The trouble with aunts, by P.G. Wodehouse
"What a lovely day it is today, Jeeves!" I exclaimed, as my man shimmered into the room bearing a glass of the old Calvados Chapel brandy. "I am feeling particularly saved today, don't you know?"
"I fear that your Aunt Moly is at the door, sir" responded my man Jeeves. "That is why I am taking the liberty of fortifying you for an encounter with her."
"ECCLES!" screamed the aged relative, slamming the door behind her, grabbing my brandy glass, and hurling it through the window. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY WRITING THIS VILE AND SLANDEROUS BLOG OF YOURS WHICH I NEVER READ?"
Recently, to oblige my older brother Bosco, I had written a little blog explaining how the only way to salvation lies in being a personal friend of Jesus, and how Catholics in particular are doomed to the Lake of Fire. I inadvertently mentioned that the chaps in the Drones club are also tipping my dear Aunt Moly for a prime spot in the aforementioned L.o.F., and this is what seems to have riled her.
"But the disciple John says..."
"TELL THE DISCIPLE JOHN FROM ME THAT HE'S A FOOL AND A WOEFUL SOCKPUPPET," replied my aunt, laying me out unconscious with a solidly-bound Calvary Chapel Bible. When I came to my senses, my Aunt had left, and Jeeves was struggling to revive me.
The importance of being harassed, by Oscar Wilde
"So, Mr Pell, it is time you declared your intentions towards my sweet daughter Judith, known in Australian Society as the Rose of Pottymouth. Judy, dear, there is no need to choke the life out of Mr Pell; pray allow him to answer."
"Well, Lady Haddock, I scarcely know your daughter. We have exchanged but a few words since we met."
"There is no need for you to have an exchange of words, Mr Pell. There is only one thing more pointless than talking to Judy, and that is listening to Judy. Investing in a pair of earplugs is your surest route to marital bliss."
"But..."
"Mr Pell. Since I made Judith's father the happiest man in Pottymouth, he has confined himself to producing endless drafts of his magnum opus, his own suicide note. As yet, it is unfinished, despite my every attempt to bring it to a conclusion. Now, you will find that, like her mother, my daughter has enough conversation for two. Should you stay up until 5 a.m. one night, and think of retiring to bed, you will find that she is still chattering away, mingling her insults with her anecdotes in a tapestry of tedium which has brought her so many admirers."
"Mother, every time we meet he jumps into a billabong to get away from me. That's twice he's done it. Such is life, eh? Woeful."
"I fell in, Lady Haddock."
"Mr Pell, to fall into a billabong once may be regarded as a misfortune. To fall in twice looks like carelessness."
"But, Lady Haddock, I was hoping to train as a priest, with a view to becoming a bishop and eventually a cardinal."
"A PRIEST, Mr Pell? You would throw away the love of a gentle sweet maiden in order to follow the cult of a sky fairy? Are you no better than a Bronze Age goat herd, sir? I scarcely think that you are a fit person to wed my precious daughter Judith."
The case of the secular journalist, by Arthur Conan Doyle
"This case presents interesting features, Eccles!" said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as he perused the Telegraph website. "I have been consulted about the problem of a Catholic journalist, formerly known for his wittily acidic commentary on religious matters. This latter-day Swift has now given up all pretence at serious debate, and is dumbing down and writing banalities to please the masses."
"Could he be looking for a job on the Daily Mail?" I wondered. "All he needs to do is to start writing about celebrities and their baby bumps, and they will take him like a shot. That's what happened to Simon Heffer."
Holmes nodded gloomily to me, and injected himself with a 7% solution of Mother Odone's Elixir (guaranteed to help you escape from reality). Then he picked up his trusty Stradivarius didgeridoo, and boomed out a few bars of Elton John's haunting song "Candle in the wind."
"It's my own arrangement," said my friend, unnecessarily, as our neighbours started hammering desperately on the wall.
At that moment the door opened, and a wizened old lady entered, clutching a gin bottle and tunelessly singing "Roll me over in the clover, Roll me over, Lay me down, and do it again." She then cackled evilly and said "We've won! We've managed to kill Damian Thompson's interest in religion! Now the masses are forced to read Ruth Gledhill."
