The Peril of the Department

Hello. Looking for something else on my laptop I have discovered a thing about which I had entirely forgotten. Last year, my department was one of many under threat of debilitating cuts and restructuring from an over-paid and out-of-touch university management. I wrote the following out of anger at this. I wrote it before I had started this blog and so didn't post it then. Since last year the proposals were successfully fought by the department, so the piece is now out-of-date. That said, I think it's still quite good so I thought I'd share it with you. It is inspired by the Cyclops episode from Homer's Odyssey (IX.80-410) and goes thusly:

The Peril of the Department

                Striking the white surf with their oar-blades, my valiant crew and I came to the land of the University Managers, a fierce, suit-clad people who never raise a hand to plant knowledge in young heads. All the aspirations and abilities that grow in that green, red-bricked land spring up, as far as they know, unsown and untilled. Thinkers and writers and groups of young people clustered with new ways of approaching old problems that sprout with the aid of critical-thinking and research skills all appear thanks to the providence of the immortal gods.

                Not so very far from the land of the university managers, and not so near either, there lies a luxuriant island, covered with world-class academics buzzing merrily away in their paper hives and happy, flourishing students sprouting from the sun-splashed lawns. The University Managers have nothing like our ability to see the soul of a thing, no sensitive minds to see the value of a thing beyond the bottom line of a balance sheet. Such visionaries would make the isle a fine colony for the university managers.

                It is by no means a poor country, capable of yielding any crop in due season. However, unable to access its splendid meadows and friendly, intriguing caves, the University Managers, unknowing of the Elysium they destroy, shroud the land with clouds of external fees which they send up like a man with an overly-focussed gaze clears out his attic, throwing away ancient treasures glittering with jewels of the purest beauty. Ignorant of the benefits such artefacts could bring to him and his family, he piles them on the bonfire as though they were dust-covered, empty boxes of Fox’s Teatime Assortment. Such was the pall hanging over this little isle. With such pressure from overhead blocking out the sun, the natural beauty of the island faded and its crops, delicious and useful, were already struggling to burst from the rich loam in the quantities they had in recent years.

                The tide and the wind conspired without consulting us at this critical stage in our journey, forbade us from landing on this still-happy little land that reminded me so much of our homeland of peaceful, verdant Academia and drove us directly to the land of the university managers.

                Springing from the ship, the tall and much-lauded Department, I and my companions landed in this strange, foreboding land, pausing only to pick up a skin of fine, purple-red wine to appease whoever might live in this land that they might grant us the supplies we needed to continue our journey back home, back to sacred, joyful Academia.

                Trembling with the fear the rumours of these monsters had instilled in us, we swallowed our fear and made our way to the great, fearful residence. The bones of previous adventurers driven to these shores by fickle providence crunched under our feet, but we had no choice; our only hope of continuing our journey lay in the mercy of whatever creature made its home in that awful, joyless place. Entering the residence, a lofty cave hacked out of the living mountain by the sweat of thankless slaves, we were appalled. Our hearts sank as we spied banners bearing the ancient, terrible battle-cry of “Efficiency Savings.” Tears ran down our cheeks as we spied the spreadsheets, terrible trophies of battles past. Vomit rose in my throat and I sank to my knees as I saw a terrible sight. There on the floor, mutilated by the strokes of an axe but still recognisable, was the head of one whom I’d known in my boyhood back in Academia. Poor Sussex; hacked to death and abandoned in the corner like the garbage at the end of a riotous feast.

                “What’s this?” A terrible shadow fell across us as the voice boomed around the corpse-stenched abode. We turned and saw for the terrible form of Polyagnosias, King of the University Managers. One horrible eye, capable only of seeing one horrible, lifeless vision of the world, gleamed like a pus-oozing boil from its forehead. The bloated, barbarous creature wore a jacket fashioned the skins of his victims, with patches on the elbows dyed with the heart-blood he mercilessly drains from them. The sickening image stood in malignant mockery of the garb and peaceful mindset of we Academics. The trousers bulged grotesquely with the fetid, stinking masses of the creature’s half-finished meal of “bonuses”, a sickly sweet fruit no honest man can hope to taste. We learned this term from brave men who have faced these monstrosities and fled with their lives weakened and trembling, they shamble about their native homes like the pale shades that haunt the banks of the Styx, unable to continue with the work that used to give them such due to their grief for slaughtered companions whose absence they miss like a butchered limb.

