Book Review: Act of Oblivion, Robert Harris

This an exciting book to read now that we’re settling into the reign of Charles III.

The previous two King Charles were controversial. Oliver Cromwell and a collection of Parliamentarians signed the death warrant of Charles I, who was beheaded in Whitehall on Saturday 30th January 1649.

When Charles II was restored to the throne in May 1660, he wasted no time agreeing to the Privy Council’s demand that those who had signed the death warrant – the ‘regicides’ – should be hunted down and executed.

The Act of Oblivion passed by Parliament in 1660, pardoned all except the regicides.

Robert Harris’ book traces the chase between Richard Nayler, a member of the Privy Council, and two regicides, Colonels Whalley and Goffe as they sought refuge in America, in New England.

The book is an historical fiction, a gripping read, that will take you into the convictions that divided England at the time, and the reality of the early settlers and New England colonies who were fiercely Protestant and republican by nature and yet ruled over by King Charles III, our relations with the Dutch, and with native Indians in New England.

Robert Harris’ book traces the chase between Richard Nayler, a member of the Privy Council, and two regicides, Colonels Whalley and Goffe as they sought refuge in America, in New England

It’s a page-turner with a helpful cast list at the front full of historical figures. Only two characters are fully fictional. Harris keeps close to the actual events and those who acted out the twists and turns of the Civil War and its after-effects.

Podcast Review: How to Fail with All Black Dan Carter

How to Fail is an excellent podcast. Elizabeth Day interviews individuals well-known for their success and achievements in a wide range of human endeavours: media, writing, sport, technology…

This morning I got myself organised for a longish early morning walk through Blaise to Kingsweston to start the day. It’s a lovely route, approximately 10K, avoiding cars and, early in the morning, all but a few dog walkers. Ideal to listen to a podcast.

 I had intended to listen to Unlocking the Bible, an excellent podcast of the late David Pawson’s series of introductory talks on every book in the bible, but the bottom of my iPhone screen was scrolling ‘How to Fail with Dan Carter’, and that was that.

 The title of the podcast, of course, gives the game away…the guests talk about three failures they have experienced and how they have reacted to failure. Dan Carter’s account of his early childhood rugby ambitions, how they went off track, how he dealt with injuries and disappointments, and how that has affected his attitude to life after retiring from playing rugby is well worth a listen.

 As is the podcast How to Fail generally.

Three Things in the background, easily missed

Three Things:

1. John chapter 3 – what really mystified Jesus about Nicodemus

2. John chapter 14 – when maths is reduced to the number 1

3. Luke 14 – the spotlight falling in an unexpected place

John 3 – famous for three interrelated high-tide marks. It’s the chapter that contains John 3v16 famously daubed on rocks, on posters, car bumper stickers, or on placards at the Olympics. Also, it’s the Born-Again chapter, the meaning of which has, perhaps, been obscured by unattractive personality politics from across the pond. And lastly it is famous for an encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who was too fearful to show his interest in Jesus and so came to him at night.

(May I suggest there are millions of ‘Nicodemus’s’ in Britain today who would talk to Jesus privately, away from public gaze?)

In this encounter in which Jesus tells Nicodemus he has to be born again (v3) the line that often goes unmentioned is verse 10:

‘Jesus answered and said to him ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and yet do not know these things?’

I suppose you could take this as Jesus gently mocking his night-time visitor, a form of verbal jousting or friendly banter, but if you take it at face value Jesus was incredulous that this man – a Pharisee and a ‘ruler’ of the Jews i.e. a learned, rich, and prominent man in Israel had failed to see what true faith’s starting position even though he would have been steeped in the Scriptures from his youth.

It’s the same in Britain with all our church steeples, Christian traditions and Christian history, and all our literature that refers to the bible time and again, or music that refers often to the New Testament, sayings of Jesus, art, poetry and so on…and yet if you say to anyone in Britain ‘you need to be born again’ you discover just how many Nicodemus’s there are. I know, I was one. I was taken to church as a child. The bible was read in morning assemblies at school, I even read the Gideon New Testament from cover to cover as an 11-year-old, but, despite all this, I had no notion at all about true Christianity, about the starting blocks, about being born again.

