Irrelevant Reverence – St Roch And His Dog

Posted: March 19, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In times past, my writing has been referred to as “irreverent” and this infuriates me.

My writing is not irreverent.

It is IRRELEVANT.

And that matters.

As follows are some other statements of things that matter.

Testosterone is qualifying.

Flying liquid is frighteningly free.

And capitalism is sexier.

Decreasingly important to people however, is faith (bear with me; even if you’re not a bear).

I’ve been toying with the idea of Catholicism. Not that I wish to be a part of the family of utter horrors for much of Europe’s history, but rather more because I do enjoy the pageantry.

Nice outfits.

Hats that have forever out-done their protestant competition (a protestant hat might be more suitable for a job interview though).

‘Carnal sin’ (the good kind) and ‘Cardinal purple’ both outstrip (literally) the Protestants’ ‘Stop smiling!’.

There is something very assured and cool in the gaze of a senior catholic priest that suggests: “You know all that fucked up shit outside the cathedral door? That was us.”

My dog and I walk one another when either of us is in the mood and is prepared to do what they’re bloody-well-told by the other.

We walk through orchard and bramble, flushing out the rabbits and restraining one another from giving chase because that would just count as snacking before our evening meal.

It was on one of these dashes that I saw a glare of silver in the mud, and stooped to examine.

The shimmer was a saint, Saint Roch, winking at me with his knee exposed; as sultry as you like.

“Pray for us, Saint Roch, Italy”, said the small pendant, likely inadvertently dropped by one of the European pickers in the orchard.

A man flashing me with his knee, whilst his own dog watched on irresponsibly, had been found in the orchard and I could not leave it there, nor at that.

So I pocketed St Roch, and took him home for a bath.

A little further research disclosed much about the canonised fellow, chiefly that he apparently posed for many a painting with his trademark sultry pose of leaning on his staff, hoisting his lower robing to reveal the revelation of a rather smashing knee.

And a dog.

Still further research unveiled that St Roch is a patron saint of many other reasons I wish to become Catholic.

Knee wounds.

Dogs.

The falsely accused.

Bachelors (as he lifts his robe to share his knee with me, I always imagine him saying “Hmm. A bachelor hmm?” I wish I didn’t).

Istanbul.

Surgeons.

And many more.

The dog as it turned out, favoured St Roch during his plague days by bringing him bread (not the Jesus-body kind), therein earning him the title “Good boy”.

At some point there was a baker, burgled by a dog soon to be immortalised as the saviour of a saint, but that just doesn’t put money in the till, particularly during paltry plague times.

According to the Golden Legend, a compendium of these stories, this same dog licked St Roch’s unfortunate knee wounds, undoubtedly adding just that little bit of extra flavour to the pilfered loaf.

His popularity and legend caused Roch a sainthood, a brotherhood, a mass following, and before all of these, his death by starvation in a jail cell. I presume dogs were not permitted visits. Nor were loaves.

And I found him in the mud of my local orchard.

I don’t know how regularly he is idolised these days, particularly considering the lack of truly species-ending plague that we used to handle so poorly, in addition to the fact that those with knee problems are unlikely to bend onto them to begin praying.

Perhaps St Roch is making the underdog (sans bread) come back – ala St Rocky of Philadelphia?

I’m not a Godly person, but perhaps it’ll help to worship something I feel sorry for, such as St Roch and his dog. I could end each dedicated prayer with “Awwwwmen”, but then again my knees are dandy and I’m not a bachelor, though I do pity diseased cattle.

I just feel I need some religion in my life.

Not spirituality though, because that amounts to an unseemly mix of both being haunted and bullshit, and I’ve no time in my day for either.

I need religion, a quiet place to be, a solemn thought to think, a good thing to remember, and preferably a view.

I need a saint, someone in the ‘something’ category of people that I can send good wishes to. Although, unlike the archetypal prayer maker, I don’t really want for anything, nor doing I fear eternal damnation as I’m already a Crystal Palace fan. Therefore, it would be nice to send a prayer to someone, such as St Roch, just to check in on them and see how they’re doing for a change.

Do they need anything? What have they been up to recently? Did they catch the match (bloody Palace)?

All before signing-off with the aforementioned “Awwwwmen” and then returning back to Earth with a sense of civic saintly duty done, and hopefully with less diseased cattle (if you ever find yourself with cattle, now you’ve got something to hope they’re not).

And that’s why I’ve really brought you here today; pity.

