGH PRIESTESS: 100
PROFESSOR PLODDER: zzzz...zzz...zzz...zzzzzzzz
UNCLE JOE (EN1032): 200
I am sorry if I fell asleep during the marking of Professor Plodder's paper, but I have worked hard on his behalf over several months, and I am tired. I have seen him through a difficult time and have been unstinting in offering assistance and help. I won't mention the banquet and the glimpses of paradises I have shown him, let alone the fine mausoleum with its statue beside the temple. And how else, but through my efforts would he have had the opportunity to have met Schnabel, Borges, Bishop Berkeley, and Zeno, to mention only a few?And how does he show his thanks? Well, we won't go into that now. I have learnt, in this life that you can expect etc. etc...
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3rd July 2007. Well, having queried the position on my Dark Lady Cr Wr paper done again for Vanilla to mark I'm now told that I have to wait until September to know my fate. It's just as well I don't take these things too seriously, or I might've flung myself into the Weir the other day.
I've had an exciting weekend! I was expecting a present of Clare Chamber's new novel The Editor's Wife which someone had kindly promised to send me, and, as I was lolling in bed with Mrs Archy at my side on Saturday morning, there was a loud noise from downstairs indicating that the postman had called. There it was! The first thing I looked at was the author photo, of course, and would you believe it, this wasn't the one from her 1995 novel that appeared in the DT review a few weeks ago, but an even earlier one, from her first novel in fact! It seems that Clare has mastered two arts: growing younger and Cr Wr. Well I knew I had a major achievement in my hand and I was not disappointed. I know that in these days of two Dylan's being in the Oxford anthology, and the Beatles being rated more highly than Beethoven, I am an anachronism. In fact, O Taxpayers, in matters of 'culture', I am a snob. As far as the novel is concerned, I only like reading Literature or books about myself. I was not disappointed by Clare's book, O Taxpayers, and I advise you all to buy as many copies as you can lay your hands on.
5th August 2007: Well, I wake up on a perfect morning to find that I am fifty-eight years old. Yes, it is my birthday! Presents and cheques can still be sent to the usual address. I am just off to the Weir where I sit on the harbour wall and read the paper. But there's nothing like the sweet light of the sun, is there, and how many more years do I have left to enjoy it? Not enough!.
Later: Back from the Weir. To cross to Turkey Island you have to walk over a narrow metal bridge. On the other side of this, waiting politely, was our tall local undertaker, with his neat white moustache. I'm sure he gave me an appraising look. He was measuring me...
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18th August: This week we had the Times table (if I can call it that) for universities. The Groves was 88th out of 113. I hear the football results. 'Oxford United twelve, Accrington Stanley nil.' But do not be dismayed, all ye who wander in the Groves. I am struggling to immortalise you, even though it seems that some of you would prefer oblivion. I am still with you. Professor Plodder lives!
23rd September: Literary people often judge a stranger by the book he or she is carrying. But some writers become their admirers. I have just come back from the Weir with Autobiographies, by R.S.Thomas, under my arm. Margaret Drabble and Michael Holroyd, who have a house at the Weir, were taking a stroll by the water. They could've been a couple of weary GPs on holiday. As they approached me, I heard her say 'Look, there's R.S.Thomas!'.
Monday 24th September 2007, Porlock: I am putting the date and place down carefully to reassure myself. I have just (possibly) completed the on-line registration formalities, required by the Groves if I am to return for the new academic year. Two points stand out. (1) Mrs Archy is down as 'other' as there is no place for a wife in the modern world and I refuse to refer to her as 'partner'. The only 'partner' I ever had was a Mr. J. Lancaster Wayt, and the less said about him the better. I certainly wouldn't want to live with him. (2) My home address is given as 'Costcutters' which is the local supermarket where I plan to discuss literary matters with Margaret Drabble. This is because, according to the university computer, the house where I live with my 'other' and our offspring does not exist...
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25th September. I have just had an e-mail from The Groves telling me that I haven't registered. What a complicated life it is. And while I'm about it, to register (if that is what I did yesterday), I had to agree to all the small print which included an undertaking that I would do nothing to bring the university into disrepute. Now that is oppressive, O taxpayer, and is not for the public good. Stand up for freedom of speech! Vive la revolution! Aux barricades!' LATER:I try the registration thing again and actually succeed. Twice. Does this mean I get two student loans? Exhaustion overtakes me. I am done for. Goodbye everyone..'
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YEAR TWO
.Michaelmas Term
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26TH SEPTEMBER 2007:
113. And here I am again, the same nervous little man, but still here. And how did the day go? What did I achieve? Well, the object was to obtain the release of the first tranche of my student loan, O Taxpayer, and if I were you I'd be pretty cross about the whole thing! Why should an old idler like me be getting public funds just because I have lived fecklessly all these years? I am on your side, O Taxpayer, and yet I have my hand in your pocket. Soon I will be able to confirm, I hope, that this vast sum has been received from you all, and good luck to me... The Groves is looking good, agricultural, scraped, harrowed, not unlike myself. In the distance tractors rumble, and close at hand are throngs of students, but I have to get to the Arnold Centre to register in person. Oh, the crowds, the people, they are everywhere. But I do what I have to do. Awaiting me in the Arnold Centre is a panel of white coated attendants, which reminds me of the start-of-term medical inspection from IF... After a bit of queueing I am called over. ('NAME?' 'Jams O'Donnell, Sor'*) But I am not asked to drop my trousers after all, thank God, only to give my student number. 'You're registered! Have a good year!' says the man in the white coat. I am and I will. Calling in at English dept I am confronted by the Emperor Tiberius who says a reluctant 'good morning' through clenched teeth almost as if he had hoped I wouldn't come back. But that surely couldn't be the case... Perhaps he just had a paper clip in his mouth.
NOTES* See Flann O'Brien. 'Sor' is Gaelic for 'louse'. Very useful when replying to these English bully-boys.
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114. SUBJECT MEETINGS: The annual CR Wr Beauty Parade is about to begin. When I arrive, The Poet is larking happily with our beloved High Priestess. All, is well then. The students and staff file in. When I next look up, the Emperor Tiberius has taken charge. He is dressed in black from head to foot, black shirt, black trousers, shoes, belt... he looks menacing, like a retired martial arts instructor, or someone who supervises the Extraordinary Rendition process.The Poet decides to get out as soon as he can*, and frankly, I don't blame him. The High Priestess sits next to Vanilla, our American poetess. They too are dressed in black. Is it the new dress code? But at least they seem to be enjoying themselves. The EmperorTiberius begins his address. Silence falls. This year, we are going to be extended, he says, sutto voce. The rack? But we needn't think we can get anywhere if we don't toe the line. He doesn't actually say that he isn't interested in our individual strengths, if we have any, but doing our own thing is not the way to get a good degree. Are we then to be processed like so many sausages? It seems to be the general idea. Before we know it we will be passing through the portals of this marvellous seat of learning for the last time. I suspect he envisages some kind of Triumphal Arch through which he and his minions could process in state. I'll stick to the student portal, if it's working.
NOTE:*Larkin comes to mind again. 'Get out while you can'.
And now it is time for the Eng Lit Parade. But wait a minute. Things don't look right. The Farmer's Wife, for instance, has her arm in plaster. Accidents happen all too easily on the farm. Was it the combine harvester, or an A.I. session with Buttercup that went wrong, I wonder? But she makes no reference to it, and bravely carries on. Good old Uncle Joe strides in, handsomely attired with a smart Gothic waistcoat under a black Jacket. Caliban is still happy and has a new suit. Professor Plodder is missing, believed... (don't think it). My Personal Trainer grins in his red shirt and silver suit. The Blond Beast is looking sheepish. His beard has been shorn for the first time in many a long year; and Mrs Porridge sits quietly by the window looking as insubstantial as a wisp of smoke. In fact, at first, I mistook her for the curtain. But the prize for courage goes to Mr Porridge. Clearly the Porridges only just made it back from their break at the sea-side! He addresses us, a smile fixed to his face, forgetting that the holiday snaps have been taken... but, m'dears, below his T shirt he is still wearing his baggy shorts and his legs are as pale as Ernest Dowson's poor lost lilies! No sun then! He stands, arms folded over his chest as he speaks to us, his sandalled feet splayed out to keep him upright after the dash from the beach. Dear, oh dear, I think he could do with another holiday.
115. Burma's bloggers along with the monks and other dissidents have been the heroes of the Saffron Uprising, says today's Times. Oh yes, we bloggers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world!
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116. Temporary blip. This week I have my first session of Level Two Prose Fiction. But when? I have three alternative time slots for this Wednesday. My e-mail connection is, as usual, frozen. It's just as well we students don't have anything to do, apart from worrying about our lunchtime glass of wine (I also have 09.00 to 12.00 on that day so I may have 6 hours without a break, in which case I must bring a bottle, disguised as blackcurrant juice). I don't know who the tutor will be. We students only find out when (and if) we get there. If you have drawn the short straw, do not worry. I like a quiet life. But now, O Taxpayer, I must go into Minehead and claim my Student Council Tax rebate, and good luck to me!
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117. and I have now had my first day back and I did have six hours on the trot and no wine! What is more, I survived. Perhaps I should treat The Groves as a clinic in which to dry out. After six hours of cr wr I had a walk around the lake followed by two hours of lit, which left little time to gather material from the corridors of power. And then a two hour drive home, a humble meal... and so to bed.
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118. Well, I've now had a day off and time to recuperate, not that anyone would say that I didn't find the day physically taxing. No man of my age should be expected to lug Clarissa down to Hurlstone Point without assistance. She is no lightweight. Which brings me to my point, which concerns the future of this on-line journal. When I was hustled into the office of the Emperor Tiberius all those months ago to be interrogated about my harmless blogging and to be presented with a five page document about the offence of harrassment, it was indicated to me that any description of the appearance of members of staff was a very dodgey area for me to stray into. But I don't want you to think that our learned tutors are colourless non-entities, do I? What fun would there be in taking you through the Cr Wr handbook? (having had that experience in class I can assure you that the answer is 'none'). I am conscious of my duty to you O Taxpayer, and will follow the paths trodden by others faced with the same dilemma. I will have to tread warily, but the lure of the road remains strong, even if the way is dangerous. Yes, it is a heroic quest that I am on. If I live in the shires have I not learnt to use the computer? If I am bald are my feet not hairy? Do I not have the ring of truth about me?
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Enough! but I will be failing in my duty if I say nothing of my two new lady tutors. One is young and slim (cry harassment! Let slip the dogs of war!) and if she is given to government, the other one is, I think, a gift from government. She is like one of the new breed of government ministers, competent, jolly, expensively dressed. Each of us had to interview his neighbour and then tell the class about that neighbour, not a bad way of breaking the ice, really. She gamely agreed to undergo the same treatment except that, when her turn came, she conducted both sides of the interview. The result is that a long list of diplomas was recited*. Apart from the glittering CV, all we learned about her is her Desert Island choice of book. And that, O Taxpayer, is Middlemarch. So George Eliot rears her ugly head again. As Mrs Archy's old willow supplier, Stan, would say, 'tis unbelievable... 'tis flyin in the face o'nature...'
NOTE: * Philip Larkin's Mr Bleaney (read in Poetry this very morning) comes to mind although in that case at least the poet knew of his subject's preference for sauce to gravy...
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... .Going back to 'the slim one', here are two vignettes for you. The first sounded like a declaration of war: 'I don't photocopy anythink for anybody for any reason.' And the second just shows how ignorant I am: 'All right, hands up all those who think it's cheesey?... and those who think it isn't?' 'Excuse me miss but I don't know what 'cheesey' means.' 'I might've guessed...'. Yes, this one is strict all right. She won't stand any nonsense... I think I will call her Ms Gargery.
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119. Tuesday 8th October. Anniversary of birth of John Cowper Powys, greatest of heroes. Lugged Clarissa down to Hurlstone Point again. At the current rate of progress, I will be 972 years old before I finish it. Recipe for suicide: Think of George Eliot. Take a stout bag and a yard of chain. Place Clarissa inside bag, fix around neck with chain (assistance may be required) and jump...
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120. And an early start (half past six) gets me to The Groves in time for Poetry with the High Priestess, who has now won me over completely. I would willingly carry her shopping trolley anywhere (if I had the strength), rescue her from burning buildings, tell her anything... Today she is draped in amethysts and we get half drunk with Phil, taste Gin on the breath and end up raving with the DTs. As soon as she has trundled off with her wares, Ms Gargery bowls in ready for action. But she isn't quite ready after all. 'Haz anybody got a pen?' she cries. Do I detect a touch of 'up north' in her voice? Not that there's anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are northerners, ey oop! As I watch her sitting straight-backed, with one leg tucked under her, ticking away neatly with her borrowed pen, the thought comes to me that she could be the descendant of countless village schoolmarms. She may even be rather nice and only pretending to be cross. For instance, last week she told us most firmly that she didn't photocopy anything for anybody for any reason. And what do I catch her doing during the break?
Then we have the Government Minister. She tells me off for talking. And after break she looks in my direction and announces that drinking in class is unacceptable. 'Isn't it all right to drink tea?' I ask, shocked and bewildered as this is my drying out day and I feel saintly. 'I'm not talking to you, as I think you know full well', she says. Blimey! But she doesn't bear a grudge, oh no, and a few minutes later she is as jolly as ever, like Teresa May or Prezza. These politicians are all alike. But if she is a pachyderm, at least she is an amiable one. She may have passed the Archytest already!
I am stuck in class until 6 0'clock again but it is worth it. The sun is still shining on this mild evening as I climb into the heap and head for the exit. But what is this? Are my eyes deceiving me or is this a naked student running past the Eng Dept? And then I see he is not alone. There are more of them! I hope they are not bringing The Groves into disrepute. All they are wearing is school ties (and these are around their necks). I expect this sort of thing was de rigeur at Blundell's, and good luck to them! It makes a pleasant change to see students behaving like students. But do not worry, all ye who wander in The Groves. I do not propose to follow their example. Professor Plodder and I will be wearing full length flannels when the starting pistol sounds.
122. After a night boozing with my old friend in Clifton I am back at The Groves early this morning. As I drive through what the Emperor Tiberius calls 'The Portals' I am confronted by the map-like Frisian*emerging from the fog, in fact a whole herd of them, and wonder if I overdid it. Then I see that someone's stuck an enormous sign saying TOILETS next to the Emperor's office, pointing straight at his throne! How could they be so disrespectful? I buy my 25p Times and sit down to read it and do you know Mrs Archy has a letter in it? What does she think she's playing at? She should be making baskets, not writing letters to the newspapers. Doesn't she know she's got a family to provide for? And then the Circus. I must introduce you to the chap in charge of the 'module' who I don't think you've met before. He is a complete sweetie, m'dears, and I shall call him 'the pale young man' after the charming chap from Great Expectations. If he gives me any trouble, I may, reluctantly, be forced to box him. In fact, I may take them all on, one at a time or all together, it's all the same to me**. Oh and I found out that he shares a room with Professor Plodder. Alas, I wasn't able to find out how he is (or if he is). I suspect he may have been out training. Good old Plodder!
NOTES:* Wystan (who seems to be forgotten at the Groves) **Prezza excepted.
123. My one regret in this new world of Great Expectations, is that there is no Estella. The girl sitting next to me in class is not like Estella. I ask about her tattoo. 'It's not finished yet,' she says, 'It goes all the way down. You can only have two hours at a time.' So far she has had four sessions and yet she has an enormous sleep debt. If she doesn't take a nap while the artist is at work, how does she pass the time? Does she read Clarissa? With conversations like this going on it is hardly surprising that I get told off for talking. I must ask her how much it costs. It would be something to spend my student loan on. And what would I choose? The Honourable Henry U had the family crest tattooed on his buttock, like a hallmark, but I am descended from a long line of navvies and layabouts and we don't have a family crest. Perhaps I should a have a picture of The Groves, with a few streakers and some references, in terza rima, to favourite characters, tattooed on mine*. Then I might win the Turner Prize. And when I die I could leave my buttocks to the nation. It may be true that the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, but my last act of generosity would ensure that the name of The Groves would live forever.
*If the terza rima work out I could also enter my buttocks for the T.S.Eliot Poetry prize and ensure a double victory for The Groves. After I am expelled they might even erect a monument for me, like Shelley's at Oxford.
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125. The alarm goes off promptly at six and I am out of the house within half an hour. Is that Jupiter in the sky? I arrive at the Groves just in time for Poetry with my beloved High Priestess, which makes everything all right. Then we have Ms Gargery and 'workshop' my story, which is printed in colour (purple prose indeed). But fortunately, she is busy at the other end of the room and doesn't see it. I go outside to allow the students in my group time to slash and burn my efforts, but when I return they are kind to me. They liked it!
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126. After an hour in the lovely sun of late autumn we have a session with Prezza. I am nackered after a long day, but the time passes pleasantly enough. She tells us that she is giving her first lecture at the circus in the morning. Perhaps she isn't like the real Prezza at all? On my way to the car park I help some girls bump start their car, while a group of hearties looks on. All this under a crescent moon and a cold blue sky. When I get to the heap I find I have a flat tyre and I have to change the wheel. The years fall off, and I am young again.
