Stories I Have Tried to Write

I can’t think of anything to blog about. Nothing. Nada. Hee-Haw.

This has never stopped me posting lame muck before of course, but at this point I really can’t think of anything that I want to sit down and write a post about. There’s no real reason for it: I’m busy at work, but isn’t everyone? Maybe this blog has reached the end of the line and it’s time to close the doors and start something new.  So I thought in the meantime, I’d take a look in the Drafts Folder and post the stuff that I started but couldn’t finish (yes, I’m writing a post about posts I wasn’t able to write). I reckon you should think of it as a portmanteau post (and definitely not a jumble of ragtag muck that I’ve been too lazy to work up properly).

My Contribution to the Boo Fucking Hoo Literary Genre

This was to have been a post about how, if that Irish bloke can make a fortune out of maudlin rubbish like Angela’s Ashes, then surely I could come up with a similar memoir based on my childhood in the Highlands? I would have presented selected excerpts from Aye, Dad’s Pissing in the Sink Again, describing heartbreaking moments such as having to eat Red Pudding Suppers, watch Cannon &  Ball on TV, and worst of all, go on holidays to Aberdeen. Then I realised that my childhood was probably neither deprived or depraved enough to fill the 300 pages or so I’d need to get on the shelves at Tesco, so I gave up.

Dead Pope’s Society

This was to have been a serious discussion about how I happened to be in Rome on the day the last Pope died and what that was like and how Italy went very weird indeed in the week or two afterward. Then I decided to write this silly crap about my favourite popes from history instead.

Weird Italian Magazines

Walking past a news stand a few weeks back I noticed this magazine on display:

Wow, I thought, a magazine entirely devoted to Wild Boars! Why, I bet it covers them all: brown ones, black ones, tame ones, ornery ones; it’s a magazine that meets all your wild boar needs. Probably worth buying for the recipes for sausages. Then I thought I could get a post about all the weird and wonderful magazines that you find over here. Until I realised that, actually there aren’t that many worth writing about, apart from maybe the ones on wristwatch porn.

Thumper Plowman Performance Appraisal 2008/09 Feedback Form

Hello there, well we’re coming to the end of another year here at The Earl of Hell’s Waistcoat, which means that I am obliged to ask for feedback on my performance ahead of my annual review. While I appreciate that you’re all busy folk, I’m hoping that you’ll take a minute or two out of your busy schedule to give me some quality and candid 360 degrees feedback that will enable me to maximise my performance next year. The Feedback Form is the same as always and is below:

THE EARL OF HELL’S WAISTCOAT FEEDBACK FORM

FULL NAME: Thumper Charles Edward Stuart Plowman

OVERALL APPRAISAL (What has this person delivered? Is he/she ready to take on additional resposnsibilities? Or should his/her next assignment involve shopping trolleys, the car park and a fluorescent bib?)

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A) STRENGTHS: What are his/her 1-2 Key Strengths? (What would you like to see more of from this person? Cheap Nostalgia? Stripping Italian Housewives?)

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B) IMPROVEMENT AREA: What is the one thing this person could do to Maximise their Effectiveness? (Stop all that “Over here in Italy…” muck? Remove Mr. H’s blogs from the Blogroll?)

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Thanks for taking the time, and remember, for me all Feedback is a gift. And not a Hai Karate Body Talc and After Shave Gift, I mean a proper, Oddbins gift voucher gift.

A Boy Not Called Friday

At the end of last year there were articles in the Italian papers about a couple in northern Italy who wanted to name their baby son Venerdi (”Friday” in Italian), but who were prevented from doing so by a court of appeal. It turns out that in Italy there is a law whereby you can prevent a child being given a certain name if you expect that it will cause the child to be ridiculed. They’ve had to call him Gregorio instead, after the patron saint of his birth date. Fair enough if you ask me, after all, Venerdi sounds like a girl’s name.