"These are deep waters, Eccles," said Sherlock Holmes. "This poor sad creature is not just the simple witch that she seems to be; rather, she is a professional blog-troll from Australia, although formerly employed as a cleaner in a molybdenite-processing factory. Look at her shoes, and you will see what I mean. Did I ever mention that I have written a small monograph classifying 2048 types of mineral dust?"
"Amazing, Holmes. Can this be the solution to the Thompson mystery which has baffled readers all round the world?" I asked.
"In part, Eccles," replied my friend. "But I would draw your attention to the curious incident of Vincent Nichols, when the Catholic church was under attack."
"But Vincent Nichols did nothing!" I said.
"That was the curious incident," explained Sherlock Holmes.
Eccles! Absolute genius! I love you!
ReplyDeleteMy only doubt: wouldn't it be Cavalry Chapel rather than Calvary in the case of aunt Molyagatha? Or is it me getting the Eccle's touch?
Ullo, Liusa, and fanks for de nice comments. You appraoches my Anti Moly at your perill.
DeleteA last minute entry -- George MacDonald Fraser provides this ghost-written account of the end of your Aunt Molly's great love affair ...
ReplyDelete---
In the last few days of buying my holy man costumes, assembling the huge paraphernalia that a Cardinal needed in those days - far more than now - choosing a couple of idols to bow to, and arranging for my allowance, I still found time on my hands, and Mistress Judy in my thoughts. My tumble with her had only whetted my appetite for more of her, I discovered; I tried to get rid of it with a farm girl in Leicestershire and a young whore in Covent Garden, but the one stank and the other picked my pocket afterwards, and neither was any substitute anyway. I wanted Judy, at the same time as I felt spite for her, but she had avoided me since our online flame war, and if we met in the house she simply ignored me.
In the end it got too much, and the night before I left I went to her room again, having made sure that Damian was offline. She was blogging, and looking damned desirable in a pale green negligee; I was a little drunk, and the sight of her white shoulders and red mouth sent the old tingle down my spine again.
"What do you want?" she said, very icy, "I note that "bollocks" is your usual cry on CP&S (Catholicism Pure & Simple) and that you are far from popular there. It seems that nothing has changed since the days of your hysterical outbursts on Damian's blogs. Sad." But I was expecting that, and had my speech ready.
"I've come to beg pardon," I said, looking a bit hangdog. "Tomorrow I go away to become a costume holy man, and before I went I had to apologise for the way I spoke to you. I'm sorry, Judy; I truly am; I acted like a cad … and a ruffian, and, well… I want to make what amends I can. That's all."
She finished contributing to Damian's blog and turned on her stool to face me, still looking mighty cold, but saying nothing. I shuffled like a sheepish schoolboy - I could see my reflection in the mirror behind her, and judge how the performance was going - and said again that I was sorry.
"Woeful," she said at last. "You're a traddy catholic sockpuppet. Those of us who have enjoyed Cutley's delightful, ever courteous and polite and good-humoured, blogs for some time must surely all be appalled by the discourtesy, nastiness and rudeness of all too many who have turned up here to rail against love and commitment between persons across the whole spectrum of human sexual orientation. Sad people."
I kept quiet, not looking at her. "Well, then," she said, after a pause. "ROFL."
"Please, Judy," I said, looking distraught. "You make it very hard. If I behaved like a boor—"
"FlashmanPell1234, your vile comment would be removed if the moderators were doing their job.."
"—it was because I was angry and hurt and didn't understand why … why you wouldn't let me …" I let it trail off and then burst out that I had never known a woman like her before, and that I had fallen in love with her, and only came to ask her pardon because I couldn't bear the thought of her detesting me, and a good deal more in the same strain - simple enough rubbish, you may think, but I was still learning. At that, the mirror told me I was doing well. I finished by drawing myself up straight, and looking solemn, and saying:
"And that is why I had to see you again … to tell you. And to ask your pardon."
I gave her a little bow, and turned to the door, rehearsing how I would stop and look back if she didn't stop me.
