Flaws, Heroes & Pillars of the Earth

Today's topic was to have been something along the lines of:

A flaw in a hero doesn’t bring the hero down : rather it demonstrates that flaws do not spoil a person. We are all flawed. We can be great despite them and with them and even if we never manage to rid ourselves of them. Give Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth a quick read and muse upon the intertwining of good and evil, including one character doing something dreadful without which much of the action would never have occurred; Philip supporting various political intrigues, including some which bring about the very situation that is to make his life and the good he is working so hard to create so very nearly impossible.

 

I have read a couple of headlines over the last week or so (but not yet taken the time to read the articles, sadly) suggesting that - gasp - flaws may have been discovered in the character and  / or life of Sir Edmund Hillary. See above.

 

Mervyn Thompson had some whopping great flaws. Yet he was one of the greatest creative types and one of the most sincerely loving people I have ever come across. Despite everything.

 

Stephen Fry had the whole running-off-with-his-family-friend's-credit-card thing, after years of underachieving (for him) at school and stealing lollies and money from the boys and masters.

 

Plenty of characters in Pillars of the Earth (to briefly get back to the point) could have thrown their hands up in horror at either their own terrible shortcomings or their latest disaster - yet when they didn't, when they kept putting one foot in front of the other, after the style of the Large Woman Walking With Shopping Bags near Totton, or Dori and Nemo (just keep swimming ...), there always came a moment where life rushed in again and they were once more in the flow.

 

Even when character A (not to spoil the story for those who haven't read it yet) learnt what character B had once done, s/he didn't go and tell on her/him, he/she had the good sense to keep it in the past and keep going.

 

Yet with all this sturdy fortitude and gumption in the face of sometimes the most appalling adversity, those who deliberately use foul means in the quest for fair ends are not approved. Those who make the best of whatever has already been, morally questionable or otherwise, have life turn out the best for. To turn a cliché round inelegantly.

 

But the phone beeps, so I must away in an attempt to complete the most essential of three-days-ago's petty work before the close of e'en. Does God exact day-labour, light denied? Only if the bed's been stripped but not yet made.

 

Still foolishly holding to the hope of future regularity,

Teufel 

 

Stephen Fry Tweets Me; Churches Full of Surprise Priests

Well, I really, really, really didn't!
But here I am, some months later rather than precisely about one week, once again determined to write weekly, if briefly, and occasionally even cogently.

Big news!  I have a new follower! So exciting. Thank you Brian! I'll probably email this out to everyone again, more for the older stuff than this, but IF I really do start writing weekly, and IF the regularity leads to some degree of relevance, it might almost be worth looking in from time to time. Stephen Fry has. Yes, he really has. I tweeted him after his bunjy jump, wittily enough for him to take up my invitation to read one of my posts - the one about admiring Dorothy L. Sayers. And he replied (favourably) after reading it! I resisted the temptation to crow about it at the time, thinking of the future, when we'll be bosom buddies, chatting about our latest publications and keeping up a sort of Sand-Flaubert correspondence, and not wanting him to be put off by the idea I might just be some common or garden stalker, trying to get the attention of the Great Tweeter himself. Ah well, the damage is done now: next time he drops in to this blog he'll shake his head in sage disgust at my pettiness.

Anyway. Must be brief, as much to do that I ought to have done yesterday but didn't.

While at Russell for the recent Birdman competition (mad mid-winter-festival wharf-leaping weekend) I thought I'd attend Sunday service at the famous Christ Church - the one riddled with bullet holes, and boasting the grave of the first Pakeha woman to be buried in NZ - instead of just gaping like a tourist as I usually do - and who should I find officiating but Paula Franklin, ex Otamatea Repertory, and husband Gary (drop-dead gorgeous PE teacher of my youth) also on the committee. It was Sea Sunday, and I was reminded of the beautiful setting of the hymn "For those in peril on the sea" by Marion of Minstead Players, in Minstead - part of our rehearsed reading of Nick Mellersh's life of John Newton, the author of "Amazing Grace."  We sang that hymn, but with the normal, not-quite-so-stirring tune.

