Mary Dunwich writes:
Hallowe'en, half past seven. The Werewolf was upstairs posting on his increasingly popular music blog. I was in the sitting room having a chat with a German LingQ friend over Skype when the door opened and a strange and sinister group of people (well, mostly people) came in. The tallest one saw that the PC was on and stood mesmerised, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a lorry. The shortest one flapped his wings grumpily and cooed.
I hastily pulled a sock over the webcam. It was that or work out the German for "That weird bunch behind me are a psychiatric outpatient who I have a crush on, my free-thinking kids and a dodo rescued from the seventeenth-century." I didn't think that Reinhard was ready for that kind of information about my life.
I signed off as fast as I politely could and turned to face the shambling, flapping, vacantly staring group.
Minnie was wearing a floral dress, a pink cardigan, thick grey woolly tights, fluffy slippers, and a black leather jacket with "Hell's Grannies!" written over the back in studs. I hope the real Hell's Grannies don't get to hear about this. Relations between the Hell's Grannies and the Knights Hospitalier have been quiet of late, and I wouldn't like my daughter to be the one to break the fragile peace.
James was wearing his usual clothes, minus his socks but plus a baggy grey jumper. He was wearing a grey wig to which he had applied his industrial-strength hair gel, until the hair stuck up at odd angles. Under his arm I saw a small blackboard with curly equations scribbled over it. I guess that his invisible friend, the late Albert Einstein, doesn't mind James dressing up as him for a Hallowe'en joke.
Harry the Geek was wearing a white laboratory coat and glasses. His usually wild hair had been carefully slicked down. There was a stethoscope round his neck and he was carrying a clipboard. I suppose it's not surprising that Harry should have a horror of doctors, his experiences as a psychiatric inpatient at Sir Isaac's sound dreadful.
I glanced down at Harry's ankles. Harry was wearing matching grey socks. Thank the Gods for that! Despite it being his parents' wedding anniversary, with all the emotional stress that that usually implies, Harry was having a good day.
I have become very good at telling Harry's state of mind from his socks. Two odd socks is situation normal. Two matching socks is a sign of particularly good emotional stability. No socks means that the Devil has been giving Harry trouble again. Only one sock is a very bad sign and may cause me to give his care-worker a call.
Dodgson the dodo was wearing a tartan doggy jacket, a collar and a lead. In the dark he might pass for some breed of terrier.
"Get that animal out of my sitting room and into his coop before he ruins the carpet!" I said sternly to my son. James knelt down and started undressing the bird. "What on earth did you take him Trick or Treating for anyway?"
"He was the Trick," answered Minnie smugly. "We kept him behind us. When people chose Trick, we brought Dodgson out and shone a torch under his beak. Some people were really freaked out! We got lots of sweets!" She waved a bulging carrier bag at me.
Oh dear. I wonder what the Vicar's going to have to say about this.
"Weren't you supposed to be Trick or Treating with the Higgs-Bosons?" I asked, making a deft grab for the bags of sweeties. They looked quite sugared-up enough already.
"We started off with them. But there were too many of us so we split up," answered James, scooping the dodo up in his arms. "Besides, Lizzie kept giving Harry funny looks. I don't think she liked the look of him."
"I told her that Harry's a doctor at Sir Isaac's, and he came straight from work without changing," supplied Minnie helpfully. "I don't think she bought it."
Well, that's Lizzie's problem. As long as she considers the schizophrenic heart-throb to be a "responsible adult" then she can't object to my kids going round the neighbour's houses with him.
"Harry, just the man! I need to talk to you about computers," I said switching off the computer, and Harry woke from his trance and grunted in Scots. I was hopeful of geting whole sentences out of him by the end of tea.
"The Hallowe'en supper's ready," I said. "A cauldron full of hot Witches Brew stew with Devil's Dumplings, Dead Men's Finger Rolls, Bat Biscuits, Imp Cakes, Brain Jelly, and Eyeball Ice-cream. Wash your hands first please!"
And a splendidly creepy evening was had by all.
Friday 31 October 2008
Thursday 30 October 2008
To: The Werewolf, Badger Crossing Planning Unit
Mary Dunwich writes to the Werewolf:
Hello dear! Is your e-mail server down? Well, I figure you look at your blog several times a day, and as our blogs are linked in cyberspace, you'll probably see this message before 5pm.
Lizzie is taking the kids out Trick-or-Treating on Friday. I wondered about inviting Harry round. He could go out Trick-or-Treating with them, while I rustle up a Hallowe'en party tea. You know I don't like the idea of him being at home alone on 31st. It's his parents' wedding anniversary and his family always have a big fight, then ring up Harry and take it out on him. He's better off out terrorising our neighbours than staying in and having his family terrorising him.
Stanley is banned from coming round to our house to do his project. That leaves James short of a computer (I'm not letting him use mine, not after what he did to it last time!It took ages to clean the golden syrup out of the DVD drive.) Perhaps it's time he had a computer of his own? I can afford £30 from my English tutoring earnings. Are they getting rid of any old PCs at the Council that we could get for that? Perhaps Harry knows where we could get James a cheap computer.
Don't forget eggs, milk, yoghurt, a cabbage, bread flour, onions and Fair Trade leaf tea.
xxxx
Hello dear! Is your e-mail server down? Well, I figure you look at your blog several times a day, and as our blogs are linked in cyberspace, you'll probably see this message before 5pm.
Lizzie is taking the kids out Trick-or-Treating on Friday. I wondered about inviting Harry round. He could go out Trick-or-Treating with them, while I rustle up a Hallowe'en party tea. You know I don't like the idea of him being at home alone on 31st. It's his parents' wedding anniversary and his family always have a big fight, then ring up Harry and take it out on him. He's better off out terrorising our neighbours than staying in and having his family terrorising him.
Stanley is banned from coming round to our house to do his project. That leaves James short of a computer (I'm not letting him use mine, not after what he did to it last time!It took ages to clean the golden syrup out of the DVD drive.) Perhaps it's time he had a computer of his own? I can afford £30 from my English tutoring earnings. Are they getting rid of any old PCs at the Council that we could get for that? Perhaps Harry knows where we could get James a cheap computer.
Don't forget eggs, milk, yoghurt, a cabbage, bread flour, onions and Fair Trade leaf tea.
xxxx
Adult supervision is required
Lizzie Higgs-Boson writes:
I must say, Mary, I'm getting a little bit concerned about the way Stanley and Jay come back from your house on a Saturday evening with dirt all over their clothes. Last week they came back smelling of wood and tobacco smoke, and the week before they smelled of manure!
I can't get a straight answer about where they have been. Stanley claims that he, Jay and James went to the allotments and were talking to a man who was spreading muck on his fruit bushes, while tending a bonfire and smoking his pipe. Honestly, Mary, do you think it's a good idea letting three eleven-year-old boys roam at will around Dusty Mouldings? The allotments are not a safe place for children, especially not if they start talking to strangers. And to be exposed to the dangers of passive smoking and manure! I only hope Jay keeps quiet about where he has been, because if Kay Bee hears they have been to the allotments she will have a fit. You know how she worries about Jay's safety.
Stanley admits he hasn't written a single word of his project yet, and it's due in on December 1st! What on earth have they been doing at your house all this time??? I think it would be sensible if the boys came round to our house to work on their project from now on. They can use Stanley's laptop to look up facts on the internet and write their project up. We can give them proper adult supervision.
It is Hallowe'en tomorrow and we are taking Stanley and Olivia out Trick-or-Treating after tea. We will be calling for Jay Bee on the way, and James and Minnie can come too if they behave. Please ask Minnie to tone her costume down a bit this year - her Bloody Zombie outfit last year was really very disturbing. The Vicar had a word with me at church the Sunday after. Several elderly parishioners had complained and one had asked for an exorcism.
I must say, Mary, I'm getting a little bit concerned about the way Stanley and Jay come back from your house on a Saturday evening with dirt all over their clothes. Last week they came back smelling of wood and tobacco smoke, and the week before they smelled of manure!
I can't get a straight answer about where they have been. Stanley claims that he, Jay and James went to the allotments and were talking to a man who was spreading muck on his fruit bushes, while tending a bonfire and smoking his pipe. Honestly, Mary, do you think it's a good idea letting three eleven-year-old boys roam at will around Dusty Mouldings? The allotments are not a safe place for children, especially not if they start talking to strangers. And to be exposed to the dangers of passive smoking and manure! I only hope Jay keeps quiet about where he has been, because if Kay Bee hears they have been to the allotments she will have a fit. You know how she worries about Jay's safety.
Stanley admits he hasn't written a single word of his project yet, and it's due in on December 1st! What on earth have they been doing at your house all this time??? I think it would be sensible if the boys came round to our house to work on their project from now on. They can use Stanley's laptop to look up facts on the internet and write their project up. We can give them proper adult supervision.
It is Hallowe'en tomorrow and we are taking Stanley and Olivia out Trick-or-Treating after tea. We will be calling for Jay Bee on the way, and James and Minnie can come too if they behave. Please ask Minnie to tone her costume down a bit this year - her Bloody Zombie outfit last year was really very disturbing. The Vicar had a word with me at church the Sunday after. Several elderly parishioners had complained and one had asked for an exorcism.
Monday 27 October 2008
I am not a Happy Bunny
Mary Dunwich writes:
I am quite seriously cheesed off. There are three main reasons for my discontent. First, I am still feeling poorly thanks to the bug I caught at the "Parents' Whinge" meeting. Charlie calls it "24 hour flu", but I've had it for nearly three days now, and "the three-day sniffles" doesn't sound nearly as impressive. I'm all right as long as stay on the sofa and don't attempt anything more strenuous than making a pot of tea and watching "Young Dracula".
Second, I have lost my new and feature-packed mobile phone. Well, I didn't lose it. My son gave it to a seventeenth-century Dutch sailor with bad teeth and scurvy and a taste for heritage tobacco and rum. I don't suppose he'll have any more success in working out how to use it than I did.
