Third series, episode 17
All 109 episodes are available here on the HebWeb.
The latest episode includes, Norman the Needle, 3 Ps, cakes and teas, Muck in Mytholmroyd, a Fosbury Flop and a broken bed, U boats and a cunning plan, Zen and zips, a pigeon handbag, political pumpkins and more.
A rainy day in Hebden Bridge. In other news, the wet lettuce won, Liz Truss has gone, and the spider wove its web regardless.
Norman the Needle
Saturday 15th, both of us were well. That afternoon we went to Mytholmroyd for our Moderna and 'flu jabs.
Sunday 16th, I slept till mid afternoon. Came round and tottered downstairs. The sleep had helped, but I had a raised temperature and my day time pulse rate, usually around 60, was up to 80. By Monday evening I was well again.
Meanwhile, PW was ill for three days, apparently with the after effects of GP Norman the Needle's flu jab. Hopefully, however, Norman has bolstered our defences in time for the coming winter.
Keep taking the tablets
A few days later, I was at Boots, asking the shy young shop assistant for my repeat prescription. She asked me to take a seat while I waited.
Once seated, I skim read my newspapers as white coated staff bustled in and out of a nearby stock room, never giving me a second glance, leaving the door open as they tapped on the computer and then breaking off to take a new delivery at the back door. In the shop, the trainee assistant busied herself tidying items onto shelves. It was a morning almost devoid of customers, without the usual slow moving queue. Then a man came in and requested guidance on the best haemorrhoid creams. A few minutes later a woman purchased a cold sore remedy.
Still waiting for my own meds, I went into a reverie, wondering if product placement could be slyly incorporated into storytelling. Perhaps I could get some sponsorship deals …
'Sleeping Beauty awoke, "My darling Zovirax!" the Prince muttered.
"Oh, my dear Prince Anusol!" she exclaimed.'
I was startled back to reality by a 'ting!' as another customer entered the chemists. Realising I had become invisible, a trick that's much easier in old age, before the new customer could way lay her, I marched up to the young assistant, who was still contentedly organising fresh consignments of medications for mild maladies onto shelves. She did a double take, guiltily nipped into the back room and returned with my meds, which had been prepared some twenty minutes earlier, and asked me where I lived.
For one long dramatic moment, I couldn't remember.
Paxman, Parkinson and Pheidippides
Still on a medical theme, we watched the documentary on Paxman and Parkinson's with two of our neighbours, one of whom suffers from the same affliction. Afterwards, we reflected on the new lines of research into the condition. Dopamine is key, but it seems that the gut is a good place to start when considering malfunctioning brains.
We were fascinated by the woman who could smell Parkinson's on others - and precisely determine the severity of their condition. Which made me wonder if dogs, with their wet super sensitive hooters, could be trained to sniff it out. Such sensory expertise is rare amongst humans.
One of us admitted she had a problem remembering faces out of context, she's wandered past neighbours and former colleagues in the past, and fears people might think she's cold shouldered them. So I told her about a policeman who never forgets faces. His latest success was spotting a wanted man on CCTV at the Notting Hill Carnival, despite only seeing part of his jaw.
Remembering poor Paxman, we talked about our failing memories when it came to answering quiz questions. I said if I'd been that Pheidippides guy, after running from Marathon to Athens in a pair of sandals, at the dramatic moment when all the waiting senators turned to receive my urgent message, I'd have said, "Damn … now, hang on, it's on the tip of my t …" before collapsing in a heap.
Muck and Mytholmroyd
Post script: over tea and cake the chorister amongst us shared an anecdote from the recent past:
A few years back, a tractor driver in Mytholmroyd put on his protective ear muffs, started his engine and then unintentionally pressed the button to turn on his muck spreader. From his lofty-perch he blithely returned the frantic waves from gesticulating locals as he drove into town, blissfully unaware that his vehicle was liberally splattering its load of manure onto cars and pedestrians, including the local vicar.
The reverend recounted the episode in his Sunday sermon, but ended on an uplifting note:
"I rubbed the muck away from my eyes, and then I saw the light!"
Fosbury flops and QE2
One night, roughly two Prime Ministers and one monarch ago, PW watched me climb into bed and wistfully commented, "Remember when you used to jump into bed?"
After which, I waited the statutory 3 minutes for nearest and dearest to nod off, before sneaking upstairs to the box room. Then, with the shortest of run ups, I dived backwards onto the spare bed, satisfactorily completing a Fosbury Flop, but also cracking a wooden spar beneath the mattress.
The next time, when I escaped to that peaceful bolt hole, I was reminded that our small spare bed had developed a bloody big sag. In fact, a creaking every time I rolled over, sag. Eventually, I manned up and reported this bed defect to PW, but neglected to mention what caused it. The outcome was, a few days later, a man with a van ran up three flights of stairs with our brand new single bed base. After which, I did consider confessing my guilty secret to PW but decided to sleep on it.