But she took me at face value, for as I put my hand to the latch she said:
ReplyDelete"Sockpuppet." I turned round, and she was smiling a little, and looking drunk. Then she smiled properly, and drank some gin and said:
"What are you on about? Please clarify. Your original reply merely said "Excuse me" - which was puzzling enough. You have apparently edited it and in doing so have made it completely incomprehensible - to me at least. ROFL LOL LMAO. This blog does not deal with "the sexual behaviour of promiscuous gays"! Despite the fact that you obviously wish that it did as you find such behaviour so titillating."
"Judy!" I came striding back, smiling like soul's awakening. "Oh, Judy, thank you!" And I held out my hand, frank and manly.
She got up and took it, smiling still, but there was none of the old wanton glint about her eye. She was being stately and forgiving, like an aunt to a naughty nephew. The nephew, had she known it, was intent on incest.
"Judy," I said, still holding her hand, "we're parting friends?"
"ROFL" she said, trying to take it away. "No doubt lesbian females feel the same way about males; and homosexual males about females."
I stepped closer and kissed her hand, and she didn't seem to mind. I decided, like the fool I was, that the game was won.
"Judy," I said again, "you're adorable. I love you, Judy. If only you knew, you're all I want in a woman. Oh, Judy, you're the most beautiful thing, all bum, belly and bust, I love you."
And I grabbed her to me, and she pulled free and got away from me.
ReplyDelete"No!" she said, in a voice like steel.
"Why the hell not?" I shouted.
"Stop being such a rude, impertinent stickybeak." she said, pale and with eyes like daggers. "Your intrusive questions have no relevance to the validity or otherwise of a marriage in the eyes of the state!"
"ROFL be damned," says I. "I thought you said we were parting friends? This ain't very friendly, is it?"
She stood glaring at me. Her bosom was what the lady novelists call agitated, but if they had seen Judy agitated in a negligee they would think of some other way of describing feminine distress.
"It's no wonder there are so many bigoted Roman Catholics commenting on the Telegraph blogs when narrow-minded self-righteous sanctimonious people like you are let loose to brain-wash young children. You should be ashamed of yourself." she says. "Leave this room at once!"
"All in good time," says I, and with a quick dart I caught her round the waist. She struck at me, but I ducked it, and we fell on the bed together. I had hold of the softness of her, and it maddened me. I caught her wrist as she struck at me again, like a tigress, and got my mouth on hers, and she bit me on the lip for all she was worth.
I yelped and broke away, holding my mouth, and she, raging and panting, grabbed up some gin bottle and let fly at me. It missed by a long chalk, but it helped my temper over the edge completely. I lost control of myself altogether.
"You bitch!" I shouted, and hit her across the face as hard as I could. She staggered, and I hit her again, and she went clean over the bed and on to the floor on the other side. I looked round for something to go after her with, a cane or a whip, for I was in a frenzy and would have cut her to bits if I could. But there wasn't one handy, and by the time I had got round the bed to her it had flashed across my mind that the house was full of servants and my full reckoning with Miss Judy had better be postponed to another time.
I stood over her, glaring and swearing, and she pulled herself up by a chair, holding her face. But she was game enough.
"You make huge claims for your sick homophobia and you arrogantly tar others with the same bigoted views. But you provide no sources whatsoever for your outrageous claims. All published surveys indicate the complete opposite!" was all she would say. "Your posts are not worth a reply other than to say that every single one of them would earn you an abysmal fail grade in Logic 101!"
"It's not sick or illogical to punish an insolent whore!" says I. "D'you want some more?"
She was LOLing - not ROFLing, but with drops of gin on her cheeks. She went over to her chair by the mirror, pretty unsteady, and sat down and looked at herself. I cursed her again, calling her the choicest names I could think of, but she worked at her bottle, which was almost empty, and paid no heed. She did not speak at all.
"Well, be damned to you!" says I, at length, and with that I slammed out of the room. I was shaking with rage, and the pain in my lip, which was bleeding badly, reminded me that she had paid for my blows in advance. But she had got something in return, at all events; she would not forget Harry "Flashman" Pell in a hurry.
Gulp, dat's a bit too close to my Anti Moly for comfort.
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