MYSTERY OF THE PALESTINIAN POLAR BEAR
HAD another look in Fenwick’s window before I left Newcastle today to check out that polar bear in the nativity scene. It wasn’t there: my memory’s definitely not what it was. There was, however, what looked like a large, white husky and, further along (and very definitely) a baby leopard. Not easy to see the immediate relevance to the birth of Jesus, but then again neither is a Norwegian spruce. Or for that matter a man in a red coat coming down the chimney.
Looking forward to tonight at 10.35pm:
Three-part series in which Fiona Phillips examines the phenomenon of festive icons. In this programme, she looks at Father Christmas. Is he a real life saint, pagan figure, commercial creation or a mix of the three? Whoever he is based on, our modern day idea of the jolly, bearded Santa is very different from the character loved but sometimes even feared by an earlier generation of children.
The Guardian guide says tonight’s programme is in fact about the origin of the Christmas tree, not Santa. Either way it’ll be an interesting three-parter.
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
IN NEWCASTLE for Beth’s graduation – a proud and happy occasion – and I’m also able to catch up with old friends, taking advantage of their unquestioning and always generous hospitality. People I met 30 or more years ago through church, some of whom – like me – no longer attend for one reason or another (mostly a conscious decision, rather than the casual drift away theory beloved of the C of E to explain falling numbers) and others who still attend regularly, their faith strengthened by the years. I reflect that, whichever category they happen to be in, the memories are happy ones, and the friendships forged through the church connection have, almost without exception, proved lasting and solid.
I wander into Newcastle for a bit of serious Christmas shopping, telling myself that maybe the White House should, after all, have taken Christ out of the Christmas tree (see previous post), and that it would make a lot of sense to celebrate it as an entirely secular season (as indeed it once was): an excuse for partying and present-giving and general jollity, to lift the gloom of the bleak mid-winter days. There is, as I look around, precious little evidence of its being a religious festival, and I can’t even spot Jesus, Mary and Joseph on a Christmas card any more. As for the spirit of generosity and goodwill – well, we all know what happened to that.
Then I see a queue – a long, orderly English queue snaking up Northumberland Street. People shuffling silently along in the bitter north east wind, transfixed by the annual spectacle which is Fenwicks’ window display. And lo and behold it’s a nativity scene – or rather a series of scenes – featuring not just the holy family, angels, shepherds, wise men and donkeys, but a camel or two and, inexplicably, a large owl and what looks suspiciously like a polar bear.
Earlier, at the Metro station, I’d found myself without change for the ticket machine. A young woman asked me how much I needed and I told her I’d like change for a tenner. “No – how much is the ticket?” she asked, and counted the full fare into my hand. I protested that I couldn’t possibly accept it but she insisted. “What goes round comes round. Take it, or you’ll miss the train. Happy Christmas!”
I’ll drink to that.
TABLOID THEOLOGY
A CIRCULATED email rants against what the Daily Mail is wont to call ‘political correctness gone mad.’ The White House had, apparently, decided to rename the Christmas tree this year the Winter tree. Not very imaginative, and a bit of a nonsense I think, if the intention was not to offend those of other faiths.
A Jewish writer and commentator, Ben Stein, was quoted on a CBS programme at some length: as a Jew, he said he was more than happy for people to celebrate Christmas, he didn’t feel discriminated against and he didn’t feel threatened. But then the email morphed into a different beast altogether – a general rant against the state of the world. A world that has rejected God and is reaping the consequences, which are listed ad nauseum: natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, children (who, apparently, now have ‘no conscience’) killing themselves and each other, and liberal parenting of the kind advocated by Dr Spock leading – in the case of the good and gentle doctor – to the suicide of his own son. At least that was the cruel and outrageous implication.
I don’t know where this stuff comes from. The person who sent me the email subsequently told me the reported renaming of the White House Christmas tree isn’t even true, but an ugly rumour circulated by the Christian Right to demonise President Obama. He also says that circulating it doesn’t imply approval, and that the aim is to provoke discussion, if only we could find someone to agree with what’s being said.
