Sleepless in Settle

'Piglet?'
'Yes, Pooh.'
'I miss hanging out.'
'Yes, well, you'll recall that Tigger's Neighbourhood Watch put a stop to that pretty quick--'
'No, I mean palling about. You know, our walks home and that.'
'Ah. Yes. Me too.'
'How much longer are they going to impose this locklomond on us?'
'I think it might be easing.'
'Really?'
'Oh, yes. They say some people can foregather in small spaced-out groups.'
'But not just gather?'
'Well, let's not be reckless.'
'And only if they're spaced out?'
'Haight-Ashbury rules, Pooh. What their Health Minister is insisting on.'
'Oh, Tony Hancock. He's pretty puny, isn't he, to be laying down the law about making sacrifices?'
'Reliable sources say he's nearly an armful.'
'You do surprise me.'
'In fact, certain folk have already journeyed far.'
'Is some glancing allusion to Optrex coming up?'
'Sorry, Pooh, it's glanced and gone.'
'Well this can't end too soon. I'm fed up with watching rubbishy films. Complete nonsense, the one last night.'
'Which was that?'
'Oh, some model railway enthusiast in North Yorkshire. Gets on to an agony aunt about wanting to take his dream girl on that strange train…what is it? Stops wherever it pleases on or off the rails.'
'The Disorient Express.'
'That one, yes. Wants to treat her to a sentimental journey all the way to Carlisle. Can't even remember what it's called now.'
'Sleepless in Settle.'
'That's the one. Wish I'd never watched it.'
'Oh, never mind, Pooh. Take heart. Remember the famous anchorite.'
'I never visit quarries.'
'No, the mystic.'
'Mystic?'
'Julian of Norwich.'
'I never listen to phone-ins either.'
'No, no, Julian's the one who said all will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing will be, you know, all that and a bag of chips.'
'Really?'
'Yes. Ah…no…wait. Maybe it wasn't Julian. Who was the other one?'
'Sandy of Norwich?'
'Of course! Julian's the one who said a varda at creation is a varda at God's eek. And what Sandy actually said was, all manner of thing will be--'
'Bona?'
'You're spot on, Pooh.'
'Fantabulosa.'

'All Lowries Now'

All Lowries now

At any one time,
the number of people out of their shelters
is roughly the same
as the headcount of medieval England.

In the local park,
mutedness has joined the squirrels and birds,
roosting, quicksilvering round the trees.
Distance races itself,
makes the sound of balls being kicked
way up to the local heavens.
All that's on show are figures
whom fearfulness has robbed of dimension:
living sticks pretending to be
a child's rushed drawing on a final page.
Some walk bent.
Others throw things
for tiny horizontals with dot-feet
to scamper and retrieve.
Here and there a stick or two
is saddle-borne,
keeps clear of grass or waystone 
on pert little circles.

All is this:
humanity, assured for so long
that it was the scheme of things,
now a rash of curlicues
where scheme-sections meet,
arrayed so you can't see the join.

19.05.20

 

Click and Colette

'Policeman?  Policeman?  You couldn't police a bluebottle in a jar.'

'Pooh, are you there?'

'Collective enterprise? Collective enterprise?  You want to collect a stint in the Army, mate, that'll sort you out.'

'Pooh, what are you talking about?'

'Court of Appeal?  Court of Appeal?  I'll appeal the skin off your hide if I get hold of you.'

'Pooh!'

'Infrastructure?  Infrastructure?  Infrashambles!  Utter disgrace…laughing stock of the world, we are.'

'Pooh-what-are-you-doing?'

'Oh, what does it sound like, Piglet?  I'm social dissing, like we're meant to.  Or haven't you?  And if not, why not?  Honestly…Bosky pigs?   Bosky pigs?  Biggest joke in all the--.'

'Pooh, it's social distancing.  It's what we've been doing for weeks.'

'Well, I'll keep doing this, Piglet, I know my unprecedented rights.  It's an unprecedented country, you know.  Anyway, just a rant at twilight…keeps you fit and peeved: "You can stick your Ombudsman where the sun--".'

'Save it for dusk, Pooh.'

'Don't talk to me about dusk.  Falls whenever it damn well likes.  Civic delinquent, dusk.   Anyway, that distancing doesn't seem to be working at all.  Things are still rubbish.  People scrambling to get delivery slots for groceries.'

'Ah, now, Owl says there's a way round that.'

'Owls…wouldn't cross the street for them.'

'Pooh!'

'Oh, very well…what's this way round, then?'

'Apparently it's called Click and Colette.  You place your order, they tell you when you can pick it up, you go over to the supermarket, beep them to say you've arrived and then your purchases are trolleyed out by a not-uncontroversial French lady novelist of the early twentieth century.'

'Really?'

'Oh, yes.  And if you've got enough bonus points she gives you some extras.'

'Such as?'

'Oh, might be reflections on how to transcend quotidian sensuality…you know, while she's bagging your Winalot.'

'Are you talking in metaphor?'

'Do I sound like I'm waving flags about?'

'So what other extras come with your pet food?'

'Well, sometimes a bloke comes out in blue overalls and says "Wotcher, I'm Gaston" and starts singing to Colette about a third party called Gigi, asking if he's been, you know, a fool without a mind or just too blind to realise.'

'And what does Colette say?'

'Get a move on shifting those ten-for-eight Papa John full-works pizzas, probably.'

'I see.'

'And if, you know, the lady shoppers have got Jackpot bonus points Colette takes them off for a quiet word.'

'After which?'

'After which they come back, clout their husbands round the head and say they're heading off to a chateau in the Auvergne with a Joe Wicks lookalike.'

'All of them?  To the same place?  How can they squeeze in?'

'Do you know what "chateau" means, Pooh?'

'It's what vulgarians think I do in the woods.'

'Yes, well, we'll draw a vole over that.'

'Voles? Voles?  Think I'd give tuppence for a malnourished lemming--?'

'A demain, Pooh.'

'Aw, Piglet.  You de man, too.'