Here's what Jesus said:

‘Most assuredly, Nicodemus, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’

And the famous John 3v16 verse:

‘For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life’

When I was confronted with the challenge in my later teens to read the New Testament with fresh eyes, I was more like Nicodemus, wanting to find out if this was all real or make-believe. One of the many things that struck me was the choice that love offers. God, it seems, SO loves us. But it’s no good coming to Jesus in the shadows. The day comes when we have to go public. That was as scary for me as it is for anyone. Britain is pretty hostile to public demonstrations of personal faith in Jesus. It disturbs our ‘Englishness’ where we avoid religion, sex, and politics if at all possible and prefer to never talk about the things we ponder on privately.

John 14 v 6 is almost as famous as John 3v16. It’s a favourite preaching verse as it seems to focus everyone’s attention on the exclusive nature of the gospel:

‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the father except through me’

There it is. Jesus is, it seems, the only turnstile to heaven, to God the Father. I’m not going to get into the normal debate/interpretation about this except to say this Jesus is describing ‘religion’ as a restored relationship between God, who turns out to be our heavenly Father after all, rather than an effort to conform to a set of moral values, virtues, and norms. That must be important.

No, I’m not looking at the bluntness of the apparent exclusivity of the verse, but Jesus’ repeated use of the number One. Preachers often concentrate on THE Way or THE truth, rather than THE Life.

How many Jesus? The life?

‘Surely’, we say, ‘what you meant to say was true faith is when Your life touches My life? I mean, I’m an autonomous being with choices. If I choose to follow you, that’s my choice, right? And if I turn away, that’s my choice as well? After all, it’s my life and I can do with it precisely what I want’.

But Jesus said ‘I am…THE life’

One of the ways to unravel this is to return to John 3 when Jesus tells Nicodemus: ‘that which is born of flesh is flesh (i.e. organic life, body and soul) but what is born of the Spirit is spirit’

Christianity has less to do with musty hymn books and old pews - or hand-waving rock band worship – or ‘good works’ - than an invasion of the Holy Spirit bringing ‘the life’ of Christ into our being. You can’t fake it. Well, maybe you can try, anyone can attend church, sing hymns, pray even, or wave their hands around, but it won’t last. The invading Life resides as our life in us and, yes, bringing with it a new spirit in union with His Spirit from which our souls and bodies are animated in a completely new way.

‘The wind blows where it will, you the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit’

Jesus’ words to Nicodemus.

Luke Chapter 15

The three parables of loss and being found in Luke 15 are so vivid, especially, the parable of the prodigal son, it’s difficult not to believe that the father with his two sons were fictitious. Henry Nouwen (a Dutch Roman Catholic priest) wrote a superb book The Return of the Prodigal Son as the result of being transfixed by Rembrandt’s painting of the same name.

I don’t need to repeat the whole parable, but the turning point comes in verse 17: ‘But when he came to himself he said ‘how many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare…?’’

It dawned on him, having wasted everything that his father had given him that he’d be better off as one of his father’s servants than on his own trying to eek out a living eating from the bins as a tramp.

Our attention in the story, of course, is taken up with the Father, the prodigal, and the prodigal’s older brother…and in doing so we miss what is in the background…deliberately put there by Jesus…I think with a chuckle ‘I wonder if anyone will see them’. By ‘them’ I mean the servants.

Our attention in church sermons is often taken up with Sonship, inheritance, forgiveness, restoration, the love of the father towards both his sons…and with good reason. But the servants? It turns out that what is in the background, was in the foreground in Jesus’ thinking:

‘And the father said to the servants ‘Quickly, bring out the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and put sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it – let us eat and be merry.’

