When A Review Is Not A Review

What with an election looming, I had girded my loins to plunge forth into the cut and thrust of political punditry. 

You may recall a few blogposts ago that I lamented the fact I was a Jackie-of-all-trades, mistress of none.  I'm not proud or happy with this state of affairs; I crave to be an expert, a fount of all knowledge to whom people can approach on bended knee and seek judicious enlightenment;  I would look magnificently wise and stroke my chin thoughtfully — possibly even Google something — before declaring my opinion as unquestionable fact.  And yea, verily,  my words would be gathered up as precious grain to be taken and nurtured so they could go on to flourish in the minds of others.

About as likely as Jedward being poster boys for IVF.

But politics, I thought. I can do politics.  I have an O-level in Religious Studies and my ability to touch-type still takes my breath away.

I don't know anything about politics per se, obviously, but I don't see that as a hindrance, merely an opportunity to spin like Alistair Campbell's lovechild on a roundabout. Because that's what they do, don't they, these pundits? They sit in a pub hankering for the old days when nicotine running down the walls was a basic human right, speculating in an urgent monotone about how the country could be going to the dogs, and how a sex scandal in the constituency of Little Mudwhelp could threaten peace in the Middle East, and how allowing breastfeeding in the House of Commons is possibly the start of a Tory backlash against lap dancing establishments and their impact on the family unit. 

Let's face it, politics and its associated punditry is simply a less energetic form of Heat magazine. 

So there I was, poised to give you a shallow and largely fictitious low-down on each major party's mission statement, highlighting in lurid pink circles Politicians of Shame,

when I got side-tracked. 

Last week the director of the Emergency Services Panto approached me asking for a review of his show  (Dr Who and The Cyberdame) which appeared at The Maltings Theatre at the weekend,all proceeds going to the North Northumberland Day Hospice. 

This surpised me.  This director knows my views on patchy scripts, stiff acting and, more importantly, the validity of amusingly customized songs.  He's read this blog.  I pointed out that I had been likened to Simon Cowell, had a policy of undermining the confidence of children (especially the quiet ones), and dined out on puppies every day of the week with a 'Y' in it.

Did he want to reconsider?

As I watched the show, one thing became clear.  This show was impossible to review.  Yes, everything was as I expected — The Emergency Services Panto has an endearing tradition of fragile scripts, dropped lines and rabbit-in-the-headlights acting — but listen:  ninety-nine percent of the people on stage were not performers, had no desire to be performers and weren't trying to recapture school-acting glory days.  Most of them were terrified of going out on stage, poor souls, you could see it in their eyes.   How could I objectively review something so brave?   Their only aim was to raise money for the North Northumberland Day Hospice, which they did magnificently through a lot of fun and laughter.  

And now I'm going to do what many politicians should learn, and stop talking.

Please, you can donate to the hospice using the link above.

A True Story, I Swear

I was going to start this post with,

 "I, like most people, enjoy a jolly good fucking". 

In my head it was good — amusing, inclusive, cheeky, with the shock element of crude bluntness; the elements were all there for it to be a strong opener, that attention-grabbing first line with which to hook any surfer just browsing through and not that minded to stop.

And then, even as I chuckled at my own cleverness while I typed, a thought struck me.

What if my mum read it?

*Squeal followed by nasty thump on bonnet*

A response bizarre on so many levels that even if I set them out with bullet points and interesting graphics AND got Peter Snow to walk us through them, none of us would be any the wiser.

So, instead I'll open with this:

There are few pleasures in life that match the slow hiss of air escaping between your upper teeth and lower lip as you formulate the work "fuck".  It's anticipatory.  It is the vanguard of a sweary satisfaction that is only moments away from attainment.   

The Irish and Glaswegians realise this.  They embrace swearing, sprinkling their conversations with 'fecks' and 'fucks' like hundreds-and-thousands, adding colour and texture to what would otherwise be a plain bun.

They use the word with such dedicated frequency that all meaning has been lost and thereby any offence.  And this is where my relationship with swearing lies.  I approve of swearing when it's empty of booze and violence. 

Writing sitcoms inevitably means you view everybody else's sitcom without laughing, even if it's funny.  Scratch that.  Especially if it's funny.  You sit there, arms crossed, a faintly disbelieving sneer flickering across your lips.  You prod for weak points, palpate for over-worked jokes, and then fall on it like the shadow of a lion over a weakened impala foal. 

