love an adventure

Harnesses are really what it’s all about. Harnesses, hairnets and harassment. I harness up before I go out the door: the various packs and baggagings strapped to any aperture or extremity I can find across my ancient, craggy, creviced and stentorian form. Hairnets: well, of course. I made a promise to mother – and she made a promise to me that I was going to keep it, on pain of mutilation (she who hasn’t stood in the corner with the word ‘dunce’ scratched across her forehead with mummy’s best chisel hasn’t stood for much) – that I would never cut my hair, and naturally I have kept my side of the bargain. The resultant folliclage weighs eleven times as much as me; sometimes I must say I feel like that little acorn at the end of the carrot bush. It needs a net not just to keep it all in, but also to keep others out: rats, cats, bats and all the other hair thieves whose eyes are specially trained to find and steal beauty. And harassment? Yes, and harassment. Harassment of that codger Old Rogers who needs to get my harnesses and hairnets and of course the hamper of tuck and the horse to haul the heavage of things we need to get us there. He won’t grumble – oh no, he’s too devious – but he will insist on being methodical and persistent in the most irritatingly capable way which makes one sigh with exasperation. ‘Old Rogers,’ I will snark, ‘must you be so competent?’

‘Ay, ma’am,’ he will respond, ‘beggin’ yer parden, it’s a quirk I can’t over… over… ‘ow you say, overcome.’

‘Well it certainly leaves little for me to do,’ I respond, ‘except complain.’

‘And that, m’lady, is what meks the worl’ go roun’,’ Rogers will observe. ‘Each doin’ what ‘e or she do best.’ (He’s not being sarcastic: the fool doesn’t have it in him any more than I could notice the implicit criticism).

Such is the quality palaver whenever the Lax entourage hits the road. I often wish we had some amanuenses to write down the banter that goes on between us, but fortunately it was all scripted by a special bard in the year of our respective births, and all we have to do is read off pages.

One thing that isn’t scripted is my trip to the stables prior to any journey to select a steed. I knew we were planning a foray to cold and miserable climes, so I was looking for the furriest and most plush of our equinities, something I could snuggle up against in a snowstorm. Our stablemaster is a comedy Italian, Old Badgers, with one of those corkscrew moustaches and a latin temperament. When I got there he was romancing a gondola with a bottle of vino. ‘Wotcher, M’lydy,’ he greeted me, ‘by which Oi mean, arrivederci.’

‘Oh, Badgers,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t understand your woggy talk. I suppose you are trying to say something flattering to me.’

‘No doubt, ma’am!’ he tittered. ‘I am arrivederci.’

‘I wish to select the warmest horse in your stable,’ I went on, acting out the international sign language words for ‘I’ (pointing to the eye), ‘wish’ (producing a wishbone), ‘to’ (holding up two fingers), ‘select’ (producing a copy of the 1980s-90s British music magazine Record Mirror… no, that’s not it… Select), ‘the’ (a French cup of tea), ‘warmest’ (electric blanket, on for an hour) ‘horse’ (a syringe full of heroin), ‘in’ (something in something else, in this case, a finger in a nose), ‘your’ (something from the days of yore – in this case, my birth certificate), ‘stable’ (a table, with a large ‘S’ placed in front of it, and a sign on the same end of the table indicating this is the front of the table).

‘Zo-a,’ said Badgers in his inimitable style which I am imitating so well, ‘you-a wanna da junkie coffee shop is it?’

Somewhere off to the left I thought I could hear audience laughter, or perhaps it was the sea.

Eventually (or, as Badgers would have it, ‘coupla days’) we sorted out the issues. I was to take Damson, the noble stallipony with a wild nylon mane, and Rogers would get Tamsin, a strong and handsome donk with one silver horn. We would show the locals when we rode into town. Who knows, with fine rides like these, we might even find ourselves dispensing some justice!

There we were, Old Rogers and myself, and the fine horseflesh between our thighs. It was a crisp, clear morning or, as Rogers would say, mornin’. The mist was being pumped surreptitiously from small tubes behind the heather. The dew glistened on toads as they leapt thro’ the valley. Atop a mountain I could see a crofter burning his possessions for warmth. A solitary eagle flew o’er, not that solitary as she had another smaller eagle in her talons. All was still and silent, except for Old Rogers’ wheezing.

