Sunday Scribbles XXXX

 It occasionally seems as though there is a crude inevitability about life. That Destiny, however dull its armour may be, is still ready for one more foray into the affairs of man.
I am blithering on about games.
Last night we saw the great man-grinding machine that is the All Blacks slowly disassemble the hopes and dreams of the plucky Welsh team. Wales is a tiny sub-nation that sits like a leek-flavoured pimple on the rump of the island that perfidious Albion claims as its own. It regularly offers up 15 men as sacrifical lambs: men who battle mightily, courageously, and futilely against the black-clad New Zealanders. Meanwhile the three blind spinners of fate have indifferently decided, with an iron will, that the Welshmen's courage and dreams must be vanquished and discarded. The red-clad dragons of Wales leave the field of battle mere husks of their former selves, while the New Zealanders grow more handsome, strong, and intelligent with every encounter.
So it must seem to the crofters in the valleys, boyo.
Meanwhile, the cowherds and shepherds, graziers and vintners, lawyers and criminals, ad-men and media monkeys of New Zealand are drooling over our new sporting heroes: the "Unbeaten" All Whites. We finally managed to send another team to the Football World Trophy, and they have acquitted themselves honourably. If a medal were to be struck, it would trumpet their triumph on the face-side: they did not lose a game. The obverse side of that coin, never to be seen or talked about, would bear the motif "they did not win a game, either."
There is talk of a parade. Perhaps someone will be employed to walk beside Ricky Herbert, the team coach, to occasionally whisper into his shell-likes "you are just a man."
Yes, the All Whites did well. They scored points. They scored goals. And they managed to hold three well-known countrys' vastly expensive and hugely talented teams to a draw. And we have celebrated, mighily, because the tele told us to.
What do I think of the All Whites' effort? Bloody amazing. I am thrilled.
Destiny wasn't satisfied with ball games, however. Last night Jenny and I went to visit with the splendid Chris and Lyndsay. Excellent French Onion soup, a delightfully rustic chicken, leek, and prune pie, followed by a thumpingly good chocolate mousse. Conversation at their table is always a delight, and they cunningly befuddled my senses with nacreous wines and various spiritous liquors so my famously rapier-sharp wit is blunted upon their bon mots. Eventually the conversation drifted to the subject of games, and Lyndsay produced a word game called, variously, Quiddle and Bloody Stupid Game. I seemed to be the only one to employ the latter name.
Quiddle is a cross between a card game and a word game, and is mighty fun.At one point Lyndsay rushed off to check How Much We're Winning By (All Blacks v Wales). It being my turn to deal, Christine and I mischeivously rigged his hand, making sure he had to worst selection of cards possible. Christine hid his properly dealt cards under a handy cushion. Lyndsay, when he returned, picked up his cards, and mighty was the merriment as we watched his dismay. We laughed and pointed, then confessed our chicanery, and gave him his properly dealt cards. What a marvellous jape!
Slapping my thighs with laughter, I then picked up my cards. It seems that we had, in fact, picked only the second-worst hand with which to deceive the redoubtable Lyndsay. The real all-time worst one was now clutched in my paw.
The three spinners of fate, in their dank cave at the centre of our dreams, guffawed.
I lost the Bloody Stupid Game by miles.
Reading: the last volume of the astonishing "Stranger in Paradise".
Listening To: Antony and the Johnsons, "I Am A Bird Now". Equally astonishing.
More "Paper Heroes":

Prester shuddered. He had seen so much. But nothing about this meeting had been hinted at.


The room erupted in noise. Anger, frustration, and fear swept the room, and Whistler leapt onto a table. Held his arms up, and bellowed “Quiet, you bastards! Quiet!”

The hubbub died down. All eyes returned to Blunt. Hopes, it now seemed, were now pinned on a man 500 years dead.

“We must all keep calm. This,” Blunt’s lip curled, “this Charles owes us all an explanation. Speak, and tell me why you brought us here from the peace of our graves.”

Whistler got down from the table, and went to Charles. Grabbing the man, he hoisted him up, and deposited him on the table. Charles looked down, a smile of appreciation on his lips. “My god,” he thought. “I like what we have done here. I like what we have made. But I can’t imagine that six will be enough.” He spoke up, the buzzing fussiness of his voice now replaced with a confident baritone.

“People. Gentlemen. You know who you are, you know who each other is. You know you all have number of things in common: you are all warriors. You are all heroes. You have all stood and fought on the side of the weak against the pitiless savageness of the strong and evil.

“And that is why we have brought you to us. We are weak. We have an enemy whom we have ignored and allowed to grow in strength, and our laws and customs make it impossible for us to take up arms against him. We fear now that we may all perish.

“We are many people, and our enemy is few. Yet we are helpless against him, against the evil which confronts us. You are our last hope. You are our only hope. Without you, we die.”

Cienwyn climbed up beside him, and took over the narrative. “For two centuries there has been peace in our world. Peace that you all struggled so valiantly to create. This world you find yourselves in is very much your creation. It is a world built on ideas. It was the notions of chivalry and hospitality from the days of Arthur that inspired England to become the mother of all democracies. It was people like you, Colonel Blunt, and you, Sergeant-Major Whistler, who helped build and preserve that democracy. It was you, Mister Grey, who fought in a bitter war which nearly destroyed the greatest democracy of all, that shining city on a hill they called the United States of America. You, John Prester, who was so cruelly treated by the country you loved, yet you continued striving and struggling to ennoble it. “

A roar came from the assembly. “And what of me?” bellowed the huge Cimmerian. “Hanno the Barbarian, they called call me. God Emperor, they called me. I trampled my enemies into the dust and heard the lamentations of their women. I care nothing for this Greek thing, this democracy. Pah! I spit on it!"

Samoa's wave.