And the really crap sitcoms are the ones which are padded out with 'comedy' swearing. 

News Flash 

If your script is relying on swearing for its edgy bad-assiness, then it's shit of the first order.  Show some freakin' discernment.  A well-placed fuck is worth ten in the bush. 

Moving on, then...

I've noticed I'm not an angry swearer.  I only seem to swear when considering matters of existential angst — when I'm feeling frustrated, bemused, or exasperated.  A succinct "For fuck's sake" acts as a channel for my helpless dismay in the face of what is, inarguably, a stupid universe. 

And even then there's a furtive element to my blaspheming.  Strictly behind closed doors.  With people I love and trust.  Who won't judge me.   Fellow fucksters, because of course we're like alcoholics, us swearers.   Oh yes.  We don't like to swear alone.  Swearing is a group thing, a builder of bonhomie and team spirit.  Swear together and stay together.  

But then there's the ugly side of swearing, the side that detracts rather than enhances, the side that makes you look just a little bit common.

It was the acknowledgement of this dark side to swearing — Dr Jekyll's Mr Hyde, Eric Little's Eddie Large — that was responsible for my stand on, excuse me, fucking in public.

Picture this.  The scene — a car park in Berwick with a narrow exit wide enough for only one vehicle.  The situation — a car with L-plates blocking this exit with me stuck behind.  Initially I was patience personified.  Poor sad little learner, I thought, she'll be feeling the embarrassment of her shaky clutch control for years to come, along with her feeble grasp of stopping distances. 

I waited and I waited.  Minutes ticked by.  Then I considered the possibility that Poor Sad Little Learner didn't realise I was behind her. O-ho, inadequate use of mirrors, I thought.  So mindful of the proscriptive rules in 'The Highway Code' on horn deployment, I proffered a friendly 'toot'.  Just to make other road users aware of my presence, you understand.

Now.  There's always a mate, isn't there?

So if you find yourself in a position where you personally can't be arsed to get upset about something, you can hand the responsibility over to somebody who can.  Violence by proxy.

To cut a very ugly story short, this throwback stuck her head through my car window and started yowling in my face, a bit like Charlie the Cat in the public information ads of my childhood, only this time warning about the perils of Elizabeth Duke jewellery.

She was so enraged I had no chance of reasoning with her.  On and on she went.  A crowd grew.  Tension built.  I had to seize control.  Defuse the situation.  I racked my brain for something clever, something erudite to say that would stop this scene becoming a resconstruction on Crimewatch.

"Oh, fuck off, you wearying fat slag."

Tah-dah! 

Having delivered this stingingly elegant coup de grace, I threw the car forward, squeezing past Poor Sad Little Learner who had managed to park, and flipped a cheery 'V' as I sped off. Clearly it wasn't my superior education and negotiating skills that won the day, it was the fact that I was sitting in a car with the engine still running. 

And did I spend the morning in town on a victorious high re-telling this story of accomplishment and heroism equal in scale to that of the Spartans at Thermopylae? 

No.

Three things spoiled it for me.

1. The knowledge that I had sunk to Wearying Fat Slag's level so quickly and over something so frighteningly trivial.  I'd allowed her to make me lose control to the point where I had no other vocabulary left to offer.
2. To the ears of the bystanders, I sounded no different from Wearying Fat Slag to whom I felt myself so superior.   I was no different.
3. The fact that now I was marked woman and could get stabbed between the eyes with a scuffed stiletto when I least expected it.

So now I prefer to keep my swearing a private affair between mutually consenting adults...

A View to a Kill

It's that time of year where people with disposable income

are hoping to book a bargain holiday.  But how — as the credit crunch casts its damp-squibby shadow over the land and global warming submerges some of our favourite holiday destinations —

can folk be sure that they're a) getting a good deal, and b) are keeping their private carbon beach free of footprints?

Being utterly skint (but it doesn't matter, honestly, because if I were a Buddhist I'd be a gnat's breath from enlightenment), it was lovely last year to be able to say to friends with a delicate whiff of censure, "Mm, holiday?  Oh, no, we're staycationing this summer", as if we were electing to stay home amongst the credit card bills and stale, defeated air as recompense for their reckless squandering of the planet's resources on their bastard all-inclusive to Lanzarote.