Have a little pity and give an irrelevant writer with an irrelevant saint a break and give us both a Like and a Follow. Just think of that poor little dog, unable to woof properly owing to being corked with bread, just wanting you to Like and Follow the Lateral Column.

Awwwmen.

Sam

Sometimes All You Need Is Something To Say

Posted: March 12, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sometimes all you need is something to say

And whilst I may be without a thing to say, I’ve got plenty to write about.

I just need to remember.

I’d love to escape from prison; I just need a crime to be sent down for long enough for, preferably in the 1930s.

Naturally I don’t want to hurt anyone, nor take things that don’t belong to me, as I really am quite pleasant upon first impressions (just don’t meet me twice).

Maybe sedition?

Or parking tickets?

Its time like this I wish I was in the USA, able to commit some devastatingly trivial infraction that would escalate to a prison sentence upon crossing state lines.

Smuggling.

I would love to be imprisoned for smuggling, or piracy, so long as I could ensure a positive working environment with equal opportunities for the all (not just the physically impaired – who I presume are the majority on a pirate boat. I’ll be calling it a ‘boat’ rather than a ‘ship’ by the way, as I know this will irk some and I want to give a fair chance to those that don’t get to meet me twice).

I’m a Man of Kent, owing to having been born East of the Medway river in Kent, thus giving me a fair grounding in the history of my county. And it turns out Kent is a county of hop-pickers and smugglers, both historically enjoying one another just fine.

I could pick a hop, and I could pick it well, but I doubt I’d get to enjoy the thrill of being chased along the estuary, whilst the orchards are a place for high-speed fuck-alls. Orchards a are place where even hurrying takes most of the afternoon.

So smuggling it is.

No smuggling of people though, as smuggling people is immoral and dangerous, as well as a crowded market at the moment – the number of Brits looking to make a get-away buoyant on a sturdy enough inheritance of the family turd to float their way through the sewers and away to the continent; is simply silly, as well as intricately silly too.

I’ll have to smuggle something noble, like medical supplies, or knights.

Which knight of the realm would be best to smuggle to the continent?

Sir John Major deserves something nice to happen to him, providing the canoe is broad enough.

Sir Michael Caine and Sir Lenny Henry could do with a voyage to the mainland, though I have to admit I’m struggling to name knights at this point and wouldn’t want to tell these chaps they were only invited because I couldn’t think of more noble folk.

They’d still have to pay-up, of course, I’m not providing free rides here; I am a smuggler after all. But what fee for a canoe ride to Europe?

Some sort of pardon for doing it in the first place seems a worthy price for such a crime. A nice written pardon, quilled onto parchment (not one of those tacky plastic ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ cards), that absolves me of whatever you’re talking to me about. The sort of parchment you can really waggle in a coastguard’s face. I appreciate already that there is peril in this becoming soggy in my working environment, but that makes it all the more of a pleasure to waggle.

I think Sir Major and Sir Henry would keep my pardon safe, not sure about Sir Caine though, and I can imagine him getting all upset about having let me down and worried I’ll ditch him mid-Channel.

To be honest, all three of those knights seem particularly ‘overboardable’, not that to criticise them, I just picture them tipping backwards and hearing the splash – they’d all make a good one, and would be a good way to loose passenger weight for the get-away.

Each of those knights is a notable amount of weight to lose. To be able to say: “I’ve lost almost Sir John Major in weight since January” is good for your health (presuming you were massive to begin with) and good for your smuggling career (presuming you’ve been undergoing a getaway since January).

I could ditch them all, irrelevant as to their clutching of my pardon parchment, particularly considering that my main aim was to be imprisoned in the first place.

Presuming imprisonment, I’ll just need it to the 1930s so I can go about this properly in a grown up fashion.

So, naturally we’re talking about time travel (I say “naturally” as though it’s still fashionable. Isn’t it? Could one travel through time to a time when time travel was still fashionable? If so, why aren’t we all there? Could it be that time travel is simply dorky? I think…yes. Napoleon, Jimi Hendrix, and Joan of Arc in the year 3000 are all dorks.)

And frankly I’d prefer not to, so will save the 1930s prison breakout for another time.

To end, upon checking, I do have something to write about, and you’re just lucky you weren’t reading this, because I went with what I had – you had better options. ‘Moby Dick’ for one.

I’ve written about smuggling knights into Europe in reward for a pardon for that very crime, in the hope of being imprisoned anyway in the 1930s, and all the while you were distinctly not reading Moby Dick and elected to read my words instead.

Pride and Prejudice too – something else you could have read instead of this.

Sir Billy Connolly; there’s another knight.

Nice one.

Sam