The Deku Tree...

I grew up playing The Legend of Zelda, on the SNES and its successor the N64. This was the theme tune to the first dungeon of Ocarina of Time (1998), scarcely heeded then. Oh, I know it's "new agey" (like Enya), but I like it. For me, it's the most nostalgic of the theme songs from the game. Some older readers might think it silly to feel nostalgic about a video game only 17 years old; but in 1998 I was only ten.

Winston...

As a result of the Second World War, Britain ceased to be a credible world power. In fact we were ordered to dismantle our Empire by the United States at the Bretton Woods Conference on pain of bankruptcy. We have been since then, in the words of Quentin Crisp (though he meant something quite different), an island off the coast of America. It's an unfortunate legacy for Winston Churchill, the man who spent his entire life defending British Imperial interests in his political capacities and in his A History of the English Speaking Peoples; an apologia for the British epic of liberty. It is worth reading more for its literary style and highly personal quality than for its scholarship.

My father remembers Churchill's funeral. My grandparents had bought, rather than rented, a television set for the Coronation and watched the service. A much more sober and fitting occasion than that of Diana Spencer thirty-two years later. No media-driven hysteria, no candles in the wind, no bogus eulogies; just genuine grief and deference for a man whose rhetoric in May 1940 turned cowardice into courage.

I don't really have much else to say. I have never really liked Churchill. May he rest in peace.

The sack?

Well, there's no use pretending otherwise. To-day I am being summoned to work to discuss the damning psychological report which found that a, I am grossly unfit to work with the general public, and b, I find "time management" extremely difficult too. The branch manager clearly hates me so it looks as if I am fighting a losing battle. It's interesting to reflect upon what kind of employer would want someone who is unknowingly rude at times and terribly slow but when you're that person it's by no means a pleasant experience looking for work. Even the National Autistic Society won't hire me! Needless to say that, upon receipt of the summons, I did nothing to find alternative means of income. I am already deep into my overdraft and it looks as if the Oxford English Dictionary, for which I have been saving on and off for five years, will have to be put on hold yet again.

A bank, any bank, particularly retail banking, is wholly unsuitable for me. I knew this when I applied and every moment through my training even to the day I went sick with stress. I disagree with the culture, the corporate mentality, the pace and tense of the day; I don't dislike the people but most of them are of my generation and therefore I have nothing in common with any of them. Am I to blame? When you're unemployed and you have debts piling up a job, any job, is a moment's breath. You stick with it because the grim reality, one's pretensions notwithstanding, is that there is nothing else out there. I am completely impractical. "Your trouble is you have no common sense," in the words of my kindly, tyrannical mother. I am also lazy. I don't like getting up in the morning. I don't like having to be somewhere against my will. I hate public transport and rush hour. All I want to do is write and stay at home. I know it's vain but my life has disintegrated since I left Morrisons. Nine years of relative stability, even if it came at the price of significant underachievement, gone.

It's just after six o'clock. I have been up since midnight. I am going to go over the report again before I set out at eight. What fun!

24th May 1899...

"To-day we met at 8.45 (no early school) in the playing-fields, but dismissed owing to downpour. At 9.15 we met in the school-yard - a hot steaming day, like an orchid-house; marched up to the Castle, and after a wait got into the yard. The Queen was breakfasting in a room over the porch. The choirs sang very sweetly. We joined in the fourth verse only of the jubilee hymn, and my verse was beautifully sung afterwards. Then two madrigals, one very poor. A good many boys fainted, thirteen in all, and sat in a row, green-faced and bewildered, on a little bench under the wall. Sir A. Bigge came to fetch me to the Queen, hardly to my surprise; I was presented to the Duke of Connaught. Then we went upstairs and appeared in the corridor; the Queen sate rather in shadow, her white widow's cap showing very clear; she wore large round black spectacles. Soundy, the Mayor, preceded us; then Sir W. Parratt, to whom she made a little civil speech. Then I appeared, bowing, and drew as near as I dared. 'I must thank you for having written such a beautiful verse,' she said: 'it has been a great pleasure to me.' I bowed and withdrew, rather clumsily, as I had forgotten the backward walk, and only remembered it after a moment. However, i did not quite turn my back on the Queen, I think.