I lost count of how many people asked, after a short pause, "Really? Staycationing where?"*  The problem, y'see, lies in the definition of 'staycation'. Because while for some people 'stay' means remaining at a defined, fixed point, there are those for whom 'stay' means travelling as far as possible before risking malaria or friendship bracelets.

Anyway, truth be told, we were harldy putting ourselves out.  A travel rug spread out on the lawn at home to suggest la dolce vita maybe carbon neutral, but when you add in the patio heater and gas barbecue necessary to combat the British weather, the whole concept starts to look about as leaky as the canopy of a disappearing rain forest. 

A concerned Sting experiences

rising sea levels first hand

So how do the perennially skint amongst us who don't (for various reasons known only to themselves) play the mandolin, enjoy a change of scene and the chance to experience how other people live?

I'll tell you how. 

You take a leaf out of the book of the local couple who viewed my bloody house last Sunday, who together have given rise to this year's holiday buzzword — micro-tourism. 

They arrived on foot (of course), admired the scenery (ie, an unfitted kitchen and walk-in larder);  in fact they immersed themselves in our culture for a full fifty minutes before enjoying a complimentary cup of tea and an eco-friendly walk home.

Total cost of their mini-break?

Except...

In order to undertake those lengthy, exhausting yet oh-so-necessary house-viewing preparations — namely decontaminating every surface bar the ceiling — I had to call upon the able assistance of Mr Muscle and his life partner, Extra Thick Bleach.  By the time we'd finished, the hole in the ozone had unravelled to the equator.

Bloody time-wasters.  Costing us the earth.








*And no matter how much brio I employed, "Um, here" only ever sounded weak, following as it did such a lofty statement of planet-saving intent.)

Snow Stops Play

Oh, look, I'll get it out of the way.

Gratuitous snow porn

I know, I know!  Everybody's familiar with the stuff; it's knocked news from its traditional top spot in the news, and there can be nobody alive in the United Kingdom who still believes that the sky is falling down except possibly a few creationists living in the less accessible suburbs of Dudley.

There's white stuff everywhere you look; the country has become one, big, cocaine-dusted toilet cistern, and you have to admit, everybody's certainly more chatty as a result.  I can't slip or stumble anywhere without being given conspiratorial head shakes and what-is-this-like eyebrow waggles. In the Days Before The Snow Came this would have been reason enough to keep your taser with the safety off.

Anyway, I digress.  This blog is not about snow, despite this;

Snow — hardcore,  full frontal

but rather, the effect it has had on my new job.

Not my new new job that involves long hours hunched over my keyboard like, totally working, instead of blogging.  This is my explanation for the paucity of posts lately, by the way, highlighting the main failing of a capitalist society — that the lazy and work-shy go unrewarded. 

No, not my new-new job, but my new job as

Simon Cowell.

You see, I love writing.  I always have.  I was the annoying kid in class who would ask to do essays, and whose educational highpoint was having to write a 1500 word essay in detention on 'The Inside of a Ping Pong Ball'.  That wasn't punishment, that was careers guidance.

Trouble is, I'm not really qualified to write about anything. 

I haven't had a particularly interesting life, althouth I did almost enter my family to go on Telly Addicts and so conceivably, in an alternate reality, could have met Noel Edmonds.  

I didn't go to university, thereby spectacularly failing to chum-up with future editors/producers/oscar-winning directors with whom to play the nepotism card. 

I basically have no doors in which to jam my foot. 

I've failed woefully in my efforts to initiate sex-romps with useful captains of industry, so blackmailing my way into my dream job looks doubtful, and I'm not prepared to be a war correspondent because

• they get shot at, and
• the desert air would create merry keratin-hell on my hair, no matter how much Frizz-Ease I managed to get through Customs.

A girl always wants to look her best, even under sniper fire.

Trouble with autodidacts is that they know a little about a lot of stuff.  And a lot of that stuff isn't anything to be proud of.  We just sort of pick up useless bits of information like a cat (Felis silvestris catus) picks up sticky-willies (the fruit of the plant you may know as cleavers, beggar lice, gripgrass or catchweed.  Makes an excellent emetic/laxative, if you ever feel the need to purge organically).

