lokbiiviing | Reading

I said, "This week is sometimes called "Twixtmas"

And Judy said she'd seen it called "Taint week because 't'aint Christmas and 't'ain't New Year. There is," she added, "another connotation."

Well, I have to know these things so I looked it up and found taint is a slang term for the perineum- which ain't the genitals and ain't the anus. Is this in common usage or am I not alone in having had it pass me by?

Origin of the term? Uncertain, but probably US of A, mid 20th century.

Actually I've learned two things, because if you'd asked me before today where the perineum was I wouldn't have had a clue.

poliphilo

If a tidy-minded person had designed the calendar the Solstice, the New Year and Christmas would all have fallen on the same date- and we wouldn't have this odd week at the end of the year which feels like an appendix to it....

poliphilo

Russell Brand the whacked out, rakehell comedian was brilliant, charismatic and horrid. I didn't like him but I was impressed.

Russell Brand the alternative media frontman, talking truth to power was someone I followed. I even bought one of his books.

Russell Brand the guy in the limo with the perma-grin who can't shut up about Jesus I find rebarbative. I mean, he's just so unEnglish.

What links the three? Excess, Narcissism, some sense that if this person wasn't in the spotlight he'd shrivel up and die.

But the switcheroos are so extreme that mainly I'm bewildered. They feed into my sense that our civilisation has become unmoored, fragmented, atomised. That it no longer feels real. Or serious. Or the least bit important.....

poliphilo

I watched a clip or two of Erica Kirk in her days as a beauty queen and wondered how anybody maintains that grin. Don't your facial muscles ache, don't your teeth get cold? I've tried to do it- and it's so unnatural; the body just doesn't want to go there.

I was watching Kirk because beauty pageants are in the news- more specifically the ones the current President used to run. O so tacky, O so banal, O so locker-room.

These things keep falling out of the sky, like debris from a volcano. They fall on the American President and the circle of similarly tacky and banal old men- some dead, some not so dead- who have been identified as existing in the orbit of Jeffery Epstein.

First the ash and the red-hot cinders. Then the pyroclastic flow......

poliphilo

"I think that was worth doing," said Ailz as we drove away- and I agreed.

Basically we did what we normally do on a Thursday: half an hour's Meeting for Worship, followed by socialising and lunch- only with Christmas trimmings. People came and went- not all of them Quakers. And those who sat down to lunch were a miscellaneous group of people who would otherwise have been at a loose end. There was much too much food- and I'll be eating leftovers for several days- but that is also traditional. It was fun and it was tiring....

poliphilo

Here we are in our holiday gear
Because it is that time of year.
The wind is sharp, the world is sere
Because we're Quakers there won't be beer.

Oh dear.

poliphilo

Picture Diary 113

1. Great-great-great-grandpapa

2. Dancers

3. Untitled

4. Sitting on the dock of the bay

5. The young king

6. Twilight

poliphilo

The sunshine is deceptive. Step outside and there's a biting breeze and you step back inside pretty smartish. Does it feel a lot like Christmas? Not where I'm sitting it don't.

Sej was playing a game last night into which he co-opted me. We were in a rescue helicopter being chased by a ghost. He phoned whoever it was we were rescuing. "The ghost is coming, but don't worry; we are on our way." Mike broke it down for me. The helicopter comes from Peppa Pig, where it is piloted by the omnicompetent Miss Rabbit (Sej's favourite character) and the ghost from his recent experience of Halloween. Sej loves Peppa Pig; I watched some episodes with him at breakfast time and hated it- for the very reason he eats it up- because it's so mundane. Little kids adore the mundane because to them it's all new and exciting and they're on a mission to make sense of the world. When I was his age my favourite TV show was a thing called The Woodentops which featured a boring family of dolls doing bone-achingly boring things- and preferred it to shows like Andy Pandy and The Flowerpot Men- which had a touch of the fantastical. By the same token Sej would rather watch Peppa than In The Night Garden- which is weird and wonderful and representative of what adults think the child should want. Older children love magic, but it's an acquired taste. For the toddler it's sufficiently magical that s/he has teeth to brush and hair to comb....