Well, I think we probably could. For a start, the thousands who’ve circulated the email, and those they send it to, presumably in the belief that it will get a sympathetic hearing. And I’m fairly convinced that, for most of the time, it does. Discussion? Hmmm. On reflection I’m not sure there would even be a basis for discussion with people who start from the premise that young people, universally, have no conscience and that natural disasters are a result of God turning his back on an increasingly secular world. So I’ll probably pass on that one.
SINGING A NEW SONG
WHAT an amazing and totally unexpectedly joyous experience: not a word (joyous) that comes easily to the pen, or rather keyboard, of a grumpy old bat but it’s the best I can think of to describe the simple activity I took part in last night: “Singing for Pleasure” in the village hall. Organised by Diana, a neighbour, music teacher, singer, pianist and enthusiast for music, and attended by about a dozen women in the village. None of whom, as far as I know, could read music, or had any pretensions to be great, or even potentially great, warblers. But all of whom had a love of music and a simple desire to sing.
I can’t pretend it was nerve-wracking: it’s probably the least threatening environment you could be in. But I did worry that my voice might not hold out – it did, just about, but since I stopped going to church 18 months ago I realised I hadn’t been having my regular singing practice – and I did think that I might find it ok to try, but not something I’d want to do again. But it felt fantastically therapeutic – and confidence-building. Being married to Ian who’s in three and sometimes four choirs, who has sung since he was a small boy more than 50 years ago, and who tackles complicated (to me) choral works with ease, it felt really good to be able to say – for the first time in my life – “Must dash: I’m off to choir.” I felt like somebody out of the Archers.
“I’ve deliberately not advertised it as a choir,” Diana tells us “because I think that can sound very off-putting.” Not to me, Diana, not to me.
We’re going to meet once a fortnight and see where it takes us. I doubt if it will be the Albert Hall but maybe, just maybe, we could end up doing a concert? Somewhere? Watch this space . . .
Talking of singing, I went to church on Sunday for the Service of Remembrance: the first time in 18 months. For all sorts of reasons I can’t cope with worship any more but I found everything much as it was. I love the Church of England for its simple ‘there”-ness (there must be a better word but I can’t find it) for everybody. In some senses, and in this village, the church is still at the heart of the community, thanks to a small but committed group of people.
Like a lot of people I am angered and bewildered in equal measure about our involvement in Afghanistan. I can’t begin to grasp what it must be like for those who have lost loved ones – all of them young and many scarcely beyond childhood - in what seems to be such a futile enterprise. Waiting for the knock on the door must be a uniquely painful form of torture.
And as we prayed for the dead and injured I was struck again by the terrible paradox that has plagued me all my adult churchgoing life: where else do people go, as individuals, as a community, or an entire nation, when tragedy strikes and we’re all but overwhelmed by grief and/or a sense of helplessness? Providing that sacred space is, in my experience, what the church does best. Yet to be able to see in all the horror and cruelty of the world the hand of a loving God, personally concerned for our wellbeing, which is after all what the church preaches is, quite frankly, beyond me.
The first hymn is the lovely ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation.” And I forget for a minute or two that the original words have been mangled in a (not so very) new translation. Here’s the old verse 2:
Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth:
Hast thou not seen, all that is needful hath been
Granted in what he ordaineth?”
The modern version:
Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
shieldeth thee gently from harm or when fainting sustaineth;
Hast thou not seen how thy heart’s wishes have been
granted in what he ordaineth?”
Verse 3, original translation:
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee:
Ponder anew all the Almighty can do,
He who with love doth befriend thee.”
Modern translation:
“Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend thee:
ponder anew what the Almighty can do
If to the end he befriend thee.”
It’s beyond me how a group (I presume it was a committee) of what should be theologically literate people can so fundamentally destroy the meaning of time-tested words. In verse 2, the notion of God providing for our needs is supplanted by his granting our wishes; worse still, in verse 3 we dispense with the unconditional love of God and are invited to consider how fortunate we might be if – if – God decides to love us. It’s nonsense.
It’s not as if the editors of Hymns Ancient and Modern have changed the words to make them more acceptable to a modern congregation by getting rid of the thees and thous, or to accommodate the feminist objection to the use of “he.” In the preface they note that “Experience suggests that congregations make the adjustment to ‘Thou’ without difficulty.” And of the feminist argument: “We have not thought it right to alter the words of hymns to meet this objection.”