There’s certainly no law like that in the UK of course where you can call your kids pretty much what the hell you you like. We would probably consider it to be a disgraceful attack on our civil rights by those barmy bureaucrats of the EC if we weren’t allowed to call our children Pocahontas, Peaches, Fifi Trixabelle or Darren, even if the story about the Scotch child named Pocahontas turned out be an urban myth. When I was living in Brighton (naturally, Brighton), there was a woman living up the road who had named her son Aslan. You know, after the lion in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? You would hear her calling him in for his tea: “Aslan! Aslan will you get in here now!”

Still there seems to be one law for the rich etc, as the footballer Francesco Totti and his wife have named their daughter Chanel, which, when you combine it with the fact that her elder brother is called Christian, seems to illustrate the points of reference of her parents (I’m not sure whether they’re being named after designers or the fragrances named after the designers, but if the next child is named Hai Karate that should settle the matter).

Corporate Rock

I’m unlikely ever to have a job with the type of responsibility as the people seen in this video, but I’d like to announce that if I ever do end up like these folk, then the readers of this blog have permission to come after me with a big shovel.

You can buy all forms of shovels at this link.

St Thumper’s Bumper Book of Popes

If there’s one thing you can’t really get away from in Italy, it’s the Catholic church. From Pope lollipops on sale in Rome to pictures of Padre Pio in the smallest provincial bakery, you’re reminded of its presence and importance everywhere. As a godless protestant all this stuff was new and alien to me, but when you dig into the history, it can be fascinating stuff. So I thought it was about time I made a post about some of my favourite Popes.

Formosus (891-96)

Nothing better illustrates the fun to be had in reading about old Popes than the case of Formosus, who was Pope from 891 until his death in 896, and who went on trial in 897. The year after he died. Yup, in what is believed to be the world’s first Monty Python sketch, the ex-Pope was dug up, propped up in court and made to respond to allegations put to him by Pope Stephen IV (not reputed to be his biggest fan) in what has become known as the Cadaver Synod. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Formosus didn’t put up a stellar defence, and after being found guilty of all charges was stripped of his robes and thrown into the Tiber. Beats reading about Robert the Bruce and his spider, eh?

Felix I (269-274)

Felix I is generally regarded as the first cat to be elected Pope, narrowly beating Sylvester I, who was Pope from 314-35. During Felix’s reign, the most popular souvenirs in Rome were paintings of his image with the words “I iz infallibul, duz yu hav a pwoblem wiz dat?” written on them.

Liberius (352-66)

Liberius makes the list for the simple fact that he is the earliest pope not to become a saint after his death, and I love an underdog. It’s not clear why he was the first not to get the old Celestial Knighthood, he seems to have made a lot of bankable contributions: he refused to sign the condemnation of Athanasius, gave a favourable reception to a deputation of the Eastern episcopate, and zzzzzzzzz … OK, OK, he doesn’t sound like the most dynamic go-getter, but he doesn’t come across as the Warren Harding of the Papacy either. Maybe he just forgot to miraculously heal some sick old woman in Basilicata in the years after his death, and it’s too late now.

Adrian IV (1154 – 59)

“Cor Blimey Guv’nor, the English ‘ave only gone and got themselves a bleedin’ Pope!” No doubt that was what they were saying on the streets of London Town when Nicholas Breakspear became the first and only English Pope in 1154. As you can an imagine, the arrival of an English Pope brought many changes in Rome: Dentists were excommunicated, a Papal Edict was issued stating that all meat and vegetables must be boiled for at least 45 minutes before eating and, most controversially, the Swiss Guard were replaced by a group of medieval Boy Scouts in tight-fitting shorts.

Pope Joan (???? – ??)

I first heard of the story of Pope Joan in a BBC documentary by about 10 years ago. Apparently, the story goes, Joan tricked everybody into believing she was male for years and the secret only came out when she died in childbirth. The church was then so horrified that for years afterwards during the papal inaugurations the Pope was supposedly made to sit on a hollow seat and somebody would reach underneath the robes to check he had knackers and.. I know! And this was on BBC 1 too!

So there you go, my list of Top of the Popes, and I didn’t even need to mention the Borgias …