"But what was an entire surprise to me, and will remain with me as long as I live, was her voice. It was so slow and sweet - some extraordinary simplicity about it - much higher than I had imagined, and with nothing cracked or imperious or (as the imitations misled me into thinking) gobbly. It was like the voice of a very young, tranquil woman. The phrases sounded a little like a learnt lesson, but the tone was beautiful - a peculiar genuineness about it; I felt as if I really had given her pleasure. Her face was much in shadow, and confused; I couldn't see it clearly. But it was all very tremendous somehow; and though, if I had had the choice, I would not have dared to go, I am now thankful to have seen her and had speech from her." From the diary of Arthur C. Benson, pp 42-43.

It's a rather simple, sweet account of a meeting with Queen Victoria at Eton College on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. I find it interesting because I have never liked Queen Victoria, whom I have always seen as a self-indulgent and boring; easily one of the worst of the Hanoverians. Clearly impressionable, nonetheless.

Northward...

And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the LORD God fell there upon me.
Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.
And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.
And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.
Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.
And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.
Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.
And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.
And there stood before them seventy men of the antients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.
Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the antients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, the LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.
He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.
Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. Ezekiel chapter VIII.

This post has nothing to do with the curious tradition of Roman Rite deacons and gospellers proclaiming the Gospel northwards. That developed, as I recall, out of episcopal liturgy and the customary etiquette surrounding turning one's back to the bishop and to which was later appended this northward theological interpretation. What rubbish. It would be better to have the Gospel proclaimed in the midst of the congregation eastwards. This would better suit the twofold end of the Gospel as an act of worship first and for the edification of Christ's faithful second.

No, I was thinking here about Tolkien's placement of Hell (Angband) in the North of Middle-earth. He once said that that was the traditional direction of evil and no Tolkien scholar, to my knowledge, has picked up on this.

The Accepted...

I was in receipt of a letter from a reader of this blog the other day in which it was said that I put too high a store by "tradition" as opposed to wisdom attained by didactic methods. I wonder if this actually so. I am conservative in matters moral, political and religious forsooth but there is a lot more to it based on my own experiences. Take my autism. Any textbook definition would classify me as mentally, emotionally, and developmentally crippled. Perhaps, a century ago, I would have been sent to an insane asylum. These days, in this "care in the community" environment bequeathed to us by Mrs Thatcher, weirdos like me walk among the οἱ πολλοί like sheep among wolves. Several months ago, for example, I was subjected to various indignities on the 161 bus because of my appearance, and autism is supposed to be an "invisible" condition. But what of the invisible ingredients? Autism alters my entire worldview, the way I think and experience things, etc. Then there is the issue of my being a sexual pervert. I am blessed by the autism in this sense because autism vastly inhibits any chances of sexual union with another person which, for me, is surely a benefit?

So, in terms of tradition, of Christianity, etc where do I fit in? Do my peculiar proclivities put me at a profound soteriological disadvantage? I am not ready to be fruitful and multiply. I tend to think, as any Puritan would, that any kind of sexual compulsion is a filthy abomination and I do sincerely think that humanity should stop producing children; and trust me, if I were Big Brother, this would be enforced most severely. In terms of sexual desires, I am as much riddled with corruption as any harlot and I have often flirted with the idea of emasculation to cure this problem. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee, etc. Friends to whom I have confided this have invariably said that it would be a grave mistake and that no doctor in the country would perform such an operation on religious grounds; that is, my own. Is this symptomatic of a pathology or an obsession? Is not the desire to be rid of lust a legitimate one? David Starkey, commenting on the Castrati, once said that emasculation is an abomination to every man. I read once that Domenico Mustafà, a castrato in the Sistine Chapel choir, spoke with vociferous contempt of the doctor who had relieved him of his testicles; his wealth and fame notwithstanding. Farinelli, the greatest virtuosic singer of all time, wrote of his heartache upon falling in love with a ballerina in 1733; "Cupid again has me bound in his chains...God knows when I will be set free." He died fabulously rich, famous and alone. Well, I have neither wealth nor fame, and neither do I speak for every man, but I do have a debilitating, unfulfilled, frustrated and hideous lust that won't go away.