‘Now, as the older son came near, he heard music and dancing…’

Who did the will of the father? The servants. Who found the robe and dressed the son? The servants. Who prepared the food and the drink? Who dusted off their musical instruments? Who sang? Who was dancing? The servants.

Who was Jesus?

Yes, the Son of God but also the one who washed His disciples feet as an example to us.

‘Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant and coming in the likeness of men’ Philippians 3 v 5-7

Somehow in the miracle of God we end up doing and being things that can’t be replicated on Earth. Way back, I watched every episode of Upstairs Downstairs and other similar period pieces, even Westerns like The Virginian. In them you could either be a Son living upstairs or in the big house, or a Servant living downstairs or in the bunkhouse with the horses, but not both.

But our true identity in Christ, now born in us, is as sons and servants – simultaneously.

It’s the servants in the parable that had all the action, all the fun. The family was there, of course, working out their complexities and relationships, but all the while the servants were feasting, singing and dancing…full of the father’s joy over The Return of the Prodigal Son.

Now, as the older son came near, he heard music and dancing

The Moon

That precious tidal-rinser of our shores
That soft illuminator of tall trees
And horses’ manes at dusk

A constant reminder
Of other worlds
Above ours

An educator,
A lone adventurer,
Buffeted and pockmarked

Carrying a history of glory
Her surface illuminated by the Sun
Yet suffering the suffering of the defenceless

The Moon is you, is me, is all
Who have or are to live
And shine out

Unknowing of the next impact
The soldier next to you decapitated
Or the spouse who suddenly is not there

Cratered yet rolling on
I could never
Shake

It off, this
Shock-cratered
Life, scattering the light
In all directions to all nations
All creeds, convictions, cultures
It is the Moon that guides us home

Paris ’24 – 11th July. It’s not just professional sportsmen and women…

I am a true amateur. The amateur image is a ‘normal’ everyday man or woman holding down a full-time job, maybe children to juggle, shopping to do, holidays to save up for, the dentist to avoid, the deny all hygienists oxygen.

The thought of an ordinary pleb having a back-up system of physios, sports psychologists, weights, ice baths, and so on, just to don your shorts and stumble outdoors…is as unlikely as it is often quite true.

This 65-year-old has just spent an hour being manipulated by an osteopath, tomorrow I have a physio appointment, then a muscular-skeletal doctor’s advice about choosing either surgery or steroid injections following an MRI on my left foot.

As for sports psychology…I would, of course, but I can’t afford it.

All this just to get out and try and run sub-30’ 5K and maybe sub-25’ 5K before the leaves turn yellow and maybe a sub-55’ 10K before roasting chestnuts and thinking about sprouts.

That will leave 6 months to beat the 10K qualifying time of 27 minutes.

Maybe I need to sign up for the Sports Psychologist after all, if only for pre-Olympic-failure-counselling?

The Pendeen Ashes 2013

The mythology surrounding the mustard pot filled with the remains, the ashes, of a 100 piece jigsaw has its genesis in a shopping expedition prior to Xmas 2022.

A jigsaw of an appropriately Christmas-themed collection of sprouts finally had its opening during the early days of the family escape to Pendeen, Cornwall in the first week of July 2023.

Whereupon it was discovered that not only were the pieces all individually unique and shaped randomly without any straight edges…but fiendishly…double-sided. Not in the Christmas spirit one bit!

A decision was made to incinerate the impossible puzzle and consign its ashes to an urn or similar and to be preserved as a prize for the winner of the annual holiday quiz of equivalent.

The ashes now reside in an unused mustard pot but may move to a more secure location in the near future.

Until the Summer of ’24.

Book Review: Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry

If you’re looking for a novel that captures a sense of true community – and contentedness in a way of life – but without sentimentality, utopianism, or undue reserve, Hannah Coulter may fit the bill.

Set in the fictitious farming community of Port William, a small town in Kentucky, from 1940, through the Second World War, to the turn of the 21st Century, the novel revolves around the loves and losses of Hannah Coulter from her youth to her late seventies. As the narrator, she tells the story of her family and romantic life through the post-War decades as farming and much else in American society changes around her.