Sej and his parents have gone now. The sun is setting. By this time tomorrow we should be winding up the Christmas carry-on at the Meeting House.

poliphilo

The dream recorded in the last post seems to be saying, "Move over, Grandad. Let the younger generation take over." Something, as it happens, I'm very happy to do.

YouTube is sending me lots of little filmlets dedicated to the proposition that the President of the USA is an arse. Well, I've known that for years- so I mostly ignore them. I wonder whether if I were Maga I'd be getting lots of little filmlets telling me how he's the greatest President ever....

The day before the day before Christmas is mild and grey. Mike and Su and Sej are visiting this afternoon and staying overnight. Our cleaner is down with the flu so the house isn't as shiny as I'd like it to be.

I've been blowing up inflatable reindeer antlers and inflatable rings. They're for a game of seasonal hoopla. You put the antlers on your head and people try to throw the rings onto the tines. Here's Ailz modelling the look.

poliphilo

Last night's dream:

A young boy is behind the wheel of the car and I'm in the passenger seat. I let him move the car forward a few feet.

"That's enough" I say.

Then I'm driving.

But I have to go very slowly and carefully because the lane is crowded with children walking home from school....

poliphilo

November and December seem to have raced by- and now the Solstice is behind us.

We were at the Meeting House twice yesterday. After the morning meeting some of us went back into the Meeting Room and sang some carols. Ali is a piano-teacher- and the electronic keyboard that sits in the corner is getting some use at last.

And in the afternoon, as it grew dark, some of us gathered in the Meeting Room and sat in silence by candllight. We had so many candles!

Quakers don't observe festivals- only they do. Just as every member is a priest so every day is a holy day: that's the thinking and it's all very high-minded but we're only human and where's the harm in having fun? Note that only some of us carolled or did the candlelight thing. Friends don't fall out over inesentials- like beliefs and customs.

I'm not a Christian, only at Christmas perhaps I am. I doubt there was actually a stable and a star and shepherds in the fields and travelling magi, but that's not the point? This is myth and it's grand and glorious and it comes from a depth the rational mind can't plumb.

hitokage posting in

getyourwordsout

Hard to believe, but it's true: we're in the final stretch of 2025's Year-End Marathon. If my calculations are correct, this should put par at 24 days or 24 590 words, depending on your pledge type. Any way you look at it, that's a lot. If you're on par or ahead of the curve, congrats, you're amazing. If you've fallen behind, that's okay, too. You're trying and that also makes you amazing. Yes, even those who feel (rightly or wrongly) there is no way you can meet your pledge. Abuela is proud of all of you!

So as we enter this final stretch, how are things going? If you've hit your goal, are you going to keep going? If you haven't, do you have any strategies you intend to use to carve out writing time during this busy time of year? What can we do to help you, ahem, get your words out?

For myself, after (accidentally) hitting my goal in the first week of the month, I've let myself shift gears a bit to work on revising and rewriting, while also being very aware that the last half of this month was likely to be Very Tiring. Banking so many words in November definitely helped take the pressure off, but I'm going to keep at it for at least another week. For one thing, I've got some dangling ends I'd like to get settled before the new year!

Whether you're soaring ahead or trailing behind, the fact that you've tried at all is awesome. Writing is hard work! Writing in December is even harder! No matter how things have gone over the course of this marathon, I hope you've found it useful. And if you feel up for an even bigger challenge, pledging for 2026 is open! Pledging unlocks the full GYWO experience starting January 1st, so if you think you'd like to join us, we'd be happy to have you.

Whatever your holidays this busy season, we wish you the best. May your heart be full, your mind at peace, and your favorite beverage at the exactly right temperature.

poliphilo

One of those dreams. I take it as a response to the mood I was voicing yesterday.....

Grave stones, flowers. The usual. The landscape of the inner planes...

And then I meet the old woman. I say "old" but in fact she presents as younger than I am now. It's just that she's wiser than me. My senior. I have a name for her- "Hypatia"- though I haven't encountered her under that name for decades.

What is she? The goddess? My guide? My higher self?

Whatever. Names and labels are immaterial.....