I know a little bit about literature, theatre, film, editing, acupuncture, psychology, world religion, quantum theory, car mechanics, biology, chemistry, yoga, the natural world...  Basically, I'm fairly useful to have on a pub quizz team, provided I'm not too drunk and it's not past my bedtime. 

But looking through the newspapers, well, they're all experts aren't they?  Political experts, Middle East experts, financial experts, gardening experts, relationship (ahem) experts, food experts, wine experts, fashion experts.   There doesn't seem to be a place for someone who just, er, whitters, and y'know... rambles on about... erm... stuff.  Vaguely.

I became momentarily excited when I discovered Caitlin Moran, columnist for The Times.  She didn't seem qualified in anything except watching telly.  But then I discovered she had an Interesting Childhood, and was into the Music Scene, and Flirted with Drugs.

How can I compete with that?  My journey to adulthood was strictly lower case.  My parents,with a shocking lack of Bohemian instinct, insisted my brothers and I went to school, failed to divorce or have Interesting People around to the house.  For about a fortnight in my twenties I smoked a bit of skunk, until I realised I got the same result from a big meal. 

Fortunately, thanks to a very angry comment left in response to one of my blogposts, my way forward has become clear.

I will become Simon Cowell.

Q: What is Simon good at? 
A:  Stating his opinion. 

Well, I can do that. 

Q: What else is he good at? 
A:  Letting criticism slide off him like a buttered whore on a fat man. 

I can do that, too, courtesy of being an INTJ.  Which is just a nice way of putting 'Borg'.

I am designed to rip people's dreams to shreds, to cast their hopes and aspirations onto the cold, cruel waves of life so they get tugged away by reality and lost forever.  Basically, I am born to be a reviewer! 

I mean, it started off as something to while away the time, a bit of a laugh but... I could do it for real, and in a Simon Cowell stylie!  Thanks to the support and motivation of Mrs Keira Knightley's Pancakes, my future is opening up before me like an underage sex-pest on Jeremy Kyle.

*Sound of screeching brakes*

I've just heard that the local play I was planning to review this week, that I was itching to review — 'A Celebration'  by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall — has been cancelled due to, oh yes, the bloody snow!

Guess I'll just have to put my dreams on ice...

Poetry in Motions

It's that time of year.  The last slushy dregs of 2009 pile up outside on the door step, and Christmas's long advent has been and gone.  Mince pies are past their sell-bys; a green hue as iridescent as a dragonfly's wing shimmers across the cut end of the ham, and all that's left in the tin of sweets is a meagre handful of half-bitten coffee creams and cracknel.

Yes.  It's the time of year when our thoughts turn inevitably towards the future and how we plan to deal with the constipation left over from Crimbo, a parting gift left by rich food and an activity level barely flickering above...

... persistently vegetative.

I don't know how the peristaltically sluggish cope over the festive season.  A quick sit down should be all it takes to wave goodbye to any guests overstaying their welcome, yet I know several people who prevaricate, who avoid the unpleasantness of confrontation by first browsing through the library they keep in the smallest room.  Listen up.  You should be trying to get rid off these hanger-ons, not encouraging them to linger by reading them a bedtime story.

Editions of Puzzle World, Practical Parenting,  Readers Digest, Viz, 1001 Funniest Toilet Jokes vie for space amongst the loo rolls and Toilet Duck; for hardened-core constipates there's the Lord of The Rings trilogy and Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (aka, Crap in Spades).   Books, magazines, newspaper supplements, Bettaware catalogues — all sprawling out across the toilet's hinterland, illegal immigrants camping around what is, after all, a place of work (you're there, are you not, to do a job?). 

Only humans could turn an essential bodily function into a leisure activity; another recreational must-have that's passed me by, like Go-Go Hamsters and dogging.

A couple of years ago a friend and I took the kidlets out bowling, then decided to treat them to a meal afterwards.  It was one of those 'child-friendly' places which insist on chips and crayons with everything.  I should have known better.

I took my friend's youngest to the loo, ushered her into a cubicle and waited...  and waited... and waited.  Knowing her parents to be in possession of work-shy intestines and figuring a hereditary element at play, I waited for 15 minutes outside the door.  What on earth was she doing in there? 

Then I heard a rustle.  That tiny unmistakable shushing sound a crayon makes when dragged earnestly across some paper by a four-year-old.