Initially, not having read any of his other books, I didn’t realise that Wendell Berry, the author, is male.

If you’re reading this, you’ll almost certainly know that (a) I also have a Y chromosome and (b) I’m attempting to write an historical fiction novel. But the realisation that a ‘he’ was writing from a female perspective – and doing so so convincingly, was definitely one of those ‘tipping my hat’ moments to an author who knows exactly what he doing – a master of his craft.

(If you read Hannah Coulter, you’ll reach page 71, ‘We were looking at each other…’. You may think differently but surely this is an authentic woman’s voice?)

Wendell Berry is drawn into imagining Hannah’s thoughts as an older woman and catches her reminiscing, putting her thoughts into words. For example, when thinking about the shared mentality of the farming community around Port William she says:

‘Members of Port William aren’t trying to “get someplace”.

They think they are someplace.’

In two small sentences, Wendell Berry’s message: that it’s people, not what people are doing and achieving, that have true value, comes to the surface.

The cast includes Hannah Coulter (née Steadman), Virgil Feltner, Nathan Coulter, Danny Branch, Will Branch, and Wheeler Catlett

186 Pages, Counterpoint

Follow Me

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

What is it about this Man I cannot refuse?
A king wearing no crown that I can see
A prophet His message His flesh
A priest offering Himself
Beckoning me

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

I don’t deserve Your look I want to say
But His river of mercy is too strong
Undoing all that is wrong
Offering His hand to pull me from the waves
Drowning here I cannot stay

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

I wanted to kneel, but He said walk
I wanted to walk, He said swim
I wanted to swim, He said fly
I wanted to stay low
But He set me on high

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

Joey Mitchell…live performance…on Hope

Book Review: Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Why, you may well ask, am I writing a book review for such a well-known and well-read book?

Spoiler alert: I suggest you read Jane Eyre before finding out too much in this blog!

First and foremost, to counter Elizabeth Rigby’s ludicrous criticism that Jane Eyre is an ‘anti-Christian’ novel. Criticism which, ironically, sheds a great deal of light on moribund Christianity in England that has suppressed true faith in England for centuries…bound up as it often is in formal, cold, religious traditions so unlike the Jesus of the gospels leaving many in Britain and the West generally, admiring Jesus but not church.

Brontë sets about uprooting false notions about Christianity in three key relationships, firstly exposing the cruel hypocrisy of Mr Brocklehurst, Jane Eyre’s headmaster at Lowood, who abuses his authority using scripture merely to control pupils whilst feathering his own nest, then with Helen Burns, Jane Eyre’s friend, and, finally, the off-course cleric, St John Rivers.

When Brocklehurst challenges Jane about her behaviour and how it could lead her to hell, he asks ‘What must you do to avoid it?’ Jane’s reply, dripping with sarcasm, is ‘I must keep in good health and not die’. Wonderful.

Later Jane finds her first true friend in a girl of the same age, Helen Burns, and, whilst she learns a great deal about faith in Christ from Helen, is critical of her passivity in the face of injustice. Helen, by contrast to Mr Brocklehurst, has her eyes firmly fixed on heaven: ‘God waits only for the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward’ or, ‘I can resign my immortal part to God without any misgiving, God is my father…I love Him, I believe He loves me’.

What I particularly like about how Brontë presents Jane at this young age, maybe fourteen, is that she is full of questions, she is open, and exploring…her faith is not fully formed. For example she asks Helen, ‘You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as Heaven?’

Far from being an anti-Christian novel, this is an honest account of a fictional character maturing physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Later, after the marriage to Rochester is prevented and she leaves Thornfield, Brontë confronts Jane with yet another dissatisfying version of the Christian faith in St John Rivers, a man so dedicated to service as a Missionary that he completely misses God’s plan, to bless him emotionally and romantically with forming a relationship with the beautiful Miss Oliver, beautiful not only in appearance but in her character.