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127. There is frost on the roof of The Groves this morning, the first frost of the year, and it is nippy indeed. I head for the Circus and almost catch up with Caliban, who has gone back to wearing his battered green cord jacket. I envy him that jacket. I follow him in. It is cold inside and the staff huddle together for warmth: the pale young man in his maroon woolly (knitted by his Aunty Jean I shouldn't wonder), Prezza in an overcoat, and another new one in a thick scarf, who hops from foot to foot and blows her nails... and then it is Prezza's turn. She talks to us about Lytton Strachey and Michael Holroyd, who she seems to like. I must tell Michael Holroyd about this when I see him in Costcutters. Margaret Drabble had better watch out. Perhaps they could have a boxing match. Now that would be something: In the blue corner the heavy- weight champion of the world: MARGARET DRABBLE. And in the red corner, challenging her for the Lonsdale belt, to be presented by Michael Holroyd himself, the one with the voice of a Bingo Caller and the best straight right in the business: PREZZA... Meanwhile, her first lecture is a good one, entertaining, discursive, colourful. She is doing all right! After the lecture I bump into Barney. We go to the SU for camomile tea (in her case) and coffee and egg on toast (in mine). It is good to see her again and to catch up on what's been happening. She has soared ahead of me academically, and good luck to her!
128. Scaffolding is being erected all around The Groves. I think I must include it in my tattoo, to give it verisimilitude, a word Ms Gargery put on the blackboard today. I make enquiries of my contact. She says that her tattooist charges £60 an hour. With my ambitious plans I will have to apply for a bursary before I go ahead, but I am determined to out Queequeg Queequeg. If I succeed in winning both the Turner and the T.S.Eliot, I suppose it would be a kind of double first. Watch out, Barney!
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129. 19th October 2007. A real red letter day. I was alone and wilful and wild hearted, and near to the wild heart of things. No doubt you've all been doing it for years, but this was my first time, it really was. And it was the most thrilling experience of my life. I thought I was going to die, it was so wonderful. If you haven't tried the economy carwash at Tesco's Minehead, do it now. Only £2. When I think of all the money I've wasted on sex through the years. Think of all those lies and tedious conversations, not to mention the quarrels and stress. If I'd only known.
I look up my university e-mails. I called in at the SOACS yesterday and apparently all I have to do to unfreeze my line, with the new improved service, is put academic\ before my student number. Well, nobody told me that... There are 63 e-mails awaiting my attention. I am invited to take up Latin American dancing, to collect a pair of spectacles from the stables, to attend a seminar on Chinese food and nutrition, to join the Student Scout and Guides Organisation and to learn to save a life in 30 seconds. Perhaps I should try the latter. I expect it involves the kiss of life. On second thoughts, I think I'll take the car for a wash....
130. To design a great work of art, to write a few unmatched verses, is easy. But there is more to my kind of art than just the design. I have already located someone who declares himself to be the finest tattooist in the county. So far so good. But what to do after the prizes have been won and the will has been read? Should I have my buttocks stuffed a la Jeremy Bentham and placed in a glass case in the 'vestibule' where the water dispenser now stands, or should I go for an al fresco Damien Hirst? Perhaps the latter would be more appropriate, more contemporary. And when all is said and done it could be placed in the green triangle in front of The Groves. And then pilgrims would come from far and wide. Meanwhile I am working on my Verses for the Left Buttock.
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131. Another week has gone by and The Groves is looking autumnal. It is dark, dark, dark... and so are the calf-length leggings of the High Priestess, which she wears under a fetching black top. Once more she is draped in amethysts and looks like a cross between a fortune teller and a little girl waiting to go to a childrens' party. We all love her, and can you blame us? And Prezza too is flaunting the black. She is waiting for us at the other end of the day in a black baby-doll top over identical calf-length leggings. They must be the thing in Academe this winter. She is in combative mood, and in her new bovver boots looks as if she means business. She is going to talk to us about biography. We have five minutes AS OF NOW to read the piece about Boswell which we should have done for prep AND THERE WILL BE NO SNACKING FOR THE REST OF THE SEMINAR. I think she may have been training for the coming bout with Margaret Drabble. At this rate, I will be putting my money on Prezza.
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132. After the lecture I decide to have a scout around in the hope of getting back my 'submissions' from last year. There seems to be a lamentable lack of system about this. First I look for Uncle Joe who marked my exam paper so generously. Caliban is in the room and tells me that Uncle Joe is probably not about today. Then I look for Professor Plodder, who I saw yesterday in the 'vestibule', chatting vivaciously with the nice lady from the office who has a copy of Ozymandias on her wall. He is not there either. But on his door is a printed form inviting students to sign up for a tutorial when (presumably) they can get their submissions back. Today is Thursday (St Crispin's Day, no less) and the three days before today were the appointed days, after which he will be around no longer. I reach for my handkerchief. But, you will be relieved to hear, this is not a case of Goodbye Professor Plodder. The sad fact is that there is not a single signature on the form. Poor Plodder! After a lifetime devoted to the education of the masses what thanks does he get? But, fear not, O Taxpayer. I am working on his memorial as well as my own. At the moment I have in mind two vast and trunkless legs of stone...
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133. Hundreds of you have asked to see the start of my TS Eliot prize-winning poem, and I would like to start it here but am having trouble with 'format' which, as all students at The Groves will know, is the one ingredient vital to creative writing. Perhaps it's just as well in this case...
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134. The first thing I see as I emerge from the car this morning is the back of my dear friend Mr Porridge. He walks in a strangely simian way, with shoulders hunched and head forward, arms swinging ahead of his body. Are his knuckles actually scraping the dust of the car park, or am I imagining it? I am wrapped up in pullover, tweed jacket and scarf, but he cares not for wind and weather* sporting a short-sleeved summer shirt. Somehow, I don't think he'll ever get over that holiday. Then I pass the window of my other great friend, the Emperor Tiberius, who is already at his desk. The unworthy thought crosses my mind that his bald patch is even bigger than mine. Nonetheless, he is wholly admirable, a fine mentor, an example to all, and so distinguished in every way. Fie on the student who told me she thought him bullying and unhelpful! Nothing could be further from the truth. Inside, I am greeted by a sleek looking High Priestess, wearing a slinky black dress and black feather boa. Have I woken up yet? Is this a dream? She begins. The world is at her feet and so am I. She shows us a photograph of her Italian Great-Grandmamma. So that's where her dark looks come from! During 'workshopping' she looks at a sonnet I have written and I see more dark looks. She shakes her head in despair... But we learn that she studies one 'real' poet deeply every year. Does she do it chronologically or alphabetically, I wonder, or does she cast the runes? Ah, the mysteries of Academe. NOTES: *Youth and Age, an excellent poem, which you will all know if you've got to 'C'.
Then we go straight into a disciplinary session with Ms Gargery, who, with shaggy black hair flying all over the place, claps her hands in exhortation. We have TWENTY MINUTES to do this and TWENTY MINUTES to do that... What will happen if we fail is left to the imagination, but I suspect that Tickler is not far away. She'll be pulling me by the ear in a minute. When she's on the rampage, Pip ole chap, she is a BUSTER.
During my hour off I have a chat with some students about the future. They think that the way to get a good degree is to act as a mirror to your tutors. It reassures them. Can this be right? We have it on the highest authority that they are professionals, each and every one: published authors, poets and the like; intelligent, educated, dispassionate and fair, oh yes!I take a walk down by the lake. Tomorrow is All Saints. The death of the old year is upon us and the beauty of death lies all around me on this golden afternoon of low sun. The beech leaves patter to the ground, a coot calls across the lake, the calm waters shatter as a breeze takes the surface. In the temple there is evidence of mystery and romance. A huge pentagram has been drawn in chalk on the paving slabs and spent matches and candles lie about. On one of the pillars, newly carved, the words LORD BYRON LOVES JADE proclaim that all is not lost. By the waters two lovers stroll, future ghosts.*
*NOTE: those who started at Z and work backwards will have a better chance with this one.
Tomorrow may be Tutti Santi, but today is the Day of Exhortations... And now we come to PREZZA, a woman I have warmed to. She may be tough but she is a laugh. She may be strict but she is no fool. And soon, after the bout of the century has taken place, she will be wearing the Lonsdale belt. Where do we read Clarissa, she asks? Now this is an interesting point, involving other disciplines such as philosophy and weight-lifting. All the students (with the exception of myself) say, one after the other, that they read her IN BED. A likely story! I confess that I take her to a rocky promontory jutting into the billowing ocean and use her as a pillow and that I am too feeble to get her upstairs into bed. She lets this pass and then instructs us to make a list of where we would look for academic information about one of our subjects in order of choice. I write: (1) the introduction (2) my head (3)Costcutters... None of these is on the approved list which consists of places I can't afford to go to like Athens, and electronic agencies I do not wish to have truck with. But let it go... She asks if we know what the words Polysemous, immanent, hermeneutic and ontological mean. Because I find silence in a social context such as this embarrassing, I break it by asking if the first one isn't that Irish poet they go on about. Generously, she isn't cross, swings her legs as she sits on the table and in her best bingo-caller's voice, exhorts: You should all be reading with a dictionary beside you. I suspect that Lord Byron and Jade will ignore this. In fact I hear the ghost of Lord Byron chuckle...
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135. All Souls' Day, a day for indulgence, for remembrance of the dead, for me the holiest day of the year, and the day on which Maiden Castle, one of my favourite novels, begins. But before I indulge myself, I check my university e-mails. There are 62 of them. How do they mount up so quickly? The most interesting is an invitation to a screening of one of our set books, Endgame, by Sam Beckett, a cheery card if ever there was one. If I am in group A -D I can attend on 7th Nov between 12-2. If I am in group E-H I can attend on 14th November between 12-12. I am not sure which group I am in, but I think the latter appointment is the one for me.
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136. A red-letter day! I have had a jaunty e-mail from my personal trainer beginning Hi Stephen! and he wants me to sign up on 'Facebook' in my quest for academic success. As it is Sunday and my two sons are beside me making fun of my bald patch, I ask for their help in this enterprise, and after a while, we succeed. At the end of the quest the following communication appears on the screen: You have no friends in Bristol. There are 175982 people in the Bristol network. Sometimes I find the modern age dispiriting.
137. Is my life about to change? I have an e-mail which is to do with Facebook, and it is from my personal trainer. The excitement is hard to bear. Alas, though, the hard truth is that it is simply to tell me he can't be my friend. Yet this Facebook thing was all his idea in the first place! I am told that my personal trainer is a kind and decent person (in fact that he is 'all right') so he can't have done it out of pure malice, not just to snub me. I must just get used to the fact that I have no friends. Bring it on, President of the Immortals... I will do such things... I will start my own massive. Yo, homies!.
138. However, this painful exercise has at least given me access to my personal trainer's profile, and what a profile it is, so the experience was not altogether wasted. He likes women, dogs, Margaret Atwood and motorbikes, and is 'in a relationship'. I can't remember the name of the other party. Could it've been Terry Eagleton? Perhaps not. I must do some further research.
.139. I'm still having trouble with creative writing. I just can't do format, and as you know, genius is not required, neither is inspiration. All you need is format. I know you are all desperate to see my T.S. Eliot prize poem. Apparently I've missed this year's list, and all because of format! But my tutors know best. What can I do against them, poor friendless balding fool that I am? So to keep you all quiet, here is a random verse from my Verses for the Left Buttock (one of 273):
His look it is weary, his toga is black,
But his spirit is strong and broad is his back,
He knows he is cool and he knows he is mean,
And he knows he is lord of the sausage machine.
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Pretty good, isn't it? Meanwhile, I have spent the morning working on my poetry submissions which in due course will be marked by the High Priestess herself. I imagine her sitting before her crystal ball gazing into my future, and shaking her head, sadly. I haven't managed to get hold of any of last year's marked efforts yet so am in the dark as to how to improve. But that's my fault, as usual. My policy on the Critical Commentary is to draft it out first, and then slip in bits about how wonderful and wise she is, how much I have learnt, how happy we all are, and how grateful I am to be the butt of her strict and adult pen*. I must also slip in some bits about Don Paterson, her literary hero. I hope this works, otherwise it's back to the Dance Studio next year.
NOTES: *Auden again (OK for those who started at the beginning of the alphabet).
140. It's 9.15 on a Wednesday morning and the High Priestess is cleaning her specs on the hem of her mini-dress while we students fill in a travel survey. They are trying to get me to walk or cycle to The Groves, but as my round trip is 150 miles they won't succeed. At least I learn something as the morning passes. According to a fellow student, writing a poem is like pissing in the wind, bollocks hanging out there. So that's where I went wrong. By the end of the session I am feeling hungry, and hurry outside with the marmite and tomato sandwich I made an hour before dawn. After six minutes sitting on the wall in the weak November sun, it's time to rush back for Ms Gargery. I don't want to be late. But there is no need to worry. As I head for the entrance, an old banger chugs by with her at the wheel, so I am in my place before her. Two minutes later, she comes through the swing door like a blizzard, hair flying behind her, and we go straight into Sci-Fi, this week's topic. I'm talking star-trek, she says, which has to be the saying of the day, but as we get some Clockwork Orange and a J.G.Ballard story, honour is satisfied. We 'workshop' a story by one of my group, who looks sheepish while we read it through. Ms Gargery has joined our group. Soon it is time for me to look sheepish as my story is handed round. She makes frantic incisions on the paper with her pen, and slaps the pages down one after the other. She and the students point out a few blunders. And they are right.
After the class is over, I take a quick turn around the lake and call at the library before joining the hurrying students on the Long March. It is time for Prezza. She is worried that numbers are down but we explain to her that this is normal; numbers are down for all the sessions. We youngsters are an idle lot. She is going to grill us on Clarissa, and splits us into two groups so that we can discuss it among ourselves first. I whisper to the others that I will be relying on them, as I haven't read it. But neither have they. Fortunately Prezza is distracted by one of the students, who is eating winegums, which she confiscates until the end of the session. Outside, in the real world, there is a lovely crescent moon.
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141. There is thick frost on the five-bar gate leading into the woods this morning, and down by the lake sunbeams are held by the mist. I tread yew berries into the path as the crisp leaves patter like rain to the ground. In the distance is the sound of traffic, which only serves to make the scene more intimate, walling off the outside world. I check the graffiti at Professor Plodder's mausoleum. Keats is bringing sexy back, has appeared since I last looked, along with We love Lord Henry, after which someone has added I'm a Wilde one.
Now it is time for the lecture. And who do you think we've got? PROFESSOR PLODDER himself, and he is in fine form. I am beginning to worry about our proposed race. 'Shall we start?' he asks, rhetorically, and paws the ground before setting off at a leisurely pace. He tells us about the odes of Pindar and Horace, about the temporary set against the permanent, which is just the sort of thing I like. Then we get the winsome Mrs Porridge. Any bets on Sylvia Plath getting a plug? As there are no takers at these odds, the punt is narrowed down to whether she will be mentioned in the first minute, the second or the third...Afterwards I have a cup of tea with Barney. She is finding life in her hut hard at the moment. If there is no sun her electricity supply fails. Not what you need when you get home in the dark. And she has a plague of mice, which present her with ethical problems. The humane trap isn't a success becuase when she releases them, the wee timorous beesties hurry back or are replaced by new arrivals. She can't keep up. Barney's mind is the opposite of mine. Her beliefs are set in stone. Mine are writ in water (50/50 with malt whisky).
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142. Mrs Archy has been cross all week and I don't know why. I'm going to tell you all a little story. When she started making baskets for sale, we used to take a stall at farmers' markets in an attempt to flog them. One day in early summer I was having a particularly quiet time at Horsham. The only consolation was that there seemed to be a number of pretty girls about. 'Just look at that one', I said to the farmer at the next stall, in an attempt at conversation. 'I'd rather have a nice cup of tea', he replied. It was my damsacene moment. It occurred to me that I too would prefer a nice cup of tea to that girl. And I knew that I was old. But what a lot of trouble it has saved me! No longer do I feel guilty when scowled at by my wife. She couldn't have found out about me, because I haven't done anything. Well not that anyway. I may be lazy. I may be bald. But I have not broken that particular commandment, Oh no! But why is it that women scowl at me so? Tomorrow the High Priestess, Ms Gargery and Prezza will all be scowling at me...
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143. And I'm just back from my two day trip to The Groves. Yes, here I am, doing my best to immortalise the place, and I hope my efforts are appreciated by the inmates, both great and small. Let's go back to yesterday. It is a damp, mild morning.
On my way into the Eng Dept from the car park I pass the Emperor Tiberius's office. I like to see him scrabbling away at his keyboard as I head for my class just before 9. But he's not there. The only sign of occupation is a plate with a few crumbs on it, by which I feel sure that a Greek oracle or a Roman sybil would've taken the auspices. What can those crumbs mean? Perhaps the High Priestess might possess the art of divination by crumbs. There she is, looking sweet and serious at the same time! I sometimes think she struggles to make herself look serious. After all, eduction is a serious business, not something to be undertaken lightly or wantonly. She is wearing some new sparkling jewels today. I think they must change colour according to her mood, but I have never been able to fathom the secret of a woman's moods. As my pompous old employer used to say of women, 'they're not the same as men'. How right he was. They are as inscrutable as the sphinx, each and every one of them, not transparent like us chaps, oh no! Four of us are due to give 'presentations' today, including me. I was going to 'do' Ivor Gurney because he deserves to be better known and he means a lot to me. Then I thought I'd go for a popular option and do Keith Douglas. But after a sleepless night fretting about it, I decide to do old Hardy because it's early in the morning and I won't have to think too hard, and they may've just heard of him. The student whose advice on writing a poem I have decided not to take ('bollocks hanging out there') does a black American rap artist and shows him on screen doing a performance. What mastery of technology! I couldn't understand what the rap artist was saying but perhaps that's just as well. I think of the statue of old Hardy sitting in his serviceable stockings at the top of Dorchester High Street and wonder what the old boy would've made of it.
No doubt you'd like to know how my plans for the tattoo are progressing. Well, I had a word with my contact, a tall, willowy girl, who I think may well turn out to be a real poet. She's found a bit of space left on her skin and is having a pair of swallows tattooed on her pelvic region , some way below the navel, 'one on each side', as Max Wall might've said. She's drawn them in using a biro to show the tattooist exactly what she wants, and she showed me too, during the class. So this is how it's done. You do the art work and they just fill it in. But how am I going to manage? I am not a contortionist. My verses are for the left buttock.