What matters is she's back.

"How have you been?" she asks and I tell her.

"I'd like to introduce you to my friends," she says.....

poliphilo

Dust and ashes.

The old year is ending in dust and ashes.

I've been trying to identify the heaviness I'm feeling and I don't think it's personal because others feel it too. And I don't think it's fear because what is there to be afraid of?

No, it's grief.

Grief, sadness, remorse- everything in that particular bundle of emotions.

it's not just the drip, drip, drip of the Epstein files that's causing the grief but they're very much in our face so let them stand for the whole.

We're being told that our rulers, our cultural icons, the rich, famous and powerful are a bunch of shits who get together with other shits to behave shittily. This isn't exactly news, but it's harder to ignore than it ever has been. And we who have voted for them, bought their product, bought their lies, idolised them are part of the picture. They are everything we value and admire, so what does say about us?

Ring out wild bells.....

And what are the wild bells saying?

"Must do better, must do better, must do better..."

"Must"?

No, let's change that to "will"

Will do better, will do better, will do better.....

poliphilo

Stephanie Meier (not to be confused with the person who wrote Twilight) visited Eastbourne Meeting House earlier in the year and has sent us a copy of her novel about early Quakers as a sort of thankyou for being so welcoming. It's called Jordans, it's set in the 1680s and it's pleasant, gentle and easy on the brain. I'm reading it as a break from amazing Marcel Proust and his amazingly long sentences.

Jordans is a real place- one of the earliest custom-built Meeting Houses. We've pledged that in the new year we'll go on a visit. It's situated in the Chilterns, just outside Beaconsfield, not so very far away.

Meier, drawing on published sources (which are copious because the old time Quakers loved to pamphleteer) has her people speak a wonderful lingo heavily dependent on the King James Bible- and in particular the Book of Revelations. They don't say "Jesus", they say "The Lamb".

poliphilo

Two posts back I was complaining about the cost of a postage stamp and here I am at it again. £18 for two takeaway portions of curry and chips? No way!

I'm not a cheapskate, really I'm not, but that's just not value for money.

This was in Crowborough. Crowborough is swish. It wasn't always. Up until the late 18th century the land south of Tunbridge Wells- the High Weald- was sparsely populated by charcoal burners and subsistence farmers- "ignorant and heathenish" people according to the local landowner who built a church to improve their manners. This injection of organised religion started a process that led to the town- which occupies the second highest land in East Sussex- being marketed to the late Victorians as a health resort. "Scotland in Sussex" is what they called it. (Thank you wikipedia for the foregoing information.) Arthur Conan Doyle was an early adopter and spent the last quarter century of his life in residence. There's a very bad modern statue of him in the town centre. When we drove past we noticed it was dressed in a little green jacket and an elf hat. I wish I'd taken a picture but there was nowhere to park.

Following Sir Arthur a lot of famous people have owned or own property in Crowborough. Dirk Bogarde, Tom Baker, David Jason, Cate Blanchett.....

Cate Blanchett may be happy to pay you £18 for her chips but you wouldn't want to try it on with an ignorant and heathenish charcoal burner......

poliphilo

I had a game going with the local fox. It was digging up the daffodil bulbs I have planted in a tub at the front of the house and I was digging them in again. To begin with it grubbed around promiscuously but then it became scientific and took to unearthing a single bulb- the same one every time. This hasn't happened for a night or two now so perhaps it has accepted the futility. Or perhaps the movement-sensitive light we have just installed by the door is scaring it off.

I notice bulbs all over the garden are beginning to send up their fleshy green spears. 'T'ain't even Midwinter yet and the world is coming back to life. Yes!

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Page generated 30 December 2025 18:37

In a Faraway Land

Once Upon a Time

Reading

Taint

Appendix

The Three Brands

Beauty Pageants

Christmas Day At The Meeting House

Merry Christmas

Picture Diary 113

Christmas Eve

This And That

Last Night's Dream

A Quaker Solstice

How's It Goin, YEM-edition

One Of Those Dreams

The Wild Bells

Jordans

Ignorant And Heathenish

Bulbs

Profile

January 2025

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