Jane extricates herself from St John’s demands and his alarming proposal for marriage, with customary straight-talking, ‘O! I will give my heart to God. You do not want it!’

A reply that also reveals that her faith in God is more solid, confirmed later as she prays later prior to her final journey from St John back to Rochester, now at Ferndean:

‘I fell on my knees; and prayed in my way – a different way to St John’s, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit, and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet.’

Personally, I do not know of a sentence that describes true Christianity any more accurately.

As St Paul wrote ‘the sons of God are led by the Spirit of God’.

Brontë has demolished the hypocrisy of Brocklehurst, steered clear of the undue passivity of dear Helen Burns, and, in her rejection of St John, correctly distinguishes between dry duty demanded by cold formal religion and the fire and relationship of the true Christian faith.

By the time Jane Eyre is returned to Rochester her faith is more or less complete, she is spiritually mature and at ease with life, love, and marriage. She readily submits herself to Rochester as her husband having no fear that her individuality is under threat any more than Rochester is afraid of being dominated by a woman of independent means.

This is anything but ‘anti-Christian’.

Brontë has deposited a novel into the mix whose climax in the marriage between Jane and Rochester has more to say about the relationship between Christ and an individual than the journalist-critic Elizabeth Rigby could see.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë: 1847

Elizabeth Rigby’s criticism: 1848

Steam on the Windowpane

It’s winter on the top deck
With the morning commuters
Yawning, respiring
Exhaling, coughing - and I,
Creating finger-art,
In our collective breaths
Draw a line on the window
And escape to an outside world
Of rushing trees and cityscape

On my way to fit snugly
With another,
A living jigsaw piece of
Flesh and vibrant clothes,
Smiles and sadness
To meander through the
Mystery of knowing someone
You can never fully know
To exchange words
To exchange a kiss
A hug
A steamy cup of coffee

After, a walk
Through a park brightly lit
In a January sky
Brilliant in its clean-air blues
Passing others and their dogs
Exporting tufts of breath
Nostrils and mouths at work
The rhythm
Of footfalls and arm-swings
Taking me to a graveside

It’s there that I discover
How to hold my tongue
And let my grandfather speak,
His advice still seeping up
From under, from inside
His interred frame.
A man with strong eyebrows
And a piercing gaze
With love simmering
In every harsh syllable
Of his few words:

‘Whatever you do, son, put some
Steam on the windowpane’

I sigh and wish he could see
His message left trickling down
On the number forty-two.
Advice from a hard life
Of personal victories kept
Far from public gaze
His pride, tucked away
In the soil that fed us
During the impoverished
Years, that bought
My school shoes
And hid his tears.

We Shall Rise

Escaping to the beach
Sandals and tee-shirt discarded
Looking down at the
Rhythm of the waves
Toes tipping over the jetty
My arms leap up and,
Free from the planet, I rise…
…and fall

Columns of sunlight pour
Through the water illuminating
Seaweeds waving with joy
Fish dart about
Iridescent in shoals, but
No sooner do I relax,
Calm and at home,
Than I rise

Wounded healers, fashioned
Somehow to sink like stones
To suffer shipwreck and sorrow
Our outer garments,
Facades and masks removed
O! Take us under Lord
Let us see life and light
As we fall

Until at home
Above and below
In season and out of season
Abounding or abased
Until we know You, truly,
In reverses and walking
Drenched and anointed,
Then we shall rise

And on that day
When the Sun falls, when
Dress rehearsals are complete
When we journey beyond
Our horizons, what we know,
And all is laid aside,
We shall rise

To face the One, whose
Garments were taken and torn,
Distracting the soldiers
His toes tipping over the brink
And arms stretched out wide
Proving for all eternity
That falling
Is only a prelude:

We shall rise.