I really miss that phone. Admittedly, I never managed to make a call on it, but that's not the point. It was a crucial weapon in my battle to chat up Harry the Geek. Harry is tall, dark, fiercely intelligent, and smoulderingly georgeous. He is also remarkably bashful in the presence of women. He will speak to us only in the company of some gadget or gizmo that he can hold and fiddle with and generally stay within his comfort zone of the technologically complex. I can hand him a gadget and say something like, "I still can't get it to work as a USB storage device, Harry!" Then I can lose myself in those deep, dark eyes while he talks about technical things I don't understand and don't really care about. Talking about bits and bytes calms and soothes Harry the way a well-made martini relaxes James Bond.
Poor Harry is ill at ease with himself and with other people. He lives in fear that he may be forced to engage in the baffling world of "small talk" and "social intercourse" and all his pychological shortcomings will be put on display. If only he realised, with his looks he doesn't have to say a word. He can just smile and perhaps raise an eyebrow slightly, and any red-blooded woman within smiting distance will fall straight into his arms. Who needs conversation?
Ahem. Well, anyway. As I was saying...
The third reason for my state of disgruntlement is that blooming great bird my son brought back from his latest foray into English History. I don't know what he intends to do with it. I've googled and googled, but I can't even find out how to look after it. Wikipedia was surprisingly reticent on the subject of dodo husbandry. Maybe I shall, in time, write them an article on the subject myself.
My husband, to his credit, took the news that his son had brought a dodo home with very good grace. After initial panic, we decided that the bird (hereafter to be known as Dodgson) should probably be kept warm. Mauritius is warm, isn't it? Geography is not our strong subject. Charlie has constructed a hasty dodo-coop in the workshop, and rigged up a little heater in there to keep Dodgson cozy. We also decided to feed Dodgson fruit, porridge and cornflakes, at least until we could get better advice on diet. Some people keep pigeons, don't they? Dodgson looks rather like a big pigeon. If we could get advice from a pigeon-fancier we could perhaps just multiply up the quantities a bit.
I hope we don't get into trouble with the Council, as we are forbidden to keep chickens in our area. It may be that a dodo would come under the rules for keeping pigeons or even geese. I've asked Charlie to check the Council's rules for poultry-keeping.
I am also worried about giving him exercise without the neighbours finding out. We don't have a very big garden, and a two-foot high bird scratching in our flower beds might attract attention.
I am quite seriously cheesed off. There are three main reasons for my discontent. First, I am still feeling poorly thanks to the bug I caught at the "Parents' Whinge" meeting. Charlie calls it "24 hour flu", but I've had it for nearly three days now, and "the three-day sniffles" doesn't sound nearly as impressive. I'm all right as long as stay on the sofa and don't attempt anything more strenuous than making a pot of tea and watching "Young Dracula".
Second, I have lost my new and feature-packed mobile phone. Well, I didn't lose it. My son gave it to a seventeenth-century Dutch sailor with bad teeth and scurvy and a taste for heritage tobacco and rum. I don't suppose he'll have any more success in working out how to use it than I did.
I really miss that phone. Admittedly, I never managed to make a call on it, but that's not the point. It was a crucial weapon in my battle to chat up Harry the Geek. Harry is tall, dark, fiercely intelligent, and smoulderingly georgeous. He is also remarkably bashful in the presence of women. He will speak to us only in the company of some gadget or gizmo that he can hold and fiddle with and generally stay within his comfort zone of the technologically complex. I can hand him a gadget and say something like, "I still can't get it to work as a USB storage device, Harry!" Then I can lose myself in those deep, dark eyes while he talks about technical things I don't understand and don't really care about. Talking about bits and bytes calms and soothes Harry the way a well-made martini relaxes James Bond.
Poor Harry is ill at ease with himself and with other people. He lives in fear that he may be forced to engage in the baffling world of "small talk" and "social intercourse" and all his pychological shortcomings will be put on display. If only he realised, with his looks he doesn't have to say a word. He can just smile and perhaps raise an eyebrow slightly, and any red-blooded woman within smiting distance will fall straight into his arms. Who needs conversation?
Ahem. Well, anyway. As I was saying...
The third reason for my state of disgruntlement is that blooming great bird my son brought back from his latest foray into English History. I don't know what he intends to do with it. I've googled and googled, but I can't even find out how to look after it. Wikipedia was surprisingly reticent on the subject of dodo husbandry. Maybe I shall, in time, write them an article on the subject myself.
My husband, to his credit, took the news that his son had brought a dodo home with very good grace. After initial panic, we decided that the bird (hereafter to be known as Dodgson) should probably be kept warm. Mauritius is warm, isn't it? Geography is not our strong subject. Charlie has constructed a hasty dodo-coop in the workshop, and rigged up a little heater in there to keep Dodgson cozy. We also decided to feed Dodgson fruit, porridge and cornflakes, at least until we could get better advice on diet. Some people keep pigeons, don't they? Dodgson looks rather like a big pigeon. If we could get advice from a pigeon-fancier we could perhaps just multiply up the quantities a bit.
I hope we don't get into trouble with the Council, as we are forbidden to keep chickens in our area. It may be that a dodo would come under the rules for keeping pigeons or even geese. I've asked Charlie to check the Council's rules for poultry-keeping.
I am also worried about giving him exercise without the neighbours finding out. We don't have a very big garden, and a two-foot high bird scratching in our flower beds might attract attention.
The boys bring home a souvenir
Mary Dunwich writes:
I wasn't feeling too well on Saturday. Some bug has been going round the school, and I must have picked it up at the "Parents' Whinge" meeting on Thursday. Honestly, if it weren't for the free tea and slices of Battenberg I wouldn't bother going. I didn't manage to get a word in edgeways. The whinges this term were: homework is hard, P.E. kits get dirty, the teachers are too strict. And this is just from the parents. Heavens knows what the kids find to complain about.
I was tucked up on the sofa with a pot of tea and a plate of buttered malt loaf, when the door opened and a selection of the Younger Generation slouched in. I noticed hazily that they were grubby, and smelled of soot, woodsmoke, tobacco smoke and....my nose signed off before it reported anything that might distress me.
"Mmmmfff!" I mumbled from beneath the duvet.
"Oh, cheers, Mum!" said James and grabbed my plate of malt loaf. "We're starving!"
"Where've you been?" I sat up and tried to focus.
"London," mumbled Stanley through a mouth of cake.
"Again?" I asked, pouring myself another cup of tea.
"Last week we did the Great Fire of 1666," Stanley answered. "Today we wanted to see Guy Fawkes blowing up the Houses of Parliament in 1605."
"But the thing about the Gunpowder Plot," I said, sipping tea and struggling to concentrate, "The important thing is...it failed. The Houses of Parliament didn't blow up, so there was nothing to see. Er...oh. You didn't make the plot succeed, did you? I think you could do some serious damage to history there."
"Oh, no!" said James cheerfully. "That would have been a bit naughty. We would have ended up killing lots of people. And if we changed history then Stanley's Scouts pack might not hold their bonfire and fireworks display this November 5th, which would be a shame. No, we went to warn Guy Fawkes so he would call off the plot and they wouldn't all get tortured and then hanged, drawn and quartered. That was really evil, what King James had done to them."
"Mmm," I responded. I don't hold with meddling with the fabric of recorded history, but you can't deny that my son's heart is in the right place. "So what did you do?"
"We went to London in March 1605," said Stanley, sitting on my duvet and getting some soot onto it. "I've read this cool book about the plot. Guy Fawkes rented a cellar beneath the House of Lords and by March he had hidden thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in it. They wanted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the Autumn and kill King James, but a member of their gang gave the game away when he warned his brother-in-law to stay away from parliament. We thought it would be easy to find Fawkes in London in the Spring and warn him off."
"But we couldn't get in," continued Jay, who had settled himself on the beanbag. "There were all these guards. We couldn't get anywhere near the Houses of Parliament. We went all round looking for a way in. We looked for ages, until I needed the toilet."
"We told him he could go in the street," chimed in James. "Other people were. There were poos everywhere. But he wouldn't go unless there was a proper toilet. So I thought of going into the nearest pub. Pubs always have toilets. And I thought we might find Guy there, or someone who knew him."
"And they let us in!" said Stanley with astonishment and wonder in his voice. "They let us into a pub, and we're only eleven. People were drinking beer and smoking and everything in there!"
"I don't think there were a lot of laws about taverns in those days," I murmered, trying very hard not to imagine the scene. Of all the places I could wish my boy not to see, a seventeenth-century tavern in London would be fairly high on the list. "What was it like?"
"Dark, smoky, smelly. The toilet was just a bucket in a shed. It didn't flush or anything!" complained Jay. "It was really hard to go."
"He was gone for ages," said Stanley. "While he was gone we got talking with these sailors."
"They were hard to understand," said James. "Funny accents. I think they were Dutch. Albert could understand them a bit. They were really friendly. They shared their dinner with us. Sausages and beer and rum. They let us have a smoke of their pipes too. It wasn't very nice."
"Their breath stank, and their teeth were really horrible, all brown and stumpy," said Stanley. "Maybe it was scurvy. They said they ate ships' biscuits most of the time when they were at sea. They weren't used to eating proper food."
"We gave them a Mars Bar and they got really excited!" said James. "They asked to see all the things we had on us. Luckily Stanley had his rucksack with our provisions in it. We did a trade."
"What did you give them?" I asked with fascination and some concern.
"Golden syrup sandwiches, three bottles of Fruit Shoot, three bananas, a bag of Fangtastics, half a packet of polos, a biro, my best Doctor Who rubber, my sports watch and a mobile phone," answered James promptly. "And the rucksack."
"My Mum's not going to be pleased about that," moaned Stanley. "It's my Scouts one, I need it for our camp-out next month."
"Jay's Mum won't be pleased about the mobile phone," I countered. "You've only just got it back from 1969."
"Oh, that's all right!" said James cheerfully. "It wasn't his mobile phone, it was yours."
"WHAT?" I shrieked.
"You told me to take it," he said innocently. "You told me to get pictures as evidence that we'd really been to the past."