I bump into Professor Plodder downstairs and we exchange greetings. He is looking fit, very fit. In the circumstances, I think that, when the time comes for our race, I will take the role of the tortoise and he can be Achilles. The beers can be on him, as he's still gainfully employed. I'd like to get back my submission from last year that he marked so severely. I like a person who knows his mind. Good old Plodder, harsh but fair, and no beating about the bush. A bit of head shaking perhaps and a few histrionic expressions indicative of hopeless despair, that's all. I find his presence at The Groves a comfort. The older order hasn't changed.
Ms Gargery tells us about crime and punishment, subjects dear to her heart. This week we are doing crime, but I am not thinking of embarking on a life of crime, O no! Not with people like her about. I wouldn't dare. And besides, the heap isn't up to the gettaways. It's packing up, but will it see me out?
'Order, ORDER' cries Prezza, who is wearing Elton John glasses. She is giving us the Big Six Romantic poets in her lecture tomorrow and we chat about urns, the sublime, dejection and the nightingale. I raise a point about Blake, she squashes me like a fly, and I feel myself beginning to blush, like the hippocrene, something I thought I'd grown out of. But my remark really was assinine. I deserve to be shamed and it is a pleasure to be admonished by her. After class I'm in the gents with the student who did the rap artist presentation, bollocks hanging out there, and he tells me that Byron kept a bear in his rooms at Cambridge. Just a minute, I think, this is one of my stories. These kids are catching up, and they are catching up fast. Remember the verse that goes: 'And is that child happy with his box of lucky books/ And all the jokes of learning?...
144. I am walking up the Long March chatting to Steph on our way to the lecture when someone scurries past, skipping from side to side as he weaves through the students. I ask myself if this is the white rabbit from Alice In Wonderland as he's certainly in a hurry, but then I see it's the Pale Young Man, and he's got to get there first to start the show. What a sweetie he is! And five minutes later he's teling us all off in the gentlest possible way for cutting the seminars. Numbers are down, again! 'Seminars are a dynamic space made up of two holes' he says. Ah yes, the saying of the day. Has he made a mistake? does he mean 'two halves', which I think would be unfair on the 'weighting' principle, (I picture a see-saw with Prezza riding high on one end and fourteen students on the other: 'Ya-Hoo!') or is he saying that the students who should be attending have fallen into a kind of black hole? Does he mean 'hole' or 'whole'? I spend the first lecture pondering this conundrum. It is given by my old friend from Juke Box Jury, the one who made all the bells ring when she said that the only dactyl she could think of was 'orgasm'. I must look the word up in my dictionary when I get home, along with polysemous and phatic. The trouble is I forget what they mean by the next day. But now it's time for Prezza and the Big Six, not a bad name for a pop group from my era. The Circus isn't what it was in the old days, because the lecturers who aren't speaking no longer sit in the slips, but in the orchestra stalls. All I can see of them is their heads. I hope they weren't overcome with shyness because of my depiction of them as a bunch of lunatics. I was only fooling... I head back to the S.U. for egg on toast, passing an aquarium full of dancing girls on the way. Barney and I have arranged to meet. It's my shout. I have a nice cup of tea with my egg on toast. She has nothing but a pint of water. I must've overdone the poverty line.
Before I set off for home I look through the Emperor Tiberius's window once more. The plate is still there after thirty-six hours, and the crumbs haven't moved. What can it mean?
145. Another stunning success! I've just managed to submit the Pale Young Man's essay by computer, o yes, and I did this by 'clip and paste' without the help of a small boy. I am making progress in the world of academe. As Uncle Joe said when exhorting me to engage with modern technology, it does indeed enhance and enrich the learning experience. It is interesting to note (to use a phrase detested by Prof Plodder) that the computer translates the purest English into Rastafarian dialect. 'Wordsworth', for instance, gets transposed to 'Wordswortha'. Progress indeed. Hey, Wordswortha man, how zit hangin?.
146. Delighted by my recent achievement, I try to submit my creative folder (as it's called) for the Prose Fiction module. After half an hour of finding and minimising I press the 'submit' button, to be told that the deadline (in green) was 16.11.07 and the deadline (in red) was 23.11.07. Either way, I am too late. This gives me a momentary spasm of anxiety. I look up the due date in the handbook. It says 12th December. Today is 26th November so I should be all right after all. I have wasted half an hour and have suffered. That, I suppose is a student's lot. But if the boot were on the other foot no mercy would be shown. Can this be right? Should the Emperor Tiberius be castigated, as Head of Department? I think he should and I expect to see him in the stocks at the top of the steps of the senate when I arrive on Wednesday morning. I can then castigate him or show mercy as the mood takes me.
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147. Today in poetry, we have some more student presentations, when students tell us about their favourite poets. We get Simon (accompanied by Garfunkel), 'Brighteyes' (no relation), and finally a rapper with a face mask who appears on the screen. I say nothing. Silence is golden, as another poet of similar stature to those we hear about once said. But, during the course of the morning, I manage to learn more about tattoos. My informant has just had one swallow done and shows it to me. It is sore, she says. It still hurts. I am having second thoughts about the whole thing. I believe in letting others suffer for my art. Why should I have my buttocks tattooed when I could find a volunteer who would like to be part of such a project. Why don't I advertise? If you can get people who want you to eat them by using the internet you can surely get the use of some buttocks for a worthwhile enterprise like the one I have in mind. I need a slogan. How about MY VERSES ON YOUR BUTTOCKS? So here are a few verses. Go on, immortalise yourself!
The Emperor Tiberius strides through the portal,
His toga is black and his gaze is immortal;
The noblest of men, the wisest law-giver,
And if you don’t agree, you can jump in the river.
The Emperor Tiberius is witty and wise
With sacks full of learning under his eyes,
His nose it is Roman, his profile is fine
And he rules o’er the land of the bold Philistine:
His look it is weary, his toga is black
But his spirit is strong and broad is his back
He knows he is cool and he knows he is mean
And he knows he is lord of the sausage machine:
The Emperor Tiberius is mighty and great
He rules over destiny, master of fate,
When he speaks to the empire the minions all listen
For he is in charge of extraordinary rendition:
He’s here in the atrium, a man on a mission,
He’s here for the knockout or just your submission;
And format format format is best
He couldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest.
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148. Time for tea. In the SU building, I am greeted by a female student wearing a pink latex balloon. She is dressed as a giant condom. A poster at her side proclaims that this is SHAGWEEK. On a displayboard are coloured photographs of unrecognisable life forms declaring themselves to be: CHLAMYDIA, HERPES, GONNORHEA, PENILE WARTS AND PUBIC LICE, respectively. These must be the muses of the new age, I reflect, and get myself a cup of tea. The same muses appear in sequence on the many TV screens around the room as I take my refreshment. 'O brave new world...' I say to myself. A huddle of visitors appears. Someone's parents, no doubt, worrying whether to commit their offspring to the care of this place. I feel responsible. Should I explain that this is not the usual decor and that SHAGWEEK is the modern equivalent of the Feast of Lupercal? Free condoms are offered, like biscuits, but the visitors take none.
A further cultural shock awaits me. A stonking great Harley Davidson is sometimes parked outside the Eng Dept. Whose can it be? Only one person comes into my mind, O Taxpayer, and that person is my personal trainer, who, as we all know, is very butch and likes two wheeled vehicles. But I am wrong, wrong, wrong! It belongs to the farmer's wife! And she wears leathers. Tess Durbeyfield trembles in her milking parlour.
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149. Woe, woe, woe! Three weeks ago I had my submission ready to send for judgment by the High Priestess, all done in plenty of time. But, alas, the computer at the other end wasn't ready to receive it. So instead of getting on with other things I have been looking at it, fiddling with it, changing it, and deleting it. Was I giving her too much? I have scrapped three poems. Now I want to scrap the lot. I knew this would happen... Being an idiosyncratic sort of chap I am left with an idiosyncratic collection of work. Should I aim be more conventional? Should I try and knock up a few poems in the style of the masked rapper, for instance? At the current rate there will be nothing left to send. Ah well! I must adopt the motto of T.E.Lawrence: 'Ou Phrontis'.
150. It is lunch time on 3rd December and I have just returned from my usual morning walk at Porlock Weir. After coming down through a field I walk along a track which is set twenty feet or so above the house shared by Margaret Drabble and Michael Holroyd. There she was, staggering along her garden path, under a fetching knitted beret, bearing a giant pack of paper towels from Costcutter's! I looked down. She looked up. I smiled and touched my cap. She smiled. I think I have a flirtation going with Margaret Drabble. Mind you, she thinks I'm R.S.Thomas*. Nonetheless my tutors had better watch out. With the Drabbles on my side I may become a force to be reckoned with.
* see entry for 23rd September.
151. My usual day for the early morning drive to The Groves. It was pitch dark when I got up and rain was smashing against the sloping window. I went back to bed. Now, at half-past ten I imagine the High Priestess silently presiding while a student presents this or that rap star to the class. No, I'm going down to the Weir. Perhaps Margaret Drabble will ask me in for coffee and we can talk about a mutual literary interest: John Cowper Powys. I read the opening of Wolf Solent before going to bed last night (not for the first time). It doesn't disappoint: 'Every time the hedge grew low, as they jogged along, every time a gate or a gap interrupted its great undulating rampart, he caught a glimpse of that great valley, gathering the twilight about it as a dying god might gather to his heart the cold, wet ashes of his last holocaust.' Thanks to reading Endgame I now know that this is an allusion to Baudelaire. You see, I am learning!
152. Mrs Archy and I have been discussing the future. When I finish at The Groves, I want her to enrol. Then she could get the student loan and the council tax rebate and I could make baskets. She isn't keen. She says she doesn't have the clothes or the jewellery needed to keep up with ladies of similar age who are at The Groves and what's more, she doesn't like writing essays. I say I'll write them for her. Once again she's dismissive and reminds me of my poor marks. She suggests that as I enjoy my visits to The Groves I could sign on in her name and wear a burka. This just might work. Perhaps we could tie this in with an insurance fraud. I could disappear while out canoeing, she could claim the insurance and I could move back in with her in my new gear. Yes, I think we are getting somewhere...
153. When I arrive at The Groves this morning, we are having what I heard on the radio is called 'organised' rain. It is pissing down. The roads and paths are flooded. A student puts up one finger at the driver of a Ford who has soaked him; a sign of disapproval. Professor Plodder and Heathcliff are waiting on stage and they are wet, their bald patches quite covered with stuck down hair. Today we have MUSIC HALL and between them they do a pretty good impersonation of one of my heroes: Max Wall, the absurdist comedian. Professor Plodder begins with his usual look of despair as he gazes at the audience. He shakes his head sadly at each and every one of us in a collective sweep. Then he begins. He is attacking Beckett through the medium of philosophy and spells out the name of his chosen philosophers after giving us a key word or catchphrase: 'Existential' Sartre S.A.R.T.R.E. 'Death of God' Nietzsche N.I.E.T.Z.S.C.H.E. (no mean feat to spell that) 'Leap of faith' Kierkegaard K.I.E.R.K.E.G.A.A.R.D. (which he pronounces with a Danish accent. Is there no end to this man's learning?) But he gives up when he gets to Dostoievsky... The spirit of Max Wall hovers over the stage. When he got tired of doing his ballet twirls he just did it with a hand. And do you remember how he used to do that skit with the professor playing the piano? He used to roll up his sleeves 'one at a time' before starting. And that's just what Heathcliff does. My, his arms are hairy. H.A.I.R.Y. and Heathcliff is on great form, acting all four characters from Edgame complete with voices just as Max Wall might've. I feel quite jealous when I see Barney leaning forward and laughing like a child watching Grimaldi. What a lot of talent we have at The Groves! But the show is over all too soon and Professor Plodder is already climbing into his anorak...
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154. In the SU, where we had the Muses on show last week, I learn another new word: 'rat', as in 'get your rat out'. This usage apparently refers to the 'fragrant zone' of a lady you wish to know better. I am reminded of Auden's line: 'and all love's wandering eloquence debased to a collector's slang'. But I'm old fashioned. And I'm old. Well, T'ra for now m'dears...
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155. It's five past one on Monday 10th December and I've been trying to enrich my learning experience by attempting to submit my Poetry and Prose Fiction efforts to the computer at The Groves. These 'submissions' have to be wafted through the ether by Wednesday at the latest (when I will be far away). When I call up the Poetry thing the screen tells me: CLASS DOES NOT EXIST. I dispute that. When I call up the Prose Fiction I am told that I am three weeks out of date. Technology was never my strong point, although I have always striven to be punctual. In fact, in that respect I am not unlike Kafka's insect. But enough of this banter. A bottle of pinot noir awaits me in the kitchen. I must go down to the kitchen again... 'Ou Phrontis,' as we say here at the Tannery.
156. December 11th, a red-letter day, and not because it would've been my poor old mother's 86th birthday, but because I have at last managed to dispatch my submissions. I've been trying every day, but without success, and was planning to wait until the small boy gets home from school, so that I can use his technical expertise in case anything goes wrong. By chance I check my e-mails and there is one from the oh-so-professional Ms Gargery, who points out that the deadline is noon TODAY not noon tomorrow! Just think, yet again my academic future would've been jeopardised. EXPULSION for failing to submit... It doesn't bear thinking about. I can picture them lined up by the Great Gateway: Mr Porridge in his shorts, Ms Gargery with Tickler, the Dark Lady looking smug in her cowboy boots... The Emperor Tiberius appears on the dais, his lip curled in contempt. The finger of command points at me and at the path I must follow. Stripped of my academic buttons, head bowed in shame, I walk through the jeering crowd to the PORTALS and for the last time. Thank you Ms Gargery. I am forever in your debt. I must compose an ode addressed to you. And then we have to consider publication...
157. Today is the Winter Solstice, when it seems that half the staff at The Groves will be celebrating their non-Christmas. They are a silly lot. Of course the Christmas story is true. Haven't they sung the carols or seen the pictures in the National Gallery? That is not an original observation. I pinched it from Karen Blixen, one of the great women of literature, and one who I have not heard mentioned during my sojourn in Academe. I commend her to you all. Try 'The Dreamers' from Seven Gothic Tales, a story she wrote under the pseudonym of Isak Dinesen. It is a magnificent story, possibly the greatest story I have ever read. And it is strongly feminist!
158. Looking at my first ever entry in this magnum opus I see that I listed the characters appearing before me on that first day as : a trainee bank-manager, two Jehovah's Witnesses, a jolly farmers wife, Mr Chips and the Lady of Shalott. It is interesting to note (to use that phrase so detested by Professor Plodder) that they were soon metamorphosed into: the Pale Young Man, Caliban and Uncle Joe, Ms Harley Davidson, Heathcliff and Mrs Porridge. What a falling off was there... And what about me? Have I changed? Do you know, I think the answer may be 'yes'. I think I have become more tolerant. I have certainly found a lot to amuse me at The Groves. And if I am not wiser, I am certainly older.
SPRING TERM (January 2008)
158. Tomorrow will be my first day back at The Groves, and why do you think I have to go in? Is it for a lecture by Q, Peter Ackroyd or Professor Plodder? No, it's so that I can collect the questions for a 'seen exam' due to take place in ten days time. I have to collect this personally so that I can 'sign' for it. Nothing else is happening. If I have been taught anything since I embarked on my academic career, it is that the computer is a wonderful invention and that it is totally secure, etc. etc. Now, I can't see what security there can be anyway with these questions as any student can put them on the web as soon as he gets home if he wants to or chat about them at the pub. So why do I have to make this inconvenient journey and queue up for an uncertain length of time with a lot of students who will be chewing gum? What purpose can it serve? The truth is that those who run the show at The Groves have one foot in the nineteenth century and one in the modern age. Now I'm all for going back to the nineteenth century, if that's what they want. I was there only last year.
I check my university emails. One is from the Aimhigher Opportunities Strand Coordinator Widening Participation Development Officer. Imagine that at the Vice-Chancellor's sherry party. 'Now what do you do?' 'well, actually I'm the...'
159. Well, I didn't go. I got someone to send me a photocopy instead. I now await the model answers.
160. Here I am again, at last, hoping to get back my three submissions, duly marked. The first port of call is Ms Gargery. I don't know the form, but the students lying in the corridor tell me we hang around and go in to see her separately. I am the last of the line. There she is, and I can see no sign of Tickler. I sit down next to her and then we begin. It soon becomes clear that she doesn't think as much of my two stories as I do. She doesn't seem to get my nuances at all. I do not make myself clear. We don't exactly quarrel, but the end result is that I think she would make a good headmistress in a primary school in the Outer Hebrides, and she thinks I ought to be sitting slumped in front of the telly in a care home with the other slobbering old duffers. But she must be right. She is the judge.
161. Then I go to see Prezza. Once again I am the last one in. She is charming and heaps undeserved praises on my balding head. When we part, she stands up four square and shakes me by the hand. She is full of encouragement. I feel like a young subaltern about to be sent to the front line. But I like her. She is a decent sort and knows what she's talking about, oh yes!
162. As I descend the stairs of the Eng Dept I see what seems to be a two of the three witches from Macbeth hunched over their cauldron, but it is the Dark Lady (purple highlights, flowing robes) and the High Priestess (henna, flowing robes) doing their photocopying together. I don't get much change out of the former, but when the High Priestess tells me I look like a plumber I have to admit that she has a point. Not only do I have my boots on and my trousers tucked into my socks, but I've got my canvas overnight bag with me, which could well be stuffed with ballcocks and valves. Professor Plodder appears on the scene, having caught the tail end of this discussion:
Professor Plodder (Stops in his tracks. Looks troubled): Are you a plumber?
