Bart Simpson is bigger than Jesus!

And, before any hail and brimstone, bolts of lightning or indeed the derision from any bible bashers out there, let me explain: 

Sitting on a shelf above my desk, and keeping an eye on me, is a small china statue of adult Jesus, but sorry again to my more pious friends, no I haven’t seen the light, been converted or even re-born (reminds me of a little photo project I undertook a couple of years ago, so watch out for the next blog post!), it was quite simply a teeth crunching free gift, which I’ll explain in due cause.  Next to the “Good Shepherd,” all 30mm of him – I did say it was small, is a similar statue of Bart Simpson, coming in at 33.5mm, hence my claim above and then to rub salt in the wound and therefore outnumbering “Our Saviour” is a 33mm sized effigy of Bart’s classmate, Martin Prince.

An odd, some might say strange, collection of icons or idols but there simply for no other reason than to remind me, somewhat belatedly, to relate to you a rather simple and sadly now somewhat corrupted French Christmas custom.  La Fête des Rois, or Twelfth Night as it is known as in the UK, celebrates the arrival of the three Kings in Bethlehem to visit and bring gifts to the infant Jesus.  One French tradition on this day, is the serving of the Galette des Rois, a eggy pastry cake in which a fève or charm is hidden, in much the same way as our traditional Christmas pubs contained a silver sixpence.  The Galette comes complete with a golden crown, which sits on the top as it is served, and whoever gets the slice of cake containing the hidden fève is crowned king or queen for the day!  Traditionally the fève would be a simple bean or simply fashioned baby or other Christmas figure made in rough china, and it is gratifying as well as tooth crunching to find that this is still the case, at least in those galette’s that we sampled, and that they haven’t been plasticised.

But sadly, no doubt purely for commercial reasons, hard-headed business people have seen fit to substitute the bean or crude religious effigies with china Simpson’s figures, even annotated with TM (trademark) and © (copyright), in what to me is a step too far.  Many of you will know my views on the cynical and multi-million pound advertising campaigns and merchandising of things as diverse as Harry Potter teabags (although I have never read the books, I’m told tea is a vital ingredient!), through anatomically impossible incredibly expensive cheap plastic dolls, for which each Christmas a new range of must have accessories is colourfully advertised on Children’s TV (the ad-persons of the world are no strangers to peer pressure!), and the dolls can’t even stand up properly let alone sit comfortably in the latest open top sports car (they have to be open topped as the doll wouldn’t bend enough in the right places to get into a car with a roof!), to plastic ponies in pastel shades decorated with flowers and sporting impossibly long nylon manes.  With the last of these commercial items, a huge research budget, only belittled by the revenue forecasts that accompanied the business plan, found out that little girls liked pastel colours, flowers, horses and combing hair – so the My Little Pony was born, or rather cheaply moulded in plastic, packaged in large colourful boxes with lots of cellophane and endorsements, and sold at an incredible price.  But as little Cordelia has a large stable full of the rigid beasts including the latest “British Olympic Show jumping themed” pony, breaking somewhat with tradition and coloured white and red with a blue mane, it’s absolutely necessary for Persephone to go one better and have the whole equestrian team, despite not one of them looking fit and blithe enough to clear the lowest of jumps, for a start the legs don’t even bend!!  It’s that peer pressure raising its ugly head again, but then there is lots of soothing nylon hair there to groom!

But, back to Bart and Jesus Christ, an expression that I’m sure Bart’s father might use when comparing the two.  Although I’ve never managed a complete episode, having tried if only to search, in vain in my case, for the appeal, I can easily hear Bart’s Dad, Homer I think it might be, saying, when asked to compare the two heroes in this piece (BS and JC), and decide which is the biggest:  “Jesus Christ there’s no contest, ......... Bart of course!  That’s my boy!,” as Bart announces to anyone wishing to listen “Eat my Shorts!” totally drowning out JC’s quiet offer to wash the feet of a sinner or two.

Going back to the small china ornaments, looking again it seemed that just perhaps if you were to discount the plinths that the figures are standing on, Jesus might win by a short head, but sadly no, despite the bigger soapbox, Bart still just comes first, I guess simply reflecting that perhaps, with the help of some clever marketing perhaps Bart does indeed have a larger following, and JC perhaps needs to enlist the help of Saatchi and Saatchi!          

Was Born!

I was a lovely child, prone to stamping my foot and demanding a Bourbon biscuit, my favourite, when I knew there weren’t any in the house and 24 hour Tesco’s were years away.