Lost & Found

A long heavily stained
Desk, teak maybe
Stretched across the dingy
Office a flight of stairs
Under the concourse
Where life is faster

The man, an identikit
For all L&F officers?
Overweight, pallid
And unimpressed
A trained smile,
No deus ex machina,

No joy, and I wonder if
Anyone is waiting for him
Or whether we all
Look lost and this Earth
Is where we are deposited
Until Someone comes

 For us

Growing Towards the Light

Are you?
Is what he said
Straight in, session one
After small talk about the
Geranium on his bookshelf

And me prevaricating
Talking about auxins,
Anything
Except why I was there.
I thought session one

Would be…
Less poetic, less allegorical
You know
Less tangential
But he was straight in,

On my turf
Trespassing on purpose
Irritating the metaphorical
Edges of me, to flip me,
To see what’s underneath

Like the limpet
I was am will be…
Trouble is with these
Professionals
They charge enough

So silence is expensive.
I turned around
And said ‘Yes, I am.
That’s why I’m here’
His name, engraved by the way

On a brass plate, Sr. Garcia,
From Buenos Aries,
‘Call me Jesús’ he said,
His warm smile told me
Where to sit

I nearly knelt

Paris ’24 – 4th June 2023

It’s been a while and, no I haven’t been training at altitude, or investigating the legality of oxygenated blood transfusions prior to racing, or pulling enormous tractor tyres, or cricket-square rollers across the Downs, or anything remotely eye-catching.

I’ve just had an MRI scan on a dodgy nerve in my left foot, visits to two physiotherapists (shoulders and back), and an increasing range of hilarious exercises from the physios and an osteopath to keep me super-supple.

That’s the state of play of this 60+-year-old even attempting to return to running, let alone meet the qualifying time for the 10K ready for Paris ’24.

But I’m on the way back – hence the return to the blog.

3 x 5K runs and I’ve lopped 5 minutes off my first time just over a week ago. At this trajectory, I will break the land speed record for a Walrus in a few weeks and be outpacing old Labradors before you can say ‘Allez France!’

 The next step is to run 5 miles, not 5K, then 10K…by the end of June.

 Expect a follow-up report in detail.

Two Toothbrushes

That soft early morning light
Seems to catch things unseen
Cobwebs in a sway
Translucent green leaves
Shedding a fitting peace

That time of day
Requiring no speech
Facial muscles
Yet to recall
Quite what to do

An automatic pilot
Shuffles you forward
To a mirror, to a basin
To a shower as yesterday
Is washed away

And there they sit
Like living counterparts
Facing each other:
Two toothbrushes
Quite different

Yet revealing more than
Speech can convey. Bristles
Worn down on one side
This one, encased in unrinsed
Paste, contentedly untidy

The other, almost shining
Upright, ready for life and love
Disaster, and heartache,
Not quite comprehending
Her neighbour

A guest I am, immersed
In a forty-year marriage
For three mornings.
Unbeknown to them
I guess,

Who owns each brush
Standing as they do
Opposite, yet facing each other
In the morning light
Shedding a fitting peace.

It’s 9pm, Bristol

A cigar tip glows red in the dusk
As a puff of smoke exhales
Into the trees -
Whisky in hand he watches
As the rough and aromatic
Scents disperse.

Above, the trees seem to
Breathe the wind, in, out
And send creatures to
Fill the cooling air:
First a lone wood pigeon
Maybe the last of its kind

It’s plaintive echoes
Receiving no reply
A solitary Robin, out late,
Like the next thought,
Unexpectedly lands
Closer than a brother

The biters arrive:
Invisible flesh nibblers
Then silent, swift, skilful
Insect-hungry bats swarm
The Battle of Britain
Renewed in the sky above.

The cigar stub
Damp and dulled
Calls time.
Inner contentment
Seeps in like the
Rasping warmth

Of the golden measure.
Fingers exploring familiar
Ridges of the cut-glass
Unconscious of the
Gift just given:

May the peace of the Lord
Be always with you.