Myself: Hello! ( nodding in my usual equivocal fashion)
Professor Plodder: How are things?
Myself: A bit quiet...
Professor Plodder (nodding at the canvas bag): Not much business about?
Myself: It's the Poles.
Professor Plodder: The poles?
Myself: Polish plumbers.
Professor Plodder (looking even more confused): Does this mean you may not be with us much longer?
163. The High Priestess says that she is having difficulties with my submission and is calling in expert help. She declines my offer of assistance with the marking which only I (in my view) can do justice to, but accepts an offer of a lift home at the end of the day; my friends in the big city live five minutes from her door. When we pull up outside her enormous house it is very dark... But as we find ourselves beyond the portals I must now turn off the computer. No-one at 'The Groves' would be the least interested in what happens in the wider world.
164. It is a wild and blustery day, with gale force winds and wrinkled brown water everywhere. Ey oop! Here comes my old friend Uncle Joe, heading from the car park, wearing a fine leather cowboy hat which he is holding on to. Now Uncle Joe is a really decent sort. When I was a new boy he was the only person who seemed pleased to see me. He made me feel welcome. He said they were lucky to have me, and that is the sort of talk I like to hear, oh, yes! We have a nice chat and he asks me to take his module next year. I gladly accept. I will use whatever clout I have to make sure he gets his due reward. Mrs Archy has already promised to include him in her prayers. For my part, I would like him to join us in Poets' Corner*, the bit of heaven that is reserved for people like us and closely resembles a decent public bar with a table by the fire. All in due course, Uncle Joe... Somehow, I don't think Professor Plodder will want to join us, though my guess is that he's rather pre-occupied with Mortality at the moment and he ought to look to his laurels. Suggesting I might not be with us much longer, indeed. Let the race begin!
*see my other blog (link above) for details (entry 3 I think).
165. And here is Barney, waiting for me in the SU! We have a herbal tea and a small tangerine (in her case), and a beer and enormous panini (in mine). We have a chat about our problems and she gives me some tuition on Clarissa which is much needed as we have an exam on it next week and it will take me another 937 years to finish it at the current rate of progress.
When we part, I take a walk by the lake in the bucking gale and check the graffiti. There is only one new example: Jacob hearts Melody. Oh, may they still feel the same in a year's turning. Lots of primroses are already in bloom at the side of the track, but only lunatics like me would be looking at them on a day like this. But the hounds of spring are on winter's traces.*
* I can't resist putting what I think is the finest verse in the English language here:
For winter's rains and ruins are over
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover from lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover,
Blossom by blossom, the spring begins.
I think it's the last two lines that make it so effective. These modern chaps just don't have it here (like Miss Havisham I put my hand over my heart...)
166. I've just had an e-mail from the High Priestess. It reads: 'e-mail me if you would like your marks'.
I have. I would.
167. Half an hour later. Woe! woe! woe! or Aiee! as the Greeks used to say, I've fallen the wrong side of the great divide because I didn't submit enough poems. Now what did I tell you? (see entry 149 above). Yes, this is my fault. I am to blame, and all because I am too modern, too good with the computer, too kind, too twitchy for my own good! Eheu! Ailinon! ... And is this not what Richardson called 'writing to the minute'? Shall I write a million word take-off called Clearasa?
168. Clearasa continues. I 've had time to consider my discussion with Ms Gargery, and I write her a charming and gentle e mail expressing the merest hint of a doubt about her understanding of what was required of me and my response to it. The reply arrives promptly, hissing and spitting through the air as it comes. It begins 'I do not concede'. I was right about her. When she's on the rampage, Pip old chap, she is a BUSTER!
169. Tomorrow we have our 'seen exam', half of which is on Clarissa which I haven't read, and half on biography. I take a walk down by the Weir, hoping to find Michael Holroyd in residence. I plan to ask him to stand in for me for the biography part. He is married to Margaret Drabble, and I can easily persuade her to do Clarissa. I will even drive them to The Groves to make sure that nothing goes wrong. Alas, though, they are not at home. The house is shut up. What am I going to do now?
170. It is half past nine on the morning of the fateful day, and in a few minutes I will be starting the perilous journey to The Groves. I say 'perilous' because the roads here are bad; because of an accident yesterday, the main road leading from Porlock to the wider world was closed for several hours. There is also some flooding. The authorities like to put one or two diversion signs up to get rid of you, but these invariably peter out leaving people like me hopelessly lost... And if I do get there on time, how will I get on? I've only read a tenth of Clarissa and am going to be tested on her. And if I'd read her on my rocky platform above the sea instead of using her as a pillow in the summer, I would've forgotten what I'd read by now. And it's no use thinking of stuffing her into my trousers and taking her with me into the examination hall. She's far too fat. I must just trust to luck.
171. I gather all my pens and postcards with quotations written on them for last minute cramming and go down to the workshop to say goodbye to Mrs Archy. She gives me a sprig of willow for luck and asks me how I feel. I tell her I've got a mnemonic to help me hang a few ideas on but that my short-term memory is so bad I'm worried I may forget this. It is BIG PHIL. She suggets I should write it on part of my anatomy, so that if I forget it I can ask to be excused and can remind myself... Do I detect a trace of irony here?
172. Well, it's all over, and I rather enjoyed having a day out. I don't go to the races these days. Mrs Archy forbids it. The feeling you get when you arrive for an exam is similar to the one just before the big race at a race meeting. The crowd mills around. There is an electric quality in the air. Tipsters hawk their wares. Somebody paces about uttering 'BIG PHIL, BIG PHIL'... and now the horses are making their way to the starting gate; they're under starter's orders; and they're OFF!
173. Would you believe it? When I passed Margaret Drabble's house on my walk this morning, she was in her kitchen making a sandwich. If she'd been here two days ago she could've saved me. But it's too late now. I have a message for the Drabbles: 'Vous avez drivez devilish slow!'*
I have learnt something. I hate 'close reading'. It is so dull. And I can't resist being naughty, and I had to be naughty in order to keep awake during the exam. If Professor Plodder marks that paper, I am done for. I will just have to go back to plumbing.
*NOTE: apparently, Lytton Strachey had an ancestor who'd shared a coach to Paris with Carlyle. When asked for a tip, this is what he said.
174. And now we are waiting for the results of our exam. The best thing about the marks we get for our 'modules' (God, what an awful word. These Yanks have got a lot to answer for) is that when we get them, I can mark my tutors (and a few others for luck this time) for their performance, here on my blog. So do not despair, Oh great ones. Your turn will come. And it's coming soon...
175. Checking my university e mails, I find that Minerva is experiencing 'latency problems' but that as 'this is a general issue and all customers hosted in the AMS2 center in Amsterdam are impacted' I must not worry too much. What would Edward Thomas have thought of this, I wonder? But he loved his English words. There would be no place for him now. He would have to hide in a corner, or live in a hovel on the heath, like poor Tom.
176. With the wonderful 'semester' system, imported from our friends across the sea (like so much else in Academe) we find that we have a break of about three weeks only a week or so after the Christmas holiday. The 'semester' (how I hate the word) begins today. The new routine is that I set off on Wednesdays in time to meet Barney fror lunch, spend three hours with my Personal Trainer and then wend my way to the big city where I stay the night with my old friends, Mark and Hazel. Mark and I have a beer before we go back for supper. He brings me tea in the morning before I potter in to The Groves for another six hours. Then I go home. It's not a bad life.
177. After lunch on the steps of the temple with Barney, it is time to hurry to the classroom. The first session is with my Personal Trainer (otherwise known as 'Gorgeous Greg'). The module seems to be loosely connected to the animal world, but, as yet, I can't for the life of me see what it's all about. We have been asked to bring in some 'animal artefacts' for the opening session. In I go. Gorgeous is sitting on his desk at the front dressed like Marge Proops, complete with pinstripes and black-framed spectacles. There are twenty-four students. I am the only male amongst them.
I have brought a carrier bag containing a huge ram's skull, and a feather from the tail of my friend Bobby, a most charming cockerel who perished in a battle with Mr Fox. This feather is all that is left of him. It was his panache. But I get no chance to talk about Bobby. Each of the girls has brought either a photograph of a puppy or a kitten, or a 'fluffy toy'. There is much oohing and ahhing. I ask myself what on earth I am I doing here.
The only word my PT puts up on the board is NEOTONY. It means 'holding on to youthfulness'.
178. Day 2 of the new 'semester'. Caliban is walking along the drive, so I stop and give him a lift. I have only spoken to him once before. This was in the middle of the exam. After finishing my first question, I thought it was time for some air, and Caliban accompanied me to the nearest cottage, and stood guard outside most good humouredly, I thought. Caliban shares a room with Uncle Joe, and I imagine they get on pretty well. He is not a bad chap. In fact, I like him.
The Pale Young Man is going to teach me about Jacobean drama, and is waiting for us in his cardigan which he soon takes off. Mind you don't catch cold, Pale Young Man! You expect his aunty to rush in at any moment with a scarf and a packet of sandwiches.
And then Gorgeous Greg again, this time for poetry, but once again I am bemused. He tells us he just wants to enjoy it, and that he wants us to enjoy it. He is not interested in technicalities. But our first essay is a detailed analysis of scansion. Oh, well. I expect the muddy waters will clear.
Gorgeous Greg is a great one for changing his identity. Yesterday he was Marge Proops. Today he is a 1970's American student. Ou sont les specs d'autun? Today we have a T shirt, jeans and trainers. How can a person need glasses one day and not the next? Alas, all the poems he chooses for us seem to come from the other side of the Atlantic. The anthology of English poems I am supposed to buy, at vast expense, is American. When I check his Minerva website, I find that my PT routinely spells 'metre' in the American way*. I fear that as far as he is concerned we are no more than an outpost of the Land of the Free. He is supposed to be teaching English in an English University. The battle is lost. I am sure he isn't even aware of the struggle.
*Note: I hesitate to admit this, but I find that the venerable J.A.Cuddon also spells it 'meter'... er...
179. A week nearer the crematorium and still no sign of Professor Plodder. But, while I am indulging in a spot of tree-gazing across the road from the Eng Dept during a five minute break, I hear a disembodied voice: 'Archy...Archy...' I stop and look around but can see no-one. 'Archy...Archy...' But, this not a demonstration of the paranormal, but The High Priestess, leaning out of a window to say hello. She is hosting a special all night session of moon-gazers. There is to be an eclipse tonight. Any countryman could tell her she's wasting her time. It's the weather you see, cloudy, overcast. Townies just don't understand these things.
180. As I head for my morning session with The Pale Young Man, I see Uncle Joe disappearing into the office. He is looking decidedly raffish, in black jacket, red waistcoat and red cravat and with his broom-like moustache twitching. Could this be gothic studies, or love? I reckon he could be the Casanova of the Eng Dept. We exchange greetings on the stairs and I go on my way, rejoicing; Uncle Joe is my hero. Behind the door, The Pale Young Man is waiting in jersey and tie. There was once a famous lunatic who conducted the traffic outside Worthing on Saturdays. He wore tails and white gloves and was much missed when they locked him up (for his own good). The Pale Young Man looks a bit like him, and as he takes the register, he conducts his students using a pencil for a baton. He knows exactly where each of us was sitting last week and he remembers our names too. He would make the perfect barman... 'Evening Archy. A pint of the usual?'
175. Barney has brought some vegan naan bread which she has baked in her clay oven for me this very morning. She unfolds a tea-cloth and there it is. And then she tells me she likes Mr Porridge! Eclipse of the sun. Earthquake. He is patient and a good teacher. And this is the chap I was going to do three rounds with. Come on, Barney, you're winding me up! But I begin to think she would chose to hold his towel rather than mine. Donner und blitzen! But then we have to consider that her foundations have been shaken by the fact that Fidel Castro has just announced his retirement. Perhaps she is looking for someone to take his place! A replacement for Fidel! I could write a dirge*. I help myself to another piece of naan as rhymes race around inside my bald pate. As I am heading, stunned and glutted, back to class, I see a wisp of smoke coming towards me. Mrs Porridge! There is no escape. She looks demurely away, and I hide behind another student. I now await a visit from the Harassment Officer...
* Fidel's Dirge
176. And it's time for my PT (Gorgeous Greg). The class is held in a giant portacabin where the atmosphere, for some reason, is more relaxed than the 'official' buildings. This may be something to do with the red wine I have just enjoyed in the S.U. Gorgeous has a disconcerting giggle when embarrassed or bewildered. For instance the idea of animals kneeling down to pray on Christmas Eve, as in Hardy's poem, 'The Oxen', provokes a giggle. 'Could people ever have believed it?' he asks? Hasn't he seen this happen himself? I suppose he spends Christmas Eve at a shopping mall or wiles away the hours (Dawkins in hand) preparing Quebecan fare for a gathering of atheists on the morrow. Atkins pudding, perhaps. And when we do Hardy's 'I look into my glass, and view my wasting skin...', he can't believe it was about a woman. 'But men don't behave like that', I say. 'Oh yes they do!' he replies, outraged.
177. Spring is in the air. I stop off at the Levels to collect some bolts of willow for Mrs Archy on my way to The Groves. Blackthorn billows white in all the hedges. The Groves car park is overflowing and I am directed to park in a paddock, and pick my way through the sheep dung towards the SU. I can hear the lambs bleating. All is well. My extra few miles didn't take as long as expected and I have a bit of time before I am due to meet Barney, who is a vegan, so I decide to make the most of it by having a Full English breakfast before she arrives. At £2 you couldn't do better anywhere. While I am waiting for this Heathcliff sits down beside me and we have a pleasant chat. Yes, sometimes people talk to me now... When Barney and I stroll through the Italian Garden, on our way to the temple, who do you think we see pacing up and down? No, it's not Adam in Eden, but The Poet, and he's holding a mobile phone to his ear. I think he may have a hot line to T.S.Eliot...
When I get to my PT's class I find him waiting for me in a new hoodie. And he has been to the barber. His ear-rings glint in the sun. And yes, I am the only male amongst his twenty-five students. The one who came last week must've been frightened off, and I don't blame him.
178. There is something different about the SU today. There is no TV and no music. This is a great improvement, I think, as I sit down to read my 25p Times. The few students that are about are slumped in the sofas and looking the worse for wear. Someone peels a Rocky Horror poster from the wall; I think there must've been a party last night and they've all got headaches. I wonder why I wasn't invited? It must've been an oversight... Still, I am not one to bear a grudge. Off I go for an excellent session with the Pale Young Man, who knows his stuff, and the Farmer's Wife puts in a guest appearance; she gives us a virtual tour of London in 1605. I remember it well.
When I get home I find an e mail waiting for me. The 'module' results are due tomorrow. Goodie! I can't wait. It means I can do the bi-annual marking of my tutors. Don't forget to tune in for your marks everybody!
179. And now the fateful morning is here. It is 8.15 and still no news from our beloved Minerva. If only her votaries were as keen to start in the morning as our admired Emperor! I saw him through his office window only yesterday as he was honing his next speech ... 'the best... marvellous... published novelists, poets all...' Yes, and 'portals', and 'saxophones' too. It can't be easy to work these disparate things into a coherent speech. But we know he will triumph in the end. May I suggest that the expressions 'rivers of blood' and 'the foaming Tiber' might be brought in next time? But it's easy for me to be brave, sitting at my desk seventy miles away from his torture chamber at The Groves... So here are another couple of verses for the left buttock, casually thrown off, as it were, to wile away the hour:
The Emperor Tiberius declaims 'on the breath',
If he praises it's life, if he doesn't it's death.
He enters the portals at dawn every day
To worship the muses and kneel down to pray.
Famous in Eden and famous in Rome,
The world is his garden 'The Groves' is his home-
The Emperor Tiberius, named after a river*-
The noblest of men and the wisest law-giver!
* clever, that... an extraordinary rendition?
180. Here they are! I will tabulate them when I get a few hours. Disappointing because second-class (the mark for a first is 70), but could be worse...
2007/8
CS2001....LEVEL TWO PROSE FICTION
66%
B
P
CS2005 ...LEVEL TWO POETRY:VOICES AND CHOICES
68%
B
P
EN2035.....CRITICAL READING III
67%
B
P
And here are your marks, Tutors!
Your grades for this Course
Tutor's Name .........Grade...Points Possible.......Points gained......Weight.........Weighted Total
Prezza....................P............100....................100..........10 stone 2oz.......10 stone 2oz
Ms Gargery...............F...........100.......................2...........5 stone 3oz...............15 oz
The High Priestess......P...............100..................69...........Classified.............**!!!%!!
Uncle Joe.................P...............100..........3,947,226.........11 stone...... 18 stone inc. whiskers
February 29th 2008 10:47 AM
N.B. These marks are final and there is no appeal.
181. Thwarted! I arrive at The Groves in good time to indulge in the guilty pleasure of a Full English before Barney arrives. But the kitchen is closed! Next to me I see a hand on the counter. The fingernails are painted purple. I expect to see Sally Bowles or one of the ladies from Cr Wr but turn to see a chap bigger than me in a sinister black overcoat and heavy eye make-up. I sit down to read my 25p Times.
Soon it is time for 'Animal Writes', and here we are again, sitting at our long formica-topped tables waiting for My Personal Trainer. What will Gorgeous Greg be wearing today? I wouldn't have guessed that it would be the Regency shortie overcoat with ragged pocket-flaps, matching waistcoat, jeans, collarless shirt, Marje Proops glasses and three ear rings. And what great literary work are we going to study? 'Today', he says 'we are going to watch a wild-life documentary!' and he rushes around trying to close the blinds, some of which are more co-operative than others. Then he asks us some questions about what we think of wildlife documentaries. When my turn comes I have to tell him that I can't be much use on this one. 'Why not?' he asks. I tell him (sheepishly) that I haven't had a TV in the house for twenty years and am a bit out of touch. 'Have you really been cut off from the television for twenty years?' he asks, amazed. 'God, it's like talking to Rip Van Winkle.' I have to admit that he does have a point, but, in spite of that, dear Taxpayer, I hope you will be pleased with me, because I did learn something... Sunday night is wildlife night!