                With the pallid, gaunt faces of these heroes-brought-low capering in their nauseating dance before my eyes, I approached the dreadful creature and looked into its gaze, into that terrifying window both flat and unloving. I proffered the wine which we had brought from our ship and spake thusly:

                “Sire, noble king of this ancient, wooded land, I thank you for not instantly devouring us and taking our meagre supplies for yourself. It shames us to have to rely on another’s mercy to survive, but we have no other choice. We set out with enough supplies on our great ship, The Department, to make it to our destination, with a small amount left over as well. Woe befell us when those being who shape events and control the smallest aspect of our lives placed upon our shoulders a great and massive burden. Those supplies, which without this would have been enough, are now under great pressure. We need your help so that we might return to our homeland where our crops need tending and our young require our experienced hands to set them on the right course for the future. Please take this gift and let it warm your heart towards helping us in this time of sudden uncertainty.”

                The beast seized the wine in its oversized paw and greedily drank it down. It did not pause to enjoy the gift or express any thanks that it had received it. Such thoughts of gratitude do not enter a mind that regards privilege as its due. The beast turned its eye to me and smiled a terrible, grotesque approximation of a grin. It’s mimicry of civility made what I feared seem all the more terrible. With the half-rotten flecks of previous meals visible in its teeth, the beast addressed me:

                “Who are you who rightfully honours me so?”

                “I am Nobody, Lord.”

                “Then as a reward I shall eat Nobody last.”

                With this the beast seized two of my companions and ate them whole and speedily, their cries for mercy as redundant as their attempts to get away from that terrible, reaching hand. Not sated by this first barbarous course, the beast seized another two of my companions and dispatched them in the same way. Gross excess of this sort warms the body and soothes the mind, and so the terrible beast retired to its bed of piled-up treasure, unearned and unvalued, and began to snore.

                The beast had left the entrance to its home unbarred, and left nothing to prevent us escaping and evading a further confrontation which would surely end in us sharing the same grisly fate. But what use would flight serve? Losing four of my faithful companions had wounded me deeply. More than that, though, without them we had no hope of properly steering the tall and well-built Department. We would drift, unable to properly move the oaken planking and swift painted prow through the surf, until some unseen future catastrophe from the gods ended our adventures for good.

                We were resolved. Our only hope of being able to continue under the bright lamp of the sun lay in this cave, lay in our own determination. Lying to one side of the cave was a huge staff of green olive-wood which the beast had cut to carry with it when it was out strolling to support its weight when circumstance, as it so often did, left him with barely a leg on which to stand. Spying this pole, a plan instantly formed in my mind. I called for my companions to aid me in this new task before me. The pole was so large that it took the combined efforts of all the crew-members of the Department to move it and so secure our freedom.

                We moved the pole over to the fire cheerfully blazing under the cavernous hearth and held it in the flames. When the fierce glow from the olive stake warned me it was about to catch alight in the flames, green as it was, I withdrew it from the fire and my companions gathered around. A god now inspired them with tremendous courage. Seizing the olive pole, they drove its sharpened end directly into the beast’s flesh next to it monstrous, sleeping eye while I used my weight from above to twist it home; like a man using a hole-punch to pierce a stack of papers he’d spent years of painstaking research producing while his colleagues work around him proof-reading and ensuring the piece is of the same high quality that secures the reputation and future income of their college. In much the same way we handled our pole with its red-hot point and twisted it into the beast’s flesh until the blood boiled up and the stench of scorched flesh rose up and stung our nostrils. We removed the pole and could see the unused eye we’d released from its binding of healed-over skin, the second eye that grants its owner perspective and which can fade if not used.