During my sleep on that Dream bed (placement money by bank transfer please), I dreamt I was back at College again, a dashing, dark haired teacher-trainer, sharing a table in the cellar canteen (aka 'the pit') with a gaggle of students and none other than our late Queen, who looked regal as a postage stamp, circa 1960s. Despite her tiara and stole, the students didn't bow or curtsy to the late monarch when leaving the table, but HMXQ didn't seem to mind. When they'd gone, we had a good old natter about life and her majesty proved to be a very good listener. Which was probably just as well.
Next dream instalment (this was like a box set in a box room) QE2 returned! Same corner of the same canteen table. Strangely, she never ordered any nosh, but once my students had nipped off to start their minimum wage jobs at local supermarkets and bars, we recommenced our small talk. I didn't have the heart to tell her about the fate of that other Liz with whom she had so recently shaken hands.
Sea lions and Wales
Midgehole travel writer and broadcaster Horatio Clare, who grew up on a farm in South Wales, has been researching into Welsh history, and kindly shared one of his discoveries, 'An unusual story is the plot to train sea lions for tracking U-boats, which was trialled at Bala Lake. Owned by showman Joseph Woodward, the animals were however easily distracted by shoals of fish and the plan was abandoned.'
Jack and Jill
One sunny day, I went up the hill to the Old Town PO cafe, to meet historian Jill Liddington, a renowned authority on Anne Lister. We had a suitably elevated chat about Gentleman Jack and I said how much I was enjoying Rebel Girls, her book on Yorkshire suffragettes. For instance:
young Adela Pankhurst kept an account of the abuse she received from men and youths at her open air rallies …
'I am and always was incapable of thinking out a joke beforehand, but sometimes I saw quite spontaneously, the humorous side of things, which was very helpful with an obstreperous crowd. Once, I remember in Bradford, I had a particularly tiresome and narkish interjector, who eyed me sourly, from under a lamp post, and kept up a running fire of disparaging interjections At last he said, "If you were my wife I'd give you a dose of poison." "No need of that, my friend" I replied cheerfully, "If I was your wife I'd take it." The audience yelled with delight and my tormentor left the meeting early.' (P32)
Zen revisited
When planning my part of a double header at the new Centre for Folklore, Myth and Magic in Todmorden recently, I was tempted to read a short tale about the old Bear Cafe from the first series of Murphy's Lore. Back home after a successful gig, I chanced on a newspaper review, which I took as a further prompt.
In Life is Hard, Kieran Setiya, the Hull born philosopher, includes a useful reminder that Buddhist meditation is not the same as mindfulness, based as it is on the belief that 'neither you nor those you love are real'. Which Setiya argues would make most people even more stressed!
So here's the tale I nearly told.
Zen and zips
In my teens I read Alan Watts and Rollo May on Zen and meditation after which I used to stare fiercely at the flowers in the park in search of enlightenment, like using paint stripper to try and understand an oil painting.
In my 20s at The Bear Cafe in Todmorden, our friends Judith, Nick and my present wife were reduced to helpless laughter when first the zip stuck on my cagoule and then the cagoule stuck when I tried to pull it over my head. I spent several hapless, headless minutes with my arms flapping like penguin flippers at the sides of my nylon straightjacket to the delight of friends and fellow diners alike.
There seemed no way out of it, but at that very moment of helplessness and letting go, dear reader, I felt a state of Grace - a state of 'mindfulness' perhaps. Inside the tiny world of that synthetic hoodie, alone with my own breathing, I at last achieved Nirvana.
When I was no longer struggling, Nick unpeeled me, with a good bit of tugging, into the everyday world again. Sloughing off that synthetic skin - to applause from every table - I felt somehow metamorphosed, not unlike a bearded butterfly.
A handbag?!
Jo Ellison wrote in the Indy, 'A £650 pigeon clutch bag has been spotted on Sara Jessica Parker's arm.' … 'There was a flurry of excitement when singer Sam Smith carried the pigeon to a London fashion show, they recalled a modern Francis of Assisi.'…The designer of the pigeon handbag told Jo, "It must be cradled or carried like a precious object." … to which Jo responded, 'We are all the pigeon.'
Well, that's my Christmas present sorted.
Roving reporter
Being an intrepid reporter, I went to view the controversial development next to the play park. The workers seemed to take a dim view of my photographing, if my reading of body language is correct, but now that the park is back in full swing (and slide, etc) my most damning verdict was, so far it looks like a bit of an eyesore - and where will the residents park in these car filled streets?
Political pumpkins
Saturday. Usually, the pumpkin presentations are witty and engaging whilst making important environmental points, but this year most of the pumpkins were blank faced and the displays were overwhelmed by shouty grown up political banners. I watched dutiful parents traipse round the displays with their disappointed tots. Later, one contacted me to say that her kids quickly got bored, so she took them off to the playground.
Sunday: this was more like it. Beavers might well help us avoid flooding.
Health, wealth and stealth
Looking into the post Liz Truss future, I predict governments will try to make the NHS function, whatever else they cut. How will they fund that? Labour fears declaring a wealth tax, but would find ways of taxing the property wealth of the rich. The main way of raising taxes for either party will be by not raising tax thresholds in line with inflation - a stealth tax.
Oh, and if the Tories haven't got a Johnson inspired death wish, I think super rich Rishi will be the PM by next Friday, at the latest. But in these crazy times, what do I know?
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