Last time I went to a beautiful church service - largely for the singing and the beauty of the old building - but I also find, despite being probably more strongly agnostic now than ever, that I derive benefit from a traditional church service, even while not believing more than about 25% of it. I think I veer more and more toward Lloyd Geering's view that despite the non-existence of an actual, supernatural "God" (although I'm more agnostic on that point than him), religious practice is good for us, and helps focus us - he says, of Bible stories etc, "Use all of it - the myth, the stories, the legends, the morality" (I'm paraphrasing horribly - might look it up one day but not today). Not just of Christianity, I think he would agree, but myth and deep tales of all traditions, that have taken a kernel of perceived truth and embroidered it to enhance its power to grab our attention and to remain in our memory.

Anyway, I believe I started a sentence about last time I went to a service in a beautiful old church - lo and behold, the priest that time was a dear friend of my brother Brian's, met on-line and through published journals via poetry a few times over the years, but only met in the flesh once, at Brian's funeral. I managed to convince myself that it wasn't her after all, but it really was! She'd been a priest for years, and I'd just never known. Paula Franklin, on the other hand, had only recently been ordained fully. Who knows where we'll end up in life, eh?

Well, must away - the day nearly done and only about a tenth of my list of things to do done. 'Tis so often the way. Ho Hum. Toodle Pip. Until next Wednesday or Sunday. Really really really!

Peu à signaler

Sunday 23rd January 2011 It's Sunday afternoon, the children are out, and this is my regular writing time - but I don't feel very interesting. Had a lovely time talking with friends last night, have been married 20 years and still want to be, have to pack for early-start family holiday tomorrow, just know I'm going to spend too much time doing this and playing the piano then have to rush everything else. Don't want to go to bed too late as has become our habit. Inspired by friend's wit to take up the virtual pen once more, but this is not going to be one of those scintillating ones. Still haven't written about remembering that we remember from Kaddish, could do a whole spiel on the musical life of my recently-deceased mother-in-law, the last of the Fox Trio, and her father, Harry C. A. Fox of Hawera Music, and the amazing time my aunt-in-law, as an elderly lady, ran into a man, on a train, in the north of England, who admired him so much that since his youth in the North-England colliery band run by him, had carried his (HCA Fox's) photo in his pocket. Without knowing who Auntie Margaret was, he was extolling the virtues of this band leader extraordinaire, and showed her the photo - to their mutual amazement. What kind of coincidence is that, after growing up in New Zealand? My husband, the grandson of HCA, had forgotten this story, and it makes me realise once again how important just talking to people is - who else in the family has either heard or remembered this? I think I'll send it to Stuart Maclean's CBS radio show, Vinyl Café - home of Dave - for their Story Exchange. Also the story about Auntie Enid's favourite shoes and the rats at the Rainmaker Hotel in Pagopago, along with the cancer of the ceiling, the nibbled toes, the ever-decreasing biology experiment (courtesy of the same rats - observation of mouldy bread over a week - the drawings changing shape every day to record actual size and shape of bread both dry and wet), the hotel employees sent to deal with rat problem more interested in chatting up my then 20-year-old, blonde, tall and slim cousin, the friend from school who just happened to be staying in the same hotel at the same time. And the homing book (Kipling's poems), belonging to my other grandfather-in-law, owned in Egypt for more than a decade, somehow making its way to the very second-hand-book table at the annual fête in the little English village I was bringing up baby in, some 60 years later - he never returned to England to live; he emigrated straight to NZ from Egypt after the War; we grew up in NZ and only spent a few years in England, but his book somehow found us. So, plenty I could be writing about, time to write, but I think that today I won't. Good-bye! Oh, and did anyone follow Trefusis in his treasure hunt? I began, and was devastated when the trail ended abruptly. I hope that young man of self-described excellent brain but lesser mind will find the time to trawl through some more of the esteemed professor's papers - or rather, dongle.

We apologise for the inconvenience ...

As we enter the Quintessential Phase of Douglas Adams's Hitch-hiker trilogy, my mind is constantly doing flips of recognition and adulation. That man was one who saw so much, saw through so much, understood so much, and to top it all off, could express it with wit and a kind of mathematical beauty. My maths didn't go beyond topping the last year of High School, but I sense that he actually understands the higher maths and science whose names he flings so blithely about. No wonder Stephen Fry speaks of him with love and awe in his voice - he's another of the same ilk. And he died at 49 - perhaps he didn't need to live any more. My brother was another hyper-rational genius with a sense of humour and a gift for writing - and he also died at the age of 49. I like to think he and Douglas Adams have now met - despite them both being confirmed atheists - and I am determined to keep his paperback copies of the Hitch-hiker trilogy and beyond, despite their foul, tobacco-soaked smell. They are currently airing on a box outside my front door, but they will stink forever.