                The pain caused the beast to empty its stomach of its foul meal. My companions came tumbling out in rush of wine and foul juices, shaken but ecstatic that what they’d thought was their end was not so. The beast awoke with a yelp and screamed in a voice that could be heard for miles around the following:

                “Nobody has opened my eyes! Nobody has helped me see the justice of using some of my grand resources to help him and his Department continue on their journey instead of keeping it selfishly for my own comfort!”

                All around him the other University Managers nodded approvingly at what seemed like a fine decision which would do much to improve their people’s reputation in the world and resolved to congratulate their king on his noble and praiseworthy action. It didn’t matter to us that the king of the University Managers was now seen as clement and wise, we were simply jubilant to have resolved this dangerous situation. As dawn appeared, fresh and rosy-fingered, we were once again striking the white surf with our oar-blades, back on course to our home of peaceful Academia

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward

Arts Degree

Hello. I wrote the first bit of this way back in January an the rest earlier this week. I enjoyed writing the first bit but when I came back to it after the first session I could not get back into the tone of it. On Tuesday I got sudden inspiration and finished it. I'm quite happy with how it has turned out, so I thought I'd share it with you. It goes thusly:

Arts Degree

Or: Don’t Interrupt My Drinking

I was sat in the pub last week with a beer and a steak and sat by my plate a stack - near collapse, on the verge - a pile of Latin verse. For a while a man had been staring and with a smile he struck a bearing and spoke. My reply, though terse, failed to unnerve him or move him, in fact he just zoomed in and asked: “Can you tell me what the point is: all this toil up in that joint with the purpose to anoint eight thousand more youths (less dropouts) with certification?. They’re so impatient to fill the nation with vagrants who are qualified to debate the neighbours on the literature of Plato – they think they’re so smart but really they’re useless and vaypid.” His fallacy’s quite flagrant. Not least because it’s vapid, the ‘a’ is short, like my patience. I don’t retort because I want my steak and not confrontation. But this paragon of tedious arrogance has had a rapid thought and continues as though he’s not already bored me: “The problem with you – as in you lot, not just you here before me – is that you all think what you learn will matter when you enter the real world and scatter to earn your place in it. Why, that stack of notes right there, I think you’ll just bin it. You’ll never use it again, and so, my studious young friend, I ask: why do you do it? Why do you strive at these tasks?” He then says something he shouldn’t, just one thing: “I think it’s right that the Arts have lost all their funding.”

“Well sir,” I state, a little irate, “I don’t concur. In fact, I believe your thoughts are both daft and actively damaging. And I’m not being disparaging just to get you to leave- though that’s an event whose failure to happen I honestly grieve. No, it’s not just that you bore me and ignore me when I give you hints that your little stint in my presence isn’t a thing that I like; it’s that you’re wrong. So get on your bike and go. But first I’d like you to know the reasons you’re wrong. The list is quite long so I’ll just give you a few. In fact, only two!”

I pick up my beer and soften my thirst. “Reason the first. We ‘waste our time’ and taste the fine thought of minds from ages past to learn how to think; really think not just muse on what we will drink. We do this because – and I do hope you’re following – if we go through our lives just merrily swallowing the things that are said and the words that are spread by those in charge we’ll derail rather fast. Then, when we’re done, this all will have led to a stark inability to speak with facility to see our goals won without tanks, bombs, and guns: speaking is nicer than steel, lead, and fire.

“Reason the second, the more important, I reckon, is that beauty - the wonders that you see and hear and know and feel – is hard to make real. It’s a trophy that’s born from a half-dreamt phantasm. The true artist’s job is in bridging this chasm and in making these joys a concrete reality. This is why we need an Arts faculty. The Sciences constantly give us marvellous tools to help us survive but if we’re really to thrive we need reasons to live. These can only come if we all speak as one and support the Arts.”

Soundly chastised my opponent departs. I pause, then I grin and order a gin. A double with lime and soda. As the young people say: that’s better; rant over.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward

"Sir," He Said

Hello. Yesterday I was irritated by a daft little man, so I wrote a thing for a spot of catharsis. Now I have it I thought I'd share it with you. It goes thusly:

“Sir,” He Said

“Sir,” He said, “I have a poorly thought-out opinion.”