They have thought it acceptable, however, not just to destroy the poetry and the rhythm of carefully crafted words, but to destroy the sound, underlying theology.
SERVICE WITH A CATCH
ALMOST every day I hear some poor devil weeping into a Radio 4 microphone, blathering on about the near-insurmountable difficulties of running a small business. Useless banks, mounting debts, red tape and the dead hand of stifling bureaucracy all conspire to send them up the collective wall. “Oh for crying out loud; pull yourself together. How difficult can it be? It’s only a small business not the National Health Service,” goes the internal monologue (or, if Ian’s listening – which he usually isn’t – attempt at dialogue).
But now I have joined the weeping, winging ranks of the self-employed, and my pity knows no bounds. We’re doing this bed and breakfast lark for fun (or thought we were ’til we decided to do it properly, which is costing us so much we now have no choice) so what the poor, demented souls who have to do it for a living must suffer I can’t imagine.
This to date is the tally of paperwork, recommendations and costs: not the costs of providing the service, but of the marketing and upgrading of it to ensure we get more business. The question is: is it worth it?
- To the Yorkshire Destination Management System, ‘jointly operated by the Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate Tourism Partnership, Yorkshire Moors and Coast Tourism Partnership and Welcome to Yorkshire’ (no wonder BA’s struggling: everybody must be holidaying in God’s own county) £67-50 + VAT for six months membership. Next year, and every year after, it will be the full £137-00.
- From the above body comes (via email) 40 pages of information, 32 of which have to be downloaded, printed, completed and finally posted. Also from the above a visit from a nice lady called Jane who says we definitely have the ‘wow’ factor.
- From the local council and tourist information centre – a visit from two more nice ladies who say we have that certain je ne sais quoi. They’re lovely and jolly and helpful but can only promote us – as can the tourist boards – once we’ve been rated by Quality in Tourism: we’ll then pay them 10 per cent of every booking.
- To the quality assessment people, £250 + VAT for the assessment, plus £90 + VAT for the ‘advisory visit.’ The best part of £400. The advisory visit tells you what rating you can aim for and explains how you might, just might, achieve it. The nice lady from QiT obviously thinks we have both the ‘wow’ factor and the je ne sais quoi but somehow just can’t find the words. “It’s a nice room, but I’ve seen better,” as she examines my lovely twin-bedded room with minimalist chic (which she interprets as ‘a bit spartan’); “This carpet isn’t up to much” (of the small double bedroom) and – the cruelest cut of all – “Your hospitality trays need serious attention. You certainly cannot have uncovered tea bags.”
- She makes the following recommendations: two extra rugs, three dressing-table mirrors, three extra waste bins (on top of the ones already in the bathrooms), a four-foot bed so the small double room can be downgraded to a large-ish single, 12 more coathangers (six in each wardrobe isn’t enough: actually there were 12 in one wardrobe but six of them had been left by guests), three hospitality trays with tea, coffee, decaffeinated coffee, hot chocolate and fruit tea all in little packets, an extra dining-table, at least one more chair and three new blankets for the people who don’t like duvets. Total cost by my quick reckoning? About £1500. Oh yes – and what about some little extras for the breakfast menu? Fresh fruit salad, grapefruit segments, prunes, figs, selection of breads, preferably home-made, jam and marmalade likewise; smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, kedgeree, porridge and fruit compote all go down well, apparently. I can do porridge. I can even do WeightWatchers three-oat porridge at a pinch.
And so we’re left wondering if all we actually need is
- Bryan, who runs ’theadvertiseronline’ and has done our website for an all-in price of just £250, plus a monthly payment of £12.99 to maintain it in good order and get it noticed.
- Lisa who runs the village shop and her own b and b, and who at present is the source of nearly all our bookings when she’s full.
- Nigel, the butcher, who lives next door and delivers our sausage, bacon and black pud for breakfast within an hour of our ordering it.
- Allen, the milkman, with his doorstep deliveries, and
- Eric the postman who keeps bringing us bills, despite the strike, and always with a smile.
