Tuesday, December 10th
The same happens at this time every year: Cook and Jethro come to me and ask for permission to put up Christmas decorations, and they get the same reply every year: they can decorate their own living quarters, and Cook can also decorate the kitchen, but everything will be subject to inspection for fire safety, hazards etc. (I long ago had to relinquish inspections for any affronts to good taste; I know a lost cause when I come across one.) The embargo remains as regards any kind of decorations or, worse, coloured lights being visible from the public highway or from aircraft flying overhead. I have my standards.
Melissa telephoned. She wanted to know if she could help to trim the Christmas tree. What Christmas tree? Has she forgotten who I am? It turned out to be of no consequence to me, because she meant Cook’s tree, when she gets it, in Cook’s sitting room. Bloody hell.
All of that, just after breakfast, probably contributed to why for the rest of the day I couldn’t be arsed. Read some Darwin, and some Rabelais, and then carried on not being arsed, and cracked open a bottle of plonk much too early.
Thursday, December 12th
Melissa telephoned. Cook took the call, because I knew it would be of no consequence and I still couldn’t be arsed.
Fortunately I don’t allow unwillingness to be arsed to interrupt my self-indulging pleasures, which my diary already knows currently include a slow and steady re-reading of Elizabeth Bishop. Today I happened to notice how, in her poem “Brazil, January 1, 1502” she has the lines
The rocks are worked with lichens, gray moon bursts
splattered and overlapping
which, although the poems were originally in different books, in the “Collected” comes but a few pages after the wonderful “The Shampoo”, which has
The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading gray, concentric shocks.
Of course, most people don’t get that it’s OK to repeat yourself a bit if you’re a genius.
Monday, December 16th
Quote of the day:
My works shall propagate my fame,
To distant realms and climes unknown,
Nations shall celebrate my name . . .
It’s Horace, courtesy of Samuel Johnson.
Melissa telephoned. She said there’s a van going round with cut-price Christmas puddings available out of its rear doors. I passed her on to Cook, with a warning that one doesn’t take chances with Christmas puddings, which are sacred and of significant consequence.
Wednesday, December 18th
Jethro has asked if we have enough alcohol on the premises for the Christmas period. As usual, he expects to be drinking all the time, mainly at my expense. Cook will join him in what she thinks is on the quiet,. I’m not a Scrooge, and allow them some leeway. It is, after all, only once a year.
Melissa telephoned. She says there’s a van going around with a bloke selling cheap Scotch out the back. Apparently it might not be very good Scotch, or not Scotch at all. I already knew about it, because it stopped by this morning, and I had an entertaining conversation with the booze vendor, and told him I would buy a case of the stuff if he let me have a taste. He declined, saying he couldn’t afford to open bottles for free tastings. I told him word was going around that the stuff he was flogging was goat piss. It’s certainly the right colour. He wasn’t happy, and left rather abruptly. It’s of no consequence.
Algernon Tenderloin has dropped off some of his “December poem sequence” for me to have a look at. Unsurprisingly it’s all quite boring. I could quote some of it, but I don’t want to depress myself by copying out the words. It might feel like I was writing his poem, and I might never recover.
Saturday, December 21st
Cook has checked with me her list of final provisions we need for a jovial festive period, prior to Jethro taking her shopping. It was of negligible consequence and interest so I gave it only a cursory glance; we always have enough stuff in store, and could usually feed a boat-load of refugees should they happen to drift by.
Melissa telephoned. She thanked me for my Christmas card. I delegate all that kind of thing to Cook, but take the credit.
Tuesday, December 24th
Christmas Eve, a good day for keeping one’s head well and truly down. If you pop up and look over the parapet there are sure to be consequences.
Dipped into an old copy of Sartre’s “Nausea”, which I haven’t read for about 100 years and which struck me as potentially supremely ironic Christmas reading. But a few pages in I dropped the idea. I mean, it’s depressing, and I know what its point is. Life’s dreary enough, thanks very much.