Oh, yes.  Too young to read, my friend's daughter had smuggled in her complimentary colouring set and was happily scribbling away while waiting for a postprandial splash.

The sins of the father and mother...

Still, it gave rise to this:

MADDY & THE POO

Maddy McCormack was a girl who

Took pen, pad and pencils to sit on the loo.

When asked by her mother from outside the door

"Maddy, my love, what's your...

...stationery for?"

Maddy said nothing but started to hum

As a tiny, scared voice came out of her bum.

"Help me, do help me," she heard the voice squeak.

“I'm not good at heights, I go woozy and weak,

And as for my swimming, I'm certain to drown...

D'you think you could find me a safer way down?"

So swinging her feet, Maddy poked out her tongue,

Licked the lead in her pencil and began to begun.

Now it may or not interest the reader in learning

That Poos aren't mere Twos, they have passionate yearnings

To live a good life just as best as they can,

And add up to more than a flash in the pan.

The ultimate dream a Poo hopes to reach

Is to swim with the dolphins and lie on a beach

Somewhere, lit by the sun as it sets,

Rolling in scum from industrial outlets,

Oblivious to surfers' grumbles and groans

As they sing to each other in rich baritones.

"How's this?!" cried Maddy and held up the page

On which a ladder was proudly displayed.

The Poo shook his head sadly and let out a sob, he

Said "What I asked was too big a jobby.

How can I, clearly limbless — the nature of dung —

Climb down a ladder made up of rungs?"

Once more Maddy fell to sketch a solution

While The Poo felt the pull of offshore pollution.

Far, far below in the sewery mire

Strains could be heard from a Poo smell-voice choir.

The song that they sang was a mournful refrain

That echoed a lonely Poo’s heartbreak and pain,

It flew up through the pipes where, high above,

It spoke to The Poo of deep intestinal love.

“They’re leaving without me,” anguished The Poo.

“The tide will be high in an hour or two

And’ll tug them away to a land bright and merry

To frolic and float ‘neath the cross-Channel ferry.”

With a cry of despair The Poo gave up hope,

Then, with a flourish, Maddy finished her…

As far as ropes went I have to attest

This must be, most definitely, one of the best.

Each end owned a tassel coloured-in green

With a squiggle of red on the bit in-between.

The whole thing was drawn with laudable taste

And just the right length to loop The Poo’s waist.

“I’ll lower you down to the water beneath,”

Maddy made clear as Poo gritted his teeth.

Secured with the rope he stood on the sphincter,

He looked at the bowl and tried not to think for

A moment at least of leaving a stain

Should his body collide with the hard porcelain.

Oh slowly, so slowly, Maddy let The Poo down

As he shivered and shook, looked a little less brown.

But an inch above water — gasp! Tragedy struck!

Maddy yanked and she pulled but The Poo was quite stuck!

So knowing The Poo would be too scared to jump

Maddy delivered a SPEC-TAC-U-LAR pump!

Rrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppppppp!!!

The Poo shot into the loo and a pine-scented splash

Covered his head while he spluttered and thrashed.

But… would you believe it?

With no arms at all?

Soon The Poo mastered a passable crawl!

He called up to Maddy, a grin ear-to-ear,

“Why don’t you join me, it’s lovely in here!”

But a knock on the door knelled heavy and strong.

A voice cried out “Maddy, you’ve been far too long!”

 And stirred by the song of his faecally friends,

Poo summoned the courage to conquer the S-bend

And Maddy hopped down and smoothed out her dress,

Reached up on her tip-toes and …

… flushed with success!

THE END

(c) Chastity Flyte, illustrations El Hombre

May your festive constipation bring inspiration!

The Ghost of Christmases Past

I don't like Christmas. 

There, I've said it. It's not that I have strong religious feelings against the commercialization of Baby J's special day, after all we're merely continuing the tradition of a day founded upon the acquisition of a...

bit of cheap bling and...

the precursor of BOGOF perfume.

For years I've struggled with my festive antipathy.  You see, it seemed so baseless; I just couldn't put my finger on it.  I mean, I'm as materialistic as the next person.  I love getting pressies.  I love over-eating.  I love idling hours away on the couch watching the You've Been Framed Christmas Special and Dr Who.  I never tire of  The Great Escape or throwing things at the telly as Del Boy hilariously falls through the pub counter again.

