The imaginary crime report from Britain

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A couple of dog walkers in Chapel St. Leonards (population 3,431, in case it seems relevant) called the police to report a mass killing a week or so back. They’d passed a cafe, looked in the windows, and saw people lying on the floor, laid out on their backs and unmoving, eyes closed, covered with blankets.

Ritual mass murder, they decided–as anyone would–and got out their phones. Five cop cars converged on the cafe, lights flashing, and all the inhabitants rushed to their windows to see what was happening.

It turned out to be a yoga class doing a relaxation. 

The perpetrators of the good deed have been sentenced to two months with no TV. 

Irrelevant photo: Trethevy Quoit

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In Wales, someone has been snatching the trail-marking posts that tell walkers which way they need to go, leaving to wander off into who knows what swamp and raising questions about why the sign snatcher’s going to all the trouble of digging the posts up instead of just wrecking them where they stand, as any sensible citizen would.

I think I can explain, though: When I was a kid, having a fallout shelter sign (or the occasional street sign) in your bedroom was the height of cool, so I can’t help thinking some teenager’s bedroom is full of the things. 

In defense of my generation, the fallout shelters would have offered no protection and we all knew it, so who cared if you couldn’t find one when the apocalypse came? The signposts, on the other hand, really do make a difference. Kind of like, um, yeah, those street signs my friends (I was too much of a coward) stole so lightheartedly.

 

Lawbreaking animals

On a slightly different note (I’ve had one of those weeks, and anyone expecting coherence won’t be happy), two deer–horns and all–wandered into the hospital in Plymouth and ran around the maternity unit corridors until they got a look at the babies, saw that they were pitifully furless and couldn’t be theirs, and left in disgust. 

Okay, nobody’s saying how the hospital convinced them to leave, and in various versions of the story they trotted through the corridors and galloped through the corridors. The hospital’s own statement makes a point of saying that the cleaning staff sanitized the place and that the deer never came into contact with patients, and really, folks, it’s all okay but would everybody please keep the outside doors closed and not feed the deer, because none of them have any medical training whatsoever. 

 

And now to something that’s completely legal

The cosmetics chain Lush got £5.1 million in tax relief from the UK government last year, recorded a 90% drop in profits, and paid its managers £5 million in bonuses.

 

The extreme recycling report

Australian engineers have found a way to recycle coffee grounds into concrete, which could be used in walkways and pavements, decreasing the amount of sand used in construction and helping to build the city that never sleeps.

 

Enough of that. Let’s go out on a note of patriotic fervor

On the last night of the proms–

Hang on. I need to explain that for readers who aren’t British. The proms are concerts that run from July through September. They started in 1895 as Promenade Concerts in parks. In 1927, the BBC got into the act, and today they’re a big deal (and not in parks), and on the last night, in addition to whatever else is on the program, they play a bunch of patriotic stuff. You know, “God Save the [insert monarch of the appropriate sex or gender],” “Jerusalem,” “Rule Britannia.” 

There’s been a predictable flap in recent years about which songs can survive a modern sensibility, what with all that celebration of empire, and how many people of modern sensibility can survive the full range of patriotic songs. 

In 2020, “Rule Britannia” and “Land of Hope and Glory” were going to be played but without lyrics, but after the predictable outrage the BBC backed down and they were sung, word by painful word. 

Traditionally, people wave British flags and sing along when “Rule Britannia” is played. This year, though, a whole lot of people waved European Union flags instead, getting up the noses of patriotic Brexiters. Let’s take a Conservative former Member of Parliament as typical (if a bit more visible than average) when he called for the BBC to investigate how so many EU flags were smuggled into the hall (in small boats, no doubt), “messing up a British tradition” and making a political gesture at an apolitical event. 

Or as the Daily Telegraph put it, “‘Rule Britannia’ represents freedom.” (And, if added, “sovereignty and self-determination, all absent in the European Union.”)

So what does this apolitical song about freedom have to say?

“Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves. / Britons never, never, never shall be slaves,” although it’s apparently okay if other people are. “The nations, not so blest as thee / Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall / While thou shalt flourish great and free: The dread and envy of them all.”

Make that the apolitical and freedom-loving dread. 

It’s funny how apolitical a person’s own opinions seem and how screamingly political a gesture from an opposing one is.

William Blake’s “Jerusalem,” on the other hand, is haunting and beautiful. And ambiguous enough that I still don’t understand how anyone, hearing the same words as I do, reads it as a straightforward patriotic footstomper.

 

Jerusalem 

And did those feet in ancient time                                                                                            Walk upon England’s mountains green:                                                                           

And was the holy Lamb of God,                                                                                                  On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

 And did the Countenance Divine,                                                                                           Shine forth upon our clouded hills?                                                                                           And was Jerusalem builded here,                                                                                       Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:                                                                                           Bring me my arrows of desire:                                                                                               Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!                                                                                    Bring me my Chariot of fire! 

I will not cease from Mental Fight,                                                                                              Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:                                                                                        Till we have built Jerusalem,                                                                                                         In England’s green & pleasant Land.

If you want the music (in a very non-proms version), you’ll find it here.