Bluebells on the Beach

In a blue-violet trumpet, and,
From aeons past,
In each pebble
Is the thought that thought of you
Is the light that gave you light
Is the temporary
And the unchangeable
You

In the one;
Colour and light,
Swaying in the breeze, there
For one deceptive purpose:
Seduction.
Your honey sap
The future trap.

In the other, granite grey,
Hard yet smooth
In your palm
A missile in the hand
Of God
Picked up and launched
Through my defences

The bluebell on the beach
Swept there by tides and
The four winds
Nestled against each other
Trampled by strangers
The congruent parts
Of a woman
Of a man

English Literature and Cold Turkey…Report One.

My normal routine: get up, kettle on, R4 on, either a tea-bag or looseleaf tea in small pot and, cereal, R4 off, wander into lounge and Ahhhh! That first sip of a cuppa to remove the night and start the day.

 About 11 am, coffee beans ground to dust, cafetiere in operation, and…Relax…with coffee and maybe a slab of Cadbury’s plain. Perfect.

 A normal day consisted of one coffee and maybe 5 cups of tea.

 Until Saturday.

The centre-of-gravity of this story is my attempt to pass A-Level English Literature. In a few weeks’ time I shall be sat amongst impossibly talented 18-year-olds trying to control my thoughts, telling my pen-writing muscles not to cease up, and (for a 65-year-old, the greatest fear) not having to ask to be excused more than twice in the 3 hours of exam hall torture.

 So…preparations – apart from intense revision – include:

1.      Fasting the day before the exam (let the reader surmise the reason why)

2.      A break from tea and coffee…i.e. caffeine, tannin, and all other diuretics

 Sensible?

 So, I Googled the likely side effects, the ‘cold-turkey’ side-effects of giving up tea and coffee:

 The invisible addiction: is it time to give up caffeine? | Coffee | The Guardian

The scientists have spelled out, and I had duly noted, the predictable symptoms of caffeine withdrawal: headache, fatigue, lethargy, difficulty concentrating, decreased motivation, irritability, intense distress, loss of confidence and dysphoria. But beneath that deceptively mild rubric of “difficulty concentrating” hides nothing short of an existential threat to the work of the writer [Edit and exam reviser]. How can you possibly expect to write anything when you can’t concentrate?

Three days in and I can report, darn it, ALL of the above symptoms. I don’t know what dysphoria is but I’m not sure I care…the incessant headache, leg aches, lethargic waves that roll over one, and stranger periods of distress…darn it, it’s all true!

Three days in and I can report, darn it, ALL of the above symptoms

But I’m told this will ease after nine days…so…a week to go of hoping the benefits will outweigh the longing for that first taste of something better in the morning than the dried inside of one’s mouth and sour lips after a night’s sleep, snoring - and sneezing in the hay-fever season.

Meanwhile, it’s back to Othello, Jane Eyre, Post 1900 Poetry, Spies, Skirrid Hill, and Streetcar Named Desire and wading through critics of Patriarchal societies, literature as a Marxist class struggle, and attempting to view the above books through modern, post-modern, and meta-modern lenses.

The moral of this tale? Not enough energy to enter a debate about morals…until it’s over. The abstinence, that is.

Expect Report Two…when I feel human

Rabboni

Why come so vulnerable
Covered in straw?
You make everyone suffer
Your arrival took its toll
On Joseph, on Mary, and children
Extinguished by a king

 Why a mere carpenter’s son
Out of the way, up North
In Nazareth?
Why wait so long
An inert Messiah, watching
The blind lead the blind?

Jesus, why shun the limelight?
Why refuse the crown?
Those willing to honour the
King of glory?
Why relinquish riches, not knowing
Where to lay your head?

After all said and done
Why set your face to Jerusalem?
You stilled the storm, my storm,
Yet offered your wrists to nails
Your head to thorns
Your cheeks to spittle

And, risen, in dawn dark
Avoiding adulation
You dressed as a gardener
Trowel in hand,
Earth under your fingernails
And spoke my name