“That’s nice,” Sir replied.

“I’d like to pretend it’s a question-“

“Oh?”

“And use it to take up a full five minutes of the class.”

“Not just now.”

“But I think speaking and saying something of value are the same thing!”

“I can’t really stop you at this point, can I?”

“No, Sir.”

“I didn’t think so”

“So I’d like to ignore the irritated expressions of my classmates,”

“Right.”

“And their mimes of eager suicide,”

“Good to know.”

“And proceed obliviously on my chosen path,”

“Okay.”

“Because their genuine desire to study this interesting thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And their attempts to be educated in general,”

“Mmm.”

“Are less important than my belief that this sort of thing makes me seem intelligent.”

And then Sir did not hit him round the head with a shovel.

Not even a little.

Everyone was really disappointed.

One Hopes You're Well,
Yrs,
ADWoodward

Reflections on a Noisy Bar

Hello. I have uncovered a thing that I wrote almost a year ago. I had completely forgotten about it and thought I'd share it with you so you could do the same. It goes thusly:

Reflections on a Noisy Bar

Raucous voices

Sweet enjoyment

Out on the town with all the boys and

A selection of girls

Drinks are downed

Colours swirl

Cosmic highlights of mother-of-pearl

The crack of glass leads to angry voices

Blood drips down your shirt of choice but

It’s alright

That bloke’s a wanker

Let’s you and me go to the bank and

Buy a subway or KFC

No, you’re alright, mate

Your food’s on me

Let’s go back and watch the telly

We’ll just  enjoy some Stephen Fry

You know what, mate?

I fucking love you guys

Let’s do this again some time.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward

Two Lions, One Perplexed, One Unconcerned

Hello. Terribly sorry I've not posted in a while; laziness / the fickle nature of inspiration and all that. I have written a thing which I'd like to share with you. It goes thusly:

Two Lions, One Perplexed, One Unconcerned

There, standing, lit in joy, he spied her face,

Free and unconcerned, stalking through the grass;

Laughing eyes and wicked grin flew and struck

Like stolen kiss and caused a grievous wound.

She spies him spying ‘cross the way and skips

Into that booming, bass-soaked Calydon.

His haunting huntress, playful prey, had gone,

But not so far as to be lost from sight –

Or rather, not lost until she decides,

Giggling in a hollow, to hide from him.

Now it is him who’s lost. Hope and fear both

Together beat his heart with prophecies,

Wanting and hating their revelation.

Then, darting from her den with battle-cry

His sunburst-girded lioness inflicts

With honeyed fangs another wondrous wound.

Paws come up to softly ward and embrace

And seek a place in shining, joy-gilt locks

To touch with nerve-ecstatic fingertips

But too slow one set, too fast the other

With mirthful glee away the she-cat flits

Quick through the vodka-dripping undergrowth

And leaves the male perplexed to stroke his mane

With sadly empty, clawless, tawny paws.

One hopes you're well,
Yrs,
ADWoodward

On Bread and Games

                Hello. We live in a democracy: a society wherein government rules only by the consent of the people who have the right to demand certain things from their rulers and throw them out of power if they deem those in power haven’t looked after their interests. I know, it’s terrible, isn’t it? Eugh, people getting a say in the fate of their own countries, yuk. This is not a good idea because, as anyone who’s been to a Weatherspoons on Curry Thursday can tell you, people are scum. They’re also sorely in need of a few elocution lessons, but that’s a topic for a different set of poorly-researched, opinions masquerading as an article. Today I’m concerning myself with how to minimise the damage this whole “Right of Nations to Self-Determination” thing can do to the plans of an aspiring oligarch.

                I recommend oligarchy rather than monarchy to solve our country’s problem with mob rule because there’s a lot of work involved in manipulating the fate of nations to suit one’s own needs; it is a complex and time-consuming exercise which will be made much easier with colleagues. The other reason is that the existing governmental system is one with power in several hands so by having a cabal rule your people by your side you can maintain a facade of not changing things too dramatically; this will allow you to strengthen your grip on the reins of power before anyone realises what you are doing. So, you will need a group you can trust to follow instructions. You either need people with shared goals and philosophy or some on whom you have some dirt which can be used to blackmail them. I advocate the latter because ideals might change when a person is given power, but blackmail will only become a more potent means of control once they are in the public eye.