I suppose in terms of the accepted, conventional wisdom, that is among churchmen, I am an anomaly. I am, by nature and instinct, conservative but the nominally conservative dislike me. Even if I were married, to a woman with low expectations, I could not countenance the idea of a family. "Gay marriage," like AIDs, is a fad. I tend to agree with Quentin Crisp's cynical diatribe against human relationships. I certainly have no interest in them, even if I could tolerate constant companionship. I am far too selfish to live in such close proximity to another person. I have not only accepted my being queer but constantly protested the fact; but simultaneously I don't want to be "straight" either. Perhaps this is what the conservative churchmen consider to be the root cause of my insanity? I suppose the golden question is: is complete aversion to human relationships a moral evil? Is it a form of insanity? It certainly draws nigh to nihilism, even to sour grapes. We're all called to chastity in one form or another. Must it be so bloody bitter, though?

This post demonstrates my inability to stay relevant to the subject, doesn't it?

Comments policy...

I don't really have one. I have enabled comment moderation because I like to read comments before they are published (a mild form of censorship) but nine out of ten comments are published without qualm, even if they are argumentative. Some published comments have even been spam, though I have made an effort to delete those. I do not allow abusive comments and readers have to have a Google or Open ID account in order to comment - I do not suffer anonymous comments.

Please comment! It is part of the joy of blogging. I started blogging in 2009 as much for myself as for you. I started blogging because I felt I had something to say that was not being said or if it was, was being systematically ignored. I have tried to keep a diary in the past but it has not usually worked and reading back past writing to myself is usually embarrassing, but at least with blogging I can share the embarrassment. I have learned much in the six years that I have been publishing online and I have also forgotten much that I thought I knew. At least, I hope, my writing has improved even if the subject matter has degenerated. One day I hope to have a book published, and possibly others, and I can only trust that my experience here has tributaried to that effort.

Concentration...

Since I became "depressed" I have lost the ability to concentrate. Reading, for example. Years ago I was an assiduous reader. These days I can't read without becoming distracted by something. Sometimes I can read a page and remember nothing; my eyes go over the words, I know they have a significance but they exit the mind as swiftly as they go in. My manager asked me how I pass the time on Friday. So I said: "I just pass the time." I shook my head and refused to elaborate. But what does passing the time entail, for me?

I suppose I simply fill a void with unmemorable routines, and watch the clock. Sometimes it ticks backwards. I used to play video games, old familiar ones, because they required little effort, but I became bored with them and have not the will power to devote any time to new ones. Now the old ones are in the loft and I can't be bothered to retrieve them. Sometimes I sit staring at a computer screen; at my inbox usually, waiting for an e-mail, even if it's junk. When I have the money (more often when I don't) I buy books on Amazon or Abebooks; books I have no intention of reading or, if I do, I get bored with. I try to watch television but only University Challenge is worth watching these days, and that takes up half an hour on a Monday. Anything else is just boring or distasteful. I don't ever go out, unless constrained to by my parents, and if I need something I wait until it's dark. That way I don't need to take any care over my appearance. I don't ever cook, partly because I can't but mostly because I can't be bothered, so I live on take outs. The sum total of my life is an unbroken series of dull routines; I wake up, do something untoward out of habit and then curse the fact that I am queer, make some tea; breakfast would be nice if there was anything worth eating (I can't eat those mass-produced loaves that seem to last weeks and never go stale); just sit around all day passing the time; get as drunk as possible on no money (I never go to pubs) in the evening, and then collapse onto my bed and go to sleep, repeating the same routine the next day and the next until, God willing, I die an untimely death.

Yesterday I asked my mother, having told her what "they" said about me, whether the psychiatric profession is worthwhile. To my surprise she said that it is. "Why?" "Well," she said: "some people in life need help because they're very negative. You're very negative, Patrick."