"You have given my mobile phone to a seventeenth-century Dutch sailor," I said as calmly as possible under the provocation. "That's going to give archaeologists nightmares for years. It's not even going to be much use to him. The battery will run down in a couple of days and it will be useless."
"Yeah, he was more excited about the watch," admitted James. "I told him it was waterproof, never needed winding, and was accurate to within about a minute a year. He thought it was great!"
I thought about what I had read about the Dutch exploration of the East in search of spice routes. Anyone with a reliable time-piece would have an absolutely collosal advantage on the sea. They would be able to work out their longitude, and therefore their position, better than any of the explorers of their day. They would be space-time travellers of the seventeenth-century.
"That watch would be worth an absolute fortune in 1605," I mused. "I hope you got something good in exchange?"
"We left it in the kitchen, Mum!" answered James.
The doorbell suddenly started playing "I'm the Laughing Gnome!" and we all jumped.
"Quick Jay, Stanley, James, upstairs for a quick wash and brush-up before Stanley's mum sees you!" I commanded. "I can keep her talking for about five minutes. Come down looking respectable or you'll get grounded again!"
They thumped and crashed their way upstairs, and I opened the door to Lizzie Higgs-Boson. Luckily she was quite happy to grumble about the "Parent's Whinge" meeting, so I didn't have to delay her by forcing her to have some tea and cake while her son and Jay cleaned themselves up. A quarter of an hour later I was free to go into the kitchen, to wash up my tea things. That was when I discovered the grubby, maritime-looking (and smelling) hessian sack on the floor by the dishwasher.
I prodded it cautiously. The sack stirred. Remembering the rat that Stanley had brought back from 1666 I felt suddenly nervous. What living creature would my son and his friends consider to be a fair swap for their sandwiches and some twenty-first century technology?
Rather shakily I untied the top of the sack and opened it up. A beady yellow eye glared at me reproachfully. It was attached to an enormous bird, about the size of Stanley's little brother Ivor. It had pigeony grey feathers, a curved and pointed beak some nine inches long, absurd little stubby wings, short, fat yellow legs and a tuft of big curly feathers for a tail.
"Aargh!" I yelled and jumped smartly backwards, hitting my head on the extractor fan. "Oh my Gods! You're a....!"
"Doo-doo!" said the dodo.
I wasn't feeling too well on Saturday. Some bug has been going round the school, and I must have picked it up at the "Parents' Whinge" meeting on Thursday. Honestly, if it weren't for the free tea and slices of Battenberg I wouldn't bother going. I didn't manage to get a word in edgeways. The whinges this term were: homework is hard, P.E. kits get dirty, the teachers are too strict. And this is just from the parents. Heavens knows what the kids find to complain about.
I was tucked up on the sofa with a pot of tea and a plate of buttered malt loaf, when the door opened and a selection of the Younger Generation slouched in. I noticed hazily that they were grubby, and smelled of soot, woodsmoke, tobacco smoke and....my nose signed off before it reported anything that might distress me.
"Mmmmfff!" I mumbled from beneath the duvet.
"Oh, cheers, Mum!" said James and grabbed my plate of malt loaf. "We're starving!"
"Where've you been?" I sat up and tried to focus.
"London," mumbled Stanley through a mouth of cake.
"Again?" I asked, pouring myself another cup of tea.
"Last week we did the Great Fire of 1666," Stanley answered. "Today we wanted to see Guy Fawkes blowing up the Houses of Parliament in 1605."
"But the thing about the Gunpowder Plot," I said, sipping tea and struggling to concentrate, "The important thing is...it failed. The Houses of Parliament didn't blow up, so there was nothing to see. Er...oh. You didn't make the plot succeed, did you? I think you could do some serious damage to history there."
"Oh, no!" said James cheerfully. "That would have been a bit naughty. We would have ended up killing lots of people. And if we changed history then Stanley's Scouts pack might not hold their bonfire and fireworks display this November 5th, which would be a shame. No, we went to warn Guy Fawkes so he would call off the plot and they wouldn't all get tortured and then hanged, drawn and quartered. That was really evil, what King James had done to them."
"Mmm," I responded. I don't hold with meddling with the fabric of recorded history, but you can't deny that my son's heart is in the right place. "So what did you do?"
"We went to London in March 1605," said Stanley, sitting on my duvet and getting some soot onto it. "I've read this cool book about the plot. Guy Fawkes rented a cellar beneath the House of Lords and by March he had hidden thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in it. They wanted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the Autumn and kill King James, but a member of their gang gave the game away when he warned his brother-in-law to stay away from parliament. We thought it would be easy to find Fawkes in London in the Spring and warn him off."
"But we couldn't get in," continued Jay, who had settled himself on the beanbag. "There were all these guards. We couldn't get anywhere near the Houses of Parliament. We went all round looking for a way in. We looked for ages, until I needed the toilet."
"We told him he could go in the street," chimed in James. "Other people were. There were poos everywhere. But he wouldn't go unless there was a proper toilet. So I thought of going into the nearest pub. Pubs always have toilets. And I thought we might find Guy there, or someone who knew him."
"And they let us in!" said Stanley with astonishment and wonder in his voice. "They let us into a pub, and we're only eleven. People were drinking beer and smoking and everything in there!"
"I don't think there were a lot of laws about taverns in those days," I murmered, trying very hard not to imagine the scene. Of all the places I could wish my boy not to see, a seventeenth-century tavern in London would be fairly high on the list. "What was it like?"
"Dark, smoky, smelly. The toilet was just a bucket in a shed. It didn't flush or anything!" complained Jay. "It was really hard to go."
"He was gone for ages," said Stanley. "While he was gone we got talking with these sailors."
"They were hard to understand," said James. "Funny accents. I think they were Dutch. Albert could understand them a bit. They were really friendly. They shared their dinner with us. Sausages and beer and rum. They let us have a smoke of their pipes too. It wasn't very nice."
"Their breath stank, and their teeth were really horrible, all brown and stumpy," said Stanley. "Maybe it was scurvy. They said they ate ships' biscuits most of the time when they were at sea. They weren't used to eating proper food."
"We gave them a Mars Bar and they got really excited!" said James. "They asked to see all the things we had on us. Luckily Stanley had his rucksack with our provisions in it. We did a trade."
"What did you give them?" I asked with fascination and some concern.
"Golden syrup sandwiches, three bottles of Fruit Shoot, three bananas, a bag of Fangtastics, half a packet of polos, a biro, my best Doctor Who rubber, my sports watch and a mobile phone," answered James promptly. "And the rucksack."
"My Mum's not going to be pleased about that," moaned Stanley. "It's my Scouts one, I need it for our camp-out next month."
"Jay's Mum won't be pleased about the mobile phone," I countered. "You've only just got it back from 1969."
"Oh, that's all right!" said James cheerfully. "It wasn't his mobile phone, it was yours."
"WHAT?" I shrieked.
"You told me to take it," he said innocently. "You told me to get pictures as evidence that we'd really been to the past."
"You have given my mobile phone to a seventeenth-century Dutch sailor," I said as calmly as possible under the provocation. "That's going to give archaeologists nightmares for years. It's not even going to be much use to him. The battery will run down in a couple of days and it will be useless."
"Yeah, he was more excited about the watch," admitted James. "I told him it was waterproof, never needed winding, and was accurate to within about a minute a year. He thought it was great!"
I thought about what I had read about the Dutch exploration of the East in search of spice routes. Anyone with a reliable time-piece would have an absolutely collosal advantage on the sea. They would be able to work out their longitude, and therefore their position, better than any of the explorers of their day. They would be space-time travellers of the seventeenth-century.
"That watch would be worth an absolute fortune in 1605," I mused. "I hope you got something good in exchange?"
"We left it in the kitchen, Mum!" answered James.
The doorbell suddenly started playing "I'm the Laughing Gnome!" and we all jumped.
"Quick Jay, Stanley, James, upstairs for a quick wash and brush-up before Stanley's mum sees you!" I commanded. "I can keep her talking for about five minutes. Come down looking respectable or you'll get grounded again!"
They thumped and crashed their way upstairs, and I opened the door to Lizzie Higgs-Boson. Luckily she was quite happy to grumble about the "Parent's Whinge" meeting, so I didn't have to delay her by forcing her to have some tea and cake while her son and Jay cleaned themselves up. A quarter of an hour later I was free to go into the kitchen, to wash up my tea things. That was when I discovered the grubby, maritime-looking (and smelling) hessian sack on the floor by the dishwasher.
I prodded it cautiously. The sack stirred. Remembering the rat that Stanley had brought back from 1666 I felt suddenly nervous. What living creature would my son and his friends consider to be a fair swap for their sandwiches and some twenty-first century technology?
Rather shakily I untied the top of the sack and opened it up. A beady yellow eye glared at me reproachfully. It was attached to an enormous bird, about the size of Stanley's little brother Ivor. It had pigeony grey feathers, a curved and pointed beak some nine inches long, absurd little stubby wings, short, fat yellow legs and a tuft of big curly feathers for a tail.
"Aargh!" I yelled and jumped smartly backwards, hitting my head on the extractor fan. "Oh my Gods! You're a....!"
"Doo-doo!" said the dodo.
Wednesday 15 October 2008
Men in Black
It was nearly tea-time and I was grabbing a quiet few minutes on the computer when the doorbell rang. It played "Tie me kangaroo down" and made me jump.
I went and opened the door. On the doorstep were two sinister-looking men, both tall and dark. They were wearing severely-cut dark suits, white shirts and sunglasses. One of them was inspecting my doorbell as though it had failed to live up to his expectations.
"Can I interest you gentlemen in the message of The Great Cthu'lu?" I asked brightly. (It's always a good idea to get the first word in with these religious types). "I have some leaflets right here!"
"I'm a Jedi Knight myself," said the more hairy man in black. "And my colleague here can always ask the Devil if he has any questions on religion."
"Och, I dinna talk to him, he talks tae me," said the one fiddling with the doorbell. "I dinna encourage him."