But in my defence the family must take some of the blame, and although I’ve only now thought of it over fifty years later, perhaps there was another way to break the news to me when giving me my glass of bedtime milk than; “we haven’t any of your lovely, chocolaty, favourite, yummy Bourbon biscuits, have a rather plain and claggy* Rich Tea instead!” (* here I must confess to a little poetic licence as claggy is a Yorkshire term, I’m sure unknown in my family over half a century ago, but if you’ve ever eaten a Rich Tea biscuit, your teeth will know just what it means!!)

Then, there were the times, often in the car, when we would be driving somewhere and having a family conversation about all sorts of things, such as previous car journeys, holidays, playmates, parties (you get the gist of it) and I’d be attentively listening, still you must realise, strapped in my baby seat and wanting even then to be able to join in the conversation, I would make a simple remark like “I don’t remember that holiday.” or ask a simple question like “What present did we buy Auntie so and so at that party, I don’t remember?”  To which there would be a chorus of “You wouldn’t remember, you weren’t born!”

This, like the Bourbon biscuits, or lack of them, made me very angry and there would be more pouting and foot stamping accompanied by me shouting “Was born!”  A simple kindly explanation would have sufficed here, an early lesson on the passing of time and chronological order and the tantrum would have stopped!  But no!, my antics were simply laughed at, not with I hasten to add, and opportunities found no less to bait me and taunt me with “You weren’t born!,” for another good laugh at the reaction! It’s amazing I’ve turned out as level headed as I have really!!

Imagine my horror then to recently discover this picture taken of Bob Dylan back in 1965, a photo from what has arguably been regarded as one of the most famous music videos of all time, a promotional video for Subterranean Homesick Blues of which Get Born forms part of the lyric, a song that apparently so captivated John Lennon that he worried he would never be able to compete!, and with this lyric in mind prompted Pete Townsend of The Who fame, to liken hearing Dylan sing for the first time to being born!;

Dylan 1965

The song lyrics “Still crazy after all this years” (From the title track of Paul Simon’s fourth studio album, thank you google!) came to mind, as I flung down the newspaper I was reading and stormed off, not in a paddy, but eager to change and produce my altogether more mature response and email it to my earlier tormentors, to show I hadn’t been deeply affected at an early age!!   Unfortunately, it’s a good few years ago that I would have been able to replicate the hair, at least on the top of the head!!!

Higgs 2011

 

 

“If I should become a stranger, you know that would make me more than sad.”

Dougie MacLean, Scottish singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer

As I said in t’other blog (you can tell I’ve visited Yorkshire recently, where “tha noz tha's nowt so-queer as folk”, but maybe more about them another time when “our lass” isn’t watching!!), it’s been a while since anything has appeared here, and as it says in the title, part of the chorus of a wonderful song called Caledonia (about returning to Scotland), I’d hate to become a stranger!

So, for my return, in the words of “our lass,” her indoors or the trouble and strife; a little idle rambling or complete madness, albeit somewhat multilingual which I hope impresses you after my absence?!

What do they have in common?

We have started to recently visit a French friend to help us brush us our French; vocab, pronunciation, gender alignment (as regards le and la and un and une!) and the all important accents!!

Imagine my surprise then, when doing an exercise about music, musicians and musical instruments, when an everyday household, indeed kitchen object mysteriously thrust its way into the proceedings!

Suffice to say what do; Ringo Starr (The Beatles drummer for the youngsters amongst you!), Harry Potter who probably needs no introduction at all, regardless of age, due to “clever” advertising, Sir Simon Rattle (a famous conductor) and a hungry Frenchman all have in common?

Baffled as I was, it being the conductor in the exercise mentioned above?

Well, they are all in need of a baguette, in Ringo’s case a drumstick, Harry’s a wand, Simon’s a baton and the hungry Frenchman a loaf of bread.  Interestingly, when looking into this further in a weighty but somewhat old French dictionary, the loaf doesn’t get a mention, but several other meanings are listed:

a switch as previously used by a schoolteacher on errant pupils, a rod such as that used by Black Rod in the House of Commons, an usher in a church or indeed a water diviner, a ramrod for your blunderbuss (I did say it was an old dictionary!), the stick attached to a rocket, a glove stretcher and (answers on a postcard please, as this one leaves me lost for an explanation!), a clock (of stockings)!

It really isn’t surprising that we still feel that we, passer par les baguettes each time we leave the house and have to converse in French, and before you ask it’s not what we say as we near the boulangerie when we’re feeling a little peckish, it means to run the gauntlet!  I’m tempted to say it’s a fluke if you get it right:

Incidentally, Fluke can mean:

• A fish, and a flatworm.
• The end parts of an anchor.
• The fins on a whale's tail.
• A stroke of luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some more of life’s little mysteries!