Why, then — dropping to my knees and beseeching the heavens — this downer on the Son of God's birthday bash?  Why, oh why?

Who would've thought the answer was to be found watching The Exorcist?

Savouring this 1973 horror classic a couple of nights ago, the penny finally dropped.  Prompted by rats scratching about in the attic, clocks halting mid-tick, Father Merrin's feeling in his water, and Regan's sudden-onset double-jointedness, I realised my dislike of Christmas has been formed from lots of small, seemingly unrelated incidents which, on looking back, have the fingerprints from a demonic hand all over them.

And hot on the heels of that realisation came another.  I don't dislike Christmas.  Rather, I mistrust it, in the same way Father Karras mistrusted Christianity.  Kind of...

Christmas Present is a product of Christmases Past.  A whole series of evenly spaced mishaps, upsets and emotional traumas crudely moulded by expectation then fired so hard in the enforced, harsh-bright gaiety of the festive season that they'll weather unscathed the passing of years and any future attempt at counselling. 

Crying over the turkey?  Choking over a crap gift?  The emotional devastation isn't just for Christmas, my friend.

Let me take the opportunity to air some of my festive baggage:

Five years old and I had my first experience of the take-my-breath-away-by-the-utter-shiteness-of-it Christmas gift.  A tender age to be so cruelly scarred, to discover that in the business of receiving gifts there always lurks an element of risk; that the scales of anticipatory pleasure must always be balanced with the possibility of refund-inducing disappointment.

I have three brothers.  I'm the youngest.  Consequently I know how to punch, spit, and throw myself down stairs without injury.  So, tell me, what were my parents thinking when they gave me this?!

Nine years old.  This time I'm the one playing Santa.  My mother — still central to my universe, bringer of goodness, love and harmony — the target of my pocket money largesse.  Let her joy be unconfined!

And it was.  She laughed so hard she wet herself.  Not once.  Twice.  Because she thought of them again over the trifle. 

Then the Christmas to end all Christmases.  While I may not remember the precise year of my death, I remember I was dressed in a pair of my brother's hand-me-down trousers.  Which had been handed down to him, which in turn had been handed down... well, you get the picture.

Corduroy. Faded blue. Flared.  Tailoring details burned onto my brain with sororal accusation. An accessory to murder.

We weren't big walkers, my family. On this particular occasion, however, the Christmas imperative to bond was too strong to ignore, and the way to do this, the way to tug on the loose ends of the family tie — and we knew because we'd seen other families do it — was by walking. Ideally with a...

Alas, we had no dog (the first rat in the attic) but this didn't deter us.  Oh, no. We descended the zigzag to the beach as dogless anarchists.

My mother, imbued with the festive spirit of several...

...over lunch, radiated good humour and satisfaction with life while my father wooed her assiduously with tales of torque and revs and tappets of the real love of his life, his MGB GT. We kids ran ever-widening circles, snatching at hats, pulling at hoods and diving behind beach huts sloughing scales of corporation green.

(The clock stops mid-tick)  The peace behind a beach hut. There is no other peace like it. No stillness as complete, as safe; the world reduced to a windless, waveless Lilliputian landscape of drifted sand forested with ring pulls and wooden lolly sticks, sucked and buckled fag ends; a creosote corridor between worlds, resonant with warm Tupperware sandwiches and salt-stiff skin.

I exploded onto the prom from between two beach huts back into the petulance of that wintry afternoon. The wind, needled by the chill into an unending whine, burrowed into my ears. (Feel that?  The bed shaking.) I couldn't hear my family calling, I laughed instead as they comically mouthed empty vowels, arms flapping.

And it was then that I died.

I'd been skipping backwards, honking with smug delight at being young and fast and nimble.  I hadn't seen the wave shake itself free from the sea and make a grab for the cliff.  It fell short, collapsing onto the promenade with all the grace of a kerbside drunk and, with a disappointed sigh, took me as consolation prize.

Clinging to an iron staple bleeding in the seawall.  The shock.  Disorientation.  Waves crashing overhead, trying to pull me down.

My brother's bastard flares as they tangled around my ankles as I tried to stay afloat.