"Charlie! Harry! I'm so sorry, I didn't recognise you, you look like respectable people in those suits," I said and stood aside to let my husband and his colleague and fellow badger-champion inside.
Charlie and Harry own a grand total of two suits between them, which they bought at a funeral home's closing-down sale. They wear them for weddings, funerals, visits to the psychiatriast (in Harry's case) and Council planning meetings. They look quite scarily official in them, until you look down and see the Doc Martin boots on Charlie's feet and the lack of socks on Harry's.
"Happy Birthday, Harry!" I said, giving him a big hug. This was rather unkind of me, forcing unexpected physical intimacy with a member of the opposite sex on Harry. He flushed bright fuchsia and shambled off to look at our collection of Monkey DVDs.
"They agreed one badger crossing, but they're still arguing about the placing of the ones by the park," growled the Werewolf, taking his Dalek lunchbox out of his offical council briefcase. "We stressed the importance of the electronic eyes and the badger-tagging. Nobody really seems to care about the rights of badgers in Middlehamptonborough."
"That's terrible, dear," I said mechanically. "Minnie, James come downstairs and wish Harry a Happy Birthday!" There was a sound as though of a group of drunken baboons falling out of a tree, and my children appeared.
"Take Minnie's chainmail off and put some trousers on, James. Minnie, I need you to try the chainmail on for size. Hurry up because it's nearly time for tea," my mouth said while my brain wandered off somewhere else entirely. Men in black...official...scarey...James....Men In Black...tea...aha!
"AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" I yelled. Harry, who isn't good with loud noises, jumped and banged his head on the sideboard.
"Sorry, Harry," I said as he did some calming breathing exercises. "Charlie dear, I need you and Harry to run a quick errand and get Jay's mobile phone. James will take you to where they left it."
I'll say this for my husband, he may look like someone who howls at the full moon, but that hairy head is packed with brains. He had worked it out before James had finished putting his trousers on.
"Come with us, Harry, you'll like this," he said. "We'll have a ride in James' go-cart. James, we need you to drive. You two can sit on my lap if you like."
"Not that we're gay!" said James and Harry in chorus as they went out to the workshop. I smiled at a problem well solved and went out into the kitchen to finish icing Harry's birthday cake.
I went and opened the door. On the doorstep were two sinister-looking men, both tall and dark. They were wearing severely-cut dark suits, white shirts and sunglasses. One of them was inspecting my doorbell as though it had failed to live up to his expectations.
"Can I interest you gentlemen in the message of The Great Cthu'lu?" I asked brightly. (It's always a good idea to get the first word in with these religious types). "I have some leaflets right here!"
"I'm a Jedi Knight myself," said the more hairy man in black. "And my colleague here can always ask the Devil if he has any questions on religion."
"Och, I dinna talk to him, he talks tae me," said the one fiddling with the doorbell. "I dinna encourage him."
"Charlie! Harry! I'm so sorry, I didn't recognise you, you look like respectable people in those suits," I said and stood aside to let my husband and his colleague and fellow badger-champion inside.
Charlie and Harry own a grand total of two suits between them, which they bought at a funeral home's closing-down sale. They wear them for weddings, funerals, visits to the psychiatriast (in Harry's case) and Council planning meetings. They look quite scarily official in them, until you look down and see the Doc Martin boots on Charlie's feet and the lack of socks on Harry's.
"Happy Birthday, Harry!" I said, giving him a big hug. This was rather unkind of me, forcing unexpected physical intimacy with a member of the opposite sex on Harry. He flushed bright fuchsia and shambled off to look at our collection of Monkey DVDs.
"They agreed one badger crossing, but they're still arguing about the placing of the ones by the park," growled the Werewolf, taking his Dalek lunchbox out of his offical council briefcase. "We stressed the importance of the electronic eyes and the badger-tagging. Nobody really seems to care about the rights of badgers in Middlehamptonborough."
"That's terrible, dear," I said mechanically. "Minnie, James come downstairs and wish Harry a Happy Birthday!" There was a sound as though of a group of drunken baboons falling out of a tree, and my children appeared.
"Take Minnie's chainmail off and put some trousers on, James. Minnie, I need you to try the chainmail on for size. Hurry up because it's nearly time for tea," my mouth said while my brain wandered off somewhere else entirely. Men in black...official...scarey...James....Men In Black...tea...aha!
"AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" I yelled. Harry, who isn't good with loud noises, jumped and banged his head on the sideboard.
"Sorry, Harry," I said as he did some calming breathing exercises. "Charlie dear, I need you and Harry to run a quick errand and get Jay's mobile phone. James will take you to where they left it."
I'll say this for my husband, he may look like someone who howls at the full moon, but that hairy head is packed with brains. He had worked it out before James had finished putting his trousers on.
"Come with us, Harry, you'll like this," he said. "We'll have a ride in James' go-cart. James, we need you to drive. You two can sit on my lap if you like."
"Not that we're gay!" said James and Harry in chorus as they went out to the workshop. I smiled at a problem well solved and went out into the kitchen to finish icing Harry's birthday cake.
Monday 13 October 2008
Baking a cake for Harry The Geek
Mary Dunwich writes:
It is Harry the Geek's twenty-eighth birthday tomorrow and I'm baking him a cake.
I should like it known that it wasn't my idea to call him The Geek. He insists on it. He has considered the range of likely nicknames and decided that The Geek is probably the best he's likely to get. He is proud of being an electronics genius, and rightly so. Harry is tall, dark and Scottish, good-looking in a brooding sort of way, and fiendishly intelligent. He is quietly spoken, well-mannered and very good with children. He's just my type, although I daren't tell him how gorgeous he is because it would only embarrass him. He doesn't have much self-esteem. Ah, if only I were still single. If only I were younger. If only the Devil would stop stealing all his socks. Harry the Geek has schizophrenia.
We met him four years ago now, when we were up at St Isaac's scrumping for apples. He had been an inpatient there for some time, and had just escaped from the ward for a shopping trip. The orderlies searching the grounds for him saw the Werewolf up an apple tree, and were understandably confused. My husband refused to be coaxed down from his tree, and by the time a nurse had fetched a ladder Harry had returned from PC World and was offering to hold it steady for them.
It was the start of a beautiful friendship. We all took to Harry straight away. After all, hearing voices, seeing odd things or having peculiar ideas is hardly unusual in our house. Now that James is channelling the spirit of Albert Einstein, and the Devil now only talks to Harry on Father's Day, it's hard to say which of them is weirder. The medication they put Harry on at Sir Isaac's keeps him pretty stable, and he even managed to finish his master's degree while he was an inpatient there (that must have involved a lot of escaping). Charlie helped Harry to get his first proper job at the Council and they work in the same office planning road crossings for badgers. In return, Harry designed and built our doorbell out of an old Coke can and the insides of some musical greetings cards.
I have invited him round tomorrow for a proper birthday tea, with jelly and a cake and candles and everything. Minnie and James are very excited. So, I think, is Harry. He doesn't have a lot of friends or family (and certainly not family who are friendly) so he spends his birthday alone and gloomy unless forced to have a good time. He can't drink with his medication and anyway isn't a party animal, but he likes Doctor Who and stupid jokes and any toy with a battery in it. I might even ask James to take him for a ride in his space-time travel module. Hey, Harry's schizophrenic, he's not going to tell anyone he's travelled through time, is he? Not without getting his medication reviewed.
It is Harry the Geek's twenty-eighth birthday tomorrow and I'm baking him a cake.
I should like it known that it wasn't my idea to call him The Geek. He insists on it. He has considered the range of likely nicknames and decided that The Geek is probably the best he's likely to get. He is proud of being an electronics genius, and rightly so. Harry is tall, dark and Scottish, good-looking in a brooding sort of way, and fiendishly intelligent. He is quietly spoken, well-mannered and very good with children. He's just my type, although I daren't tell him how gorgeous he is because it would only embarrass him. He doesn't have much self-esteem. Ah, if only I were still single. If only I were younger. If only the Devil would stop stealing all his socks. Harry the Geek has schizophrenia.
We met him four years ago now, when we were up at St Isaac's scrumping for apples. He had been an inpatient there for some time, and had just escaped from the ward for a shopping trip. The orderlies searching the grounds for him saw the Werewolf up an apple tree, and were understandably confused. My husband refused to be coaxed down from his tree, and by the time a nurse had fetched a ladder Harry had returned from PC World and was offering to hold it steady for them.
It was the start of a beautiful friendship. We all took to Harry straight away. After all, hearing voices, seeing odd things or having peculiar ideas is hardly unusual in our house. Now that James is channelling the spirit of Albert Einstein, and the Devil now only talks to Harry on Father's Day, it's hard to say which of them is weirder. The medication they put Harry on at Sir Isaac's keeps him pretty stable, and he even managed to finish his master's degree while he was an inpatient there (that must have involved a lot of escaping). Charlie helped Harry to get his first proper job at the Council and they work in the same office planning road crossings for badgers. In return, Harry designed and built our doorbell out of an old Coke can and the insides of some musical greetings cards.
I have invited him round tomorrow for a proper birthday tea, with jelly and a cake and candles and everything. Minnie and James are very excited. So, I think, is Harry. He doesn't have a lot of friends or family (and certainly not family who are friendly) so he spends his birthday alone and gloomy unless forced to have a good time. He can't drink with his medication and anyway isn't a party animal, but he likes Doctor Who and stupid jokes and any toy with a battery in it. I might even ask James to take him for a ride in his space-time travel module. Hey, Harry's schizophrenic, he's not going to tell anyone he's travelled through time, is he? Not without getting his medication reviewed.
Stealing Newton's apples
Mary Dunwich writes:
Sunday was a lovely, warm sunny day for a change, so the Dunwich family went out for the afternoon. We walked down to the psychiatric hospital, the Sir Isaac Newton Hospital for Long-Term Inpatients, known to us locals as Sir Isaac's. It is a lovely old place, with large, rambling grounds with a little orchard and some lovely old woods. The public are allowed in the grounds, and it is a favourite spot for dog-walking, blackberry-picking and frisbee practice.