Meanwhile two more guests arrive: ‘Wow’ they say as I show them into the twin-bedded room. I make them a cuppa to have with their slice of home-made lemon drizzle cake, as they admire the view from the newly-refurbished sitting-room.
“This tea has a certain je ne sais quoi, don’t you think?” I overhear one of them say. “Yes,” comes the reply. “I wonder if she left the tea bags uncovered?”
WHITE CHRISTMAS
I KNEW that Christmas card would start something. This was the scene at Bottom Chapel on Thursday 22 October. No need to dream of a white Christmas; it’s already here.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
IS THIS a record? Our first Christmas card arrived four days ago – “to beat the postal strike” said our thoughtful relative. Oh really? And there was I, Scrooge-like and increasingly crabby – as Ian will testify – secretly hoping that the stoppage might go on long enough to give me an excuse not to have to send any cards at all this year. How mean is that? A couple of years ago in a rare burst of creativity and maternal pride, I made my own from a drawing of Mary and Joseph and the donkey done by Morag at nursery, and which I’d treasured for all those years. I thought she’d be delighted that, albeit 30 years on, I’d given her a discreet credit on the inside cover: “Painting by Morag.” Gosh, I was a proud mum. But she wasn’t impressed. “You could have mentioned I was three at the time,” she said in her 35th year. Oh well, I tried.
CRACK THE POACHED EGG AND YOU’VE CRACKED B AND B
“LOVELY place, warm welcome, friendly hosts. (Eggs a bit runny!).”
The exclamation mark at the end of the guest book entry was an attempt to soften the blow. It failed. As Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh, points out, we are instinctively drawn to the negative. No matter the compliments (typical English niceness, I tell myself) runny poached eggs were proof this b and b lark wouldn’t work. The following weekend a handsome film director booked in. What a dish! And Ian was away the next morning (hurray for model railway exhibitions) so I’d have him all to myself. This b and b lark is just the ticket. Then: “I won’t want a big breakfast, thanks. Just a couple of poached eggs.” Just? Oh dear. This could be the beginning of the end of the beautiful relationship that never was.
Still, Ian had bought a dinky little egg poacher so how difficult could it be? “You just butter it and dangle it over a pan of boiling water,” he explained. What he didn’t explain was that the minute you broke the eggs into it the whites drained through the holes (what a surprise), and when you came to ease out the remaining rubber yolks you realised you’d used Superglue not butter.
Egg poaching, meanwhile, is one of those skills which everybody else has not only mastered but wants to share: swirl the water, put vinegar in the water, brush the pan with olive oil, use little green rubber pouches from Lakeland (they’re on order) boil for precisely a minute then leave them for 10 (it didn’t work, Delia. They were like bullets).
I vow to keep practising – on Ian, as I can’t even eat eggs, never mind cook them.
Then this morning’s guests point out an omission on our newly-created breakfast choices list. “You’ve got fried, scrambled and poached eggs, but not boiled ones,” they say helpfully. “And we love boiled eggs.”
It’s a good job they didn’t mention it earlier. “Can you even boil an egg?” my domestic science teacher used to ask in exasperation as I served up yet another culinary disaster under her expert tutelage. The answer, then as now, was “No.”
WHAT BOAT WOULD THAT BE THEN?
HOW do they work that one out? More to the point, how does George Osborne, shadow chancellor, work that one out? In his speech to the Tory party conference he says, justifying potential reductions in public sector pay, that we’ll all have to make sacrifices: ‘We’re all in this together” was the phrase. Well I’ve got news for Mr Osborne – we’re not. The people who’re “in it” are us. The ordinary, hard-working families that Gordon Brown likes to bang on about. I’m a long way from being a Tory supporter, just about as far now from supporting the Labour shower (after a lifetime of Labour voting I realise they’re just the same, with a few notable exceptions, as every other money-grubbing, power-hungry politician, except they have the nerve to call themselves socialists) and realise that whoever comes to power we’ll have a massive problem with public debt. But for an MP to suggest that they’re in the same position as ordinary folk is ludicrous. (Beth was so angry about it she rang me to have a rant: her mother’s daughter, then). Anyway, I’ve written to the Telegraph today to vent my anger. Will they print it? Well, the Independent used my Sarah Brown moan on Friday, so I’m hopeful. A bit, anyway.