			


	



						

	
	
			

			31 thoughts on “The imaginary crime report from Britain”		


		
		
    
					
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      I love it with harmonies and a full range of voices, but I didn’t have a lot of time to listen to various versions and didn’t want one that made it into something overformal, so I grabbed this one off the shelf. I’m glad you liked it. I did tool
      

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    Some laughs, some sober reflections…. 
    

    What is “patriotism” slips easily into chauvinism, I fear. The Blake poem and song are fine and point to a better place, something everyone wants in the country, I hope. 
    

    The EU flags was a nice touch, a balancing out in a post-referendum world there where barely a majority ended a relationship that, arguably, did have some benefits, and, arguably, now has some complications that could end the UK as we know it since all components didn’t approve of the change. 
    

    Oh well! The flag of England is easier for school children to draw than the flag of the UK. And that of Scotland, too, though where will Northern Ireland sort out, and isn’t the flag of Wales too cool?
    

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      Hmm, I’d have sworn I left you a reply to this, but it seems to have disappeared. I wouldn’t dare try to draw the Welsh flag. I’m glad I didn’t have to when I was in school. I’m with you completely on that wavery line–or maybe it’s a slippery slope–between patriotism and chauvinism. Someone (when in doubt, say it was Mark Twain) said patriotism is the last refuge of fools and scoundrels. It still seems to hold true.
      

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    Just a tip from America : If the bodies are banket-covered, odds are someone in authority is already aware of the scene…unless you are in Jonestown.
    

    The “Quoit” picture – seems like such a marker/structure has another name but I can’t remember it now. Is it a prehistoric shelter or a burial site ?
    

    Don’t forget – if “God Save the {Monarch} “is too pushy, it can be sung as “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”
    

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      Yeah, someone must’ve had a good giggle over stealing that tune. 
      

      I’m not sure what the quoit’s purpose was, and I’m not sure the archeologists know. Some of them look like giant prehistoric ironing boards, but that’s probably not what they were used for. We can’t come up with another name for the quoits here either. Sorry. 
      

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      I fell in love with Blakes “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience” when I was in my teens. Then I tried his harder stuff (can’t remember the title) and sank–his own religion, or mythology, or hallucinations, I’m not sure which. Maybe all of the above. But what I can follow of his, I do love. He was indeed interesting.
      

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    I remember the signs pointing to the Luftschutzraum, they could not be stolen, because it was white arrows painted on the facades.
    
In 19th century Northern Germany through the French “occupation”, oh so German farmers would pull out and shift the “French” sign posts in order to irritate and hamper French movements – no idea why I must think of this, sorry.
    

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      And in a vaguely related way, during the war, I’m told, Britain took down all its road and street signs in case of a German invasion. Presumably, they’d have spent the entire occupation wandering in circles. Or renamed everything and considered it job done.
      

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    In view of other recent news, perhaps this isn’t the best time to contemplate lightening concrete with coffee grounds.
    

    As for manufactured rows about the Last Night of the Proms, some of us (i.e., me) are old enough to remember that when the Prommers’ Last Night traditions were set in stone in the 40s and 50s, they were distinctly tongue-in-cheek anyway. Over the years, we’ve had flags of all nations (well, some, especially if the Last Night soloist is from elsewhere), the Pride Union Jack (pink replacing dark blue) and heaven knows what else. And what really gets my goat is that the people who complain about the Last Night probably haven’t been to a single one of the series over the preceding eight weeks.
    

    Oh, and Parry’s setting of Jerusalem has an interesting history of its own, from being used for an ultra-patriotic morale campaign in WW1 to becoming the hymn of the women’s suffragists, and thence to the Women’s Institutes.
    

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      1. As long as the coffee-concrete’s at ground level, it should be safe enough. 
      

      Probably.
      

      2. I’ve never been to any of the proms, and to date I’ve avoided listening to them on the radio, so I had no idea the tradition alllowed for some fooling around. If we’re going to have traditions–and it seems we will–I do like the ones that accept some being messed with.
      

      3. The Suffragists? Any idea why? I mean, it’s a gorgeous song, and Blake can stay in your mind for ages, but any specific connection to their cause is escaping me. It does, at least, explain why the Women’s Institute got hold of it.
      

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        “The Suffragists? Any idea why? ”
        

        According to Wikipedia, Parry thought the wartime patriotic campaign was becoming too ultra-patriotic and the suffragists (the “respectable” non-window-smashing organisation) asked if they could adopt it. “Building Jerusalem” is a wonderfully adaptable aspiration!
        

        As for the Prommers’ traditions, those are mostly for the party night. The only thing that comes to mind for the rest of the season is when there’s a grand piano involved, and the staff come on to lift the lid – one lot of Prommers will shout “Heave!” and the other “Ho!”. Ho ho ho indeed. But to queue all day for a standing ticket does give them a degree of privilege, and they make a generous audience, respectful of the music and the performers.
        

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          Adaptable it is. Everyone can agree on it, no matter how much they disagree about what to actually do. In spite of which, it moves me every time.
          

          As for the proms, no matter how long I live in this country, it’ll always surprise me in one way or another.
          

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    “Around half of our products can be purchased naked—“.  Which may be delightful considering their target market. Perhaps not so delightful if my mate Neville or I elect to visit the store to purchase a small gift for our daughters. 🎅
    

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