There is a lovely old orchard, now sadly abandoned. I suppose it was once planted for occupational therapy, but it's been long neglected. The only people who pick the apples now are us locals, who turn up with rucksacks and wheelbarrows and shopping trolleys to take their scrumpings home. I know it's stealing, the apples must belong to the hospital trust or whoever manages hospitals for the NHS these days. But I've never seen anyone official looking out there in a stepladder, and we've never been chased off the premises yet.
I made sure the family were all looking respectable before we set off. The Werewolf was wearing his best jeans and a Glastonbury festival t-shirt ("Glastonbury: not just a load of old cow-pats!"). I wore my new LingQ t-shirt ("You don't have to be mad to learn foreign languages but it helps!"). James had even done his flies up. I didn't want us to get mistaken for in-patients trying to escape again.
It was great fun picking all the apples. Legend has it that some of the trees are grafted from old Isaac's own apple tree (the one that invented gravity) but I wouldn't know which. In any case the Werewolf is only interested in picking the cooking apples for making his chutney and pickle. I like the stripey sweet eating apples so I was busy picking those. Minnie ate six apples and then had a sword-fight with James using sticks.
I managed to get James to elaborate on his time-travelling adventures, while he was hanging upside down, half out of one of Sir Isaac's apple trees. It turns out that Jay has been grounded for leaving his mobile phone at Granny's in 1969. Surely this can't be right?
I walked over to the cooking apple trees to ask the Werewolf while he and Minnie were picking the cooking apples. Did he remember his Mum having a mysterious artifact when he was a little boy? He told me Granny Dunwich's story about the alien visitors and the subsequent visit from the Men In Black. This is all really very strange. While I, like all right-minded people, believe my government is capable of all sorts of dreadful things to cover up The Truth, it seems very odd that they should have got news of the alien visit so soon. Who did Granny tell? Or were the Men In Black who came and took the phone away merely a product of Granny's overheated imagination? But if James is right, the phone was left at her house. Either someone took it away or it must have still been there while the Werewolf was growing up. And he doesn't remember it.
I pondered on this all the way home while Minnie threatened to be sick. Did the British Government get hold of a twenty-first century mobile phone in the late sixties, and what did they do with it? Did Granny look at the pictures on it first? I hope there weren't any pictures of her on it. No-one likes to see pictures of themselves from thirty-nine years in the future.
Sunday was a lovely, warm sunny day for a change, so the Dunwich family went out for the afternoon. We walked down to the psychiatric hospital, the Sir Isaac Newton Hospital for Long-Term Inpatients, known to us locals as Sir Isaac's. It is a lovely old place, with large, rambling grounds with a little orchard and some lovely old woods. The public are allowed in the grounds, and it is a favourite spot for dog-walking, blackberry-picking and frisbee practice.
There is a lovely old orchard, now sadly abandoned. I suppose it was once planted for occupational therapy, but it's been long neglected. The only people who pick the apples now are us locals, who turn up with rucksacks and wheelbarrows and shopping trolleys to take their scrumpings home. I know it's stealing, the apples must belong to the hospital trust or whoever manages hospitals for the NHS these days. But I've never seen anyone official looking out there in a stepladder, and we've never been chased off the premises yet.
I made sure the family were all looking respectable before we set off. The Werewolf was wearing his best jeans and a Glastonbury festival t-shirt ("Glastonbury: not just a load of old cow-pats!"). I wore my new LingQ t-shirt ("You don't have to be mad to learn foreign languages but it helps!"). James had even done his flies up. I didn't want us to get mistaken for in-patients trying to escape again.
It was great fun picking all the apples. Legend has it that some of the trees are grafted from old Isaac's own apple tree (the one that invented gravity) but I wouldn't know which. In any case the Werewolf is only interested in picking the cooking apples for making his chutney and pickle. I like the stripey sweet eating apples so I was busy picking those. Minnie ate six apples and then had a sword-fight with James using sticks.
I managed to get James to elaborate on his time-travelling adventures, while he was hanging upside down, half out of one of Sir Isaac's apple trees. It turns out that Jay has been grounded for leaving his mobile phone at Granny's in 1969. Surely this can't be right?
I walked over to the cooking apple trees to ask the Werewolf while he and Minnie were picking the cooking apples. Did he remember his Mum having a mysterious artifact when he was a little boy? He told me Granny Dunwich's story about the alien visitors and the subsequent visit from the Men In Black. This is all really very strange. While I, like all right-minded people, believe my government is capable of all sorts of dreadful things to cover up The Truth, it seems very odd that they should have got news of the alien visit so soon. Who did Granny tell? Or were the Men In Black who came and took the phone away merely a product of Granny's overheated imagination? But if James is right, the phone was left at her house. Either someone took it away or it must have still been there while the Werewolf was growing up. And he doesn't remember it.
I pondered on this all the way home while Minnie threatened to be sick. Did the British Government get hold of a twenty-first century mobile phone in the late sixties, and what did they do with it? Did Granny look at the pictures on it first? I hope there weren't any pictures of her on it. No-one likes to see pictures of themselves from thirty-nine years in the future.
Sunday 12 October 2008
Unpleasantness in the streets of London
Mary Dunwich writes:
This Saturday I was determined not to be caught unawares by the Time Warp Trio. I sat down after tea and knitted Minnie's chain-mail for the Hedgehogs Rampant (a hoodie knitted in stocking stitch in grey wool on very big needles), while watching the adventures of Merlin on BBC1. I had even managed to record it. So I wasn't caught by surprise when my son and his friends slouched into the room.
"Yes, I recorded Merlin," I said while counting my stiches and hoping I hadn't recorded Timewatch on BBC2 by mistake. Then my brain read the report which my nose had just sent it. "What in the name of Harry Potter?" The three of them smelled of bonfires and cesspits.
I studied the young travellers. They were covered in soot, scorch marks, their hair was plastered to their heads, and they looked like they had been wading through mud. Well, something brown. "You look like chimney sweeps and smell worse than Ivor's nappy bucket. Where have you been? No, don't tell me. Lizzie's coming for Stanley and Jay in ten minutes. You need to run up and have a shower - a SHOWER, James, that's when the water falls on you from above, then find some clean clothes from James' drawers. Leave me your clothes, I'll wash them for you."
"I hate showers," grumbled James. "They ruin my hairstyle!"
"It looks like something's already done that," I countered. "What IS that in your hair?"
"It's Gardy Loo," supplied Jay. "This woman tipped some over us from an upstairs window."
"I think it was a chamber pot," admitted James. "It was full of wee and poo."
I shut my eyes and counted to ten. I got to two before my patience gave out. "UPSTAIRS NOW!" I yelled. They ran, leaving nothing but a few cinders and the rather distressing smell of history behind them.
Not a moment too soon, either. I saw Lizzie striding purposely up our garden path past the set of garden gnomes, which, thanks to my daughter, are now covered with sticking plasters. I opened the door just as Lizzie rang our bell. The doorbell played "Tiptoe through the Tulips" at her which caught us both by surprise. I opened the door.
"Hello, Mary!" she said, recovering her poise. "Are Stanley and Jay ready to go?"
"They're upstairs," I said, evasively. "Come and have a slice of apple pie while you're waiting. It's the most wonderful recipe from Switzerland!"
I herded her, protesting genteely, into the kitchen and forced a piece of Mrs Einstein's apple pie on her. When she politely called it "lovely", I insisted on writing her out the recipe. This killed a good ten minutes. When I judged that her patience was starting to wear thinner than her good manners I called the boys down, hoping they were now presentable. And, miracle of miracles, they were. Stanley was wearing jeans and a cyberman t-shirt, Jay was wearing jogging bottoms and a London Science Museum hoodie. James was in his underpants and socks. Clearly the strain of finding two clean outfits had proved too much for him.
"What are you doing here, Jay?" asked Lizzie in consternation. "I thought you were grounded!"
"Mumble mumble mumble so unfair mumble mumble," replied Jay.
"What have you done, Jay?" I asked with interest. I've never known him get in trouble before. I hope my children weren't involved.
"He lost his mobile," supplied Stanley helpfully. "He left it .....somewhere..... last weekend."
"And why are you wearing those clothes, Stanley?" asked Lizzie.
"We had....a water fight!" said James with a burst of inspiration. We got our clothes all wet."
"I'll wash them and bring them to school on Monday," I put in quickly.
When Lizzie had left with the boys, I looked sternly at my son. "Where did you go this time?" I asked.
"The Great Fire of London," he answered, smugly. "1666. We actually saw it, like, starting, in Pudding Lane."
"You didn't start it?" I asked suspiciously. I've got to stop watching Heroes.
"Of course not!" he replied indignantly. We sat on a bit of fence and ate our sandwiches and watched it. It was cool!" Funny way to describe the most famous fire in British history, but that's eleven-year-old boys for you. "Then we got spotted by a crowd of people. We tried pretending we were French tourists but they just got really angry so we ran away. They thought we'd started the fire or something."
Well, yes, it's always been risky being French in England. We've been at war with France for much of our history.
"Did you bring anything back with you this time?" I asked.
"We took some photos." And he handed me over his (my!) camera.
There were some fuzzy pictures of flames against a night sky which could have been a November 5th bonfire anywhere in the country. There were pictures of the boys, posing with what looked like a....
"Is that a dead cat?" I asked in bewilderment.
"Yeah! Right there in the middle of the street! It looked like it had been there for days!" James replied with relish. Mmm...who says history is dull? I slideshowed through the remaining pictures. There weren't many and they mostly seemed to be pictures of the boys pointing at...
"Poos! Right there in the street! Real people's poos, not just from dogs and cats!" James was almost beside himself with the thrill of discovery.
"Is that all the pictures you took?" I asked in some disbelief.
"Well, the memory was nearly full with the pictures of the Doctor Who exhibition at Earl's Court," said James. "I haven't uploaded them yet. I wasn't going to delete them."
"What about the 2 Gig memory card?" I asked. "Oh, hang on. It's in my mobile. Ah. You'd better take it next time. It's a terrible shame to time travel and not come back with any souvenirs."