                You will no doubt want to rush straight off to pull down the great pillars of your society and tear up its foundations to make room for your new solid gold swimming pool, but if you want to succeed hold on a minute. Grinding down the institutions of a people to make gravel for your driveway takes longer than one might thing – Rome’s constitution wasn’t irrevocably altered in a day, as they say – so you’ll need some sort of fig leaf or mandate to hide behind while you’re working. I recommend blaming the previous rulers. Whether you’re pretending to restore republican morality or tackle a deficit, you will be thankful for the ability to say “Well, I’m sorry, but this wouldn’t be necessary if they hadn’t messed things up quite so badly. Now bend over, bite the pillow and take your medicine. Oh, you like your medicine, don’t you? You need your medicine because you’re a sick society in need of reform, aren’t you? Oh, take the medicine! Take it! If you stop clenching then we can all be in THIS together, too!” Practice this sort of phrase and remember to vary it; you’ll seem far from genuine if you just repeat the same catch-phrase verbatim each time you’re challenged.

                This is quite enough for your to-do list for now, so I’ll leave you here. I don’t want to blind you with science and in any case I have a date with a bottle of gin. Don’t be scared if it seems like a lot of work, it’s all necessary to get the changes you see as being necessary. But in the interest of balance I will tell you that you can affect these changes another way. You can properly engage with the current imperfect system, organise your peers and lobby your representatives to actually earn their salary, constantly reminding them of problems and what you think needs changing, tell them they’ll lose your vote if they fundamentally change the health service, for example. I didn’t say the alternative method of changing society was any easier, did I? In any case, you’d better get cracking on finding the darkest secrets of your soon-to-be colleagues in office, or writing to your MP or whatever. If you don’t get started soon some other group with educated accents and shiny faces and vast wealth will get in and dismantle the country to suit the interests of their friends.

                Oh? They already have? Hmm. Well in that case make yourself a bacon sarnie, stick on “The Apprentice” and accept your fate like a good little subject. Pan ludique are all we, the ruled classes, really need anyway, innit?

One hopes you're well,

Yrs,

ADWoodward

The Song of the Fallen Queen

Hello. Terribly sorry I've not put anything up here for a little while; I was in the Caribbean. It was a lovely holiday, but this post has nothing to do with that. I thought I'd share with you another thing that was the basis for song lyrics for the play what I was in. this one is based on Euripides' Hecuba. It goes thusly:

The Song of the Fallen Queen

She is a mother and instinct is mighty;

It drove her in her offspring’s best interest,

Like the she-bear with her mountain-side rages.

When one’s child is threatened one’s brain disengages;

No logic, no calm analysis.

Pure action, driven by fear of paralysis.

Doing nothing has grave consequences

For her and her bundle of joy.

When her daughter or her little boy

Needs her she’ll pay no heed to logic,

Or safety, or the binding decorum of man-made laws.

For she knows the high price of the slightest pause:

The life of a child,

Her child.

Not moving, nor smiling, nor screaming, or crying

But still.

Dreadfully still.

And cold.

But if maternal instinct fails her

There’s one thought left to save her:

Punish the infanticide.

That might still the screams inside.

The heart-piercing note of a terrified child

Begging the feminine sentinel to appear

And say “It’s okay now, don’t cry, mummy’s here”

And make the hurting stop

And make them go away

And make everything alright again.

But it won’t ever be alright again.

She’ll never hold her child again.

And that is why she hurt the men

Who tore out her still-beating heart.

Foolish in naïveté

She believed them when they promised sweetly

That they would look after her child,

That they would stand in loco parentis,

And stand guard after her farewell kiss.

But they didn’t.

And now the rage has faded,

And her battle-lust is sated,

She stands by a photograph

Of an eight-year child old caught mid-laugh

And she knows –

More than anything she’s known before or since

That despite her just and cunning revenge

It will never be alright again.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward