I spent this morning scrabbling about amongst the cob webs, dead pigeons and Mrs McNasty's discarded old and slightly shrivelled PVC underwear in the attic this morning searching for what passes as the McNasty Christmas Decorations. It is a physical law of the Universe that the uninspired assortment of tinsel, barely visible winking fairy lights, paper chains and cracked baubles that were thrown into a dark corner the previous January all disappear down a worm hole sometime during March only to be spewed out during October in an altogether different part of the attic.
As a result of their travel through space-time, various parallel Universes and probably Clapham ,the assembled mass of wires, tin foil, glitter and artificial fir tree all smell of old twigs, dust and Mrs McNasty's discarded old and slightly shrivelled PVC underwear.
After twenty minutes or so of fruitless searching and sniffing accompanied by a continuous barrage of abuse from Mrs McNasty who was holding the ladder I happened upon a book that I had not picked up in years, Captain W.E. Johns excellent "Biggles flies a desk". Skimming through the pages I was transported back to the sepia tinted memories of my boyhood.....
Biggles sighed loudly, threw down his pen and leant back on his chair. "Bally Purchase Tax, I can't make head nor tail of it Algy. Oh how I wish the bally war had never bally well ended; give me a tight spot with Ginger any day of the week!" Across the office Algy looked up from his ledger and grimaced, "Sorry old sport this is the best that the War Department could do for us. We were just too expensive to keep on, particularly given your propensity for pranging kites and high class prostitutes."
"Well it's dashed unfair, two days we've been cooped up in this hell hole, not a bimbo in sight and my scarf is beginning to chafe!" retorted Biggles coquettishly, "what's wrong with pranging high class ladies in any case?"
"I think it was more the kites that worried the C.O." explained Algy with a touch of derring do.
Biggles reached for his pipe and began knocking it out absent mindedly into Ginger's coffee mug. "Thing is, old chap, I'm not cut out to fly a desk. I feel slightly ridiculous sitting here and this dashed flying jacket gets mighty warm."
"Your helmet looks slightly ridiculous too", quipped Algy.
Biggles snorted, "makes me feel less self conscious."
"Well you could leave the goggles off, must make reading those tax projections bally difficult"
Biggles scowled, and after stuffing his pipe with fresh tobacco began the suck, blow, suck, blow lighting ritual that was so familiar to so many high class ladies and unfortunate schoolboys. With a sigh he turned his attention back to the Purchase Tax projections of John Howard (Printers) Ltd, publishers of the Royal Flying Corps Training Manual and Biggles personal favourites, Kite Pranging for Beginners and The High Class Lady's Almanack.
"D'y know Algy", Biggles observed, "One day someone will look at what we did just after the war, and they won't believe that we spent hours and hours flying a desk, poring over tax projections when we could have been buzzing round the sky avoiding our responsibilities, shooting the hun and having a jolly good time."
Alas my brief sojorn was rudely interrupted by the sound of Mrs McNasty complaining that her new pubic wig was chafing and that if i didn't hurry up and find those decorations she would be forced to review her plans for the evening and stay in to help me put the darned things up. Call me old fashioned but I still believe in the true spirit of Christmas and whilst I have been known to applaud Mrs McNasty's often fertile imagination, I believe that it is essential to keep artificial icicles, tinsel stars and spray on snow well away from the fevered perversions of a middle aged Brunhilde and her bondage swing, so with a reluctant sigh I put the book down and resumed my search for a battered cardboard box.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tales from Grandfather Hamish
I was reminded today of a story that my old Grandfather Hamish used to tell me when I was a boy, it concerned his old Captain when he was a humble infantry soldier during the First War; a Captain Wellbeloved. He always used to tell this story whenever the Edinburgh Tattoo was on the telly, saying that “Captain Wellbeloved new what he was bloody talking about” and “why don’t you turn this rubbish off Mother!” I have rendered the story here as closely to my Granddad’s own words as I can recall them.
“Captain Wellbeloved was an Officer, anything but a Gentleman and a madman as you might say. We were scrapping furiously in the trenches during a particularly hairy attack, we had just pelted across no-mans land with machine gun rounds whistling, humming and buzzing above our heads to storm the forward German trench.
As the Captain removed a bayonet from a squirming kraut’s gut he lifted his head, gave a puzzled frown and exclaimed “What’s that bloody racket?” To a man everyone including the hapless Gerry cocked an ear, and soon drifting with the smoke of battle across the fifty yards of mud that we had just temporarily claimed for George V came the sound of bagpipes. In the middle distance there stood a lone piper kitted out in the overstated magnificence of full highland fig, silhouetted against the dawn sky. The black fur of his bearskin rippled in the wind, his kilt flapped gently about his knees. The piper stood there immobile like a massive three horned beast, the sound of the pipes swirling with the mist that had begun to descend eerily upon us. For a brief moment the sheer omnipotence of the music along with the pumping adrenalin threatened to overwhelm me as I choked back a tear.
“What’s he playing?” said Wellbeloved.
“I think it’s ‘The Soldier’s Lament’ Sir”, ventured a voice cracked with emotion.
Well I’ll give the c**t something to lament about; making a f*cking din when decent people are trying to slaughter each other peacefully!" And with this he snatched a rifle from Corporal Clap, checked the breach, drew a bead on the piper and squeezed off a single shot.
The noise of the pipes died slowly like the whistle of a kettle removed from the fire. Those of us in the trench, covered as we were in mud, guts and blood were appalled, as one man we stared open mouthed in horror as the day stood still and time appeared to stop as if the bullet had somehow mangled the very clockwork of the ever expanding universe as well as the poor piper. Then gradually the swirling mist cleared and we saw the white faced piper scrambling down the bank back into our trench clutching his wounded pipes. “Got ‘em in the bladder!” yelled Wellbeloved triumphantly, “never could stand the f*cking pipes; just an excuse to p*ss decent music loving folk off in my opinion, bloody Kings, Generals and politicians like the f*cking noise they make, must remind ‘em of shagging the house cat or whatever they did at f*cking public bloody school!” And with that he went back to the job of bayoneting Germans.
We never did find out who the piper was, where he came from or what he hoped to achieve by playing “The Soldier’s Lament” whilst we all fought desperately for twenty five hundred square yards of Belgian mud. However, I suspect that if the piper had showed his bladder again within aiming distance of Captain Wellbeloved that his sporran would have developed a serious leak.”
At this my Grandfather would always issue a little chuckle and then deliver his final word on the subject. "And that is why I have never, ever had the inclination to take up the bagpipes."
“Captain Wellbeloved was an Officer, anything but a Gentleman and a madman as you might say. We were scrapping furiously in the trenches during a particularly hairy attack, we had just pelted across no-mans land with machine gun rounds whistling, humming and buzzing above our heads to storm the forward German trench.
As the Captain removed a bayonet from a squirming kraut’s gut he lifted his head, gave a puzzled frown and exclaimed “What’s that bloody racket?” To a man everyone including the hapless Gerry cocked an ear, and soon drifting with the smoke of battle across the fifty yards of mud that we had just temporarily claimed for George V came the sound of bagpipes. In the middle distance there stood a lone piper kitted out in the overstated magnificence of full highland fig, silhouetted against the dawn sky. The black fur of his bearskin rippled in the wind, his kilt flapped gently about his knees. The piper stood there immobile like a massive three horned beast, the sound of the pipes swirling with the mist that had begun to descend eerily upon us. For a brief moment the sheer omnipotence of the music along with the pumping adrenalin threatened to overwhelm me as I choked back a tear.
“What’s he playing?” said Wellbeloved.
“I think it’s ‘The Soldier’s Lament’ Sir”, ventured a voice cracked with emotion.
Well I’ll give the c**t something to lament about; making a f*cking din when decent people are trying to slaughter each other peacefully!" And with this he snatched a rifle from Corporal Clap, checked the breach, drew a bead on the piper and squeezed off a single shot.
The noise of the pipes died slowly like the whistle of a kettle removed from the fire. Those of us in the trench, covered as we were in mud, guts and blood were appalled, as one man we stared open mouthed in horror as the day stood still and time appeared to stop as if the bullet had somehow mangled the very clockwork of the ever expanding universe as well as the poor piper. Then gradually the swirling mist cleared and we saw the white faced piper scrambling down the bank back into our trench clutching his wounded pipes. “Got ‘em in the bladder!” yelled Wellbeloved triumphantly, “never could stand the f*cking pipes; just an excuse to p*ss decent music loving folk off in my opinion, bloody Kings, Generals and politicians like the f*cking noise they make, must remind ‘em of shagging the house cat or whatever they did at f*cking public bloody school!” And with that he went back to the job of bayoneting Germans.
We never did find out who the piper was, where he came from or what he hoped to achieve by playing “The Soldier’s Lament” whilst we all fought desperately for twenty five hundred square yards of Belgian mud. However, I suspect that if the piper had showed his bladder again within aiming distance of Captain Wellbeloved that his sporran would have developed a serious leak.”
At this my Grandfather would always issue a little chuckle and then deliver his final word on the subject. "And that is why I have never, ever had the inclination to take up the bagpipes."
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