The film we are going to see is called 'Nightmares of Nature', and I half expect to see some familiar faces from the Cr Wr dept. While The Groves answer to Dorian Gray gets things ready, I wonder just how old he is. Nearer forty than thirty, I should think! But can you imagine Dorian Gray, or even Dr Leavis coming out with a line like 'I was gobsmacked. I was, like... It freaks me out too much'? Possibly not... And could Q have guessed where his attempts at making Eng Lit a respectable area for study would lead? Forget Henry Williamson. Forget D.H.Lawrence and even Ted Hughes. Today we've got David Attenborough! (and in case you're wondering, I do remember him).
Yes, Academe is a strange world.
182. A sign on the student noticeboard is from someone seeking TWO MALE ACTORS and ONE ACTRESS. Er... the waters of PC are indeed muddy.
Barney is tired. Thanks to the gales, she only had an hour's sleep in her hut last night. The kitchen at the SU is winding down for the holiday, so I make do with a biscuit instead of the Full English. I hope that she thinks that I do this out of respect for her views. I am always ready to take credit, whether I deserve it or not... And who is that, chatting vivaciously with an attractive young woman? It's the Old Fakir, but who is she? I may be jealous, but I am glad for him and for old boys everywhere. There is hope for all of us!
My session with the Pale Young Man follows. If he looked like the Old Fakir's coffee partner, he would be the perfect lecturer. He is clever, on top of his subject, and likes his students (even me!) to join in. He doesn't treat them like primary school kids. Borges enjoyed 'an unexpected etymology' and I do too. Today, the Pale Young Man gives us a new word: 'windfucker'. If I buy a boat I may call it 'Windfucker'. Cowes Week is coming.
183. IMPORTANT NEWS FROM THE GROVES:
Richard Dawkins is God. Anything less gets a snicker from the eternal footman. Intelligent Design? If you've ever had an appendix or a wisdom tooth, you can forget it. My Personal Trainer has spoken.
Well, I've had two sessions with him since my last entry. I've given him a fair trial (or to use his preferred jargon: 'I have trialled him') and I am sorry to say that I have found him wanting. If it comes to it, I would rather be stuck in a lift doing a close-reading with Professor Plodder than put up with much more of this.
First we have 'Animal Writes' (yes, I know, I was asking for it by choosing such a thing, but it fits in with my plan for an easy life and cuts down on the driving). It is bad enough wandering the savannah with a herd of talking she-elephants, but an afternoon on 'what is a metaphor?' beats even that. We covered this stuff when I was in the second year at the Grammar School. But this afternoon it's back to the sandpit with a handout beginning 'A is B' and a list of words in three columns from which to make metaphors (I expect the Americans have a verb for this which we will be instructed to use next time). His own contribution is: 'Truth is an oily shoe'. I feel sure that, whatever Richard Dawkins thinks, the three poetic Muses will exact a terrible revenge. I hope so. And soon.
The bright spot of the afternoon comes when we hear a young child in the corridor outside, exacting its own terrible revenge. In fact, it bursts in through the door, shrieking with joy, closely followed by its mother. My heart misses a beat. For a moment I think it is the Lady of Shalott. But it is only Mrs Porridge.
I spend the next few minutes of metaphorising, gazing through the window at a patch of grass between an avenue of trees, as dusk falls, and thinking of Frost's poem, which, contrary to my Personal Trainer's reading, I do not find in the least sinsister. He does not care to hear my views, and I sense that we would both prefer me not to be present. And as I have miles to go before I sleep, I slip out at the break and head for home...
182. Well, I've dumped my copy of Clarissa on Phil Dutch at the bookshop and good luck to him. She had to go. The insurance on the house is due for renewal and I have to complete the bit in the form about subsidence risks. The trouble is that she's been replaced by something equally as bulky: the wretched Norton Anthology. Apart from the fact that one end of it is heavy with second-rate Yanks and the other with American spellings, I find that Oscar Wilde, for instance, isn't represented. Instead, we have Gjertrud Scnackenberg. I won't even bother to mention Robert Bridges. Who he? I'm sure his name would merit no more than a snicker from you know who... The main thing, from his point of view, I suppose, is that Margaret Atwood is to be found nestling amongst its two thousand leaves.
183. As it's Easter Monday and a cold one at that, I'm going to present the world with a sonnet I've returned to. The High Priestess didn't think much of this one when it came her way. Maybe I won't, tomorrow, but I can always delete it...
.
.
THE LOST RHYME
(Edward Thomas, killed at Arras 7.36am, Easter Monday, 1917)
.
White clouds blow in the sky
after a night cold with sleet;
five-nines whistle by,
ice cracks under his feet.
Smoke rises from the battery,
lovely in the frost;
he thinks of home and family,
fights for a rhyme he’s lost.
Through the wounded morning
sixty-pounders fly;
blackbirds are chinking
as they sweep the sky.
From the copse, the thrush’s song-
the lost rhyme: not long, not long.
185. And so the long Easter holiday draws to a close. We students have been hard pressed, working till the early hours, poring over our books, and doing a bit of spring cleaning too! I've just been going through 'my documents' deleting old rubbish, and when I found an unwanted picture, responded to the question 'Do you want to send the Emperor Tiberius to the recycling bin?' which had appeared on the screen, with a firm YES, and felt not a trace of guilt or regret. 'Yes, thou art gone...'
186. THE HIGH PRIESTESS
When I say that the High Priestess isn't easy to read, I am not talking about her literary efforts, but her facial expression. It's deadpan. So when she's looking at an example of your work and you lift your eye at an oblique angle hoping she won't see and that she'll think that you couldn't care less for her views, you get no clue. Her face is a mask, pale (except for the scarlet lips) and bejewelled at the edges, like something left behind by the Ancient Etruscans, or those fellows who worshipped the minotaur. Naturally, the student assumes the worst.
The last time we spoke was when I heard a disembodied voice from a window at The Groves. It was hers. And I remember in retrospect that she said she was going to be busy, but being a blundering old fool, I though she might want a lift home. She was in a class room with some students when she spoke to me, which seemed informal enough. I suppose it was one of those breaks they go in for. After wandering about a bit outside, talking to the trees like Fotherington-Thomas, I went into the office to ask the ladies when she was due to pack up. They looked at their astrological charts and said that she wasn't teaching, so why didn't I pop my head round the door. This is what I did. 'Archy get out, I'm teaching,' were the first words I heard. Facial expression: deadpan, as usual. Presumably this was a bit of banter. I blundered on... We have not spoken since. It is usually best to assume the worst.
The thing I regret most about my time at the Groves is the disappearance of her shopping trolley. Perhaps it is coincidence, but I blame myself for this. The world is poorer for the absence of that shopping trolley. Without it, the High Priestess is like Brunel without the cigar. But, who knows, perhaps the squeak of the little wheels will be heard long hence, after hours, on dark November evenings, when ghosts stir.
187. It is the first day back after the Easter break. Barney and I haven't arranged to meet, and I feel lonely and out of place as I sit outside the SU in the sun with my sandwich. The next table is heaving with young male students. One of their friends comes across to join them: 'I walked out of the fuckin lecture cos the teacher's a fuckin mug. If I don't watch it, I'm goin to be expelled for assaultin a fuckin teacher...Just because I'm workin class an he's fuckin middle class...' This is not a relaxing experience for me, but at least I'm not the offending member of staff. That's one blessing I can count.
I put away my 25p Times and wander off to 'Animal Writes'. When I get there, the students are sitting in a ring inside the formica topped tables. We're having a quaker-style prayer meeting. I position myself as near as possible to the door, so that I can escape if necessary. I have already adopted a mantra for my Personal Trainer's classes. It is 'He Resolves To Say No More',* as I have the impression that my PT prefers silence to my contributions but, as usual, I am unable to stick to it. We are discussing the ethics of experimenting on non-consenting humans and other animals. 'What is the difference?' he wants to know. I butt in with 'What about the soul?' This provokes the usual giggle from him. It is a risible suggestion. Do we dismiss the existence of the soul as a philosophical concept? We do. Plato can keep his essences.
I am beginning to think that my Personal Trainer may have some interesting character traits.
After God we get Disney. Yes, My PT rushes around closing the blinds and pressing his zapper. Some cartoon figures appear on the screen. If I had my revolver with me, I would reach for it**.
When I get home the next day, I discuss the strange case of my Personal Trainer with Mrs Archy and I tell her that he wears his atheism on his sleeve. She thinks he must be a lapsed catholic but that the Hound of Heaven is on his heels. He cannot escape. When My Personal Trainer giggles at anything that suggests Christianity to him, he is really looking over his shoulder...
And another thing. There are two types of philosopher: the type that starts with the question and the type that starts with the answer. He strikes me as belonging to the second school, like Mrs Archy, who it seems, along with Father O'Hanrahan and his flock, will be praying for him from now on.
Notes: *I think this is the title of a poem by an atheistical poet who had the heart torn out of him.
**er... Goering?
188. At the top of the stairs as I make my way to class this morning, I see Barney chatting to Mr Porridge. Him again! Do I feel a stab of jealousy? The parable of the talents comes to mind... Inside the classroom, the Pale Young Man sits on his desk, like Puck. He doesn't take the register like my old friends Ms Gargery (who may have taken a new appointment in the Outer Hebrides- I haven't seen her for months), Prezza, and the other schoolmarms. Instead, he reels off the names of all twenty-four of us without making a mistake and without hesitation, deviation or repetition. This man is a phenomenon: meet Mister Memory! As I sit on the wall outside during the break, the Emperor Tiberius comes along in his black martial arts gear: meet Mister Minatory! He feels he has to acknowledge me and I get a reedy greeting emitted reluctantly from between his grinding incisors.
Later I take a walk down to the temple. Oscar is still remembered by Lord Henry. Jacob still hearts Melody. But does he? When people move on to new loves the names of the old ones stay on at the temple. The waste remains... It is an uncomfortable thought for some of us. But the sun shines, the drakes chase the ducks across the lake, all is well, except for the infernal machines the gardening contractors use to keep the place tidy. By the sides of the track I see the first wood anenomes and masses of primroses and violets...
189. THE PALE YOUNG MAN
I've just checked my uni e-mails. I am invited to attend two cheese tasting sessions (one parmesan, one with pickle); advised that Indian scarves will be sold in the SU; and to join a litter-picking team in Oldfield Park. I also have one from the Pale Young Man who has tracked down the (garbled and irrelevant) quotation I came up with the other day. This man has a mind like a terrier! On Thursday he asked the class how many universities there were in England in 1600. A student replied 'Two- Cambridge and Oxford'. 'Oxford and Cambridge...' he said, 'Yes'. This is exactly what Uncle Tony who went up to Magdalen in 1946 would've said. I wonder which college the Pale Young Young Man went to? But things have changed since Uncle Tony's day. I don't suppose A.L.Rowse kissed the Pale Young Man's ear when he was browsing in Blackwells...
190. On the mini-roundabout in front of The Groves, the spot reserved for my artwork, Verses for the Left Buttock, a strange dance is taking place. A number of workers, including the one who looks like Tolstoy, have been raking the earth before re-grassing takes place, and they are now circling the perimeter, rhythmically stamping the earth with their feet. It reminds me of the Zulus before Ulundi. I don't object to this sort of thing. I take it as an act of homage.
As I am writing down this observation on the back of a postcard, a small party passes by. It is another Open Day. 'Yes,' says our representative, there is a lot of rivalry between us and XXXX University. They call us the Early Learning Centre.' This chance eavesdropping does have the ring of truth about it...
During the long march to the SU, I pass the Blond Beast coming the other way. I have never spoken to him but I did look him up in an idle moment the other day and was shocked to see that he is a Professor. He must be half my age. I grow old, I grow old... And here is Barney, looking bright and breezey, with some vegan bread to feast on. She tells me how well she is getting on with Mr Porridge.
It is soon time for Animal Writes, with my Peronal Trainer. We are due to have another prayer meeting, and this time the subject is hunting. I must keep my mouth shut at all times, if I am to survive this session of free speech. I could be torn limb from limb... or at least, this is what I think as I enter the room. But my expectations are all wrong. We have a lively discussion without unpleasantness, my PT seems to be the soul (...er I'd better re-phrase that) of reasonableness, and goes so far as to solicit my views once or twice, and as the door opens at the end of the session, we even share a little joke, which Barney, who is waiting to come in for the next session with old Porridge, actually witnesses. Ah, yes, world is crazier and more of it than we think*. The joke? There is an outing to the zoo next week, which my PT has told us is 'compulsory'. During the class a form was handed round for our signatures, to confirm our intention of coming. I wrote Archy- not coming...
Oh yes, and in this module today, which I think is our seventh three hour stint, we looked at The Bear from Faulkner's Go Down, Moses. It is our first contact with Literature. Faulkner is a writer I have always avoided, but I liked what I saw. I have learnt something. This, as my favourite history book says, must be a good thing.
* Come on, all ye doctors and Professors, surely you know this one.
191. A cold wind blows from the east as I walk down to the Temple. Dead leaves whirl in a corner as I sit on one of the two oak benches (screwed to concrete, cigarette burns in wood) to have a read. No machinery disturbs the peace today, only the sound of squabbling waterfowl, which is as it should be. Something like snow blows in the air, and I see that it is the blossom of the yew tree, which is another discovery. I am enjoying The Duchess of Malfi with the Pale Young Man, and feel cheated that the lecture has been cancelled in favour of a careers talk, and as my afternoon poetry class has been taken over by a computer publishing 'opportunity', I skip this and head for the car park. As I slip the heap into third, who should I see hurrying along the path, but the bionic Mr Porridge. With his splayed-out feet and cro-magnon gait, he could be the missing link, the prototype Englishman. Perhaps I should start a novel with him as my hero. It could be my third year project.
192. MY PERSONAL TRAINER
Sometimes we get an unexpected glimpse into someone's character. I have just experienced such a moment. It has been suggested to me that if my Personal Trainer's character has a flaw, it is the sin of vanity. I now know that there is no truth in such a suggestion. Far from it. I have been looking at his handbook for the Animal Writes module, which is not only unmatched in our literature for concision and clarity, but in modesty too. The example I wish to cite appears in the section headed References to Books. When we refer to any we should provide details thus:
(a) Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism (London: Routledge, 2004)pp. 42-43.
(b) William Shakespeare, King Lear, ed. by R.A.Foakes (London: Arden Shakespeare, 1997)...
193. UNCLE JOE
Ey oop! I bump into Uncle Joe on the stairs. He's wearing a marmalade coloured tweed jacket, the like of which I have never seen before. He's off home, and I don't blame him. In a few minutes, I will be too. When I first met him, eighteen months ago, Uncle Joe struck me as looking like a historical figure. I plumped for Stalin, but now he reminds me of someone else. When you have a moustache such as his, it invites comparisons. No-one in today's Britain has a moustache to compare with it. It is like Cyrano's nose: it precedes him by a quarter of an hour. To call it magnificent is to understate the case. I watch as Uncle Joe disappears through the automatic door, and have a palpable sense of his absence and, by gum, an epiphany follows. I become aware that I have been in the presence of one of the world's great thinkers... It is Friederich Nietszche he reminds me of (cue opening bars of Also Sprach Zarathustra).
The author T.F.Powys admired Nietszche and grew a Nietszchean moustache as a kind of homage. He also wore a tweed jacket which, for all I know, may have been marmalade-coloured. Stalin, Nietszche, T.F.Powys, Uncle Joe: what a multi-layered world Academe is.
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194. I have to leave the heap at the garage for its MOT, and take my two boys to The Groves in Mrs Archy's limo. There is a teacher's strike and she is determined to get what we are entitled to from you taxpayers, one way or the other. We have very different minds: she has intelligence without imagination and I have imagination without intelligence. This should mean a life of perfect accord... And who is this dancing on the road by the Eng Dept? Our beloved High Priestess herself, and what a pleasure it is to see her looking happy as we drive past. It is spring and it is not just a young man's fancy that turns, I'll be bound.
I leave the boys in the SU and head for the Pale Young Man's class. He has told us he will be late today as he has some kind of MOT himself: the Inspector has called. And when he arrives, fresh from the ordeal, he is immediately confronted by the word 'synecdoche'. Two girl students have been told by Mr Porridge, who took an earlier class, that they should be ashamed of themselves for not knowing what it means. What does it mean?* The Pale Young Man's mouth opens slightly, probably from a combination of weariness and horror. He raises that curious engine, his white hand, his eyes begin to revolve as the wheels turn. Faster and faster they go... and JACKPOT! he has remembered. It is where a part stands for the whole, oh yes! But an example would not be, as one devious elderly student suggests, the moustache of Uncle Joe as in 'here come's the moustache!' or 'make way for the moustache', oh no! More like calling sailors 'hands'...' It is now time for me to feel ashamed.
The Pale Young Man's lecture is on the subject of DEATH, a subject dear to the heart of any boy, so mine join me in the back row of the stalls for the performance. I was half expecting to see the remains of Professor Plodder nodding in a glass case, dressed like some long dead renaissance saint, but there is no sign of him. Is he out training for our race to the crematorium?