Then my father's mechanically minded hands hoisted me clear, and everyone was laughing, clapping me on my back, tugging at my sopping clothes, rubbing me hard, laughing.  But as a child all I felt was not their joy at my rescue, at cheating death, but their delight in my humiliation as I stood, seal wet and juddering, inside skin the same colour as those bloody hand-me-down trousers.

Years later, another trial-by-Christmas, and my mother giggles over another timeless Cinzano, "Do you remember the Christmas your brother got swept off the prom?"

My brother?  Hellooo, my BROTHER?!

I'm still not sure which I found worse — the fact that I had died, or that my mother had forgotten.

Well, bugger me. 

I'd spent years wearing hand-me-downs from all three brothers.   This momentous event, this near-death experience, this defining moment, I'd had from new.  It was mine, belonged to me, and I pointed this out somewhat forcefully.

My mother took a moment, then patted my hand.

"There, there, dear," she said, helping herself to a mince pie. "I'm sure one day you'll get over it."

Not unless anyone can put me in touch with a good...

Have a merry Christmas everyone, but my advice?  Don't trust it as far as you can throw it...

Preying for God, A Little Christmas Tale

The landscape had been tenderly stowed away for winter, snow packing itself around brittle limbs and fragile fingers, carrying sound snug to its chest to prevent it falling and shattering the filigreed silence. Everything waited, caught in the space between the last foggy exhalation of autumn and the first libidinous gasp of spring.

Light splashed from a cottage window onto the snowy sill outside and it was here a small snail sat, peering past his reflection into the room beyond.

The snail was entranced. He found himself charmed by the lights imitating the far-flung glitter of stars, by paper and ribbon mulching the floor in a deep, multi-coloured leaf litter, by the tree cloaked in sparkling gold. Occasionally the snail would smile in delight as he absently peeled sticky fingers of ice from his mantle.

Not for one moment did it occur to him that he too was the subject of equally busy observation.

Owl was growing impatient. While by their very nature snails were slow, this one had barely moved for hours and daylight had now already cleared the neatly pinked edges of the firs opposite. She ruffled her feathers and sunk her neck a little further down for warmth. What on earth was it doing down there? Had it got stuck, or had it simply died, one more quiet capitulation amongst thousands of other tiny, wintry deaths. Owl's curiosity overcame her and she glided through the lilac chill to land soundlessly on the window ledge.

"Ah, Owl," said Snail, swivelling his eyes in the bird's direction.

"I'm glad it's you."

Well, thought Owl, this is a turn-up.

"Tell me, what are the humans doing in there?  It's doing my head in."

Owl hopped forward to peer in through the ice-etched glass. She snorted derisively.  "Oh, they're celebrating Christmas, my ignorant little snail — a Christian festival marking the birth of the Son of God."

"Ah, gotcha. The winter solstice."

Owl shook her head irritably. "Close, but no cigar, Einstein.  The Solstice celebrates the rebirth of the Sun God, not the Son of God. No, Christmas is supposed to celebrate the birth of a child two thousand years ago who would go on to wash away the sins of the World of Man."

Snail contemplated this.  "Blimey. Bit of a tall order. Did he manage?"

Owl sniffed. "I'll say nothing other than a...

... was involved. Three times to do the right thing and keep its chuffing mouth shut but, no, they're always such bloody show-offs. So instead Christmas became the traditional time for humans to horde material wealth."

"I see, " said the snail.  "Like the...

s."

"Precisely," agreed Owl. "And humans also use this time of year to eat until they're sick and twice their original body weight."

"Ah. Like the...

s."

"Indeed," Owl nodded sagely.

"So," began Snail after thinking things through. "What you're saying is that Christmas is a festival that began with the best of intentions, such as...

... and goodwill to all men, but is now an empty sham of its origins and is instead a tacky homage to unbridled consumerism?"

Owl blinked twice in quick succession.

"Possibly," she offered cautiously. "Ye—es, I might be saying that."

A rumble from her stomach suggested that she too might be open to a spot of unbridled consumerism. She eyed the snail speculatively. Owl generally preferred her food to have a sporting chance, but it was wintertime and Owl was never slow to cut her cloth accordingly.

Snail gingerly shook his foot free of snow and snuggled into the scarf-like coils of his shell. He had the look of a mollusc ready for a good philosophical discussion.

"I take it from your tone," he began with relish, "that you...

...take a dim view of Christianity?"