The common word that's being used in all media reports is "devastation", and when we look upon the faces of the survivors and see the pictures of wrecked homes and lives, we can see that this little island nation truly has been devastated.

I watched, with tears on my cheeks, as a man who has lost 11 family members - ranging in age from a child of just 5 to his father of 98, was interviewed. Such dignity.

Tonga, too, feels the loss. Just weeks after one of their ferries sank, they are hit by further tragedy. Five dead, when compared to Samoa's 120, may seem small pickings. But on top of everything, I can quite easily imagine how this could break the heart and spirit of this small community.

I note that a lot of people are saying they will pray for the survivors. A little late, I should think, for prayer. Surely to goodness people must realise that if prayer actually worked, then no-one would have perished? Their god is worse than toothless. It is powerless, and every day that goes by demonstrates that it is nothing more than a figment of someone's feverish imagination.

So it goes: the astonishing power of nature once again demonstrates how fragile we are, and how we are merely hours away from disaster. I hope we've learned from this. To a degree, I hope we've learned what devastation really is. But I know that come the end of Saturday's football game between two professional rugby league teams, the losing captain will pronounce himself as "gutted", and tens of thousandsof fans will say they're "devastated". Well, they won't be. They'll merely be mildly disappointed. The battered and mourning people people of Samoa are on our tele screens, showing us what devastation really is.


READING: Romanitas, still.

LISTENING TO: Dianne Reeves, "Lovin' You".

WORD OF THE DAY: Dignity. Today, I saw it, in the face of a man who has lost everything.


More Moana:


“We went at it like bunnies, my Colin and me,” Mum told them. Once a day, except for Sundays, when we went for the daily double.”
The kids were silenced. I was glad Useless was in his room. There were things he didn't need to hear. Not yet, anyway.
“Anyway, Wendy love, I've only ever known four men who were worth more than spit. Mr Tomlinson was as good a man as you'll ever find; Colin, my husband; Mr Talbot up the road here; and young Chutty. But I know your Johnno, and I think he might just be a winner.”
'Most people don't think so, Mrs – Nan,” said Wendy. “They look at him and see his tattoo and long hair, and just write him off.”
“Nonsense, girl,” said Mum. “Don't you pay no never mind to those people. They don't know what they're talking about.”
Wendy sat back, looking smug. I looked back into the kitchen, to make sure the pots were staying at a simmer. Treen stood, and came to the other side of the bench, and leaned on it.
And told me something that made me even more determined to make sure that tonight's surprise went well.
“Dad probably won't tell you, Mum, and he asked me not to. So -”
“Spill the beans, girls. What's happened?”
“Dad. He was fierce, today. You know that Jack Stack?”
I had to stop and think for a bit. Then he came to me. A young man, with a real vicious streak in him. Came from a strange family, down by the river. If any part of town could be considered to be the wrong side of the tracks, it was the few streets down by the river. In the winter they rarely managed to get their chimney-pots out of the fog. I nodded to her, telling her to continue.
“Well, me and Dad -”
“Dad and I,” I corrected.
“Well, Dad and I were at at the club, with all dad's mates, and Wiri's grandson Wally, and we were watching the game, and there was some coverage of the protesters there on the tele, and Jack Stack starts yelling out about them, and how they were all stupid, and should all be carted off to prison, and stuff,” she said. I narrowed my eyes. “Dad did that, too! That eye thing. He called out to Jack, telling him to pipe down, that they weren't doing any harm, and they had a few good points to make.”
“Did he indeed,” I said. “Wonders will never cease.”
“And so Jack started yelling at Dad, and Dad went over to his table. I could hear what was being said: and here's what happened....”
The club had three big tele sets, and there was a general hubbub of noise. Most of the people there were men, with only a few women. To be fair, the club was trying to get more women to come down for a drink or a meal, and in time it would happen. They needed the tempering effect women made on men. Treen, Chutty, and a half-dozen others had collected at one of the tables, drinking, and eating chippies and salted peanuts, and enjoying the build-up to the game. On the tele they could see live shots of the protesters at New Plymouth's Bullring, marching and chanting, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
It was then that Jack Stack started. Jack's a heavy-handed 21 year old, who's always been a bit too tightly wrapped. He favours tight-fitting flannel shirts, ironed to within an inch of their life, and sharply pressed gabardine trousers. He's a hard worker though, and as far as anyone knows he's as honest as the day's long. Just because none of us can find it in ourselves to like the lad doesn't mean he's a bad person.
Jack Stack knew I'd done my protest on Ugglesworth Street, at the Post Office building. Everyone in the village knows it, mainly because we had made the front page of the Northbridge News: two women, motorcycle helmets on, waving placards at the three policemen who'd come on down out of curiosity to see what the fuss was about. So when he started to give a bit of a rant, in a very loud voice, he knew exactly what he was doing: poking a very sharp stick at Tarquin Russel Wrigley, and his daughter Katrina, who were just a couple of tables away.
“These bloody stupid women, trying to tell us what's what, and trying to get us to do as they bloody want. Typical bloody brainless women, probably don't even know what they're protesting about,” and on and on he went, casting sly glances across at Chutty.
Treen told me that her Dad put up with it for five minutes. Then he simply picked up a jug of beer, walked over to Jack Stack, and poured it over his head, saying “Those protesters are trying to make a good point, boy. Them South African's treat their black people like shit. And all of those protesters are showing more bloody courage than you have. So shut the hell up,all right?”
Jack Stack's tirade stopped, the spluttering started, and Jack made a fist. Chutty just stood there, and looked him in the eye. The lad backed off, then stormed out of the club. Warren Peabody, the manager, then came over and told Chutty he'd have to ban him from the club for three hours. He said that he'd be banning Jack Stack for a week, next time he came in.
“Fair enough,” Chutty said.