Is there LIFE after DEATH? As a response to this qestion, the boys and I enjoy a hearty FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST in the SU, and then wander down to the temple and on to the library. Henry, who is fifteen, has been in a serious state of decline over the last few months: boozing, smoking dope, illicitly spending the night in our elderly neighbours' double bed when being paid to feed their cats, getting complaints from teachers, even losing the power of speech, and I am hoping that a day at The Groves will be an inspiration. As a special treat we climb the stairs of the Eng Dept in the hope of catching the Pale Young Man in the office he shares with Professor Plodder. And where is Plodder? Only a few tomes penned by his hero Wyndham Lewis are left to show that he ever existed. But the Pale Young Man makes us welcome. He shakes Henry's hand.
Once again, the poetry class is given over to a computer 'opportunity'. My younger son says he's tired and wants to go home. 'Do you?' I ask Henry. He indicates with a shake of the head that he doesn't want to go. He wants more! He has enjoyed his day at The Groves. Perhaps all is not lost.**
NOTES: *A tip. At such a moment it is best, in my experience, to ask individual members of the class what the answer is, as in 'what do you think, George?' This gives the tutor valuable thinking time, and, who knows, the fire alarm may even go off. One of my better efforts in my year of teaching happened when I was asked to explain 'roll over relief'. I appreciate that 'see me after the class, Miss Jones' would present problems with the Harassment Officer in these dark days, but it worked for me.
**There were an awful lot of pretty girls about today. Even I noticed. So perhaps the PYM can't take all the credit.
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195. I've realised that I've been missing something. It's taken me all this time to notice, but we don't have the circus any more. We don't get it in the second year. I suppose we are thought to have grown out of the need for such juvenile entertainments. Where are the giants of yesteryear: Germaine, The Blond Beast, Caliban, The Lady of Shalott? No longer do we students have the chance to see our heroes strut and fret their hour upon the stage. They have entered the world of myth. And another thing: Oppression seems to have disappeared from the syllabus. It hasn't been mentioned all year. There was a time (O, happy time it was!) when we students could return to our womenfolk and say 'Women of the World unite! Cast off your vestments. You have nothing to lose but your needle and thread!' That time is past and all its dizzy raptures are no more*.
Was the Age of Oppression a Golden Age? Is the circus is a lost Eden? Borges was right: there are no paradises other than the paradises lost.**
NOTES:* Wordsworth
** Borges (after Proust).
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196. Taxpayers! I want you to pretend that you are in a class in one of our newer universities. Let's call it 'The Early Learning Centre'. Your tutor (dress him/her how you please) enters the room and announces: 'today we are going to have a quiz. I want you to fill in the blanks in all these useless quotations from a bygone age. I'll pass this form round and you fill it in...'
1. God is ...
2. Only we ... in earnest, that's no jest.
3. I am .... Egypt, ....
4. Every time you go I ... a little.
5. .... was much concerned with ... and saw the skull beneath the skin.
6. I .... therefore I am (clue: red wine).
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197. For the first time since I started at The Groves. I feel a sense of panic about my work, or the lack of it. Suddenly it is the end of April and 'submissions' are due, and all at once. Furthermore, I am 'elsewhere' each week until Wednesday, which means that if a 'submission' is due on a Tuesday, I have to take it in the week before, which reduces the available time. And with my Personal Trainer's two 'modules' I am still at a loss as to what he wants. It's all Dutch to me. And I would appreciate it if you tutors could get your computers set up to receive the 'soft copies' in good time. Some of us have to pull together our IT departments in order to work the cursed technology. A submission is due tomorrow for my Personal Trainer. I wanted to send it yesterday when I had help, but the thing hadn't been set up at his end. Why do they have to wait til the last minute? And now my IT dept is away on a school trip... This sort of thing causes unnecessary stress and irritation.
And then there's the question of boredom. An academic essay is required to be boring. Your tutor isn't interested in the music of line or mastery of cadence. He wants facts. Facts supported by evidence, oh yes! He wants you to be dull and grey. If you are to succeed in Academe, you must forget the wings of the morning*, and learn to plod. You must concentrate on the kettle and not on the stars.*And you must stop wasting time on the blog and get on with it...
NOTES: *Psalm 139 I think. With apologies to the Dark Lady. We know what she thinks of the Authorised Version. Suggested Essay Question: Was the ducking stall such a bad thing after all?
** a clue: every notary has dreamed of sultanas.
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198. It is now 2.55 pm on the day before my Personal Trainer's first submission is due. The computer at the other end is still not in a position to receive it. Are we mortals supposed to sit glued to our computers in the hope that some God will make a gesture so that we can get this irritation out of the way?
199. Well, it's gone at last. But on checking my uni e-mails I find that my Personal Trainer has made a mistake about the date for the next submission. It's due on Tuesday the 6th and not Thursday the 8th (as specified in his handbook). That means I have to take it in tomorrow or make a special 150 mile round trip on Tuesday. Oh, well, a small gripe. Let's get them all out of the way at once. Call to me all my sad captains. Tell them the gaudy night is off. We'll burn the midnight oil instead, like a real student.
200. The door of the office in the Eng Dept is studded with keyboards and buttons; it looks like the entrance to a bank vault. I am a man who can't even work the cashpoint. Not that it would do any good. Like all proper students I am broke. I hope for the best and turn the handle. It works, and in I go. The lady standing behind the bar takes the three 'submissions' I have been working on all night and I head for the Pale Young Man's class.
He asks us about a passage in The Changeling, where the nasty piece of work picks up the lady's glove, and asks us what we think it signifies. 'Mr Porridge says that putting your hand in a lady's glove is a metaphor for penetrative sex', says the girl who asked what 'synecdoche' meant last week. But The Pale Young Man is so innocent and pale that not even the concept of 'sin' can make him blush. Must try harder, Girls! Mr Porridge should be ashamed of himself. Perhaps we'll get 'Cynara' next week. Yes, Mr Porridge has been faithful to us, in his fashion.
The lecture which follows is given by the Farmer's Wife, who has taken time off from writing her book to come in to see us. What will it be called, I wonder: Heart of London, perhaps, or Literary Back Passages? The A-Z's already been done. We had it last time she came in. Is it really true that this charming agriculturalist rides a motor-bike, or was someone winding me up? Tess Durbeyfield would've been obliged to walk over the flinty fields to get to us. But the Farmer's wife apparently came here by the viewless Goldwings of poesy, charioted by 1000 ccs of Harley... I do a rough count of the audience. There are about thirty-five of us present. Apart from the Pale Young Man, who sits at her feet, I am the only male. I expect the other chaps are busy writing their essays. I am sure that none of them are passing the time toying with the daughters of Albion, on this sweet May morning. If I had to choose between listening to our very own Goddess of the Fields and acting the parched and juiceless luxor with that girl with the 'lurin figure and the four inch frou-frou I'm sure you know that you'd find me here, giving my rich attention to the lecture.
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201. Time for Poetry with my Personal Trainer, who is feeling his age. He has a cold. But I am not one for schadenfreude, oh no! I feel sorry for him. His youth is slipping away... He didn't even write 'NEOTONY' on the board today. (Cue Finzi's setting of 'His golden locks time hath to silver turned...') If I were him, I'd do something positive. I would throw all my mirrors out and enjoy the little time I had left. Uncle Joe tells me that if you are a vampire you have no reflection. But it isn't necessary to be a vampire in order to have no reflection. There can be no reflection without a mirror! Just chuck em out, boy*.
At each of my classes today, the students are asked to fill in a questionaire canvassing their views on the module. You can say what you like, but those of us who think we have a distinctive style had better watch out because these tutors will be marking our submissions next week. This is Democracy in Action, Groves-style. It is also embarassing. Whether the Harassment Officer can be brought in if you overstep the mark we are not told. I expect so. This brings a thought. Am I beginning to miss Mr Porridge?
NOTE: *See the works of Bishop Berkeley (someone whose very name provokes a row if Mrs Archy is present).
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202. A BLACK DAY FOR BOHEMIANISM. It is six months since I had a hair cut. I think myself daring, dangerous even; definitely subversive. Mrs Archy allows me to have half a bottle of wine at lunch time, and when I am comfortably dozing afterwards and thinking all's right with the world, propels me onto a stool in the kitchen and starts to snip. 'Only an inch' I say. 'Don't move', she replies. I now look like Radclyffe Hall. How can I face the world after this?
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203. BIRTHDAY GREETINGS!
The High Priestess is 3500 today, and she still looks as lovely as a young girl! (well, two or three young girls, actually). How does she do it? She, Ayesha, Circe, the High Priestess is all of them not only to me, but to all of us. Yes, O Taxpayer. If I was down at the temple at this moment I would add to the graffiti. I would knock up a quick sestina or villanelle to celebrate the occasion, or perhaps a limerick, and carve it into one of the pillars, as Byron carved his name on one at Sunion, or wherever it was... Here at The Tannery we are saving up for a belated birthday present for her. What she needs is a new shopping trolley*...
Notes:*Gerald Brenan, one of my heroes, set out to walk to China with a shopping trolley full of books. He got as far as Sarajevo. This was in 1914. I was wondering what to do with my gap year. Perhaps I should follow this exploit. Maybe I should ask the High Priestess to come with me? We could have our own shopping trolleys with our own pyjamas and poetry books- even laptops so that we could do our blogs... and we could get sponsorship for Help the Aged.
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204. NEXT DAY,
Well, I hope she's all right. We know she was having a party of artists and literary folk in the big city. Here at the Tannery we've been worried sick all night. No news from the High Priestess. These young people, what a worry they are! But Mrs Archy is off to church in a minute and will pray for her. It'll be interesting to see what good it does. I'm trying to remember the Evelyn Waugh* novel where the fire brigade is summoned to add to the amusement of the crowd during the festivities. Was it A Handful of Dust? We did think of hiring the Porlock Fire Brigade to go along in all their pomp and glory, but it was too expensive for us. I hope the High Priestess will agree that it's the thought that counts.
NOTES: *I drove past his house at Combe Florey (near Taunton) today. He's buried in the garden.
205. Mrs Archy has put her foot down. 'I don't like these Revenge Tragedies' she announces. We don't watch TV but we do have a machine for films (so you see we really are very up to date in Porlock). Mrs Archy has expressed disapproval so far of: Prospero's Books, Titus, The Revenger's Tragedy, The Changeling, Ulysses, and Fatty Ackroyd doing the Romantics (even though we see shots of places around here that we know). 'It's all right once in a while,' she says, 'but I don't see why I should be made miserable by being forced to watch this sort of thing three nights in a row.' Now I know how tricky it was for Matilda when her mama said 'You chose books and I chose looks'.
In an attempt to curry favour with Mrs Archy, I went so far as to borrow Sylvia from the library at The Groves (with Daniel Craig as Ted Hughes), but even that didn't satisfy her. 'What I want after a hard day's basket making, is a light romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant', she says.
So you can see, it isn't easy for a boy from the sticks to get himself an education. I may be forced to leave home.
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206. It seems that I've failed to set up this blogsite to receive comments. A message awaited me on the computer screen this morning, in the form of a postcard (not a virtual one but a real one). It reads:
Well, if you do go, make sure you take all your beastly videos with you.
Love from Mrs Archy
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207. ADVERTISEMENT
Mrs Archy is going to London next weekend and will be away Sunday and Monday nights. I therefore have a vacancy here at the Tannery for B&B (Good walking nearby. Hot bath and Revenge Tragedy available by arrangement. Limited menu. Please bring your own clothes: frou-frou or riding gear preferred).
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208 The details are out for next year's modules. What a nightmare it is. You can't pick one and put it on 'hold' as you can with your Venetian apartment while you sort out the flight (yes, we had holidays once), and you can't find even the approximate times or even days when you need to attend until you press the final button, which means you're stuck with them without getting involved in a bureaucratic horror story. To paraphrase the blurb for two of the Cr Wr options: Poetry: find a poet who is alive and imitate him/her... Prose Fiction: Learn to write a page-turner. No thanks. As for Eng Lit well, you can do Sylvia Plath but not one of the Romantics, and you can do Modernists with Professor Plodder (a paradox if ever there was one) but you can't do anything else that's English from the 2oth century except Uncle Joe's Modern Gothic (which I'm game for because I like him). As for the rest, well you have to run about and find someone to take you on for a dissertation or a project. For some of us the field is a small one, and I choose never to stoop*. If anyone wants me SPEAK NOW... **
Note: * Browning
**Who said 'the rest is silence'?
209. On this loveliest of mornings, Barney, Cindy and I are having a picnic on the steps of the temple when who should come along but Heathcliff. What is he up to? We engage him in some banter, during which he maintains that he hadn't been planning to add to the graffiti on one of the pillars. But it's my guess that HEATHCLIFF 4 CATHY 4 EVER will be appearing before the term is out.
Soon this pleasant interlude is over. I have a session with my Personal Trainer. It is far from wasted. Today he is telling us about his heroine Margaret Atwood and all goes well. I learn that he was brought up in a house where Stephen Hawking lived. Think of that! If they decide to put up a blue plaque whose name will appear first? When I was on my way to the Savile Club once, I was just passing Handel's old house when a small American boy pointed up at the plaque. 'Who's that one dad ?'
'Oh, he's another musicologist' said dad. He'd brought the family to see where Jimi Hendrix had lived. Yes, it's a funny old world.
When my PT got on to the question of cosmetic surgery he really lit up. I wonder what he's planning. I know a woman who had the bags under her eyes done. She reminded me of an old sofa with a new patch in it. My advice is: 'don't!'
Saying of the day: Something's gone completely wrong with my sense of time!
210. After last time, the Pale Young Man has decided that attack is the best means of defence. He holds one arm up and keeps it there for ages, like one of those statues around the colosseum, and begins by asking the girl next to me whether there are any queries left over from Mr Porridge's class this week. She blushes most becomingly, shakes her head, and tells us that his class was down to eight this morning. We all laugh heartily. Then we watch a bit of a film of The Changeling starring none other than (wait for it...) Hugh Grant. He has been Cartlanded (note my new American-style verb), and his acting is... well, execrable. Once more the room shakes with laughter, most of it mine. I can't wait to show this one at home!
I have to say that the Pale Young Man's lecture on 'the self', which followed his class, lacked sparkle, though it was an improvement on Hugh Grant. I like the Pale Young Man, and I expect greater things of him than I do of the common run of humanity, but fair's fair. If he can say that an effort of mine is 'all over the place' I feel entitled to say that his effort was, well, rather pedestrian. Perhaps he had had a late night.
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211. It's time for a tiger* in the Italian garden. They're on offer at the SU and, straight from the fridge, irresistible on a hot day like this. And as we've been lectured on the self my thoughts are naturally directed inward. As I hurry along clutching my bottle, I pass the Old Fakir, who grins benevolently. He understands. Through the eye in the oak postern I go, and to my delight I see that the bench on the far side is free. I think I'll skip PT today; we're due to recite a lot of American drivel left behind by those sixties junkie-hierophants. They can stuff themselves with it for all I care. How lovely it is to sit out here in the sun especially after a couple of my favourite students arrive and drape themselves across the lawn nearby. If only I was thirty years younger. Hold on! Make that forty years. As I reflect 'upon my losing and my owing'** and sink into a pleasant reverie, a lithe figure emerges from the gate behind me. He doesn't see me sitting on the bench against the wall and, without bending his knees, leans over and places the palms of his hands flat on the grass, as if he is about to embark on a series of handsprings. It is Caliban, one of Nature's athletes.
NOTES:* Anthony Burgess
** Hilaire Belloc
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212. CHOOSING YOUR MODULES
Well, would you credit it? I could perhaps, do a 'Creative Enterprise Project' next year. But what sort of creative project could I do? How about the Blog? Struck by this innocent thought, I send an e-mail to the Blond Beast, whose province this is. He e-mails back promptly. He is going to have to ask the Emperor Tiberius what he thinks before coming to a decision. What Ho! Perhaps my Verses for the Left Buttock will see the light of day sooner than I thought. But then perhaps not.
213. Here comes the tractor, and as Tolstoy is at the wheel I am not going to argue. The Groves is looking lovely. He's been doing the mowing. Outside the SU I bump into Sal, who I've never dared speak to. She's looking worried. 'I've got to do my poetry rehearsal today...' but I tell her she needn't worry, because our PT has cancelled the session and gone off to a conference in Brussels with Mr Porridge. The've both been crowing about it all week. Sal is pleased with me as I have brought good news, and I go on my way rejoicing. Anyone who wants to go to a conference in Brussels must have the heart of a Rotarian. Still, it could provide a chapter for my novel The Prototype Englishman, next year's project. Somehow I don't think the Blog will be accepted. For one thing, it's far too literary...
214. This week's theme is LOSS. A whole week's gone by and I have to report that not a single tutor has approached me begging me to accept their tutelage. All I can say is: 'It's your loss'.
Choosing modules is a lottery. As a betting man I would usually go for the jockey rather than the horse, but at The Groves they always seem to swap the jockey once you've placed your bet. The Literary London (A-Z) module includes a field course involving a night or two in London led by the Farmer's wife. Think of that*! But, alas, bookings are closed. A lost opportunity.
I've decided that England has lost its sense of identity. What does England mean to you? Tesco, traffic, and Terminal 5... Would you fight for King and Country? I bet you wouldn't, and neither would I, because it is now no more than an economic unit, a cultural adjunct to the good old US of A. We've lost our way (and everyone needs something to kick against). I'm starting a campaign for Assembly at the beginning of each term when we will have good old fashioned hymn singing and a pep-talk by the headmaster. Atheism will not be tolerated. Hymns for the first assembly will be:
I Vow to Thee my Country (Holst), Jerusalem (Parry/Blake), and We Plough the Fields (Seasonal). Professor Plodder will be at the memorial organ.
NOTES:* It reminds me of my friend Hugo's story about members of a Herefordshire village flower circle visiting the great city. One of the ladies got lost and having asked a policeman for directions tried to engage him in conversation.
Lady: Lot of people 'ere today.
Policeman: Not specially.