Thank Goodness Mother Never Let Me ...

"Thank goodness Mother never let me get that tired." Comment in one of Dorothy L. Sayers's letters, referring to a fellow Oxford student who had studied too much, got into a state, and destroyed her chances at exams. Similar character in "Gaudy Night," nearly drowns, lurking dangerously at the top of Old Tom tower - brilliant mind, but not taking sufficient care of her animal needs. Said animal being coming close to destroying her higher self. Neglect the physical vitality too much, and you don't get an awful lot of higher-order thinking. I have been that tired, and it's no good, and it takes a lot of fun and a long time to recover from it. One of my favourite remedies: Roxie Hart, and watching old Marilyn Monroe films. Reading PG Wodehouse, watching DVDs of Python, bits of Fry and Laurie in their various guises, and now that I am partially recovered, getting gripped by a movie with plenty of emotion in it - childish, clichéd or more "real" - recently, "Me and Marley," "Midsomer Murders," "Oliver Twist" (Polanski's version - recent BBC one next, then I might revert to the musical). Teufel.

Cursed with Both Head and Heart

Saturday 29 May 2010 The Guardian Hay Festival has reignited my enthusiasm for digital communication with its "Most Beautiful Tweet" competition, being judged by Stephen Fry - poor lad, he'll be inundated - and they had the good taste to retweet one of my attempts. There followed, of course, some hours of roaming around twitter - particularly the Hay Festival tweets - wishing I were there, wishing I'd made the short trip there when I lived in Minstead, New Forest, wishing I gathered my energies up a little more often to get to that sort of thing when available here, where I am. I had toyed with the idea of calling this blog "How I Stopped Being Fat", as I intend to write quite a lot about that, but I have resisted allowing my life to be dominated and destroyed by being fat, so I decided not to allow it to dominate my blog either. Anyone tempted to put off your living until you're the perfect shape or weight - please don't! a) because you might not ever, and then you'd look silly, b) because most things are just as possible at any weight - in the last few years, while weighing close to, and then over, 100kg, I have had two children, passed two ballet exams with Merit (Grades 6 and 7 RAD), earned a PhD in French literature, home-schooled my children, appeared in Fiddler on the Roof as Yente, danced on TV (The Topp Twins), sung in a choir, written a novel, impressed Iggy McGovern with one of my poems. Do I think Big is Beautiful? No, not particularly. I don't think Big is Better, and my size is starting to restrict some of my physical activities - and I'm certainly not dancing as well as I would be 50kg lighter - but I'm still dancing - and I am often fatigued and my immunity is low. But that's only a part of who I am, and, like one of the authors of The Bitch in the House, I have got on and done the things I wanted to do, and generally done them rather well. 'Nuff said. In a future blog I will explain the "Head and Heart" reference from Dorothy L. Sayers, and I plan to write a weekly "column," rather formally, as well as odd jottings whenever I feel like it. Hopefully I'll also learn how to attach photos, links, and so forth. I leave you with an urging to watch Stephen Fry's "vimeo" on "Things I wish I'd Known at 18" on a website called something like (but don't quote me on this), "vimeo.com." Also, for the more frivolous among you, see his "Boos" - one for each episode of QI - find the link on his twitter site - they're up to number 11 at latest count - basically, you get a 30-second audio recording of the audience yelling an unusual word (for this series, all beginning with H), and you get to tweet the word you thought you heard to Stephen Fry. And if you're right, you win ... a sense of quiet satisfaction. The two I've heard so far were, if I remember rightly, "hamfutter" and "harquelbutt" - no, that second one's not right, but something like that. The current one is a word coined by Bosie, and to me it sounds like "horsellum." And to follow the Hay Festival and see what they come up with as "Most Beautiful Twitter." Adios, and, as we are increasingly learning to say in our Spanish studies, Hasta luego, hasta pronto, and also à bientôt, yours (often!) sincerely, Teufel.