"Oh, we did bring some things back," said James cheerfully. He fetched his jeans and rummaged in the pockets. "I got some bits of wood, they are bits of the buildings that burned down. I've got a bit of newspaper, except I dropped it and it's all covered in....er...mud, probably. And I got some maggots off the dead cat."
"Not really convincing," I said while my stomach heaved and my insides tried to become my outsides. "There's nothing special about the burned bits of wood. The newspaper's ruined and unreadable (and smelly, put it in the outside bin please!). And the maggots are just maggots."
James looked disappointed. "Stanley's got a rat," he said.
My imagination crashed at this point.
"Rats are no good," I said firmly. "You need an animal that's changed in 400 years. Changed or become extinct. And get rid of those maggots before I wash those jeans. In the garden, please. If I find them in your sock drawer there will be trouble."
I really must have another attempt at explaining the concept of hygiene to my son. I suppose I should be grateful he wasn't in London the year before. Oh Lordy, the rat! I went upstairs with some trepidation to look in the pockets of Jay and Stanley's jeans. They were all empty. Stanley must have taken the rat home with him. I do hope it wasn't carrying the Bubonic Plague. We haven't been vaccinated against it.
This Saturday I was determined not to be caught unawares by the Time Warp Trio. I sat down after tea and knitted Minnie's chain-mail for the Hedgehogs Rampant (a hoodie knitted in stocking stitch in grey wool on very big needles), while watching the adventures of Merlin on BBC1. I had even managed to record it. So I wasn't caught by surprise when my son and his friends slouched into the room.
"Yes, I recorded Merlin," I said while counting my stiches and hoping I hadn't recorded Timewatch on BBC2 by mistake. Then my brain read the report which my nose had just sent it. "What in the name of Harry Potter?" The three of them smelled of bonfires and cesspits.
I studied the young travellers. They were covered in soot, scorch marks, their hair was plastered to their heads, and they looked like they had been wading through mud. Well, something brown. "You look like chimney sweeps and smell worse than Ivor's nappy bucket. Where have you been? No, don't tell me. Lizzie's coming for Stanley and Jay in ten minutes. You need to run up and have a shower - a SHOWER, James, that's when the water falls on you from above, then find some clean clothes from James' drawers. Leave me your clothes, I'll wash them for you."
"I hate showers," grumbled James. "They ruin my hairstyle!"
"It looks like something's already done that," I countered. "What IS that in your hair?"
"It's Gardy Loo," supplied Jay. "This woman tipped some over us from an upstairs window."
"I think it was a chamber pot," admitted James. "It was full of wee and poo."
I shut my eyes and counted to ten. I got to two before my patience gave out. "UPSTAIRS NOW!" I yelled. They ran, leaving nothing but a few cinders and the rather distressing smell of history behind them.
Not a moment too soon, either. I saw Lizzie striding purposely up our garden path past the set of garden gnomes, which, thanks to my daughter, are now covered with sticking plasters. I opened the door just as Lizzie rang our bell. The doorbell played "Tiptoe through the Tulips" at her which caught us both by surprise. I opened the door.
"Hello, Mary!" she said, recovering her poise. "Are Stanley and Jay ready to go?"
"They're upstairs," I said, evasively. "Come and have a slice of apple pie while you're waiting. It's the most wonderful recipe from Switzerland!"
I herded her, protesting genteely, into the kitchen and forced a piece of Mrs Einstein's apple pie on her. When she politely called it "lovely", I insisted on writing her out the recipe. This killed a good ten minutes. When I judged that her patience was starting to wear thinner than her good manners I called the boys down, hoping they were now presentable. And, miracle of miracles, they were. Stanley was wearing jeans and a cyberman t-shirt, Jay was wearing jogging bottoms and a London Science Museum hoodie. James was in his underpants and socks. Clearly the strain of finding two clean outfits had proved too much for him.
"What are you doing here, Jay?" asked Lizzie in consternation. "I thought you were grounded!"
"Mumble mumble mumble so unfair mumble mumble," replied Jay.
"What have you done, Jay?" I asked with interest. I've never known him get in trouble before. I hope my children weren't involved.
"He lost his mobile," supplied Stanley helpfully. "He left it .....somewhere..... last weekend."
"And why are you wearing those clothes, Stanley?" asked Lizzie.
"We had....a water fight!" said James with a burst of inspiration. We got our clothes all wet."
"I'll wash them and bring them to school on Monday," I put in quickly.
When Lizzie had left with the boys, I looked sternly at my son. "Where did you go this time?" I asked.
"The Great Fire of London," he answered, smugly. "1666. We actually saw it, like, starting, in Pudding Lane."
"You didn't start it?" I asked suspiciously. I've got to stop watching Heroes.
"Of course not!" he replied indignantly. We sat on a bit of fence and ate our sandwiches and watched it. It was cool!" Funny way to describe the most famous fire in British history, but that's eleven-year-old boys for you. "Then we got spotted by a crowd of people. We tried pretending we were French tourists but they just got really angry so we ran away. They thought we'd started the fire or something."
Well, yes, it's always been risky being French in England. We've been at war with France for much of our history.
"Did you bring anything back with you this time?" I asked.
"We took some photos." And he handed me over his (my!) camera.
There were some fuzzy pictures of flames against a night sky which could have been a November 5th bonfire anywhere in the country. There were pictures of the boys, posing with what looked like a....
"Is that a dead cat?" I asked in bewilderment.
"Yeah! Right there in the middle of the street! It looked like it had been there for days!" James replied with relish. Mmm...who says history is dull? I slideshowed through the remaining pictures. There weren't many and they mostly seemed to be pictures of the boys pointing at...
"Poos! Right there in the street! Real people's poos, not just from dogs and cats!" James was almost beside himself with the thrill of discovery.
"Is that all the pictures you took?" I asked in some disbelief.
"Well, the memory was nearly full with the pictures of the Doctor Who exhibition at Earl's Court," said James. "I haven't uploaded them yet. I wasn't going to delete them."
"What about the 2 Gig memory card?" I asked. "Oh, hang on. It's in my mobile. Ah. You'd better take it next time. It's a terrible shame to time travel and not come back with any souvenirs."
"Oh, we did bring some things back," said James cheerfully. He fetched his jeans and rummaged in the pockets. "I got some bits of wood, they are bits of the buildings that burned down. I've got a bit of newspaper, except I dropped it and it's all covered in....er...mud, probably. And I got some maggots off the dead cat."
"Not really convincing," I said while my stomach heaved and my insides tried to become my outsides. "There's nothing special about the burned bits of wood. The newspaper's ruined and unreadable (and smelly, put it in the outside bin please!). And the maggots are just maggots."
James looked disappointed. "Stanley's got a rat," he said.
My imagination crashed at this point.
"Rats are no good," I said firmly. "You need an animal that's changed in 400 years. Changed or become extinct. And get rid of those maggots before I wash those jeans. In the garden, please. If I find them in your sock drawer there will be trouble."
I really must have another attempt at explaining the concept of hygiene to my son. I suppose I should be grateful he wasn't in London the year before. Oh Lordy, the rat! I went upstairs with some trepidation to look in the pockets of Jay and Stanley's jeans. They were all empty. Stanley must have taken the rat home with him. I do hope it wasn't carrying the Bubonic Plague. We haven't been vaccinated against it.
Saturday 11 October 2008
Granny Dunwich spins a yarn
The Werewolf (I prefer "Caveman Charlie" actually) writes:
Hello dear, I just thought I'd stop by and see how your blog is doing. 35 hits already, not bad, eh? Who would have thought so many people wanted to read your diary?
My blog is well over the 2000 mark now, it seems my reminiscences of my days in the music industry are rather popular. That's Going Crazy With Caveman Charlie, at www.cavemancharlie.fruitcake.com, in case any of your readers are interested!
Since your blog consists of bits and bobs of our family life, I thought I'd write an entry for you. This is a Granny Dunwich story.
I went round to my parents' on Sunday, to help Dad spray DDT on next door's Leylandii hedge. Mum hadn't done her usual baking session on Saturday. The turf war between the Women's Institute and the Cross-stitch Circle has been hotting up and she spent most of Saturday out delivering threatening letters. So instead of the usual pile of buns she offered me a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich.
"I've always hated Branston pickle," I grumbled. "Have you eaten all that apple and rhubarb chutney I gave you?"
"The men from Alpha Centauri said it was great!" she retorted. This sounded like the start of one of my Mum's tall stories, so I settled back in her Parker Knoll chair and put my disbelief on hold.
"It was back in the summer of 1969, I remember it because your Dad had got you out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the first moon landing live on the telly," she said, smiling at the memory. "The next day you were so tired and grumpy, I was quite cross about it. Your Dad had you out in the workshop making a model. I was making some fairy cakes when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to these three funny-looking creatures. They said they were Jehovah's Witnesses from Alpha Centauri, but they didn't fool me. They were all under five feet tall, and dressed in strange grey material from head to toe, they even had hoods made from it. And they had the strangest shoes, with such thick, soft soles that you couldn't hear them when they walked. When they lowered their hoods I could see that they had short hair that stuck up at the oddest angles. Jehovah's Witnesses never look like that. Obviously they were Short Ugly Greys.
"Well, I was bored so I played along. I invited them in and made them a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches while they watched the Clangers. They got very excited about the Branston pickle (one said it was "better than the Werewolf's!") and when Trumpton came on the telly, they went wild. I suppose they can't receive it on Alpha Centauri.
"I went out to put the fairy cakes in the oven. When I came back one of the little grey people was holding up a small, matt-black device, like something out of Start Trek. He said it was a Mobile. He kept pointing it all round the room and pressing funny little buttons, while making sounds like "Cool!" "Phat!" and "L.O.L.!"
I watched him until the kitchen timer beeped and I went back out to to sort out the cakes. When I came back the sitting room to find the little people watching footage of the moon landing the night before. The one with the Mobile was pointing it at the telly and shouting "Oh wow! This is sick!" I suppose they weren't too happy about our first steps into space. Then another of them said that if they didn't run for it they'd "miss the end of Merlin" (whatever that meant) and they left in a hurry."