Lady: But there's twelve 'ere from Newbridge to my certain knowledge!
.
215. I haven't seen the Emperor Tiberius for some time and can only assume he's in one of his his beloved haunts, Chicago perhaps, surely the central city of the world. He came into my mind this morning when I was innocently reading in the works of Sir Thomas Browne, while sitting on the harbour wall. 'Tiberius', says Sir Thomas, was like one of those 'hudled forth and carelessly burnt, without the esquiline port at Rome... in the Amphitheatre, according to the custom in notable malefactors...'
As one of the Emperor's staunchest supporters you will believe me, I know, when I say that I found this news most distressing. And it has set me thinking. Perhaps I should give up my plan to have a statue of myself erected on the green outside The Groves. Our Noble Emperor shall be immortalised in my stead. My verses only await the moment...
216. Thank heavens for Barney. Today is the last day for choosing the 'modules' and she told me that the A-Z of London course is still on... I check against my print out and find that it has swapped 'semesters' and is indeed still there, lurking in the back passage of Minerva. The systems at the Groves have been devised by those with a taste for the cryptic all right. She also tells me that she's been discussing the American Literature module with the Blond Beast and guess who they talked about? Wait for it... not Melville but... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN which she is pleased about. I have no idea who Bruce Springsteen is, and associate him in my mind with Eric Clapton (GOD) and John Lennon (SAINT), but I wouldn't know him if I bumped into him. I try to look happy for her and secretly resolve not to have anything to do with this module or the 19th century European novel one which he's also running. People betray themselves by a small gesture. Imagine Flaubert in his hands... It doesn't bear thinking about.
217. A DAY OF MIRACLES
After a most enjoyable session with the Pale Young Man, I am chatting outside the Eng Dept with some female students (as they have to be called) when a mountain bike whizzes up and brakes a few yards away. The female students immediately desert me and rush over to greet the new arrival, who I don't recognise. I collapse onto a nearby bench to watch the passing show. And then I see that the youth in the dark glasses and singlet is none other than my Personal Trainer, and that his shoulders are covered with wall paintings. He has turned himself into a work of art. Foreign travel may prove difficult for him from now on; he may need an export licence if he wants to leave the country. Perhaps he is planning to stay at home and turn himself into a tourist attraction: SEE THE CAVE PAINTINGS. VISIT CHEDDAR GORGEOUS.
I suffer a further shock when buying my 25p Times in the SU shop. The Dark Lady saunters up to me. I haven't seen her for an age and resist the urge to tell her that I'd thought she'd been burnt at the stake. She tells me she's now a Doctor... Surely doctors are supposed to treat shock rather than cause it. I feel strangely light headed; it is not just witches who hear voices. It is God I hear whispering in my ear: 'where was she when I laid the foundations of the earth?' he says. 'Foundations?' I whisper back. 'Who needs them?' Outside, a cloud shaped like a tower'd citadel floats by*...
NOTE: * Ant & Cleo, when Ant feels he is beginning to disintegrate.
218. We students are due to have a practice session for our poetry reading. We each have to give a ten minute presentation, which includes reciting a poem learnt by heart and commenting on it. This should prove a doddle to an old hand like me. The first student looks nervous. The piece of paper she is clutching trembles in her hand. But she performs brilliantly. And the next one isn't bad, and the next, and then it is my turn. With a bit of prompting I manage to get through the poem all right, but after thirty seconds of talking about it, I hesitate, flounder, and then completely dry up. I am forced to retire. My attempt has been an abysmal failure. Dejected, I slump into my seat and gaze through the window on the far side of the room. Tolstoy rides past at the wheel of his tractor...
219. Bank Holiday, and sure enough, the weather has been 'absolutely appalling', as The Groves' landlord is apt to say. It is too wet for walking so I sit with Dell Boy and wonder what to do. I know! It's time to start my new novel starring Mr Porridge. I'm going to call it THE PROTOTYPE ENGLISHMAN. The opening line, is as you will know if you've studied the trivial art of page-turning module in Cr Wr, is of the utmost importance. Most readers don't get beyond it. Also, I have learnt that although plagiarism offends Minerva, great writers don't worry about that, they steal. I'm going to dedicate it to Kingsley Amis, because he wrote about life at a provincial university, and because I know he would like my first line. So here goes...
It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a shot rang out...
220. THE PROTOTYPE ENGLISHMAN (or DEATH AT THE GROVES) (1)
Jason Porridge stopped in his tracks and lifted a hand to cup his ear. His fitness regime could wait. Silence. And then, after exactly two and a half seconds, a strange squeaking sound wafted through the damp November air. It was the wheels of an old shopping-trolley and they were turning fast, very fast. And then another sound greeted him. It was a blood curdling scream... A woman was in trouble. Porridge knew exactly what to do. He would retrace his steps, go into his cabin and take out his training manual. Then he would look up the word 'screaming'. His breath turned to steam as he panted back along the track he knew so well. The doorhandle felt cold to the touch, cold, he thought, as the dead hand brought by the Duchess of Malfi's brother. One thing was certain. For someone, things would never be the same again. There was trouble at The Groves.
Victoria Plum, who had been assistant chaplain at The Groves for only three weeks, had pushed her shopping trolley to one side as she ripped her bodice into makeshift bandages. She was now vainly trying to staunch the blood which oozed from the wound in the man's chest. A scarlet flower had spread across his pale skin. 'Donald... Donald', she cried.
It was six in the evening, six by all the clocks, and all was not well. Safe and ignorant in his ground floor office, the Head of Creative Writing toyed with his keyboard. He knew nothing of what had happened, only a few yards away, on the steps of the English Department. To a real writer like him, thunder is as nothing and an unscheduled scream no more than a distraction. He laughed at the line on the screen before his eyes. He had spent much of the day trying to get his script right, and now, at last, it had come together. But suddenly his peace of mind was shattered. A flame-haired beauty with a ripped bodice, in the full bloom of her womanhood and with blood on her hands, stood before him. 'Dr Tiberius,' she panted, 'Professor Plodder has been murdered.'
221. And now to fix on a pseudonym... Archibald Cattletrough never brought me any luck. I once won a prize using the name Chaka Ohene, a cunning mixture of black and Irish, I thought, but it was only a second prize. The composer Peter Warlock (born Philip Heseltine) sometimes called himself Rab Noolas, which has the double merit of being unusual and saloon bar spelt backwards. I need to re-invent myself all right. Rab Cilbup might do, or Ela Lear, though perhaps the latter is too redolent of Poe and the former of Warlock. No, I think I'll go continental instead... How about Roman A. Clef? Yes, I think that has a nice ring to it: Death at The Groves, by Roman A. Clef.
222. DEATH AT THE GROVES (2)
Jason Porridge had had a late night. The police had seen to that. They had sealed the gates of The Groves so that no one could enter or leave without their knowledge and cartloads of them had arrived with arc lamps, forensics, and all. Even worse, they had set up a portacabin to rival his own, right in front of the English Department. Screens had been placed around the Professor's corpse. Everyone, even senior members of staff such as himself, had been questioned by policemen with not even an upper second between them. It was an outrage. But he was a tolerant sort of chap. He wasn’t one to make a fuss, even if he had missed University Challenge on TV.
And now, at nine thirty the following morning, Porridge was scratching his chin with half a dozen other members of staff as they watched the proceedings. Already the green screens and the arc lights had gone, and the corpse had been wheeled away to the mortuary. ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’, he thought. All that was different about the steps of the Eng dept was the up and down yellow chalk line which showed the spot where Professor Plodder had breathed his last. He rolled the name around his lips, Plodder, Donald Plodder… Yes, his death would undoubtedly create a vacancy, and maybe he, Jason Porridge would be the man to fill it.
‘Are you all right, Jason?’ asked the handsome young lecturer they all called ‘The Boy David’. ‘You’ve had a long night. Perhaps you should sit down’.
‘No, no, David. I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I can take it’.
At that moment, a battered grey Citroen Dyanne pulled up behind them. As Porridge rushed towards it, his mouth hardened in a way familiar to his students; ‘You can’t park there without a yellow disc. It’s staff only,’ he said. A moustache as thick as a broom appeared through the flap of a window. ‘The name’s Cuff, Detective Inspector Cuff. I’m in charge of the investigation’. The voice was calm, unruffled, and unmistakeably northern. Porridge stepped back, defeated, as Cuff climbed slowly out of the car into the cold light of a November morning. The door of the car banged shut like a slab of ice falling from an arctic nissen hut. From the other door, emerged a pale young man who wouldn’t have been out of place behind the counter of the Bridgwater branch of Barclay’s Bank. ‘Ey oop’ said Detective Inspector Cuff, ‘Let’s get started. Come on, Sergeant Pockett.’ But Sergeant Pockett Needed no encouragement. His eyes had already taken in the whole scene.
223. DEATH AT THE GROVES (3)
An hour later, Sergeant Pockett and D.I.Cuff were sitting at a table in the student union collating their notes. On a high stall at the bar a raven haired beauty sat with one black-stockinged leg curled around the other. She was smoking a cheroot, and looked as if she'd been in bars before. 'That's Lola Van Gogh, sir,' said Sergeant Pockett, 'I interviewed her this morning. She's an academic, famous for her treatise: Shakespeare and the Tattooed Lady. Should we ask her to join us?'
'Not yet, Herbert. Remember the rule. Observation precedes action. Let her come to us.' At that moment. the girl tossed back the vodka triple martini she was drinking, and licked her magenta coloured lips before walking confidently out of the bar. 'I think we've missed our chance, sir,' said Sergeant Pockett.
'All right, all right' said D.I. Cuff, his huge moustache twitching irritably before his features relaxed once more into an avuncular smile. 'Now what was in the shopping trolley?'
'That's just it. sir. Fourteen hymn sheets, a bus ticket, and a hundred and thirty two condoms.'
'By eck... and they belong to the chaplain, you say?'
'Ay... I mean yes and no, sir. Assistant Chaplain She's standing in for Dom Perignon, who's away on retreat. She's new to the job sir. Name's Victoria Plum. Emotional sort, sir. Rather upset by what's happened. I think you'll like her...'
'But the condoms, Herbert', said D.I.Cuff, shaking his head sadly, 'what were they for?'
'Don't you know sir?'
D.I. Cuff raised his hand and shook his head again. 'Of course I know what they're for, Herbert, but what was a girl like that doing with them?'
'She was on her way to a prayer meeting, sir. Apparently they're well known for it.' and here a blush began to spread across his pale young cheeks.
'For what, Sergeant?... Oh, no, don't tell me. It's a case of praise the lord and pass the... Is that it?'
Sergeant Pockett looked at the floor that surrounded his size 9 Tuf shoes and nodded.
.
224. My last visit to the Groves for this year is scheduled for Monday, when I'm seeing my PT to discuss my essays, joining Barney for an exploratory walk (she asked if I had anything against old churches, so she may be planning for us to blow one up), and then meeting the lady who will be supervising my attempt at a dissertation. I am optimistic about her (I haven't yet spoken to her); we have been having a lively e mail correspondence, and she's Irish, coming from the same area as me wone great grandfather himself, who was discharged (it seems) from the army in 1881 for persistent drunkeness and fell into the River Lethe the following year, never, perforce, to be heard of again.
225. DEATH AT THE GROVES (4)
Detective Inspector Cuff and his assistant Sergeant Pockett had spent the day interviewing staff and students at The Groves, and were now, at six o'clock, back in the Student Union bar, enjoying bottled stout and picking over their findings.
'The place looks peaceful enough, don't you think, sir? But there seems to be an undercurrent of intrigue...'
'Always the same at these institutions, Herbert,' said the older man. Pockett reflected that although the outer bristles of his moustache were dripping with stout, the eyes shone with almost superhuman intelligence through the lenses of his spectacles.
'Through a glass darkly,' Pockett murmured, forgetfully.
'Eh? Sometimes I worry about you, Herbert.' said Cuff, with a kindly smile. 'Ey oop, I think our luck's in...'
At that moment, Lola Van Gogh, the raven haired beauty they had seen at the bar only that morning, was heading towards them from the entrance, the rhinestones in her cowboy boots glinting in the subdued neon light.
'Hello, boys,' she said as she sashayed up to them, cheroot in hand. 'I've got a message for you from Dr Tiberius. He wants to see you in his office. He said it's urgent...'
'Funny bloke this Tiberius,' said D.I.Cuff as they ambled through the chilly night air on their way back to the English Department.
'That was my opinion, sir. Very odd to have heard nothing...'
'These academics are all the same,' said Cuff as they walked through the open door into Dr Tiberius's office. 'By eck, 'erbert, 'e's done a Plodder on us.'
Sure enough, in front of them, spreadeagled over his keyboard, was Dr Tiberius, with the handle of a carving knife sticking out of his back. A bright splash of blood was rapidly spreading across his black M&S shirt.
'Let's take a look at that computer screen', said the ever-alert Sergeant Pockett.
226. DEATH AT THE GROVES (5)
The sound of hurrying footsteps and the eerie squeak of shopping trolley wheels reached the ears of our two detectives, and Miss Plum, the Lady Chaplain, burst into the room tearing her bodice into bandages so that she could staunch the wound in the dead man's back. Her bosom was heaving with emotion. Sergeant Plodder had shoved the corpse to one side for easier access to the computer and it now lay prone on the floor. The body that had so recently throbbed with vitality was now no more than a sack of rotting organs. 'Arthur, Arthur', cried The Reverend Plum as she engaged in her futile task. Tears flooded down her face, bringing stains of eye make-up with them, visible manifestations of a passionate nature overwhelmed by events.
'Ey lass, don't take on so,' said the ever kind D.I.Cuff, who now had his arm around her young shoulders. 'There's nought anyone can do for 'im now.'
The girl got up from her kneeling position and flung herself, sobbing, on the man's breast.
'Look out sir, she's all over lipstick and blood. You'll be for it when the wife sees you...'
'Herbert, Herbert' said the Detective Inspector. 'There are times when we must put thoughts of our own comfort to one side, and this is one of them.'
'Sorry, sir,' said Pockett. 'I got carried away by what I saw on the screen. It was the word REVENGE, sir, and that word must've been posted by the murderer. It's our first real clue sir.' But Detective Inspector Cuff didn't appear to be listening.
'Now, now, lass, let's get you over to the bar for something strong,' he said to the flame-haired beauty he was holding in his arms. 'Sergeant Pockett can deal with this.'
'You're so kind,' she said, 'so very kind...'
227. My last day at The Groves before the summer vacation. As I wander into the Eng Dept I am going through the things I have to do. I have to see my PT who is going to tell me what he thinks of my submissions, take my DVD back to the library, do a filmed poetry presentation and meet the tutor who is going to supervise my dissertation... Suddenly I am confronted by the Emperor Tiberius. 'Good morning,' he says, bold as brass. I feel a bit faint. Only yesterday he was lying on the carpet with a carving knife in his back. 'I thought you were... er... in Chicago' I gasp. But no, he isn't. He's here in the atrium. I am sure he will believe me when I say how relieved I am to see him looking so hale and hearty.
At the photocopier is a young woman with long dark hair and spectacles, and I ask her if by any chance she is the tutor I am due to see later in the day. She is, we shake hands, and she can see me now rather than later, if it suits me, and yes, she is from Cork. We decide to walk over to the Student Union and have our chat there. What should be a three minute walk takes about a quarter of an hour, because at every door, every entrance and every narrowing of the passageway, we both stop to let the other one go first. I can't get used to the new order and I imagine that as a young female academic she can admit no other, but we must look very odd as we make our jerky way back and forth.
228. After receiving my marked essays from my PT (who doesn't think much of them), I meet Barney for a sandwich and watch the people pass by. She postpones our planned expedition to visit (and possibly blow up) an old church and after a pleasant exchange of gossip, leaves me alone at the table. I read my poem aloud a few times and get some funny looks, and then it is time to assemble in the hallway outside our very own Room 101 where the camera is already whirring in anticipation of our efforts. We each have to recite a poem from memory and talk about it for ten minutes and are divided into groups of four. We are all quite nervous and chatty as we wait and this is good fun and I ask the girls to nudge me if I drop off because at this time of day I usually have a little nap and it wouldn't do to be immortalised on celluloid snoring loudly and with my jaw gaping... When we are admitted to the room we see that Heathcliff is sitting alongside my PT. This provides a measure of comfort. Heathcliff is, as they say, a steadying influence. I am first 'on'. The camera is at the back of the large room and I ask where I should stand. 'Anywhere' is the answer. This technology! And when it is over and we leave the room, the next batch of students is waiting. I get the feeling of smug relief I have when I leave the dentist's and pass through the waiting room into the outside world. It's over! And what shall I do now?
229. DEATH AT THE GROVES (6)
On a mild November afternoon, The Boy David is sitting on the bank of the lake, gazing at his reflection in the water. The leaves are turning gold and a soft mist hangs over the water in a way that would have pleased the famous landscape gardener who had designed the lake for the wealthy owner of The Groves in the days of yore. The Boy David hears footsteps and heavy breathing, and turns to see his friend Jason Porridge, dressed in baggy gym shorts and T shirt, doggedly making his way along the path as he takes his daily run. They greet each other and discuss the latest events at The Groves. 'Who's next, David?' says Porridge. A grim look flashes across the boyish features of the young god, and Porridge too begins to look wary. His splayed feet,in their size 11 Nike trainers, champ the path. He is suddenly anxious to be off. Events like these divide even the closest of friends. David looks once more at the water, as the sound of the footsteps fades into the distance. Was that a wrinkle he saw? No, thank heavens, merely a ripple caused by a foraging coot.
On the greensward up above the lake stands Sergeant Pockett, carefully observing all that happens with his powerful Zeiss binoculars.