Wednesday, December 25th
Dear Diary, I don’t know what you expect on Christmas Day apart from the obvious. I woke up early to see if Father Christmas had been and he hadn’t so I went to the toilet and then went back to bed and slept a couple more hours. When I woke I looked to see if Father Christmas had been and he had so with delight I spent 5 minutes opening all my presents. There was nothing there that I really wanted – no Lego, no Jennings books, no girlfriend, so I went downstairs and had breakfast. My traditional Christmas breakfast is devilled kidneys followed by haddock followed by a full English followed by porridge followed by lots of coffee. As soon as breakfast was finished I had Christmas lunch: mince pies, mulled wine, more mince pies, then more mulled wine. As soon as Christmas lunch was finished it was time for the King’s speech, so I turned on the wireless and we gathered round, I the master, Cook and Jethro. I fell asleep and didn’t hear what His Majesty said but Cook said it was very majestic. After the King’s speech Cook repaired to the kitchen to finish preparing the traditional festive Christmas dinner. When it was ready I tucked in. I think it was a turkey though it might have been a goose or an ostrich, I couldn’t tell and didn’t care, but it was very nice. I had lots of good plonk with it and when I was finished I had Christmas pudding which had been soaked in brandy and set on fire and when the fire was out I had lots of that with cream then I had some coffee then I sprawled on the couch and fell asleep for the next three or four hours. It was all of no consequence at all and happens every year.
Melissa telephoned. The phone has been unplugged and put outside for the day, so that was futile.
When I woke up it was just in time to have traditional Christmas supper which was a cold turkey sandwich and some mince pies then some more wine followed by some brandy after which I climbed wooden hill and fell into bed and imagined writing this diary entry, and I shall check and see if it’s there when I wake up in the morning.
Thursday, December 26th
Boxing Day, which means the traditional boxing match in the backyard between Jethro and Cook. The rules as usual are that the winner is the first one to land anything resembling a punch. After 25 minutes the rules were amended to say that the winner was the first person to actually touch their opponent. After another 30 minutes Cook was declared the winner by dint of the fact she’d covered more distance than Jethro. It’s of little consequence, but will go in the record book all the same.
Melissa telephoned. Cook told her all about her boxing triumph.
Tuesday, December 31st
‘Tis the end of the year, and what have I done? I try not to be reflective at this time, because it feels like a cliché, but one can’t help thinking back, and thinking back I realize I’ve not done much that will go down in the history books. But that’s fine, because I realize also that I don’t give a damn. I’ve written some decent stuff, thrown away more, and all of it has been of little consequence, unreal for the most part, while I kept relatively healthy and almost sane. Should I strive for more in the coming twelve months? I don’t see why I should. I’ve had my adventures, and some peace and comfort and relative tranquillity will be good enough, thank you very much.
Melissa telephoned. She wished us all a HAPPY NEW YEAR in capital letters, which I would have found dreadfully annoying if I’d taken the call – but Cook took it, even though it meant waking her up from her after-lunch nap.
Wednesday, January 1st
Algernon Tenderloin dropped by. I have no idea why he would feel the need to bless me with his company on the first day of the year. Perhaps it’s an omen for what’s to come, and not a good one. I had no choice but to invite him in for a cup of coffee, but invented other pressing social commitments so I could get rid of him fairly soon. He crapped on about his poetic plans, as usual, but I didn’t really listen.
Cook did a very nice mix of roast chicken and roasted sweet potato for supper. She said she was feeling adventurous.
Melissa telephoned. She said she’s made a New Year resolution to the effect that she won’t be telephoning every day because it’s occurred to her that we might be finding it a bit annoying. Might be!
For my own part, I’ve made just the one resolution. It’s to recognize that not everything is of less than negligible, negligible, no, or some little consequence, and to stop repeating myself. Oh, that’s two resolutions, which is more than I usually make, and two more than I usually keep. I think so, anyway. Happy New Year to me!
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James Henderson (Gentleman)
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