"Well, Mum, that's an interesting story," I said as calmly as I could. It doesn't do to get her over-excited. "Quite strange, don't you think?"
"Oh, you haven't heard the weird bit yet," she answered brightly. (Really? I unplugged my disbelief at the mains and waited.) "They left their Mobile behind when they ran out. I thought they might come back for it, so I put it in the china cabinet next to my Edward the Eighth coronation mug. The next day I had a visit from two strange Men In Black wearing serious suits and dark glasses. They warned me not to tell anyone what had happened and they took the Mobile away with them."
Mum finished her cup of tea, stood up and started to load the cups, saucers and plates back onto the tea tray. "No," she said reflectively, "the really weird part was this: one of the little people from Alpha Centauri looked an awful lot like your Dad when he was a boy."
Hello dear, I just thought I'd stop by and see how your blog is doing. 35 hits already, not bad, eh? Who would have thought so many people wanted to read your diary?
My blog is well over the 2000 mark now, it seems my reminiscences of my days in the music industry are rather popular. That's Going Crazy With Caveman Charlie, at www.cavemancharlie.fruitcake.com, in case any of your readers are interested!
Since your blog consists of bits and bobs of our family life, I thought I'd write an entry for you. This is a Granny Dunwich story.
I went round to my parents' on Sunday, to help Dad spray DDT on next door's Leylandii hedge. Mum hadn't done her usual baking session on Saturday. The turf war between the Women's Institute and the Cross-stitch Circle has been hotting up and she spent most of Saturday out delivering threatening letters. So instead of the usual pile of buns she offered me a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich.
"I've always hated Branston pickle," I grumbled. "Have you eaten all that apple and rhubarb chutney I gave you?"
"The men from Alpha Centauri said it was great!" she retorted. This sounded like the start of one of my Mum's tall stories, so I settled back in her Parker Knoll chair and put my disbelief on hold.
"It was back in the summer of 1969, I remember it because your Dad had got you out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the first moon landing live on the telly," she said, smiling at the memory. "The next day you were so tired and grumpy, I was quite cross about it. Your Dad had you out in the workshop making a model. I was making some fairy cakes when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to these three funny-looking creatures. They said they were Jehovah's Witnesses from Alpha Centauri, but they didn't fool me. They were all under five feet tall, and dressed in strange grey material from head to toe, they even had hoods made from it. And they had the strangest shoes, with such thick, soft soles that you couldn't hear them when they walked. When they lowered their hoods I could see that they had short hair that stuck up at the oddest angles. Jehovah's Witnesses never look like that. Obviously they were Short Ugly Greys.
"Well, I was bored so I played along. I invited them in and made them a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches while they watched the Clangers. They got very excited about the Branston pickle (one said it was "better than the Werewolf's!") and when Trumpton came on the telly, they went wild. I suppose they can't receive it on Alpha Centauri.
"I went out to put the fairy cakes in the oven. When I came back one of the little grey people was holding up a small, matt-black device, like something out of Start Trek. He said it was a Mobile. He kept pointing it all round the room and pressing funny little buttons, while making sounds like "Cool!" "Phat!" and "L.O.L.!"
I watched him until the kitchen timer beeped and I went back out to to sort out the cakes. When I came back the sitting room to find the little people watching footage of the moon landing the night before. The one with the Mobile was pointing it at the telly and shouting "Oh wow! This is sick!" I suppose they weren't too happy about our first steps into space. Then another of them said that if they didn't run for it they'd "miss the end of Merlin" (whatever that meant) and they left in a hurry."
"Well, Mum, that's an interesting story," I said as calmly as I could. It doesn't do to get her over-excited. "Quite strange, don't you think?"
"Oh, you haven't heard the weird bit yet," she answered brightly. (Really? I unplugged my disbelief at the mains and waited.) "They left their Mobile behind when they ran out. I thought they might come back for it, so I put it in the china cabinet next to my Edward the Eighth coronation mug. The next day I had a visit from two strange Men In Black wearing serious suits and dark glasses. They warned me not to tell anyone what had happened and they took the Mobile away with them."
Mum finished her cup of tea, stood up and started to load the cups, saucers and plates back onto the tea tray. "No," she said reflectively, "the really weird part was this: one of the little people from Alpha Centauri looked an awful lot like your Dad when he was a boy."
Tuesday 7 October 2008
The First Moon Landing...again.
Mary Dunwich writes:
I was lying in the recovery position (Minnie was practising her First Aid on me) when James and his little gang of time-travelling hoodies stomped in.
"Did you record Merlin?" were his first words to me.
Capable of communication with the dead, altering the fabric of space and time and understanding how to use industrial-strength hair gel, yet some tasks still baffle my son. Finding a clean pair of trousers. Carrying his plate back into the kitchen after a Golden Syrup sandwich. And pressing the "Record" button on the DVD.
"Erm....no," I confessed, sitting up and starting to unwrap the bandages. "I forgot."
The resulting tantrum lasted until Lizzie Higgs-Boson turned up and took Stanley and Jay home. (She must think we live in a permanent state of chaos).
"Did you go anywhere...erm, nice?" I asked when he finally paused for breath.
"1969," he answered. "We watched the first moon landings."
"From Houston, or Cape Canaveral?" I asked, impressed.
"On Newsround," he answered. "On Granny Dunwich's telly."
Good thinking. The Werewolf's parents had a telly in 1969, possibly even a colour one. They were at the cutting edge of home entertainment technology in those days. And they were generally regarded as odd, even by the liberal standards of the sixties.
"Didn't they mind you turning up to watch their telly?" I asked.
"We said we were Jehovah's Witnesses," answered James.
My mother-in-law enjoys visits from door-to-door religious types. When they ask to explain to her the message of the Bible she invites them in for a cup of tea and an Eccles cake. She then turns the telly up and waits for them to get bored and go away. They don't call on her any more. She must be on some sort of blacklist.
"You don't look like Jehovah's Witnesses," I objected. Usually they are in their twenties and very neatly dressed, like undertakers out touting for business.
"We said we were Jehovah's witnesses from Alpha Centauri," he answered. Mm...cunning. Granny would definitely fall for that one. She's always enjoyed people who tell whopping great lies.
"Did you see your father?" I asked a little nervously. I had visions of some great time-travel paradox if he changed his father's nappy or something.
"He was out with Granddad in his workshop. They were building a model of Concorde", James answered. "We sat and ate red Leicester and Branston pickle sandwiches and watched Trumpton and the Clangers and then Newsround. Then we came home.
"I brought you a souvenir," he said handing me a 50p coin. I looked at it carefully. It did indeed say 1969, and certainly did look very new. "It's one of the first ones minted. Granny gave it to us. She hates them. She said they looked too much like half crowns."
"Well, er..well done," I said somewhat grudgingly. I had hoped the expedition would be a failure. "Pity you didn't bring back any more evidence than a coin."
"Next time we'll go prepared," he answered. "We'll take video footage and everything."
I'd like to see how he manages that. We don't have a camcorder.
I was lying in the recovery position (Minnie was practising her First Aid on me) when James and his little gang of time-travelling hoodies stomped in.
"Did you record Merlin?" were his first words to me.
Capable of communication with the dead, altering the fabric of space and time and understanding how to use industrial-strength hair gel, yet some tasks still baffle my son. Finding a clean pair of trousers. Carrying his plate back into the kitchen after a Golden Syrup sandwich. And pressing the "Record" button on the DVD.
"Erm....no," I confessed, sitting up and starting to unwrap the bandages. "I forgot."
The resulting tantrum lasted until Lizzie Higgs-Boson turned up and took Stanley and Jay home. (She must think we live in a permanent state of chaos).
"Did you go anywhere...erm, nice?" I asked when he finally paused for breath.
"1969," he answered. "We watched the first moon landings."
"From Houston, or Cape Canaveral?" I asked, impressed.
"On Newsround," he answered. "On Granny Dunwich's telly."
Good thinking. The Werewolf's parents had a telly in 1969, possibly even a colour one. They were at the cutting edge of home entertainment technology in those days. And they were generally regarded as odd, even by the liberal standards of the sixties.
"Didn't they mind you turning up to watch their telly?" I asked.
"We said we were Jehovah's Witnesses," answered James.
My mother-in-law enjoys visits from door-to-door religious types. When they ask to explain to her the message of the Bible she invites them in for a cup of tea and an Eccles cake. She then turns the telly up and waits for them to get bored and go away. They don't call on her any more. She must be on some sort of blacklist.
"You don't look like Jehovah's Witnesses," I objected. Usually they are in their twenties and very neatly dressed, like undertakers out touting for business.
"We said we were Jehovah's witnesses from Alpha Centauri," he answered. Mm...cunning. Granny would definitely fall for that one. She's always enjoyed people who tell whopping great lies.
"Did you see your father?" I asked a little nervously. I had visions of some great time-travel paradox if he changed his father's nappy or something.
"He was out with Granddad in his workshop. They were building a model of Concorde", James answered. "We sat and ate red Leicester and Branston pickle sandwiches and watched Trumpton and the Clangers and then Newsround. Then we came home.
"I brought you a souvenir," he said handing me a 50p coin. I looked at it carefully. It did indeed say 1969, and certainly did look very new. "It's one of the first ones minted. Granny gave it to us. She hates them. She said they looked too much like half crowns."
"Well, er..well done," I said somewhat grudgingly. I had hoped the expedition would be a failure. "Pity you didn't bring back any more evidence than a coin."
"Next time we'll go prepared," he answered. "We'll take video footage and everything."
I'd like to see how he manages that. We don't have a camcorder.
Saturday 4 October 2008
A trip to the charity shop
Lizzie Higgs-Boson writes:
I gave Mary a lift into town, as her shaggy husband was building their new shed and she doesn't drive. She wanted to go around the charity shops looking for an armchair. When I asked her why she needed a new one she snorted and said it was a victim of mad science. Her sense of humour baffles me at times.