Meanwhile I’m still trying to work out whether I am indeed one of Gordon’s hard-working majority, or the feckless minority who stay in bed til dinner-time, or indeed the ‘privileged few’ who deserve a bashing from the Labour government which – of course – hates rich people. Unless it’s one of their rich people: those who’ve become rich through switching houses and asking us to feed them to the tune of £400 a month (no receipts necessary). Anyway, it just shows the dangers and the folly of politicians trying to pigeonhole us. I sometimes work hard – when we’ve got paying guests, for example – sometimes stay in bed til 10.00 (not quite lunchtime but near enough) if there’s something good on the radio, and am definitely, definitely privileged. I only have to look out of my back window to realise that. But how did I become privileged? I left school at 16 and worked b***** hard, earning a living and rearing a family, that’s how. So don’t lecture me, Mr Brown, about the punishments deserved by the privileged. And don’t tell me, Mr Osborne, that I’m in the same boat as you. In fact, I don’t want any politician telling me anything, ever again, unless it’s Boris Johnson or Austin Mitchell, who at least make me laugh.
FESTIVE SPIRIT – OR LACK OF
A FRIEND of long-standing with whom we used to spend at least part of Christmas when we each had young children writes to say she feels a lack of the festive spirit this year. How cheering: I’ve felt it for years but had to suppress my near-Scrooge like curmudgeonliness at this time of year because I felt so out of step with the rest of the world.
All those presents, endless Christmas cards to people you never see from one year end to the next – and the round robins with news of everybody else’s soaring success and exotic holidays with which ‘Moved house. Had a lovely week in the Lakes’ could hardly compare.
But this year, oddly, it’s been different. Suddenly and unbidden the festive spirit has returned. I’ve boiled it down to three reasons.
First: I have stopped, yes really stopped, feeling guilty about excessive spending, over-indulgence and general festive enjoyment since managing to convince myself that the religious aspect is just part of the season. I see it now as a celebration to lighten the dark days of winter so don’t feel over-exercised about its being a secular event, more than a religious one.
Second: Askrigg looks fantastic. It’s like living in a postcard. – we went to the Christmas tree festival supper in church last night: 29 trees decorated by people in the village (we did one with a war/conflict theme based on my favourite carol, so rarely sung these days, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear: “Oh hush the noise ye men of strife and hear the angels sing”) and a lovely supper cooked by one or two of the more capable ladies (not me, needless to say). Also, they’ve introduced Advent windows to the village this year. So every day a new decoration appears to lift our spirits and gladden our hearts. On top of all that, huge snow falls (our first since we came here, really) have given a magical feel to the place.
Third: and the most difficult to explain. A dear friend of Sally’s, a beautiful, loving mother of three, and her husband, have been told their two year old daughter is dangerously, perhaps fatally, ill. She has to undergo chemo two days after Christmas, presumably so they can ‘enjoy’ a relatively normal Christmas before the treatment starts. So many people have been thinking of her and praying for her and her family, even though not all will be convinced, logically, that it will do any good. They have asked for everyone’s prayers and every day I do say a prayer and light a Christmas candle for her in the window. In some strange way this little child, who I haven’t even met, has been with me no matter what I’ve been doing: making mince pies, decorating the house, doing the church tree, lighting candles. I can’t even say that her plight has ‘put things in perspective,’ or ‘made me realise how lucky I really am’: I still get cross over silly things, and feel sorry for myself when the mince pies aren’t as good as they should be, or Ian does something mildly irritating. But it has made me think that if the life of one tiny person can matter so much and touch so many, then there surely has to be something more to the world than what we see on the surface.
Ian asked this morning what was the point of praying for someone in these circumstances. What good could I possibly imagine it would do? Why would God, if there was one, respond to prayer to make one person better, or ease one family’s pain? I haven’t the faintest idea is the answer. I only know that I am moved to do it anyway and that in the face of unbearable pain it was the one thing the family could ask of everyone they knew. I doubt if anyone, believer or otherwise, has failed to respond to that request.