‘Old Rogers,’ I said. ‘You’re ruining the moment with your breathing.’

‘Ay, ma’am’ quoth Rogers, and he bestilled. Yet still there was a perturbing growling sound.

‘Sounds like someone squashing a horse,’ I mused. ‘Rogers, I think you’re squashing your horse. Get off.’ He did. I got off mine too, just for symmetry.

Still the groaning noise. And it was getting louder.

‘It’s a demon,’ said Old Rogers, always quick to assume something is a demon.

‘No… it sounds mechanical-a’ said Old Badgers.

Before we knew it, it was upon us. A colossal black motored-cycle, all chromium and exhaustedness. And behind it that sat that squalid scrawny upstart Young Rogers, fringed jacket, mirror shades and stacked platforms. ‘Wotcha peeps,’ he yelled above the roar of Old Rogers’ resumed wheezing. ‘Ders ex masheena. Only comin’ wiv ya, en’t I?’

‘You?’ I gasped. ‘Most unprecedented, really…’

‘It’s a project, ma’am,’ he cheerily outlined, ‘with no great justification’.

Who could argue with that?

easter thoughts

Spare a thought for Jesus, who either died or was born on this very day, 2010 years ago. God gave us this gentle, wise soul who rose from the dead so we could be aware of our own possibilities and potential to also similarly rise from that same dead. Jesus was uncategoriseable: you couldn't call him a socialist, a hippie or a jew, and you certainly couldn't call him a peacenik. He was just a man, and also, a superstar.

I often think about Jesus on this, his day of birth or death I can never remember, and consider what he might think if he came to Earth now. He'd go on all the talk shows, he'd probably have a blog! And he'd certainly have a thing or two to say about child obesity and compulsory army service. I hope he'd clear up that thing about the Shroud of Turin too, it really intrigues me!

One thing I do know about Jesus: he would vote conservative, urge you to make a lot of money and to oppress the poor, as that makes them more likely to go to Heaven. Since you are then the reason they are going to Heaven, your cruelty is actually altruism and you, too, can go to Heaven. Listen to Jesus and do as he says.

Ask Grace Lax - Netiquette Advice

She is as old as the hills but twice as wise. She has many answers, many of them on-topic. Ask Grace Lax for advice ... and see where it gets you!

Dear Mrs Lax,

Isn't 'netiquette' hilarious?! Like, I don't wanna know what you did first thing in the morning or that you're hungover, right? So we were put in the same grade in primary school... So whattt? It's lame! I'm cutting back from nine hours a day online to seven.

Fay Spook, Faburnum

Dear Fay,

Yes - I, too, signed up for Facebook. You will find me there if you ever want to chat or if you would like me to help you find a home for a lonely calf. I am sure I have no idea what it all means, as I am just a nice old lady and I can't even send a fax to my toaster. I'm just there to cyberstalk my servants and keep in touch with my many fans.  But, mainly, the cyberstalking. 

Mrs Grace Lax, OBE

This blog is reproduced courtesy of The Big Issue.

Ask Grace Lax - relationship advice

Dear Mrs Lax,

I have been going out with the same boy for 17 years nows and every time I see him I am hoping he will pop the question. Instead, all he does is continually ask me, in his stupid man's voice, to marry him. How can I get him to pop it?

Tina Purvis, Mentone

Dear Tina,

If there is one thing I know, it's two things, which in turn know two things and so on, exponentially allowing me to know everything. I realise that doesn't answer your question, but I thought you should be told. Well. You want pops. Have you ever thought perhaps this young man was just not the popper partner for you? He does not seem to be acting poppily, and perhaps there's a reason he's not poperating to his full poptential. Personally, I'd cut my losses and marry him. After all, as far as God's concerned, if you mention yourself in the same sentence as someone else of the popposite sex, you are pretty much already married. That's why writing was invented. Not many people know that.

Mrs Grace Lax, OBE. 

This blog is reproduced courtesy of The Big Issue.

john lennon we hardly knew you

I knew John Lennon in the early days in Liverpool. I was his headmistress at Chive High, as well as running the tuck shop, and he was often sent to me for chastisement. I was nearing retirement at that time (it was 1958) and he was soon to leave the school for pastures unknown.