I love charity shops. I can't think how people ever managed before we had them. You can give them all your old junk, and you don't have to feel guilty about adding to landfill or throwing away Auntie's awful attempts at needlepoint, because you are Giving To The Needy. The volunteers in the shops sort through all your kind donations (presumably throwing Auntie's needlepoint straight into the skip at the back of the shop, but by then it's no longer your problem), and put the best of them out for sale in the shop. The proceeds then go to the starving in Africa or some other socially responsible and geographically distant cause.
I am mainly a donator of old junk....erm, I mean quality used clothing and household goods. Mary on the other hand is mainly a customer. She buys any amount of books, tea-pots and table-cloths. Judging from the state of her clothes they have mainly come from the less choosy charity shops. The only clothes she seems to buy new are her extraordinary t-shirts. Today she was wearing a white one with the slogan: "LingQ helps bad language users to use it better!!"
She even buys their furniture second-hand. She says there is no point saving up for a new armchair when Minnie will just use it for trampoline practice.
The best charity shop for furniture in Middlehamptonborough (pronouced by us locals as Millbruh) is the one run by the Knights Hospitalier on Long Eel Street. It contains a little tea shop run by the volunteers. This extended our shopping trip considerably, as I have never yet seen Mary manage to walk past a teapot.
Mary seemed usually grumpy over her tea. I asked her if anything was the matter. "My son is channelling the spirit of Albert Einstein, and he's likely to rip a hole in the fabric of reality with his frankly insane time-travel device!" she snapped. "Minnie is slightly more dangerous now she is having actual lessons in hurting people instead of just working it out for herself. I'm being impersonated by a dead Swiss person. And my LingQ stats are way below Steve's now." She moodily ordered another toasted muffin.
Oh dear. I do hope Mary's not heading for some kind of breakdown. She works herself much too hard with all these foreign languages she learns. I should ask the school counsellor to keep an eye on her.
It took her nearly the whole morning to choose a large, well-used arm-chair covered in eye-watering chintz for £8. Of course it wouldn't fit in my car, which meant that it needed to be delivered in the back of a van driven by a twitchy man called Sid. The charge for delivery is £15, but Mary did a complicated bartering deal with Sid involving lime pickle, tea cakes and mulberry jam, and he agreed to drop it off on his way home for free.
When we got back to the Dunwiches' house Minnie and her dad were sword-fighting armed with chisels. In the house my son Stanley, James and that nice little Jay Bee were sitting eating barley sugar and reading copies of the Beano from the 1950's "for research". "We're going at six!" said Stanley. "Merlin's on. That lot at CERN will all be watching the TV so they won't be paying too much attention to the instruments. It's our best chance of avoiding detection."
"Can we have marmite sandwiches and apple pie to take with us, Mum? asked James.
"If you tear a hole in the fabric of the universe I'll....make you join the scouts!" Mary snarled, and stomped out into the kitchen. I promised to fetch Stanley and Jay at 7pm and went off home.
I don't know how Mary manages to live among such chaos. These imaginative types really do seem to live in a different world from the rest of us.
I gave Mary a lift into town, as her shaggy husband was building their new shed and she doesn't drive. She wanted to go around the charity shops looking for an armchair. When I asked her why she needed a new one she snorted and said it was a victim of mad science. Her sense of humour baffles me at times.
I love charity shops. I can't think how people ever managed before we had them. You can give them all your old junk, and you don't have to feel guilty about adding to landfill or throwing away Auntie's awful attempts at needlepoint, because you are Giving To The Needy. The volunteers in the shops sort through all your kind donations (presumably throwing Auntie's needlepoint straight into the skip at the back of the shop, but by then it's no longer your problem), and put the best of them out for sale in the shop. The proceeds then go to the starving in Africa or some other socially responsible and geographically distant cause.
I am mainly a donator of old junk....erm, I mean quality used clothing and household goods. Mary on the other hand is mainly a customer. She buys any amount of books, tea-pots and table-cloths. Judging from the state of her clothes they have mainly come from the less choosy charity shops. The only clothes she seems to buy new are her extraordinary t-shirts. Today she was wearing a white one with the slogan: "LingQ helps bad language users to use it better!!"
She even buys their furniture second-hand. She says there is no point saving up for a new armchair when Minnie will just use it for trampoline practice.
The best charity shop for furniture in Middlehamptonborough (pronouced by us locals as Millbruh) is the one run by the Knights Hospitalier on Long Eel Street. It contains a little tea shop run by the volunteers. This extended our shopping trip considerably, as I have never yet seen Mary manage to walk past a teapot.
Mary seemed usually grumpy over her tea. I asked her if anything was the matter. "My son is channelling the spirit of Albert Einstein, and he's likely to rip a hole in the fabric of reality with his frankly insane time-travel device!" she snapped. "Minnie is slightly more dangerous now she is having actual lessons in hurting people instead of just working it out for herself. I'm being impersonated by a dead Swiss person. And my LingQ stats are way below Steve's now." She moodily ordered another toasted muffin.
Oh dear. I do hope Mary's not heading for some kind of breakdown. She works herself much too hard with all these foreign languages she learns. I should ask the school counsellor to keep an eye on her.
It took her nearly the whole morning to choose a large, well-used arm-chair covered in eye-watering chintz for £8. Of course it wouldn't fit in my car, which meant that it needed to be delivered in the back of a van driven by a twitchy man called Sid. The charge for delivery is £15, but Mary did a complicated bartering deal with Sid involving lime pickle, tea cakes and mulberry jam, and he agreed to drop it off on his way home for free.
When we got back to the Dunwiches' house Minnie and her dad were sword-fighting armed with chisels. In the house my son Stanley, James and that nice little Jay Bee were sitting eating barley sugar and reading copies of the Beano from the 1950's "for research". "We're going at six!" said Stanley. "Merlin's on. That lot at CERN will all be watching the TV so they won't be paying too much attention to the instruments. It's our best chance of avoiding detection."
"Can we have marmite sandwiches and apple pie to take with us, Mum? asked James.
"If you tear a hole in the fabric of the universe I'll....make you join the scouts!" Mary snarled, and stomped out into the kitchen. I promised to fetch Stanley and Jay at 7pm and went off home.
I don't know how Mary manages to live among such chaos. These imaginative types really do seem to live in a different world from the rest of us.
Wednesday 1 October 2008
CERN gets faster-than-light particles and BBC1
E-Mail from the office of Dr Gödel, Leader of the SPTRH project (Smashing Particles Together Really Hard) CERN, Switzerland.
Hallo Mary!
Well, I have most exciting news to report! Although our Large Hadron Collider is still officially out of commission (the super-cooled helium leakage caused a very considerable amount of damage), we have already repaired enough to be able to run some system tests. During the repair work we managed to slip your modifications into the circuitry design without the Project Administrator noticing (he's the Big Cheese, and he's Swiss, so he is a Swiss Big Cheese with holes all through him! This is a Swiss joke.) During the official closure we are of course running the collider on the quiet to make sure that everything is working before the grand switching-on ceremony. We don't want anything unexpected happening on the big day, do we?
I must repeat that your modifications are the work of genius! I don't know how you find time to take an interest in the fundamental organisation of the universe as well as caring for a husband and two children. And you even could write out all the specifications in German! (Although it took us a little time to decipher your handwriting, we don't learn Spitzschrift any more). English housewives must be even better organised than the Swiss Army! (This is another Swiss joke.)
Not only is the particle accelerator working at over 1 000% efficiency, allowing us to create particles which travel faster than the speed of light, but now we can get your BBC1 television station here 100 metres underground! The young post-doctoral interns are very excited to watch the British science fiction and fantasy programmes "The Sarah Jane Adventures" and "Merlin". They have rearranged the shift patterns so we can all stop to watch them!
Funnily enough though, the episodes are being shown all out of order. Either the production of faster-than-light particles is warping the local space-time, or the employees of the British Broadcasting Corporation have had too many gin and tonics and do not know what day it is. Perhaps we should send them a CERN calendar?
Alice is very interested in James' school project and says she would like to do something similar. Another international scientific collaboration is born!
I am glad that you are so fond of Swiss Apple Pie. Next e-mail I shall send you some more Swiss cake recipes which you can try when you are taking a break from physics!
Bis bald,
Deine Lieserl.
Hallo Mary!
Well, I have most exciting news to report! Although our Large Hadron Collider is still officially out of commission (the super-cooled helium leakage caused a very considerable amount of damage), we have already repaired enough to be able to run some system tests. During the repair work we managed to slip your modifications into the circuitry design without the Project Administrator noticing (he's the Big Cheese, and he's Swiss, so he is a Swiss Big Cheese with holes all through him! This is a Swiss joke.) During the official closure we are of course running the collider on the quiet to make sure that everything is working before the grand switching-on ceremony. We don't want anything unexpected happening on the big day, do we?
I must repeat that your modifications are the work of genius! I don't know how you find time to take an interest in the fundamental organisation of the universe as well as caring for a husband and two children. And you even could write out all the specifications in German! (Although it took us a little time to decipher your handwriting, we don't learn Spitzschrift any more). English housewives must be even better organised than the Swiss Army! (This is another Swiss joke.)
Not only is the particle accelerator working at over 1 000% efficiency, allowing us to create particles which travel faster than the speed of light, but now we can get your BBC1 television station here 100 metres underground! The young post-doctoral interns are very excited to watch the British science fiction and fantasy programmes "The Sarah Jane Adventures" and "Merlin". They have rearranged the shift patterns so we can all stop to watch them!
Funnily enough though, the episodes are being shown all out of order. Either the production of faster-than-light particles is warping the local space-time, or the employees of the British Broadcasting Corporation have had too many gin and tonics and do not know what day it is. Perhaps we should send them a CERN calendar?
Alice is very interested in James' school project and says she would like to do something similar. Another international scientific collaboration is born!
I am glad that you are so fond of Swiss Apple Pie. Next e-mail I shall send you some more Swiss cake recipes which you can try when you are taking a break from physics!
Bis bald,
Deine Lieserl.
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