·        Why do “Indestructible Socks” only come with a twelve month guarantee!

·        Why are “Stoned Prunes” not guaranteed, they always work for me!!

·        Why in all the years of taking children away on school trips did I never have one be sick on the coach, if when they started to feel queasy, I sat them on a folded Daily Telegraph!!!  I have my own thoughts, but I’ll leave you to think up your own, again answers on a postcard please.

On this last point I’m reminded of two things; Spike Milligan’s cure for seasickness – sit under a tree!!  And, a recent article in the Kate’s Farm series in the Telegraph Magazine (I must point out here I don’t actually take The Telegraph, but “read” it when visiting someone close to me – I tried to explain, but they’re not for turning!!), talks about how she can merge two colonies or bees after one has lost its queen.  On the advice of their bee expert they put a sheet of The Daily Telegraph “on top of the brood box of the hive with the queen, poked a few holes in the paper and put the other hive on top of it.!  Apparently, “Each colony has its own distinct odour, and bees will fight with those from outside their own colony.  But by the time the bees have chewed through the newspaper, the odours of both colonies have combined and they believe they are one happy family.”

A week later it had worked, the paper was shredded and the bees happy with the stronger colony having a better chance of surviving the winter.  The article attributes the success to their bee expert and a copy of “everyone’s favourite broadsheet,” their words not mind!  Mine are more along the lines of the odour of said daily newspaper, or should that be stench! Add your “answers” to the postcards mentioned above!!   

Did you know?

Kit Kat is one of Nestle’s, and Rowntree’s of York before that, top selling brands, with 150 consumed worldwide every second!!!

And, the fact I’ve recently been in York is a pure coincidence!  This came from an article where certain types of Kit Kat have been recalled as there is a risk they might contain pieces of plastic, and there’s me thinking that a Kit Kat is one of very few everyday necessities that hasn’t been plasticised (e.g. car headlights, kitchen chopping boards, noodles as in Pot Noodles – I’m sure you get my drift!), although I’m sure they are smaller than when I used to buy them as a child!! 

And finally!

After our long journey back from the UK after our stint in the Pet Shop (watch this space!), my profound thought of the moment!

“The hill is steep but the summit is near”

as I climbed our steep staircase and sunk thankfully into my own bed, there’s nothing like it!

*********************************

So, there you are, just a little something to make contact and reassure those of you that have missed me, that I’m still here and functioning “normally” or should that be just as mad as ever!! 

        

As the end looms, a little something - light-hearted!?!, to keep you going.  No not another "End of the World" prediction, this time the end of the year and hoping that 2013 contains "the turn too far!"  Confused, well you'll have to read on!!

Le Manège enchanté (Magic Roundabout)

 – New Year Review

The Coalition seem ConDemed to meeting themselves

Coming back.

So many u-turns they must be going around in circles,

Magic circles, man!

Sitting in my different astral plane,

Laid back with my friendly rabbit – Dylan,

 I’m transported to a Magic Roundabout

Swindon’s magic roundabouts,

Once on it, those of

Nervous disposition, lost forever.

ConDemed forever to turn, around and around

Constant U-turn after U-turn

Eventually, hoping to be flung far off, far into obscurity

Regretting not being able to have:

Seen the wood from the trees,

The pasty from the caviar,

Charity from a fast buck,

Protected pheasants from the buzzards

(Maybe those peasant blighters could be shot instead!);

 

That would no doubt have saved both money

And face on:

Housing Benefits

Disability Living Allowance

Bookstart

School Sport

Domestic violence changes

NHS Direct

Military Covenant

Video Games Tax Relief

 

And would then perhaps have been able to fund:

NHS Waiting times,

Scottish Independence Referendum,

Joint Strike Fighter,

Chief Coroner,

Financial Inclusion Fund,

All of which have met themselves coming back!

And, all at a cost!

 

Throw into the ebb and flow of the turning,

Issues such as:

VAT on static caravans,

Secret Courts,

Unannounced OFSTED Inspections,

Public funding of The Conservative Party Photographer

And Camerawoman.

The list* seems endless

Constantly growing ......

 

The lady wasn’t for turning.

But if she’d gone, she’d be turning now,

In her grave.

As it is she must be wringing her hands in despair

As “One couldn’t possibly approve, could one?,

But, on the other hand it’s

More people trampled on

And left in the “merde!”