I remember once I had to tell him off for putting a runny pudding in the geography teacher’s sandals, which of course failed to hold any of the mess which of course spilled out onto the geography teaching room floor of course. ‘John, John’ I sighed. ‘What are we to do with you?’ He was typically brusque, declaring it made no difference to owt.

I continued to detail his crimes. ‘You drink in class, you have no respect for school camping equipment, and your arse is spongey,’ I said.

‘’Ere, you nutter,’ he then outcried, ‘I don’t mind what you care about.’ There followed some hours of caning – him, by me.

‘I know you have a propensity towards visual art,’ I squeemed, ‘and you are always making us laugh with your mangled, goon-like language in the local rag. Perhaps you could put these two together, then leave the school and never come back?’

My constructivity seemed to be both surprising and refreshing to John, who quickly agreed this was a fine solution. He was wearing a chinese worker’s cap, as I recall, and had just impregnated his soon-to-be wife, Cynthia, a few hours earlier (their son, Julian, would not be born for four years: such was the British talent, perfected during wartime, for holding it in. ‘It’ being a fetus).

He left and never came back: later that afternoon, he wrote one of his best loved songs, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ which I often think was somehow connected to our little conversation. And no, it wasn’t yellow matter custard!

daddy, we hardly remember you

Had my dear father lived, he would have been 200 years old this very day. He was a charming fellow, all laughs and toffees, until it all went sour, about 1830. Here is a beautiful picture of him by Whistler, who was a pal at Cambridge (tea rooms):

As you can see, he was given a fright while the picture was being painted. But I really think this portrait captures his eyes (shifty blue) and his moustache (though it was properly captured by the Royal Society in 1922, having got away from Daddy himself the previous year while he was swimming in the London Aquarium).

As a boy, he was a marvellous inventor - the Joe Meek of his day, really, including the murder but not the suicide. He invented stereo, but could never quite eliminate the slobber aspect. Here he is demonstrating a prototype while standing on the balance knob.

In 1878 he married Mummy, a rare beauty, though curiously as I was looking through my old albums I could only find pictures of her as a ghost:

Broken by his cruel and unhappy marriage and the unfortunate birth of myself, who took all their time by being too brilliant for a mere two parents to manage, Daddy ended his life as a ruin. Always appropriate in everything he did, he made sure to also live in a ruin:

He lived on the third floor, so as you can see it wasn't a very cheery arrangement. He died alone and friendless in 1957. I prefer to remember him in his heyday: the parties, the drinking, the feather dusters, the STDs. Men knew about balls in those days! And so did women.

journey to the outer islands - XOXOIIII

Let me draw a veil on what next transpired, dear reader. I know you have followed this story long and ardently in the hope that Old Rogers and I would ‘get together’ in the end, like some kind of Sculder and a sort of Mully. Well, as the poor people have so often said, it ain’t goanna happen. Indeed, I am afraid you have somewhat been the victim so to speak of non-canonical Grace and Rogers fanfiction, and the ending of the story contains both Buffy and Tom of Finland. I hope you like it. When I find it. I think it is possible that I accidentally typed the last few pages on greaseproof paper and then used it to turn out some cupcakes on. At least, I am sure the cakes we had last night were covered in some sort of queer porn, and I remember quizzing Cook about it. She said dildo or dildon’t it was all the same to her, which maden’t sense to me, and I’m a woman of the world. Which reminds me, have I ever told you about the time I went to the Outer Isles?

You see, every year, ever since I was a gel (short for gelding) the Laxes have travelled to survey their kelprote – that’s right, it’s a key ingredient in emprote, and much better for you and even tastier than the final product, but what can you do? - properties at the ripe snout of the known world, the Outer Islands. The enormous riches I generate from my property, fat deposits, the three wishes I got where one of them was that I had all the money I ever wanted, and Grace Lax scare-the-children-into-goodness posters are not, you see, sufficient for me to retain my all-important status as a rich person, so it behoves me to run other greenhouse gaseous enterprises elsewhere wherever possible. Just as my readers are dependent on me for instruction, I find it most appropriate to run industries in remote places where I can extort maximum kelp from people with poor union representation; it works so well, frankly, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t do it.

To be continued if and whenever, though possibly not.