230. DEATH AT THE GROVES (7)
Professor Plodder's cremation and Dr Tiberius's funeral service were due to take place on the same wet afternoon. To be present at both events would have been an impossibility, and Detective Inspector Cuff had decided therefore that he would attend the Professor's last rites while his assistant, Sergeant Pockett, would be present at Dr Tiberius's obsequies. This, thought the great detective, would sort the sheep from the goats and might prove a worthwhile exercise, and besides, there would be sandwiches.
The first four pews at the crem chapel were taken up by family: Mrs Plodder, blue rinsed but still handsome and dressed in seemly weeds, and their seven sons and seven daughters, all in long black overcoats. Watching them all kneeling to pray was like one of those brasses you see in old churches, or so it seemed to the romantic policeman. For a cremation, it was an old fashioned affair: Victoria Plum had officiated (she was surprisingly good, he thought, for a new chaplain), the professor's daughters had sung a quick madrigal before the curtain shuddered across the stage to hide the coffin, and there were mutes and midgets to add dignity to the ocassion. As Mrs Plodder said afterwards while handing round the jam tarts, Donald had been planning it for years. He would've loved it.
D.I.Cuff was just tucking into his third sausage roll when the lady chaplain slipped something into his hand.
'Hey lass, I hope that's not a...' he said, but she silenced him with a firm look and put a finger to her lips.
'Someone put this into my shopping trolley this afternoon,' she said. 'You will look after me, won't you?'
Thus it was that, twenty minutes later, D.I.Cuff was to be seen wheeling a squeaky shopping trolley along the road to his car, with Victoria Plum, demure in clerical vestments and black Armani stilettos, holding tightly onto his arm.
The piece of paper was an anonymous letter. In characters cut out from newspapers and magazines it said: WOULD it pleasure YOU to HAVE your Throat CUT WITH diamonds?
231. DEATH AT THE GROVES (8)
Sergeant Cuff had been ordered to meet his superior in the bar at the Student Union at six-thirty, when the two detectives would discuss the afternoon's events. The younger detective arrived a few minutes after his chief and it would be hard to say which of them looked the more surprised. Detective Inspector Cuff was seated at the table with the flame-headed lady chaplain at his side, but clinging to the Sergeant was none other than Lola Van Gogh, the raven-haired, bar-stool beauty.
'Hey, Herbert,' said the older man by way of a greeting. 'What the 'eck's up.'
'It's like this, sir,' said Pockett, 'Lola was at Dr Tiberius's funeral with me and someone slipped this into her pocket...'
D.I.Cuff's great moustache twitched and his eyes gleamed with superhuman intelligence as he opened the envelope. Then he read aloud from the sheet of paper he held before him, which, like the one Victoria had received, was made up from words cut out of newspapers and magazines:'WOULD IT pleasure YOU to be SHOT to death with PEARLS?'
232. DEATH AT THE GROVES (9)
'Ey, 'erbert, this is a rum show,' said the wise detective. 'It seems our killer can be in two places at once. Get the drinks in lad...'
Sergeant Pockett returned to the table with cocktails brimming with cherries and umbrellas for the girls and stout for himself and D.I. Cuff, who after taking a sip said. 'Cheers lad. Any ideas?'
'Well, Sir,' said Sergeant Pockett, 'Lola says that the message she got is a quotation from a play, don't you Lola?'
'That's right,' she said. 'Both letters are quotations from The Duchess of Malfi,' and she tossed her head back and licked her Magenta lips. Sergeant Pockett gasped with admiration.
'Webster,' chipped in Victoria. Early 17th century...'
'Eck, 'erbert, we've got ourselves a bright pair o' lasses 'ere. Now what 'appens in this play? What's it all about?'
'It ends with the Duchess being strangled' said Lola.
'On the orders of her brother' said Victoria.
'Christ', said D.I.Cuff. 'Oh, sorry, Victoria, no disrespect... But is that the sort of thing you 'ave to teach? Girls like you? It shouldn't be allowed. 'ere, I'll fill up yer glasses.'
'What's our murderer going to do next?' said the sergeant, while his superior was at the bar. He's certainly playing with us. I don't like it, I don't like it at all...'
'Neither do I,' said the two girls, simultaneously, just as the round of drinks was arriving.
At that moment Jason Porridge burst through the swing doors of the Student Union. 'Help me, help me,' he cried, and made a bee-line for the table where our friends were sitting. 'Someone just tried to kill me'. Detective Inspector Cuff's face fell. He had been looking forward to a pleasant evening. But his young assistant's expression was as inscrutable as ever. Like a hunter, Sergeant Pockett was biding his time.
233. MORE OF THE MASTERPIECE
Jason Porridge was trembling all too visibly in his shorts and T shirt. 'I'm cold,' he said, adding with a whimper 'would someone get me a hot chocolate, no sugar?' before he slumped, sobbing, over the formica topped table with his head in his hands. 'I'll do it,' said the Reverend Plum, draping her Hermes cashmere stole around his hunched shoulders. 'There, there, Jason...'
D.I. Cuff had to check himself. He had suddenly realised that he had felt a stab of jealousy. 'Ey oop,'he thought as he wiped the lenses of his spectacles and tried to control the involuntary twitching of his giant moustache, 'this won't do,' and aloud he said 'Ey lass, get us a large jar of pickled onions while you're about it. Now, Dr Porridge, get a grip on yerself and tell us exactly what 'appened.'
234. ANOTHER REVENGER'S TRAGEDY?
I've been waiting all day for the Pale Young Man to post the marks up on the blessed Minerva for the commonplace book that was no commonplace book thing we had to do. I went to a lot of trouble over this, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that my hopes were high. The fellow (like all the others), has always given me less than I deserve. Nonetheless I was disappointed in the mark that he gave me. I am only average. This is not the first time that my genius has gone unnoticed at The Groves, but this time it is all the more hurtful because I offered to help The Pale Young Man with the marking as I was passing his open door one afternoon. He may live to regret spurning my offer. On the other hand he may not live to regret it... I had thought to make him the star of my masterpiece Death at The Groves, thinking that then, at least, he would get a degree of immortality, and not suffer the usual fate of pedagogues the world over- leaving not a trace behind apart from the odd red ink stain on an old jacket- but I am having second thoughts. He may have to fall into a mire or an evil place*...
NOTE: *Not original. Extracted from a letter by T.F Powys
235. DEATH AT THE GROVES (cont.)
At that moment, Lola Van Gogh, the raven-haired beauty seated beside Sergeant Cuff, downed her vodka triple martini and said in a husky voice 'I can tell you exactly what happened to Dr Porridge, Inspector. He was taking his evening run, and as he was trit-trotting over that absurdly wide zebra crossing by the roundabout a car came at him at great speed, with its headlights blazing...'
'How did you know?' gasped the shocked academic, lifting his head from the formica table top for a moment and pointing a trembling finger at the lovely Lola, 'that's exactly what happened... It must've been...'
'The poor love,' said the Reverend Plum, 'he's lapsed into unconsciousness,' and with maternal care, she deftly placed a mug of hot chocolate beside him on the table. 'It's a mercy, really.'
'It's a mercy all right,' said the Chief Inspector with a twitch of his huge moustache. 'It's a relief all round. And talking of rounds...'
'I'll get this one,' said Lola, raising a shapely arm and snapping her bejewelled fingers at the handsome young barman. 'Champagne,' she drawled, 'and lots of it. It's party night at the Groves,' and she and Sergeant Pockett resumed their intimate whisperings.
236. DEATH AT THE GROVES (cont.)
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed as if an electric charge had run through the air. Something was going on. The Reverend Plum reached into her shopping trolley and pulled out a folded garment. 'Put this on, Herbert... and that's for you, dear...' (here she affectionately indicated D.I.Cuff), adding 'I haven't brought anything for you Lola. You always dress the part anyway... and as for Jason, well he's the image of Brad...'
'What the 'eck's this all about Victoria?' asked the great detective. 'Come and sit next to me lass...'
'Its the staff's annual Christmas party tonight,' she said,'Rocky Horror...' and with that she slipped out of her soutane to reveal a bunny girl outfit, which she completed by popping a pair of long ears secured by elastic, on her head. By this time, Sergeant Pockett had put on his skeleton smock, and the portly D.I.Cuff had donned an executioner's hood. Lola Van Gogh sat back in her chair and blew smoke at the table in a very sophisticated way.
Guests were arriving in droves through the swing doors at the far end of the room. Several members of staff were Dr Frankenfurter and the opportunity to wear tarty gear hadn't been wasted on some of the lady lecturers. The Boy David caused a stir, arriving in a chariot, embellished with enormous wing mirrors, drawn by four acolytes. And at the other end of the room, students were busy preparing the stage for the musicians.
'Ey 'erbert,' said D.I.Cuff, who, with a look of superhuman intelligence, was polishing his spectacles on his lapel,'let me in on the secret. I know you. You're up to something.'
The postman has just left an envelope in my own handwriting on the doormat and yes, it contained the Pale Young Man's comments on my poor submissions. He was kind enough to add a note saying he was sorry not to have sent me better news, and yes, I am too. But I just have to accept that I'm not cut out for Academe. All I can do is gripe.
What they want at The Groves is sausages and more sausages. Keep quoting the names of this month's favorit (sic) critic, everyone. Remember not to express any views unless Turderov and Bonkin expressed them first! Fie to you pedagogues! I belong to a long line of great originals in the field of criticism: Coleridge, Mathew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, Cyril Connolly, Archy. No, I'd better leave Connolly out. He was a great sulker...
One of the remarks about me (written in the margin in the unknown hand of an anonymous second marker) was: 'he wears his learning a little too lightly...' Good that. Full marks to you, whoever you are, you bas... and now declare yourself so that I can deal suitably with you in my masterpiece, if you dare! Yes, my masterpiece...
238. DEATH AT THE GROVES (contd)
While the others were busy observing the rush of colourfully dressed newcomers, Sergeant Pockett was hurriedly scribbling a note. It read ‘I think I have the identity of our murderer. Is W.P.C.Prezza on duty?’ Then he carefully folded this and passed it across the table to his superior, whose attention, it must be said, had wandered, since the Lady Chaplain had taken up a seated position on his lap. ‘D.I. Cuff,’ said the keen young detective, ‘D.I.Cuff?’and once again the scourge of the criminal classes sprang into action, picking up and unfolding the note. Immediately he reached for his 1962 classic Parker fountain pen and wrote one back in the immaculate copperplate handwriting he had learnt so painstakingly at the Grimsby Road Secondary School for boys all those years ago: ‘Can’t you see I’m busy? Get on with it, lad.'
‘I must make a call’ Sergeant Pockett whispered to the raven-haired beauty at his side. For him, the game in which he was involved was life itself, and it was a game he was determined to win.
By this time, the SU building was really beginning to hum as the fogeys were forgetting the great dignity of their lofty positions at The Groves and beginning to enjoy themselves. Only Jason Porridge who was still slumped over the table, seemed to be missing the fun; he was snoring contentedly, which was, as D.I.Cuff had said earlier, a mercy.
239. DEATH AT THE GROVES (LAST EPISODE)
The music was reaching a Mahlerian climax and the strobes pulsating with blue light as the doors swung open. Silence. All lights pointed towards the entrance where the sturdy, uniformed figure of W.P.C.Prezza could be seen dragging a reluctant partner by the ear lobe. Whoever the unfortunate party was, he was far from young and far from home... For him, the game was up, the boys and girls in blue had seen to that! He struggled and whined as he was pulled over the corpse-shaped lines which had been drawn on the floor, so many months before, in anticipation of this awful night...
The miscreant's hands had been manacled behind his back. W.P.C.Prezza had shown no mercy in her treatment of him and as she approached our friends at the table she flung him forward with a careless toss of the wrist. He stumbled and fell to his knees and looked up from the floor to meet the contemptuous gaze of his captors. 'Not a very impressive sight, is he?' said Sergeant Pockett. Lola Van Gogh stubbed out her cheroot, reached up to her head and from her long raven tresses extracted an enormous needle, capped with a huge pearl. 'Shot to death with pearls indeed,' she drawled, as she handed the vicious implement to the Sergeant.
'Lights,' he called, and two seconds later blackness enveloped the scene. Only a few muffled groans* could be heard over the next few minutes before the word 'Lights' was called out again in a commanding tone. Somehow, as the lights came on, one by one, it was clear that all had changed, changed utterly. Three figures stood on the stage: in front of the keyboard in eighteen inch platforms and a pink plastic playsuit, was Professor Plodder, and next to him, with his eyes made up like a gilded Oberon, wearing a black toga and wielding a saxophone was Dr Tiberius himself, both of them miraculously back from the dead. Before them stood the triumphant figure of Sergeant Pockett, the man who had orchestrated the whole episode. He was holding the giant hatpin before him like a conductor's baton, and on the end of this something big and red was dripping blood all over the stage. 'Impaled on this rapier,' he announced, 'is the heart of a murderer who was the author of all our misfortunes. At the time he was apprehended he was planning yet more foul deeds. I don't think anyone will shed any tears over him,' and he indicated with a wave of the thing, a body which lay on the floor. Figures were drawn towards it, but retreated again like the tide. But one lone figure did not withdraw. Victoria Plum, the flame-haired lady chaplain dressed as a bunny-girl, knew what she had to do. Her young bosom heaved with emotion as she tore at her boddice for bandages to staunch the blood which gushed, unchecked, from the gaping wound in the man's chest. 'Archy, Archy', she cried. But it was no use. Archy was dead.
'Music, Music' shrieked the young Sergeant with a diabolical grin, and the two musicians on stage began a suitable requiem for their victim: What a Wonderful World, with Professor Plodder doing a pretty good impersonation of Louis Armstrong. The corpse was pulled over towards the exit and dumped there to be dealt with later, and while the festivities reached new heights, the villain's heart was popped into a large pickled onion jar filled with gin and placed in the atrium by the Reverend Plum, whose kindness will never be forgotten by all who knew her. She was back at the party in five minutes flat.
The only person present who awoke next morning without a headache was Jason Porridge who had slept throughout the whole thing. Chief Inspector Cuff and Sergeant Pockett received commendations and instant promotion, and The Groves soon returned to normal. The President of the Immortals had ended his sport. Justice had been done.
.............................THE END
NOTES:* still the dead one lay moaning.
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240. And now all we have to do is to await the marks for this semester's submissions. In my case, O Taxpayer, I am sorry to say that these are likely to be unremarkable. This, of course, is entirely my own fault. Although I will be ashamed to announce them to the world I will nonetheless publish them here as soon as I can. You deserve no less. As for me, I merit nothing but castigation and contempt. I feel sad about letting everyone down. My life has been a disappointment, and I am in mourning for my life. I deserve to be an outcast, and outcasts, as old Oscar said somewhere (I can't think where), always mourn.
241. And, while we are waiting for our marks, here is a true story. Today I went to see a friend who runs a succesful business as an art dealer. He had some new pictures and I was particularly interested in one which he had just acquired. It is early Bloomsbury, a portrait of Otteline Morrell, which hasn't been on the open market before. While we were talking about the picture there was a buzz at the door and my friend opened it to admit a rather serious elderly lady who announced, portentously, that Simon Dark (not his real name) was about to arrive. Simon Dark is a leading authority on early twentieth century English art, and he duly materialised, and dull he was. 'That's a 'Reg Lloyd,' said my friend about a picture the expert was scratching his head over. 'I knew that was a Reg Lloyd as soon as I saw it,' said the expert. It was not a convincing display of learning.
When the visitors had left I was shown the authoritative work on the period which Simon Dark had written. 'It's odd that he said nothing about the picture of Otteline,' I said. 'The thing about academics', said my friend, 'is that they know all about a picture with which they are familiar, but they don't know anything about art. They don't know a good picture when they see it, if it's new. They don't understand anything that comes from outside their existing knowledge...It confuses them.'
And so an old man gathers crumbs of comfort from beneath the table of the wise.
Meanwhile, if you would like to read Autobiography of an Outcast, an apology for my existence on this cruelly blasted planet, you can see this on http://www.myspace.com/archyporlock and good luck to you.
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242. The summer holiday is nearly over and for the first time in weeks the sun is shining. I have just worked out how to find my results for last term and they are as follows:
ANIMAL WRITES: 56 Grade C
JACOBEAN DRAMA: 59 Grade C
POETRY: 70 Grade A
So, as feared, they are disappointing. I am a mediocre student. But now it is my duty to write school reports for the two tutors whose charge I was in last term. The Pale Young Man took Jac Dr and the comment I am now about to write for his parents and potential employers to see is:
This boy was a pleasure to have in class. Whilst his memory is excellent, he should try to make himself more porous to 'the music of the spheres'. He has learnt to think, and now he must learn to feel. If he doesn't, he will dry up as the years pass, like so many other boys! A shock course of Wordsworth and Byron might help. Good luck in the future!
And now for my other tutor, Cheddar Gorgeous, who, as my very own PT has taken such an interest in my intellectual development and helped me to navigate the reefs and currents of a tricky world with such devotion! Cheddar Gorgeous is taking next year off, at the expense of you taxpayers, to write a book, and let's hope he writes it in the English language and not American. If he wants my advice he only has to ask.
This boy is a conundrum. He has promise, but a dogmatic streak and a prediliction for jargon, together with a weakness for the second-rate, work against him. If he is to succeed, he must overcome these difficulties and must learn to be more receptive. He has charm but sometimes seems bored with his subject, even rather lost. Let us hope he finds his way! Good luck in the outside world!
As the new term approaches I find myself rather lacking in enthusiasm. I don't really want to go back at all. Why is this, do you think? Is it because I am an anachronism? Is it because I feel unappreciated? Is it because I am unpopular? The answer is probably 'yes' in all three cases. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? The bloom is gone and with the bloom... any more for any more?