Maybe I just can't concentrate?

An e-mail...

Dear Fr Ray,

We've never met but I saw you at Fr Tim Finigan's silver jubilee mass in 2009 and we both know Mr Malcolm Kemp who, I understand, plays the organ at St Mary Magdalene at times.

Please forgive the unsolicited e-mail (I obtained the address from your parish website) but you wrote a post mentioning Luther and the bibelregal recently, in which you called the German doctor of the church a "wicked anti-Semite" with "bowel problems." I wonder if you attributed Luther's wickedness (I don't personally consider him to have been particularly wicked, just tortured and given to invective) to his bowel problems and not his anti-Semitism, founded in his long study of the scriptures and church history? Because if the reverse is true then you might find Luther in the company of many illustrious popes and monarchs who either expelled the Jews from their realms altogether or restricted their activities and freedom to read the poisonous Talmud.

I would also ask if, as a traditionalist, you might agree with my view that Nostra Aetate is an heretical document that contradicts two thousand years of Christian teaching about the Jews?

Best regards,

Patrick Sheridan

I can't say I'm surprised that I received no reply. This is just the sort of shabby treatment I got from the people at Rorate Caeli and the New Liturgical Movement. Just another sanctimonious priest who, in typically liberal fashion, considers himself and his novel views superior to goodly churchmen from times past.

More blasphemy...

The late cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were not the only ones capable of blasphemy. You may be aware that since I gave my old Spanish crucifix away I have been searching, without success, for a worthy replacement. Well, I was horrified to discover this monstrosity on eBay. The implications of this are worthy of a thousand anathemas! But I'm afraid the depressing thing is that there are ignorant people out there who would buy it and use it in their devotions.

What have I always said about ill informed pieties? Not only a waste of time but demonstrably given even to blasphemy!

Let the people sing!

The divine Evelyn Laye singing Let the people sing by Noel Gay. The lyrics are easy to remember. I tend to hum it on the way to town. As the Exeter Book says: "less doth yearning trouble him who knoweth may songs. His possession is his gift of glee, which God gave him."

Political Correctness...

It's a term that gets bandied about a lot. When disenchanted common folk say things like "it's political correctness gone mad," you know, when a man is prosecuted for selling a pound of bananas or if they find the sight of hordes of women in Oxford Street dressed head to foot in black burkas and walking a few paces behind their husbands objectionable, the liberal elite object that everybody complains about a concept that nobody seems to understand, or if they do (we all do) that nobody is able to define it in a way that seems politically tenable. So what is political correctness? Is it just a reaction felt by people? Is it the sullen fear of a man who finds that he is unable to speak his mind for fear of reprisal in an allegedly free society? I work for a bank that takes pride in its advanced "culture" of multiculturalism, an anti-culture so advanced that a particularly inept African woman is completely immune from disciplinary action because for the bank to criticise her in any way, shape or form would instantly incur the charge of racism. In fact, I have heard this woman say to someone: "you're just saying that because I'm black." There are two ways of answering this: either you say nothing and concede defeat. The African woman does, after all, live in a society that protects her interests over the interests of the British people - and doesn't she know it! Or, you can challenge her and face the possibility of dismissal. It's a tough decision in the modern world, where length of service means nothing and conformity to the new secular philosophy means everything.

That's just one example. There are countless others. I am still, however, no nearer to defining what political correctness is. So far I have illustrated by example only the intimidation people feel in the knowledge that to be a white male Christian puts you at a profound disadvantage. I suppose by implication that if you're a black, Muslim, one-legged lesbian, ticking off the criteria for ethnic and religious minority and being a "handicapable," female homosexual, the world is your oyster! But what kind of pathetic, craven and corrupt system is this! I am outraged to live in a country that hates its own people. This arbitrary system of prioritising ethnic and religious minorities according to which has been the most historically maligned is what is one of the principle evils of our time. I suppose this is why we have gay rights marches and sporting events for disabled people. Our want-of-culture seems to revel in whatever handicap you can name. That to be white, male and Christian is a serious handicap for me and my friends and family is of no consequence.