Wish I’d thought of some of these!!”

 

Maybe there’ll be one turn too many

And they’ll be thrown out

By centrifugal forces;

ConDemed to ignominy

Discredited forever.   

  

(*try Googling "Coalition Government u-turns," should get you

to a Guardian website which if it wasn’t so serious it would

certainly be laughable!!)

 

A couple more for good measure

Hopefully to get me back into the creative mode!

 

NIGHT SKY.

  

I left late, drawn by the dark night sky

My departure greeted by one shimmering star.

 

Racing clouds scurried across the dark,

 

Wiping clean the velvet of the night.

 

Leaving clear the vast expanse

 

Of night in all its wondrous hues.

 

Then a thousand tiny lights

 

Of distant stars, too far to contemplate.

 

Other worlds or other beings

 

A mighty majesty lain bare.

 

A falling star brings down the eye

 

To gaze on twinkling islands.

 

As cottages their lights ablaze,

Prepare for bed, another day tomorrow.

 

from Home for a Week 1995 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                                                                     White Hill

                                                                   

                                                                               I came down from the sun-scorched hill

  Roger M. Higgs                                    

                                                                              Into the mellow coolness

  “Words provide                        

  a clear, lasting snapshot               Of the secluded valley.

  of a time, a place                      

  and feelings.                               Hidden by the dusty trees

  Often personal to                      

  the writer,                                 Dressed in their summer clothes,

  evoking                                     

  when returned to,                      There they stood

  that time, place                 

  and feelings.                              Like sentinels,

  But shared,                               

  by all who …..                           To the dappled fields beyond.

  choose to read.”                        

                                                  Motionless, 

                                         Surreal

                                         

                                    Certainly unreal.

 

 

Words, Words, Words

Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, And so are you.

Roses are red, Violets are blue, Some poems rhyme, Mine doesn’t!

Roses are red, Violets are blue, Thy eyes are red, Cause you’ve had a pint or two!

Back in the summer I showed my ten year old, soon the following week to be eleven, niece my growing collected poems, a recent project with the working title: “Say it with Words, collected poems ..... moments in time and beyond” that, to date, nobody else has seen.  It came about after a serious discussion she had instigated about whether or not poems should rhyme!

Over the coming weeks and months, I’m going to share some of the project with you, my wider audience, here then for starters is the introduction:

 

Say it with flowers, no words.

                            with apologies to Interflora;

                            inter ...... between, among, within a group

                            flora ...... flowers, plants, vegetation,

 but between friends,

 among allies

 within your group

 don’t forget the

 flowers,

 plants,

vegetation,

as sometimes

actions

speak louder than words!

  

“Poets don’t draw.  They unravel their

handwriting and then tie it up again,

but differently.”

Jean Cocteau 

“We do not remember days

we remember moments."

 

                                      Cesare Parese

  

I like to think of it as 

“Free Form Poetry”

or

“As it happens Poetry”  

with a rhyme if it

happens to be there!  Not sure if these

are original “names,” but I like to think so!!

Roger

And, here’s the first one from the “book” (as some of it indeed in a book, other offerings are currently stored electronically!), from a previously “published” booklet called Common Ramblings” and both apt after the last blog post and for those up in matters of folk music as next month sadly seems to herald the demise of Mike Harding from his regular folk programme on Wednesday evening, BBC Radio 2 – shame on them!:

Student Days

each time from when on high I see

the myriad of lights spread out

beyond the plunging hillside

in the valley far below

surprisingly I'm taken back

to far off student days

and Mike Harding

folk singer, rambler and Rochdale cowboy

on his rickety stuffed alsation dog

the audience hushed

save the easily put down heckler

from "rent-a-pratt, Leeds branch"

and the story unfolds

of how one night

he was forced from his bed

by bladdery needs

and stood gazing from his window

down on the lights of Manchester

far below

a myriad of lights spread out

majestic and mystical

each tiny light its own

story could unfold

as it shimmered and lit up

 

the surrounding blanket of the night

he, like I, went on to question

the meaning of it all

the meaning of life itself

it all being out there

encompassed by the twinkling

of those far off anonymous lights

joy, misery, laughter and pain

there .......

he, like I, then thought .......

sod it, and went back to bed

 

And to keep you going for the time being, one of those currently stored electronically, a haiku style poem combining words with another love – photography,  unfortunately it isn't letting me load this properly, with words superimposed on the photo with an attractive coloured border, you'll have to use your imagination, I'll try again next time!!:

 

After the Rain   Puddles in the lane     Grey damp sky and dripping trees Waiting for the sun