Owl fluffed up indignantly. "Why, the whole religion is based on nothing but assumption and a patriarchal system of the worst kind!"

(Owl had feminist leanings.)

"Assumption?" queried the snail agreeably, eyestalks waving in encouragement.

Owl sighed in exasperation.  "Yes, assumption. Christians assume that if you believe in their god and are truly sorry for all the bad things you've done in your life, then when you die your soul is admitted to a place called Heaven where it's all a bed of...

... for ever and ever."

"Not...

...?"

"What?"

"Not a bed of ...

...?"

"Oh, lettuce, roses — whatever. My point is, there's no proof that Heaven is real. It's an assumption. You'd be spending your life hoping to be rewarded by something that might not exist."

"What about reincarnation?"

"Nope. Doesn't happen."

"Ah, well," Snail shrugged. "Christianity's not for me then."

Owl gazed at Snail incredulously.  "Don't tell me you believe in reincarnation!"

Snail gave Owl a steady look. "If you were a snail, you wouldn't ask that," he replied evenly. "I'm a...

... Buddhist by necessity."

Now, in the animal kingdom owls have a cunning second only to the fox, and Owl immediately saw a way in which she could not only philosophically point score, but gain a free meal in the bargain. She clacked her beak together in eager anticipation.

"So, as a Buddhist," she began carefully, feeling her way, "death holds no fear for you?"

"That's right," nodded Snail. "Because we're assured of being reborn." Hopefully as something with bones, he thought. "But what about you, eh? Surely even birds of prey need a system of belief to comfort them through the long cruel winters?"

"Not a bit of it," flashed Owl proudly, edging just a teeny bit nearer. "We're existentialists, hovering on the currents of the here and now, soaring on the updraughts of encapsulated reality." She tossed her head haughtily. "Your lot may be happy clinging to the underside of leaves on the lower branches of the evolutionary tree, but we birds of prey are great students of science, of what is provable not assumed. We reach for the stars!"

Snail frowned, his small brain clearly struggling with such a large concept.

"Hang on," he said at length, "and I might've got this wrong, yeah — but doesn't existentialism by its very nature exclude science and rationalism? Because wouldn't they be considered mere escapes of thought from the serious problems of existence? Surely because of the natural brevity of our allotted span, it's foolish to analyze in such a leisurely fashion matters of life and death as if there were all eternity to argue them in? I would even go so far to say that it's, like, impossible to grasp life by thought alone, that a knowing self is not enough — you need to fear, hope and believe."

Owl feigned a coughing fit that lasted some time.

"Anyway, back to you," she managed at length. "So tell me then — and this is hypothetically speaking, of course — if I were to, oh, say... eat you, you'd be quite happy with that on account of being reborn as a higher creature?"  Owl hopped closer.

Snail looked somewhat taken aback.

"Um, well. Happy is probably, y'know, a bit strong."  He began sliding towards a crack in the wall in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. "Er, you see there are The Four Noble Truths in Buddhism."

"Fascinating!"

"Y-yes, yes, it is. One. All living is suffering."

"How very true. But more for some than others, I feel."

"Two. Suffering is c-caused by desire."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Um, three.  S-s-suffering ceases when d-desire is eradicated—"

"Such as when an appetite is satisfied!"  Owl's eyes blazed orange and her beak opened wide to receive Snail's current incarnation.

"Wait! Wait!" cried Snail cowering inside his shell. "I said there were Four Noble Truths! You've only heard three!"

Owl paused and considered. Sure, she could afford to be magnanimous; it wasn't as if Snail could run away. Sighing, she waved an impatient wing.

"Go on then. Let's hear it."

Snail moistened his lips nervously.  "R-right, four then. Desire can be destroyed b-by—"

Owl let out a bloodcurdling screech.

Minutes ticked by before Snail could summon up the courage to peek from under the lip of his shell to the ground below. He took in the...

... and the lonely feathers leading each other in a loose waltz over the snow.

"Blimey," he said to himself. "I was going to say desire can be destroyed by following The Noble Eightfold Path. But a fox… a fox seems to work just as well."

Fox grinned around a mouthful of extinct existentialist.  Personally he had always favoured a more Cartesian approach.

I slink, he thought, therefore I am.

(c) Chastity Flyte — feel free to share, but please post link!